Cornelius a Lapide

Ecclesiasticus I

Table of Contents

Synopsis of the Chapter

He assigns and describes the origin of wisdom, which is God. Then, from verse 11 onward, he shows how wisdom is obtained, namely, by the fear and love of God: for these two create, accompany, preserve, and increase wisdom and every virtue; hence, in verse 33, he teaches that wisdom is acquired through justice.

Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 1:1-40

1. All wisdom is from the Lord God, and with Him it has been always, and is before all ages. 2. The sand of the sea, and the drops of rain, and the days of the world, who has numbered them? The height of heaven, and the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss, who has measured them? 3. The wisdom of God, preceding all things, who has searched out? 4. Wisdom was created before all things, and the understanding of prudence from everlasting. 5. The fountain of wisdom is the word of God on high, and her ways are the eternal commandments. 6. To whom has the root of wisdom been revealed? And who has known her subtleties? 7. To whom has the discipline of wisdom been revealed and made manifest? And who has understood the multiplication of her ways? 8. There is one Most High, almighty Creator, and a powerful King, and greatly to be feared, who sits upon His throne, and is the sovereign God. 9. He created her in the Holy Spirit, and He saw her, and numbered her, and measured her. 10. And He poured her out upon all His works and upon all flesh according to His gift, and He has given her to those who love Him. 11. The fear of the Lord is glory, and exultation, and gladness, and a crown of rejoicing. 12. The fear of the Lord shall delight the heart, and shall give gladness, and joy, and length of days. 13. For him who fears the Lord, it shall go well in the end; and on the day of his death he shall be blessed. 14. The love of God is honorable wisdom. 15. And to those to whom she has appeared in vision, they love her in the sight and knowledge of her great deeds. 16. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord; and it was created with the faithful in the womb, it walks with chosen women, and it is recognized with the just and faithful. 17. The fear of the Lord is the devotion of knowledge. 18. Devotion will guard and justify the heart, and will give delight and joy. 19. For him who fears the Lord, it shall go well, and in the days of his end he shall be blessed. 20. The fullness of wisdom is to fear God, and fullness comes from her fruits. 21. She shall fill his whole house from her offspring, and his storehouses from her treasures. 22. The crown of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, filling with peace and the fruit of salvation. 23. And He saw and numbered her: and both are the gifts of God. 24. Wisdom shall distribute knowledge and understanding of prudence: and she exalts the glory of those who hold her. 25. The root of wisdom is to fear the Lord, and her branches are long-lived. 26. In the treasures of wisdom is understanding, and the devotion of knowledge: but wisdom is an abomination to sinners. 27. The fear of the Lord drives out sin. 28. For he who is without fear cannot be justified: for the anger of his passion is his ruin. 29. The patient man will endure for a time, and afterward joy shall be restored to him. 30. Good sense will hide its words for a time, and the lips of many shall declare its meaning. 31. In the treasures of wisdom is the signification of discipline. 32. But the worship of God is an abomination to the sinner. 33. Son, if you desire wisdom, keep justice, and God will give her to you. 34. For wisdom and discipline are the fear of the Lord: and that which is pleasing to Him, 35. Is faith, and meekness, and He shall fill up their treasures. 36. Be not incredulous to the fear of the Lord, and come not to Him with a double heart. 37. Be not a hypocrite in the sight of men, and let not your lips be a stumbling block to you. 38. Attend to them, lest perhaps you fall and bring dishonor upon your soul. 39. And God reveal your hidden things, and cast you down in the midst of the congregation. 40. Because you came with malice to the Lord, and your heart is full of deceit and guile.

Note: Sirach here gives nine praises of wisdom: the first is, in verse 1, that it has its origin and source from God; the second, in verses 3 and following, that it is innumerable and immense; the third, in verse 4, that it is prior to all created things; the fourth, in the same place, that it is from everlasting, that is, eternal; the fifth, in verse 5, that it is the Word of the Most High Father; the sixth, in the same place, that its ways, that is, its paths and reasons, are the eternal commandments and decrees of God; the seventh, in verse 7, that it is incomprehensible to men; the eighth, in verse 9, that God created it in the Holy Spirit; the ninth, in verse 10, that He poured it out upon all His works, but especially granted it to those who love Him.

Then in like manner he gives fourteen praises of the fear of God, which is the companion, indeed the way and beginning of wisdom: the first, in verse 11, that the fear of God begets joy and glory; the second, in verse 13, that it shall go well in the end for him who fears the Lord; the third, in verse 15, that fear is the love of God, which by its very beauty alone draws all into love of itself; the fourth, in verse 16, that it is the beginning of wisdom; the fifth, in the same place, that it was created together with the faithful in the womb; the sixth, in the same place, that it walks with faithful women; the seventh, in verse 16, that it is devotion itself; the eighth, in verses 19 and 20, that it fills those who fear God with its fruits and spiritual gifts; the ninth, in verse 22, that it is the crown of wisdom, bringing full peace and health; the tenth, in verse 23, that it sees and numbers wisdom, so that it wisely measures and directs the acts and steps of man; the eleventh, in verse 24, that it gives knowledge and prudence to its disciples and followers; the twelfth, in verse 25, that it makes them long-lived; the thirteenth, in verse 27, that it drives out sins, especially those committed through anger and impatience; the fourteenth, in verse 29, that it patiently endures adversities for a time, but afterward joy, renown, praise, and glory are restored to it.

First Part of the Chapter

1. All wisdom is from the Lord God, and with Him it has been always, and is before all ages. — This sentence, which is three-membered, is already reduced and two-membered in the Greek; for it reads thus: "All wisdom is from the Lord, and with Him it is unto the age." So the Complutensian and Roman editions. The Latin version, therefore, is here richer and fuller than the Greek, as well as the Syriac and Arabic, which nearly agree with the Greek and appear to have been translated from it; for the Syriac reads: "All wisdom is from before the Lord, and it is with Him from the ages before the Lord," that is, from the Lord. This is a Syriac idiom. Similar is Daniel 2:6. The Arabic: "All wisdom is from the Lord, and it is with Him from of old."

He alludes to what Solomon says of wisdom in Wisdom 8:3: "Having fellowship with God," as if to say: Wisdom is an intimate companion, indeed a tent-mate of God; and in chapter 7, verse 25: "She is the breath of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God," as if to say: Wisdom is something subtle and fragrant, which is breathed forth from God and refreshes man with a certain divine breath and fragrance, so that he may have the scent of God, and his life and speech may breathe something divine. Hence the Wise Man adds about the same: "For she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of His goodness," as if to say:

Wisdom is a ray of the divine Majesty, as of an uncreated Sun.

Wisdom is here stated indefinitely and generally, so that you may understand any kind of wisdom under it, and accept all its species.

First, therefore, you may understand uncreated Wisdom, both essential, which is common to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for this flows from the essence of the divinity: hence it has been always with the triune and one God, and is before all ages from all eternity. I say "flows," speaking in human terms, and according to our way of conceiving divine things, following what we see in created things, in which attributes and properties, such as intellect, wisdom, goodness, flow from the very essence of a thing; whereas in God they do not properly flow or emanate from it, but are one and the same with it, as St. Thomas teaches (I, q. 28). By this wisdom God wisely produced, created, preserves, knows, disposes, and governs all things.

Again, by wisdom here you may understand notional wisdom, that is, personal and begotten, which is proper to the Word, or the Son of God: for He by generation properly flowed from God the Father, and was with Him always, and is from eternity. For the proper nature and notion of the Son of God is that He is Wisdom, the Word, the mental Concept, Knowledge, Understanding; because, namely, the Son is the Word produced through the Father's knowledge. So Rabanus and Paulus a Palacio. For to Him properly belongs that saying in verse 6: "The fountain of wisdom is the Word of God on high." Hence St. John seems to have alluded to this at the beginning of his Gospel, saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

For that three-membered sentence of St. John corresponds to this three-membered sentence of Ecclesiasticus, and the Zurich version signifies this more clearly, which reads: "From God flows all wisdom, with Him it always was, and to Him it is perpetually joined." For the Wisdom of the Father is the Word, that is, the Son. This was in the beginning: because it emanated from God the Father from eternity, and was begotten by Him. This also was always with God, as a Person distinct from Him, yet coeval with Him, intimate, equal, and co-equal: for all these things are signified by the word "with." This, finally, is most closely joined to God the Father perpetually; because it has the same numerical essence and divinity with Him, which St. John states: "And the Word was God."

In this three-membered sentence, therefore, St. John concerning the Word, and Ecclesiasticus concerning Wisdom, declares three predicates according to three categories, by which he encompasses its entire nature and power. For in the first member: "In the beginning was the Word," or "All wisdom is from God," he notes the Word's "when" and its eternity; so that if you should ask: When was the Word begotten by God the Father? it would answer: "From the beginning," that is, from eternity; from the very origin, I say, or rather from the origin of the Divinity, if it is permissible to speak thus: for properly there is no origin of the Divinity; but here its antiquity and eternity is called "origin" by catachresis. In the second member he notes the Word's "where" and its distinction from the Father; so that if you should ask: Where was the Word when the world had not yet been created? it would answer: "The Word was with God," it was in the bosom of the Father. In the third member he signifies the Word's essence and the identity of essence with the Father: so that if you should ask: What is the Word? Of what essence is it? it would answer: "The Word was God," that is, the Word was God; namely, having the divine essence and the very divinity of the Father: for the word "God," although it precedes, nevertheless has the force of a predicate, not a subject. So Rabanus says: "The beginning of this book prepares for the eternal Wisdom of God (which is Christ), that He was always with the Father before the ages; and it agrees with the Gospel of John, which begins thus: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: this was in the beginning with God. All wisdom, therefore, is from the Lord God: because Christ, who is the fountain of life and the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world, was born of God the Father, and all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made. But whoever lacks the light of this wisdom walks in darkness, and does not know where he goes: because darkness has blinded his eyes. And whatever is opposed to this wisdom should be called folly rather than prudence. Hence Paul says: For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. And again: For the prudence of the flesh is death; but the prudence of the spirit is life and peace. Because the wisdom of the flesh is hostile to God: for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be."

Moreover, this notional wisdom, namely the Word of God, St. Hierotheus celebrates with these praises and aphorisms, as reported by St. Dionysius, On the Divine Names, chapter 2, toward the end: "The divinity of Jesus," he says, "which is the cause of all things, and fills all things, and preserves the harmonious parts of the universe, is neither part nor whole; and again it is both part and whole: inasmuch as it has comprehended in itself and eminently possesses and pre-possesses every part and every whole. It is indeed perfect in imperfect things, as the source of perfection; but in perfect things it is imperfect, since it precedes perfection by its excellence and origin." And after some further words: "Being also an essence seated in all essences far from any contamination; and standing above essence, utterly absolute from all essence: determining all principles and orders; and placed above every principle and order, it is the measure of beings and the age: and above the age and before the age; full indeed in needy things; but overflowing in full things: ineffable, unutterable; above intellect; above life; above essence; it possesses a supernatural gift supernaturally, a super-essential gift by super-essential reason also. Wherefore, when out of supreme benevolence He came even to our nature, and truly assumed the substance of our flesh, and the most high God was called man, then also in these things the supernatural and super-essential gift shone forth."

Second, this sentence can be understood of created wisdom, which is manifold. The first place in it belongs to incarnate Wisdom, namely Christ as man, and His economy in the flesh. For this was the most wise work of God, and accordingly Christ as man displayed a marvelous heavenly wisdom in the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, sending of the Holy Spirit, mission of the Apostles, founding of the Church, institution of the Sacraments, conversion of the world, distribution of gifts and graces, and indeed in all His words and deeds, and offered Himself to all the faithful as a mirror and exemplar of wisdom to be beheld and imitated.

Second place belongs to purely created wisdom, such as that of all the angels and men. For in these, wisdom is a habit or act of knowing and being wise. The habit is created and infused by God; the act is elicited from the habit and power, with God cooperating through His concurrence. For although this wisdom in itself is not formally older than created things, namely the angels and men in whom it resides originally, nevertheless the same wisdom was causally in God from eternity, because the uncreated Wisdom of God, which is the efficient and exemplary cause of created wisdom, was in God from eternity. For just as from the immense essence of God, as from a fountain, origin, and efficient and exemplary cause, flow all the natures and essences of created things; and from the eternity of God flows every age, every time, every duration; and from the immensity of God flows every place and position; from God's omnipotence flows every force and power; from His most sacred holiness flows every virtue and sanctity: so likewise from His omniscience and wisdom flows all created knowledge and wisdom, as St. Dionysius teaches in On the Divine Names, and theologians everywhere.

By wisdom here, understand both speculative wisdom, such as Daniel received infused by God on account of his merit of abstinence along with his companions, in chapter 1; and even more so practical wisdom, which is the principle of things to be done, and which wisely directs the morals of each person, family, or commonwealth, and shapes and orders them according to the rule of divine law, honesty, and virtue, as I said in canon V. By this wisdom, therefore, man rightly judges and savors things concerning God and creatures, and wisely knows how to arrange his actions so as to arrive at the blessed end for which he was created by God.

Origen in homily 24 on Numbers extends this wisdom also to the mechanical arts, such as architecture, carpentry, navigation, etc. For these too have their origin from God, and flow from the uncreated art that is in the mind of God. The arts, therefore, are from God; but the corruptions of the arts are from demons and men, says Origen. Thus Bezalel is said to have received from God "wisdom," that is, "the art of devising whatever can be wrought from gold, silver, and bronze," for fabricating the tabernacle, Exodus 31:3. The same Origen in homily 18 on Numbers says: "All wisdom, that is, every art, such as Music, Geometry, Medicine, Physics, etc., is from God and flows from Him." Hence also Ecclesiasticus, chapter 32:5, discusses music; chapter 38:26, agriculture, the art of the smith, pottery, and similar crafts.

Finally, this practical wisdom in God is twofold: namely, physical, by which He wisely created, preserves, changes, produces, and governs all created things, as Ecclesiasticus teaches in chapter 28:6 and chapter 39:21; and moral, by which He does all things honestly, justly, and holily, and ordains, decrees, and brings it about that the angels and men do the same.

Third, very aptly, you may understand wisdom here not so much as a habit or act, but as the object and dictate of wisdom. For wisdom dictates that God is to be feared; that parents are to be honored; that one must live soberly, justly, and chastely; that one must not lie; that friendship, patience, charity, etc., are to be cultivated. These dictates are of eternal truth, and therefore were from eternity in the mind of God, in which the everlasting reasons of all things live, says St. Augustine. For they flow from the eternal and immense perfection, equity, and wisdom of God; and from it they have flowed down to men and angels. For just as every law of men and angels flows from the eternal law that is in the mind of God, so likewise these truths and dictates of wisdom flow from the first truth and wisdom of God; so much so that if, per impossibile, that first truth and wisdom of God did not exist, there would be no truth, no dictate of wisdom in men and angels; just as if there were no deity, there would be no entity of creatures: for all created entity essentially flows from and depends in its being and preservation on the infinite and uncreated entity of God, just as a ray flows from and depends on the sun, light on the source of light, heat on fire.

In God, therefore, as our Lessius rightly teaches in book VI of On the Divine Attributes, chapter 1, there is wisdom that knows all things through the supreme causes; namely, through the knowledge of His own essence, which is the supreme efficient, final, exemplary, and fundamental cause of all things. For by comprehending His own essence, by the very force of that comprehension He knows most distinctly and clearly all possible things (under which are also contained all the combinations of possible things), namely, whatever He Himself can do; and by comprehending those, He further knows in particular all things that each of them can do or suffer, and in what respects they can fail. And not only this, but also what each thing would do in any given circumstance, if such or such an occasion were given. Nor does He stop there; but He also clearly beholds what will actually happen for all eternity, at what moments, in what places, under what circumstances and other conditions. The reason is that in God the abstractive knowledge of possible things, since it is of infinite perfection and efficacy in reaching its object, by the very fact that those objects are actually going to exist, becomes an intuition of existing things; and no other force or effort is needed.

Hence it is clear that all intuition of future things comes from the force of the comprehension of the essence, and nothing else is required but the positing of the objects. For then the knowledge which previously, or in the prior sign of reason, was abstractive, passes into intuitive knowledge by the force of its perfection. St. Dionysius teaches this openly in On the Divine Names, chapter 7: "For," he says, "the divine mind does not know things by learning from things themselves; but from itself, and in itself, it pre-possesses and beforehand comprehends according to cause the knowledge, notion, and essence of all things; not attending to each according to the species of each, but knowing and containing all things according to the single embrace of the cause; just as light in itself according to cause anticipates the notion of darkness, knowing darkness from no other source than from light." Here he manifestly teaches that God knows other things from the force of the knowledge of His essence as the cause of all; which is confirmed by the words that follow: "Therefore divine Wisdom, knowing itself, will know all things; material things without matter; and divisible things indivisibly, and many things unitedly, knowing and producing all things by that one. For if God imparts being to all things according to one cause, according to the same single cause He will know all things, as existing from Himself and pre-existing in Himself." Hence he concludes: "God, therefore, knowing things in this way, knows them not by the knowledge of things, but by the knowledge of Himself." And St. Augustine in book 11 of The City of God, chapter 10: "For there is not many wisdoms but one wisdom, in which are certain immense and infinite treasures of intelligible things; in which are all the invisible and unchangeable reasons of things, even of visible and changeable things, which were made through it; because God made nothing without knowing it." From which Augustine infers "that this world could not be known to us unless it existed: but to God, unless it were known, it could not exist;" because God through His wisdom is the author of the world, which by its appearance impresses upon us an external knowledge of itself.

By this sentence, therefore, at the beginning of his wisdom book, Sirach teaches that the origin, antiquity, idea, and cause of wisdom is God, who is wise and eternal by His essence. This is surely the first and highest praise and dignity of wisdom, so that through it he may invite and impel all to the admiration, love, and pursuit of wisdom, as if to say: All wisdom, that is, every habit, every act, every object, every dictate, every truth of wisdom that is in men and angels, flows from God, and has been with Him from eternity, either formally or causally. Therefore acknowledge its divine origin, antiquity, and excellence, and humbly ask and demand it from God. For all wisdom is from God, with God, and in God from eternity: for although it flows from God to creatures, yet it flows in such a way that it does not leave God, but remains in Him as in a root and fountain, and firmly resides there; just as light flowing from the sun and spread throughout the world remains in the sun itself; and heat flowing and spreading from fire remains and resides in the fire itself.

This is what St. James says in chapter 1:5: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all abundantly, and does not reproach; and it shall be given to him." For, as he adds in verse 17: "Every best gift, and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration. For of His own will He begot us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of His creation." See what was said there. The same origin of Wisdom, namely God, the Wise Man assigns in Proverbs 8:22: "The Lord," he says, "possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning." And Job in chapter 28:12, laboriously tracing the place and origin of wisdom, at last resolves and answers in verse 23: "The Lord," he says, "understands the way of it, and He knows its place." And Baruch, chapter 3:44, after a long search for it, concludes in verse 32: "He who knows all things, knows it, and found it by His prudence."

The Gentiles themselves saw this same truth through a shadow. Hence the Poets, says Servius, invented the story that Prometheus, after making men, ascended to heaven with the help of Minerva, and by holding a torch to the wheel of the sun, stole fire, which he shared with men. This fire represents wisdom, which our most prudent Prometheus, Jesus Christ, brought down from heaven. Hence Prometheus was called from the Greek word meaning "from providence." For St. John says of Christ in chapter 1:16: "Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace; because the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God: the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." In a similar way they invented Minerva, or Pallas, the goddess of wisdom, to be the daughter of Jupiter, and a virgin, and thus born from the brain, that is, the mind and intellect of Jupiter, without a mother. Hence Lucan, book 9:

"Pallas too loves this land, she who was born from her father's head."

And Ovid in Fasti III:

"Or is it because she is said to have leapt forth without a mother from her father's head, with her own shield?"

They followed, indeed, but did not fully grasp that saying of Ecclesiasticus 24:5: "I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, the firstborn before every creature."

You will say: Love, fear, hope, and charity also flow from God and are His gifts; why then is it said here only of wisdom that it is from God? I respond: first, because Ecclesiasticus treats of wisdom and its virtues, and will treat of it throughout the whole book; hence he sets forth its origin and antiquity at the outset, so as to win praise and value for it from this. Second, because the first and greatest thing that proceeded from God is wisdom; for the first thing that the Father produced and begot was the Word, which is the very conception and notional understanding of the Father, and therefore begotten Wisdom. So Palacius. Finally, from the fact that wisdom is in God, from God, and directed to God, Lactantius in book 3, chapter 9, refutes the philosopher Anaxagoras, who, when asked "for the sake of what thing he was born," answered: "To see the sun and the sky." For "we are not born," says Lactantius, "to see the things that have been made; but to contemplate the very maker of all things, that is, to perceive Him with the mind. Wherefore, if anyone should ask a man who truly knows, for the sake of what he was born, he will answer boldly and readily that he was born for the sake of worshipping God, who begot us for this purpose, that we might serve Him." And shortly after: "For what is humanity itself, if not justice, if not piety? And piety is nothing other than the acknowledgment of God as parent." And in chapter 12: "For this reason," he says, "we alone among living creatures are raised upright to the sight of heaven, so that we may believe our supreme good to be in the highest place. For this reason we alone grasp religion, so that from this we may know that the human spirit is not mortal, because it both desires and recognizes God, who is immortal."

Again, from the fact that wisdom is the daughter of God, it follows that the wise have kinship with God and are children of God. Hence of St. Basil, his brother, Gregory of Nyssa writes in the funeral oration: "Basil's lineage," he says, "was familiarity and intimacy with God; his homeland was virtue, etc.; sobriety was his dwelling; wisdom his estate; justice, truth, and purity served as his splendid buildings." Finally, St. Bernard in sermon 13 on the Song of Songs says: "To the place from which they go out, the rivers of graces return, that they may flow again; let the heavenly stream be sent back to its source, so that it may be poured out more abundantly upon the earth. How, you ask? As the Apostle says: Giving thanks in all things; whatever wisdom, whatever virtue you trust yourself to have, attribute it to the power and wisdom of God, that is, to Christ."

And is before all ages — before the world, as if to say: Wisdom is before all time, and, as St. Paul says to Titus 1:2: "Before the times of the ages." For the Greek word aion, from which the Latin aevum derives, signifies any duration: although theologians appropriate eternity to God, aevum to angels, and time to men and bodies, so that, just as time is the measure of bodies, so aevum is the measure of spirits. Therefore aevum is taken differently in verse 4, where it is said that "Wisdom was from aevum," that is, from all eternity. Hence also the Greek of this verse 1 reads "unto the age," as if to say: Wisdom is with God, and endures "unto the age," that is, forever.

2. The sand of the sea, and the drops of rain, and the days of the world, who has numbered them? — In Greek: "who will number them." The height of heaven, and the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss, who has measured? — The phrase "has measured" is absent in the Greek. 3. The wisdom of God, preceding all things, who has searched out? — In Greek: "who will search out, will trace out."

He alludes to Isaiah 40:12: "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? Who has balanced the mass of the earth with three fingers, and weighed the mountains and hills in a scale? Who has assisted the Spirit of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor, and has taught Him?" And chapter 48:13: "My hand founded the earth, and My right hand measured the heavens." And Jeremiah 33:22: "As the stars of heaven cannot be numbered, and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so will I multiply your seed." And Job 38:4: "Where were you when I was laying the foundations of the earth? Who set its measurements? Or who stretched a line upon it?" And verse 37: "Who will explain the order of the heavens?"

He praises wisdom from its excellence, which is so great that it is incomprehensible; and it is an argument from comparison. Therefore these three verses must be connected together; for the first two are the comparisons of the third, in which accordingly, so that they may be linked and completed, a mark of comparison must be understood: thus, similarly, likewise. Hence the Arabic, expressing this, translates: "As the sea and the sand of the sea, etc." And so the conjunction "and," which is in the Greek, according to canon 12, compares wisdom to three things that cannot be numbered, namely, the sand of the sea, the drops of rain, and the days of the world; and to three things that cannot be measured, namely, the height of heaven, the breadth of the earth, and the depth of the abyss, that is, of the waters and the sea: because in these six things the wisdom of God especially shines forth, as much as His power. For, to omit the rest in which this is evident, who would not admire the wisdom of God in such a multitude of grains of sand (so much so that some have thought them to be truly infinite, as Archimedes reports and refutes in his book On the Number of Sand) and their smallness, that in each one there is such integrity of nature, perfection, likeness, order, union, succession, force and power, by which they resist the most powerful waves of the sea and absorb them, so that the cheap and tiny sand seems to be the boundary and bridle of the vast and untamable sea? Truly,

"The greatest God Himself stands out in the smallest things."

The meaning, therefore, is, as if to say: Just as these six things, namely sand, drops, days, heavens, earth, and sea, cannot be numbered or measured by man, but only by God; so likewise (indeed much less) no one can comprehend the wisdom of God, which precedes all things (the Zurich version: which is the first of all things), except God alone, both because the wisdom of God in itself is in every direction immense and infinite, and because it extends to infinite things made, to be made, and possible, and in them displays, or can display, infinite modes and reasons of its wisdom, which man or angel cannot of himself see or conceive, unless they are revealed to him by God. Hence Rabanus says: "If those things, which nevertheless were all created by their Creator with a certain number, measure, and weight, no one can number and measure; how can anyone search out the wisdom of God, which has neither end nor beginning, and always remains indescribable and inestimable?"

Wherefore in Psalm 17, verses 10 and 12, and elsewhere, God is said to dwell in a cloud and darkness, to which, together with Moses, we ought to ascend, as St. Dionysius teaches, and he describes it thus in Epistle 5 to Hierotheus: "The divine darkness," he says, "is the inaccessible light in which God is said to dwell, and He is invisible because of exceeding brightness, and inaccessible because of the excess of the outpouring of super-substantial light. In this darkness everyone who is deemed worthy to know and see God comes to be, through not seeing and not knowing Him, truly coming to be in Him who is above all vision and knowledge, knowing this very thing: that He is beyond all sensible and intelligible things, and prophetically saying: Your knowledge is made wonderful beyond me, it is made strong, I cannot attain to it."

He confirms this same point from St. Paul, when he adds: "So also the divine Paul is said to have known God, knowing Him to be above every existing intellect and knowledge. For this reason he says that His ways are unsearchable, and His judgments inscrutable, and His gifts indescribable; and that His peace exceeds all understanding, as one who has found Him who exists above all things; and he knew Him above the intellect, because He is beyond all things, being the cause of all."

The same author, in On the Divine Names, chapter 1, speaking of God says: "That super-essential immensity itself surpasses all essences. That unity itself, superior to intellect, towers above all intellects; that One itself, more excellent than thought, can be grasped by no thoughts; and no good can be compared to that good which is above all goodness.

From what has been said, it is clear that God beholds and has numbered all things that are in the world, down to the most minute parts, shapes, colors, qualities, conditions, positions, tiny movements, moments, and all modes and relations, most distinctly and perfectly; namely, all little worms, all flies, all animals and the parts of each, all blades of grass, all herbs and plants, all leaves of the forests, all hairs of animals, all the sands of the shore and the desert, all drops of the sea, all drops of rain, all the curlings of the waves, all the movements of leaves, the measurements, distances, agreements, discrepancies, positions, modes, and times of all things; all the thoughts of men and angels, all affections, all intentions, present, past, and future, and the moments of each one. All these things He always beholds, penetrates, and comprehends most distinctly and clearly; and this so clearly and perfectly, as if the entire force of His mind were intent on one single thing among them. This indeed must be carefully pondered, lest anyone think that something can be hidden from Him, or that something is less perfectly known to Him.

In such an immense multitude of things, as wicked men are accustomed to think, in whose person it is said in Job 22: "For what does God know? And He judges as though through a mist: the clouds are His hiding place, and He does not consider our affairs, and He walks about the poles of heaven." The Wise Man admonishes these in Ecclesiasticus 16: "Do not say: I shall be hidden from God, and who from on high will remember me? In so great a people I shall not be noticed; for what is my soul in such an immense creation? Behold, the heaven, and the heavens of heavens, the abyss, and the whole earth, and the things that are in them, shall be moved in His sight; the mountains and the hills together, and the foundations of the earth, when God shall look upon them, shall be shaken with trembling."

The a priori reason is this: just as His essence and power is wholly present in each individual point of place and space, and as perfectly as if the entire immensity were contracted to a single point; so also the force of His understanding and wisdom operates around individual things as perfectly and efficaciously as if it were intent on one alone. For the light of His wisdom is not only infinite extensively, namely because it extends to infinite objects; but also intensively, so that around each individual object it has an act of infinite perfection and clarity.

You will object first: The days of the world are easy to number from the years of the world that have passed since the beginning of the world: for multiply the years of the world by 365 (the number of days in a year), and you will have the number of days of the world. I respond first: Just as the number of years of the world is uncertain (for nearly all chronologists disagree among themselves about this: some reckon that 4,500 years have elapsed since the origin of the world, others 5,000, others more or fewer), so likewise the number of past days of the world is uncertain, and consequently cannot be numbered with certainty. Add to this: even if the years could be numbered with certainty and precision, the days nevertheless cannot be precisely numbered, because some years were complete and others incomplete. For when, for example, Adam is said to have lived 930 years, and David to have reigned 40 years, etc., it is true that they lived and reigned that many years, even if some days were lacking or in excess; for a few days in a year are not counted. Therefore to number precisely the days of all the Patriarchs, princes, and kings who have existed from the beginning of the world up to now, and have succeeded one another in order, is impossible. I respond second: the days of the future world are innumerable, because we do not know how many years will remain and pass until the end of the world. Moreover, the days of the world that we imagine, if we were to measure the world as enduring forever, commensurate with eternity, are truly infinite, and therefore innumerable. Hence for "days of the world," some translate: "The days of eternity, who will number them?" For the Greek has aionos; but our translator more correctly renders it "days of the world."

You will object second: The mathematicians, and among them our Christopher Clavius in his Sphere, book 1, numbers not only the sands of the sea but of the whole world; he also measures the height of heaven and the breadth of the earth; for all these things are finite, and therefore numerable and measurable. For the mathematicians divide the globe or circumference of the earth, as well as of heaven, into 360 degrees, and have discovered that one degree on the earth's circumference corresponds to 700 stadia, which multiplied by 360 degrees make 252,000 stadia, which is the number and magnitude of the whole circumference of the earth. These stadia amount to 31,500 Italian miles of a thousand paces each; for one stadium contains 125 paces and is the eighth part of a mile. The same mathematicians, through the astrolabe and other instruments, teach that the concave surface of the eighth heaven, or firmament, is distant from the earth by eighty million miles; and the convex surface is distant from the earth by 160 million, as I said on Genesis 1:16.

Again, Clavius in the same place, page 120, from Archimedes and others shows that the number of grains of sand which could be contained in the whole world up to the concave surface of the firmament would be 1 followed by 52 zeros; and he demonstrates this from proportion: for one grain of poppy seed does not contain more than ten thousand grains of sand; and a grain of poppy seed is a fortieth part of a finger-breadth; and one hundred thousand finger-breadths roughly make one mile; and the world contains as many miles as suffice for holding the number of grains of sand just reviewed, according to the proportion just stated.

I respond first: These things are only stated conjecturally; hence there is nothing certain or definite in them. A sure indication of this is that mathematicians vary and disagree among themselves. For, as Clavius teaches in the same place, page 115, Aristotle reckons the circumference of the earth to contain fifty thousand miles; Hipparchus, 34,625; Ptolemy, 22,500; Alphraganus, 20,400; Fernelius, 24,514; more recent authorities, 19,080. Moreover, others deny that one degree out of 360 corresponds to 700 stadia on earth; but some assign more, others fewer.

Moreover, regarding the number of grains of sand that the world could hold, it is mere conjecture; and this number is not adequate and precise, but too small, as Clavius himself admits; and this Sacred Scripture sufficiently indicates here and elsewhere, which everywhere declares that the sands of the sea absolutely and definitively cannot be numbered. Add to this: even if the grains of sand could be numbered confusedly through arithmetic progression in the manner just described, they still could not be numbered distinctly and individually, as is obvious to anyone who looks at them: for who has ever actually counted the sands of the sea? Finally, the number of grains of sand in the world just given is so great that it cannot be clearly and distinctly conceived, numbered, and comprehended by any human mind (and perhaps not even by an angel), much less clearly and distinctly expressed and enumerated by the tongue.

Add further: the grains of sand are so many and so minute that a human lifetime (say, seventy years) would not suffice to separate them one by one, inspect them individually, and count them.

4. Wisdom was created before all things (Vatablus: "the first of all"), and the understanding of prudence from everlasting. — Sirach praised wisdom from its origin and lineage, namely that it derives from God, in verse one; in the three following verses he praised it from its amplitude and immensity, namely that like (indeed more than) sand, drops, and days it is innumerable, and like heaven, earth, and sea it is immeasurable. Here he praises the same from its antiquity, which although he hinted at in verse 1, here nevertheless he expresses it clearly and explicitly, saying that it was prior to all things, and "from everlasting," that is, from eternity. He alludes to, indeed cites, Proverbs 8:22: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning (Hebrew: reshit, that is, beginning, principle, sovereignty) of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. From eternity I was ordained." Where the Septuagint translates: "The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works." Sirach follows the Septuagint here, when he says that wisdom was created as prior from everlasting. Now there is a threefold meaning here, according to the threefold signification of wisdom that I assigned in verse 1.

Wisdom is taken here in its broadest sense, as it is common to both created and uncreated wisdom; and therefore some things are said which more fittingly apply to uncreated wisdom, such as that it was from eternity; and some things which more fittingly apply to created wisdom, such as that it was created as prior.

The first meaning concerns uncreated Wisdom: both essential, which is common to the Most Holy Trinity; and notional, which is proper to the Son. For both were prior to all created things from everlasting, that is, from eternity; prior, I say, both in origin and time, and consequently in dignity and sovereignty, and in causality and efficiency: for through wisdom God created all things. Both are here said to be "created." The essential wisdom, indeed, because it was conceived and elicited by God. For just as our mind creates understanding when it elicits and conceives an act of understanding; so also God is said to have created wisdom when He elicited and conceives (in our way of understanding) the act of understanding and being wise. For every act of wisdom in us and in the angels is elicited, and God truly had from eternity a similar act by which He understood, conceived, and ordered most wisely Himself and all things. For even though this act in God is not properly elicited but substantial, because it is intrinsic to the divinity, and therefore in reality one and the same thing with it; nevertheless, speaking in human terms and according to our way of conceiving, as I have already said, it is called elicited, as if flowing from the very substance and perfection of the divinity, just as light flows from the sun. For the word "to create" is taken by the Hebrews in the broadest sense for to make, to elicit, to conceive; as when Isaiah says in chapter 45:6: "I am the Lord who forms light and creates darkness, who makes peace and creates evil," that is, who makes, who brings forth evil and darkness; for these, since they are mere privation, cannot properly be created. And Psalm 50:12: "Create a clean heart," that is, produce, bring forth "in me, O God." For a heart already created cannot properly be created again; nor can its cleanness, since it is an accident.

Moreover, this uncreated Wisdom, said to be "created," that is, conceived, was prior from God not only to creatures but also to the other attributes, because God is a pure spirit and mind. Therefore, just as from the mind there first flows understanding, then will and power — for these can will or do nothing unless the understanding has first understood and judged what is to be willed or done — so likewise from the divinity, and from the mind of God, according to our way of conceiving, there first came forth understanding and wisdom, then will and love. By reason of this, the generation of the Word, which is the work and conception of the intellect, was prior in origin in God the Father to the spiration of the Holy Spirit, which is the work of the will and love.

Again, these words can be explained of begotten wisdom, which is entirely the same as the Word and the Son, and therefore relative and notional, as St. Augustine teaches in book 7 of On the Trinity, chapter 11; the Master in book 1, distinction 28, letter F, and there Bonaventure and St. Thomas in book 1, distinction 32, article 2. Hence from this passage, and from chapter 24:14, the Arians inferred that begotten Wisdom was truly created, and therefore the Son of God was not God but a creature. But St. Athanasius in sermon 3 Against the Arians and St. Cyril in book 5 of the Thesaurus, chapter 6, respond that Wisdom is said to be "created," that is, "begotten." For in Scripture "to create" is often the same as "to beget," indeed "to make" in whatever manner; and accordingly Sacred Scripture often uses these three words interchangeably for the same thing, as St. Athanasius and Cyril show by examples. St. Hilary adds in his book On the Synods, anathematism 5, that the production of the Son of God is sometimes called generation, because it is a production in the same substance; and sometimes creation, to signify a production without change in the one who creates; for the word "created" signifies the generation of the Father accomplished without passion.

from eternity, created, that is, decreed to be created; for its creation was predestined by God from eternity. For He understood this wisdom from eternity as derived from His first and uncreated Wisdom, to be applied to creation in its own time and communicated to creatures, and He set it before His intellect and will, willing to create it according to the reasons and modes proposed to Himself by His intellect. So St. Thomas, I p., Question XLI, art. 3. For thus the Hebrews often use real verbs for mental or verbal ones: as when the Apostle, 1 Timothy I, verse 9, says that the grace of Christ was given to us before the ages of time, that is, decreed and predestined to be given. And Jeremiah, chapter I, 10, says he was set over the nations to root up, destroy, and scatter, that is, to foretell and, as it were, decree on God's behalf what was to be rooted up, destroyed, and scattered. The Syriac seems to take this of created wisdom, rendering it: "Above all these things (namely, above the sand of the sea, the drops of rain, the days of the world, the height of heaven, the breadth of the earth, and the abyss, of which the preceding discourse treated) wisdom has been multiplied, and faith has been strengthened (or prevailed) from before," or from the beginning. Where he seems to interpret wisdom as faith, just as our translator interprets it as the understanding of prudence; because faith teaches and suggests the dictates of wisdom and prudence. The Arabic agrees with the Syriac, and renders: "More than all these things wisdom has been multiplied, faith has been confirmed."

But most especially, the Incarnate Wisdom, namely Christ as man, was created, that is, predestined to be created. For it properly belongs to Him to be created in time according to His humanity, and to be begotten from eternity according to His divinity. So Rabanus here, and St. Athanasius, Sermon 3 Against the Arians; Nazianzen, Oration 4 On Theology; Cyril, Book V of the Thesaurus, chapter IV, and St. Augustine, Book V On the Trinity, chapter XII.

Again, Christ was created first of all, and, as the Wise Man says in Proverbs VIII, 22, He was the beginning; in Hebrew, reshit; in Greek, archen, that is, the principle and principality, "of the ways of the Lord"; because the Lord assigned to Christ the primacy of His works, and made Him the head of all His predefinitions, predestinations and predestined ones, of His effects, creatures, gifts, graces, and virtues, which He derives from Him and through Him into the rest of the Saints, as by the influx of the head into the members. Hence St. Ambrose, in his book On the Intercession of Job: "To Christ alone, he says, was reserved the prerogative of great virtues, because He Himself is the principle of virtues, as He said: The Lord created me the beginning of His ways." And St. Basil in the Apology to the Caesareans: "Christ, he says, is called the beginning of the evangelical ways, which lead us to the kingdom," so that through us the ruins of the Angels, as well as of men, might be restored and repaired.

Third, wisdom, that is, the objects and dictates of wisdom, were created from eternity, that is, elicited and dictated by the mind of God; and decreed to be created in time and communicated to the Angels, to men, and to the rest of creatures.

Again, some explain it thus: Created wisdom is prior to all things, that is, wisdom was made prior to all things; wisdom was set over all things; wisdom was given this dignity, that it should be prior to and prince of all things; so that, namely, it would be the idea, exemplar, and architect of all things to be created. For the verb "I create" sometimes means the same as "I set over," as when we say: The king creates princes, leaders, magistrates. Hence the Syriac renders: Above all these things wisdom has been multiplied and has prevailed. So that passage in Proverbs VIII, 22: "The Lord created me the beginning of His ways"; according to the Septuagint. St. Athanasius, commenting on the decrees of the Nicene Council, explains it thus: "The Lord set me over His works, to begin and inaugurate them." And our Salazar judges this to be most genuinely the sense of that passage. But that interpretation does not quite fit this place.

For in explaining, Sirach adds: "And the understanding of prudence from eternity." He is therefore speaking of the priority of age and time, not of preeminence and office. The sense already given, then, is more etiological and causal than proper and formal. For the cause and end for which wisdom was created first was that it would be the idea, exemplar, cause, and architect of all other things to be created and done.

AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF PRUDENCE. — Vatablus: "And prudent intelligence." I have already said in Canon V that wisdom is now called understanding, now prudence, now knowledge, etc. For it is called wisdom insofar as it savors true and heavenly things, and truly makes one wise. The same is called understanding or intelligence insofar as it is sublime, and is perceived only by the intellect of Angels and intelligent men. The same is called prudence insofar as it prudently directs the actions of man and Angel toward the good, the honorable, and the due end. Hence the Platonists, whom St. Augustine follows, used to say that when our reason contemplates the highest things, it is called reason and wisdom; but when it has care of the lowest things, it is called prudence. The sense therefore is, as if to say: God's wisdom not only regards divine things, as wisdom; but it also stoops down to human misery and ignorance, to teach it to act prudently, and for this reason it puts on the character and name of prudence. Again, Palacios says: Understanding is the same as acumen; as if to say: Wisdom is the acumen of prudence that existed from eternity; for wisdom is the sublimity and immensity of prudence. So it is said in verse 24: "Wisdom will share the knowledge and understanding of prudence," that is, wisdom gives the knowledge and acumen of prudence.

FROM ETERNITY. — That is, from all eternity, or from all imaginary time, which we mentally conceive as having coexisted with eternity, that is, as the Apostle says, from eternal ages, Romans XVI, 25. For from eternity uncreated wisdom existed in God formally; but created wisdom existed in Him eminently, objectively, exemplarily, and efficiently, or as in an exemplary and efficient cause, as I have already said. This is the fourth praise of wisdom, namely, that it is eternal.

ever-existing truth: around which, as pure and never-straying knowledge of all things, divine faith consists, the stable firmament of believers; which indeed places them in the truth and places truth in them by a certain identity that can never be dissolved." This is the fifth praise of wisdom, that it is the understanding and word of the divine mind, by which the Father, knowing Himself and all things, spoke Himself and all things. For the Father uttered a good word, Psalm XLIV, 1.

Secondly, the created word could be understood here, namely, the law decreed and given by God to all creatures; the law, I say, both natural, such as the law of the heavens, of water, of fire, that is, their state, course, and order fixed and implanted in them by God, according to that saying: "By Your ordinance the day persists," Psalm CXVIII, 91. And: "He established them forever, and for ages of ages," Psalm CXLVIII, 6. And also moral, such as the natural and positive law given to men and Angels: for this leads them to the fountain of wisdom, indeed it is for them the fountain and spring of wisdom. So Pineda, Book III On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter XXVI, n. 6. "The fountain, he says, of wisdom is the Word of God in the highest: and the paths (ways, approaches, journeys) of it are eternal commandments" (which the supreme legislator God commands to be kept perpetually): for just as the way is the same, the journey the same, and the same impulse of the human mind through the keeping of the commandments to merit wisdom and to see that first and most exalted fountain of divine light: so the same is the outflow and course of wisdom communicated by God to men, walking and running through the same paths of the commandments, and never straying from God, that is, from its source; as it is written in John VI: "Everyone who has heard from the Father and has learned, comes to Me." But if the entire stream of wisdom is consumed either in seeking earthly riches, or in pursuing the pleasures of animal life, or in courting the most vain honors, and seeks nothing divine: "that is not the wisdom descending from above, but earthly, animal, diabolical. But the wisdom that is from above is full of good fruits," etc. James, chapter III, 15.

Finally Palacios explains, as if to say: The Word of God is the fountain, the well, the sea, and ocean of wisdom. For, as St. Augustine says in his Sermon on the Samaritan Woman, "Every well is a fountain: therefore the Word of God, which is the sea of wisdom, will surely also be the fountain of wisdom." St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his Oration on Theology, says: "These three are to be distinguished: river, fountain, eye of the fountain. The river flows from the fountain; the fountain is made from the eye; from the eye water bubbles up, which makes the fountain; from the fountain water comes forth, which makes the stream." Fittingly, therefore, the Word is called a fountain flowing from the eye, that is, emanating from the mind of the Father: for the mind of the Father is like an eye always open to beholding Himself and understanding all things. From this fountain, namely the Word, flow streams, that is, all creatures.

5. THE FOUNTAIN OF WISDOM IS THE WORD OF GOD IN THE HIGHEST. — As if to say: The Word of the Most High God, dwelling in the highest heavens, is the fountain of wisdom. In Scripture, wisdom is usually compared to water, to a river, to the sea, because of its many analogies with these things; because, namely, just as water irrigates arid land, plants, and thirsty men, so wisdom irrigates, satiates, inebriates, vivifies, gladdens, impregnates, and makes fruitful arid and thirsty minds. Hence that passage in chapter XXIV, 40: "I, wisdom, poured forth rivers; I am like a channel of immense water from a river; I am like the river Dioryx, and like an aqueduct I came out of paradise." So here Sirach compares it to the same, as if to say: Just as water collected in the bowels of the earth bursts forth in a fountain, and there first shows and communicates itself, so as to be and be called a fountain of waters, from which streams are derived here and there: so wisdom, first collected in God (for in Him it had its origin and gathering, as I said in verse 1), first communicated itself and, as it were, burst forth in the Word, and constituted it the fountain of wisdom, from which all its streams might be derived into men, Angels, and the rest of creatures. The Word of God is twofold: essential, common to the whole Holy Trinity; and notional, proper to the Son. For the word of the mind is the very conception and understanding of the mind. Just as therefore conception and understanding in the divine realm is twofold: essential, by which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit understand all things; and notional, by which the Son is spoken and produced, so likewise is the Word.

More properly, however, you should understand the notional Word, that is, the Son, with St. Augustine, Book XV On the Trinity, chapter XI, because this is properly called the Word, and is the fountain of wisdom flowing from the Father. And He mentions it to signify that wisdom must be sought by man from Christ, who is the heavenly Word of God, foreign to all earthly impurity, upright, holy, and perfect, from whom therefore flow eternal commandments, which are firm and constant in themselves, last forever, and lead those who observe them to blessed eternity. The essential Word, therefore, is the very conception and command of God, by which He spoke all things in wisdom and commanded them to be made, saying: Let there be light, sun, stars, men, living creatures, etc. Genesis I, and immediately they were made. Similar is the notional Word: both are uncreated. Divinely St. Dionysius, On the Divine Names, chapter VII: "The Word, he says, God is praised by divine Scriptures, not only because He supplies the word, or reason, and mind, and wisdom; but also because He holds all causes in Himself equally anticipated, and because He goes through all things, reaching, as it is written (Wisdom VIII), even to the end of all things." And shortly after he adds: "This word is the simple, truly

The ancients searched for many centuries for the source or origin of the Nile, and could not find it. Hence Lucan, Book X: "Nature has revealed its hidden head to no one, Nor has it been permitted to the peoples to see you small, O Nile; It has removed its recesses, and the nations have preferred To wonder at your origins rather than know them." At last in our own century it became known that the Nile rises among the Ethiopians, namely, in a certain lake in Africa in the kingdom of the Congo, as the Portuguese observed, who explored those places.

The Philosophers searched even more for the fountain of wisdom, but with fruitless effort. Sirach therefore here designates that fountain and indicates it to be the Word of God in the highest; to signify that the source which is in heaven is sought in vain on earth: in Ethiopia, I say, that is, in the splendor and ardor of the divine Holy Trinity, according to that saying of Psalm CIX, verse 3: "With You is the beginning in the day of Your power, in the splendors of the saints: from the womb before the morning star I begot You." He says therefore: "The fountain of wisdom is the Word of God in the highest," as if to say: The eternal Word of God the Father is the fountain of all wisdom, from which all creatures, all Angels and men draw and borrow their streams of wisdom. Moreover, this fountain of divine wisdom has its order of objects in God and the Word, according to our mode of understanding. For in the first sign of reason, it is directed to the divine essence and the divine persons: in the second, to all possible things: in the third, to all possible works of possible things: in the fourth, to all things future on hypothesis: in the fifth, to all things future absolutely. Hence it was rightly said by the Prophet: "Of His wisdom there is no number."

Wherefore all created things, or things to be created and possible things, are in the divine essence as in the primordial fund and foundation of things; in power, as in the efficient cause from nothing; in wisdom formally and objectively, and as in an exemplary cause. Wisdom first, turned upon the essence, comprehends it entirely, making itself equal to it and perfectly commensurate. From the force of this comprehension immediately follows the conception or fashioning of all possible things: from this, the distinct knowledge of all works and effects that can be done by a creature, both possible and existing: hence the clear intuition of all those things that would be future under any hypothesis: finally, the eternal vision of all things that actually are, or were, or will be present, past, or future. In this mode and order the wisdom of God proceeds into five, as it were, spheres of objects and intelligible things; and whatever else it touches, it touches from the force of its comprehension of the essence, which is the first reason and foundation of all possible things.

And so in God there is not only the universality of wisdom and intelligence, but also the universality of objects and intelligible things.

Morally, St. Augustine on Psalm XXXV, verse 10: "For with You is the fountain of life: and in Your light we shall see light." Who, he says, is the fountain of life, if not Christ? He came to you in the flesh, to irrigate your thirsting throat. He will satisfy the one who hopes, who irrigated the one who thirsted. "For with You is the fountain of life: and in Your light we shall see light." Here one thing is the fountain, another the light: there it is not so. For what is the fountain, this is also the light. It is a fountain because it satisfies the thirsty: a light because it illuminates the blind: there you will not grow weary, because it is a fountain: you will not be darkened, because it is light." The same on Psalm XLI, 1: "As the deer longs for the fountains of water, so my soul longs for You, O God. Come, brothers, he says, grasp my eagerness, share this desire of mine; let us love together, let us burn together in this thirst, let us run together to the fountain of understanding. Let us therefore long for the fountain like a deer." And below: "Run to the fountains: desire the fountains of water. With God is the fountain of life, an inexhaustible fountain: in His light, a light that cannot be obscured. Desire this light; a certain fountain, a certain light, such as your eyes do not know: for seeing which light the inner eye is prepared, for drawing from which fountain the inner thirst burns. Run to the fountain, desire the fountain: but do not do so carelessly; do not run like just any animal: run like a deer. What does it mean, like a deer? Let there be no slowness in running; run eagerly, eagerly desire the fountain. For we shall find remarkable swiftness in the deer." And after a few words, he suggests the obstacle to be removed from this course toward wisdom, namely, concupiscence: "How, he says, do you desire the fountain of wisdom, when you still labor in the poison of malice? Kill in yourself whatever is contrary to truth: and when you see yourself as free from perverse desires, do not remain as if there were nothing to desire: for there is something to which you may raise yourself, if you have already acted in yourself so that there is no impediment against you."

IN THE HIGHEST. — This can be taken as an epithet of God, as if to say: "The Word of God who is most high," so the Zurich Bible; or as an epithet of wisdom, indicating its position and place, as if to say: The fountain of wisdom does not arise in the low valleys of the earth, but on the high mountains of the heavens, and from there flows down to earth: because this fountain is not earthly, but heavenly and divine, namely, the Word of God.

AND THE PATHS OF IT (poreia autes, that is, its ways, namely, the ways of wisdom, through which it walks and goes out, are) ARE ETERNAL COMMANDMENTS. — He persists in the metaphor of water and the fountain, as if to say: Just as a fountain through certain ways, paths, channels, and canals flows and descends into neighboring fields and vineyards; so the fountain of wisdom, namely, the Word of God, through certain ways and channels pours forth and derives wisdom into men, Angels, and all creatures: these ways, or channels, are the eternal commandments of God, namely, God's eternal ordinances and constitutions; and, as St. Augustine says in Book IX of the City of God, XXII, they are God's eternal laws, which live in His wisdom and Word, in which the Angels read and learn the course and order of the world, and what is to be done by themselves and by men,

And Origen, Homily 3 on Joshua: "The Incarnation, he says, of the Savior did not pour into us the full and entire sight of the divinity; but as through a window He made us behold through His incarnation the light of the divinity." Hugo adds, who recounts in detail these manifold entrances of the Incarnate Wisdom, namely Christ. The first, he says, is into the womb of the Virgin Mother of God through the incarnation; the second is into the world, through the nativity; the third into the Jordan, through the declaration: for being baptized by John in the Jordan, with John pointing Him out, and the Father thundering from the heavens: "This is My beloved Son," He was recognized to be the Son of God and the Messiah; the fourth into hell, for the liberation of the fathers; the fifth into heaven, through the ascension.

read and learn what needs to be done by themselves and by men, so that they may live wisely according to God's law, so as to pass their life in holiness and attain the blessed life and heavenly eternity. For just as in the preceding verse he showed the origin and state of wisdom, so here he shows its progress and outflow toward creatures. This is the sixth praise of wisdom.

Secondly, Jansenius explains it thus, as if to say: The entrances, or ways, that is, the modes and reasons according to which wisdom proceeds in governing creatures, are fixed and perpetual like eternal commandments; because they are the perpetual ordinances, commandments, and decrees of God, which God established and prescribed for man, for the Angel, and for each creature as a law of living and acting, according to which wisdom requires them to enter and to live. This sense partly agrees with the first.

Third, others say, as if to say: The entrances, that is, the ways that lead to wisdom, are the commandments of God, lasting forever. Do you wish therefore to attain wisdom? Do you wish to know and take the path to it? Keep God's commandments: these will lead you straight to it. For just as the way of life is called the way to life, so the way of wisdom is called the way to wisdom. Hence the Zurich Bible translates not so much literally as paraphrastically: "The fountain of wisdom is the most exalted word of God; and the approaches are His everlasting precepts." So also Palacios.

Fourth, Lyra says: The fountain of all created wisdom is the Word of God, which entering Mount Sinai gave the Jews the commandments of the Decalogue, which are eternal; because they are of natural law, and therefore always oblige and endure.

Allegorically, Rabanus and St. Bernard, in his Sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed Mary, on the Aqueduct: The fountain of evangelical wisdom is the Incarnate Word. Hence, when the Word, through the flesh He assumed, entered the world, He gave it eternal commandments, namely, the precepts of the Gospel. For the law of the Gospel, after the law of nature and the Mosaic law, is the third and last; no other will succeed it, but it will last forever, and will transfer its worshippers to heaven and to blessed eternity. Hence St. Fulgentius, in his book Against the Objections of the Arians, in the second response: "That the Son, he says, was created as the beginning of the Lord's ways, what else is it but that He Himself was made the way for us, so that with Him as guide and ruler, through the grace of Adoption which we received, the entrance to the progress of virtues would be open to us." Wherefore St. Justin the philosopher and martyr, around the year 130 of Christ, when, seeking wisdom, he had wandered through the various sects of the philosophers and had found it nowhere, heard from a certain old man who appeared to him: "What you seek so anxiously cannot rightly be found except in the school of Christ. But pray and beseech above all that the gates of light be opened to you: for they are perceived and understood by none, unless God and Christ have granted them understanding." Believing and obeying this, Justin became both a Christian and a philosopher and a martyr. So he himself relates in his Dialogue with Trypho.

Tropologically, the entrances of God into the soul are manifold, various, and incomprehensible, by which He draws it to Himself, illuminates, changes, elevates, and inflames it. Thus He called St. Paul through Himself visibly, striking and prostrating him with lightning, Acts IX, 3. He called Cornelius through an Angel, Acts X, 3. He called the eunuch of Queen Candace through Philip, Acts VIII, 29. Others He calls through scourges, others through benefits: some through teachers and preachers; others through books and the examples of the Saints, as He called St. Augustine. The Saints and contemplatives feel the wondrous entrances, impulses, elevations, and raptures of God, by which He teaches them the practices of all virtues, modes of praying, contemplating, etc., and yet they cannot comprehend them.

6. THE ROOT (the Syriac renders "roots"; and the Arabic "foundations," in the plural) OF WISDOM, TO WHOM HAS IT BEEN REVEALED, AND ITS SUBTLETIES, WHO HAS KNOWN THEM? — As if to say: No one fully knows the origin, reasons, and modes of wisdom, because the root of wisdom is God, whom no one perfectly understands; although everyone knows in some way certain branches of wisdom derived from God into themselves. Hence Lactantius, Book III On False Wisdom, chapter VI: "Where then, he says, is wisdom? So that you neither think you know all things, which belongs to God; nor that you are ignorant of all things, which belongs to beasts: for there is something in between, which belongs to man, that is, knowledge joined and tempered with ignorance. Knowledge in us comes from the soul, which originates from heaven: ignorance from the body, which is from the earth. Hence we have some commonality both with God and with animals. Thus, since we consist of these two elements, one of which is endowed with light, the other with darkness, part of knowledge has been given to us, part of ignorance: through this, as through a bridge, one may cross without danger of falling." Others by the root of wisdom understand the fear of the Lord: for this is established as the beginning of wisdom; for few in that age knew God and the fear of God, that is, religion and worship.

"Subtleties," or, as Vatablus says, cleverness, in Greek panourgeumata, Sirach takes in a good sense, just as the Septuagint does in Proverbs: for he follows them. So St. Thomas, I-II, Question XIX, art. 7, ad 2: "It must be said, he says, that the fear of God is compared

to the whole of human life regulated by the wisdom of God, as the root to the tree. Hence it is said, Ecclesiasticus I: The root of wisdom is to fear the Lord. And its branches are long-lived. And therefore, just as the root is virtually said to be the whole tree, so the fear of God is said to be wisdom."

"Subtleties," therefore, he calls the wise reasons, cautions, and circumspections that God employs everywhere in making and governing His works: for no one can fully investigate and comprehend these. Hence the Syriac renders, "the secrets of understanding, who knows them?" The Egyptians represented the same thing by the hieroglyphic of Isis, or Minerva of Sais, in whose temple there was this inscription: "I am everything that was, is, and shall be; and no mortal has yet unfolded my veil: the fruit I bore is the sun," as our Nicolas Caussin reports from Plutarch and Proclus, Book I of Historical Parables, chapter LVI. For this Isis, or Minerva, was a symbol of heavenly wisdom. This is what Baruch sings of wisdom in chapter III, 15: "Who has found its place, and who has found its treasures? Where are the princes of the nations, who play among the birds of heaven? Who hoard silver and gold, etc. But the way of discipline they did not know. It was not heard in the land of Canaan, nor seen in Teman. The sons of Hagar also, who seek the prudence that is of the earth, etc.; but the way of wisdom they did not know."

Wherefore Lactantius, Book III On False Wisdom, attacks the Philosophers who boasted of having found wisdom; and among other things, chapter XVI: "When, he says, did philosophers begin to exist? Thales (I believe) was the first: this is indeed a recent age. Where then among the ancients did this love of investigating truth lie hidden?" And soon after: "Seneca says, it is not yet a thousand years since the beginnings of wisdom became known. Therefore for many centuries the human race lived without reason. Mocking this, Persius says: After wisdom came to the city with pepper and palm-dates; as if wisdom had been imported with merchandise of flavor; which, according to human nature, must have begun with man himself; but if it was not there, human nature could not even grasp it. But since it did receive it, therefore wisdom must have existed from the beginning. Therefore Philosophy, because it did not exist from the beginning, is not the same as true wisdom: but, clearly, the Greeks, who had not touched the sacred Scriptures of truth, did not know how wisdom had been corrupted. And therefore, since they thought human life lacked wisdom, they invented Philosophy, that is, they wanted to dig out by discussion the truth that was hidden and unknown to them, which pursuit, through ignorance of the truth, they considered wisdom." This is the seventh praise of wisdom, namely, that it is incomprehensible to men and Angels.

Allegorically, the root of wisdom is the Blessed Virgin Mother of God: for she is the mother of the Incarnate Wisdom, namely Christ. Hence she is called by the Fathers, and invoked in the Litanies as the root of wisdom, whom God created in the Holy Spirit, as I shall say at verse 9. For no one comprehends her wonderful conception, nativity, presentation, and angelic life in the temple, the annunciation, the birth of the Word, etc., her virtues, gifts, prerogatives, excellences, prudence, and wisdom; especially because she alone knew the incarnation, nativity, infancy, wisdom, life, and deeds of the Word through ocular experience, through hearing, through the senses, and much more through the mind, namely, through the illumination of the intellect and the ardors of the will constantly sent into her by the Word conceived within her and continually present to her, and she revealed these things to St. Luke, so that he might write them in the Gospel, and to the Apostles and the faithful. Hence St. Thomas, I part, Question XXV, art. 6, ad 4, asking whether God could create creatures more perfect than those He created, and from those again others and others more perfect to infinity, answers that He could; but he excepts three things, namely, the incarnation of the Word, the motherhood of the Virgin Mother of God, and our beatitude, which consists in the vision and enjoyment of God: for since these three involve God, indeed have Him as their object, nothing better can be made by God than these; otherwise something would be more excellent than God. Wherefore, just as there cannot be a more perfect man than Christ, inasmuch as He is God-man; nor a more perfect happiness than the vision and possession of God: so neither can God make a more perfect mother than the mother of the Word, inasmuch as she is the mother of God. "Wherefore these three things, he says, have a certain infinite dignity from the infinite good, which is God: from this perspective nothing can be made better than them, just as nothing can be better than God." Finally, she herself is the root of wisdom: because she communicated that supereminent wisdom infused into her by God to the Apostles and the rest of the faithful, and daily communicates it to those who invoke her, as she communicated it to St. Gregory the Wonderworker, commanding St. John to hand over to him the Creed and the formula of faith, which he could set against Origen, Arius, and the heretics. Likewise to Albert the Great, to Rupert, Abbot of Deutz, to St. Thomas Aquinas, and to many others. More on this in chapter XXIV, verse 6 and following.

7. THE DISCIPLINE OF WISDOM, TO WHOM HAS IT BEEN REVEALED AND MADE MANIFEST? AND THE MULTIPLICATION OF ITS PATHS, WHO HAS UNDERSTOOD? — He says the same thing in other words as he said in the preceding verse: hence this verse is absent from the Complutensian, Roman, and other Greek manuscripts, and from some Latin ones. The discipline of wisdom, therefore, is the ordered method, disposition, and plan of wisdom, by which it does, establishes, and arranges all things wisely and in order. The multiplication of its paths, or ways, he calls the manifold ways and reasons of its providence, which it applies and adapts, various to so many various creatures, but fitting and proper to each. For all of this the Syriac and Arabic have only: "The secrets, or mysteries, of understanding, who has known or comprehended them?"

8. ONE IS THE MOST HIGH, CREATOR, ALMIGHTY, AND POWERFUL KING, AND EXCEEDINGLY TO BE FEARED, SITTING UPON HIS THRONE, AND LORD GOD. — "His,"

not of wisdom; for in Greek it is masculine, autou, but of the Most High God: "His" therefore, that is, His own. For the Hebrews have the same pronoun for both the absolute and the reflexive. Hence the Latin translator often interchanges one with the other, as I said in the proem. Now supply "has known, has understood," for to the question proposed: Who has known the root, discipline, paths and ways of wisdom? He answers: Only the Most High God. He adds a reason a posteriori, and as it were evidence from the effect, namely, that He is first, "the creator of all things": for through wisdom He wisely created all things; second, that He is "almighty": for the directress of omnipotence is wisdom; because whatever wisdom dictates can wisely be done, this the omnipotence of God can accomplish; third, that He is "a powerful king": for a king needs wisdom in order to rule, and the greater his rule and power, the greater the wisdom needed; fourth, that He is "exceedingly to be feared," that is, tremendous, venerable, and to be worshipped with latria, whom the Dominations adore, and the Powers tremble before as the Divine Being who most wisely and most justly sees all things, provides for all, rewards, and punishes even with Gehenna and eternal fires: hence as judge and avenger He sits on the throne of His majesty and glory, which Daniel describes in chapter VII, 9, and St. John in Apocalypse IV, 2, and Ezekiel in chapter I, 26: see what I noted in those places; fifth, that He is "the Lord God," everywhere and always, namely, in heaven and on earth through all ages. For so immense a dominion requires immense wisdom and providence, to combine, equalize, and dispose all things according to the good of each and of the whole Universe.

The Greek here is concise as usual, and reads thus: "One is wise (in Himself and by essence), exceedingly to be feared, sitting upon His throne." So also the Syriac: "One is He, and terrible, God alone, because He Himself is the ruler over all His treasures," namely, of wisdom. And the Arabic: "One is to be feared, He alone, God ruling over all His treasures." This is therefore the seventh praise of wisdom, namely, that it is so great, so sublime, ample, and vast that it can be comprehended by no one except God alone, who is omniscient and omnipotent.

"For God," says St. Anselm in the Monologion, chapter XV, "is the supreme essence, and supreme life, supreme reason, supreme salvation, supreme justice, supreme wisdom, supreme truth, supreme goodness, supreme greatness, supreme beauty, supreme immortality, supreme incorruptibility, supreme immutability, supreme beatitude, supreme eternity, supreme power, supreme unity." And St. Cyprian, in his book That Idols Are Not Gods: "The world has one ruler, who commands by His word all things that exist, dispenses them by reason, and accomplishes them by power. He cannot be seen, being brighter than sight; nor grasped, being purer than touch; nor estimated, being greater than sense: and therefore we esteem Him worthily when we call Him inestimable." And St. Bernard, Book V On Consideration: "What is God? An omnipotent will, a most be-

nevolent virtue, eternal light, immutable reason, eternal beatitude." And below: "He loves as charity, He knows as truth, He judges as equity, He rules as majesty, He governs as the principle, He works as power, He protects as salvation, He reveals as light, He assists as piety, etc."

9. HE HIMSELF CREATED IT IN THE HOLY SPIRIT. — The Greek does not have "in the Holy Spirit," but only: "The Lord Himself created it." Some Latin manuscripts read: "The Spirit Himself created it."

CREATED. — That is, elicited, begot, produced, as I said at verse 4. But how in the Holy Spirit? For God the Father did not beget Wisdom, namely the Word, in the Holy Spirit; but rather through the Word (as St. Cyril says, Book XII on John, chapter LVI), and with the Word He produced and spirated the Holy Spirit.

I respond first that created wisdom, of which Sirach seems to speak more here, was created in the Holy Spirit: because God the Father, through the Spirit and through the love by which He willed to communicate Himself and His goods to creatures, created them in wisdom and with wisdom, which He implanted in them. For He established this wisdom as the architect of creation, "and poured it out upon all His works," as he adds in verse 11. Again, God "created" this wisdom from eternity, that is, decreed and predestined to create it, conceiving, namely, the idea of the world to be created, and the number and measure, order and law of the things to be created, especially that which He was going to prescribe for Angels and men, and this "in the Holy Spirit," that is, from the love and affection for creatures, Angels, and men, which love is attributed to the Holy Spirit; because the Holy Spirit is spirated and produced through the will and the notional act of love of the Father and the Son. Hence St. Athanasius, in the Disputation against Arius, proves from this passage that the Holy Spirit is God. This sense, as easy, obvious, and fitting, is also very apt and genuine: for Sirach, just like Solomon, speaks of wisdom confusedly and in general terms. Hence he says some things about it that better suit uncreated wisdom, and some that better suit created wisdom; and such is this. For he wants to teach that God from eternity decreed to create creatures in wisdom out of love, which is appropriated to the Holy Spirit, and not for any benefit of His own; and therefore that this love of God was pure and holy; and consequently the work of this love, namely, the world, the Angels, men, and the laws and precepts established and prescribed for them by God, are pure, holy, and entirely irreproachable. Wherefore the Syriac and Arabic, instead of "created it," render "manifested it."

Secondly, uncreated Wisdom, both essentially and notionally, was created, that is, produced and begotten, by the Father in the Holy Spirit, that is, first, from the spiritual and holy divinity, and from the fecundity of the divine nature, as it were came forth and emanated: for properly, essential Wisdom was not produced by God nor begotten, since it is one and the same with God; but according to our mode of conceiving it is said to be produced

in that sense which I have already assigned. For we conceive and measure the divine things which we do not see from the human and created things which we do see. In these, however, we see created wisdom come forth and be produced from a spiritual nature and from the excellence of the angelic and human intellect. Therefore in a similar way we conceive uncreated Wisdom as, so to speak, coming forth from the immense excellence of the divinity. So Jansenius; for the Holy Spirit is taken in two ways: first, notionally, as proper to the third person of the Most Holy Trinity; second, essentially, in which sense God the Father is a Holy Spirit: for if He is Himself Spirit, He is also holy. Hence certain manuscripts write "Holy Spirit" with a lowercase "s." The Roman editions, however, and the Plantin editions and the rest write it with a capital letter, as if it were a proper name of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore, secondly, uncreated Wisdom (namely, the Word) was created, that is, produced, in the Holy Spirit, "not as by a principle, because the Holy Spirit is not the principle of the Son, but by way of accompaniment," says Lyra. Thus in the Holy Spirit, that is, with the Holy Spirit; for He is produced and proceeds from the Father and the Son, so that we may understand that the Holy Spirit existed from eternity together with the Father and the Son. For the Hebrew beth, that is, "in," is taken for im, that is, "with, at, near," and other prepositions. Or "in the Holy Spirit" as in the end and terminus, as if to say: The creation, that is, the production of Wisdom, that is, of the Word, did not stop there, but proceeded further, and was completed and terminated in the production of the Holy Spirit; for the Father, in begetting the Word, simultaneously gave Him the spirative fecundity, so that He could spirate and produce the Holy Spirit together with Him; and this power is included in the nature of the Word, so that it is not fully and in every respect perfect until it spirates the Holy Spirit: for in the Holy Spirit is terminated all activity, all internal production of the deity, namely, of the Father and the Son.

So St. Augustine, Book VI On the Trinity, says that the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit, namely, by love, not essential and formal, but notional and produced, which is the end and terminus of essential love: "For the Holy Spirit, he says, is the highest charity, conjoining both and joining us to them." And in Book V: "A certain consubstantial communion of the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit of both." So the same Augustine, in his Book of Eighty-Three Questions, says that the Father is wise by the begotten wisdom, not formally: for thus He is wise, and savors and understands by essential and unbegotten wisdom; but effectively and terminatively; because, namely, His notional understanding produces the begotten wisdom, or the Word, and is terminated in it. Hence the same Augustine, Book XV On the Trinity and Book I of the Retractations, chapter XXVI, teaches that it is properly to be said that the Father is not wise by the begotten wisdom (because the Father did not receive wisdom from the Word, but rather the Word receives it from the Father), but by His own and unbegotten wisdom.

Third, Palacios explains it thus, as if to say: The Father created, that is, possessed the Son, who is in the Holy Spirit, namely, with whom He has one nature: for just as the Father is in the Son, so the Son is in the Holy Spirit, to signify here the perichoresis, or circuminsession, of the three divine persons, about which I have spoken elsewhere from Damascene. For since the essence of the three persons is one, it follows that the Father is in the Son and the Spirit, and the Son is in the Father and the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is in the Father and the Son, and this not only with respect to the one and same essence which is common to the three persons, as Durand wished in Book I, distinction 19, and certain others; but also with respect to the person itself. For since the essence is absolutely the same and individual for the three persons, it follows that not only the essence, but through it every person exists in the other, as St. Bonaventure, Marsilius, Scotus, and others teach throughout, in Book I, distinction 19; on which matter I have said more elsewhere.

Fourth, many theologians explain it thus: The Father created, that is, begot Wisdom, namely the Word, from the knowledge of the Holy Spirit; because He begot it from the knowledge and comprehension of His essence and of all things that are in it: but in it there is the fecundity of spirating the Holy Spirit, and the possibility of creating everything possible: wherefore from the knowledge of the Holy Spirit and of possible creatures, as well as of the divine essence, the Word is produced and proceeds, as Francisco Suarez teaches probably in Book IX On the Triune and One God, chapters IV, V, VI, and others, although Gabriel Vasquez with some others denies this.

Allegorically, Incarnate Wisdom was created in the Holy Spirit: because the incarnation was the work not only of the Father and the Son, but also of the Holy Spirit. Hence in the Creed we say: "Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary." Wherefore the Angel announcing the conception, when the Virgin asked: "How shall this be, since I do not know a man?" answered: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and therefore the Holy One who will be born of you will be called the Son of God." Luke I, 35. So Rabanus. Again, Wisdom, indeed the mother of eternal Wisdom, is the Blessed Virgin: God created her in the Holy Spirit, because she was simultaneously created and filled with the Holy Spirit, as befitted one who was soon to be the mother of God, and therefore in grace she surpassed all men and Angels: wherefore God alone "counted and measured" her grace, according to that saying in the last chapter of Proverbs: "Many daughters have gathered riches, but you have surpassed them all." So St. Bernardine, volume II, Sermon 1, article 3, chapter 1. This is the eighth praise of wisdom, namely, that God created it in the Holy Spirit.

From what has been said, it is clear that this passage does not favor the Greeks, who say and teach that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, but from the Father alone: on account of which error, on the very feast of the Holy Spirit, namely Pentecost, when Constantinople was taken by Mohammed the Emperor of the Turks, the empire of the Greeks was overthrown in the year of the Lord 1453. The Greeks preferred to dispute with the Latins about the Holy Spirit with idle and false words, rather than contend with serious arms against the barbarians. And so by the just judgment of God, of the same Holy Spirit

in nurturing their young, avoiding harmful things, and preparing food; of fish in swimming, eating, and reproducing; of animals in protecting, propagating, and defending their own life and that of their offspring.

Just as an artisan pours his art into the work that he produces from his craft — for a painter, for example, by painting an image similar to his art and the idea he conceived in his mind, as it were transfers and conveys the idea into the painting — so God, as the artisan and painter of the universe, poured and transferred His wisdom and idea into it, when He fashioned it according to that wisdom and in its likeness. Hence the Syriac translates: "He manifested it, and divided it among all His works: with flesh, according to His will, He gave it, and multiplied it among all who fear Him." The Arabic: "He revealed it and disclosed it, then He comprehended it and bestowed it: He distributed it among all His creation, upon every man from among men according to His will, and multiplied it among all who fear Him."

Contemplate here, marvel at, and revere the fact that divine wisdom is the primeval fountain and the primeval seal of all things, which penetrates all things by its purity and subtlety, inwardly forming and disposing all things in all things. Consider, therefore, that divine wisdom is full of notions and concepts of things, like certain seals suited to forming creatures according to the species of each. For created things are like certain impressions and replicas of divine wisdom — for which reason it is said: "And He poured it out (His wisdom) upon all His works." And just as a seal impressed upon water or some other fluid thing, if it is removed, the form immediately perishes: so unless the seal of divine wisdom continually forms and stamps the creature, the entire species and substance of the thing would vanish. And so for every created thing, this seal of divine wisdom, by which its essence is continually formed and preserved from within, is always intimately present.

Here note the condescension of God the Creator, who raised all creatures, but especially human beings, and above all the saints, to such great dignity as is the likeness of God: for all creatures are similar to the wisdom of God, because they are similar to their ideas and exemplars, which live in the mind of God and are God Himself. If all creatures, then much more the just and the saints, of whom He accordingly says: "And He bestowed," namely, Herself, and as it were Her whole self, "upon those who love Him." For, as Ecclesiasticus chapter 51, verse 1 says: "The children of wisdom are the assembly of the just," that is, the just and the saints are children of wisdom, and therefore the just are, by participation, wisdom itself — just as the son of a man must be a man. This is what St. John marvels at in chapter 1, verse 12: "But to as many as received Him, He gave the power to become children of God, who were born not of blood, etc., but of God." Now on the occasion of these God-fearing and God-loving people, whose proper possession is, as it were, wisdom, Sirach transitions to the fear of God, following

that the great wisdom of God has been implanted in the heavens, the elements, trees, plants, birds, fish, etc.; hence that resourcefulness of birds in building nests,

on that feast day they received the wounds that were the final deaths of their masters: so that, just as the first Constantine, a thousand years earlier, born of St. Helena, outstanding in the Catholic religion and in reverence for the Roman Pontiff, founder of Constantinople, called the new Rome, was exceedingly illustrious; so Drogases, the second Constantine, also born of a Helena, but a deserter of the Catholic religion and an enemy of the Roman Pontiff, having lost Constantinople, was the last, inglorious and infamous for all time.

AND HE SAW, AND NUMBERED, AND MEASURED IT. — These three expressions are antistrophic, and they correspond alternately to the three questions of verse 2, for there he asked: "Who has searched out wisdom, numbered it, and measured it?" Here he responds: God "saw it, and numbered it, and measured it," meaning: God fully and completely knew from eternity the nature and quantity of wisdom, both its discrete quantity, namely number, and its continuous quantity, namely mass and measure. God perceived what and how great wisdom was; God from all ages had all the reasons and modes of wisdom numbered and measured, according to which He was to create and make all things in time, according to that passage of Wisdom 16: "You disposed all things in measure, and number, and weight." For he speaks of the architectonic wisdom of God, which God the Architect from eternity conceived and fashioned in His mind as a kind of idea, so that according to it He might in time establish all things in measure, number, and weight. Therefore, although the wisdom of God is in itself infinite, and to man innumerable and immeasurable, yet by God, and by the mind of God, which is likewise infinite and which is the fountain and origin of wisdom, it is numbered, measured, and comprehended.

Note "He saw," that is, He looked into and surveyed its nature, properties, and endowments intimately, deeply, and thoroughly, as if captivated by its beauty and splendor. The phrase "He measured" is not in the Greek.

10. AND HE POURED IT OUT UPON ALL HIS WORKS, AND UPON ALL FLESH ACCORDING TO HIS GIFT (that is, insofar as He willed to give and communicate it to each one; Vatablus: "according to His munificence"), AND HE BESTOWED IT UPON THOSE WHO LOVE HIM. — This is the ninth praise of wisdom, meaning: God communicated the wisdom hidden from eternity in His mind, in time, to all creatures, even inanimate ones, but more to animals, especially to human beings endowed with flesh; and most of all to human beings and Angels who love Him. The word "poured out" signifies the lavishness of God's beneficence, that He poured out Himself and His gifts and wisdom most copiously upon the world like a shower or torrent, especially upon those who love Him — because He endowed them with faith, grace, and supernatural wisdom, so that they might know, love, and worship God, and thus arrive at the vision and enjoyment of Him, in which consists the perfection and consummation of wisdom. From this learn

Solomon who said: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," in order to teach the way and method of attaining wisdom, which has been praised up to this point,

Second Part of the Chapter

to be the fear, or rather the love, of God: for filial fear is the same as love, or at least is an act of love and charity.

11. THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS GLORY, AND GLORYING, AND GLADNESS, AND A CROWN OF REJOICING. — The Syriac: "The fear of the Lord is glory, and honor, and majesty, and a crown of glory." The Arabic: "The fear of the Lord in it (wisdom) is both honor and majesty of His own, and a crown of glory and praise of His." This is the second part of the chapter, in which Ecclesiasticus transitions from wisdom to the fear and worship of God as the sole means of acquiring wisdom. Now "the fear of God" is "glory, etc." not formally, but causally. For it is a metonymy, meaning: The fear of God is the cause of glory; it begets and wins eternal glory, both in heaven and on earth, both before God and the Angels, and before men. Fear also begets glorying, namely, that a man may glory in it, but in the Lord. Likewise it brings gladness, because it brings a good conscience, as well as confidence in the Lord, and these two are the cause of supreme gladness. Moreover, it wins divine consolations and joys, which the Psalmist experienced and jubilantly sang: "How great is the multitude of Your sweetness, O Lord, which You have hidden for those who fear You!" Psalm 30:20. Finally, this fear adorns a person like a crown or diadem bringing exultation: for a crown is given to a priest, or pontiff, to a king, and to a conqueror. Therefore one who fears God is like a priest crowned and consecrated to God.

He is also destined to be a king in heaven through glory — a kingdom he begins on earth through grace. For through grace he becomes a son of God, and therefore an heir of His heavenly kingdom; and consequently, through grace he acquires a greater and more certain right to the kingdom of heaven than a firstborn son of a king has to his father's earthly kingdom. For the latter has his right from men, the former from God. Hence St. Peter says in his first epistle, chapter 2, verse 9: "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people." Finally, one who fears God is a triumpher, and therefore crowned: for he triumphs over sin, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Hence Rabbi Simeon used to say that "there are three crowns: the crown of the law, the crown of the priesthood, and the crown of sovereignty; but the crown of a good name (from wisdom and an upright life) is far more illustrious and precious than all of these."

Wherefore St. Chrysostom, in Homily 69 to the People, says: "If we have the fear of God, we need nothing else; but if we do not have it, even if we possessed a kingdom itself, we would be the poorest of all. Nothing equals the one who fears God: for the fear of the Lord surpasses all things. Let us therefore possess it; let us do all things for the sake of this, that we may attain this fear." He wrote more in the same vein in Homily 15 to the People: "If fear were not a good thing,

Christ would not have spent many and lengthy sermons speaking about punishment and torment. Fear is nothing other than a wall, a fortification, and an impregnable tower. For we need much fortification, because there are many snares on every side." Finally, St. Isidore, Book II of the Sentences, chapter 1: "Everyone, he says, who is wise according to God is blessed. The blessed life is the knowledge of the Divinity. The knowledge of the Divinity is the strength of good works. The strength of good works is the fruit of eternity."

The fear of God is understood here as not merely dread of God, but also reverence, observance, and worship, that is, godliness and religion, as Vatablus translates it, which is the beginning of wisdom and springs from love. For it is filial, not servile: because the faithful, as children, supremely love God as a Father, and therefore they fear and revere Him; they observe all His laws, indeed His very nods; they strive in all things to please Him, and take the greatest care not to commit anything by which they might offend Him even in the slightest. Wherefore this fear is the cause of glory, gladness, and a crown. For this reason Lactantius, throughout Books III and IV, teaches that all the philosophers did not possess true but false wisdom, because they lacked true knowledge of God, worship, and religion, in which true wisdom consists; and among other things in chapter 2: "God willed, he says, that this be the nature of man: that he should desire and seek two things — religion and wisdom. But men are deceived because they either embrace religion while neglecting wisdom, or devote themselves to wisdom alone while neglecting religion, when neither can be true without the other. They fall therefore into manifold religions, but false ones, because they abandoned wisdom, which

could have led them to see that there cannot be many gods; or they devote themselves to wisdom, but therefore to a false one, because they omitted the religion of the supreme God, who could have instructed them in the knowledge of truth. Thus people who embrace one or the other follow a deviant path, full of the greatest errors — because in these two things, inseparably connected, both the duty of man and all truth are contained." Hence, concluding Book III, he says: "He who wishes to be wise and blessed, let him hear the voice of God, learn justice, know the mystery of his birth, despise human things, embrace divine things, so that he may attain that supreme good for which he was born. Once all religions have been dissolved, and everything that was or could be said in their defense has been refuted, and then the systems of philosophy have been convicted of error, we must come to true religion and wisdom — because, as I shall show, the two are joined together."

Hence the fear of God is called by the Septuagint at Proverbs 1:7 "eusebeia," that is, piety and religion, as Clement of Alexandria translates it in Stromata II, on which more at verse 16. Thus Abraham says in Genesis 20:11: "Perhaps there is no fear of God in this place," that is, perhaps in this place there is no worship and religion of God. Likewise that passage of Deuteronomy 6:13: "You shall fear the Lord your God," Christ explains in Matthew 4:10: "You shall worship the Lord your God." For, as the Poet says,

"Fear first created gods in the world."

Thus Job in chapter 1, verse 1 is called "a simple and upright man, and one who fears" — that is, worships — "God." Similar passages are Psalm 21, verses 24, 25, 26, and elsewhere throughout.

Moreover, Sirach here wonderfully commends the fear of God, and lists its fourteen praises and endowments. The first is in this verse: that the fear of God is glory, gladness, and a crown of rejoicing.

12. THE FEAR OF THE LORD SHALL DELIGHT THE HEART, AND SHALL GIVE GLADNESS, AND JOY, AND LENGTH OF DAYS — both in this life and even more in the life to come. So Rabanus. He explains what he said in the preceding verse: "The fear of the Lord is glory, and gladness, and a crown of rejoicing." I reviewed the causes of delight and joy in that same place. The Syriac translates: "The fear of the Lord gladdens the heart, and is gladness and exultation and eternal life." The Arabic: "The fear of the Lord gladdens the heart, and is gladness, and exultation, and enduring life." See Damascene, Book I of the Parallels, chapter 4, where among other things he cites the golden maxim of Didymus: "It is impossible that one who is endowed with the fear of God should be timorous, since it has been handed down in records: Fear no one else besides Him." For, as Gregory of Nazianzus says in Iambic XV: "Joy is the expansion of the mind; fear is its contraction; sadness is its bite and disturbance." Joy therefore excludes fear.

Note the phrase "length of days": for, as St. Augustine admirably says on Psalm 93: "What I have is for sale, says the Lord: buy it for yourself. What does He have for sale? Rest, a kingdom. How much is it worth? Its price is labor. How much labor? Eternal rest is rightly purchased by eternal labor — certainly it would have to be that much. Likewise, perpetual labor for perpetual rest. What are ten hundred thousand years of labor worth? They have an end. What I shall give you, says the Lord, has no end. What mercy of God! And He does not say, Labor for ten hundred thousand years; He does not say, Labor for even a thousand years; He does not say, Labor for five hundred — but: While you live, labor for a few years. After that, rest will come, and it shall have no end. See what a price it is: we give, as it were, one carob pod to receive everlasting treasures — a carob pod of labor for everlasting rest."

how good and fortunate it is for us that the die of salvation falls well for us at that last moment! For at this point of time we cast the die for all eternity, and it is either most blessed or most wretched. How then will the one who fears God rejoice at the end, when he sees that the die of blessed eternity falls in his favor! O what great happiness it is to obtain it! O how great is the kingdom of heaven, indeed to possess God for all eternity!

St. Gregory says admirably in Moralia X, chapter 12: "The sinner's light in the day is darkness in the evening — because he is lifted up in the happiness of the present life, but is devoured by the shadows of adversity at the end. But for the just man, the noonday brightness rises toward evening — because he recognizes how great a glory awaits him when he begins to set. For this reason it is written: 'For the one who fears God, it shall be well at the end.'"

So at the end the soul of Lazarus rejoiced when it was carried by the Angels into heaven, while the rich man Dives was plunged into hell, Luke 16 — on which St. Chrysostom says beautifully in his homily On the Rich Man and Lazarus: "It happened, he says, that he was carried by the Angels and brought there, so that he would not have to labor even by walking. He was carried after so many labors, because he had failed; and he was carried by the Angels. One Angel was not sufficient to carry the poor man; but for this reason many come, so that they might form a chorus of joy. And he was carried by the Angels: each Angel rejoices to touch such a burden; gladly they are weighed down by such burdens, so that they may bring men to the kingdom of heaven."

So at the end it was well with St. Ambrose, who, about to die, confidently said: "I have not lived in such a way that I am ashamed to live among you; nor do I fear to die, because we have a good Lord," as Possidius reports in the Life of St. Augustine, chapter 27. And with St. Gerard, the brother of St. Bernard, who, as Bernard himself reports in Sermon 26 on the Song of Songs, at death was jubilantly singing: "Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights!" And the Venerable Bede, who while singing "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit," surrendered his soul to God, as his Life records.

St. Francis, dying, although he was burning with the most grievous pains throughout his entire body, sang nothing but divine praises and listened to others singing. And when Brother Elias rebuked him, saying that time should be given to tears and penance, he replied that "it was not right for him to do otherwise, since he knew he would shortly be with God." So St. Bonaventure in his Life.

St. Bernard, the first companion of St. Francis, dying, said: "Now I feel what it is to have lived in the fear of God. For now I would not wish to have lived any other life for the whole world. Now I rejoice and exult that I despised the world, that I served God in humility and poverty." So his acts record in the Chronicle of St. Francis.

St. Eligius, Bishop of Noyon, breathing his last, bidding his disciples farewell with a kiss: "No longer, he said, shall I speak with you; farewell in peace. Let earth return to earth." And with his eyes raised to heaven: "Now You dismiss Your servant, O Lord, according to

13. FOR THE ONE WHO FEARS THE LORD, IT SHALL BE WELL AT THE END. — The Zurich version: "For the one who cultivates the religion of the Lord, it shall be well at the end." The Syriac: "He who fears God — his end shall be good. Therefore for the one who fears the Lord it shall be well at the end," namely at death, at judgment, and in heavenly glory: for these are the three final things, or last things, of the just person. This is the second endowment of the fear of God. O how

Your word in peace. Remember me, Christ the Redeemer, save me into Your heavenly kingdom. You have always been my protector. Into Your hands I commend my spirit: may Your hand lead me into the dwelling place which You have prepared for those who fear You." So reports Blessed Audoenus, Bishop of Rouen, in his Life.

St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, in the last breath of his life was singing: "My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He will pluck my feet out of the snare," as Mainardus reports in his Life.

St. Anthony of Padua, jubilantly singing to the Blessed Virgin: "O glorious Lady, exalted above the stars," etc.; and with his eyes fixed on heaven: "I see my Lord," he surrendered his soul to Him in the year of the Lord 1231. So his Life records, chapter 37.

St. Nicholas of Tolentino, for six months before his death, heard every night the singing of the Angels, so that he would say: "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." When about to die, he was exulting; and when asked the reason, he said: "My Lord Jesus Christ, supported by His Mother and our Father Augustine, says to me: 'Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.'" So his Life records.

So in this age, Blessed Peter of Alcantara of the Order of St. Francis, a man of wondrous prayer and austerity, dying on his knees, exultantly said: "I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord." And our own Edmund Campion, condemned to death, sang: "We praise You, O God."

AND ON THE DAY OF HIS DEATH (that is, of death and passing, when he shall depart from this life to pass to a better and blessed one; hence the Syriac translates, "on the last of days;" the Arabic, "at the end of his life") HE SHALL BE BLESSED — both by men and by God, when he shall hear from Christ the Judge: "Come, blessed of My Father; possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," Matthew 25:34.

He shall therefore be blessed both vocally and really — that is, it shall be done well for him, because he will receive the good of happiness and the eternal kingdom, which is the greatest of all. Hence the Zurich version translates: "On the day of his death he shall be made blessed." Some Greek codices read: "he shall find grace," that is, he shall find grace before God, and through it shall find everlasting glory. Wherefore in Scripture one is called blessed — indeed, "blessed is the man who fears the Lord," Psalm 111:1. Hear St. Chrysostom on Psalm 62: "If you quote to me from the Psalms that verse: 'Blessed is the one who fears the Lord,' and you are able to understand what it is you are saying, you will call blessed not the rich man, not the prince, not the handsome man, not the one strong in body, not the one who possesses magnificent houses, not the one who holds magistracies, not the one who obtains a kingdom — no one else at all, except the one who is pious and religious, who is devoted to the pursuit of wisdom, who fears God; and you will call him blessed not only on account of future things, but also on account of present things — for even in this life he is more powerful than the other." Therefore Prosper, in Book II of On the Calling of the Gentiles,

chapter 9: "Concerning the fear of God and wisdom (he says), we read in Ecclesiasticus: 'The crown of wisdom is the fear of the Lord' — and both are gifts of God." And after a few intervening words: "Blessed (he says) is the one to whom it has been given to have the fear of the Lord."

14. THE LOVE OF GOD IS HONORABLE WISDOM. — More freely in its manner, the Zurich version: "The love of God is illustrious wisdom." The meaning is: This fear is the love and affection of God, in which consists true, honorable, and supreme wisdom. He who loves God — he has taste beyond all philosophers and theologians; for he tastes and knows God practically and savouringly, not speculatively and dryly. Hence St. Bernard, Sermon 85 on the Song of Songs: "Whatever virtue labors at, wisdom enjoys; and what wisdom orders, deliberates, and moderates, virtue carries out, etc. And if anyone defines wisdom as the love of virtue, he would not seem to deviate from the truth. But where there is love, there is no labor, but savor. And perhaps 'wisdom' (sapientia) takes its name from 'savor' (sapor), because by joining itself to virtue it renders savory, like a kind of seasoning, things that in themselves were felt to be tasteless and harsh. Nor would I think it blameworthy if someone were to define wisdom as the savor of the good." For wisdom is savory knowledge, as St. Gregory says, according to that verse: "Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet," Psalm 33:9. This is wisdom — not the kind that puffs up, but the kind that makes blessed.

You see here how he identifies wisdom now with love, now with filial fear — because this fear springs from love, indeed is love. So Rabanus. This love, this wisdom, makes us children of God, so that just as uncreated Wisdom is the Son of God by nature, so the wise and those who love God are His children by grace, indeed are "partakers of the divine nature," and as it were certain earthly gods, as St. Peter says in his second epistle, chapter 1, verse 4. Note again the metonymy, by which wisdom is said to be the love and fear of God, not formally but causally; for wisdom is in the intellect, while love and fear are habits and acts in the will — but these involve and presuppose wisdom as their origin and cause. For from this dictate of wisdom — God is supreme beauty, supreme honor, supreme riches, supreme pleasure, supreme glory, supreme good; therefore God is supremely lovable — there arises love and fear of Him. Hence this is called, and truly is, practical wisdom, on which more at verse 16.

Wherefore St. Augustine truly and elegantly says in his treatise On the Praises of Charity, volume IX: "Hold fast to charity, and in it you will find all knowledge." And further on: "Charity securely possesses all the greatness and breadth of the divine eloquences." And shortly after: "In what you understand in the Scriptures, charity is manifest; in what you do not understand, charity lies hidden. Therefore he possesses both what is manifest and what is hidden in the divine discourses, who holds charity in his conduct." Then, describing charity: "Charity, he says, is a right will, utterly turned away from all earthly things, joined to God inseparably and united, kindled by a certain fire of the Holy Spirit, from whom it comes and to whom it is directed; a stranger to defilement, knowing no corruption, subject to no change; exalted above all things that are loved carnally, the most powerful of all affections, eager for divine contemplation, always invincible in all things; the summit of good actions, the health of morals, the end of heavenly precepts, the death of sins, the life of virtues, the strength of those who fight, the palm of victors, the armor of holy minds, the cause of merits, the reward of the perfect, without which no one has pleased God; fruitful in penitents, joyful in those making progress, glorious in those who persevere, victorious in martyrs, active in absolutely all the faithful — from which whatever there is of good work lives."

Moreover, the Syriac and the Arabic, in place of "the love of God is honorable wisdom," have: "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord" — which maxim they then repeat a second and third time in this chapter, as the foundation and center of all that has been said and is to be said.

Finally, this wise love especially shines forth in martyrs, and in those like them who undergo grave labors or endure fierce pains for God and wisdom. Hence Saints Savinus and Cyprianus, martyrs of Brescia, when they were cruelly beaten, thrown into a fiery furnace, stretched upon wheels and torn apart, giving thanks to God and jubilantly crying out, said: "How sweet is Your love, O Lord!" So Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, under the date of July 2.

The boy St. Vitus, together with Modestus and Crescentia, undergoing the glorious contest of martyrdom, when Diocletian promised him vast riches and honors if he would worship the gods, courageously replied: "I count kingdoms, honors, and riches as nothing, and depend entirely upon Christ alone, the only God and immortal one."

St. Felicula, Roman virgin and martyr, foster-sister of St. Petronilla, when she was tortured on the rack, exulted saying: "I see Christ my Spouse, who endured such great sufferings for me."

Saints Marcus and Marcellianus, nailed with spikes to a post, when the judge said: "Come to your senses, wretches, and free yourselves from these torments," cheerfully replied: "Never have we feasted so delightfully as we gladly endure these things for Christ's sake, in whose love we have now begun to be fixed. Would that He permit us to suffer these things as long as we are clothed in this corruptible body!" So their Life records, and the Acts of St. Sebastian. Thus the love and affection of Christ sweetens all crosses for the Saints, so that they repay love with love, and death with death. How sweet, then, it will be for them to enjoy Christ and His glory in heaven! Then they will truly say with the Bride: "My Beloved is mine, and I am His."

15. BUT TO THOSE TO WHOM IT SHALL APPEAR IN VISION (that is, to those to whom this love of God, which is practical wisdom, shall offer itself to be seen and known, to those to whom it shall manifest itself); THEY LOVE IT AT THE SIGHT OF IT (namely, through this vision and manifestation alone

of love and wisdom), AND IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS GREAT DEEDS — that is, through the knowledge of His magnificent works, which they learn and hear to have been wonderfully accomplished by wisdom. He means: The love of God, which is true wisdom, is so beautiful, so lovable, that by its mere manifestation, by its mere appearance, it sweeps everyone into love and admiration of itself; and therefore no one hates it, no one despises it, except one who does not know it. An ancient codex cited in the Roman Greek edition reads thus: "The love of the Lord is glorious wisdom; but to those to whom it appears, it distributes it (the love) unto the vision of Him," meaning: When wisdom reveals itself and its Author, namely God, to someone, it immediately sweeps that person into the love of God.

This is the third praise of fear.

Thus Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the Prophets saw God, and the Word of God in an assumed body, and they heard His great deeds, and were immediately swept into love of Him. For in those visions the Son of God appeared and showed Himself, as the Council of Sirmium states — to foreshadow and signify that He would one day assume a true body, in which He would preach and communicate wisdom to us with His own lips. So David, seeing the works of God's wisdom, for example the heavens, exclaims: "O Lord our Lord, how admirable is Your name in all the earth!" Psalm 8. So also, gazing upon this vast structure of the world, he jubilantly sings: "You have delighted me, O Lord, in Your handiwork," Psalm 91.

So Wisdom appeared to St. Gregory of Nazianzus as a beautiful maiden, attended by Chastity in a similar form. And when he, being chaste, shrank from the appearance of women, he heard from her: "Do not be amazed, O young man; we are companions and sisters, and familiar to you, because you have prepared a pleasant dwelling for us in your heart. One of us is called Wisdom, the other Chastity." At this sight, Nazianzus was set aflame with love of both, as Rufinus, Baronius, and others report in his Life.

Likewise, Wisdom appeared to the blessed Henry Suso, who, a Doctor of Theology in the year of the Lord 1350, flourished with great renown for wisdom and holiness, and wrote many works in which he breathes love of Eternal Wisdom, and even composed the Hours of Eternal Wisdom — for which reason he was called its minister. Hear the author of his Life, chapter 4: "While, he says, he burned with these desires of seeing and conversing with Wisdom, she presented herself to him in this manner. Far above him she was borne on a pillar of cloud, seated on an ivory throne, gleaming like the morning star, and shining like the sun in its power. Her crown was eternity, her garment felicity, her speech sweetness, her embrace the fullness of every good. She was near and far away, lofty and humble, present and hidden; she showed herself familiar, yet could not be grasped. She was higher than the lofty heights of heaven, and deeper than the abyss.

She reached from end to end mightily, and disposed all things sweetly. While she seemed to be held in the form of an elegant maiden, she presently bore the image of a most beautiful young man. Sometimes, as one most skilled in all arts, she presented herself as a friend lovable to all. And so, turning most sweetly toward him, and smiling at him graciously, yet not without a certain divine majesty, she kindly addressed him with these words: 'Give me your heart, my son.' Then indeed, prostrate at her feet, he gave thanks to her from the very marrow of his being and with the deepest humility. Afterward Wisdom sometimes communicated herself to his soul as the fountain and outpouring of every good, and the abyss of all desirable things, in which he found at once whatever was beautiful, lovable, or to be desired — since all of that existed in her in an ineffable way." And further: "Nor indeed can it be expressed how many times he embraced that most welcome friend with tearful eyes and a heart expanded immensely, and pressed her sweetly to his breast. It was often with him just as it is with an infant hanging at the breasts of its mother who holds it in her arms, and nestling in her lap. For just as such a little child applies itself with its head and with the movement of its whole body to its mother's breast, and by friendly and endearing gestures of this kind declares the joy of its heart, so his heart was borne with a kind of sensible flooding toward the most delightful presence of Eternal Wisdom, and he thought: 'If she were betrothed to me, Lord Jesus, a mighty Queen, that would be my joy. Now therefore, O Eternal Wisdom, You are the Empress of my heart and the parent of all grace. In You there is an abundance of riches, honor, and power for me. I desire nothing else besides, whatever this world has.' Under these meditations, with face brightened, eyes sparkling, heart lifted to jubilation, and all his interior senses exulting, he burst forth into these words: 'Above health and beauty I loved wisdom, and I resolved to have her for my light, and all good things came to me together with her.'"

16. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. — In Greek: "The beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord," that is, "the fear of the Lord." For the infinitive is customarily used in place of the noun. Understand wisdom here as created; therefore it is taken more narrowly here than in verse 1. He cites Psalm 110:10; Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7, where for "beginning" the Hebrew is reshith (in Greek, arche), which is derived from rosh, that is, head — meaning the chief thing. Hence you may first translate reshith as "beginning," so that the sense would be: The beginning of being wise is the fear, worship, and religion of God. True wisdom and philosophy of the faithful, which consists in action, begins with religion and the worship of God. If you wish to study wisdom and obtain it, begin with the fear and worship of God; if you wish to be wise, fear and worship God. For this practical wisdom is understood, which resides in action, and commands and embraces it, meaning: If you wish to rightly order your actions and conduct, if you wish to establish an upright life, begin with fear, that is, with true religion and worship of God. This will teach you the rest; this will lead you by the hand to the other virtues. Hence the Septuagint at Proverbs 8:7 interprets the fear of God as piety and religion: "Piety toward God, they say, is the beginning of understanding;" or, as Clement of Alexandria translates in Stromata II: "The beginning of wisdom is religion." And St. Augustine teaches that this is true in his book On True Religion, as does Lactantius in Books III and IV — because, just as a person grows and matures through the stages of life, so the same person grows in virtue as he advances from fear to faith, and from faith to love. This is the mystical age of virtue, and of one endowed with virtue. So Clement.

Wherefore St. Basil, commenting on Isaiah chapter 1: "The attentive consideration of mysteries, he says, and the fear of things formidable to us, is a pedagogue leading to the practice of piety, etc. Like a certain gatekeeper, fear is necessarily admitted for learning piety." Here he interprets wisdom as piety.

Second, you may translate reshith as "principality" or "primacy," meaning: In moral wisdom — that is, in the virtues and an upright life — religion holds first place. The head of the virtues is the fear and worship of God; religion claims for itself the citadel and primacy of uprightness, probity, and holiness. Hence Vatablus translates reshith as "head"; Palacius says the summit of wisdom is religion, because, as St. Cyril teaches in Book II of On Right Faith in God, if you compose a mystical body from all the virtues, religion will obtain the place of the head. For just as the head infuses vital and animal spirits into the other members, and through them sense and motion, so religion infuses its spirit of piety, life, and motion into the other virtues. Wherefore St. Ambrose rightly says on Leviticus: "Religion must be preferred to kinship, piety to family ties. For that alone is true religion which puts divine things before human things, and eternal things before temporal."

Thus "beginning" is taken for "the highest" and "primacy" in chapter 11:3: "Short among flying things is the bee, and her fruit has the beginning of sweetness," meaning: The fruit of the small bee is honey, which has the highest sweetness, which holds the primacy in sweetness.

Third, you may translate reshith as "first-fruits," meaning: The holy fear of God obtains the first-fruits of uprightness and piety, which are to be offered to God. For just as the first-fruits of trees and crops, so also the first-fruits of the virtues are owed to God; religion offers and renders these to God. For religion is wholly directed toward God and the worship of God; the other virtues tend toward one's neighbor, or are directed and reflected back toward the person performing them. Therefore, one endowed with virtue gives first-fruits to God from good actions — as from fruits which, like a fruitful tree, he continually produces — when he begins them from religion, offering them to God as victims and holocausts.

Fourth, St. Thomas, in the Summa Theologiae II-II, Question 19, article 7: "The beginning, that is, the first effect of wisdom, is the fear of the Lord. For since it pertains to wisdom that human life be regulated according to divine reasons, it is necessary to take as a starting point that man reverence God and subject himself to Him; for in this way he will consequently be regulated in all things according to God."

Fifth, our Benedictus Fernandius, on Genesis chapter 3, section 20, number 3, takes wisdom to mean penance, for this is coming to one's senses (resipiscentia). Hence Clement of Alexandria: "Penance, he says, is great understanding." For the beginning and stimulus of penance is usually the fear of God.

You will object: If fear is the beginning of wisdom, how is the same thing elsewhere called the end and consummation of wisdom? As in this chapter, verse 18: "The fullness of wisdom is to fear God"; and verse 21: "The crown of wisdom is the fear of the Lord"; and Job chapter 28, verse 28: "Behold, the fear of the Lord — that itself is wisdom."

The first response is from St. Augustine, who will be cited shortly, and following him Bede on Proverbs chapter 8, verse 7: initial or servile fear is the beginning of wisdom, that is, of charity, of which he said in verse 14: "The love of God is honorable wisdom." But filial fear, perfected by love, is the consummation of wisdom, that is, of charity — because this fear is an act of perfect charity. For servile fear is the auspice, beginning, key, and needle of charity; and, as St. Basil says on Isaiah chapter 1, a "pedagogue"; or, as Origen says on Romans chapter 8, verse 15: "A guardian and steward of little ones, leading them to charity."

Hear St. Augustine, in his treatise on 1 John 4:18: "Perfect charity casts out fear." "When something is sewn, the needle enters first; but unless it goes out, the thread does not follow. So fear first occupies the mind, but does not remain there — because it entered so as to bring in charity." And shortly before: "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, he says, because fear prepares a place for charity. But when charity begins to dwell there, the fear that prepared the place for it is driven out. For as charity grows, fear diminishes; and as charity becomes more interior, fear is driven out. Greater charity, lesser fear; lesser charity, greater fear. But if there is no fear at all, there is no way for charity to enter."

St. Thomas teaches the same in the Summa Theologiae I-II, Question 19, article 10, where he asserts that as charity increases, filial fear increases in equal measure, but servile fear decreases: "Because, he says, the more someone loves God, the less he fears punishment. First indeed because he attends less to his own good, which punishment opposes; second, because clinging more firmly to God, he has greater confidence in the reward, and consequently fears punishment less." So St. Thomas. The fear of God therefore causes men who are not yet delighted by the beauty of virtue to be restrained from sins by the dread of divine sufferings and punishments. This opinion is true, but it does not satisfy this passage. For the fear here is understood as filial rather than servile; for it is called by the Septuagint "eusebeia," that is, piety; indeed in verse 14 it is called "the love of God"; and in verse 17, "the religiousness of knowledge"; and in verse 21, "the crown of wisdom" — for everywhere he treats of the same fear. For Sirach especially strives to impress upon us filial fear, and everywhere calls it "the fear of the Lord"; servile fear is rather the fear of hell than of the Lord.

For a response, note that ethicists and philosophers customarily begin their science and discipline from the principles of knowledge, following Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I, chapters 1 and 2. Hence, just as Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics I requires in the hearer of his ethics that he have settled emotions, and therefore be a mature man, and sets as the principle of his ethics the mastery of the passions, and from that, consequently, the dictate of right reason undisturbed — so Solomon in Proverbs 1, and following him Sirach here, establish the fear of the Lord as the principle of their maxims, their wisdom, and their sacred ethics, and they require it in the disciple so that he may be capable of their teaching: because fools, who have no fear of God, despise wisdom, Proverbs 1:7.

I say therefore first: Wisdom here is understood as divine and practical, that is, sacred ethics, as I said at verse 1. And since it is twofold — formal, that is, the habit or act of wisdom; and objective, that is, the object of this habit or act — either can be understood here, but the objective sense is better.

I say second that by "fear" here is generally understood all dread and reverence of the divine majesty, inclining the soul to obey Him in all things and to take the greatest care not to offend Him anywhere — both because He Himself is the most severe judge and avenger of evils, and because He is the most gracious friend, father, end, and supreme good of ours. Hence the Septuagint calls fear "piety," Proverbs 1:7.

I say third that this fear is the beginning of wisdom properly and formally — because, just as a principle is related to a conclusion in science and demonstration, so the fear of God is related to these practical maxims in this wisdom. For the fear of God as our ultimate end and supreme good is the principle of all practical conclusions, both those to be learned and those to be carried out, which Solomon and Sirach set forth in Proverbs and in this book as in their wisdom, and which are means for attaining God as the ultimate end. For the end in ethics and human actions is the principle, because it is the first thing in intention, from which the means are inferred like conclusions.

I say fourth: this fear is also complete wisdom, not properly and formally, but metonymically and causally — both because, just as every conclusion is contained in its principle, so perfect wisdom lies hidden in the fear of God, as in its seed, cause, and principle. For the wisdom that is true and perfect, and truly blesses the whole and entire man, is not speculative but practical — this wisdom that flows from the fear of God; and thus in itself and in its essence this wisdom is perfect. Also because this fear, since it concerns a matter of such great importance, sharpens and increases itself, and the more this fear grows, the greater wisdom it begets; and so perfect fear begets perfect wisdom — just as perfect knowledge of principles generates perfect science of the conclusion, and the perfect intention of the end, which is the principle in moral matters, commands and produces a perfect and efficacious willing of the means. And thus, in intention, manner, and accompanying quality, this wisdom is perfect, which perfect fear and love of God begets.

Finally, Sirach does not speak philosophically and precisely, but ethically and broadly. Hence by wisdom he understands not only the act of the intellect by which one tastes, that is, the dictate of prudence already mentioned, but also the act of the will complying with it; for this wisdom consists more in action than in speculation. Hence fear and love, or the affection of God (verse 14), is called wisdom. Therefore fear here includes love and charity; and charity is the perfection of wisdom, that is, of all uprightness and virtue, meaning: The fear and love of God in beginners are the beginning of wisdom, that is, inchoate virtue and charity; but in those who are progressing and in the perfect, they are progressing and perfect charity. For in charity consists the perfection of this way and life. The fear of God, therefore, is here taken broadly for all knowledge of God, dread, observance, and worship — and so it includes faith, hope, charity, and religion. For by these four virtues we tend toward God, and we fear Him, that is, we believe, hope, love, revere, and worship Him.

This fear, therefore, and reverence toward God, on account of which we shrink from sin, just as it is the foundation and beginning, so also it is the end and summit of the Christian life: for it springs from knowledge and love of God — we revere God because we recognize and love His majesty, which we dread to offend. And this is the fourth praise of fear. And this is what Job says in chapter 28, verse 28: "Behold, the fear of the Lord — that itself is wisdom." In a similar phrase and sense our Thomas the God-taught says in The Imitation of Christ, Book I, chapter 1: "This is the highest wisdom: through contempt of the world to tend toward the heavenly kingdom."

Mystically and symbolically, Galatinus, drawing from Rabbi Isaac Ben Hola on Psalm 110, considers that here the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is foreshadowed: for by "beginning" is signified God the Father, who is the origin and principle of the divinity, namely of the two other Persons; by "wisdom" is noted the Son, for He is the begotten Wisdom; by "fear" is noted the Holy Spirit, who is the author of holy fear and love.

Tropologically, St. Thomas Aquinas, following Solomon and Sirach, acquired all his wisdom and knowledge through the fear and piety of God. Hence, when asked by a friend about the method of acquiring any science whatsoever, he replies in a letter to the same friend: "Since you have asked me, most dear to me in Christ, how you ought to study in acquiring the treasure of knowledge, this counsel is given to you by me on this matter: that you should choose to enter the sea not immediately but through small streams, because one must arrive at more difficult things through easier ones. This, then, is my admonition and your instruction: I order you to be slow to speak, and slow to ascend to the parlor. Embrace purity of conscience; do not cease to devote yourself to prayer. Love your cell frequently, if you wish to be led into the wine cellar. Show yourself lovable to all; inquire into nothing at all about the deeds of others; make yourself

too familiar with no one, because excessive familiarity breeds contempt and supplies the material for withdrawal from study. By no means involve yourself in the words and deeds of worldly people. Flee idle conversation above all things. Do not neglect to follow in the footsteps of the saints and the good. Do not look at who speaks to you, but whatever good thing is said, commit it to memory. See to it that you understand the things you do and hear; make yourself certain about doubtful things, and strive to store away in the little cabinet of your mind whatever you can, like one who wishes to fill a vessel. Do not seek things above you. He who follows these footsteps will produce and bring forth useful leaves and fruits in the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, as long as he lives. If you have pursued these things, you will be able to attain what you desire."

Wherefore St. Bernard says admirably in his treatise On the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, chapter 1: "The first grace, he says, is the fear of the Lord. He who has this grace hates all iniquity, according to that of the Psalmist: 'I hated iniquity and abominated it.' And in another place: 'I hated every way of iniquity.' For it is written: 'The fear of the Lord hates evil.' And again: 'Fear God, and depart from evil.' And of Job it is said: 'A man fearing God and departing from evil.' Without this grace, the first of graces, which is the beginning of all religion, no good thing can sprout or flow forth." How greatly this fear is necessary, St. Cyprian taught clearly in his sermon On the Lapsed, when he says: "As much as God is always indulgent and good with the affection of a Father, so much must He be feared with the majesty of a Judge." And St. Augustine, Sermon 17 on the Saints: "Who can (he says), unless he fears God, preserve justice? For Scripture says in another place: 'He who is without fear cannot be justified.'" Finally, St. Bernard, in the passage cited above: "For just as complacency, or laziness, is the cause and mother of all offenses, so the fear of the Lord is the root and guardian of all good things. Hence it is written: 'If you do not hold yourself steadfastly in the fear of the Lord, your house will quickly be overturned.' For every edifice of virtues immediately rushes to ruin if it has lost the protection of this grace." For which reason St. Ambrose on Psalm 118: "The beginning of wisdom, says the Prophet, is the fear of the Lord. But what is the beginning of wisdom except to renounce the world? For to be wise in worldly things is foolishness. Indeed, the Apostle says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness before the Lord." For this reason Tertullian, in his book On the Adornment of Women, at the beginning, calls fear "the foundation of salvation." And St. Cyprian, Book III, To Quirinus, chapter 20, calls fear "the foundation and bulwark of hope."

AND WITH THE FAITHFUL IT WAS CREATED TOGETHER IN THE WOMB — namely, the fear of the Lord. For although in Greek there is the verb "to fear the Lord," nevertheless here the infinitive is used in place of the noun "fear of the Lord," as I said at the beginning of this verse. Others translate from the Greek: "it was created together," namely wisdom; or "it was created together," namely the beginning of wisdom. So the Romans. But these three come to the same thing, because wisdom itself

wisdom here is the fear of the Lord, and the beginning of wisdom here is likewise the fear of the Lord, as has been said. The sense therefore is: The fear of the Lord is created together with the faithful; because God gives to the faithful, even from the mother's womb — indeed from the creation of the soul — an implanted and quasi-natural fear of the Lord, at least in its root and seed, insofar as He gives them reason and mind, which naturally dictates that God is the supreme, highest, and omnipotent being, and therefore must be feared and revered above all things. And accordingly, the natural law dictates that God is to be worshipped above all. Hence the fear of God belongs to the law of nature, indeed is connatural. Hence in Job chapter 28, verse 28, God said to the newly created Adam: "Behold, the fear of the Lord — that itself is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding." He adds that it is created together with the faithful through grace, because the children of the faithful, through baptism — indeed through conception in the maternal womb — become Christians and faithful members of the Church. Hence there is hope that they will conceive and possess the filial fear of God, that is, love.

Second, St. Augustine, about to be cited, and following him Bede on Proverbs chapter 8, as I recounted above, admirably teach that this fear of the Lord is created together with the holy faith of the saints: because God in baptism creates in them faith, hope, charity, and other virtues; for together with these, filial fear of God is created in the faithful, since it is the act and effect of these same virtues. For charity is "co-created," that is, created together with these virtues.

Third, others understand this of the faithful, that is, the saints of the Old Testament. For Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all the Prophets grew up together with the fear and love of God, that is, they had it from infancy itself.

Fourth, mystically, by "womb" Palacius and Lorinus understand the Church and baptism: for the fear and love of God is created together with the faithful in the Church through baptism, by which the faithful are, as it were, born and created as children of God.

It is clear, therefore, first: The wisdom of which the fear of God is the beginning is sacred ethics, as I said at verses 1 and 2. Second, the fear of God is taken here broadly for all dread, reverence, observance, and worship of God, as I have shown.

I say therefore that this fear is the beginning of wisdom both properly and formally — because, just as a principle is related to a conclusion in science and demonstration, so the fear of God is related to these practical maxims. For the fear of God, as our ultimate end and supreme good, is the principle of all practical conclusions, both those to be learned and those to be carried out. Then it is also complete wisdom, not properly and formally, but metonymically and causally: both because every conclusion is contained in its principle — and so perfect wisdom lies hidden in the fear of God, as in its seed, cause, and principle; and because this fear, since it concerns a matter of such great importance, sharpens and increases itself, and the more this fear grows, the greater wisdom it begets, and so perfect fear begets perfect wisdom.

God, who is the rewarder of all the faithful, moves more through His grace, and gives to each according to his merit. This, therefore, is the true wisdom that Sirach commends here: to fear, revere, and worship God. From this it follows that all wisdom is from God, for fear, reverence, and worship of God flow entirely from the grace and gift of God. For whatever good we think, will, or do — all of it is the grace of God, which precedes, accompanies, and follows upon our good work.

It is clear, second, that this wisdom of faith, that is, the charity by which we fear and worship God, is the beginning not only of wisdom, but also perfect wisdom — because where we perfectly worship and love God, there is perfect wisdom, that is, virtue and holiness. For in charity lies the perfection of all virtues, because charity is the bond of perfection and the end of the commandment.

Hence it is clear that by fear here is understood not only servile fear, but also filial fear, indeed even charity, as I said at verse 14: "The love of God is honorable wisdom"; and verse 17: "The religiousness of knowledge"; and verse 21: "The crown of wisdom." For everywhere he treats of the same fear, which is not servile except initially; but by growing it becomes filial, indeed love and charity.

Moreover, this is the argument: that perfect wisdom is perfect charity, and perfect charity is perfect wisdom. Therefore the beginning of wisdom, namely fear, is also the beginning of charity; and the perfection of charity is the perfection of wisdom; and the perfection of wisdom is perfect charity.

wisdom, which perfect fear and love of God begets.

is created together with them simultaneously with faith and holiness: the fear of God is innate and connatural to faith and holiness; because, as he said a little earlier: "The beginning of wisdom (practical wisdom, that is, holiness) is the fear of the Lord." For he explains how "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord" by saying that it is, as it were, co-created from the womb with the wise, that is, with the faithful and the just, as if to say: As soon as faith and the faithful person are created, fear is also created; they are begotten in the same womb; they are born from the same parent; they are twin brothers. For, as the Council of Trent teaches, session VI, this is the manner and order of justification: when God wishes to lead a sinner from sin to justice, He casts into his soul, as into a womb, the seed of the divine word and of holy inspirations concerning the foulness of sin, the wrath of God, and the punishments of hell; whereupon the soul immediately conceives fear, which drives it to contrition, by which sin is abolished and grace and justice are introduced; and then the soul puts on filial fear, by which it supremely reveres God as a Father, and seriously resolves to please Him in all things and to offend Him in nothing. You see, therefore, how fear is created together with faith, and with the faithful and just person. Thus baptism is, as it were, the womb and uterus of the Church, by which she regenerates us, and imbues and vivifies us with grace and the spirit of the fear of God, as St. Ambrose and others teach in their treatise on Baptism, and Rabanus here. Finally, for certain eminent Saints this fear was truly co-created in the womb, because by a special privilege they were sanctified in the womb. Such were the Blessed Virgin, St. John the Baptist (Luke 1:44), and Jeremiah (chapter 1:5).

With chosen (Vatablus: distinguished) women it walks. — The fear of the Lord, since it is co-created with the faithful, both men and women, likewise walks with both, that is, accompanies and leads both along the way of the commandments to the heavenly homeland: just as a tutor walks with a boy and leads him, so the fear of the Lord walks with the faithful and leads them safely through all adversities and prosperities to the port of salvation. He mentions women before men, both because modesty properly befits women, and likewise fear, which is the companion of modesty — for since a woman is more fragile than a man and more prone to falling, it is necessary that she fear more; it is likewise necessary that she be more supported by the fear of God — and also because women tend to be more God-fearing, that is, more religious and devout than men, as were St. Magdalene, Martha, Marcella, Praxedes, Pudentiana, Paula, Eustochium, Pulcheria, and very many others. This is the sixth endowment and praise of the fear of God.

Instead of "women," some think it should be read as "seed," as if to say: Fear walks with the chosen seed, that is, with its chosen children; and this in order to accommodate the Greek, which here differs from the Latin. For the Greek in the Roman edition reads thus: Meta anthropon themelion aionos enosseusse, kai meta tou spermatos auton empisteuthesetai, that is, "with men it has nested as a foundation of the age, and with their seed it will be entrusted." So the Complutensian. The Roman reads "will be entrusted;" Jansenius, "will be faithful," or "faithfully," that is

firmly, "will persist." The Syriac translates: "With men of truth it is, and it was ordained from of old, that is, firmly established; with their seed its mercy has been established." The Arabic: "She (wisdom, the inseparable companion of the fear of God) is with those who walk in the good pleasure of their Lord, established before the ages, and with the seed of the good is her excellence." Furthermore, Vatablus translates in a new way: "She founded an eternal nest among men, and entrusted herself to their offspring," as if to say: God's wisdom chose for herself a nest, that is, an eternal seat and dwelling among men, from the very beginning of the age, namely when this world was being founded; for then she was implanted in Adam and his posterity (Genesis 2:19), and she will never abandon them, but will remain with them faithfully, that is, fixedly and firmly. He calls this dwelling a nest because he compares wisdom to a bird — for example, an eagle, a dove, or a hen: for just as this bird hatches its chicks in the nest, nourishes and warms them, and always remains with them, protecting, feeding, and teaching them to fly, etc., so also wisdom in this school of the world, as in a nest, gives birth to, nourishes, and perfects her children — namely the faithful and the saints — and persists with them, providing for and protecting them, until she flies up with them to heaven. He alludes to Proverbs 8:22: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways." In place of which Epiphanius, Heresy LXIX, reads: "The Lord called me forth," that is, hatched me like a chick; because instead of kanani, that is, "possessed me," with a different vowel pointing he reads kinnani, that is, "nested me," or, in a nest, as a chick, hatched me (for kinnim means a chick), that is, begot and generated me — which most aptly applies to uncreated Wisdom, namely the Word and Son of God, and mystically to His posterity and children, namely the faithful and the Saints. And this aptly corresponds to what he said a little before about wisdom and the fear of God: "And with the faithful it was co-created in the womb;" this is what Wisdom says of herself in Proverbs 8:31: "My delights were to be with the children of men."

And with the just and faithful it is recognized. — Vatablus: "Among the just and faithful it is seen." Because in them, as in a nest, indeed as in a temple, it dwells, and causes them to be God-fearing everywhere, and to act and live in a God-fearing manner. Just as the invisible soul is recognized and seen through the vital works of the body, which it performs in the mouth, eye, ear, etc. — namely through speech, movement, sensation, etc. — so the fear of God is recognized through the works of humility, self-custody, patience, penance, charity, etc., which it outwardly performs: for this fear is, as it were, the soul of the faithful and holy person. What the soul, therefore, works in the body, this also fear works in the just person. Thus the fear of the Lord was recognized in Abel, when out of fear and reverence he offered the best of his flock to God; in Noah, when out of fear of the flood he built the ark; in Abraham, when obediently and reverently toward God he offered Isaac as a holocaust; in Joseph, when fearing God he repelled the adulteress; in Moses, when he resisted Pharaoh; in David, when he washed away his sin with tears.

Hence learn morally, first, with how great and how tender a love Wisdom pursues men, especially the faithful and the Saints — namely with as great a love as a hen pursues her chicks, as Christ asserts of Himself in Matthew 23:37, and as Moses says of God and God's care for Israel in Deuteronomy 32:11: "As an eagle," he says, "stirring up her young to fly, and hovering over them, she spread her wings, and took him up, and bore him on her shoulders."

Second, learn here that God's wisdom, from childhood, like a mother, cares for, governs, and advances His faithful ones — namely, as soon as they begin to be His children, regenerated by baptism. For this reason the Spirit of God directed most illustrious Saints from childhood, and caused them even in their boyhood to give illustrious proofs and, as it were, rays and preludes of their future holiness. Thus we read of Samson that he was consecrated as a Nazirite from the womb and destined as the liberator and avenger of the people of Israel (Judges 13:7). Whence it is said of him in verse 24: "And the boy grew, and the Lord blessed him; and the Spirit of the Lord began to be with him in the camp of Dan." Whence immediately in the following chapter, verse 6, it is said: "The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon Samson, and he tore apart the lion as one tears apart a kid, rending it to pieces, having absolutely nothing in his hand; and he did not wish to tell this to his father and mother." I have reviewed many similar examples of Saints who began from childhood at Jeremiah 1:9.

Third, learn how great is the fidelity, constancy, and fortitude of wisdom and the fear of the Lord: because it is said to have made for itself, indeed to have founded, a nest among men, as an eternal foundation, and to be faithful to their offspring, and even to have entrusted itself to them. Wherefore St. Ambrose, commenting on Psalm 118, explaining the verse 38: "Establish Your word to Your servant in Your fear," and understanding by the name of Wisdom the Word of God, says: "A certain foundation of the word is holy fear; for just as some statue is set upon a base, and then has greater beauty when it has been placed on its base, and receives its firmness for standing: so the word of God is better established in holy fear, and takes deeper root in the heart of one who fears God." He adds further: "Receive from the word of God the passage read in the Canticle: 'His legs are pillars of marble, founded upon golden bases' — signifying, namely, that the pillars are the Apostles, who are founded in holy fear." Nor did he call it merely the base of God's words, but also their tribunal and throne. For he adds: "Therefore for the word of Christ and the Apostolic preaching, the tribunal is the fear of the just man." And the comparison is most apt: for if the word of God finds holy fear in the soul, sitting upon it as upon a throne and tribunal like a judge, it settles from there the disputes between flesh and spirit, pronounces sentence for the spirit against the flesh, restrains the wicked and ruinous mob of passions and disturbances, and declares the rights of all the virtues. So our Salazar on Proverbs 1:7.

wisdom is the fear of the Lord. This is the fifth praise of the fear of God: that it is the inseparable companion of faith and justice, and the faithful Achates of the faithful and the saints, assisting, accompanying, and guiding them throughout their entire life. For by "the faithful" understand the just and holy, in whom there is faith — not bare and unformed, but formed by charity. But how is it co-created with them in the womb? First, some instead of en metra, that is, "in the womb," read en metro, that is, "in measure"; but the true reading is en metra. Second, Calvin and his followers, from this passage and similar ones, teach that the children of the faithful — namely those who are born of faithful and just parents — do not contract original sin, or at least that it is not imputed to them, and consequently that they do not need baptism to remove it; for this, they say, is the blessing of Abraham, that is, of the faithful, promised to their seed, that is, to their children (Genesis 13:15). But this is a heresy, which Bellarmine refutes at length in book IV of On the Loss of Grace, chapter 14.

Third, Jansenius explains it thus, as if to say: Most of the faithful even in the womb receive from God a certain gift, by which they are inclined to piety above others, as Job, who says of himself in chapter 31: "From infancy compassion grew with me, and from my mother's womb it came forth with me." Just as, conversely, the wickedness of the Canaanites is said to have been natural, that is, innate and as it were implanted by their parents (Wisdom 12:10). And of similar persons it is said in Psalm 57: "Sinners are alienated from the womb, they have gone astray from the womb," as if to say: They are so devoted to wickedness that wickedness seems to them to be inborn and natural — about whom there is the common proverb: "A thistle that will someday prick is born still tender with its thorns." But this does not suffice for this passage, both because this gift is not given to many, and because this gift coexists with original sin, and therefore seems to be merely a certain good natural disposition that makes them inclined to virtue — about which the axiom of the Stoics was: "The beginning of virtue is a good natural disposition," as Plutarch attests in his book On Homer. Therefore this gift is not the holy and sanctifying fear of God. Whence

Fourth, the same author responds that the fear of God was co-created with the faithful in the womb, not actually and in reality, but through God's preparation and predestination, by which from the beginning, in their creation, that is, in the maternal womb, God destined to give them in due time His fear and wisdom. Whence the Arabic, instead of "co-created in the womb," translates "established before the ages," namely Wisdom — just as Paul in Galatians 1:15 says he was "set apart for the Gospel from his mother's womb"; and some thus explain that passage in Jeremiah 1:5: "Before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you." But it is one thing to be co-created in the womb, and another to be predestined or set apart from the womb. Moreover, it is far more true that Jeremiah was truly sanctified in the womb, not merely predestined to holiness.

Fifth, therefore, the genuine sense is, as if to say: The fear of God so adheres to and is fixed upon the faithful, that it seems —

17. The fear of the Lord is the religiousness of knowledge.

Hence it is clear that the fear of God is theosebeia, that is, the worship and religion of God, as if to say: The fear of the Lord is knowledge, that is, a knowing, prudent, and true religion and piety, or a pious worship of God. Do you wish to know what the fear of the Lord is? It is a certain religious knowledge, that is, it is religion itself and reverence toward God, born from the knowledge and esteem of God. The philosophers had knowledge, but not religious knowledge. Many today are learned — lawyers, physicians, theologians — but they lack religion and devotion, because they lack the fear of God. Conversely, Muslims, pagans, idolaters, and other superstitious people have religiosity, but one lacking knowledge, that is, imprudent and false; and therefore their religiosity is not true religion, inasmuch as it does not rest upon the true knowledge and science of God as its foundation, but is mere and empty superstition. But the religion of the faithful and the just is knowing and prudent, and conversely their knowledge is religious, and thus it is devout religion, because they are endowed with the fear of God. Whence Vatablus translates: "The religion of the Lord is the holiness of knowledge." Hence conversely, holy knowledge, or wisdom, is called mystes, that is, a priest of God; because it teaches us to worship God with true religion and sacrifices. So Wisdom 8:4: "For she is the teacher of the discipline of God;" instead of "teacher," the Greek has mystis, as if to say: Wisdom is a mystes, that is, a priestess, interpreter, and teacher of the mysteries of God.

Moreover, religion, says St. Thomas (II-II, Question 81, article 2), is the virtue that renders due reverence and worship to the one true God, as the first principle of the creation and governance of all things. Whence religion is said, first, by Cicero in book II of On the Nature of the Gods, and by Isidore in book X of the Etymologies, chapter 17, to apply to one who rereads, revolves, and reconsiders those things that pertain to the worship of God, according to Proverbs 3: "In all your ways think upon Him." Second, religion is said to come from "re-choosing" (reeligendo), because we ought to choose God again, whom we had lost through negligence and sin, says St. Augustine in book X of The City of God, chapter 4. Third and genuinely, religion is said to come from "rebinding" (religando), because it binds us again to the one omnipotent God, with whom we were previously united and from whom, flowing away, we had begun to be distant, says the same St. Augustine in his book On True Religion, near the end. Hence, after the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, religion is the most noble virtue, and the head and chief of all the moral virtues.

Now indeed, as St. Thomas teaches in the same question, article 8, the flower of religion is holiness, which theologians define such that its proper office is to offer our mind to God purged from every stain, whole and without blemish, and to preserve it and all its powers for Him. The greatness of this office appears first from the fact that all other moral virtues serve this one alone, as its handmaids and servants — some by purifying the will, others by illuminating reason, others also by restraining the appetite. It appears likewise from its effect: for, as St. Thomas teaches in the cited passage, its two offspring, as it were, are

prayer and devotion; one of which leads us into intimacy and the embrace of God; the other bestows promptness and eagerness for all that the worship of God requires. This fervor and zeal of the will is of such importance that, if it is absent, our very offerings are far less pleasing to Him; but if it is present, it commends them all the more and makes them more acceptable.

Now this religion is the form and, as it were, the soul of the religious state: whence to its practitioners, or Religious, the name of religion has been attributed and appropriated. Therefore Sirach commends the fear of God as being the parent and nurse of all virtues indeed, but especially of true and holy religion. For he who fears God assuredly venerates and worships Him religiously and holily. For the chaste fear of God spurs him to this worship. This is experienced by Religious, namely true monks and cenobites; whence St. Bernard, in his homily on the Merchant seeking the fine pearl (by which he understands the monastic Religious life), says: "In religious life, a man lives more purely, falls more rarely, rises more quickly, walks more cautiously, rests more securely, is refreshed more frequently, dies more confidently, is purified more swiftly, and is rewarded more abundantly." See what follows. Finally, Salvian in book II Against Avarice says: "Religion is the knowledge of God, and therefore every Religious person, by the very fact that he follows the Religious life, testifies that he knows the will of God."

This is the seventh endowment of the fear of the Lord.

This verse 16, and the following verse 17, are absent from the Complutensian Greek and most others: yet it is clear that they once existed in the Greek, not only from our translator, but also from St. Augustine, who read them in his Speculum; and from the Zurich (Tigurina) version, which has this verse and translated it from the Greek, as it did the rest, although it places it before the preceding verse. Therefore some wrongly suspect that these verses, which are absent from the Greek, are from some commentator who noted them in the margin by way of explanation, and that they thence crept into the text. For from this it would follow that very many sentences of Ecclesiasticus in the Latin Vulgate version are spurious, and not canonical but apocryphal, because they are absent from the Greek — but this contradicts the Council of Trent, session IV. See what was said in the Prolegomena, chapter III, and canon 16.

Tropologically and anagogically, Rabanus says: "The fear of the Lord, born again and nourished with the faithful in the womb of Mother Church, walks with chosen women, because it is associated with holy souls; and it is recognized with the just and faithful, when on the last day, placed at the right hand of the Judge together with the other Saints, he will hear from the Lord Himself: 'Well done, good and faithful servant; because you were faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things: enter into the joy of your Lord'" (Matthew 25).

18. Religiousness will guard and justify (Dionysius reads: will vivify) the heart; it will give gladness and joy.

For religion and reverence strike the heart — that is, the soul, mind, and will — with a certain sacred awe of the divine Majesty, so that it thinks, wills, or does nothing that would offend the eyes of such great Majesty, and therefore religion itself is the justice and holiness of the soul. For it causes the soul to watch carefully and zealously over all its desires and works, lest it slip anywhere, but rather to perform all things holily, and thus to walk solicitously with its God, as Micah admonishes in chapter 6:8. See what was said there. From this custody and holiness of soul follows joy and exultation: for nothing so rejoices and exults as a holy conscience and a mind conscious of its own uprightness. For this is "the domestic and true tribunal," says Gregory Nazianzen in his Oration on the Hailstorm. "A secure mind is like a perpetual feast," says Solomon in Proverbs 15:15; and our Sirach in chapter 30:17: "There is no delight above the joy of the heart." Truly St. Cyprian, in On Works and Almsgiving, says: "A glorious thing and divine is the work of salvation: a monument of hope, a great consolation of believers, a safeguard of our service, a protection of faith, a remedy for sin."

You will say: It is charity and grace that formally justify a person — how then does religiousness justify? I respond first: because religiousness commands and brings with it charity and grace and the other virtues, as St. Thomas teaches (II-II, Q. 81, art. 8). I respond second: that formal justice consists not in charity and grace alone, but also in the other virtues; among which, however, charity is preeminent, and therefore justice principally consists in it. The reason is that justice is the reformation of the entire interior person, and this is accomplished through all the virtues, not through charity alone. Hear the Council of Trent, session VI, chapter 7: "Justification is not merely the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior person through the voluntary reception of grace and gifts." And shortly after: "The sole formal cause is the justice of God — not that by which He Himself is just, but that by which He makes us just; by which, namely, endowed by Him, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind; and we are not merely reputed, but are truly called and are just, receiving justice in ourselves, each one his own according to the measure which the Holy Spirit apportions to each as He wills, and according to each one's own disposition and cooperation." From which it concludes: "Whence in justification itself, together with the remission of sins, a person receives all these things simultaneously infused through Jesus Christ, into whom he is grafted through faith, hope, and charity." Hence in Scripture justice is now attributed to faith, as when Christ says: "Your faith has saved you;" now to hope, now to almsgiving, now to penance, now to other virtues by synecdoche — because, namely, these virtues are parts of justice, which is the complex of all the virtues, according to the saying: "Justice embraces within itself every virtue." But it is especially attributed to religion, for the reasons stated in the preceding verse; especially because through religion a person offers and dedicates himself to God, and thus

is, as it were, consecrated and sanctified: whence religion itself is holiness, as St. Thomas teaches in the passage already cited.

19. It shall be well with him who fears the Lord (especially at the end; whence it follows): and in the days of his consummation (that is, of his death and passing; for the absolute pronoun 'his' is used in place of the reflexive 'his own,' as I said in canon 18) he shall be blessed.

He repeats and emphasizes, with somewhat changed words, what he said in verse 13: "It shall be well with him who fears the Lord at the end, and in the day of his death he shall be blessed." Therefore the Complutensian and others less correctly read "consolation" instead of "consummation," and thus explain it as if to say: The time of this life is not one of consolation, but of temptation and suffering, as was the life of Christ; but the time of the future life for those who fear God will be one of consolation and joy, because it will be the time of blessed eternity. So Palacius.

The fullness of wisdom is to fear God.

He said in verse 16: "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord;" but here he adds that the fullness also, that is, the perfection of wisdom, is the fear of the Lord; because, namely, by wisdom he understands practical wisdom, which consists in holy action, whose parent is the fear of the Lord. Therefore as much as the fear of the Lord grows, so much also does wisdom grow: thus beginning fear is beginning wisdom; advancing fear is advancing wisdom; full and perfect fear is full and perfect wisdom. For nothing else is true wisdom than to fear God, that is, to revere and piously worship Him. Fear, therefore, is the beginning of wisdom, is the fullness of wisdom, is the crown of wisdom — so that it is the principle, the middle, and the end of wisdom. See what was said at verse 16. Whence the Zurich version translates: "To revere God is the most abundant wisdom, which satiates a person with its fruits." Truly Rabanus says: "The more one fears God, the wiser he appears; and the wiser, the more full of the fruits of good works. For the fear of God is not idle, but fills a person's life with the gifts of virtues, and illumines his heart with the treasures of spiritual knowledge." Whence it follows:

And fullness from its fruits.

In Greek, methyskei, that is, "it inebriates them with its fruits," as if to say: The fullness of wisdom inebriates those who fear. Just as the fear of the Lord brings the fullness of wisdom, so conversely wisdom brings the fullness of graces to those who fear God, and fills them with its fruits. Now the fruits of wisdom are the fruits of the Holy Spirit (for He is the Spirit of wisdom), which the Apostle enumerates in Galatians 5:22, saying: "The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long-suffering, gentleness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity." Whence the Syriac translates: "An intoxicating happiness from the multitude of its fruits." The Arabic: "And the abundance of it (fear) fills with wisdom all its storehouses, and its treasures with its fruits." Furthermore, the fruits of wisdom are the fruits of faith (for this is the wisdom of the faithful) working through love —

working, which Paul enumerates in Hebrews 11, throughout the whole chapter. Note the Hebraism: "inebriates," that is, satiates and fills, in the way that Plautus said in the Captives: "Whence I often came out drunk with satiety." And St. Jerome, in his Questions on Genesis, says: "It is an idiom of the Hebrew language to use 'inebriation' for 'satiety.'" Thus Joseph is said to have been inebriated, that is, satiated and gladdened, with his brothers (Genesis 43:34). Thus Psalm 64:11: "In its drops the sprouting earth will rejoice" — in Hebrew, "will be inebriated," that is, the earth irrigated by rains and, as it were, inebriated, will sprout abundantly, so that it metaphorically appears to rejoice and laugh. On this spiritual inebriation of wisdom I have said much at Acts 2:13; see also St. Dionysius, epistle 9; Origen, homily on the Canticle; St. Augustine, book XVI of The City of God, chapter 12; St. Ambrose, sermon 13 on Psalm 118; St. Gregory, on chapter 1 of book I of Kings.

Our Pineda explains this somewhat differently in book III of On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 26, number 6: "The fullness of wisdom is to fear God, and the fullness is from its fruits," meaning, he says, that wisdom finally returns and flows back into its fullest ocean when it seeks God, returning to its origin. For wisdom tends toward God by its own weight and impulse, as it were, unless by some force of foolishness and foolish human desire it is diverted from its path and its right course toward created allurements. He explains more subtly that this fullness comes from the fruits of wisdom, that is, that the effects and actions of wisdom contribute completion and the fullest perfection to wisdom and knowledge — which without the fruit of piety and good works would be deficient. So Pineda.

21. It will fill his whole house (that is, its own, namely the soul of the one who fears God; whence the Complutensian has auton, that is, 'of them,' namely of those who fear God) with its offspring, and the storehouses with its treasures.

that is, with its own, as if to say: Wisdom fills its entire house and all its storerooms (namely its chambers and cellars) with its own fruits and treasures. Note first: He calls "generations" the fruits which wisdom generates and produces. The Translator read gennematon, that is, "with generations"; now they read epithymematon, that is, "with desires," that is, with desired things. Second, he calls its treasures its proceeds, as the Greek has, namely its fruits: for the second hemistich says the same thing in other words as the first, as happens in the Psalms and in rhythmic compositions. Now the house of wisdom is the soul of the just person, according to Wisdom 7: "The seat of wisdom is the soul of the just." The receptacles, or cells and chambers of this house, are its senses and faculties, especially the intellect, memory, and will: these wisdom, or the fear of the Lord, fills with its fruits — namely virtues, consolations, holy desires, and good works. Whence Vatablus translates: "It fills their whole house with its delights, and likewise its cells with its proceeds." Somewhat differently the Syriac: "All its treasures," he says, "wisdom will fill, and its grace with its fruits." This is the eighth praise of the fear of God: that it fills minds with spiritual goods, and consequently with temporal goods, according to that promise of Christ in Matthew 6:33: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added to you." Whence the Greek adds: "Both things, moreover, are gifts of God that contribute to prosperity."

Anagogically, the receptacles of those who fear the Lord are the heavenly dwellings, of which Christ says in Luke 16:9: "Make for yourselves friends from the mammon of iniquity, so that when you fail, they may receive you into eternal tabernacles." Those who fear God fill these with their good works and merits, which they transmit into them and store up there — just as bees produce and store honey in the cells of the hive, so that they may feed on it and delight in it during winter.

O eternal Wisdom! O tranquil and serene light! My God, irradiate my soul with Your illuminations. Join me more closely to Yourself, O most brilliant sun, so that at the warmth of Your power the earth of my heart may put forth flowers and fruits of holy love. Come, my honor, my joy, and my sincere delight, Jesus! Kindle, I beg, so great a flame of Your love in the depths of my heart that henceforth I may choose nothing under the sun, desire nothing, except You. O my Lord, let heaven, earth, and all that they contain be to me without You like winter frost. You alone move me, You alone gladden me; may the love of You alone live and burn in my inmost being, and remain living and burning. Shine upon me, O bright and gracious light, so that the darkness of my blindness may be turned into the clearest noonday. Adorn, O good Jesus, my soul with that beauty of charity which You love; fatten it with that richness of love in which You delight; take from it whatever is less pleasing to Your eyes, and render it in all things pleasing to You.

22. The crown of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, filling with peace and the fruit of salvation.

This is the ninth praise of the fear of God. "Filling," that is, bringing in full measure; in Greek, anathallon, that is, "causing to sprout." Thus "filling" is often used in what follows. The Complutensian Greek reads: "The crown of wisdom is to fear the Lord, causing peace and soundness of health to sprout." Paraphrastically, the Zurich version: "The religion of the Lord is the crown of wisdom, producing tranquility and saving soundness, whose lovers it lavishly gladdens with glory." From which it is clear that the fear of the Lord is called the crown of wisdom — not because fear itself crowns wisdom, but because it crowns and adorns its own, namely those who fear God, with the crown of wisdom, that is, with wisdom itself, which like a crown adorns a person, and therefore makes those who fear God wealthy and noble, indeed kings, according to 1 Peter 2:9: "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood." And the saying of the Philosopher: "You will be a king, if reason rules you. You will rule many, if wisdom governs you." Whence the Syriac translates: "It multiplies peace, and life, and health. It is a staff of strength, and a place of repose, glory (it could better be rendered in the construct state as 'a place of glorious repose'), and eternal honor for everyone who walks after it." The Arabic: "From it (wisdom) are multiplied learning, and life, and health; and it is a rod of usefulness, and a support of praise, and perpetual honor for whoever seeks it."

Moreover, he explains this crown of wisdom from its fruit, when he adds "filling," that is, bringing in full measure, peace and the fruit of salvation (in Greek, hygieia, that is, health), as if to say: Wisdom is a crown because it crowns and surrounds a person with all good things — for it procures peace for the mind and health for the body, both in this life and even more in the future life, where there will be the fullest peace as well as health and salvation. "Peace" among the Hebrews signifies not only tranquility but also every good thing; for this is born from peace, as peace from wisdom, and wisdom from God. Relevant here is that saying of Pindar in the Nemeans, ode 8: "Riches sown by God are more enduring for men." Now wisdom produces peace and health, both because it is prudent and prudently avoids those things that can take away peace and health, and because it dominates the concupiscences and mortifies the passions — and the mortification of these brings peace and salvation to both soul and body.

A striking example of this is found in the Life of Blessed Lawrence Justinian, the first Patriarch of Venice. For wisdom appeared to him in a vision and bestowed peace upon him. When he was in his nineteenth year — an age that tends to be slippery and dangerous — the Lord Jesus is said to have appeared to him in the form of a virgin whose splendor easily surpassed the splendor of the sun, and with the most tranquil countenance to have said to him: "Why, young man, do you pour out your heart, and seeking peace, scatter yourself among many things? What you seek is with me. If you resolve to take me as your bride, I most assuredly promise you this peace." Delighted both by such great beauty and by such a great promise, he asked "what her name was, what her lineage." Then she said: "I am the wisdom of God, who put on human form to reform mankind." When Lawrence replied that he would most gladly accept her, she gave him a kiss and departed, as it seemed, joyful and glad. And not long afterward he betook himself to a monastery, having turned down the marriage offered to him, in which he abundantly experienced what we have said — that not only had he lost nothing, but had gained far more and better things than he had possessed in the world.

For the same reasons, wisdom and the fear of God produce health, both of soul and of body. To which is added the fact that those who fear God by their piety and prayers merit and obtain health from God; or at least the strength and eagerness to overcome illnesses by vigor of spirit and to count them as nothing.

Theodoret relates in his Philotheus, chapter 22, that Thalassius the hermit cured his colic pains and viper bites by prayer and the sign of the cross: "Struggling with this disease," he says, "and tortured by so many and so great pains, he did not accept the help of medicine, he did not bear to enter a bed, he was not refreshed by remedies or foods; but sitting on a board lying on the ground, he was cured by prayer and the sign of the cross, and by the chant of the divine invocation he lulled his sufferings to sleep." He then adds that by stepping on a viper, he was wounded by ten bites from it: "But not even then," he says, "did he allow

Again, wisdom is the crown of triumph: for it brings and places this crown upon the head of those who fear God, because through the fear of God it makes them conquer all temptations and triumph over sins, the world, the flesh, and the devil. So Palacius. If, therefore, the wise man wishes to triumph over his enemies and carry off the crown of victory, let him fear God. If he wishes to reign in the kingdom of his soul and obtain the crown of his kingdom, let him fear God. If he wishes to attain the kingdom of heaven and be crowned with the crown of the heavenly kingdom, let him fear God. For fear is the way to the kingdom, the way to the crown, the way to triumph.

Second, and more profoundly, Sirach seems here to illustrate and amplify what he said in verse 20: "The fullness of wisdom is to fear God," through the emblem and hieroglyph of the crown, as if to say: "The crown of wisdom is the fear of the Lord," that is, absolute and perfect wisdom is contained in the one fear of the Lord alone. For a crown is the summit, the peak, the top, the apex, the end, the consummation, the completion of a thing. Whence Isidore in book IX of the Origins, 30, thinks the crown (corona) is so called from chorus, because originally people ran around altars, and the crown was formed in the image of a circuit or chorus. Festus, however, thinks the crown was so called because it "co-honors" (cohonoret) the one upon whom it is placed. But in that case it should have been called a co-horona, not a corona. Better, therefore, Charles Paschalius, in book I of On Crowns, chapter 1, thinks the crown was named from the Greek koronis and korone, that is, the top of a bow — that is, the spherical and round thing in the semicircle, or the curve, which is the peak, apex, and perfection of a thing. Thus Sirach 25:8 says: "The crown of old men is great experience" — in Greek, polypeiria, that is, much experience, as if to say: The consummation of old age is prudence gathered from much experience. And Proverbs 12:4: "A diligent woman is a crown to her husband," as if to say: For a husband, this is the highest of his wishes, this his perfection and happiness — to have an energetic and attentive wife. Thus Herodotus says in On the Lineage and Life of Homer: "The crown of men indeed are children; the towers of the city" — according to Proverbs 17:6: "The crown of old men is their children's children." And Psalm 127:3: "Your children are like young olive plants, around your table." For when we say "crown," we mean the highest rewards and the peak of happiness, and whatever pertains to it. Thus Proverbs 16:31 says: "The crown (that is, the consummation) of dignity is old age;" and chapter 27:24: "A crown shall be given to you;" and chapter 4:9: "A glorious crown shall protect you." Similar passages are frequent in the Scriptures. That this is the meaning will be clear from what follows: "He saw it and numbered it." Finally, the Arabic understands it as the crown of victory and triumph over conquered vices and other enemies, as will be clear from its words, which I shall quote at verse 25.

whose lovers it lavishly gladdens with glory;" another reading: "it expands boasting for those who love Him," as if to say: Fear brings to those who love God a broad and great matter for glorying. This is the tenth praise of the fear of God: that it wisely measures and directs the actions and steps of a person.

23. And He saw it, and numbered it.

He explains how the fear of the Lord is the crown of wisdom: namely, just as a crown encircles, girds, and measures the whole head, so that if it were alive and had eyes, it would see and count everything on the head — so the fear of the Lord encircles and girds wisdom. For fear is commensurate with wisdom, because as great as wisdom is in a person, so great will fear also be. Fear, therefore, sees and enumerates wisdom — not the unlimited wisdom that is in God (for he denied this in verse 3), but the determinate wisdom that is in the one who fears God. For fear unfolds all the recesses of the soul and of its own wisdom, lest there be in it any foolishness, ignorance, stain, or vice. For fear, like Argus with his hundred eyes, surveys and scrutinizes the soul and its wisdom; it inspects and investigates all its corners, recesses, movements, ways, actions, and works, so that from every side it may be sound, unblemished, whole, perfect, and holy. The Greek remarkably varies here, so that you may see that it is not to be trusted, but rather the Latin codices, which are unanimous and consistent here as elsewhere. Therefore some Greek manuscripts read some of these words and omit more; some read the first part and do not read the latter part. Others, such as the Complutensian, instead of the words just discussed, read: "Boasting expands for those who love Him. It expands," namely, the heart and mind. Whence the Zurich version translates: "—

24. Both (namely, wisdom and the fear of the Lord, as well as peace and the fruit of salvation which they bring with them) are gifts of God.

Knowledge and the understanding of prudence wisdom will share, — that is, among its disciples, namely those who fear God, it will divide and distribute; in Greek, exomerisein, that is, it will pour out like rain and distribute — broadly, that is, and generously. Therefore some less aptly translate "it will distill," for a drop is meager, rare, and small. By "knowledge" Jansenius understands the knowledge of things to be believed; by "understanding" the knowledge of things to be done; for wisdom provides both. Rabanus by "knowledge" understands the knowledge of things to be avoided, by "understanding" the knowledge of things to be done, according to the verse: "Turn from evil and do good;" for in these two all law and wisdom and holiness consist. More plainly, by "knowledge" understand the knowledge of natural things — not speculative, but affectionate and ardent — by which the Saints, even though they are not philosophers, through the light of wisdom and of the Holy Spirit wisely contemplate and reason about the sun, moon, stars, heavens, elements, animals, plants, trees, fruits, wheat, flowers, meadows, etc., in all things praising the wisdom and providence of God, and from each thing drawing useful lessons of prudence and rightly ordering one's life. By "the understanding of prudence" understand intelligence and prudence in practical matters, namely sharpness of understanding and of prudently judging what is to be done. Whence the Zurich version translates: "Knowledge and the art of understanding;" Vatablus: "Wisdom pours out skill." So Palacius.

Such knowledge St. Francis possessed, who, as St. Bonaventure attests, discoursed about God and divine things so wisely, sublimely, and ardently that he surpassed all theologians, and everyone said that this knowledge of his was not human but received from heaven. For just as bees and ants have a marvelous knowledge of constructing hives, honeycombs, honey, etc., through the instinct of nature implanted in them by God, and because they are directed by an intelligence that does not err — so much more are the Saints directed by the Holy Spirit, and His anointing teaches them about all things.

This is the eleventh praise of the fear of God: that it gives knowledge and prudence to its own.

25. And the glory of those who hold (that is, possess) it, it exalts — that is, makes lofty and sublime.

The Zurich version: "And those who embrace it, it lifts up with glory;" namely, it makes them glorious and famous. Thus holy wisdom made glorious Saints Anthony, Hilarion, Macarius, Arsenius, Pachomius, etc. — men otherwise simple and often unlettered.

to use the art of medicine; but to his wounds he applied only the remedies of faith, and the sign of the cross, and prayer, and the invocation of God." And in chapter 18, recounting the harsh and austere life of the hermit Eusebius, he adds: "He endured this struggle, having lived more than ninety years; and though he was afflicted with a weakness that cannot be described, the eagerness of his spirit overcame the weakness, and the love of God made all things easy and unimpeded." And in chapter 21, concerning Jacob the hermit, who living in the open was scorched by the heat of the sun and frozen by ice and snow: "Against all things," he says, "he bears himself bravely and steadfastly, as though contending in another's body, and striving to conquer the nature of the body by the eagerness of the spirit. For in this mortal and passible body he lives as though impassible; and meditating upon an incorporeal life in the body, he cries out with St. Paul: 'Walking in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh.'" He has similar accounts in other chapters, especially chapters 24 and 29, where he narrates how those ancient ascetics, like heroes of holiness, even when sick, undertook the same labors and struggles that the healthy undertook, as though they counted illness as nothing — which St. Athanasius also writes of St. Anthony in his Life. In a similar way, St. Ignatius, founder of our Society, whose health was afflicted from so many labors and penances, and who was frequently sick, whenever some arduous matter for the glory of God presented itself for handling, would shake off by vigor of spirit every illness and pain, as Ribadeneira relates in book V of his Life, chapter 9.

The root of wisdom is to fear the Lord.

The Zurich version: "To revere the Lord is the root of wisdom." He said in verse 16 that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; here he adds that it is also the root of wisdom. Because just as from the root sprouts the entire tree, and its branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits, so that as the root is in quality and size, so is the tree, its branches, and its fruits — so likewise from the fear of God sprouts all practical wisdom: namely, every virtue, every honorable quality, every noble action, every holy life and manner of living. Just as farmers, therefore, when they wish to cultivate a tree, cultivate its root by manuring, irrigating, loosening the soil, etc., for upon the root depends the entire fertility and prosperity of the tree — so likewise, if you wish to cultivate and increase wisdom and every virtue, cultivate and increase the fear of the Lord; it will give you every virtue and every spiritual fertility and happiness.

The Syriac has it differently, namely: "Its roots (those of the fear of the Lord) are eternal life, and its branches are length of days. Blessed is the man who meditates upon it, for it is better for him than all treasures. Blessed is the man who draws near to it and serves its commandments. It will place upon him an eternal crown and eternal victory among the Saints. He will rejoice in it (fear), and it (fear) will rejoice in him (the fearing person), and it will not cast him off for ever and ever. The angels of God will rejoice in him, and they will count all the praises of God. This entire book is words of life: Blessed is the man who hears and does it. Hear me, you who fear the Lord, and attend and understand my words. Who is the one who wishes to inherit life, an eternal inheritance, and great joy? Hear all my words, and do them, and you will be written in the book of life." Thus the Syriac, interpreting paraphrastically rather than literally: for these words are not in the Greek or Latin codices, just as conversely, what follows in those up to verse 36, the Syriac omits.

In a similar way, the Chaldean translator, who in language is almost the same as the Syriac, in the Old Testament often inserts long paraphrases, and for this reason is called the Paraphrast. The Arabic, as is its custom, imitates the Syriac, translating thus paraphrastically: "Its roots (those of wisdom, and consequently of fear) are eternal life, and its tree prolongs days. Blessedness to him who has placed his care in it, for it is more useful to him than all storehouses (repositories). Blessedness to the man who has spoken in it and has been led in its commandments, for it is a crowning perpetual crown, and victory among the Saints will come to him forever. He will rejoice in it, and will dwell in him, and will not abandon him for ever and ever. The angels of God rejoice in it, and prepare all the praises of the Lord. And thus the whole book is full of life. Blessedness to the man (blessed is the man) who has heard and done what is in it. O people of those who love God, hear, and attend to my word, and understand." And here the Arabic finishes the first chapter; therefore it omits the rest,

And its branches are long-lived.

In Greek, more expressively, makroemereusis, that is, length of days, of long life. The Zurich version: "long-lived ages," as if to say: Just as from the root or trunk of a tree its branches arise and grow up, so from the fear of the Lord arises long life, both present and future. For the fear of the Lord, which is true wisdom, makes its followers long-lived, and then transfers them to blessed eternity. Again, the branches of fear are the virtues, grace, and glory, which are long-lived, both because they endure eternally and because through them fear continually produces new and daily more numerous and greater fruits of good works, just as a tree through its branches brings forth its fruits. For the fear of the Lord, which is love and charity, commands, and by commanding produces the acts of all the other virtues. Hence, if out of the fear and love of God you humble yourself, obey, and suffer, this humiliation, obedience, and endurance is the fruit of charity produced through the branches of humility, obedience, and patience. For these are elicited acts of these virtues, but commanded by the fear and love of God.

Note: He fittingly attributes longevity to fear, because fear is the guardian and preservation of all the virtues. If, therefore, you wish to possess virtues for a long time and steadfastly, fear. If you wish to persevere in good, fear, according to the counsel of the Apostle: "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). For those who do not fear quickly lose, through overconfidence, fickleness, imprudence, and arrogance, the holiness they possess — as Adam, David, and Solomon lost it.

Note: The fear of God makes those who fear Him long-lived even in this life, for the reasons I gave at verse 22. Thus St. Paul, the first hermit, fleeing the world out of the fear of God, lived in a cave for 98 years and died at the age of 113. St. Anthony died at the age of 105; St. Romuald at 120; Pachomius at 118; Arsenius at 120. See more in Cassian, Conference 11, chapter 4. Indeed most other hermits were also long-lived, as even now are Religious men and women who in monasteries, without cares and anxiety, quietly, piously, and holily serve God into decrepit old age — because by the fear of God they mortify bile, gluttony, and the other passions that shorten life, and by sobriety and joy they prolong life. Whence it is an aphorism of Hippocrates: ta achola makrobia, that is, animals that lack bile are long-lived — such as the deer, about which there exists an epigram of Virgil on the ages of animals, in which he surveys and measures the long-lived creatures. For thus he sings: "Thrice two and ten times nine years it surpassed, Which the just life of aging men completes; The chattering crow surpasses these ninefold in living; And the stag outlasts four lifetimes of the crow; The raven conquers the swift-footed stag three times; but him The phoenix, that self-renewing bird, multiplies ninefold; And you outstrip the phoenix tenfold in perpetual life, O Hamadryad nymphs, whose life is the longest of all."

which are found in the Latin and Greek Bibles, and indeed even in the Syriac.

27. THE FEAR OF THE LORD DRIVES OUT SIN. — Whether that which has already been committed, or that which tries to enter. It drives out the former indeed by repentance, and the latter by resistance, says St. Bernard in On the Various Affections of the Soul. For the fear of the Lord drives out sin, both past sin through contrition, to which fear — that is, dread and reverence of the Divinity — arouses; and present and future sin: for it takes care not to offend so great a Deity, who most severely judges and punishes every sin. So says Rabanus. But it especially drives out the sin of impatience and murmuring, lest a man, when he is afflicted in this world and suffers many sorrows, become impatient and murmur against God; but rather with submission and fear and reverence subject and resign himself to Him. Hence Clement of Alexandria, Stromata II, defines fear thus: Fear is a caution in agreement with reason, and an avoidance of what harms, according to that saying of Isaiah 26:17: Before Your face, O Lord, we conceived, and as it were travailed, and brought forth a spirit. For which St. Cyril translates: Because of Your fear, O Lord, we were with child, and travailed, and were heavy upon the earth.

The Greek has: The fear of the Lord drives out sins; and persevering, it turns away wrath. The Zurich Bible: The religion of the Lord drives away sins; and as long as it is present, it keeps away wrath. For, as St. Basil says at the beginning of Proverbs: Just as one nailed to a cross can move neither hands nor feet, so one who is fastened by the fear of the Lord is in no way moved beyond His nod. Therefore the fear of God is the cross of vices. And Tertullian, in On the Dress of Women I: He who presumes, he says, fears less, takes less precaution, is more endangered; fear is the foundation of salvation. Why then should it not produce the fruit of salvation? Presumption is an impediment to fear; therefore it is more useful if we hope (that is, fear, says Pamelius) that we can sin; for by hoping we shall fear, by fearing we shall take precaution, by taking precaution we shall be saved. He adds the reason:

FOR HE WHO IS WITHOUT FEAR CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED. So too reads Clement of Alexandria, Pædagogus I, chapter 8, for which the Greek has: ho thymodes (others, thymos adikos, that is, unjust anger) ou dynesetai dikaiothēnai, that is, an angry man cannot be justified, that is, preserved in justice. For boldness, and its kindred anger, is opposed and contrary to fear, as the moral philosophers teach. Therefore, he who is without fear is the same as bold, spirited, wrathful. Just as fear therefore bridles and restrains impatience, murmuring, and other sins: so boldness and anger, breaking the reins into impatience, murmuring, and any sins whatsoever, like an untamed horse, rushes forward and falls. This is what he adds next:

FOR THE ANGER OF HIS HIGH SPIRIT IS HIS RUIN. — The Greek: for his proneness to anger creates ruin for him; for the bold and wrathful man rushes like one without reins into his own harm, namely, into curses, quarrels, blasphemies, etc., by which he brings upon himself enormous punishments. Hence St. Ephrem, in the treatise On the Panoply: Anger, he says, is like a two-edged sword:

But hear Pliny, book VII, chapter 48: Hesiod, in my opinion fabulously, relating much about the ages of men, attributed to the crow nine of our lifetimes, four times that to deer, and three times that to ravens. And the rest still more fabulously about the phoenix and the nymphs. The same author, book VIII, chapter 32: The life of deer, he says, is admittedly long, since some captured after a hundred years were found with golden collars which Alexander the Great had added, already covered over by skin in their great fatness. This animal does not feel the diseases of fevers; indeed it even cures this affliction. We know that certain noble women were accustomed to taste its flesh every morning, and to have been free from fevers for a long lifetime.

Gentleness therefore, as well as sobriety and joy, makes the religious and holy live long. Hence St. Chrysostom, in book II Against Those Who Attack the Monastic Life, teaches that monks live in health, and because of their temperance in food, flourish like wild animals, as he says, and are vigorous in body; while on the contrary the rich and pampered, who are commonly considered blessed, lying as it were in mire, are softer, subject to gout, arthritis, catarrhs, and other diseases, and therefore short-lived. And St. Jerome, in book II Against Jovinian, teaches that abstinence contributes to the health of the body and prolongs life, and he confirms this from the aphorisms of physicians.

This is the twelfth gift and praise of the fear of God, that it makes those who fear live long; because it keeps away the three roots of a short life, namely, gluttony and both kinds of bile, yellow and black, that is, choler and melancholy: for these kill many prematurely and slay them.

26. In the treasures of wisdom is understanding (that is, intelligence), and the religiousness of knowledge — that is, religious knowledge, or religion that is knowing and prudent, not ignorant and erring, such as is superstition, as I said at verse 16. This verse is not in the Greek, but a similar one is added below at verse 31. The meaning is, as if to say: Wisdom is wealthy and opulent, she has immense treasures; her treasures are spiritual, namely, intelligence, with which she adorns, enriches, and fills the understanding, and all the virtues (for religion and the worship of God bring these along as companions and handmaids), with which she adorns and fills the will, and from these her treasures she draws forth both, and bestows them abundantly on her devoted students.

Note: Sirach takes these three — namely, wisdom, the fear of God, and religion — as if they were one and the same; because he means practical wisdom, which consists in virtuous action and holiness of life, that is, in the worship of God, as I have already often said. Hence, opposing to it by antithesis sins and sinners, he adds:

BUT TO SINNERS, WISDOM IS AN ABOMINATION. — Therefore the Zurich Bible translates this antithesis more clearly thus: In the treasures of wisdom there is understanding and the holiness of knowledge; but to the wicked, wisdom is an abomination. Hence, clearly expressing the same antithesis, our author adds:

in one moment it destroys him whom it strikes, as it is written: For the moment of his fury is his ruin. For the Greek word rhopē signifies many things, namely, a decline, a turning aside, a proneness; also a moment, that is, the inclination of a scale sinking to the bottom, a nod, a downward slope, a tendency: for properly it is said of the pans of a balance. Moreover it is called a moment, anger; because anger lasts but a little, according to that saying: Anger is a brief madness. But it creates a long ruin, as is clear if someone in anger wounds, kills, etc. Opposing the patient man to this, he adds: The patient man will endure for a time.

However, these things can be taken more generally and applied to any sin, as if to say: He who is too much attached to his sins and concupiscences, seeing the law of God opposing him, grows angry at it; and this anger makes him bold to sin, so that he may indulge his appetites; but this boldness is his ruin, because it plunges him into destruction, namely, into the present and eternal death of the soul. So say Palacius and Rabanus.

Moral lesson. Note here that this is the thirteenth notable power and praise of the fear of God, that it drives out sin, so that even though the most powerful enemies — namely, the world, the flesh, and the devil — impel us to sin, nevertheless the fear of God restrains us from them and conquers all these things; because it supremely reveres Him: first, as God; second, as the supreme Lord of all; third, as the most loving Father; fourth, as the dearest Spouse; fifth, as the most faithful Friend; sixth, as the most severe Judge and Avenger.

Therefore he who fears God, when he is solicited to sin, says with Joseph: How can I do this wicked thing and sin against my God? (Genesis 39:9). For, as Symmachus wisely says in his letter to the Emperors (which is found in book II of the letters of St. Ambrose): It is of the greatest power for the fear of offending to be pressed upon by the presence of religion. And with Susanna: It is better for me to fall into your hands without doing it than to sin in the sight of the Lord (Daniel 13:23). And with the Psalmist, Psalm 118:101: I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Your words. I have not turned aside from Your judgments; because You have set the law for me. And with Job, chapter 31:1: I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not even think about a maiden. For what portion would God above have in me, and what inheritance the Almighty from on high? Does He not Himself observe my ways and count all my steps? And verse 14: For what shall I do when God rises to judge? And when He inquires, what shall I answer Him? And verse 23: For I always feared God as waves swelling over me, and His weight I could not bear.

Hence Theodoret, in book I of On the Cure of Greek Maladies, compares the fear of God with a bitter but purgative potion: for by it the diseased humors of sins, especially the winds of pride and high-spiritedness, are drained away, and health is restored to the mind. The fear of God, he says, is the best medicine, which is composed of bad things (punishments) and good things, just as happens with theriac. Bede on Proverbs: Where, he says, there is no fear of God, there is the kingdom of sin; but where there is fear of God, there is the kingdom of God and of holiness. Therefore St. John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness, cried out nothing but the fear of God, to impress it upon men. Matthew 3:7: Brood of vipers, he says, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? And even Christ in Matthew 10:28: Fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Therefore Clement of Alexandria wisely said in Stromata II: Faith is the first inclination toward salvation, after which comes fear, and hope, and repentance. And shortly after: Those who condemn fear also attack the law; and if the law, it is clear that they also attack God, who gave the law.

With these agree the things which St. Anthony says in the writings of Blessed Athanasius: The dread (he says) of judgment, and the terrible fear of punishments, dissolves the enticements of the slippery flesh, and sustains the falling soul as if from some cliff. St. Basil holds the same in Homily 8 on Psalm 32: Necessarily, he says, fear is assumed as an introduction to piety; but love, succeeding afterward, perfects those adopted by fear through knowledge. More fully in Homily 9 on Psalm 33: Do you wish me to explain, he says, what the saving fear is, the fear that produces sanctification? When you are about to advance toward some sin, think of that dreadful and unbearable judgment of Christ, and the rest that he adds thereafter, concluding: Fear these things, and instructed by this fear, restrain your soul from concupiscence toward these evils, as with a kind of bridle. Moreover Chrysostom, in Homily 15 to the People of Antioch, says that the fear of Gehenna even in the soul of a just man is like a strong and armed soldier, who keeps thieves and robbers and all enemies far away from the house.

Therefore Ambrose, on Psalm 118, Sermon 21, writes that the blessed martyrs, placed amid the very torments of their executioners, conquered by the fear of Gehenna set before the eyes of their mind the fear of those punishments which the executioners inflicted. And St. Jerome, in Letter 22 to Eustochium on the Preservation of Virginity, says that he chose solitude and the harshest way of life out of fear of Gehenna. Nor does St. Augustine hesitate, in the book On Grace and Free Will, chapter 18, to call this fear of Gehenna a gift of God. Indeed Cassian, Conference 11, chapter 28: There is, he says, a certain step of progress, so that while we begin to avoid vices either from fear of punishments or from hope of rewards, we may pass on to the degree of charity. And Gregory, in Homily 26 on the Gospels, exhorts all to fear the future judgment before it comes. Again, Homily 34: A depraved mind, he says, if it is not first overturned by fear, is not cleansed from habitual vices. Nor is it in vain that so often the dignity and excellence of fear is extolled in the Sacred Scriptures: Blessed is the man, says David, who fears the Lord; in His command-

heaped with greater goods, as happened to St. Job. Pope Urban IV aptly illustrates this same point with the example of bees, in his commentary on Psalm 50, which is found in volume I of the Library of the Holy Fathers: David, he says, speaking of his persecutors, says in Psalm 117: They surrounded me like bees. For bees, although they inflict the pain of stinging, are nevertheless loved, because they provide the sweetness of honey. So too, Lord, I wish to love my persecutors, and to endure with a contrite spirit the stings that they inflict upon me with bitter efforts, so that honeyed pleasantness may follow. For through a certain Wise Man I hear You saying, Lord, that the patient man will endure for a time, and afterward there will be a return of joy.

ments he shall delight greatly. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth; the generation of the upright shall be blessed. Glory and riches shall be in his house; and his justice endures forever and ever.

29. THE PATIENT MAN WILL ENDURE FOR A TIME. — In Greek, anthexetai, that is, he will endure; for which some read, anexetai, which can first be taken as anexetai, that is, he will endure, tolerate, bear, persevere. Second, it can be translated, he will resist, he will struggle against, namely, temptation. Third, he will cling to, as if fastened with nails, namely, to his patience, and he will hold onto it tenaciously. Fourth, he will embrace, and bind to himself with a mutual embrace both his cross and his patience, as a bride chosen and beloved by him. He opposes to the thymōdē, that is, the bold, impatient, wrathful man, the makrothymon, that is, the long-suffering and patient man; because the latter endures any adversities for a time, in the hope of heavenly glory; whereas the former immediately resists them and strives to shake them off, and therefore stirs up quarrels and disputes. Hence he says of the patient man:

AND AFTERWARD A RETURN OF JOY. — The translator read anadōsis euphrosynēs; now they read anadōsei euphrosynē, that is, joy will spring up, and as if rising from the earth, will germinate for him; for anadidōmi, that is, I return, is taken for anablastanō, that is, I sprout, I bud. It is an apt and elegant metaphor from trees, which in winter suffer frost, snow, cold, and stripped of their leaves and foliage, as it were grow white and die; but then they recover their strength inwardly, so that all the warmth is driven into the root, which sucks moisture from the earth; and so the root, laden and pregnant, in spring as if brought to life by the rays of the sun, buds forth and bursts into joyful foliage, flowers, and fruits. For in a similar way the patient man in adversity, as in winter, withdraws inwardly through patience into the inner recesses of the soul, and there gathers the strength and sap of patience, humility, and the other virtues, which will soon produce for him the deserved fruits of joy and glory. For with these God will reward and recompense his sorrows and patience. The just man is therefore like a palm tree planted beside streams of water, which will yield its fruit in its season, that is, in the final time, says St. Augustine on Psalm 1. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: He who is patient until the opportune time will show endurance, and afterward joy will arise for him, as if to say: The just man, tried and afflicted, will endure by being patient until the time of affliction passes; then in place of it will succeed a time of gladness: for just as day succeeds night, spring succeeds winter, calm succeeds storm, and fair weather succeeds rain and gloom, so joy succeeds temptation.

Therefore this metaphor from a tree is fitting and illustrious: its branches cut off, its leaves burned, barely a stump remains which is thought to be dried up and fit for nothing but fire in winter; but when spring approaches, the same tree grows green again and sprouts anew. Therefore let no one lose heart, even when oppressed and as it were buried by the wintry rigors of tribulations; when God breathes again and brings prosperity, he will sprout anew, heaped with goods twice as great, as happened to St. Job.

Sirach alludes to Habakkuk 2:3: If it makes delay, wait for it; for coming it will come, and it will not be late. Behold, he who is unbelieving, his soul will not be upright in himself; but the just man will live by his faith. And to Isaiah 61:3, where Christ says He was sent and anointed by the Holy Spirit: To console, He says, all who mourn in Zion, and to give them a crown instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of the spirit of sorrow. See what I have said in both places. This is what the Psalmist sings: Wait for the Lord, act manfully; and let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord (Psalm 26:14). And Haggai 2:7: Yet a little while, etc., and the desired of all nations shall come. And Christ, going to His death, John 16:17: A little while, and you shall not see Me; and again a little while, and you shall see Me. And verse 22: So you indeed now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no one shall take from you. Therefore Tertullian wisely says in his book On Patience: God is a fit guarantor of patience: if you deposit an injury with Him, He is the avenger; if a loss, He is the restorer; if pain, He is the physician; if death, He is the raiser from the dead. How great a privilege patience has, to have God as its debtor! This is what the return also signifies.

30. A good understanding (that is, a sensible and patient man) WILL HIDE HIS WORDS FOR A TIME (that is, his own words — meaning, he will repress his anger and impatience lest he burst forth into wrathful and cursing words): AND (that is, therefore) THE LIPS OF MANY SHALL DECLARE HIS UNDERSTANDING — as if to say: Many will praise and celebrate his prudence and wisdom, which he has shown in patience. Hence the Greek has: the same (patient man) will suppress his words at the right time, and the lips of many (for this is pollōn, for which the Roman edition reads pistōn, that is, of the faithful) will proclaim his counsel.

This is the fourteenth praise of the fear of God. So St. Monica, says St. Augustine, Confessions IX, chapter 9: She knew not to resist her angry husband, not only in deed but not even in word. But when he had calmed down and was quiet, and she saw a suitable opportunity, she would give an account of her action, if perhaps he had been stirred up too thoughtlessly. By this patience and silence she maintained continual peace with him, and at last converted him to Christ.

31. IN THE TREASURES OF WISDOM IS THE SIGNIFICATION OF DISCIPLINE. — That is, there is; in Greek parabolai epistēmēs, that is, in the treasures of wisdom are the parables of knowledge. Parables are called by the Hebrews weighty, hidden, learned, prudent sayings, which teach and dictate how life is to be led honestly, prudently, and holily according to God's law and discipline. Wisdom holds these as precious things and gems in her treasures, and from there she brings them forth and shares them with her teachers.

32. BUT TO THE SINNER, THE WORSHIP OF GOD IS AN ABOMINATION. — In Greek, theosebeia, that is, religion, piety, the worship of God, which wisdom and discipline teach, and which consists in the fear and love of God, as I said at verse 26 (and thus the antithesis of this half-verse with the preceding is clear: for discipline is the worship of God): for this verse, although it differs in some words from the former, is nevertheless one and the same in substance and meaning. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: In the treasures of wisdom is hidden knowledge (Vatablus says allegory; others, enigmas; others, parables, for the Greek is parabolai): but to the wicked, piety is abominable. The word parables signifies what the speech and teaching of the wise

was and ought to be — namely, a parable of knowledge, that is, well-informed, prudent, and clever: for in this furnishing of wisdom and in her most hidden treasures, nothing is more precious or more illustrious.

Moreover, it is called the signification of discipline, because a parable ought not to show a thing openly, but only to signify it somewhat obscurely. And he adds the reason for this obscurity: because the sinner will abhor wisdom and will close his ears if you clearly press upon him wholesome counsels about good morals. For this reason Christ pressed His wisdom upon the Pharisees, rebuking their vices, and upon the carnal Jews through parables, Matthew 13. So Solomon wrote and titled his wisdom: Proverbs, which in concise and brief sayings contain great and perfect meanings, says Origen in his Prologue to the Song of Songs.

After this saying, in an old Greek manuscript the following is added: The fear of the Lord is a gift from the Lord; for indeed it establishes the ways of extraordinary love. So that it may appear that this book was put together in many ways: for the first part of the saying already mentioned is contained in verse 23, and the latter part in verse 14.

Third Part of the Chapter

33. SON, IF YOU DESIRE (the translator reads, as does St. Augustine in the Mirror, and the Complutensian, epithumēsas, with the accent on the penultimate; but the Roman Greek edition, St. Jerome on Hosea 10, St. Hilary on Psalm 1, and St. Augustine in Against Faustus XXII, chapter 52, read epithumēsas, with the accent on the antepenultimate: that is, have you desired, with a question mark; but the meaning comes to the same thing) WISDOM, KEEP JUSTICE (in Greek dikaiōmata, that is, precepts, commandments — as if to say: Son, if you desire and aspire to wisdom, observe God's commandments: these will lead you by the straight path to wisdom). AND GOD WILL BESTOW IT ON YOU — as on His faithful friend, pious and obedient. For into a malicious soul wisdom will not enter, nor will it dwell in a body subject to sins (Wisdom 1). Justice therefore is here understood in the general sense, which consists in the observance of all God's commandments: for this makes a man just and gives him the name of just. So the Psalmist throughout the whole of Psalm 118 teaches that true wisdom is situated in the law of God and its keeping.

This was symbolically signified in the marriage of Jacob, who first took Leah, and then Rachel: for Leah signifies laborious justice, and Rachel beautiful understanding. So teaches St. Augustine in Against Faustus XXII, chapter 53: First, he says, in the right education of man comes the labor of doing what is just, before the pleasure of understanding what is true. To this applies what is written: Have you desired wisdom? Keep the commandments, and the Lord will bestow it on you. Commandments, that is, pertaining to justice: moreover, the justice which is from faith, which moves amid the uncertainties of temptations, so that by piously believ-

ing what he does not yet understand, he may also attain the merit of understanding. And shortly after: Therefore in those who burn with an intense love of clear truth, their zeal is not to be disapproved, but to be recalled to order, so that they begin from faith, and strive through good morals to reach where they are aiming. For in that wherein they are engaged, virtue is laborious; but in that which they seek, wisdom is luminous. Therefore let the answer be given: What you desire is indeed beautiful and most worthy of love; but first Leah is married, and then Rachel. Therefore let this ardor avail for this, that the order not be refused; but rather endured, without which one cannot arrive at what is loved with such great ardor. But when the goal has been reached, in this world one will have at the same time not only beautiful understanding but also laborious justice. So St. Marcella, says St. Jerome in his letter to Principia, followed that saying of the Psalmist, Psalm 118: From Your commandments I have gained understanding, so that after she had fulfilled the commandments, she then knew she deserved the understanding of the Scriptures.

This is the third part of the chapter, in which after the praise of wisdom and the fear of God, he prescribes the means of attaining it, namely, justice, which is situated in the observance of God's commandments: for the fear of God produces justice; justice produces wisdom. He adds the reason, saying:

34. FOR WISDOM AND DISCIPLINE IS THE FEAR OF THE LORD — as if to say: The way and means of acquiring wisdom is justice, or the observance of the Lord's commandments; because wisdom is the fear of the Lord, or at least connected with the fear of the Lord, from which justice and the observance of commandments arise. Note here: These three — wisdom, the fear of the Lord, and the observance of commandments — are so connected among themselves that where one is, there the other two are also, and as much as one grows, so much do the other two grow. Therefore as fear increases, the observance of commandments increases, and practical wisdom also increases: Because the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life (Proverbs 6:23). And: Open my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of Your law (Psalm 118:18); and verse 105: Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths. Conversely, as much as the observance of commandments increases, so much does the fear and love of God increase, and consequently wisdom increases equally, according to that saying: Teach me goodness, and discipline, and knowledge, because I have believed in Your commandments (Psalm 118:66). Therefore Job 28:28: Behold, he says, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding; because, of course, practical wisdom, since it is situated in virtuous action, is equally situated in the fear of God, which arouses to every good, so that he truly is wise who fears God and obeys His law.

Note: These three — namely, wisdom, the fear of the Lord, and the observance of commandments — if taken properly and in themselves, are distinguished as father, son, and grandson; or as prudence, virtue, and the very act of virtue. For wisdom is the dictate of wisdom, which dictates that God must be feared and His commandments observed. Fear then fears God and stimulates the one who fears God to observe His commandments. Hence, thirdly, the one who fears God, impelled by this fear, observes the commandments. So prudence dictates that virtue must be loved or practiced. From this dictate a man is aroused to love it, so that he may possess it habitually. Then virtue, possessed as a habit, moves and stimulates its possessor to perform virtuous actions. Therefore wisdom generates the fear of God, fear generates the observance of commandments: just as prudence generates virtue, virtue generates virtuous actions; and just as a father begets a son, and a son begets a grandson.

From this it follows, first, that these three are so connected among themselves that any one of them cannot exist without the other two. You will object: There can be wisdom without fear, and prudence without virtue, as is clear in the impious; for they prudently judge that one ought to live soberly, indeed in particular that they ought right now to restrain themselves from wine lest they become drunk; and yet, enticed by the sweetness of wine, they drink intemperately and get drunk. I reply: These people have a certain speculative prudence, and as it were in the abstract; but they do not have true wisdom and prudence that is practically practical, which actually commands and elicits the work of virtue. For just as one is called a father not who can beget a son but who actually begets; and just as grace is not called efficacious unless it persuades the will to con-

sent: so in the same way wisdom and prudence are not true, efficacious, and actual unless they persuade the will and elicit from it an act of virtue. For the cause in act and the effect in act are always simultaneous: for it implies a contradiction that a cause should cause an effect, and yet that the effect should not be produced by it. Therefore, where there is true and practical wisdom, there is the fear of God and the observance of commandments; and where there is true and practical prudence, there likewise is virtue and the exercise of virtue.

It follows secondly, from the fact that these three are so connected that they always advance at the same pace, that as much as one grows, so much do the other two grow as well. Therefore, as much as wisdom grows, so much does the fear and love of God grow; and as much as fear and love grow, so much does the observance of commandments grow. It follows thirdly, from this indissoluble connection of these three, that just as growing wisdom and prudence produce greater fear and virtue, and these produce greater acts of virtue: so conversely greater works of virtue cause the habit of fear and virtue to grow and intensify; and this in turn intensifies the habit of wisdom. Hence the common axiom of Philosophers and Theologians is that intense acts intensify the habit of virtue. And faith teaches that acts, especially more intense ones, of supernatural virtues merit and bring with them an increase of grace, charity, and virtues: so smoke produces flame, and flame in turn increases smoke. Therefore it is not surprising that Sirach here now teaches that wisdom begets fear and justice, and now conversely that fear and justice beget wisdom; because, of course, they merit its increase and bring it with them.

It follows fourthly, that although these three, taken precisely, are distinguished in the manner already stated, yet because of their intimate connection they are mixed together, confused, and often taken as the same thing; for thus prudence is often taken by moral philosophers for the very virtue which it dictates and commands: for then prudence is called not only the dictate of prudence, but the very prudent action, which is nothing other than virtue. It is a synecdoche or metonymy. In a similar way Sirach here often mixes and confuses wisdom with fear and justice: because he broadens wisdom and takes it not only for the dictate of wisdom, but for the wise work of the fear and love of God, which wisdom itself commands and produces. Hence in verse 20 he says: The fullness of wisdom is to fear God; and in this verse he says: Wisdom and discipline is the fear of the Lord, and many similar things. Note these things well, so that you may see that no circular reasoning condemned by the Philosophers is committed here, and so that you may reconcile many passages which otherwise seem to be contradictory and inextricable.

Sirach borrowed this saying, as many others, from Solomon in Proverbs 15, where after Solomon had said in verse 32: He who casts away discipline despises his own soul; but he who acquiesces to rebukes is the possessor of understanding; he adds the reason for his statement in verse 33, saying: The fear of the Lord is the discipline of wisdom; in Hebrew: The fear of the Lord is the education of wisdom; the Septuagint

whom Sirach follows: The fear of the Lord is discipline and wisdom. As if to say: He who acquiesces to rebukes is the possessor of understanding, that is, he is sensible and wise, and master of his own mind, because such a one has the fear of God: for this fear subjects a man to discipline and instruction. As if to say: Nothing else can subject and subordinate the free and independent nature of the human mind to discipline — that is, to the direction, correction, and reproof of the law or of a ruler to whose care and keeping the law is entrusted — except the fear of God. For He has placed Himself above all things (Sirach 25:14), and thus He subjugates the mind itself to Himself and to God's law; and having occupied it, He rules and directs it at His will, and so it comes about what Solomon adds: And glory, which God's law and wisdom bring, is preceded by humility, because one humbly subjects himself to God's law and discipline.

35. AND THAT WHICH IS PLEASING TO THEM IS FAITH AND MEEKNESS. — The Greek more clearly and briefly: hē eudokia autou pistis kai praotēs, that is, faith and meekness are pleasing to Him; because on these two, as on hinges, turns the whole law of God, fear, worship, wisdom, and prudence. Faith, that is, faithfulness, consists in action and directs it; because it causes us to faithfully perform the duties which we owe both to God and to our neighbors, as well as those we owe to ourselves. Meekness is seen in suffering, so that we may meekly endure all the adversities that we suffer. Eudokia in Greek is benevolence, good pleasure, will — namely, that which God wills, in which He takes pleasure, which is pleasing to Him, in which He delights, and by which He is, as it were, nourished.

Hence, AND GOD WILL FILL HIS TREASURES — that is, of the one who has these two things, to show how pleasing and acceptable they are to Him. He will fill, that is, He will bring full treasures of goods, both spiritual and temporal; for thus the word "fill" is used throughout this book to mean "make full" or "bring in fullness," as I said at verse 22. This is what St. James says in chapter 3: Who is wise and disciplined among you? Let him show a good way of life in the meekness of wisdom. Rabanus says truly: The life of all good people, he says, is tranquil. Hence the Virtue and Wisdom of God, Christ, taught His own saying: Learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11). And it is aptly said that He fills his treasures: because whoever truly fears God cannot be without faith and good works, which fill the God-fearing person with sacred virtues and make him acceptable to God. Hence in Ecclesiastes, chapter 2, it is written: To a good man in His sight God has given wisdom, and knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner He has given affliction and superfluous care.

36. BE NOT UNBELIEVING (that is, incredulous — this means, first, disobedient, rebellious, contumacious) IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD — so as to reject those things which the fear of God dictates must be done. Hence some read: Be not contumacious and unbelieving. Where the word contumacious crept in from the interpretation and commentary of some inter-

preter explaining the word incredibilis. Second, be not unbelieving, that is, distrustful — as if to say: Do not distrust, when you have fallen into certain difficulties, or are pressed by poverty (hence the Royal edition adds, eschatō, that is, when you are in need), that you will be freed, protected, and saved from them through the fear of the Lord, as though God did not will or could not help you, and therefore, distrusting God, you flee to the aid of the devil — namely, to witches and sorcerers — or to the help and consolation of men. The Zurich Bible translates: Do not refuse to obey the religion of the Lord, even when poor, nor approach it with a feigned mind.

AND DO NOT APPROACH HIM (the fear of the Lord, and consequently the Lord Himself) WITH A DOUBLE HEART — that is, not sincerely but falsely and hypocritically, outwardly pretending before men that you wish to worship God, trust Him, and obey Him, while inwardly in your heart you distrust Him and rebel. This is clear from what follows. I will say more about the double heart in chapter 2, verse 14.

He passes from fear and wisdom to their opposite, namely hypocrisy, in order to illuminate the former by contrast with its opposite. For he had said in verse 33 that the way to wisdom is justice, that is, the observance of God's commandments; now he shows what kind of observance it ought to be — namely, true and sincere, not feigned and hypocritical; for hypocrisy weakens and destroys all truth, true justice, obedience, and virtue.

37. DO NOT BE A HYPOCRITE IN THE SIGHT OF MEN (so as to pretend that you fear God, that you are religious, devout, and holy, and to glory in being regarded and proclaimed as such by them. One translator from the Greek renders: Do not be an actor of tragedy or comedy, do not be a performer or a mime before the faces of men. For the hypocrite, while he puts on one character after another, is like a mime and an actor. The Zurich Bible, with its usual freedom, translates: Do not conform yourself to the words of men). AND DO NOT BE SCANDALIZED BY YOUR LIPS. — In Greek: Watch your lips, lest, that is, by speaking through them and displaying and proclaiming your holiness, you be a cause of scandal and ruin to yourself. Our translator renders: And (that is, so that) you be not scandalized by your lips; for scandal is a stumbling-block, a fall, and a ruin.

The symbol of hypocrisy is the ostrich, about which Cyril, in book II of the Moral Apologues, chapter 22, wove this fable adorned with well-known maxims, whose title is: Against those who take pleasure only in seeming, when they are not. The ostrich, he says, placed among the birds, greedy for glory but empty of substance, soon spreading the higher sails of its wings with the wind of ostentation, boasted that it had greater feathers than they. To which the birds said: Empty indeed is the shell of appearance which the marrow of substance does not fill within, and therefore if by the feathered boasting of your lofty wings you are lifted up in heart, then, propelled by their power, fly ahead of us now with your greater body. When they had said this, as they flew away and the ostrich, weighed down by its more earthly mass, was held back on the ground, a crow, smiling pompously from above, cried out and said: Brother ostrich, where is the pride of your feathers? And the ostrich replied: Indeed the heaviness of my feet hinders me, though the power of flight is present. To which the crow said: Even if your donkey-like foot weighs you down, why then was honored by Nero and the Romans, when he was proudly — does not the lightness of your tiny head and the slenderness of your neck raise you up? Since appearance, and not substance, is the cause; wherefore then do you boast of a burden? For a wing without flight is stupid. And just as a sixth finger defiles the hand, so a wing burdens you. Therefore a foul thing, and a burdensome vanity, is pomp. Doubtless now you see yourself imitating the nature of twinkling stars, and being formed by their nod or likeness, which, when they appear in the sky, cease. For your whole structure aims at ostentation."

Then he confirms the same thing with two new fables, first of the mouse and the mole, second of the mule and the mare. "But have you not heard what the mouse replied to the mole who boasted of its eyes, namely that to have an eye and not sight is no less than to be a monster? Whence to appear and not to be is a monstrous blindness. For when there is pomp in the eyes, it is nevertheless drenched in darkness and deprived of sight. Likewise, the mare thus confounded the mule who was proud of its sex, saying: You have the appearance of sex indeed, but you lack the fruit of real existence, being formed by an adulterous union. Thus bereft of fruit, pomposity is seen, because the perverse pride of a fool is stupid. Do you not know that a mirror, while it appears bright on one side, is obscured on the other by an opacity hostile to light? Certainly appearance without existence is false. Having heard these things, the ostrich fell silent."

Thus God uncovered the hidden crimes of Dioscorus, who, just like Nestorius, concealing his inner arrogance and crimes under the appearance of humility and sanctity, had crept into the episcopate of Alexandria; for He brought it about that in the Council of Chalcedon charges were brought against him, by which he was convicted of being an Origenist, an Arian, a murderer, an arsonist, and a man of the most disgraceful life. For nothing has been found to harm the Church of God more than when iniquity is concealed under the cloak of sanctity, and horrifying impiety, painted with the veneer of religion, advances, deceiving the eyes of onlookers. For it is easy to guard against those whom you recognize as open enemies; but who will escape the hidden ones? "Who will reveal the face of his garment? Who will open the doors of his countenance?" says Job, chapter 41.

Thus Alfonso, King of Aragon, as Panormitanus testifies in Book II of his Deeds, chapter 9, when he had heard that Antonius of Picenum, who had filled Italy and Spain with the renown of his abstinence and sanctity, and was reported to converse and speak with Angels, had in death betrayed his hypocrisy, and had miserably perished eaten by worms, wisely said: "For this reason God rages so greatly against hypocrites, because, while they deceive men, they interpose God Himself as mediator of their crime, and therefore for the most part they are still punished while living before the eyes of the men whom they have deceived in God's name: so that mortals may understand that one must most carefully guard against such a monster, which has God Himself as an undoubted avenger not only after death, but even in this present life."

Thus that beggar who pretended to be dead, flying through the air to heaven by the help of a demon, at the prayers of St. Peter, while Nero and the whole people watched, He cast him down from on high, and dashing his legs against a rock, broke them; whence Simon, confounded, fleeing from the City in shame, soon breathed out his unhappy soul in pain and grief. "Then therefore," says St. Maximus in Homily 5 on the Birthday of the Apostles Peter and Paul, "Peter, as it were, brought that bound one down from the lofty air, and dashing him with a kind of precipitous fall upon a rock, broke his legs, and this for the disgrace of what he had done; so that he who a little before had attempted to fly, suddenly could not walk; and he who had assumed wings, lost his feet."

Wherefore Isidore of Pelusium, Book II, Epistle 24, truly contrasting the hypocrite desirous of vain glory with the humble person, says that "the hypocrite puts glass in place of a true pearl," that is, esteems vain glory for true, and displays empty and painted works as great and of great value and merit before God (to whom that saying applies: "Glass is worth as much as a pearl," as Tertullian attests in Book IV Against Marcion); on the contrary, "the humble person considers true pearls in his estimation as glass," both because he esteems his own virtues and good works as of little value, and weak and fragile like glass; and because through them, as through glass, he looks toward God, attributing and surrendering all things to God and to God's grace.

38. TAKE HEED IN THESE THINGS, LEST PERHAPS YOU FALL (in Greek: "Do not exalt yourself, lest you fall;" St. Ephrem, treatise on Humility: "Do not exalt yourself, lest perhaps you fall") AND BRING UPON YOUR SOUL DISHONOR — that is, infamy, reproach, and disgrace; he adds the manner, saying:

39. AND GOD WILL REVEAL YOUR HIDDEN THINGS (the hypocrisy, impiety, and crimes hidden in your heart); AND IN THE MIDST OF THE SYNAGOGUE (that is, of a great multitude; the Zurich Bible, "in the midst of the assembly;" Vatablus, "in the midst of the congregation") WILL DASH YOU DOWN. In Greek, katabalei se, that is, will cast down, will prostrate you. Note here the fitting punishment of hypocrites appropriately inflicted upon them by the just judgment of God, as if to say: Do not pretend, display, and proclaim yourself religious and holy, when you are irreligious, impious, and a hypocrite; because God customarily uncovers hypocrisy, and exposes hypocrites who have sought a false reputation for sanctity and religion among the people, so that all may see their pretense and wickedness, and thus brands and punishes them with infamy, reproach, and public disgrace, as we see ordinarily happens in this life; but most certainly it will happen in the next: for Christ on the day of judgment will lay open all hypocrisy, and will afflict hypocrites with public and horrifying ignominy, when on account of the crimes He will reveal, He will condemn them to hell.

Thus Christ made manifest and confounded before the people the hypocrisy of the Pharisees: "Beware," He said, "of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy" (Luke 12). Likewise Christ struck down the hypocrisy, the reputation and pretense of Simon Magus, by which he, pretending to be a divine Prophet, indeed God, so that as such by so that his companion might obtain money from St. Epiphanius for burying him, God punished with real death, as the Tripartite History relates, Book IX, chapter 48. Likewise God revealed the hypocrisy of a certain monk to St. Euthymius, when he saw an Angel of horrible appearance, with a heavy trident, extracting his soul from his body, as Nicephorus testifies, Book XIV, chapter 40. Likewise a hypocrite monk who pretended to abstain from food, while he secretly ate, was compelled at death to confess this very thing publicly, and to add: "Behold, I am now delivered to a dragon to be devoured, who has bound my knees and feet with his tail; and thrusting his head into my mouth, drinking up my spirit, he extracts it;" as St. Gregory relates, Book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 38.

Thus a Parisian Doctor revealed his own hypocrisy: for when in life he was considered upright by all, being dead, he cried out from the bier: "By the just judgment of God I am accused, judged, and condemned." Struck by this utterance, St. Bruno with his companions founded the Carthusian Order.

Moreover God does this because He Himself is the knower of hearts, and to Him alone are the secrets of the heart open. Therefore it belongs to Him, who is the first Truth, who abominates all deceit, to lay open the falsehood of the heart. It belongs to Him, who is faithful providence itself over the good, to uncover the frauds lurking in the heart, lest through them others ignorant of the fraud be led into heresies and errors. It belongs to Him, who is sincere and complete justice itself, to lay open, judge, and condemn hypocrisy: for He alone is the inspector of minds and judge of hearts. This is what the Apostle says in Hebrews 4:12: "For the word of God is living and effective, and more piercing than any two-edged sword; and reaching even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints also and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature invisible in His sight; but all things are naked and open to His eyes." See the commentary there. Hence in Scripture, religious and holy men are said to have walked with God, to have lived in the sight of God, to have dwelt in the presence of God; because, as with their mouth, so also with their heart, striving for sincere sanctity, they served God simply. Hence in Scripture they are called "simple." Thus Job, chapter 1, verse 1, is called a simple man, in Hebrew tam, that is, perfect; therefore simplicity is perfection, and makes a man perfect.

Tropologically, Rabanus, and following him Palacius: A simple person, they say, is one who serves God alone; a double person is one who wishes to rejoice with the world and reign with Christ. Who belongs to God through faith, to the world through love: he has given his intellect to God, his affection to the world. These are those whom Elijah says are limping on two sides, worshipping both God and Baal. These are the Samaritans, keeping the law of God while at the same time serving their idols. But to be a Samaritan was then the greatest insult. These are the hypocrites; outwardly displaying themselves as Christians, while inwardly they are far from that life. For who does not see that you should be called a hypocrite, if, while with words you profess yourself a Christian, by your deeds you show that you are not a Christian? Plainly, if one may speak freely, we would call a great part of Christians hypocritical: inasmuch as we know that they say one thing with words and confess another by their deeds. Do you wish then to be sincere, wise, and simple? Accomplish in deed what you profess in word: "Do not scandalize yourself on your lips;" for he is scandalized, that is, he stumbles and offends on his lips, who transgresses and violates the faith and law that his lips proclaim; who says one thing with his lips, and carries out another in his heart and deeds. Such a person prepares disgrace for himself on the day of judgment: because then God "will reveal all your hidden things." For then the books will be opened, and all will understand that you were one person outwardly, another inwardly. Then all your crimes will be manifest in the sight of the whole world. And "in the midst" of that "synagogue," that universal assembly, God "will dash you down," casting you into the abyss (for then the earth will open up), and thence into hell, where, dashed down, you will burn for eternity. Why so? Why such great punishment for the wretch?

40. BECAUSE YOU HAVE APPROACHED THE LORD WITH MALICE, AND YOUR HEART IS FULL OF GUILE AND DECEIT. You ought to have approached God with a simple mind; but you brought a double mind. You ought to have approached truly and sincerely; you approached hypocritically, deceiving the eyes of men, who believed you to be a Christian both within and without. Therefore you will suffer eternal punishment. Truth wishes to be worshipped truly, not falsely. Thus far Palacius. Wherefore Theodoret in the History of the Fathers, chapter 21, reports that James the Anchorite, when his attendant hid his cup so that it would not be seen by visitors, forbade this and said: "Far be it, my son, do not hide from men those things which are open to the God of all: for wishing to live for Him alone, I have no concern for human glory. For what would it profit me if these men knew that I had labored more and practiced greater austerities; but God knew less? For these are not the givers of reward for labors, but God is the provider."

BECAUSE YOU HAVE APPROACHED THE LORD WITH MALICE. Thus also St. Augustine reads in the Speculum. "With malice," that is, deceitfully, falsely, with duplicity. For in Greek it reads: "Because you did not approach in truth," that is truly and sincerely, "to the fear;" because by approaching the fear of the Lord, we approach the Lord Himself; the Zurich Bible: "Because you did not approach His religion sincerely, but brought a deceitful mind."

Finally the Syriac paraphrases all these things from verse 36 onward thus: "Love the fear of the Lord, and strengthen your heart, and do not be afraid; approach, and do not delay, and you will find life for your spirit; and when you have been approaching like a giant and a strong man, my son, do not lie in the fear of the Lord, and do not approach Him with a double heart, and do not seek honor from Him in the eyes of men, and on your lips be careful for the truth, do not despise His words, and do not be shaken, and do not multiply the disgrace of your soul; lest perhaps the Lord multiply your chains, and in the midst of the Church cast you down you; because you were named in the fear of God, and the interior of your heart is full of deceit."

From what has been said it is clear that the principle, root, and, as it were, the a priori reason of all that has been said in this chapter, is the august excellence, sanctity, and majesty of the first and uncreated Wisdom, which is the very divinity and God Himself. For since God is supremely wise, supremely holy, supremely powerful, and immense in every direction, He is therefore most worthy of all fear, love, worship, and reverence; which things He then communicates in His own way to created wisdom, but in a limited manner.