Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues the discourse begun at the end of the preceding chapter on anger and vengeance. Accordingly, he teaches with seven arguments that injury should not be avenged, but forgiven, and utterly committed to oblivion, up to verse 15. From there to the end of the chapter he shows at length how pernicious is the wicked tongue of detractors and whisperers: hence he compares it to and ranks it above eight most harmful things, namely the whip, the sword, the iron yoke, death, hell, flame, the lion, and the leopard.
Now the arguments by which he urges and persuades the forgiveness of injury are these: the first, verses 1 to 5 — because if you avenge your injury, God will likewise avenge His own injury inflicted on Him by you through your sins; but if you forgive the one who wronged you, God will likewise forgive your offenses; the second, verse 5 — because it is unworthy that flesh, that is, a carnal man, base and fragile, should harbor anger against another carnal man for carnal and trivial offenses, while meanwhile begging God for pardon of the most grievous offenses, or having another intercede for their forgiveness; the third, verse 6: "Remember," he says, "the last things, and cease from enmity;" the fourth, verse 8: "Remember," he says, "the fear of God, and be not angry with your neighbor;" for the fear of God restrains anger, as something displeasing and hateful to God; the fifth, verse 9 — because the natural, divine, and human law of God forbids vengeance; the sixth, verse 10 — because avenging an injury accumulates many sins, all of which are avoided through patience and silence; the seventh, verses 11 to 15 — because anger disturbs the angry person, and the whole household, indeed the whole neighborhood, the city, and often the whole commonwealth; whereas the remission of anger and patience reconciles and restores peace both among friends and enemies.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 28:1-30
1. He who wishes to take vengeance will find vengeance from the Lord, and He will strictly keep his sins. 2. Forgive your neighbor who has hurt you, and then when you pray your sins will be forgiven. 3. One man harbors anger against another, and does he seek remedy from God? 4. He shows no mercy to a man like himself, and does he pray for his own sins? 5. He himself, though he is flesh, harbors anger, and asks God for pardon? Who will obtain forgiveness for his sins? 6. Remember the last things, and cease from enmity: 7. for decay and death hang over his commandments. 8. Remember the fear of God, and be not angry with your neighbor. 9. Remember the covenant of the Most High, and overlook the ignorance of your neighbor. 10. Refrain from strife, and you will diminish sins: 11. for an angry man kindles strife, and a sinful man will trouble his friends, and among those who have peace he will sow enmity. 12. For as the wood of the forest is, so the fire burns: and as a man's strength is, so will his anger be, and according to his wealth he will intensify his wrath. 13. A hasty quarrel kindles fire: and a hasty dispute sheds blood: and a testifying tongue brings death. 14. If you blow upon a spark, it will blaze like fire: and if you spit upon it, it will be quenched: both proceed from the mouth. 15. The whisperer and the double-tongued are accursed: for they will trouble many who have peace. 16. The third tongue has stirred up many, and scattered them from nation to nation. 17. It has destroyed walled cities of the rich, and overthrown the houses of the great. 18. It has cut down the strength of peoples, and dissolved mighty nations. 19. The third tongue has cast out brave women, and deprived them of their labors. 20. Whoever heeds it will have no rest, nor will he have a friend in whom to find repose. 21. The stroke of a whip makes a mark in the flesh: but the stroke of the tongue will break bones. 22. Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not so many as have perished by their tongue. 23. Blessed is he who is sheltered from the wicked tongue, who has not passed into its anger, and who has not drawn its yoke, and has not been bound in its chains: 24. for its yoke is an iron yoke, and its bond is a bond of bronze. 25. Its death is a most wicked death: and hell is preferable to it. 26. Its power will not endure, but it will seize the ways of the unjust: and its flame will not burn the just. 27. Those who forsake God will fall into it, and it will burn among them and not be quenched, and it will be sent upon them like a lion, and like a leopard it will tear them. 28. Hedge your ears with thorns, do not listen to the wicked tongue, and make doors and bars for your mouth. 29. Smelt your gold and silver, and make a balance for your words, and right bridles for your mouth: 30. and take heed lest you slip with your tongue, and fall before the eyes of enemies lying in wait for you, and your fall be incurable unto death.
FIRST PART OF THE CHAPTER.
1. HE WHO WISHES TO TAKE VENGEANCE WILL FIND VENGEANCE FROM THE LORD, AND HE WILL STRICTLY KEEP HIS SINS.
That is, the Lord will keep them. Some explain it thus: He who wishes to be avenged should not avenge himself, but should leave vengeance to the Lord, who said: "Vengeance is Mine, and I will repay," Hebrews 10. And: "Vengeance is Mine, and I will repay," Deuteronomy 32. Not as though it were permissible to ask vengeance from God, but that one should commit it to God, laying aside all anxiety. However, the Greek text contradicts this interpretation, for it reads: "He who takes vengeance will find vengeance from God," who, as follows, "keeping the sins of the avenger, will keep them." Therefore "to be avenged" means "to avenge": for Sirach occasionally uses verbs in the passive form for deponents, which are active in meaning, as is evident from what was said in the introduction. Hence the Greek reads: "He who takes vengeance will find vengeance from the Lord." For "keeping will keep" the Greek is diateron diateresai, that is, "observing he will observe," or "preserving he will preserve," meaning He will diligently and constantly both observe them with the eyes of His mind and note them down, and preserve them in memory in order to punish. Some read: diaskrizōn diaskrisei, that is, "confirming he will confirm;" the Tigurine version renders: "Vengeance awaits the one eager for revenge from the Lord, who will diligently preserve his sins."
The Syriac renders: "He will find retribution from the Lord (hatred and anger), because all his sins have been diligently observed against him." The reason is retaliation. For the law of retaliation says: "With what measure you measure, it will be measured back to you," Matthew 7:2. If therefore you do not show clemency by forgiving your neighbor who has sinned against you, but prepare vengeance in indignation, it is fair and just that God likewise should not forgive you, a sinner, the most grievous offenses committed against Him through clemency, but should punish you most severely through vengeance. Therefore, while God in His immense clemency forgives the sins of the penitent and forgets them, yet for the avenger, and therefore the impenitent, He will keep all sins by keeping them — that is, He will most diligently observe them and most constantly preserve them in mind, so as to chastise and avenge them most severely. This is what Christ teaches at length in the parable of the talents, in which the servant who refused to forgive his fellow servant's debt of a hundred denarii had his own already-forgiven debt of a hundred thousand talents recalled, and everything was rigorously demanded from him down to the last penny, Matthew 18:32. For this reason He commanded us to pray daily: "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors," Matthew 6:12, so that willing and asking
that our own debts be forgiven us, we should also forgive the debts of others; for this is the condition that God has established and required of us. And rightly so, because the offense of one man against another man, who is nothing but lowliness, is a slight thing — both because it is against an equal, someone small and abject, and because all the things of the small are small; therefore whatever one takes from or inflicts upon him through injury is a small thing. But the offense of a man against God is infinite, because it is against an infinite God: for by sin the infinite majesty is offended, and indeed the divine majesty, the entire Holy Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore, if the offense is as great as the one offended, since God is immeasurable, His offense too will be immeasurable; but since man is insignificant and almost nothing, his offense too will be insignificant and almost nothing. Who then would not be astonished, says Palacius, seeing God forgiving us in Christ all our most grievous sins, and blotting out the handwriting of condemnation that was against us? Who would dare to keep or avenge his own petty injuries, knowing that by doing so he provokes God's most severe vengeance upon himself for his own most grievous sins? Who would not willingly forgive all things, in order to receive from God the pardon of such great sins? If anyone is so obstinate in anger that he refuses to forgive the man who offended him for that man's sake, let him at least forgive the injury for his own sake, indeed for the sake of God and Christ, and thus forgive God and Christ. For He Himself considers it done to Himself, He who says: "What you did to one of the least of Mine, you did to Me," Matthew 25.
Understand all of this concerning private vengeance: for public vengeance, which is carried out by the magistrate to punish the guilty who disturb the peace of the commonwealth, is holy and commanded by God, Romans 13 and elsewhere; for it is an act of justice. Justice, you see, is of different kinds: one is commutative, another distributive, and another vindicative.
St. Augustine says admirably, in Sermon 4 on St. Stephen: "The judge says 'Kill,' and the executioner kills; and when you say 'Kill my enemy,' you make yourself the judge and seek God to be the executioner. God answers you: I will absolutely not do it. I will not be the tormentor of the sinner, but his liberator; because I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live. For if I had followed your will, I would have slain you first, before you were invited to come: did you not blaspheme Me? Did you not provoke Me with your evil works? Did you not seek to blot out My name from the earth? Did you not despise Me in My commandments or in My servants? If I had then slain you as an enemy, whom would I now make a friend? What then do you teach Me by your wicked prayer, which I did not do to you? Therefore God says to you: Let Me teach you, that you may imitate Me. Hanging on the cross I said: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' I taught this to My soldiers, I taught it to My martyrs. First be you also My martyr, My recruit against the devil; otherwise you will in no way fight unconquered, unless you pray for your enemies." And in Sermon 5: "Through love of your human enemy, you become a friend of God, indeed a son." And on Psalm 30, toward the end: "You wish to be avenged, O Christian — Christ has not yet been avenged."
The same, Tract. 7 on the First Epistle of St. John: "Whoever," he says, "violates charity (through the desire for vengeance), by his very life denies that Christ came in the flesh, and he is the Antichrist."
Famous is the example of St. Nicephorus, who by forgiving an injury obtained the palm of martyrdom, from which Sapricius fell, though he already had it in his hands, because he refused to forgive the injury. The history of this event is found in the Life of St. Nicephorus, in Surius, under February 9. Hence St. Gregory of Nazianzus says admirably, in his Tetrastichs:
"Truly," he says, "if you owe nothing in punishment to God, Do not be lenient to your debtor either. But if you do not deny that you are in debt, forgive: For God repays pardon with clemency. You imitate God by helping your neighbors. And let us yield something, so that we may receive what is greater, Namely concord. Let us yield, That we may conquer; let us forgive, that we may be forgiven; Let us remit, that we may ask to be remitted; Forgive, you to whom forgiveness has been given. The kindness Of mercy — while you can, acquire it for yourself."
These and more are cited by Damascenus, Book I of the Parallels, ch. 1.
Relevant here is the fable of Gabrias, who predated both Plato and Sirach, about the horse and the boar. The horse, he says, was fighting with a most ferocious boar. But since the horse could not at all withstand the beast's assault, he called upon a hunter skilled in slaying wild beasts. The hunter said: "Let me mount on your back, so that, carried swiftly by you against your wicked enemy, I may dispatch him with my spear." The horse accepted the man, and from that time on has endured a rider and servitude. The moral: Some, on account of enmities, give themselves over to servitude, and while seeking to avenge their injuries, bring upon themselves new and greater ones. Thus many Christian princes and peoples, by pursuing their mutual enmities too aggressively, called the Turk to their aid, and came under his yoke, beneath which they now groan miserably, too late regretting their madness. Likewise, he who avenges his own injury tacitly calls the devil to his aid, and thus subjects and enslaves himself to him. Hence Sophronius, or rather John Moschus, in the Spiritual Meadow, ch. 161: A demon, he says, appeared to Abbot Isaac in the form of a young man, saying: "I am he who presides over anger and the memory of injuries, and therefore you are mine." When he asked "Why?", the demon replied: "Because for three Sundays you received communion while remaining the enemy of your neighbor; for you are angry with him over a dish of lentils."
Antonius in the Melissa, Part II, ch. 54, cites this saying of Martin the anchorite: "He who remembers the injury of demons does not remember the injury of men; he who is angry with his brother makes peace with demons." Croesus is said to have given pardon to the murderer of his son, who had offered himself for punishment; hence likewise to this same Croesus the great Cyrus (who conquered and captured him in war) became a friend after the victory. Therefore the Wise Man says prudently: "An injury should be avenged by forgetting it;" for forgetting blots out
and abolishes the injury: forgetting is therefore its supreme vengeance, since it destroys the injury completely.
2. FORGIVE YOUR NEIGHBOR WHO HAS HURT YOU (literally, "who has harmed you"; with similar syntax it is said: "It harmed him nothing," Luke 4:35), AND THEN WHEN YOU PRAY YOUR SINS WILL BE FORGIVEN.
"Forgive;" in Greek aphes, that is, remit the injury to your neighbor who has harmed you. The Syriac renders: "Dismiss what is in your heart, and pray for yourself, and all your sins will be remitted to you." This is what Christ says and promises: "Forgive, and you will be forgiven." And: "For if you forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your offenses," Matthew 6:14. Note: the word "will be loosed" signifies that sins are a kind of spiritual ropes that bind and constrict the guilty soul, according to the saying: "His own iniquities capture the wicked man, and he is bound by the ropes of his own sins," Proverbs 5:22. These ropes are the guilt of the fault and the guilt of punishment, that is, the obligation by which the soul that has sinned is bound to God to make satisfaction to Him for the injury inflicted through sin, and the obligation arising from this to both present punishment and eternal punishment in hell.
Finally, the word "neighbor" gives a stimulus for forgiving him the injury. For the neighbor is the closest and most intimately connected friend: and many things must be forgiven among friends for the sake of friendship. "For charity covers a multitude of sins," 1 Peter 4. If therefore someone offends you, consider that he is your neighbor, that is, one most intimate to you, and a brother in Christ, a sharer in the same faith, grace, and glory. Forgive him therefore his trifling offenses: for all offenses are trifling when compared with the sonship of God and the brotherhood of grace and glory. God has therefore established the measure of forgiveness for us as ourselves. For as we behave toward our neighbor, so God behaves toward us: if we forgive our neighbor his debts, God will forgive us ours. Indeed, each person establishes this measure for himself when he prays daily saying: "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." Therefore if he refuses to forgive his neighbor, by these very words he implicitly signifies and says: Lord, I pray You not to forgive me my sins, just as I refuse to forgive my neighbor his.
There is the additional consideration that an enemy, in hurling insults at us, often speaks the truth: for he reveals a hidden vice; and thus it happens that we notice and correct what we previously, blinded by self-love, could not see. This is in reality a benefit rather than an injury. Similar is what Pliny writes, Book VII, ch. 50, about Phalereus, who was restored to health by an enemy who cut open an abscess: "Phalereus," he says, "given up by doctors because of an abscess, when he sought death on the battlefield, found a cure from the enemy through a wound in his chest." Thus many receive a remedy for vice from the reproach of a rival. An example is found in St. Monica, who, struck by an angry maidservant's insult of being a wine-bibber,
the other soul received the insult as a medicinal knife from Your hidden provisions, and with one stroke You cut away that corruption?" See Plutarch, in his book On the Advantage to Be Derived from Enemies.
Furthermore, the desire for vengeance arises from pusillanimity of soul, which cannot digest a single harsh word or blow. Hence magnanimous animals overlook injuries: the lion forgives and spares the one who prostrates himself before it. So the moon is not moved by the barking of dogs; so Olympus rises above the storm clouds. See Seneca in his work On the Wise Man, the book On Anger, and the book On Clemency. Therefore, in order to conquer anger and the desire for vengeance, one must be magnanimous. Such was Julius Caesar, who, upon hearing that Cato had taken his own life to avoid falling into Caesar's hands, said: "He begrudged me the glory I would have gained by sparing him." For, as St. Ambrose says, Book IV, Epistle 29 to Florianus: "It is a great glory if you spare the one you could have harmed." And Marcus Antonius the Emperor, Book VI of his Meditations: "The best way of avenging yourself," he says, "is not to become like the one who did the injury." And Book I begins thus: "From my grandfather I learned to have a gentle character and to abstain from anger."
3. ONE MAN HARBORS (in Greek synterein, that is, preserves) ANGER AGAINST ANOTHER, AND SEEKS REMEDY FROM GOD?
In Greek, iasin, that is, healing, meaning: A man reserves anger toward a man who is his equal, for the purpose of vengeance: with what face then, with what impudence does he seek remedy and pardon for the injury he himself has inflicted on God? Again, the word "man" gives another stimulus for forgiving him, meaning: The one who offended you is a man, not an angel. And what can you expect from a man, who is fragile and deceitful, except lapses, errors, and deceits? It is a wonder if a man acts well; his frailty must be forgiven if he does harm. The Tigurine version: "Shall a man nourish anger against a man, and seek healing from the Lord?" The Syriac: "A man harbors anger against a man — why does he seek from the Lord health of soul, that is, holiness?" From this you may conversely infer that the path to great grace and holiness is the forgiveness of injuries.
St. Alexander, Patriarch of Alexandria, knew this well. When his notary had stolen gold and, fleeing in fear, had fallen among robbers, Alexander, repaying the injury with a new kindness, ransomed him for 85 coins. On another occasion, when he was injured by a deacon, he prostrated himself on the ground and asked pardon from him, saying: "Forgive me, lord brother," as John Moschus relates in the Spiritual Meadow, ch. 34. St. Antony, hearing a certain monk praised as holy, asked whether he was patient under injuries; when they said no, he said: "He is like a house that is adorned on the outside but has been plundered by robbers on the inside." So Rufinus, Book III of the Lives of the Fathers, no. 88. Therefore the true and perfect monk is one who endures injuries and prays well for the one who injures him, and is like an idol, that is, a stone statue, which when provoked by injuries and blows does not become angry — indeed, does not even feel them. For in a similar way the perfect man is moved neither by praise nor by injury, as is found in the Lives of the Fathers, Book II, no. 199.
4. HE SHOWS NO MERCY TO A MAN LIKE HIMSELF, AND DOES HE PRAY FOR HIS OWN SINS?
He heightens the unworthiness of anger and vengeance, and applies further incentives to forgiveness. First, meaning: Consider that the one who offended you is like you, and you in turn are like him, not only in nature, but also in frailty and human failings; therefore if he is a sinner, you too are a sinner; if he offended you, you too have often offended him or others and continue to do so. Forgive him therefore, as you wish to be forgiven. Secondly, another incentive is provided by the words "shows no mercy," meaning: With what audacity, with what presumption will a merciless man, cruel to one like himself, ask mercy from God — and that not for one sin, but for many and most grievous sins? Moreover, if it moved the Son of God to forgive the sins of men that He was like them, and thus seemed to Himself to have done what He did to men, why should you not also, O man, forgive the offense of a man like yourself? For when you hate one of your own kind and like yourself, you seem to hate yourself. Therefore, in order to imitate God, to imitate Christ, you must forgive the injury completely and from the depths of your heart.
"For there are some," says St. Bernard, in his sermon On the Seven Loaves, "who, though they give up vengeance for an injury, nevertheless frequently reproach the offender. And there are others who, though they keep silent, still harbor it deep in their mind and hold rancor in their heart. Neither of these is certainly full pardon. Far more benign than these men is the nature of the Godhead: He acts willingly, He forgives fully; so that because of the trust of sinners (but penitent sinners), where sin abounded, grace is accustomed to abound even more. Witness is Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, who labored more than all the others with divine grace. Witness is Matthew, chosen from the tax-collector's booth to be an Apostle, to whom it was also given to be the first writer of the New Testament. Witness is Peter, to whom, after his triple denial, the pastoral care of the entire Church was entrusted. Witness finally is also that most famous woman sinner, to whom at the very beginning of her conversion such an abundance of love was granted, and such great grace of familiarity was afterwards bestowed. Who accused Mary, and was she required to speak for herself? If the Pharisee murmurs, if Martha complains, if the Apostles are scandalized, Mary keeps silent, Christ excuses her, and even praises her for keeping silent," etc.
A remarkable example of this was given by Pope St. Leo III, who succeeded Adrian I in the year of the Lord 799, and crowned Charlemagne as Emperor Augustus in the Basilica of St. Peter. For envious men tore out Leo's eyes and cut out his tongue by the root; indeed, they dragged him through a church, left him half-dead beside the confessional, wallowing in his own blood, and thrust him into the strictest confinement. But at night St. Peter restored to him the light of his eyes and his tongue through a vision. And when Charlemagne, arriving in Rome shortly after, condemned these executioners to death, St. Leo interceded on their behalf and obtained the lives of those who had plotted against his own. So relate Platina, Baronius, and others.
Sidonius Apollinaris says admirably, Book IX, Epistle 4 to Gracus the Pope, that is, the Bishop: "Like it or not," he says, "whoever attains the kingdom of the despised Mediator follows His example. However many cups of anxiety the affliction of the present life may offer us, we endure small things if we remember what He drank at the gallows who invites us to the kingdom."
5. HE HIMSELF, THOUGH HE IS FLESH, HARBORS ANGER, AND ASKS GOD FOR PARDON? WHO WILL OBTAIN FORGIVENESS FOR HIS SINS?
Meaning: It is unworthy and intolerable that a carnal man, that is, a base, fragile, mortal man, should harbor anger against another carnal man, who through the frailty of flesh often falls and is therefore worthy of pity, not of anger; and that he should meanwhile ask God for pardon of his own crimes committed against God. Who then will dare to intercede for his sins? The Tigurine version: "Since he himself, being mortal, fosters anger and seeks pardon from God, who will expiate his sins?" The Syriac: "He who is a man does not wish to spare him — who will forgive his sins?" For the Syriac and Greek do not have the phrase "and asks God for pardon."
Isidore of Pelusium says admirably, Book III, Epistle 211: "Enmity should be written in water, so that it may be erased as quickly as possible; but friendship should be engraved in bronze, so that it may be preserved firm and immovable forever." And Bede, on Proverbs: "Each person bears his neighbor as much as he loves him." Abbot Pimenius, cited by Rufinus, Book III of the Lives of the Holy Fathers, no. 201, when asked how one can lay down his life for his brothers, as Christ commanded, John 15, replied: "If someone hears a harsh word from his neighbor, and though he could reply in kind, nevertheless struggles in his heart to bear the burden and forces himself not to return evil so as to grieve him — such a person lays down his life for his friend." Abbot Agathon said: "If you live with a neighbor, be like a stone pillar: if it is insulted, it does not grow angry; if it is glorified, it does not become proud." So the Lives of the Holy Fathers, Book VII, ch. 42, no. 2.
See here how faith transcends corrupt nature, and the light of faith corrects the light of reason. For the pagan philosophers, guided by the light of nature, held that one should do good to friends and benefactors, but harm to enemies and evildoers. Furthermore, they held that to endure injury is the mark of a coward, but to avenge it the mark of a great soul — which even today many Catholics wrongly believe, and therefore engage in duels, avenge the injuries inflicted on them, and vindicate their honor not only by retaliation but even by the sword. All of which are certainly pagan sentiments, and the dictates of a corrupt and proud nature; which Sirach accordingly refutes and corrects here, as do Christ in Matthew 5:44, and Paul in Romans 12:20.
Hear among others Seneca in his Proverbs, whose pagan, not Christian but anti-Christian, sayings about vengeance include: "Neither can a brave man inflict an insult, nor a freeborn man endure one. To avenge an enemy is to receive another life. Let your friends feel your strength through kindnesses, your enemies through injuries." More wisely and in a more Christian manner
the same author says: "It is the mark of a great soul to be tranquil, and always to despise injuries and offenses. What great strength it takes to disregard the one who harms you! For he who takes vengeance feels the wound. How hostile it is to have harmed someone, or to harm because you hate! It is always best to forgive, as if you yourself sinned every day. If someone grows angry, he exacts punishment from another but demands it from himself: for we act most severely against those who sin against us, and we ourselves commit the same offenses. Just as a painting is beautiful when no part of it is flawed, so a man is beautiful in whom there is no stain of sin. Therefore let us hold to this at home, abroad, and in every walk of life: that we be inexorable toward ourselves, but ready to pardon those who know not how to grant pardon except to themselves." More devoutly and divinely, St. Basil, in his Epistle to the Canoness: "Each person," he says, "should strive, if he has someone hostile to him, to soften that person's heart as much as he can."
And St. John Chrysostom, Book I of On Compunction, teaches that it is not enough to do no evil to enemies and those who have harmed us, if we retain within ourselves the incurable wound of the offense. For "Christ," he says, "not only wants us to forgive those who wrong us, but also to love them and pray for them. For if you merely do not harm the one who harmed you, but turn away from him and do not willingly see him, the wound undoubtedly remains in your breast, and the pain grows in your heart. If this is the case, then what Christ commanded has certainly not yet been fulfilled. Do you wish God to be propitious to you in such a way that He does not indeed harm you, but turns away from you, keeps the memory of your sins, and does not wish to see you? Therefore, such as you wish God to be toward you when you ask pardon for your sins, such should you show yourself to those who have sinned against you, as one of the wise men also writes, saying: 'A man harbors anger against a man, and seeks healing from God. And if he shows no mercy to a man like himself, how does he beseech God for his own sins, when he himself is flesh and holds on to wrath? Who will be propitious to his sins?'" See the same St. John Chrysostom, Homily 27 on the Epistle to the Romans.
6 and 7. REMEMBER THE LAST THINGS, AND CEASE FROM ENMITY: FOR DECAY AND DEATH HANG OVER HIS COMMANDMENTS.
Some wrongly read "beatitude" for "decay;" for in Greek it is kataphthora, that is, corruption, wasting, destruction. He gives a third incentive, and with it spurs the offended person to lay aside anger and enmity, meaning: When you are angry, remember the last things — namely death, judgment, and hell: for from the memory and consideration of these, you will easily lay aside anger and enmity, because "decay," that is, corruption, death, and destruction hang over — that is, are contained in and set forth by — His commandments, namely the commandments of God, the universal lawgiver: for these commandments of God threaten transgressors, such as the wrathful who harbor hatreds, with both present and eternal death. In order therefore to escape this vengeance of God, lay aside anger and forgive private vengeance.
Hence St. Ambrose, Book IV, Epistle 29 to Florianus: "Do not repay the one who sins against you," he says, "according to his fault, knowing that judgment is coming upon you. For you will not have pardon unless you grant it to another. For hatred separates a man from the kingdom, withdraws him from heaven, casts him out of paradise." The Greek Complutensian text reads: "Remember the last things, and cease from enmity, and do not threaten your neighbor with ruin and death, and acquiesce in the commandments." The Roman Greek text reads: "Remember the last things, and cease from enmity; of decay and death (supply 'remember'), and persevere in the commandments." The Tigurine: "Remember the final things, and lay aside enmity; do not contrive exile or death for another through anger, but persist in the commandments." The Syriac: "Remember death, and let enmity pass away, and hell and perdition, and restrain yourself from sins." By the word "last things" is understood primarily the judgment and hell, which God will bring upon all the impious, such as those eager for vengeance, on the last day of the world; yet any last things may be understood, including death and heavenly glory.
Surely, he who considers that through vengeance he will lose eternal happiness, and through forgiveness will attain it, will easily grant that forgiveness, and, as the saying goes, will buy a talent for a penny. Surely he will lay aside fury who knows that the fury of God will be unleashed in death, judgment, and hell, and poured out upon the one who does not forgive. Surely death, when more attentively considered, brings death to our passions, however lively and vigorous they may have been. He who understands that his life is being cut short does not rage like a lion, but cries out like a young swallow and moans like a dove, as did King Hezekiah on his deathbed, Isaiah 38.
Furthermore, what follows — "for decay and death hang over his commandments" — means, says Palacius, that the rottenness of the body and the death of the soul impend and hang over the violation of God's commandments. He commands thus: "Vengeance is Mine" — beware lest you violate this commandment. For think of it this way: the divine commandments are like clouds about to pour forth rain, so that they rain innumerable blessings upon the good, but upon the wicked the corruption of the body and the death of the soul. For in hell the body of the damned will rot — that is, worms will feed upon it — and the soul will suffer the second death (which is the true death).
The holy ascetics knew this, whose axiom, paradoxical to the world, was: "The gate of heaven is the endurance of injuries." For this reason they would buy injuries with payment, as is evident in Book VI of the Lives of the Holy Fathers; Book IV, no. 12. One man, asking an elder: "Give me, father, a way by which I may be saved," heard from him: "If you can be injured, and suffer insults, and bear them, and keep silent." In the same work, Book III, no. 85: "It belongs to the angels to be angry with no one, but to be in perpetual peace; to the demons, to exercise irrevocable enmities throughout all of life;" but to wise men, perhaps briefly to be angry, but quickly to be reconciled, says one of the saints.
St. Bernard of Quintavalle, the first companion of St. Francis, on his deathbed gloried in this one thing alone: that he had loved his enemies more after they had offended him than before.
For this was his last dying utterance and prayer: "Dearest brothers, consider that the state which I had, you also have, and the state which I now have, you too shall have. And I find in my soul that for a thousand worlds equal to this one I would not wish not to have served the Lord Jesus Christ." And immediately, prostrating himself on the ground: "For all the offenses," he said, "which I have committed against my Savior the Lord Jesus Christ and against you, I accuse myself, and I declare my most grievous fault, because I was not a true Friar Minor except in temptations, in which the Lord always sustained me. And in one other thing alone I find that I was a true Friar Minor, namely that I loved my brother more after an offense than before. But I ask that you pray devoutly for me, and even more I pray that you love one another, just as I have given you an example." So the Annals of the Minors by Father Luke Wadding record, under the year of Christ 1241, no. 9.
Hence St. John Gualbert, founder of the Order of Vallombrosa, when he fell upon the murderer of his kinsman while armed, and the man, prostrate on the ground, begged for pardon for the love of Christ crucified, forgave him the killing. Then entering Florence, in the church of San Miniato, while praying before the crucifix, he saw the head of Christ hanging on the cross bow toward him, as if giving thanks that for His love he had spared his mortal enemy. And even today, that is, after five hundred years, the pious image of Christ crucified, still bowing His head from the cross, is visited and venerated.
Blessed Juniper, the companion of St. Francis, a great despiser of himself, and as eager for reproach as others are for honor and praise, when someone heaped insults upon him, spread out the hem of his poor cloak and said: "Friend, throw them here generously; fill this lap with those precious stones (for he called reproaches 'prices' and 'precious stones'); fill it, do not be afraid." Hence St. Francis used to say of him: "Would that we had an entire forest of such Junipers!" So the Annals already cited record, under the year of Christ 1210, no. 35.
Elizabeth, daughter of the King of Hungary, once while praying to God that He might bestow some special benefit on each of those who had injured her, so that kindness might answer injury, heard a response from God that her prayers had never so pleased God as on that occasion, and that for this prayer the remission of all her sins was granted to her. Among others, Avila reports this, Epistle 6.
Morally, learn here that an effective spur for restraining anger and every concupiscence is the living remembrance of God, who has forbidden every vice under the threat of death and hell, and has appointed for every virtue the prize of the heavenly crown. For He, as it were the president of the games, watches us struggling in this arena, that He may crown the victors and punish the vanquished.
Mystically, our Alvarez de Paz, Book I of On the Extinction of Vices, Part II, ch. 13, writes: "'Decay and death hang over his commandments.' Because neglected commandments bring on this death and wasting, so that a man finds himself not merely slow but virtually powerless with regard to all good works. This second state is like sleep, no longer binding the bodily senses but the powers of the soul, so that they cannot perform the actions of virtue. Hence Paul, Romans 13:11, says: 'It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep,' that is, as St. Gregory interprets it, Book V of the Morals, ch. 22, 'from the state of lukewarmness.' And Solomon, Proverbs 19:15: 'Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and the idle soul will go hungry.' And St. David, Psalm 119:28: 'My soul has slumbered from weariness; strengthen me in Your words.' 'Quite properly,' says Cassian, Book X, ch. 4, 'he said not that the body slumbered, but the soul. For truly the soul slumbers from all contemplation of virtues and from the perception of spiritual senses, when it has been wounded by the dart of this disturbance.'"
Here then is the fourth incentive, and the noblest and most effective one, for restraining anger and forgiving injury — namely, if you consider that it is pleasing and dear to God that you forgive: that God wills it, and asks of you that for the love of Him you remit the offense. This incentive is now far more effective, since we have Christ's example, teaching, and commandment, as well as His grace for forgiving: for Christ on the cross forgave His crucifiers, and prayed to the Father for them, saying: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He wished all Christians to imitate this example.
8. REMEMBER THE FEAR OF GOD, AND BE NOT ANGRY WITH YOUR NEIGHBOR.
The Greek, instead of "fear," reads entolas, that is, "commandments," because the commandments of God inspire in us reverence and fear, since they threaten their transgressors with death and severe punishments. Hence the Tigurine renders: "Consider the commandments, and do not be angry with another," although our translator instead of entolas seems to have
read phobon, that is, "fear." This fear of God therefore restrains anger: for he who fears God drives out sin, and therefore also anger. He who fears God possesses the virtue of justice, and therefore also of meekness. Finally, he who fears God guards against anger toward his neighbor, lest perhaps by this anger he provoke God to anger, and find God to be such as he himself is found to be by his neighbor: for what is done to the least is done to God. So says Palacius. By "fear" here, understand any kind of fear, even servile, but especially filial. Filial fear, moreover, includes the love of God; indeed, it is itself the love of God. And this is the fourth incentive.
Hence Basil, the Emperor of Constantinople, in his Exhortation to his son Leo, Volume V of the Library of the Holy Fathers, commends the same to his son in ch. 42: "If you take your conscience as your law, and never permit others to suffer what you yourself would not wish to suffer, you will never sustain the reproach of any sin; and if you persuade yourself that God is, as He truly is, the observer and knower of every action, you will never sin, either openly or in secret. For even if you seem to be hidden from others in what you do secretly, you will certainly reverence your own conscience, and God Himself, who gazes even into the hidden recesses and chambers of the soul: for men see what belongs to the body; but what lies hidden in the depths of the soul, only the eye of God, from whom nothing is hidden, penetrates. For just as when the sun shines nothing can be concealed in the open air, so with God watching, no actions can be concealed or secret."
Add to this that the consideration of the most clement, most patient, imperturbable, and most tranquil God is a powerful incentive for us to restrain anger; for nothing makes us so like God as patience. Hence Blessed Aelred, in the Mirror of Charity, ch. 7: "What," he says, "is so close to divine tranquility as not to be harmed by insults inflicted, not to be terrified by any punishment or persecution, to have one constant mind both in prosperity and adversity, and to regard enemy and friend with the same eye?"
9. REMEMBER THE COVENANT OF THE MOST HIGH, AND OVERLOOK THE IGNORANCE OF YOUR NEIGHBOR.
"Overlook," that is, think little of, ignore, spare, forgive "the ignorance," that is, the sin and offense which your neighbor has committed against you. For every sin has mixed with it a certain ignorance, that is, a kind of imprudence and thoughtlessness. For if the sinner prudently considered how great an evil is what he does, he would certainly not do it. He calls sin "ignorance" by way of understatement, in order to diminish the gravity of the offense through ignorance, and thus to show it worthy of pardon, and something to be scorned rather than valued and avenged.
By "covenant," first understand the natural and divine law of God; for this is often called in Scripture, in Hebrew, berit, in Greek, diatheke, in Latin, testamentum, that is, a covenant and pact; because the condition of the pact that God has made with us — that we be His people and He be our God — is this: that we keep His law. The meaning therefore is: Remember the law of God, which forbids vengeance and commands the forgiveness of injury and the love of one's enemy, and incorporate it into your mind; thus it will come about that through fear, reverence, and love of the law, you will scorn and think little of every offense that your neighbor has ignorantly committed against you. For the law of God, among other things, decrees: "Do not seek vengeance, nor be mindful of the injury of your fellow citizens," Leviticus 19:18. Hence the Syriac renders: "Remember the commandment, and do not hate your neighbor before God, and give him what he needs."
Christ established a more severe law against anger and vengeance, Matthew 5:22: "Everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca,' will be answerable to the council. And whoever says, 'You fool,' will be subject to the fire of hell." The fear and remembrance of this ought certainly to recall everyone from anger and vengeance.
Secondly, by "covenant" properly understand the pact by which God called and gathered all men, especially the faithful, into one Church, so that all might be His children, and brothers to one another through grace, and heirs through glory. For by this pact God established brotherly love, so that all might love one another as brothers: therefore He forbade them to be angry, to harm, and to take vengeance on one another; conversely He commanded that if anyone is offended by another, he should forgive him as a fragile and ignorant brother.
Again, this covenant can be understood as the pact by which God has covenanted and promised to forgive our sins when we ask, on this condition and law: that we forgive our neighbors the sins committed against us, as I said on verse 1, meaning: Remember the pact of God — namely, that God will forgive your offenses if you forgive your neighbor; but He will retain and severely avenge them if you retain and keep them. Therefore, in order to earn pardon for your sins, grant pardon to your ignorant neighbor. Hence Palacius says: God entered into a covenant or pact formerly with the Jews, and now with Christians, that He would be their God, their lot, their inheritance; and they in turn would be for God a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people of acquisition. Therefore, if you nourish enmities with your brothers, understand that you are nourishing them with kings, priests, and a holy nation. Finally, if you choose to wage war with your brother, understand that you are waging war with God.
St. Basil wisely says, in his Admonition to a Spiritual Son: "Such as you wish the Lord to be toward you, be yourself toward your fellow servant." And regally, Agapetus the deacon, in his Admonition to the Emperor Justinian, no. 23, instructs him thus: "Show yourself to your servants such as you wish the Lord to be toward you. For as we hear, so shall we be heard; and as we regard others, so shall we be regarded by the divine gaze that sees all things. Let us therefore be the first to show mercy, that we may receive equal for equal." He adds the reason: "Just as finely crafted mirrors show such appearances of faces as the originals themselves are — bright reflections of the radiant, sad reflections of the sad — in the same way the just judgment of God is made like our own actions. For such as are the things we render, such does He render back to us in equal return."
10 and 11. REFRAIN FROM STRIFE, AND YOU WILL DIMINISH SINS: FOR AN ANGRY MAN KINDLES STRIFE, AND A SINFUL MAN WILL TROUBLE HIS FRIENDS, AND AMONG THOSE WHO HAVE PEACE HE WILL SOW ENMITY.
By "strife" some understand forensic litigation, in which a plaintiff contends with a defendant before a judge in a tribunal. For these forensic lawsuits are the cause of many frauds, hatreds, slanders, and other sins. Better, however, to understand by "strife" quarreling and bickering with one's neighbor; for in Greek it is mache, that is, strife, bickering, contention, brawling, fighting. For this is the cause of many insults, threats, curses, beatings, and killings — all of which the person who refrains from strife avoids. He joins strife to vengeance as a sister to a sister, because both are born from the same mother, namely anger and hatred; or as a daughter to a mother: for vengeance, like a mother, begets quarrels and bickering, and many people, in order to avenge their injuries, quarrel and bicker with the one who inflicted them.
He proves what he said from the contrary, when he adds: "For an angry man kindles strife," etc., meaning: Refrain from strife, and contain yourself in meekness, so as to diminish sins. For if you loosen the reins of anger, you will ignite an enormous pyre of quarrels — indeed, many pyres and fires — and consequently many sins arising from them. For one quarrel begets another, just as one strawberry plant produces many: for strife spreads from two persons to many relatives, friends, and neighbors on both sides; and thus it often tears apart and inflames an entire city and province into factions and brawls, as was evident in Italy in the faction of the Whites and the Blacks, and likewise the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which disturbed all of Italy and filled it with brawls and bloodshed. It is indeed the devil's role to disturb the peace of cities and the commonwealth, just as it is God's to calm what has been disturbed, says Palacius. Hence the Tigurine renders: "Refrain from brawls (others, 'from quarreling'), and you will diminish sins; for an angry man will kindle a fight. A wicked man sets friends against each other and casts calumny upon those who have peace." The Syriac: "Keep far from strife and sins will be far from you. For the wicked man who loves strife makes enmity among brothers."
Therefore, just as the whetstone of virtue is to suffer, according to the saying: "In silence and in hope shall be your strength," Isaiah 30:15; so conversely the whetstone of vice is to refuse to suffer, and therefore to quarrel and brawl. Sirach proves the same point through an apt simile of fire kindling a forest, saying: "According to the wood of the forest," etc.
For, as Lawrence Justinian writes admirably, Book On the Discipline and Conversation of Monks, ch. 13: "Contention is a fiery arrow of the devil for destroying souls. O how many quarrels, how many hatreds arise from contentious words! O how often the truth is concealed, and falsehood is defended as truth from fear of disgrace! For contention is a most wicked evil, through which the bond of friendships is dissolved, and the sweet tie of hearts is broken. He who is contentious admits into himself the assaults of the ancient enemy, performs the devil's work, ruptures peace, stirs up brawls, begets hatred, nourishes fury, blackens honor, destroys wisdom, confounds reason, clouds the eye of the mind, repels the light of grace, breaks brotherly love, and kills within himself heavenly charity itself."
Hence St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle 62 (alias 56), to Eustachius the sophist, accuses himself of rashness for having rebuked him and thereby brought upon himself the sophist's insults: "What was I thinking?" he says. "How stupid and foolish! I undertook to chastise a sophist. O what singular audacity — and I was not even taught by the common proverb that, being bald, I should not butt heads with a ram, nor provoke and irritate a hornet, that is, a tongue all too ready for cursing."
David alone understood this, who accordingly was an exemplar of clemency in forgiving injuries — both when Absalom invaded his kingdom, when the whole kingdom rebelled, and when Shimei cursed him: "Let him curse," he said, "according to the command of the Lord: perhaps the Lord will look upon my affliction and repay me with good for this cursing today," 2 Samuel 16. Surely "he desired to be cursed, because through that cursing he sought divine mercy," says St. Ambrose, Book I of On Duties, ch. 48. And through this truly admirable patience he undoubtedly merited that he easily routed the army of the traitor and was triumphantly restored to his royal throne.
The same St. Ambrose therefore draws this lesson of patience: "He taught that times of injuries and dangers are the contests of temptations, the tests of trials; and that therefore they are not customarily inflicted without the divine judgment. The good athlete is trained by insults, trained by labors and dangers, so that he may be worthy to receive the crown of justice." So he writes, Apology 1, ch. 6. David was certainly admirable in all things, but most of all in this patience. And hence the same Ambrose rightly exclaims: "O the depth of prudence! O the mark of patience! O the grand device for swallowing insult! 'The Lord commanded him to curse,' he says. He does not accuse the Lord as the author of the injury, but rather praises Him for allowing us to suffer lesser things, so that we may obtain the pardon of greater sins."
Noteworthy is what Pliny writes, Book VIII, ch. 50, about goats: "Mutianus," he says, "reported seeing the cleverness of this animal on a very narrow bridge, when two goats met from opposite directions: since the narrowness did not allow turning around, nor did the length permit any going back and forth in the blindness of the confined space, with a rapid torrent threateningly flowing below, one lay down, and thus the other passed over the prostrate one." So by lying down, the one goat provided for the safety of both itself and the other. Learn, O man, from the goat, to yield somewhat of your right in a dispute; thus you will look out for both yourself and your neighbor, avoid strife, and enjoy peace.
Hence St. Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, left this maxim for his followers: "Resist no one, not even the least, for any reason; Let it please you to yield rather than to conquer."
Pliny adds that goats "breathe through their ears, not their nostrils, and are never free of fever, as Archelaus attests: and therefore perhaps because their spirit is more fiery than that of sheep." Learn, O man, from the goat, to banish wrathful impulses from your mouth and nostrils to your ears and back — that is, when angry, close your mouth and open your ears, so as to receive the gentle counsels of others that calm anger and strife. Finally, "they say," Pliny writes, "that goats see no less at night than by day: and therefore if one eats goat liver, night vision is restored to those they call nyctalopes (night-blind)." Learn, O man, from the goat, to sharpen the vision of your mind, so that you may see how troublesome and harmful quarrels are, and thus teach the wisdom of calming disputes to those who are nyctalopes — that is, who are blinded by avarice and anger, and therefore quarrelsome.
This is the seventh incentive for relinquishing anger and vengeance — namely, that through this forgiveness the innumerable sins that usually arise from anger and strife are avoided.
12. FOR AS THE WOOD OF THE FOREST IS, SO THE FIRE BURNS: AND AS A MAN'S STRENGTH IS, SO WILL HIS ANGER BE, AND ACCORDING TO HIS WEALTH HE WILL INTENSIFY HIS WRATH.
The word "for," although it is not in the Greek, is fittingly added, for it gives the reason for what he said: "For an angry man kindles strife." Where for "angry" the Greek has thymodes, that is, spirited, bold, wrathful; for spiritedness and boldness, which are suggested by strength and wealth, make men wrathful. Meaning: Just as fire burns more or less according to the quantity and quality of the wood (for if there is much wood, and it is dry, a great fire will be kindled; but if little and damp, a small one); so likewise "according to strength," that is, according to vigor, power, and might, thymos blazes forth — that is, spiritedness and wrathfulness, and from these come strife and brawling. For the weak and infirm, because they lack power and are therefore timid, are only mildly angered (for anger is vain without strength); but the strong and powerful, because they are vigorous and bold, conceive grave angers: for strength adds spirit and boldness, and from these anger. Therefore a strong and thymodes man, that is, spirited and thereby wrathful, kindles strife — especially if wealth, that is, riches and possessions, are added to strength and power: for these add spirit and thereby sharpen anger. Strength and wealth are therefore the fuel of anger and strife, just as wood is the fuel of fire.
Hence the Tigurine clearly renders: "In proportion to the forest the fire is kindled, that is, according to a man's strength his fury grows, and according to his riches his anger swells, and the heat increases in proportion to the violence of the quarrel." The Complutensian reads: "According to the material of the fire, so it will be kindled; according to the firmness of the quarrel, the fire will grow; according to a man's strength his anger will be, and according to his riches he magnifies his wrath." This is what Solomon says, Proverbs 19:12: "As the roaring of a lion, so also is the anger of a king." Where the Chaldean renders: "The anger of a king roars like a lion." Such are the strength, wealth, and anger of men — but not of God: for God, although He is the strongest, the most powerful, and the wealthiest, is nevertheless the most easily appeased and most merciful. Thanks be to God, therefore, says Palacius, whom wealth and power have not made wrathful and turbulent, but most meek and tranquil. Let powerful men and princes therefore follow God, not their own bile. For this is true magnanimity and the true loftiness of a great soul: to master anger, to forgive offense, to spare. For it belongs to a small soul to be offended by trifles, to keep the offense, to be conquered by anger, to surrender to vengeance, to make oneself a slave — indeed, a bondsman — of hatred. Hence the Poet: "The greater a man is, the more easily he is appeased in anger, And a noble mind accepts gentle emotions. For the magnanimous lion, it is enough to have laid bodies low."
And Manilius: "He is nearest to the gods Whom reason, not anger, governs. Divine modesty keeps its voice unoffended, And calm subdues offenses."
And Ovid, about Augustus Caesar, Book V of the Tristia, Elegy 2: "The great world has nothing more gentle than Caesar."
And elsewhere: "He who always conquers, that he may be able to spare the conquered."
13. A HASTY QUARREL KINDLES FIRE: AND A HASTY DISPUTE SHEDS BLOOD: AND A TESTIFYING TONGUE BRINGS DEATH.
All of these prove and support what he counseled in verse 10: "Refrain from strife, and you will diminish sins." For "quarrel" the Greek has eris, that is, contention, strife, brawling. For "dispute" it has mache, that is, a fight, which usually follows from brawling: for those who brawl, after sharp words, come to blows and beatings. The meaning therefore is: Contention and brawling, hastily stirred up by wrathful men, kindle the fire of bile and choler — and from this come fights and beatings which shed blood, and are the cause of wounds and the slaughter of many. Hence the Tigurine renders: "A quarrel once stirred up kindles fire, and a fierce fight sheds blood." Others: "A hastened dispute kindles fire, and a hurried fight sheds blood." The Syriac: "The terebinth and the cypress cone kindle fire, and many quarrels shed blood."
For the third part, about the testifying tongue, is no longer in the Greek. Jansenius understands by the "testifying tongue" a tongue that denounces and threatens someone with destruction, which is often the cause of killings. For in Scripture, "to testify" sometimes means the same as to denounce and declare, as in: "I testify to every man who circumcises himself," Galatians 5. Simplicius, Lyranus, and Dionysius take the "testifying tongue" to mean the tongue of a witness who, when two are quarreling, rashly or impudently lends his testimony to one against the other. For this further irritates the other party both against the companion with whom he quarrels and against himself, and thus kindles a brawl from which fights and killings follow. Palacius explains these three things somewhat differently, connecting them thus: If, provoked by words, you contend against your neighbor, the fire of anger will be kindled from it; and if, further provoked, you fight with him, you will shed his blood; and witnesses will be brought who will testify that you shed it, and you will bring death upon yourself — namely, the death which the judge will justly inflict upon you as a murderer.
14. IF YOU BLOW UPON A SPARK (so the Roman and Greek texts: Jansenius and others therefore wrongly omit the words "upon a spark"), IT WILL BLAZE LIKE FIRE: AND IF YOU SPIT UPON IT, IT WILL BE QUENCHED: BOTH PROCEED FROM THE MOUTH.
The Tigurine renders: "A spark, if you blow on it, will blaze up; but if you spit on it, it will be quenched; yet both proceed from the mouth." The Syriac: "If you blow upon fire, it will be kindled; and if you sprinkle it with water, it will be quenched; and both are from you."
He compares strife to a spark, and brawling and fighting to fire, both of which are kindled and extinguished by the same mouth. For just as, if you blow with your mouth upon a spark, you kindle a fire, but if you spit upon it with the same mouth, you extinguish it — so likewise strife is kindled by the mouth, if with it you persist in quarreling, contending, brawling, or provoking the quarrels and brawls of others with your incitement or testimony; but it is extinguished by the same mouth, if you respond meekly and humbly, or keep silent and yield, or diminish and soften the cause of the brawl, according to the saying: "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up fury," Proverbs 15:1. "These are the weapons of the just man: to conquer by yielding, just as those skilled in javelin-throwing are accustomed to conquer by retreating, and by fleeing to wound the pursuer with more grievous blows," says St. Ambrose, Book I of On Duties, ch. 5.
Therefore "both" — namely both the kindling and the quenching of the fire and the strife — "proceed from" the same "mouth," meaning: From the same mouth come forth strife and peace, discord and concord, and therefore death and life: for, as St. James says, ch. 3:10: "From the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing." See what I have annotated there.
Sirach alludes to Proverbs 26:21: "As coals to embers, and wood to fire, so an angry man stirs up strife." The Septuagint: "A grating for coals, and wood for fire; but a cursed man for the tumult of strife." Perhaps the Vulgate reading was in the mind of St. John Chrysostom, in Homily 3 On Not Attending the Spectacles: "Just as," he says, "if you blow upon a spark of fire, you kindle a conflagration; but on the contrary, if you spit on it, you extinguish it; and both are in your power — so if you introduce inflated and senseless words, you kindle the fire of an angry man; but if you apply mild and moderate words, before he flares up you will have extinguished all his anger." So anger is compared to fire by Chrysostom, Homily 30 to the People: "Anger," he says, "is a vehement fire, devouring all things: for it destroys the body and corrupts the soul." Hence Aristotle, Book I of On the Soul, said that anger is the kindling of blood around the heart.
Relevant here is the common proverb: "Do not poke the fire with a sword," that is, do not provoke or stir up an angry man — which St. Basil uses in his epistle to Nepotian. And Plato, in his book On the Laws: "Do not add fire to fire," he says. For Diogenianus relates that when a charcoal-maker was heaping fire upon fire in his furnace, and was consumed by his own fire, he cried out as he died: "Do not add fire to fire."
Furthermore, inflamed anger begets fury and madness. Hence the saying: "Anger is a brief madness." And Seneca, Epistle 18: "Excessive anger," he says, "begets insanity." Indeed, David too, Psalm 37:8: "Cease from anger," he says, "and forsake fury." Who then would wish to wrangle and brawl with an angry man — that is, with a furious and insane person? Surely no one except one equally foolish and mad. "Anger," says Aristotle, as cited by Stobaeus, Sermon 20, "is a bestial disturbance, a harsh and violent force, the cause of killings, the companion of calamity, the instigator of loss and disgrace, the ruin of wealth, and the origin of destruction."
Hear St. Ambrose on Psalm 37: "Anger," he says, "is a grievous passion; it often inflames the unwilling, and seizes the one who wished to punish more mildly and carries him into fury, so that he kills the one he had thought to restrain. Moved by the sword, he often pierces through the innocent, friends and brothers: through indignation very many have perished. Therefore the Wise Man says: 'Anger destroys even the wise.'" St. Basil concurs, Homily 10 On Anger: "Because of anger," he says, "the sword is sharpened, death comes to man from man. Neither venerable old age, nor virtue of life, nor kinship of blood, nor parents avail. Indeed, they often hurl themselves into the greatest evil, and in their zeal for revenge neglect their own welfare; for they rush more shamelessly even than any venomous beast, and do not desist until they have glutted their soul with great and intolerable evil." Finally, from the mouth of the demon — since he is the parent of anger and boldness — fire proceeds, Job 41:10: "From his mouth go forth lamps, like torches of fire kindled." In Hebrew: "Lamps will go forth, sparks of fire will come out." "From his nostrils proceeds smoke, like a pot kindled and boiling." The Septuagint: "From his nostrils will come smoke of a furnace kindled with coals of fire." The wrathful and bold man, therefore, no different from a demon, burning and raging with fire, rushes into killings and destruction. More could be said here about the harms of strife, but those matters belong to others who stitch together patchworks of commonplaces. I am acting as a commentator, not a rhapsodist.
SECOND PART OF THE CHAPTER.
HOW PESTILENTIAL IS THE TONGUE OF THE DETRACTOR AND WHISPERER.
15. THE WHISPERER AND THE DOUBLE
TONGUED ARE ACCURSED: FOR THEY WILL TROUBLE MANY WHO HAVE PEACE. — In Greek: "Curse the whisperer and the double-tongued: for they have destroyed many who had peace." So the Complutensian text. But the Greek corrected at Rome reads "to curse" instead of "curse" — that is, "one ought to curse." The Tigurine and others: "You should execrate the informer and the double-tongued: for they have destroyed many who cultivated peace." The Syriac more forcefully: "The triple tongue (that is, the slanderous tongue, as I shall explain shortly) shall be accursed, because it casts many into murder."
A "whisperer" is one who secretly slanders another, and thus turns a friend against him, making enemies out of friends. The same is the "double-tongued" man, because when present he flatters and praises; when absent he criticizes and calumniates out of envy. See the comments on ch. 5, verse 16. Sirach transitions from anger and strife to the neighboring vice of whispering and detraction, meaning: The whisperer, who secretly gnaws at his neighbor's reputation and whispers evil things about him into the ears of another; likewise the double-tongued man, who speaks contradictory things as though with a double tongue (for he praises to one's face, but criticizes behind one's back) — each of them, I say, indeed often one and the same person, is accursed, that is, worthy of a curse, whom God, angels, and men should abominate and execrate; because he "troubles many who have peace" by sowing discord, aversions, and hatreds. And thus he dissolves friendships, and in their place introduces enmities, brawls, wars, killings, and the slaughter of men, peoples, cities, and kingdoms.
Furthermore, Phaedrus, the freedman of the Emperor Augustus, vividly depicts the character and aim of the double-tongued man through the fable of the eagle, the cat, and the boar, in his Myths which Pithoeus published: An eagle, he says, had hatched chicks in a nest in a tree; at the roots of the tree a boar was nurturing his young in a den; between the two a cat was raising her offspring. She, fearing for herself and her young from both the eagle and the boar, went to the eagle and pointed out the enemy below — the boar — warning her to beware of him for herself and her young. Then she went to the boar, making the same claim about the eagle: "Beware," she said, "lest the eagle, swooping down upon your lair from above, seize your young." Thus the eagle, fearing the boar, and the boar, fearing the eagle, each confined themselves to their nest. The result was that both perished of hunger along with their offspring. And so both became food for the cat. Thus the double-tongued set two parties against each other so that they destroy one another, while they themselves grow rich from the ruin of both.
16. THE THIRD TONGUE HAS STIRRED UP MANY, AND SCATTERED THEM FROM NATION TO NATION.
The Arabic: "The man of the mouth led many men into captivity and scattered them from nation to nation." This is an Arabism: for the Syriac and the Arabs call a "man of the mouth" a talkative, sharp-tongued person, a slanderer, etc.
Cyril explains this maxim with the remarkable fable of the dove and the mud, in Book II of the Moral Apologies, the last chapter, entitled Against Slanderers: "A dove," he says, "covered all over with feathered linen, or the reddish hue of Venus, with feathers spread upward, sparkling eyes, a stately gait, simple feet, and wings folded, was going to water. But when muddy clay lurking beneath counterfeited the appearance of dry ground, the dove struck against it. Its filth, immediately splattered, soiled the dove's shining little body. Then the mud, laughing at this turn of events, rejoicing that it had done harm, said: 'How has such great beauty been defiled?' But the dove replied: 'Indeed, because I struck against you. What are you?' To which it answered: 'Mire and mud.' Then the dove added: 'Certainly it is true; for if you had not been mire, I would never have contracted a stain from you. Yet my brightness, existing in my substance, has not departed from me; but your stench remains in you. For what appears foul now in my color is substantially in yours. Therefore you have mocked yourself, and by defiling me with your contamination, you have shown me to be most radiant.' Then with other parables of the dog, the asp, the thorn, and the fish, he confirms the same point: 'For the dog, by biting, is harmful through its teeth; and the mouth of the asp poisons, being itself first infected with venom; the thorn pricks because it has a barb; and the fish, blackening the sea, vomits forth its own ink. Thus every harm first exists in its author. What more? I, for my part, going to the bath, shall be cleansed; but you will always be stained, because you are recognized as mud; for detraction is foul, though it is scraped from innocence; but its infection is never purged from the infamy of slander.' Having said these things, the dove went on to the bath."
17 and 18. IT HAS DESTROYED WALLED CITIES OF THE RICH, AND OVERTHROWN THE HOUSES OF THE GREAT. IT HAS CUT DOWN THE STRENGTH OF PEOPLES, AND DISSOLVED MIGHTY NATIONS.
This third verse is absent from the Greek. "The third tongue" is the tongue of the whisperer and the slanderer. It is called "third" because it intervenes as a third party between two people and divides them, sowing discord between them and secretly slandering and speaking ill of each to the other. Hence the Chaldean, in Proverbs, is accustomed to translate "slanderer" and "whisperer" as "the third tongue." So teaches the Chaldean Lexicon of Elias Germanus under the word telat. The Roman Greek also reads here glossa trite, that is, "the third tongue." However, the Complutensian and others read dissos, that is, "a double tongue" — which amounts to the same thing. For it is called "double" because it says one thing with the mouth and thinks another in the heart. Again, it utters one thing to one's face and another behind one's back. Hence in the margin of the Vatican codex, the "third tongue" is called the "perforated tongue."
The "third tongue" is therefore the same as the "double" tongue, namely the tongue of the double-tongued and the whisperer: this has stirred up and troubled many, depriving them not only of peace but also of their homeland, compelling them to go into exile and wander from nation to nation. And not only individual private persons, but also entire cities, walled and fortified, it has destroyed; and even the houses and families of magnates, kings, and princes it has undermined and overturned, by provoking duels, brawls, and internecine wars among great and powerful kings and peoples. Indeed, it has "cut down the strength" of great "peoples, and dissolved mighty nations." Therefore the wicked tongue is "a world of iniquity" that sets the whole world on fire, James 3. See what I said there. The Tigurine renders: "The double tongue (Vatablus says 'triple,' because it speaks in a triple, that is manifold and greatly contradictory manner; hence it inflicts triple, that is, manifold injuries and damages) has harassed many, and transferred them from one nation to another, destroyed strong cities, and overthrown the houses of the powerful. It has worn down the strength of peoples and scattered powerful nations." The Syriac: "The triple tongue has caused many to go into captivity, and scattered them from people to people, and cast important men from their houses, and laid waste the houses of kings with utter devastation."
Symbolically, the tongue of the detractor is trite, that is, triple, because with a single blow it wounds and destroys three persons: the one slandered, by taking away his reputation; the one to whom the slander is spoken, by imbuing his mind with calumny and hatred of his neighbor; and itself, by wounding itself with the mortal sin of envy and detraction. So St. Bernard, in his Sermon on the Triple Guard — of hand, tongue, and heart: "The cursing tongue," he says, "in what belongs to itself, striking the conscience of the one and wounding the charity of the other, destroys both equally along with itself. Is not this tongue a viper? Most ferocious indeed, which so lethally infects three with a single breath. Is not this tongue a lance? Certainly, and a most sharp one, which penetrates three with a single thrust. 'Their tongue,' says Psalm 57, 'is a sharp sword.' It is indeed a two-edged sword — nay, three-edged — this tongue of the detractor." For his tongue is serpentine; and serpents have a three-forked tongue, as Pliny attests, Book XI, ch. 37.
of adulterers, cast out married and honorable women, and separated them from their husbands, when it joined them to adulterers, or brought them under suspicion of adultery. So says Lyranus, but incorrectly, as I have said.
St. Chrysostom, however, holds that not merely three, but very many more are destroyed by a single stroke of the tongue; for he writes thus, in Homily 3 to the People: "You have not fixed your teeth in flesh, but you have fixed a curse in the soul, an evil suspicion; you have wounded, you have afflicted with innumerable evils both yourself and many others, etc. Moreover, you have harmed the common state of the Church, etc.; beyond this, you have caused the glory of God to be blasphemed; for just as the name of God is glorified when we live laudably, so it is blasphemed when we sin. The fourth evil: you have confounded the listener, and thus made him more shameless, making him an enemy. Fifth, you have made yourself guilty of punishment, weaving affairs that in no way concern you." And St. Gregory Nazianzen, On the Silence of Fasting: "The tongue," he says, "is at the ready; it is an archer's arrow on the bow, the strings drawn as tightly as possible: as soon as the mind has launched its missiles, they immediately fly forth and strike everything — heavenly beings, earthly ones, the living, posterity; no less those who guard themselves against such arrows and diligently watch for them, than those who suspect nothing evil; no less the good than the wicked; no less friends than enemies; no less strangers far away than those nearby."
Here applies the maxim of Pythagoras: "Do not pierce a man's footprints with iron," that is, do not tear apart a man's memory and reputation with a malicious tongue.
19. THE THIRD TONGUE HAS CAST OUT BRAVE WOMEN, AND DEPRIVED THEM OF THEIR LABORS.
What he said of men, he now says of women. The Interpreter uses a Greek formation; for just as the Greeks from ἀνήρ (man) form ἀνδρίζω (to make manly), so the Interpreter from "vir" (man) calls them "viratas" (manly women), or as the manuscript codices have it, "viritas," that is, manly or heroic women. Whence conversely, the "evirated" and "unmanned" are called effeminate, namely eunuchs, from whom manliness has been taken away; for "to evirate," in Varro, Seneca and others, means to take away manliness and to make effeminate. "To assail virtue is the emasculation of good hope," says Seneca, On the Happy Life. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The tongue of the slanderer "cast out" manly and valiant women from their home, marriage, and bedchamber, when it made them hateful to their husbands so that they expelled them from their homes; and consequently "deprived them of their labors," that is, of the wealth and possessions which they had acquired by their own labor and industry; the Zurich version has: the double tongue (Vatablus: triple tongue) overthrew valiant women, and cheated them of their labors.
Thus the wicked tongue, accusing the mother of the seven Maccabees of Judaism before Antiochus, deprived her together with her seven sons of their goods, homeland, and life, 2 Maccabees chapter 7. The same happened to St. Symphorosa and St. Felicitas with as many sons, whom the Church accordingly venerates and honors as athletes and heroines of the faith, as martyrs.
From this it is clear that Lyranus incorrectly reads "veritas" (honest women) instead of "viratas"; for "veritus" is derived from "vereor" (to revere, to fear), meaning one who fears disgrace. Other books, he says, read "viratas," that is, women having husbands, as if to say: The third tongue, namely the tongue of an old woman go-between,
saying: "And make doors and bars for your mouth, etc., and straight bridles for your mouth, and take heed lest you stumble with your tongue."
St. Ambrose wisely says, Book I of the Offices, chapter 4: "Our speech," he says, "is a snare of the adversary; but it is also no less an adversary to us; we generally speak what the enemy may seize upon, and he wounds us, as it were, with our own sword." The same author, chapter 2: "We are struck," he says, "by the silent reproach of our own thought and the judgment of conscience; we are struck by the lash of our own voice, when we say things by whose sound our spirit and mind are wounded." This is what Solomon says, Proverbs 14:3: "In the mouth of the fool is a rod of pride, but the lips of the wise shall preserve them." Where I shall say more on this matter.
the tongue of the slanderer not only destroys virtue in one's neighbor, but also consumes it in oneself: for just as the body is strengthened and sustained by bones, so the soul is by virtues. Whence Blessed Peter Damian, in his Sermon on the Vice of the Tongue: "Behold," he says, "the tongue has no bones, and yet it crushes bones: because, when it flows lightly through empty words, it corrupts the strong and robust deeds of our virtue." Whence exhorting his monks: "You carry with you," he says, "the key to your cell; carry also the key to your tongue: you put a bolt on your door; apply a bridle to your mouth."
20. HE WHO REGARDS IT SHALL NOT HAVE REST, NOR SHALL HE HAVE A FRIEND IN WHOM HE MAY REST.
So the Roman edition. In Greek it reads: he who attends to it shall not have rest, nor shall he dwell in quiet. The Syriac omits this verse, as it does many others; the Zurich version has: he who is devoted to it shall not attain tranquility, nor shall he dwell in quiet — as if to say: He who lends open ears to the tongue of the slanderer, and gives credence to its whisperings, will be filled with suspicions, fears, distrust, hatred, and other passions which will disturb the peace and quiet of his soul, and consequently of his household: wherefore no one will want him as a friend, companion, or associate, nor will he himself entrust himself and his affairs to any of his friends, so as to find rest with him and in him.
21. THE STROKE OF A WHIP MAKES A BRUISE: BUT THE STROKE OF THE TONGUE WILL BREAK BONES.
"Stroke" (plaga), in Greek πληγή, properly signifies not a wound, but a blow and a lash, from πλήττω, that is, I strike, I beat: consequently however it signifies a wound, bruise, and pain inflicted by a blow. He compares, indeed contrasts and elevates, the blow of the tongue above the blow of a whip, as if to say: The lash of a whip is light, and only grazes the skin, making it livid; but the blow of the tongue is like the blow of a club, which bruises and crushes bones — that is, it wounds far more powerfully and deeply, and robs a man of his strength, vigor, and spirit, according to Proverbs 17: "The words of a whisperer seem simple, but they penetrate to the innermost parts of the belly;" both because the blow of the tongue takes away a man's good name and reputation, which is more valuable than wealth, and stains him with infamy, which is the most disgraceful mark; and because it brings the gravest calamities, and despoils men of their wealth, liberty, and life. Whence the Zurich version has: the stroke of a whip raises welts, but the stroke of the tongue crushes (others: breaks) bones; the Syriac: the blow of a rod makes a wound, and the stroke of the tongue shatters bones. It is a catachresis: for by the crushing of bones he signifies the deepest pain and torment, which robs a man of his strength (for the seat and symbol of this are the bones). A similar catachresis is found in Proverbs 3:8: "Fear God, etc. For it will be health to your navel, and moisture to your bones." And Sirach 30:10: "Do not laugh with him (your son), lest you grieve, and in the end your teeth will be set on edge." And frequently elsewhere. Wherefore Abbot Hyperichius, in Rufinus, Book III of the Lives of the Holy Fathers, no. 154: "It is better," he says, "to eat meat and drink wine, than to devour the flesh of your brethren with slander. For just as the whispering serpent drove Eve out of paradise, so he who slanders his brother destroys not only his own soul, but also that of the listener."
Mystically and tropologically, "bones" signify virtues, says St. Gregory, on Penitential Psalm 1, which
22. MANY HAVE FALLEN BY THE EDGE OF THE SWORD, BUT NOT SO MANY AS HAVE PERISHED BY THEIR OWN TONGUE.
So the Roman edition. "Edge" (ore), that is, the blade: for what to a man is the mouth, to a sword is the edge. For just as a man devours food with his mouth, so a sword kills and consumes men with its edge. Whence the Zurich version has: many have fallen by the edge of the sword, yet not as many as those who perished by the tongue; the Syriac: many have been slain by the sword, but not as many as have been slain by the tongue — for the tongue kills more than the sword; just as gluttony (which is a vice of the same tongue) kills more than the sword. It kills, I say, with death both bodily and spiritual, as is evident in those who spread heresies, and who incite others to lusts, usury, murders, and other crimes. So Rabanus. For the word "as" (quasi) implies that destruction is here taken in every sense: both natural through death, and civil through slavery, infamy, and poverty; and mystical through sin.
Our Translator adds the word "their own" (suam), which is absent in the Greek, in Latin manuscripts, in Rabanus, and in the Syriac. Nevertheless, the addition can be understood in the sense already stated, as if to say: Fewer have perished by the sword, more by their own tongue — "their own," I say, that is, one that attacks them, slanders them, lays snares for them and plots their destruction, their rival and antagonist, namely an envious, slanderous, and maleficent tongue. Properly, however, the word "their own" signifies that more have perished by their own incautious, garrulous, reckless, proud, and angry speech than by the sword. Although this may seem paradoxical, it is nevertheless proven true in reality, both by reason and by experience. For, as St. James says, chapter 3:8: "No man can tame the tongue: it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." See what I said there. And Sirach 14:1: "Blessed is the man who has not slipped with a word from his mouth." The Arabian agrees with Sirach in his Proverbs, Century 1, no. 75: "Beware," he says, "lest your tongue strike your neck" — that is, beware lest you be punished with death and beheaded on account of the intemperance of your tongue; for this has happened to many, and still happens. You may adapt the Greek to the Latin version if you say that the word "their own" has fallen out of them, or is understood implicitly; for "their own" is understood here from what follows: Sirach here generally catalogues the disasters and calamities which an evil tongue brings, both one's own and another's; whence, having enumerated them, he concludes that the tongue of another must be avoided, saying in verse 28: "Hedge your ears with thorns, and do not listen to a wicked tongue;" but that one's own tongue must be bridled,
23. BLESSED IS HE WHO IS SHELTERED FROM THE WICKED TONGUE, WHO HAS NOT PASSED INTO ITS ANGER.
Many refer these words to "their own tongue," which preceded, as if to say: Blessed is the man whose tongue is protected by God so that he is "sheltered," that is, safe, free, and immune by God's protection from wickedness, namely from speaking evil and wrathful things which internal anger or concupiscence suggests. But the Greek, which omits the word "their own," seems to indicate here the tongue of another, namely the slanderer, about which the preceding discourse was concerned, as if to say: Blessed is the man whom God protects from the evil tongue of the slanderer or calumniator, and who has not fallen into its anger, that is, its indignation and violence, namely its slander and malice — so that he either does not feel it, or if he does feel it, shakes it off by defending himself and frees himself from it. Whence Sirach boasts that he was freed from it by God, chapter 51, verse 3; and David begs to be delivered from it, saying: "Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips and from a deceitful tongue." So Jansenius. Whence the Zurich version translates: blessed is he who was safe from it, and did not fall into its fury (others: rage); the Syriac: blessed is the man who escaped from it, and was not a partaker of its wrath.
24. AND HE WHO HAS NOT DRAWN (Syriac: drawn) ITS YOKE, AND IN ITS BONDS HAS NOT BEEN BOUND: FOR THE YOKE THEREOF IS A YOKE OF IRON, AND THE BOND THEREOF IS A BOND OF BRASS (Syriac: iron).
Many again refer these words to "their own tongue," as if to say: Blessed is he who has not been subjected to the vice and wickedness of his own tongue as to a tyrant's yoke, nor allowed it to dominate him or to be constrained by it; because its yoke is of iron, and its bond of brass, that is, most hard and untameable, as St. James says, chapter 3, verse 8. Whence Palacios says: Whoever sees that he has a wicked tongue, let him understand that the devil has imposed upon him an iron yoke, and has bound him with brazen chains. The yoke denotes servitude; the brazen bonds denote that it will be perpetual, namely that he will never be rescued from it, unless a singular and extraordinary grace of God rescues him. But because the Greek, at verse 22, omits the word "their own," and the discourse about the tongue of another, namely the slanderer, preceded, and the following words better suit it, therefore understand these words of the same, as if to say: Blessed is he who has not fallen under the tongue of
the slanderer, nor been subjected to its yoke and dominion, nor been conquered and overcome by it: because its yoke and dominion is of iron and brass, that is, it is tyrannical, most bitter, most powerful, so that it cannot be broken, cast off, or overcome. Whence the Zurich version translates: blessed is he who has not submitted to its yoke, nor been constricted by its chains; for its yoke is an iron yoke, and its bonds are brazen bonds. "An iron yoke" signifies a yoke that is, first, strong; second, hard and tormenting; third, unbreakable and unconquerable; fourth, tyrannical; fifth, deadly. For a yoke is usually wooden, and not infrequently padded with wool or leather, or anointed with oil, so that it may be lighter and less afflict and torment the oxen; but when it is of iron, it quickly wounds the oxen and breaks their necks. Thus St. Jerome, or whoever the author of the Commentary on St. Mark, chapter 4, may be, notes that it is called "iron, because we wish it understood as hard and strong; or because it brings vehement distress or affliction." And St. Augustine, in Book V of the Locutions: "Iron," he says, "signifies harsh tribulation," as in Psalm 104: "They humbled his feet in fetters, the iron pierced his soul." And Jeremiah 28:14: "I have placed an iron yoke upon the neck of all the nations."
25. THE DEATH THEREOF (of the wicked tongue) IS A MOST WICKED DEATH.
The Zurich version has: its death is a dire death — as if to say: The death which the perverse tongue of the slanderer, calumniator, and curser brings is worse than any natural death. First, because natural death is common to all, but this is particular and violent. Second, the former is owed to nature, but the latter is inflicted by crime, and indeed by a false crime, imposed through accusation with the greatest injustice. Third, this death, even when violent and inflicted by an enemy, is brief; but that which comes through accusation is slow and prolonged: for a false crime imputed to someone makes him waste away throughout his entire life in prolonged grief and anguish. Fourth, because it is often infamous and bitter, as when through a false accusation an innocent person is tortured on the rack, killed by hanging, or burned by fire. Fifth, because it often kills not only the body, but also the soul, as when someone is taught by the tongue of a heretic, an impure or impious person, and drinks in heresy, lust, and impiety, by which they kill the soul and drag it to the eternal and most bitter fires of hell. Solomon speaks with a similar figure, Ecclesiastes 7:27: "I have found more bitter than death the woman who is the snare of hunters, and whose heart is a net, whose hands are bonds."
AND HELL IS MORE USEFUL THAN IT. — Not than death, for in Greek the pronoun is feminine αὐτῆς, while θάνατος, that is death, is masculine; but γλώσσα, that is, the wicked tongue. The Zurich version: and the underworld is more beneficial than it; the Syriac: there is rest in the realm of the dead rather than with it. You will say: Is it not better to suffer slanders from a wicked tongue than to burn eternally in hell? I respond: certainly it is better. Therefore Jansenius understands "hell" as death, Palacios as burial; but because mention and comparison of death preceded, and beyond death he compares the wicked tongue to hell by way of climax, it is better and simpler to understand hell properly as the state and place of the dead. But because in it there are various parts, recesses, and receptacles — namely the limbo of children, the limbo of the fathers, and the gehenna of the damned — therefore it is fitting here to understand hell as the limbo of the fathers, as if to say: It is better to die and descend to the underworld, that is, to the place of the departed and the limbo of the fathers, than to live and suffer the calumny, infamy, and vexations of a perverse tongue. Thus Jacob says: "I shall go down to my son mourning into the underworld," Genesis 37:35.
Finally, Palacios, understanding these words of the vice of one's own tongue, not another's, explains it thus, as if to say: Punishment, even hellish punishment, is better than guilt, especially the guilt of the wicked tongue, which is the cause of such great evils; for guilt is of a higher order, and therefore graver and worse than every punishment, even that of hell. So also Rabanus: "It is better," he says, "to lose bodily life, than to have perpetual fellowship in hell with a wicked tongue (that is, with heresy and heretics, for he understands these words of them)." So also our own Delrio, explaining these words of the tongue of slanderers, in adage 197, digression 2, passage 81, whom hear: The meaning, he says, is as if to say: The wicked tongue inflicts worse wounds than the torments of hell, and moreover is a greater destruction to itself. The reason is, first, because the wounds of the tongue are joined with sin, than which nothing is worse, nothing more destructive; but the torments of hell are themselves free from guilt, and are ministries of divine justice. So roughly Lyranus. Second, because the torment of hell only harms the one suffering it; an evil tongue kills three — the listener, the speaker, and often the one against whom it speaks. Likewise, the tongue kills the soul; the flame of hell only torments. Third, as Carensis writes, hell does not harm except the wicked and those who deserve it; the wicked tongue wounds even the innocent and the just. Fourth, just as in a republic prisons and punishments are useful for restraining the wicked and defending the good, and also serve as an example, so in this universal world of men hell serves the same purpose; wherefore it is more useful than the wicked tongue, which at most provides an occasion for patience, and for others to conduct themselves more cautiously. So Delrio.
From all this, learn how perverse the wicked tongue is, since it is worse than the very sulphurous hell of the damned. And therefore, first, in verse 21, he compared it to a whip and a club that crushes bones; second, in verse 22, to a most keen sword; third, in verse 24, to an iron yoke and a brazen bond; fourth, in this verse, to death; fifth, to hell; sixth, in verse 27, to a flame and conflagration that devastates everything; seventh, likewise to a lion and a leopard.
26. ITS PERSEVERANCE SHALL NOT ENDURE (among the just): BUT IT SHALL PREVAIL OVER THE WAYS OF THE UNJUST, AND ITS FLAME SHALL NOT BURN THE JUST.
As if to say: The perverse tongue, even if it slanders and vexes the pious, will not persevere or endure in this vexation; because God will at last be the witness, protector, and avenger of their innocence; and He will cause it to be made known to the whole world, and they themselves will be celebrated; while their accusers and calumniators will be confounded.
"but it shall prevail over the ways," that is, the deeds and conduct, "of the unjust": for these will justly suffer this punishment and venom of the tongue in return for their crimes, as a vindication. These therefore will be burned, that is, harmed, and at times killed and consumed by the flame, that is, by the harm of the slanderous tongue spreading like a flame, which burns with envy and hatred. But the just, although it may touch and lightly fan them, it will not burn, but rather, like gold tested and purified by the fire of tribulation and calumny, it will make them more illustrious and more splendid — just as the three youths, cast into the Babylonian furnace and flame through calumny, emerged from it unharmed and glorious, while their accusers and torturers were burned by the same fire, Daniel 3. For Sirach alludes to them here. The Greek, as usual concise and two-membered, reads thus: it will not prevail (κατισχύσει signifies all these: hold, occupy, dominate) over the pious, nor will they be burned by its flame; the Zurich version: it will endure for no long time, but will hold the ways of the unjust. It shall by no means overpower the pious, nor will they be consumed by its flame. The same is said of a wicked woman, whose harm is chiefly wrought through the slanderous tongue, in Ecclesiastes 7:27: "He who pleases God," he says, "will escape her; but he who is a sinner will be caught by her."
He fittingly compares the tongue to a flame, both because the reddish tongue has the appearance and form of a flame, and because it creeps along and seizes everything, setting it ablaze and devastating it like a flame: "For it sets on fire the wheel of our birth, being itself set on fire by hell," as St. James says, chapter 3. See what I said there. The destruction, therefore, which the tongue brings is similar to a conflagration caused by a flame; wherefore the just who suffer calumny are like the bush which Moses saw burning and not being consumed, but remaining green and unharmed, Exodus 3. For God deflects the harm of the tongue away from the just and toward the unjust, so that what was harming the just may harm the unjust instead, especially the calumniators. Thus the infamy and stoning prepared for the chaste and innocent Susanna by the impure elders, God turned back upon those very elders; indeed He delivered them to the flames of the Chaldeans, if we believe the Hebrews, as I discussed at Jeremiah 29:22. Thus far more so the disgrace and death prepared for Christ the Lord by the Jews, God turned back upon them, when He raised Christ gloriously from the dead on the third day, and destroyed them through Titus and Vespasian, and made them wretched, infamous, and wandering throughout the whole world. If at times it happens otherwise, and God allows some pious persons to suffer calumny their entire lives, certainly on the day of judgment He will show their innocence to the whole world, confounding their calumniators, and will crown their patience with eternal glory.
27. THOSE WHO FORSAKE GOD (Syriac: the fear of God) SHALL FALL INTO IT, AND IT SHALL BURN IN THEM, AND SHALL NOT BE EXTINGUISHED: AND IT SHALL BE SENT UPON THEM AS A LION, AND AS A LEOPARD IT SHALL WOUND (Greek: λυμανεῖται, that is, devastate) THEM.
The Zurich version: it brings calamity upon them; the Syriac: and it shall dominate them like a lion, and like a leopard it shall tear them. First, many refer these words, as also the preceding,
to the vice of one's own tongue, as if to say: God by His just judgment permits the wicked, as punishment for preceding sins, to fall into slander, so that their tongue burns with it, and they burn both themselves and others, which therefore will attack the very slanderers themselves like a lion and a leopard: for it will afflict them with both present and eternal punishments of fire in hell, and will deliver them to demons, who like lions and leopards will tear them apart; but He will keep the just untouched from so great an evil of the tongue. Whence learn that no one can avoid slander and tame the tongue except through God and the grace of God, which He gives to the just, but denies to the unjust, because He abandons those who abandon Him.
Second, and preferably, understand these words of the tongue of another, namely the slanderer. For just as he previously compared it to a whip, a sword, a yoke, death, and hell, so here he compares it to fire, a lion, and a leopard, to show how great is its harm and destruction, as if to say: God will permit the wicked, indeed deliver them, to slanderous tongues, so that they may vex, defame, afflict, and harm them. And so in the wicked this harm of the slanderous tongue will burn and grow like an inextinguishable fire; wherefore it will torment and tear them, just as a lion and leopard are accustomed to torment and tear beasts and men whom they seize to devour. Moreover, God delivers the wicked to slanderous tongues in various ways, as Jansenius rightly notes: First, those who abandon God, living without fear, fall into great sins on account of which they become subject to the calumniating tongue, by which they are branded with perpetual infamy and subjected to just punishments. Then also God allows lying and perverse tongues to rise up against the wicked, by which, as punishment for their abandonment of God, they are grievously tormented here; nor are they freed by death, since they are cast down to hell to be punished eternally.
Finally, this is most true of the wicked who by the just judgment of God are allowed to be drawn by an evil tongue into errors and heresies, through which they will at last incur eternal damnation. Of these Paul says: "Because they did not receive the love of truth, therefore God will send them a strong delusion, that they may believe a lie, that all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but consented to iniquity," 2 Thessalonians 2:10.
Finally, he aptly compares the harm of the slanderous tongue to the harm of a lion and leopard, because both are most savage and most cruel, as Pliny attests, Book 10, chapter 73. Moreover, lions and leopards have serrated teeth, says Aristotle, Book 2 of the History of Animals, chapter 1, and adds the reason: "For those," he says, "with serrated teeth have a series of sharp teeth that are closely packed together with mutual insertion, like the teeth of a comb." Just so, the teeth of slanderous tongues have, as it were, the sharpest saws, with which they saw and cut a man to his very core, like the teeth of a comb. Third, lions and leopards have cleft feet with many digits. Hear Aristotle in the same passage: "There are those," he says, "which have toes formed by the multiple splitting of their feet, such as the dog, the lion, and the panther." So the tongue of the slanderer is cloven, three-forked, indeed many-forked, with which it tramples and strikes its rival. Fourth, lions and leopards are carnivorous. "For all animals with serrated teeth are carnivorous," says Pliny, Book 10, chapter 73. So the slanderous tongue feeds on a man's flesh, indeed on his marrow and bones.
Fifth, leopards are most swift, and leap upon men from on high, indeed they almost fly down. Thus Pliny, in the passage cited: "In the same Africa," he says, "leopards sit in the dense foliage of trees, hidden among their branches, and leap down upon passersby, attacking from their perch among the birds." Fathers of our Society who were eyewitnesses, having returned from Brazil, told me the same in Rome about the leopards there. What is swifter, what more winged than the slanderous tongue? For the word once spoken flies irrevocably, and often flies through the whole city, indeed the whole world, and that instantly like lightning. Sixth, "Lions and leopards," says Pliny, Book 11, chapter 37, "have a tongue of tile-like roughness, similar to a file, which thins the skin of a man by licking. This quality, even in tamed animals, when their saliva reaches nearby blood, invites them to madness." So the tongue of the slanderer is the roughest file, wearing down the whole man, and not infrequently driving him to fury and madness. Seventh, leopards and panthers are caught by the aconite poisoning their jaws and tongue: so too the slanderer is caught by the slander of his own tongue. Hear Pliny, Book 8, chapter 27: "Barbarians hunt panthers with meat rubbed with aconite (which is a poison). The choking immediately seizes their throats: hence they named this poison 'leopard-strangler.' But the beast counters this by using human excrement as an antidote." Finally, the leopard is so fierce that it can be tamed by no art. Likewise, the lion never, or with the utmost difficulty and most rarely, becomes tame. Whence Aristotle, Book 1 of the History of Animals, chapter 1, divides living creatures and says "Some are tame, others wild; and some perpetually tame, like man and the mule; others perpetually wild, like the panther and the wolf; some indeed can easily be tamed, like elephants." So "no man can tame the slanderous tongue: it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison," says St. James, chapter 3, verse 8.
28. HEDGE YOUR EARS WITH THORNS, AND DO NOT LISTEN TO A WICKED TONGUE, AND MAKE DOORS AND BARS FOR YOUR MOUTH.
Jansenius and others add "for your ears;" but the Roman edition, the Greek, and Rabanus delete this. After the invective against the slanderous tongue, Sirach concludes by exhorting us to guard against it in every way — namely, that we should neither listen to it, nor assent to it, nor mingle with it in conversation and become contaminated. Instead of "ears," the Greek has τὸ κτῆμα, that is, "possession," and so reads St. Ambrose, Book 1 of the Offices, chapter 3, and St. Hilary, on Psalm 140. Both readings are fitting: the latter contains the metaphor, the former the explanation of the metaphor, and therefore is more apt and clearer, and St. Cyprian follows it, Book 1, Epistle 3, and St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, sermon 22. And the change is easy and close due to the similarity of the characters, so that for τὰ ὦτα, that is "ears," someone wrote τὸ κτῆμα, that is "possession." The Greek therefore reads thus: See, hedge your possession with thorns, and make doors and bolts for your mouth; the Zurich version: hedge your possession with thorns, that is, set up gates and barriers for your mouth — this version orders the hedge to be applied not to the ears, but to the mouth. So also the Syriac: Just as, it says, you hedge your vineyard, so make doors and bars for your mouth; St. Hilary, on Psalm 140, reads: "Behold, fortify (for this is what the Greek περίφραξον means) your possession with thorns."
St. Clement, Epistle 1, alluding to other sentences of Sacred Scripture and combining them with this one, reads thus: "Set, O man, a door and a bar upon your tongue: cease raising your horn on high, and speaking iniquity against God and against your neighbor." Therefore the phrase "hedge your ears with thorns" is a parable, and is spoken parabolically (for he does not literally want the ears to be hedged with thorns — this would be absurd and impossible), which he explains when he adds: "And do not listen to a wicked tongue." The meaning is, as if to say: To avoid the poison and harm of the slanderous tongue, first, close your ears so as not to hear it, and your mouth so as not to converse with it. Namely, just as you are accustomed to hedge your property — for example, a field, garden, or vineyard — with thorns, lest cattle and wild beasts enter and devour the crops and harvests, so much more should you hedge, that is close, your ears and soul, lest you hear slanders and the slanderous tongue, which infects and consumes your charity, purity, and other virtues. The hedge, then, with which the ear must be hedged against slanders and slanderers is the fear of God, which strengthens the mind, turns the ears away from them and closes them, and shows a sad and severe countenance, indeed rebukes the slanderer and sends him away. For, as Solomon says: "The north wind drives away rain, and a sad face drives away the slanderous tongue," Proverbs 25:23. For this sadness and severity of countenance is like a thorn pressing the slanderer to cease from slander.
You hedge your ears with thorns, therefore, when you close and turn them away, when you show a grave and stern face which indicates that you hear unwillingly and with displeasure, and that the slanderer is tiresome to you and causes you annoyance. If Eve had thus hedged her ears so as not to hear the serpent, and Adam so as not to hear Eve, from how many evils they would have freed themselves and all their posterity! Christ hedged His ears when He said to the devil: "Get behind Me, Satan," Matthew chapter 4.
From what has been said, gather that our ears are here compared to an elegant vineyard, evil words to wild beasts, and silence and discretion to a hedge. And this is fitting: for from the ears, as from a winepress, the must of holy words is pressed out into the press of our heart, which, digested and matured by meditation, strengthens and gladdens the soul. But evil speech in this vineyard of our ears devours the holy words and leaves us empty of the wine of wisdom. Let us therefore hedge our ears with the thorns of careful circumspection and grave severity, which will not allow the beasts of evil speech to enter — just as Ulysses blocked his ears so as not to hear the songs of the Sirens, by which those who heard them were lured, caught, and torn apart by the Sirens. Hear St. Augustine, in the treatise On the Good of
for it happens that those who blame others for some vice labor under the same vice more than those whom they blame, or at least by the just judgment of God fall into that very thing. A memorable example of this is recorded by Cassian, Book 5 of the Institutes of the Renunciants, chapter 30, concerning Abbot Machetes. Let the listener therefore say to the slanderer with Christ: "Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye, and do not notice the beam in your own eye? Hypocrite, first cast out the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to cast out the speck from your brother's eye," Matthew 7:3. Sixth, the slanderer should seek out and cut the root of slander. For the origin, source, and root of rash judgment and slander is self-love, by which, in order to cover or diminish our own vices, we judge and accuse those of others. Wherefore every slanderer, not seeing his own evils, reproaches those of others. Conversely, whoever is an examiner of himself is a praiser of his neighbor.
Discipline, chapter 1, volume 9: "O you who receive a sound word in the house of discipline, hedge your ears with thorns, so that he who dares to enter importunely may not only be repelled, but also pricked. Drive him away from you, say: You are a Christian, I am a Christian; this is not what we received in the house of discipline, this is not what we learned under that Master, whose chair is in heaven; do not say such things to me, or do not approach me." St. Paulinus, Epistle 27 to Aper, in the middle: "Let us hedge our ears with thorns, that is," he says, "with the word of God and faith in the word, which defend the harvest of our life with the most firm hedge of innocence and patience, and resist the devil as he seeks by his wiles to gain entrance to our hearts, like thorns resist thieves."
Moreover, there are various thorns, practices, and methods by which the ears may be hedged against slander, and it may be cut short. The first is to resist it openly and rebuke the slanderer, as when the listener employs those words of Christ: "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged; and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you," Matthew 7:1. Or that of Paul, 1 Corinthians 4: "Judge nothing before the time." The second is to fall asleep or pretend to. Thus Machetes, whenever anyone uttered a word of slander, would immediately fall asleep, says Cassian, Book 5 of the Institutes of the Renunciants, chapter 29. The third is to introduce another topic of conversation. So did Thomas More, Chancellor of England, a man celebrated for wisdom and virtue, who upon hearing slander would take an occasion from elsewhere and divert the conversation to another subject. For example, he would say: Let everyone say what he wishes; I say that such-and-such a house is most beautifully built, and that the man who built it is an excellent architect in his art. So Stapleton in his Life. Hence the pagans depicted Jupiter in Crete without ears, so that by this image all men, especially princes, might be reminded that they ought not to lend their ears to informers. King Midas, however, was disfigured with the ears of an ass, because he had around him both informers and counselors — whom today we call "auditors" (hearers) — who differed little from asses. The fourth is for a Superior to restrain and punish subjects who slander. Thus St. Francis, says St. Bonaventure in his Life, chapter 8, section 1, used to punish his friars, and indeed considered that they should be stripped of the monastic habit: "For he abhorred the vice of slander as the enemy of the fountain of piety and grace, as a serpent's bite and a most atrocious plague, and affirmed that it was abominable to the most loving God, because the slanderer feeds on the blood of souls, which he slays with the sword of his tongue." And further: "The impiety of slanderers," he would say, "is so much greater than that of robbers, inasmuch as the law of Christ, which is fulfilled in the observance of piety, wishes us to love the salvation of souls more than that of bodies." The fifth is for the listener to throw the slanderer his own bone to gnaw, as one does with a dog — namely, the public vice from which the slanderer himself suffers. So Christ did with the accusers of the adulteress: "He who is without sin among you," He said, "let him first cast a stone at her," John 8:7. For He knew that they themselves were adulterers. Often
Thus Abbot Pimenius, in Rufinus, Book 3 of the Lives of the Holy Fathers, no. 133, when asked: "How can a man avoid speaking evil of his neighbor?" replied: "I and my neighbor are two images; when therefore I have examined and reproved my own image, the image of my brother is found venerable in my sight; but when I have praised my own, then I regard my brother's image as base. Therefore I do not slander another if I always reprove myself." And Abbot John said: "We have cast aside the small burden, that is, to reprove ourselves; and we have chosen to carry the heavy one, that is, to justify ourselves and condemn others."
A certain elder Abbot also, hearing slanderers, went out in silence and filled a sack with sand, and carried it on his back, while in another small cloth he placed a little sand and carried it before him. When asked what he meant by this, he replied: "The sack with much sand signifies me and my very many sins, which I have cast behind my back, not wishing to see them so as to grieve and lament over them. And behold, I have placed these few faults of my brother before my eyes, and I am tormented over them, condemning my brother. But one ought not to judge thus; rather one should bring one's own sins before oneself, think about them, and ask God to forgive me. When the Fathers heard this, they said: Truly this is the way of salvation." So Rufinus, Book 3, no. 136. Wherefore St. Jerome (or rather Paulinus) teaches the matron Celantia to hedge her ears against slanderers in this way, Epistle 14: "Do not grant authority to detractors by your consent, nor nourish their vice by nodding assent. Do not, says Scripture, be in agreement with those who derogate your neighbor, and you will not take sin upon yourself." And Sirach 28:28: "Hedge your ears with thorns, and do not listen to a wicked tongue." And after a few lines: "This vice is indeed of such a kind that it ought to be extinguished above all, and completely excluded by those who wish to live holy lives. For nothing so disturbs the mind, nothing makes the mind so fickle and light, as to believe everything easily and to follow the slanderer's words with the rash assent of the mind; and blessed is he who so
has armed himself against this vice, that no one would dare to slander in his presence."
Most admirably, St. Jerome, Epistle 2 to Rusticus, refutes the excuses of those who claim they cannot close their ears to slanderers: "Nor indeed," he says, "is that excuse just: 'I cannot do an injury to those who report things to me.' No one willingly reports to an unwilling listener: an arrow is never fixed in a stone, and sometimes rebounds and strikes the one who aimed it. Let the slanderer learn, when he sees that you do not willingly listen, not to slander easily. 'Do not mingle with slanderers,' says Solomon, 'because their ruin will come suddenly, and who knows the downfall of both?' — that is, both of him who slanders and of him who lends his ear to the slanderer." Finally St. Ambrose, Book 4, Epistle 29, prescribing a rule of life for Florianus: "Do not defile your mouth," he says, "with another's evil; never slander a sinner, but have compassion: what you criticize in others, rather fear in yourself. You will certainly never slander if you have rightly despised yourself. Take as much care to correct your own life as you examine that of others."
Second, to guard against the poison of the wicked tongue, close your mouth, so that you do not mingle in conversation with it, nor flatter it, assent to it, laugh along with it, or applaud it, and thereby yourself engage in slander and cursing. Therefore "make for your mouth" not one, but many "doors and bars." For just as a city, house, garden, and vineyard is not only hedged with a wall or fence against the incursions of beasts and enemies, but is also secured with many doors and bars — both so that beasts and enemies may be excluded, and so that the household members cannot go out except at the nod of the master or guardian who holds the keys — so likewise, to keep your soul untouched by the slanderous tongue, not only must the ears be closed, but the mouth also must be stopped with the closure of lips and teeth, that is, with a firm resolution of mind to keep silent, lest meanwhile your thoughts and urges, itching to converse and narrate the faults of your neighbor, burst out through your mouth, and enemies, namely slanderous words, be let in. Thus David barred his mouth, saying: "I set a guard over my mouth, when the sinner stood against me. I was silent, and was humbled, and held my peace," Psalm 38:2. But because this guard cannot be provided by us and by the powers of nature, but is the work of the grace of God, he therefore urgently invokes the same, saying, Psalm 140:3: "Set, O Lord, a guard on my mouth, and a door of circumstance upon my lips" — that is, a door surrounding, closing, and guarding my lips. In Hebrew: Set a guard over the door of my lips; St. Augustine reads: "Set a door of continence upon my lips;" Theodoret,
make it so that my mouth may be guarded, both by teeth and lips, as Theodoret explains; but more so by constancy of mind and a firm resolution to keep silent; and most of all by the strength of Your grace, lest I blurt out anything through anger, hatred, impatience, or levity, by which I might offend You or my neighbors. Just as a house is guarded by its doors standing around it, so that nothing harmful may either go out or come in, so do You, O Lord, by Your grace guard my mouth and lips, lest anything go forth through them that is slanderous, false, detracting, or otherwise impure and vicious.
St. Augustine notes, on Psalm 140, that it says "set a door, not a lock": because the mouth, he says, like a door must not always be shut, but sometimes also opened; for it must be opened for the confession of sin, for the praise of God, for the instruction, consolation, and help of one's neighbor; but it must be closed against the excusing and commission of sin, so that it may not speak angry words, slanders, calumnies, lies, etc. Wherefore, before you speak, invoke the help of God, that He may direct your tongue to speak fittingly. St. Gregory notes the same, Book 7 of the Morals, chapter 17: "A door," he says, "is both opened and closed. He who asked not for an obstacle but for a door to be set upon his mouth, plainly taught that the tongue must both be restrained by discipline and released by necessity: so that a discreet mouth may be opened by the voice at the fitting time, and again closed by silence at the fitting time." Likewise St. Chrysostom, on Psalm 140, where he sets two guardians of the mouth, namely the invocation and grace of God, and the reason and care of the speaker to rightly keep silence or speak: "Let us therefore," he says, "perpetually guard our mouth, applying prayer to it as a key — not so that it may be perpetually closed, but so that it may be opened at the fitting time. For sometimes silence is more useful than speech, just as speech is sometimes more useful than silence. And therefore that most wise man said: 'A time to keep silence, and a time to speak,' Ecclesiastes 3. For if mouths ought to be perpetually shut, gates would not have been made; but if they ought always to be closed, there would be no need of a guard. For what is already shut, why would one guard it? But therefore there are gates and guards, so that we may do each thing at the fitting time." And a little earlier: "Just as a house is no use, nor a city, nor walls, nor gates, nor doors, unless there are those who guard them and know when they ought to be closed and when opened, so also the mouth and tongue are of no use unless there be reason, which may knowingly, accurately, and circumspectly be permitted to close and open them, and may know what should be uttered and what should be left unsaid."
Note: He fittingly joins and places the hedge of the ears before the bars of the mouth, because, in order to close the mouth so that it may not speak anything wrongly, the ears must first be closed so that they may not hear anything wrongly. For the mind itches, when it has heard something new, to speak it out and pour it into the bosom of friends. Wherefore Abbot John of Cyzicus wisely says: "Whoever wishes to restrain his tongue," he says, "let him stop up his ears so that he does not hear many things;
for whoever wishes to be without distraction, let him remain solitary." So reports John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 187.
29. SMELT YOUR GOLD AND YOUR SILVER, AND MAKE A BALANCE FOR YOUR WORDS, AND STRAIGHT BRIDLES FOR YOUR MOUTH.
It is a parable, as if to say: Smelt your gold and silver so that from them you may make a balance with which to weigh and evaluate your words, and from them make bridles for your mouth with which to bridle it — that is, expend all your wealth and all your efforts on this: to acquire wisdom and prudence (for gold and silver are the symbols of these), which may teach you to compose your mouth for right speaking or silence. Instead of "smelt," the Greek has κατάδησου, that is "bind up," so that from them you may fashion a balance; or "bind, tie down and spend," so that you may buy and acquire the balance just mentioned. Therefore the meaning comes to the same thing. The Greek, then, may be translated thus: bind up your silver and your gold, and make a balance and scales for your words, and make a door and bolt for your mouth; the Zurich version: bind up your silver and your gold, that is, apply a lintel and threshold to your speech, in Greek ζυγὸν καὶ σταθμόν, which Vatablus more correctly translates as "a yoke and a balance." The Complutensian edition and others read it as one word, ζυγοστάθμον, that is, a yoke-balance — that is, an equally poised, well-balanced scale, which stands in equilibrium and does not swing or incline to either side. For ζυγοστατεῖν means to weigh and equalize, and ζυγοστάται are the weighmasters in charge of weights; whence "zygostatica fides," that is, full and examined equity; for a zygostatica libra is a balance publicly certified and established. See Budaeus in his Commentary. The Syriac translates: with your silver and gold you make a seal, and with your word you make (may you make) a support (another reading has: make a balance) — as if to say: Just as you seal and secure your gold and silver, so also seal and secure your tongue, lest it lie open as plunder for enemies; for words are treasures of the mind, more precious than gold. Again, just as gold on a coin is stamped with the image of the king who minted it, so also stamp your words with the image of God, who gave you mouth and tongue for this purpose: that you may speak the things of God, according to Song of Songs 8:6: "Set me as a seal upon your heart," and consequently upon your mouth.
St. Gregory, on Penitential Psalm 4, at the words: "Lord, You will open my lips," reads: "Make a door and a bar for your mouth, and a yoke and a balance for your words; so that everything we say," he says, "may be seasoned with humility and weighed with measure. And let us not open our mouth in speaking sooner than is expedient; but let us examine our words — whether this should be kept silent, whether this should be said against this person, whether it is the time for this discourse, and finally whether it does not conflict with the virtue of modesty. Let nothing that sounds envious break forth."
St. Hilary, on Psalm 140, reads: "Establish your silver and gold, and make a door and a bar for your mouth, and a yoke and a measure for your words. A door," he says, "and a bar he commanded to be placed on the mouth, so that there would not be easy egress for words; and for those same words he established a yoke and a measure, so that, subjected to the yoke of reason, they might hang weighed with the moderation of measure."
For the Greeks, and St. Hilary following them, have nothing about bridles, which the Latin version wants to be made "straight" for the mouth, because many apply bridles to their mouth, but not straight ones: for they bridle the petulance of the mouth with excessive silence; they are silent, namely, when sinners should be rebuked, the ignorant instructed, and the afflicted consoled. Therefore he applies straight bridles to his mouth who loosens it to speak, or bridles it to silence, when right reason dictates that one should speak or keep silent. St. Jerome, Book 14 on Ezekiel, at the beginning, reads: "You shall make a balance and a weight for your words: so that in words," he says, "and in deeds, and in thoughts, we may do everything with weight and reason."
St. Chrysostom, on Psalm 140: "Make a balance-pan (a pair of scales) and a balance for your tongue," and he explains it thus: "He demands," he says, "greater diligence, so that we may not only utter the words that are appropriate, but also with the caution that is fitting, and with careful consideration, weigh them as it were, and diligently evaluate them. For if we do this with gold and material that perishes, how much more should this be done with words, so that nothing is lacking or superfluous. Wherefore Sirach says, chapter 4: 'Do not withhold a word in the time of salvation.' And Paul: 'Let your speech be always in grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each one,' Colossians 4. Consider to yourself that this is the member by which we converse with God. This is the member by which above all else we receive the most venerable sacrifice (the Eucharist), worthy of the highest reverence. And therefore it must be free from all accusation, calumny, obscene speech, and cursing." Therefore let this counsel of St. Augustine be valued and held: "Let every word come to the file before it comes to the tongue." Even more, indeed double, does St. Bernard demand in the Mirror of Monks: "Before you utter your words," he says, "let them come twice to the file before they come once to the tongue." So did the bride, of whom it is said in Song of Songs 4: "Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon" — as if to say: Your lips, bound and adorned with silence and discretion like a beautiful ribbon. Whence Rupert, in the same place, attributing this to the Blessed Virgin: "On the lips of Mary," he says, "is confession and beauty; on the lips of Mary, holiness and magnificence. Eve was mute before God, but Mary magnified God with the sweetest voice, while she humbled herself."
Hear this sentence of Sirach treated with outstanding and brilliant detail above all others by St. Ambrose, Book 1 of the Offices, chapter 3: "Hedge your possession with thorns, and bind your gold and silver, and make a door and a bar for your mouth, and a yoke and a balance for your words. Your possession is your mind; your gold is your heart; your silver is your speech. 'The words of the Lord are pure words, silver tried in the fire.' A good mind is also a good possession. Indeed, a precious possession is a pure man. Hedge, therefore, this possession and surround it with thoughts, fortify it with pious solicitudes, lest
the irrational passions of the body may rush in and lead it captive, lest violent impulses assault it, lest passersby plunder its vintage. Guard your inner person; do not neglect or disdain it as something worthless, for it is a precious possession. And rightly precious, whose fruit is not perishable and temporal, but stable and of eternal salvation. Cultivate therefore your possession, that you may have lambs. Bind your speech, lest it run wild, lest it become wanton and by its talkativeness gather sins to itself. Let it be more restrained and confined within its own banks. A river overflowing quickly gathers mud. Bind your understanding; let it not be slack and flowing, lest it be said of you: 'There is no plaster to apply, nor oil, nor bandage.' The sobriety of the mind has its own reins, by which it is ruled and governed. Let there be a door for your mouth, so that it may be closed where appropriate, and more carefully barred, lest anyone provoke your voice to anger, and you repay insult with insult. You have heard read today: 'Be angry, and sin not.' Therefore, even if we are angry — because it is an emotion of nature, not of the will — let us not bring forth an evil word from our mouth, lest we fall into fault. But let there be a yoke and a balance for your words, that is, humility and measure, so that your tongue may be subject to your mind; let it be restrained by the bonds of the reins, and have its own bridles by which it can be recalled. Let the scales bring forth words weighed by the measure of justice, so that there may be gravity in thought, weight in speech, and moderation in words."
The same St. Ambrose, on Psalm 118, at the twenty-second octonary, on the words: "My tongue shall speak Your word," says: "Hedge your ears with thorns. Would that you also hedged your tongue, so that you would not speak the things of the world, nor hear the things of the world. But what is worse, your tongue is surrounded with thorns that prick and wound the one who speaks worldly things. Therefore the adversary frequently pours secular thoughts even upon those who are praying. If therefore we ought not to hear foreign or superfluous things, how much more ought we not to speak against others, since venerable Scripture says to each one of us: 'Bind your gold and silver, and make a yoke and a weight for your mouth.' Bind your understanding with faith, bind your words with taciturnity, impose a yoke on your mouth, lest with the untamed neck of words it toss about; impose a weight, so that we may carefully weigh everything we say with cautious examination. But with what thorns will you hedge your ears, as Scripture tells you, except with a contrite heart and the fear of judgment? These healthfully prick, these stimulate but do not wound, although even the wounds of a friend are useful.
Mystically, Rabanus says: "He smelts his gold and silver who purifies the sense and meditation of his heart, and the speech of his mouth, by examining them in the fire of the Holy Spirit, so that they may become in all things consonant with the truth of the Catholic faith and the rule of Sacred Scripture. But he who does not take care to exercise caution in his words, the consequence is that he falls in the sight of his enemies, that is, of the malign spirits who lie in wait for him; his
fall in everlasting death is incurable." The interpretation of Palacios is also mystical: The author commands, he says, that gold and silver be smelted, so that coins may be made from them to be distributed for pious uses; by which action God, inclined favorably, may restrain our tongue with a bridle, and cause us not to speak anything without the balance of reason. Moreover, the balance is golden when whatever the tongue speaks is directed to the glory of God; it will be silver when what it speaks, it speaks for the benefit of neighbors. But we fall in the sight of our enemies when, in the particular judgment by which everyone is examined at death, the demons leap up as victors. We do not fall if we are not confounded, when we shall speak to the demons at the gate (namely of death) — that is, when, accused by them in the hour of death and freed by Christ the Judge, we shall triumph over the demons. Wherefore the Apostle wisely admonishes, Colossians chapter 4, saying: "Let all your speech be always seasoned with grace and salt" — that is, with gentleness, sweetness, candor, truth, wisdom, discernment, charm, elegance, and indeed, where necessary, with sharpness and severity. For salt carries all these qualities.
This parable or apologue is adorned with the remarkable fable of the crow and the frog by Cyril, Book 1 of the Moral Apologues, chapter 15, whose title is: The Learned Speaker and the Greedy One: "When the crow," he says, "after much labor and study had at last barely learned to speak, and heard a frog uttering many things, he descended and said: Who, sister, taught you to speak? She replied: No one indeed, but in exchange for my lost tail, generous nature gave me the power of speech. Then the crow: A happy exchange indeed! In place of a beast's tail, you received the speech of reason. To which the frog added: But how did it come about, brother, that you know how to speak? Then he replied: By long labors and studies indeed I bought and learned speech. Hearing this, the puffed-up frog said: Behold, you are learned in speaking and I am unlearned; if you please, then, let us compete in loquacity, so that it may appear which of us speaks more abundantly. To this the crow, having ruminated on the matter, said: I know how to speak only those few things which I have learned; but that you have by no means learned to speak, and have not purchased the gift of speech, is sufficiently clear from this — that if you had purchased it and been educated, you would not pour out words so freely, but would either sell them prudently or bestow them generously. But the garrulous frog said: Well then, you are the one speaking now — and to whom do you sell your speech? He immediately replied: To the wise. For nothing done in an orderly manner is wasted for him, and whatever is said fittingly is dear to him. Have you not heard, Proverbs 10:20, that the tongue of the just is choice silver, because it is most precious?" He adduces a reason from first principles, and confirms it with a physical reason drawn from the position of the tongue, saying: "For a closure that is rarely opened is stronger, and a tongue less frequently used is more solid. For what is long held straight is more difficult to bend. But when the tongue does not speak, it holds itself straight. The trumpet of divine truth was brief in speech on Mount Sinai, and uttered only the Decalogue.
For the purpose of speaking less, the mouth is closed; the gate of the lips, and the windpipe, are surrounded by a small door for this reason." Then, adducing another reason drawn from the nature of speech, he adds: "For indeed, if a voice is truly a word and not mere sound, it must be conceived in meditation, formed by counsel, digested by judgment, and once digested in its proper place and time, expressed in open ears. Five vowels were given to man, so that we might speak sparingly and to the point. And for this reason the tongue is one instrument both of speech and of taste, so that we might say few things, and only after they have been first tasted by reason. For the talkative person, with undigested words, disturbs others or is himself disturbed."
30. AND TAKE HEED LEST YOU STUMBLE WITH YOUR TONGUE (through the rashness of anger and words), AND FALL IN THE SIGHT OF ENEMIES WHO LIE IN WAIT FOR YOU, AND YOUR FALL BE INCURABLE UNTO DEATH.
For many through rashly uttered words incur both present and eternal death. St. Gregory says admirably, Book 7 of the Morals, chapter 17: "It should also be known that those who slide into harmful words lose their entire state of uprightness. For the human mind, like water, when enclosed, is gathered upward, because it seeks again that from which it descended; but when released, it perishes, because it pours itself out uselessly through the lowest channels. For by as many superfluous words as it is dissipated from the discipline of its silence, it is led outside itself, as it were, by as many streams. Whence it is not able to return inwardly to self-knowledge, because, scattered outwardly through much speaking, it loses the force of intimate consideration. Therefore it exposes itself entirely to the wounds of the lurking enemy, because it does not enclose itself with any fortification of guard. Whence it is written: 'Like a city that lies open and without the circuit of walls, so is a man who cannot restrain his spirit in speaking.' Because
it does not have the wall of silence, the city of the mind lies open to the javelins of the enemy, and when it casts itself out through words beyond itself, it shows itself open to the adversary, whom that adversary conquers without effort all the more, inasmuch as she who is conquered fights against herself through much speaking." And St. Bernard, On the Interior House, chapter 5: "The tongue (lingua)," he says, "is so called because it licks (lingit). It licks by flattering, bites by slandering, kills by lying. It binds, and cannot be bound; it is slippery, and cannot be held, but it slides and deceives; it slips like an eel, penetrates like an arrow. It takes away friends, multiplies enemies; stirs up quarrels, sows discord. With one stroke it strikes and kills many. It is smooth and treacherous, ready and eager to drain away good things and to mix in evil."
Wherefore God often punishes the slanderous with present death, and always with eternal death. Paulinus, in the Life of St. Ambrose, records that the priest Donatus, slandering St. Ambrose after his death, was suddenly struck with a grievous wound, carried to his bed, and there breathed forth his slanderous soul. And he adds that the same thing happened to Bishop Mauranus, who was slandering the same saint. And St. Gregory, Book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 51, relates that a nun of insolent tongue appeared after death half-burned and consumed on one side. Moreover, God struck Miriam, the sister of Moses, with leprosy for slandering Moses, Numbers 12. Finally, He often sent demons upon slanderers, so that those who bore the demon in their slanderous tongue would carry the same demon throughout their whole body, as their possessor and master. Imitating Sirach, Cato thus decreed concerning the bridling of the tongue: "Consider it the first virtue to restrain the tongue: Nearest to God is he who knows how to be silent with reason. Flee rumors, lest you begin to be regarded as a new author of them: For to have kept silent has harmed no one; to have spoken has caused harm."