Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, he treats of the vanity of dreams up to verse 9. Then, up to verse 14, of the usefulness of travel and trial, because it makes a person experienced and prudent. Third, from verse 14 to 21, he treats of the solidity and fruit of the hope that those who fear God place in Him. Fourth, from verse 21 to the end, he teaches that God detests the offerings of the wicked, especially those that are made from the plunder and defrauding of the poor.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 34:1-31
1. Vain hope and falsehood belong to the senseless man: and dreams lift up the foolish. 2. As one who grasps at a shadow and pursues the wind: so is he who attends to lying visions; 3. this according to this is the vision of dreams: before the face of a man, the likeness of a man. 4. From an unclean thing, what shall be made clean? And from a liar, what truth shall be spoken? 5. Divination of error, and lying auguries, and the dreams of evildoers, are vanity. 6. And as a woman in labor, your heart suffers phantasies; unless a visitation has been sent from the Most High, do not give your heart to them: 7. for dreams have caused many to err, and those who hoped in them have fallen. 8. Without falsehood the word of the law shall be fulfilled, and wisdom in the mouth of the faithful shall be made plain. 9. He who has not been tested, what does he know? A man experienced in many things will think of many things: and he who has learned much will narrate understanding. 10. He who is not experienced recognizes few things: but he who has been involved in many things multiplies cunning. 11. He who has not been tested, what manner of things does he know? He who has been led astray will abound in wickedness. 12. I have seen many things in my wandering, and very many customs of words. 13. Sometimes I was in peril of death on account of these things, and I was delivered by the grace of God. 14. The spirit of those who fear God is sought out, and in His regard it shall be blessed. 15. For their hope is in Him who saves them, and the eyes of God are upon those who love Him. 16. He who fears the Lord shall tremble at nothing and shall not be afraid: because He Himself is his hope. 17. Blessed is the soul of him who fears the Lord. 18. To whom does he look, and who is his strength? 19. The eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear Him, a protector of power, a foundation of virtue, a shelter from the heat, and a shade at noon, 20. an appeal against offense, and a help in falling, raising up the soul and enlightening the eyes, giving health and life and blessing. 21. The offering of one who sacrifices from iniquity is defiled, and the mockeries of the unjust are not well-pleasing. 22. The Lord alone is for those who wait for Him in the way of truth and justice. 23. The Most High does not approve the gifts of the wicked, nor does He regard the offerings of the unjust: nor will He be propitiated for sins by the multitude of their sacrifices. 24. He who offers sacrifice from the substance of the poor is like one who slays a son in the sight of his father. 25. The bread of the needy is the life of the poor: he who defrauds them of it is a man of blood. 26. He who takes away bread earned by sweat is like one who kills his neighbor. 27. He who sheds blood and he who defrauds a hired worker are brothers. 28. One building, and one destroying: what does it profit them except labor? 29. One praying and one cursing: whose voice will God hear? 30. He who is baptized after touching a dead body, and touches it again, what does his washing profit him? 31. So a man who fasts for his sins and does the same things again, what does he gain by humbling himself? Who will hear his prayer?
FIRST PART OF THE CHAPTER.
1. VAIN HOPE AND FALSEHOOD BELONG TO THE SENSELESS MAN: AND DREAMS LIFT UP THE FOOLISH. — He teaches that one should not trust in dreams and divinations, but in God and God's law, because the latter is true and trustworthy, the former false and untrustworthy, as if to say: The hope of a foolish man is "vain and a lie," that is, deceitful and deceptive, and so he trusts in his dreams and is proudly puffed up: for "dreams lift up," in Greek ἀναπτεροῦσι, that is, as the Complutensian has it, elevate; the Roman, make to fly; others, give wings to the foolish, as if to say: The foolish who believe their dreams are carried away in spirit, thinking that what they dreamed will come to pass; as if dreams were oracles sent from God — for example, if someone dreams that he will be a Cardinal, Bishop, Prelate, etc., and he puts faith in this dream, he acts foolishly; and in reality, when the contrary happens, he will see that his dream was just a dream, that is, a lying and deceptive thing. Hence the Tigurina: The hopes of a foolish man are vain and false, and dreams carry the foolish on high; others: And dreams add wings to madmen; the Syriac: He who seeks vanity finds falsehood, and a dream is vain joy. Here is relevant that saying of Philo from Plato:
"The hopes of mortals are the dreams of those who are awake."
Note: The Gentiles, and indeed some Christians, being ignorant of the natural cause of dreams, which Aristotle, physicians and natural philosophers teach, supposed that they were sent from a higher mind, namely from one's personal genius, or from God: for since the mind is lulled by sleep, they thought it was then moved by God. Thus the Turks consider the insane and foolish to be moved by divine enthusiasm from God, and therefore they venerate them as prophets and seers, and regard their words as oracles. They do this in honor of their Muhammad, who, since he suffered from epilepsy, pretended to be moved by enthusiasm. The Poets increased this error and superstition with their poetic fictions, especially by giving each thing its own homonymous god. Therefore they made Sleep a god. Hence Orpheus composed a hymn to Sleep as a god with aromatics, and attributed to him dark wings, singing thus:
Sleep, king of gods and of all falling men,
And of all creatures that the earth nourishes.
And Ovid:
Sleep, rest of all things, most peaceful sleep of the gods.
And Seneca, in the chorus of the Hercules Furens:
And you, O Sleep, tamer of evils,
Rest of the mind, the better part of human life,
Mixing true things with false, of the future
A sure, and yet the worst, prophet.
Philostratus, in his picture of Amphiaraus, depicts sleep thus: "His face, he says, appeared to be relaxed, wearing a white garment over a black one, as if to indicate day and night. He seemed to hold a horn in his hand, with which he sends true dreams." Ovid in the Metamorphoses describes him thus:
In the middle there is a couch, raised on ebony in a cave,
Feathered, of one color, covered with a dark veil,
Whereon the God himself lies with limbs dissolved in languor:
Around him on all sides, imitating various forms,
Vain dreams lie scattered.
Silius, in book X, sings of sleep pouring slumber upon each person:
And the winged one carries with curved horn
Medicated poppies through the darkness.
And shortly after:
Then he shakes his drowsy wings
With bowed head, and bedews the eyes with rest,
Touching the temples with a Lethean wand.
Homer says: "For indeed the dream is from Zeus," and dreams were called diopempta, that is, sent by Zeus: and theiai omphai, that is, divine voices; and Dios angeloi, that is, messengers of Zeus, as Homer says. Among the Troezenians there was an ancient altar upon which they offered sacrifice to the Muses and to Sleep as a god, affirming that Sleep was a god very friendly to the Muses. Plato and the Philosophers increased this superstition, about which more below.
Rebuking these men, Diogenes the Cynic, indeed laughing and mocking them, said: "The things you do while awake you pay no attention to; but the things you dream while sleeping you anxiously examine," as if to say: If someone awake commits something base, he should fear God's wrath and a sorrowful outcome; but not if something appears to him while sleeping, for nothing is more vain, nothing more foolish than this. So Laertius, book VI. And the Poet:
Do not heed dreams; for what the human mind desires,
While it is awake, it hopes for.
And Claudian, book III:
All the desires that are turned over in the senses during the day,
Friendly rest returns during the night.
When the hunter lays his weary limbs upon his couch,
Yet his mind returns to the forests and his familiar haunts.
Therefore Sirach here refutes at length this vanity and superstition of observing dreams.
2. AS ONE WHO GRASPS AT A SHADOW AND PURSUES THE WIND: SO IS HE WHO ATTENDS TO LYING VISIONS (in Greek ἐνύπνια, that is, to dreams). — For dreams are figments and phantoms of the imagination, and therefore while they are presented through it to a sleeping person, he seems to himself to see them and perceive them with his eyes. The Tigurina: He who grasps at shadows and pursues the wind is like one who puts faith in dreams; the Syriac: As one who grasps a shadow and makes a bird fly: so is he who believes a nocturnal vision. He means that dreams are empty and vain things, like a shadow and the wind: wherefore it is foolish to believe in them, just as he is foolish who tries to grasp an empty shadow, or the fleeing wind. A dream therefore is like a shadow and the wind: First, because just as a shadow is not the thing itself but an image of the thing, indeed a shadow: so also a dream is not a real thing, but a figment of the imagination, which fashions for itself this image of the thing. Second, just as shadows in the morning and evening are far larger than the thing itself, namely its body, so in dreams small things appear very great. Therefore those who believe in them are like Aesop's dog, who, carrying meat in his mouth, when he saw its shadow in the river looking much larger, lunged at it, and trying to catch it in his mouth, allowed the real meat to fall from his grasp, and did not catch or acquire the shadow he was grasping at. Third, just as a shadow is deceptive and lying — for it falsely represents itself as being the thing itself and the body, and thus deceives the one who eagerly tries to grasp the shadow as if it were the body itself: so also dreams deceive dreamers so that they seem to themselves to be really doing, seeing, and knowing what they dream they are doing, seeing, and knowing. Fourth, just as the wind stirs up and disturbs the air and water, so that the images represented in the water become mixed and confused, and therefore false
and lying appear: so also dreams arise from vapors and gases ascending from the stomach to the head, which stir up, intermingle, and darken the images impressed upon the imagination, and thereby cause marvelous and chimerical, and thus lying and deceptive, appearances of things to present themselves. For the gas from the stomach, blowing through and permeating the head, produces great confusion and variety in the appearances that present themselves in dreams. Fifth, just as children and fools are frightened by shadows, so dreamers are frightened by dreams; and even waking people, if they are foolish and imprudent. For one who is dreaming, since his reason is bound, is like a child or a madman. Sixth, just as a shadow and the wind pass by most swiftly and fly away like a bird, as the Syriac translates; so also does a dream. For a hungry person who dreams he is eating and drinking sumptuously, upon waking immediately feels his stomach growling with hunger: because that imaginary feast flew away with the dream. A peasant or a pauper who dreams he has chests filled with gold, or that he is a king, bishop, or cardinal, upon waking finds himself poor and wretched as before; because that dreamed and imaginary kingdom, bishopric, and cardinalate flew away with the dream.
3. THIS ACCORDING TO THIS IS THE VISION OF DREAMS: BEFORE THE FACE OF A MAN, THE LIKENESS OF A MAN. — This is how it should be read with the Roman and Greek texts. Therefore some read incorrectly: according to this, or this is the vision of dreams; and referring it to what precedes, they understand it thus, as if to say: According to what I said, that it is vain to grasp at the wind or a shadow, in a similar way the vision and pursuit of dreams is vain. Incorrectly, I say; for these words should be referred to what follows; for they are explained by them, as if to say: The vision of dreams is nothing other than a certain representation, in which "this" is "according to this," that is, this appears similar to that, just as when "before the face of a man" there is placed "the likeness of a man" in a mirror, or in water, as if to say: A dream is not the thing itself, nor the truth of the thing, but merely an empty image and shadow, just as an image in a mirror, which children think is a real thing and try to seize. Just as, therefore, the image of a man appearing in a mirror is not the man himself, but his representation and an empty phantom reflected and produced from the man: so likewise a dream is not the thing itself, but a representation of the thing and a likeness reflected and produced from the images collected in the imagination, variously mixed together. Therefore just as a child is foolish who takes the image appearing in a mirror for a real man, and tries to catch or win it over: so likewise is he foolish who thinks the things he dreams will really come to himself or others, and believes and trusts in them.
Hence the Tigurina translates: Something according to the image of another thing (Vatablus: something according to something else) is the specter of dreams, and like a reflected image before a face; the Complutensian literally thus from the Greek: This according to this is the vision of dreams, before the face the likeness of a face; the Syriac: Thus is a vision and a dream, that opposite a face there is the likeness of a face, and concerning the prince of his people, he will bring forth victory.
He compared a dream to a shadow and the wind: now he compares it to a specter and a reflected image appearing in a mirror, or in water; because truly a dream is nothing other than an imaginary vision, or a phantom of the imagination, which the imagination fashions and invents for itself from the images mixed together, confused, and disturbed by vapors ascending from the stomach to the head at night. Wherefore St. Gregory Nazianzen wisely says in his Tetrastichs:
Do not, he says, put too much faith in the playful tricks of dreams;
Nor let all things terrify you.
Nor again let pleasant visions lift you up too much.
Often the devil prepares snares for you through this.
The same, in his Distichs: "A man given over to sleep and idleness finds dreams; for sleep presents to the eyes not things themselves, but empty images of things." And Cato:
Do not heed dreams; for what the human mind desires,
And hopes for while awake, it sees the very same in sleep.
4. FROM AN UNCLEAN THING, WHAT SHALL BE MADE CLEAN? AND FROM A LIAR, WHAT TRUTH SHALL BE SPOKEN? — The words "unclean" and "liar" can be taken either as masculine or as neuter. If taken as masculine, the sense will be as if to say: Just as an unclean person cannot by himself make another clean, so truth is not to be expected from a liar, such as a soothsayer, diviner, or dream-interpreter, that is, a conjecturer and in-
terpreter. For even if they sometimes speak the truth or conjecture correctly, still this is very rare, and much more often they speak and divine falsely. Therefore even when they speak the truth, they cannot be believed, but rather credibility is taken away from liars; especially because the devil, who speaks through them, is entirely stitched together from malice and falsehood. Therefore the truth that he occasionally speaks, he speaks not from love of truth, but in order to deceive through the truth and lead one to falsehood and error; for he speaks the truth in order thereby to gain credibility for his other false and lying statements. If taken as neuter, the sense will be, as if to say: Just as an unclean thing cannot by itself cleanse another, but rather communicates its own uncleanness to it and makes it unclean: so likewise from a false and lying thing, such as a dream, truth cannot be hoped for. For even if some things in a dream are true, nevertheless because far more are false, hence the entire dream is false and should be called false, not true; for truth is complete and admits nothing false: therefore if any falsity is mixed with any proposition or true thing, the entire thing and proposition is false, not true; for just as a good work is contaminated by one bad circumstance, and the whole becomes bad: so also truth, if even the smallest falsity is mixed with it, is corrupted and ceases to be truth, and becomes falsehood. For good (just as truth, which is convertible with good — for every good is true, and every true is good) consists of an integral cause, but evil from any single defect—
as St. Dionysius, St. Thomas, the Theologians and Philosophers say.
Hence the Tigurina translates: What shall be cleaned from something unclean, and from something false, what truth has flowed? The Syriac: Who is a liar that he should be justified? That is, that he should be declared and held to be just, that is, faithful and truthful: others translate more clearly: From an unclean thing, what shall be cleaned, and from falsehood (such as a dream), what truth results? For the genitive ψεύδους can be derived from the nominative either ψεῦδος, that is, falsehood, or ψευδής, that is, a liar. Moreover, Antiochus the monk (who flourished under the Emperor Heraclius, in the year of Christ 630, and wrote 129 homilies, which survive in volume II of the Library of the Holy Fathers) reads this passage thus, in homily 84: "Jesus son of Sirach says: Dreams lift up the foolish: just as one who grasps (tries to grasp, or clutches at) shadows with his fist, and one who pursues the winds, so are those who give attention to dreams. For from a liar, what truth shall come forth?"
Note: This proposition — that an unclean person or unclean thing cannot make another clean — is true, if you understand it as applying by itself. For it can clean accidentally, if, for instance, the unclean person applies and rubs upon the unclean thing some herb or similar thing having the power to cleanse, such as soap or lye. In a similar way, the Sacraments confected and applied by an unclean priest do cleanse the recipient who is penitent, because they work not from the work of the worker, but from the work itself performed. Therefore whether they are administered by a holy or by a wicked priest, they have and retain the same power of cleansing. For the principal agent in them is the Holy Spirit and Christ, both of whom are most pure, and no malice of the priestly minister can taint or contaminate Them. Thus St. Augustine responds to the Donatists who objected this passage and similar ones against baptism conferred by heretics as impure and invalid, and therefore needing to be repeated anew.
5 and 6. DIVINATION OF ERROR, AND LYING AUGURIES, AND THE DREAMS OF EVILDOERS, ARE VANITY. AND AS A WOMAN IN LABOR, YOUR HEART SUFFERS PHANTASIES. — The word "your" is not in the corrected Roman Greek texts nor in many others, but it is in the Complutensian. The Tigurina translates: Diviners, auguries, and dreams are vain, and as when the mind of a woman in labor wanders; others: and the heart conceives phantasies like a woman in labor; the Syriac: All divinations, and prophecies, and dreams are seduction; he who believes in them, there (in seduction) is his heart.
Note: Vanity, in Hebrew שוא shav, signifies not only vanity, that is, emptiness, but also deceit and falsehood: hence a vain person is called a liar, deceiver, and impostor. Thus in Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain;" others translate: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God for a lie; for properly it forbids perjury. Thus in Ecclesiastes 1:2 it is said: "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity," that is, all things, all allurements of the world are vain, deceptive, and
lying; because they do not provide the rest and satisfaction to the mind that they promise. Thus Sinon the impostor says in Virgil, Aeneid II:
Nor if cruel fortune has made Sinon wretched,
Shall she also make him vain and a liar.
And Cicero, in the Pro Quintio: "It is necessary that he who has attempted to strip a friend, partner, and kinsman of his reputation and fortune, confess himself to be vain, treacherous, and wicked."
Sirach therefore asserts that three things are vain, indeed are vanity itself, that is, they are most vain, that is, most deceitful, most lying, and most seductive, as the Syriac translates. The first is "divination of error," that is, erroneous divination, which proceeds from error, namely from the devil, a magician, witches, or from the fabrications of impostors, as when diviners divine and foretell future events from the inspection of fire, water, air, earth, cadavers, etc. For there is another divination of truth, namely that which proceeds from God, who is the first truth; which is not vain, but true and certain; such were the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and the other Prophets.
The second are "auguries," when augurs divine future events from the flight, chattering, and gestures of birds, such as victory in battle, empire, wealth, fertility, etc.; for these are "lying," that is, deceptive, and lead into error. Hence the saying: "An augur laughs when he sees another augur;" for each laughs at the other, laughing at the foolishness of the people who believe them. Concerning the vanity of auguries—
see St. Augustine, sermon 241 On the Times.
The third are "the dreams of evildoers," that is, of wicked and perverse people, who against God's law attend to and believe in their dreams, and therefore allow themselves to be led into vanity, that is, into falsehood and fraud. For the dreams of those who do good, that is, of good and holy people, are from time to time true, as when they are sent by God or an Angel for the signification of something true, such as were the dreams of Joseph and others to be cited shortly; therefore the dreams of the wicked are vain. For "as a woman in labor, your heart suffers phantasies," if indeed you attend to and place your trust in divinations, auguries, and dreams, as if to say: Just as the heart of a woman in labor, compelled by pain, suffers a thousand phantasms, and often deliriums, by which with various fears and loves she burdens, troubles, and torments herself and others; so likewise, if you attend to dreams, your heart will suffer a thousand imaginations and phantasies, by which your mind will be torn apart and distracted into a thousand emotions, so that by the constant alternation of hope, distrust, fear, love, and other emotions it is burdened, disturbed, and tormented — and all in vain, that is, uselessly and falsely. For just as the imaginations of a woman in labor are vain and false, so likewise the things you think you see in a dream are vain and false. For pregnant and laboring women, because they abound in gases, phlegm, undigested matter, melancholy, and have weak heat, therefore they suffer vertigo, nausea, colic, phantasies, deliriums, and fainting spells; especially when they are tormented by the sharp pains of labor.
Tropologically, divination, augury, and the vain and lying dream is heresy, which accordingly fabricates a thousand phantasms with which it torments itself and others. So Rabanus. Again, "the dreams of evildoers" are empty thoughts, phantasies, and desires, from which, as from seeds, the fruits of all evils tend to spring forth, so that one has no inclination to pray or to work, but the mind pants to fulfill its desires. Hence it follows concerning these: "And like a woman in labor your heart suffers phantasies," so that it gives birth to them with pain.
Note: Natural philosophers and physicians teach that from dreams one can discern the constitution, temperament, and predominant humor of the body; and therefore a physician who treats a sick person should observe what the patient dreams. Thus Galen, in his commentary on Book I of Hippocrates, On Common Diseases, Commentary III, not far from the beginning: "When one of us, he says, visited a sick person in the morning as usual, the patient said he had not seen sleep the whole night, while he was thinking about what would happen if weary Atlas should no longer bear the heavens; from his words we understood this to be the beginning of a certain melancholy." And shortly after: "If someone sees fires in a dream, yellow bile is troubling him: if abundant rains, it indicates a cold humor; likewise indeed if snow, ice, and hail, cold phlegm; if someone thinks he is in a foul-smelling place, putrefaction of the humors; if—"
he has the crests of roosters or something red, blood is in excess; if he sees dark things, or is in dark places, it indicates his condition." See the same author, in his book On Prognostication from Dreams.
The Stoics went further, teaching that all dreams portend something, so that from them one may divine future events. Indeed Plato, in Book 2 of the Republic, considers that the soul in sleep, being as it were freed from the body which is put to rest, is most vigorous, and presents itself keenly to receive dreams: and that the visions that occur to the calm soul at that time are tranquil and truthful. For he himself held that human souls, before they slipped into bodies, had received knowledge of all things through the influx of ideas; but that this knowledge lay dulled and nearly obliterated by the contagion of the body. Therefore when the soul is drawn away by sleep from the habitual use of the senses, and the mind is entirely to itself, he thought that the innate knowledge in it then revives, and that it remembers past things, perceives present things, and foresees future things.
They prove this with examples: for it is established that many true outcomes have come from dreams. Hear one and another, which Cicero relates in book II of On Divination. A man brought to an interpreter that he had dreamed he saw an egg hanging from the canopy of his bedroom couch. The interpreter replied that a treasure was buried under the bed. He searched, found a small quantity of gold, and this was surrounded by silver; he sent the interpreter whatever amount of silver seemed right. Then the interpreter said: Nothing from the yolk? For the gold seemed to have been signified by the egg, just as the white of the egg signified silver. Another example: When Ptolemy, Alexander's companion, had been struck in battle by a poisoned weapon, and was dying from that wound with great pain, Alexander, sitting beside him, was lulled to sleep: then in his rest a dragon appeared to him — the one that his mother Olympias kept — carrying a small root in its mouth, and at the same time saying in what place it grew (and the place was not far away); and it said that its power was so great that it could easily heal Ptolemy. Then Alexander, having awoken, told his friends the dream and sent people to search for that root: when it was found, Ptolemy is said to have been healed, and many soldiers who had been wounded by the same kind of weapon. Since, then, these dreams and not a few others have turned out thus, it certainly seems that one must say that if the rest do not have a similar outcome, this should be attributed not to the vanity of dreams, but to the ignorance of interpreters: or certainly the reason is that we ourselves either forget our dreams or consider them to be of no account. The same Cicero, in book I of On Divination, relates this about Cyrus: "Why should I bring forth what the Magi interpreted for that prince Cyrus, from the books of Dionysius the Persian? For when, as he slept, the sun appeared at his feet, he writes that Cyrus three times tried in vain to grasp it with his hands; when the sun, turning, slipped away and departed, the Magi told him — who were regarded in Persia as a class of wise and learned men — that from the threefold grasping at the sun, it was portended that Cyrus would reign for thirty years. And this indeed came to pass—"
for he reached seventy, having begun to reign at forty years of age." And further: "When two friends from Arcadia were traveling together and had come to Megara, one turned aside to an inn, the other to a guest-friend, and when they had dined and retired to rest, in the dead of night the one who was staying with the guest-friend saw in a dream that the other was begging him to come to his aid, because the innkeeper was preparing his death; he, at first terrified by the dream, arose; then, when he had collected himself and decided that the vision should be considered of no account, he lay down again; then, as he slept, the same man appeared to him, begging that, since he had not come to his aid while alive, he would not allow his death to go unavenged — that he had been killed and thrown into a cart by the innkeeper, and dung thrown over him; he asked that he be at the gate in the morning before the cart left the town. Moved by this dream, he was at the gate in the morning, ready when the cart-driver came; he asked him what was in the cart; the man, terrified, fled; the dead man was discovered; when the matter was revealed, the innkeeper paid the penalty. What can be said more divine than this dream?" So says Cicero.
But this is the error and superstition which Sirach refutes here, and Lactantius in his book On the Work of God, chapter 18; St. Thomas, II-II, Question 95; and Medina, book VII of his Paraenesis; and copiously and keenly Cicero, book II of On Divination; and Aristotle, in his book On Divination through Sleep. Indeed, to say nothing of other proofs, experience itself demonstrates the same thing, from which it is established that not even one in a thousand of dreams turns out to be true. And if one or another does prove true, this happens either by chance or by the agency of a good or evil angel; which is manifestly the case in the dreams just cited from Cicero. Moreover, the same dream receives from diviners and interpreters a varied, indeed contradictory, interpretation. For, as Cicero relates in the book already cited: "A runner, intending to set out for Olympia, dreamed he was riding in a four-horse chariot; in the morning he went to an interpreter. The interpreter said: You will win; for this signifies the speed and power of horses. Afterwards he went to Antiphon. But Antiphon said: It is necessary that you be beaten; do you not understand that four ran before you? — here is another runner. And the books of Chrysippus are full of these and similar dreams, as are those of Antipater. But I return to the runner. He brought to an interpreter that he had dreamed he had become an eagle. The interpreter said: You have won; for no bird flies more vigorously than that one. To this same man Antiphon said: Do you not see that you have lost? For that bird, pursuing others and chasing them, is always itself last."
I confess, however, that from dreams the dispositions both of the body and of the mind can be recognized; for we dream at night what we think about and do during the day, namely what we love and desire. Hence Zeno used to say that each person could detect from his dreams how much he had advanced in philosophy, if in those dreams he desired or did nothing wicked. For then the soul, settled in profound tranquility, reveals its true emotions: and from this it happens that what people do not dare to say or do while awake, presents itself at night in dreams. So Laertius, book IX, chapter 5. And Plutarch considered it a sign of perfect virtue if someone dreams of it. See what I noted on Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 7. Such was the dream of St. Gregory Nazianzen about the church of St. Anastasia, in which he himself used to preach before his exile: which he relates in a poem on this matter, which survives in volume II, page 1309.
Finally, famous is Homer's fiction that those dreams are true which fly through the horn gate, and those false which fly through the ivory gate: by which he wished to signify that things seen during the day, which recur in dreams, are true: but things heard are often false. For the horn gate signifies sight and the eyes, on account of the similarity of color and the horny tunic that is in the eye: but the ivory gate signifies the mouth, on account of the whiteness of the teeth. In a similar way, Thales, when asked "how far truth is distant from falsehood," replied: "As far as the eyes are distant from the ears," signifying that only those things are true and certain which we behold with our eyes: but that the stories of men which we hear should not be safely believed, because they are often false and lying.
7. UNLESS A VISITATION HAS BEEN SENT FROM THE MOST HIGH, DO NOT GIVE YOUR HEART TO THEM; FOR DREAMS HAVE CAUSED MANY TO ERR, AND THOSE WHO HOPED IN THEM HAVE FALLEN. — "Visitation," that is, a dream or vision, by which the mind is visited, that is, instructed, corrected, admonished by God. Hence the Greek has: Unless they have been sent from the Most High (the dreams already mentioned) in a visitation upon you (the Tigurina: for the purpose of visiting you), do not add your heart to them. For dreams have deceived many, and they have fallen from the hope they had placed in them. Likewise the Syriac: And if, he says, it was commanded by God to err in nocturnal thoughts, do not give your heart to them; for many who wandered in dreams into evil things have stumbled on their paths. The Greek word ἐπισκοπή signifies the inspection and visitation of God, both that by which He brings mercy and help, and that by which He exacts punishment from someone. Our Pineda takes this passage in the latter sense, on Job chapter 32, verse 16, at the end, as if to say: If you understand that by some dream threats are directed against your sins, and that divine inspection and visitation is being represented, then you may give heed to it: but by no means to those dreams which fill the minds of dreamers with the most vain elation, as it is written: "Dreams lift up the foolish."
Nevertheless, any visitation of God can be understood here, whether it is made for consoling and helping, or for terrifying and punishing.
He wisely advises that dreams are ordinarily to be spurned and treated as mere dreams: yet he excepts one case, namely if they are sent by God and God's angel, either for a foreshadowing of the future, or for admonition and correction. Such was the dream of Jacob, Genesis 28; of Joseph, chapter 37; of Pharaoh, chapter 41; of Solomon, 1 Kings 3:5, and
in the New Testament, St. Joseph, the spouse of the Blessed Virgin, Matthew 1 and 2.
Moreover, by what signs true dreams, sent from God, should be distinguished from false and empty ones, St. Gregory wisely teaches in book IV of the Dialogues, chapters 48 and 49, and from him Rabanus here: "In this matter, Peter," says St. Gregory, "it must be known that the images of dreams affect the mind in six ways. For sometimes dreams are produced by fullness or emptiness of the stomach, sometimes by illusion, sometimes by thought and illusion together, sometimes by revelation, and sometimes by thought and revelation together. But the first two we all know from experience; the remaining four we find in the pages of Sacred Scripture. For if dreams were not usually produced by illusion from the hidden enemy, the wise man would never have indicated this, saying: For dreams have caused many to err, and those who hoped in them have fallen." And again: "You shall not practice augury nor shall you observe dreams; by which words indeed it is shown of what detestation they are, since they are joined with auguries. Again, if they did not sometimes proceed from thought and illusion together, the wise man would never have said: Many cares are followed by dreams. And if dreams did not sometimes arise from the mystery of revelation, neither would Joseph have seen in a dream that he was to be preferred over his brothers, nor would an angel have admonished the spouse of Mary through a dream to take the child and flee into Egypt. Again, if they did not sometimes proceed from thought and revelation together, the prophet Daniel, discussing Nebuchadnezzar's vision, would never have begun from the root of thought, saying: You, O king, began to think on your bed about what was to come after these things, and He who reveals mysteries showed you what is to come. And shortly after: You were looking, and behold, a great statue, that statue was large, and of lofty stature, standing before you.
Therefore when Daniel reverently suggests the dream and its fulfillment, and reveals from what thought it arose, it is clearly shown that this kind of dream is usually generated from thought and revelation together. But of course, since dreams alternate with so many different qualities of things, they should be believed with all the more difficulty, since the impulse from which they come is all the harder to discern. But holy men, amid illusions and revelations, distinguish the very voices and images of visions by a certain interior taste, so that they know whether they receive something from a good spirit, or suffer something from the deceiver. For if the mind is not cautious regarding these things, through the deceiving spirit it plunges itself into many vanities — a spirit who sometimes habitually predicts many true things, in order that in the end he may be able to ensnare the soul through some one falsehood." He then adds an example: "As certainly happened recently to one of our people, who, while he was eagerly attending to dreams, was promised long spans of this life through a dream. And when he had collected much money as provisions for a longer life, he died so suddenly that he left it all untouched."
8. WITHOUT FALSEHOOD THE WORD OF THE LAW SHALL BE FULFILLED, AND WISDOM IN THE MOUTH OF THE FAITHFUL SHALL BE MADE PLAIN. — He said that dreams, auguries, and divinations should not be heeded or believed; now he teaches that the law of God and its teachers should be heeded and believed. This is an anticipation of an objection. For someone will say: If I do not consult diviners, augurs, and dream-interpreters, who will inform me about future and hidden things? Who will teach me? What should I do or not do in this or that situation? To this objection he responds, saying: "Without falsehood the word shall be fulfilled," as if to say: The law of God, since it is truthful, being dictated by the first truth, can and should be brought to completion and perfection without the falsehood of dreams, auguries, and other divinations: therefore when any practical doubt arises, for example, what is good, what is evil, what should be done or omitted in this or that case, what is the way to happiness, consult the law — not diviners, not augurs, not dream interpreters: for the law will most truly teach you all these things that you need to know; but diviners and augurs will teach falsely and deceptively. Thus the Syriac slave in the Adelphi calls his master a dream compared to Demea, whom he calls wisdom: "You," he says, "however great you are, you are nothing but wisdom; the other one is trifling, a dream."
AND WISDOM IN THE MOUTH OF THE FAITHFUL (that is, of a truthful person, who is a student of the law, Sacred Scripture, and divine wisdom) SHALL BE MADE PLAIN — that is, it will be plain, easy, and clear, so that there is no need to approach diviners, whose responses are obscure, entangled, and misleading; as when the oracle responded to Croesus who was inquiring about victory: "Croesus, crossing the Halys, will destroy many kingdoms." For "will destroy" is ambiguous: for it can be taken actively to mean he will devastate and overthrow; and in the middle voice to mean he will lose them, and be stripped of them. Thus Lyra says: "It shall be made plain, that is, it will be plainly taught; for Scripture knows how to open and explain hidden things, because it is practiced in such matters." Again, "it shall be made plain," that is, it will be found to be plain and clear, containing no winding paths of error or troublesome scruples of conscience, says Jansenius; third, "it shall be made plain," that is, it will be recognized to be entirely plain and perfect, and that in it lies human perfection; for it has nothing uneven, rough, or twisted, and seems to be a sheer plain of wisdom and virtue. Hence the Greek has: it shall be consummated, or perfected. Wherefore Rabanus reads complantabitur, that is, it shall be made solid, perfected, so that wisdom appears to be planted and deeply rooted in it. St. Augustine in his Speculum reads contemplabitur.
Moreover, the Greek has it briefly and clearly thus: Without falsehood the law is consummated, and wisdom is the perfection of a faithful mouth, or wisdom is perfected in a faithful mouth; that is, wisdom, which is brought forth by a truthful mouth, is that which perfectly
can instruct a person about all doubtful matters, so that beyond it there is no need to observe dreams, auguries, and divinations. The Tigurina: The law shall be consummated even without falsehood, and wisdom perfected by a truthful mouth; but the Syriac: In the place where there are no sins, God feeds; because the wisdom of the wicked is believed at night, as if to say: Where diviners, augurs, and dream-interpreters are not consulted, but the law of God itself, there God Himself feeds those who consult Him with true oracles, teaches and instructs them; there truth is plain, full, and clear: but diviners, augurs, and dream-interpreters dwell in the night of darkness and errors, and therefore consult dreams and demons themselves at night, led by them into the fog of lies and deceptions, they are miserably deceived and deluded, and they deceive and delude those who consult them. He alludes to Isaiah chapter 8, verse 19: "When they shall say to you: Inquire of the pythons and of the diviners, who chirp in their incantations: Should not a people inquire of their God, on behalf of the living from the dead? To the law rather and to the testimony. And if they do not speak according to this word, there shall be no morning light for them." See what was said there.
The sum of all this is, as if to say: Instead of diviners and dream-interpreters, consult the law of God, and its teachers and
interpreters. For they will truthfully teach you all things leading to salvation, which diviners and dream-interpreters falsely and lyingly promise to declare. Hence in what follows he teaches which teachers should be consulted and followed: therefore he compares and prefers the law and the teachers of the law to diviners and dream-interpreters, because the former teach truth, the latter falsehood and lies; and because the doctrine and responses of the former are plain, open, and clear, while those of the latter are obscure, ambiguous, and tangled. For demons, when formerly consulted by diviners about the outcome of future contingent events, since they were ignorant of them, responded so ambiguously that however things might fall out, they would seem to have spoken the truth and predicted what was going to happen. Thus to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who consulted the oracle and diviners about whether he would defeat the Romans in war, they responded: "I say that you, son of Aeacus, can conquer the Romans;" which is ambiguous, and can mean either that the Romans will conquer Pyrrhus, or that Pyrrhus will conquer the Romans, as St. Augustine observes, in book III of the City of God, chapter 17. Eusebius recounts more examples of ambiguous oracles in book V of the Preparation for the Gospel, chapter 10, and book VI, chapter 4, where from Porphyry he teaches that the Delphic Apollo in his oracles confessed that he sometimes lied.
SECOND PART OF THE CHAPTER, IN WHICH HE TEACHES THAT WISDOM IS ACQUIRED BY TRAVEL AND MUCH EXPERIENCE.
He opposes the truth of experience to the vanity of dreams and divinations, in order to teach that wisdom should be sought from experience, by approaching and listening to learned men, not from diviners: especially because experience itself shows that the observation of dreams and divination are plainly vain, false, and deceptive things.
9. HE WHO HAS NOT BEEN TESTED, WHAT DOES HE KNOW? — These words are now lacking in the Greek; yet that they once existed is clear from our text here, and from St. Ambrose (or rather Victor, Bishop of Cartenna, as is evident from the end of the book, and from Gennadius and Trithemius, On Ecclesiastical Writers), in his book On Penance, chapter 26, where he reads and explains them thus: "For the most part," he says, "carefree happiness is subject to offenses; but he whom fear corrects becomes more cautious at avoiding past errors, because he who takes care not to fall again in the same place where he has already fallen will always be more vigilant. Thus experienced dangers make a helmsman vigilant, and he who has even once suffered shipwreck from carelessness sometimes fears to enter rough harbors. And so divine Scripture says: He who has not been tested, what manner of things does he know? — to show that through the experience of trial the tested person always becomes more cautious, and that by fear he is more corrected who was previously incautious, through the knowledge of trial."
Sirach had said in the preceding verse: "Wisdom in the mouth of the faithful shall be made plain;" now he explains who that faithful person is, and says it is the one who has been tested, and in trial remained constant and faithful to God and God's law. "Tested" in this passage means one who, tossed about by many tribulations and misfortunes, has experienced many things, and by experiencing them has learned many things: just as Abraham was tested, when he was commanded by God to leave his homeland and travel to the land of Canaan, in which pilgrimage he suffered many adversities, experienced many things and learned from them, and became wise and perfect. For Sirach here is chiefly treating of the experience and wisdom that is acquired by traveling, for the sake of which he asserts that he himself traveled to Egypt and other places. He therefore calls that man wise and worthy of our trust, who through trials has been instructed from heaven, and through the experience of many things has become prudent and learned, so that he can also teach, console, heal, advise, and direct others.
Morally, learn from this that trial not only prepares merit for us on earth and a reward in heaven; but also brings great light to the intellect, by which one becomes wise, indeed a master and teacher of wisdom, that is, of prudence and virtue. For just as those who have more frequently been present in battles best know both their dangers and their remedies, and therefore these make the best military commanders: so also those who have more frequently struggled with the devil and overcome his temptations best know, and teach others, the way to fight with him and to overcome his temptations, as St. Anthony, St. Hilarion, Macarius, Arsenius, and other anchorites taught by word and example.
A MAN EXPERIENCED IN MANY THINGS WILL THINK OF MANY THINGS; AND HE WHO HAS LEARNED MUCH WILL NARRATE UNDERSTANDING. 10. HE WHO IS NOT EXPERIENCED RECOGNIZES FEW THINGS: BUT HE WHO HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN MANY THINGS MULTIPLIES CUNNING. — For "experienced in many things" the Complutensian reads πεπλανημένος, that is, one who has wandered about much in travel; again, one who has been deceived more often in many things. The Roman text, however, reads πεπαιδευμένος, that is, educated, taught, one who has learned many things by study, travel, and experience: therefore whether you read one or the other, the sense comes to the same thing. Again, for "he who has learned much," the Greek is πολύπειρος, that is, one who has experienced much. Therefore these three terms mean the same or nearly the same thing, namely the one who by traveling has seen and heard many things, and by experience has learned much. Against this person he sets "him who is not experienced," as if to say: He who has seen, heard, and experienced many things — this person will prudently think of, advise, and suggest many things: likewise, since by experience he has learned much, he "will narrate understanding," that is, knowledge, intelligence, and prudence regarding many things; and, as the Tigurina translates, will discourse wisely; but "he who is not experienced" knows few things and can narrate but few; namely, "experience is the teacher of things;" and (as the Wise Man says): "Nothing is wiser than experience; experience itself teaches us, trial itself gives understanding," says St. Bernard, sermon 11 on the psalm He who dwells. And St. Nazianzen in his Iambics:
I am indeed old, but not ignorant of very many
Evils of life: for wrinkles produce the use of things;
Whence prudence is often born.
The same, oration 12: "Experience, he says, is the teacher of fools."
What follows — "But he who has been involved in many things multiplies cunning" — is obscure. Some, such as Lyra, Hugh, Dionysius, and Palacius, read "foolish" (fatuus) instead of "involved" (factus); the Greek πεπλανημένος, that is, deceived, led astray, supports this, as if to say: He who is foolish and fatuous in many things, errs and sins in many things. But the Roman text, Rabanus, and others generally read factus, not fatuus. Which, first, some commentators cited by Lyra explain thus, as if to say: "One 'involved in many things,' they say, is one who runs through many things to be known, just as a rooster walks over grains without fixing his intellect on examining any one sufficiently; this person multiplies wickedness: for he has sufficient knowledge of nothing, and consequently has useless and false doctrine." And St. Dionysius the Carthusian: "'Involved in many things,' he says, that is, distracted by diverse things, and divided in heart by many things, when one thing is necessary."
Second, others say: "One 'involved in many things'" is called someone who wants to experience many things, and those things vain, curious, and pleasurable, and who thrusts and mixes himself into many things: for such a person sins in many things. Thus Rabanus: "What, he says, does he wish to suggest in saying: He who has been involved in many things has multiplied his wickedness, except that the person who is changeable in mind and divided by many cares and anxieties of the world, is unstable and—"
by the experience of many vices, often becomes liable to crimes? Or alternatively, he who, losing the unity of faith, being deluded follows the manifold sects of heretics, entangled in the wickednesses of many crimes, perniciously serves them, and shows the great wickedness of a malicious mind."
Third, "involved in many things," that is, led astray in many things: for he who is deceived and seduced does not so much act as is acted upon; namely, he has been made foolish, erring, gluttonous, libidinous, etc., as if three degrees and orders of men are here assigned. The first is of those who by experiencing much have learned much; the second, of those who by experiencing little have learned little; the third, of those who have experienced much but were deceived and led astray in those experiences, and therefore multiply the wickedness they had learned and in which they were seduced and corrupted. For these are properly signified by the Greek πεπλανημένος, which our translator renders literally in the following verse as "implanatus" (led astray). Hence Jansenius explains it thus: He who has been deceived by error in many things and is foolish, it is inevitable that through his errors he commits much wickedness and sins more often. Therefore it is suggested that wisdom must be acquired by every effort and labor, so that we may be free both from ignorance and from wickedness. For many are corrupted by traveling, and learn and absorb the frauds, wickednesses, and depravities of individual nations, which they then practice throughout their whole lives: indeed they also teach others, as is evident in those who, while traveling among heretics, are infected with heresy, magic, luxury, and drunkenness.
Fourth, very probably our Emmanuel Sa says: "'Involved in many things,' he says, that is, having been engaged in many regions and affairs, having wandered much, having experienced much, this person 'multiplies cunning,' that is, knowledge of cunning or shrewdness, as if to say: He acquires for himself great cleverness, so that he cannot easily be deceived by evil people and led into fraud. For in Greek: ὁ δὲ πεπλανημένος πληθύνει πανουργίαν; where πεπλανημένος can signify both one who has been deceived, and one who has wandered through many regions and experienced much. The very sequence of the discourse demands more the second meaning. Hence the Roman text translates: But he who has wandered multiplies shrewdness. For the Greek πανουργίαν signifies cleverness and shrewdness, both the good kind which is part of prudence, and the bad kind which is wickedness, fraud, and malice. Others translate: But he who has wandered is of much cleverness. The antithesis of this half-verse with the former supports this exposition; for he contrasts the one "who has been involved in many things" with the one "who is not experienced:" therefore "involved in many things" is the same as "having experienced much." For just as experience is the cause of knowledge and prudence, so inexperience is the cause of ignorance and imprudence. "The experienced one" therefore "multiplies cunning," that is, cleverness, by which he recognizes and guards against, or shrewdly eludes, all forms of malice and fraud. Thus malice and wickedness are from time to time taken for cleverness and
shrewdness: and a malicious person is called crafty, clever, shrewd, renowned, as can be seen in Cicero, book III of On the Orator. Especially because the Hebrews often take nouns and verbs in the act, not real but mental; as when Jeremiah hears from God, chapter 1, verse 10: "I have appointed you today over nations and over kingdoms, to uproot and to destroy, to scatter and to overthrow, to build and to plant," that is, to foreknow, foretell, and prophesy that these nations are to be destroyed by Me, but those are to be built up and planted. See what was said there. By a similar trope and figure, take "cunning" here to mean the knowledge of cunning, or cleverness.
11. HE WHO HAS NOT BEEN TESTED, WHAT MANNER OF THINGS DOES HE KNOW? HE WHO HAS BEEN LED ASTRAY WILL ABOUND IN WICKEDNESS. — For "implanatus" (led astray), Hugh reads "implantatus" (implanted); that is, he says, one who is not founded (rather than founded) in Scripture and morals, or who is inconstant and changeable. And Dionysius the Carthusian says: Implantatus, that is, not rooted in God through fear and humility, as the just are, of whom it is said in Psalm 92:14: "Planted in the house of the Lord." But the correct reading is "implanatus;" for this is how the corrected Roman codices read. This verse is missing in the Greek and Syriac, and in the Latin codex of Rabanus. Hence Francis Lucas and Jansenius suspect, indeed plainly assert, that this verse crept in, or was added from an alternate translation made from the Greek of the preceding verse, which reads: "He who has not been tested knows few things, but he who has wandered multiplies cunning;" which in the preceding verse our translator rendered: "He who is not experienced recognizes few things; but he who has been involved in many things multiplies cunning;" while here he translates: "He who has not been tested, what manner of things does he know? He who has been led astray will abound in wickedness." For πεπλανημένος has two meanings: first, one who has wandered through many things, whom in the preceding verse he called "involved in many things;" second, one who has been deceived, whom in this verse, retaining the Greek word, he calls "implanatus" (led astray): about which word I said more in chapter 15, verse 12. And both translations fit this passage, and one is subordinate to and serves the other. For those who travel abroad and wander among foreigners are often deceived by inhabitants and others; and having been deceived, they become cautious and learn to be wise, so as not to be deceived again. Moreover, I showed in Canon VIII on St. Paul that various translations of the same passage of Sacred Scripture exist from time to time, even canonical ones.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: He who has not been tested, in Greek ἐπειράσθη, that is, experienced in many things (for to test is to try or to take an experiment), what manner of things does he know? As if to say: He knows few and small things: but he who has been tested in many things, and has experienced much by wandering, and has more often been "implanatus," that is, deceived — this person will certainly abound in wickedness, in Greek πανουργίᾳ, that is, in shrewdness and cleverness, so that he knows how to see through and avoid the wickednesses of others, or cleverly elude them. So says Emmanuel Sa. Hence the Complutensian translates: He who is not experienced knows few things; but he who has been deceived —; the Roman: He who has wandered multiplies shrewdness; the Tigurina: He who has not been tested knows few things; but he who has been deceived will have gained an increase of cleverness;
others: He who has not been tested knows few things; but he who has wandered has much cleverness. Finally, the Syriac renders these three verses clearly thus: A wise man investigates much, and he who prospers examines everything. He who is not experienced knows little; and he who is experienced has multiplied wisdom. Thus Plato traveled to Egypt, and there learned the wisdom handed down from the Hebrews to the Egyptians: likewise in traveling he underwent many dangers, and experienced many hardships, frauds, and misfortunes. Solon, Pythagoras, and other philosophers did the same, and especially Apollonius of Tyana, as St. Jerome testifies in his letter to Paulinus. Indeed St. Jerome himself traveled through Greece, Gaul, Asia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt for the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, namely to see the holy Anchorites and Religious, and to learn from them the Religious life: in which pilgrimage he himself testifies that he underwent many perils, labors, and events. Here is relevant that saying of Democritus in Stobaeus, sermon 38, who, when asked "what use travel was," replied: "It teaches frugality of life." For a morsel of bread and a grass bed are the sweetest remedies for the hunger and labor of the traveler.
12. I HAVE SEEN MANY THINGS IN MY WANDERING (so the Roman and Greek texts. Therefore Dionysius and others incorrectly read "in narrating"), AND VERY MANY CUSTOMS OF WORDS. — As if to say: I have seen many things, wandering through various regions and academies for the sake of study and experience, and very many customs of words, that is, of things and people. For "word" is often used for the thing signified by the word, through metonymy. The translator read συνήθειας, that is, customs: now they read σύνεσίν μου, that is, my prudence. For the Greek reads thus: "I have seen many things in my wandering, and more than my words is my understanding;" which the Roman text translates: I have seen many things in my wandering about, and my understanding is more than my words; and they explain it thus, as if to say: These very maxims which I teach others, I myself have for the most part used, and I have understood their truth by experience. The Complutensian, however, taking ἀποπλανήσει in its other meaning, which denotes deception, translates thus: I have seen many things in my deception, and fictions of words are my understanding. For instead of πλείοσιν, that is, many things, they read πλάσματα, that is, fictions, by which the same word, that is, the same thing, is variously fashioned, formed, and produced among various nations. Vatablus, reading μηχανήματα, translates: and by the devices of my words my wisdom consisted; the Tigurina, reading πλείονα: Many things, he says, I have seen through my wanderings, and more than I can say I understand; others: I have seen many things in my wandering, and I understand more than I can say, as if to say: Many things, wandering through various cities, I have seen, and more I have understood and learned than the things I write in this book; the Syriac: I have seen much, when I gained experience, and many things have passed over me.
13. SOMETIMES I WAS IN PERIL OF DEATH ON ACCOUNT OF THESE THINGS, AND I WAS DELIVERED BY THE GRACE OF GOD. — The Greek connects these differently and gives another sense: Often, they say, I was in peril of death, and was saved thanks to these things; that is, I escaped many dangers, and was saved through my experience and prudence acquired by study and travel. Hence the Tigurina: Often I came into peril of death, and again through these things I escaped; the Syriac: Many times I came to the point of death, and was delivered on account of them. Our translator more properly and piously joins "on account of these things" with "I was in peril," and to "I was deli-"
vered" he adds "by the grace of God," as if to say: While wandering through and surveying various regions, I more than once fell into dangers from robbers, shipwreck, enemies, and other things that threatened me with death: but the grace of God, since I was a student of His wisdom, and one who loved and revered God, rescued and protected me from all of them; on which occasion he passes to a commendation of the faithfulness of God, who protects and defends His worshippers everywhere.
THIRD PART OF THE CHAPTER. GOD IS THE FAITHFUL REFUGE IN ALL ADVERSITIES FOR THOSE WHO HOPE IN HIM.
14 and 15. THE SPIRIT OF THOSE WHO FEAR GOD IS SOUGHT OUT, AND IN HIS REGARD IT SHALL BE BLESSED (so the Roman text. Therefore some read less correctly: and in His sight they shall be blessed); FOR THEIR HOPE IS IN HIM WHO SAVES THEM, AND THE EYES OF GOD ARE UPON THOSE WHO LOVE HIM. — The Greek, cutting off the latter part of each sentence, combines them into this one: The spirit of those who fear the Lord shall live; for their hope is in Him who saves them; the Tigurina: The spirit of those who revere the Lord shall live; for their hope is placed in their Savior; the Syriac: God fulfills the will of those who fear Him, because great is His hope, and He delivers, as if to say: It is of great power and efficacy to hope in God; for He Himself delivers all who hope in Him. Our translator is, as usual, more ample and full, and for ζήσεται, that is, "shall live," reads ζητήσεται, that is, "shall be sought out." For Sirach opposes to the hope that the foolish place in dreams, auguries, and divinations, hope in God, in order to call them away from the former and lead them to the latter, as if to say: O you who vainly trust in diviners, augurs, and dream-interpreters, listen to me, who have seen all these things, and by experience have discovered them to be vain and deceptive, but that solid hope is placed in God alone; for He has delivered me from all dangers: For "the spirit of those who fear God" shall not be neglected, but will be exactly "sought out" by Him, so that He may preserve, rescue, and guard it in whatever dangers: "and in His regard," that is, when God begins to look upon it with the eye of His kindness, "it shall be blessed," that is, from the ocean of God's beneficence it shall obtain every salvation, every help, every good. He adds the reason: "For their hope is in Him who saves them," as if to say: God will preserve those who fear Him; because they have placed all their hope not in diviners, dream-gazers, and soothsayers, but in God alone. Moreover, the "eyes of God" are entirely fixed upon those who hope in and "love Him," so as to deliver them opportunely from all evils and fill them with all good things, according to the Psalmist, Psalm 25: "My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He will pluck my feet out of the net;" for He Himself said and promised: "I will require the blood (and consequently the life and spirit — for the spirit is nothing other than the purer and nobler blood) of your souls from the hand of every beast, and from the hand of man," Genesis 9:5; and Psalm 9,
verse 13: "Seeking their blood, He remembered;" and Ezekiel 3:18: "I will require his blood from your hand."
Note first: In the preceding verse, Sirach said that he was more than once delivered from death by God; now he extends this to all who fear God, and asserts that the spirit of every God-fearing person will be sought out by Him to be delivered, and that the spirit that looks to God will in turn be looked upon by Him, and will be favored with every benefit. For just as those who fear God cast their eyes upon Him, that they may be saved by Him: so in turn God casts His eyes upon them, to deliver and save them.
Note second, that the eyes of those who fear God are to be blessed in His sight, according to Psalm 121: "I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me: my help is from the Lord;" and Psalm 123:2: "As the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, as the eyes of a handmaid are on the hands of her mistress; so our eyes are toward the Lord our God." Therefore most fittingly do pious men take care to keep their eyes constantly fixed on God, according to Psalm 16:8: "I set the Lord always before me."
Note third: If you fix your eyes on God, He will fix His eyes on you — O most blessed repayer of grace! Therefore if you fall into any calamity, understand that you are falling before the eyes of God; and therefore, if it is expedient for you, you will be rescued from it. So Palacius. See St. Bernard on the psalm He who dwells, sermon 15 and others.
Here is relevant the prayer of St. Francis for obtaining divine love: "Let, I pray You, O Lord, the fiery and honeyed power of Your love absorb my mind from all things under heaven, that I may die of love for Your love, who deigned to die out of love for my love: through Yourself, the Son of God, who with the Father, etc. Amen."
Anagogically, God seeks out the spirit of the patient and of martyrs, to bless and glorify it, when the body is afflicted, crushed, and killed. Hence Christ says: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul," Matthew 10:28; and St. John, Apocalypse 14:13: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Henceforth, says the Spirit, let them rest from their labors;
for their works follow them." For "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints," Psalm 116:15. "The hope of reward is the consolation of labor," says St. Jerome. For, as Socrates used to say: "Just as a man without a woman does not suffice, so neither does hope without labor."
16. HE WHO FEARS THE LORD SHALL TREMBLE AT NOTHING AND SHALL NOT BE AFRAID: BECAUSE HE HIMSELF IS HIS HOPE. — The words "shall tremble" and "shall be afraid" are taken in the Hebrew manner not in an inchoative but a perfective sense, as if to say: He shall not be overcome by trembling and fear, he shall not be overwhelmed, he shall not succumb to trembling and fear, but will conquer and overcome it with hope of divine assistance. Hence the Roman text, instead of οὐθέν, that is, "nothing," as the Complutensian and our translator read, reads οὐ, that is, "he shall not tremble": and those are said to tremble and be afraid who are conquered by fear; for these tremulous ones shake and are terrified; the Tigurina: He who reveres the Lord shall dread or fear nothing, because He Himself is his hope. He alludes to Proverbs 28:1: "The just man, confident as a lion, shall be without terror," where, God willing, I shall say more about this in the next work; and to Psalm 125:1: "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion: they shall not be moved forever;" and to Psalm 23:4: "I will not fear evils, because You are with me;" and to Psalm 27:3: "If armies encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. If battle should rise against me, in this I shall hope." These are understood while God is the hope of the just; for if you tear your eyes away from Him, you will begin to be submerged in the sea with Peter. Likewise understand this of one who perfectly fears God, whose perfect charity casts out fear: and if you see Christ fearing and being afraid, note the promptness of the spirit, not the weakness of the flesh: for if the just man fears nothing of the innumerable evils that are in this world, because he feels that he has God with him, is not his soul blessed? says Palacius.
Aristotle, in his book On the Parts of Animals, writes that certain very timid animals are more difficult to tame and bring to gentleness; for we often see among animals that lions and tigers become mild; but not hares: among birds also we commonly see eagles, gyrfalcons, and certain bold birds of that kind become tame; but turtledoves, sparrows, and certain other more timid little birds cannot be tamed by any coaxing. And the reason is obvious: because for those that are more timid, fear itself is the reason they do not completely trust the one taming them; whereas for the bolder ones, boldness itself inspires confidence. If then this is the case, by what reasoning can it finally happen that the fear of God brings the fierce spirits of men to gentleness? The nature of the fear of God itself offers us the reason for this, through which the human spirit is not dismayed and cast down, but rather raised up and sharpened; for he who fears God from his heart immediately ceases to fear all other things, according to Proverbs 14:26: "In the fear of the Lord is confidence of strength, and there shall be hope for his children." Read Augustine, sermon 214 On the Times, where after he has expounded those words—
he expounds "The fear of the Lord is confidence of strength;" and he finally concludes: "Let him learn to fear, who does not wish to fear; let him learn to be anxious for a time, who always wishes to be secure: for just as in good health hunger is driven away not by distaste but by food, so in a healthy mind fear must be driven away not by frivolity but by charity: examine therefore your conscience, and fear God, whoever you are who no longer wish to fear."
Memorable is the example of St. John, who from his perpetual silence was surnamed the Silentiary. For when Alamundarus with his Saracens was invading Palestine, while all others were fleeing, he alone remained in the monastery, saying: "If God does not take care of me, why do I live?" Nor did his hope or God deceive him; for He immediately sent a lion to guard John day and night, to accompany him everywhere, and to protect him against the Saracens, as the eyewitness Cyril reports in his Life. Therefore St. Damascene truly says, from Didymus, in the Parallels, book I, chapter 4: "It cannot happen, he says, that one who is endowed with the fear of God should be fearful; since it has been foretold in the records of Scripture: Fear no one else besides Him."
St. Ambrose says admirably, in book II, letter 7 to Simplicianus: "Where, he says, there is wisdom, there is virtue of soul, there is constancy and fortitude; the wise man remains perfect in Christ, founded in charity, rooted in faith. The wise man therefore knows nothing of the failure of things, and knows not a wavering mind, but will shine like the sun of justice, who shines in the kingdom of His Father." And in book II on Abraham, chapter 10: "He cannot, he says, fail to be good and perfect who has acquired this; which both possesses every virtue and is the image of goodness." Here is relevant that saying of Sixtus or Sextus the Philosopher, maxims 277 and 304: "The souls of the wise are insatiable in the love of God. The wise man is a partaker of God. Nothing after God is like a wise man."
17 and 18. BLESSED IS THE SOUL OF HIM WHO FEARS THE LORD. TO WHOM DOES HE LOOK (in Greek τίνι ἐπέχει, that is, to whom does he attend or give heed?), AND WHO IS HIS STRENGTH? — He is blessed, both in hope, because through the fear and love of God he hopes, and will certainly attain, the heavenly beatitude he hopes for; and in reality, because the blessedness of this life consists in filial fear, that is, in the love of God; because through it one becomes a friend, son, and heir of God and co-heir with Christ; therefore, as a son he is protected, directed, and filled with every good thing by God. The Tigurina: Blessed is the soul of him who reveres the Lord; for whom does he look to, or on whom does he rely? The Syriac: He who fears God, blessed is his spirit; in whom will he trust, and who was his support? For "strength" the Greek has στήριγμα, that is, a foundation; so the Complutensian. Others read ἀντιστήριγμα; whence they vigorously translate: Who is his support against calamities? To which question the following verse responds, saying: "The eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear Him, a protector of power," etc., as if to say: The soul of one who fears God is blessed, because it looks to, relies upon, and is supported not by a man, not by an Angel, but by God Himself, the Almighty, who protects His own from every evil, and with every good
enriches and blesses; so Rabanus. Jansenius, however, takes these words as spoken in a kind of admiration, as if to say: O how great and how mighty is He in whom the one fearing God places his trust, always looking to Him! How great is He upon whom he leans, and whom he has for his strength, saying: "I will love You, O Lord, my strength!" This sense is more vigorous, but the former is simpler. Excellently St. Gregory of Nazianzus says in his Distichs: "Some," he says, "value gold, others well-furnished tables, that is the amusements of life, others silken fabrics, others fruitful lands, others finally flocks of four-footed beasts; but I count Christ as the equivalent of the most ample riches: would that it might some day be granted me to behold Him with a pure and naked mind! But the world may keep the rest."
Excellently St. Gregory of Nazianzus says in his Distichs: "Some," he says, "value gold, others well-furnished tables, that is the amusements of life, others silken fabrics, others fruitful lands, others finally flocks of four-footed beasts; but I count Christ as the equivalent of the most ample riches: would that it might some day be granted me to behold Him with a pure and naked mind! But the world may keep the rest."
St. Augustine, in Book I of On the Harmony of the Evangelists, chapter 17, asks why the Romans, who worshipped the gods of all nations, did not worship the God of the Hebrews, since they had subjugated the Hebrews just as much as other nations. "For," he says, "they had worshipped the gods of other nations that the Roman empire had subjected, especially since it was their view that all gods ought to be worshipped by the wise man;" and he answers saying: "Nothing remains for me to say except that He alone wished to be worshipped," as if to say: Because the God of the Hebrews, being the true and only God, demanded the whole heart, the whole affection, and did not permit it to be divided among others; so foolishly they preferred to do without Him rather than without all the rest. Therefore our God wills that He alone be looked upon, He alone wills to be loved and worshipped, because He alone is worthy of divine, that is, of all love and honor. And whoever does this will experience that He alone is our strength, glory, and every good.
"I said," he says, "Perhaps darkness will trample upon me, and night will be my illumination in my delights. Because darkness will not be obscured from You, and night will be illuminated like the day: as is its darkness, so also is its light."
Furthermore, as they are most bright, so also the eyes of God are most just on every side, so that He chastises everyone who does not fear Him according to his demerits. Whence Bede, in his commentary on Proverbs: "Before the face of God," he says, "nothing wicked remains unpunished." Indeed Seneca also says in his Proverbs: "Consider no place to be without a witness." Wherefore St. Bernard rightly sighs, in sermon 15 on Psalm Qui habitat: "O! if it were granted to me," he says, "to be certain that there is nothing in all of us offending that eye, which alone perfectly knows what is in man, seeing in him even what he himself does not see in himself."
19 and 20. A PROTECTOR (namely, the Lord, who immediately preceded) OF POWER, A SUPPORT OF STRENGTH, A COVERING FROM HEAT, AND A SHADE AT NOON. A TURNING AWAY OF OFFENSE, AND A HELP IN FALLING, LIFTING UP THE SOUL, AND ENLIGHTENING THE EYES, GIVING HEALTH, AND LIFE, AND BLESSING. — He gives God ten illustrious epithets, in order to show by them how great He is in whom those who fear God hope, so that they are rightly to be considered blessed on that account: "For He Himself," says Rabanus, "is a protector of power, protecting them from all adversity; a support of strength, strengthening them: He Himself is their covering against the heat of temptation, and a shade against the violent heat of persecution (for this is what 'noon' signifies); He Himself is the propitiation that blots out the sins of offense: He provides help to His own, lest they fall into the gravest sins; lifting up the souls of His faithful to the summit of perfection, and enlightening the eyes of their minds, granting them the grace of interior contemplation; He gives them the health of incorruption, the life of immortality and the blessing of a perpetual inheritance: Come, He says, you blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
Furthermore, we can divide and combine these ten epithets into five pairs.
The first pair is "protector of power," that is, powerful, as if to say: God by His power, by which He is omnipotent, as with an impenetrable shield, protects those who fear Him. The same is "support of strength," that is, of vigor — meaning robust, so that one may securely lean upon it, and through it dare to undertake all mighty deeds, and accomplish them in action. The Greek has it more beautifully and expressively: hyperaspismós dynasteías, kaí stérigma ischýos; which the Zurich Bible translates: The Lord is a powerful protection and a strong support; others: The Lord is a most powerful defense, and a most strong prop; the Syriac: The Lord is a great confidence, and a protector from
THE EYES OF THE LORD ARE UPON THOSE WHO FEAR HIM. — The Zurich Bible: The Lord regards those who love Him, as if to say: The eyes of God continually look upon and are attentive to those who fear Him, so as to direct them, protect them, free them, and enrich them with every gift. Note: The eyes of the Lord are most bright, most benign, and most powerful; wherefore they both behold all the needs of those who fear Him, and have compassion on them, and both can and will come to their aid. Hence God is entirely eye: "God," says Pliny, Book II, chapter 7, "is entirely sense, entirely sight." Whence Theos, that is God, is said apo tou theasthai, that is, from seeing, says Damascenus, Book I of On the Faith, chapter 12, because God sees through even the most secret and innermost things of the heart. For He Himself, as St. Augustine says, is entirely light — indeed He is the first uncreated and immense light illuminating all things. Tiberius Caesar, as Pliny testifies, Book XI, chapter 38, and Suetonius in his Life of Tiberius, chapter 66, had such brilliant eyes that at night in the darkness, without any lamp, by the sole splendor of his eyes he could see and read letters. Likewise Gaius Marius darted rays from his eyes, by which the man who had been sent to kill him was struck and stunned, and drew back, as Plutarch testifies in his Life of Marius. Far brighter and more resplendent are the eyes of God, which survey all things, examine all things — indeed illuminate and make bright all things; for they are
the enemy. Properly ὑπερασπίζω [hyperaspizo] is a defense and protection which is made by means of a shield; for aspis is a buckler, a shield — properly a round shield such as the Lacedaemonians used; just as aspis was used by the Thracians; hence aspizo means to protect with a shield; aspistes is a warrior bearing a shield; hyperaspizo means to defend and fight for strenuously; hyperaspistes is a vigorous defender who protects someone with his shield. Just as Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, David, Judas Maccabaeus, etc., were hyperaspistai of Israel, that is, of the Jews: so God is the hyperaspistes and most fierce champion of all who fear Him. He alludes to the word of God to Abraham, Genesis 15:1: "Do not fear, Abraham, I am your protector;" in Hebrew anochi magen lach, that is, I am your shield; the Septuagint has, I am your hyperaspistes. See what was said there, and on Psalm 91:5: "His truth will surround you as a shield;" and Psalm 5:13: "O Lord, You have crowned us as with the shield of Your good will." This is a great consolation for the pious, that God surrounds and protects them like a shield, receiving and breaking all the darts that are hurled at the pious by the devil, the flesh, and the world, so that they must first strike God before they can reach the pious; and by God they are repelled or shattered, so that they either do not reach the pious at all, or arrive only broken, shattered, weakened, and enfeebled.
Furthermore, God as protector applies a threefold guard for His own: the first, of men; the second, of angels; the third, of Himself. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 15 on Psalm Qui habitat: "Because he hoped in Me, I will deliver him. Not in watchmen, not in a man, not in an angel, but in Me, He says, he hoped; expect no good except from Me, not even through those others. For every best gift, and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, James 1. From Me come the watches of men,"
heat, and as a shade against the noonday heat of any temptation and tribulation. For tribulations torture and burn a man like heat and fire. He alludes to Isaiah 4:6: "And the tabernacle will be a shade by day from the heat, and a security and a hiding place from the tempest and from rain," as if to say: God, like the pillar of cloud resting upon the tabernacle, went before the camp of the Hebrews and protected them like a parasol from the heat, Exodus 13:21 and Numbers 9. In the same manner He will lead His own to the promised land, namely to heaven, and will protect them from the heat of temptations and adversities. He also alludes to Psalm 91:5: "You will not fear the terror of the night, the arrow that flies by day, etc., the attack and the noonday demon." The Chaldean: From the host of demons who rage at noon. In Hebrew it is keteb, which some, as St. Jerome testifies, say is a specific demon that rages at noon, just as deber rages at night. So Rabbi Solomon and others. St. Jerome translates, from the bite of one lying in wait at midday. The sense is, as if to say: God, if you fear Him, will protect you, so that you need not fear the demon and his followers, the tyrants who rage at noon, that is, openly and in broad daylight, and who attack you — as if to say: You will be safe from any evil that either by day or by night, either openly or secretly, whether you know it or not, as St. Augustine says, a demon or a man could contrive, whether privately or publicly through floods, fires, storms, devastation of fields, persecutions, wars, destructions, etc.
The third pair is: "A turning away of offense, and a help in falling;" in Greek, phylake apo proskommatos, kai boetheia apo ptoseos, that is, a guarding from stumbling, and a help from falling. Therefore God is called "a turning away of offense," namely in a passive or objective sense, that is, from whom we beg protection (as the Greek has it),
to repel, as when Cicero says in his fourth oration against Verres: "Now indeed, what shall Hortensius do? Shall he deprecate the charges of avarice with praise of frugality?" — that is, repel them, and so plead that no one be thought avaricious, but rather frugal. And in his oration for Plancius: "I shall profess myself not only the deprecator, that is, the protector of your fortunes, but your companion and associate." And Pliny, Book 28, chapter 2: "Even walls are inscribed with deprecations against fire" — that is, with certain words which have the power to avert fires from buildings. In the same way, God is a "deprecation," that is, a deprecator — meaning a preserver, repeller, and averter of "offense." And this sense accords more with the Greek. Therefore God is a "deprecation," that is, a removal or a taking away of "offense" — namely, a guarding from stumbling, as the Greek has it, as if to say: God is a guard, that is, a guardian who guards His own from offense, and removes it far from them. Less accurately, therefore, Rabanus and Lyranus explain it thus: "God is a deprecation of offense," meaning "He hears prayer for offense." Let this sense serve the others already given, and cohere with them.
lest we stumble and trip anywhere — is the same as a help, lest we fall; or, if we have fallen, that we immediately rise again. It is a Hebraism: for the Hebrews often use actives for passives, abstracts for concretes, the power for the object. So everywhere in the Psalms the Psalmist says to God: "You are my hope," that is, the object of my hope, or the thing hoped for by me: "You are my glory," that is, the object of my glory — You are He in whom and of whom I glory: "You are my patience," that is, He for whose sake I suffer. So here God is called "a deprecation of offense," that is, He whom we beseech not to permit us anywhere to stumble and fall; for deprecari and precari are contraries: for we pray (precamur) for a good, that it be given; we deprecate (deprecamur) an evil, that it be turned away from us. Hence Ovid, Book I of the Letters from Pontus, elegy 2: "Often I pray for death, and likewise I deprecate death;" as if to say: now I pray for death, that it take me; now I deprecate it, that it not take me; as if to say: now I would wish to die, now I would not. Thus to deprecate a danger is to shrink from it and pray that it not happen. Hence deprecari by metalepsis means to remove and re-
useful, concerning manifest works: to them indeed I have assigned men as guards. From Me come the watches of observant angels, who spiritually stir secret movements, driving away wicked tempters. Moreover, the inmost custody of the most secret intention must come not only from Me, but also through Me — since neither a human nor even an angelic eye is able to penetrate it." For God alone enters the heart, and knows, protects, and directs its most intimate thoughts and intentions, according to Hebrews 4:12: "For the word of God is living and effective, and more penetrating than any two-edged sword; reaching even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints also and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart."
The second pair of God's epithets is: "A covering from heat, and a shade at noon;" in Greek, skepe apo kausonos kai skene apo mesembrias, that is, a shelter from heat, and a shelter from noon; the Zurich Bible: A covering from the heat, a shade from the noon; others: A covering against the heat, and a covering against the noon; the Syriac: Delivering from the enemy and rescuing from the blow, as if to say: God is for those who fear Him like a shelter against the heat,
regards, the end; as to election, salvation; as to Himself, He alone knows. What is God? An omnipotent will, a most benevolent power, an eternal light, an unchangeable reason, the highest blessedness; creating the mind for participation in Himself, giving it life for feeling, disposing it for desiring, expanding it for receiving, filling it unto happiness, surrounding it for security. What is God? No less the punishment of the perverse than the glory of the humble. For He is a certain reasonable direction of equity, unconvertible and unfailing, inasmuch as He reaches everywhere; against which all wickedness that dashes itself must necessarily be confounded. Why should not everything swollen or distorted strike against this and be shattered?"
Symbolically and prophetically, Palacius judges that by these epithets, as by hieroglyphics, are denoted the passion and cross, and nine endowments and fruits of Christ crucified: For, he says, beneath those divine epithets which Ecclesiasticus attributes to God, there lie hidden the extraordinary and most excellent praises of Christ. When you hear that God is a "protector" or shield, understand that Christ was to be wounded for us; for a shield receives the wounds that the one protected by the shield would have received in battle. For which reason He is also called a wall and a rampart. Second, when you hear that God is a "support" (upon which, namely, the house leans), understand that Christ was to be profoundly humbled, so as to be the foundation of the Church, upon which she might lean, lest the floods and winds rushing upon her could drive her to ruin. Third, when you hear that God is a "covering from heat," understand that Christ was the shepherd who, lest the sun harm His sheep, exposed Himself to the sun's heat better than Jacob, who thus commends his pastoral duty: "By day I was consumed by heat and by frost at night," Genesis 31:40. Fourth, when you hear that God is a "shade from the noonday heat," understand that Christ was crucified at the sixth hour, that is, at noon; and that then He received upon Himself the burning heat of the sun, that is, of divine justice,
received upon Himself, according to that verse: "Your wrath has passed over Me" — namely, the severity of God's justice (which was going to burn us) Christ received upon Himself, and thereby turned the sun into shade for us. Fifth, when you hear that God is a "deprecation of offense," understand that Christ, both on the cross and in heaven, beseeches the Father not to rage against us for our offenses. And also that He beseeches us not to offend Him. Sixth, when you hear that God is a "help in falling," understand this: when by falling we descend into death and hell, Christ, in order to rescue us from there, descended into death and hell, so that He might extend His hand to us who had fallen. Seventh, when He says, "lifting up the soul," understand it thus: Christ will exalt us with Himself into heaven; so that, just as He descended into the lower parts of the earth to raise us up, so He ascended to the highest parts of heaven to join us to Himself. Eighth, when He says, "enlightening the soul," He teaches that in heaven we shall see light in His light, that is, in the light of glory we shall be glorious. Ninth, when He says, "giving health and life and bless-
ing," He indicates what the eternity of glory will be like, which Christ will give to the elect, namely health, life, and all good things. For there "they shall be inebriated with the abundance of the house" of God, "and with the torrent of pleasure" they shall be refreshed: "for with You (He says) is the fountain of life," Psalm 36:9-10.
FOURTH PART OF THE CHAPTER, TEACHING THAT GOD DOES NOT APPROVE BUT REJECTS THE OFFERINGS OF PLUNDERERS AND THE WICKED.
He has taught thus far that God protects and blesses those who fear Him; now He teaches who they are, and in what the fear, that is, the worship and reverence of God, consists. First, therefore, he asserts that it does not consist in offerings made to God from plunder and wickedness. He says therefore:
21. THE OFFERING OF ONE WHO SACRIFICES FROM WHAT IS WICKED (in Greek adiko, which the Complutensian renders "unjust") IS DEFILED, AND THE MOCKERIES OF THE UNJUST ARE NOT PLEASING. — The Syriac: The sacrifices of the wicked, which are wickedness, and (that is, therefore) their offerings are not accepted, as if to say: He who offers a sacrifice from a wicked thing, or from what has been wickedly acquired — his offering and victim, as if polluted, displeases God; and the offerings of "the unjust" are rather "mockeries" and derisions of God than true offerings, as if to say: The unjust by their offerings seem rather to mock God than to worship and revere Him; both because they wish to remain in their injustice and hostility toward God, and because they offer God victims polluted by plunder or some other crime. He censures certain wicked men who live in plundering, fraud, usury, etc., and meanwhile offer oblations to God, as though they might thereby expiate their crimes, or blind the eyes of God, and corrupt Him with their gifts so that He overlook and not punish them. This is a stupid blasphemy; for it makes God the presider over, or the participant in and praiser of plunder, theft, and other iniquities, as the Gentiles used to do, who assigned some god to each of their lusts and vices, so that with his help, won over through invocation, vows, and sacrifices, they might freely and fully satisfy them. Thus they assigned Venus to lust, Mercury to fraud, Priapus to theft, Mars to plunder (whence they offered him spoils, so that he would grant them the opportunity of plundering more), Volupia to pleasure, Bacchus to drunkenness, Salacia to wantonness. See St. Augustine, Book IV of The City of God, chapter 11, and Book VII, chapters 21 and 22.
For "defiled" our translator read memomemene from momos, that is, a blemish; now they read memimemene. Which the Complutensian translates as "ridiculous;" the Roman as "mocked," as if to say: God laughs at and mocks offerings made from what is wicked. Again, for "mockeries" our translator with the Roman editions reads mokemata, that is, sneers, derisions; others read momemata, that is, blemishes; the Complutensian reads doremata, that is, gifts. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: A sacrifice from unjustly gotten goods is a mockery of the one sacrificing, nor do the gifts of the unjust merit favor — both because the offerer is unjust and because the thing offered is unjust. For he offers from what belongs to another, whereas God ought to be honored from one's own, says Lyranus,
according to Proverbs 3:9: "Honor the Lord from your substance." Whence St. Ambrose, Book VIII on Luke chapter 19: "The rich man Zacchaeus," he says, "was chosen by Christ, but by giving half of his goods to the poor, and also restoring fourfold what he had taken by fraud; for one without the other is not enough, nor does generosity have grace if injury persists; because it is not spoils that are sought, but gifts."
Furthermore, the phrase "from what is wicked" signifies that not only offerings from plunder or similar injustice, but also those from any wickedness whatsoever, displease God — for example, if they are made in violation of some divine commandment, whether of the Decalogue. Hence the offering of Jephthah, Judges 11:31, by which he vowed that if he returned victorious from battle, he would sacrifice to God the first person who came out of his house to meet him, even if it were his daughter, and returning victorious he actually sacrificed her to God — this displeased God; because it was not so much a sacrifice as a homicide, indeed a parricide, forbidden by the fifth commandment of the Decalogue: "You shall not kill." Likewise the offering that the Pharisees taught children, that they should neglect their needy parents and say to them, corban, that is, "this gift I have dedicated to God; therefore it is not lawful for me to give it to you, O father" — Christ condemns this, Matthew 15:6. Likewise the offering of Saul from the flocks of Amalek, which God had ordered to be killed — God rejected it as an offering of disobedience, and accordingly deprived Saul of his kingdom, 1 Samuel 15:22 and following. Whence the Wise Man says, Ecclesiastes chapter 4:17: "Obedience is far better than the sacrifices of fools, who do not know what evil they do." Likewise a vow by which someone vows a victim or an offering — for example, to consecrate a son to God — if he obtains a concubine and begets the son from her, it is shameful and displeases God, both on account of the inclination toward the act of fornication, and because of the irreverence or insult that is inflicted upon God by such a vow. And it is a tacit blasphemy, because when you seriously promise God what you know to be evil, you insinuate that it pleases God, and that He is worshipped and honored by it. A similar irreverence will exist if one fulfills the vow with the same intention, as Father Lessius teaches, Book II on Justice, chapter 40, On the Vow, doubt 7, numbers 36 and following.
You will say: Christ, in Luke 16:9, seems to urge the contrary, indeed to command it; for He says: "Make friends for yourselves from the mammon of iniquity: so that when you fail, they may receive you into eternal dwellings." I reply that "mammon," that is riches, is called "of iniquity" both because they are the instruments of many crimes; and "of iniquity" because they are inequitable, that is, unfaithful, deceptive, fleeting, not faithful and stable, as are spiritual and heavenly riches,
which Christ accordingly contrasts with them in the same chapter, verse 11; and finally because the wicked think that those alone are riches, because they do not know divine riches. So St. Augustine, Treatise 35 On the Words of the Lord. For otherwise it is not lawful to give alms from usury and plunder, as St. Augustine teaches in the same place, and it is found in 14, question 5, canons 2 and 9, where the same thing is proved from this passage of Ecclesiasticus.
22. THE LORD ALONE TO THOSE WHO BEAR WITH HIM IN THE WAY OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE — supply: suffices. For the pious, who sustain and hope in God, say to Him with the Psalmist: "What is there for me in heaven? And from You what have I desired upon earth? God of my heart, and God my portion forever," Psalm 73:26. And with St. Augustine: "Whatever various things you seek here, God alone will be all things to you." And with St. Francis: "My God and my all." Truly our Thomas a Kempis, in The Imitation of Christ, Book III, chapter 31: "He will long remain small and will lie upon the ground, who esteems anything great except the one sole immense and eternal good. And whatever is not God is nothing, and ought to be counted as nothing."
Second, others supply "is required," as if to say: God alone is required by the pious who truly and justly hope in Him. So Lyranus. Those, he says, who stand "in the way of truth and justice" have the one true God for their God, and He accepts their gifts: plunderers and the avaricious have gold and money for their god, the glutton has delicacies, the lustful has the pleasure of touch; and therefore their sacrifices are not accepted by God.
Third, Palacius supplies "is to be adored:" God, he says, is to be adored alone, not together with the idol Dagon, 1 Samuel 5, that is, not together with the idol of iniquity; and He is to be adored "in the way of truth and justice," not in the way of theft and plunder.
Furthermore, the pious are said to sustain the Lord, according to Paul, 1 Corinthians 6:20: "Glorify and bear God in your body;" and David, Psalm 27:14: "Act manfully, and sustain the Lord;" so that it is a marvelous thing for a giant to be carried by a dwarf: and yet Simeon was governed by Him whom he carried, Luke 2. So Palacius.
Fourth and most genuinely, as if to say: The Lord alone is Lord, and He shows Himself as Lord to those who sustain Him "in the way of truth and justice" — that is, in the way of true justice, as a hendiadys; or "in the way of truth" of life, which is practical, and nothing other than justice and holiness. So Jansenius. The Lord alone, he says, belongs to those who sustain Him, that is, He alone acknowledges Himself as Lord, and He alone is present to those who patiently await Him, living in the way of truth and justice: so that they neither deceive anyone by the falsity of their words, nor oppress anyone by the injustice of their works.
Morally note: That God, although He is God and Father of all, especially of the just, is nonetheless especially such to "those who sustain Him," that is, to those who are steadfast and strong. The Lord glories, namely, in being Lord of vigorous men, who persevere in the way of truth and justice, and resist the impediments of virtue that would draw them away from good. For just as a man rejoices if he has faithful servants; and a king is glad if he has strong and robust soldiers who never desert him in battle nor turn their backs to the enemy: so the Lord rejoices exceedingly in the steadfastness and firmness of His servants and soldiers.
23. THE MOST HIGH DOES NOT APPROVE THE GIFTS OF THE WICKED, NOR DOES HE LOOK UPON THE OFFERINGS OF THE WICKED: NOR WILL HE BE PROPITIATED FOR SINS BY THE MULTITUDE OF THEIR SACRIFICES. — He has taught that gifts made from what is wicked do not please God: now he extends this to all "gifts of the wicked," even those made from what is justly and properly their own. "Of the wicked" — understand this in a composite sense, namely, of those persisting in their wickedness; for if they repent of it, and seriously wish to renounce it, God will certainly accept their gifts and sacrifices for sin. For He Himself decreed and instituted these in Leviticus 3. For, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 51:19: "A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; a contrite and humbled heart, O God, You will not despise." Nevertheless, by "the wicked" here may be understood any who exist in mortal sin, even if they do not persist in repeating it. For God does not approve their gifts in the way He approves the gifts of the just, as friends and children of His, for meriting condignly a greater grace and the forgiveness of sins. Whence from this saying of Sirach, the Doctors teach and prove that the satisfaction of one who is in mortal sin does not avail for the remission of punishment, nor make satisfaction for it; but for the satisfaction to be valid, the one who makes satisfaction must be endowed with the grace and charity of God. So the Scholastics commonly hold with the Master and St. Thomas, in the Fourth Book, distinction 15, with the sole exception of Scotus, whom the rest commonly refute.
By "gifts" understand victims, offerings, alms, vows, and anything else that we give and offer to God, or in honor of God. He alludes to Proverbs 15:8: "The sacrifices of the wicked are abominable to the Lord: the vows of the just are pleasing." The Greek, characteristically concise, reads thus: The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked, nor is He propitiated for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. So also the Syriac.
Understand these words about sacrifices that have the power of obtaining grace only from the work of the one performing it (ex opere operantis), that is, from the virtue and merit of the one sacrificing, such as were the sacrifices of the old law: for in the new law the Eucharistic sacrifice has its power from the work itself performed (ex opere operato), even if the priest performing and sacrificing is wicked. For in it the primary priest and offerer is Christ, who is the Holy of Holies, as the Council of Trent teaches. A witness to the truth of this statement is Cain, upon whose gifts, as a wicked and avaricious man, "God did not look," but upon those of the pious Abel,
oppress. These alone He acknowledges as His worshippers and genuine servants, and in turn acknowledges Himself as their Lord. What these offer, that at last is pleasing to Him — indeed the very truth and justice that they keep is the most pleasing sacrifice to Him.
This verse is now lacking in the Greek and the Syriac.
and generous man, Genesis 4; and the Jews, to whom Isaiah says, chapter 1:11: "What is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me, says the Lord? I am full; burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fatlings, etc., I did not want: incense is an abomination to me." He adds the reason, verse 15: "For your hands are full of blood."
A more recent and more fitting example is found in the Life of St. Columban, who freely and boldly rebuked Theodoric, the wicked king of the Franks. For when the king on one occasion learned of his arrival, he ordered a banquet prepared with royal splendor, and the other necessaries for his lodging to be brought by a long procession of servants. When Columban saw this, he turned away in face and voice, quoting that verse from Scripture: "The Most High rejects the gifts of the wicked," and saying it was unworthy that the mouths of God's servants should be polluted by the food of one who waged so unjust a war against them. But scarcely had he finished his words when all the vessels containing those foods burst apart, the wine and strong drink were poured out onto the ground, and the rest were scattered here and there. Amazed at this, the servants ran about, and the king himself, terrified, rushed forward and promised that he would be in his power in all things. Yet when he had soon returned to his vomit, Columban again attacked him with severer reproaches and threats. St. Anthony of Padua said and did the same thing to Ezzelino the tyrant when he offered him gifts, as his Life records.
Furthermore, when He says: "The Most High does not approve the gifts of the wicked," do not infer from this that all works of unbelievers (much less of believing sinners) are sins, and therefore hateful to God, as some formerly thought, and as St. Augustine sometimes seems to indicate. For this is now a manifest error: for unbelievers and the wicked, even those persisting in wickedness, do perform some works of moral virtues, and therefore morally good works — as when they give alms to the poor, when they offer sacrifices to God, when they honor their parents, etc.; which, because they are honest and virtuous, certainly please God and are approved. Therefore God is said not to approve them because He does not approve the givers and offerers, so as to be willing on their account to be reconciled to them and to give them grace and glory. Finally, by "the wicked" understand any persons, but especially plunderers who from the plunder of the poor offer gifts to God or to their neighbors: for the preceding and following discourse is about them. And this is the supreme iniquity of the wicked.
24. HE WHO OFFERS A SACRIFICE FROM THE SUBSTANCE OF THE POOR IS AS ONE WHO SLAYS A SON IN THE SIGHT OF HIS FATHER. — The Zurich Bible: He who sacrifices from the goods of the poor is like one slaying a son before his father; the Syriac: As one who kills a son before his father, so is he who offers an offering from what belongs to the poor; because the life of the poor depends on their substance. Therefore he who takes it away from a poor man takes away his very life: which is the same as slaying and sacrificing a son in the sight of his father, because the poor man is the son of God. For, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 10:14: "To You the poor man has been left,
You will be a helper to the orphan." And as Lyranus says: Although God is the Father of all by creation, nevertheless in a special way He is the Father of the poor by the promise of inheritance, saying Matthew 5:3: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Whence the Greek, omitting the word "as if," more vigorously and significantly reads thus: thyōn, that is, he slays; or more properly, he "sacrifices" and immolates "a son in the sight of his father, who brings a sacrifice from the money of the poor," as if to say: He who offers a sacrifice from the goods of the poor is not merely like one slaying a son, but truly and properly in reality slays and sacrifices a son in the sight of his father; because by snatching away their goods, he equally snatches away their life, which was to be sustained by those goods — from those, I say, whom God, when deserted by all others, specially claims and adopts as His own sons.
Therefore in this one crime five enormous crimes are contained: The first is plunder: that he snatches goods from another, and from a poor man at that. The second is homicide: that by snatching goods from the poor, he also snatches their life. The third is parricide: that he kills a son in the sight of his father, so that he seems to kill the father along with the son, each of whom is a brother to him, being a son of the same God the Father; for the father lives on and remains surviving in his son, whom at death he leaves behind as his heir and, as it were, his other self; therefore if the son dies, the father considers himself to die with him: and so he who plans death for the son aims at the father's throat, and as it were kills the father, inasmuch as he lives in his son, and indeed more than in himself; for where love is, there also is the soul and life. The fourth is deicide: that he destroys the Son of God in the very sight of God; for he who touches and violates the Son of God touches and violates God Himself, as His Father. The fifth is sacrilege: that he not only kills the Son of God, most beloved to God, but also sacrifices Him, that is, offers Him as a holocaust to God the Father. What can be said or imagined more sorrowful, more monstrous, or more horrible than this? For, as St. Gregory says, Book VII, epistle 3: "We can weigh how great is the father's grief if a son is sacrificed in his sight. And from this we can easily understand how great the grief that is provoked in God, when a sacrifice from plunder is offered to Him."
And St. Chrysostom, homily 33 to the People, saying that almsgiving is the most profitable of all arts, in order to incite his people to it and turn them from plunder: "Hear," he says, "Scripture saying: As one who kills a son before his father, so is one who offers a sacrifice from the money of the poor. Let us therefore have this threat written in our minds, this on our walls, this on our hands, this in our conscience, this everywhere: so that at least this fear, thriving in our hearts, may restrain our hands from daily slaughters; for worse than murder is plunder, which devours the poor man little by little."
St. Isidore, Book III of Sentences, chapter 60: "To give alms from plunder," he says, "is not a duty of mercy, but a profit of crime. Whence also
Solomon: He who offers, he says, a sacrifice from the plunder of the poor, is as if someone were to slay a son in the sight of his father. For he who takes unjustly never distributes justly: nor does he well bestow upon another what he wickedly extorts from someone else."
More fully St. Gregory (and from him Rabanus here), Part III of Pastoral Care, admonition 22; for having cited Isaiah chapter 61:8: "I the Lord love justice, and hate robbery in a burnt offering," he adds: "But how great the disapproval with which He rejects them, the Lord demonstrates through a certain wise man, saying: He who offers a sacrifice from the substance of the poor is as one who slays a son in the sight of his father. For what can be more intolerable than the death of a son before the eyes of his father? Therefore how great the wrath with which this sacrifice is regarded is shown by the fact that it is compared to the grief of a bereaved father. And yet for the most part they weigh how much they give, but pretend not to consider how much they plunder: they count their reward, as it were, and refuse to weigh their faults. Let them therefore hear what is written: He who gathered wages put them into a bag with holes. In a bag with holes, indeed, it is seen when money is put in; but when it is lost, it is not seen. Therefore those who look at how much they bestow, but do not consider how much they plunder, put their wages into a bag with holes: because indeed they gaze upon them as they heap them up in the hope of their trust, but lose them without looking."
Our Salazar explains more amply and profoundly in Ecclesiasticus 34:24, at the end, as if to say: "He who offers a sacrifice from the substance of the poor is as one who slays a son in the sight of his father" — that is, he does the same as if he were to slay Christ in the sight of God the Father. For since Christ, through faith, grace, love, the Eucharist, and His special care, exists and lives in the poor, the faithful, and Christians, it follows that he who by plunder takes away from them the necessities of life seems to take away life from Christ Himself, who lives in them, and thus to commit, as it were, a Christicide in the sight of God the Father. Again, the death of a son is unwelcome and sorrowful to a father, because he is deprived of the legitimate heir of his goods. Consider therefore that the poor are called by a special right to the inheritance of Christ, James 2:5: "Has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom?" For although such poor people, removed prematurely by the defrauding of their goods, are not deprived of their hereditary lot of the kingdom and eternal life; nevertheless they must be said to lose that greater lot which, if they had lived longer, they would have attained through the voluntary endurance of poverty and continual merits. And so, as regards that greater lot, when the poor man is removed by injury, God Himself can in a certain way be said to be deprived of a legitimate heir. The Syriac indicates this sense, whose words I will cite at verse 27.
The poor man therefore represents the person of Christ, so that whatever good or evil is done to the poor man, Christ considers it done to Himself. On this matter there is a wonderful example in Leontius, in the Life of St. John the Almsgiver, about Peter the Publican, who from being avaricious, made generous by an angelic vision, distributed all his goods to the poor; indeed, stripping off his own precious garment, he gave it to a poor shipwrecked man. This man sold it; and Peter, seeing it sold, grieved. But Christ appeared to him, showed Himself clothed in that garment, and said: "Why do you weep, Peter? Behold, I have been wearing this garment ever since you gave it to Me, and I give thanks for your good will; for I was afflicted by the cold, and you covered Me." Coming therefore to himself, Peter began to call the needy blessed and to say: "As the Lord lives, if the poor are my Christ, I shall not die, and I shall become as one of them." Wherefore he ordered his secretary to sell him and give the price to the poor. Sold therefore for thirty coins, he served his master like a slave, and receiving insults and blows from his fellow servants, he bore all things patiently, so that he was considered and called a madman. Finally recognized by acquaintances traveling there and turning aside to his master's house, he fled from the master's house to avoid vainglory; and in his flight he restored to the doorkeeper of the house, who was deaf and mute, the use of both tongue and ears. Leontius adds that Serapion the Sidonian likewise sold himself, just as St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, sold himself to the Vandals for the son of a widow, out of love for the poor, so that as a poor man he might follow Christ, who, though He was rich, became poor for our sake. Wherefore St. Augustine and St. Gregory celebrate his deed with wonderful praises.
Finally St. Gregory of Nazianzus, in his Poems, sings thus: You clothe and nourish Christ by nourishing the poor: Having left all things, acquire Christ alone for yourself.
25. THE BREAD OF THE NEEDY IS THE LIFE OF THE POOR: HE WHO DEFRAUDS HIM OF IT IS A MAN OF BLOOD. — He proves what he said: "He who offers a sacrifice from the substance of the poor is as one who slays a son," etc., by this syllogism: The substance or bread of the poor is their life, because their life is sustained by bread; but he who offers a sacrifice from the substance of the poor takes away from them their substance and bread; therefore he takes away their life. Therefore he who "defrauds" them of their own or owed bread, that is, snatches it away or deprives them by fraud, "is a man of blood," that is, a bloodthirsty man and a murderer. So read the Roman and Complutensian editions. But the Greek corrected at Rome has: He who defrauds that, namely the life of the poor, is a man of blood; so also the Zurich Bible: Meager bread is the life of the poor: he who defrauds him of it is a bloodthirsty man. But the meaning comes to the same thing: for he defrauds the life of the poor who defrauds their bread; for life is preserved by bread. Therefore he who takes bread from a poor man takes life from him. First, this is done by the thief and the plunderer, who snatches bread from him. Second, by one who denies him the wages owed for his work, as the following verse explains. Third, by one who rigidly exacts a debt from a poor man who has nothing to pay with, unless he deprives himself of the bread necessary for life, as princes and avaricious rich men often do. Fourth, by one who, when a poor man is in great need and hunger,
does not bestow bread upon him, according to the saying of St. Ambrose: "Feed the one dying of hunger: if you have not fed him, you have killed him." Whence the Syriac translates: The bread of reproach is the life of the poor; and he who denies it to them pours out innocent blood.
26 and 27. HE WHO TAKES AWAY BREAD EARNED IN SWEAT IS AS ONE WHO KILLS HIS NEIGHBOR. HE WHO SHEDS BLOOD AND HE WHO DEFRAUDS A HIRED WORKER ARE BROTHERS. — that is, alike and nearly equal in crime, say Rabanus and Lyranus. It is a Hebraism: for "bread in sweat" is the same as bread of sweat, that is, earned by sweat. For the Hebrews often express the genitive relationship by the ablative with the preposition "in." He therefore compares, and nearly equates with homicide, two kinds of sins: First, those who take away from a poor man the substance gained by his sweat. Second, those who deny, diminish, or by other means aggravate and misappropriate the wages owed to a hired worker. He calls these brothers of the murderer: by which he signifies that they are not properly murderers — for homicide is more serious than theft and plunder — but akin and similar to them, indeed truly murderers in cause, because this theft committed against the poor man tends toward his death and destruction, and is the cause of it: whence it is homicide not formal, but causal.
The Greek, characteristically concise, combines the two sentences just stated into this single one: He who takes away sustenance kills his neighbor; and he who defrauds the wages of a hired worker sheds blood. The Zurich Bible: Whoever deprives someone of his sustenance kills him; and whoever withholds wages from a hired worker sheds blood. Hence the defrauding of the wages of workers is called a sin crying to heaven by St. James, chapter 5, verse 4. See what was said there.
Furthermore the Syriac translates remarkably: He who kills his neighbor inherits his wealth; and he who sheds innocent blood deprives God of His son and heir. For such is the innocent man — indeed, a "man
is the heritage and possession of God," says the Wise Man. The Syriac continues: He who defrauds the wages of the hired worker defrauds his Creator, and he himself receives an evil recompense. See what was said at verse 24, at the end.
28. ONE BUILDING AND ONE DESTROYING, WHAT DOES IT PROFIT THEM EXCEPT LABOR? (in Greek: what does he gain?) ONE PRAYING AND ONE CURSING (the same person for whom the other prays), WHOSE VOICE WILL GOD HEAR? — The Zurich Bible: When what one builds, another destroys, what returns to each except labor? When what one prays for, another deprecates (Vatablus: when what one wishes, another curses), whose voice will the Lord hear? The Syriac: One builds and another destroys — what profit do they gain except vain labor? One blesses and another curses — whose voice of the two will God hear?
First, Hugh and Dionysius refer these words to what was said at verses 21 and 24, namely to the one who sacrifices from what is wicked and from the substance of the poor, as if to say: Such a person, even if he builds up the good work of sacrifice, yet because he destroys it by sacrificing from what is wicked and from the plunder of the poor, he gains nothing except labor. And although the priests to whom he offers bless him, nevertheless the poor from whom he plundered those things curse him, says Dionysius. But against this is the fact that such a person builds nothing good; for even though the work of sacrifice, in its general nature and considered abstractly, is good, nevertheless viewed in the particular case, insofar as it is done here and now from the plunder of the poor, it is absolutely and intrinsically evil. Such a person therefore builds nothing, but perverts and destroys his whole work.
Second, Palacius better refers these words to the following verse, so that building and destroying is the same as being baptized from the dead and touching him again — that is, repenting of sin and soon returning to the vomit of sin: so that these three proverbs, namely the first, of the one building and destroying; the second, of the one blessing; the third, of the one baptized and returning to filth — all signify the same thing, namely that repentance for sin profits nothing if after it the penitent sins again.
Third, others refer these words to the evil of discord in a city, republic, monastery, and any congregation, as if to say: When in some gathering there is discord, and what one builds, another destroys, then all the labors on both sides are without fruit, empty and vain, and there is no profit for anyone, except that both sides labor in vain. This sense fits the proverb itself, but is incongruous and irrelevant to this passage; for the topic here is not concord, but the sacrifice of the wicked.
Fourth and genuinely, Rabanus, Lyranus, Jansenius, and others refer these words to verse 23, namely to the gifts of the wicked, as if to say: The wicked gain nothing from the offerings they present to God, who disapproves of them, except vain labor. It is a prolepsis or anticipation; for they anticipate the objection that someone could make here, by saying: The gifts of the wicked are in themselves good, and do not flow from wickedness so as to be vitiated by it: therefore they are honest and pleasing to God. He responds that they are in themselves good and pleasing to God, but
empty and useless to the givers; because what they build with one hand, they destroy with the other.
You will say: The wicked man offering his gifts is one and the same person; but here two persons are assigned, namely one building and another destroying. Whence he adds in the plural: "What does it profit them (not 'him') except labor?" Therefore this parable cannot be understood of that one person. I respond that the wicked man offering gifts to God is one person formally, but two virtually, or politically and interpretively. For such a person, insofar as he offers gifts to God, is a person building by his piety and religion a good work, and likewise helping his neighbor. The same person, however, insofar as he perpetrates many iniquities, is interpretively another person; namely, by his vices and wicked ways destroying the merit and power of obtaining grace from his good offering. For a serious error of many, even of priests, scribes, and Pharisees, was to place all holiness in external sacrifices, ceremonies, and lustrations prescribed by God in the law. Whence they thought it lawful for them to plunder, fornicate, bear false witness, and commit every crime, so long as they retained the external worship of the true God: for all crimes were expiated,
so that he obtains or gains nothing from God. For in proverbs the likeness of the thing signified cannot be precisely matched in every detail; otherwise it would not be a likeness, but the thing itself. The sense therefore is, as if to say: He who now lives wickedly, now offers gifts to God, is like two men, one of whom builds and the other destroys what has been built: indeed he is like one and the same person who foolishly first builds, then destroys what he has built, just as Penelope would unweave by night the web woven during the day, lest, if she finished it, she would be compelled by her promise to marry her suitors.
Understand (as I said): this applies if the one offering or giving alms, or doing some other good work, wishes to persevere in sins — not in act (for if in act, the offering and good work would be vitiated: for it would be vitiated by this evil circumstance, namely the will to persevere in sins), but in habit. For if he wishes to repent, even with a weak and inefficacious will — that is, if he desires to repent and correct his life, and therefore offers a gift or a good work in order to obtain from God the grace of repenting and amending his life — the gift and the work will be good and valid, and able to obtain God's grace. Wherefore Daniel, chapter 4:24, persuaded Nebuchadnezzar, an unbelieving and tyrannical king, saying: "Redeem your sins with alms, and your iniquities with mercies to the poor." See what was said there.
by sacrifices for sin. Such people are still found among Christians, who, abusing that saying of Christ: "Give what remains as alms: and behold, all things are clean to you," Luke 11:41, plunder the poor, oppress orphans, practice usury, commit perjury, defraud, and perpetrate every grave crime: for all of which they think they can satisfy God by the alms they give to the poor and to religious, with the purpose that these may pray for them and appease God for their sins. Some priests live impurely; yet they think they perform their office excellently if they preach eloquently and celebrate Masses. Against whom St. Prosper says: "To speak well and to live badly is nothing other than to condemn oneself by one's own voice." Others adopt particular devotions for themselves, for example, they fast on Saturdays, recite the rosary, read the Office in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and meanwhile persist in grave crimes, persuaded that no one who worships the Blessed Virgin can perish and be damned, since she is the mother of mercy. All of which the devil cleverly suggests to them, so that through these errors and illusions he may drag them into hell.
These things Sirach refutes here, as if to say: You err, O wretched and blind ones, because the Most High does not approve the gifts of the wicked who persist in their wickedness. For even though the gifts and offerings are in themselves good and holy, being acts of virtue, religion, almsgiving, abstinence, etc., and therefore pleasing and acceptable to God; nevertheless on account of them the person who gives and offers them is not pleasing and acceptable to God, if he is wicked and persists in a criminal life, according to what he said in verse 23: "Nor by the multitude of their sacrifices will He be propitiated for sins."
He gives the reason in this verse: because what the same person, as pious, builds up by giving and offering, that is, does rightly and well, and gives others an example of virtue; this same thing, as wicked, and as if another person different from his pious self, he destroys by his continual crimes. Therefore he strips his gifts and offerings of all power to reconcile and obtain grace, and weakens and smothers them, so that nothing remains for him except the labor of the good work and the wasted expense of his gifts: just as when one person builds a house, and another the next day destroys what has been built, neither gains anything except the continual labor of building and destroying. Again, what he himself, as pious, through himself or through the poor and religious, whose prayers he has solicited through alms, prays and begs to be done — this same thing he, as wicked, curses and in reality prays that it not be done, since he provokes God to wrath and vengeance by his crimes, and thus by living wickedly he protests in effect and interpretively that he hates and curses all virtue, grace, and blessing. Moreover, while a poor man or a religious prays for him and blesses him and wishes him well, others whom he has plundered and to whom he has done many injuries curse him and call down every imprecation upon him. Whose voice will the Lord hear? Surely He will hear both the voice of those who curse and those who bless: the voice of the former will therefore counteract and weaken the voice of the latter,
30 and 31. HE WHO IS BAPTIZED (the Syriac: who washes himself) FROM THE DEAD, AND AGAIN TOUCHES HIM, WHAT DOES HIS WASHING PROFIT HIM? LIKEWISE A MAN WHO FASTS IN HIS SINS AND AGAIN DOES THE SAME THINGS, WHAT DOES HE GAIN BY HUMBLING HIMSELF? WHO WILL HEAR HIS PRAYER? — "From the dead" means on account of, or after contact with the dead: or rather "from the dead" means from the legal uncleanness contracted from the dead, by touching it. It is a metonymy.
St. Gregory, Book IX, epistle 39, on Penitential Psalm 4, at the verse: "A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit," and Rabanus and Hugh following him, understand these words of the sacrament of Baptism and Penance, as if to say: He who is washed "from the dead," that is, from sin, and again commits it — what does his washing profit him? "After the bath," says Rabanus, "he neglects to be clean, whoever after tears does not guard the innocence of his life. And so they are washed, and yet by no means clean, who do not cease to weep for their sins, but again commit things worthy of tears. To whom Isaiah says, chapter 1:16: Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your thoughts from My eyes." And Hugh: "He who is baptized from the dead," he says, "that is, who is cleansed from sin by the water of compunction, if he again touches it, it profits him nothing, because the subsequent fault destroys the repentance." But this sense is mystical: for literally, baptism in the time of Sirach was not a Sacrament, but was instituted for that purpose long afterward by Christ: therefore Baptism here is to be understood as legal — namely, the ablution prescribed by the law in Numbers 19, by which those who had touched a dead corpse, and therefore according to the law were unclean and could not enter the temple, had to cleanse and purify themselves
by washing with lustral water, made from the ashes of a red heifer, as if to say: He who, by washing his body with this lustral water, expiated the legal uncleanness contracted from contact with the dead, namely a corpse — if he again touches a corpse, what does the prior washing profit him? As if to say: Nothing; for again through the contact with the dead he has become unclean, as he was before, and therefore needs a new baptism and a new washing. Likewise "a man who fasts in his sins," that is, on account of his sins (for it is the Hebrew beth, that is "in," of price, signifying "on account of"), namely to be abo-
lished, he judged to be invalid and requiring repetition. This was the error of St. Cyprian, whose fault was cut away by the sickle of his passion and martyrdom, says St. Augustine. But his followers, because they obstinately persisted in this position after it had been condemned by the Church, thereby became heretics and were called Donatists: who likewise objected these words of Ecclesiasticus against Catholics. To whom St. Augustine responds, Book II Against Cresconius, chapter 25: "When a Catholic hears: He who is baptized from the dead, his washing does not profit him,
he will respond: Christ lives, and now dies no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over Him; of whom it is said in John 5: He Himself will baptize in the Holy Spirit. But those are baptized from the dead who are baptized in the temples of idols (in the name of the dead, that is, of gods and idols). For they too do not think that they receive the sanctification they imagine from their priests, but from their gods. Since these gods were once men, and so died that they live neither upon the earth nor in the rest of the Saints, they are truly baptized from the dead." However, as I said, the discussion here is not about Christian baptism, since it had not yet been instituted at that time, but about Jewish ablution. And the words "and again touches him" are constantly added by the Greek and Latin manuscripts, which demand the other sense that I gave at the beginning. Whence also St. Augustine in the same work, chapter 27, suggesting the same thing, or expressing some doubt: "Examine," he says, "the ancient manuscripts carefully, and especially the Greek ones, lest perhaps those very words, written differently, may suggest another sense from the preceding and following context of the passage."
Morally, St. Eligius, who flourished in the year of Christ 640, homily 8: "He," he says, "who gives his substance to God and offers his soul to the enemy (the devil), in him is fulfilled what is written: He who is baptized from the dead, and again touches the dead, what does his washing profit him?" Likewise St. Gregory on Penitential Psalm 4, at the verse: A contrite and humbled heart, O God, You will not despise: "He," he says, "is washed from the dead who is cleansed from sin through repentance. If it happens that he commits the same sins again that he had punished, the washing of satisfaction that was applied seems to have accomplished nothing, since the more shamefully repeated vileness of the crime has stained him."
The same, Part III of Pastoral Care, admonition 31: "He is baptized," he says, "from the dead, who is cleansed from sin by tears; but after baptism he touches the dead, who repeats his fault after tears." These words are cited in the treatise On Penance, distinction 3, chapter Baptizantur; for, as the same St. Gregory says, Book IX, epistle 39: "Dead is every perverse work which drags one to death, which does not live by the life of justice."
Finally, although this statement properly speaks of grave and mortal sin — for this is what is signified by the dead corpse — nevertheless it can be analogically applied to venial sins and vices, especially voluntary ones, of which many repent and confess, but immediately fall back into the same: whence in their
these failings they remain and lie dead and insensible to all the admonitions of confessors, directors, and preachers. For these people do not advance in virtue, nor are they illuminated by God, nor do they receive grace or any notable gift: because through these defects they place an obstacle, which if they generously remove and root out, they will certainly receive great gifts of divine lights and charisms.
From this learn that a relapse into sin is more serious and more dangerous than the sin itself, both because of the greater offense and ingratitude that a relapse brings after pardon has been received; and because a relapse renews and increases the prior fall, whence it tends to be greater and deeper; and because God abominates, abandons, and despises the one who relapses, and indeed chastises him sharply. Whence Christ said to the sick man whom He had healed: "Behold, you are made well: sin no more, lest something worse befall you," John 5:14. "By which words," says Cyril, "He signified that through the repetition of sin a man falls into many worse things. What good is it, I ask, to wash clothes carefully and then soil the washed garments again with mud? What good is it to wash one's hands and then contaminate the washed hands again with filth? As a washed sow, says the Wise Man, returns to the mire; so the fool who repeats his folly." For the same reason Christ, absolving the adulteress, warned her, saying: "Go, and sin no more," John 8:11. Where St. Cyril — or rather Judocus Clictoveus, a Parisian doctor (for he supplied four middle books of St. Cyril's commentary on John which had perished — though I saw them in Rome written in Greek, rendering the style of St. Cyril, and one of our men is translating them into Latin for publication) — supplied: "For medicine is taken in vain," he says, "if after health has been restored, through the incontinence of life, the one who recovered falls into his former disease. Indeed a relapse into sickness tends to be more dangerous and closer to death than the first
illness; and those whom the first bout of illness did not destroy, a sickness more frequently repeated after health was restored has carried off. In the same way, the medicine of repentance is taken in vain if after it has been completed one returns to the filth of his former life. For this second feverishness of the soul is extremely dangerous." And St. Chrysostom, in his sermon On the Fall of the First Man: "Do not," he says, "sin after pardon, do not be wounded after the cure, do not be soiled after grace." And immediately assigning the consequences of each: "Consider," he says, "that guilt is heavier after pardon: a reopened wound hurts worse after the cure: it is more grievous for a man to be soiled after grace." And again, weighing the perversity of these changes: "He is ungrateful for clemency," he says, "who sins after pardon; he is unworthy of health who wounds himself after being cured; nor does he deserve to be cleansed who soils himself after grace." And finally demonstrating the gravity of this relapse: "It is a serious thing," he says, "for an instructed man to transgress; more serious for an absolved man to sin. Worse than a slave is he who offends his patron after being given his freedom." And St. Bernard, sermon 34 on the Song of Songs: "You should fear indeed," he says, "for grace received; more for grace lost; far more for grace recovered." And giving the reasons for the first and second fears, he adds concerning the third: "If grace, appeased, has returned, then one must fear far more, lest it happen that he suffer a relapse, according to that saying: Sin no more, lest something worse befall you. You hear that to relapse is worse than to fall the first time? Therefore as the recurring cycle intensifies, let the fear intensify also." Finally, the censure of St. Peter is grave, 2 Peter 2:21: "It would have been better for them," he says, "not to have known the way of justice, than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment that was delivered to them." Where I said more about the danger of relapse.
abolished, so as to obtain pardon for them and make satisfaction for them; if he repeats and again commits them, his prior humiliation profits him nothing, that is, his fasting, as the Syriac translates (for fasting weakens the body and consequently humbles the soul; whence that frequent phrase in the Scriptures: "Humble your souls in fasting"), nor will God hear his prayer, because he has returned to sin, like a dog to its vomit and a sow to the mire: whence he is filthy, indeed more filthy than he was before. See what was said at 2 Peter 2:22. So the Syriac and the Zurich Bible: If someone washed, he says, from a corpse, the same thing happens again, what does the washing profit him? Likewise when someone afflicts himself for his sins, and nourishes himself again and commits them (others: and again goes to commit them), who will hear his prayers? Or what has his affliction profited him? For, as Ezekiel says, chapter 18:24: "If the just man turns away from his justice and commits iniquity, etc., all the justices that he has done shall not be remembered, etc.; in his sin which he has committed, in them he shall die." Therefore for the penitent, if he relapses into sins, his past penance profits nothing toward grace and salvation: yet it profits to the extent that through it past sins have been blotted out, so that on account of them he is not to be punished in hell. Again, if he rises from his subsequent sins, the prior penance, grace, virtues, and merits revive, as the theologians teach, so that on account of them he will receive more abundant grace and glory.
Note: The words "and again touches him" were formerly lacking in some manuscripts, as in St. Pacian, epistle 2 to Sempronianus: "He who is baptized," he says, "from the dead, gains nothing — that is, he who is washed in a heretical font; likewise he who is anointed with the oil of a sinner, that is, who is filled with an unclean spirit." St. Cyprian also reads it this way, and from this proves that baptism conferred by heretics is invalid, and therefore that those baptized by heretics must be rebaptized. For thus he says in his epistle to Quintus: "He who is baptized from the dead, what does his washing profit him? Now it is manifest that we count those who are not in the Church of Christ among the dead, and that one who himself does not live cannot give life to another, since there is one Church which, having obtained the grace of eternal life, both lives forever and gives life to the people of God." This passage is likewise explained in the Council of Carthage, over which St. Cyprian presided (whence it also exists among the works of St. Cyprian), which likewise understands the dead to mean a heretic, and therefore the baptism conferred by him