Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Aptly he passes from the whisperer to the friend and friendship; for to show how great an evil whispering is, he describes how great a good friendship is: for this is what the whisperer takes away. Therefore here is a notable encomium of true friendship, up to verse 18. From there to the end he teaches how arduous wisdom is, and with how much effort and zeal it must be pursued: for among external goods, a friend and friendship hold the first place. Wherefore in hell, where there is no good but all evil, there is no friendship, but only mutual enmity and hostility among all: for both demons and the damned reproach, revile, and curse one another.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 6:1-37
1. Do not become an enemy to your neighbor on behalf of a friend: for the wicked man shall inherit reproach and disgrace, and every sinner who is envious and double-tongued. 2. Do not exalt yourself in the thought of your soul like a bull, lest perhaps your strength be crushed through foolishness, 3. and it consume your leaves, and destroy your fruits, and you be left like a dry tree in the desert. 4. For a wicked soul shall destroy him who possesses it, and gives him over to the joy of his enemies, and shall lead him to the lot of the wicked. 5. A sweet word multiplies friends, and appeases enemies: and a gracious tongue abounds in a good man. 6. Let many be at peace with you, but let your counselor be one in a thousand. 7. If you possess a friend, possess him by trial, and do not easily trust him. 8. For there is a friend according to his own time, and he will not abide in the day of tribulation. 9. And there is a friend who turns to enmity: and there is a friend who will disclose hatred, and strife, and reproaches. 10. And there is a friend who is a companion at table, and he will not abide in the day of need. 11. A friend, if he remain steadfast, shall be to you as an equal, and shall act with confidence among your household. 12. If he humble himself before you, and hide himself from your face, you shall have good and harmonious friendship. 13. Separate yourself from your enemies, and beware of your friends. 14. A faithful friend is a strong protection: and he who finds him, finds a treasure. 15. Nothing can be compared to a faithful friend, and no weight of gold and silver is worthy to be weighed against the goodness of his fidelity. 16. A faithful friend is the medicine of life and immortality: and they who fear the Lord shall find him. 17. He who fears God shall likewise have good friendship: because according to him shall his friend be. 18. My son, from your youth receive instruction, and even to your gray hairs you shall find wisdom. 19. Come to her as one who plows and sows, and wait for her good fruits. 20. For in working about her you shall labor a little, and shall quickly eat of her fruits. 21. How very harsh is wisdom to the unlearned, and the unwise will not continue with her. 22. She shall be to them as a mighty stone of trial, and they will not delay to cast her away. 23. For the wisdom of doctrine is according to her name, and she is not manifest to many: but with them to whom she is known, she continues even to the sight of God. 24. Give ear, my son, and take wise counsel, and cast not away my advice. 25. Put your feet into her fetters, and your neck into her chains. 26. Bow down your shoulder, and bear her, and be not grieved with her bonds. 27. Come to her with all your heart, and keep her ways with all your strength. 28. Search for her, and she shall be made known to you; and when you have gotten her, let her not go. 29. For in the latter end you shall find rest in her, and she shall be turned to your joy. 30. Then shall her fetters be a strong defense for you, and a firm foundation, and her chains a robe of glory. 31. For in her is the beauty of life, and her bands are a healthful binding. 32. You shall put her on as a robe of glory, and you shall set her upon you as a crown of joy. 33. My son, if you will attend to me, you shall learn; and if you will apply your mind, you shall be wise. 34. If you will incline your ear, you shall receive instruction; and if you love to hear, you shall be wise. 35. Stand in the multitude of prudent elders, and join yourself from your heart to their wisdom, that you may hear every discourse of God, and the proverbs of praise may not escape you. 36. And if you see a man of understanding, go to him early in the morning, and let your foot wear the steps of his doors. 37. Let your thought be upon the precepts of God, and meditate continually on His commandments: and He will give you a heart, and the desire of wisdom shall be given to you.
First Part of the Chapter: Encomium of Friendship
DO NOT BECOME AN ENEMY TO YOUR NEIGHBOR ON BEHALF OF A FRIEND — by whispering, and secretly detracting from and harming him. This precedes and follows (when he says, "envious and double-tongued"); for these depend upon and are derived from what he said about the whisperer. Hence Rabanus connects these same things, and joins them to the sixth chapter, and the seventh chapter,
indeed he begins the second book of his Commentary at verse 5: "A sweet word multiplies friends." He adds the reason:
FOR THE WICKED MAN SHALL INHERIT REPROACH AND DISGRACE, AND EVERY SINNER WHO IS ENVIOUS AND DOUBLE-TONGUED. — "And," that is, especially (so it is said: "Tell His disciples, and, that is, especially, Peter," as the first and head of the rest, Mark 16:7), that is to say: Every wicked man, as the just lot of his wickedness and the penalty owed to it, shall inherit reproach and disgrace; but especially the envious and double-tongued sinner shall inherit the same — he who, namely, out of envy and deceit secretly detracts from and harms his friend. Hence the Greek reads: So it is with the double-tongued sinner, that by whispering he becomes an enemy instead of a friend, and therefore inherits reproach and disgrace. Whence the Complutensian adds: so the double-tongued sinner shall have ignominy. And the Syriac, beginning from the last verse of the preceding chapter, connects and translates thus: "Whether much or little, do no harm; and on behalf of a friend do not become an enemy, lest you inherit a bad name and ignominy: and (because) reproach and sins fall upon him who walks in two ways," that is, upon the double-tongued and the whisperer.
Therefore those are rebuked here who, like the polyp, change their mind and voice, and now show themselves as friends, now as enemies: whom you may compare to the paliurus tree, which, according to Pliny (book 13, chapter 19), bears a juicy and wine-like fruit, and therefore pleasant to the palate; but because it is thorny, it pricks the hand. For so also these men now soothe, now sting: "So that pain is found where help was expected," as in Micah chapter 7, verse 4.
Robert Holkot, English by nationality, a Dominican by profession, who around the year of the Lord 1349 wrote on the first seven chapters of Ecclesiasticus, explains this maxim differently, that is: To gratify a friend, do not harm any other neighbor and make yourself his enemy: both because on account of no friend should evil deeds be done, nor does friendship permit injury to a third party; and because it is worse to make one enemy than to make or keep many friends. For a friend quickly forgets a kindness; but an enemy will always remember an injury and avenge it. Wherefore Pericles wisely, when asked by a friend to commit perjury on his behalf, replied: "I am a friend, but only as far as the altar." For a friend should ask nothing unjust from a friend; and if he does ask, he must be refused. Hence also that wise man's warning: "Be of benefit to many in such a way that you harm not even one." But the former sense is the genuine one, as is clear from what has been said.
2 and 3. DO NOT EXALT YOURSELF IN THE THOUGHT OF YOUR SOUL LIKE A BULL, LEST PERHAPS YOUR STRENGTH BE CRUSHED THROUGH FOOLISHNESS, AND IT CONSUME YOUR LEAVES, AND DESTROY YOUR FRUITS, AND YOU BE LEFT LIKE A DRY TREE IN THE DESERT. — In the preceding verse he forbade deceit and hypocrisy: here he forbids arrogance and pride, which just as deceit harms one's neighbor and dissolves and overturns friendship. So Rabanus. The meaning therefore is, that is: Do not exalt yourself through the thought of your soul, that is, of your high spirit, so that you think you can do all things like a bull, which by its spirit of aggression puts to flight, strikes down, and harasses other cattle and livestock: because just as a fighting bull is either bound by wild beasts or by masters, shut up, slaughtered, and thus its strength, that is, its aggressiveness, is crushed: so likewise your strength, that is, your fierce aggressiveness, will be crushed through foolishness, and the same foolishness will consume your leaves, that is, your adornment and glory along with all your fruit, just as a bull is accustomed to tear apart the leaves and fruits of plants, on which it itself with the other cattle could and should have fed, to preserve its soul, that is, its life. Moreover: "Let us not believe it sufficient, says Rabanus, if we avoid self-exaltation in deed. He says: Do not exalt yourself in the thought of your soul; for God is the inspector of the heart, and judges each person not according to appearances, but according to truth; and no one can deceive Him through hypocrisy, because all things are naked and open to His eyes: and if He perceives inwardly a stubborn and puffed-up thought of the soul, it will not please Him, but the strength of the proud man will be dashed through the foolishness of his elation, and the leaves of his words are empty, and the fruits of his works useless, and like a dry tree not having the greenness of love, he will be reckoned among the barren actions of the wicked."
That this is the meaning is clear from the Greek; for it reads thus: do not be puffed up by the counsel of your soul, lest like a bull your soul tear you apart; that is, lest as a bull is accustomed to tear apart plants, so your own counsel destroy you; and it feed upon your leaves, then scatter your fruits, and leave you like a barren tree. So the Zurich Bible, although the Complutensian and Roman editions read in the second person: you feed upon, you scatter, you leave barren; but the meaning comes to the same thing. St. Ephrem, in Exhortation 26, reads thus: do not exalt yourself in the thought of your soul, lest your soul be carried away like a bull; your branches will be consumed, and you will lose your fruits; the Syriac: do not be delivered into the hands of your soul (aggressiveness), so that you do not seek your strength like a bull. You will make your leaves fall, and you will consume your fruit, and you will make yourself like a dry tree, because a cruel soul will destroy its master.
He alludes to the history of Nebuchadnezzar, who, relying on his empire and strength, exalting himself like a bull, was by this foolish pride of his struck down, and was changed into an ox and a bull, so that, as if demented and brutish, he was driven from his kingdom and banished to the forests among the beasts. This foolishness of his cast down his leaves and his honors, because it took away from him his royal splendor. The same thing destroyed his fruits, namely, all his royal deeds and the administration of so many kingdoms. Finally, the same thing made him wretched and squalid, like a dry tree in the desert, deserted, namely, by all friends, relations, subjects, and every human aid and comfort. Read Daniel chapter 4, and you will see that everything corresponds and answers perfectly to this passage of Sirach.
To this purpose serves the fable of Aesop, celebrated in that age (for Aesop preceded Sirach by two hundred years, and his wise myths and fables were
famous and on the lips of all) about the ass and the lion. With an ass, he says, a rooster was once feeding. When a lion attacked the ass, the rooster crowed, and the lion (for they say lions fear the voice of roosters) fled. But the ass, thinking it was fleeing on his account, immediately attacked the lion. But when he had pursued him far, to where the rooster's voice no longer reached, the lion turned and devoured the ass. And the ass, dying, cried out: "Wretched and foolish me! For I was not born of fighting parents — for what reason did I rush into battle?" The ass, therefore, represents the stupid, who are crushed and perish in the proud thought and estimation of their own strength.
Hence Homer compares Agamemnon to a bull: for the bull is the symbol of a king, who excels among the people as a bull among the herd, as Diogenes teaches in oration 2, in Dio. Hence also Joseph, because excelling his brothers and being prince in Egypt, is compared by Moses to a bull: "His beauty is like that of the firstborn bull; his horns are the horns of the rhinoceros, with them he shall scatter the nations even to the ends of the earth," Deuteronomy 33:17. Where for "bull" the Hebrew is שור schor, in Chaldaic שור tor; whence the Latin and Greek taurus, the French taureau, the Spanish and Italian toro. For in Hebrew it is called schor, from the root שרך schor, that is, to strain, to extend, because the bull has a body that is distended and full, or because it has an intent, firm, and fixed gaze; whence the proverb fitting this passage: "A bull's fancy, to gaze like a Taurian," that is, fiercely; "A bull's gaze," for a fixed, stern, arrogant, and fierce look. Aristophanes in the Frogs: "And so with downcast face he gazes like a bull." And it was the custom of Socrates, according to Plato, to gaze with bull-like eyes. Virgil also calls the cow fierce: "The finest form belongs to the fierce cow."
The meaning therefore is, that is: Do not exalt yourself in your thought, that you think yourself abounding in strength, wealth, wisdom, friends, servants, etc., just as a bull in its fancy exalts itself because of its strength, so as to wish to rule and dominate the entire herd, lest your strength be crushed and broken, that is, your fortitude — in Greek psyche, that is, your soul, namely your aggressiveness, the aggressive, proud, fierce, and bull-like thought of your soul — "through foolishness," by which you insolently pride yourself, and attempt things greater than your strength, and dash yourself against those more powerful, and therefore are cast down by them, just as a bull's strength is crushed when, untamed, it foolishly attacks bulls equally strong or stronger than itself, by which it is either conquered and thrown down, or at least its force is subdued and broken. So today we see many who are powerful in the strengths of nature, intellect, and grace, with which they could accomplish great things if they used them modestly and temperately; but while they grow insolent with them and arrogate more to themselves, or attempt more than their strength can bear, through foolishness they lose all the beauty, force, and efficacy of their strengths and gifts. Whence it happens that foolishness itself, or rather the strength which they foolishly abuse, consumes their leaves and destroys their fruits, that is, all their adornment (for leaves are
Note: He fittingly compares the aggressive, impetuous, and violent to bulls; because among animals there is scarcely any that so dares by its horns, so trusts in its strength, so prides itself in its spirit, as the bull. See Aelian, at the end of book 3. Therefore, just as bulls are strong and muscular, so likewise they are spirited, irascible, and furious; hence the bull is the leader of the herd and the cows: for the bull is the ox reserved for breeding. Aristotle gives the reason in book 2 of Parts of Animals, chapter 4, that bulls abound in blood, and that fibrous and thick. "Those animals," he says, "are more timid whose blood is too thin: for fear chills; wherefore those that are bloodless are more timid than the blooded, etc. But those whose blood is filled with very many thick fibers, these are more earthy in their nature, and spirited, irascible, and therefore furious: for anger is heating. And all solid and firm things, when heated, heat more intensely than moist things; but fibers are solid and earthy: and so they serve as fuel in the blood, and kindle heat through anger. From which it follows that bulls and boars are spirited, irascible, and furious: for their blood is more filled with fibers; and indeed the blood of bulls coagulates and hardens most quickly of all."
The counterpart to this maxim is the fable of the rhinoceros and the crow in St. Cyril, book 2 of the Moral Apologues, chapter 18, whose title is: Against those who are proud because of their strength. "The proud rhinoceros," he says, "most puffed up by the strength of his horn, when he had seen a crow resting on the riverbank, presumed to overturn it with the wondrous force of his horn, so as to display before it the glory of his strength. When therefore he struck it with a thunderbolt-like blow, the hardness of the resisting rock received the impact, broke the point of his horn, and under the weight of the pain together with his dislocated body, his conquered strength immediately gave way. Then to him lying prostrate from such great pains, the crow objected with laughter, saying: Rhinoceros, my brother, where is your most powerful horn? where is your stupendous strength? Surely because you placed everything in one thing, once that one thing was lost, you soon lost everything. Did you not know that any bodily strength is small, unless a greater strength of spirit is present alongside it? For the entire wondrous strength of Samson (Judges 14) was not from his bones alone, but from the spirit that was in his hair. And the spirit of strength is humility. For this is the base and foundation of bodily strength and virtues." Whence he draws the epimythium, or the moral of the fable: "Believe me, therefore, nothing is weaker than proud power, and nothing is more potent than humble weakness to be found in this world. For the harder iron is, the more quickly it breaks; and glass is broken the more easily, the more it is hardened. Yet the softest drop hollows out stone, and the tenderest worm, the woodworm, devastates timber; indeed the thunderbolt spirit destroys harder things and leaves softer things unharmed. Also, the more a bow is bent, the more powerfully it hurls the arrow. Having said this, he dismissed the unicorn vanquished by pride."
the foliage and beauty of trees) and overturn and take away the fruit which they would otherwise have borne; so that the strength which should have adorned and enriched them deprives them of all beauty and fruit; so that, stripped of these things, they are left like a dry tree in the desert, namely, barren, inglorious, and useful for nothing except to be uprooted and cast into the fire, as Christ says in John 15:6. He alludes again to the bull, which by its untamed fierceness eats the leaves of trees and scatters their fruits, and devastates the tree, and leaves it like a dry stick.
Akin to this is the adage of chapter 4, verse 35: "Do not be like a lion in your house, overturning your household members, and oppressing those subject to you." Moreover, he calls pride foolishness: for just as humility is the health of the soul, so pride is its insanity: because humility is truth; pride is vanity, falsehood, and a vain opinion of oneself, foolishness and madness.
Secondly, more expressly and fittingly you may refer these words to the dissolution of friendship through haughtiness and disdain of a friend, which is the entire subject here. For which, note and hear Aristotle, book 6 of On the Nature of Animals, chapter 18: "The bull," he says, "when the time of mating has come, then at last begins to use the common pastures with the cows, and fights with the other bulls. For before that time they feed among themselves: which they call atimalegein (which some translate as 'to herd together,' as if to gather with the herd; others better translate it contrarily as 'to de-herd' or 'to dis-herd,' that is, to separate oneself from the herd). Indeed, the bulls that are in Epirus often do not appear for a space of three months." Festus calls this "neglecting the herd"; others, "to separate from the flock," which is proper to bulls. Hence the proverb: "The bull has gone off to the forest," customarily said of proud and disdainful husbands who desert their wives. Likewise, of puffed-up and insolent friends who, after they have enjoyed their friend and drained his resources, disdain and abandon him; but, just as a bull, disdaining the herd and fleeing into the forest out of untamed liberty, haughtiness, and fierceness, is often attacked and crushed there by other bulls, lions, and bears (for, as Aristotle teaches in book 9 of the History of Animals, "bulls are killed by wild beasts when they have strayed from the herd, leaving and seeking separation from the flock"): so likewise, he who deserts a friend falls among enemies who crush him, exhaust him, and sometimes kill him.
Again, just as a bull fleeing into the forest scatters the leaves and fruits of trees, and makes them desolate and leaves them like a dry tree in the desert: so likewise those who were accustomed by their duty in social life to feed, nourish, teach, and govern their subjects and friends, and thus in the Church were like fruit-bearing trees adorned with leaves — if they rashly and proudly desert, disdain, and flee from them, they deprive themselves of all this fruit and beauty, and will be deprived by God the just judge of all their former grace, as it was given to them for common use, and they will be like dry trees in the desert. The leaves of men, that is, their ornaments, are honor, glory, friends, servants, equipment, domestic splendor, etc. The moth of all these is pride, which eats and devours a man's leaves, as a worm eats the ivy of Jonah. The fruits of a pious man are holy works, which are the merits of heaven: these perish for the proud man, because past ones profit him nothing, and he cannot produce future ones. Finally, pride leaves a man like a dry tree in the desert, deserted by God, angels, and men.
Moreover, Virgil teaches in Georgics 3 that bulls are conquered and crushed by other bulls in combat:
Nor is it the custom for the combatants to share a stall; but one, Vanquished, departs, and far away is exiled in unknown lands, Groaning much over the disgrace and the blows of the proud Victor, and over the loves he lost unavenged, And gazing at the stalls, he has departed from his ancestral realm.
Aristotle also, in book 6 of the History of Animals, chapter 20, teaches that victorious bulls, after mating, as if drained of strength, are conquered and crushed by the vanquished one. "The one that conquered mates," he says, "and when he, now weakened by sexual activity, languishes, the vanquished one attacks him in his languor, and generally overcomes him."
Hence thirdly, some refer these words to the unbridled lust of the rich and powerful, that is: Do not proudly and wantonly rage against your own people and those subject or indebted to you, like a powerful and insolent bull that mates with all the cows, as it pleases its soul, that is, its fancy and desire: because, just as this bull by mating crushes and exhausts its strength and vigor, so likewise you will exhaust your strength. For nothing so weakens and enervates a man's powers as lust: for through it the seed, which is the noblest blood, and with it the finest vital spirits, are discharged. Again, lust consumes and scatters all leaves and fruits, that is, all a man's vigor, adornment, virtues, and merits, and makes him dried-up, sterile, and withered, like a dry tree in the desert: for the companion and daughter of pride is lust, just as the companion and daughter of humility is chastity. Such a bull among his own was the most foul Luther, and his followers, so much so that even now among their women this infamous and satanic voice is heard: "Play the bull with us." See Cochlaeus, Sander, Surius, etc., in the Acts of Luther and his successors. True here is that saying of the Psalmist, Psalm 67, verse 31: "The assembly of bulls among the cows of the peoples." Moreover, lust dissolves every true friendship (which is the subject here), inasmuch as it rests on virtue: for so great is its disgrace, so great nature's horror, so great the disgust of the debauched, that the woman whom they had before most ardently loved, once violated by them, they often cannot bear to hear or see.
Finally, in the bull is represented and forbidden arrogance, the lust for domination, tyranny, concupiscence, insolence, harshness of words, hardness of character, barbarism, savagery, cruelty, fierceness: for the bull is not governed by reason, but by the thought
and impulse of its fancy, as if driven by the gadfly and goaded by furies; whence it bellows and roars with a terrifying sound.
4. FOR A WICKED SOUL SHALL DESTROY HIM WHO POSSESSES IT (that is, him who has a wicked soul), AND GIVES HIM OVER TO THE JOY OF HIS ENEMIES (some read "shall have given") AND SHALL LEAD HIM TO THE LOT OF THE WICKED — namely, to eternal misery and hell. The Greek is concise, and reads thus: for a wicked soul will destroy its possessor, and will make itself a laughingstock to enemies.
A wicked soul — that is, not merely bad in some way, but eminently and remarkably bad ("for 'nequam' [worthless]," says Festus, "is said of what is not even worth as much as what is held at the lowest value"). And Varro derives it from 'ne' and 'quidquam' with the middle syllable dropped — he calls it proud, disdainful, cruel, and lustful, such as I have already described. Hence the Syriac translates: a hard (cruel) soul shall destroy or corrupt its master, and shall make him a joy to his enemies. Wherefore Sirach opposes to the hard and bull-like soul, which dissolves friendship, the gentle and sweet-spoken soul, which unites friends and friendship, saying: "A sweet word multiplies friends."
Morally he notes here three most serious harms which a wicked and malignant soul inflicts upon itself: the first is that it destroys itself through a fall into mortal sin; the second, that it delivers itself to the joy and prey of enemies, both human and demonic; the third, that it leads itself to the lot of the wicked, namely, to hell. The symbol of this is the lion, which, while hunting prey, heedlessly rushes into the pit and cage prepared for it by hunters, and becomes their prey and laughingstock, according to Pliny, book 8, chapter 16, and St. Gregory, book 9 of the Moralia, chapter 34; for so also the proud man, while he wishes to prey upon others, becomes himself the prey and the laughter of demons. This is what Job says in chapter 10, verse 16: "And because of pride You will catch me like a lioness, and returning wondrously You torment me." Where see St. Gregory at the place already cited.
5. A SWEET WORD MULTIPLIES FRIENDS, AND APPEASES ENEMIES. — He teaches that the way to acquire and preserve friends is sweetness of speech, which he fittingly places as the antithesis to the proud display and bull-like ferocity that repels and overthrows everyone. In Greek: a sweet throat multiplies friends for itself; in Syriac: a sweet mouth (that is, of a sweet mouth — it is a Hebraism and Syrianism), his friends will be multiplied. Palacius gives the reason: Because, he says, the word is the vehicle of the mind. Therefore in a sweet word a sweet mind goes forth, flows out, and glides like sugar into the soul of the listener, and penetrates the whole of it with its sweetness, imbues, attracts, and carries it away into love of itself. Similarly, the enemy, upon hearing the sweetness of the word like a musical harmony, does not close his ears to it; but opens them, and through the ears receives it into the mind, and by its sweetness, as if with honey, sweetens all his bile, that is, bitterness, anger, and hatred, and from an enemy makes himself a friend. Therefore the sweet tongue is like the tongue of a dog, which by licking wounds soothes pains and heals the wounds of the body; for in a similar way the smooth-speaking tongue heals the wounds of the soul, as if by licking.
Such was the tongue of our Reverend Father Peter Canisius, the apostle of the Germans, with which he reconciled many to God and reconciled those at odds with each other, so that it was commonly said that the tongue of Canisius was, like a dog, the healer of souls. Hence the taunt of the Hussites against Canisius:
"Away from here, dog! The goose keeps watch for us" —
that is, John Hus: for the Bohemians call a goose "hus." They allude to the goose that by keeping watch saved the Romans when besieged on the Capitol. So Orpheus by his sweet speech, as by singing, is said to have moved rocks and stones, that is, the stony hearts of men. Others did the same: "Amphion moved stones by singing." St. Mechtild by her sweet speech captivated all, so much so that they thought they were hearing an angel speak. So her Life records. But she had drawn this sweetness from God and Christ crucified. For God is an ocean of sweetness; a stream of mind and tongue drawn from this ocean will preserve the sweetness of the sea. The exception is when the vices of the wicked and obstinate must be more sharply rebuked, according to that saying: "Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound," Titus 1:13. This is what the Bridegroom asks for and commends in the Bride, Song of Songs 4:3: "Your lips," He says, "are like a scarlet ribbon, and your speech is sweet."
The reason a priori is that sweetness and pleasantness in every kind of thing is most welcome to nature, and is a honeyed delight to it. For thus sweet flavors to the palate, sweet melodies to the ears, and pleasant colors to the eyes are most gratifying. This is what Ecclesiasticus says in chapter 40, verse 21: "The pipe and the psaltery make sweet melody, and above both a sweet tongue." And Cicero in his book On Duties: "It is difficult," he says, "to say how greatly courtesy and affability of speech win over the minds of men." Hence Antalcidas, when asked how one might most please men, replied: "If he speaks to them most pleasantly and does the most useful things." So Plutarch in his Laconic Apophthegms. Let Abigail serve as an example, who by gentle speech appeased David as he was rushing to slaughter her husband Nabal, so much so that, after Nabal's death, he married her, 1 Kings 25. And David, who by similar sweet speech sweetened the malignant spirits of Saul. And Gideon, who by gentle speech soothed and settled the quarrels of the Ephraimites, Judges 8:3. For honeyed speech begets a honeyed response. Hence the Bride teaches that she drew her sweet speech from the sweet speech of the Bridegroom: "His throat," she says in Song of Songs 5:16, "is most sweet, and He is wholly desirable;" and chapter 2, verse 3: "I sat down under His shadow, whom I desired, and His fruit was sweet to my palate;" that is: "His speech is sweet fruit," says Gregory of Nyssa, homily 4 on the Song of Songs.
AND A GRACIOUS TONGUE ABOUNDS IN A GOOD MAN. — So the Roman edition. The translator retained the Greek word eucharis, that is, gracious, as some codices read. Some read eulalos instead of eucharis, that is, eloquent,
eloquent. This "abounds" — namely charis, that is, grace, which is contained in the word eucharis — because it wins over all people, and all their words and hearts. Hence again, "abounds," that is, brings forth fruit abundantly, says Emmanuel Sa; whence the Greek expressly and clearly reads: glossa eucharis plethynei euprosegora, that is, a gracious tongue multiplies kind words; Jansenius: affable speeches; the Roman edition: a well-speaking tongue will multiply good greetings; the Zurich Bible: an eloquent tongue obtains very many greetings; the Syriac: the lips of the just are a greeting (a prayer for salvation and peace); and your greeters (those who wish you peace) shall be many. Therefore he signifies that the sweetness of speech is the allurement of greeting and affability, so that many follow the sweet-spoken person, greet him, and desire to mingle words and converse pleasantly with him, and repay sweetness with sweetness, so that what the Comedian said: "If you speak ill, you will hear worse," may here be inverted: "If you speak well, you will hear better." To this purpose serves that saying of Solomon, Proverbs 15, verse 1: "A soft answer breaks wrath; a harsh word stirs up fury." And verse 4: "A peaceable tongue is a tree of life; but that which is immoderate shall crush the spirit." And verse 18: "A hot-tempered man provokes quarrels; he who is patient allays those stirred up."
6. LET MANY BE AT PEACE WITH YOU, AND LET YOUR COUNSELOR BE ONE IN A THOUSAND. — "Peaceful" — in Greek it is not eirenopoioi, that is, those who make peace and reconcile the discordant; but eirenikoi, that is, those living in peace, keeping peace, that is to say: With many, that is, with all, as much as you can, cultivate and keep peace; but let your counselors be chosen, few, and rare, so that from a thousand you select one who may be your adviser; because few are prudent, fewer excel in experience, and fewest are discreet and faithful, who sincerely and from the heart love you and seek nothing but your good, according to that saying of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 7:29: "One man (wise, faithful, prudent, steadfast) out of a thousand I have found; but a woman out of all I have not found." And Proverbs chapter 20, verse 6: "Many men are called merciful; but who shall find a faithful man?" Whence in Greek it reads: let your counselors be one out of a thousand; the Syriac: let the one conscious of your secret be one out of a thousand; Vatablus: make sure you have many well-wishers, but one counselor out of a thousand.
To this belongs that saying of the Wise Man: "Be courteous to all, familiar with few, flattering and fawning to none." And Theognis: "You," he says, "do not share everything with all your friends; for few out of many have a faithful mind." Ben-Sira agrees with Sirach in Alphabet 2, letter gimel, when he decrees thus: "Reveal your secret to one out of a thousand; although many be those who seek your peace" — who, namely, wish you well and are well-disposed toward you. And that saying of Hesiod: "Be friend to none, nor yet to many," which Aristotle cites in book 9 of the Ethics, chapter 10, and gives the reason: Because, he says, to live without the companionship of any friend seems unpleasant and beastly. On the other hand, we cannot love many intensely at the same time, nor accommodate ourselves to many. Hence the saying: "A friend to many is a friend to none."
Lucian in the Toxaris narrates that among the Scythians polygalia, that is, friendship with many, was no less infamous than polygamy, that is, a plurality of wives, among other nations. On this matter, however, Cicero thinks differently, in his book On Friendship, and some others.
You may reconcile both opinions and both sets of authors if you say there are three degrees of friendship. The first is general, which strives to have many, indeed all, as friends. Hence St. Thomas, II-II, Question 114, says that friendship is affability; which is a special virtue by which one shows oneself courteous and affable to all. Sirach here calls these peaceful ones, for which the Author of the Salutary Documents, in St. Augustine, chapter 6, reads friends: "Let your friends," he says, "be many, but your counselor one." The second degree is particular, which embraces few. The third is singular, which embraces very few. Therefore natural and supernatural love, namely charity, dictates that common and general friendship can and should embrace many, indeed all, as far as possible: but strict and special friendship is singular, and embraces only one, or two or three at most. Benevolence, therefore, is toward many; but friendship toward few, according to that saying of Dicaearchus in Plutarch, at the beginning of book 4 of the Symposiacs: "Win the benevolence of all; but enter into friendship with the good."
The reason a priori is, first, that the affection and love of a human being is finite, and very limited and small; wherefore, if it is divided and scattered among many, it is diminished toward each individual, and cannot be singular, intense, and outstanding. Hence Plutarch, in his book On the Multitude of Friends: "Just as rivers," he says, "led off into many streams, have a lighter current; so vehement love, dispersed among many, undoubtedly withers." Just as heat collected in a furnace or a heated chamber, when the door or window is opened, is dispersed into the air and vanishes. Hence also parents who have only one child love that child most intensely, since their love is concentrated on one: if they then have more children, this love is diminished and dispersed among many.
The second reason is that singular friendship is the supreme union of friends: but this union cannot exist among many, both because many things cannot be essentially united, but are only accidentally joined together, like stones in the construction of a house; and because among many there are various and often diverse, indeed contrary, affections, dispositions, feelings, and judgments, which cannot come together into one: for as many heads, so many opinions, so many affections, so many judgments; and the diversity of affections, as well as of judgments, greatly dilutes and weakens love and friendship: "For, as Plutarch says in the book already cited, the origin of friendship is from the likeness of character, affections, and judgments. But who, like the polyp or Proteus, is so changeable, varied, and laborious as to be able or willing to render and accommodate himself as similar to many? Friendship requires equalizing one's character, affections, speech, pursuits, and sentiments." So says Plutarch.
The third reason is what the Author of On Friendship gives, in St. Augustine, chapter 11, that a friend is intimate to his friend: "Since a friend is the partner of your soul," he says, "join and apply your spirit to his spirit, and so mingle them that you wish one to be made from two; to whom you commit yourself as to another self, from whom you hide nothing, from whom you fear nothing;" hence such a friend should be rare, and well tested and proved.
The fourth reason is given by Aristotle in book 9 of the Ethics, chapter 10, that it is difficult and often impossible to live with, provide for, help, and satisfy many friends, since not infrequently one must rejoice with one and grieve with another. "For it does not seem possible," he says, "that anyone be an intense friend to many, nor that he be seized by the love of many: for friendship is accustomed to be a kind of excess: but this excess is toward one person; and therefore intense (love) will also be toward few."
The fifth reason is given here by Sirach, that counselors cannot be many, but one out of a thousand: both because among many a secret is not kept; and because it is difficult to find many of such great prudence, integrity, rectitude, and virtue as is required in a counselor, especially of a prince or of one who manages the affairs of many. "For how," says St. Ambrose in book 2 of the Offices, "shall I be able to judge him superior in counsel whom I see inferior in character? How shall I believe that a man is governed by reason who is governed by passions and affections? How shall I entrust my affairs to him who hunts after his own gain?"
Sixth. The sixth reason is given by Plutarch, in his book On the Multitude of Friends: "For," he says, "for genuine friendship three things are especially required: virtue, as something beautiful; familiarity, as something pleasant; and use, as something necessary: for a friend must be received with judgment, familiarity must be joyful, and use must be ready when occasion demands — all of which are opposed to a multitude of friends." And below he proves the same from the saying of Pythagoras: "Do not extend your hand to many, that is, do not make many friends." And he adds: "To Timesias, who was consulting the oracle about leading a colony, the response was: Seek swarms of bees, not wasps, and you will have abundance. So those who seek flocks of friends unwarily fall into swarms of enemies." Finally, the same is evident in friendship with God; for God alone and singularly wills to be loved by us with the whole heart, so that we love nothing except Him, or for His sake, according to that saying of the Bride, Song of Songs 2:16: "My Beloved is mine, and I am His, who feeds among the lilies." Hence, the more one withdraws mind and love from men and created things, the more one unites oneself to God, and becomes a dearer and more intimate friend to Him. Hence St. Giles, the companion of St. Francis, when asked by what means one might arrive at the perfection of virtue and love, responded: "One [soul] to One [God],"
that is to say: Let one soul bind itself entirely to the one God through faith, hope, charity, and contemplation, so that with St. Mary Magdalene it may hear those words of Christ: "But one thing is necessary; Mary has chosen the best part, which shall not be taken from her," Luke 10:42.
On this maxim, Cyril wrote an ingenious fable of the hedgehog and the viper, replete with sharp and learned moral sayings, in book 1 of the Moral Apologues, chapter 19, whose title is: Be a friend to all, intimate with few, most faithful to everyone. "A little viper, seeing a thorny hedgehog, marveled at its outer covering and said: Who are you? To which the hedgehog replied: A faithful friend; for a friend is one who is one soul with you; but the true friend is one who, if you cling to him too closely, pricks you. For one who truly loves corrects even in jests; and one who flatters in wrongdoing actually hates. To this the viper said: It certainly pleases me enough that friendship is an intimate unity of hearts; but that its truth be a thorn pleases me less: for true affection is founded not on the surface but in reality; not in harshness but in tranquility. Did not the thorn proceed from the root of the curse? Then the hedgehog, stung by this attack, replied: I know, dearest, that love and hatred are rooted only in substance; whence in your venomous breath there is universal enmity, and in your medicinal virtue there is common friendship. Nevertheless the truth and falsity of love in its underlying substance are noted from the outer covering. For true love pricks on the outside and soothes within; on the outside it is sharp, and within it grows sweet; on the outside it strikes, and within it heals: for it is like a bitter medicine. For, as Aristotle writes, the old man loves as though hating. And to the faithful lover David it was said that he hated himself by loving himself." Then he brings forth these signs of feigned love: "For feigned love shines in the light of the eyes, has flavor in the mouth, soothes in the ear, smiles in the face, pleases in the skin; yet within it is the poison of Sardinia, because indeed those whom it destroys, it makes perish with laughter." For some say that in Sardinia there grows an herb called Sardoa, which is sweet in taste, yet when eaten draws the mouths of men into a grimace of pain, and hence the expression "Sardonic laughter." So Solinus and Servius on that passage of Virgil, Eclogue 7:
Indeed I seem to you more bitter than Sardinian herbs.
The hedgehog continues: "But perhaps you glory in your painted exterior? Indeed the eye of the basilisk gleams and kills; the scorpion first licks before it strikes, and while it gently softens the skin with its mouth, it drives in the venomous sting of its tail all the more deadly. The Siren sings sweetly so that she may devour the stupefied sailor through shipwreck; and where the passage is most dangerous, there the face of the water smiles most. Therefore the hedgehog's thorn is the true and sensible friend, and the viper's coloring is the fraudulent one."
He then adds that the viper requested a pact of friendship from the hedgehog. "But the hedgehog replied: I am indeed a friend to all, intimate with few, most faithful to all. For whoever does not love everyone has in no way loved from virtue. And whoever is an intimate lover of many is a great friend of no one; the dimin-
ished [love] cannot simultaneously [embrace] many, nor accommodate itself to many. Hence the saying: "A friend to many, a friend to none."
to those who marveled, replied that he was painting for eternity: so a friendship tested over a long time and through many adversities will endure, says Plutarch in On the Multitude of Friends. Hence Antisthenes, cited by Laertius, book II, chapter 8: "Just as vessels," he says, "are tested by striking and ringing, so the fidelity of friends must be tested by tribulation and adversity." And Plutarch: "Just as a storm tests the joints of a ship — for if they are firm and strong, it will resist; but if not, it will crack and fall apart — so friends must be tested by the onset of misfortunes."
Hence Sirach adds: "And do not easily entrust yourself to him." Because, as Antiochus the Abbot wisely says in homily 65, "to entrust the secret of one's heart to any passerby is characteristic of a soul utterly untrained and one that has experienced nothing of propriety and honor." He adds the reason from a prior principle, saying: "For there is a friend according to his own time, and he will not remain in the time of tribulation." For, as Seneca says to Lucilius, epistle 9: "For what purpose do I acquire a friend? So that I may have someone for whom I can die; so that I may have someone whom I can follow into exile. He strips friendship of its majesty who prepares it for contingencies."
Moreover, the Arabic proverb, Century 2, no. 83: "Help your brother (friend) whether doing or suffering injustice," is impious and anti-Christian: for all patronage of injury and crime is itself injury and crime; accordingly, friends who unjustly help friends rebellious against their prince to rebel, authorize rebellion, and therefore by the law of retaliation deserve to experience their own subjects as rebels: and such a friendship cannot last; for what is sewn together by crime is immediately torn apart. Therefore "be a friend to your friend," but "only up to the altars." Hear St. Jerome on Micah, chapter 7: "But even now," he says, "fidelity is rare, when one thing is on the lips, another in the heart; the poisons of the soul are covered by the honey of the tongue. The friends of the rich are many; but even those who seem to be friends depart from the poor. Whence it is said: If you have a friend, possess him in trial. I read in someone's disputation: A friend is long sought, scarcely found, and preserved with difficulty. Theophrastus wrote three volumes on friendship, preferring it to every other affection; and yet he testified that it is rare in reality." He then adds: "There is also Cicero's book on friendship, which he entitled Laelius, in which that precept which is given among our writers — that a friend should be to us like old wine, and that we should drink it with delight — is set forth in almost the same words. Friendship either finds or makes equals: where there is inequality, and the eminence of one and the subjection of another, there is not so much friendship as flattery. Whence also elsewhere we read: Let a friend be the same soul. And the Lyric poet, praying for his friend: Preserve, he says, the half of my soul. Therefore do not trust in friends, that is, in those people who pursue profit from friendships. If you wish to delight in true friendship, be a friend of God; as Moses, who spoke to God as a friend to a friend."
Just as Zeuxis, painting painstakingly, when those who marveled at his slowness
7. IF YOU POSSESS A FRIEND, POSSESS HIM IN TRIAL
The words 'possides' and 'posside' signify an action begun, not completed; therefore they mean the same as 'you acquire' and 'acquire.' For the Hebrew qanah, and the Greek ktosai, signify both 'to possess' and 'to acquire.' So it is said in Proverbs 8:22: "The Lord possessed, that is, prepared, begot, me." The sense therefore is, as if to say: If you are preparing to possess a friend, if you are acquiring him to possess him, prepare and acquire him through trial; namely, test and prove his fidelity and love in small matters before you entrust great matters to him. Hence the Zurich version translates: if you are preparing a friend, prepare a trial, and test him, and do not quickly trust him. For the pronoun 'yourself,' which some add, should be deleted in accordance with the Greek and Roman texts.
The first law of friendship, therefore, is: "First choose a friend, then love him; first test, then embrace." For, as Ennius says: "A true friend is discerned in uncertain times;" and the Venerable Bede in his Proverbs, letter A: "Prosperity acquires friends, adversity tests them." If, therefore, before you buy vessels, you first inspect them, much more should you inspect the life of those whom you are about to join to yourself in friendship, says Antisthenes, cited by Laertius, book II, chapter 8. Antonius in the Melissa, from Menander: "Gold," he says, "is usually tested by fire; but the goodwill of a friend is proved by time: for he who flatters a friend in the time of prosperity is a friend of the times, not of the friend." Therefore, just as in a furnace quicksilver, though clinging to gold and most friendly to it, soon melts and departs: so in tribulation an unfaithful friend, though formerly most intimate, departs and deserts his friend; for he is unstable like mercury. The same author again: "The roughness of the road reveals the use of a horse, and calamities distinguish a well-disposed friend." A poet quoted by St. Augustine (or the author, for it does not seem to be St. Augustine), in the book On Friendship, chapter 3:
He is not a friend of the person, but of prosperity, Whom sweet fortune holds, but bitter fortune drives away.
Isocrates, as cited by Maximus: "Test your friends," he says, "by the calamities of life and by sharing in dangers; for we test gold by fire, but we recognize friends in adversity." From Isocrates, Ovid borrowed this:
Just as golden ore is examined in the flames, So in hard times must fidelity be tested.
for virtue diminishes when it is diverted. Thus a mother loves her only child more than if she had simultaneously had many children. Yet if you finally wish to hear, I am bound by intimate affection to no one whose virtue I have not tested over long periods and whose truthfulness I have not proven in a thousand calamities. For new wine is a new friend; it is pleasant in the mouth, it bubbles in the stomach, it deceives in the head, and turbulence lurks hidden in the dregs. And therefore I do not wish to be your friend. A friend of fools becomes like them. Having said this, he dismissed the one he had rejected."
Maxims on the testing of friendship through trial
Second, the word 'possides' could be taken by metalepsis to mean 'use as your possession': for the things we possess, we possess for use, as if to say: "In trial," that is, when you are being tested, afflicted, distressed, then have recourse to your friend and use his help and counsel so that you may emerge from tribulation; for he who is afflicted and tested is not sufficient for himself, nor should he trust his own judgment, but his friend's. However, the first sense is preferable and more authentic, as is clear from the reason he adds, saying:
8. FOR THERE IS A FRIEND ACCORDING TO HIS OWN TIME, AND HE WILL NOT REMAIN IN THE DAY OF TRIBULATION
He gives the reason why a friend must be tested before friendship: because, namely, many are friends "according to their own time," that is, when it is opportune and convenient for them, when, namely, they need the help and friendship of another in order to obtain what they desire; and once they have obtained it and achieved their wishes, they depart and abandon their friend in tribulation. So Alfonso, King of Aragon, as reported by Panormitanus and Aeneas Sylvius in his Life, used to call friends who frequented the court in order to obtain some office or benefice "vultures of the court," who, once they had obtained what they sought, would immediately fly away. Here applies that well-known saying:
The common crowd tests friendships by their usefulness.
Hence the Syriac translates: there is a friend for an hour, that is, a temporary one, and he does not remain in the time of tribulation. In your good times he is like you, and in your bad times he distances himself from you. If you fall, he will turn against you, and he will depart from your sight and hide himself. The Zurich version: for there are friends as long as it is convenient for them, who fail you in the time of your calamity. Wisely Aristotle, book VIII of the Ethics, chapter 4: "True friendship," he says, "is not one which utility or necessity creates, but which virtue and honor establish." The same author, book VII of the Eudemian Ethics: "Friendship," he says, "must be established by virtue, not by money or beauty. For if it is established by perishable things, it too must necessarily be perishable. Nothing in human affairs is stable except virtue alone, which alone is not subject to the sport of fortune." And Seneca in his Proverbs: "Exercise such diligence in forming friendships that you do not begin to love someone whom you may later hate. First show yourself to be good, and thus seek another like yourself. Nothing is more shameful than to wage war against one with whom you have lived familiarly." More divinely, St. Augustine (or the author) in the book On Friendship: "Worldly friendship," he says, "is full of fraud and deceit; nothing in it is certain, nothing constant, nothing secure; but it changes with fortune and follows the purse. Whence Solomon (Sirach, a follower of Solomon) says: There is a friend according to his time, and he will not remain in the time of tribulation. Take away the hope of gain, and he will immediately cease to be a friend." And Isidore of Pelusium, book III, epistle 211: "Enmity," he says, "should be written in water, so that it is immediately erased; but friendship should be engraved in bronze, so that it is perpetually preserved firm."
9. AND THERE IS A FRIEND WHO TURNS TO ENMITY
This is the second kind of false friends, who, namely, on account of a slight offense, turn from friends into enemies. For there are some people so arrogant, or delicate, or weak, or difficult that they are offended by the slightest thing that displeases them and become enemies. "Some enemies are weighty, some friends are trivial," says Seneca in his Proverbs. With such people friendship should not be entered into; for the proverb is true which Livy records in book X of the Macedonian War: "Friendships ought to be immortal, enmities mortal."
But the morals of men have deteriorated to such a point that grudges are immortal, while friendships are more fragile than glass; and one Ate (goddess of mischief) can do more than a hundred Litae (prayers); and of all things, anger grows old most slowly, while goodwill perishes at any slight provocation. Aristotle held the same view, book II of the Rhetoric: "He is not a friend," he says, "who has ceased to love." Therefore "know the faults of your friend, but do not hate them," as is commonly said: namely, some things in the character of friends must be overlooked, so that they are indeed recognized but nevertheless tolerated, lest by being too severe and sharp-eyed in observing a friend's faults, you destroy the friendship; since no one will ever be a friend who cannot bear any faults in a friend. Finally, the famous maxim of Aristotle, book VII of the Eudemian Ethics, is celebrated: "Friendship belongs to the steadfast, happiness to the temperate," that is, to those who live content with their lot. Moreover, just as from the strongest wine the strongest vinegar is produced, so if friendship sours, the greatest enmity results — both because an injury inflicted by a friend is most grievous and deeply wounding, and because as great as the love that preceded, so great is the hatred that follows when love turns to hatred. Hence Pliny, book XXXVII, chapter 4: "Just as a diamond," he says, "if it happens to be struck by hammers, shatters into the tiniest fragments, so small they can scarcely be seen by the eyes, so the closest bond, if it ever happens to be broken, turns into the greatest hostility, and from the closest alliances, if once they are broken, the greatest dissensions arise."
AND THERE IS A FRIEND WHO WILL REVEAL HATRED, AND STRIFE, AND REPROACHES. — This sentence explains the preceding one, as if to say: There is, I say, a friend who, having lightly turned from friend to enemy, as described above, will reveal your secrets communicated to him by you, especially the reproaches and insults which in hatred and quarreling you poured out against another, or another poured out against you. For in the Greek there is no word 'friend'; but a single sentence reads thus: and there is a friend who turns to enmity, and will lay bare the strife of your reproach; or, as the Zurich version translates, there are likewise friends who, having turned into enemies, bring forth your disgrace through quarreling — who, namely, quarreling lightly with you, in the quarrel publicize your secrets and hidden disgraces, so that there is a hypallage: "the strife of reproach," that is, "the reproach of strife," that is, reproach brought forth in strife, through strife. This friendship is womanish: for it is the mark of manly love to persevere in friendship when offended by a friend. For he who loves deeply, and has as it were passed into the very nature of love, however much offended and torn by reproaches, will not conceive hatred; indeed he will feel his love kindled, like a lit furnace upon which a little water is sprinkled; and like a fire that, fanned by a bellows, burns more fiercely. Hence St. Jerome, epistle 41 to Rufinus: "A friendship," he says, "that can end was never true." And St. Chrysostom, homily 61 on Matthew: "Love," he says, "which is founded for the sake of Christ, is firm, stable, and invincible, and is shaken by no detraction, no dangers, not by death, nor by any other temporal thing." And Cassian, Conference XVI, chapter 3: "This friendship," he says, "joined by similarity of virtues alone, is never torn apart by any circumstances; which not only distances of place and time cannot dissolve or destroy, but not even death can tear apart."
10. BUT THERE IS A FRIEND WHO IS A COMPANION OF THE TABLE, AND HE WILL NOT REMAIN IN THE DAY OF NEED
In Greek, thlipseos, that is, affliction; Vatablus renders: there is a certain friend to be a partaker at the table, who deserts you in the time of your calamity. Such people are commonly called pot-friends and parasites, with whom courts abound as much as cookshops. For this is a pot-friendship, which the dish, not goodwill, establishes, to which that saying is chanted: zei chytra, ze philia, "the pot boils, the friendship lives," about which Juvenal says:
He thinks you are captivated by the aroma of his kitchen, And he guesses not wrongly.
Eupolis calls these "friends at dinner and by the frying pan." Here applies the Hebrew proverb in the Gemara: "At the door of the tavern, brothers and friends; at the door of the prison, neither brothers nor friends," as if to say: At the doors of the wine-shop and tavern everyone is present, greeting the tavern-keeper officiously so that they can drink together with him; but if they see a man seized and led to prison, immediately all flee from him; indeed not even one looks back at him, according to that verse of the Poet:
As long as you are fortunate, you will count many friends; If times become cloudy, you will be alone.
For, just as swallows are present in summer but withdraw when driven away by cold, so such friends are present in the fair weather of life; but as soon as they sense the winter of fortune, they all fly away, says the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, book IV. Likewise Seneca and Pythagoras compare faithless friends to swallows.
This is the third kind of false friends, who are friends not of you, but of their own belly and gluttony, and accordingly when the food fails, they fail likewise. For the saying is true: "Prosperity has many friends." And: "Everyone is a relative to the fortunate." On the contrary: "The honor of friends perishes for an afflicted man, and few mortals are faithful to share in labors in adversity," says Pindar in the Nemean Odes, ode 10. Here belongs the Hebrew proverb: "In your own house a guest, in another's house the master." For there is a class of people who practice frugality at home but overflow with extravagance abroad; because they devour others' goods like lions and spare their own as if they were others'; at their own table they are ants, at another's vultures — such as Demea is portrayed in Terence's Adelphi. Cicero says excellently in On Friendship: "Most people," he says, "recognize no good in human affairs except what is profitable; and they love those friends most, like cattle, from whom they hope to reap the greatest benefit; thus they lack that most beautiful and most natural friendship, desirable for its own sake and in itself."
11. IF A FRIEND REMAINS STEADFAST, HE WILL BE TO YOU AS AN EQUAL, AND HE WILL ACT WITH CONFIDENCE AMONG YOUR HOUSEHOLD
After the various types by which he described false friends, he now comes to the demonstration of the true friend, says Rabanus. The sense is, as if to say: When you have found a faithful and steadfast friend, treat him as an equal, even though you may be greater than he, and deal with him familiarly as with an equal. For, as Alcuin, or Albinus Flaccus, says in his discussion with Pepin, the son of Charlemagne: "What is friendship? The equality of friends." For "a friend is another self," says Aristotle, and friendship either finds or makes equals, says Cicero in his book On Friendship: and therefore permit him to act freely among your household, advising, helping, and directing them in your place, as though managing your affairs and concerned about your interests.
Hence, when the wife of Darius, thinking Hephaestion was Alexander, had reverenced him and was ashamed when she recognized her error, Alexander consoled her: "Do not be troubled," he said, "for this man too is Alexander." So Curtius in his Life of Alexander.
12. IF HE HAS HUMBLED HIMSELF BEFORE YOU, AND HIDDEN HIMSELF FROM YOUR FACE
(from modesty, shame, and reverence withdrawing himself from time to time, nevertheless) you will have a harmonious and good friendship. — As if to say: Even if your friend is more modest and reserved, do not on that account despise him, but rather hold him all the dearer; because, although by the right of friendship he could use a friendly liberty toward you, yet from modesty he refrains from it; indeed, from this very fact you should all the more acknowledge his good and harmonious friendship and congratulate yourself on it, that, namely, he subjects himself to you and honors and reveres you as though subordinate to you, when he is actually an equal. For sincere subjects, because they are obedient, are more in harmony with their superior, whom they love and revere, than a friend with a friend who is his equal. He alludes to Proverbs 18:24: "A man amiable to society will be more of a friend than a brother," on which see more in that place. Here applies the Arabic proverb from Century 2, no. 75: "When your friend is honey, do not eat him entirely." For many abuse the kindness and generosity of friends. And Cicero, in his book On Friendship: "Friends," he says, "will not only cherish and love each other, but also respect each other: for he removes the greatest ornament of friendship who removes modesty from it."
Second, Palacius explains it thus, as if to say: If it happens that your friend has erred, and out of shame for his error
he humbles himself before you, and out of modesty hides his coming, consider this a certain sign of a good friend and friendship. For the health of a friend who is not ashamed of his sin is desperate. Third, the same author explains it thus, as if to say: A friend who manages your affairs in your absence should be considered harmonious; he who, in order to conduct your business, humbles himself, withdraws, and hides himself from you — he should be considered a true friend.
Rabanus, and Jansenius following him, refer the former verse, namely the eleventh, to the true friend; but the latter verse, this twelfth, they refer to the false friend, for they read it thus: "If (the false friend falsely) has humbled himself before you, he will hide himself from your face," in the time of need he will withdraw himself and his help from you. Therefore "you will have (that is, seek and pursue) a good and harmonious friendship." Their reason is that this sense more closely approaches the Greek text. But this seems harsh, disjointed, and distorted, and they supply many things that are not found in the text: indeed, they dissent from the Vulgate reading. Moreover, in verse 12 no mention is made of a false friend, and that verse clearly depends on verse 11, which deals with the true friend. Therefore both verses are to be understood of the same subject, in the sense which I set forth at the beginning.
Moreover, the Greek text here differs vastly from both Rabanus and the Vulgate version, and is almost contrary to them; for it takes all these things as referring to the false friend, who is a companion of the table, about whom it was said in verse 10. About him, therefore, verses 11 and 12 say thus: "In your prosperity he will be like you (he will flatter you, accommodate himself to you, conduct himself in your manner, says Vatablus), and among your household he will use freedom. (Vatablus: he will exercise authority as though managing your affairs). But if you have been cast down," humiliated, afflicted, "he will be against you, and will hide himself from your face." The Syriac follows the Greek as usual; for it translates thus: in your good times he is like you, and in your bad times he distances himself from you; if you fall, he turns against you, and departs from your sight and hides himself.
Note: He indicates true friendship as harmonious, both because "where there is harmony among friends, there is stability of friendship," says Rabanus; and because it belongs to friends to will the same and not will the same, that is, to be of one mind and to agree in judgment as well as in will; and because the taste, flavor, sweetness, marrow, and as it were soul of friendship is the concord and unanimity of friends. "For what is a friend, if not a partner in love, to whom you join and attach your soul, and so blend it that you wish to make one out of two? to whom you entrust yourself as to another self? For friendship is not a tax, but full of honor, full of grace and virtue," says Rabanus. And Abbot Joseph, quoted by Cassian in Conference XVI, which is about friendship, chapter 3: "This," he says, "is the faithful and indissoluble bond of friendship, which is founded on equality of virtues alone; for the Lord makes those of one character dwell in a house, Psalm 67. And therefore unbroken love can remain only in those in whom there is one purpose and will, one willing and not willing. If you too wish to retain it inviolable, you must hasten, having first expelled vices, to mortify your own wills; and with united zeal and purpose, to diligently fulfill that in which the Prophet greatly delights: Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!" Psalm 132. See the following chapter, where he suggests five means to this unanimity: the first is contempt of riches and the world; the second, mortification of the will; the third, that one place everything after the good of charity and peace; the fourth, that one believe one should never become deeply angry, whether for just or unjust reasons; the fifth, that one desire to cure a brother's anger conceived against oneself, even without reason, in the same way as one's own. Finally, that one believe oneself to be departing from this world daily. The reason he states at the beginning of chapter 1, saying: "In all these things, therefore, there is one kind of indissoluble charity, which neither the grace of recommendation, nor the greatness of office or gifts, nor any reason of contract, nor the necessity of nature joins, but the similarity of virtues alone."
Moreover, Cicero, in his book On Friendship, defines it thus: "Friendship is nothing other than the highest agreement in all divine and human things, accompanied by goodwill and affection." Again: "Friendship is that most sacred and most intimate union between two or three, formed from mutual love, in which there is the highest agreement of all pursuits and wills. The power of friendship consists in this, that one mind is as it were formed from many."
More excellently St. Ambrose, at the end of book III of On Duties: "He who is of one mind," he says, "is himself a friend, because there is unity of souls in friends; nor is anyone more detestable than one who has injured friendship. Hence in the betrayer the Lord found this most grievous charge by which to condemn his treachery: that he did not show a return for grace, and mixed the poison of malice into the banquets of friendship. And so He says: But you, a man of one mind with Me, My guide and My familiar, who used to take sweet food together with Me. That is, this cannot be endured, because though of one mind you attacked the One who had given you grace. For if my enemy had cursed me, I would certainly have endured it, and from him who hated me I would have hidden myself. An enemy can be avoided, a friend cannot, if he wishes to lay traps. We guard against the one to whom we do not entrust our counsels; but we cannot guard against the one to whom we have entrusted them. And so, to heap up the odium of the sin, He did not say: You, My servant, My Apostle, but: My companion — that is, you are a betrayer not only of Me but also of yourself, you who have betrayed a companion."
From what has been said you may gather that friendship can be described and defined in various ways. Some of the ancients, says Aristotle in book VIII of the Ethics, chapter 1, defined friendship as likeness. But likeness is the cause of friendship, not friendship itself. Hesiod, as cited by Plato in the Lysis: "Friendship," he says, "is the agreement of those who are alike." Others, on the contrary: "Friendship," they say, "is the agreement of those who are unlike."
Plato in the same place: "Love," he says, "and friendship, is the desire for what is proper and akin, arising from need." But this definition is too broad and applies to any kind of love. Cicero, in his book On Friendship: "Friendship is the highest agreement of wills, pursuits, and opinions." This description is rather a definition from the fruits and effects of friendship than of its essence.
Aristotle, book VIII of the Ethics, chapters 2 and 7: "Friendship," he says, "is to wish good things for a friend for his own sake, not secretly but openly," manifesting one's love to the friend.
St. Augustine (or whoever the author is, for from the style it is clear that it is not St. Augustine), in the book On Friendship, chapter 7: "I believe," he says, "that friendship is nothing other than so great a partnership of wills between two people that one wills nothing that the other does not will; and that there be between both an agreement in good and bad things, so that neither hope, nor wealth, nor honor, nor anything belonging to one be denied to the other, both for making vows according to their will and for using them, so that each person is disposed toward his neighbor, in every duty and service which they render to each other, just as he is disposed toward himself." Others more briefly: "Friendship is a certain supreme mutual love of two, or at most three, confirmed by time and habit, arising from similarity of character and virtue." Others more fully, more clearly, and more dialectically: "Friendship is the mutual, conspicuous, and confirmed love of upright people, arising from the knowledge of uprightness, leading to a union of honorable life." Behold, here are all the causes of friendship. The formal cause is mutual love; the material cause is two or three people loving each other; the efficient cause is the knowledge of uprightness; the final cause is "leading to a union of honorable life."
Again St. Augustine, book III of Against the Academics, chapter 6, at the end: "Friendship," he says, "has been most correctly and most sacredly defined (by Cicero) as the agreement in human and divine things accompanied by goodwill and affection."
13. SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM YOUR ENEMIES, AND BE ON YOUR GUARD WITH YOUR FRIENDS
This is, as it were, the conclusion of what has been said about true and false friends, as if to say: Therefore, those whom you know to be your enemies, avoid and guard against in all things, lest they be able to harm you in any way; but do not trust your friends too much, both because many are false and pretended friends, or change from friends into enemies, as was described above; and because friends often seek their own interests and, with excessive freedom and license, abuse the disadvantage of a friend for their own advantage. The Syriac: distance yourself from your enemy, and be cautious with your friend. Hence that verse of the Poet:
It is difficult to deceive an enemy; but a friend can deceive A friend, O Cyrnus, without great effort.
King Antigonus, as Plutarch reports, daily asked God to protect him from his friends; when asked why not rather from his enemies, he replied: Because I can avoid these, whom I know, but those who are pretended and painted over I cannot guard against.
Vatablus translates: avoid your enemies, and guard yourself from your friends. Therefore do nothing in the presence of or with enemies, speak nothing, unless it is well premeditated. For their envy and hatred interprets all your deeds and words maliciously, twists everything to the worse part, criticizes, accuses, condemns; yet the wise man knows how to use all these things wisely and turns everything to his own advantage, mindful of that saying of Cato quoted by Cicero in the book On Friendship: "In some respects bitter enemies deserve better than those friends who seem sweet: for the former often speak the truth, the latter never. For there is no greater plague in friendships than flattery, cajolery, and sycophancy; for it destroys truth, without which the name of friendship cannot have any value."
Moreover, St. Ambrose, in On the Good of Death, chapter 7, reads and explains this passage mystically as follows: "Let us not entrust ourselves to this body, let us not mingle our soul with it: With a friend, he says, mingle your soul, not with an enemy. Your body is an enemy to you, which fights against your mind, whose works are enmities, dissensions, quarrels, and disturbances. Do not mingle your soul with it, lest you confuse both."
Note the phrase 'and be on guard with your friends.' For it signifies that friends are sometimes treacherous, sometimes faithless, or become so, and therefore they should not be trusted, especially where one's own interests are at stake. There is a notable fable on this subject in Gellius, book II, chapter 29, about the crested lark (alauda), which had placed its nest and chicks in a grain field. When the master was about to reap it and summoned his friends, then his neighbors, the lark told her chicks to stay calm; for nothing would come of it. And so it happened: for the friends and neighbors, occupied with their own affairs, did not come to reap. Seeing this, the master, cursing the faithless partnership of friends, said to his son: "Bring two sickles at first light: I will take one for myself, and you will take the other for yourself; and we ourselves will reap the grain with our own hands tomorrow. When the mother heard from her chicks that the master had said this: It is time, she said, to yield and depart; for now without doubt what he said would happen will come to pass. For the matter now rests with the one whose business it is, not with another from whom it is requested. And so the lark migrated from its nest, and the grain was reaped by the master." This indeed is Aesop's fable about the light and vain trust in friends and relations. But what else do the more sacred books of the Philosophers teach than that we should rely on ourselves alone? and that all other things, which are outside us and outside our soul, we should regard as neither ours nor for us? Ennius composed this fable of Aesop in his Satires quite skillfully and elegantly in tetrameter verses, of which the last two are these — and I truly think it is worthwhile to hold them in heart and memory:
This will be an argument always ready at hand for you: Do not expect from friends what you can do yourself.
Thus far Gellius. Here applies the Italian proverb: "He who wills, goes; he who does not will, sends."
14. A FAITHFUL FRIEND IS A STRONG PROTECTION: AND HE WHO HAS FOUND HIM HAS FOUND A TREASURE
In Greek, heure, that is, 'found,' in the past tense; the Syriac: a friend of truth (that is, a true one) is a friend of strength (that is, strong, indeed as it were the very strength and power of his friend); and those who find him find a treasure; Vatablus: a faithful friend is a strong defense; he who has obtained such a one has found a treasure.
He begins here to enumerate the advantages and praises of true friendship. The first is that it is a "strong protection;" in Greek skepe krataia, that is, a covering, covering, veil, guardianship, defense (for skepo means I cover, I shelter, I fortify, I screen), strong, robust, powerful, firm, mighty, forceful, which conquers and surpasses all things. St. Gregory Nazianzen, oration 6 to Gregory of Nyssa: "A faithful friend," he says, "is a strong protection, a fortified palace." And further on: "A faithful friend is a harbor of consolation." And elsewhere he calls it "the safest asylum" and "a ship most fortified against all storms." Likewise Isidore of Pelusium calls friendship "the strongest panoply." The reason is what Cicero gives in his book On Friendship: "Among friends," he says, "there is a sharing of all things, counsels, and wills without any exception." And Seneca, epistle 48: "Friendship creates a partnership of all things." And book VI of On Benefits, chapter 12: "I do not share all things with a friend in the way I do with a business partner, so that my share is his share; but in the way that father and mother share their children."
A faithful friend therefore protects not only the substance and reputation of his friend, if they are injured by a robber or detractor, both by word and by counsel and assistance; but he also guards his life, conscience, and soul from present and eternal death — indeed he exposes his own life to danger for the life of his friend, as did Nisus and Euryalus in Virgil's Aeneid, book IX, Pylades and Orestes, Damon and Pythias, as St. Ambrose reports in book II of On Virgins; and more excellently St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen, about whom the same author says in oration 20 on St. Basil: "Nor did the Gentiles," he says, "think their Oresteses and Pyladeses could in any way be compared with us, nor those Melionidae celebrated in the Homeric verse, whom the fellowship of calamity and the art of excellent chariot-driving ennobled, sharing reins and whips between themselves at the same time." So Abraham showed himself a friend to Lot when he freed him at the peril of his own life from the hands of enemies, Genesis 14; and Hushai to David, when he overthrew the counsels of Ahithophel before Absalom who was pursuing David his father, 2 Samuel 17. So Jonathan protected his friend David before Saul from all injury, according to Ecclesiastes 4:10: "If one falls, he will be supported by the other, etc. And if anyone prevails against one, two resist him: a threefold cord is not easily broken."
Moreover, no one is a more faithful and stronger friend to the just than God. He, therefore, is their strong protection, fortress, and asylum in every temptation and adversity, according to Psalm 90, verse 1: "He who dwells in the help (Hebrew: in the hiding place; Chaldean: in the secret; Jerome: in the hidden place of the Most High) of the Most High, in the protection (St. Jerome: in the shelter; Chaldean: in the shadow of the thousands of glory, of the Almighty) of the God of heaven (in Hebrew Shaddai, that is, the All-Sufficient, who is sufficient to protect against all evils and to give all good things, so that the just man, relying on God's help, fears nothing under heaven, says St. Bernard) shall abide (the Hebrew: shall pass the night, shall be secure at night). He shall say to the Lord: You are my protector and my refuge: my God, I will hope in Him. For He will deliver me from the snare of the hunters and from the harsh word; He will overshadow you with His shoulders." Read what follows.
See St. Augustine, homily 38 among the 50, where he teaches that true friendship does not exist except that which relies on God and is reconciled through Him: "Let a man begin," he says, "to love God, and he will love nothing in a man except God. Nothing is more delightful than God. For in a man there are things that offend: God is not one who offends you, if you do not offend Him. Nothing is more beautiful than He, nothing sweeter. If the world is beautiful, what must the Maker of the world be like? Tear your heart, therefore, from the love of the creature, so that you may cling to the Creator, so that you may say what is written in the psalm: But for me it is good to cling to God. But if you desert Him who made you, and love those things which He made, having deserted Him who made you, you are an adulterer, etc. You love a friend freely, and in loving you love so that he may love God with you." These and more things St. Augustine says in various places in that passage. The same author, sermon 256 On the Seasons: "Let us love the Lord," he says, "than whom we find nothing better: let us love Him for His own sake, and ourselves in Him, yet for His sake. For he truly loves a friend who loves God in a friend, either because He is in him, or so that He may be in him. This is true love: if we love for any other reason, we hate rather than love." The same (or whoever the author is, for the humbler and more meager style suggests it is not St. Augustine), in the book On Friendship, tome IV: "It is clear to me," he says, "that Cicero was ignorant of the virtue of true friendship, since he was entirely ignorant of its beginning and end, Christ, who is alpha and omega, the beginning and end of all labors. True friendship cannot exist among those who are without Christ." And St. Ambrose, book III of On Duties, chapter 15: "He cannot be a friend to man who has been unfaithful to God. Piety is the guardian of friendship."
The second advantage of friendship is that friendship itself is a treasure for a friend, that is, a precious, rich, and abundant thing, which brings him an abundance of resources as well as pleasure. Therefore Cyrus, as quoted by Xenophon, says, "money is best deposited with friends, and there are no safer or more faithful treasures than these." And Seneca: "These are certain riches," he says, "which in whatever fickleness of human fortune will remain in one place: and the greater they are, the less envy they will attract." Alexander the Great, when asked where he kept his treasures, said: "In my friends." So Plutarch, says Maximus, in his sermon On Friendship.
Hence Chilon, says Plutarch in On the Multitude of Friends, to someone who said he had no enemy, replied: "You seem to me also to have no friend. For enmities immediately accompany friendships and entangle themselves in them: nor can it happen that friends do not become sharers in injuries, disgraces, and hatreds: for enemies hold the friend of the one they hate in suspicion and wish him ill."
Here applies that saying of the Comic poet: "When they are friends, consider them to be friends." For just as from a treasure you draw out not only necessities, but also useful and pleasant things for use: so also from a friend and his resources and gifts. Hence that verse of the Song of Songs 4:12: "A garden enclosed, my sister, my spouse, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed." St. Gregory Nazianzen in his oration to Gregory of Nyssa explains this of a faithful friend: "A faithful friend," he says, "is an enclosed garden, a sealed fountain, which are opened and shared at the appropriate time," as if to say: Just as from a garden you draw fruits, and from a fountain water, whenever you please: so also from a friend you receive all things useful for life.
Moreover, Cicero in his book On Friendship: "There are many things," he says, "in which good men take away much from their own advantages, and allow it to be taken, so that their friends may rather enjoy them than they themselves."
How great a treasure friendship is, is clear from its duties and laws, which, among others, Cicero enumerates in his book On Friendship. The first law, he says, to be established in friendship is that we neither ask for shameful things nor do them when asked. Second, in friendship nothing should be feigned, nothing pretended, and whatever there is should be true and voluntary. Third, in true friendship neither party should love himself more than the other. Fourth, it should be a rule in friendship that excessive goodwill (which often happens) should not impede the great advantages of friends. Fifth, friendship should not be directed to our own profit but to the benefit of him whom we love: otherwise it will not be friendship but a kind of commerce in one's own advantages. Sixth, not utility follows friendship, but friendship follows utility. Seventh, friendship should never be untimely, never burdensome. Eighth, friendship has been given by nature as an aid to virtues, not as a companion of vices. Ninth, friendship must be maintained with the utmost fidelity, constancy, and justice. Tenth, in friendship the superior should make himself equal to the inferior. Eleventh, excessive friendships should be avoided, lest it be necessary for one to be anxious for many. Twelfth, there should be no satiety in friendship, and the oldest friendships should be the sweetest. Thirteenth, friends must often be admonished and reproved. Fourteenth, friendships that are less approved should be gradually dissolved, not suddenly cut off, as Cato thought. Fifteenth, friendship requires mutual greetings, offices, affability, and conversation. For, as Aristotle says, book VIII of the Ethics, chapter 5: "Many friendships are dissolved by aprosegoria, that is, taciturnity or want of affability." Sixteenth, a friend should rejoice with a friend in joyful times, grieve with him in sorrowful times, and relieve him with every resource and effort. For, as Diogenes says, "all things of friends and gods are common." And Plutarch, book III of the Symposiacs, question 10: "Friends to the salt and cumin," so that, namely, they bear and sustain their mutual poverty, and are prepared to dine together with nothing but salt and cumin set before them. Seventeenth, a friend should take upon himself the hatreds, disadvantages, and losses of his friend.
Eighteenth, a friend should accommodate himself to his friend in strength, feelings, and wishes, as far as is lawful. For, as Plutarch says in the same place: "The harmony of strings indeed is composed of contrary sounds, high and low, in any case producing a certain likeness: but the harmony of friendship wishes no part to be dissimilar or unequal; rather, all words, thoughts, counsels, and affections must agree among themselves, as if one soul were diffused through many bodies." Moreover, a friend should constantly endure sorrowful and harsh things for a friend. So the Martyrs endured fires, the rack, wild beasts, etc., with a brave and joyful spirit for God, most dear to them. Hence St. Augustine on chapter 6 of St. John, treatise 27: "How," he says, "did St. Lawrence remain in Him (God)? He remained even to trial, he remained even to the tyrant's interrogation, he remained even to death — no, that is too little — he remained even to savage torture. For he was not killed quickly, but was tormented in fire." So Christ calls the Apostles friends, John 15:15. Why? Because "you are those who have remained with Me in My trials," Luke 22:28.
15. THERE IS NO COMPARISON FOR A FAITHFUL FRIEND
(As if to say: Nothing can be compared to him as an equivalent.) In Greek, ouk estin antallagma, that is, there is no exchange, barter, compensation; Vatablus: for a faithful friend there is no equal price, there is nothing that equals his dignity and usefulness, so that even if you were to buy a faithful friend with all your wealth, you would still not weigh out an equal and just price for him); AND THERE IS NO WORTHY WEIGHING OF GOLD AND SILVER AGAINST THE GOODNESS OF HIS FIDELITY — which, namely, might be placed against it in the other pan of the scale and equal its weight and value: for the goodness of fidelity, that is, the faithfulness of a friend, will always outweigh any amount of gold and silver, and will be more worthy and more precious. In Greek, kai ouk esti stathmos tes kallones autou, that is, and there is no weight of his beauty (goodness), as if to say: The beauty, that is, the honor, goodness, and worth of a true friend cannot be sufficiently weighed or estimated. The Syriac: for a faithful friend there is no price. He cannot be valued by a price, because he surpasses all price, and there is no weight of his grace (in the dative). The Zurich version: the honor of his fidelity is repaid by nothing worthily; nothing is antiaxion to him, that is, comparable, equal, or to be set beside him. Hence among the Hebrews there is a proverb: "A friend in the street is better than gold in a chest." And Homer, Odyssey, theta: "A faithful friend is not inferior to, nor to be placed after, a full brother." And Cicero, in On Friendship: "I am not sure," he says, "whether, with the exception of wisdom,
anything has been given to man better than friendship by the immortal gods. Those who remove friendship from life seem to remove the sun from the world." Finally, Francisco de Vitoria, and following him Francisco Suarez, in the treatise On Charity, disputation 9, section 4, teach that the benefits of a friend toward a friend can be so great that it is lawful to love him more than one's own father. See Plutarch, in his dialogue On the Faithful Friend, where he prefers him to all blood relatives: "You have," he says, "a thing most sweet and most sacred, than which — after virtue alone — nothing better has been given to man, whether by nature, or by chance, or by effort: sweet, I confess, are parents, sweet are grandparents, sweet likewise are children, sweet are brothers, sweet are wives; yet they can become bitter, nor have parents, brothers, or children ceased to be what they are, even though they have ceased to be sweet: but a friend alone, as long as he is true, never ceases to be sweet and dear."
With a notable fable of the dog and the wolf, Cyril illustrates the same point from the deepest roots of friendship and virtue, in book III of his Moral Apologues, the last chapter: A dog, he says, beaten by his master and crying and howling, was rebuked by a wolf who said: "You are guilty in your own eyes, you who have always loved man so much: for your labor therefore accept pain." He replied:
If fortune long ago gave me sweet things, why Should I disdain to endure a few hard things under it? If I have received good things from the hand of a man, why should I not also bear evil things? Like the asbestos stone, he who truly loves is always on fire. What then will be given as a worthy reward for virtue, or what equivalent return will be made for a grateful man? Certainly nothing is generously repaid by one who is grateful, except virtue for virtue, love for love, and man for man restored as quickly as possible. Go, therefore, for I am always the friend of man, and your perpetual enemy on account of man." When the wolf heard these words with fear, he immediately fled into the wilderness.
This is the third praise of friendship: that its worth is incomparable and inestimable. The fourth follows.
16. A FAITHFUL FRIEND IS THE MEDICINE OF LIFE AND IMMORTALITY
So also St. Cyprian reads, book III of the Testimonies. For in the Greek there is only pharmakon zoes, that is, a medicine of life, namely, of this miserable and wretched life: and this, first, because friendship heals all the miseries and ailments of this life, both of body and of soul, such as sorrows, anxieties, fears, etc., which are innumerable, by counseling, helping, and consoling a friend: by which he signifies that our life is a continuous infirmity and ailment, not one but manifold, of which the friend is the physician, according to Proverbs 15:4: "A peaceable tongue is a tree of life;" the Hebrew and Chaldean: the medicine (the Septuagint: the health) of the tongue is a tree of life. Hence the Syriac translates: a faithful friend is the medicine of life; the Arabic: a friend of faith (that is, a faithful one) is like a plaster of life.
"What is sweeter," says Seneca in his Proverbs, "than to have a friend with whom you dare all things; whom you trust as you trust yourself; to whom you speak as to yourself. The wise man, even though he is content with himself, nevertheless wishes to have a friend: but this for no other reason than to exercise friendship, lest so great a virtue lie idle — not for this purpose, as Epicurus says, to have someone to sit beside him and come to his aid, but to have someone beside whom he may sit whenever he pleases." Truly St. Jerome in his commentary on Micah, chapter 7: "A friend," he says, "is sought for a long time, scarcely found, and preserved with difficulty." For, as the Comic poet says: "What a physician is to a sick body, that a friend is to sickness of the mind. For friendly words are a fitting remedy."
Second, a friend is a medicine of life and immortality because he brings and prolongs life: both the present mortal life, by making a man untroubled and impassible; and the future immortal life, like the tree of life, according to that verse: "The fruit of the just is a tree of life," Proverbs 11:30. For he is the truest friend who teaches his friend the way and leads him to blessed immortality. A faithful and Christian friend, therefore, by his admonitions, counsels, instructions, and corrections brings it about that his friend lives forever, both in this age through fame and in the future through glory. On this account St. Augustine, book IV of the Confessions, chapter 6: "Well," he says, "did a certain man (Horace) say of his friend: The half of my soul. For I felt that my soul and his (my friend's) soul were one soul in two bodies; and therefore life was a horror to me, because I did not wish to live as a half: and perhaps for that reason I feared to die, lest he whom I had loved so much should die entirely."
Hear Rabanus: "A friend is so called, as it were the guardian of the soul. In a faithful friend indeed is the medicine of life and immortality: because, if he is faithful, he is assuredly a friend according to God; and if he is a friend according to God, he always discusses with his friend those things that pertain to the medicine of eternal life and perpetual immortality."
Hence that saying of Cicero: "friendship cannot exist except among good men. For it belongs to a good man (whom we may also call a wise man) to hold these two principles in friendship: first, that nothing be feigned or pretended; for to love or hate openly is more noble than to hide one's feelings behind a facade. Second, not only to repel accusations brought by someone else, but not even to be suspicious oneself, always thinking that something has been violated by a friend. To this must be added a certain sweetness of conversation and character, by no means a trivial seasoning of friendship. Sadness indeed, and severity in all things, has its gravity; but friendship should be more relaxed, more free, more sweet, and more inclined to every kind of ease."
Hear also St. Ambrose, book I of On Duties, chapter 32: "Goodwill," he says, "a kind of common parent of all, which binds and unites friendship: faithful in counsels, joyful in prosperity, in sorrows
the bearing of a friend's burden." St. Gregory Nazianzen showed himself such a philanthropic friend, as he himself writes to the same person, Epistle 64: "What is troublesome to you," he says, "is certainly so to us as well: we consider all things common among friends, both prosperous and adverse, and this is the law of friendship." Finally, St. Chrysostom elegantly says in Homily 2 on the First Epistle to the Thessalonians: "Truly, a faithful friend is the medicine of life; truly, a faithful friend is a strong protection. For what would a genuine friend not accomplish? How much benefit, how much security does he generate! If you were to name a thousand treasures, none would correspond to a genuine friend." And after some further remarks: "With a friend, even poverty is tolerable; without him, both health and riches are intolerable. He who has a friend has another self. I am struck dumb and, as it were, choked in my throat, unable to express this matter by any example. I knew a certain man who, when he besought holy men on behalf of his friend, would beg them to pray first for his friend, and only then for himself."
A friend, therefore, is a salutary and all-useful medicine of life against all its diseases and wounds. He consoles you when mourning, raises you up when despairing, refreshes you when in pain, rouses you when trembling: in difficulties he is a protection, in doubts a counsel, in adversity a comfort, in prosperity, lest you fall or vanish, a support. What more? He is even a medicine of immortality: for although you are dead and buried, he does not allow you to perish entirely from his own and others' memory -- he celebrates the deeds of the deceased, repeats his sayings, proclaims his virtues and merits; and (what is more useful and desirable) because a true curator and friend of the soul accompanies the soul of the departed with Christian prayers and acts of piety, so that it may at last be endowed with the gift of glorious immortality. For a true and faithful friend seeks not his own gain, but his friend's. "What is a friend," says St. Ambrose, "but a confidant of love? Friendship is not a source of revenue, but full of grace. Friendship is a virtue, not a profit." So he says, Book III of the Offices, final chapter. Here applies the proverb of the Hebrews: "Either companionship (friendship), or death," meaning: "Life without a friend is not life, but death." "What life worth living can there be," says Cicero in his book On Friendship, "that does not rest in the mutual good will of a friend? We would experience this if God were to remove us from this society of men and place us in solitude; and so, while supplying an abundance of all things that nature desires, were to take away entirely the power of beholding any human being: who would be so iron-hearted as to bear such a life, and from whom would not solitude take away the fruit of all pleasures?" For this reason Aristotle, in Politics Book II, says "he who cannot associate with others is either a God or a beast." Cicero continues: "A friend is more necessary than fire and water." For just as human life cannot exist without fire and water, so neither can it exist without the companionship and service of friends, whom for this very reason the Latins call
sorrowful, so that each person trusts the counsel of one who is benevolent toward him more than that of one who is wise: as David, though he was more prudent, nevertheless acquiesced to the counsel of the younger Jonathan. Take benevolence from the dealings of men, and it will be as if you have taken the sun from the world: because without it human intercourse cannot exist -- to show the way to a traveler, to call back the one who strays, to offer hospitality, to give water from a flowing stream, to light a lamp from another lamp. It is therefore no small virtue, of which Job boasted when he said: "The stranger did not lodge outside; my door was open to every comer." Benevolence, therefore, is in all these things, like a fountain of water refreshing the thirsty, like a light that shines even in others, nor is it lacking to those who have lit a light for others from their own. The same St. Ambrose, Book III, final chapter: "The comfort of this life," he says, "is to have someone to whom you may open your heart; to find for yourself a faithful man who rejoices with you in prosperity, who sympathizes in sorrows, who encourages in persecutions, and who in turn restrains you when you exult in happy times, and lifts you up when you mourn in sad ones."
Again, St. Augustine (or whoever the author may be), in the book On Friendship, chapter 2: "A friend," he says, "is so called as a guardian, as it were, of love, or of the soul itself: because my friend ought to be the guardian of mutual love, or of the soul itself, so that he may preserve all its secrets with faithful silence, and whatever he sees to be faulty in it, he may guard against and efface with all his power: that he may rejoice with the rejoicing and grieve with the grieving." And in chapter 5: "A wise friend," he says, "is a medicine of life. For there is no stronger or more effective remedy for our wounds than to have someone who meets every misfortune with compassion, and every good fortune with congratulation: so that, joining their shoulders together, they may bear one another's burdens, and each may bear his own injury more lightly than his friend's. Friendship, therefore, makes prosperous circumstances more splendid; and by sharing and communicating adverse ones, renders them lighter: for this has pleased even the philosophers. We do not use water, sun, or fire in more situations than we use a friend: in every action, in every pursuit, in certainties, in doubts, in whatever event, in whatever fortune, in private, in public, in every consolation, at home and abroad, everywhere friendship is welcome, a friend is necessary, useful grace is found. Wherefore friends, says Cicero, are present to one another even when absent, the needy abound, the weak are strong, and -- what is harder to say -- the dead live. Therefore friendship is for the rich in place of almsgiving, for exiles in place of a homeland, for the poor in place of wealth, for the sick in place of medicine, for the dead in place of life, for the healthy in place of grace, for the weak in place of virtue, for the strong in place of reward." He adds that a true friend bears his own injury more lightly than his friend's.
The same St. Augustine, Sermon 21 On the Words of the Apostle, citing those words of the Apostle, Galatians 6:2: "Bear one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ": "Nothing," he says, "so proves a friend as
"necessaries," just as they call friendship a "necessity." This saying of Cicero suggests that two very great advantages are derived from friendship: pleasure and usefulness; for nothing is more delightful than fire, nothing more useful than water. Here applies the adage: "Friendship is the salt of life; wisdom is the eye of life; patience is the antidote of life."
Fifth Encomium of Friendship
AND THOSE WHO FEAR THE LORD SHALL FIND HIM. -- He teaches here that the way to find and obtain a faithful friend is the love of God. For a faithful friend is a great gift of God, which God bestows upon His worshippers as, so to speak, a great reward for their worship; by which He at the same time shows that a true friend is a great, indeed a divine good, inasmuch as it ought to be hoped for and sought not from man, but from God. Wherefore this is the fifth encomium of friendship. Hence the Tigurina translates: "but such a one shall those who revere the Lord obtain"; and the Syriac: "and he who fears God, he himself is," namely, a faithful friend. So also the Arabic: "and he is (a friend of faith) from among those who fear God," that is, a faithful friend is one who fears God, meaning: If you seek a faithful friend, seek one who fears God, because there is no faithful friend except one who fears God. For he who fears God is faithful to God, and therefore is also faithful to man, especially to a friend. "What is more precious than friendship," exclaims Rabanus, "which is common to angels and men? The Lord Himself made friends out of servants, as He says in John 15: 'You are My friends, if you do what I command you.' He gave us a model of friendship to follow." Finally, the fountain and origin of friendship is God Himself, and the Godhead, which on account of friendship communicates Itself to the three divine Persons. These, therefore, are among themselves the first uncreated and supreme friends, who communicate their good of friendship to angels and men. Hence St. Ambrose, Book II On the Holy Spirit, at the end: "A certain man (Cicero, in his book On Friendship)," he says, "when asked what a friend was, replied: 'Another self.' If, therefore, a man so defined a friend as to call him another self, by unity, namely, of love and grace: how much more ought we to esteem the unity of majesty in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, when through the same operation and divinity, either unity, or certainly what is even greater, tautotes (that is, identity) is expressed? For tauton means 'the same,' from the fact that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have the same, so that to will the same and to be able to do the same is not a matter of the affection of the will, but of the substance of the Trinity."
Verse 17. HE WHO FEARS GOD SHALL EQUALLY HAVE GOOD FRIENDSHIP (meaning: Just as one who fears the Lord preserves and cultivates a constant love and faithful friendship with Him, so equally, that is, correspondingly, fittingly, justly, and deservedly, he will find and have the good friendship of a faithful friend: because it is fitting, just, and proper that he who is faithful to God should likewise find men faithful to him, especially friends), BECAUSE HIS FRIEND SHALL BE ACCORDING TO HIM, meaning: Because as he is toward God and neighbor, so in turn shall his friend be toward him: so that just as he is faithful to God and neighbor, so likewise his friends shall be faithful to him. This meaning is required by
the Greek text, which reads as follows: "He who fears the Lord directs," that is, rectifies, makes right, establishes rightly his friendship: for his neighbor will be such toward him as he is, namely, faithful, sincere, constant, just as he himself is toward God. Palacius interprets it differently, meaning: As you are, so also is your friend; for like seeks like. For since a friend is another self, if I am good, my friend will also be good; if he is bad, then I too am bad. For all things among friends are common; therefore virtue or vice is also common. Your friend is a clear indication of your character: if you have a bad friend, you demonstrate that you yourself are bad. If a friend is a gift of God, God, being good, cannot give bad gifts. Therefore the friend of a good man will be good. So says Palacius.
The Syriac, moreover, to what it had premised, "He who fears God, he himself is," namely, a faithful friend, fittingly adds: those who fear God will strengthen their friendships, and as he is among his friends; and the Arabic: their friendship will endure, because his friends are like him, meaning: A firm friendship is strengthened by nothing except the fear of God: because as God is, so also are His friends, both toward God and toward one another; for things that agree in one third thing agree likewise among themselves. True friendship, therefore, is the friendship of those who agree in God and are united in the love and charity of God: for God, since He is faithful, constant, and unchangeable, likewise makes His friends faithful, constant, and unchangeable. In the same way, whoever seeks faithful servants, soldiers, workers, or maidservants, let him seek those who fear God. For the fear of God compels them to be faithful to their master and leader, just as it compels them to be faithful to God. Those who understand this are happy, and they are served excellently everywhere. This is what Ben Sira says in the first Alphabet, under the letter Tsade: "If it is necessary for you to enter into business dealings of buying and selling, let your lot be with a good man," meaning: If you must do business, do business with an honest man, not with a dishonest one; because God assists the honest, but resists the dishonest. The Emperor Constantius, the father of Constantine the Great, understood this. As Eusebius relates in Book I of the Life of Constantine, in order to distinguish sincere Christians from pretended ones, and to choose friends and courtiers for himself, he feigned an edict that the worshippers of Christ should leave his court, and that only followers of idols should remain in it. Wherefore the true Christians left the court, while the pretenders remained. Then he, having uncovered the pretense, expelled all the idolaters from the court as traitors, and admitted only the true Christians, saying: How will those who have been caught being faithless toward God keep faith with the Emperor? But those who had confessed the truth, he declared worthy to be near the Emperor; and so he commanded them to be the guardians of his person and even of his kingdom, saying that such men ought to be cultivated and honored among the first and most necessary, both as friends and as familiars, and to be held in greater honor and esteem than treasuries of great wealth."
Hear Rabanus on this: "A full, therefore," he says,
and perfect grace of friendship cannot endure except among perfect men and those of the same virtue, as the Holy Fathers have taught. Whence they established, as it were, certain steps by which one might arrive at its perfection and inviolable state. The first step of true friendship, therefore, they said consists in contempt for worldly substance and disdain for all the things we possess. The second, that each person should so cut back his own will that, rather than judging himself wise and well-advised and preferring his own opinions, he should obey his neighbor's decisions. The third, that he should know that all things, even those he considers useful and necessary, are to be subordinated to the good of charity and peace. The fourth, that he should believe one ought never to grow angry for just or unjust reasons. The fifth, that he should desire to cure the anger of a brother directed against himself, even when conceived without reason, in the same way he would cure his own, knowing that the sadness of another is equally pernicious to himself as if he himself were provoked against another, unless he has, as far as it is in his power, driven it from his brother's mind. The last is this, which is without doubt the general destroyer of all vices: that he should believe he is about to depart from this world every day; this conviction not only does not permit any sadness to remain in the heart, but also represses all movements of desires and of all sins. Whoever, therefore, holds to these things will be able neither to suffer nor to inflict the bitterness of anger and discord."
The sages of the Gentiles said the same about natural friendship, namely that which is founded on the sharing of natural goods and virtues. Cicero, in the book of Offices: "Of all associations, none is more excellent," he says, "none more firm, than when good men of similar character are joined by intimate acquaintance. For nothing is more lovable, nothing more uniting, than a similarity of good character. In those in whom there are the same pursuits, the same desires, in those it happens that each delights equally in the other as in himself, and that which Pythagoras desires in friendship is achieved: that one be made from many." The same author, in the book On Friendship, asserts that "friendship cannot exist except among good men." "Virtue," he says, "establishes and preserves friendships; for in it there is agreement of interests, in it stability, in it constancy: which, when it has raised itself up and shown its light, and has beheld and recognized the same in another, moves toward it, and in turn receives that which is in the other: from which is kindled either love or friendship -- for both words derive from loving."
These are Aristotle's teachings on friendship: "A friend is another self," Ethics Book IX. "A friend should hold himself to his friend as the knee to the shin," ibid. "When both are friends, it is sacred to give preference to truth, so that one may say: Plato is a friend, but truth is a greater friend," Ethics Book I. "Honest friendship is properly called friendship; other kinds are so only incidentally," Ethics Book III, chapter 4. "Friendship consists more in loving than in being loved. Mothers are proof of this, who take joy in loving their children and do not care about being loved in return," Ethics Book VIII, chapter 8. "Pro-
Proverbs in friendship are: 'One soul'; 'All things are common among friends'; 'Equality is friendship'; 'The shin is nearer than the knee,'" Ethics Book IX, chapter 8. "Where there is right and justice, there is friendship." Wherefore, "as many as are the kinds of justice, so many also are the kinds of friendship. Justice certainly exists between a host and a citizen, between a slave and a master, between citizen and citizen, between a son and a father, between a wife and a husband, etc., and friendships exist in each of these relationships," Magna Moralia Book II, chapter 12. "The friendship of the good and those who are in virtue is perfect," Ethics Book VIII, chapter 3. "The most constant, therefore, the most stable and the most honorable, is the friendship which exists among upright men; since it is for the sake of virtue and is good in itself. For virtue is unchangeable, and the friendship that is established through it is most constant; but that which arises from advantage is not stable, since it slips away together with the advantage," Magna Moralia Book II, chapter 12. If these things are true in natural friendship, they will certainly be more true in supernatural friendship, which is founded on the sharing of supernatural goods and virtues, and especially on charity; for charity is perfect friendship, both of man with God and of man with man. The a priori reason, therefore, why friendship is constant even in adversity, is its honesty, dignity, and excellence; likewise charity, on which, if it is supernatural, it rests. On this, see more at Proverbs 17:17.
Furthermore, all these things which the Wise Man here ordains about a friend apply par excellence to Christ the Lord. For He Himself is the friend of friends, to be loved and honored above all friends; through whom and in whom all other friends are to be loved and honored; without whom there is no true friend. Christ, therefore, first, pours forth a sweet word, because His tongue is gracious, and the tongue of graces, because it is not the tongue of Angels, but of God and of the Word of God, according to Psalm 44:3: "Grace is poured forth upon Your lips"; and Song of Songs 5:13: "His lips are lilies, distilling choice myrrh"; and verse 16: "His mouth is most sweet, and He is altogether desirable: such is my beloved, and He is my friend." Wherefore St. Cyprian truly said of the Passion of Christ: "The sweetness and piety of Christ triumphs over impiety and malice." Second, Christ is for us a counselor, one in a thousand; for this is the name that Isaiah gives Him in chapter 9, verse 6. See what is said there. Third, Christ is a friend in temptation, because through the Cross, His Passion, and the death He underwent for us, He proved His friendship toward us. And because in the Eucharist He left Himself to us as food for the remedy of temptations and the comfort and strength of all tribulations. See St. Ambrose, Book VII on Luke, chapter 11: "Who," he says, "is more a friend to us than He who delivered His body for us?" Fourth, Christ is of one mind with us, because He deigned to become our brother through the Incarnation. Fifth, Christ is a faithful friend, and therefore a strong protection. Sixth, Christ is the treasure of our soul. Seventh, nothing can be equaled or com-
pared to Christ: "Because," he says, "he had given himself entirely to Christ and to the Cross, and did everything according to His will, he did not say: I live for Christ; but what is far greater: Christ lives in me." Hence St. Bernard wisely and piously says in the Formula of an Honest Life: "Let Jesus," he says, "be always in your heart, and let the image of the Crucified One never depart from your mind: always think of Him hanging on the Cross for you. Thus indeed He will be for you a bundle of myrrh between your breasts." And St. Augustine in the Meditations, chapter 35: "Most sweet and most loving Jesus, pour forth, I beseech You, the abundance of Your charity into my breast, so that I may have You alone in my heart. Write with Your finger on my breast a sweet memory, never to be erased by any forgetfulness, etc. How great is the multitude of Your sweetness, which You have hidden for those who fear You!" The same, Epistle 52 to Macedonius: "From the charity," he says, "of eternity and truth, whose seal is Christ, flows true friendship, not to be weighed by temporal advantages, but to be obtained by gratuitous love. For no one can truly be a friend of man unless he has first been a friend of truth itself."
SECOND PART OF THE CHAPTER. ON THE DIFFICULTY OF WISDOM
18. MY SON, FROM YOUR YOUTH (Syriac: from your childhood) RECEIVE (it reads epidexai; others now read epilexai, that is, choose) INSTRUCTION (in Greek paideias, that is, the training of discipline, by which paides, that is, children, are educated and formed in letters and good morals), AND EVEN TO YOUR GRAY HAIRS YOU SHALL FIND WISDOM. -- For eos polion, that is, "even to gray hairs," some incorrectly read eos podon, that is, "even to the feet." For wisdom is not in the foot or of that kind, but in the head and in gray hairs. The Tigurina: "My son, from your youth learn discipline, and growing gray you shall at last find wisdom"; Vatablus: "you shall find it lasting even to gray hairs"; or: "you shall pursue it even to old age." So that by metalepsis "you shall find" is taken for "you shall seek, investigate, pursue"; for what we desire to find, we seek, trace, and pursue.
There is therefore here a twofold meaning. First, meaning: My son, from your youth receive with an open heart the instruction and teaching of the wise: thus it will come about that even to your gray hairs, that is, in your gray hairs, namely in old age and hoary age, you shall find wisdom; for wisdom must be learned over a long time, and from childhood through every stage of life, so that in old age we may fully possess and enjoy it. For in children gluttony dominates, in youth lust, in mature men ambition: but all these fall away in old age, and then a man begins to be perfectly wise, when his passions
he perceives approaching. Again, then he finds wisdom, that is, the fruits of wisdom, namely peace of mind, moderation, joy, etc.; for wisdom produces these fruits. Learn therefore, O youth, so that in old age you may find and enjoy wisdom; for wisdom, as Aristotle says, is not in the novelty of youth, but in the experience of the old.
Second, meaning: My son, from your youth devote yourself to learning and wisdom, because it will never abandon you; but it will cling to you even to your gray hairs, and will accompany you inseparably, while riches, pleasures, and honors abandon a man in old age. Again, Palacius explains it thus, meaning: Learn, O youth, and even to old age it will always be possible to find wisdom and to advance in it. For since wisdom is the love of God, shining with His light, flowing from His grace, just as in grace and love and faith it is always possible, as long as we live, to advance (as a certain Clementine decree established), so also in wisdom it will always be possible to advance even to gray hairs.
The former meaning is favored by what follows: "As one who plows and sows, approach her, and wait for (expect in old age) her good fruits," meaning: Sow in youth the seeds of wisdom, so that you may reap its harvests in old age; for wisdom belongs to the old, to those old men, I say, who have devoted themselves to it from their youth: for those who from boyhood have devoted themselves to desire and fool-
ishness, in old age will likewise be lustful and foolish. Hence Nazianzen in the Tetrastichs: "Wisdom," he says, "befits the old; temperance, the young." It is therefore a praise of wisdom that it is the beauty and ornament of old age. In order, then, to secure this good for your old age, begin to devote yourself to it from boyhood. But you may also adapt this very thing to the latter meaning; for he adds: "In her work you shall labor but a little, and soon you shall eat of her fruits." The latter meaning, therefore, being richer, is also simpler and more genuine, and includes the former. In sum, he commands the student of wisdom to learn it from boyhood, both because a child's age is like wax and a blank slate, which easily receives whatever figures are impressed upon it and firmly retains them, according to the saying:
"The jar will long preserve the scent With which, when new, it first was filled."
But old age is hard and inflexible from those things which it learned in youth and to which it became accustomed over so many years. Also because the study of wisdom is sublime, long, and arduous, and therefore must be undertaken from boyhood. St. Jerome excellently teaches in Epistle 7, to Laeta, On the Education of Her Daughter, that she should be imbued from childhood with letters and holy morals: "What untrained minds have imbibed," he says, "is hard to eradicate. Who can restore to its original color wool that has been dyed with purple?" On the education of children, see more in Clement of Alexandria in the Pedagogue, Xenophon in the Education of Cyrus, Plato in Books II, IV, and VII of the Republic, Aristotle in the Economics, Plutarch, and others. I shall say more on this subject at chapter 30, verse 1.
Here begins the second part of the chapter, in which he passes from friendship to the study of wisdom, both because true friendship is the companion and daughter of wisdom, and because Sirach repeatedly leaps and returns to wisdom as the aim and theme of the entire book: for this whole book treats of wisdom, both in general and in particular; it reviews various virtues and the duties of virtue; and then from the particular species it returns to the genus, namely to wisdom, as to its proper and adequate object.
19. AS ONE WHO PLOWS AND SOWS, APPROACH HER (that is, labor with patience and long-suffering), AND WAIT FOR HER GOOD FRUITS. -- The Syriac: "As a sower and as a reaper, approach her, and you shall gather the multitude of her fruits"; Vatablus: "as one who plows and sows, approach her, and expect good fruits from her." "With the plowshare of the Gospel," says Rabanus, "he who desires to eat the seed of the divine word and to reap the sweetest fruits of sacred virtues must root out from his heart the shoots of vices." He teaches the way of acquiring wisdom by the similitude and manner of acquiring crops and harvest through agriculture. For just as the farmer, first, with great labor uproots thorns and roots, or, as Cato says, "clears them away," that is, pulls out weeds, clears the ground, and eradicates them; then plows, works, and cultivates the land. Second, he sows in it what he desires to reap, and endures the expense of seed so that he may receive it back more abundantly. Third,
he does all these things in the hope of crops, because, namely, he hopes for a rich harvest. Fourth, he waits with long-suffering for the harvest over many months. So likewise the student of wisdom must first polish, work, and cultivate his mind, as it were the soil, by pulling out the thorns of vices with much labor, according to Jeremiah 4:3: "Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns." Second, he must cast and receive in it the seeds of divine wisdom, partly by reading or hearing, partly by meditating, partly by praying, partly by drawing in divine illuminations and inspirations. Third, he must hope for the fruit and harvest of wisdom. Fourth, he must wait with long-suffering for it, and for the abundance, sweetness, and excellence of its fruits, according to the saying:
"Much has the boy endured and done; he has sweated and been cold."
And:
"Venerable knowledge does not lie in a soft bed; But it is won by constant labor."
Alluding to this, St. James in chapter 5, verse 7, says: "Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, bearing patiently until he receives the early and the late rain: be patient therefore, you also, and strengthen your hearts," etc. See what is said there. Moreover, just as agriculture demands the labor of an entire lifetime, so the cultivation of wisdom demands it even more urgently. Therefore Paul says: "You are God's field," 1 Corinthians 3:9.
Wherefore St. Bernard, in the Sermon on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit: "The field is the world, says the Truth; let us dig in it: a hidden treasure lies concealed; let us dig it up. It is wisdom itself, which is drawn from hidden things. We all seek it; we all desire it; but he seeks in vain who seeks it in his bed." And Seneca, Epistle 109: "Good men," he says, "benefit one another; for they exercise their virtues and keep wisdom in its proper state. Practice exercises those skilled in wrestling. The wise man also needs the exercise of virtues." Therefore, just as a field of earth, in order to bear a bountiful harvest, must with long labor and hope be plowed, dug, harrowed, sown, weeded, etc., so all these things must likewise be carried out mystically in the field of the soul, so that it may bring forth abundant fruits of wisdom and virtue. For as Origen says in Homily 9 on Exodus, "the hope of future things brings rest to those who labor, just as the hope of the crown mitigates the pain of wounds for those in combat." And the Apostle: "He who plows should plow in hope," 1 Corinthians 9:10. See what is said there.
20. FOR IN HER WORK YOU SHALL LABOR BUT A LITTLE, AND SOON YOU SHALL EAT OF HER OFFSPRING (that is, the fruits generated by her). -- The Syriac: "as though you labored but a little labor, and immediately you shall eat her fruits"; Vatablus: "for in her work you shall not have labored much before you soon eat of her produce."
For "in her work," the Greek is en ergasia. This word signifies three things: first, the work and craft itself; second, the operation itself, the occupation, action, cultivation, exercise, effort, and labor that is undertaken to accomplish the work, name-
ly, the agricultural labor itself; third, the gain and profit of both, namely of both the work and the operation and labor. It can be taken in all these senses here, but best in the second. For he persists in the metaphor of the farmer, who with great labor plows, weeds, and sows the land; for just as the farmer, after cultivating the land, soon gathers fruit from it, so the student of wisdom, from the study and cultivation of the mind, immediately and more quickly than the farmer gathers from it the sweet and excellent fruits of wisdom, according to the saying: "Going, they went and wept, casting their seed: but coming, they shall come with rejoicing, carrying their sheaves," Psalm 125:6. This is what Paul says in Hebrews 12:11: "All discipline, for the present indeed, seems not to be of joy but of sorrow: but afterwards it will yield to those exercised by it the most peaceable fruit of justice."
Moreover, the fruits and harvests of wisdom are many and excellent, of which Palacius lists these few: The first is to free the soul from the darkness and blindness that perseverance in sin produces. The second, to free it from the torments that a guilty conscience feels; for since sin is a wound of the soul, it necessarily inflicts pain and torment upon it, unless it lies dead. The third and greatest, to free it from the fear of hell, which the sinner has brought upon himself. "For in death there is no one who remembers You; and in hell, who shall confess to You?" The fourth is to raise the soul to the hope of obtaining eternal life: "Waiting (he says) for the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God," etc. The fifth, to raise the soul to profess its faith in God as a father, who will comfort us in all our tribulation. The sixth, "to await the day of death and judgment with confidence of soul"; indeed, sometimes to say: "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." The seventh, to feel even now heavenly joy, gladness, and exultation, as He says: "You have prepared a table before me"; and again: "The Lord will make on this mountain a feast of rich foods full of marrow." And again: "Rejoice in the Lord always. O how good and sweet is Your spirit, O Lord!" Wisdom 12:1. "Taste and see that the Lord is sweet," Psalm 33:9. "I ran the way of Your commandments, when You enlarged my heart," Psalm 118:32. Moreover, the soul immediately receives these first fruits, and then gradually the rest; indeed, not rarely with the expulsion of sins one feels a wonderful serenity of conscience, a pleasantness of grace, an abundance of heavenly consolation with which God soothes the soul, sweet and pious tears, etc. A brilliant example shone forth in Christ, who, having labored for a short time on the Cross and in death, soon rose again to immortal life and glory, reaping from the brief seed of His Passion immense riches and eternal glory for Himself and for us.
21. HOW EXCEEDINGLY HARSH IS WISDOM TO THE UNLEARNED, AND THE SENSELESS MAN SHALL NOT REMAIN IN HER. -- He calls the unlearned those who are foolish and imprudent, who follow not reason but desire. He calls them the same "senseless," that is, witless and stupid; for to these, on account of its harshness, practical wisdom is an object of horror (for it is of such wisdom that he here commonly speaks), namely prudence, virtue, and holiness. Hence the Syriac translates: "how harsh is wisdom to fools, and the senseless will not endure it"; the Tigurina: "how exceedingly harsh it is to the unskilled; for no senseless person perseveres with it," meaning: How harsh is temperance to the glutton, chastity to the lustful, generosity to the miser, humility to the proud, gentleness to the wrathful, labor and diligence to the lazy! Indeed, it is to him like a stone of burden, as verse 22 says; for just as sweet foods seem bitter to a bitter stomach, so to one who is carnal and addicted to his desires, wisdom and virtue, though in themselves sweet and gentle, seem harsh, inaccessible, and impossible, according to Proverbs 24:7: "Wisdom is too high for the fool"; and Proverbs 15:5: "The fool mocks his father's discipline"; and verse 12: "The pestilent man does not love him who reproves him, nor does he go to the wise."
22. AS THE TRIAL OF A STONE'S STRENGTH SHALL BE IN THEM, AND THEY SHALL NOT DELAY TO CAST HER AWAY. -- "The strength," or force, "of a stone" is the stone's resistance, weight, and heaviness. In the likeness of this, there "shall be" for the foolish a "trial" of wisdom, meaning: Just as a lazy man, wanting to lift and place on his shoulder or head a heavy and ponderous stone, as soon as he feels its heaviness and weight, immediately puts it down and throws it away: so fools sometimes attempt to learn wisdom, and think of lifting it onto their shoulders and taking it up; but as soon as they feel its difficulty, burden, and weight, they immediately throw it away out of laziness and love of their own desires. Therefore, just as a stone tests the strength of the body, so wisdom tests the strength of the soul; for those who embrace it with a brave and resolute spirit generously overcome its every burden, and so the burden is turned for them into lightness, and as it were into wings and feathers; but those who are of a depressed and carnal spirit succumb to its burden, and therefore abandon it. The Syriac and Hugo take the stone to mean a precious gem; for thus the Syriac translates: "as a precious stone is above him, lest he look upon it and let it go," meaning: The fool looks upon wisdom from afar, as upon a gem, for example a diamond, raised above himself and his resources, which therefore he does not dare to look upon closely as being of too great a price, so as to purchase it and place it in his breast, but leaves it for richer and nobler people to buy. But no one wants to apobripsai, that is, to cast away, a gem. Therefore others better take the stone everywhere as a common, heavy, and ponderous stone; for one who feels its weight to be beyond his strength immediately throws it away. Hence Vatablus translates: "as a stone is proved heavy" (in Greek ischyros, that is, strong, mighty, weighty), "it presses upon him, and he interposes no delay before shaking it off." He alludes to the stone of wrestling; for in wrestling contests, men competed in strength to see who could carry the larger and heavier stone: for this was called the stone of burden, or discus, and in Greek lithos dokimasias, that is, the stone of testing, because by it they tested and explored
how great were the strength and vigor of each person, so that they might know who should be matched and pitted against whom as an antagonist in wrestling. Concerning this, Zechariah chapter 12, verse 3: "In that day," he says, "I will make Jerusalem like a stone of burden for all peoples: all who shall lift it shall be torn with wounds." See what is said there. This stone, therefore, is for the lazy and timid a stone of burden; but for the brave and those zealous for wisdom, that is, for virtue, it is a stone of strength, glory, and triumph, and therefore is, as it were, transformed for them into a brilliant gem, namely into an emerald, a ruby, and a diamond. Again, this stone is like a Lydian stone [touchstone], which tests and distinguishes true gold from false and counterfeit: for in the same way the discipline of wisdom tests and separates true disciples from false ones. Hence, alluding to this, Isidore of Pelusium, Epistle 400: "A man patient in labors," he says, "is a testing, and like a stone of dokime, that is, of proof." For, as Nazianzen says in the Poem on Virtue and the Definition of Vices: "Patience is the refining of evils."
Morally, learn here that discipline, mortification, tribulation, illness, slander, and persecution are a stone of burden and testing; for by its weight are proved the patience, humility, and fortitude of each believer. Let us therefore cheerfully take up this burden placed upon our shoulders by God, and bear it generously; thus, as athletes of Christ, we shall obtain the glory of true wisdom, namely God's grace, glory, and crown. Wherefore St. Augustine on Psalm 86: "A Christian," he says, "ought to be like a squared stone; in every tribulation he does not fall, even if he is pushed; and if he is turned in any direction, he never falls; for a squared stone, whichever way you turn it, always stands: let every misfortune find you thus standing." So also Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and Seneca call patient and brave and pious men "tetragonous," that is, foursquare. Philo, moreover, in his book On the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, compares labors and troubles with food, by which a man is nourished and strengthened: "I believe," he says, "that the power of labor is everywhere the same. For just as all life together with its activities depends on food, so also whatever is good in things depends on labor. Therefore, just as those who wish to prolong life do not neglect nourishment, so all who desire good things esteem the endurance of labors highly; for as food is to life, so is endurance to honor."
Furthermore, God measures this stone according to the strength of each person, so that He may impose a less heavy one on the less strong, and a heavier one on the stronger; or certainly, if the weight of the stone exceeds a man's strength, God increases the man's strength and makes it proportionate to the weight. Therefore no one can rightly complain about its excessive weight, nor excuse himself from bearing it. For, as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 10:13: "Let no temptation take hold of you but what is human; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will with the temptation also provide a way out, so that you may be able to endure." Finally, the weight of this
stone is felt only by the lukewarm and tepid; for those who love and are fervent say with St. Bernard: "My labor is but of one hour; and if more, I do not feel it because of love." For to one who loves, nothing is difficult.
23. FOR THE WISDOM OF DOCTRINE IS ACCORDING TO HER NAME, AND SHE IS NOT MANIFEST TO MANY. -- First, Hugo explains it thus: Wisdom is according to his name, namely, of the fool and the senseless man, spoken of in verse 22, meaning: Fools consider the wisdom of doctrine to be foolishness, because they do not grasp or relish the things that are said. But the Greek word autes, that is, "of her," which is feminine, stands against this, and therefore cannot refer to the fool, but to wisdom.
Second interpretation
Second, Dionysius, Lyranus, and Robert Holkot explain it, meaning: The wisdom of doctrine, that is, this salutary and doctrinal wisdom, teaching one to cling to the supreme good, has its name from its own property and from the thing itself and its own action, namely, from the interior savoring of divine things and the tasting of the sweetness of the supreme good; for wisdom (sapientia) is derived from savor (sapor), as it were "savory knowledge" (sapida scientia). But few perceive this hidden savor and taste of hers, and only those who are zealous for her. But against this stands the fact that Sirach was a Hebrew, not a Latin, and wrote in Hebrew, and therefore would have looked to the Hebrew name for wisdom, not to the Latin one.
Third interpretation
Third, others think that sophia, that is, wisdom, alludes to zophia, as if sophia were zophos, that is, darkness, namely something obscure and hidden. But against this stands the same objection as against the previous one; for Sirach wrote in Hebrew, not in Greek. However, he himself, being skilled in Greek, could secondarily allude to the etymology of the Greek language, which was then in common use in Egypt, where he wrote these things. So Pineda on Job chapter 28, verse 18, at the end: Sophia, he says, is derived from sophos, that is, from darkness, as if hiding in darkness and ignorance.
Fourth interpretation
Fourth, Jansenius easily dispatches the matter, and explains it thus: Wisdom is according to her name; that is, she is what she is called and proclaimed to be, namely, an arduous and lofty thing, and not accessible to just anyone. Rabanus agrees: "The wisdom of doctrine," he says, "is the sincerity of the divine law; which is according to her name, that is, prudence, truth, and virtue." Hugo concurs: Wisdom, he says, is unknown and hidden both as to its name and as to its reality: because the Philosophers dispute about both the name and the reality of wisdom. For they ask: Who is wise? What is wisdom? Again, wisdom is hidden, because it is prudence, virtue, and truth secretly illuminating the mind and inflaming the will.
Fifth interpretation
Fifth, some, reading autois, that is "to them," instead of autes, that is "of her," namely referring to the unlearned and senseless of verses 22 and 23, explain it thus, meaning: Wisdom is according to its name for the unlearned, that is, it is known to them in name only, but in reality it is unknown; or it belongs to them only as to the name, meaning: They have the name of wise men, but in reality they are foolish. The Tigurina supports this: for wisdom to such people
(the senseless) is known by its name only, and is not known to many. To this St. Thomas adds, II-II, Question 45, article 2, reply to objection 2: "It seems," he says, "that the name of wisdom is here taken for its fame, which is commended by all," meaning: The name and fame of wisdom is illustrious among all; but nevertheless few attain it. On the other hand, the Syriac translates: "her name is like her teaching, and to fools it is not revealed," meaning: To fools, both the name and the teaching of wisdom is unknown and unwelcome.
Sixth interpretation
Sixth, others take the name of wisdom not as a proper name, but as an appropriated epithet; for in Scripture, wisdom is called a hidden treasure, gold, silver, a gem, a pearl that is hidden either in the shells of the sea or in the hidden veins of the earth. See Job chapter 28, verse 12 and following, where he compares wisdom to hidden gold and topaz: "It is hidden," he says, "from the eyes of all the living: God understands its way, and He knows its place." So Pineda on Job chapter 28, verse 18, at the end. For since wisdom, he says, is often called by the names of gold, gems, and all manner of riches, it is signified that it is something hidden in secret recesses, and therefore found by very few; and, as happens with the rarest and most precious things, it is unknown and hidden to most, and known only by name; but whoever once finds it, if he is wise, never lets it go. Thus Christ calls the wisdom of the Gospel a treasure hidden in a field: "Which when a man has found, he hides; and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has and buys that field," Matthew 13:44. And the Apostle everywhere calls the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God hidden in Christ. Treasures are called precious, secret, and hidden riches; for thesauros is derived, as it were, from themenos eis aurion, that is, "stored away and hidden for the future." For this reason, Christ the Lord, addressing the Father, says: "I confess to You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so it has seemed good in Your sight," Matthew 11:25.
Seventh interpretation
Seventh, the wisdom of doctrine, namely of sacred and divine teaching, is both called by its very name and is in fact mystical and hidden. For its teachings are called mysteries, that is, sacraments and sacred secrets, and its teachers are called mystes, from apo tou myein stoma, that is, "from closing the mouth," because its mysteries must be covered with silence and revealed only to the few and the worthy. For this reason Christ spoke to the people in parables, but to the Apostles in open and clear words, Matthew 13:13. Hence Paul: "We speak," he says, "the wisdom of God in a mystery, which is hidden," 1 Corinthians 2:7. And St. Dionysius, the disciple of St. Paul, wrote the book On Mystical Theology. Finally, those ancient sages before and during the time of Sirach, such as Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, Pythagoras, Plato, and Trismegistus, taught their wisdom through hieroglyphics, symbols, emblems, and riddles, so as to conceal it from the unrefined and incapable, but to stir the capable to its study. Hence Sirach says pointedly: "The wisdom of doctrine," meaning: Wisdom insofar as it is taught by the mystes and Theologians of this age, both as to its teachings and as to their names, is symbolic, obscure, and enigmatic.
The plain meaning
Finally, to satisfy the text and its letter plainly and fully, the meaning is this: Wisdom is harsh to the unlearned, and like a heavy stone, which, because they are unable to bear it on their shoulders -- because they are unwilling -- they immediately shake off. For wisdom, according to its Hebrew name and etymology, signifies something laborious, difficult, arduous, and hidden, which cannot be unearthed and brought to light except by great labor, because it is truly such in reality. That this is so I demonstrate in the four Hebrew or Arabic names for wisdom.
The first is ilm or talim; for the root alam in Hebrew means "he hid"; hence alma is called a virgin unknown to a man and hidden at home. In Arabic (which is akin to, and as it were a dialect of, Hebrew), alam means: first, he hid; second, he knew, he was certain; and from this is derived wisdom, knowledge, doctrine, art, prudence; talim means instruction, study, discipline, treatise; alim means wise, knowing, prudent, learned, literate; hence Elymas is called a magician, one skilled in secret things, as I noted at Acts 13:8; Muallim means doctor, master, rabbi; muallam means disciple, student. Hence the Saracens and Turks, when affirming and swearing to something, say illa alim, that is, "God knows," He who knows the secrets of the heart.
The second Hebrew name for wisdom is Magia. For magim, that is, magi, among the Hebrews, and thence among the Chaldeans, Persians, Arabs, and other Orientals, are called wise men, as those who meditate upon and search out hidden things; and magia is called hidden wisdom. For the root haga means to meditate, to contemplate, to inquire, to search out. Hence higgaion means meditation. Moreover, haga clearly alludes to iaga, that is, to labor, to afflict with pain, to distress, to weary; because knowledge, which is acquired through meditation, is obtained with great labor and weariness of mind; and because fools flee from this as from a heavy stone, they are likewise unable to penetrate to wisdom.
The third name for wisdom is talmud, that is, doctrine; for this alludes to, and as it were includes, alam, that is, "he hid," so that talmud may be said to be, as it were, almud, namely, a hidden thing. Again, from lamad, that is, "he taught," and talmud, that is, "doctrine," is derived malmad, that is, a goad -- namely, a rod or staff at whose tip is a point with which the herdsman prods oxen; so called because it teaches oxen to plow, says R. David. In the same way, young men are trained and taught wisdom by a master, with the rod as it were with a goad; therefore it is harsh to them and
Ecbatana, which was the seat of the kings of Persia. For in a similar chest of God, wisdom is stored away. Therefore, both in name and in reality, wisdom is arduous and laborious, namely the grace of God, virtue, and salvation, and therefore it is grasped by few who are eager for toil. For this reason Christ says in Matthew 20:16: "Many are called, but few are chosen." And in Matthew 7:14: "How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life: and few there are who find it!"
AND IT IS NOT MANIFEST TO MANY. — Plainly, just as there is much dust on the earth but little gold, so rare are those to whom wisdom becomes known, so much has worldly prudence blinded us, so much has it claimed us for itself, so much has it drawn us away from the wisdom of God calling and enticing us to itself, Proverbs 1:21. Here applies the maxim of the ancient Rabbi in the Pirke Avoth, that is, in the Apophthegms of the Fathers, which reads thus: The dignity and excellence of the law surpasses royal and priestly honor by its splendor, and towers above them by its sublimity; for by 30 degrees one ascends to the summit of kingship; by 24 one reaches the pinnacle of the priesthood; but to the apex of understanding the law, 48 things are necessary. And these are: study, that is, relentless diligence; docility in obeying teachers; intensity of mind; attention and affection of heart; fear and trembling; humility of spirit; joy; rendering service to the wise; subtlety with fellow students in debating and arguing; alertness; patience; study of Scripture; expertise in the Mishnah, that is, the oral and transmitted law; little temporal business; little sleep; moderate laughter; moderate pleasure; very little secular business; slowness in becoming angry; a heart well disposed toward the wise; faithfulness; endurance of tribulations; recognition of one's condition; contentment with one's lot; speaking prudently; not arrogating any honor or dignity to oneself. Thus one is loved, and loves God, justice, reproof, and rectitude; one turns away from the vice of ambition, nor on account of the expertise one knows oneself to have in the law does one vainly exalt or inflate oneself, or willingly pronounce judgment as a judge; one bears the burden and yoke of one's neighbor most sweetly and gently; one interprets all one's neighbor's words or deeds in the better part; one confirms and strengthens that person in peace and truth; one loves oneself in one's own study. One inquires and responds; hears what is said; and moreover adds one's own teaching; learns in order to teach, and to put into practice what one has received from teachers. One sharpens the talent and diligence of the teacher; lends an attentive ear to reading; faithfully praises the author from whom one has received something; for one well knows that whoever faithfully and without envy attributes to the source from which one has drawn something, brings salvation and redemption to the world, according to that saying of Esther: "And Esther told the king in the name of Mordecai." Thus far the Rabbi.
BUT TO THOSE TO WHOM IT IS KNOWN, IT REMAINS EVEN TO THE SIGHT OF GOD. — These words are now lacking in the Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. The previous verse showed the difficulty of wisdom: here he shows the same wisdom's
wisdom is troublesome. This is what the Wise Man says in Ecclesiastes 12:11: "The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails driven deep, which through the counsel of teachers were given by one shepherd."
The fourth and chief name of wisdom, which Solomon uses throughout in Proverbs, is חכמה chochma; and our Emmanuel Sa derives chochma from camas, that is, to hide; whence camus is called hidden, concealed, latent, Deuteronomy 32:34. Or from koman, which in Chaldaic, Syriac, and Arabic signifies "he concealed": whence michman, that is, treasure; and machman, that is, a hiding-place, a cave. But chochma is derived from the noun chacham, that is, "he was wise," as those skilled in Hebrew know, not from camas or keman. Better therefore does חכמה chochma, that is, wisdom, allude to אכמה och ma. For the letters aleph and chet, since both are gutturals, are interchangeable with each other: for och or ach, among the Hebrews, equally as among the Latins, Greeks, and others, is an interjection and the natural cry of one in pain, or the groan and sigh of one lamenting; while ma signifies "what" or "how much." The sense therefore is, as if to say: chochma, that is, wisdom, is achma, that is, a sigh, by which the student of wisdom groans and sighs saying: Ah, what toil wisdom costs! Ah, how much I weary my brain and mind to acquire it! Ah, how arduous it is to be wise! For to acquire wisdom, that is, virtue, Socratic strength is needed, says St. Jerome; for wisdom here is taken not so much as speculative but as practical, namely virtue, which likewise takes its name from strength and manly vigor; for to attain virtue, one must strive toward it with all one's strength, just as Hercules and the Argonauts strove for the golden fleece. Wherefore virtue is said by the Poets to dwell on lofty and nearly inaccessible cliffs, as Clement of Alexandria attests in book IV of the Stromata, near the beginning: "Sweat," he says, "is placed before virtue." Whence Hesiod:
The road is long and steep to her. Arduous at first; but when one has reached the summit, It becomes easy.
Again, chochma with respect to all its letters alludes to חוח choach, that is, a thorn with the sharpest prickles, and כמה ma, that is, "how much," as if to say: O how beset with thorns! O how thorny, prickly, difficult, and impassable is wisdom! How many thorns and briars are in it!
Moreover, some think chochma alludes to the Chaldean כוש אכם cos acham, that is, "he was black, he was darkened," as if to say: How dark, how obscure, how hidden in shadows and secret is wisdom! Whence אכמות achmut is called blackness, sadness, and dawn, because it is somewhat dark and obscure, which is a friend to wisdom and to lovers of learning. Hence also the Chaldeans call achmeta a chest, flask, or urn, in which letters, books, and memorials of kings were stored, 1 Esdras 6:2, where our Translator renders it, in Ecba-
excellence, so that zeal for it may be sharpened in us, lest anyone flee from it on account of its difficulty; for difficult things are beautiful. The sense therefore is, as if to say: I said that wisdom is arduous and difficult; but at the same time I say that it is most useful, most beautiful, and most excellent. For wisdom itself leads its devoted students and companions all the way to the sight of God, that is, to beatitude, which consists in the clear vision of God, in which alone wisdom is perfect. O supreme powers of the eagle (that is, of wisdom), which spreads its wings and takes the pious upon them, and carries them above all the heavens to the throne of God and to His inaccessible light, and raises and exalts them, according to Deuteronomy 32:11: "As an eagle stirring up its young to fly, and hovering over them, it spread its wings, and took him up, and carried him on its shoulders."
Hence note that it was known to the Rabbis and the Jews that our happiness consists in the vision of God, and that faith and wisdom, that is, virtue and charity, lead to it and merit it. Thus Rabanus: "To those," he says, "to whom it has been recognized, that is, who preserve it by right faith and good works, it leads them to the contemplation of the glory of God. For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Thus Christ in John 17:3 calls the knowledge of His wisdom eternal life; for whoever knows it practically, that is, loves it and expresses it in conduct, this person advances and arrives at eternal life: "This is," He says, "eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Explaining these words, St. Cyril in book XI on John, chapter 17, says: "Knowledge," he says, "is life, bringing us a spiritual blessing, through which the Spirit dwells in our hearts, reforming us into the adoption of the sons of God and true piety through the Evangelical life, and into incorruptibility. Since therefore the origin, and as it were the bridesmaid, of all these things is found to be the knowledge of the true God, it is rightly called eternal life by our Lord Jesus Christ, as the mother and root, producing eternal life by its own power and nature."
24. HEAR, MY SON, AND RECEIVE THE COUNSEL OF UNDERSTANDING, AND DO NOT CAST AWAY MY COUNSEL. — "The counsel of understanding," or of intelligence, he calls the counsel of one who understands, that is, wise and prudent counsel; the Syriac: Hear, my son, and receive my teaching, and do not remove my discipline; the Tigurina: Hear, son, and embrace my judgment, and do not refuse my counsel. He sets forth this counsel, saying:
25. PUT YOUR FOOT INTO ITS FETTERS (that is, wisdom's), AND YOUR NECK INTO ITS COLLAR. — The Syriac: Put your foot into its net, and into its burden put your neck; the Tigurina: Insert your feet into its fetters, and into its shackle (Vatablus: into its stocks) your neck. For the word "torques" here does not mean necklaces and golden chains, but stocks, a pillory, or a collar-bond by which the neck of a captive, for example, is bound: for this is what the Greek kloios signifies. This is rightly called a torquis, because it twists and torments the neck like a torture instrument. Therefore, just as the feet of horses, cows, and oxen in pastures and enclosures are restrained by fetters so they do not leap over them; and just as dogs are fitted with a collar so that by the chain attached to it they can be led and guided by their master: so likewise wisdom, by its discipline and correction, as if by a fetter and collar, binds and constrains both the neck and head, that is, the mind, will, and affections, and the feet, that is, our steps, movements, and actions, lest, carried away by some enticement or concupiscence, they go astray and plunge a person into the abyss, but rather that they follow the guidance and discipline of wisdom in every direction, and thus enter upon the right path of virtue leading to heaven. For wisdom does not produce libertines, as the heretics would have it; but composed, mature people, subject to reason and discipline, so that the flesh may serve the spirit, and the spirit may serve God.
Furthermore, the collar and fetters signify that in man the animal appetites and concupiscences hold sway, like beasts and wild animals, which therefore, like beasts, must be tamed, bridled, and captured by wisdom and discipline as if by a fetter and chain, lest they destroy both themselves and their master. Hear St. Gregory on Penitential Psalm 5, explaining verse 21, That he might hear the groans of the fettered: "Holy men," he says, "are not unfittingly called fettered, because, bound by the bonds of God's discipline, they do not at all wander after external things; and they fix, as it were, the step of their work immovably, since they never depart from the desire of the Creator. For of these fetters it is written: Put your feet into its fetters, and your neck into its collar; because indeed, he whose steps are restrained from wickedness, his faith is adorned with the truth of holy virtues. For the neck is faith, by which each faithful person is joined to God, and as if by the neck the Church, which is His body, is united to Christ its head. Whence in praise of the Bride in the Song of Songs it is said: Your neck is like jewels. For since, as James says, faith without works is dead, the neck of the bride is, as it were, encircled with jewels when the faith of the holy soul is adorned with works. The fettered groan continually, because while the elect consider the darkness of their exile, they sigh unceasingly for the brightness of the vision of God."
Wherefore these fetters of wisdom are not so much bonds of servitude as insignia of liberty, such as were the golden fetters of women, of which Pliny, book 33, chapter 12, says: "Silver," he says, "sometimes succeeds bronze and gold, with the luxury of common women making fetters for themselves from it." Whence also these fetters end in a collar, which St. Augustine in Psalm 146 suspects to be golden: "He receives," he says, "from iron chains, and it ends in a golden collar. For it was said of Wisdom: A golden collar about your neck: He would not have placed a golden collar unless He had first bound you in iron fetters." Whence Song of Songs 1:11: "Your cheeks," it says, "are beautiful, like a turtledove's; your neck, like jewels." Where the Chaldean: "How
beautiful," he says, "is this people, that the words of the law should be given to them, and that they should be like earrings in their cheeks, etc. How beautiful are their backs, that they should bear the yoke of my commandments, and that it should be upon them, like a yoke upon the necks of an ox that plows in the field." Finally, St. Jerome, Epistle 127 to Fabiola: "The bonds of the Lord," he says, "are voluntary and are turned into embraces; and whoever has been bound by them says: His left hand is under my head, and His right hand shall embrace me."
the love of God, as he said in chapter 1:14. Wherefore wisdom restrains the hands, lest they harm anyone; the feet, lest they stray or stumble anywhere; the neck and body, so that they may not be moved from the law of God. Wisdom binds and constrains your whole self, your whole self to God, by these its bonds. So Palacius.
Hear also Rabanus: "One puts one's foot into its fetters who fortifies the course of one's life with its precepts. One puts one's neck into its collar who moderates one's words according to its rule. One submits one's shoulder to carry it who subjects one's actions to its teaching and fulfills in deed what it commands; and lest anyone receive its doctrine tediously and reluctantly, he adds," etc.
Cornelius Tacitus, in his book On the Customs of the Germans, writes that they once, when entering a grove sacred to the gods, bound themselves with chains, to profess themselves bound to the gods: whence also "religion" is said to derive from "binding back" (religando), because it binds and ties the soul to God, to whom it belongs. Why then should not a faithful person voluntarily bind oneself to God with the bonds of God's law?
Symbolically, some apply these words to the devotion and servitude of the Blessed Virgin (for she is the mother of eternal Wisdom), by which men especially devoted to her consecrate themselves, and surrender themselves entirely to her service as slaves, indeed as bondservants. There exists a confraternity, and a practice of this servitude published under this title: Bondservant of Mary, that is, the manner of dedicating oneself to the Blessed Virgin as a bondservant. Thus 300 years ago in Florence, seven men of exceptional piety devoted themselves to the worship of the Blessed Virgin, and established the Order of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin, and from this they were called Servites, and the Blessed Virgin ratified and approved it; for she is said to have appeared to each one separately in sleep, with a great and illustrious host of Angels, holding in one hand a dark tunic, in the other an open book, commanding them henceforth to use that garment and that rule, which she said was that of St. Augustine. So the Annals of the Order of the Servants relate, and from them our Platus, book I, On the Good of the Religious State, chapter 34.
Before these, in the year of our Lord 1050, Marinus was the first, the brother of Blessed Peter Damian, to dedicate himself by solemn rite to the service of the Blessed Virgin as a bondservant. Damian himself recounts the rite in book II, Epistle 14 to Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino: "At the altar," he says, "he gave himself over to the Blessed Mother of God as a servile bondservant, and for servile stocks he fastened around his neck the belt that girded him, and baring his shoulders, he forthwith struck himself with blows as if a wicked slave before his Lady; and as a token of true servitude, paying a servile tribute, he placed a certain sum of money on the base of the altar, and said: By this small gift of my servitude, O Lady, I now offer myself to you, and from now on, as long as I live, I will render an annual tribute of a fixed payment." By which service that excellent man finally achieved the reward of meriting to see his most sweet Lady at death, whom he also addressed with these words, most full of sacred joy and confidence: "And what is this, O my Lady, Queen of heaven and earth, that
He names bonds for four principal members: for fetters bind the feet, the collar binds the neck, the burden binds the shoulders, and manacles bind the hands; by which he signifies that wisdom by its discipline restrains and constrains all the members of a person, all the senses, all actions. Specifically, by the neck is signified the imagination and intellect; by the shoulders the appetite, especially the irascible, in which reigns the desire to exalt and dominate oneself, arrogance and pride; for just as the shoulder is adjacent to and subject to the neck, so the appetite is subject to the imagination and knowledge: and wisdom presses down upon all of these; by the hands are signified actions, by the feet movements and steps: all of which wisdom, that is, the law of God, virtue and charity, constrains as if by bonds according to the rules of reason, according to Romans 8:13: "If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you shall live." Therefore Sirach teaches that wisdom has fetters with which to bind the feet; these fetters are modesty: likewise manacles with which to bind the hands; these manacles are continence: furthermore a collar with which to bind the neck; the collar is obedience; finally, that wisdom itself is a burden (namely of the cross) under which we must place our shoulders through patience. Therefore, just as Christ, carrying the cross, placed His shoulders under it, and then with nails bound His hands and feet, that is, His whole body, to it, so you should believe that wisdom is a cross to which you must bind your hands, feet, and your whole body and soul. You have heard that God is to be loved with the whole heart, with the whole soul, with all strength, with all fortitude, that is, with your entire whole self, namely with feet, hands, neck, and whole body. This same thing Ecclesiasticus teaches here: For wisdom is the love
26. SUBMIT YOUR SHOULDER, AND CARRY IT, AND DO NOT BE WEARY OF ITS BONDS. — The Greek has: Submit your shoulder, and carry it, as a burdensome stone, of which he spoke in verse 22, and me prosechthises, that is, as the Complutensian, do not be hostile; others: do not be indignant, do not be offended at its bonds; the Syriac: Bring your shoulder near, and carry it, and do not be saddened by its weight; the Tigurina: With your shoulder placed under it, bear it, and do not resent its bonds. Our translator rendered it "ne acedieris," that is, do not be affected by sloth, sadness, or impatience on account of the bonds placed upon your hands. For sloth begets sadness, sadness begets anger, and anger begets impatience with what is heavy and troublesome. From the Greek one might suspect that the reading should be ne acedieris, that is, do not bear it sourly, that is, reluctantly and resentfully, about which I spoke in chapter 4, verse 9.
you have deigned to visit your poor little servant? Bless me, my Lady: and do not allow me to go into darkness, to whom you have given the light of so great a presence." Then with a rosy countenance, turning to those standing around: "She has come," he said, "the Queen of the world, the Mother of the eternal Redeemer has come, she showed me the joy of her serene countenance, blessed me, and departed." And he, amidst these words, having left us this most brilliant example of this loving servitude, breathed his last most sweetly. And from this flowed that sacred service of Mary; this is the origin of that servitude, confirmed not obscurely by a heavenly sign. Wherefore this sacred bondage is as noble (for what is nobler than to be the slave and household servant of the Mother of God?) as it is holy and most useful. For the Blessed Virgin leads her devotees by straight paths into heaven to the throne of her glory: so that you may rightly apply to her what Sirach adds in verse 30: "Its fetters shall be for you a protection of strength, and foundations of virtue, and its collar shall become a robe of glory."
27. WITH YOUR WHOLE SOUL DRAW NEAR TO HER, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH (dynamei, that is, power, force, vigor) KEEP HER WAYS. — "With all," that is, the whole, "soul." It is an enallage and catachresis: for the universal "all" is used for the quantitative whole, or entire. Whence the Complutensian translates: with your whole soul draw near to her; the Syriac: with your whole heart draw near to her, and with all your strength (that is, with all your powers) keep her ways; Vatablus: aspire to her with your whole soul, and to the best of your ability follow her footsteps. For there are some who wish to give themselves to wisdom coldly, languidly, and as if with half a will: but these will not attain her, because she demands the whole heart, the whole mind and affection, so that her devotee may be carried toward her with great ardor of soul, may sigh and pant for her with great desires, both to grasp her with the mind and to fulfill in practice what he has grasped.
28. SEARCH FOR HER, AND SHE WILL BE MADE KNOWN TO YOU, AND HAVING OBTAINED HER (egkrates, that is, master of), DO NOT FORSAKE HER. — The Syriac: Search and examine and seek, and you will find; be strengthened in her, and do not let her go; the Tigurina: See that you search for her and inquire: for she will be given to you to know; but having attained her, do not desert her. This then is the order by which wisdom is acquired and possessed. First, she must be searched for with the same zeal and sagacity with which hunters track hares and rabbits hiding in their burrows; and lest you despair of finding her, or complain about the long search and be affected by weariness, be certain that if you continue seeking, she will reveal herself to you. Then, having attained her, hold her firmly, and do not abandon her for any fear or reward. For perseverance crowns wisdom, just as it does the other virtues. This is what Christ says in Matthew 7:7: "Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it shall be opened." Thus it is with God and God's wisdom: it is different with men and human knowledge, where often many ask, seek, and knock;
but find nothing or little, either because of the dullness and slowness of their intellect, or because of the lack of teachers, or because of other causes.
Note: For "continens" (possessing), the Greek is egkrates, that is, holding, obtaining, occupying, possessing — one who obtains dominion and power over something; and because such are the temperate, who master the appetite and belly as lords of their desires, hence egkrates also signifies "continent," that is, temperate. Thus in Wisdom 8:21 it is said: "As I knew that I could not otherwise be continent (that is, master of my wish, namely, obtaining wisdom), unless God should give it, I approached the Lord and entreated Him."
29. FOR IN THE END YOU WILL FIND REST IN HER, AND SHE WILL BE TURNED INTO JOY FOR YOU. — The Syriac: In the end you will find rest and delight, and you will rejoice in your latter days. And so the Septuagint's "in the end" means the same as at the conclusion, namely, of the study and labors that you expended in learning and acquiring wisdom, that is, virtue. For the Hebrew אחרות acharit, which the Latin translator usually renders as "the end" (novissimum), means after, afterward, later. He stirs up zeal for wisdom, that is, for virtue, by the hope of reward and fruit, as if to say: Do not be wearied by the labors you spend in conquering yourself and your concupiscences and acquiring virtue; because, once you have tamed your concupiscences through continual labor and made them obedient to reason, virtue will become easy and pleasant for you through habit, both on account of its own beauty and loveliness, by which it makes itself lovable to all; and because it brings a wonderful rest, serenity, and joy of conscience. Wherefore all the prior bitterness that you felt in its pursuit will be turned into delight for you, in an incipient way indeed in this life, but perfectly in the future life, when on account of it you will be endowed with eternal happiness.
30. ITS FETTERS SHALL BE FOR YOU A PROTECTION OF STRENGTH, AND FOUNDATIONS OF VIRTUE, AND ITS COLLAR
SHALL BECOME A ROBE OF GLORY. — The Syriac: And the nets (of wisdom) will be for you a strong seat, and a garment of honor will clothe you, and a crown of glory will be woven for you; Vatablus: Its fetters will be for you the strongest defense and solid support, and its shackles (or stocks, or pillory) an honorable garment. In the preceding verse he assigned two fruits of wisdom, or virtue, namely, rest of mind and joy; here he assigns four others, namely, protection, strengthening, freedom, and glory, as if to say: The fetters which wisdom placed upon your feet and steps, at first appeared to impede your feet and steps, to afflict them with disgrace and servitude, to weigh them down and weaken them; but once you have grown accustomed to them, you will feel them turned for you "into a protection of strength," that is, a strong one, and "foundations of virtue," that is, of vigor, that is, sturdy ones, as if to say: They will make your feet and steps firm, so that in them, as on firm foundations, you may stand freely and firmly; and you need not fear a fall or ruin into sin and the punishments that follow it, or the assault of demons or other enemies: because against all these things they will powerfully protect and strengthen you; furthermore
the collar, or stocks, which wisdom placed on your neck as if on a runaway slave or a criminal, will be turned for you into an ornament — and into a robe of glory, as for a prince or king, inasmuch as you, like a king through wisdom, rule over all your affections and impulses, and therefore freely and generously.
You will experience this especially at the very end properly speaking, that is, at the hour of death and on the day of judgment; for then virtue will protect, strengthen, and adorn you against all the temptations and furies of the demons. Therefore on the day of judgment, virtue will be for you like an unshaken tower and foundation, so that in the rigorous judgment and wrath of Christ you may stand unmoved and undisturbed, and from Him, before all the Angels and Saints, you may be adorned with the robe of immortality and heavenly glory. So Rabanus. Thus Christ, fastened to the cross like a thief with nails and ropes, turned the very cross, nails, and ropes into His own strength, triumph, dominion, and glory. For "God reigned from the wood," and therefore these very things are now adored by kings, and are carried on standards and banners as trophies. I have added ropes, because it is likely that Christ was bound to the cross not only with nails but also with ropes: for the nails of the hands and feet alone could not have supported so great a mass of body; and these ropes, brought from Jerusalem to Rome by St. Helena, are preserved in her palace, now the church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, as the inscription fixed above its underground chapel attests. As a type of this, the Patriarch Joseph, upon whom, on account of his love of wisdom, virtue, and chastity, fetters and chains were placed, saw them exchanged for rings, golden collars, and a linen robe, when on account of his prophecies and providence regarding the coming famine, he was made by Pharaoh prince of Egypt, and carried in the royal chariot, he was hailed as the Savior of the world. Explaining this mystically, St. Ambrose in his book On Joseph says: "What does the ring" inserted on his finger "mean, unless that we should understand that the pontificate was bestowed on him for his faith, so that he himself might seal others? What does the robe mean, "which is the garment of wisdom, unless that the principate of heavenly prudence was bestowed on him by that king? The golden collar seems to express good understanding. The chariot signifies the lofty summit of merits." See what was said on Genesis 41, verses 42 and 45.
Furthermore, Sirach alludes as usual to that passage of Solomon in Proverbs 1:8-9: "My son, hear the instruction of your father, etc., that grace may be added to your head, and a collar to your neck." The Septuagint: For you will receive a crown of graces, or of favors, upon your head, and a golden collar about your neck. Where Lyranus says: In ancient times, the wise used to wear a golden collar and a pendant hanging down to the chest as a symbol of wisdom, which is believed to be enclosed in the breast. Abulensis adds on Genesis 41 that collars were customarily given to princes in ancient times; but not to all, only to those who were celebrated for the praise of wisdom: for a crown was the insignia of principality and power, while a collar was the insignia of power joined with wisdom. Thus Belshazzar promised Daniel, if he should wisely interpret his dream, a collar: "You shall be clothed in purple," he said, "and you shall have a golden collar about your neck, and you shall be the third prince in my kingdom," Daniel 2:7. And Darius promised Zerubbabel and his companions, who were debating what was strongest, to the victor, as one bearing the palm of wisdom: "to be covered with purple, to have a linen turban and a collar about his neck: and he shall sit in the second place next to Darius," he said, "because of his wisdom, and he shall be called kinsman of Darius," 3 Esdras 3:6. Note here: Anciently the distinguishing mark of a wise man was a linen turban; for while others wore a simple tiara, they wrapped the wise man's tiara in linen and called it a linen turban, as Brissonius teaches in his book On the Persian Kingdom. Sirach alludes to this here when he promises the wise man a linen robe as the badge owed to him; for along with the linen robe, a linen turban was also given. Whence the Syriac translates: and a crown of glory (that is, a linen turban) He will weave for you.
Again, he alludes to Proverbs 4:8, where Solomon promises the lover of learning and the student of wisdom its rewards, saying: "It shall give to your head an increase of graces, and a glorious crown shall protect you;" the Hebrew: it shall give you a garland of grace, and a diadem of beauty shall arm you; the Septuagint: that it may give to your head a crown of graces, and a crown of delights shall protect you; the Chaldean: and it shall place upon your head the beauty of grace, and a crown of beauty shall be upon you. For Sirach calls this by another metaphor a robe of glory.
Tropologically, our Pineda on Job 27:6 takes the fetters as the obligations and vows of a more perfect life; for these very bonds, which are evidence of our weakness, are themselves, as it were, collars and foundations of virtue, that is, a supplement of strength and a most powerful safeguard for firmly retaining the holiness that we have once begun to hold. Thus St. Gregory, book 31 of the Moralia, chapter 11: "To those who fight powerfully," he says, "a collar is given as a reward, so that, because they bear the marks of virtues, they may always practice greater ones, and cannot incur the fault of weakness, since in themselves there is already the reward of the strength they display." And Bede on Ezekiel 16:11, And a collar about your neck: "A collar is added," he says, "to the neck, when by the splendor of perfect works, the word of preaching, which proceeds through the neck, is confirmed; and lest it should be scorned by hearers, it is taught by an unfailing connection of virtues. This collar therefore, consisting of one's own labors, which God places around the neck of His bride, is more precious than all the riches of the world: since it gently keeps her within the bounds of virtue and draws her away from the vices which it condemns."
31. FOR THE BEAUTY OF LIFE IS IN HER, AND HER BONDS ARE A HEALING BANDAGE (Rabanus reads nectura; others, netura; for this is what klosma means). — As if to say: Wisdom and the law of God, which in the beginning was to you as a slave something disgraceful, burdensome, and confining, like fetters, will now, once you have grown accustomed to it, be a beauty adorning and embellishing your life. Furthermore, it will produce for you the beauty and glory of the heavenly and eternal life; for the life
of grace, and much more the life of glory, is most beautiful and full of every beauty and majesty. Finally, its bonds will be for you a healing bandage, for just as a physician, applying a remedy to your wounded hand, binds the hand with bandages, and that binding is healing because it restores wholesome health and freedom to the hand: so wisdom and the law of God, in order to heal the wounds of sins and concupiscences, binding and constraining them with its laws, by this very binding of hers brings about salvation and freedom.
The Greek, instead of "beauty of life," has "ornament of gold," and instead of "healing bandage" has "hyacinth-colored cord." "A golden ornament," they say, "is in her, and her bonds are a hyacinth-colored cord;" or, as the Roman codices read, and her bonds are hyacinth-colored threads; Vatablus: for her ornament is golden, and her bonds are of hyacinthine weave; others: a golden ornament is upon her, and her bonds are hyacinth-colored ribbons. For a golden ornament is the highest among men, and a violet or hyacinth-colored garment was formerly the garment of kings and princes. It signifies therefore that wisdom and virtue adorn their devotees, and make them kings and princes, indeed heavenly beings, and sons and courtiers of God. See what I said about the hyacinth on Ezekiel 16:10.
St. Ambrose in book II, Epistle 12 to the Emperor Valentinian, reads thus: "Golden is the tongue of the wise, which," he says, "endowed with ornate discourses, and gleaming with a certain brilliance of eloquent speech like a flash of precious color, captivates the eyes of souls with the appearance of beauty, and dazzles the sight." Such was the tongue of St. John, Patriarch of Constantinople, who from it was surnamed Chrysostom, that is, "golden mouth"; and of Blessed Peter surnamed Chrysologus, that is, "of golden speech."
He alludes to the hyacinth-colored ribbons which God commanded the Jews to wear on the fringes of their garments, so that through them they might remember wisdom, that is, the law of God; and at the same time so that by them they might be distinguished from the Gentiles, and adorned as a people dedicated to God and to wisdom. For these are called in Numbers 15:38, in Hebrew, פתיל תכלת petil techelet, that is, a thread of hyacinth; in Greek, klosma hyakinthinon (which words Sirach uses here in the Greek); for klosma, or kloston, means a twisted thread: for concerning these God ordains in Numbers 15:38: "Say to them (the Jews, or the children of Israel) that they make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments, placing in them hyacinth-colored ribbons, which when they see, they may remember all the commandments of the Lord, and not follow their own thoughts and eyes, fornicating after various things; but rather, being mindful of the Lord's commandments, they may do them, and be holy to their God." These fringes therefore were, as it were, fetters for the feet, restraining them from vices and compelling them to walk straight on the path of God's commandments, and to proceed toward heaven. For this reason these fringes were of violet, that is, of violet and heavenly color, so that through them they might be reminded that their conduct and hope should be in heaven, and that keeping their thoughts with God, the fear and presence of God always
before their eyes, they might strive straight toward it in heaven.
32. YOU WILL PUT HER ON AS A ROBE OF GLORY. — A stola was a garment reaching down to the ankles, elegant, and worn by both men and women. Incorrectly many codices read stola, as if wisdom itself were to be clothed with the robe of glory: for it does not signify that wisdom, but rather the student of wisdom, is to be adorned with the robe. The sense therefore is, as if to say: "Her," namely wisdom, O lover of learning, "you will put on," as "a robe of glory," as if to say: Adorned with wisdom, you will go about everywhere conspicuous and illustrious, just as if you were clothed with a splendid and glorious robe. This is a Hebraism: for the Hebrews often suppress and leave to be supplied the marks of comparison, such as "as if," "as it were," "just as." The Tigurina: as an honorable garment you will put her on.
AND YOU WILL PLACE UPON YOURSELF A CROWN OF REJOICING (that is, a joyful, pleasant, distinguished, splendid one, over which you may therefore rejoice and congratulate yourself). — In Greek: and a crown of agalliamatos, that is, of exultation, which may make you leap and exult with joy, you will place around yourself; Vatablus: and you will place upon yourself a festive crown. A crown is owed to the wise man, as to a priest, a king, and a triumphant conqueror, as I said in chapter 1:11, and as one filled and perfected with all good things, as I said in chapter 1:22. For a crown, being round and encompassing the whole head, is a symbol of perfection and completeness. This crown he sets against, indeed places upon, the labor and burden by which the student of wisdom wearied his head and mind through study and through studiously conquering his desires.
These therefore are the four insignia of the student of wisdom, corresponding to his labors, earned and merited by him. For the labor of the head, he is given a crown of exultation; for the fetters, he is given a golden collar; for the burden placed upon his shoulders, he is given an ephod, or superhumerale, such as was given to Aaron, of which I spoke on Exodus 28:6; for his sordid garment, he is given a robe of glory. Whence even now these insignia of the doctorate are given to Doctors when they are created, namely, a biretta for the crown, a golden collar, an ephod, and a linen robe. Thus Aelian, in book 12 of the Various Histories, chapter 32, relates that Pythagoras, the famous teacher of wisdom, was accustomed to dress in a white garment, which was proper to the highest authorities, and to have his head crowned with a golden crown. Plutarch attests that Demosthenes too was given a golden crown by the Athenians on account of his wisdom and eloquence. Laertius in book 8 relates that Zeno, the father of the Stoics, was honored with the same insignia by the same people, because he led by example the rigorous life that he taught. "For wise and good men ought to be crowned," says Athenaeus, citing Euripides, in book 2.
Wherefore in the Panegyric of Augustus Constantine we read thus: "Rightly therefore to you, Emperor Constantine, the senate dedicated the sign of God, and shortly before, Italy dedicated a shield and crown, all of gold, so that they might relieve in some part the debt of conscience. For indeed often there is owed even to the divine image
The second disposition toward wisdom is to hear it. For hearing is the sense of learning, says Aristotle.
35. STAND IN THE MULTITUDE OF WISE ELDERS (seniors); AND JOIN YOURSELF TO THEIR WISDOM FROM YOUR HEART. — The Greek has: Stand in the multitude of elders; and whoever is wise, join yourself to him. For there are some elders and old men who are foolish, from whom accordingly not wisdom but folly is learned. The Syriac: In the congregation of elders stand, and see who is wise, and cling to him; Vatablus: In the assembly of elders take your stand, and attach yourself to any wise man. Note the phrase in the multitude: for from many, many things are heard, and it is difficult for many wise men to err together.
This is the third path to wisdom, namely, that we should choose teachers of wisdom — not just anyone, but elders endowed with wisdom: for they best teach the young the wisdom they have learned through long experience and study. Rehoboam sinned against this, who rejected the counsels of the elders and, following the fancy of the young men, lost the greater part of his kingdom, 3 Kings 12. The proud also sin, especially heretics, who trusting in their own ingenuity attempt to scrutinize Sacred Scripture without the tradition of teachers, says Rabanus; and how dangerous this is, their falls, errors, and heresies declare: for pride causes them to prefer their own opinions and sects to the tradition of the Church and the teachings of the holy Fathers; whom accordingly Solomon rebukes, Proverbs chapter 2, 13: "Those who abandon, he says, the straight path and walk in ways of darkness; who rejoice when they have done evil and exult in the worst things; whose ways are perverse and their steps infamous." And chapter 3, 7: "Be not wise in your own eyes." Therefore Sirach commands that the elders and their opinions be heard and consulted.
Hence Dio Chrysostom calls proverbs "gray-haired words" — not outdated, but aged with antiquity, weighty and mature. And indeed, the very thing that gray hair and old age bring to a man — namely authority, gravity, maturity, weight — accrues to words from antiquity. From this it happens that, just as we are accustomed to approach elderly and aged men to seek counsel from them, so sometimes ancient proverbs and sayings must be employed in counsel, which contain a certain hoary truth weightier than any old age. Ecclesiasticus here prescribes both at once: to consult the elders and likewise proverbs. "Stand in the multitude of elders, he says, and join yourself to their wisdom from the heart, and let the proverbs you hear not escape you." In the Greek it is, παροίμιας συνέσεως, that is, adages of understanding, namely wise and learned sayings. Hence it came about that the Roman Emperors, when consulted on great matters, sometimes responded with proverbs. That one still survives in the Digest: "Neither all things, nor everywhere, nor from all persons;" which is cited by Ulpian in the Pandects, book I, in the treatise on the office of the Proconsul, from the Epistle of the Emperors Severus and Antoninus. So our Salazar on Proverbs chapter 1, verse 28. Here the example of Sophocles is relevant.
33. SON, IF YOU ATTEND TO ME (so as to love wisdom and pursue it with all zeal), YOU WILL LEARN (it). — Hence the Greek and Syriac have: if you are willing, son, namely to attend and obey me, so as to devote yourself to wisdom, you will be instructed. Having explained the harshness and excellence of wisdom, he passes to the means of attaining it. Therefore he assigns the dispositions and means for it: the first is the love of wisdom; for those who ardently love something devote all their strength to it; from which it comes about that they advance and are perfected in it, according to that saying of Sallust: "Where you have directed your mind, there it prevails."
IF YOU APPLY YOUR MIND TO ME (and to wisdom), YOU WILL BE WISE. — In Greek: and if you surrender your soul; Vatablus: if you direct your mind, you will become shrewd; the Syriac: if you set your heart to it, you will become astute, that is, prudent and wise. For part of prudence is astute and shrewd circumspection. Hence in Proverbs the terms "astute" and "shrewd" are taken to mean "prudent." The Arabic: O my son, if you are willing, you were wise; and if you separated your heart for wisdom, you were divining it, as though receiving it through divination and divine revelation. "You were," that is, "you will be" — this is an Arabism: for the Arabs use the past tense for the future, to confirm what is said, as if to say: So certainly will the thing be in the future, as if it had already been in the past. The Hebrews do the same, as is evident in the Prophets.
34. IF YOU INCLINE YOUR EAR, YOU WILL RECEIVE INSTRUCTION (in Greek σύνεσιν, that is, understanding, intelligence); AND IF YOU LOVE TO HEAR, YOU WILL BE WISE. — You will become wise. The Greek inverts the order of the words; for it has: If you love to hear, you will receive understanding; and if you incline your ear, you will be wise; the Tigurina: If you listen willingly, you will acquire knowledge; and if you apply your ear, you will obtain wisdom.
Take these anagogically here as the robe of immortality and the crown of glory, which God has prepared in heaven for the wise, that is, for the Saints. Hence Hugo says the robe denotes the beatitude of soul and body, and the crown the aureole. Holkot, on the contrary, takes the robe as the aureole and the crown as the glory of the Blessed. Here the crown of wisdom is relevant, which was formerly woven from olive, about which Herodotus writes in book II. See more in Carolus Paschalius, book V of De Coronis, chapter 10 and following.
Sara designates this same crown when she prays and says: Lord, whoever is Your worshiper, even though his life is subject to trials, nevertheless holds it for certain that he will be crowned, Tobit 3:21. And St. John, Apocalypse 4:4: "Upon the thrones, he says, twenty-four elders sitting, clothed about in white garments, and on their heads golden crowns." Prudentius, book I Against Symmachus, calls these elders "the Wise":
Is he one of those few, who having received the diadem Have cultivated the doctrine of heavenly Wisdom?
Hence a golden ornament is sacred, and a shield belongs to virtue, and a crown to piety.
Here is the example of Sophocles. For when he was decrepit and accused of madness by his sons, he recited to the judges a play he had recently written, asking whether that was the work of one who was raving. And he added: "If I am Sophocles, I am not raving; if I am raving, I am not Sophocles." St. Jerome says admirably: "Almost all the powers of the body, he says, are changed in the elderly, and while wisdom alone increases, other things decrease." And further: "Old age becomes more learned with years, more practiced with experience, wiser with the passage of time, and reaps the sweetest fruits of former studies." These and more from St. Jerome, Epistle 2 to Nepotian. And Job chapter 12, 12: "In the aged, he says, is wisdom, and in length of time, prudence." Indeed Socrates too, as Plato attests in the Symposium, used to say that the eye of the mind sees keenly like an eagle when the eye of the body grows dull and dim. And Plautus in the Trinummus: "Age, he says, is the seasoning of wisdom; a wise man is formed by years." And Cicero in On Old Age: "Recklessness, he says, belongs to the bloom of youth, prudence to old age." Solon, when asked what old age was, replied: "It is the winter of life;" he would have spoken more truly had he said: "It is the spring of wisdom."
THAT YOU MAY BE ABLE TO HEAR EVERY NARRATIVE OF GOD (which concerns God and divine things, and which has been received from God's books or from God's Church by tradition) AND LET NOT THE PROVERBS OF PRAISE (that is, praiseworthy sayings, namely learned and weighty maxims) ESCAPE YOU. — Vatablus: willingly hear every divine narrative, and let not hidden and prudent sayings escape you. For just as bees fly everywhere into all flowers to gather honey from them, so from all wise men wisdom about divine things must be heard and collected. St. Bernard prescribes the same in his Formula for an Honest Life: "Never, he says, be idle, but either read or meditate on something from the Sacred Scriptures; or better still, ruminate on the psalms; working nonetheless unceasingly at whatever task has been assigned to you, so that the devil may always find you occupied. Read also those Scriptures more willingly which especially inflame your affection toward your Christ." This is the fourth means and path to acquiring wisdom.
Note: He calls it "the narrative of God" in the first place, the narrative of God's precepts; secondly, a narrative received from God, at least mediately, that is, through the Church and her Doctors; thirdly, a narrative of how each thing ought to be disposed and conducted according to God and God's will; fourthly, a narrative of the works and deeds of God — namely, what He did for His faithful people, or against the unfaithful, such as against Pharaoh, which are narrated in Genesis, Exodus, the books of Kings, etc. For from these, wisdom is gathered: if profane history is the teacher of life, how much more so the sacred history of God? Again, he calls them "proverbs of praise" — praiseworthy and worthy of praise, or those which have been written in praise of God, such as many of the Psalms, says Palacius.
36. AND IF YOU SEE A SENSIBLE MAN (wise, prudent), BE WATCHFUL TOWARD HIM (that is, early at dawn go studiously and assiduously to hear him; which Scripture elsewhere calls "to rise early," that is, to get up in the morning and hasten): AND LET YOUR FOOT WEAR OUT THE STEPS OF HIS DOORS (that is, the steps by which one ascends to the doors; for leading men, such as the wise, are accustomed to dwell in the higher part of the house, as being healthier, more secluded, and more honorable, to which one ascends by steps, as we see done at Rome in the palaces of Prelates), that is to say: Visit him so frequently that you seem to wear out his steps with your foot — which is commonly expressed as: Wear out the threshold of the wise man's house. Hence the Syriac translates: See who is wise, and seek him, and let your foot tread his threshold; and St. Augustine, Tractate 7 on John, instead of "steps of doors" reads "threshold of doors." Some, instead of ὀστίων, that is "of doors," read θρίδων, that is "of paths." The Greek Complutensian has: If you see a prudent man, rise early to him; and let your foot wear out the steps of his doors; the Tigurina: When you see any wise-hearted man, hasten to him in the morning; and let your foot wear out the thresholds of his gates (Vatablus: the path of his ways).
The Gentiles too advised the same: for from the books of Cicero it is clear that it was the Roman custom to send their sons to the houses of grave and noble old men — such as Cato, Scipio, Laelius, and Atticus — so that from their company and words they might imbibe Roman manners in their purity. "For no thing, says Seneca in Epistle 94, so draws minds toward what is honorable, and calls back those who are doubtful and inclined toward evil to what is right, as the company of good men; for it gradually sinks into the heart, and to be frequently heard and frequently seen has the force of precepts. By Hercules, the very meeting with wise men is helpful, and there is something you may gain even from a great man who is silent."
37. KEEP YOUR THOUGHT ON THE PRECEPTS OF GOD, AND BE MOST ASSIDUOUS IN HIS COMMANDMENTS (meditating on them and fulfilling them in deed). — This is the fifth disposition and path to wisdom, namely, that when someone has heard wisdom from a wise man, he should then continually revolve, ruminate upon, and ponder it in his mind and thought. For it is not enough to hear it: for things heard slip away together with the hearing, unless we hold them in the mind and meditate on them. Hence the Greek clearly has: Think on the precepts of the Lord τελείως, that is, perfectly; and meditate on His commandments always; the Syriac: Contemplate in the fear of God, and in His commandments be meditating daily. For practical wisdom, which is treated here, consists in the fear of God, that is, in the meditation and observance of God's commandments. Vatablus: Weigh exactly the precepts of the Lord, and meditate on His commandments assiduously; for τελείως signifies that the meditation on the law of God ought to be exact, profound, and perfect, not superficial and perfunctory. This is what the Psalmist says, Psalm 1:2: "Blessed is the man, etc., whose will is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he will meditate day and night;" and Psalm 118: "I have understood more than all my teachers, because Your testimonies are my meditation."
Moses likewise so ordains for the children of Israel, Deuteronomy 6, verse 6: "These words, which I com-
mand you today, shall be in your heart, and you shall tell them to your children, and you shall meditate on them sitting in your house and walking on your way, sleeping and rising."
Moreover, this meditation ought to be practical and directed toward action, and so teachers of spiritual things hand down that the best meditations are those which descend to particular — indeed individual — actions; for example, when someone meditates on patience, in order that the meditation be fruitful for the one meditating, he should conceive and resolve in it to suffer willingly and bravely, not merely in general, but here and now, saying: My fever, my troublesome companions, the mockeries, taunts, and jibes customarily hurled at me, and those to be hurled today — I will endure generously and cheerfully out of love for God, so as to conform myself to Christ suffering the same and more upon the cross. And such meditation impresses upon the will a zeal for similar works; while it opens and illuminates the understanding, according to that saying of Psalm 77:72: "In the understandings of His hands He led them," that is, by the intelligence which the work of their hands had produced for them. Hence St. Jerome, Aquila, and the Chaldean translate: in the prudence of his hands, that is, of his actions, says Euthymius, He led them.
AND HE HIMSELF WILL GIVE YOU A HEART (that is, a wise mind, constant, wise, and prudent); AND THE DESIRE (not of the flesh and the world, but) OF WISDOM WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU — that is, the wisdom which you desire, or the desired wisdom. It is a hypallage. So the Syriac and the Tigurina. Or simply, as if to say: At first you dreaded wisdom as harsh; but once you begin to pursue it and to invoke God for it, God will convert the dread and weariness into desire and eagerness, so that you ardently long for and desire it as something honorable, beautiful, sweet, heavenly, and divine: for he who has understanding in the law, says Palacius, the more he has, the more he desires to have — so sweet is wisdom. So also Rabanus. The Greek: He Himself will strengthen your heart in the study and pursuit of wisdom, and the desire of wisdom will be given to you; the Syriac: He Himself will strengthen your paths, and concerning that
which you have desired, He will teach you; the Tigurina: He Himself will strengthen your heart, and the wisdom you desire will be given to you. Hence it is clear that "heart" is here taken as firmness and constancy of heart in the study of wisdom, and that the "desire of wisdom" is called the desired wisdom, as if to say: God will give constancy of mind in pursuing wisdom, from which it will come about that you will at last learn and attain that same wisdom so greatly desired. Some take the "desire" here as belonging to wisdom itself, not to the man desiring it, as if to say: There will be given to you every good which wisdom itself ardently desires to impart to you. For wisdom itself desires to bestow itself and all its goods upon its lovers.
Thus the eternal Word, who is the Wisdom of the Father, ardently desired to communicate Himself to men, and therefore He put on our flesh; hence He also says: "My delights are to be with the children of men," Proverbs 8:31. The desire of wisdom, therefore, is far greater than ours: for it is the desire of the Holy Spirit, of whom the Apostle says: "He intercedes for us with unutterable groanings," Romans 8. In a similar way, some learned and pious men pray: "Lord, give me that which the most holy Virgin Mary wishes and asks of You for me;" for she wishes for greater things than we are able to wish for. In a similar phrase, Hosea chapter 10, verse 12 says: "Reap in the mouth (Hebrew: to the mouth) of mercy," as if to say: Reap according to the wish and desire of mercy, as much, namely, as mercy itself desires and demands with its mouth. But from what has been said, it is clear that the former sense is the genuine one.
This is the sixth disposition and path to wisdom, namely the grace of God, and therefore it must be sought from Him through prayer, so that we may say with the Psalmist, Psalm 118:18: "Open my eyes, and I shall consider the wonders of Your law." This is what Solomon learned from his father David and taught, Proverbs 3:5: "Have confidence in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own prudence. In all your ways think of Him, and He Himself will direct your steps." So Rabanus.