Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
One should not boast about tomorrow: do not praise yourself: the anger of a fool is intolerable: open correction is better than hidden love: the wounds of a friend surpass the kisses of a flatterer: a sated soul despises honey: a neighbor surpasses a distant friend: he who stands surety for a stranger should take a pledge from him: he who blesses with a loud voice is like one who curses: a quarrelsome woman is like a dripping roof: a man sharpens his friend: hearts are open to the prudent: eyes are insatiable: a man is tested by the mouth of his praiser: a fool, though pounded, remains a fool; verse 23, to the end of the chapter, praises the pastoral art and its frugality.
Vulgate Text: Proverbs 27:1-27
1. Do not boast about tomorrow, not knowing what the coming day may bring forth. 2. Let a stranger praise you, and not your own mouth: an outsider, and not your own lips. 3. A stone is heavy and sand is burdensome, but the anger of a fool is heavier than both. 4. Anger has no mercy, nor does erupting fury; and who can bear the onset of an aroused spirit? 5. Open correction is better than hidden love. 6. The wounds of a friend are better than the deceitful kisses of an enemy. 7. A sated soul will trample honeycomb, and a hungry soul will take even what is bitter for sweet. 8. As a bird that wanders from its nest, so is a man who abandons his place. 9. The heart delights in ointment and various fragrances, and the soul is sweetened by the good counsels of a friend. 10. Do not forsake your friend and your father's friend, and do not enter your brother's house on the day of your affliction. Better is a neighbor nearby than a brother far away. 11. Apply yourself to wisdom, my son, and make my heart glad, so that you may answer a word to him who reproaches. 12. The prudent man, seeing evil, hid himself: the simple who passed on suffered losses. 13. Take the garment of him who stood surety for a stranger, and take a pledge from him for outsiders. 14. He who blesses his neighbor with a loud voice, rising in the night, will be like one who curses. 15. A dripping roof on a cold day and a quarrelsome woman are compared: 16. he who restrains her is as one who would hold the wind, and will grasp oil with his right hand. 17. Iron is sharpened by iron, and a man sharpens the face of his friend. 18. He who tends the fig tree shall eat its fruit, and he who is the guardian of his master shall be glorified. 19. As faces are reflected in water, so the hearts of men are manifest to the wise. 20. Hell and destruction are never filled: likewise the eyes of men are insatiable. 21. As silver is tested in the refining pot and gold in the furnace, so a man is tested by the mouth of his praiser. The heart of the wicked seeks evils, but the upright heart seeks knowledge. 22. Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle among husked grain, his folly will not be removed from him. 23. Be diligent to know the state of your flocks, and attend to your herds: 24. for you will not always have power; but the crown will be given from generation to generation. 25. The meadows are open and the green herbs appear, and the hay is gathered from the mountains. 26. Lambs are for your clothing, and goats are the price of a field. 27. Let the milk of the goats be enough for your food, for the necessities of your household, and for sustenance for your maidservants.
1. DO NOT BOAST ABOUT TOMORROW, NOT KNOWING (because you do not know) WHAT THE COMING DAY MAY BRING FORTH.
In Hebrew: Do not praise yourself for tomorrow, because you do not know what the day will bring forth or generate, namely the coming day, that is, tomorrow's, or even today's, as the Chaldean translates: You do not know, he says, what today will bring forth. The Septuagint: Do not boast of future things on the morrow, or of those things that are expected for the next day: for you do not know what the coming day will bring forth. "Tomorrow" signifies any future time in Scripture by synecdoche, as if to say: Do not boast about the future, saying, for example: Tomorrow we shall feast, tomorrow I shall go to a wedding, tomorrow I shall become a consul, doctor, canon, senator, bishop, viceroy, etc.; tomorrow I shall build a palace, buy a vineyard, plant a garden, etc.; tomorrow I shall found a hospital, erect a college, establish an academy — because you do not know "what the day will bring forth," that is, what tomorrow's day will bring, or even today's. For you do not know whether you will live until tomorrow, or until evening; you do not know whether you will then have the same mind as you have now; you do not know whether the same opportunity for action will then exist as exists now. This maxim therefore forbids excessive confidence in future things, since they are uncertain, and consequently warns against deferring to the future the good works one has resolved in one's mind: rather, one should carry them out immediately, lest afterward one be unable to execute them.
Here note: Time is said to "give birth" metaphorically, because it brings future things to light and makes them present; and metonymically, because it produces secondary causes which generate and cause new things; and because it serves God and God's ordering, which at the appointed time brings forth and produces what He has conceived and decreed in His mind, as if to say: It will not be what you conceive, nor what fate has decreed, but the day will bring forth what has been conceived by God. Properly speaking, things that happen by chance and fortune are said to be generated by time: because time, which, as Aristotle says, is the number of the motion of the first mover, from this motion brings about various combinations of stars, winds, qualities, and other secondary causes, whose chance encounter and concurrence is the cause of fortuitous and contingent events: chance and fortune therefore are the offspring of time.
Akin to this maxim is that of Ben Sira at the end of his second Alphabet: "Let not the trouble of tomorrow's day torment you, for you do not know what the day will bring forth." And that of Horace:
Who knows whether the gods above will add tomorrow's hours To today's sum?
And that of Propertius:
Perhaps tomorrow's day will close the book of fate.
Believe that each day has dawned as your last.
And that of the Comic poet:
You know not what the late evening may bring.
Long is the morrow — live today.
And that of Ovid, Book III of The Art of Love:
Youth must be used; on swift foot age slips away, Nor does what follows equal what came first.
And that of Virgil, Georgics III:
But meanwhile it flees, irretrievable time flees.
And that of Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, chapter 7: "Everyone hurries through life and suffers from longing for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who devotes every moment to his own use, who arranges every day as if it were his whole life, neither longs for nor fears the next day. For what new pleasure can any hour now bring? All desires have been satisfied to fullness; for the rest, let fortune arrange things as she wishes — life is already secure. Something can be added to it, but nothing taken away, and any addition would be like food offered to a man whose stomach is already completely full and satisfied — he neither desires it nor takes it." The same author, Epistle 1 to Lucilius: "A great part of life slips away from those who act badly, the greatest part from those who do nothing, and the whole of it from those who act beside the point. Show me someone who sets any value on his time, who reckons the worth of a day, who understands that he is dying daily. For we are deceived in this: that we look forward to death — a great part of it has already passed; whatever of life is behind us, death holds. Do therefore, my dear Lucilius, what you write that you are doing: embrace every hour. Thus you will depend less on tomorrow if you seize today. While life is put off, it passes by. Everything, my Lucilius, belongs to others; only time is ours." And again: "All who defer life will be overtaken by uncertain death. Every day therefore should be ordered as if it were the last."
Look upon the image of time with this motto: "Why do you hope for long things? Brief is whatever you see here." More sublimely the Psalmist, Psalm 94:8: "Today," he says, "if you hear His voice (the Lord's), do not harden your hearts." From this "today" the Apostle urges, Hebrews 3:13: "Exhort," he says, "one another every day, as long as it is called 'today.'"
More plainly and more fully St. James, chapter 4:13, explains this maxim of Solomon as a paraphraser, saying: "Come now, you who say: Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and spend a year there, and trade, and make a profit — you who do not know what will be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is a vapor appearing for a little while and then vanishing." Where I have said more on this matter. If you are wise, therefore, live today — tomorrow perhaps you will die.
2. LET A STRANGER PRAISE YOU, AND NOT YOUR OWN MOUTH: AN OUTSIDER, AND NOT YOUR OWN LIPS.
The Septuagint: Let a neighbor praise you, and not your own mouth: a stranger, and not your own lips. St. Augustine, Tractates 36 and 58 on John: Let not your own mouth praise you, but let the mouth of your neighbor praise you. "A stranger," in Hebrew זר zar, means a foreigner, that is, someone of a different kinship, or family and household, or city, or nation, or faith and religion — such as the Gentiles were to the Jews, who were therefore called זרים zarim, that is, aliens and foreigners. The same is called נכרי nachri, that is, unknown, an outsider. Therefore nachri does not properly signify an enemy or foe, but can be extended to mean one, because an enemy is supremely alien, and because the enemies of the Jews were the Gentiles, who were foreigners. For by the very fact that they were born from Esau, Ishmael, and other nations, not from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from whom the Jews were descended, they drew, as it were from their very lineage and parents, an estrangement and a kind of natural enmity toward the Jews — just as we observe even now that some nations from their very origin are naturally, as it were, opposed to certain others, and are born enemies, so to speak.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: It is not fitting for you to praise yourself, but rather to perform deeds worthy of praise, which by their splendor compel others, especially strangers, to praise you — not because you seek or aim at this praise, but because praise naturally flows and rebounds from virtue, even without the knowledge, indeed against the will, of the one being praised. For the proper dowry of virtue is praise, according to that saying of Socrates quoted by Stobaeus, Sermon 1: "Incense is owed to the gods, but praise to good men." And the saying: "Virtue, when praised, grows." And that of St. Basil, quoted by Antonius in the Melissa, Part I, chapter 51: "The greatest benefit in honorable matters is to be praised; for praise begets emulation, emulation virtue, virtue happiness — which is the supreme end and goal of all that is desired, and to which every movement of a good man is directed." Therefore allow yourself to be praised not by your relatives, friends, and household members, but by strangers and outsiders, and the more foreign they are to you, the greater the praise will be if they praise you. Hence the highest praise is that which is given by enemies. For they are moved to praise you not by hope, not by flattery, not by friendship, but by the truth and greatness of your virtues: praise therefore extorted from an enemy is pure.
The a priori reason for this maxim is that to praise oneself is vain, proud, and foolish. For such praise proceeds from self-love, by which a person loves himself too much, and thus also praises himself too much. For self-love blinds a man, so that he esteems all his own things, even if base or small, as good or great. But outsiders, who have no connection with us, judge our affairs and deeds more purely and sincerely. Hence their judgment and praise or blame is more truthful.
So judge all the wise, both faithful and pagan: among the faithful, St. Paul, who was compelled to recount his own praises in order to defend his apostolate: "I have become foolish," he says, "you compelled me; for I ought to have been commended by you" (2 Corinthians 12:11); and Christ: "If I bear witness about Myself, My testimony is not true; there is another who bears witness about Me" (John 5:31); St. Chrysostom, Homily 5 On the Praises of Paul: "It is the height of madness," he says, "when no necessity threatens, and when no pressing need exists, to wish to adorn oneself with one's own praises."
Luke the physician, a most eloquent man, having delivered a most eloquent speech before Alfonso, King of Aragon, and having extolled him with exquisite and heroic praises, the king upon hearing this is reported to have said: "If what you proclaim about me is true, Luke, I give thanks to Almighty God; if otherwise, I pray and beseech Him to make it true" — implying that it especially befits kings to show themselves everywhere worthy of praises. So Panormitanus, Book I, On the Deeds of Alfonso.
King Agesilaus used to say that it was pleasant to be praised by enemies, who do not hesitate to criticize if something displeases them. For if such people praise anything, they praise by judgment, not by fear or flattery. So Plutarch in the Laconic Sayings. Themistius, quoted by Stobaeus: "No narrative," he says, "is so hateful as self-praise." Hence the common saying: "Praise in one's own mouth is worthless." And that of Zenodotus: "You praise yourself, woman, like Astydamas," which Julian adopted in his epistle to St. Basil: "I praised myself," he says, "like Astydamas." Pliny the Younger, Book 1, Epistle 8, to Saturninus: "What would have been magnificent if reported by another," he says, "vanishes when recounted by the one who did it." He adds the reason: "Those who adorn their good deeds with words are believed not to be proclaiming what they did, but to have done it so that it might be proclaimed." To someone boasting before Lysander that he both extolled him with praises and defended him against detractors, Lysander said: "There are two oxen in the field, and though both are silent, I know for certain which is lazy and which is diligent at work." He meant that true virtue does not need human praises, since it carries with it its own praise and glory. Moreover, those who do nothing distinguished need heralds. So Plutarch in the Laconic Sayings.
When after Pescennius Niger had been made Emperor, someone wished to recite a panegyric, the Emperor is reported to have said: "Write the praises of Marius, or of Hannibal, or of some excellent general now dead, and tell what he did, so that we may imitate him. For to praise the living —" is mockery, especially of Emperors from whom favors are expected, who are feared, who can publicly reward, who can put to death, who can proscribe; but for a living man to want to please, and even to be mystically praised." So Aelius Spartianus in his Life.
The truth of this maxim is set before our eyes by Cyril in a beautiful fable of a rooster and a fox, adorned with charming comparisons, in Book II of the Moral Apology, chapter 28, entitled Against Those Who Commend Themselves: "A rooster," he says, "placed next to a crow, being not a little puffed up with windy pride at the light of his understanding and the beauty of his feathers, and having raised his many-colored neck, began to praise himself with his crowing, and said: Oh how great in heaven is the fountain of wisdom, and the vein of splendor, and the prime art of beauty, since He has bestowed on us earthlings such gifts of beauty and understanding! To whom the crow learnedly replied: Intelligence is indeed precious, and beauty is pleasant; but wisdom is the best thing, without which either these things do not exist for themselves, or all things are nothing. But from our wiser ones I have heard that to lose light by light, and virtue by virtue, is the greatest madness. Surely also to lose praise by praising is the same thing. Indeed, by Aristotle, praise is defined as a speech that illuminates the greatness of virtue; whence it is not the least virtue — indeed it is the greatest vice — to praise oneself. For professing themselves wise, they became fools (Romans 1:22). Yet the wise man, while praised to his face, is scourged in his mind." Then he demonstrates the same thing by an a priori argument: "For true virtue, like the most chaste virgin, does not allow itself to be seen without blushing, and like a gleaming star is hidden by the appearing sun, and as chrysoprase shines in the darkness, so self-praise blushes and hides itself in the light. Therefore he who commends himself, reproaches himself, because his praise generates a fault, since without the splendor of virtue and purity, it shows him to be deformed. But if you have grasped this with the ear of understanding, it is written (John 8:13): You bear witness about yourself, and your testimony is not true. And in the common law of the world no one is accepted as a witness for himself, because the scale of the tongue draws the weight of private self-love toward itself. Therefore self-praise is a disgrace, because the tongue is not accepted as a witness for itself, or it lies. Moreover, what approves us is what exalts us: and this is the fugitive humility of praises (Matthew 23:12). For he who humbles himself will be exalted. For humility, through the path of worldly confusion and darkness, leads to the end of clarity." Finally, with a new dilemma he proves the same point and illuminates Solomon's maxim: "But why do you praise yourself? Certainly if you are known, you do something superfluous; if you are not known, remember that true virtue desires to be hidden. Indeed, the time for praising anyone is not while he lives; for the true commendation does not pass away, which the eternity of possessed virtue has established. Therefore let a stranger's mouth praise you (Proverbs 27:2), let your own mouth accuse you, let the virtue of humility approve you, let the last day commend you and —" eternal life. Upon hearing these things, the rooster, because he had praised himself, blushed with shame."
3. A STONE IS HEAVY AND SAND IS BURDENSOME, BUT THE ANGER OF A FOOL IS HEAVIER THAN BOTH.
"Heavier," that is, more troublesome, more oppressive and afflicting, harder to bear and endure. For heaviness properly belongs to bodies; but metaphorically, when transferred to the mind, it signifies trouble, affliction, torment. In Hebrew: the heaviness of a stone, and the weight (or elevation or heap) of sand, and the anger of a fool is heavier than both. The Septuagint: Heavy is a stone, and scarcely bearable is sand, but the anger of a fool is heavier than both.
First, Rabbi Solomon takes the anger of a fool not as passive anger, which the fool has within himself, but as active anger, which he arouses and causes in God, as if to say: The anger of God, which the fool, that is, the impious man, stirs up and provokes by his folly, that is, by his impiety, is heavier than any stone and sand — because he causes that same anger and vengeance of God to overflow not only upon himself and his own, but upon the whole commonwealth, indeed upon the entire universe. For God sometimes punishes an entire people on account of the crime of one foolish and impious person, as He punished the sacrilege of Achan by overthrowing the entire camp of Israel (Joshua 7:13). However, others generally take the anger of the fool as passive, namely that which resides in the fool himself. Hence:
Second, Lyranus explains that the anger of a fool is heavy and unbearable for the fool himself and for other fools, but not for the wise, as if to say: Certainly a stone is very heavy to carry, and the weight of sand is by no means light, yet these two things some strong fool could manage to lift; but the anger of a fool is far heavier and more burdensome: for no fool can bear its weight.
Again, the anger of a fool is heavier than stone and sand, because a foolish man can bear neither some great and vehement indignation like a stone, nor the lighter and more frequent motions of anger (which are like grains of sand).
Third, and this is the genuine sense, as if to say: The anger of a fool is heavier than stone and a heap of sand, and more burdensome and unbearable than both for a wise man, for many reasons. The first is that the burden of stone and sand weighs down the body, but anger weighs down and oppresses the mind of a wise man. Now the burdens that afflict the mind are greater and more acutely felt than those that afflict the body.
Second, a stone and sand placed on one's back can be set down and shaken off by a wise man; but the anger of a fool cannot at all. For, as the Author of the Greek Catena says, the angry fool does not realize that he is inflamed with rage, and therefore does not work to recall his mind from anger or to suppress his fury; indeed, he loves and nurtures it. For he believes himself to be prudent and intelligent, and therefore to be rightly outraged: a wise man must therefore endure this fury of the fool aroused against himself.
Third, stones and sand can be lightened with tools and devices — they can be carried by cart, horse, or mule — but the anger of a fool cannot be removed by any natural means (but only by God's illumination and grace); I do not say removed, but not even diminished, especially because the fool takes anger for reason and thinks he is rightly and reasonably angry. Therefore he allows no one to admonish, teach, or pacify him, but strives simply to vent his anger in full; and so he says and does angry, insulting, and unworthy things, by which he strikes and wounds anyone, presses and oppresses them, and does not allow himself to be pacified or restrained. Is he not here heavier and more troublesome than stone and sand, however heavy? For the fool cannot bear or moderate his own anger, but lets himself be entirely overwhelmed by it, and gives and enslaves himself as a captive to it — as Nabal did, who died oppressed by foolish indignation (1 Samuel 25). The same anger then presses and oppresses others upon whom he pours it out.
A fourth reason is suggested by the Septuagint version, "and scarcely bearable is sand," as if to say: Sand cannot be carried, neither when heaped and packed together, as some translate from the Hebrew — for it is too dense, burdensome, and heavy — nor when divided and minute, because no one can grasp and hold minute grains of sand in their hands without most of them slipping through the fingers. So likewise, if the anger of a fool is elevated and piled up, that is, if it proceeds from great swelling and pride of mind, it is as intolerable and unconquerable as that same pride is unconquerable; and if it is small and minute like sand, it is equally intolerable, because like sand it is most numerous and innumerable: for the fool becomes angry at any and every trifling cause; indeed, without any cause at all he rages, shouts, quarrels, strikes, and starts fights. Who can bear such a person? Hence what follows: "Anger has no mercy, nor does erupting fury; and who can bear the onset of an aroused spirit?" The anger of a fool, therefore, is heavier than stone because it is irrational, because it is impetuous and immoderate, because it is implacable and cannot be calmed — whereas the anger of a wise man is rational, moderate, and appeasable, according to that saying of Ovid:
The greater a man is, the more readily is he appeased in anger: And a generous mind takes on gentle dispositions.
The fifth reason is that the heaviness of stone and sand by its nature does indeed move toward the center of the earth, but is held back and stopped by the surface of the earth, and its weight, so that it rests there: but the anger of a fool actually tends, and draws many along with it, to the very center of the earth, namely to hell and to eternal fires. Hence, following Solomon, Sirach says (22:17): "What is heavier than lead? And what other name does it have but 'fool'? Sand and salt and a mass of iron are easier to bear than a senseless, foolish, and impious man."
Mystically, Bede says: "It is very heavy," he says, "either to be weighed down by some one capital crime, as by the weight of a vast stone, or to be burdened as by pebbles of sand, with innumerable lighter sins; but the anger of a fool is heavier than both. Because indeed these sins, the more clearly they are recognized as evils, the more sharply they prick the conscience: but anger, because it is not a bodily —" but rather a spiritual vice — the less it is detected, the more it weighs down. Hence he did not say anger absolutely, but the anger of a fool. For the wise diligently strive to examine and correct the motions of their mind just as they do their actions and words." Following Bede, Dionysius explains the same thing more clearly, saying: A stone is heavy — like a millstone is every mortal sin, which by its weight soon drags one to another, and plunges the impenitent into hell; "and burdensome is sand" — clumped together or multiplied, that is, the multitude of venial sins; but the anger of a fool, that is, of a vicious man — anger through vice, not through zeal — is heavier than both for men to bear, except for the wise and perfect. For anger is heavier than many mortal sins, though not all, before God and men. So says Dionysius.
4. ANGER HAS NO MERCY, NOR DOES ERUPTING FURY; AND WHO CAN BEAR THE ONSET OF AN AROUSED SPIRIT?
In Hebrew: cruelty of indignation and an outpouring of the nose (that is, of anger, for anger shows itself in a burning nose), and who shall stand before the face of jealousy? For 'jealousy' the Hebrew is קנאה kina, that is, zeal, also rivalry, envy, jealousy. The Septuagint: cruel is indignation and sharp is anger, but jealousy endures nothing. The Chaldean: cruelty is indignation and an outpouring of anger, but who shall stand before jealousy? St. Jerome, Against Rufinus: but jealousy is impatient. The Scholiast: but jealousy is harder than both.
First, some refer these words to the anger of a fool, which was treated before, as if to say: the anger of a fool is not swayed by those admonitions or entreaties which would move it to mercy, nor is his erupting and raging fury; for who could bear the onset of his fury, that is, of his raging spirit? — which, like a most violent wind and gale, blows through and flattens everything by its force and violence, and cannot be held back or restrained by anyone.
Second, others think that three degrees of anger are noted here; for anger grows by stages: first there is anger which, as long as it lasts, is devoid of mercy, yet still susceptible to reason, so that the man remains in control of himself; second, anger growing becomes fury, so that the man is no longer in control of himself or reason, and is driven by fury, raging and savaging like a madman; third, anger and fury become jealousy, when it seizes not only the body and reason but also the spirit itself; and it becomes the onset of an aroused spirit, as the Vulgate translates, namely when the angry and raging spirit inflames all the powers of soul and body, and turns and directs them to taking vengeance — such is the anger of Lucifer and the demons, of the damned and the desperate.
Third, others more plausibly think that here zeal, that is, envy, is placed alongside, opposed to, and ranked above anger and fury. For the Hebrew does not distinguish anger from fury, but only sets anger, or the nose (that is, indignation), against zeal or envy, which the Vulgate calls the onset of an aroused spirit, as if to say: Heavy and hard to bear is anger and blazing wrath when it erupts and rages, but far heavier and harder to bear is zeal, that is, envy — for anger quickly passes like wind and flame, as the Poet says: "Anger is a brief madness;" but malice and envy take up permanent residence in the soul they occupy, and arouse the whole spirit to harm the one they envy, and therefore can scarcely be rooted out. Hence Pagninus translates: There is cruelty in anger, and impetuosity in fury, and who shall stand before envy? And Vatablus: Cruel is anger, and impetuous is wrath (or a flood, that is, the onset befits wrath); but who shall stand before envy? As if to say: "We cannot resist envy, although we can resist anger and an angry man." Hence Cassian, Conference 18, last chapter, explaining this maxim about envy: "For to such a degree," he says, "is this plague incurable, that it is exasperated by blandishments, inflated by services, and provoked by gifts, because, as the same Solomon says, jealousy endures nothing. For the more another person advances either by the submission of humility, or by the virtue of patience, or by the renown of generosity, the more intensely he is goaded by the stings of envy, who desires nothing but the ruin or death of the one he envies." He proves this by the example of the sons of Jacob who envied their brother Joseph: "Indeed the jealousy of those eleven Patriarchs could not in any way be softened by the submission of their compliant brother, as Scripture records: His brothers envied him because his father loved him, and they could not speak peaceably to him; until their jealousy, which could not endure any of their submissive and obedient brother's kind gestures, desiring his death, could scarcely be satisfied by the crime of selling their own brother. Therefore more pernicious than all vices and more difficult to purge —"
it is clear that envy is more pernicious and more difficult to purge than all other vices, since it is kindled by the very remedies that extinguish the rest." One could also take קנאה kina, that is, zeal, as jealousy; for this is the burning heat, summit, and peak of zeal. Hence we see that jealous husbands, from jealousy over their wives, become maniacal and insane; for no one can restrain, no one can overcome, no one can endure this fixed and permanent jealousy. So says the Author of the Greek Catena. Hence the Chaldean: who shall stand before jealousy? And the Septuagint: jealousy endures nothing. See what was said about the power of jealousy in chapter 6, verse 34. Relevant here is that saying of St. Chrysostom, Homily On Virginity: "Nothing can draw a man away from this jealousy, but this storm is more violent than any concern for advantages or worry about disadvantages. For such is the madness of this disease that even when punishment has been inflicted on the offender who wronged him, the sick man does not cast off his grief. And so many, even after the adulterer has been removed, could not endure their anger or anguish. There are even some who, after slaying their wife, remained in the same state, or —" consumed by a greater funeral pyre." The same author also, in Homily 38 on Genesis, says: "Those who are afflicted with jealousy lose the blessing of peace, and daily devise storms and upheavals for themselves, and can have no pleasure, since internal warfare confounds everything and brings great bitterness upon them."
Add that envy and jealousy are more powerful than anger and fury, because jealousy burns with anger and, as it were, sharpens itself on anger as on a whetstone. Hence Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 1 In Praise of St. Athanasius: "Jealousy," he says, "sharpens anger," as if to say: Jealousy files and sharpens the natural edge of anger itself, and therefore before jealousy, which unsheathes anger and ignites it so that it blazes white-hot — indeed strikes like lightning — no one can stand unharmed and safe.
Parallel to this sense are the maxims of the wise, cited by Antonius in the Melissa, Part I, chapter 26, and by Maximus, Sermon 54. St. Basil: "No passion more destructive is born in the souls of men than envy; for as rust consumes iron, so envy consumes the soul it infects." St. Gregory of Nazianzus: "Would that envy might perish from among men — the self-consumption of those who have it and the rust of their affections! It is at once the most unjust and the most just of all passions: the most unjust, because it troubles all that is excellent; the most just, because it harms those by whom it is nourished." Socrates: "Envy is the saw of the soul." Cleobulus: "Two things must especially be guarded against: the envy of friends and the snares of enemies." St. Chrysostom: "O envy, root of death, manifold disease, sharpest nail of the heart! For what sharpest nail pierces as deeply as envy wounds a heart it has seized?" Hence Euripides in the Phoenician Women: "Envy," he says, "is the worst and most unjust goddess, and she rejoices in evils and grieves at good things." And Palladas in Stobaeus, Sermon 38, exclaims: "O the great wickedness of envy! The envious man hates the fortunate, whom God loves. So foolishly does he err through envy; for he manifestly fights against God Himself, receiving the greatest wrath from envy. For he whom God loves ought to be loved."
Therefore Abbot Pastor in the Lives of the Fathers, Book V, booklet 10, number 45, used to say: "Do not dwell in a place where you see some people bearing envy against you, because there you will make no progress." Other wise men also teach that it is prudent to studiously flee envy and the envious as far as possible, but not anger and the angry in the same way, because envy can scarcely be overcome and cannot be avoided when present.
Finally, the Hebrew kina, that is, zeal, could be taken here generally both of good zeal, which is directed at a good object, and of evil zeal, which is carried toward evil, to signify that the force and violence of any kind of zeal is more powerful and efficacious than anger and fury, as if to say: Fierce and violent is raging anger, but fiercer and more violent is zeal; for this breaks down or surpasses all obstacles, and nothing can resist it — as the Apostles, armed with the zeal of God, subjugated the world for Christ, and Elijah, set ablaze by the zeal of God, conquered the wrath of Jezebel and the army of the worshippers of Baal. Hence Elisha cried out to him as he was taken up to heaven: "My father, the chariot of Israel, and —" its driver" (2 Kings 2:12). Mattathias, and his son Judas Maccabaeus, equipped with this zeal, with a small band conquered the wrath of Antiochus and defeated his immense armies. Aristonymus in his Diatribes: "Envy," he says, "like a wicked demagogue, opposes honorable actions." Josephus in his work On the Captivity: "Nothing," he says, "among all good things is so firm as to permanently resist envy." Excellently St. Ambrose on Psalm 118: "Even the angels," he says, "without zeal are nothing, and they lose the privilege of their substance unless they sustain it by the ardor of zeal." Hence the Psalmist, Psalm 103:4: "Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire." And further: "God the Father Himself says: With great zeal I shall be zealous for Jerusalem; because God is great, therefore His zeal also is great, and in proportion to the quality of each one's power, so their zeal is either moderate or great; by zeal Jerusalem is vindicated, by zeal the Church is gathered, by zeal faith is acquired, by zeal chastity is possessed. The Lord Jesus also says: The zeal of Your house has consumed Me, rebuking the Jews for making the house of prayer a den of thieves and a house of commerce." And with some words interposed, explaining that verse of the Song of Songs 8:6, Love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell: "Hard," he says, "is zeal, which no allurement of this life can conquer. Hard as hell, through which we die to sin that we may live for God." And St. Chrysostom, Homily 52 on Acts, speaks thus of the zealous person: "He who has been captured by the fire of Christ, let him be as if he were the only man dwelling on earth; so little does he care about glory and shame; and he despises temptations, scourgings, and prisons, as though he suffered in another's body, or as if he possessed a body of adamant. And the pleasant things of this life he laughs at and does not feel, just as we ourselves, being dead, do not feel dead bodies. And just as flies do not fly into the middle of a flame but flee: so also passions do not dare to approach such men."
For zeal is like a fire that devours everything and transforms it into itself. Hence Christ, speaking of this zeal: "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I desire but that it be kindled?" (Luke 12:49). Let Christians hear St. Augustine, Tractate 10 on John: "Let the zeal of God's house consume every Christian. For example: you see a brother running to the theater — forbid him, admonish him, grieve, if the zeal of God's house consumes you. You see others running to get drunk, and wanting to do this in holy places — which is never fitting — forbid those you can, frighten those you can, be gentle with those you can, but do not rest. Yet if it is a friend, let him be admonished gently; if a wife, let her be most severely restrained; if a maidservant, let her be checked even with blows. Do whatever you can according to the person." Christ showed this zeal of charity when He appeared to Carpus, to shake from him the zeal of anger and indignation: "Strike Me," He said, "for I am ready again to suffer death for the salvation of men; and this is most pleasing to Me as long as other men do not sin" — as St. Dionysius reports in Epistle 8 to Demophilus.
5. OPEN CORRECTION IS BETTER THAN HIDDEN LOVE.
The Septuagint: Open corrections are better than hidden friendship. The Author of the book On Friendship attributed to St. Augustine: "Corrections are better than a silent friendship," that is, one which is silent about and overlooks a friend's faults, and does not correct or chastise them. "Open correction" does not mean public, but frank and free; for it is opposed to hidden correction, which takes place in the heart, or behind the back of the one being reproved.
One may ask: what is hidden love? First, the Author of the Greek Catena responds that it is feigned and pretended love; hence, connecting this verse with the next, he translates and explains both from the Septuagint thus: Open reproof is better than pretended friendship; just as the wounds of friends testify to greater fidelity and goodwill than the willing kisses of an enemy. For when one pretends to act out of love but does not actually do so (since he does not love from the heart, but hates), he sins foully against the laws of friendship. Another author in the same place: More useful, he says, are the corrections of friends, and their open wounds — those who frankly reprove sins — than the kisses and flatteries of those who conceal and cover them. For when they wish by this means to please and help, they in fact do more harm. So says the Author of the Catena.
Second, Bede and Salonius consider hidden love to be carnal love; for this, on account of its own shamefulness, seeks hiding places out of shame in which to conceal itself, as if to say: "It is much better for someone to be openly rebuked so that he may be corrected, than to be secretly loved with the intent of sinning together." Or, as if to say: It is far better to be openly corrected, that is, afflicted, beaten, and killed for the pursuit of virtue, for example chastity, than to secretly perpetrate evil, for example fornication. Thus Susanna preferred to expose herself to the danger of calumny and stoning rather than to commit fornication with the elders (Daniel 13). And Joseph preferred to suffer a long imprisonment rather than consent to his mistress's advances (Genesis 39).
Third, Lyranus and Dionysius: Hidden love, they say, is habitual love that does not proceed to action, as if to say: An act of charity, such as fraternal correction, surpasses the idle habit of charity that does nothing.
Fourth, Aben-Ezra: Hidden love, he says, is private correction, as if to say: Public correction is more useful than private and hidden correction. For in public correction the one corrected is covered with shame and amends his fault; but often the opposite happens. For from public correction the powerful and high-spirited are more gravely irritated, and burn with hatred toward the one correcting them, because they see themselves being defamed; therefore, to protect their reputation and honor, they defend their sin and harden themselves in it.
Fifth, and this is the genuine sense: "Hidden love" is delicate and faint-hearted love, which in the heart — hides itself, and does not dare to correct an erring friend out of bashfulness, or lest it sadden him — just as mothers often, out of feminine love, indulge their children in everything and do not dare to reprove them when they sin. So Rabbi Levi, Jansenius, and others generally. The sense therefore is: Love that reveals itself by correcting the faults of a friend surpasses hidden love, that is, latent love that does not reveal itself, does not censure faults, but ignores them, or even covers and hides them. For the former is masculine, courageous, and effective love; the latter is feminine, abject, idle, and useless. For this reason even correction that comes from an enemy is more useful than the hidden love of a friend that ignores faults; for the former amends faults, the latter ignores, conceals, and fosters them. Hence Plutarch in his Moralia: "Just as Telephus," he says, "since he lacked a friend, was compelled to seek from his enemy a remedy for the healing of his wound: so those who do not have frank friends by whom they might be admonished, very often hear their faults from enemies." Hence for 'hidden love' the Hebrew is אהבה מסתרת, which if with a different vowel pointing you read מסתרת mesatteret, it means 'love that hides,' namely a friend's faults. Indeed, Baynus takes 'hidden' in the active sense of 'hiding.' Thus in Psalm 67:17, mountains are called 'curdled,' that is, 'curdling.' And Job 20:26: "Hidden darkness," that is, darkness which conceals and hides things.
This maxim therefore signifies that it belongs to true love and friendship to correct the faults of a friend; for this is what charity demands, and the law of fraternal correction enacted by Christ, indeed by the very character and nature of love and charity (Matthew 18:15): "If your brother sins against you," He says, "go and correct him between you and him alone; if he listens to you, you will have gained your brother." And Sirach 19:13: "Reprove a friend," he says, "lest perhaps he did not understand, and say: I did not do it; or if he did it, that he may not do it again." "Correct out of love, not out of rancor," says St. Augustine.
Hear the Author of the book On Friendship, chapter 27, in St. Augustine, volume IV, illuminating this passage from St. Ambrose: "Friends must not only be argued with, but, if need be, rebuked. A friend must be rebuked if he spurns the truth and is led into crime by complaisance and flattery; but admonition should lack bitterness, and rebuke should lack insult. Ambrose: If you detect any fault in a friend, correct him privately; if he does not listen to you, correct him publicly. For corrections are good, and generally better than silent friendships. And even if the friend thinks himself wounded, still correct him. For a friend's wounds are more tolerable than the kisses of flatterers."
Excellently St. Augustine, Epistle 1 to Boniface: "Troublesome," he says, "is the physician to the raging madman, and the father to the undisciplined son — the former by binding, the latter by beating, but both by loving. If they were to neglect these and allow them to perish, that so-called gentleness would rather be cruelty. For if the horse and mule, in which there is no understanding, resist with bites and kicks the men whose care —" their wounds are treated, and although men are often endangered among hundreds of their kicks, they sometimes fear but nevertheless do not abandon them, until through healing pains and remedial discomforts they restore them to health — how much more must a man not be abandoned by a man, a brother by a brother, lest he perish eternally, when once corrected he can understand how great a benefit is conferred upon him, though he complained of suffering persecution?"
Therefore Clement of Alexandria, Book I of the Pedagogue, chapter 5: "Reproof," he says, "is like a kind of surgery of the soul. Admonition is like a kind of diet for the sick soul." And Clement of Rome, Book II of the Apostolic Constitutions, chapter 14: "Therefore," he says, "like a merciful physician, cure all sinners, using remedies suited to their health — not only by cutting, cauterizing, and applying the razor, but also by binding, drying, and applying gentle medicines that close wounds, and by softening with consoling words. If the wound is deep, heal it with gentle ointment, so that once filled it becomes level with the surrounding parts; if it has gathered filth, cleanse it with the razor, that is, with speech suited for cutting; if it has swollen, reduce it with a sharp salve, that is, with threats of judgment; if it spreads, check it with cautery, and cut away the corruption with the sharpness of fasting."
The philosophers held the same view. Diogenes the Cynic used to say that we need not only faithful friends, but also bitter enemies — since the former admonish us, while the latter reprove and chastise our errors and the disgraceful conduct of our lives. So Laertius, Book VI.
Memorable and worthy of imitation is what I add here. The orator Demades, when he had seen King Philip, having drunk rather freely, dancing among the crowd of captives with his friends and insolently reproaching them —
their calamity, freely said: "Since, O king, fortune has bestowed upon you the role of Agamemnon, are you not ashamed to act the part of Thersites in your deeds?" That remark transformed the drunken king into a completely different manner of life.
6. THE WOUNDS OF A FRIEND ARE BETTER THAN THE DECEITFUL KISSES OF AN ENEMY.
In Hebrew: Faithful are the wounds of a friend, and supplicatingly flattering are the kisses of an enemy. Although the word 'than,' the mark of comparison, is not expressly stated, it is tacitly understood. For there is an antithesis by which the wounds of a friend are contrasted with and preferred to the kisses of an enemy, because the former are faithful and sincere, while the latter are flattering and false. For who does not see that faithful things are better than simulated and false? Hence the Septuagint, expressing this comparison, translate: More faithful are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy. And the Chaldean: Beautiful or gentle are the wounds of a friend, and the kisses of an enemy. For who would not prefer what is good, indeed what is beautiful, to what is evil?
Related to this is the Arabic proverb: "The enmity of a wise man is better than the friendship of a fool;" for the former corrects and amends, while the latter flatters and destroys. "Therefore a wise enemy is better than a foolish friend." And that saying of Cato quoted by Cicero in the book On Friendship: "Bitter enemies deserve much better from some people than those friends who seem sweet."
Furthermore, St. Augustine, Tractate 6 on John: "Let us have," he says, "true peace with our neighbors, let us have the peace of doves; for doves kiss each other, and so do ravens. In doves there is true peace; in ravens false peace, because they kiss and tear."
For 'deceitful,' the Hebrew is נעתרות nataroth, which the Chaldean translates as 'evil'; the Septuagint, 'willing,' that is, friendly, benevolent; the Zurich Bible, 'forced'; Aben-Ezra and Vatablus, 'thick, dense, packed' — for pretenders are accustomed to repeat and multiply their kisses; Pagninus and Cajetan, 'many'; Symmachus, 'troubled'; best of all, Aquila, 'supplicating,' that is, supplicatingly flattering, entreating, and fawning. For the root עתר athar means to supplicate, entreat, kiss repeatedly, or flatter with sweet words in order to obtain something.
The sense is clear; for it proves what was said in the preceding verse, that open correction is good, indeed better than hidden love, from the fact that the wounds of one who loves are better than the kisses of one who hates. It therefore signifies that, just as hatred has bitter kisses, so conversely love has sweet and pleasant wounds. Such are the wounds of mortification and of charity that mortifies itself or its own. "Better," therefore, means gentler and sweeter — not only because charity wounds in order to heal the sick, but because, wrapped in its own sweetness, it strikes gently and pleasantly. For the former proceed from love, the latter from rancor and hatred; the former heal, and are therefore not so much wounds as medicines, while the latter seduce and lead into snares and destruction; the former are faithful and sincere, the latter false and fraudulent; the former flow from the desire to save, the latter from the intention to deceive and destroy. The wounds of a friend are called 'faithful' in Hebrew: both because they are sincere, not treacherous; and because they flow from fidelity and faithful love; and because they are directed toward a faithful end — namely, that the friend may be corrected and rescued from evils, says Rabbi Levi; and because they arouse trust in the friend, so that he can safely and securely believe and entrust himself to the one who loves him, even though he wounds him, says Baynus; and finally 'faithful' means firm and strong, because they publicly wound and pound the one who needs chastisement so that he may be amended, says Aben-Ezra.
By 'wounds' understand severe correction, which strikes and wounds the soul, and also serious chastisement, by which when necessary the body is beaten, scourged, and made to bleed.
Now physicians, such as Galen, and after him Celsus in Book I, call those wounds 'unfaithful' which indeed cure the disease but injure the part that was cut — for example, when a vein is opened in such a way that a nerve is damaged. But they call 'faithful' those wounds that are so tempered as to cure without injuring — that is, which do not penetrate to the innermost parts but only open the skin to remove putrid flesh while leaving the healthy flesh untouched. As if to say: The corrections that a loving person is bound to administer to the beloved for his good — namely, for the amendment of faults — ought to be wounds that touch and remove the fault but do not damage the reputation, and therefore should not be injurious, angry, reproachful, or abusive; for such wounds do not heal old sores but inflict new ones. For, as St. Isidore says in Book III On the Highest Good, chapter 91: "He who corrects a sinner with a proud or insulting spirit does not amend but strikes." Hence the Chaldean translates: beautiful or gentle are the wounds of a friend — both because they please the one corrected, while the kisses of a deceiver are utterly displeasing; and because they calm, pacify, and compose his soul toward modesty, gravity, and every virtue. So beautiful are the wounds a soldier receives from the enemy when fighting bravely in close combat, for these wounds are marks and signs of his courage and noble fighting. More beautiful still are the wounds of the Martyrs, of whom the Poet says:
Through wounds they seek a beautiful death.
For these adorn the Martyrs like crowns and triumphal laurels. Hence St. Augustine, in the book On the Conflict of Vices: "It is," he says, "a not ignoble kind of martyrdom to bear those who reprove us with equanimity." Just as therefore the glorious bodies of the Martyrs in heaven will keep the welts and scars of their wounds, as tokens of their suffering, martyrdom, and triumph (just as Christ for the same reason will keep His), so that they may gloriously display them for all eternity before the Lord, the Angels, and the Blessed: so likewise those who receive corrections, reproofs, and chastisements as wounds with humility, patience, and love will gloriously display the beautiful welts and marks of those wounds, rivaling those of martyrdom, before the whole world on the day of judgment.
Conversely, the deceitful kisses of an enemy are shameful to the one who gives them, and harmful and deadly to the one who receives them. Of these Clement says, Book II of the Pedagogue, chapter 9: "There is," he says, "another kind of kiss — unchaste, full of poison, simulating holiness. Do you not know that even phalangia, if they merely touch with their mouth, cause men severe pain?" A phalangium is a kind of spider which, if it even lightly touches the flesh, instills venom and spreads it through the limbs, causing severe torment. The same does he who treacherously kisses a friend. Treacherous was the kiss of Judas by which he betrayed Christ, of which St. Ambrose says on Luke chapter 22, at those words: Judas, with a kiss —
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, that is, the harsher admonitions of a friend are sincere; and perfidious are the kisses of an enemy. נעתר means 'he humbly prayed, desired,' hence in the niphal form 'was desired, was absent, deceived, was perfidious.' Others interpret differently.
Do you betray the Son of Man? — he continues thus: "With a pledge of love you inflict a wound? By an act of charity you shed blood, and with an instrument of peace you bring death? A servant betrays the master, a disciple betrays the teacher, the chosen one betrays the author? This is the meaning of: More useful are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy." The same St. Ambrose, Book I of Offices, chapter 34: "Benevolence," he says, "is accustomed to wrest the sword from the hand of anger. Benevolence makes the wounds of a friend more useful than the willing kisses of an enemy, etc. At the same time we observe that even corrections in friendship are welcome — those which have stings but no pain. For we are pricked by censorious words, but delighted by the attentiveness of goodwill."
St. Chrysostom, Homily On Bearing Reproofs and the Conversion of St. Paul: "Certainly I do not approve of an enemy even when he praises me, but I embrace a friend even when he reproves me. The former, even if he kisses me, is unpleasant; the latter, even if he wounds me, is lovable. The kiss of the former is full of suspicion; the wound of the latter has the power of medicine. For this reason someone says: More faithful are the wounds of a friend than the bland kisses of an enemy. What does he say? He says the wounds of friends are more faithful: for he does not attend to the nature of the things done, but rather to the disposition of those who do them. Do you wish to learn how the wounds of a friend are more faithful? Judas kissed the Lord; but by his kiss he betrayed the venom that his mouth held, and his tongue was filled with malice. Paul wounded the man who had committed fornication among the Corinthians, but he saved him," etc.
Second, this maxim can be applied to criminals who are punished by judges and magistrates, for instance by being scourged or by capital punishment, as if to say: Better and more faithful are the wounds inflicted on a criminal by a judge, than the kisses of the fraudulent who enticed them into crime. For these wounds proceed from a love of justice, by which the judge loves the criminal and therefore justly punishes him so that he may sin no more; and from a love of the commonwealth, so that the rest, fearing a similar punishment, may abstain from sins, and thus the commonwealth may live in peace and justice.
Hence St. Augustine, Epistle 48 to Vincentius, from this passage and similar ones, teaches that it does not oppose but is consistent with Christian charity for princes to compel heretics to return to the orthodox faith, under penalty not only of confiscation of goods but also of life: "Not everyone," he says, "who spares is a friend, nor is everyone who strikes an enemy: better are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy; it is better to love with severity than to deceive with gentleness. And he who binds the raving madman and he who rouses the lethargic are both troublesome to both, yet both love both. Who can love us more than God? And yet He does not cease not only to teach us gently but also to frighten us salutarily, often adding the most biting medicine of tribulation to the gentle poultices with which He consoles." The same author also Against the Letters of Petilian: "I would prefer," he says, "to be healed by merciful rebuke than to be deceived and corrupted by bland flattery, as though my head were being anointed: for better are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy." Moreover, these words of St. Augustine have been incorporated into canon law, and are found in Question 5, Chapter 5, at the beginning of Chapter II, and Question 23, Chapter IV, Nimium.
Third, this maxim can be applied to all the faithful whom God chastises through tribulations of famine, disease, war, persecutions, etc. For these wounds are medicines, indeed love potions of God, which God administers to us out of supreme love, in order to draw us from the flesh, the world, and sins to Himself, that is, to the spirit, virtue, and heaven — while the flesh, the world, and the devil with their enticements, like deceitful kisses, deceive us and lead us to destruction. Hence St. Chrysostom, in the homily already cited, opposing the wounds God inflicted on Adam to the bland kisses of the devil, by which through the serpent he seduced Adam: "But let us inquire," he says, "how this saying has application not only among men but also in God and the devil. For the former is a friend, the latter an enemy; the former is a savior who cares for us, the latter is an enemy and deceiver. And the latter once gave a kiss, the former —" inflicted a wound. And how did the one kiss and the other wound? The one said: You shall be like gods. But the other said: You are earth, and to earth you shall return. Which of the two, then, did more good — the one who said: You shall be like gods, or the one who said: You are earth, and to earth you shall return? The former threatened death, the latter promised immortality. And yet the one who promised immortality cast them out of paradise, while the one who threatened death brought them into heaven. Do you see how the wounds of a friend are more faithful than the bland kisses of an enemy?" He then adds: "Therefore I wished first to make this clear: that I am grateful to those who reprove me. For friends, whether they reprove justly or unjustly, do not wish to condemn, but do so in order to amend; enemies however, even if they reprove justly, do so not to correct but to hiss; just as the former when they praise have this one aim — to make us better, while the latter when they praise study how they may supplant us."
Fourth, this maxim can be applied to true preachers who thunder severely against vices, and to false ones who flatter the vices of the powerful. Hence Philo of Carpathia on Song of Songs chapter 6: "Nor is it hard for her," he says, "to be rebuked rather sharply, provided she understands that this is pleasing to the Lord; hence Solomon: Better are the wounds of a friend than the deceitful kisses of an enemy; for the former lead to everlasting salvation, the latter most wretchedly destroy. Would that the bride of Christ (namely the Church) were constantly beaten with these blows; for then so many Christians — alas, miserable ones! — would not daily perish most wretchedly through the flattery of preachers!" And after some further remarks, he thus honors those who inflict these wounds on their hearers out of love: "These are they who most holily strike and most healthfully wound, and sinners should desire to have wounds inflicted by them, and wish to be cured by them: for it is better to be slain for a time by these than to be kissed to death by flatterers all the way to hell."
And St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, section 5: "We too," he says, "confess a wound when we preach Christ crucified; but we are a good fragrance to God, etc. With this wound the Church is wounded when she proclaims the death of her Savior; but this wound is of charity. For he who does not believe denies; he who loves confesses. The Manichaean denies, the Christian professes; and therefore it is written: More useful are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy. Beautifully therefore the Church says: Because I am wounded with love. Let us bare our limbs to the good wound; let us bare ourselves to the chosen arrow. This arrow is Christ, who says: He set me as a chosen arrow. It is good therefore to be wounded by this arrow." And then he applies these wounds to the Martyrs: "Not all," he says, "can say that they have been wounded with love. The Apostles said it, when they were stoned for Christ and preached Christ. Paul said it, when he was beaten three times with rods, and day and night argued that the Gentiles should worship Christ. The Martyrs say it, who are wounded for Christ, and because they were —" found worthy to be wounded for His name, they love all the more."
Mystically, the same St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, section 18, at the end, takes the wounds to mean the mortification of the flesh, which the faithful person inflicts on himself out of love for Christ, which is better than the blandishments by which the flesh deceitfully flatters us.
7. A SATED SOUL WILL TRAMPLE HONEYCOMB, AND A HUNGRY SOUL WILL TAKE EVEN WHAT IS BITTER FOR SWEET.
In Hebrew: and to a famished soul every bitter thing is sweet. The Septuagint: The soul that is sated mocks at honeycombs; to the needy, even bitter things seem sweet. Cassian, Conference 12, chapters 14 and 15, reads: to a hungry soul. The Chaldean: and to a hungry soul whatever is bitter is sweet. The Syriac: to a hungry soul even bitter things will be sweet.
Grammatically, or in the literal sense, this maxim signifies that satiety begets weariness of food, while hunger brings flavor and delight. For he who is sated loathes all food, even the most delicate; but he who is hungry judges all food, however tasteless or bitter, to be pleasant and agreeable. Hence the saying: "The best seasoning for food is hunger, for drink is thirst." And the saying: "Hunger makes raw beans taste like sugar; apart from itself, hunger sweetens everything." And that of Lucius: "Abundance of things begets weariness." Hence Socrates, walking about late in the evening before his doors, when asked what he was doing, replied: "I am preparing seasoning for dinner."
But parabolically, and especially beneath this literal and grammatical sense, this parable signifies, first, how great is the gap — indeed the superiority — of poverty over riches, and of want over wealth and abundance of goods. For the rich, since they abound in everything and are always sated, loathe even the most delicate foods, always seeking something to excite the appetite and please the palate. But the poor, who often suffer great hunger and rarely have a full stomach, take even dry bread and plain water most eagerly and with pleasure, and what is tasteless and unpleasant to others tastes excellent to them. "The things that my soul previously refused to touch are now, in my distress, my food" (Job 6:7). Relevant here is the proverb of the Arabs: "A barefoot man is shod with any shoe," as if to say: A poor man, for lack of better things, is content and glad with any mean thing.
I offer clear examples. Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, when bread from a cottage was given to him as he was traveling through Egypt without his companions keeping up, declared that no food had ever seemed sweeter to him. For the best seasoning — hunger — was present. So Cicero, Book V of the Tusculan Disputations.
Darius in flight, when he had drunk water that was turbid and polluted with corpses, declared that he had never drunk anything more pleasantly. But he had never, or very rarely, drunk while thirsty. So Cicero, Book V of the Tusculan Disputations.
Artaxerxes, when during a certain flight, after his provisions had been plundered, he was eating dried figs and barley bread, said: "Good gods, I have been ignorant of such pleasure until now!" So Plutarch in the Sayings of Kings and Commanders. When Artaxerxes was already faint with thirst, the eunuch Peribarzanes, since nothing else was available, brought from some peasant a dirty leather bag containing eight cups of stale water. When the king had drunk this water, he confessed that he had never drunk wine more pleasantly, nor had any water, however pure, ever seemed sweeter to him.
Second, that pleasure consists not in the abundance and satiety of things, but in hunger and desire. For just as satiety produces nausea, so hunger and desire produce pleasure when one enjoys the thing desired; for desire makes everything tasty and sweet. Therefore the good things of this life are more valued by men from their appetite and desire for them than from the things themselves. For we often see ourselves eagerly wanting something, and thinking nothing of any labor to obtain it, and wonderfully rejoicing when we acquire it; but once our desire is fulfilled and we are sated with that thing, we esteem it little and finally become weary of it. St. Chrysostom teaches this excellently in the homily That No One Is Harmed Except by Himself: "By the wise," he says, "it is defined thus: that this alone is pleasure — when one enjoys one's desires. But when one cannot enjoy one's desires — either because illness does not allow it, or because satiety itself does not let one desire what abundance makes burdensome — then without doubt both pleasure and delight in those things equally perish. Consider, then, the sick who are overcome by disgust: however pleasant and sumptuous the foods set before them, they receive them with horror rather than pleasure. So therefore, when desire has been extinguished by abundance, pleasure and delight are equally destroyed, because it is not so much the charm of foods as the satisfaction of desire that generates pleasure. Hence a certain wise man, well skilled in philosophizing about these things, used to say: The soul placed in satiety mocks at honeycombs — showing himself too that pleasure consists not in the nature of foods, as we said, but in the vigor of desire." He then elegantly proves the same from the rock which, struck by Moses, gave the thirsting Hebrews water to drink in the desert (Psalm 80): "For this reason the Prophet too, narrating the wonders done in Egypt and in the desert, says among other things: From the rock He satisfied them with honey. Indeed we nowhere find that honey flowed from a rock: what then does this mean? Because after the great weariness and labor of the journey, being thirsty, they enjoyed the cold waters flowing from the rock and drank them with great desire. Therefore by the very fact that their longing to drink most delightfully and desiringly was fulfilled, he called those waters honey — not because the nature of the waters had been changed, but because the sweetness of the draught, for those who were thirsty and yearning, attained the sweetness of honey."
The same applies to spiritual matters. For many, from continual devout reading and daily confession, communion, the sacrifice, the hours, etc., develop a kind of satiety, and from it tedium and disgust. For these Cassian gives this remedy: that they should daily arouse hunger and desire for spiritual things, even the same ones, as if this devout reading, conversation, and communion were for the first time — new and hitherto unheard of — according to that saying of Thomas a Kempis, Book IV of the Imitation of Christ, chapter 2: "It should seem so great, new, and joyful to you when you celebrate or hear Mass, as if on that very day Christ had first descended into the womb of the Virgin and been made man, or were hanging on the cross, suffering and dying for the salvation of mankind." But hear Abbot Nesteros in Cassian, Conference 14, chapter 13: "You should guard with all diligence that even if you happen to hear in a conference things you already know very well, you do not receive them disdainfully and with boredom because they are already known to you; but commend them to your heart with that eagerness with which the desirable words of salvation ought to be unceasingly poured into our ears or constantly brought forth from our mouth. For it is a clear sign of a lukewarm and proud mind if one receives the medicine of salutary words with boredom and negligence, even when administered with the zeal of constant application. For the soul that is in satiety mocks at honeycombs; but to the needy soul even bitter things seem sweet."
Hence Abbot Chaeremon, Conference 12, chapter 5, teaches that the desire of one who is tending toward perfection must be sharpened daily. "For," he says, "once the desire for it has kindled someone, it compels him to bear hunger, thirst, vigils, nakedness, and all bodily labors not only patiently but even gladly. For a man in his labors labors for himself and does violence to his own destruction." And again: "To the needy soul even bitter things seem sweet. For the desires for present things cannot otherwise be suppressed or rooted out, unless in place of those harmful affections which we wish to cut away, other wholesome ones have been introduced. For the vigor of the mind cannot in any way subsist without some affection of desire or fear, joy or sorrow, unless these same affections have been changed for the better. And therefore, if we desire to drive carnal lusts from our hearts, let us immediately plant spiritual desires in their place, so that our mind, always resting on these, may have something on which to continually dwell, and may reject the allurements of present and temporal joys."
Third, this maxim teaches that all creatures, even pleasant ones, and even studies and sciences, should be used in moderation, because pleasure is enhanced by rarer use. Hence the saying: "All satiety is bad, but satiety with studies is the worst." Hear St. Chrysostom, Oration 6 On Providence or On Fate, which is found at the end of volume 5: "If we seek pleasure, we shall find it in sufficiency rather than in luxury. Hear how in sufficiency there is greater pleasure than —" in sufficiency, and richer is the pleasure. For the former cannot thereafter moderate itself, nor does it find a suitable temperament for itself; but the latter, on the contrary, can moderate itself. Who says this? The one who above all enjoyed it most. Empty souls, he says, find bitter things sweet; a sated soul mocks even at honeycomb. For if in abundance we do not even desire honeycomb, what pleasure can there be besides? If that which is sweetest cannot bring pleasure, what can establish us in pleasure? Therefore, if we seek pleasure, we shall find it here rather — that is, in poverty."
Symbolically, some explain it thus, as if to say: Old men who have had their fill of carnal pleasures, trample on them and loathe them; but young men who hunger for them undertake every labor for them and consider them sweet.
Mystically, Bede, Salonius, and Hugo say: "The soul of the rich (who have their consolation in this world, of whom it is said in the Gospel: Woe to you who are sated, for you shall hunger) — the soul of the rich, I say, tramples on honeycomb, because for the sake of earthly goods it scorns the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom; but the hungry soul will take even the bitter for sweet, because he who hungers and thirsts for righteousness eagerly takes up every adversity of this life for the love of the heavenly homeland." So also the Author of the Greek Catena.
Contrarily, but more aptly, Jansenius interprets it so that satiety is taken in a good sense and hunger in a bad sense, as if to say: He who no longer hungers for temporal goods, but with his mind attached to divine things is sated with them, content with food and clothing, and judging with Paul that through them he has everything, loathes all these earthly things that others consider most sweet. But conversely, those who are held by an insatiable desire for the goods or pleasures of this life judge these perishable things and the pleasures of this life (which are truly bitter to those imbued with heavenly wisdom and whose palate is not corrupted) to be sweet, preferring them to the virtues of the soul and heavenly things — which is truly to take the bitter for the sweet. For according to this application, the loathing is for the same things in which there is satiety; likewise the hunger is for those same things that are taken as sweet — whereas in the former interpretation it is not so, which however the true understanding of the parable seems to require.
Dionysius adds: The soul, he says, sated with internal consolation from the contemplation and taste of the supreme and uncircumscribed Good, will trample on honeycomb, that is, all earthly delights.
8. AS A BIRD THAT WANDERS FROM ITS NEST, SO IS A MAN WHO ABANDONS HIS PLACE.
The Arabic: his nest. Some, such as Aben-Ezra, Clarius, Baynus, and Vatablus, take this maxim in a good sense, as if to say: Just as a bird, in order to seek food, flies from place to place, and at the time of winter, to escape the cold, migrates to a warm region: so likewise one who attends to his affairs does not sit idle and lazy at home, but flies out to the marketplace, to the field, indeed to foreign lands, in order to obtain the necessities of life for himself and his family.
But others generally take this maxim in a bad sense. It censures therefore those who, without just cause, from lightness of mind, fickleness, and inconstancy, like birds, rashly migrate from one place to another and another, as vagabonds do. For the Hebrew נדד nadad means to wander, to be tossed about, to flee, to pass quickly. Hence the Hebrew reads: as a bird wandering from its nest, so is a man wandering from his place. Vatablus: a man who migrates from his place is like a little sparrow leaving its nest. The Syriac: as a bird that moves its nest, so is he who unstably changes from his place.
I said 'without just cause,' because a just cause makes a change of place honorable, useful, and necessary. Now a just cause is threefold: first, necessity; second, utility; third, piety. Necessity exists when someone changes location on account of famine, plague, war, etc., as Naomi did, traveling to Moab because of famine — where, however, she lost her husband, sons, and possessions; but she brought back one Ruth and converted her, from whom Christ was descended (Ruth chapter 1). Again, necessity exists when persecution is pressing: as Elijah fled the persecution of Ahab and Jezebel, and St. Athanasius, an exile and fugitive, wandered throughout the whole world for forty-six years because of the persecution of the Arians. Of such people the Apostle says (Hebrews 11:37): "They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented — of whom the world was not worthy — wandering in deserts, in mountains, in caves, and in holes of the earth."
Utility exists when someone goes to foreign lands for the sake of trade, to enrich himself and bring back goods useful to the commonwealth. Again, when someone is made a Senator, Governor, Bishop, or Viceroy of another city or province.
Piety exists when someone travels at God's command, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did, "confessing that they were pilgrims and strangers upon the earth: for they were looking for a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God" (Hebrews 11:10). Again, when someone enters Religious life, and in it is sent from one monastery or college to another, from one province to another — but such a one is at home everywhere, being a cosmopolite and citizen of the world, as Socrates said he was. For a Religious person everywhere finds Fathers and Brothers of his institute, everywhere the same kind of Religious life, the same discipline, piety, and charity, and thus according to the hundredfold promised by Christ, he receives a hundred houses, fathers, mothers, and brothers for the one he left for the love of God. A greater piety exists when someone travels out of zeal for evangelization to heretics or Pagans, for example to the Indians, Japanese, and Chinese, as the Apostles did, and as zealous men emulating the Apostolic life do today.
Moreover, when these causes are absent, to migrate from place to place out of mere fickleness of mind is unbecoming, useless, and harmful, for various reasons.
The first reason is that such a person lacks rest and stability, since he is everywhere a wanderer and stranger: for he has nowhere a proper home or room where he may dwell in peace, but everywhere he is as if in an inn or common tavern. For this wandering life is miserable, and all the more miserable because it flows from a wandering mind, of which it is a sign. Truly Seneca, Epistle 2: "The first proof," he says, "of a well-ordered mind is, I think, the ability to stand still and dwell with oneself." And soon after: "He is nowhere who is everywhere. For those who spend their life in travel, this happens — that they have many lodgings but no friendships. The same must happen to those who attach themselves intimately to no one's mind, but pass through everything hastily and hurriedly. Food does not benefit, nor is it absorbed by the body, if it is expelled as soon as taken. Nothing hinders health so much as frequent change of remedies; a wound does not come to a scar in which different medicines are constantly tried; a plant does not grow strong that is frequently transplanted: nothing is so useful that it benefits in passing."
The second reason is that a vagabond cannot attend to the education of his children, to instructing and increasing his household, or to providing the necessities of life, because he is in perpetual motion and change, and therefore he is like a bird that neither builds up wealth nor family, but is in constant flight — indeed, he is worse than a bird: for a bird, while it incubates its eggs and nurtures its chicks until they grow up and can seek food for themselves, remains in the nest to provide for its young; but a vagabond abandons wife, children, and family, so that they must necessarily suffer want. Therefore he is like the ostrich, of which Job says (chapter 39, verse 13): "The wing of the ostrich," he says, "is like the wings of the stork and the hawk; when she leaves her eggs on the ground, she forgets that a foot may crush them, or a beast of the field may trample them; she treats her young harshly as if they were not hers; she labors in vain without any fear compelling her, for God has deprived her of wisdom," etc.
The third reason is that a person who changes location loses acquaintances and friends, and goes among strangers and foreigners who neither trust him nor does he trust them: and so, alone without a friend, often lacking in all things, he lives without hope of help. Hence Plato, Dialogue 7 On Laws, says: "Change in all things, except in evil things, is dangerous."
The fourth reason is that, just as birds when they fly from place to place often fall into nets or are struck by javelins: so one who goes abroad, ignorant of the laws and dangers of the place, often incurs the peril of prison, loss of goods, reputation, and life. Hence the Septuagint translates: just as when a bird has flown from its own nest, so a man becomes a slave when he has traveled from his own places. The Author of the Greek Catena: just as a bird when it deserts its nest exposes itself to the danger of capture, so a man when he goes abroad from his place is sometimes carried off into servitude. Symmachus: when he has been transferred, etc.
Fifth, just as a bird lives most comfortably in its own nest, and if it flies away from there, it must migrate to a less comfortable place: so too everyone lives most comfortably in his own place and home; therefore, if he moves from it to another, he must necessarily move to a less comfortable one. Moreover: Just as a bird, says Rabbi Levi, having left its nest is often robbed of it and forced to build another for itself, so he who rashly deserts his own place is pressed by want of all things.
Again, just as a bird that deserts its nest as winter approaches, in which it had dwelt during the summer, when it returns after winter finds the nest completely overturned and scattered, so that it needs to build a new one: so also a man who happens to be absent from his home and household for a time, when he returns again to his house, finds his whole family and all domestic affairs confused and disrupted, so that everything needs to be restored. So Salazar. Following Solomon's example, Sirach says (Ecclesiasticus 29:31): "A wretched life," he says, "is lodging from house to house, and where he lodges he will not act confidently, nor open his mouth." And chapter 36:28: "Who trusts one who has no nest, and stops wherever darkness overtakes him?" etc. See what was said in both places.
Mystically, Bede: "Just as a bird that neglects its eggs or its chicks that it had been nurturing, leaves them to be seized by other animals or birds: so indeed he who abandons the guardianship of the virtues in which he was progressing becomes himself a betrayer of those same virtues, which he seemed to possess, to unclean spirits."
Therefore you may aptly apply this maxim to those who lightly change their studies, offices, occupations, pious exercises, indeed their very state of life — for example, those who lightly transfer from one monastery to another, from one Order to another, pretending greater peace or holiness, when truly that cause does not exist, but only fickleness and inconstancy of mind, which accompany them everywhere. For stability of mind, and consequently of place (which therefore many cenobites vow), is necessary for one who strives toward the great perfection of virtue and Religious life.
This maxim therefore admonishes that one should persist in one's station and vocation, if one loves one's peace, stability, security, progress, and perfection: for he who abandons it falls into a thousand disturbances, by which he becomes restless, unstable, doubtful, wayward, and prone to falling. Wisely the Poet says:
Remain in whatever station you have been placed.
Those who, led by instability, now profess one art, now another, make progress in none. The same is true in studies, offices, and virtues.
Excellently St. Basil, Constitutions of the Monastery, chapter 22: "Every pretext," he says, "as being contrary to reason, is cut off and taken from him who would wish to separate himself from the spiritual community, and it has been demonstrated that the origin of such a plan is nothing other than the intemperance of vices, the avoidance of labor, and the corruption and instability of judgment." St. Ephrem the Syrian ordains thus: "In the place of your dwelling, or whatever —" you have received as assigned by God, remain willingly, repelling idleness and sloth from yourself, since it is not in the change and distance of place that our passions are restrained, but in the attentiveness and care of the mind."
Hear St. Bernard, Epistle 32 to the Abbot of St. Nicasius: "We admonish Brother Hugh of Lausanne by your mouth and our spirit, not to believe every spirit, and not to be quickly moved to abandon certainties for uncertainties, knowing that the devil always lies in wait for perseverance alone, which alone he knows to be crowned with a reward, and that it is safer to simply persevere in the vocation to which one was called, than under the appearance of a supposedly better good, to lose what one has already begun and perhaps not to be adequate for what one presumes to undertake." Finally, St. Thomas, II-II, Question 189, article 8, disapproves of transfer from one Religious Order to another unless a serious cause compels it. I have said more on this matter at Sirach 17:24.
9. THE HEART DELIGHTS IN OINTMENT AND VARIOUS FRAGRANCES, AND THE SOUL IS SWEETENED BY THE GOOD COUNSELS OF A FRIEND.
In Hebrew: And the sweetness of a friend from the counsel of the soul, or for the counsel of the soul, or, as Pagninus translates, on account of the counsel of the soul.
First, Rabbi Solomon explains it thus, as if to say: He who so confirms his actions that they may be pleasing and sweet to God, does something more excellent than if he fulfilled the desires of his own heart. But this interpretation departs too far from Solomon's words.
Second, and better, the same Rabbi Solomon, Aben-Ezra, Rabbi Levi, and Baynus translate literally from the Hebrew: ointment and incense gladden the heart, and sweet is a friend more than the counsel of one's own soul; or, as Vatablus puts it: and the sweet counsel of a friend is more (supply: gladdening and cheering to the human heart) than the counsel of one's own soul, that is, one's own counsel. As if to say: Just as the ointment with which we are anointed, and the fragrance of balsam, frankincense, and other spices, by whose sweet scent the mind is refreshed, wonderfully cheers and restores a person: so likewise the sweetness of a friend cheers the mind even more, when he communicates some secret counsel, than the counsel of which one was oneself the author. Rabbi Levi gives the reason: Why do ointment and incense of various fragrances delight the mind with their sweetness? This happens because things that are in some way external enter the mind. So the sweetness of a secret shared with a friend to receive counsel is more excellent than the counsel that one deliberates by oneself without another's help, because the sharing of sweet counsel enters the friend's mind, as it were from without and from heaven.
Third, the Chaldean translates: just as good oil and spices gladden the heart, so is a pleasant man to his friend in the counsel of his soul. The Syriac: so is a man who delights his friend with the counsel of his soul. Which the Zurich Bible explains clearly: and to have a friend who counsels from the heart is the sweetest thing. For friends who are kind and gentle please and delight more than those who are learned and wise in their counsels.
Fourth, from the Hebrew you may plainly translate with Pagninus: and the sweetness of a friend from counsel, that is, on account of the counsel of the soul — that is, as the Vulgate translates, the soul is sweetened by the good counsels of a friend. For 'ointment' the Hebrew is שמן shemen, that is, oil, which because it holds the chief place in anointings, is extended by synecdoche to signify any ointment. If you translate 'oil' here, the sense will be, as if to say: Just as oil gives light, nourishes, and anoints, so a friend's counsel illuminates the mind, nourishes the will, and anoints and soothes the affections of anger and sadness. Even more do this the ointments compounded from balsam and other precious substances. For 'fragrances' the Hebrew is קטורת ketereth, that is, burning incense, and whatever exhales a sweet odor by its smoke. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Just as ointments cheer the heart, and fragrances gladden and strengthen the head and brain, so likewise the sound and sincere counsels of a friend rouse and gladden a heart oppressed by sorrow, anguish, anger, or some other passion, and illuminate, gladden, and strengthen the mind more than the counsels that one's own mind suggests to each person.
Second, just as sweet fragrances and ointments resist intoxication by strengthening the brain, and for this reason were formerly used at banquets: so the sound counsels of a friend ward off recklessness and rashness, which are like the drunkenness of a foolish soul, and cause a man to proceed soberly, cautiously, and providently in his affairs, especially in doubtful and perplexing ones.
Third, in adversity sound counsels raise up and cheer a downcast and sorrowing mind, like precious ointment; in prosperity, lest one become arrogant, they strengthen like spices.
Fourth, by ointments and sweet odors drawn in by breathing, the soul, as it were — that is, the vital breath that was previously languishing, prostrate, and dying — returns, as is evident in fainting. Hence that saying of the Bride in Song of Songs 2:5: "Support me with flowers, surround me with apples, for I am faint with love," as if to say: I am nearly dying from the languor of love, therefore recall my fleeing soul by the fragrance of flowers and apples. The reason is that all fragrant things are warm — indeed, odor is warmth, says Aristotle in his Problems, section 12, number 4. Warm things restore life, for life consists in heat and moisture, both of which fragrant things possess; they therefore exhale sweet and fiery vapors which wonderfully refresh and strengthen the vital spirits and the brain. So likewise good counsel restores a soul prostrate with sorrow and anguish to the body and head — and restores to itself one prone to falling into sin, so that he may live and serve God in holiness. Thus Paul, speaking of himself and the other Apostles who give sound counsel for salvation, says: "We are the good fragrance of Christ to God, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: to the one indeed an odor of death unto death, but to the other an odor of life unto life" (2 Corinthians 2:15). Just as the scent of a rose kills a beetle but vivifies a man. Relevant here is what Pliny, Book 7, chapter 11, reports from Megasthenes: that there are peoples in India called Astomi, who live without food and drink, solely from the breath and fragrance of flowers, fruits, and roots — but I consider this a fable.
Fifth, fragrant things increase a person's discernment and judgment: for they arouse and strengthen the vital and animal spirits, which fortify the brain for choosing and judging rightly; the same does the sound counsel of a friend. Hence the Emperor Aelius Verus used to have a small net filled with rose petals (the rose being the most fragrant of flowers, whence in Greek it is called ῥόδον, because, as Plutarch says, ῥεῦμα πολὺ τῆς ὀσμῆς ἀπίει, that is, it flows with an immense abundance of fragrance) spread under his bed, on which, anointed with Persian perfumes, he was accustomed to recline, so that by these odors his mind might be aroused and his judgment made keen. Moreover, Apuleius in The Golden Ass tells the fable that he, transformed from a man into a donkey, having sought roses throughout the whole world, endured so many hardships until at last, when a supply of them was offered for him to pluck, he was restored to human form and returned to his former comeliness, mind, and judgment.
Sixth, Aristotle in his Problems, section 12, numbers 7 and following, teaches that aromatics smell more sharply and for a longer time when fumigated with embers than with fire, because fire quickly tames and breaks down their strength, and thus alters and changes the scent. Again, aromatics and flowers smell more sweetly from a distance than from close up; likewise when they are moved. Moreover, roses that have a rough center smell more sweetly than those with a smooth one, because they have fully attained the manner of their nature — for by nature a rose is thorny and rough. So likewise, the counsels of a friend that are mature and moderate are healthier and sweeter than those that are ardent and rash; also those that have something rough and difficult about them are preferable to those that are delicate and soft. Hence nearly all fragrant things are bitter in taste, and therefore what is strong in odor lacks flavor. Hear Pliny, Book 21, chapter 7: "In fragrant things the taste is rarely anything but bitter; conversely, sweet things are rarely fragrant. And so wines are more fragrant than must, and wild things more than cultivated in all cases. The odor of some things is sweeter from a distance; brought closer, it is dulled, like violets. A fresh rose smells from afar, a dried one from close up. All odor is sharper in springtime and in the morning hours; whatever tends toward the midday hours of the day is dulled. New plants also are less fragrant than old ones; yet the sharpest odor of all is in midsummer. Roses and crocus are more fragrant when gathered on clear days, and all things more in warm than in cold weather."
Now the Septuagint takes a different direction: instead of רעהו reehu, that is, 'his friend,' reading with different vowel points רועה roah, that is, 'is broken, crushed, ruptured,' and instead of עצת atsa, that is, 'counsel,' reading אנקה aka, that is, 'affliction, anguish,' they translate: the heart delights in ointments, wines, and perfumes, but the soul is torn apart by calamities. As if to say: Those who indulge their appetites and devote themselves to delights — for example, banquets and sumptuous symposia at which guests are anointed with ointments and refreshed with costly incense — these indeed please the heart for a short time; but when in these pursuits they have exhausted their wealth, reduced to poverty, they fall into hunger, nakedness, toils, and pains, which lacerate and nearly tear apart the soul. Hence the Author of the Greek Catena translates: but the soul, tossed by various mishaps (for this is what the Greek word συμπτωμάτων signifies, which the Complutensian renders as 'shaken by accidents') is nearly torn apart. The same Author, taking 'heart' to mean the intellect and 'soul' to mean the concupiscible and irascible faculties, explains symbolically thus, as if to say: The heart, that is, the mind, which holds dominion over its own thoughts, delights itself in various ways in the study of wisdom — for these are the ointments, wines, and perfumes of the heart or mind. But when the soul, that is, the concupiscible or irascible faculty, holds the dominion in the soul, then it is darkened and torn apart, and reduced to nothing.
10. DO NOT FORSAKE YOUR FRIEND AND YOUR FATHER'S FRIEND, AND DO NOT ENTER YOUR BROTHER'S HOUSE ON THE DAY OF YOUR AFFLICTION.
Aquila: in the day of distress. In Hebrew: in the day of ruin. The Septuagint: atychon, that is, being in misfortune. The Chaldean: in the day of your destruction. The Syriac: in the day of your breaking. Vatablus: in the time of your calamity. Pagninus: in the day of your crushing. The Hebrew word איד ed properly signifies a vapor, cloud, or rather a torrent of waters, as I showed at Genesis 2:6, and metaphorically a disaster and calamity which suddenly and unexpectedly pours down and thunders like a cloud and torrent, especially a supreme and extreme one, such as destruction, ruin, or devastation.
Some here understand two friends, namely one of your own and another of your father's. More simply, others take it as one and the same friend. He therefore admonishes that an old friend should not be let go, and that his friendship should not be dissolved — one who has proved his loyalty to you over a long time, and thus was not summoned yesterday, but is, as it were, a hereditary friend from of old, who was not only your friend but also your father's friend. For you know this person; you can certainly trust him. You know how to deal with him; you have experienced his honesty, faithfulness, and constancy. By his counsel, like the fragrance of perfumes, your heart will be gladdened. In short, friendships ought to be immortal. And old friendships are more solid than new and recent ones, says Lyranus. Hence Isocrates says to Demonicus that "children should be heirs not only of possessions but also of their father's friendships." And Cicero: "Friendship," he says, "is the best and most beautiful furnishing of life." And Herodotus: "The most precious treasure," he says, "and surpassing all wealth, is a prudent and benevolent friend. Moreover —"
The reason why a friend sometimes abandons a friend is given by Seneca, Epistle 9: "He who looks to himself," he says, "and comes to friendship for this reason, thinks badly: as he began, so he will end. He who was taken up for the sake of utility will please only as long as he is useful." How often, as Plutarch used to say, just as that nursling of Hypsipyle, sitting in the meadow, plucked one flower after another, his infancy making his selection worthless: so any of us, out of a certain love of novelty and weariness of present things, is always captivated by a fresh and, as it were, blooming friend, and changes from time to time, beginning many friendships at once, all of them imperfect?
Mystically, Rabbi Solomon says: God is the friend of Israel and of his father, namely Abraham; hence He is called the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, who therefore should never be abandoned under any circumstances.
AND DO NOT ENTER YOUR BROTHER'S HOUSE ON THE DAY OF YOUR AFFLICTION. — Some think the brother is the same as the friend mentioned before, as if to say: Go to the house of your brother, that is, your friend, when he can help you and you can be helped by him; but when your affairs are utterly desperate and ruined (namely, on the day of your destruction, as the Hebrew has it), so that neither can he help you nor can you be helped by him, do not go to him in vain to seek aid, lest instead of the cheerfulness you usually bring him, you repay him with troubles, and instead of gratitude, return him vexation. Again, do not go to him when by going you would create danger for him, so that as your associate he too might be thrust into the same destruction into which you have been cast. In other cases, however, a friend should be sought out on the day of affliction, so that he may render help and consolation. For this is the purpose for which friendship and a friend are formed: to help and support an afflicted friend in adversity, as I have shown elsewhere.
Second and more plainly, take 'brother' here in the proper sense: for he compares and ranks the brother below the friend, as if to say: By no means forsake your tried and old friend, both yours and your father's: for he will be more faithful, more friendly, and more useful to you than a brother. Therefore on the day of affliction, go to your friend rather than to your brother: for you will draw more support, consolation, and help from a wise friend than from a brother, who either lives farther away, or associates with you less often, and does not know or care about your affairs — indeed, who sometimes harbors rivalries and disputes with you. Hence the saying: "Even the goodwill of brothers is rare." This often happens, but not always: for there are brothers who are the closest of friends and spend themselves and their possessions on their brothers.
This maxim therefore teaches how much friendship and a true friend should be valued and cultivated — as one whom you can trust more than a brother, and from whom you can hope for more help in adversity than from a blood brother, according to that saying of chapter 18:24: "A man who is friendly will be more of a friend than a brother." See what was said there. For in calamity it is generally unwelcome and troublesome to brothers and relatives to have their brothers or relatives implore their help, as he said in chapter 19:7, especially if they are far away, but a friend is nearby. Hence what follows:
BETTER IS A NEIGHBOR NEARBY THAN A BROTHER FAR AWAY.
In Hebrew: A good neighbor nearby is better than a brother far away. The Septuagint: Better (the Author of the Greek Catena says 'more opportune') is a friend who is near than a brother who is far. Bede and Hugo take 'neighbor' to mean 'friend,' as if to say: Better is a faithful and wise friend than a brother far removed. For often the bond of friendship is greater than that of brotherhood. Among brothers there are often rivalries, as there were between Isaac and Ishmael, between Jacob and Esau, between Joseph and his brothers. Hence Rabbi Solomon explains it thus, as if to say: Do not, O Israel, place your hope in the offspring of Ishmael, thinking they will be your neighbors. On this matter he then relates a story, or rather a fable.
Second and more simply, take 'neighbor' in the proper sense, as if to say: You can hope for more help from a kindly neighbor than from a brother far away — both because the neighbor is more readily available and at hand, so that in your need he can immediately run up and help, while a distant brother you cannot approach, or if you do go to him, you will arrive too late after the matter is over; and because neighborliness, through continuous communication, suggests more daily occasions for mutual help, while distance between brothers often diminishes and wears away communication, and thereby friendship and mutual assistance.
This maxim therefore admonishes: first, that for friendship, neighbors should be preferred to those who are far away. For a friend ought to converse frequently with his friend, which he cannot do unless he is a neighbor. Second, that with neighbors one should cultivate, if not full friendship, at least benevolence, beneficence, and the sharing of mutual help; and one should be careful not to offend them, or if they are offended, to reconcile them to us; if they cannot be reconciled, we should consider moving to another neighborhood. Hence St. Ambrose, Book of Offices, chapter 34: "In sum," he says, "the same duties are not always owed to all, nor are preferences always of persons, but usually of circumstances and times, so that one may sometimes help a neighbor more than a brother. Since Solomon too says: Better is a neighbor nearby than a brother dwelling far off, and therefore each person more willingly commits himself to the goodwill of friends than to the obligation of a brother. So powerful is benevolence that it usually conquers the bonds of nature." Therefore St. Augustine, Sermon 1 On the Seasons, teaches that neighbors should from time to time be invited to table, so that greater love and benevolence may be formed with them. And honest and prudent men do this. Relevant here is the maxim of Ben Sira, Alphabet 1, letter resen: "Keep far from a bad neighbor, and do not be numbered among their company, for their feet run to evil; nevertheless, have pity on your neighbors, even if they are wicked; and give them of your food, because at the time when you stand at judgment, they will testify for you." Also relevant is that saying of Cato:
It is more profitable than a kingdom to acquire friends by merit.
And that of the Comic poet:
Better is a lark on the ground than a crane in the sky.
Following Solomon's example, the other wise men and philosophers consider neighborliness to count as a kind of kinship, and Terence in the Self-Tormentor reckons it as close to friendship. Cicero, Book I of Offices: "You would sooner help a neighbor," he says, "in gathering his harvest than either a brother or a close associate." Herodotus, Book I, reports that the Persians above all observe reverently those who dwell nearest, give second place to those nearest the first; and so proceeding onward, they consider those who are nearer to be joined by a closer bond. Hesiod at the end of Book I, entitled Works and Days, advises that neighbors above all should be invited to a feast. Hence in St. Luke, chapter 15, verse 6, he who finds the sheep he had lost, coming home, calls together friends and neighbors (but says nothing of blood relatives), telling them: "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost" — which is also repeated in the Canon Decrees, in chapter Paenitentem, 26, Question 7. From which we can easily conclude that in a certain way our friendship and familiarity is closer with neighbors than with blood relatives. And therefore the sacred Scriptures, in the order of the text, place neighbors before relatives (Luke 1:58): "And the neighbors and relatives heard."
In several eloquent verses Hesiod asserts the same thing, in Works and Days:
If some trouble befalls you at home, immediately, without delay, Neighbors are there, while relatives still girding themselves. A bad neighbor is a great misfortune, unheard of; Conversely, a good neighbor at hand is the greatest advantage. Honor fails the man who lacks good neighbors; nor does it Matter to these, if only a bad neighbor is not present.
The maxim "a bad neighbor is a disaster" is cited as proverbial by Callarus in his letter to Callicles, among the rustic letters of Aelian. When a certain Spartan was extolling this maxim with praises, Diogenes the Cynic, hearing him, said: "Indeed, the Messenians also perished, and their cattle, with you settled in their neighborhood" — for the Lacedaemonians had devastated Messenia in war. The author is Pausanias. And Themistocles, the leader of the Athenians, as Plutarch reports in the Apophthegms and in his Life, when putting up a field for sale, ordered the auctioneer to add among the other recommendations that it had good neighbors, as if the field would be far more saleable by the recommendation of its neighbors. This is also confirmed by what Cicero writes in his Letters to Atticus, Book 12, Epistle 27 (overall number 258): "I see your house will be worth more with Caesar as a neighbor." And that of Martial, Book 6, Epigram 9:
Not about violence, nor murder, nor poison, But my lawsuit is about three she-goats: I complain that my neighbor stole them.
And elsewhere, namely Book 7, Epigram 92:
On account of the neighbor who was valued.
Nor should it be omitted that in Jovianus Pontanus, Actius, Dialogue 1, there is an example of an ancient instrument of sale, in which among other things this is written: "He has good tribesmen and neighbors," whom he then names. Many nations, leaving their native soil, sought foreign lands — such as the Achaeans, Iberians, Albans, Sicilians, Pelasgians, Aborigines, and Arcadians — for no other reason than that they could not bear wicked neighbors. Pliny, Book 18, chapter 5: "Those about to buy a field," he says, "should above all examine the water supply and the neighbor" — each point has great and unambiguous significance. Palladius too, who wrote on the same subject, Book I, chapter 6: "Three evils," he says, "are equally harmful: barrenness, disease, and a neighbor." Before these, Plautus in the Merchant, Act 4, Scene 4:
Now I find that old saying to be true: There is always some evil because of a bad neighbor.
And to this also alludes that verse of Virgil, Eclogue 1:
Nor shall the evil contagion of a neighbor's flock harm you.
And Eclogue 9:
Mantua, woe! too near to wretched Cremona!
And from this is derived that of Martial, Book 8, Epigram 55:
The acres neighboring wretched Cremona were lost.
Well known is that saying of Sallust in the Jugurthine War: "Whoever was neighbor to a powerful man was driven from his home." And that of Demosthenes against Callicles: "There was nothing, men of Athens, more pernicious than to have obtained a dishonest neighbor who is not content with his own." In agreement with this is that saying of Aristides against Themistocles: "Let the neighborhood be salty (as they say)" — which Plato cites in Book 4 On Laws, concerning bad neighborhood. These and more in Tiraquellus, On the Tempering of Punishments, Cause 23. It is well known how much damage Cacus, the inhabitant of the Aventine hill, inflicted on his Palatine neighbors. Therefore wisely Cato, Book I On Agriculture, chapter 5, commends to the farm steward a good and agreeable neighbor, and advises him to win him over and earn his goodwill: "The back of the head," he says, "goes before the forehead. Be good to your neighbors; do not let your household sin. If the neighborhood gladly sees you, you will sell your goods more easily, hire labor more easily, find workers more easily. If you build, they will help with labor, draft animals, and materials. If any need arises (in good health), they will graciously defend you." Following Cato, Columella, Book I On Agriculture, chapter 3, praises a good neighbor for the farmer, and cites that saying of Hesiod: "Not even an ox would perish, if a dishonest neighbor were absent."
Finally, Plutarch, in his book On the Education of Children: "If," he says, "you live next to a lame man, you will learn to limp." And Pindar in the Nemean Odes, Hymn 7: "If a man needs a man, what shall we say that a neighbor is a —"
11. APPLY YOURSELF TO WISDOM, MY SON, AND MAKE MY HEART GLAD, SO THAT YOU MAY ANSWER A WORD TO HIM WHO REPROACHES.
For 'so that you may,' some read with the Greek and Hebrew 'so that I may,' but the sense comes to the same thing: for father and son are regarded as one person in civil and household law. Therefore what the son answers for the father — that is, says or does — the father is considered to say and do, especially when the father, now old, has transferred the management of the house to his son, or uses him as an agent for all his affairs. The Hebrew therefore literally reads: Be wise, my son, and make my heart glad, and I will answer him who reproaches me. The Chaldean: I will answer a word to those who reproach me. The Septuagint: Be wise, my son, so that your heart may rejoice, and turn away from yourself reproachful words. Symmachus: and I will answer a word to him who reproaches me. The Syriac: and the reproach of those who reproach me will cease from me.
Repeatedly Solomon inserts exhortations to the pursuit of wisdom after his precepts of wisdom, as teachers are accustomed to do with their students, and parents with their children. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Devote yourself, O my son, to wisdom, which I impart to you with fatherly affection; for thus you will confer on me a double good and benefit: first, joy — and joy of heart, that is, heartfelt, intimate, and supreme joy. For a father supremely loves his son, and therefore supremely rejoices if his son learns wisdom, that is, prudence and virtue, in his mind and practices it in his deeds. Second, honor: for a wise and well-mannered son is an honor to his parents. Therefore, if anyone should slander either the son or the parent, the son will answer for the father, and will effectively refute with both words and deeds the slanders — whether about his own vices supposedly contracted from his father's bad upbringing, or about the poor management of the family estate, or about injuries done to others, whether directed against the father or the son himself — and will give a precise account of affairs prudently managed. Apply yourself therefore, O my son, to wisdom, that you may gladden my heart as much as your own, and that you may be an honor to me and to yourself, and vigorously drive away from both of us every reproach and disgrace.
12. THE PRUDENT MAN, SEEING EVIL, HID HIMSELF; THE SIMPLE WHO PASSED ON SUFFERED LOSSES.
In Hebrew: they were punished. Pagninus: they were punished. The Septuagint: kunian tiscousin, that is, they will pay the penalty. So the Complutensian edition; or, they will suffer loss. So the Vatican edition. The Chaldean: through it they suffer. This verse in the Hebrew is word for word the same as verse 3 of chapter 22, where the Vulgate translates: the shrewd one saw evil and hid himself; the innocent passed on and was afflicted by evil. Therefore 'innocent' is the same as 'simple,' in Hebrew pethi, that is, naive, unlearned, inexperienced, unskilled. Hence the Author of the Greek Catena, from the Septuagint, clearly translates: the shrewd person withdraws from approaching evils; but fools who rashly undertake anything suffer loss. The rest I have explained in that place, so I will not repeat the discussion. a neighbor of constant and steadfast spirit? A joy worthy of everything." And Alexander of Aphrodisias: "He who constantly associates with a stammerer learns to stammer." St. John fled from the bath in which the heretic Cerinthus was bathing, not wanting such a neighbor, lest if the earth should open up, he would perish along with him. St. Ambrose is said to have fled from a villa when he heard from its owner that he had never experienced any misfortune in life: "Let us flee," he said, "from the vicinity of this house; for great misfortune threatens one so fortunate." He fled, and behold, soon the house, struck from heaven by fire, burned down.
13. TAKE THE GARMENT OF HIM WHO STOOD SURETY FOR A STRANGER, AND TAKE A PLEDGE FROM HIM FOR OUTSIDERS.
For strangers sometimes unfaithfully transfer their debts to the guarantor and cannot be compelled to hold the guarantor harmless except through a pledge. Hence the Septuagint translates: Take his garment, for the wrongdoer has arrived, who indeed devastates what belongs to others. The Scholiast: From whom take the garment, for when they are wrongdoers, they bring ruin to others. Clearly the Author of the Greek Catena: Take your garment, for the violent oppressor is at hand, who squanders what belongs to others. This author reads with St. Ambrose σαυτοῦ, that is 'your,' for αὐτοῦ, that is 'his.' Aquila and Symmachus: because he stood surety for a stranger. Hear St. Ambrose, in the book On Tobit, chapter 20, mystically explaining this maxim: "This is the garment which, even if you have pledged it, Solomon ordains in Proverbs must be taken back, saying: Take your garment, for the wrongdoer has passed by. The garment of wisdom is from those garments which wisdom made for herself from fine linen and purple — this is the clothing of faith, which consists both of the preaching of heavenly things and of the blood of the Lord's passion. For by fine linen the heavens are represented; by the appearance of purple the mystery of the sacred blood is declared, by which the heavenly kingdom is conferred." And after some further words he continues this maxim: "Take your garment — take it, that is, lest you receive the damage of imprudence, and lest that most wicked common usurer, recognizing you stripped of your own garment, attempt to uncover the shame of your disgrace, and persuade you to cover yourself with leaves, and seeing you naked, to come into the sight of God's modesty." I cite the words of the Fathers at length, because I consider it a sacrilege to curtail them; and if I were to do so, I would mutilate the meaning.
We heard this maxim in exactly the same words in chapter 20, verse 16, where I explained it.
14. HE WHO BLESSES HIS NEIGHBOR WITH A LOUD VOICE, RISING IN THE NIGHT, WILL BE LIKE ONE WHO CURSES.
In Hebrew: he who blesses his companion with a loud voice early in the morning, rising very early, a curse will be reckoned to him. The Zurich Bible: to him who praises his neighbor with a loud voice, rising in the morning, it will be reckoned as if he had cursed him. The Septuagint: he who blesses a friend in the morning with a loud voice will seem to differ in no way from one who curses. The Syriac: he is not unlike one who curses. I presuppose that 'to curse' and 'to bless' are used in three senses in Sacred Scripture: first, for wishing evil and wishing well; second, for blaming and praising; third, for doing harm and doing good. Now, first:
Rabbi Levi explains it thus, as if to say: When someone with a loud voice wishes his companion well, and makes it a regular practice — so that every day he rises at dawn to perform it — this, I say, will be turned by God into a curse for the same person, because he treats a man as though he were God and bestows upon him those praises and blessings in the manner in which they ought to be offered to God.
Second, Rabbi Solomon explains it thus, as if to say: There is one who, for the benefits liberally bestowed upon him by a friend, daily extols him with loud praises; but these praises will be turned into reproaches, when soon a rumor is spread about the same man that he is extravagant and too powerful in wealth, so that everyone seeks a loan from him, and thus the royal treasury is aroused against him to drain his riches. So too Rabbi Levi, who illustrates the point with an example: If Reuben, he says, with a loud public announcement praises Simeon because he was given a flask of fine wine by him, when some dishonest person learns of this, he will approach Simeon and ask him to provide a supply of such wine, so that for the benefit he conferred on another, he will suffer a loss. So he says.
Third, Aben-Ezra, connecting this verse with the preceding one about the pledge, explains it thus, as if to say: He who has stood surety for another will bestow blessings on the moneylender with a loud voice, so that he is heard by others, in order to curry favor with him, lest when the moneylender rises in the morning to conduct his business, he take away his clothes. But the moneylender will regard it as an unlucky prayer, and will not refrain from taking the garments.
Fourth, Vatablus, as if to say: He who by night, that is, untimely and prematurely, exalts a young man with grand voices of praise for the slight appearance and sample of virtue that he displays; this person's praise turns into blame, when the young man, becoming insolent from these praises, or seduced by companions, deviates from his sample of virtue, and becomes degenerate and wicked, or at least negligent and sluggish. Bede adds: "He blesses his neighbor with a loud voice who exalts him with the favor of superfluous praise, either by favoring his wicked deeds against justice, or by praising his good deeds more than is just; but this person is likened to one who curses, because he greatly harms the one to whom by praising he gives confidence in evil action, or in righteous work diminishes the simplicity of a pure heart, so that the good which he began in view of heavenly virtue, he may complete for the love of passing praise."
Fifth, others, taking 'to bless' and 'to curse' to mean 'to do good' and 'to do harm,' and by 'a loud voice' understanding the insults and reproaches which the benefactor arrogantly hurls at the poor, explain it thus, as if to say: He who bestows a benefit upon his neighbor and at the same time assaults him with proud and abusive words, even if he does not delay such a benefit but hastens and hurries it and renders it carefully and diligently — his gift will certainly be regarded as damage rather than a gift by the one who received it.
Sixth, and this is the genuine sense: this maxim is a parable, by which grammatically and in the literal sense, properly noted and censured are the morning and pre-dawn greetings and acclamations of praise and good wishes, which the poor, for the sake of a gratuity, or those seeking some office or favor, used to bring to the rich and powerful in order to win their goodwill and generosity. For they would cry out: "Hail, most generous prince, may God prosper this day for you, advance and bless you," etc. But these acclamations and blessings were really curses — both because they were often made by those who bore the fiercest hostility toward them in their hearts, mocking rather than truly wishing them well, as Seneca attests in Book 6 On Benefits; whence those who publicly acclaimed praises to their patrons privately among themselves criticized them; and because they drained the patrons' purses by demanding a gratuity or stipend from them; and because for patrons who wished to sleep, they shook away sleep with their shouting and battered their ears; and finally because they did not proceed from the heart, but were feigned and pretended in order to capture the favor of the powerful.
That these pre-dawn acclamations were customary among the Romans is shown from Seneca the tragedian in the Hercules Furens; Juvenal, Satire 5; Symmachus, Book 8, Epistle 41: "Not yet," he says, "has the morning caller experienced a sleepless night before the doors of eminent powers." And from Seneca the philosopher, On the Shortness of Life, chapter 14, who vividly depicts how troublesome and importunate these nocturnal greeters were: "Why should we not," he says, "from this brief and fleeting passage of time give ourselves wholly to those things which are immense, eternal, and shared with better persons? These men who rush about on their duties, who disturb themselves and others, when they have been properly crazy, when they have traversed every threshold daily and passed no open door, when they have carried around their hired greeting through various houses — how many people out of so vast a city, distracted by so many desires, will they be able to see? How many will there be whose sleep, or luxury, or rudeness will turn them away? How many who, after long tormenting them, will rush past them with feigned haste? How many will avoid coming out through the atrium packed with clients and flee through hidden passages of the house — as if it were not more inhuman to deceive than to exclude! How many, half asleep and heavy from yesterday's debauch, will barely lift their lips and return the name whispered a thousand times by those wretches who break their own sleep to wait for another man's — returning it with the most arrogant yawn?"
That the same customs were common among the Hebrews is clear from this maxim about greeting, which openly signifies the same thing; from the Rabbis already cited; and from Rabbi Tanchuma (whom Rabbi Solomon cites), who takes this maxim as referring to Balaam, who though blessing the Israelites with a loud voice, nevertheless strove to curse them, that is, to lure them to the worship of Baal-peor through beautiful women, and thus to destroy them (Numbers 23-24). verse 11, and chapter 25, verse 1, as I showed there; for Solomon is supported by the other wise men, both orthodox and philosophical; Antonius cites them in his Melissa, Part I, chapters 51 and 52, as St. Basil says: "Let us not foolishly be pleased with ourselves on account of praises that exceed the truth." St. Gregory Nazianzen: "Excessive honors drive some to excessive pride." Clement: "Flatterers were calling a certain wise man blessed; but he said to them: If you cease praising me, from your departure I will think myself someone great; but if you do not stop praising, from your praise I infer my own impurity: hunters use dogs to hunt hares, but most people catch fools with praises." Antigenes: "When many praise me, then I consider myself of no worth; but when few do, a good and excellent man." Plutarch: "Just as deer gouge out the eyes of corpses, so flatterers corrupt the minds of men with their praises. A dog is a natural enemy to the hare, and a flatterer to a friend. Hate flatterers as you hate deceivers: for both, when trusted, injure those who believe them." Diogenes, when asked which animal bites worst: "Among wild ones, the slanderer; among tame ones, the flatterer." Epictetus: "It is better to fall among crows than among flatterers." Phavorinus: "Just as Actaeon was devoured by the dogs he had nurtured, so are those who nourish flatterers devoured by them." Pythagoras: "Rejoice rather in those who reprove you than in those who flatter you, and shun flatterers as worse than enemies." Socrates: "Flee the goodwill of flatterers as you would flee enemies — turn your back and escape misfortune." Here is relevant the saying of St. Ignatius in Maximus, Sermon 43: "Although I am sound in matters pertaining to God, yet the more I must fear and beware of those who praise me; for those who praise me scourge me." And that saying of St. Chrysostom, ibid.: "He who praises wickedness defrauds it of the remedy of repentance." Here is relevant that saying of Euripides in the Orestes: 'It is a burden to be praised too much.' Finally Christ, Luke chapter 6, verse 26: "Woe to you when all men speak well of you!"
15. A DRIPPING ROOF ON A DAY OF COLD AND A QUARRELSOME WIFE ARE COMPARED.
The Septuagint reads: drippings drive a man out of his house on a winter's day, and likewise a cursing wife drives her husband out of his own home. For the bridegroom used to bring the bride into his house; but she, if quarrelsome, drives the husband out of his own home. We heard this proverb in chapter 19, verse 13, where I explained it. "For by constant bickering," says St. Jerome, Book I Against Jovinian, "and daily chatter she makes his house leak, and drives him out of his dwelling, that is, out of the Church."
A persistent, continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are equated. Nishthavah, according to Rosenmuller, refers to the wife, but by zeugma pertains to both; according to Maurer, it is masculine used for neuter; finally Gesenius takes this word as a passive form of the hithpael conjugation, which he calls nithpael, from the root nio, which in this passage would have the meaning of 'to be feared.'
But parabolically, beneath this outer shell and the grammatical literal sense, something deeper is signified, namely that blessings, that is, excessive praises and accolades, which are uttered in a loud voice at night, that is, inopportunely and importunately, are feigned and simulated flattery, and therefore are not so much blessings and praises as curses, that is, mockeries and reproaches. He who praises someone too elaborately and magnificently, says Vatablus, seems to be cursing: to praise someone too early in the morning, that is, before you know him well, is accounted a fault. An untimely commendation will be regarded as a curse. Such are the praises of hypocrites and flatterers, who fabricate them in order to beg or extort something through them, which therefore the wise man indicates should be shunned; since they bring not honor but dishonor, inasmuch as those who offer them offer them falsely, not from love but for their own profit, and therefore are not so much praisers as reproachers, indeed mockers. Whence St. Augustine on Psalm 69: "There are two kinds of persecutors," he says, "namely those who reproach and those who flatter; but the tongue of the flatterer persecutes more than the hand of the persecutor," both because it does more harm — for it puffs a man up to think himself more than he really is and can do — and because he who thus praises a man actually heaps reproach on him: for in fact he indicates that the man is vain and desirous of empty glory, and therefore hunts for human praise, and at the same time is unworthy of another's commendation because of a lack of his own virtue — which is not praise but reproach and insult; therefore he who is such is not so much a praiser as a slanderer and reviler; but the wise man will flee and repel him as a reviler.
That this blessing of Balaam was before dawn and early in the morning is clear from Numbers 22:41. The same is indicated by what we heard in chapter 8, verse 34, from the mouth of Wisdom: "Blessed is the man who listens to me, and watches at my gates daily, and waits beside the posts of my door: he who finds me will find life, and will draw salvation from the Lord." And that saying from Wisdom 16:28: "It is necessary to rise before the sun for your blessing, and to adore you at the rising of the light." And Psalm 62:1: "O God, my God, to you I keep vigil from the dawn." And that from Lamentations 2:19: "Arise, give praise in the night, at the beginning of the watches."
Grammatically, therefore, Solomon with this proverb censures these nocturnal and importunate greeters, who would pester their patrons to extract a donation or sustenance. In a similar way Columella, Book I, censures the same people, and urges that, abandoning this unseemly and base art of making a living, they take up farming and by its labor earn their livelihood honestly: "Shall I consider it more honorable," he says, "the most deceitful bird-catching of a hired morning-greeter, flitting about the doorsteps of the powerful, inaugurating the king's sleep with his rumors? For not even the servants deign to answer the one who asks what is happening inside."
16. HE WHO RETAINS HER IS AS ONE WHO WOULD HOLD THE WIND, AND THE OIL OF HIS RIGHT HAND SHALL CRY OUT.
So read the Roman, Hebrew, Chaldean and other versions. Lyranus and others therefore wrongly read 'evacuet' (he empties) instead of 'vocabit' (shall call); others read 'evocet' (he calls forth). The Hebrew reads thus: He who hides her hides the wind, and the oil of his right hand shall call, or cry out. The meaning is, as if to say: He who wishes to restrain a clamorous and quarrelsome wife so that she be silent does the same as one who tries to hold an impetuous wind in his hand, or to shut it in a fixed place, or to keep it confined within the bowels of the earth lest it burst forth and blow through the land — as if to say: Just as this is impossible, so also is the other. For just as the wind cannot be held or hidden — indeed the greater the barriers and restraints it encounters, the greater the whirlwind with which it bursts forth and breaks through, so much so that it prostrates trees, houses and towers — so he who wishes to shut the mouth of a quarrelsome woman or confine her at home causes her to burst forth with even greater force, and fill not only the house and family but also the neighborhood with her clamoring, shaking and overturning everything, according to that saying of Persius:
You would say so many basins, so many bells Are being struck.
Therefore she cannot be restrained by force, threats and blows; for it is the same as if you were to threaten the wind and beat it. The husband must therefore yield to his wife's clamoring through silence and modest gravity, until she thunders out her storms, and spontaneously falls silent and subsides, as Socrates used to do when Xanthippe was thundering. So R. Solomon, Aben-Ezra, R. Levi, Lyranus, Baynus, Jansenius and others generally.
St. Chrysostom speaks brilliantly in Antonius's Melissa, Part II, chapter 34: "O evil worse than any evil — a wicked woman! Dragons are fierce, asps are venomous; but the harshness of a woman is more bitter than that of wild beasts. A wicked woman will never be tamed; if treated more harshly, she rages; if more gently, she is puffed up and exalted. It is easier to smelt iron than to correct a woman. He who has a bad wife should understand that he has received the wages of his sins. There is no beast in the world that can be compared to a wicked woman. What is more ferocious than a lion among four-footed animals? Nothing more than a wicked woman. What is crueler than a dragon among serpents? Nothing more than a wicked woman."
AND THE OIL OF HIS RIGHT HAND SHALL CRY OUT. — First interpretation: The clamorous and roving woman cannot be restrained, just as the wind cannot be confined, and just as oil cannot be held in the right hand without slipping away and flowing out due to its slipperiness, so that she may well be called a blowing wind and oil flowing from the right hand.
Second interpretation: 'shall call' means 'shall call back,' as if to say: A quarrelsome wife cannot be restrained by her husband at home, just as the wind cannot be restrained; but if she has burst out of the house and fled from her husband, she can even less be called back home, just as oil that has slipped from the right hand and spilled into ashes or onto the ground cannot be gathered up and recalled.
Third interpretation, from Aben-Ezra: The husband, in order to persuade his angry and clamorous wife to be calm and modest, will flatter her, and will call her the oil of his right hand, that is, myrrh ointment with which a woman's right hand is anointed. He will therefore say to her sweetly: Come, my beloved; come, oil of my right hand. Whence the Chaldean translates: the ointment of her right hand is called. Our author Salazar agrees, who explains it thus: 'He who retains her is as one who would hold the wind,' that is, the husband who wishes to contain and restrain a wife swollen with pride, difficult and peevish, by force and severity, is like one who would try to compress and confine the fleeting and slippery wind. 'And the oil of his right hand shall call,' that is, on the contrary, the husband's gentleness and blandishments will call her forth, attract her, and turn her to her husband. And so Solomon calls 'oil of the right hand' blandishments, soothing words and caresses: for these far better soften and mollify a rigid woman's hardness than the husband's severity and harshness.
Fourth interpretation, from R. Levi: Just as he who has poured fragrant ointment on his right hand cannot conceal it, since his right hand by its scent calls out, that is, proclaims and cries aloud that it has been anointed with ointment: so likewise the quarreling and bickering of a wife cannot be hidden, because they betray themselves by their own noise, their own voice and clamoring, and proclaim that she is quarreling and bickering. He continues the metaphor of the woman with the ointment, saying 'shall call' or 'shall cry out'; for he attributes to the ointment what should be attributed to the woman, namely clamor. So Vatablus translates: he who hides her, hides the wind, and (repeat: hides) oil which shall cry out. Hence the proverb: 'Three things cannot be hidden, because they betray themselves and make themselves felt, namely a woman, wind, and ointment' — a woman by her voice, wind by its force, ointment by its scent.
Fifth interpretation, fully and genuinely: To wish to restrain a quarrelsome wife is impossible, just as if you wished to hold fluid and slippery oil in your hand, and to call to it and command it not to slip from your right hand, or if it has slipped, to wish to call it back; so Cajetan. Whence the Tigurine version translates: he who restrains her, restrains the winds, and with his right hand he encounters the oil, so as to restrain it as it flows away. For the Hebrew kara with 'he' means to encounter; while kara with 'aleph' means to call, to cry out. Now these two roots are interchanged, because the letters aleph and he are interchangeable.
Moreover, the Septuagint, reading tsaphen (that is, 'hiding') with different vowel points as tsaphon, that is, the North Wind or North — which is the part of the world hidden by cold, frost and snow — and instead of shemen (that is, ointment) reading shem, that is, name, translates: The North Wind is a harsh wind, but by name it is called 'right' (favorable); and the Chaldean: like a heavy north wind; Aquila and Symmachus: a hidden north wind; the Syriac: the north wind is heavy, and by name it is called right (favorable).
Others interpret differently. Eichel: but oil, that is the strength, the power of his right hand he calls upon — that is, a quarrelsome woman's mouth must be restrained by blows; but the word shemen cannot be used for 'force.' Maurer: and oil his right hand provokes, summons, that is, his right hand needs oil, his right hand will soon feel itself lacerated by the nails of his quarrelsome wife — for wounds are soothed with oil, Isaiah 1:8.
The meaning is, as if to say: The North Wind is a cold and harsh wind; yet it is called by some theman, that is 'right' (favorable), from the root iamin, that is, the right hand — both because if you turn your face to the West, you will have the North Wind on your right and the South Wind on your left, says St. Jerome on Zephaniah chapter 2. Just as conversely, if you turn your face to the East, the North Wind will be on your left, and the South Wind on your right; and therefore throughout Scripture (which speaks in accordance with the position of Judea and our hemisphere) the South Wind is called Theman, that is 'right.' Finally, the Antipodeans facing East have the North Wind on their right and the South Wind on their left — also because those who live in Africa and hot regions rejoice in the North Wind, since it tempers the excessive heat of that climate with its cold. Hence at Rome everyone longs for the North Wind even in winter, like fish for water; for the North Wind is the health and wholesomeness of Rome. Therefore 'right,' that is, prosperous, healthful and favorable; for the right hand is the symbol of happiness and prosperity, just as the left is of unhappiness and adversity. Hence Cicero, in his book On Divination:
Jupiter sends forth favorable omens with these right-hand lightnings.
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: A quarrelsome wife is like the harsh and impetuous North Wind; but just as the North Wind is 'right,' that is favorable and prosperous, for those living in a hot region and sweltering, because it tempers the heat — so a husband, if he burns with love for his wife, will easily bear a quarrelsome wife as a fan for his love, to moderate and temper it. Again, just as the North Wind is harsh in itself yet is called 'right' (favorable) by some, so a wife, although harsh, if she is honored by her husband and placed at his right hand (as is customary among respectable husbands), so that she is his 'right hand,' and is addressed gently with this and similar honorific names, soothed and caressed, she will put aside her harsh ways and become affable and benevolent. For the reason some wives seem harsh to their husbands is that the husbands themselves are harsh or cold toward them, loving them too little; but if they loved them greatly, love would convert all harshness into dexterity, that is, gentleness and ease.
Mystically, the North Wind denotes hardships and tribulations, which are harsh in themselves; but if you look toward the west, that is, toward death, Purgatory and hell, in comparison with them these will seem 'right,' that is, light, easy and fortunate.
Again, the North Wind denotes impiety and the impious, inasmuch as in them charity has grown cold, and they "have stiffened in the cold of wickedness, and have lost the warmth of faith," says St. Jerome on Jeremiah chapter 1.
Furthermore, by the North Wind you may understand the detractor and reviler, who harshly assails another's reputation, just as the North Wind bites the ears and head, as if to say: The detractor, like the North Wind, rages against his neighbor's reputation, yet is often 'right,' that is, favorable and beneficial, because he causes his neighbor to live cautiously, lest there be anything in him that can be criticized, and to correct any fault he may have; therefore he should not be hated or called a slanderer, but rather theman, that is 'right' (favorable) — ingenious, quick-witted, witty. For those who are sharp-tongued are usually of this sort, who bite others with their witticisms and pointed remarks, and by biting not infrequently cure them.
Finally, the Author of the Greek Catena says: The North Wind is the devil, who said: "I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will exalt my throne, I will sit on the mount of the covenant, on the sides of the North," Isaiah chapter 14, verse 13. He is called 'right' (favorable) by the impious and those who serve him, because he offers them the allurements of the world and the flesh; but by the pious he is also called 'right,' that is, fortunate and favorable, but accidentally, because through the temptations he throws at them, which they overcome, he becomes for them an occasion of eternal happiness.
17. IRON IS SHARPENED BY IRON, AND A MAN SHARPENS THE FACE OF HIS FRIEND.
In Hebrew: iron upon iron shall be sharpened, and a man shall sharpen the faces of his friend; Vatablus: as iron is joined to iron, so a man is associated with a man. For the Hebrew word iachad, if derived from the root chadad, means to sharpen; but if from iachad, it means to unite, to join, to associate; and if from chada, it means to gladden. Whence a third translation: just as iron is polished by iron, so a man will gladden the face of his friend. For sadness is like the rust of the mind and face, which is dispelled by a cheering friend, polished away, and turned to gladness.
Nearly all modern scholars after Aben-Ezra: iron is sharpened by iron, and one sharpens the face of the other, that is, one provokes the anger of the other, or angry men mutually irritate each other. To sharpen the face of another is to provoke him so that he looks at you with a fierce and threatening countenance. Cf. Job 16:9.
First, R. Levi and R. Solomon explain it thus: Those who are instructed by the work of a wise teacher are sharpened by mutual questioning, as we see happening daily in schools through philosophical and theological disputations, in which the respondent, being pressed by the arguments of the questioner, is rendered more acute. Second, Aben-Ezra: Iron is sharpened by another piece of iron, and likewise a man is sharpened to anger by another's anger, being incited to engage in contention with him because of the anger with which that man is inflamed. Whence the Septuagint translates paroxynei, that is, he sharpens, irritates, provokes, exasperates the face of his friend. It is a metaphor from smiths who file down swords, lances, and knives by rubbing them with an iron file. Baynus with others refers this proverb to the preceding verse, as if to say: Just as iron is sharpened by iron, so a rigid husband, if he encounters a rigid and quarrelsome wife, each will sharpen the other to anger and quarreling; therefore, lest this happen, the gentleness and patience of one should receive, blunt and dull the harshness and anger of the other like a file, indeed soften and mollify it. Whence Vatablus translates: a sword sharpens a sword — so a man sharpens the face of his friend, with whom he contends. Therefore one must yield and give place to anger.
The Arabs have a similar proverb: "The corruption of every thing," they say, "comes from its own kind, and so iron is cut and split by iron: nothing dents iron but iron."
Others explain: If the wife is harsh, the husband should try to soften and soothe her, namely by the oil of the right hand, as the preceding verse said; but if she does not soften with the gentleness of oil, the husband should put on the hardness of iron, and beat back and crush her harshness with a greater harshness of words and blows, if necessary. For this reason the poets gave the bold Venus a husband in Vulcan the iron-smith, who would hammer down her boldness. For anger is sharp, as the Septuagint has it in verse 4, and is rightly compared to sharpness, because it cuts, destroys and penetrates everything.
Third, the Tigurine version translates: as iron is joined to iron, so a man is associated with a man. Which aptly harmonizes with the preceding proverb and provides its remedy, as if to say: Wives are often quarrelsome because they are richer or nobler than their husbands; for from this they grow proud, and wish not to be subject to but to rule over their husbands. Therefore, so that husbands may avoid these quarrels, let them marry wives who are equal to them in wealth, rank and birth, or inferior, not superior. For just as iron is joined and fused with iron, not with gold or silver, so likewise equals should be joined with equals in marriage, that they may be fused together in mutual love. Hence that saying of Ausonius: 'Let spouse be yoked with an equal: what is unequal disagrees.' And: 'If you wish to marry, marry an equal.' On which matter I said more above.
Again, just as iron fuses with iron by the force of fire — namely when it is heated, and once heated is hammered so as to fuse into one item, such as a sword, knife, lance, etc. — so likewise husband and wife must be set ablaze with love, so that they may fuse into one family and one domestic person.
This translation of the Tigurine version can also be applied to any friendship and association, in which equals are best joined with equals, as iron with iron, and this is what 'the face of his friend' signifies: under 'friend,' however, both a male friend and a female friend should be understood. For among women too there is friendship; but for it to be solid, it must be formed between equals.
Fourth, our author Salazar takes 'iron' to mean steel, which is the hardest kind of iron: for steel is mixed with iron to form a sword, knife, lance, etc., so that iron, which is in itself pliable and flexible, becomes hard and rigid through the hardness of steel, and fit for cutting. So 'a man sharpens the face of his friend,' that is, he strengthens it against all misfortunes and for all actions. For, if I may say so: two individual men, even if one is like steel and the other like iron, the latter will nevertheless be pliable and flexible, and the former brittle; but if friendship and familiarity joins them together, they will be well-tempered and spirited for all difficult and arduous tasks.
This explanation is elegant, but does not so well correspond to the Vulgate, which translates 'sharpens': for steel does not sharpen iron, but makes it hard and rigid; it better corresponds to the Tigurine version: As iron is joined to iron, so a man is associated with a man — for there is a joining and association of steel with iron.
Fifth, plainly and genuinely, as if to say: Just as iron is sharpened by similar iron, such as a file, so a man sharpens another man like himself in any matter — in knowledge, art, counsel, industry, and virtue. He could have said: Iron is sharpened by a whetstone. Hence that saying of Horace, from the Art of Poetry:
I shall serve as a whetstone, which Can render the blade sharp, though itself unable to cut.
But he preferred to say: 'Iron is sharpened by iron,' both because a whetstone does not sharpen iron unless it is already wrought and polished, such as a knife or sword; but iron, such as a file, sharpens even rough and unpolished iron, when a knife or sword is being fashioned from it; and because iron is similar to and of the same nature as iron, which a whetstone is not. Therefore it more aptly signifies that a man similar in nature, art and occupation sharpens another man similar to himself in the same things. For this proverb means that similar men are sharpened by those similar to themselves in the same art or occupation; hence the saying: 'One man is no man'; sharpened, I say, by conferring, questioning, disputing, encouraging, instructing, exhorting, etc. Examples will make the matter clear.
In intellectual matters, a teacher — indeed even a fellow student — sharpens another student by teaching, questioning, arguing: for in argumentation minds are, as it were, rubbed against and struck against each other, and are thus sharpened. In counsel, one advisor by putting forward his own advice sharpens the advice of another; and therefore Solomon says: 'The safety of the people is where there are many counselors'; for what one person does not see, others see and contribute. In craft, one artisan sharpens another: for each has his own methods and ways of working, by which the other is instructed and sharpened; for each has his own particular talent, which discovers methods and ways peculiar to himself, which another's talent does not discover. This is what Euripides says: 'Conversation gave birth to arts' — conversation, I say, of ideas, and the discourse and meeting of men. In prudence, one prudent man sharpens another: for each suggests his own maxims and counsels of prudence. In any virtue, one sharpens another: the chaste sharpens the chaste, the humble the humble, the joyful the joyful, the courageous makes another courageous. Hence St. Antony considered the virtue that was preeminent in each individual, and from one he learned patience, from another humility, from a third charity, etc.
For this reason St. Basil in his Monastic Constitutions, chapter 19, prefers the cenobitic life, as a social life, to the anchoretic and solitary, because in the cenobitic life one person helps another and polishes him by word and example, which does not happen in the solitary life. Hence also Victor of Antioch, on Mark chapter 1, among the advantages of social life counts this: that through daily living together and the constant friction among many, those who have lived long among companions become iron-like and, as it were, steel-tempered. "Soon," he says, "hardened by this friction as by iron, you will gradually become stronger," etc. For a society in which each person must help the others, and bear with — indeed cure — their faults and imperfections, not only sharpens and polishes men who are otherwise iron-like, but also files every weakness or boldness of theirs, and indeed every infirmity, to the firmness and strength of iron. This is what Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verse 9 says: "It is better for two to be together than one; for they have the advantage of their society; if one falls, he is supported by the other. Woe to him who is alone! for when he falls, he has no one to lift him up."
18. HE WHO TENDS A FIG TREE SHALL EAT ITS FRUIT, AND HE WHO IS THE GUARDIAN OF HIS MASTER (the Syriac: he who looks after his master) SHALL BE GLORIFIED.
Others: shall be honored, that is, shall be promoted to honors. For 'tends' the Hebrew has notser, that is, guards, tends: whence Christ was called Nazarene, that is, guardian, keeper.
Under 'tending' understand care and cultivation, as if to say: He who tends, that is, cares for and cultivates a fig tree — yet he says 'tends' or 'guards' rather than 'cultivates,' because the fig tree, compared to the vine, the olive, etc., requires very little cultivation. For the vine must be planted, dug over, heaped with earth, pruned, stripped of leaves so that the grapes may be ripened by the sun, etc., none of which is done for the fig tree. Hence the Septuagint translates: he who plants a fig tree; for the fig tree hardly requires any other cultivation than planting and loosening the earth around its roots, as with other trees, whereby their roots are opened by digging around them and exposed to the air. The fig tree therefore, with little cultivation, gives many fruits, namely the finest figs; so he who diligently and faithfully serves his master by obeying him and carefully managing the affairs entrusted to him, will receive great rewards and fruits from his master for small services and acts of obedience, and so will be glorified — that is, if he is a slave, he will be granted freedom. For, as Julius Caesar says: "No pleasure is sweeter to freeborn men than liberty." And Seneca, Epistle 79: "It is an inestimable good to be one's own." But if he is free, he will be promoted by his master to great offices, benefices, honors and appointments, as we see daily in the Roman court that those who serve Cardinals and Prelates faithfully and studiously are promoted to great positions. This proverb therefore gives wise counsel to servants: that they should serve their masters faithfully and diligently, for so it will come about that they will be adorned with great benefits and rewards.
Second, the fig tree produces the fig, which is the sweetest and most healthful of all fruits, surpassing the fruits of all other trees in flavor, healthfulness, and wholeness: in flavor, because it has a honey-like taste similar to manna; in healthfulness, because it is thoroughly ripened, whence it has nothing bitter, undigested or raw, as all others do; in wholeness, because it has no seeds or stones, as the fruits of all other trees do. So the fruits that diligent servants receive from benevolent and beneficent masters are sweetest, most wholesome and most complete. And therefore the master, whether a Prelate or a Prince, ought to be like a fig tree, so as to share his sweetness and sweet fruits with his subjects, but keep austerity for himself; and therefore in the fable of the bramble, the fig tree, although invited, refused to be king or queen of the trees, saying: 'Can I forsake my sweetness and my most delightful fruits, and go to be promoted among the other trees?' Judges 9:11. By which is signified that those who enjoy their own peace and sweet contemplation shrink from governing others, lest they exchange sweet leisure for troublesome business.
Third, the fig tree bears twice: for it produces figs twice, namely regular ones in autumn, that is in September, as other trees do, and early ones in summer, that is in June and July; hence the fig tree does not give flowers, but immediately produces fruit without flowering. Pliny adds, Book 13, chapter 18, that Chalcidian figs are three-bearing, or give fruit three times a year; indeed, "there are even winter figs in certain provinces," he says. So a servant who faithfully serves his master will receive manifold reward from him: namely the agreed-upon wage at the stipulated time according to their agreement, and before that, honorable treatment, gifts, presents and rewards, which respectable masters customarily bestow generously upon dutiful servants — he will obtain these like early figs. "Marvelous," says Pliny in the passage cited, "is the haste of this fruit (the fig), alone among all in rushing to ripeness by the art of nature."
Fourth, manuring makes the fig tree fruitful. Hear Pliny, Book 17, chapter 27: "Red earth diluted with olive lees, and poured with dung upon the roots of fig trees beginning to leaf, produces the most abundant figs." And Book 15, chapter 18: "Cato records thus about figs: Plant Moriscan figs in chalky or open ground, and in richer soil fertilized with dung." So too servants, if they stoop to the most menial services, win their masters' favor and generosity. Pliny adds: "A fig tree is cultivated that was born in the very forum and assembly-place of Rome, sacred because of lightnings buried there, and more so because of the memory of its being called the nurse of Romulus and Remus the founder, since beneath it was found the she-wolf offering her teat, that is, her breast, to the infants."
Fifth, some explain 'tends' as 'waits for,' whence they translate: he who waits for the fig tree shall eat its fruit, and he who waits upon his master shall be glorified. For he who desires the fig tree to produce abundant fruit knocks off its first figs, the unripe ones, and thus waits for later ones that are better and more abundant. Hear Columella, Book 5, chapter 9: "If you wish to make a fig tree bear late, though it is not naturally late-bearing, and eventually to gather more abundant fruit from it, then knock off the small figs or the first fruit; it will produce another crop, which will last until winter." The commentator adds: "Again it will yield another more abundant crop." For this reason, in the old law, Leviticus 19:23, the Lord decreed thus about the fig and other fruit-bearing trees: "When you shall have entered the land, and shall have planted fruit trees in it, you shall remove their foreskins; the fruits that sprout shall be unclean to you, and you shall not eat of them. But in the fifth year you shall eat the fruits, gathering the produce they yield: I am the Lord your God." See what was said there.
In a similar way, servants, in order to win the favor of their masters, serve them faithfully and diligently for some time, demanding little or no reward from them; for once they have gained their favor, they will receive a more abundant and more excellent reward.
Mystically, he who guards and cultivates God and Christ, His will and His laws, and especially the Eucharist — which is, as it were, the most excellent fig of the Church — will assuredly obtain from Him all grace and glory. For Christ in the Eucharist is our fig and our manna, containing in Himself without effort every delight and all sweetness of flavor, Wisdom 16:20; John 6:31. So the Author of the Greek Catena says: "The Lord is the fig tree; His fruit heals leprosy. He who keeps the word received will be in honor and esteem." The Psalmist had tasted the sweetness of this fig when he sang: "Taste and see that the Lord is good," Psalm 33. And when he exclaimed: "How great is the abundance of Your sweetness, O Lord, which You have hidden for those who fear You!" Psalm 30.
To guard his master, that is, to carry out his commands promptly.
19. AS FACES SHINE BACK IN WATER, SO THE HEARTS OF MEN ARE MANIFEST TO THE PRUDENT.
In Hebrew: as in water face to face (they shine back), so the heart of a man to a man. These words, being indeterminate, are variously determined and explained by different interpreters, as can be seen in the Rabbis and Latin commentators. From the many I shall bring forth a few that are more fitting and probable.
First, R. Solomon explains it thus: Just as the water represents back to you the face you present to it, returning what you show — so a man presents himself as an equal to his companion, so that just as he understands that he is dear to the other, so in turn he loves him back and shows him a benevolent countenance.
Second, Aben-Ezra: Just as waters increase when others are mixed with them, so also face because of face — that is, fury is increased by another's fury — so also a man's heart is burdened with evil because of another, in whose heart he perceives that he is hated.
Third, Vatablus translates: as the face of waters to faces, so the heart of a man to men; and explains it thus: Just as the same water reflects different faces, so the hearts of different men are different. Or: just as in water one face corresponds to another, so the heart of one man corresponds to the heart of another, as if to say: Just as the heart of one man inclines to evil, so do the hearts of all others, for they are similar. But this explanation is too broad, and therefore cold and insipid.
Fourth, R. Samuel takes this to refer to deceitful and false friends, who display love in their countenance but conceal hatred in their heart; for he translates: as in water face to face, so the heart of a man to a man, as if to say: Just as a face appearing in water deceives the eyes, which seem to themselves to be looking not at a false image but at the very thing itself, so also men deceive one another, offering each other lies and deceits under the appearance of truth.
Fifth, others take this to refer to the changeability and inconstancy of man, as if to say: Just as a face appearing in water is mobile and unstable, and changes and varies constantly with the very movement of the water, so likewise the heart of man is inconstant and changeable, so that it cannot be observed by another person with certainty and solidity, because it has no firmness or constancy, but changes its purposes and plans by the day, the hour, and indeed often by the moment.
Sixth, others interpret this conversely as referring to the strength that arises from the agreement of many, as if to say: Just as waters added to waters have the greatest force, and faces to faces — that is, men joined to men are most powerful — so also hearts joined to hearts, that is, opinions cohering with opinions have the greatest weight for persuading.
Seventh, the Septuagint translates negatively: just as faces are not similar to faces, so neither are the thoughts of men. Origen, Homily 2 on Numbers, reads: Just as faces are diverse from faces, so also the hearts of men are diverse. So also the Author of the Greek Catena. For waters that are agitated and flowing also agitate the images and faces received in them, so that they do not appear to be the same, but different from those they represent. Or rather, as if to say: In the same waters appear the various faces of various people, and none is similar to another, but all are dissimilar; so likewise in the same house, city, or gathering there are many human hearts, minds, thoughts and opinions, yet none is similar to another, but all are dissimilar and diverse. For this is, as it were, a miracle of nature — that although many people are similar in hands, feet and other limbs, none has the same face, just as none has the same voice, so that each person may be recognized and distinguished from another both by voice and by face, as St. Augustine beautifully teaches in Book 21 of The City of God, chapter 8. Hence Persius:
A thousand kinds of men, and varied practice of affairs: Each has his own desire, and not by one wish do they live.
Maurer: as waters show a face against a face, so the heart of a man is toward a man, that is, each person looks into the other as into a mirror. Rosenmuller: as in waters a man's face corresponds to the same face, so the heart of a man to a man, that is, just as the waters return the same face you show to them — so that a smiling face responds to a smiling face, a sorrowful to a sorrowful, etc. — so the heart of a man responds to a man, that is, however one conducts himself toward another, he will find the same in return: faithful, if faithful, etc. According to others, nothing else is decreed in this verse than what is expressed by the well-known French proverb: Tell me who you associate with, and I will tell you who you are; just as when someone leans over water, he produces in it another face most similar to his own — so men who live familiarly with each other adopt similar and identical customs.
Hear Origen in the homily already cited: "The disposition of one person's mind," he says, "is gentler, mild, peaceful; of another, turbulent, more elated, more impetuous. One is cautious, solicitous, energetic; another is idle, negligent, incautious. And among these, one has more, another less. I venture to say that perhaps as great a diversity as exists in the appearance of faces among men, so great a difference is also found in their minds, according to that saying of Solomon: 'Just as faces are diverse from faces, so also the hearts of men are diverse.'" Thus Origen reads somewhat differently from our version, and gives an example: "The letters of the alphabet," he says, "are the same, and yet there is such diversity in writing them that each person is recognized by his own handwriting, whereby he, as it were, signs with his letters as with a personal seal. So also the same virtue is grasped and practiced in one way by one person, and differently by another: 'Consider,' he says, 'the handwriting of individual men, and see, for example, how the mind of Paul resolved upon chastity, and the mind of Peter no less; but there is a certain chastity proper to Peter and another to Paul, even though it seems one and the same. For in one of them chastity is such that it requires the mortification of the body, and says: I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps while preaching to others I myself become a castaway; while in the other, chastity is such that it perhaps does not fear this. Similarly, justice has something proper in Paul, and something in Peter. Likewise wisdom and the other virtues.'" Hence the saying: "There has not been found one like him who kept the law of the Most High," which the Church attributes to each holy Confessor, because in each one some particular virtue shone forth, or a particular kind and mode of the same virtue.
The Chaldean translates thus: as water, and as faces that are not similar to one another, so the hearts of the sons of men are not similar among themselves — as if to say: Just as one and the same water displays and returns different faces to different people looking at it, so one and the same question suggests different answers to different people, so that all arrive at different opinions, and no one agrees with another in everything.
Finally, the Syriac translates: as faces are not similar to faces, so hearts are not similar to hearts — as if to say: From dissimilar faces one may infer dissimilar affections of the heart, for these shine in the face as in a mirror. Thus Aristotle teaches in his Physiognomics that from the physiognomic signs that appear in the face, one can discern who is magnanimous, who timid, who envious, who lustful, who talented, who sanguine, who melancholic, etc.
Eighth, our translator renders it best: as faces shine back in water, so the hearts of men are manifest to the prudent — as if to say: Mirrors of bronze, tin or crystal are often deceptive; for some magnify the object presented, some diminish it, some distort it. But the mirror of water is natural and sincere, and represents the object plainly as it is: so also the hearts of men, just as they are, are known by the prudent. See on the deceptiveness of mirrors Seneca, Book 1 of the Natural Questions, chapter 17, and St. Augustine, Epistle 150 to Nebridius, and Pliny, Book 13, chapter 9.
Hearts here can be taken both as one's own and as others'. Jansenius and Salazar take it of one's own, as if to say: Just as water is like a mirror, which receives the image of the beholder's face and returns and represents it to the beholder, so likewise the heart — that is, the mind and conscience — is like a mirror of the man, that is, of his affections, which represents them back to the man himself. "For just as," says Jansenius, "in water the faces of those looking in shine back, so that each person can contemplate his own face there as in a mirror, which he otherwise does not see: so the prudent themselves know themselves and their own hearts, when they return to them and through careful consideration perceive what they are like — namely by weighing what they incline toward, and in what they are chiefly occupied and fixed — so that the very heart of a man, especially among the prudent, serves as a mirror for the man and his heart, or as clear water in which a man sees himself and his heart, according to that saying of Paul: 'For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him?' Just as therefore it is necessary for a man, if he wishes to see his own face, to see it in a mirror, or in water, or something similar: so if anyone wishes to know what he is, he cannot know it better anywhere than in his own mind." Moreover, just as in water — being easily moved and agitated — the images of human faces are often disturbed, altered, halved and confused with the movement of the water, so likewise in the heart the image of oneself is often disturbed by passions, which are like waves, mixing and confusing these images. For if the heart is agitated by anger, hatred, fear or envy, it cannot sincerely and plainly know itself. Therefore, for one to see himself sincerely, one must be calm and tranquil, free from passions and disturbances: for then he will be like pellucid and still water, which clearly and faithfully returns and represents things and faces just as they are presented to it.
Again, you may take 'hearts' here as referring to the hearts of others, and this in two ways. First: Just as water is a mirror of your face, so as to represent it back to you, so likewise your heart is a mirror of another's heart, so that if you wish to know what another's heart is — that is, his feelings toward you — you will come to know it from your own heart, and from it you can measure the other's heart. For examine your own heart, and see how it is disposed toward another: if you see it benevolent, pleasant, sincere toward another, know that the other likewise bears a heart full of love and good will toward you. But if you see your heart averse to another, rancid, bitter, know likewise that the other's heart is also averse to you, and rancid with hatred or envy. The reason is that the feelings of hatred and love cannot be so hidden in the heart that they do not from time to time burst forth through signs — namely words, looks, and deeds — which when another sees them, he assumes, puts on, and repays the same feelings. For the magnet of love is love, and the magnet of hatred is hatred. He who feels himself loved, loves the lover in return; he who feels himself hated, hates the hater in return. Hence it often happens, from a certain natural antipathy or sympathy, that when two people who love each other meet, each one's heart opens, expands, is gladdened and exults; on the other hand, when two people who hate each other — even silently — meet, each one's heart closes, constricts, grows sad and bitter.
Second, just as your heart is a mirror of another's heart, so conversely another's heart is a mirror of itself, as if to say: Just as water is a mirror in which appear not only one's own face but also the faces of others — so that you recognize them from those images, even if you do not see them face to face — so likewise a man's heart is a mirror in which his feelings toward another appear. For the heart betrays itself through gestures, words and actions, by which, as in a mirror, it reveals and displays to others its feelings of hatred, fear, love, anger, etc., so that prudent men can infer and discern the inner affections of another's heart from his words and actions. In the Saints this is clear. For St. Louis and St. Giles, the companion of St. Francis, greeting each other without words, spoke mutually through their hearts alone, and represented and inspired in each other their feelings of love and piety. So St. Antony, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Hilarion, and many others in the Lives of the Fathers, seeing through the heart of each person from his face alone, discerned his state and feelings. The same holds true for any prudent and sagacious people, but to a lesser degree. For the prudent easily detect pretense and deception of the face, if there is any, from clues and signs. So Lyranus, Hugo, Dionysius and others.
Here are relevant those proverbs of the wise in Antonius's Melissa, Part I, chapter 48. From Photius the Patriarch: "Speech is like a mirror (namely, the heart shining through in speech and conversation), and just as in a mirror the form of the body and face is represented, so in conversation the expressed form of the soul is seen." From Isidore of Pelusium: "If speech and life agree, they will produce an image of the whole life." From Theognis: "In mirrors one sees the face; in conversation, the character of the soul." From Romylus: "As an earthen vessel is tested by its blow and sound, so a man is tested by his speech."
Here is relevant that saying of St. Ambrose, On Elijah and Fasting, chapter 10: "The face is generally the indicator of the conscience, and a kind of silent speech of the mind, when we are either stung by sin or gladdened by integrity."
Note: God alone is the cardiognostes, that is, the knower and inspector of hearts, because He alone sees through and looks into all the thoughts, volitions, and intentions — even the most intimate, deepest and most secret, which are betrayed by no sign — of all Angels, demons and men. The reason is that God alone, as creator and preserver, occupies, possesses and comprehends the mind and will of each one; hence He alone enters into the soul and mind to work in it by illuminating the mind and bending the will wherever He wills. Yet prudent men, as well as Angels, can probably know and conjecture many thoughts and intentions of the heart through nods, voices, signs and gestures: for a part of prudence is shrewdness or sagacity, that is, shrewd and sagacious conjecture. Now there are three degrees of this prudence: the first is natural prudence, which relies on reason, discourse and natural experience, and through these conjectures about the natural thoughts of hearts; the second is supernatural prudence, which relies on faith, grace, discourse and supernatural experience, such as Christians and the just possess, and through this they conjecture even about the supernatural thoughts of hearts; the third is a singular and divine prudence, which is called the gift of discernment of spirits, through which God reveals to certain exceptionally holy Saints the secrets of hearts, as He revealed them to St. Antony, St. Hilarion, St. Francis and the like — and still reveals them to great and apostolic men, especially Confessors, through which they sometimes look into the consciences of penitents all the way to the bottom, and bring to light hidden intentions which the penitents themselves do not see or keep silent about, so that they may more securely guide the penitents in spirit toward their salvation and perfection. Whence this gift, or at least a share of it befitting their office, must be sought from God.
20. HELL AND DESTRUCTION ARE NEVER FILLED (in Hebrew: 'satisfied'), AND LIKEWISE THE EYES OF MEN ARE INSATIABLE.
Destruction is death, which destroys all things, and the state of the dead. R. Levi wrongly takes hell and destruction to mean prime matter, which is never satisfied with forms but always desires new ones. R. Solomon says better: "Hell and destruction are never satisfied, so as not to receive and admit the sins of the wicked, just as the eyes of the wicked can never be satisfied to the full, since they constantly obey their wicked propensity soliciting them to crime, and strive to comply with its desires."
Cajetan and Jansenius best take 'eyes' to mean the desire both for seeing and for possessing: for neither is ever satisfied, but always desires to see and have more. Desire is attributed to the eyes because the eyes transfer the images and ideas of beautiful and desirable things to the imagination, and from there to the mind and will, and through them excite desire for those things in the will; hence the saying: "The eyes are the leaders in love." The Wise Man therefore signifies the great evil of desire, namely that it is insatiable and unquenchable, like death and hell, and that we must therefore hate it as we hate death and hell; and that the eyes, which are the go-betweens, indeed the enticers and exciters of desire, must be restrained and shut. I shall say more on this matter in chapter 30, verses 15 and 16. He also signifies that a bridle must be imposed on desire, so that it be reasonable and moderate; for this kind can be satisfied, whereas unbridled desires are insatiable. For this reason Plato, in Book 5 of the Republic, cites and praises that paradox of Hesiod: "The half is more than the whole," and applies it to tyrants, the greedy, and the ambitious, who wish to dominate everyone and extend their borders in every direction, when it would be better to live content with one's own modest possessions. The same author, in Book 3 of the Laws, to show that the unlimited power of princes, bounded by no limits, is the present plague of all empires, adds that this happens because greedy and ambitious princes do not realize that Hesiod was right in saying that "the half often surpasses the whole; for it is harmful to take the whole thing: to take only the half is moderate; and the moderate plainly surpasses the immoderate and excessive, as the better surpasses the worse." So in lawsuits, greedy plaintiffs who want the whole thing, unwilling to settle for half with the opposing party, often lose everything; for whom it would surely have been more useful to seek the half than the whole, since on account of the half they refused, they lose the whole they greedily pursued. See more on this matter in Maximus, the last sermon. The Septuagint after this proverb adds another that is not in the Hebrew or the Vulgate, namely this: "An abomination to the Lord is he who hardens his eyes, and the undisciplined are incontinent of tongue," or "the unlearned are of an impudent tongue."
Cf. Ecclesiastes 1:8; 4:8.
21. AS SILVER IS TESTED IN THE CRUCIBLE AND GOLD IN THE FURNACE, SO A MAN IS TESTED BY THE MOUTH OF HIM WHO PRAISES HIM.
In Hebrew: the crucible for silver, and the furnace for gold, and a man according to his praise; the Septuagint: the test for silver, and for gold the firing — but a man is tested by the mouth of those who praise him; the Chaldean: the crucible is for silver, and the furnace for gold, and a man by the mouth of those who praise him — namely, is tested and judged.
First, R. Solomon and Aben-Ezra explain it thus: Just as the goodness or impurity of gold and silver is known by the fire in which it is refined, so likewise the goodness or wickedness of a person is known from the mouth of those who praise him. For if the people praise him, it is a sign that he is upright and praiseworthy; if they reproach him, it is a sign that he is wicked and blameworthy. For the voice of the people is the voice of God.
Second, the Author of the Greek Catena says: "A man is tested and examined by the mouth of those who praise him — that is, he is known by the fact that he is neither exalted in prosperity nor cast down in adversity and sorrow. For good men praise him because he is good, while bad men praise him because he is bad."
Third, St. Augustine on Psalm 69 takes 'the mouth of him who praises' as the mouth of the flatterer: "There are two kinds of persecutors," he says, "those who reproach and those who flatter; the tongue of the flatterer persecutes more than the hand of the killer. For Scripture called this too a furnace. Certainly when Scripture was speaking of persecution, it said: 'As gold in the furnace He tested them'; of Martyrs slain: 'And as a sacrificial holocaust He received them.' Hear that the tongue of flatterers is also such: 'The test,' it says, 'of silver and gold is fire, but a man is tested by the mouth of those who praise him.' Of silver, he says, and of gold — that fire and this fire; from both you must come out safe. The reprover has broken you; you have become in the furnace like an earthen vessel." And shortly after: "Again, if you are praised by flatterers and sycophants, and you nod assent to them, as though buying oil but not carrying it with you, like the five foolish virgins, the furnace of your breaking will be the very mouth of those who praise you."
Fourth and genuinely: Just as fire shows the integrity and purity or impurity of gold and silver, so likewise praise shows a man's virtue or vice, truth or vanity. For just as when gold and silver remain whole and produce no dross, it is a sign they are pure, but if they produce dross, it is a sign they are impure — so likewise if someone grows proud and swells up from praise, it is a sign his virtue is impure and weak (for the dross of virtue is puffing up and pride), but if the praised person remains in his original humility and modesty, it is a sign that his virtue is pure and solid. For the humble reject praises of themselves; the vain and proud are puffed up and become insolent from them. True virtue and true praise, therefore, is to spurn praise, just as true glory is to despise glory — for this belongs to a great and lofty spirit, which towers above glory and all things, fixed in heaven. Hence, just as goldsmiths, to test whether gold and silver are pure or impure and mixed, customarily weigh them both before and after refining by fire — for if it returns the same weight after as before, it is a clear sign of purity, but if it weighs less than before, it is a sign it was or still is impure, since the fire removed the dross from it, and therefore it weighs less — so likewise if after praise a man remains the same, equally modest and serious, it is a sign the man is of upright and solid virtue; but if after praise he is lightly puffed up and vainly exalts himself, it is a sign that his virtue is light, vain, and swollen like the wind. The mouth is also like a crucible, in which the virtue of the one praised is tested by praise, as by fire. For the light and vain bubble up in it and dissolve into bubbles and fumes of vanity and pride; and once praised, they look around with a lofty eyebrow, expand their chest, lift their breast, spread their arms, and display with pomp whatever beauty they have — indeed they exaggerate and magnify beyond measure, just like peacocks, who when they notice people watching them, puff out their breast and, all swollen, spread the train of their tail to display the amber-colored eye-spots in it, like so many stars marvelously variegated with color. On the contrary, the wise and sensible, if praised, remain the same — unshaken and unchanged, equally humble, composed and serious — because they are neither lifted up by praises nor cast down by reproaches.
Gesenius and Winer in their Lexicons rightly interpret this verse thus: that the crucible is for silver, and the furnace for gold, and the same for a man is the mouth of his praise, i.e., a man must deal thus with him who praises him — examine and see who and of what kind is the one from whom the praise comes.
Truly Nazianzen says in Antonius's Melissa, Part I, chapter 51: "Excessive praises drive some to the highest elation." And St. Augustine in Sermon 5 On the Words of the Lord according to Matthew: "These praises of yours burden us rather, and put us in danger; we endure them, and we tremble among them." Even the pagan Seneca, Book 2 On Anger: "By praise license grows; the spirit rises if praised, and is led to a good hope of itself; but these very things generate insolence and anger."
Again, just as fire in the crucible burns, bakes and, as it were, torments gold and silver, so praise burns and torments men of good sense — both because they are modest and humble; and because they fear lest through it they grow proud and become vain, and so lose their virtue along with the praise; and because they fear that God, the sincere inspector of works, may see in them defects that men do not see, and therefore may condemn works that men praise. Hence St. Augustine, Book 10 of the Confessions, chapter 36: "He who wishes to be praised by men, when You condemn him, O Lord, will not be defended by men when You judge him, nor rescued when You damn him." Also because they fear that human praise may take the place of their reward, and so they lose the eternal reward they hope for in heaven. So St. Gregory, Book 22 of the Morals, chapter 5: "On the contrary," he says, "if the heart is truly humble and hears good things about itself, it either does not recognize them as true, and fears because false things are being said, or certainly if it truly knows them to be present in itself, it fears for that very reason lest they be lost from God's eternal reward; for it trembles greatly lest the hope of future recompense be reckoned as the reward of transitory favor. From this it comes about that the mind of the elect is tortured by the great fire of their own praises, and purged of all the rust of their torpor by the grief of reflection; for with cautious consideration it trembles lest either for those things for which it is praised and which are not true, it incur a greater judgment of God, or for those things in which it is praised and which are true, it lose the proper reward." And after some further remarks he proves this from this proverb of Solomon: "Whence Solomon rightly says: 'As silver is tested in the crucible and gold in the furnace, so a man is tested by the mouth of him who praises him.' For silver or gold, if it is base, is consumed by fire; but if it is genuine, it is made brilliant by fire. So indeed it is with the disposition of the worker. For what he is, is shown in what he is praised for; if, hearing his own praises, he exalts himself, what was he but base gold or silver, which the furnace of the tongue consumed? But if, hearing his praises, he returns to the consideration of the heavenly judgment, and fears lest he be burdened before the hidden Judge on account of them, he grows, as it were, through his purification to a greater magnitude of brightness, and from the very fire of trepidation that he endures, he shines forth more brightly," etc.
Moreover, just as gold and silver tested by fire shine more brightly and more brilliantly, so the Saints, when praised, become more radiant — both for the reasons listed by St. Gregory, and because this praise is a spur to them for greater virtue, according to the saying: "Virtue grows when praised." For, as St. Gregory says, Homily 9 on the Gospels: "When gifts increase, the accounts for those gifts also grow: each person, therefore, ought to be all the more humble and prompt in serving God in proportion to his gift, as he sees himself more obligated in rendering an account." Hence it is useful to praise the fainthearted, so that through praise they may raise up their dejected spirits and aspire to heroic deeds deserving of praise, as St. Gregory teaches, Part III of the Pastoral Rule, Admonition 9: "On the contrary, we more fittingly lead the fainthearted back to the path of good action if we look for some of their good qualities from the side, so that while we correct some things in them by reproof, we praise others by approval — so that the praise they hear may nourish their tenderness, which the rebuke of fault chastises. But for the most part we make greater progress with them if we also recall their good deeds. And what they have done amiss, we do not now censure as already committed, but rather prohibit as though they ought not yet to be committed — so that favor bestowed may increase the things we approve, and a modest exhortation may more effectively prevail among the fainthearted against the things we censure." And the other St. Gregory, namely Nazianzen, in Antonius's Melissa, Part I, chapter 51: "The chief benefit," he says, "is to be praised in honorable matters; for praise begets emulation, emulation begets virtue, virtue begets happiness." In the same place, St. Chrysostom: "Praise for outstanding deeds increases the desire for better things."
Furthermore, just as silver in the fire is refined by means of lead — for the lead is consumed by fire and leaves the silver pure and whole; but because lead always has some silver mixed in it, that silver passes over to the silver being purified and augments it, so that the silver comes out of the crucible greater and increased from what it had been before, as goldsmiths and metallurgists attest — so likewise the Saints, when praised, come forth increased by the praise: both because they increase their virtues to match the praise, and because through praise they become more humble and rise to God through thanksgiving. For they know that of themselves, that is, from their corrupt nature, they have nothing but concupiscence and sin, and that if they have anything good, it comes to them from the grace of God, to whom therefore they rightly ascribe and attribute all the beauty and praise of their work, according to that saying of St. Paul: "What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you had not received it?" 1 Corinthians 4:7. They also say with the Psalmist: "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory," Psalm 113. And with the twenty-four elders they cast their crowns before the throne of God, saying: "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things," Revelation 4:11.
Such was St. Gregory Nazianzen, who writes thus about himself in Oration 14, On Peace: "Neither praisers nor reproachers will change me. For what I am, that I remain, whether I am assailed with curses or carried to heaven with praises." And St. Augustine, Epistle 64 to Aurelius: "It is a great thing not to rejoice in the honors and praises of men, but to cut off all vain display; and if anything necessary is retained from it, to devote it entirely to the benefit and salvation of those who honor you."
Here is relevant the maxim of Cato in his Distichs:
When someone praises you, remember to be your own judge: Do not believe others about yourself more than you believe yourself.
THE HEART OF THE WICKED SEEKS EVIL, BUT THE HEART OF THE UPRIGHT SEEKS KNOWLEDGE. — 'Knowledge,' that is, prudence, integrity, and virtue. This proverb is absent from the Hebrew and Greek and some Latin versions, but is found in the Vatican manuscripts. The meaning is: The mind and thought of the wicked inclines toward evil, in order to satisfy its evil desires of anger, gluttony, envy, lust, pride, etc., and therefore it diligently searches out and investigates means and methods of satisfying them. Conversely, the heart of the upright and just inclines toward good, namely toward works of virtue by which it may please God; and therefore it diligently seeks them out, so as to please God more day by day and to offer Him more pleasing works, whereby to delight its God, according to that saying of the Apostle, Romans 12:2: "That you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God" — on which matter I said more above.
22. IF YOU CRUSH A FOOL IN A MORTAR LIKE BARLEY GROATS, STRIKING WITH THE PESTLE, HIS FOOLISHNESS WILL NOT BE REMOVED FROM HIM.
In Hebrew: if you crush a fool in a mortar, among the grains or groats with a pestle, his foolishness will not depart from him; the Chaldean: even if you beat a fool with blows in gatherings, and that with a pestle, his foolishness will not pass from him; the Syriac: if you beat a senseless man in an assembly, you will gain nothing from him, nor will you remove foolishness from him. Akin to this is the proverb of the Arabs, Century 2, number 51: "A dog's tail is not corrected, even if it is pounded in a mortar." For the dog is a symbol of insolence, quarreling, foulness and shamelessness, which are proper to the fool. Barley groats (ptisana) is hulled barley, which when boiled in water is drunk or sipped, and is very healthful, especially in fevers; it is commonly called barley-water or barley-drink. Hear Pliny, Book 18, chapter 7: "The use of barley groats is the most powerful and healthful of all, so highly esteemed; Hippocrates devoted an entire volume to its praises." And Book 22, chapter 25: "Hippocrates praised barley groats only as a drink to be sipped, because it was easily consumed being slippery, because it quenched thirst, because it did not cause swelling in the stomach, because it was easily voided, and because for those accustomed to it, it was the only food that could be given twice a day in a fever." For 'groats' the Hebrew has riphot, that is, grains, or kernels of wheat crushed or to be crushed; whence also 'far' (grain) is said from 'frangere' (to break), says Varro. Again, riphot signifies barley and any legume that is pounded in a mortar, either to strip it of its husks, or, once stripped, to grind and pulverize it; for the root ruph means to grind, to pound. The Septuagint, in 2 Kings 17:19, translates riphot as 'cakes of figs.' For the Greeks, and apparently the Hebrews, used to pound cheap and inferior figs into cakes, so that, macerated in this way, they could be preserved for the use of servants and slaves.
Thus the fitting sense will be, as if to say: Just as one who pounds tasteless or insipid figs does not remove from them their tasteless and insipid flavor, nor make them any sweeter or tastier, so one who often pounds a fool with words and blows will not knock foolishness out of him, nor make him one bit wiser or better. But the meaning of the Vulgate version (which is the common one) is this: you would more easily clean barley groats than a fool. For barley is pounded in a mortar with great labor and frequent blows of the pestle — first to strip off the husk or shell, then, once stripped, to grind and pulverize it. Yet at last, with great effort and repeated blows, it is truly stripped of its husks and ground and pulverized. But a fool cannot be brought by any blows, any threats or beatings, to strip off his foolishness and to break and crush his foolish, proud, and wicked ways; but he is hard — indeed harder, like flint or diamond, which grows harder the more it is pounded — and escapes from the beatings.
Take 'fool' and 'foolishness' both physically — that is, the unteachable, dull-witted, senseless — and ethically — that is, the imprudent, wicked, criminal, hardened: for the dull-witted cannot be taught, even if you beat him with clubs, nor the hardened softened, even if you crush him with blows. Hence St. Gregory from this passage teaches that one must deal harshly with the hardened. For he writes thus in the Pastoral Rule, Part III, Admonition 14: "Those who fear chastisements and therefore live innocently must be admonished one way; and those who have so hardened in iniquity that they are not corrected even by chastisements must be admonished another way. For those who fear chastisements must be told not to desire temporal goods as something great, since they see them present even in the wicked; and not to flee present evils as intolerable, since they know that even the good are often afflicted with them here." And further: "But on the other hand, those whom chastisements do not restrain from iniquities must be struck with sharper reproof in proportion to the greater insensibility with which they have hardened. For often they must be scorned without disdain, despaired of without desperation — provided that the despair shown strikes fear, and the admonition added restores hope. Stern divine sentences must therefore be brought against them, so that they may be recalled to self-knowledge by the consideration of eternal punishment. For let them hear that what is written is fulfilled in them: 'If you crush a fool in a mortar like barley groats, striking with the pestle, his foolishness will not be removed from him.'"
Hence Aquila and Theodotion translate: if you beat a fool in the midst of bakers in a bakehouse. For slaves and wicked men used to be banished to the mill-house, to pound and grind grain there for making bread — as if to say: Even if you banish a foolish and perverse man to the mill-house, to be pounded there with the grain by the pestle among the bakers, you will still not pound the foolishness out of him, so stubbornly does he cling to it that it seems inborn and innate in him.
The Septuagint, rendering not word for word but the same meaning paraphrastically, translates: if you scourge the imprudent man in the midst of an assembly, dishonoring him, you will not remove his imprudence.
Here are relevant the sayings of the wise: "What good does it do to teach a donkey to neigh? For it will not therefore cease to bray." And that of Anulus in the Picta Poesis:
If you insist on wanting to teach an unteachable nature, You will lose your effort fruitlessly, as if someone Were to teach a donkey obedient to the bridle to run on a field, etc.
Whence he concludes:
Therefore Desist: for art never conquers nature, and a noble horse Never comes from a degenerate donkey, And a wise man never comes from a stupid one through training.
Petrarch gives the a priori reason, Dialogue 41: "Consider," he says, "that all who are, were, or will be famous for virtue cannot ignite a single mind unless there are already some sparks within the soul, which, excited and aided by the teacher's spirit, catch the noble fuel of learning; otherwise you will blow in vain upon cold ashes."
Here are relevant the proverbs: "You are whitewashing an Ethiopian. You are teaching a pig. You are educating a head empty of brains. Centaurs have no minds. Midas has donkey ears. A Boeotian intellect." And that of Persius:
He does not know the difference between inguinal stains and head. A Phrygian is corrected by blows. Duller than a pestle. A Colophonian sandal.
Again, Sirach chapter 21, verse 17: "The heart of a fool is like a broken vessel, and it will hold no wisdom." And chapter 22, verse 7: "He who teaches a fool is like one who glues a potsherd together." Hear St. Gregory in the passage already cited: "Against these the Prophet complains to the Lord, saying: 'You have struck them, and they have refused to receive discipline.' Hence the Lord says: 'I have slain and destroyed this people, and yet they have not turned from their ways.' Again He says: 'The people have not turned back to Him who strikes them.' Hence the Prophet complains with the voice of those who chastise, saying: 'We have healed Babylon, and she is not healed'; for Babylon is treated, yet not restored to health, when the mind confused in wicked action hears words of correction, receives the blows of reproof, and yet disdains to return to the right paths of salvation. Hence the Lord reproaches the captive people of Israel, who yet has not turned from iniquity, saying: 'The house of Israel has become dross to me; all these are bronze, and tin, and iron, and lead in the midst of the furnace.'" Examples of this truth are found in the Jews and heretics, and others hardened in some sin, as was Pharaoh, who are moved by no threats, no plagues, to become wise and to abandon their treachery or wickedness.
Finally, you may reverse and adapt this proverb to the wise man thus: "If you crush a wise man in a mortar like barley groats, striking with the pestle, you will not remove his wisdom from him," that is, his virtue and constancy. So the philosopher Anaxarchus, when he was being pounded in a mortar with an iron pestle by Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus, after other most bitter torments, nobly replied: "Pound, pound the bag of Anaxarchus (for so he called his flesh and bones, whose breath is the soul) — you are not pounding Anaxarchus"; for the soul is immortal and unconquered in the wise man, and cannot be pounded. So Philo reports in his book That Every Good Man Is Free. The seven Maccabean brothers said the same when they were being pounded and fried in a frying pan by Antiochus, 2 Maccabees 7. The Martyrs crushed in the mortar said the same.
23 and 24. DILIGENTLY KNOW THE CONDITION OF YOUR FLOCK, AND ATTEND TO YOUR HERDS: FOR YOU SHALL NOT HAVE POWER FOREVER, BUT A CROWN SHALL BE GIVEN FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.
In Hebrew: knowing, know the faces of your flock, and set your heart upon your herds, for strength is not forever, and does a crown endure from generation to generation?
For 'power' the Hebrew has chosen, that is, strength, power, might, treasure, riches. Hence Pagninus translates: for riches will not last forever; the Chaldean: for possession is not perpetual, nor peace (the Tigurine: crown) unto perpetual posterity; the Septuagint: know clearly the souls of your flock, and apply your heart to your herds; for a man's strength and might do not extend forever, nor does he provide the sustenance of life from generation to generation — that is, as the Author of the Greek Catena translates: for the command and strength of a shepherd-man does not extend into eternity, nor will he administer the food of life to them from generation to generation; the Syriac: feed your flocks, know your sheep, according to that word of Christ: "I know My sheep, and Mine know Me," John 10.
Up to this point Solomon has given ethical precepts; now he gives economic ones, namely those pertaining to the training and support of a household. Therefore he commends the art of livestock-raising and shepherding, which is the most innocent and most ancient, having been born with man. For Abel the son of Adam was a shepherd of sheep, just as Cain his brother was a farmer, Genesis 4; so too the other sons and grandsons of Adam were likewise shepherds of sheep and herds — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Joseph with his brothers, Moses, David, and the other ancient Patriarchs, who became very wealthy from them, indeed princes and kings. Hence David sings of himself: "And He chose David His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the ewes with young He received him, to shepherd (that is, to rule as king) Jacob His servant, and Israel His inheritance," Psalm 77:70.
The great Spiridon, from a shepherd of sheep made Bishop of Trimythus, nevertheless did not cease to pasture his sheep; whence he was renowned for holiness and the glory of frequent miracles at the Council of Nicaea. So Romulus, from a shepherd, became king and founder of Rome, and the first Romans were shepherds and farmers. Hence Camillus was called from the plow to command. Hear Pliny, Book 18, chapter 3: "What then was the cause of such great abundance? The fields were then cultivated by the very hands of commanders (as it is right to believe), the earth rejoicing in a laureled plowshare and a triumphing plowman; whether they handled the seeds with the same care as wars, and laid out their fields with the same diligence as their camps; or whether all things grow more happily under honest hands, because they are also more carefully tended. They found Serranus sowing when they brought him his honors, whence his surname. To Cincinnatus plowing his four acres on the Vatican, which are called the Quintian Meadows, a messenger brought the dictatorship, and indeed, as is reported, while his face was still bare and covered with dust. To whom the messenger said: 'Cover your body, so that I may deliver the orders of the Senate and People of Rome.' Such in those days were also the messengers, a name given precisely because they went out to the fields to summon senators and generals."
Therefore, literally, Solomon commands the head of a household — whether farmer or shepherd — to take diligent care of his livestock: thus it will provide milk, wool, meat, leather, and everything necessary for the sustenance and clothing of the family. He also commands that the face of the livestock be carefully inspected, because in the face of livestock, as of a man, the whole bodily constitution and condition is reflected. Hence from the face you may gather the animal's health or sickness, leanness or fatness, strength or weakness, etc.; and also whether they eagerly seize and take food and fodder with their mouths — for this is a sign of good health and vigor — or whether they do so sluggishly and intermittently, as though nauseated: for this is a sign of ill health and weakness.
Vatablus and some others also improperly take 'livestock' to mean wealth and money: for the riches of the ancients consisted in livestock; hence 'pecunia' (money) is derived from 'pecus' (livestock), because it was stamped with the image of an animal, as Pliny attests, Book 18, chapter 3. He adds a twofold reason. The first is: 'For you shall not have power forever'; the second is: 'But a crown shall be given from generation to generation.' From the Hebrew, most translators render both negatively, thus: for the treasure will not be perpetual, nor the crown from generation to generation — as if to say: Even if you have wealth, such as a treasure of gold and silver, it will nevertheless not be perpetual or long-lasting, because it is gradually consumed by spending, and not rarely is taken away by theft, fire, plunder, or similar mishap. Even if you are a prince or king crowned with a diadem, this princedom and kingdom will not be perpetual for you and your posterity: for often grandsons, indeed even sons, do not succeed their father in the kingdom; indeed fathers themselves are not rarely deposed from the throne, either by rivals and enemies, or by their subjects, especially if they rule tyrannically over them. But the care and tending of flocks provides the shepherd with continuous sustenance each year, indeed great wealth. Therefore it is better to pasture flocks than to brood and sleep over riches or honors, which are uncertain and unstable.
But our translator renders it: for you shall not have power forever — namely, the power to pasture and feed the flocks, because you will grow old, and your strength will not suffice to tend them. Hence Varro, Book 2 of On Agriculture, chapter 17, wants shepherds to be young, strong and vigorous, so that they can keep watch in the fields with the flocks, follow them through mountains and forests, and defend them from wolves and wild beasts.
BUT A CROWN SHALL BE GIVEN FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION. — For 'but' the Hebrew has veim, that is, 'even if,' which means 'neither,' as others generally translate. Our translator takes veim for ki im, that is, 'but'; for in Hebrew vav is general and signifies any conjunction, such as ki. The meaning therefore is: If you have diligently fed your flock, you will acquire great wealth, which will produce for you a crown, that is, great honor and glory. Again, a crown properly so called: You will become the chief and prince of shepherds, whom Varro in the cited passage wants to be senior to the rest; for this man was crowned as their prince, just as the president of a banquet, Sirach 32:3.
Hence Romulus gave a crown of grain to the priests of the fields, who stood out among farmers and shepherds as princes. Hear Pliny, Book 18, chapter 2: "Romulus first established the priests of the fields, and called himself the twelfth brother among them, from Acca Laurentia his nurse; a crown of grain, bound with a white fillet, was given to him in his priesthood as the most sacred insignia, which was the first crown among the Romans." Pan, moreover, the prince of shepherds, was crowned by the ancients with a crown of pine as a sign of purity and virginity; for the pine is a symbol of these, according to that saying of Virgil:
Nor will the marriage-pine light chaste odors.
Hence Propertius, Book I:
The beech and the pine beloved by the Arcadian God.
And Ovid, Metamorphoses IV: "Pans with their horns wreathed in pine." Charles Paschalius proves the same at length, Book 6, On Crowns, chapter 28. The same author, Book 2, chapter 3, teaches that rural deities were customarily crowned with flowers.
Furthermore, properly a prince and king: for in ancient times when nearly all men were farmers and shepherds, whoever excelled among them in skill, industry and wealth was made prince and king. Finally, you will be given a crown of glory in heaven, of which more shortly. So Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were shepherds and at the same time princes, or kings. So Moses, Joseph, David were called from the sheep to the leadership of the Hebrews and Egypt, just as Cyrus was called to the kingdom of the Persians. See the comments on Exodus 3:1.
Symbolically, by shepherds of flocks understand princes and prelates of men. For what shepherds provide for sheep, this Superiors and Prelates ought to provide for their subjects — namely, to carefully observe each one's face, that is, his character and actions, to direct, instruct, and correct them. Hence for 'attend to your herds,' the Septuagint translates: and you shall apply your heart to your herds; Aquila and Theodotion: set your heart upon the herds, so that your whole heart's attention is on the herds. By 'heart' understand mind and will: mind, so that you carefully consider what is useful and profitable for the flocks; will, so that you procure it for them with singular love and care. For this reason Christ the Lord, about to ascend into heaven, leaving St. Peter as shepherd of His flock, that is, of His Church and His faithful, three times demanded love from him, saying: "Peter, do you love Me?" And when he had answered three times: "Lord, You know that I love You," He entrusted His flock to him to feed, saying: "Feed My sheep," John chapter 21, verse 17. He adds the reason, namely that they will not have the power to feed and rule them forever; but if for a short time they have diligently discharged the pastoral office, they will receive from God an unfading crown of glory, which the Prince of Shepherds, Christ the Lord, will place upon their heads, as St. Peter says, 1 Peter, chapter 5, verse 4. See the comments there.
Hear Bede: "Diligently know the condition of your flock, and attend to your herds. To the pastor of the Church it is said: Diligently exercise care over those whom you happen to govern; know the dispositions and actions of each one; and if you find any defiling vice in them, remember to correct it quickly: for you will not always have the power to feed the Lord's sheep; but eternal is the crown that you will receive, if you have faithfully administered the office entrusted to you in its proper time."
25. THE MEADOWS ARE OPENED, AND THE GREEN HERBS HAVE APPEARED, AND THE HAY IS GATHERED FROM THE MOUNTAINS.
In Hebrew: the grass is revealed, the sprout has appeared, the herbs of the mountains have been gathered; the Chaldean: the hay has been laid low, and the herb has appeared, etc.; the Septuagint: take care of the green things that are in the field, and you shall mow the grass, and gather the summer hay; the Syriac: spring has appeared, namely Nisan or April, which is so called from 'opening,' as though opening with its warmth the lands stiffened by winter, says Servius.
He demonstrates how easily food for the flocks is prepared by God and nature with little or no human labor, so as to commend their pasture and the pastoral art for its ease, and soon to commend it also for its fruit and usefulness. For without any digging by man, in spring the earth, cold and stiff from the rigor of winter, warmed by the returning sun's heat, opens itself and produces seedlings and grasses for the nourishment of sheep and livestock. Hence most farmers value meadows more than plowed fields, and from meadows they gather as much produce as from fields. It is also easy to pasture a flock, whereas in other crafts the artisan must undertake great labor — such as plowing, harrowing, sowing, reaping for the farmer; buying, transporting, selling, distributing goods for the merchant; and for the smith, baker, tailor, cobbler, the immense and constant labor of forging, baking, sewing, stitching, etc. Moreover he says: 'The hay is gathered from the mountains' — not because more hay is gathered from valleys than from mountains, but because what is gathered from mountains, being dry and waterless places, is drier, and therefore resists rotting, and can be stored in barns throughout the whole winter; while what is gathered from valleys is moister, and therefore rots more quickly and cannot be stored as long. Hence also sheep and goats, which prefer dry fodder lest they be weighed down by moisture and fall ill, prefer the grasses of mountains as drier and therefore healthier. Hence that saying of Virgil:
A thousand of my lambs roam (and roaming, graze) on the Sicilian mountains.
Mystically, Salonius says: "The meadows are opened, because through the grace of the Savior the heavenly sacraments were revealed, when He opened their understanding to His disciples so that they might understand the Scriptures; then the green herbs appeared, that is, the new teachings of Evangelical truth and glory. Again, by the mountains are signified the holy Fathers of the Old Testament; by the hay, their writings. Therefore the hay has been gathered from the mountains, because the writings of the holy Fathers have been gathered as pasture for the Lord's sheep," etc. So also Bede.
Tropologically, the Author of the Greek Catena says: "By field or meadow he designates the mind; by the green herbs and sweet-smelling flowers, the virtues that exist in it. Furthermore, he who takes care of these things reaps the green herb, namely the knowledge of God. By the mountain hay is designated the knowledge of heavenly and holy virtues and powers, which is suited to the still weaker and unrefined constitution of souls. For the Scriptures are accustomed to express the saints by the name of mountains, as: 'I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me.' Again: 'The mountains leaped like rams,' namely for the salvation of Israel," Psalm 113:4.
It comes forth (others: it has been carried, namely into barns, the grass, that is, the hay; and new tender grasses appear and are seen, and moreover the herbs of the mountains are gathered.
26. LAMBS ARE FOR YOUR CLOTHING, AND KIDS FOR THE PRICE OF A FIELD.
The Chaldean: lambs are for your clothing, and kids for your business; the Syriac: for your food; the Septuagint: so that you may have sheep for your garments, cultivate the field so that you may have lambs; the commentator: so that you may have herds of oxen. He shows from the readily available food of meadows how lambs and kids, fed on them, provide readily available food and clothing, as Jansenius says: "Your lambs serve for your clothing, because from the wool of lambs — under which all sheep are included — garments are woven, and they are also made from their skins. And kids serve for the price of a field, that is, by selling them you can pay the price of a field you have leased, or the costs of cultivating a field, or you can buy the produce of fields, such as the wheat necessary for your family. As if to say: If you diligently feed your flock, it will not be necessary to cultivate fields. For with the price of the kids you can purchase the produce of the fields."
Under lambs and kids he synecdochically understands cows, oxen, horses, and all beasts of burden and livestock, which yield great profit. But he mentions lambs and kids above the rest, because the first shepherds of the world — such as Abel, Jacob, Moses, David, etc. — formerly pastured almost only these; for these are easy to pasture and manage, while larger animals are managed with difficulty and often with danger. Or, as Vatablus says: You will sell the kids, and with the money you will acquire servants to cultivate your field. He signifies that from the flock and livestock, all other things necessary for sustenance can be gathered.
Symbolically, just as lambs are customarily shorn for their wool, so that clothing may be made from it, but not skinned: so a prince, who is the shepherd of his people, should not burden them with excessive taxes and exactions, but should accept from them only what is moderate and necessary — and thus he will receive more from them; for the wealth of the people is the wealth of the prince. Hence the Emperor Tiberius reprimanded Aemilius Rectus, prefect of Egypt, for burdening the people with excessive taxes: "I shear my flock," he said, "I do not flay them." So Dio Nicaeus reports in his account of Tiberius.
Mystically, Bede says: "By lambs he means the innocent, by kids the penitent. You will therefore be clothed with the fleece of lambs, when as a pastor you yourself are protected by the good behavior of your obedient flock, and seeing their praiseworthy deeds, you become more glorious both in the adornment of virtues and in the warmth of love. With the kids you will purchase a field, when by calling sinners to repentance, you acquire for yourself a more exalted place in the land of the living."
27. LET THE MILK OF GOATS SUFFICE YOU FOR YOUR FOOD, FOR THE NEEDS OF YOUR HOUSEHOLD, AND FOR THE SUSTENANCE OF YOUR MAIDSERVANTS.
In Hebrew: the sufficiency of goats' milk for the bread of your house, and life for your maidservants; the Septuagint: my son, from me you have strong words for your life, and for the life of your servants; Aquila: for the bread of your house; Symmachus and Theodotion: for the needs of your house.
Under goats' milk understand the milk of sheep and also of cows, likewise butter, cheese and other dairy products, as if to say: Be frugal in food and clothing; clothe yourself also with the fleeces of lambs, as Adam, Eve, and the other first humans were clothed, Genesis 3:21; and as the ancient Romans, and indeed the modern farmers and shepherds living near Rome, who throw pure sheep fleeces loosely sewn over their shoulders, and thus clothe their chest and back. Feed on the milk, butter and cheese of your flock, as the ancients fed on the same from Adam to Noah: for before the flood men abstained from meat, as I showed at Genesis 9:3. And so Solomon here sets before our eyes the simplest and most innocent way of life, which Abel and the other first humans followed, living on the milk of the flock and clothing themselves with its fleeces, to show with how few and how simple things human nature can be content; and to reprove the insatiable gluttony and luxury of men, who seek delicacies throughout the whole city and world. Following Solomon, St. Paul says: "Having food and covering, let us be content with these," 1 Timothy 6:8. Indeed the ancient Romans fed not on bread and meat, but on milk and porridge; hence they were called pultiphagi (porridge-eaters).
Hear Pliny, Book 18, chapter 8: "It is clear that the Romans lived on porridge, not bread, for a long time; whence side dishes are still called pulmentaria today. And Ennius, that most ancient poet, describing the hunger of a siege, recalls that fathers snatched morsels from the mouths of their weeping children. And today sacred ancient rites and birthday fritillae are made from porridge." This frugality made the Romans healthy, vigorous, wealthy, and masters of the world. Hear the same Pliny, Book 18, chapter 6: "Their highest principle of foresight was that expenditure should be as small as possible; for those who gave these precepts were men who counted ten pounds of silver in the household goods as a criminal offense at a triumph, who demanded that upon the death of a farm steward they should leave behind their victories and return to their own farms, whose estates the republic took upon itself to cultivate, and whose armies the Senate managed as their steward. From this came all those remaining maxims: that he was a bad farmer who bought what his farm could provide; a bad head of household who did in the daytime what he could do at night, unless in stormy weather; a worse one who did on workdays what should be done on holidays; and the worst of all who on a clear day worked under a roof rather than in the field." The same frugality can be seen today among the Dutch, which accordingly makes them vigorous, robust, and wealthy. Finally, Columella, Book 2 of On Agriculture, places the reliability of shepherds in this: that, content with milk and cheese, they do not slaughter the sheep or lambs.
Seneca brilliantly commends a simple and easily obtained diet, Epistle 120: "Whatever exceeds nature, know it to be precarious, not necessary. Am I hungry? I must eat: whether this bread is common or fine wheat, it makes no difference to nature. Nature wants the stomach not to be delighted, but to be filled. Am I thirsty? Whether this water is what I have drawn from the nearest lake, or what I have extracted from much snow — nothing is cooled by another's chill — it makes no difference to nature: nature commands only this one thing, that thirst be quenched. Whether the cup is gold or crystal, glass or a Tiburtine goblet, or a cupped hand, it makes no difference. For look at the purpose of things, and you will dismiss the superfluous. Hunger calls me; let my hand reach for whatever is nearest. See, nature has recommended to me whatever I shall grasp; the hungry man despises nothing."
Mystically, Bede says: "With such great diligence feed the flock entrusted to you, that you may lack neither fresh milk in summer nor in winter cold; but that it always suffice for you and yours — that is, apply yourself so diligently to teaching that you even promote certain pious penitents to the office of teaching, through those who formerly, on account of the foulness of their vices, seemed destined to be placed at the left hand of the Judge, so that rational and sincere spiritual milk may be administered to those who are little in understanding. Now goats' milk becomes food for the maidservants, when those who do not yet serve the Lord with perfect love, but still with servile fear, are nourished through the example or words of those who have been saved through repentance, by the life-giving feasts of the word, and are helped to make progress toward greater advances in virtue.
Symbolically, milk signifies that pastors should accept from their subjects only small and simple things, namely what suffices for simple food and clothing: milk, he says, not blood, because the flock needs the former, not the latter. He also implies that it is most unjust if the food necessary for the sheep is diverted to the pastors' pleasures. Hence that saying from chapter 30, verse 34: "But he who presses the udders hard to draw milk, squeezes out butter; and he who blows the nose violently, draws blood."
Anagogically, the same Bede explains it from a certain author thus: "The meadows were opened," that is, the tombs when Christ died, Matthew 27; "the risen bodies appeared; sinners were separated from saints: hay for burning from the high places. Lambs were separated to the right, kids to the left; lambs for the clothing of the King, because He Himself said: 'I dwell in them'; kids, for the price of the saints whom they harmed, are sold to the fires."
Moreover, the Septuagint for 'milk' translates 'strong words': "My son, you have received from me strong words, by which you may sustain your life and the life of your servants." These words are the economic teachings here given for maintaining a household; they are called 'strong,' that is, austere and frugal, which will make you both strong in body and robust in spirit: for frugality and thrift produce both.