Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
First Part of the Book of Wisdom,
In Which Is Contained the Praise of Wisdom and an Exhortation, or Encouragement, to Love, Study, and Zeal for It.
Chapter One.
Synopsis of the Chapter.
He invites all, especially rulers, to wisdom, and shows the way to it, namely justice, and a sincere sense of God and His worship: for God is known to hate dissimulation, murmuring, detraction, lying, and every depravity of heart and deed, by which justice is harmed, and death is provoked, which God did not make, but the wicked brought upon themselves of their own accord.
1. Love justice, you who judge the earth. Think of the Lord in goodness, and in simplicity of heart seek Him: 2. for He is found by those who do not tempt Him: and He appears to those who have faith in Him: 3. for perverse thoughts separate from God: but tried virtue reproves the foolish: 4. for wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins. 5. For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful, and will withdraw Himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and He will be driven away when iniquity comes upon Him. 6. For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent, and will not acquit the slanderer from his lips: for God is witness of his innermost thoughts, and the true searcher of his heart, and the hearer of his tongue. 7. For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world: and that which contains all things has knowledge of the voice. 8. Therefore he who speaks unjust things cannot be hidden, nor shall correcting judgment pass him by. 9. For inquiry shall be made into the thoughts of the ungodly: and the hearing of his words shall come to God, for the chastisement of his iniquities. 10. For the ear of jealousy hears all things, and the tumult of murmurings shall not be hidden. 11. Keep yourselves therefore from murmuring, which profits nothing, and refrain your tongue from detraction, for a secret word shall not go in vain: and the mouth that lies kills the soul. 12. Seek not death in the error of your life, neither procure destruction by the works of your hands. 13. For God did not make death, neither does He rejoice in the destruction of the living. 14. For He created all things that they might exist: and He made the nations of the world to be healed: and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of the underworld upon the earth. 15. For justice is perpetual and immortal. 16. But the wicked with their hands and words have called death upon themselves: and esteeming it a friend, they have made a covenant with it: because they are worthy to be of its portion.
1. LOVE JUSTICE, YOU WHO JUDGE THE EARTH. THINK OF THE LORD IN GOODNESS, AND IN SIMPLICITY OF HEART SEEK HIM. — The word "love," in Greek agapēsate, in Hebrew ahabu, has force and emphasis, for it signifies an immense and vehement love, and as it were an ardor for justice, which should seem as if naturally implanted and inborn in judges and princes, but by grace and practice
Finally, the Book of Wisdom, equally as the second Book of Maccabees, appears most of all to have been written by some Pharisee against the Sadducees, who denied the Deity and the immortality of the soul, and consequently the future rewards of the good and punishments of the wicked — all of which the Pharisees conceded and defended against the Sadducees, as is evident from Acts 23:8. For when Ezra the scribe had established the college of scribes, that is, of those devoted to the study of wisdom, and in the time of the Maccabees — indeed, in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus — the Jews had come under the yoke of Alexander and the Greeks, it came to pass that many of the scribes read the books of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek sophists, or mingled in conversation with their descendants and followers; and, seeing that these denied the Deity and the future life, while the others affirmed both, they themselves were also divided into two sects: namely, the Pharisees, who affirmed both, and the Sadducees, who denied both. The common people followed the Pharisees, but the nobles followed the Sadducees, as being devoted to a freer and more licentious life. Hence John Hyrcanus, the son of Simon, the brother of Judas Maccabeus, degenerating from Judas Maccabeus (whose example of faith on this matter is found in 2 Maccabees 12), in his extreme old age, provoked by a certain Pharisee and incited by another Sadducee, his friend, defected to the Sadducees, as Josephus testifies (Antiquities, book XIII, ch. 18), and most fiercely persecuted the Pharisees. His son Alexander followed Hyrcanus, and from him his grandson Aristobulus; of whom Alexander in a single day ordered eight hundred Jews to be crucified before him while he feasted with his concubine, as Josephus testifies (Antiquities, book XIII, ch. 22). Herod the Ascalonite appears to have followed these, who succeeded Aristobulus and his brother Hyrcanus in the principate of Judea; for he too killed very many Pharisees because they refused to swear allegiance to him as king. But soon these contentions between Pharisees and Sadducees were settled after the exile of Archelaus, the son of Herod, when Roman governors were appointed in his place; for these declined toward neither of the two sects; and then both parties, though clinging to their own opinion, conspired against Christ as their common enemy, that is, the enemy of Judaism and the synagogue. So says Franciscus Lucas on Matthew, ch. 2, v. 7. The Wise Man, therefore, striving to call back the nobles infected with this heresy of the Sadducees (to whom our modern Machiavellians are similar) to a sound faith in and fear of God, addresses them, saying: "Love justice, you who judge the earth, think of the Lord in goodness," that is, well, rightly, and worthily; and thereafter he impresses upon them the future punishments of the wicked and rewards of the pious.
Therefore, the Wise Man in this book especially celebrates the works of Wisdom in protecting and defending the good and faithful Hebrews, and in destroying the wicked, the unfaithful, and those rebellious against God — the Canaanites and the Egyptians, followers of Pharaoh. For this reason he briefly reviews many histories from Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, and from time to time supplies certain details that are passed over in silence there: such as the origin and author of idolatry (ch. 14, v. 15); the wasps sent by God that weakened the Canaanites before the coming of the children of Israel (ch. 12, v. 8); the manna that provided the just with every sweetness and variety of flavor they desired (ch. 16, v. 20); the phantoms and specters, and the fire and hissings of serpents and beasts that terrified the Egyptians during the ninth plague of Egypt, which was one of the densest darkness (ch. 17, vv. 5, 6, 9); the terrifying visions of the firstborn when they were killed as the angel passed over (ch. 18, v. 19). Here note that the author of this book often leaps suddenly from one miracle of God to another, and suddenly springs back and returns to the former topic, and he does this especially in the last chapters of the book. The prophets often do the same, for this book was written in the prophetic style, as the Fathers teach.
Now St. Jerome, who is the author of the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible, except for the Psalms (for in these the Church retained the Septuagint version as being already familiar to all and on everyone's lips), does not appear to have been the translator of this Book of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, because he does not seem to have considered them canonical; hence he did not prefix a prologue to them, as he customarily did for the other books he translated. Indeed, he frequently cites Wisdom differently from what our Vulgate has, as is evident from his Commentaries on Isaiah, ch. 55, and on Zechariah 8 and 12, and frequently elsewhere. Furthermore, St. Augustine, Cyprian, Dionysius the Areopagite, and others who preceded St. Jerome cite passages from the Book of Wisdom in exactly the same way as they are now found in the Latin Vulgate; that version therefore must have existed before St. Jerome. It is therefore quite probable that in Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus the Church retained the ancient version which it used before St. Jerome.
Note: The Greek text here, as in Ecclesiasticus, is often uncertain and varies; therefore one should consult the Roman Greek edition corrected by Cardinal Caraffa and approved by Sixtus V, and even more the Latin Vulgate, which is purer here than the Greek, and therefore is to be preferred to the Greek, and is to be regarded as authentic Sacred Scripture, as the Council of Trent decreed, Session IV.
Those who have commented on the Book of Wisdom include St. Bonaventure, Lyra, Hugo, Dionysius the Carthusian, Robert Holcot of the Order of St. Dominic, Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly, Petrus Nannius, Hieronymus Osorius, Vatablus, Isidorus Clarius, Cornelius Jansen, our own Joannes Lorinus and Christophorus a Castro, and Gonsalvus Cervantes of the Order of St. Augustine. Furthermore, Bellator the Priest, as Robert Holcot reports, wrote twenty-five books on Wisdom. Matthew Cantacuzenus published brief but distinguished scholia on Wisdom, which our Brunellus translated from Greek into Latin.
I shall be briefer here, lest the Solomonic work grow excessively, especially since many things that are mentioned and repeated here have already been explained by me in the Pentateuch, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.
First Part of the Book of Wisdom, in Which Is Contained the Praise of Wisdom and an Exhortation, or Encouragement, to Love, Study, and Zeal for It.
Chapter One.
Synopsis of the Chapter.
He invites all, especially rulers, to wisdom; he shows the way to it, namely justice, and a sincere perception and worship of God: for God knows and hates simulation, murmuring, detraction, lying, and every depravity of heart and deed, by which justice is harmed and death is provoked — which God did not make, but the wicked called it upon themselves of their own accord.
1. Love justice, you who judge the earth. Think of the Lord in goodness, and in simplicity of heart seek Him. 2. For He is found by those who do not tempt Him, and He appears to those who have faith in Him. 3. For perverse thoughts separate from God, but proven virtue corrects the foolish. 4. For wisdom will not enter a malevolent soul, nor will it dwell in a body subject to sins. 5. For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from deceit, and will withdraw Himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and will be convicted by approaching iniquity. 6. For the spirit of wisdom is benign, and will not free the slanderer from his lips, because God is the witness of his innermost thoughts, and the true searcher of his heart, and the hearer of his tongue. 7. For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world, and that which contains all things has knowledge of every voice. 8. Therefore, he who speaks unjust things cannot be hidden, nor will correcting judgment pass him by. 9. For inquiry will be made into the thoughts of the ungodly, and the hearing of his words will come to God for the chastisement of his iniquities. 10. For the ear of jealousy hears all things, and the tumult of murmuring will not be hidden. 11. Therefore, guard yourselves from murmuring, which profits nothing, and refrain your tongue from detraction, for a secret word will not go in vain, and a mouth that lies kills the soul. 12. Do not court death by the error of your life, nor acquire destruction by the works of your hands. 13. For God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living. 14. For He created all things that they might exist, and He made the nations of the world to be wholesome, and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor is the kingdom of the underworld on earth. 15. For justice is perpetual and immortal. 16. But the ungodly have called it to them by their hands and words, and esteeming it a friend, they have wasted away, and have made a covenant with it, for they are worthy to be of its party.
1. LOVE JUSTICE, YOU WHO JUDGE THE EARTH. THINK OF THE LORD IN GOODNESS, AND IN SIMPLICITY OF HEART SEEK HIM. — The word "love" (Greek agapesate, Hebrew ahavah, ahabu) has energy and emphasis, for it signifies an immense and vehement love, and as it were a burning zeal for justice, which should seem to judges and princes as though inborn and natural, but must be sharpened and perfected by grace and practice, as St. Basil notes on Psalm 35, at the words: "You have loved justice."
Note that just as Ecclesiastes at the beginning proposed the theme of his entire book, saying: "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity" — which he then pursues, proves, and confirms throughout the whole book — so here the Wise Man proposes the theme and entire argument of his wisdom. For this book treats of nothing else, aims at no other target, than to teach all men, especially princes, to love justice, to know, love, and revere God, and to seek, worship, and venerate Him with a simple heart. For in this consists true, heavenly, and divine wisdom. The sole means to wisdom, therefore, is justice; hence Ecclesiasticus, ch. 1, v. 33: "My son, if you desire wisdom, keep justice, and the Lord will bestow it upon you."
LOVE JUSTICE, YOU WHO JUDGE THE EARTH. — The Syriac and Arabic read: "judges of the earth." Antonius in the Melissa, Part II, Sermon 9, reads: "you who exercise judgment among men," as if to say: You, O kings, princes, governors, and judges, who judge, that is, who rule the earth distributed into its provinces and cities — that is, you who rule the citizens of cities and inhabitants of provinces — love justice. For as Solomon says, Proverbs 29:4: "A just king raises up the land; a greedy man will destroy it." It is a synecdoche, for from the principal part the whole is understood, namely, from judgment, governance. For in ancient times judging was the first part of governance and the first duty of kings; for it was and is their role to judge, that is, to declare the law to peoples. Hence Julius Caesar, Augustus, Vespasian, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, Maximus, Commodus, Pertinax, Severus, Caracalla, Justinian, Charlemagne, St. Louis, and other emperors and kings — whom Tiraquellus lists in De nobilitate, ch. 28 — did this in person. Again, to judge is to vindicate the poor who are oppressed by the powerful, according to that which was prophesied of Solomon and Christ: "O God, give your judgment to the king, etc., to judge the poor in judgment" (Psalm 72). "When men have disputes, they take refuge in judgment (for to go to a judge is to go to justice itself, since a judge is nothing other than a kind of living justice), and they seek the judge as a mediator and intermediary," says Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, V, 4). The same Aristotle says: dikaion, that is, the just, or law, is so called because it is dicha, that is, divided in two, as if dichaion, that is, bipartite; and dikastes, that is, judge, is so called as if dichstes, that is, one who divides in two, because he allots, divides, and distributes to each litigant his right. Hence Solomon here, ch. 9, v. 7: "You, he says, chose me as king of your people and judge of your children" — as though it is the proper function of a king to judge and to apportion to each person his right.
The word "earth" has emphasis, as if to say: O kings, do not be high-minded, but suppress pride, domination, and tyranny; you do not reign in heaven, but on the lowly earth. There is a King of heaven who looks upon you and looks down upon you, and who will judge you. He begins with kings, because as the king is, so is the people; for:
The whole world is shaped after the example of the king.
Thus nature first forms the heart in the embryo, because the heart gives life to the other members; thus the heavens govern the elements and the spheres beneath them; thus the higher angels direct the lower ones; in the same way, kings govern the rest of mankind.
Justice is here properly understood, first, as the virtue that renders to each his own right. Princes must defend this as the foundation and pillar of the commonwealth; if they neglect its protection, the wicked will oppress the good, the powerful the weak, the rich the needy, etc., and from this will arise schisms, quarrels, wars, and the confusion, destruction, and ruin of the entire commonwealth. Therefore, the first care of judges and princes must be to preserve each person's right, to defend it from the injury of anyone, and not to allow themselves to be swayed by gifts or threats so as to deviate even a hair's breadth from what is true and just — as did the judges of the Areopagus, of whom I spoke in Acts 17, under St. Dionysius the Areopagite. For justice shines among the virtues like the evening star, or Lucifer, among the stars, especially in a prince, says Aristotle (Ethics V, 1) and Philo (On the Creation of the Prince). Because, "if justice is removed, what are kingdoms but great robberies? And what are robberies themselves but small kingdoms?" says St. Augustine (City of God, book IV, ch. 4). Hence, in Canticles 1:3, it is said to the Bridegroom: "The upright love you." The Septuagint translates euthotes, that is, "rectitude loves you," as if to say: Rectitude, that is, justice, is the royal virtue, and therefore is familiar, intimate, and most dear to Christ the King, the Bridegroom of the Church, says Origen. And Isaiah, ch. 11, v. 5, assigns this as the belt of Christ, the King of kings: "And justice shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the belt of His waist; for, as it is said in Psalm 11, v. 8, the Lord is just and has loved justice; His countenance has beheld equity." The same thing the wise men of the pagans saw in shadow. Plutarch, in his Essay to an Uneducated Prince, says that justice is the assessor of Jupiter and the gods, and that without it not even Jupiter can rightly rule. The same Plutarch asserts that at Thebes the statues of judges were displayed without hands, and that the one representing the prince had its eyes averted, to signify that justice must be free from gifts, and must not be swayed by any eloquence. Among the Egyptians, a judge was depicted with truth hanging suspended from his neck, his eyes cast down into his bosom, and eight books of law placed around him — signifying that judges must be upright and look only to the truth, as Pierius says (Hieroglyphics 41, ch. 4).
Elsewhere, justice is commonly depicted as a virgin with veiled eyes, holding a scale in one hand and a sword in the other. Hear Pierius (Hieroglyphics 55, ch. 61): "It is a more recent invention to signify the severity and rigor of justice by a drawn sword held in a maiden's hand, to which they also added a scale for the judgment of equity. But among the ancients I found it was handed down differently: they depicted justice with perfectly balanced scales in the left hand, while the right hand held not a sword, but the fasces with an axe bound to them — signifying that from this hieroglyphic due and equal rewards are bestowed and distributed to the deserving, and that punishment is meted out to those convicted of crimes." He then adds other parts of the emblem: "But this figure drags along with it two captive women: one who holds forth a broken sword, the other who leans upon a staff. From this device they judged two vices to be subdued, so that from the mean between both they might establish virtue itself: by the broken sword understanding excessive severity as blunted or restrained; by the staff, sluggishness recalled to the rod, because judgments were being prolonged beyond what was equitable — for hence comes delay, which signifies retardation. The slow, indeed, are those who are aroused by no crime however atrocious, and are moved by neither public nor private injuries." Hence justice was called by the ancients the virgin Astraea, who, having descended to earth during the golden age, flew back to heaven indignant at vices growing day by day, and was transformed into the celestial sign called Libra, as Natalis Comes relates (Mythology, book II, ch. 2). Of her Seneca says in the Octavia:
Astraea, virgin glory of the stars.
And Ovid, in Metamorphoses I:
And the virgin Astraea, last of the heavenly ones, left the earth dripping with blood.
And Hesiod:
Justice herself is a virgin born of Jove, pure and revered by the gods who dwell on Olympus. And when someone has injured her by unjust condemnation, she immediately sits beside her father Jove, son of Saturn, and declares the injustice of men, until the people pay for the injustices of their kings.
Second, justice here, according to Christophorus a Castro and others, can be taken in a general sense as the sum of all virtues; and thus every virtue is a part or species of justice, for every virtue aims at what is fair, just, and worthy to be done. For it prescribes those things that pertain to man's duty, that he may live honestly according to reason, law, and the will of God. This duty is a kind of right — not of strict or commutative justice, but of a general and broad justice, to which virtue, reason, and law oblige us. Hence Cantacuzenus judges that God here speaks and exhorts to the exercise of justice, that is, of virtues, so that through it we may be prepared for the knowledge of wisdom, that is, for knowing the mysteries of the divine Word. He confirms this from the fact that God commanded Joshua, the leader of the people, ch. 1, v. 7, saying: "Be strong and very courageous, that you may observe and do all the law which Moses My servant commanded you;" and from what Micah says, ch. 6, v. 8: "I will show you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: namely, to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk anxiously with your God." So also St. Bernard, who by justice understands penance and patience in every tribulation; for he says in the Sentences: "The progress of all the elect is distinguished by four degrees. First, one becomes a friend of his own soul; second, a friend of justice; third, of wisdom; fourth, one becomes wise." Then he pursues the second degree: "By loving justice one passes to the second degree, and hears that precept of Wisdom, Wisdom 1:1: Love justice, you who judge the earth. If one has loved it perfectly, one must patiently bear every penalty for its sake, and every insult inflicted. For justice will provide two things: first, that one does what one ought; second, that one suffers what one ought — namely, that if one has not done the good one should have, one suffers the evil one has deserved. Thus, in a wonderful way, not even by abandoning justice are we ourselves abandoned by it, since through it every guilt of transgression is punished; for there is none who can hide from its heat. And a just man not only does not shrink from this penalty, but even willingly accepts it, since he faithfully believes that through it the sins of his past life are purged. Hence it is written, Proverbs 12:21: Whatever happens to the just man will not sadden him. The same Bernard, in De Consideratione, book III, ch. 2: Love justice, he says, you who judge the earth (Wisdom 1:1). It is not enough to hold justice unless you also love it. Those who hold it, merely hold it; those who love it, are zealous for it. A lover of justice seeks justice and pursues it; moreover, he persecutes all injustice."
Furthermore, the Wise Man here admonishes princes that, just as they excel in power, so too they should excel and lead their subjects in justice, that is, in every virtue. Wisely does Emperor Basil say in his Exhortation to his son Leo, ch. 10: "Beware, lest as a poor guardian of the kingdom you commit anything degenerate or unworthy. But just as you have been placed above the rest so as to command all, so strive that you may also surpass the rest in virtue; for virtue is more excellent than any principate and any authority. If therefore in dignity you surpass all others, but in virtue you are surpassed by another, you are emperor in what is of lesser excellence, but in what is more illustrious you are not emperor — indeed, you are subject to another's authority. Do not, therefore, be like a counterfeit and illegitimate lord when another more excellent than you is found; but be a true emperor by surpassing all others in virtue." A prince who achieves this is the sun of the world and a living image of God, since he composes himself to the likeness of God through virtue, says Plutarch in his Essay to an Uneducated Prince. Hence also it is clear that this passage has an apposite meaning from what follows, in which he rebukes perverse thoughts, detractions, and murmurings as contrary to justice, that is, to wisdom and virtue — so that he says here essentially the same thing he says in ch. 6, v. 10, where he says: "To you, therefore, O kings, are these my words, that you may learn wisdom (prudence and virtue) and not fall away." Hence Vatablus also in this place translates "love justice" as "love wisdom." Therefore our Castro explains it thus, as if to say: You, O princes and rulers of men, upon whom depends the welfare of the entire people, love virtue and pursue wisdom, about which I am speaking, and direct your actions according to its precepts toward piety.
THINK OF THE LORD IN GOODNESS. — Fittingly, to the love of justice he appends the sense of goodness and the worship of God, as its cause. For nothing so keeps a man — especially kings — in justice and duty as the fear and worship of God. Hence Philo, in the Life of Moses, says: "Religion alone binds the minds of citizens and strengthens fellowships and associations." This is so true that St. Augustine affirms (City of God, book VIII, ch. 32) that even false religions and sects were invented by unfaithful princes to bind the minds of their citizens. Moreover, kings are like certain gods on earth, for they are God's vicars, officials, and ministers. Hence Plato and the philosophers teach that kings are like living images of God; indeed, the Psalmist says (Psalm 82): "God has stood in the assembly of gods; in the midst He judges gods (kings and judges)." The sense, therefore, is as if to say: You princes are God's vicars, and as it were certain earthly gods; imitate therefore the justice, virtue, and sanctity of God; therefore "think of" it, that is, taste and savor it in use and practice, as St. Jerome reads in Isaiah, ch. 55. Now,
First, "think of the Lord in goodness," that is, think of God well and rightly. For thus the Hebrews express adverbs through nouns: "serve the Lord in gladness," that is, gladly; "do your deeds in strength," that is, strongly; "in love," that is, lovingly. "The first ardor for learning is the nobility of the teacher," says St. Ambrose (On Virginity, book II). What is nobler than God, the teacher of justice and wisdom? Concerning Him, therefore, he says that goodness, that is, a good opinion and estimation, must be conceived. "In goodness," that is, think well of the Lord God — that is to say: Form a good judgment and opinion of God in your mind, so that your perception of God may be fitting to Him and worthy of Him; that you may hold such a concept of God as He Himself deserves; that you may fashion in your mind such a God as He truly is. Hence St. Cyril, writing to Acacius at the Council of Ephesus, paraphrases this passage: "Think of the Lord what is true." And the three bishops in their letter to Emperor Leo, which is preserved in the Council of Chalcedon: "For the entire perfection of the Catholic faith, the teaching of the most wise Solomon suffices; for he says, Wisdom 1: Think of the Lord in goodness, and in simplicity of heart seek Him. What then will the worst cunning and wickedness do, which is by no means permitted to go beyond goodness?" So say Dionysius, Clarius, Jansen, and Vatablus. The sense, therefore, is as if to say: O kings, take care that you think and judge of God and His providence, majesty, justice, wisdom, power, vengeance, and other attributes just as they truly are in God. Think well, therefore, rightly and piously of them, as faith and the prophets teach — not badly, perversely, and impiously with the Epicureans, politicians, and atheists who strip God of providence, vengeance, and other attributes, and therefore make God either a stump or a demon. Hence the Arabic translates: "perceive the power of the Lord with right perception." For the foundation and basis of the commonwealth, of justice, of the kingdom, of happiness, and of every good is religion and a true sense of God. For this strikes both kings and subjects with sacred fear, and keeps them in wisdom and virtue, so that they live justly, piously, and holily, lest they offend so great a deity whose vengeance they dread. For God, just as He is the most generous rewarder of the good, so He is the fiercest avenger of the wicked. Hence Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, pressing judges to judge justly out of fear of God (2 Chronicles 20:6), says: "See what you do; for you exercise the judgment not of man, but of the Lord; and whatever you judge will fall back upon you. Let the fear of the Lord be with you, and do everything with diligence; for with the Lord our God there is no iniquity, nor respect of persons, nor desire for bribes." Plato also saw this, and therefore in the Protagoras and in the Euthyphro he so conjoins justice and religion that he considers them one and the same virtue; or at least so similar that as justice is, so will sanctity and religion be; and as religion is, so must justice be administered. For just as the salvation of the soul, as Ecclesiasticus says (ch. 3, v. 15), lies in the sanctity of justice, so the welfare and happiness of all other things flow from the same sanctity of justice and religion, as from the true fountain of goodness. From certain and true religion, then, comes certain and true justice; and from various religions comes everything uncertain and false — equality, society, goodwill, fidelity (that is, constancy in things and words). For if magistrates believe it lawful, for the sake of propagating their heresy, to deceive their subjects, to deny pledged faith, to violate oaths, to trick with fallacies, to delude with wiles, and to throw everything into confusion through wars — what crimes, what outrages, what sacrileges will pour forth and burst upon the commonwealth? What justice can be rendered by those who not only think that the commonwealth can be governed by frauds and peoples ensnared by deceitful arts and impostures, but actually carry this out? So says Josephus Stephanus (On the One Religion, ch. 54).
Second, "think of the Lord in goodness," that is, in probity, honesty, virtue, and sanctity. For agathotes (goodness) is opposed to poneria (wickedness), that is, goodness is opposed to malice and crime. As if to say: Think and judge of God that He is most upright, most honorable, most holy, most just, and therefore the fountain of all the justice, probity, virtue, and sanctity that all angels and men possess — and therefore the most strict guardian and avenger of justice and virtue.
Hear St. Bernard (On Consideration, book V, ch. 11 and 12) thus defining, or rather describing, God: "What is God? An omnipotent will, a most benevolent power, an eternal light, an unchangeable reason, supreme blessedness — creating minds to participate in Himself, giving life so they may feel, moving them to desire, expanding them to receive, justifying them to merit, kindling them to zeal, making them fruitful for good works, directing them to equity, forming them for benevolence, moderating them unto wisdom, strengthening them unto virtue, visiting them for consolation, illuminating them for knowledge, perpetuating them unto immortality, filling them unto felicity, surrounding them for security. What is God? No less the punishment of the perverse than the glory of the humble; for He is a certain rational direction of equity, unconvertible and unyielding, reaching everywhere — against which all perversity, dashed upon it, must necessarily be thrown into confusion." And further: "God, he says, is He whose length is eternity, whose breadth is charity, whose height is power, whose depth is wisdom."
Third, "think of the Lord in goodness," that is, in benignity and beneficence. As if to say: Think and judge of God — not that He is severe, maleficent, cruel, a tyrant — but that He is the most benign and most beneficent of all, the father, indeed the mother, guardian, provider, and protector even of the poor, the wretched, orphans, and the fatherless. And therefore you, O judges, imitating God, judge the cases of the poor sincerely, and do not allow them to be oppressed by the powerful, or adjudge their case against justice out of fear or hope — considering that God, who is the father of the poor and of orphans, will be their fiercest avenger. Thus the Psalmist says (Psalm 107:1): "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever." The goodness of God, therefore, is His mercy, clemency, and beneficence; hence the Syriac translates: "consider the goodness of the Lord." Hence someone explains it thus: "Think of the Lord in goodness," that is, learn by experience that God is supremely good, supremely great, most benign, and the exemplar from which you ought to express every goodness in yourselves. Learn that His yoke is sweet, not harsh, but gentle; that His burden is not heavy, but light and pleasant. For if a yoke has sweetness and lightness, it excels in the two qualities by which it may rightly be desired rather than refused. Furthermore, it is most fitting for kings to imitate the goodness of God, that is, His benignity and beneficence. Hence Curtius (book VIII) asserts that "the majesty of the empire is the protection of welfare;" and Pliny, in his Panegyric of Trajan, teaches that it belongs to princes to show goodness toward the human race, "so that they may benignly discharge the role of God;" and King Theodoric, according to Cassiodorus (Variae, book XXIX, ch. 20): "Among the glorious cares of the state, which the prince, with God's help, revolves in his mind with continual thought, let it also be upon his heart to provide relief for the lowly against the power of the proud."
Fourth, "think of the Lord in goodness," that is, in every good — which is threefold, namely, the honorable, the useful, and the delightful. As if to say: Think and judge of God that He is by essence the supreme, immense, and total good — both honorable, useful, and delightful, both His own and that of man and all creatures. For He is the fontal, essential, formal, and causal goodness. Hence Gregory Nazianzen: "Goodness, he says, is nothing other than the divinity itself, according to Christ's words (Luke 18:19): Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone." Here note the Hebraism: the Hebrews construct verbs of contact, whether bodily or mental, such as "to perceive," with the ablative — so that "to touch in the eye, in the foot, in the hand" means to touch the eye, the foot, the hand. Therefore, "to think of God in goodness" is to perceive the goodness of God — namely, that God is goodness itself and the good itself. As if to say: You, O princes, who are images of God, emulate God as your exemplar; perceive and savor His goodness, so that just as you participate in His power above others, so too you may above others participate in His goodness. Just as all creatures perceive the goodness of God, since from Him they draw their being and every good, so let your subjects, drawing their benefits from you, everywhere perceive your goodness.
Hear Dionysius discoursing divinely on the good and the goodness of God (On the Divine Names, ch. 4, at the beginning): "Come then, let our discourse now treat of the name 'good,' which the theologians especially attribute to the hidden divinity, which transcends God — calling, as I think, the divine essence itself 'goodness,' because by the very fact that it is good, as good in itself and by its essence, it pours forth goodness upon all things that are. For just as our sun, not by thought or will but by the very fact that it exists, illuminates all things that can receive its light according to their capacity, so too the Good itself — which so surpasses the sun as the original form surpasses a faint and obscure image — by itself and by its very essence sends forth rays of goodness to all things that are, according to their capacity, as often as needed." And further: "From the Good itself comes light, and the image of goodness, etc.; and it is the measure of all things that are, and their eternity, number, order, embrace, cause, and end. Thus also, he who is the clear and express image of the divine goodness — this great sun, wholly luminous and ever shining — in proportion to the smallest likeness of the Good itself, shines upon all things that can receive his light, and has light diffused through all things, unfolding the splendor of his rays throughout this whole visible world, both upward and downward. And if anything does not participate in them, this is not to be attributed to the thinness or smallness of his diffused light, but to those things which, because they are not apt to receive light, are not opened to receiving it." And after many intervening words, he concludes thus: "Every infinity, all limits, all orders, excellences, elements, forms, every essence, every power, every action, every habit, every sense, every word, every notion of the mind, every touch, every knowledge, every conjunction — in a word, whatever is from the beautiful and good, and is in the beautiful and good, and is referred to the beautiful and good, and whatever things are and come to be — all things are and come to be for the sake of the good and the beautiful, and all things gaze upon it, and are moved and held together by it, etc. Since from Him, through Him, and in Him and unto Him are all things, as the divine Scriptures teach. Therefore, that which is beautiful and good is to be sought, loved, and cherished by all." From this, learn what the goodness of God is, and to think of it well and worthily.
Furthermore, "think of" (or, as St. Jerome reads, "savor") pertains not only to judgment but also to affection. Hence the Apostle calls "to savor the things of the flesh or of the spirit" to desire and to pursue with the whole affection those things that are pleasing and agreeable to the flesh or the spirit. The sense, therefore, is as if to say: Perceive the goodness of God, not only by conceiving or believing it with the mind, but also by pursuing it with your whole affection, so that you direct and express all your cares, thoughts, and powers of soul toward Him. "Hence it will come to pass," says our Castro, "that he who is well-disposed toward the Lord, the bestower of wisdom, will believe every excellence about Him, will trust in Him in all things, even the most difficult, and will endure Him even if He inflicts evils; and thus he thinks of Him in goodness, entrusting himself to Him as to the best of fathers, as to an omnipotent One who can raise him to the highest pinnacle of wisdom, and as to an omniscient One who knows how to provide for his welfare."
Morally, learn here that the true sense of the Deity, or concerning God, is the sense of goodness — namely, to perceive that He is by essence the supreme, infinite, and total good, and therefore supremely benign and beneficent toward all, and therefore supremely to be loved. For this reason God, to make manifest His goodness and immense love to creatures, not only created angels, heavens, animals, men, and such a great variety and beauty of things — so that as often as you behold the goodness and beauty of a flower, a gem, gold, herbs, fruits, animals, stars, colors, and the whole world, so often you may behold and contemplate His immense goodness and beauty in them as in shadows — but He also sent His only-begotten Son into the flesh, so that He might redeem men who were lost through sin and condemned to hell by His most atrocious sufferings and the shameful death of the cross. Do you wish, then, to know how great the goodness of God is? Consider the goodness of Christ on the cross: how much nakedness, ignominy, torments, pains, confusion, infamy, mockery, etc., He endures for you, the vilest worm of the earth, indeed a sinner — and this without any advantage to Himself, but solely for this end and fruit: that He might do you good, that you might be saved, free, and blessed. Christ, therefore, took upon Himself your evils, infirmities, and torments, and in their place bestowed upon you His benefits, virtues, rewards, and joys, that it might be well with you. "The cross, therefore, is the divine academy of goodness" and of love most pure and immense; so that, contemplating Christ upon it, you are compelled to exclaim in amazement: O goodness! O love! How greatly You have loved me! At how dear a price You have redeemed me! How many goods You have bestowed upon me through Your own sufferings! What shall I render to You, Lord Jesus, for so many blessings? All my bones shall say: "Lord, who is like You?" (Psalm 35:10). You have loved me, Lord; You have loved me exceedingly. Even if I should expend a thousand souls, a thousand lives for You, what are these compared to Your life, which is the life of God? Your mercies, O Lord, I will sing forever. I will imitate Your goodness, so that for love of You I may do good to whomever I can — for my benefit, not Yours. I will imitate Your humility, love, and holiness, and propose it to all for imitation, and I will say with the Apostle (Philippians 2:5): "For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied Himself (made Himself as it were nothing and void), taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross." This work, therefore, of the Incarnation of the Word, of the Passion and the Cross, was not unworthy but entirely worthy of God and of God's goodness; indeed, it was the best, and therefore the most divine, and proper to God alone. For by no other means could God make manifest His immense goodness to the world except by the descent of the Word into the flesh and the cross — so that from this you may clearly conclude that this immense goodness and love of mankind was not that of an angel, not of a man, but of God alone, the immense One. This is what Isaiah sings (ch. 55, v. 9): "As the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts."
Symbolically, "think of the Lord in goodness" — not only with the intellect, but also with the affection, so that the sense of the will may agree with the sense of the intellect: namely, that you may both conceive the goodness of God rightly in your mind, and love it with your will, and express it in your conduct, according to that saying (Psalm 111:10): "Good understanding for all who practice it;" or, as St. Jerome reads: "Good doctrine for those who practice it." So says Cantacuzenus. Mystically, St. Bonaventure: "He thinks of the Lord in goodness, who reads and understands Sacred Scripture, which is the Word of God, piously — not criticizing it, but approving and carrying it out."
AND IN SIMPLICITY OF HEART SEEK HIM. — St. Jerome (Against the Pelagians, book I) adds: "in wisdom and simplicity of heart seek God," as though simplicity were wisdom. Now, first, this simplicity is opposed to duplicity, cunning, hypocrisy, deceit, and pretense; for "that which is elicited by every art and composed by fraud lacks the merit of simplicity," says St. Ambrose (On Duties, book III, ch. 9). Hence it follows in verse 5: "The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from deceit" — as if to say: Seek God with a simple and sincere heart, not a double, feigned, and pretended one, lest it be said of you as in Isaiah 29:13 and Matthew 15:8: "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me." For "woe to the double heart" (who, as Persius sharply says, Satire 3:
"Keep a cunning fox under their stale breast.")
(Sirach 2:14; and James 1:8: "A double-minded man is inconstant in all his ways.") Moreover, Blessed Dorotheus, in Instruction 4, assigns the reward: "If anyone, he says, seeks God and God's will simply, God will give him even a child who may teach him, if a teacher is lacking, lest he stumble. But if someone seeks God with pretense, God in turn will give him a pretended teacher, who will lead him into error and a snare." Hear St. Gregory on the fifth penitential Psalm, verse 3: "Think of the Lord in goodness, and in simplicity of heart seek Him. For simplicity of heart is a day that fraud does not cloud, that deceit does not darken, that the light of truth illuminates, that the brightness of the divine presence makes radiant. For it is written, Proverbs 3:32: His conversation is with the simple. For God to converse is to reveal to human minds the secrets of His will through the illumination of His presence. Therefore God is said to converse with the simple because He illuminates their minds concerning heavenly secrets with the brightness of His inspiration — those whom no cloud of duplicity overshadows. On the contrary, of those who are not simple it is said, Psalm 5:7: The Lord will abominate the man of blood and deceit; and Solomon says, Wisdom 1:5: The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from deceit, and will withdraw Himself from thoughts that are without understanding. It is clear, therefore, that He illuminates the former by dwelling in them, and blinds the latter by departing from them."
The Wise Man therefore commands that men, especially princes, should seek God not with a half-hearted, imperfect, languid heart, but with a whole, perfect, constant, and strong heart — so that they give not half their heart to the world and half to God, but the whole of it, as much as it is, to God. This is accomplished through full charity; hence Robert Holcot understands simplicity as charity, as if to say: Think of the Lord in goodness, that is, well through faith, and seek Him in simplicity of heart through charity. But St. Jerome on Isaiah 55: "Seek the Lord while He may be found; seek Him, not by place, but by faith and repentance." Hence again simplicity is taken by some as candid generosity, according to Romans 12:8: "He who gives, in simplicity;" and 2 Corinthians 8:2: "Their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their simplicity (that is, beneficence and generosity);" and ch. 9, v. 11: "That being enriched in all things you may abound unto all simplicity," that is, candid generosity, as St. Chrysostom, Theodoret, and others explain there. Thus the sense in this place will be, as if to say: Seek God with a broad and generous heart, not a narrow and constricted one. For as He Himself is most generous, so He requires a generous heart — that is, one that is wide, ample, ready for all things, desiring and undertaking great things — so that He may pour out upon it, as into a capacious vessel, the riches of His grace and generosity.
Symbolically, Dionysius the Carthusian: "To seek God in simplicity, he says, is to know God through the abstraction and simplicity of the intellect, because He is supremely simple."
Second, this simplicity is opposed to curiosity, as if to say: Do not curiously scrutinize the majesty, providence, essence, and other secrets of God — for example, how He is three in Persons and one in essence — but simply believe what the faithful and the Church teach is to be believed about Him. So explains St. Cyprian (Testimonies, book III, ch. 53), and he cites Ecclesiastes 7:17: "Do not be excessively just, and do not argue more than is proper." The Glossa, Holcot, and Hugo agree, who explain it as though man is admonished to read and understand Sacred Scripture, through which God is known, piously, humbly, and studiously, and not to criticize what he does not clearly perceive, but rather to hold it with firm faith. For according to Isaiah 7:9: "If you do not believe, you shall not endure" (the Septuagint reads: "you shall not understand"). Nor should we gaze like owls into the opposing rays of the sun, taking care lest, "having become searchers of majesty, we be overwhelmed by glory." And because minds illuminated by the light of faith must conceive the flame of charity, they say that "seek" is added, which is accomplished by the splendor of burning love.
Third, St. Augustine (On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, book I, ch. 7) understands simplicity as purity, as opposed to mixture: for simple things are pure, mixed things are impure as being compounded from various elements. As if to say: With a simple, that is, a pure heart, seek God. For it is written, Matthew 5:8: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." "This is a pure heart," says St. Augustine, "which is a simple heart; and just as this light cannot be seen except by clean eyes, so neither is God seen unless that by which He can be seen is clean." That this is indeed the sense is also clear from what he adds in verse 3: "For perverse thoughts separate from God;" and verse 4: "Nor will it dwell in a body subject to sins."
Fourth, fully and plainly, the Hebrew tom and tam, which our translator usually renders as "simplicity" and "simple," signifies integrity and perfection, and what is whole and perfect. Thus Job (ch. 1, v. 1) is called a simple man, that is, upright and perfect. Conversely, of idolaters and the wicked, Hosea says (ch. 10, v. 2): "Their heart is divided; now they shall perish."
2. FOR HE IS FOUND BY THOSE WHO DO NOT TEMPT (Arabic: do not sadden) HIM; AND HE APPEARS TO THOSE WHO HAVE FAITH IN HIM. — The Greek reads: tois me apistousin auto, that is, "to those who are not unbelieving toward Him." Vatablus: "and to those who do not distrust Him He shows Himself." The Syriac: "He is revealed to those who believe in Him." The Arabic: "who will not make Him a liar." St. Jerome (on Zechariah ch. 8) reads: "The Lord draws near to those who do not tempt Him, and shows His face to those who are not unbelieving, that is, to those who believe in Him."
It is a litotes, for less is said and more is signified: namely, through the negation of unbelief, belief and faith are signified, as our translator astutely observes. He confirms what he said: "Think of the Lord in goodness, and in simplicity of heart seek Him." He confirms it from the fruit and reward: namely, that He is found by those who do not tempt Him but seek Him in simplicity of heart, and appears to those who think of Him in goodness, that is, who have faith in Him. For it is a chiasmus, since the first hemistich corresponds to the latter hemistich of the preceding verse, and the latter to the former: for he opposes temptation to simplicity, and unbelief and distrust to goodness. The sense, therefore, is as if to say: Seek God with a simple and sincere heart, not a doubting and testing one, and thus you will find Him; for by such He is found. And think rightly of Him and His goodness; believe in Him, trust in Him, and thus He will appear to you. Our Castro agrees: He gives the reason, he says, for what was said — that the Lord must be sought with a simple heart and sincere soul, and must especially be faithfully believed, without any doubt that He can, knows how to, and is willing to bestow what is asked. For those who approach Him with distrust, seeking rather to test His power, wisdom, and goodness because they doubt these or have not found them proven — these tempt God and sin most gravely, and not only will they not find what they seek, but as insulters of God they will be driven further away. Castro adds: Hence it is the same thing to think of the Lord in goodness and to seek Him with a simple heart, as not to tempt Him and to have faith in Him. Understand these four things as being the same — not precisely and strictly, but broadly and in their purpose, because all tend toward the same end.
Those who tempt God are, first, the unbelievers who deal with God as with a stone idol, dead and devoid of sense, and who therefore worship Him with external rites and gestures only. Second, those who deny God knowledge, power, providence over human affairs, and vengeance against injustice and crimes, or who wish to put these to the test. Third, those who trust in their own talent, riches, and strength, not in God. Thus the devil tempted Christ's divinity (Matthew 4:2); the Jews tempted His power when they demanded a miracle from Him (Matthew 12:38); likewise His justice when they demanded tribute (Matthew 17:23); likewise His wisdom when they investigated the manner of the resurrection (Matthew 22:24); likewise His clemency when they brought before Him an adulteress to be condemned (John 8:5); likewise His obedience when they asked: "Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, or not?" (Matthew 22:17).
Now, those who believe in God are, first, those who hold a right faith about Him and think orthodoxly; second, those who trust in Him; third, those who are faithful to Him and faithfully obey His commandments, according to Psalm 78:7: "That they might place their hope in God and seek out His commandments." Thus it is said, Sirach 1:36: "Do not be unbelieving of the fear of the Lord," that is, faithfully obey the religion and worship of God; "and do not approach God with a double," that is, doubting and deceitful, "heart." Hence St. Gaudentius, in his treatise On the Dedication, attempts to prove that St. Thomas, before Christ appeared to him after the Resurrection, was not unbelieving; for here it is said: "He appears to those who are not unbelieving." Therefore, the fact that he is blamed by Christ as unbelieving pertains not so much to Thomas as to posterity, who ought to believe what they have not seen — just as Thomas believed that Christ had risen, even though he had not seen Him, because he believed the apostles when they said they had seen Him. This is his own opinion, for others judge that Thomas was truly unbelieving, for the rebuke of Christ plainly signifies this. Thomas was therefore partly believing, partly unbelieving: believing, because he believed that Christ was a true prophet, a holy man, and the Messiah; unbelieving, because he did not believe He had risen. Christ therefore appeared to him as to a believer, so as to wipe away the remainder of his unbelief — as He did in fact, when Thomas, touching His scars, exclaimed (John 20:28): "My Lord and my God!" Add that although God ordinarily appears to those who believe in Him, yet He does not appear only to them, for He often appears to those who do not believe in Him. For so great is the goodness of God that by His light and grace He anticipates the unbelievers so that they may believe, and the wicked so that they may be converted to God. For it is a matter of faith that the grace of God anticipates our free will, so that without it nothing that leads to salvation can be accomplished, as St. Augustine everywhere teaches against the Pelagians, and after him the Council of Trent, Session VI. Thus God anticipated the Gentiles who worshiped idols, by sending to them the apostles who brought them to the true God, according to Isaiah 65:1: "Those who did not seek Me beforehand have sought Me; those who did not look for Me have found Me." Or, as Paul cites from the Septuagint (Romans 10:20): "I was found by those who did not seek Me; I appeared openly to those who did not inquire of Me." For when anyone, consenting to prevenient grace, continues to seek God, then indeed God appears to him more fully and more perfectly through greater light and grace, which leads and advances him to justice, holiness, perfection, and at last to eternal glory.
Now God, when sought, appears in various ways. First, in all and each of His creatures: for in these, as in His own works and effects, the Creator Himself shines forth, according to Psalm 19:1: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands;" and Romans 1: "The invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen through the things that are made — both His eternal power and divinity." See St. Augustine in the Soliloquies, ch. 31, where he questions each sense and each creature about God, and each responds: "I am not God, but He who created me — He is my God." Second, and properly, in Sacred Scripture: for there God manifests Himself and His powers, and especially in this Book of Wisdom. As if to say: You, O students of wisdom, especially you rulers of men, seek God, the fountain of wisdom, in Sacred Scripture and in this book of Wisdom; for if you read it sincerely and diligently, you will certainly discover who, what kind, and how great God is. Third, in the Church: for if anyone consults the bishops and doctors of the Church, they will certainly instruct him in every matter pertaining to God and the worship of God. For this reason God placed in the Church apostles, prophets, pastors, and teachers — namely, "for the perfection of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:11). Fourth, God is sought and found in prayer and the practice of virtues, especially almsgiving: for God interiorly illuminates those who devote themselves to prayer, so that they may know Him and the things that pertain to salvation. Thus Cornelius the centurion found God (Acts 10:5), when an angel appeared to him while he was praying, commanding him to summon St. Peter, who would instruct him in the faith of Christ. Similarly, St. Thomas (On Truth, Question 14, article 11, ad 1) says: If any pagan fully observed the natural law and invoked God, God would send him a preacher — even an angel, if necessary — to inform him about the things of God and salvation. In the Indian letters, various rare examples of this exist. Therefore Sextus rightly said — not the pope, as Rufinus falsely supposed, but the philosopher in his Sentences: "A good mind is the choir of God; an evil mind is the choir of demons. A holy temple for God is the mind of the pious; and the best altar for Him is a pure heart without sin."
3. FOR PERVERSE (Arabic: difficult and perverse) THOUGHTS SEPARATE (Syriac: estrange; Vatablus: cause alienation) FROM GOD; BUT PROVEN VIRTUE CORRECTS THE FOOLISH. — For "perverse thoughts," the Greek has skolioi logismoi, that is, tortuous, perplexed, winding, crooked, distorted, unjust, wicked, crafty, malignant reasonings, thoughts, calculations, judgments, or even machinations. For he contrasts thinking of God in goodness with perverse thoughts and judgments about God, as if to say: Just as good and right judgments about God unite man to God, so wicked and distorted judgments, thoughts, and opinions about Him and His providence tear man away and separate him from God, and consequently separate him from true religion, justice, and virtue. The same is done by the thoughts and machinations of wicked rulers, who with wonderful cunning devise ways to amass wealth and increase their own status, against right and law, to the harm of their subjects — indeed, with loss of faith and religion — such as the schemes of politicians who make religion serve politics and the state. Hence Pope St. Julius, in his reproving letter to the Eastern bishops, which is found in volume I of the Councils: "Remember, he says, the Wisdom that says (ch. 1, v. 3): For perverse thoughts separate (men) from God (how much more wicked deeds!); but proven virtue supports, protects, and consoles the oppressed, and teaches the foolish." I have abbreviated Julius's words, as they were lengthy. Again, any other wicked thoughts — for example, of stealing, fornication, slander, murder — separate a man from goodness, virtue, and the law, and consequently from their author and guardian, God. Hence St. Bernard (Sermon 3 on the Holy Spirit): "Because, he says, perverse and impure thoughts separate from God, we must pray that a clean heart be created in us; and this will certainly happen if the divine Spirit is in our innermost being — holy within us and toward us, upright toward our neighbors, sovereign toward God" (cf. Psalm 51:12-14).
Admirably St. Augustine says on Psalm 64, at the words "They failed in searching out their investigation": "See, he says, what happens to the evil soul: it recedes from the light of truth, and because it does not see God, it supposes that it is not seen by God. So also these men, by receding, went into darkness so that they themselves might not see God, and they said (Psalm 94:7): Who sees us?" Under "thoughts" understand volitions, for a bare evil thought, if it is not willed, does not separate from God; but if the will acquiesces in it, whether expressly or tacitly, it separates from God. For it is certain that thoughts which precede the advertence of reason and the consent of the will, such as first movements of the first order, are not sins; and nothing separates from God except sin. Furthermore, if thoughts are not immediately driven away when their dishonesty and baseness is noticed by reason, they begin to please the will and lead it to lingering pleasure, which if it involves gravely forbidden matter, is a mortal sin. Evil thoughts, therefore, are like sparks which, unless immediately extinguished, kindle the fire of desire and at last raise a great conflagration.
Moreover, these same thoughts are like buds, or berries of trees just beginning to sprout, which when they open produce flowers of wicked volitions, that finally turn into the fruits of wicked deeds. Conversely, good thoughts are buds from which come forth the flowers of good desires and the fruits of good works, as St. Chrysostom teaches (Homily 39 on Matthew 21:19: "Seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves only"). We must therefore keep the most vigilant watch over our thoughts, and if they are found to be wicked, they must immediately be dashed and crushed against the rock of the divine law, according to the saying:
Resist at the beginning; medicine is prepared too late when evils have gained strength through long delay.
Hence it is a matter of faith that not only the external act — for example, fornication, slander, murder — but also the internal thought and volition of these is a mortal sin, as the Church teaches against the view of the Jews, and as Christ sufficiently intimates (Matthew 5:22 and 28). Hence St. Chrysostom infers that sin brings with it the greatest punishment, namely, separation from God. Hear him (Homily 6 to the People): "It is a great punishment to sin, even if we are not punished; for sins separate us from God (Wisdom 1:3), while punishments bring us back to God. If someone has a wound, which is more to be feared — the pus, or the surgeon's incision? The knife, or the ravaging of the ulcer? Sin is the pus; punishment is the medicinal knife. For just as one who has pus, even if not cut, is in a bad state, and when not cut is in even worse trouble, so the sinner, even if not punished, is the most wretched of all, and is most wretched precisely when not punished and suffers nothing severe."
BUT PROVEN (Arabic: exquisite) VIRTUE CORRECTS THE FOOLISH. — The Syriac reads: "rebukes the contemptuous." Here "virtue" is understood not in the moral sense but in the physical sense, namely, power, strength, and force of action. For this is what the Greek dynamis signifies, which has deceived many interpreters ignorant of Greek, who take "virtue" to mean honesty and probity. Hence they explain it thus, as if to say: Virtue has such force in the one endowed with it that it makes him fit to correct the foolish who sin through ignorance or weakness (so Lyra and Dionysius); or, as if to say: Faith is what removes foolishness from the mind (so Holcot and Hugo). But the Greek is dynamis, that is, power, not ethical virtue, as I have said. The sense, therefore, is as if to say: Virtue, that is, the power of God — proven through its many acts and effects — corrects and chastises the foolish who thought perversely of God and conceived distorted ideas about Him. That is to say: Rulers, judges, and all who thought foolishly of God and denied His providence and vengeance, when they see or consider the past or present effects of divine power and providence, by which He has chastised or chastises the unjust and the wicked — convinced by this argument and this proven experience — can and must acknowledge and correct their judgment and error; and in fact they often do acknowledge and correct it, whether unwillingly or freely yielding. So say Bonaventure, Vatablus, Clarius, Jansen, and others. The Wise Man alludes to Psalm 33:10: "The Lord scatters the plans of nations; He frustrates the designs of peoples and rejects the counsels of princes. But the counsel of the Lord stands forever; the thoughts of His heart from generation to generation."
Osorius agrees, who explains it of the virtue and power not of God but of rulers and judges, as if to say: When the very power of rulers is tested by God, diminished, and taken away, then they are in fact corrected and convicted, so that they cannot deny that they held foolish opinions about God and had perverse thoughts and judgments. Hence Vatablus and Guarinus translate: "power, when tested, convicts the foolish."
But it is better to understand it of the virtue, that is, the power not of judges but of God, for this chastises and corrects the foolish. Just as a insolent boy does not fear his mother's threats, nor a slave his master's, nor a pupil his teacher's — for he thinks that threats are only threats, that is, words that strike the air, not blows that strike the flesh; he thinks his mother is a mother, and therefore either does not want to or cannot punish so beloved and sturdy a son — but when the mother turns words into blows and the rod strikes the boy's back, then she proves her power to him, and the boy lays aside and corrects the thought and judgment he had about his mother's threats, correcting his error and foolishness. In exactly the same way, rulers, judges, and any wicked people, when they hear the threats of doctors and preachers about God's vengeance, do not care — indeed, they laugh. For they think that God either does not know or does not care about human affairs, or that they have so firmly established themselves and their positions that they cannot be cast down from them, not even by God. But when they actually do fall from them, or experience in themselves or others a similar divine vengeance, then they correct their former perverse logismous, that is, reasonings, thoughts, and judgments, and begin, even unwillingly, to think rightly about God, His providence, and His vengeance. Therefore the power of God and His mighty vengeance corrects the foolish, that is, the wicked, from their perverse opinions by which they ascribed either impotence or indifference toward human affairs to God — namely, when they experience His contrary power, care, and vengeance to their own pain and loss. This is what is commonly said: Fools do not believe the saints until they work miracles; hence above all they believe St. Anthony, because they frequently feel his powerful hand and the sacred fire sent by him upon the unbelieving.
Cantacuzenus explains it somewhat differently, as if to say: Curious questions lead astray from God; therefore, when the curious recklessly test and scrutinize the power of God, by this curiosity they damage the keenness of their mind and betray their own folly: "For he who is a searcher of majesty will be overwhelmed by glory" (Proverbs 25:27).
4. FOR WISDOM WILL NOT ENTER A MALEVOLENT SOUL, NOR WILL IT DWELL IN A BODY SUBJECT TO SINS. — For "malevolent," the Complutensian and Pagninus read more forcefully "malevolent" (malivolam). For the Greek is kakotechnon, that is, one who fabricates evil, devises evil, practices wiles and frauds — a maleficent soul that adulterates, vitiates, and corrupts good and sincere things. Hence St. Jerome reads "malicious;" the Syriac, "involved in evils;" the Arabic, "into the artifice or machination of a malevolent soul, wisdom will in no way enter;" St. Bernard, "malign;" Vatablus and Guarinus, "contradicting and envious;" Jansen, "malicious and maleficent, weaving evil with cunning art;" Hugo, Lyra, and Dionysius, "complacent in its own malice;" Clarius, "which strives after evil with every zeal and art, especially which violates justice by force or deceit, circumvents others by frauds, and increases itself and its own by fair means or foul, as tyrants do." He proves what he said in the preceding verse — that perverse thoughts separate from God — from the fact that wisdom will not enter a malevolent soul. For wisdom is the inseparable companion, indeed the seat and throne, of God. Hence St. Jerome, on Isaiah ch. 63, reads, or rather paraphrases: "They afflicted the spirit of His Holy One, because the Holy Spirit withdraws from a body subject to sins, and wisdom does not enter a perverse soul." Thus wisdom did not enter the parricidal soul of Absalom, says St. Paulinus (Letter 4 to Severus).
You ask: what is this wisdom? First, Cyril of Alexandria (On John, book I, ch. 4): "This wisdom, which does not enter a malevolent soul, he says is the knowledge of mysteries; and the malign soul is that of any heretic, hypocrite, or unbeliever who blinks even at what is obvious." So also Chrysostom (Tome II, on Matthew 8:9: "For I too am a man placed under authority"), arguing against the heretics: "See, he says, how a Gentile, a rustic, and a soldier recognized the mysteries of truth, namely, the supreme power of Christ; and Christian men deny the truth, who carry the Scriptures on their lips — not because the mysteries of truth are obscure or profound, for all know them; but because their hearts are perverse, and where the Spirit of truth does not rest, truth flees from them. For it is written, Wisdom 1:4: Wisdom will not enter a malevolent soul." So also St. Basil (Letter 141), St. Jerome (on Jeremiah 8), and Anastasius of Nicaea (Questions on Sacred Scripture, Question 18).
Second, and genuinely, by wisdom understand not speculative but practical wisdom, which is nothing other than prudence, virtue, probity, the fear and worship of God, as I said at the beginning. For this does not enter a malevolent soul, although speculative wisdom sometimes does. Hence St. Augustine (Retractations, book I, ch. 4) retracts what he had said in the Soliloquies: "God, who has willed that only the pure should know the truth." Hence wisdom and sensual pleasure — namely, gluttony and lust — are diametrically opposed to each other. Hence Plato (Laws, book XII): Venus, he says, is so called as if from anoia and nous, as if to say: "woe to the mind," or "without mind" (ve = without). Thus vesanus means "without sanity;" vecors means "without a heart," that is, senseless. And Cicero, as Plutarch testifies in his Life, declared that he could not philosophize and at the same time devote himself to his wife.
Anagogically, by wisdom understand the sweetness of divine contemplation, for malevolent souls do not taste this, but only good and pure ones: so St. Bernard (The Ladder of Monks) and others.
NOR WILL IT DWELL IN A BODY SUBJECT TO SINS. — The Greek reads kataskenesei hamartias, that is, "subject to sin, pledged and as it were burdened and bound by the debt of sin," and, as the Syriac translates, "guilty and condemned." It is a metaphor from a debtor oppressed by another's debt: for "whoever commits sin is a slave of sin," says Christ (John 8:34), and therefore bound and tied to the devil, because he is the author of sin. Hence the Apostle says (Romans 7:14) that he was "sold under sin." By "body" understand by synecdoche the whole person, for the body is the workshop of sin as well as of punishment — that is, of both guilt and penalty.
Pineda (On the Affairs of Solomon, book III, ch. 19, no. 4) gives the example of Solomon: for the spirit of wisdom departed from Solomon's soul and body, which was polluted by pleasures and subject to lusts. Hence St. Augustine (City of God, book XVII, ch. 8): "That king, he says, once wise, lost through carnal love the wisdom he had attained through spiritual love." For these two loves are contrary and antagonistic, so that one expels the other. Similarly, from David also, says St. Basil (on Psalm 38), the same spirit departed when he polluted his soul and body with adultery and murder. Hence, penitent, he prays (Psalm 51:13): "And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and strengthen me with a sovereign spirit." For lust and jealousy blind the mind and spread a thousand darknesses of error over it, which wisdom — that is, penance, chastity, and holiness — dispels.
Accordingly, Abbot Guaricus, who flourished in the year 1170, says in Sermon 4 on Advent: "You, therefore, who hasten to prepare the way of the Lord, first of all let your will be good; for wisdom will not enter a malevolent soul" (Wisdom 1:4).
Our Castro understands "sin" as the sin of distrust, by which one distrusts God and cunningly tests God's power and providence; others understand the sins of injustice, tyranny, robbery, fraud, etc. You should broadly and fully understand any mortal sins whatsoever, for all and each of these put wisdom to flight — that is, the grace and charity of God. Hence St. Thomas (Summa Theologica, II-II, Question 45, article 4) teaches from this passage that practical wisdom, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, presupposes charity, and therefore cannot coexist with mortal sin.
Admirably, St. Augustine (On the Christian Struggle, ch. 13): "Anyone errs, he says, who thinks he can know the truth while still living wickedly. Now wickedness is to love this world, to consider great the things that are born and pass away, to desire them, to labor to acquire them, to rejoice when they abound, to fear lest they perish, and to grieve when they are lost. Such a life cannot see that pure, sincere, and unchangeable truth, adhere to it, and never be moved." Finally, St. Thomas (Summa Theologica, III, Question 27, article 4) proves from this passage that in the Blessed Virgin there was no actual sin, not even venial, because the Wisdom of God dwelt bodily in her womb. The same may be said of original sin: for whoever was at any time subject to it must at some point sin, at least venially; hence, whoever is immune from all venial sin throughout life is also immune from original sin. St. Augustine transmits this rule (Against Julian, book V, ch. 9). The same saint, in On Nature and Grace (ch. 36), says: "Excepting therefore the holy Virgin Mary, about whom, out of honor for the Lord, I wish to raise absolutely no question when the discussion concerns sins. For how do we know how much more grace was conferred upon her for conquering sin entirely from every quarter — she who merited to conceive and bear Him who certainly had no sin?" (For "how" some read "hence").
Accordingly, St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his treatise On the Form of the Perfect Christian, teaches that this form consists in this: "If anyone, he says, truly is a temple of God and contains no idol of wickedness, he will be admitted by the Mediator, since he is pure and fit to receive purity itself; for wisdom, as it is written, will not enter a malevolent soul." The same saint (On Virginity, ch. 15): "The soul, he says, that lives for God will not take delight in any things that present a false appearance of the honorable through some error. But if from some attachment to vice it has contracted a stain upon the heart, it has thereby annulled the laws of its special marriage, and as it is written in the divine Scriptures (Wisdom 1:4): Wisdom will not enter a malevolent soul."
Moreover, from the fact that he says: "The Holy Spirit, etc., will not dwell in a body subject to sins," conclude by contraries: therefore He will dwell in a soul and body subject to charity and virtues; for this is the palace, indeed the throne and temple of the Holy Spirit.
5. FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT OF DISCIPLINE WILL FLEE FROM DECEIT, AND WILL WITHDRAW HIMSELF FROM THOUGHTS THAT ARE WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING, AND WILL BE CONVICTED BY APPROACHING INIQUITY. — The Syriac reads: "For the Holy Spirit and correction flee from fraud (Arabic: from deceit), and withdraw (Arabic: fly away) from the thoughts of those who are without the knowledge of understanding." The Greek has: "For the holy spirit of discipline will flee from deceit, or pretense."
Here, first, "the holy spirit of discipline" can be understood as holy discipline itself, which in the preceding verse he called wisdom. For this is a spirit, that is, a spiritual gift and quality — to prove what he said, that wisdom does not enter a malevolent soul, from the fact that wisdom is the spirit of discipline, that is, it breathes into the mind discipline, that is, the correction of vices and the ordering and candor of morals, which is contrary to deceit, pretense, and malice. Second, "the holy spirit" can be understood as God Himself — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — for God by essence is a spirit, and a holy one; hence the seraphim cry out to each Person (Isaiah 6:3): "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts." He proves, therefore, that wisdom does not enter a malevolent soul from the fact that God, from whom all wisdom flows, being a most holy and most pure spirit, flees all deceit, pretense, and malice. Third, by "the Holy Spirit" can be understood the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, namely, the Holy Spirit. For to Him is appropriated discipline, that is, the reformation of morals, purity, and sanctity; and He therefore flees, indeed drives away, all impurity, hypocrisy, and malignity. So say St. Jerome (On Isaiah, book VII, ch. 63), Idacius (Against Varimadus), Hugo, Lyra, the Glossa, and others.
OF DISCIPLINE. — Osorius refers "of discipline" to "deceit," as if to say: The Holy Spirit flees heretics and hypocrites who pretend and feign that they are devoted to discipline, when they are undisciplined and indulge their lusts. Truly does St. Augustine say (on Psalm 40, at the beginning): "Persecution, whether from the lion or from the dragon, never ceases against the Church; and he is more to be feared when he deceives than when he rages." Others better refer "of discipline" to "the Holy Spirit," for He is the author, lover, guardian, and teacher of all discipline, by which He confirms our morals in all honesty, as I have said: so say Hugo, Jansen, and others.
DECEIT. — The Greek has dolon (perhaps our translator read dolion, that is, deceitful, fraudulent, feigned, duplicitous, in the masculine), that is, pretense, fraud, deceit, also things painted and feigned (hence Vatablus translates: "that which is feigned"), and all the feigned, hypocrites, and deceitful, who either plunder what belongs to others through fraud, or spread errors, or perpetrate some other evil. He opposes this pretense to the simplicity of heart with which he said in verse 1 that God must be sought. Hence St. Augustine (Sermon 11 on the Words of the Lord) by "the feigned" understands hypocrites. The same (On Baptism Against the Donatists, book I, ch. 12) understands those who approach baptism with pretense, as Simon Magus did (Acts 8:18) — to whom Urban II applies this passage (I, Question 3, ch. Salvator). For these, if they plainly feign that they wish to receive baptism for the sake of gain, when they in fact do not wish to become Christians — as Jews sometimes receive it — the baptism is invalid and null. But if they seriously wish to receive baptism and Christianity, yet feign that they repent of sins they are unwilling to abandon, they receive indeed the sacrament of baptism, but not its power and grace, unless the pretense is removed through penance, as theologians everywhere teach.
St. Athanasius (Sermon on the Passion and Cross) understands "the feigned" as liars and perjurers; St. Bernard (Sermon 1 on the Song of Songs) as the incontinent; Hesychius (Book II on Leviticus ch. 10) as those who simulate penance. Again, St. Augustine (Against Parmenian, book II, ch. 10 and 11) understands "the feigned" as heretics, and teaches that baptism conferred by them is valid and sanctifies the baptized: "The Holy Spirit, he says, was absent for justifying those who conferred it with pretense; but He was present for cleansing those who received it with belief — by the ineffable efficacy of His power, able to do both: to flee from the former, to cherish the latter; to condemn the former, to cleanse the latter." And shortly after: "All the sacraments, while they harm those who treat them unworthily, nevertheless benefit those who receive them worthily through such ministers."
Finally, "deceit" properly signifies guile, craftiness, and fraud, because men — especially judges or rulers — pervert justice for the sake of bribes or human respect. Yet "deceit" can be understood as any iniquity whatever, as follows: for iniquity simulates and feigns equity and honesty, since it is ashamed to be seen and called iniquity and dishonesty. Hence, alluding to this maxim — indeed, paraphrasing it — Tertullian (On Prayer, ch. 10), teaching that prayer must be free from all disturbance of soul, says: "For a polluted spirit cannot be recognized by the Holy Spirit, nor a sad one by a joyful one, nor a hindered one by a free one. No one receives an adversary; no one admits anyone except his equal."
Furthermore, the Holy Spirit especially flees pretense and the pretenders who cloak virtues under the name of vices and vices under the name of virtues, and thus deceive many by transforming virtues into vices and vices into virtues. For as Cassiodorus truly says: "Bland flattery applauds everyone, greets everyone: it calls the prodigal 'generous,' the miserly 'thrifty and wise,' the dissolute 'courteous,' the garrulous 'affable;' the obstinate 'steadfast,' the lazy 'mature and serious.' This arrow flies lightly and quickly lodges itself." And Seneca (Epistle 21): "Through flattery, vices creep upon us under the name of virtues: rashness lurks under the title of fortitude; slothfulness is called moderation; the timid is taken for the cautious. In these things we certainly err with great danger." Finally, just as the Spirit flees pretense and deceit, so He loves and courts simplicity, candor, and love. Hear St. Augustine (On the Morals of the Catholic Church, ch. 16): "Paul says (Romans 5:5): The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. The Prophet says (Wisdom 1:4): For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from deceit; for where there is deceit, there is no charity."
Now deceit, pretense, and lying are unbecoming to all, but especially to princes and rulers; for by feigning and deceiving they lose all trust and authority with their subjects, neighbors, and foreigners. Hence Emperor Leo (Exhortation to His Son, ch. 29): "Consider it of the utmost importance, he says, to be truthful, and to admit truthful men into your intimacy; for thus you will be esteemed firm and constant in all your words and deeds, and you will obtain the true and unsuspected goodwill of your people toward you. But if you fall under suspicion of vanity and lying, you will be convicted of acting unworthily of the imperial majesty with which you are invested, and you will cause your subjects to waver always in fear, uncertain and hesitating about everything." And ch. 36: "You should say only those things you know clearly, or what the occasion demands; about everything else, it will be better to be silent than to speak; for it befits a prince to utter only true, opportune, and important words." Again, pretense is utterly unworthy in a priest and in sacred things and sacraments, and it is a sin of sacrilege. Hence Hesychius (on Leviticus ch. 10, also found in De Poenitentia, dist. 3, ch. 52): "In these matters, as true penance merits blessedness, so feigned penance mocks God; because the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from pretense. The Holy Fathers have called this an unforgivable sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit." For, as Clement of Alexandria says (Stromata, book III): "Hypocrisy is like snow, and the hypocrite is like a dung-heap covered with snow, inasmuch as he covers all his vices with the whiteness of simulated virtue, as with snow." Such a hypocrite was Julian the Apostate, whom St. Gregory Nazianzen (Oration 3 against him) rightly compares to a chameleon: "Just as, he says, the chameleon is said to change easily into any form and to assume every color except white (for I pass over the fabulous Proteus the sophist), so also that man turned himself into anything toward Christians, except clemency; and his gentleness was exceedingly cruel."
AND WILL WITHDRAW HIMSELF FROM THOUGHTS THAT ARE WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING. — The Greek reads: epanastesetai apo logismon asyneton, that is, He will rise up, stir Himself, raise Himself to ascend and fly away from thoughts devoid of intelligence — from the ignorant, imprudent, foolish, and stupid thoughts such as those of tyrants and all the unjust and impious. Nannius translates: "will spring back;" others: "will depart, will remove Himself, will stand far off" — according to Psalm 64:8: "Man will approach with a deep heart, and God will be exalted." As if to say: Men endowed with a deep, that is, profound heart, devise many arts, frauds, and impious counsels; but God is far higher and deeper than the deep heart of men. Hence He uncovers their devices, scatters them, punishes and avenges them. Therefore Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, instead of reading "will be exalted," reading with different vowel points "will shoot arrows," translate: "He will pierce and transfix the mind and the deep heart of man." Conversely, wisdom and its author, the Holy Spirit, says (Proverbs 8:12): "I, wisdom, dwell in counsel, and I am present among learned thoughts." See what I said there. What thoughts are "without understanding," which are "with understanding," and how both are formed and grow, St. Bernard subtly explains in his treatise On the Solitary Life, to the Brothers of Mont Dieu, shortly before the end.
Hence the symbol of wisdom is salt. For, as Pliny says (Natural History, book 31, ch. 9): "The nature of salt is in itself fiery, and hostile to fires, fleeing from them, and corroding all things; but it constricts, dries, and binds bodies; it so preserves dead and putrefying things that they last for ages. In healing, it bites, burns, resists, reduces, and dissolves." Now wisdom is fiery, generated by the heat of the Holy Spirit, but very hostile to the fire of concupiscence; it will not enter a malevolent soul; as the spirit of discipline it flees deceit and withdraws from impure thoughts that are without understanding. It corrodes human passions and strips from them whatever is disordered and unbridled; it constricts the hearts of the just so they do not slip into vices; it dries them so they do not waste away with the moisture of evil love; it binds them so they do not overflow into sins. For through wisdom all are holy who have pleased the Lord. It preserves souls dead in sins and putrefying in their own humility and self-contempt, and communicates to them another life beyond human comprehension and the brightness of incorruption.
AND WILL BE CONVICTED BY APPROACHING INIQUITY. — The Greek reads: elenchthesetai epelthouses anomias, that is, "He will convict," or "He will be convicted, when sin approaches," some say, adding that the verb is in the middle voice; hence it can be translated actively as "He will convict," or passively as "He will be convicted." Cantacuzenus takes it actively, as if to say: The Holy Spirit will convict, reprove, and expose the iniquity that was concealing and hiding itself under the appearance of equity, and will uncover and condemn it, according to Christ's words (John 16:8): "And when He (the Holy Spirit) has come, He will convict the world of sin, of justice, and of judgment." For the Holy Spirit shows that those who weave frauds and devices are most foolish precisely when they consider themselves most wise. Hence the Syriac translates: "He convicts every tyranny that occurs;" for these words are spoken properly against tyrants and oppressors.
But the form is not the future of the middle voice, but of the passive. Our translator and the others therefore take it passively and render "He will be convicted." St. Augustine (Against Adimantus, ch. 7) refers this to the deceitful man, as if to say: The deceitful man will be convicted — namely, by his own iniquity overtaking him, when the Holy Spirit has departed from him. For this iniquity will show him that he has deviated from equity, wisdom, and virtue; hence his conscience will remorse him, chastise, and punish him. Lyra adds: He will be allowed to fall into graver sins; for thus God customarily punishes earlier sins by subsequent greater and more shameful ones. Finally, Hugo says: The deceitful man, when the day of retribution comes, will be convicted for his iniquity, that is, punished.
Others better attribute this to the Holy Spirit, and this from the reading and the Greek text, as if to say: The Holy Spirit is convicted by iniquity, that is, confuted, says Jansen; and as it were reproached and dishonored, says Vatablus; treated unworthily, says Nannius (for elenchesthai signifies all these things); and therefore, as it were confused and covered with reproach, He flees and departs. Hence the Arabic translates: "He is reproached when iniquity is present." Whence note that there is such an antipathy between iniquity (Greek anomian, that is, sin, crime, transgression of the law) and the Holy Spirit that iniquity drives away the Holy Spirit, just as a tyrant drives away the true king. For the enmity and hatred between the Holy Spirit and sin is infinite: for He so hates sin, and every crime is so hateful and as it were harmful to Him, that if He could — per impossibile — be slain by some sword or destroyed by some poison, He would be slain or destroyed by nothing other than sin. For sin directly violates the sanctity of the Holy Spirit and of His angels. Hence St. Basil, on Psalm 34, at the words "The angel of the Lord will place himself around those who fear Him": "Just as smoke drives away bees, and a foul smell expels doves, so sin — worthy of much sprinkling of tears and evil-smelling — drives away the angel who is the guardian of our life."
Our Pineda (on Job, ch. 35, vv. 6-7) explains "is convicted" as "is saddened," as if to say: The Holy Spirit is saddened when He sees a soul committing iniquity, and therefore, as it were grieving, flees from it and departs, according to Ephesians 4:30: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." The sinner, therefore, when he sins, insofar as it is in his power, convicts, confutes, pollutes, saddens, and expels the Holy Spirit. All these things are said of the Holy Spirit anthropopathically: for He Himself cannot properly be convicted, reproached, or saddened, since He is a most sublime, most perfect, most blessed, and inviolable Spirit. Yet He is said to be convicted, reproached, and saddened, both because sins give Him cause for grief, reproach, and sadness — so that if grief, reproach, or sadness could befall Him, sin would certainly afflict Him with grief, reproach, and sadness — and because He Himself hates sin, and departs from the sinner, just as if He had been affected by reproach and sadness. It is a catachresis and metonymy, for the effect is put for the cause — namely, conviction and sadness for the hatred that in men follows from sadness. Less correctly, some explain it thus, as if to say: The Holy Spirit will be convicted, that is, proven, by the iniquity of man, to have labored in vain in converting and sanctifying him. And others translate it: The Holy Spirit will be investigated, detected, and recognized in the iniquity of man, just as light is more recognized and shines forth in darkness.
And our Castro says: "To correct (corripere), he says, is to seize swiftly, according to Virgil:
He seizes the bow and the swift arrows in his hand.
The sense, therefore, is as if to say: 'The Holy Spirit, the teacher of discipline, flees what He sees is feigned in the disciple, and withdraws from such deceitful thoughts, and swiftly snatches Himself from his soul as soon as He perceives a similar iniquity insinuating itself into him.'" So says Castro. But the Greek elenchesthai does not mean "to seize swiftly" but "to convict," that is, to reprove, rebuke, and prove guilty.
6. FOR THE SPIRIT OF WISDOM IS BENIGN (the Greek has sophia, that is, wisdom; but the sense comes to the same thing: for the spirit of wisdom is wisdom itself, whether created or uncreated, which is God Himself and the Holy Spirit, as I said on the preceding verse; hence it is the same to say: "Wisdom is a benign spirit" as what our translator says: "The spirit of wisdom is benign"), AND WILL NOT FREE THE SLANDERER (so the Roman edition; less correctly the Glossa, Lyra, Dionysius, and others read "the accursed") FROM HIS LIPS.
As for the connection of this sentence with the preceding, note that "for" (enim) can be taken in two ways. First, as "indeed," "certainly," or "although" — for it corresponds to the Hebrew ki, that is, "because, since," which does not always give a cause but sometimes merely continues the discourse, or even begins it, and is an expletive particle added only for ornamentation. Thus the sense and connection will be, as if to say: Indeed, the spirit of wisdom is benign; or: Although the spirit of wisdom is benign, nevertheless He will not free the slanderer from his lips, that is, from the guilt and punishment due to his slander, but will sharply punish him. So says Gregory Nazianzen (Oration 44, which is on Pentecost): "This (the Holy Spirit), he says, is indeed a spirit of gentleness, and yet He is provoked against those who sin. Therefore, if we wish to experience Him as gentle and merciful and not angry, let us confess His dignity and take care that we say nothing of reproach or blasphemy against Him, nor wish to see Him implacably angry."
Second, "for" (enim) can be taken more properly and forcefully as a causal particle: for it gives the reason why wisdom, that is, God and the Holy Spirit, flees the deceitful and punishes blasphemers and slanderers who are abusive and injurious to God or to men. As if to say: He punishes them because He is benign and philanthropos, that is, a lover of mankind. For in order to protect and avenge them from insolence, slander, and injury, He severely chastises slanderers. For it is true benignity and clemency if, for the protection of the pious, the impious who are abusive and injurious toward the pious are chastised. For, as St. Gregory says (on 1 Kings, last chapter), discipline and mercy are both greatly lacking if one is held without the other; for it is good not only for the pious but also for the impious if they are restrained from evil by punishments.
For "benign," the Greek has philanthropos, that is, an extraordinary lover of mankind — such as Christ was, who descended into the flesh and the cross for us, of whom St. Paul says (Titus 3:4): "The kindness and love for mankind (Greek: philanthropia, that is, that extraordinary love toward men) of God our Savior appeared." St. Augustine (On Lying, ch. 16) reads: "the spirit of wisdom is humane." The Syriac: "for He loves the sons of men" — namely, He who earnestly desires and wishes to communicate Himself, His wisdom, and His grace to men. "Philanthropos," says Elias of Crete (on Oration 4 of Nazianzen), "is one who shows himself pleasant and generous even to enemies, and imitates God as far as possible, who bestows benefits on the just and unjust alike." Hear Nazianzen (Oration 44, on Pentecost): "This Spirit, he says, as most wise and most loving of mankind, if He finds a shepherd, makes him a psalmist who charms evil spirits, and designates him king of Israel. If He finds a goatherd plucking mulberries, He makes him a Prophet — think of David and Amos. If He takes hold of a youth of fine character, He appoints him judge of the elders, and this beyond what his age seems able to bear — witness Daniel, who overcame the lions in the den. If He finds fishermen, He ensnares them for Christ, embracing the whole world in the nets of His word — think of Peter and Andrew, and the sons of thunder who thundered spiritual things. If He finds tax collectors, He gains them for discipleship and makes them traders of souls — witness Matthew, yesterday a tax collector, today an evangelist. If He finds fierce persecutors, He transforms their zeal and makes Pauls from Sauls, rendering them no less pious than they had been impious.
AND WILL NOT FREE (Greek: ouk athosoei, that is, He will not hold innocent, that is, He will not let go unpunished, but will burden with heavy penalties and punishments; it is a litotes) THE SLANDERER — Greek: blasphemon, that is, blasphemous and abusive, whether against men or against God — namely, one who does not think of God in goodness, nor seeks Him in simplicity, but in deceit, as he said in verse 1. For God seeks as disciples and hearers of His wisdom those who simply believe, trust, and obey Him, who say of Him: Autos epha, that is, "He himself has said" — as the disciples of Pythagoras used to say. Hence the Syriac: "He does not justify the blaspheming people." The Arabic: "the insulting."
FROM HIS LIPS — that is, from the guilt, insolence, and malicious speech of his lips. There is a threefold malice opposed to the goodness and simplicity of God, about which he said in verse 2: "Think of the Lord in goodness," etc. — which therefore separates us from God, and is therefore to be utterly detested and avoided: namely, malice of the heart, of the mouth, and of works — that is, perverse thoughts, words, and deeds. He treated of thoughts from verse 3 until now; here he treats of words — namely, murmurings, detractions, and lies — up to verse 12, where he will treat of works. Thus he condemns and excises every kind of malice.
FOR GOD IS THE WITNESS (Greek: martyr, that is, martyr, meaning witness) OF HIS INNERMOST THOUGHTS, AND THE TRUE SEARCHER OF HIS HEART (Syriac: worker of truth), AND THE HEARER OF HIS TONGUE. — The kidneys (reins) signify the most intimate thoughts and desires (for the origin of concupiscence, lust, and seed is in the kidneys) — secret and hidden. Hence the sense is, as if to say: Do not suppose that your secret sins and curses are hidden; for God beholds the most secret things, not only of places but also of minds. Hence He is called Elohim, that is, God, from seeing and contemplating all things. Explaining this, he adds: "And the searcher (Greek: episkopos, that is, observer, inspector) of his heart is true" — namely, God, who is truth itself, and therefore can neither be deceived in anything nor deceive (hence the Arabic translates: "the explorer, the searcher of his heart"). "And of his tongue (even when it whispers softly within the lips, murmuring and cursing) He is the hearer."
For there are three things, says Holcot, that the sinner would most wish to conceal: the pleasure of his enjoyment, the thought of his conceived vanity, and the speech of his communicated perversity. And yet God sees all these things plainly. The Wise Man touches upon these three through three bodily organs: the kidneys, the heart, and the tongue. In the kidneys, pleasure flourishes; in the heart, vanity; and in the tongue, perversity. And with respect to these three, he attributes three acts to God: for with respect to pleasure, He is the witness; with respect to vanity, He is the searcher (for to search is to penetrate to what is interior and hidden, according to Psalm 7:10: "God searches hearts and reins"); and with respect to perversity and falsehood, He is the hearer. And further: Note, he says, that here the Wise Man touches upon three bodily organs that are most difficult to govern by reason: the kidneys, the heart, and the tongue. For in the kidneys, pleasure rules; in the heart, vanity; in the tongue, falsehood. And therefore it is most difficult even for the saints to govern themselves perfectly in pleasures, which are signified by the kidneys; in thoughts, which are signified by the heart; and in speech, which is signified by the tongue.
Aristotle says (On the Parts of Animals, book 13): The infirmity of the kidneys in man is difficult to cure. Morally, because pleasure rules in the kidneys, the infirmity of the kidneys denotes carnal concupiscence, which is called the languor of nature. Hence the disease of the kidneys is customarily treated by cauterization, whence that verse (Psalm 26:2): "Prove me, O Lord, and test me; burn my reins and my heart" — that is, says the Glossa, apply the medicinal purgation of tribulation to my pleasures, lest anything evil delight me; and to my thoughts, lest I think anything evil. Accordingly, David, about to die, wisely gives this admonition to his son Solomon, who was about to succeed him on the throne (1 Chronicles 28:9): "And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a perfect heart and a willing soul; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the thoughts of the mind." Do therefore this, think this, choose this, which you desire to be open and pleasing before the eyes of God; do not think this, do not choose this, which you know is open and displeasing to God.
Hence St. Bernard (On the Interior House, ch. 39) teaches that we must keep the most careful watch over our thoughts: "For where your thought is, he says, there is your affection; where your heart is, there is your desire. For we most frequently revolve in thought that by whose love we are most affected." Do you wish, then, to know what you love? Notice what you frequently think about. St. Bernard adds: "If you think evil things, the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from deceit and withdraw Himself from thoughts without understanding, and the temple of God will become a den of the devil; for whomever God abandons, the devil seizes. And therefore, at whatever hour an evil thought touches your heart, do not consent to it, nor allow it to remain in your heart, but immediately repel it. Resist at the beginning of the wicked thought, and it will flee from you. An evil thought begets pleasure; pleasure begets consent; consent begets action; action begets habit; habit begets necessity; necessity begets death. Just as a viper is torn apart and killed by its young within its womb, so our thoughts nurtured within us kill us." Hear St. Augustine (Preface to Psalm 148): "It cannot happen that one who has good thoughts has evil deeds; for deeds proceed from thought. Nor can anyone do anything, or move his limbs to perform any action, unless the command of thought has first preceded. Just as from the interior palace, whatever the emperor commands emanates throughout the Roman empire — whatever you see being done through the provinces — what a great movement is produced by a single command of the emperor sitting within! He merely moves his lips when he speaks, and the whole province is set in motion when what he speaks comes to pass. So also in each one of us there is an emperor within, sitting within the heart. If he is good, he commands good things, and good things are done; if evil, he commands evil things, and evil things are done. When Christ sits there, what can He command but good things? When the devil possesses it, what can he command but evil things? But God has willed that you be in your own free choice, to make room for whomever you wish — for God or for the devil. When you have prepared room, whoever possesses it will rule."
Finally, St. Gregory Nazianzen (Oration 34, which is the second On Theology), taking "the holy spirit" as God, proves from this that God is so immense that He circumscribes all things and is circumscribed by none. Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, uncle and predecessor of the great Cyril and rival and judge of St. Chrysostom, agrees with him. For Theophilus says (Paschal Letter 1): "Why does David sing (Psalm 139:7): 'Where shall I go from Your spirit?' By saying this, he shows that all things are contained by the Holy Spirit and surrounded by His majesty — if all things in all things, then certainly also irrational and inanimate things. And elsewhere we read (Wisdom 1:7): 'The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world' — which Scripture would never record unless every irrational and inanimate thing were filled by His divine power." Following his uncle Theophilus, St. Cyril, in his treatise That the Holy Spirit Is God, proves the same from this passage: both because He fills all things (therefore He is immense, therefore God); and because He contains all things by His power and might; and because He is above all things. "He is situated, therefore," he says, "above all creatures, and transcends the nature of those things that are filled and contained by Him; but God is that which is above creation."
7. FOR THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD HAS FILLED THE WHOLE WORLD; AND THAT WHICH CONTAINS ALL THINGS HAS KNOWLEDGE OF EVERY VOICE. — He proves that God perceives, judges, and avenges the most intimate and hidden things, both of hearts and of words — and especially the hidden blasphemies against God and curses uttered against men — from the fact that His Spirit fills the whole world, so that He is everywhere present, and consequently beholds and sees all things at close range; indeed, He holds all things in His hand, and therefore knows and recognizes all voices and words whatsoever, even mental ones: for no distance of place hinders Him, nor any ignorance of voice or language.
"The Spirit of the Lord" can be taken in two ways. First, with St. Augustine (Letter 57 to Dardanus, ch. 5), Blessed Peter Damian (book IV, Letter 6), and others, essentially — so that it is the same as the spiritual nature itself of God, His power, efficacy, knowledge, providence, operation, and conservation. For these are everywhere by essence, presence, and power; and therefore they fill all things, contain all things, preserve and give life to all things. For, as Athenagoras says (On the Resurrection): "Nothing, whether of earthly or heavenly things, is destitute of care and providence; but the solicitude of the Creator penetrates equally into all things — both what is in the open and what is hidden, both great and small." For God, as Philo says (Allegorical Interpretation, book II), fills all things, penetrates all things, leaving absolutely nothing void of Himself; and what place will you occupy where God is not? Therefore no one can hide from Him. Similar to this is the maxim of Psalm 94:9: "He who planted the ear, will He not hear? Or He who formed the eye, will He not see?" So says St. Augustine (on Psalm 58), who from this passage proves that God is everywhere, according to Psalm 139:7: "Where shall I go from Your Spirit? And where shall I flee from Your face?" Moreover, the Spirit of the Lord by His subtlety fills and contains all things, just as the air fills and contains them when it enters and penetrates all things. For just as voices are formed in the air and carried through it to the ears, so no one can speak anything that does not reach the Spirit of the Lord, inasmuch as "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
Second, "the Spirit of the Lord" can be taken notionally, so that it is the same as the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. For He is the Spirit of the Lord because produced by the active spiration of the Father and the Son, and He equally fills the world and contains all things. Hence from this passage the immensity of the Holy Spirit, and consequently His divinity, is proved by St. Athanasius (Letter to Serapion), St. Basil (Homily on the Holy Spirit, and Against Eunomius, book V, last chapter), St. Ambrose (On the Holy Spirit, book I, ch. 8), St. Augustine (Against Maximinus, book III, ch. 21), Origen (On Romans, book VII, ch. 9), Cyril of Alexandria (Against Julian, book VIII, and On the Trinity, book VII) — who adds that Plato and the Platonists held the same view, saying that God is the soul of the world, according to Virgil:
A spirit within nourishes, and mind, infused through the limbs, moves the whole mass and mingles with the great body.
Moreover, Richard of St. Victor (Sermon on the Sending of the Holy Spirit) judges that by this the Trinity of Persons is indicated, together with the identity of essence. For the Spirit of the Lord is the Spirit of a distinct Person; but yet He is that which contains — that is, He is that very thing which is He from whom all things are; He is that through whom it exists, that is, He is what the Father and the Son are, from whom He proceeds. But this is more subtle than solid; the former sense is plainer and more genuine.
AND THAT WHICH CONTAINS ALL THINGS HAS KNOWLEDGE OF EVERY VOICE. — The translator follows the Greek idiom: for since pneuma, that is, spirit, is neuter in Greek, a demonstrative pronoun likewise neuter is assigned to it, namely to synechon, that is, "this which contains all things." This "this," therefore, is the same as "this Spirit," as St. Augustine reads (Mirror, ch. 2, and Symbol to the Catechumens, ch. 4). Hence the Syriac translates: "He who holds all things in knowledge, the voice is His;" the Arabic: "He who embraces all creatures, knows speech." The sense, therefore, is as if to say: And this Spirit of the Lord, filling all things and containing all things — that is, embracing all things with the hand of His power, enclosing them, preserving them lest they fall back into their original nothingness, moving and stirring them — has knowledge (Greek: gnosin, that is, cognition) of every voice; that is, He knows all voices, even the most hidden ones of slanderers — not only those uttered by the mouth, but also those conceived in the heart. For He contains all these within Himself, inasmuch as He contains all things, and consequently the very soul and life of every person, within Himself. All voices, therefore, are produced as it were within the Spirit Himself, that is, in the space that the Holy Spirit embraces and contains. Hence the Fathers say that all things were created in the Holy Spirit, just as all things are said to be from the Father and through the Son: for the preposition "from" is attributed to the Father, as the first principle of the Holy Trinity; "through" to the Son, as the intermediary, the Word, and the exemplar through which all things were made; and "in" to the Holy Spirit. The sense, therefore, is as if to say: Voices and words, both of the mind and of the tongue, are produced within the compass and embrace of the Holy Spirit, not outside or beyond it. Therefore nothing can be hidden from Him, not even the faintest murmur of a slanderer, but He has exact knowledge and cognition of all voices and utterances.
Note: the phrase "contains all things" is solidly and profoundly explained by St. Dionysius (On the Divine Names, ch. 10), who says: "He is called Omnipotent, or rather Omni-containing (for this is what pantokrator means) — because He is the seat of all things, containing and embracing all, establishing, founding, and binding all, and rendering the universe indissoluble in Himself; and from Himself, as from an all-containing root, producing all things, and toward Himself, as toward an all-containing foundation, turning and holding the universe. As the seat of all things, all-capacious, He secures all things contained in one surpassing bond, and does not allow them to fall away from Him, lest, moved from their most perfect dwelling, they should perish."
And Gregory (Moralia, book II, ch. 12): "He is shown to measure heaven with a span and to enclose the earth in His fist — which means that He Himself is on every side external to all the things He has created. By the seat over which He presides, He is understood to be within and above; by the fist with which He contains, He is signified to be outside and beneath. For He Himself remains within all things, outside all things, above all things, below all things — above by power, below by sustentation, outside by greatness, within by subtlety: above, governing; below, containing; outside, surrounding; within, penetrating. Not in one part above and in another below, not in one part outside and in another within, but one and the same, wholly everywhere — presiding by sustaining, sustaining by presiding, surrounding by penetrating, penetrating by surrounding." Finally, Job (ch. 11, v. 8) says of God: "He is higher than heaven, and what will you do? Deeper than hell, and how will you know? His measure (Hebrew: His stature) is longer than the earth and broader than the sea." Hence that saying of Virgil (Eclogue 3):
All things are full of Jove.
And Lucan (book 9):
Jupiter is whatever you see, wherever you move.
Moreover, just as the spirit, that is, the west wind (favonius), by blowing opens the spring with its breath and makes the earth germinate and fructifies all things — indeed, as Pliny says (Natural History, book 16, ch. 25, and book 18, ch. 34): "By its breath it exercises a nourishing function" — so likewise the Spirit of God so contains and fills all things as to make them conceive and be fruitful, and consequently He contains within Himself the very soul and life of each one. All voices, therefore, are produced as it were within the Spirit Himself.
By the Holy Spirit He knows all voices and languages, as is evident in the apostles. Again, the Holy Spirit in this fills the world, that is, the circuit of the soul's powers, for the intellect is adorned with knowledge and prudence, the imagination with circumspection and rest, the will and appetite with manifold virtue, the body with health, beauty, and strength. And just as man is like the center of a circle, into which all the natures of things and all their forces converge like lines, so he is adorned with manifold gifts, by which he may render pleasing service to his most generous Creator, and stand not forgetful of His benefits, but mindful and grateful. Then truly he loves God with all his powers, when he devotes all the forces of creatures granted to him, and all gifts and talents, out of true and pure love of God, to His service and ministry. Thus we read of St. Gertrude in her Life: "She does not speak, but the Holy Spirit seems to speak and work in her; therefore when anyone comes to her seeking counsel or help, immediately the Holy Spirit suggests to her what she should advise and answer."
Mystically, the Church in the Office of Pentecost applies this maxim to the mission of the Holy Spirit: for He Himself at Pentecost, descending upon the apostles, filled them with all virtues, gifts, and graces, both sanctifying and freely given, and gave them knowledge of all tongues and languages, so that through it they could preach the Gospel of Christ to each and every nation, Acts 2:4. Richard of St. Victor adds, in the passage already cited, that the Holy Spirit bestowed upon the apostles knowledge not only of all languages, but also of the things signified by those languages. St. Basil beautifully, in his homily On Faith, compares the Holy Spirit to the sun illuminating, fructifying, and vivifying the whole world: "Just as the sun, he says, shining upon bodies is variously received by each, yet is not thereby diminished, so also the Holy Spirit, bestowing grace upon all, remains unbroken and undivided; He illuminates all unto the knowledge of God; He inspires prophets, makes legislators wise, instructs priests in sacred matters, adds fortitude to kings, perfects the just, adorns the modest, works the grace of healings, vivifies the dead, frees the bound, adopts strangers as children through regeneration: if He finds a tax-collector believing, He makes him an evangelist; if He finds a fisherman, He makes him a theologian; if a persecutor, He makes him penitent, an apostle of the nations, a herald of the faith, a vessel of election. Through this same Spirit the weak are made strong, the poor come into riches, the unlearned surpass the wise in talent and eloquence:" see the comments on Acts 2:2, and Genesis 1:2, on the words: "The Spirit of God moved over the waters."
Hence again St. Bonaventure, Hugh, the Gloss, and others, by the phrase "that which contains all things," understand man: for man contains in himself all the grades and species of things, for he has being with stones, growth with plants, sensation with animals, understanding with angels: for man, inspired
and fill with offspring. However, less accurately some, such as Martin of Cantapetrus, book II of the Hypotyposes, chapter II, column 116, by the phrase "that which contains all things," understand the world, as if to say: The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world with His knowledge: because the world, which contains in itself all species of things, with a silent voice proclaims the magnificence of God the Creator; and impresses the knowledge of Him upon all, according to that saying, Psalm 18:1: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands. There are no speeches, nor languages, whose voices are not heard." "The world, says Pomponius Mela, book I, chapter 1, embraces itself and all things in one circuit" whence "in its embrace all things dwell," says Pliny, book II, chapter 1. But in Greek it is not synechon in the masculine, referring to kosmon, that is, the world, but to synechon in the neuter, which refers to nothing other than pneuma, that is, spirit: if however you take to synechon as if substantively, it could denote the world: and this would be fairly fitting for this passage.
In Greek, oudeis, that is, no one, however cunning, small, powerful, or exalted he may be. He who speaks wicked things, the correcting judgment [will not pass him by]. As if to say: The Spirit of the Lord penetrates, indeed fills all things, and the entire universe; hence no wicked speech or action, wherever it may take place, can be hidden from Him, but He sees all things through and through, and in His own time judges, avenges, and punishes, as I said on the preceding verse. The Syriac: nor is there anyone who speaks oppression (tyranny) and is hidden, nor does he flee from the judgment of reproof.
THE CORRECTING JUDGMENT. He calls it the judgment which God often carries out in this world, and which He will carry out fully and universally at the end of the world, when He will bring to light all men absolutely, and all their words and deeds, even the most hidden, and before men and angels will examine and judge them, and will sharply correct, that is, punish, wicked things, both with words and with torments, especially by condemning them and their authors to the eternal fires of hell, when He will say, Matthew 25:41: "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels." Hence Daniel, chapter 7, verse 10, describing the judgment of God: "A river of fire, he says, rushed forth from His face:" for fire signifies that the judgment of God is pure, sincere, clear, penetrating, sharp, and efficacious, which will condemn the wicked to eternal fire: see the comments there. Judgment signifies three things: first, the judicial action concerning injuries, which is conducted before a judge with the plaintiff accusing, the defendant defending himself, and witnesses giving testimony; second, the sentence of the judge, by which he condemns the defendant already convicted; third, the penalty and punishment to which the judge condemns him: for the Greek word Dike signifies these three things; whence Dike is imagined by the poets
to be the goddess of judgments, so called because she settles disputes and contentions; hence they assert that she is a virgin, because judgment ought to be pure and untouched; whence Hesiod in the Works and Days: Dike, he says, that is, the virgin Justice, was begotten by Jupiter; and Aristotle, or whoever is the author of the book On the World: God, he says, has as His immediate companion the guardian of justice, whom they call Dike, the avenger of the divine law, whenever any of His ordinances has been neglected.
9. For there will be an inquiry into the thoughts of the wicked: and the hearing of his words will come to God, for the correction of his iniquities.
The Syriac: concerning the thoughts. The Arabic: The Lord will be the reproof of his impiety. For "thoughts," the Greek is diabouliais, that is, the perplexed and wicked thoughts of the impious man. For "inquiry," the Greek is exetasis, that is, investigation, which is customarily made by a human judge through interrogation, both of the defendant and of witnesses; whence our translator here and elsewhere aptly renders it "inquiry," that is, a question, or judicial investigation. "Hearing" means report, rumor, account, accusation: for he presents God as the judge and avenger of the wicked, not only of their words, but also of their thoughts, if indeed the things thought were willed, and pleased the free will, either expressly or tacitly. As if to say: God, as the judge of the universe, inquires exactly into all the deeds and words of all, so that He may know them, and in His own time judge and reward or punish them; He inquires, however, not as a human judge, who since he has not seen many things, indeed does not know them, tracks them down by questioning others, but as an eye seeing all things by Himself, and an ear hearing all things, as the following verse says; wherefore God's inquiry and investigation is the very seeing of the deed and hearing of the word, so that He cannot be deceived; and therefore He is at once witness and judge: for, as Job says answering the Lord, chapter 42, verse 2: "I know that You can do all things, and no thought is hidden from You."
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Nothing can be hidden from God, because His mind, most eager and most penetrating in knowing, like the zealous ear of a jealous God, hears all things; and therefore no murmur, even the slightest, can be hidden from Him, because the ear of God, who with such care and solicitude is zealous for truth and justice, as well as for the salvation of men, observes and hears all things; and therefore He is indignant when He hears the wicked words of the impious; and He listens attentively to each particular thing and weighs it, like a suspicious man who in corners and in darkness listens to what is said about him.
10. For the ear of jealousy hears all things, and the tumult of murmurings shall not be hidden.
The Syriac: the ear of the envious one: for he refers these and the following words not to God, but to a suspicious and envious person, who secretly and curiously listens to everything, in order to hear what each person says and murmurs about him; but the rest refer it to God, of whom the discourse has preceded; whence the Arabic translates: no one. God does not have a body, nor members, and consequently neither ears, nor eyes, etc., since He is a pure and unmixed spirit; but by anthropopathy He is said to have these, because by the keen edge of His mind He sees and hears all things, just as if He had eyes and ears like a man: therefore God's intellect, or mind and power of knowing, is called ear and eye, because it provides to God what the ear and eye provide to man, and therefore eminently contains the ear, the eye, and every sense, imagination, intellect, and thought of all angels and men. "God, says Pliny, book II, chapter 7, is entirely sense, entirely sight, entirely hearing, entirely soul, entirely mind, entirely Himself." See St. Augustine, treatise On the Essence of Divinity, volume IV.
When therefore you hear or think of God, consider His jealousy itself: for He is most zealous for justice, and the fiercest avenger of all iniquities and tyrannies. Whence Vatablus thus translates and connects this verse and the two preceding ones: "For indeed the Spirit of the Lord fills the world, and containing all things has knowledge of every voice; wherefore one speaking unjustly shall by no means be hidden, nor shall the correcting judgment pass him by: for there will be an inquiry into the counsels of the wicked, and the report of his words will come to the Lord, to convict his wicked deeds, since the sharp and indignant ear hears all things, and the rumor of the murmuring shall by no means remain concealed."
You will ask why the mind of God is called the ear of jealousy? The answer is, first, because it, being most lively, is most eager to know, recognize, and hear all things: for jealousy denotes avidity and desire, and a vehement and keen longing for something. Second, because it is most sharp and most keen to penetrate and intimately know all things, for jealousy sharpens the edge of the mind, attention, and knowledge, and therefore pervades and penetrates all things. Hence the mind of God overlooks or passes over nothing through carelessness or ignorance; but cuts to the quick, permeates, and penetrates all things. Third, because it is jealous and does not tolerate a rival; for in place of "jealousy" the Greek has zeloseos, that is, emulation, ardent love, jealousy: wherefore, just as a jealous husband, standing curiously and secretly behind a window or wall, hears, considers, and weighs all the words, gestures, and nods of his spouse, lest she love someone else, or think or speak of another rival: so God, toward the soul created by Him, especially a just and holy one, espoused to Him through grace, attentively hears and considers all its thoughts, words, and deeds, lest it prefer the devil, the flesh, or the world to Him, because He alone and wholly desires to be loved by it: wherefore He does not tolerate a rival, nor does He bear that it conceive any murmur against Him and His commands, or speak ungratefully toward Him; but if it does so, He is gravely angered, indignant, and takes vengeance: thus St. Augustine, in his book On the Essence of Divinity: "God is said to be jealous, he says, when He often chastises, corrects, and scourges His creature, which He does not wish to perish, and by scourging leads it back to Himself. Or certainly God is said to be jealous, when He wishes to leave no sin unpunished: for He is just, and therefore all injustice is abominable to Him, which, as has been said, He in no way allows to go unpunished."
When therefore, O man, O priest, O religious, you conceive anything in your mind, say it with your tongue, or work it with your hand, consider the ear of jealousy, that is, the jealous God, hearing and watching you with great affection and ardor, so that you may conceive, say, and do nothing except what is pleasing and agreeable to Him. The bride was thinking of this when she said, Song of Songs 2:9: "Behold, he (the bridegroom) stands behind our wall, looking through the windows, gazing through the lattices." Here applies the maxim of an ancient rabbi in the Pirke Aboth, that is, in the Apophthegms of the Hebrew Fathers, chapter 2: "Three things are to be observed by you, so that you never fall into sin: first, that you attend to the eye that sees all things; second, that you reverence in every place the ear from which not even silence itself is silent; third, that you consider that each and every one of your works is inscribed in the book of His knowledge."
Tropologically, Denis the Carthusian says: God, he says, is not only jealous, but is jealousy itself in the abstract, on account of the fervent and extraordinary zeal for souls with which He abounds, according to that saying, Zechariah 8:2: "I have been jealous for Sion with a great jealousy, and with a great indignation have I been jealous for her;" wherefore we ought to burn with a similar zeal toward Him, so that with great earnestness and solicitude we strive to please Him in all things, and neither say nor do anything that would offend the jealous eyes of such great majesty, holiness, and goodness; indeed whatever is of that sort, not only in ourselves but also in all others, we should strive with all our strength to remove, especially when we hear blasphemous, cursing, filthy words, etc.: so did Elijah, persecuting and even killing the worshippers of Baal, III Kings 19:10: "With zeal have I been zealous, he says, for the Lord God of hosts;" and David, saying Psalm 118:139: "My zeal has consumed me, because my enemies have forgotten Your words;" and Mattathias, I Maccabees 2:27: "Everyone, he says, who has zeal for the law, establishing the covenant, let him follow me," where see more examples of zeal, which he proposes to his sons for imitation, verse 54 and following.
For "tumult" the Greek is bogos; that is, a roar and a tumultuous noise, such as the grunting of pigs, from borborizein and borboreisthai, or borbyrizesthai, that is, to disturb and be disturbed, and to make an uproar; the Arabic: and threats shall not be hidden from Him; St. Augustine, in his book On Lying, chapter 16, takes the tumult as referring to internal thoughts murmuring against God or one's neighbor, for these are equally open to God as if they burst forth into external noise and tumult; more literally, others take tumult properly for a tumultuous voice and gesture. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The tumult of murmurings, even of those by which the wicked secretly whisper among themselves against God or their neighbor, are not hidden from God, but strike His ears and offend Him like the grunting of pigs: wherefore they will be severely punished by Him, just as God always punished the murmurings of the Hebrews in the desert, while He overlooked other sins and left them unpunished in this life, as is clear from Exodus 16:2, and Numbers 11:1 and following, and chapter 12, verse 8.
11. THEREFORE GUARD YOURSELVES FROM MURMURING, WHICH PROFITS NOTHING, AND SPARE YOUR TONGUE FROM DETRACTION, FOR AN OBSCURE WORD SHALL NOT GO IN VAIN: BUT THE MOUTH THAT LIES KILLS THE SOUL.
He proves that murmuring and detraction must be avoided, with three arguments. The first is that it profits nothing, and is anopheleis, that is, useless, as the Greek has it, indeed it greatly harms and brings about serious damage: for it is litotes. Thus Job, chapter 15, verse 16, and Solomon, Proverbs 6:12, call an apostate who does nothing good but much evil "useless"; useless, therefore, means plainly impious, harmful, wicked, and reprobate for every good work, as Paul says, II Timothy 2:21. The second is that an obscure word, that is, one spoken obscurely, secretly, and covertly, shall not go in vain, but will be hurled back into the mouth of the speaker, and will strike and wound him. The third is that the mouth, lying through cursing, kills the soul. By murmuring understand both murmuring against God and God's providence, for example because He sends barrenness upon crops, vines, and trees, or plague, or war, or similar calamities; and also against one's neighbor through detraction or whispering, which through secret whispers dissolves friendship between friends.
FROM DETRACTION. In Greek it is, apo katalalias, that is, from speaking against someone, by which you secretly speak against someone, and either falsely or unjustly accuse him: for this is the companion, indeed the daughter, of murmuring, as Blessed Antiochus teaches, sermon 29. The Sage wisely warns that detraction must be avoided, because, as St. Jerome says, epistle 14 to Celantia: "Very few are those who renounce this vice; and rarely will you find those who wish to make their own life so blameless that they do not willingly find fault with that of others; and so great a lust for this evil has invaded the minds of men, that even those who have withdrawn far from other vices, nevertheless fall into this one as into the last snare of the devil:" see the commentary on James 4:11 and following. The Syriac translates: from the detractor, or on account of the detractor, spare your tongue, as if to say: Do not mingle your speech with the detractor.
SPARE YOUR TONGUE. The Hebrew chamal, that is, to spare, also means to have pity and to be moved by compassion; whence some translate: be moved with compassion for your tongue, lest you allow it to be violated by detraction and bound to the flames of punishments, as happened to the rich man feasting, Luke 16:25, who perhaps intoxicated by wine, loosened the reins of his cursing tongue against Lazarus and God; raging harshly against both, but more harshly against himself, whence being placed in hell, he begged for a drop of water for his burning tongue, and did not obtain it, because he denied Lazarus a crumb of bread, says St. Augustine. Hence Lyra, Hugh, and Denis explain it as if to say: Do not inflict this injury upon your tongue, which will be so harmful and damaging to it: for the right and duty of the tongue is to praise God and one's neighbor, wherefore a great injury is done to it if anyone misuses it to revile God or one's neighbor. Bonaventure adds: The detractor, he says, first harms himself, and his own tongue and soul.
Then the Greek has pheidesthe glosses, that is, abstain from the tongue, namely lest you speak curses through it: spare, therefore, that is, restrain and check the itching tongue, lest by its garrulity it burst forth into murmurings and curses; whence Guarinus translates: restrain your tongue from detraction; others translate literally: abstain from contradiction. So Virgil, Aeneid I: "Parce metu, Cytherea," that is, put aside fear; and Seneca, epistle 115: "Parcere gladio," that is, to abstain from slaughter; and Cicero, book II to Atticus: "Dolori et iracundiae parcere" [to spare grief and anger]; and Lucretius, book VI: "Lamentis parcere," that is, to abstain. So we commonly say: to spare labor, expense, danger, injuries, that is, to restrain oneself from labor, expense, danger, injuries.
FOR AN OBSCURE WORD SHALL NOT GO IN VAIN.
The Arabic: he will not be justified. For "obscure," the Greek is lathriaios, that is, hidden, concealed, secret, such as is clandestine detraction and whispering; whence Vatablus translates: a clandestine word will not go unpunished; Lyra and Hugh translate it: a veiled, ambiguous, equivocal word; St. Bonaventure: a sophistical and deceitful word, though covered with the golden color of truth; it will not therefore return empty, but full and laden with a penalty and punishment fitting and owed to it.
Osorius explains it less correctly, as if to say: An impure word, even if pronounced secretly among companions, is not uttered in vain; but it infects and wounds the souls of the hearers with its impurity, and makes the pure and chaste impure and unchaste. For "word" the Greek is phthegma, which among other things signifies an ingenious utterance, sententious and briefly pronounced, such as are the witty but sharp and biting gibes and taunts of detractors, which are likewise obscure, that is, veiled, ambiguous, dissembling and cleverly signifying the vice of the person being defamed. Hence Cicero, De Officiis book III, calls an obscure man one who is crafty and deceitful, whose counsels are obscure and unknown.
St. Ephrem wisely says, in his treatise On the Fear of God: "Just as one who stores up some good thing for himself as a treasure, so is the man who praises and commends his neighbor in his absence." This is precisely the truth of the matter, confirmed by frequent experience, but it seems obscure, indeed paradoxical, to many, because they consider the disparagement of others to be their own praise, in which matter they are gravely deceived. Do you therefore wish to be praised? Praise others, even the absent; indeed those who oppose you and disparage you: for this makes you, as magnanimous and generous, praiseworthy and admirable to all.
BUT THE MOUTH THAT LIES KILLS THE SOUL.
The Syriac: a lying mouth. That is, one that lies by murmuring, detracting, and cursing, as he said a little before; and this is what the Greek word katapseudomenos signifies, as if to say: The mouth that lies against someone, whether against God, blasphemously denying His providence or other attributes, or affirming and attributing to Him ignorance, carelessness, or other vices, or fabricating and teaching errors and heresies, as heretics do; or against one's neighbor, by falsely attributing a crime to him, or exaggerating a true one excessively and mendaciously: so St. Augustine, book On Lying, chapter 16. Whence from this passage you should not conclude that every lie is a mortal sin, but only a pernicious one, namely one that inflicts serious harm or destruction upon the reputation, goods, or life of one's neighbor; this therefore kills the soul of the speaker as well as the listener, especially of him who consents to the speaker and listens to his accusations with pleasure. But this is against nature, namely that the mouth, through which we draw in the vital breath, should transmit the lethal poison of detraction into the soul, to kill it; therefore an officious lie, as well as a jocular one, is only a venial sin, as theologians commonly teach.
Wherefore what some, such as St. Augustine, book On Lying, chapter 6, say: "If someone takes refuge with you who could be freed from death by your lie, you must not lie, because the mouth that lies kills the soul, Wisdom 1:11; and since by lying eternal life is lost, should one lie for anyone's temporal life?" This, I say, should be understood of a pernicious lie, by which one unjustly harms either the faith and God, or one's neighbor, for example, if someone, to free another from death, swears falsely, or denies the faith, or says that he denied the faith before a tyrant who is persecuting him unto death for the faith: for thus St. Augustine explains it at the end of chapter 16, saying: "But just as it is asked with what mouth he said: 'The mouth that lies kills the soul,' Wisdom 1:11, so it can be asked about which kind of lie: for he seems to be speaking properly of that by which someone is defamed. For he says in the same place: 'Abstain therefore from murmuring, which profits nothing, and spare your tongue from detraction.' And this detraction is done through malevolence."
And Chromatius on St. Matthew chapter 5 (found in volume VII of the Library of the Holy Fathers): "Perjury, he says, and lying are condemned with the punishment of divine judgment, as Scripture says, Wisdom 1:11: The mouth that lies kills the soul," which words are cited in Canon Law 22, Question 5, chapter Juramentum. Whence by this maxim are refuted Basilides and the Elcesaites, who teach that it is lawful in persecution to deny the faith with one's mouth, provided one retains it in one's heart. See Alphonsus de Castro, book 10, Against Heresies, on martyrdom.
KILLS THE SOUL. In Greek anairei, that is, takes away, removes the soul, that is, the life of the soul, namely the grace and friendship of God: for just as the life of the body is the soul, so the life of the soul is God and God's grace, says St. Augustine: therefore it brings upon it death and destruction in hell. Some explain "kills the soul" as meaning it often takes away the bodily life of the one being defamed: so St. Athanasius, Apology to the Emperor Constantius, says that the Arians persecuting and calumniating him are, as far as lies in them, committing murder, since "the mouth that lies kills the soul:" for the Arians sought the life of Athanasius. To this our author Castro adds, who explains it thus, as if to say: The mouth that lies against God, and detracts from His power, goodness, or providence, destroys the soul, that is, life, both present and eternal: and so it will not escape punishment, however secretly it lies; but ensnares the soul in grave wickedness unto the destruction of both lives: for the blasphemer and one cursing God was commanded by the Old Law to be stoned and killed, Leviticus 24:14; and God Himself afflicted the same person with enormous hardships and calamities. The Arabic less aptly translates: the mouth that lies delivers or leads the soul, as if to say: Storytellers with their tales attract to themselves the ears and minds of their hearers.
Furthermore, a material lie is every error and every falsehood that is uttered; a formal and proper lie is only that which is uttered against one's mind and the conscience of one's mind, namely when someone says what he knows in his heart to be false; whence a lie (mendacium) is so called as if from menda, that is, an error or mistake of the mind, namely something said against one's mind: this is properly to lie, but the former is merely to tell a falsehood, says P. Nigidius as cited by Nonius: "He who lies, he says, is not himself deceived, but tries to deceive another: he who tells a falsehood is himself deceived as far as lies in him. A good man ought to take care not to lie: a prudent man, not to speak falsehood; the one is judged in the man, the other is not." Hence St. Isidore, book 10 of the Etymologies, letter M: "A liar, he says, is so called because he deceives the mind of another." Clement of Rome, citing this maxim, in his first epistle: "He commanded, he says, St. Peter to guard his mouth from much and wicked conversation, and not to speak vain and lying words; because the mouth that lies kills the soul." All indeed must beware of lying, but especially prelates and princes,
whom the Sage especially addresses here, as is clear from verse 1; whence St. Thomas, in his treatise On the Education of Princes, proves with many arguments that a prince must love truth, and abominate lying: "A prince, he says, must beware of lying as of poison. Let princes therefore guard themselves from bodily poison, but even more must they beware of the poison of lying, which is so deadly that, even while still existing in men's mouths, it kills, according to that saying, Wisdom 1:11: The mouth that lies kills the soul. The serpent had this poison in his mouth, which deceived Eve our mother, indeed this poison is said to have been the occasion for the serpent having bodily poison in its mouth."
Symbolically, Caesarius of Arles, sermon 33 On the Demoniacs: "The mouth, he says, that lies kills the soul, because it admits into itself the devil, who is the killer of the soul." Again St. Augustine, book On Lying, chapter 16, by the mouth that lies does not understand the mouth of the body, but the mouth of the heart, namely the seal of the mind: "When it says 'mouth,' he says, it signifies the receptacle itself of the heart, where whatever is also expressed by the voice when we speak the truth, is approved and determined, so that he lies in heart whose heart approves a lie." He proves this from a similar phrase in Psalm 14:3: "He who speaks truth in his heart, who has not practiced deceit with his tongue;" and Matthew 15:19: "For from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies: these are what defile a man." But this interpretation is symbolic, for literally the mouth of the body is understood here.
12. DO NOT COURT DEATH THROUGH THE ERROR OF YOUR LIFE, NOR ACQUIRE DESTRUCTION BY THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS.
In Greek, neque epispasesthe, that is, nor draw to yourselves. The Syriac: do not envy death through the seduction of your dwelling, and do not be drawn by the loss (destruction) of the works of your hands. Lyra thinks this is said against those who believe the soul to be mortal, and therefore in adverse circumstances kill themselves out of despair; but no mention has been made of them here; this maxim therefore refers to what preceded: "The mouth that lies kills the soul," as if to say: Since lying and all iniquity kills the soul, do not court and pursue these things through the error, that is, through the error and folly of your wicked life, namely one that errantly and foolishly indulges in desires, envies, and passions, and therefore strays from the law, from virtue, from God, and from salvation. He therefore here calls "error" that by which someone, in order to increase his possessions, reputation, and wealth, detracts from his neighbor and calumniates him, in order to seize his goods and position: for it is an error to wish to procure the comforts of one's own life through damage to others; because, as the Sage says here, through this one summons not life, but death upon oneself.
To his words he adds the works of the hands, because from cursing one comes to evil deeds, and from words one leaps to harsher blows; do not therefore court, that is, eagerly desire and studiously pursue, and likewise summon upon yourselves destruction through the works of your tongue and hands. The word "court" (zelare) is taken in the actual exercise, not in the explicit intention, for no one is so foolish as to explicitly desire death: for, as the Comedian says: "No one is blessed unwillingly, nor wretched willingly," and the dying man is wretched: yet he is said to court death who courts, that is, eagerly pursues, calumnies, detractions, desires, and crimes, which bring death to the soul. So the glutton and the voluptuary, by eagerly craving feasts, wines, and carnal pleasure, implicitly pursue and court death, both present and eternal, because feasts, wines, and carnal pleasures bring both. So of a bold man who provokes a powerful person or prince with insults and injuries, we commonly say: This man is asking for a beating, courting his own destruction. So the sinner, by eagerly pursuing his desires, courts and pursues hell, according to that saying, Psalm 48:5: "Like sheep they are placed in hell (Symmachus: they established themselves there), death will feed upon them;" St. Augustine: he will be their shepherd. St. Jerome: "Rightly, he says, they are fed by death, who did not wish to have Christ as their good shepherd." Theodoret: "They brought punishments upon themselves, and preferred death to life."
The phrase "draw to yourselves" signifies that God had kept death and destruction far from us, and had, as it were, bound them in Orcus and hell, but the wicked by great force draw them from there to themselves, having loosed their bonds, indeed with greater force than the saints draw to themselves from heaven happiness and heavenly glory, which is the immense madness, indeed frenzy, of the wicked. The Greek epispasesthe can be translated: you suck and draw milk, as if to say: Do not suck destruction like milk, and by drawing the pleasure of cursing or acting unjustly, extract from it the hidden lethal poison of sin and death: just as foolish infants, allured by the sweetness of milk, eagerly seize their mother's breasts with closed eyes and gaping mouths, to nourish and feed themselves, and with the milk they suck in and draw to themselves the diseases and vices of the mother. So explains Gonzalvus Cervantes, who adduces ten other significations and applies them to this passage.
13. For God did not make death, nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living.
The Syriac: nor does He will it. The Arabic: nor does He strike the living with a blow. As if to say: The wicked therefore court and draw death upon themselves, because God did not originally make it, but rather life: because He created man for life and immortality; but man, by sinning, summoned death upon himself: for by sin he offended God and God's justice, which therefore inflicted the just punishment of death upon sinning man. For, as the Apostle says, Romans 5:12: "Through one man sin entered this world, and through sin death, and so death passed to all men, in whom all sinned." Sin therefore wrested death from God, as it were, against His will: for God, just as He rejoices in the life and happiness of men, so He grieves over their death and misery; this is what His words signify, Isaiah 1:3: "Alas! I will take consolation from My enemies, and I will avenge Myself on My foes:" for "alas" is the word and mark of one grieving and groaning; and when He was about to send the flood upon the wicked world, "touched with grief of heart within: I will destroy, He said, the man whom I created, from the face of the earth," Genesis 6:6; and Christ, seeing Jerusalem and foreseeing its destruction, wept over it, Luke 19:41.
When therefore it is sometimes said that God rejoices in the punishment of the wicked, understand that He rejoices not in the evil of the punishment, but in the good of justice and just vengeance; whence He Himself says, Ezekiel 5:13: "I will fulfill My fury, and I will cause My indignation to rest upon them; and I will be comforted:" similar passages are Deuteronomy 28:63; Isaiah 1:24, and elsewhere. By death understand both that of the body and that of the soul, which is twofold: the first, by which the soul dies to God through sin; the second, by which it will always be dying, that is, it will endure the pains of death, and yet will never be dead in hell.
God therefore did not make death per se, but per accidens, not willingly but unwillingly: for He made it not as a creature, for example a man or an angel, but as the punishment of a rebellious creature. For, as St. Fulgentius says, book I to Monimus, chapter 19: "God is the avenger of that thing of which He is not the author;" therefore He did not make death: "Because God created man free from corruption, and produced him in the image of His own eternity," says St. Epiphanius, book II Against Heresies, chapter 19; and chapter 22: "Death is therefore good, since it was devised like a scourge for restraining children;" and chapter 18: "Artisans, he says, desire to make an immortal work; therefore much more will God desire this." He gives the example of Phidias: "For he, he says, when he had fashioned the statue of Olympian Jupiter from ivory, ordered oil to be poured at the feet before the statue, so that he might make it, as far as he could, immortal." And St. Augustine in the Sentences, Sentence 303: "It is the just judgment of God that each one perish by his own sin, since God does not make sin, just as He did not make death, and yet He killed the one whom He judged worthy of death; whence it is read, Sirach 11:14: Death and life are from God; that these two are not contrary to each other is seen clearly by whoever distinguishes divine judgments from divine works: because it is one thing not to have instituted mortality in creating, and another to punish the sinner in judging.
God indeed made the world, and absolutely all bodies; but that the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the flesh lusts against the spirit, is not a preceding condition of man's created nature, but a subsequent punishment of sin:" some read "of the condemned" instead of "of sin." Moreover, Faustus of Riez, On the Grace of God, chapter 1, volume IV of the Library of the Holy Fathers: "God, he says, did not make death; death is therefore a foreign and adventitious evil, not an order of nature, but a punishment of a sentence:" see the comments on Genesis chapter 2, verse 17. St. Chrysostom likewise explains this maxim, book I On Providence, volume V, and St. Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, chapter 4 and 5, and St. Thomas, part I, Question 49, article 2, and I-II, Question 19, article 1, and Question 164, article 1.
Again, God did not make death, because He did not make sin, through which alone death could be introduced: for death is nothing other than the punishment of sin, as the Council of Trent teaches, session 5; and the Second Council of Orange, canon 2: "He is convicted, it says, of ascribing injustice to God, who teaches that death, which is the punishment of sin, passed to us without sin, which is the cause of death." Whence St. Augustine everywhere against the Pelagians proves from the death of all men, even infants, that original sin was transmitted from Adam to all his posterity. Hence
Symbolically, St. Bonaventure, Denis, and Holcot take death to mean sin: Holcot here enumerates many analogies between the two. Finally, St. Augustine, in the Soliloquies chapter 24, from this maxim wisely and piously thus prays to God: "That our salvation is from God, we have heard, he says, of Your mercy, O Lord, that You do not make death, nor do You rejoice in the destruction of those who die; therefore, O Lord, we pray You, do not allow that which You did not make to rule over Your creature, which You did make: for if You grieve over destruction, what prevents You, O Lord, who can do all things, from always rejoicing in our salvation?"
to transfer from non-being to being: but opposed to this is to transfer those same things from being to non-being. Therefore God did not create death, for death transfers things from being to non-being, because it destroys the being of things. Again, creation is of something positive, namely of some good: but death is not something positive, but privative: for it is the privation of life, and therefore it is an evil, which God did not make per se and originally. But because the creature, namely man, abused his being, and by sinning deprived God of the honor and worship due to Him, hence in return, with a fitting punishment of retaliation, God, as a just judge and avenger of crimes, deprived man of his being, and punished him with death: death therefore is not a condition of nature, but a punishment of guilt. Moreover, St. Thomas, I Question, disputation 65, article 2, reply 1: "In the very fact, he says, that any creature has being, it represents the divine being and His goodness; and therefore by the fact that God created all things that they might exist, it is not excluded (but rather included) that He created all things to communicate, manifest, and cause to be loved and reverenced with thanksgiving His own goodness" to creatures.
You will object: God created man consisting of four elements: but these are contrary to each other, and by acting and reacting upon one another will wear out and destroy each other; therefore He created in him the causes and principles of death. The answer is: That is true if you consider the pure nature of man; but God did not create man in a purely natural state, but in his creation He clothed his nature with original justice, which so composed and balanced the actions and motions of both soul and body among themselves, that man would have lived peacefully, happily, healthily, and holily for many ages, namely until God would have translated him to heaven for blessed and complete immortality. Add that the original cause of corruption in man and other bodies is to be attributed not to God the author of nature, but to the natural condition and imperfection of the things themselves, namely both to the elements themselves, which have contrary natures and qualities, and therefore destroy each other, and to prime matter itself, which is always capable of and eager for new forms.
Anagogically, St. Ambrose, in his book On Faith in the Resurrection: "God did not make death, because, he says, God did not institute death, but gave it as a remedy," so that death itself might heal, and put an end to the miseries as well as the sins of this life, and open the entrance to a blessed and eternal life.
14. FOR HE CREATED ALL THINGS THAT THEY MIGHT EXIST.
St. Anthony the Great, epistle 2: He called from nothing, that all things might exist, as if to say: God created things for being, that is, that they might exist and be preserved in their being; but not for non-being, namely that they might die and perish. He proves that God did not make death, from the fact that He is the creator of all things: for the duty and work of the creator is to bring things out of nothing, and from
AND HE MADE THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD HEALTHFUL.
"Healthful" (sanabiles), that is, salubrious, health-giving, which could heal, not be healed: for this is what the Greek soterioi signifies. So "to heal" is taken for "to save" in Psalm 10, verse 5: "Heal (that is, save) my soul, for I have sinned against You," Job 34:17; Proverbs 28:25; Jeremiah 17:14, and elsewhere. For "nations" (nationes) the Greek is geneseis, that is, generations, as St. Jerome translates in Zechariah chapter 12, that is, the generative powers of the world, namely the virtues which God implanted in plants, herbs, animals, gems, etc., in their creation, for propagating themselves and generating what is like themselves. Likewise the things themselves initially created and generated by God, for these are called nationes, that is, things born and produced, as if to say: God made the things originally created by Him to be health-giving, not death-dealing. Whatever in the world was created by God is health-giving: thus Festus: "In cattle, he says, good increase is called a good natio (birth);" and Pliny, book 22, chapter 24, and book 24, chapter 6, calls the nationes of honey and resin their generations and increase: for natio alludes to nasci (to be born), just as genesis to ginesthai, and gennesis to gennasthai. A similar passage is in the last chapter, verse 10. The nationes of the world therefore are all things that are born in the world. Or nationes, that is, generations, he calls the births, origins, and risings of the world, as if to say: God made the beginnings and birthdays of the world, namely the work of creation in six days, the hexaemeron, at the beginning of the world, to be health-giving, not death-dealing. God made it so that, at the beginning of the world, nothing harmful existed in anything created by Him, but all things were wholesome; wherefore "God saw all things that He had made, and they were very good," Genesis 1:31. So it is said in Genesis 2:4: "These are the generations of heaven and earth," that is, these are the births and origins by which the heavens and earth were begotten and brought forth into the light by God through creation; hence Vatablus translates this passage: the beginnings of the world are health-giving;
The Syriac: in the generation of the world there is life; the Arabic: and the generations of the world having salvation, supply: God made them.
Again, St. Jerome by nationes, or generations, precisely understands the first human beings generated by God and born into the world, namely Adam and Eve, from whom the generations of the world and all future human beings were to be born, whom God created healthy and immortal, so that they could not die, as long as they persisted in obedience to God and in justice; and so they would have transmitted this health and immortality by their generation to all their descendants. This is true, but somewhat forced in this passage. Lyra, however, explains it thus, as if to say: God made the first human beings healable, that is, curable, or remediable: because, namely, against the death of the soul contracted through sin, He suggested to them the remedy of repentance, which resurrects the soul dead through sin to spiritual life through grace; against the infirmities and death of the body, however, He suggested to them both various medicines which would heal its infirmities, and the hope of resurrection to eternal and blessed life. It was otherwise with the angels, for God created them unhealable; whence Lucifer and his companions, having fallen into sin, could not repent, be healed, or be saved. "He therefore created men, says St. Bonaventure, in spiritual health through innocence, reducible to health through repentance:" so also Hugh and Denis; whence St. Chrysostom, homily 8 and 22 to the People, which is on repentance, and homily 24 on Matthew, and homily 24 on Acts, teaches that many wounds of the body are incurable, but none of the soul; but all can be easily healed and cured, namely through contrition and repentance. However, this meaning is not the genuine one, but symbolic, or rather accommodated.
AND THERE IS NO MEDICINE OF DESTRUCTION IN THEM.
from "medicine," as if to say pheron achos, that is, "bearing a cure"; now in a bad sense for poison, as if to say pheron achos, that is, "bringing sorrow"; whence the saying: "You will not sell me drugs, O apothecary." A pharmakon therefore of destruction, in Greek olethrou, that is, of perdition, is a drug that destroys from life, ruins, kills, namely a deadly poison; whence the Syriac translates: the poison of death; the Arabic: the poison of perdition. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: God in the genesis, that is, in the births or origins of the world, created all things healthful, and therefore there is nothing poisonous in them, nothing that destroys, kills, or puts to death; whence Guarinus translates: in those nations, or beginnings of the world there is no destroying poison; Jansenius: there was not in the generations of the world any destroying or ruining poison created by God, that is, there is not among the creatures created by God a created perdition that corrupts, or corruption or evil of perdition; Vatablus: the beginnings of the world are healthful, nor is there a pernicious medicine in them; St. Jerome on Zechariah chapter 12: He created that all things might exist, and the generations of the world are health-giving, and there was in them no deadly poison.
The question is raised here whether any poisons were created by God in the genesis of the world, for example, poisonous herbs or animals? St. Augustine, book 1 of On Genesis Against the Manichaeans, chapter 13, holds that in the genesis poisonous herbs were not created, but only after sin, and that as a punishment for sin, and the Sage seems to say all this here; and Scripture supports this, Genesis 1:12, and chapter 3, verses 17 and 18. Related to this is what St. Basil teaches, homily 3 on the Hexaemeron, and Ambrose, book III of the Hexaemeron chapter 9, Damascene, book II On the Faith, chapter 10, Bede, and Rabanus on Genesis, that originally the rose was produced before sin without thorns, but after sin was armed with thorns.
But the contrary, as more probable, is generally held by others. I say therefore, first: It is more probable that poisonous herbs and animals, as well as the rose with thorns, were created by God at the beginning of the world along with other herbs and animals: so St. Augustine, who retracts what he had said in book 1 of On Genesis Against the Manichaeans, in book 3 of On Genesis Literally, chapter 18; Basil, homily 3 on the Hexaemeron; and Ambrose, book 3 of the Hexaemeron, chapter 9. The same is held regarding herbs, except for the rose, by St. Thomas, part I, Question 69, article 2, reply 2, and the scholastics there, and generally by more recent writers on Genesis, or on the work of the six days, such as Pererius, Molina, Valentia, etc. It is proved, first, because this plainly seems to be said in Genesis 2:2 and 5, where God is said to have created every herb; therefore also poisonous ones. Second, because animals harmful to man were then created, namely the whale and the serpent; the same therefore must be said of wolves, bears, and poisonous herbs. Third, because the perfection of the universe required that all perfect species of things be then created: especially because what is poisonous to humans is often not so to other animals, as is evident with hemlock; indeed what is poisonous to man at one time is healthful to him at another. So hemlock is food for starlings, hellebore for quails, mandrake induces sleep; opium, or poppy, relieves bodily pains, says St. Basil, homily 5 on the Hexaemeron, and from him St. Ambrose, book 3 of the Hexaemeron chapter 9, and book 6, chapter 6; and because those things, although noxious in themselves, nevertheless when mixed with other ingredients in medicines, are remedies for men and animals; and at least the knowledge of them could then be useful to man. Again, the rose was then born with thorns, because this is the nature of the rose, this is its good and perfection.
I say, second: These poisons and poisonous things nevertheless, before the sin of humans, were not harmful to man, at least in the actual, or proximate potency: for as the Sage says here, and in the following chapter, verse 23, God created man immortal; although therefore poisons were in themselves harmful to man, nevertheless partly because man had dominion over all animals, partly through his knowledge by which he knew all poisons, and through prudence and dexterity by which he could easily avoid all of them, especially through the assistance and protection of God for man preserving his innocence, neither sword, nor fire, nor stones, nor poisonous herbs or animals, and therefore nothing could harm him. Whence Eve spoke with the serpent harmlessly and fearlessly: for God restrained the serpent from touching and biting Eve, and from pouring deadly venom into her; and Adam gave their names to all animals, even bears, wolves, and leopards. But after man sinned against God, with that singular protection of God removed, all things were left free and returned to their own nature, so that they might rise up against man as against an enemy, and lie in wait for him, and try to harm him, as if from that time war had been declared and published between harmful animals and other poisonous things, and man, against whom the whole world armed itself, and this is what is meant when after sin God is said to have placed enmity between the woman and the serpent.
The answer therefore here is, first, that simple poisons are not denied, but only that compound medicines (as the Greek has it) were made poisonous by God: because these were invented by the devil and wicked men. Again, God implanted in no nature or particular creature a poison, or anything harmful, that would kill it and bring death. The answer, second and better, is that there was no poison, either simple or compound, which God either administered to man or placed before the unwary; indeed He most diligently took care (as I have already said) that nothing of the sort should befall man, and consequently that nothing should be an actual poison of death for man; and this is what the Sage properly intends here: for he only wishes to prove that death was not brought into the world by God's procuring, but was introduced by sin. So in Genesis 1:31, God is said to have made all things good, in themselves, that is, and in respect to the whole universe; but not in respect to some particular being, to which they can be evil and contrary, as is clear from experience. So in Genesis 3, the earth is said to be cursed, and to bring forth thorns, because the same earth which before had been blessed by God, fertile and productive, for man expelled from paradise and condemned to cultivate it, began to be cursed and troublesome: indeed the earth was deprived of its native goodness and fertility on account of man's sin, and made degenerate, teeming with briers and thorns.
NOR IS THERE A KINGDOM OF THE UNDERWORLD ON EARTH.
For "kingdom" the Greek is basileion, that is, palace, dwelling, court of a king; also a royal sign, royal insignia, diadem. The Greek therefore literally has: neither the palace, or royal insignia of Orcus upon earth. Orcus is imagined by the poets as the king of the underworld; whence the Syriac: nor does hell have a kingdom over the earth, as if to say: God did not make it so that the underworld and demons would have power over the earth and over men, but the guilt and injustice of men did this; because by believing the temptations of the devil, they voluntarily consented to him, and subjected themselves to his power. Again, the kingdom of the underworld, that is, of death and destruction, or the palace and royal fortress of death, was not originally on the earth, but was summoned from the underworld to us by the craft of the devil, who drove Adam into sin: for the punishment of this is death, as if to say: The kingdom and palace of death was not on the earth, but in the lowest depths of the earth among the underworld, "where the shadow of death dwells, and no order, but everlasting horror inhabits," as Job says, chapter 10, verse 22. Therefore over Adam and men established in the state of innocence, grace, life, heaven, and the heavenly beings, namely angels and God Himself, held dominion; but after they sinned, sin, death, hell, demons, and Lucifer gained dominion over them; whence all who died before Christ, even the just, descended to the underworld.
Hence St. John, Apocalypse chapter 6, verse 8, is invited to see: "And behold, he says, a pale horse: and he who sat upon it, his name was Death, and hell followed him, and power was given to him over the four parts of the earth, to kill with the sword, with famine and death, and with the beasts of the earth."
Note that for "underworld" the Greek is Hades; and Hades is Orcus, Pluto, Tartarus, the underworld: so called as if from apo tou aeidous, from the privative a, and idein, that is, to see, as if to say: a place deprived of sight, that is, dark, deep, shadowy, without sun, which by the Hebrews is called tsalmaveth, that is, the shadow of death, Isaiah 9:2. Whence Plutarch, treatise on the saying Lathe biosas, that is, "live in concealment": "Those who believe, he says, from the traditions and mysteries of the ancients, that the sun is Apollo, call him by the same name Delian and Pythian. But the lord of the opposite realm, whether he is a god or a demon, they call Hades, that is Orcus (because the dead depart to a dark and gloomy place) and the king of dense night and sluggish sleep."
Hades therefore is the king of the underworld, and as it were a god, who in reality is none other than Lucifer, whose palace is in hell: that he exercised power over men after Adam's sin is shown by the name Orcus, which Festus derives from urgere (to press), because he presses all men toward death. The same is called Pluto from riches, because he is rich both in treasures and in the souls of sinners and the damned: for ploutoi are riches, namely gold, silver, gems, which are stored away in the lowest depths of the earth; hence the poets make Jupiter the god of heaven, Neptune of the sea, and Pluto the god of hell, and give him Proserpina as wife, of whom Statius thus sings: "Sitting by lot in the middle, in the citadel of his unhappy kingdom, the Lord of Erebus demanded from the peoples the crimes of their lives." The same is called Tartarus, and in the plural Tartara, from tarassein, that is, to disturb, because it disturbs all things and mixes them up and down, or from tartarizein, that is, from the trembling of cold, because it is the deepest and coldest place: whence Virgil, Aeneid 5, calls it the inmost Tartarus of death; elsewhere the sorrowful, fatal, black, dark, deep Tartara. Hence the same, Aeneid 6, thus sings: "But on the left, the place of the wicked exacts punishments, and sends to impious Tartarus." And again: "It gapes open downward twice as far, and stretches beneath the shades, as great as the upward view to heavenly Olympus."
Therefore Orcus, Pluto, and the infernal one, namely Lucifer, extended the kingdom of death, which he had in hell, after Adam's sin over the earth upon all men born from Adam, whom he pierces with the dart of death: for, as the following chapter, verse 23, will say: "God created man imperishable, etc.; but by the envy of the devil, death entered the world."
He alludes to the poets (from which you may gather that the author of this book is not Solomon, inasmuch as he was far earlier and more ancient than Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, and all the poets and philosophers) who assert that Hades, or Orcus, and Pluto, is the king of the underworld, ruling in a dark and dreadful region beneath the earth, who binds the souls of all the dead with inescapable chains, and has keys as his royal emblem, because hell is barred to those entering with, as it were, adamantine bolts, and no exit is given to anyone who has entered it, on which see more in Natalis Comes, book 10 of the Mythologiae, chapter 9. So the author of the book of Judith, chapter 16, verse 8, alludes to the legend of the Titans, that is, the giants fighting against Jupiter: "Nor did the sons of Titan, he says, strike him down," namely Holofernes.
Mystically, the Interlinear Gloss, whose author is Anselm of Laon: "Nothing, he says, would the devil have harmed man, had man not consented;" and Holcot: "To men, he says, existing on earth, demons do not make such threats as to compel them unwillingly to evil;" Rabanus also and Hugh: "In nature, they say, sin has not been established by God, on account of which the underworld, that is, demons, should reign in men." Again, Lyra and Denis: "In the present life, they say, there is no infernal law," that is, so that the fallen cannot repent, rise again, be justified, and be saved, as the damned in hell cannot. Finally, others say, as if to say: Hell, or gehenna, and the burning and torment of the wicked in it, was not per se originally instituted by God, but afterwards and on account of the sins of men, to punish them; or as if to say: Sin, on account of which hell and the demon dominate man, is not from God, but from the free and evil will of man; or as if to say: The demon does not rule sinners on earth with such full right that they cannot be freed from his hands and tyranny, if they are willing to repent.
15. For justice is perpetual and immortal.
The Greek has dikaiosyne, that is, "but justice is perpetual and immortal." Some codices add, such as the Complutensian, "but injustice is the acquisition of death:" these words are not authentic text, but an exaggeration and explanation of it by antithesis: for the Vatican codices, the Greek, and other codices of better quality do not have them. He proves that death was not made by God, and consequently that there is no external destroying medicine, from the fact that God originally gave man justice, which is the medicine of immortality: for justice, by God's decree, gift, and reward, is immortal, and makes man immortal. Therefore as long as Adam persisted in original justice, he could not die; and if he had always persisted in it, he could never have died. By justice here understand not a particular virtue, as St. Augustine seems to wish, book 14 of On the Trinity, chapter 9, but general and original justice, which was the chorus or complex of all virtues: for this gave Adam life and immortality; when this was overthrown, sin inflicted upon him and all his posterity the debt of mortality, and death itself. Justice therefore, like the sun, gives light, life, joy, happiness, and blessed eternity. Who therefore would not love and pursue it? It is athanatos: it therefore makes men athanasious, glorious, and immortal.
Moreover, Cantacuzenus understands justice not of men, but of God, as if to say: Justice, that is, the just, beneficent, and gentle providence and beneficence of the best God, as far as lies in Him, makes it so that the being which He once gave to creatures, He does not revoke, but establishes, and makes it perpetual; and our author Castro: "Justice, he says, which God observes when He gives to things according to their implanted nature what is proper to them, for their perpetuity, makes them perpetual;" and Didymus on the second epistle of St. John, chapter 2 (found in volume V of the Library of the Holy Fathers): "God's will, he says, remaining with the saints, is a lasting power, concerning which it is written, Wisdom 1:15: Justice is immortal." But the former meaning is the genuine one.
St. Augustine, book 14 of On the Trinity, chapter 9, asks whether the virtues of this life remain in the next, namely in heaven? "For to some, he says, it has seemed that they will cease; and concerning three of them indeed -- prudence, fortitude, and temperance -- when this is said, there seems to be something to the point; but justice is immortal, and will then be perfected in us rather than cease to exist." He then cites Cicero, who in the Hortensius asserts that all will cease, even justice; and gives the reason: "For we would not, he says, need fortitude, with no task or labor or danger set before us; nor justice, since there would be nothing belonging to another to be desired; nor temperance, to govern passions that would not exist; nor indeed would we need prudence, with no choice set before us between good and evil. Therefore we would be blessed solely by the knowledge of nature and by knowledge, by which alone is even the life of the gods to be praised. From which it can be understood that the other things are of necessity, this alone of choice." But St. Augustine corrects this saying of Cicero, and teaches that it is certain that justice will remain, and that the same is probably to be held concerning the others. For he says thus: "If to be subject to God who rules is justice, then justice is absolutely immortal, and will not cease to exist in that blessedness, but will be such and so great that it cannot be more perfect or greater. Perhaps also the other three virtues -- prudence without any danger of error, fortitude without the burden of evils to be endured, temperance without the opposition of passions -- will exist in that happiness, so that it will be the part of prudence to set no good before God or equal to Him; of fortitude, to cling to Him most firmly; of temperance, to take pleasure in no harmful deficiency."
St. Thomas follows St. Augustine, I-II, Question 68, article 1, where he resolutely teaches that all four cardinal virtues will remain in heaven, as ornaments of the rational soul, and as the bright trophies of the victory which the soul nobly won against the passions in this life, namely the rewards and trophies of its victory.
16. BUT THE WICKED WITH THEIR HANDS AND WORDS SUMMONED HER: AND ESTEEMING HER A FRIEND, THEY WASTED AWAY, AND MADE A COVENANT WITH HER: BECAUSE THEY ARE WORTHY TO BELONG TO HER.
The wicked, in Greek asebeeis, that is, irreligious, impious, criminal, who do not know God, or do not fear, reverence, or worship Him, and therefore pour themselves out into every crime. "Her" (illam), namely death, for the Greek has auton in the masculine, which cannot refer to dikaiosynen, that is, justice, nor to adikian, that is, injustice, which some add at verse 13, as St. Bonaventure proposes, since both are feminine in gender, but to the masculine thanaton, that is, death.
Having proved that man was just, healthy, holy, and immortal, he now assigns the true cause of death: the madness of the first parents and other wicked people, who so ardently loved their death-dealing desires that they did not shrink from the death they knew was stored up in them; but voluntarily summoned it upon themselves -- by doing wicked things with their hands, practicing slaughter and plundering, and with words murmuring, hurling blasphemies against God and insults against their neighbors (as tyrants, and insolent princes and judges do, whom he especially censures here, as is clear from verse 1) -- as though they esteemed it their friend, when in reality it was their fiercest enemy. Hence they flowed down to their pleasures, and to the death and destruction stored up in them, and there they wasted away, that is, they brought decay and corruption upon both soul and body. Therefore they in fact dealt with death as if they had entered into friendship and a pact with it, and this foolishly, but justly, worthily, and deservedly, because they are worthy to have a share and fellowship with death, and to be partakers of its sorrows and pains, since they voluntarily entered into a pact with it.
By death understand, first, that of the body, as is clear from verse 14; then that of the soul through sin and damnation in hell. Note that each word has emphasis, and marks in the wicked a singular fervor or frenzy of desire, by which, blinded, like unbridled horses maddened with love, they hurl themselves into death, both present and eternal. He says therefore: "With their hands and words they summoned her," namely death, that is, with every effort and zeal, which is commonly said, "with sails and oars," or "with hands and feet." For those who love ardently are accustomed to call to those who are far off and distant by the tossing, extending, and gesticulating of their hands. Again, the first parents, by extending their hands to the forbidden fruit, and exchanging words with the serpent, summoned death upon themselves and their posterity. The Gloss explains: by deeds and words; St. Bonaventure: with the hands of defense and the words of boasting: for they defend their desires and crimes with their hands, and praise and celebrate the same with their words.
Eve did this when she offered the forbidden fruit to Adam, and enticed him to eat; which he did, even though he knew that God had said to him: "On whatever day you eat of it, you shall surely die," Genesis 2:17. Counterbalancing this proverb are those of the ancients: "They draw evils to themselves like the Caecias wind draws clouds. Good things hardly approach those who seek them, but evils come even to those who do not seek them." A fable is found in Aesop about a porter groaning under his burden, and therefore invoking death. She presented herself; then the porter said: "I called upon you not to kill me, but to lift this burden onto your shoulders with me."
AND ESTEEMING HER A FRIEND -- not directly, but indirectly and concomitantly: for Adam, and every sinner, esteems as a friend not death itself, but his gluttony and pleasure, which he ardently and desperately loves, even though he knows it has been forbidden to him by God under penalty of death; therefore while he ardently and drunkenly with love drinks it in, he drinks in death itself. Again, properly speaking, voluptuaries esteem death as a friend, because wholly craving the pleasures of this life, they finally reckon that all things end in death, and that all things perish with the body, as the beginning of the next chapter will say, and therefore they freely indulge in all pleasures in life, and flow into every vice. Our author Castro adds another interpretation, as if to say: Thinking that the death they had summoned would not harm them, because of that promise of the serpent: "You shall not at all die," they experienced that things turned out otherwise than they had thought: for immediately, stung by the sting of death, they began to waste away, and like a flowing wave to slide and hasten toward death, and so at last they perished.
THEY WASTED AWAY -- In Greek etakesen, that is, like wax they gradually melted, they dissolved, they perished, they were consumed and resolved into decay; the Arabic: they melted; the Syriac: they were corrupted. "They wasted away" therefore, that is, melted like wax, from the solidity of original justice, holiness, grace, joy, and immortality, they transferred themselves to fleeting pleasure, intemperance, sin, sorrow, death, and hell; they began to flow into death, first of guilt, says St. Bonaventure, then of punishment and hell, namely into all the sorrows of this life and the future, which they summoned upon themselves and all their posterity.
THEY MADE A COVENANT WITH HER -- that is, with her companion, indeed her mother, namely with the pleasure forbidden by God under penalty of death: for they were joined to it with such ardor, as if they had ratified a most binding treaty with it. And therefore they are said likewise to have ratified a treaty with death, which is inseparably joined to pleasure; whence the Arabic translates: and they made a pact with her; the Syriac: they swore and established a treaty with her. Again, properly speaking, they entered into a kind of treaty with death itself, inasmuch as they so securely handed themselves over entirely to lust and tyranny, just as if they were not going to die, or rather as if they would not die until after many centuries, and would rest peacefully and amicably in death itself, expecting no judgment after it, no life, no punishment, because they reckoned that all things are consummated in death, and no other life remains. Therefore they thought they would die happily, according to that saying, Job 21:13: "They spend their days in prosperity, and in a moment descend to hell;" thus Augustus Caesar wished for himself a euthanasia, that is, an easy and cheerful death, and that very thing befell him, as Suetonius attests. The treaty therefore of the wicked with death is as if they had said to it: Do not harm us, O death, and we in turn will not harm you, but we will be friends; but they erred: for, as God threatens them, Isaiah chapter 28, verse 18: "Your treaty with death shall be annulled, and your pact with hell shall not stand: when the scourge passes through, you shall be trampled by it."
BECAUSE THEY ARE WORTHY TO BELONG TO HER.
Who, namely, are the lot of death, as the Syriac translates, the portion and inheritance -- who as sole heirs are the full possession of death, and this both actively, so that they themselves possess not life but death, and passively, in that death itself inherits them, so as to possess them as its inheritance, namely to rage against them and exercise its dominion over them and compel them to die, says Anastasius of Nicaea, Question 16 on Sacred Scripture. St. Bonaventure here notes the steps of iniquity, by which the wicked descend into the depths of evils, and into the very abyss of hell: "For the first step, he says, is impiety in the heart through the internal consent of the mind; the second is the same impiety in the hand through the consummation of the deed, when they carry out in act the crime they designed in mind; the third is the same in the mouth through words of defense and boasting, when they excuse their crime, indeed glory in it; the fourth, when the wicked form friendship and a pact with impiety, through the hope of impunity; the fifth, when they wholly flow into it through frequent repetition of sin, the habit of sinning, and the hardening of the mind; the sixth, when they rush into death itself, both of final impenitence and of hell."
Symbolically, the life of the wicked is not life, but a continual death; whence they are rightly said to have entered into friendship and a pact with it, both because their life is full of intemperance, excesses, angers, quarrels, envies, and other passions and disturbances of the soul, which bring upon man a thousand afflictions and pains of death; and because they live in perpetual drinking bouts, debaucheries, hatreds, enmities, insults, plunderings, and other sins, which bring death to the soul; and because they bring upon themselves the punishments of these crimes, namely venereal disease, catarrhs, nausea, disgust, fevers, pains of the head, stomach, and many others, as well as poverty, infamy, persecutions, and every kind of evil; whence St. Gregory, speaking of the life of men in general after sin, says thus in homily 37 on the Gospels: "Temporal life, compared to eternal life, should be called death rather than life: for what is the daily wasting of corruption other than a certain prolongation of death?"
Look at drunkards, who drink every day and get drunk; you will observe that they are almost never in their right minds, nor do they use reason, but they live like brute beasts lacking reason, indeed they are worse and more miserable than beasts. For they turn night into day; they spend the night in drinking and drunkenness, and thereby deprive themselves of the use of reason. During the day they sleep, to digest their debauchery; whence both day and night they lack the use of reason like brutes. See also and contemplate the envious, the proud, the ambitious, who dream of nothing but revenge, honors, and positions of authority -- with how many cares, rivalries, envies, suspicions, mortifications, pains, and anguishes are they tormented? Is not their life death rather than life, indeed a perpetual agony of death? And this they themselves voluntarily summon upon themselves, esteem it a friend, and strike with it an inviolable pact. O foolish, O wretched, O senseless ones!