Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
From the brevity of life he shows that one must devote oneself not to vanity but to truth and wisdom, of which he gives various precepts, so that we may know what things are to be chosen in life, such as hearing sound advice, restraining anger, using one's goods moderately, not being wiser than is necessary, helping the just, and not lending an ear to frivolous and abusive words. Finally, in verse 27, he teaches that above all one must beware of women, as of a deadly poison.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiastes 7:1-30
1. What need is there for man to seek things greater than himself, when he does not know what is profitable for him in his life, in the number of the days of his pilgrimage, and in the time that passes like a shadow? Or who can tell him what will be after him under the sun? 2. A good name is better than precious ointments; and the day of death than the day of birth. 3. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting: for in the former, the end of all men is brought to mind, and the living thinks about what will be. 4. Anger is better than laughter: because by the sadness of countenance the mind of the offender is corrected. 5. The heart of the wise is where sadness is, and the heart of fools where joy is. 6. It is better to be corrected by a wise man than to be deceived by the flattery of fools: 7. because as the crackling of thorns burning under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool: but this too is vanity. 8. Calumny disturbs the wise man, and will destroy the strength of his heart. 9. Better is the end of a speech than its beginning. Better is the patient man than the arrogant. 10. Be not swift to anger: because anger rests in the bosom of a fool. 11. Do not say: What do you think is the reason that former times were better than the present? for such a question is foolish. 12. Wisdom with riches is more useful, and profits more those who see the sun. 13. For as wisdom protects, so does money protect; but learning and wisdom have this advantage, that they give life to their possessor. 14. Consider the works of God, that no one can correct him whom He has despised. 15. In a good day enjoy good things, and beware of an evil day; for as God made the one, so He made the other, that man may not find just complaints against Him. 16. These things also I saw in the days of my vanity: The just man perishes in his justice, and the wicked man lives a long time in his wickedness. 17. Be not overly just: nor be wiser than is necessary, lest you be stupefied. 18. Do not act wickedly much: and do not be foolish, lest you die before your time. 19. It is good for you to sustain the just man, but also do not withdraw your hand from him: because he who fears God neglects nothing. 20. Wisdom has strengthened the wise man more than ten princes of the city. 21. For there is no just man on earth who does good and does not sin. 22. But do not apply your heart to all the words that are spoken: lest perhaps you hear your servant cursing you; 23. for your conscience knows that you too have often cursed others. 24. I tested all things in wisdom. I said: I shall become wise: and it withdrew further from me, 25. much more than it was: and a deep profundity, who shall find it? 26. I examined all things in my mind, that I might know, and consider, and seek wisdom and reason: and that I might know the wickedness of the fool and the error of the imprudent: 27. and I found a woman more bitter than death, who is a snare of hunters, and her heart is a net, her hands are fetters; he who pleases God shall escape her: but he who is a sinner shall be caught by her. 28. Behold, this I found, said Ecclesiastes, one thing and another, that I might find the reason, 29. which my soul still seeks and has not found. One man out of a thousand I found, but a woman among all I did not find. 30. This alone I found, that God made man upright, and he himself has entangled himself in infinite questions. Who is such as the wise man? and who has known the solution of the word?
Verse 1: WHAT NEED IS THERE FOR MAN TO SEEK THINGS GREATER THAN HIMSELF, WHEN HE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IS PROFITABLE FOR HIM IN HIS LIFE, IN THE NUMBER OF THE DAYS OF HIS PILGRIMAGE, AND IN THE TIME THAT PASSE...
1. WHAT NEED IS THERE FOR MAN TO SEEK THINGS GREATER THAN HIMSELF, WHEN HE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IS PROFITABLE FOR HIM IN HIS LIFE, IN THE NUMBER OF THE DAYS OF HIS PILGRIMAGE, AND IN THE TIME THAT PASSES LIKE A SHADOW? OR WHO CAN TELL HIM WHAT WILL BE AFTER HIM UNDER THE SUN? — The Hebrew has: What is left over for Adam, that is, for man? The Author of the Greek Catena says: It is fitting, he says, that all things in this world be vain, and nothing other than a shadow, and that all things after death be obscured by blind oblivion and buried together.
For "things greater than himself" the Hebrew has iother, which is the same as iitron, about which I spoke at chapter I, verse 3, and it properly signifies what is left over, what remains and is superfluous, likewise something more, excellent, outstanding. Ecclesiastes frequently repeats this word, to show the vanity of individual things, from the fact that they are fleeting and evanescent, and there is nothing that leaves behind any iitron, that is, any remainder, but all things like vapor, shadow, and dream immediately pass away, are blown away, and vanish. Hence, first, some take "greater things" as meaning other people's affairs, meaning: Take care of your own, not others': for these, because they do not pertain to you, are beyond you, and greater than your station and care. Second, others say: Greater things are those that transcend your comprehension and powers, such as the curious, subtle, and lofty things that do not help us toward virtue and beatitude, according to Sirach III, 22: "Seek not the things that are too high for you, and search not into the things that are too strong for you: but think always on the things that God has commanded you." Whence the saying of Ptolemy in the Preface to the Almagest: "He who extends his knowledge beyond the shrewdness that is in him is like a weak shepherd with many sheep." Third and genuinely, take "greater things" as future things: for these are iother, that is, things remaining to man after death, likewise superfluous things, which the miser does not cease to amass, though they are many, ample, and magnificent; meaning: Do not, O miser, extend your cares to future ages, so as to establish your riches and family, and make it great and splendid for many centuries, and thus, as it were, make it eternal. For these things are greater than you. Let it suffice for you to procure during your life the necessities for food and clothing, and leave the care of the future to God and to posterity, and say: Let that care remain for our grandchildren. Why, wretch, do you heap up riches, estates, positions, dignities, benefices, and offices, as though you were going to live here forever, when soon you are to die and leave all these things to the earth? Why do you aim at great things here? What you see here is small. Why do you hope for long-lasting things? Whatever you see here is brief: think of eternal things. So says Thaumaturgus.
Wisely St. Ephrem, in his treatise On Penance, past the middle, says: "Vanity," he says, "is the heir of human affairs, because distraction and varied preoccupation belong to it. Avarice and pleasure, luxury and ambition, begot distraction as their daughter, and she shows herself benevolent to her mother beyond her strength. Conquer the craftiness of the serpent, and keep your benevolence for the Lord. Take the things that belong to vanity and give them to God, so that you may escape as the heir of your own in the future age. Lay up your possessions and money with God, and the vanity of inheritance will be driven away."
Following Thaumaturgus, Olympiodorus and others refer these words to astrologers and diviners, who from the stars and similar things attempt to conjecture the future, whom the avaricious and powerful, who seek great things, often consult, and by the just judgment of God are deceived by their flattery, while they receive lying and false oracles of riches and honors from them. "How many things," says Cicero, book II On Divination, "I recall were told by the Chaldeans to Pompey, how many to Crassus, how many to this very Caesar, that none of them would die except in old age, except at home, except with renown, so that it seems to me most remarkable that anyone still exists who believes those whose predictions he daily sees refuted by facts and events." For Pompey, defeated by Caesar, fleeing to Egypt, was miserably killed by a slave in front of his wife and children; Crassus was slain at Carrhae by the Parthians; Caesar was butchered in the Senate house by his own men. Truly Attius in the Astyanax: I believe nothing from augurs, who enrich the ears of others With words, so that they may fill their own houses with gold.
Therefore Solomon puts this maxim in order to reprove the curiosity, avarice, and inconstancy of the miser.
He assigns it, therefore, with a threefold end and threefold reason: the first is that the curiosity of the human mind and a certain itch for knowing may be restrained, whether about the future or about what does not pertain to us; the second, that the concupiscence of the eyes may be condemned, namely of the most splendid things that allure the eyes; the third, that the inconstancy of human desire may be noted, which is never content with the lot appointed by God. So says Pineda.
WHEN HE KNOWS NOT WHAT IS PROFITABLE FOR HIM IN HIS LIFE. — The Hebrew has, what is good in life; the Syriac, what is better: so also the Arabic. The Chaldean has, for who is it that knows what is good for a man in this world, unless he labors in the law which is of eternal life; for the law lives always, and leads its keeper to eternal life. He proves that greater things should not be sought by three arguments: the first is this, drawn from the lesser, as if to say: Why does a mortal greedily and arrogantly seek greater things, he who cannot grasp lesser ones? Why does he investigate the future, he who is ignorant of the present? Why does he track down curious things, he who does not know what is necessary for him to pass this life honorably? This is what the Wise Man says in chapter 9:16: 'We judge with difficulty the things that are on earth: and the things that are in sight we find with labor. But the things that are in heaven, who shall search them out?' Many deserve to be laughed at by some old woman, as was Thales, stumbling with their feet while they lift their eyes high and contemplate things above, but do not pay attention to what is before their feet. Scarcely anyone knows what is most useful for him in this life, whether a spouse, or whether money, possessions, and other things of this kind, says Olympiodorus. And yet these very things which seem good and pleasant to a man, are often harmful, sad, and fatal to him, and bring him a thousand cares, sorrows, and anxieties; so that a man truly does not know whether it is better to have a wife, wealth, and estates, or to lack them: much more, therefore, does he not know the greater and future things. Hence Socrates refused to discourse about heaven and the stars, saying: 'What is above us is nothing to us,' as Laertius attests in his Life.
DURING THE NUMBER OF THE DAYS OF HIS PILGRIMAGE. — 'Number,' that is, fewness; for these are of small number and easily counted. The Hebrew has, during the number of the days of his vanity, which quickly pass away and vanish with the man: of vanity, therefore, that is, of a vain life, which quickly passes like smoke and vanishes. Hence the Arabic translates, the number of the days of the life of his vanity has passed in deception; Campensis, during the number of days in which one lives here in vanity, as if to say: The number of the days of your life, O miser, is brief; why then do you make it shorter with your vain cares and anxieties? Hear Seneca, in his book On the Brevity of Life, XVII: 'Most wretched, therefore, must be the life, and not only very brief, of those who prepare with great labor what they possess with greater, who laboriously obtain what they want, and anxiously hold what they have obtained: meanwhile there is no reckoning of time that will never return. New occupations are substituted for the old, hope excites hope, ambition excites ambition; no end of miseries is sought, but only a change of material. Our own honors have tormented us, those of others take away more time.' And in chapter XV: 'The life of the wise man, therefore, extends widely: the same limit that encloses others does not enclose him; he alone is released from the laws of the human race; all ages serve him as they serve God. Has some time passed? He grasps it by recollection; does it stand present? He uses it; is it yet to come? He anticipates it. The combination of all times into one makes his life long: most brief and most anxious is the life of those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future. When they have come to the end, the wretches understand too late that they were busy all the while doing nothing.'
If you are wise, therefore, spend this brief life on your own, present, and salutary affairs, not on those of others, not on future things, not on vain, useless, or harmful things. This is the second reason by which he proves that greater and future things should not be investigated, as if to say: Man in this life is a pilgrim, and journeys continually, so as to reach the heavenly homeland; why then is he so anxious about the comforts of this life so brief and fleeting? For on a short journey, little provision is needed. A pilgrim abroad is a guest and stranger; why then does he linger at the inn, and establish his seat and homeland there? A pilgrim, whether he wills it or not, passes through, and does not stay more than one night at the inn; for at the break of dawn he presses on further: why then, as pilgrims on earth, do we fix all our cares and thoughts on this life, which is nothing but a lodging of, as it were, one night? A pilgrim, feeling the labor and weariness of the journey, yearns for his homeland; why do we, enduring so many labors and pains in the pilgrimage of this life, not yearn for heaven, where the fates show us quiet abodes? Live therefore for yourself, not for posterity; live for God, not for mammon; live for heaven, not for the world; live not for time, but for eternity. See St. Basil on Psalm 4, and homily 23 On Not Clinging to Worldly Things. Thus all the saints considered themselves pilgrims here, saying with David: 'I am a stranger and a pilgrim, as all my fathers were;' as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were pilgrims in Canaan, 'confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. For they who say such things signify that they seek a homeland,' says the Apostle, Hebrews 11:9 and 13. See what I said there. Hence St. Augustine wisely infers, in book I of On Christian Doctrine, chapter 4: 'How then, if we were pilgrims, who could not live happily except in our homeland, and in that pilgrimage were assuredly miserable and desiring to end our misery, we would want to return to our homeland, and would need either land or sea vehicles to use in order to reach the homeland which was to be enjoyed; but if the pleasures of the journey and the very ride in the vehicles were to delight us, and we were turned to enjoying what we ought to have used, we would not want to finish the journey quickly, and entangled in a perverse sweetness would be alienated from the homeland whose sweetness would make us blessed: so in this life of mortality we are pilgrims from the Lord. If we wish to return to the homeland where we can be blessed, we must use this world, not enjoy it, so that the invisible things of God, understood through the things that are made, may be clearly seen, that is, so that from corporeal and temporal things we may grasp eternal and spiritual things.' See Climacus, step 3, and St. Cyprian, in the book On Mortality.
AND IN THE TIME WHICH PASSES LIKE A SHADOW. — The Hebrew has, and He will make them (your days, God) like a shadow; the Septuagint, He made them in shadow; the Syriac, he (man) passed through them as a shadow; the Chaldean, all the number of the days of the vanity of his life, in which he lived in the time of his death, are reckoned as a shadow; the Tigurine, which he spends (others, passes through) as a shadow; Campensis, for God made the days of man like a shadow.
This is the third reason proving that greater things should not be sought, because we live here for a short time, so that content with little we may devote ourselves to virtue and the accumulation of merits, by which we may attain blessed eternity. Rightly is time compared to a shadow: first, because just as a shadow accompanies the movement of the sun, so does time; for the daily motion of the sun makes the day, the monthly motion the month, the annual the year. Hence also in sundials the number of hours is indicated by the shadow of the style or indicator. A shadow, therefore, is air deprived of sun, which happens by the interposition of some body, especially clouds. Second, because just as a shadow decreases as the sun ascends, so that at noon it is tiny and almost nothing: so, as time increases, the years of life decrease and diminish, so that when it has come to its summit, as it were to the zenith, they end and cease. Third, just as a shadow seems to have great mass — for example, the shadow of a man in the morning is far larger than the man and represents a giant — yet in reality it has the least, indeed nothing, of substance, since a shadow is nothing but the privation of light: so likewise time has little existence; for it does not exist by itself, but only through a single point, or the present instant, namely through a single 'now' which connects future time with past. Hence Gabriel Vasquez judged that time is not a real being, but a being of reason, because time does not exist in itself, but in the mind of the man counting it, because it consists in the number and computation of parts, for example, of hours succeeding one another and continuously passing: whence properly the parts of time are the past and the future, which in reality do not exist. Fourth, because just as a shadow passes most swiftly, so does time: for this follows the sun as much as the shadow does; but the sun is most swift, so that in any hour it traverses a million miles and more: therefore time passes with equal speed; whence the saying: 'Irrecoverable time flies.' Fifth, just as a shadow is dark, so our life is enveloped in darkness, miseries, and errors. Sixth, the time of our life is like a shadow of the eternity of God, because from it, as a shadow from the sun, it flows, according to Psalm 89:8: 'You have set our age in the light of Your countenance.' Hence conversely death is called 'the shadow of life,' because death follows life like a shadow, just as life itself follows the sun of eternity like a shadow. And of the divine life, and because death is dark, sad, fatal, horrible like a shadow. Seventh, just as a shadow never stands still but is constantly changing according to the ascent or descent of the sun, growing or diminishing: so man never remains in the same state, but through each day, indeed each moment, is changed and varied. Eighth, just as the sun ascending to the summit of the sky gradually diminishes its shadow, and finally at noon destroys and disperses it: so also man diminishes the days of his life by living, and when he has come to the highest day, utterly finishes and consumes them. Hence St. Jerome reads, He will make them like a shadow; others, He perfected or consumed them like a shadow. Ninth, a shadow is the lightest thing, which vanishing leaves no trace of itself on earth: so also man when dying. Hence the bride in the Song of Songs 2:17, sighing, said: 'Until the day breaks and the shadows decline,' that is, 'until the day of eternity dawns, and the shadows of time and mortality decline,' says St. Gregory.
OR WHO CAN SHOW HIM WHAT SHALL BE AFTER HIM UNDER THE SUN? — namely what kind of children, grandchildren, and heirs the miser and rich man will have; what will become of his wealth and estates, when he does not know what will happen to himself the following year, or even the following day: for perhaps he will be stripped of all his goods and of life itself. So says Olympiodorus.
This is the fourth reason why a man should not seek greater and future things, because with all his care and effort he cannot know and foresee the future, and provide and plan for it. For these things are uncertain and depend on future contingencies, and are therefore subject to a thousand changes, as we experience daily, which accordingly to foreknow, predetermine, arrange, and govern belongs to God alone. For this is the proper and adequate work of divine Providence.
Hence it is clear that Solomon by 'greater' meant future things, and is here treating of the investigation and provision for the future, as I said at the beginning.
Verse 2: A GOOD NAME IS BETTER THAN PRECIOUS OINTMENTS; AND (that is, likewise, the day of death is better than) THE DAY OF DEATH THAN THE DAY OF BIRTH. — There is an elegant paronomasia, tob seem misseemen...
2. A GOOD NAME IS BETTER THAN PRECIOUS OINTMENTS; AND (that is, likewise, the day of death is better than) THE DAY OF DEATH THAN THE DAY OF BIRTH. — There is an elegant paronomasia, tob seem misseemen, as if to say: Better is a name than ointment; for seemen signifies both oil and ointment, says St. Jerome. Hence Symmachus translates, a good name is better than sweet-smelling ointment; but the Septuagint, the Arabic, and the Syriac, a good name (the Arabic adds, one) is above good oil.
Hence the Hebrews begin the third part of the book, and therefore they mark the Tob with a large teth; for here follow many comparisons, in which better things are compared with lesser goods, all of which begin with tob, that is, good, or better.
This maxim is rightly linked to the preceding one, as a conclusion drawn from it, as if you should say, says St. Jerome: 'Consider, O man, your days are brief, and because you will soon cease to be when freed from the flesh; make for yourself a longer-lasting reputation, so that just as ointment delights the nostrils with its fragrance, so all posterity may be delighted by your name.'
It therefore signifies two things: first, as if to say: In this life do not devote yourself to riches or any other vanity, but to a name, to reputation and glory: for this is more excellent and more fragrant than riches, indeed than ointments and precious things. Second, as if to say: Devote yourself to virtue: for this begets a name and reputation, and this is more fragrant than any balsam; for a name and reputation produced by riches, nobility, learning, or any other vain thing, is thin, false, and fleeting; whence it quickly fades and vanishes. 'Glory acquired by pretenses, just as it is not true glory, so neither is it lasting,' says Plutarch in the Life of Cato. And Cicero, in the second book of On Duties: 'The foundation, he says, of perpetual commendation and reputation is justice, without which nothing can be praiseworthy.' And Seneca, epistle 79: 'Glory is the shadow of virtue; it will accompany even the unwilling.' Hence Lyranus explains, as if to say: An honorable good, such as a good name, is to be preferred to a pleasurable good, such as ointment. For by ointment he signifies every kind of pleasure, says Olympiodorus.
Therefore virtue, and from it a name and glory, are aptly compared to precious ointments, which, as Pliny attests in book 12, chapter 25, and book 16, chapter 32, the Orientals, especially the Jews, used at banquets, both for refreshment, and for fragrance, and for the warming, soothing, health, and strength of the limbs. First, because just as ointment warms, refreshes, and strengthens the body, so does reputation the soul. Hence the Thaumaturgus translates, a good reputation is sweeter to the soul than oil to the body. For reputation delights the soul and draws out its powers to dare greater things, especially to attract as many as possible to himself and his virtue, and indeed to the worship and love of Christ. Dovekeepers, says St. Basil, are accustomed to send out a decoy dove, that is, a lure, anointed with fragrant scent to the wild ones, who, captivated by its scent, follow it as it flies back to the dovecote, and there are captured. So likewise let the holy and religious soul breathe that fragrance of virtues, so that through it she may draw all to herself, and indeed to Christ and to religion. But hear St. Basil, epistle 175 to Julitta: 'There is a certain art of catching doves, namely as follows: when they have caught one, those who are devoted to catching them tame it and accustom it to human society, then anoint its wings with ointment, and allow it to join the wild ones; and it, through the fragrance of the ointment, transfers that wild flock feeding freely to the possession of the one whose domestic it is. For the others will follow the sweet-smelling one, and so they come into the power of the dovecote. The reason I wished this to be the opening of this letter is that, having once found Dionysius your son as my Diomedes, I anointed the wings of his soul with divine ointment, and sent him to the gravity of your honor, so that you might join yourself to him, and receive at your nest the one whom he himself built among us.'
Second, because just as ointment spreads its fragrance far and wide, so does reputation. The common saying is: 'Three things make themselves felt: A woman, wind, and ointment,' according to Proverbs 27:16: 'He who restrains her (a quarrelsome woman), is like one who would hold the wind, and will call the oil of his right hand.' St. Bernard elegantly says in sermon 71 on the Song of Songs: 'Morals have their colors, and they have their fragrances: fragrance in reputation, color in conscience.' Hence Paul said: 'We are the good odor of Christ;' to some unto life, to others unto death, 2 Corinthians 2:15; and in the same chapter, verse 14, he calls 'the odor of the knowledge of Christ' the fame of Christ and of His religion and faith, which he himself spread everywhere by his holiness and zeal. Hence it is said of Him in Song of Songs 1:2: 'Your name is oil poured out;' oil, that is, ointment, as Vatablus and others translate: for ointment is fragrant, not oil. Hence it follows: 'Therefore the maidens have loved you. Draw me after you, we will run in the fragrance of your ointments.' Hear St. Augustine, book 3 of On Christian Doctrine, chapter 12: 'A good odor is a good reputation; whoever abounds in works of a good life, while following the footsteps of Christ, as it were pours the most precious fragrance upon His feet.' Again St. Basil, in his oration on St. Gordius: 'Just as, he says, the sweet fragrances of spices breathe something distinctive through the air that contains them, by which those present are refreshed: so a good man is beneficial and pleasant to the whole company of those dwelling with him.'
On the contrary: 'The memory of the just is with praises, but the name of the wicked shall rot,' Proverbs 10:7. Moreover, reputation is more fragrant than ointments, because the latter are perceived at a small distance and for a short time; but reputation is spread among various nations, and lasts after death through many centuries, indeed it becomes more illustrious after death, whereas in life it is often covered and obscured by the envy of rivals.
Third, because just as ointments are precious, to such an extent that formerly they were held as chief treasures in the storehouses of kings, as is clear from Hezekiah, 4 Kings 20:13: so also reputation is more precious than riches and any price. Hence Cato says: If you lose everything, remember to preserve your reputation.
Hence St. Augustine, in sermon 49 On Various Topics, admonished, which he himself also diligently observed, saying: 'For our own sake our conscience suffices us; for your sake our reputation ought not to be stained, but to flourish among you.' And St. Bernard: 'To our neighbors, he says, we owe our reputation; to ourselves, our conscience.' Hence Theodoric, king of the Goths, according to Cassiodorus, book 3, Various Letters, epistle 11, says of the parent of the urban prefect Argolicus: 'Seeking the advantages of reputation, he neglected the increase of money.'
Fourth, the most precious ointments were those with which kings, priests, and pontiffs were anointed: hence it signifies that a good name surpasses royal, priestly, and pontifical dignity, because the latter can exist without virtue and holiness, without which there cannot be a good name. Hence the Chaldean translates, better is a good name, which the just acquire in this world, than the oil of anointing with which the heads of kings and priests were anointed. Hence king Josiah is commended by Sirach not for his kingdom, but for his virtue and his fame and glory, in chapter 49:1: 'The memory of Josiah, he says, is like the composition of a sweet smell, made by the work of a perfumer;' where I showed that the memory and fame of Josiah are compared to fragrant incense, which was burned before God. A holy man, therefore, is mystically a king and pontiff, indeed greater, and more pleasing to God, than a king or pontiff. Wherefore R. Simeon in Pirke Avoth, chapter 4: 'Three, he says, are the crowns: the first, of the law; the second, of the priesthood; the third, of the empire: but above all these the crown of a good name and reputation shines forth and excels.'
AND THE DAY OF DEATH THAN THE DAY OF BIRTH. — The Syriac, the day of generation; the Thaumaturgus, the end of life is better than its beginning. The conjunction 'and' is equivalent to 'so': for it links similar things, as it is commonly taken in the Proverbs. Hence Vatablus expresses this maxim in a single sentence: More excellent is a name than sweet-smelling ointment: so the day of death than the day on which he was born. And Campensis, a good reputation after death is more pleasing than the day on which one is born. Therefore a good name is compared to death, precious ointments to birth, and the former is preferred to the latter, because a good name, especially after death, shines forth; through death it is strengthened and confirmed, whereas in life it is doubtful and uncertain: for many lost in the end the reputation they had acquired at the beginning of life. Hence Sirach 11:30 warns that no one should be praised before death: 'Before death, he says, praise no man.' Ointments are compared to birth, because ointments are symbols of the delights with which boys and girls are nourished, especially those of kings and princes. Hence the Hebrews and other nations anointed these same children with precious ointments, as is sufficiently gathered from Ezekiel 16:9: 'I washed you with water, etc., and I anointed you with oil.' So also the ancient Romans bathed newborn children in tortoiseshell basins with warm water, and then anointed them with oil and butter, says Alexander ab Alexandro, book 2, Genial Days, chapter 15; so also Christian infants are anointed with oil in Baptism and with chrism in Confirmation. Indeed St. Bernard in his Sentences asserts that the three magi offered to the infant Christ gold, frankincense, and myrrh: gold to relieve His poverty, frankincense to drive away the stench of the stable, myrrh to strengthen the infant's limbs; although St. Jerome, Leo, Augustine, Rabanus, St. Thomas, and others commonly assign mystical and more sublime reasons for these three gifts. Again, at the birth of children, banquets and celebrations were held, at which the guests were customarily anointed with precious ointments.
The sense, therefore, is as if he should say: Just as a good name surpasses precious ointments, even those made of balsam, so the day of death, which brings a good name to the just, surpasses the day of birth, on which they were anointed with ointments. St. Jerome gives three reasons: 'He shows, he says, that it is better to leave the world, and to be free from tribulations and the uncertain condition of life, than to enter the world and endure all these things; or certainly that at death it is known what kind of persons we are, whereas at the beginning of birth what we shall become is unknown; or that birth binds the freedom of the soul to the body, while death releases it.'
Hence also the Chaldean, having compared the good name of the just to the ointment of kings and priests, adds: 'And the day on which a man dies, and goes to the house of burial with a good name,' as if to say: A just and holy man, fragrant with various merits of virtues, is no less fragrant before God, the angels, and the saints, than a king or pontiff anointed with sacred chrism, and this especially when he has happily completed the struggle of death, and now as a secure victor and conqueror proceeds to the crowns and joys of heaven: for then with the fragrance, fame, and praise of his virtues he fills the Church militant and triumphant, and all of heaven and earth, according to the saying: 'The just man shall be in everlasting remembrance.'
Properly, therefore, the day of death is here preferred to the day of birth on account of the name and eternal glory which it wins for the just man in heaven as well as on earth: for this is what is signified by 'a good name is better than precious ointments; and (that is, so also the day of death) is better than the day of birth.' Hence the glory of the saints begins at death, just as weeping and groaning begin at birth. How great was the glory obtained after death by St. Paul, St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Gregory, St. Bernard, St. Dominic, St. Francis, and the other saints, who shine with miracles, and are publicly venerated, honored, and celebrated with temples, altars, offices, hymns, canticles, organs, vows, statues, sermons, and the invocation and worship of the entire people? Indeed the ancient Romans, to signify that the deceased left behind him the sweet memory of his virtues and a posthumous reputation, poured into his funeral pyre honey and precious ointments made from cinnamon, cedar, and other spices, as I said on Sirach 30:2. Again, at funerals they scattered flowers and crowns, as Christians still do today. They added funeral games, gladiatorial combats, comedies, etc. There were also eulogies, encomiums, and orations in praise of the deceased. Finally, to kings, princes, and others who had served the state well, they decreed the highest honors; indeed they enrolled them among the gods through apotheosis (whose rite Herodian describes in book 4), and dedicated and consecrated to them altars, temples, sacrifices, and priests; hence they were called the divine Augustus, the divine Antoninus, the divine Hadrian, etc. In place of this, the Christian Pontiffs substituted the canonization of saints, by which the public honor of invocation is conferred by the Church on the deceased as saints.
Moreover, Olympiodorus considers that the day of death is better than the day of birth not only for the saints, but also for the wicked. For he explains this maxim thus: 'The birthday leads us into the turbulent sea of this life, where the dragon has set his lair; but the day of departure leads us out of the arena. And if indeed the one who departs was a sinner, he at least ceases to sin any further; but if he was just, he will enjoy eternal life.'
Thus the Thracians, as Herodotus attests, accompanied the birthdays of their people with weeping, but the day of death with laughter. Hear Alexander ab Alexandro, book 2, Genial Days, chapter 25: 'Indeed among the Thracians and Trausi, and the Cesias and Causiani, it was customary that when a child was brought into the light, the assembled relatives and kindred would lament the child and lie prostrate in grief. They would bewail the recent calamities and hardships of life, and all the evils which remained for the one who had just arrived and would soon suffer. The same people at funerals would exult and rejoice, seeing that for the deceased, freed from all the hardships and misfortunes that life brings, it had been granted to depart from this light and from impending evils, and from all the cruelty of fortune. We remember that this was also observed among the Indians. For the Gymnosophists and Brahmans considered the birthday of the life of those living chastely and piously to be a death.'
Verse 3: IT IS BETTER TO GO TO THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (the Syriac, of weeping) THAN TO THE HOUSE OF FEASTING: FOR IN THE FORMER (everyone) IS REMINDED OF THE END OF ALL MEN, AND THE LIVING CONSIDERS WHAT SHA...
3. IT IS BETTER TO GO TO THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (the Syriac, of weeping) THAN TO THE HOUSE OF FEASTING: FOR IN THE FORMER (everyone) IS REMINDED OF THE END OF ALL MEN, AND THE LIVING CONSIDERS WHAT SHALL BE. — The Hebrew, in which is (the Tigurine, is perceived) the end of every man, and the living will take it to heart; Symmachus, he will attend with his mind; Vatablus, and the living will ponder death when he comes there; the Septuagint, because this is the end of every man, and he who lives will give good to his heart. Good, namely a thought and resolution about doing penance and changing one's life for the better, as the Chaldean explains; the Syriac, and he who is alive gives good (the Arabic, goodness) to his heart; Olympiodorus, it is more useful to go to the house of funeral mourning than to the house of feasting, because this is the future end of all men, and the living man brings good into his mind; Campensis, for in the former is seen what end every man shall have; the Thaumaturgus, and it is more profitable to mourn than to feast; and to be present with those who grieve than with those who drown themselves in wine. For he who rightly considers his own end will not embrace the things of this life with such great zeal.
Moreover the Chaldean paraphrases it at length thus: 'It is better to go to a man afflicted with trouble, to console him, than to hasten to the house of feasting and drinking, in which there are whisperers; for the house of mourning is set before all as a target and end, that they may go there: and the decree of death is established for all. Therefore the just man, betaking himself to the house of sorrow, will be led to repentance, and will take to heart the words of death: and if he is engaged in any error, abandoning it, he will make his conversion to God.' For 'feasting,' the Arabic translates, drinking together; and this is what the Hebrew miste and the Greek symposiou properly signify. Hence Cicero, in On Old Age: 'Well, he says, did our ancestors name the occupation of banquets, because it involved the joining together of friends and of life, a convivium, better than the Greeks (he could have added, and better than the Hebrews) who call this same thing now a drinking party, now a dining together, so that what is least important in that category seems to be what they most approve.'
This maxim is parallel to and subordinate to the preceding one: 'Better is the day of death than the day of birth.' For to this you may rightly append: 'Therefore it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting.' Now the Chaldean considers that here one is urged to go to the house of mourning, to console the grieving; others, to celebrate the funeral rites and burial of the deceased. For this is the last work of piety to be rendered to a friend, according to Tobit 4:18: 'Set your bread and your wine upon the burial of the just.'
Again others, connecting this maxim to the preceding one, explain it as follows: The day of funeral and mourning is better than the day of feasting: because in the former the virtues of the deceased are praised, and his name and reputation are celebrated and propagated, which is more important and more excellent than all the pleasure derived from the delights of a banquet.
But the reason which Ecclesiastes adds leads us elsewhere, which St. Jerome renders thus in his Commentary: 'Because there, by the recollection of our condition and of human frailty, we are admonished by the corpse before us;' for each person considers that the deceased tacitly says to him: 'Remember my judgment: for so also shall yours be: yesterday for me, and today for you,' Sirach 38:23.
The sense, therefore, is as follows: Because the day of death is better than the day of birth, hence consequently it is better to go to the house of funeral mourning than to the house of a birthday feast, which is celebrated on account of the birth of an infant and son: because in the former, from the spectacle of the funeral and the deceased, a man is reminded of his own death, so that he may think that he will shortly die in a similar manner and become a corpse, and therefore may prepare and dispose himself for it by living honorably and applying himself to good works; in the latter, however, the mind is dissolved by delicacies, wines, joys, and vain conversation, and is driven to drunkenness and all manner of frivolity, dissoluteness, and intemperance. Moreover, it was common among the Hebrews, Romans, Greeks, and other nations to celebrate festive banquets at birthdays out of joy for a son born, as is clear from the banquet of Abraham at the weaning of Isaac, and from Plutarch, Cicero, Athenaeus, book 4, and others.
The truth of this saying was experienced by our Blessed Francis Borgia, the third General of the Society of Jesus, who when he was Duke of Gandia, by order of Charles V, escorting the body of the deceased Empress Isabella to the place of burial, when the sarcophagus was opened, beholding the hideousness and horror of the body that had been most beautiful while she lived, was pierced with compunction and resolved to bid farewell to his duchy and the world, and to embrace the religious life.
So St. Bruno, at the funeral of a Doctor of Paris, hearing him rise from the bier and proclaim: 'By the just judgment of God I have been accused, judged, and condemned,' withdrew into the wilderness and founded the Carthusian order. So King Josaphat, having seen the aged and sick who would shortly die, learning from them that he too must die, was led by Barlaam to the true faith and the eremitical life, as Damascenus narrates in the History, chapter 5. The author of the sermon to the Brothers in the desert, in St. Augustine, sermon 48, asserts that upon seeing Caesar's putrid and worm-eaten corpse, he was marvelously moved and pierced with compunction.
St. John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria, had a tomb built for himself, but left it unfinished, and appointed a monitor who would whisper daily in his ear: 'Your tomb is still unfinished today, lord; command therefore that it be completed; for it is uncertain at what hour the thief, namely death, will enter.' So says Leontius in his Life. Charles the Fifth, five years before his death, ordered a sarcophagus to be made for himself, and to be carried along with his funeral furnishings wherever he went, so that beholding it daily he might keep the memory of death ever before him, which would restrain him from sins and spur him to holy works, as Lipsius reports, book 2, Admonitions, chapter 14, where he narrates something similar about Maximilian I, grandfather of Charles the Fifth. See Climacus, step 6, who among other things says: 'He indeed is proven who expects death every day; but he truly is holy who desires it every hour.'
Hence the Egyptians at their banquets, to temper their luxury, mental dissoluteness, and merriment, would carry around the skull of a dead person, whispering to the guests: 'Look upon this figure; for you will be like it,' as Herodotus attests, book 2. Moreover, it is a remarkable blindness of men, that when they go to houses of mourning, and see others dying daily, and know that they will likewise die, they nevertheless do not think about their own death, nor prepare for it, as if it were far away, when often it is near. St. Ephrem gives the reason in his sermon On the Remembrance of Death: 'The negligent, he says, and the contemptuous, blinded as they are by the deceit of sin, as their days proceed, think the hour of death is far off, taking no trouble about their departure from this world; but they prescribe for themselves many years and long periods of time. They are like those who undertake a journey in the dead of night, who indeed think they are far from the overhanging precipice and steep place, until, having been thrown over, experience resolves their doubt. Whoever, therefore, has perceived the deception of this life with a clear eye of the mind, and has risen above those who place their zeal and effort in the affairs of this life, will understand completely that whether he eats, or drinks, or sleeps, or labors, or contemplates, every day and hour he is driven by nature toward old age and the end of temporal life; whence he despises all things as dung and rubbish, and strives to detach himself from attachment to this life, so as to have no association with human affairs.'
This is the paralogism of the devil, which deceives very many, namely that every year he persuades a man that he will not die this year: for he says to him: You can easily live another year; for this you have sufficiently strong forces; therefore you will not die this year. He says and persuades the same to the man the following year, and the third, and the fourth, and each succeeding year, with the result that a man never prepares himself for death, thinking he will not die that year: and so it happens that the year decreed for death by God arrives, and death invades the man unprepared and unthinking. St. Ephrem assigns a remedy for this in his treatise On the Spiritual Life, number 40, where he urges upon all a vivid and present remembrance of death: 'Blessed, he says, are those who mourn, for they shall be consoled. Let us bow down at the sepulchers and look into the hidden things of our condition. Among the corpses we shall see mingled heaps of bones, and skulls stripped of flesh with the remaining bones. And considering these things, we shall contemplate ourselves in them as in a kind of mirror. Where is the flower of youth and its beauty? Where is that lovely color of the cheeks? Thinking on these things let us flee the desires of the flesh, lest we be confounded on the day of the resurrection and judgment.' And in number 15: 'Every day expect the day of your death, and prepare yourself for entering upon that journey: for at the hour you least expect, the terrible command will come, and woe then to the unprepared! Compunction of heart is good, because it heals the souls of men. He who pursues mourning will not easily sin, and he who is touched by compunction of heart does not think evil things: for from compunction arises weeping; and in weeping we turn away from sins.'
From this maxim St. Jerome, Olympiodorus, and St. Gregory, in Dialogues 4, chapter 4, conclude that when Ecclesiastes praised food and drink above, he did so not to commend pleasure and gluttony, but to prefer temperance and its honest use over avarice and excessive frugality. St. Chrysostom beautifully depicts the two houses, namely of mourning and of joy, in homily 62 to the People: 'And if you wish, he says, let us describe two houses, this one of those marrying, that one of those mourning; let us enter both in our minds, and see which is better. For the house of mourning will be found full of wisdom, but the house of wedding full of confusion. For see the shameful words, the unrestrained laughter, the even more unrestrained talk, and everything full of deformity of dress and gait; words full of much foolishness and stupidity, and absolutely nothing else; all is laughter and mockery in that place: I do not speak of the marriage itself, God forbid, but of what happens at weddings; then nature runs riot, those present become brutes instead of humans: some neigh like horses; others kick like donkeys, much dissoluteness, nothing studious, nothing noble; the pomp of the devil, cymbals and flutes, and songs full of fornication and adultery. But not so there where there is mourning: everything is composed, much rest, much silence, much correction, nothing disordered, nothing out of place; if anyone has said something, all the words are full of philosophy.'
See the same author, homily 15 to the People. Mystically, the house of mourning is the passion of Christ, for it is more useful to devote oneself to meditation on this than to any joys, not only carnal but even spiritual: for the passion of Christ quiets the temptations of gluttony, lust, anger, pride, and all vices; it encourages patience in all adversities, stirs up fortitude, charity, and the other virtues. Hence the martyrs, by the spur and example of Christ's passion, roused themselves to overcome the rack, fires, beasts, and all the torments of the devil, so as to repay Christ in kind, and render love for love, life for life, death for death. Again, the house of mourning is contrition and compunction of heart, than which nothing is better, that is, nothing more useful, nothing holier; and what is remarkable, nothing more joyful, as those who have experienced it know: for the pain of contrition is most sweet to the soul, and the tears of compunction most sweet, surpassing all the delights of the world, of which Christ says in Matthew 5: 'Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be consoled.' See Climacus, step 7, and St. Basil On Thanksgiving, where he beautifully combines holy mourning with joy, and shows that those who mourn are blessed, and yet the same persons also wonderfully rejoice. He gives the reason, asserting that the mourning and tears of the saints spring from the fervor of charity, with which they are wholly inflamed toward God; and at the same time from the loss of their fellow-servants who sin, but without damage to their own joy, as happens with those who are glad of their own safety on shore, and yet grieve over the loss of those whom they see submerged by the waves of the sea. Therefore this mourning brings joy, both because it flows from love, and because it is a sign of a pure and holy conscience, which is always joyful like a continual feast, and because it gives certain confidence in the consolation and eternal glory promised by Christ. Hence St. Chrysostom, in homily 4 on 1 Timothy, teaches that the house of mourning is a monastery, where there is continual meditation on death, ashes, hairshirt, solitude, fasting, sleeping on the ground, mourning without laughter. The same author, sermon 20 to the People: 'Truly, he says, the house of mourning is a monastery, where there is sackcloth, and ashes, and solitude; where there is no laughter, nor the disturbance of worldly affairs; where there is fasting, and a bed on the ground, everything free from the smell of cooking, from bloodshed, from uproar, from disturbance and vexation; it is a tranquil harbor; they are like torches shining from a high place for those coming from afar: sitting in harbor, and drawing all to their tranquility, not permitting shipwrecks for those who look to them, not permitting those who take refuge there to remain in darkness. Go there, be their guest, approach, touch the feet of the holy ones. For it is far more honorable to touch their feet than the heads of others.'
Verse 4: ANGER IS BETTER THAN LAUGHTER: BECAUSE BY THE SADNESS OF COUNTENANCE, THE MIND OF THE OFFENDER IS CORRECTED. — From the reason given it is clear that by anger we should understand sadness. For thes...
4. ANGER IS BETTER THAN LAUGHTER: BECAUSE BY THE SADNESS OF COUNTENANCE, THE MIND OF THE OFFENDER IS CORRECTED. — From the reason given it is clear that by anger we should understand sadness. For these two passions are, indeed, sisters born of the same mother, namely arising from the hatred of evil and mutually accompanying each other. Hence Campensis translates, sadness is better than laughter. And the Septuagint likewise, anger is good above laughter, because in evil (for the Greek kakia, that is, evil; Aquila reads kakosi, that is, affliction; the old translation, sorrow) of countenance good shall come, or the heart shall be made good, that is, shall be gladdened, or the heart shall be amended, as the old translation reads. The Complutensian, the heart shall be honored; the Thaumaturgus, the soul is composed to what is right and honorable; Campensis, the heart is reminded of its duty. For anger the Hebrew has caas, that is, indignation, burning anger. Hence the Syriac translates, fury is better than laughter, because by the evil of countenance the heart shall be made better; the Arabic, for by the evil of countenance the heart is healed; the Tigurine, indignation is better than laughter, because sadness will produce a joyful heart; others, it will gladden the heart. Now to the meaning.
First, the Chaldean takes this maxim as referring to the anger not of man, but of God. Hence he translates, better is the indignation with which the Lord of the world is angered against the just in this world, than the laughter with which He mocks the wicked. For when the countenance of His majesty is saddened, there comes want and vengeance upon the world, to gladden the heart of the just, who will pray before the Lord of the world, and He will have mercy upon them.
Second, Symmachus translates, anger is better than laughter, because through sadness the mind shall be made better, namely of him who is affected by sadness on account of God, and who bears the anger of others, according to the saying: 'As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,' 2 Corinthians 6:10. And the Thaumaturgus: 'But also, he says, prudent anger and timely indignation are to be preferred to laughter: since by the severity of countenance the soul is corrected. And this is the reason why the souls of the wise are reserved and stern, while those of beginners are elated and effusive.' And St. Jerome: 'Laughter, he says, dissolves the wise man, anger corrects and amends him; let us be angry with ourselves, whenever we sin, let us be angry with others too: for through sadness (mixed with anger) the mind shall be made better.'
Third, Hugh of St. Victor explains this maxim in a physical sense, as if to say: Anger and sadness are better than laughter, because sadness recalls heat and spirits to the heart, and thus strengthens it, and makes it attentive and vigorous for all honesty and virtue: but joy and laughter draw heat and spirits from the heart to the extremities, and thus dissolve it, enervate it, and render it weak and languid, so that it is unable and unfit for vigorous works.
Fourth, our own Pineda, taking anger as sadness, links this maxim to the preceding one as giving its cause, as if to say: It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting; because the house of mourning throws upon man a salutary sadness, which is far more useful than laughter and joy. For a corpse is like a mute teacher instructing man to be wise, to despise the vain life, to meditate on death, to flee the vices of the flesh, to pursue continence. For with its decay, stench, and worms, it convicts and rebukes the carnal and shameful morals of the living. For which reason the ancients used to place the corpse, clothed in a heavy dark garment, before the door in the vestibule of the house, as Suetonius attests in his Life of Augustus, so that it might impress upon all passers-by a salutary grief and the true philosophy of amending one's life. But the Hebrew cass properly signifies anger, indignation, fury, as the Septuagint, Syriac, Arabic, and others translate; not sadness.
Fifth, therefore, properly and genuinely our translator renders it: anger is better than laughter, because by the sadness of countenance, the mind of the offender is corrected, whether of a subject or a companion: for he is speaking of anger, not that by which one is angry at oneself, or at the devil, but at the offender, and shows him a severe, sad, angry countenance, so as to punish and amend his fault, as if to say: It is better to be indignant at the sinner than to smile at him. It is more profitable to be angry at the offender, and to chastise and wash away his fault with a stern, severe, biting countenance and words, like lye, than to foster and increase it by laughter. So say St. Jerome, Salonius, Olympiodorus, Lyranus, and others throughout. For on the occasion of the house of mourning, treated in the preceding verse, he goes on to show the benefits of sadness and mourning.
That this maxim is true is clear in the case of detraction; for a sad countenance dispels it, while a cheerful one fosters it, according to Proverbs 25:23: 'The north wind drives away rain, and a sad countenance the tongue of the detractor.' The same is clear in the education of sons and daughters, about which Sirach 7:26 says: 'Have you daughters? Guard their bodies, and do not show a cheerful face to them;' and chapter 30:9: 'Play with your son, and he will bring you sorrow.' That this is the meaning is clear from the fact that Ecclesiastes, explaining himself, immediately adds: 'It is better to be rebuked by a wise man than to be deceived by the flattery of fools; because as the crackling of thorns burning under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool.'
Sixth, this is what the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 7:8-11: 'For although I made you sorrowful by my letter, I do not repent; although I did repent, seeing that that letter (even if only for a time) made you sorrowful, now I rejoice, not because you were made sorrowful, but because you were made sorrowful unto repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to God, that you might suffer loss in nothing from us. For the sorrow that is according to God works repentance unto steadfast salvation: but the sorrow of the world works death. For behold this very thing, that you were made sorrowful according to God, how great a solicitude it works in you; but also defense, but also indignation, but also fear, but also desire, but also zeal, but also punishment: in all things you have shown yourselves to be uncontaminated in the matter.'
So Paul, having rebuked the Corinthians for having tolerated a fornicator in their assembly, shows the fruit of the anger and sadness of this rebuke.
Morally, learn here that the wise and the saints are grave and stern in mind and countenance, and put away from themselves all frivolity and laughter. Thus we read of St. Martin: 'Neither did sorrow darken his face, nor did laughter lighten it.' St. Bernard in his Rule of Honest Living decrees: 'Let your laughter be either indicating or provoking lightness of mind, yet rare. And let it indeed be drawn out occasionally, but never effusive.' The same, in On the Interior House, chapter 65: 'Where laughter and jesting abound, there perfect charity does not reign. If a holy woman perfectly loved Christ, she would not laugh but would weep unceasingly with longing for Him: because he who perfectly loves and fears Christ does not laugh, but mourns out of love for Him.' The same, sermon 4 On the Advent: 'We read that Christ wept over Lazarus and over the city, and spent nights in prayer, but nowhere that He laughed or jested.' Of St. Bernard himself, the author of his Life writes in book 3, chapter 2: 'About laughter we say what we frequently heard from his mouth, that when he marveled at the guffaws of religious men, he did not remember from the first years of his conversion having ever laughed in such a way that he did not rather have to force himself to laugh than to restrain himself; and that he had more need of a spur for his laughter than a bridle.'
Verse 5: THE HEART OF THE WISE IS WHERE SADNESS IS, AND THE HEART OF FOOLS WHERE MIRTH IS. — The Hebrew, the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of the inconstant, or fools, in the ...
5. THE HEART OF THE WISE IS WHERE SADNESS IS, AND THE HEART OF FOOLS WHERE MIRTH IS. — The Hebrew, the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of the inconstant, or fools, in the house of joy; the Arabic, in the house of delights; Campensis, in the house of feasting. This maxim follows from the preceding ones. For since the house of mourning is better than the house of joy, and sadness better than laughter, it follows that the wise man, who truly knows and chooses what is better, prefers the house of mourning, as a school of wisdom: but the fool prefers the house of joy, as a playground of dissoluteness and folly; wherefore this maxim is sufficiently clear from what has been said shortly before, and from chapter 2:1. Now,
First, the Chaldean explains this maxim, as he did the preceding one, as referring to the compassion and consolation of those who mourn, and restricts it to mourning over the destroyed temple. For thus he has: The heart of the wise is sad on account of the destruction of the house of the Sanctuary, and on account of the captivity of the people of the house of Israel, and the heart of fools is in the joy of the house of their division; they eat, and drink, and abound in delicacies, and do not take to heart the affliction of their brothers.
Briefly therefore the sense will be as follows: The wise man goes to those who mourn, so that he may merit well of them, consoling, instructing, and helping them; but the fool goes to those who are merry, laughing, and feasting, so as to fill himself with delicacies and pleasures.
Second, Olympiodorus asserts that the wise mourn because of approaching death, while fools exult in the vain pleasures of life. For he says: 'The wise man is in funeral mourning, considering in his mind that he was born of corruptible flesh and will shortly depart from this life: he regards other mortals, who were born in the same condition, with pious affection. He despises whatever is before his eyes, as subject to chance and death. But the fool, thinking in his mental dullness that the things in the world are solid, and not understanding their changeableness, and therefore secure about his future end, abounds in delicacies and indulges in pleasures.'
Third, St. Jerome takes this as referring to those who are glad to associate with those who rebuke them when they offend, and mourn their faults, as Samuel mourned the fall of Saul, 1 Samuel 15:35-36. Paul mourned those who were not doing penance, 2 Corinthians 12:21; while on the contrary, fools prefer flatterers and mockers. Hear St. Jerome: 'Let the heart of the wise man go, therefore, to the house of such a man who rebukes him when he offends, who leads him to tears, who provokes him to mourn his own sins, and let it not go to the house of joy, where the teacher flatters and deceives; where he seeks not the conversion of the hearers, but applause and praise. Such a teacher is to be lamented, rich in speech, not rich in works, who because he is satisfied, therefore receives his consolation. Finally, the following verses also agree with this contrast.'
Fourth, fully and adequately the Thaumaturgus takes this maxim generally of any pious mourning and any vain joy; for he says: 'And this is the reason why the souls of the wise are reserved and stern, but those of the foolish are elated and effusive,' namely because by the severity of countenance the soul is corrected, as was said before, while by laughter it is dissolved.
For wisdom 'is not found in the land of those who live pleasantly,' says Job, chapter 28, but rather foolishness and folly; because, as St. Gregory explains: 'Those who live pleasantly in this world' are still 'so foolish that they do not even know from where they have fallen.'
So St. Arsenius wept continually and dissolved in tears. So also St. Ephrem, whose treatises all resound with nothing but pious mourning and lamentation. The reason a priori is that the wise man in the house of mourning learns wisdom, that is, gravity, modesty, continence, the restraining of desire, patience, constancy, charity, and every virtue: while the fool in the house of joy learns his own folly, that is, dissoluteness, frivolity, gluttony, drunkenness, luxury, and every intemperance. Hear St. Chrysostom, homily 62 to the People: 'For where there is sadness, there assuredly is philosophy. He who was formerly rich and very puffed up, after any mourning will allow himself to be spoken to: after fear and sadness, like a rather sharp fire, have fallen upon his soul and softened his hardness, then he becomes humble, then more easily entreated, then he feels worldly change, then he will be patient in all things. But in the theater all is the opposite: laughter, foolishness, diabolical pride, dissoluteness, waste of time and superfluous consumption of days, the introduction of evil desire, the meditation of adultery, the training-ground of fornication, the school of intemperance, the encouragement of turpitude, the material for laughter, examples of dishonesty. But in prison it is not so, but there is humility, supplication, the advance of philosophy, the contempt of worldly things, all things are trampled and despised, and like a tutor to a child, fear is present, directing him to all that is fitting.'
Symbolically, in the same place St. Chrysostom from this maxim concludes that the house of mourning, and consequently of wisdom, consists in adversities and tribulations, so that the sense is as follows: The wise man rejoices in adversity, and dwells in it as in his own house; the fool in glad and prosperous circumstances, because 'virtue rejoices when buffeted by adversity:' for through adversity it is strengthened, reinforced, and grows, just as trees shaken by winds establish themselves more firmly and drive their roots deeper, nature teaching them to fortify and arm themselves against their enemy, namely the wind. This is what St. James says at the beginning of his epistle: 'Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various trials: knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But patience has its perfect work: that you may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.' See what I said there.
Tropologically, St. Gregory, in book 18 of the Moralia, chapter 84, says that the just mourn because they admit no joy of the world, yearning for God and the joys of heaven, and therefore groan and say with the Psalmist: 'My soul refused to be comforted; I remembered God and was delighted,' Psalm 77:3. 'This is therefore, he says, the bitterness of the wise, because while they are often raised to lofty things, they do not yield their mind to any joys here. Hence it is written: The heart of the wise is where sadness is, and the heart of fools where mirth is.'
Again St. Bernard, in On the Steps of Pride, places foolish mirth as the third step: 'It is characteristic, he says, of the proud always to seek what is joyful and to avoid what is sad, according to the saying: The heart of fools is where mirth is.' Then he gives the following indications: 'In gestures there is buffoonery, in the face cheerfulness, vanity appears in the gait; inclined to jesting, easy and ready in laughter. For after all the things which he knew to be contemptible in himself, and therefore sad, have been erased from memory, and whatever good he feels in himself has been gathered together or feigned before the eyes of the mind, while he thinks of nothing except what pleases him and does not consider whether it is permitted, he can no longer contain his laughter or conceal his foolish mirth. For just as a bladder swollen with collected wind, pierced at a tiny point, if squeezed, crackles as it deflates; but the escaping wind, not released broadly, but emitted narrowly, produces a series of rapid sounds: so a monk, when he has filled his heart with vain and buffoonish thoughts, and on account of the discipline of silence the wind of vanity finds no fuller exit, is discharged through guffaws amid the narrow passages of the throat. Often he shamefacedly hides his face, closes his lips, clenches his teeth, laughs unwillingly, guffaws against his will. And when he has stopped up his mouth with his fists, he is still heard sneezing through his nostrils.'
Therefore mourning is better than joy, whether you mourn your own sins, desires, passions, and miseries; or those of others, with which the whole world is full: wherefore the wise man in this valley of tears considers it better to mourn than to rejoice vainly, especially because he has seen very many living in infidelity and wickedness, and rushing headlong into hell and being damned. On the contrary, the fool gives himself to foolish mirth, laughter, jesting, banquets, dancing, etc. Briefly, to compress the whole meaning, the sense is: The wise man rejoices to be reproved for his errors, and is glad of severity of countenance and words.
Verse 6: IT IS BETTER TO BE REBUKED BY A WISE MAN THAN TO BE DECEIVED BY THE FLATTERY OF FOOLS. — The Hebrew, it is better to hear the rebuke of a wise man, than a man hearing the song of fools. Here the Th...
6. IT IS BETTER TO BE REBUKED BY A WISE MAN THAN TO BE DECEIVED BY THE FLATTERY OF FOOLS. — The Hebrew, it is better to hear the rebuke of a wise man, than a man hearing the song of fools. Here the Thaumaturgus notes that one wise man is set against and preferred to all fools, as if to say: The rebuke of one single wise man surpasses all the songs of all fools. For 'song' the Septuagint translates, poem; the Syriac, singing; the Arabic, ditties; Campensis, he who patiently hears the reproof of a wise man is better than he who constantly hears a fool singing.
Therefore first, the Thaumaturgus and Olympiodorus take the poem or song of fools properly as a sweet ditty which dissolves and effeminates the soul. Hence the Thaumaturgus translates, hence also it is far more desirable to bear the rebuke and chastisement of one wise man, than to become a listener to the singing of a whole choir of wicked men soothing the ears; and the Chaldean, it is better to sit in the house of learning and hear the rebuke of a wise man in the law, than a man who walks to hear the sound of the dancing of fools.
But our translator rightly takes the poem or song as flattery, both because it is directly opposed to rebuke; and because it is itself the song of the Sirens composed to deceive the listener; and because poems and songs are often mere flatteries and false praises of the listeners, especially of the rich and powerful. This maxim pertains to that of verse 4: 'By the sadness of countenance, the mind of the offender is corrected.' For the wise man with a stern countenance and words convicts a friend or neighbor who offends, so as to amend him; but the fool flatters and smiles at the offender, and so fosters him in his faults, especially when he calls his vices virtues. For as Seneca says, epistle 43: 'Rashness hides under the name of courage, moderation is called cowardice, the cautious man is taken for a coward; in these matters one errs with great danger.' Hence Isaiah complains of such people, chapter 3:12: 'O my people, they who call you blessed, they deceive you, and destroy the way of your steps;' and Ezekiel 13:18: 'Woe to those who sew pillows under every elbow: and make cushions for the head of persons of every age to catch souls.' For as Cassiodorus beautifully says: 'Fawning flattery applauds everyone, says hello to everyone: it calls the prodigal generous, the avaricious thrifty and wise, the lewd courtly, the garrulous affable, the obstinate constant, the lazy mature and grave; this arrow flies lightly, and sticks quickly.'
Therefore the rebuke of a wise man is like salt, or niter cleansing the stains of the soul and morals, or like wormwood, which is bitter to the mouth but pleasant to the stomach, as it purges, tightens, and strengthens it. Its bitterness and gall therefore end in the honey and sweetness of virtue, consolation, and joy; but the flatteries of fools are honey in the ear, but end in the gall of sin, death, and hell: for to these they lead the listener, and that knowingly and willingly; for often he knows them to flatter and lie; for he sees that the qualities which those flatterers attribute to him are not really in him. Wherefore St. Augustine on Psalm 59 says: 'The tongue of the flatterer persecutes more than the hand of the persecutor.' And Cicero, epistle 1 to his brother Quintus: 'A gentle gladiator-trainer, he says, is a flatterer; flattery is a lethal potion, a honeyed suffocation.' See what I said about correction and flattery on Proverbs 27:6, concerning the words: 'Better are the wounds of a friend than the deceitful kisses of an enemy;' and frequently elsewhere. Flatterers, then, are like Sirens, who enchant and slay their listeners with sweet song; they are like witches and sorceresses, who with their praises, as with spells, bewitch and madden a man; they are like nets and snares with which they catch fish and birds; they are like foxes who fawn upon hens with their tails, in order to catch and devour the unwary.
Better, therefore, is the rebuke of a wise man than the song and flattery of fools, 'because the latter effeminates the soul, while the former gathers and strengthens it,' says Olympiodorus. The former teaches wisdom, the latter acts foolishly, and leads into error, wickedness, death, and hell; indeed it actually deceives, since those whom it praises and reveres to their face, it criticizes and mocks behind their back. Hear St. Jerome to Rusticus: 'Do not believe your praisers, nay, do not willingly lend your ear to your mockers, who when they have warmed you with their flatteries and in a manner rendered you out of your mind, if you suddenly look back, you will find that behind you they either crane their necks like storks, or waggle their ears with their hands like a donkey, or stick out their tongues panting like a dog.'
Cyril, in book 2 of the Moral Apology, chapter 27, titled Against Those Who Desire to Be Praised by Flattery, embellishes this maxim with an entertaining fable of the crow and the fox, pleasantly sententious among his 27 parables: 'The crow, he says, remembering his former exploits, his subtle deceits and great cleverness, puffed up with pride and eager for flattery, began to seek the breeze of praises. When therefore, eager for flattery, he found the fox resting in the coolness of a shade, after the greeting, being asked by her what he sought, he replied: Among my goods I have not found a herald of my praises, on account of hostile envy. The fox, perceiving with the subtle cunning of her wit what he wanted, mocking the fool, spoke thus: I see well enough that where black pride darkens the mind with a cloud of folly, all cleverness avails little. Indeed you have become empty, since you desire to take in wind. For bellows, when they are empty, draw in wind, and being empty are soon filled with it: you have certainly already become a lodging of death, since you thirst for the pestilent breath of vain praise.'
Then with various emblems he vividly depicts the vanity and harm of flattery: 'For what is flattery but the bright breeze of a rising star, a northern storm, a siren's melody, a lethal incantation, a pipe of deceit, and the exceedingly lying voice of the hyena? For while with sweet sound it strikes the drum of the ear, it extinguishes the lamp of reason; with dragon-like breath it corrupts the serenity of virtue, and with bestial tooth leaves nothing green in the soul. It sounds sweetly, enters pleasantly, occupies lethally, devastates everything irremediably. But believe me, the sweet song of flattery is worse than the bitter bite of detraction. For flattery destroys the good interior things, but detraction only the exterior; the former infects the substance, the latter the reputation; the former strikes one who is willing, the latter wounds one who resists; the former always harms when it pleases; the latter often, if one is patient, promotes improvement.' He adds a dilemma by which he demonstrates this reasoning a priori: 'Moreover, either you have the matter for praise, or you do not; if you have it, why do you beg from various people, and wish to have from wind what you contain within you from virtue? Yet if you are praised unworthily, as if in irony, your praise will become your reproach, and commendation will be turned into confusion. For false praise is blame. And by the very fact that one conceives an appetite for the wind of praise, he becomes unworthy of true praise; for to desire to be praised is a brutish vice of pride, which while it is spread about loves by appearance, and always craves the alternate fear and flattering lip. I know finally that it is great praise to despise the praise of a wordy voice; and solid glory to flee the glory of worldly renown. For the whole substance of true praise is virtue. Having said these things, he turns the appetite of the listener to hatred.'
Verse 7: BECAUSE AS THE CRACKLING (noise, crash, crackle, as Campensis and others translate) OF THORNS BURNING UNDER A POT, SO IS THE LAUGHTER OF A FOOL: BUT THIS ALSO IS VANITY. — The author of the Greek C...
7. BECAUSE AS THE CRACKLING (noise, crash, crackle, as Campensis and others translate) OF THORNS BURNING UNDER A POT, SO IS THE LAUGHTER OF A FOOL: BUT THIS ALSO IS VANITY. — The author of the Greek Catena says: 'For the laughter of foolish men bears the express image of many thorns which, when they catch fire, hiss with a rapid crackling sound and gape entirely.'
In the Hebrew there is a beautiful paronomasia. For he says: schir, that is, the song of the Sirens, namely the flattery of fools, is like sirim, that is, thorns, crackling under sir, that is, a pot; as if to say: Just as the sound of thorns burning and crackling under a pot is annoying, brief, smoky, and useless, so the fawning voices of flatterers are annoying, quickly cease, cloud the mind, and soon are turned into the pain and bitterness of conscience, and into the torments, present and eternal, of hell. So say Olympiodorus and St. Jerome.
Therefore the songs and flatteries of sycophants are rightly compared to thorns crackling under a pot. First, because just as this crackling is shrill and blunts the ears, and brings no other benefit: so the praises of flatterers are nothing but noisy voices, and hollow hissings of cheeks puffed up and bursting with flattery, which are unpleasant and annoying to sensible men. Hence just as you recognize thorns from the crackling, so you may recognize a fool from flattery, says Olympiodorus. Again, the laughter of a fool, loud, unrestrained, and guffawing, is similar to the sound of thorns hissing and crackling; on both sides, therefore, there is nothing but the empty noise and crackle of a voice.
Second, just as a thorn pricks whoever touches it, so flatteries wound and injure the soul, while they urge it toward the thorny cares of the world, or prepare it for the fire to come, says St. Jerome.
Third, just as interlocking thorns entangle the hand and clothing of whoever touches them, so flatteries render the soul perplexed, and entangle it in many difficulties and sins. Hence Symmachus translates, by the voice of the unskilled one is bound in chains, which means, says St. Jerome: 'At the voice of such teachers the listener is more entangled, while each one is bound by the chains of his own sins.' Proverbs 5. To this point pertains Nahum 1:10: 'As thorns embrace one another, so their banquet of those drinking together: they shall be consumed as stubble full of dryness.'
Fourth, just as the flame of thorns is sudden and immediately passes away with a noise, so also the joy conceived from flattery ends and vanishes with it. So says St. Bonaventure.
Fifth, just as thorns emit smoke, so flattery clouds the mind. So says Olympiodorus.
Sixth, and very aptly, just as the flame of thorns, immediately passing and ceasing, does not warm the pot and the meat in it, nor remove the coldness and rawness from them, but rather by antiperistasis increases it: so flatteries do not inflame the hearts of listeners with sorrow for their sins and love of virtue, but rather harden them in the coldness of their sins.
Seventh, just as the sudden flame of thorns is immediately turned to ashes and cinders, so flattery is often turned to mockery: for the one whom flatterers praise to his face, they criticize behind his back.
Plainly opposite are the rebukes of the wise: for first, they are modest and grave, without noise and crackling; second, they sting to heal, not to wound; third, they are candid and free, not entangling; fourth, they are constant and lasting; fifth, they do not cloud the mind but illuminate it; sixth, they inflame it with the love of God and virtue, like coals of juniper; seventh, they leave behind them no embers of vanity, but are always consistent in gravity and ardor.
Finally the Chaldean translates, for what else is the voice of fools laughing and jesting, but a certain noise and sound of thorns burning under a cauldron? and this also is vanity. Hence St. Basil, in rule 17 of the Longer Rules, considers that by this maxim immoderate laughter bursting into guffaws is condemned, with the body jumping, as plainly contrary to constancy and gravity. So also St. Ambrose, in the Exhortation to Virgins, whom hear: 'Let us consider what the same Ecclesiastes has warned us all about the immoderation of laughing. As the sound, he says, of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools. Indeed thorns, when they burn, make noise, and are quickly consumed, so that there is no effect of heat. Hence it was said of the Jews: They blazed up like fire among thorns. For they were consumed by their own laughter, and they burned in the Lord's passion, when they made sport in the conflagration of their own souls, saying: Let Him hope in the Lord, let Him deliver Him, let Him save Him now, if He wills Him. And mocking Him they struck His head with a reed, and crowned Him with thorns, and offered Him vinegar to drink. That laughter set the Synagogue on fire for eternity. So therefore is the laughter of fools, which sounds without grace, and burns the pot of their own body.'
BUT THIS ALSO IS VANITY. — Again and again Ecclesiastes introduces and presses this his theme of vanity. But what does 'this' refer to? Campensis takes it as the rebuke of the wise man: for this too has its vanity, whether of pride, or of inefficacy, when the one rebuked is not corrected; or of harm, when it brings upon itself hatred and damages. Better to refer it to the laughter of the fool: for this is vain and foolish. And because flattery, says Hugo Cardinal, empties both the flatterer and the one who is flattered.
Verse 8: CALUMNY DISTURBS THE WISE MAN, AND WILL DESTROY THE STRENGTH OF HIS HEART. — The Septuagint, because calumny carries away the wise man and destroys the heart of his nobility; Aquila and Theodoret, ...
8. CALUMNY DISTURBS THE WISE MAN, AND WILL DESTROY THE STRENGTH OF HIS HEART. — The Septuagint, because calumny carries away the wise man and destroys the heart of his nobility; Aquila and Theodoret, of his strength; the Complutensian, of his generosity. For this is the Greek eugeneia, for which some read eutonia, that is, the good tone, vigor, and constancy of his heart. The Syriac, because accusation destroys the wise man and destroys the heart of his teeth (i.e. his resolve); the Arabic, because the fool overturns the mind of the wise man and dissolves the heart of his strength; the Thaumaturgus, calumny is the greatest evil, which especially plots against the souls of the wise, and strives to uproot that noble and dense forest of virtues.
For 'calumny' the Hebrew has osec, that is, calumny, also oppression, and any kind of injury whether by words or by deeds, namely done by force and fraud.
For 'disturbs' the Hebrew has meholel, which if you take it as standing for mecholel (for the letters he and heth are related both in form and sound: for each is a mark of aspiration) it means, afflicts with pain, distresses, torments, as childbirth torments the woman in labor; otherwise meholel properly means, dishonors, makes inglorious, disgraces, disturbs, obscures. For the root halal in Piel means to praise, celebrate, make glorious; but in Poel it means the contrary, namely to blame, make vile, inglorious, infamous. Aquila translates, it will lead astray; the Chaldean, it will deceive; Pagninus, it will drive mad; the Tigurine, it drives to insanity; another, it causes to err, namely so that through impatience one strays from wisdom and virtue, and falls into revenge, murder, and other crimes, as the Chaldean suggests; the Syriac, it destroys; the Septuagint, it carries about, drives around, whirls; in common language, it turns the brain. This variety of versions greatly illustrates, amplifies, and intensifies this maxim. Olympiodorus, it torments; the Arabic, it overturns; the Thaumaturgus, it lies in ambush. For 'will destroy the strength of his heart,' the Hebrew has, it will destroy the heart-gift: which St. Jerome, Cajetan, and others explain as if to say: A gift perverts the heart and mind of the wise man, according to the saying: 'Gifts blind the eyes of the wise,' Deuteronomy 16:19. But here the subject is not gifts, but calumny; therefore the Tigurine better explains, as if to say: Calumny breaks the heart of the wise man adorned with outstanding gifts; and Campensis, the wicked, if rebuked, try to destroy him whose heart is adorned with so remarkable a gift of wisdom; the Chaldean, by depraved speech he undermines the prudence of the wise man's soul, which was given from heaven by God to man as a gift. Hence our translator, the Septuagint, the Arabic, and the Syriac have, it destroys the strength, or vigor, of his heart; this therefore is the heart-gift or the heart of the gift (for you may translate it either way from the Hebrew), that is, the heart given by God and adorned by Him with many gifts.
This saying, as well as the following ones, although they can be taken as separate maxims of wisdom, can nevertheless be linked to the preceding one, in this way, so as to explain that 'but this also is vanity,' as if to say: The rebuke of an offender made by a wise man, although holy, nevertheless has its attendant vanity, namely that the offender rebuked by him becomes indignant at him, and in order to pay him back in kind, when he cannot cast a true accusation against him, casts a false one, and fabricates a calumny against him which afflicts and troubles him: so says Cajetan. Hence Campensis translates, because the wicked, if rebuked for oppressing others, afflict the wise man; and the Chaldean, the violent man also mocks the wise man, so that he does not walk in his way. Others refer this maxim to verse 2: 'A good name is better than precious ointments.' Others interpret it as: O wise man, I warned you to beware of flattery; now I likewise warn you to beware of the opposite, namely calumny.
Less correctly, Olympiodorus takes this maxim as follows: Even the wise and perfect are assailed by absurd and impious thoughts against the providence of God, when they see the pious afflicted and oppressed here by the impious. Better, St. Bonaventure takes it as referring to the grief of the wise when they see innocent neighbors harassed by calumny. For this is the zeal of compassion which the Apostle had when he said: 'Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?' 2 Corinthians 11. Best of all, take it as referring to calumny and accusation hurled against the wise man himself; for this often troubles, torments, and afflicts him. So say the Syriac, St. Jerome, Albinus, Salonius, and others.
St. Jerome notes that this maxim is to be taken of a wise man who is not perfect, but progressing; for he is disturbed by calumny: 'For the perfectly wise man needs no argument, and is disturbed by no calumny,' but bears and overcomes it with a steadfast spirit, as the Apostles 'went away rejoicing from the presence of the council, because they were counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus,' Acts 5.
The first a priori reason is that man, because he is of a rational, ingenuous, and noble nature, supremely desires honor and reputation; for the desire for this is so intimate to him, that whoever touches it touches the pupil of his eye, indeed pierces the marrow of his soul; wherefore many prefer to lose their life rather than their reputation. But the honor of the wise man rests in wisdom and innocence; therefore whoever touches this by calumny pierces the innermost parts of his soul. Hence Sirach 26:6: 'My face dreads a false accusation.' Hence the proverbs: 'Envy is the companion of integrity; calumny is a dire plague.' Hence also the emblem whose title is: For the Bite of Calumny There Is No Remedy: Nature has a ready medicine for all poisons: But the wounds made by the hand of the tongue surpass them. When raging calumny has once discharged its venom, It kills before you think the poison has been poured.
The second reason is that calumny often takes from a man his wealth, liberty, and life. For calumny of having violated the royal edict cast Daniel into the lions' den. Calumny of adultery drove Susanna to the danger of an infamous death. Calumny of hostility against Ahasuerus fabricated by Haman condemned Mordecai and all the Jews to death, as is clear from the book of Esther.
The third reason is that calumny against a holy man creates serious scandal, and hinders the fruit of his sermons, lectures, and all his works; therefore it must then be refuted, as St. Basil teaches, homily On Envy, and St. Gregory, book 8, epistle 45. Thus Paul refuted the calumny of the false apostles who attacked his teaching and life, 2 Corinthians 10 and 11; and Christ continually dispelled the calumnies of the scribes and Pharisees launched against Him, as is clear from John 5:5 and following.
Add that calumny can scarcely be so washed away that a stain does not remain. Wherefore Medius, the parasite of Alexander the Great, gave this impious and diabolical counsel to his associates: 'Charge any crime against anyone; for however much the wounded man heals, the scar still remains.' Just as that wicked general, or rather brigand, used to say to his soldiers: 'Plunder and despoil friends and enemies alike. For even if those who were despoiled act before the prince so that we are forced to make restitution, some portion of the plunder will always remain with us.' Hence Thearidas, when he was sharpening a sword on a whetstone and was asked whether it was sharp, said: 'Sharper is calumny.' So says Plutarch in the Laconic Sayings.
Do you want examples? Take these. Upon Moses was laid the calumny by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, that he was grasping for leadership for himself, and the pontificate for his brother Aaron, which stung and troubled him, according to the saying: 'Moses was vexed because of them, because they provoked his spirit,' Psalm 105:32; especially because through this calumny the murmuring of the people was stirred up; whence Moses complained to God with great sorrow of heart, and said: 'Do not regard their sacrifices; you know that I have never taken even a donkey from them, nor have I afflicted any of them,' Numbers 16:15. So Jeremiah, prophesying that Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Chaldeans, continually heard calumnies from the Jews, that he was a false prophet, a friend of the Chaldeans, a traitor to his country. Hence he continually groans and mourns, as can be seen in chapter 10:11 and following, chapter 20:8 and following. Hence David also prays, Psalm 118:134: 'Deliver me from the calumnies of men: that I may keep Your commandments.' Where St. Ambrose says: 'He who is oppressed by calumny cannot easily keep the divine commandments; it is necessary that he yield to sadness or fear and be afflicted, either by dread of calumny or by grief.' Thus St. Basil keenly felt the calumny of heresy hurled against him. For he writes thus, epistle 82: 'Stirred by this letter, as was natural, and struck in mind by so unexpected and sudden a change, I could not even reply: for my heart was palpitating, my tongue failed me, and I plainly suffered what usually happens to a mind of little courage: for what is true must be declared, and yet it is worthy of pardon. Then I was not far from developing a hatred for the human race, and all the morals of men had become suspect to me, as I judged that in human nature there was no good of charity, but only certain plausible words fabricated for the adornment and cultivation of those whom one wishes to use; but that their affection according to truth was not truly present in the human heart.'
Moreover the methods and means of refuting or overcoming calumny are various. The first is to refute it by contrary actions and by your own conduct: are you accused of being proud, gluttonous, lustful, avaricious, etc.? Be humble, sober, chaste, generous, so that all may see from your actions that the calumny is false; hence the singular refutation of calumny is the innocence and holiness of one's life. Wherefore Demosthenes, as Stobaeus attests, sermon 40, used to say that calumny indeed creates a suspicion of evil in the minds of listeners for a while; but with the passage of time nothing is weaker than it.
The second is to resign your innocence to God, and earnestly beg His judgment, by which He may declare your innocence, as David did in the Psalms, as in Psalm 42:1: 'Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy; from the unjust and deceitful man deliver me;' and Psalm 7:9, and Psalm 25:1, and Psalm 34:1-2, and Psalm 35:3. For God is the guardian and avenger of innocence; hence to many in this life, but to all on the day of judgment, He will restore the reputation of innocence to those who were innocent but defamed as guilty. Say, therefore, with the Apostle: 'It is a very small thing for me to be judged by you, or by human judgment: but He who judges me is the Lord, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of hearts: and then every man shall have praise from God,' 1 Corinthians 4.
Therefore God restores the reputation of the innocent who have been harmed by calumny, or even killed, as He restored it to Daniel, Susanna, Joseph, and Mordecai. We read in the Life of St. Irene, virgin and martyr of Portugal, that she was killed because of a false accusation of fornication, but after death God revealed her virginity, and attested it with many miracles. She was enrolled among the Saints in the Roman Martyrology on October 20. Blessed Marina, a virgin, having professed the monastic life among men and calling herself Marinus, was falsely accused by a girl who had been violated by another man, of having committed fornication with her, and the child was handed over to her as if she were the father; ejected from the monastery by the Abbot, she performed public penance; but after death her innocence was recognized by her sex, and the calumniator, seized by a demon, could not be freed from it until she confessed the calumny and sought pardon at the tomb of Marina; indeed God confirmed her chastity and holiness with many miracles, as her truly admirable Life relates.
The third is to despise the opinions and taunts of men with a great and unbroken spirit, and to say with St. Augustine in his letter to Secundinus: 'Think of Augustine what you please; only let my conscience before God not accuse me.' For the force and harm of calumny consists not in the sense of the calumniator, but in the feeling of the one who suffers it. Show, therefore, that you do not feel it, but laugh at it, and you will have driven it away. Hear St. Chrysostom, homily 2 to the People: 'Just as, he says, pleasure lies not in the preparation of food, but in the disposition of those who eat, so I say of insult, that an insult is constituted or destroyed not by the intention of those who insult, but by the reaction of those who suffer it: for example, someone has heaped both speakable and unspeakable insults upon you; if you laugh at the insults, if you do not take the words to heart and rise above the wound, you have not suffered an insult. And just as if we had a body of adamant, even though we were struck on all sides by innumerable darts, we would not receive wounds; for wounds are not made by the hand that hurls the darts, but by the bodies that suffer them: so also here, injuries and insults are constituted not by the madness of those who insult, but by the weakness of those who suffer insults. For if we know how to practice philosophy, we can neither be affected by insult, nor suffer anything serious. He inflicted an injury: you did not feel it, nor were you pained; you have not suffered an injury, but have struck harder than you were struck; for when he who hurled the insult sees that his blow did not reach the soul of the patient, he himself is gnawed all the more, and while those who suffer the insult keep silence, the blow of the insults spontaneously turns against the one who sent them.' Indeed Aristotle too, as Laertius attests in book 5, when reviled by someone in his absence, said: 'Let him beat me in my absence too.' The same, when a certain talkative person was abusing him and said: 'Have I not sufficiently bruised you?' replied: 'By Hercules, I did not pay attention to you.' Moreover Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor surnamed the Philosopher, in book 9 of his Life, gives this remedy for calumny and impudence: 'If you are offended by anyone's impudence, he says, immediately ask yourself whether it is possible that there should be no impudent people in the world; but this cannot be, so do not ask for what cannot be; for this person too is one of those impudent people who must exist in the world. Think the same about the cunning, the unfaithful, and indeed about anyone who is vicious in any way. For if you remember that this kind of person necessarily exists, you will show yourself more equitable to each one. It is also useful immediately to consider what virtue nature has given man against that sin. For it has given gentleness as a remedy against the ungrateful; against another vice, another remedy. In any case it is open to you to lead back to the right path the one who has strayed; for everyone who sins errs in this, that he departs from his purpose. Finally, what damage has been done to you thereby? You will find that none of those with whom you are angry has done anything by which your mind will be made worse: yet it was only in this that evil and damage could befall you. What evil or new thing has happened, if an uneducated man acts in his own way? See that you yourself are not rather to be blamed, who did not foresee that he would sin in this way.'
Finally, the consolations of God sweeten calumny. For it is established by experience that perfect men who patiently, indeed cheerfully, bear calumnies, contempt, false accusations, humiliations, mortifications, persecutions, and injuries, draw from God marvelous illuminations and spiritual consolations, and are at times so filled and overwhelmed by them that they would not wish to be free from calumnies, but delight and exult in them as at a feast. Thus Abbacyrus, according to Climacus, step 4, On Obedience, having been tested in a monastery for fifteen years with constant calumnies and injuries, said on his deathbed: 'I give thanks to the Lord, and to you, Brothers, for having continually tried me for my salvation; for by this means I have remained free from the temptation of demons until now.' And Macedonius, when he had similarly asked to be tested and reduced to the rank of novices, and had obtained this, when asked the reason, gave this: 'Never, he said, did I feel myself so smoothed by every struggle, nor did I see the sweetness of divine light within me as I do now.' St. Francis said to Brother Leo: 'This is true joy, if afflicted by calumnies, reproaches, and beatings, we bear all these things willingly for the love of Christ.' St. Ignatius, the founder of the Society of Jesus, exulted in the prison into which he had been cast by calumny, and said that this was the true path to holiness and perfection, and he teaches this expressly in Rule 11 of the Summary of the Constitutions.
Verse 9: BETTER IS THE END OF A SPEECH THAN ITS BEGINNING. — The Hebrew, the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic, good is the end of a word before its beginning, that is, of a speech, or of a thing. For ...
9. BETTER IS THE END OF A SPEECH THAN ITS BEGINNING. — The Hebrew, the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic, good is the end of a word before its beginning, that is, of a speech, or of a thing. For often 'word' is taken metonymically for the thing signified by the word. Hence the Chaldean, better is the end of a matter than its beginning: because at the beginning it cannot be judged what outcome will finally follow; but the outcome of an excellent matter is easily perceived by a man, how auspicious it has been; the Tigurine, the last part of a matter is more important than the beginning; Campensis, better is the end of a thing than its beginning. By 'speech' therefore take not only prayer, as Lyranus does, but also a sermon, a lecture, a narrative, an exhortation, and any speech, indeed any action, any business; the Thaumaturgus, a speech is to be praised not at the beginning, but when it has come to its end. Some think that by this maxim the same thing is said as was said in verse 2: 'Better is the day of death than the day of birth:' for the latter is the beginning, the former the end of human life; but this seems remote and far-fetched.
St. Jerome gives four literal senses of this saying, and a fifth mystical one. The first is, he says, as if to say: 'Epilogues are better in a speech than the introduction.' For in these the speaker's anxiety ends, while in the latter it begins.
The second, as if to say: 'He who begins to hear a discourse, and goes to a teacher, is at the beginning; but he who hears the last parts is accomplished and perfect.' Thus students in schools, who hear the end of Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, and Theology, are more learned than those who are devoting their ears and effort to the beginnings of these same subjects.
The third, as if to say: 'The Hebrew, he says, thus expounded this passage with the following verse: It is better for you to consider the end of a matter than the beginning, and to be patient, rather than carried away by impatient rage.'
The fourth, as if to say: It is better to finish a speech and be silent than to speak: 'Let us learn, he says, from this little maxim that there is no wisdom in men, since it is better to be silent than to speak; and because when a speech is finished, in it the listener recollects what was said: but when we have begun to speak, he has not yet received any benefit.' There it is tacitly suggested that there is vanity in speeches and affairs, namely that when they are finished and ended, they are at their best, but not when they are in progress or beginning.
Add a fifth, as if to say: The end is better than the beginning, because the end perfects and crowns the work; the end brings the fruit and reward of the work, and therefore a crown is placed upon it. Again, as if to say: It is better to persevere in a good work than to begin it; indeed it is better not to begin than not to persevere. Hence you may translate from the Hebrew, the latter part of a word is better than the former, or the beginning, and so you can link this maxim to the preceding one, as if to say: The wise man rebuking an offender, even if he suffers calumny from him, should nevertheless not cease from rebuking, but constantly press and pursue it, because the end of a rebuke is better than its beginning, both because perseverance in good is better than the start; and because the falsity of the calumny is revealed in the end; and because through perseverance in rebuke the hardness of the offender is often overcome, and he comes to abandon and amend his faults, according to Proverbs 28:23: 'He who rebukes a man will afterwards find favor with him, more than he who deceives by the blandishments of his tongue.' Lyranus, however, who takes 'speech' as prayer, renders it thus: Better is the end of the prayer of one who has suffered calumny: because he began to pray and beseech God in sadness, but in the end God's consolation follows, by which he becomes steadfast and patient, about which the next verse speaks.
Furthermore, this maxim warns the wise man always to keep in view the end of his labors and works; and therefore to bear patiently and cheerfully, or to undertake and pursue, the means opportune to the end, in hope of the end and its fruit: thus a sick man takes bitter medicine in view of the end, namely health; thus a soldier labors in hope of promotion to greater things. For often the beginnings are meager and harsh, but the most ample and most joyful end follows, according to the saying: A better fortune will follow a weak beginning. So says Aben-Ezra. Hence one translates, it is better to think about the end of a thing than the beginning, according to the saying: Whatever you do, do it prudently, and look to the end.
Therefore this maxim especially teaches perseverance in a good work once begun; for this alone is crowned, according to the word of Christ: 'He who perseveres to the end, he shall be saved,' Matthew 10. Hence Hugh turns this maxim against those who do not wait for the end of a sermon, a prayer, or a Mass, or of the knowledge they are learning: for these lose their oil and labor, especially because God usually at the end of prayer, to reward constancy and perseverance, pours in great lights, great affections, and great hopes of accomplishing the thing requested. Moreover, in prayer they are heard, and obtain what they ask, as Christ promises in Luke 8:11 and following. Finally St. Jerome, in book 1 Against Jovinian: 'Many, he says, are called, few are chosen. To begin belongs to many, to persevere to few: hence the great reward of those who shall have persevered.' For the gift of perseverance is indeed great, even the highest, as the Council of Trent and St. Augustine teach in the book On the Good of Perseverance.
Hear St. Bernard, epistle 129 to the Genoese: 'And now what remains, dearest ones, except that you be admonished about perseverance, which alone merits glory for men and a crown for their virtues? Without perseverance, neither does the one who fights obtain victory, nor the victor the palm. It is the vigor of strength, the consummation of virtues, the nurse to merit, the mediatrix to reward. It is the sister of patience, the daughter of constancy, the friend of peace, the knot of friendship, the bond of unanimity, the bulwark of holiness. Take away perseverance, and neither does service have its recompense, nor kindness its gratitude, nor fortitude its praise. In short, not he who begins, but he who perseveres to the end, he shall be saved.'
Mystically, the same St. Jerome says: 'While, he says, we are in this world, what we know is all a beginning: but when that which is perfect shall come, we shall be in the last and consummate state,' as if to say: On earth good is begun, in heaven it is perfected. See 1 Corinthians 13.
Tropologically, Olympiodorus says: 'Better, he says, is the end of a speech which treats of virtue than its beginning: for it is not only beautiful to have begun, but much more to have brought to completion the thing begun.' So also Albinus: 'Better, he says, is consummated justice than justice merely begun.' So also St. Bonaventure, Hugh, and Dionysius.
Symbolically, Hugh says: The whole written law is reckoned as one speech, whose beginning, which is fear, is surpassed by its end, namely charity: for fear is the bristle of love; because just as a bristle, says St. Augustine, leads thread into a hole, so fear introduces love into the soul.
BETTER IS THE PATIENT MAN THAN THE ARROGANT. — The Hebrew, better is the long of spirit than the high of spirit: the long of spirit is the long-suffering. Hence the Septuagint, the long-suffering is good above the high of spirit; the Syriac, long-suffering is better than height of spirit; the Arabic, the one who waits is better than the exalted in the spirit of tribulation; Campensis, a patient man is better than one who freely criticizes others.
Link this maxim to the preceding one, as if to say: Therefore the end of a speech and rebuke is better than its beginning, because it makes a man long-suffering and patient, while he long-sufferingly bears the weaknesses and calumnies of the offender, and patiently awaits his amendment: the patient man, therefore, is better than the arrogant one, who becomes angry at the offender and rebukes him proudly, and therefore does not amend him, but rather hardens him in his vice. Note 'the patient man is better,' not as if the arrogant man were less good, but that it far surpasses to be patient rather than impatient and arrogant; indeed just as the patient man is the best, so the arrogant man is the worst.
Do you want an illustrious example? Take St. Chrysostom: in homily 7 On the Faith of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who by praying gently and bravely bore the reproaches of her rival Peninnah, he writes thus: 'A helmsman sitting at the tiller preserves the ship, repelling the assault of the waves with the skill of steering: so that woman, when anger and anguish were making an assault upon her mind, disturbing her reason and stirring up many waves, bravely endured the storm, and did not allow her reason to be submerged. For the fear of God, like a captain sitting at the helm, persuaded her that the storm must be endured with great courage, and did not cease to steer her mind until he brought her into a calm harbor, laden with cargo, that is, a womb laden with a precious treasure.' Maximus, in his sermon On Anger, says: 'As ships, he says, are excellent not which sail in fair weather, but which resist the storm and reach harbor: so men who resist anger and fury are great and strong.'
Second, as if to say: Better is the one who rebukes an offender, and therefore receives calumny from him and bears it patiently, than the arrogant offender who through pride and impatience rejects and calumniates the one who rebukes him.
Third, the Chaldean translates, better before the Lord is the man who subdues his desire, than the man who walks in the swelling of his spirit. Hence St. Jerome combines this maxim with verse 4, as though to limit it: 'Because, he says, above he had conceded anger, saying: Anger is better than laughter, lest we should think that anger which is a passion was being praised, he now commands that anger be entirely removed: for there he set anger for the correction of sinners and the instruction of inferiors; but here he restrains impatience. Patience, however, is necessary not only in distress, but also in more joyful circumstances, lest we be exalted more than is fitting. It seems to me that the one who is now called lofty is in the Gospel the contrary of the poor in spirit, who is placed among the blessed.' So also Olympiodorus.
Fourth, the Thaumaturgus applies this maxim to the modesty of speech and discourse. For he renders the whole verse thus: 'A speech is to be praised not at the beginning, but when it has reached its end. Let modesty of character be the test, not pride or haughtiness.' For there are those who at the beginning of a speech modestly lower their eyes, countenance, and voice, but gradually raise them and at the end break forth into proud, threatening, and indignant words, especially when they do not obtain what they ask for.
The first sense is the most connected and genuine.
Morally, how great is the dignity of patience is taught by Tertullian and St. Cyprian, in the treatise On Patience. See what was said on James 1:4, concerning the words: 'But patience has its perfect work.' And on Proverbs 16:32, concerning the words: 'The patient man is better than the strong.' And chapter 19:14: 'The learning of a man is known by his patience.'
Finally hear St. Gregory, in the Pastoral Rule, admonition 10: 'Through this vice of impatience, the fault of arrogance also often transforms the mind, because when anyone does not bear being despised in this world, he tries to display whatever good things he has that are hidden; and so through impatience he is led all the way to arrogance,' that is, to be free from all anger, rather than to be hasty to anger.
Moreover, the Chaldean takes this as the anger with which a sinner becomes angry when he is punished by God. For thus it reads: "In the time when correction from heaven comes upon you, do not hasten in your soul to become angry, nor speak words of blasphemy against heaven. If you bear it patiently, it will be forgiven you; if you are obstinate and grow angry, know that fury rests in the bosom of fools until it destroys them."
But others more commonly understand these words as referring to the anger with which we become angry at a person or creature that inflicts some harm. For, as St. Ambrose says, I Offic. ch. 6: "He who is quickly moved by an injury makes himself appear worthy of reproach, while he wishes to appear unworthy of it."
Moreover, under anger, vengeance is forbidden, which anger prepares, as if to say: Do not be swift to anger, so that you immediately burst forth into harsh words, or deeds, or blows by which you avenge yourself. So St. Ambrose, Exhortation to Virgins: "How beautiful, he says, is that saying: Do not hasten in your spirit to become angry, because anger rests in the bosom of fools; that is, even if there is a cause that moves indignation, let there not be hasty vengeance, lest the heat of indignation boil over excessively. It cannot therefore remove what is a natural impulse, but it interposes delay, so that the medicine of counsel may temper wrath." He proves this from the passage: "Be angry and do not sin," Psalm IV, 5. Hence also St. Jerome: "Anger, he says, joined with pride always desires revenge." Therefore this maxim forbids two things: first, that we should not quickly become angry; second, that when angry we should not quickly leap into harsh words or blows, but should restrain our mouth and hands from executing anger and vengeance.
Therefore this maxim forbids not all anger, but hasty and sudden anger, and by this very designation tacitly permits slow and deliberate anger: for by this we become angry at sinners and sins, and we correct, chastise, and punish them. Hence anger was given by nature to man as "the heart of fortitude," says Cicero, IV Tusculan Disputations. And as "the minister of good actions," says St. Basil, oration Against Anger; and "the instrument and handmaid of virtue," says St. Gregory, V Moralia ch. 35. Therefore it is as much a vice to be apathetic as
Verse 10: DO NOT BE SWIFT TO ANGER: BECAUSE ANGER RESTS IN THE BOSOM OF A FOOL.
The Hebrew reads: do not be hasty in your spirit to become enraged, because rage rests in the bosom of a fool; for the Hebrew word כעם caas signifies burning anger, rage. Hence the Septuagint and the Syriac translate it as fury. "For anger is a brief madness," and it begets lasting fury, which rages through slaughter, plunder, and arson, and devastates everything both private and public; the Arabic reads: do not rush to become angry in your spirit, because anger rests in the lap of fools; Thaumaturgus: fury and the first impulse of indignation must be restrained, lest one be carried headlong into anger (which fools serve); Symmachus: do not provoke to wrath by your words. For, as St. Ephrem says, tract. On Virtue, ch. On Anger: "It is characteristic of anger and the angry person to be stirred by empty rumors, and to provoke quarrels from the slightest cause."
This maxim coheres with the preceding one, and from it a conclusion is drawn, as if to say: Better is one who endures an injury patiently than an arrogant person who immediately becomes angry at the one inflicting the injury and avenges himself. Therefore, on account of an injury inflicted upon you, do not be swift to anger: for this is the way of fools; but bear it patiently, and refute and confute it by your patience and prudence, not so much with words as with contrary deeds.
Note: For 'do not be swift,' the Hebrew is אל תבהל al tebahel, that is, do not be struck with alarm, do not tremble, do not hasten, do not be headlong, as bees boil over and rush headlong when they immediately become angry and thrust in their sting, and thus foolishly disarm themselves and render themselves useless. This word indicates that the cause of anger is lightness of mind, fear, trepidation, and haste: for upon seeing or hearing some slight injury, one fears losing one's reputation or possessions; and therefore the fainthearted, those of little judgment and spirit, such as women, children, and fools, are quick to anger; but the serious, the wise-hearted, those endowed with great spirit and judgment, namely the wise, are slow and reluctant to anger, because by their gravity and constancy they consider it unworthy to become angry quickly, and to be disturbed over a light matter not sufficiently considered.
Now the reasons why hasty anger is forbidden are these: First, because delay either dissolves or mitigates anger. For anger is like a flame, which blazes up all at once and likewise burns down and ceases. Hence Seneca, in Book III On Anger, ch. 1: "Delay, he says, is a slow remedy for a headlong evil." And St. Jerome here, when he explains it thus: "Not that he grants one may be slow to anger; rather he now says: Do not hasten in your spirit to become angry; but when anger is raging and fresh, if delayed it is more easily calmed and can be removed."
Second, because delay prevents anger from leaping into quarrels, brawls, slaughter, and other vengeance; third, because delay gives time to the mind to devise reasons by which anger is calmed.
Plato and the philosophers followed Solomon. Plato used to admonish the angry to look at themselves in a mirror. For when they saw their furious face, in every way resembling a madman, terrified by that disgrace, they would easily restrain themselves from anger in the future, or at least delay it. The same Plato said: "The wise man, when blamed, does not become angry; when praised, is not puffed up." So Laertius in his Life. Aristotle: "Restrain your anger, he says, because just as smoke clouds the eyes, so anger clouds reason, so that it cannot discern the truth." So Stobaeus, Discourse 18. Seneca, Book I On Anger, ch. 15: "Nothing, he says, is less fitting for one who punishes than to be angry, since punishment is more effective for correction when it is pronounced by judgment; hence it is that Socrates said to his slave: I would beat you, if I were not angry." Cato used to say that an angry man differs from a madman only in duration, meaning that anger is a brief madness. So Plutarch, Book On Restraining Anger.
Athenodorus gave this counsel to Caesar Augustus when he was taking leave of him: "When seized by anger, say or do nothing until you have recited the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet." So Plutarch in the Apophthegms of the Romans, who also adds that Augustus responded approvingly: "The rewards of faithful silence are safe." St. Ambrose suggested to Emperor Theodosius — who in sudden anger had ordered the Thessalonians slain because a statue of his wife had been pulled down — that he should decree that a sentence of death pronounced by the Emperor against anyone should not be carried out until after thirty days. For a sentence pronounced against an innocent person can be revoked, but the life of an innocent person who has been killed cannot be restored.
Finally St. James, ch. 1, verse 19: "But let every man, he says, be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger." See what is said there.
BECAUSE ANGER RESTS IN THE BOSOM OF A FOOL.
Hugo the Cardinal explains the word 'rests' as meaning: is calmed, ceases, stops, just as waves are at rest when the sea is calmed and stilled, and passions and tumults are at rest when they are pacified, so that there is an antithesis with what preceded, as if to say: Do not be quick to anger, but neither too slow, because the former is the mark of the rash, the latter of the foolish, stupid, and dull. For he who lacks anger lacks understanding, says the Wise Man. And Aristotle, Ethics ch. 5: "The absence of anger, he says, is not at all praiseworthy. For those who do not become angry at the things they should, and in the way they should, and when they should, and at whom they should, are fools; for they seem neither to feel nor to grieve."
Note: The phrase 'in the bosom' signifies many things. First, that the fool has anger close at hand and ready, so that he immediately brings it forth, as if to say: He becomes angry as easily as someone draws a paper from his bosom, whereas on the contrary the wise man has anger in his heart and mind, so that he brings it forth only slowly after prior deliberation.
Second, that anger is in the fool's bosom as in its own home and seat, where it abides and dwells permanently; hence it signifies a proneness and habit of becoming angry, as if to say: When the fool is touched by the slightest thing, from an innate anger, or one implanted by the habit of becoming angry, he immediately rages, shouts, quarrels, strikes, and beats. So Olympiodorus: "Beware, he says, lest you acquire the evil habit of irascibility, so that it passes into an inclination of the heart," as the Psalmist says.
Third, that anger is a friend to the fool, and is cherished by him, so that he carries it at his breast, as in his bosom, embraces and clasps it with his arms, serves and obeys it, pretending specious reasons on account of which he appears to be justly angry. So Thaumaturgus. "Oh how clever is wrath at inventing causes for fury!" says Seneca, Book I On Anger, ch. 16.
Fourth, that his anger is hidden in the bosom of the soul, and therefore is deep, secret, intimate, heavy, lasting, and implacable. Related to this are the maxims of the wise, such as St. Job, ch. 5: "Wrath kills the fool." Solomon's Proverbs 27:3: "A stone is heavy, and sand is burdensome: but the anger of a fool is heavier than both." Ecclesiasticus ch. 22:17: "What shall be weighed more heavily than lead? and what other name does it have than fool?"
Second interpretation, the Chaldean: It rests, he says, because the punishment and vengeance of anger is turned back upon the head of the angry fool, and weighs upon him and rests upon him, so as to ruin and destroy him, since he is compelled to undergo punishments for what he rashly said and did in anger.
But the word 'because' does not denote an antithesis or a punishment, but a cause, as if to say: Do not quickly become angry, because this belongs to foolishness and fools, in Hebrew kesilim, that is, the inconstant, who are easily changed. For anger rests in the bosom of the fool, so that he immediately brings it forth and displays it, as from his bosom. Moreover, by 'bosom' he means nothing other than the soul itself, says Olympiodorus. St. Gregory gives the reason, Book V Moralia ch. 30: "Through anger, he says, wisdom is lost, so that one does not know at all what should be done, nor in what order, as it is written: Anger rests in the bosom of a fool, because, namely, it removes the light of understanding by disturbing and confusing the mind."
An example is found in Nabal, who was truly Nabal, that is, a fool, who blazing with foolish indignation against David, was killed and died from it, 1 Kings ch. 25, verses 25 and 38. "For anger is a sign of folly, says St. Jerome, because although someone may be considered powerful and wise, if he is irascible, he is convicted of folly." Hence Campensis translates: do not bring it into your mind to become angry quickly: for those who are prone to anger tend to be fools.
Verse 11: DO NOT SAY: WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE REASON THAT FORMER TIMES WERE BETTER THAN THE PRESENT? FOR SUCH AN INQUIRY IS FOOLISH.
In Hebrew: because not from wisdom (prompted) would you ask this; Vatablus: because you would not ask prudently; Campensis: for it is not the part of a prudent man to ask such things. "Better" — understand both physically, that is, richer, more fertile, happier; and ethically, that is, more just, wiser, holier. Thus Daniel, ch. 2, verses 32 ff., calls the first age of the Assyrian Monarchy golden; the second, of the Chaldeans, silver; the third, of the Greeks, bronze; the fourth, of the Romans, iron. Moreover, the last age of the Antichrist will be leaden, that is, most burdensome, most wretched, and most dangerous. Now then,
First, Thaumaturgus refers this maxim to the following comparison of riches and wisdom. Hence he thus translates and explains: but those err who assert that a better (richer) life was granted to the ancients, not understanding how much all wisdom differs from possessions: for this will be discussed next.
Second, the Chaldean connects this maxim with the preceding passages about calumny, injury, and anger; hence he translates it thus: when you suffer injury, do not say: How is it that in ancient times things were safe, and those first ages were the most excellent, and the people of that era preceded us with their righteous deeds? On which account all things prosperous and pleasant flowed to them? So also Clarius and Campensis. Now this is a foolish question, both because in every age there have been many wicked people, perpetrators of injustice, and tyrants; and because each person ought to look at the injuries of his own age, and devise a way to bear them prudently and patiently, or to overcome them, and not look back to past times, which do not concern him, nor can they remove the injuries of his own age from him.
To this are added those who consider this to be the murmuring of the foolish and stupid, who blame Divine Providence for having given the ancients wisdom, probity, and frugality, and therefore abundance of things, peace, strength, and vigor, which He withdrew from later generations: whereas it is established that God for His part abundantly provided each age with goods, both of soul and body. Hence St. Bonaventure considers these words to be said about the frugality of the ancients, who lived peacefully without gold and silver from the fruits of the earth, whereas later the metals dug up by the avaricious became incentives to all evils.
Third, Olympiodorus explains it thus: "Every day foolish people are accustomed to speak thus; for they say: In the times of our fathers, in those ancient days, God used to speak to people now through angels, now through prophets; the ancient patriarchs were permitted to take many wives, to possess great riches, which the Gospel law has restrained for us. There are also those who say: Once God used to protect me with the help of His grace, but now He has completely abandoned me alone; and therefore I cannot do good works. But all these are words of the foolish. One can also hear others babbling thus: In our time this world is filled with evil people, some days are good, others evil." Then, correcting these, he adds: "But he who guides his life under the direction of virtue passes from life to life, and advances from faith to faith by good works, nor is there for him any difference of days, but he knows how to refute by fitting reasons, which we have brought forward a little earlier, the complaints of foolish people."
Fourth, St. Jerome, whom Salonius and Alcuinus follow in their usual manner, offers three expositions, of which the first is literal, the second tropological, the third allegorical; he says therefore: "Do not prefer the old age to the present, because one and the same God is the Creator of both; virtues make good days for the one who lives them, vices make bad ones. Therefore do not say that the days under Moses and under Christ were better than those now. For even at that time many were unbelieving, and their days became evil, and now many believers are found, of whom the Savior says: More blessed are those who have not seen Me and have believed." Otherwise: "You should live so that the present days may always be better for you than the past, lest when you have begun to decline little by little, it be said to you: You were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth?" And again: "Having begun in the spirit, are you now being perfected in the flesh?" Otherwise: "Do not say that the former times of Moses were better than the present times of Christ; that the times of the law were better than those of grace. For if you wish to inquire into this, you act imprudently, not seeing how great is the distance between the Gospel and the Old Testament."
All these interpretations are fitting and tend in the same direction. In sum, this maxim is directed and aimed at idle, lazy, and complaining people who sluggishly lament the poverty, wickedness, and unhappiness of their own age, and praise and celebrate past ages and past centuries above their own: for this is an inborn vice of humanity, to be nauseated by present things and to love absent and past ones, according to that saying of Cornelius Gallus on the Art of Poetry: "He praises past years, despises present ones;" and that of Tacitus, Book On Oratory: "It is a vice of human malice that old things are always praised, while present things are disdained; and we admire what is old and ancient, while we ridicule and despise the pursuits of our own times." And that of Horace, Book II, Epistle 1: And unless it sees things removed from earth and dead to their own times, it disdains and hates them.
Again, old men are accustomed to narrate and extol the past, and to make little of the present deeds of the young, as Aristotle testifies in Book II of the Rhetoric ch. 13, and Plutarch in his tract On Praising Oneself. Hence the Poet: "Old age, he says, is difficult, querulous, and a praiser of times past." Some, even the uneducated and common people, blame the times themselves, as if the times brought this unhappiness, in which matter they err foolishly, since it is not the times but the idleness and wickedness of people that should be blamed. For the same sun has always been and is for all, the same sky, the same stars and elements, the same motion of the sun and heavens, the same succession and alternation of seasons; nor is anyone good or wicked from the impulse of the sky or sun, but from his own virtue or vice. Others complain about God, that He gave better times to the ancients than to themselves and their contemporaries, as I indicated a little before. And so they blasphemously attribute their own wicked morals, and therefore their unhappy and miserable condition, to God, heaven, or the stars, when they ought to impute them to themselves: which is a notable error and folly. Add that fools torment themselves over past things, which cannot be recalled, and meanwhile neglect the present pursuit of virtue. Moreover, our author Emmanuel Sa says this is a foolish question, because they ask about a thing that is in itself clear and manifest; for it is established that all things rush toward decline, as we see ancient trees, people, and animals that were once vigorous and flourishing now growing old, languishing, and dying. The same can be seen in religious Orders, congregations, and states of the Church. For the first faithful and religious people in the time of the Apostles were far holier than those of the present; as is evident from the Essenes under St. Mark.
Finally, there is nothing new under the sun; hence just as the ancients had their virtues and vices, their advantages and disadvantages, so posterity has the same or similar ones. For, as Pliny the Younger wisely says, Book VI, Epistle 21: "I am among those who admire the ancients; yet I do not, as some do, despise the talents of our own times. For nature is not, as it were, exhausted and worn out, so that it can no longer produce anything praiseworthy;" but just as we admire the ancients and what is ancient, so posterity will admire us and what is ours, according to that saying of St. Jerome, Epistle 114: "Talent, like wine, is proved by age." Hence the saying: "Use old wine;" and: "Wisdom is found in the aged."
Moreover, it is established that the new law is better than the old and ancient, namely that the time of Christ and grace surpasses the time of Moses and Judaism. In addition, some later ages have been wiser and better than earlier ones, such as the third and fourth century, in which St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and the other Greek and Latin Doctors of the Church flourished. Certainly our present age surpasses many preceding ones, both in learning — and that of every kind — both in arts excellently cultivated, both in military affairs, both in virtue, religion, and holiness. Indeed, never have arts, disciplines, and sciences of every kind been so cultivated as in this age; never have so many religious families flourished in learning, religion, and zeal as in this era; never have so many navigations, merchandise, and riches, even from the East and West Indies, existed as in our century.
Finally, in the age of Solomon this question was foolish. For Solomon surpassed all the ancients in riches, wisdom, kingdom, happiness, and glory: therefore the Israelites lived the best age under him, and so some morose old men and critics falsely said at that time: "What is the reason that former times were better than the present?" Some respond that Solomon wrote these things after his fall and in repentance for his fall, when he had already introduced idolatry into Israel, about which therefore the pious complained, saying: Where has the ancient faith and religion of Abraham, Moses, and David gone? It has departed, it has vanished. "O ancient house, under how different a master you are governed!"
But it is very doubtful and uncertain that Solomon wrote these things after his fall. For the entire work gives no indication of a fall or of repentance. Moreover: if he repented, and as a penitent wrote these things, then he also restored the ancient religion after abolishing the idolatry already introduced: for true repentance demanded this. Certainly throughout this entire book he does nothing other than preach the vanity of idols and created things, and the truth of the one God and true faith, fear, and worship, so that therefore no one could complain about this matter, or lament that the ancient religion had been undermined by him.
Verse 12: WISDOM IS MORE USEFUL WITH RICHES, AND PROFITS MORE THOSE WHO SEE THE SUN.
The Hebrew reads: wisdom is good with an inheritance (so also the Septuagint μετὰ κληρονομίας, that is, with the distribution of an inheritance, or with a share and portion of an inheritance), and there is more, or abundance, or excellence for those who see the sun; the Arabic: wisdom is good in the exchange of one's lot, and its goodness profits those who look upon the sun, namely, of justice, that is, Christ through faith. So St. Jerome.
The Chaldean adds a commendation of gentleness above wisdom and riches, as if these words relate to the gentle endurance of calumny and injury, about which verses 8 and 9 speak. Thus he translates: wisdom of the law is good with an inheritance; but it is far better that a man should be in gentleness with the inhabitants of the earth, who have seen good and evil under the sun in this age.
This maxim is connected to the preceding one: for since there wisdom was mentioned in the Hebrew, when it says: "Because not from wisdom would you ask this," hence, as is customary, he immediately makes an excursus in praise of wisdom, and shows it to be useful and powerful together with riches. For since he seemed to disparage riches in ch. 2, verse 8, and declared them vain, here he enumerates their use and advantages, if, that is, they are joined to wisdom and honestly expended by it. Thaumaturgus adds that here a reply is given to the complaint of those who grumble that former times were better, that is, richer (although Bonaventure interprets the opposite, namely "better," meaning poorer and more frugal, and therefore more upright and just), by saying: Granted that former times were richer, later times are nevertheless wiser. But wisdom is better than riches. Now as to the meaning,
First, Thaumaturgus considers that here wisdom is contrasted with and placed above riches, as if to say: Wisdom is more useful with riches, that is, in preference to riches, or rather "with riches," that is, when compared and contrasted, as if to say: If you compare wisdom with riches, it will certainly be found more useful. The Syriac version supports this when it translates: wisdom is better than weapons of war, more so for those who see the sun. But others commonly consider that riches here are not contrasted but composed and joined with wisdom. For this is what the Hebrew עם im, the Greek μετά, and the Latin cum signify.
Second, therefore, R. Haccados understands by wisdom with an inheritance a hereditary wisdom, as if to say: Wisdom received from parents, as it were by inheritance, is more useful than an inheritance of riches; for the latter without wisdom profits little: but wisdom, even if it is alone and without resources, knows how to acquire and obtain riches for itself.
Third, Cajetan, as if to say: Wisdom with an inheritance, that is, with inherited riches, is more useful than riches acquired by one's own labor and trade, because the latter through a thousand cares impede the study of wisdom; the former do not, because they come without labor through inheritance.
Fourth and genuinely, as if to say: Wisdom with riches is more useful than riches alone, or sometimes even wisdom alone deprived of riches, because riches are indeed useful, but wisdom is more useful; and it is most useful if it has riches joined to it, because the dignity of wisdom must often be protected by them. For if a teacher, prince, bishop, or pope is poor, although he may be most wise and most holy, he is nevertheless despised by the common people, unbelievers, and heretics; but if he is wealthy, he is feared and honored, according to the saying: "The rich man spoke, and all fell silent, etc. The poor man spoke, and they say: Who is this?" Again, riches serve beneficence for helping the needy, for propagating the worship of God, faith, and piety, as Constantine and Charles surnamed the Great propagated it, and Theodosius, and the other wise and wealthy Emperors and Popes, among whom Gregory XIII recently excelled, who by pontifical munificence in building many colleges and seminaries, wonderfully extended the knowledge and worship of God everywhere; whose virtue, fame, and glory accordingly endure throughout the whole world, and will endure for all ages. So St. Jerome, Alcuinus, Lyranus, Hugo the Cardinal, and others. Hence also Aristotle, I Ethics ch. 10, teaches that riches are the most fitting instrument for acquiring happiness, and that they provide material for virtue.
And it profits more those who see the sun — that is, the living; for they see the sun. He suggests that riches profit only in this life, in which we enjoy the benefit of the sun: for in heaven there will be no use of them. Hence one commentator thinks this phrase denotes long life, as if to say: Wisdom is useful with riches, and profits more if one sees the sun for a long time, that is, if one has a long and extended life. But this is forced and far-fetched, as is the interpretation of Titelmannus, who translates it thus: it precedes or surpasses those who see the sun, as if to say: Wisdom precedes all creatures that are under the sun and gaze upon it. The word 'sun' indicates that riches make the wise man illustrious and splendid, especially when he publicly in the sight of the sun expends riches on the poor or for pious uses.
Mystically, Olympiodorus says: The wise man, by contemplating the sun, rises to the contemplation of its Creator and is suffused with divine light. Wisdom with an inheritance therefore is faith with works, which leads to contemplating the sun of justice. So also St. Ambrose, in his epistle to Sabinus, understands inheritance in this passage as faith. But St. Jerome understands inheritance as good conduct, through which we become heirs of heaven. "The Preacher therefore wishes, he says, to teach how greatly those who deserve to see the sun of justice differ, and who have wisdom with good conduct, from those who without wisdom devoted their attention only to the life and pursuit of conduct. Which indeed Daniel also shows when he says: Those who understand my words will shine like the luminaries of heaven, Dan. 12; or, as Theodotion interpreted it, like the splendor of the firmament; but those who practice my words, like the stars of heaven." The same St. Jerome, Book I Against Jovinian, teaches that these words imply that later days are better than earlier ones, because under the law the death of the flesh followed wisdom, whereas under the Gospel an eternal inheritance awaits the wisdom of the spirit.
Vigilantius the heresiarch (whom our Lutherans and Calvinists follow) twisted this maxim against religious who vow poverty: Wisdom is more useful with riches, he said; therefore wisdom with poverty is less useful, needy, and barren. I respond: This is true of involuntary and forced poverty, but not of voluntary and religious poverty, which in order to give itself entirely to God, voluntarily renounces riches and in the pursuit of perfection follows the counsel of Christ: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me," Matthew 19:21. For this poverty elevates the soul above riches and all earthly things, so that freed from them and loftier than the world, it may fix its hopes and riches in heaven, and unite itself entirely to God. Therefore riches are more useful for the active life and beneficence: but poverty is more useful for the study of wisdom and the contemplative life, as not only all the Fathers teach, but also Aristotle himself expressly, Book X Ethics ch. 8.
Hear St. Jerome, Book Against Vigilantius: "As for his assertion that those do better who use their goods and gradually distribute the fruits of their possessions to the poor, rather than those who, having sold their possessions, give everything away at once, the answer will come not from me but from the Lord: If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor. He speaks to the one who wishes to be perfect, who like the Apostles leaves behind father and boat and net. That which you praise is the second and third degree, which we also accept, provided we know that the first is to be preferred to the second and third."
See the same author, Epistle 26 to Pammachius, and 23 to Lucinius, and 34 to Julianus, where among other things he says: "One man (the philosopher Crates) threw the price of many possessions into the sea, saying: Go into the deep, evil thoughts: I will drown you, lest I myself be drowned by you. A philosopher greedy for glory and a cheap slave of popular favor threw down the whole burden at once, and do you think yourself established on the summit of virtues if you offer a part of the whole? The Lord wants you yourself as a living sacrifice pleasing to God: you, I say, not your possessions; and if you give yourself to the Lord, and having been perfected with Apostolic virtue you begin to follow the Savior, then you will understand where you were, and what a lowly place you held in the army of Christ."
St. Augustine agrees with St. Jerome, in his book On the Good of Marriage: "Those did well, he says, who from their substance supplied necessities to Christ and His disciples; but those did better who left behind all their substance, so that more unencumbered they might follow the same Lord."
The same is taught by Cassian, Collation 21, ch. 33, and St. Gregory, Book 31 Moralia ch. 17, and St. Ambrose, Book I On Duties ch. 30.
St. Hilarion touched the matter and resolved the difficulty with a single maxim, according to St. Jerome in his Life, who when refusing riches offered to him by Orion said: "No one, he says, distributes better than he who reserves nothing for himself." See Bellarmine, Book II On Monks, ch. 46, in the response to objection 3. This poverty in the age of Solomon was unknown to the simple Jews and to the whole world, because it was introduced into the world by Christ in word and example. Christ therefore, just as He fulfilled and augmented the other dogmas of the law with His precepts and counsels, so also perfected and transcended this maxim of Solomon: "Wisdom is more useful" with riches, by His sublime sanction saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," Matthew 5:3. Therefore wisdom alone is useful, wisdom with riches and beneficence is more useful; but most useful and most perfect is wisdom with contempt of riches and the entire world, so that it may adhere entirely to God, indeed cling to Him in its very marrow.
Verse 13: FOR AS WISDOM PROTECTS, SO DOES MONEY PROTECT.
The Hebrew reads: as in the shadow of wisdom, so in the shadow of money, namely one trusts or rests and sleeps securely. Hence the Chaldean: because just as a person is guarded in the shadow of knowledge, so he is guarded in the shadow of silver in the time when he gives alms from it; St. Jerome, in his Commentary: because as the shadow of wisdom, so the shadow of silver; the Syriac: the shelter of wisdom, like the shelter of silver; the Arabic: wisdom in its shadow, like the shadow of silver. All of these seem to have read, instead of בצל betsel, that is, 'in the shadow,' כצל ketsel, that is, 'like the shadow.'
The meaning is clear, as if to say: Wisdom with riches and money is more useful, because both protect one like a shadow and are like a canopy for one. First, so that they may refresh one in the heat of the sun, that is, of temptation and tribulation, as well as of prosperity and abundance, lest one suffer any harm from the burning heat of want or plenty, namely of concupiscence or impatience, but keep the soul untouched by both, and raise it up to God in heaven, and this in the present life, which is nothing but a shadow of the true life. Hence the bride in the Canticle of Canticles 2 sighs saying: "Until the day dawns and the shadows decline," says St. Jerome. Second, so that they may hide and protect him, indeed all who take refuge with him, from the attack of enemies, from whom wisdom rescues him and money defends or ransoms him. Third, so that they may strengthen him for undertaking difficult tasks; for thus Gabriel says to the Blessed Virgin who was about to conceive God: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you," so as to accomplish in you this arduous work of the Incarnation of the Word, Luke 1. Fourth, shade gives respiration and life to plants, animals, and people wilting from the heat of the sun: so wisdom likewise gives the same, as follows. Hence mystically, wisdom
Moreover, the Septuagint translates in a convoluted way: because in its shadow (Greek αὐτῆς, namely of περισσείας, that is, of the abundance which preceded) wisdom is like the shadow of silver, as if to say: In the shadow of abundance one is protected by wisdom, just as one is protected by silver and riches, as the Vulgate and the rest translate. Thaumaturgus, however, interprets it thus, as if to say: "Wisdom is more illustrious than riches by as much as silver appears more splendid than its shadow," as if to say: Wisdom surpasses silver by as much as silver surpasses the shadow of silver; namely, just as the shadow of silver is only a shadow, so silver is only a shadow of wisdom. But Olympiodorus reads it thus: in its shadow, wisdom, like the shadow of silver; and he explains it mystically: Silver, he says, signifies discipline and knowledge; the shadow of this is the speech of the teacher, who by teaching leads the student to knowledge, just as a shadow leads to the body that casts it; but the shadow of wisdom is the practical life: for this is like a preliminary introduction and shadow that leads us to wisdom, that is, to the contemplation of divine things, as if to say: Just as the speech of a teacher leads the student to knowledge, so the active life exercised in virtues leads a person by the hand to the contemplative life, that is, Martha to her sister Mary.
BUT LEARNING AND WISDOM HAVE THIS ADVANTAGE, THAT THEY GIVE LIFE TO THEIR POSSESSOR.
Learning and wisdom are the same, or nearly the same, as I said at the beginning of Proverbs, namely prudence and virtue themselves. Hence St. Jerome in his Commentary translates: that which is greater, the knowledge of wisdom will give life to the one who possesses it; the Chaldean: and the increase of the knowledge of wisdom will give life to its master; the Hebrew: and the excellence of knowledge (which is) wisdom will give life to its possessors; the Septuagint: and the abundance of the knowledge of wisdom will give life to the one who from it, namely, has learned wisdom and become wise; the Syriac: and the excellence of the wisdom of knowledge will give life to its master; the Arabic: the excellence of the knowledge of wisdom gives life to the one who is kindled by it; Campensis: wisdom has this above riches, that it leads the wise man to eternal life; Thaumaturgus: the life of a person comes not from the collection and possession of perishable and fragile riches, but from wisdom.
Nevertheless, learning, or knowledge, or science can be distinguished from wisdom, so that the former is the understanding of human things, the latter of divine things; the former is in action, the latter in contemplation, so Lyranus and Hugo; the former is the act of wisdom, the latter the habit, so Dionysius.
Moreover, prudence and wisdom bestow upon man a threefold life: first, bodily: for it makes the body healthy, vigorous, and strong by avoiding harmful things and living soberly; second, spiritual, so that the soul may live according to the dictates of reason, prudence, divine law, grace, and charity; third, glorious, because it leads man to eternal life and glory. This is what is said in Proverbs 4:10: "Hear, my son, and receive my words, that the years of your life may be multiplied." And ch. 3:18: "It is a tree of life to those who lay hold of it," whereas on the contrary in this chapter, Ecclesiastes verse 18, it is said: "Do not be foolish, lest you die before your time." And Ecclesiasticus 4:12: "Wisdom inspires life in her children. Those who hold onto her will inherit life." And Baruch ch. 3:28: "And because they did not have wisdom, they perished because of their foolishness." See what I have noted in those places.
Moreover, Cicero, Tusculan Disputations III, says: "What is wisdom? It is the health of the soul." And the Comic Poet in the Trinummus: "Wisdom is the seasoning of life: the wise man is food for life." And another: "Wisdom is the light of life." And another: "Three twin sisters they are: wisdom, health, holiness."
For 'its possessor,' the Hebrew is בעלע bealau, which can be translated as 'its husband' or 'its spouse,' or rather 'its spouses'; for it is a plural, as if to say: Wisdom brings to the man who betroths her to himself and joins her to himself as a bride in marriage, a rich dowry — if not of gold and silver, certainly of a manifold life, and not just any kind, but one that is joyful, holy, blessed, and eternal, which it bestows upon him, according to the saying: "Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and glory," Proverbs 3:16. So Blessed Henry Suso through a vision betrothed wisdom to himself as a bride, and with her received true life as a dowry, as I said on Ecclesiasticus 15:2.
Finally, wisdom not only preserves, increases, and prolongs life for the living, but also raises the dead to life, when it recalls sinners through repentance to the life of grace, just as Christ, the Apostles, and apostolic men recalled many to life both bodily and spiritual, and continue to do so daily.
Verse 14: CONSIDER THE WORKS OF GOD, THAT NO ONE CAN CORRECT THE ONE WHOM HE HAS DESPISED.
Symmachus: diminished; the Hebrew: see the work of God, for who will be able to straighten, or make right, that which, or whom He Himself has bent and made crooked? For the word signifies both the neuter 'that which' and the masculine 'whom'; the Septuagint: see, consider, the works of God; for who can adorn him whom God has perverted? The Syriac: see the work of God; for who can strengthen the one who is disturbed? The Arabic: consider the arts of God; for who can embellish the one whom God changes? The Zurich Bible: who can restore (others: adjust; others: help, or recall to equality; Campensis: restore) what He Himself has corrupted, that is, as Vatablus says, whom He permits to be perverted; Cajetan: what He allows to be twisted; Campensis: what He Himself has destroyed; another: what He has deflected. From this one might suspect that the Vulgate translator also rendered it 'deflected,' were it not that all manuscripts consistently read 'despised.' Now then,
First, some, following Cajetan, explain this maxim as referring to the curvature of the heavens, elements, and the entire globe of the earth and world, as if to say: God has curved all the spheres of the heavens and elements, and made them round and spherical; who therefore can square them, or make them straight? Similarly, God made the circular movements and paths of the sun, moon, and heavens; who therefore can change them and make them straight, so that they run not through the Zodiac but in a straight line from East to West? So David de Pomis refers these words to the obliquity of celestial motions, from which subsequently comes the crookedness and depravity of human morals. So also the Hebrews in the Midrash on Ecclesiastes, whom I shall cite more fully at the end of this verse.
Second, the Chaldean understands this of people who are crooked and distorted, either in their feet or in their whole body, such as the lame, the maimed, or the crippled. Hence he translates: contemplate the works of God and His power, who makes the blind, and the hunchbacked, and the lame, so that they may be wonders in the world, for who can correct even one of them, unless the Lord who thus contorted them? And Olympiodorus: who can correct what has been wickedly made crooked, such as the lame, unless God the author of the world? So also St. Jerome, who cites Exodus ch. 4:11: "Who made the mute and deaf, the seeing and the blind? Was it not I?" Thaumaturgus: who will be able to repair what is justly seen to be neglected by God? The author of the Greek Catena: who can patch up and restore what God seems to have justly neglected and passed over? as if to say: No one can correct natural defects contracted from the sin of Adam, or from one's own sin, for example: No one can give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, straight legs to the lame. Therefore let not the wretched vanity of these things torment and torture us, because they cannot be remedied by human means; therefore the remedy must be sought from God, not from man.
So Clarius, Cajetan, Arboreus, Moringus. An ancient fable illustrates this: A donkey complained that it lacked horns, a monkey that it lacked a tail. The mole, hearing these things, said: "How can you complain, when you see my blindness, an evil certainly far greater and more bitter than yours?" The moral: "We bear our misfortunes more justly when we see those of others are more serious."
Third, others more correctly understand these words as referring to the spiritual crookedness of morals. For since Solomon has said that wisdom gives life to its possessor, which life he can also communicate to others, lest anyone object: why then do the wise not convert and give life to all the wicked who are in the world? He anticipates and responds that no one can correct the one whom God has bent and despised.
See the work of God: for who can make straight what He has made crooked? What God has willed to be defective and imperfect, who can change and amend them? Therefore, if you are wise, you will bear the miseries of life with a patient spirit.
Note first that God does not properly and positively bend or incline anyone toward sins: for this is an error that is not only blasphemous but also foolish; for by what reasoning would God, who is uncreated purity itself, goodness, and holiness, bend a person toward sin and wickedness, and by bending commit sin? Wisely and clearly Fulgentius says to Monimus: "God, he says, is not the author of sins, of which He is the avenger." Hence Calvin, Melanchthon, and the like, who make God the author of all works, both evil and good, so that the work of God is both the betrayal of Judas and the calling of Peter and the conversion of Paul: these, I say, deny that God is God, and make their God into the devil. For the devil is the author and instigator of all evil.
God therefore is said to despise and pervert the wicked in the same way that He is said to blind, harden, and hand over to a reprobate mind — namely, indirectly, permissively, and objectively — because, in punishment for preceding sins: first, He permits the wicked to follow their illicit desires so that they give themselves entirely to them; second, He withdraws the abundance of His grace from them and, as it were, abandons them, hence our translator fittingly renders it here as 'despised'; third, He places before them occasions of pleasure, blindness, and hardness — with a good purpose indeed, but knowing in advance that the wicked will abuse these and harden themselves, as I showed at length in Exodus ch. 7:3, and Romans 1:24.
Therefore it is properly the sinner who perverts, hardens, and blinds himself; God does so only improperly, because He abandons and forsakes the sinner in his perversity. Therefore the sinner first abandons and despises God before he is abandoned and despised by God. For, as St. Augustine says, in Response to Articles Falsely Attributed to Him, art. 7: "God, unless He is first abandoned, abandons no one, and converts many who have abandoned Him." And Fulgentius, Book I to Monimus, ch. 13: "He is justly abandoned by God who abandons God." And from both of them, the Council of Trent, Session 6, ch. 11: "God does not abandon with His grace those who have been justified, unless He is first abandoned by them." Hence God reproaches such people, saying: "Because I called, and you refused: I stretched out My hand, and there was no one who heeded. You despised all My counsel. I also will laugh at your destruction," Proverbs 1:24; and: "With the holy You will be holy, and with the perverse You will be perverse," that is, with the one who perverts himself You will deal perversely, O Lord, Psalm 17:27. And: "If they walk perversely toward Me, I also will walk perversely toward them in My fury," Leviticus 26:23, according to the Septuagint.
Note second that God despises the perverse not in the sense that He withdraws from them all the helps of grace, even sufficient grace and that necessary for avoiding sins: for then they would necessarily persist in their perversity, and by persisting would not sin, since all sin is free, not necessary. Again, in that case the perverse would not be on the way of salvation but at the terminus, as the demons are, because they are obstinate in their malice and utterly abandoned and despised by the grace of God. He is said therefore to neglect and despise them in the sense that He gives them rare and meager helps of grace — harsh enlightenments, terrors, impulses — so that they might convert, which compared with their perversity and obstinacy are so small that they seem abandoned and despised by God, and handed over to sin and the devil.
Note third that no one can correct the hardened or the one despised by God, both because the helps of grace that God gives him are, as I said, so meager and weak that it is extremely difficult for him to be corrected with those alone, and morally speaking — that is, as commonly happens — it is practically impossible for him to be converted; and also because for man it is impossible if God does not cooperate and look upon him with the more benign eyes of grace and enlighten him, but rather abandons and despises him in the customary manner. Therefore this impossibility is not absolute but conditional and in the composite sense, not the divided sense. And this is not properly what Solomon intends, as if to say: In such cases, one must have recourse not to the help of man, who is powerless, but to the help and grace of God, who is most powerful. For God corrected Paul, Magdalene, Matthew, Pelagia the penitent, and Mary of Egypt — whom He had despised for many years — by looking upon them more benignly, and raised them to great holiness.
That this is the meaning is clear from ch. 1, verse 15: "The perverse are corrected with difficulty," where he calls 'difficult' what here he calls 'impossible': for in both places the words are the same in Hebrew. So the interpreters and scholastics generally, such as St. Thomas, I Part, Question 23, art. 3, reply to 3; Suarez, Vasquez, Valentia, Bellarmine, and Molina, I Part, Question 23, art. 5, at the end.
This is what St. Augustine says about Pharaoh, Proposition 62 on the Epistle to the Romans: "Therefore it is not imputed to him that he did not obey at that time, since with a hardened heart he could not obey," because, namely, God does not give the hardened at every hour or moment the grace by which they could soften their hardness, but at certain fixed hours pleasing to Him; and if they then use it, they can obey God who calls and knocks. Moreover, although the hardened do not always have the help of grace by which to shake off their hardness and be converted, they nevertheless always have it, at least in first act, prepared for them by God for this purpose: that they not commit a new sin and that they may be able to resist a new temptation. For if they ask God for the strength and grace to resist, they will certainly obtain it; otherwise they would necessarily sin, or rather by consenting to temptation they would not sin, because without grace they cannot resist it: for no one sins in that which he cannot avoid. For, as St. Augustine says, sin is so voluntary that if it is not voluntary, it is not sin, just as a human being, unless rational, cannot be a human being.
To this pertains what St. Isidore says, Book II On the Highest Good, ch. 16: "When abandoned by God, no one can repent; some, however, are so despised by God that they cannot bewail their evils, even if they wish. This happens by the counsel of unclean spirits, for since they themselves have been denied the return to justice after their transgression, they desire to bar the entrance of repentance to men, lest these return to God, but rather that they have them as companions of perdition; working this with whatever deceits, so that they are either abandoned by God, or despair from the immunity of punishment. We must groan continually, and having shaken off all security, we must weep."
Moreover, St. Augustine, in On Correction and Grace ch. 15, teaches that all the perverse must be corrected, both because we do not know whether they are reprobate or rather elect who will convert through our correction; and because it is the duty of a superior to correct a sinning subject, even if the subject himself does not amend, for the instruction and correction of others.
Hear St. Gregory treating this passage in Book 11 of the Moralia ch. 5: "Every mouth that speaks is mute, if He who inspires the words that are heard does not cry out interiorly. Hence Solomon says: Consider the works of God, that no one can correct the one whom He has despised; nor is it surprising if a preacher is not heard by a reprobate heart, since sometimes the Lord Himself is also attacked in what He says by the resistance of their conduct. Hence it is that Cain could indeed be admonished by the divine voice, but could not be changed: because, since the guilt of malice demanded it, God had already internally abandoned the heart to which He was externally speaking for the sake of testimony." Then he adds from the text of Job: "And it is well added: If He shuts up a man, no one can open. For every person, through what he does wickedly, what else does he make for himself but a prison of his own conscience, so that the guilt of his soul oppresses him, even if no one accuses him externally? And when, with God judging, he is left in the blindness of his malice, he is, as it were, shut up within himself, so that he cannot find a way of escape, which he does not at all deserve to find. For often some desire to depart from wicked acts, but being weighed down by the burden of those same acts, shut up in the prison of evil habit, they cannot escape from themselves."
Note fourth that some theologians wish to prove from this maxim that God reprobated the reprobate from His mere good pleasure before any foresight of demerits: for by 'despising' they understand 'reprobation,' but wrongly; for despising signifies something different, as I have already said. For St. Augustine, St. Prosper, and theologians generally teach that God reprobated no one before their demerits: for reprobation is the judgment and sentence of God concerning demerits, by which He condemns sinners to hell on account of their sins; for every judgment and punishment is inflicted on account of demerits: for punishment presupposes guilt.
Some, however, such as Suarez, Bellarmine, and others, extend this maxim to reprobation, and this in a twofold manner and sense: in the former, concerning positive and complete reprobation, as if to say: When God has reprobated someone on account of crimes and condemned him to hell, it is impossible for anyone to correct and save him. The reason is that it is impossible for anyone to change God's sentence and decree, and equally impossible that the crimes, which are posited as already done or to be done, should not have been done or be done. In the latter, concerning permissive and inchoate reprobation, as if to say: When God places someone in that series of circumstances and graces in which He foresees that the person will sin, die in sin, and therefore be reprobated and condemned by Him, no one can transfer him to the contrary series of graces, in which He foresees that those placed therein will use grace well, die therein, and therefore be saved — in which God places all the predestined and elect — as if to say: No one can transfer one who is established in the series of those who are foreseen to be damned for their sins into the series of those to be saved, nor vice versa. For it belongs to God alone to establish these series, and to predestine those to be saved, and to reprobate those to be damned on account of their crimes. But, as I said, reprobation is not properly and per se treated here, but only consequently, insofar as the hardened and others who persist in sin until death (who are here called 'despised by God') are reprobated and condemned by God. St. Bonaventure adduces as an example the sons of Eli, whom their father could not correct, because God, despising them as perverse, willed to kill them. And he adds that these works are to be considered with fear. For who would not tremble, not knowing whether perhaps he is deprived of the congruent grace to rise from his crimes? Here therefore one may apply that saying of Habakkuk 3: "I considered Your works, and I was struck with fear." So Bonaventure.
Morally, Hugo from this passage censures preachers who become indignant if their hearers are not corrected: but if they are corrected, they become puffed up, as if this were the fruit of their eloquence; when they ought to consider that they merely hold up a lamp, offer food, act as heralds, blow the trumpet, ring the bell. But it is God who inwardly changes and converts minds.
Finally, the Hebrews in the Midrash on Ecclesiastes, that is, in the Exposition of Ecclesiastes, at this place, whom Jerome of the Holy Faith cites — a converted Jew, Book I Against the Jews, ch. 7, which he dedicated to Pope Benedict XIII (Pedro de Luna), whose physician he was in the year 1412 (it is found in vol. 4 of the Library of the Holy Fathers): The Hebrews, I say, introduce R. Judah narrating that God led Adam, in the very hour in which He created him, through all the trees of paradise, and said to him: Look upon My works, how beautiful they are! Everything that I created, I created out of love for you. See therefore that you do not sin, lest you give Me a reason to dissolve the world: because if you sin, there is no one who can repair it except the just Messiah through His death, of which you will therefore be the cause — as if Solomon here alludes to that story, or rather recalls it. But these things are apocryphal and smack of Jewish fables. Even though Galatinus cites the same words verbatim in Book 6 On the Secrets of Faith, ch. 10, and attributes them to R. Azariah.
Verse 15: IN THE GOOD DAY, ENJOY GOOD THINGS, AND BEWARE OF THE EVIL DAY; FOR GOD HAS MADE THE ONE AS WELL AS THE OTHER, SO THAT MAN MAY NOT FIND JUST COMPLAINTS AGAINST HIM.
The Hebrew: in the evil day see (that is, taste, enjoy) good, and see (foresee, guard against) the evil day: for God has made this from the opposite side (that is, as a fitting thing, as an opposite and antithesis; Symmachus: a like thing) of that, for this reason, so that man may not find after Him (it can be translated: after himself) anything, namely, that he might cast at God behind His back and cry out against Him, according to the saying: "O Janus (two-faced), whom no stork pecked from behind." Perhaps our translator takes מאומה meuma, that is, 'anything,' as derived from מום mum, that is, a blemish, defect, stain, about which one might complain and blame the author. The Septuagint: in the day of goodness live in good, and see in the day of evil; see, and indeed corresponding to this God made this concerning speech, so that man may not find anything after Him. The Syriac: in the day of good be better, and in the day of evil see: also this against that God made concerning discourse, so that the son of man may find no thing after himself. The Arabic: in the last day live in good things, and consider the day of evil, consider with it, that God made this, because the words apply to this, so that man may not find nor look back upon any thing after himself.
But the Chaldean understands 'good' as almsgiving: hence he translates thus: in the day when God has done you good, be you also in good things, and do good to all who are in the world, so that the evil day may not come upon you; see and contemplate, this also against that God has made, to convict the people of the world, so that man may not find after himself any evil in that world. Vatablus: in prosperous times be glad, and in harsh times look around (because God has sent affliction: for God tempers these with those), so that man may find nothing (certain) after Him (God), that is, so that he cannot reproach God, nor say: I went astray because of excessive joy, and yet God did not recall me. So Vatablus. Now as to the meaning,
First, St. Jerome: "I know, he says, that I heard these little verses explained in the church by one who was considered to have knowledge of the Scriptures, as follows: While you are in this present age, and can do some good work, labor, so that afterwards you yourself may be safe on the evil day, that is, on the day of judgment, and see others being tormented; for just as God made this present age, in which we can prepare for ourselves the fruit of good works, so also the future one, in which no opportunity for good works is given. He seemed indeed to be persuading, when he said it, to the listeners."
Alcuinus, Hugo, and Dionysius approve this meaning; less aptly Lyranus explains it thus, as if to say: On feast days and solemn days live more splendidly; but on those days that are appointed for affliction, such as Lenten days, abstain.
Second, St. Jerome refers these words to freedom of choice, so that one may choose good or evil. For since Solomon said that there are many evils both in nature and in morals, lest anyone wonder at this, he adds that this world consists of contraries — namely good and evil things — and is adorned and embellished by these, as by antitheses, so that from them man may choose the good and reject the evil. Hear St. Jerome: "Bear, he says, both good and evil things as they befall you. And do not think that the nature of the world consists only of good things, or only of evil, since this world subsists from diverse contraries: hot and cold, dry and moist, hard and soft, dark and bright, evil and good. And God made it thus, so that wisdom might have scope for understanding good and avoiding evil, and free will might be left to man, so that he would not say that he was created insensible and stupid by God, but that God made diverse things so that man could not complain about his condition: and at the same time this testimony will be connected consequently with the preceding passages, in which he says: Who can adorn the one whom God has perverted?"
Third and genuinely, refer these words partly to the vanity of the world, inasmuch as everywhere evils are mixed with goods — namely, sorrows with joys, calumny with praise, misfortune with good fortune; partly to the providence of God, which has tempered adversity with prosperity, lest if only adversity always befell a person, he would lose heart and despair, or if always prosperity, he would become proud and insolent, and in this way man would have no just occasion for complaining against God; partly to prudence, which Solomon here teaches man, so that he may know how to conduct himself in prosperity as well as adversity. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Since this world is full of vanity and variety, and therefore in it evils are mixed with goods and sorrows with joys, you, O man, if you are wise, in the good day — that is, the prosperous, happy, and joyful day — moderately enjoy your prosperity, but at the same time foresee and guard against the contrary day of adversity and sadness, and arm yourself against it, so that you may find ways and means of avoiding, enduring, or overcoming it: for God has wisely composed and opposed the one with the other, both to adorn the world with these, as it were, antitheses; and to provide fallen man with a continual exercise of temperance, repentance, patience, and other virtues. Hence man has no ground for justly complaining against Him; for if he does so, he will be ungrateful to God in prosperity and unjust in adversity: therefore let him resign himself to God's providence, praise it, and give thanks in all things, and so always live joyfully and holily. The reason a priori is both the vanity and variety of sublunary things, and that man after the fall has lost the constancy and equilibrium of a perfect mind; and therefore now he is lifted up too high, becomes cheerful and proud, now cast down too low, becomes sad and fainthearted, so that he can hardly ever remain in the mean of virtue and equanimity: therefore to heal this wound, God sends adversity to humble the one who lifts himself up too high, and prosperity to raise up the one who is cast down too low. Again, this alternation does not allow him to become torpid and idle in the pursuit of virtue, since now prosperity, now adversity shake and agitate him, so that against the former he may arm himself with temperance, and against the latter with patience. Finally, by this means man learns to resign himself fully to God, to hope in Him, and to depend entirely upon Him, so as to say with St. Job, ch. 2:10: "If we have received good things from the hand of God, why should we not receive evil things?" And ch. 1:21: "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done: blessed be the name of the Lord." And with St. Paul: "I know how to abound, and I know how to suffer want." Following Solomon in his customary manner, Sirach says, ch. 11:27: "In the day of good things, he says, be not unmindful of evil things: and in the day of evil things be not unmindful of good things. For, as the same author says in ch. 33:13: "Against evil there is good, and against death there is life, and against a just man there is a sinner. And thus look upon all the works of the Most High, two and two, and one against one." See what is said in both places. For one contrary tempers and moderates the other, and reduces it to the golden mean, which is salutary for man and for the whole world. For, for example, adversity depresses the inflation and pride of prosperity, and prosperity lifts up the dejection and straits of adversity: about which Olympiodorus elegantly says: "What seems discordant is harmonious; and what seems unequal is equal." Therefore they agree and conspire wonderfully into the single most wise providence of one world and one man, says St. Jerome: "diverse contraries — hot and cold, dry and moist, hard and soft, dark and bright, evil and good." So Pineda.
The philosophers learned the same from Solomon: "The eternity of things consists of contraries," says Seneca, Epistle 108, drawing from Cleanthes and Cicero. And he adds: "It is best to endure what you cannot correct, and to accompany God, by whose authority all things come to pass, without murmuring. He is a bad soldier who follows his general groaning. Therefore let us receive our orders briskly and cheerfully, and let us not cease this course of the most beautiful work, into which whatever we suffer is woven, and let us address Jupiter, by whose helm this great mass is steered: Lead me, O father and ruler of the lofty sky, wherever it has pleased You; there is no delay in obeying. I am present, ready; make me unwilling, I will follow groaning, and as a bad man I will suffer what it was permitted for a good man to suffer willingly. Fate leads the willing, drags the unwilling: so let us live, so let us speak, and let fate find us prepared and active. This is the great soul that has surrendered itself to God. But on the contrary, that man is small and degenerate who resists and thinks ill of the order of the world, and prefers to correct the gods rather than himself."
See the same author, Book II On Benefits ch. 29, reviewing and refuting the complaints of men against God's providence. Plutarch, in his book On Tranquility of Mind: In a lyre, he says, there are sharp and deep tones: so in our life calamitous things mixed with prosperous ones produce a harmonious melody. God skillfully strikes the lyre of our life on both sides: therefore let us listen to these divine melodies not only patiently, but also cheerfully and joyfully.
St. Gregory wisely says, Homily 19 on Ezekiel, a little before the end: "Let us learn, Fathers, to give thanks not only in prosperity, but also in adversity. For our Creator has become a Father to us from His own love, and He nourishes us as adopted children for the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom; and He not only refreshes us with gifts, but also instructs us with scourges." Hence he concludes: "If therefore, dearest brothers, we walk by the Lord's precepts and the examples of the saints, so that neither prosperity lifts us up nor adversity breaks us, we show before the eyes of Almighty God that we hold palms on both sides, to whom is honor and glory forever and ever."
Verse 16: THIS ALSO I SAW IN THE DAYS OF MY VANITY: THE JUST MAN PERISHES IN HIS JUSTICE, AND THE WICKED MAN LIVES A LONG TIME IN HIS WICKEDNESS.
The Syriac: he is prolonged; Aquila: he is long-lived. The Arabic: that the just man will be destroyed in his justice, and the wicked man will persevere in his wickedness. 'In his justice' and 'in his wickedness' can be understood first, materially, as if to say: The just man perishes, although he is innocent and deserves a long life; the wicked man lives long, although he is guilty and deserves a swift death. Second, formally and causally, as if to say: The just man perishes because of his justice, just as the martyrs were killed for the faith by tyrants; but the wicked prolong their life because of their wickedness, because they freely dominate, plunder, feast, and procure for themselves by right or wrong every advantage for prolonging life.
This maxim is aptly connected to the preceding one, because both enumerate the alternating succession of contrary things. The 'days of vanity' refers to this present life, because it is subject to vanity, that is, emptiness, change, death, miseries, and sins. Bonaventure, Hugo, and the Gloss incorrectly read 'of birth' instead of 'of vanity.'
The meaning is clear, both from the words themselves and from the experience of things; for we see not rarely that the just die quickly, while the wicked are prosperous and long-lived. Thus Isaiah says in ch. 57:1: "The just man perishes, and no one considers it in his heart." The Wise Man says the same, ch. 2:12 and 20; Jeremiah, ch. 2:21, and ch. 12:7 and 8. The Hebrews, as cited by Galatinus Book 6, ch. 10, understand by the just man Christ, whose brief life and swift death they consider to be predicted here, who died in justice, that is, just and innocent, in order to justify and give life to sinners. "Having been perfected in a short time, He fulfilled many ages," Wisdom ch. 4, where in verses 14 ff. several causes of the brevity of the life of the pious are discussed. Thus Abel was quickly killed by Cain, while the wicked Manasseh reigned 50 years, while the pious Josiah reigned only 31, David 40, Hezekiah 29. Moreover, the just wear out their body with fasts, penances, vigils, prayers, and studies, and consume their vital spirits, and so they waste away and die, while the wicked fatten their body with feasts. Sometimes, however, God prolongs the life of the just and shortens that of the wicked, according to the saying: "Men of blood and deceit shall not live out half their days," Psalm 54:24. And: "Honor your father and your mother, that you may be long-lived upon the earth," Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16. Thus God alternates the lots of both, so that people may recognize the vanity of this life and the truth of the future life, and long for it. Add that God, being favorable to the pious, compensates for the brevity of this life by the length of a greater and better life in heaven; but He permits the long life of the wicked in anger, so that they may accumulate for themselves crimes and therefore harsher punishments in hell. Hear St. Jerome: "Similar to this is what the Savior says, Matthew 10: He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. The Maccabees, for the law of God and justice, seemed to perish in their justice, and the martyrs who shed their blood for Christ. On the contrary, those who from that time ate pork, and after the coming of the Lord sacrificed to their idols, these seemed to live in this world and to persevere as long-lived because of their wickedness. But God's patience is hidden, and He afflicts the saints now so that they may receive their evils in this life, and does not visit sinners for their crimes, but as it were reserves them for the slaughter, so that He may restore eternal goods to the former and inflict everlasting evils upon the latter. The Hebrews suspect that the just who perish in their justice are the sons of Aaron, because while they thought they were acting justly they offered strange fire; and they say the wicked man who is long-lived in his wickedness is Manasseh, who after his captivity was restored to his kingdom and lived for a long time afterwards."
Moreover, Thaumaturgus translates: and I, once walking not rightly, learned how the just man persevering in his justice until death does not fall away, and the treacherous and wicked man dies with his crime. But St. Cyril, in On Worship in Spirit, Book 7, says: It can happen that although what the law commands is done, the law itself is violated, unless one uses the law rightly; and this, I think, is what Solomon says: "There is a just man who perishes in his justice."
But the Chaldean: "All things I have seen in the days of my vanity, that from the face of the Lord good and evil things are decreed, that they might be in the world through the influence of the stars under which the children of men were created; and if the just man perished in his justice in this world, his justice is preserved for the world to come; and there is a wicked man whose days are prolonged in his sins, and the number of his most wicked works is preserved for him for the world to come, so that vengeance may be taken upon him on the day of the great judgment."
Finally, the Hebrews here in the Midrash, or in the Gloss, whom Jerome of the Holy Faith cites, Book I Against the Jews, ch. 7, and Galatinus, Book 6, ch. 10, understand by the just man Moses, about whom they narrate this story, or rather fable: "The just man perishes in his justice. This, they say, is said of Moses, who indeed became like the son of a certain woman who, being pregnant (from fornication), was put in chains on account of that crime, gave birth to a son, and died: that son of hers, already reared in prison, remained there; after some space of time, when the king was passing by the door of the prison, the young man cried out saying: Lord king, I was born and raised here, though I have committed no sin; for whose offense am I here? And the king said to him: On account of the offense of your mother."
Verse 17: DO NOT BE JUST OVERMUCH (that is, more than is fair and excessively, whence follows): NOR BE MORE WISE THAN IS NECESSARY, LEST YOU BECOME STUPEFIED.
Note: Properly speaking, no one is too just, or too temperate, too brave, chaste, or prudent, because the greater the justice or virtue, the more perfect it is: therefore the word 'too much' signifies that justice and virtue degenerate into vice through excess, just as natural heat, if it is excessive so as to exceed the just temperament of the constitution, degenerates into disease and becomes a fever. Thus one who is too brave is called rash; too temperate, insensible; too prudent, crafty. Moreover, Aristotle, Book 5 Ethics ch. 4 and 5, teaches that all virtues consist in the mean between two extreme vices, except justice: for this, he says, does not stand between contrary vices, but between two unequal things, namely between gain and loss, or between inflicting and suffering injury, and it seeks equality and a mean between these. Nevertheless, in a certain way justice can also be said to deal with contrary vices, because for example, one who owes another a hundred gold coins, if he pays only 50, sins by defect and does the creditor an injustice; but if he pays more, say 150, he does not commit an injustice; but he is unjust to himself; indeed he can do an injustice to his wife, children, and family, if he squanders his wealth to their detriment — if, for example, he gives to another the fifty gold coins necessary for supporting his family, to which he is not obligated. Such a person therefore will properly be too just, and will sin by excess of justice on one side, namely the creditor's, and by defect on the other, namely the family's: for because he exceeds in giving 50 to the creditor, he thereby falls short in supporting his family. So Francisco Valles, Sacred Philosophy ch. 67. Now then,
The Fathers and interpreters give various explanations of this passage, all fitting and probable. The first is: Do not be, that is, appear too just, so as to advertise, boast of, and display your justice like the Pharisee who boasted and despised the Publican as a sinner, Luke 18:11. So Thaumaturgus: "Moreover, he says, whoever is wise or just, let him not seem to himself immoderately just or wise, lest perhaps, having committed one sin, he consequently become entangled in more." And St. Augustine in his Sentences, no. 365: "It is divinely said: Do not be just overmuch; for, he says, this is not the justice of the wise but the pride of the presumptuous. He therefore who becomes too just in this way, himself becomes too unjust. But who is he who makes himself just, unless one who says he has no sin?" Such were the Pelagians, who said they were just by their own merits, by the powers of nature, not of Christ; by the powers of grace, and so they could avoid every sin, even venial. Similar views are held by
St. Augustine, Treatise 95 on John. Thus also that Evangelical shepherd is read to have carried the weary sheep, not cast it off; and Solomon says: Do not be just overmuch. For moderation ought to temper justice." He adds the pressing reason: "For how should he offer himself to your care, whom you hold in disdain, who thinks he will be an object of contempt, not of compassion, to his physician? Therefore the Lord Jesus had compassion on us, to call us to Himself, not to frighten us away. He came meek, He came humble. Finally He says: Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Therefore the Lord Jesus refreshes, does not exclude, nor cast off; and deservedly He chose such disciples who, as interpreters of the Lord's will, would gather the people of God, not reject them. Hence it is clear that those are not to be counted among the disciples of Christ who think that harsh things should be followed instead of gentle, proud things instead of humble; and who, while they themselves seek the Lord's mercy, deny it to others, as are the teachers of the Novatians who call themselves pure." Therefore St. Hildebert rightly says, Epistle 23: "Whoever leaves no offense unpunished, offends: it is a fault to prosecute every fault entirely; a person offended who is merciful savors something great and divine; a good ruler pursues a crime in such a way that he remembers that the one he punishes is a human being."
Second interpretation: Do not be just overmuch, that is, do not defend or pursue your own right or another's too rigidly, because the highest right is the greatest wrong. So Isidore of Pelusium, Book 3, Epistle 320: "In this sense, he says, it was said: Do not be just overmuch; do not pursue justice severely and rigidly, but rather overcome it through kindness." And he adds: Hence one of the Seven Sages of Greece (Bias, or as others say, Solon) borrowed his famous saying μηδέν ἄγαν, that is, nothing in excess; the best thing is moderation, as if to say: Make use of equity, that is, fairness and discreet moderation of justice; and this: first, in vindictive or punitive justice — do not be an excessive enforcer, censor, or avenger of right and justice: for such are the rigid and fierce, who give no pardon to brothers sinning from weakness, and sin against Christ's commandment: "Do not judge, and you will not be judged: do not condemn, and you will not be condemned," Luke 6:37. So St. Jerome: "If you see someone rigid, he says, and fierce toward all the faults of his brethren, so that he gives pardon neither to one sinning in speech, nor to one occasionally slow because of natural laziness, know that this person is more just than is just. For an inhuman justice it is that does not pardon the frailty of the human condition." And Bachiarius, Epistle On Receiving the Lapsed, to Januarius, near the middle, vol. 3 of the Library of the Holy Fathers: "Do not be just overmuch; why are you ashamed, he says, to be associated with a sinful person? Look upon Him who says: Do not be just overmuch. Our Master judged the man wounded by robbers not only worthy of care, but also brought him back to His stable and fold."
Second, in distributive justice: do not be too just, that is, beware lest you are so afraid of giving benefits or rewards to one unworthy, that you end up denying them also to the worthy. Third, in commutative justice, as if to say: Beware of being so concerned about not failing to give another his due pay and profit that you inflict harm upon yourself. For although justice consists in the equality of right and of an indivisible debt, and therefore one cannot properly sin against it by excess but only by defect, as Aristotle teaches in the passage already cited; nevertheless in the exercise and execution of justice one can sin by excess, namely when someone pays a debt at a time when he is not obliged to, to the great detriment of the state or himself — as when someone returns a sword to a madman, who uses it to slaughter citizens. So St. Augustine in Questions on the Old Testament, Question 15: "Excessive justice, he says, incurs sin; but temperate justice produces perfect people: because if you respond to sinners in every instance, there will not be lacking a place where you sin. Therefore the one who imitates God is not just overmuch." Hear St. Ambrose, Book 1 On Penance, ch. 1: "For he who strives to correct the failings of human weakness ought to bear that weakness himself, and as it were carry it on his shoulders, not cast it off. For that Evangelical shepherd is read to have carried the weary sheep, not cast it off;
So explain Olympiodorus, Alcuinus, Bonaventure, Lyranus, Cajetan, and others.
Here is relevant the exposition of Ferrandus the Deacon of Carthage, who was a contemporary and friend of St. Fulgentius, and flourished in doctrine and holiness in the year of Christ 480 (it is found in vol. 9 of the Library of the Holy Fathers), and who wrote a Paraenetical Address to Count Reginus on how a military commander can be religious, in which, at the end of rule 5, he treats this maxim admirably: "To cling to what is customary, he says, and to shrink vehemently from what is unusual, is excessive justice, most worthy not of praise but of reproof, if you accept the judgment of the most wise Solomon: Do not be just overmuch: nor be wiser than is necessary, lest you become stupefied, lest you remain cold. Who remains cold? He from whom the fervor of charity is withdrawn. Therefore do not be just overmuch."
Then he establishes this sixth rule of innocence for the commander: "Whatever you say, do, and arrange, in order to please God and men, do not be just overmuch." He adds particular cases: "Has someone incurred the most grievous guilt of a crime? He deserves to feel judicial censure. Temper, most excellent commander, the impulse of severity, and while punishments are being inflicted on the guilty, let piety say in the inner ear: Do not be just overmuch. Has another, unmindful of friendship, neglected to render the offices owed? He is worthy of being rejected, he deserves to feel a harsh rebuke. Restrain, I beg you, your righteous indignation, do not repay in kind. Do not regard him as an enemy, but correct him still as a friend, with the most wise Solomon answering you: Do not be just overmuch. Be therefore just, but do not be just overmuch. Be just so as to correct the restless, do not be just overmuch, so as to console the fainthearted, to support the weak, and to be patient toward all." And after some further remarks: "O how many things, most wise commander, must be overlooked, how many tolerated, how many touched upon only lightly! how many things also must be yielded to the intercessions of priests by one who wisely heeds the saying: Do not be just overmuch!" In accordance with that saying of St. Bernard to Eugenius: "A ruler should see everything, overlook much, punish little." Ferrandus then adds: "Among other things, finally, we will wound no one with the hidden javelin of detraction, nor will we inquire too anxiously into the conduct of those living well for something to blame, if the faithful Scripture speaks to each of us through the Holy Spirit: Do not be just overmuch." Hence he concludes: "One who bears no one's burden through patience becomes unbearable to all, and as hatred gradually grows, he opens the souls of many, first to seditions, then to open warfare: desiring to be just overmuch, he has truly become unjust, and unworthy of the name or office of commander. Therefore I repeat more often the necessary counsel, best commander: Do not be just overmuch."
Here is relevant the proverb of the Arabs: "Haste in justice is not justice," as if to say: A judge must not rush his verdict, lest afterward it be found to be unjust.
Third, our Lorinus and Pineda explain it thus, as if to say: Do not scrutinize divine judgments too curiously, so as to appear to act as a censor of divine justice, saying: Why does God permit the just man to perish in his justice, and the wicked man to prolong his life in wickedness? Hence he adds: nor be wiser than is necessary; the Septuagint: do not argue more than is fitting, as if you wish to dispute with God, according to Jeremiah 12:1: "You are indeed just, O Lord, if I dispute with You: yet I would speak just things to You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper?"
Fourth, do not be too just, that is, too good, too lenient, too complaisant, so as to overlook sins and not resist them. So the Chaldean: do not be too just, he says, in the time when a sinner is guilty of death, so as to act mercifully toward him by not killing him; nor become wise in this way any further, according to the wisdom of the wicked, and do not learn their ways: to what end would you pervert your way? So also the Hebrews here in the Midrash or Gloss, and R. Haccados: Too just, that is, too good, they say, was Saul, who spared Agag and the best of the herds against the commandment of God, and therefore lost both kingdom and life, 1 Kings ch. 15, verse 9.
Fifth, plainly, fully, and adequately, as if to say: Do not be excessive and exceed the measure in justice, both properly so called and generally understood, that is, in virtue. For virtue consists in a measure and in the mean between two extremes, which are accordingly vices. So St. Gregory Nazianzen in his Distichs: "Beware, he says, lest you have either too rigid a justice, or a crooked, or a crafty prudence. For the best thing in all matters is moderation. Govern the faithlessness of the soul, lest it slip from fortitude to rashness." The same author, in his Precepts for Virgins: Virtue is fixed in the middle between evils: Just as the soft rose among sharp thorns.
The same author, Oration 26: "Do not be exceedingly just, he says, nor wise beyond measure. For an equal detriment is brought to justice and wisdom by the fierce impulse of the spirit, both in action and in speech, falling away from good and virtue because of excess. For defect and excess equally undermine virtue, no less than some addition or subtraction undermines a standard. Therefore let no one be wiser than is fitting, nor stricter than the law, nor more splendid than the light, nor straighter than the rule, nor more sublime than the divine precept. But how shall we finally achieve this? Namely, if we take care to be modest and composed, if we approve the laws of nature, follow reason as our guide, and do not despise order and discipline." Moreover, Aristotle, I Ethics ch. 6, defines virtue as the mean.
And Horace: Virtue is the mean withdrawn from vices on both sides. And that saying of Hesiod: Keep measure; moderation is best in every matter.
This meaning is required by the antithesis of the following verse: "Do not act impiously overmuch": the Hebrew: do not sin much. Again, in this sense this maxim is fittingly connected to the preceding: "The just man perishes in his justice," as if to say: Do not be excessive in the rigor of justice, penance, prayer, contemplation, and other virtues, lest you bring upon yourself death, whether natural or violent, from those who cannot bear this rigor of justice. The reason he adds also supports this: "Lest you become stupefied": for excessive rigor dulls the mind and induces numbness in the body.
Here is relevant the exposition of Aben Ezra: He is too just, he says, who by excessive fasts, prayers, and labors wastes his body, indeed kills it and brings it to the utmost stupor and desolation. "Nothing is less profitable than to cultivate a field too intensely," says Pliny, Book 18, ch. 6, because in this way all its sap and vigor is exhausted, so that it becomes worn out and barren: so those who cultivate their mind or soul with excessive labors enervate and stupefy it. Hence St. Bernard, Sermon 4 on Psalm 'He who dwells': "Just as, he says, this bodily sun, although it is good and very necessary, nevertheless its heat, if it is not tempered, harms a weak head, and its splendor harms weak eyes, and the fault is not the sun's but the weakness's: so also is the sun of justice. Hence it is said: Do not be just overmuch, not because justice is not good; but because, while we are still weak, good things themselves must be tempered by grace, lest we perhaps incur the vice of pride or of indiscretion." And St. Ephrem, Epistle to the monk John, On Patience: "Do not be just overmuch: nor be wiser than is necessary, lest you become stupefied," that is, he says, lest he depart from charity." The same author in his Precepts for Virgins: Virtue is fixed in the middle between evils: Just as the soft rose among sharp thorns.
Hence Vatablus translates: do not presume things greater than yourself; do not attempt those things which surpass your powers, both of nature and of grace, lest you succumb under the burden and repent of what you have done. He brings an example of certain monks who, out of a desire for greater perfection, leaving their cell against the warnings of their superiors, betook themselves to the most arid solitude: but there, worn out by hunger and cold, some were even killed. Wiser was St. Macarius who, as St. Ephrem relates in the same place, being urged by a certain spirit to proceed into the deeper desert, long resisted him, and finally obeying him, went out into the desert and saw there two naked men, whom he addressed: 'How,' he said, 'can I become a monk?' And they to him: 'Unless one has renounced all things that are in the world, he cannot become a monk.' To whom he said: 'I am weak, and I am not as strong as you.' They replied: 'If you cannot live as we do, sit in your cell and weep for your sins,' as if to say: Be a cell-dweller, if you cannot be a hermit; be a cenobite, if you cannot manage to be an anchorite, according to that common saying: 'If you cannot drive a horse, drive a donkey.' In this matter novices often sin, who from their novice fervor, though indiscreet, immediately wish to be perfect and supreme in holiness, and therefore wear themselves out with excessive fasts, prayers, and penances, so that they become sick, and from there grow lukewarm or scrupulous.
Therefore excess in justice and in every virtue must be guarded against, and a measure must be applied to each, except to love. 'For the measure of loving God is to love without measure,' says St. Bernard; understand this of the love of God in itself: for accidentally, lest the brain and body be too much weakened, a measure must also be applied to contemplation and love.
Finally, some understand by justice religion, as if to say: Do not be too just and wise, that is, too religious and curious in scrutinizing divine things; 'do not be stupefied,' that is, do not become superstitious, or heretical, or scrupulous and deranged. For religion, if it be excessive, degenerates from itself and becomes superstition. Hence Plutarch in his life of Camillus: 'Piety,' he says, 'or religion is a mean between contempt of the divine and superstition. And piety is what they say: Nothing in excess is best.'
NOR BE WISER THAN IS NECESSARY.
The Hebrew reads: do not consider yourself wise more than is fitting, or, do not esteem yourself wise excessively, or beyond what is right; the Arabic: do not pursue superfluous wisdom; Olympiodorus: do not be too wise; Campensis: do not be wise beyond measure; the Zurich version: do not arrogate to yourself greater wisdom. The sense is, as if to say: Do not wish to be too wise in finding and defending your excessive justice, by which, as a rigid censor of justice, you presume to judge and censure the morals, actions, and judgments not only of men, but also of God, and even the law itself, as though you wished to be more legal and more just than it, as I said a little before from Nazianzen. Hence the Seventy translate: do not argue more than is proper; St. Jerome: do not seek further. Again, in that you wish to be wiser than the rest, both in holiness, rigor and perfection of virtue, and in any other matter.
Do not be stupefied. — For excessive wisdom degenerates into foolishness and stupor, just as excessive study fatigues and dulls the brain, because it consumes the best spirits: hence those who study too much become stupid, then delirious and insane, or sick, and die quickly. Hence in Hebrew it reads: why will you be devastated, or made desolate? Such is one who is stupefied, who is, as it were, deserted and desolated from himself and from his own soul; Symmachus: that you may not be too much distressed; the Syriac: do not be amazed; the Arabic: do not act impiously; St. Jerome: do not be disturbed; Thaumaturgus: lest having admitted one sin, he is consequently entangled in more; the Zurich version: why would you make yourself stupid? Campensis: lest perhaps you also similarly perish. Another translates: why will you puff yourself up? The Chaldean: to what end will you pervert your way? Cajetan explains that those who are too wise, or too just, being little adapted to the practical and social common life, are usually abandoned by those who handle business, or deliberate and seek counsel. But this is rather cold.
Do you want examples? Consider: the philosophers, claiming to be wise, became fools, Rom. 1:22. Adam and Eve became foolish and stupid when they wished to be too wise, and therefore ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Thus Festus said to Paul: 'Much learning is driving you to madness,' Acts 26:24. Thus Solomon himself, trusting too much in his own wisdom, fell into the stupor and folly of idolatry. Hence Sirach 47:22 says of Solomon: 'You inclined your foolishness;' and verse 27: 'He left behind from his seed, the foolishness of a nation, and Rehoboam diminished in prudence.' Truly Isaac the priest, in his book On Contempt of the World, chapter 51: 'He who is puffed up because of his wisdom,' he says, 'will suffer the dark snares of ignorance.'
Finally, Hugh the Cardinal wrongly refers these words to the following verse, as if to say: Do not act impiously much, lest you add sins to sins, do not be stupefied, that is, become stupid and hard, so that you cannot be aroused to better things. Thus also Bonaventure: He forbids, he says, the precipice of impiety, because this renders a man stupid in his affections, hard and cruel in action, and blind in his understanding, and, as Lyranus says, it makes a man despair.
Verse 18: DO NOT ACT IMPIOUSLY MUCH: AND DO NOT BE FOOLISH. LEST YOU DIE BEFORE YOUR TIME.
The Syriac: do not become excessively hateful, do not be foolish, lest perhaps you die without your time; Thaumaturgus: do not be bold or rash, lest death snatch you away before your day; the author of the Greek Catena: lest untimely death lay an early hand upon you; the Chaldean: do not walk after the thoughts of your heart, to act impiously, nor make your way far from the house of the teaching of the law, that you be foolish, lest perhaps you be the cause of death to your soul, that the days of your life be cut short, that you die before your time comes. 'That you die,' in Hebrew אל תרסע (al tirsa), that is: do not be restless, wandering, turbulent, so that you are carried away by various lusts, and toss about on the waves of the soul, like a stormy sea. R. David and R. Abraham: do not occupy yourself too much in worldly affairs, do not distract yourself, do not wander; Campensis: do not be too tenacious of justice, nor be lawless, so that you are neither scrupulously tormented in the smallest matters, nor rashly leap over the greatest. This maxim is the antithesis of the preceding one, as is evident to anyone comparing both, especially in the Hebrew.
The sense is clear, as if to say, says St. Jerome: Do not add sins to sins, lest you provoke God to bring judgment upon you even in this life, and a swift death. Understand especially grave and atrocious sins, for this is what the Hebrew רשע (rascha) signifies, and the Latin 'to act impiously': these are of a double kind, namely first, impiety against God through superstition, heresy, blasphemy, idolatry, etc. So Olympiodorus. Second, savagery and cruelty toward one's neighbor. So Bonaventure, Lyranus, and others. For these two, being harmful to the republic and to human society, God usually punishes in this life, and chastises with death, as He chastised the whole world, full of idolatry and injustice, with the flood in the time of Noah; the Pentapolis with heavenly fire; Korah, Dathan, and Abiram with the opening of the earth, Numbers 16; Absalom, who rebelled against his father David, with hanging. For, as it is said in Psalm 54, verse 24: 'Men of blood and deceit shall not live out half their days:' therefore 'do not act impiously much,' that is, just as I taught you not to be too just, so I warn you not to be too unjust. Guard therefore against grave sins, especially those that injure God or your neighbor. For every sin, even venial and the least, is impossible to avoid in this fragile life, that is, as the Poet says: 'Each one endures his own shades; happy is he who is burdened with the least.'
AND DO NOT BE FOOLISH.
Foolishly clinging to vain pleasures, and adding sins to sins, and not repenting with the danger of death and hell, which sinners do not think about, nor foresee, but sin freely and carelessly as if there were no death and hell, and therefore, improvident, they suddenly fall into it. Is this not the greatest folly? 'For if,' says St. Jerome, 'the swallow knows how to cure her chicks with the juice of celandine, and wounded deer seek dictamnus, why should we not know that the medicine of repentance has been offered to sinners?' Hence the Seventy translate: do not be harsh, that is, hard; the Arabic: do not be rude, wicked; Hugh: do not be ignorant of divine things.
LEST YOU DIE BEFORE YOUR TIME.
That is, do not die untimely, by a premature and anticipated death, and one often violent, namely by force from men, or inflicted upon you by God as avenger. Very wicked men, says St. Jerome, die before their time, because they are removed from life by the vengeance of judges, or of God, before the natural end of life which they would have reached, had it not been cut short and snatched away, that is, before the fated time, says the Zurich version: for, as Campensis translates, such people for the most part perish badly. Add that the restlessness and passions, and disturbances of anger, envy, pride, etc., by which the wicked are constantly agitated, shorten their life. Thus the sons and descendants of Eli died before their time. Hear the Sacred Scripture: 'There shall not be an old man in your house for all days: and the greater part of your house shall die when they come to manhood,' 1 Kings 2:32-33, according to Proverbs 10:27: 'The fear of the Lord adds days: and the years of the wicked shall be shortened.'
Second, 'before their time,' because a sudden and unexpected death overtakes the wicked who are unprepared, being destitute of virtues and merits: so Olympiodorus. This time is called 'not his own,' because it is unfitting for him, harmful to his soul, and ruinous to eternal salvation: for this is the time of sin and the devil, in which he possesses the sinner, to drag him to hell.
Third, 'before their time,' because the wicked at no time expect death, and think themselves very far from it; therefore death carries them off thoughtless and trembling. See Pererius on Genesis chapter 25, disputation 7.
Mystically, the author of the Greek Catena explains it, as if to say: 'Let not an impious thought linger in your heart, lest perhaps the soul, having fallen into impiety through ignorance, die.'
Tropologically, learn here that the highest good is to die in one's own time, that is, when one established in grace is prepared for death, so that through it he may pass to blessed immortality. This God grants to those who are zealous and diligent to preserve themselves in grace and to increase it. Conversely, the greatest evil is to die before one's time, that is, when one is living in mortal sin, especially in the habit and state of sin. For such a one is unprepared for repentance and for a good death, and therefore through it tends toward the second death in hell. With this fear He strikes those who grow in impiety and heap sins upon sins. For these God despises, blinds, hardens, and finally reprobates. Therefore, the sign, indeed the effect, of predestination is to die in one's own time, that is, in the state of grace; while that of reprobation is to die before one's time, that is, unprepared in the state of sin. How many of the reprobate would be saved, if they died in their own time, that is, when they are in the state of grace! But as it is, they are damned, because they die before their time, that is, in the state of sin. How many of the predestined and elect, conversely, would be damned, if God snatched them away before their time! For example, if He had snatched Peter immediately after he denied Christ; if Paul, while he was persecuting the Church; if Magdalene, while she was indulging in pleasures: but as it is, through the grace by which He predestined and chose them, He allows them to live in their unfavorable time, so that He may take them in their own time, when, namely, through grace they are friends and children. This therefore is the greatest grace, being the grace of predestination and divine election. Hence learn that the habit of sinning must be most carefully avoided, so that if you have fallen into some sin, you do not remain in it, but immediately rise again through repentance. This is what Sirach 21:1 warns: 'My son, have you sinned? Do not do so again: but also pray about your former sins that they may be forgiven you.' See Bellarmine, On the Art of Dying Well. Certain God-fearing men recently established a sodality for this purpose, in which each one daily pours forth certain prayers to God for himself and the other members, that He may grant to himself and his own a happy and holy death in their own time; which indeed is a pious and useful practice for securing that last and decisive moment of life, on which all eternity depends; and therefore this sodality has spread through many provinces, and embraces many thousands of people, who daily pray for each other and for the happy death of all the members. Their axiom is: 'So live as if you were going to die each day. When you rise in the morning, think that you will die that day.'
'Believe that each day that has dawned is your last.' Which was the maxim of St. Marcella, as St. Jerome attests in her epitaph addressed to Principia, her daughter.
Verse 19: IT IS GOOD FOR YOU TO SUPPORT THE JUST MAN, BUT ALSO FROM THAT ONE (the impious man, of whom the discourse preceded) DO NOT WITHDRAW YOUR HAND: BECAUSE HE WHO FEARS GOD NEGLECTS NOTHING.
For 'just man,' Titelmannus and Vatablus think it should be read as 'this one,' because that is how the Hebrews and Chaldeans read it. But all the manuscripts, even the Sixtine editions, read 'just man,' because by 'this one' is understood the just man. The Hebrew therefore reads thus: it is good that you lay hold of this one (that is, this man, namely the just man), and also from this other (that is, from the other, namely the impious man) do not let your hand rest, because he who fears God will come out of all these things. The Seventy: it is good to hold fast to this one, and indeed from this other do not defile your hand; because to those who fear God all things will come out well. Where for 'defile,' it means 'do not let go.' For thus the Hebrew, Chaldean, and Latin read. The Arabic, however, following the Seventy as is its custom, reads 'do not defile.' 'It is a good thing,' he says, 'to embrace this teaching, and to hold it, and therefore do not stain your hand with this.' Some understand 'this and this' as 'just' in the neuter gender, that is, justice, as if to say: It is good, indeed best, that you sustain the just, that is, that you lift justice and holiness above yourself, and place it on your shoulders and head, nor remove your hands from it, but embrace, practice, and defend it with both hands: for this is the one task imposed upon you and commended by God.
Others understand by 'this and this' the two things that preceded, as if to say: Sustain this, namely, that you be not too just and severe, nor withdraw your hand from this other, that is, from the second, namely that you not act impiously much, that is, that you be not too indulgent and lax, but temper severity with clemency: thus you will imitate God's holy providence, which reaches from end to end mightily, and disposes all things sweetly. But for 'this,' the Hebrew has זה (ze), that is, 'this one' or 'that one,' in the masculine gender, namely the just man, unless with a different vowel pointing you read zo, that is, 'this thing,' 'that thing'; therefore
First, Thaumaturgus understands by 'the just man' God Himself, and thus aptly connects this maxim with the preceding one about the just man and the impious man, translating: the greatest good is to rely on God's help, and thus to guard against every sin. It is also abominable to touch undefiled things with polluted hands. But to one who is obedient and fears the Lord, it will be possible to escape all adversities. And the author of the Greek Catena: 'Furthermore,' he says, 'the greatest thing is if you in turn lay hold of God who comes to your aid and extends His hand to one who is fallen, so that hanging upon Him you never extend your hand to sin, for to touch with an impure hand things that are free from all stain is plainly wicked and abominable; but he who, pierced with the fear of God, is subject to God, easily avoids all adversities.'
Second, Olympiodorus, as if to say: It is good to lay hold of the just, that is, to seize justice and acquire virtue, and not to stain one's hands with wickedness; but he who does this and fears God will escape the contests of temptations. Or, as Cajetan: He will come out to all things, that is, to all virtues, which he will zealously practice, and will not be content with just one or another. Again, the Midrash, or Hebrew Gloss, here understands by 'this and this' different, indeed all the precepts of the law, as if to say: So keep one precept that you do not omit another, but observe all of them together exactly: thus you will not die before your time, but will safely escape all the dangers of premature death.
Third, Hugh the Cardinal, as if to say: It is good to support the just man, who often rebukes and chastises you, and not to withdraw obedience or aid from him, but to show it all the more eagerly, the more diligent he is in rebuking and caring for your salvation.
Fourth, St. Jerome asserts that 'to sustain' can be understood as 'to endure': 'That the mind of the just man may be prepared, so that whatever happens he may endure it with a balanced mind,' as if to say: The just man with a calm and strong spirit endures all things both adverse and prosperous; and therefore he implores God's help: for if he has Him as his protector, he will neither be exalted by prosperity nor cast down by adversity.
Fifth, Vatablus: It is good that you hold to this, he says, namely, that you not be too just; nor withdraw your hand from that, that is, from justice and wisdom, which you should not despise, but should diligently give your effort to both, for he who fears God will extricate himself from all these things, that is, he will easily take care not to be too just, or not to be too negligent of justice, and will withdraw from the extremes.
To this the Hebrews add, who explain it as if to say: It is good to lay hold of a measure of wisdom and of folly, because he who fears God manfully uses both. Therefore with one hand seize one, with the other the other, which the fear of God will teach; under whose guidance you will walk safely, and escape extreme dangers. And more clearly, as if to say: that you may avoid these dangers (of excessive justice, wisdom, impiety, folly), nothing is better than to firmly believe, and perpetually keep in memory, that those who revere God will escape all these deadly evils.
Sixth, the Chaldean: It is good, he says, for you to join yourself to the affairs of this world, so that you may render beneficence to your soul in the way of merchants; and also from this book of the law, do not let go your share: for he who fears the Lord will come out from the hands of all those dear to him. Hence some understand by 'this and this' the theoretical and the practical life, as if to say: So devote yourself to the theoretical and contemplative life, that you do not omit action and practice, but apply your hands to work and beneficence. For contemplation should be directed toward action and the exercise of virtues.
Seventh, and genuinely, St. Jerome, Alcuin, the Interlinear Gloss, Titelmannus and others, as if to say: It is good to sustain the wise and just with help and resources, but also do not withdraw your hand and beneficence from the foolish and impious sinners, because he who fears God neglects nothing, but seizes and grasps every occasion of doing good and acting well, to imitate God, 'who makes His sun rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust,' Matthew 5:45, as if to say: Do good to whomever you can, and to as many as you can: and whatever they may be, whether wise and just, or foolish and impious; thus you will be neither too just nor too impious. For almsgiving corrects excessive justice and severity, and expiates whatever you may have done impiously. This maxim seems to be contradicted by Sirach 12:5: 'Give to the good, and do not receive the sinner; do good to the humble, and do not give to the wicked;' but I responded there and explained the passage. But, to speak candidly what I think, it does not seem that this passage properly treats of corporal almsgiving, but spiritual, so that the sense is, as if to say: Sustain the just man lest he wish to be too just, and thus exceed the limits of justice and become unjust; also do not withdraw your hand from the impious man, lest he act too impiously and operate foolishly; and so neglect nothing of the good which you can accomplish, both in sustaining the just man in justice, and in restraining and recalling the impious from impiety.
To this approaches the Hebrew sense, which explains it, as if to say: It is good that you lay hold of this one (that is, this man, namely the just man), and also from this other (that is, another, namely the impious man) do not let your hand rest, because he who fears God will come out of all these things.
HE WHO FEARS GOD NEGLECTS NOTHING.
The Hebrew: he will go forth to all things; the Syriac: he follows all things, as if to say: He is not slow and lazy, but diligent and eager to undertake every good and every beneficence, likewise every arduous work, as if to say: The just man is strong of spirit, and therefore does not flee from difficulties, temptations, and tribulations, but fearlessly goes forth to meet them, and conquers and overcomes them: just as God gave Jacob 'a strong contest' (with Esau) 'that he might overcome,' Wisdom 10. Hence St. Jerome explains, as if to say: 'He who fears God is neither exalted by prosperity nor crushed by adversity.' Again from the Hebrew you may translate: he who fears God will go forth with all things; or, as Pagninus: from all things, that is, he will escape all evils. So Thaumaturgus, Olympiodorus, and others; or he will bring every good work to its desired end; or, as the Seventy: all things will come forth, that is, all things will turn out well for the one who fears God. Hence the Arabic translates: he who fears God comes out from all things justified; Symmachus: the one who fears God will pass through all things; the Zurich version: he extricates himself from all these things; Vatablus: he will easily withdraw from the extremes.
Morally, learn here that, just as the mother of negligence is false security, so fear is the mother of industry and diligence. This consists in four things, says Hugh, namely in zeal, labor, expense, and time. For the diligent person spares no zeal, labor, expense, or time, but devotes everything that the matter demands. Again, he who fears God neglects nothing good or evil, but embraces every good and avoids every evil, as far as human frailty permits. For there is no just person who does not sin venially, as he adds in verse 21. Yet the just man strives to flee venial sins as much as he can, and neither overlooks nor neglects even the least thing. For, as St. Augustine wisely says in his book On the Ten Strings, chapter 11: 'Attend also to small sins, because they are small, and beware, because they are many. How tiny are grains of sand! If more sand is put into the ship, it sinks it, so that it perishes; how minute are drops of rain! Do they not fill rivers and knock down houses? Therefore do not despise these things.' And St. Bernard says: 'Not only grave, but also light sins must be guarded against. For many light sins will produce one great one, just as immense rivers usually grow from small and tiny drops.' So St. Bernard, in his book of Meditations, chapter 25; understand this not formally, but dispositively: for venial sins dispose to mortal sins: for they are like dust cast into the eyes, which at first clouds them, then completely blinds them; they are like sowers of discord, who disturb the republic of the affections, and trouble the whole soul; they are showers, which indeed do not extinguish charity, but lull its strength and fervor to sleep; they are diseases, which weaken the mind; they are stenches, which grieve the Spirit of God, and turn us away from the good of His familiar friendship.
He therefore who fears God neglects nothing; but he will flee greater sins as greater evils, and avoid lesser sins as the seeds of greater ones. For it is reckless to allow even one foot of the enemy within the house, who after one will place the other, and will expel the wretched inhabitant from it with injury. Thus the devil usually begins with small things, and proceeds to greater ones, and after he has driven from the soul the fear of lighter sins, he also dismisses the fear of graver ones. See what was said on Sirach 19:1, regarding the words: 'He who despises small things will gradually fall.' Conversely, the fool, who does not fear God, boldly leaps from sin to sin, like a blinded horse, which fears nothing because it sees nothing; hence it is commonly said: 'No animal is bolder than a blind horse,' says Hugh.
Verse 20: WISDOM HAS STRENGTHENED THE WISE MAN BEYOND TEN RULERS OF THE CITY.
The Hebrew: wisdom will strengthen the wise man beyond ten rulers, or those who govern in the city; the Syriac: wisdom strengthens the wise man, being better than ten princes who are in the city; the Zurich version: wisdom supplies more strength than ten mighty men; Campensis: it helps more than ten chief men can; Thaumaturgus: nor do the defenses of the most powerful men in the city avail as much as wisdom; it is accustomed sometimes even to forgive those who neglect to do what they ought. The interpreters labor here over the connection of this sentence with the preceding one. St. Jerome connects them thus, to meet a tacit objection. For someone will say: I am of slender fortune and poor; how then shall I sustain the just man with my resources? To this he responds: 'Those whom you cannot help with riches, assist with counsel, comfort with consolation. For you can render more to one placed in distress by wisdom than anyone of the greatest power. And do this very thing with prudence. For the scale of justice is great: to whom, and how much, and for how long, and of what kind, whether in material things or in counsel, to give.'
More plainly and fully, you may connect them thus, to give the reason why the wise man has such great strength, that he can sustain both the just and the impious when they are wavering and slipping into sin, and why he himself neglects nothing of good, but is strong and vigorous for every good. The reason certainly is that wisdom strengthens the wise man a hundredfold, so that one man can accomplish more with his wisdom than ten princes with their resources and power in the city; for this latter is corporeal, fragile, unreliable, and uncertain: but wisdom is spiritual, stable, faithful, and sure. An example is found in Joseph, of whom the Chaldean explains this verse: 'The wisdom of Joseph,' he says, 'the son of Jacob, brought him very great protection and prudence before his ten just brothers, who, since he could do much in the fear of the Lord, did not plot any evil against them during the time they were in Egypt; nor did they violently attack their brother, who had then exasperated their spirits.' So reads the Chaldean of the Complutensian and of Costus, although in the Royal Bibles it reads: Wisdom will help the wise man who has subdued evil desire. Again, an example is found in Jacob, the father of Joseph, of whom Wisdom 10:10 says: 'She (Wisdom) guided the just man who was fleeing from his brother's anger along straight paths, and showed him the kingdom of God, etc. She guarded him from enemies, and protected him from seducers, and gave him a strong contest that he might overcome, and know that wisdom is more powerful than all things.'
The a priori reason is that wisdom devises and suggests a thousand arguments by which it may sustain the just as well as the impious, and undertake and accomplish any arduous work. Again, that the wise man, that is, the just and holy man, is the mouth and instrument of God, through which the Holy Spirit speaks to move the hearts of hearers wherever He pleases, as was evident in St. Peter and St. Paul, and the other Apostles and Apostolic men, who converted the world, and made the impious pious. Therefore, as Ecclesiastes 9:18 says: 'Wisdom is better than weapons of war.' And: 'The wise man is strong: and the learned man is robust and powerful. Because war is entered into with planning: and there will be safety where there are many counsels,' Proverbs 24:5; and 21:22: 'The wise man scaled the city of the mighty, and destroyed the strength of its confidence.' See what was said there.
Beyond Ten Rulers, that is, the chief men, the rulers who are in the city. For in Hebrew it is Schallitim, whence comes sultan or soldan, that is, prince and emperor, such as was the Sultan of Egypt, Babylon, Syria, etc.; 'ten,' that is, many, indeed all. For ten is the completion of the simple numbers, which are called units, and it first compounds and combines them. Hence 'ten' is said, as if from deka; from deketo, because it contains and comprehends all things. Thus Job 19:3 says: 'Behold, ten times,' that is, many times and continuously, 'you confound me.' Yet he alludes to the ten chief men of the city, of whom it is said in Ruth 4:2: 'And Boaz took ten men of the elders of the city;' for these were brought not only as witnesses of the cession of inheritance, as Lyranus and Abulensis think, but also as elders, that is, senators and judges, as is clear from what follows: 'And he said to them: Sit down here. And when they were seated, he spoke to the kinsman,' etc., transacting with him the cause of the cession before the ten senators, as Fevardentius rightly observed in that place; Josephus, whom Carolus Sigonius cites and follows in book 7 of The Hebrew Republic, chapter 7, suggests that among the Hebrews there were seven rulers of the city: for there are various magistrates in a city, set over various affairs and causes; hence in one city seven, in another ten senators. Thus among the Romans there were septemvirs, and also decemvirs, but in different tribunals, or also in different periods. Hear Livy, book 3: 'In the three hundred and second year after Rome was founded, the form of the state was again changed from consuls to decemvirs, as it had previously changed from kings to consuls.' Moreover, R. Solomon is trifling when he explains this of Josiah, as if to say: Josiah the wise and pious king, because of his wisdom and piety, surpassed in power and strength ten kings who preceded him.
Mystically, Salonius takes the wise man to be Christ, who is more powerful, and provides greater assistance to the faithful, than ten princes, that is, all the angels: 'For there were ten orders of angels,' says Salonius, 'but one fell through pride, and therefore the good angels always labor that the number may be filled up from men, and that the perfect number, that is, the tenth, may be reached.' Take this with a grain of salt. For the Church recognizes only nine choirs of heavenly spirits, from which some fell with Lucifer and became demons: the rest, under the leadership of St. Michael, persevered in faith and grace, and became angels. Hence this passage has been noted and corrected by censors in Salonius. However, Salonius is to be excused, in that he separated the tenth choir from the nine choirs of holy angels, and made it that of those who fell and became demons, as if to say: Nine choirs are of holy angels, the tenth is of demons.
Verse 21: FOR THERE IS NOT A JUST MAN ON EARTH WHO DOES GOOD AND DOES NOT SIN.
The Hebrew: and will not at some time sin, that is, who will never sin; Thaumaturgus: and who is there who does not stumble somewhere? Cajetan connects this maxim with the preceding one in two ways: First, by referring it to the ten 'rulers of the city,' as if to say: Wiser than these is the wise man, because these, being men, from time to time err and sin: but the wise man, strengthened by wisdom, while he follows it, cannot err and sin. Second, by referring it to the word 'wisdom,' as if to say: Without wisdom, or if wisdom is excluded, there is no just man on earth who does good and does not sin, as if to say: That the just man does good and does not sin, he has from wisdom: therefore if you exclude it, or if the just man abandons it, he will immediately abandon good and will sin. This is what is said in Wisdom 9:19: 'Through wisdom were healed all who ever pleased You, O Lord, from the beginning.' More plainly you may refer it to verse 19, as I said there. For it coheres perfectly with it, and gives its reason, namely: sustain the just man lest he slip, or that having slipped he may rise again, because there is no just man who does good so constantly that out of innate frailty he does not sometimes sin. He therefore needs a sustainer who may prop him up lest he fall absolutely, or at least lest he fall into a graver sin, or if he has collapsed into one, may raise him up from his fall. This is what St. James says in chapter 3 verse 2: 'In many things we all offend;' or: 'If we say that we have no sin: we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,' 1 John 1:8. See what was said in both places.
Except, by the common sense and consensus of the whole Church, Christ and the Blessed Virgin: for these never sinned, but always did good. Wherefore, from this passage the Council of Milevis, the Council of Trent, and the whole Church teaches that the just cannot avoid all venial sins: for although they may be able to avoid each one taken individually, they cannot avoid all of them taken together. Therefore it is necessary that they sometimes sin venially, not in a definite way here and now, but indefinitely. Just as an archer, however skilled he may be, cannot hit the target a hundred times in continuous shooting, but it is inevitable that, fatigued and with waning attention, he sometimes misses it.
Moreover, the explanation of Calvin and the innovators is impious and foolish, who from this passage contend that even the just man, because he is infected with concupiscence, mingles something of concupiscence and sin in every good work, so that in all things there appears a certain disorder, stain, and confusion. For this teaching robs man of mind, counsel, prudence, goodness, virtue, holiness, and every good, and transforms man not only into a beast, but into a demon. For the demon alone, together with the damned, out of desperation, and the hatred and fury with which he burns against God, cannot will anything good, and therefore can do nothing but be proud, wrathful, envious, furious, and sinful. See Bellarmine, book 4 On Justification. Hugh the Cardinal wittily asserts that there is no one who does good and at the same time does not sin, because children, he says, do not indeed sin, but they do not do good; adults, however, although they do good, nevertheless sometimes sin. More solidly, St. Athanasius, in his treatise On the Incarnation of the Word against Paul of Samosata, and St. Jerome on Ephesians chapter 2, take this maxim as referring to sins, not only venial but also mortal, namely that no one by his own powers can avoid them all, so as to be truly just. And from this they prove that the incarnation of Christ was necessary, so that Christ by His merits might justify us, and obtain and confer upon us the grace to avoid every mortal sin.
Verse 23: 22. BUT ALSO TO ALL THE WORDS THAT SHALL BE SPOKEN, DO NOT APPLY YOUR HEART: LEST PERHAPS YOU HEAR YOUR SERVANT CURSING YOU;
If this verse is connected with the preceding ones, the sense will be: Since no man is entirely free from faults, do not pour out complaints against God that He seems to be just toward you in afflictions. Others not improperly join the same verse with what follows: therefore also to all words, etc.
The Seventy render verse 23 thus: for frequently he will act maliciously against you, and in many ways will afflict your heart, namely because you also have cursed others; Aquila: because for a long time your heart will be ill, if indeed you pay attention and care about what each person says. The Hebrew קלל (kalal) means to make light of, to diminish, to put down, to detract, to do evil, to curse, to utter imprecations, and to say and do similar things that bitterness of spirit, disturbance, impatience, anger, and hatred suggest.
St. Jerome, connecting this maxim with the preceding one, explains it thus: 'Strengthened by the help of wisdom, prepare your heart either for good or for evil, and do not care what your enemies say about you, what the opinion abroad is. For just as it is the mark of a prudent man not to listen to a murmuring servant, so also it is the mark of a wise man to follow wisdom that goes before, and not to consider vain rumors.' Thaumaturgus: lest the curses hurled against you bite into your spirit, lest in many subsequent actions you too be carried away to returning insults.
Wisdom therefore strengthens the heart of the wise man, so that to maintain peace of mind and generosity of spirit he does not care about rumors, nor about what servants or others say and curse about him; indeed he does not attend to them, nor wish to hear or know; because if he attends, he hears from time to time astonishing and unworthy things, and indeed from those of whom he never would have thought: therefore with a deaf ear he passes over, despises, and scorns all things, knowing that the class of common people, especially servants, is base, impatient, talkative, of small mind and judgment, saucy and impudent; therefore with a great and lofty spirit he ignores and overlooks these things. Hence Olympiodorus, reading in the Seventy for 'in many ways will afflict your heart,' 'with very many descents he will afflict your heart,' explains it thus: An insult, when heard, very often disturbs the soul. 'If therefore someone is inflamed with anger against the insulter, he falls and slides down through many descents, dragged from the lofty seat of reason into the passion of anger, and thus fills his heart with sad turbulence.'
Thus David passed over with a deaf ear the curses of Shimei and the rest. 'I have become like a man who does not hear; and who has no rebukes in his mouth,' he says in Psalm 37:43. For words are not blows; they strike the air, not a man: unless one who attends to them is bitten and wounded. The same lesson was taught by philosophers from Solomon. Augustus Caesar was not angered by insults hurled at him, but smiled at them, says Seneca, On Clemency, chapter 10. Fabius Maximus, following Hannibal, was called Hannibal's schoolmaster by his own men. But he proceeded in his usual way, and thus broke Hannibal; hence he used to say: 'He who fears taunts and insults is more cowardly than those who flee the enemy.' So Plutarch in the Apophthegms. Tiberius Caesar ignored insults, saying, 'in a free state tongues should be free,' says Suetonius in his Life. Aristippus, fleeing from an abusive man pursuing him, when asked by him: Why do you flee? 'Because,' he said, 'you have the power of cursing, but I do not have the power of not hearing.' So Xiphilinus in his Life. Plutarch, in his book On Restraining Anger: 'To carefully scrutinize by investigating everything,' he says, 'and to drag into the open all a servant's affairs, every action of a friend, all a son's pursuits, every whisper of a wife, that truly begets many faults, and continuous and daily ones, the sum of which comes to this, that we are made morose and intractable. It was Euripides' saying: God cares for great things, and lets small things be left to a woman.'
Philip of Macedon, when leading men spoke ill of him: 'I am grateful to them,' he said, 'because by their detraction I become better, while I strive to convict them of falsehood by my deeds.' So Plutarch in the Apophthegms. Hence Seneca, book 3 On Anger, chapter 24: 'Let each one therefore say to himself whenever he is provoked: Am I more powerful than Philip? Yet he was cursed with impunity. Do I have more power in my house than the divine Augustus had over the whole world? Yet he was content to withdraw from his abuser. What reason is there that I should punish with whips and chains a servant's too cheerful reply, a defiant look, and a murmur that does not even reach me? Who am I whose ears it would be a crime to offend? Many have pardoned their enemies; shall I not pardon the lazy, the negligent, the talkative? Let age excuse the boy, sex the woman, freedom the stranger, familiarity the household servant. Does he offend for the first time? Let us consider how long he has pleased. Has he often offended before? Let us bear what we have long borne. Is he a friend? He did what he did not wish: is he an enemy? He did what was to be expected. Let us trust the wiser, and pardon the more foolish.'
BECAUSE YOU ALSO HAVE FREQUENTLY CURSED OTHERS.
He suggests a remedy, both for tolerating and for avoiding slander. For those who are troublesome to their superiors and others and curse them, usually experience their subordinates to be equally disagreeable, and are assailed by curses from them. For this is the just penalty of retaliation, by which God, who allows no sin to go unpunished, fittingly punishes and avenges such people, according to that saying of Christ: 'With the measure you measure, it will be measured back to you,' Matthew 7:2. And: 'As I have done, so God has repaid me,' Judges 1:7. And: 'By the things through which one sins, through these he is also tormented,' Wisdom 11:17. 'He who says what he wishes, hears what he does not wish,' says the Comic poet.
The Emperor Titus: 'I do nothing,' he said, 'on account of which I deserve to be reprehended; and the things that are falsely said about me, I utterly disregard.' So Xiphilinus in his Life.
Verse 25: 24. I TRIED ALL THINGS IN WISDOM. I SAID: I WILL BECOME WISE: AND IT WITHDREW FAR FROM ME.
The Hebrew: deep, deep, that is, the supreme depth of wisdom — who will find it? The Arabic and Syriac: the depth of its depths, who will find it? Solomon here turns his discourse to himself and to wisdom, and marvels at its depth: for the more he investigated wisdom, the more he discovered its depth: just as sailors, the more they enter the sea, the deeper they find it; and a mountain seen from a distance appears low, but close up appears high. Therefore he confesses that when he was striving toward the highest peak of wisdom, the more he progressed and advanced in its examination, the more he fell short of comprehending it, because the more things he learned in wisdom, the more things he saw in it that were obscure, needing to be examined and fully understood, as he said and confessed many times above: therefore I will add no more here. So St. Jerome, who asserts that Solomon 'sought wisdom beyond all men, and tried to reach its end,' but in vain, since it, like an abyss, has no bottom or end, and is immense and most widely diffused in the ocean of divinity, that is, in the innermost recesses of the divine heart, and most profoundly hidden.
Thaumaturgus refers these things to the repentance of Solomon; hence he translates: all these things were long known to me: for I had obtained wisdom from God; but alas! at how great a cost to myself I cast it away: for I can no longer attain to that former level.
Moreover, St. Jerome takes this wisdom as knowledge of the divinity, as if to say: I tried to examine the majesty of God; but the more I penetrated it, the deeper and more impenetrable I found it; others refer it to the curiosity of investigating and knowing things that surpass human understanding; in Chaldaic, to the examination of the divine law, the coming of the Messiah, and the day of death and the day of judgment. More plainly and fitly you may refer it to what follows, namely to examining the vanity of creatures, to know where true pleasure and happiness lie, as if to say: I examined all things, and found vanity in all, nor anything that could fill and satisfy the insatiable spirit of man: the more I sought true satisfaction and happiness in them, the less I found, and the farther I went from true wisdom and happiness, and especially when I sought it amid the embraces and pleasures of women. That this is the sense is clear from what follows.
This depth of wisdom is vividly depicted by Baruch 3:15; Solomon, Proverbs 30:4; Sirach 1:2, and 24:7ff.; Job 11:7: 'Can you perhaps,' he says, 'find out the traces of God, and discover the Almighty unto perfection? He is higher than heaven, and what will you do? Deeper than hell, and how will you know? His measure is longer than the earth, and wider than the sea.' The same is done throughout chapter 28. Thus students of Theology, at the beginning, as they understand its principles, seem to themselves to know much, and to be very wise; but when they proceed and become professors, they see difficulties everywhere, and perceive that they are ignorant of far more than they know.
Tropologically, St. Gregory, Moralia 32, chapter 4, asserts that holy men, 'the higher they advance in the dignity of virtues before God, the more subtly they discover themselves to be unworthy; because as they draw near to the light, they find whatever was hidden in them, and the more deformed they appear outwardly to themselves, the more beautiful is what they see inwardly.' Then, citing this passage of Ecclesiastes, he explains: 'For wisdom, when sought, is said to withdraw far away, because to one who approaches it appears higher; but those who in no way seek it consider themselves so close to it, insofar as they do not know the rule of its rectitude, because being placed in darkness they do not know how to admire the brightness of light, which they have never seen.'
Verse 26: I SURVEYED ALL THINGS WITH MY MIND, THAT I MIGHT KNOW, AND CONSIDER, AND SEEK WISDOM AND REASON: AND THAT I MIGHT KNOW THE IMPIETY OF THE FOOL, AND THE ERROR OF THE IMPRUDENT.
In Hebrew הוללות (holelot), that is, of the insane, or rather, of insanities. Where in the Hebrew the same words appear that the Seventy here render as 'study' or 'going about'; Symmachus: tumultuous thought; as if to say, says St. Jerome: 'Daily calculating with myself the reason for each thing, I could find no thought that was not externally disturbed by a perverse thought.'
For 'I surveyed,' Aquila translates: I walked about; the Hebrew: I went around; Symmachus: I passed through all things with my understanding, as if to say: I looked around and surveyed everything. On the contrary, and therefore not literally, Olympiodorus: 'The wise man,' he says, 'when he directs his powers to understanding something, with a concentrated mind surveys all things around him with reasoning; nor does he proceed in a straight line to examine sensible things, but closing the windows of the senses, and withdrawing into the inner chambers of his mind, he walks about in a circuit. There, with a secret turning back into himself, the intellect contemplates itself, and that which is set before it to be understood.'
For 'fool,' our translator reads כסיל (kesil); but with a different pointing they read כסל (kesel), that is, 'folly,' with the same sense; or rather, reading kesel, that is, 'of folly,' he translates 'of the fool,' because he truly judged that the abstract was used for the concrete, as is customary. This maxim is clear from what was said in chapter 1, verse 17, where in the Hebrew the same words appear as here. He says therefore: I surveyed all things to know, namely, the nature and vanity of things, and especially the impiety of the fool, as he soon explains: for there instead of 'to know,' in the Hebrew there is the same word as here, namely דעת (daat), that is, 'to know,' so that from this knowledge of vanity and foolishness I might consider, and seek wisdom, in which, namely, the true blessedness and happiness of man consists; and at the same time the reason, that is, the way and means of attaining it, which is the aim and subject of this entire book; and therefore I labored to know the impiety of the fool and the error of the imprudent, who, enticed by vain, transient, and trifling pleasures, especially the sexual pleasures of women (as follows), go astray from wisdom, salvation, and happiness, and foolishly cast themselves into the certain danger of present and eternal death. So St. Jerome, Alcuin, Lyranus, and others, who hold that what is signified here is that the greatest impediment to wisdom is lust and the love of women.
St. Jerome adds that Solomon sought what was the greatest evil in human affairs, and discovered it to be a woman: for she is the head of all evils. Thaumaturgus, however, thinks that Solomon, out of despair of attaining wisdom, when he saw it so profound and as if fleeing from him, gave himself over to the desire for women, and fell into the mire of lust.
For 'reason,' the Hebrew has חשבון (chesbon), that is, thought, number, sum, reason, says St. Jerome. The Seventy: λογισμόν and ψήφον, that is, a vote, or rather a sum, computation, and calculation. R. David takes it as the method of reasoning which Logic teaches. St. Bonaventure assigns wisdom to the appetites, reason to works. Hugh the Cardinal gives wisdom to hidden things, and by reason understands cause and proof. Plainly, by 'reason' you should understand the way and means of attaining wisdom and happiness, as I said. Less correctly, Olympiodorus takes 'reason' as Arithmetic, and the science of things that are calculated or investigated by numbers, especially in astrological observations and conjectures. 'Reason' could also be taken as 'calculation,' as if to say: While I bring all created things to number and reckoning, while I weigh their price and value, I find in all of them vanity, error, and foolishness. So St. Jerome.
Finally, chesbon means ingenuity, devising, invention, art, industry, as if to say: That I might devise and find the art and industry of living rightly and happily: for this is the supreme art. For just as the supreme art is dying well, so also the supreme art is living well and happily; for the latter gives birth to and produces the former. The Seventy, and from them St. Ambrose, in his book On the Good of Death, chapter 7, according to the Sixtine correction, reads thus: 'I went about in my heart to consider and seek wisdom and number, and to know the gladness of the wicked, and vexation, and boasting, and I found her more bitter than death.' The Chaldean: 'Into so vast and immense a depth (wisdom) has fled, that there is no possibility of grasping it. Finally I was brought to such despair that I no longer sought, nor thought about how vain the joys of the wicked are, how frivolous their counsels, and how miserable their life. And while I was thus disposed, entangled in deadly concupiscence, I fell into that very mire.'
Hugh: Mortals err, he says, when they consider true what is false; good, what is evil; great, what is small; and think they possess things by which they are rather possessed: but it matters greatly if someone recognizes this, so as to condemn and avoid it.
Verse 27: AND I FOUND MORE BITTER THAN DEATH THE WOMAN, WHO IS THE SNARE OF HUNTERS, AND WHOSE HEART IS A NET, WHOSE HANDS ARE CHAINS: HE WHO PLEASES GOD WILL ESCAPE HER; BUT HE WHO IS A SINNER WILL BE CAUGHT BY HER.
By 'woman' the Chaldean understands a wife troublesome to her husband; Olympiodorus: an adulteress; others: a prostitute. It is better, with St. Jerome and Thaumaturgus, to understand any enticing woman who lures to lust. The sense is, as if to say: Surveying all the vanities and pleasures of the world, I found none more vain, more deceitful, and more bitter than a woman, who attracts and entices young men and men to herself: the greatest of errors and insatiable desires, 'and who surpasses all evils, and who holds the primacy of impiety, foolishness, error, and madness, and the woman is the head of all evils,' says St. Jerome. For this woman, first, is more bitter than death, because death kills once; but a woman daily, indeed at every hour and moment, so torments her lover with her importunate demands, complaints, clamors, quarrels, and brawls, that she seems to kill him, but in such a way that he continually feels the pains, agonies, and anguishes of death, yet never dies, but always remains alive in a long and living death. Solomon experienced this both after his fall and before his fall, when he began to be consumed by and to multiply women. One should trust the one who has experienced it, says St. Jerome.
Finally, a woman is often the cause of death for a man, as Delilah was for Samson. The fury of Medea against Jason, previously so loved by her, is well known. He vividly describes and exaggerates how great an evil a woman is, by comparing and ranking her above death, which is the most terrible of all terrible things, says Aristotle. This is what is said about a woman in Proverbs 2:18: 'Her house is inclined to death, and her paths lead to hell.' See what was said there, and Proverbs 5:12, where I showed that lust produces paralysis, apoplexy, consumption, venereal disease, and a thousand other illnesses by which the lustful man is tormented and strangled. Hence the pagans worshiped Libitina, that is, Venus, as the president of death and the goddess of funerals, says Plutarch in his Life of Numa. And the Athenians worshiped Venus as the greatest of the Fates, and gave her the surname ἀνδροφόνος, that is, killer of men, as Pausanias attests, book 1.
Second, a woman is 'the snare of hunters,' because as many ornaments as she has on her body, so many are the snares for young men and the enticements for ensnaring the mind. Again, as the Comic poet says in the Asinaria, a woman is similar to a bird-catcher: 'The bait,' he says, 'is the prostitute; the bed is the lure; the lovers are the birds.' Hence Venus is said to derive from 'hunting,' 'binding,' and 'chains,' says Varro: hence Venus was also depicted surrounded by chains, because she bound all to herself with love, ensnared and entrapped them, as Lucretius attests, book 4.
Third, 'her heart is a net,' first, because with her whole heart, mind, and soul she meditates a thousand arts and wiles of the prostitute, by which she may entice, capture, and destroy her lovers. Again, her heart, that is, her intention, is to ensnare men. Second, take 'heart' not alone, but together with her eyes, or as 'seeing,' for in the eyes radiate heart and love: therefore the eyes of a woman are enticing and deadly like a basilisk, says St. Basil on Isaiah chapter 1, which kills those who gaze upon it by its look alone. Hence we commonly say that a woman's eye is a dart, and a fiery one: 'For a woman gradually saps strength and burns by being seen,' says Virgil. Hence the Complutensian translates: she has nets and scandals in her heart. Truly Bacchis addressing women: 'Pure birdlime,' she says, 'is your flattery.' And the Comic poet in the Truculentus: 'In honey,' he says, 'are your tongues, but your hearts are in gall;' as that Lamia lured Menippus so that she might afterwards devour him, about which Philostratus narrates wonderful things, book 4, chapter 8. Therefore Ovid wisely says, in book 1 of the Art of Love: 'Deceive the deceivers, for the greater part they are an impious breed: let them fall into the snares which they have set.'
Moreover, all the damages of a harlot and lust, a Poet has encompassed in these two verses in an emblem entitled: Forbidden Lust. For he thus sings respectively about it: 'The body, wealth, soul, fellowship, covenants, fame, She weakens, destroys, kills, hates, demolishes, takes away.' Helinandus, cited by St. Antoninus, book 6 of his History, title 13, chapter 6, section 4: 'Woman,' he says, 'derives from softening [molliendo], like a hammer [malleus], because just as a smith softens iron through a hammer, so the devil through a woman softens and hammers the whole earth; of which Jeremiah 50:23 says in the mystical sense: "How is the hammer of the whole earth broken and shattered?"' And he adds that the chaste must avoid these eleven things: 'Idleness, sloth, sleep, the flesh, a woman, wine, Prosperity, sport, songs, beauty, a boy.'
Hence it is read in the Lives of the Fathers that one should not have familiarity with a woman, a boy, or a heretic. See what was said on Proverbs 6:24ff.
Fourth, 'her hands are chains;' Aquila: bound are her hands; the Chaldean: tied are her hands, so that they do not do work; the Hebrew asurim means both chains and the bound. Hence you may translate: the bound lie in her hands, as if to say: Many have been captured by her, just as if they were tied up in prison, according to Proverbs 7:22: 'Immediately he follows her as an ox led to the slaughter, and as a frolicking lamb, and the fool does not know that he is being dragged to chains;' whom St. Basil, in his book On Virginity, accordingly compares to a magnet. For just as a magnet draws iron, so a woman draws a man to herself. Hence Thaumaturgus translates: if she has only joined hand to hand, she holds no less tightly than if she dragged them bound with chains. Hence the touch of a woman is fiery and pestilent.
Hear St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian: 'Joseph, because the Egyptian woman wanted to touch him, fled from her hands, and as from the bite of a most rabid dog, lest the poison gradually creep in, he cast away the cloak she had touched.'
Fifth, 'he who pleases God will escape her;' the Chaldean takes this of an adulteress. Hence he translates: the man who has dismissed her with a bill of divorce will be freed from her. For in the old law it was not permitted for a man to keep an adulteress, as I said on Proverbs 18:22. See what was said on Proverbs 22:14, regarding the words: 'The mouth of a strange woman is a deep pit: he with whom the Lord is angry will fall into it.' Therefore: 'What else is a woman, but evil of nature painted with the color of good?' says St. Chrysostom, homily 19 on Matthew. It is therefore a great gift of God to be freed from her, which God grants to His saints. For the reward of holiness is chastity.
Moreover, the only remedy for this evil is flight. 'Flee fornication,' says the Apostle, that is, flee the gazes and conversations of women. For, as Tertullian says in On the Veiling of Virgins: 'It belongs to the same lust to be seen and to see. It is as much the mark of a holy man to blush if he has seen a virgin, as of a holy virgin if she has been seen by a man.' The same author, Apology chapter 4: 'Democritus,' he says, 'by blinding himself because he could not look at women without concupiscence, and grieved if he had not obtained them, confesses his incontinence by his correction.'
Moreover, Lyranus says: Just as one who is freed from chains can easily run, so he who escapes the snares of women can easily traverse the straight path of virtue. On the contrary, he who associates with women weaves nets for himself in which he is entangled, so that he cannot proceed on the way of God, as St. Ambrose teaches, book 1 On Penance, chapters 13 and 14. See what I said about the malice of women on Proverbs, the whole of chapter 7; Sirach chapter 21, chapter 25 and chapter 26. See also Tiraquellus, Connubial Law 9.
Mystically, the woman is pleasure and concupiscence, which is more bitter than death, because it completely torments a man, and brings forth death both temporal in this life and eternal in hell. So St. Ambrose, Bonaventure, and others.
Verse 29: 28. BEHOLD THIS I FOUND, SAID ECCLESIASTES, ONE THING AND ANOTHER, THAT I MIGHT FIND THE REASON.
'A thousand,' that is, very many, for a definite number is used for an indefinite one. 'Behold this I found,' that is, I wished to find, I resolved to seek out and discover. An inchoate act is signified, not a completed one: for he soon adds that he did not find what he sought. So the Interlinear Gloss. Or the word 'I found' pertains to what follows: 'One man out of a thousand I found,' as if to say: When I endeavored to find the reason and way by which one might become happy in life, which I still seek and do not find; this one thing, however, I found and recognized, that scarcely one in a thousand knows and attains this reason and way. Vatablus takes 'reason' as the resolution of the doubt that Solomon was seeking. Olympiodorus takes it as a strong and manly mind and spirit, as if to say: I sought manly spirits, and among men I found few such, among women none, because I found all to be of a feeble and effeminate nature.
This obscure passage gave occasion for various explanations and for resorting to mystical senses. I say briefly that this maxim pertains to what preceded about the vanity, malice, and harm of women, as if to say: While I survey and inspect everything in the world, behold this I found, 'one thing and another,' in Hebrew 'one to another,' comparing them together, as if to say: Having considered all things individually, and carefully compared them together, for this purpose, 'that I might find the reason,' that is, the way and method of living rightly, wisely, and happily in every state and sex, among men as well as among women, I confess that, upon considering the life of men and women, I have not yet found it, but am still investigating and seeking, because in all I see a failure of prudence, chastity, and virtue: for among men I scarcely found one truly prudent, wise, faithful, and constant man in a thousand, that is, among many men I found a few wise ones: but among women I found none who was upright, says the Chaldean, manly, wise, faithful, chaste, and truly wise. For Solomon had a thousand wives and concubines, among whom he found no woman of valor who was chaste, prudent, and wise, but all were enticers to lust and idolatry. Understand therefore these things of Solomon's women, that is, he himself, having observed and discovered the softness, inconstancy, imprudence, and proneness to lust of the female nature, and other feminine vices, found among his own women no valiant woman who was wise, chaste, and constant; yet he does not deny that others elsewhere have found such, or will find them, especially under the new law.
For if you consider the female nature not bare in itself, but healed and strengthened by grace, as it was in Catherine, St. Agnes, St. Lucy, and the other holy virgins, you will certainly find women of valor who, strengthened by the grace of Christ, surpassed men in virtue, chastity, and fortitude, and lived on earth like angels.
Add that here lies hidden a secret which no one has noticed: for the word 'man' in Hebrew is אדם (adam), of whom he says a little later, 'that God made man (in Hebrew, Adam) upright.' He therefore alludes to Adam created by God in purity, innocence, holiness, and wisdom, as if to say: I sought a man like Adam in sincerity, chastity, and uprightness, and an upright woman in all these things; among the women of kings I did not find one.
This therefore is the grammatical or superficial sense of the letter's surface, under which lies hidden the secret kernel, namely the hidden and sublime sense about Christ, and this one is not so much mystical as literal, but parabolic, which Albinus touched upon. For this is a parable, or enigma and enigmatic prophecy about Christ. For the statement 'one man out of a thousand I found, a woman out of all I did not find' plainly has the appearance of an enigma. Hence he adds that he labored 'to find the reason which,' he says, 'my soul still seeks and has not found,' as the explanation and solution of an enigma is usually sought. To this he also adds: 'And who has known the solution of the word?' namely, of this enigma about the Word of God to be incarnate.
Finally, for this reason, by so extensively and laboriously surveying all things, he commemorates that he investigated this supreme wisdom, namely the Incarnate Word, which would teach us by word and example true wisdom, and the way to salvation, and lead us from the vanity of things and pleasures to truth and true blessedness. This same he calls חשבון (chesbon), that is, an ingenious devising, invention, art, and industry, which God devised and invented by wonderful counsel, to display His magnificent prudence, power, and beneficence toward men. For what is more ingenious than the incarnation of the Word, in which by a stupendous and divine art the eternal Father united the Word to flesh, God to man, heaven to earth, clemency to justice? Just as therefore Solomon proposed an enigma about the incarnation, passion, redemption, and resurrection of Christ in Proverbs 30:4, saying: 'What is His name, and what is the name of His Son, if you know?' And verse 18: 'Three things are difficult for me, and a fourth I utterly do not know: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man in youth,' in Hebrew: the way of a man in a virgin: so in this passage he proposes a similar enigma about Christ saying: 'One man out of a thousand I found.' For this properly belongs to Christ alone: for Christ alone is the one man, to whom no one in nature, person, grace, and glory can be equaled or compared. For He is God-man: therefore His humanity subsists in a person that is not human, but the divine person of the Word. For this is 'the great mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit,' 1 Timothy 3:16.
He therefore alone is the other, and the new Adam, as the Hebrew has it, as the Apostle teaches, Romans 5:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:41. And this, first, because just as the first Adam received his name from adama, as if 'man' from 'earth,' from which he was formed: so Christ received flesh on earth and from earth, but brought His mind and divinity from heaven, according to the words: 'The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is from heaven, heavenly,' 1 Corinthians 15:47; and: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,' John 1.
Hence some of the ancients held that women are not human beings, but prodigies and monsters of mankind. Hence Plato also gives them a different origin from men. For he says thus in the Symposium: 'The male sex at the very beginning of things was the offspring of the sun, the female of the earth; but that which partakes of both sexes (the Androgyne) of the moon: for the moon partakes of both.' The author of the Greek Catena adds, as if to say: 'When I had thoroughly surveyed and deeply inspected all human beings, in nearly all of them I found the things that would rather befit a womanly nature; but a strong mind and manly reason in them I did not find, so that a manly mind is not found not only in women, but not even in those who, being men, have degenerated into womanish ways, however much they wish to appear as men.' It is a hyperbole which Solomon uses, sharply censuring both men and women, to draw the mind of the wise man away from them, lest he effeminately submit to them, surpassing a woman in softness, but rather show himself a man, mindful of his condition and manliness. For having himself experienced what a sweet poison a woman is, he deters all from her. And so this maxim censures the vices of women, but especially their enticement and immodesty, namely that they most easily prostitute their chastity if solicited by men, indeed that they themselves entice and solicit men.
The rest of the sages and philosophers followed Solomon; hence Diogenes the Cynic, walking through the city at midday with a lighted lantern, when asked what he was looking for, said: 'I am looking for a man,' namely a prudent, wise man, endowed with virtue. Ausonius in his Epigrams: 'A good and wise man, such as Apollo, when consulted, scarcely found one among many thousands of men: unconcerned with what the nobles think or what the opinion of the common crowd may bring: having the quality of the world, smooth and rounded, lest any external stain seep through crooked paths.' Herodotus in the Polymnia: 'Many,' he says, 'are human beings, but men are few.' Many have human nature, few have manly fortitude. Isaiah 3:16 says: 'The Lord saw that there is no man.' And Jeremiah 5:1: 'Go about through the streets of Jerusalem, and seek in its squares, whether you can find a man;' because, as Chrysostom says, homily 23 on Genesis: 'Sacred Scripture is accustomed to call a man only one who cultivates virtue, and considers the rest not to be men at all.'
Finally, Solomon alludes to that saying of his father David, Psalm 13:1 and 4, in which after the fall of Adam he says all men are corrupted and depraved by sin: 'They are corrupt, and have become abominable in their pursuits: there is none who does good, there is not even one. All have gone astray, they have become altogether useless.'
Moreover, Bonaventure reports that certain heretics taught from this maxim that no woman would be saved, on the grounds that Christ assumed the male, not the female sex, and said: 'He who (not she who) believes and is baptized shall be saved.' The Armenians, however, held that in heaven there would be no women, but all holy women would rise in the male sex, as Gabriel Prateolus attests in his Catalog of Heresies, whom St. Augustine had long before refuted, City of God 22, chapter 27. See what I said on Ephesians 4:13, regarding the words: 'Until we all attain to the perfect man.'
The Chaldean, however, refers these things partly to the stars, partly to the men who lived from Adam to Abraham. For he translates thus: 'I contemplated the stars one with another, to find the reason of the children of men, and what will be their end. And there is another thing which my soul still sought, and I did not find a perfect and just man from the days of Adam until the just Abraham was born, and he was found faithful and just among a thousand kings who gathered together to build the tower in Babylon, and an upright woman among all these women of kings I did not find.'
St. Jerome: 'A good woman,' he says, 'I could absolutely not find; for all led me to lust, and not to virtue.' And after some further words he contrasts them with the few men 'who did not approach a woman and remained most pure.' So also Olympiodorus, Salonius, and the author of the Imperfect Work attributed to St. Chrysostom, homily 19 on Matthew, where explaining Matthew 19: 'If such is the case of a man with a wife, it is not expedient to marry.' He thus defines a woman: 'But what else is a woman, except the enemy of friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delightful damage, evil of nature painted with the color of good.'
Here the translation of Campensis is relevant: 'I labored,' he says, 'up to this hour, comparing the female role with talent and character, to find some good and prudent woman, but nothing succeeded: out of a thousand men I found one tolerable, but out of a thousand women, none.'
The author of the Greek Catena adds, as if to say: 'When I had thoroughly surveyed and deeply inspected all human beings, in nearly all of them I found the things that would rather befit a womanly nature; but a strong mind and manly reason in them I did not find, so that a manly mind is not found not only in women, but not even in those who, being men, have degenerated into womanish ways, however much they wish to appear as men.' It is a hyperbole which Solomon uses, sharply reproaching both sexes and women, to draw the mind of the wise man away from them, lest he effeminately submit to them, surpassing a woman in softness, but rather show himself a man, mindful of his condition and manliness.
Second, just as Adam was not begotten from parents, but was immediately produced and created by God: so also Christ was not formed from the generation of a father and mother, but from a virgin by the working of the Holy Spirit.
Third, just as Adam was created upright and whole with regard to grace and original justice: so also Christ, who far surpassed Adam, in that He obtained this uprightness and immunity from every stain and sin by the power of His birth, because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, through whose operation His humanity was united to the person of the Word; and therefore He was capable of no sin, but only of grace, indeed He demanded that grace of every kind and every type by His own right.
Fourth, just as Adam was the parent of the human race, and would have propagated original justice into it, if he had remained obedient to God: so much more is Christ the parent of the Church, namely of all the faithful and just, indeed He is the liberator and redeemer of those who were lost and condemned by Adam's sin, and He has propagated His grace and justice to them through all ages, and propagates it day by day, as the Apostle teaches at length, Romans 5:14ff.; and 1 Corinthians 15:45: 'The first man Adam was made into a living soul, the last Adam into a life-giving spirit.'
Finally, Christ alone is the one out of a thousand, that is, chosen from all men for the salvation of all, that He might be the Savior of the world. Hence the bride sings to Him in the Song of Songs 5:10: 'My beloved is fair and ruddy, chosen out of thousands.'
None of these things belongs to anyone other than Christ, indeed not even to the Blessed Virgin. Hence Solomon adds: 'One man out of a thousand I found, namely Christ; but a woman out of all I did not find,' who, that is, like Adam immediately created by God, would have uprightness and holiness by the power of her birth, so as to pour it into others, and be the redeemer, justifier, and savior of all; for no such woman exists, not even the Blessed Virgin. Here belongs the explanation of St. Thomas in his commentary on Galatians chapter 3, lecture 6, on the words: 'As in one, and to your seed, which is Christ, etc. He,' he says, 'alone and singular, who is not subject to the curse of fault. Hence Ecclesiastes 7: One man out of a thousand I found, namely Christ, who would be without all sin; but a woman out of all I did not find, who would be entirely immune from sin, at least from original or venial sin.'
But in the Venetian edition of St. Thomas of 1555, and another Paris edition of 1539, and another of 1532, this exception is added: 'Excepted is the most pure and most worthy of all praise, the Virgin Mary.' But even if this be omitted, as other manuscripts omit it, the words of the Angelic Doctor cited above, if applied to the Blessed Virgin, must be taken with a grain of salt, namely as referring to the obligation of contracting sin, not to actual real sin. For the Blessed Virgin, according to the common law whereby it was established that all propagated from Adam by carnal generation should contract original sin from him, would have had to contract this sin (for she was born from Anne and Joachim), had she not been prevented by God with a singular privilege, as the future Mother of God, and exempted from this law. But it was entirely fitting that she should be exempted who was soon to be the Mother of God and of Christ, that is, the Savior and Sanctifier of all. For who would believe that the Mother of God was ever the slave of sin, indeed the bondservant of the devil?
Again, note: Solomon does not deny that some woman is free from all sin, but only asserts that he found no such woman, because Solomon did not know what, of what kind, and how great the Mother of the Messiah would be, whether she was to be born from parents, or formed by God from a man like Eve, or whether a virgin would conceive by the work of the Holy Spirit, or would bring forth the Messiah in some other way. For we read that this was first revealed in Isaiah chapter 7, when he says: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.' Therefore Solomon did not know whether she would be exempted from original sin; hence he says he did not find, that is, did not know of any woman entirely upright and immune from all sin; otherwise, that the Blessed Virgin would be an extraordinary woman of valor, who would surpass the understanding of himself and all the wise, he sufficiently indicates in Proverbs 31:10, saying: 'Who shall find a valiant woman? Far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her.'
For gradually, as time progressed, God revealed and made known to the Church the mysteries of faith, and likewise the endowments and privileges of the Blessed Virgin.
Tropologically St. Jerome: 'Among many studious men,' he says, 'sweating with daily meditation, scarcely is a pure thought found, and one worthy of the name of man. We can also take thoughts for men, women for works, and say that it is difficult for anyone's thought to be found pure. But works, because they are administered through the body, are always mixed with some error.' So also Salonius.
Verse 30: THIS ALONE I FOUND, THAT GOD MADE MAN UPRIGHT, AND HE HAS ENTANGLED HIMSELF IN INFINITE QUESTIONS. WHO IS SUCH AS THE WISE MAN? AND WHO HAS KNOWN THE SOLUTION OF THE WORD?
For 'this alone,' the Hebrew reads: only see, which word arouses the reader's attention. The word 'upright' signifies uprightness not only of nature, as Cajetan holds, but also of sanctifying grace and original justice; for Adam was endowed with both. Hence Olympiodorus has: entirely upright. For 'questions,' the Hebrew and Chaldaic has חשבונות (chisbonot), that is, thoughts; in Greek λογισμοῖς, that is, reasonings; the Complutensians: considerations; others: various thoughts, that is, as Olympiodorus says, crooked ways of living, into which men divide themselves, while one devotes himself to avarice, another to pride, another to gluttony, etc. Symmachus translates: πολυπραγμοσύνη, that is, curiosity, or varied business. Thaumaturgus: trivial disputes about little sayings, or matters of light importance, on which those devoted to or professing wisdom waste their time. Hugh the Cardinal explains it both of those things which we strive to know, and which cannot be known definitively in this life; and of the cares and anxieties and desires which we both seek, and for which an account is demanded in judgment. The Carthusian properly understands by 'questions' not only useful and lawful ones, but curious and superstitious ones. Titelmannus holds that under the name of 'questions' is contained every difficulty, perplexity, and misery into which men, after the first parent who involved nature itself, also involve themselves. Others, pressing the word 'questions,' take it as quarrels and carnal fights.
All these things can be understood under the name of 'questions,' in Hebrew chissebonot, that is, 'thoughts'; about which I will speak again below. 'Infinite;' for, as St. Bonaventure says, nothing can fill man's desire, nothing can stabilize his instability, because he fell from truth into ignorance, from goodness into malice, from power into powerlessness. The Chaldean plainly translates: 'Nevertheless I saw what I found. For the Lord created that first Adam excelling in strength and justice; but the serpent and Eve deceived him, that they should eat the fruit of the tree, by eating which they would become wise, and would have knowledge of good and evil; from which it resulted that they brought upon themselves and their posterity the occasion of death. And they obtained only this fruit in pursuing those questions, but they brought death upon all the inhabitants of the earth.' He gives the reason for the preceding verse, as if to say: The reason why out of all men and women I scarcely found any entirely upright and wise, who would enter the true path to happiness, is that God indeed made Adam upright, but he himself, departing from this uprightness, defiled himself and his posterity with sin and concupiscence, which suggests to him infinite thoughts, desires, curiosities, and questions, so that his mind never rests; for since he departed from the one God, he has been distracted into diverse and many things, and his mind wanders after various creatures; and since it finds rest and satisfaction in none, it always thinks of and desires another and another, seeking quiet everywhere and finding it nowhere; therefore it is constantly tossed and buffeted on the waves and tides of a thousand thoughts and questions, that is, cares, desires, curiosities, passions, and tumults, like a Euripus, and, as Lucretius says, book 5: 'And always wastes his life in empty cares.'
Note: From this passage it is clear that Adam was created in grace and original justice. The same is clear from what the Wise Man says in chapter 2, verses 23-24; and Ecclesiastes 17:1-2; and the Apostle, Ephesians 4:23, and Colossians 3:10. Therefore the Pelagians wrongly held that Adam was created by God in such a condition as we are born and exist. Less correctly also, Alexander of Alexandria, Marsilius of Auxerre, Bonaventure, and Scotus in book 2, distinction 29, thought that Adam was created in a state of pure nature, and then endowed with grace, which he soon lost by sinning. Therefore Solomon here tacitly refutes the heretics who made God the author of sin and of depraved nature; and the pagans, who considered nature to be a stepmother to man, because she had formed him so small and wretched, when this defect is not of nature but of fault, as St. Augustine everywhere teaches against the Pelagians, who in book 4 Against Julian, chapter 10, says that the philosophers 'saw the thing (the corruption of man) but did not know the cause.' See Theodoret, book 3 On the Cure of Greek Afflictions. St. Cyril says excellently in Catechesis 2: 'The planting indeed was good,' he says, 'but the fruit was evil by the will; and therefore the planter is not at fault; but the vineyard shall be burned, because it was planted for good and brought forth fruit for evil. For He had made man upright, but he himself sought many questions. And the Apostle says: for we are His workmanship, created in good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them. The Creator therefore, since He is good, created good creatures. But the creature by its own will was turned to bitterness. I planted a fruitful vineyard, entirely true: how was it turned into the bitterness of a strange vine?' Jeremiah 2.
Note second: This uprightness is opposed to curvature, crookedness, tortuosity, corruption, and depravation, which man incurred after sin through concupiscence. For concupiscence distorts his mind from the rectitude of reason, law, virtue, and the will of God, so that he desires what is dishonorable, base, harmful, and forbidden, which St. Paul, feeling it in himself, says: 'I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin,' Romans 7:23. This is the distortion and limping of man and of the soul, whereby with one foot of the mind he walks upright, and with the other foot of concupiscence he limps. Uprightness therefore lulled to sleep, indeed removed concupiscence, and conformed Adam's mind to the dictate of right reason, prudence, honesty, and the divine law.
Note third: Some understand by 'uprightness' simplicity and sincerity: so Thaumaturgus, as if to say: God created man upright, that is, simple, sincere, honest, not false, painted over, feigned, or fraudulent; but through sin he became such. For this is the iron age, in which, as Ovid sings, Metamorphoses 1: 'Every crime burst upon the age, modesty, truth, and faith fled: In their place came frauds and deceits, And snares and violence, and the wicked love of possessing.' Our Pineda takes 'uprightness' as modesty, the loss of which he just censured in women, and refers the 'infinite questions' to feminine quarrels and trifles; but, as he himself acknowledges, this is a narrower and humbler meaning of man's uprightness: for the full and adequate meaning is the integrity, conformity, justice, and holiness of the mind through grace and every virtue, and especially through original justice.
Hence St. Thomas, First Part, Question 95: 'God,' he says, 'made man upright. For there was uprightness inasmuch as reason was subject to God, and the lower powers of the soul and body were subject to reason. And the first subjection was the cause of the second and third. For as long as reason remained subject to God, the lower powers were subject to it, as St. Augustine teaches,' in his book On Nature and Grace, chapter 15, and his book On Corruption and Grace, chapter 11. 'The uprightness of man consists in this, that the spirit, as superior to the inferior flesh, should preside and command, and the flesh should attend to and obey its commands,' says Rupert on Genesis chapter 1; and St. Augustine, City of God, book 14, chapters 11 and 27: 'God made man upright, and therefore of good will; for he would not be upright if he did not have a good will.' And St. Jerome, book 1 Against Jovinian: 'Since we were created good, and good by God, by our own vice we have fallen to worse things, and what was upright in us in paradise was depraved when we departed from paradise.' See St. Thomas at the place already cited, and also Suarez, Vasquez, Valencia, Molina, and the other scholastics there.
For 'upright' is said of that which conforms to its own rule. Adam therefore was created upright, because he was in all things conformable to reason and the law of God: for this uprightness produced in him a consonant harmony of all his powers and faculties, and a wonderful agreement and as it were a concert, whereas now after sin we experience in ourselves the rebellion of flesh and spirit, and a remarkable dissonance, struggle, and battle of all our powers. God therefore made man upright, because at the very moment of creation He infused sanctifying grace into Adam, and clothed him with original justice. Grace made him godlike, indeed a son of God, a brother of the angels, a lord of creatures. Original justice, through the constant assistance of God, so moderated, tempered, and made pure and peaceful all the powers of the soul, namely the intellect, memory, and will, and likewise all the senses and appetites, that there was no discord among them, not even the slightest defect. Adam was therefore at that time most tranquil in memory, most penetrating in intellect, most upright in will, most obedient in his senses, most subject in his appetite, in which the body followed the soul's command without any contradiction, the senses and appetites obeyed reason, and reason was led by the command of the divine will. Hence Prosper, book 2 On the Contemplative Life: 'No troublesome anxiety,' he says, 'disturbed his rest, no anxious labor wearied his leisure, no sleep oppressed him against his will, no fear of losing life distressed one secure of immortality. He had easy sustenance, a body entirely healthy, tranquil movements, a clean heart, ignorant of penal suffering, an inhabitant of paradise, free from sin, capable of God. Finally, what was more happy than he, to whom the world was subject, no one hostile, his mind free, and God visible?'
But now after the fall, once this harmony of powers was dissolved, the body, supremely distempered, refuses to submit to the soul's command, and if the soul wishes to abstain, the body wants to eat; if the soul desires to keep vigil, the body wants to sleep; if the soul wants to labor, the body delights in idleness and being consumed by sloth. Now the senses and appetites do not obey reason, but like rebellious servants rise up against it, and (what is more pitiable) drag it along deceived and captive. Now reason passes over the divine laws, and despises the commands of its Creator; and therefore hears that word of Jeremiah: 'You have broken my yoke, you have burst my chains, and you said: I will not serve.' Why do I linger and enumerate man's diseases? 'The whole head is sick, and the whole heart mourning. From the sole of the foot to the top of the head, there is no soundness in him: wound, and bruise, and swelling sore, not bound up, not treated with medicine, nor soothed with oil,' Isaiah 1:5.
AND HE (Adam with his posterity, whence the Hebrew, Seventy, Syriac, Arabic, St. Jerome in his Commentary, Campensis, Vatablus and others have 'they' in the plural) HAS ENTANGLED HIMSELF IN INFINITE QUESTIONS. — The Hebrew: and they themselves sought חשבונות (chissebonoth), that is, thoughts; Symmachus translates: curiosities; Cajetan: reasons; others: cunning devices, arts, perverse affections.
Fittingly, by 'infinite questions' you may understand the very many opinions and conflicting views of the philosophers about man's end, and the supreme good and happiness, namely in what it consists. Thaumaturgus takes them as questions never to be finished, that although men were born to investigate wisdom, they themselves waste their whole life in wordiness. R. Solomon takes 'questions' as marital quarrels and disputes, as if to say: Adam, when he was alone, was upright and peaceful; when Eve was added to him, he fell into marital quarrels; but this is frivolous and rabbinical. Similar is the reading of the Zurich version: 'I found,' it says, 'that God made Adam upright; but they, having become many, pursued vain thoughts.' For not only the posterity of Adam, but Adam himself after the fall did this, and 'entangled himself in infinite questions,' as the Vulgate has it.
Hugh the Cardinal wittily, though less genuinely in the literal sense, takes 'questions' as torments: for man is tortured by as many torments and stings as the desires he serves, especially marital and feminine ones. Hence that saying of St. Jerome Against Jovinian: 'He who does not quarrel is a bachelor.' And that of Juvenal: 'The bed in which a married woman lies always has quarrels and alternating disputes; very little sleeping is done in it.'
Note: the word 'has entangled' has an intensive force, as Pineda rightly observes, as if to say: Man is so immersed, indeed absorbed in questions, that is, thoughts, cares, desires, and quarrels, that he seems entirely composed and compacted of questions, complaints, quarrels, and brawls, and scarcely anything pure and unmixed can be seen in man, that is not confused and jumbled and disturbed. Therefore it seems to signify the confusion and disturbance of many things, when the agitation of human pursuits and passions mixes heaven with earth, and confounds all things.
You may ask: why does our translator render the Hebrew חשבונות (chissebonoth) as 'questions' and not 'thoughts'? The answer is that the word 'questions' signifies many things fitting and appropriate to this passage. For first, 'questions' signify the various disputations and opinions of the philosophers about happiness and the supreme good of man, while some placed it in honor, others in wealth, others in health, others in knowledge, others in prosperity, others in friendship, etc. For Solomon is entirely occupied here in describing the vanity of things, and in inquiring into truth and true happiness, namely in what thing man can live rightly, honestly, and happily, and he recalls that he scarcely found it in any mortal, because man, created upright by God, by sinning abandoned his uprightness and the one God, in whom alone his happiness consists, and therefore seeks happiness in various created things, attractive and delightful in appearance, and nowhere finds it, since it does not consist in them. Man therefore deflected from one chesbon, that is, one thought and reason of adhering to God and living happily, as I said in verse 28, into chissebonoth, that is, into many petty thoughts, petty questions, and petty reasonings, which he himself devised and fashioned as if he would find the happy life there, but in reality found nothing but trifles, thorns, and troubles, because having abandoned the true art of living well and happily, he fabricated for himself vain and deceptive arts of the happy life.
Second, 'questions' signify the continual anxieties and cares, and likewise the quarrels and disputes of this life, by which man quarrels and fights not only with rivals, neighbors, or friends, but also with himself, while with his mind he thinks of heavenly things and with his flesh desires earthly things.
Third, 'questions' signify the curiosities with which man is full, so that he wishes to scrutinize all things, especially new, foreign, exotic, and unknown things, and therefore entangles himself in infinite troubles. Hence again, 'questions' denote whatever difficulties and troubles man involves himself in, either voluntarily or by force. Hugh adds that by 'questions' he understands racks and tortures; for these are called 'questions' because through them the truth of a crime is sought out and extracted from the accused in a trial. 'The question holds him who has been summoned to court,' says Papinian.
Fourth, 'questions' signify the desires with which man abounds, by metonymy: for 'questions' denote the origin and source of desires, namely that they proceed from the curiosity of seeking and knowing, that is, from the itch to feel and experience what is good, pleasant, and delightful in each thing. He alludes to the first question of the serpent, which he put to Eve saying: 'Why did God command you not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?' Genesis 3. At which question Eve burned with curiosity to taste the fruit, and ate it, and by the same act ruined her husband and all of us, and transmitted her curiosity and concupiscence to all posterity.
Do you wish therefore to exclude concupiscence? Exclude curiosity, close your eyes, ears, and mind, and say with the Prophet: 'Turn away my eyes, that they may not see vanity,' lest they desire what they have seen, and wish to taste it like Eve.
Fifth, our Ludovicus Molina takes 'questions' as perplexities, blindness, and ignorance, which man incurred through sin; for he who is ignorant seeks what he does not know. 'Question' therefore denotes the ignorance, shamelessness, and foolishness of man in matters both speculative and especially practical. For every sin proceeds from a certain ignorance, that is, imprudence, namely that man does not sufficiently consider the damages of sin and the punishments of hell, to which he makes himself liable. For if he prudently considered and weighed these, as he ought, he certainly would not sin. But hear Molina, First Part, treatise On the Work of the Six Days, disputation 27, near the end: By the name of 'questions' he understands the windings, difficulties, and ambiguities which followed in human life after the loss of original justice through the sin of the first parents, and with its departure from human nature that harmony and that supreme uprightness in which it had been created, and with the wound of ignorance received at the same time. Hence it follows that man was created in original justice and in a far more sublime state than that in which he now exists.
Sixth, some understand by 'questions' complaints, that is, laments and grievances, which the miseries and sorrows of this life produce for fallen man. But in that case 'questions' would be without a diphthong; whereas it is written with a diphthong. Again, he takes 'questions' not so much actively, but passively for things to be asked of man, to which, when God questions him, man will have to answer on the day of judgment, so that 'question' here signifies by catachresis an answer. For God will question each one and ask: Why were you ungrateful for so many of My benefits? Why did you profane the blood of My Christ? Why did you reject His grace and calling? Why did you commit this sin? Why did you injure your neighbor? Why did you commit adultery? Why did you steal? Why did you kill? Why did you desire so many and such great unlawful things? And to each one man, trembling and anxious, will have to answer; and because he will not be able to give a just answer, he will hear the sentence of damnation to hell, to which therefore the wretch in this life, while he sins, entangles himself and makes himself liable.
Furthermore, another takes 'questions' as the temptations, sophisms, and tricks of the devil, by which, as by snares, he entangles, convicts, and captures the soul, just as the Sphinx with her intricate riddles ensnared, captured, and killed passers-by. But these interpretations of 'questions' are accommodated and mystical rather than literal and genuine.
Finally, Solomon opposes 'questions' to uprightness and the upright man, by which, namely, in the state of innocence his mind was upright without any fault, and equally his body was healthy and free from all punishment; therefore by 'questions' he signifies both faults and sins, and punishments and torments, which man brought upon himself by sinning and departing from his original uprightness; for which reason it was necessary to find one man chosen out of a thousand, namely Christ, who would deliver him from these questions and distortions, and restore him to his original uprightness and fairness. Hence he adds:
WHO IS SUCH AS THE WISE MAN? AND WHO HAS KNOWN THE SOLUTION OF THE WORD?
The Hebrew, the Chaldean, Jerome, Vatablus, Campensis, and the other Hebraists refer this maxim to the beginning of the following chapter. Hence they begin chapter eight with it. Thus the Chaldean translates: but who is so distinguished in wisdom that he can stand against the wisdom of the Lord, and recognize the genuine interpretation in the words of the Prophets? The Seventy, Syriac, and Arabic translate: who knows the wise? To which question he soon answers in chapter 8:1, that the wise man is recognized from his face: 'The wisdom of a man,' he says, 'shines in his countenance.'
But it is better that the Vulgate, the Seventy, the Syriac, the Arabic, and others generally connect this maxim with the preceding text, and this in various ways and with various senses. First, Cajetan: who is such that he is wise? As if to say: No one, or scarcely anyone, is truly wise, as he said a little before. Here the translation of Campensis is relevant: who is to be compared with one who has judgment about things?
Second, Hugh the Cardinal explains it as if to say: Who is such that he is wise? Such, namely, as upright, as he said a little before, who knows not to entangle and involve himself in questions from which he cannot extricate himself; but rather to embrace those from which he knows how to free himself, and to solve them, and to examine soberly only what is honest and pious. He adds that by the name of 'wise man' should be understood, par excellence, either Christ or Solomon; by 'the solution of the word,' not only of Sacred Scripture, according to the text: 'Who is worthy to receive the book, and to open its seals?' but of that about which we shall be questioned in judgment: because those who have kept and observed what is just will find what to answer, Wisdom 6:11.
Third, Titelmannus, as if to say: If you are wise, attend diligently to what I have said about the danger and malice of women, about the scarcity of men; and that the blame for depravation is to be given not to God, who created us upright, but to ourselves.
Fourth, plainly and simply, as if to say: Who can equal the wise man, who knows and penetrates these things which I have just said are difficult and known to few, and especially, avoiding the infinite tangles of questions in which others entangle themselves, knows 'the solution of the word?' namely the question I proposed a little before, about the reason and way of finding a blessed and happy life, says Cajetan, by following the one man out of a thousand, namely Christ the Lord. Otherwise St. Jerome, who by 'word' understands Sacred Scripture, and the Chaldean, a Prophet; others: of the word, that is, of words, that is, of things, problems, or difficult questions. So Albinus, Olympiodorus, and Vatablus. It is a conclusion signifying that only the wise man can resolve the proposed difficulties: for this is the praise and endowment of wisdom and of the wise man, and therefore he is rare and scarcely one out of a thousand is found. With a similar exclamation David closes Psalm 106, saying: 'Who is wise and will keep these things? and will understand the mercies of the Lord?' For again and again Solomon returns to the praises of wisdom, to commend it to all and to impel all to the pursuit of it.