Ecclesiasticus

This book delivers moral precepts for living honorably and rightly; yet not all bind under sin, so that whoever acts contrary would immediately sin against God: for some are referred only to one's own utility and advantage, and especially to a tranquil and comfortable life. Such is that passage in chapter viii, 1: "Contend not with a man that is powerful, lest thou fall into his hands;"; and verse 2: "Strive not with a rich man, lest he bring an action against thee:"; and verse 4: "Contend not with a man that is a talker, and heap not wood upon his fire:"; and verse 5: "Communicate not with an unlearned man, lest he speak ill of thy generation."

Canon 2: Common topics for preachers

It is worthwhile for the studious, especially for the teacher and preacher, to note here the common topics and rich passages occurring throughout, and extensively treated concerning individual virtues and contrary vices, such as friendship, fidelity, chastity, vengeance, etc., which I shall therefore indicate and mark beforehand in the argument of each chapter, through the verses individually.

Canon 3: Sirach imitates Solomon

Sirach imitates Solomon very much, especially his Parables or Proverbs, both as to matter and as to words, as will be evident from the parallels of both, which I shall subjoin after the Canons.

Canon 4: The Latin interpreter Grecizes

The Latin interpreter here Grecizes very much: perhaps he himself was Greek, and not very skilled in Latin. Therefore the force of the Greek word, and sometimes of the Hebrew (insofar as it is permitted to search out and conjecture it from other places of Scripture; for Ecclesiasticus no longer exists in Hebrew), must be carefully examined and weighed here. From this you will learn how great is the utility of knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages, and how much it matters to search out the Hebrew and Greek sources in the Scriptures. Concerning which matter, see St. Augustine, book II of Christian Doctrine, chapter XI.

Canon 5: The meaning of Wisdom

Wisdom here, as also in Proverbs viii and Wisdom vii, is taken generally, as it applies to created and uncreated; and it especially signifies the practical ethics of the Saints, namely the judgments and dictates of practical prudence concerning obeying God and God's law, and its execution, fear and love: for this practical wisdom is knowledge of God, and of the ultimate end and of the means, namely of the laws leading to it, and the pious affection, love and desire for them. Hence wisdom, for the sake of abundance, is now called understanding, now prudence, now discipline, now doctrine, now knowledge, now shrewdness, now correction, now instruction: which all in the matter are the same and signify the same, although they differ in etymology, connotation, proper and precise notation and signification, as is evident to one who enters into the etymology of each.

Canon 6: Words and ends left unspoken

Very often, after the Hebrew manner, the verb "is" or "are" is left unspoken here. Again, many other things are left unspoken, and often the very end and scope of the sentence. Thus Proverbs xx, 12, Solomon says: "The ear that heareth, and the eye that seeth, the Lord hath made both." But to what end? Understand: therefore to the Lord the maker of both, thanks are to be given, and both are to be used for the honor of God. And Proverbs chapter xxii, verse 2: "The rich and poor have met one another: the Lord is the maker of them all." Understand: therefore, since they are equal in creation, though unequal in wealth; the rich man ought not to be proud, nor the poor man to grieve; but each, content with his lot, should help the other, and serve God. For God did not will all to be rich: for thus no one would wish to labor; nor on the other hand did He will all to be poor, because in this way they could not sustain themselves. Poverty is as much a gift of God as wealth is: for just as God gives riches to the rich for the matter of charity and almsgiving, so He gives poverty to the poor for the matter, exercise and merit of labor and patience, with grace proportioned to each.

Canon 7: Proverbs describe what generally happens

Maxims and Proverbs do not signify what always happens, but what generally happens; sometimes also merely the outcome, though infrequent and rare. Thus chapter xxvii, 28: "He that casteth a stone on high, casteth it on his own head; and he that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it."

Canon 8: Temporal and spiritual goods

The temporal goods which are promised here to the wise and those living well, properly pertain to the Jews and the Old Testament; but the spiritual goods pertain to Christians and the New Testament.

Canon 9: A collection of sentences without strict order

There is here a collection of sentences concerning any matter to be done, which we may use on any occasion, place and time against the vices that occur, and their dangers and temptations. Wherefore their order and connection is not to be sought here: for they are placed promiscuously, as maxims. Yet often Sirach gathers several sentences concerning the same virtue or vice, and recounts its various kinds, modes and fruits; and sometimes he subjoins its contraries, so that he may illustrate it through their antithesis: which done, he not rarely passes on to that which is neighboring and akin to it.

Canon 10: Various kinds of precepts

Various kinds of precepts and admonitions are here transmitted: some ethical and pertaining to the private man, some domestic, others political, and finally some theological. Again, some are didactic and doctrinal, some consolatory, others paraenetic and exhortatory.

Canon 11: Antitheses of the wise man and the fool

Antitheses between the wise man and the fool are frequent; for he calls wise the man who is practical in ethics: on the other hand, he indicates as fool one ignorant of this ethics, depraved and perverse. The wise man therefore is a virtuous man; the fool is a vicious man. For by wisdom here is understood ethics and practical virtue, namely goodness and virtue. Whence in Proverbs i, 1, malice is opposed to wisdom.

Canon 12: The conjunction "and" used for comparison

The conjunction and often means the same as thus or as; for it connects similar things; and therefore as it were a note of comparison it compares and sets them side by side. Prov. xxv, 3: "Heaven above, and earth below; and (that is, thus) the heart of kings is unsearchable." And verse 25: "Cold water to a weary soul; and (that is, thus welcome and pleasant is) a good messenger from a far country." Such instances are frequent in Proverbs.

Canon 13: Beginnings and endings

The wise man is accustomed to attribute to us or to creatures the volition, the beginning, the attempt of a work, as it were easy with the ordinary concourse of God, which he presupposes but leaves understood: but he ascribes the end and happy outcome to God, both because this outcome is more difficult, on account of many obstacles which occur in execution; and because the end in a work is that which is most desired and intended, and therefore is wont to be attributed to the first and supreme cause.

Canon 14: Foot as a symbol of the way

St. Cyril, book IX Against Julian: "It is the custom," he says, "of Holy Scripture to take the step of the foot, and sometimes the whole foot enigmatically for that which shows his way, what each one ought to do, as in Prov. xxiii: 'Make straight steps with thy feet, and direct thy ways.'"

Canon 15: The meaning of Misle (Proverbs)

The Hebrews call Misle, that is Proverbs, any illustrious sentence, as it were predominant and more excellent than others (for the root mascal means to excel, to rule), whether it be an adage and proverb, or a parable and enigma: whence it came to pass that in Scripture these names are often confused and taken for the same: parable, proverb, paroemia, enigma, etc.

Canon 16: The Greek text more concise than the Latin

The Greek text here is much more concise than the Latin: hence most of the sentences which in the Latin are three-membered, in the Greek are two-membered. For this reason the Greek sometimes does not seem to set forth complete sentences of Sirach, but abbreviates them. The Vulgate Latin version is not to be corrected from the Greek text and adapted to it, as Isidore Clarius thinks, but rather the Greek is to be accommodated to the Latin; because the Council of Trent, in session IV, decrees that the Vulgate Latin version is to be held authentic and canonical Scripture in all respects.

Canon 17: Repeated sentences

The same sentences are sometimes repeated and inculcated in different and different words. In a similar manner St. Gregory, what he has said in one phrase, is wont soon to say in another, to repeat and inculcate. Some are not the same, but kindred and similar.

Canon 18: Antiquated words of the Interpreter

The Latin interpreter is very ancient, for he preceded the times of St. Jerome; wherefore he has many words used in that ancient age, now obsolete: most of them I have reviewed and collected in chapter vi, at the end.

Canon 19: Imperatives expressing consequence

When to some precept he subjoins in like manner an imperative, or a future; signifying the fruit or harm following from the observance or violation of the precept, then the imperative, or future is to be expounded in the manner of a subjunctive, so that it signifies not another precept, but the fruit and penalty, or reward of the precept already given: wherefore then the conjunction "and" is to be taken for "that." Example chapter viii, verse 13: "Kindle not the coals of sinners, by reproving them, and lest (that is, that thou be not) kindled by the flame of the fire of their sins."

Canon 20: One Greek verse rendered in two Latin verses

In the Vulgate version of Ecclesiasticus sometimes one and the same Greek verse, because ambiguous and signifying several things, is rendered in two Latin verses: or certainly the same Greek verse is rendered in Latin in different ways, and in both ways, that the version might be fuller, it has been transcribed into the Latin Vulgate.

Furthermore, after my manner I shall strive to be concise, methodical, clear, genuine and exact, so that I may embrace Sirach, copious and prolix in so many chapters, maxims and matters, in one volume; especially since, God guiding, I shall soon bring forth Solomon, who treats the same subject, to which, as to a source, I rightly reserve much and great matter.

Encomium of Wisdom from the Parallels of Natural and Divine Ethics

That supreme Maker of all things from the very cradle of the macrocosm associated with each created nature its own rule, norm, and law immediately, by which each thing, enclosed within its own bounds, would contain itself most constantly within them, would be carried out in perpetual succession by its own proper motions, and would perform its duties suited to it in a fixed and eternal manner; namely, so that this whole universe, which is expressed by its author as an archetype, might reflect it in every direction, albeit only in a faint imitation and slight trace, and so that this beautiful cosmos might be a mirror for us, by which we might in some way behold the beauty of that eternal and uncreated world, or at least estimate it by the diligent inquiry of the mind. For just as from these very beginnings, and from the effort of nothing, we measure that almighty power and energy of His; from the manifold discordant and variegated harmony of created things, His beneficent abyss; from that broad embrace of all others, both of spirits and of bodies, His eternity and immensity, and in a certain way perceive through shadow: so from the weight of these same things, their number and measure, we may marvel at and revere the most wise providence of that great Architect, and the numerous and wonderfully harmonious arrangement in it of each thing, which both from the first bound every part of this universe in immutable ways, and with itself, and with any other part most amicably, and preserves and guards this friendly bond with its constant influx indissolubly: whence it comes to pass that the very law and norm of wisdom justly claims for itself, defines, and circumscribes the first or principal ornament of the universe, and the beauty of the cosmos. That same Maker, the origin of the better world, implanted in the microcosm, that is to say in man, who is indeed inferior in bulk to the universe, but far superior in nature and reason, a law similar to it, properly adapted from his very infancy, that noble, divine law expressed from those eternal and living reasons in God Himself; which therefore surpasses all others as much as this rational animal, to which it is proper, excels and surpasses all other corporeal things: whence it comes to pass that to man among all the treasures of nature, this ornament of wise order and law is both of the greatest adornment and likewise of advantage. For to man, who is a rational animal, nothing is equally worthy as to follow right reason, as it were a torch given to him by God, everywhere the guide of his way and life, to form his morals by its law, to cultivate honest actions, to harm no one, to render to God the worship which he owes; finally, to live well and happily.

The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us, sings the Psalmist in Psalm IV. Moreover, since these ethical teachings are indeed such, anyone who had sound judgment from sound nature would easily judge that Ethics, coeval with human nature, its moderator and nurturer, should be reckoned among the principal sciences.

But because, through the operation of him who first cast down the first man from the first summit of integrity, life, and wisdom, the Satanic spirit, mortals following the seeds of vitiated nature increasingly of their own accord decline from the straight path of living, and wound themselves more gravely each day, since they heap new wounds daily upon the nature of the Protoplast wounded by sin, plainly dulling, wounding, and overwhelming it (so dearly is forbidden desire paid for), it has come to pass that this knowledge of wisdom, darkened and obscured by the mists of errors, lies dormant in many things, and is increasingly restricted day by day, when the veil of cupidity and appetite is ever more and more drawn before reason, and it is the just vengeance of the offended Godhead that penal blindnesses are scattered over illicit desires; whence it comes to pass that the knowledge of wisdom, and its law and dictate, is now more necessary than before; and yet to us, as to owls blinking in the open light of the sun, it appears less of such things.

Wherefore God, the best and greatest, taking pity on the lapses and errors of men, sent down wisdom from on high, Ethics, I say, both natural and sacred and divine, and its teachers and masters, who might point out to men the true path of His law and virtue, and lead them along that straight way to happiness and blessed life in the heavens as if by the hand. Wherefore this wisdom has divine dignity, equal to its necessity and utility. That I might demonstrate this more fully and clearly, I shall add a sixfold encomium of wisdom, drawn from a sevenfold parallel of wisdom, or of profane and sacred Ethics. For if profane Ethics of the Philosophers was of such splendor and advantage to the world, how much more will sacred and divine Ethics of the hagiographers Solomon and Sirach, who surpassed all Philosophers by so great an interval as Angels surpass men, men surpass boys, faith surpasses reason, grace surpasses nature, the heavens surpass the earth, heavenly virtue surpasses earthly, and divine things surpass human things!

First Praise: From the Origin of Wisdom

The first praise of wisdom, or Ethics, is from its origin. The origin of natural Ethics is nature, namely God, inasmuch as He, as that author says, is as fortune making fortune, so also nature making nature, that is, the author and creator of nature. Plato in the Protagoras teaches that those arts which serve human uses, so that we might preserve this life healthy and unharmed, were invented by the shrewd industry of men; but those which would lead mortals to living well and happily, as it were by the hand, have a higher origin than human, and were rather born from the gods than from men: following which opinion Cicero in the book On the Orator defines philosophy, which he calls the parent of all benefits, and medicine and the cultivation of the soul, the mother of arts, and calls it an invention of the gods: because namely it itself is the best teacher equally of common and private life, without which no one understands right reason, no one attains happiness; and therefore God has wisely provided for man with this admirable gift of wisdom. Wherefore to cultivate this, it is fitting for each person, as much as business permits, to philosophize, and to regard this principal function of life. This is what Plato says concerning wisdom and natural Ethics.

But the origin of wisdom, or supernatural and divine Ethics, is God, inasmuch as He Himself is the author of grace, virtue, glory and other supernatural and divine goods. Our Sirach proclaims this plainly at the beginning of the work: All wisdom, he says, is from the Lord God, and was with Him always, and is before the ages. The same is proclaimed by the first doctor and writer of sacred Ethics, St. Job XXVIII, 12: Wisdom, he says, where is it found? and who is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in the land of them that live in pleasure. The deep saith: It is not in me; and the sea saith: It is not with me. Gold shall not purchase it, nor shall silver be weighed in exchange for it, etc. God understandeth the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof. And He said to man: Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil, is understanding. But Baruch elegantly and pathetically in chapter III, 14: Learn, he says, where prudence is, where virtue is, where understanding is, that thou mayest know also where length of days is, and life, where the light of the eyes is, and peace. Who hath found out her place? and who hath entered into her treasures? Where are the princes of the nations, and they that rule over the beasts of the earth? They that had their pastime with the birds of the air, that hoarded up silver and gold, wherein men trust, and there is no end of their getting? They that worked in silver, and were solicitous, and their works are unsearchable. They are cut off, and gone down to hell, and others have risen up in their place. Young men have seen light, and dwelt upon the earth: but the way of discipline they have not known. Nor have they understood the paths thereof, nor laid hold of it: their children were far from the way of it. It hath not been heard of in Chanaan, neither hath it been seen in Theman, etc. Who hath gone up into heaven, and taken her, and brought her down from the clouds? Who hath passed over the sea, and found her? But she is known unto all that seek her, and familiar to such as love her. She is not found in the land of them that dwell in tents. That people which is blessed of the Lord is great; the people which calleth upon the Lord is great. This is our God, and there shall no other be accounted of in comparison of Him. He found out all the way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved. Afterwards she was seen upon earth, and conversed with men; when, namely, God made man and took on human flesh, that He might teach men this wisdom brought from the heavens, and might utter things hidden from the foundation of the world. Wherefore Wisdom, as the first and principal daughter of God, thus praises herself in Ecclesiasticus XXIV: I came out of the mouth of the Most High, the firstborn before all creatures. I made that in the heavens there should rise light indeficient, and as a cloud I covered all the earth. I dwelt in the highest places, and my throne is in a pillar of a cloud. And Proverbs VIII, 22: The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made any thing from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made, etc.

Second Praise: From the Use and Fruit of Wisdom

The second praise of wisdom, or Ethics, is sought from its use, advantages and fruit: for natural wisdom forms, composes, regulates and directs all natural actions, both those proper to each individual through particular Ethics, and common ones, whether of the household and family through Economics; or of the whole kingdom or commonwealth for governing it rightly, through Politics. That saying of Neoptolemus in Ennius is well-known: "Philosophers ought to be princes:" which, perceiving this in good time, the Emperor Marcus Antoninus so loved that, when he had learned statecraft, the most worthy part of Ethics, from his teacher Lucius Volusianus, and even while remaining Emperor he devoted himself carefully to it, he gloried in the name of Philosopher. Not long after Antoninus, Severus, the monarch of the world, followed him, who received the same philosophy from Serbidius Scaevola. After him Alexander learned this most excellently, inasmuch as Ulpianus was his tutor and teacher, most learned in Ethics and the science of law. Finally, that great Trajan, than whom no one of the Emperors is celebrated as better, most learned in divine and human law beyond the Emperors of his age, founder of the new and guardian of the old, as Victor says, chose Neratius the Jurist, most skilled in all moral discipline, as his successor. What then? That the Emperor in the Code, where he confirms the oracles of laws, designates himself as a Philosopher?

Moreover, we know that the name Philosopher is now given by common usage to many disciplines; but formerly it was proper to Ethics alone: for the others were not called Philosophers, but Sophists by name; which phrase Aristotle used from time to time: "In Philosophy, he says, we have said this," understanding Ethics. But who would think that Plato, whom Cicero follows in the Tusculan Questions, embraced another definition in his description, by which he sets forth and defines Philosophy as meditation on death, knowledge of divine and human things, likeness to God; or Seneca, when he says that Philosophy informs life, regulates actions, instructs morals? That the kings of the Persians cultivated this is evidenced by the fact that no one was chosen among them as king who had not first carefully received the precepts and discipline of the Magi: by which it came about that the kings themselves were Magi, and were said to have the Magi at their side from counsels and to carry them about both at home and abroad. Moreover, the Magi themselves are the same as those among us called Wise Men or Philosophers, having received their name from the Hebrew word haga, and celebrated in Isaiah in the Hebrew text: for haga signifies to meditate, to inquire, to contemplate among the Hebrews, and is attributed especially to morals. Hence it is repeatedly found in Scripture: The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom; in his law shall he meditate day and night, etc.

Wherefore in Xenophon, Socrates asserts that a noble and heroic genius is one to whom the disciplines of Ethics and Politics are dear, to which Cyrus also subscribes: indeed he thinks that empire befits no one who is not better than those over whom he rules; but who will be better, whoever has not learned from Ethics what is better, what is more honorable? Finally, imbued with this among the Greeks, the princes of lawmakers and legislators, Draco, Lycurgus, Solon, established, preserved and propagated republics. The Romans labored at this: Numa Pompilius, the Cassii, the Scaevolae, the Scipios, the Catos, and indeed the Pontiffs, Flamens, Censors, Dictators, Leaders, and every magistrate, when that splendor of empire, and the eagles ruling far from east to west, they both merited through moral discipline, by the authority of St. Augustine, and truly propagated it everywhere by this very thing rather than by arms. What, I ask, extended Roman law more than the frugality, justice, temperance, faithfulness in words and deeds of those ancients? Did anything conciliate greater veneration, majesty and authority among all? What greater glory to empire than that the fasces, formidable to the world, should shine forth through equity, chastity, piety toward country, citizens, friends? Whoever thinks otherwise, and that honor was gained more by war than by virtue, let him hear Titus Livius, the father of Roman history, investigating the causes of the rising and declining empire at the very threshold of his work: "To those things, he says, let each one direct his mind keenly, what the life was, what the morals were, through what men and by what arts at home and in war the empire was both gained and increased; then, as discipline gradually declined, as if morals were falling away, let him follow with his mind; then as they fell more and more, then they began to go headlong." Come now, measure the dignity of moral discipline by the same compass, and the limits of the Roman empire; and observe how great it ought to be, by which cultivated empires shine with such splendor; by which neglected, as if deprived of living sap, they wither away and perish. If therefore this science makes its student illustrious both privately and publicly, if it truly binds man to God by communion as much as possible, then certainly it is both philosophy and wisdom, and indeed must be numbered among the first of its kinds.

From this fruit of natural ethics and its excellence, having made a step, estimate how great is the majesty of sacred and divine wisdom, and likewise its usefulness: for this wisdom arranges all actions not only through virtues, as natural ethics does; but also makes them sacred and divine: similarly it makes the government of the commonwealth sacred and divine, so that it may lead and transfer subjects from the small earthly kingdom to the most ample kingdom of heaven. Wherefore ethics, just as virtue, needs no ornaments, seeks no miracles; it is itself an ornament, itself a miracle. The wisest of all mortals saw this, by the judgment and oracle of God, Solomon, who therefore, when a choice was made for him by God to ask whatever he wished, asked for nothing other than wisdom: he asked, and obtained not only that, but along with it riches, delights, honors and glory, by which he far surpassed all the kings of all ages: Because thou hast asked, said God, wisdom to discern judgment, behold I have done for thee according to thy words, and I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, so that there hath not been any one like thee before thee, nor shall there arise after thee. But these also, which thou didst not ask for, I have given thee: namely riches and glory, so that no one hath been like thee among kings, in all the days that were before, III Kings III. 12. He assigns the cause from the first origin and lineage of wisdom, Wisdom VII, 25: It is, he says, the vapor of the power of God, and a certain emanation of the brightness of the almighty God pure; and therefore nothing unclean falls upon it; for it is the brightness of eternal light, and the mirror without spot of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness. And, being one, it can do all things: and remaining in itself it reneweth all things, and through nations it transferreth itself into holy souls, and maketh them friends of God and prophets: for God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom. For it is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars it is found to be prior when compared to light; for night succeedeth to it; but malice overcometh not wisdom. Soon after, cap. VIII, describing more fully the strength, amplitude, government and dominion of wisdom: It reacheth, he says, from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly. I loved her, and sought her out from my youth, and I desired to take her for my spouse, and I became a lover of her beauty. He glorifieth her generosity, having the companionship of God; and the Lord of all things loved her, for she is the teacher of the discipline of God, and the chooser of his works. And if riches are desired in life, what is richer than wisdom, which worketh all things? But if sense worketh, who of the things that are is a more skillful artificer than she? And if one loveth justice, her labors have great virtues, for she teacheth sobriety and prudence, and justice, and virtue, than which nothing is more useful in the life of men. And if one desireth a multitude of knowledge, she knoweth things past, and judgeth of things to come: she knoweth the subtleties of speeches, and the solutions of arguments: she knoweth signs and wonders before they be done, and the events of times and ages. I proposed therefore to bring her to me to dwell with me.

But the fruits which he hopes to obtain certainly from wisdom, he subjoins: I shall have, he says, by reason of her, brightness before multitudes, and honor among the elders though I be young; and I shall be found acute in judgment, and shall be admirable in the sight of the powerful, and the faces of princes shall wonder at me: they shall wait for me when I am silent, and they shall regard me when I speak, and when I speak more, they shall lay their hands upon their mouth. Moreover I shall have through her immortality, and shall leave eternal memory to those who shall come after me. I shall govern peoples, and nations shall be subject to me. Kings shall fear me when they hear of me, dreadful: I shall appear good in the multitude, and brave in war. Entering into my house, I shall repose with her: for her conversation hath no bitterness, nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness.

Considering these things, in order that wisdom might be first implanted in her or increased from heaven, she earnestly invokes and beseeches God, saying: Thinking on these things, because immortality is in the knowledge of wisdom, I went to the Lord, and besought him, and said with all my heart: O God of my fathers, and Lord of mercy, who hast made all things by thy word, and by thy wisdom hast appointed man, that he should have dominion over the creature that was made by thee; that he should order the world according to equity and justice, and execute judgment with an upright heart: give me wisdom, the attendant of thy throne, and cast me not off from among thy children; for I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid, a man weak, and of short time, and inferior in the understanding of judgment and laws. For even if one be perfect among the children of men, yet if thy wisdom be wanting to him, he shall be counted for nothing. Thou hast chosen me to be king of thy people, and a judge of thy sons and daughters; and thou hast commanded me to build a temple on thy holy mount, and an altar in the city of thy dwelling, a likeness of the holy tabernacle which thou hast prepared from the beginning: and with thee is wisdom, which knoweth thy works, which was also present when thou madest the world, and knew what was pleasing in thy eyes, and what was right in thy commandments. Send her out of thy holy heavens, and from the throne of thy majesty, that she may be with me and may labour with me, that I may know what is acceptable with thee: for she knoweth all things, and understandeth them, and shall guide me soberly in my works, and shall preserve me in her power. And my works shall be acceptable, and I shall govern thy people justly, and shall be worthy of the throne of my father. This golden prayer of Solomon, dictated by the Holy Spirit, and by his command consigned to us in writing for this purpose, that we should pronounce it continually, and that we should beseech God for wisdom with like affection and spirit.

Third Praise: From the Authority of Wisdom

The third praise of wisdom comes from authority, namely from its teachers and disciples. Concerning natural wisdom the matter is clear: the ancient Philosophers so awarded the palm to Ethics among the sciences, so applied their mind and spirit to it, that they seemed to regard or neglect other things as of little account. Xenophon is the author who testifies that Socrates gave the name of Philosophy to Moral Philosophy alone — The same Timon the Pyrrhonist judged that Ethics alone deserved this, and from our own writers Lactantius Firmianus, book III, chapter VII: "Let us pass on," he says, "to Moral Philosophy, in which the whole account of Philosophy is contained; where, if anything shall have been erred, all life is overturned." The same author in the same place, chapter XV: "Seneca says: Philosophy is nothing other than the right method of living, or the science of living honourably, or the art of conducting a right life. We shall not err if we say that Philosophy is the law of living well and honourably. And he who called it the rule of life gave it its proper name." Furthermore, Ariston of Chios so embraced Moral Philosophy alone, that he tore away and condemned the other parts of Philosophy as harmful. Cicero, however, in the Tusculan Disputations, as Lactantius says, book III, chapter XIII, exclaims concerning it: O Philosophy, guide of life, O investigator of virtue, expeller of vices! What could neither we nor human life in general have been without thee? Thou wast the inventor of laws, thou the teacher of morals and discipline.

And that we may unfold these things from their origin: those first Wise Men transmitted Ethics not in such an elaborate form, but compressed into certain brief and acute sayings, which they called gnōmai, undoubtedly imitating our sacred Sage, who teaches Ethics through proverbs; and these, as if they were certain oracles, they inscribed even in the temples of the gods (such as that gnōthi seauton in the Delphic temple). Such were those seven Wise Men of Greece, whom innumerable others followed, especially Poets, called Gnōmologoi, a good part of whose works are handled even to this day: in this genre Epictetus of Pontus, Heraclides the auditor of Speusippus and Aristotle, Zeno the prince of the Stoics, especially concerning perturbation, and many others wrote things few but divine.

In this Collection of Wise Sayings the Lacedaemonians acquired such authority that Socrates in Plato did not hesitate to assert that Sparta was the dwelling-place of hidden doctrine. Thales therefore of Miletus, the most ancient of the Wise Men of Greece, conspicuous in both physical and ethical wisdom, the father of the collectors of wise sayings, gave the beginning to the Ionic school: whom Anaximander succeeded, whose student was Anaximenes, whom Anaxagoras followed, who is said to have been the first to teach the Greeks that first principle of the blessed life, namely God, whom he himself called mind or intellect, is the maker of the world and of all things; he yielded his chair to Archelaus, the teacher of Socrates. Archelaus was succeeded by Socrates, who, bidding farewell to physiology as something more curious than necessary or useful, directed all the powers of his mind to the forming of private and civil life, and to the knowing and obtaining of blessedness: from his school there came forth that flower of the Wise, Aristippus, author of the Cyrenaic sect; Antisthenes of the Cynic sect, from which was born Diogenes, a marvel of life and of men of his age; Xenophon, the prince of political science; Plato, the father of the Academy, whose Dialogues are almost all moral; whom Speusippus, his sister's son, Xenocrates, Polemon, Crantor, and that Crates followed, who, thinking gold an obstacle to wisdom, cast it away. Zeno of Citium, the head of the Stoic discipline, heard Crates, which discipline in many things, as St. Jerome says, is most similar to Christian morals. And indeed this can be seen in their writings and opinions, such as those of Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Posidonius, Epictetus, Cato, Seneca, whose severe discipline concerning vices his student Nero could not bear, and became the executioner of his teacher.

Epicurus, equal in time to Zeno but opposed in opinion, devoted himself entirely to the investigation of the blessed and happy life. And indeed he erred, defining pleasure as man's end, yet not that which is commonly thought, which is bodily and drawn in by the senses after the manner of beasts, but that which is of the mind and joined with virtue, he understood. Pherecydes of Scyros was contemporary with Thales of Miletus, who first established and defended the immortality of our souls, a great spur to virtue; his student was Pythagoras of Samos, who came to Italy in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, the author of Italian philosophy, whose distinguished Upsilon was the symbol of virtue and pleasure. Finally Aristotle, the leader of the Peripatetics, so polished moral discipline that what he had received scattered from the ancients, especially from Socrates, he reduced into a methodical science, eliminating, cutting away, and connecting many things. He was therefore attracted to be the tutor of Alexander, surnamed the Great, with Philip the father congratulating himself and giving thanks to the gods that Alexander was born at that time when Aristotle would be given to him as his teacher for the forming of his morals. Moreover Aristotle surpassed almost all other Philosophers in Logic, Physics, and Metaphysics, but in Ethics surpassed himself; and, to define everything in one comprehensive statement, Aristotle in Physics is a man; but in Ethics he appears to his followers to be a god. This concerning profane wisdom.

Concerning sacred wisdom, it is doubtful to no one that it transmitted precepts for rightly instituting life divinely received, many ages before profane wisdom: for at the time when philosophy and wisdom were almost infants among the Greeks, at that time they were almost decrepit among the Hebrews. The first teacher of Ethics, however, who transmitted it in writing to posterity, was St. Job, as is evident from his hagiographic book: for he preceded Moses and lived under the final times of the patriarch Jacob. Moses, following him, delivered the Decalogue and other precepts for living rightly, received from the mouth of God on Sinai, to Israel. After Moses, some centuries later, David succeeded, the royal Psalmist, who composed Ethics in elegant verse. His son Solomon, the oracle of wisdom, emulating his father David, transmitted to posterity nothing written (that exists) except the dogmas of Ethics, and that in four volumes, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and Wisdom. Yet all these preceded all the wise men and philosophers of the Gentiles by many ages. The follower of Solomon was our Sirach, equally as the Prophets, and after Christ the Lord the four Evangelists, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James, St. Jude, who wrote the wisdom of Christ and Christian Ethics. These were followed among the Greeks by St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, St. Ephrem: among the Latins by St. Gregory, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Bernard and the other Fathers, who devoted themselves with all their soul both in teaching and in writing to the forming of Christian morals for every virtue.

Fourth Praise: From the Matter of Wisdom

Fourth, and a notable praise of Ethical wisdom and proper to it, is from its matter, subject, and duties. For these are natural parts and duties: that it awakens, fosters, and directs the dormant seeds of right and equity; that it teaches sensible pleasure, like Circe and the Sirens' rocks, to be fled; that it holds a torch before all human life; that it measures all things by the rule and plumb-line of right reason; that it implants the flowering ranks of virtues in minds. Now indeed, who does not perceive how much practice surpasses skepticism, action surpasses speculation, virtue surpasses learning, an honest life surpasses learned and celebrated doctrine? Who would not prefer a studious life from virtue to a dry and barren investigation of the highest things? To whom would not unlearned simplicity please more than learned malice? If this is so, what do you prefer to moral discipline, what do you set before it? Aristotle speaks excellently: He who, he says, follows the judgment of mind, and has a mind cultivated and excellently constituted, is most beloved of God. For if God takes any care of human affairs (and he does, according to our universal belief), he delights in that which exists as best and partakes of divinity, namely mind; and he adorns with benefits those who love and cultivate mind, as esteeming it a thing pleasing to God and honoring it with honest work: and therefore the wise man cannot but be most beloved of God, and on that account most blessed. Nor indeed will you attain this if you philosophize only about the course of the stars, the mixture of elements, the extent of the universe: nor even if you listen to one discoursing elegantly about virtue itself, while you neglect its duties; just as most foolishly do those think themselves to become good: not unlike sick men who eagerly receive the precepts of physicians, but use none of them; for as their bodies do not recover at all, so neither do their souls improve through idle Philosophy.

But what the Ethicist teaches, that hand must be put to work, that the use of virtues may be prepared, that we may struggle against vices, this must truly be done, this must be exercised with all diligence. To which to strive earnestly, the very appearance of dishonor and turpitude excites, if, the deceptive mask of pleasure removed, you behold it more closely naked in the Ethics: for it itself alone deters from vice, if on the other hand you contemplate closely the appearance of honor and virtue, and the beauty of its countenance: for this by its nature attracts to itself and awakens wonderful loves of wisdom. Just as therefore those who walk long in the sun acquire a color from it; so it cannot be that he who enters this moral gymnasium not as a secondary work, but with careful attention, does not act more moderately in this civil and common life, nor applies greater diligence in every kind of duty. It was able to do so with St. Louis, the glory of the kings of France, the voice impressed upon the boy by his mother Blanche concerning the foulness of sin, nay a law, so that throughout his whole life free from mortal crime, he stained the royal diadem with no graver wickedness amid so many temptations. Will not the knowledge of all the Philosophers, the law of wisdom, certain and eternal science, be able to do this? Who would not kiss this sanction of friendship among the Ethicists: "A friend is another self"? Who, if drunkenness is shown by the Ethicist himself to be voluntary insanity, would not abhor it? Who, taught that he is a beast who lives to eat and drink; a man, who eats and drinks to live; would not study temperance? Who would not restrain the unbridled movements of the soul, if he truly hear it to be great to rule the mind? as that one:

You reign more widely by taming the greedy / Spirit, than if you join Libya to distant / Gades, and both Carthaginians / Serve one.

These things have been said in reproach of us, if faith does not provide what infidelity has provided, says St. Jerome in the Epitaph of Nepotian. For if natural Ethics teaches, persuades and convinces so much, what will not supernatural and divine Ethics persuade, which applies to man all the greater spurs and torches to every good, the higher it looks to the object, the higher end it has, the higher duties it teaches? Faith, hope, and charity have God as their object. What will not the supreme knowledge of God through faith accomplish, what will it not dare, what will it not undertake, the lofty confidence in God through hope, the heavenly and seraphic love and ardor of God through charity? The Saints, says St. Paul in Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 33, through faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, extinguished the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong from weakness, became mighty in battle, turned to flight the armies of the foreigners: women received their dead raised to life again. And others were racked, not accepting deliverance, that they might find a better resurrection; and others had trial of mockery and stripes, moreover also of bands and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted: of whom the world was not worthy; wandering in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.