Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, it treats of honoring physicians and the usefulness of medicine. Second, in verse 9, it instructs the sick person and gives the means by which he may be cured. Third, in verse 16, it teaches that in the death of friends mourning must be moderated, and excessive sadness must be avoided. Fourth, from verse 25, it teaches that wisdom is acquired through literary leisure, while mechanical arts are occupied with business and manual labor, namely agriculture in cultivating the field, sculpture in carving, smithing in forging, and pottery in molding.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 38:1-39
1. Honor the physician for the need you have of him: for the Most High has created him. 2. For all healing is from God, and he shall receive gifts from the king. 3. The skill of the physician shall lift up his head, and in the sight of great men he shall be praised. 4. The Most High has created medicines out of the earth, and a prudent man will not abhor them. 5. Was not bitter water made sweet with wood? 6. The virtue of these things is known to men, and the Most High has given knowledge to men, that He may be honored in His marvelous works. 7. By these the physician shall alleviate pain, and the perfumer shall make sweet ointments, and shall prepare soothing salves, and his works shall not be finished. 8. For the peace of God is over the face of the earth. 9. My son, in your sickness do not despise yourself, but pray to the Lord, and He will heal you. 10. Turn away from sin, and direct your hands aright, and cleanse your heart from all offense. 11. Give a sweet savor and a memorial of fine flour, and make a fat offering, and then give place to the physician: 12. for the Lord created him: let him not depart from you, for his works are necessary. 13. For there is a time when you must fall into their hands: 14. and they shall beseech the Lord, that He may direct their relief and healing, for the sake of their manner of life. 15. He who sins in the sight of his Maker shall fall into the hands of the physician. 16. My son, let tears fall over the dead, and as one who suffers grievously begin to weep, and according to judgment wrap his body, and do not neglect his burial. 17. But bear the mourning for him bitterly for one day, and be comforted because of sadness, 18. and make mourning according to his merit for one day or two, because of detraction. 19. For from sadness comes death, and it overwhelms strength, and the sadness of the heart bows down the neck. 20. In withdrawal sadness remains: and the substance of the poor is according to his heart. 21. Give not your heart to sadness, but drive it away from you, and remember the last things, 22. do not forget: for there is no returning, and you shall do him no good, and you shall harm yourself. 23. Remember my judgment: for yours also shall be so: yesterday for me, and today for you. 24. In the rest of the dead, let his memory rest, and comfort him at the departure of his spirit. 25. The wisdom of the scribe comes in the time of leisure: and he who has less business shall receive wisdom: with what wisdom shall he be filled 26. who holds the plow, and who glories in the goad, who drives oxen with the prod, and is occupied with their labors, and whose talk is of the offspring of bulls? 27. He shall give his heart to turning furrows, and his watchfulness to the fattening of cows. 28. So every craftsman and architect, who passes the night as the day, who carves engraved seals, and whose continual diligence varies the design: he shall give his heart to the likeness of the painting, and by his watching shall finish the work. 29. So the smith sitting by the anvil and considering the work of iron: the vapor of the fire shall burn his flesh, and he struggles in the heat of the furnace. 30. The noise of the hammer renews his ear, and his eye is upon the pattern of the vessel: 31. he shall give his heart to finish his works, and by his watching shall adorn them to perfection. 32. So the potter sitting at his work, turning the wheel with his feet, who is always carefully set at his work, and all his labor is by number. 33. With his arm he shall form the clay, and before his feet he shall bend his strength. 34. He shall give his heart to finish the glazing, and his watchfulness to make clean the furnace. 35. All these trust in their hands, and each one is wise in his craft; 36. without all these a city cannot be built. 37. And they shall not dwell there, nor walk about in it, and they shall not go up into the assembly. 38. They shall not sit on the judge's seat, nor understand the testament of judgment, neither shall they make manifest discipline and judgment, and they shall not be found among parables: 39. but they shall strengthen the fabric of the world, and their prayer is in the practice of their craft, applying their soul, and searching in the law of the Most High.
First Part of the Chapter.
1. HONOR THE PHYSICIAN FOR THE NEED YOU HAVE OF HIM. — In Greek: honor the physician in view of your needs with the honors due to him, which the Complutensian and Roman editions translate: Honor the physician for your necessities with the honors due to him; the Tigurine: Bestow upon the physician his proper honors on account of necessity; the translator of Clement of Alexandria, Book II of the Pedagogue, chapter 8, renders: Honor the physician on account of his usefulness; for chreia means need, dearness, use, necessity, service, ministry, usefulness, convenience. The Syriac: Honor the physician as long as you need him; because God also created him.
At the end of the preceding chapter he said that sickness is present in many, namely that men are liable to various diseases, partly from the fall and weakness of nature corrupted by sin, partly from excess of foods, both in quantity and quality of the same. For many contract diseases because they eat foods that are either too much, or harmful to their nature and constitution. For this reason in this chapter he suggests the remedy for diseases given and established by God, namely medicine and the physician. He commands therefore that the physician be honored; because medicine is not a mechanical art, but a liberal one. Hence in the Universities it is ranked with Jurisprudence and Theology, and doctors of medicine hold their rank and place among doctors of Law and Theology.
"Honor" in Scripture signifies three things: first, reverence; second, obedience; third, fitting support of the person. Thus children are commanded to honor their parents; because they must revere them, obey them, and, if they are in need, support them. This threefold honor is likewise due to the physician. In this matter many sin by refusing to obey the physician's prescriptions, and by making light of them: for which reason they often fall into prolonged and incurable diseases, and even into death itself. Others, when they are sick, to save expense, summon quacks, impostors, others dangerous empirics, others even women and superstitious old hags, who drive away diseases with superstitious signs and blessings. But to their own harm: for they often incur injury to their life and conscience. Sirach therefore urges that physicians be honored, that is, called upon, consulted, revered, and that their advice be highly esteemed and followed.
He gives the reason saying: "For the need you have of him," because namely, for curing diseases a physician is necessary, inasmuch as he understands both the nature of the disease and its remedies, neither of which the sick person and others know. Just as therefore for making clothes a tailor is necessary, for shoes a cobbler, for cooking food a cook: so for preparing medicines a physician is necessary. For each person is to be trusted in his own craft. Palacius notes that the phrase "for the need" warns us
not to call a physician for every slight illness, but when the disease is serious: both because light illnesses are frequent, and are best overcome by patience and prudence — for he who lives medicinally lives miserably — and because physicians often do not know how to cure them.
Tropologically, we owe this threefold honor to the physicians of the soul, who cure the vices, passions, and sins of the soul: such as confessors, spiritual directors, and preachers; and all the more, says Rabanus, as the soul surpasses the body, and the diseases of the soul are graver than diseases of the body, and eternal salvation, which the spiritual physician confers, is more excellent than bodily health lasting only a short time, which the bodily physician confers. But above all, we owe all honor to Christ the Lord, who is the Physician of physicians, of both soul and body, and who presents to us in the Eucharist and the other Sacraments the most excellent antidote against all diseases, prepared from nothing other than His own blood. "For by His stripes we are healed," as St. Peter says, 1 Peter 2:24, and Isaiah 53:4, and from him St. Matthew 8:17: "Truly He Himself took our infirmities, and He Himself bore our sorrows." Indeed He is the true Samaritan, who healed the first man and his descendants, stripped and wounded unto death by infernal robbers, with the oil and wine of His grace, Luke 10:34.
Ben-Sira agrees with Sirach, in alphabet 1, letter aleph: "Love and honor the physician while you do not need him," that is to say: Honor the physician before your illness, while you are healthy, so that in your illness he may be ready for you and serve you, neglecting his own affairs and setting aside other business. Extend this to the mind: for the physician of the mind is a wise man; to him therefore more honor must be given, for we need his help, counsel, and consolation more. The Hebrew commentator refers this to God, that is to say: Worship God and pray to Him before you need His help. For just as a sick person finds a more diligent physician in one whom he bound to himself by obedience when well, so a person in affliction will find a more gracious God whom he worshipped and invoked when things were going well.
FOR THE MOST HIGH HAS CREATED HIM. — In Greek: For the Most High also created him; the Tigurine: For the Lord is his author, both because He established and sanctioned here and elsewhere that we should use physicians in necessity; and because He Himself created and produced medicine as well as remedies and healing herbs; and because just as He imparted to Adam and Solomon (who wrote about everything from hyssop to the cedar: from whose writings much has been derived to the Greeks, Arabs, Latins, and down to us) the knowledge of medicine among other sciences: so likewise He now imparts to physicians the aptitude, talent, and instinct for studying medicine and practicing it for the healing of the sick. For just as it belongs to the same architect to build a house and to repair one that is falling, and to the same tailor and cobbler to mend and restore a garment or shoe made by them that has come apart and been torn: so likewise, since the formation and constitution of the human body belongs to God, the preservation and restoration of the same must also belong to Him. Therefore all healing and medicine is from God.
This is an illustrious passage on the usefulness and necessity of the physician and of medicine, and its use and order. There was formerly the opinion of Cato, Pliny, and others whom I shall cite below at verse 3, and there is now the error of the Anabaptists, teaching that the use of medicine should be condemned; because King Asa of Judah seems to be reproved for it, 2 Chronicles 16:12, and the woman with the hemorrhage, Luke 8:43. But they err, for in those passages only excessive hope and a disordered approach to medicine is reproved; for the true order, as Sirach teaches here, is that the sick should first and above all rely on God as their chief physician, and win Him to themselves by prayers, repentance, and a holy life; then apply secondary causes and medicines.
Others by a certain foolish piety (which is that of the Turks) persuade themselves and others that the works of medicine are not necessary; because health and sickness, life and death, are in the hands of God's will, so that no art can enable a man to avoid what God has decreed concerning him. But they are ignorant that many of God's decrees are not absolute, but conditional, and depend on the industry and choice of men. For example, God decrees that a raging plague shall touch and kill all who are exposed; but only conditionally, namely if they do not flee the plague-infected place, or do not use the antidotes provided by Him. Similarly, when He decrees to heal the sick, He decrees that this be done through remedies established by Him. Therefore Sirach here refutes the aforesaid error, and establishes the use of the physician and medicine with many arguments.
The first argument is drawn from its necessity, already stated in verse 1. The second, in this verse, from its author, who is God, who just as He established that in His Church some should be soldiers, others farmers, others craftsmen, others lawyers, etc., so too He established that some should be physicians. The third, in the following verse: Because, he says, "all healing is from God." The fourth, in the same verse, that physicians are accustomed to be honored with gifts by kings and princes. The fifth, in verse 6, because for this reason God has implanted in herbs, juices, plants, metals, gems, etc., so many and such salutary and admirable powers, namely that we might use them for healing. The sixth is verse 5, from the example of the wood with which Moses sweetened the bitter waters, Exodus 15:25. The seventh, verse 7, from experience, by which we find that through medicines pains are eased and diseases cured. See this passage of Sirach on the dignity and usefulness of medicine, treated at length by Francisco Valles, Sacred Philosophy, chapter 74.
The work of the physician is therefore useful, indeed necessary, since by his skill many are snatched from the jaws of death and virtually brought back to life. I mean a true physician, skilled in his art; for an unskilled one is a plague to the commonwealth, and a killer of many, indeed an executioner. Wherefore just as it is the part of a prudent man to entrust himself and his life to a skilled physician, so nothing is more imprudent than to commit one's life and health — than which nothing is more precious — to anyone who sells himself as a physician, or to any charlatan, or even to an old woman barely skilled in spinning who professes the art of healing. And this is what Cato and Pliny chiefly wished to blame.
but they only apply instruments of God. Add that often the cure of a demon is merely illusory, and that in many ways, which our Delrio reviews in his work on Magic. Finally, those cured by sorcerers and magicians commonly fall back into the same or worse diseases.
Sirach adds: "And he shall receive a gift from the king," that is, a donation, namely when he restores his health and preserves, protects, and prolongs his life: hence we see physicians wonderfully honored and enriched by kings, inasmuch as their lives depend on them.
3. THE SKILL OF THE PHYSICIAN SHALL LIFT UP HIS HEAD, AND IN THE SIGHT OF GREAT MEN HE SHALL BE PRAISED. — For "skill," the Greek is episteme, that is, knowledge. For "shall be praised," the Greek is thaumasthesetai, that is, he shall be an object of admiration. Hence the Complutensian translates: The knowledge of the physician shall lift up his head, and before great men he shall be held in admiration; the Roman, he shall be regarded with esteem; the Tigurine, he moves the admiration of the nobles; the Syriac: On account of the physician's knowledge they shall exalt him, and before kings they shall establish him. Thus we see distinguished physicians rising through medicine to great wealth and honors, and being esteemed and admired by the great, according to that verse: Galen gives wealth, Justinian gives honors: and that remark of Pliny, Book 24, chapter 1, complaining that physicians lord it over the Romans, even the Emperors: "We obey foreigners, and one of the arts (medicine) commands even Emperors." The same author, Book 29, chapter 1, records that Erasistratus, born of Aristotle's daughter, after curing King Antiochus, was given one hundred talents by Ptolemy, son of Antiochus. Similar enormous salaries or fees of the Cassii, Rubrii, and other physicians he reviews in the same place.
Wherefore in that place Pliny severely attacks and declaims against physicians and medicine, and says that the Romans for the first six hundred years from the founding of the City lacked physicians, and having finally experienced medicine through physicians, condemned it: "They learn," he says, "at our peril, and conduct experiments through deaths; and for a physician alone the greatest impunity attaches to killing a man." And shortly after: "For what is more productive of poisons, or whence come more plots against wills?" These and more Pliny says following the opinion of Cato.
But Valles refutes Pliny and Cato, Sacred Philosophy, chapter 74. For these are not faults of the art, but of men. However, many of the ancients agreed with Pliny and Cato. Diogenes the Cynic called physicians common executioners, as Plutarch testifies in the Laconic Sayings. Arcesilaus, in Laertius, Book IV, chapter 6: "Just as where there are many laws," he says, "there are the most vices: so where there are more physicians, there are many sick." The Emperor Hadrian, dying, spoke that well-known saying of Menander: "A multitude of physicians destroyed the Emperor." So says Dio. Others add that he ordered this very saying to be inscribed on his tomb as an epitaph. Tiberius Caesar used to say it was ridiculous for anyone after his sixtieth year to consult a physician, since in sixty years he had not learned by experience what was healthy for him and what was not. For, as Pliny says: "The most effective teacher of medicine is practice." And Plato in the Symposium: "The most skilled physician is he who knows what nature loves and what it rejects." Nicocles called physicians fortunate: "Because the sun sees their successes, but the earth covers their errors." So Antonius, in the Melissa, Part I, sermon 76, where he also quotes Stratonicus saying to a physician: "I praise your skill, because you do not let the sick rot, but immediately free them from life." Pausanias considered that physician the best who did not let the sick waste away, but buried them as quickly as possible. So Plutarch in the Laconic Sayings. Philemon: "For a physician," he says, "and a lawyer, to have killed is without punishment." Democritus: A wise man, he says, when an unskilled physician asked him, How have you grown old? replied: "Because I have not used a physician."
But Sirach teaches something different here, and with many arguments proves and celebrates physicians and medicines as instituted by God. Hence even angels used them, as Raphael curing the blindness of Tobit, chapter 6:8. Similarly the pagans taught that medicine was the invention of Apollo and the gods. Hence Ovid in Metamorphoses I introduces Apollo speaking: Medicine is my invention, and I am called the help-bringer throughout the world... Hence also Aesculapius, Hippocrates, Galen, and many philosophers were physicians. It is also relevant that other animals by natural instinct heal their own diseases with certain herbs, as we see dogs and cats doing daily. Tertullian, in his book On Repentance, at the end: "The stag," he says, "pierced by an arrow, in order to expel the iron and its irremovable barbs from the wound, knows that it must heal itself with dittany. The swallow, if it has blinded its young, knows how to restore their sight with its own celandine. Will the sinner, knowing that the Lord has instituted confession for his restoration, pass it by — that which restored the Babylonian king to his kingdoms?" The same is reported by St. Jerome, on Ecclesiastes 7:5, Pacian in his treatise On Penance, and Pliny, Book VIII, chapter 27. Thus doves heal themselves with laurel, storks eating oregano relieve the nausea of their stomach. Wherefore the Egyptians represented medicine by a dove carrying a sprig of laurel in its beak, says Pierius, Hieroglyphics 22, p. 205. Others by a stork, says the same author, Hieroglyphics 17, p. 459. Finally, that saying of Homer is famous: One physician is worth many thousands of men. And that of Demades: "The sick need physicians, the unfortunate need friends."
4. THE MOST HIGH HAS CREATED MEDICINES OUT OF THE EARTH (so the Roman edition; for in Greek it is pharmaka: therefore Jansenius and others wrongly read "medicine": for this was created not from the earth, but from the brain), AND A PRUDENT MAN WILL NOT ABHOR THEM. — The Syriac: God created medicines from the earth, and a wise man will not despise them. Many abhor remedies because they are unpleasant to the palate and stomach, and cause nausea, and often vomiting. But a prudent man will not therefore abhor them, knowing that they were created by God so that through them he might obtain health: for pain is the medicine of pain; and a moderate and brief pain drives away a severe and prolonged one. He will therefore embrace this benefit of God with thanksgiving, and whatever bitterness is in the pills he will swallow with a great spirit, and will accept it in place of penance for past sins and mortification. For this reason our Blessed Francis Borgia used to chew pills with his teeth, so that their bitterness might long afflict and torment his palate.
5. WAS NOT BITTER WATER MADE SWEET WITH WOOD? — He notes the wood which Moses cast into the bitter waters at Marah, and by it sweetened them and made them drinkable for the Hebrews, Exodus 15:25. The meaning is, that is to say: Even from this wood which was applied medicinally to the bitter waters, you may perceive the power of medicine, and how much power for healing God has given to herbs, roots, and woods. Hence it seems that this power of sweetening was natural to that wood, and the Greek text implies this more, reading: Did not the water become sweet by the wood, so that its power (of the wood that preceded, not of God) might be known by man? Even though the Hebrews consider that this wood was most bitter, and therefore sweetened the waters by a miracle. If you follow this, explain it thus, that is to say: If through bitter wood God worked such sweetness, what will He do through herbs, to which He has imparted similar powers, and ones suited for curing this or that disease? See what was said on Exodus 15:25, where I treated this wood at length.
6. THE VIRTUE OF THESE THINGS IS FOR THE KNOWLEDGE OF MEN, AND THE MOST HIGH HAS GIVEN KNOWLEDGE TO MEN, TO BE HONORED IN HIS MARVELOUS WORKS. — Thus the Roman editors punctuate and connect these words, although Jansenius and others with the modern Greek editions refer "the virtue of these things for the knowledge of men" to the preceding verse. But this is incongruous, for since "their" is plural, it cannot refer to the singular "wood": it therefore refers to "medicines" in verse 4. The meaning therefore is, that is to say: God created medicines and remedies so that men might recognize their virtue and powers; indeed the Most High Himself either implanted or suggested this very knowledge and science to them, so that through this He might be honored in His marvelous works, namely both in the virtues and powers which He Himself implanted in remedies, and in the operations and effects which they produce in the bodies of animals and men for healing them or for preserving health. Hence the Syriac translates: For by the wood the bitter waters were made sweet, so that the power of God might be known, who gave wisdom to the sons of men, that He might be glorified in His mighty works.
That this is true, experience teaches in remedies both simple and compound. In simple ones: for how great and how admirable is the power which God has implanted in colocynth for purging the
Moreover Pliny, Book 7, chapter 56: "The Egyptians," he says, "claim that medicine was discovered among them; others attribute it to the son of the Arabs, of Babylon, and of Apollo; herbal and pharmaceutical knowledge to Chiron, son of Saturn and Phillyra." But medicine is more ancient, and indeed coeval with the world: because it was implanted by God in Adam along with the other sciences. For after the fall of men into sin, and thence into diseases and death, immediately the most merciful and provident God provided men with the remedy of medicine; although after some centuries it was more cultivated and reduced to method and written down in books by Hippocrates, Galen, and other ancients.
2. FOR ALL HEALING IS FROM GOD, AND HE SHALL RECEIVE A GIFT FROM THE KING. — Rabanus reads "gift," in Greek doma, that is, a donation; the Complutensian reads doxan, that is, glory; the Tigurine: For medicine flows from the Most High, and he shall receive a reward from the king; both because the powers of herbs and other remedies are from God; and because knowledge and science of them was implanted by God in Adam and his descendants, from whom physicians derived it. Hence the Tigurine translates: By God the physician will be made intelligent, and from the king he shall receive gifts; and finally because all medication and healing is from God, for this is what the Greek iasis signifies. For God cooperates with herbs and remedies as the first cause and the primary agent and healer in curing through them the diseases and wounds of the sick, according to that saying: "Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters: but God who gives the increase," 1 Corinthians 3:7. Hence physicians, as well as the sick, ought above all to invoke God, that He may deign to work health through medicines and remedies; as did Saints Cosmas and Damian, St. Pantaleon, and others, who therefore cured even incurable diseases by power not so much human as divine, as their Lives record. Indeed Hippocrates himself in the very preface to his entire art says: "Not only must the sick person show himself doing what is fitting, but also the physician, namely apply the cure and pray to the Lord to direct his works." Sirach proves that the physician is from God, and therefore to be honored; because his medicine and healing are from God. It is an argument from correlatives; it is similar to saying: Heat is produced by fire, because warmth comes from fire; frost makes things cold, because it produces cold.
You will say, do not magicians and witches often heal the sick by the work of the devil? I reply: They heal, but not by their own power, but by applying secondary causes which God established for this purpose; they do not therefore heal by their own power, but by God's, and so it is God who heals; the demons only apply the instruments of God.
the whole body? of rhubarb for evacuating bile? of agaric for evacuating phlegm? of kermes for melancholy? of rosemary, rue, betony, sage, bugloss, mint, marjoram, etc., for strengthening and cheering the heart, stomach, and brain? Who can describe the salutary virtues of drinkable gold, aqua vitae or distilled wine, quicksilver, salt, sulfur, vinegar, bezoar stone, gems, metals? etc. See Dioscorides, Pliny, Aristotle, Matthiolus, Galen, Hippocrates, and other natural philosophers and physicians. Indeed Aristotle, Book I On the Parts of Animals, chapter 5: "Nothing," he says, "in nature is so minute, so vile, so abject, that it does not bring some admiration to men." Truly nature is an instrument, indeed an organ of divinity. Hence Aristotle, in the same place, and Galen, Book III On the Use of Parts, chapter 10, assert that there is no work of nature in which something marvelous and divine does not shine forth, displaying the wisdom of God the Creator. See Levinus Lemnius, On the Hidden Miracles of Nature, where among other things, Book II, chapter 34: "If you smear your hands," he says, "with the juice of mallow or mercury herb, you can handle molten lead without offense or injury, provided you do it with swift motion;" however, in this author censors have corrected some things. In compound remedies: for how marvelous and of marvelous power is the composition of cochian pills, aloes, gems, etc., likewise of so many syrups, ointments, poultices, eye-drops, etc.
This is especially evident in theriac, which is marvelously compounded from easily ninety simple ingredients mixed and tempered together in proper proportion, and is effective against poisons, plague, and nearly every kind of disease. Andromachus, a physician in the time of the Emperor Nero, invented it. Similar, but more ancient, is mithridaticum, composed of 54 ingredients, the invention of Mithridates, king of Pontus, who by using it daily so fortified his body against poisons that, when defeated by the Romans and wanting to kill himself with them lest he be led in a Roman triumph, he was unable to do so.
7 and 8. BY THESE THE PHYSICIAN SHALL ALLEVIATE PAIN, AND THE PERFUMER SHALL MAKE SWEET OINTMENTS, AND SHALL PREPARE SOOTHING SALVES, AND HIS WORKS SHALL NOT BE FINISHED. FOR THE PEACE OF GOD IS OVER THE FACE OF THE EARTH. — The Syriac: By these (medicines) the physician alleviates pains, and also the perfumer compounds spices; because work and wisdom do not fail from the face of the earth. The meaning is, that is to say: The Most High, "by these," that is, through these remedies created by Him from the earth, or "by these," that is, through these physicians to whom He gave the science of healing, curing the sick person, shall alleviate his pains. Again, from the same ingredients "the perfumer," in Greek murepsos, that is, the maker of aromatic compounds, the pharmacist, "shall make ointments," in Greek migma, that is, a mixture or compound made from various spices, herbs, and juices tempered together; "ointments," I say, or compounds, "of sweetness," which breathe out a sweet odor refreshing the nostrils and brain of the sick person and others, and from the same ingredients "shall prepare salves of health;" by which, namely, anointing the body of the sick person, he may restore health to him.
Hence a pigmentarius is called a maker of aromatics and a pharmacist, one who from spices compounds something sweet and fragrant; for by composing it he, as it were, paints and fashions, and makes a pigment. Thus pigmenta are the name for the ointments which young women use to beautify their faces; likewise the colors of painters, and metaphorically the colors of rhetoricians, and finally lies and deceits; for these need color and the composition of cosmetics to put on the appearance of truth; just as the color used in painting is not a natural color, but an artificial one, mixed and composed by art.
AND HIS WORKS SHALL NOT BE FINISHED. — That is to say: These remedies are not consummated, that is, perfect and fully sufficient to restore health to man, unless God cooperates and through them heals the man; for it belongs to God to give peace, that is, health over the face of the earth. So the Tigurine, whose words I shall presently quote. Or rather, that is to say: "They shall not be finished," meaning there is no end of herbs and compositions; for as new diseases arise daily, so against them new powers of herbs and new compositions of remedies are discovered by physicians and pharmacists, and this from the marvelous kindness and beneficence of God toward men.
FOR THE PEACE (that is, the prosperity and health) OF GOD (is, that is, it is God's concern to pour it out) IS OVER THE FACE OF THE EARTH — just as over the same He makes His sun to rise, and rains upon the just and the unjust: for so great is God's goodness and mercy that, although men offend Him with innumerable sins, He nevertheless continually communicates His benefits to them, and among them suggests and supplies new remedies against new diseases. So Valles, Sacred Philosophy, chapter 74. Of the usefulness of medicine, he says, Ecclesiasticus attributed two examples, saying: "The physician shall alleviate pain, and the perfumer shall make sweet ointments." For these two things pertain to the better tolerance of the disease and to a certain restoration of the faculty; so that, namely, through soothing ointments pain may be eased, and through sweet ointments pleasure may be procured. He adds moreover: "And he shall prepare salves of health," that is to say: He shall also prepare other necessary ointments, by which he may not only relieve pain or procure pleasure, but may demolish the disease itself, sometimes even increasing the pains.
THE PEACE (therefore) OF GOD IS OVER THE FACE OF THE EARTH — because "the Lord will give His goodness, and the earth will give its fruit," namely food and medicines. Somewhat differently Palacius: "The peace of God," he says, by which He wills to heal men, is over the earth, that is, in the stones and herbs of the earth. The Greek, with some things omitted as is customary, reads concisely thus: By these He heals and removes his pain, by these the perfumer makes a mixture; nor is there an end to his works, and peace
of God on the surface of the earth; the Tigurine: He Himself heals through these, and takes away the pain of man; the pharmacist tempers his mixtures with these, whose works however are not exhausted, but from the Lord aid spreads widely upon the earth. Mixtures, namely both ointments for anointing the body externally, and pills and similar things which are taken internally and passed into the stomach. For physicians are accustomed to use this double kind of remedies. And our translator perhaps noted both here: the former by "unctions," the latter by "ointments." Nor does the term "perfumer" stand in the way; for this is the same as a maker of pigments, an aromatic compounder, a pharmacist; for among remedies, ointments are the most commonly known to the public; especially since in ancient times luxury had advanced so far that they would add ointments to their drink, as Aelian testifies, Book 12, and Juvenal, Satire 6: When ointments soaked in Falernian wine breathe their scent, And spikenard becomes their thirst.
Allegorically, these things are truer still of the remedies of the soul, namely the Holy Sacraments, especially Extreme Unction, which soothes the pains of soul and body, and often restores health to both, as St. James teaches, chapter 5:14. See what was said there.
Tropologically and anagogically, Rabanus says: "Spiritual physicians," he says, "according to the skill of their art, beneficially apply for the salvation of souls the poultices of doctrines, the ointments of exhortations, and the plaster of constant prayer, and also the healing drinks and foods of the divine Scriptures. They also apply, where necessary, the cauterization of excommunication, or the incision of rods, so that by whatever means they can, they may lead a man from the sickness of vices to the health of good virtues.
Moreover, when he says that His works are not finished, he signifies that until the end of the world our true Physician does not cease to work healings daily in His Church through His ministers, until in the final judgment all that is mortal is swallowed up by life: and then what follows will come to pass: The peace of the Lord over the face of the earth, when death having been consumed in victory the dead shall rise incorruptible, and shall be transferred to possess the homeland of the heavenly kingdom."
Finally, our Perfumer Christ gives us "sweet ointments and salves of health," that is, precepts that are at once sweet and wholesome, namely the precepts of charity which soothes all labors and pains, especially with the addition of the anointing of Christ's grace, which "makes the yoke rot from the face of the oil," Isaiah 10:27; see what was said there. See also our Blasius Viegas, on Apocalypse chapter 2, Commentary IV, section 57.
Hear Hugh: "The perfumer, that is Christ, shall make sweet ointments," that is, the Sacraments of the new law, "shall prepare salves of health," that is, the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The ecclesiastical or evangelical Sacraments are called ointments because they give off fragrance; of sweetness, because they are sweet. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are called salves of health because by them the soul is anointed and healed of the seven wounds of sins. For fear heals pride, piety heals envy, knowledge heals anger, fortitude heals sloth, counsel heals avarice, understanding heals gluttony, wisdom heals lust. Song of Songs 1: "Your breasts are better than wine, fragrant with the finest ointments." Where the Gloss says: The ointments, he says, are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which invisibly refresh the soul.
Second Part of the Chapter. On the Duties of the Sick Person to Recover Health.
9. MY SON, IN YOUR SICKNESS DO NOT DESPISE YOURSELF. — So as to neglect to apply those things by which you might recover health, and to remain without any care for your health like a beast; either because you despair of recovery, or because you presume too much and trust too much in the powers of nature, or in the care and providence of God, so resigning yourself and your affairs to Him that, idle and lazy, you are unwilling to put your hand to the work of obtaining those things which prudence and medicine dictate should be obtained, and which God has established and sanctioned. Such are many common people, the poor, and peasants, who completely neglect themselves and their diseases, and leave all their cure to God. The word "yourself" is not in the Greek, but only "do not despise," namely you, your sickness and health. The Tigurine connects it with the following words and thus translates: In your illness, my son, do not pass by without supplicating the Lord, for He Himself will heal you; others: My son, in your illness do not be negligent; but pray to the Lord, and He Himself will heal you.
For it is a mortal sin, says Palacius, if there is hope of recovery, not to seek it. Moreover, Rabanus for "do not despise" reads "do not despair of yourself"; "because despair," he says, "afflicts the soul and brings it most certain death."
BUT PRAY TO THE LORD, AND HE HIMSELF WILL HEAL YOU. — The Syriac: My son, even in your mind pray before God, because He Himself heals. This is the first duty of the sick person, namely, that before he seeks medicines and physicians, he should pray to God for health. For God, as He is the author of life and death, of sickness and health, so He is also their restorer: wherefore if He is invoked with a humble, sincere, and ardent heart, He will restore the sick person to health, if this is expedient for his eternal salvation; as He restored Hezekiah, Isaiah 38:5. If it is not expedient, He will give strength to bravely endure the pains and hardships of diseases; and so He will increase the merits and crowns of patience and penance, and of charity, contemplation, and heavenly desires, to which the sick person is
sickness itself stimulates. Hear St. Gregory Nazianzen, always infirm in old age, in his poem On the Desire for God: But my portion is the great God, and many pains, And grievous illness that shakes my limbs. Tear me apart for a short time, O wicked one: I shall leave All harsh things with you, shortly rejoicing. For I bear the cross in my limbs and in the midst of my body, And in my paths: the cross is my praise and my glory. See the same author, letters 64, 66, 67 to Philagrius. And in his Distichs, where he says: "Just as gold is tested in the furnace, so a good man is tested by affliction, and pain is often lighter than prosperity, and more to be desired." For sickness is as great a gift of God as health, and often greater. The same Nazianzen, as quoted by Antonius in the Melissa, chapter 57: "He taught us," he says, "neither to applaud nor to be overcome by sufferings, but to despise clay, and indeed to allow our body to suffer; since it must necessarily be dissolved, either now or not long after, by the law of nature (for it will perish either by disease or consumed by long time); but to lift our soul on high, and to dwell in our thoughts with God." Thus did St. Paula, as St. Jerome testifies in her Epitaph: "In her weaknesses," he says, "and frequent illness she would say: We have this treasure in earthen vessels, until this mortal puts on immortality, and this corruptible is clothed with incorruption. And again: As the sufferings of Christ superabound in us, so also through Christ consolation abounds. And then: As you are sharers of the sufferings, so shall you be also of the consolation. In her sorrow she would sing: Why are you sad, my soul, and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him: the salvation of my countenance and my God." St. Cyprian, in his letter to Demetrian: "There is no pain," he says, "from the assault of present evils for those who have confidence in future goods. Finally, we are neither dismayed by adversities, nor broken, nor do we grieve, nor do we murmur in any disaster of our affairs or weakness of our bodies; living more by the spirit than by the flesh, we overcome the weakness of the body by the firmness of the soul." Salvian, Book I On the Governance of God: "The weakness of the flesh," he says, "sharpens the vigor of the mind." Hear also Bede on Proverbs: "The weakness of the flesh, if it be patiently endured, is like a purgatorial fire." And: "How great a good health is, sickness shows." And St. Bernard: "Always," he says, "in a weak body the spirit is stronger; for power is made perfect in weakness," 2 Corinthians 12:9. See what was said there.
Finally hear St. Lawrence Justinian, in The Tree of Life, chapter 2, On Prayer: "All physicians are appeased with money, but our God is appeased for conferring health by pure prayer. This heals spiritual diseases. For this is the most powerful remedy of one who burns with vicious temptations: that as often as he is touched by any vice, so often let him turn to prayer; because frequent prayer will extinguish the assault of vices. And just as fire is extinguished by water, so the impulse of vicious desires is overcome by prayer."
Let the sick person therefore frequently recite the prayer of St. Francis: "I give You thanks, Lord God, for all these pains of mine, and I ask You, my Lord, to add a hundredfold, if it please You, because this will be most acceptable to me, that afflicting me with pain You do not spare me, since the fulfillment of Your holy will is for me overflowing consolation."
Finally, how useful sickness is, and how the sick person ought to resign himself to the will of God, whether He gives health or patience, our Alphonsus Rodriguez teaches with beautiful examples of St. Anthony reproving Didymus for grieving that he had lost his eyes, which we have in common with flies; of St. Pachomius, St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. Vedastus, and others, tract. 8 On Conformity with the Will of God, chapter 18. The maxim of St. Pachomius I quoted above in chapter 2, verse 4.
10. TURN AWAY FROM SIN, AND DIRECT YOUR HANDS ARIGHT, AND CLEANSE YOUR HEART FROM ALL OFFENSE. — The Syriac: Remove iniquities and falsehood, and from all these sins cleanse your heart. This is the second duty of the sick person, namely to examine his conscience, and if he finds any sin in it, to abolish it through repentance. For it is certain that diseases are often sent upon men on account of sins. "Therefore (on account of unworthy Communion) among you many are sick and weak, and many sleep (that is, die)," says Paul, 1 Corinthians 11:30. And Christ to a sick man already healed by Him: "Behold, you are made well," He says; "sin no more, lest something worse befall you," John 5:14. And St. Basil, in his Longer Rules, rule 55: "Diseases," he says, "are the scourges of sins, by which nothing else is accomplished except that we change our life for the better." Thus God struck King Uzziah with leprosy when he invaded the priesthood, 2 Chronicles 26:18, and likewise Miriam, the sister of Moses, for her murmuring, Numbers 12:10. So He afflicted Jeroboam, king of Israel, who was worshipping idols and stretching out his hand against the Prophet, with withering, 3 Kings 13:4.
Moreover Sirach requires three things for penance, namely first: "Turn away," he says, "from sin;" namely your mind and will, that is, form the resolution no longer to offend or sin. Hence the Greek corrected at Rome reads: Remove sin; the Tigurine: Let go of sin. Pliny the Younger says admirably, Book 7, letter to Maximus: "Recently," he says, "the illness of a certain friend reminded me that we are at our best when we are sick. For what sick person is troubled by greed or ambition? He does not serve his passions, does not seek honors, neglects wealth, and is content with however little he has as one about to leave it all: then he remembers that there are gods, then that he himself is a man. He envies no one, despises no one, and neither heeds nor feeds on malicious gossip. If he happens to recover, he resolves on an innocent and blessed life. Let us therefore persevere in health as we profess we shall be when sick.
The second is: "Direct your hands" toward right action, that is to say: Resolve henceforth to act rightly, and above all to restore what you have seized or unjustly retain; and to do good to others, especially the needy poor. The Tigurine: Show upright hands — hands, that is, your works and actions, says Vatablus. "For when a man gives only to himself," says Palacius, "he curves his hands toward himself; but when he gives to his neighbors, he directs them toward them. Hear Isaiah as the interpreter of this passage, chapter 58, verse 7: Break your bread for the hungry, and bring the needy and homeless into your house; when you see one naked, cover him. Then your light shall break forth like the morning, and your health shall spring forth more quickly. In this way therefore direct your hands, if you want your health to spring forth quickly."
The third is: "Cleanse your heart from all offense," namely through contrition and penance, which now by the institution of Christ includes confession and satisfaction. Hence it is clear that penance is not merely a bare change of mind or reformation of life, by which a man enters upon a new kind of life and virtue (as the Lutherans would have it). Moreover, it requires the destruction of the former life lived in sins through contrition, chastisement, and penance. Wherefore in the chapter Cum infirmitas, On Penance and Remission, it is decreed that physicians, before they begin to treat the body of one gravely or dangerously ill, should warn him about making his confession. And because this law had been abrogated by custom, Pius V, by his own motu proprio, in the year 1566, which begins Super gregem, renewed it, and added that physicians should not visit the sick person beyond the third day unless they are satisfied about his confession: finally, that before they are admitted to the degree of doctorate, an oath should be required of them by which they swear to observe this law. On which law see Suarez, Part III, volume IV, disputation 35, section 3.
Thus Blessed Peter Damian, in letter 129 to a hermit monk lying sick in bed in his hermitage, addresses him: "Dearest Brother Maurus, confess, do penance, and if there is anything in you which perhaps prohibits you from the awesome celebration of Masses, let your venerable brotherhood not disdain to obey the sacred canons."
Moreover, penance is especially needed at death, that we may be reconciled to God, that we may make satisfaction for offenses, and avoid hell, and have a brief Purgatory. Hence St. Augustine, says Possidius in his Life, "used to say that praised Christians and priests ought not to depart from the body without worthy and fitting penance. Which he himself also did in his last illness of which he died. For he had ordered the Psalms of David which deal with penance, being very few in number, to be written out, and the quires placed against the wall as he lay in bed during the days of his illness he would gaze upon and read, and he wept continually and copiously." St. Lawrence Justinian, when about to die, refused to lie in bed but on a mat, saying: "My Lord did not rest on feathers, but on the hardest wood. You remember the saying of Blessed Martin: It does not befit a Christian man to die except in ashes and a hair shirt." St. Francis said and did similar things, and other outstanding Saints, and in our own age St. Charles Borromeo and his followers, who when about to die lay down and passed away in ashes and a hair shirt.
11. GIVE A SWEET SAVOR AND A MEMORIAL OF FINE FLOUR, AND MAKE A FAT OFFERING. — This is the third duty of the sick person, namely that, having completed penance for his sins, he should offer a sacrifice to God for his health. For "sweetness" the Greek is euodian, that is, sweet fragrance or sweet smell; for "memorial," the Greek is mnemosynon, that is, a monument or memorial "of fine flour," that is, of semolina: thus was called that portion of fine flour which, with incense placed upon it, was burned to God, so that through it the whole flour offering would be consecrated as offered and sacrificed to God, as I said on Leviticus 2:2. The meaning therefore is, that is to say: Offer to God the sacrifice of mincha, that is, of grain and fine flour, which with incense placed upon it may breathe out a sweet odor, and may be a memorial to God, both of your offering and supplication for obtaining health of body and soul, and of your gratitude and recognition of divine power and aid. Again, "make fat," that is, offer a fat "offering," namely a fat, choice, and outstanding victim. For generally with the mincha, that is, the grain sacrifice, they would offer God a flesh victim, for example, a goat, sheep, or calf, so that the sacrifice might be complete: for a sacrifice is, as it were, a banquet of God. In a banquet there is required both flour and bread, and the flesh of animals.
"Sweetness" can also be taken as frankincense and the sweet-smelling incense which the Hebrews burned to God. Hence the Tigurine: Burn incense, and a commendatory (Vatablus: commending, or pleasing, one which commends the person sacrificing to God) fine flour offering, and consecrate a rich gift.
This is more truly fulfilled in the new law through the sacrifice of the Eucharist, which is at once a mincha and a victim; because in it under the appearances of bread the very flesh of Christ is offered to God, and Christ Himself, rich and burning with the charity of devotion; therefore this perpetually brings to God the memory of us, for whom it is offered, that He may heal all our infirmities and grant every strength and good. Thus St. Gorgonia miraculously healed the extraordinary bodily disease from which she suffered, when she refused to admit physicians, by receiving the Eucharist, as her brother St. Gregory Nazianzen reports, oration 11, who in oration 19 reports the same of his father, namely that he drove away his serious illness by celebrating Mass. Much more does the Eucharist heal the diseases of the soul; hence by the Fathers it is called the remedy of immortality, because by its power we shall rise to immortal life, John 6:40. "The sacrifice of bread and wine," says Rabanus, "offered in memory of the Lord's passion, especially heals the wounds of souls, when through the ministry of the priest it is offered to God at the altar together with the sacred prayers. Hence, as Blessed Gregory says in the books of the Dialogues: If faults after death are not insoluble, the sacred offering of the saving victim is accustomed to greatly help souls, even after death; so that sometimes the souls of the departed themselves seem to desire this: and it is believed that the same sacrifice, if offered worthily, will be of great benefit not only to the dead but also to the living."
The Greeks add hos me huparchon, that is, as one not existing; the Roman, as though you are not, that is to say: Offer the oblation to God, humbling yourself supremely before that majesty whose name is "the Being," so that before it you consider yourself not to be, not to exist; because your being is merely a shadow, and only a shadow of the divine essence, so much so that God's name is "Being," but the creature's is "non-being," as I said on Exodus 3:14. The Tigurine translates: As one who does not claim precedence, which Vatablus explains, that is to say: "As one who does not first bestow a favor, but testifies to the grace received." But all the Latin editions and St. Augustine in the Speculum omit the phrase "as one not existing."
Mystically, our James Alvarez de Paz beautifully applies all these things to the spiritual infirmity of the soul — namely, to its vices and passions being cured by the eight remedies which Sirach here assigns — in Book V On the Spiritual Life, Part II, chapter 13.
12. AND GIVE PLACE TO THE PHYSICIAN: FOR THE LORD HAS CREATED HIM; LET HIM NOT DEPART FROM YOU, FOR HIS WORKS ARE NECESSARY. — This is the fourth duty of the sick person, namely that after prayer, penance, and sacrifice, by which he has implored the help of God the supreme physician, he should also give place to the physician. For God wills to bestow His benefits on man not by Himself alone, but with man cooperating: for He wills that man likewise do what is in his power and apply the means established by God and by nature. Such means in illness for obtaining health is the physician and medicine. He adds, "let him not depart from you," because it is not enough for the sick person to have consulted the physician once; but he must consult him frequently, so that the physician may better investigate the constitution of the sick person and the nature of the disease, and apply appropriate remedies to it; especially because the disease has its paroxysms, and on certain days varies its turns and crises, which the physician must diligently observe in order to judge the disease and its remedies. And even though the sick person begins to recover, he should not immediately dismiss the physician, lest through imprudence, or ignorance, or intemperance, he relapse into the disease: for a relapse is more dangerous than the disease itself. Therefore let the physician attend the sick person until he fully recovers, and then let him prescribe a regimen for maintaining and preserving health.
Hence the Tigurine translates: Then give place to the physician, since the Lord is his author; nor let him depart from you, because you need him; the Roman, for you also have need of him. For in Greek it is chreia, that is, work, usefulness, necessity, need, as I said in verse 1. The Syriac: And also give place to the physician; because (also) in him there is usefulness: because there is a time in which through him your health may prosper.
Lyra takes "physician" to mean a spiritual one, namely a priest; because, he says, it is his role to pray for the sick, as Sirach adds below. But it is clear to anyone examining this that all these things pertain literally to the bodily physician.
Moreover, the ancient Ascetics and Anchorites abstained from physicians and medicines, both because they lived in deserts and solitary places far from cities and physicians, and from zeal for poverty, austerity, penance, and mortification. For their axiom was: "Disease of the body is the purgation of the soul;" likewise: "The infirmity of the body is the health and strength of the mind," and therefore they hardened their body by accustoming it to all labors and pains; and also because they sighed for heaven, that freed from this exile they might fly to the blessed life, and therefore they strove to rise above diseases and hardships just as much as above pleasures and delights. Thus St. Pachomius, as his Life records, gave his disciple Theodore, who was ill, no other medicine than this: "Endure in pain, and have patience in your humility, and when the Lord wills, He will grant you health." He rebuked another for having anointed with oil his hands, which were torn from labor. Another abbot, in the Lives of the Fathers, Book VII, chapter 20, gave this remedy to a sick disciple: "Do not be saddened, my son, by your illness; for it is the highest devotion to give thanks to God for one's illness. If you are iron, through fire you lose your rust. If you are gold, tested through fire you advance from great things to greater. Endure therefore and pray to God, that He may grant what He wills." In the same place, another who was often ill, when he had been free of illness for a year, said sadly to God: "You have abandoned me, Lord, and did not wish to visit me this year." For disease of the flesh is the purgation of the soul.
Wherefore the great Abbot John, who predicted victory over the tyrants for the Emperor Theodosius, said to someone requesting to be freed from a tertian fever: "You wish," he said, "to cast away something necessary for you; for just as bodies are washed clean of filth with soda, so souls are purified by illnesses and similar chastisements." Nevertheless, soon complying with his wishes, he cured him with oil blessed by himself. So Rufinus in the Life of St. John, which is found in the Lives of the Fathers, Book II, chapter 1, according to the edition of our Father Rosweyde. In the same place, in the Life of St. Posthumius, we read that he in the torments of fevers and stomach ailments neither used warm food nor diminished his fasts, declaring: "If the body were cared for with warm food, redemption of the soul would not be given by the Lord." Similarly, St. Athanasius reports in his Life that St. Anthony did not diminish his fasts or his usual duties of virtue during illness. St. Jerome writes similar things about St. Hilarion.
But later Ascetics and religious moderated this rigor, and following the counsel of Sirach, they admit physicians and medicines; indeed they recommend and prescribe them, as can be seen in the Rules of St. Basil, St. Benedict, St. Augustine, St. Francis, etc. See St. Basil in the Longer Rules Explained, rule 55, where he teaches at length that physicians and medicines are to be used, but in such a way that hope for health is placed in God rather than in them. Hence, concluding, he says: "Therefore neither is this art to be entirely avoided, nor on the other hand are all the safeguards of our health to be placed in it; but just as, although we have accepted the practice of agriculture, we nevertheless ask God for the harvest of crops; and although we commit the helm to the pilot, we nevertheless pray to God to preserve us safe from on high: so likewise when we employ a physician, and reason permits this to be done, we should by no means depart from hope in His goodness toward us. Indeed, it seems to me that this art of which we speak contributes no small weight to cultivating temperance. For I observe that by it luxuries are cut off, gluttony of feasts is condemned, and moreover the variety and excessively elaborate contrivance of seasonings wickedly devised is disapproved as useless. In short, frugality is called by it the mother of health."
13 and 14. FOR THERE IS A TIME WHEN YOU MUST FALL INTO THEIR HANDS (that is, when you must fall and entrust and commit yourself to their care): AND THEY SHALL BESEECH THE LORD, THAT HE MAY DIRECT THEIR RELIEF, AND (the Complutensian reads 'in' for 'and') HEALTH FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR MANNER OF LIFE — "their," that is, his, namely the physician, about whom the discussion preceded. He says "their" because there are many physicians: "their" therefore means one of them, whom either your own choice and selection, or necessity will present to you.
Sirach therefore signifies, says Jansenius — Valles, Sacred Philosophy, chapter 74, that the duty of a good physician is not only to apply remedies suited to diseases and to rely and trust in them, but also to invoke God and pray that He may direct and bless both his skills and his remedies for the health of the sick. For the matter in which the physician is engaged is in itself great and subject to great dangers, which for that reason requires not only prudence but also pious care and solicitude: when this is neglected, the most serious offenses and dangerous treatments are the usual result. For when physicians trust too much in their art, so that they do not care to implore God's direction, it sometimes happens that God does not prosper but overturns their efforts. And so the meaning of our reading will be this: There is a time when you must fall into the hands of physicians. But they should not trust too much in their art; rather they shall beseech the Lord to direct and bless the relief they strive to bring to the sick, that is, health; and this because it pertains to their manner of life, that is, their duty and way of life.
Differently Lyra: "For the sake of their manner of life," he says, that is, for the sake of their holy life. Differently also Palacius: "For the sake of their conversation," he says, that is, so that physicians may be permitted to have interaction with the sick person whom they have recalled to health. Or, that is to say: Physicians will pray for the health of the sick, for if a physician is unsuccessful and heals no one, how will he be able to have dealings with people? Therefore, in order to have interaction with them, let him pray for their health. In Greek it is iasin charin epibiōseōs: and epibiōsis signifies first, life; second, livelihood; third, interaction. Hence first, the Tigurine translates: That God may prosper and give healing for life's sake, so that through the physician's cure He may restore the sick person to life and health. Hence also the Roman editors translate: Healing for the sake of restoring health; second, others translate, that He may give healing for the sake of livelihood; so that God through the hands of the physician may restore health to the sick person, with this among other ends and fruits: that physicians by healing the sick may earn their livelihood, for this is their art from which they live; third, our translator renders: That He may "direct health for the sake of their manner of life," in the sense I have already given.
But chodia, that is, sweet fragrance, namely of herbs, flowers, medicinal waters, and other remedies, is also in the hands of the physician, so that through them he may confer health on the sick. Add that others read euodia for euōdia, that is, success, prosperity; some read eudokia, that is, will, good pleasure. Hence the Tigurine translates: There are times when the hands of physicians also achieve success; for they too pray to the Lord that He may bless their soothing treatment, and cause healing of life. Where anapausin, that is, rest, he explains as soothing, by which the physician through remedies soothes the pains of the sick. Others: They pray the Lord to grant peaceful rest and healing for livelihood's sake; the Syriac: Because the physician will pray to God, and He will give you health through his hands, and through him will come health and life. Therefore it is more fitting to refer these words to physicians than to priests; for the entire passage here concerns physicians. It is an enallage: "their;"
Our translator rendered, "for the sake of their manner of life," that is, because their way of life requires this of them, and because they are devoted to holiness and piety more than others. So Lyra and Jansenius. Note here that it is the duty of physicians not only to use medical skill but also with prayers and a holy life to obtain for the sick rest and health, that is, peaceful health and healthy peace. Hippocrates teaches the same; and the most excellent physicians Saints Cosmas and Damian did the same, as I said in verse 2. For holiness merits that God may direct the actions proper to each person and bless and prosper them: and the proper action of physicians is to heal and cure
the sick. Thus Thalassius the ascetic used to cure his colic pains and viper bites by prayer and the sign of the cross, as Theodoret testifies in the Religious History, chapter 22. For, as the same author says in chapter 16: "The intercession of the saints is the common remedy of all evils." Thus St. Lawrence illuminated Lucillus and other blind persons with the sign of the cross. Thus in the Lives of the Fathers we read that St. Hilarion, St. Anthony, and very many other anchorites cured the severe and incurable diseases of many by prayer and oil blessed by themselves.
Note the apt metaphor or allegory: for the physician is compared to a torturer or judge, medicines are compared to tortures and the rack, the sick person to a defendant, the sins of the sick to the crimes of the accused. Hence Holy Scripture often calls diseases "cords," and calls the bed to which the sick person is confined a "prison"; because diseases are the punishments of sins, by which the sinner is bound, constrained, and tormented as if by ropes and the rack, and consequently it speaks of the physician as if of an officer or judge, who apprehends offenders and casts them into prison, and orders them to lie in bed, and in it, as on a rack, torments and afflicts them with potions, incisions, clysters, cupping glasses, baths, cauteries, burnings, and six hundred other methods and torments. So felt St. Job, afflicted by God with diseases, when he said, chapter 7:12: "Am I the sea, or a whale, that You have surrounded me with a prison?" And David, Psalm 17:5: "The sorrows of death surrounded me, and the torrents of iniquity troubled me." And Christ healing the infirm woman: "Woman, you are released from your infirmity," Luke 13:12. And verse 16: "And ought not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound these eighteen years, to be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?" Hence St. Lawrence Justinian, sick in old age, when the physician was cutting his flesh, stood motionless at the stroke of the iron, and to the frightened physician said: "Cut boldly; for your razor will not surpass the plates of the Martyrs." So his Life records.
15. HE WHO SINS IN THE SIGHT OF HIS MAKER SHALL FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE PHYSICIAN. — The Syriac reads: is delivered. The translator reads timpeseitai, that is, "shall fall"; now the Complutensian and Roman editions read empesoi, "let him fall," optatively or imperatively, that is to say: He is worthy to fall, that he may be chastised by this punishment and return to God. The Tigurine translates: He who sins against his Creator is accustomed to fall into the hands of the physician. The meaning is, that is to say: He who dares to sin before God, indeed against God his Maker, from whom he has received his being, his health, and every good, by this ingratitude and malice deserves to be deprived of health, indeed of life and every good, and to be harassed by diseases, and therefore to be subject to the hands of physicians, from whom he will be compelled to endure many harsh and bitter remedies, and moreover to pay them a generous fee for this torture. He signifies that sins are the causes of diseases, and consequently speaks of the physician as if of an officer or judge who apprehends offenders and casts them into prison, orders them to lie in bed, and in it, as on a rack, torments and afflicts them with potions, incisions, clysters, cupping glasses, baths, cauteries, burnings, and six hundred other methods and torments.
He signifies that sins are the causes of diseases, and consequently of troublesome and afflicting medicines: wherefore one must abstain from sins, so that we may be free from diseases and medicines.
Third Part of the Chapter. On Moderating the Mourning of the Dead, and Avoiding Sadness.
16. MY SON, LET TEARS FALL OVER THE DEAD (Nazianzen, oration 10, reads "weep"), AND AS ONE WHO SUFFERS GRIEVOUSLY BEGIN TO WEEP. — The Tigurine: My son, shed tears over the dead, and begin the mourning as one who has suffered bitter things; others: My son, shed tears over the dead, and as one suffering bitter things, begin the lamentation. On this lamentation I spoke in chapter 22:13. The Syriac: My son, over the dead multiply your tears, and let it grieve you, and utter wailing. From the sick and diseased he fittingly passes to the dead, for whom he commands that the last funeral rites be paid. The first duty owed to the dead therefore is to bewail their death, both for their sake and for ours. For their sake, because they have lost the greatest good of this life, namely life itself, forever, since they will never return to it; for our sake, because we have lost the useful and welcome conversation, counsel, help, and all interaction with them — whether parents, relatives, friends, or neighbors — never to recover it in this life. Indeed, those who rejoice at the death of their relatives because they succeed to their inheritance and goods show themselves ungrateful and inhuman to them. Others, like insensible Stoics, put on apathy, so that they are touched by no grief for any lost friend or thing: these too lack the human and common feeling of compassion. Hence nearly all nations have mourned their dead, so that this mourning seems to be a right of nations. Thus Abraham wept at the death of Sarah, Genesis 23:2. Jacob wept at the reported (but falsely) death of Joseph, Genesis 37:35, and at the death of Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, and burying her under the oak at Bethel, he gave the place its name: "Oak of Weeping," Genesis 35:8. Joseph mourned the death of Jacob; indeed even the Egyptians mourned the same, Genesis 50:9 and following. St. Augustine mourned the death of his mother St. Monica, Book IX of the Confessions, chapter 12. For this mourning is demanded by the common humanity, piety, and charity of the faithful.
Hear St. Paulinus, in his consolatory letter to Pammachius on the death of his wife Paulina: "Good are the tears of charity, with which Father Abraham brought forth the mother of the promise. Good are the tears of piety, which the just Joseph bestowed upon his father. Good also are the tears of prayer, with which David watered his bed every night. But why should I extol the tears of mortal Saints? Jesus also wept for His friend; He deigned to undergo even this emotion from our
misfortune, so as to pour tears over the dead man, and to mourn with human weakness the one He was about to raise with divine power. Although in that one man the merciful and compassionate Lord bewailed the whole condition of the human race together, and with those tears wept for and washed our sins. Therefore your tears, brother, are holy and pious: because they flowed from a similar feeling of affection, and wept for a worthy companion of the chaste marriage bed, not from distrust of the resurrection, but from the desire of charity."
AND ACCORDING TO JUDGMENT WRAP HIS BODY, AND DO NOT NEGLECT HIS BURIAL. — This is the second and third duty of piety owed to the dead; the second, that the body of the dead person be covered with a sudarium, shroud, and burial wrappings "according to judgment," that is, according to the custom and rite of funerals which each region observes. For in Hebrew mishpat, that is, judgment, often means custom and usage. For it would be disgraceful, wretched, and shameful to strip him of all garments and set him out naked for all to see. The Tigurine: Cover his body according to the rite of funerals; others: According to his custom (as he was accustomed to be covered and clothed while living) cover his body; the Syriac: And as is fitting, gather his body, and do not despise his burial.
The third: "And do not neglect his burial;" the Tigurine: Nor neglect the burial. Repeat the phrase "according to judgment," that is, according to the rite of funerals and the custom of the country. By which, first, it is signified and commanded that the body should not be thrown onto a dung heap, as the bodies of oxen and horses are thrown; nor again should it be left unburied for birds and beasts to tear; but it should be returned to the earth from which it was formed; and this on account of the hope of resurrection. For the bodies of men, not of animals, are commended to the earth as to a guardian, so that on the day of resurrection the earth may return them to God who raises them, as deposits entrusted to it. Thus St. Mary of Egypt, dying, inscribed upon the earth (or in her name the angels inscribed): "Bury, Zosimas, the poor body of Mary. Return to the earth what is its own, and add dust to dust. Pray to the Lord for me. On the very night of the saving Passion, after the communion of the divine and holy Supper." For she died on that night. Thus the eyewitness Zosimas, the author of her Life, reports, who also adds that a lion sent by God dug the grave with its claws, into which he laid the body of St. Mary. So also two lions, sent by God, dug for St. Anthony the grave of St. Paul the first Hermit, as St. Jerome testifies in his Life.
The body of St. Lucian, priest and martyr, thrown into the sea by order of the Emperor Maximian, was carried from the sea onto the shore by a dolphin, so that it might be honorably buried. Eagles defended from wild beasts the body of St. Stanislaus, Bishop and martyr of Cracow, so that it might be committed to burial. St. Moses and St. Catherine were buried by angels on Mount Sinai. St. Sebastian, after his martyrdom and death, appearing to St. Lucina, ordered that his body, which had been thrown into a sewer, be removed from there and buried in the catacombs near the tombs of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul. Thus honorable burial was procured by Christians for the other martyrs, even with the most imminent danger to their own lives; indeed many for this reason obtained the laurel of martyrdom, as can be seen in the Martyrology.
Burial therefore, first, is an honor to the deceased; second, it refreshes the memory of his life and virtue; third, it is a memorial of the resurrection; fourth, it brings about that the Saints with whom we are buried may pray for us. Thus St. Augustine, in his book On the Care for the Dead, where in chapter 2 he says: "All these things," he says, "that is, the care of the funeral, the condition of the burial, the pomp of the obsequies, are more the consolation of the living than the aid of the dead."
Second, he commands that burial be done "according to judgment," that is, the rite and custom of the country. Thus the Jews would anoint bodies to be buried with spices in the Egyptian manner, as they did for Jacob, Genesis 50:2, and for Christ the Lord, John 19:40. The ancient custom of Christians is to adorn the burials of the faithful with psalmody, singing, torches, burning candles, flowers, ringing of bells, and dark garments, as Baronius teaches with many testimonies and examples of the Holy Fathers, volume I, year of Christ 34, chapter 235, on the funeral of St. Stephen.
Third, that a funeral feast be held for friends as well as for the poor, according to that saying of Tobit 4:18: "Place your bread and your wine upon the burial of the just;" on which matter I said more above.
Fourth, that prayers be offered and sacrifices made for the soul of the deceased, as Judas Maccabeus did for his men killed in battle, 2 Maccabees 12:43. Bellarmine proves the same at length, tract. On Purgatory, and Baronius, year of Christ 34, chapter 279.
17 and 18. BUT FOR THE SAKE OF REPORT BEAR THE MOURNING BITTERLY (in Greek: pikranon klauthmon, that is, make the weeping bitter) FOR HIM ONE DAY, AND BE CONSOLED BECAUSE OF SADNESS. AND MAKE MOURNING ACCORDING TO HIS MERIT FOR ONE DAY OR TWO BECAUSE OF DETRACTION. — The Syriac: Wine and food for the sons of men who weep, and make mourning as is fitting for him one day or two because of people, and be consoled because of life. The Greek, as usual more concise, translates thus: The Complutensian: Make bitter weeping, and kindle lamentation; the Roman: Make your weeping bitter, and heat up the lamentation (for tears are hot, and heat the face, and in turn are elicited and increased by heat), and make mourning according to his dignity for one day or two because of detraction; and admit consolation because of sadness; the Tigurine: Stir up bitter lamentation, and lest you be ill spoken of, kindle lamentation (others: utter ardent lamentation), and follow him with the mourning he deserves, and that for one or two days, to avoid calumny; then admit consolation, to diminish your sorrow.
"Report" in the following verses he calls detraction and calumny, that is to say: Weep bitterly for the death of a friend "for the sake of report," lest anyone mock and detract from you, or even report you before others, accuse and charge you with having hated him, or with rejoicing in his death, if you do not weep bitterly. But do not weep inconsolably in the pagan manner; rather, in the manner of the faithful, after bitter weeping for one or two days, "be consoled," that is, admit consolation, "because of sadness," lest excessive sadness overwhelm you, and bring upon you sickness, madness, or death. "And make mourning according to his merit," in Greek axian, that is, the "dignity" of him, that is, according to what he is worthy of being mourned by you; for a prince is more worthy of being mourned, and therefore should actually be mourned more, than a commoner; a father more than a relative; a patron who has nourished you more than a common friend; a holy man more than a simple believer. And this because of "detraction," lest anyone detract from you as inhuman or impious. Therefore Rabanus less correctly takes detraction to mean departure, that is, death, by which the soul departs from the body, and is drawn away and torn from it.
Moreover, bitter mourning of the dead was fitting for the carnal Jews; but for Christians, on account of their clearer faith and more certain hope of the resurrection, it must be greatly moderated and tempered. Hence the Apostle, 1 Thessalonians 4:12: "We do not want you to be ignorant, brothers," he says, "concerning those who sleep, that you may not grieve as the rest who have no hope (of the resurrection)." Therefore the faithful and Christians do not so much mourn the death of the Saints, as the fact that through their death they are deprived of holy teaching and examples, as they mourned St. Stephen with great lamentation, Acts 8:2. For which reason St. Ambrose was accustomed to grieve greatly for the death of old men, who by their prudence and holiness went before the young on the way of virtue and perfection. Hence he himself, Book II On Abel, chapter 3: "How I rejoice," he says, "when I see some who are gentle and wise living for a long time, etc.; because they benefit many! Similarly, when such a one departs, even though laid to rest at an advanced age, I am grieved, because the flock of the young is deprived of its wall of old age."
You will say: How is it that in chapter 22:13 he assigned seven days for mourning, but here only one or two? I reply: That first bitter weeping and lamentation for a dead parent or friend lasted, and still lasts, for one or two days, and after it is completed it subsides, and a moderate and gentle mourning succeeds, lasting up to seven days. See what was said in chapter 22:13. Thus St. Paulinus explains and discusses this passage in his letter to Pammachius, in which he consoles him mourning the death of his wife Paulina, who was the daughter of St. Paula: "The divine Scripture," he says, "which permits us to shed tears as if to evaporate our grief, also prescribes a time with a designated limit, when it says that the bitterness of mourning is to be borne for one day. O riches of the goodness of God! How lovingly in the same solicitude for us He takes care, not grudging our deep affection, but aware of our weakness, and a moderator of all excess, He commands that tears be shed for the dead; the bitterness of
mourning He closes to one day only, extending that by which grief is relieved and the soul breathes; but cutting short that which with immoderate and irrational torment destroys our mind, and which our frailty cannot long sustain. But the loving-kindness of God explains this more fully in its own words; for it added: And be quickly consoled because of sadness. For from sadness comes death, and it will overwhelm strength; because only that sadness is salutary which is according to God; but that (as the Apostle says) which is according to man, that is, which comes from weakness, is carnal sadness." St. Jerome wisely consoles Theodora mourning the death of her husband Lupicinus, in letter 29: "Is it true," he says, "that the prophetic oracle about the necessity of death divides brothers, and cruelly and harshly separates the dearest names from one another? But we have consolation; because death is slain by the voice of the Lord, through which it is said to it: I will be your death, O death, I will be your sting, O hell." And shortly after: "Against the harshness of death, therefore, and its most cruel necessity, we are raised by this comfort: that we shall shortly see those whose absence we mourn. For it is called not death, but a falling asleep and a sleep, so that those whom we know to be sleeping, we may believe can be awakened, and after their slumber is over, may watch with the Saints and say with the Angels: Glory to God in the highest."
The same moderation in the funeral mourning of their own, the other Fathers taught by words and deeds, such as St. Augustine at the funeral of his mother Monica, Book IX of the Confessions, chapter 12. St. Ambrose at the death of his brother Satyrus, Nyssen in the funeral oration for his brother St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, oration 10, which he delivered at the funeral of his brother Caesarius, and 11, at the funeral of his sister Gorgonia, and 19, at the funeral of his father Gregory, and St. Bernard, sermon 26 on the Song of Songs, on the death of his brother Gerard.
Christ Himself employed the same moderation at the death of Lazarus, where He wept; but immediately from tears He passed to raising him, John 11:35. St. Basil noted this, homily 4 On Thanksgiving: "He willed," he says, "to restrain and encompass within a certain moderate temperance and fixed limits the emotions that cannot be avoided. Indeed, declining the harshness that is touched by no one's compassion, as being a savage wildness; but also excluding the pursuit of affected grief and immoderate lamentation, as being ignoble." The same is the explanation of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Book VII on John, chapter 20: "The Lord taught us," he says, "by His tears in what manner we ought to weep for our dear ones who have departed this life, with moderation and with tears regulated by the law of reason. For not to feel compassion at all, nor to grieve, is beastly and hard; but the excess of these, is womanish." St. Isidore of Pelusium agrees, Book II, letter 175: "Christ," he says, "shed tears for Lazarus, setting for us rules and limits, lest after the manner of revelers in sorrow we
19. FOR FROM SADNESS DEATH HASTENS, AND IT OVERWHELMS STRENGTH, AND THE SADNESS OF THE HEART BOWS DOWN THE NECK. — The Greek, as usual more concisely, reads thus: For from sadness proceeds death, and the sadness of the heart bends or curves vigor and strength; the Tigurine: For sadness issues in death, and the sadness of the mind breaks strength; the Syriac: Because from sorrow anguish is generated; for thus an evil heart (that is, a wretched and sorrowful one) more than death crushes the poor with anxiety, and brings sadness; because the life of the poor leads to the curse of the heart.
He gives the reason why in mourning for the deceased consolation should be sent and sadness moderated; because sadness causes three enormous evils: the first is that from it flows, indeed "hastens," that is, swiftly and quickly comes "death;" the second, that it "overwhelms strength," that is, the powers of man, that is, depresses and suppresses them, and finally buries and crushes them, so that a man becomes nerveless, languid, powerless, and unfit for everything; the third, that it "bows down the neck," so that a man who before walked briskly, bold and upright, now walks sadly, dejected and bent, as though weakened in the loins, with all the powers of soul and body prostrated. Sadness therefore hastens death, weakens strength, and brings on old age, by which the neck is curved, and a man hastens death for himself; because life is in warmth and moisture; but sadness is cold and dry, earthy and melancholic; and sadness harms life; and therefore it makes the sinews, in which the powers of man reside, earthy and dull, and almost covered with melancholy, and therefore weak: the weaker sinews therefore curve, and so the old man becomes bent.
See what I said about the harms and remedies of sadness in chapter 30:22. So also Lyra: "Sadness," he says, "is a mortifying passion, and it overwhelms strength, that is, it suffocates the power of nature, and when it is weakened the neck and head bend, just as by its strength they are held erect."
20. IN WITHDRAWAL SADNESS REMAINS: AND THE SUBSTANCE OF THE POOR IS ACCORDING TO HIS HEART. — So the Roman, Complutensian, and other editions read: en apagoge, in closure, or induction, that is, in a blow, calamity, affliction, as I said in chapter 2, verse 2. But the rest read with our translator, en apagoge, that is, in withdrawal.
Hence it is aptly added: "And the substance of the poor is according to his heart," so that, if the poor man persuades his heart that he has enough wealth for living honorably, he may be happy and fortunate; but if he persuades himself that the necessities of life are lacking, he lives wretchedly and unhappily. Hence also the Greek corrected at Rome reads: In withdrawal sadness passes, and the life of the poor is according to the heart; and the Tigurine: By removing (objects and sad thoughts) sadness passes, and the life of the afflicted consists in his spirit. For the Greek bios properly signifies life, and thence livelihood, substance, and wealth by which life is preserved. But our translator and the rest read the contrary paramenei, that is, remains.
You will ask, what is this "withdrawal" in which sadness remains? First, some think it means being taken to prison. Hence they translate: In prison sadness remains; for the Greek apagoge sometimes means the same as aichmalōsia, that is, captivity, imprisonment, or deportation. Second, Lyra thinks it means being led away from good to evil; because just as a good life is the cause of joy, so an evil one is the cause of sadness: wherefore, if anyone allows himself to be led from a good life into an evil one, he slides from joy into sadness. Third, more literally, this withdrawal can be taken from the use of things and from human society, namely solitude and want; for these and similar things produce melancholy, as is evident in Timon of Athens, who always sadly fled from men, and indeed wished that men would perish; hence he was called misanthropos, that is, a hater of men, as Laertius, Plutarch, and others testify. Thus Palacius: If you withdraw, he says, from the company of men, sadness will remain in you; and if it remains, it is all over with your substance and resources; for the substance of a man is according to his heart. For if a man attends to and diligently manages his substance, he will preserve it; but if, crushed by sadness, he neglects it, it will utterly perish.
Fourth, Rabanus and Jansenius explain it better, that is to say: Sadness remains in a man because he withdraws his mind from consolation and from the consideration of those things which could mitigate his grief; and the subsistence of the poor or afflicted is according to his heart — such is his life and subsistence — so that, if his heart is sorrowful, his life is truly wretched and likely to be short; if joyful or tranquil, no external calamity will harm him, and his life will last long. Or "the substance of the poor is according to his heart," that is, it depends on the heart whether someone is to be considered rich or poor. For if he is content with little and bears poverty with equanimity, he is to be counted truly rich; but if his spirit is restless, even if he possesses many riches, he is truly poor. And so according to this sense it is signified that sadness is an enormous evil, inasmuch as it makes the rich man destitute, and makes the poor man doubly unhappy.
Fifth, simply and plainly, "withdrawal" can be taken here as being carried off into captivity, want, calumny, or a similar calamity, by which either the person is carried off into exile, prison, or disgrace, or his wealth and goods are carried off and seized by thieves or robbers, as happened to St. Job, chapter 1. For this is both the cause and the object of sadness, and as long as it remains, so does the sadness. This is confirmed first: for the Greek apagoge properly means the same as induction, abduction, removal, deportation, exile, captivity, imprisonment, accusation, and any kind of report. And the root apago means the same as I lead away, drive away, withdraw, remove, report, carry off to punishment, to the judge; I carry off to prison. Second, because the Complutensian reads epagoge for apagoge, which our translator usually renders as "closure." Hence some manuscripts read here "in closure," that is, in calamity or disaster, by which the mind is closed and veiled, "sadness remains." Third, because what follows is: "And the substance of the poor is according to his heart," that is to say: "In withdrawal," that is, in spoliation, want, and calamity, "sadness remains, and," that is because, "the substance of the poor is according to his heart," that is, it makes the heart like itself and conforms it to itself; so that just as the substance of the poor is narrow, scanty, obscure, dismal, and sordid, so the same makes his heart narrow, scanty, pusillanimous, obscure, dismal, sordid, sad, and melancholic. For just as wealth expands and gladdens the heart, so want, scarcity, and hunger in turn constrict and squeeze the heart, and make it sad and sorrowful. Hence in Greek it reads: The livelihood of the poor or beggar kata kardias, that is, according to or against his heart; the Complutensian reads katara kardias, that is, the livelihood or substance of the poor is the curse of the heart, that is, it makes the heart evil, that is, wretched, sad, and melancholic. For to curse sometimes means the same as to do harm, and a curse is the same as maleficence and injury; just as conversely to bless is to do good, and a blessing is beneficence, especially when attributed to God: for God's speaking is efficacious and the same as doing: "For He spoke, and they were made," all things, Genesis 1. Substance could also be taken as subsistence and life: for the Greek bios signifies this, that is to say: The subsistence and life of the poor person is wretched, sordid, sad, and squalid, just as his heart is wretched, sordid, sad, and squalid.
Mystically Rabanus says: "Where," he says, "immoderate grief holds the heart, and the mind is drawn away so as not to receive consolation, there sadness remains; because here it begins through the affliction of grief, and in the future it remains as punishment because of distrust of heavenly consolation. For truly the substance of a man poor in spirit is tempered according to his heart: because to the extent that faith and hope are lacking in him, to that extent sorrow grows in him in anguish and pain."
21 and 22. DO NOT GIVE YOUR HEART TO SADNESS, BUT DRIVE IT AWAY FROM YOU, AND REMEMBER THE LAST THINGS, DO NOT FORGET: FOR THERE IS NO RETURNING, AND YOU SHALL DO HIM NO GOOD, AND YOU SHALL HARM YOURSELF. — He proves that one should not mourn and grieve too much at the death of a friend, by two arguments or motives: the first is that the sad person hastens death for himself; the second, that the sad person by mourning does the dead person no good, but greatly harms himself. The meaning therefore is, that is to say: Do not give your heart "to sadness," in Greek eis lupen, that is, into sadness, so that you wholly give yourself over and plunge into sadness, so that it swallows you up, overwhelms you, and completely occupies you; just as one who plunges into the sea is entirely overwhelmed and swallowed by it; but "drive it away from you," by summoning objects, thoughts, and activities that may make you cheerful; and "remember the last things," that is, death and burial, which you hasten and summon upon yourself through sadness; and of these "do not forget," because afterward there is no conversion, in Greek epistrophos, that is, return and coming back to life, that is to say: Take care lest from sadness you incur death, from which you may never return to life. Moreover, to him, namely the dead person whom you mourn, by mourning "you will do no good, and you will harm yourself," in Greek kakōseis, that is, you will offend, injure, and treat badly, indeed most badly, yourself by excessive grief. Why then do you bring upon yourself so great an inconvenience with no benefit to him? So Lyra, Palacius, Jansenius. Hence the Tigurine also translates: Do not give your mind to sadness, but drive it away, mindful of the last things; do not forget them; for there is no returning from there, and besides you will not help him and will only torment yourself.
Mystically Rabanus says: "Let not the sadness of the world," he says, "occupy your heart, for it works the death of the soul; but cast it away from you, and remember the last times: because as you depart from here, so you will be presented before the Judge, to receive according to what you have done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore never consign to oblivion the departure of your last hour, but always be prepared: because after you have departed from here, you will by no means have another space for doing good upon returning here; and therefore be cautious in all things, lest perhaps at the death of a neighbor you grieve more than is fitting: because you will do him no good by weeping, if you injure yourself by afflicting yourself with immense pains."
Moreover the Syriac here goes in an entirely different direction: for, omitting sadness, it goes to oaths and avarice. For it reads thus: Do not give your heart to oaths; remember distress, and remove sins; and do not trust in riches, because there is no hope in them: because just as a bird of the sky that flies and alights, so riches before the sons of men make you glad, and harm another.
23. REMEMBER MY JUDGMENT (so also the Complutensian, although the Roman reads autou, that is, "his," namely of the deceased friend); FOR SO SHALL YOURS ALSO BE: YESTERDAY FOR ME, AND TODAY FOR YOU. — "Judgment," that is, the lot and condition, namely my death, in that I have already departed from life and the living, and am in the state of the dead. Remember therefore that, just as death befell me yesterday, so the same will befall you today — today, I say, because death has given no one certain respite until morning, as Chrysaorius wished while dying and seeing demons ready to seize him, as St. Gregory testifies, homilies 19 and 34 on the Gospel, and Dialogues IV, chapter 38. Death is called "judgment": first, because it is customary and common to all; for "judgment" in Hebrew often means the same as custom and usage; second, because by the just judgment of God it was inflicted on Adam and his descendants for disobedience and sin, Genesis 3:19; third, because through death we pass to the judgment and tribunal of Christ, to be judged for what we have done well or ill in life, and to receive the sentence of eternity, either most blessed or most wretched: and "as each person is found at death, so shall he be presented at the judgment," say Lyra and Hugh; hence the Tigurine also translates: Remember that my lot is to be just as yours will be; yesterday for me, today for you, that is, shortly or a little later. It is an enallage of number: for the definite is used for the indefinite.
Now first, Palacius thinks these words are spoken by Sirach in the name of the deceased, to suggest two things: one, that the survivor should turn his eyes from the death of the dead person and direct them to his own death, perhaps soon to come; the other, that if he bears the death of the deceased so impatiently, he may be consoled: for it will come about that he will shortly die, and thus the dead will visit the dead. Knowing this, David, after the death of his little son, laying aside his mourning, used to say: "Can I call him back anymore? I shall go rather to him, but he will not return to me," 2 Kings, chapter 12.
Second, Lyra and Jansenius more correctly think these words are spoken by Sirach for this purpose: that after recounting the disadvantages and harms of excessive sadness at the death of friends, he may teach what fruit and benefit we ought to draw from their death, namely the warning that we too shall shortly die, so that we may prepare ourselves for a holy and happy death; and in order to move the reader more, he introduces the deceased himself speaking, and admonishing everyone of the common lot, as is frequently done in epitaphs: "Remember," he says, "my judgment," that is, my condition, which I was obliged to undergo by the ordinance and judgment of God: "for so shall" your condition "also be," when God has ordered the same to happen to you, that is to say: Do not torment yourself too much over my death, but rather draw this profit from it: to consider that, as my condition is, and as the judgment God has exercised upon me, so also will your condition be someday, and such a judgment will befall you too. And do not promise yourself that this will be deferred for a long time: what happened to me yesterday, you must expect for yourself today, and it can happen. For he rightly says "today" and not "tomorrow," so that everyone may understand that any present day may be his last, and that he should not promise himself any certain time of life in the future, according to that saying of the Poet: Believe that each day that has dawned for you is your last.
So also Rabanus: "His judgment," he says, "he calls his departure from this world, which is proper to each person, both to those who have passed and also to those who are present; because there is no man upon earth who lives and does not see death. And he rightly says, 'yesterday for me, and today for you'; as if to say: What has already been completed in me now stands ready to be fulfilled in you. For this is the admonition of good fathers, to warn their children, so that they may learn from the falls of those who went before that their own state in the present world is not going to last long; and therefore let them prepare for themselves the provision of good works, by which in the future life they may be able to live forever with the holy angels."
Moreover the Syriac translates paraphrastically thus: Remember that those (riches) are for you a tearing away (they will be torn and taken from you) — for him yesterday, and for you today.
Morally therefore, whenever you see or hear of someone who has died, think that he says to you and cries out with silent mouth: "Remember my judgment; for so shall yours also be: yesterday for me, and today for you." Hence certain Religious, in order to keep a constant mutual remembrance of death, used to greet one another thus: the first would say: "We must die;" the other would respond: "We know not when." Others set up a skull of a dead person, or an image of death, in their room, and constantly keep it before their eyes, to remember death. St. John the Almsgiver while still living ordered a tomb to be dug for himself, and daily had someone whisper in his ear: "Master, your tomb is not yet finished; order it then to be completed, because shortly and perhaps today you will die." So Leontius in his Life. St. Bernard of Quintavalle, the first companion of St. Francis and his firstborn, already about to die, sang this swan song of life's warning to his brothers: "My brothers, the state which I had, you also have; and the state I now have, you will have. But I find in my soul that for a thousand worlds I would not have wished not to have served the Lord Jesus." So the Annals of the Minors.
Indeed, the Emperor Basil, in his Exhortation to his son Leo, chapter 12, warns him not to trust in his kingdom, inasmuch as it will shortly end in death, but to prepare himself for death by living well, so that through it he may pass to blessed immortality and to the heavenly kingdom: "Many kings," he says, "have inhabited this palace as tenants; but few have held the heavenly kingdom as their own home. But you, most beloved son, strive not only to discharge this earthly kingdom rightly through every uprightness of conduct, but also to attain the heavenly kingdom as if by hereditary right, through the exercise of every kind of virtue: for today these palaces are yours, tomorrow perhaps they will not be yours, and the day after they will become another's, and after that day still another's after him, so that they will never be truly anyone's own; for if they successively change many masters, they properly have no legitimate owner. Since therefore we must yield this lordship to others, let us hasten by the path of virtue to that place where the kingdom is subject neither to death nor to change, while all other things flow away and pass."
Finally in our own age, Francis, king of France, captured by Charles V, while he was detained in Spain, inscribed on his prison: "Today for me, tomorrow for you." This moved Charles V, who therefore, mindful of the wretched lot and vicissitude of human affairs, promptly wrote beneath it: "I am a man, I consider nothing human alien to me." See what was said at chapter VII, 40, and chapter XI, 20, and chapter XIV, 12 and following.
Hugo notes that it says "for you today," not "for you tomorrow"; both because we die daily, and because no one is secure about whether they will live until tomorrow. Hence the Hebrews distinguish the living from the dead by only one vowel point. For they call the living metim with a sheva; but they call the dead metim with a tsere; to signify how fragile is the good that we the living possess; since we are separated from the dead by one point placed above another: and if that point placed above were removed and affixed to the side, we would be counted among the dead. Also because shortly there will come one "today" on which we are to die; and since that day is uncertain to us, if we are wise, we ought to accept any day as the one, so that we expect death daily and are prepared for it, and therefore say with Saint Anthony: "Today I began to live for God, today also I shall end and die." Wisely says Horace, Odes I: "The brief sum of life, he says, forbids us to begin a long hope."
Hear Saint Ephrem, sermon On Those Who Have Fallen Asleep in the Lord, volume III: "Let not an impure thought relax us for today or tomorrow; for many, while they planned many things for themselves, did not reach tomorrow: but were suddenly snatched away like sparrows by a hawk, and like lambs by a wolf, and like a captive by a robber, unable to speak at all, or to make a will, or to utter any word. For some, going to bed healthy in the evening, did not reach the morning. Others, reclining at table, breathed their last. Others while walking and playing suddenly died. Others, dying in the bath, had the same bath as their epitaph and burial. And others, while celebrating their wedding, in the very marriage chamber were suddenly and unexpectedly snatched away, and the same garments they had prepared for their wedding served also for their funeral: and mourners succeeded in place of flute players, and those weeping and wailing in place of those dancing and rejoicing."
Finally hear our Alvarez de Paz, volume II, book IV On Self-Knowledge, part II, chapter VII, examining and pathetically expounding these words of Ecclesiasticus: "Remember my judgment; for so also shall yours be." Yours, I say, O man who lives life, who is moved by vital action, who enjoys the use of this light; who is so immersed in the affairs of this world and forgetful of future calamity: lay aside therefore vain and harmful cares, and admit the remembrance of my horrible condition; because for me and for you there is one and the same condition, except that it seized me yesterday, but will seize you today: "Remember my judgment;" that is, the sentence pronounced against me by God the severe judge—
—which His will, whom no one can resist, has already executed upon me; because the same sentence has most certainly been pronounced against you, except that it is briefly deferred either so that you may amend, or so that you may be more severely punished for your negligence. Remember, I beseech you, for your own good, the wretched lot to which common nature has subjected me; because no other lot has been prepared for you than for me; but fragile flesh will subject you to the same. You are mortal, just as I was: therefore you will die. You are an earthen vessel, just like the rest of mankind; therefore you too will be shattered. You are a traveler who, just like all perishable things, tends toward the end; therefore at last the shadow of death will overtake you. Do not promise yourself a long and extended life: for death came to me yesterday; but it will come to you today, even though you are unprepared. It is a great mistress who rules over all mortals: and therefore it wishes to be expected, and desires that mortals be prepared and disposed for the journey, but it waits for no one, and at the appointed time calls us to depart without any delay. And this time is not far off, but is today; because just as this present day will pass most swiftly, even if it seems distant. But now hear my judgment, hear in detail my lot and condition, so that from it you may conjecture your own. I indeed had a most certain and most uncertain death: most certain, because for my sin I was irrevocably sentenced to death; most uncertain, because I was always in doubt at what time I would die, and to what manner of death I was subject by divine ordination. Take note of death most certain and most uncertain lying in wait, etc. After death what will be your judgment? Your body will be a pallid, foul corpse, swarming with worms, which all will abhor, and therefore hide in the earth; where it will be consumed by toads and serpents. But the judgment of the soul will be more horrible. For if it lived in sins, it will receive the terrible sentence of the Judge: "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels," Matthew XXV.
24. IN THE REST OF THE DEAD MAKE HIS MEMORY TO REST, AND CONSOLE HIM IN THE DEPARTURE OF HIS SPIRIT. — First, Rabanus judges that here we are commanded to retain in the mind the memory of the deceased: "He admonishes, he says, that in the passing of the dying person, one should not consign his memory to oblivion, but should continually preserve it in the mind for one's own improvement."
Second, Lyranus understands by "memory" a monument or mausoleum to be erected for the deceased to his memory, such as Simon Maccabeus erected for his father Mattathias, and for his brothers Judas and Jonathan, who had bravely defended their fatherland by arms and had gloriously fallen for it, 1 Maccabees XIII, 17.
Third, Dionysius explains it thus, as if to say: Fix the memory of the dying person "in the rest" which the souls of the elect have after this life, speaking to him of eternal beatitude, so that he may say: "My portion, O Lord, be in the land of the living."
Fourth, Hugo, as if to say: "In rest," that is, in the death of the deceased, wish for him that he himself and his memory may rest in peace, by saying: "May he rest in peace," and likewise pray to God for him frequently through yourself and others.
Fifth, the same Hugo; as if to say: "In rest," that is, in the passage to rest, namely in death, make the dying person withdraw his mind and memory from earthly cares and fix it on the eternal life to which he is passing, so that he may find rest in it. But that all these are secondary matters and incongruous with this passage is clear from the antecedents, and from the Greek, which has: In the rest of the dead make his memory rest, that is, as the Zurich Bible clearly puts it: With the resting deceased lay aside his memory. For the Greek is katapavson, that is, make his memory rest in you, or settle his memory in your mind.
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The memory of the deceased usually torments and vexes the living friends with great grief, so that they can rest neither by day nor by night; but you, if you are wise, make this memory rest in you, that is, by calming the grief conceived from the death of the deceased. For just as he through death rests from the labors and miseries of this life, so likewise let the grief conceived from his death rest in you: he has rested in peace, let his memory also rest in peace with you, so that it may not torment you, not afflict you, but only be preserved for this purpose, that you may keep his friendship, and set before yourself his virtues for imitation, and pray for him. This is the third motive for moderating sadness in the death of the deceased. For since he rests from mourning, why should you indulge in mourning? Rather, rest together with the one who rests, and rejoice at his rest and rejoice with him. Hence the Syriac translates: And as the dead person fades away, so let the memory of them fade.
This meaning is confirmed by what follows: "And console him in the departure of his spirit." So read the Roman and other Bibles. Less correctly therefore Jansenius thinks the word "him" should be deleted, so that the meaning would be, as if to say: "Be consoled," that is, receive consolation, in the departure and death of that person, so that the same thing is said as what preceded: "Make his memory rest." Therefore reading "him," the genuine meaning is, as if to say: In the death of the deceased lay aside the memory of him that torments you; but before death, while he is breathing his last, console him, both by setting before him the very many and greatest miseries of this life, from which imminent death will free him, and the necessity of death common to all mankind, and the blessed and eternal life, to which death will convey him; and by showing that you have impressed these very things upon yourself with living faith and hope, and therefore bear his death patiently and receive consolation from it; so that he by your example may likewise bear it patiently and willingly accept your consolation; because often what torments the dying more is the grief and sorrow of their loved ones, when namely they see their children, or parents or friends mourning, weeping and wailing at their death, more than their own death; when therefore they see them not grieving but conceiving consolation from the hope of a better life to which the dying are passing, they too lay aside their grief and conceive consolation. So Lyranus, Hugo and others.
This meaning is suggested by the Greek which reads: Console yourself in him, that is, concerning him and with him, in the departure of his spirit. It is a Hebraism: for the Hebrews construct verbs of contact, both mental (such as "console") and physical, with the ablative preceded by the preposition "in": therefore "to console in him" is the same as "to console him" or "to console with him"; so that by comforting him you may likewise be comforted yourself. For among friends the consolation of one is the consolation of the other. And the verb "consolor" is common, that is, both active and passive; and signifies giving consolation as well as receiving it. Hence the Syriac translates: And console him in the departure of his soul.
Palacius adds that the soul of the deceased receives consolation if through angels, or others departing hence, it understands that parents or friends have received consolation about its death; but is saddened and grieves if it understands that they continually mourn and lament it. Console him, he says, that is, if he were alive and saw you so sad, he would plainly grieve, and would not receive consolation unless you first received consolation. Believe therefore that the deceased is now also saddened by your sadness: console him therefore, yourself receiving consolation in the departure of his spirit. This is the fourth argument, as if to say: Spare your mourning, if not for your own sake, at least for the sake of the dying and deceased person, lest you afflict him with this mourning of yours, and indeed add and double affliction upon one already afflicted.
To this Rabanus adds: "He admonishes, he says, that the survivor should strengthen with faith and comfort with hope the one who begins to depart from this world, so that in the anguish of the last hour he may not fail in faith, but may commit his hope to God: because He who promised a reward to those who fight well by the merit of faith, He Himself is powerful to bestow an everlasting kingdom on those who hope in Him." The method of assisting the dying was written by our Polancus; Bellarmine and others.
Fourth Part of the Chapter. In Which He Teaches that Wisdom Is Acquired through Leisure and Study, but Mechanical Arts Are Occupied with Business and Manual Labor.
25. The wisdom of the scribe in the time of leisure. — Thus the Bibles generally read, along with Rabanus, Lyranus, Palacius and the other interpreters, Saint Augustine in the Speculum. But correct with the Roman and Greek editions: The wisdom of the scribe is to be acquired in the time of leisure:
Let one see the meaning of both readings. In Greek it is: Sophia grammateos en eukairia scholes, which the Complutensian and Roman editions translate: The wisdom of the scribe in the opportunity of leisure or school. For "schola" is a Greek word signifying leisure: hence the school is called the place of learning, from scholazo, that is, "I am at leisure," because students, setting aside all other things, ought to devote themselves to learning alone: school therefore is literary leisure. For this reason the remark of Lyranus is beside the point and off the mark: "The wisdom of the scribe in the time of emptiness, that is, he says, when your stomach is fasting and empty of food; for then the intellect is more vigorous. Or in the time of emptiness, that is, of poverty; for, as the philosopher Secundus says: Poverty is the discoverer of knowledge." But the Greek word schole signifies nothing of the sort. Hence the Zurich Bible: Learned wisdom is sought through the opportunity of leisure; the Syriac: The wisdom of the scribe will add wisdom to him, namely through leisure and leisurely study of wisdom. For scribes among the Jews were learned men and teachers who labored in copying, studying, meditating on, explaining, and commenting upon the Sacred Scriptures both by voice and in writing.
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The wisdom of the teacher of Sacred Scripture, or of any wise person, is to be sought and acquired in the time of literary leisure, when one is free from other business, both because it is vast, and therefore requires full-time dedication; and because it is profound, and therefore demands the full attention of the mind. For, as the saying goes: "A mind intent on many things has less perception for each one," especially because the mind of man is very limited and narrow; and because the scribe, that is, the teacher or writer of wisdom, requires immense wisdom, so that like the sun he may spread the rays of his wisdom upon all his hearers or readers; therefore he must devote himself entirely to it. Hence the saying: "Poems seek the seclusion and leisure of the writer."
So Saint Isidore, book II of the Sentences, chapter I: "No one, he says, receives the wisdom of God, unless he strives to detach himself from all concern with affairs. Hence also it is written: The wisdom of the scribe in the time of leisure, and he who is lessened in activity will perceive it."
Moreover, this leisure of wisdom is not idle, but industrious: for it is busied in exercising every virtue. Saint Gregory Nazianzen, in epistle 36 to Saint Basil among the epistles of Saint Basil: "For me, he says, the greatest business is leisure itself. So much do I strive for this idle tranquility, as if a certain law concerning this magnanimity were thought to have been enacted for all." And another says: "The wise man attends only to his own business;" with regard to other people and other things therefore, it is pure leisure for him.
For this reason Diogenes the Cynic, mocking the school of Euclid as teaching less useful things, used to say that it was not schole (leisure) but chole (bile), that is, it produced bile and annoyance, as Laertius testifies, book VI, chapter I. More nobly, Saint Bernard, book II On Consideration, to Eugenius, chapter XIII: "If rightly, he says, the Wise Man exhorts to wis-
—dom to be written in leisure; one must also beware of idleness in leisure. Idleness is therefore to be avoided, the mother of trifles, the stepmother of virtues." The same, sermon 85 on the Song of Songs: "Virtue, he says, is akin to wisdom. Whatever virtue labors at, wisdom enjoys, and what wisdom orders, deliberates, and moderates, virtue carries out. 'Write wisdom in leisure,' says the Wise Man; therefore the leisures of wisdom are businesses, and wisdom is the more leisurely, the more active in the kind of business where virtue exercised in religion is the more illustrious, and the more approved, the more diligent; and if anyone were to define wisdom as the love of virtue, he would not seem to deviate from the truth. But where there is love, there is no labor, but savor: and perhaps 'wisdom' (sapientia) is named from 'savor' (sapor), because approaching virtue with a kind of seasoning it makes savory what by itself was felt to be in some way insipid and harsh."
Except from this maxim and rule, unless someone is so capable and efficient, and of such great intellect and spirit, that he can embrace many things in his mind. Hence Saint Bernard, book II On Consideration, to Eugenius, chapter IX: "There have been, he says, Roman Pontiffs who found leisure for themselves amid the greatest affairs. A siege threatened the city, and a barbarian sword hung over the necks of the citizens, and did this frighten Blessed Pope Gregory from writing wisdom in leisure? At that very time (as is clear from his preface) he expounded the most obscure and final part of Ezekiel as diligently as elegantly. Likewise Moses, governing in the desert, indeed establishing, and forming with his laws and ceremonies the Church and commonwealth of the Hebrews, wrote the Pentateuch. But nevertheless the same Saint Gregory there confesses that public affairs diminish his study of wisdom, and are an impediment preventing him from devoting as much time to wisdom as he wished. Hence in his last homily on Ezekiel, lamenting the calamities inflicted on Italy by the Goths: "Now I am forced, he says, to restrain my tongue from exposition; because my soul is weary of my life. Let no one now seek from me the study of sacred eloquence, because my harp is turned to mourning and my organ to the voice of those who weep." For the study of wisdom requires peace of mind: therefore among arms books are silent, and Minerva does not tolerate Mars.
The same Gregory inconsolably laments that he was snatched from the monastery to the pontificate, because he was torn from the leisure of wisdom to the affairs of the Church. Hear him, book I of the Dialogues, chapter I: "The sorrow, he says,
which I suffer daily, and is always old to me through habit, and new through increase. For my unhappy soul, struck by the wound of its occupation, remembers what it once was in the monastery, how all transient things were beneath it, and how much it rose above all things that revolve, that it was accustomed to think of nothing but heavenly things, that even while detained in the body, it already passed beyond the very confines of the flesh through contemplation; that it even loved death, which is a punishment for nearly everyone, namely as the entrance to life and the reward of its labor.
But now, by reason of the pastoral office, it endures the affairs of secular men, and after so beautiful an image of its own rest, is defiled by the dust of earthly activity. And when it has spread itself outward in condescension to the many, even when it desires interior things, it returns to these without doubt diminished. I weigh therefore what I endure, I weigh what I have lost. And while I gaze upon what I have lost, what I carry becomes heavier. For behold now I am tossed by the waves of a great sea, and in the ship of my mind I am struck by the storms of a violent tempest. And when I recall the state of my former life, looking back as it were with eyes turned behind me, I sigh at the sight of the shore."
AND HE WHO IS LESSENED IN ACTIVITY WILL RECEIVE WISDOM. — As if to say: He who has the fewest affairs to conduct, who occupies himself with few external acts, who has little to do (according to chapter XI, 10: "Son, let not your activities be in many things"), this man will receive wisdom, if namely he devotes himself to it by reading, studying, meditating, contemplating. Otherwise, if he is idle and sluggish and snores, he will receive less wisdom than one who is much engaged in action: for action begets experience, experience begets prudence. In Greek it is: Kai ho elattovmenos praxei avtov sophisthesetai; which the Roman edition translates: And he who is lessened in his activity will receive wisdom; others: He who is diminished in his work will be wise; the Zurich Bible: And he who has less of his business will be able to acquire wisdom, or will become wise. See Saint Bernard, book I On Consideration, chapter V, where he thus instructs and admonishes Pope Eugenius:
"Hear what I reproach, what I advise. If, as you live and reason, you give everything to action and nothing to contemplation; I praise you—in this I do not praise you. I think that no one who has heard from Solomon: He who is lessened in activity will receive wisdom. Certainly it is not expedient even for action itself not to be preceded by contemplation. If likewise you wish to be all things to all men, in imitation of him who became all things to all; I praise the humanity, but only if it is complete. But how can it be complete if you are excluded? You too are a man. Therefore, so that your humanity may be whole and complete, let the embrace that receives all others gather you too within itself. Otherwise what does it profit you, according to the Lord's word, if you gain everyone but lose yourself alone? Therefore since all have you, be also one of those who have you. Why are you alone cheated of your own gift? How long will your spirit go forth and not return? How long will you not receive yourself as well among the others in your turn? You are a debtor to the wise and the foolish, and you alone deny yourself to yourself?" And finally he infers and concludes: "In short, he who is wicked to himself, to whom will he be good? Remember therefore, I do not say always, I do not say often, but at least sometimes, to return yourself to yourself." For to be lessened in activity is not to abandon action entirely, but to set aside useless occupations and devote oneself to duties that are owed by justice or ordered by charity. For these (as experience teaches) do not disturb the heart, and grant not inconsiderable leisure for the study of wisdom and the exercise of the mind.
Mystically Hugo: The study of wisdom, he says, is the study of the contemplative life; for this requires leisure, and a mind free from all thought and earthly care, especially carnal. For, as Rabanus says: "He who ceases to serve the lusts of the flesh and the pleasures of the world, that person understands Scripture—
—by devout meditation; he will rejoice in the gift of heavenly contemplation." Hence, opposing this with the active life of plowmen, smiths, etc., he adds: "He who holds the plow," etc. Therefore Magdalene devotes herself to the leisure of wisdom, sitting at the feet of Jesus, hearing and meditating on His words, and therefore hears from Him: "Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken from her." Martha devotes herself to the business of action, and therefore is sometimes troubled and murmurs. Hence she hears from Christ: "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; yet one thing is necessary," Luke X, 41. Blessed therefore are those who play the role of Martha, working, dutiful, solicitous: more blessed are those who play the role of Magdalene, penitent, loving, and contemplating.
To this point serves the Arabic proverb, Century I, number 9: "Block up the five windows, so that the house may be illuminated, and the one dwelling in it; that is, block up or restrain the five senses of the body, so that your soul may shine in the light of life." For just as in order that the light which is in the house, for example a torch or candle, may shine, the windows must be blocked so that the greater light of the sun may not enter (because greater light obscures lesser): so likewise in order that the mind of man, which is placed by God as a kind of light in the body, may attend to wisdom and to the knowledge of both itself and God, the bodily senses must be blocked, through which it is diffused into worldly things and enticements, scattered, departs from itself and vanishes.
Beautifully Saint Basil, in the Institutes, chapter II: "But if you prefer, he says, to imitate Mary Magdalene, who, despising the service of the body, ascended higher into the contemplation of divine things, lawfully, and as is fitting, truly handle your business, cast aside the care of the body, abandon farming, scorn even the preparation of feasts and delicacies, and sit at the Lord's feet, and listen to what He says, so that you may be made a partaker of the mysteries of the divinity; since the contemplation of Christ's teachings is more excellent than those services which are spent on the body." And Saint Gregory, book XXVI of the Morals: "The place,
is the delight of the present life; but when it is touched by divine inspiration, the place of our heart becomes the love of eternity: by the contemplation therefore of the eternal fatherland the soul is moved from its place, because having left behind the lowest things it is placed in heavenly thoughts; for previously it did not know what things were eternal, it had grown numb in the delight of present things, and at the same time was itself passing along, held fast by the love of passing things; but after it came to know what things were eternal, after it happened to touch the rays of the heavenly light by a moment's contemplation; raised up from the lowest things by the admiration of the highest, it elevated itself, so that nothing now pleases it except what is eternal, and despising what passes away, it seeks only what endures."
The Complutensian edition, adding the negation "not," reads contrarily: ou sophisthesetai, that is, he who is diminished in his work will not be wise; both because he who ceases from the work of reading, studying, meditating, will not become wise—for literary leisure is indeed leisure from the work of the hand, but not from the work of the mind; indeed, to study and meditate continually is the supreme labor and business of the mind; and because the study of true and practical wisdom requires not mere speculation about it, but also the practice and exercise of virtues, as Saint Bernard said, cited a little above. Vatablus, however, translates: He who is oppressed by his affairs will not acquire wisdom, which meaning corresponds to our Vulgate: for the Greek elattovmenos also signifies one who is diminished, becomes inferior, succumbs, is oppressed, by praxei, that is, by work and business.
Beautifully Saint Augustine, book XIX On the City of God, chapter XIV: "Holy leisure, he says, is sought by the love of truth, just business is undertaken by the necessity of charity. If no one imposes this burden, one should devote oneself to perceiving and contemplating the truth. But if it is imposed, it must be taken up because of the necessity of charity. But not even then must the delight of truth be entirely abandoned, lest that sweetness be withdrawn and that necessity oppress us." Moreover, Plato, in the Greater Hippias, teaches that the wise man ought above all to be wise for himself, and therefore the ancient sages abstained from the administration of civil affairs.
Finally Saint Bernard, sermon 23 on the Song of Songs: "Into this secret place, he says, and into this sanctuary of God, if it should happen that any one of you at some hour should be so rapt and so hidden away that he is not at all distracted or disturbed either by bodily need, or by stinging care, or by biting guilt, or certainly by those more difficult to remove—the phantasms of bodily images that rush in; when he returns to us he may indeed glory and say: The King has brought me into His chamber." Where he notes four impediments to contemplation: the first is bodily need, such as in the sick, especially one who suffers in the brain; the second is stinging care; the third, biting guilt, such as in a sinner or a scrupulous person; the fourth, phantasms that rush in. He therefore who lacks these four is fit for contemplation. See what was said on Hosea II, 14.
With what (so it should be read with the Roman and Greek editions, not "because," as many read) wisdom will he be filled. — Generally the Latin interpreters refer these words to what preceded; hence after these words they place a semicolon, so that the meaning is, as if to say: He who diminishes his temporal affairs and occupations will receive wisdom, and not only receive it but will also be filled with it, so that his whole mind may be fully and completely imbued and filled with it. So Palacius. But the Latin Bible corrected at Rome, the Greek, Rabanus and Jansenius refer these words to what follows; and the Greek and Jansenius read them with an interrogation mark, in this manner: With what wisdom will he who holds the plow be filled? etc. Which reading is certainly the most convenient and the clearest:
for it proves that wisdom is to be acquired in leisure, by the contrary argument; because namely farmers, smiths and other artisans who are wholly engaged in affairs and external works—
—cannot devote themselves to wisdom. So too reads and understands Theophylactus, who flourished in the year of Christ 900, writing on chapter XIV of Luke: "He who is occupied with earthly things, he says, does not wish to be a partaker of the spiritual banquet. For the Wise Man says: In what will he be wise who holds the plow?"
And the Greek ti sophisthesetai clearly signifies this, that is: what, or in what, or in what way, will he who holds the plow become wise, etc. Although our translator seems to have read he sophisthesetai, that is, with what wisdom he will be filled, assertively, and this too in a very fitting sense, as I shall shortly explain. The Syriac agrees with the Greek: For who, it says, will become wise holding the plow? He converses with oxen, and drives oxen, and his talk is about calves, and his heart meditates on the ridges of his sowing, and his watchfulness is to complete his work. A "porca" (ridge) in the field is called raised earth. So Varro, book I On Agriculture, chapter XXIX: "What, he says, is raised earth between two furrows is called a porca (ridge), because through it the crop extends the grain." And Columella, book II, chapter IV: "The country folk, he says, call porcas (ridges) 'liras,' when the plowing is done so that between two furrows set farther apart, a middle mound provides a dry bed for the grain."
Note: In what follows up to the end of the chapter he reviews the affairs, occupations and works of farmers, smiths, potters and other mechanical artisans; and this for three reasons. The first and most important is to prove that wisdom is to be sought in leisure, not in business, as I have already said. Hence in his conclusion at verse 38, he says: "They shall not sit on the seat of the judge, and they shall not understand the testament of judgment, nor shall they publish discipline and judgment."
Second, to suggest that in these mechanical arts, although there is no true wisdom, there is nevertheless a shadow, indeed a derivation and certain participation in wisdom: for artisans are wise in their crafts and work wisely. Hence after reviewing all of them at verse 35, he adds: "And each one is wise in his own art." Hence of Bezalel, the artisan of the tabernacle, God says, Exodus XXXI, 2: "I have filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, and knowledge in every work, to devise whatever can be made from gold and silver and bronze," etc. For, as Vegetius says, book II, chapter XXIV: "It is an ancient and wise maxim that all arts consist in practice."
Third, to show that these arts must be directed by wisdom, both because governance and speculation direct practice. For the good state of a city, says Lyranus, requires the diligence of the magistrate to procure diverse craftsmen in their arts, without whose use the city could not stand, such as carpenters, stonemasons, cloth-makers, etc.; and because wisdom teaches that the knowledge and love of God and His law must be joined with mechanical practice, so that it may be useful and lead the worker to salvation and happiness. Hence in the last verse he says: "The prayer of these is in the work of their art, fitting their soul, and searching in the law of the Most High." This is sug-
—gested by the Roman edition and Rabanus, and all the Latin Bible codices, which read all these things assertively, without a question mark; as if to say: With this wisdom, through the instruction of wise teachers, farmers, smiths, potters and other mechanics will also participatively be filled, each in his own order, measure and degree.
So too at chapter XXIV, verses 6 and 40, he said that the wisdom of God extends itself to the fabric and governance of the heavens, the waters, the earth and the whole universe. Moreover Plato in the Alcibiades teaches that wisdom is the foundation of eupraxia, that is, of good action. The same in the Theages: "Farmers, he says, become wise by the commerce of the wise. Tyrants become wise by the commerce of the wise. Cooks become wise by the commerce of the wise. The wrestler becomes wise by the commerce of the wise." And he adds that wisdom governs all arts and every kind of mankind.
Moreover Sirach, among the mechanics, puts farmers first, both because their office and exercise is the most ancient, having been instituted by God from the origin of the world. For Adam was placed by God "in paradise, to work it and keep it," Genesis II, 15; and because farmers are most necessary in the commonwealth; for they sustain cities and kingdoms with their crops, cattle and livestock. Hence Aristotle, book I of the Economics, II: "Agriculture, he says, is the most natural and just pursuit. It also contributes greatly to fortitude; for it does not enervate bodies as do the base arts, but makes them such as to be able to stand in the open air, endure labor, and face dangers against enemies." The same, book VI of the Politics, chapter IV: "The best people, he says, is that which consists of farmers. For since they must labor for their livelihood, they are occupied with their own works and do not covet what belongs to others; and it is sweeter for them to work than to engage in public affairs." And below: "After a multitude of farmers, the best people is that where there are shepherds who live from their animals." See Cicero, On Old Age, and what I have noted about the goods of agriculture at Genesis II, 15 and Genesis IX, 20. Therefore concerning farmers Sirach thus determines, and thus describes their office, study and occupation, indeed he thus paints the farmer:
26. HE WHO HOLDS THE PLOW, AND WHO GLORIES IN THE GOAD, DRIVES OXEN WITH THE STIMULUS, AND IS OCCUPIED IN THEIR WORKS, AND HIS TALK IS OF THE OFFSPRING OF BULLS. — For "in the goad, the stimulus," the Greek has en dorati kentrov, that is, in the shaft or pole of the goad, that is, in the shaft or javelin at whose point is a goad with which the farmer pricks and stimulates the oxen to move quickly, as we see done at Rome and throughout all Italy: "His talk," that is, his thought and speech, is about "the offspring of bulls," that is, about calves, cows and oxen, and their progeny, offspring, number, size and productivity. For "is occupied" our translator read anastrephomenos; now they read anatrephomenos, that is, nourished. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: He who holds the plow, who is distinguished by the shaft of the goad, drives oxen, who is engaged in their works, and who continually praises the breed of bulls.
Mystically, Rabanus takes the farmer to mean the ruler and teacher: "For he who holds, he says, the office of teacher, and ought to cultivate the hearts of men with the evangelical plowshare, glories in the javelin of divine testimonies, sows the word of God with the stimulus of exhortation, drives the dull so that they may not live sluggishly but conduct themselves bravely in good works. He also chastises the proud with the word of preaching, and tames them with evangelical discipline, so that they may not be idle, but mortifying their flesh and putting to death carnal desires within themselves, may hasten to uproot all vices and strive to plant spiritual virtues in their place. Moreover, by the rousing of oxen and bulls, when he says that the shepherd's watchfulness is in the fattening of cows, he shows that it is the duty of a good ruler to have care of both sexes, and to feed, nourish and nurture them with zeal for preaching."
27. HE WILL GIVE HIS HEART TO TURNING FURROWS, AND HIS WATCHFULNESS IS IN THE FATTENING OF COWS. — In Greek damaleon, that is, of heifers, as if to say: The plowman and farmer with his whole heart, his whole mind and soul, attends and applies himself to plowing and furrowing the earth, and "his watchfulness," that is, his vigilant study, is "in the fattening of cows," so that he may nourish, feed and fatten them; both so that they may give milk, butter and cheese abundantly; and so that they may produce fine calves; and so that they may be strong for pulling the plow or yoke when needed. Hence for this he rises early in the morning and works late in the evening, wholly intent upon and watchful over this matter, to feed himself and his family. For "in fattening" the Greek has eis chortasmata, that is, in hay, or in the fodder and hay of cows. Hence the Zurich Bible: For he applies his mind to driving furrows, and keeps watch in preparing the fodder of cows.
Note: The phrase "he will give his heart," etc., Sirach repeats after the works of each individual artisan, to signify to what matter each one applies his heart, to what he devotes himself and watches over.
Moreover, Pliny transmits the wise precepts of farming, book XVIII, chapter XIX: "In plowing, he says, Cato's oracle must be carefully observed. What is first? To cultivate the field well. What is second? To plow well. What is third? To manure. Do not plow with an uneven furrow. Plow in good time. In warmer places the fields should be broken up from the winter solstice, in colder ones from the spring equinox. And earlier in a dry region than in a moist one; earlier in dense soil than in loose, in rich than in lean." See Cato himself and Varro, On Agriculture, all of which can easily be mystically applied to the agriculture of the soul.
28. SO EVERY CRAFTSMAN AND ARCHITECT, WHO PASSES THE NIGHT AS THE DAY, WHO CARVES ENGRAVED SEALS, AND WHOSE PERSEVERANCE VARIES THE PAINTING: HE WILL GIVE HIS HEART TO THE LIKENESS OF THE PAINTING AND BY HIS WATCHFULNESS HE WILL COMPLETE THE WORK. — The word "so" refers both to "will be filled with wisdom," which preceded at verse 25, and also
and to "he will give his heart," etc., which follows, as I have already noted. From farmers he passes to craftsmen, because these hold the second place among mechanical arts and artisans. And because there are various species of craftsmen, he begins with the sculptor. He calls him an "architect," not of a building—one who presides over and directs the construction—but one who is the master of the work of sculpting and carving, and who devises the designs (commonly called plans) by night, according to whose pattern he and his assistants complete the work by day. This one therefore, by staying up at night so as to devise, arrange and order what I have mentioned, "passes the night as the day." He then "carves seals"—so it should be read with the Roman and Greek editions, not "seal carvings" as Palacius reads—"sculptilia," that is, engraved seals and sigils, in Greek glummata sphragidon, that is, sculptures or engravings of seals or signs, that is, similar to those which are made in seals or sigils, as the Zurich Bible translates. For in sigils the art of the engraver and sculptor is clearly seen; for glumma is any sculpture and engraving. The root word glupho means "I carve, scrape, polish, engrave, inscribe." Hence anaglypha are called rough engravings, not smooth, where parts are unequal and some stand out above others; concerning which Pliny, book XXXIII, XI: "Now, he says, we seek anaglypha—rough carvings around the linear paintings." And its dignity is evident from the fact that it represents the appearance of heaven and the heavenly bodies. For heaven is, as it were, engraved and sculpted with stars, and hence was called caelum (heaven/engraving), says Sipontinus and Aelius as cited in Varro, book IV On the Latin Language; although Varro thinks caelum is named from the Greek koilon, that is, hollow, because it is concave. Moreover the scope of the sculptural art is immense; for sculpture is also called engraving (caelatura), which our works produce in gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, ivory, marble, glass and gems. Concerning the antiquity and use of carving marble, see Pliny, book XXXVI, chapter V, where he asserts that the origin of this art began with the origin of the Olympiads, which was at the end of the reign of Uzziah king of Judah, namely 23 years before the founding of Rome. See the Chronological Table which I prefixed to Genesis.
Mystically, Rabanus: "What, he says, is suggested by this craftsman and architect, who studiously labors at his work night and day, to carve seals and form the human image with the art of gems, except the holy preachers, who at all times—whether by teaching, or exhorting, or showing good examples—instruct their hearers, so that they may elicit the virtue of the inner person and reform the human soul to the image of its Creator? Was not that craftsman and architect vigorous in his art, who in his epistles thus wrote, saying: 'For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field; you are God's building, according to the grace of God given to me, as a wise architect I laid the foundation; and another builds upon it, but let each one take care how he builds upon it,' 1 Corinthians III, 10. And elsewhere: 'My little children,' he says, 'whom I labor with again until Christ be formed in you,' Galatians IV, 19. And in another place: 'Be renewed,' he says, 'in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who was created according to God in justice and the holiness of truth,' Ephesians IV, 23. And again: 'Be therefore imitators of God, as most dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved us,' Ephesians V, 1. And again: 'Do not grieve,' he says, 'the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption,' and the rest. For as many as are the species of virtues, so many good works and teachings do holy teachers strive to impress upon the minds and lives of the elect; that they may be holy both in body and spirit, saying with the Apostle: 'And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you in all things, that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved without blame for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,'" 1 Thessalonians V, 23.
AND HIS PERSEVERANCE VARIES THE PAINTING — that is, his assiduous care, labor and work consists in carving various forms and figures. For "painting" here means sculpture, by catachresis, because what the painter paints on a panel, the sculptor paints and shapes in stone, gold, silver, etc. For in place of "painting" the Greek has poikilian, that is, variety, namely various images and figures of men, animals and things. The translator read hupomone, that is, assiduity and perseverance in the work for the hope of profit: the Complutensian reads hupomoien, that is, urgency, that is, pressing and continuous labor.
HE WILL GIVE HIS HEART TO THE LIKENESS OF PAINTING (as if to say: He is wholly intent on imitating painting, and like a painter carving various forms and shapes of men, animals, trees, plants, etc. For in place of "painting" the Greek has zographias, that is, description, or the fashioning and forming of animals, such as painters usually paint and sculptors sculpt.) AND BY HIS WATCHFULNESS HE WILL COMPLETE THE WORK — that is, by watchful study and labor he will complete the work, for example the statue which he sculpts, as if to say: His whole wisdom consists not in reading and meditating on Sacred Scripture and divine things, but in sculpting and forming his sculptured work beautifully and variously. Hence the Zurich Bible clearly translates: The same is the custom of the craftsman and architect, who with similar zeal passes night and day; who carve engravings in the manner of sigils, and who linger over varying emblems, also occupy their mind in the imitation of painting, and watch over the completion of the work. So also the Syriac.
Moreover, the elegance of the engraving or sculptural art
Again, the saints are in their own soul and in that of their neighbors craftsmen of virtues, so as to paint in it the heroic deeds of the fathers; therefore, like painters, they frequently gaze at the same things, read and reread them, to impress and engrave them upon themselves. Hence Saint Basil, in his epistle to Gregory the Theologian: "Just as painters, he says, whenever they paint an image from an image, constantly look back at the model and endeavor to transfer its character to their own work; so
it befits him who strives to make himself perfect in all parts of virtue to look upon the lives of the saints as certain living and effective images, and to make their good works his own through imitation." I have indeed learned from experience that there is scarcely anything more effective for all virtue than frequently reading the Lives of the Saints and meditating on them seriously. Try it, and you will learn by the thing itself to your great benefit.
29, 30 AND 31. SO THE IRONSMITH SITTING BY THE ANVIL, AND CONSIDERING THE IRON WORK, THE STEAM OF THE FIRE WILL BURN HIS FLESH, AND HE CONTENDS IN THE HEAT OF THE FURNACE. THE VOICE OF THE HAMMER RENEWS HIS EAR, AND HIS EYE IS UPON THE LIKENESS OF THE VESSEL. HE WILL GIVE HIS HEART TO THE COMPLETION OF HIS WORKS, AND BY HIS WATCHFULNESS HE WILL ADORN TO PERFECTION. — The word "so" again refers both to "will be filled with wisdom," which preceded at verse 25, and to "he will give his heart," which follows. From the sculptor he passes to the ironsmith, under whom by analogy or similarity he includes the goldsmith, silversmith, bronzesmith (and this is what the Greek word chalkevs properly signifies), plumber, tinsmith and other similar workers. For the name "faber" (craftsman) is general and broad, since it derives from "to make" (facere); therefore it pertains to very many arts, and is determined to this or that species according to the nature of the material added. "Faber" therefore is every artisan who by bodily labor makes some work of craft; or who from any material makes and fabricates something, except from plaster, clay, wax and the like; for these are called molders (plastae) or potters (figuli), whom Sirach accordingly joins and places together with the craftsmen in the following verse.
He therefore here depicts the smiths so graphically, just as the poets depict their Vulcan, of whom more shortly. Note here: The whole of verses 29 and 30 depends on verse 31: "He will give his heart," etc., as if to say: Just as the farmer applies his whole heart to agriculture, the sculptor to sculpture, so too the smith to his art of smithing; and therefore he has neither leisure nor inclination to devote himself to the study of wisdom:
Therefore Sirach thus describes the smith: First, he says, "he sits by the anvil." For beside it sits the master of the work, holding and turning the iron with tongs, or the vessel to be made from it, upon the anvil, so that it may be struck with a hammer by his assistants and shaped according to his will.
Second, "he considers the iron work:" for it is his task to consider where, how and how much the work must be struck and beaten, so that the vessel may be formed as he desires. In Greek it is, katamanthanon argo sidero, which the Roman edition translates, learning from the sluggish (slow, resistant) iron; others, contemplating the raw iron. But our translator with the Complutensian reads ergon instead of argo, that is, the work of iron. So also the Zurich Bible: Attentive, it says, to the iron work.
Third, "the steam of the fire will burn his flesh." For "will burn" the Greek has texei, that is, will melt; the Zurich Bible, will dry out; the Roman edition reads sklerunei, that is, will harden.
Hence Vulcan was considered by the ancients to be the god of smiths and weapons; by whom fire is signified. For Vulcan, says Isidore, is called as if Volicanus, because the white-hot flame flies through the air. For flame flies when it arises from the clouds in lightning, and is bright white. Hence he is also called Mulciber, because he "soothes" (mulcet) iron. For the poets feign that he was a god, the son of Jupiter by Juno, who as a smith fashioned thunderbolts for Jupiter against the giants. Hence the islands of Vulcan were named. Hence too Vulcan is taken for fire itself, just as Pallas for learning, as when it is said "blazing Vulcan" and "to scatter Vulcan upon the roofs," that is, to set fire to the roofs. Finally Vulcan is called by the poets "the fire-powerful god;" because smiths by the force of fire melt, tame, bend and draw out into every form and figure iron, bronze and all the hardest metals. So Virgil, Aeneid book VIII: "The fire-powerful god descended from high heaven. The Cyclopes were working iron in the vast cave, Brontes and Steropes and Pyracmon, naked in his limbs." Also Prudentius: "Fire itself, which serves our use, is said to be Vulcan, etc., and is reported to reign in furnaces, and to be the supreme smith of Aeolia or Etna."
And Saint Augustine, book VII On the City of God, chapter XVI: "They wish Vulcan, he says, to be the fire of the world." The same, book XX Against Faustus, chapter IX, reports that "Vulcan is painted lame," because the motion of earthly fire "is of this sort," because namely our fire is never straight, but curved and as if limping. The same, on Psalm CXIII, discourse 2, teaches that the pagans signified the four elements through the images of their gods, namely earth by Tellus, the sea by Neptune, the air by Juno, fire by Vulcan.
Fourth, "and he contends in the heat of the furnace," that is, he struggles; in Greek, diamachesetai, that is, as the Complutensian edition has, he will fight; the Roman edition, and in the heat of the furnace he will contend; the Zurich Bible, he struggles with the heat of the furnace, as if to say: The smith contends against the heat of the fire, and against the hardness of the iron, in order to heat it in the fire, and once heated to bend, soften and shape it into the desired vessel by frequent hammer blows. Hence the Syriac
Moreover Pliny judges the first ironsmiths to have been the Cyclopes (who lived with their Vulcan in the time of Joshua, as Saint Augustine testifies, book XVIII On the City of God, chapter XII); for he says thus, book VII, chapter LVI: "The Cyclopes invented iron-working. Coroebus the Athenian invented pottery, and in it the wheel was invented by Anacharsis the Scythian. Daedalus invented woodworking, and in it the saw, the axe, the plumb-line, the drill, glue, and fish-glue; but the set-square, the level, the lathe, and the key were invented by Theodorus the Samian."
Plato agrees with Pliny in the Symposium: "Apollo, he says, invented the skill of archery, medicine and prophecy, the Muses music, Vulcan bronze-smithing, Minerva the art of weaving: Jupiter invented the method of governing gods and men." But from the Scriptures it is clear that the inventor was more ancient, even before the flood, namely Tubal-Cain, "who was a hammerer and smith in all works of bronze and iron," Genesis IV, 22.
translates: The flames of the fire will make cracks in his flesh, and he is burned by the heat of the fire.
Fifth, "the voice of the hammer renews" (some read "thunders at"), in Greek kainei, that is, will renew, "his ear," that is, with new and repeated blows and sounds of hammers it will strike and beat his ear. Hence some translate: It anew dulls his ear; the Zurich Bible: With the hammer's sound frequently striking his ears. And it is truly wonderful, says Palacius, in what marvelous order smiths strike the heated iron with hammers, with sparks of fire continually flying from it, and what similar and constant sounds, and what smithing harmony they produce.
Sixth, "his eye is upon the likeness of the vessel." He calls "likeness" the model and pattern, as if to say: The smith frequently looks at the model, idea and pattern of the vessel to be formed, which he has before him—in Greek katenanti, that is, in front of or before him—so that according to it he may shape the vessel and adapt it to the model. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: Fixing his eyes on conforming the instrument; others: Upon the pattern that is opposite, his eyes are intent; the Syriac: According to the art he will bend his hands, and upon the pattern of his work his eyes will be fixed.
Finally "he will give his heart to the completion of his works," so that he may fully complete and perfect them; "and by his watchfulness," that is, by his watchful care, labor and constant hammering, "he will adorn" the vessel "to perfection." In Greek, epi sunteleias, that is, to perfection, so that he may make it in every way perfect. Therefore the Complutensian and others incorrectly read, he will adorn imperfection, that is, the imperfect vessel. The Zurich Bible clearly: He applies his mind to completing the work, and watches over polishing it exactly; others: He applies his heart to the perfection of the works, and his watchfulness is about adorning them after completion. By all these things is signified the wonderful application and constancy of the smith who does not cease fighting against fire and iron, but as it were allows himself to be burned and roasted by a slow and continuous fire, and permits his ears to be dulled by the blows of hammers, so that he often loses his hearing and becomes deaf, until he shapes the iron into the form he has planned in his mind, and produces from it the intended vessel, and thereby suggests that he cannot devote himself or attend to the contemplation and study of wisdom, because he is wholly intent upon his anvil and iron.
Mystically, by this example of the smith we are taught that nothing is so hard, so rough and difficult that constant labor cannot overcome it; and therefore that no vice is so deeply rooted that persistent care cannot uproot it. If therefore you labor with as much constancy in taming your passion as the smith applies in taming iron, you will certainly bend and subdue it, especially with the added force of fire, that is, of love and charity. Hence Rabanus: "By the ironsmith, he says, the same as in the architect is expressed, that is, the order of holy preachers, who sitting by the anvil, that is by the hard labor of the present life, forging spiritual arms, the teachings
namely divine teachings, fabricates by writing and teaching, so that he may teach his people to fight bravely against the temptations of the ancient enemy, to avoid the perverse sects of heretics and philosophers, and to scorn the threats of persecutors. The flesh therefore of this smith, that is, his body, the steam of fire and the heat of the furnace burns, when the tribulation and persecution of the world does not cease to weary him. The voice of the hammer renewed his ears, when the edicts of princes do not cease to thrust the terror of torments upon his senses; but he will give his heart to complete the work of his office; and he devotes the watchfulness of his diligence to this, that he may bring the vessels of chosen souls to the perfection of knowledge and virtues. Hence Paul the Apostle, the chief fabricator of these arms, writing thus to some of his hearers says: 'Be strengthened in the Lord and in the might of His power. Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the snares of the devil; for our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done all things perfectly, to stand.'"
See the manifold blows of the sacred hammers with which Saint Paul, as a smith, strikes and polishes himself and his faithful, 2 Corinthians chapter VI, 4 and following: "Let us exhibit ourselves, he says, as ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulations, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings," etc.
Aptly to the present matter Saint Basil, in the Longer Rules, question 5, teaches that a Christian ought to direct himself wholly to the law and will of God, just as a smith attends to the pattern according to which the work is to be fashioned: "For just as an ironsmith, he says, for example, whenever he forges some hatchet or axe, if he continually remembers the one from whom he received the contract to make that instrument, and turns over in his mind the form and size prescribed to him by that person, and directs what he makes according to the will of the one who commissioned the work; but if he allows the memory of that person to slip from his mind, he will produce either something entirely different, or far unlike what he had set out to make: so also a Christian, if he directs all his actions, whether lesser or greater, to the will of God, he without controversy and excellently completes that work, and at the same time preserves in his mind the constant memory of Him by whom he was commanded to do it; and he will truly be able to say: 'I set the Lord always in my sight, for He is at my right hand that I may not be moved,' and likewise he will satisfy that precept of Paul: 'Whether you eat, or drink, or do anything else, do all things for the glory of God.' But if anyone, while carrying out a work, departs from the perfect standard of the prescribed commandment, it is clear that he retains a weak memory of God."
Saint Basil, in the homily On the Human Generation of Christ, compares the incarnate Word to heated iron. For just as the smith heats iron through fire and makes it fiery, so that it appears to be nothing but fire, and yet the nature of iron remains: so the Word, assuming flesh, as it were deified it, while the essence of the flesh nevertheless remained intact. The same Saint Basil, book III Against Eunomius, compares a soul burning with charity to heated iron, which the Holy Spirit, as it were a smith, hammers and heats: "Just as iron, he says, which lies in the midst of fire, has not lost its nature as iron; yet heated by the vehement action of fire, having received the whole nature of fire into itself, it passes over to fire in color, heat and action; so the holy virtues, from the communion they have with Him who is holy by nature, having received it through their whole subsistence, now have sanctification as it were innate. But the difference between them and the Holy Spirit is this: that the Spirit is holiness by nature; but in them sanctification is present by participation."
32. So (the word "so" refers both to "will be filled with wisdom," verse 25, and to "he will give his heart," which follows, as I have now frequently noted) the potter sitting at his work, turning the wheel with his feet, who is always placed in solicitude for his work, and all his operation is in number. — From the smith he passes to the potter, and describes his work and occupation, namely:
First, that "sitting at his work he turns the wheel with his feet," to scrape, shape and polish the clay vessel; second, that he is anxious "for his work," in Greek epi to ergon, that is, intent upon his work, that is, he anxiously attends to his work, lest the clay vessel, being fragile, if handled carelessly, break and shatter; or, with the wheel running, take on a different form from what he intended; third, that "in number," in Greek enarithmios, that is, numbered, "is his work," because namely, since clay is very friable and flexible, he quickly fashions many vessels from it; hence he is accustomed to count them and set for himself a definite number of them; servants and assistants too are compelled to deliver and count to their master a certain number of vessels made by them each day. So the Latin Bible corrected at Rome, the Greek Complutensian and Roman editions. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: Likewise the potter, sitting at his work and turning his wheel with his feet, devotes himself wholly and carefully to his work, so that he has all his production in account. Others understand by "number" the price; for this is usually counted, by catachresis; hence they translate: He who always devotes himself to the care of his work, and all his operation is of value.
Less correctly therefore Lyranus, Jansenius and Palacius read the contrary anarithmitos, that is, his operation is innumerable, as if to say: He fashions very many and virtually innumerable vessels. Therefore the potter, says Palacius, is always placed in anxiety, to produce new vessels, to devise new forms, to distinguish them with new paintings; for which reason his operation is innumerable.
Moreover, God not only established this art but also practiced it, when from the beginning of the world He formed man from clay, Genesis II, 7. Hence "God is a potter," says Saint Augustine, book XV On the City of God, chapter I; and He is the first and most ancient potter, especially because from the same mass of clay He makes one vessel for honor, another for dishonor, Romans IX, 21.
33 AND 34. WITH HIS ARM HE WILL FORM THE CLAY, AND BEFORE HIS FEET HE WILL BEND HIS STRENGTH. HE WILL GIVE HIS HEART TO FINISH THE COATING, AND BY HIS WATCHFULNESS HE WILL CLEAN THE FURNACE. — The Syriac translates this entire passage about the potter thus: So also the potter who sits at the wheel and moves the vessel with his nail; his eyes are on the vessels of all his work, and his arms cleave the clay; and before he dies he becomes bent and stooping, and his heart is set on completing his work, and his watchfulness on building the kiln.
The fourth work of the potter is "to form the clay with his arms," both to work it with water and properly temper it, lest it be too dry or too moist; and to shape from it, once worked, a beautiful vessel while sitting at the wheel, and, as the Greek has it, plasse, that is, to mold. The Zurich Bible: Now he shapes the clay with his arm.
The fifth is: "Before his feet he will bend his strength;" in Greek ischun avtov, that is, his might, his forces; because namely he bends, inclines and bows himself and his chest toward his feet with all his strength at the work, in order to form it exactly; for while he moves the wheel with his feet on which he shapes the work, with chest and arms inclined, he devotes himself entirely to forming the work. Others refer the pronoun avtov to pelon, that is, clay. Hence the Zurich Bible: Now, it says, he treads down the force of the clay itself with his feet. For potters are accustomed to tread and work the clay with their feet, to soften it and properly temper it with water, so that it becomes tenacious and ductile, and fit for a vessel to be formed from it. So Jansenius: The potter, he says, forms and shapes the clay with his arm, but first before his feet he bends, curves and works down the force of the clay itself, so that it becomes fit for the form to be induced by hands and arm. For this kind of working of the clay, which is its bending and tempering, is first done with the feet. But the Latin Vulgate version calls for the former meaning.
The sixth is: "He will give his heart to finish the coating." For potters are accustomed to coat the vessel they have fashioned, inside and outside, with lead, tin, ochre or other material, both to give it a beautiful color, appearance and form; and to consolidate and strengthen it. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: Now he devotes care to the work of coating; others: He applies his heart to completing the coating; for this is keramon, for which some less correctly read charisma, that is, a gift or present.
The seventh is: "And by his watchfulness he will clean the furnace," as if to say: By watchful care and effort he will clean out the furnace previously fired by him, so that into the cleaned furnace he may place the earthen vessels fashioned by him, and fire them in it so that they become solid and hard. The Zurich Bible: He watches over the tending of the kiln; others: And his watchfulness is about cleaning the kiln.
Note the phrase "to the coating," or as the Greek has it, "to completing the coating." For at Rome, in Italy and in other places, earthenware vessels are usually, first, formed by the potter from clay, which they themselves call "creta" (chalk/clay); second, dried in the sun and fired in the furnace; third, coated all around, inside and outside, with a mixture made from sand and dried wine lees reduced to ash, along with lead and tin; this coating makes the vessels more solid and stronger; also white and shining; and finally fit to hold and preserve wine, vinegar, milk and other liquids; for an earthenware vessel made from clay alone corrupts all liquids except water and oil: this coating therefore makes it protect and preserve them. This mixture is used in cups, dishes, basins and other table vessels; but in kitchen vessels such as pots, omitting tin they use lead, and coat only the interior, both to make it sturdy and clean, and to preserve liquids and other contents: the Romans call this lead mixture "la vernice" (varnish); but the former one of lead and tin they call "la maiolica" (majolica); for tin gives the vessels whiteness and splendor, which kitchen vessels do not need; fourth, they paint the table vessels with various colors and inscribe on them whatever letters they wish. Finally fifth, they fire them thoroughly in the furnace; and once thoroughly fired they become solid, white, elegant and shining vessels, which we therefore use in all our furnishings. I heard this at Rome from potters near Saint Cecilia's, and indeed inspected it with my own eyes. The process is similar for vessels made of porcelain; but as the material of these is more precious, so also the color and appearance is more elegant and excellent.
Mystically, Rabanus understands by potters, as well as by farmers, sculptors and smiths, the holy preachers: "For they, he says, worthily perform the ministry of their rank through diverse offices, and temper their teaching according to the quality of their hearers; because the wise must be admonished one way, the foolish another: the strong one way, the weak another: the young one way, the old another: men one way, women another. They cultivate the Lord's field with the plow of the Gospel. They feed the Lord's sheep and animals with the food of the word. They engrave the marks of the new man on human hearts. They forge the weapons of virtue through the ministry of their tongue. And they form and strengthen the fragile and weak with words and examples, so that they may make them honorable vessels and most fit for the ministry of God. This potter therefore in his work turns the wheel with his feet, when he turns the revolving course of the present life to an example for his followers by the traces of good works; he who bears the care of those committed to him, that they may persist in acts of good works; who by his own deeds strengthens the work of the weak and offers them examples of humility and meekness; who devotes all the will of his heart
to this end, that whatever is rough in the conduct of his subjects, he may soften with the teaching of his gentleness; and to this he devotes all his watchfulness, that firing in the furnace of the heart with the fire of charity the entire work of his disciples, he may consolidate it with the flame of love; because the whole work of his case suffers detriment if the glue of charity does not bind it together."
35 AND 36. ALL THESE HAVE HOPED IN THEIR HANDS (others translate: in their hands); AND EACH ONE IS WISE IN HIS OWN ART: WITHOUT ALL THESE A CITY IS NOT BUILT. — This is the conclusion, as if to say: All these, namely farmers, sculptors, smiths, potters, and other mechanics and artisans, do not rise to that true and sublime wisdom which consists in the study of Sacred Scripture, laws and divine matters; but nevertheless they have a certain imitation and participation in it: for "they have hoped in their hands," that is, they hope; because by the work of their hands they procure for themselves and their family what is necessary for food and life. "And each one is wise in his own art;" because the farmer wisely cultivates the field, the sculptor wisely carves statues, the smith wisely forges the sword, the potter wisely fashions earthen vessels. And all these things are necessary for the common life of mankind. For "without all these a city cannot be built." Hence the Zurich Bible translates: Each of all these, relying on his own hands, consumes in his work whatever wisdom he has; and the Syriac: All these through their good fortune, and all men in the work of their art become learned, etc.; but they will not sit in the council of the people.
37. AND THEY SHALL NOT DWELL, NOR WALK ABOUT, AND THEY SHALL NOT LEAP INTO THE ASSEMBLY. — Thus the Latin Bible corrected at Rome punctuates and connects these words, and the order and connection of the words requires this, since they are all of the same number, person, mood and tense, namely future. Therefore less correctly Jansenius and others connect them with the preceding, as if to say: Without these artisans neither can a city be built, nor inhabited, so that men may live and walk about in it. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: Without these indeed no city will be cultivated, nor inhabited, nor traversed.
Therefore the genuine meaning of this passage must be sought from the Greek. For in place of "they shall not dwell," the Greek has paroikesovsi, that is, they will not be parishioners and neighbors, namely those who dwell near some temple or senate house. Hence paroikia, that is, parish, is the name for the senate house and the assembly of the neighborhood, the gathering of neighbors at the temple or senate house: for near it the senators and leading citizens used to dwell; but the smiths and artisans, lest their noise and squalor disturb the senators and citizens, were relegated to the suburbs or to remote parts of the city. So farmers dwell not in the city but in the country: potters too live outside the walls in the sandpits where they dig out their clay, to have it at hand. In ancient times too, smiths seem to have dwelt in the suburbs or remote from the assembly of the people, as did engravers near their marble quarries and stonecutting works. So Palacius. To this is relevant what Cicero, book IV,
of the Academics, asserts from the opinion of Lycurgus and Solon "that there are no cities or commonwealths except those which belong to the wise." Hence he adds: "I do not seem to you, Carneades, to be a praetor, because I am not wise: nor is this a city, nor is there a commonwealth in it."
NOR SHALL THEY WALK ABOUT — as judges, magistrates, or censors, says Palacius, who walk about the city and see to it that nothing is badly managed in it. Add that it is the part of the leisured, not of laboring artisans, to walk through the city. So often elsewhere in Scripture to walk about belongs to senators and princes, and denotes principality or magistracy, namely the act of visiting, inquiring, searching, and disposing all things, as I showed at Zechariah chapter I, 11. Hence explaining, he adds:
AND THEY SHALL NOT LEAP INTO THE ASSEMBLY. — That is, so as to leap into the first and higher seats of the assembly, namely to obtain the dignity of senators, priests or teachers, to be eminent in the assembly and be its leaders and heads. Or "into the assembly," that is, into the gathering and council of the wise, "they shall not leap." Hence the Complutensian edition adds: In the council of the people they shall not be sought; and the Zurich Bible: Yet neither will they be asked for their opinion in the consultation of the people, nor will they be eminent in the assembly. Hence also, explaining, he adds: They shall not sit on the seat of the judge, etc. So it is said at Deuteronomy XXIII, 1: "A eunuch shall not enter the assembly of the Lord," where Oleaster and Cajetan understand by "assembly" the leaders of the assembly and congregation of the Jews, as if to say: A eunuch shall not be among the magistracy of the Jews.
Note: For hyperalovntai, that is, they shall leap over, some read hypikalovntai, that is, they are summoned. Hence they translate: Nor are they summoned to the assembly (council) of the people. Note: This was the ordinary practice, and still happens in large cities (for in small ones even smiths, tailors and cobblers are senators and consuls); nevertheless, from time to time, some from these humble trades have risen to the highest dignities of the commonwealth. Thus Agathocles ascended the throne of the kingdom from the potter's workshop and became king of Sicily; hence he dined on earthenware vessels, to always remember that he was the son of a potter. Hence Ausonius sings of him: "They say that King Agathocles dined on earthenware, and often loaded his sideboard with Samian clay."
The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Farmers and artisans, although they are wise in their own art and necessary for building cities and houses, yet they will not rise to the wisdom and honor of the leading citizens, so as to be the rulers, judges, and teachers of the city. Therefore they will not dwell in the principal parts of the city, namely near the temple and the senate house, but will be sent away to remote parts of the city, or outside the city: nor will they walk about in it as consuls or magistrates, because "into the assembly," that is, the council and government of the assembly, namely to preside and lead in it, "they shall not leap." Hence explaining, he adds:
38. THEY SHALL NOT SIT ON THE SEAT OF THE JUDGE, AND THEY SHALL NOT UNDERSTAND THE TESTAMENT OF JUDGMENT, NOR SHALL THEY PUBLISH DISCIPLINE AND JUDGMENT, AND THEY SHALL NOT BE FOUND IN PARABLES. — He denies two things to artisans: first, "the seat of the judge," that is, the authority and power of judging citizens, as if to say: Artisans will not be judges of the city. He adds the reason: "And," that is, because, "the testament of judgment," that is, the rites, decrees, laws and judicial constitutions, "they will not understand," as if to say: Because they are not learned in the law, since they studied not the law but the anvil. For the Hebrew berit and the Greek diatheke, that is, "testament," is extended by catachresis so that it signifies not only a testamentary constitution and ordinance, that is, a last will and the decree of one dying or dead, but also any other ordinance and constitution, especially of judgment, according to which, as the law and justice of the city, the judge in a trial must judge and render a sentence. Hence some translate: and they will not understand the process of judgment. The Zurich Bible: Neither will they sit at tribunals, nor understand the procedure of trials.
The second is: "Nor shall they publish discipline and judgment," as if to say: Artisans will not be masters and teachers, to teach others "discipline and judgment," that is, justice, equity and honesty to be observed in morals and in human life and conduct; "and," that is, because they are not occupied in thoroughly learning "parables," that is, the weighty and learned maxims of the wise, since the care of their art and craft occupies them entirely. For in ancient times among the Hebrews, Syrians and other Orientals there was great use of seeking parables, that is, similitudes, proverbs, riddles and weighty maxims, and in these the wisdom of the ancients, as it were, consisted, as is clear from the book of Job, from the Proverbs of Solomon, from Ecclesiasticus, from the Queen of Sheba, who came to test Solomon with parables, 3 Kings X. Hence also Christ, according to the custom of His people, taught His doctrine through parables. He signifies that there are two offices that are eminent in the commonwealth to which artisans do not rise, namely that of ruler or judge, and of teacher; because these require eminent wisdom, and therefore demand great study, and consequently leisure and freedom from mechanical labors.
The same thing was enacted by Plato, book VIII of the Laws, where he gives this as the first law for the city: "First, he says, that no citizen (who is charged with the care of the city) should devote himself to any trade." He adds the reason: "Since it has been granted by nature as a function of office to protect the public safety and public adornment of the city; and therefore a superficial effort is not sufficient for the management of so great an office. But no human nature can conveniently handle two arts or two occupations; nor can anyone devote himself sufficiently even to one art while also presiding over one who practices another. Let this therefore be firm and established in our republic, and let it be placed as a first principle, that no one should devote himself to two things—
should be free to devote himself to both, as for example, lest any bronzesmith practice the carpenter's art." He adds the punishment, namely that he who does otherwise is to be marked with infamy. And he adds: "If any foreigner practices two arts, let him be punished with chains, fines, exile; so that restrained by these penalties he may learn that he is one person, not many persons at once:" and, as he said above, so that he may know that he is haplos not diplos, that is, simple not double.
for they seek it out so that they may know it, and having known it, may perfect it in practice; since this is the one way that leads the soul to eternal salvation and happiness in heaven. To this Latin meaning and sense adapt the Greek, which reads thus: plen tov epididontos ten psuchen avtov, kai dianoovmenov en nomo Hupsistov, that is: Except the one who gives his mind and searches in the law of the Most High. For instead of plen, our translator more correctly reading epitithentas, translated "fitting"; and instead of dianoovmenov, reading dianoovmenovs, translated "searching": although even if you read tov epididontos, that is, of the one fitting; and dianoovmenov, that is, of the one searching, in the genitive, as some read, you may aptly refer it to "art" which preceded, with the same meaning. The word plen our translator omitted as enclitic and therefore unnecessary in the Latin version: for plen means the same as "except, besides, unless, nevertheless, moreover." Hence you may clearly translate and explain it thus, as if to say: Artisans are wholly devoted to their art: nevertheless at the appointed time they fit their soul to the divine law: or except that, or unless on fixed days they fit themselves to and devote themselves to the law of God. Which meaning entirely agrees with the Latin Vulgate. Therefore it is surprising that Jansenius and others interpret the Greek differently and accommodate the Latin version to it, but forcedly. For they translate: Except the one who gives his mind and thinks on the law of the Most High; and thus they explain it as if these words did not pertain to the artisan but to the wise man leisurely devoted to wisdom, as if to say: Those things which I said above, namely that
in the city there will be rulers, judges and teachers who "shall sit upon the seat of the judge" and "publish discipline," etc., do not pertain to artisans who are wholly devoted to their craft, but to the wise man who gives himself entirely to the law of God and meditates on it continually. Or more briefly, as if to say: It is not for artisans to devote themselves to true wisdom, but only for him who gives his soul to thoroughly investigating the law of God. Hence what the Latin translates: "Fitting their soul and searching in the law of the Most High," they adapt to the Greek reading and the meaning already stated, by understanding the implied addition: these alone will perform what I have said. But these interpretations are forced and imply many things that will scarcely occur to anyone. Therefore we must stand by the Latin translator, and the Greek must be plainly accommodated to him in the manner I have described. For he explains that the wisdom of artisans, of which he spoke at verse 25: "With what wisdom he will be filled," and verse 35: "Each one is wise in his own art," consists chiefly in the study of the divine law. For although the artisan does not need such great or such full knowledge of the law of God as the teacher does, nevertheless he needs some degree of it, so that at least he may know what pertains to him and what he is bound to, namely what he must explicitly believe, what he must do, what he must omit, in order to attain eternal salvation. And in this his wisdom consists.
Moreover the Zurich Bible, in order to escape the difficulties of the others, refers these words to the beginning of the following chapter. Hence connecting them with it, it thus translates:
For "commandments," that is, discipline, as the Complutensian and our translator read, the Roman and Zurich editions read dikaiosunen, that is, justice. Hence they translate: Nor shall they publish justice and judgment; the Zurich Bible: Nor shall they pronounce on right or equity, nor shall they discover the secrets of sayings, as if these pertained to the preceding section about the office of the judge.
39. BUT THEY WILL CONFIRM THE CREATURE OF THE WORLD, as if to say: Artisans repair and restore with their skill the things of this world created by God and necessary for sustaining human life. For "creature," our translator read with the Roman edition ktisin, which the Zurich Bible translates: But they make firm the works of the world; others: But they establish the workmanship of the age. For more clearly aionos, which our translator rendered "of the age," should be translated "of the world"; the Complutensian reads ktesin, hence they translate: But they will make firm the possession of the world. Possession, that is, the things which man possesses in this world, so that they may establish and confirm him in their possession. For since all created things are fragile, perishable and subject to many changes and corruptions, in order to remedy this evil God instituted artisans who would repair and restore them, so that they, partly in themselves and partly in their like newly fashioned by the artisan, might endure through the continuous succession of so many ages to the end of the world, and serve the necessities and uses of mankind.
Palacius interprets otherwise: For by "creature of the age" or "world" he understands man, just as Saint Gregory also understood that passage at the end of Mark: "Preach the Gospel to every creature," that is, to man, he says. For man has something of every creature, and is himself, as it were, a participation of all created things. Man is therefore the creature of the world, since the world was made for him, and all things in the world serve him. For it is the work of mechanics and farmers to strengthen man, that is, to serve man. For all their work redounds to the benefit of man. So he.
AND THEIR PRAYER IS IN THE WORK OF THEIR ART. — As if to say: The prayers and vows of artisans are for the successful practice of their art, that they may produce such works as the art of each requires, for passing this life comfortably. For this one thing they think about, this they desire, this they pray for continually. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: And they make vows for the exercise of their art; others: And their vow is in the work of their art.
FITTING THEIR SOUL AND SEARCHING IN THE LAW OF THE MOST HIGH, as if to say: Artisans are so devoted to their art and craft that nevertheless at the appointed time they fit and apply their "soul," that is, their mind, to hearing or reading the law of God:
Only he who has devoted his mind to the law of the Most High, and is engaged in meditating on it, who will search out the wisdom of antiquity and devote himself to the oracles of the Prophets, he will preserve the discourses of famous men. So also the Syriac: Artisans, it says, will not receive the discipline of wisdom, because they become illustrious in the manufactures of the world, and their meditation is in the work of their art. But he who applies himself to the fear of God and to understanding the law of life will search out as it were the wisdom of all the ancients.
Morally, let artisans learn here that all their wisdom consists in the worship of God, if namely they pray to Him continually and fit their ears, mind and hand to His law, especially so that they may offer all their works to God and perform and complete them for His honor and glory. Let them remember that art is akin to virtue. For just as art is the plan of things to be made, so virtue is that of things to be done. For, as Saint Augustine says, book IV On the City of God, chapter XXI: "The very art of living well and rightly was defined by the ancients as virtue. Hence they believed that the Latins derived the word 'art' from the Greek arete, which means virtue." For if they do these things, God will prosper their craft and cause them to become excellent in their art, and thereby famous and wealthy; and moreover He will supply them with increases of graces, by which they may obtain great treasures of glory in heaven. For arts are gifts of God, commonly natural ones, but sometimes supernatural and specially infused by God, as the art of building the tabernacle was infused by God into Bezalel and Oholiab, of whom God Himself says, Exodus chapter XXXI, verse 2: "Behold, I have called by name Bezalel," etc., "and I have filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge in every work, to devise whatever can be made from gold, and silver, and bronze... And I have given him as companion Oholiab... And in the heart of every skilled person I have placed wisdom: that they may make all that I have commanded you, the tabernacle of the covenant, and the ark of the testimony, and the propitiatory," etc. For God is the essential and uncreated art itself, from whom every created art, like a stream from its source, springs forth and flows.
Thus angels taught Jacob the art of managing it so that sheep would bear lambs of varied color, namely by placing before them multicolored poplar rods: by which art he himself became wealthy, as I said at Genesis XXX and XXXVII. So Saint Eligius by the singular help of God became an outstanding goldsmith, to such a degree that Clothaire, king of the Franks, took him on as his goldsmith, and King Dagobert had the reliquary of Saint Martin made at great expense through him, which he constructed with wondrous workmanship from gold and gems; and he likewise adorned similar ones for Saint Denis, Saint Germanus, Saint Quentin and other Saints: hence he afterwards deserved to be made Bishop of Noyon. So Audoenus in his Life, book I, chapters V and XXXII; it is found in Surius, December 2. So Saints Claudius, Nicostratus, Symphorianus and Castorius by their piety and the sign of the cross became outstanding sculptors and marble cutters; for which reason
they were very well received by the Emperor Diocletian. Seeing and envying this, Simplicius, still a pagan, said: "I adjure you, tell me who this God is in whose name you work so well." To whom Symphorianus replied: "If you can believe in Jesus Christ, you will soon attain the art, and will also have eternal life." Simplicius believed, obtained the art, and became their companion in illustrious martyrdom. For they were all killed by Diocletian because they refused to sculpt an idol of Aesculapius. The Church commemorates their memory on November 8.
Moreover, the art of the smith directed by mathematics produces wondrous and astonishing results. For smithing brings mathematics from theory to practice, and turns it from speculative into practical and mechanical knowledge: in this Archimedes excelled, who by it alone defended and protected Syracuse against the Romans. Archimedes was followed by Severinus Boethius, the leading senator of Rome, most illustrious in lineage, learning, holiness and martyrdom, who transferred all the doctrines and mechanical knowledge of the Greeks to the Romans by translating them. Hence Theodoric, king of the Goths, in Cassiodorus, book I, epistle 45, wonderfully praising his universal knowledge: "Through your translations, he says, Pythagoras the Musician, Ptolemy the Astronomer, are read by Italians; Nicomachus the Arithmetician, Euclid the Geometer, are heard by the Romans. Plato the Theologian, Aristotle the Logician, dispute in the Roman tongue. You have also given the mechanical Archimedes to the Sicilians as a Latin author. And whatever branches of learning or arts fruitful Greece produced through individual men, Rome has received in her native speech through you as the single author."
Then, reviewing the wondrous works of this mechanical or smithing art applied through mathematics, he says: "It makes waters, he says, rising from the depths, fall headlong; fire run with weights; organs resound with foreign voices; and fills pipes with foreign winds, so that they can sing with musical art;" as is evident in organs and other hydraulic or pneumatic instruments, which produce melodies and harmonies of every kind by the force of water, or air and wind. Theodoric adds: "Things made wet in seawater are dried by smithing; things that are hard are dissolved by ingenious arrangement; metals bellow; Diomedes' bronze cranes sound the trumpet; a bronze serpent hisses; simulated birds chirp (as we see at Tusculum in the Aldobrandini gardens, and at Tivoli in the Este gardens), and things that know no voice of their own are proven to emit the sweetness of song from bronze."
Finally he adds the art of spheres, in which the motions, risings, settings and eclipses of the heavens, sun, moon and stars are represented to the life by mechanical art. These and more says Theodoric, who then, being an Arian, turning love into hatred, fearing Boethius as a Catholic lest he summon the arms of the Emperor Justin against him into Italy, consigned him to the prison of Pavia, in which he wrote the golden books On the Consolation of Philosophy for the comfort of himself and similar afflicted persons; and at last, striking off his head, honored him with a noble martyrdom.
when the royal executioner had inflicted the fatal wound. They report that Boethius took his severed head into his own hands, after the manner of Saint Denis, and carried it to the church. Hear Julius Martianus in the Life of Boethius, which is prefixed to his works, and from him Baronius, in the year of our Lord 523: "The inhabitants of Pavia constantly affirm, as always handed down from their ancestors, that Severinus sustained his severed head with both hands; and when asked by whom he thought he had been struck, he replied: 'By the impious'; and thus when he had come to the neighboring church, and kneeling before the altar had received the sacraments, he expired shortly after.