Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He returns to the tribute of chapter 40, and treats of the last part of the yoke pressing upon the posterity of Adam, namely death. First, from verse 1 to 8, he teaches to whom death is bitter and to whom it is pleasant; second, from verse 8 to 17, concerning disgraceful children, the curse of the wicked, and the beauty and care of a good name; third, from verse 17 to the end he enumerates various things of which one should be ashamed. Moreover, he pursues these in fitting order: for from the first follows the second, from the second the third. For first he teaches that death is bitter to the rich, who abound in the pleasures and prosperity of this life, but sweet to the poor and afflicted; so as to show from this that death in itself is not so bitter and terrible as many suppose; but that it depends on the disposition and attitude of men, namely that the bitterness of death arises from an excessive attachment to a pleasant and luxurious life. For where this attachment does not exist, as in the poor and afflicted, there death is not bitter but sweet. From which he concludes that death is not to be feared, because it is a common debt of nature, and therefore must be undergone by all without exception out of necessity. Since therefore no one is permitted to live forever, hence secondly he infers that everyone should take care that in dying he leaves behind a good name and posthumous fame, in which he may always live. Whence thirdly he discusses the good name, in what it consists, and teaches that it consists in this: if one commits nothing shameful, of which he ought to be ashamed, and for which he would rightly blush: and what those things are he enumerates one by one.
He said that great care must be taken of a good name: now he fittingly adds and enumerates those things which belong to an evil name and bad reputation, so as to bring shame and infamy upon a man; to this end, that the one zealous for a good name may guard himself from them, and pursue the opposite things which win a good reputation.
Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 41:1-28
1. O death, how bitter is the remembrance of you to a man who has peace in his possessions; 2. to a man at rest, and whose ways are directed in all things, and who is still able to take food! 3. O death, your judgment is good to a man who is in need and who is diminished in strength, 4. worn out with age, and who has care about all things, and to the despairing man who has lost patience! 5. Do not fear the judgment of death. Remember what things were before you and what things will come upon you! This judgment is from the Lord upon all flesh. 6. And what will come upon you in the good pleasure of the Most High? Whether ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years. 7. For in the underworld there is no accusation of life. 8. The children of abominations become children of sinners, and those who dwell near the houses of the ungodly. 9. The inheritance of the children of sinners will perish, and with their seed a continual reproach. 10. The children complain about an ungodly father, because on account of him they are in disgrace. 11. Woe to you, ungodly men, who have forsaken the law of the Lord Most High! 12. And if you are born, you will be born under a curse: and if you die, a curse will be your portion. 13. All things that are from the earth will return to the earth: so the ungodly go from a curse to destruction. 14. The mourning of men is about their body, but the name of the ungodly will be blotted out. 15. Have care for a good name: for this will remain with you more than a thousand precious and great treasures. 16. The number of days of a good life is limited: but a good name will endure forever. 17. Preserve discipline in peace, my children. For what use is there in hidden wisdom and an unseen treasure? 18. Better is the man who hides his foolishness than the man who hides his wisdom. 19. Nevertheless, show reverence in these things which proceed from my mouth. 20. For it is not good to observe every kind of shame: and not all things are well pleasing to all in faith. 21. Be ashamed before father and mother of fornication: and before a ruler and a powerful man of lying: 22. before a prince and a judge of an offense: before the assembly and the people of iniquity: 23. before a companion and friend of injustice: and in the place where you dwell, 24. of theft, of the truth of God and His covenant: of leaning on your elbow at meals and of the disgrace of giving and receiving: 25. of silence before those who greet you: of gazing at a woman who is a harlot, and of turning away the face of a kinsman. 26. Do not turn away your face from your neighbor, and from taking away a portion and not restoring it. 27. Do not gaze at the wife of another man, and do not pry into his maidservant, nor stand at his bed. 28. From friends be ashamed of reproachful words: and when you have given, do not reproach.
First Part of the Chapter
O DEATH, HOW BITTER IS YOUR REMEMBRANCE TO A MAN WHO HAS PEACE (in Greek, eireneumonti, that is, living peacefully) IN HIS POSSESSIONS; TO A MAN AT REST (in Greek, aperistato, that is, undistracted, at leisure, quiet), AND WHOSE WAYS ARE DIRECTED IN ALL THINGS, AND WHO IS STILL ABLE TO TAKE FOOD — that is, healthy, vigorous and strong, who relishes food, who enjoys and delights in his riches and pleasures! As if to say: O how bitter is not only death itself, but even the memory of death to a rich man, who peacefully possesses great wealth and rests in it; so that no cares, lawsuits, or troubles disturb or upset him from this peace and quiet of his: "whose ways," that is, actions, "are directed," that is, are prosperous and successful in all things, to whom indeed all things turn out well, so that he has well settled his daughters, enriched his sons, honored his servants, etc., and who is still healthy and strong enough to use and enjoy his possessions! For death takes away from him all these things so pleasant to him along with life; therefore it comes to him as bitter: for those things which are possessed with love are torn away with grief: and as great as the love is, so great is the grief also. Wherefore St. Chrysostom, quoted by Antonius in the Melissa, says: "The death of a rich and fortunate man is twofold;" because his soul clings equally to riches and happiness as to the body: therefore when it is torn from both, it suffers, as it were, a double death. Hence many sigh at death because they must leave their riches behind. Do you wish, then, that death and its memory not torment you? While living, renounce pleasures and riches, and distribute them to the poor, as religious do, or at least turn your affection away from them and direct it to God, as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and the other holy kings and patriarchs did. Hence the Syriac translates: O death, how evil you are to a rich man who sits in his goods, to a man who is strong, and prosperous at all times, and who has the power and ability to choose riches or death! And Vatablus: How bitter is your remembrance, O death, to a man at rest in his goods (others: peacefully enjoying his goods), to a man free from business, and happy in all things, and still able to take food! For such a man, says Dionysius, loves sensible and perishable things more than divine and eternal ones. Therefore it is bitter to him not only to be separated from present things, but even to meditate on that separation. On the contrary, the truly wise constantly meditate on death, and that after it there is no return to life; but soon the fearful judgment of God follows, and the most grievous punishments; how great also is the affliction then of the temptations assailing the dying, and finally how wretched it is not to be prepared for death. Wherefore St. Basil (which Plato had also said long before) when asked by Eubulus: "What is the definition of Philosophy?" answered: "The first definition of Philosophy is the meditation on death. And he, marveling, said: Who is the world?" He said: "He who is above the world," as Amphilochius relates in the Life of St. Basil.
Parallel to this sentence of Sirach are the maxims of the philosophers: Seneca in his Proverbs: "O life, long for the wretched, short for the happy!" Plato: "Death is more troublesome to the fortunate than to those who live laboriously;" of the philosopher Secundus, who, as Laertius attests, when asked by the Emperor Hadrian what death was, answered: "Death is an eternal sleep, a dissolution of bodies, the terror of the rich, the desire of the poor, an inevitable event, an uncertain journey, the thief of man, the father of sleep, the flight from life, the departure of the living, the dissolution of all things;" of Blessed Alcuin Flaccus, in his disputation with Pepin, son of Charlemagne: "Death is an inevitable event, an uncertain journey, the tears of the living, the confirmation of a testament, the thief of man."
Allegorically, Palacius says: If to this man so described the memory of death in this world is so sad, to a holy man possessing better, that is spiritual riches, having acquired peace after many battles, living a life somewhat at leisure without the care of souls, to whom all things turn out well — how sad, how dreadful, how intolerable will be the memory of the second death! O what it is to remember that it is possible for such a soul to be eternally without God! The etymology of death supports this. For, as St. Isidore says, Book XI of Origins, chapter 2: "Death (mors) is so called because it is bitter (amara); or from Mars, who is the author of deaths, or death from the bite (morsus) of the first man, who by biting the fruit of the forbidden tree incurred death." And he adds: "There are three kinds of death: bitter, premature, and natural: bitter is that of infants; premature, of the young; mature, that is natural, of the old." St. Gregory of Nazianzus says excellently in his Distichs: "Bare bones, when gazed upon, admonish us not to believe that anything in this life is our own or certain." Wherefore Sylvester of Osimo, having seen the tomb of a noble youth and contemplating his bones, said with compunction: "I too am what he was, and soon I shall be what he is." Therefore, leaving everything behind, he withdrew to the wilderness near Fabriano, and devoting himself solely to God, he founded a congregation which is called Sylvestrine after him. He departed to heaven in the year of the Lord 1267. So his Life, written by Andrew the monk of Fabriano, St. Antoninus in the Chronicle, Ferrarius and others relate.
A famous example of this maxim is found in Damascenus in the History of Barlaam and Josaphat, chapter 5. For Josaphat, son of King Abenner, was by his father's command raised in every luxury, to the point that he did not know what death was, or that men die; when he finally learned this from his attendants, he groaned and said: "Will death then seize me someday? And who will there be to remember me after death, when time has worn everything away with oblivion? Furthermore, when I have died, will I be dissolved into nothing, or is there on the contrary some other life, and another world?" Having been taught the truth and reason of all these things by Barlaam, he was converted to Christ, and finally, having left his kingdom, he followed him into the wilderness, lived an angelic life on earth, and through a happy death passed to the immortality of the Angels. For Barlaam, dying, left him this instruction as a kind of testament: "Be so prepared in spirit for the hardship of labors and the length of time, as though expecting your departure from life each day; and considering that same day to be both the beginning and the end of your monastic life. Thus always forgetting what is behind, and stretching yourself toward what is ahead, press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus."
which before sin was a tyrant, after sin became a just judge; both because death itself is the administrator and executor of divine justice and of the sentence of death pronounced by God upon man; and because it restores to the earth what belongs to it, and brings man back to his origin; and finally because it equally and justly comes to the aid of the wretched, for whom this life is unjust, and who have in death alone the consolation and remedy for their injuries and sufferings, and liberates them. Therefore death and the sentence of death come sweetly: first, to the man in need, who labors under a grave, continual, and inescapable want of the things necessary for life; for to him it seems better to die once than to be tortured by continual hunger and to waste away by slow decay: much more pleasant is death to the poor in spirit, who long for the heavenly life and riches promised them by Christ. Wherefore St. Francis, when given the news of his death by a physician, exclaimed: "Welcome, my sister death," and commanded the brothers to sing a hymn of thanksgiving to God. And when Brother Elias admonished him that every faithful person should weep and repent at death, bursting forth with great fervor he said: "Let me, brother, rejoice in the Lord, in His praise, and in my infirmities; because through the cooperation of the Holy Spirit I am so united to my God that I am well pleased to exult in the Most High." Therefore, having called singers, he sang with them in supreme jubilation the canticle which he himself called the Canticle of the Sun, crying out in a loud voice: "Be praised, my Lord, for our sister death, whom no living person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Blessed are those who at the hour of their death find themselves conformed to Your most holy will; for the second death will not be able to harm them. Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks, and serve Him, all creatures, with great humility." So the Mirror of His Life has it, chapters 101 and 102, part 1, and Luke Wadding in the Annals of the Friars Minor, year of Christ 1226, number 22.
3 and 4. O DEATH! YOUR JUDGMENT IS GOOD TO A MAN WHO IS IN NEED, AND WHO IS DIMINISHED IN STRENGTH, WORN OUT WITH AGE, AND WHO HAS CARE ABOUT ALL THINGS, AND TO THE DESPAIRING MAN WHO HAS LOST PATIENCE. — So read the Roman and Greek editions: therefore Palacius and Jansenius and others wrongly read wisdom instead of patience, although these two are connected; for the patient man is truly wise, and he who loses patience also loses wisdom, which teaches one to bear all adversities patiently: therefore when one becomes impatient, one likewise becomes foolish. Emmanuel Sa explains differently: "He who has lost wisdom," he says, is a decrepit man who is delirious from old age, or who, having forgotten many things, has lost his memory, as it were; for it is better for such a man to die than to live.
Second, to him "who is diminished, that is, deprived of strength" by disease; who is continually languishing, infirm, suffering from headache, stomach, or other bodily parts. For death frees him from these and all other inconveniences of life, and from the storms of wretched fortune.
Third, to him "worn out with age," in Greek eschatogero, that is, as the Complutensian reads: placed in extreme old age; the Zurich Bible: decrepit. For, as the Psalmist says, Psalm 89:10: "The days of our years in themselves are seventy years; but if in strength, eighty years, and beyond that is labor and pain." Therefore "old age itself is a disease," and not one, but manifold, as Ecclesiastes graphically describes in chapter 12. By the old man, then, understand the decrepit one, burdened with as many miseries as years, who has no hope of liberation except in death. For otherwise ordinary old people, who still have some pleasure in life, shudder at death, and all the more as it draws nearer. Indeed I have seen many old people, even religious and saintly ones, who bore with the utmost difficulty the mention of death and departure from this life being imminent for them. It is this among other faults of old age, that old men desire life when they are ceasing to live. Aesop festively represents this same thing in the fable of Death and the Old Man: "An old man," he says, "carrying wood that he had cut, was going a long way, and because of great labor, having set down his load in a certain place, he called upon Death; but when Death was present and asked the reason why he had called her, the terrified old man said: So that you might lift my burden with me. The fable signifies that every man is desirous of life, even if he is unfortunate and a beggar."
It is the antithesis of the preceding verse, as if to say: Just as to the rich who abound in wealth, pleasures, health, peace, and to whom all things prosper, death is bitter: so the same is pleasant to the poor, the wretched, and the despairing, because it frees them from these miseries, according to that saying of chapter 30: "Better is death than a bitter life." He calls it judgment both because of the decree and sentence of God, by which He condemned all the posterity of Adam to death, Genesis 3, and because of the custom, the necessity of dying common and inevitable to all, and as it were a fate; for this is the meaning of the Hebrew mishpat, that is, judgment. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: How pleasant is your fate, O death, to a man in need, whose strength has failed, who is decrepit, distressed on every side, in despair, and destitute of patience! The Syriac: How happy you are to a man who is broken, and failing in spirit, to an old man who dies at every moment, and lacks nourishment, and has no strength for working! Furthermore, the judgment given to death signifies death,
though they are unfortunate, in this respect they are more fortunate than the former, namely the rich and happy, in that the latter dread death, while the former await it, and indeed often desire it. However, just as in the latter there is often an excessive horror of death, so in the former there is an excessive desire for it; hence, in order to bring man to moderation and to teach with what reason and restraint he ought to receive death, he adds: "Do not fear the judgment of death."
Tropologically, therefore, Palacius says: You, reader, raise your eyes on high, and say: O how good is death for a man rich in spiritual things, whether he be young or old, whether he has cares or is free from care; whether he believes there will be an end to his troubles, or does not believe it! O how happy Solomon would have been, if when he was writing the Canticles, he had died! How happy Judas, if before he had received the money, he had lost his life! Therefore death is good for the good; but bad for the bad; for as "the death of sinners is the worst," so "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints," Psalm 115.
5. DO NOT FEAR THE JUDGMENT OF DEATH. REMEMBER WHAT THINGS WERE BEFORE YOU, AND WHAT THINGS WILL COME UPON YOU: THIS JUDGMENT IS FROM THE LORD UPON ALL FLESH. — The Zurich Bible: Do not fear the fate of death, but remember those who went before, and those who will come after: this fate has indeed been imposed by the Lord on all mortality. The Syriac: Do not fear death, because it is your very portion. Remember that those before and those after are with you; because this is the end of all men before God.
He proves that death is not to be feared, nor to be refused, by six arguments: The first is that it is a "judgment," that is, just, not unjust; for it is inflicted on you by a just judgment on account of sins; for through the guilt of both Adam and yourself you have deserved the punishment of death. The second, "remember what things were before you," that is, in the ages that were before you, all have died, and no one was exempt from the law of death: remember also "what things will come upon you," that is, after you through all the ages to come, all the living will die, so that rightly you neither can nor ought to wish to be exempted from this universal law of death. Hence the Greek reads: Mnesphtheti proteron sou kai eschaton, which taken in the masculine may be clearly translated: Remember those who were before you, and the last, that is, those who will be the very last; for just as all the former have died, so all the latter to the very last one will die.
The third, remember that this "judgment" of death is common to "all flesh," that is, to every person, indeed to every living creature, as if to say: This is the custom, this the lot, this the nature of all flesh, that since it is in itself fragile, corruptible, and mortal, it will at some time decay and die. Hence when someone dies, they are said to enter the way of all flesh: "Where a house is appointed for every living thing," Job 30:23; and this was confirmed and decreed by the Lord of all things, who has power over the life and death of everyone, as a punishment for sin; whose sentence no prudent person could evade, or even wish to, even a Gentile.
So Anaxagoras, upon hearing of his son's death, checked his grief, saying: "I knew I had begotten a mortal." The same man, when absent and condemned to death, said to the one who brought the news: "Nature long ago pronounced that sentence equally upon them and upon me." So Laertius, Book 1, chapter 3. And Seneca: "It is foolish," he says, "to fear what you cannot avoid. It is foolish to grieve that you are in a condition in which no one is not. It is a great consolation to be swept away together with the whole world." So he says, On Providence, chapter 5. Thales said "there was no difference between life and death; because both are according to nature." To someone objecting loudly: "Why then do you not die?" he answered: "Because of this very fact that it makes no difference. For what is sought after is held more precious." So Laertius, Book 1, chapter 1. Socrates, condemned to death, refused to flee, saying: "My children will be in the care of God, who gave them to me; departing from here, I shall find friends better than you, nor shall I be long deprived even of your company; for you will shortly migrate to the same place." Aristotle used to say that "it is best to depart from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunk." Epictetus said "it is better to heal the soul than the body;" since it is better to die than to live badly, as Antonius relates in the Melissa, Part 1, Sermon 58. Aeschines said that to die gloriously was the highest happiness, since death is equally fatal to all, as Stobaeus attests, Sermon 115, where he also cites Gorgias, who when asked whether he would gladly die, said: "Very much so; for I depart not unwillingly, as from a rotten and crumbling little house." Agis, king of the Lacedaemonians, when asked "how one could preserve one's liberty," said: "If one despises death." So Plutarch, in the Laconic Sayings, where he also cites Agesilaus, who when asked "what road led to outstanding glory," said: "If you despise death." For this contempt of death makes a man intrepid for undertaking heroic deeds in war and in all affairs. And Callicratidas, saying: "In war, either to conquer or to die is most honorable;" for the latter belongs to nature, the former to virtue. And Damindas, exclaiming: "O you half-men, what bitter thing can happen to us who despise death?" Isocrates to Demonicus: "To die," he says, "the fate of all has decreed; but to die nobly, nature has assigned as proper to the good. Think immortal thoughts by being magnanimous; but enjoy mortal things modestly by using what is present." Lucian: "What are men? Mortal gods. What are gods? Immortal men."
Tropologically, Hugo says: "Remember what things were before," that is, he says, from what you were made, namely from clay and from nothing; "and what things will come upon you;" that is, remember what you will become, as if to say: Remember that you are dust, etc., or thus: "Remember what things were before you," that is, in your presence, in the present, that is, remember what your present life is like; "and what things will come upon you," that is, what the future life will be like, as if to say: Consider your entrance, how unclean it was; your progress, how laborious; your departure, how dangerous. For the birth of man is unclean, his life laborious, his death perilous. Hence birth is full of shame, life of grief, death of fear. Whence St. Bernard says: "Reflect, O man, whence you come, and blush; where you are, and groan; whither you go, and tremble."
6. AND WHAT WILL COME UPON YOU IN THE GOOD PLEASURE OF THE MOST HIGH? WHETHER TEN, OR A HUNDRED, OR A THOUSAND YEARS. — So read the Roman and Greek editions, although Jansenius and others do not place the question mark after the word "Most High," but at the end after "years." In Greek, however, instead of hyperbaine, that is, "will come upon," they read apanaine, that is, "you may refuse, decline"; for they read: Kai ti apanaine en eudokia hypsistou, that is, as the Complutensian and Roman editions have it: And what would you refuse, or decline in the good pleasure of the Most High? As if to say: Nothing of those things that are in the good pleasure of God will you wish or be able to refuse: therefore neither death, nor the time appointed for you by God to die; for this is one among the infinite good pleasures of God. Hence the Zurich Bible: How would you refuse what has pleased the Most High?
This is the fourth reason why death should not be refused, because it is sent to each person in a manner and at a time decreed and determined by the good pleasure of God, to which every creature must submit, and indeed conform itself; for the will and good pleasure of God is most holy, most wise, most powerful, most good, and most merciful.
The meaning of our Latin Vulgate is similar, as if to say: What could come upon or befall you, or what could you devise or imagine, by which you could change, avoid, or bend the judgment and sentence of God concerning death, and the certain time of it pronounced upon you? For whether He has allotted ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years for your life: you must be content with that; for you can neither add an hour, nor a moment to this time appointed by God, nor diminish it, according to that text: "You have set his limits which cannot be passed," Job 14. And that: "In Your hands are my lots;" the Septuagint: "my times," Psalm 30:16.
Second, others explain it thus, as if to say: What can come upon you, that is, happen or be added, to the ten or hundred or thousand years which the judgment of God has appointed and fixed for you? As if to say: Nothing. For no one can add even the slightest thing to what He Himself decrees.
Third, Lyranus reads and explains it thus: "And what things will come upon you from the good pleasure of the Most High, whether ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years," supply and repeat from the preceding verse: "this judgment is upon you from the Lord;" in which therefore you must rest content. So also Dionysius: "What things will come upon you in the good pleasure of the Most High," that is, he says, the times of life which remain for you according to the preordination of the divine will, "whether ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years," as if to say: Let these be enough for you, and receive them gratefully, and spend them fruitfully, and submit your will in this to the divine will. He who does this, and thereby conquers the desire for a longer life and the fear of death, is not effeminate; but a man and a master, not worthless but wise, not a child but of mature virtue, and therefore shines splendidly in this fortitude and strength of soul; just as Socrates shone splendidly, receiving with brave spirit the death prepared for him; Epictetus shone, who, destitute of fortune's gifts, led a tranquil life; Anaxarchus shone, who, being pounded in a mortar, exclaimed: "Pound as much as you wish, you will never pound Anaxarchus." There are three things that are especially desired: by the sailor, a harbor; by the traveler, his homeland; by the slave, freedom. Man through death, which is the greatest of bodily evils, from the sea and waves of the world moves toward a harbor, from an uncertain pilgrimage to his homeland, from a prison to freedom. Finally, nothing is found that makes us worthy of great honor, glory, and fame more than this saving victory. How pleasant it is, and sweet and welcome to a noble spirit, is so far from being expressible in words that it can scarcely be conceived in the mind; for nothing more pleasant can befall a rightly formed soul than to have conquered fortune by one's own prudence; other things only seem to be, but are not truly, pleasures.
To this point are the sayings of Diogenes, Diadochus, St. Chrysostom, and St. Basil, which Antonius cites in the Melissa, Part 1, chapter 58. For Diogenes, seeing a man lamenting that he would die in a foreign land, said: "Why do you lament, O fool! From everywhere the road to the underworld is the same;" Diadochus: "He who at the time of departure labors with fear will not pass freely by the princes of the underworld. For the timidity of the soul is, as it were, the patron and helper of their malice. But the soul which rejoices in the love of God at the time of departure, borne up above all the dark orders, is carried along with the Angels of peace;" St. Chrysostom: "One should rejoice at death; whether of a young man, because he has been immediately freed from the evils of this life; or of an old man, because having enjoyed to satiety those things which seem desirable in life, he has departed;" St. Basil: "Just as of those shut up in prison, some remain longer in the affliction of their bonds, while others are freed more quickly: so also of souls, some are detained a long time in this life, others a shorter time, our Creator providing for each of us with wise and profound counsel that cannot be fathomed by the human mind, according to the measure befitting each one's dignity. Do you not hear David saying: Lead my soul out of prison? Have you not heard of the saint, that his soul was released? And Simeon, embracing our Lord in his arms, did he not utter these words: Now You dismiss Your servant, Lord? For dwelling in the body is heavier than any affliction and prison for one hastening to the higher life."
and receive them gratefully, and spend them fruitfully, and submit your will in this to the divine will. He who does this, and thereby conquers the desire for a longer life and the fear of death — indeed, the meaning is, as if to say: Everyone ought to be content with the ten, or hundred, or thousand years of life appointed and granted to him by God; because in hell no one is reproached for having lived ten, or a hundred, that is, few or many years; but for having spent idly and lived badly the years, whether few or many, given him by God. Again, there is no one in hell who can accuse the shortness or length of life, or complain that he lived too little or too long, or that more years were owed by nature to his youth and constitution, so as to plead with and excuse himself before the condemning God for the brevity of his life, saying: If I had lived long, I would have done many good deeds, says Lyranus, and expiated my sins through penance.
To this end Seneca says, in his book On the Shortness of Life, chapter 1: "We do not have too little time, but we waste much. Life is long enough, and has been generously given for the accomplishment of the greatest things, if it were all well invested. But when it flows away through luxury and negligence, when it is spent on no good thing; at last, compelled by the final necessity, we realize that what we did not understand was passing has already passed. So it is: we did not receive a short life, but we made it so; nor are we poorly supplied with it, but we are wasteful of it: just as ample and royal riches, when they come to a bad master, are dissipated in a moment; but however modest they are, if entrusted to a good guardian, they grow with use: so our lifespan, for one who arranges it well, extends far. For, as the Comic poet says: Virtue extends the span of a narrow life." Hence Alexander the Great, as reported by Curtius, Book 9: "I measure myself," he said, "not by the span of age, but of glory."
Second, as if to say: God in hell will not reproach or punish you for having lived much or little; but for having lived wickedly. Therefore it is not the brevity of life that should be feared, but wickedness.
Third, others say, as if to say: In hell there is no appeal to Pluto, Dis, Rhadamanthus, or other gods or judges whom the Gentiles posited; so that someone, pleading before them that he has lived too briefly, might obtain a return to life and more years of life; or accusing life of being so swift and fleeting, might compel it to return; or the soul of the deceased might wish and strive to return to it, according to that line of Virgil, Aeneid 6, from Plato and Pythagoras: And again they begin to wish to return into bodies.
Mystically, Dionysius says: "There is no accusation of life in hell," that is, he says, there is no salutary reproof of one's own life in hell, since there is no state or time for repenting or meriting there, according to that text of Psalm 6: "But in hell who shall confess to You?" Nevertheless there is belated repentance in hell, according to that text of Wisdom 5: "Such things said those who sinned in hell." See the preceding and following passages, miserable but fruitless. Therefore let one who is wise devote himself before death to salutary penance and the practice of good works. So says Dionysius. So also Lyranus and Delrio, Adage 197; passage 38: For the damned, they say, no time remains for accusing or confessing the sins of their past life; indeed there is not even a pliable will for doing so. And they add that this is the literal sense; but rather it seems to be mystical, as is clear from the causal "for," and from the Greek, which connects this with the hundred and thousand years of the preceding verse.
7. BUT THERE IS NO ACCUSATION (in Greek elenchos, that is, reproof) OF LIFE IN THE UNDERWORLD. — In the first and genuine sense: Note: He asserts that to these wretched people death is not good, but seems good; and therefore they
there remains no time for confessing the sins of their past life; indeed there is no pliable will for doing so. And they add that this is the literal sense; but rather it seems to be mystical, as is clear from the causal "for," and from the Greek, which connects this with the hundred and thousand years of the preceding verse.
Moreover, the Greek combines this sentence with the preceding one, and thus reads: Whether ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years, there is no accusation or reproof of life in the underworld; the Zurich Bible: Whether you have ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years, life has no excuse against the underworld. So that the dying person descends to it, whether quickly or slowly according to the years appointed to each by God; see here again how the Zurich version is freer.
This is the fifth reason why death should not be refused; namely because anyone who refuses it does so in vain, since in the underworld there is no appeal, no return to life.
Sirach mentions only the underworld after death, not heaven; because in his age all, even the just, descended to the underworld until Christ, who by His blood opened heaven. And from this the sixth and strongest reason for not fearing death is drawn, namely that through it we pass to a better life in the heavens. For death is for the Saints the gateway to a blessed and eternal life. The pious, therefore, do not fear death, but love and desire it.
So Damascenus, in the History of Barlaam and Josaphat, chapter 4, relates that two monks, whom King Abner threatened with death, fearlessly replied: "You have spoken rightly, O king! Those who fear death are concerned about how they may escape it. But who are these, except those who waste away over perishable things, and admire them to the point of stupor? Since indeed they despair of obtaining any good in the next life, they cannot be torn from present things, and for this reason they fear death. But we who have long since come to hate the world and the things that are in the world, and walk the strait and narrow way for Christ's sake, are affected neither by the fear of death nor by the desire for present things: but we are held only by the desire for future things. Since therefore that death which you inflict on us becomes a passage to an eternal and more excellent life, for this reason it is for us a matter of desire rather than of terror."
The other ascetics did the same. Hence in the Lives of the Fathers, Book 7, chapter 24, where the daily meditations of twelve Anchorites are listed, as spurs to virtue; the second one's saying is: "I said, from the time I renounced the earth: today you were reborn, today you began to serve God, today you began to dwell here; be thus a pilgrim each day, and as one to be freed tomorrow — this I counseled myself daily;" the fifth one's: "I behold Angels ascending and descending for the calling of souls, and I always await my end, saying: My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready;" the sixth one's: "I think that each day the Lord says to me: Labor for My sake, and I will give you rest. Struggle yet a little while, and you will see My salvation and My glory. If you love Me, if you are My children, return to your Father in prayer."
Alfonso, king of Aragon, as Panormitanus and Aeneas Silvius attest in his Life, consoling a young man who dreaded death, said: "There is no reason why you should so fear death, since for those who die well and purely it is life, and the beginning of that life which is subject neither to pains, nor to fear, nor to envy, nor to any other troubles." Wherefore fittingly and piously Palacius says: Christian, your theology is loftier; for it is not your place to fear death, but to desire it: to desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ; to die is far better for you; it is your part to hold life in patience, death in desire; your conversation is not on earth, but in heaven; it is your part to say: "Draw me after you, we shall run in the fragrance of your ointments." For the more ardently the love of God burns your inmost parts, the more impatient is the desire for death. See St. Cyprian, in his treatise On Mortality, and St. Ambrose, in his book On the Good of Death.
Second Part of the Chapter
8. THE CHILDREN OF ABOMINATIONS ARE THE CHILDREN OF SINNERS, AND THOSE WHO DWELL NEAR THE HOUSES OF THE UNGODLY. — The Translator reads by splitting the word par' oikiais, that is, near or beside houses: others now read it as one word paroikiais, that is, in parishes, neighborhoods: hence the Complutensian translates: The children of sinners become abominable children (the Zurich Bible: execrable), and those who dwell in the neighborhoods of the ungodly; others: Those who associate with ungodly neighbors; the Roman editors retain the Greek paroikiis, and add the reason: Because, they say, it is not clear whether the sense is: And the children of the ungodly are such that they cannot be at rest, but are agitated by frequent changes of residence; or as in the Vulgate: And those who dwell near the houses of the ungodly. But we must follow the Vulgate; for it expressed the proper sense of the Greek: hence the Complutensian, Zurich Bible, and others agree with it, although the Syriac omits this entire part; for it translates: A despicable seed is the generation of sinners, and a vile offspring of the ungodly.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: The children of sinners, who either physically are born of sinners and are raised by them, or morally are formed by them in their life and morals, as students by teachers, subjects by a prelate, citizens by a magistrate, etc.; these, I say, become "children of abominations," that is, utterly abominable: because they imitate their fathers both on their own and when urged on by them; for fathers instill their own customs and attitudes in their children. I say the same of those "who dwell near the houses of the ungodly," that is, who associate with the ungodly at home and in familiar relations: for these absorb the ungodly speeches and actions of the ungodly; for which reason they become abominable among men, and therefore infamous. Wherefore Ben Sira, Alphabet 2, letter Phe, says: "Turn your face away from evil companions; do not take the road with them (do not go in the way with them): Restrain your foot from them, lest you be caught in their net." See Proverbs 1:15.
He passes from death to morals and reputation, to indicate that the death of the upright is happy, who leave behind them well-trained and virtuous children, in whom they themselves continue to live after death, as it were, and preserve and propagate their fame and name to posterity; conversely, that the death of sinners is unhappy, who leave behind them ungodly children, through whom their memory and name become abominable and infamous; for posthumous fame succeeds life: good fame succeeds a good life, bad fame a bad one. Therefore the living must pay the greatest attention to this, that they live in it honorably and gloriously; and therefore they must educate their children honorably, so that these may win for them a good reputation.
Note: These and similar sayings indicate what often happens, not what always happens. For sometimes evil and infamous parents leave behind good and glorious children; as Ahaz left Hezekiah, Amon left Josiah, Saul left Jonathan; and vice versa, good parents leave behind perverse children; as David left Absalom and Adonijah, Josiah left Jehoiakim, Hezekiah left Manasseh.
9. THE INHERITANCE OF THE CHILDREN OF SINNERS WILL PERISH, AND WITH THEIR SEED A CONTINUAL REPROACH. — In Greek endelechesei oneidos, that is, the infamy is constant, the disgrace continues and remains; the Complutensian: the reproach remains continually. The word "their" refers both to "children" and to "sinners," as if to say: The children of sinners will not only be abominable and infamous, but will also lose the goods left them by their parents either through gambling and luxury, or through lawsuits, shipwrecks, and misfortunes: because they were often unjustly acquired by their parents; and therefore God the just judge justly takes them away and transfers them to others. Again, not only are they themselves infamous, but they also transmit their disgrace to their "seed," that is, to their children and grandchildren; so that the entire lineage through future generations is perpetually stained and marked with reproach. So the Zurich Bible: The inheritance, it says, of wicked children will perish, and reproach will continually accompany their posterity. To this point is Psalm 7, where after listing the crimes of the wicked he adds and concludes: "Therefore God will destroy you utterly, He will pluck you up and remove you from your tent, and your root from the land of the living." Moreover the Syriac has: From an iniquitous son the dominion will perish, and with his seed poverty will dwell. From what has been said it is clear that fathers are like painters of morals (and consequently of reputation), which are impressed upon their children: for children are like parrots and apes, who whatever they hear from their parents, whatever they observe in them, they immediately reproduce in themselves by a kind of natural instinct of the mind: they speak thus, they act thus, as they learn from their parents.
10. THE CHILDREN COMPLAIN ABOUT AN UNGODLY FATHER; BECAUSE ON ACCOUNT OF HIM THEY ARE IN DISGRACE — both because the disgrace of the father passes to his posterity and becomes the disgrace of the children: and because the disgraceful morals of the children proceed from the disgraceful morals of the parents. Some incorrectly read quæruntur with a diphthong instead of queruntur: the Greek is mempsetai, that is, they will accuse. Hence the Zurich Bible: The children accuse an ungodly father, because on account of him they come into reproach; others: they are covered with insults. For everyone reproaches children with the crimes of their parents; just as it is an eternal reproach given to the Jews that their fathers killed Christ. The Syriac: Upright children will curse an iniquitous father, because on account of him they were despised in the world.
Moreover, if children accuse their parents in this life, much more will they accuse them on the day of judgment, when because of their wicked upbringing they will see themselves condemned along with them to hell, where they will perpetually blame them, indeed curse them, saying: Cursed be you, father, who raised me for hell. Rightly therefore Dionysius says, quoting St. Gregory: "Every person in authority is deserving of as many deaths and eternal condemnations as the examples of perdition he has given to his subjects." Hence it is written in Wisdom 4: "Children who are born of unlawful unions are witnesses of wickedness against their parents." However, children ought to accuse themselves more than their fathers, since by their own fault they imitated them and merited hell; especially since children in impiety often surpass their parents: "But the accuser ought to be better than the accused," says Aristotle, Politics 2.
11 and 12. WOE TO YOU, UNGODLY MEN, WHO HAVE FORSAKEN THE LAW OF THE LORD MOST HIGH! AND IF YOU ARE BORN, YOU WILL BE BORN UNDER A CURSE: AND IF YOU DIE, A CURSE WILL BE YOUR PORTION. — The Complutensian and other Greek codices add after the word "Most High": For if you become many, you will come to destruction; the Zurich Bible: For even if you increase, you will perish. But these words are deleted by the Greek codices corrected in Rome, as well as by our Translator, and they do not cohere with what follows. Again, Rabanus reads nascimini in the present tense; but with the Roman editions one should read nascemini in the future: for this is what the Greek gennetheesesthe means. For "a curse will be your portion," the Greek is kataran meristhesesthe, that is, you will be divided into a curse; the Complutensian: you will be divided; the Roman: you will be overcome.
Now as to the meaning, first, the Origenists, followers of Plato, and of the Pythagorean metempsychosis, that is, transmigration of souls, taught from this passage and similar ones that souls pre-existed before their bodies, and were sent into bodies as into a prison on account of sins then committed, to suffer punishments for their sins therein, and therefore are born under a curse. But this error was long ago condemned. Again, Calvin from this passage and similar ones holds that God, before any foresight of works, at His pleasure chose some and assigned them to heaven, and cursed others, that is, reprobated them, and assigned them to hell. But this is his blasphemous fatalism, which all people of sound mind abhor. For from this Beza, following his Calvin, writing on 1 John chapter 1, infers and teaches that no sins are venial for the reprobate, nor any mortal for the elect; and therefore one should not pray for the reprobate — all of which is insane and impious. Furthermore, the Semi-Pelagians argued from this that the reprobate are born under God's curse, because God, on account of their foreseen sins, reprobated them and destined them for a cursed birth. But this implies a contradiction; for being born comes before sinning once born; therefore God predestined the reprobate to be born before He foresaw their sins and reprobated them on account of those sins. If you say the sins were foreseen by God not absolutely, but conditionally — namely, if He were to create them and cause them to be born — this is equally absurd: for God punishes no one with an absolute punishment for a sin only conditionally future; for an absolute punishment requires actual and absolute guilt. See St. Augustine refuting this opinion in his book On the Predestination of the Saints, chapters 13 and 14.
Second, others refer this to original sin: for on account of it we are all born children of wrath and of the curse of God, Ephesians chapter 2. But this sin is common to all, both the elect and the reprobate. Here, however, the subject is the sin of the ungodly, which they actually commit, and therefore they are cursed and condemned.
Third, Palacius takes this not of the first birth, but of the second and repeated one, by which some who had already been born and died were recalled to life by Elijah, Elisha, and others, and as it were born again, as if to say: If a sinner who has already died is raised to life and as it were born again, he is born under a curse; because he died under a curse; for after death no fruitful and salutary penance can be performed. But those who were raised were very few; and not sinners, but innocent children.
Fourth, Jansenius thinks this passage deals with the abandonment of the reprobate in the mass of original sin and damnation; and that it signifies that God, before the foresight of works, on account of Adam's sin, seeing all his posterity infected by it, decreed to snatch some from it and save them; to leave others in it, to curse and condemn them, according to that text of Romans 9:11: "When they had not yet been born, or had done anything good or bad, not by works but by Him who calls, it was said, etc.: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." The meaning therefore is, says Jansenius, as if to say: God cursed the reprobate both in their birth and in their death. For He decreed to leave them in original sin, in which they are born, and to condemn them at death. But this interpretation is harsh and unsuited to this passage: harsh, because God wills to save all of Adam's posterity; and therefore He sent Christ to save all: wherefore He reprobates no one before the foresight of the final sin in which one departs and dies, as I showed on Hosea chapter 11:9. Unsuited, because here the subject is not the curse of original sin, but of actual sin, as is clear from the preceding and following context; and from the words "who have forsaken the law of the Lord Most High;" certainly through their own act. Add that properly speaking this passage does not deal with all the reprobate, but with the ungodly children of sinners; for the preceding discourse was about these. Hence:
Fifth, the same Jansenius thinks that by the name of curse here is not signified God's eternal reprobation, but some misery and calamity to be divinely inflicted in this world, whether on account of their parents' sins or their own. According to this understanding it is also rightly said that the ungodly, when they were born, on account of their foreseen future evil works, were born to endure God's curse, that is, God's vengeance in this life: just as, when they die, on account of their performed evil works, they are compelled to endure God's curse, that is, the vengeance of damnation. Hence the Syriac translates: Woe to iniquitous men, because misfortune will accompany them even to the day of their death!
I say therefore: For "under a curse," the Greek is eis kataran, that is, toward a curse, which you will bring upon yourselves by your crimes which you will commit. It is a prosopopoeia. For he abstracts from the birth of the ungodly, and speaks to the ungodly as if not yet born, whom God foresaw would act wickedly and be ungodly, as if to say: Woe to you, ungodly ones, who have forsaken the law of the Lord! Wretched is your lot and condition: for if you are born (as indeed you will be born), you will be born for a curse; because you will be raised by your parents in sins, and you will live wickedly, for which God will curse you: but if you die, you will be sent to an eternal curse, namely to hell; so that your portion and lot will be with the damned, cursed by God for all eternity. So Lyranus: "Woe, he says, is a threat of eternal malediction. If you are born, that is, your birth was made for the curse of guilt, and your death for the curse of hell, not from the author of nature, but from the defect of parental discipline."
Add that by "birth" one can metonymically understand the life for which we are born, as if to say: O ungodly ones, both in life and in death you will be cursed: because you will live under the curse of guilt, and you will die under the curse of hell. Hence the Zurich Bible, reading genneethate (that is, "you will have been, you will have lived") instead of genneethete (that is, "you will be born"), translates: Woe to you, ungodly men, deserters of the law of the most high God! If you live, you will be execrable: and if you die, likewise detestable.
Furthermore, the generation of ungodly parents, and the birth of ungodly children, is often corrupt and cursed: because ungodly parents through their corrupt blood and seed transmit their drunkenness, lust, anger, and other vices and depraved inclinations to their children; therefore their children are born under a curse, because they are inclined to every evil.
Add that God, cursing the generation of the ungodly, often curses the children on account of their cursed parents, according to the curse of Noah upon Canaan the son, on account of his father Ham: "Cursed be Canaan," because he would follow the impiety of his father Ham, Genesis 9:23. Hence God ordered the Canaanites to be utterly destroyed by the Hebrews; because their seed and lineage was plainly corrupt and incorrigible, as the Wise Man teaches, chapter 12:10: "Not being ignorant, he says, that their nation is wicked, and their malice natural, and that their way of thinking could not be changed forever; for their seed was cursed from the beginning."
Finally, this sentence can be taken in a formal sense, in which the ungodly are said to be born when they sin and act impiously: for then they seem as it were to be born from impiety. For "the ungodly" in Scripture are not all sinners who fall into some sin through frailty; but only the notable and outstanding ones, who have brought upon themselves a habit and callousness of sinning, and are so hardened in it that they sin from deliberate and determined malice: such are the infidels and atheists who impiously deny all divinity. For by prosopopoeia Scripture attributes both to impiety and sin, and to virtue and holiness, their own generation, posterity, and lineage. Hence just as those who devote themselves entirely to obedience, justice, charity, mercy are called children of obedience, justice, charity, mercy, so that they seem to be born from it — as the Gentiles said of Cato: "Cato and self-control seem to have been born from the same womb" — so conversely those who are plainly proud, disobedient, licentious, and ungodly are called children of pride, disobedience, licentiousness, impiety, so that they seem to have been begotten from the womb of pride, licentiousness, and impiety.
He alludes to what he said in chapter 3:1: "The children of wisdom are the Church of the just, and their nation is obedience and love." See what was said there. Thus the sense will be, as if to say: Woe to you, ungodly ones, who have forsaken the law of the Lord! For if you are born in your impiety, you will be born under a curse: for God curses impiety and the ungodly; if you die in impiety, you will die under a curse; because just as you have lived in guilt, so you will die in punishment and hell. The following text greatly fits this meaning:
13. ALL THINGS THAT ARE FROM THE EARTH WILL RETURN TO THE EARTH: SO THE UNGODLY FROM A CURSE (in Greek, kataras, that is, a curse) TO DESTRUCTION — as if to say: Just as things born from the earth return to the earth and perish; so the ungodly, born from a curse, that is, from the cursed seed of their parents and from their own cursed impiety, will in death return to a curse, that is, to destruction and hell, where there is, as it were, a sea that is the receptacle of every curse, that is, of all guilt and punishment, and of all the ungodly and wicked. The Complutensian Greek deletes the words "from a curse"; but the Roman, Zurich, and others restore it. Hence the Zurich Bible thus translates: Whatever consists of earth will go to the earth; and likewise the ungodly from execration to destruction. In a similar sense you might say: The ungodly will return to hell; because they came forth from hell. The ungodly will return to hell after death, because they were begotten from it: for they were begotten from guilt and impiety, whose royal seat and throne is in hell, upon which Lucifer sits and presides, who breathes the poison of his crimes into all men. Hence all the ungodly are called "children of Belial," that is, children of the demon and of Lucifer; and therefore receiving with him the sentence of a curse from Christ the Judge, they will hear: "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels," Matthew 25. So Rabanus, Lyranus, Dionysius, and others.
14. THE MOURNING OF MEN IS ABOUT THEIR BODY: BUT THE NAME OF THE UNGODLY WILL BE BLOTTED OUT. — "In the body," that is, on account of the body, namely on account of the death and destruction of the body. It is a Hebraism: for Hebrews often use beth, that is "in," for "on account of"; the Greek has: The mourning of men is in their bodies; but the name of sinners (for one should read with the Roman editions hamartolon, not with the Complutensian anthropon, that is, of men) — not good — will be blotted out. But the words "not good" should be deleted with our Translator: for they are added superfluously, and diminish the meaning, indeed distort it: for the ungodly wish their good name not to be blotted out, but are glad for the bad and infamous one to be blotted out.
Now first, Lyranus gives this meaning: The mourning of men, that is, of those living humanely and rationally, is in their body, as if to say: If the good are afflicted, it is in this present life only, as long as they are in this mortal body: But the name of the ungodly will be blotted out, namely from the book of life, and so they will be tortured by the death of hell. So says Lyranus, and Dionysius agrees: The mourning of men is in their body, that is, he says, good and rational people in this mortal flesh and valley of tears bewail themselves and their own and their neighbors' sins, of which the Truth declares: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," Matthew 5. Indeed Rabanus adds: "Here he uses 'men' for the wise who use well the reason of the soul, and submit themselves by obeying the divine commandments. These have mourning only in the present life, but afterwards they will rejoice in perpetual joy. Hence it is written: Blessed are those who mourn now, for they shall be comforted. But the name of the ungodly will be blotted out, because plunged into hell they will be handed over to eternal oblivion. For the Judge will say to them: Depart from Me, all you who work iniquity; amen I say to you, I never knew you."
Second, therefore, Jansenius explains it plainly and literally thus, as if to say: Men are mourned when their body dies and is handed over for burial; and by such mourning the memory and name of the dead is honored; but this will not avail to preserve their memory: because the name of the ungodly, which is often famous in this life, after death will immediately be blotted out, and will be buried together with the body, or shortly after. And thus men are mourned on account of their body, when it dies and is buried: but the ungodly ought to be mourned even more, because together with the body their name also and their famous memory is blotted out.
Hence the Zurich Bible translates: That men may follow the bodies of their dead with mourning; yet the evil name of the wicked will perish. For the force of the antithesis, which is customary in the proverbs of Solomon and Sirach, consists in this place in the fact that the life of men perishes, and therefore they are mourned; but for the ungodly, not only life, but together with life their name and fame will perish, and therefore they are more to be mourned. For in that age, when faith in the resurrection, blessedness, and heavenly glory was obscure, all, both the faithful and the unfaithful, desired and longed for fame and glory, so that they might survive in it, and live on as it were. Hence they procured for themselves magnificent tombs, columns, statues, inscriptions, etc., with which Rome and Italy are filled; therefore they grieved exceedingly if they thought their name and fame would soon perish. Hence the Wise Man threatens them with this as a great punishment, Proverbs 10: "The name of the ungodly will rot," and the Psalmist, Psalm 9: "Their memory has perished with a crash." And: "Let them be blotted out from the book of the living, and not be written with the just." And again: "You have blotted out their name forever, and to the age of ages."
Palacius adds: The mourning for corpses, he says, usually lasts as long as they are present; for once they are handed over for burial, tears usually cease. But the name and fame of the ungodly, even though they be kings and princes, is sometimes blotted out even before they are committed to burial; for as soon as the people hear they are dead, they recount their impieties: therefore their fame ceases, and infamy begins.
Moreover, the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans so detested the names of criminals, and buried them in oblivion, that they could not bear to pronounce them, or to give them to any of their own, or to use them in any way. Hence among the Hebrews no one tolerated being called Cain, Ham, Canaan, Nimrod, or Pharaoh; and among Christians no one tolerates being called Judas, lest the name of Judas the traitor bring ill omen upon himself and his family. Among the Greeks, as Strabo attests, Book 14, the Ephesians forbade the name of the man who had burned the temple of Diana to be pronounced: and it would not have been heard had not Theopompus made it public — it was Herostratus or Eratosthenes. The Romans forbade the names of patricians who had deserved ill of the Republic, and had therefore been condemned, to be given to any patrician of the same clan: the Manlian family among them forbade anyone of their members to bear the first name Marcus, after M. Manlius Capitolinus was thrown from the Tarpeian Rock on suspicion of aspiring to kingship. So Pliny, On Famous Men, or Suetonius. The surname Antoninus, which Heliogabalus so disgraced by the foulness of his life, though it had been so famous and customary among other emperors, no one bore after him; and by decree of the senate it was deleted from all public works, and rejected as a dire and detestable thing. So Sabellius, Book 6, Ennead 7. The clan of the Claudii dropped the first name Lucius, since of two members of the clan who bore it, one was convicted of robbery, the other of murder. So Suetonius, in Tiberius. The senate decreed, after the defeat of Mark Antony, that no one of the Antonian clan should be named Marcus, as Plutarch attests in his Life of Antony. So our Lorinus, on the Epistle of St. Jude, verse 1.
15. HAVE CARE FOR A GOOD NAME: FOR THIS WILL REMAIN WITH YOU MORE THAN A THOUSAND PRECIOUS AND GREAT TREASURES. — The Syriac: Reflect upon your name, because it will accompany you more than thousands of treasures of fraud, that is, obtained and acquired by fraud. He said that the evil name of the ungodly is to be blotted out, from which he here infers that a good name must be cultivated through good and virtuous actions; lest we fall into this evil of the ungodly, and lose along with life all name and fame, as if to say: Devote yourself to good and heroic acts of virtue, so that through them you may acquire a good name before God, the Angels, and upright men, and even before the wicked; for the wicked, even though they live wickedly, nevertheless love and admire in others probity and virtue: so great is the attractiveness and brightness of virtue! He adds the reason: that a good name endures longer than a thousand treasures: both because treasures perish for a man with life; but a good name remains for him after life through many ages; and because treasures can be snatched from a man living and unwilling by thieves, robbers, and enemies, and often are snatched; but a good name cannot be taken away from an unwilling person; because as long as you are willing to pursue virtue, so long you will be well spoken of by all.
Moreover, the soul, because it is immortal, just as it always lives in itself, so likewise it desires to always live through good fame in the mind and memory of men. Therefore this desire for fame is a sure indication of the immortality of the soul. For if the soul were to die and perish, what good would a name and fame among men do for it? For it would have no sense or taste of it; indeed the damned who are in the second death, for example, Alexander, Cyrus, Julius Caesar, are not refreshed but rather tormented by the name and fame which they hold among men — both because it seems to them unworthy and ignominious that men so famous and celebrated should be so tormented and despised in hell; and because the desire for fame and glory was for them the cause of tyranny, plunder, and crimes, on account of which they were condemned.
The Greek reads: Have care for your name; for this will remain with you rather than a thousand treasures of gold. So Vatablus.
He alludes to Proverbs 22:1: "A good name is better than great riches." For name and fame are a good of a higher order than riches are. Just as all silver cannot equal the smallest gold in dignity, even if it equals it in price according to men's estimation: so all riches cannot equal the smallest fame in dignity and excellence, although compensation for injured reputation among common persons is sometimes made with gold and silver.
Moreover, the care of one's reputation falls indeed upon everyone, but especially upon Pastors, Prelates, likewise upon those who strive for the gain of souls, and upon Religious: for the reputation of a Religious is the reputation of the Religious Order, so that an entire Order sometimes gets a bad name on account of the infamy of one Religious. Hence the Apostle says: "Providing good things not only before God, but also before men," Romans 12:17. And: "We have been made a spectacle to the world, and to Angels, and to men," 1 Corinthians 4. Therefore if such a person neglects his reputation, he is unjust and cruel.
Philosophers who followed Solomon and Sirach left the same in writing: Seneca, On the Remedies of Fortune: "The good opinion of men is safer than money;" Isocrates, quoted by Stobaeus, Sermon 46: "Be more concerned to leave your children an honorable reputation than enormous riches; for these are mortal, the former immortal;" Plautus, in the Mostellaria: "If I preserve a good reputation for myself, I shall be rich enough." Hence that punishment threatened against the ungodly: "You have blotted out their name forever, and to the age of ages," Psalm 9:6. And Proverbs 10:7: "The memory of the just is with praises (the Septuagint: with encomiums), the name of the ungodly will rot." Finally, R. Simeon says elegantly, in the Pirke Avoth, that is, in the Sayings of the Fathers, chapter 4: "There are three crowns, namely the crown of the law, of the priesthood, and of the kingdom; but the crown of good reputation is far more illustrious and precious than all of these."
16. THE DAYS OF A GOOD LIFE ARE NUMBERED: BUT A GOOD NAME WILL ENDURE FOREVER. — Some take "good life" to mean a pleasant, cheerful, and happy one, as if to say: The happiness of this life is numbered, and therefore must end and is brief: but a "good name" lasts through many centuries. For "good" is often taken to mean pleasant, and "evil" to mean sad, as: "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!" Better, however, and more properly, by "good life" one should understand an honest, upright, just, and holy life. "The number of days" means fewness; for few days are easily countable and measurable, according to Psalm 38:6: "Make known to me, O Lord, my end and the number of my days. What is it, that I may know what I lack? Behold, You have made my days measurable, and my substance is as nothing before You." For "measurable," St. Jerome translates "brief," for the Hebrew is tepachot; the Septuagint reads palaistas, that is, handbreadths, that is, spans of four fingers not exceeding the measure of four digits; for palaiste is a measure of four fingers, which is the third part of a palm, and is the smallest measure among those commonly taken on the hands and arms. So Hesychius, Theodoret, Genebrardus, Jansenius, and others on Psalm 38.
The sense therefore is, as if to say: By a span-measure, that is, the smallest measure, You have measured and defined the days of my life; You have decreed my days to be very few and as it were momentary. Hence the Hebrews call "men of number" a few men, and "days of number" a few days, as of a small number and easily counted. Sirach says therefore: A good life has few days, and they are quickly counted; but a good name, which is won through it, endures forever. So the Zurich Bible: The days of a good life, it says, are few: but a good name endures in perpetuity; others: A good life ends with the number of its days; but a good name endures forever. This is a sharp spur to a good life and virtue; namely, that through its moderate and brief labor we prepare for ourselves an eternal name, and that always before God, the Angels, and the Blessed in heaven: before men, however, not always, but frequently. For the Saints here hide their virtues, and wish to be known only to God and the Angels: whose glory, therefore, will be greater in heaven. For the fame of this life is small, and therefore should be held of little account.
Third Part of the Chapter
17 and 18. PRESERVE DISCIPLINE IN PEACE, MY CHILDREN; FOR WHAT USE IS THERE IN HIDDEN WISDOM AND AN UNSEEN (that is, as Jansenius reads, hidden) TREASURE? BETTER IS THE MAN WHO HIDES HIS FOOLISHNESS THAN THE MAN WHO HIDES HIS WISDOM. — Sirach is accustomed from time to time to arouse his student and reader to attention by addressing them directly, as teachers are wont to do; especially when the discourse is rather long: for then students, fatigued by its length, become bored and fall asleep: hence to prevent both, they endeavor to rouse them with a kind of new introduction and to win their renewed attention, especially when a new topic of discourse presents itself, as it does here. This therefore is the prologue to what he is about to say concerning shame and things to be ashamed of, by which he spurs his readers to attend to them, and to impress and preserve them in their minds.
He says therefore: "Preserve discipline in peace, my children." First, plainly and simply, by "peace" understand the tranquility and quiet of the mind: for this is required as a disposition in the student, so that he may receive, grasp, and preserve the teaching of the master. For those who are restless or troubled in mind are incapable of learning. Hence Aristotle, in the Ethics, requires a student who has his passions calmed and composed. Especially, however, by peace he means the lowliness and gentleness of spirit which humbly and peacefully receives the words of the teacher.
For the proud and contentious, who wish to examine and censure the words of the teacher, and to dispute and argue against them, are unfit to absorb the teacher's doctrine. Such are bold, unbridled, and insolent youths, who, when they hear from their elders that they should be ashamed of their morals being so free, bold, and unruly, reply that there is nothing in them to be ashamed of, but that the old are overbearing, morose, scrupulous, and timid; and therefore things seem fearful and shameful to them which are not really to be feared or to be ashamed of. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: O children, O students, if you wish to grasp my teaching, bring a quiet, humble, and peaceful mind: for with it you will grasp, understand, and preserve what I say. For I speak and write these things for your sake and your benefit: I do not wish to keep them for myself, or to store them in my own mind; but to open and share them with you as a treasure of wisdom. For just as a treasure, if it is hidden, is of no use to anyone: so too wisdom, if it is concealed by a wise man, profits no one: since it was given to him by God for this purpose, that through it he might teach and direct not only himself but also others toward virtue and salvation: and therefore the fool who hides his foolishness is better than the wise man who conceals his wisdom. See what I said about both of these maxims in chapter 20, verses 32 and 33. For both are found there, and repeated here.
Christ demanded the same condition of humility and peace from His faithful; hence He says: "I confess to You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so it was well-pleasing before You," Matthew 11:25. Indeed Pythagoras demanded from his disciples not only peace, but also a five-year silence. Hence that saying, autos epha, "he himself," namely Pythagoras, "said this:" therefore without any further inquiry it must be believed and done. So Lyranus, Dionysius, Jansenius, and others.
Second, more sublimely: "discipline in peace," that is, of peace, or concerning peace (for Hebrews by beth, that is "in," indicate the genitive case), "preserve, my children," as if to say: The following things which I shall teach you about avoiding shameful and embarrassing matters pertain to peace: namely, that you may cultivate peace, grace, and propriety with all people. Therefore receive this teaching carefully, since it belongs to peace and concerns peace, which is desirable to all.
Third, "peace" for the Hebrews signifies prosperity and abundance and plenty of things, as if to say: Preserve this teaching of mine, not only in adverse and sad circumstances, but also in favorable and joyful ones; when you abound in riches, pleasures, and every kind of happiness: for these tend to relax and dissolve the mind that is attentive to discipline, so that it slips and flows toward those things so greatly desired. Hence St. Bernard, Sermon 2 on Palm Sunday: "Although, he says, adversity breaks many, yet prosperity exalts far more, as it is written: A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand," in which prosperity is signified.
The same, Book 2 On Consideration, chapter 12: "It is indeed, if you attend carefully, how rare it has always been for someone not to relax his mind at least slightly from self-guard and discipline in prosperity. When has this not been for the incautious like fire to wax, like the sun's ray to snow or ice? David was wise, Solomon was wise: but when circumstances were too favorable and flattering, the one in part, the other entirely became foolish. Great is he who, falling into adversity, does not fall at all or only slightly from wisdom; nor is he less great for whom present happiness, if it smiled, did not mock. Although you will more easily find those who retained wisdom when fortune was against them, than those who did not lose it when fortune was favorable. He is to be preferred, and is great, upon whom amid prosperity at least no unseemly laughter, or insolent speech, or immoderate care for dress or body has crept in."
Scholars ask why Job, struck by grave and manifold temptation, emerged victorious; but Adam, enticed by one slight allurement of Eve, succumbed and destroyed both himself and all his posterity. St. Augustine assigns the reason, on Psalm 47: "Man (Job) conquered, he says, in the dung heap; (Adam) was conquered in paradise," as if to say: Sufferings and adversity did not break Job, but delights and prosperity subjugated Adam. Therefore the devil tempts men more through prosperity than through adversity, and then he is often certain of victory; when, that is, he leads the delights of the world and the blandishments of the flesh in a sweet but dangerous battle line against man of clay and flesh, then he frequently conquers and triumphs: for the flesh is captured by prosperous and carnal things; but in adversity, as if by antiperistasis, the mind raises up and strengthens the flesh.
The Zurich Bible expressed this meaning: Children, it says, preserve discipline in prosperous times. When wisdom lies hidden and a treasure is concealed, what profit is in either? The man who conceals his foolishness is better than the man who hides his wisdom.
Fourth, Palacius explains, as if to say: O children, while you live in peace, preserve this discipline which I pass on to you.
Mystically, Rabanus says: "Preserve discipline in peace, my children. He therefore preserves discipline in peace who strives to live in holiness and justice according to the two precepts of charity. Of which Paul writes to the Hebrews: Pursue peace with all and holiness, without which no one will see God. And because it is not enough for anyone to live well by himself, if he does not strive to benefit his neighbors with sound doctrine as much as he can, it is immediately added: For what use is there in hidden wisdom and a concealed treasure?" And below: "Hence it is well said by Solomon, Proverbs 11: He who hides grain will be cursed among the peoples. For to hide grain is to retain within oneself the words of holy preaching. And among the peoples such a one will be cursed, because through the fault of silence alone he is condemned to punishment for the many whom he could have corrected. And: The soul that blesses will grow fat; and he who inebriates will himself also be inebriated: for he who blesses by preaching outwardly receives the richness of interior growth; and while he does not cease to inebriate the minds of his hearers with the wine of eloquence, he himself grows, inebriated with the drink of multiplied gifts. Hence Isaiah, chapter 6: Woe to me, he says, because I was silent! And Paul, Acts 20:26: I testify to you this day that I am clean from the blood of all; for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God." These are scattered sayings from Rabanus.
19 and 20. NEVERTHELESS, SHOW REVERENCE IN THESE THINGS WHICH PROCEED FROM MY MOUTH. FOR IT IS NOT GOOD TO OBSERVE EVERY KIND OF SHAME: AND NOT ALL THINGS ARE WELL PLEASING TO ALL IN FAITH. — So read the Roman and Greek editions. Therefore some wrongly read "return" instead of entrapete, that is, "show reverence," and instead of aischynen, that is, shame, modesty, reverence, they read the opposite, irreverence. For "nevertheless," the Greek is toigaroun, that is, therefore, accordingly, wherefore. The meaning is, as if to say: I said that this teaching of mine which follows concerning shame is to be received by you, O students, in the peace of a humble, lowly, and quiet mind; therefore, to show that disposition, "show reverence," that is, put on reverence, shame, and modesty concerning those things which I am about to tell you are to be revered and blushed at. For not all shame of all people is good. For there are some who are ashamed to profess faith before heretics, chastity before the licentious, sobriety before gluttons, etc. — which shame is certainly backward and perverse. Again there are others who are ashamed of humility, mortification, penance, and zeal: because they are cold and lukewarm, and content with an ordinary life and virtue; hence they do not approve of new, rare, and heroic works of virtue. Therefore "not all things are well pleasing to all in faith," that is, things done faithfully, rightly, justly, and holily, as if to say: Nevertheless one should not be ashamed of these things; because this shame is not good, and therefore not to be imitated; but to be generously overcome and defeated. In a similar way he said in chapter 37:31: "Do not give that wicked soul power; for not all things are expedient for all, and not every kind pleases every soul." Therefore, so that you may distinguish good shame from bad and backward shame, I shall teach, first, the things of which you ought to be ashamed; second, those of which you ought not to be ashamed. Hence I say: "Be ashamed before father and mother of fornication," etc.
Note here that the Latin translator often uses "reverence" for shame and modesty, and "to revere" for to be ashamed and to blush; as in Psalm 34:26: "Let them blush and be put to shame together, who rejoice at my evils; let them be clothed in confusion and shame, who speak great things against me." Psalm 68:20: "You know my reproach, and my confusion, and my shame." 1 Corinthians 15:34: "I speak to your shame (that is, to your modesty, so that you may be ashamed)." Again, "in faith" means faithfully, completely, and rightly done. So God is said to have made "all His works in faith," that is, completely and perfectly, Psalm 32:4. "Faith" could also be taken for constancy, as if to say: Not all things that are done in faith, that is, constantly and generously, please everyone: for many people politically change their customs and speech to accommodate themselves to all; because they are ashamed of the constancy of virtue. If Hebrews call beemuna, that is, "in faith," that which is done with firmness and constancy, or what is done firmly, constantly, and solidly, then Tobias says in chapter 2:18: "We are children of saints, and we look for that life which God will give to those who never change their faith from Him." And Apocalypse 13:10: "Here is the patience and faith (constancy) of the saints." The Zurich Bible follows this meaning: but deflects the sense in another direction. For it translates thus: For it is not becoming to be held by every kind of shame; nor are all things to be solidly approved in all people.
The Apostle uses "in faith" or "from faith" differently, Romans 14:23, namely for that which is done according to the belief and dictate of conscience, by which one believes this or that is lawful to do without the scruple of sin.
Moreover, Lyranus, reading irreverence instead of reverence, explains it thus: It is not good, he says, for a student to show any irreverence to the teacher, by despising or neglecting his teaching. And not all the teacher's sayings are "well pleasing in faith" to all students, that is, although they are in accord with faith, yet they do not please them, because they are imbued with another opinion, as if to say: Nevertheless, on account of such displeasure, they ought not to show any irreverence; for everyone abounds in his own judgment. So say Lyranus and Dionysius.
But Palacius says: It is not good, he says, to have all shamelessness and impudence; it is not good to be entirely without shame, for things done impudently do not please all, as if they were done faithfully. Therefore be ashamed to do before all what will not please all, and indeed will displease many; because they are ashamed of the constancy of virtue.
Mystically, Rabanus says: "And not all things please all in faith. For one and the same exhortation does not suit all, because not all are bound by the same quality of character. For often what benefits some harms others; because frequently herbs that nourish these animals kill others; and a gentle whistle calms horses but excites puppies; and a medicine that lessens this disease adds strength to another; and bread that strengthens the life of the strong kills infants. Therefore the discourse of teachers must be formed according to the quality of the hearers; so that it may suit each individually, and yet never depart from the art of common edification."
21. BE ASHAMED BEFORE FATHER AND MOTHER OF FORNICATION. — He enumerates sixteen things of which everyone ought to be ashamed, either because of the sin and crime they contain, or because of their indecency and impropriety. The first is fornication; for all should blush at this, but especially children before their father and mother, that is, in the presence of their father and mother; and this because parents bear it with extreme difficulty when their children fornicate; both because this is a great disgrace to them; and because it is a sign of the negligence of the parents, namely that they did not raise and keep their children sufficiently rightly and chastely; and because they desire their children to be joined in honorable marriage, through which legitimate grandchildren may be conceived, who would succeed them in their inheritance; not illegitimate, spurious, and uncertain ones; and finally, because if they are daughters and they fornicate, they cannot give them in marriage to any honorable and equal partner: for no one wishes to marry women who have been defiled or are harlots.
Demades excellently said that modesty in a woman was the citadel of beauty. And Demetrius Phalereus admonished young men "to revere their parents at home, those they met on the road, and in solitude to revere themselves." For shame deters young people most effectively from sinning, and it is everywhere present if one reveres himself. So Laertius, Book 5, chapter 5. Socrates asserted that "the God of Hospitality dwells among men who are partakers of just modesty." He also taught his disciples "to preserve these three things in all of life: prudence in the mind, modesty in the countenance, silence in the tongue." So Maximus, Sermon 41: Echereus said that "Jupiter the Thunderer favored the modest and shame-bearing." Democritus said: "Even if you are alone, neither say nor do anything evil. Learn to revere yourself far more than others." So Stobaeus, Sermon 29. Wisely Isocrates instructs Demonicus, saying: "Never doing anything shameful, hope that you will escape notice. For even if you escape the notice of others, you yourself will be aware. Seem to do all things as though no one is unaware; for even if you now escape notice, you will be seen later."
The second thing of which one should be ashamed: AND BEFORE A RULER AND A POWERFUL MAN OF LYING. — Note: The Greek apo, which our Translator renders as "before," is taken for "in the presence of" or "before"; for it denotes the person in whose presence, or before whom, or out of respect for whom and on account of whom (which the Hebrews express as mippene, that is, from the face, in the sight of) one should be ashamed; just as me'eth, that is "of," denotes the object or matter of the shame. Hence the Zurich Bible translates: Be ashamed of fornication before your father or mother; of lying before a prince and one who bears power; others: Be ashamed of fornication on account of your father and mother, and of lying on account of a ruler and a powerful man. For princes and rulers, just as they uphold the truthful and truth as necessary for judging, counseling, and governing rightly: so conversely they hate liars and lying; for they do not wish to be deceived and led into error; especially because their special endowment and praise is wisdom, to which fraud and falsehood are contrary; and because lying in their presence greatly harms the state and the public good; hence we see that princes, when falsely informed by flatterers about the state of the commonwealth and their subjects, govern very badly and ruin the state.
22. The third is: BEFORE A PRINCE AND A JUDGE OF AN OFFENSE. — In Greek peri plemmeleias, that is, of negligence, by which someone serving as steward, procurator, advocate, or in a similar office before judges or princes, is negligent in it; and through negligence omits those things which the office entrusted to him requires; for by this it happens that the judge is compelled to pervert the judgment, or at least to cut it short or delay it, as also the prince in public business; or certainly their edicts and mandates are despised, when prætors and their other officials neglect to put them into practice and to punish those who transgress them. Moreover, Palacius explains it thus, as if to say: Beware of committing a crime in the sight of the judge and the prince; for if he catches you in the act of a crime, he will punish and chastise you without other witnesses; as Moses punished the Hebrews who were worshiping the golden calf, Exodus chapter 32. Another interpretation, as if to say: Do not detract from or impute a crime to the prince or judge, for example, tyranny, injustice, avarice, etc., according to that saying of Pythagoras: "Never point your finger at a star, that is, speak nothing rashly about supreme men."
The fourth is: BEFORE THE ASSEMBLY AND THE PEOPLE OF INIQUITY. — The Zurich Bible: Be ashamed of a crime before the congregation and the people; because if before the assembly of the people and the populace you do something unjust against their privileges, laws (for anomia is what is against the laws, and outside the law), customs; you will stir up everyone against you; so that they pursue you with hatred and insults, and punish you with loss of property or life, according to that text of chapter 7: "Do not sin against the multitude of the city, nor throw yourself upon the people." For if you sin against one person, you will fear one avenger; but if against the people, you will stir them all up against you: one person can be appeased, but how will you appease an entire multitude? Rehoboam, having experienced this, lost the kingdom of the ten tribes, 2 Kings chapter 12. Wisely therefore Isocrates instructs Demonicus, saying: "Depart from public offices not richer, but more glorious; for better than much money is praise that comes from the multitude. Avoid slanders, even false ones; because the common people look not so much to the truth as to reputation. Consider that nothing human is stable. For thus you will be neither excessively joyful when fortunate, nor excessively sad when unfortunate."
23. BEFORE A COMPANION AND FRIEND OF INJUSTICE. — The fifth thing of which we should be ashamed is "injustice before a companion and friend;" because we unjustly inflict injury and harm upon him; for all injustice is base and shameful, but especially that which is inflicted upon a friend and companion; to whom we owe not only what is due by the name of justice, but also kindness by reason of fellowship and friendship; especially because he entrusts himself and his things to us, as to his faithful friends. Isocrates says excellently to Demonicus: "Judge it equally base to be overcome by the malice of enemies, and to be surpassed by the kindness of friends."
The sixth is: IN THE PLACE WHERE YOU DWELL, OF THEFT. — For "of," the Greek has the preposition apo, which, as I said shortly before, our Translator renders as "before," that is, in the presence of, among, on account of.
Hence the Complutensian and Roman editions translate "from the place"; our Translator renders it "in the place"; because a place is not a person, as are a father, prince, judge, and the others preceding, to whom he therefore prefixed the preposition "before," that is, in the presence of. But because by place he means the people who inhabit the place, hence you would more conveniently translate "before the place." The Zurich Bible: Be ashamed of theft in the place where you dwell, as if to say: Be ashamed to steal in the place where you live, both because it is base to stain your home and neighborhood with theft, so that you hear from your neighbors that you are a thief, and all flee from you and abhor you as an infamous person; for who does not fear for his possessions from a neighboring thief? And because the place, for example your homeland, begot us, educated us, nourished and nourishes us: therefore it demands the utmost fidelity from us. It is therefore unworthy if we harass and plunder it with theft. How then will you bear the common infamy by which all your people mark you? How in turn will your fellow citizens tolerate you as a public thief?
Moreover, what he adds: CONCERNING THE TRUTH OF GOD, AND THE COVENANT — Jansenius thinks this clause has crept in from the following chapter, verse 2, and should be deleted, because it does not have attached to it the subject matter, namely a sin, of which one should be ashamed. But the Latin and Greek codices consistently read it; therefore it should be referred both to theft and to the five preceding things, as if to say: Be ashamed of theft and of the five other crimes already enumerated, before (in Greek epi), that is, in the presence of, or on account of "the truth of God, and the covenant," that is, the law; because God's truth, that is, His equity, justice, and law, prohibit these things, and threaten them with grave punishments; so that he may distinguish these six from the following things, in which he will enumerate certain things to be ashamed of, not because they are crimes, but because they are unseemly and unbecoming. The Zurich Bible translates: Be ashamed before the truth of God, and the covenant; others: On account of the truth of God, and the covenant.
Second, Lyranus says: "Concerning the truth of God and the covenant" a person should blush when transgressing them; because God sees everywhere. And Dionysius says: Everywhere, and always, and most especially be ashamed of the violation and dishonoring of the truth of the divine law and its commandments; because the Most High Himself beholds all things.
Palacius takes it differently, referring these words to the following "of leaning on your elbow at meals." Be ashamed, he says, before the truth of God and His covenant; and do not recline at meals in the worship of idols. For it is certain that idolaters of old had the custom of eating food sacrificed to idols in the worship of their gods, according to that text: "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play," Exodus chapter 32. Indeed even the faithful ate at the worship of the true God, according to that text: "You shall feast before the Lord your God, you and your son," Deuteronomy 16. Be ashamed, therefore, to recline to eat before false gods, when the truth of God, and the covenant which you made with Him, forbids you. There is one true God; therefore Him alone shall you worship: again, you made a covenant with the one God: why, having violated the covenant, do you worship false gods?
Mystically, Rabanus explains these six shameful things thus: "In a higher sense, he says, he who pursues the idolatry of the Gentiles or the folly of heretics blushes before mother Church and Father God for fornication; for the soul which, having left the companionship of God, follows the error of the perverse, commits fornication spiritually: and hence will be condemned. But he blushes before the ruler and before the powerful one for lying, who is convicted before the eyes of the divine majesty of being a breaker of the promise he made at his reception of baptism."
24. OF LEANING ON YOUR ELBOW AT MEALS, AND OF THE DISGRACE OF GIVING AND RECEIVING. — The seventh thing to be ashamed of is "leaning on your elbow at meals," by which first, Palacius, as I said shortly before, understands reclining at the table of idols and eating idol-offerings, that is, breads and foods sacrificed to idols; second, Lyranus takes it as the first seat at another's table (for bread is usually placed at the head of the table, where the master of the house sits), which Christ forbids, Luke 14, saying: "When you are invited to a wedding, recline in the last place," for to take the first place by one's own authority is a sign of great ambition; third, Dionysius additionally understands excess in food and eating through gluttony. So also Rabanus: "On the day of judgment, he says, he will appear worthy of confusion who, giving himself over to feasting and drunkenness, basely leaned on his elbow."
But that these are either digressions or mystical meanings is clear from the Greek, which reads: kai apo episteriseos ankonos ep' artois, that is, as the Complutensian and Roman editions have it: from the planting of the elbow on bread; others read ep' artois, that is, upon bread. The sense is, as if to say: At table be ashamed to plant your elbow upon the bread and to lean on it, as peasants and rustics do. For first, this is boorish and uncivil: hence the Grobbianus (so is called the little book On Civility, or rather on the incivility of manners), among other acts of boorishness and incivility, specifically names and censures this one; second, this is a sign of irreverence toward God; for we ought to revere Him in His food and gifts with a modest and grateful countenance and gesture; for He feeds us freely from our youth; third, this is a sign of pride; for he who leans on the bread seems to be the master of the table and the feast, and to wish to dominate all the guests, as one who feeds them with his bread and could deny it to them if he wished; fourth, this is a sign of gluttony; for thus the gluttonous Hebrews, sighing for the pots of meat, said to Moses: "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate bread to the full!" Exodus 16:3. So pigs lean over their husks, and oxen over their pastures.
Symbolically, the rich man leans on his bread, who places his hope of life in the abundance of his crops and riches, or in the excellence of his craft, as did the one who ambitiously said to himself: "Soul, you have many good things laid up for many years: rest, eat, drink, feast." Wherefore God said to him: "Fool, this night they require your soul of you: and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" Luke 12:19.
The Zurich Bible suggests this meaning when it translates: Do not rest your elbow in preparing food, as if to say: Do not rely on and trust in the art of providing yourselves with food and riches.
The eighth is "the disgrace of giving and receiving;" disgrace means the blackening of reputation, that is, infamy, as if to say: Be ashamed of the infamy which you will incur if you cannot give a just account and reckoning of what was given and received, if you have received more than you have spent, if you cannot make the sum of what was received equal to the sum of what was given and spent; for this will prove you either a thief, or a squanderer and wastrel of another's property entrusted to you. For the book of accounts of what was given and received ought to be clear, not obscured. Be ashamed, therefore, if some darkness has obscured the book of expenditures, so that you cannot render a complete account of the debt, says Palacius. Again, be ashamed if you have given or received gifts for perverting justice, or for perpetrating something base or some other crime. Likewise if you have defiled a benefit received by an unworthy recompense.
So Lyranus, Dionysius, Jansenius. For "disgrace," the Greek is skorakismos, which the Complutensian translates as contempt; others as blackening: for korax, that is, crow, is derived from kore, that is, black, because it is the blackest of birds; others translate it as insulting repulsion; the Zurich Bible as reproach: Lest by giving or receiving, it says, you incur reproach; for skorakismos, says Hesychius, is chleuasmos, apate, phaulismos, apodokimasia, that is, reproach, blackening, fraud, insult, imposture: for skorakizo means the same as to reproach, to blacken, to revile, to defame, eis korakas apopempo, that is, to send to the crows, to consign to the gallows, to rout, to cast out, to condemn, to pursue with hatred. Hence the meaning could be, as if to say: Do not act like a crow, do not be thievish, do not blacken yourself with rapacity; for crows steal fruits, etc., and carry them to their nest, and never return or restore them.
Mystically, Rabanus refers this to the miser: "Who through stinginess, he says, does not give to his neighbors those things which he received from God to be held in common with all others."
25 and 26. BEFORE THOSE WHO GREET YOU OF SILENCE: OF GAZING AT A WOMAN WHO IS A HARLOT: AND OF TURNING AWAY THE FACE OF A KINSMAN. DO NOT TURN AWAY YOUR FACE FROM YOUR NEIGHBOR, AND OF TAKING AWAY A PORTION AND NOT RESTORING IT. — The ninth thing to be ashamed of is, as if to say: Be ashamed of silence before those who greet you; that is, if you do not return the greeting of those who greet you, but are silent and pass by in silence. For this is discourteous, uncivil, boorish, and a sign of an averse and arrogant mind. The Zurich Bible: Be ashamed of silence before those who greet you. This fault of silence when one does not address or greet a friend, the Greeks call aprosegorian; of which Aristotle says, Morals Book 8: "If the absence has been prolonged, it seems to bring about forgetfulness of the relationship." Hence the saying: Silence has broken many friendships. To this point is the saying of the money-lender Alfius, quoted by Columella: "Good debts sometimes become bad, if you never press for them." By "debts" understand obligations either of justice or of friendship, which if never pressed for, that is, demanded back, fall into oblivion and vanish.
Our Salazar takes it differently, on Proverbs chapter 27, number 78: Be ashamed "before those who greet you of silence;" that is, he says, be ashamed to greet others "amid the silence of the night," as if to say: Do not be a pre-dawn or nocturnal and importunate greeter, according to Proverbs 27:14: "He who blesses his neighbor with a loud voice, rising up early in the morning, will be like one who curses," as if to say: Whoever shouts out greetings at an untimely hour of the night, because of the grave annoyance he brings to those greeted, disturbing their sleep and startling them; this person will be considered no different from those who curse and wish evil. Thus "of silence" means the same as "at night," or during the silent night. But this sense seems rather obscure and less usual. Add that the Greek peri, that is "of," in this place denotes not the time but the matter of which one should be ashamed; just as apo, that is "before," denotes persons, as I said at verse 21.
To this point is the saying of Isocrates to Demonicus: "Be in manners indeed an easy greeter, but in words a good greeter. For it is the mark of an easy greeter to address those he meets; but of a good greeter, to receive them kindly in his very words."
Moreover, the Syriac paraphrases this maxim thus: Whoever is greeted and remains silent, he himself is a great defrauder: the greeting which you gave him, he does not return to you; the deposit which you give him, he returns to you in kind. So it happens that those who do not return a greeting do not return a deposit either.
Excellent is the saying: "Always return a greeting, indeed greet first." So the Blessed Virgin greeted Elizabeth first, and filled her and her child with the Holy Spirit. So the Apostle in all his epistles greets the faithful dutifully: "Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you," Philippians 4. Where Ambrosiaster says: "The greeting of brothers provides mutual consolation: for it presents images, as it were, of those torn away." Finally, honor (such as a greeting) resides in the one who honors and greets, not in the one who is honored and greeted.
There is one exception, namely when a person is occupied with higher matters, such as prayers, contemplation, or the sacrifice; for then his whole mind must be given to God, so that he does not return the greeting of those who greet him, indeed does not hear or see them. For this reason Elisha commanded Gehazi, since he was about to raise a dead man, to concentrate his whole mind on imploring God's help, and to greet no one on the way, 2 Kings 4:29. Christ gave the same command to the seventy-two disciples when He sent them to preach, Luke 10:4. And St. Charles Borromeo, making his customary rounds of the seven basilicas in Rome, was so occupied with prayers and God that, although greeted by relatives and friends, he returned no one's greeting. Our Blessed Aloysius Gonzaga did the same. I observed with great pleasure of soul that very many did the same in Rome in the jubilee year of 1625. A similar silence was practiced by the disciples of Pythagoras, and therefore they held fish in honor, because these are by their nature silent and mute. Hence Plutarch, in the Table Talk, says that the Pythagoreans abstained from eating fish out of reverence, because they recognized them as, so to speak, members of their own school's household, on account of echemythia, that is, silence, which among the kinds of living creatures is proper to fish; for all other creatures have their own voice. Aristotle gives the reason, Natural History Book 4, chapter 9, that fish have neither lung, nor throat, nor windpipe, which three things are required for voice. Athenaeus adds that the Pythagoreans alone did not taste fish, as sacred because of the silence that Pythagoras taught. Therefore, just as one who is conversing with a king does not return the greeting of anyone who greets him, or answer one who questions him: so much more ought one who is conversing with God in prayer to do the same. For this is demanded by the majesty, honor, and reverence of the Godhead, before which all dutiful courtesy of greeting must give way.
The tenth is: be ashamed "of gazing at," in Greek horaseos, that is, the looking at, the inspection of, "a woman who is a harlot;" the Zurich Bible: Be ashamed to look at a woman who is a prostitute. For this is a sign of an impure and fornicating mind. For the eyes are the guides in love, and where the eye is, there is love, the mind, and the heart. Hence Christ says: "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman in order to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart," Matthew 5:28. We are ashamed to look at a thing that is base, foul, and stinking, and to fix our eyes on it; much more should we be ashamed to look at a prostitute, for what is more base and foul than a prostitute? Memorable is what the author writes in the Life of St. Ephrem about him in these words: St. Ephrem, entering the city of Edessa, asked God that at his entrance he might meet a man who would begin a conversation with him from Sacred Scripture. A prostitute met him and gazed at him rather attentively. The Saint said to her: "Tell me, girl, why do you gaze at me with such intent eyes?" She replied: "I gaze at you, because I, a woman, was taken from you, a man. But do not gaze at me, but at the earth, from which you, a man, were taken." When St. Ephrem heard this, he glorified God that through a prostitute he had been so wisely instructed from Sacred Scripture.
The eleventh is: Be ashamed "of turning away the face of a kinsman," that is, "from a kinsman;" in Greek, apo apostrophes prosopou syngenous (the Complutensian reads eugenous, that is, noble), which the Zurich Bible translates: Be ashamed to turn your face away from a kinsman; others: Be ashamed of the turned-away face of a kinsman. For if you turn your face away from him, he in turn will turn his from you. Jansenius explains differently: He warns, he says, that one should be ashamed of the turning away of a kinsman's face, that is, of the fact that his face and gaze is despised. For "turning away of the face of a kinsman" is said just as, Psalm 131: "Do not turn away the face of Your anointed;" meaning, do not despise or scorn the face of Your anointed; for turning away the face is a sign of contempt.
Hence the proud, when they rise from a low to a high position, disdain to look at and greet their relatives and kin, which arrogance Sirach here censures.
The twelfth: "Do not turn your face away from your neighbor." This clause is missing in the Greek; hence Jansenius suspects that it has crept into the Latin, and was inserted into the text from someone's translation or commentary; for it seems to be merely an exposition of the preceding clause. But the Latin codices consistently have this clause; hence it seems to have existed formerly in the Greek, especially since it is one thing to turn one's face from a kinsman, another from a neighbor. Therefore, after warning that the face should not be turned from kinsmen, he warns that the same should not be done to any neighbor whatsoever, however much a stranger, poor, lowly, and wretched. For we are all neighbors, that is, brothers, created by the same God, born from the same father Adam and mother Eve, redeemed by the same blood of Christ, reborn by the same baptism, united in the same Church, faith, hope, and charity. Therefore it is shameful and unworthy to shun any such person and to turn one's face from him.
The thirteenth: Be ashamed "of taking away a portion and not restoring it," as if to say: Be ashamed to take from a kinsman or neighbor the portion owed to him by hereditary right or some similar obligation, and to retain it and not restore it to him; for this is continual violence and injustice. He properly censures those who, out of what must be divided among several, take some portions and claim them for themselves, as if they will later restore them and return them to the common mass; but once they have consumed them, or possess them securely, they do not think about restoring them.
The Greek reads differently, namely apo aphaireseos meridos kai doseos, that is, from the taking away of a portion and a gift; the Zurich Bible: Be ashamed to defraud someone of his portion or gift; others: Be ashamed of the seized portion and gift, as if to say: When something has been given or left by will to a kinsman or neighbor, which he is to share with you; do not strip him of his portion and gift, in order to claim and seize the whole for yourself. For this is tyranny, a leonine partnership, and public theft. Our Translator seems to have read for kai doseos instead aneu apodoseos, that is, without restitution, that is, not restoring.
27. DO NOT GAZE AT THE WIFE OF ANOTHER MAN, AND DO NOT PRY INTO HIS MAIDSERVANT, NOR STAND AT HIS BED. — The Translator renders the sense clearly; for the Greek announces these things with the same phrase as the preceding: From the contemplation (the Complutensian: from the observation; for the Greek is metanoeseos) of a married woman, from the solicitation (in Greek perierigias, which the Complutensian translates: curiosity) of her maidservant; supply and repeat, "be ashamed," or may it shame you: and do not stand by his bed;
The Complutensian: Do not stand at her chamber; the Zurich Bible: Be ashamed to lie with a woman who is joined to a husband, and moreover to attempt the chastity of any maidservant, and to approach her bed; others: Be ashamed of the contemplation of a married woman, of the curious solicitation of her maidservant, and do not stand at her bed.
The fourteenth thing greatly to be ashamed of is the curious gaze and looking at a married woman; for this is the sign and beginning of adultery, the disgrace of which is so great among all nations, and the injury to the family and the state so great, that husbands as well as judges in almost every place avenge it with death. Related to this is tempting her maidservant, for the honor of the maidservant is the honor of the mistress, the husband, and the entire household. Palacius explains somewhat differently, as if to say: Be ashamed, do not lust after another's wife, nor from her maidservant inquire what her mistress does, soliciting her for the seduction of the mistress; nor at night stand outside going around the house where her bed is, namely the mistress's. And so the Author deters from lusting after another man's wife, and from soliciting her servant-girl to solicit the mistress; and from going around the place where the wife of another man has her bed.
This meaning is very fitting and appropriate, and the words "do not pry into" suggest it, as procurers are accustomed to gain access to mistresses through their maidservants.
Mystically, Rabanus says: "The maidservant, he says, is carnal desire, which ought to have been subject to the rule of the spirit, according to what the Lord said to Cain: Its desire shall be under you, and you shall have dominion over it, Genesis 4:7. But it, on the contrary, has dominion in the conduct of the reprobate. Therefore we are forbidden to pry into this maidservant, that is, to be subject to its suggestions; and to stand at its bed, that is, to recline in its pleasures. Hence Wisdom in the Proverbs reproves this woman luxuriating in her bed and enticing others to her embrace, and forbids us to lean upon her ways, saying: Now therefore, my son, hear me, and attend to the words of my mouth;" Proverbs 7: "Let not your mind be drawn away in her paths: nor be deceived by her trails; for she has cast down many wounded, and the mightiest have been slain by her. Her house is the way to the underworld, penetrating to the interior of death."
28. BEFORE FRIENDS (some wrongly add "beware," for the Greek and the Latin Roman edition delete this) OF REPROACHFUL WORDS: AND WHEN YOU HAVE GIVEN, DO NOT REPROACH, as if to say: Before friends be ashamed to reproach them about anything, and if you have given them anything, do not reproach them for it; for this is uncivil, disgraceful, and injurious to friendship. Hence the Interlinear Gloss says: He who reproaches obscures his gift. Imitate God, who gives abundantly and does not reproach; and Rabanus: For he obscures his gift, he says, who wounds his neighbor with the malice of reproach; the Zurich Bible: Be ashamed to pursue your friends with insults, or to reproach what you have given. Wisely Isocrates admonishes Demonicus: "If you wish to make friends, say something good about them to those who will report it; for the beginning of friendship is praise, but of enmity, blame."
This is the fifteenth thing to be ashamed of. The sixteenth follows at the beginning of the next chapter, which Palacius, the Zurich Bible, and others accordingly attach to this chapter.
Mystically, our Alvarez de Paz explains all these things thus, in On the Mortification of the Inner Man, Book 2, Part 3, chapter 3: These things, he says, should be occasions of confusion for you: if in the sight of your parents, namely Christ and the Church, you have been spiritually unfaithful by immoderately loving a created thing; if you have lied before God, the Judge of all and the Almighty; if in any way you have offended in the sight of that same Judge and Maker of yours; if you have scandalized with iniquity the people or congregation in which you live; if you have injured a companion; if in your house you have been marked for theft committed against the law of God; if at a feast you have proudly chosen the first seats; if by failing to fulfill your duty you have blackened your reputation; if out of arrogance you have not greeted those who greet you; if with intent or insufficiently modest or cautious eyes you have looked at a beautiful woman; if having been raised to a higher dignity, you have despised relatives or friends held in a lowly state. For these and other similar things, which are sins, you ought to blush: but for those things which you have received from nature by the order of divine providence, no shame need be felt.