Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues the subject of God's hatred of sins and sinners. Hence he warns parents to imitate God, and not to rejoice in an abundance or elegance of children if they are impious. Then, from verse 7 to 24, he resumes God's vengeance upon the impious, and shows how severely He punished the Giants by the flood, the Sodomites by conflagration, and the murmuring Hebrews by death in the desert. Finally, from verse 24 to the end of the chapter, he discusses God's wisdom in the creation and ordering of the universe.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 16:1-31
1. Do not rejoice in impious children, if they multiply; nor take delight in them, if the fear of God is not in them. 2. Do not trust in their life, and do not look upon their labors. 3. For one who fears God is better than a thousand impious children. 4. And it is better to die without children than to leave behind impious children. 5. By one man of sense a country shall be inhabited; the tribe of the impious shall be deserted. 6. Many such things has my eye seen, and my ear has heard things mightier than these. 7. In the assembly of sinners a fire shall burn, and in an unbelieving nation wrath shall blaze. 8. The ancient giants did not obtain pardon for their sins, who were destroyed trusting in their own strength. 9. And He did not spare the sojourning place of Lot, and He abhorred them because of the pride of their speech. 10. He did not have mercy on them, destroying the whole nation that exalted itself in its sins. 11. And likewise six hundred thousand foot soldiers, who were gathered together in the hardness of their heart: and if one man had been stiff-necked, it would have been a wonder if he had gone unpunished. 12. For mercy and wrath are with Him. He is mighty in pardon, and He pours out wrath: 13. according to His mercy, so His correction judges a man according to his works. 14. The sinner shall not escape with his plunder, and the patience of him who shows mercy shall not be delayed. 15. Every act of mercy shall make a place for each man according to the merit of his works, and according to the understanding of his pilgrimage. 16. Do not say: I shall be hidden from God, and from on high who will remember me? 17. In so great a people I shall not be noticed: for what is my soul in so immense a creation? 18. Behold, heaven, and the heavens of heavens, the abyss, and the whole earth, and the things that are in them, shall be moved in His sight. 19. The mountains together, and the hills, and the foundations of the earth: when God shall look upon them, they shall be shaken with trembling. 20. And in all these things the heart is without sense: and every heart is understood by Him: 21. and who understands His ways, and the storm, which no eye of man shall see? 22. For most of His works are hidden: but the works of His justice, who shall declare, or who shall endure them? For the covenant is far from some, and the examination of all is at the end. 23. He who is diminished in heart thinks vain things; and the foolish and erring man thinks foolish things.
In order to call his reader and disciple away from the vanity and foolishness of the impious, who pursue the empty and perishable goods of this world over the heavenly ones, and to teach him wisdom, Sirach places before his eyes God's power, wisdom, judgment, magnificence, and mercy. He says therefore:
Verse 24: Hear me, my son, and learn the discipline of understanding
24. Hear me, my son, and learn the discipline of understanding, and attend in your heart to my words, 25. and I will declare discipline with equity, and I will search out to declare wisdom: and attend in your heart to my words, and I speak with equity of spirit the virtues which God has placed in
His works from the beginning, and in truth I declare His knowledge. 26. In the judgment of God are His works from the beginning, and from their institution He distinguished their parts, and their beginnings among their peoples. 27. He adorned their works forever, and they did not hunger, nor labor, and they did not cease from their works. 28. Each one shall not crowd its neighbor forever. 29. Do not be incredulous of His word. 30. After these things God looked upon the earth, and filled it with His good things. 31. The soul of every living thing has shown forth before His face, and into it again is their return.
First Part of the Chapter
Verse 1: Do not rejoice in impious children
1. DO NOT REJOICE IN IMPIOUS CHILDREN, IF THEY MULTIPLY; NOR TAKE DELIGHT IN THEM, IF THE FEAR OF GOD IS NOT IN THEM. — Worldly parents are accustomed to rejoice and glory in the beauty, strength, talent, skill, and number of their children, caring little whether they are virtuous or wicked; indeed they glory in the wicked ones, on account of their boldness and deeds that are clever or spirited, though impious or shameful. The Wise Man here reproves these, and teaches that over such children one ought rather to grieve and be ashamed, both because a wicked son is not an honor but a disgrace to his parents, and because eternal confusion and hell await impious children. Therefore one should rejoice only over the pious; and they are pious if the fear of God is in them. Hence the Tigurine version translates: do not desire an abundance of useless children, or, do not rejoice in impious children; do not delight in their abundance, if they have no religion of God; the Syriac: do not desire a multitude of sinful children, and do not rejoice in all the children of falsehood; even if they have multiplied, do not rejoice in them, because they are not in the fear of God. For whoever begets or nourishes such children, begets or nourishes them not for God but for the devil; not for virtue but for crime; not for heaven but for hell: for he makes them the bellows and fuel of hell.
The same may be said of a multitude of impious citizens in a city, of subjects in a state, of associates in a congregation, monastery, or other assembly. Hence Rabanus says: "This maxim holds against those who delight in a multitude of followers and in crowds of disciples, and do not care whether they live according to the fear of God, or are entangled in various crimes."
A natural example is found in the eagle, about which Aristotle writes in Book VI of the History of Animals, chapter 6: "Eagles lay three eggs, but hatch only two chicks, as is established from the verse attributed to Musaeus as its author: She hatches two, lays three, rears one; but although for the most part this is what happens, nevertheless three chicks have sometimes been seen." Likewise, Book IX, chapter 34: "The sea eagle, he says, has the keenest eyesight, and forces its unfledged chicks to gaze directly at the sun; it strikes the one that refuses and turns it toward the sun; then whichever one's eyes water first, this one it kills, and rears the other." So let a parent esteem highly the son who gazes with unturned eyes of the mind upon the Sun of Justice, that is, Christ, and serves and obeys Him in all things; let him make little of the rest who are impious, who neglect God, and are hateful to God, as those from whom he should expect nothing but weariness, disgust, and reproach. For which reason Menander says in Epictetus: "Either one must live alone and celibate, or once children are born the parent must die, so bitter is all life thereafter." Hence St. Ambrose, Book I, On Duties, chapter 17: "It is, he says, the mark of good young men to have the fear of God, and to pay honor to their parents, etc. Isaac was God-fearing, as befitting Abraham's character, paying honor to his father to such a degree that he would not refuse even death against his father's will. Joseph also, although he had dreamed that the sun and moon and stars worshipped him, nevertheless rendered diligent service to his father."
Verse 2: Do not trust in their life
2. DO NOT TRUST IN THEIR LIFE, AND DO NOT LOOK UPON THEIR LABORS. — For "labors" the Complutensian and Tigurine editions read πλῆθος, that is, "multitude"; hence they translate: do not trust their life, nor rely upon (or magnify) their multitude. Others read τόπον, that is, "place, rank"; so the Roman edition, meaning: Do not regard (Greek μὴ ἔπεχε, that is, do not dwell upon, do not linger over) the degree of their rank, that is, do not think there is great weight in it, do not esteem it highly. St. Augustine in the Speculum and our Translator read πόνον, that is, "labor." The sense therefore is: Do not trust that they, however vigorous and robust, will live long and happily, so as to propagate and illustrate a secure name and family, even if you observe their labors and works to be great. For God will render all these things empty and void, will dissolve them into smoke, and will cause them to come to nothing. Hence the Syriac: do not trust in their life, nor believe that a good end awaits them.
Alternatively, Lyranus says: Do not trust in the labors of your children, as though they will support you in old age by their efforts, so that on that account you would not dare or would neglect to correct them when they sin: for this hope and confidence of yours is vain, because wicked children, precisely because their parents neglected to discipline them, are accustomed to despise and neglect their parents. Another interpretation from Hugo: Do not trust their life, hoping that in old age they will change their wicked life into a virtuous one; for, as Solomon says in Proverbs 22:6: "A young man according to his way, even when he grows old, will not depart from it."
Verses 3 and 4: One who fears God is better than a thousand impious children
3 and 4. FOR ONE WHO FEARS GOD IS BETTER (the Com-
plutensian edition reads δίκαιος, that is, "just," and so reads St. Chrysostom, homilies 24 and 39 on Genesis), THAN A THOUSAND IMPIOUS CHILDREN; AND IT IS BETTER (more useful, more advisable) TO DIE WITHOUT CHILDREN THAN TO LEAVE BEHIND IMPIOUS CHILDREN. — For these are the reproach of their parent and the object of God's hatred, whom God will therefore destroy and cut off along with their family. "Better," that is, more useful to parents, to the family, and to the state: otherwise the comparison would not be apt; for since the impious are not good, they cannot properly be compared with one who fears God as with something better. The Translator read χρείσσων, with omega, that is, "better." So also the Syriac: better is one who does the will (who is obedient), than a thousand. Others now read χρεῖσσον with omicron, that is, "it is better, more advisable, preferable." Hence the Tigurine translates: for one just man is worth more than a thousand such; others: for one surpasses a thousand; St. Chrysostom, homily 39 on Genesis, reads: "Better is one who does the will of the Lord than ten thousand sinners." The same, in homily 40 to the People, gives the example of Elijah: "Elijah, he says, was one man, but the whole world was not worthy to be weighed against him; and the world indeed is innumerable thousands, but they are not thousands, since they do not attain to the measure of one man." And further on: "Do you not see that it is better to have one precious stone than a thousand obols?" Now the just man is a precious stone; the impious are an obol. And Philo, in the book On the Decalogue, asserts that "each person, while he obeys God and the laws, is equal to the most populous people, or rather to all nations, indeed to the whole world." Such was Abraham, that is, "exalted father," or "father of a great multitude," to whom therefore God said in Genesis 17:3: "And I will make you increase most exceedingly, and I will set you among the nations, and kings shall come forth from you." On the contrary: "The vast multitude of the impious shall not be useful, and spurious shoots (illegitimate plantings and offshoots) shall not put down deep roots," Wisdom 4:3. So the impious Ham was punished in his infamous son Canaan and his descendants the Canaanites, Genesis 9:18. See Ambrose, book On Noah, chapter 28. With Sirach agrees Ben-Sira, Alphabet 1, letter Beth: "A son who is no son, he says, let him swim or float on the surface of the water." Which Uziel, the son of Ben-Sira, expounds in his Commentary as follows: "At all times discipline and beat your son. But if you see that beatings accomplish nothing, abandon him. If he persecutes you, bring him out to be stoned. But if you cannot arrange for him to be punished by law as a rebel, then cast him into the river and feed the fish." But because this seems harsh and inhumane, Joseph the son of Uziel softens it thus: "Can it be, he says, that a man would kill his own son? What then shall he do? He shall abandon him, so that if he falls into a pit, he will not pull him out." Better is the interpretation of others: A son who is no son, that is, a son who is lost and dissolute and cannot be recalled to virtue, send him to the oars, that is, to the naval workhouses, so that by rowing he may learn wisdom: for the oar corrects many whom paternal discipline could not; and this advice is followed by many today, not without success.
Morally, learn here how great is the dignity and weight of virtue and holiness before God; for He makes one holy person equivalent to, indeed worth more than, a thousand, indeed all the impious. Hence Paul in Hebrews 11:37, speaking of Elijah and the holy Prophets: "They wandered about, he says, in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, distressed — of whom the world was not worthy"; and therefore by whose merits and prayers the world was sustained, according to that saying of Elisha to Elijah when he was being taken up to heaven: "My father, the chariot of Israel and its driver," meaning: You, Elijah, are the chariot that carries and sustains Israel, and as its driver you rule and govern it, 2 Kings 2:12. "Who would doubt that the world stands by the prayers of the Saints?" says Rufinus in the Preface to the Lives of the Fathers. For this reason God properly calls Himself the God of the Saints, although He is the God of all: "I, He says, am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," Exodus 3. Indeed He even enters into a covenant with them as with His most intimate friends. Hence He says to Abraham in Genesis 17:2: "I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly"; on which passage see St. Chrysostom, homily 39 on Genesis.
Let a city therefore say to a just man what the people said to David: "You shall not go out, for you alone are reckoned as ten thousand," 2 Samuel 18:3. Indeed St. Chrysostom, homily 27 on the Epistle to the Hebrews, sets one Joshua above the whole world. For consider that Joshua stopped the sun, Joshua 10:13; "Let the whole world come, he says; more than that, let two, or three, or four, or ten and twenty worlds speak and do this, but they will not be able." And St. Gregory Nazianzen, oration 32: "Would you, he says, set all the Canaanites above Abraham alone? the Sodomites above Lot alone? the Midianites above Moses? Would you contend that those three hundred men who lapped with Gideon were inferior to the many thousands of men who turned back?" Again St. Chrysostom, homily 8 on Acts: "Bring out, he says, a hundred myriads to war, and one saint; we know that this one will accomplish more. Joshua the son of Nun went out to war, and alone accomplished everything valiantly; and so the others accomplished nothing. A multitude, when it does not do the will of the Lord, differs not at all from those who do not exist."
Verse 5: By one man of sense a country shall be inhabited
5. BY ONE MAN OF SENSE A COUNTRY SHALL BE INHABITED (it shall come to be inhabited and frequented; for thus the Hebrew passives in the Hophal conjugation are to be understood), THE TRIBE OF THE IMPIOUS SHALL BE DESERTED. — So the Roman, Greek, and Syriac editions. Many manuscripts therefore incorrectly read: And by three impious men it shall be deserted, which Lyranus, Rabanus, Dionysius, and others explain in various ways; but the literal sense is this: On account of the impiety of a tribe it shall be deserted. So Palacius, who again suspects that it should be read: by three impious men it shall be deserted. Thus one Joseph, he says, saved the nation of the Jews; two men, namely Hamor and Shechem, were the cause of their country's ruin, Genesis 34. One Samuel restored the country that two men, Hophni and Phinehas, had destroyed by their wickedness, 1 Samuel chapters 2 and 8. Therefore God, content with one pious man for preserving a country, [continued]
for destroying it He requires at least three; whom the Teutons formerly called Vandregiesilos, meaning: Dan die dry ghefellen, that is, one of those three companions. Therefore perhaps if Lot had not been a foreigner, but a native and citizen of Sodom, Sodom would still be standing. So says Palacius. But the correct reading, with the Roman and Greek editions, is: "The tribe of the impious shall be deserted"; just as the tribe of Benjamin, on account of the violation committed against the wife of the Levite, was almost entirely cut off, Judges 20:46. Some manuscripts add: And one just man stands for the whole world.
He proves what he said: "Better is one who fears God than a thousand impious," from the fact that one man of sense, that is, a prudent man who fears God, by his prudence and virtue attracts peoples to himself, and thus fills a city and country with inhabitants; but "the tribe" (that is, a large and numerous family such as the twelve tribes of Israel possessed) "of the impious shall be deserted," that is, laid waste, both on account of their folly and wickedness, and on account of God's vengeance in punishing their impiety. Hence in Greek they have: by one man of understanding a city is made populous (is made frequented, is filled with inhabitants), but the tribe of the impious shall be laid waste; in Greek ἐρημωθήσεται, that is, shall be turned into a wilderness and desert, as happened to Sodom and the Pentapolis, an example of which he adduces in verse 9. The Tigurine version: through one wise man a city will be well settled, but the nation of the impious will quickly be laid waste. So also the Complutensian edition adds ἐν τάχει, that is, "quickly, soon," which is absent in many manuscripts; the Syriac: for by one who fears the Lord, the whole city will be filled, and by a multitude of wicked men it will be laid waste; just as the whole earth was laid waste and overwhelmed by the waters of the flood on account of the crimes of the giants, of which he will speak in verse 8. This is what the Psalmist sings in Psalm 107:33: "He turned rivers into a desert, and springs of water into thirsty ground. A fruitful land into a salt waste, because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it." Conversely, on account of the pious: "He turned a desert into pools of water, and a dry land into springs of water. And He settled the hungry there, and they established a city to dwell in," that is, an inhabited, frequented, populous city. For the building of cities is God's invention; their preservation and growth is His gift, which He grants to His own faithful who fear Him. Hence the Psalmist adds in verse 38: "And He blessed them (the children of Israel), and they multiplied greatly, and He did not diminish their livestock." Thus from one Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sprang the twelve tribes of Israel, which in a short time formed a populous commonwealth and kingdom, and this despite the vain opposition and the slaughter of their offspring by the Egyptians. See what was said on Exodus, chapter 1. See also Thomas Bozius, On the Signs of the Church, volume 2, book 20, sign 88, and book 22, sign 93, chapter 4, number 44, and chapter 6. Where among other things he teaches that holy and religious men, such as St. Gall, St. Boniface, St. Columban, and the like, by building monasteries, gave occasion for building cities, and therefore the most magnificent cities of Germany and the northern lands were built near monasteries.
Memorable is what we read in the Life of St. James, Bishop of Nisibis, namely that Nisibis was impregnable as long as the bones of St. James remained interred within it; but when Julian the Apostate ordered them to be removed, the city was soon captured by the Persians. See Baronius on the Acts of Julian. Philo writes beautifully in the book On the Sacrifice of Abel and Cain: "Indeed, he says, whenever I see a good man dwelling in some house or city, I pronounce both the house and that city blessed; believing that the happiness now present will remain with it forever, and that an absent happiness even more abundant is to be expected, since God is accustomed to pour out His riches beyond measure, for the sake of the worthy, even upon the unworthy." Thus the salvation and support of Israel was Moses, Joshua, David, Josiah, Isaiah, Judas Maccabaeus, indeed Judith, Esther, etc.
Verse 6: Many such things has my eye seen
6. MANY SUCH THINGS (some incorrectly read "other"; for the Greek is τοιαῦτα, that is, "such") HAS MY EYE SEEN, AND MY EAR HAS HEARD THINGS MIGHTIER THAN THESE — meaning: I myself have seen with my own eyes many cities deserted because of impiety, and others cultivated and inhabited because of piety, and I have heard with my ears from our fathers mightier, that is, stronger, greater — the Syriac says, more grievous — examples of the same thing that happened in former times. The Tigurine version: many such things my eye has seen, and my ear has heard things more powerful than these. He adduces some of these examples, namely the flood inflicted upon the giants, the fire sent from heaven upon Sodom, and the entire army of the Hebrews destroyed in the desert on account of their murmuring.
SECOND PART OF THE CHAPTER.
ON THE VENGEANCE OF GOD UPON THE IMPIOUS GIANTS, SODOMITES, AND JEWS.
Verse 7: In the assembly of sinners a fire shall burn
7. IN THE ASSEMBLY OF SINNERS A FIRE SHALL BURN, AND IN AN UNBELIEVING (incredulous, disobedient, rebellious) NATION WRATH SHALL BLAZE — meaning: This is what I assert and proclaim, namely that God brings it about that in the assembly, that is, the gathering, however great and numerous, of sinners, God's vengeance blazes like fire and burns it up; and in an unbelieving and rebellious nation, God's wrath and vengeance consume and destroy it. For God's raging wrath does not fear or shrink from the multitude of the impious; just as a single wolf does not fear thousands of sheep, but alone scatters and destroys them all. For judges and princes often, on account of the number and nobility of the accused and their accomplices, do not dare to proceed with the investigation and punishment of a crime, for example, of sorcery, because one sorcerer or one witch accuses the leading citizens of the city, and [continued]
accuses very many others of the same crime. But God is daunted or moved by no nobility or multitude; rather He chastises and destroys all the guilty, even if they are innumerable and of the highest nobility, and indeed sometimes the innocent along with the guilty. For "unbelieving" the Greek is ἀπειθεῖ, which can be translated first, as "incredulous"; second, "mistrustful"; third, "disobedient"; fourth, "rebellious"; the Tigurine version renders it "stubborn"; the Syriac: in a people that provokes (stirs up the wrath of God), the wrath and vengeance of God holds dominion. He alludes to Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and their followers, two hundred and fifty men, which is called the assembly of Abiram; for in this assembly, on account of those three leaders who rebelled against Moses, fire blazed forth, according to Psalm 106: "Fire blazed in their assembly, flame consumed the sinners." See the account in Numbers 16. And: "A gathering of sinners is like collected tow, and their end is a flame of fire," Sirach 21:10.
Verse 8: The ancient giants did not obtain pardon
8. THE ANCIENT GIANTS DID NOT OBTAIN PARDON FOR THEIR SINS, WHO WERE DESTROYED TRUSTING IN THEIR OWN STRENGTH. — This is the first example of the desolation of a commonwealth on account of the impiety of its inhabitants, namely that the whole earth, on account of the tyranny, violence, lust, slaughter, plunder, and impiety of the giants, was overwhelmed by the flood, so that all men, animals, beasts, trees, herbs, and plants were submerged and destroyed. See what was said on Genesis 6.
Note: "They did not obtain pardon" — that is, they did not appease God. This is a catachresis; for God is appeased by prayer, meaning: the giants, although numerous and strong, were nevertheless unable by their number and strength to bend, appease, and render God propitious, so that He might be pleased with them and not punish their sins by a universal deluge; because, not fearing or worshipping God, they trusted in their own strength and power, as if no one, not even God, could tame and subdue them. Hence in Greek it reads: He was not propitiated toward the ancient giants, who rebelled in their strength. The Complutensian edition adds: in the strength of their folly or madness; the Tigurine version clearly and forcefully renders it: God was implacable toward the ancient giants, who because of their foolish power revolted from Him; the Syriac: He did not spare the ancient kings, who filled the world with their strength, or their giant-like nature, that is, the enormity of their bodies, their weapons, their wars, their robberies, and their other crimes, meaning: The giants trusted in their gigantic strength; but God, a far greater Giant, killed these little giants like fleas, and overwhelmed them with waters, just as a larger fish devours a smaller one, and a whale swallows any great fish as if it were a minnow. This is what the Wise Man says in chapter 14:26: "From the beginning, when the ancient giants perished"; and Job 26:8: "Behold, the giants groan beneath the waters," as commentators generally explain, although our Pineda takes "giants" to mean whales and great sea creatures, which groan beneath the waters when giving birth.
Secondly, the phrase "they did not obtain pardon" can be taken in its proper sense, because although the giants, being proud and trusting in their own strength, did not fear God nor pray to Him in life, nevertheless in death they seem to have prayed. For when they saw the waters of the flood rising and themselves gradually being submerged, and that there was no human hope of escape, losing confidence in their own strength, they fled to God and prayed to Him, but did not obtain pardon, because they were drowned by the waters. So proud and unbridled men, who fear neither God nor men, when in a shipwreck they see themselves being swallowed by the waves, compelled by necessity they call upon God. Hence it is commonly said: "He who does not know how to pray, let him go to sea"; for the tempest and dangers of the sea teach, indeed compel, the proud and untamed to pray.
All these things Sirach says in order to refute the foolish reasoning of the common people, who, when they sin, excuse and defend themselves by the multitude and power of those committing the same sin; but they are unaware that this cannot protect anyone from God's wrath and from hell. On this matter, hear a memorable example. Radbod, king of Frisia, was invited to baptism by St. Wulfran the Bishop, who promised him the kingdom of heaven and threatened him with hell if he were not baptized. Radbod asked him where the greater number of kings and princes, or nobles of the Frisian nation, were to be found — in heaven or in hell. When St. Wulfran replied that his predecessors, the princes who had departed without baptism, had descended into hell, Radbod withdrew his foot from the baptismal font, saying he preferred to be with his many predecessor-princes than to dwell with a small number in heaven. Therefore, dying without baptism in the year of the Lord 719, he descended to his own in hell, where St. Willibrord saw him bound with a fiery chain: so write Jonas in the Life of St. Wulfran, Sigebert, Massaeus, Nauclerus, and others, and from them Baronius, at the year of Christ 719.
Mystically, Rabanus says: "Giants are those who, entangled in earthly desires and weighed down by the burdens of their sins, bear an untamable heart and do not consent to bend it to repentance; therefore, unworthy of God's mercy, suffering the loss of their salvation, they fall into eternal destruction." He adds that such are especially the heretics, who are all, like giants, fierce and swollen with pride; for against such God rages cruelly but justly, and in His indignation hurls all His weapons and thunderbolts from heaven against them. Hence giants are called, as it were, γηγενεῖς, born of the earth, sons of the earth, masses of earth, burdens and weights of the earth. In Hebrew they are called nephilim, that is, "falling" or "those who cast down"; and rephaim, that is, "those who dissolve," because they struck down and destroyed others by their great stature, ferocity, strength, and cruelty, as I discussed more fully on Genesis 6 and Wisdom 14:6.
Verse 9: He did not spare the sojourning place of Lot
9. AND HE DID NOT SPARE THE SOJOURNING PLACE OF LOT (most Latin manuscripts incorrectly read "their" instead of "Lot"; the Complutensian edition adds: and He struck them; but the Roman edition deletes this). He calls "sojourning" the place of sojourning, namely Sodom and the Pentapolis, in which Lot sojourned and lived as a stranger, meaning: God did not spare Sodom and the Pentapolis, luxuriating in men and riches, but burned and destroyed them all with heavenly fire. For from the public vengeance of God which He exercised [continued]
upon the impious giants by the flood, in which He submerged the whole world, he passes to the public vengeance upon the impious Pentapolis, by which God destroyed all the Sodomites and inhabitants of the Pentapolis with heavenly fire. Hence, explaining further, he adds: AND HE ABHORRED THEM BECAUSE OF THE PRIDE OF THEIR SPEECH — because they hurled proud words against God and Lot, blaspheming God and despising His power, providence, and vengeance. For it was not unspeakable lust alone that was the cause of Sodom's destruction, but also pride, as Ezekiel teaches in chapter 16:49: "Behold, he says, this was the iniquity of Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her and of her daughters." For it was a proud word by which they insulted Lot when he wished to protect his guests from the shameful injury and violence of the Sodomites, saying: "We will afflict you yourself more than them," Genesis 19:9. Which proud word moved God to their destruction, says Palacius.
Note: For "sojourning" the Greek reads περὶ τῆς παροικίας Λώτ; which some translate first as: those who were of the dwelling place of Lot, meaning: He did not spare the Sodomites who inhabited Sodom, which Lot likewise inhabited as a stranger; for thus the Greeks understand the word περί. So Paul calls those who are of the circumcision "the circumcised," namely the Jews, as I said on Romans 2:7. They therefore translate: He did not spare those among whom Lot was dwelling, whom He abhorred because of their pride. Hence also the Syriac: He did not spare, it says, the inhabitants of the city of Lot, who acted wickedly because of their pride.
Secondly, it can be translated: the dwelling place, or the lodging and place where Lot was living; hence the Tigurine version translates: He did not spare even the lodging of Lot, nor those (Sodomites) whom He abhorred because of their pride.
Thirdly, the Roman edition translates properly and forcefully: He did not spare, on account of the sojourning of Lot, those whom He cursed because of their pride, meaning: God did not spare the Sodomites, not even on account of the merits of the holy Lot, who dwelt among them, because he alone was just in Sodom. Hence he could not restrain the hand and wrath of God from punishing from heaven the enormously wicked crimes of all the Sodomites, but he obtained only that he himself with his family might escape. For Abraham also, praying for them, obtained from God that if ten just men were found among them, He would spare them, Genesis 18:32. But because these were not found among them, God's decreed wrath raged against them. In a similar way God says of impious Jerusalem, already destined by Him for destruction by the Chaldeans: "And if these three men were in the midst of it — Noah, Daniel, and Job — they by their justice would deliver their own souls, etc. As I live, says the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; but they alone shall be delivered, and the land shall be desolated," Ezekiel 14. See what I said about the burning of Sodom on Genesis 19, and 2 Peter 2:6, and Wisdom 10:6.
Although this can rightly be referred to Sodom, it is more correctly referred to Jericho: for God condemned and devoted Jericho with its inhabitants to the ban, that is, to complete and total destruction, on account of their impiety, in Joshua chapter 6. Jericho was therefore properly a city of perdition and anathema, because it was cursed by God and devoted to burning; so that this would be a third example of God's vengeance, destroying impious cities and nations. Hence Joshua, in chapter 6:17, decrees to his own people from the mouth of God concerning Jericho: "And let this city be anathema, and all that is in it, to the Lord," namely that it be entirely burned for God and divine justice, and offered as a holocaust. This is supported by the fact that he soon adds the example of the Hebrews in the time of Moses, who were destroyed by God in the desert on account of their murmurings: and the children of these, at the same time, under the leadership of Joshua, overthrew Jericho. Hence the Syriac adds: at that time sixty thousand foot soldiers were gathered. But at that time of Moses and the Hebrews, the destruction of Sodom did not occur, as it had already been accomplished five hundred years before, but rather the destruction of Jericho. Therefore the Syriac understood this passage as referring to Jericho.
Finally, Palacius takes these words as referring to the Egyptians; for the Greek reads: He did not have mercy on the nation of perdition, who went forth in their sins, meaning: God did not spare the Egyptians, whose entire nation went forth to pursue the departing Hebrews, exalting itself in its forces, cavalry, chariots, and its gods, but God drowned and suffocated them all in the Red Sea.
Verse 10: He did not have mercy on them
10. HE DID NOT HAVE MERCY ON THEM, DESTROYING THE WHOLE NATION THAT EXALTED ITSELF IN ITS SINS. — The Roman and Complutensian editions read the conjunction "and": for it has emphasis and signifies the cause of destruction (for thus the Hebrews use their copulative vav, that is "and," in the sense of "because, for, indeed"), meaning: For this reason God destroyed the whole nation of Sodom, because it exalted itself in its sins, boasting that it did not fear God the avenger and His vengeance. In Greek: He did not have mercy on the nation of perdition (that is, the lost nation, and therefore one devoted to its own ruin and destruction by God) who exalted themselves in their sins; the Tigurine version: He did not have mercy on the lost nation, as one puffed up by the sins it committed; the Complutensian edition: He did not have mercy on the lost nation, who went forth in their sins: for they read τοὺς ἐξερχουμένους, that is, "who went forth." Others generally, with our Translator, read ἐπαιρομένους, that is, "exalting themselves in sins." The Syriac: He did not have mercy upon the accursed people, and He pronounced sentence against them, to destroy them because of their sins.
Verse 11: Six hundred thousand foot soldiers
11. AND LIKEWISE SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND FOOT SOLDIERS, WHO WERE GATHERED IN THE HARDNESS OF THEIR HEART. — Supply from the preceding verse: "He destroyed": for this is implicit in the word "destroying," meaning: And just as God destroyed six hundred thousand Hebrews in the desert because of their hardness, that is, because of their stubbornness, obstinacy, and rebellion. Hence the Syriac translates: because of their murmuring. So likewise He destroyed Sodom, as I said in the preceding verse. For the present verse depends on that one. Hence some read "and so": for the Greek does not have ὡς, that is "just as," but οὕτως, that is "so," meaning: Just as He destroyed the Sodomites, so likewise He destroyed the Hebrews. For of the six hundred thousand who went out of Egypt, [continued]
only two, namely Joshua and Caleb, entered the promised land; all the rest were punished by God with death on account of the murmuring of the spies, and in fact died in the desert, according to God's sentence pronounced against them in Numbers 14:29.
Furthermore, the Roman edition translates from the Greek: and so toward six hundred thousand foot soldiers (supply: He did not have mercy; for although in Greek they are accusatives — six hundred thousand — which the Latin Vulgate translator imitated, nevertheless these accusatives must be rendered in Latin with the dative: for the Greek ἐλέω is construed with the accusative, while the Latin misereor is construed with the dative), who when gathered together rose up in the hardness of their heart. The Complutensian edition, however, and some others from the Greek word for six hundred thousand, with many words added, fill it out in this manner: and so six hundred thousand foot soldiers, who were gathered in the stubbornness of their heart, scourging, having mercy, striking, healing, the Lord preserved them by mercy and chastisement; which Vatablus explains: He preserved — not them, but their children — meaning: The Lord in preserving His own used partly wrath and partly mercy. But these words: "scourging, having mercy, striking, healing," etc., are absent in the Latin, Syriac, Greek, Roman, and other corrected editions.
Finally, the phrase "who were gathered" should be explained thus: They were gathered both for murmuring and fault, and likewise for scourging and punishment; they were gathered both for rebellion, and likewise for death and the grave. For "to be gathered," or "to be collected," or "to be added to one's fathers," or "to go the way of all flesh," among the Hebrews signifies to die: for the dead are gathered into the earth from which they came, and in the limbo of the fathers all the just were formerly gathered. On this matter I spoke more fully on Hosea 4:3.
This is therefore the third, or, according to the Syriac, the fourth public example of God's vengeance upon the impious.
AND IF ONE MAN HAD BEEN STIFF-NECKED, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A WONDER IF HE HAD GONE UNPUNISHED. — From this it is clear that the Translator of Ecclesiasticus was not fully Latin, and was perhaps a Greek man, as I said above. For "cervicatus" is a less correct Latin rendering for "cervicosus," that is, "stiff-necked," one who bends and bows his neck with difficulty — stubborn, disobedient, rebellious: for this is what the Greek σκληροτράχηλος means, such as Job describes in chapter 41:15, saying: "His heart shall be hardened like a stone, and compressed like a blacksmith's anvil"; or, as the Septuagint has it: he stood like an immovable anvil. And Isaiah 48:4: "For I knew that you are stubborn, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your brow is bronze." And Ezekiel 2:4 and 3:7. The sense is first: If those six hundred thousand had been one stubborn and stiff-necked man, it would have been a wonder if he had escaped divine wrath. For just as God is infinite in mercy, so He is also in wrath, as the damned experience to their misery in hell. So Palacius says: To God it is the same thing, and equally easy, to punish six hundred thousand as to punish just one; therefore when He punished six hundred thousand with death, it was the same to Him as if they all had one neck — [continued]
Secondly and genuinely, the meaning is: If God did not spare six hundred thousand murmurers, it would have been a wonder if He had spared even one stiff-necked murmurer: for the whole people is worth more than one man of the people; therefore if He did not spare the whole people but killed every last one, certainly He would not have spared one man alone.
Our Translator aptly referred this to the preceding verse and to the times of Moses; hence he translated it in the past tense: "had been." But the Greek text refers it to the present time. For it reads: if one man is stiff-necked, it is a wonder if he will be innocent, that is, unpunished and free from penalty. The Tigurine version clearly: therefore if one stubborn man is among the people, it is a wonder if he goes unpunished; the Syriac: even if one man hardens his neck, it is a wonder if he will be justified. Another manuscript reads: it is a wonder if he will overcome the wrath and vengeance of God. From the punishment of six hundred thousand he infers the punishment of any stiff-necked person whatsoever; therefore the initial copulative "and," in the Hebrew manner, is illative, signifying "whence, therefore, for which reason," as the Tigurine version translates, meaning: If God did not allow the Hebrews to go unpunished when they were so great in number, namely six hundred thousand, how much less will He allow one man to go unpunished who dares to raise his neck against God? He says this against certain presumptuous persons, who think thus: Granted that the whole multitude may be punished, yet since I am alone, I shall be able to slip away or escape — just as in a battle where many will be killed, each man hopes that he will escape. Hence, declaring this in verse 16, he says: "Do not say: I shall be hidden from God, and from on high who will remember me? In so great a people I shall not be noticed: for what is my soul in so immense a creation?"
Again, in a quarrel or dispute, stiff-necked and hot-headed people think they will overcome everyone and everything by their persistence and obstinacy, because no one wants to deal with a hot-head. Some stiff-necked people persuade themselves it will be the same with God. But they err: for God tames and crushes all hot-headed people, just as His thunderbolt shatters everything hard that resists, while it passes over what is soft. This is what Sirach says: If God crushed and killed six hundred thousand obstinate Hebrews, with what face will one stiff-necked man persuade himself that he will escape the hands of God the avenger with impunity? For, as Rabanus says: "The judgment of divine justice preserves equity in all things, and therefore it will spare neither one man nor many, if they do not turn from their sins: for no sin is left unpunished, because either the man himself exacts the punishment for his sin upon himself, or he will be punished by the examination of the strict Judge."
Our Latin version can be adapted to this genuine sense, if you take the word "fuisset" ("had been") as used by the not-fully-Latin Translator in place of "esset" ("were"). For even now the English, Irish, and other peoples mix and interchange these very past tenses through enallage, and take one for the other. Indeed even in Latin [continued]
one may correctly say: If in this age one man had been stiff-necked, it would have been a wonder if he had gone unpunished — meaning: If in this age one man were stiff-necked, it would be a wonder if he went unpunished. For from a past tense joined to a present age or time, the present is rightly inferred — namely from "had been" one infers "were." For if in this age no stiff-necked man has gone unpunished, why should anyone in the present go unpunished?
Verse 12: Mercy and wrath are with Him
12. FOR MERCY AND WRATH (the Syriac: fury) ARE WITH HIM. — He proves that God lets no stiff-necked person pass unpunished, from the fact that in God there is equally wrath by which He is angry with the impious and chastises them, and mercy by which He has compassion on the pious and obedient. Wrath therefore, that is, God's justice and vengeance, equals His mercy, and is as great as His mercy; therefore just as His mercy extends to each and every pious person and passes over not even the least: so likewise His vengeance reaches out to each and every impious person, and allows no one to go unpunished. See what was said on chapter 2, verse 23.
He explains the same thing in other words, adding: HE IS MIGHTY IN PARDON, AND HE POURS OUT WRATH — supply: this is with Him, with God; that is, powerful is the appeasement that is with God, but in such a way that He equally pours out wrath upon the guilty, meaning: God easily allows Himself to be moved and appeased by the penitent and the suppliant; but against the impenitent and the stiff-necked He is wrathful, according to Psalm 130:7: "With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him abundant redemption." Would that all of us would imitate this approachability of God! In Greek it is more forceful: δυνάστης ἐξιλασμοῦ, that is, "mighty one," or "lord and prince," as the Roman edition translates, "of appeasements," because God is a sea and ocean of appeasement and clemency. Thus he took "to entreat" in the sense of "to appease" by catachresis in verse 8, saying: "The ancient giants did not obtain pardon for their sins." Hence the Syriac: He is great in pardoning, and also in avenging sins; the Tigurine version connects this verse and the following and expresses them clearly: for since mercy and wrath both proceed readily from Him, and He is powerful to give pardon and to pour out wrath, as great as His mercy is, so also is His chastisement great. He judges each person according to his works. Jansenius and Palacius add that God Himself may be called "mighty pardon" and yet at the same time "one who pours out wrath," because He is abundant in appeasement or placation, just as He is also called mercy itself, as in "My God, my mercy," Psalm 59:18. So Christ is called our propitiation and redemption, 1 Corinthians 1:30.
Verse 13: According to His mercy, so His correction
13. ACCORDING TO HIS MERCY, SO HIS CORRECTION JUDGES A MAN ACCORDING TO HIS WORKS. — In other words he emphasizes what he said, meaning: Just as God's mercy is great, by which He has compassion on the pious and penitent and does good to them, so also His correction and chastisement is great: because He judges and punishes each impious person according to his works and demerits. For "correction" the Greek is ἔλεγχος, that is, reproof, correction, rebuke; the Syriac: just as His mercies are many, so also He avenges sins, and judges each person according to his works. Note: The cause of showing mercy God takes from Himself: for He has mercy not because we deserve it, but because His goodness, love, and compassion urge it; and this is what Sirach means when he says simply: "According to His mercy," because He Himself, or with Him, is powerful pardon — for that is what he is referring to; but the cause of reproof and of pouring out wrath He takes not from Himself but from us, and therefore he says: "His correction judges a man according to his works," meaning: It is proper to God to have mercy and to pardon; but to avenge and punish is a work foreign to Him, as Isaiah says in chapter 28:21, because He does it only when compelled by sins. Hence God assigned to Himself these names of compassion in Exodus 34:6, and wished and wishes to be invoked by them by Moses and by us: "Lord, Lord God, merciful and gracious, patient, and of great compassion"; in Hebrew רב חסד rab chesed, which can be translated "prince of compassion and piety." Hence He is called by Paul: "The Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation," 2 Corinthians 1:3.
Hugo, Lyranus, and Palacius explain the word "according to" differently, meaning: According to the prescription of mercy, God's correction judges and chastises the evil works of men. For God tempers His wrath and scourges with mercy, and therefore limits and restricts His scourges according to the prescription and dictate of mercy, so that in justice and vengeance mercy presides, as it were, and mercy itself, like a president and arbiter, defines the measure of punishment. Therefore the measure of mercy is the measure of vengeance. Hence St. Anselm in the Proslogion, addressing God: "Your mercy, he says, is born from Your justice, because it is just that You should be so good; but in considering justice, as it assigns rewards and punishments to merits, mercy is prior. For God is moved from Himself, and by a prior act of will, to have mercy."
This exposition is pious, but the former is more genuinely correct. For Scripture is accustomed to commend the justice and mercy of God, and to compare and equalize them with each other, as the two foundations and pillars of His providence. Hence the Psalmist: "Mercy and judgment I will sing to You, O Lord," Psalm 101:1. And St. Basil on Psalm 33: "These, he says, are joined together within themselves — mercy and judgment — so that mercy alone may not bring about complacency, nor judgment alone produce despair."
Verse 14: The sinner shall not escape with his plunder
14. THE SINNER SHALL NOT ESCAPE WITH HIS PLUNDER, AND THE PATIENCE OF HIM WHO SHOWS MERCY SHALL NOT BE DELAYED. — The Complutensian edition reads ἀσεβοῦς, that is, "of the impious"; but the others read εὐσεβοῦς, that is, "of the pious, the merciful," meaning: Just as a sinner (for example, a plunderer with his plunder) will not escape the swift correction and vengeance of God for his rapacity: so likewise "the patience," that is, the reward of patience, that is, of the expectation and hope of him who shows mercy, will not be delayed, meaning: He will quickly receive the reward of his mercy, which he hopes and expects. For "patience" the Greek is ὑπομονή, which signifies first, the endurance of labors and sorrows; secondly, the long-suffering expectation of good things — [continued]
to gather the merits of good works, for which he knows he will receive ample riches and crowns in heaven.
The Greek, concise as usual, has only this: "Prepare a place for every alms" (some read ποιήσει, that is, "he will make, he will prepare a place," namely God, instead of ποίησον, that is, "make, prepare"): "each one shall find according to his works," so that he may receive a reward according to the merit of his works. The Tigurina renders: "Prepare a place for every beneficence: for each one shall obtain fruit according to the measure of his works and the understanding of his pilgrimage." The Syriac: "Everyone who works justice has a reward, and each one finds his works before Him."
St. Gregory excellently says in Moralia, Book IV, Chapter 42: "Because in this life we have a distinction of works, there will undoubtedly in that future life be a distinction of dignities, so that by how much one here surpasses another in merit, by that much one there will surpass another in reward." And St. Cyprian, in his treatise On Works and Almsgiving: "An illustrious and divine thing, dearest brothers, is the saving work, a great consolation of believers, a salutary safeguard of our security, a bulwark of hope, a defense of faith." See the remarkable parable by which Barlaam teaches Josaphat that good works must be sent ahead, so that after death we may live forever in heaven from them, in Damascenus, History, Chapter 14. Properly speaking of almsgiving, St. Chrysostom says in Homily 9 On Penance: "Almsgiving, that queen of virtues, leads men most swiftly to the very citadels of heaven, serving in the place of an excellent advocate. Almsgiving is a great thing: it goes before the air, passes the moon, exceeds the rays of the sun, reaches the very summit of the heavens, passing through the heavens themselves and running past the peoples of angels, the choirs of Archangels, and all the higher powers, it stands beside the royal throne."
Verse 15: Every act of mercy shall make a place for each one
15. EVERY ACT OF MERCY SHALL MAKE A PLACE FOR EACH ONE ACCORDING TO THE MERIT OF HIS WORKS (a place, namely, with God in heaven and in His heavenly reward, according to the saying of Paul: "He who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly: and he who sows in blessings, from blessings shall also reap," 2 Cor. 9. See Matt. 25:35, where Christ assigns the elect to heaven on account of mercy alone. From this it is clear, against the heretics, both the name and the reality of the merit of good works. Calvin and Kemnitius reply that the word "merit" is not in the Greek, and therefore was wrongly added by the Vulgate translator. But they are wrong: for in Greek it is κατά ἔργα, which means "according to the merits of works," as all who are skilled in Greek know. Hence the Syriac translates it as "reward." Our translator adds): AND ACCORDING TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF HIS PILGRIMAGE — that is, according to his prudence and wisdom, by which in this life, as in a pilgrimage, he wisely sends ahead his goods through mercy to heaven, as to his homeland, so that from there he may live blessedly forever. That is, each one shall receive a reward in heaven according to the life wisely lived in this pilgrimage. For the Hebrew שכל sachal, meaning "to understand," signifies to act intelligently, to conduct oneself prudently, to work wisely; whence שכל sechel, meaning "understanding," is called prudence itself, as in Psalm 77:72: "And in the understandings of his hands (that is, as St. Jerome, Aquila, and the Chaldean translate, in the prudence of his actions) he led them." Similar passages are found in Proverbs 1:4, Psalm 15:17, Ecclesiasticus 1:4, and elsewhere.
One codex reads "merit" instead of "understanding," and Jansenius considers this is how it should be read: which reading would certainly be more fitting and clearer, if more codices supported it. Rabanus seems to support this when he says: "When he says that mercy makes a place for each one according to the understanding of his pilgrimage, he shows that whoever strives by good works to keep the commandments of God during the time of this pilgrimage, and labors with tears and groaning to cleanse his sins, shall deserve to be consoled with eternal rest." But from Rabanus's words it is clear that he read "understanding," yet he explains "understanding" as "merit," which is indeed true. For he who in this life is understanding and wise is the one who strives to gather—
as of reward. Here it is rather taken in the second sense, whence the Tigurina translates: "The irreligious man shall not escape with his plunder, nor shall hope disappoint the pious." For this is what the Greek καθυστερήσει signifies. Others render: "The expectation of the pious shall not be in vain." The Syriac: "He will not deliver those who work falsehood and defraud, and He will not frustrate the hope of the just forever." This is what the Apostle says in Romans 2:6: "He will render to each one according to his works: to those indeed who by patience in good work seek glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life; but to those who are of contention, etc., wrath and indignation." Where for "patience" the same Greek word is used as here, namely ὑπομονή. Hugo explains it differently, saying: "He shall not escape with plunder," that is, the sinner shall not snatch himself from the hands of God so as to escape His vengeance.
Verses 16 and 17: Do not say: I shall be hidden from God
16 and 17. DO NOT SAY: I SHALL BE HIDDEN FROM GOD, AND FROM ON HIGH WHO WILL REMEMBER ME? IN SO GREAT A PEOPLE I SHALL NOT BE NOTICED (the Roman Greek reads: "I shall not be in memory"; others: "there shall be no memory of me"): FOR WHAT IS MY SOUL IN SO IMMENSE A CREATION? — The Tigurina, or Vatablus: "Do not say: I shall hide from the Lord; who from on high will care about me? Amid so great a multitude of people there shall be no memory of me: for how small is my soul in so immense a nature of things?" Others: "For what is my soul in the immensity of created things?" The Syriac: "Do not say: I shall be hidden from before the Lord, and in the height of the heavens who will remember me? And in a great people I shall not be recognized, or what (or of what account) is my soul among the spirits of all men?"
This is an anticipation of an objection. He said that God punished entire nations, such as the Sodomites and Hebrews, indeed the whole world with the flood. Now lest anyone object and say that God indeed cares for large nations, but not for individual men, and that therefore some wicked person can hide from God's knowledge and by that means escape His vengeance — he anticipates and excludes this very thing, saying: "Do not say: I shall be hidden from God."
Note that three reasons are here presented by which the wicked foolishly persuade themselves that they can escape the eyes and hands of God; all of which he here refutes. The first is that God is God, that is, the supreme and most exalted majesty.
from which it seems unworthy to attend to and care for individual men, who before Him are like locusts and fleas. Therefore, that God cares for great things like the heavens and heavenly matters, but despises small and lowly things. Whence the wicked say in Job 22:14: "The clouds are His hiding place, and He does not consider our affairs, and He walks about the hinges of heaven." For thus a king neglects, indeed is unable, to attend to and watch over each individual subject of his kingdom, and "the magistrate does not concern himself with trifles," as is commonly said. But to this he responds that God is God, that is, a divine being who beholds each and every one equally, governs, cares for, punishes, and rewards them. For the providence of God, being most exact and most perfect, extends to all things and each individual thing, even the most minute. For He has an immense eye, by which He sees all and each most easily and most distinctly, and can see infinitely more persons and things. Hence St. Benedict, elevated in ecstasy to this eye of God, saw beneath it the whole world like a tiny globe compressed and gathered under the rays of the sun, as St. Gregory relates in Dialogues, Book II, Chapter 35. Therefore, just as the sun illuminates all things, so much more does God. Hence Hesiod says that God is the sun who sees all things and hears all things: "The sun," he says, "who beholds all things and hears all things." And the Wise Man in Chapter 1:10: "The ear of jealousy," he says, "hears all things." And he gives the reason in verse 7: "For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world, and this (πνεῦμα, that is, here 'spirit'), which contains all things, has knowledge of every voice. Therefore he who speaks unjust things cannot be hidden, nor shall correcting judgment pass him by."
The second reason why the wicked think they can be hidden from God is that they are very far from God: for God is at the summit of the heavens, while they are at the bottom of the earth. Hence they say in Ezekiel 9: "The Lord has forsaken the earth, and the Lord does not see." But Sirach turns this back against them as well: for God sees from on high over the greatest distances, because He has the sharpest and most immense sight. Just as one who looks from a mountain, if his eyes are sharp and strong, sees men coming from afar. Furthermore, the earth in relation to heaven, and much more in relation to God, is like a point: therefore God sees all and each sharply and distinctly, though they are small like a point. Just as one in a small room sees everything that is in it and happens there, so God most clearly sees everything that exists and occurs on earth and in the whole world: for this world in relation to God is like a small room. This is what Isaiah says in Chapter 40:22: "He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like locusts: who stretches out the heavens like nothing, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. Who makes the searchers of secrets as if they were nothing, and has made the judges of the earth as a void." Finally, God is so in heaven that He is equally on earth and in all places and corners of the earth: for He fills heaven and earth with His essence, presence, and power. Therefore whatever happens in any place happens in the presence of Him who is there and watching.
The third reason is that they say: "In so great a people I shall not be noticed: for what is my soul in so immense a creation?" As if to say: There are practically infinite millions of men; among so many, I alone will be able to hide. For thus pupils in a large and crowded school, while they chatter and play pranks, hide themselves in the crowd of companions and are not seen by the teacher. Thus thieves in a gathering, when they have cut purses, insert themselves into the crowd of people and hide there, and cannot be identified. Thus many wicked men hide themselves in great cities, provinces, and kingdoms, because one magistrate, prince, and king cannot observe each individual in so great a number of subjects, nor notice the character and behavior of each one. But they are wrong: because all men and creatures, since they are finite in number, are before the infinite eye of God like a single atom, which He surveys, beholds, and sees through from every direction. This is what Isaiah says in Chapter 40:15: "Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as a speck on the scales: behold, the islands are like fine dust, etc. All nations are as if they were nothing before Him, and are accounted by Him as nothing and emptiness." Trembling before these immense and most brilliant, as well as most just and most powerful, eyes of God the avenger, King David says in Psalm 138:8: "Where shall I go from Your Spirit? And where shall I flee from Your face? If I ascend to heaven, You are there: if I descend to hell, You are present." And then: "For darkness shall not be darkened before You, and night shall be illuminated like day." Wherefore, when the wicked on the day of judgment shall hide themselves in caves and say to "the mountains and rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of Him who sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb," Revelation 6:16, they will say this not because they wish to be hidden so as not to be seen by God and Christ (for they know this is impossible), but so that they may not be forced to gaze upon His wrathful countenance: for He will be so horrible and fearful to them that they would prefer to be hidden in hell rather than look upon Him.
Note: Sirach repeatedly brings up and insists upon the memory of God's presence, beholding all things and each individual, judging, rewarding, and punishing, because there is no more effective stimulus for restraining men from all evil and urging them to all good. Hence in the next chapter, verse 16: "All their works," he says, "are as the sun in the sight of God: and His eyes are without ceasing inspecting their ways." And in Chapter 23:28: "The eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, surveying all the ways of men, and the depths of the abyss, and beholding the hearts of men in hidden parts."
This is what Boethius proclaims: "A great necessity of acting well rests upon us, because we do everything in the sight of a Judge who discerns all things." And piously St. Augustine in his Meditations, Chapter 10: "Thus indeed," he says, "it seems to me, when I consider His mercies toward me, that — if it is permissible to say so — God does nothing else but provide for my salvation; and I see Him so entirely occupied with my protection, as if He had forgotten all others, and God shows Himself to me,
always presents Himself ready: wherever I turn, He does not abandon me: wherever I am, He does not depart: whatever I do, He equally assists, and finally as a perpetual observer of all my actions, and insofar as it pertains to His goodness, He assists as an almost inseparable collaborator, and He patiently shows the effect of His own work. From this it is clear that although His face cannot yet be seen by us, nevertheless His presence can never be avoided." And Tertullian, in his book On Penance, Chapter 6: "Nothing," he says, "is hidden that shall not be revealed: however great the darkness you have piled upon your deeds, God is light; and His eyes are far brighter than the sun, surveying all the ways of men, and the depths of the abyss, and beholding the hearts of men in hidden parts."
The Complutensian and certain other Greek codices append to this verse, or to verse 16, these two verses which are absent in the Latin: "The Lord hardened Pharaoh so that he would not know Him; so that His powerful and efficacious works (for this is what the Greek ἐνεργήματα means) might be known in what is under heaven. To every creature His mercy is manifest; and He divided His light and darkness with adamant," that is, God divided light from darkness completely and perpetually, just as if He had separated and divided them with an adamantine wall; and He did this both in the first creation and arrangement of things, which continually persists (Genesis 1), and mystically He does this among good and evil angels, as well as among all, for example in Pharaoh and Moses; for the good are light, the evil are darkness. Therefore just as in the good He shows mercy through grace and glory, so in the evil He shows judgment and vengeance through abandonment and hell, and this perpetually, as if He had separated them with an adamantine wall: for such a wall exists between heaven and hell. Hence Abraham says to the rich man condemned in hell: "Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who wish to cross from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross from there to us" (Luke 16:26). The Syriac also reads these verses, but places them before verse 16. It reads thus: "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, so that he would not know Him, so that His works might appear under heaven. His mercies would appear to all His creatures, and He divided His light and His darkness for the children of men." As if to say: I have set before you the vengeance of God upon the wicked, and His mercy upon the pious. Do you want examples? Take Pharaoh as an example of vengeance, who because of his hardness was drowned in the Red Sea as to his body, and as to his soul in the fire of hell: but all creatures supply examples of mercy, inasmuch as they are preserved, nourished, sustained, and heaped with all His good things by it.
Verses 18 and 19: Heaven, and the heavens of heavens
18 and 19. BEHOLD, HEAVEN, AND THE HEAVENS OF HEAVENS, THE ABYSS, AND THE WHOLE EARTH, AND THE THINGS THAT ARE IN THEM, SHALL BE MOVED AT HIS SIGHT. THE MOUNTAINS TOGETHER, AND THE HILLS, AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE EARTH: WHEN GOD SHALL LOOK UPON THEM, THEY SHALL BE SHAKEN WITH TREMBLING. — The Tigurina renders: "Behold, heaven, and the heavens of heavens, the deep sea of God, together with the earth, and all things that are contained in them — when He speaks in them, they are moved; the whole created world, and what is being created (can be created; or 'is being created,' that is, preserved — for God's preservation is like a continuous creation), according to His will; and the mountains together with the foundations of the earth, when the Lord looks down upon them, are shaken with trembling." The Syriac: "Behold, the heavens of heavens, and the abyss, and the earth, at His manifestation, the things that stand upon them, the roots of mountains and the foundations of the world, when He manifests Himself upon them, are moved." He refutes what he stated from the mouth of the wicked: "I shall be hidden from God," etc., from the fact that God beholds and surveys all parts of the world, and by His gaze moves them and shakes them with trembling; for from this he leaves it to be concluded that God likewise sees all the deeds of each individual in order to judge them, and therefore all and each should tremble with fear and reverence at this divine gaze, and be shaken with horror. For by "heaven" he means the air; by "the heavens of heavens" the sidereal heavens and the rest including the empyrean; by "the abyss" the sea. If you add the earth with its inhabitants, you will have all the elements of the world and the heavens, which compose and bind together the whole world. By "the foundations of the earth" he means the lowest parts of the earth and its center, on which the earth seems to rest as on foundations.
Now God moves these things by His gaze, in Greek ἐπισκοπῇ, that is, by His inspection and visitation, because when God wishes to visit them and to show in them His presence and power — to the terror of men — He moves them from their place, shakes and convulses them, just as He shook the whole earth during the Passion of Christ, and Mount Sinai when He gave the law to Moses on it (Psalm 67:9), and frequently moved and shattered other provinces and islands with earthquakes. But He will do this most of all at the end of the world on the day of judgment, as is clear from Revelation 6:14. This is what the Psalmist says in Psalm 104:32: "He who looks upon the earth and makes it tremble: who touches the mountains and they smoke." And Job 9:5: "He who moved mountains, and they knew not those whom He overturned in His fury." See Psalm 17:8 and following. For the prodigious, horrifying, and divine — indeed proper — works by which He displays His sovereignty and magnificence over the world are thunder, lightning, and earthquakes: for these are portents and signs of divine power, as well as of divine indignation and vengeance, so that we may fear and venerate His Godhead as terrible and most sacred.
Hence that passage of Job 37:4: "After Him the noise shall roar, He shall thunder with the voice of His greatness; and it shall not be investigated when His voice has been heard." And Chapter 38:35: "Shall you send forth lightnings, and shall they go, and returning say to you: Here we are?" And Chapter 9:6: "He who moves the earth from its place, and its pillars are shaken."
Wherefore Philastrius, in his book On Heresies, calls heretics and vain philosophers those who attribute earthquakes to the nature of things and elements, and not to God's special command and indignation, by which He warns sinners to convert. Hence
among the Gentiles it was always held as prodigious by antiquity, and indeed as divine: "If it thundered, if there was lightning, if the earth shook." See Gellius, Book II, Chapter 28, and Seneca, Books II and VI of his Natural Questions. Therefore during earthquakes they also consulted the Sibylline books, as Livy attests in Book 34. "When Jupiter thunders and sends lightning, it is unlawful to hold an assembly of the people," says Cicero, in On Divination, Book II. Hence also the fulgural or augural books, which dealt with taking auguries from lightning, which Cicero mentions in On Divination, Book I.
The reason is that God encloses the whole world in His fist, and therefore can easily shake it, according to that passage of Isaiah 40:12: "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and weighed the heavens with His palm? Who has hung the mass of the earth on three fingers, and balanced the mountains in weight, and the hills on a scale?" As if to say: Who but God alone? The same was sung by the poets. Virgil in Aeneid IV:
"The ruler who shakes heaven and earth with His divine power."
Seneca in the Agamemnon:
"Father and ruler, mighty with the thunderbolt, At whose nod together the ends Of the heavens trembled."
The same in the Hercules Furens:
"O great ruler of Olympus and arbiter of the world, You supreme power of the gods, ruler And parent of the heavenly ones, at whose hurled Darts mortal things tremble."
Dius says of God that "He makes Olympus tremble with a nod." Palacius explains it differently: The heavens, he says, earth, sea, and all things that are in them are moved before God, that is, they produce no motion without it being immediately seen by God. As if to say: They cannot move even the slightest bit without all of it being instantly observed by God. But hear his remarkable explanation of the foundations: In the middle of the earth, he says, there is a vast abyss where hell is; and that cavity is vaulted, constructed with a stone arch. That stone vault is the foundation of the earth; for just as bones are the foundations of animals, so the veins of stone beginning from that vault are the bones of the earth, and therefore its foundations. For this reason the Author most rightly adds that when God looks upon these foundations, tremor shakes the earth, because when the bones of an animal are shaken, the body of the animal is also shaken. So says Palacius.
Finally, when thunderclaps resound with a dreadful crash and lightnings flash, heaven, mountains, hills, and the whole world seem to be shaken and struck with fear, to such a degree that deer, which give birth with the greatest difficulty, when it thunders — the terror loosening their sinews — bring forth and deliver their young, according to Psalm 28:9: "The voice of the Lord (thundering) preparing the deer." St. Jerome translates: "acting as midwife for the deer." Others: "He makes the deer tremble" or "give birth." How much more, then, should sinners tremble?
Morally, learn here how powerful and efficacious the gaze of God is, that it shakes the whole world and can tear it from its center if He wills, and therefore how much we ought to look up to Him and revere Him.
The first reason is that the gaze of God is inseparably joined to the will of God: but the will of God is not like the human or angelic will, which merely wills but does not do what it wills; rather by willing He immediately does what He efficaciously wills. For He said: "Let there be light," and immediately light was made. He said: "Let there be a firmament" — the heavens, sun, moon, stars, elements, men, birds, fish, animals; and they were immediately made (Genesis 1). For "whatever the Lord willed, He did in heaven and on earth" (Psalm 134:6), because the will of God is at the same time His power, indeed the omnipotence of God, and its act and execution.
The second reason is that this gaze of God is like the sun, which by diffusing the rays of its light illuminates, vivifies, and makes all things fruitful; some things it burns, some it melts, some it hardens. These rays the divinity communicated to the humanity of Christ. Hence Christ, looking upon the fallen Peter, upon Matthew and Zacchaeus the tax collectors, and other sinners, immediately converted them to Himself and to penance and holiness. For if the basilisk kills with its eyes those it looks upon; if the wryneck bird, which is called vertilla and torquilla from the turning of its neck, as Aristotle attests in Animals, Book II, Chapter 12, is reputed to seize men into love of itself by its gaze; if a magnet placed near iron draws it to itself: what wonder if the eyes of Christ, in which the splendor of divinity radiated, drew the Apostles and others to Himself by their gaze?
Third, because this gaze of God is practical: for it is His inspection, visitation, and judgment; and the judgment of God is efficacious, because by it He punishes the guilty and rewards the innocent.
Mystically, Rabanus says: The heavens are the Angels, who inhabit heaven; the abyss represents the demons, who inhabit the abyss of hell. All of these tremble before God, according to the word of the Apostle in Philippians 2: "At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth." For by mountains and hills, the person of the powerful is indicated; and by the foundations of the earth, the counsels of human minds. These therefore tremble at the gaze of God, because they are entirely subject to His dominion. In Sacred Scripture too, the height of preachers is often signified by the name of mountains. Of whom the Psalmist says: "Let the mountains receive peace for your people." The elect preachers of the eternal homeland are not undeservedly called mountains, because through the loftiness of their life they abandon the lowest parts of the earth and draw near to heaven. Therefore, while God's elect are subject to the divine will, only the mind of the proud resists; but striving to oppose it, it breaks itself with the very sword of contradiction: it resists the internal order, but is bound, conquered by its own efforts. Hence it is written in Job: "Who has resisted Him and had peace?" Because the perverse mind, where it raises itself against its Author, there it confounds itself within itself. Therefore the one who resists cannot have peace, because when confusion follows pride, what is foolishly done through fault, this
is wonderfully ordered in the punishment of the doer." These words are from Rabanus citing St. Gregory. Again, by the foundations of the earth, the Gloss understands profound counsels; Hugo understands cardinals: for upon these, as upon hinges and foundations, the Church seems to rest. These too will be shaken with fear when the Lord comes to judge; for from him to whom more has been given, more will be required.
Verse 20: In all these things the heart is senseless
20. AND IN ALL THESE THINGS THE HEART IS SENSELESS: AND EVERY HEART IS UNDERSTOOD BY HIM — that is, the heart of man does not penetrate, nor does it esteem and weigh with fitting dignity the things I have said about God's efficacious inspection, judgment, and vengeance over all things. Hence it does not fear these things as it should, nor shrink from offending Him and sinning, just as if it were senseless. Yet that very same heart is fully understood and penetrated by God, who beholds and sees through all its recesses, intentions, and cunning to their very depth, and therefore He is and is called καρδιογνώστης, that is, searcher and knower of hearts. Hence, amplifying this very point, he adds:
Verse 21: Who understands His ways, and the storm
21. AND WHO UNDERSTANDS HIS WAYS, AND THE STORM, WHICH NO EYE OF MAN SHALL SEE? — A storm (procella) is properly a more violent blast of wind, on the sea rather than on land; so called because it "storms" (procellat), that is, moves and strikes everything, according to that passage of Virgil, Aeneid Book I:
"Together the East Wind and the South Wind rush, and the Southwest Wind thick with storms."
The Greek concisely reads thus: "No heart will worthily consider all these things, and who shall consider His ways? For the storm is what no man can perceive." The Tigurina: "Nor yet does any heart sufficiently understand these things, when by Him all hearts are understood; for who can comprehend in his mind His designs and the unseen force (or whirlwind) to man?" The Syriac, condensing and paraphrasing all this up to verse 25 as it pleases, briefly summarizes thus: "Even I shall not set it in my heart. In my ways who shall understand? If I sin, no eye shall see me; and if I lie in every hidden place, who shall know? The heartless will say these things, and the wicked man will meditate thus."
The meaning of Sirach, then, is this, as if to say: Who among the sharpest of men or even of Angels can fully know the ways, that is, the modes and reasons that God follows in His acting and working; especially the storm, that is, that tempestuous vengeance which He will thunder and hurl against the wicked on that great day of judgment, which will be so great that before it no eye of man shall have seen anything similar to it? For then, as the Wise Man says in Chapter 5:18:
"The zeal of God shall take up armor, etc.; He shall sharpen His fierce wrath into a lance, and the whole world shall fight with Him against the senseless. The lightnings shall go forth in direct volleys, etc., the water of the sea shall rage against them, and the rivers shall rush violently together. The spirit of power shall stand against them, and like a whirlwind shall divide them." Thus Rabanus says: "The depth of divine counsel and the power of judgment, which is here designated by the name of storm, no one shall be able to penetrate." And Hugo: "The storm is the distribution of divine judgment." Palacius explains it differently: The storms, he says, that is, all tempests that occur at sea and in desert places, God alone observes; for men neither see nor can see most of them, either because they are absent, or because they are swallowed up and submerged by them. Similarly Dionysius: "A storm," he says, "is a sudden rush of wind, rain, and hail, which, when it occurs in desert places, is hidden from us." Hence Job, Chapter 38: "Who gave," he says, "a course to the most violent rain, and a way to the resounding thunder?" — so that it might rain upon the earth where no man is, in the desert where no mortal dwells.
The same author says morally: The earth trembles at the sight of God, yet the heart of man does not in the least tremble at His sight. Everyone fears the gaze of his neighbor and therefore does not sin; yet we have no fear of the gaze of God so as not to sin. If you cannot hide even the nod of an eye from the eyes of God, why do you dare to offend Him before such great majesty?
Hear St. Augustine, On Genesis Literally, Book III, Chapter 10: "The air when agitated," he says, "produces winds, and when more violently stirred, produces fires and thunderclaps." And Pliny, Book II, Chapter 48: "Roaming blasts," he says, "rushing like torrents, produce thunder and lightning; and when carried with greater weight and force, if they have broadly broken through a dry cloud, they generate a storm, which the Greeks call ἐκνεφίας," which also carries away ships and houses and transfers them to another place. Hence metaphorically a storm is used to describe a fierce and savage vengeance, leveling and devastating everything like a storm. Hence Jeremiah 23:19: "Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord's indignation shall go forth, and a tempest breaking forth shall come upon the head of the wicked." And Isaiah 21:1: "As whirlwinds come from the south, it comes from the desert (the Septuagint: a tempest may pass through the desert), from a terrible land. A hard vision has been told to me." And Chapter 30:33, speaking of Tophet and hell: "Its fuel," he says, "is fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord like a torrent of sulfur kindles it."
Verse 22: Many of His works are in hidden places
22. FOR VERY MANY OF HIS WORKS ARE IN HIDDEN PLACES: BUT THE WORKS OF HIS JUSTICE (just vengeance) — WHO SHALL DECLARE THEM, OR WHO SHALL ENDURE THEM? — "Shall endure" means "shall await" or "shall bear," that is, shall be able to bear and tolerate. For the Greek ὑπομενεῖ signifies both. As if to say: He spoke of one work of God, namely the fiery storm of His judgment; for very many other works of God are secret and hidden from us. But the works of His justice, especially the storm of judgment just mentioned, He has to some extent revealed to men, so that they, since these things concern them, may be terrified and by living holy lives may avoid and guard against them. Yet who can declare these very things with fitting dignity? And who will fearlessly await them when they are future, or bear or tolerate them when they are present? No one, that is the answer. Hence the Tigurina: "For the greatest part of His works is hidden: who shall recount the instances of His justice, or endure them?" If you wish to know what
the works of God are in hidden places, such as the treasures of snow, rain, hail, dew, frost, ice, etc., read Job Chapter 38.
FOR THE TESTAMENT IS FAR FROM SOME, AND THE QUESTIONING OF ALL IS AT THE END. — He calls the judgment of God a "testament," by which He decrees for each one, according to their merits, either present and eternal rewards or punishments. It is called a "testament" because it was arranged and established by God, and is, as it were, His last will and disposition, and therefore will be most firm and will surely take effect, far more certainly than testaments made by dying men. The meaning, then, is this: The testament, that is, the decree, the way and manner of God's judgments, is remote from the thought and knowledge of men, because men do not think about these things, nor weigh them according to the truth and gravity of the matter; but many live just as if there were to be no judgment, as if there were no God, and as if hell were a vain fable. And yet "at the end" and at the end of the world, there will most certainly be "a questioning of all," in Greek ἐξέτασις, that is, an examination and inquiry — and that an exact, rigorous, and severe one — so much so that not even the slightest faults will pass unjudged and unpunished. The Tigurina translates: "For the appointed decree is long, and the inquiry of all things falls short." Which Vatablus explains as: "Long is the series of fates, and before it has been fully explored, the inquiry of all ceases."
Others explain it differently, as if to say: The testament, that is, the pact entered into by men with God concerning the observance of His commandments, is far from their mind and practice, because by many it is little thought about and little observed. So explain Dionysius, Emmanuel Sa, and Palacius, who put it thus: Since the questioning, inquiry, and examination of all men will take place at their end, that is, at death, how do men allow themselves to be so far from the law of their God? Thus in Scripture the word "testament" often means the covenant made with God, and God's law itself, because the law is the condition of the covenant; for on this condition God entered into a covenant with us concerning the granting of His inheritance and glory, namely if we observe His law. As: "They did not keep the testament of God;" which, explaining further, he adds: "And in His law they were unwilling to walk" (Psalm 77:10). And often elsewhere. Hence it is called the Ark of the Testament, that is, of the covenant and the law, because it contained the law, namely the tablets of the Decalogue given by God; for the law was the condition of the covenant entered into between the Hebrews and God.
Anagogically, the testament of God and of Christ is the decree by which He enrolled the elect as His heirs in the kingdom of heaven: this is far from the wicked and reprobate, whom the devil has enrolled as his citizens in hell. For many are called, but few are chosen; but the inquiry, discernment, and separation of all of them will take place at the end of the world, namely on the day of judgment. So say Rabanus and Hugo: The testament, he says, that is, the promise of eternal life, is far from sinners.
Verse 23: He who is diminished in heart thinks vain things
23. HE WHO IS DIMINISHED IN HEART (that is, a fool, a senseless person, a madman, who lacks wisdom, prudence, understanding, and judgment: for the Hebrews call such a person חסר לב chasar leb, that is, "lacking in heart." This person, then, because he has an empty heart, therefore) THINKS (not the true and solid things I spoke of, concerning God's judgment and vengeance, but) VAIN THINGS (about the trifles and vanities of the world, such as pursuing pleasures, riches, honors, tales, games, etc.; for as a person is, so he thinks), AND THE IMPRUDENT AND ERRING MAN THINKS FOOLISH THINGS — namely vanities and desires (as he immediately explains), which lead him from God and heaven to the devil and hell, and are therefore foolish, and, as the Greek has it, μῶρα, that is, fatuous, indeed insane and delirious, according to Psalm 39:5: "Blessed is the man whose hope is the name of the Lord, and who has not looked upon vanities and false madness." And Psalm 4:3: "Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek falsehood?" Those, therefore, who do not think about future happiness or unhappiness, about their eternity, are of a small heart, imprudent and erring, because they think only of temporal things that are utterly vain and foolish.
The Tigurina translates contrarily: "He who is endowed with a humble spirit," it says, "ponders these things; but the foolish and delirious man thinks foolish things." As if to say: The humble, who submissively subject their mind to the will of God, will understand these things, and therefore will be wise; but the proud, turning aside to their foolish vapors of honors, will become foolish in them, according to Christ's words in Matthew 11:25: "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 was pleasing before You."
Hugo says morally: "He who is diminished in heart," he says, "that is, in the magnanimity of heart through pusillanimity, or in the devotion of heart through lukewarmness, or in the boldness of heart through timidity, or in the tranquility of heart through avarice, or in the purity of heart through lust — this person thinks vain things, that is, empty and false things, according to Hosea 7:11: 'Ephraim has become like a seduced dove, not having a heart.'"
THIRD PART OF THE CHAPTER. ON THE WISDOM OF GOD IN THE CREATION AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE UNIVERSE.
Verses 24 and 25: Hear me, my son, and learn the discipline of understanding
24 and 25. HEAR ME, MY SON, AND LEARN THE DISCIPLINE OF UNDERSTANDING, AND ATTEND TO MY WORDS IN YOUR HEART; AND I SHALL SPEAK WITH EQUITY OF DISCIPLINE, AND I SHALL SEARCH OUT TO DECLARE WISDOM: AND IN MY WORDS ATTEND IN YOUR HEART, AND I SAY (that is, I propose to say; or "I say," meaning "I shall say") WITH EQUITY OF SPIRIT THE VIRTUES WHICH [God] PLA—
CED GOD IN HIS WORKS FROM THE BEGINNING, AND IN TRUTH I DECLARE HIS KNOWLEDGE. — The Greek, as usual, is here concise and has two parts, whereas our Vulgate has three. Hence Jansenius thinks that the third member, or sentence, here as in other places of this book, was stitched on from another version. But, to pass over other things said above, this cannot be said in this passage. For the Septuagint's third member: "And I speak with equity of spirit the virtues which God placed in His works from the beginning" is found in no Greek text, and consequently there was no version from which it could have been introduced into our text. We must therefore say that our translator once had a fuller Greek exemplar in which these things were contained. For "equity" the Greek has σταθμῷ, that is, "weight." As if to say: I shall speak of discipline weighed in the just balance of reason, and considered and pondered with mature deliberation; I shall say nothing that has not first been discussed and weighed with a just examination and balancing of judgment, so that nothing false, nothing imprudent, nothing vain and useless, nothing light and reckless, but all things true, prudent, solid, useful, weighty, and mature I shall set forth and pronounce. Hence he immediately adds: "I speak with equity of spirit," that is, with a fair and just examination of mind. As if to say: I say what I have first diligently weighed, balanced, considered, and judged; I say, I repeat, "the virtues which God placed in His works from the beginning" — that is, I recount the heroic virtues, endowments, and attributes of God, such as wisdom, power, goodness, justice, etc., which God displayed in the creation and arrangement of the universe. Again, the virtues which He implanted and communicated to things themselves at the beginning of creation — for example, to Angels and men the power of reasoning, to animals the power of sensation, to plants the power of growth, to fire the power of heating, to water the power of cooling and moistening, etc. So says Hugo.
The Greek reads thus: "Hear me, my son, and learn knowledge, and attend to my words with your heart. I set forth in weight discipline, and in truth, or rather with exact diligence (for this is ἐν ἀκριβείᾳ), I declare knowledge." The Tigurina: "Hear me, my son, and embrace knowledge, and turn your mind to my words. I shall set forth well-weighed learning and shall expound exact knowledge." The Syriac: "Hear me, and receive my teaching, and to all my words give your heart. I speak my words with weight (with a scale, with a balance), and with wisdom I make known my teaching."
Now Sirach, in the manner of a rhetorician, before his speech gains the goodwill of the listener by affectionately addressing him as "son"; and their attention, by saying he will speak of weighty matters concerning God's virtues; and their docility, by saying he will say nothing that has not first been discussed and arranged by long examination. For, as Boethius says in On the Discipline of Students: "A student should be docile, attentive, and well-disposed: docile in talent, attentive in practice, and well-disposed in mind toward listening." Therefore let teachers imitate Sirach, as well as students: the former should learn from him the method of teaching, the latter the method of learning.
St. Gregory says excellently in Homily 13 on the Gospels: "The words of God which you perceive with your ear, retain in your mind: for the word of God is food for the mind, and just as food received is rejected from a weak stomach, so when a heard sermon is not retained in the stomach of memory; and whoever does not retain nourishment, his life is indeed despaired of. Therefore fear the danger of eternal death, if indeed you receive the food of holy exhortation but do not keep in memory the words of life, that is, the nourishments of justice."
For this reason he repeats and insists upon the phrase "attend in your heart." For, as Seneca says in Epistle 108: "Some come to hear, not to learn: just as we are drawn to the theater for pleasure's sake, to delight our ears by the speech, the voice, or the stories. You will see that a large portion of the audience uses the philosopher's school as a place of leisure; they do not strive to put aside some of their vices, or to receive some rule of life by which to measure their conduct; but to enjoy the entertainment of their ears. Some even come with notebooks, not to take away the substance, but merely the words, which they learn with as little profit to others as they hear with to themselves." Such were the Jews, of whom the Lord says to Ezekiel in Chapter 33:32: "And you are to them like a musical song, which is sung with a sweet and pleasant sound: and they hear your words, and do not do them." With a far different mind David desires to be taught by God, saying: "Give me understanding, and I shall search out Your law, and I shall keep it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of Your commandments, because it is that which I have willed. Incline my heart to Your testimonies," etc. (Psalm 118:34 and following).
Verse 26: In the judgment of God are His works from the beginning
26. IN THE JUDGMENT OF GOD ARE HIS WORKS FROM THE BEGINNING (that is, God from the beginning of the world created and arranged His works with great judgment, in Greek κρίσει, that is, wisdom, prudence, discernment, measure, and order, according to Wisdom 11: "You arranged all things in measure, and number, and weight"), AND FROM THE INSTITUTION (in Greek ποιήσει, that is, the making, creation) OF THEM (the Complutensian reads "of wicked men"; but the other Greek and Latin texts generally read "of them") HE DISTINGUISHED THEIR PARTS, AND THEIR BEGINNINGS AMONG THEIR NATIONS.
You ask, what are these "beginnings among their nations"? First, Jansenius explains genuinely from the Greek thus: "Beginnings," in Greek ἀρχαί, that is, "principalities," are the chief and principal parts of the world, namely the sun, stars, and heavens, which hold a certain principality over the lower world, that is, over the earth and air. For about the earth he immediately adds in verse 30: "After this God looked upon the earth." The meaning, then, is: God, as soon as He created the works of the universe, immediately distinguished their parts, dividing waters from waters, elements from heavens, sea from land, etc. He also distinguished the ἀρχαί, that is, those primary parts of the world by which the entire lower globe is governed, in their nations, that is, in their kinds, because He made each star and heaven have its own kind, nature, motion, and property, assigning different offices to them — for example, to the sun to illuminate the day, to the moon to illuminate the night and by its course to measure and distinguish months and seasons. In this sense, "nations" are called "kinds" by catachresis: for this is what the Greek γενεά means. And thus the Hebrews call the sun, stars, heavens, etc., "nations," that is, soldiers of God, from which God is called "God of hosts" (Deus sabaoth), that is, "God of armies." Hence in verse 28 He calls them "neighbors" among themselves. By a similar catachresis, Wisdom 1:14 says: "He made the nations of the world healthful" (that is, salutary and wholesome): "nations," in Greek γενέσεις, that is, "generations" — namely, things begotten and created by God. As if to say: God made it so that the things begotten and created by Him would be salutary, not deadly and fatal. Hence it follows: "And there is in them no medicine of destruction," that is, as the Greek has it, no destroying and killing potion; St. Jerome: "there is no deadly poison in them." Similarly in the same book, Chapter 19:10, he calls them a "nation" of animals. Thus also Festus calls a good yield of offspring in cattle a "good nation." For "nation" alludes to the etymological root "to be born" (nasci), just as γένεσις to γένεσθαι. The Syriac follows the meaning already given when it translates: "When God created His works from the beginning, with their creation He distributed their laws, and gave until the end their functions, and their dominion in all the generations of the age."
It is therefore neither surprising nor un-Latin that "nation" (gens) should mean "kind" (genus).
Second, you may explain more simply and plainly, as if to say: The ἀρχαί, that is, the principalities, meaning the celestial bodies, which hold the first place in the world, God distinguished with their nations, that is, with Angels, so that they might govern, move, order, and preside over the celestial spheres in all things. So says Lyranus. Or certainly he calls the angelic principalities ἀρχαί, as if to say: God created and distinguished the parts of the world, and placed over them Angels from the order of Principalities and Powers, who are ἀρχαί, that is, princes in their nations, that is, among the Angels and the lower angelic orders — namely among the Virtues, Archangels, and Angels, who preside only over individual provinces, cities, and men. Hence Palacius explains it thus: God, he says, assigned to each heaven its own beginning, that is, a prince and leader, whom Philosophers call moving intelligences and Theologians call the virtues of the heavens. The same author adds: Perhaps, he says, the nations of the heavens are the stars, which are called the soldiers of the heavens, and when called they say: "Here we are" (Baruch 3:34). As if to say: The stars have their own beginnings, that is, their own prince-Angels assigned to them. Thus Moses (to whom Sirach alludes) in Deuteronomy
Chapter 32:28, according to the Septuagint, says: "When the Most High divided the nations, etc., He set the boundaries according to the number of the Angels of God." As if to say: From the beginning God established and set over each people and nation guardian angels, as overseers, so to speak. So say Origen in Homily 11 on Numbers, St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, and others whom I cited on Deuteronomy Chapter 32. The Greek text favors this interpretation, since immediately after ἀρχαί it adds: "they did not hunger, nor grow weary, nor cease from their work." This more properly applies to Angels than to the heavens. For hunger belongs to living beings, such as Angels are, not to the inanimate heavens, just as weariness and cessation from motion and rotation of the celestial spheres do not apply to them.
Third, you may take "beginnings" in its proper sense. Hence some translate from the Greek: "in His hand (for the Complutensian adds this) are their beginnings for all ages." As if to say: God from the beginning, holding both the parts and the beginnings of the world in His hand, established and made them firm so that they would endure through all the generations of the ages. Thus the beginning of day, of light, of the sun, of the heavens, the rising and setting of the stars, He established from the beginning of the world, so that by their heat and influence they would continually preside over the generation of plants, crops, fruits, animals, and men. For take away the sun and the stars, and there will be no generation on earth. The Tigurina version supports this: "The Lord worked with judgment from the beginning, and from the first creation of things He arranged their parts. He cultivated His works perpetually, and their beginnings through their ages and kinds" (for γενεά means both "age" and "kind"). And the Complutensian reads: "in His hand their principalities, εἰς γενεὰς γενεῶν, that is, for ages of ages." Others read εἰς γενεὰς αὐτῶν, that is, "for their kinds" or "generations."
Finally, the Latins derive the word gens ("nation") from genus ("kind"), with one letter removed: for a gens is that which traces its genus (descent) from one person, as the Romans from Romulus, the Israelites from Israel (that is, Jacob), and the Canaanites from Canaan. Hence gens is used for the kind and company of bees, as Columella says in Book IX, Chapter 9: "By intestine war entire nations (swarms of bees) are consumed." Similarly gens is said of fish in Virgil, Georgics IV:
"When Proteus, seeking his accustomed caverns from the waves, was going: around him the moist nation of the vast sea was leaping, etc."
Fourth, Rabanus takes "nations" in its proper sense, as well as "beginnings." He says: "From the time when God arranged to spread the offspring of man, He distinguished the origin of individual nations through the individual parts of the world, so that each nation, named from the name of its ancestor, would possess its own territory in individual provinces. Mystically, however, divine Wisdom, in establishing His Church, spread it through the parts of the whole world, and placed it among individual nations. Hence it is that in Revelation Chapters 1, 2, and 3, the word of God was directed to seven Churches that were in Asia."
Hugo likewise says: Beginnings, he says, that is, their initial possessions, God distinguished among the nations, distributing the three parts of the world to the three sons of Noah — namely, so that Shem with his descendants would inhabit Asia, Ham Africa, and Japheth Europe. The same author says mystically: God, he says, at the beginning of the Church distributed the provinces of the world to the Apostles — so that John would convert Asia, Thomas India, Matthew Ethiopia, etc. "Nor did they hunger," that is, the Apostles did not regard bodily hunger. "Nor did they labor," that is, they counted bodily labor as nothing; indeed, they accepted labors, pains, insults, and injuries for the sake of Christ with joy (Acts 5). "And they did not cease from their works," that is, from the preaching of the Gospel,
Bearing the world in His mind, and forming it from a like image, And, being perfect, commanding it to bring forth perfect parts, etc.
Sirach speaks of the heavens and stars as if they were men and soldiers of God, by prosopopoeia. Whence he adds:
NEITHER DID THEY HUNGER, NOR GROW WEARY, AND THEY DID NOT CEASE FROM THEIR WORKS. — The Syriac has, from his strength; the Zurich Bible, they neither hungered nor were exhausted in their works, nor did they cease from their duties, as if to say: The heavens, the sun, and the stars, although as soldiers of God they move continually according to His prescription, and that most swiftly (so much so that the sun traverses in any given hour a million miles, and 140 thousand more besides — which is the same as if it circled the entire globe of the earth fifty times, as I showed on Gen. 1:16), nevertheless they never hunger nor grow weary, so as to desist from their labor and from executing God's command. This signifies that they persist and continue strenuously, without fail, fatigue, or trouble, in discharging the duties assigned to them by God, according to that verse of Psalm 118: "By Your ordinance the day persists, because all things serve You;" in Hebrew, all things are Your servants.
He alludes to the opinions of the Platonists (whom Philo followed, and Origen in book VII of the Periarchon, and St. Augustine expresses doubt in his Enchiridion, chapter 18), who believed the heavens to be animated, according to whom it was wondrous that the heavens neither hungered nor grew weary. Moreover, they held the sun, moon, and stars to be fiery, which therefore needed to be nourished by vapors — for fire requires its own fuel, as Pliny records in book II, chapter 8, Cicero in De Natura Deorum II, and Lactantius in book II, chapter 6. Again, according to the true opinion, Angels, as intelligences, attend upon their celestial orbs, and form with them a single entity — not a composite, but an aggregate. To ordinary men it seems wondrous that Angels, amid such occupation and motion, neither hunger nor grow weary. Indeed Tertullian in his Apology, chapter 22, says: "Every spirit, he says, is winged; that is, Angels and demons: therefore they are everywhere in an instant." And St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 34: "They traverse, he says, all places, and are diligently present everywhere, both on account of the readiness of their ministry and the lightness of their nature." Most certainly and most clearly the Psalmist, and from him the Apostle, Hebrews 1:7: "Who makes, he says, His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire." See what was said there: therefore they neither hunger nor grow weary. Having spoken of the perpetuity of the celestial operations, he adds also concerning their harmony, saying:
Verse 28: Each one shall not crowd its neighbor
28. EACH ONE SHALL NOT CROWD ITS NEIGHBOR (some less correctly read crowded, although the Greek has ἔθλιψε, that is, afflicted, crushed) UNTO ETERNITY. — As if to say: In so great a multitude of heavens, stars, and planets, even though they move in contrary and most rapid motions, and are mutually contiguous and virtually continuous, yet such is the order of each, such the subordination and harmony of each with the rest, that one does not press upon, constrain, wear down, or impede
another; but each proceeds in its own order unharmed, whole, and steadfast — nay, it runs — just like soldiers in a properly ordered battle line. Marveling at this harmony of the heavens, Job exclaims in chapter 35:10: "Where is God who made me, who gives songs in the night?" For the moon and stars, advancing in order and shining by night, sing nocturnal hymns to God and furnish men with matter for divine praise. The Angels do the same and far more, says Olympiodorus at that place in the Catena. Hence the Chaldean renders it: before whose sight the exalted Angels arrange praise in the night. And more clearly in chapter 38:37: "Who shall declare the order of the heavens, and who shall make the harmony of heaven (Hebrew: nabla) fall silent?" Hence Pythagoras taught that the heavens, composed according to musical proportions, produce a harmony (see Censorinus, On the Birthday, chapter 13); but that men, through habituation to this sound, have become deaf to it — just as those who dwell near the cataracts of the Nile do not hear the roar of waters rushing from on high, says Cicero in the Dream of Scipio. Indeed, St. Augustine too, in Epistle 28 to St. Jerome, admits a proper harmony of sounds in the heavens. So also Leo Castrius on Isaiah chapter 40, verse 26. And Georgius Venetus in the Harmonia. Reason also favors this, because sound is produced not only from the friction of air, but also from any resisting body. However, Aristotle and the philosophers in book II of De Caelo deny this celestial harmony. Therefore Job by "harmony" means the concordant and most orderly motions and courses of the heavens, and mystically St. Gregory says: "The harmony of the heavens, he says, is the concord of preachers and the consonant hymns of Angels." Hence Plato in the Timaeus asserts that eyes were given to us by nature chiefly for this purpose: that, having beheld the most orderly circuits performed in the heavens, we might transfer them to the discipline of life, and compose the wandering and erratic motions of our mind according to their order and stability. See St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 26, where he teaches that order preserves the heavens, the elements, and the whole universe, and consequently that hierarchical order preserves the Church. Whence, among other things, he says: "While order flourishes and prevails, the universe exists, and beauty is certain and stable (for which reason the world is called κόσμος in Greek, from ornament and beauty). But on the contrary, disorder and confusion have produced thunder in the air, earthquakes on land, shipwrecks at sea, wars and dissensions in cities and homes, diseases in bodies, and sins in souls. For all these things are names not of peace or order, but of confusion and disturbance." Finally Sirach adds:
Verse 29: Do not be incredulous of His word
29. DO NOT BE INCREDULOUS OF HIS WORD. — Jansenius connects this with what precedes, as if to say: "Each one did not crowd his neighbor;" but each says to the other: "Unto eternity do not be incredulous," that is, disobedient, "to the word of God." For the Greek reads thus: one did not afflict another, and unto eternity they will not refuse his command, or, they will not be disobedient to his word; the Zurich Bible has: one was not troublesome to another, nor will they ever resist
his command; the Syriac has, one did not hate another, nor do they unto eternity transgress his word.
Secondly, Palacius, following Lyranus and continuing his exposition by which he refers these things to the Angels, says: He had said that God established the Angels, whose operation is to move the heavens; he now adds that God adorned these works of the Angels, namely with the light of day, the darkness of night, the influx of power which the higher bodies send down upon the lower, rains, hailstones, etc. Secondly, he says that those Angels neither sweat nor hunger nor labor in that perpetual motion, nor have they ceased from their work for even a moment. A truly admirable thing! Thirdly, he says that among these Angels, or heavenly Powers, there is the utmost harmony: so much so that one is never an impediment to another, neither does the superior oppress the inferior, nor the inferior rebel against the superior. Because these things are indeed admirable, the author adds: "Do not be incredulous of His word," that is: What I am telling you are the words of God — beware of being unbelieving toward them. Again, as if to say: Imitate therefore the heavens, O man, so that, just as they obey God in all things and do not depart from His ordinance even by a point, so much more should you, who are endowed with sense and reason, obey Him likewise.
Thirdly, Hugh refers these things to men and their original institution, as if to say: God created man and adorned him with great gifts of nature and grace, and placed him in Paradise, and caused that, as long as he remained in the innocence in which He had created him, he would not hunger, would not thirst, would not grow weary, but would tend Paradise with delight; there likewise no one would have crowded his neighbor, inflicting injury upon him or taking away his goods, because in that state all things would have been common. But this is a mystical and symbolic rather than a literal exposition. The tropology of the same and of Dionysius concerning the preaching of the Apostles I reviewed at verse 26.
To which add from Rabanus: "He adorned, he says, their works unto eternity, and they neither hungered nor labored, and they did not cease from their works." For God prepared the works of His Church, and illuminated her perpetually with the splendor of charity; therefore they suffer no want of virtues, nor do they fail through the weariness of sloth, but they always persist attentively in good works. "Each one shall not crowd his neighbor" unto eternity, because charity does not seek its own things, but those of others. Hence the Apostle commanded, saying: "As to children I speak: Be enlarged yourselves also, and do not bear the yoke with unbelievers." The breadth of the commandment is charity, because where charity remains, there are no constraints. The Apostle was in that very breadth when he said: "Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged; you are not constrained in us." For this reason it is read elsewhere: "Your commandment is exceedingly broad." What is the broad commandment given? "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another." Charity therefore is not constrained. Do you wish not to be constrained on earth? Dwell in the broad place; for whatever man may do to you does not constrain you, because you love that which
even though scribes, pontiffs, philosophers, princes, and kings resisted with all their might — to whom they replied with this one thing: "It is necessary to obey God rather than men." "Each one shall not crowd his neighbor," because they neither afflicted one another nor anyone else, but rather helped and consoled all. "After this God looked upon the earth and filled it with His goods," heaping upon the nations every grace and heavenly gift. So says Hugh.
So also Dionysius: God, he says, from the beginning "distinguished their parts," that is, He gave to each a suitable and proper place, and divided them from one another. And so He assigned water to fish, air to birds, and earth to men and cattle. "And their beginnings in their nations," that is, He arranged the origins of men distinctly, according to the distinctions of nations, so that each nation might have in its own land its own generation, succession, progress, and end — just as in Genesis 9 the earth is read to have been divided among the sons of Noah. Hence Paul says: "God made from one every nation of men to dwell upon the whole earth, determining appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation" (Acts 17). "Neither did they hunger nor labor," because God provided abundantly for each with food and the necessities of life. "Each one shall not crowd his neighbor," because He bestowed upon them the widest space for dwelling on earth, and commanded them to live together without violence, in charity. "And the living soul declared before His face," that is, every rational soul living by grace confessed before God the truth of these things and His praise; "and into it again is their return," that is, the reduction or natural conversion of creatures to their fontal principle by which they are preserved, and toward which all things tend in their own way, according as an effect returns to its cause. This reduction, I say, makes manifest and announces that God has providence over all things and has ordered all things most wisely. So says Dionysius.
Verse 27: He adorned their works unto eternity
27. HE ADORNED (some less correctly read He ordered; for in Greek it is ἐκόσμησε, that is, He adorned) THEIR WORKS UNTO ETERNITY. — In Greek αὐτοῦ, that is, His own, as if to say: God adorned His first works, namely the heavens, with light, the sun, the moon, and such a variety of stars, like gleaming gems — carbuncles, jaspers, emeralds, and the like — according to that verse of Job 26:13: "His Spirit adorned the heavens." Our Vulgate reads αὐτῶν, that is, of them, which Jansenius first explains of the heavens: "God, he says, adorned the works," that is, the operations, motions, and influences of the heavens and stars, because He made them both stable and indefatigable, and harmonizing with one another in the most beautiful order. For, as Plato says in the Dialogue on Nature: "It was not lawful for Him who is the best to make anything other than the most beautiful." And Boethius, book III of the Consolation, meter 9:
You lead all things from the supernal Exemplar, You who are most beautiful, forming the beautiful
does not harm: you, O man, love God, you love the brotherhood, you love the Church of God — your reward shall be everlasting; you labor on earth, but you shall reach the promised fruit. Who takes from you what you love? So says Rabanus.
Verse 30: God looked upon the earth and filled it with His goods
30. AFTER THIS GOD LOOKED UPON THE EARTH AND FILLED IT WITH HIS GOODS. — From this it is clear that the discourse up to this point has been about the heavens and heavenly things. For he recapitulates the order that God observed in the creation of the world, Genesis 1, as if to say: God in the first two days of the world established, adorned, and ordered the heavens; then on the third day He looked upon the earth and clothed it with plants, herbs, trees, and metals, and soon filled it with animals, birds, and man. Hence the Syriac has: after this He looked upon the earth and blessed them (men and the inhabitants of the earth) with all its fruits, so that the earth is the mother of all good things.
Verse 31: The living soul declared before its face
31. THE LIVING SOUL OF ALL (of every living thing) DECLARED BEFORE ITS FACE, AND INTO IT AGAIN IS THEIR RETURN. — As if to say: The living soul of all, that is, every animal and every living thing, declared, that is, openly indicated and continually indicates what I have said, namely that God filled the earth with His goods. It indicates, I say, before its face — not God's, as Rabanus would have it, but the earth's (for in Greek there is the feminine pronoun αὐτῆς), that is, in the sight of the earth, or on the surface of the earth — because every living thing lives and enjoys the goods of the earth that grow on its surface; and again, when it dies, it returns to the earth. Our Vulgate reads ἀποκάλυψε, that is, revealed, declared, and, as some read, laid bare. Others read contrariwise ἐκάλυψε, that is, covered, concealed. For thus the Complutensian Greek reads: the soul of every animal hid the face of it (of the earth), and into it is their return, as if to say: The earth covers, conceals, and protects all animals, and they in turn, through death, return to the earth from which they were born. The Roman edition, with a change of case, presents nearly the same meaning: The living soul of all, they say, covered its face, and into it is their return, as if to say: Animals, while they live, cover the surface of the earth; and again, when they die, they return into it. So also the Zurich Bible: the life of animals of every kind covered its surface, and into it each one returns. So also the Syriac: the soul of all living things filled its face, and He gathered in its midst all their works.
He reminds man of his origin and his end, and recalls that sentence of God upon Adam: "In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the earth from which you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19), in order to rouse him to humility as well as to the fear of God, and to admonish him to have continual care for his soul, which is destined to live either most happily in heaven or most wretchedly in hell, since the body must shortly be returned to the earth.
The earth is therefore like a granary and treasury from which all animals are abundantly nourished and live; the same earth is also a tomb into which all things finally return. Both facts are worthy of wonder: that, although animals are very many and virtually infinite, each one nevertheless finds in the earth sufficient and suitable nourishment; and that, although they are so many and so great, they all return to the earth, yet the earth does not grow or swell — just as all rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea does not overflow (Ecclesiastes 1:7). So says Palacius.
Moreover, Rabanus, Dionysius, and Lyranus refer these things to God, as if to say: "The soul of every living thing declares, that is, by the very fact shows that those good things were produced by God for its sake, because it has used them. And into it again is their return; for through the rational soul these things are led back to God, by praising Him for His goods, and through the sensitive soul in its own way, because it is the matter of divine praise." But the Greek pronouns αὐτῆς and αὐτήν, being feminine, refer to and look back not to God but to the earth, as I have said. Wisely and devoutly St. Augustine comments on Psalm 26:16: "I went about and offered in His tabernacle a sacrifice of jubilation. Let your mind, he says, go about through the whole of creation; from every side creation will cry out to you: God made me. Whatever delights you in a work of art commends the artisan, and all the more if you survey all things — the contemplation conceives the praise of the artisan. Do you see the heavens? They are the great works of God. Do you see the earth? God made countless seeds, varieties of shoots, multitudes of animals. I have gone about still from the heavens to the earth — leave nothing aside; everywhere all things resound to you of their Creator, and the very forms of creatures are as it were the voices of those who praise their Creator."