Cornelius a Lapide

Ecclesiasticus LI

Table of Contents

Synopsis of the Chapter

He praises and celebrates God for having freed him from many afflictions and dangers. Then, from verse 18, he shows how much he studied wisdom from boyhood, and how many fruits he received from it. Finally, from verse 31, he exhorts and inflames all by his own example to the study of wisdom.

Vulgate Text: Ecclesiasticus 51:1-12

1. A prayer of Jesus the son of Sirach: I will give thanks to You, O Lord and King, and I will praise You, O God my Savior. 2. I will give thanks to Your name: because You have been my helper and protector, 3. and You have delivered my body from destruction, from the snare of an unjust tongue, and from the lips of those who work falsehood, and in the presence of those who stood by You have been my helper. 4. And You delivered me according to the multitude of the mercy of Your name from those who roared, prepared to devour, 5. from the hands of those who sought my life, and from the gates of tribulations that surrounded me: 6. from the oppression of the flame that surrounded me; and in the midst of fire I was not burned: 7. from the depth of the belly of hell, and from an unclean tongue, and from lying words, from an unjust king, and from an unjust tongue: 8. my soul shall praise the Lord even unto death, 9. and my life was drawing near to hell below. 10. They surrounded me on every side, and there was no one to help. I was looking for the help of men, and there was none. 11. I remembered Your mercy, O Lord, and Your works, which are from the beginning: 12. for You deliver those who wait for You, O Lord, and You free them from the hands of the nations.

13. You exalted my dwelling place above the earth, and I prayed to be delivered from a flowing death. 14. I called upon the Lord, the Father of my Lord, that He would not leave me in the day of my tribulation, and in the time of the proud without help. 15. I will praise Your name continually, and I will praise it with thanksgiving, and my prayer was heard. 16. And You delivered me from destruction, and You rescued me from an evil time. 17. Therefore I will give thanks, and I will speak Your praise, and I will bless the name of the Lord.

After the praises, precepts, and examples of wisdom delivered throughout the whole book, in the manner of orators he concludes with a sharp exhortation, urging the readers to seek and obtain it for themselves; and he teaches that the way to obtain it is prayer and study from boyhood: for thus he recalls that he himself acquired it from his tender years, and therefore from its bitter roots finally gathered the sweet fruits of the same.

18. When I was still young, before I went astray, I sought wisdom openly in my prayer. 19. Before the temple I prayed for it, and I will search for it unto the end. And it flourished like a precocious grape, 20. my heart delighted in it. My foot walked a straight path, from my youth I tracked it down. 21. I inclined my ear a little, and I received it. 22. I found much wisdom in myself, and I profited much by it. 23. To Him who gave me wisdom, I will give glory. 24. For I purposed to practice it: I was zealous for the good, and I shall not be confounded. 25. My soul wrestled with it, and in practicing it I was confirmed. 26. I stretched out my hands on high, and I bewailed my ignorance of it. 27. I directed my soul toward it, and in knowledge I found it. 28. I possessed with it a heart from the beginning: therefore I shall not be forsaken. 29. My inmost being was troubled in seeking it: therefore I shall possess a good possession. 30. The Lord gave me a tongue as my reward, and with it I will praise Him.

Up to this point Sirach has set himself forth as an example to the Philosophers, that is, to those zealous for wisdom, and by the threefold reward of possession which he attained through its study, he has tacitly enticed all to the same: but now he clearly and openly exhorts and invites all to that very thing. Note here: up to this point Sirach has shown how studious he was in learning wisdom; now he shows how eager he is to teach the same. For it is truly the mark of a wise man to teach others what he has learned: conversely, it is the mark of a fool to want to teach what he has not learned. Hence St. Gregory, in the Preface to the Pastoral Care: "There are many, he says, who, not knowing how to measure themselves, desire to teach what they have not learned; who esteem the weight of the teaching office as lighter in proportion to their ignorance of the greatness of its power."

31. Come to me, you unlearned, and gather yourselves into the house of instruction. 32. Why are you still slow? And what do you say to these things? Your souls thirst exceedingly. 33. I opened my mouth and spoke: Acquire it for yourselves without money, 34. and submit your neck to the yoke, and let your soul receive instruction: for it is near at hand to find it. 35. See with your own eyes that I labored but a little, and found for myself much rest. 36. Receive instruction as a great sum of money, and possess abundant gold in it. 37. Let your soul rejoice in His mercy, and you shall not be confounded in His praise. 38. Do your work before the time, and He will give you your reward in His time.

First Part of the Chapter.

1. A PRAYER OF JESUS THE SON OF SIRACH.

"Prayer," that is, a hymn and psalm, by which he gives thanks to God for his deliverance from so many dangers and evils, and praises and glorifies Him; for prayer is a broad genus, signifying every elevation of the mind to God, conversation, and union: which contains under it many species, of which one is hymnody and psalmody, that is, praise and thanksgiving, as is evident from 1 Timothy 2:1. Thus the Pharisee prayed saying: "God, I give You thanks that I am not like the rest of men," Luke 18:11. Thus the angels and the Blessed in heaven pray and adore God, admiring and exclaiming at His holiness and magnificence: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts: the whole earth is full of Your glory;" and: "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing, and honor, and glory, and power forever and ever," Apocalypse 5:13, and 4:8ff., and 7:12.

Moreover, literally Sirach wrote this hymn for himself, namely to give thanks to God for his own deliverance and for the benefits received from Him; yet the Holy Spirit through him wished here to give to the whole Church and to all the faithful a form for giving thanks to God for deliverance from any dangers and evils whatsoever. Hence the Church uses it and applies it to St. Agnes and other holy Virgins and Martyrs, and reads it in their Office and Mass. So Rabanus. Sirach therefore prescribes here the manner of giving thanks to God for all the Saints, especially Virgins and Martyrs, for the salvation of soul and body, and especially for chastity always preserved by God amid so many temptations and acts of violence. For it was the perpetual concern, as it were, of God, that faithful virgins, whom tyrants prostituted in the brothel to the violence and lust of all, should be perpetually preserved unharmed by God, the patron and defender of virgins, through a miracle, as was evident in St. Agnes, St. Lucy, St. Agatha, and all the others.

"i Will Give Thanks to You, o Lord and King, and i Will Praise You, o god my Savior."

The Syriac: I will praise Your name, Lord, daily. For 'I will give thanks,' the Greek is exomologesomai, that is, I will make an exomologesis, I will set forth my confession, namely to truly and sincerely confess and profess before the whole world that I, surrounded by innumerable evils and nearly overwhelmed, escaped delivered, saved, and unharmed from all of them, not by any virtue of my own or of men, but by the help of God alone. He calls God "King" to contrast Him with Ptolemy the king who afflicted him, as if to say: King Ptolemy afflicted me; but God, who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, freed me from his hand and tyranny. Again he calls Him Soter, that is, Savior, both to allude to the name of Jesus Christ the Savior, whose type he bore in name, as well as in doctrine and suffering; for to Christ's merits all this deliverance of his, and all grace, must be ascribed; for in Hebrew 'Jesus' is the same as the Greek soter, the Latin 'Salvator,' Matthew 1; and also to allude to Ptolemy Lagus, his persecutor, who was surnamed Soter, but falsely, as Josephus testifies, book XII of Antiquities, chapter 1, as if to say: Ptolemy was not my soter, that is, savior, but my oppressor: God most good and most great, and my Christ, was the true soter, who powerfully and mercifully snatched me from all the afflictions of Ptolemy.

Sirach imitates the Prophets, such as Isaiah, who, breaking forth into a doxology after the deliverance of the people, chapter 12:1: "I will give thanks to You, he says, O Lord, for You were angry with me: Your fury is turned away, and You have comforted me." The three youths did the same when they were preserved unharmed by God in the Babylonian furnace; Daniel 3:51 and 57, where, rejoicing on account of so great a miracle and benefit: "Bless the Lord, they say, all you works of the Lord: praise and superexalt Him forever," etc. Habakkuk does the same, chapter 3: "O Lord, I have heard Your report, and I was afraid." Hence verse 18: "But I, he says, will rejoice in the Lord: and I will exult in God my Jesus." David does the same frequently in the Psalms, as Psalm 9:2: "I will give thanks to You, O Lord, with my whole heart." Psalm 56:10: "I will give thanks to You among the peoples, O Lord: and I will sing a psalm to You among the nations." Psalm 88:6: "The heavens shall confess Your wonders, O Lord." Psalm 105:1: "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good: for His mercy endures forever." Psalm 106:21: "Let them confess to the Lord His mercies: and His wonders to the children of men."

By these examples the Holy Spirit teaches us that we ought perpetually to give thanks to God for the innumerable benefits by which He frees us from very many dangers, even hidden ones, and daily bestows and confers very many gifts which we do not recognize or notice, as St. Chrysostom teaches in the formula for giving thanks to God, which I cited elsewhere. See what I said about the praise of God and thanksgiving, Apocalypse 4:8, and 5:23, and 7:12.

2. "I WILL GIVE THANKS TO YOUR NAME: BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN MY HELPER AND PROTECTOR."

The Syriac: I will recount Your name in canticles. You are my confidence from of old, O Most High; Vatablus: I congratulate Your name, that You have been my defender and helper. For 'I will give thanks,' the Greek again is exomologesomai, that is, I will profess my weakness and my evils, and God's power and beneficence, by which He snatched me from all evils: for the humble and grateful confession of our weakness and of God's power and goodness is the highest praise of God and act of thanksgiving.

He imitates David, who is accustomed to call upon and invoke God as "helper" and "protector." For God, says Jansenius, is "helper" to overcome evils already at hand: "protector" lest future evils overwhelm us. "Helper" for doing good: "protector" for avoiding evils. Now in what matters God was his helper and protector he explains, when he adds:

3. "AND YOU HAVE DELIVERED MY BODY FROM DESTRUCTION, FROM THE SNARE OF AN UNJUST TONGUE, AND FROM THE LIPS OF THOSE WHO WORK FALSEHOOD."

In Greek, from the snare of calumny of the tongue; Vatablus, from the lips of a calumniating tongue. "Of those who work," that is, who speak; for the work of the lips is nothing other than to speak. "Of those who work" therefore "falsehood," that is, who fashion calumnies, frauds, false testimonies, etc. against me. Hence Vatablus: That against lips devoted to lying, and against my adversaries, You brought me help.

"and in the Presence of Those who Stood by, you Became my Helper."

For 'those standing by,' he reads with the Roman and other editions parestikoton; but the Complutensian and Vatablus read kathestikotos, that is, of those standing against, meaning of those opposing me. In order that all these things may be understood, it should be noted from Josephus, XII Antiquities, 1, that Ptolemy Lagus (under whom Sirach flourished), immediately after Alexander the Great as king of Egypt, by deceit seized Jerusalem and raged against it, plundering some, killing others, and carrying off very many as captives: "For having entered the city on the Sabbath, says Josephus, as if for the purpose of worship, the Jews not resisting (because they suspected nothing hostile), and moreover spending that day in leisure and quiet, he gained dominion without difficulty, and treated it harshly and cruelly." And shortly after: "Ptolemy, having transported many captives from the mountainous region of Judea and the vicinity of Jerusalem, and from Samaria and Gerizim to Egypt, ordered them to settle there." Hence in chapter 2, he narrates that Ptolemy Philadelphus, who succeeded Ptolemy Lagus as his father in the kingdom, freed 120,000 Jews as a favor to Eleazar the high priest, who had sent him the seventy Interpreters to translate the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language.

It seems therefore that Sirach, being a Jerusalemite and a man prominent in that city and distinguished for wisdom, was present at this calamity and was no small part of it. Since therefore in that pitiful slaughter many Jews were being killed, especially noble and wise men, because Ptolemy feared they would resist his tyranny; it seems that Sirach too, as one of the chief citizens and leaders of the city, was sought along with others for death, and was snatched by divine aid from the swords, fires, and torments of the Egyptians (by which the city, occupied by the enemy, was ablaze). This is what he himself here commemorates and celebrates. So Palacius, Jansenius, and others.

He says therefore: "You delivered my body from destruction," in Greek, from perdition, that is, from death, which in the devastation of the city, threatening me at every hour from the rampaging enemy and as it were imminent, was constantly before my eyes. "From the snare of an unjust tongue," that is, of a calumniating tongue, as Vatablus translates. We must believe, says Palacius, that some informer reported to Ptolemy where the author was hiding, so that he might be taken from there to punishment, and that falsehoods were fabricated against him; hence he says: "From the lips of those who work falsehood, and in the presence of those who stood by You became my helper." I believe the author was brought before Ptolemy and his generals, and heard falsehoods spoken against him; but God helped him in so perilous a case while he prayed, lest he be killed. Hence the Syriac: You delivered, he says, my soul from death, You kept my flesh from corruption, from the hand of hell You delivered my feet. Perhaps Sirach was falsely accused before Ptolemy of some sedition or treason, that he was secretly urging the citizens and neighbors to resist him as an enemy and to expel him from the city: for this seemed to be the duty of a magistrate and senator (which Sirach is thought to have been).

In a similar way, under Theodoric, king of the Goths in Italy, Symmachus and Boethius, leaders of the Roman Senate, and Pope John were accused of urging Rome and the Romans to rebel against him as an Arian, and of imploring the help of the Emperor Justin against him: for this reason all of them, killed by him, endured an illustrious martyrdom; but soon Theodoric paid the penalty for his crime, being cast into the Volcanic pool, as St. Gregory narrates, book IV of the Dialogues, chapter 30. See Boethius, in his books On the Consolation of Philosophy, which he wrote for that reason in prison, worthy indeed of so great a prince, philosopher, and Martyr.

The cause of the calumny also seems to have been that Sirach, as a Scribe and teacher of the ancestral law, taught the Jews, especially those being carried off to Egypt, to beware of the idols and customs of the Egyptians, and to persist steadfastly in the paternal religion and faith delivered by God to Moses; for from this they accused him as an enemy of the Egyptians and of Ptolemy, as politicians are accustomed to draw religion into politics, and to interpret those who are religious in faith as adversaries not only of fidelity but also of their policy. If this is so, Sirach should be reckoned a Martyr, inasmuch as he prefigured by his patience the martyrdom of Jesus Christ, suffering for God's law and faith, and bore His type both in name and in preaching, both in the innocence and holiness of life, and in the endurance of persecutions and torments. Certainly at the Feasts of the Holy Virgins and Martyrs, the Church reads this in the Divine Office; whence she seems to hold that Sirach by his martyrdom here paved the way for them.

4 AND 5. "AND YOU DELIVERED ME ACCORDING TO THE MULTITUDE OF THE MERCY OF YOUR NAME FROM THOSE WHO ROARED, PREPARED TO DEVOUR, FROM THE HANDS OF THOSE WHO SOUGHT MY LIFE, AND FROM THE GATES OF TRIBULATIONS THAT SURROUNDED ME."

That is: You delivered me not by my merits, but on account of Your immense mercy, from enemies raging in the devastation of the city, roaring like lions, gaping for prey and slaughter, who sought to destroy my "life," that is, my soul. By the gates of tribulations, first, Palacius understands judges. For the Hebrews were accustomed to exercise judgments at the gates and to condemn the accused, as if to say: Through God I was freed from judges plotting my condemnation and weaving my death. Second, Dionysius, as if to say: You freed me from the very tribulations, which are gates and paths to death, and to the future life, indeed to the blessed life, if they are borne with equanimity out of regard for and love of God.

Third and more aptly, by gates understand the entrances, assaults, and thick onslaughts of tribulations; for just as through gates the enemy, bursting into a city, lays it waste with sword and flame: so when God opens and loosens the gates of tribulations against someone, they in a formed battalion rush upon the man, prostrate and overwhelm him. He alludes to the assaults of Ptolemy's soldiers upon Jerusalem, through gates opened by deceit or force: for they were striving to devastate Sirach's house and family just as they did the city: but God protected and delivered him. He says therefore: Just as all the gates of the city, opened to Ptolemy, gave passage to soldiers rushing in from every side to devastate it: so all the avenues of tribulations seemed to be opened against me, so that all tribulations might rush upon me and destroy me; but God shielded me from them and rescued me.

Thus Virgil, in Aeneid I, says of the winds bursting from heaven upon the earth and blowing over it with a terrible sound: Where a gate is given they rush through, and blast the lands with their whirlwind. Add that in the gates is signified the strength and almost insurmountable firmness of tribulations: for the gates of cities are usually the most fortified and strongest, as if to say: I seemed to myself besieged on every side by tribulations, as by certain most powerful and insuperable gates; but God overcame and shattered them all. The Interpreter reads pylon, that is, gates: but others read pollon, that is, many. Hence they translate: From many tribulations; Vatablus: From the very many afflictions which I suffered.

Moreover, he calls it the "mercy of the name" of God, because God places mercy before His name. For He is called "compassionate, merciful, of great compassion, Father of mercies, God of all consolation," etc., Exodus 34:6, Psalm 110:4, and 2 Corinthians 1. To signify that it is proper to God to have mercy and to spare, and that mercy is connatural, intimate, and essential to Him, and that He glories in it as in His own name. Hence the Greek texts corrected at Rome, adding 'and,' read, of mercy and of the name; the Syriac: You saved me in the multitude of Your mercies, from stumbling (scandal) and destruction You delivered me, and from the hand of those who sought my life, and from the multitude of my distresses You freed me.

6. "FROM THE OPPRESSION OF THE FLAME THAT SURROUNDED ME, AND IN THE MIDST OF FIRE I WAS NOT BURNED."

The Syriac, from the flame of fire. That is, I was not burned, meaning: You delivered me from the sharp tribulation and the heat of violent persecution, which like fire surrounded and burned me on every side, that is, cruelly tormented me: for "fire" and "flame" are often taken by catachresis for any sharp pain and torment; as Psalm 16:3: "You have examined me by fire;" ... O worshipful, O dread Father, because through Your holy Son I escaped the threats of the sacrilegious tyrant, and passed through the filth of the flesh by an undefiled path; and behold I come to You, whom I loved, whom I sought, whom I always desired. You I confess with my lips, You with my heart, You I desire with all my being." So St. Ambrose, sermon 90.

St. Peregrinus, Deacon of Ancona and Martyr under Diocletian, when he was stretched on an iron gridiron with fire placed beneath, and drenched with oil, prayed to God with these words: "You have examined me by fire, and iniquity was not found in me;" and: "Deliver me from the oppression of the flame that has surrounded me," and overcame that conflagration without injury, as Ferrarius narrates from the records of the Church of Ancona, in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, at the date of May 16.

Memorable is what we read of Abbot Peter, surnamed Igneus (the Fiery), in the Life of St. John Gualbertus, founder of the Order of Vallombrosa, namely that this Peter, in order to prove and convict the simony of the Archbishop of Florence, having first invoked God as the vindicator of truth and religion, passed through the midst of balls of flame both intrepidly and unharmed, and was hence surnamed Igneus.

Even more wonderful and memorable is what we read of some of the Martyrs, that when condemned to the pyre and their body was consumed by the sharp tortures of the flames, yet their spirit in those flames remained unharmed and unconquered, superior to all torments, as if it were an Angel, burned not in its own but in another's body; who therefore, congratulating God and rejoicing, would say: "You have delivered me from the oppression of the flame that surrounded me, and in the midst of fire I was not burned."

7. "FROM THE DEPTH OF THE BELLY OF HELL, AND FROM AN UNCLEAN TONGUE, AND FROM LYING WORDS, FROM AN UNJUST KING, AND FROM AN UNJUST TONGUE."

Supply, You delivered me. "From the depth," that is, from the profound deep: for this is what the Greek bathos signifies. Thus we call the deep sea

the deep, as if to say: From the very deepest of the lower regions, to which, namely, when I was already at the threshold of death and hell, He Himself by His infinite mercy drew me back and snatched me out. From what has been said it is clear that by hell here one should not rightly understand death and the grave; for since graves are near the outer surface of the earth, they cannot be called "the depth," that is, the profundity, "of the belly of hell," nor the lowest hell, or, as our Interpreter translates, downward, in Greek katotato, that is, the lowest or most remote: for which some wrongly read kakotato, that is, the worst.

Anagogically, Hugh expounds these things prophetically of the Fathers to be freed from Limbo by Christ.

Tropologically, he expounds these things of the dangers of sin and damnation, as if Sirach and every pious person praises God for having preserved or freed him throughout his whole life from more serious sins, and consequently from the punishments of hell, to which the soul, weighed down by this body and incited by urging concupiscence, was drawing near; but the grace of God held it back and established it in good. Let these therefore say gratefully with the Psalmist: "Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul would have nearly dwelt in hell." And with St. Mary of Egypt the penitent: "I will sing the mercies of the Lord forever." And with Isaiah, chapter 1:9: "Unless the Lord of hosts had left us offspring, we would have been as Sodom, and we would have been like Gomorrah."

In a similar manner Wisdom 10:19 says: "From the depth of the underworld He led them out;" and chapter 17:13 calls the Egyptian darkness "a truly powerless night, coming from the lowest and highest regions of hell." For to the depth that is at the bottom of the earth and of hell corresponds the height of the outer surface of the earth; for as deep as the bottom of the earth is, so high does its outer surface rise above it. Just as therefore the depth of the bottom is immense, so the height of the surface is immense. For the semi-diameter of the earth (which measures the distance of the outer surface of the earth from the center of the earth), according to Aristotle, contains 7,954 Italian miles; according to Ptolemy, 3,245 miles; but according to more recent authorities, 3,035. So our Clavius says, in his Sphere, chapter 1, page 116. By so many thousands of miles therefore Sirach descended, and every other of the Fathers, when dying he descended from the earth to hell, which is at the center of the earth, as the common opinion of theologians holds. Therefore he rightly says: "From the depth of the belly of hell," and, as Vatablus translates: From the lowest belly of Orcus You led me out.

AND FROM AN UNCLEAN TONGUE. — In Greek akathartou, that is, impure. Thus he calls the tongues of those who calumniate and falsely accuse him out of hatred, envy, or some other impure motive.

Morally, learn here that the tongue of a detractor is called contaminated, because detraction conceals under the detractor's tongue, as under a serpent's, all the filth, that is, the sins and defects, of one's neighbors.

AND FROM LYING WORDS (he marks the witnesses who gave false and lying testimony against him) FROM AN UNJUST KING (namely Ptolemy Lagus, as I said at verse 3) AND FROM AN UNJUST TONGUE — of those standing by Ptolemy and inflaming him to the unjust death of Sirach, says Palacius. Although you could understand all these things as referring to the same accusers and their calumnies. For he exaggerates the same thing with different words. Hence the Greek has: From lying speech (which was) calumny to the king (proceeding) from an unjust tongue; Vatablus: From unjust accusation before the king, and from the calumny of an unjust tongue.

8 AND 9. "MY SOUL SHALL PRAISE THE LORD EVEN UNTO DEATH, AND MY LIFE WAS DRAWING NEAR TO HELL BELOW."

The Syriac: My soul reached the underworld, and my spirit drew near to death. Our Interpreter reads ainesen, that is, he praised, meaning "he shall praise." But others read engisen, that is, he drew near: hence they translate: My soul drew near unto death, and my life was near to the lowest hell; Vatablus: Unto death my soul had drawn near, and my life had approached the underworld as closely as possible below. Our Interpreter reads better ainesen, that is, he praised: for he gives the reason why he so greatly praises God: for the particle 'and' in Hebrew manner is causal, meaning 'because,' that is: As long as I live, as long as I breathe, I will continually praise God from the inmost depths of my soul even unto death; and, that is, because... leads one to God: as often as you walk in spirit through it, so often you will not be in prison. The leg feels nothing in the stocks when the mind is in heaven."

10. "THEY SURROUNDED ME ON EVERY SIDE, AND THERE WAS NO ONE TO HELP. I WAS LOOKING FOR THE HELP OF MEN, AND THERE WAS NONE."

He exaggerates the tribulation in order to exaggerate God's help, and consequently his own joy and thanksgiving. See St. Augustine, VIII Confessions, 3, where he establishes this axiom: "Everywhere a greater joy is preceded by a greater trouble," and proves it by induction: "The victorious commander triumphs, he says, and he would not have conquered unless he had fought; and the greater the danger in the battle, the greater the joy in the triumph. The storm tosses the sailors and threatens shipwreck; all grow pale at the prospect of death: the sky and sea grow calm; and they rejoice exceedingly, because they feared exceedingly. A loved one is sick, and his pulse announces danger; all who desire his recovery are sick at heart together: he gets better, but does not yet walk with his former strength; and already there is such joy as there was not when before he walked in health and vigor. See St. Thomas, I-II, Question 32, article 4, where he teaches that past sorrow is a cause of delight. Truly the Poet says: Unexpected sorrows of the past heap up our joys.

11. "I REMEMBERED YOUR MERCY, O LORD, AND YOUR WORK, WHICH ARE FROM THE BEGINNING."

Palacius, Jansenius, and others wrongly read 'cooperation': for the Greek is ergasias, that is, 'work' or 'operation': So the Roman edition. The Syriac: I remembered the compassions of the Lord, and His mercies which are from the beginning; who delivers all who trust in Him, and saves them from him who is stronger than they.

12. "FOR YOU DELIVER THOSE WHO WAIT FOR YOU, O LORD, AND YOU FREE THEM FROM THE HANDS OF THE NATIONS."

That is: When I was surrounded and hemmed in on every side by enemies and tribulations, I looked around to see if any man could and would help me; but I found none; since some could but would not, and others would but could not, help me in such great distress. Therefore, destitute of all human aid, I fled to God, the sole refuge and asylum of the desolate: for I remembered Your mercy and Your work, which (namely Your mercy and Your work) from the beginning of the world You are accustomed to show to Your afflicted faithful, so that You have mercy on them and work great and wonderful things for their deliverance and salvation: since by Your infinite piety You are accustomed to deliver "those who wait," in Greek hypomenontas, that is, those who expect You and patiently and ardently wait for Your help by invoking it, and You free them from the hand of the nations who persecute Your worshippers. So Vatablus: They held me, he says, seized on every side, nor did any helper appear: I looked to human aid, and there was none. Then I remembered Your mercy, O Lord, and the things You had done from the beginning of time, that You are the deliverer of those who trust in You, and the champion against the hands of enemies.

Note here that it is proper to God to provide divine help when human help is lacking; and consequently God exercises a singular providence and care for orphans, widows, the poor, and all those abandoned by men: for this is what God's mercy, piety, and magnificence require, according to that saying: "To You the poor man is left, You will be a helper to the orphan," Psalm 10:14. This is what is commonly called: "Deus ex machina," that is, appearing unexpectedly. For in situations that are utterly complicated and seemingly desperate, God is accustomed to show Himself and to help, and to resolve and smooth out all difficulties, especially if He is devoutly and ardently invoked by His faithful worshippers. Hence that saying of Euripides in the Orestes: "Apollo, appearing in the midst of tumults, suddenly settles the most turbulent affairs." For when the difficulty of affairs is greater than can be resolved by human effort, then is the time for God to show His power and providence, and to resolve all difficult and perplexing matters and make them easy. When therefore salvation appears unexpectedly, God appears as from a machine, and the power and goodness of God.

Thus Philo, in the Embassy to Gaius, narrates that he was sent as an ambassador with companions by the Jews to the Emperor Gaius Caligula, to plead that he not force the Jews to worship him as a deity; but when, rejected by Gaius, he suffered a rebuff, he said to his companions: "Now at last we must hope for a better lot, and greater confidence must be placed in God, because divine aid is accustomed to come to the rescue when human aid is lacking." Desperate affairs, therefore, belong to the divine tribunal, and what has been abandoned by men is left to God alone: and therefore in them one must not despair, but rather hope, and hope must be sharpened in God; inasmuch as He cares for and takes to heart those matters above all others.

13. "YOU EXALTED MY DWELLING PLACE ABOVE THE EARTH."

He reads, 'You raised up from the earth my household,' that is: You exalted my house and family from the earth; so that I might live happily on earth and dwell gloriously. And therefore I prayed regarding the flowing death, as follows, trusting namely that according to Your custom You would free me from death and even exalt me. But others read, 'I raised up from the earth my supplication,' that is: From the earth I lifted my mind to God, supplicating and praying that He would snatch me from the flowing death that threatened me. Less correctly the Complutensian, instead of ges, that is, earth, reads orges, that is, wrath: hence they translate: I raised my supplication above wrath. For the Roman and other editions read ges, not orges.

"and i Prayed Regarding a Flowing Death."

The Greek now has, 'Concerning death I sought deliverance,' which the Complutensian translates: For death I asked for liberation; the Roman: I prayed for liberation from death; Vatablus: I prayed that I might be freed from death. Our Interpreter, instead of rhyseos, that is, liberation, reads rheuseos, that is, flow. Hence he translates: for the flow of death, that is, I prayed regarding a flowing death.

You will ask, what is the flow of death, or what is a "flowing death?" I answer: First, it is called a "flowing death" which flows down upon all and spreads to all, as if to say: I prayed lest I be swept away by the currents of death flowing successively upon all, but at this time flowing upon me: for just as the sea, a river, or a surging and overflowing torrent, flowing now here, now there, gradually carries away all persons and things: so death now flows upon this one and carries him away, now upon that one; and thus gradually takes all away. Again, just as shipwrecked persons, tossed on the vast sea, are swallowed and absorbed by these or those waves: so all men, tossed by the waves of this life, are sunk by these or those chance accidents and assaults. Therefore, just as by birth we arise and flow into existence and life: so by death we flow away into destruction and decline. Indeed, our life is nothing other than a continuous flow toward death, and therefore death itself begins to flow down upon us from the beginning of life through so many infirmities and miseries, which gradually consume a man until he is overwhelmed by them and dies; just as a stream of water, however small, if it continually flows into a ditch, gradually by flowing finally fills it, and so will drown men, however great and gigantic, and cattle and horses in it.

Second, death is called "flowing" by hypallage, because all men gradually flow down and slip into it, according to that saying: "We all die, and like waters we slip away into the earth, which do not return," 2 Kings 14:14. And the Poet: All things pass away like flowing water. Third, death is called "flowing" because death consists in the dissolution and disintegration of the four humors, spirits, nerves, organs, and all the members of a person: for just as life consists in their framework and harmony, that is, the due proportion of each, which is maintained by natural heat and the proper temperament of each: so when this fails, that framework and harmony is dissolved, and thus the person is dissolved and dies. Add that nearly all people die from a flow of rheum and catarrh from redundant phlegm, by which the throat is choked; and so the person is suffocated: hence the dying are accustomed to gargle in the throat, and to produce a sound as of suffocation or strangulation. For this reason "Gorgias" the Rhetorician, now old, when asked "whether he would die willingly, replied: Very gladly, for I depart not unwillingly, as from a rotten and crumbling cottage." So Stobaeus, sermon 115.

Fourth, death is called "flowing" metonymically, that is, causally, because it makes all things and all persons flow away and dissolve: for death causes health, life, vigor, senses, movement, wealth, friends, and all the goods of the world, both internal and external, which a person enjoyed while living and thriving, to slip away. Here applies that saying of Job 22:16: "Who were taken away before their time, and a flood overturned their foundation." Where St. Gregory by the ever-flowing river understands "the daily passage of time and the mortality of the present life." But Hugh understands the flow of death, which like a river with the greatest force rushes upon all things that are subject to destruction. And our Pineda applies to the same passage this of our Sirach: "I prayed regarding the flowing death," as if to say: I prayed that death, which laps and erodes the foundations of our life like a flowing river, might for a while flow away from me and leave me untouched and unharmed.

Finally, by the flowing death he understands a certain and naturally inevitable death, which flows down upon a person with a certain course and destined flow, so that it is not possible for a person to avert it; just as it is not possible for a person to avert the flow of a river flowing in its channel upon a tree or a person. This is clear from the preceding; for he said immediately before: "There was no one to help me. I was looking for the help of men, and there was none." Then therefore, with affairs ruined and death certainly threatening me, I fled to You, O God, and "I remembered Your mercy, O Lord, and I prayed regarding the death certainly flowing down upon me."

14. "I CALLED UPON THE LORD, THE FATHER OF MY LORD, THAT HE WOULD NOT LEAVE ME IN THE DAY OF MY TRIBULATION, AND IN THE TIME OF THE PROUD WITHOUT HELP."

In Greek, 'in the time of the helplessness of the proud,' which the Complutensian and Roman editions translate, in the time of destitution from the proud, when namely, with the proud dominating, I was abandoned and forsaken by all, and thus lacked all human help. Vatablus, with the proud refusing help; others, in the time when the proud rule, with help failing; the Syriac: I raised my voice from the earth, I prayed and called upon my father from on high (saying): O Lord, O Giant (the Syrians call God the Giant of the ages, on account of His strength, greatness, and eternity), and Savior, do not forsake me in the day of anguish in which I am afflicted.

Note here that Sirach and the ancient Jews knew God the Father and God the Son, and therefore the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. For he invokes "the Lord," that is, God the Father of his Lord, namely of God the Son, who through the incarnation was to become the Messiah and Christ, that is, the redeemer and savior of men, to free them from sins and all evils and enemies. Therefore toward the Messiah as liberator he himself and all others yearned, and hence he introduces mention of Him here, as if to say: I called upon God the Father of the eternal Word, or of the Messiah who would come to us; that through Him and His merits He would free me from such great tribulations: and that at the time appointed by Him He would send Him to us, to snatch me and His other faithful from all evils. So great a thing, says Palacius, is it to adore God insofar as He is Father; so much does the memory of the Son avail with the Father. The mention of the Father is worth more than that of the Almighty, etc., for the Father loves the Son. Therefore the Church, instituted by the Son, prays to the Father through the Son, and concludes all prayers and Collects thus: "Through our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son," etc.

He alludes to that saying of Psalm 109: "The Lord said to my Lord." And Psalm 2: "The Lord said to me: You are My Son, this day I have begotten You." And Psalm 71: "O God, give Your judgment to the king, and Your justice to the son of the king."

15. "I WILL PRAISE YOUR NAME CONTINUALLY, AND I WILL PRAISE IT WITH THANKSGIVING, AND MY PRAYER WAS HEARD."

"With thanksgiving;" Vatablus, with gratulation. There is a hyperbaton, or inverted order: "I called upon the Lord, the Father of my Lord, etc., and my prayer was heard (by Him):" therefore "I will praise," O Lord, "Your name continually." And certainly the particle 'and' is to be explained in the Hebrew manner by 'because,' as if to say: I will praise Your name, etc., "and" that is, because my prayer was heard by You." Hence the Tigurina translates: I will praise Your name at all times, and I will remember You in canticles: then the Lord heard my voice, He hearkened to my supplication, and He freed me from all evil, and saved me from all sorrow. Differently Jansenius, as if to say: "I called upon the Lord, the Father of my Lord" in tribulation, saying: If You free me from this, I will praise Your name continually; and thus, with this kind of prayer, my prayer was heard. But this explanation implies and supplies many things that are not in the text.

16. "AND YOU DELIVERED ME FROM DESTRUCTION, AND YOU RESCUED ME FROM AN EVIL TIME."

In Greek ponerou, that is, evil, troublesome, malignant, harmful, difficult, anxious, dangerous, in which namely the evil and unjust held sway and oppressed me and the other fair and pious worshippers of You. Vatablus: For You saved me from destruction, and snatched me from an evil time. He repeats and hammers home the same thing with different words; because his heart was full both with the sense of his afflictions and with thanksgiving, praise, and jubilation to God, who rescued him from all of them.

Sirach repeatedly repeats the word 'You delivered,' to profess that he was freed from many distresses, and to give thanks with exultation to God his deliverer.

In a similar way St. Wilgefortis, a virgin and Martyr (whom the Roman Martyrology celebrates on July 20), was called by another name "Liberata" (the Freed One), because she was rescued by God from many tribulations. Hence the Breviary of Siguenza (for there her sacred body rests; whence she is venerated by the citizens with great honor as the tutelary patroness of the city) after narrating that she was the daughter of Catellus, a petty king of Lusitania, and that her mother bore nine daughters in a single birth, namely Genibera, Victoria, Eumelia, Gemma (Margaret), Marciana, Germana, Basilia, Quiteria, and Wilgefortis or Liberata; that the mother, moreover, ashamed of having borne so many girls, ordered the midwife to secretly drown them all in the river; but the midwife entrusted them to pious matrons to be raised; who consequently all became holy Virgins and Martyrs, though in different places and times, and like nine heavenly Muses adorn the nine choirs of angels; adds: "When therefore all her sisters had been sent to the heavenly kingdom, at last Blessed Liberata, tortured with many torments, since she could not be torn from the faith, departed to the Lord by beheading. And thus freed from drowning in the river (when she was born), freed from the error of unbelief (by baptism), freed from the corruption of the flesh (for she suffered for her chastity); freed from the prison of the body through the triumph of martyrdom, she came free to Christ."

The struggles and martyrdom of these nine sisters are described more fully, from the authentic ancient records of the Churches of Spain, by Francisco Bivarius, in his Commentary on the Chronicle of L. Dexter, at the year of Christ 138, where he also contends with strong arguments that St. Margaret, whom the Church celebrates on July 20, is Gemma, one of the nine sisters already mentioned.

17. "THEREFORE I WILL GIVE THANKS, AND I WILL SPEAK PRAISE TO YOU, AND I WILL BLESS THE NAME OF THE LORD."

In Greek, the name of the Lord, that is, the Lord, as if to say: I will bless and glorify the Lord by His name, namely by naming and exalting His holy name. Vatablus: Therefore I congratulate You, and I give You praise, O Lord, and I celebrate Your name. Differently Palacius, who by the name of the Lord understands the Son of God, in whom as in a name, voice, and word the Father is recognized. Not only, he says, does he praise God, but he also speaks praises to the name of the Lord, who is the Son of God; according to that saying of John 12: "Father, glorify Your name," that is, Your Son. So he says.

Second Part of the Chapter. and Epilogue of the Book.

18. "WHEN I WAS STILL YOUNG, BEFORE I WENT ASTRAY, I SOUGHT WISDOM OPENLY IN MY PRAYER."

That is: While I was young, and saw others my age wandering through the various sects and errors of the Jews and Philosophers, I, lest I fall into the same errors and wander through them like a vagabond, leaving all sects and their schools, openly, in Greek prophanōs, that is, publicly, professionally, sought wisdom alone: therefore I went to its source and author, God, with continual prayer from my whole heart asking that He communicate it to me, and I said with Solomon, Wisdom 9:4: "Give me (O Lord) wisdom that attends Your throne." And verse 10: "Send it from Your holy heavens, and from the throne of Your majesty, that it may be with me and work with me, that I may know what is pleasing to You." Hence some explain it thus: Before I went astray, that is, before I practiced idolatry; for idols are called "errors" par excellence; both objectively, because they terminate the errors and erroneous worship of many; and effectively, because they lead many into errors. So 1 Kings 5:7: "His hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon our god." The Chaldean translates: and upon Dagon our error. Thus St. Justin the Philosopher and Martyr wandered through the various sects and errors of the Philosophers, until he was taught true wisdom by God through a man or an angel, as I narrated more fully in the Prolegomenon to the Pentateuch. Thus through the errors of the Manicheans St. Augustine wandered in his youth, until he was enlightened by God through the prayers of St. Monica his mother.

For which reason St. James wisely admonishes, chapter 1:5: "If any of you, he says, lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all abundantly, and does not reproach: and it shall be given to him." So today many wander through the schools of Philosophers or heretics, and lose true knowledge, faith, piety, grace, and salvation.

For 'before I went astray,' the Greek is prin e planēthenai me, which first can be translated: before I erred or went astray; the Tigurina: before I was led astray; second, with Vatablus: before I traveled abroad, namely to visit wise men, schools, and academies, in which I might hear and learn wisdom. See what was said at chapter 36:3. But the first sense is more genuine and fitting: for youth is exposed to a thousand errors, partly from curiosity and companions, partly from concupiscence, through which it wanders outside itself through the manifold pleasures and desires of error in this life, like that younger prodigal son, who went abroad into a far country and there squandered his substance by living dissolutely, Luke 15:13, who therefore let him say to God as a suppliant: "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost: seek Your servant (O Lord)," Psalm 118, last verse.

Moreover, he who seeks and finds wisdom, seeks and finds God: for God is uncreated wisdom itself, from which all created wisdom emanates as a ray from the sun. Hence the Syriac translates: When I was a boy, He pleased me (the Lord, of whom in the preceding verse) and I sought Him: my foot walked in truth, O my Lord. From boyhood I did not know learning, and I grew in prayer to Him when I was little, and I found much learning.

19. "BEFORE THE TEMPLE I PRAYED FOR IT, AND I WILL SEARCH FOR IT UNTO THE END."

That is, as Vatablus says: I will pursue it to the very end, namely of my age and life. Instead of 'before the temple,' Jansenius, Palacius, and others read 'before the time,' which agrees with the phrase 'and I will search for it unto the end,' as if to say: Before the mature time for acquiring wisdom, and before the time when men commonly are accustomed to acquire wisdom or to pray for it, I asked for it; nor shall I cease laboring to obtain it, but I will search for it unto the very last periods of my life, since it brings neither satiety nor disgust.

But we should read, with the Roman edition, 'before the temple': for this is what the Greek enanti naou signifies; for only priests entered the temple to pray, namely the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies: for this was called hekal, that is, the temple or basilica: but laypeople, which Sirach seems to have been, when about to pray, stood before the Holy Place, indeed before the court of the priests in the court of the laity, which was therefore their temple. Hence second, it could be explained, as if to say: At unusual hours, namely at early morning or in the evening and at night (as St. Casimir, St. Genevieve, St. Charles Borromeo, and others used to do), I went to the temple to ask God for wisdom; but when I found the temple, namely the court of the laity, closed, I prayed before the temple to God dwelling in the temple upon the ark and the Cherubim in the propitiatory of the Holy of Holies, to pour wisdom into me.

Learn from this that prayer made in the temple is better and more efficacious than that made at home. For this reason we read of St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen in Rufinus and others, that when they were studying wisdom at Athens, they knew no street or square of the city except one that led to the church and another that led to the schools. Thus in former times Christians were accustomed at night to prostrate themselves before the doors of the temple and to pray and to kiss the very doors; and indeed we see the same done by day in Rome, not only during a jubilee but often at other times. So St. Chrysostom, in his last homily on 2 Corinthians: "Do you not see, he says, how many even kiss the vestibules of this temple, some kneeling, others holding their hand and bringing it to their mouth?"

19 AND 20. "AND IT FLOURISHED LIKE A PRECOCIOUS GRAPE, MY HEART DELIGHTED IN IT."

That is: The wisdom that I pursued with such great zeal brought forth flower and fruit in me before the time, and wonderfully nourished and delighted me thereby, as precocious grapes do, namely those that ripen before others, or that are ripe first and before the time; for just as grapes contain wine, which refreshes, strengthens, gladdens, and enlivens a person: so wisdom contains spiritual wine, which fills and inebriates the mind with the knowledge and love of God; which therefore the Holy Spirit gave the Apostles to drink at Pentecost; so much so that the Jews said of those inflamed with the love of God and uttering such divine and ardent things: "These men are full of new wine," Acts 2. This is what the Wise Man says, Proverbs 9: "Wisdom has built herself a house, etc., she has slain her victims, she has mixed her wine;" and inviting her students to it: "Come, she says, eat my bread and drink the wine that I have mixed for you." Hence "my heart delighted in it," much more than someone who is thirsty rejoices in new wine and precocious grapes, according to that saying of David, Psalm 115: "My inebriating chalice, how excellent it is."

Therefore wisdom "flourished in me like a precocious grape;" because a precocious mind, a precocious zeal for wisdom, produced in me precocious fruit and a premature understanding of wisdom; while at that time other boys or adolescents were usually found to be too immature and too unripe in the study of wisdom, as if to say: The boyish age, which in itself is unripe for wisdom, in me matured through the benefit of precocious wisdom. The Greek has: From a certain flower of a ripening grape my heart delighted in it, that is: At a time when there is usually no taste or fruit of wisdom in boyhood, but only a certain blossom and a token of good disposition and talent; yet in me that blossom was joined with the sweetness and pleasantness of a ripening fruit. Hence some clearly translate: "As from the flower of a ripening grape, my heart delighted in it."

In a similar way, Solomon in his youth asked for and obtained precocious wisdom from God, and Pineda shows this, book III On the Affairs of Solomon, chapters 2, 3, and 4, number 5, asserting that Sirach speaks here in the person of Solomon and says: "When I was still young, before I went astray, I sought wisdom."

Morally, learn here that there is no true and solid joy and delight except in God and His wisdom, that is, in piety and virtue. For in God is every good, which attracts the mind and by apprehending it draws it, so that it may rest in Him as in a center, and swim in Him as in a sea of good things, and plunge itself in and become inebriated. The Psalmist, having experienced this, exclaims, Psalm 30:20: "How great is the multitude of Your sweetness, O Lord, which You have hidden for those who fear You!" St. Augustine says excellently, book X of the Confessions, chapter 10: "Wherever, he says, the soul of a person turns, it is fastened to sorrows, except in You, even though it is fastened to beautiful things outside You and outside itself." Indeed, Plato also, in the Philebus, said that only the friends of God enjoy true delights.

Most excellently St. Bernard, epistle 114: "That alone, he says, is true joy which is received not from a creature but from the Creator; and all pleasantness from any other source is sorrow; all sweetness is pain; all beauty is foulness; and finally everything else that can delight is troublesome."

MY FOOT WALKED A STRAIGHT PATH. — In Greek: My foot ascended in uprightness; Vatablus: My foot entered straight; others, it walked straight, as if to say: From boyhood I arranged my life prudently and rightly; I did not walk through the pathless ways of errors, nor through the crooked windings of vices; but I advanced by the straight way, namely in all things I followed the dictate of true prudence, so as to arrive at practical wisdom, that is, at virtue. Now the dictate of prudence was that the straight way to this wisdom was, first, prayer; second, reading and meditation on the divine law; third, the study of wise and holy men, as he taught in chapter 39:1ff. Note the Greek ebe, that is, ascended; because, in order to reach this wisdom, one must ascend from flesh to spirit, from concupiscence to mortification, from pride to humility, from gluttony to abstinence, from avarice to poverty, and finally from earth to heaven. Again, the "straight path" to God is a right intention, by which one aims at and intends not one's own advantage but the glory of God, and one's own salvation and that of one's neighbors, in the study of wisdom and virtue.

FROM MY YOUTH I TRACKED IT DOWN. — Just as a hunter is accustomed to follow a hare or stag by its tracks in order to catch it, with such and indeed greater zeal one must hunt wisdom. Plato, in book VI of the Laws, teaches that those who wish to become excellent in any matter or art must exercise themselves in it constantly from boyhood. This is most true in wisdom and virtue. The ancients signified this by Hercules, whom they imagined as a boy crushing serpents in his cradle, then as a man subduing lions, hydras, and other monsters; and finally as an old man supporting heaven on his shoulders. Thus, in order that as old men we may possess heaven, as boys we must crush the serpents of concupiscence, and then as men, fighting against the world, the flesh, and the devil, overcome all things. Isaiah intimates this, chapter 11:8, saying: "The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp: and the weaned child shall put his hand into the den of the basilisk." Themistocles, when he had lived one hundred and seven years, is said to have said at his death: "I have spent all the years and days of my life in the most honorable study of letters and the sacred study of philosophy. I grieve that I am now departing from life, when from the study of letters I am beginning to be wise." Cicero relates nearly the same thing of Theophrastus in the Tusculan Disputations. Thus St. Paul praises Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:15, for having learned the sacred Scriptures from infancy, where I reviewed more examples of this.

21. "I INCLINED MY EAR A LITTLE, AND I RECEIVED IT."

In Greek: I inclined my ear a little, and I admitted and acquired for myself much paideia, that is, discipline.

22. "I FOUND MUCH WISDOM IN MYSELF, AND I PROFITED MUCH BY IT."

In Greek, prokope, that is: Progress was made by me in it; the Syriac: Its yoke became an honor for me. It signifies that to acquire wisdom there is no need for great, difficult, and prolonged study, as some suppose, and are therefore deterred from pursuing it; but with moderate labor much wisdom is acquired, as if to say: After the prayer by which I asked God for wisdom, I applied my ear, and heard both what God interiorly and wisely inspired in me, and what teachers externally taught me; and eagerly receiving those things I found much wisdom, which by ruminating on with my mind, tasting with my will, and practicing in deeds, I profited much by: especially because I did these things from boyhood, before my ear and mind were imbued and corrupted by the enticements of desire and error. Therefore, since I presented my ear and mind to wisdom like a blank tablet, it easily and immediately absorbed and imbibed all the teaching of wisdom, and firmly retained it, according to that saying: The jar will long retain the scent With which when new it once was filled.

Understand these things about the ease of wisdom as regards its beginning, namely as regards its knowledge, which is in the intellect, and the love and desire, which is in the will; for its execution and perfection is arduous and difficult. Hence in verse 25 he says: "My soul wrestled with it." The reason is twofold. The first is that wisdom is in itself easy and clear, as well as fruitful and abundant, like the sun. Just as the sun brings great light to one who even slightly gazes at it, so also wisdom. Add that the human mind has from nature an inclination toward wisdom, and has not insignificant sparks of its light implanted from birth. Here applies the enigma of the Magi, which the Platonists cite, and Giraldus in his Enigmas: "There is a thing everywhere bright, there is a thing everywhere dark, there is a thing partly bright and partly dark;" namely, the thing entirely bright is the divine mind: the thing everywhere dark is the irrational soul; partly bright and partly dark is the intellect and reason of man. So, in the order of bodies, the thing everywhere bright is any star above the moon; the thing everywhere dark is the air; the thing partly bright and partly dark is the moon. Therefore just as the moon is easily illuminated by the sun, so also the human mind by God.

The second is that the teacher of wisdom is God and the Holy Spirit, who interiorly illuminates the mind with wonderful light, so that it easily grasps what the teacher outwardly instills. Hence St. Leo, sermon 1 On Pentecost, speaking of the Apostles, whom the Holy Spirit, descending upon them in fiery tongues, suddenly made teachers of the world: "O how swift, he says, is the word of wisdom, and where God is the teacher, how quickly what is taught is learned!"

Morally, learn here that virtue is easy for one who is eager and desirous of it, so that with moderate labor he can attain it, especially if he is young and has not yet put on the contrary habits of vices: first, because virtue is according to nature: for it conforms to right reason; but vice is against nature, because it is deformed in relation to reason, law, and God: for virtue in reality is nothing other than right reason cultivated and perfected; second, because the eagerness and desire for virtue does not reckon the labors and difficulties of attaining it; but considers them all light and nobly overcomes them, as far inferior and less than the great value and reward of virtue. The ancients signified this by the emblem and proverb that Plutarch recites, book 1, Symposiacs, Question 5: "Love teaches music, even if you were previously unskilled." For by music, as Manutius notes in the Adages, they signified wisdom; for this is the highest harmony of the soul, which was therefore dedicated to the Muses: for love teaches it. Hence Socrates also, in Plato's Symposium, says that the soul immersed in the body is awakened by the stimuli of love, and from it receives its first impulses toward virtue, as if shaking off the torpor of sleep;

third, because the grace of Christ gives wings of strength and eagerness, which easily make every difficult thing achievable; fourth, because the practice and exercise of virtue gradually alleviates all difficulties and produces a habit; and a habit grants facility of operation. Hence St. Leo, sermon 5, On the Fast of the Month: "This disposition, he says, by which earthly love is excluded, is strengthened by the habit of good works, because the conscience must needs take delight in good actions, and willingly does what it rejoices to have done;" fifth, because, as Abbot Isaac teaches, in Cassian, Conferences 9, chapter 4, the human spirit is like a very light feather, which, unless it is weighed down by water or some heavier moisture, is lifted up from the earth into the air by even a slight breath. For in a similar way the spirit of man, being a spirit, has a natural, innate lightness, by which unless it is weighed down by earthly desires, it is easily carried upward, and disdaining lowly things, soars to heavenly ones; sixth, because love causes that through continual exercise a person passes, as it were, into the very disposition of virtue, so that he esteems nothing sweeter than it, nothing more bitter than vice: "For he judges nothing dearer or more precious than present purity, for whom it is a heavy punishment, either the ruinous transgression of virtues, or the virulent contagion of vice itself," says Cassian, Conferences 11, chapter 9.

23. "TO HIM WHO GAVE ME WISDOM, I WILL GIVE GLORY."

The Complutensian Greek, 'I will give power,' that is, I will acknowledge and celebrate that by His power and strength wisdom was communicated and implanted in me. But the Roman and other editions read, 'I will give glory'; Vatablus: Since therefore I have attained progress in it, I will acknowledge the glory of Him who bestowed wisdom on me, as if to say: To God, who like the sun perpetually illuminates the mind and enlightens it with His wisdom, I will give the glory for my wisdom, and will openly proclaim that I obtained it not from myself but from God, and I will say with St. Paul: "To the only wise God through Jesus Christ be honor and glory forever and ever, amen," Romans 16:27; and with St. James, chapter 1:17: "Every best gift, and every perfect gift (such as wisdom especially) is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration. For of His own will He begot us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of His creatures." See what was said there.

Moreover, to God as the first teacher of wisdom the primary glory for it must be given; but to angels and men, through whom God teaches some, their own glory must also be given by disciples, but a participated glory, as instruments and interpreters of God. Hence the Syriac translates: To my teacher I will give thanksgiving. There exists the oath of Hippocrates, prince of physicians, which reads thus: "I call all the gods to witness that I will hold my teacher, from whom I was taught this art, in no less esteem than my parent who begot me; that I will share my life with him, and will supply all things that I understand to be necessary for him to the best of my ability, and will regard his offspring as brothers."

Note: He does not say 'to Him who gave,' but didónti, that is, 'to Him who gives'; because God not only gave, but like the sun continually implants wisdom in the mind, also by preserving and increasing it; for preservation is the conservation of a created thing in its created being, and therefore a new and continual quasi-creation; for all creatures need the continual influence of God the Creator to be preserved in their essence: which if God were to withdraw, they would immediately fall back and relapse into the nothingness from which they were brought forth by God.

24 AND 25. "FOR I PURPOSED TO PRACTICE IT: I WAS ZEALOUS FOR THE GOOD, AND I SHALL NOT BE CONFOUNDED. MY SOUL WRESTLED WITH IT, AND IN PRACTICING IT I WAS CONFIRMED."

For the particle 'for' gives the reason why wisdom was given to him. Lest anyone, from the fact that he said in verse 21, "I inclined my ear a little, and I received it," should think that it was given to one who was idle and careless, and implanted by God alone without his labor, he adds that for it he undertook counsels, labors, and various struggles. For God helps those who are active, not the idle; those who are watchful, not the sleeping; He does not aid the lazy, but those who labor, and He cooperates and works together with them. Hence Euripides: "None of the gods is present to the idle," but rather a host of demons; for, as Cassian says, book X of the Institutes of the Cenobites, chapter 22: "It was established by the ancient Fathers that a working monk is assailed by one demon, but an idle one is devastated by innumerable spirits." Therefore he teaches here the manner in which he obtained wisdom, namely by cooperating and working together with God who was working it in him.

First therefore he says: "I purposed to practice it;" in Greek dienoēthēn, that is, I considered; Vatablus: I resolved to carry it out, as if to say: Considering the beauty of wisdom and admiring it, I took counsel, deliberated, resolved, and firmly decreed to give myself to it as a disciple and to do whatever it commanded. Again, I took counsel to investigate the ways and means by which I could accomplish this.

Second, "I was zealous for the good," that is, I burned with love for the good and the honorable, which it set before me and taught me to do. For zeal and great ardor of spirit is needed for anyone to attain so great a good beset by so many difficulties. Therefore "I shall not be confounded," that is, I shall not fall short of my hope and effort; but the good of wisdom, which I pursue with such great zeal, I shall actually attain. Or rather, "I shall not be confounded," that is, I shall not blush, nor be affected by shame in following its dictates and carrying out what it commands me to do; I shall not be ashamed to openly, with bold face and clear voice, profess myself a disciple and follower of wisdom and virtue; even if for this reason I am mocked and derided by men devoted to the world and the flesh, and considered foolish, base, and contemptible. Learn here, Philothea, you who love God and virtue, to overcome boorish shame and to scorn the judgments and ridicule of men; so that you may say with St. Paul: "If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ," Galatians 1:10; thus you shall not be confounded before men in life, nor before God in death, nor before Christ on the day of judgment.

Third, "my soul wrestled with it," that is, to attain it and carry it out in practice; Vatablus: My spirit struggled with it; others: It fought fiercely (for this is what the Greek diamamachetai signifies), my soul for it, as if to say: I fiercely contended with my concupiscences that resisted the law of wisdom, and I wrestled manfully with them as antagonists on behalf of wisdom, so that having suppressed those things that delayed and diverted me from wisdom, I might serve and live for wisdom alone, free and unencumbered. Therefore this struggle was not against wisdom, but for wisdom against desires and vices; yet it was indirectly with wisdom itself. For just as Jacob, wrestling against the angel, conquered him and merited to be blessed by him; so the mystical Jacob, that is, the wrestler and supplanter of vices, wrestles with wisdom, inasmuch as wisdom, like a chaste and virgin untouched, flees from Jacob and the man wrestling with vices, as still infected by vices and stains, but while he himself tames and supplants them like Jacob, wisdom allows itself to be held and conquered by him, and blesses him in many ways. See what was said at Genesis 32:25.

Moreover, the cause and a priori reason for this struggle is that the human soul is partly rational, inclining toward spiritual goods, and partly sensitive, inclining toward sensible goods, and thus man seems to be composed of angel and brute; and the sensitive part perpetually wrestles with the rational, but the sensitive part in him is more vehement, and often drags the rational along with it to its sensible objects, neglecting spiritual ones. For, as our Lessius rightly teaches, book XII On Divine Perfection, chapter 9, the human mind, since among rational natures it is the lowest, and therefore inserted into mortal flesh and addicted to the senses, perfectly apprehends nothing beyond sensible and temporal things, such as honors, riches, and pleasures; while it apprehends spiritual things, such as the beauty of virtues and the goods of the future life, obscurely and confusedly. Hence it happens that it is moved by spiritual things only slightly and languidly, but by sensible things much and powerfully; for the movements of the affections follow the apprehension of knowledge. Therefore, when difficulties are presented, and things troublesome to the flesh, man easily retreats and abandons the pursuit of virtue; for those troubles, being sensible and natural, he apprehends strongly; and since they arise from obscure things not sufficiently confirmed by experience, he imagines them a hundredfold more grievous than they really are, and thus is easily conquered by them. For a good imperfectly apprehended (such as the good of virtue and heavenly glory) does not attract as much as the vast imagination of troubles deters. But in pursuing sensible goods (such as wealth, honors, and pleasures), even if great difficulties present themselves, the human mind nonetheless persists; because although those troubles of themselves deter, yet the vehement apprehension of hoped-for goods attracts more, the burning love of which makes even the troubles themselves seem far less than they really are. This is almost the whole reason and primary origin why the way of virtue, otherwise in itself easy and full of pleasantness, seems difficult and bitter; while on the contrary the way of the world, truly harsh and most troublesome, seems easy and pleasant. For the strong apprehension of sensible goods attracts more than the imagination of the evils attached to them deters; and the powerful imagination of the troubles that seem to attend the pursuit of virtue deters more than the apprehension of spiritual goods (which in us is very faint and obscure) attracts.

The Lord therefore, conscious of this our weakness, so that we might more strongly apprehend the excellence of spiritual goods and esteem less the difficulties attached to them: sets before us here the example, stimulus, and counsel of Sirach, namely that through the study of wisdom we should constantly apply ourselves to hearing, reading, meditating on, and practicing spiritual goods, and thoroughly imbue our mind with them, so that it may become spiritual, and thereby carry along with it the lower and animal part, and from there make others also sharers of so great a good.

For, as St. Augustine says, in the Sentences, number 122: "It is a great labor for good people to tolerate contrary habits, and whoever is not troubled by them makes little progress. For the iniquity of another's sin torments the just man as much as he departs from his own sin." For this is the power of charity and zeal, to set all things on fire like a flame.

Moreover, our Pineda, book III On the Affairs of Solomon, chapter 3, thinks these things are said in the person of Solomon, and explains them of him thus, as if to say: Among the various struggles and conflicts of thoughts about the best kind of life to follow, "I took counsel," that is, by choosing I entered upon the counsel of giving myself entirely to the study of wisdom. For he thinks that Sirach was writing down the teaching and sentiments of Solomon.

Fourth, "and in practicing it I was confirmed;" the Complutensian and Roman Greek editions read, 'and in its doing I was exact,' that is, and in carrying it out

I acted diligently, or applied diligence to it, as if to say: As diligent and assiduous as a hungry man is, so diligent was I in the study of wisdom, to satiate my hunger and eagerness for it. But the Tigurina, Vatablus, and others, reading a different form, translate: and in my work I was exact; Vatablus: I weighed my deeds, that is, as Jansenius says, I diligently and exactly weighed my actions, whether they agreed with the precepts of wisdom, as David used to do when he said: "I thought about my ways, and I turned my feet to Your testimonies," Psalm 118. On which matter St. Bernard wrote divinely five books On Consideration to Pope Eugene. Others translate: and in my accomplishment I was exquisite. To which our Interpreter comes close: and in practicing it I was confirmed, as if to say: That I might always practice wisdom and carry out its dictates, I fortified my spirit, even though I felt no small struggle with the flesh in its practice; yet I stood firm in it and persevered constantly. For the Greek diakriboo signifies first, I examine exactly, I weigh diligently; second, I arrange and complete exactly; third, I make skillfully; fourth, I accomplish with all effort and exact diligence, I carry out diligently. Hence the Syriac translates: I thought to do good, and I will not turn back when I find it. My soul was glued to it, and I did not turn my face from it. I gave my soul to follow it (I gave myself entirely to it), and forever and ever I will not forget it.

Morally, learn here that for the attainment of wisdom and virtue there are required: first, a generous resolution of spirit and an effective purpose to pursue it; second, ardor and zeal; third, struggle and mortification of desires; fourth, strength of spirit, constancy, and perseverance in the study and practice of virtue. Therefore it is necessary for one who has received the gift of wisdom in his mind to labor, to strain his sinews, to strive with all his might, to carry out bravely what wisdom commands; for it commands things contrary to the flesh, the world, and the devil. With these therefore he must wrestle long and hard; but for this reason let him not grow weary or lose heart, because by the very struggle the spirit is not weakened but confirmed; just as Jacob wrestling with the angel, and therefore limping, became strongest from the struggle, so that he prevailed over the angel and God; hence he was called Israel, that is, prevailing over or ruling God, as I said at Genesis chapter 32, verse 28. For as St. Paul says, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 9: "Power is made perfect in weakness." And the Psalmist, Psalm 141, verse 4: "When my spirit was failing within me, You knew my paths." So Palacius. Here is true that saying of Claudian, in the Nuptials of the Emperor Honorius: No one enjoys true honors, Nor despoils the Hyblaean hives from their hiding places, If he fears for his brow, if he dreads the thorns. Thorns arm the roses, bees protect the honey. Joys grow from difficult struggle.

To the summit therefore of wisdom the road is by a steep and arduous ascent: Steep glory goes by a headlong path. St. Augustine, in the treatise On Virginity: "With diverse seeds, he says, sow the hills of your heart, now with moderate nourishment, now with more sparing fasts, with reading, work, and prayer, so that the change of labor may be a respite of rest." By these means we gradually ascend to the citadel of virtue, we gather strength, we become invincible. Hear Seneca, in his book On the Constancy of the Wise Man, to Serenus, chapter 3: "Just as the hardness of certain stones is proof against iron, and adamant can neither be cut, nor hewn, nor worn away, but blunts whatever strikes against it; just as things that can no longer be consumed by fire, but surrounded by flame, preserve their hardness and character; just as crags jutting into the deep break the sea, and themselves show no traces of damage though beaten by so many storms; so the mind of the wise man is solid, and has gathered such strength that it is as safe from injury as those things I have described."

St. Gregory Nazianzen says excellently, oration 23: "The philosophical mind, he says, is made nobler by what it has suffered; and as glowing iron is hardened by the sprinkling of cold water, so it is hardened by dangers," according to that saying of Horace: Like an oak lopped with hard axes On Algidus, rich in dark foliage, Through losses, through slaughter, from the very iron It draws resources and courage.

26. "I STRETCHED OUT MY HANDS ON HIGH, AND I BEWAILED MY IGNORANCE OF IT."

Jansenius adds: and He illuminated my ignorances. But the Roman and many other editions delete these words. Instead of 'I bewailed its ignorance,' Palacius, Jansenius, and many others read: In His wisdom my soul shone, as if to say: When my soul was wrestling within itself and weighing its actions with itself, I stretched out my hands to God, that He might enlighten me, and I might see my errors and failings, without which this mortal life is not lived. Therefore God enlightened me, "and in wisdom," that is, through the wisdom infused in me by God, my soul "shone," that is, became bright; because God, enlightening it, caused it to recognize its errors and failings, and to correct them.

But instead of 'in wisdom' it should be corrected with the Roman edition to 'ignorance'; for the Greek is agnoēmata, that is, ignorances. Again, instead of 'I shone,' it is not eprepsa, that is, 'I shone,' from luceo (to shine), as Lyranus and Dionysius would have it; but epenthēsa, that is, 'I mourned,' from lugeo, I grieved, I groaned. So Hugh, Jansenius, and others.

The meaning therefore is, as if to say: In that struggle of wisdom and foolishness, of virtue and vice in my soul, of which I spoke in the preceding verse, I discovered my great weakness, as well as my ignorance or foolishness, and that in many things I erred, fell short, and stumbled. I therefore spread out my hands on high, praying to God to strengthen my weakness with the strength of wisdom,

and illuminate my foolishness with the light of wisdom; and therefore I mourned and bewailed before God the foolishness of it, that is, of my soul, struggling as I said in the preceding verse. The Greek has: I stretched out my hands on high, and the ignorances of it (my soul wrestling with itself) I understood; Vatablus: and the errors of it (my soul) I recognized.

Or more plainly and preferably, as if to say: I recognized the ignorance and foolishness of it, namely of wisdom, that is, I recognized that I did not know, that I was ignorant of wisdom, that I was foolish; and I mourned and bewailed this my ignorance and foolishness regarding wisdom. Hence some codices, which Francisco Lucas cites in his Notes here, read: "And in its foolishness (that is, on account of the ignorance of wisdom) my soul mourned;" and so Lucas himself thinks it should be read. Instead of 'I mourned,' our Interpreter reads with the Greek Vatican codex and with the Greek corrected at Rome, epenoēsa, that is, I thought upon. Moreover, the Syriac translates: My hand opened its door, and I surrounded it (or was surrounded by it), and I understood it, and in purity I found it.

27. "I DIRECTED MY SOUL TOWARD IT, AND IN KNOWLEDGE I FOUND IT."

In Greek, instead of 'in knowledge,' it is en katharismō, that is, in purification; others: Through purity I found it. But the sense comes to the same thing: for by "knowledge" he means the knowledge of one's own foolishness, errors, and failings, and an effective knowledge, namely one that commands and produces repentance, correction, and purification from them: for this knowledge and purification is the right way to wisdom and virtue, of which more at verse 35. The meaning therefore is, as Jansenius rightly says, as if to say: When I detected and bewailed in myself my great foolishness, I directed my soul toward wisdom, raising my soul, bent over and darkened, toward wisdom, by which I wished to be illuminated and purged, and through the recognition of my errors and the purification that followed from it, I found wisdom itself. For the true method of acquiring wisdom is the recognition of one's own foolishness, whether by which we recognize how many things we truly do not know, or by which we recognize the defects of our life, if that recognition is followed by humble prayer for wisdom, and amendment and correction of life and morals.

Palacius aptly notes that he says "in knowledge I found it;" because just as charity is found by loving, patience by suffering, humility by abasing oneself; so wisdom is found by knowing oneself, that is, "in knowledge." For by opening my eyes and seeing the treasures of wisdom, which are sufficient to fill the abyss of my foolishness, I found it: for the habit of wisdom is found in its own act. For if I know many things, I find that I have much wisdom. Moreover, as I said, wisdom consists in the recognition of the treasures of wisdom, as well as of the abyss of one's own foolishness, comparing and contrasting the latter with the former, and laying it humbly before wisdom with prayer, that it may illuminate and fill it, according to that saying of St. Francis: "Who are You, Lord? Who am I? You are the abyss of wisdom and goodness, I am the abyss of foolishness and evil."

Finally, note that wisdom is found, indeed consists, in the purification of the affections and in the purity of chastity and life: "For wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins," Wisdom 1:4. Thus Rufinus narrates that two distinguished virgins appeared in a vision to St. Gregory Nazianzen, and when he, out of devotion to chastity, fled from their sight, they said kindly to him: "We, they said, are sisters; one is called wisdom, the other chastity. We have been sent to dwell with you; because through purity you have prepared for us a pleasant dwelling in your soul." And Blessed Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, used to say that Christianity requires three things: "The power and truth of this blessed name requires, he said, that charity be held unceasingly in the heart, truth in the mouth, and chastity in the body, not falsely as a Christian."

28. "I POSSESSED WITH IT A HEART FROM THE BEGINNING: THEREFORE I SHALL NOT BE FORSAKEN."

I possessed with it (wrongly Lyranus and others read 'with them,' namely the teachers of wisdom); the Complutensian Greeks also read this verse and the preceding one in this order; for they have: I directed my soul toward it, and in purification I found it. I possessed a heart with it from the beginning, therefore I shall not be forsaken. But the codices corrected at Rome change and rearrange some things; for they have: I directed my soul toward it, I acquired a heart with it from the beginning, and in purification I found it: therefore I shall not be forsaken; the Syriac: I possessed a heart for myself from the beginning, therefore I will not forsake it.

Now first, Jansenius gives this meaning, as if to say: From the beginning of my life I obtained by the gift of God, and had, a heart joined to wisdom and always desiring it; and therefore I firmly trust that I shall not be forsaken by God and His wisdom; because by His rare gift I always had from infancy a heart devoted to it. Nor did I seek it coldly, but my inmost being was troubled in seeking it, that is, all my interior was stirred by the zeal of seeking wisdom. Hence Vatablus translates: A heart joined with it I obtained from the beginning.

Second, more plainly and simply: The Hebrews say kaniti leb, that is, I acquired, and by acquiring I possessed a heart (thus "to possess" is taken for to acquire, to prepare, to produce, Proverbs 8:22, and elsewhere: it is a metalepsis), namely so that through wisdom I might become sensible and prudent: for the heart is the source and symbol of prudence, maturity, constancy, and fortitude. Hence Scipio Nasica was called "little-heart" (corculum), on account of his remarkable prudence, of whom Cicero says, Tusculan Disputations I: "To some, he says, the heart itself seems to be the mind: hence the terms 'heartless' (excordes), 'witless' (vecordes), and 'harmonious' (concordes); and that prudent Nasica, twice consul, was called Corculum." And Pliny, book VII, chapter 30, reports that the Catos and Corculi were so surnamed among the Romans for their pre-eminence in wisdom: for the ancient Philosophers placed wisdom in the heart. And Ennius said he had three hearts, because he was proficient in three languages, namely that he spoke Latin, Oscan, and Greek.

A HEART FROM THE BEGINNING: THEREFORE I SHALL NOT BE FORSAKEN. — The Complutensian Greeks also read this verse and the preceding one in this order; for they have: I directed my soul toward it, and in purification I found it. I possessed a heart with it from the beginning, therefore I shall not be forsaken. But the codices corrected at Rome change and rearrange some things; for they have: I directed my soul toward it, I acquired a heart with it from the beginning, and in purification I found it: therefore I shall not be forsaken; the Syriac: I possessed a heart for myself from the beginning, therefore I will not forsake it.

would know. More nobly, however, Solomon, gifted by God with wisdom, received "breadth of heart," that is, greatness, amplitude, and generosity of soul, III Kings iv. So Jeremiah, chapter v, 20, says: "Hear, O foolish people, who have no heart;" and Hosea, chapter vii, 11, says of Ephraim: "A seduced dove having no heart." See what was said there. He therefore lacks heart who lacks wisdom: for wisdom gives heart. "Therefore I shall not be forsaken," neither by wisdom, nor by God; because where heart is, there is wisdom, there is God.

Third, Dionysius and Palacius: In wisdom I possessed my heart, that is, they say, I possessed my soul and myself, so that as lord and possessor I might command all the motions and affections of the soul, and keep them subdued to me by the bridle of wisdom, and associated with one another in peace. So Christ says, Luke xxi, 19: "In your patience you shall possess your souls;" because the patient man through patience rules over his soul, and keeps and governs it in peace: but the impatient man does not rule over it, nor possess it, but rather is possessed by anger, and consequently by Satan. So the miser does not have himself, but is had by his money. Whence misers are called "men of riches," as if servants of riches, inasmuch as they do not possess, but are possessed by wealth, Psalm lxxv, 6. So the lustful person is possessed by lust and appetite. And he who commits sin has lost himself; because he has made himself a slave and bondsman of sin, II Peter ii, 19.

Finally, our Caussinus excellently writes, book III Parab. Histor. chapter iii: The image of the heart, he says, is a hieroglyph of wisdom and fortitude. Hence Varro relates that the heart of a one-year-old person weighs two drachmas, that of a fifty-year-old consists of a hundred drachmas; from that time onward it diminishes each year by as many drachmas as it had grown: and it was believed from this that because of the weakening of the human heart, men cannot live beyond their hundredth year. The heart, therefore, is the seat and symbol of wisdom, a small vessel indeed, as Macarius says, homily 43, but one in which all things are received. There is God, there are angels, there is life and the kingdom: there are heavenly cities, there are treasures of grace. But if it has been wicked, there are dragons; there are lions, there are poisonous beasts, there are rough and uneven paths, there are precipices, there are treasures of vices.

The same author, book XI, chapter xxii, gives the androdamas as a symbol of wisdom: The androdamas, he says, has the brightness of silver, and is almost a diamond, always in square dice shapes. The Magi think the name was given from the fact that it is said to tame and restrain the impulses of minds or fits of anger; if we believe Isidore, Origins, book XV, chapter xiv. The apodosis, or application of the parable, is this: There is no other androdamas than wisdom, the moderator of the mind and the expeller of vices. This restrains and halts excited passions, poured forth like a torrent and river, dispersing the fog of so many affections.

29. MY BELLY WAS TROUBLED IN SEEKING HER: THEREFORE I SHALL POSSESS A GOOD POSSESSION.

Vatablus: My bowels (in Hebrew מעי meai) were moved to seek her: therefore I obtained a good possession; the Syriac: My bowels burn like a furnace to gaze upon her; because of this I possessed her as a good possession.

First, Dionysius and Palacius understand by the troubling of the belly fasting; for this disturbs and humbles the belly howling with hunger, according to the saying: "I humbled my soul with fasting," Psalm xxxiv, so that the sense is, as if to say: Just as the devil, the father of error and falsehood, is cast out by fasting and prayer, Mark ix; so conversely I and other lovers of wisdom sought and acquired her through fasting and prayer; just as the foolish lose her through gluttony, talkativeness, and dissolution of spirit.

Secondly and genuinely, for belly, our Translator with the corrected Greek texts at Rome reads kardia; but the Complutensian reads koilia, that is, heart. But the sense comes to the same thing: for by the heart as the chief part, the other internal organs and the whole belly are understood by synecdoche. The sense therefore is, as if to say: My heart, seeking wisdom with the highest desires, longings, and efforts; agitated and troubled by various thoughts, desires, cares, and anxieties: but when I found her whom I sought so earnestly, through her I acquired a good possession, namely wisdom itself, which is more precious than all gold and silver: and through wisdom I possessed my heart, as I said in the preceding verse. Whence Rabanus: "What he says, namely, that his belly was troubled in seeking her, either suggests this: that in meditation upon her he had an anxious mind; because all discipline is bitter in the present. Or this intimates that through knowledge of her he was pricked to repentance for his sins. Whence it is written: He who adds knowledge, adds sorrow, Ecclesiastes i. Hence also John in the Apocalypse narrates that the angel gave him a book, and said to him: Take the book, and devour it, and it will make your belly bitter; but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey, Ezekiel iii. And I took the book from the hand of the angel, and devoured it, and it was in my mouth like sweet honey, and when I had devoured it, my belly was made bitter. But he possesses in this a good possession, when through such a conversion he shall arrive at eternal rest: for he who has been converted and groaned shall be saved," ibid. xviii. And: "Blessed are those who mourn now, for they shall be consoled," Matthew v.

Tropologically, our Alvarez de Paz, book IV On the Dignity of Perfection, part II, chapter x: The lover of wisdom, that is, of perfection, he says, obtains a good possession. Which possession indeed is none other than God Himself: for perfect charity brings Him into the mind, and makes Him dwell in our hearts. If therefore God is the possession of a perfect soul, then also its happiness: and if the perfect man possesses God Himself, he is therefore blessed and happy. "For what can be happier than he," says Prosper, Bishop of Riez, "whose Creator becomes his wealth, and whose inheritance is deemed to be the divinity itself:

if only he cultivates Him with holy works, receives all fruits from Him, lives continually in Him and from Him, and possesses nothing earthly with Him? Because the Creator of all things, to whom nothing of what He made can be equated, does not deign to be possessed together with those things He created. Finally, what more does he seek, for whom his Creator becomes everything; or what suffices for him, for whom He Himself does not suffice?" O you therefore who, having despised the world because it could by no means fill your heart, seek another good that may fill you, that may satisfy you, that may make you blessed and happy — seek perfection, by which you will most happily possess God Himself, beyond whom there is nothing good, nothing beautiful, nothing desirable, and within whom all good things, all beautiful things, and all desirable things are contained.

30. THE LORD GAVE ME MY TONGUE AS MY REWARD: AND IN IT I WILL PRAISE HIM.

The Syriac: The Lord gave my tongue a reward, and with my lips I will praise Him; Vatablus: The Lord gave me a tongue as a reward, with which I will also praise Him; others: That in it I may praise Him, as if to say: God gave me a learned, pious, and eloquent tongue, with which I may rightly express the teachings of divine wisdom; so that the tongue itself may be the reward for the effort and labor which I devoted to wisdom. Therefore through it I will praise God, both by glorifying Him in prayer, and by proclaiming His praises and commendations to the people and readers through lectures, sermons, conversations, and writings, and inciting them to the praise and worship of God. Here applies that saying of Cicero: "Nothing is so admirable as the speech of a wise man, nothing so rare, nothing so beautiful, nothing better than wisdom." And that saying of Solomon, Wisdom vii, 15: "God gave me to speak according to my mind, and to conceive worthily of those things that are given me;" and that from Proverbs xv, 2: "The tongue of the wise adorns (in Hebrew, makes good) knowledge."

This is the third good possession, which he obtained through wisdom. Whence Palacius explains it thus, as if to say: The Lord gave me my tongue as my reward, and in it I will praise Him. The sense is: The Lord gave me a good possession: first, wisdom; second, a heart with it; third, a tongue; by which I can both teach others and praise God. Clearly the Lord gives a tongue, who opens the mouths of the mute and makes the tongues of infants eloquent. And again: "The Lord gave me a learned tongue, that I might know how to sustain with a word him who is weary." And the Holy Spirit distributed fiery tongues to the Apostles, by which they might speak the great things of God. The tongue is given as a reward; because since the author's tongue labored in praying, it is given to him as a stipend, that he might rejoice in praising. Therefore, just as the reward of that rich man was that the tongue which had abounded in delights in this world should be burned in hell; so the reward of the tongue laboring in prayer is that it should find delight in the praise of its God. So St. Anthony of Padua, as a reward for his wisdom and virtue, received a wise and ardent tongue for teaching and preaching, with which he set on fire innumerable hearers with the knowledge and love of God. Wherefore after his death in the year 32, St. Bonaventure, kissing with tears the still-intact tongue of St. Anthony: "O tongue," he said, "which always praised God, and caused others to praise Him likewise; now by the miracle of your integrity you show how great merit you have before God, who created you for so sublime an office."

Third Part of the Chapter. Conclusion and Exhortation to the Study of Wisdom.

31. COME NEAR TO ME, YOU UNLEARNED, AND GATHER YOURSELVES INTO THE HOUSE OF DISCIPLINE.

Vatablus: Come to me, you unskilled, and dwell in the house of discipline; for in Greek it is aulisthete, that is, dwell, abide; the Syriac: Turn to me, foolish ones, lodge overnight in learning.

These words could be taken as the words of wisdom inviting to herself, and to her house, all who are without wisdom, that they might learn her from her; for thus he introduced wisdom inviting the foolish to herself in chapter xxiv. But more genuinely you should take these words literally as the words of Sirach, who invites the unlearned to himself as a teacher of wisdom, and consequently to his house as a school of wisdom. For in the preceding passages up to this point Sirach has been speaking about himself and his own person; therefore when he adds: "Come near to me," he means it personally of himself, as if to say: I have recounted the manner by which I obtained wisdom; come near to me, and to my house, and I will teach you both the manner of obtaining wisdom, and wisdom itself. He means Ethical wisdom; whence he calls it "discipline," which corrects vices and shapes and orders all conduct toward virtue. Whence Palacius says: Sirach imitates Solomon who says in Proverbs ix: "If anyone is little, let him come to me. And she said to the unwise: Come, eat," etc. And likewise: "How long, O little ones, do you love childhood, and fools desire what is harmful to them?" etc. So now the author invites the unlearned to wisdom, because truly unlearned is he whom You, O Lord, have not instructed and taught from Your law, just as because the author saw himself illuminated by the light of God, he does not hesitate to say: "Come to me, and be enlightened," etc., Acts xxviii. And I certainly believe the author taught in some house, just as the Apostle too in his rented dwelling taught all who came to him. To this house therefore the author invites disciples; which he calls "the house of discipline." So says Palacius.

Similar to this is the maxim of Rabbi Joseph ben Joezer in the Pirke Avoth, that is, in the Chapters or Proverbs of the Fathers: "Let your house be a kind of refuge for the wise, dust yourself with the dust of their feet, and with thirsty throat eagerly receive their words." In the same work, chapter i: "The men of the synagogue, he says, gave you these three precepts: be prudent in judging, strive to make many disciples, and finally place a fence and bulwark around the law." In the same work, Shammai, the associate of Rabbi Hillel: "I would have you, he says, be sparing in speaking, much in doing, and with a cheerful and benevolent countenance receive everyone who comes to you." In the same work, chapter iv, Barzoma proposes these four problems: "Who can and should truly be called wise? He, he says, who always desires to be taught by everyone, according to that saying of Psalm cxviii: I have understood more than all my teachers. Who is powerful? He, he says, who bravely resists temptation. For Scripture says: Better is the patient man than the strong man, and he who rules his spirit than he who captures cities, Proverbs xvi, 32. Who should be called rich? He, he says, who is content with his own possessions and does not desire what belongs to others, as the Psalmist says: For you shall eat the labor of your hands; blessed are you, and it shall be well with you, Psalm cxxvii, verse 2. Blessed are you in the hope of expectation, and it shall be well with you in the reality and enjoyment of consummated beatitude. Blessed, I say, are you in the present age, and it shall be well with you in the next. Who is in honor and esteem? He, he says, who observes and honors others with due reverence, according to the rule established in Sacred Scripture: Whosoever shall glorify Me, I will glorify him; but those who despise Me shall be ignoble," I Kings ii, 30.

In the same work, Rabbi Ishmael: "He who learns, he says, with the aim of afterwards teaching others, to him God confers equally the grace of learning and of teaching. And he who learns with this intention, that he may form his own conduct, God gives him the means to learn and teach, and to put into practice and action what he has taught others."

Therefore from this passage you learn that in the time of Sirach, he and similar wise men taught wisdom, especially Ethical wisdom about the virtues by which we attain perfection and happiness, and about worshipping God rightly and holily, either in public schools or in their own homes. So Abraham taught the same to his children and his household; indeed even to strangers whom he received as guests, as Jonathan, the author of the Jerusalem Targum, relates, as I said at Genesis chapter xxi, 33. Hence also a city in Judea was called Kiriath-sepher, that is, city of letters, because those subjects were taught there, and because it abounded in schools and teachers who taught them, Joshua xv and following, and Judges i. Kiriath-sepher was therefore the University and Academy of Palestine, says Adrichomius, in the Description of the Holy Land, in the tribe of Simeon, number 41.

Indeed, James Middendorp, book I On Academies in Italy, from Berosus, book III of Antiquities, and others, asserts that Noah after the flood first in Armenia, then at Vetulonia in Italy, erected a gymnasium, and there publicly taught divine and human laws, the discipline of morals, and the rite of worshipping God; about which I said some things at Genesis chapter ix, at the end. If this is so, the first founder of academies was Noah. Whence Rebecca, Genesis xxv, 22: "She went to consult the Lord;" where Jonathan already cited translates: "She went to seek mercy in the house where Shem was preaching." And that passage in the same place, verse 27: "But Jacob, a simple man, dwelt in tents;" Onkelos translates: Jacob, an upright man, a minister of the house of learning, which he and the Hebrews refer to the schools of wisdom, which Jacob frequented under the teachers Shem and Eber; or according to others Melchisedech, devoting himself to the study of divine things and piety: for minister means the same as hearer and disciple. So Solomon erected an academy in the citadel of Zion, Proverbs ix, 1; about which see our Pineda, book III On the Affairs of Solomon, chapters xxvii and xxviii.

Mystically, the "house" of wisdom and "discipline" is the Catholic Church; likewise the temple in which preachers teach and proclaim the true faith, virtue, and piety; moreover colleges, oratories, and assemblies of wise men. Finally, the "house of discipline" is the state of Religious life, which reforms the conduct of men, and binds and obliges them to God through the three vows. See Father Platus, book I On the Good of the Religious State, chapter xxi, and book III, chapters v and xi.

32. WHY DO YOU STILL DELAY? AND WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT THESE THINGS? YOUR SOULS THIRST VEHEMENTLY.

So also the Complutensian Greeks, although the Roman and other editions delete the phrase "and what do you say?" Vatablus: Why do you hesitate? and what will you say about these things when your souls thirst so vehemently? It is a sharp exhortation, by which he prods the hearer or reader as if with a goad, to devote himself to the study of wisdom, as if to say: Why do you delay? What excuse can you bring forward in response to these words of my exhortation? If your souls are like thirsty ground, that is, dry and in need of true wisdom, by which they may be watered, may live, and may bring forth the fruits of a holy life; and I for that reason have opened my mouth, to send forth my words like showers of rain — why do you not come to drink, and to drain them with full mouth? For "thirst" signifies a thirst, not so much of desire (for then he would not have said: "Why do you still delay?") as of dryness and need. The Syriac, however, takes it as a thirst of desire: How long, he says, will you fail in these things? and your soul will be thirsting for the one supreme good, namely God?

33. I OPENED MY MOUTH, AND SPOKE: BUY FOR YOURSELVES WITHOUT MONEY.

Namely, "wisdom" (as some add, or knowledge, as the Syriac adds) which I set before you with open mouth. Vatablus: With open mouth I proclaim: Buy for yourselves without money, as if to say: Since your souls, unlearned and unskilled, like scorching earth, thirst and desire the rain of wisdom, by which they may be watered and made fruitful for the harvest of good works, I offer and serve it to you with an open and full heart and mouth. Eagerly therefore receive it and drink it in, that you may relieve your thirst and dryness.

Nor is there any reason to excuse yourselves by saying you do not have the price to pay for it, as the Philosophers used to sell their knowledge at a very high rate: for behold, I offer it to you freely. "Buy" therefore, that is, receive, it "without money," without price; for the only price here is the desire of one longing for wisdom and eagerly receiving it, for it should not be forced upon the unwilling.

He alludes to that passage of Isaiah lv, 1: "All you who thirst, come to the waters, and you who have no money, make haste, buy and eat; come, buy without money, and without any exchange, wine and milk. Why do you weigh out money not for bread, and your labor not for satisfaction? Listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in richness." Since I explained these things there, I will not repeat them here.

34. AND SUBJECT YOUR NECK TO THE YOKE (the Syriac: put on His yoke), AND LET YOUR SOUL RECEIVE DISCIPLINE; FOR IT IS NEAR AT HAND TO FIND HER.

The "and" is exegetical, for the latter part explains the former, as if to say: Subject your neck to the yoke of wisdom, that is, let your soul receive discipline, by which you may order and compose the disorderly motions of the soul according to God's law and right reason, and conform all your actions to the divine will. For "it is near at hand," in Greek it is eggus esti, that is, it is near, that you may find her. Whence Vatablus: Subject your neck to the yoke, and let your soul receive discipline, for it is ready at hand to find her; the Syriac: She is near to him who seeks her, and he who gives his soul (who devotes himself wholeheartedly) finds her. He alludes to that passage of Moses, chapter xxx, 11: "The commandment which I command you today is not above you, nor far away, nor placed in heaven, so that you might say: Which of us can ascend to heaven to bring it down to us? etc. But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it." Therefore God's commandment, or law, is called a "yoke;" because it presses down the neck of the proud and restrains the concupiscence of the carnal; but, as the Rabbis say, the law is called and is "the yoke of heaven," because it was imposed by God who provides the grace for fulfilling the law, according to that saying of St. Leo: "He justly presses with the precept, who first comes with the aid." So Jeremiah says, Lamentations iii, 27: "It is good for a man when he has borne the yoke from his youth." And Christ, Matthew xi, 29: "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls: for My yoke is sweet, and My burden is light." Hence conversely "sons of Belial," that is, without yoke, are called the disobedient, the rebellious, apostates, who shake off the yoke of God, wisdom, and the law. Again he alludes to that passage from Wisdom chapter vi, 18: "Wisdom is bright and never fades, and is easily seen by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. She anticipates those who desire her, so that she first shows herself to them."

35. SEE WITH YOUR EYES THAT I LABORED A LITTLE, AND FOUND FOR MYSELF MUCH REST.

Palacius brings two senses here: The first, he says, is: See, I beseech you, although I labored somewhat to obtain wisdom, yet I found much rest in her: for who could write so much on any subject, as I have written, unless he had much rest of mind? The other sense, which I believe to be the genuine one, is: Look at me with your eyes; I indeed labored under a wicked king; but you now see me happy in great rest: and this happened because of wisdom; therefore acquire her yourselves as well. The author seems to have enjoyed much happiness after affliction, as once Job, as later David and many others. Whence the Syriac translates: I labored in her a little, and found her greatly.

Third, simply and plainly you may explain it thus, as if to say: From those things which I discussed in this chapter, verse xix and following, and throughout the whole book about wisdom and its experience and fruit, clearly gather, and perceive with the eyes of your mind how much rest I collected for myself from the small labor which I devoted to wisdom. For from these my sayings and writings you will gather that I so ordered and composed all the turbulent motions and disturbances of the soul through wisdom, that I rest and delight entirely in the peace and pleasantness of wisdom. For, as Clement of Alexandria says, book II of the Pedagogue: "Medicine heals the diseases of the body, but wisdom heals the disturbances of the soul." And St. Gregory Nazianzen, oration 15 on the plague of hail: "The first wisdom, he says, is an upright and honorable life, purified for God, or at least purifying itself; for God, I say, who is most pure and most splendid, and requires from us only the sacrifice of purification." The first reason is that, as St. Bernard used to say: "Wise is he to whom each thing tastes as it truly is." So says the author of his Life, book III, chapter i. The wise man therefore accepts all things as they are, acquiesces in all events: therefore he is always at peace. Second, because, as the Comic poet says in the Hecyra: "This is wisdom: to be able to bend one's mind wherever there is need." And another: "The wise man adapts things to himself and himself to things." Everywhere therefore he finds peace and rest. Third, because "the wise man is always free, always his own master;" for he has a mind fixed on God, higher than the earth, whence he makes little of all things both adverse and prosperous that befall him, and considers that they do not pertain to him, according to that saying: "Despise worldly things; that is the summit of wisdom." Fourth, because "wisdom is the governess of sorrows:" wherefore the wise man through wisdom knows how to avert all sorrows, or to bear them bravely, or to heal them. Fifth, because the wise man foresees the future, and partly accustoms himself, partly provides for future evils long before they happen. Sixth, because whoever is wise accommodates himself to his lot, and lives content with the lot that God has measured out for him, whether it be prosperous or adverse. Seventh, because "the soul of the wise man is always at God's side, and says: If God is for us, who is against us?" Romans viii.

"For as the wise man follows God, so God follows the soul of the wise man. Wherefore what God possesses, the wise man also possesses." From the Almighty therefore he becomes almighty, from the Impassible impassible, from the Invincible invincible. Here applies that saying: "Who is wise? He who lives on equal terms with the gods."

Finally, the wise man rejoices in the labor of wisdom and virtue, however arduous; because with sure faith and hope he believes and hopes to obtain from a small labor eternal rest in heavenly glory. For a small labor begets perpetual happiness, which is the aggregation and culmination of all goods. We read in the Life of Blessed Galganus of Siena, published in the year of the Lord 1571, and from it in Philip Ferrari's Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, under the date of December 4, that Blessed Galganus was called by the Archangel Michael from a life of pleasure to an austere and holy life, withdrew into the wilderness, and living a heavenly life in prayers, fasts, and every austerity, was after one year invited by a heavenly voice to eternal rest with these words: "It is enough that you have labored; now you shall reap what you have sown;" and departed to heaven in the 33rd year of his age, around the year of the Lord 1181. Did he not with small labor procure for himself great rest? St. Stephen, exercising the office of Deacon for seven months, disputing with the Jews, preaching the faith of Christ with immense zeal, how great rest and glory he obtained! For in the same year in which Christ died on March 25, he on December 26, stoned for Christ, obtained the crown and laurel of martyrdom. St. Lawrence, in the five days that elapsed from the death of St. Sixtus to his gridiron, with small but heroic labors contending with the Emperor Valerian, what illustrious triumphs he created for himself in heaven and on earth! Wherefore St. Francis wisely stirred up his followers to all the combats of virtue with this brief but vigorous sermon: "Brief pleasure, immense punishment; small labor, eternal glory; the calling of many, the election of few, the retribution of all." And St. Ephrem, in his Ascetic Sermon to the brethren: "After temptation, rest; after the ant, bees," that is, the sweetness of rest follows the bitterness of labor, and joy follows the harshness of life.

36. ACQUIRE DISCIPLINE WITH A GREAT SUM OF SILVER, AND POSSESS ABUNDANT GOLD THROUGH HER.

You may explain this in three ways. First, as if to say: Acquire for yourselves discipline and wisdom with a great, that is, through a great sum of silver (for the Hebrew ב, that is "in," often signifies price, and has the same value as "through"), namely at the price of much money; because through her you will possess abundant gold; both because wisdom confers true riches on man, spiritual ones namely, which make the mind rich in knowledge of things and in virtues; and because wisdom itself customarily brings with it the bodily riches necessary or useful for the wise man's state, as it brought to Solomon as king innumerable talents of gold and silver. Whence the Syriac: Hear my modest teaching, and you will possess silver and gold through me. Hence also from the Greek some translate: Share in discipline with a great sum of silver, and you will acquire much gold through her, as if to say: Acquire for yourselves wisdom, even if you must buy it at a great price, indeed with your whole substance. Second, more forcefully, Rabanus says, as if to say: Acquire for yourselves discipline "with a great, that is, more than a great, sum of silver," prefer it and consider it more valuable than all gold and silver: because through it you will possess abundant gold and riches both spiritual and bodily: for the Hebrew ב, that is "in," is sometimes taken for מן, that is "more than." Third, as if to say: Acquire for yourselves discipline in, that is, together with a great sum of silver: because she herself brings with her all riches, and bestows them upon the wise man. Whence, explaining further, he adds: "and possess abundant gold in her." So Vatablus: Be sharers, he says, in discipline with a great sum of silver, and with her acquire much gold.

Note "possess," that is, you will possess through wisdom abundant gold: both because wisdom itself is worth more than all gold, and is far more precious than it, according to that saying: What is better than gold? Jasper. What than jasper? Virtue. What than virtue? God. What than divinity? Nothing. and because wisdom often procures gold for the wise. This is an enallage of mood frequent in Scripture, especially in promises. For through it Scripture signifies that if we do what it prescribes, the promise of the reward will be most certain and infallibly fulfilled, as if nothing now remains except to extend the hand to gather that fruit, or to actually grasp what was promised. So it is said in Psalm xxxiii, 6: "Come to Him, and be enlightened," that is, if you approach God, you will certainly be enlightened by Him. Similar passages are in Isaiah lv, 2, Hosea x, 12, and elsewhere. Here applies that saying of St. Ephrem, in his Spiritual Canticle in praise of wisdom: "Abandon negligence, the treasury of perdition. Possess gold with measure, and learning without measure."

37. LET YOUR SOUL REJOICE IN HIS MERCY, AND YOU SHALL NOT BE CONFOUNDED IN HIS PRAISE.

The word "His" does not refer to wisdom (for in Greek it is the masculine autou) but to God the giver of wisdom, as if to say: Rejoice, exult, and give thanks to God, who through His immense mercy offers and bestows wisdom upon you: and if you do this, you will never be confounded in His praise, that is, because you praised God, as those are often confounded who praise men from whom they hope for great things, but in vain. Or rather: "You shall not be confounded;" in Greek, me aischunthete, that is, you shall not be confounded, that is, let it not shame you to praise God perpetually; even though for this you may be mocked by all profane and undevout people. Whence Vatablus: Let your spirit rejoice in His benignity, and let you not be ashamed of His praises.

Moreover, Palacius says: I know, he says, that in Greek the relative pronouns "which" and "his" are masculine, and thus refer to God, not to wisdom; but since the Greek manuscripts are often so varied, it is more pleasing to refer them to wisdom, so that the sense is: When wisdom has shown herself merciful and kind to you, let your soul rejoice; let it open all its bosom, that it may receive the kindness of wisdom. "My heart and my flesh have exulted in the living God," Psalm lxxxiii. The judgments of wisdom are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb; for wisdom is the Word of God, the Son of God. Oh, how greatly He can make the soul glad, Psalm xviii. Oh, how rightly: my spirit is sweeter than honey, and my inheritance sweeter than honey and the honeycomb! See what was said at Ecclesiasticus chapter xiv, at the end. Now it is truly said: "Let my soul be filled as with marrow and fatness: and my mouth shall praise with joyful lips," Psalm lxii. For when the soul is filled with the exultation of wisdom, it pours forth and overflows with the praises of God. This is what the author says: Let your soul rejoice in the mercy of wisdom: then you will praise her, and it will never shame you to have praised her. It will shame you to have praised riches, honors, and earthly things in general; but to have loved and praised beautiful, rich, and most honorable wisdom will never through all ages cause shame. Moreover, the Syriac translates: Your soul will rejoice in my repentance, and you will not be confounded in my canticles.

38. DO YOUR WORK BEFORE THE TIME, AND HE WILL GIVE YOU YOUR REWARD IN DUE TIME.

The word "do" signifies that wisdom, about which he always speaks, is not idle, empty, and speculative, nor does it consist only in affection and internal love of virtue, but it is active, and flows out into acts of virtue. Whence he calls these "your work," which wisdom itself prescribes to you who are devoted to her, and which will remain with you for all eternity, and will win for you eternal happiness and glory; while the other goods of this world, such as riches, honors, and pleasures, are not your work, nor will they remain with you, but are the world's, inasmuch as they are now given by the world, now taken away, and transferred to others, and thus will perish with the world, indeed before the world. Wherefore Christ says, John vi, 27: "Labor, He says, not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures unto eternal life." The work of wisdom, therefore, that is, of reason, virtue, happiness, and eternity, is our work, that is, destined for us by God, worthy of us, destined to remain with us, destined to make us blessed. Moreover, the phrase "before the time" can be explained in three ways.

First, as if to say: "Do your work," namely the work of wisdom and virtue, before the time of working and meriting eternal rewards perishes and slips away from you: so as to note two times, one of this life, which is the time of meriting; the other of the future life, which will be the time of receiving the reward; according to that saying, Galatians vi, 10: "While we have time, let us work good: for in due time we shall reap without failing." Whence Vatablus translates: Before the lost opportunity (for this is what the Greek kairos signifies), perform your duty, and in its own time He will reward you.

He alludes to Jacob courting Rachel as his bride; for whom, before the time of the nuptials, he served Laban, Rachel's father, for 14 years tending his flocks, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the greatness of his love, Genesis xxix, 20. For, as Alcuin says in his Disputation with Pepin, the son of Charlemagne: "What is hope? The refreshment of labor. What is it that makes bitter things sweet? Hunger. What is it that does not make a man weary? Gain." To this the Gloss adds: Do your work, he says, before the time of judgment; Lyranus says, before the time of death. Whence the Wise Man says, Ecclesiastes ix, 10: "Whatsoever your hand is able to do, do it earnestly: because neither work, nor reason, nor wisdom, nor knowledge shall be in the netherworld, where you are hastening."

Second, Palacius explains it thus, as if to say: "Work before the time," that is, in youth, as I did, who sought her before the time, when it did not yet seem to be the time for asking. Or rather, as if to say: Do not wait for the time to seek wisdom, anticipate every time: you are deceived if you believe old age should be awaited to seek her: seize therefore every opportunity of acquiring her. Lest it happen to you what happened to the bride, who when she opened the bolt of her door, grieved that the bridegroom who had long been knocking at the door had already departed. Therefore "work before the time" means the same as: work even before the time. "He will give, he says, the reward in its own time," that is, wisdom will give the reward, not at any time, but at its own time, when it is fitting.

Here our Pineda adds, book III On Solomon, chapter iii, who explains thus: "Work, he says, your work before the time, etc., as if to say: While you do not yet have wisdom; even before the time of old age (for then it seems to come at its proper time in maturity) strive to merit her through good works and assiduous vigils and labors. For she will at last come to you, not indeed as the reward of yawning and drowsiness, but of solicitude and watchfulness; and a timely recompense, as you see in me."

Third, more fully and sublimely, as if to say: "Do your work," namely of your wisdom and virtue, "before the time," that is, before the time of the reward, so that at its proper time, namely the time destined by God for the reward, each of you may receive your reward proportionate and commensurate to your work, as if to say: Do good works in the present life, that in the future you may be gifted with the reward: for the present age is for work and merit; the future will be for rest and reward. Note the word "reward," which God as just judge will assess for each person, greater or lesser, according to the quality and quantity of their works. Therefore in this life it is not the time for reward, joy, and riches; but it is the time for warfare, labor, and the cross. Therefore if God were to give those things in this life, He would not be giving them at their proper time. Wait therefore, O athlete of Christ, for His proper time, at which God will certainly bestow them on you, indeed with great interest. Finally, the Syriac thus concludes:

Do your work not in its own time, and your reward will be given in its own time. Blessed be God forever, and praiseworthy be His name from generation to generation. Thus far the words of Jesus the son of Simeon (perhaps Sirach the father of Jesus was called by another name, Simeon) who is called Bar-Siro (that is, son of the bound one); in Arabic, Bar-Sirach.

Sirach imitates Solomon, namely Ecclesiasticus imitates Ecclesiastes, who thus concludes his book: "Let us all together hear the end of the discourse. Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is every man," that is, this is the end, this the goal, this the happiness, this the glory, this every good of man. Whence Rabanus says: "With this thought, he says, the canon of the entire divine law agrees, and this it proclaims, this it teaches, and this it exhorts: that while we have time we should always persist in good work; so that at the opportune time, with the most just Judge rewarding, we may receive the eternal reward for this."

For the end of all wisdom and teaching, and of all action and virtue, is the eternal reward, happiness, and glory, which indeed ought to spur and inflame everyone to undertake heroic works of virtue, and to multiply and increase them: for as many such works as we do, so many jeweled and adamantine crowns we adorn for ourselves in heaven. "For great rewards," says St. Gregory, homily 37 on the Gospels, "cannot be reached except through great labors. Whence Paul, the outstanding preacher, used to say: He shall not be crowned, except he who has competed lawfully. Let therefore the greatness of the rewards delight the mind, but let not the contest of labors deter it." St. Augustine says excellently, on Psalm xciii: "What I have is for sale, says the Lord; buy it for yourself. What does He have for sale? Rest, the Kingdom. How much is it worth? Its price is labor. How much labor? Eternal rest was to be bought with eternal labor. But what mercy of God! He does not say: Labor for ten hundred thousand years; He does not say: Labor even a thousand years; He does not say: Labor five hundred years: but: While you live, labor a few years; from then on there will be rest, and it will have no end. Behold how great a price we pay — in a way, one little pod to receive everlasting treasures: a pod of labor for everlasting rest." And St. Bernard, sermon 4 On the Ascension: "What will be able to seem burdensome to him who always considers in his mind that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory? What will he be able to desire in this wicked world, whose eye always sees the good things of the Lord in the land of the living, always sees the eternal rewards?"

These rewards the ancient ascetics and anchorites continually set before their eyes, and with these as sharp spurs of virtue, they urged themselves on to every arduous task. Hear Damascene, in the History of Barlaam and Josaphat, chapter xii: "Through these examples, and through such gatherings and actions, earthly men imitated the life of heavenly beings: in that through fasts and prayers and vigils, in burning tears and mourning, free from all distraction of mind, in pilgrimage and remembrance of death, in gentleness and with a disposition of soul removed from anger, in silence of lips, in poverty and want, in chastity and modesty, in humility and quiet, and finally in perfect charity toward God and neighbor, they completed the course of the present life, and expressed the Angels in their conduct. And for this reason God adorned them with miracles and signs and various powers, and caused it that the renown of their admirable manner of life should resound even to the very ends of the earth." Then, having set forth the life of the one St. Anthony as an example, he adds: "Truly blessed and thrice blessed are they, who burned with the love of God, and for the sake of His charity counted all things as nothing. For they poured out tears, and day and night were occupied in mourning, that they might obtain perpetual consolation: they willingly cast themselves down, that there they might be lifted up on high: they wore out their flesh with hunger and thirst and vigils, that there the delights and exultation of paradise might receive them: they became tabernacles of the Holy Spirit through purity of heart, as it is written: I will dwell in them and walk among them: they crucified themselves to the world, that they might stand at Christ's right hand: they girded their loins with truth, and always had their lamps at the ready, awaiting the coming of the immortal Bridegroom. For since they were endowed with the eyes of the mind, they always looked forward to that dreadful day: and they carried the contemplation of both future goods and future punishment so fixed in their body that they were never torn away from it: and here they strove to labor, that they might attain everlasting glory: free from disturbances, they were like angels; now they dance with those whose life they imitated. Blessed and thrice blessed are they, because with firm eyes of the mind they perceived the vanity of present things, and the uncertainty and inconstancy of human prosperity, and rejecting these, they stored up for themselves everlasting goods, and seized upon that life which never dies nor is interrupted by death."

Therefore true wisdom is nothing other than true holiness, holy happiness, happy eternity. Wherefore "let not earthly desires weigh down the minds called upward, let not perishing things occupy those chosen for eternal things, let not deceitful allurements retard those who have entered the way of truth, etc.," says St. Leo, sermon 2 On the Ascension.

St. Anthony, according to St. Athanasius: "If we have lived a hundred years laboring in the work of God, we shall not reign in the future for an equal time, but for those aforesaid years the kingdoms of all ages shall be granted to us." Whatever you see here is brief. Think of eternity: once thought, said, done, it is eternal.

St. Gregory, book VI, epistle 26 to Andrew: "If we seek good things, let us love those which we shall possess without end. But if we dread evils, let us fear those which are endured by the reprobate without end."

St. Gregory Nazianzen, epistle 57 to Eudonius: "Strive toward God, advance, seize with a good spirit eternal life. Never set bounds to your hopes, until you have arrived at that supremely desirable and blessed good."

St. Augustine, sermon 39 On the Times: "The whole series of the Scriptures exhorts us to be raised from earthly things to heavenly things, where true and everlasting blessedness is."

St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusians, in his poem On the Vanity of the World: So men live as if no death would follow, And as if hell were an empty fable. "Compared to eternity, the length of all time is brief. For in Your sight a thousand years are reckoned as one day." St. Jerome, epistle 139 to Cyprian: "Perpetual light will shine upon Your saints, O Lord, and eternity of ages." Alleluia, IV Esdras ii, and the Office of the Church.

LIVE FOR ETERNITY. O ETERNITY, how long you are: how unending, how rarely you dwell in the minds of men! O ETERNITY, how blessed to the pious, how wretched to the impious you are! O ever-living and ever-same ETERNITY of all ages!

Tertullian, Exhortation to the Martyrs, chapter iii: "You are about to undergo a good contest in which the living God is the umpire, the Holy Spirit is the trainer, the crown of eternity is the prize, the citizenship of angelic substance is in heaven, glory forever and ever. Amen.