Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He continues what he said about confidence and the fear of God, and asserts that this produces security and happiness, and that the law is faithful to the one who fears God, just as he is faithful to the law. Second, from verse 7 to 20, he treats of God's predestination and discrimination, by which through His wisdom, just as He distinguished feast days from non-feast days, so also He distinguished and separated pious men from the impious: and He set and opposed a contrary to everything for the fullness and beauty of the universe. Third, from verse 20 to 25, he teaches that it is the part of a prudent man not to yield his goods to children or friends before death. Fourth, from verse 25 to the end, he teaches how servants should be governed.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 33:1-33
1. To him who fears the Lord no evil will befall, but in temptation God will preserve him, and will deliver him from evils. 2. The wise man does not hate the commandments and precepts, and will not be dashed as a ship in a storm. 3. A sensible man trusts the law of God, and the law is faithful to him. 4. He who would make clear an inquiry will prepare his words, and having thus prayed he will be heard, and will preserve discipline, and then he will answer. 5. The heart of a fool is like the wheel of a cart: and like a turning axle are his thoughts. 6. A stallion horse — so also is a mocking friend: he neighs under every rider. 7. Why does one day surpass another, and again one light another light, and one year another year, from the sun? 8. By the knowledge of the Lord they were distinguished, after the sun was made, and it keeps His command. 9. And He changed the seasons, and their feast days, and in them they celebrated feasts at the appointed hour. 10. Some of them He exalted and magnified, and some of them He placed in the number of ordinary days. And all men are from the soil, and from the earth whence Adam was created. 11. In the greatness of His wisdom the Lord distinguished them, and diversified their ways. 12. Some of them He blessed and exalted: and some He sanctified and drew to Himself: and some He cursed and humbled, and overthrew them from their station. 13. As the clay of the potter in his hand, to fashion it and dispose it. 14. All his ways are according to his disposition: so is man in the hand of Him who made him, and He will render to him according to His judgment. 15. Against evil there is good, and against death there is life: so also against a just man there is a sinner. And so look upon all the works of the Most High. Two and two, and one against another. 16. And I, the last, have watched, and as one who gathers grapes after the vintagers. 17. In the blessing of God I also have hoped: and as one who gathers grapes, I have filled the wine-press. 18. Consider that I have not labored for myself alone, but for all who seek learning. 19. Hear me, you great ones, and all peoples, and you rulers of the Church, give ear. 20. To son and wife, to brother and friend, do not give power over yourself in your lifetime: and do not give your possessions to another, lest you repent and must beg for them. 21. While you still survive and have breath, let no man change your mind. 22. For it is better that your children should ask of you, than that you should look to the hands of your children. 23. In all your works be preeminent. 24. Do not put a stain on your glory. In the day of the end of the days of your life, and at the time of your departure, distribute your inheritance. 25. Fodder, and a rod, and a burden for the donkey: bread, and discipline, and work for the servant. 26. He works under discipline, and seeks to rest: relax his hands, and he seeks freedom. 27. The yoke and the strap bend a stiff neck, and constant labor bows down a servant. 28. For a wicked servant, the rack and shackles: send him to work, lest he be idle: 29. for idleness has taught much wickedness. 30. Set him to work: for so it befits him. But if he does not obey, bend him with shackles: yet do not be excessive toward any person: and do nothing grievous without just cause. 31. If you have a faithful servant, let him be to you as your own soul: treat him as a brother: because you purchased him with the blood of your life. 32. If you wrong him unjustly, he will run away: 33. and if he departs and is gone, you know not whom to seek, nor which way to seek him.
FIRST PART OF THE CHAPTER.
1. TO HIM WHO FEARS THE LORD NO EVIL WILL BEFALL, BUT IN TEMPTATION GOD WILL PRESERVE HIM, AND WILL DELIVER HIM FROM EVILS.
In the Greek: but in temptation and again He will deliver him, that is: But in temptation — not one alone, but frequent and often repeated — He will deliver him; although it seems rather that "He will preserve" has fallen out of the Greek text, for our Interpreter formerly read this in the Greek, and without it the sense is incomplete. The Tigurine version, omitting kai, that is "and," translates thus: To one who reveres the Lord nothing evil will befall, but God will again rescue him from temptation; others translate: To him who fears the Lord no evil will befall, except in temptation (for the Greek alla sometimes means "except"), whence He will again rescue him. So also the Syriac: He who fears the Lord, it says, no evil will befall him except in temptation: and it will be turned away, and he will be delivered. The Constance manuscript, for palin, that is "again," reads pale, that is "struggle." Whence it translates: but in temptation and struggle He will rescue him, as He rescued St. Anthony from the struggle he underwent with demons, which was frequent and constant. It adds "in struggle" because God rescues from temptation the one who struggles and generously resists, but not the one who yields and succumbs to it. Whence the saying: "Fate aids effort: the Thunderer aids the one who strives."
You will ask, how is it that "no evils will befall him who fears God"? For to St. Job, to David, to Jeremiah, indeed to all the Saints, many evils befell and daily befall, according to the words of the Angel to Tobias, chapter XII, 13: "Because you were acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove you." Lyranus answers, first: "To him who fears the Lord no evils will befall" — namely, evils of guilt, not of punishment. For the fear of God excludes every sin, especially graver ones.
Second, and better, one should take "evils" here as meaning evils of both punishment and guilt; for he treats of these in what follows. The sense therefore is: To him who fears God no evils will befall, whether of punishment or of guilt — evils, I say, true and complete, which would subdue the God-fearing man, drive him to impatience and despair, ruin and destroy him. For the word "evils" according to the Hebrew idiom is taken here in the completed, not the incipient sense, to signify full and perfect evils that would last perpetually and conquer, overthrow, and destroy the just man. For the one who suffers evils but conquers them through patience, fortitude, and love of God, as the martyrs did — for such a one evils are not evils, but evils are turned into goods, and great ones at that, namely into triumphs of patience, martyrdom, and everlasting glory. So Sirach explains himself when he adds: "But in temptation God will preserve him, and deliver him from evils" — either by removing the evils, or by drawing the just man away from the evils, whether by flight, as He delivered Lot from the burning of Sodom; or by death, as He delivered the Martyrs from their torments, according to Psalm XC, 13: "I am with him in tribulation: I will rescue him and glorify him." So gold refined in the furnace suffers no evil, but receives a great good, namely purity and splendor: for the one who fears God with filial fear — that is, who loves God ardently — is like a man on fire who, if he falls among stubble and thorns, suffers nothing from them but sets them all ablaze, says St. Chrysostom, Homily 4 on
the Acts of the Apostles. Alluding to this passage of Sirach, Paul says: "God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear, but will also with the temptation provide a way out so that you may be able to endure," I Corinthians X, 13. See the comments there.
Finally, God often brings it about that evils befall not the pious, but the impious. For these proverbs signify not what always happens, but what often happens: thus the flood befell and drowned the impious, from which the pious Noah was saved through the ark; the fire from heaven seized the impious Sodomites, but spared the pious Lot. So the evils and traps that Saul so often laid did not befall David. So the death prepared for Susanna by the adulterous elders did not befall her, but they themselves fell into the pit they had prepared for her. Thus often destructions, plagues, famines, barrenness, storms, shipwrecks, dangers from robbers and thieves, etc., befall the impious, and the pious are delivered from them, even though they are next to and neighbors of the impious, according to Psalm XC, 10: "Evil shall not come near you, and the scourge shall not approach your dwelling."
Mystically, evils do not befall the just — namely, future and eternal evils. For, as a wise man says: "No true and pure evil exists except an eternal one: no true good except an eternal one." So Rabanus: "It is certain, he says, that future evils, which are prepared for the wicked on account of their sins, will not befall one who fears the Lord: but in temptation God will preserve him; because, according to the judgment of blessed Peter, God knows how to rescue the pious from temptation and to reserve the wicked for torment on the day of judgment: for the Lord has delivered His chosen ones from evils. Because He defends them from the abominable suggestions of malign spirits, and from the perverse actions of wicked men: for God will send His Angel round about His just ones who fear Him, and will rescue them: for salvation is from the Lord, and He is their protector in time of tribulation."
2. THE WISE MAN DOES NOT HATE THE COMMANDMENTS AND PRECEPTS, AND WILL NOT BE DASHED AS A SHIP IN A STORM.
He gives the reason why evils do not befall one who fears God, namely: The wise man, that is, one who fears God, does not hate but greatly loves God's law and precepts; therefore, when the waves and blasts of temptations arise, he will not be tossed here and there, nor will he be dashed against the rocks of sin and perdition, as a ship when tossed by a storm is dashed and shattered against cliffs or rocks: but strengthened by the anchor of hope in God, firm and unshaken, he will stand fast in keeping the law of God. For God, who steers the ship of the wise man's soul — that is, of the just man — will bring it safe and untouched by the rocks of sin into the harbor of salvation. A wonderful and illustrious literal example of this is recorded by St. Paulinus, in his epistle to Macarius, about a certain old man who in a shipwreck, the sole survivor on the ship, was tossed by the waves "for twenty-three days, not only excluded from land, he says, but also from human company, the sport of all winds, an exile from every land, a guest of the vast sea, bereft of the human race, amid waves and sea-beasts, in the wandering shelter of a drifting ship, worn out by fasting, old age, and fear, with God as his helmsman, he safely reached the Lucanian shore at last."
It is litotes; for less is said, and more is meant: "does not hate" means he greatly loves; "precepts" refers to the just works which the law prescribes. Hence, for "commandments and precepts," the Greek has only nomon, that is "law." The Greek text now reads differently, namely presenting an antithesis between the wise man and the foolish, that is the just and the unjust, or the hypocrite, in this manner: A wise man will not hate the law: but he who dissembles in it is like a ship in a storm. So the Roman edition reads ploion, that is "ship," for which the Complutensian edition reads pollon, that is "of many"; the Tigurine version clearly: The wise man does not hate the law: but he who deals falsely in it is like a ship in a storm — which, overcome by the tempest, will be dashed and broken against the rocks. The sense is: The wise man, that is, the sincere and prudent man, even though evils and temptations befall him, as he said in the preceding verse, will not on that account hate the law so as to depart from it; but rather, strengthened by a greater love and affection through the grace of God, he will bind and attach himself to it. But the hypocrite, the one who acts falsely — as long as all things go prosperously for him, he will indeed cling to the law; but when evils and the winds of temptation assail him, he will allow himself to be swept away from the study of the law and dashed against the rocks of sin.
An illustrious mirror of both these maxims was St. Athanasius and his entire life. For tossed by the continual storms and persecutions of the Arians for many years, he always escaped safe and unharmed under God's protection — indeed gloriously — and so at last in his own Church, in his chair and in his bed, peacefully, as if triumphant over conquered enemies, he fell asleep in the Lord. He conquered four Emperors: Constantine, Constantius, Julian, Valens. He conquered Arian bishops, most numerous in number, most powerful in might, most cunning in wickedness. He conquered nearly the whole world steeped in Arianism; he conquered Lucifer and the entire force of hell — all of whom he, like an unconquered hero, boldly challenging to combat and single battle, more boldly struck down and defeated. For he held fixed in his mind: "If God is for us, who is against us?" Wherefore in the midst of dangers, trusting and cheerful, he would sing: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Though armies encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I hope," Psalm XXVI. Whence, when under Julian he was again driven from his see, while all were struck with terror, he alone, intrepid and encouraging them, said: "Do not be troubled, my children; it is but a little cloud, and it will quickly pass." He was a true prophet: for soon Julian fell, pierced by a heavenly spear. And when the Arians were pursuing him by ship as he fled, and were about to catch and seize him, while all were terrified and urging him to hide: "Do not be frightened, my children," he said, "let us rather go to meet our persecutor, so that he may know that far greater is
He who defends us than he who persecutes us." He spoke and acted: turning his ship therefore to meet his persecutor, and not being recognized, when asked whether he had seen Athanasius, he replied that he had seen him not far off going by ship. And so, while they steered the opposite course, he escaped and eluded them.
3. A SENSIBLE MAN TRUSTS THE LAW OF GOD, AND THE LAW IS FAITHFUL TO HIM.
For "trusts," the Greek has empisteusai. Which some more aptly translate as "is faithful"; the Tigurine version: he will deal faithfully in the law, that is: Just as the sensible man is faithful to the law of God, so in return the law is faithful to him, to avert evils from him and bring him all good things. For the law promises and actually provides to the just man counsel, aid, defense, and reward. Our translator intends the same when he renders "a sensible man trusts the law of God": for he trusts the law who is faithful to the law, who, namely, faithfully clings to it and fulfills it, even when assailed by temptation.
The law likewise is faithful to him; because, first, it shines before him so that amid so many errors he may know what he ought to do and which path to take in order to reach heaven; second, it consoles and strengthens him; third, it bestows on him a reward — namely, an increase of grace, and after this life, a crown of happiness and glory. Therefore, just as the just man is faithful to the law through obedience, so also the law is faithful through direction, grace, and glory. Whence the Greek adds: The law is faithful to him, "as an inquiry of manifestations" (which words our translator referred to the following verse), that is, like the inquiry made through the Urim and Thummim in the Breastplate of the high priest. That is: Just as the high priest wearing the Breastplate, in which were the Urim — that is, illuminations and manifestations — illuminated by God, faithfully and certainly revealed the hidden things about which he had inquired of God, so the law, when consulted by the just man, faithfully and certainly illuminates him in doubtful matters, and rightly directs and leads him along the path of justice into heavenly happiness. For in place of "inquiry of the Urim," the Septuagint translates erotema delon, as is evident from Numbers XXVII, 21; for Sirach follows the Septuagint, as is evident from chapter XLV, 12 in the Greek. See the comments on Exodus XXVIII, 30.
Akin to this maxim of Sirach is that of Scipio Africanus: "From innocence is born dignity, from dignity honor, from honor authority, from authority freedom." For innocence is nothing other than the keeping of the law.
Learn here that the law is the Urim, that is, the oracle of God, so that if you wish to know with certainty what you ought to do, what the will of God is, what the way to salvation, what God requires of you and wishes to be done, you must consult the law of God: for it will teach you this with certainty, just as the Urim certainly taught the high priest about that which he consulted God. Hence St. Augustine, St. Gregory, and others assert that the law and Sacred Scripture are an epistle of God sent to us, by which He signifies to mankind His will — namely, what He requires of us and wishes to be done. Whoever is wise, therefore, in all doubtful matters, let him approach and consult this domestic oracle of the law and Sacred Scripture.
Moreover, the Greek codices corrected at Rome, reading dikaion ("of the just") for delon, translate: A sensible man trusts the law, and the law is faithful to him, like the inquiry of the just — that is, the law will be for him like a trustworthy oracle of justice, from which they can inquire and learn what things are just, or from which the just inquire and learn those things which they must justly do.
4. HE WHO WOULD MAKE CLEAR AN INQUIRY WILL PREPARE HIS WORDS, AND HAVING THUS PRAYED HE WILL BE HEARD, AND WILL PRESERVE DISCIPLINE, AND THEN HE WILL ANSWER.
That is: He who desires to make clear an "inquiry" posed to him through an apt response will not immediately leap to reply; but first he will "prepare his words," that is, he will premeditate by thinking and studying what he should respond, and in what manner and order, and in what words. "And so," having addressed prayer to God to illuminate his mind, he will be "heard" by Him, and will learn both the truth and the manner of responding; whence, preserving "discipline" and the fear of God in his soul, and strengthening himself in it, he will "answer" — not to curry human favor, nor to flee their threats and terrors, but according to the truth of the matter. The Tigurine version, for deloun ("who manifests"), reading dikaion ("of the just"), translates: Prepare to say such things as the just seek: and in whatever manner you find hearers, embrace the hearing, and then at last respond. But the Complutensian edition and others, reading ethelase, have: As for a manifest inquiry, prepare your speech, and so you will be heard willingly, clearly, and intelligibly: gather discipline, or doctrine, and so you will respond. For "gather," the Greek has sundeson paideian, that is, "bind together" — that is, acquire doctrine. Whence some translate, gain for yourself learning: or "bind together," that is, arrange and order what you have conceived in your mind, so that you may express it in a fitting method and order. The Complutensian edition reads endusai, that is, "put on discipline." Accordingly, "discipline" here signifies, first, the study of the law, virtue and uprightness, or the fear and reverence of God, so that when questioned one does not allow himself to be led away from the truth by human favor or fear, but looking to God alone, answers according to His will and law. So Rabanus and Palacius: "He will preserve discipline, he says, that is, he will deviate in nothing from the discipline or doctrine of the Church."
Second, however, Lyranus takes "discipline" as meaning a good method and manner of teaching and responding, that is: A doctor should not only teach true things, but should also employ a good method in teaching, so that he responds methodically, clearly, and briefly, and announces what he has premeditated in such a way that what he says can be grasped by the minds and retained in the memories of his hearers. And this is what the Greek sundeson means — that is, "bind together discipline."
Third, Rabanus says: "Preserve discipline," that is, preserve by worthy action what you teach, so that you first do what you teach others must be done, after the example of Christ, who "began to do," and then "to teach," Acts I, 1. As if three things are noted here as necessary for a teacher to teach profitably: namely, study, prayer, and practice. Hear Rabanus: "He speaks of holy teachers, who, in order to be able to respond worthily to questions, prepare their words in their hearts, and pray to the Lord that He Himself may reveal to them the truth of the matter, and preserve by worthy action what He commanded them to keep, and so by meditating, praying, and practicing, they give a worthy answer to those who question them. For so Paul taught his disciple, saying, II Timothy II, 15: Strive earnestly to show yourself approved before God, a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. Hence Peter also says, I Peter III, 15: But sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, always ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope and faith that is in you. On the contrary, of foolish preachers it follows: The heart of a fool is like the wheel of a cart," etc.
Note: For a teacher or counselor, in obscure or doubtful matters, especially those pertaining to the faith or cases of conscience, in order to answer aptly, it is not sufficient to have premeditation and study; prayer must also be employed, so that God may illuminate the mind — not only so that one may know the truth, but also so that one may express and declare it in the manner that will be fitting and salutary for the hearers. So our Father Lessius, a man of singular ability in the resolution of cases of conscience, whenever he was consulted about some difficult case, was accustomed to invoke the Holy Spirit, prefacing with the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, so that he might respond truly and fittingly for the benefit of those consulting him.
Wisely and piously St. Augustine says, epistle 120 to Honoratus: "If you purely pray to the Lord, the giver of all good things, you will learn all things worthy of knowledge, or certainly most of them, more by His inspiration than by any human instruction."
5. THE HEART OF A FOOL IS LIKE THE WHEEL OF A CART: AND LIKE A TURNING AXLE ARE HIS THOUGHTS.
In the Greek: the wheel of a wagon are the bowels of a fool, and like an axle that turns (namely, one that is fixed and fastened to the wheel — for there is another kind of axle that does not turn but remains immovable, around which the wheel of a cart revolves and spins) is his thought. The Tigurine version: Like the wheel of a cart are the inmost parts of a fool, and like a turning axle is his thought. The Syriac, however: a clock-wheel is the heart of the wicked, and like a pig are all his thoughts — namely, filthy and impure, for such is a hog and swine. He contrasts the fool with the sensible man, whom he said was stable and faithful to the law, and therefore spoke and answered sensibly and in orderly fashion; whereas the heart — in Greek "bowels," that is the inmost thoughts and desires — of the fool is unstable, foolish, and like a turning wheel and axle, rolls here and there without order or reason; and therefore his speech and response is similar — namely, disordered, irrational, unpolished, vague, and irrelevant, so that they slip from one thing to another without coherence or connection.
The a priori reason for this disparity is that the wise man, that is the just man, clings firmly to the law, and does not allow himself to be moved from his God, because he has fixed his heart — that is, his affections and thoughts — upon Him. Therefore, clinging to the immovable God, he himself likewise becomes constant and immovable. But the fool — that is, the carnal and impious man — fixes his heart on temporal things, which move with the heavens; and therefore, clinging to what is changeable and unstable, he himself becomes changeable and unstable. This is what Isaiah says, chapter LVII, verse 20: "But the wicked are like the raging sea, which cannot rest, and its waves cast up mire and filth;" and Jeremiah, Lamentations chapter I, 8: "Jerusalem has sinned grievously, therefore she has become unstable" — where I assigned many causes for this instability.
6. A STALLION HORSE (others read "stud horse," with the same meaning), SO ALSO IS A MOCKING FRIEND: HE NEIGHS UNDER EVERY RIDER.
That is: Just as a stud horse (which is sent out and admitted to mares to impregnate them) neighs not out of love for its rider (for it neighs under any and every rider, even an unwelcome one), but out of love for the mare it sees and desires — so also a false friend flatters and applauds his friend, not for the friend's sake, but for his own advantage, which he demands and expects from him. For in truth such a one is not a friend, but a flatterer and hypocrite, and therefore a mocker, who outwardly pretends and acts as a friend, but inwardly in his heart laughs at and mocks his friend, and secretly criticizes and slanders him. Just as a horse neighs at any mare it sees, so a false friend smiles and applauds a friend wherever there is hope of gain — because he neighs not for the friend but for gain, and therefore now to one, now to another, and to whoever displays greater profit, he neighs and applauds. In the preceding verse he showed the inconstancy and fickle character of the fool in his thoughts and desires; here he shows the same in his outward behavior and conduct. Palacius and Jansenius add that this parable is spoken by Sirach against false teachers who, while appearing to seek the salvation of their hearers and to wish them well, aim only at their own advantage and petty gain, out of love for which they teach whatever suits, accommodating themselves to anyone in hope of profit — such as Peter Martyr in England, who taught about the Eucharist whatever the king and magistrates wanted. Very many such existed and exist in this age. Likewise it is spoken against lawyers and prosecutors who, without discrimination of causes, neigh at, favor, and show themselves supporters of anyone, whether the cause is just or unjust, wherever they smell a whiff of profit.
Second, Palacius takes the neighing not as applause, but as mockery and scorn; for a horse neighs not only when it loves and shows approval, but also when it is angry and snorts — as when in battle, furious, it charges against the enemy. So the sense would be: Just as a stud horse neighs on any occasion without caring about its rider, and thus as it were scorns, mocks, and ridicules him — so likewise a mocker and scoffer mocks everyone, even a friend who trusts him; for he laughs at and criticizes all persons and things that he sees or hears. The Tigurine version favors this: A stud horse neighing under any-
rider, is to be compared to a mocking friend; and of others: A stud horse, like a mocking friend, neighs under every rider; and of the Syriac: Like a prepared horse (another text has "rich," that is, richly and splendidly equipped and adorned — for that is why he is proud and neighs), so is the wicked friend, who neighs under everyone who loves him.
Third, Rabanus says: "He makes an elegant comparison, he says, of a brute animal to a foolish friend: because just as there is no reason in a brute beast, so too there is no order of fairness in a false friend. For just as a lustful and proud horse by its neighing does not distinguish between its true master and a stranger, so a fool and mocker does not discern in his spirit between a hypocrite and a faithful friend, but through the functions of his mouth equally opens the secrets of his mind to both."
Mystically, Lyranus refers these words to a bad Prelate: "Who ought, he says, to love God unto death, exposing himself for the salvation of the people; and yet he mocks God by accepting the office of His vicar and not caring about His honor."
SECOND PART OF THE CHAPTER. ON GOD'S PREDESTINATION, AND THE DISTINCTION OF THINGS AND MEN.
7. WHY DOES ONE DAY SURPASS ANOTHER, AND AGAIN ONE LIGHT ANOTHER LIGHT, AND ONE YEAR ANOTHER YEAR, FROM THE SUN?
Rabanus and Lyranus take this as referring to the natural excellence of days and years, namely: How is it that one day — for example, a summer day — is brighter and longer than another, say a winter one; and the light of the sun is greater than the light of other stars; and one year — for example, a solar or a leap year — surpasses another in number of days, say a lunar and non-leap year; and this is caused by the sun? For the sun in summer, running more directly and for longer in our hemisphere, makes the day brighter and longer. Why, I ask, do these things happen so? Surely they happen because God wisely so ordained. But the aim of Sirach requires a different meaning: for his aim is to show that the reason why one man surpasses another is not to be sought in nature and natural disposition — namely, that this is more excellent in the one who excels, and more depressed in the one who is humbler; for nature is common and the same in all individuals — but that the reason for this distinction must be attributed to the will and election of God, who prefers some over others and heaps greater gifts upon them. Unless one were to say that a better nature and disposition is sometimes the cause of a better lot and fortune. But that this disposition is to be attributed to God as its Creator. However, what I said is more apt. The sense therefore is: What is the reason that one day and light surpasses another — namely, a feast day surpasses a non-feast day — for example, why is the day of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles so celebrated and solemn with sacrifices, psalms, the assembly of priests and people, the adornment of the temple, etc., above other non-feast and ordinary days? Similarly, why does one festive year surpass another non-festive one? For example, why do the seventh year of remission, and the fiftieth year, which is the jubilee, surpass in solemnity and pomp the other non-festive, non-jubilee years? They surpass, I say, "the day and year from the sun," that is, equally and alike made — meaning: the sun made all days equal and similar; whence then comes that distinction between feast days and years and non-feast days and years? Surely it is not "from the sun," since it is common and always the same; but from God, and from God's will so distinguishing and ordering days and years. Therefore in the same manner, the fact that
one man surpasses another to whom he is equal in nature, is not from nature, but from God's will and election. That this is the meaning is clear from what follows and from the Greek, which briefly and clearly reads: Why is one day above another, and every light of the day of the year from the sun? That is: How is it that one day surpasses another, when every day and the light of each day throughout the year is produced by the same sun, which, since it acts naturally and not freely, always produces a similar — indeed the same — effect, namely the same kind of day and light? Whence the Tigurine and others clearly translate: Why does one day surpass another, when all the light of the days of the year comes from the sun? The Syriac: Why is there a day in the year that is distinguished from other days, since all the luminaries serve the days of the year? Truly they were distinguished by the wisdom of God. Our translator adds the light of the day, because certain feasts began not from the day, but from the light — as the feast of the New Moon began from the illumination of the moon, at the very hour of the new moon, as I showed in Numbers XXVIII, 11. So the first day of unleavened bread began from the light of the day following the Paschal night.
You will ask, to what purpose does Sirach introduce this here? What do these things have to do with what he has said throughout the chapter about the wise man and the fool? I answer: First, Rabanus considers them to look back at the preceding verse, where he described the folly of the fool who, without discrimination, like a horse, neighs at and applauds everyone. For here he rebukes that folly through the ordering of God, who just as He distinguishes one day from another, so too He distinguishes and separates one man from another. Hear Rabanus: "Because he previously censured the imprudence of the foolish man, who made no distinction among dissimilar things, now he wishes to show from the Creator of all things that in all things there is a most fitting order: one day therefore surpasses another, and one light another light, and one year another year, because of the course of the ascending and descending sun, which turns to the south and bends to the north, traversing all things in its circuit, and lends its splendor by its rays to the lesser luminaries, distinguishing times, days, and years — because in summer it makes the days longer and brighter than in winter, and causes the year of the moon and of the other stars to have an orderly difference among themselves; because it was created with the other heavenly bodies for this purpose: to be for signs, and seasons, and days, and years, and to show to mankind, who would receive the law of God, the appointed times of the feasts."
Second, Lyranus, likewise referring these words to the preceding verse and explaining it as concerning bad Prelates, also refers this verse to the same: "Because, he says, someone might wonder and ask how God permits bad teachers and prelates to be promoted to the governance of the Church. To resolve this, he first puts forward an example from natural things, saying: Why does one day surpass another? second, he applies it to the subject in the case of men, saying in verse 10: And all men; third, he confirms it by a similar example from things made by art, saying in verse 13: As the clay, etc.; fourth, he resolves the difficulty, saying in verse 15: Against evil there is good."
Third, and genuinely, these words are to be referred to what he has discussed in this chapter and often elsewhere, about the difference and distinction between the wise and the foolish — that is, the pious and the impious. For since all men are equal by nature, how does it happen that so great a difference is seen among them, especially in wisdom and virtue, so that some are wise and endowed with virtue, while others are stupid and covered in vices? To this he answers that it happens through the most wise providence of God, partly active, partly permissive — who similarly distinguished days from days, and this to the following ends: first, that from the various degrees and orders of things the beauty and splendor of the universe might arise; second, that He might set over against each thing its own contrary, as a rival and antagonist, and thus from the individual antitheses of each thing might adorn this arena and theater of the world, so that the dignity and excellence of each thing might become known and shine forth through comparison, struggle, and victory over its opposite; third, that in each thing He might display to mortals, for their contemplation and veneration, various modes and kinds of His power, wisdom, goodness, and justice. This is what he adds: "By the knowledge of the Lord they were distinguished."
Fourth, to indicate the changes to which days and men alike are subject. For just as, for example, Monday this year is a feast because the feast of St. Lawrence falls on it, but the following year it will not be, because the feast will fall on Tuesday — so a man who this year is holy will the next year be a sinner; and he who now is a sinner will then be holy; so that we may all learn to fear and depend upon God.
From this you may conclude that the reason why one person is happy and another unhappy is not fortune, not natural disposition, not the stars, but God. For God at His pleasure and free election makes whomever He wills happy — not only if the person is prudent, but even if imprudent. For the prudent, although not always, often prospers in his actions so as to have successful outcomes; both because he prudently arranges everything so that it may turn out well, and because he merits that God should direct and prosper his actions. St. Thomas, book III Against the Gentiles, chapter XCII, asks what the cause is that someone should be fortunate — that is, that good things and good outcomes should come to him beyond his expectation — and he answers that the proper cause of good fortune is God, and God's benevolence and election, by which He for the most part happily governs and directs someone, for example, to dig in such and such a place where he will find a treasure; and that He sometimes uses the ministry of Angels who suggest or persuade this. The heavens, however, and their influence, do not properly cause good fortune; but occasionally dispose toward it accidentally — for example, when the heavens incline someone to dig, and the finding of a treasure is accidentally connected with the digging. For the heavens do not incline you to dig here where the treasure is, rather than elsewhere where it is not. Wherefore, since the heavens cannot combine these two things, it follows that the heavens are not per se the cause of good fortune. For God, therefore, nothing is fortuitous, because He Himself is the ruler and director of fortune. Finally, I taught at length why one person is happy and another unhappy in Genesis chapter XXX, 27.
Therefore let each person await his lot from the hand of God, and live content with it, and say most humbly with the Psalmist: "In Your hands are my lots," Psalm XXX, 16 — "lots," that is, chances, outcomes, vicissitudes, the state of my affairs, such as riches and poverty, servitude and authority, health and sickness, peace and war, says Theodoret. Therefore these my lots are governed and dispensed not by fortune, but by Your certain providence, O Lord. The Hebrew: In Your hands are my times, that is, the days of life and death, of prosperity and adversity; the Chaldean: In Your hands are the times of my redemption. And with St. Paul, Colossians I, 12: "Giving thanks to God the Father, who has made us worthy to share in the lot of the saints." "I see no merit," says St. Augustine, "by which from the universal impiety of the human race You chose me above all for salvation: by lot I came to the tunic of the Lord" — just as the lot fell upon Matthias to become an Apostle, Acts I.
Prosper writes excellently, book II of De Vocatione Gentium, chapter
X: "If, he says, we dare not complain about the judgments of our earthly parents, when they embrace some of their children with more indulgent affection before any examination of character, before any acts of piety; and if masters also have free disposition toward their servants, and no one justly reproaches the one who, from a household of equal condition, chose some whom he might more kindly honor and more freely educate — shall we then find fault with the most benevolent equity of the supreme Father and true Lord, because in His great house all things are varied with innumerable differences? And since no one possesses any good that He has not bestowed, yet not all shine with the same virtues, nor are enriched with the same gift of graces. Nor can we fit this diversity of degrees to the causes of merits, since the principal cause of all merit is grace."
Morally, learn that the pious are rightly compared to feast days, and the impious to ordinary days: first, because as much as feast days surpass non-feast days, so much do the pious excel the impious; second, just as feast days are dedicated and consecrated to God, so also the pious consecrate themselves to God; third, on feast days servile work ceases, and the faithful devote themselves to sacrifices and the praises of God: so also the pious continually praise God in mind, voice, and deed. For the pious, therefore, every day is a feast. For this reason St. Sylvester wished the days to be called "ferias" (holy days), saying first feria, second feria, third feria, etc., so that the clergy might remember that, having set aside the care of all other things, they ought to be devoted entirely to God alone, according to Psalm LXXV, 11: "For the thought of man shall praise You: and the remnants of thought shall keep a feast day to You." And Ecclesiasticus XLVII, 2, concerning David: "And as the fat separated from the flesh (which was burned to God on feast days), so was David from the children of Israel." Finally, just as feast days are celebrated, so holy men are canonized: for canonization is to the Saints what festivity is to the days; and therefore in honor of the Saints, when they are canonized, feast days are instituted and celebrated.
8. BY THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE LORD THEY WERE DISTINGUISHED, AFTER THE SUN WAS MADE, AND IT KEEPS HIS COMMAND.
Jansenius and others add, "by the wisdom of God they are divided"; but these words are removed by the Greek, Roman, and other corrected codices. He answers the question proposed: "Why does one day surpass another?" That is: This distinction of days was not made by chance and fortune, but by the knowledge of God — meaning, it was wisely made by God's providence; by God, I say, not by the sun, for it was made after the sun was made, and the sun itself is subject to God's ordinance and exactly "keeps" God's "command," that is, the order of moving, shining, etc. Rabanus and Lyranus explain it differently, following the exposition given in the preceding verse: Days were separated from other days and made brighter by the knowledge and wisdom of God, when He made the sun, which by its approach and retreat would make the days unequal and more or less bright; for the sun perfectly keeps this command and ordinance of God. The Greek briefly connects these words to the beginning of the following verse, and reads: By the knowledge of the Lord they were distinguished, who changed times and feasts; the Tigurine: Distinguished by the judgment of the Lord, who disposed the succession of times and feast days, and divided them by His wisdom; the Syriac: Truly by the wisdom of God they were distinguished, and He made from them seasons and times.
9. AND HE CHANGED THE SEASONS, AND THEIR FEAST DAYS, AND IN THEM THEY CELEBRATED FEASTS AT THE APPOINTED HOUR.
The Greek and Syriac have only what I placed in the preceding verse. "He changed," that is, God variously disposed the seasons of the year, by dividing it both into twelve months, each of which differs from every other in quality and effect and is distinct; and into the four principal parts of the year — namely, spring, summer, autumn, and winter. And in these parts He arranged and placed various feast days, each in its proper order, which the Hebrews would celebrate on the days appointed by Him at the hour prescribed for them — for example, at the hour when the new moon began, they would celebrate the feast of the New Moon, as I showed in Numbers XXVIII, 11. The other feasts began at the evening hour, namely from the first hour of the night, from which the Italians begin to count the hours of the day, according to Leviticus chapter XXIII, 32: "From evening to evening you shall celebrate your sabbaths."
10. SOME OF THEM GOD EXALTED AND MAGNIFIED, AND SOME OF THEM HE PLACED IN THE NUMBER OF ORDINARY DAYS.
What the Hebrews call lime mispar, that is, "in the days of number" — that is, in the common days that have nothing special above others, but only increase the count of the rest like a cipher, according to the saying: We are but a number, born to consume the fruits of the earth. For "magnified," the Greek has hegiasen, that is, "sanctified"; and so certain Latin manuscript codices read: "sanctified" — that is, dedicated to God and the Saints, so that the faithful might holily honor them on those days with prayers, vows, sacrifices, and other sacred offices. Therefore the sense is: God exalted some of the days by instituting them as feast days and holy; but others "He placed in the number of ordinary days" — that is, so that they would remain in the number of common and profane days, and would not be feasts. Whence the Tigurine: He exalted and consecrated some days, and assigned others to the order of ordinary days; the Syriac: From them He blessed and sanctified, and from them He made into the number of days. He alludes to the institution and sanctification of the sabbath and other feasts, about which it is said in Genesis II, 3: "And He blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it He had rested from all His work which God created to make."
Somewhat differently Palacius says: God, from among the feast days, exalted some, such as the day of Passover and Pentecost; and reduced others, such as the feast days of unleavened bread, to the rank of lesser feasts. In the same way, from among the elect, He exalted some, making them eminent saints, such as Abraham, Isaac, and David; but others He reduced to the rank of ordinary just men, who are indeed holy, yet not as "the mighty gods of the earth are greatly exalted," Psalm XLVI, 10, but as lesser Saints, and as the common rank of the Saints they cling to God.
AND ALL MEN ARE FROM THE SOIL, AND FROM THE EARTH WHENCE ADAM WAS CREATED. — Supply: He made, or He formed. "Soil" is the same as "earth": but "soil" (solum) is called from solidity, and "earth" (terra) from treading (terendo), because it is trodden by the feet of men and animals, says Lyranus.
11. IN THE GREATNESS OF HIS WISDOM THE LORD DISTINGUISHED THEM, AND DIVERSIFIED THEIR WAYS.
This is the apodosis, or the rendering and application of the similitude of the chosen days — namely, the feast days — to the chosen men. That is: Just as God selected certain days, though equal to others in nature and light, and made them feasts, so likewise, although all men are equal by nature and were created from the same soil and earth from which Adam was created, yet "in the greatness" — that is, from the magnitude — "of His wisdom," in Greek epistemes, that is, of His knowledge and wisdom, "He distinguished them, and diversified their ways" — both because He caused some to follow one course of life and others another; and because He made their "ways," that is, their lots, conditions, and stations, diverse — for example, that some should be great prelates and princes, and others common people, citizens, and peasants; and most especially because He made some wise and holy, while He left others in their foolishness and sins. For this is principally what Sirach has in view here; hence, explaining further, he adds: "Some of them He blessed and exalted, and some He sanctified and drew to Himself." So the Tigurine, which clearly translates: And all men have sprung from the earth (others more aptly: all men are from the soil), and Adam was created from earth; but the Lord by His wondrous knowledge distinguished them, and diversified their ways of life; the Syriac: And also all men were made from clay, and Adam was created from dust; but in His wisdom God separated them, and made them inhabitants of the earth.
Moreover, Palacius and Jansenius explain these and the following words as referring to the fully predestined and the reprobate — namely, those efficaciously elected to glory and those condemned to hell. That is: God, first, according to the greatness of His wisdom, from one and the same mass of human nature corrupted by Adam's sin, by His predestination separated the predestined and chose them for glory, so as to show in them the riches of His grace; but others He reprobated, willing to show in them His wrath and power. Second, after He had thus separated them in His mind, "He diversified their ways," giving to the elect efficacious aid, grace, and perseverance; but leaving and abandoning the reprobate according to the desires of their hearts, so that they might walk in their own devices, Psalm LXXX.
But better, Rabanus, Lyranus, and others take these words as referring to the general election of God, and to incipient predestination. For predestination is of two kinds: incipient and complete. Incipient predestination is that by which someone is predestined to faith, grace, and justice; for through these gifts he begins his salvation, so that, if he perseveres and continues in them, he will certainly attain salvation and eternal glory. Complete predestination is that by which someone is efficaciously elected and destined by God for glory and eternal life. That incipient predestination is what is treated here is proved by the arguments I brought forward in Canon XIII on St. Paul. To which add that Sirach here is treating of the predestination of nations rather than of individuals, as I shall show presently; but nations are predestined to faith and grace, not to glory, because among nations, even faithful ones, a great part — indeed the greater part — does not attain glory, but perishes and is condemned on account of its sins. The same is gathered from what he says in verse 15: "So also against a just man there is a sinner." For the just man is predestined in an incipient manner, and the sinner is only incipiently reprobate: for if he were treating of complete predestination and reprobation, he would have said: "So also against the predestined there is a reprobate"; or: "So also against the one elected to glory there is one condemned to hell." The same will be more evident from what I shall say on the following verse. However, what he says about the faithful and the unfaithful, the pious and the impious, can fittingly be extended and applied by analogy to the predestined and reprobate, the saved and the damned; especially because justice is incipient predestination, and injustice is incipient reprobation; conversely, predestination and election to glory is the crown and completion of justice, just as reprobation and damnation is the perfection and completion of injustice.
12. SOME OF THEM HE BLESSED AND EXALTED: AND SOME HE SANCTIFIED AND DREW TO HIMSELF (the Syriac: brought them all the way to Himself): AND SOME HE CURSED AND HUMBLED, AND OVERTHREW THEM FROM THEIR STATION.
The Syriac: And He uprooted and eradicated them from their dwellings; the Tigurine: Some He blessed and raised up, consecrated and dedicated to Himself; others He cursed, oppressed, and removed from their seats. "Sanctified" means He separated them, and (as follows) "drew them to Himself" — as men faithful and dedicated to the worship of God, so that they might be God's people, His family and Church. As, first, from the beginning of the world, having rejected Cain the fratricide, He separated to Himself Abel and Seth and his posterity, to be a faithful and God-worshiping people. Wherefore the sons of Seth are called "sons of God," but the sons of Cain are called "sons of men," Genesis VI, 2. Second, in the flood He separated Noah and his sons from the rest of mankind; and from his sons He claimed for Himself and blessed the two pious ones — namely, Shem and Japheth, who covered their father's shame — that is, He enriched them with many gifts and blessings; but the third son, namely Ham, the father of Canaan — since he was impious and mocked his father's shame — He cursed, saying: "Cursed be Canaan (son and follower of Ham), a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers: Blessed be the Lord God of Shem," etc. Genesis IX, 25.
And Sirach had chiefly in view Shem, from whom the Hebrews descended, whom God chose as His faithful people, while spurning — indeed cutting off — the impious Canaanites, descendants of Ham and Canaan, whom He therefore expelled from the land of Canaan and their dwellings through Joshua and the Hebrews. Third, from the posterity of Shem He chose only Abraham and his family to be His own nation and Church, the rest being left in unbelief and sins, and therefore under a curse. Fourth, from the sons of Abraham He chose Isaac and his posterity, but rejected Ishmael and the Ishmaelites descended from him. Fifth, from the sons of Isaac He chose Jacob and the Jacobites, rejecting Esau and the Edomites, according to Malachi I, 2: "I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated." Sixth, from the sons of Jacob He chose only Levi and Aaron and their posterity, that they might be Levites — that is, ministers and priests of the Lord — the other sons being left among the common people and the laity, according to that passage (to which Sirach also alludes here) Numbers VIII, 13: "You shall set the Levites before Aaron and his sons, and shall consecrate them as an offering to the Lord, and shall separate them from among the children of Israel, that they may be mine." Therefore this sanctification is a separation, by which God chose and separated certain men and families — especially of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Levi — from the other families and nations, to be His faithful and priestly people, according to the word of Moses in Exodus XIX, 6, to the Hebrews: "You shall be to me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation."
For in "drew to Himself" and "cursed" he alludes to Aaron, whom God claimed for Himself as high priest; and to Korah, who proudly aspired to the priesthood and whom God cursed, humbled, and overthrew, when He caused the earth to gape open and swallow him alive into the netherworld. See Numbers XVI, 5: "In the morning, he said, the Lord will make known who belongs to Him, and the holy He will draw to Himself: and those whom He has chosen will approach Him." Therefore this sanctification did not make all persons just and holy, but separated them for God, as faithful worshipers of God. For it is well established that in the faithful people, especially the Jewish people, many were sinners and impious; though some were truly just and holy. So "to sanctify," meaning to separate from the profane and dedicate to God, is used in Exodus XIII, 2: "Sanctify to me every firstborn." And Deuteronomy VII, 6: "You are a people holy to the Lord your God." And throughout Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, first-fruits, tithes, vows, and sacrifices are said to be "sanctified" — that is, separated and dedicated "to God."
Now, God "blessed and exalted" His faithful — for example, the Jews (and much more so, now, the Christians) — both with an abundance of crops and temporal wealth, with a kingdom, triumphs, and victories, as it was under David and Solomon; and with grace and spiritual gifts — namely, the law, the temple, sacrifices, prophets, experts in the law, miracles, oracles, the pontificate, the priesthood, etc.
Therefore, from this passage you cannot solidly conclude (though some wish to) that the efficacious election of each saint and chosen person to glory was made by God before and apart from his foreseen merits, from the mere election and good pleasure of God. For, first, Sirach is not treating precisely of that here, but generally of the election by which one man with his posterity — that is, one family or one nation — is preferred by God over another, and is chosen as His people and Church. Second, even if he were treating of it, the conclusion drawn would not follow; because it could be said that this election by God is made on the basis of each saint's merits foreseen by God. For, as St. Augustine says, Quaest. II to Simplicianus, that which is preferred over another already surpasses the other and is better and more excellent; for that reason it is chosen over the other. Nor does the analogy of the election of certain days as feasts over other non-feast days, which he brought in verse 7, prove otherwise; because in the same way certain days were and are chosen as feasts on account of their benefits and quasi-merits — for example, the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan was chosen and erected as the feast of Passover because on it the Hebrews were delivered from the Angel striking the firstborn of the Egyptians, and consequently from Pharaoh and Egypt, Exodus XII. In a similar way, a faithful man is chosen by God to be part of His people and Church, or even to be just and holy, because he freely consented to God's call to faith and justice — because he believed in God, worshiped and loved Him; and therefore he is chosen on account of his merit, whether de congruo (fittingly), as happens in the first justification, or de condigno (worthily), as happens in the second — namely, in the increase of justice. Indeed, the feast days dedicated to the Saints, as they are now dedicated in honor of
St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Lawrence, etc., were dedicated and instituted on account of their heroic virtues, merits, and martyrdoms.
The same is evident from the antithesis of the reprobate or rejected, about whom he adds: "And some of them He cursed." For it is established that God cursed no one before his foreseen sins and demerits in such a way as to absolutely reprobate him and consign him to hell. Hence in verse 14, in conclusion, he says: "And He will render to each one according to His judgment." Especially because the Canaanites, whom he chiefly has in view here, were not so cursed that by that very fact all of them were condemned to hell. For concerning Rahab and her family, and the Gibeonites, who were all Canaanites but surrendered to the Jews and became proselytes, it is very likely that they, equally with the Hebrews, were chosen by God and called and destined for salvation.
Whence Rabanus explains it to say that God discriminated, choosing some for Himself and rejecting others, because they themselves had first discriminated. "After, he says, men began to multiply, and some of them entangled themselves in various errors and sins, He discriminated among them, and separated those who persisted in their faith and justice from the rest. And those who were worthy He blessed; but those who conducted themselves impiously He justly condemned as guilty of eternal malediction. Whence Sacred Scripture enumerates Abel, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the other Saints who duly devoted themselves to divine worship and devoutly served the one God with true religion. But those who, abandoning the true God, served false idols and made themselves guilty of manifold crimes — He partly destroyed and consumed by the flood, partly by the scourge of pestilence, and partly by the sword and devastation of the true worshipers of God. Therefore he says: And He overthrew them from their station, because by His discrimination He distinguished those to whom He would give fitting rewards for their good deeds, and those to whom He would repay just punishments for their evil deeds. In His mighty hand, therefore, the supreme craftsman of His work, according to His will, brought about a fitting distinction." See the comments on Romans chapter IX.
Moreover, this maxim, since it is indefinite and general, can be applied not only to entire families and nations, but also to individual persons. For example, God chose, blessed, exalted, and drew to Himself Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David, etc.; but He spurned, cursed, and humbled Cain, Ham, Nimrod, Ishmael, Pharaoh, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, Saul, etc. But just as He spurned and cursed these on account of their crimes and demerits, so He "blessed" those others and drew them to Himself on account of their obedience, piety, and merits, whether de congruo or de condigno. He "blessed" them, I say, both through grace — bestowing on them His justice, friendship, and adoption; and through glory — namely, rewarding those who persevered in grace and justice with the crown of everlasting glory.
Finally, if this work of predestination and divine selection is traced all the way back to its first origin in God,
it is certain that it was accomplished without any merit on anyone's part: both because the first grace, which is the first effect of predestination, is a pure and mere grace given to each person without any merit; and because the separation and distinction of both orders — namely, the order of the predestined and the order of those to be reprobated — was made without merits or demerits. For example, that God placed Abel in that series of gifts and graces in which He foresaw he would live faithfully and holily and die, and therefore would attain eternal life; while He placed Cain in another series, in which He foresaw that he would sin by his own freedom and malice, would live and die impiously, and therefore would be condemned — all this was the work of the mere good pleasure and election of God, to whom it pleased to distribute His gifts and graces in this way without any merit on Abel's part or demerit on Cain's.
Therefore, from the mass of human nature and lineage corrupted by original sin, God predestined and "blessed" the elect: first, because He placed them in that series of graces in which He foresaw they would cooperate with grace until the end of life and would certainly be saved — that is, He predestined them from eternity, and in the course of their lives gave them the grace that would be congruent and efficacious for them; second, He "blessed" them because He conferred justice upon them, and perseverance in it until death; third, He "blessed" them because He assigned them to heaven and glory, saying: "Come, blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," Matthew XXV. For these are the three effects of predestination, according to Romans VIII, 30: "Those whom He predestined, He also called: and those whom He called, He also justified: and those whom He justified, He also glorified." The rest, who were to be reprobated, He "cursed": first, because He left them in the mass corrupted and cursed by original sin; or, if at some point He rescued them from it by grace, He permitted them to relapse into it through actual sin. Second, once they were already subject to sin, He "cursed" them — that is, He regarded them with hatred, devoted them, and consigned them to eternal malediction unless they repented. Third, He "cursed" them — that is, He permitted them to become hardened in sin and malediction in this life and to die in that state, and thereby He actually condemned them and banished them to hell, saying: "Depart, you cursed, into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels," Matthew XXV.
This malediction, therefore, presupposes sin, either original or actual: for God cursed, reprobates, and condemns no one except on account of his guilt; for reprobation is an act of vindictive justice, while God's predestination is an act of God's grace and mercy. Wherefore all the reprobate incurred and incur the temporal and eternal malediction of God on account of their sins. For God has providence over all, but a different providence for the good and the wicked: for the good He has a direct, active, and efficacious providence; for the wicked and sinners, an indirect, permissive, and punitive one. For it is blasphemous and horrible what Calvin says — that God is the author of evil works as well as good, and consequently that God, before any foresight of works, predestined St. Peter and assigned him to heaven, but reprobated Judas and assigned him to hell. Wisely St. Fulgentius writes to Monimus: "God, he says, is not the author of those things of which He is the avenger." St. Augustine, in the Sentences, number 379: "God, he says, of whose evils He is not the author, is the just avenger."
Therefore, to summarize what has been said, the wisdom of God is said here to have discriminated between the good and the wicked, the elect and the reprobate, both because He maintained and maintains a different mode and order of providence with the one group than with the other; and because the good and elect by their preparation and cooperation are worthy to be separated from the wicked and reprobate through justifying grace and glory; and so the most just wisdom of God judges that they should be separated. This will become clearer from what follows. For God predestined the elect from eternity, and in time gives them efficacious or congruent grace; but to the reprobate He gives sufficient but inefficacious and incongruent grace, because they themselves refuse to cooperate with it — and God had foreseen this. For efficacious grace is the grace of predestination, and therefore God's greatest benefit. For although sufficient but inefficacious grace is likewise a great gift of God — because it is often physically equal to, or even greater than, efficacious grace — yet efficacious grace, on account of the effect and fruit it actually produces, is in moral estimation a far greater benefit of God than sufficient grace. For efficacious grace alone actually provides us with conversion, good works, and that great gift of perseverance, and through it leads a person directly and infallibly to salvation and eternal glory — none of which merely sufficient grace accomplishes.
Therefore everyone must pray continuously and ardently for efficacious grace, since the hinge of salvation and of every good depends upon it; for we cannot merit it by good works, but can only beg and obtain it from God by prayer. For, as St. Augustine says, De Praedestinatione sanctorum, chapter VIII: "This grace is rejected by no hard heart; for it is given precisely so that the hardness of heart may be removed. When therefore the Father is heard inwardly and teaches that one should come to the Son, He takes away the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. For thus He makes children of the promise and vessels of mercy, which He has prepared for glory." The same author, book II of De Bono perseverantiae, chapter XIV, epistle 107, and elsewhere calls this grace lofty, secret, according to the purpose of God, proper to the predestined and the elect. And in De Spiritu et littera, chapter XXXIV: "Now, he says, if anyone presses us to search that depth — why this one is persuaded in such a way as to be convinced, but that one is not — only two answers come to mind for the present: 'O the depth of riches!' and 'Is there injustice with God?'" And the Apostle, Romans IX, 16: "It is not of him who wills, he says, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy." Grace therefore precedes as mistress, and the will
the will follows as a handmaid, says St. Augustine. Whence in book I of De Gratia et libero arbitrio, chapter XVI: "It is certain, he says, that we act when we act; but He causes us to act by providing most efficacious powers to the will." The same, book I of De Gratia Christi, chapter XIV: "For if, he says, everyone who has learned comes, then certainly he who has not come has not learned — by this mode of teaching, by which through the grace of the Spirit God so teaches that what each person has learned, he not only sees by knowing, but also desires by willing and accomplishes by doing." This is what the Apostle says: "God is the one who works in us both to will and to accomplish, according to His good pleasure," Philippians II — that is, not from our merit, but from His good pleasure. Whence we are chosen not because we choose, but because we are chosen, says St. Augustine. St. Bernard writes excellently, in De Gratia et libero arbitrio: "Grace itself, he says, arouses free will when it sows a thought; it heals when it changes the affection; it strengthens so as to lead to action; it preserves lest one feel failure." Let us therefore pray continually with the Church: "Grant, O Lord, to Your supplicants that we may think, by Your inspiration, the things that are right, and by Your governance may do the same."
AND HE HUMBLED, AND OVERTHREW (that is, subverted) THEM FROM THEIR STATION (that is, on account of their separation); — because, namely, the impious and accursed by their own evil free will separated themselves from virtue, the law, and God, from Angels and Saints — so that it is set in opposition to what preceded about the pious and impious, namely that God "drew" them to Himself; just as "humbled" or (as others translate) "depressed" is opposed to "exalted," which preceded. So Rabanus. The similitude therefore lies in this: just as God by His providence distinguished feast days from non-feast days, although all are of the same nature, so also with men — although they are from the same earth and from the same parent Adam, yet God distinguished among them, blessing, exalting, and sanctifying some, while cursing, humbling, and overthrowing others. But the dissimilitude lies in this: that the impious and those to be reprobated, since they are free in their will, He permitted to fall and to sin, and finally on account of their sins He overthrew them with death and destruction both temporal and eternal; whereas the pious and those to be saved He separated from the impious by calling them through congruent grace, by which, with free will cooperating, they would be sanctified, and persisting in holiness, would be blessed and glorified.
The Greek reads: kai anetrepsen autous apo staseon auton, that is, "and He overturned them from their stations and seats, or from their positions." So also the Syriac, meaning: God expelled the impious from their kingdoms, dignities, lands, and regions, as He expelled the Canaanites from Canaan, giving it to the Hebrews. For this is what he properly has in view. You may accommodate the Latin Vulgate, which has "He overthrew them from their station," to this reading and sense, if you take "station" as a separated place, region, and position, from which God uprooted and cast down the impious; according to the words of the Mother of God: "He has put down the mighty from their seat," Luke I, 52. Or, as others say, from their separation — that
is, because they themselves separated themselves from God to pursue idols and vices. For this was their condition. Or else our translator looked to another meaning of the Greek word stasis: for this word frequently signifies sedition, discord, civil war, a faction, by which the seditious separate themselves from the magistrate and the rest of the citizens — indeed declare war upon them, creating for themselves a new head and authority. For in a similar way the impious stir up sedition in the Church and the world, and separate themselves from it and from God their ruler, in order to worship idols and demons; and therefore they are punished and overthrown by God.
13 and 14. AS THE CLAY OF THE POTTER IN HIS HAND, TO FASHION IT AND DISPOSE IT (that is, for fashioning, or so that he may fashion and dispose it at his pleasure; for) ALL HIS WAYS ARE ACCORDING TO HIS DISPOSITION (that is, all the actions and fashionings of the potter are according to his disposition, in Greek eudokian, that is, good pleasure): SO IS MAN IN THE HAND OF HIM WHO MADE HIM, AND HE WILL RENDER TO HIM ACCORDING TO HIS JUDGMENT.
The Tigurine: In the manner of clay which the potter holds in his hand, he directs all his designs at his will: similarly men are in the hand of God their creator, who rewards them according to His judgment; others: As the potter's clay, which follows the hand of him who handles it wherever he pleases, so men are in the hand of their Maker, that He may render to them according to His judgment; the Syriac: As clay, which is formed by the hand of the potter, so is man in the hand of his Creator according to His ordinance in all his works.
First, refer these words to the predestination and reprobation of men, namely: Just as clay is in the hand of the potter, so that from it he may at his pleasure make a vessel for honor — say, an idol to be worshiped — or a vessel for dishonor — say, a chamber-pot: so likewise all men are in the hand of God, so that He may place each one at His pleasure in this or that order of providence and grace — namely, in the order of predestination or of reprobation, to become good or evil, elect or reprobate, blessed or condemned. And so He "renders" — that is, assigns to each — "according to His judgment," that is, as He Himself in His wisdom judges and deems should be done. For, as Rabanus says: "It is in the power of the author and creator to make whatever kind of creature He wishes. Whence God, since we are all of one substance from one and the same mass, and all sinners, shows mercy to some and overlooks others — but never without justification. For in the potter, being a man, there is only will according to free choice; but in God, the creator of all things, there is always a just will together with omnipotence. Whence it is written: Whatever He willed, He made. For He knows on whom He should show mercy according to His foreknowledge and predestination, and whom He should overlook according to His justice and judgment; for supreme justice can will or do nothing except what is entirely just."
St. Augustine vividly and movingly depicts this predestination and reprobation of individuals in the Soliloquia, chapter XXVIII: "You cleanse, he says, from
among us children of men, those in whom You were pleased to dwell; whom from the inaccessible depths of secret and incomprehensible judgments — most wisely, always just though hidden — You predestined before the world without their merits, called from the world, justified in the world, and glorify after the world. Yet You do not do this for all, which all the wise of the earth wonder at and waste away considering. And I, Lord, considering this, am struck with terror and amazement at the depth of the riches of Your wisdom and knowledge, which I cannot reach; and at the incomprehensible judgments of Your justice — for from the same clay You make some vessels indeed for honor, but others for everlasting dishonor. Those therefore whom You have chosen for Yourself out of the many into Your holy temple, You cleanse, pouring clean water over them — whose names and number You know, You who alone count the multitude of stars and call them all by name, who are also written in the book of life, who can by no means perish, for whom all things work together for good, even their very sins. For when they fall, they are not broken, because You place Your hand beneath them, keeping all their bones so that not one of them is crushed." These words concern the elect; about the neglected and reprobate he adds: "Yet the death of sinners is the worst — of those, I say, whom before You made heaven and earth, according to the great abyss of Your hidden judgments (always just, however), You foreknew unto eternal death; the reckoning of whose names and wicked merits is with You, who have counted the number of the grains of sand of the sea, and measured the depth of the abyss — whom You left in their uncleanness; for whom all things work together for evil, and even prayer itself is turned into sin, so that, even if they ascend to the heavens, and their head touches the clouds, and they place their nest among the stars of heaven, like dung they perish in the end. For great are these judgments of Yours, O Lord God, just and mighty judge, who judge with equity and do unsearchable and profound things, which when I consider, all my bones tremble. For man living on earth cannot be secure — that we may serve You piously and chastely all the days of our life in fear, and rejoice before You with trembling, so that there may be no service without fear, nor joy without trembling."
Second, refer these words to the end and the rewards of the good and the wicked — namely, the elect and the reprobate. That is: God exalts, blesses, and beatifies the good; but humbles, curses, and overthrows the wicked from their seats. Because both are in the hand of God, just as clay is in the hand of the potter. Therefore, just as the potter can make from it this vessel for honor and that for dishonor, because he judges each to be fitting and suitable, so God punishes the wicked and rewards the good, because He judges each to be fitting and appropriate for both. For the Hebrew mispat, that is "judgment," signifies that which is fitting or due to each.
This sense is supported by the word apodosei, that is "He will render" — namely, according to the merits of each. Whence the Tigurine translates: who rewards them according to His judgment. Then the word "judgment"; for in order for this to be equitable, it must reward the good with a prize and punish the wicked with a penalty. Furthermore, because he alludes to Jeremiah XVIII, 6, where Jeremiah promises that God will bring back the Jews carried off to Babylon for their sins, if they repent, just as a potter reshapes a broken vessel and makes it beautiful and splendid. The Apostle uses this same similitude of the potter in Romans IX, 21, where I discussed it at length. Therefore I will not add more here.
Lyranus correctly notes that the analogy of the potter is in one respect unlike: the potter intends to make not only noble vessels but also ignoble ones — for example, chamber-pots, to serve the base needs and necessities of men. But God does not intend to make anything except a vessel for honor — that is, a just and holy person who will be blessed; for He cannot will the evil of sin. Since therefore He cannot be the author of moral evil, consequently He cannot be the author of anyone's damnation; for damnation is nothing other than the punishment of sin. Therefore, by His antecedent will, which is properly His own — that is, as far as it depends on Him — God desires and intends to save all, I Timothy II; but by His consequent will, because He sees the impious sinning and persevering in sin until death, He wills to punish and condemn them. For God is not the author of sin, but its just ordainer; because He punishes the disgrace of sin with the beauty of justice. And, as St. Augustine teaches, Enchiridion chapter C, God is so omnipotent and good that He would not allow evils to happen unless He could draw from them greater goods: "The good God, he says, would not allow evil to be done, unless the omnipotent One could also bring good from evil." And so He permits the wicked to exist in the world alongside the good until the day of judgment, on which He will separate the one from the other for eternity.
Boethius writes excellently, book IV of the Consolation of Philosophy: "It is the divine power alone, he says, for which even evils are good, since by using them fittingly, it draws from them the effect of some good."
15. AGAINST EVIL THERE IS GOOD, AND AGAINST DEATH THERE IS LIFE: SO ALSO AGAINST A JUST MAN THERE IS A SINNER. AND SO LOOK UPON ALL THE WORKS OF THE MOST HIGH. TWO AND TWO, AND ONE AGAINST ANOTHER.
So the Roman and other corrected codices read; therefore some incorrectly read "two against two": for it is false that in all the works of God two things are found against two, or two opposed to two. Hence the Greek clearly reads: duo duo, hen katenanti tou henos, that is, "by pairs, one against one," as St. Augustine and Isidore, soon to be cited, read. Whence the Tigurine clearly translates: The contrary of evil is good, and the contrary of death is life; so the pious is opposed to the wicked, and against the pious the wicked: thus in all the works of the Most High you may see pairs, of which one is opposed to the other; the Syriac: In all works, against evil good was created. And against death life was created, and against light was created
darkness: so God has manifested all His works by pairs, one against one.
He gives the reason why God chose some men — namely, the pious — and blessed and sanctified them, while He left others — namely, the impious — in the mass of perdition, cursed and overthrew them. The reason is, first, that the pious might be set against the impious, and piety might overcome impiety. Second, that men seeing the disgrace of the impious and of impiety might perceive how great is the glory, dignity, and beauty of the pious and of piety — just as the power and splendor of whiteness is better known when blackness is set against it, and the sweetness of a sweet food is better tasted when the bitterness of a bitter food is tasted at the same time. Third, that in the good and the elect God might show the riches of His goodness and grace, while in the wicked and reprobate the rigor of His severity, justice, and vengeance, as the Apostle teaches, Romans IX, 22 and 23. Therefore, just as God set good against evil, and life against death — both so that good might conquer evil and life conquer death; so that the beauty of the good and of life, compared with the foulness of evil and death, might appear more clearly and be more esteemed; and so that God's power and majesty might shine more brightly in this juxtaposition of things — so likewise, for the same reasons, God set sinners against the just; and for the same reasons, in the rest of His works He made "two and two," that is, pairs, of which one is opposed to the other. That is: Not only in good and evil men, the elect and reprobate, is this contrariety and juxtaposition seen, but also universally in all other things throughout the whole universe, and this for the beauty, variety, and fullness of the universe.
To these three reasons already given, a fourth can be added: namely, that in this composition and association of contraries the marvelous wisdom of God might shine forth — a wisdom which so joins and combines things plainly discordant and opposed that they appear not contrary and discordant, but harmonious and connatural, to the point that one cannot exist and subsist without the other opposed to it. Thus every mixed body is composed of four contrary elements that fight among themselves. So also the whole world is formed from four elements, among which fire fights against water, and air against earth. So water — that is, moisture, which is oily and subtle — nourishes fire, its contrary, says Aristotle, book III of De Anima. So matter, form, and privation (which is opposed to form) are the three first principles of physics, the principles of every natural thing. So white comes from black; a musician comes from a non-musician, says Aristotle, book I of the Physics. So the beauty and delight of music arises from the consonance and concord of discordant sounds. So theriac, the most salutary antidote, is made from the flesh of the plainly venomous viper; and the most excellent medicines are made from poisonous things, their venom broken and tempered by a fitting mixture among themselves. So from dark ashes mixed with bitite, glass — transparent and translucent — is formed by the force of fire. So man (indeed every animal) is composed of body and soul or spirit, which is incorporeal.
Most wisely St. Augustine, book XI of the City of God, chapter XXII, and book III of De Genesi ad litteram, chapter X, teaches that even harmful animals bring many benefits to man, because, he says, they "either punish him harmfully, or exercise him healthfully, or test him usefully, or teach him unknowingly." On this subject see more in St. Jerome, book II Against Jovinian; St. Ambrose, book III of the Hexaemeron, chapter VI; Lactantius, book VI, chapter IV; and even Cicero, book II of De Natura deorum. Indeed, that even the evil of guilt redounds to the good of man and of the universe is taught by the same St. Augustine, book III of De Libero arbitrio, chapter IX: both because virtue compared to vice shines more brightly; and because the evil of guilt is corrected by the good of punishment; and because in penitents it commends man's repentance and God's mercy in pardoning it. See St. Augustine, Enchiridion chapter XI; Lactantius, De Ira Dei, chapter XIII; and St. Isidore, De Summo bono, chapter XI.
Behold here, marvel at and revere the omnipotence and magnificence of God the Creator in natures so opposed and diametrically contrary. For God in His marvelous wisdom, power, and providence placed the remedy for evil in evil itself, and — so to speak — life in death itself. This is a paradox for men; yet in reality it is evident in serpents, especially the viper, about which there is this epigram, or rather this riddle: While you live, I die; when you die, O viper, I live. That I may live forever, die forever.
Thus the remedy for venom comes from venom, the cure for the viper from the viper itself, which deposits its poison in death, and dying, by its own venom heals other venoms. Therefore we live by the venom of the dying viper; for the preparation of theriac is made from the viper, which was discovered by Andromachus, the famous physician in the time of the Emperor Nero — who was a viper to his mother, for he killed her, just as the young of vipers are said to gnaw through their mother's womb in being born, and so to kill her. By a fitting omen indeed, that he, like a viper, would deposit his venom in death, and his death would be the salvation of the city and the world, which he while living, like a viper, had lethally wounded. So Pliny, book XXIX, chapter IV, writes: "M. Varro in the eighty-eighth year of his life reported that the bites of asps are most efficaciously cured by the bitten persons drinking the urine of the asps themselves." And he adds: "It is established that against the bites of all serpents, however incurable, the entrails of the serpents themselves applied are a remedy; and that those who have once consumed the cooked liver of a viper are never afterward bitten by a serpent. Nor is a snake venomous except when stirred by the monthly moon. But it is helpful if caught alive and crushed in water, and the bite is fomented thus." And further: "Water-snakes, he says, are inferior to no serpents in venom. Their liver, preserved, is a remedy for those struck by them. A scorpion, crushed, counteracts the venom of the gecko."
In a similar way, mystically, the remedy for our death was the death of Christ; for by dying He killed death, and brought forth for us eternal life. So
the remedy for any adversity and cross is sought from adversity and the cross itself, especially that of Christ. For if you consider that a small and brief adversity is creating for you an eternal crown; if you consider how much Christ endured for you — you will easily bear any tribulation, however heavy and troublesome. Indeed, even the remedy for sin was sought from sin itself — that is, from the consideration of the foulness and harm of sin — by St. Paul, St. Magdalene, and the other penitents and saints. I pass over the fact that one contrary, in the presence of the other, intensifies its own force by antiperistasis: so the heat of fire in winter, because of the surrounding cold, sharpens and intensifies itself, and conversely cold in summer intensifies through antiperistasis of heat — just as an enemy gathers his forces in the presence of the enemy, and a rival, in the presence of a rival, in order to resist him. In the same way, faithful and brave men in temptation and adversity put forth all their strength, and therefore emerge stronger and victorious.
So St. Augustine explains this passage in book XI of the City of God, chapter XVIII: "For God, he says, would not have created any being — I do not say of the Angels, but even of men — whom He foreknew would become evil, unless He likewise knew to what good uses He would put them, and thus would adorn the order of the ages, like a most beautiful poem, even with certain antitheses, as it were. For antitheses, as they are called, are the most becoming ornaments of speech, which in Latin are called opposites — or, more expressively, juxtapositions." And shortly after: "Just as these contraries set against contraries produce the beauty of speech, so by a certain eloquence not of words but of things, the beauty of the world is composed by the juxtaposition of contraries. This is most clearly stated in the book of Ecclesiasticus in this way: Against evil there is good, and against death there is life: so against the pious there is a sinner. And so look upon all the works of the Most High: by pairs, one against one."
St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville, follows St. Augustine as his master, in book II of the Origines (Etymologies), chapter XXI: "Antitheses, he says, are what are called 'juxtapositions' in Latin, which, when set against one another, create beauty of thought and are the most becoming ornaments of speech, as Cicero says: 'On this side modesty fights, on that side impudence; here chastity, there debauchery; here fidelity, there fraud; here piety, there crime; here constancy, there madness; here honor, there baseness; here self-restraint, there lust; here finally equity, temperance, fortitude, prudence, and all the virtues contend with injustice, luxury, sloth, with rashness, and with all the vices; lastly, abundance with want, good sense with folly; a sound mind with insanity; good hope at last battles with the despair of all things.' In this kind of contest and battle, in this kind of ornament of speech, the book of Ecclesiasticus has employed, saying: Against evil there is good, and against death there is life: so against the pious there is a sinner. And so look upon all the works of the Most High: by pairs, one against one."
Francisco Valles notes, in the book Sacra Philosophia, chapter LXXV, that "one against one" signifies, first, the Aristotelian principle: "One thing is contrary to one thing"; because two or more things cannot be contrary to one; for contraries are things that are most distant from each other under the same genus. But in the same genus, multiple things cannot be equally distant; therefore it is necessary that there be one which is most distant. He proves the minor premise with many arguments.
Second, "one against one" is true not only of things properly called contraries, but also of the natural antipathies of things. For not all animals wage hostilities with all others; and although many may seem to be opposed to a given animal, yet not all equally; rather, there is a certain one that is chiefly opposed to each: as the dog pursues the hare, but not so the wolf or the lion; nor does the dog pursue the cat or the mouse as it does the hare; the cat pursues the mouse, not some other animal. The same happens in inanimate things as well: for although there are certain antidotes, both simple and compound, which are reckoned to counteract multiple venoms — such as bezoar stone and theriac — yet for individual venoms there are individual proper antidotes, because there is something that peculiarly and properly counteracts each: as rue counteracts aconite, generous wine counteracts opium, and milk counteracts sea-hare. And so there are some antidotes that work generally, and some that work against specific poisons; and against the class of the worse poisons stands the class of alexipharmics — one against one (for in a certain sense each entire genus is also one) — each venom having its own antidote. Moreover, the hatreds and enmities of men seem to imitate this natural law of contrariety: for whenever dissensions arise among many people, whether in one household, or in a city, or in a kingdom, or even among many kingdoms, immediately all those to whom the cause in any way pertains are drawn into two factions — so well suited to division is the number two. And so all hatreds, whether natural or voluntary, seem to operate through pairs, so that necessarily one stands against one, two against two, and so on. All these things have a cause not very different from the first — namely, that there is always some one respect according to which opposition occurs; and according to one respect, only two things can be most distant.
Third, "one against one" also signifies the isonomy of things — that is, an equal distribution or equilibrium. For Epicurus aptly observed that such is the nature of things that all things correspond to all things, equals to equals, similars to similars, and contraries to contraries and opposites; so that in all and every thing a certain equality and correspondence is preserved — so that there are as many things that preserve as things that destroy; and of corporeal and incorporeal things, of mortal and immortal things, and of all other things that are spoken of according to opposition, there is a certain equality. This principle
Finally, the source and origin of this layout, opposition, and contraposition is the Most Holy Trinity itself; for in it the Father is relatively opposed and contraposed to the Son, and the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son; for just as from the Father "all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named," as the Apostle says, Ephesians III, 15: so also from the Son comes all sonship, and from the Holy Spirit all love and procession. Just as, therefore, the supreme opposition of the persons of the Most Holy Trinity ends and unites in the supreme unity and identity of the divine essence: so may all our opposition unite in the unity of concord and charity.
Galen likewise, in the members of the human body that are situated on opposite sides — I mean the right and left parts — observed and celebrated in a wonderful manner what he called the justice of nature. Indeed, there is no part on either side to which there is not an equal counterpart on the other. For they are either paired, with one placed opposite on the other side, also preserving equality of position, such as the eyes, ears, nostrils, kidneys, testicles, hands, legs, and their digits; or they are single, situated in the middle, such as the brain, heart, lungs, stomach, bladder, and uterus; among the external parts, the forehead, mouth, and neck; or they are counterposed on each side to equality, as the spleen is opposed to the liver. So says Valesius.
Now if in natural things we see and endure these oppositions and contrapositions, inasmuch as God established them for the good and completeness of each thing and of the whole universe; why would we not endure the same in moral matters, namely in the diverse and opposing judgments, wills, efforts, disputations, and contests of rivals? We are athletes of God, boxers, wrestlers, and runners in this arena of the world.
To this Seneca adds sharp spurs in Epistle 107, indeed a paradox of Sirach in this very place: "Eternity consists in the contrariety of things. Let equity be commanded upon the soul, says Seneca, and let us pay the tribute of mortality without complaint. Winter brings cold, we must shiver; summer returns heat, we must swelter; bad weather tries our health, we must be sick. A wild beast will confront us in some place, and man more destructive than all beasts. Water will snatch away one thing, fire another. We cannot change this condition of things. What we can do is assume a great soul worthy of a good man, by which we bravely endure what fortune brings and consent to nature. And nature governs this kingdom that you see through changes. Fair weather succeeds cloudy; the seas are disturbed after they were calm; winds blow in turns; day follows night; part of the sky rises, part sinks. Eternity consists in contrariety of things. Our soul must be fitted to this law, follow it, obey it, and think that whatever happens had to happen, and not wish to rebuke nature. It is best to endure what you cannot amend; and to accompany God, by whose authorship all things come about, without murmuring. He is a bad soldier who follows his commander with groaning." And after some intervening words, he teaches that God addresses and exhorts us thus:
"Lead me, O Father, and Ruler of the lofty sky, whithersoever it has pleased You, there is no delay in obeying. I am here, eager. Make me unwilling, I will follow groaning: and will suffer as a bad man what it was permitted to suffer as a good one. Fate leads the willing, drags the unwilling.
So let us live, so let us speak, let fate find us ready and eager. This is the great soul which has surrendered itself to God. But on the contrary, that soul is small and base which struggles against Him and thinks ill of the order of the world, and prefers to amend the gods rather than itself."
16 and 17. And I, the last, have awakened, and as one who gathers grapes after the vintagers. In the blessing of God I also have hoped (Greek ephthasa, which others translate, I attained what I strove to do; others, I anticipated or surpassed): and as one who gathers the vintage, I have filled the wine-press.
Some wrongly read, and I hoped with hope. For the word "hope" [spe] must be deleted, as the Romans note in the errata of the printing.
Sirach inserts these words about himself, about to conclude the preceding sayings and begin the following ones, in order to win for himself the readers' attention through the authority of God, who blessed him and stirred him up to write them, as if saying: Among those whom, in verse 42, I said God blessed, and selected and sanctified for Himself, I am one, and in my kind the last. For I, after all the prophets and sacred writers who ceased to prophesy and write during the Babylonian captivity, after their long silence and as it were three-hundred-year sleep, I have awakened, with God stirring me up to write these sacred parables. But out of humility I do not wish to equal myself to them, but I place them before myself; for they were like vintagers who brought an abundant doctrine of wisdom, like a full grape harvest, into the Church; but I consider myself to be like a gleaner, who after the vintage searches for and gathers a few remaining grapes: for in like manner I too searched out the sayings overlooked by the ancient wise men and writers, and collected them in this book; but behold, God blessed this humility and labor of mine, and brought it about that, because I hoped in His blessing, my gleaning grew into a vintage that filled the "wine-press," that is, I copiously wrote many splendid sayings on every virtue and vice, from which the wine of saving wisdom, watering and inebriating the mind, can easily be pressed out and abundantly drawn by readers. Hence, for "as one who gathers grapes," the Greek is hōs kalamōmenos, that is, as one gathering stalks or ears of grain after the harvest, or a gleaner; but by catachresis the gleaner is taken for the grape-gatherer, who after the vintage collects a few remaining grapes that escaped the eyes and hands of the vintagers, as if saying: I thought I was merely a gleaner of wisdom; but with God blessing me, I became like a vintager and filled the wine-press, that is, I composed a great book packed with very many
sayings, heaped together like grapes, for pressing out and serving the wine of wisdom to the faithful both present and future, especially Christians. Hence the Tigurine version translates: And I, the last, awakened, so that as a gleaner I might hasten after the vintagers, with the Lord granting good fortune, and as in a vintage I might fill the wine-press; others, reading the Greek slightly differently according to the Roman emendation, translate thus: And I, the last, awakened, and I possessed them from the beginning, as one who gathers grapes after the vintagers, by the blessing of the Lord I attained what I wished, and as a vintager I filled the place of the wine-press; the Syriac: I also came last like a gleaner after the vintagers, and in the good things of God I stood, and like a vintager I filled my wine-press. Sirach therefore says he was the last sacred writer, who placed as it were the colophon and crown upon the Sacred Scripture of the Old Testament, so that it was now full and abounding in every wine of wisdom, especially ethical wisdom for forming morals. For although the books of the Maccabees were written shortly after Ecclesiasticus, nevertheless they are not reckoned among the ketubim, that is among the sacred writings, but among the historical books. Add that they are not held by the Hebrews in the canon of Sacred Scripture, nor reckoned canonical by them. In a similar way, St. Paul, I Corinthians xv, 8, calls himself the last of the Apostles, indeed an abortive birth; yet he, like a vintager, filled the wine-press of the Church with every kind of Christian doctrine.
Note: The word "I awakened" signifies that sacred teachers and writers are given to a world dwelling in the night of errors and vices, so that they, awakening from it at God's urging, may also rouse others to the study of wisdom. Hence they are like the morning star, or the star of Venus, which after the night rises in the dawn and brings the sun to the world; for thus they bring Christ, who is the Sun of justice, to the world, and are as it were His forerunners and morning stars. Hence St. Peter, Epistle II, chapter 1, verse 19: "We have, he says, the more sure prophetic word: to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." Hence also St. Gregory, Book IX of the Moralia, chapter vii, explaining that passage in Job IX: "Who makes Arcturus, and Orion, and the Hyades, and the inner chambers of the South": by Orion he understands the martyrs, by the Hyades the doctors, who succeeded the martyrs; for Orion rises in winter, but the Hyades after winter at the beginning of spring, and as it were awaken. "Who, he says, are designated after Orion by the name of the Hyades, if not the doctors of holy Church? who, after the martyrs were taken away, came to the world's knowledge at the very time when faith shines more brightly, and the winter of unbelief being driven back, the Sun of truth burns more hotly through the hearts of the faithful: who, when the storm of persecution was removed, and the long nights of unbelief were ended, then arose for holy Church
and now through the springtime of belief a brighter year opens for them. Nor are the holy doctors undeservedly marked by the title of Hyades; for in the Greek language hyetos means rain, and the Hyades took their name from rains: because when they rise they undoubtedly bring showers. Well, then, are those expressed by the title of Hyades, who, brought forth as if to the face of heaven for the state of the universal Church, poured down the showers of holy preaching upon the dry earth of the human breast." And shortly after: "Therefore, when the Hyades come with rains, the sun is led to the higher spaces of heaven: because when the knowledge of the doctors appears, and our mind is watered by the rain of preaching, the heat of faith increases: and the earth, having been watered, advances toward fruit when it recognizes the light of heaven: because we render the harvest of good works more abundantly when we burn more brightly in the heart through the flame of sacred learning: and when through them from day to day celestial knowledge is more and more displayed, the springtime of an interior light is as it were opened to us; so that a new sun may shine in our minds, and He who is known to us through their words may gleam each day more brightly than Himself: for indeed, as the end of the world draws near, heavenly knowledge advances and grows more abundantly with time."
18. Consider that I have not labored for myself alone, but for all those who seek instruction.
Greek paideian, that is, as the Tigurine version has it, education and moral formation for training the young. For a teacher studies not only for himself, but also for his students; and while he teaches them, he teaches himself. He repeats the saying placed at chapter xxiv, verse 47, where I explained it.
19. Hear me, you great ones and all peoples; and you rulers of the Church, give ear.
For it is the duty of rulers to teach their subjects these moral precepts by word and example. Therefore whoever teaches and forms a ruler, prince, or king, teaches, arranges, and forms all his subjects and the whole commonwealth or kingdom: so that whoever would reform a commonwealth must first reform its heads. Thus St. Francis Xavier, about to convert China, attempted the king himself, and asked to be sent as an ambassador from the Viceroy of India to him: for once he was converted, the whole Chinese kingdom would be converted. Hence in the Greek there is no "and all peoples." Whence the Tigurine version: Hear me, chiefs of the people, and leaders of assemblies, give ear; and the Syriac: Hear me, princes of the people, and great ones of the Church, listen to me. Note: In the Greek texts emended at Rome, from here on the order of chapters is quite different: for what has been said so far in this chapter xxxiii, in the Roman Greek texts stands at chapter xxxvi; but what follows in the Latin in this chapter about sons and servants, in the Roman Greek texts stands at chapter xxx. The Complutensian Greek texts, however, agree with the Latin in order.
THIRD PART OF THE CHAPTER. — HE WARNS THAT NO ONE SHOULD GIVE UP HIS GOODS TO SONS OR FRIENDS BEFORE DEATH
20. To son and wife, to brother and friend, do not give power over yourself in your lifetime: and do not give your possessions to another: lest perhaps you repent, and must beg for their return.
That is, to be reclaimed and demanded back. Hence the Tigurine version: lest, led by repentance, you humbly beg for the same back; others: lest, repenting, you must supplicate for them; the Syriac: To son and wife, and brother and friend, do not give power over yourself in your lifetime, while you live and breath is in you. For "wife" the Greek is gynaiki: which signifies both wife and any woman. Therefore he advises first, that power not be given to a wife, and much less to a concubine or any other woman, so that a man lets her rule and dominate him: for a woman's dominion over her husband is against nature and against God's institution of it, Genesis III, 16, and therefore is indecent, disordered, powerless, and intolerable.
Again, a man should not entrust or allow too many and great things to his wife: for afterward he will be hard pressed to take them away from her or restrict them; just as an easement on fields — for example, a right of way and path crossing through a field once introduced — cannot be removed or abolished. For, as the Comic poet says: "By time and usage a favor becomes a debt." Hence Symmachus, in a report delivered in the name of the Senate to the Emperor: "Once the profits granted to the honor of the City cease to belong to those who grant them: and what was at first a favor, by usage and time becomes a debt." King Theodoric, in Cassiodorus, Book III, Epistle 39: "Therefore, he says, let your illustrious greatness know that we have been approached by the Milanese charioteers, that those things have been taken from them in your times which ancient custom had granted, since over time munificence stands as law. Therefore, if the claims are not vitiated by any falsehood, it is fitting that your sublimity follow antiquity, which by a certain privilege of its own demands, as debts, what is given."
Second, possession and inheritance should not be given and resigned to him; for through it he receives, or invades and seizes, full governance and power over the master and household. The same he forbids regarding son, brother, and friend. He adds the reason: "Lest perhaps you repent, and must beg for their return," as if saying: Surely you will repent of the deed and the gift: because you will be forced to become their suppliant, and to beg them to provide you what is necessary for food and clothing — you who were previously honored and petitioned by those same suppliants. The antistrophe to this saying of Sirach is that Arabian proverb, Century II, number 94: "Do not be the dog of your friends." For a dog begs at its master's table. And that one, Century I, number 34: "Do not be a horse to your friend, lest you fall. For he who subjects himself too much to a friend becomes his beast of burden, and brings upon himself contempt, poverty, and heavy burdens. Therefore it is prudent
the counsel of the wise man: "Visit your friend rarely, lest growing tired of you he come to hate you." Following this, St. Gregory Nazianzen rarely visited the Emperor Theodosius and his courtiers who were his friends, as his Life relates. Finally, such great power should never be given to a friend that it drives or compels the friend to sin. Hence Pericles, as Plutarch relates in his Life, when asked by a friend to perjure himself on his behalf, replied courageously: "That he was a friend only as far as the altar." And P. Rutilius, when a certain friend asked with indignation: "What use is your friendship to me, if you will not do what I ask?" replied: "Rather, what use is yours to me, if on your account I am going to do something dishonorable?" So Valerius Maximus, Book VI, chapter IV.
This precept must be observed by every prudent man, but especially by a ruler, prelate, prince, and king. For if he allows anyone to dominate him, he will surely be king in name only, and will not rule but be ruled by that person: whence it will come about that he loses his freedom, and draws upon himself the envy and hatred of his subjects, and the commonwealth is badly administered by one who seeks and pursues not the common goods of the commonwealth but his own private profits. Moreover, there are many who insinuate themselves into the minds of princes, so that they may at last seize the reins of power and dominate the princes. Such are especially the ambitious and the politicians, who strive to advance themselves and their own, and therefore contend for this by right and wrong. Therefore when human supports fail them, they seek diabolical ones, and by magical arts and love potions they enchant princes, so that they, as if out of their minds, approve all their words and deeds, and depend entirely upon them and their counsels, even wicked and harmful ones, and cannot be torn away: indeed, they raise them from the lowest rank to the highest dignities and prelatures, or see to it that they are raised; so that, shielded by those persons, they cannot be cast down, brought low, or punished. And this is the fraud of the wicked and of the devil, by which he strives to destroy kings and kingdoms. For when a wicked politician rules, wickedness rules; when a heretic or atheist commands, heresy and atheism command; when a sorcerer dominates, the devil dominates, who presides over the sorcerer, whom the sorcerer worships and invokes, indeed to whom he has devoted and bound himself and his own. He therefore through them, as through his harpies, plunders, corrupts, and subverts the commonwealth. But God, who sees these wicked arts of theirs, at last strikes and destroys them, and brings it about that they live in infamy, and are slaughtered by an infamous death, often violent, and that by those very princes whom they had delighted, as Ahithophel perished through David, Haman through Ahasuerus, Sejanus through Tiberius, Ablavius through Constantius, Eutropius through Arcadius, and very many others even in our
own age. Indeed, the devil, possessing their souls and bodies by compact, driven by the monstrous hatred with which he burns against God, His creatures, and especially against all men, is accustomed to deceive them and soon craftily hurl them into infamous ruin: as we have seen happen rather often in various places in this age, and see it happening daily. Let princes therefore beware of such men, and allow none of them to command and dominate them, unless they wish to expect and witness certain destruction of themselves and their own. But let them choose as counselors only those whom they know for certain to be orthodox and upright, of unblemished reputation and life, and who pursue not their own interests but those of the prince and the commonwealth: and let them not easily trust themselves to one alone, but hear and follow many.
Thus Alfonso, king of Aragon, the glory of kings and a model of wisdom, used to say that it seemed utterly absurd to him that kings should be ruled by others and leaders led by others. He noted that princes and magnates who claim for themselves the titles of empire and principality are nevertheless governed by another's counsel, even unwillingly: whence it happens that often, to the great harm of the commonwealth, they see with others' eyes, hear with others' ears, and speak with others' tongues. And thus they are nothing less than Emperors, who depend so much on the judgment of their counselors that they are plainly their slaves. So reports Panormitanus, Book II of the Deeds of Alfonso.
21. While you still survive and breathe, let no flesh change you.
That is, while you live and are a survivor, while the breath of life is in you, see to it that "all flesh," that is every man, does not change you and your mind, namely from what I have just taught you, as if saying: Let neither brother, nor son, nor any man overturn your judgment, so that contrary to my warning you subject yourself to others and yield your goods to them in your lifetime.
The Greek text reads: mē allaxēs seauton pasē sarki, that is, do not alienate or emancipate yourself to any flesh, that is, subject yourself to no man; others: do not exchange yourself with any man; the Tigurine version: While you live, and any breath remains in you, do not emancipate yourself to any mortal; the Syriac: While you live and breath is in you, do not give power over yourself to any flesh.
Our translator read: mē allaxē se pasa sarx, that is, all flesh shall not change, or let not all flesh change you. He adds the reason, saying:
22. For it is better that your sons should ask of you, than that you should look to the hands of your sons.
That is, it is better for you that your sons depend on you, than you on your sons: that they ask for necessities from you, rather than you from them. For sons, intent on feeding and increasing themselves and their families, easily forget their parents, and often one transfers the care of them to another. Hence the Complutensian text has: It is better that sons should need you, than that you should look to the hands of your sons: as hungry dogs look to their master's hands, that he might throw them his bones, that is, as others translate, it is better that they should supplicate and beg from you, than you from them. The Syriac: Do not give your riches to others, so that you must exact and seek from them: because it is better that your sons should ask from you, than that you should ask from them. Likewise
the same advice Aesop, the prince of fabulists, gave to his son Ennus: "Every day, he said, store away for the morrow: for it is better to leave something to enemies when dead, than to be in need of friends while alive." So Planudes in the Life of Aesop.
Well known is the story of the father who, having distributed all his goods to his sons, was deserted by all of them and reduced to poverty, and by this stratagem extorted sustenance from his sons: he filled a chest with stones and pretended that he had stored a great treasure in it: therefore, so that he might be named his heir, each son strove to bind the parent to himself with gifts and favors. Thus the parent lived sumptuously and defeated fraud with fraud. For when he died, the sons eagerly searching the chest found nothing in it but stones.
23 and 24. In all your works be preeminent. Do not give a stain to your glory.
So reads the Roman text, although others read "to your glory": the Syriac, in your honor; others: Do not impose a blemish on your glory; the Tigurine version: In all your affairs maintain the first place, so that you do not stamp a stain upon your reputation. Hence Lyranus, Palacius, Jansenius, and others give first this fitting and genuine sense: In all the affairs of your life be the master of your own things, so that others are subject to you, not you to others, lest you obscure this glory of mastery by the stain either of poverty, by which you are forced to beg shamefully from others what you previously gave to them; or of imprudence, because you gave your goods to others, as if you yourself could not prudently administer them, and because you allowed them to dominate you and made yourself their quasi-servant. For when parents are prodigal or delirious with their goods, the magistrate usually places them under interdict, and their administration is transferred to sons or guardians.
Hence Rabanus, following St. Gregory, applying these words mystically in his usual way to pastors, princes, and prelates: "This entire reasoning, he says, teaches fathers in the historical sense how to preside rightly over their children and nurture them with discipline, until they reach maturity, so that they may be worthy heirs of their parents after their departure: and it instructs the rulers of the Church in the spiritual sense, to hold the dignity of their order with reasonable authority and just moderation to the end: and thus to leave behind well-nurtured disciples, useful heirs of their labor. Then it teaches how they should present themselves in their way of life as equals to their subjects, and yet place themselves before sinners with the zeal of correction. On which occasion he adds a golden lesson for the life of prelates, saying: It must be carefully considered, lest while the virtue of humility is guarded too immoderately, the rights of governance be dissolved: and lest, when any Prelate abases himself more than is fitting, he be unable to bind the lives of his subjects under the bond of discipline. Let rulers therefore maintain outwardly what they undertake for the benefit of others: let them preserve inwardly what they fear regarding their own esteem: but yet, by certain signs breaking forth becomingly, let their subjects discover them to be humble within themselves, so that they may see in their authority what to fear, and recognize in their humility what to imitate. Let those who preside therefore strive without ceasing, that the more their power is perceived as great outwardly, the more it may be pressed down inwardly within them: lest it overcome their thought, lest it snatch their soul into self-delight, lest their mind no longer be able to govern that power beneath it, to which it subjects itself by the lust of dominating. For he is rightly counted among hypocrites who turns the ministry of governance into the exercise of domination under the likeness of discipline: and yet sometimes the fault is graver when among the perverse equality rather than discipline is maintained. For because Eli, overcome by false piety, refused to strike his sinning sons, before the strict Judge he struck himself along with his sons by a cruel condemnation. Therefore let the rulers and teachers of the Church rightly maintain their order, and govern and guard their subjects with discipline; so that when they have ministered well, they may acquire for themselves a good standing, and with Christ granting eternal kingdom for their good merits, receive it at the end of life."
Second, this saying can be taken more generally with Jansenius, as if saying: In all that you do, present yourself as "preeminent," that is, as the chief and as it were the director, master, and lord, and do not commit what must be done to others, so that they are the leaders of the works and you do everything at their discretion.
Third, this saying can be taken properly and most broadly, as it sounds. For the Greek hyperagon means the same as surpassing, excellent, eminent, as if saying: In all your works be excellent and eminent, so that you do even the smallest things exactly, perfectly, and eminently, so that not even in the slightest thing do you deviate from what is right and perfect through favor or fear of men; but mastering fear, favor, and other passions, you follow and do in every matter what is more honorable, holier, more excellent, and more pleasing to God. Therefore be eminent in prudently administering your goods (for on the occasion and in respect of this, Sirach weaves in this general saying here and applies it to it), and do not yield to the prayers or threats of sons or friends to cede your goods to them before death; or commit any other similar thing less worthy of you, base, or abject. Likewise, do your other works excellently and eminently, so that if you teach, you teach excellently: if you study, you study excellently; if you preach, you preach excellently; if you pray, you pray excellently; if you eat, you eat so soberly, becomingly, and eminently that you seem to surpass other men, as in our age Pope Gregory XIII did, and so with all the rest.
DO NOT GIVE A STAIN TO YOUR GLORY — so that to a work which you have done or are doing excellently, you do not admix anything less becoming or upright, which might stain or disgrace it, as Solomon did, who in his youth was eminent in wisdom and every royal virtue; but in his old age, seduced by women, he lost his wits, and worshiping idols gave a great stain to his glory, Ecclesiasticus chapter xlvii, 22.
With this saying agrees that of chapter xxxi, verse 27: "In all your works be swift," Greek oxytreche, that is strenuous, agile, keen, "and no sickness shall come upon you." Which saying, general in itself, Sirach applies to banquets, so that at them a guest should rise quickly and resolutely at the proper time, and go home: just as here the words "in all your works be preeminent" he applies to the administration of goods.
The method of doing each work excellently is suggested by our Ludovicus de Puente, in On Christian Perfection, treatise IV, chapter xv, namely if to each you add the six wings of the Seraphim, by which they fly to heaven, which are: "the memory of the presence of God" who exists everywhere, and who watches what you think, say, or do; "a pure intention of His greater glory," striving in all that you do to please Him, and always to carry out His divine will, because He is supremely good; "prayer," which should give a beginning to your works and accompany them by seeking divine help, so that you may carry them out with the perfection that He Himself commands and counsels; "trust in God," on whom all your good depends, from whose omnipotence you may hope that He will aid your weakness; from His mercy, that He will have compassion on
and I shall rejoice that I thought, acted, and spoke thus. For "the recompense of eternal goods is immense and infinite," says St. Hilary on Psalm cxviii, letter Heth. And he adds: "Open and ample is the possession of a faithful heart for God, that He may dwell in it and walk within it, etc., that we may be God's dwelling place. And while He walks in us, He Himself becomes our possession: thus let us leave the world, if we renounce fleeting earthly possessions, if we reject the inheritance of perishable things, if while living we have departed from the world."
your misery; from His faithfulness, that in your temptations and dangers He will protect you; from His providence, that He will guide you in all your ways. And from these the two last wings arise: "fortitude," namely in undertaking arduous things, casting away all fear of difficulties; and "perseverance" to the end of the works begun, patiently tolerating whatever troubles arise. For, as Isaiah said: "Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength," Isaiah xl, 31, putting on a fresh one, namely another and better; "they shall take wings like eagles," to fly in spirit and exalt their works from earth to heaven; "they shall run, and not grow weary," because of the delight with which God "enlarges their hearts in the way of the divine commandments; they shall walk, and not faint," but shall persevere in the works of His service, until they obtain the crown of glory.
Morally, from this let the wise man learn to excel in all his works, namely to do them excellently even though they are small in themselves; for thus from small things he will make eminent ones: for it is eminent to excel in every matter, however small. Hence an excellent grammarian is worth more than a mediocre orator or philosopher. For excellence is something eminent, which by its splendor dazzles and captivates the eyes of all. "It is better, says Plato in the Theaetetus, to do one small thing well than many things perfunctorily." For everything that is done well is great: but not everything that is great is done well, nor is it eminent because it is great.
A keen spur to this is, if you consider that "what is once said and done is eternal," for what has been once said or done is irrevocable, and cannot be unsaid or undone; but what is said and done remains, and will remain through all eternity. It therefore becomes eternal; so that if it is good and excellent, you will rejoice over it for eternity and obtain eternal praise and glory: but if bad, or deficient and diminished, you will grieve and repent of it for eternity, and undergo eternal ignominy and punishment. Before each action, therefore, think: "I work for eternity: I live for eternity:" I shall therefore work and live excellently, so that I may paint in my soul, indeed in the whole world, an image, indeed an ideal of virtue, which God, the Angels, and men may praise for eternity. The painter Zeuxis, asked why he painted so painstakingly and exactly, replied: "I paint for eternity," according to Pliny, Book xxxv, chapters ix and x, and Plutarch in his Pericles. Let the faithful and holy person rather say this to himself: Behold, the choice is given me in all works, words, and thoughts to paint an eminent image of virtue, or a deformed image of vice: I shall paint that of virtue, so that my works may shine for me in heaven like stars with joy; not that of vice, which divine justice will condemn and burn with eternal fire: "I shall paint for eternity," I shall work so excellently as I will wish through all eternity that I had worked: I shall think, act, and speak as for eternity I shall wish
The second spur is, if you consider the excellence and immensity of the divine majesty: for to One so preeminent, only eminent and preeminent works should be offered: for He Himself desires and wishes such, and values one eminent work more than ten ordinary ones. If courtiers serve princes and kings so exactly and eminently that nothing could be desired: with how much perfection must the King of kings and Lord of lords be served? Therefore Blessed Teresa vowed to God that in every matter she would do what was best and most excellent. Thus St. Mechtilde spoke so angelically that you would think you were hearing not a human being, but an angel speaking in her. Thus Sts. Athanasius, Basil, Augustine, Jerome, Anthony, Bernard, Dominic, Francis, and the other eminent Saints did all their things in a manner elevated above men, so that they seemed to be not so much men as angels: indeed, "they lived like divinities, they spoke like oracles;" and what St. Gregory Nazianzen writes of St. Basil: "Their speech was thunder, because their life was lightning."
The third spur is the one that St. Anthony, about to die, gave to his followers, and Barlaam to King Josaphat, in Damascenus' History, namely, if every day when you rise you think that this day may perhaps be your last: and therefore seriously resolve to do each work of that day so exactly, as if it were to be your last, so that you may dare to present it to Christ the Judge who is soon to come, and be judged on it, and hope to be saved and rejoice. In the morning, therefore, have this premeditated: "Today I shall begin to serve God, today I shall also finish. I do not wish therefore to degenerate from the lofty thoughts of the children of God. I shall measure my actions by the great measure of the great and heroic." To this belongs that teaching of Seneca: "Go against the opinion of the crowd, as the stars go from West to East." And that: "The smallest things must not be neglected, but must be treated as the greatest," both because progress from the smallest leads to the greatest, and "because nature is nowhere more fully present than in the smallest things," says Pliny, Book XI, chapter II. Thus St. Gregory Nazianzen in his poem to Nicobulus teaches that each person should measure himself by a great measure, that is, aspire to great things:
"But whoever is wise should measure himself by a great measure and a great foot: and it is better to hold second place among the great than first place among the lowly. Just as it is better for thin larks to fly high through the air below the eagles, than to soar above the earth."
And as he also says, Epistle 57 to Eudoxius: "Do not be content to excel among jackdaws when you can be an eagle." For it is splendid that one who pursues the very best should end up in second or third place. The same Nazianzen, in his Distichs: "Come, he says, having left this world and shaken off the world's burdens, spread your sails toward the heavenly life; and carry out all excellent works, as is worthy of God: but especially let the Trinity be your care." The same elsewhere says: "We celebrate feasts, if we shine forth in our actions," making them, that is, more illustrious and splendid than those of others. St. Cyprian, in On the Singularity of Clerics: "What is done as holy, he says, is not holy, unless what is holy is performed in a holy manner." St. Augustine, on Psalm xxxiv, at the end: "Take up, speak, praise God. Whatever you do, do it well, and you have praised God." It was an axiom of St. Bernard, which Gerson recites in his Dialogue of Francis, and Augustine, volume II: "God does not reward verbs, but adverbs," that is, He does not consider what we do, but how well and splendidly. St. Basil, in his Sermon on the Hidden Things, decrees: "Carry out diligently the ministry assigned to you, just as if you were ministering to Christ Himself." Indeed Apuleius on the God of Socrates: "Nothing, he says, is more like and more pleasing to God than a perfect soul: a good man, who excels other men as much as he himself is excelled by the immortal gods." To this belongs the symbol of Pythagoras: "Do not leave a residue at the bottom of the cup: that is, Thoroughly exhaust the arts you have begun." And that other one of his: "Do not stand upon the bushel measure:" that is, Do not be content with moderate and mediocre things, but strive for the highest. Do not sit on the choenix: that is, Have care not only for the present but also for the future. "For the choenix is the measure of a day's food."
In the day of the completion of the days of your life, and in the time of your departure, distribute your inheritance.
That is, when death is imminent, distribute your goods to your sons, friends, or the poor, either by actually dividing them among them, or by drawing up a will in which you order them to be distributed. The Tigurine version: At the time when the days of your life are to end, when you must die, distribute your inheritance; others: In the day (at the time) when the days of your life shall be ended, and in the time of death distribute your inheritance; the Syriac: At the time when the number of your days shall be completed, and on the day of your death appoint your sons as heirs of your wealth, lest it pass to strangers.
You will say: This saying seems contrary to that of Christ: "If you would be perfect, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor," Matthew xix, 21, which all Religious follow and practice. I reply that it is not contrary, but subordinate: for Sirach prudently orders that goods not be given to sons or friends before death; but Christ counsels them to be given to the poor out of zeal for almsgiving and virtue. Sirach instructs the Jews, Christ instructs Christians. Sirach prescribes the common way of living for a rude age, Christ establishes the summit of perfection through the counsel of evangelical poverty, of which the carnal Jews were incapable, for the Apostles and their followers.
Finally Palacius rightly says: Note, he says, it is one thing to leave all things out of charity and trust in God, which the Gospel counsels and which perfect men have done; another, to give goods to someone out of human friendship and trust, which Ecclesiasticus forbids, and those who did so repented and grieved. Note also that the time of the Gospel and of the old law are different. In the latter, felicity consisted in being rich and a master, and this felicity was given for good works; but in the former, felicity consists in lacking temporal things and adhering to divine things alone.
On the other hand, the elderly Eleazar preferred to die rather than eat pork forbidden by the law: "Lest by this, he said, I bring a stain and execration upon my old age," II Maccabees vi, 25. This is what the royal Psalmist prays, Psalm L: "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation (St. Jerome: of Your Jesus), and with a princely spirit confirm me." "Princely," that is chief, primary; St. Jerome, powerful; the Hebrew nediba; Greek hēgemonikō; that is first, with a princely spirit that befits a prince and king, such as David was; second, with a spirit that like a prince rules and dominates in the soul over lust, vices, and concupiscences: so St. Jerome; third, one that going before me as a prince leads all my actions and makes them eminent, princely, and royal. Fourth, nediba can be translated with the Tigurine version as voluntary, spontaneous, liberal, beneficent, namely one that by His gifts makes me freely and spontaneously walk, indeed run the way of the Lord, be generous to all, fully obey God in all things, cheerfully resist temptations, and bravely bear any cross. Symbolically, St. Jerome says: The princely Spirit is God the Father, the right Spirit is God the Son, the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit Himself. Better, St. Gregory on Psalm L: The Holy Spirit (he says) is princely, is right, is holy. It is He who impels and elevates us, that we may do works that are excellent, heroic, and that surpass nature and the common measure of other Saints. Hence whenever Samson was about to perform some excellent work of strength, it is prefaced: "The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon Samson," as is clear from Judges xiv, 6 and 19, and xv, 14. This Holy Spirit, therefore, must be constantly invoked by one who wishes to produce heroic works of virtue.
FOURTH PART OF THE CHAPTER. — HOW SERVANTS SHOULD BE GOVERNED.
25. Food, and the rod, and a burden for the donkey: bread, and discipline, and work for the servant.
From sons he passes to servants and slaves, such as formerly existed among the Jews and the nations; but now among Christians servants are called household attendants, who hire out their labor to a master; hence they are properly not slaves, but free men, laborers, and hirelings. Here he compares servants to donkeys, as if saying: A master owes three things to a donkey, namely food, the rod, and a burden: the same he owes to a servant, namely bread, discipline, and work. Servants therefore are to be governed like donkeys. For "food" the Greek is chortasmata, that is, fodder of hay. Therefore in place of the hay that is owed to the donkey, says Jansenius, the servant is given bread, that is, food that is necessary and not luxurious. In place of the rod that is owed to the donkey, the servant is given discipline, that is, chastisement and correction. In place of the burden with which donkeys are loaded, the servant is given work, by which he is to be pressed and kept in his duty. The sense therefore is: As hay, the rod, and a burden befit the donkey, so bread, discipline, and work befit the servant. And Aristotle writes that servants are owed work, punishment, and nourishment. Hence among the Hebrews, according to Aldrovandus, Book I on Quadrupeds, the donkey is a symbol of the disciple and of discipline, because one must endure many things in the manner of donkeys. Hence Ammonius of Alexandria, the teacher of Origen and Porphyry, is said to have used a donkey as a fellow student for them. And Cleanthes was not ashamed of the donkey's name: "I am indeed a donkey, he said, but one who can carry the burden of Zeno." Indeed the Psalmist says: "I have become like a beast of burden before You," Psalm lxxii, verse 22. The Tigurine version translates: As fodder, the rod, and burdens befit a donkey, so food, chastisement, and work befit a servant; the Syriac: Fodder, and the whip, and work for the donkey: and discipline, and bread, and work for the servant. "Bread" is necessary for life and the strength to work, "discipline"
for restraining wantonness, "work" for driving away idleness; "bread" for sustenance, "discipline" for chastity, "work" for frugality. To this belong the axioms of Aristotle about servant and master in his book on Economics: "One must give the servant work and sufficient food. It is fitting that the master rise before the servant and go to bed after him. What best fattens the horse is the master's eye: and the best manure for the field is the master's footprints. The more diligently one serves, the greater favor he will obtain. Everyone takes it very hard to be deprived of his honor."
Rightly is a servant or slave compared to a donkey, because he is often stupid, dull, slow, and hard like a donkey, whose head by its very shape betrays its stupidity, slowness, and hardness. On this subject there is a witty riddle, or rather epigram, of the donkey:
The horse is judged by its hoof, the hare by its ear, the lion by its voice, the wolf by its color, but the donkey by its whole head.
Well-worn is that popular saying:
The nut, the donkey, and the woman are bound by the same law: these three do nothing right if beatings cease.
Hence Cujacius the jurist, among other reasons why servants are said to be diminished in legal status in the Institutes, On Diminution of Status, and law 2, section 1, Digest, On Diminution of Status, also brings forward this: "Servants, he says, are also said to be diminished in status on account of the loss of liberty, because, deprived as it were of their own reason and judgment, they are compelled to act and live by another's reason and counsels."
And Solomon, Proverbs xxix, 19: "A servant, he says, cannot be instructed by words: because he understands what you say, and disdains to respond." Understand this of the servant who is of a servile, hard, and rebellious nature.
To this belong the maxims of the Philosophers. Euripides in the Antiope: "Never, he says, should a servant handle liberal studies, nor pursue leisure." For studies make servants proud, even if they are not rarely unteachable; leisure makes them lazy and thieves. The same author in the Alexander: "So bad is the race of servants. They are nothing but belly, and do not look ahead to anything future." Theognis: "Never is the servile head straight, but it always has a twisted and crooked neck." Democritus: "Use servants, like parts of the body, one for one thing and another for another." Plato, Book VI of the Laws, teaches that piracies, thefts, and robberies have arisen from servants.
Mystically, the body is the servant and donkey of the soul, and three things are owed to it, namely common food, chastisement, and work. Thus St. Francis called his body "Brother Donkey" and treated it like a donkey, because he compelled it to carry heavy burdens of labors and penances, and to eat little, and common and cheap foods. St. Laurence Justinian says splendidly in the Tree of Life, treatise On Sobriety, chapter III: "Often, he says, while we pursue the enemy in the flesh, we also slay the citizen whom we love; and for the most part while we show compassion as if to a fellow citizen, to the battle of the enemy
we nourish: if therefore too much and immoderate fervor persuades us to withdraw from the flesh the nourishment it needs, we must say to it what a certain man said to Joab: If you were to weigh out in my hands a thousand pieces of silver, I would not put forth my hand against the king's son," II Kings xviii, 12.
And St. Bernard, Sermon 1 on Palm Sunday, teaches that the Religious is mystically the she-donkey on which Christ sat, and that this is a great dignity: first, because he touches Christ most closely; second, because he devotes and expends himself entirely in His service; third, because he carries Christ; fourth, because he has Him within himself, and also carries Him about to others. Therefore he addresses his monastery's charges with jubilation: "Should I be silent, lest you fall into elation; or should I rather speak, that you may have consolation? The beast on which Christ sits, are you not that, according to the Apostle's precept, glorifying and carrying God in your bodies?" The same author in his Rule or Way of Living in a Monastery: "When you come, he says, to ask something from the Prior, prepare yourself always for a refusal; and if what you ask is denied, say to yourself: What befitted a little donkey but a bridle and a goad? I can properly claim nothing in this house except a hair shirt and a cross; a hair shirt in death, and a cross in the grave. This is my inheritance, yet so that a small clod of earth may cover the cross." Well known is the saying of the elder in the Lives of the Fathers: "I and the donkey are one:" by which he compared himself to complete endurance of all things. In the Chronicles of St. Francis, the Blessed Jacoponus is famous, who, when in the world he was a man noble in intellect, learning, and office, was suddenly struck and moved to compunction by the death of his wife, crushed by the collapse of a platform at a wedding,
he resolved to renounce the world, and requesting the habit of St. Francis, he heard from the brothers: "If you wish to live among us, you must become a donkey, so that you live like a donkey among donkeys." Immediately therefore he put on the skin of a donkey, and crawling on hands and feet: "Behold, he said, brothers, I am a donkey, admit a donkey among donkeys." Once admitted, he was a mirror of humility, mortification, charity, and all virtues. His Life, filled with heroic virtues, survives.
Symbolically: The patience of the donkey, says Aldrovandus in his work on the Donkey, teaches people that each should faithfully and diligently do his own lot and what is present and at hand, and that each should live content with his own fortune; and not refuse labors, provided they are honest, even if worthy rewards do not follow. As Stigelius also advises in his poem on the laborious donkey:
Be a donkey; harsh fate has made everyone a donkey: he who knows how to bear his lot patiently is wise.
And that saying: "If you cannot drive a horse, drive a donkey."
Moreover, although the donkey is considered by everyone's judgment to be lowly and most wretched, it is nevertheless more blessed than man himself, because it does not bring misery upon itself, which man does, as the most ancient Menander says.
Aldrovandus adds two fables to this point. The first: A donkey considered a horse blessed, because it was abundantly and carefully fed, while the donkey itself did not have enough chaff, and was especially exhausted. But when the time for war arrived, and a soldier mounted the armed horse, driving it here and there, and even leaped into the midst of the enemy, the horse was wounded and fell. Seeing this, the donkey changed his opinion and considered the horse wretched. The fable signifies that one should not imitate princes and the rich; but considering the envy and danger in their station, should love poverty. The second: A donkey serving a gardener, because it ate little and worked a great deal, prayed to Jupiter to be freed from the gardener and sold to another master. When Jupiter, prevailed upon, ordered it to be sold to a potter, the donkey bore the burdens of mud and tiles with even greater resentment than before. Again therefore he asked to change masters, and was sold to a tanner. Having thus obtained a worse master than the previous ones, and seeing what was done by him, he said with a sigh: "Woe is me, wretch; it would have been better for me to stay with my former masters;" for this one, as I see, will work even my skin. The fable indicates that former masters are most eagerly sought by servants when they have tried their luck with second ones.
He then adds a third fable on the same topic from Aeneas Silvius, which, because it is longer, you may read in his work if you wish. Whence he concludes: "What is fated is incurable." Let each one therefore live content with his lot, that he may be happy and blessed. The donkey's lot is to bear burdens, just as the servant's is to serve. Hence Isidore, Book XII of the Etymologies, asserts that "asinus" (donkey) and "asellus" (little donkey) derive from sitting, as if "assedum," because men, before they used horses, sat upon donkeys. The Greeks call it onon from oneō, as if a beast of burden from helping, because it helps with our work.
26. He works under discipline, and seeks to rest: loosen his hands, and he seeks liberty.
The Greek, Roman, and Tigurine texts for "works" have ergazou, that is, "work" [imperative]; and for paideia, that is discipline, have paidi, that is child or servant; and for zētēsei, that is "he will seek," they read heurēseis, that is "you will find." Hence they read thus: Work your child or servant, and you will find rest, as if saying: If you keep a servant busy and exercise him with imposed work, you will have rest with him; but if you allow him to be idle, he will create troubles for you. For this is what he adds by antithesis: "Loosen his hands, and he seeks liberty." Hence some translate clearly from the Greek: Exercise your servant in work, and you will find rest: release his hand, and he will seek liberty. But our translator read ergazetai, that is "he works," and paideia, that is discipline, and zētēsei, that is "he will seek." The Complutensian Greek texts also read this way except that they retain ergazou, that is "work" [imperative]. But the sense comes out nearly the same; for "work" here is taken in the hiphil conjugation meaning "make" or "compel him to work," namely through discipline and chastisement. It may be that Sirach wrote it both ways, because both are true and fitting, and both exist in approved codices, and
one reading coheres with and is subordinate to the other; for the rest of the servant is the rest of the master, for while the servant works
weary from labors he longs for rest, he does not think of rebellion against his master. So we ourselves, when we write, forge and reforge our works, and sometimes change the same thought, expressing it one way and then another. Therefore in Scripture the same thought sometimes has not only various translations and interpretations, but also various readings, as I showed in Canon VIII of things in the Epistles of St. Paul.
Now first, Lyranus explains our reading thus, as if saying: The servant works as long as he is held under discipline, "and seeks," that is, if he seeks rest from labors without a reasonable cause. Second, our Emmanuel Sa, as if saying: The servant even while he is compelled to work through discipline and chastisement, seeks leisure and rest; what then will he do if you relax discipline? Without doubt he will seek liberty, or flee. Third, Jansenius: He describes, he says, the condition and character of servants, namely that if they are driven to work by discipline and chastisement, they seek rest from their labors, complaining that they are overburdened: but if leisure is allowed them, they seek further even liberty, not content with the relaxation they sought and obtained. It is signified therefore that one should attend not so much to their requests as to what is fitting to impose on them according to their condition. Fourth, Palacius, as if saying: If you have worn out the servant with discipline, you will make him wish for rest but not think of liberty: but if you give him more relaxation from work, you will make him seek liberty without merit. For just as much work, toil, and weariness allow nothing else to be thought about except rest: so idleness and an idle servant meditates and schemes for nothing other than liberty. He speaks of slaves properly so called, namely of bondsmen.
These three last senses are true and fitting; more forceful and more connected, however, are the second and fourth; for they contain a manifest antithesis of the first hemistich with the second, and at the same time give the reason for what preceded, namely why chastisement and work befit the servant just as the donkey, because the servant is of a servile and asinine nature and character, who seeks nothing but leisure and liberty; but work and chastisement remedy both. For work does not allow thinking about anything except rest, and chastisement curbs both leisure and liberty, and compels one to labor and serve. Hence the Syriac briefly explains the whole matter thus: Do not give him rest; and if you raise his head, he seeks liberty. Pharaoh knew this, who therefore oppressed the Hebrews, whom he treated as slaves, with labors, lest they think about liberty and departure from Egypt: "You are idle, he said, and therefore you say: Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Go therefore, and work," Exodus v, 17.
Note the words "loosen his hands," namely from the manacles, that is, free him from the bonds on his hands by which he is constrained as a slave. For the origin of servitude and of servants was that people in ancient times, sparing the lives of enemies captured in war, made them servants, and thus mercifully commuted death into servitude. Hence servants were called mancipia, as if taken by hand in war
captured, says Varro; hence those captured were bound with manacles: Sirach therefore here forbids that these be loosened. Again, "loosen his hands," that is, release his labors and toils, let him be idle, and he will flee or seek liberty. Third, some explain it thus: "Loosen his hands," that is, allow him license, give him some power; for enticed by this, he will begin to shake off the yoke of servitude and seek liberty.
The same was Plato's view about servants in the sixth dialogue of the Laws: "Servants are always rightly chastised and beaten, and should not be admonished like free men, lest they become too soft: every address to servants should be only a command, and no jesting at all. This should be observed, as many who foolishly indulge their servants and nourish them too delicately, make life more difficult both for themselves in commanding and for the servants in obeying."
28. The yoke and the strap bend the stiff neck: and constant labors bow the servant. For the malicious servant, torture and fetters.
The Greek texts now omit the words "and constant labors bow the servant." Hence they read briefly, combining the servant's fetters with the donkey's yoke: The yoke and the strap subdue the neck, the lash and torments the malicious servant; others: The yoke and the strap bend the neck, and for the wicked servant torments and the anguish of judicial examination are fitting. But our reading, as it is fuller and more complete, is also more fitting and more true. For the yoke is more aptly compared with work and labor than with torture; for to the torture of the servant the whip and lash of the donkey better correspond. The sense therefore is, as if saying: Just as the neck of a wanton and untamed ox, horse, donkey, or buffalo is tamed by yoke and strap, so that it obeys its driver and carries the burdens imposed upon it: so too the hardness and laziness of the servant is broken by constant work. But if the servant is not only hard and obstinate, but also malicious, Greek kakourgos, that is criminal or malevolent, namely one who steals, or beats others, or otherwise harms the master and household, and contrives other evils; this one must not only be exercised with constant work, but also restrained with fetters and torture, examined and punished.
On the ancient punishments of servants see Rhodiginus, Book XXV, chapter xxii; Plautus has encompassed them all in the Asinaria, Act III, Scene III:
Trusting in their backs, relying on the virtue of elm-rods, for running: goads, branding-plates, crosses and fetters, chains, prisons, shackles, leg-irons, stocks, and the most savage torturers, etc.
29. Send him to work, lest he be idle: for idleness has taught much wickedness.
The Tigurine version: Send him to work, lest he be idle: for idleness has taught many vices; others: Cast (for the Greek is bale) him into work, lest he be idle: for idleness teaches many evils; the Syriac: Work your servant (that is, make your servant work, or do work through your servant), lest he rebel, because idleness causes many evils. For the mind of man cannot be idle; therefore if it is not occupied with honest labor, it turns to thinking about and plotting vain, dishonest, carnal things, murmurings, slanders, and other crimes. Just as millstones turned by the wind, if they have no grain to grind, act upon themselves, wearing and grinding themselves down.
Therefore St. Jerome admonishes Rusticus, Epistle 4: "Do, he says, some work, so that the devil may always find you busy." St. Ephrem, in Spiritual Songs, volume II: "He who loves idleness, he says, will never prosper." St. Chrysostom, Homily 1 to the People, observes that Adam in idleness fell from paradise, but Paul, placed in labors and hardships, was caught up into paradise and the third heaven. The same, Homily 35 on the Acts: "How, he says, will not all condemn such an idle man — friends, household members, and relatives? And who will not justly say: This one is a burden to the earth; such a person came into the world in vain, indeed not in vain, but to the harm of his own head, to his own damage, to the detriment of others." St. Basil, on chapter 1 of Isaiah: "How, he says, should not idleness be hated, which makes a man worse than the ant and the bee (which are laborious and industrious)? For man was placed at the beginning of his condition in paradise, to work it and guard it." St. Ambrose, Epistle 25 to the church of Vercelli, speaking of Jacob and Esau, of whom the latter was idle, the former industrious: "Not by idleness, he says, not by sleep is the reward prepared; there is no work of the sleeper, no fruit of idleness, indeed rather loss. Idle Esau lost the blessing of the firstborn." The same, in his book On Cain and Abel, chapter IV: "Rewards are promised not to those who sleep, not to those who are idle, but to those who keep watch, and the payment is prepared for labor." St. Leo: "The kingdom of heaven does not come to those who sleep, nor is eternal blessedness bestowed on those who are sluggish in leisure and sloth." St. Anselm, Epistle 6 to the Cistercians: "Banish idleness from yourselves, he says, as a thing hostile to your souls, and let each one consider that we must render an account to God for each moment of our life." St. Bernard, Book II of On Consideration, chapter xiii: "Idleness must be fled, he says, the mother of trifles, the stepmother of virtues." Peter of Blois, in the chapter On the Formation of a Bishop: "Have no time, he says, for holiday; but always devote yourself either to prayer, or reading, or some other pursuit of virtue." And further: "Always be engaged in the exercise of the Scriptures, and let no time find you idle. Idleness without letters is the burial of a living man." See more in Cassian, Book X of the Institutes of Renunciation, chapter viii and following.
Finally, the occasion and cause of the sin of Sodom was idleness, as Ezekiel says, chapter xvi, verse 49.
30. Set him to work: for so it is fitting for him. And if he does not obey, bend him with fetters.
Clearly the Tigurine version: Drive him to the work that his duty demands, and weigh down the disobedient one with his fetters; the Syriac: According as is fitting for him (that is, as much as he is suited for), set him over your house, and if he does not listen to you, multiply his bonds.
St. Laurence Justinian says splendidly in the Tree of Life, treatise On Fear, chapter II: Nothing in a holy resolution
he says, is worse than idleness, which not only does not acquire new things, but also consumes what has been acquired. Just as therefore idleness is the beginning of spiritual poverty, so the constancy of honest occupation is the seedbed of heavenly riches. Finally, the occasion and cause of the sin of Sodom was idleness, as Ezekiel says, chapter xvi, verse 49.
And do not be excessive against any flesh: but without judgment do nothing severe.
He moderates what he said, as if saying: I said that a rebellious and wicked servant is to be chastised with labor, fetters, and blows: now I add and warn, that nevertheless you should not rage against anyone's flesh with these things more than is fitting; for it is flesh, that is, fragile and wretched; but apply judgment, discernment, and discretion in moderating work and chastisement, lest it be more cruel than is just. Hence the Greek is: kai mē perisseusēs pasē sarki. Which the Complutensian text translates: and do not abound against any flesh; the Roman, do not be excessive against all flesh, that is, do not be too much, do not press and oppress any flesh too greatly, not even that of brute animals, much less of men; the Tigurine version: take care however not to be excessive against anyone's body; others: do not be excessive against any man; the Syriac: but not so against everyone, and do nothing contrary to the law.
From this precept of Ecclesiasticus appears to have been derived that constitution of the Emperor Justinian, concerning those who are under their own or another's authority, section "Under authority," where among other things he decrees thus: "But the greater harshness of masters is restrained by a constitution of the same emperor. For Antoninus, consulted by certain governors of provinces about those servants who flee to a sacred temple or to the statues of the emperor, commanded that, if the cruelty of masters seemed intolerable, they be compelled to sell their servants on good terms, and the price be given to the masters. And rightly so, for it is in the interest of the commonwealth that no one misuse his own property."
The Gloss in the same place asks whether it is permitted sometimes to beat a servant moderately for no fault or cause of his, solely on the ground that he is a servant and so that he may remember that he is one? And it answers affirmatively: Because, it says, prolonged impunity makes a servant hard and contumacious, nourishes boldness in him, and increases his pride and spirit.
31. If you have a faithful servant, let him be to you as your own soul: treat him as a brother: because you acquired him at the price of your life's blood.
So reads the Roman text, the Gloss, Lyranus, and others. But Rabanus reads: If you have a good servant; others: If you have a prudent servant; the Syriac: If your servant is true (that is, upright, who conducts himself truly, as befits a servant). Less correctly, therefore, Jansenius argues that the word "faithful" should be deleted. For he prudently advises that the servant who is not unfaithful and thievish, but faithful, should be loved and cared for by the master "as his own soul," that is, as himself. Hence the Greek and the Syriac have: If you have a servant, let him be to you as yourself; the Tigurine version translates: If you have a servant, cherish him as your own soul; the Roman, treat him as yourself.
Moreover, a faithful servant must be faithful not only in the work assigned to him, but in speech and silence, so that he keeps silent about the master's secrets, or about what the master wishes kept silent. Hence the duty of a good servant is to be "mute and speechless," asserts Nemesius in Stobaeus, Sermon 45. And Plautus, in The Braggart Soldier: "A servant, he says, should know more than he speaks." Therefore the insolent words of a servant are found in the same author in the Persian: "My master ordered me to have a slavish labor and a free tongue." For if we are commanded to love even strangers as ourselves, how much more our household members, such as servants, who are entirely the property and possession of the master. What therefore masters do to their servants, they do to themselves; for the good of the servant is the good of the master, and the evil of the servant is the evil of the master. Therefore he adds: "Treat him as a brother." For in origin we are all brothers, because created by the same God the Father, and descended from the same parent Adam and the same mother Eve. Again, in faith and religion we are all brothers, because children of the same Christ as Father, and of the Church as Mother, and we all expect the same heavenly inheritance from God. See Ephesians vi, 5 and following. Therefore St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his Tetrastichs, teaches that servants should be regarded as fellow servants, because we are all servants of God:
What is a servant, he says, or a master? This is a bad division; there is one Creator, one law, one Judge. So regard your servants as a servant yourself: life alone makes servants and masters. Christ served, but He freed us from the yoke.
Indeed Cicero in his Paradoxes: "What is liberty, he says? The power to live as you wish. Who then lives as he wishes, unless he who follows what is right? This alone befalls the wise man, that he does nothing unwillingly, nothing with grief, nothing under compulsion. Who would deny that all the fickle, all the greedy, all the wicked in short are slaves?"
More on this subject can be found in St. Gregory, Book XXX of the Moralia, chapter xii; St. Augustine, Tract 41 on John; St. Jerome, Book II Against Jovinian. Therefore Seneca movingly says, Epistle 47: "That you live familiarly with your servants befits your prudence. Are they slaves? Rather, they are men. Are they slaves? Rather, they are housemates. Are they slaves? Rather, they are humble friends. Are they slaves? Rather, they are fellow slaves, if you consider that fortune has equal power over both." And after some more: "Do you wish, he says, to consider that this man whom you call your slave sprang from the same seed, enjoys the same sky, breathes equally, lives equally, dies equally? You can see him as a free man just as he can see you as a slave. I saw the master of Callistus standing before his door and being shut out while others entered. The Marian disaster brought low many of the most brilliantly born: it made one of them a shepherd, another the guardian of a cottage." Finally Philo in Maximus, Sermon 7: "Show yourself, he says, to your household servants as you would wish God to be toward you: for as we hear, so shall we be heard by God; and as we look upon others, so God will look upon us. Let us therefore offer mercy for mercy, that we may obtain like for like."
He adds the reason: Because you acquired him at the price of your life's blood. — First, as Jansenius says: You acquired him for yourself not as a beast, but as "the blood of your soul," that is, as one of your own blood, a sharer of the same nature and blood with you.
Second, and more probably, as if saying: You acquired him for yourself "at the price of blood," that is for the blood of "your soul," namely so that he might cherish and protect your blood and life by serving and laboring, and by defending and fighting for you against enemies. Hence the Greeks, as if explaining, add: Because you will need him as your own soul; the Tigurine version: Because you need him as your own soul; the Syriac lucidly: If he is your true servant, let him be as yourself; because as yourself, so also is your loss (which you will suffer in the servant, if badly treated by you he falls ill, dies, or flees): if he is your true servant, regard him as your brother, lest you contend against the blood of your own soul.
Third, others understand "blood" as the price. Hence they translate: because you acquired him at a price; for the price, because it is obtained by blood and sweat of labor, is therefore called "blood" by metonymy. And in this way the Rabbis commonly use damim in the plural, that is "bloods," for price. So we commonly say that usurers and tyrants suck the blood of the poor, when they exact from them excessive taxes and prices. In this sense Micah says of tyrants, chapter III, verse 10: "Who build Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity."
By a similar trope the Greek bios, that is "life," is used to designate sustenance itself, because life is preserved by food. So Palacius says: Treat the good servant whom you bought as a brother; because you acquired him with many coins as if with your blood: for a good servant cannot be acquired except at a great price; and a great price cannot be obtained except by bloody sweat. How beautiful indeed is the text for a sinner asking Christ for mercy: Lord, do not treat me as an enemy, but as a brother: for You acquired me with the blood of Your soul! How aptly likewise it will be said to a cruel master: Treat your servant more kindly, if not for his sake, then surely for your own! If you do not spare him, spare your own blood, with which you acquired him.
To this belongs the admonition of Cato in his Distichs:
Do not rashly believe a wife complaining about servants: for often a wife hates the one her husband loves. When pain over the fault of servants drives you to anger, restrain yourself, that you may be able to spare your own. Him whom you can overcome, sometimes conquer by enduring: for patience is always the greatest virtue of character.
Fourth, Rabanus: "He signifies, he says, that we ought to love the common nature in him; and, if necessary, that we should lay down our life for them as for brothers: for we should not hate and persecute the man, but the vices which drag man to ruin, which must absolutely be resisted."
Tropologically, Rabanus understands by the servant the sinner; for the sinner is a servant of sin and the devil: therefore all the things said here about the servant may, with a change of name, be applied to the sinner. Again, by the servant you may understand the flesh, which is a servant of the soul; and concupiscence, which is a servant of reason and spirit, and therefore like a rebellious servant rebels and kicks against reason: for which reason, like a servant, it must be tamed with labors, penances, and blows, so that it may learn to subject itself to reason and obey the spirit.
32 and 33. If you wrong him unjustly, he will turn to flight: and if he departs and exalts himself, you know not whom to ask, nor on what road to seek him.
"Exalts himself," that is, removing and taking himself and his things away, departing and fleeing; for the Greek is aparas apodrasē, that is, taking himself off, or having departed and fled. Again, "whom to ask," that is, whom to ask and who might tell you "by what road" and to what place your servant has fled. Otherwise Palacius: "You know not whom to seek, he says," that is, you do not know whether you should seek him, whether it would be useful or useless to you: for when a servant has become accustomed to flight, you do not know whether it would be better to bring him back or to sell him.
The Greek texts briefly and clearly read thus: If you wrong him (the Roman, if you afflict him) unjustly, and he takes himself off and flees, by what road will you seek him? The Tigurine version: If you harm him by injury, and he departs and flees, by what road would you seek him? The Syriac: Because if you sadden him, he will depart and be lost: and in what spirit will you find him?
This is the second reason urging the master to treat his servant kindly; because if he afflicts him, the servant, weary of servitude and affliction, will secretly arrange flight through pathless places, forests, and hiding spots, so that the master pursuing him cannot find him, nor is there anyone who, when asked, is willing or able to point out the road by which the servant fled. Therefore he will be forever deprived of both the servant's labor and the price at which he bought him.
Indeed many servants, because of the cruelty of their masters, take their own lives, preferring to die once rather than a thousand times. Well known is the story of the Lacedaemonian woman who, at an auction when asked by the crier what she knew, replied: "To be free," signifying that she was indeed a captive, but would not obey slavish commands. And so when the buyer ordered certain things unfitting for a free woman: "You will weep, she said, that you envied yourself such a possession;" and she soon killed herself. So Plutarch, in his Laconian Sayings. He also adds a similar story about a boy: A Spartan boy, he says, captured by King Antigonus and sold at auction, in all other things that could properly be done by a free-born person was obedient to the one who had bought him: but when ordered to bring a chamber pot, he would not endure it, saying: "I will not serve." But when the master insisted, the boy climbed to the roof and said: "You will learn what kind of purchase you have made;" and immediately threw himself headlong and died. He could be a captive, but could not perform slavish tasks, and vindicated himself into freedom by a mournful death. Something still more mournful we have heard happened in Spain in this age. A servant harshly treated by his master, in the master's absence led all his young children up to the master's terrace,
and locked the doors of the house: when the master returned home and knocked at the doors, threatening the servant because he was slow to open, the servant showed him one of his children through the window: "What will you give me, he said, for this child of yours?" With the master indignant and gnashing his teeth, the servant hurled the child from the height and killed it. He did the same with the second, third, and the rest (the master now begging in vain and promising everything if he would spare them), and finally threw himself headlong: "Learn, he said, to treat your servants kindly." Therefore Diogenes, in Laertius, Book VI, used to say that between servants and wicked masters there was no difference except in words — that slaves served their masters, but masters served their desires: signifying that both
were slaves, but that the servitude of masters was more wretched than that of slaves, if they were wicked: for he who serves his passions has as many masters as desires, and those masters are base and merciless. Indeed, this servitude is equated and compared to death, and even placed before it as worse than death. On the other hand, how greatly a servant kindly treated by his master loves him in return, hear from Menander: "For me, he says, my master is my city and my refuge and my law and the judge of all things just and unjust: for him alone I must live." Such, says Favorinus, was "Zamolxis, who was a servant of Pythagoras, and was worshipped by the people of that time."