Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
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 for 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 Godhead 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 He then communicates in His own way to created wisdom, but in a limited manner.
Synopsis of the Chapter
In Chapter I, Sirach celebrated the praises of wisdom so as to commend it to all, and prescribed the manner of acquiring it, namely, justice and the keeping of the law. Now he transmits its doctrines and precepts, and enumerates them one by one. First, therefore, in this chapter he will teach, saying: "Son, when you come to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare your soul for temptation." This passage, then, is an illustrious one on temptation, the remedies for which he also assigns. The first is preventive, namely, to expect it and prepare oneself for it, verse 1. The second is to humble and depress one's heart, verse 2. The third is endurance: "Bear up," he says in verse 2. The fourth is to hear the counsels of the wise, verse 2. The fifth, not to be alarmed or to waver, but to be firm and constant: "Do not hasten in the time of darkness," he says in verse 2. The sixth is to join oneself to God and to cling firmly to Him, verse 3. The seventh is to resign oneself to the will of God: "Whatever," he says in verse 4, "is brought upon you, accept and bear it in sorrow." The eighth is firm trust in God: "Believe God," he says in verse 6, "and He will restore you; and direct your way and hope in Him." The ninth is constant fear and love of God: "Keep His fear, and grow old therein," he says in verse 6; and to the end of the chapter he commends the same, and it is an exhortation and encouragement to hope, fear, worship, and love of God.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 2:1-23
1. Son, when you come to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare your soul for temptation. 2. Humble your heart and endure: incline your ear and receive the words of understanding; and do not hasten in the time of darkness. 3. Bear the supports of God: cling to God and endure, that your life may increase at the last. 4. Accept whatever is brought upon you, and endure it in sorrow, and in your humility have patience. 5. For gold and silver are tested in fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. 6. Believe God, and He will restore you; and direct your way and hope in Him. Keep His fear and grow old therein. 7. You who fear the Lord, wait for His mercy, and do not turn aside from Him, lest you fall. 8. You who fear the Lord, believe in Him, and your reward shall not be made void. 9. You who fear the Lord, hope in Him, and mercy shall come to you for your delight. 10. You who fear the Lord, love Him, and your hearts shall be enlightened. 11. Look, children, at the nations of men, and know that no one has hoped in the Lord and been confounded. 12. For who has remained in His commandments and been forsaken? Or who has called upon Him and He despised him? 13. For God is compassionate and merciful, and He will forgive sins in the day of tribulation, and He is a protector to all who seek Him in truth. 14. Woe to the double heart, and to wicked lips, and to hands that do evil, and to the sinner who walks the earth in two ways! 15. Woe to the faint of heart, who do not believe God, and therefore shall not be protected by Him! 16. Woe to those who have lost their endurance, and who have forsaken the right ways and turned aside into crooked ways! 17. And what will they do when the Lord begins to examine them? 18. Those who fear the Lord will not be disobedient to His word, and those who love Him will keep His way. 19. Those who fear the Lord will seek what is pleasing to Him, and those who love Him will be filled with His law. 20. Those who fear the Lord will prepare their hearts,
and in His sight they will sanctify their souls. 21. Those who fear the Lord keep His commandments, and will have patience until His visitation, 22. saying: If we do not repent, we shall fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men. 23. For according to His greatness, so also is His mercy with Him.
FIRST PART OF THE CHAPTER
1. SON, WHEN YOU COME TO THE SERVICE OF GOD, STAND IN JUSTICE AND IN FEAR, AND PREPARE YOUR SOUL FOR TEMPTATION. — The Arabic reads: "O my son, if you have clung to the fear of God, exchange every evil of your soul." The Syriac: "Son, if you approach the fear of God, you have exposed your soul to every temptation. Cling to it (the fear of God), and do not let it go, that you may be wise in your ways." The Tigurina: "Son, about to undertake the worship of God, see that you persist carefully in justice, and prepare your spirit against temptation."
Sirach, handing down the doctrines and precepts of wisdom, follows the order of the Decalogue and of nature; hence he begins with God and the worship of God. This is therefore his first doctrine and precept, but it has three parts. For it contains three parts and three precepts: the first, "Come to the service of God," serve God; the second, "Stand in justice and fear;" the third, "Prepare your soul for temptation." In like manner, wise moralists, both sacred and profane, begin their Ethics with God and the religion of God. Hence St. Isidore, Sentences II, chapter 1: "The first pursuit of wisdom," he says, "is to seek God, then the honor of life with the work of innocence." The service of God is not the base and forced service of slaves, but the noble (for to serve God is to reign) and religious service of God's worshippers, that is, the worship of God and religion. For this is commonly called in Scripture, especially in Leviticus and Numbers, אבודה aboda, that is, service, worship, ministry. For there the duties, rites, and ceremonies of the Levites in the tabernacle are called aboda.
Moreover, the occasion for Sirach to write this was that around this time the Jews had been grievously afflicted by Ptolemy Lagus, who succeeded Alexander the Great in the kingdom of Egypt. For he captured Jerusalem by deceit, treated the Jews harshly and mercilessly, transported many captives to Egypt, and ordered them to settle there. Hence Ptolemy Philadelphus, who succeeded him, in favor of Eleazar and the Seventy Translators, freed one hundred and twenty thousand Jews and sent them back from Egypt to Judea, as Josephus narrates in Antiquities XII, chapters 1 and 2. This, therefore, was a grave temptation for the Jews, on account of which some crossed over from Judaism to paganism. Hence it seems that around this time Sirach wrote these things to confirm them in the service and religion of God. There was also another temptation from the schismatic Samaritans, about which I will speak at verse 14.
St. Ephrem writes admirably in his treatise On Patience: "He who desires to please God," he says, "and to become His heir through faith, so that he too may be called a son of God, and born of the Holy Spirit, must before all things, embracing long-suffering and patience, bravely endure whatever tribulations, hardships, and necessities come his way, whether bodily diseases and sufferings, or reproaches and injuries from men, or even the various invisible anxieties which are inflicted on the soul by evil spirits."
STAND IN JUSTICE AND IN FEAR. — These words are missing from modern Greek manuscripts; but St. Augustine reads them in his Speculum, and Cyprian in his treatise On Mortality. Hence it is clear that they were formerly in the Greek, and that our Translator is very ancient, having possessed fuller Greek manuscripts than those that now exist. By justice, understand the observance of God's commandments; for the service of God requires this, indeed consists in it, as I said at chapter 1, verse 33. The meaning is, as if he said: If you wish to serve God and devote yourself to His obedience, constantly observe His commands and precepts, and flee all sins that are contrary to them; for He hates and forbids these, just as He loves and commands those.
Note the word 'stand,' as if to say: Persist firm, constant, and immovable like a rock, against all enemies and temptations, which will soon assail and attack you, as follows. And therefore, mix fear with this constant justice, lest, trusting in yourself, you be abandoned by God, and be allowed to rush into temptation and consent, according to the saying: "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10). Again, the fear of God, that is, dread and reverence, should confirm you in your post of justice, by making you cautious and careful not to offend God and to exceed justice. For the best guardian of grace and justice is fear. "The mind that knows how to fear knows how to proceed safely," says Seneca in his Sentences, letter A. St. Ephrem, in his treatise On Patience, citing these words of Ecclesiasticus, says: "If, however, one does not bear bravely and strenuously, enduring whatever temptation and tribulation; but rather grows sad and weary, becomes indignant and anxious, and cares little about the struggle; or even despairs, as if one were never to be freed — which is itself the invention and artifice of malice, casting the soul into sloth and cowardice and pusillanimity, and depriving it of the hope by which it should always await the Lord's mercy in certain and unhesitating faith. Such a soul indeed does not merit life in the future, because it has not shown itself a follower of all the Saints, nor followed in the Lord's footsteps. Consider and observe how from the beginning the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles and Martyrs, passing through the ways of tribulations and temptations, were thus able to please God: who bravely
against the devil there arises for you the beginning of battle." Gregory also explains this clearly on Job chapter 3, at those words: "Who are ready to rouse Leviathan." "All," he says, "who trample underfoot in their minds the things of this world, and desire with full intention the things of God, rouse Leviathan against themselves; because by the provocation of their manner of life they inflame his malice. He grieves that his captive resists him, and soon he is kindled with zeal, soon he is moved to battle, soon he rouses himself to innumerable temptations against the rebellious mind." And elsewhere on Job 40, at the words: "He will swallow up a river and not be amazed." "He strives mightily to seize those," he says, "whom he sees, having despised earthly pursuits, already joined to heavenly things. And likewise with all his effort he now rises up to destroy those whom he wastes away seeing reborn against him. He thirsts for the Jordan, and as often does the Jordan flow into his mouth as any Christian falls into iniquity."
enduring bravely whatever temptation and tribulation, even amid difficulties they rejoiced, on account of the hope of the reward that is awaited; as Scripture says: Son, when you come to the service of God, direct your heart and endure. And again the Apostle says: If you are without discipline, in which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. And again elsewhere: Embrace all things that are brought upon you as good, knowing that nothing happens without God." Finally, whoever desires to be imbued with and perfected in the fear of the Lord, let him read St. Ephrem, who surpasses the other Fathers in the spirit of fear and compunction, and breathes nothing but fear, love, and the heavenly life.
AND PREPARE YOUR SOUL FOR TEMPTATION — that is, for enduring and overcoming it. For the flesh, the world, and the devil will tempt you: for you provoke and challenge these enemies, who, when provoked and irritated, will rise up more fiercely against you, both through prosperity and through adversity, for these two are the sources of all temptations. See St. Gregory, Moralia XXIV, 13. The first admonition of Sirach is: "Prepare yourself for temptation." St. Leo gives the reason in Sermon 1 on Lent, chapter 3: "For," he says, "a man full of the wisdom of God, knowing that the pursuit of religion involves the toil of combat, when he foresaw the danger of the fight, admonished the one who was about to fight beforehand; lest perhaps, if temptation came upon one unaware, it would wound the unprepared more quickly." Therefore prepare yourself for temptation: first, by prayer, according to Christ's words in Matthew 26: "Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation;" second, by fleeing occasions, for "he who touches pitch will be defiled by it" (Sirach 13); third, by foresight, anticipating future dangers and struggles and gathering weapons against them; fourth, by firmness of soul, steeling yourself against all future temptations, according to Psalm 118: "I have sworn and resolved to keep the judgments of your justice." So says Palacius. Hence St. Jerome, using this saying in Epistle 34, consoles Julian, who had been bereaved of both his daughters and his wife: "Son," he says, "when you come to the service of God, prepare your soul for temptation, and when you have done all things, say: I am an unprofitable servant; I have done what I ought to have done. You have taken back the children whom You Yourself had given. You have taken back the handmaid whom You had lent me for a brief consolation. I am not saddened that You have taken them back, but I give thanks that You gave them."
You will ask: Why is temptation prepared for one who comes to the service of God? I answer: The causes are many. The first is that such a person departs from the slavery of the devil, who, indignant at being deprived of his property and his lordly right, pursues him as a runaway slave and apostate, and tempts him so as to bring him back to his camp, to his jurisdiction and dominion. Such a person, therefore, should hold it as fixed and firmly propose to himself that he is provoking and stirring up the devil and all demons to war, indeed to perpetual combat. Hear Origen, Homily 9 on the Book of Judges: "You have come," he says, "to the water of baptism; this is the beginning of spiritual combat and warfare: hence
the devil does not reign inwardly in the saints, he fights against them from without; and he who has lost dominion within stirs up war from outside."
The second reason why the faithful person, immediately after conversion, must expect temptations and prepare himself for many afflictions, is that all vices attack him, and thus he must continually struggle with all the concupiscences innate to him, increased by the indulgence of his former life and thoroughly ingrained. For desires, while being mortified, rise up more fiercely and raise their heads, like a serpent. So St. Jerome, Epistle 1: "You err, brother, you err, if you think that a Christian ever does not suffer persecution." St. Leo, Sermon 9 on Lent: "Tribulation from persecution never ceases, if the observance of piety never ceases." And Chrysostom writes excellently, Homily 8 on 2 Timothy: "No one who is fighting seeks rest: it is unlawful for a champion of God to be idle in pleasures; it is not permitted for a wrestler to feast. All present things are indeed a wrestling match, a contest, a war, a race; rest belongs to another time; this time is appointed for hardships and labors: no one who has stripped and been anointed for the contest seeks rest." St. Bernard, Sermon 1 on the Conversion of St. Paul: "It seemed," he says, "that the time of persecution had already ceased; but, as has become evident, persecution is never absent from a Christian."
Battles threaten us from every side, indeed even within ourselves we are attacked by intestine war. So Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Acts of the Apostles: "Do you see," he says, "that now the persecution is greater, with passions invading us from all sides like beasts? Now the persecution is grievous, precisely because it is not thought to be persecution. For the war also has this difficulty, that it is considered peace, so that no one fears, no one trembles, lest we take up arms against it or rise up." And to the same effect, St. Jerome, Epistle 1: "Then," he says, "you are most attacked when you do not know you are being attacked." He then enumerates the attacks of the vices: "From one side," he says, "lust pursues me; from another, greed attempts to break in; from another, my belly wishes to be my God instead of Christ; lust compels me to drive out the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, to violate His temple." That this was signified of old in Ishmael, who, as Paul says in Galatians 4:19, was persecuting Isaac, Origen teaches at length in Homily 7 on Genesis: "If the flesh," he says, "whose character Ishmael bears, who is born according to the flesh, flatters the spirit, who is Isaac, and deals with him through alluring deceptions, and entices with pleasures, and softens with delights; such sport of the flesh with the spirit especially offends Sarah, who is virtue; such blandishments constitute a most bitter per-
secution, Paul judges. And so you too, O listener, do not think that persecution is only when you are compelled by pagans to sacrifice to idols; flee it as persecution above all. But if injustice flatters you, and, swayed by its charm, you do not render a right judgment, you should understand that under the appearance of sport you are suffering a flattering persecution from injustice. Indeed, through every form of malice, even if they are soft and refined and resemble play, call these a persecution of the spirit." Hence Bede truly says on the Proverbs: "Before conversion," he says, "a crowd of sins precedes; after conversion, a crowd of temptations follows. For love of the world is contempt of God; and conversely, love of God is contempt of the world." Again: "He who has long lain in sins will also, if he wishes to be converted, long endure the troubles of diabolic temptation."
The third reason is that companions and friends, seeing themselves abandoned by the one who has resolved to live piously, rise up against him, just as Ishmael rose up against Isaac, Esau against Jacob, and his brothers against Joseph. So St. Augustine, Tractate 12 on John: "The sport," he says, "that Scripture says Sarah saw, the Apostle calls persecution; therefore those who seduce you by mocking you persecute you all the more." And after much more: "That sport was mockery; that sport signified deception; for let your charity consider the great mystery. The Apostle calls that persecution the very sport, calls the very play persecution," and much more follows.
To the same point are the things that Gregory writes in Book IX of the Register, Epistle 39; for he says that the company of the wicked is itself a persecution: "I," he says, "do not consider him to be Abel who has not had a Cain; for the good, if they are without the wicked, cannot be perfectly good, because they are not at all purged; for the very company of the wicked is the purgation of the good. Three sons of Noah were in the ark: one turned out to be a mocker of his father, who, although blessed in himself, nevertheless received the sentence of a curse in his son. Abraham, before he married Keturah, had two sons; but yet his carnal son persecuted the son of the promise; which the great Doctor explains saying: Just as he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also now."
But Bernard, in Sermon 1 on the Conversion of Paul, laments the condition of the Church, in which are found those who persecute not only Christians but Christ Himself. And elsewhere, in Sermon 6 on Psalm 'He who dwells,' explaining David's words: "You shall not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor the attack and the noonday devil," he lists four kinds of persecutions by which both individuals privately and the whole Church are most greatly attacked. St. Augustine writes admirably, Sermon 78 on the Seasons: "Just as two little ones," he says, "were struggling in Rebecca's womb, so in the womb of the Church two peoples continually oppose each other: in the belly of the spiritual Rebecca, the Church, two peoples clash — the humble and the proud, the chaste and the adulterous."
The fourth reason is that there are enemies and rivals who, because of virtue
they hated, envying him, they attacked him with slander, harsh words, and sometimes with blows. Christ forewarned His own of this in Matthew 10:17: "Beware of men; for they will hand you over to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you." And shortly after, verse 21: "Brother will deliver brother to death, and a father his son, and children will rise up against their parents and put them to death, and you will be hated by all men on account of my name." Finally, verse 23: "When they persecute you in this city, flee to another." And elsewhere, John 15:19: "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love what is its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." And after some verses, chapter 16:32: "Behold, the hour is coming, and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own." And shortly after: "In the world you will have tribulation." Add those words from chapter 16:1: "These things I have spoken to you, that you may not be scandalized. They will put you out of the synagogues," and what follows thereafter. Finally, St. Paul, 2 Timothy 3: "All," he says, "who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution." Hence St. Bernard, Sermon 64 on the Song of Songs, on that verse, Song of Songs 2, 'Catch us the little foxes': "The foxes," he says, "are temptations. It is necessary that temptations come. For who will be crowned, unless he has fought lawfully? Or how will they fight, if there is no one to attack them?" The fifth reason is that God has decreed by eternal law that His faithful ones, as champions and athletes of virtue, should be tested, exercised, strengthened, made illustrious, and perfected by adversities. Moses gives this reason in Deuteronomy 13:3: "The Lord your God tests you," he says, "that it may be manifest whether you love Him or not, with your whole heart and your whole soul." And David, Psalm 16:3: "You have tested my heart and visited me by night; You have tried me by fire, and iniquity was not found in me." And Psalm 25:2: "Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart." And Psalm 65:10: "For You have tested us, O God; You have tried us by fire as silver is tried." And Solomon, Wisdom 3:5: "For God tested them and found them worthy of Himself; as gold in the furnace He tried them." Hence St. Gregory, Homily 35 on the Gospels and Dialogues III, chapter 26: "There are," he says, "two kinds of martyrdom: one in the mind, the other in the mind and in action as well. And so we can be martyrs even if we are not killed by any persecutor's sword; for to die at the hand of a persecutor is martyrdom in open deed; but to endure insults, to love the one who hates us, is martyrdom in hidden thought." And after some further words: "And so we too can be martyrs without the sword if we truly guard patience in our soul." And with a few words interjected, he praises the admirable patience of a certain Stephen: "The virtue," he says, "of patience had grown exceedingly strong in him, so that he would consider anyone his friend who had caused him some trouble; he returned thanks for insults; if any loss had been inflicted even amid his own poverty, he considered it the greatest gain; he regarded all his adversaries as nothing other than helpers." So Abbot Orsitius in the Lives of the Fathers, Book V, booklet 15, number 51: "Just as," he says, "a raw brick is soon dissolved by water, but baked in fire is hardened like stone; so he who has not been baked by the fire of temptations, like Joseph, is soon weakened by the water of tribulation, and melts and is destroyed." And St. Syncletica, Book V, booklet 6, number 16, teaches that in temptation we ought to be ambidextrous: "If you are iron," she says, "through fire applied to you, you will lose the rust. Say therefore: The Lord has chastised me severely, but has not given me over to death. If you are gold, through fire you will be proved more worthy. Rejoice therefore, because you have been made like Paul, remembering this: We have passed through fire and water; and what remains is what follows: that we may be led into refreshment." And number 17: "This," she says, "is great virtue, when in weakness there is endurance, and thanksgiving is sent up to God. If we lose our eyes, let us not bear it heavily, for we have lost the instrument of pride; but let us behold the glory of the Lord with interior eyes. Have we become deaf? Let us not be saddened, because we have lost vain hearing. Have our hands been weakened by some affliction? But let us have our interior hands ready against the temptations of the enemy. Sickness holds our whole body? But health grows for our inner man." Finally: "As silver is proved by fire and gold by the furnace, so the Lord tests hearts" (Proverbs 17:3). And: "The kiln tests the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation tests just men" (Sirach 27:6). Hence Bede aptly says on Proverbs: "He refuses to be Abel whom the malice of Cain does not exercise." St. Francis truly said, as recorded in the Mirror of His Life, in his teaching, chapter 12: "A conquered temptation is a ring by which God betroths the soul of His servant to Himself. For let no one consider himself a servant of God until he has passed through temptation and tribulation. For thereby perfect virtue is proved. It is a sign of greater grace that God leaves nothing unpunished in His servant as long as he lives in this world."
It should be carefully noted what St. Gertrude writes in Book II of her Revelations, chapter 11, was revealed to her from heaven, namely: "That the devil receives or seizes a greater occasion for tempting in that matter and species of concupiscence in which someone has once given him consent; for the comeliness of divine justice fittingly and beautifully permits this as punishment for the consent." He who is wise, therefore, should bravely oppose himself to all temptations of the devil the moment he perceives them. The Saints teach the same in the Lives of the Fathers.
A clear example is found in the Life of St. Mary of Egypt, who was grievously tempted for seventeen years in the desert by the spirit of lust, because she had consented to and served it for just as many years previously: "For by whatever one is overcome, of this he is also a slave,"
says St. Peter, 1 Peter 2:19. The devil therefore pursues such a one as a runaway slave, to bring him back to his former servitude.
The sixth reason is that Christ marks His followers with the insignia of His cross, as soldiers, and wills that with Him through afflictions and tribulations they merit the immense and eternal weight of glory in heaven. For if "it was necessary for Christ to suffer and so to enter into His glory" (Luke 24:26), to whom that glory was nevertheless due by the natural right of sonship, how much more does it befit us Christians, who have no right to it from ourselves, to earn such great glory through struggles and contests, and "through many tribulations to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:21). This is what Christ, about to go to His death, said to the Apostles in Luke 22:28: "You are they who have remained with Me in My temptations." And He immediately adds the reward: "And I," He says, "dispose to you, as My Father disposed to Me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." And John 17:24: "Father, those whom You have given Me, I will that where I am, they also may be with Me, that they may see My glory which You have given Me." And Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:10: "Always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be made manifest in our mortal flesh." And Romans 6:5: "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection." Finally, 2 Timothy 2:11: "For if we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign with Him." This is what St. Augustine understood when he said: "I do not wish to be without a wound, because I see You, Lord, wounded." And the Apostles, who, as it is said in Acts 5:41, "went away from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus." And St. James 1:2: "Count it all joy, brethren, when you fall into various temptations." Where I said more on this matter. And St. John, seeing and admiring the glory of those who endured, Revelation 7:14: "These are they," he says, "who have come out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple."
So that Abbot in the Lives of the Fathers, Book V, booklet 7, number 43, saw an Angel adorning seven crowns for his disciple, because he had overcome the temptation of sleep seven times that night: "For the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force" (Matthew 11). Finally, St. Augustine on Psalm 83, which is titled 'For the wine-presses,' takes the wine-presses to mean the Churches and the souls of the faithful who are pressed by temptation: "The grape," he says, "hangs on the vine, and the olive on the tree; for it is for these two fruits that wine-presses are usually prepared. And as long as they hang on their branches, they enjoy the open air, as it were; but neither is the grape wine, nor the olive oil, before pressing. So also are those men whom God predestined before the ages to be conformed to the image of His only-begotten Son, who especially in His Passion was a great
cluster of grapes that was pressed out. Such men, therefore, before they come to the service of God, enjoy this world as if it were a delightful liberty, like grapes or olives hanging on the branches; but since it has been said: Son, when you come to the service of God, stand in justice and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation — let everyone who comes to the service of God know that he has come to the wine-presses. He will be afflicted, crushed, and pressed — not so that he may perish in this world, but so that he may flow into the storehouses of God. He is stripped of the coverings of carnal desires, as of grape-skins; for this happened to him in his carnal desires. On account of which the Apostle also says: Put off the old man and put on the new; all of this does not happen except through pressing; therefore the Churches of God of this time are called wine-presses."
Therefore Christ the Lord willed to give an example of this principle — of temptation and combat — indeed to inaugurate it for all His followers and go before them. For being about to begin His preaching, as His service and obedience to God, He went into the desert, and there fasting, He willed to be tempted by the devil with a threefold, that is, every kind of temptation. Hence St. Jerome on chapter 4 of St. Matthew: "If the Lord had not begun to fast," he says, "there would have been no occasion for the devil to tempt Him, according to the saying: Son, when you come to the service of God, stand in justice and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation."
2. HUMBLE. — Now the Greek reads εὔθυνον, that is, direct your heart. And so reads St. Ephrem in his treatise On Patience, and St. Cyril in the homily he delivered at Ephesus. The Tigurina: "Rightly order your heart," as if to say: Direct your heart straight to the law and will of God, and make it upright, and preserve it in this uprightness, lest through temptation you allow it to be bent to the right or to the left, curved and made crooked. The first remedy for overcoming temptation is the preparation of the soul for it, which he assigned in verse 1. The second is the dejection and humility of the soul; or, as the Greek has it, uprightness: because the soul is upright when it humbly subjects itself equally to the law and to the grace of God, and under these depresses and humbles itself; for by this humility under the mighty hand of God, it professes its own weakness, indeed incapacity, for resisting, and thereby silently petitions the help and grace of God, and by this humility provokes and merits it.
Hence Palacius morally says: "Before conversion," he says, "your soul was of a proud heart; it lacked a yoke; it lacked a rider and a tamer. But in conversion, God wills to sit on His throne; He wills to sit upon His donkey and its colt; He wills to ascend upon His Cherub; He wills to ride upon the wings of the wind, or of His spirit. Therefore humble yourself. Lower yourself, about to receive God above you; in no way admit pride." So St. Anthony, according to St. Athanasius, saw the whole world full of the snares of temptations which the demons were laying; and sighing he said: "Lord, who can escape all these snares?"
could escape them?" He heard: "Humility. For humility dissolves all the power of the enemy," as the demons themselves have often confessed. For this reason God permits among the Saints who have conquered great temptations certain small ones, so that, when they are overcome by those lesser ones, they may feel their own weakness and humble themselves, and attribute the victory over the greater ones not to themselves but to God. So says Rabanus.
AND ENDURE. — The Tigurina: "Act bravely." In Greek, as a disciple; as a disciple tolerates and endures the blows of his master. Again: Endure, says Palacius, that is, when you have received God upon you, even though He may seem heavy, do not shake Him off, but endure. It has been said: "Act manfully, let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord." He will seem burdensome to you not infrequently. But do not shake off so noble a burden; He Himself will give strength for enduring, He who wills to be a weight in the burden, and will say: "My grace is sufficient for you."
This is the third remedy for temptation, namely, patience and endurance, by which you patiently bear the troubles, pains, fears, anxieties, and anguish of temptation. Seneca truly says in his Sentences: "Wisdom is the remedy for any grief." The same author, in his book On Providence, chapter 1: "God," he says, "does not pamper the just man; He tests him, hardens him, and prepares him for Himself." After some further words, chapter 2: "He (the good man) considers all adversities to be exercises; and what man, if he is upright in pursuing honorable things, is not desirous of just labor, and prompt for duties involving danger? For what industrious man is idleness not a punishment? Virtue wastes away without an adversary; then it appears how great it is, how much it avails and prevails, when it shows what it can do through patience." And he then heaps up many things that apply far more truly to a Christian. For nothing is more desirable for a just man than patience in adversity: "This," says Tertullian in his book On Patience, "fortifies faith, governs peace, assists love, instructs humility, awaits repentance, seals confession, rules the flesh, preserves the spirit, restrains the hand, tramples temptations, drives away scandals, consoles the poor, moderates the rich, does not exhaust the weak, does not consume the strong, delights the faithful, invites the pagan; it commends the slave to his master, the master to God; it adorns a woman, approves a man; it is loved in a boy, praised in a youth, admired in an old man; it is beautiful in every sex, in every age."
AND INCLINE YOUR EAR AND RECEIVE THE WORDS OF UNDERSTANDING. — The Tigurina: "Lend your ear and take in the words of counsel." This is the fourth remedy for temptation, namely, to hear the counsels and consolations both of Sacred Scripture and pious books, and of spiritual men, by which the one who is tempted is partly instructed — how, for example, he should conduct himself prudently and patiently in temptation — and partly strengthened, so that he may bravely endure and bear it. Sirach therefore signifies that the one who is tempted ought to receive instructions and consolations, both of good
men, and of God, whether He suggests them through internal inspirations or through Sacred Scripture and pious books. Therefore, the one who is tempted should immediately have recourse to reading and meditating on them. So did St. Paula, who in every temptation would turn over the words of Sacred Scripture suited to that temptation, as the most effective remedies. Hear St. Jerome in her Epitaph: "In temptations, she would turn over the words of Deuteronomy: The Lord your God tests you, that He may know whether you love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul. In tribulations and distresses, she would repeat the words of Isaiah: You who are weaned from the milk, who are drawn away from the breast, expect tribulation upon tribulation, hope upon hope: yet a little while, because of the malice of lips, because of the malignant tongue. And she would expound the testimony of Scripture for her own consolation: That it belongs to the weaned, namely, those who have attained to a mature age, to endure tribulation upon tribulation, that they may merit to receive hope upon hope, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience probation, and probation hope, and hope does not confound. And: Even if our outward man is being destroyed, the inward man is being renewed. And: Our present light and momentary tribulation works for us an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Nor would the time be long, even though it might seem slow to human impatience, before the help of God would appear, who says: In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you."
AND DO NOT HASTEN IN THE TIME (some read less correctly, 'into the time,' as if to say: Do not through your impatience hurl yourself into the time of darkness, that is, of temptation; do not voluntarily cast yourself into temptation, and consequently into present and eternal death; so Palacius) OF DARKNESS. — In Greek εἰσαγωγῆς, that is, as the Complutensian reads, of induction and infliction of punishments; the Tigurina, of assault; Vatablus, of incursion; Palacius, of siege, that is, of temptation, affliction, calamity, which is brought upon you and by which the mind and the whole man are, as it were, covered and clouded over with darkness. Our Translator at verse 4 renders: "Whatever is brought upon you;" for in Greek it is the same word, ὃ ἐὰν ἐπαχθῇ. So Hesychius. The Tigurina: "Do not be alarmed in the time of assault, but wait for God patiently." Vatablus: "Do not act rashly," etc. The Arabic: "Be tranquil, leaning, in your ways." The meaning, therefore, is as if to say: While you are being tempted, do not be hasty and rash, falling into impatience, murmuring, revenge, pusillanimity, despair, apostasy, etc.; but be long-suffering, tolerant, and constant. For the Hebrew חפז chappaz, that is, to hasten, often means to tremble; hence חפזון chippazon is trembling, panic, flight; for he who trembles, flees. It alludes to Isaiah 28:16: "He who believes shall not hasten." And Habakkuk 2:3: "If it delays, wait for it." For time tempers, cuts short, and finally takes away all sorrows, just as it does joys. All pains are alleviated by time; indeed, they are finally no longer felt and vanish. Diseases are broken and dispersed by time when their cause is dispersed, for example, when a noxious humor is consumed. The very same happens in temptations. True is the saying: "Time is the best physician of all evils." Time mitigates anger, hatred, and concupiscence; time reveals secrets and brings hidden truth into the light. Time brings experience, counsel, and prudence: Time even made rocks crumble. Hence the poets imagine that Saturn, the god of Time, devoured the stone substituted for Jupiter. Hence Ovid, Book IV, From Pontus: A drop hollows a stone; a ring is worn away by use; And the curved ploughshare is worn by the pressed earth.
This is the fifth remedy for temptation, namely, not to be alarmed in it, nor to be rash, but to be strong, long-suffering, and constant. For nearly every temptation arises from the weakness and instability of the mind, as St. Gregory teaches on 1 Samuel 2: "He will guard the feet of His saints." Now the feet of the saints are faith and love, or humility and fortitude, by which we stand strong and invincible against all temptations. So "St. Paula," says St. Jerome in her Epitaph, "constantly sang in her grief: Why are you sad, O my soul, and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I shall still praise Him, the salvation of my countenance and my God. In dangers she would say: He who wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. And again: He who wishes to save his life will lose it. And: He who loses his life for My sake will save it. When losses to her household property and the ruin of her entire patrimony were reported, she would say: What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? And: Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. As it pleased the Lord, so it was done. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Abbot Pastor wisely says in the Lives of the Fathers, Book VI, booklet 4, number 9: "To the man placed in temptation pertains that saying of Christ, Matthew 6: Do not think about tomorrow. So that he may not think about how long he will be in the temptation, but rather willingly accept what is present today and daily." For, as Christ says: "Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Tomorrow will be anxious for itself." So that Religious who was tempted for nine years to leave the community of the Brethren, "at evening would say to himself: Tomorrow I depart from here. And in the morning: Let us force ourselves to stay here today for the sake of the Lord. And when he had completed nine years, doing this from day to day, the Lord took the temptation away from him." Ibid., Book V, booklet 7, number 39.
Others commonly explain it thus, as if to say: Do not hasten, that is, do not through impatience call upon or hasten the darkness, that is, death, and bring it upon yourself; for in death all things seem to be covered, wrapped, and veiled over. So says Lyranus: "Do not hasten in the time of darkness, that is, of the separation of the senses, which happens at the time of death; that is, do not desire death, broken by the prolonged duration of adversity." Others more genuinely explain it, as if to say: "Do not hasten in the time of darkness;" that is, when a strong passion of either hatred, or love, or grief assails you, the light of reason is in some way obscured, and, as it were, the sky of the soul being overcast does not allow the mind to discern properly what is better, what is more just, what is more fitting, and indeed what is more useful. Therefore, in such great mental darkness, one must not rashly rush into those things which first present themselves, driven by passion, which, being blind, will lead the mind — itself clouded with mist — into precipices, into abysses, into ruin. One must wait, therefore, until, as the passion subsides, these mists are dispersed. For time reveals the truth. As the Comedian says: "Truth is the daughter of time; time is a wolf to falsehood," because time consumes lies just as a wolf devours a sheep.
3. BEAR THE SUPPORTS OF GOD — that is, do not hasten, but await the expectations of God, by which God and God's help and deliverance are awaited, as if to say: Patiently wait for God and God's help, just as those besieged in a city await relief so that they may be freed from the siege. Hence the Tigurina: "Wait for God patiently." For He will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength, but at the opportune time He will be present and will help, and will provide a way out with the temptation (1 Corinthians 10). So 'support' is taken for expectation, patience, long-suffering, as in Romans 3:26: "In the forbearance of God, for the demonstration of His justice." These words are now missing from the Greek. So St. Anthony, fiercely tempted and scourged by demons, after enduring, seeing Jesus, said: "Where were You, good Jesus? Where were You? Why were You not present from the beginning to heal my wounds?" And a voice came to him saying: "Anthony, I was here; but I was waiting to see your contest. Now, because you did not cease fighting manfully, I will always help you, and I will make you renowned throughout the whole world," as St. Athanasius reports in his Life. This is what the Psalmist admonishes: "Wait for the Lord, act manfully, let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord" (Psalm 26:14).
Less genuinely, Palacius interprets it thus: Bear the supports, that is, bear the burdens and weights of the temptations that you must support; namely, those which God imposes on you and with which He presses upon you as if heavy and weighty, and which He wills you to suffer and endure — indeed, in which He Himself supports you, says Lyranus, according to 1 Corinthians 10: "God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will provide a way out with the temptation, so that you may be able to endure."
shall not hasten." And Habakkuk 2:3: "If it delays, wait for it." For time tempers, cuts short, and finally takes away all sorrows just as it does joys. All pains are alleviated by time; indeed, they are finally not felt and vanish. Diseases are broken and dispersed by time when their cause is dispersed, for example, when a noxious humor is consumed. The very same happens in temptations. True is the saying: "Time is the best physician of all evils." Time mitigates anger, hatred, and concupiscence; time reveals secrets and brings hidden truth to light. Time brings experience, counsel, and prudence.
Time even made rocks crumble. Hence the poets imagine that Saturn, the god of Time, devoured the stone substituted in place of Jupiter. Hence Ovid, Book IV, From Pontus: A drop hollows a stone; a ring is worn away by use; And the curved ploughshare is worn by the pressed earth.
...may penetrate. He therefore says with the Psalmist: "Lord, with the shield of Your good will You have crowned us" (Psalm 5:13).
Again, he who is joined to God is joined to purity and sanctity itself: and this destroys every vice and every temptation; for temptation solicits toward impurity and sin. For all sanctity is situated in love and union with God: wherefore, just as God extremely hates sin and temptation, so too does the one who is joined to God: for sanctity is purity. But just as impurity arises from contact with lower things, as when a face or garment is spattered with mud, or when the soul through affection clings inordinately to lower things; so purity arises from contact with higher things, when the affection rises to more sublime and noble things, and clings to them. But the Supreme of all, the most simple and purest, is God; whence the highest purity consists in adhesion to God. Those therefore who in temptation flee to God are like birds; but those who look to human aids are like fish. For if someone throws a stone from the bank into the river, the fish that were swimming at the surface plunge to the depths and are completely swallowed by the river; but nearby birds fly up to the heights. So those who in temptation flee to men are more deeply immersed in it and swallowed up like fish: but those who flee to God overcome temptation like birds in flight; because they fly up to heaven, to God, through faith and hope.
This is the sixth effective remedy for temptation. For this union with God elevates the mind above all things, and fixes it in God; fixed in Whom it sees and laughs at this mere speck of earth, and looks down upon and despises all things, both adverse and prosperous, as vile and insignificant things placed beneath it, and says: "My mind is founded in God, and made firm in Christ."
Thus Abbot Moses in the Lives of the Fathers, book VI, booklet IV, no. 6, when asked: "What should a man do in every temptation that comes upon him?" answered: "He should weep before the goodness of God, that He may help him; and he will find rest quickly, if he asks with knowledge; for it is written: The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man may do to me." And Abbot John, book III, nos. 208 and 209, says: Just as a man seeing wild beasts climbs a tree to escape; so too should a man seeing temptations rushing upon him flee through prayer to the Lord, and he will be saved. And just as water extinguishes fire: "So whenever a foul thought has been kindled by the enemy, then let him pour out the water of prayer, and extinguish it." And Abbot Hyperichius, book V, booklet VII, no. 20: "Let spiritual hymns be in your mouth, and constant meditation lighten the weight of temptations that come upon you: for so a traveler, weighed down by the burden of his load, by breathing and resting gradually diminishes the labor of the burden and the journey." And at no. 22, a certain Religious, tempted by hunger and contempt, "in all these things gave thanks to God: and God seeing his patience, removed the war of temptation from him."
Join yourself to God. — In Greek more expressively, κολλήθητι, that is, glue yourself to God, namely, through the closest bond of prayer, affection, and constant and persevering adhesion. And endure, in Greek, μὴ ἀποστῇς, that is, do not desert, as the Zurich version has it, that is, let no assault of temptation tear you away from God, do not withdraw from Him, do not apostatize. But say with the Psalmist: "But for me, to adhere to God is good, to place my hope in the Lord God" (Psalm 72). For he who through hope and love is joined to God is strengthened, freed, and protected by Him. For God is his defender and shield, Who receives all the darts of the enemy upon Himself before they reach the one hoping in Him, and hiding under the shield of His providence—
Wherefore here St. Chrysostom, in Homily 4 on the Epistle to the Philippians, says: "To suffer for Christ is a gift of greater admiration than to truly raise the dead and perform wondrous signs; for in those cases I am a debtor, but here I have Christ as my debtor." Elsewhere, in Homily 1 to the People of Antioch: "If we rightly call that body blessed which can endure cold, heat, hunger, want, and the difficulties of the road and other hardships without injury to itself; how much more should we call that soul blessed which can manfully and bravely bear the assaults of all troubles, and keep its heart in all things subject to no servitude?" Nor does Pope Gregory disagree, in Homily 34 on the Gospels, for he writes thus: "Truly the root and guardian of all virtues is patience, whose proper office is to endure the wrongs of others with equanimity, and not to be stung by any grief even against him who inflicts the wrongs; and as the Apostle says, not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. How lofty the virtue of patience is, Solomon indicates when he says: The patient man is better than the strong man; and he who masters his spirit than he who takes cities. It is therefore a lesser victory to conquer cities; because those who are conquered are outside. But that which is conquered through patience is greater; because the spirit is conquered by itself, and subjects itself to itself, when patience lays it low in the humility of endurance."
Finally, Cassian excellently teaches in Conference VI, chapter 12, that the mind of the just man who suffers should be not soft, like wax, but strong and hard, like adamant: "And so the mind of a just man," he says, "should not be like wax, or any other softer material, which always yields to the character of those who stamp it and is shaped according to their form and image, and retains it within itself only until it is reformed by another seal pressed upon it; and so it happens that, never persisting in its own quality, it is always converted and passes into the form of those things that are imprinted upon it; rather it should be like a kind of adamantine signet, so that our mind, always preserving the inviolable figure of its own character, may stamp and transform everything that encounters it to the quality of its own state; but itself cannot be marked by any assaults."
St. Ephrem, in his sermon to the athlete exercising piety: "Whatever and however great a temptation may assail, he says, a man should by no means fall from his confidence in God; rather, all the more should he cling constantly to Christ alone, who is merciful and who can heal the infirmities of the soul, always loving Him and meditating on Him, and thus thinking and resolving within himself: If I should withdraw from God, turning aside from the true path of virtue, where could I go? Except perhaps to cast myself headlong into perdition, and into the hands of the deceitful enemy. Therefore, though the evil one daily attacks with infinite swords of fiery darts, and the malice of passions, and absurd thoughts; though he makes an assault and leads one into despair; all the more must one flee to God, and fix one's hope in Him. For God wills His own to be tested in this way, that it may be established that they love Him alone." O Lord, protector of my soul, my strength and my salvation, join me to Yourself, glue me to Yourself, so that no tribulation may separate me from You. So offer Yourself to me, so communicate Yourself, that saturated with the delights of Your sweetness, I may abominate all the vain delights of the world and the flesh. Write upon the tablet of my heart the most joyful remembrance of You, to be erased by no temptation ever, that I may always burn with desire for You, blaze with the fire of hope and love for You, and be utterly absorbed in the flood of Your charity.
4. THAT YOUR LIFE MAY INCREASE IN THE END. — "The end" in Scripture does not signify precisely the last and the extreme, but that which is later and follows, though closely. For the Hebrew אחרות acharith, which our translator renders as "the end," means the same as "later," "following," "consequent." "In the end," therefore, that is, after temptation has been endured, "let your life increase," both the present life through the joy and happiness with which God will reward you as a victor; and in the future life, which will crown you with eternal glory. Note: "Life" is called joy and happiness, both because to live in miseries and grief is not life, but a prolonged death. "Life is not living, but being well," says the Poet; and because joy and happiness preserve life, prolong it, and make one long-lived. This is what God promises to the patient one who hopes in Him, Psalm 90: "I will deliver him, and I will glorify him; with length of days I will fill him."
ACCEPT WHATEVER IS APPLIED TO YOU (ἐπαχθῇ, that is, brought upon; the Complutensian has "brought to"). — In Greek δέξαι ἀσμένος, that is, receive gladly; the Arabic has: Bear what God has brought upon you, with thanksgiving; the Zurich version: Whatever assails you, receive willingly, that is to say: Whatever befalls you, whatever adverse thing happens, accept it promptly, indeed joyfully, from the hand of God. For whatever He applies to you, He applies as your Lord and Master of all things, to whom you must submit yourself. He applies it as a most loving Father, whom you must love in return even when He chastises. He applies it as a most skilled Physician, healing the wounds of your soul, whom you must eagerly receive though He uses a sharper remedy or cauterization, so that you may say with St. Job, chapter 2, verse 10: "If we have received good things from the hand of God, why should we not receive evil things?" And chapter 1, verse 21: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done: blessed be the name of the Lord." Indeed even Pindar, though a pagan, in Pythian Ode 3: "Always," he says, "I will accommodate myself in spirit to whatever fortune embraces me, honoring it according to my ability." For it is the wise man's part to accommodate himself to fortune, or rather fortune to himself. Hence the Stoic axiom: "Yield to fate. It is the wise man's part to offer himself to fate; for the fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling."
Moreover Rabanus says: "It must be known that patience is usually exercised in three ways. For some things we endure from God; others from the ancient adversary; others from our neighbor. From our neighbor we endure persecutions, losses, and insults; from the ancient adversary, temptations; from God, scourges. But in all three of these modes the mind must look about itself with a watchful eye, lest against the wrongs of a neighbor it be drawn to returning evil. Lest against the temptations of the adversary it be seduced to delight or consent in sin. Lest against the scourges of its Maker it rush into the excess of murmuring. For the adversary is perfectly conquered when our mind, even amid his temptations, is preserved from delight and consent; and amid the insults of our neighbor is guarded from hatred; and amid the scourges of God is restrained from murmuring: nor while doing these things should we seek to be repaid with present goods. For in return for the labor of patience, the goods of the following life are to be hoped for, so that the reward of our labor may begin when all labor has utterly ceased."
And endure in sorrow. — These words are now missing in the Greek. The meaning is, as if to say: Do not try through impatience to shake off sorrow, because thus you will arouse and increase it more: but endure through patience, because thus you will diminish it. For patience is the remedy for all evils, especially because patience merits the removal or lessening of the yoke which impatience merits to have made heavier. Finally, to escape all sorrow is impossible; for this life is one of tribulations and sorrows, and without sorrow one does not live in love.
AND IN YOUR HUMILIATION HAVE PATIENCE. — "Humility" here does not signify the virtue, but humiliation, abasement, affliction, and sorrow, which was spoken of before. Hence in Greek it is ἐν ἀλλάγματι (others read the plural, ἀλλάγμασι, that is, in changes), τῆς ταπεινώσεώς σου μακροθύμησον, that is, in the change of humility, or rather of your humiliation, be long-suffering, that is, in the change by which you are humbled, when, namely, your happy lot is changed to a miserable one, so that you are humbled, cast down, afflicted; endure this change and humiliation with long-suffering. The Zurich version: In whatever vicissitude you are cast down, show yourself strong. For the Hebrew ענה ana, that is, to be humbled, means to suffer, to grieve, to be afflicted. Whence עני oni,
...is humility, that is, sorrow and affliction. Hence that well-worn expression in Scripture, "Humble," that is, mortify and afflict, "your soul in fasting;" and often elsewhere "to humble" means to afflict, because for the proud (as we all are from the fall into sin) the greatest affliction is to be cast down and humbled. Again, ana means to suffer poverty; whence עני ani is "poor." Following this the Syriac translates: in poverty be long-suffering; and the Arabic: to languor and necessity be patient.
This is the seventh remedy for temptation, namely, to resign oneself to the will of God, and whatever it applies to us, to receive humbly and patiently, considering that it is applied to us from the immense love of God for our good, and therefore that this is a great gift of God. For, as follows: "Because gold is tested in fire; but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation." By this reasoning St. Pachomius fittingly, as his Life, chapter 2, relates, consoled his disciple Theodore when he was sick. "For a severe affliction of the head was causing Theodore the sharpest pains. When he begged Pachomius to relieve him with his prayers, he said to him: Do you think, my son, that any pain, or suffering, or anything of this sort happens to anyone without God's permission? Therefore endure in sorrow, and in humiliation have patience, and when the Lord wills, He will grant you health; because if He deigns to test you longer, be grateful, like the most perfect Job, who in many tribulations blessed the Lord: and you too, like him, will receive from the Lord greater rest in return for your sufferings. Abstinence is indeed good, and perseverance in prayer; yet the sick man gains a greater reward when he is found to be long-suffering and patient."
The counterpart to this teaching is the fable of the wheat and the lily, which Cyril presents in book I of his Moral Apology, chapter 21, adorned with choice parables and argued with forceful reasoning from natural philosophy, whose title is: "Magnanimity of patience avails to conquer all adversity." The fable runs thus:
"A grain of wheat, cast into the earth and dead, having sprouted beside a dry stone, a lily is said to have spoken to it thus: Whence comes to you, crushed and dead, the spirit of sprouting, when I, when crushed, am by that very fact destroyed? To which the grain replied: This comes to me from the greatness of nature, by which my suffering is my action, and while I die, I come back to life. For the strength (value, force, and vigor) of the greatest things is then more intensified when their bodily magnitude is crushed or dies: indeed the phoenix when dead generates, and cinnamon when ground inflames all the more. But things in which virtue is less prevailing, if they are ground, are confounded by such grinding and lose their preciousness. As the draconite stone, if it is ground, its virtue is lost; and the magnet does not attract iron if it is ground. So a weak limb does not allow itself to be touched without pain, and a healthy one, when touched, delights. Have you not noticed that the virtuous one,
...when he is crushed by adversities, then is found to be more magnanimous? In calamity he indeed takes on greater spirit, and his triumphant reason is then more vehemently strengthened." He assigns the reason a priori, and confirms it with the examples of Job, Joseph, and Tobias, saying: "For not to be conquered in evils is the victory of virtue. But no one is conquered unless his good is snatched from him. But the entire good of the magnanimous man consists in his virtue: for this is self-sufficient, and since he excels in it and rejoices in his virtue being preserved, no deprivation strips him externally, no confusion dishonors him, no affliction of sense saddens him. Was not St. Job, in chapter 1, rich in virtue, not at all impoverished by the loss of temporal things? Was not Joseph, excelling in the same virtue, in Genesis chapter 39, by no means dishonored by infamy? And was not Tobias, rejoicing in the same, in Tobit chapter 2, not desolated in the darkness of blindness?" Finally, from all this he gathers the moral of the fable, as its end and fruit: "Whoever wishes, let him speak or do you wrong; you nevertheless will suffer nothing, if only magnanimity be your virtue. Indeed the prudent magnanimous man glories in adversities (2 Corinthians 12:9), because in weakness virtue is perfected, and venom is beaten down by venom. Asbestos wood is purified by fire, and choice gold gleams approved in the furnace. Therefore in adversity only the impatient man is conquered, and in it the wise man, unconquered by magnanimity, is either corrected, or preserved by remedy, or raised from lifelessness. Having said these things, he fell silent."
5. FOR GOLD AND SILVER ARE TESTED IN FIRE, BUT ACCEPTABLE MEN — (in Greek δεκτοί), that is, acceptable, meaning accepted and pleasing to God; worthy to be received and adopted by God as friends, intimates, and sons, that they may be His elect and heirs of the heavenly kingdom; the Arabic has: For gold is tested by fire, and man by want and poverty.
In the furnace of humiliation. — The Syriac has: in the furnace of poverty; St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, stanza 20, in the furnace of humility: "For there is," he says, "humility of virtue, and there is humility of affliction;" the Zurich version: For as gold is tested by fire, so praiseworthy men in the furnace of affliction. Just as fire does not harm but benefits gold, because it tests, purges, perfects, brightens, and makes it splendid and gleaming; so the furnace of humiliation and affliction tests, purges, perfects, and brightens the patient man, and makes him pleasing and worthy of God. Wherefore, just as gold made radiant by fire owes thanks to the fire by which it gleamed; so too does the patient man owe thanks to temptation. Hence the Psalmist, Psalm 118: "It is good for me," he says, "that You have humbled me." But the impatient man, who does not deserve to be received by God, is not purged or brightened by the fire of temptation like gold, but like chaff is burned and consumed. This is what St. Ephrem says in his treatise On the Fear of God: "Many are monks by habit; but few are fighters: and in the time of temptation the monk's testing appears." And the Angel said to Tobias, chapter 12: "Because you were acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation test you." And Daniel, chapter 11, verse 35,
...speaking of the saints sharply tested by Antiochus, and to be tested by the Antichrist: "Some of the learned," he says, "shall fall, that they may be refined (in temptation as gold in a furnace), and chosen, and made white." See what was said there.
St. Augustine says excellently on Psalm 61: "Does gold shine in the goldsmith's furnace? In a necklace it will shine, in an ornament it will shine; yet let it endure the furnace, so that purged of its dross it may come to the light. This furnace — there is chaff, there is gold, there is fire — at it stands the goldsmith. In the furnace the chaff burns, and the gold is purged. The chaff is turned to ashes, the gold is stripped of its dross. The furnace is the world, the chaff the wicked, the gold the just, the fire is tribulation, the goldsmith is God. What the goldsmith wills, therefore, I do: where the goldsmith places me, I endure: I am commanded to endure, He knows how to purge. Though the chaff burns to set me on fire and as it were to consume me; it is turned to ashes, I am free of dross. Why? Because my soul shall be subject to God, since from Him is my patience."
Moreover, St. Chrysostom assigns the measure of this testing in Homily 4 to the People: "For the goldsmith," he says, "does not remove the gold from the smelting pot until he sees it well purged: so too God does not dispel this cloud until He has thoroughly corrected us. For He who permitted the temptation Himself also knows the time for the temptation to be resolved. And just as a harpist neither tightens the string so much as to break it, nor loosens it beyond measure so as to damage the harmony of the concert: so too God acts, neither keeping our soul in continual relaxation nor in prolonged tribulation, doing both according to His wisdom. He does not allow us to enjoy continual relaxation, lest we become more sluggish: nor again does He allow us to be in continual tribulation, lest we collapse and despair. Let us therefore leave to Him the time for ending adversity: and let us only live in holiness."
Again St. Augustine, Sermon 78 On the Times: "The wicked," he says, "serve the good not by obeying but by persecuting, just as persecutors serve martyrs, just as files or hammers serve gold, just as millstones serve wheat, just as ovens serve bread to be baked; so that the former are baked, while the latter are consumed: just as in the goldsmith's furnace the chaff serves the gold; where without doubt the chaff is consumed and the gold is tested."
See Cassian, Conference VI, chapter 11, where he assigns three causes and purposes of temptation: "It must be known," he says, "that all men are tempted for a threefold reason: most often for testing, sometimes for purification, at times for the merits of their sins." These he then proves and illustrates with examples and sayings of Sacred Scripture. And then he adds a fourth cause, because "we know from the authority of Scripture," he says, "that certain sufferings are inflicted on some solely for the purpose of manifesting the glory and works of God," according to that saying of John about the man born blind, chapter 9: "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but that the works of God might be made manifest in him;" and about Lazarus when sick, chapter 11: "This sickness is not unto death; but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it."
6. BELIEVE GOD, — and consequently trust; for faith begets hope and confidence in God: indeed, "believe," that is, as the Zurich version has it: trust God, and to Him commit yourself and your affairs, and especially your temptations and afflictions, and the time of your deliverance.
AND HE WILL RESTORE YOU. — In Greek ἀντιλήψεται, that is, He will take you up, and restore you when you have fallen into afflictions to your former state of happiness; which our translator renders, "will restore."
AND DIRECT (that is, make straight) YOUR WAY, (that is, your conduct) (and then at last); HOPE IN HIM, — because an upright and virtuous life begets confidence; for God protects and shields the upright in heart as His own. The Zurich version: Trust God, that He may bring you aid, walk in upright paths, and lean on Him. For faith alone does not win God over, unless it is joined with an upright and virtuous life; for sins turn away God and God's help. For how can a sinner believe that God will be present to him, when he himself is not present to God, indeed when he is not even present to himself? Hence the Arabic translates: Believe in God, that He may be your helper, and hope in Him, and He will make your ways easy.
This is the eighth remedy for temptation, namely confidence in God; for this makes the soul lofty, magnanimous, divine, and obtains from God help and strength to overcome temptation; for God cannot desert or disappoint one who hopes in Him; for He promises certain aid everywhere in Scripture, as in Matthew 8:13: "Go, and as you have believed, let it be done for you;" and chapter 9:22: "Your faith has saved you;" Psalm 90:1: "He who dwells in the help of the Most High shall abide in the protection of the God of heaven;" and verse 4: "He will overshadow you with His shoulders, and under His wings you shall hope. His truth will surround you with a shield; you shall not fear the terror of the night. Nor the arrow flying by day, nor the plague that walks in darkness, nor the assault and the noonday devil;" and verse 14: "Because he has hoped in Me, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he has known My name. He shall cry to Me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him and glorify him." And so that entire psalm is about this matter, and therefore in temptation and fear it is customarily read by many, indeed it is read by all clerics daily at Compline against temptations, terrors, and nocturnal illusions. See St. Bernard on it. The reason is that confidence is an honor and glory to God, because the one who hopes, distrusting himself, trusts and commits himself entirely to God, and thus as it were obliges God to protect him, indeed to restore him, even if he has fallen and is nearly lost. Therefore God's honor is at stake here, which moves God to come to the aid of His client.
Philo says excellently, in his book On Abraham: "Faith alone by which one believes God," he says, "is a solid and certain good, a consolation of life, a supplement of good hope, a repeller of calamities, a procurer of blessings, a dismissal of superstition, an assertion of piety, an inheritance for posterity, and finally an advancement
...in all things. For he who has this, relies on God the author of all things, who can do all things; and wills what is best." In the book entitled Who Is the Heir of Divine Things, he says: "How difficult it is to believe in God alone, when sense resists, and nature, even reason itself, occupied by perverse opinions! Namely, mortal things, by which we are surrounded, persuade us to believe and trust in glory, power, friends, health and bodily strength, and above all our own prudence, lest we exchange certain things for uncertain, present things for future, and lest, as we are forbidden by the old proverb, we purchase hope at a price. To drive these persuasions utterly from the mind, to trust no creature; but to have all one's hopes and resources placed in God alone, and to depend upon Him entirely in mind and soul, is the mark of a great and heavenly spirit, one not ensnared and captivated by earthly things."
KEEP THE FEAR OF HIM, AND GROW OLD IN IT. — This verse is now missing in the Greek; the Zurich version has: Preserve his religion, and grow old in it. For "fear" signifies reverence for God, worship, religion, "by which we may serve God acceptably with fear;" in Greek αἰδοῦς, that is, with modesty, reverence, "and awe" (Hebrews 12:28).
This is the ninth remedy for temptation, namely filial fear and love of God, if one constantly keeps it, and fixed in it persists even to old age, indeed to the last breath of life, and says with the Apostle: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or hunger? or nakedness? or peril? or persecution? or the sword? etc. I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:35). This remedy is easy, efficacious, and supremely meritorious. For who would not love his God, and for love of Him endure any temptation? What cannot the love of God accomplish? What does it not merit, being the fountain and principle of all merit? How could God abandon one who loves Him and not love him in return, indeed far surpass and transcend him with a greater love? Wherefore, just as a soldier grows old in arms and swords, a teacher in books, a preacher in pulpits, a physician in medicines, a lawyer in laws, a farmer in fields, a tailor in garments, a goldsmith in gold, each craftsman in his own art and work: so the faithful and holy man grows old in the fear and love of God. For this is his sword, this his book, this his pulpit, his medicine, his law, his farm and field, his garment, his gold, his altar and work.
Thus Blessed Orsiesius, disciple of St. Pachomius: "Let us sow," he says, "in tears, that with joy we may reap, not failing, because we know that the Lord delivers from temptation those who worship Him." Blessed Peter of Ravenna says: "It is the mark of a tender warfare to win victory over all temptations and vices by love alone." St. Chrysostom: "Be an adamant, O athlete of Christ, and you will overcome all things." St. Basil to Chilon: "Subject your body to the exercise of labors, accustom your soul to enduring temptations with equanimity." St. Bernard: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts." And St. Anthony says explicitly, as recorded by St. Athanasius: "Great weapons against demons are a sincere life and inviolate faith toward God. Believe me from experience: Satan greatly fears the vigils, prayers, fasts, gentleness, voluntary poverty, contempt of vainglory, humility, mercy, mastery of anger, and above all the pure heart toward the love of Christ, of those who live rightly."
The reason a priori is that the fear of God brings humility, which is the conqueror of all temptations; and poverty of spirit, which destroys the material of temptation. The former is taught by St. Augustine in book I of his On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, where, making the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit correspond to the eight beatitudes, he assigns fear to the first beatitude: "The fear of God," he says, "is fitting for the humble, of whom it is said here: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that is, those who are not puffed up, not proud, of whom the Apostle says: Be not high-minded; but fear, that is, do not exalt yourself." The latter is taught equally with the former by St. Thomas, II-II, Question 19, article 12: "To fear," he says, "properly corresponds poverty of spirit. For since it pertains to filial fear to show reverence to God and to be subject to Him, that which follows from such subjection pertains to the gift of fear. But from the fact that one subjects himself to God, he ceases to seek to be magnified in himself, or in any other, except in God; for this would be repugnant to perfect subjection to God. Hence it is said in Psalm 19: Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God. And therefore from the fact that one perfectly fears God, it follows that he does not seek to be magnified in himself through pride; nor does he seek to be magnified in external goods, namely honors and riches, both of which pertain
...to poverty of spirit." And thus through it, and consequently through the fear of God annexed to it, all temptations are destroyed; for these are born mainly from the desire for either honors or riches. I have said more about the remedies for temptations at James 1, verse 12.
SECOND PART OF THE CHAPTER, IN WHICH HE EXHORTS TO HOPE, FEAR, AND WORSHIP
7. YOU WHO FEAR THE LORD, WAIT FOR HIS MERCY: AND DO NOT TURN ASIDE FROM HIM (the Lord and His fear, hope, and love), LEST YOU FALL. — The Syriac has: You who fear the Lord, hope for His blessedness; and do not hesitate to follow Him (that is, follow Him without hesitation), lest perhaps you fall. This is the second part of the chapter, in which, after having assigned the remedies for temptation, he pursues the chief one more extensively, namely constant hope and confidence in God. To this therefore there is here a continuous exhortation, in which he urges all that, in whatever temptation and tribulation, persisting in the fear of God, they should hope in God, and believe and commit themselves to Him. The Zurich version translates: You who revere the Lord, hope for His kindness, and do not turn aside from Him, lest you collapse in ruin of soul and body, into the abyss of sin, despair, and hell, as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram collapsed when they deserted God and Moses (Numbers 16). This is what Jeremiah says, chapter 17: "All who forsake You shall be confounded; those who depart from You shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the fountain of living waters, the Lord." He proves with four reasons that the faithful who are tempted must persist in the fear and confidence of God: the first is that, unless he does so, he will fall into sin, despair, and hell. For from these the fear and confidence of God preserves, and keeps a man in his state of God's grace. This therefore is the first endowment of fear and hope.
8. YOU WHO FEAR THE LORD, BELIEVE (both by believing through faith, and by trusting through hope and confidence) IN HIM, AND YOUR REWARD SHALL NOT BE MADE VOID. — This is the second reason, as if to say: In any temptation, O faithful, stand firm in the worship of God, and trust in Him, because if you waver and fall from the worship of God and hope, the reward of all good works which you previously performed will be made void, according to that saying of Ezekiel 18: "If the just man turns away from his justice, shall he live? All his justices which he had done shall not be remembered." This is the second endowment of fear and hope, that it preserves and increases the reward of good works, and even hastens it. Hence the Syriac translates: You who fear God, believe in Him, and He will not make your reward tarry overnight, according to the law of Leviticus 19:13.
9. YOU WHO FEAR THE LORD, HOPE IN HIM: AND MERCY SHALL COME TO YOU FOR YOUR DELIGHT. — As if to say: The mercy of God, which you hoped for, will delight you, when it bestows and grants the thing hoped for, namely present and eternal salvation. This delight and enjoyment of the thing hoped for is the third endowment and fruit of hope, according to that saying of Psalm 93: "According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, Your consolations have made my soul glad." He therefore who falls from fear and hope defrauds himself both of the thing hoped for and of divine consolation, and diminishes for himself the grace of God. For "as much as you grow in grace, so much are you enlarged in confidence," says St. Bernard, Sermon 3 on the Canticle. The Greek now has: You who fear the Lord, hope for good things, and for the joy of the age, and of mercy, as if to say: You who fear God, hope for good things, namely mercy and perpetual joy, which will last through every age. The Zurich version translates: Hope for good things, you for whom the Lord is an object of religion, and also for everlasting joy and kindness; the Syriac: You who fear the Lord, hope for His blessedness, and eternal joy, and redemption. The Arabic compresses this verse and the two preceding ones into one, as if in summary, and thus renders it: O you who fear the Lord, wait for His grace, that you may receive from it salvation, and joy, and exultation.
Moreover, what, of what quality, and how great this future joy will be, St. Bernard teaches in his Meditations: "The first thing," he says, "is to see God, to live with God, to live from God, to be with God, to be in God, who will be all in all: to have God, who is the supreme good, and where the supreme good is, there is supreme happiness, supreme delight, true freedom, perfect charity, eternal security and secure eternity." There is peace, piety, goodness, light, virtue, honor, Joys, delights, sweetness, perennial life, Glory, praise, rest, love and sweet concord. What madness then afflicts us, to thirst for the wormwood of vices, to follow the shipwreck of this world, to suffer the misfortune of a fleeting life, to bear the dominion of impious tyranny; and not rather to fly to the happiness of the Saints, to the society of Angels in heavenly joy, and to the delight of the contemplative life: that we may enter into the mighty works of the Lord, and see those superabundant riches of His goodness? There we shall be at leisure, and we shall see how sweet the Lord is, and how great is the multitude of His sweetness. We shall see the beauty of glory, the splendor of the Saints, and the honor of royal power. We shall know the power of the Father, the wisdom of the Son, and the most kindly clemency of the Holy Spirit: and thus we shall have knowledge of that supreme Trinity. Now we see bodies through the body, and we also perceive the images of bodies by the spirit. But then we shall see the Truth itself with the pure gaze of the mind. O how blessed a vision, to see God in Himself, to see Him in us, and us in Him, with happy delight! Whatever we shall desire, we shall have it all, etc. What do you think it will then be like
...the splendor of souls, when the light of bodies will have the splendor of the sun." The same, in Sermon 17 on the psalm He Who Dwells: "Eternal life," he says, "is itself fullness, itself the length of days; the true day that knows no setting: the full noonday, the fullness of true glory, eternal truth, true eternity, true and eternal satisfaction; since neither does that length have an end, nor that brightness a setting, nor that satisfaction any surfeit. For there shall be security from eternity, glorying from truth, exultation from satisfaction."
"Natio" (Nation/Birth) was held by the pagans to be a goddess who presided over the continuation of human generation: "Who, because she protects the births of matrons, was named Natio from those being born," says Cicero, book III of On the Nature of the Gods.
Wherefore the Syriac translates: Understand the matter which has been from the beginning, and from the generations of the ages. Understand and see: who believed in Him, and was forsaken by Him? or, who trusted in Him and was cast off by Him? or, who called upon Him, and He did not answer him? The Arabic has: Consider what was of old, and what was fitting in past generations. Look back, and guide yourselves carefully: who is it that hoped in Him, and was forsaken by Him? and who trusted in Him, and was despised by Him? It then adds certain things found neither in the Latin, nor in the Greek, nor in the Syriac, namely: He who wishes to inherit life and unfailing joy, let him receive all my words, and work in them, that he may establish his name in the book of life. Establish yourself in the fear of the Lord, that your heart may remain upon it, and do not be afraid. Approach it, and do not delay, because you will find blessedness and life: and when you have drawn near to it, approach like a giant and a strong man. The Zurich version: Look back to the ancient ages of old, and consider these things. Who trusted in the Lord and bore away disgrace? As if to say: Who ever, hoping in the Lord, was frustrated in his hope? Who failed to obtain the thing hoped for, and was therefore confounded, that is, put to shame and branded with disgrace? As if to say: No one, but all bore away the fruit of their hope, and obtained the thing hoped for, or something better, and therefore attained honor and glory. Consider Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samson, David, Hezekiah, Josiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, the Maccabees, and all the other just men through every age, who, trusting in the Lord, were delivered by Him from all perils and evils, as Mattathias forcefully recounts, who with these examples encouraged Judas and his other Maccabean sons to heroically undertake war for God and faith against Antiochus, relying not so much on weapons as on the hope and help of God (1 Maccabees chapter 2, verse 51). To this St. Paul alluded in Romans 5:3: "Tribulation produces patience, and patience produces testing, and testing produces hope, and hope does not confound."
Moreover St. Chrysostom refers this promise not only to the just, but also to sinners: "He did not say," he comments, "the just man: but who? Even if, he says, one is a sinner. For this is the admirable thing, that even sinners, holding this anchor of hope, are unconquerable by all." The same, on Psalm 117: "You will say," he says, "I hoped, and I was put to shame. Please, good words, O man! Do not speak against divine Scripture. For if you were put to shame, you were put to shame because you did not hope as you should have, because you gave up, because you did not wait for the end, being of a small and narrow spirit regarding the final outcome. For this is above all what it means to hope: when you have been cast into the midst of evils and dangers, to rise up."
10. YOU WHO FEAR THE LORD, LOVE HIM, AND YOUR HEARTS SHALL BE ILLUMINATED. — This saying is not in the Greek; hence Jansenius suspects it was added by someone, with this purpose, that to faith and hope, about which he said in verses 9 and 10 "believe" and "hope," the third theological virtue might be added, namely charity; and therefore he says "love." But by this reasoning many sayings in the Latin text of Ecclesiasticus would be spurious, because many are missing in the Greek, as I said in canon 16. Why should we not rather attribute this fitting harmony of the three theological virtues to Sirach himself? Hence Rabanus says: "Note, reader, that he makes a threefold distinction for those who fear the Lord. For first, he bids them believe God; second, hope in Him; third, love Him: because by faith, hope, and charity every faithful soul worships God. And through these forms one will arrive at the contemplation of the most holy Trinity, which is for that soul a true reward in everlasting blessedness." The meaning therefore is: You who fear God, in love for Him, as well as in faith and hope, in any temptation stand strong, "and," that is, because, "your hearts shall be illuminated," namely with light, not so much of knowledge as of consolation and joy: that is, they shall be refreshed, they shall exult, and shall be illuminated as with a new light of gladness and jubilation, according to that saying of Isaiah 58: "Your light shall rise in darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday; and the Lord shall give you rest always, and shall fill your soul with splendors." Consolation and joy is called light, because like light it illumines, refreshes, and vivifies the soul. This is the fourth endowment of fear and hope, that it begets a wondrous consolation and gladness of the soul.
11. LOOK BACK, CHILDREN, UPON THE NATIONS OF MEN: AND KNOW THAT NO ONE HAS HOPED IN THE LORD AND BEEN CONFOUNDED. — The word "nations" is in the accusative case: for in Greek it is ἀρχαίας γενεάς, that is, ancient generations; and so St. Ephrem reads it in Exhortation 30. These therefore are called "nations," according to that saying of Virgil, Aeneid III: And the children of children, and those who shall be born from them. "Natio," says Festus, "is a race of men who did not come from elsewhere, but were born there." In cattle also a good yield is called a good "natio" (birth-crop). So too Pliny, book 22, chapter 24, speaks of "nations" (varieties) of honey; and book 24, chapter 6: "nations" of resin. "Nations" therefore here means the generations and successions of men, namely men born on earth, and through continuous generations succeeding one another throughout every age. Hence
12. FOR WHO HAS REMAINED IN HIS COMMANDMENTS (in Greek, in his fear: for this compels one to keep the commandments), AND WAS FORSAKEN, OR WHO HAS CALLED UPON HIM, AND HE DESPISED HIM? — As if to say: Whoever hopes in God has never been abandoned by God, nor ever will be. For he is either just or unjust: if just and obedient to God's commandments, it is impossible that he be forsaken by God, since he is His friend and son; if unjust and in tribulation, let him flee to God through repentance and hope, and He will not despise him either.
13. FOR GOD IS COMPASSIONATE (in Greek εὔσπλαγχνος, that is, clement) AND MERCIFUL (the Complutensian adds, μακρόθυμος καὶ πολυέλεος, that is, long-suffering and of great compassion). And He will remit sins in the day of tribulation (to those who repent and return to Him and call upon Him), AND HE IS A PROTECTOR OF ALL WHO SEEK HIM IN TRUTH, — who, namely, truly and sincerely flee to Him, seek His friendship, obey Him, trust in Him, resign and believe and commit themselves and their affairs to Him. Again, "in truth," that is, in integrity, so that with a true heart, that is, a whole and complete one, with our whole affection we may seek Him. For "true" is often taken to mean full and complete, as in Daniel 4:34: "All His (God's) works are true," that is, complete and perfect. 1 Peter 5:12: "Testifying that this is the true, that is, perfect, grace of God." John 4:23: "True worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth." And chapter 15:1: "I am the true vine," that is, the perfect one. So God wills to be sought by us "in truth," that is, wholly and perfectly; for just as He wills to be loved by us with the whole heart, so also He wills that we hope in Him with the whole soul and the whole trust. For from this, setting up the contrast, He adds: "Woe to the double heart!" The Syriac translates: Because the Lord is clement and merciful, and He hears and delivers in every moment of tribulations, and He hears the voice of the works of His will, as if to say: He hears the voice not so much of those who speak, as of those who do good works, according to His will and law.
14. WOE TO THE DOUBLE HEART. — He opposes the double heart to truth, that is, to simplicity and sincerity, as if to say: Well done to the simple and sincere, who seek God in truth; but woe to those who are of a double heart, that is, who are false, hypocrites, deceitful, fraudulent, pretending to serve God, to worship Him, and to hope in Him, while they serve the world.
Again, to truth, that is, to integrity, he opposes the double heart, that is, the divided heart, namely the distrustful one, which partly clings to God, partly to creatures; which now places its hope in God, now in men; which now calls upon God, now witches and sorcerers. Hence St. Augustine, Tractate 7 on John: "He is of a double heart," he says, "who gives part of his heart to God, and part to the devil." God hates this man as diametrically opposed to Himself: for He by His nature is most simple, and therefore most complete, most sincere, most truthful, most faithful, most holy.
First, therefore, Sirach calls "double-hearted" those who distrust God, who have their hope as it were divided, and trembling, now place it in God, now in creatures. Hence St. James, alluding to this, when he treats of prayer, says in chapter 1, verse 6: "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering," and immediately adds in verse 8: "A double-minded man," in Greek δίψυχος, that is, two-souled, or having two souls, one hoping, the other despairing, "is inconstant in all his ways." Instead of which St. Ignatius, Epistle 13 to Hero, reads: "Be not of a double mind in your prayer. For blessed is he who does not waver." Such are today many who hesitate, are ambiguous and as it were amphibious: who in time of peace trust and serve God; but when persecution or fear rushes in, they distrust God and abandon Him, to please men; and, as Christ says in Luke chapter 8: "They believe for a time, and in the time of temptation they fall away."
Second, "double-hearted" refers to the hypocrite, who falsely and deceitfully worships and calls upon God, according to that saying of Psalm 11:3: "With a heart and a heart," that is, with a double heart, "they have spoken." Such are the fraudulent, who have one heart within their breast, another on their lips: like the partridges of Paphlagonia, which are double-hearted, and therefore fraudulent and pernicious, as testified by Pliny, book 11, chapter 37, Aelian, book 10 of On Animals, chapter 35, and Gellius, book 16, chapter 15. Hence also St. Ambrose, book 6 of the Hexameron, chapter 3, says the partridge is so named from "perdendo" (destroying). Such people imitate the demon, whose name is Zabulus, as if to say διάβουλος, that is, δίβουλος, that is, of double counsel, a shape-shifter, in order to deceive; for "za" in Greek means the same as "dia," although St. Jerome, commenting on Ephesians chapter 6, "interprets Zabulus as διαβρίων, that is, flowing downward, because, namely, he gradually flowed from truth to vice, and fell from heavenly things to earthly." Others consider Zabulus to be the same as Diabolus, which is very plausible. These two meanings the Arabic assigns when it translates: My son, do not be deceitful in the fear of God, and do not approach while you are doubtful in your heart, and do not boast of that (fear) among men, so that the speech of your lips may be in equity and truth: and do not reject His word, and do not fear, and do not leave disgrace upon your soul, lest perhaps the Lord strengthen your bonds, and bring upon you punishment in the midst of the assembly.
Gregory Nazianzen says excellently in his Tetrastichs: "It is better to be virtuous than to seem so. What good is it to be considered a lion, when you are an ape?" St. Anthony, explaining these words, "Woe to the double heart," says that a man of double heart is an extravagant and strange monster: for nature, though permitting monstrosity in the limbs, never admits it in the heart; for you will see a man having four hands or feet, or two heads; but a man having two hearts has never been seen anywhere or at any time, because the heart is the principle of life. Whence, just as there cannot be a double life in a man, so neither a double heart: rightly therefore we shall call a man with a double heart a monster; one who, namely, carries one heart in his mouth, another in his breast.
Third, dipcyhos, that is, "of a double heart" or mind, or double-hearted, is one who is fickle, changeable, and inconstant like a chameleon, so that he now wills, now does not will, now trusts God, now distrusts.
Fourth, one is "of a double heart" who fixes his heart partly on heaven, partly on earth; who desires to serve both God and mammon at the same time. Whence there follows: "Woe to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner who enters the earth by two ways." See what I said on James 1:8. The Arabic version already cited also suggests these two senses.
The Greek, for "woe to the double heart," has ouai kardiais deilais, that is, woe to timid and cowardly hearts; and thus St. Cyril reads in book I of On Adoration in Spirit and Truth; but our Translator for deilais reads diplais, that is, double; and so even now some Greek codices read, as does St. Chrysostom in homily 4 on that passage of 1 Corinthians 15: "When all things shall have been subjected to Him." But both readings can be reconciled; for the timid and those impatient of troubles are distrustful, and they have a double heart and a double hope: for they place one hope in God, the other in their own strength and that of their allies. Hence Apocalypse 21, verse 8: "To the timid, He says, and the unbelieving (that is, the distrustful) etc., their portion shall be in the pool burning with fire."
WOE TO THE DOUBLE HEART, AND TO WICKED LIPS (about these lips the Greek has nothing), AND TO EVIL-DOING HANDS, AND TO THE SINNER ENTERING THE EARTH BY TWO WAYS. — A threefold duplicity is noted here, namely, of the heart, of the mouth, and of the hands, that is, of works: for from a double heart proceeds a double mouth, namely wicked lips, that is, false and deceitful, and evil-doing hands: and accordingly such a person is a sinner and wicked, who enters the earth by two ways: for one way tends toward God, outwardly worshipping Him in peace; the other goes toward the world and worldly people, trusting in them in time of temptation, and conforming oneself to them, lest one be ridiculed by them, or suffer loss of reputation, possessions, or life. Thus St. Augustine, tractate 9 on John: "Christ does not want partnership, but He alone wants to possess what He bought. He bought at so great a price that He alone might possess it: you make the devil His partner, to whom you had sold yourself through sin. Woe to the double heart, who in their heart make a portion for God and a portion for the devil. God, angered because a portion is made there for the devil, departs, and the devil will possess the whole. Not without reason therefore the Apostle says: Neither give place to the devil." The Greek text now has: Woe to cowardly hearts, and to hands pareimenes, that is, slack, torpid, despairing and therefore abandoning good and inclining to evil: which our Translator renders as "evil-doing," and the wicked one "entering by two ways;" while the Syriac says: A foul heart, and slack hands, a man who walks by many ways. The Arabic: A coagulated heart, and trembling hands, and feet walking in many paths. So in chapter 3:28, the heart is called derachaim, that is, of two ways, which is to say, double, false, deceitful. "A heart, he says, entering two ways shall not have success:" such is the heart that enters the way of heaven and the way of earth, that simultaneously wishes to please God and earthlings.
Thus to the Israelites who were worshipping God and Baal at the same time, Elijah said: "How long will you limp between two sides? If the Lord is God, follow Him: but if Baal, follow him" (3 Kings 18:21). Therefore St. Paul exhorts the Hebrews, chapter 12:12, saying: "Lift up the slack hands and the weak knees, and make straight steps with your feet, that no one limping may go astray."
Such today are those who with Catholics speak and live as Catholics, with heretics as heretics, with the chaste chastely, with the unchaste unchastely. Such were the Samaritans, who alongside the true God worshipped the gods of the Gentiles (4 Kings 17:33). So Rabanus, Jansenius, Palacius, and others. These are like flies on a wheel, which are moved by two contrary motions: forward, namely from themselves, backward from the rotation of the wheel. Likewise they are like wandering stars, namely the planets, which besides their own motion are carried and moved by the contrary motion of the first mover. Whence a certain wise man, when a Councillor of Queen Elizabeth of England asked him what those overseas thought of him (for he wished to be considered Orthodox while he was complying with the queen), wittily replied: "My Lord, they say you imitate the planets, which besides their own proper motion allow themselves to be carried along by the motion of the first mover." Seneca says excellently in his Maxims: "The safest thing, he says, is to fear nothing except God."
Moreover, since this entire passage concerns distrust, opposed to the hope of those who fear and worship God, here "to enter by two ways" properly means to worship two gods, to profess two religions, to place one's hope in two different, even contrary things. For such people now go in one direction, now in the opposite; now they show their face, now their back; now they present themselves as friends, now as enemies. This phrase is taken from the Israelites, especially the Samaritans, who alongside the true God worshipped their ancestral gods, namely the golden calves introduced by Jeroboam, and therefore now went to Jerusalem to worship the true God, then soon proceeded to Dan and Bethel to worship the golden calves as well; or to Assyria or Egypt, to summon help for themselves from the gods and kings of Assyria or Egypt. That this is so is clear from Jeremiah chapter 2:18: "And now, he says, what do you want with the way to Egypt, to drink muddy water? And what do you want with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of the river?" And verse 36: "How exceedingly base you have become, changing your ways! You shall be put to shame by Egypt, as you were put to shame by Assyria." And Hosea chapter 13:4: "You shall know no God but Me, and there is no savior besides Me, etc. And I will be to them like a lioness, like a leopard on the way of the Assyrians." And chapter 4:15: "Do not enter Gilgal, and do not go up to Beth-aven," that is, to Bethel, which was formerly called and made Bethel by Jacob, that is, "house of God"; but now through the golden calves it has become Beth-aven, that is, "house of idol" and of sin. The other Prophets have and insist upon similar things.
Sirach reiterates this same point here because around this time, namely under Alexander the Great (whom Ptolemy Lagus succeeded, under whom Sirach seems to have written these things), the Samaritans, with the help of Sanballat, prefect of Darius king of the Persians, had erected for themselves a temple on Mount Gerizim, as a rival and opposite to the temple of the Jews in Jerusalem; and to that temple they invited not only Samaritans but also Jews. Whence, as Josephus says at the end of book 11 of the Antiquities: "If anyone among the inhabitants of Jerusalem was accused of eating forbidden food, or violating the sabbath, or a similar crime, he would flee to the Shechemites (that is, the Samaritans), claiming he had suffered a false accusation." Therefore Sirach, chapter 50:27: "Two nations, he says, my soul detests: and the third is not a nation (it is not worthy of the name of a nation) that I should hate; those who sit on Mount Seir and the Philistines; and the foolish people who dwell in Shechem," namely the Samaritans, whose temple was on Gerizim near Shechem. This temple and schism lasted until the time of Christ: hence the disciples were amazed that Christ was speaking with the Samaritan woman. And the Samaritan woman said to Christ (John 4:9): "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman?" And verse 20: "Our fathers worshipped on this mountain (Shechem and Gerizim), and you say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship."
Since therefore some were defecting from the Jews to the Samaritans, and others, eager to please both sides, would go to Jerusalem to worship and then to Shechem, Sirach here rebukes them and threatens them with the woe of divine wrath and eternal damnation — about which more will be said at chapter 50:27.
Morally, St. Gregory, book 3 on Kings, chapter 6, explaining that passage about the cows drawing the Ark of the Lord: "And they went by one road. He who walks, he says, by one road preserves in a right intention the virtue he displays in good work. Against this, of every reprobate it is said: Woe to the sinner entering the earth by two ways. For the sinner enters the earth by two ways when what he does seems to be of God, but from everything that he outwardly shows as religious, he inwardly holds a worldly intention. But the Lord indicates that His elect walk by one road, saying: If your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light. Hence Paul says: This is our glory, the testimony of our conscience." Hence David: "All the glory of the king's daughter is from within. Therefore the cows went by one road toward Beth-shemesh, because the elect hastening to the eternal homeland do good outwardly, but from those same good works they do not seek worldly rewards."
This is what God sharply rebukes through Hosea, chapter 10:2, saying: "Their heart is divided, now they shall perish." And through Zephaniah, chapter 1, verse 5: "I will destroy those who swear by the Lord and swear by Milcom," that is, who worship God and worship Milcom: for to swear is an act of worship, whence by synecdoche it signifies all worship and honor of God. For, as Richard of St. Victor says, book 4 of On Contemplation, chapter 15: "A singular love does not accept a partner, does not admit a companion." And Gregory of Nyssa, oration 7 on the Song of Songs: "He who directs the sharpness of his vision to that divine nature alone, he says, is blind to all those other things at which the eyes of many gaze," so that he may say with the Psalmist: "What is there for me in heaven, and what have I desired upon earth besides You?" (Psalm 72:25): from the Hebrew truth, I have desired no companion with You upon earth. Alluding to this, St. Bernard, epistle 249, confessing in humility that he had not yet surrendered his whole heart to God: "My monstrous life, he says, cries out to you, my wretched conscience. For I am a certain chimera of my age, bearing neither the role of cleric nor layman. For I have long since put off the way of life of a monk, but not the habit." How truly many Religious today might apply this to themselves!
The same author, sermon 2 on St. Michael: "He who clings to God with a single eye, he says, has himself become single: or rather his eye is no longer another, but one with Him, as the Apostle testifies: He who clings to God is one spirit with Him" (1 Corinthians 6:17). Vigorously Bede on Proverbs: "Just as the eyes of all are in the head, so every intention of the faithful ought to be fixed in Christ." And: "It is better to make a divorce with man than with God."
Again, those have a double heart and double tongue who rashly judge and accuse the faults of others, even the smallest, while veiling and excusing their own, however great. For they have a double heart: one spacious and distended by the vice of self-love, in which they hide their own sins and bury them like putrid corpses; the other narrow and constricted enough by the stain of envy, in which they cannot conceal even a light sin of another. They have wicked lips, because they speak of nothing but the sins and crimes of their neighbors; and their good qualities, from innate malice, they either utterly defile, or if they cannot do that, they diminish. Their hands are evil-doing: for even if they do not strike a brother with their hand, yet with their tongue and words they strike him in place of a hand; and they walk in two ways: one by which they excuse and cover their own sins, and another by which they accuse and expose the faults of their brothers.
Nor indeed are these people censured excessively, whom St. Bernard in sermon 3 on the Dedication of the Church assailed with much greater severity: "They are traitors, he says, whoever strive to introduce the enemies of the Lord into this fortress of the Lord — and such indeed are detractors, hateful to God, who sow discord and nourish scandals among brothers. For just as the place of the Lord has been established in peace, so in discord it is manifest that a place of the devil is made." Finally, the same St. Bernard says excellently in sermon 66 on the Song of Songs: "Hypocrites, he says, are sheep in appearance, foxes in cunning, wolves in deed and cruelty. These are they who wish to appear good but not to be so; who wish not to appear evil but to be so. For malice has always been less harmful when openly displayed, nor has a good man ever been deceived except by the pretense of goodness. So therefore, amid the evils of the good, the good strive to appear; the evil do not wish it, so that they may have greater freedom to do harm. For with them it is not a matter of cultivating virtues, but of tolerating vices with a certain minimal appearance of virtue."
This maxim Cyril adorns and illustrates with an apt fable of the thorn and the fig-tree, and with beautiful and clever parables, in book 2 of the Moral Apology, chapter 23, whose title is: Against those who appear one thing and are the contrary. "The thorn, he says, was blooming, and the fig-tree before it was producing leaves and unripe figs; to which the thorn, swollen with its flowers, soon said: Fig-tree, where are your flowers? But the fig-tree replied: Thorn, where are your fruits? Then the thorn said: Nature did not give me fruits. Nor, the fig-tree added, did it give me flowers. But since a flower develops into a fruit, it is better to produce fruit without a flower than to bloom while deprived of fruit: nevertheless, though I do not bloom, I bring forth the sweetest produce." Then he demonstrates the same point with various emblems of the palm, the honey-cane, a painted sepulcher, the sapphire and the onyx: "So too the palm, not pouring out its honey in flowers, brings forth the honey-flowing date. And the honey-cane, because it put forth no flowers, hides within itself the entire sweetness of its fruit. Why then do you boast of an appearance that is the opposite of reality? A sepulcher is indeed outwardly painted with little flowers, but inside it is full of the filth of death. Moreover, the sapphire that shines more brightly is worth less; and the onyx gem, though black, is preferred to white ones: and the Bius stone, the paler it is, the more precious it is. And thus the wonderful craftsman nature itself, even in its own works, condemns appearance." Finally, with the example of gold, pearl, shellfish, the embryo, and roots, he proves the same thing. "Why then do you rejoice only in outward show? Consider how gold is born in hidden recesses of the earth, and the pearl gleams in the hidden shells of oysters by dew poured down from heaven. Man too is formed in his mother's womb, and the substance of things is not seen. The tree draws vital sap from beneath the earth through its hidden roots, and the foundation of human life lies concealed in the heart. Indeed all the most precious things of nature are invisible. What more? I certainly rejoice more to be fruitful without flowers than to be a thorn with flowers." With these words she confounded the showy one.
15. WOE TO THE FAINT (pareimenois, that is, the slack, verse 15) OF HEART, WHO (in Greek hoti, that is, because) DO NOT BELIEVE GOD, AND THEREFORE WILL NOT BE PROTECTED BY HIM. — The Syriac: Woe to the heart that does not believe, nor will it be established. The Arabic: Woe to the heart that has no faith; because it will not endure. The meaning is, as if to say: Woe to the slack and the lukewarm, who weakly and tepidly cling to God, and do not firmly believe and trust in Him, but waver in time of temptation. Woe to those who, when the ropes of faith are torn apart by the rush of the raging waves of tribulation, and the anchor of hope is lost, are tossed about: for God will not protect those who abandon Him, but will abandon them, and will allow those who waver to waver and sink. For this reason, St. Francis Xavier, sailing to Japan, when the devil by every device was trying to obstruct or delay his journey, which he foresaw would be so fruitful, and was throwing up a thousand obstacles to break Xavier's hope and strength of soul — Xavier, perceiving by divine instinct that this temptation and these obstacles came from the demon, resisted with all his strength and remained firm in his purpose; and thus by God's help he overcame everything and gave beginnings to the Church, which we see and rejoice shining daily with so many heroic virtues and martyrdoms of the faithful. Therefore Xavier used to say that he had then learned from experience that in difficult undertakings destined to produce a great harvest of souls, the demon, as a harbinger of this fruit, tries to overturn and cut them down at their very beginning, both through external enemies and by casting into the Apostolic man feelings of fear and distrust; and consequently nothing should be striven for so much at that time as standing firm and unmoved in trust in God, and constantly pressing forward with one's purpose. If one does this, God will certainly be present to scatter and overcome all the devil's obstacles. Therefore at that time nothing is to be feared so much as distrust.
Moreover, the faint of heart are those broken and shattered in spirit, who because of adversities lasting a long time lose their mental constancy. For in the heart is the principal seat of the spirit, of life, of hope, of boldness; for the heart is the principle of sensation, motion, and life, as Aristotle teaches in book 2 of On the Parts of Animals, chapter 4. "The heart, he says, is the first origin and fountain of blood. For the heart, the very first of all parts to be formed, is full of blood; the motions of joy and sorrow, and indeed of all the senses, seem to arise from and end in this organ." Therefore, when through fear the vigor and strength of the spirit is dissolved, the vigor and strength of the heart is likewise relaxed and dissolved through sympathy. Whence Aristotle, book 3 of On the Parts of Animals, chapter 6, gives this cause for the palpitation of the heart: "The heart, he says, palpitates in man — I would almost say in man alone among animals — because man alone is moved by hope and expectation of a future thing." The same author, in the book On Youth, Old Age, and Respiration, chapter 13, teaches that the greatest ardor of the soul resides in the heart, so that it needs respiration to temper it: "The nature of animals, he says, absolutely needs cooling, on account of the fervor of the soul in the heart; and they accomplish this through respiration, all those that have not only a heart but also a lung."
And Pliny, book 11, chapter 37, describes the nature, position, character, and function of the heart as follows: "The heart, he says, in other animals is in the middle of the chest; in man alone it projects below the left nipple with a pointed tip leaning forward. In fish alone it faces toward the mouth. They say that this is the first organ to be formed in those being born in the womb; then the brain, just as the eyes are formed last of all. But these die first, the heart last. To this organ belongs the chief heat. It certainly beats, and moves like another living creature, covered within a very soft yet firm membrane wrapping, fortified by the wall of the ribs and chest,
so that it may produce the chief cause and origin of life. It provides the first dwelling-place within itself for the spirit and the blood, with a winding cavity, triple in large animals, double in all without exception. There the mind dwells. From this source two great veins run to the front and back, and spreading in a series of branches, they irrigate all the limbs with vital blood through other smaller vessels. This alone among the organs is not wasted by diseases, nor does it drag out the torments of life — when wounded, it immediately brings death. When all else is corrupted, vitality endures in the heart. Those animals are considered stupid whose hearts are hard, bold those whose hearts are small, timid those whose hearts are very large. It is proportionally largest in mice, hares, donkeys, deer, panthers, weasels, hyenas, and all timid animals, or those that are harmful because of fear. In Paphlagonia, partridges have two hearts. In the hearts of horses and oxen, bones are sometimes found. The Egyptians believe it increases in man by two drachmas of weight each year up to the fiftieth year, and from then on decreases by the same amount, and that therefore a man does not live beyond the hundredth year due to failure of the heart — they being a people accustomed to preserving embalmed bodies. It is reported that some men are born with a hairy heart, and that no others are braver or more industrious, such as Aristomenes the Messenian, who killed three hundred Lacedaemonians."
Therefore from the heart arise the affections of the soul, and in turn from the soul they overflow back into the heart; hence the heart is taken metonymically for the soul, as a place for what is located in it. Hence again, in hope, courage, and boldness the heart is tightened and strengthened, just as the soul is; in distrust, fear, and pusillanimity it is relaxed, dissolved, and weakened. Whence the Roman Greek version here reads: Woe to the dissolved heart. The Zurich Bible: Woe to the collapsed heart; for since it has no confidence, it will also lack defense.
Again, the heart is dissolved in distrust and fear, because the veins and nerves that proceed from the heart, and through which, as Aristotle and Pliny teach in the places cited, the heart moves and gives life to the whole body, are relaxed and loosened; so that the limbs, once these bonds by which they are tied to the heart are loosened, are themselves loosened, dislocated, and deprived of sensation and motion. Apply this symbolically to the soul. For there are three cords by which the soul is bound to God, as to its heart, from which it draws all sensation and motion of spiritual life: namely faith, lest it be swept away by every wind of errors; hope in time of tribulation; and charity, lest by love of the flesh and the world it be swept away into crimes. If these cords are loosened, all the vigor of the soul is loosened: and they are loosened in this way: faith by doubt, hope by distrust, charity by lukewarmness and torpor. Here it is properly about the cord of hope. Whence there follows:
16. WOE TO THOSE WHO HAVE LOST ENDURANCE (hypomonen; the Zurich Bible translates "patience." Our Translator better renders it "endurance," that is, long-suffering, and long tolerance and expectation of deliverance; namely) WHO (because of the duration of affliction, through pusillanimity) HAVE ABANDONED THE RIGHT WAYS AND HAVE TURNED ASIDE INTO CROOKED WAYS. — These words are now lacking in the Greek. He speaks properly of the Jews afflicted by Ptolemy Lagus, as I said at the beginning of the chapter, among whom many, because of the prolonged duration of their affliction, lost patience, hope, and even faith, defecting from Judaism to paganism. Whence, alluding to this, Paul, exhorting the Hebrews to endurance of the persecution they were suffering on account of their acceptance of the faith of Christ, chapter 10, verse 35: "Do not, he says, lose your confidence, which has a great reward." St. Isidore says excellently, book 2 of the Sentences, chapter 7: "The reward is not promised to those who begin, he says, but to those who persevere, as it is written: He who perseveres to the end shall be saved. For our conduct pleases God when we complete with a persevering end the good that we begin. For as it is written: Woe to those who have lost endurance, that is, who have not completed the good work." And St. Gregory, book 5 on 1 Kings, chapter 13: "They lose endurance, he says, who do not complete the good things they begin." And book 7 of the Morals, chapter 14: "They lose endurance, he says, who while they think they are lingering long amid visible things, abandon hope of invisible things."
17. AND WHAT WILL THEY DO WHEN THE LORD BEGINS TO INSPECT (episkeptesthai, that is, to inspect, to inquire, and to judge) — He who now, being silent, seems not to see sins, because He dissembles and neither avenges nor punishes. It is a metalepsis; for from the inspection and inquiry, he means its end and conclusion, namely judgment and vengeance. St. Peter translates it as "to visit." Whence he calls the day of judgment the day of visitation (1 Peter 5:6). The Syriac translates: Woe to you, giants of confidence; what will you do when the Lord judges? The Arabic: Woe to you, O you who trust in yourselves; what will you do when His judgment comes upon you?
18. THOSE WHO FEAR THE LORD WILL NOT BE UNBELIEVING (that is, incredulous, distrustful, disobedient) OF HIS WORD. — The Zurich Bible: Those who revere the Lord will not refuse to obey His words. And those who love Him will keep His way. The way of God is law, virtue, uprightness, holiness; for He Himself walks in it, and commands all His own to walk in it. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 20 on the Song of Songs: "Learn, O Christian, from Christ, how you may love Christ. Learn to love sweetly, to love prudently, to love strongly. Sweetly, lest we be enticed away; prudently, lest we be deceived; strongly, lest we be crushed and turned away from the love of the Lord. Lest you be drawn away by the glory of the world or the pleasures of the flesh, let Christ as wisdom be sweet to you beyond these things. Lest you be seduced by the spirit of falsehood and error, let Christ as truth shine for you. Lest you be worn out by adversities, let Christ the power of God strengthen you. Let charity inflame your zeal, let knowledge inform it, let constancy strengthen it. Let it be fervent, let it be circumspect, let it be unconquered. Let it have no lukewarmness, let it not lack discretion, and let it not be timid. Let Christ be
our sweetness; let the Lord Jesus be gentle and sweet to your affection, against the assuredly badly sweet allurements of the carnal life, and let sweetness overcome sweetness, just as one nail drives out another."
19. THOSE WHO FEAR THE LORD WILL SEEK THE THINGS THAT ARE PLEASING TO HIM — and therefore will meditate on the law of the Lord day and night (Psalm 1:2); for they will diligently seek what is "the good, and pleasing, and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2). Thus St. Francis, says St. Bonaventure, continually sought what was pleasing to God in himself, what God required of him, how he might please Him more and more. So also St. Bernard, spurring himself to holiness, used to say to himself: "Bernard, tell me, why are you here? Bernard, why did you come?" And indeed everyone who fears and loves God with his whole heart should say to himself every day upon rising: What does God require of me today? How can I better serve and please Him today? And he should investigate this, and immediately carry out what he has learned. For this reason, Blessed Teresa bound herself by a vow to do in every action whatever would be more perfect and more pleasing to God. For a soul burning with the love of God strives for nothing other than to satisfy Him, to serve Him, and to delight Him.
Therefore in the morning such a soul conceives a firm resolution, and determines and says: Today I will mortify that vice; today I will conquer myself, and overcome that difficulty out of love for Christ; today I will bear that cross coming my way together with Christ; today I will eagerly undertake that labor for God; today I will generously endure those pains, those contempts against me; today I will elicit so many acts of contrition, prayer, and charity; today I will add so many degrees to humility, patience, and love. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 59 on the Song of Songs: "The soul, from the fact that it feels itself loving and loving vehemently, does not doubt that it is likewise loved no less vehemently; and from its own singular intention, solicitude, care, effort, diligence, and zeal, with which it unceasingly and ardently watches how it may please God, it undoubtingly recognizes all these same things in Him. Therefore from what it has in its own possession, it recognizes what is with God; nor does the soul that loves doubt that it is loved. So it is. The love of God begets the love of the soul; and His preceding intention makes the soul attentive, and His solicitude makes it solicitous. For I know not by what nearness of nature, once the soul has begun to behold the glory of God with face unveiled, it is immediately necessary that it conform to Him and be transformed into the same image. Therefore, as you have prepared yourself for God, so must God appear to you. You are good, O Lord, to the soul that seeks You; You come to meet it, You embrace it, You show Yourself as Bridegroom — You who are Lord; indeed, who are God blessed above all things forever. Amen."
AND THOSE WHO LOVE HIM WILL BE FILLED WITH HIS LAW — that is, the Zurich Bible says, they will devote full effort to the law of God. "They will be filled," therefore means they will fully seek, know, carry out, and perfect it; for Sirach uses the word "filled" by catachresis in this way, as I said at chapter 1:35.
Second, Palacius explains it thus, as if to say: "Those who love God fill themselves with the law of God. They leave nothing in themselves empty of God's law: their eyes, hands, ears, memory, intellect, and will they fill with the law of God, so that there is nothing in us that is foreign to the law. For just as the Jews smeared all their doorposts with blood so that they would not perish, so the pious fill every corner of the soul with the law of God, lest those not marked with the divine Tau perish."
Third, Jansenius says that "they will be filled" signifies the fruit of the fear and love of God, as if to say: Those who fear God will be filled with an abundant doctrine and knowledge of the law. For thus the Lord usually rewards the piety of men toward Him, according to that Psalm 33: "Come to Him, and be enlightened," that is, you will be enlightened. O light, who always shines and is never darkened, enlighten me. O fire, who always burns and is never extinguished, set me afire. O love, who always glows and never grows lukewarm, absorb me and transform me into Yourself. O bright light of my eyes, Jesus, drive away all darkness from the dwelling of my mind, and illuminate me entirely with the splendor of Your grace. Enter into my soul, O supreme sweetness, so that it may taste sweet things and rejoice and rest in You alone. O my beloved, beloved of my prayers, grant that I may find You, and having found You, hold You, and clasp You most tightly with spiritual arms. I desire You and I yearn for You, O eternal blessedness. Would that You would give Yourself to me, and unite me intimately to Yourself, and wholly intoxicate me with the pure wine of divine charity!
Fourth, the Syriac translates: He who fears the Lord, his substance (possession) shall be multiplied, and his seed shall be blessed after him.
20. THOSE WHO FEAR THE LORD WILL PREPARE THEIR HEARTS. — The Syriac: They will order their heart; and he who abandons Him will lose his spirit. That is to say: Those who fear God will compose the state of their soul, their thoughts, desires, actions, and conduct, so as to conform them to the law and will of God, and be pleasing and acceptable to Him. Again, they will say: "I will hear what the Lord speaks within me." And with Samuel: "Speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening." They will therefore prepare their heart by humbling, emptying, and purging it of earthly desires, by desiring and praying, so that they may receive and welcome the heavenly sowings of God, namely illuminations, inspirations, impulses, gifts, and graces. Whence the Zurich Bible says: Those for whom the Lord is an object of reverence will cultivate their hearts, as it explains by adding: "In His sight they will sanctify their souls." In the Greek it is tapeinosousin, that is, they will humble; the Zurich Bible says they will submit their spirits before Him; for this submission and reverence is a preparation for receiving the gifts of God. The same is the sanctity of the soul and the sanctification of God, by which, namely, God, as the most holy Deity, is worshipped and honored with supreme reverence. This is what God ordains for His own in Leviticus chapter 20:7: "Sanctify yourselves, and be holy, because I am the Lord your God." And verse 26: "You shall be holy to Me, because I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from other peoples, that you might be Mine."
You will say: Those who fear God with a chaste and filial fear are already just and holy, for this fear is an act of charity; how then does Sirach exhort them to sanctify themselves?
I respond, first: "they will sanctify," according to the Hebrew manner, signifies an act that is not begun but continued and growing, as if to say: Those who fear God will strive more and more for holiness, they will advance in holiness day by day, they will purify themselves day by day from vices and defects however slight and small, they will become holier every day, so as to ascend to the summit of holiness, according to Psalm 83:6: "Blessed is the man whose help is from You: he has disposed ascents in his heart, in the valley of tears, in the place he has set." And verse 8: "They shall go from virtue to virtue: the God of gods shall be seen in Zion." St. Fursaeus heard the Angels singing this verse to him, and thereby stirring him to progress in virtue, as Bede reports in book 3 of the History, chapter 19.
And indeed this ought to be the constant pursuit of everyone, not only of a Religious or a Priest, but also of every Christian — and it should be placed before one's eyes, renewed, and refreshed every morning. For what is Christianity if not a profession of holiness, a pursuit of virtue, an imitation of the life of Christ? — of whom St. Luke says in chapter 2:52: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace before God and men." This is what the Angel taught John, saying in Apocalypse 22:11: "He who is just, let him be justified still; and he who is holy, let him be sanctified still." And St. Paul: "This is the will of God, your sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4:3). And verse 7: "For God has not called us to uncleanness, but to sanctification." And 2 Corinthians 7:1: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God." And Romans 6:19: "As you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield your members to serve justice unto sanctification."
Therefore St. Ambrose wisely says in the book On the Training of Virgins, chapter 11: "Why, he says, do we toil rather for the world, and cheat our soul of the benefit of so great a good, we who ought to serve no one else but this Lord?" And St. Anthony, as recorded by St. Athanasius: "Why do we not willingly give up for the sake of gaining the kingdoms of heaven what must be lost at the end of this life? Let Christians have no care for those things which they cannot take with them. Rather, we ought to seek what leads us to heaven: wisdom, that is, chastity, justice, vigilant virtue, care for the poor, faith in Christ, a stout spirit that conquers anger. God has entrusted our soul to us: let us guard the deposit as we received it." And in angelic fashion St. Basil, epistle 1 to St. Gregory the Theologian: "What, he says, is more blessed than for a man on earth to imitate the song of the Angels, to go to prayers at the very beginning of the day? To venerate the Creator with hymns and canticles? Then, when the sun is already dawning, to turn to work, never without prayer? And finally to season one's actions with canticles as with salt?"
Note here six acts and duties, according to which one who fears God should conduct a daily examination of conscience, which Sirach here sets out in order and step by step. Those who fear the Lord, he says, first, will be believing, that is, they will believe the words of God. Second, they will keep His ways, that is, they will observe the Decalogue. Third, they will inquire how they may please God more abundantly. Fourth, they will be filled with His law, taking care that there is nothing in themselves that is not regulated by the law of God. Fifth, they will sanctify their souls, guarding against even the smallest sins. Sixth and finally, they will take care to remain firm in this state until death.
21. THOSE WHO FEAR THE LORD KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS, AND WILL HAVE PATIENCE UNTIL HIS INSPECTION (that is, His visitation) — until He Himself, namely, looks upon us with a kindly countenance and frees us from evils; or until the inspection, that is, until the judgment. For this will be the full and final inspection and visitation of God, by which He will rescue the pious from all evils and envelop the impious in all evils. This verse is now lacking in the Greek. The Zurich Bible translates: Until the Lord looks upon them, they will patiently endure.
22. SAYING: IF WE DO NOT REPENT, WE SHALL FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE LORD, AND NOT INTO THE HANDS OF MEN. — The Roman Greek text, connecting these words with verse 20, reads thus: "In His sight they will humble their souls (thinking or saying): Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men. For according to His greatness, so also is His mercy." This reading has an easy and plain meaning, as if to say: Pious men will steadfastly endure whatever adversities are sent by God, and will say with David: "I am in great distress: but it is better for me to fall into the hands of the Lord (for His mercies are many) than into the hands of men" (2 Kings 24:14).
But St. Augustine in the Speculum, Rabanus, and others clearly read in the way that our Translator reads. Whence it is evident that his reading is very ancient, and that he used a fuller Greek codex. Add also that the Greek text now has empesoumetha, which properly means "we shall fall into," as the Complutensian translates, not "let us fall into"; and therefore in the Greek certain words are understood that must be supplied, as the Zurich Bible supplies them, namely: saying: If we do not come to our senses, we shall fall into the hands of the Lord, not into the hands of men. Which plainly agrees with our reading. The meaning here therefore is, as if to say: Those who fear God will humble and sanctify their souls before God, and will patiently accept whatever adversities come, as chastisements sent by Him to punish past faults, whether graver or lighter. For they will say: Unless we willingly undertake this penance as a fatherly correction, we shall fall into the avenging hands of God the Avenger, which, being more powerful, are also more severe than the hands of men, and consequently rage more sharply and penetrate and punish offenses more deeply, especially after this life in the fire either of hell or of Purgatory. Whence Paul says: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). Indeed, even the Poet says: "The gods have woolen feet, but iron hands" — because they compensate the slowness of punishment with its severity.
23. FOR ACCORDING TO HIS GREATNESS (megalosynen, that is, majesty, greatness, magnificence) SO ALSO IS HIS MERCY WITH HIM. — The Syriac: because as His majesty is, so also is His mercy; and as His name is, so also are His works, as if to say: As He is called, such He is, and so He acts. The Zurich Bible: For as great as His majesty is, so great is His mercy. For all attributes in God are equal, indeed one and the same: but Sirach means that it is the glory of God's most powerful majesty to have mercy equal to it; and therefore the highest and immeasurable clemency, according to Wisdom 12:16: "Your power is the beginning of justice; and because You are Lord of all, You make Yourself merciful to all." Power, in Greek ischus, that is, might, strength, fortitude, as if to say: In men, strength is the beginning of oppression and injustice: but in You, O Lord, Your strength is the beginning of justice and clemency; because "the true greatness of a prince is clemency," says Seneca in the book On Clemency. And Wisdom 11:27: "But You spare all things, because they are Yours, O Lord, who loves souls" — in Greek more expressively, despota philopsyche, that is, Lord who loves souls, Lord zealous for souls, Lord who burns with love for souls.
Again, just as God is His own being and His own exaltation, so too He is His own mercy. Therefore, just as He cannot depart from His being and His exaltation, so neither can He depart from His mercy, but must actually have mercy on all. "For in eternal things, being does not differ from being able," says Aristotle, book 2 of the Physics.
This statement of Sirach should be referred back to "they will have patience, they will sanctify, they will prepare their hearts," and the other preceding words, and at the same time to what immediately preceded, "saying: If we do not repent"; for in this there is tacitly included "therefore let us repent," as if to say: Those who fear God will fix all their hopes on Him, will prepare and sanctify their hearts for Him, in adversities will have patience, accepting them in place of penance for faults they have committed; because they know that by doing these things they will win for themselves the mercy of God, which is great, indeed immense: for it is as great as the greatness and majesty of God, which is assuredly infinite and immense. Whence the Syriac translates: He who fears the Lord will order his heart; and he who abandons Him will lose his spirit: because as His majesty is, so also is His mercy; and as His name is, so also are His works. And the Arabic: Those who fear the Lord seek the things pleasing to Him, and His works are according to His name.
Morally, learn from this how great the mercy of God is — namely, as great as His greatness, majesty, and immensity: for the measure of His mercy is as great as that of His majesty, since they are one and the same. Again, Sirach means by this statement that from the greatness of His majesty and power arises the greatness of the divine mercy, beneficence, and clemency: for it is characteristic of a great soul and a lofty nature to master anger, to be unmoved by injuries, to spare sinners, and indeed to do them good; whence it happens that the immense greatness and omnipotence of God most greatly exercises and displays itself through immense clemency, according to what the Church prays: "O God, who most of all manifests Your omnipotence by pardoning and showing mercy," etc. And St. Fulgentius, epistle 7 to Venantius, chapter 4: "God, he says, is abundant in forgiving: in this abundance nothing is lacking, in whom there is omnipotent mercy and merciful omnipotence. So great is the kindness of omnipotence and the omnipotence of kindness in God, that there is nothing He would not will or would not be able to pardon for the one who is converted." This is what the Wise Man says in chapter 11:24: "You have mercy on all, because You can do all things, and You overlook the sins of men for the sake of repentance," as if to say: Your omnipotence is for You the cause and reason of all mercy: indeed, to have mercy on a sinner and to pardon his sins when he repents is a work of the highest power, and greater than creating heaven and earth, for the reasons which St. Thomas recounts from St. Augustine (III, Question 113, article 9). For this reason God entrusts judgment and vengeance to lower magistrates subordinate to Himself; but the indulgence of sinners and mercy He reserves to Himself, as a royal and divine work. Whence Fulgentius, epistle 7, chapter 3: "If God is merciful, he says, He can forgive all sins. That goodness is not perfect by which every malice is not overcome." Finally, "mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).
Hence again God is supremely patient, overlooking the most atrocious offenses and blasphemies against Himself, because He is supremely powerful over Himself and all things: for patience is power; impatience, on the other hand, is weakness of spirit, as Boethius teaches in book 3, meter 5. For this reason, when Moses asked to see the glory of God and every good thing, God showed him His mercy, and thereby pointed to Himself not as omnipotent, but as merciful (Exodus 33:7). See what I said there. Therefore Sirach adds: "So His mercy is with Him": for although justice, wisdom, fortitude, and other attributes are equally with God, yet this is properly attributed to mercy, because it is supremely proper and intimate to God, and born as it were from His very depths, and enclosed within them. Whence mercy and almsgiving appeared in the form of a most beautiful virgin to St. John, Archbishop of Alexandria, surnamed the Almsgiver, saying "that she was the daughter of the supreme King, and most familiar and intimate to Him, who could obtain anything from Him, and would make whoever she commended most dear to Him." When he saw this, he was so inflamed with zeal for almsgiving that he distributed everything to the poor and nearly squandered it all, as relates
Leontius in his Life. Mercy therefore is a divine work, which makes the merciful as it were gods, according to that saying of St. Gregory Nazianzen in On the Care of the Poor: "Be a god to the afflicted."
Again, the other works of God in the external order — namely, works of wisdom, justice, and fortitude — are limited and finite: for God did not create anything infinite. But He poured out infinite mercy upon us when He gave us Himself made man in the flesh, in order to abolish our sins, according to that passage: "Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high has visited us" (Luke 1). The work of the Incarnation and Redemption, as well as the forgiveness of sins, is therefore in itself immeasurable. For the gift that is made and given in it is immeasurable — namely, Christ Himself, and His merits of infinite worth, and through them grace and glory, which is infinite both objectively (because it has for its object God seen and possessed by the Blessed) and in duration, because it will last forever.
Finally, learn from this how great are the powers of repentance, which abolishes every sin, summons the immense mercy of God, and with it as it were conquers the majesty and vengeance of the Judge, and, as he says, binds the Omnipotent, so to speak. Again, consider how greatly the penitent, as a suppliant of God's mercy, ought to humble himself for pardon and grace and give thanks to Him: for sin, since it is the supreme and infinite evil, in order to be pardoned, needs the supreme and infinite mercy of God. Whence David, having fallen into sin, says: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy. And according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my iniquity" (Psalm 50, verse 1). Considering this, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Pelagia, St. Matthew, and St. Mary of Egypt, even though they knew their sins had been forgiven, nevertheless mourned them their whole life long, so as to make some satisfaction for so great a mercy of God.
All these things Sirach signifies here, saying: "For according to His greatness, so is His mercy with Him." For the just need this mercy of God, not only so that they may be purged from sins, but also so that they may henceforth avoid them, overcome all temptations, be preserved and grow in every virtue, be perfected in holiness and persevere, and attain the prize of eternal glory. On every side, therefore, the mercy of God surrounds, fortifies, and crowns them, so that each one rightly ought to sing continually with the Psalmist: "O Lord, You have crowned us as with a shield of Your good will" (Psalm 5:13). And: "You will bless the crown of the year of Your goodness, and Your fields (of faithful souls) will be filled with abundance" of virtues and merits (Psalm 64:12). For God weaves and plaits for the just a kind of continuous crown from so many, so great, and so varied benefits and graces, as if adorned and embellished with gems.
O Lord, who are rich in mercy, who crown and encircle us with Your gifts; O everlasting life; life through whom I live, without whom I die; life through whom I rejoice, without whom I grieve; O sweet and lovable life, grant that I may be joined to You, may embrace You, and lulled by gentle charity, may fall asleep in You, who are the most welcome peace. Give, my Lord, that my soul, fused by the power of burning love and melted by the sweetness of penetrating charity, may flow entirely into You. Possess it, O supreme and unchangeable good; possess it, that it may possess You. Pierce, my beloved, and transfix my heart with the sharpest dart of love, that I may languish healthfully with love of You, that all transitory things may become worthless to me, that You alone may please me, that You alone with Your incomparable beauty may make me joyful: because You are the entire possession and the entire blessedness of my soul.