Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The wicked man flees, the just man trusts like a lion; sins multiply princes; the poor man who oppresses the poor produces famine; the simple poor man is better than the perverse rich man; the glutton shames his father; the usurer gathers wealth for the generous; the wise poor man examines the rich man who thinks himself wise; when the just man reigns, glory arises, when the unjust man reigns, ruin; confession produces pardon; blessed is he who is always fearful; the tyrant is a lion and a bear; the generous leader is long-lived; the murderer is hated by all; labor produces abundance, idleness famine; he who hastens to become rich becomes guilty; the unjust judge sells truth for bread; he who corrects finds favor; the thief of his father is a murderer; greed sows quarrels, hope produces peace and abundance; the fool is bold, the wise man is shrewd and cautious; the generous man is enriched, the miser is impoverished; when the wicked man reigns the just flee, when the pious man reigns they are multiplied.
Vulgate Text: Proverbs 28:1-28
1. The wicked man flees, though no one pursues: but the just man, trusting like a lion, shall be without fear. 2. Because of the sins of the land, its princes are many: and because of the wisdom of a man, and the knowledge of those things which are said, the life of the ruler shall be longer. 3. A poor man oppressing the poor is like a violent rainstorm, in which famine is prepared. 4. Those who forsake the law praise the wicked: those who keep it are kindled against him. 5. Evil men do not consider judgment: but those who seek the Lord perceive all things. 6. Better is the poor man who walks in his simplicity, than the rich man on crooked paths. 7. He who keeps the law is a wise son; but he who feeds gluttons shames his father. 8. He who heaps up riches by usury and interest gathers them for one who is generous to the poor. 9. He who turns away his ears so as not to hear the law, his prayer shall be abominable. 10. He who leads the just astray into an evil way shall fall into his own destruction: and the simple shall possess his goods. 11. The rich man seems wise to himself: but the prudent poor man will examine him. 12. In the exultation of the just there is great glory: when the wicked reign, men are ruined. 13. He who hides his crimes shall not prosper; but he who confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy. 14. Blessed is the man who is always fearful: but he whose mind is hard shall fall into evil. 15. A roaring lion and a hungry bear: a wicked ruler over a poor people. 16. A ruler who lacks prudence will oppress many through false accusation: but he who hates avarice shall have long days. 17. A man who is burdened with the blood of a soul, if he flees to the pit, no one supports him. 18. He who walks simply shall be saved: he who walks on perverse paths shall fall at once. 19. He who works his own land shall be filled with bread: but he who pursues idleness shall be filled with want. 20. A faithful man shall be much praised: but he who hastens to become rich shall not be innocent. 21. He who shows partiality in judgment does not do well: such a man forsakes truth even for a morsel of bread. 22. A man who hastens to become rich and envies others does not know that want will come upon him. 23. He who rebukes a man shall afterward find favor with him, more than he who deceives with flattering words. 24. He who steals something from his father and from his mother, and says this is not a sin, is a partner of the murderer. 25. He who boasts and puffs himself up stirs up quarrels: but he who hopes in the Lord shall be healed. 26. He who trusts in his own heart is a fool: but he who walks wisely shall be saved. 27. He who gives to the poor shall not be in want: he who despises the one who pleads shall suffer poverty. 28. When the wicked rise up, men hide themselves: when they perish, the just shall be multiplied.
1. THE WICKED MAN FLEES, THOUGH NO ONE PURSUES: BUT THE JUST MAN, TRUSTING LIKE A LION, SHALL BE WITHOUT FEAR.
In Hebrew, they fled, no one pursuing, the wicked man (that is, each one of the wicked), the just (each one of the just) shall trust like a young lion; the Arabic, the wicked man flees, no one abhorring him; but the just man, taming like a lion, meaning: Just as a lion tames all animals and subjects them to himself, so also the just man tames all terrors; Vatablus, they flee, no one pursuing, the wicked; the just are confident like lions; St. Jerome on Micah II: No one, he says, that is, the demon pursuing. For the demon is so base and weak that he is considered and called "no one," because "from the time he lost well-being, he tended toward non-being," says St. Gregory, XIV Moralia XI. But this is mystical. It is customary in Hebrew to join a plural verb with a singular noun, when plurality or distribution among many is signified. Thus here it says: They fled, the wicked man, that is, the wicked, or each of the wicked; the just shall trust, that is, they shall trust, or each of the just shall trust. Understand a just man who is real and solid, who continually perseveres and advances in justice; for he trusts like a lion, and the more he advances in justice, the more confident and courageous he becomes; but if he grows lukewarm in it, his confidence and courage likewise grow lukewarm.
The truth of this maxim is seen in all the pious and impious, but especially in rulers: hence Salazar understands by the wicked man a tyrant, and by the just man a just king who governs his people justly, and administers to each his right. For tyrants everywhere are fearful, agitated by a thousand fears and suspicions, and fear all things even when safe, because, being conscious of their own evil, they know that they are hateful to God and men; but a just king knows that he is dear to God and men, and therefore fears no one. Hence Job, chapter XV, 21, describing the tyrant: "The sound of terror," he says, "is always in his ears; and when there is peace, he always suspects ambushes: he does not believe that he can return from darkness to light, looking about on every side for the sword." Wherefore Dionysius the tyrant, when Damocles praised his happiness, set up a sumptuous banquet for him; but from the ceiling he suspended a sword hanging over his neck, to show that the happiness of tyrants is unhappy, since at every hour slaughter threatens them. And Plato, in book IX of the Republic:
"The tyrant," he says, "dwells within the walls of his house, fearful like a woman." Phavorinus provides the reason in Stobaeus, sermon 49: "Can it happen," he says, "that they escape God? Certainly wherever they flee, they shall be apprehended by justice." Examples are found in Gaius Caligula, Domitian, Nero, Dionysius, Decius, Diocletian and Maximian, etc.
Moreover, the reason why the lion is fearless and fears nothing is the one that Albert the Great gives regarding the Lion: "Certainly," he says, "natural strength does not give the lion this courage;" for many elephants, indeed many bulls joined together, are stronger than a lion. "It follows therefore that other beasts do not fear the lion's strength, but recognize his natural authority and dominion," just as all birds recognize the authority of the eagle. The meaning therefore is, says Salazar, meaning: "Just as all wild beasts willingly obey the lion, as if recognizing his natural authority: so also all willingly submit to a prince who exercises natural, just, and legitimate authority, so that against him neither individual subjects act treacherously and traitorously, nor is the multitude stirred up by sedition. For this is the force and power of legitimate and just rule."
This meaning is very fitting, but inadequate and too narrow. For why shall we restrict the words of Solomon to kings and tyrants alone? Especially since the Hebrew has, they fled, the wicked man, that is, each one of the wicked; the just shall trust, that is, each one of the just. The meaning therefore is, meaning: Each one of the wicked fears, and from fear, suspecting that evil threatens him, he flees even when nothing threatens, and no one pursues him, and this not only when he is engaged in the act of sin, and is actually fornicating or committing some other crime, but even when he rests from wickedness; conversely, each one of the just, who is solidly and perfectly just, trusts like a lion even in the midst of persecutions, and is fearless, just as the wicked man is everywhere fearful. Job graphically depicts this fear of the wicked, chapter XV, 21, and the Wise Man, in the Wisdom, chapter XVII, 10 and following. and fearful, and makes the wicked fearful and pale; because, as Plutarch says: "Wickedness constructs its own punishment from itself." And Seneca, epistle 97: "The punishment of crime is in the crime itself." And another: "Conscience before sin is a bridle, after sin it is a whip." The just man therefore trusts like a lion, the wicked man trembles like a hare. Hence the Poet: "The mighty hand of thundering Jove" does not frighten the just man. Even if the shattered world should crash down upon him, The ruins would strike him undismayed. For although the just man is humble and meek as a sheep, yet the same man is magnanimous as a lion; for, as St. Lawrence Justinian says (as his Life has it, chapter IX): "Humility is like a torrent, which in summer runs thinner as if creeping, but in winter and spring floods: so humility in prosperity is indeed small, but in adversity it ought to be magnanimous," as it was in St. John Chrysostom, when cast from his throne he was driven into exile. Concerning whom hear the man himself, epistle 9 to Cyriacus, volume V: "For I," he says, "when I was driven from the city, cared for none of these things; but I said within myself: If indeed the empress wishes me an exile, let her drive me into exile, the earth is the Lord's and its fullness. And if she wishes to cut, let her cut; Isaiah suffered the same, I shall subscribe to him. If she wishes to cast me into the sea, I shall remember Jonah. If she wishes to throw me into a furnace, those three youths suffered the same. If she wishes to expose me to wild beasts, let her expose me; I shall remember Daniel cast into the pit of lions. If she wishes to stone me, let her stone me; I have Stephen the first martyr as my companion. And if she wishes to take my head, let her take it; I have John the Baptist as my companion. And if she wishes to take away my substance, let her take it; naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall depart. The Apostle reminds me: God does not regard the person of man. And if I still pleased men, I would certainly not be a servant of Christ. David also arms me, saying: I spoke before kings, and was not confounded."
Second, because justice produces a good and secure conscience; but iniquity produces a bad one, and therefore a fearful and anxious one. For a good conscience fears nothing, a bad one turns pale at everything, according to that passage in Wisdom, chapter XVII, 10: "Since wickedness is timid, it gives testimony of condemnation; for a troubled conscience always presumes harsh things." On this matter I have spoken more fully elsewhere.
Third, because the just esteem lightly all the things of this life, whether prosperous or adverse, which the unjust esteem highly; for the just hope for and long for heavenly riches; hence their conversation, mind, and hope are in heaven: wherefore nothing in this life is terrible to them except sin. So St. Hilarion, as St. Jerome writes in his Life, when captured by robbers and asked whether he was afraid, replied: "A naked man does not fear robbers." And they said: "Certainly, you can be killed." "I can," he said, "I can; and therefore I do not fear robbers, because I am prepared to die."
St. Martin and St. Dominic gave the same response to robbers. For this reason Solomon said, chapter XII, 21: "Whatever happens to the just man shall not sadden him; but the wicked shall be filled with evil." See the comments there.
Fourth, because the just know that they are dear to God's heart and care; relying on God, therefore, they fear nothing; for they say with St. Paul: "If God is for us, who is against us?" Romans VIII, 31. Ecclesiasticus assigns this reason, chapter XXXIV, 16: "He who fears the Lord will tremble at nothing, and will not be afraid; for He is his hope." See the comments there. Hence for "lion" the Hebrew has kephir, that is, a young lion, which is utterly fearless, far more so than an older lion, both because it has not yet experienced hunters and enemies as the old lion has; and because the sharp hunger with which it constantly labors, and the eagerness for blood which it has recently tasted, and therefore thirsts for, sharpens its courage and fury; and because its teeth are sharper and stronger: for with age, lions' teeth are not infrequently worn down or fall out. Hence that passage in Job IV, 10: "The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the lioness, and the teeth of the lion cubs are broken;" and because under the wings of its father and mother, that is, the lion and lioness, it rests securely: so the just rest under the wings of God, who is their father and mother, and therefore they are undaunted, according to that Psalm XC: "He who dwells in the aid of the Most High shall abide in the protection of the God of heaven, etc. His truth shall surround you with a shield, you shall not fear the terror of the night; the arrow flying by day, the business that walks in darkness, the assault and the noonday demon." And Psalm XXVI: "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? If camps should stand against me, my heart shall not fear."
St. Gregory assigns these reasons briefly, book XXXI of the Moralia, chapter XIV: "The just man," he says, "shall be without fear, trusting like a lion; for in the encounter with beasts the lion does not tremble, because he is not unaware that he prevails over all; hence the security of the just man is rightly compared to the lion; because, when he sees any adversaries rising up against him, he returns to the confidence of his mind; and he knows that he overcomes all opponents, because he loves Him alone whom he can in no way lose against his will. For whoever desires external things, which are taken away even from the unwilling, willingly subjects himself to foreign fear; but unbroken virtue is the desire for eternal life, the contempt of earthly life," etc.
The fifth reason is that God often sends panic terrors upon the wicked, as He threatened the Jews if they departed from His law, Leviticus XXVI: "Those," He says, "who remain of you, I will send fear into their hearts in the regions of their enemies, the sound of a flying leaf will terrify them, and they shall flee as from a sword: they shall fall, though no one pursues, and they shall stumble one upon another as if fleeing from wars; none of you shall dare to resist the enemies: you shall perish among the nations, and the hostile land shall consume you. And if any of these also remain, they shall waste away in their iniquities in the land of their enemies, on account of the sins of their fathers and their own they shall be afflicted; until they confess their iniquities, and those of their ancestors, by which they transgressed against Me, and walked contrary to Me."
Such terrors God sent upon the Egyptians and Pharaoh through the palpable darkness, in which He likewise sent among them specters and visions of dreadful things, which the Wise Man describes at length, Wisdom chapter XVII, 2 and following. He also sent such terrors upon the Midianites at the trumpet blast of Gideon and his three hundred companions, Judges VII, 21, and upon the Syrians through Elisha, IV Kings chapter VII, 6.
Conversely, God sometimes sends to the just and the Saints in harsh or difficult situations such great hopes and courage that they dare all things and undertake them fearlessly, indeed are altogether terrible to their enemies. Such courage He sent to St. Peter, St. Paul, and the other Apostles; to St. Athanasius, who like a lion resisted the Arians and almost the whole world; and, in our century, to St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier, who, relying on God, courageously and fearlessly overcame innumerable and enormous persecutions, and whom God made terrible not only to men, but also to demons, according to that promise of His: "Today I will begin to send your terror and dread upon the peoples, so that hearing your name they may tremble, and quake as women in labor," Deuteronomy II, 25.
Moreover, the fearless just man is aptly compared to a lion, first, because "the lion (as is said in chapter XXX) is the strongest of beasts and will not tremble at the approach of any." For, as Aristotle says, book V of the History of Animals, chapter XIII: "The lion in the hunt, when it is seen, never flees or fears; but even if compelled sometimes to yield to the multitude of hunters, it withdraws gradually and step by step, frequently stopping and looking back. But once it reaches a shady place, it withdraws itself with the swiftest flight it can manage; then again it proceeds slowly." From Aristotle, Pliny, Aelian, and others have described these things. Pliny adds, book VIII, chapter XXXVI: "The weakest part of the bear is the head, which is the strongest part of the lion;" so the just man has all his strength in the head, that is, in his mind and generous will armed with the love of God.
Second, because, as St. Ambrose says from St. Basil, homily 9 on the Hexameron, book VI of the Hexameron, chapter III: "The lion, proud of its natural ferocity, does not know how to mingle with the species of other wild beasts, but like a certain king disdains the company of the many." So the just man disdains the life of worldly people, however delicate, splendid, and pompous it may be, because he considers all earthly things as dung.
The Chaldean suggests a third analogy when he translates: the just, like a lion that is intent on its food, hope in wisdom. For the lion feeds on its prey securely, neither fearing nor noticing other beasts standing around; and when it has satisfied itself, it leaves the remainder for the other beasts to eat. So the just are entirely intent on justice and God; for this is their food, and they fear nothing that would take away from them Him through whom they hope to obtain wisdom itself, that is, grace, virtue, glory, the vision of God, happiness, and every good: and they share the leftovers of this mystical feast with their neighbors, to whom they inspire their own wisdom.
Fourth, because lions despise all hostile beasts and terrors; and the greater these are, the more their confidence and courage grow. We have seen a lion, against which hunting dogs and mastiffs were set, while one seized it by the forehead, others by the ears, others by the tail, others by the back, others by the chest, remain unmoved; and when it was already completely surrounded by dogs, it embraced each one with its paws, and tore and ripped apart all of them in order from first to last one by one, with the same ease and tranquility with which we tear paper. So for the just man, his courage grows with adversities and dangers, according to that saying: "Virtue grows when shaken by adversity." Hence the just man rejoices in adversities, because in them he has material for exercising virtue and sharpening his courage. Hence he says courageously with St. Paul: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? I am certain that neither death nor life," etc., Romans VIII, 35.
Just as the lion therefore trusts, because seeing a rival beast it trusts that it will lay it low, indeed marks it out as its prey and food: so the just man, seeing an enemy and temptation, trusts, because with certain hope of divine aid he anticipates victory and triumph. Again Aristotle, book II of the History of Animals, chapter I: "The lion's neck," he says, "consists of a single rigid bone, and is not joined by any vertebrae." And book IV of the Parts of Animals, chapter X: "The neck," he says, "of other animals is flexible and composed of vertebrae; but in the wolf and lion it is rigid with a continuous bone: for nature wished their neck to serve strength rather than other uses." So undaunted and unbending against all terrors is the confidence of the just, and it is rigid and strong with perpetual constancy. The leader and lion of the Spartans was Leonidas, who with three hundred citizens threw himself against the entire army of Xerxes at Thermopylae, saying to his men: "Dine here, comrades, for we shall sup in the underworld." So Cicero in the Tusculan Disputations. Likewise St. Leo with leonine confidence met Attila, king of the Huns, who called himself "the scourge of God," and checked him; and compelled him to depart from Italy, as Eutropius attests, book XV. The leader and lion of Christians was St. Ignatius: for he trusted like a lion, when amid roaring lions, eager for martyrdom, he said: "I am the wheat of Christ; let me be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may be found pure bread;" he was therefore stronger than lions, and the lion of lions. Hence, condemned by Trajan to the lions, provoking them not so much to a duel as to a feast on himself, in his epistle to the Romans: "From Syria," he says, "all the way to Rome I fight with beasts, on sea and on land, by night and by day, bound with ten leopards, that is, soldiers who guard me." And shortly after: "Would that I may enjoy the beasts that are prepared for me, which I pray may be swift for my destruction, and for my torments, and be enticed to devour me, lest, as with other Martyrs, they dare not touch my body! And if they are unwilling to come, I will use force, I will press myself upon them, that I may be devoured. Little children, forgive me, I know what is profitable for me." And shortly after: "Now I begin to be a disciple of Christ, desiring nothing of these visible things, that I may find Jesus Christ. Fire, cross, beasts, breaking of bones, tearing apart of limbs, and crushing of the whole body, and all the torments of the devil — let them come upon me, if only I may enjoy Christ."
Finally, St. Chrysostom explains this maxim brilliantly and elegantly, in homily 8 to the People, which hear: "Such is the habit of sinners: they suspect everything, they tremble at shadows, they fear every noise, and they think that everyone is coming for them. Therefore sinners, often seeing many people running on other business, thought they were coming toward them, and when others were discussing various matters among themselves, being conscious of their own sin, they thought those people were talking about them. For such a thing is sin: with no one detecting it, it betrays; with no one accusing, it condemns; it makes the sinner fearful and timid, just as justice produces the opposite. Hear therefore how Scripture depicted both the fear of the one and the freedom of the other: The wicked man flees, though no one pursues, it says. How does he flee, though no one pursues? He has within him a driving conscience, an accuser, and he carries this about everywhere; and just as he cannot flee from himself, so neither from the one driving him within; but wherever he goes, he is scourged, and has an incurable wound. But the just man is not like this; but of what sort he is, hear: The just man, it says, trusts like a lion. Such was Elijah. He saw the king coming toward him, and when the king said: Are you the one who disturbs Israel? I have not disturbed Israel, he said, but you, and the house of your father. Truly the just man trusts like a lion. For just as a lion rose up against the king as against some worthless whelp." And after some intervening remarks, calling St. Paul a lion, he continues thus: "Such a lion was also the blessed Paul, Acts XVI; for entering the prison, with his cry alone he shook all the foundations, he gnawed through the chains not with teeth, but with words. Therefore one must call them not only lions, but something greater than lions. For a lion, having fallen into nets, is often captured; but the saints, when they are bound, become stronger from this. Just as this blessed man then did in prison, loosing the prisoners, shaking the walls, terrifying the prison guard, and capturing him with the word of piety. The lion roars, and puts all beasts to flight; the saint cries out, and expels demons from every side. The lion's weapons: the terror of its mane, the points of its claws, and sharp teeth; the weapons of the just man: wisdom, temperance, patience, endurance, contempt for all present things. Whoever possesses these weapons will mock not only wicked men, but also the hostile powers themselves. Meditate therefore, O man, on living according to God, and no one will ever overcome you. But even if you seem the most worthless of all, you will be the most powerful of all: just as if you neglect the virtue of the soul, even if you are the most powerful of all, you will be easily conquered by all who plot against you."
St. Thomas objects, III Part, Question XV, article 7, reply to 1: Of Christ it is said in Mark XIV: "Jesus began to be afraid and to be weary;" but Christ was supremely just; therefore fear and terror do befall the just man. And he responds: "The just man is said to be without terror, insofar as terror implies a perfect passion that turns a man from what is according to reason; and thus fear was not in Christ, but only as a pro-passion, and therefore it is said that Jesus began to be afraid, as if according to a pro-passion, as Jerome explains."
Here is relevant what Ezekiel, chapter I, gives the Cherubim, who are types of the just, the Apostles, and the heralds of the Gospel, four faces, namely the face of a man, a lion, a calf, and an eagle, where the lion denotes their fortitude: for this has something of the leonine and fierce nature. "The minister of the Gospel," says our Alvarez, "must therefore be a man, who knows how to sympathize with weak and wretched sinners; a lion, who knows how to roar against sins, and terrifyingly thunder forth the divine threats; an ox, who can bear the burdens of solicitude; and an eagle, which by contemplating heavenly things is able to escape earthly things, and to soar sublimely toward God. In another way St. Gregory explained these faces of the perfect man: Everyone, he says, who is perfect in reason, is a man. And since he mortifies himself from the pleasure of this world, he is a calf. But because by that very voluntary mortification he has the fortitude of security against all adversities (whence it is written: The just man, trusting like a lion, shall be without fear), he is a lion. And because he sublimely contemplates things both heavenly and earthly, he is an eagle." These are the words of St. Gregory, homily 4 on Ezekiel. See the comments on Ezekiel I.
2. BECAUSE OF THE SINS OF THE LAND, ITS PRINCES ARE MANY: AND BECAUSE OF THE WISDOM OF A MAN, AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE SAID, THE LIFE OF THE RULER SHALL BE LONGER.
In Hebrew, in the transgression of the land, its princes are many; and in a man who is understanding and knowing; ken, that is, what is right, or thus he will prolong, or it will be prolonged, namely the rule, or the wrath of the prince; the Chaldean, in the sin of the land, its princes are many: and the sons of men who understand knowledge shall endure; that is, as the Syriac, and just men, who know (practically, that is, practice) justice, shall make their days long; the Septuagint, because of the sins of the wicked, judgments and disputes are stirred up; but an astute or prudent man extinguishes them. For "judgments" the Greek has kriseis, for which the Complutensian edition reads kriseis, that is, burdens, oppressions.
BECAUSE OF THE SINS OF THE LAND, ITS PRINCES ARE MANY. —
That is, as some say, from the sin of Adam arose principalities and kingdoms, princes and kings: for before sin they did not exist; for then all were equal, and through original justice each governed himself and kept himself in justice; but when through sin they deviated from it, there was need of princes to bring them back to the right path, and to keep them in it by laws, punishments, and rewards. Hence St. Gregory, book XXI of the Moralia, chapter X: "All men," he says, "are by nature equal, but it has come about by a disposing order that we appear to be set over some, and that very diversity which arose from vice is rightly ordered by divine judgments, because since not every man walks the path of life equally, one is governed by another."
Others, secondly, understand these words of polyarchy, meaning: The best form of government is monarchy; for a monarch presides over all subjects, and keeps them all in duty and peace; but because of the sins of men, especially ambitions, polyarchy arose, that is, the rule of many: whether of the nobles, as happens in aristocracy; or of the people, as happens in democracy, in which frequent seditions, schisms, tyrannies, slaughters, and other crimes arise. Hence Plato teaches that monarchy is the best form of government, and that polyarchy should be called not so much government as sedition, in the Laws, dialogue 8; and Aristotle, book V of the Politics, chapter XII. And Euripides in the Archelaus: "The kingdom," he says, "seems to be a certain life of the gods; for apart from immortality they have all things:" kingdom, that is monarchy; for in a kingdom the king rules as a monarch.
Third, others understand it of the division of one kingdom into many principalities, meaning: Often on account of the sins of the people, one kingdom is divided into many principalities. Just as the kingdom of the Hebrews was divided into two, namely the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel under Rehoboam on account of the sins of Solomon, III Kings XII. For such a division of kingdoms, just as it arises from the sins of the king and the people, so it is burdensome and harmful to the people, because from it arise greater expenses. For it is easier to maintain one king royally than two or three; thence come new taxes and levies, new laws, new rights, and often slaughters and wars, while each one strives to extend his own and his kingdom's borders; or hatreds and disputes arise with a neighboring king, as there were frequent wars between the kings of Judah and Israel.
But all these meanings do not cohere with the following verses, nor do they have any antithesis with them, which other maxims contain. Therefore the genuine antithetical meaning is, meaning: Because of the sins of the people, God causes good princes to be short-lived, and so one after another succeeds, who burden the people with new taxes, laws, expenses, obligations, and wars: but indeed a wise and upright prince restrains the sins of the people; and so he causes God, as a reward for both the people and the upright prince, to prolong the life, rule, and prosperity of both. For because of his wisdom and knowledge of those things which are said and done in the kingdom, that is, because he diligently strives to know the entire state of the people, and prudently provides that the people be kept in duty and in religion, therefore his life shall be longer. For above he said: "Remove wickedness from the face of the king, and his throne shall be established in justice." Our text can also be understood thus: Just as because of the sins of the land it happens that its princes are many: so because of the wisdom of some man, whose services the prince employs, and the knowledge of those things which must be said in rendering judgments, the life of the ruler shall be prolonged by the gift of God. Or because of the knowledge of those things which are said by God, that is, because of the knowledge of God's commandments: for on account of this the longevity of the kingdom is promised in Deuteronomy. So Jansenius.
Others, by "the knowledge of those things which are said," understand the knowledge of public crimes, those crimes, I say, which common report has spread; for to check the public crimes of subjects is the chief duty of the king. Or simply and plainly, "which are said," namely by prudent counselors, and are suggested to the prince, meaning: Because of the sound and wise counsels which a prudent prince embraces and carries out, as suggested to him by wise men, meaning: Folly and sins abolish, change, and multiply empires; but wisdom and justice establish, extend, and prolong them, as is clear from Deuteronomy XVII, 20. Hence from the Hebrew, with some interpreters, you may clearly translate: because of a wise and understanding man, it shall be prolonged, namely the kingdom.
Note: By "the wisdom of a man" he signifies the wisdom of the prince or of some eminent man, by whose counsel the prince does all things. Or take the singular for the plural, meaning: Because of wise, skillful, and upright men, the life of the ruler shall be prolonged, just as King Hezekiah's life was extended by fifteen years through the counsel and prayers of Isaiah, chapter XXXVIII.
3. A POOR MAN OPPRESSING THE POOR IS LIKE A VIOLENT RAINSTORM (the Syriac, shaking and striking down; Aben-Ezra, tearing out seeds), IN WHICH FAMINE IS PREPARED.
For "oppressing" the Hebrew has oset, that is, doing injury, unjustly oppressing, by fining, seizing, despoiling, etc. Thus the Hebrew reads: a poor man oppressing the poor, rain dragging away, or stripping away, so that there is no bread. From the Hebrew you may refer this both to the principality and to the leader and prince; hence from it Pagninus translates thus: a poor man who seizes the poor is like a flooding rain, and there is no bread; and Vatablus, a poor man who oppresses the poor with violence is the same as a rainstorm that rots the harvest so that nothing grows. A learned interpreter considers that this maxim signifies that the rich are often unjust to the poor, and therefore the poor, in order to protect themselves, ought to band together. For if they vex one another, they will ruin all their affairs, and will be reduced to the utmost famine. Furthermore, the prince must take care that the disputes of the poor, especially of farmers, be prevented, or once they arise, be immediately settled or resolved, so that they may be free for farming, on which the republic lives, lest both they and the republic suffer famine. Therefore Plato in the book On the Republic, held that farmers should be given judges who are neighbors and fellow citizens, whom they themselves may choose as arbiters, lest, if they must go to city and forensic judges, they be forced to interrupt their farming — and this is done among the Turks. Hence Dionysius of Halicarnassus, book II: "Having divided," he says, "the whole territory into districts, he appointed over each its own rural magistrate (Romulus, the founder of Rome) who would care for them, rebuke idle farmers, punish them with fines, and judge their disputes." Truly I say: This maxim properly touches upon one who, being poor, is placed over other poor people, whether as governor, or as censor, or as tax collector, or as magistrate, or under whatever other title; who, being poor, in order to relieve his own poverty from the goods of other poor people, and to fill up the leanness and hunger of his wealth, strips the poor to the bone. For this man in Hebrew is called geber, that is, a man; the Septuagint, andreios, that is, manly, strong, powerful, namely through the office or charge he holds over the common people and peasants, the poor rustics. And this man (as Jansenius rightly says) is compared to a rainstorm, which with great violence floods the earth and overwhelms it, which both strips the seeds and strikes down the growing crops, and so brings extreme devastation upon the fields. So a poor official does not dare to afflict the rich and powerful; for these, like mountains, shake off all taxes and burdens into the valleys, that is, upon the common people and peasants, who are therefore utterly impoverished and reduced to their undergarments. Fourth, just as a flooding rain floods the fields, it likewise floods the neighboring cities; so he who despoils the poor also despoils the citizens. For the poor, stripped of their goods, desert farming and the mechanical arts; therefore cities must necessarily suffer famine and want of all things.
Tacitly, therefore, Solomon here admonishes princes and magistrates not to appoint poor men, especially those who are greedy and avaricious, to public offices, lest they despoil the poor (in Hebrew, dallim, that is, the weakened, the exhausted) citizens and farmers, not only to their own loss, but also to the loss and damage of the whole republic. For subsequently the despoiled poor, driven to desperation and fury, attack, despoil, and plunder the princes, the powerful, the merchants, and the wealthy themselves.
An example is in Dionysius the Elder, who, as Plutarch says in the Sayings of Kings: "He had exacted money from the Syracusans, then when he saw them lamenting, begging, and denying that they had anything to give, he imposed another tax, and did this again a second and third time. And afterward, when having demanded a larger sum, he heard them walking about in the forum laughing and throwing jibes at the king, he ordered the officials to cease collecting. For now, he said, they have nothing, since they despise us."
The Emperor Vespasian incurred grave censure and reproach because he was accustomed to promote every poor and most rapacious man, so that he might soon condemn him after he was enriched; hence he was commonly said to treat his officials as sponges, in that he would soak them like dry sponges and then squeeze them out when wet. So Suetonius in his Life. "Bato the Dalmatian, asked by Tiberius why he had so often revolted with his people and inflicted such great destruction on the Romans, replied: You are the cause, because you sent not dogs or shepherds to guard your flocks, but wolves. He meant that the tyranny of the governors or of Caesar had been the cause of the revolt." So Dionysius writes about Augustus.
"After Antigonus was killed, his murderers, having gained power, afflicted the Phrygians with every kind of injury. But a certain farmer, digging in his small field, when asked what he was doing, replied with a sigh: I am digging up Antigonus." So Brusonius, book VI, chapter XXI.
Wherefore Solon, the lawgiver of the Athenians, decreed that only the wealthy should be adopted into magistracy, as Aristotle attests, book III of the Politics, chapter X, and Plutarch in the Life of Solon. "Among the Indians also," says our Octavianus, "the wealthier governed the republic, as Pliny says, book XVI, chapter XIX, and Solinus, Collections, chapter LX. The Carthaginians did the same, as Aristotle says in the same book III of the Politics, chapter IX, who in book II, chapter VII, criticizes the Spartans for raising the poor to the highest magistracy. These are in harmony with what Isaiah has, chapter III. For when called to the kingdom he replied: In my house there is no bread nor clothing, which he considered sufficient reason not to be chosen: for indeed it is true what Silius Italicus has, book XIII: Poverty is prone to crime.
Therefore Philemon, the comic poet, in Stobaeus, sermon 94, said that poverty is ready for perpetrating evils; wherefore Ecclesiasticus himself, chapter XXVII, says: "On account of poverty, many have sinned."
Here is relevant the response of Scipio Aemilianus in Valerius Maximus, book VI, chapter IV: "For when Servius Sulpitius Galba and Aurelius Cotta contended in the senate over which of them should be sent against Viriathus into Spain, Scipio, asked for his opinion, said: I am pleased that neither be sent, because one has nothing, and for the other nothing is enough; judging poverty and avarice equally bad as masters of those who hold power. Cicero also says that there are two things that can move men to dishonest gain: poverty and avarice."
Mystically, this maxim can be applied to those who, being themselves weak and subject to vices, nevertheless chastise the same faults in others. For so it happens that he who is too indulgent to himself is too harsh toward others. Then indeed the poor man oppresses the poor.
Furthermore, the Septuagint translates: a strong man who in wickedness (the Hebrew ras, that is, poor, they took by apocope for rascha, that is, wickedness) oppresses the poor, like a violent and useless rain, that is, damaging and harmful. It is a meiosis. By "strong" understand a prince or any powerful person, meaning, as Salazar says: "Just as when a violent rain falls, streams collected from here and there cause torrents to overflow, and they fill the fields far and wide, and even uproot the harvests and carry them away; but what they had thus collected they do not retain, but pour it into other larger rivers, and these in turn into the sea itself: so whoever despoils the poor by violence and injustice gains nothing thereby; for whatever they have torn from these people contrary to right and justice, like certain rapid torrents they discharge into richer men, as into larger rivers, and these in turn pour it into the sea, because they are either abandoned by death, or their goods are adjudged to the treasury on account of some crime."
4. THOSE WHO FORSAKE THE LAW PRAISE THE WICKED: THOSE WHO KEEP IT ARE KINDLED AGAINST HIM.
Vatablus, they shall kindle him. So the Roman edition. Less correctly some read, they kindle, although the sense is not unfitting, meaning: The pious who keep the law are not only kindled with zeal for justice against the wicked man and wickedness, but also kindle others with the same zeal, so that with united ardor and forces they may exterminate the wicked and wickedness; in Hebrew it is itgaru, that is, they shall mix dispute with them, they shall contend, clash, gather forces, wage war against them; Cajetan, they shall be stirred up against them; the Chaldean, those who forsake the law glory in wickedness (the Syriac, they are praised in iniquity); and those who keep the law will contend with them, namely the wicked; the Syriac, they magnify themselves. There is an antithesis between those who forsake the law, and those who keep it, in that the former praise the wicked, while the latter are indignant against them, meaning: Those who violate the law of God, love and praise the wicked, both because they are similar to them in wickedness, and because they strive to propagate the kingdom of wickedness, and because they arm themselves with them against the pious and the kingdom of piety, which they abhor. For to say nothing of other things, the life of the pious is a tacit reproach of the life of the wicked. When therefore the pious grow in number and virtue, the wicked are criticized and held cheap, indeed are gradually exterminated. Therefore, lest this happen, the wicked rejoice and strive to gain more associates for themselves, and to make them similar to themselves in wickedness, so that they may fortify themselves against the pious.
On the contrary, the pious who keep God's law are kindled with anger, or rather with charity and zeal, against the wicked, both because they are indignant at their wickedness and violation of the divine law; and because they reprove them and severely chastise them with words, and if they have the power, punish them with penalties and stripes, in order to correct them, or at least to deter others from their wickedness; and because they kindle others with the same zeal, and, as it is in Hebrew, itgaru, that is, they gather forces and strengths to attack and defeat the wicked together with their wickedness. He signifies therefore that, just as the wicked burn with the zeal of wickedness, so the pious burn with zeal for propagating piety; wherefore it is not enough for a pious man to live piously for himself and God, but he must also put on this zeal to vanquish wickedness in others: for the zeal for divine honor and the salvation of neighbors demands this. David had this zeal when he said, Psalm CXVIII, verses 136 and 139: "My zeal has made me waste away, because my enemies have forgotten your words." And Psalm C, 5: "Him who secretly slanders his neighbor, I persecuted." And Elijah, III Kings XIX, 14: "With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant; they have destroyed your altars, they have killed your prophets," etc. With this zeal Phinehas killed Zimri, Mattathias killed the idolatrous Jew, St. Peter severely chastised Ananias and Sapphira, and Simon Magus; indeed Christ the Lord cast the buyers and sellers out of the temple.
Furthermore, the Septuagint, connecting the preceding verse to this one with "like rain," thus joins and translates: like a violent and useless rain, so those who, forsaking the law, praise wickedness; but those who love the law surround themselves with a wall, that is, as the Author of the Greek Catena translates: The wicked who, having deserted the law of God, praise wickedness and propagate it with united forces, are like a harmful and violent rainstorm, which like a torrent sweeps everything along with it: for thus the wicked strive to sweep the pious along to their own wickedness; but the pious, who love the law, surround themselves with a strong wall, so that they may protect themselves against this fury of the wicked, lest they be swept away by the torrent of their wickedness. This wall is twofold, namely the keeping of the divine law, that is, a steadfast and resolute mind to observe it even unto death, and the invocation and protection of God. For he who steadfastly keeps the law of God produces for himself a certain impassibility and God's favor, who in turn guards him and renders him safe from enemies, says the Author of the Greek Catena. This is what God promises to the new Jerusalem, that is, the Church, and to every faithful and pious person, through Zechariah, II, 5, saying: "I will be for her, says the Lord, a wall of fire round about, and in glory I will be in her midst." See the comments there.
The truth of this maxim is evident in heretics, who like Samson's foxes conspire by their tails, although they differ in speech, words, heresies, and opinions, so that with united forces they may attack Catholics and drag them from the faith to heresy; on the contrary, true Catholics unite and fortify themselves against them, indeed declare holy war against them, as we now see a fierce and deadly war being declared against heresy by the Most Serene Emperor Ferdinand II in Germany, and by neighboring kings in their kingdoms. Hence also the Hebrew itgaru, that is, they stir up dispute among them, some explain thus, meaning: They sow dissensions among them, or allow them to be sown and to grow, so that they may destroy one another, like the Midianites, Judges VII, with mutual disputes and swords, and once divided and nearly destroyed, may be completely finished off by the Catholics. For the war of heretics against each other is the peace and victory of Catholics.
5. EVIL MEN DO NOT CONSIDER JUDGMENT: BUT THOSE WHO SEEK THE LORD PERCEIVE ALL THINGS.
In Hebrew, they understand all things; the Chaldean, they understand all good things; the Septuagint, in everything. For "consider" and "perceive," the Hebrew has the same word iachimu, that is, they understand, they prudently consider and observe. By "judgment," first, understand what is fair and just, meaning: The wicked do not consider what is fair and just, what equity and virtue demand, but what their desire wishes; but those who strive to please God studiously consider all things individually which please or displease Him, so that they may embrace the former and reject the latter with their whole heart. For this is the one and true wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of the saints, of which Moses says, Deuteronomy IV, 6: "This," he says, "is your wisdom and understanding before the peoples, so that hearing all these precepts, they may say: Behold a wise and understanding people, a great nation; nor is there any nation so great that has gods approaching it, as our God is present to all our supplications." Hence Nazianzen, oration 14: "The first wisdom," he says, "is a life that is upright and honest, and purified for God, or at least purifying itself." And St. Chrysostom, homily 19 on the Epistle to the Colossians: "Nothing is wiser than the man who conducts himself rightly out of virtue. For see how he is a philosopher." And then he demonstrates this from the definition of philosophy. "Therefore the just man has knowledge of divine and human things: for he knows what things are divine and what are human; and from the latter he abstains, but the former he practices and works."
Second, by "judgment" understand God's vengeance and punishment, both the temporal punishment which He inflicts on the wicked in this life, and the eternal and hellish punishment which He will inflict on them on the day of judgment, meaning: The wicked do not think about the terrible judgments and punishments of God, which He customarily inflicts on the wicked, and especially those which He will inflict at the last judgment: wherefore they follow their desires freely and with impunity, according to that saying of St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusians: Thus men live as if no death would follow, And as if hell were an empty fable. But those who fear God, and seek His will and law, these consider all the judgments of God, and especially the eternal rewards of the good and the torments of the wicked, continuously consider and fear; and by this consideration they constantly rouse and spur themselves to flee from sins and pursue virtue, as with a sharp goad. Indeed, no consideration can be given more effective than this consideration of the judgments of God, and of eternity either most blessed or most wretched. I heard a certain very devout and God-fearing old man say: "Every morning I ascend to heaven to contemplate the joys of the Blessed, and I descend into hell to behold the torments of the damned; and so from this morning meditation I feel myself urged throughout the entire day to every good, however arduous and difficult."
6. BETTER IS THE POOR MAN WHO WALKS IN HIS SIMPLICITY THAN THE RICH MAN ON CROOKED PATHS.
"In his simplicity," in Hebrew non tummo, that is, in innocence, in integrity: Pagninus, in his perfection. Thus in Job chapter I, 1, he is called a simple man, that is, upright and just. "Crooked ways" or paths are crooked actions and habits. The Septuagint, better is a poor man going in simplicity, than a lying rich man, that is, an unjust and deceitful one; the Chaldean, than he who is perverse in his way and is rich; the Syriac, the poor man walks in his simplicity, and the rich man in crooked ways.
"Better," that is, more excellent, richer, happier, and more useful to the republic, is the poor man who lives rightly, than the rich man who lives perversely, because the highest wealth and the highest happiness is virtue and the grace of God; conversely, the greatest poverty and unhappiness is vice and enmity with God. Hence St. Gregory Nazianzen openly, in his Poem to Nicobulus, hurls at the rich man who lacks wisdom and virtue that common saying: "An ape is an ape, even if it wears golden insignia." And that: "An ass laden with gold will not for that reason cease to bray." And that: "What use is a golden sheath for a leaden sword?" Similar to this verse, indeed almost the same, is chapter XIX, 1. See the comments there. St. James alluded to this, epistle chapter I, verses 9, 10, and 11: "Let the humble brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich man in his humiliation; because like the flower of the grass he will pass away, and the rich man will wither in his journeys."
For just as virtue, so also the law consists in moderation and the mean.
Finally, by "law" understand the law of temperance and continence, which is a general virtue, and sets a measure to all pleasures, and circumscribes them within certain limits, which limits the glutton and drunkard transgresses.
7. HE WHO KEEPS THE LAW IS A WISE SON; BUT HE WHO FEEDS GLUTTONS SHAMES HIS FATHER.
The Septuagint, an intelligent son keeps the law; but he who feeds luxury dishonors his father: the Chaldean, he who is a companion of gluttons (the Syriac, he who provides vain and useless things), embitters his father.
It is difficult here to assign the usual antithesis between the first half-verse and the second. First, Jansenius says: Just as that son is wise who keeps the law of God, which among other things forbids all luxury especially in young men, and therefore such a son honors and gladdens his father, because a wise son gladdens his father: so he who feeds gluttons, acting against the law of God, covers his father with shame, because the vices of sons redound to the father's disgrace, as one who did not properly train his son. These things are rightly said, except that this antithesis is too general and far-fetched; for thus you could oppose pride, anger, lust, envy, and any vice to the law, because the law forbids all of them. Wherefore
Second, more strictly, our Salazar understands by "law" not a commandment of God, but the portion of inheritance left by parents to each of their children, which they call the "legitimate portion," because according to both natural and positive law it is owed to children, meaning: "He who preserves his legitimate portion, which the law also commands to be retained and not at all alienated, obeying the law itself, and does not squander it, is certainly a wise son, and glorious to his parents. But he who squanders on feasting the inheritance received from his parents, reduced to extreme poverty, while he is compelled to beg ignominiously and obscurely, or to serve others, covers his parents with disgrace."
But nowhere, as far as I know, is "law" taken to mean the legitimate portion of the paternal inheritance owed to children.
Third therefore, and plainly, Vatablus takes "law" to mean moderation, meaning: He who maintains moderation in expenses, so that according to his station and wealth he moderates the expenses of the table and household through the virtue of temperance, this man is wise, both because he is temperate, and because he preserves his wealth for greater and better uses, so that he never lacks but always abounds. But he who feasts by banqueting and carousing, and squanders his substance with gluttons, this man is foolish, and brings confusion upon both himself and his parents, both because the vices of children, such as prodigality and gluttony, are attributed to the parents, as if they had indulged them in it or raised them in it; and because these feasts reduce both the son and the parents to poverty and the beggar's sack, so that they are forced to beg. Thus "law" is often taken for norm, rule, form, and measure, as when Cicero says, III De Oratore: "Our speech must be formed to this rule." And: "It is more difficult to use prose than verse, because in verse there is a certain and definite rule which must be followed."
8. HE WHO HEAPS UP RICHES BY USURY AND INTEREST GATHERS THEM FOR ONE WHO IS GENEROUS TO THE POOR.
Lyranus joins "generous" with "interest." For "generous interest" is that which is given to the lender or usurer not by agreement, but freely beyond the principal by the borrower: which indeed is not expressly against justice, yet is often against charity, since the lender tacitly intends and expects it; for it conflicts with Christ's injunction: "Lend, expecting nothing thereby," Luke VI, 35. Thus Lyranus explains: He who heaps up riches from usury and interest, even though "generous," or freely given, "for the poor," that is, against the poor, "gathers them;" for he exhausts the poor just as much as if he exacted the same interest by agreement. But "generous" does not go with "interest," but with "for the poor"; this is clear from the Hebrew, Chaldean, and Septuagint. For the Hebrew reads: He who multiplies his wealth by usury and increase, has gathered it for showing mercy to the needy: the Chaldean, he gathers it for one who has mercy on the poor; the Septuagint, he who multiplies his goods with usury and increase, gathers them for one who has mercy on the destitute; the Syriac, he will leave them to one who has mercy on the poor. Now,
First, some explain from the Hebrew thus, meaning: He who wishes to multiply his wealth through usury that is fruitful and equally holy, spends it on the miseries of the poor; for by pitying the poor he merits that God in turn pity him: for what is given to a poor man, God considers as given to Himself; wherefore, since He does not allow Himself to be surpassed in generosity, He repays the giver more than the giver expended on the poor. Hence that passage, chapter XIX, verse 17: "He who has mercy on the poor lends to the Lord." But this meaning seems forced, and inverts the words.
Second, Vatablus understands by "generous" a judge, meaning: The judge recovers the interest from the usurer, as unjustly received, and returns it to the poor, from whom it was extorted. R. Solomon adds from R. Tanchuma: "He who heaps up riches by usury and interest does this for disbursement to the poor; for when the magistrates discover that this man is wealthy from unjustly acquired resources, they strip him of his riches, with which they build bridges and repair roads: which is indeed to show oneself pious and beneficent toward the poor."
Third and genuinely, meaning: He who heaps up wealth from usury does not preserve it for his own avaricious heirs; for "the third heir does not rejoice in ill-gotten gains;" but for some man who is generous and munificent is toward the poor: for the providence of God customarily transfers wealth from the avaricious and usurers to the generous, both to punish their avarice and usury, and so that the wealth unjustly extorted from the poor through usury may be justly and piously restored to them by the generous.
An example is in St. John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria, who because he was most generous toward the poor, God directed to him the wealth of the avaricious and usurers, and indeed even of the upright and merciful. Thus often the goods of usurers, if they die without heirs and intestate, devolve to the Prelates and Bishops of the Church, who after making what restitution is possible, distribute what remains to the poor. So Alexander III, in the chapter Cum tu, under the title On Usury, commands "that those things which have been unjustly acquired through usury, if those to whom they are owed do not survive, or their heirs, be given to the poor; and that usurers and their heirs be compelled to this by ecclesiastical penalties:" which Navarrus, Covarruvias, and other Doctors extend to uncertain goods, owed from other offenses, such as theft, robbery, damage inflicted, and unjust contracts, and this rightly, because the same or greater reason applies in these cases, namely that it should not be permitted for unjust men to grow rich from injustice and injuries. Hence our Lessius, book II On Restitution of Goods Received, doubt 6, teaches that uncertain goods, whether from contract or from offense, must be restored to the poor, not by natural law, but by positive law or custom. From this it is clear that usury is illicit and unjust. The Philosophers also taught the same. Hence Aristotle, book I of the Politics: "Justly," he says, "the practice of lending at interest is hated, because it uses money as merchandise, and takes profit from what does not naturally bear fruit. But money was made for the purpose of exchange. Therefore it is supremely contrary to nature for money to become merchandise." And Cato, asked "what it was to practice usury," replied: "What it is to kill a man."
The antistrophic verses to this maxim are these: "If he heaps up silver like earth, and prepares garments like clay; he will prepare them indeed, but the just man will be clothed with them, and the innocent will divide the silver," Job XXVII, 16. "The good man leaves heirs, sons and grandsons, and the substance of the sinner is kept for the just," Proverbs XIII, 22. "But to the sinner God has given affliction and superfluous care, that he may add and gather, and deliver to him who is pleasing to God," Ecclesiastes chapter II, 26, where I shall speak again on this matter.
Let the avaricious note here that the way and method of becoming rich is not the zeal and anxiety of heaping up wealth; but justice and uprightness, and especially generosity and the practice of almsgiving. If you wish, therefore, to enrich yourself and your family, first enrich the poor of God: thus God in turn will enrich you.
9. HE WHO TURNS AWAY (the Syriac, stops up) HIS EARS SO AS NOT TO HEAR THE LAW, HIS PRAYER SHALL BE ABOMINABLE.
The Hebrew, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, even his prayer is an abomination; the Septuagint, and he himself has made his prayer abominable; the Syriac, even his prayer shall be abominable, meaning: He who does not hear the law, which is the interpreter of the divine will, that is, does not obey it, this man deserves in turn not to be heard by God when he prays to Him; indeed not only his vices, but also his prayer is abominable to God. The first a priori reason is the law of retaliation; for God repays like with like: just as he himself does not wish to hear God speaking through the law, so God in turn does not wish to hear him speaking to Him through prayer.
Second, because the prayer of one who wishes to persevere in sin is itself a sin, and therefore abominable to God; for it is conjoined with the affection for sin, and therefore one who prays thus seems to mock God; for such a person in effect says: I wish to worship and invoke God, and at the same time I wish to offend and provoke Him, and therefore he does the same as the Jews, who on bended knee adored Christ, saying: "Hail, King of the Jews;" and at the same time with the same mouth spat upon Him and struck Him. Indeed, he even seems to make God an accomplice in crime, as when thieves pray to God to grant them the opportunity to steal much, the adulterer to commit adultery, the murderer to kill his enemy, etc. For these prayers ask that God favor crime, and therefore they are blasphemies and the greatest injuries to God.
Hence that passage in Psalm CVIII: "When he is judged, let him come out condemned, and let his prayer be turned to sin," that is, to offense, so that the prayer of so wicked a man offends and provokes God more than it pleases Him, because, as St. Gregory says there, homily 27 on the Gospels, a prayer that is sinful is one that asks for what God forbids, for example, that God avenge one's enemies, or kill Christ and the Martyrs; for the soul of prayer is charity. For in that Psalm CVIII, Judas and the Jews ask and pray that the name of Christ and Christians be blotted out, says Euthymius there. And St. Augustine says there: "The prayer of Judas was turned to sin, because it was not made through Christ, whom he refused to follow, but chose to persecute." Such was the prayer of Antiochus, already as if condemned and desperate, praying for the remission not so much of guilt as of punishment, II Maccabees IX, 13: "The wretch prayed," it says, "to the Lord, from whom he was not to obtain mercy." Hence the Author of the Incomplete Work, homily 15 on Matthew: "He prays," he says, "who no longer sins; but he who asks and sins, does not so much ask as mock God." See St. Gregory, XVIII Moralia, chapter V.
Third, because, just as a spice that is fragrant in itself smells bad if it is placed in dung, a sewer, or a dunghill, because it is infected by the foul odor: so likewise prayer, although in itself it is fragrant and pleasing to God, nevertheless, because it emanates from the putrid heart of a sinner, which exhales the stench of its concupiscence, it is stained by its foulness and smells bad before God; but it smells good if it is drawn from a pure heart fragrant with virtues.
Fourth, because he who remains in sin remains in hostility to God; but God hates His enemy and does not accept his prayers. Therefore, he who prays to God while persisting in the affection for sin does the same as Judas, who kisses Christ and meanwhile betrays Him; or as one who caresses a friend with one hand and strikes or kills him with the other. For by prayer he as it were kisses God and flatters Him; but by his wicked deed or affection he offends God and as it were strikes Him. This is what Ecclesiasticus says, chapter XXXIV, verse 23: "The Most High does not approve the gifts of the wicked, nor does He regard the offerings of the wicked." See the comments there, and Proverbs XV, 8.
Ambrosiaster fittingly says on Apocalypse chapter IV: "To demonstrate their blindness," he says, "I will propose a certain comparison. A certain man was held stuck in mud up to his neck: and when he saw someone passing by, stretching out his hand he cried, saying: Have mercy on me, and pull me out of this mud. And when the other extended his hand to pull him out, this man plunged the hand he had extended back under the mud. And when the one who had come to extract him wished to leave, this man again begged to be rescued. And when the other extended his hand a second time to rescue him, this man, as before, plunged his hand under the mud. And when he did this repeatedly, the other said angrily: Why do you ask to be rescued, when you wish to persist in your peril? And since you love your own destruction, keep what you have chosen. Similarly, these men pray to God constantly to be rescued from their vices, and yet they embrace those vices so closely that they can in no way be torn from them." Hence he adds that the just man always prays, because when the mind is free from prayer, his very works intercede; indeed when he sleeps, his works shine in the sight of God, and they themselves are intercessors with God.
Understand these things about those who persist hardened in the act or affection of sin; for if anyone desires to depart from the bonds of sin, he rightly prays to God to grant him the grace and strength to accomplish this: for a sinner cannot achieve this by his own powers, but for this he needs the powerful grace of God, which therefore he can and must implore through prayers. So St. Thomas, II-II, Question LXXVIII, article 2, reply to 1, where objecting to himself the words of the man born blind: "We know that God does not hear sinners," John chapter IX, verse 31; and this maxim of Solomon, he responds: "Prayer in obtaining does not rely on merit, but on divine mercy, which extends even to the wicked; and therefore even sometimes the prayer of sinners is heard by God. Hence St. Augustine says on John, tract. 44, that the blind man spoke that word as one still anointed, that is, not yet perfectly enlightened: for God does hear sinners. But what is said, that the prayer of one who does not hear the law is abominable, is to be understood insofar as it proceeds from the merit of the sinner; but sometimes it obtains from God's mercy, either for the salvation of the one who prays, as the Publican was heard, as is said in Luke XVIII, or also for the salvation of others and the glory of God."
This is what God thunders with a terrible voice through Isaiah, chapter I, verse 15: "When you stretch out your hands, I will turn My eyes away from you; and when you multiply your prayer, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood." A most effective argument indeed, says our Alvarez, and one to which no evasion can respond satisfactorily. I will not hear, because the hands of sinners are full of blood, that is, of sins and iniquities, by which (as far as they are concerned) they again shed the blood of Christ. For St. Basil said excellently: This is the reason why God is accustomed to turn away His eyes when we stretch out our hands, namely that the judgments of their treachery give occasion for wrath. Just as if someone, having killed the son of another man, whom that father bore in his eyes, while still having his hands stained with blood, should stretch those same hands out to the father, even then begging the angry father to receive him into friendship; would not the blood of the son, which appears on his hand, who brought death to the son, incite to greater anger the one to whom the injury was done? If the father will not hear the petition of one whose hands he sees polluted with the blood of his son, how will God accept the prayers of the wicked, whom He knows to be transgressors against His law, and injurious to Himself, and cruel against the blood and merits of His only-begotten Son?"
10. HE WHO LEADS THE JUST ASTRAY INTO AN EVIL WAY SHALL FALL IN HIS OWN DESTRUCTION (the Syriac, into a pit): AND THE SIMPLE SHALL POSSESS HIS GOODS.
The word "his" is not in the Hebrew, Chaldean, Septuagint, Aquila, or Theodotion, nor in many Latin manuscripts. For the Hebrew reads thus: He who causes the upright to err into an evil way, into his own pit he himself shall fall, and the blameless shall inherit good; the Chaldean, he shall fall into a pit; but the perfect and blameless shall inherit good things; the Septuagint, he who leads the upright astray into an evil way shall himself fall into corruption; but the wicked shall pass by good things, and shall not enter into them; Aquila and Theodotion, and the simple shall obtain good things.
Therefore, by deleting the word "his," this general maxim gives this meaning: He who causes the simple and just man to err, by seducing him into a way or through an evil way, by which he may lead him into some pit and destruction prepared for him, whether it be bodily or spiritual, such as error, heresy, lust, strife, etc., this man shall fall into that very evil which he prepared for the simple, that is, the upright and innocent person; but the simple, that is, the upright and guileless, when the seducer perishes and is caught by his own wiles, instead of the evil designed against them, with God protecting and directing them, shall receive and possess good, so that for example for error they shall seize truth, for heresy faith, for lust chastity, for strife peace, and in these they shall be established and made firm as possessors, etc.
Therefore this maxim agrees with that in chapter XXVI, verse 27: "He who digs a pit shall fall into it." But in the Vulgate version, which adds the word "his," so that this maxim is narrowed to the fraudulent, who strive to deprive others of their goods through tricks and frauds, this is the meaning: "He who deceives," that is, strives to deceive (for an act of deceiving that is begun, not completed, is signified, as is clear from what follows) the just "in an evil way," that is, by some fraud, trick, or deceit, namely by some perverse and fraudulent action, for example, through counsel, machination, or a contract some deceitful contract, so that he may claim his wealth for himself by ingenious fraud; this man "in his own destruction," that is, through his own art and fraud, by which he plotted destruction and ruin for others, shall fall, that is, he shall incur the evil which he constructed against the just, so that through the fraud by which he thought to despoil them of their goods, he himself shall be despoiled of his own goods by the same means, and those goods shall be transferred to the just. For not rarely does God's providence punish deceit and the deceitful with retaliation, so that the deceit which they prepared for others falls back on their own heads, and those who attempted to steal the goods of the just by deceit are compelled to yield their own goods to them, just as Haman, plotting through fraud to strip Mordecai and the Jews of their dignity, goods, and life, was himself with his family stripped of the same by them.
This is what the Septuagint intended when they translated: he who leads the upright astray into an evil way shall himself fall into corruption; but the wicked shall pass by good things, and shall not enter into them, meaning: The wicked shall see the goods of the upright and just, to which they aspire through frauds; but they shall not enter into them, nor possess them, because they shall merely pass by these goods, or rather alongside these goods, so that in passing they see them, but soon are compelled with sorrow to pass them by and leave them, just as one who wishes to possess the water of a river labors in vain; for this water cannot be held, because it constantly flows and passes away, and immediately flows past: such exactly are riches, especially those which are acquired unjustly and by fraud and deceit; for they pass away and flee from the unjust possessor, and fly to the just and upright, and conversely the avaricious and deceitful pass through them and depart elsewhere, namely to poverty, or death and hell, according to that: "They have slept their sleep, and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands," Psalm LXXV, 6.
A famous example is in Laban, who, wishing to circumvent Jacob through new and unjust agreements, was himself circumvented by the same through God's will. Hear Jacob himself speaking to his wives, Genesis XXXI, 7: "But your father has circumvented me, and changed my wages ten times, and yet God did not allow him to harm me. Whenever he said: The spotted ones shall be your wages, all the sheep bore spotted offspring; but when on the contrary he said: You shall take the white ones as your wages, all the flocks bore white ones. And God took away the substance of your father, and gave it to me." For God is the guardian of innocence and justice, and the avenger of the harmful and unjust. For it is just that he who attempts to circumscribe another by deceit should himself be circumscribed by the same; it is fair that he who covets what belongs to others should lose what is his own; it is fitting that he who through fraud covets another's goods should yield his own to that person. So Pharaoh and the Egyptians, deceitfully despoiling and oppressing the Hebrews, were despoiled and oppressed by them through the same deceit, Exodus XII, 36, and chapter XIV, 27. So in these years heretical princes, striving to strip the most unconquered Emperor Ferdinand of his territories through secret conspiracies and rebellions, were themselves stripped of theirs by him through the same means. We frequently read similar things in the Histories.
Mystically, heretics, the lustful, and other wicked men, who attempt to drag the upright through fraud into heresy, lust, and other crimes, and thus to despoil them of heavenly glory and drag them to hell, they themselves fall into hell, and yield the glory prepared for them in heaven to the upright and steadfast. So Baynus.
11. THE RICH MAN SEEMS WISE TO HIMSELF: BUT THE PRUDENT POOR MAN WILL EXAMINE HIM.
Various authors explain this variously. First, some say, meaning: The rich man seems to himself to be wise, because he knows the method of heaping up wealth, even through unjust and usurious contracts, by which he wrings the purses of the poor; but the poor man who is prudent will shrewdly sniff out these methods and contracts, and will detest and flee from them.
Second, others say, meaning: The rich man seems to himself wise; that is, prudent, honest, and upright, because he feeds his family honorably and splendidly; but let him not flatter himself about his uprightness; for the witnesses and judges of this are the poor: for the uprightness of the rich man consists chiefly in almsgiving, of which the poor are the witnesses. Hence Blessed Chrysologus, in his homily On Riches and Poverty: "The rich man," he says, "whether good or bad, appears in the consciences of the poor; you will be such as the flocks of the poor esteem you."
Third, the Rabbis and Baynus, meaning: The rich man thinks that the highest wisdom is the industry of amassing riches; but the poor man who truly is wise examines and condemns this judgment of his, while he considers that wisdom consists not in wealth, but in the contempt of wealth, which the Philosophers also judged, such as Seneca, epistle 119, Diogenes, Aristides, Crates, etc. Hence the Chaldean translates: and the prudent poor man despises him.
Fourth and genuinely, meaning: Wealth gives the rich man confidence and puffs him up, so that he thinks himself wiser than all others, especially because he is proclaimed great and exalted by the common people, and called prudent and fortunate by flatterers: but the prudent poor man, despising this arrogance of his, can examine through conversations, questions, and actions, and not rarely does in fact examine, whether apart from riches he possesses true wisdom: and he will easily detect his folly; he will refute and condemn it. Solomon tacitly suggests that riches are an impediment to wisdom, but poverty is its incentive, both because riches inflate and make men proud, while poverty makes them modest and humble: for true wisdom is humility, just as folly is pride and arrogance; and because riches torment their lover with anxiety, and press him down to wealth and earthly things, so that he cannot sincerely judge about lofty matters, which wisdom contemplates: but poverty, freed from wealth, freely attends to better and heavenly riches and things; and because the rich abound in pleasures, and devote themselves to gluttony and luxury, which dull and blunt the mind; but the poor are frugal and temperate; and temperance is the mother of health, holiness, and wisdom: hence the Philosophers cast away wealth, so that they might freely philosophize with a serene mind. might philosophize. Hence Crates the Theban threw a great weight of gold into the sea, saying: "I sink it lest it sink me," as St. Jerome attests, epistle 13 to Paulinus, and epistle 33 to Julian. And Menander: "Blessed is he who has both wealth and mind," because it is difficult to have both: for wealth often snatches the mind from the rich man. Also because God so divides His gifts, that He gives wealth to the rich man, and talent and wisdom to the poor man: hence we see that the poor are wiser, more pious, and holier than the rich. Hence St. James, chapter II, 5: "Has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?"
St. Chrysostom says excellently, in his homily on Psalm IV: "Riches," he says, "are the handmaids of vices and errors, but poverty is the mother of philosophy. And the facts themselves show this daily, that the poor are more prudent than the rich, and more devoted to wisdom." And that Abbot in the Lives of the Fathers: "Voluntary poverty," he says, "is the repose of the soul." In repose, however, the soul finds and sees truth and true wisdom. Hence the ancient Ascetics and Anchorites, who professed poverty and quiet, became most holy and most wise. Well known is the story of the poor man in Damascene's Life of Barlaam and Josaphat, chapter IV, who professed and said: "I heal wounded words." Hence, summoned by a prince who had incurred the king's anger and the danger of death because of an incautious remark, the wise man gave him counsel, by which he both appeased the king and escaped death.
Again Solomon signifies that the rich have the appearance and display of wisdom, but the poor have the substance and marrow of wisdom. For the rich, by the splendor of their clothing, servants, and palaces, outwardly display gravity and wisdom; but the poor examine its interior, namely the mind and intellect, and often find it devoid of wisdom. So Diogenes examined and freely criticized the ambition of Alexander the Great, and brought him to say: "If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes." Wherefore Diogenes used to say that "poverty is an aid to philosophy, because what philosophy tries to persuade with words, poverty compels." So Stobaeus, sermon 93. And Ariston said that "poverty is a lamp that reveals all evils." Xenophon: "Poverty," he says, "is in itself a learned philosophy." St. Chrysostom: "Those who philosophize with poverty draw nearer and nearer to God." So Antonius reports in the Melissa, part I, chapter XXXIII.
Finally, "he will examine" signifies by metalepsis he will judge and condemn. For a judge, through the examination of crimes, judges and condemns the defendant. So a poor but prudent judge often examines, judges, and condemns the rich, because through usury, unjust contracts, and plunder they have oppressed the poor; for poverty produces sincere judgment, which greed infects and obscures. In the rich man, therefore, there are many things coated with paint, many specious coverings of avarice, arrogance, and vices; these the poor man endowed with prudence uncovers, and examines, reveals, and condemns the vices lurking beneath them.
But especially the truth of this maxim will appear on the day of judgment: for then the Apostles and apostolic men, who in this life had been poor in spirit, will judge and condemn the proud and unjust rich, just as Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham with him condemned the rich glutton burning in hell, Luke XVI, 25, according to that promise of Christ, Matthew XIX, 28: "Amen I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His majesty, you also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." And Luke XVI, 9, Christ makes the poor the doorkeepers, judges, and presidents of heaven, saying: "Make friends for yourselves from the mammon of iniquity, so that when you fail, they may receive you into eternal tabernacles;" therefore the poor preside over them.
12. IN THE EXULTATION OF THE JUST THERE IS GREAT GLORY: WHEN THE WICKED REIGN, MEN ARE RUINED.
The Syriac, in the exaltation, or strengthening of the just there is much praise; when the wicked rise up, the son of man is searched out. For the exaltation of the just produces their exultation; and the exaltation of the just is directly opposed to the reign of the wicked. The meaning therefore is, meaning: When the just are exalted to dignities, offices, prelacies, governance, and the kingdom, and therefore exult, the whole Church and republic is likewise exalted and exults, and therefore is in the greatest joy and glory. On the contrary, when the wicked are exalted and reign, the common life and republic of men is depressed, falls, and is ruined. The a priori reason is that the just, when they govern, cause justice, uprightness, and piety to flourish in the republic: from this arises peace, commerce thrives, arts and agriculture are vigorously practiced, from which arises abundance and plenty of all things. Finally, God blesses the republic in all things because of the justice and uprightness of the princes and citizens. Conversely, when the wicked reign, they introduce into their republic wickedness, frauds, and crimes, from which arise schisms, seditions, disputes, and wars, which drive away farmers, craftsmen, and merchants: whence poverty, famine, and want of resources must necessarily follow. Finally, God curses the wicked prince and republic. For just as when the just man rules, justice and virtue reign and triumph: so when the wicked man rules, wickedness and crime reign and triumph. For a just prince strives to make all his subjects like himself, that is, just; but a wicked one makes them wicked. Hence that saying: "As the king, so the people." And: The whole world conforms to the example of the king.
For "glory" the Hebrew has tipheret, that is, glory, beauty, splendor, magnificence. glory, beauty, splendor, magnificence, as if to say: When the just rule and rejoice, all the temples, forums, streets, courts, houses, businesses, wares, crafts, studies, arts, states, citizens, and everything in the commonwealth, are splendid, glorious, beautiful, bright, and magnificent; but when the wicked reign, all these things fall into ruin and become inglorious, foul, squalid, and worthless. Thus when Constantine, Theodosius, and Charlemagne reigned, who exalted the faith of Christ, the Pontiffs, and Christians, there was universal joy, happiness, and glory in the whole world and city: on the contrary, when Nero, Decius, Diocletian, Valens, and Julian reigned, there was universal sorrow, squalor, slaughter, and ruin for all. For it is the way of tyrants to enrich and exalt themselves from the losses and ruin of others. Hence Aristotle, book 8 of the Ethics, chapter 10, says these things are proper to tyrants: "To take away arms from citizens, to trample upon and drive the multitude of the people out of the city, and to render the city empty of inhabitants, to harass the nobility, to overthrow them secretly, and to drive them openly into exile as adversaries and plotters against their power: hence Periander's counsel given to Thrasybulus, to pluck off the ears of grain that stand above the rest, was quite fitting, that is, to remove the most prominent citizens from their midst."
For "ruin of men" the Hebrew has יחפש אדם iechuppas adam, that is, man shall be searched out, explored, investigated; others translate, man shall be stripped bare: for when wicked tyrants search out someone, they strip and despoil him; others, man shall be changed. Hence the Chaldean translates: when the just rejoice, there is much beauty; when the wicked rise up, the son of man is searched out.
Hence first, Rabbi Solomon explains it thus, as if to say: When the wicked rule, every man is searched out and sought after by them, so that he may be dragged into whatever crime they commit; for the wicked desire that all should imitate their shameful actions: for they think it fitting that all others should regulate and conform their own actions to theirs, as being their subjects.
Second, Aben-Ezra, as if to say: When the wicked are elevated, a man shall be searched out; for the wicked search out and violently plunder the resources of others.
Third, Rabbi Levi, as if to say: When the wicked are exalted, the pious flee and hide themselves in hiding places: therefore the wicked search them out and hunt them down, in order to bring them out from there into the light and drag them to themselves.
Fourth, Baynus, as if to say: When the wicked reign, all bend themselves to their wickedness; therefore then it is difficult to find a man who resists them and remains constant in his uprightness, so that, if you were to search all with a lantern, you would scarcely find one in a thousand. Hence Cajetan translates: and when the wicked arise, man is changed, as if to say: When the wicked reign, even pious men change their ways and bend to the impiety of kings, as when the Arian Constantius reigned, most people embraced Arianism. And recently in England, when Henry VIII made a schism from the Church, all of England followed his schism. For, as Sosipater says in Stobaeus, sermon 46: "Who is so well-squared that through every change of fortune, of affairs, and of empires he may stand firm, accommodating himself to both princes and subjects, and conciliating all to himself, and connecting every difference everywhere into one rational order?" Or, as if to say: When the pious rule, the kingdom is happy and stable, whence the citizens remain in it gladly and stand firm; but when the wicked rule, they flee their tyranny, and therefore change their home and transfer themselves elsewhere. Or, as Pagninus explains, as if to say: When the wicked reign, a man will be changed in his garments, that is, he will change his clothes and assume another dress so that he may not be recognized, but may hide himself and lie hidden. Furthermore, under a wicked king, offices, commerce, laws, and the entire state of the commonwealth are changed, as we recently saw happen in England. Here the deed of Diogenes is relevant, who, according to Laertius, book 6: "Once, carrying a lantern enclosed in a lamp in broad daylight, he was walking about in the forum, looking as if he were searching for something. When people asked what he was doing, he said: 'I am looking for a man,' noting, of course, that the public morals of the city were not worthy even of the name of man."
Fifth, Vatablus translates: and when the wicked arise, man shall be searched out, as if to say: When the pious reign, all are, or pretend to be, pious and upright: therefore then the uprightness of anyone cannot be tested; but if the wicked reign, then a man's virtue and constancy are tested. For if, while all others everywhere yield to impiety and to the wicked man, he alone bravely resists both, it is a sign that he is of great and proven virtue; such was Tobias, who, when all his fellow tribesmen were going to worship the golden calves, alone went to Jerusalem to worship God, Tobit 1. Hence St. Gregory, book 1 on Job, chapter 1: "Among the wicked, he says, to be good is of immense goodness." Hence the Septuagint translate: through the help of the just, much glory is produced; but in the places of the wicked, men are captured.
All these interpretations come to the same thing, and our translator has embraced them all by translating: "when the wicked reign, it is the ruin of men;" for these ruins come about through the scrutiny by which the wicked search men out, in order to strip them of their goods, and compel them, naked, to change their home and go into exile, or in order to drag them into impiety.
Anagogically, "in the joy of the just," that is, of the Blessed, in the heavenly kingdom, where the Saints exult with ineffable joys and hymns, there is the greatest glory of the Church both militant and triumphant. I say also of the militant, because the Church militant celebrates their feasts with immense glory, and especially the feast of All Saints (as on this very day on which I write these things, we celebrate it magnificently at Rome in the Basilica of the Blessed Mary of the Martyrs, formerly the Pantheon), in which she sings to them: "O how glorious is the kingdom, in which the saints rejoice with Christ, clothed in white robes, they follow the Lamb wherever He goes." This alludes to that saying of his father David: "The saints shall exult in glory, they shall rejoice in their resting places; the praises of God in their throats" (Psalm 149:5). St. Evergistus, Archbishop of Cologne, as his Life records, entering the temple of St. Gereon and his companions of the Martyrs, he greeted them saying: "The saints shall exult in glory;" immediately St. Gereon and his companions from their tombs, as if applauding, responded with exultation: "They shall rejoice in their resting places." Of this glory of theirs Isaiah says, chapter LXIV, verse 4; and from him St. Paul, 1 Corinthians II, 9: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love Him." Hence that immense exultation, jubilation, and rejoicing of the Saints. For the Hebrew word עלע alats means to exult, to dance, to leap, to spring forth for joy, to jubilate, as the Blessed do in heaven perpetually. Conversely in hell, where Lucifer and the wicked demons reign, there are eternal ruins and slaughters of both men and demons. For to say nothing of the eternal fires of Gehenna, there are hatreds, quarrels, and fights, both of demons and of men among themselves, by which they bite and torment one another, indeed would tear each other apart if they could.
13. HE WHO HIDES HIS CRIMES SHALL NOT PROSPER; BUT HE WHO CONFESSES AND FORSAKES THEM SHALL OBTAIN MERCY.
One may ask: what kind of confession does Solomon require and commend? Some think he demands auricular and sacramental confession, which in the new law is made to a confessor for receiving absolution of sins in the Sacrament of Penance. So Hugo, Dionysius, Baynus, and Cajetan. But this had not yet been instituted in Solomon's time, for it was established by Christ a thousand years later. I say therefore that he speaks of confession that belongs to the natural law, and of two kinds. The first is that by which a penitent sinner confesses his sins before God and humbly begs pardon and forgiveness from Him. Thus the Publican confessed saying: "God, be merciful to me a sinner," Luke chapter XVIII, verse 13. Thus Daniel, chapter IX, verse 5, confesses his own and the people's sins, that he might obtain mercy and liberation from the Babylonian captivity from God. Thus Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the other Prophets, the three youths in the Babylonian furnace, Daniel III, 29, the Maccabees and other Saints of the Old Testament frequently and humbly confess their sins to God in Scripture,
The second kind of confession is that by which someone, admonished and corrected by a Superior or by another regarding his sin, humbly acknowledges and confesses it, and promises amendment; or by which one who has harmed or offended another acknowledges his fault before him and begs pardon, so as to make satisfaction for the offense and reconcile himself: for there is no more effective remedy for obtaining pardon and reconciliation than a humble confession of fault. Hence an elder in the Lives of the Fathers says: "When you have offended someone, immediately say: My fault." The meaning therefore is this: The humility of confession obtains pardon and forgiveness for the one who confesses and repents and asks for pardon, both from God and from men. For it is an act of penance and contrition, which even in the new law, without the actual reception of the Sacrament, with only its desire and intention, abolishes guilt, as the Council of Trent teaches, session XIV, chapter IV. For contrition is an act of charity, by which one who loves God above all things is supremely sorry to have offended Him: "charity covers a multitude of sins," as St. Peter says, epistle I, chapter IV, verse 8. Hence he himself, Psalm XXXI, 5, says: "I said: I will confess my injustice against myself to the Lord, and You forgave the wickedness of my sin," that they might obtain God's grace; for, as St. Chrysostom says, homily 20 On Confession: "Before a good judge, confession is the mother of pardon." Rightly called mother, because just as a mother gives birth to a son with pain, so confession gives birth to pardon with pain. Thus David, as long as he concealed his adultery and murder, was hateful to God; but when, at Nathan's reproof, he confessed it and said: "I have sinned against the Lord," he immediately obtained grace, with Nathan saying: "The Lord also has put away your sin," II Kings XII, 13. But Saul, refusing to confess his disobedience to Samuel, he incurred God's wrath, and was deprived of kingdom and life, I Kings XV. So Cain, refusing to confess the murder of his brother Abel, was cursed by God, Genesis chapter IV.
The meaning therefore is this: "He who hides his crimes" shall not prosper, nor "shall he be directed" toward pardon, grace, virtue, and salvation for them; "but he who has confessed them" in the manner and rite that his law requires, and God has instituted for the various times — for example, a Gentile enlightened by faith and the grace of God should confess them to God, a Jew to the sacrificing priest, a Christian to the absolving priest — provided he also forsakes them and amends his life, he shall "obtain" pardon, "mercy," and grace for them. For, as St. Augustine says in the Sentences, number 240: "Before the mercy of God, the confession of the penitent avails greatly, by which the sinner, by confessing, makes propitious the One whom, by denying, he did not make ignorant." Therefore from this passage, theologians not unreasonably prove sacramental confession, both because this was foreseen by the Holy Spirit and here foreshadowed through the mouth of Solomon; and because this maxim is general, and therefore must be adapted to each state of the Church according to the reason and manner prescribed by God for each. Now God in the state of the new law has prescribed the manner of sacramental confession as necessary for the remission of sin, nor did He will any other remedy for abolishing sin than the Sacrament of Confession. Therefore the sinner must make use of it, if he wishes to repent properly and obtain God's pardon and grace: and among other things Solomon signifies this here, moved and inspired by the Holy Spirit. For, as St. Cyprian says: "What medicine does not know, it does not heal." See the maxims and examples of the Fathers on the fruit of confession, which I cited at Leviticus chapter VI, verse 4, and in the epistle of St. James, chapter V, verse 16.
Add that Jews were commanded, not only by natural law but also by positive and divine law, to make a special confession of certain sins in certain cases, as I showed at Numbers V, 7, and Leviticus V, 5. For Christians, moreover, the confession of every mortal sin has been commanded by Christ in the Evangelical law, and this fittingly corresponds to the nature of sin, confession, and remission. For no virtue or action is so fitting, and, so to speak, so connatural for obtaining pardon of sin, as a humble confession of the same; for this includes contrition and satisfaction: for no small satisfaction, and compensation for the offense, is the very confession of it. Confession therefore includes the three parts of penance, or the three duties of the penitent, which are contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Furthermore, as Tertullian teaches in his book On Penance, confession acts in the place of God; for it causes the penitent himself, by confessing, to judge and punish his own sin; and condemning and chastising himself, he anticipates the wrath of God, and leaves nothing for Him to chastise or carry out.
Add: confession is a retraction of sin, and thus a fitting disposition for pardon; for the penitent, by confessing his sin, revokes it, retracts it, and, as far as it lies in him, destroys and abolishes it, because he grieves over it and rejects and detests it; therefore he deserves that God forgive it and destroy it through His grace. But he who does not acknowledge his sin, but excuses or defends it, hardens himself in it, and is therefore incapable of pardon, both because of his pride and arrogance, and because he adds and accumulates the sin of impenitence and self-defense to the sin of concupiscence into which he fell. So Saul, refusing to confess his disobedience to Samuel, by which against God's command he had spared the flocks of Amalek, but rather excusing it, incurred God's wrath, and was deprived of kingdom and life, I Kings XV.
Fittingly St. Chrysostom, quoted by Antonius in the Melissa, part I, chapter XVII, among the five ways of expiating sin assigns the first place to confession: "The ways of repentance, he says, are five: the first is the recognition and reproach of sins; the second, to forgive one's neighbors their errors; the third, which is done through prayer; the fourth, through almsgiving; the fifth, through humility of soul." And again: "While time allows us, he says, let us come before the face of God in confession, so that we may see Him mild and gentle then, and escape those threatening Angels. If you confess your sin, you will diminish it; otherwise, you will increase it."
So the Jews confessed their sins to John the Baptist and were then baptized by him, Matthew III, 6; and Acts XIX, 18, the faithful confessed their sins to the Apostles. Truly St. Augustine says in the Sentences, number 118: "A humble confession in evil deeds is better than a proud boasting in good ones."
14. BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO IS ALWAYS FEARFUL; BUT HE WHO IS HARD OF HEART SHALL FALL INTO EVIL.
The Septuagint: Blessed is the man who fears all things out of piety, that is, out of piety, fear, and reverence of God, by which he is careful not to offend Him in any matter; or, as the Complutensians say, out of caution, or carefulness, by which a prudent man, fearing evil, cautiously avoids it. Hence Cicero, Tusculans IV: "From evils, he says, we naturally shrink; this shrinking, if it is done with reason, is called caution; but if without reason, fear." Now,
First, the Rabbis explain it thus. R. Solomon: "Blessed, he says, is he who always dreads punishment and chastisement: for thus he will restrain himself from offenses;" Aben-Ezra: "Blessed, he says, is he who always reveres God and does not bind himself again to the same crimes; but he whose mind is so hardened that he refuses to lend his ears to the one who reproves him will be liable to those calamities which he thought he would inflict on others;" R. Levi: "Thrice happy is he who fears the one whom it is proper to fear; for this will be the cause of his wisely conducting himself by adopting suitable counsels, so that he may withdraw himself from the calamities he dreads. But he who is of an obstinate mind and sets himself up in place of God regarding things that should be feared will suffer the worst. Is it not clear that because of an obstinate spirit the temple, both when first built and when restored, was utterly destroyed? For if Zedekiah had not been of a rebellious mind, and if he had submitted his neck to the yoke of the king of Babylon, we would not then have been forced to migrate from our homes; and the same must be said of the restored temple: for we would not have been subjected to the Roman Empire, nor forced to bear its yoke."
Second, St. Gregory, and following him Bede, Hugo, Dionysius, and others, understand this of the dread and fear of the last judgment and punishment. Hear St. Gregory, homily 40 on the Gospel: "The joy of the present life must be lived in such a way that the bitterness of the coming judgment never departs from memory: so that while the fearful mind is pierced by the terror of the final retribution, the present joy may be tempered as much as the subsequent wrath that follows. For hence it is written: Blessed is the man who is always fearful; but he who is hard of heart shall fall into evil: for the wrath of the coming judgment will then be borne the more severely, the less it is feared now, even amid sins."
Third, the Author of the Greek Chain understands this of the fear and reverence of God; hence from the Septuagint he translates and explains thus: "Blessed is the man who, touched by a certain reverence of God, fears all things; but the man of a hard and obstinate heart falls into evils. He who possesses the fear of God, he says, dreads all things that could bring any contamination or harm to the soul, and holds them suspect: and therefore he is to be considered blessed. But the wicked man fears no one, and thus falls into various misfortunes."
The translator of St. Chrysostom, homily 55 on Genesis, renders reverentia as piety: "Blessed, he says, is he who fears all things on account of piety. For if we, when we see a servant who attends to our affairs with diligence and much fear, show greater benevolence toward him; much more does the good Lord placed between the two extremes of vice, namely audacity and hardness of heart, which fearlessly dreads nothing, and excessive timidity; and it is the fear and caution of a wise soul, by which it cautiously foresees and provides for everything that can happen, lest it be deceived, misled, or fall anywhere; therefore it proceeds safely and securely in all things with due caution, as the Septuagint translates. This fear therefore does not destroy, but produces security, confidence, and magnanimity.
Thus merchants cautiously enter into contracts, purchase goods, send ships, etc., so as to avoid the dangers of losing their capital. The same caution in business is employed by citizens, craftsmen, and other prudent men, because experience has taught that excessive self-confidence, rashness, and audacity have deceived many and driven them to ruin. the Lord said because of this: I will look upon him who trembles at My words. Let us therefore tremble, I pray, and with great fear fulfill His words; for they are His words. And when we have learned what pleases Him and what He approves, let us do those things, and strive to become such as He wills." What those things are he specifies: "Let us show quietness, meekness, great humility, and fulfill all things that are commanded by Him with reverence, so that, when He has approved the disposition of our mind, appeased by our obedience, He may deign to look upon us also. And if this happens to us, we shall be secure in all things. For He says: I will look upon — that is, I will deem worthy of My care, I will extend My hand, I will be a helper in all things, I will abundantly pour out My generosity upon him."
Vatablus adds: Blessed, he says, is he who constantly fears lest he offend God. Note here the words "all things" and "always," as the Latin and Hebrew have; which St. Chrysostom restricts to God's commandments, as if to say: Blessed is he who fears, that is, who out of fear and reverence of God observes all His commandments. Others explain it generally, and then calls them out of the fold by name, just as if some person were calling them; then as they come out he attacks and strangles them, and soon breaking into the fold he ravages the sheep. Such is the cruelty and cunning of tyrants. as if to say: Fear and dread all business, all works, all persons, every sex, all occurrences, lest anywhere you offend God. For the devil lays snares for you in all things, so that the danger of sin lurks in everything. This indeed is the best and holiest dread and fear. Thus Job, chapter IX, 28: "I feared, he says, all my works, knowing that You would not spare the offender." And chapter XXXI, 23: "I always feared God like waves swelling over me." And David, Psalm CXVIII, 120: "Pierce, he says, my flesh with Your fear, for I have been afraid of Your judgments." And Ecclesiasticus chapter XXV, 15: "Blessed is the man to whom it has been given to have the fear of God; he who holds it, to whom shall he be compared? The fear of God is the beginning of love." See what was said there.
Fourth, generally and comprehensively, Jansenius understands this of the fear and caution to be employed in all things, which is opposed to rashness, so that he is here called "blessed," that is fortunate, who is so fearful in all things that he looks ahead lest he undertake anything rashly, nor without due deliberation and the counsel of others, carefully watching lest he omit anything that is required. For such a person usually prospers in his affairs; whereas he who "is hard of heart," that is, attacks his affairs with an obstinate mind without any fear, caring nothing for whatever is suggested and advised, often rushes into many evils and is forced to endure many losses.
Note here: This fear must not be excessive; for thus it becomes anxiety and scruple, which vexes and consumes a person, deters and turns him away from great things, and drives him to desperation. Hence Seneca, epistle 56: "He is inexperienced, he says, who fears for all his affairs, trembling at every sound, whom any single voice taken as a roar casts down, whom the slightest movements agitate."
This fear therefore must be moderate: for this fear is a virtue, and therefore placed in the middle of two
Fourth, the lion attacks harmful animals; the bear attacks harmless ones, such as sheep and lambs: thus a tyrant harasses, despoils, and slays both the good and the wicked. Hence Antisthenes, quoted by Stobaeus, sermon 49, says a tyrant is worse than an executioner: because, he says, an executioner kills only the guilty and the criminal, but a tyrant kills the innocent as well as the guilty.
Fifth, both the lion and the bear are symbols of rapacity and injustice, because they invade, seize, kill, and devour what belongs to others. Moreover, the lion leaves the remnants of his meal to be devoured by bears, wolves, and wild beasts. Thus a tyrant is most rapacious and most unjust, and creates magistrates and officials similar to himself, rapacious and violent, so that he may have fitting companions and helpers for his tyranny, as Plato teaches, book IX of the Republic. Hear St. Ambrose, sermon 59: "Most people say that wolves usually follow in the footsteps of lions, and wander not far from their hunting grounds, namely so that they may sate their rage with others' plunder, and what remains from the lions' fullness is consumed by the wolves' rapacity. So also these wolves of avarice have followed in the tracks of the plunderers, so that what exceeded their rapacity might yield to the ferocity of these." Moreover, the she-bear is fiercer than the male bear, according to Aristotle: so the wives and concubines of tyrants are often fiercer and more rapacious than the tyrants themselves.
From this hunger for gold it happens that a greedy prince does nothing for free, but demands gifts for whatever matters, indeed sells offices and positions for a price, from which no small damage follows to the commonwealth. Therefore the Emperor Basil, in his Exhortation to his son Leo, chapter XLIII, prescribes that offices not be sold: "Beware, he says, of holding honors and dignities for sale for gold and gifts, but bestow them freely on the worthy; for he who buys a magistracy for a price purchases even more those subject to that magistracy, so that, relying on the gifts he has given, he may more boldly accept gifts himself. Therefore test and examine carefully, and only then advance those who seek office without gifts, if you wish all taint of corruption and extortion to be banished from the commonwealth." He gives a forceful reason: "For he who gives, he says, to obtain a magistracy, seeks profit for himself from the magistracy; for he gives in order to have the right of taking, acting against the laws so that he may be bound by no laws. For he who has learned to buy a magistracy will never unlearn how to accept gifts, and will never want to do anything without gifts: and he will have you as a teacher of corruption and filth, whom he should have had as an avenger. Nor will he alone accept gifts, but he will also force those who are under him to accept gifts."
Sixth, the lion and the bear attack, seize, and tear apart fawns and other wild animals fighting among themselves: so tyrants delight in the dissensions of their subjects, indeed for from hunger and thirst it runs about and ravages, in order to satisfy its hunger and thirst. For "prince" the Hebrew is מושל mosel, that is, a ruler. For "wicked" it is רשע rascha, which the Septuagint, reading רש ras by apocope, translates as needy, poor; the Septuagint therefore has: A roaring lion and a thirsty wolf, who, being needy, tyrannizes a poor people; the Chaldean: a lion roars and a bear cries out because of the wicked one who rules over a poor people; the Syriac: a bear gives voice, that a wicked man is set over a poor people.
Rightly is the wicked prince and tyrant compared to a lion and a bear, just as a pious prince is compared to a dog and a shepherd of sheep. Hence Plato, book II of the Republic: "Do you think, he says, that there is a difference between the nature of a noble dog and a noble prince for keeping guard? To what end? Each of them must be keen in perception, and swift in pursuit; and finally strong, when he has caught up, for fighting and seizing." A prince therefore is like a watchful dog and guardian of the flock; but a tyrant is like an invading lion and bear.
First, because just as a lion with its roar strikes and stuns the other animals, and so catches, seizes, and devours them; and just as a bear, gnashing, terrifies fawns and swine with its growling: so also the wicked prince with his terrifying voice, threatening countenance, and impious edicts strikes terror into the people.
Second, the lion and bear possess the utmost savagery and cruelty, especially when their cubs are taken, Hosea XIII, 8, and when they are hungry: therefore from hunger lions roar and bears gnash. Lions are hungry because they eat only on alternate days, on account of a quartan fever from which they perpetually suffer, according to Aristotle and Pliny. Bears, however, because they hide during winter and eat nothing, says Aristotle, book VIII of the History, chapter XVII. Therefore when the bear has been emptied out through winter, in spring the utmost starvation and hunger exists, to such a degree that it devours everything, even ants and bees. Hence by Aristotle in the same place, chapter V, it is called omnivorous. Such exactly is the savagery, avarice, and greed of the tyrant, that he seeks profit from all things, even base and sordid ones, just as Vespasian used to profit from urine and filth.
Third, in the lion is noted the tyrant's cruelty, in the bear his cunning and craftiness. Hence Pliny, book VIII, chapter XXXVI: "No other animal, he says, is more clever in its craftiness for doing harm." Hence Revelation XIII, 2, the Antichrist, who will be most cunning, is compared to a bear. And Lamentations III, 10, he is called "a bear lying in wait;" because, as St. Ambrose says, book VI of the Hexameron, chapter IV: "The beast is full of fraud." And before him St. Basil, homily 10 on the Hexameron: "Whenever, he says, deceit has chosen for itself a dwelling in a soul that contrives guile and fraud, is it not more implacable than any bear lurking in its cave?" Similarly wolves, as the Septuagint translates, are crafty and deceitful; for they prowl around sheepfolds, "and spy out the sleep of the dogs, the absence or negligence of the shepherd, and attack the throats of the sheep to strangle them quickly," says St. Ambrose in chapter X of Luke. Moreover the hyena, which is a certain species of wolf, learns the names of shepherds by hearing them, he sows and fosters them, so that he may help the weaker party and crush the stronger, and when the stronger has been crushed, he may easily seize the weaker party, now obligated to him, as the Turk does. Hence Aristotle, book V of the Politics, chapter XI: "To set them to accuse one another, he says, and to set friends against friends, and the common people against the nobility, and the rich against each other, and to reduce subjects to poverty, is characteristic of tyrannical depravity, so that no expense is incurred in maintaining a guard, and they, occupied with daily troubles, cannot be free to form plans against the tyrants."
16. A RULER LACKING PRUDENCE SHALL OPPRESS MANY BY CALUMNY: BUT HE WHO HATES AVARICE SHALL HAVE LONG DAYS.
For the end of the verse explains its beginning: for "shall prolong his days" must be repeated at the beginning by zeugma, and must be denied because of the antithesis, with the negation "not" added. He alludes to the bear, whose head, according to Pliny, is the weakest part: so the oppressive prince is weakest in head, that is, in brain, judgment, and prudence.
"This saying demonstrates, says Jansenius, who those wicked princes are who conduct themselves as lions and bears, namely those who lack prudence, by which they ought to understand what their duty toward their subjects is, and in what their own prosperity consists, namely in having subjects well disposed toward them, and who love rather than fear them. He therefore who lacks this kind of prudence will oppress many by calumny, that is, by every kind of injury, and will thus make many enemies for himself: whence, deserted by his own, he will easily be crushed by his enemies, or, as usually happens to tyrants, will be killed by his ownpeople. For this in the first part is left to be understood from the second part. But he who hates avarice, and therefore does not burden his people with exactions, shall have long days, either because God will prolong his life on account of his piety, or because such a man, surrounded and beloved by his own people, will be safe not only from the plots of his own, but also from the attack of enemies. The saying indicates that those princes are mistaken who think that riches and wealth must be gathered from everywhere for their own protection and preservation of life, and who therefore despoil many, never satisfied." For such men are imprudent and lacking in understanding, as the Hebrew has, that is, manifoldly foolish, because they turn the people away from themselves, when it is good for a prince's duty is to love the people and be loved by them; partly because by despoiling them they impoverish and despoil themselves: for the wealth of the prince consists in the wealth of his subjects; partly because they give cause for rebellion, so that rivals rise up against them, indeed the entire people expels them as tyrants and deprives them of their principate, or even their life, according to that saying of the Poet: To the son-in-law of Ceres (to Pluto, that is, to the underworld), without slaughter and bloodshed, few Kings descend, and tyrants die a dry death. For that tyrants live and reign for a short time is clear from histories and constant experience. Hence they dread everything: for they know that like pigs they owe their life to many, as I said a little before. Hence Thales, returning home from a long journey, when asked what new thing he had seen on it: "I saw, he said, an old tyrant," as if this were a prodigy, unheard of and almost a miracle. So Plutarch.
Moreover, the Septuagint translates: a king wanting in revenues is a great sycophant, that is, an avaricious king, greedy for wealth, is a calumniator, oppressor, and despoiler of the people. For sycophant literally means the same as observer and informer against one who had stolen figs, so named from the Greek "syca phainein," that is, from informing on one who ate figs: hence sycophant is used for a liar, a caviler, a quadruplator, and a fraud. This had its origin from the following.
Of two servants of a certain Greek man, one had consumed the figs that were prepared in the house; the other did not know who had taken them. When the master sought them, the guilty one accused the innocent. The master, to discover the truth, ordered both to drink lukewarm water and then vomit. Then the word sycophant first arose: so named from the one who had devoured the figs and, by caviling and lying, had thrown the blame on the innocent. Festus says: "They say sycophants were so called for this reason, that Attic youths used to break into gardens and pick figs: for which reason a law was established that whoever did this would be punished with death. Therefore those who prosecuted this penalty for minor damages were called sycophants, that is, fig-eaters." So Sipontinus. Sycophant therefore you may literally translate as fig-lovers, fig-enthusiasts, fig-counters, fig-guards, living on figs, calumniating about figs. Festus and Athenaeus, book III of the Deipnosophists, testify that at Athens the death penalty was established for those who stole figs; hence sycophancy is called calumny, false informing, accusation, guile, and circumvention.
Such a sycophant was the Emperor Constantius, who, as Marcellinus testifies, book XIV, lent his ear to informers not only of words and deeds, but also of dreams. He especially indulged a certain Mercurius, who under the guise of friendship inserted himself into dinner parties, and if anyone had blurted out a nocturnal vision, he would report it with a distorted account to Constantius, to such an extent that scarcely anyone dared to admit that he had slept, and some learned men lamented their lot that they had not been born among the Atlantes, where they say dreams are not seen: which Stephanus also acknowledges in the entry "Atlantes."
The greatest sycophant was Julian the Apostate, cousin of Constantius, who ensnared Christians with amazing arts and deceits, and among other things despoiled them of their goods on the pretext that they had plundered them from the temples of the Gentiles. And when they showed this to be false: "Your Christ, he would say, counseled you to poverty, and proclaimed the poor blessed, and promised them the kingdom of heaven; obey therefore your Christ and your law, and yield your wealth to me." Thus he invaded the estates of Blessed Gallicanus, who was the son-in-law of Constantine the Great; but Christ exposed the sycophancy, indeed avenged it: for all who invaded Gallicanus's estates were seized by a demon, or withdrew afflicted with leprosy. So the Life of Blessed Gallicanus relates, and Baronius, year of Christ 362.
Therefore, "a king wanting in revenues is a great sycophant," first, because the avaricious man is of a base and abject character, and therefore gapes after the wealth of his subjects through fraud; since a true "king is not, says Aristotle, book VIII of the Ethics, chapter X, unless he is self-sufficient and excels in all goods. Such a one indeed needs nothing." He should therefore rather enrich his subjects than be enriched by them. Second, because for a trivial cause he brings suit against them, as a sycophant over figs, and hunts for transgressions of the laws, indeed suggests occasions for them, so that he may severely punish transgressors and claim and confiscate their goods for himself. Third, because he cavils and imposes false charges on his subjects, or by a subtle interpretation of the laws imputes guilt to them where there truly is no guilt, as Aristotle attests, book III of the Politics, chapter VI; and he does this under pretexts and appearances of honesty — namely, falsehoods need cosmetics, shameful things need trappings — that is: "A rotten dish needs oregano or vinegar," as the saying goes. Is this not a sycophant?
Therefore Phavorinus, quoted by Stobaeus, chapter XLV, gave this remedy for sycophancy and avarice: Do not increase taxes, reduce expenses. "If I desire more than what I have, he says, I shall subtract something from what I have, and what I have will suffice for me." Hence also the exhortation of the Emperor Basil to his son Leo, chapter XXVII, impresses upon him contempt for money and a just moderation of taxes. And Agapetus the Deacon in his Admonition to the Emperor Justinian, chapter XLVII: "Consider, he says, the safest guard of your safety to be inflicting no injury on any of your subjects; for he who offends no one suspects no one. And if injuring no one secures protection, much more will the conferring of benefits accomplish this; for as it provides protection, so it does not betray affection." Plutarch: "No safeguard, he says, is firmer for a prince than true and constant benevolence." Philo: "God needs nothing, a king needs only God. Imitate therefore Him who needs nothing, and generously bestow mercy on those who ask, dealing with suppliants not by strict right or restriction, but providing all things that pertain to the living of life to those who ask." Agathon: "Three things a magistrate ought to remember: first, that he rules over men; second, that he rules according to laws; third, that he will not rule forever." Diodorus: "A king who discharges his office well ought to be just, magnanimous, truthful, and generous in giving, and superior to every desire; he should impose punishments lighter than the offense, but return a favor greater than the benefit, both to his subjects and to his friends." Ausonius: "It is fitting to strive that you appear to your subjects more to be revered than to be feared; for the former is accompanied by dignity, the latter by ferocity." These are reported by Antonius in the Melissa, part II, chapter I.
17. A MAN WHO IS CHARGED WITH THE BLOOD OF A SOUL, IF HE FLEES EVEN TO THE PIT, NO ONE SHALL SUPPORT HIM. in the person whom he killed, he has undermined. So Aben-Ezra.
Second, the Syriac translates: a man who is conscious of the blood of a soul shall flee to the elect, and they shall not help him. For the Hebrew בר bar (whence בור bor) means pure, bare, elect, as if to say: A murderer who is conscious of having shed blood will implore the help of the elect, both of heaven, namely Angels and Saints, and of earth, namely pious and merciful men; but no one will free him from punishment. For all abhor murder and the murderer, and desire that he pay the penalty for so great a crime, so harmful to the human race.
Third, the Septuagint translates: he who posts bail in a murder case for another (who gives himself as surety to the judge for a murderer), shall also be punished with exile (since the murderer, fearing the death penalty, will not present himself but will flee and hide); and he shall never enjoy any security. For the friends and relatives of the slain will pursue him as the murderer for whom he stood surety, and will constantly harass him.
Fourth, the Chaldean translates: the son of man who is anxious about the blood of a soul, if he flees even to the pit, they shall not seize him, as if to say: A man guilty of shedding blood, and therefore anxious and worried, even if he flees into caves, dens, and ditches — for example, into mines of gold, silver, copper, or coal, such as those at Liege — to hide himself there; yet neither the miners nor the others who are in the mines or work there will receive him, but will drive him away as a common enemy, fearing lest he kill someone among them there too.
Fifth, Vatablus translates: he who violently, or by violence, has shed blood, shall flee even to the grave, and they shall not hold him back, as if to say: A murderer throws himself into certain danger of death, so as to be killed by the judge or by the relatives of the one he killed, nor will anyone rescue him from that. Again, "he shall flee to the grave," because many murderers, driven by the consciousness of their crime, kill themselves, or surrender themselves to the judge to be killed, as Judas the betrayer of Christ hanged himself. For justly he who was the executioner of others becomes also his own executioner; for this is a fitting retribution for the crime and God's vengeance.
Sixth, Lyranus, meaning: "A murderer, if he has fled even to the pit," that is, if he has put off repentance until death and the grave, "no one supports him," that is, no one can help him, because after death there is no place for repentance and grace. But this is mystical.
Seventh, Pagninus and Baynus translate: a man who is an oppressor with the blood of a soul, that is, who violently tore out another's soul from blood and body through murder, shall flee to the pit, namely to caves and caverns, to hide there, lest they seize him, that is, lest they capture him and bring him before the judge to be punished. Spiritually, many murderers who repented fled to caves and grottos, and there spent their whole life in austere penance, and became saints, like the converted robber under Abbot Apollo as related by Palladius in the Lausiaca, chapter LII; and another in Moschus's Spiritual Meadow, chapter CLXVI; and another in Rufinus, chapter XVI, whom St. Paphnutius saw in a vision to be his equal in merits. Thus spiritually St. Magdalene, St. Pelagia, St. Mary of Egypt, etc., who by their enticements had killed the souls of many, as penitents in caves led an angelic life. It is remarkable what John Moschus writes in the Meadow, chapter CLXXVI, about the infanticidal Mary, namely that when she fled to a ship, it stood still so that it could not proceed; then when she was expelled into a skiff and submerged, the ship completed its course. The same author, chapter CLXVI, relates that a certain penitent robber went to a monastery, and there, having become a monk, saw the apparition of a boy saying: "Why did you kill me?" and so, returning to the world, he was beheaded the next day. Thus vengeance follows murderers even to the altars.
This is what God severely ordained from the earliest ages, Genesis IX, 5: "The blood of your souls I will require from the hand of every beast, and from the hand of man, etc. Whoever sheds human blood, his blood shall be shed; for man was made in the image of God." See what was said there.
Eighth, our Salazar, ingeniously as is his wont, taking "pit" as "well," thinks there is an allusion here to the ancient rite by which those who had killed others, justly or unjustly, would wash their hands, as if to wash away the contamination of the blood they had shed, and thus approach the altars and sacred rites pure, as Pilate washed his hands in the condemnation of Christ, meaning: A murderer, if he is a private person, will be an object of execration to all, so that, even if he flees to the well and washes himself with its waters, all will nevertheless detest him: but if he is a leader or prince who has shed the blood of many and condemned the innocent to death against right and justice, "if he has fled even to the pit," even if he daily purifies his hands with the most abundant waters drawn from a lake or well, "no one supports him," that is, his subjects cannot tolerate his rule, and therefore deprive him either of his power or of his life.
Ninth, solidly and genuinely, meaning: A murderer, as the common plague of the human race, is so hateful and execrable to all that he flees the light, the sun, and human company: indeed he hides underground in caves, to dwell like a companion of wild beasts with those whose ferocity he has surpassed; yet even there he will not be safe, but everywhere fearful and trembling, like Cain the fratricide, a fugitive, he will be terrified by every whisper of the breeze and rustling of leaves, every chattering of birds, every sound of breeze and wind, as one who is the object of the hatred of God and men, and therefore devoted to death by men, so that as a victim of justice he may atone with his blood for divine and human vengeance; indeed, even hated by the beasts, he may be put to death or betrayed by them. Examples are found in Ibycus, who, when he had been killed by robbers in a deserted place, cranes betrayed those who were the authors of the crime, and they paid for the crime with death; in Bessus, whose parricide was publicized by swallows; in dogs, who barked at the murderers of Pyrrhus and Hesiod, and thus betrayed them; and in many others, whom Plutarch recounts in his book On the Delay of Divine Vengeance. Hence the civil laws deprive parricides, while still living, of the four elements, when they order them to be sewn into a leather sack among wild animals and to perish without the use of the elements, inasmuch as they took away the use of the same from their parents, and are therefore wretched men and the refuse of the world.
18. HE WHO WALKS UPRIGHTLY SHALL BE SAVED (in Hebrew: shall be saved); HE WHO WALKS IN CROOKED WAYS SHALL FALL AT ONCE.
The meaning is clear, as if to say: He who in his actions, which are like paths, proceeds uprightly, in Hebrew תמים tamim, that is, innocently, harmlessly, candidly, with integrity: though he fall among slanderers, rivals, and other damages and dangers that this wretched life produces, yet by God's help he will be saved from them and escape unharmed; but he who in his actions proceeds wickedly, crookedly, maliciously, deceitfully, though for a time those actions succeed prosperously and according to his wishes, yet at last he will fall in one of them irreparably, namely he will fall into adversities from which he cannot emerge and rise again. Therefore "shall fall at once" signifies two things: first, meaning he will fall in one of his own machinations, so as to be caught by his own arts and deceits; second, he will fall irreparably.
So Aben-Ezra, R. Solomon, and others. Otherwise R. Levi: He shall fall at once, that is, always: for since, he says, there is one way of virtue and good, but many ways of vice and evil, and since the perverse man abandons the way of good, he must necessarily take the way of evil, and in it fall into ruin.
The counterpart to Solomon's saying is the maxim of Isaiah chapter XLIII, 2: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the rivers shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not kindle upon you, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." See what was said there. Thus God preserved the three Hebrew youths unharmed in the Babylonian fire, Daniel chapter III, and Jonah in the belly of the whale. Likewise He led the Hebrews through the Red Sea as if on dry land, while Pharaoh who pursued them was drowned in it, Exodus XIV. John Moschus in the Meadow, chapter II, relates that a certain elder was of such virtue that he would receive lions with him in the same cave, walk with them, and provide them food in his bosom. And chapter XVIII, he relates the life of another elder who would sleep everywhere among lions. "But one day, he says, he brought two lion cubs into the church, saying to the brothers: If we kept the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ, these animals would certainly fear us; but because of sin we have become slaves, and we are compelled to fear them."
St. Gregory explains: "He shall not be innocent," namely from sin. Hear him, part III of the Pastoral Rule, admonition 21: "When men who are filled with all kinds of wealth at the same time burn with desire for more, let them hear what is written: He who hastens to be rich shall not be innocent. For indeed he who strives to increase his wealth neglects to avoid sin, and like birds that are caught, when he eagerly eyes the bait of earthly things, he does not recognize the snare of sin by which he will be strangled," according to that saying of Paul: "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare of the devil, and many useless and harmful desires, which plunge men into ruin and perdition," I Timothy VI, 9. A saying similar to this one we heard at chapter XIII, 11, and chapter XX, 21, where I explained it.
19. HE WHO WORKS HIS LAND SHALL BE FILLED WITH BREAD; BUT HE WHO PURSUES IDLENESS SHALL BE FILLED WITH WANT.
We heard this maxim at chapter XII, 11, where I explained it at length.
Mystically, Cassian applies this maxim to the spiritual idleness of good works, book X On the Spirit of Sloth, chapter II: "The idle person, he says, shall be filled with poverty, either visible or invisible, because it is necessary that every idle person be held bound by various vices, and be always a stranger to the contemplation of God and spiritual riches, of which the blessed Apostle says: Because in all things you have been made rich in Him, in every word and in every knowledge," I Corinthians I, 5. If this is the poverty of the idle, the riches of the laboring consist in word and in knowledge — not in a word that beats the air, nor in a knowledge that puffs up the mind and lifts it into pride; but in a word that instructs the mind, and in a knowledge that edifies both the teacher himself and those who hear. With these riches, industrious workers teach the ignorant, kindle the lukewarm, strengthen the fainthearted, and accumulate for themselves new treasures of merits.
20. A FAITHFUL MAN SHALL BE GREATLY PRAISED: BUT HE WHO HASTENS TO BE RICH SHALL NOT BE INNOCENT.
Blessing is twofold, verbal and real: verbal is praise and a prayer for good; real is an abundance of things; hence a twofold meaning arises:
The first meaning: He who is faithful in his actions and deals with good faith, all will praise him and pray for every good upon him with acclamation: but he who hastens to be rich, and therefore scrapes together wealth by tricks and frauds, by fair means and foul, shall not be innocent, but as a guilty person and deceiver shall be blamed and condemned by all. So Vatablus.
The second meaning: He who is faithful in his business affairs, shall "abound in blessings," that is, shall be heaped with an abundance of things so that he overflows with wealth: for God will prosper all his business dealings, so that his fortune daily advances and grows; but he who through fraud and usury hastens to be rich, shall not be innocent, that is, unpunished, because he will be deprived and impoverished not only of the wealth he hoped for, but also of what he already has.
21. HE WHO SHOWS PARTIALITY IN JUDGMENT DOES NOT DO WELL, AND (that is, because) SUCH A ONE FOR A MORSEL OF BREAD FORSAKES TRUTH. if it be compared with the price of truth and justice. Add: Not a few unjust judges, for a trifle, such as a gift of a single kid or lamb, pervert justice. So cheap to them is their soul, cheap their good faith, cheap their honor, cheap justice. This is what God complains of, Ezekiel XIII, 19: "They violated Me, He says, before My people, for a handful of barley and a piece of bread," just as birds and fish are caught on a hook by a crumb of bread: for, enticed by it, they insert their mouths onto the lethal hook; or just as sheep that are led by a piece of bread from the butcher to the slaughterhouse to be slaughtered. Therefore, although some Doctors assert it is lawful for judges to accept food and drink, Solomon nevertheless censures this, because judgment is thereby perverted. Hence the Emperor Justinian, in the section Oportet, concerning mandates of the prince, Authentic Collection III, decreed "that (prefects and judges) accept absolutely no gift, neither large nor small. It is fitting, he says, that you, taking up the administration purely and without any vote-buying, and above all else keep your hands clean before God, us, and the laws, and touch no gain, neither large nor small," etc.
On the shamefulnes of showing partiality, and equally of accepting bribes, I spoke at chapter XXIV, verse 23, and elsewhere: for by these Astræa, that is, justice, whom the ancients depicted as a most pure virgin, is corrupted and, as it were, violated; hence that saying: "The lust of a eunuch shall deflower a maiden, so is he who by violence pronounces unjust judgment," Ecclesiasticus chapter XX, 2. See what was said there.
We heard the first part of this saying at chapter XXIV, 23. The meaning is, as if to say: To show partiality, especially in judgment, so that because of gifts or friendship you award the case to a friend which in justice ought to be awarded to the opposing party, is not good, indeed it is a great evil and a crime. It is meiosis (understatement). For, as Cicero says: "Whoever puts on the role of friend puts off the role of judge." Therefore a judge must judge with closed eyes, and accept no one's person. For this reason the Areopagites judged in the dark at night. He adds the reason: "And," that is because, such a person "for a morsel of bread forsakes truth," that is, for a small thing of little value and importance he exchanges truth for falsehood, equity for iniquity, when in favor of a friend he pronounces a false and unjust sentence against the opposing party. For every thing, even if precious in itself, is cheap
22. A MAN WHO HASTENS TO BE RICH, AND ENVIES OTHERS, DOES NOT KNOW THAT WANT SHALL COME UPON HIM.
An evil eye is the eye of the miser, who, in order to enrich himself, envies and snatches away the profit of others so as to divert it to himself, according to that saying about the miser: "What was created more wicked than the eye? Therefore it shall weep at every sight," Ecclesiasticus XXXI, 18. See what was said there.
Solomon signifies that avarice begets envy, and in turn envy begets avarice: therefore every miser is envious, and every envious person is a miser. See St. Chrysostom, homily 63 on John: "Envy, he says, is a grievous passion: it has filled the world with innumerable evils. From it courts are filled, from it come jealousies and love of money." And after a few words: "This disease has begotten avarice, which has confused everything and corrupted justice. For gifts blind the eyes of the wise, and like a bridle on the mouth, turn aside and restrain testimonies." And St. Augustine, treatise 8 on John: "If you wish to be richer than another man, you will envy him when you see him equal to you. You ought therefore to wish all men to be equal to you." And on Psalm CXXV: "No one, he says, envies another in that which he himself does not wish either to be or to appear. Another envies you, because you are rich; but this person either wants to be rich, so as to envy you, or wants to be thought rich." Therefore the same Augustine frequently urges that the effective remedy against envy is contempt for wealth.
More vigorously St. Cyprian, in his treatise On Jealousy and Envy: "Widely, he says, does the manifold and fertile destructiveness of jealousy extend. It is the root of all evils, the fountain of calamities, the seedbed of offenses, the material of faults; from it hatred arises, from it animosity proceeds. Jealousy inflames avarice, when a person cannot be content with his own, seeing another richer. Ambition kindles jealousy, lest one seem to be less than another."
AND DOES NOT KNOW THAT WANT SHALL COME UPON HIM — because avarice blinds his heart as much as envy, and therefore in scraping together riches by fair means and foul he makes no end. Understand want both temporally in this life, and spiritually in Gehenna, where the rich man begged Lazarus for a drop of water and did not receive it. "For justly he does not receive a drop, who denied Lazarus a crumb," says St. Augustine. Moreover, the causes of this want I reviewed at chapter XIII, verse 11, on the words: "Hastily acquired substance shall be diminished." Here another cause is indicated, namely envy; for since he envies others, others in turn envy him, and therefore strive to divert profit from him and impoverish him. Add that by God's just judgment it happens that the miser who envies others so that he alone may stand out and be rich while others are impoverished, is punished by retaliation, namely so that others become rich while he alone is impoverished.
The Septuagint, reading חסד chesed, that is, piety, mercy, instead of חסר cheser, that is, want; or rather חסיד chasid, that is, pious, merciful, translate: the envious man hastens to be rich, and does not know that a merciful man shall prevail over him, meaning: The miser who envies others their profit strives to heap up wealth, and does not know that God, as punishment for his avarice, will take it from him and transfer it to a generous and merciful man, who will pour it back into the poor from whom it arose, according to that verse 8: "He who heaps up riches by usury and interest gathers them for one who is generous to the poor."
23. HE WHO REPROVES A MAN SHALL AFTERWARD FIND FAVOR (some read: shall hear thanks) WITH HIM, MORE THAN HE WHO DECEIVES BY FLATTERIES OF THE TONGUE.
For "afterward" our translator reads אחרי achare, that is, after, afterward; now with a different pointing they read אחרי acharai, that is, after me; R. Joseph Kimchi in Pagninus reads אחרי ochari, to be a present participle with paragogic yod, meaning one turned backward, delaying, retreating, recoiling, namely from the law of God; hence he translates: he who rebukes a man who retreats (from the way of God, virtue, and law) shall find favor more than he who flatters with the tongue; Aben-Ezra and Vatablus: he who corrects a man after me, that is, they say, so that he may follow me and my laws — these being the words of God, or of Solomon commanding that one who sins against these laws be corrected, and amended and reformed according to them. Baynus however explains "after me" as meaning: He who more sharply corrects a sinner shall win the favor of the corrected person, just as I Solomon customarily chastise the depraved morals of my subjects more severely, and yet am very pleasing to them.
But the Vulgate version is to be preferred, which gives a more convenient meaning, as if to say: He who corrects one who errs, at first with the bitterness of correction bites, afflicts, and torments him; but when the corrected person perceives the fruit of the correction, he accepts it gratefully, indeed gives thanks to the one who corrects, as the Septuagint translates, because through the correction he sees that he has changed his bad morals into good ones, and thus has avoided grave damages and dangers to reputation, fortune, life, and Gehenna: but the flatterer, offering pleasant and sweet things, although at first he delights, yet afterward when the listener perceives the quarrels and damages, he hates and detests him. For the flatterer is double-tongued, as the Chaldean translates, because he has, as it were, a double tongue: one with which he flatters when present, another with which he calumniates when absent; one with which he caresses, another with which he bites; one with which he licks, another with which he stings. To this point pertains that saying of chapter XXVII, verse 6: "Better are the wounds of a friend than the deceitful kisses of an enemy." See what was said there.
Thus we see virtuous men thanking their parents and teachers for having chastised their depraved morals and wanton desires in childhood and youth, and candidly confessing: Had you not corrected me, O father, had you not chastised me, O teacher, I would have destroyed myself, I would have gone to the gallows, indeed to Gehenna: to you therefore I owe my integrity, my life, my salvation. On the contrary, many who are led to the gallows for their crimes, and even more in Gehenna, curse their parents and teachers for not having restrained them when they were acting wickedly, and say: Cursed be you, father, who begot me; cursed be you, mother, who bore me: for if from childhood my vices had been chastised, I would not have become a robber, an adulterer, a murderer, nor would I be tormented in Gehenna with demons, but would reign in heaven with the Angels.
Moreover, correction is distasteful to everyone at first, as the fable illustrates, which our Pontanus reports, volume III, page 1, chapter XL. Truth, once a fugitive throughout the whole world, while wandering, one evening turned aside to the cottage of a poor old woman. Received by her very kindly as a guest, she is asked who she is, where she comes from, and where she is going so late. She replies: I am Truth, whom all envy and whom they allow to settle in no place. What have you done wrong? I accuse everyone's vices, I conceal nothing. And because no one can bear being reproved with moderation, hence my perpetual flight and exile. What next? After a light supper they go to sleep. Both entrust themselves to a single bed. When daylight came and they were putting on their clothes again, Truth, looking at the old woman, noticed that she had lost one eye, and did not keep the defect to herself. The old woman becomes angry, and expelling Truth from her hut with force, adds: No wonder there is no place for you anywhere, no wonder everyone hates you, when you are accustomed to freely throw everyone's faults in their face.
Recently a certain nobleman, leading a private life, conversing familiarly about it with Philip II, King of Spain, preferred it to royal dignity, because private life possessed three great gifts that royalty lacked: first, friendship and a true friend, for which flatterers substitute themselves for the king; second, truth, which a king rarely hears, seduced by parasites; third, the dawn, friend to the Muses, since a king sometimes sleeps until broad daylight.
24. HE WHO STEALS FROM HIS FATHER AND HIS MOTHER, AND SAYS THIS IS NOT A SIN, IS A PARTNER OF A MURDERER.
First, Lyranus, Hugo, and Dionysius think that the error of the Scribes and Priests is here refuted — those who said it was lawful, indeed pious, if children withdrew the food owed to their parents, provided they gave it to the temple and the Priests, whom Christ refutes, Matthew XV, 5, so that the meaning would be: He who withdraws, that is, denies his father or mother food necessary for life, in order to give it to the temple, saying this is not a sin, indeed that it is holy, is a partner of a murderer, because he forces his parents to die of starvation. Our Salazar agrees, who explains it thus: He who does not come to the aid of his parents' need, and thereby withdraws from them what is owed by nature, is to be counted and numbered with murderers, indeed parricides, according to that saying of St. Ambrose against the avaricious: "If you have not fed, you have killed."
But this is contradicted by the fact that the Hebrew for "withdraws" is גוזל gozel, that is, robs, steals, plunders, which is far more than denies or does not help.
Second, therefore Cajetan translates: he who plunders his father or mother and says: There is no crime, is a companion of a man who destroys, because obviously he destroys and despoils the family and the paternal household.
Third, Jansenius and Baynus translate the Hebrew maschit, which our translator renders "murderer," as "squanderer," as our translator does at chapter XVIII, verse 9, so that the meaning would be: He who steals his parents' goods, and that without recognizing the offense, is a companion of a squanderer, because he joins himself to such a person, and with such a person he also squanders the paternal goods. For young men are accustomed to steal their parents' goods for this purpose, to squander them and join themselves to squanderers. And generally such persons afterward become outstanding squanderers and ruined men.
Fourth and genuinely, the Vulgate version calls a son who steals paternal goods a partner of a murderer: first, because by continual thefts he exhausts his parents, and thus destroys and kills them by poverty as much as by grief, especially when he says this is not a sin, because he considers his parents' goods to be his own, since he is their future heir. In this matter he gravely errs and does grave injury to his parents: for although parents' goods are owed to their children so that they may inherit them after death, the children are not yet their owners; much less do they have the administration of them, so as to use them at will — therefore they sin mortally if they steal a notable sum from their parents; this notable sum, however, must be larger for a son than for a servant or an outsider, because a father indulges a son more than an outsider; hence a son is also more easily excused from restitution, as Petrus Navarra learnedly teaches, and following him our Lessius, book II On Injuries of Fortune, chapter XIII.
Second, because prodigal sons are usually companions of scoundrels, ruined men, robbers, and assassins. Again, robbery and the dissipation of paternal goods leads to the robbery of others' goods, and from there to killings and brigandage, as if to say: A prodigal son eventually becomes a murderer, a robber, and a bandit, and as such will be punished with death or hanged, as we often see happen. Hence Plato in the Phaedrus reckons violators of parents among murderers in the underworld, and affirms that they are punished with a similar penalty.
Mystically, R. Solomon says: He who steals souls from the father, that is, from almighty God, and from the mother, that is, from the Church — he who is the author of their committing a crime and robbbing God, from whom he draws children away — is like a murderer, namely Jeroboam, who under Rehoboam made a schism and led the ten tribes away from the two and from the temple and the worship of God to the worship of golden calves at Dan and Bethel.
25. HE WHO BOASTS AND SPREADS HIMSELF WIDE STIRS UP QUARRELS: BUT HE WHO TRUSTS IN THE LORD SHALL BE HEALED.
One may ask: who is the broad of soul, or the wide-souled? First, the Syriac translates: a greedy and gluttonous man: for he is broad of soul, that is, by the gluttony and greed of his soul, who, in order to satisfy it, contracts debts, and thereby stirs up lawsuits and quarrels, which empty the stomach, so that instead of food he is fed with lawsuits; but he who trusts in the Lord will obtain nourishment, indeed delicacies, with which to satisfy, sate, and fatten the appetite of his soul.
Second, R. Levi by "broad of soul" understands a lavish and prodigal person: for he expands his soul by the profuse spending of his wealth.
Third, Pagninus says: The broad of soul is the spirited, bold, and wrathful man, who therefore stirs up quarrels, fights, and brawls; but he who trusts in the Lord and fulfills that saying: "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord," Deuteronomy XXXII, 35; Romans XII, 19, shall be fattened with the tranquility of a good conscience and peace with all men, as far as it depends on him.
Fourth, Baynus says: The broad of soul is the miser, who expands his soul to seize and snatch many things. Hence the Septuagint translates: insatiable: for while he hastens to be rich and labors with insatiable desire for wealth, while he injures many, he will have many enemies and stir up lawsuits; but he who has placed his hope in the Lord (for so the Hebrews read) snatches nothing from anyone, preferring to die rather than plunder what belongs to others — for this person an honest and sufficient living will never be lacking, indeed he will abound in delights, if not of the body, at least his soul will grow fat and plump with heavenly richness, of which the Psalmist speaks: "Let my soul be filled as with marrow and fatness."
Fifth, Jansenius says: The broad of soul is the proud and arrogant, as the Chaldean translates. For through pride the spirit of man is expanded and stretched beyond itself toward the honors of this world; following which our translator renders: he who boasts and spreads himself wide: that is, he who is an immoderate praiser of himself, expanding his spirit toward honors — such a one stirs up quarrels, because he does not tolerate anyone being preferred or equated to him. But he who does not exalt himself in himself, but humbly subjects himself to God, placing all his hope in Him — such a person shall be fattened, that is, shall prosper in all things, with God Himself favoring him: he will enjoy tranquility of mind, and, as we read, shall be healed from all evils; or, as it should rather be read, as the more corrected codices have, shall be healed.
Sixth, our Salazar says: The broad of soul signifies two things, namely the proud and the avaricious. Hence the Vulgate translates: he who boasts and spreads himself wide: for the word "boasts" seems to indicate the arrogance of pride, the word "spreads wide" the desire of avarice. This person, therefore, both proud and avaricious, stirs up quarrels, or mixes strife, namely within himself: for he contains two vices which stir up lawsuits against each other within him. For pride demands lavish expenditures for the display of glory; but avarice on the contrary restricts expenditures and renders a man sordid.
Seventh and genuinely: The broad of soul is the covetous man. For the soul (anima) is the lower part of the soul, in which appetite and concupiscence reside; but the mind (animus) is the higher part of the soul, in which reason, intellect, and spirit reside; hence from the soul (anima) which is common to us and brutes, we are called animal, just as from the mind and spirit we are called spiritual. Therefore breadth of heart is one thing, namely magnanimity, which was in Solomon, III Kings IV, 29, and great charity, which was in St. Paul when he said: "Our mouth is open to you, our heart is expanded," II Corinthians chapter VI, 11; but breadth of soul is another thing, namely of cupidity: for this is evil and depraved. Therefore broad of soul is he who burns with great desires, who covets many things, who stretches all his powers to satisfy his lusts. Moreover this breadth of soul, or cupidity, is threefold, namely: the first is the desire for honors, which is called ambition; the second for wealth, which is called avarice; the third for pleasures, which is called gluttony and lust. Hence that passage in I John II, 16: "All that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life." Therefore broad of soul is said in three ways: for first it signifies the ambitious; second, the avaricious; third, the gluttonous and lustful, and thus we embrace in this broad and general sense all the other expositions already given. Hence the Septuagint translates aplestos, that is, insatiable; for such is every covetous person and every cupidity. Hence also our translator, to embrace all these meanings, skillfully rendered: he who boasts and spreads himself wide. For the proud man boasts and displays himself like a peacock, while the avaricious and gluttonous expand the throat of their cupidity, like a wolf wasting with hunger.
Therefore the meaning is, as if to say: The broad of soul, that is, the proud and ambitious man who boasts, and likewise he who expands the gaping of his concupiscence, namely of avarice, gluttony, and lust — that is, the avaricious, gluttonous, and lustful man — in order to satisfy either his ambition, or avarice, or gluttony and lust, trusting in that same soul of his, that is, in the shrewdness, powers, and strength of his soul, stirs up lawsuits and quarrels with everyone, from which it happens that he is deprived both of the honors he sought and of the wealth and delights he coveted, and remains empty, hungry, and dried up; for lawsuits exhaust and emaciate a man.
But he who trusts in the Lord will be healed from all these things, and will obtain honors, wealth, and food sufficient in abundance for him, and will be fattened by them, as the Hebrew has it; whence it might seem that in the Vulgate for sanabitur (shall be healed) one should read satiabitur (shall be satisfied) or saginabitur (shall be fattened), if some books had it so, because that would agree with the word impinguabitur (shall be fattened). But it is likely that our translator here, as elsewhere, followed the Greek which has en epimeleia estai, that is, he shall be in care, or shall be cared for, and so rendered sanabitur (shall be healed), signifying that with God caring for him, he would be healthy and free from all disturbances.
Note from the Septuagint the phrase but he who trusts in the Lord shall be in diligent care, namely of God Himself. Hence the Author of the Greek Catena clearly translates: He who trusts in the Lord, he will be the Lord's care, that is, he says, he will be preserved by the Lord in health of mind and body. Therefore God is the provider and caretaker of the one who trusts in Him, and that exactly and diligently, according to that verse Psalm LIV, 3: "Cast your care upon the Lord, and He Himself will nourish you." For God will care for his affairs, just as if they were His own. For diligent care, says the Jurist, is when someone cares for another's affairs with the same care as his own, so that it comes about that he abounds in all things, and lacking nothing, that is, self-sufficient and desiring nothing, content with what he has, lives joyfully and blessedly, which is proper to God.
Great is this dignity, great the fruit of hope, that it places the one who hopes in the care and bosom of God, and makes God his caretaker, that is, His solicitous guardian and provider in all things. For care (cura) is vehement and anxious solicitude, so called, says Festus: "Because it eats the heart, or because it cares;" hence Ennius in Cicero's On Old Age: Or ease this care; Which now burns you and turns fixed beneath your breast.
Therefore just as a guardian and caretaker bears solicitous care for the ward committed to his trust, so God bears the same for the one who trusts in Him; for hope delivers him to the care of God, and God accepts him into His care, so that he may rest securely in it, according to that verse: "To You the poor man is left; You will be a helper to the orphan."
Again, just as a shepherd has care for the sheep entrusted to him, so God has care for those who trust in Him, so that they may confidently say with the Psalmist: "The Lord rules me (in Hebrew, my shepherd), and nothing shall be wanting to me; in a place of pasture there He has placed me," Psalm XXII, 1; therefore whoever touches one who trusts in God, touches the heart of God, according to that verse: "He who touches you, touches the pupil of My eye," Zechariah II, 8. See what was said there. Therefore care for us burns the eyes, burns the heart of God. Wherefore St. Peter, Epistle I, chapter V, 7, exhorts the faithful saying: "Casting all your solicitude upon Him, because He has care of you." And St. Paul, Philippians IV, 6: "Be anxious for nothing, but in every prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God." For, as the Psalmist says, Psalm XXXIX, 18: "The Lord is solicitous for me." So St. John the Silent, when the Saracens were attacking, refused to flee, saying: "If the Lord does not bear care of me, why do I live? But if He does, whom shall I fear?" Cyril is the witness in his Life.
Morally, learn here that the covetous man expands the jaws of his heart and body, so as to seize and swallow all things, and thereby brings upon himself quarrels and wars by which he perishes; hence hell likewise, in order to receive him and his broad and vast cupidities, expands itself. Hear Isaiah, chapter V, 14: "Therefore hell has expanded its soul, and opened its mouth without any limit; and its mighty ones, etc., shall descend to it;" and chapter XXX, 33: "Topheth (that is, Gehenna) is said to be prepared, deep and widened; its nourishment is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord is like a torrent of sulphur setting it ablaze." For the fire of cupidity kindles and expands the fire of Gehenna, so that one may perpetually burn and be consumed in it.
But he who hopes in God expands in Him his affairs and hopes, so that he may rest in Him peacefully and securely, knowing that he will obtain his hopes from God through prayers, and will become the master of his desires, according to that verse Psalm LXXX, 11: "Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it." Therefore hope in God is an axe cutting away all restless cupidities; for he who hopes in God lives content with Him alone: for he knows that in God he possesses all things. Therefore silently and securely he says to himself: "You suffice for your God, let your God suffice for you."
St. Lawrence Justinian often admonished "that confidence in God should never be lost; that it was that in which the life of the soul consisted." So his Life records.
This is what Paul says, I Timothy VI, 17: "Command the rich of this age not to be high-minded, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, who provides us all things abundantly for enjoyment." Indeed Seneca too, Epistle 119, says: "How great a thing of the soul it is to ask for nothing alone, to supplicate no one, and to say: I have nothing to do with you, Fortune; I do not make myself available to you." And Epistle 120: "Does he have too little who only does not freeze, does not hunger, does not thirst? Jupiter has no more. Never is what is enough too little. Never is what is not enough too much. After Darius and the Indians, Alexander of Macedon is poor; he seeks what he may make his own, searches unknown seas, sends new fleets into the Ocean, and, so to speak, breaks through the barriers of the world. What is enough for nature is not enough for man. Someone has been found who coveted something after having everything. So great is the blindness of minds!"
From what has been said, gather this axiom: "Cupidity is the mother of quarrels and wars, and thence of poverty and want:" for this is the inseparable companion and follower of wars; "but the mortification and renunciation of cupidity is the mother of tranquility and peace," by which whoever trusts and rests in God and God's providence, obtains from Him all sufficiency of things, indeed abundance. This is what St. James zealously impresses upon the faithful, chapter IV, 1: "Whence come wars and contentions among you? Is it not from this, from your concupiscences which war in your members? You covet, and have not; you kill, and envy, and cannot obtain; you quarrel and make war."
And St. Chrysostom, in his homily On St. Philogonius, describing the happiness of the blessed: "Where, he says, there is no mine and yours — that cold word (as being repugnant to the warmth of fraternal love), which brings all manner of evils into our life and begets innumerable wars." Indeed Seneca too, in Epistle 120 already cited: "It matters not, my Lucilius, he says, whether you do not desire or whether you have; the sum of the matter is the same in both cases: you will not be tormented." Whence that Italian proverb: To desire causes suffering; not to desire causes no suffering.
26. HE WHO TRUSTS IN HIS OWN HEART IS A FOOL: BUT HE WHO WALKS WISELY SHALL BE SAVED.
The question is: who is he who trusts in his own heart? First, Lyranus and Hugo think it is he who trusts in his own wisdom, as if to say: He who, swelling with arrogance, places excessive trust in his own wisdom, is a fool, according to that verse chapter XXVI, 12: "Have you seen a man who seems wise to himself? The fool will have more hope than he;" but he who follows wisdom itself within himself will be saved. He implies that wisdom consists not in pride, nor in excessive trust in one's own wisdom, but in the rules of wisdom handed down by Sacred Scripture and the Fathers.
Second, Cajetan by "heart" understands the desires of the heart, as if to say: He who confidently follows his desires, he is a fool; but he who follows the dictates of wisdom, that is, of the divine law, shall be saved and will be blessed in heaven.
Third, better, Jansenius by "heart" understands the judgment and counsel of the heart, as if to say: He who trusts in the counsels and thoughts of his own heart, so as to follow them in all his actions, seeking no one's opinion but relying on his own judgment — such a person is a fool, and through his folly will fall into many dangers and evils; but he who walks wisely, so as to have not his own heart but wisdom as the guide of his actions, such a person will be saved, so that he either does not fall into evils, or if he does fall, is freed from them through his wisdom and the grace of God.
Fourth and genuinely, this notes the reckless and presumptuous, as if to say: He who places excessive trust in the imaginations of his heart, that is, in the counsels and powers which he imagines and invents for himself, and therefore boldly and recklessly throws himself into temptations and dangers — he is foolish and mad, because he will succumb and fall in them; but he who walks wisely, that is, prudently and cautiously so as to avoid dangers, will escape perils and falls, and shall be saved. It is a metalepsis: for by "trusting in the heart" he means to confidently assault dangers and to rush into them recklessly. Thus "to trust" is used for "to dare" and boldly to undertake difficult things, as at chapter XXVIII, 1, when it says: "The just man is confident as a lion;" and chapter XIV, 16: "The fool leaps ahead and trusts;" and II Maccabees XV, 7: "But Maccabeus was always confident." Indeed Cicero too,
Tusculan Disputations III: "He who is brave is also confident." Terence in the Phormio: "A confident man — may all the gods destroy him." Where Donatus comments: Confident (confidens), he says, means shameless, bold, reckless. Plautus in the Amphitryon: "What other man is bolder than I, or more confident?" Virgil, Georgics IV: For who, most confident (that is, most audacious) of young men, commanded You to approach our dwellings?
That this is the meaning is clear from the Septuagint, from which the Author of the Greek Catena thus clearly translates: He who places his hope in the boldness of his heart is a fool; but he who walks prudently and cautiously will attain salvation, and he explains thus, as if to say: "He is rightly called a fool who trusts his bold heart, because he attributes more to recklessness than to judgment, more again to injustice than to equity."
Following Solomon in his customary way, Sirach says at chapter III, 27: "He who loves danger shall perish in it." See what was said there.
Hear also Seneca the Tragedian in the Mad Hercules: No one can safely for long Expose himself to such frequent dangers: He whom chance often passes by, it at some point finds.
Hence we see the most expert swimmers die by some accident while swimming, and the best soldiers while fighting.
27. HE WHO GIVES TO THE POOR SHALL NOT WANT: HE WHO DESPISES ONE WHO BEGS SHALL SUFFER PENURY.
This maxim is clear. The reason a priori is that, as I said at chapter XIX, verse 17: "He who has mercy on the poor lends to the Lord." See what was said there, and St. Chrysostom, in his homily That Almsgiving Is the Most Profitable of All Arts. Almsgiving therefore does not impoverish, but supremely enriches. Hear St. Cyprian elegantly treating this maxim, in his homily On Good Works and Almsgiving: "If you fear and are afraid that if you begin to do good works abundantly, you will be reduced to want when your patrimony is exhausted by generous giving, be fearless in this matter, be confident; that which is spent for the uses of Christ, that by which a heavenly work is celebrated, cannot be exhausted. This I do not promise you on my own authority, but I assure you on the faith of the Sacred Scriptures and the authority of the divine promise. For the Holy Spirit speaks through Solomon and says: He who gives to the poor shall never want; but he who turns away his eye shall be in great penury, showing that the merciful and those who do good works cannot be in want, and that the stingy and barren will sooner come to destitution."
Indeed it is astonishing that wealthy believers, although they have faith, do not in reality and in deeds believe this oracle of Solomon and God's promise. God promises you, O merchant, an increase of wealth if you share it with the poor. Do you not believe God when He asserts and promises? Do you demand a guarantee? Behold, your guarantee is this asseveration of Solomon from the mouth of God; your bond is Sacred Scripture. Hear also St. Basil in his homily: "Imitate, O man, he says, at least the earth: as it brings forth fruits, so do you bring forth, lest you be seen to be inferior to that which is inanimate; for indeed the earth strives to serve not for its own use or advantage, but for yours; but you, who should show the fruit of beneficence, gather it for yourself alone: for the graces of benefactors return to the givers. You gave to the hungry, you took counsel for yourself; what you gave will return to you with interest: for just as grain falling into the earth produces gain for the one who cast it, so also bread extended to the hungry will render you much profit in the future."
Seek examples of this from Gregory of Tours, book V of the History of the Franks, chapter XIX; from the Life of St. John the Almsgiver; from St. Gregory, book II of the Dialogues, chapter XXIX; from Sophronius in the Spiritual Meadow, chapters CLXXXV, CXCV, and CCI.
Moreover the Hebrew words must be weighed, which read: And for him who hides his eyes from the poor, a multitude of curses, as if to say: Many — namely God, angels, demons, and men — curse the avaricious and unmerciful, both with words and with deeds, because they bring evil upon him, so that he falls into poverty, misfortunes, and many adversities; they deprive him of gifts and graces both spiritual and corporal, both present and eternal. But especially the poor, to whom he denies alms, curse and execrate him, as they cursed the miser Troilus, as Leontius testifies in the Life of St. John the Almsgiver. Finally, on the day of judgment, Christ, with seven curses set against as many works of mercy which the unmerciful neglected, will curse them, saying: "Depart from Me, you cursed, into eternal fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you did not give Me to eat; I was thirsty, and you did not give Me drink," etc. Matthew XXV, 41.
St. Chrysostom describes the manifold poverty of the avaricious in justice and virtues, in homily 15 on the Epistle to the Hebrews and elsewhere: "They are, he says, strangers in heart, weak in spirit, blind in mind, deaf through disobedience, and sick with all other spiritual passions, whose souls abominate all spiritual food, and they have approached even to the gates of death."
Hence we see the avaricious and unmerciful fall into many hardships, lawsuits, misfortunes, and losses, and not infrequently struggle bitterly with poverty; while the generous and merciful abound in all good things.
Mystically, R. Solomon applies this to spiritual almsgiving, as if to say: A teacher who shares his learning with others will not be in want, but will always abound in conceptions of wisdom, so as to impart them to others; but he who avariciously keeps it for himself will feel its scarcity and lack. The same may be said of a preacher, counselor, confessor, etc.
The reason is twofold: the first, that learning is increased by practice, namely by teaching; hence that saying: "He who teaches others, teaches himself;" the second, that God continually instills new lights into the diligent teacher as a reward for his labor and teaching, so that he may share them with others.
28. WHEN THE WICKED RISE, MEN HIDE THEMSELVES: WHEN THEY PERISH, THE JUST SHALL BE MULTIPLIED.
An example of flight was St. Athanasius, whose life for 46 years in the Episcopate of Alexandria was nothing but continual flight and hiding. See the same in his Apology for His Flight, and St. Augustine, tract. 46 on John, and epistle 180, where he teaches at length when flight is a matter of counsel, when of precept; for whom it is lawful, for whom unlawful. Hence the book of Tertullian On Flight must be condemned, in which he endeavors to prove that it is unlawful to flee persecution — which he wrote after his lapse into the heresy of the Montanists.
But abscondentur (they shall hide) is the future tense, not the imperative, and therefore signifies the event of the thing, not a precept, as if to say: When the wicked rise and are elevated to kingship or governance, as if by an antipathy (by which heat flees cold, and cold flees heat, and every contrary flees what is opposed to it), men flee and hide themselves, to escape the tyranny of the wicked, their excessive taxes, harassments, etc. Especially the just: both because, says Jansenius, they are thrown into prison by the reigning wicked; and because they voluntarily go into exile and leave their native land, to escape the fury and persecution of the wicked; and because even those remaining in their homeland keep themselves in silence. Hence the Arabic translates: in the places of the wicked the condition of the just is restricted. Conversely, when the wicked have perished and the pious have risen in their place, the just are multiplied, both because those who were previously just and were hiding now do not fear to show themselves openly and everywhere; and because by their example and teaching many are stirred to embrace justice. This maxim teaches how much it matters who holds authority.
Thus when Ahab reigned with his Jezebel, the prophets of the Lord hid in caves; but when they perished, in the time of Jehu the just were multiplied; and in this time of grace, when the persecution of tyrants raged against Christians, Christians sought hiding places, and when the tyrants were removed they were multiplied. But our own age also shows how the pious must be silent, hide, and flee where heretics reign.
The reason is that the wicked, while they rule, strive to propagate their wickedness and to make everyone like themselves, that is, wicked — both through the example of their life, through impious laws, through destruction and punishments, through the honors and rewards they set before their followers, and through the impious officials they appoint for themselves: whence it happens that many who are faint-hearted and timid yield, and conform themselves to their impiety; while those who are solidly pious flee and hide themselves. Conversely, while the pious rule, they endeavor to spread their piety and make all men upright and pious: therefore almost all, in order to please them, devote themselves to piety, or pretend to do so; while the wicked depart and seek hiding places. So great is the importance of a prince being good or bad, that if he is good, almost all his subjects will be good; if bad, they will be bad, according to that saying: The whole world shapes itself after the example of the king.
For the king gives great authority to either virtue or vice. And there is that saying: "The prince is the living law." Law can do much, as it restrains citizens and keeps them in their duty; but it is lifeless: if it is given life through the life of the prince, it will be most effective in breathing the same spirit into all, and making all like the prince — upright and holy, not only those present but also posterity. For the posthumous fame of a pious prince endures, and transmits to many years the memory, praise, and stimulus to imitation of himself.
Wisely Agapetus the Deacon in his Admonition to the Emperor Justinian, number 49: "What you prescribe to your subjects by word as by law, these things you have yourself first performed in reality, so that your whole life may attest to the words by which you persuade; for thus you will commend your authority, if you reason not without action, and act not without reason." And number 53: "As much as you excel others in power, so much strive to shine before others in deeds; for be most firmly persuaded that a standard of honorable conduct is demanded of you proportionate to the greatness of your power." And number 61: "Just as you have been set over all men by God, so hasten all the more to honor Him before all."
Finally, this maxim is similar and nearly the same as that of verse 12: "In the exultation of the just there is great glory; when the wicked reign, men are ruined." See what was said there.
Moreover the Septuagint translates: in the places of the wicked the just groan; but in the destruction of those the just shall abound. They groan, both because they grieve that the wicked and wickedness hold dominion, and sigh to God with continual groans that He may remove it; and because they are harassed by the wicked, mocked, subjected to disgrace, despoiled, imprisoned, and not infrequently deprived of life.