Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
How one should eat with a prince: riches are not to be coveted, nor the food of the envious: orphans are not to be oppressed: a boy is to be chastised: wisdom is to be sought: sinners and those given to gluttony are to be avoided: parents are to be honored: the harlot and drunkenness are to be avoided.
Vulgate Text: Proverbs 23:1-35
1. When you sit down to eat with a prince, consider diligently what is set before your face: 2. and put a knife to your throat, if indeed you have your appetite in your power. 3. Do not desire his foods, in which is the bread of deceit. 4. Do not labor to become rich; but set a limit to your prudence. 5. Do not raise your eyes to riches which you cannot have: because they will make themselves wings like an eagle's, and will fly into heaven. 6. Do not eat with an envious man, and do not desire his foods. 7. For like a soothsayer and a diviner, he judges what he does not know. Eat and drink, he will say to you: and his mind is not with you. 8. The foods you have eaten, you will vomit up: and you will lose your fine words. 9. Do not speak in the ears of the foolish, for they will despise the teaching of your eloquence. 10. Do not touch the boundaries of little ones: and do not enter the field of orphans. 11. For their kinsman is strong: and He Himself will judge their cause against you. 12. Let your heart enter into instruction, and your ears to the words of knowledge. 13. Do not withhold discipline from a boy: for if you strike him with the rod, he will not die. 14. You will strike him with the rod: and will deliver his soul from hell. 15. My son, if your mind is wise, my heart will rejoice with you. 16. And my inmost being will exult when your lips speak what is right. 17. Let not your heart envy sinners; but be in the fear of the Lord all the day long. 18. For you will have hope in the end, and your expectation will not be taken away. 19. Hear, my son, and be wise, and direct your mind in the way. 20. Do not be among wine-drinkers, nor among revelers who bring meats for feasting. 21. For those who spend time drinking and contributing their shares will be consumed, and slumber will be clothed in rags. 22. Hear
your father who begot you: and do not despise your mother when she is old. 23. Buy the truth, and do not sell wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. 24. The father of the just exults with joy: he who has begotten a wise son will rejoice in him. 25. Let your father and your mother be glad, and let her who bore you exult. 26. Give me your heart, my son: and let your eyes keep my ways. 27. For a harlot is a deep pit: and a strange woman is a narrow well. 28. She lies in wait on the road like a robber, and whomever she sees unwary, she will kill. 29. Who has woe? whose father has woe? who has quarrels? who has pitfalls? who has wounds without cause? who has bloodshot eyes? 30. Is it not those who linger over wine, and study to drain their cups? 31. Do not gaze at wine when it turns golden, when its color sparkles in the glass; it enters smoothly, 32. but in the end it will bite like a serpent, and spread its venom like a basilisk. 33. Your eyes will see strange women, and your heart will speak perverse things. 34. And you will be like one sleeping in the middle of the sea, and like a drowsy helmsman who has lost his rudder: 35. and you will say: They beat me, but I felt no pain: they dragged me, and I did not feel it: when shall I awake, and find wine again?
1 and 2. WHEN YOU SIT DOWN TO EAT WITH A PRINCE, CONSIDER DILIGENTLY WHAT IS SET BEFORE YOUR FACE: AND PUT A KNIFE TO YOUR THROAT, IF INDEED YOU HAVE YOUR APPETITE IN YOUR POWER
In Hebrew, 'if you are the master of your appetite,' or 'a man of appetite.' Which Vatablus explains in a second sense, as if to say: If you are subject to appetite, that is, to gluttony and desire. Hence he translates: if you will indulge your gluttony, you will be pointing a knife at your throat, that is, exposing yourself to the danger of death or destruction. Or, as Baynus says, as if to say: If you indulge in gluttony, you will create as much danger for yourself as if you were thrusting a knife into your throat, wounding and killing yourself. Hence the Syriac translates: do not put a knife in your mouth, if you are a man of appetite (that is, carnal, indulging the flesh), because his bread is the bread of deceit. For 'knife' the Hebrew is שכין sackin, which Vatablus and others translate as 'thorns'; and knives, like thorns, are sharp. The Syriac translates conversely: do not put a knife in your mouth, but with the same sense, as if to say: Do not indulge in gluttony, lest by indulging, it kill you as if with a knife, and cast you into mortal danger.
The Septuagint reads: If you sit down to dine at the table of a powerful man, or a ruler, consider with great attention what kind of dishes are set before you; put your hand to them, but in such a way that you firmly resolve that you too must prepare such things. So the author of the Greek Catena.
'And place,' as if to say: You should rather put thorns in your throat, and in that part through which we swallow food, by which you would be killed, as if to say: It is better to be killed than to obey gluttony, or it is better to kill gluttony and desire than to live for them and serve them. But it is clear that this sense is not literal, but mystical. the possibility of returning the favor. For grace, in the very fact that it is possessed, is returned.'
Hence Sirach, chapter 13, verses 2 and following, warns that a poor man must beware of banquets and the company of the rich, as being too burdensome and costly for him: 'He takes a burden upon himself,' he says, 'who associates with one more honorable (that is, richer) than himself; and do not be a companion of one richer than you;' and verse 6: 'If you have anything, he will feast with you, and will empty you, and he himself will not grieve for you;' and verse 8: 'And he will put you to shame with his foods, until he has drained you two or three times, and in the end he will mock you.'
Second, R. Levi says: This food, he says, is wisdom, on which feeds the part that holds sway in man, that is, the intellectual faculty. When therefore you have sat down with a calm mind to acquire wisdom, it will happen that you understand those things that fall under observation; if indeed you will have your appetite in your power, so as to partake of its foods, that is, if you will gain mastery over desire, which dominates the mind. 'And place,' as if to say: You should rather put thorns in your throat, and in that part through which we swallow food, by which you would be killed, as if to say: It is better to be killed than to obey gluttony, or it is better to kill gluttony and desire than to live for them and serve them. But it is clear that this sense is not literal, but mystical.
Third, R. Solomon, as if to say: While you dine with a prince, consider diligently so as to understand who he is toward you, whether stingy or generous; and if you see him to be stingy, do not partake of any of his food.
Fourth, our Salazar cleverly takes 'what is set before you' to mean not food, but mental questions, problems, and riddles, which wise men used to propose to one another at banquets. And so the sense is, he says: exert the full effort and force of your mind, so that you may solve the riddles and problems put to you during the feast. 'Put a knife to your throat, if indeed you have your appetite in your power.' First, as if to say: Then, when in this manner there is a contest or battle among banqueters with the hurling of problems, if you are in possession of yourself, that is, if your mind is free and steady, and you have not felt the assaults of wine; sharpen and polish your tongue for replying, so that you may cut through the knots of the riddles and problems proposed to you. The Septuagint adds: and put forth your hand, knowing that you must prepare such things, that is, enjoy the desserts and dishes soberly and frugally, knowing this: that you need to prepare similar parables and riddles for asking in return.
Fifth, and genuinely: Solomon here teaches the dangers threatening those who dine with princes, unless they conduct themselves soberly, wisely, and circumspectly at such occasions; and he admonishes them to do so, as if to say: When you recline at the table of a prince, as his guest, collect your wits, and diligently and shrewdly observe what is set before you, namely the dishes, and likewise the actions, interests, intentions, and whatever is to be conducted at the banquet by the lord or prince; pay attention, I say, lest the delicacies and wines seduce you and transport you into excessive merriment or drunkenness, as if out of your mind; whence it will happen that you will reveal your own or others' secrets, or burst forth into words or deeds that are improvident, injurious, harmful, or suspicious, which may create danger to your goods, your reputation, or your life for you or others, because 'in wine there is truth,' III Ezra 3:10 and 18; therefore 'put a knife to your throat,' that is, restrain your gluttony and the consequent itch for talking, through a firm and constant resolution to maintain sobriety and silence, just as if you were thrusting a knife into your throat from within, or pressing it against it from without. This is a catachresis, as if to say: Do not loosen the reins of gluttony and desire; for it is better to shut off one's gullet and jaws by putting or pressing a knife to one's throat, than by merrily eating, drinking, and chattering to incur the danger or indignation of princes, as Horace says in the Art of Poetry:
Kings are said to press with many goblets, And torment with wine those whom they labor to examine.
And Theognis: 'Wine does me violence, and I am no longer master of my mind.' For this torment of unmixed wine is more powerful than the torment of the rack; for it draws all secrets from the sober heart into the mouth of the drunkard and the tipsy, so that he reveals and betrays everything.
'If indeed you have your appetite in your power,' as if to say: You will put the knife of continence and mortification in your throat, if indeed you are the master of your appetite, that is, of your desire, so that you can govern, moderate, and restrain it; for if you cannot do this, no knife will close your jaws. Hear Pliny, book XIV, last chapter: 'Then (when wine has loosened the rigidity and vigor of the mind) the secrets of the soul are revealed; some declare their wills, others speak deadly things, and do not restrain words destined to return through their throat, and many have thus perished; and truth has commonly been attributed to wine.' Best of all, St. Ambrose says: 'Many also use wine as a rack, and those from whom torments cannot extract the voice of betrayal, they try by drinking, so that they may betray the state of their country, the safety of their citizens, and the counsels of their defense; for virtue generally overcomes pain, but drink excludes fidelity. I have known many who, lacerated by the rack, denied their own name. Who among the cups concealed what he wished to hide?' Therefore the knife of abstinence must be employed here, as well as that of silence. For, as St. Basil says in the Rules Explained at Length, Rule 13: 'Silence is as it were a gymnasium of speaking well.'
That this is the genuine sense of this passage is clear both from the very words of the sentence, and from what follows: 'Do not desire his foods, in which is the bread of deceit.' From which it is evident that food and gluttony are being discussed here, as if to say: Do not gape after his foods, however sumptuous and delicate, because they are deceitful, that is, treacherous, so as to drag you to ruin. So Lyranus, Hugo, Dionysius, Baynus, Jansenius, Vatablus, and others generally. Cajetan also agrees, except that he explains 'put a knife to your throat' thus, as if to say: If you wish to understand what is set before your face, you will place a multitude of knives about your throat, that is, you will think and consider yourself as placed under a multitude of swords threatening your throat, so that by this consideration you may understand whether you are the master of your appetite, that is, that you are not the master of your life, since you are surrounded by so many swords, and therefore you should conduct yourself cautiously and look out for yourself: for כי among the Hebrews is sometimes negative, and has the same force as 'not.'
An example illustrates the matter: Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, when Damocles declared him blessed, ordered him, as Cicero says in Tusculan Disputations V, to be placed on a golden couch spread with the most beautiful woven coverlet, decorated with magnificent workmanship, and adorned many sideboards with chased silver and gold; then he ordered selected boys of exceptional beauty to stand at the table and to serve attentively at his nod; perfumes were present, garlands; fragrances were burning; the tables were heaped with the most exquisite dishes: Damocles considered himself fortunate. In the midst of this splendor, Dionysius ordered a gleaming sword, suspended from the ceiling by a horse hair, to be lowered so that it hung over the neck of that 'blessed' man, and so he no longer looked at those handsome servants, nor at the skillfully wrought silver, nor did he reach his hand to the table, and the garlands were already slipping off: finally he begged the tyrant to be allowed to leave, because he no longer wished to be 'blessed.'
On this account Ptolemy, the prince of astronomers, as is reported in the Preface to the Almagest, when invited by the king to dinner, excused himself saying, 'What happens to kings is what happens to those who look at paintings: when seen from a distance they please, but up close they do not delight.'
Tropologically, this table is the Church, in which the brave and heroic examples of virtue of Martyrs, Confessors, and Virgins are set before us for imitation. Hence St. Gregory, in book IV on I Kings, chapter 9, tropologically explaining the passage: So the cook took up the shoulder and set it before Saul, whom Samuel was appointed to anoint as king by God's command: 'To eat the shoulder,' he says, 'is to store up in the mind through a resolution what is outwardly prescribed concerning brave action: for it was as if he who said: If you sit at the table of a powerful man, wisely consider what is set before you, for you must prepare similar things, was urging each chosen one to set the shoulder before himself and eat it. For at the table of the powerful man he designated the virtue of the shoulder; and when he said: Wisely consider what is set before you, he taught the one he addressed to place the shoulder before himself; but he indicated that he ought to eat it, because he said: You must prepare similar things; for by preparing similar things we shall eat, because when we resolve to do the brave deeds we hear about, we store the foods of life in the stomach of the heart, as it were by eating them.'
Symbolically, this table is that of wisdom, that is, of Sacred Scripture and the divine law. So St. Ambrose, in On Duties book I, chapter 32: 'When you sit,' he says, 'at that table of the powerful one, understand who that powerful one is; and, placed in the paradise of delight and seated at the banquet of wisdom, consider what is set before you. The divine Scripture is a banquet of wisdom, the individual books are individual courses: first understand what dishes are contained in the courses, and then put forth your hand so that you may carry out in works what you read, or what you receive from the Lord your God; and that you may represent in your actions the grace conferred upon you, as Peter and Paul, who by preaching the Gospel rendered a kind of return to the giver of the gift, so that each could say: By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace in me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than all of them.' And more fully and at greater length, in chapter 31: 'And so that banquet in Proverbs is not about food, but about good works; for on what do souls feast better than on good deeds? or what else can so easily satisfy the minds of the just as the awareness of a good work? and what food is more delightful than to do the will of God? which food alone the Lord recalled as abounding for Himself, as it is written in the Gospel: My food is to do the will of My Father who is in heaven. Let us delight in this food, of which the Prophet says: Delight in the Lord. Those delight in this food who have grasped the higher delights with wonderful understanding; who can know what that pure and intelligible delight of the mind is. Let us therefore eat the bread of wisdom, and be satisfied with the word of God; because not by bread alone, but by every word of God is the life of man who was made in the image of God.'
The author of the Greek Catena adds: If the singular 'ruler' is read, as some read it, he understands the ruler or prince to be Christ; but if the plural 'rulers,' he considers the rulers or princely men designated to be Moses and the other Prophets. By the table and dishes, he understands the saving doctrine of Christ the Savior and the rewards of eternal life; by reclining at the table, any faithful teacher who continually turns over in his mind honorable deeds and salutary words, and faithfully hands on the divine teachings of Christ the Lord; and finally by the application of the hands to the dishes set before him, it is signified that a beginning is to be made from good works, and that it must be openly shown that we are true imitators of Christ by deeds themselves, not by words alone: for those who do not enter upon this way, but turn themselves to the fleeting comforts of this life, await those eternal goods in vain, since they will never attain them. By the table of the rulers he designates the oracles of the Prophets. 'And put forth your hand,' as if to say: Do not fix your foot only in history, but you must apply yourself to virtues according to it and according to its knowledge, so that you may thereby nourish your soul. So far the Author.
Allegorically, by this table he understands the Incarnation of the Word, and the entire economy and life of Christ in the flesh. St. Bernard (or whoever is the author: for the style indicates it is not St. Bernard's), in Sermon 2 on the Lord's Supper, on this sentence of Solomon, whose beginning is: 'You have sat at the table of a rich man.' The first course of this table, he says, is the obedience of Christ; the second, His poverty; the third, the reverend death of Christ. 'You therefore who sit at the table of the rich man (Christ), subjecting and humbling yourself to the courses we have described, attend to the mystery of the Lord's Incarnation not negligently, but diligently consider what is set before you; consider, I say, so that you may learn not to be slow or sluggish in returning thanks, so that you may learn to give thanks for each individual gift: consider, I say, so that no gifts of God may be deprived of the thanksgiving due to them, neither the great, nor the moderate, nor the small.' And after some more: 'But what is that which may seem terrible? It is this: that you must prepare such things. Note, that by suffering with, dying with, and being buried with Him, and so forth; for it is worthy, and greatly profits you, to suffer with, die with, and be buried with Him who suffered, died, and was buried: for such things were done so that the life of the Christian may be configured and conformed to all these; for he who, as a member of Christ, says he abides in Christ, must walk as He walked; for on account of His cross it was said: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its vices and desires; on account of His burial it was said: We have been buried together with Christ,' etc. See what follows, where of this table he recounts as courses all the actions and sufferings of Christ, which are set before us to be imitated and expressed in our conduct.
Again, more fittingly and closely, St. Augustine, in Tractates 47 and 48 on John, understands by this table the Eucharist: 'What is the table of the powerful one,' he says, 'if not that from which the body and blood of Him who laid down His life for us is received? And what is it to sit at it, if not to approach humbly? And what is it to consider and understand what is set before you, if not to worthily reflect upon so great a grace? And what is it to put forth your hand in such a way that you know you must prepare such things, if not what I have already said: that just as Christ laid down His life for us, so we too ought to lay down our lives for our brothers? For thus also the Apostle Peter says: Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His footsteps. This is to prepare such things; this the blessed Martyrs did with burning love, whose memories if we do not celebrate in vain, and if we approach the table of the Lord at the banquet at which they too were satisfied, we must, just as they did, prepare such things ourselves.' Then St. Augustine adds: 'Nor is this said as if we could therefore be equal to the Lord Christ, if we should undergo martyrdom even unto blood for His sake. He offered Himself to us, the branches, as the vine; we cannot have a vine apart from Him. He was able to imitate the dying one, but not the redeeming one,' etc. He proves this from the following sentence of Solomon, according to the Septuagint: 'But if you are too greedy, do not desire his foods: for it is better that you take nothing from them, than that you take more than you should: for these, he says, have a deceitful life, that is, hypocrisy. For by saying that he is without sin, he cannot present himself as just, but only pretend; therefore it is said: for these have a deceitful life. There is one alone who was able both to have the flesh of man and not to have sin. Deservedly what follows is commanded to us, and by such a word and proverb human weakness is confronted, and it is told: Do not extend yourself, since you are poor, against the rich man. For the rich man who was never subject either to inherited or personal debt, and is Himself just and justifies others, is Christ. Do not extend yourself against Him, so poor that you appear a daily beggar for the forgiveness of sins in prayer.'
St. Chrysostom adds, in his homily on Psalms 22 and 116: 'From that table,' he says, 'they were inebriated, about which it was said: Coming to the table of the powerful one, consider what is set before you, knowing that you must prepare such things. What does "you must prepare such things" mean, if not the body and blood which you receive? For those Apostles too were inebriated from that very cup, of whom it was said: These men are drunk on new wine, when it was the third hour of the day. But how glorious is that cup! See how great is the glory from the sufferings of the Apostles and Martyrs,' etc. St. Chrysostom proves this from Psalm 115: 'You have prepared a table before me against those who afflict me: what shall I render to the Lord for all that He has rendered to me? I will take the cup of salvation,' as if to say: I will render the cup of patience and martyrdom to Him who suffered for me, I will return blood for blood, life for life. For St. Jerome says splendidly in Epistle 22: 'This is the only recompense,' he says, 'when blood is repaid with blood, and, redeemed by the blood of Christ, we willingly lay down our lives for the Redeemer.'
Moreover, if you weigh the individual words and apply them to the Eucharist, you will find a wonderful power in them. For first he says: 'When you sit down to eat with the prince,' namely with Christ, as if to say: In the Eucharist there is the banquet of Christ, in which the communicant feasts with Christ as a guest: both because Christ, through the priest as His vicar, immolates and consumes Himself in the Eucharist; and because just as the communicant eats Christ, so in turn he is eaten and incorporated by Him, as St. Bernard says. Hear St. Thomas, Opuscule 58, On the Sacrament of the Altar, chapter 20: 'Third, regarding this manner, we must consider the rationale of the re-eating of those who eat worthily, concerning which re-eating it is said that such persons both eat and are eaten; and the reason for this is that, when the body of the Lord is worthily consumed by the faithful, it is not converted into the consumer as other foods are, but on the contrary the one who truly consumes it is spiritually changed into it; for the Lord makes you who consume Him a member of His body,' etc. Which he then confirms with a triple simile.
Second, he says: 'Consider diligently what is set before your face,' in Hebrew this is, 'by understanding, understand,' and perceive, as if to say: In the Eucharist, sight and taste judge that the species of bread is presented to you; but the intellect illumined by faith understands, perceives, and believes that not bread, but the very body of Christ is set before you under the species of bread: attend therefore, and say with the Hebrews who beheld manna falling from heaven like snow, 'manhu,' that is, 'what is this,' that Christ should set before me His whole self, that is, His entire humanity with His divinity, to be consumed? For in the Eucharist the greatest consideration is required, so that you may esteem, reverence, honor, and adore, as is fitting, the dignity and worth of so great a feast and food.
Third, he says: 'Put a knife to your throat,' as if to say: Apply the knife of discernment and faith, by which you may judge and separate this divine food from common food: 'For he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord,' I Corinthians 11:29, as if to say: He who eats Christ unworthily puts, as it were, a sword in his throat, by which he pierces and kills Christ as He passes through his throat, as far as it is in his power: for he is guilty of the body of the Lord, that is, he sins as gravely as if he were killing Christ Himself, as the Jews killed Him. Again, place the sword of continence in your throat, so that after Communion you do not pour yourself out into feasting, trifles, laughter, and foul talk. the chastity that Tobias and the widow practiced: chastity in youth, as Joseph exercised in Egypt.' I demonstrated the same at greater length in Hosea 11, at the end of the chapter. St. Chrysostom elegantly assigns the reason a priori, in his commentary on Psalm 95: 'The exercise of piety,' he says, 'is a kind of bloodless martyrdom, that is, an evident and professed testimony, and how so? Hear and consider: in every tribunal, what else is proposed to the Martyr, except that he deny God? But while he fights against this proposition, he receives the manifest crown of martyrdom. But over these holy ones who suffered without blood, there stands as judge and tribunal their own conscience, in which to defend justice and never to fall away from God is what makes Martyrs.' The same author, in Homily 3 on the Epistle to the Thessalonians, teaches that patience in illness is a long and slow martyrdom. And St. Augustine, in Sermon 40 On the Saints, states thus: 'Not only the shedding of blood constitutes martyrdom, nor does the burning of flames alone give the palm: one arrives at the crown not only by death, but also by contempt of the flesh. Without injury to the Saints who died in persecutions, let it be said that to have afflicted the flesh, overcome lust, resisted avarice, and triumphed over the world is a great part of martyrdom.'
Moreover, Christ in this Eucharistic banquet presents to us ten miracles: we ought to prepare similar things for Him through His grace. The first is transubstantiation, by which the substance of bread and wine, with only the accidents remaining, is transubstantiated and converted by the power of consecration into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. In like manner, the sinner who is now penitent ought in this banquet to transubstantiate himself, as it were, so that he who was formerly carnal may become spiritual; he who was proud, gluttonous, lustful, envious, wrathful, may by the power of the body of Christ become humble, sober, chaste, generous, meek, according to Ephesians 4:23: 'Put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.' Put on, I say, Christ; indeed, be transubstantiated into Christ, so that you may say with Paul: 'And I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me,' Galatians 2:20. Thus the external appearance of the man will be the same as before, but he will be changed interiorly in soul, and will be another, namely one transformed into Christ, so that whoever sees such a Christian may think he sees Christ: for a Christian ought to be an image of Christ, and as it were another Christ, says Nyssen, in his treatise What the Name of Christian Means. Whence he infers: 'Christianity is the imitation of the divine nature,' namely the imitation of the likeness of God, in which Adam was created, according to Genesis 1: 'God made man according to His own image and likeness;' and the profession of Christianity is that man be restored to his pristine and original happiness, namely that he be restored to the pristine likeness of God, according to which he was first created: for in this primeval creation and likeness of God consists his happiness. slander, etc.; but gather your mind within, and converse with Christ and enjoy Him. Finally, know that after Communion you must continually use the knife of mortification, to cut away the passions and vices that displease Christ, so that you may immolate yourself to Him; die with Him and be crucified. Whence Hugo says: 'Put,' he says, 'a knife to your throat, so that the old man in you may be slain, and the new man, that is, Christ, may live.' According to Cajetan's opinion, you may explain it thus, as if to say: Think of the gleaming knives and swords of the angels attending the altar, as soldiers and guards of Christ, hanging over your head and brandished against it, if you handle such great Sacraments irreverently, listlessly, or unworthily. If you wish to apply this knife to the consecrating priest, arrange it thus, as if to say: You, O priest, immolating Christ, think of yourself as bearing a knife at your throat while you pronounce the words of consecration: for by them, as by a sword, you, as it were, dissect and immolate Christ, while by the power of consecration, or the power of the words, you place the body of Christ under the species of bread on the paten, as if separated from the blood; and the blood under the species of wine you place in the chalice, as if separated from the body, so that you may represent the death of Christ, even though by natural concomitance, where the body of Christ is, there also is the blood of Christ, and vice versa.
Fourth, 'if indeed you have your appetite in your power' signifies that the knife of discernment, mortification, and continence over both gluttony and talkativeness, etc., is not for just anyone, but only for him who, as the Hebrew has it, is בעל נפש baal nephesh, that is, the lord and possessor of his own soul, so that he may dominate his appetite and affections, and may know how to moderate, restrain, and govern them. Again, this mastery over the soul and quieting of the passions is an effect of the Eucharist; but in such a way that it requires our cooperation and effort: for if we cooperate with the grace given through the Eucharist, we will suppress vices, dominate our affections, and be lords and kings of our soul. Thus St. Catherine of Siena from a single Communion attained this mastery over her soul, indeed an equanimity, so that amid prosperity and adversity alike she maintained the same countenance, and a mind that was always constant and unperturbed.
Fifth, the Septuagint adds: knowing that you must prepare such things, as if to say: In the Eucharist you not only eat Christ, but are also eaten in return by Christ, says St. Thomas; for you will not change Me into yourself, but you will be changed into Me, says Christ through the mouth of St. Augustine: therefore see to it that you season yourself with such gifts and virtues, that you may present a savory feast of yourself to Christ. 'This,' says St. Augustine, 'the blessed Martyrs did: for they presented to the Lord such things as they had received from the Lord's table.' All Christians, each in his own state, ought to imitate the same: for each state of life, just as it has its own cross, so also has its own martyrdom. Whence St. Bernard in his Sentences says: 'Martyrdom without blood is threefold: frugality in abundance, as David and Job had: generosity in poverty,
The second is that, along with the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, by concomitance His soul is also present with all its holiness, with the beatific vision and love, and with all its natural and supernatural ornaments and endowments. Again, that the hypostatic union is present, and the very hypostasis of the Word with its entire divinity, and all its divine perfections. Behold, all these things Christ sets before us in the Eucharist; all these things we consume when we receive the Eucharist. In like manner, we ought to offer and consecrate to Christ not only our body, but also our soul and its powers — intellect, will, and memory — likewise our interior and exterior senses, and all our faculties, thoughts, intentions, actions, and operations, so that they may all be directed toward Christ, and His love, honor, and praise; and we should look to nothing else externally — not applause, not pleasures, not wealth, not honors.
The third is that Christ here humbles Himself in the highest degree; for though He is immense, He encloses His entire self in a tiny host, indeed in any point of the host. Learn to humble yourself from Christ, O guest of Christ! For it is unworthy that where God humbles Himself, man should be proud, says St. Bernard. Again, Christ hides Himself in this Sacrament; so hide your virtues and gifts, that you may desire to be known to and to please God alone. Moreover, Christ in many churches, especially in villages and deserted places, lies hidden, abandoned, and unknown, so that for many days, and perhaps months, He lies alone, visited by no one, and is even exposed to the corruption of the air, mold, and filth, especially where priests are negligent and irreligious: so you too learn to be hidden and to endure, if like St. Alexius you are neglected, despised, and thrust into a corner of the house. Christ lies hidden and alone, and you wish to be known to all, honored and venerated by all!
The fourth is: Christ in the Eucharist is wholly in the entire host, and wholly in every part of the host: so you too give your whole self to Christ throughout your whole life, and your whole self in every part, hour, and action of life. 'For, as St. Bonaventure says, the Lord offered His undivided and whole body; therefore I am wrongly divided, and I defraud Him of even the smallest part of myself.' 'He who is with a wife is concerned about the things of the world, how to please his wife, and he is divided,' says the Apostle, I Corinthians 7; but in the Eucharist he is taught and strengthened to present himself undivided and whole in matters both divine and human, both in marriage and in religious life. For thus in prayer the entire mind of the communicant attends to God, yet does not forget the family, but asks God for the grace to administer it properly; and conversely, the mind attends entirely to the family, yet governs it only for God and for the glory of God. Such was Nonna, the mother of St. Gregory Nazianzen, who, as he himself says in her Encomium, frequently receiving the sacred Communion, 'was wholly in domestic affairs, and wholly in divine affairs.' This is especially fitting for priests and prelates: for it is their task to mix action with contemplation, so that they may seem to be wholly in action and wholly in contemplation. Whence St. Gregory, in the Pastoral Rule, Part II, chapter 7: 'Let the rector,' he says, 'be one who does not diminish his care for interior things while occupied with exterior ones, and does not abandon his providence over exterior things while occupied with interior ones.'
The fifth, which follows from the preceding, is that Christ in the Eucharist is impassible: for although the species of bread may be pierced by a sword, injured, or burned, yet the body of Christ hidden beneath them cannot be pierced, injured, burned, or even touched: just as if an Angel were hidden under them, he could not be pierced, injured, or touched. Imitate this impassibility of Christ. 'Christ,' says St. Thomas in the Opuscule On Impassibility, 'cannot suffer from any external agent, not from fire, not from water, not from a sword, etc. You therefore, since you cannot be impassible, be nevertheless patient with a certain impassibility,' that is, suffer so bravely that you may appear to be impassible.
Sixth: Christ in the Eucharist is insensible, both passively: for He can be perceived by no sense, and thus He deceives and dulls sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, which see, hear, smell, taste, and touch nothing other than the species of bread and wine; and actively, because, as St. Thomas teaches, and following him Francisco Suarez, in the Third Part, Question 76, article 7, disputation 51, section 3, Christ in the Eucharist, because He is not co-extended with place but is, as it were, contracted to a point of place, naturally cannot sense, hear, or see those standing by, nor even Himself: because visible species and other sensible qualities require extension in place; the visual power itself requires the same in order to operate and see. I say naturally, because supernaturally, by the power of the divine Spirit, this can be done: for God can supply both deficiencies, either by Himself impressing upon the eye of Christ the visible species of objects, or by elevating them so that, into the eye of Christ, although at a point of place, they may act and exert their influence. Finally, the visions of things which Christ has in heaven seem entirely to be communicated to the same Christ in the Eucharist. For just as the substance of Christ is the same in the Eucharist as it is in heaven, so He also has the same accidents in both places, such as visions and sensations. Learn from Christ to mortify your senses, and to become insensible, so that you may live only according to the mind and spirit, like Christ, God, and the Angels; for the senses draw toward concupiscences, but the spirit toward heavenly and divine things; the senses toward vices, the spirit toward virtues; the senses toward hell, the spirit toward paradise.
Seventh: Christ dispenses to you the remaining gifts of the glorified body, namely clarity, agility, and subtlety: for Christ has an immortal, bright, agile, and subtle body. So you too present to Him your body and mind pure through chastity, bright through the splendor of good example, agile through fervor, and subtle through contemplation.
Eighth: Christ granted the power of consecrating and confecting the Eucharist not to one, not to ten, not to a hundred, but to many thousands of men, and indeed to all priests, even impure ones, adulterers, murderers, blasphemers, schismatics, and criminals, and He did not revoke it on account of any enormity of crimes; and He willed to endure this indignity for our benefit, so that this divine sacrifice and the nourishment of eternity would be abundantly available to us everywhere and always, even through unworthy priests, and that we would not be deprived of so great a good on account of their wickedness. Therefore everywhere He sets up this divine table and heavenly banquet with wonderful generosity for everyone. Present therefore in return to Christ a heart that is ample and wide with love, so that you may love and honor even your enemies, and repay them with benefits for injuries, and blessings for curses. For even though they do not deserve this love, Christ does deserve it. Therefore, for the love of Christ, love those who do not love you, and love Christ back in them; bless and do good to Christ in them.
Ninth: The body of Christ in the Eucharist is without commingling or confusion of parts and members: for although all are simultaneously in the same point, and are not co-extended with place or the surrounding air, yet each retains its own temperament, its own union, its own connection, its own order, and every internal disposition, which does not depend on relation to or measurement of place. For the head of Christ is connected not to the stomach or feet, but to the neck, the neck to the shoulders, the shoulders to the chest, the chest to the stomach, the stomach to the thighs, the thighs to the shins, the shins to the feet. Similarly, even if you find yourself in a humble and small office or rank, nevertheless maintain order and propriety in all things, so that you do and perform each thing discreetly, prudently, and decorously. Thus you will shine: for the beauty and excellence of a work consists not so much in its greatness and eminence as in its manner, order, propriety, and perfection. Whence Sirach 33:23: 'In all your works,' he says, 'be excellent.'
Tenth: Christ in the Eucharist feeds all the faithful of the entire Christian world, unites and incorporates them to Himself, and imparts to them His spirit of divinity, so that they may now appear to be not so much men as certain human gods, and certain divine men, and this not only all together, but each individually: for just as red-hot iron by the power of fire ignites any wood, so the flesh of Christ by the power of the divinity united to it enkindles men and makes them divine. This therefore is the outpoured charity of Christ, by which He, as our head, communicates to each of us, as His members, His own spirit and life, gathering all into one body, and into one, as it were, perfect and complete hypostasis, and we are all engrafted into Him and, as it were, incorporated, just as portions of food suitably applied within are incorporated into us through the channels of nature, and become one hypostasis with us, when our spirit extends itself to inform and vivify them. Whence the Apostle, I Corinthians 10:17: 'One bread, one body, we being many are, all we who partake of one bread.' One bread, because this bread is not converted into the substance of those who eat it (as happens with earthly and corruptible bread), but on the contrary rather converts those who eat it into itself, and makes them one with itself, communicating to them its own properties and form. Truly a wonderful plan of God, that in order to draw us to Himself and make us partakers of His spirit and life, in one individual of our nature He is united to human flesh hypostatically, then He gives us this flesh clothed with the species of bread and wine as nourishment, and through that nourishment joined and mingled with us, He pours into us the spirit and divinity connected to that nourishment, so that in this way He may sanctify us all and bring us to His own unity and life. No sweeter, more efficacious, more admirable, or wiser method could have been devised.
Imitate this immense charity of Christ, so that you may strive to unite all people — foreigners as well as fellow countrymen, Asians and Indians as well as Europeans, enemies as well as friends, the poor as well as the rich — all in Christ, indeed to unite them to Christ as their head, and to draw them into His heart. For this reason Christ instituted the Eucharist, so as to really and substantially unite and incorporate to Himself as head all the faithful and the entire Church as His body and members, so that Christ may be all in all, may live and act in all. Whence Cyril of Jerusalem, in Mystagogical Catechesis IV: 'In the Eucharist,' he says, 'we become of one body and one blood with Christ.' And Cyril of Alexandria, book IV on John, chapter 7: 'Just as,' he says, 'if someone pours one wax into another that has been melted, it is necessary that the one be thoroughly mixed with the other: so he who receives the flesh and blood of the Lord is so joined with Him that Christ is found in him and he in Christ.' If you do these things, you will fulfill what the Septuagint says here: 'For you must prepare such things.'
3. DO NOT DESIRE HIS FOODS, IN WHICH IS THE BREAD OF DECEIT
'In which,' that is, in which foods; or 'in which,' namely in the food: for this is contained in all the foods, just as the singular is contained in the plural: it is a synthesis. In Hebrew: do not desire his delicacies, and (that is, because) he himself is the bread of lies. So Aquila and Theodotion. The Chaldean: do not desire the dishes which are the food of deceit; the Syriac: if he is an insatiable man, do not desire his food; the Septuagint: but if you are insatiable, do not desire his foods: for they possess a false life; the author of the Greek Catena: 'For they are generally bound up with a deceitful life.' Which he explains thus, as if to say: 'Do not desire the vain and fleeting comforts of this life, which the greedy and those devoted to carnal pleasures never cease insatiably to pursue and seek.' Clearly Vatablus says: do not desire his dainties, since the food is deceptive. This verse coheres with the preceding, as is evident from the pronoun 'his,' namely the prince's, about whom the discourse preceded, as if to say: When you sit at the table of a prince, put the knife of sobriety and continence in your throat, if indeed you have your appetite in your power, that is, the desires of your soul and gluttony, so that you may restrain them. Therefore do not desire his delicate foods (for this is what the Hebrew במטעמותיו matammotav signifies), because they are the bread of deceit, that is, deceitful and treacherous foods.
Moreover, the Septuagint repeats from the preceding verse the phrase 'if you are' בעל נפש baal nephesh, that is, master of your appetite, or, as they understand it, having appetite, that is, the desire and gluttony of the soul; hence they translate: but if you are insatiable, do not desire his foods: for they possess a false life, as if to say: Even if you are insatiable and extremely gluttonous, do not desire the feasts of a prince, because they often deceive life, and death is swallowed along with them, because, to omit other things, the feasts of princes are often laced with poison: for which reason princes are accustomed to employ tasters who sample the foods beforehand, so that if there is any poison in them, it may betray itself, and thus they may abstain from them and avoid the danger. Thus in ancient times in Italy, poison was administered in Setine wine, which is delicate, and in a golden cup.
But why are they called deceitful? First, Isidorus Clarius says: Delicate foods, he says, are deceitful, because they generally consist of light things and of the slightest nutritional value, which tickle and delight the palate but do not nourish or strengthen the one who eats them; for the true food is that which nourishes and strengthens a person, such as solid foods, which have more substance and less flavor.
Second, Aben-Ezra says: They are, he says, the bread of deceit, that is, of a man who speaks lies.
Third, and genuinely, the delicacies of a prince are called the bread of deceit, both because they entice and deceive even a sober man by their delicious allurement, so that he eats more than health and sobriety require, and intemperately gorges himself on fine wines, and becomes tipsy and drunk. They deceive, therefore, both because they intoxicate and madden a man; and because these wines deceive the drinker and make him talkative, merry, and garrulous, so that, pouring forth in merriment, he betrays his own and others' secrets, by which he not infrequently destroys himself and others. Cajetan adds that royal tables are called deceitful because princes often invite to a feast those whom they intend to seize and kill, as Haman was taken from the banquet of Ahasuerus to the gallows; and in our memory the Duke of Alba invited certain nobles in Belgium to a solemn banquet, and having captured them there, shortly afterward beheaded them by order of King Philip. Therefore when you recline at a table to which a prince has invited you, consider that his feasts are deceitful and treacherous, and that as many swords hang over your gluttony as there are delicacies offered. Therefore beware of gluttony, of talkativeness, of every other danger, and prudently look after your affairs as best you can.
Fourth, our Salazar separates this verse from the preceding and treats it as independent, and explains it thus: Solomon censures the excessive desire for unjustly acquired wealth, and says: 'Do not desire his foods,' that is, do not covet or aspire to that excessive abundance of riches and delicacies in which he rejoices, 'in whom is the bread of deceit;' for riches of this kind are deceptive and deceitful, and therefore quickly desert their possessor and migrate to others. And according to this interpretation, this verse agrees with the two following: 'Do not labor to become rich,' etc. And below: 'Do not raise your eyes to riches,' etc. But from the Hebrew it is clear that this verse depends on the preceding; for among other things, the pronoun 'his' proves this, which in Hebrew, being a suffix, can only refer to the preceding subject, namely the prince. Again, 'delicacies' properly signify not riches, but delicate foods. Finally, that food is being discussed here is evident from verses 1 and 2.
Morally, learn here that the delicacies and all the pleasures and pomps of this world are not truthful but deceitful, and this for many reasons, on account of which in Hebrew they are called the bread of lies, in the plural; and in Latin they are called deliciæ (delights), because they are illiciæ (enticements), that is, alluring baits, from illicere, that is, to deceive and beguile. For in addition to the reasons already stated, first, they falsely claim to possess the reality of pleasure, when they contain only its empty appearance and shadow; for they are thin, worthless, meager, and brief, which tickle only the surface of the flesh and the senses, but do not penetrate into the interior of the soul and desire, so as to refresh and satisfy it. Climacus says truly, as cited by Maximus, Sermon 27: 'The pleasure of food is perceived only as far as the palate,' he says, 'and there it has its limit; beyond the palate no difference is felt in the things consumed, since all things are then equally reduced by nature to foulness.' In the same place St. Basil says: 'The stomach is a faithless merchant, a storehouse that preserves nothing, retaining the inconvenience of many things but not preserving the things themselves.' And Epictetus: 'Take care that you are not nourished by foods that are thrust into the stomach, but by the joy of the mind: for those are turned into excrement, and their glory perishes with them; but the mind, separated from the body, remains incorrupt forever.'
Second, because pleasures soon depart, and in departing end in pains, and fix the stings of sadness in the mind as well as the body, according to that saying: 'Mourning takes hold of the end of joy,' Proverbs 14:13; for they create nausea of the stomach, heaviness of the head, sleeplessness, cramps, gas, phlegm, fevers, burning sensations, kidney stones, pleurisy, apoplexy, and a thousand other diseases and afflictions. Whence Sirach 31:23: 'Sleeplessness,' he says, 'and bile and colic for a foolish man.' St. Gregory Nazianzen, in Oration 38, calls delicacies precious excrement: 'Let not the earth and sea,' he says, 'offer us precious excrement as a gift: for with this honor I am accustomed to honor delicacies; but let us delight in discourse and in the divine law.' St. Jerome, the disciple and follower of St. Gregory Nazianzen, gives the same name to delicacies.
St. Chrysostom says excellently, in Homily 45 on Matthew: 'By delicacies,' he says, 'old age creeps on more quickly, by delicacies the senses are dulled, by delicacies thought is slowed, the mind is more quickly shrouded in darkness, the body is weakened, a greater quantity of excrement is stored up and deposited; thus from a great heap of afflictions, like a ship excessively burdened with cargo, frequent shipwrecks occur: for what? answer me, please, do you strive to make your body so fat? Is it so that we may lead you to be sacrificed, or so that we may place you sacrificed upon the table? Certainly fat birds are useless even for salting.' The same, in Homily 58 on Matthew: 'What evil does the foulness of delicacies not bring about? It makes swine out of men; indeed, even much worse: for a pig wallows in mud and is nourished on dung; but this man constructs for himself a more abominable table, devising wicked mixtures: he is separated by no difference from a demoniac; he is equally foolish and furious: and we pity demoniacs; but this man we abhor and hate, because he willingly draws madness upon himself, and makes his mouth, eyes, ears, and all the other instruments of the senses into sewers of the most bitter pleasure.'
The same, in Homily 13 on the First Epistle to Timothy, explaining the passage in chapter 5: She who lives in pleasures is dead: 'For she lives,' he says, 'only for the stomach (the glutton), and is dead to all other senses; she does not see what ought to be seen, nor hear what necessarily ought to be heard, nor speak what ought to be spoken. Just as a dead person lying in bed, with eyelids closed and eyes shut, has absolutely no sensation, so it is with this person, indeed far worse than that; for the dead person feels neither good nor evil, but this person loses the sense only of evils, and feels nothing good at all.'
Hear also Blessed Lawrence Justinian in the Tree of Life, treatise On Poverty, chapter III: 'If you attempt to amass money,' he says, 'you will rob from one who has, or you will be torn by desires; if you wish to shine with honors, you will grovel before the one who bestows them, and you who wish to surpass others will blush at the humiliation of begging; if you desire power, you will be subject to the plots of your subjects and exposed to dangers; if you crave glory, distracted by every hardship you will cease to be calm and secure; if you choose a life of pleasure, who would not despise and reject being the slave of the most worthless and fragile thing, namely the body?'
Third, because at banquets, with the tongue loosened, many lies, flatteries, hypocrisies, deceptions, etc. are spoken by the guests. For this reason St. Augustine employed reading and discussion at table, to exclude harmful gossip and slander; indeed he never went to banquets, even when invited, following the example of St. Ambrose, as Possidius reports in his Life.
Fourth, because the host often feigns love, while in his heart he conceals hatred or a similar base feeling. For he generally invites others, not for their benefit, but for his own advantage, so as to put them under obligation to himself, and to obtain from them something he desires; indeed he even invites suspects or enemies, so that through wine he may fish out their plans, or draw them into complicity in crime, or harm and injure them in reputation, health, or life. I have said more about the deceitfulness of delicacies and the benefits of frugality in Daniel 1:16. See also St. Jerome, in Against Jovinian book II, thundering at length against those given to delicacies and gluttons.
4. DO NOT LABOR TO BECOME RICH: BUT SET A LIMIT TO YOUR PRUDENCE
This maxim is straightforward: for it forbids excessive zeal for becoming rich and an excessive desire for wealth, as if to say: Do not torment and exhaust yourself in heaping gold upon gold and wealth upon wealth, and striving to accumulate without end; for this is the vice of avarice, and the constant torture of the avaricious soul, which often drives a man to usury, fraud, and other illicit arts, so as to amass immense riches by fair means or foul, by which he may lose his soul and thrust it into hell. 'But set a limit to your prudence.' A limit cannot properly be set to prudence in its strict sense, since it is itself the measure of all virtues; for it is the virtue balanced at the mean of right reason, and it balances and directs all other virtues. By 'prudence' here, therefore, understand shrewdness, industry, and foresight in acquiring wealth, as is evident from the Hebrew בינה bina, that is, understanding. And from the following verse: 'Do not raise your eyes to riches which you cannot have.'
Whence Aben-Ezra says: 'Abstain,' he says, 'from the shrewdness by which you seek to acquire riches, which is the prudence, that is, the cunning of the avaricious.' The sense therefore is, as if to say: Do not be too shrewd, industrious, and provident in seeking ways to profit and methods of growing rich; but set a limit to this your industry, which true prudence dictates, namely that you should not wish to accumulate more wealth, even by just and lawful means, than is required for the use and condition of yourself and your family. For to what end will you amass riches to store in chests and vaults, destined for no use, except to be gnawed and consumed by rust and moths?
Others explain it thus, as if to say: Do not desire impossible or illicit riches, but set the limit of prudence (in the genitive case) upon your riches, so that the measure which prudence suggests may moderate your zeal for enrichment and your riches. St. Thomas explains it thus, in II-II, Question 170, article 4, reply 3: 'It signifies,' he says, 'not that prudence itself is to be moderated, but that according to prudence some measure must be imposed.' And this measure is that you acquire wealth only by lawful and just means, and moderate wealth, sufficient for living honorably. This sense aptly coheres with the following verse: 'Do not raise your eyes to riches which you cannot have.' The Hebrew literally reads: 'Do not labor to become rich; cease from your own understanding.' Which words, because they are general and open to qualification, can be variously limited and derived into various particular senses; yet all finally arrive at the same point and converge into one.
First, therefore, Pagninus translates: do not labor to become rich, lest you depart from your understanding, as if to say: Do not gape after riches lest the desire for wealth rob you of understanding, that is, sound mind and wisdom. Similarly R. Levi says: When, he says, you have obtained what is sufficient for you, do not trouble yourself further about amassing resources; for this keeps you far from wisdom, since you spend your time accumulating riches, with a purpose entirely different from what should be set as the goal in acquiring resources; for they are acquired so that they may be an aid to a mortal, whereby, freed from all cares, he may devote himself entirely to the investigation of wisdom and prudence.
Second, Cajetan says: do not labor to become rich, and cease from your understanding; that is, he says, it is not enough that you desist from the labor of acquiring wealth, but moreover you must call back your understanding and mind from the very thought and love of wealth, so that you may not even think about it. For thus you will be able, with a quiet and serene mind, to devote yourself fruitfully to the study of wisdom and virtue.
Third, Aquila translates: do not labor to become rich by your own understanding, as if to say: Do not labor to amass riches, because however much you amass, you will not be truly rich, but only rich 'in understanding,' that is, in your own opinion and estimation: for in reality you will be poor, since the more you amass, the more you will desire to amass: for 'the love of money grows as much as the money itself grows.' But poor is he who is not content with what he has, but always desires more, and like a starving man hungers and thirsts. Others explain 'by your understanding' as meaning 'without your understanding,' as if to say: Do not wish to become rich without reason and labor, through mere fortune, through usury, through plunder; but strive to become rich through understanding, that is, through your own industry: for this is lawful and honorable, while the former is unlawful and unjust.
Fourth, the Chaldean translates: do not approach the rich man, but in your understanding withdraw from him, as if to say: Do not feast with the rich, nor live splendidly with them and go about with a large retinue, horses, and carriages: for thus you will squander your wealth and be reduced to poverty; but follow the dictate of prudence, that you separate yourself from them, and living separately, live privately, soberly, and sparingly: for thus you will live in peace and increase your resources. The Syriac translates: do not draw near to the rich man, but approach him wisely, as if to say: Do not be familiar with the rich man, lest you consume your goods with him; but nevertheless from time to time, when you need his help or mutual assistance, approach him prudently, so that he may aid and benefit you.
Fifth, the Septuagint translates: do not extend yourself, since you are poor, toward the rich man; but by your own consideration abstain; the Complutensian and Royal editions read: do not contend, since you are poor, with the rich man; clearly the author of the Greek Catena says: if you are poor, do not contend with the rich man; but using your prudence, abstain from such contention; for ennoia in Greek means the same as thought, intention, opinion, likewise prudence, sense, understanding, etc. There are some who are poor but proud, who imprudently want to make themselves equal to the rich, and compete with them in the splendor of their diet, clothing, household, furnishings, and other things. Solomon here reproves them, both because they overextend themselves beyond their means and resources, and spend more than they have: therefore they act as if a small boy wished to stretch himself out and equal a full-grown man; and because through immoderate expenditure they quickly exhaust themselves and their family and reduce themselves to poverty, which is pure folly and stupidity; for, as St. Chrysostom says, in the homily That No One Is Harmed Except by Himself: 'The poor, while they desire to equal the rich, suffer an incurable madness, they are insane, they rage; for the same disease produces different ailments in different individuals.'
Mystically, the author of the Greek Catena says: He here condemns, he says, those who manifestly think they have investigated the divine mysteries as thoroughly as God Himself. For every man without exception is poor in himself; God alone is absolutely rich. Therefore do not vainly strive to search with your mind into the mysteries of God that plainly cannot be investigated by reason. R. Solomon explains it thus, as if to say: 'Do not be too anxious about increasing your learning, hastily and desultorily collecting material, and through voracious reading; for in the end you will consign all this to oblivion.' For just as food that is not chewed is gulped down whole and is often expelled undigested, so those who quickly and cursorily race through many things in their reading, and as it were devour them, retain little and immediately forget what they have read.
Again, apply this maxim to those who strive beyond their strength to fast, pray, afflict the body, and labor, so that they may excel in holiness and virtues, and equal the holy Anchorites, Martyrs, and even the Apostles. In this they are arrogant and foolish: for they lose their bodily health without attaining holiness of mind. Holy indeed is the saying: 'Measure yourself by the foot of great men,' but within the limits of your nature and the grace destined for you by God; for equally holy and prudent is the saying: 'Measure yourself by your own foot: Let not the cobbler go beyond his last: Each one follows the seeds of his own nature: Be not high-minded, but fear: therefore in great things, to have willed is enough.' For even if you strive with all your might, you will never attain the holiness of the Blessed Virgin, or of St. Paul, or St. Lawrence, or St. Francis, because God gave them far greater grace than He gave you. Whence St. Paul, reproving the false apostles who made themselves equal to the true Apostles, and indeed set themselves above them, says in II Corinthians 10:12: 'For we dare not,' he says, 'class or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves; but we, measuring ourselves by ourselves, and comparing ourselves with ourselves. But we will not boast beyond measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God has measured to us, a measure to reach even to you. For we do not overextend ourselves, as if not reaching to you; for we have come even to you in the Gospel of Christ.' Where for 'overextend'
5. DO NOT RAISE YOUR EYES TO RICHES WHICH YOU CANNOT HAVE; BECAUSE THEY WILL MAKE THEMSELVES WINGS LIKE AN EAGLE'S, AND WILL FLY INTO HEAVEN
In Hebrew: for you will cause your eyes to fly toward it, that is, toward him (namely עשר osher, that is, riches, which is tacitly contained in העשיר hashir, that is, to become rich, about which the preceding verse spoke: for osher in Hebrew is masculine, just as in Latin Plutus, that is, wealth, is); and not he himself; because by making he will make himself wings, like an eagle he will fly into heaven. R. Solomon refers the phrase 'in it' to the labor and zeal for becoming rich, about which the preceding verse spoke, as if to say: If for a moment you turn away your eyes and close them, that zeal vanishes, both because the mind and appetite of man is inconstant and changeable, and because the labor and anxiety of acquiring wealth is burdensome to man and torments him: therefore, feeling this, he quickly sets it aside and abandons it.
Now לאינכו veenennu, that is, 'and not he himself,' can be taken in two ways: first, as if to say: Since he himself, namely Plutus (that is, wealth) does not exist, or does not remain; second, as if to say: And it is not in your power or control, that is, as our Vulgate translates, 'which you cannot have.' Therefore, First, this maxim can be taken concerning riches already acquired and possessed, so as to signify their inconstancy and fleetingness, as if to say: Do not fix your eyes, mind, and heart on your riches, because you cannot have them long; for they are fleeting, and immediately fly from one person to another like eagles, which fly from the earth into the sky; for 'to have' is taken in the perfect tense to mean to retain what is possessed and to possess firmly. This is what the Hebrew veenennu signifies, that is, 'and not he himself,' as if to say: Plutus (wealth) has no stable existence, consistency, or constancy; but like a restless, wandering, and fleeting bird it passes and flies away, so that it no longer appears or seems to exist. Whence the Tigurine translates: would you fix your eyes on that which soon is not? For riches take wings to themselves, and fly into the air like eagles. Vatablus: would you cast your eyes upon them, when they are nothing? For by preparing they will prepare wings for themselves and fly into heaven. The Chaldean: if you bind your eyes to it, it will not appear for you. The Syriac: if you fix your eyes on it, it will not appear to you.
On the fleetingness of riches, see St. Chrysostom, Homily 1 on Genesis, whose words I cited at Amos 6:5, on that passage according to the Septuagint: As if standing things they considered them, and not as fleeting. And the golden homily On Eutropius, whose beginning is: 'Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity,' where he vividly sets before our eyes the vanity and fleetingness of riches and all the pomps of the world: it is found at the end of volume V. And Homily 11 on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where he compares riches to a fugitive and faithless slave.
Moreover, this fleetingness of riches is aptly compared to an eagle flying up into the sky. For the eagle flies so high that it escapes the sight not only of men but also of other birds; for it soars far above all others, so that it cannot be captured by anyone, but can capture and prey upon all: thus however much you try to seize riches, they will fly away like eagles to the greatest heights, and will escape not only your hand and touch, but even your sight.
Second, more simply and aptly, Baynus, Jansenius, and others refer this maxim to riches not already acquired, but to be acquired, which exceed our strength, as if to say: Do not desire in your heart and pursue with your eyes riches that exceed your strength and resources, or which you cannot acquire by your own industry; because if you pursue them, they will fly away like eagles into heaven, so that you cannot reach them. There is an emphasis in the Hebrew: 'Will you cause your eyes to fly?' as if to say: The desire for excessive and impossible riches is a mere flight, indeed a flying away, of the eyes and the mind: for it causes the mind to fly away from itself toward what is impossible to attain; for the eyes of such people wish to compete in flight with the flight of eagles, but they are defeated: for eagles fly so high that they escape every sharpness and glance of the eyes.
Again, even if you were to follow riches with your eyes like eagles, would you therefore seize them with your hand and make them your own? Certainly not: for you would no more lay hold of them than of flying eagles, which by following with your eyes you do not make your own. This maxim therefore teaches that one must beware of avarice and the concupiscence of the eyes, and that the zeal for enriching oneself must be moderated according to one's lot, trade, and industry given by God; for if we exceed this measure, we will labor in vain with God opposing us. Following Solomon, Sirach 11:10 likewise dissuades from excessive zeal for wealth: 'For if,' he says, 'you pursue it, you will not overtake it, etc.; there is a man who labors and hastens, and the grieving impious man, and all the more he will not abound.' See what was said there.
Moreover, 'which you cannot have' can be taken in two ways: first, as if to say: Which you cannot physically obtain, because they exceed your strength and resources; second, as if to say: Which you cannot ethically, that is, lawfully and with a good conscience, obtain, so that the sense is: Do not through usury, fraud, or unjust contracts aspire to illicit riches; for you cannot obtain or retain them with a good mind and in good faith: therefore by the just judgment of God, they will justly flee and fly away from you, as from an unjust invader or possessor. To this pertains that saying of Cato: Attempt what you can; lest pressed by the weight of the task Your labor succumb and you abandon what you have tried in vain.
This is a personification: for riches are here introduced as if they were birds and eagles, which make wings for themselves, by which they tear themselves away from the avaricious who pursue them and fly away to the greatest distance.
And rightly are riches compared to eagles: first, because the eagle in strength, in flight, and in preying excels all other birds, so that it permits no bird to fly above it, being superior to all, inferior to none, so that it may prey upon all, but itself be prey to none: in like manner, impossible or illicit riches surpass every effort and attempt of the avaricious, so that they do not allow themselves to be seized and plundered by him, but rather plunder him and expose him to the theft and plunder of others. Apuleius says truly in the Florida, book I: 'When the eagle has raised itself to the level of the clouds,' he says, 'by a nod of the element it glides left or right with such great bodily mass, turning its sail-like wings wherever it pleases by the slight rudder of its tail, looking down upon everything from there; there with the tireless rowing of its wings from afar, and with a flight lingering a little, it hovers in almost the same place and looks about, seeking where it might best hurl itself upon its prey from above, like a thunderbolt.'
Second, eagles fly with the greatest speed, and when they have taken food on the ground, they immediately fly away into the sky: so too riches, especially impossible and illicit ones, after they have shown a slight hope of being obtained, and have thereby vainly tantalized the greedy and foolish, immediately fly away. The eagle, says Aldrovandus, strongest and swiftest, has feathers of remarkable firmness and hardness: alone among birds it is carried upward in a straight path, not obliquely like other birds. Hence it bears a thunderbolt beneath its feet, as if the wrath of Jupiter: for 'thunderbolts belong to Jupiter;' and the thunderbolt signifies the speed, force, and impetuosity of its flight. Just as therefore no bird dares attack the eagle, but the eagle itself attacks and strikes down all others: so a prudent man does not pursue riches that exceed his lot and industry, lest he vainly expend and squander the modest means he has, but pursues those that are proportionate to him and which he can attain by his own industry and labor. Therefore just as a falcon or hawk would be foolish to pursue an eagle, because it would be struck down and killed by the eagle: so those who pursue riches exceeding their fortune are foolish, because not only will they not attain them, but they also lose their own, since the lesser fall as prey to the greater, as experience proves.
Third, eagles fly to the greatest heights: so too riches elude and escape all sharpness of the miser's eyes and thoughts. The eagle, says Aldrovandus, has great wings, Ezekiel 17:3 and 7; it flies high, according to that verse of the Poet: She also flying aloft and approaching heaven, so the majesty of him who obtains supreme power obscures all others with its splendor, and like the most brilliant radiance of the sun when it has risen, it intercepts the light from all the stars. Others apply this to the tyranny and rapacity of many princes, to whom you cannot cling without loss of your possessions: however one has received, nature has arranged that the weaker are consumed by the stronger. So says Pierius; Aldrovandus says the same, word for word, in his work on the Eagle.
Fourth, the feathers of eagles, when mixed with the feathers of geese and other birds, wear them down, dry them out, and consume them: so too wealth unjustly and wrongfully acquired devours and consumes the rest that was fairly and justly acquired. This about eagle feathers is taught by Pliny, book X, chapter 3, Albertus Magnus, Aldrovandus, and Gesner in their works on the Eagle. For this reason the Egyptians designated a destructive power by eagle feathers. Hear Pierius, Hieroglyphics 19, chapter 11: The Egyptian priests signified a person's power that was destructive to all allies and friends by eagle feathers. For the force of these is such that, if the feathers of other birds are mixed with them, they appear to wear them away and in a sense devour them, which has also been found to occur repeatedly with the hides of the panther and the hyena; for we have said elsewhere that the panther's hide yields to that of the hyena. Pliny writes that the same antipathy exists between the walnut tree and the oak, with so great a conflict of nature that, if an oak is planted next to a walnut tree, it dies completely. There is also something very similar to this wonder that is reported about cardamum. This is a vegetable very commonly used among the Persians, whose nature is to draw all the moisture of the earth to itself, so that the other herbs sprouting around it are forced to wither, about which there is a proverb in Aristophanes. By another name they call it scaphon, Dioscorides calls it iberis, the Egyptians semeth, the Romans nasturtium. The cause regarding the eagle's feathers philosophers speculate is that, since the bird itself is hostile to all others, the very force of the animal is transmitted even to its inanimate parts through a contagion of sympathy. Others have discovered that a certain pestilential force of ill-smell is present in the bird, on account of which things touched by it easily rot; the evidence being that yesterday's leftovers are sought again neither by the eagle itself nor by any other animal. And this contagion permeates even into its feathers, which are reported for a fact to virtually burn up other feathers placed near them.
Hence Jupiter is said to have given the eagle dominion over birds, so that it might be their king or queen: hence also the two-headed eagle is the insignia of the universal empire and emperor. Accordingly, King Pyrrhus, when acclaimed 'Eagle' by his soldiers, said: 'I am an eagle who am lifted up by your arms as if by wings.' Thus precisely impossible and illicit riches fly away to the greatest heights from the miser, like eagles from the bird-catcher. under its form venerating Jupiter. Whence Martial, book V of the Epigrams: Tell me whom you carry, queen of birds? The Thunderer. Why does he hold no thunderbolts in his hand? He is in love. as a competitor, and it gazes steadily at the burning rays of the sun, and places its nest on a high rock, lest the cunning plunderer ever come near. Again the eagle, because it is dry and warm, is ingenious, keen, skilled, and cunning. Hence it is called by the Poets the bird of Jupiter, attending Jupiter as the peacock attends Juno; bringing nectar to Jupiter, indeed carrying Jupiter himself. For this reason some in antiquity paid divine honors to the eagle, as if higher in station and rank than yours; for these will fly away from you: for example, if you are poor, do not be too generous in giving, lest you impoverish yourself and no longer be able to give anything; be generous in desire where you cannot be so in effect; you are called to the lot of Martha, do not aspire to the lot of Magdalene; if you are a craftsman or a farmer, do not aspire to the status of a nobleman or a doctor; if you are a Grammarian or a Rhetorician, do not parade yourself or set yourself above a Philosopher or Theologian; if you are a Religious, do not seek the pastorate or episcopate; if you are a subject, do not seek the office of Rector: for honor, like an eagle, flees those who pursue it and pursues those who flee it.
The fable of the camel from Avienus, fable 8, and others is relevant here: 'For the camel, regretting its condition, complained that bulls go about with their distinguished twin horns, while it was unarmed and exposed to the other animals; it prayed to Jupiter that horns be given to it. Jupiter laughed at the stupidity of the camel, and not only denied the wish, but clipped the beast's ears.' The moral: 'Let each be content with his own fortune, for many who sought a better fortune fell into a worse one.' Thus those who pursue excessive or illicit riches lose their modest and proper ones. For the camel laden with merchandise is the symbol of the rich man and riches; whence that saying of Christ: 'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,' Matthew 19:24. And just as a camel cannot follow eagles, so neither can the miser follow immoderate wealth. Whence the Egyptians, says Horapollo, book II, chapter 100, represented a slow and sluggish man by a camel: 'For this animal alone of all animals bends its leg while walking; whence also it obtained its name, since the Greek κάμηλος seems to be called quasi κάμψαυλος, that is, named from the bending of the legs.' Wisely Ovid says in Tristia IV: Believe me, he who has hidden well has lived well, and each Ought to remain within his own fortune.
There is a memorable example in the Lives of the Fathers about John the Little. For when he left his companion the Anchorite and wished to live alone without food acquired by his own labor, in continual contemplation like an Angel, after a few days he began to hunger and be in need; whence returning at night to his companion, by knocking at the door he heard from him: 'John does not need food, because he has become an Angel;' therefore he spent the entire night outdoors in hunger and cold; in the morning, admitted and rebuked by his companion, he came to his senses and learned to work and to prepare food for himself by his labor. There is an elegant poem by Fulbert of Chartres about him at the end of his Letters, whose conclusion is this: 'When he could not be an Angel, he learned to be a good man.' He therefore who cannot be an Anchorite, let him be a good Cenobite; he who cannot be a Cenobite, let him be a good Cleric; he who cannot be a Cleric, let him be a good layman; for many are saved in marriage who would be damned in the clerical state and celibacy.
Plato says wisely in the Phaedo: 'It is not lawful for any man,' he says, 'to depart from that duty which God has enjoined upon him.' And Ptolemy in the Preface to the Almagest: 'He is foolish,' he says, 'who is ignorant of his own measure. He who extends his knowledge beyond the skill that is in him is like a feeble shepherd with many sheep which he cannot feed or govern.' Sirach says divinely, chapter 3:22: 'Do not seek,' he says, 'what is too high for you, and do not search into what is too strong for you.'
Again, tropologically you may explain it thus, as if to say: When the eyes of the flesh and of desire fly toward their lusts, which you cannot lawfully have; then fly with your mind from them to God and heaven like an eagle. Whence Blessed Gregory Nazianzen, in Iambic 3 to Seleucus, sings thus: As soon as you have recognized vice, swiftly fly away By the flight of the mind, for nothing is more deadly.
Finally, the Septuagint, the Chaldean, and the Syriac connect this verse to the preceding, so that everything from verse 1 up to this point signifies that the banquets and company of princes and the rich are to be avoided. Therefore the phrase 'in him' or 'toward him,' which is in the Hebrew, they refer to the rich man or prince; for thus the Septuagint reads: if you fix your eyes upon him (the prince or rich man), he will nowhere appear; for wings are prepared for him, and he returns to the house of his overseer or prefect, as if to say: If you fix your hopes on a powerful or rich man, you are deceived: for he, when you most need him, will withdraw, and leaving you will betake himself to his own people, for example, to his overseer or prefect. Or by 'overseer' understand God, who dominates and presides over all the powerful, as if to say: Do not hope in the powerful, because he will soon die, and will not appear; for the life and soul of men, especially the powerful, is winged, and quickly flies away to God, the overseer of life and death, so that it may be presented before Him as before a Judge, to be adjudged to heaven or to hell according to its merits. To this applies Sirach 10:11: 'All power is of brief life.'
Moreover, St. Jerome on Ezekiel chapter 17, and the Septuagint reads thus: 'In a good sense,' he says, 'it is said of the eagle that the just man, having become rich, makes himself wings like an eagle's, so that he may return to the house of his predecessor. And in Isaiah chapter 40 it is written that the just shall put on wings like eagles, shall run and not be weary, shall walk and not hunger.' He says similar things in his commentary on Zephaniah chapter 1, where however 'teacher' is less correctly read instead of 'predecessor.'
Anagogically, Bede says: 'Do not raise,' he says, 'your mind to scrutinize the secrets of divinity, which you cannot penetrate: for these are open only to the heavenly birds,' namely the Angels and the Blessed; for these are the eagles who by their merits, as if by wings, have flown into heaven, according to Job 39: 'Will the eagle rise at your command, and make its nest on high?' Where St. Gregory, in Morals book IX, chapter 16, understands by the eagle the Saints and the sublimity and contemplation of things. The ancient Romans seemed to see the same thing through a symbol, who in the apotheosis of their Emperors, from the pyre on which they burned their bodies, released an eagle, as if it were carrying the soul of the Emperors upward in flight to heaven, as Herodian testifies, book IV. Whence Dio, book 56: The eagle, he says, carried the soul of Augustus from the pyre into heaven.
Tropologically, do not aspire to offices and virtues above your
The Chaldean reads thus: If you bind your eyes to him (the rich man, mentioned previously), he will not appear for you; because by making he will make himself wings, like an eagle that flies into heaven, as if to say: If you bind your hope to a rich man, he, when he sees you reduced to misery, will despise you as if afflicted on the ground, and resuming his lofty position will fly away to his own rich associates: just as the eagle, when it has descended to the ground, staying there briefly and taking its food, once it has taken it, immediately flies back into the sky.
6, 7 and 8. DO NOT EAT WITH AN ENVIOUS MAN, AND DO NOT DESIRE HIS FOODS; FOR LIKE A SOOTHSAYER AND A DIVINER, HE JUDGES WHAT HE DOES NOT KNOW. EAT AND DRINK, HE WILL SAY TO YOU: AND HIS MIND IS NOT WITH YOU. THE FOODS WHICH YOU HAVE EATEN, YOU WILL VOMIT UP; AND YOU WILL LOSE YOUR FINE WORDS
In Hebrew: do not eat the bread of one with an evil eye; and do not desire his feasts, for as he has judged in his soul, so he himself, namely, judges and speaks, or so he considers and judges the thing itself to be, as if to say: What he imagines and conceives in his fantasy, this he believes to be actually so or to be about to be so: in which matter he often errs and is deceived. For melancholic, envious, and similar persons who have a corrupt imagination fabricate and imagine for themselves many things that are sad, suspicious, exotic, strange, horrible, fearful, and anxious, which do not exist in reality but only in their false imagination. Whence to those suffering from hydrophobia and vertigo, to whom everything seems to spin, we say: 'Do not fear, the house is not spinning, but your brain is spinning; the spinning is not in reality, but in your fantasy.' Therefore our Vulgate aptly and clearly translates: for like a soothsayer and a diviner, he judges what he does not know. The Hebrew word is שער shaar, which with שׁ and שׂ has many meanings: first, to think, to estimate, to conjecture; second, to shudder and to bristle with horror; third, a specter, or something terrifying and horrible; fourth, a gate; fifth, a measure and to measure, as if to say: The miser and the stingy man prescribes a meager measure at table; if anyone exceeds it in eating or drinking, he takes it badly, even though outwardly he says: Eat, drink. Or, as if it means: The miser measures and counts what each person eats or drinks, indeed he virtually counts each individual mouthful. So Isidorus Clarius.
Hence the wonderful variety of translations; for Cajetan translates: because just as bitterness is in his soul, so is he himself, that is, he says, just as bitterness is concealed, so he conceals himself from you. The Tigurine: for inwardly in his mind he lies, and while doing so says to you: Eat and drink; but his heart is not with you. Vatablus: because as he thinks in his soul, that is in his mind, so the matter stands, namely: 'Eat and drink, he says to you; but his heart is not with you.' The Chaldean: do not eat with one who has an evil eye, for just as a gate is raised, so he is lifted up in his soul. The Septuagint: do not dine with an envious man, and do not desire his foods; for just as if someone swallows a hair, so he eats and drinks. Symmachus: as one conjecturing in his mind, so he eats and drinks. The Syriac: do not eat with a gluttonous man, because just as a man swallows pitch, so you eat and drink with him, and his heart is not with you. Aben-Ezra: like a man who designs in his mind and turns over a thought about you, speaking thus: Eat and drink, so he will conduct himself. Others: as a specter was in his soul, so he himself is; he says: Eat, etc.
The bread of the evil eye is the bread of the miser, and therefore of the sordid, envious, and malicious man, who namely looks with malicious eyes at one who is eating cheerfully; for he fears lest you consume too much, and deprive him of his provisions and, as it were, impoverish him. So Aben-Ezra, R. Levi, and R. Solomon, who explains it thus: It is burdensome and bitter for the miser if you eat his food, just as if you were instilling the most bitter gall into his mouth: for the word shaar signifies bitter early figs, Jeremiah 29:17. So he says. The Syriac takes 'evil eye' to mean the glutton; for he looks maliciously at food, inasmuch as he plans to devour, waste, and squander it gluttonously. Others take 'evil eye' to mean the deceitful and malicious man, who plots harm against you, and, if he can, will lace the food with poison to kill you. Whence the Chaldean translates: his heart is deceitful toward you. Hence Cajetan takes 'evil eye' to mean one who badly interprets good words or deeds, and twists them to evil. More aptly, following the Septuagint and the Chaldean, most take 'evil eye' to mean the envious man, who envies the happiness of others, according to that saying of Christ: 'Is your eye evil (that is, envious) because I am good?' Matthew 20:15. Thus the sense will be, as if to say: Do not eat with one who envies you, because, although he pretends to be a friend and invites you, saying: Eat and drink; yet because in his heart he hates you, his invitation is therefore feigned and dangerous. For there is a danger that he may lace the food or drink with poison and thereby kill you, or that he may overwhelm you with food and drink to your own disgrace and destruction, so that you may betray your secrets, or say or do something too freely or inappropriately, by which you create harm and shame for yourself.
Whence mystically, some take the envious man to mean the devil, who envies our salvation, and who, although he may seem to favor us while he invites us to the pleasures of the world, is nevertheless hostile in his soul to our happiness: therefore we are warned not to desire his foods, that is, the pleasures of this world, to which he draws us: for if we do so, we will eventually have to vomit up what we have consumed, whether now
Whether through penance, or afterwards through punishment, when each person will pay as much in penalties as he has immoderately immersed himself in pleasures.
But more accurately, others everywhere understand by the evil eye the miser: for he looks with an evil eye, that is, a sick, sad, and envious eye, upon those who feast more liberally, and he is tormented by their feasting, because he sees his own goods being eaten and consumed too freely. Thus Sirach, following Solomon's usual manner, calls the miser envious, and attributes to him a wicked and evil eye, chapter 14:8: "Wicked, he says, is the eye of the envious, etc. The evil eye looks to evil things, and will not be satisfied with bread; but he will be needy and sorrowful at his own table." See what was said there.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: Do not eat with a miserly and sordid man, and therefore one who envies your refreshment, who indeed grudges and envies you and the other guests their feasting and merriment. "For like a diviner and soothsayer, he judges what he does not know." For just as such men frequently persuade themselves of what is not and what they do not know, so too does the miser. For he thinks that others are of the same character as he himself is, since he measures others by himself, so that just as he himself does not sincerely favor the guests at table, even though he feigns the opposite in words, so too he thinks the guests do not sincerely speak the pleasant and friendly words they utter with him. Hence it follows: "Eat and drink, he will say to you; and his mind is not with you," that is, he does not favor you in spirit with what he offers. And what follows: "The food you had eaten you will vomit up, and you will lose your fine words," that is, the dishes will be unpleasant to you at the sordid man's table, and when you notice his meanness, his table will displease you, so much so that you would wish you could vomit up the food you have eaten, and all the elegance of conversation and table talk that is customary at banquets will perish for you, because it does not move the miser to cheerfulness of spirit. Nothing you said, however fine, at his banquet will profit you, whether praising his dishes, or giving him thanks, or in short whatever you said according to custom at table. So Jansenius and others.
It is a metalepsis, as if to say: The food of the miser will profit you nothing, however delicate, nor will pleasant and fine conversation at table: because when you notice his miserly and envious hypocrisy, you will regret having been his guest, and will wish you had never taken food with him, but rather that you could vomit up everything you consumed with him.
Vatablus explains "you will vomit" differently, as if to say: The miser and envious man will set before you such tasteless, squalid, and filthy dishes that they will provoke nausea and vomiting in you.
Our Salazar aptly understands by "fine words" the problems, riddles, and puzzles which wise men used to propose to one another at banquets in ancient times, as if to say: If you pose some difficult problem, riddle, or puzzle to the miser and envious man during the feast (such is his malice and crafty cunning), he will indicate that he can divine its meaning, in the manner of a soothsayer; and although he does not grasp it, he will nonetheless pretend that he has thoroughly understood it, and will accordingly despise it and hold it as nothing; therefore "the food you had eaten you will vomit up," that is, you will reject it out of disgust, and will prefer to remain without having eaten. Or, as if to say: He will say to you: Eat and drink, that is, he will press you to stuff yourself with food and wine, not out of goodwill, but out of envy, so that he may rob you of your mind and senses through drunkenness and excess, and make you a laughingstock for all, when nature compels you to vomit up the excess; and so you will lose the fine words you would have spoken had you been sober; for being drunk you will speak only ugly, clumsy, and foolish things. In sum, this banquet of the envious man will bring you no pleasure or honor, but much pain and disgrace.
Note: An "ariolus" or "hariolus" is a diviner, who conjectures and divines about future things (for this is the meaning of שער scaar). So called, says Donatus: "As if 'fariolus,' from 'faris,' or from 'fando' [speaking]; for H was exchanged for F, and F for H in many expressions. Or from 'halando' [breathing]? For they were accustomed to exhale as if expelling a mortal spirit, in order to receive a divine one, whence they also uttered a sound which is O E, because the sound O E conveys the force of exhaling." So Donatus. It therefore signifies that, just as the soothsayer and diviner conjecture about things they do not know, according to their own imaginations, and consequently their conjecture is often false, always uncertain and doubtful. Whence that old saying: "One haruspex laughs when he sees another haruspex;" he laughs, namely, at the foolishness of men, who believed in him as if in a truthful Prophet, when he divined from altars and the entrails of birds or victims, though all his divination was mere conjecture and imposture. So likewise the miser and the envious man judge and conjecture about things they do not know, indeed things that neither are nor will be, but which they imagine, and which their avarice, melancholy, and envy suggest to them, namely that you are eating too freely, carving up all the dishes, distributing portions to the guests, and inviting them to drink, and therefore that he will suffer a great loss of food and wealth, and that you intend to mock and trample on his avarice: for he judges you to be such as he himself is, namely deceitful, miserly, and envious — all of which are mere suspicions and often false.
Wisely Elias of Crete in Oration 1 of Nazianzen: "Just as, he says, one who is free from vice is slow to suspect anything evil, so on the contrary one who has given himself over to vice is usually inclined to suspicion, especially to the same vice of which he silently or openly accuses his neighbor, as experience and Cassian teach, along with the other masters of spiritual matters. For the vice which you rashly impute to another, you have in yourself: for you measure others by yourself, and think your own vice is common to all — all of which are mere suspicions and often false. Truly St. Eucherius, in his letter to Valerianus: "If you wish to be truthful, he says, you will not be suspicious; for we suspect only what we do not know." And Nazianzen, Oration 8: "He does not easily suspect evil of another, who is not easily driven to evil," as if to say: Upright men are rarely suspicious, but wicked men are.
The Septuagint read the Hebrew שער scaar with ש, and therefore translate "hair": For just as, they say, if someone swallows a hair, so he eats and drinks — on which more shortly. The Syriac translates: "as a man swallows pitch, so you eat and drink with him," as if to say: Just as pitch when eaten does not nourish but glues the throat together, obstructs, strangles, and kills, so the food of the miser and envious man will not nourish you, but like pitch will torment, torture, and strangle you.
Thus Daniel, chapter 14:26, suffocated the dragon of the Babylonians by a mass of pitch and hairs thrown into its mouth, so that it burst. See what was said there. The Chaldean translates the Hebrew שער scaar as "gate": Just as a gate is raised, he says, so he is exalted in his soul. Which Rabbi Levi explains, as if to say: Just as a gate is constantly open, so that people may go out and come back through it, so the mouth of the miser and wicked man speaks many false things, which afterwards he is compelled to retract and take back when convicted of falsehood. Others explain it thus: Solomon advises, they say, that no one should enter into dealings with a malicious or crafty man, so as to avoid his tricks; for he is like one of those gates that can be raised or lowered, which at first is indeed open and kindly receives those who approach, but then suddenly shuts them in and holds them. And since in this passage the discussion is about riddles or puzzles that used to be tossed about during feasts, the simile of the raised gate aptly fits one who poses riddles and puzzles at banquets with the intention of captiously trapping and enclosing his hearers, so that they cannot escape.
But the words "is raised" and "is elevated" signify that the Chaldean says this of the proud and envious man, who envies the wisdom and praise of others out of pride, because he himself strives to surpass others in these things, as if to say: Do not eat with the proud and envious man, because even though he pretends to be friendly and your equal, he will gradually raise himself above you, and will belittle and despise your words and deeds, so that he may tower above you; just as a gate appears equal to the one approaching it from afar, but the closer one comes to it, the more its upper lintel seems to rise, so that it appears elevated and lofty far above his head.
Moreover, the Septuagint take this maxim as if Solomon were advising not so much that one who is invited by an envious man should not attend that banquet, but rather that no one should invite an envious man: for he will strive to disgrace and ruin the host's dishes, table, and honor. Whence the Syriac, expounding the Septuagint in its usual manner, calls the envious man a glutton; and so they translate: "Do not eat with an envious man, etc., for he does not take food and drink any differently than if someone were swallowing a hair" (the Author of the Greek Chain has "thread"), as if to say: He gorges himself, and like a glutton gulps down dishes and wines as if everything were like a single thin hair or thread. Or by "hair" it signifies harm and poison: for hairs swallowed with food block and choke the throat. "We have seen, says the proverb collector, someone strangled by swallowing a hair in milk." Whence the Syriac translates "hair" as "pitch," which certainly suffocates and strangles those who eat it. The Septuagint continues: "Do not therefore bring him to you, to eat a morsel with him; for he will vomit it up, and will defile your words," because, namely, he will vomit from his gluttony, and will feel nausea at your words just as at the food, and will show that they displease him, and that he holds them cheap and disdains them.
So the Author of the Greek Chain. The aim of this passage, he says, tends to this: Do not readily admit an envious man to your table; for since he is ungrateful, he will show no appreciation for your dishes. But he will not stop gorging and devouring until he has cast out by vomiting what he swallowed; that is, he will behave as if he had emptied himself by vomiting, or had swallowed a hair, and will take no sense from these things, but will reckon them as nothing. But in a higher sense, by the envious man he signifies a man of illiberal and abject spirit who despises divine Scripture and holds its majesty in contempt: therefore, he says, do not open the mystical senses of Scripture to such a person; and by the example of the hair he implies the teaching of those who teach otherwise, as one that suggests poison rather than nourishment. So says that author.
Mystically, Bede also takes this maxim as applying to heretics: "Do not eat, he says, with an envious man, and do not desire his food, etc. Do not discuss the Scriptures with a heretic, who envies human salvation and would rather deceive than be corrected. For just as a soothsayer and interpreter of dreams judges what he does not know, so a heretic presumes to interpret as he pleases what he does not understand in the Scriptures. 'Eat and drink,' he will say to you; 'and his mind is not with you'... Learn confidently what I say, he says, and do what I teach, when he himself does not have certain faith in what he teaches, knowing that he has invented what he teaches. 'The food you had eaten you will vomit up, and you will lose the fine words, etc.' The perverse ideas you had learned from heretics you must necessarily either abandon by correcting yourself through penance, or be compelled to pay penalties for them after death, and you will lose the words of confession by which you had thought you should humbly support them when they preached."
9. DO NOT SPEAK IN THE EARS OF THE FOOLISH, BECAUSE THEY WILL DESPISE YOUR TEACHING
In Hebrew: "because they will despise the understanding of your words." The Septuagint: "Do not say anything in the ears of an imprudent man, lest perhaps he mock your wise" (St. Cyprian, Book III of Testimonies, reads "sensible") "words." Understand "the foolish" here in the full sense, namely one who is hardened in his foolishness, that is, in his imprudence and vices, unteachable and incorrigible: for otherwise it is the duty of the wise to teach the foolish who wish to learn, that they may become wise and endowed with virtue. "In the ears" means the same as "in the hearing of a fool," as Vatablus translates. Note, however, something more, namely that secret, lofty, and sublime things (for we are accustomed to speak these in someone's ear), such as the hidden mysteries of our faith, should not be entrusted to the foolish, who does not grasp them and therefore laughs at and despises them. Whence the Author of the Greek Chain translates and explains thus: "Commit nothing in secret to the ears of a fool, lest perhaps he mock your prudent words." Here the saying of Christ the Savior is implied and at the same time made clear: "Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot," Matthew 7.
10 and 11. DO NOT TOUCH THE BOUNDARIES OF THE LITTLE ONES, AND DO NOT ENTER THE FIELD OF ORPHANS: FOR THEIR KINSMAN IS STRONG, AND HE HIMSELF WILL JUDGE THEIR CAUSE AGAINST YOU
In Hebrew: "do not move from their place the boundaries of old," that is, set from ancient times, or long ago. So Vatablus; the Chaldean: "do not change the boundary that is from of old." The Septuagint: "do not transfer the eternal boundaries, and do not enter the possession of orphans." Symmachus: "do not move the limits of old." For instead of "little ones," the Hebrew has עולם olam, that is, "of old," meaning secular, ancient, and of former times. Our translator read עוללים olelim, that is, "of little ones"; or עלם elem, that is, "of a boy who is hidden at home," which more fittingly corresponds to "orphans" that follows. For just as in chapter 22, verse 28, he forbade the removal of the boundary markers of anyone's fields, so here he forbids the removal of the boundaries of the fields of little ones and orphans, and the invasion of their rights. For little ones and orphans, because they lack judgment and strength due to their tender age, are therefore subject to the injuries of neighbors. These therefore Solomon here forbids, as if to say: Do not touch, that is, do not by touching move and transfer the boundary markers of fields, so as to invade the possessions of little ones who cannot resist you and occupy their portion; and do not enter the field of orphans, so as to occupy it, or by making a road through it, or diverting a water channel through it, or by burdening it with some other encumbrance or servitude, making it subject to yourself against right and justice.
FOR THEIR KINSMAN IS STRONG. — The Chaldean: "because their redeemer is strong, and he will judge their cause against you." Aquila and Symmachus: "their avenger is strong." In Hebrew: "he will litigate their case with you, or against you." For "kinsman" the Hebrew is גאל goel, that is, champion, avenger, kinsman, blood relative, redeemer, who in ancient times among the Jews, by right of kinship, either took upon himself the cause of an injured or slain kinsman and avenged his blood and death, as is clear from Numbers 35, verses 12, 19, 21, 24, 25, 27; or if it was a matter of the possessions of a blood relative, he would customarily redeem the property that had devolved from him and been sold, and reclaim it: such was the brother, and failing him the uncle, and after him his sons, that is, the cousins of the deceased, and then the remaining blood relatives each in their order. It was his duty to marry the wife of his brother who had died without children, so as to raise up offspring for his dead brother, and to beget and name a son in his name: as Boaz married Ruth, chapter 2, verse 20, and chapter 4:4. Hence the Septuagint translate goel sometimes as "redeemer," sometimes as "kinsman," sometimes as "relative," sometimes as "connection by marriage," sometimes as "liberator."
The sense therefore is, as if to say: Do not invade the fields or goods of little ones and orphans, because although they are deprived of the help of parents and relatives, so that they cannot repel your injury, nevertheless they are under the care and protection of God, who is strong, indeed almighty: for He Himself is their goel, that is, kinsman, guardian, protector, and avenger, and therefore He will plead their cause against you, and will condemn you for injustice and robbery, and punish you according to your deserts. Moreover, God is called goel, that is, kinsman or blood relative of men, because He created them, and as it were begot them in His image and likeness, so that they would have a spiritual, rational, free, immortal soul, etc., like Himself, Genesis 2. But properly God is called the goel, that is, kinsman of the poor and orphans, because He takes to Himself those who are abandoned by all, receives them into His care, and as it were adopts them as children, so that He may have a special regard and providence for them above all others. For just as in the state the magistrate and prince claims orphans for himself, to be their guardian and protector, and entrusts their guardianship and care to the most faithful, who may protect and care for them in the name of the magistrate: so in exactly the same way God claims them for Himself, who is the supreme prince, judge, and avenger of all; for it belongs to God to embrace and care for those who are neglected and abandoned by others, according to the verse: "To You the poor man has been left; You will be the helper of the orphan," Psalm 9:34. The poor therefore, especially those who are poor in will and spirit, and orphans are, as it were, children of God's providence; whence God is called "Father of orphans and judge of widows," Psalm 67:6.
Their glory therefore is this, that they can say with the Psalmist, Psalm 32:20: "Our soul waits for the Lord, because He is our helper and protector; for in Him our heart will rejoice, and in His holy name we have hoped." And He in turn may say to each of them what He once said to Abraham: "Do not fear, I am your protector, and your exceedingly great reward," Genesis 15:1.
So in the Life of St. Onuphrius, which the eyewitness Abbot Paphnutius wrote, we read that he and similar anchorites were entrusted by God to the special care of angels, inasmuch as they had left human society and were abandoned by men; since they emulated the life of angels, it was fitting that the angels should have a singular care and concern for them. Whence St. Onuphrius relates there that he was led by an angel into the desert, received bread and water from the same angel daily, and on Sundays also the sacred Eucharist; and furthermore that he was not infrequently caught up to heaven by the same angel, to enjoy the fellowship of the blessed, and in this way lived cheerfully for seventy years in the desert without seeing any human being. "And when he was dying, says Paphnutius, I heard the voice of many angels praising God, and the heavens resounding with angelic songs brought ineffable joy to the stars, through which the heavenly hosts bore the soul of the illustrious soldier into heaven."
Again, when Scripture calls God goel, it implies that the Son of God, namely Christ, was going to assume our flesh, and become our kinsman, indeed our brother, neighbor, and redeemer, so that by right of kinship He might redeem us and vindicate us into freedom. Hence He assumed poverty: for He was born in a stable, lived in a lodging, and died naked on the cross, to signify that He was especially the kinsman, relative, guardian, and redeemer of the wretched and the poor, according to the words of Isaiah 59:20: "When the redeemer (Hebrew goel) shall come to Zion, and to those who return from iniquity in Jacob." And chapter 61:1: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me, etc., to comfort all who mourn." And chapter 41:14: "Do not fear, O worm of Jacob; I have helped you, says the Lord; and your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel." And Job chapter 19:25: "I know that my redeemer lives, and on the last day I shall rise from the earth, and in my flesh I shall see my God."
Christ therefore is the goel of men, especially of the poor, orphans, and wretched — that is, their blood relative, kinsman, brother, guardian, protector, liberator, redeemer, advocate, judge, and avenger. "For He Himself will judge their cause against you (who oppress them)," as their avenger and absolute judge. In Hebrew: "He Himself will litigate their case with you, or against you," as if to say: He Himself, as advocate, will pursue at law the case and cause of the poor against you who afflict them, will prosecute and carry through: and will show you to be guilty, convict, and condemn you. Who then would dare to touch the little ones and orphans, though lacking in resources and mind; who would dare to invade them? Surely no one but a madman, who would dare to touch and invade God Himself, who is the father of the poor, who would presume to contend with God like the giants, and to challenge Him to war, even to single combat. Hence Isaiah prophesied of Christ, as St. Luke reports in chapter 4:18: "He has sent Me to bring good news to the poor." And David, Psalm 71:4: "He will judge the poor of the people, and will save the children of the poor, and will humble the oppressor." And verse 12: "He will deliver the poor from the mighty, and the poor man who had no helper."
12. LET YOUR HEART ENTER INTO INSTRUCTION, AND YOUR EARS INTO WORDS OF KNOWLEDGE
In Hebrew: "make your heart enter into discipline, and your ear into words of knowledge." The Chaldean: "bring your heart into instruction." Vatablus: "apply your heart to education." The Septuagint: "give, or devote, your heart to discipline; and apply your ears to words of sense or understanding." Which the Author of the Greek Chain expounds thus, as if to say: Dedicate your heart to practical use and habit; and when you have successfully attained practical virtue, then at last pursue the contemplative life as well, as if to say: Give yourself first to the active life, and when that is perfected, then give yourself to the contemplative life.
But this is a mystical and anagogical sense. For it is clear from what has been said many times that knowledge, doctrine, understanding, sense, discipline, etc., signify the same thing in this book, namely ethical or practical knowledge, which consists not in barren speculation on the virtues, but in their ardent practice. To this, therefore, Solomon here admonishes that the heart and ears should be devoted: the ears, to hear it, and having heard, to obey; the heart, to meditate upon it, relish it, love it, and practice it: for thus doctrine will flow into conduct, and will exercise itself in the senses, hands, feet, and other members.
The word "let it enter" signifies first, the effort and endeavor of acquiring doctrine, that is, wisdom and virtue, on account of its difficulty, which is opposed to our corrupt nature and concupiscence — as if to say: Rouse and impel yourself with great effort to take up the path of virtue, which will be arduous for you at the beginning, but will gradually become smooth and easy through practice itself. Whence Seneca, Book II, Epistle 51: "Just as, he says, virtues once retained cannot depart, and their preservation is easy; so the beginning of entering upon them is arduous" (he gives the reason), "because this is the first thing that a weak and sick mind does — to dread what it has not tried." St. Ambrose places the difficulty of approaching virtue in another light: "When wickedness is renounced, he says, virtue is immediately acquired. For the departure from malice brings about the entrance into virtue: and by the same effort by which crime is excluded, innocence is joined." Hence Rabbi Solomon translates and explains thus: Bring your heart to instruction, that is, to the place — for example, to the school where you may be formed in wisdom.
Second, the word "let it enter" signifies submission and attention: for just as an ox submits and sets its neck under the yoke, so the student submits and applies his ears and mind to discipline, according to the words of Sirach 6:25: "Put your foot into its fetters, and your neck into its chains; bow your shoulder, and carry it." The reward is given in verse 30 of the same chapter: that these fetters will become the foundation of virtue, and the chains a robe of glory.
Third, it signifies the close embrace of doctrine: for just as form enters into matter, and matter in turn enters into form; and just as a seal pressed into wax is most closely joined to it, so that the seal enters into the wax and impresses its image upon it, and in turn the wax enters into the engraving of the seal to receive its image and impress it upon itself: so doctrine enters into the ears and mind of the disciple when it instructs them; and in turn the ears and mind of the disciple enter into the doctrine when they absorb it and impress it upon themselves.
Fourth, the word "let it enter" signifies the capacity and vastness of doctrine, that is, of virtue, so that we seem not so much to contain it as to be contained by it, and to enter into it. For just as a great and abundant light enters into the eyes, and in turn the eyes enter into the light: so likewise knowledge enters into the knower, and in turn the knower enters into knowledge, especially practical knowledge, as he adapts it to himself and transfers and translates it into his mind and conduct. Thus a powerful sensible object enters the sense (for example, color enters sight, sound enters hearing), and in turn the sense enters the sensible object through intense sensation. Thus the great and burning love of God is like a great pyre and furnace, which seems not so much to enter into those who love, as to surround and embrace them. Such is the love and joy of the blessed in heaven, of which Christ therefore says in Matthew 25:21: "Enter into the joy of your Lord;" because this joy will be so great and vast that the blessed will seem to swim, be submerged, and be swallowed up in it as in an ocean. Hence those phrases of St. Paul: "Put on the new man," Ephesians 4:24. "Put on the bowels of mercy, kindness, humility, modesty, patience," Colossians 3:12. For these virtues are like splendid and divine garments, into which man enters, and with which he clothes, surrounds, and adorns himself.
13 and 14. DO NOT WITHHOLD DISCIPLINE FROM A CHILD: FOR IF YOU STRIKE HIM WITH THE ROD, HE WILL NOT DIE; YOU WILL STRIKE HIM WITH THE ROD, AND WILL DELIVER HIS SOUL FROM HELL
In Hebrew: "do not withhold correction from a child." The Septuagint: "do not cease correcting a little one." Note: "The rod" is properly the switch and chastisement of unruly children, fashioned and designed by nature and God for this purpose, just as the bridle is for the horse and the halter for the donkey. Whence we see that children fear rods, and by fear of them restrain themselves from all mischief, and moreover apply themselves diligently to their studies, which they would otherwise shun, and in short carry out energetically everything they are commanded. For since children are not capable of reason and virtue, nor can they restrain their passions with the bridle of self-control, but are driven like little animals by their imagination and appetite, therefore both the one and the other must be restrained and directed by the rod. Hence "the rod" is a symbol of discipline, which chastises the wantonness of youth and shapes conduct toward honorable behavior. For this reason Homer everywhere assigns the rod to Pallas, goddess of all wisdom. The companions of Ulysses are also said to have been transformed into the shapes of brutes by one end of the rod — namely, by false persuasion and foolishness — but restored to human form by the other end of the rod — namely, by true discipline and knowledge of things. So Pierius, Hieroglyphics 15, chapter 49.
More truly and efficaciously, St. Benedict, by striking with a rod a wandering monk who was vexed by a demon, freed him both from his wandering and from the demon; "and so the ancient enemy did not dare to dominate his thoughts, as if he himself had been struck by the blow," says St. Gregory, Book II of the Dialogues, chapter 4. For this reason in monastic chapters faults are punished with the rod; for those who are not reformed by frequent admonition are cured by the rod. Furthermore, the rod indicates that a superior should chastise the errors of his subjects, but moderately. Hear St. Gregory, Part II of the Pastoral Rule, chapter 6, near the end: "Care must be taken that the superior show himself both mother through affection and father through discipline to his subjects. And amid these things it must be provided with careful circumspection that neither strictness be rigid, nor affection lax." And further: "Which, according to Paul's words, is well signified by that ark of the tabernacle in which together with the tablets there is both a rod and manna: because along with the knowledge of sacred Scripture in the breast of a good superior, if there is a rod of strictness, let there also be manna of sweetness. Hence David says: 'Your rod and Your staff, they have comforted me'; for by the rod we are struck, by the staff we are supported. If therefore there is the strictness of the rod that strikes, let there also be the comfort of the staff that supports. Let there be love, but not weakening; let there be rigor, but not exasperating; let there be zeal, but not raging immoderately; let there be mercy, but not sparing more than is expedient; so that when justice and clemency mingle in the citadel of governance, he who presides may soothe the hearts of his subjects by frightening them, and yet bind them to reverent fear by soothing them."
"He will not die" can be explained in three ways. First, as if to say: If you strike him with the rod, you will deliver him from death both of body and of soul: for he will incur both if he is allowed to indulge himself and his freedom and concupiscence with impunity. Well known is the example of the young man who, corrupted by maternal indulgence, as often happens, when he was being led to execution for his crimes, cried out: "It is not the magistrate, but my mother who leads me to the gallows."
Second, as if to say: The blow of the rod is not lethal; it will not kill the child, but with a moderate sensation of pain will graze his flesh, so that his soul may be healed and he may learn to bridle his desires. The blow of a rod is not the blow of a dagger or sword that kills, but the blow of discipline and medicine that cures vices. Whence St. Gregory of Nyssa, Homily 12 on the Song of Songs: "Therefore, he says, the word 'to strike' seems in this place to denote immortality, according to Deuteronomy 32:39: 'I will kill, and I will make alive; I will strike, and I Myself will heal again': whence David also says that from this rod there arises not a wound, but consolation. 'Your rod, he says, and Your staff, they have comforted me,'" Psalm 22:4.
Third, as if to say: Parents who love their children too much fear that if they chastise them frequently, they will weaken their limbs, so that they become feeble, sickly, and die sooner. But they are wrong, for discipline and strict upbringing makes children robust, so that they live long in health and vigor; whereas a soft and indulgent upbringing makes them flaccid, weak, and sickly, so that they die quickly, as experience proves. Whence Aben-Ezra explains it thus: "He will not die, that is, you will save him, lest his soul suffer a death similar to the body's; or you will preserve him, lest he meet his end while still of immature age." So also Rabbi Levi. Thus the eagle, by striking its young with its wings, exposing them to the direct rays of the sun, and pecking them to the point of blood with its beak, rouses them to fly, and makes them vigorous and strong. The same is done by the hawk, the bear, the nightingale, the deer, and the swallow, as I taught from St. Ambrose on Sirach 30:13, at the end.
St. Ambrose also gives the example and model of strict upbringing of children in the halcyon bird: "Rightly, he says, the young which we so carefully clothe, warm, hide, and protect, we strip of the covering of divine mercy; but the halcyon, clothed in divine garb, clothes those which she has cast out naked," because in the rigor of midwinter she entrusts them to God to be warmed and protected against the storms of the sea.
Symbolically, Rupert, Book IV on Genesis, chapter 16, understands by the child the young world, which, when it was growing wanton, God chastised with the rod of the flood, so that future ages might know how much He opposes sin: "Rightly, he says, and usefully, as God's wisdom taught, He corrected the petulant young world, wanton in flesh and blood, like a foolish child, striking it with such a wound that it could not forget throughout all its ages."
AND YOU WILL DELIVER HIS SOUL FROM HELL. — The Septuagint has "from death"; others, "from the grave"; Cajetan: "you will make him escape from the pit," that is, from the falls and ruins, he says, into which children usually fall when parents have loosened the reins of freedom and concupiscence; or "from the pit," that is, from the deep cavern of ignorance, you will lead him out through instruction. But the Hebrew שאול sheol properly signifies hell, as our translator renders it, and this is more forceful and more meaningful. Solomon therefore teaches here that parents who love and treat their children too indulgently, and do not chastise them when they sin, expose them to the danger of hell; and consequently, in place of the rod, give them Gehenna, which is surely an enormous folly, indeed a crime and an act of hatred toward their children. If therefore, O father, you love your son, give him the rod of discipline, if you do not wish to give him the fire of Gehenna; for you must give him one or the other, the rod or Gehenna — choose. For this reason, the predestination, election, salvation, and blessedness of children depends on upbringing, strict chastisement, and the parents' rod. Conversely, a more permissive upbringing, and the omission of chastisement and the parents' rod, is the cause of the reprobation and damnation of children; for from this they rush into crimes for which they are reprobated and damned. Well known is the story of the five-year-old child who for his blasphemies was snatched from his father's lap by demons and carried to the underworld, which St. Gregory recounts in Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 18. How many children do you think are in hell who curse their parents, and will curse and call down every dire imprecation for all eternity, because through the neglect of chastisement their parents were the cause of their eternal damnation! And not without reason: for they were parents not of life, but of death; not of heaven, but of hell; not of happiness, but of Gehenna forever. For the habits a child puts on, he retains into old age until death: just as parrots retain and repeat even when aging what they learned when young; but when aging they learn nothing new, even though enticed by flattery or driven by blows, according to the saying: "An old parrot ignores the switch." Hence Virgil wisely says, Book III of the Georgics:
"You who, he says, will form rough Calves for study and service, urge them on now, And pursue the path of taming them, While the spirits of the young are pliable, while their age is flexible."
15. MY SON, IF YOUR MIND SHALL BE WISE, MY HEART WILL REJOICE WITH YOU
In Hebrew: "my son, if your heart is wise, my heart also will rejoice, even I myself." It is a Hebrew pleonasm, similar to that of the preceding chapter, verse 19, and contains an intensification, as if to say: I, I say, with my whole heart, with full and pure joy, will rejoice and exult. The Septuagint: "Son, if you are wise, you will gladden your heart and my heart." The Chaldean: "if your heart is wise, I will rejoice in my heart."
16. AND MY INMOST PARTS WILL EXULT, WHEN YOUR LIPS HAVE SPOKEN WHAT IS RIGHT
In Hebrew: "when your lips have spoken upright things." The Septuagint: "and your lips will linger at my lips." After the various incentives applied up to this point, Solomon here spurs the student of wisdom to its pursuit by the goad of filial reverence and fatherly love, as if to say: Son, if you love me your father and teacher, as I know you deeply do, devote yourself to wisdom, that is, to virtue and honorable conduct; for thus you will heap great good and great joy upon yourself as much as upon me. For the progress of a son and student is the joy of the father and master, especially if he sees him advance to such a degree that, from being a student he becomes a teacher, speaking rightly what he has learned, and teaching others: for thus he will transmit and propagate wisdom, and through it himself, his name, and his honor to grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and to all future posterity for many generations. For the father lives on in the son, and the teacher in the student, whom dying he leaves as heir of his doctrine and virtue, according to Sirach 30:4: "His father is dead, and yet it is as though he were not dead; for he has left one like himself after him." Thus the Apostle rejoiced in the progress of Christian doctrine and life among the Philippians and Thessalonians, saying: "Therefore, my dearest and most longed-for brethren, my joy and my crown," Philippians 4:1; "For what is our hope, our joy, or our crown of glory? Is it not you, before our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?" 1 Thessalonians 2:19. See what was said there.
AND MY INMOST PARTS WILL EXULT, WHEN YOUR LIPS HAVE SPOKEN WHAT IS RIGHT. — "The kidneys" [renes], first, are the seat and symbol of affection, desire, and longing, and consequently, if the thing desired and longed for is obtained, of joy. So Aben-Ezra. Accordingly, astrologers teach that the spleen is governed by the star of Saturn, the liver by Jupiter, the blood by Mars, the brain and heart by the Sun, the tongue by Mercury, the stomach by the Moon, but the kidneys and reproductive power by Venus, and they accordingly place them under the power of Venus, says Pierius, Hieroglyphics 33, chapter 40, and Hieroglyphics 34, chapter 18.
Second, Rabbi Levi says: "The kidneys," he says, that is, thoughts; for what we desire, we think about frequently; for where the heart is, there also is the mind — as if to say: My thoughts will be flooded with joy and delight when I hear that your lips have spoken rightly concerning wisdom.
Third, "the kidneys," because in them is the origin of seed, are a symbol of generation and offspring. Whence the verse in 3 Kings chapter 8:19: "Your son who shall come forth from your loins." Hence the kidneys are so called because from them the streams of seminal fluid arise, says Varro. For seed is the foam of the purest blood, which is sent from the liver to the kidneys; from there it flows through suitable channels by a winding path to the reproductive organs, which has been most clearly discovered in anatomical studies.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: When I, your father and teacher, see that you have gone from being a son and student to being a father and teacher of others, I will exult in my inmost feelings and affections, of which the kidneys are a symbol. For, as Aristotle teaches in Book VIII of the Ethics, chapters 11 and 12, grandfathers usually love their grandchildren more than fathers love their sons; because in grandchildren they see their stock being more widely propagated than in their children, and therefore see themselves surviving longer in them. So here Solomon teaches that he will rejoice if his son learns wisdom, but will exult far more if he teaches the same to others and propagates it to posterity, so as to produce for himself, now that he has become, as it were, a grandfather from being a father, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The Septuagint translates: "and your lips will linger at my lips with their words, if they are upright," as if to say: If your lips are upright, so that they speak upright, honorable, and holy things, and teach others, they will cling to and linger upon me and my instruction and the words which I poured from my lips into yours, just as a mother bird with her beak pours food into the gaping hungry mouths of her chicks. Again, "they will linger," as if to say: I will not cease instructing you if I see you instructing others; but I will, as it were, press my lips to yours, so that they seem to linger upon them, to continually suggest to you honorable things which you may teach to others. For this is an enormous incentive for a teacher to teach eagerly and steadfastly, if he sees that his teaching bears great fruit — namely, that by teaching he produces not only students but also teachers, who scatter his teaching to many, and make them wise, that is, upright and holy.
The Author of the Greek Chain reads thus: "If your lips are upright, they will compare their speech with my lips, let not your heart envy sinners" — which last words our translator and others assign to the following verse. The same Author explains thus, as if to say: If you compare your words with my words, and follow my teaching and instruction, then at last your words will be upright; for since they have arisen from good beginnings and upright causes, they cannot fail to produce good thoughts. According to some, however, he indicates here that the one who holds both good doctrine and a good method of teaching will have many students and hearers.
Morally, learn here that nothing brings true joy to the learner as well as to the teacher like wisdom, that is, honorable conduct and virtue. For just as the farmer rejoices if his sowing produces an abundant harvest, so the teacher rejoices if he sees himself producing abundant fruits of virtue and piety in his student, and through him in others. For, as the saying goes: "The farmer cultivates the land; the philosopher cultivates the mind." And St. Gregory Nazianzen, in Antonius's Melissa, Part I, chapter 50: "Nothing is more unconquerable, he says, than philosophy, nothing more tranquil; everything yields before the philosopher does. Two things are invincible, God and an angel; and the third is philosophy. For the philosopher is immaterial in matter, uncircumscribed in the body, heavenly on earth, undisturbed in passions, everywhere inferior to others except in greatness of soul, and conquers by yielding those who think they conquer. I know only one wisdom: to fear God. For the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." And elsewhere: "Hear the sum of the whole discourse: Fear God and keep His commandments. For this is every man," Ecclesiastes 12. And indeed Socrates, when asked in the same passage what was sweetest in life, answered: Discipline and virtue.
17. LET NOT YOUR HEART ENVY SINNERS: BUT BE IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD ALL THE DAY LONG
For "be" the Zurich version translates "persist," namely immovable, like a base and pillar founded in God and the fear of God, so that you may be moved from it by no storms of temptation, according to Psalm 118:38: "Establish Your word for Your servant, in Your fear"; on which words see St. Ambrose.
18. FOR YOU WILL HAVE HOPE IN THE END, AND YOUR EXPECTATION WILL NEVER BE TAKEN AWAY
From the Hebrew, repeating יקנא iekanne, that is "let it envy," it can be translated thus with Aben-Ezra and Vatablus: "Let not your heart envy sinners, but rather emulate the fear of the Lord," that is, a man who fears the Lord, "all the day," that is, at all times of your life — as if to say: Let your heart not grieve, not be afflicted, not torment itself, not envy because it sees the wicked growing rich and prospering, so as to wish to emulate and imitate their way of living and growing rich; but rather emulate and imitate those who fear God, and this with ardent zeal; because even though for a time you may be impoverished and suffer adversity, nevertheless "in the end," that is, eventually, either in this life or in the future, you will obtain the prosperity and happiness you have hoped for, and it will not be taken from you, but will endure and bless you for eternity. For the Hebrew קנא kana, that is "to be zealous," signifies an agitation of the soul, such as exists in zeal. Hence when it is construed with lamed, it signifies to be zealous and to desire or seek something ardently; but when construed with beth, as is done here, it signifies to envy; whence you may more aptly explain: Do not envy sinners their happiness; but this envy is the cause of zeal: for he who envies another's happiness desires it for himself, is zealous for it, and pursues it. He alludes to the verse of David his father, Psalm 36, verse 1: "Do not be emulous of evildoers, nor be zealous of those who work iniquity," as if to say: Do not emulate, that is, do not torment yourself, do not envy the wicked and impious their prosperity, so as to be spurred thereby to pursue it along with them, that is, to live impiously with the impious in order to acquire wealth, good fortune, and luck for yourself through impiety; because these things are brief, cheap, and meager, and not to be compared with the value and reward of piety.
Whence the Psalmist adds: "For they will quickly dry up like grass, and like the green herbs they will quickly wither." Likewise Solomon here adds the reward of piety, saying: "For you will have hope," etc. Whence Rabbi Solomon explains thus: "Do not envy the prosperity and happiness of the wicked, so as to follow their impious ways on that account, because you will have hope" — as if to say: For this is the thing on account of which you may hope to the very end. So also Rabbi Levi.
FOR YOU WILL HAVE HOPE IN THE END, AND YOUR EXPECTATION WILL NEVER BE TAKEN AWAY. — In Hebrew: "for there will be for you a latter end, and your hope will not be cut off." The Septuagint: "for if you keep it, you will have grandchildren, and your hope will not depart." The Zurich version: "for behold, posterity awaits you." The Chaldean: "so that your latter days may be good, and your hope not be consumed." The Syriac: "so that you may have a latter end, and your hope not perish." Aquila and Symmachus: "and your hope will not be destroyed." Pagninus: "for there is a reward for you." Cajetan: "but there is an end, and your hope will not be cut off." Vatablus: "there will truly be an end for you, that is, a reward; for a reward is called by the name of 'end' because it is given at the end of one's labors." Aben-Ezra: "for in the end you will hope, that is, in the last part of your life: for either old age is meant, or the children one leaves behind." "And your hope will not be taken away"; in Hebrew, "will not be cut off," because, namely, you hoped that God would bestow blessings upon you as one who fears and worships Him.
Aptly Jansenius says: By "the end" is meant in the Hebrew idiom the reward of one's work, and that which a man finally obtains by way of fruit and profit, as if to say: Truly for you who persist in the fear of the Lord there is a certain end, that is, a certain sure hope of a reward stored up for you in the future, or the reward itself to be given to you in the last day. Whence our translator has not badly rendered the sense: "For you will have hope in the end," that is, through perseverance in the fear of God there will be and will grow in you hope for that which you will finally attain. Or you will have "in the end," that is, finally at your departure what you now hope for: so that "hope" is taken for the thing hoped for. Or when it is time for you to depart this life, you will have good hope, you will depart with good hope, and what you have awaited will not be taken from you — you will not be frustrated in your expectation as the wicked will be frustrated.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: Do not envy the happiness of the wicked, so as to wish to emulate and imitate it and them, because that happiness has a swift end, and will quickly wither and perish like a flower or grass; but rather emulate those who fear God: because even though for a time you suffer and toil along with them, nevertheless the hope of a great reward, both in this life and in the future, awaits you, which will never be cut off — for soon there will be an end to your labors and sorrows, and your happiness and joy will begin, which will never be cut off.
Note: "You will have hope" can be taken in two ways. First, properly, as if to say: "You will have," that is, you will store up "hope"; you will never cease hoping that you will certainly obtain the reward promised to those who fear God; indeed, as your virtue grows until death, you will grow equally in this hope, while the wicked, as their happiness collapses, lose hope and fall into despair of recovering their lost happiness. Second, "you will have hope," that is, the object of hope, namely the thing hoped for, as if to say: You will attain the reward you have hoped for during so long a time; your hope will be turned into reality, faith into sight, expectation into possession. Therefore Socrates, when asked how the pious differ from the impious, answered: In hope; for they hope for the reward of their labors. Hope therefore is proper to the pious, but despair to the impious. "Nothing, says St. Chrysostom, nourishes and sustains the soul as much as joyful hope and the expectation of good things." And Philo: "Hope, he says, is the anticipatory disposition of the mind, joy before joy, since it is the expectation of good things." And Gregory of Nyssa in Maximus, Sermon 38: "Of the good things that are awaited, affliction is the flower; therefore let us pluck the flower also for the sake of the fruit." Hence the Apostle calls hope the anchor of our shipwrecked life, Hebrews 6:19.
Moreover, this hope, or the thing hoped for, is partly eternal, namely heavenly happiness; partly temporal, namely a long and happy life. Likewise children and grandchildren who are long-lived and happy, as the Septuagint explain, according to the verse of David: "For evildoers will be cut off; but those who wait upon the Lord, they will inherit the earth," Psalm 36:9. The former hope belongs to Christians, the latter to Jews. Concerning this hope and the reward of happiness promised to those who fear God, you have much in Wisdom chapter 5, verse 16, and Sirach chapter 1, verses 12ff. See what was said there. And Isaiah chapter 65, verse 13: "Behold, He says, My servants will eat, and you will hunger; behold, My servants will drink, and you will thirst; behold, My servants will rejoice, and you will be confounded; behold, My servants will praise with exultation of heart, and you will cry out with sorrow of heart." See the same prophet, chapter 66:10. For, as Nazianzen says in Antonius's Melissa, Part II, chapter 93: "The reward of virtue is to become God, and to be illuminated with the purest light." Enticed by this hope and this reward, the ancient ascetics and anchorites voluntarily rushed to endure all hardships through the fear and love of God: on which subject read Damascene, in the History of Barlaam and Josaphat, chapter 12.
Mystically, the Author of the Greek Chain understands by grandchildren the pious thoughts and desires inspired in the mind by Christ, who is the father and grandfather of the faithful and the saints. By grandchildren, he says, or children, he implies in this passage good thoughts, which indeed arise from a good mind: by the same name spiritual contemplations are also designated. A soul therefore empty of such contemplations and thoughts, barren and devoid of offspring, is rightly so called. Good thoughts and salutary sentiments of the soul come from the spiritual spouse, namely Christ.
19. HEAR, MY SON, AND BE WISE, AND DIRECT YOUR MIND IN THE WAY
In Hebrew: "hear you, my son, and be wise, and make upright, or make blessed, your heart in the way." For the Hebrew אשר asher properly means "make blessed," from the root אשר ashar, that is, "was blessed": but if you derive it from ישר yashar, it means the same as "make straight" (for the letters אהוי ehevi, among which are aleph and yod, are not infrequently interchanged). Hence the Zurich version translates: "be wise, so that your heart may be blessed in the way." For, as is said in Psalm 1:1 and elsewhere: "Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked, etc., but his will is in the law of the Lord." And Psalm 111, verse 1: "Blessed is the man who fears the Lord; in His commandments he will delight exceedingly."
It is the part of young people to hear the teaching of the wise, and from it to direct all the thoughts, decisions, and actions of their heart in the way of wisdom and virtue. For hearing is the sense of learning, says Aristotle; for if they do not listen to wisdom, but to their own concupiscence and its followers, they will easily stray from the path of virtue to the path of banquets and drinking parties, toward which nature inclines. Hence he deliberately places this admonition before the following verse about drinking parties.
Similar to this proverb is the saying of the comic poet: "He who does not know the way to the sea, let him follow a river; he who does not know the way, let him choose a guide" — as if to say: He who does not know the way of wisdom, let him ask a teacher and follow a teacher.
The Septuagint translates: "direct the thoughts of your heart"; for thoughts are like paths through which the heart proceeds to the desires, executions, and actions of its musings. Pagninus: "make your heart walk" (others: "make it advance") "in the way." Vatablus: "you will make your heart walk along the royal road." Baynus: "make your heart go, or lead it" — as if to say: By the words and admonitions of the wise, as by goads, rouse your sluggish heart and drive it to take up, or vigorously pursue, the arduous path of virtue. Again Rabbi Solomon explains thus, as if to say: "After you have attained wisdom, you will be able to enter safely the paths of your heart, since a mind cultivated by wisdom will not entice you to crimes." For the heart will already be purified, upright, and holy through wisdom, that is through virtue, since it conforms to the way and law of God. Aben-Ezra: "Chastise, he says, your heart, and properly train your mind." Rabbi Levi: "Accustom your mind to excellent precepts, both as to conduct and as to opinions." Finally the Syriac translates: "Hear, son, and be wise, and my thought will exult in your heart" — namely, seeing your heart to be wise, and to will and do what is right.
20 and 21. DO NOT BE AMONG THE BANQUETS OF DRUNKARDS, NOR AMONG THE FEASTS OF THOSE WHO BRING MEATS TOGETHER TO EAT: FOR THOSE WHO GIVE THEMSELVES TO DRINKING AND WHO CONTRIBUTE THEIR SHARES WILL BE CONSUMED, AND DROWSINESS WILL BE CLOTHED IN RAGS
Solomon dissuades from drinking parties and feasts for two reasons: the first is that wealth is consumed by them; the second is that they bring on drowsiness, idleness, torpor, and laziness, by which it happens that a man, spending his resources on drinking and acquiring nothing while idling and dozing, is reduced to extreme want, so much so that he is forced to put on tattered clothes and go about in rags, as it were, in a patchwork garment sewn from various scraps. In the Hebrew there is no express mention of contributions, but it is implied; for the Hebrew literally has: "do not be among drinkers of wine, and among gluttons or gorgers of meat for themselves; for the drinker and glutton will be impoverished, and slumber will clothe in tatters." It is a personification: for to slumber and drowsiness, as to a person, an action is here attributed, as if to say: Slumber causes the one devoted to it to go about ragged, tattered, and squalid.
Cajetan refers "for themselves" to the mutual toasts and sending of dishes among drinkers and feasters: for guests send their portions to each other, to invite one another to feasting and merriment, as Joseph did for his brothers when he entertained them at a banquet, Genesis 43:34. So that the sense would be, as if to say: Do not frequent drinking parties and banquets in which drunkards and gluttons provoke, indeed compel, one another to feast and drink together by toasting each other, forcing them to respond with equal draughts, and sending delicate portions of food. But more correctly our translator judged that "for themselves" refers to contributions. For in ancient times, and even now, feasters and drinkers were accustomed to organize splendid banquets and drinking parties by contributing among themselves: each person contributed his share, whether of meats, or of wine, or of other delicacies, to the common feast, which was therefore called a symbolum, that is, a collection and pooling of resources. Whence the Council of Laodicea forbids this, chapter 55: "It is not proper, it says, for ministers of the altar, or any clerics, or even lay Christians, to celebrate banquets from such contributions, which the common people call 'comessalia.'" The Septuagint also took this passage as referring to these contributions, translating: "do not be a wine-bibber, or frequent in contributions and purchases of meat." And Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus: "do not be with those who eat meats from contributions among themselves." The Chaldean: "do not be among those who feast on meat, nor among those who get drunk on wine." The Syriac: "do not be drunk with wine, and do not be a glutton of meats."
The sense therefore is, as if to say: Do not enter into the society and friendship of those who, by frequently pooling contributions and shares, set up lavish tables and drinking parties; because at these you will exhaust and consume your resources, and burdened with food and wine you will become drowsy, idle, and lazy; the result being that you will be reduced to poverty and forced to wear tattered rags. Hence the Septuagint translates: "for every drunkard and fornicator will beg, and every drowsy person will be clothed in worn and tattered garments." St. Ambrose, in the book On Elijah and Fasting, chapter 8, reads: "and he will put on the torn garments of foolishness," that is, through his foolishness and foolish gluttony and sloth he is forced to wear them; for lust follows gluttony like an inseparable companion, sloth follows both, drowsiness follows sloth, and poverty and tattered garments follow drowsiness, as is evident in the prodigal son, Luke chapter 15:14. The Syriac: "for the drunkard and the one intemperate in devouring meats will perish, and he who sleeps will be clothed in torn and ripped rags." The Chaldean: "for he who is drunk and voracious will be afflicted with want, and drowsiness will be clothed in torn rags." Rabbi Solomon: "Laziness and sleep will clothe their followers in tattered garments."
Morally, learn here how destructive gluttony is; for it squanders, wastes, and consumes everything. There is no abyss, no chasm that swallows up and plunges one's fortune more than gluttony; the more it is filled, the more it hungers; the better it lunches, the better it strives to dine. Wittily Diogenes, when reading the advertisement for the sale of a profligate young man's house, said: "I knew that, stuffed with wine and food, it would very soon vomit out its master." The same Diogenes, when a young man who had been reduced to poverty by excessive luxury was eating olives for dinner, happened to pass by and said: "If you had lunched this way, you would not be dining this way." Bion of Borysthenes, a very keen and serious philosopher, also said not without wit to someone who had devoured his estates: "The earth swallowed Amphiaraus, but you have swallowed the earth."
There is no need here to recall examples of certain ancient gluttons who suddenly squandered their patrimonies through luxury, such as that Fabius who was surnamed Gurges ("Gullet") from having devoured his patrimony; Gaius Sergius, who bore the name Orata because he devoured that kind of fish with great avidity; Abidius, a Roman citizen, whom Cato jokingly said had committed an outrage; the son of the tragic actor Aesopus, who, in order to plunge the greatest sum of money as quickly as possible into his stomach, served dissolved pearls at lunch, and did not hesitate to season parrots and little birds prized for their song, which were kept as pets and had been bought at great price, instead of ordinary fig-peckers. Daily experience, alas, provides an abundant supply of such examples, as daily auctions and bankruptcies testify. See St. Gregory, Book XXX of the Morals, chapter 13.
Mystically, Clement of Alexandria, Book II of the Pedagogue, chapter 2: "For every drunkard, he says, and fornicator will beg, and every drowsy person will be clothed in tatters and rags; for he is drowsy who does not keep awake for wisdom, but is plunged from drunkenness into sleep. 'And the reveler will be clothed in tatters,' he says, 'and through his drunkenness will be put to shame before those who look on. For the holes of the sinner are those things which have been torn from the garment of the flesh, pierced through by lusts, through which the disgrace within the soul is seen, namely sin, on account of which the garment that is torn apart and ripped from every side, withering with many desires, separated and cut off from salvation, will not easily be preserved.'"
Tropologically, St. Gregory, Book IV of the Morals, chapter 25, keenly expounds this passage about detractors: "It should also be known, he says, that those who feed on the defamation of another's life are without doubt glutted with the flesh of others (for he ponders those words of Job: 'Be satisfied with my flesh'). Whence Solomon says: 'Do not be among the banquets of drunkards, nor eat with those who bring meats together to eat'; for 'to bring meats together to eat' is to take turns speaking of the faults of one's neighbors in the conversation of detraction. Concerning the punishment of such people, it follows: 'For those who give themselves to drinking and who contribute their shares will be consumed, and drowsiness will be clothed in rags.' For they give themselves to drinking who intoxicate themselves on the reproach of another's life; and to contribute one's share is, just as each person customarily contributes his portion of food to eat, so too in the conversation of detraction to contribute words. But nevertheless those who give themselves to drinking and contribute their shares will be consumed, because it is written: 'Every detractor will be rooted out.' And drowsiness will be clothed in rags; because despised and bereft of all good works, death will find the one whom the languor of his detraction occupied here in searching out the crimes of another's life." Bede and the Gloss here transcribed the same from St. Gregory.
The Author of the Greek Chain applies this maxim first to the heretic, then to the slothful and lazy person with regard to the virtues: for thus he says: "Every drowsy person will be clothed," etc. — he who does not keep awake to acquire virtue, nor devotes himself to sobriety, displays the torn and worthless garments of his soul: for by sordid and base pursuits he rends and tears them apart. But the garments of the soul are upright and sound doctrines, and the true and sound convictions of the same put into work and practice. These garments a studious man adorned with virtues acquires in their brightness and splendor, and at all times goes about clothed in white and shining attire, and hates the tunic contaminated by the filth of the flesh. So he says.
Finally, Cassian, Book X of the Institutes, chapter 21, understands by the rags with which the lazy man covers himself the frivolous excuses of incapacity or weakness, etc., with which he veils his own sloth: "For without doubt, he says, he will not deserve to be adorned with the garment of incorruption, etc., whoever, overcome by the sleep of idleness or sloth, has preferred to be covered not with the clothing of his own industry, but with the rags of laziness; because he has fitted to his sloth not a garment of glory or honor, but a shameful covering of excuses," etc.
22. LISTEN TO YOUR FATHER WHO BEGOT YOU: AND DO NOT DESPISE YOUR MOTHER WHEN SHE GROWS OLD
The Chaldean: "submit to your father." The Syriac: "do not despise the old age of your mother." This maxim is clear: for it admonishes a son of the obedience and reverence he owes to his parents, whether when they expressly command something, or when they exhort, advise, or persuade, or when they instruct their son and educate him toward virtue. For a son should always listen to his father, whether commanding, advising, or teaching, and should hearken to him and obey as much as he can. He adds the reason: "Who begot you" — as if to say: Listen to your father, because he begot you. For the act of begetting imposes upon you this duty of listening; for by begetting, the father gave you human and rational life, but rough and unpolished. He must therefore polish and perfect it by education, so that his act of generation may be complete, which without education would be defective and, as it were, only half done. By the law of nature, therefore, the father owes it to educate his son, and the son to listen to him and allow himself to be educated by him. Thus birds educate the chicks they have begotten by their voice and song to sing, by their flight to fly, and by hunting and seeking food to hunt: and the chicks listen to their parents in everything and comply with them, and so grow to perfection in their species. In the same way horses, camels, oxen, and even wild animals — lions, leopards, bears, and wolves — form their young for all the actions suited to their nature, and the young receive and follow their formation precisely.
Again, it is the duty of the one who begot offspring to nourish them both in body and in soul. And just as the nourishment of the body is bodily food, so the nourishment of the soul is doctrine and discipline. Parents therefore owe both the one and the other, and children should receive them with filial affection.
AND DO NOT DESPISE YOUR MOTHER WHEN SHE GROWS OLD. — For often an aging mother is despised by her growing children, not only because of the female sex, but also because of old age, which is weak, fretful, sullen, and sometimes wavers in judgment; whence she is despised by her children, and sometimes even laughed at as a doddering old woman. He therefore admonishes the son always to be mindful of the rights of his mother, and to esteem and reverence his mother even when she is old, by reflecting on how many discomforts she endured for him during nine months in the womb, how many labors, fears, and anxieties, in order to feed, swaddle, raise, comfort, and carefully provide for him in every detail, even the smallest, over many years. See what was said on Sirach 3, verse 3 and following, where I treated this subject at length.
Mystically, the Author of the Greek Chain understands by the aged mother sound and venerable doctrine, about which he adds: "Buy truth," etc. By the name "mother," he says, sacred doctrine is signified in this passage; he says therefore: The doctrine that perhaps seems weak and feeble to you is in itself strong and robust. Rouse yourself therefore, and you will find your mother healthy and quite vigorous: for it is you who, by your negligence and laziness, make her seem old and feeble. Let your mind, he says, and the senses of your soul direct your steps rightly and piously. So he says.
23. BUY TRUTH, AND DO NOT SELL WISDOM, AND INSTRUCTION, AND UNDERSTANDING
The Chaldean: "possess." Truth, wisdom, instruction, and understanding are the same thing, but differ in connotation. Hence the Zurich version translates: "buy truth, wisdom, discipline, and prudence, and do not sell them." He doubles, indeed trebles these terms, to show how highly truth is to be valued, inasmuch as it is first, wisdom, by which we participate in the wisdom of God; second, practical instruction, which educates and composes morals; third, understanding, by which we become intelligent, prudent, and circumspect in every action.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: With every effort, every labor, and at every cost, acquire and preserve for yourself truth and ethical wisdom, and do not sell it at any price of pleasures, riches, or honors — that is, do not exchange or cast it away — because it is more precious than all gold and all cost, as was said in chapter 3:14. Hence the Septuagint, the Complutensian and Royal editions (for in the Vatican edition this verse is missing) have: "Acquire truth, and do not reject wisdom." Vatablus: "Take care to acquire truth for yourself, and do not cast it off, as those who sell something are accustomed to do." Among the philosophers, Diogenes, Bias, Crates, Aristotle, Democritus, and others did this, despising and even casting off their wealth so as to devote themselves entirely to philosophy. Far more truly did the Christian doctors accomplish this: St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Hilary, St. Athanasius, and the rest, who for the sake of Christian wisdom and virtue renounced all riches and pleasures. Religious do the same today, following the words of Christ: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Hear Nazianzen in the poem On Beatitude:
"Happy is he who buys Christ with all his fortunes, And for many is the rule and law of a devout life."
Second, others take "sell" in the proper sense, as if to say: Do not teach others wisdom for the sake of profit, so as to peddle it like a shopkeeper for that price and sell it off to them. Note here: Truth properly can neither be sold, because it is a vital act proper and inherent to each person, or its object, namely the conception and judgment of the mind conforming to reality, when the mind conceives a thing as it is in itself; nor should it be sold, because truth is spiritual, and if it is supernatural, to sell it would be simony. Hence St. Augustine, in the treatise On Christian Discipline, chapter 1, volume 9: "It is unworthy, he says, and injurious, if wisdom should be purchased with money." See our Lessius, treatise On Simony, doubt 13, where he fully and precisely teaches in which cases it is lawful to accept payment for teaching, and in which not: A teacher, he says, may sell his labor of teaching, his effort, and his voice, but not wisdom itself, etc.
Again, those sell truth who are reluctant and only willing to reveal and teach it when wearied by great entreaties. "For what is bought by prayers is bought dearly." Likewise those who peddle and display it: for they sell it at the price of praise and glory.
Finally, Rabbi Solomon explains thus, as if to say: "When you cannot attain truth without cost, obtain it by paying the price; but afterward do not sell it: Just as I acquired wisdom at my own expense, so by paying me the price I will instruct others in it." Aben-Ezra says, as if to say: "Buy books in which truth is contained, and once bought, do not dispose of them and sell them off." Rabbi Levi: "Obtain knowledge of the truth, and once known, do not forget it." The first sense is the genuine one.
24. THE FATHER OF THE JUST EXULTS WITH JOY: HE WHO HAS BEGOTTEN A WISE SON WILL REJOICE IN HIM
In Hebrew: "the father of the just will greatly exult, and he who begets a just man will rejoice in him." The Septuagint: "a just father nourishes well, and in a wise son his soul will rejoice."
25. LET YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER REJOICE, AND LET HER WHO BORE YOU EXULT
The Chaldean: "who bore you." The first maxim concerns the father; the latter, which is drawn as a conclusion from the former, concerns the son, as if to say: A father wonderfully rejoices and exults if he sees his son cultivating justice, living devoutly and holily. "For he who has begotten a wise man," that is, a prudent and upright one, rejoices in him, because he takes joy both in his son's good and in his own: for the good and honor of the son is the good and honor of the father, and moreover the character and seeds of the children's virtue are drawn and flow from the parents. Therefore, if people see a son of excellent conduct, they judge that he has drawn these habits, or at least the good seeds of character and good dispositions, from his father and mother, according to the verse of Horace:
"The brave are born of the brave and good: In young bulls, in horses, the virtue Of their sires is found: nor do fierce Eagles beget a timid dove."
The father of a wise man, says Rabbi Levi, rejoices on account of his illustrious deeds and accomplishments, especially since it is added that he enjoys greater care from God on account of his son's merits. In this therefore parents are carried away with joy for the same reason that they are gripped with sorrow and distress on account of a son's foolishness.
Then turning to the son he draws this conclusion: Therefore, O son, so order your life and conduct, so live wisely and uprightly, that you may fill your parents with this great joy — that both your mother and your father may exult in your virtue, your illustrious deeds, your reputation, and your glory. Render this consolation to your mother who bore you, in return for so many labors, troubles, and dangers she endured in conceiving, bearing, nursing, and raising you, so that you may obtain their blessing. For God hears and fulfills this blessing, as He fulfilled the blessing of Isaac on his deathbed given to Jacob, Genesis chapter 27:28.
Mystically, Bede says: "Let God the Father rejoice in your justice, and let the Church your mother also rejoice; and let the priest who regenerated you through the grace of baptism, who educated you from childhood, congratulate himself on your good works."
26 and 27. GIVE ME YOUR HEART, MY SON: AND LET YOUR EYES KEEP MY WAYS. FOR A HARLOT IS A DEEP PIT, AND A STRANGE WOMAN IS A NARROW WELL
The Septuagint: "a pierced cask (others: broken) is a stranger's house, and narrow is a stranger's well." For "for" signifies that this verse coheres with the preceding one and gives its reason.
Whence first, some explain, as if to say: O my son, give your heart to wisdom and to me its teacher; do not give it to a foolish harlot: for if you give it to her, it will be swallowed up as in a very deep pit, from which to extract it and restore it to wisdom will be difficult and almost impossible. So Hugo, Dionysius, and others.
Second, and more accurately, as if to say: O son, offer (in Hebrew: give or hand over) your heart to wisdom, so that you may apply it entirely to its pursuit and to me its teacher, and consequently give me your eyes, so that you may direct them to reading my ways, that is, my laws, and more importantly to keeping them. For thus it will come about that you will not fall into the nets which the harlot prepares for you, to drag you into her trap, her pit, and your ruin. For the harlot adorns, polishes, and beautifies herself so as to seize, entice, and destroy the eyes and hearts of young men, like a siren drawing them to herself. For nothing is so contrary and treacherous to wisdom and virtue as lust and the harlot. By "heart" understand the mind and will. "Give me your heart" signifies and requires attentiveness of spirit to receive the discourse in one's mind, says Aben-Ezra, who thinks that תצרנה tissorna, that is, "let them keep," is placed by metathesis for תרצנה tarosna, that is, "let them run." "Let the eyes of my precepts run along the paths," he says. Rabbi Levi: "Give me your heart, my son" — that is, he says, do not desire or wish for anything other than to be filled with virtue. "Let your eyes keep my ways" — let them observe those ways to which I have directed you in this book, namely to wage war against the desires of the body and to strive for the freedom of the mind. Since the desires by which mortals are most drawn away are the enticements of lust and the pleasure of wine, he admonishes that one must above all abstain from these. Therefore, in order that we may reject the vice of foul lust, he says that a harlot is like a deep pit.
Note: He joins the eyes to the heart, because there is a great sympathy between the heart and the eyes, so that the heart seems to dwell in the eyes and the eyes in the heart. For what the heart loves, it directs the eyes to gaze upon, so as to feed itself on the beloved object through sight and contemplation. Hence the common saying: "Where the eyes are, there is the heart, there is love; where the hands are, there is pain." Hence the eyes are the leaders in love. "The eyes, says Cicero in On the Orator, are those by whose intensity, relaxation, direction, and merriment we express the movements of our souls."
Again, the eyes are fittingly joined to the way, because the eyes guide the one who walks, so that he may walk the straight path, lest he turn aside from it into trackless regions, or dash against rocks and stones, or fall into a pit.
Morally, God demands the heart of man, especially of the faithful and holy, because the heart is the principle of life and of every thought, will, and action. Hence the heart is the first thing that lives and the last that dies; therefore if God possesses the heart, He possesses the whole soul and the whole person. For the heart, that is, the will, is like a queen that commands and rules all the senses, faculties, and members, whether by political or despotic authority. For the will moves the intellect to find in what it loves reasons and motives for loving; it moves the memory to remember those things continually and to present them to itself for continual loving; it moves the eyes to gaze upon the beloved thing; the ears, to hear its praises; the touch, to embrace it; the feet, to walk toward possessing it; the hands, to seize it; and so with the rest.
God therefore demands a gift from man. But what? The heart. Why? Because the heart is the most important thing in man, and virtually the whole person; for the heart encompasses and governs memory, intellect, and all the other faculties. For "heart" here signifies first, the mind; second, love, affection, and the will, which is the origin of every emotion and action. God gave you His own heart, namely the Holy Spirit, as St. Thomas and Gregory of Nyssa say, or, as Eucherius says in the Spiritual Formulas, chapter 1, His Son who was in His bosom and innermost being: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." He therefore asks for an equal antidote in return, namely your heart. They say that a certain hermit asked God what gift he desired, by which he might merit His grace and heaven; and the answer was given him by a cunning demon that this gift consists of three parts, namely a new moon, the circle of the sun, and the quarter of a wheel: for the new crescent moon represents the letter C, the circle of the sun the letter O, and the quarter of the wheel the letter R. Join these three letters and you will have COR [heart], that is, the gift that God asks for. So our Maximilian Sandaeus reports in the Heart-Offering of Julius, Bishop of Wurzburg. Robert Holcot, or rather Thomas of Wales, Lecture 12 on Proverbs, has something similar. Thus Abel, offering his heart to God, pleased Him more than Cain. Whence Rupert on Genesis 4: Both offered, he says, but did not rightly divide. For Cain, while offering his things to God, had kept himself for himself, having placed his heart in earthly desire. God does not accept this kind of portion: "But give Me, he says, your heart, my son." But Cain kept his heart for himself and offered the fruits of the earth to God. Abel, however, by first offering his heart and then his substance, offered a far greater sacrifice. So Rupert. Abel therefore, besides those choicest and richest gifts, offered his love, than which nothing is more choice or more pleasing to God. For what are all gifts before the eyes of God, however rich, if love is denied? "Works, says St. Ambrose, Book I on Jacob, chapter 8, are commended by good affection."
Hear St. Augustine (or whoever the author may be, for the style argues that it is not St. Augustine), in the treatise On the Four Virtues of Charity, past the middle, volume 9: "What does He (God) seek from you? What was said to Abraham: 'Give Me your only beloved son'; to you Wisdom says: 'Give Me your heart, My son.' Therefore if God possesses the heart, He possesses the whole soul and the whole person. For the heart, that is, the will, is like a queen that commands and rules all the senses, faculties, and members, whether by political or despotic authority. He Himself is the unique beloved. Why do you fear to offer your heart? Offer the sacrifice of a contrite heart to the Lord your God, and say to Him with the Prophet: 'In holocausts You will not take delight. A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God will not despise.' Fear nothing when such a sacrifice is offered; it will be accepted by You, and what you have offered will remain whole."
St. Bernard beautifully expounds this teaching in a letter to one who asked what God requires of us: "Our heart, he says, can produce nothing more worthy than to restore itself to Him by whom it was made, and this the Lord seeks from us, saying: 'Son, give Me your heart.' For then indeed the heart of man is given to God when every thought terminates in Him, revolves and turns about Him, and wishes to possess absolutely nothing besides Him, and so, with its affection bound to Him, loves Him that without Him all love is bitter. Nor would I say that giving one's heart is anything other than making it captive to His every will; and so submitting to His will entirely that it wishes nothing other than what it knows He wills." From which he concludes: "And so the heart given to the Lord will adore Him in all things and for all things, and give thanks; even if many things seem troublesome to our senses, it will take up no disturbance from the novelty of events; tested by the Lord through tribulations and harsh conditions, it will not be shaken. In distress, that is, in want, it will rejoice. Whatever is inflicted, even if it has a harsh feeling, it will accept as something impelling toward higher things. He who has given his heart to God will sing melodiously, and will say with the Prophet David: 'My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; I will sing and make music in my glory.'"
He then adds the ways and steps by which the heart is to be given and directed to God, which read in the text itself.
Let us therefore pray constantly with our Father Alvarez, Book III On Perfection, page 2, chapter 17: O Lord my God, and God of my heart, who never cease to sound these words in my heart: "Give Me your heart, my son," by which You urgently request the love of my heart, and inflame my will to love You with my whole heart: grant, I beseech You, to my heart the perfect love of the heart, which You have deigned to ask for by commandments, counsels, benefits, persuasions, promises, and threats: because no one can render You anything unless You have first kindly granted it to him, and bestowed it with generous hand. You ask from me the love of my whole heart, saying: Love Me with your whole heart; and I indeed will restore to You the depth of my whole heart, if You first give it. Grant therefore, O Lord, through Your infinite goodness, that I may love You with my whole heart — that I may prefer Your good pleasure and Your love to all gifts and charisms, and never overflow with harmful presumption toward loving created things, either against You, or above You, or apart from You.
A memorable example is found in the Life of Blessed Henry Suso, chapter 4; for while he was burning with the most fervent desire for eternal wisdom, she presented herself to be seen by him in bodily form: now bearing the image of an elegant maiden, now of a most beautiful young man. And so, turning most sweetly toward him, smiling at him graciously, yet not without a certain divine majesty, she kindly addressed him with these words: "Give Me your heart, my son." Then indeed, prostrate at her feet, he thanked her from the depths of his heart and with the utmost humility. Thence his love for her grew more ardent, so that he longed to unite her to himself as his spouse; and so, intoxicated with love, he exclaimed: "With my whole heart, senses, and soul I embrace You, the inexhaustible abyss of all desirable things, with the burning affection of my heart." Meanwhile she sometimes communicated herself to his heart, as the font and overflowing stream of all good, in which he found at once whatever was beautiful, lovable, or desirable: for it existed in her in an ineffable manner. Therefore again and again, embracing her as the most beloved friend with tearful eyes and his heart's embrace expanded immeasurably, he offered her his whole heart, and thenceforth was called the Servant of Eternal Wisdom.
FOR A HARLOT IS A DEEP PIT
He said the same in chapter 22, verse 14, where I explained it. Note: "Deep" signifies that this pit of harlotry is such a deep abyss that for those who fall into it there is scarcely any hope of emerging. For the harlot detains her lovers in it with her honeyed snares and harlot's arts so effectively that they cannot extricate themselves from her. Whence the comic poet:
"Love is nothing else but a sad and sick pleasure; Nothing but a sweet evil, nothing but a sorrowful good. It diminishes reputation, obstructs better deeds: In a short time it wastes great wealth."
For "pit" the Hebrew is שוחה schucha, which properly signifies a pit or ditch into which those who fall are destroyed; whence it is taken for corruption, desolation, destruction, and the grave. Hence the Septuagint translate schucha now as "pit," now as "cask" (as in this passage: for a cask is hollow like a pit); now as "filth," because pits tend to be muddy and filthy, as is clear from Job 9:31; now as "death," as in Job 17:14 (where our translator renders "corruption": "I have said to corruption: You are my father; my mother and my sister, to the worms"); now as "corruption," as in Jonah 2:7; "destruction" or "ruin" or "slaughter," as in Psalm 9:15, Isaiah 51:14; now as "foolishness," as in Psalm 118:85; now as "pathless," as in Jeremiah 2:6; now as "word," as in Jeremiah 18:20 and 22.
All of these apply to the harlot. First, the harlot is a very deep ditch into which her lovers rush headlong, are destroyed, and perish, both as to soul and as to body. He alludes to the houses and hovels of harlots, which seem not so much houses as dens, pits, and lairs of wild beasts; whence they are also called underground vaults [fornices], and from this comes the name "fornication." Indeed, harlots not infrequently dwell in the ditches of city walls and ramparts, among bushes and thickets, and there, like foxes, they lie in wait for passersby, and lure them and lead them astray into these wooded ditches, as I have seen done by them in certain cities of Germany. Mystically, these pits aptly signify that young men seduced by harlots plunge themselves from the high wall of civil and honorable life — that is, from the pinnacle of honor, reason, and virtue — into the deepest pit of lust, infamy, and every disgrace and crime.
Second, the harlot is death, because she kills the souls and often the bodies of her lovers; indeed, she is the cause that young men quarrel among themselves on account of her beauty, and kill each other in sword fights. Hence St. Isidore, treating of the fornicatress: "These, he says, are those whom the lethal Theta has already marked"; for by the letter Theta judges used to condemn the guilty to thanatos, that is, death. Whence the verse of Persius: "And he is able to affix the black theta to a vice." And St. Chrysostom, Homily 49 on Matthew: "Lust, he says, makes not only the wanton, but also murderers," as Herodias was made the murderess of St. John the Baptist.
Third, the harlot is a tomb, but a whitewashed one, says St. Chrysostom on Psalm 50, because outwardly she appears white and adorned, but inwardly she is full of filth, rottenness, and venereal disease, and infects and destroys her lovers with other maladies. She herself is the tomb in which lust buries the living. Whence Stobaeus, Sermon 6 On Intemperance: "Diogenes, he says, used to say that most people bury themselves alive and cause themselves to rot by soaking in baths and putrefying through sexual activity. But when dying, they finally order their bodies to be hidden away in spices and aromatics; some even in honey, so they do not rot quickly" — as if to say: Diogenes laughed at the folly of men, that they corrupt their living body, which ought to be kept whole, with the filth and squalor of luxury, while they embalm their dead body, which must necessarily decay, with balsam, myrrh, and other aromatics, to preserve it from corruption: when it is the living bodies that ought rather to be preserved for a longer life, and the dead ones left unembalmed so that they may be quickly consumed.
Fourth, the harlot is squalid, indeed she is sheer filth, because she is utterly poor, utterly squalid, utterly foul, full of stench, pus, and rottenness. Whence St. Chrysostom, Homily 29 on Matthew: "How, he says, does the one seized by lust differ from the demoniac? The result is that he is never in himself, but dwells among tombs. The lodging-houses of harlots are tombs, since they are filled with much stench and much rottenness. Neither threats nor exhortations can bind him: he despises all these bonds."
Fifth, the harlot is a source of ruin both to herself and to her lovers and to the whole commonwealth; for she destroys its noblest young men and citizens.
Sixth, the harlot is foolishness, because she is full of trifles, frauds, and lies, by which she entices, ensnares, and drives mad those who approach her, so much so that she seems to be composed and stitched together from such things.
Seventh, the harlot is a perforated cask, into which, even if you pour in the wealth of Croesus, it flows out and is squandered, and she herself is always in need and remains destitute and empty.
28. She lies in wait on the road like a robber, and those whom she sees unwary, she will slay. — In Hebrew it is kecheteph, that is, like prey and plunder. Hence first, Pagninus translates: she too, as if for prey, will lie in wait, meaning: Just as a cunning fox lies in wait for hens, and a wolf for sheep, to make them its prey and food, so likewise the harlot lies in wait for unwary and inexperienced young men, who are like simple sheep and hens, in order to plunder and seize them and their wealth, and indeed their health, reputation, life, and conscience — whence from wolves, that is, from harlots, brothels [lupanaria] were named.
Second, Marinus in the Lexicon translates: she too, like plunder, will lie in wait. This is an elegant Hebraism, in which the abstract is used for the concrete. Plunder, that is, the most rapacious — namely a wild beast, or a plundering robber. Whence the Chaldean translates: like a beast of prey (that is, like a beast seizing) she will lie in wait with her eyes. For a harlot is a most rapacious and voracious beast, indeed a collection of all beasts, so that she seems to be compounded from all of them. For in a harlot there is the cunning of a fox, the voracity of a wolf, the quarrelsomeness of a dog, the malice of an asp, the cruelty of a tigress, the pride of a lioness, the venom of a serpent, the ferocity of a dragon, as St. Chrysostom teaches, Homily 45 on Matthew. The word 'with eyes' can be referred both to 'seizing' and to 'lying in wait,' meaning: Other wild beasts lie in wait with their eyes, but seize prey only with feet and claws; but the harlot surpasses wild beasts, for from a distance she not only lies in wait with her eyes, but also snatches those who look upon her like a Siren, and attracts and draws them to herself, just as a magnet draws to itself iron that is remote and distant; and those snatched she despoils, slays, and devours after the manner of Sirens.
Third, the Septuagint translates syntomōs, that is, concisely — meaning briefly, quickly, suddenly, swiftly, as the Syriac, R. Solomon, the Complutensian and Royal editions translate; or rather concisely, that is, in the cutting and tearing of plunder. For wild beasts, when they catch a sheep or hen, immediately tear it apart with teeth and claws, rend and lacerate it, in order to devour it. Thus from the Septuagint you may translate: for this man (the fornicator) will perish in the tearing, because the harlot like a wild beast will tear, mangle, and devour him as prey.
Fourth, our translator [the Vulgate] clearly and vigorously translates: she will lie in wait like a robber, because he takes 'plunder' with Marinus as meaning a plunderer, such as a robber, or for ann cheteph, that is, plunder, with different vowel points reads anri coteph, that is, a robber, brigand, plunderer. Whence the Zurich Bible translates: she too, just as plunderers are accustomed, sets ambushes. So also R. Levi and Aben-Ezra.
For first, just as a robber lurks in caves, grottos, and forests, and generally prowls in darkness and at night — whence a robber [latro] is named from lurking [latendo], or because he attacks from the side [a latere], as Festus says — so too the harlot secretly sets ambushes and generally seizes her prey by night. Again, she blinds and maddens a man, and strips him of the light of reason and judgment, so that she may seize and plunder him as a blind man. Hear St. Chrysostom, Homily 11 on 1 Corinthians: 'Just as robbers and wall-diggers,' he says,
AND A NARROW PIT IS THE STRANGE WOMAN. — 'Strange,' that is, a harlot who is not your wife. She is compared to a narrow pit, first, because just as a well is deep and dark, so that it seems to be an abyss, so too is lust and the harlot. Hear St. Chrysostom, Homily 11 on 1 Corinthians: 'For when the soul has been captured by shameless lust, just as clouds and darkness cover the eyes of the body, so when lust has snatched from the mind the faculty of seeing clearly, it allows nothing further to be seen — not the precipice, not hell, not fear — but once the mind is occupied by its tyranny, it can easily be conquered by sin, and like a wall without windows raised on all sides before the eyes, it does not allow the ray of justice to shine upon the mind, with absurd thoughts of lust driving it away from every side.'
Second, just as a well is narrow — whence that riddle: 'Tell me in what lands, and you will be my great Apollo, the space of heaven extends no more than three cubits?' — namely in a well. So likewise narrow is the house, furniture, soul, and all the possessions of a harlot. Again, she brings both herself and her lovers into extreme straits. Whence the Syriac translates: A well of anguish and tribulation.
Third, a well is full of mud and filth, says the author of the Catena of the Greeks, and indeed full of frogs and toads. So too the harlot is entirely foul and fetid, and indeed carries a toad, that is, a demon, in her breast. The Septuagint translates: and a narrow foreign well. This alludes to private wells of another's house, which tend to be narrow, since they belong to a single household — whence they often do not supply enough water for neighbors. Therefore in many places individual houses have their own wells. The meaning is: Just as the well of another's house is narrow and suffices for that house alone, but not for the neighbors, so likewise another man's wife is narrow, who, bound to one husband by the law of marriage, cannot extend herself to others without enormous treachery and danger to life. For if the husband discovers or suspects that his wife loves another man, he will pursue both to the death, according to that verse in chapter 6:34: 'For the jealousy and fury of a man will not spare on the day of vengeance, nor will he yield to anyone's prayers, nor will he accept any amount of gifts for ransom.' This is what Isaiah says in chapter 28:20: 'The bed is too narrow, so that one falls off, and the blanket is too short to cover both.' See what was said on chapter 5:45, on those words: 'Drink water from your own cistern, and streams from your own well, etc., keep them for yourself alone, and let not strangers share with you.'
when they want to seize something valuable, they do so with the lamp extinguished: so too lust acts within us, for there is in us a perpetually burning light of reason. That spirit of wickedness, therefore (namely lust), rushing in with great force, extinguishes that flame and immediately plunders and despoils everything that is hidden.' For what lust does, the lustful harlot does; for she is the enticement and charm of lust, and is herself as it were lust incarnate.
Second, just as a robber first seizes the treasure, then life: so too the harlot first seizes wealth and chastity (which is an immense treasure), then health and life, and thrusts her lovers into death and hell. Therefore St. Bernard, when he was an elegant young man, being tempted a third time at night by his hostess to fornication, cried out: 'Robbers, robbers!' And thus he drove her away, suffused with shame and confused with fear of being exposed. When asked in the morning what robbers he had seen at night, he answered: 'Truly a robber was present, and my hostess was trying to steal from me my chastity, an irreplaceable treasure.' Whence, to escape these dangers from robbers, he entered the Cistercian Order. For if he is a robber who steals wealth, how much more is he a robber who strives to steal chastity, which is an incomparable treasure? So his Life records, Book I, Chapter III.
Third, just as robbers beset public roads to attack passersby, so too do harlots — whence they have also been called Semitariae [road-women]. More has been said about the ambushes of the harlot in chapter 7:10.
Mystically, apply everything that has been said about the harlot to concupiscence and any illicit pleasure, as I said in chapter 7:40 and following.
AND THOSE WHOM SHE SEES UNWARY, SHE WILL SLAY. In Hebrew: and she will add transgressors among men. The Syriac: and many men multiply iniquity. R. Solomon: she will add rebels among men, that is, she will increase the number of those among the Israelites who have offended God. Aben-Ezra: she will add a plunderer to mankind, that is, she joins others similar to plunderers. For the harlot, says R. Levi, forms an alliance with murderers and plunderers, and lures the unwary by her arts to a place where they fall by the hands of assassins. Cajetan: and she will add sinners among men. The Zurich Bible: she joins transgressors to herself. Vatablus: she multiplies — because obviously the harlot invites all to love her, and thence to quarrels, brawls, and murders; therefore she slays the unwary, as our translator aptly renders it. For from the Hebrew you may translate word for word: and she will gather transgressors to Adam (for if iosiph, that is 'will add,' is derived from not asaph, it means 'will gather'), that is, she will slay. For in Hebrew, death is called a gathering; whence to be gathered to one's fathers is the same as to die; and to gather someone to his fathers is to slay him. I assigned the reasons for this phrase at Hosea 4:3, on those words: 'And the fish of the sea shall be gathered,' that is, shall fail and die, as the Septuagint and Chaldean translate. Hence also Theodotion in this passage translates: and she will take away transgressors among men. The Chaldean: and she hunts foolish sons. The Septuagint: and every wicked person shall be consumed. Truly St. Cyprian says in On the Singularity of Clerics: 'The time of struggle is still being waged, and death through woman still rages,' meaning: Just as Eve, seducing Adam, brought sin and death upon all posterity, so too an enticing and lustful woman destroys the greater part of mankind, and drags them along with her into lust, death, and hell. St. Cyprian continues: 'I lie if we do not see from this the destruction of very many. How many and what sort of bishops and clerics together with laypeople, after having trampled the contests of confessions and victories, after great deeds and signs or wonders shown everywhere, are known to have shipwrecked with all these things, when they wish to sail in a fragile ship! How many lions has one delicate weakness tamed, which, though vile and wretched, makes great men its prey!' Whence he adds in exhortation: 'Far be this plague and pestilence, this secret destruction. O how uncontrollably the proximity of a woman strikes, whose neighborhood is a robbery of sins!' meaning: Just as cities and roads near robbers are full of murders and robberies which are constantly perpetrated by them, and are infamous, so too the harlot makes everything near her dangerous with her lusts and crimes that follow from them, so that the harlot, or she-wolf and brothel, seems to be the den and robbery of all sins.
29. To whom is woe? To whose father is woe? To whom are quarrels? To whom are pitfalls? To whom are wounds without cause? To whom is redness of eyes? — This maxim is directed against drunkards and wine-bibbers, and enumerates many grave damages of their gluttony and excess. Whence he adds:
30. IS IT NOT TO THOSE WHO LINGER OVER WINE, AND WHO STRIVE TO DRAIN THEIR CUPS? — 'To whom is woe,' that is, to whom belongs immense calamity and lamentation, if not to the wine-bibber and
the drunkard? R. Levi: to whom is harm and ruin inflicted? Who batters the heavens with laments and complaints? The drunkard. For 'woe' signifies an extraordinary groan with beating of the breast and clasping of the hands, on account of immense disaster and grief, according to that passage: 'And there were written in it lamentations, and a song, and woe,' Ezekiel 2:9. See what was said there. Where St. Gregory says that 'woe' denotes the eternal curse and damnation of hell — this, therefore, is prepared for drunkards, as is clear from Galatians 5:21.
TO WHOSE FATHER IS WOE? — Rightly so: for the Hebrew word aboi is composed of ab, that is, 'of the father,' and oi, that is, 'woe.' For drunken children cause their parents a thousand sorrows, troubles, griefs, fears, quarrels, brawls, and dangers. Second, others derive aboi from aba, that is, 'he desired'; whence they translate: to whom belongs the appetite or desire to possess many things, which he consumes and squanders at banquets? — certainly to the glutton and drunkard. Third, others with Aben-Ezra translate: to whom is poverty? For aba, just as it means to desire, so also means to be in need: hence ebion means a needy and poor person, because since he lacks many things, he desires many. The meaning is: The drunkard craves all things, because he is in need of all things. For banquets lead him to extreme destitution and make him lack everything. Fourth, the Syriac translates: to whom is disturbance? And the Septuagint: to whom is tumult? For wine stirs up tumults and makes drunkards tumultuous. For since their brain is completely disturbed, like a raging sea they disturb everything and inflame it with quarrels. Fifth, the Chaldean: to whom is a hideous appearance? For drunkards become livid, sallow, gloomy, morose, and take on the various shapeless forms and appearances of beasts: for now they snarl like dogs, now grunt like pigs, now roar like lions, now gesticulate like monkeys, now glare like bulls, now howl like wolves.
TO WHOM ARE WOUNDS WITHOUT CAUSE? — For a drunkard, without any offense or reason given by anyone, quarrels, curses, and strikes; and therefore in turn he is struck and beaten, and that with a more sure and accurate blow, since a sober man in control of himself delivers it with a steady and firm hand. In Hebrew: to whom are wounds for nothing? Cajetan: to whom are blows on the head for naught? The Septuagint: to whom are superfluous bruises? For drunkards, inflamed by wine, rashly quarrel, fight, and wound one another. Hear St. Basil, Homily on Drunkenness: 'Alas! What are you doing, O man? A servant flees a master who beats and wounds him; but you remain with wine, which strikes or smites your head every day.' This is the first wound of wine, by which it strikes the brain directly and floors it, so that it is deprived of reason. There follows the second, by which wine through others whom the drunkard provokes, inflicts upon him wounds properly so called. Of these St. Ambrose writes, On Elijah and Fasting, chapter 12: 'In one day they drink away the labors of many days; from drunkenness they rise to arms; weapons succeed cups; blood is shed instead of wine, and the wines themselves have shed the blood.' Therefore Fulgentius in the Mythology, in the fable of Dionysus: 'Jupiter,' he says, 'begat Bacchus from Semele. Along with Semele, his four sisters were named: Ino, Autonoe, Semele, and Agave. Let us inquire what this fable signifies. There are four kinds of drunkenness: first, wine-bibbing; second, forgetfulness of things; third, lust; fourth, madness. Whence these four sisters were also called Bacchae, as though devoted to wine. The first is Ino: for oinos in Greek we call wine in Latin; the second Autonoe, as though autē ou nousa, that is, not knowing herself; the third Semele, as though sōmalysis, which we call in Latin a body dissolved. Whence she is said to have given birth to Father Liber (Bacchus), that is, drunkenness born from lust; the fourth Agave, who is compared to madness because she violently cut off her son's head.' So Fulgentius, whom some think to be St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, who flourished in the year of the Lord 529. But this Fulgentius the Mythographer seems to be different from St. Fulgentius, since the subject matter of those fables and the style do not savor of St. Fulgentius's gravity, says our Possevinus in the Bibliotheca.
TO WHOM ARE QUARRELS? — The Septuagint: to whom are lawsuits? That is, litigation. For wine exhales hot fumes into the head, which inflame the brain and thereby the bile; whence anger, quarrels, brawls, murders, and beatings. Thus daily experience teaches that the banquets and drinking parties of gluttons end in brawls and bloodshed. Therefore St. Chrysostom says: 'Just as oil feeds a lamp, so wine inflames anger, as though by a fitting name the cups are called cups of friendship.' There exists an ancient law of the Franks in the works of the blessed Rhenanus, Book II of German Affairs, in this form: 'Let no one invite a fellow soldier or anyone else to drink; and if anyone is found drunk, let him be expelled, and until he acknowledges his fault, let him drink water.' Would that this law were brought back into practice!
TO WHOM ARE PITFALLS? — He reads scuach with shin, that is, a ditch, a pit, a grave, as I said in verse 27. Now they read siach, with sin, that is, garrulity. Whence Pagninus: to whom is muttering? The Royal edition: to whom is murmuring? The Complutensian: to whom is sadness and foolishness? The Vatican edition: to whom are troubles and annoyances? Vatablus: with whom are trifles? The Syriac: to whom are evils? The Chaldean: to whom is a heap of evils? For, as St. Chrysostom says, Homily 10 on Genesis: 'The more liberal use of wine is the cause of infinite evils.' For a drunkard, dissolved by wine, pours out the follies, suspicions, hatreds, secrets, curses, and slanders of his heart, by which he is the cause of a thousand evils to himself and others.
The word 'pitfalls' denotes first that a drunkard, due to the dizziness of intoxication, cannot walk in a straight line, but stumbles, trips, and not rarely falls into ditches, or certainly with his disturbed imagination imagines them before him. Whence St. Ambrose, in the book On Elijah and Fasting, says: 'Hence come vain images, uncertain sight, unsteady steps; they often leap over shadows as though they were pits.'
Second, a pit is a grave. For, as St. Augustine says: 'Drunkenness is a kind of burial of a living man.' For a drunkard overwhelms and buries reason and mind with wine, and thereby the man himself, and takes on the appearance of a beast, indeed of an insensible and dead corpse. Whence St. Chrysostom, Homily 10 on Genesis, calls the drunkard 'a living corpse.'
Third, a pit symbolically signifies any dangers whatsoever into which the drunkard, as one seething with unmixed wine, fearless and bold, throws himself voluntarily. Truly St. Chrysostom says: 'A drunkard is a voluntary demon,' because a drunkard rages, shouts, is furious, and says and does every wickedness just as if he were a demon incarnate; but in this he is worse than a demon, that he throws himself into these crimes voluntarily and freely, whereas a demon, hardened in evil, can will or do nothing good, but only what is evil. Whence it is not in the demon's power to return to the angelic state, but necessarily he is a demon and perseveres as a demon.
TO WHOM IS REDNESS OF EYES? — In Hebrew, chachlilut, that is, to whom is redness of eyes? Others derive chachlilut from calal, that is, he consumed, destroyed, overthrew; whence they translate: to whom is the digging-out of eyes? For the eyes of drunkards appear hollowed out, and drenched with wine, seem to swim as it were. The Septuagint: pelidnoi, that is, livid (the Complutensian: black) eyes. The author of the Catena of the Greeks says that livid or black eyes refers to those that are dim-sighted and corpse-like, filled with darkness. Aquila: katarei, that is, empty — but it seems it should be read as zatarōn, that is, suffering from discharge, namely from rheum and catarrh. The Chaldean: to whom do the extremities of the eyes protrude? — that is, those things that are dug up protrude, just as earth protrudes that a mole has dug up. But I do not know well enough what the Paraphrase designates — whether protruding eyes, or protruding cheeks that contract into wrinkles in drunkards, or something else. Furthermore, there provides conthe reading 'confusion,' which is likewise referred either to redness — for drinkers have a permanent redness, whereas modest people have it only temporarily — or to the moisture by which the vision of drinkers is suffused. It is moreover an obvious error which the Nuremberg edition has, 'confession,' although the eyes do betray and confess their devotion to drunkenness.
The Chaldaic Paraphrase, translated into Latin in the Royal edition, is: And to whom do the extremities of the eyes protrude? — that is, those filled with darkness. Therefore all these things amount to the same, but they enumerate the various conditions and damages of the one evil of the eyes. For wine, first, hurling fiery vapors into the head, makes the eyes red and as it were fiery, which is a sign of boldness and shamelessness, says Aristotle in the Physiognomics. For redness comes from the rush of blood and heat, just as conversely pallor in fear comes from the flight of blood and heat. From redness follows dullness of the eyes: for eyes suffused with moisture grow dim and become blind, and then comes their swelling, lividity, dimness, and blackness.
Hear Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus Book II, chapter 2: 'By immoderate wine the eyes are distorted and turned aside, since from the abundance of moisture the vision swims as if in a pool, and thus, forced to deceive, they indeed think that everything revolves in a circle; and they cannot count things that are far away, as though they were single. And I seem to see two suns, said that old Theban when drunk. For the vision, moved by the heat of wine, often apprehends a multiplied image of what is one; for it makes no difference whether the sight sees, or what is seen. For the same thing happens to the vision from both causes — because due to the fluctuation it cannot perfectly comprehend the object.' And after some further remarks: 'To whom are livid eyes? Are they not those who spend their time in wines? etc. Solomon indeed shows that he who takes pleasure in excessive drinking is dead even to reason, through his livid eyes, which are a sign of death, announcing to him the death that is in the Lord: for forgetfulness of those things that pertain to true life tends toward destruction.' Lucretius says admirably: 'When the sharp force of wine has penetrated, and the distributed heat has passed into the veins, heaviness of limbs follows, the legs are impeded and stagger, the tongue grows sluggish, the mind is drenched, the eyes swim, shouting, hiccups, and quarrels increase.'
Furthermore, for 'suffusion' others read 'digging-out,' others 'confusion,' others 'confession.' Hear the learned Franciscus Lucas explaining each one here, note 187: The eyes and nose of drunkards, he says, are suffused with redness, which the heat of humors arising from wine produces. The force of humors also causes the sharpness of the eyes to be dulled, and the eyes to be suffused with a dimness that diminishes the faculty of seeing. The manuscript of the Trilingual College the continual and frequent drinking of wine produces heat that gradually exhausts the moisture of the eyes, weakens the faculty of seeing, and finally, when the organs are dried up, extinguishes it — which could be signified by the 'digging-out' of the eyes. Unless perhaps the reference was made by those — I say, those who substituted 'digging-out' for 'suffusion' (for 'suffusion' is the most likely reading of our translator) — to the fights of drinkers, who when they are dragged unarmed into battles, perhaps following the custom of women, scratch each other's cheeks with their hands and dig out each other's eyes. To this (I mean to fighting) the Greeks undoubtedly referred when they translated: tinōs pelidnoi hoi ophthalmoi — 'to whom are livid eyes?' For they are accustomed to strike with fists or cups and give each other livid eyes. Moreover, they not rarely devise and suffer things more grievous than these, and reach the point where they are driven to the cross, where ravens from the torrents dig out their eyes, and the young eagles devour them. So says Lucas.
IS IT NOT TO THOSE WHO LINGER OVER WINE, AND WHO STRIVE TO DRAIN THEIR CUPS? — In Hebrew: is it not to those who tarry over wine, and go out to examine the mixture? — that is, those who spend long delays in drinking parties, and who diligently investigate and search out where the wine is most excellent and generous for drinking, says R. Solomon and R. Levi. Vatablus: to be sure, among those who pursue wine, who come to search out where wine is mixed. The Septuagint: is it not to those who track down where drinking parties take place? The Chaldean: to those who search out the house of mixture, that is, the tavern and wine shop. The Syriac: to those who detain themselves as if it were a drinking house. He then adds: Do not become drunk with wine, but converse with just men, and walk with them, and engage in conversation — which he took from the Septuagint, about which see the following verse.
Drinkers therefore gape after wine so eagerly that they seem to dwell and live in a barrel like Diogenes the Cynic — not to fill it, as he did, but to empty it; not to contemplate the heavens, as he did, but to drain cups. Hence they carouse and revel not only through entire days, but also through nights, and do not cease unless either they are overwhelmed by sleep, or, stupefied, are carried from table to bed like pigs or corpses. Note: Wine is called by the Hebrews 'mixture' or 'mingling,' because they are accustomed to mix wines — mild wines with strong ones, sharp with gentle, harsh with sweet. Or rather, because the ancient Hebrews, being temperate, mixed and diluted their wines, which are strong, with water, as I have shown elsewhere. St. Augustine admirably, Sermon 231 On the Times, compares drunkards to marshes in which nothing is born but frogs and serpents; and among other damages of drunkenness he enumerates these: 'And in them there is dimness of the eyes, dizziness, fatigue and headache, redness of the face, trembling of all the limbs, stupor of the soul and mind. In such people is fulfilled what is written: To whom is woe? To whom is tumult? To whom is anger? To whom are quarrels? To whom are wounds without cause? To whom is redness of eyes? Is it not to those who linger in wine, and those who search out where drinking takes place, and who strive to drain their cups? But those who wish to be such miserably try to excuse themselves, saying: I would be ungrateful to my friend if, whenever I invite him to a banquet, I do not give him as much drink as he wants. But let him not be your friend who wishes to make you God's enemy, who is both your enemy and his own. If you make both yourself and another drunk, you will have a human friend, but you will have God for an enemy. And therefore wisely consider whether it is just for you to separate yourself from God while you join yourself to a drunkard.'
Hear the gifts of sobriety and the damages of drunkenness from Bede in the Collectanea: 'Sobriety preserves memory, sharpens the senses, purifies the mind, composes the countenance, keeps modesty intact, mitigates vices, shapes keen sight, cleanses the ears, relieves the brain, loosens the tongue, clarifies speech, nourishes the marrow, strengthens the blood, tends the veins, tightens the nerves, scorns lust, refreshes sleep, prolongs old age, guards the sacrament, and establishes the man. Drunkenness is weakness: first it wraps up memory, empties the senses, neglects the mind, confuses the intellect, excites lust, entangles the tongue, impedes speech, corrupts the blood, dulls the sight, disturbs the veins, blocks the hearing, weakens the nerves, overturns the senses, dissolves the bowels, burdens the brain, debilitates memory, takes away strength, demands sleep, obstructs the menses, blocks the spirit, stains the body, and defiles the man with its vice and makes him without honor.'
31 and 32. DO NOT LOOK UPON WINE WHEN IT IS YELLOW, WHEN ITS COLOR SPARKLES IN THE GLASS: IT ENTERS SMOOTHLY, BUT IN THE END IT WILL BITE LIKE A SERPENT, AND SPREAD POISON LIKE A BASILISK. — In Hebrew: do not gaze upon wine when it grows red — because in Palestine they do not have white wine, but only red, as serious men in Rome assured me — when it has given its eye in the cup.
Our translator for 'grows red' translates 'grows yellow,' because a yellow color is formed from green, red, and white: that is, a tawny color, such as the color of gold, honey, and ripening ears of grain. Whence this color is very pleasing to the eyes and greatly stimulates the appetite and palate. Indeed in Italy we see many wines that are golden and of a golden color, which entice the eyes as much as the palate.
Again, a yellow color is seen not only in red wine, but also in white; therefore it applies to any wine. Finally, the yellow color approaches the red and belongs to it, and is as it were a species of it. Whence Gellius, Book II, chapter 26: 'He asserts that the color rufous has many different species, which the Latin language does not distinguish with individual and proper words, but signifies with the single appellation of redness. For the rufous color is indeed named from redness, but fire is red in one way, blood in another, purple in another, saffron in another. And yet it borrows the names of colors from the things themselves, and something is called fiery, and flame-colored, and blood-red, and saffron, and purple, and golden. For rufus and ruber differ in nothing from the word rubeus.' But in the same passage Fronto maintains that in Latin even under the rufous and red color these further distinctions are signified: 'Fulvous, yellow, ruddy, phoenicean, glowing, saffron, chestnut — either sharpening, or kindling rufous, or mixing with green, or darkening with black, or gradually brightening with a fresh white.'
For 'its color,' in Hebrew it says 'its eye.' First, literally and properly, the Hebrews call color an 'eye,' and, as the Chaldean translates, 'splendor': for both light or splendor and color are the object of the eye and sight. It is a metonymy frequent among the Hebrews: for the faculty is put for the object, namely 'eye' for 'color.' Whence the Syriac translates: when it has presented its beautiful appearance in the cup. The Chaldean: when it has placed its color in the cup.
Second, Cajetan says: 'The eye of wine is called its clarity. For the natural eye is that part of a living being which has in itself something clear and lively; and therefore what is clear and lively in the wine itself is called its eye.' For generous wine is spirited, and its spirit is ejected through bubbles or 'eyes.'
Third, the 'eye' of wine is called the light of the sun, or of a candle or lamp, which, received by the wine in the glass and refracted or reflected by it, presents the appearance of a shining eye: for light is circular in shape like an eye. Again, just as through the eyes of witches the evil eye operates (for through them children are bewitched): so through these 'eyes' of wine, as it were, the gaze and spirits of those who look upon it are bewitched and enticed to drink.
He signifies therefore that the eyes must be restrained, lest we gaze upon wine growing yellow and golden: for it is seductive and alluring, and draws to itself the palate of the beholder, just as the beauty of a woman draws the lust of the beholder. Thus Eve, seeing the tree was beautiful and pleasant to taste, was enticed to eat the forbidden fruit, and by it destroyed herself, her husband, and all posterity. Restrain your eyes therefore, lest we gaze upon wine growing yellow and bubbling in the glass,
it casts directly into the eyes of those who look upon it; whence he translates: do not contemplate wine when it is red, and when the goblet sends forth its color proceeding in a straight line.
Our translator far more aptly refers it to the palate and throat of the drinker, meaning: Wine deceives both by its color and by its taste, because it is smooth, sweet, and delicate to taste; for it enters the throat directly, because it is pleasant and sweet to it. For with its wine-like flavor, which has a sweetness not soft and insipid but sharp and fiery, it pricks and stimulates the throat to drink it greedily. Wine therefore walks and glides in straightness, that is, without offense, without roughness, gently and sweetly; and it seems right, that is, good, smooth, and desirable. Thus 'right' is often taken to mean pleasant, as when frequently in Scripture it is said: 'It was right in his eyes,' that is, it pleased him and was agreeable and pleasant.
BUT IN THE END IT WILL BITE LIKE A SERPENT, AND SPREAD POISON LIKE A BASILISK. — In Hebrew: and like a basilisk it will spread, namely its venom and poison. In Hebrew it is iaphris, which Aben-Ezra translates: it stings — on account of the spurs that the basilisk carries on its feet. R. Solomon: it separates, that is, it cuts him off from life. Pagninus: it will cause pain. The Chaldean: but its end is like a serpent that bites, and like a bird that flies. Vatablus: like an asp it will sting. The Syriac: and consider the griefs, because the end of wine is like the wound of a serpent, and like a basilisk that flies. The Septuagint: but at the last, as one wounded by a serpent he is stretched out, and like a cerastes its venom is spread. The cerastes is a serpent horned with two horns: for keras in Greek means horn. That it is deceitful, hides itself in sand, and kills whatever is offered to it, Pliny and Nicander report. Whence the author of the Catena of the Greeks explains thus: In the end, he says, you will die of death both of soul and body from wine no differently than if you had been bitten by a cerastes or another venomous serpent; for he who is bitten by a serpent barely feels the pain of the bite at first, but in the end he perishes. Now the cerastes is the worst and most cunning kind of serpent: for with its entire body hidden under the sand, it allows only its horns to protrude above; and while it moves and agitates these like a little worm from time to time, it attracts unwary birds and other creatures to itself. Moreover, as soon as they have flown or crept toward the horns as if toward certain food, it immediately intercepts and kills them. So says that author. Albertus Magnus, Gesner, and others hold that the cerastes is the dipsas — the dipsas is a serpent so called in Greek because by biting it arouses thirst, so that those bitten, perpetually thirsty, continually drink, and finally by drinking suffocate or burst. So too wine in drinkers sharpens thirst for itself, so that the more they drink, the more they thirst to drink, until they overwhelm themselves with wine and not rarely kill themselves.
The meaning therefore is: Wine smoothly, pleasantly, and tastefully glides through the throat into the stomach; but because if you see it, you will drink. For great is the power, great the dominion of the eyes over hearts, and great in turn is both the sympathy and the servitude of hearts toward the eyes: for wherever the eyes are directed, there they suddenly and stealthily carry along with them the minds and hearts.
The Septuagint, adding some things of their own paraphrastically, translates thus: Do not become drunk with wine (the Vatican edition reads: with wines, because a mixture of various wines is more alluring and delicious, and more disturbs the brain and intoxicates. Whence Gregory of Nazianzus in Maximus, Sermon 30, says: 'We consider it a loss unless some foreign wine is mixed with the local, like a tyrant.'). Mixed wine therefore rages in the brain like a tyrant); but converse with just men (sober and wise), and associate in walking places — that is, as the author of the Catena of the Greeks translates more clearly: 'But in porticoes and public walkways converse familiarly with just men; for if you fix your eyes on goblets and cups, afterwards you will walk about more naked than a pestle' — that is, you will be reduced to extreme poverty and nakedness. For a pestle, with which spices are pounded in a mortar, or grapes in a winepress vessel, is completely stripped bare by constant pounding, indeed is peeled and scraped; whence the proverbs: 'Balder than a pestle,' for very smooth and bald. 'More naked than a pestle,' for one who is stripped of everything. 'Duller than a pestle,' for one who is blunt and stupid, such as drunkenness produces. 'The spinning of a pestle, or the circumlocution of a pestle,' which Plato mentions in the Theaetetus, for one whose speech revolves around the same thing, or who always pursues the same thing yet never explains anything — or, as Hesychius interprets, who always does the same thing yet never makes any progress, just as drinkers begin many tasks but complete none, because they are wholly occupied with the revolving of cups. Others refer 'more naked than a pestle' to the revelation of secrets: for drunkards strip bare and proclaim all the hidden things and secrets of the heart. To this belongs the axiom of Plutarch in the Moralia: 'The world is destroyed by water and fire; but the wealth of the dissolute, by love and drunkenness.' And of Menander: 'Much unmixed wine forces one to have little sense; insult and wine tend to reveal the characters of friends to friends.'
IT ENTERS SMOOTHLY. — The Chaldean translates: rightly. In Hebrew: it proceeds in straightness, that is, it proceeds rightly, pleasantly, smoothly. Aben-Ezra refers this to the glass or cup, meaning: Wine poured out flows rightly into the cup, and seems right and natural, so that it cannot cause harm. R. Levi says: 'Wine presents a wonderful appearance of itself in the cup; for it follows the natural course toward straightness and tends toward evenness, as generous wine does, which when first poured out, the more subtle part appears on the surface of the cup.' R. Solomon refers it to the actions that seem right to the drunkard, even though they are crooked and perverse. 'When,' he says, 'someone overflows with drunkenness, whatever crimes he falls into, he considers them right actions, since he judges all his plans and ways to be right.' Vatablus refers it to the color and splendor that wine
or marble. Wherefore he does not awaken from the lethargy of sins, but clings to it in a stupor and dies in it.
Hear St. Gregory, Part III of the Pastoral Rule, admonition 33: "Whence also through Solomon the voice of one who is struck and sleeping is expressed, who says: They have beaten me, but I felt no pain; they dragged me, and I did not perceive it; when shall I awake, and again find wine? For the mind sleeping from the care of its own solicitude is beaten, and does not grieve; because just as it does not foresee impending evils, so neither does it recognize what it has perpetrated. It is dragged, and by no means feels it, because it is led through the allurements of vices, and yet is not roused to its own custody. Indeed it desires to awake, so that it may again find wine, because although it is oppressed by the sleep of torpor from its own custody, it nevertheless strives to be vigilant for the cares of the world, so that it may always be inebriated with pleasures; and while it sleeps regarding that in which it ought to have been keenly vigilant, it seeks to be vigilant regarding that in which it could laudably have slept."
See how heavy a sleep overwhelms the sinner after drinking the wine of pleasure, so that the wretch is torn by newly inflicted wounds, and yet does not grieve; is dragged through the precipices of vices, is cast from abyss to abyss, and yet does not feel it. Behold what a lethargy sin is, that it takes away both the pain of wounds and the sense of ruin!
On the contrary, marvelous is man's perspicacity, and most vigilant solicitude in the affairs of this world, in pursuing the vanities of honors, in seeking out the allurements of pleasures, which Solomon immediately adds: "When shall I awake, and again find wine?"
Wisely Seneca, epistle 39: "What enemy," he says, "has been so insulting to anyone as their own pleasures are to some people? Whose lack of self-control and insane lust you could pardon for this one reason alone: that they suffer what they have done; and not undeservedly does this madness torment them: for desire that leaps beyond its natural measure must necessarily go to infinity. For natural desire has its own limit, but what is vain and born of lust is without end. Necessity measures usefulness; to what will you reduce the superfluous? They therefore plunge themselves into pleasures, which, once brought into habit, they cannot do without. And for this reason they are most wretched, because they have reached the point where what had been superfluous has become necessary. They therefore serve their pleasures, not enjoy them, and they love their evils (which is the worst of evils). Then indeed is unhappiness consummated, when shameful things not only delight but also please; and there ceases to be room for remedy when what had been vices have become customs."
Symbolically, under wine understand any pleasure and concupiscence. For these, if indulged in frequently, drive a man mad, and wholly occupy and claim him for themselves.
Whence tropologically, learn that the fruit of crime, especially when strengthened by habit, is insensibility of mind; for this invades and seizes the wicked person like a lethargy or apoplexy, so much so that he neither admits the admonitions of parents, teachers, confessors, and preachers, nor feels blows and scourges however sharp and hard, just as if he were devoid of reason, indeed of sense and soul, and were a log or marble.