God’s servants must look for temptations: and must arm themselves with patience and confidence in God.
Whosoeuer wil serue God must haue iustice, feare of God, and patience; 6. with confidence in God. 14. Dissemblers, incredulous, and impatient shal be miserable; 18. but the godlie shal receiue more grace.
1Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation.Figliuolo in entrando al servigio di Dio sta costante nella giustizia, e nel timore, e prepara l'anima tua alla tentazione.SONNE coming to the seruice of God, stand in iustice, and in feare, & prepare thy soule to tentation.Fili, accedens ad servitutem Dei / sta in justitia et timore, / et præpara animam tuam ad tentationem. 2Humble thy heart, and endure: incline thy ear, and receive the words of understanding: and make not haste in the time of clouds.Umilia il cuor tuo, e sopporta, porgi l'orecchio, e accogli i saggi consigli, e non ti agitare nel tempo della oscurità.Represse thy hart, & susteyne: incline thine eare, & receiue the wordes of vnderstanding: and make no hast in the time of obduction.Deprime cor tuum, et sustine: / inclina aurem tuam, et suscipe verba intellectus: / et ne festines in tempore obductionis. 3Wait on God with patience: join thyself to God, and endure, that thy life may be increased in the latter end.Aspetta in pazienza quel, che aspetti da Dio: sta unito con Dio, ed aspetta, affinché in appresso sia più prospera la tua vita.Susteyne the sustentations of God: be ioyned to God, and susteyne, that thy life may increase in the later end.Sustine sustentationes Dei: / conjungere Deo, et sustine, / ut crescat in novissimo vita tua. 4Take all that shall be brought upon thee: and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience.Ricevi tutto quello, che ti è mandato, e nel dolore soffri costantemente, e prendi in pazienza la tua umiliazione:Al, that shal be applied to thee, receiue: and in sorow susteyne, and in thy humiliation haue patience:Omne quod tibi applicitum fuerit accipe: / et in dolore sustine, / et in humilitate tua patientiam habe: 5For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.Perocché col fuoco si fa saggio dell'oro, e dell'argento; e degli uomini accettevoli nella fornace dell'umiliazione.for gold and siluer are tryed in the fyre, but acceptable men in the fornace of humiliation.quoniam in igne probatur aurum et argentum, / homines vero receptibiles in camino humiliationis. 6Believe God, and he will recover thee: and direct thy way, and trust in him. Keep his fear, and grow old therein.Confida in Dio, ed egli ti trarrà in salvo; e addirizza la tua via, e spera in lui. Conserva il suo timore, e in esso invecchia.Beleue God, and he wil recouer thee: and direct thy way, and hope in him. Keepe his feare, and grow old therin.Crede Deo, et recuperabit te: / et dirige viam tuam, et spera in illum: / serva timorem illius, et in illo veterasce.
7Ye that fear the Lord, wait for his mercy: and go not aside from him lest ye fall.Voi, che temete il Signore, aspettate in pazienza la sua misericordia, e non vi staccate da lui per non cadere.Ye that feare our Lord expect his mercie: & decline not from him lest ye fal.Metuentes Dominum, sustinete misericordiam ejus: / et non deflectatis ab illo, ne cadatis. 8Ye that fear the Lord, believe him: and your reward shall not be made void.Voi, che temete il Signore, credete a lui, e non sarà perduta la vostra mercede.Ye that feare our Lord, beleue him, and your reward shal not be voyde.Qui timetis Dominum, credite illi, / et non evacuabitur merces vestra. 9Ye that fear the Lord hope in him, and mercy shall come to you for your delight.Voi, che temete il Signore, sperate in lui, e la misericordia verrà a racconsolarvi.Ye that feare our Lord, hope in him: and mercie shal come to you for your delectation.Qui timetis Dominum, sperate in illum, / et in oblectationem veniet vobis misericordia. 10Ye that fear the Lord, love him, and your hearts shall be enlightened.Voi, che temete il Signore, amatelo, e la luce verrà a' vostri cuori.Ye that feare our Lord, loue him, & your hartes shal be illuminated.Qui timetis Dominum, diligite illum, / et illuminabuntur corda vestra. 11My children behold the generations of men: and know ye that no one hath hoped in the Lord, and hath been confounded.Figliuoli mirate le generazioni degli uomini, e sappiate, che nissuno sperò nel Signore, e rimase confuso:Children behold the nations of men: and know ye that none hath hoped in our Lord, and hath bene confounded.Respicite, filii, nationes hominum: / et scitote quia nullus speravit in Domino et confusus est. 12For who hath continued in his commandment, and hath been forsaken? or who hath called upon him, and he despised him?Imperocché chi è mai, che sia stato costante ne' comandamenti di lui, e sia stato abbandonato? E chi mai lo invocò, che sia stato sprezzato?For who hath continewed in his commandment, and hath bene forsaken? or who hath inuocated him, and he despised him?Quis enim permansit in mandatis ejus, et derelictus est ? / aut quis invocavit eum, et despexit illum ? 13For God is compassionate and merciful, and will forgive sins in the day of tribulation: and he is a protector to all that seek him in truth.Perocché Dio è benigno, e misericordioso, e nel dì della tribolazione rimette i peccati, ed è protettore di tutti quelli, che lui cercano con verità.Because God is pitiful and merciful, and wil forgeue sinnes in the day of tribulation: and he is protector to al that seeke him in truth.Quoniam pius et misericors est Deus, / et remittet in die tribulationis peccata, / et protector est omnibus exquirentibus se in veritate.
14Woe to them that are of a double heart and to wicked lips, and to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner that goeth on the earth two ways.Guai al cuore doppio, e alle labbra scellerate, e alle mani malfattrici, e al peccatore che per due strade cammina sopra la terra.Woe to them of a duble hart, and to wicked lippes, and to the handes that doe euil, and to the sinner that goeth on the earth two wayes.Væ duplici corde, et labiis scelestis, / et manibus malefacientibus, / et peccatori terram ingredienti duabus viis ! 15Woe to them that are fainthearted, who believe not God: and therefore they shall not be protected by him.Guai a quelli, che son fiacchi di cuore, che non credono a Dio; e per questo non saran protetti da lui.Woe to them that be dissolute of hart, which beleue not God: and therefore they shal not be protected of him.Væ dissolutis corde, qui non credunt Deo, / et ideo non protegentur ab eo ! 16Woe to them that have lost patience, and that have forsaken the right ways, and have gone aside into crooked ways.Guai a quelli, che perdono la tolleranza, e abbandonano le vie rette, e vanno a prendere le vie storte.Woe be to them, that haue lost patience, and that haue forfaken the right wayes, and haue declined into peruerse wayes.Væ his qui perdiderunt sustinentiam, / et qui dereliquerunt vias rectas, / et diverterunt in vias pravas ! 17And what will they do, when the Lord shall begin to examine?E che farann'eglino, allorché il Signore principierà a far giudizio?And what wil they doe, when our Lord shal begynne to looke on them?Et quid facient cum inspicere cœperit Dominus ? 18They that fear the Lord, will not be incredulous to his word: and they that love him, will keep his way.Quelli, che temono il Signore, non saranno disubbidienti alla sua parola, e quelli, che lo amano, la via di lui seguiranno costantemente.They that feare our Lord, wil not be incredulous to his word: and they that loue him, wil kepe his waye.Qui timent Dominum non erunt incredibiles verbo illius: / et qui diligunt illum conservabunt viam illius. 19They that fear the Lord, will seek after the things that are well pleasing to him: and they that love him, shall be filled with his law.Quelli, che temono il Signore, studieranno quello, che sia grato a lui, e que' che lo amano saranno ripieni della sua legge.They that feare our Lord, wil seeke after the thinges that are wel pleasing to him: and they that loue him, shal be filled with his law.Qui timent Dominum inquirent quæ beneplacita sunt ei, / et qui diligunt eum replebuntur lege ipsius.
20They that fear the Lord, will prepare their hearts, and in his sight will sanctify their souls,Quei, che temono il Signore, prepareranno i loro cuori, o nel cospetto di lui santificheranno le anime loro.They that feare our Lord, wil prepare their hartes, and in his sight wil sanctifie their soules.Qui timent Dominum præparabunt corda sua, / et in conspectu illius sanctificabunt animas suas. 21They that fear the Lord, keep his commandments, and will have patience even until his visitation,Que' che temono il Signore, osservano i suoi comandamenti, e conserveranno la pazienza fino al dì della visita;They that feare our Lord, kepe his commandements, and wil haue patience euen vntil his visitation,Qui timent Dominum custodiunt mandata illius, / et patientiam habebunt usque ad inspectionem illius, 22Saying: If we do not penance, we shall fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men.E diranno: se noi non farem penitenza, caderem nelle mani del Signore, e non nelle mani degli uomini;saying: If we doe not penance, we shal fal into the handes of our Lord, and not into the handes of men.dicentes: Si pœnitentiam non egerimus, / incidemus in manus Domini, et non in manus hominum. 23For according to his greatness, so also is his mercy with him.Perocché quanto egli è grande, altrettanto egli è misericordioso.For according to his greatnes, so also his mercie is with him.Secundum enim magnitudinem ipsius, / sic et misericordia illius cum ipso est.
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2:2
Grotius
Humble. Greek, "regulate thy heart, and endure, and make not haste in the time of trouble," (Haydock) inflicted by God. (Grotius)
But not impatient, Isaias 28:16.
Haydock
Clouds. Literally, "overcast," obductionis. (Haydock)
Haydock
Desire not death, in order to be covered from the miseries of life; for that would (Worthington) border on despair. (Haydock)
2:3
Menochius
Patience. Or expectation of being relieved. (Menochius)
2:5
Calmet
Humiliation. It shews what they really are. (Calmet)
2:10
Menochius
Enlightened. With joy, Isaias lviii. (Menochius)
Calmet
This verse is not in Greek. To avoid such frequent repetitions, it would be well to mark the passages in different characters, (Haydock) or between crotchets, as in the French version. (Calmet)
Yet the Greek editions are not uniform. See Drusius and Haeschel.
2:14
Calmet
Ways. Attempting to reconcile the service of the world with that of God, who rejects hypocrites, (Haydock) the inconstant, and faint-hearted, ver. 15., and 3 Kings 18:21. (Calmet)
Worthington
Virtues and sins will receive their due. (Worthington)
2:20
Calmet
Hearts. With God's grace (Haydock) to fight manfully. (Calmet)
Haydock
Sanctify. Greek, "humble their souls, saying, we shall," etc., ver. 22. (Haydock)
Prayer, vigilance, and humility are the best dispositions to resist the devil.
2:22
Calmet
Men. He alludes to 2 Kings 24:14. In this world, God punishes with mercy; in the next, with severity, Daniel 13:23. (Calmet)
2:2
Desire not to dye, that thou maist therby be couered from vvorldlie miseries, for that is a desperate desire, but haue patience in this life that thou maist fi•de rest in God.
Co•• king.
2:14
As vertues are to be revvarded: so al sinnes shal be punished. Namely external pretence of holines, vvith secrete euil intention. Distrust in God. Impatience, and the like.
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St Cyprian of Carthage † AD 258 On the Mortality 9
… Holy Scripture teaches and forewarns, saying, “My son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in righteousness and fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation.”
St Jerome † AD 420 The Letters of St. Jerome 118.4
… Nay, say they, when you bore your wife to burial, it was not as one dead but as one setting forth on a journey. But I shall not deceive you with flattering words or take the ground from under your feet with slippery praises. Rather will I say what it is good for you to hear: “My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation,”
St Jerome † AD 420 Against Jovinianus 2.3
… Let us then build gold, silver, costly stones, and he will not venture to tempt us: although even thus there is not sure and safe possession. For the lion lurks in ambush to slay the innocent. “Potters’ vessels are proved by the furnace, and just men by the trial of tribulation.” And in another place it is written:
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Patience 11
… bring thine heart low, and bear up; that in the last end thy life may increase. All that shall come upon thee receive thou, and in pain bear up, and in thy humility have patience. For in the fire gold and silver is proved, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 80.4
… Thou wilt evidently be angry, in fact, as a father correcting, not as a judge condemning. In such manner evidently Thou wilt be angry, because it hath been written, “My son, drawing near unto the service of God, stand thou in righteousness and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 84.1
… Men of this kind, therefore, before they draw near to the service of God, enjoy in the world a kind of delicious liberty, like hanging grapes or olives: but as it is said, “My son, when thou drawest near to the service of God, stand in judgment and fear, and make thy soul ready for temptation:”
John Cassian † AD 435 The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 4.38
Wherefore , as Scripture says, “when you go forth to serve the Lord stand in the fear of the Lord, and prepare your mind”
Pope St Leo I the Great † AD 461 Sermons 39
… This life of ours is in the midst of snares, in the midst of battles; if we do not wish to be deceived, we must watch: if we want to overcome, we must fight. And therefore the most wise Solomon says, “My son in approaching the service of God prepare thy soul for temptation
Pseudo-Cyprian On the Glory of Martyrdom 14
… “My son,” says He, “if thou come to serve God, stand fast in righteousness, and fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation.”
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St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on 2 Timothy 1
Moral. Let us then not be distressed at the evils that happen to us. This is sobriety of mind. “In the season of temptation,” he says, “make not haste.” (
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on Titus 6
… Surely Abraham did not leave his home expecting again to receive his son, but as prepared to sacrifice him; and it was contrary to his expectation that he received him again safe. And thou, when thou fallest into tribulation, be not in haste to be delivered,
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St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch 1.23
… So that I did not say rashly, that these tribulations themselves mark out to us hopes of a resurrection, and make those who are tried the better; for, he saith, “as gold is tried in a furnace, so an acceptable man in the furnace of humiliation.”
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St Cyprian of Carthage † AD 258 On the Advantage of Patience 17
… Nor does anything distinguish between the unrighteous and the righteous more than that in affliction the unrighteous man impatiently complains and blasphemes, while the righteous is proved by his patience, as it is written: “In pain endure, and in thy low estate have patience; for gold and silver are tried in the fire.”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch 18.7
… for great is your reward in heaven.” But suppose a man hath fallen into disease? Well, he hath heard another admonishing, and saying, “In disease and poverty trust thou in Him; for as gold is tried in the fire, so are acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on Ephesians 19
What then? Are we to give thanks for everything that befalls us? Yes; be it even disease, be it even penury. For if a certain wise man gave this advice in the Old Testament, and said, “Whatsoever is brought upon thee take cheerfully, and be patient when thou art changed to a low estate” (
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On the Morals of the Catholic Church 23
… Had she not heard, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints?" Had she not heard, "A patient man is better than the mightiest?" Had she not heard, "All that is appointed thee receive; and in pain bear it; and in abasement keep thy patience: for in fire are gold and silver tried?"
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 119.7
… and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” We well understand here that humiliation also, not whereby each man humbleth himself by confessing his sins, and by not arrogating righteousness to himself; but when each man is humbled by some tribulation or mortification which his pride deserved; or when he is exercised and proved by endurance;
Pseudo-Cyprian On the Glory of Martyrdom 16
16. Moreover, beloved brethren, so great is the virtue of martyrdom, that by its means even he who has wished to slay you is constrained to believe. It is written, and we read: “Endure in suffering, and in thy humiliation have patience, because gold and silver are tried by the fire.”
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St Cyprian of Carthage † AD 258 On the Mortality 9
… Holy Scripture teaches and forewarns, saying, “My son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in righteousness and fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation.” And again: “In pain endure, and in thy humility have patience; for gold and silver is tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.”
2:7
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 City of God 20.10
… ” As to what they say about nothing being able to rise again but what falls, whence they conclude that resurrection pertains to bodies only, and not to souls, because bodies fall, why do they make nothing of the words, “Ye that fear the Lord, wait for His mercy; and go not aside lest ye fall;”
2:10
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Letter to a Young Widow 6
… of any of those persons who trample upon the misfortunes of others “Cast thy care upon the Lord and He will nourish thee.” “For look,” it is said, “to past generations and see, who ever placed his hope on the Lord and was put to shame, or who ever called upon Him, and was neglected, or who ever remained constant to His commandments and was forsaken?”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on Philippians 3
… “Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we have hoped in Thee.” ( Ps. xxxiii. 22 .) And as it is written in another place, “Look to the generations of old and see, did any one hope in the Lord, and was made ashamed?” (
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 26.8
… yea, if we will, they are ours also). “If I said my foot hath slipped.” How slipped, except because it was mine own. And what follows? “Thy mercy, Lord, helped me.” Not mine own strength, but Thy mercy. For will God forsake him as he totters, whom He heard when calling upon Him? Where then is that, “Who hath called upon God, and hath been forsaken by Him?”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 64.2
… Were they not therefore hearkened to, because they were slain; and hath God forsaken His servants of a contrite heart, and despised men hoping in Him? Far be it. For “who hath called upon God, and hath been forsaken; who hath hoped in Him, and hath been deserted by Him?”
Anonymous A Treatise Against the Heretic Novatian by an Anonymous Bishop 18
… For thus He says: “Look, my son, upon the nations of men, and know who hath hoped in the Lord, and has been confounded; or has remained in His commandments, and has been forsaken; or has called upon Him, and He has despised him. For the Lord is loving and merciful, and forgiving in time of tribulation their sins to all those that seek after Him in truth.”
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St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on Philippians 2
… is it not by reason of hunger? is it not for thirst? is it not for cold? Is it not indeed for these things? There is not, there is not any one who is ever destitute in these things! “For look at the generations of old, and see, did ever any one trust in the Lord, and was forsaken? or did any one hope in Him, and was made ashamed?” (
2:12
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews 19
What is “let us draw near with a true heart”? That is, without hypocrisy; for “woe be to a fearful heart, and faint hands” (
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 83.4
… he thinks in himself one thing to be true, he gives out another for truth. His is a double heart, not single; he does not bring out that which he has in it. The double heart has long since been condemned. “With deceitful lips in a heart and a heart have they spoken evil things.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 7.7
… Thou canst have, then, the sign of Christ along with the sign of the devil. Christ does not desire community of ownership, but He desires to possess alone what He has purchased. He has bought at so great a price that He may possess alone: thou makest Him the partner of that devil to whom thou didst sell thyself by thy sin. “Woe to the double-hearted,”
2:14
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Patience 10
… If we have received good at the hand of the Lord, shall we not bear evil?” Seeing even he also would have lost patience, if either by blasphemy as she had suggested, or by killing himself which not even she had dared to speak of, he should die, and be among them of whom it is written, “Woe unto them that have lost patience!”
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St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews 20
[4.] Next he adds testimony, saying, ( ver. 31, 30 ) “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” “For” it is written: “Vengeance [belongeth] unto Me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people.” “Let us fall,” it is said, “into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men.” (
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Sirach, delivering the doctrines and precepts of wisdom, follows the order of the Decalogue and of nature; whence he begins from God and the worship of God. First therefore this is his doctrine and precept, but threefold. For it contains three parts, and three precepts; the first: "Draw near to the service of God," serve God; the second: "Stand in justice and in fear;"; the third: "Prepare thy soul for temptation." In like manner the wise men, both sacred and profane, begin their Ethics from God and the religion of God. Whence St. Isidore, II Sentences, cap. 1: "The first, he says, study of wisdom is to seek God, then honesty of life with the work of innocence." The service of God is not vile and forced servitude of slaves, but noble (for to serve God is to reign) and religious worship of God's worshippers, namely, the worship and religion of God. For this is called throughout Scripture, especially in Leviticus and Numbers, אבודה aboda, that is, servitude, worship, ministry. For there the offices, rites and ceremonies of the Levites in the tabernacle are called aboda. Moreover, the occasion for Sirach's writing was that at this time the Jews were gravely afflicted by Ptolemy Lagus, who succeeded Alexander the Great in the kingdom of Egypt. For he craftily took Jerusalem, treated the Jews harshly and cruelly, led many captives into Egypt, and ordered them to establish their dwellings there. Whence Ptolemy Philadelphus, succeeding him, in favor of Eleazar and the Seventy Interpreters, freed one hundred twenty thousand Jews, and sent them back from Egypt into Judea, as Josephus relates, lib. XII Antiq. cap. 1 and 2. This therefore was a grave temptation of the Jews, on account of which some passed from Judaism to paganism. Whence it appears that at this time, to confirm them in the service and religion of God, Sirach wrote these things. And there was added another temptation of the schismatic Samaritans, of which I shall speak at verse 14. Most excellently St. Ephrem in his tract on Patience: "Whoever wishes to please God, he says, and to become his heir through faith, so that he himself may be called a son of God, and born of the Holy Spirit, must before all things, grasping longsuffering and patience, strongly bear whatever tribulations, straits, and necessities meet him, whether bodily sicknesses and sufferings, or reproaches and injuries from men, or even various invisible anxieties, which are brought upon the soul by evil spirits." STAND IN JUSTICE AND IN FEAR. — These words are wanting in modern Greek texts; but St. Augustine read them in the Mirror, and Cyprian in the tract On Mortality. Whence it is clear that they were once in the Greek, and that our Interpreter is very ancient, who had fuller Greek manuscripts than now exist. By justice understand the observance of the commandments of God: for this the service of God requires, nay, consists in this, as I said cap. 1, 33. The sense is, as if to say: If thou wishest to serve God and to bind thyself to his obedience, constantly observe his commands and precepts, and flee all sins, which are contrary to them: for he hates and forbids these, just as he loves and commands those. Note to stand, as if to say: Persist firm, constant and immovable like a rock, against all enemies and temptations, which will soon press upon and assail thee, as follows; and therefore to this constant justice mingle fear, lest, trusting in thyself, thou be abandoned by God, and suffer thyself to fall into temptation and consent, according to that: "He that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall," I Cor. x. Again, the fear of God, that is, dread and reverence, may confirm thee in thy station of justice, while it makes thee cautious and solicitous lest thou offend God, and exceed justice. For fear is the best guardian of grace and justice. "The mind that knows how to fear knows how to walk safely," says Seneca in Sentences, letter A. St. Ephrem in his tract On Patience, citing these words of Ecclesiasticus: "If moreover, he says, he does not bear strongly and strenuously, enduring any temptation and tribulation; but rather grieves and is affected with weariness, is indignant and troubled, and labors little in the struggle; or even despairs, as if it were never to be delivered, which is itself the invention and artifice of malice, casting the soul into sloth and cowardice and pusillanimity, and not making it partaker of hope, by which it may always expect the mercy of the Lord in sure faith, and with no hesitation. Such a soul indeed will not merit life in the future, because it did not show itself a follower of all the Saints, nor pursued the footsteps of the Lord. Consider and see in what manner from the beginning the Patriarchs, Prophets and Apostles and Martyrs, passing through the ways of tribulations and temptations, were thus able to please God: who for- against thee against Beelzebub is born the beginning of combat." Which Gregory also explains most clearly in Job cap. 3, on those words: "Who are prepared to stir up Leviathan." "All, he says, who trample underfoot in their mind those things which are of the world, and desire with full intention those things which are of God, stir up Leviathan against themselves; because they inflame his malice by the instigation of their conversion. It grieves him to struggle against being captured, and soon he is kindled with zeal, soon he is moved to combat, soon he stirs himself up against the rebellious mind with innumerable temptations." And elsewhere Job. 40, on those words: "He shall swallow up the river, and shall not wonder." "He strives greatly to seize, he says, those whom, despising earthly pursuits, he now sees joined to heavenly contemplations. And likewise now with all his effort he raises himself against their death, those whom he grieves are regenerated against him. He thirsts for the Jordan, and as often as any Christian flows toward iniquity, so often does the Jordan flow into his mouth." enduring any temptation and tribulation, they even rejoiced amid straits, on account of the hope of the reward of recompense which is awaited; as Scripture says: Son, coming to the service of God, direct thy heart, and endure. And again the Apostle says: But if ye be without chastisement, of which all are made partakers; then are ye bastards and not sons. And elsewhere again: All things that are brought upon thee, embrace as good, knowing that without God nothing is done." Finally, he who wishes to be imbued and perfected with the fear of the Lord, let him read St. Ephrem, who surpasses the other Fathers in the spirit of fear and compunction, and breathes nothing but fear, love and heavenly life. AND PREPARE THY SOUL FOR TEMPTATION — to be endured and overcome. For the flesh, the world and the devil will tempt thee: for thou dost provoke and challenge these enemies, who, provoked and irritated, rise up more fiercely against thee, both through prosperity and through adversity: for these two are the sources of all temptations. See St. Gregory XXIV Moral. 13. The first admonition of Sirach is: "Prepare thyself for temptation." St. Leo gives the reason, serm. 1 de Quadrag. cap. 3: "For a man, he says, full of the wisdom of God, knowing that the study of religion has the labor of combat, when he foresaw the danger of battle, admonished beforehand him who was about to fight; lest perchance, if temptation should come to one unaware, it would wound him more quickly unprepared." Prepare thyself therefore for temptation, first through prayer, according to that word of Christ Matt. 26: "Watch ye and pray, that ye enter not into temptation;"; secondly, through flight of occasions: for "he that toucheth pitch, shall be defiled with it," Eccli. 13; thirdly, through foresight, foreseeing future dangers and combats, and procuring arms against them; fourthly, through firmness of mind, strengthening thyself against all temptations to come, according to that Psal. 118: "I have sworn, and am determined to keep the judgments of thy justice." Thus Palacius. Hence St. Jerome with this sentiment, Epist. 34, consoles Julian, who was bereft at once of daughters and wife: "Son, he says, coming to the service of God, prepare thy soul for temptation, and when thou hast done all things, say: I am an unprofitable servant; I have done what I ought to do. Thou hast taken away the children, whom thou thyself didst give. Thou hast taken back the handmaid, whom thou didst lend me for brief consolation. I am not grieved that thou hast taken back: but I give thanks that thou didst give." Thou wilt ask: Why is temptation prepared for him coming to the service of God? Resp. There are many causes. The first, because such a one withdraws from the service of the devil, who, indignant that he is deprived of his peculium and lordly right, pursues him as a fugitive servant and apostate, and tempts him, so that he might bring him back to his camps, to his right and dominion. Such a one therefore should have it fixed, and should propose to himself with certainty, that he provokes and stirs up the devil and all demons to perpetual war, nay to perpetual duel. Hear Origen homil. 9 in lib. Judic.: "Thou hast come, he says, to the water of baptism; this is the beginning of spiritual combat and struggle: hence the devil does not reign intrinsically in the saints, he fights against them extrinsically; and he who has lost dominion intrinsically, stirs up war externally." The second reason why the faithful should expect temptations immediately after conversion and prepare themselves for many afflictions is that all vices assail him, and so with all the concupiscences innate to him and increased by indulgence in his former life, and thoroughly ingrained, he must continually struggle against them: for desires, while they are being mortified, rise up more fiercely and rear their heads, like an asp. Thus St. Jerome in Epistle 1: "You err, brother, you err, if you think that a Christian ever does not suffer persecution." St. Leo in Sermon 9 on Lent: "Tribulation of persecution never ceases, if the observance of piety never ceases." And most excellently Chrysostom in Homily 8 on II Timothy: "No one engaged in combat seeks rest: it is unlawful for a fighter of God to be idle in delights; it is not permitted to feast while struggling. All present things are indeed struggle, combat, war, contest; another time is that of rest; this is assigned to hardships and labors: no one, when he has stripped himself for combat and is anointed, seeks rest." St. Bernard in Sermon 1 on the Conversion of St. Paul: "It seemed, he says, that the time of persecution had already ceased; but, as it became clear, persecution never ceases for the Christian." Combats threaten us from all sides, and indeed we are assailed within ourselves by internal war. Thus Chrysostom in Homily 24 on the Acts of the Apostles: "Do you see, he says, that now persecution is greater, with affections assailing us from all sides like beasts? Now is grievous persecution, especially because it is not thought to be persecution: for indeed war has this difficulty, that it is thought to be peace, so that we do not take up arms against it or rise up against it, no one fears, no one trembles." And to the same effect St. Jerome in Epistle 1: "Then, he says, you are most assailed, if you do not know that you are being assailed." He then enumerates the assault of vices: "From there, he says, lust pursues me; from there avarice strives to break in; from there my belly wants to be my god instead of Christ; lust compels me, so that I flee the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, so that I violate his temple." That this was once signified in Ishmael, who, as Paul says in Galatians IV, 19, persecuted Isaac, Origen teaches at length in Homily 7 on Genesis: "If flesh, he says, whose person Ishmael bears, who is born according to the flesh, flatters the spirit, which is Isaac, and deals with him in seductive deceptions and entices him with illicit delights, softens him with pleasures; such play of flesh with spirit offends Sarah especially, who is virtue; such flatteries Paul judges to be most bitter persecution. And you therefore, O hearer, think that persecution alone to be when you are compelled by the gentiles to sacrifice to idols; as persecution, especially flee it. But if injustice flatters, and bent by its grace you do not bear right judgment, you ought to understand that under the appearance of play you suffer bland persecution from injustice. But indeed through each species of malice, even if they are soft and smooth and similar to play, call these persecution of the spirit." Wherefore truly Bede in Proverbs: "Before conversion, he says, a multitude of sins precedes; after conversion a multitude of temptations follows. For contempt of the world is love of God; and conversely, love of God is contempt of the world." Again: "Having lain long in sins, he will also, if he wishes to be converted, endure for a long time the troubles of diabolical temptation." The third reason is that companions and friends, seeing themselves abandoned by him who has determined to live piously, rise up against him, just as Ishmael rose up against Isaac, Esau against Jacob, the brothers against Joseph. Thus St. Augustine in Tract. 12 on John: "What mockery, he says, Scripture says Sarah saw, the Apostle calls persecution; therefore those who persecute you more are those who seduce you by mocking." And after much: "That mockery, that mockery was deception; that mockery signified deception; for let your charity attend to a great mystery. The Apostle calls that persecution the very mockery itself, calls the very mockery persecution," and much thereafter. To the same point tend the things which Gregory writes in book IX of the Kings, epistle 39; for he says that the society of the wicked is persecution itself: "I," he says, "do not suspect that I am Abel, who did not have Cain; for the good, if they were without the wicked, could not be perfectly good, because they are not at all purified; but the very society of the wicked is the purification of the good. There were three sons of Noah in the ark: one became a mocker of his father, who, although he was blessed in himself, nevertheless received the sentence of malediction in his son. Abraham had two sons before he took Cethura as wife; but nevertheless his carnal son persecuted the son of the promise; which the great Doctor expounds saying: As therefore he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, so also now." Bernard, moreover, in sermon 1 on the Conversion of Paul, laments the condition of the Church, in which are found those who persecute not only Christians, but Christ himself. Elsewhere, however, in sermon 6 on the Psalm "He that dwelleth," explaining the words of David: "Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night, of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the darkness, of invasion or of the demon at noonday," he recounts four kinds of persecutions, by which both individually each one and the whole Church especially are oppressed. Most excellently St. Augustine in sermon 78 on the Temporal: "As two little ones," he says, "collided in the womb of Rebecca; so in the womb of the Church two peoples continually oppose each other: in the belly of spiritual Rebecca, the Church, two peoples collide; the humble, namely, and the proud; the chaste and the adulterers." The fourth cause is enemies and rivals who, by virtue— It must be carefully noted that St. Gertrude in book II of the Revelations, chapter 11, writes that it was revealed to her from heaven, namely: "The demon receives or seizes a greater occasion for tempting in that matter and in the form of concupiscence in which someone once gave him consent; for divine justice fittingly and decorously permits this for the chastisement of consent." Whoever therefore is wise will strongly oppose himself to all the demon's temptations as soon as he feels them. The same thing is handed down by the Saints in the Lives of the Fathers. A clear example is in the Life of St. Mary of Egypt, who for seventeen years was gravely tempted in the desert by the spirit of lust, because for that many years previously she had consented to it and served it: "For by whom a man is overcome, of him also he is the slave," says St. Peter in his first epistle, chapter 2, verse 19. The devil therefore pursues such a one as a fugitive slave, so that he might bring him back to his former slavery. Sixth, because Christ marks his followers, as it were soldiers, with the badge of his cross, and wishes that they merit with him through afflictions and tribulations an immense and eternal weight of glory in the heavens. For if "it behoved Christ to suffer, and so to enter into his glory," Luke 24:26, to whom nevertheless that was due by natural right of sonship; much more does it befit us Christians, who have no right to it from ourselves, to merit so great a glory through struggles and contests, and "to enter into the kingdom of God through many tribulations," Acts 14:21. This is what Christ, about to go to his death, said to the Apostles, Luke 22:28: "You are they who have continued with me in my temptations." Soon, moreover, he adds the reward: "And I dispose to you, as my Father hath disposed to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and may sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." And John 17:24: "Father, those whom thou hast given me, I will that where I am, they also may be with me; that they may see my glory which thou hast given me." And Paul in II Corinthians 4:10: "Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh." And Romans 6:5: "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." Finally II Timothy 2, verse 11: "For if we be dead with him, we shall live also with him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with him." St. Augustine understood this when he said: "I do not wish to be without a wound; because I see thee, O Lord, wounded." And the Apostles, who, as it is said in Acts 5:41, "went from the presence of the council rejoicing; because they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus." And St. James chapter 1:2: "All joy count it, brethren, when you shall fall into divers temptations." Where I have said more on this matter. St. John, moreover, seeing and admiring the glory of those who suffer, Apocalypse 7:14: "These," he says, "are they who are come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple." That Abbot in the Lives of the Fathers, book V, booklet 7, no. 43, saw an Angel adorning seven crowns for his disciple, because he had overcome temptation in sleep seven times that night: "For the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away," Matt. 11. Finally, St. Augustine in Psalm 83, which is inscribed: Concerning the wine-presses, by wine-presses understands Churches, and the souls of the faithful who are pressed by temptation: "The grape, he says, hangs on the vines, and the olive on the trees; for these two are wont to have wine-presses prepared for their fruits. And as long as they hang in their thickets, they enjoy as it were free air; but neither is the grape wine, nor the olive oil before pressing. So also are men, whom God predestined before the ages to be conformed to the image of His only-begotten Son, who was especially expressed as a great cluster in His passion. Such men therefore, before they come to the service of God, enjoy in this age, as it were in delightful freedom, like grapes or olives hanging; but because it is said: Son, coming to the service of God, stand in justice and fear; and prepare thy soul for temptation; each one coming to the service of God, let him know that he has come to the wine-presses, he shall be troubled, he shall be ground, he shall be pressed, not that he may perish in this age, but that he may flow into God's storehouses. He is stripped of the coverings of carnal desires, as it were of grape-skins; for this befell him in carnal desires. For which reason also the Apostle says: Put off the old man, and put on the new; all this is not done except by pressing; for this reason the Churches of God of this time are called wine-presses." Wherefore Christ the Lord wished to give and to go before all His own with an example, indeed an auspice, of this doctrine, of temptation and combat; He who, about to begin His preaching, as it were His service and obedience to God, going into the desert, and there fasting, wished to be tempted by the devil, with a threefold, that is, every, kind of temptation. Whence St. Jerome in chapter 4 of St. Matthew: "Unless, he says, the Lord had begun to fast, there would have been no occasion for the devil to tempt, according to that: Son, coming to the service of God, stand in justice and fear; and prepare thy soul for temptation."
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Whence morally Palacius: "Before thy conversion, he says, thy soul was lifted up in heart; it lacked the yoke; it lacked a rider and a tamer. But in conversion God wishes to sit upon His throne; He wishes to sit upon the ass and her colt; He wishes to ascend upon His Cherub; He wishes to ride upon the wings of the wind, or of His spirit. Therefore humble thyself. Humble thyself, that thou mayest receive God above thee; in no way shalt thou admit pride." Thus St. Antony, as St. Athanasius testifies, saw the whole world full of snares of temptations, which demons were setting; and when sighing he said: "Lord, who will be able to escape all these snares?" he heard: "Humility. For humility loosens every virtue of the enemy," as the demons themselves have often confessed. For this reason God permits in the Saints, who have overcome great temptations, certain small ones; so that, while they are overcome by them, they may feel their own weakness, and humble themselves, and attribute the victory of greater temptations, not to themselves, but to God. Thus Rabanus. AND ENDURE. — Zurich: "Act bravely;" in Greek, as a disciple; as a disciple endures and bears the blows of his master. Again: Endure, says Palacius, that is, when thou hast admitted God above thee, him, although he may seem heavy, do not cast off, but endure. It was said: "Act manfully, let thy heart be strengthened, and endure the Lord." He will seem burdensome to thee not rarely. But do not cast off so noble a burden; He himself will give strength to endure, He who wishes the burden in the load, and will say: "My grace is sufficient for thee." This is the third remedy of temptation, namely, patience and endurance, by which thou mayest patiently bear the troubles of temptation, pains, fears, anxieties and anguishes. Truly Seneca in his Sayings: "Wisdom is a remedy for any pain." The same, in the book On Providence, chapter 1: "God, he says, does not keep the just man in delights, he tests him, hardens him, prepares him for himself." After some things, chapter 2: "The good man considers all adversities as exercises; but what man, if only upright toward honesty, is not desirous of just labor, and ready for duties with danger? To whom is industrious leisure not a punishment? Virtue languishes without an adversary; then it appears how great it is, how much it can and is able, when patience shows what it can do." And he then gathers many things, which fall much more truly upon the Christian man; for nothing is more desirable to the just man than patience in adverse things: "This, says Tertullian in the book On Patience, strengthens faith, governs peace, aids charity, instructs humility, awaits repentance, assigns confession, rules the flesh, preserves the spirit, restrains the hand, tramples temptations, drives away scandals, consoles the poor, moderates the rich, does not extend the weak, does not consume the strong, delights the faithful, incites the Gentile; commends the servant to the master, the master to God; adorns the woman, approves the man; is loved in the boy, praised in the youth, respected in the old man; in every sex, in every age it is beautiful." AND INCLINE THY EAR, AND RECEIVE THE WORDS OF UNDERSTANDING. — Zurich: "Apply thy ear, and receive deliberate words." This is the fourth remedy of temptation, namely, to hear counsels and consolations, both from Holy Scripture and pious books, and from spiritual men, by whom the tempted one is partly instructed, how, for example, he ought to conduct himself prudently and patiently in temptation; partly strengthened, so that he may endure it bravely and bear it. Therefore Sirach signifies that the tempted one ought to receive instructions and consolations, both from good— The fifth remedy for temptation is this, namely, not to be fearful in it, nor to be hasty; but to be strong, long-suffering and steadfast. For almost every temptation arises from weakness and instability of mind, as St. Gregory teaches in that passage from 1 Kings 2: "The feet of His saints He will keep." Now the feet of the saints are faith and love, or humility and fortitude, by which we stand strong and unconquered against all temptations. Thus "St. Paula," says St. Jerome in her Epitaph, "sang steadfastly in sorrow: Why art thou sad, O my soul, and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, the salvation of my countenance and my God. In dangers she spoke: Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. And again: Whosoever will save his life, shall lose it. And: Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, shall save it. When losses of her property and the overthrow of her entire patrimony were announced, she said: For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? And: Naked came I out of my mother's womb, naked shall I return. As it pleased the Lord, so it is done. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Wisely the Abbot Pastor in the Lives of the Fathers, book VI, treatise 4, no. 9: "It pertains to a man placed in temptation," he says, "that word of Christ, Matthew 6: Be not solicitous for tomorrow. So that he may not think how long he will be in it, but rather that he willingly accept what is of today and daily." For, as Christ says: "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Tomorrow will be solicitous for itself." Thus that Religious man tempted for nine years, so that he would leave the congregation of Brothers, "when evening came would say to himself: Tomorrow I depart from here. And in the morning: Let us wrest from ourselves staying here and today for the Lord's sake. When he had fulfilled nine years, doing thus from day to day, the Lord took away the temptation from him." Ibid., book V, treatise 7, no. 39. Others interpret it variously, as if to say: Do not hasten, that is, do not through impatience, covering, that is death, cry out, or hasten, and bring upon yourself: for in death all things seem to be covered, wrapped and obscured, thus Lyra. "Do not hasten in the time of covering, that is, of division of the senses," he says, "which happens at the time of death; that is, do not desire death, broken on account of the length of adversity." Others more genuinely, as if to say: "Do not hasten in the time of covering;" that is, when passion or hatred, or love, or sorrow comes upon you, if it be vehement, the light of reason is somehow obscured, and as if the heaven of the soul covered over does not allow the mind to see well what is better, what is just, what is fitting, indeed even what is useful. Therefore in such great darkness of mind one must not rashly rush into those things which first present themselves, urged on, namely, by passion, which, since it is blind, will lead that mind obscured by mists into precipices, into abysses, into destruction. One must wait, therefore, until the passion subsiding these mists are dispersed. For time reveals truth. For, as the Comic poet says: "Truth is the daughter of time; the wolf is a lie to time," because time consumes falsehood, as a wolf devours a sheep.
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Palacius, less genuinely, interprets it thus: Endure the supports, that is, endure the burdens and weights of temptations, to be borne by you; namely, those which God imposes upon you, and with which He lies upon you as if heavy and weighty, and which He wishes you to suffer and endure, indeed in which He Himself sustains you, as Lyra says, according to that passage in 1 Corinthians 10: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will make with temptation a way out, that you may be able to bear it." let him not hasten." And Habakkuk 2, 3: "If he shall make delay, wait for him." For He tempers all sad things equally with joyful ones, and time finally takes them away. All pains are soothed by time, indeed finally they are not felt and vanish. Diseases are broken and scattered by time, their cause being dissipated, for example a harmful humor being consumed. The very same thing happens in temptations. That saying is true: "Time is the best physician of all evils." Time mitigates anger, hatred, concupiscence; time opens secrets, and brings hidden truth into light. Time brings experience, counsel and prudence: ...penetrate. He therefore says with the Psalmist: "Lord, Thou hast crowned us with the shield of Thy good will," Psalm 5, 13. Again, he who is joined to God is joined to purity and holiness itself: but these destroy every vice and every temptation; for temptation solicits to impurity and sin. For all holiness consists in love and union with God: wherefore just as God extremely hates sin and temptation; so also does he who is joined to God: for holiness is purity. But just as impurity is born from contact with lower things, as when a face or garment is sprinkled with mud, or when the soul through affection clings inordinately to lower things; so purity arises from contact with higher things, when affection rises to sublimer and nobler things, and clings to them. But God is the supreme of all things, and the simplest and purest; hence the highest purity consists in adhesion with God. Those therefore who in temptation flee to God are like birds; but those who look to human aids are like fish. For if someone throws a stone from the bank into a river, the fish which were swimming on the surface sink to the depths, and are plainly absorbed by the river; but birds nearby fly upward. So those who in temptation flee to men are more immersed in it and absorbed like fish: but those who flee to God overcome temptation as birds flying; because they fly to heaven to God through faith and hope. This is the sixth effective remedy for temptation. For this union with God elevates the mind above all things, and fixes it in God; fixed in Him it sees and laughs at this point of earth, and beholds and despises all things, both adverse and prosperous, as vile and lowly beneath itself, and says: "My mind is founded in God, and solidified in Christ." Thus Abba Moses in the Lives of the Fathers, book VI, booklet IV, no. 6, being asked: "What shall a man do in every temptation coming upon him?" answered: "He ought to weep in the sight of God's goodness, that He may help him; and he will rest quickly, if he prays with knowledge; for it is written: The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me." And Abba John, book III, nos. 208 and 209, says: As a man seeing beasts climbs a tree to escape; so also a man seeing temptations rushing upon him should flee through prayer to the Lord, and he will be saved. And as water extinguishes fire: "So whenever a foul thought is kindled by the enemy, then let him pour out the water of prayer, and extinguish it." And Abba Hyperichius, book V, booklet VII, no. 20: "Let spiritual hymns," he says, "be in your mouth, and constant meditation lift the weight of temptations coming upon you: for thus the traveler, weighed down by the burden of his load, by blowing and breathing gradually diminishes the labor of the burden and the way." And no. 22, That religious man, tempted by hunger and contempt, "gave thanks to God in all these things: but God seeing his patience, took away the battle of temptation from him." Join to God. — In Greek more significantly, κολλήθητι, that is, glue yourself to God, namely through the closest bond of prayer, affection and constant and enduring adhesion. And endure, in Greek, μὴ ἀποστῇς, that is, do not depart, thus the Zurich version, lest, namely, by any assault of temptation, you be torn from God, lest you recede from Him, lest you apostatize. But say with the Psalmist: "But it is good for me to adhere to God, to put my hope in the Lord God," Psalm 72. For he who is joined to God through hope and love is strengthened by Him, freed, protected. For God is to him a shield-bearer and shield, who receives all the enemy's darts upon himself before they reach him who hopes in Him, and lies hidden under the shield of His providence— Wherefore here St. Chrysostom, homily 4 on the Epistle to the Philippians: "To suffer for Christ," he says, "is a work of greater admiration than truly to raise the dead and to perform wonderful signs; for in that case I am indeed a debtor, but in this case I have Christ as my debtor." But elsewhere, homily 1 to the People of Antioch: "If we rightly call the body blessed," he says, "which can bear cold and heat, hunger and want, and the difficulties of the way and other hardships without injury to itself; how much more ought we to call blessed the soul, which can manfully and strongly bear all the assaults of all troubles, and keep its heart through all things subject to no servitude?" Nor does Pope Gregory disagree, homily 34 on the Gospel, for thus he writes: "Truly patience is the root of all things and the guardian of virtues, whose proper function is to bear the evils of others with equanimity, and not to be bitten by any sorrow even against him who inflicts evils; and as the Apostle says, not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. But by what a height of virtue patience prevails, Solomon indicates, saying: Better is the patient man than the strong man; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh cities. Lesser therefore is the victory to take cities; because those who are conquered are outside. But greater is that which is conquered through patience; because the mind itself is overcome by itself, and subjects itself to itself, when patience lays it low in the humility of forbearance." Finally, Cassian most excellently teaches in Collation VI, chapter XII, that the mind of the just and patient man ought not to be soft, like wax; but strong and hard, like diamond: "Therefore," he says, "the mind of a just man ought not to be like wax, or any other softer material, which always yielding to the character of those who mark it is shaped according to its form and image, and retains it in itself so long until another seal impressed again reforms it; and thus it comes to pass that never persisting in its own quality, it always converts and passes to the form of those things which are impressed; but rather ought it to be like a certain adamantine seal, so that our mind, always preserving the inviolable figure of its own character, may seal and transform all things which come upon it to the quality of its own state; but itself can be marked by no assaults." St. Ephrem, sermon to piety exercising the athlete: "Whatever and however great the temptation strikes," he says, "yet man ought by no means to fall away in his confidence in God; rather all the more ought he to cling assiduously to Christ alone and to His mercy, and to Him who is able to heal the infirmities of the soul, always loving Him and meditating upon Him, and thus thinking and determining with himself: What if I should depart from God, turning aside from the true path of virtue, yet could I depart? unless perhaps I should hurl myself into perdition, and into the hands of the deceitful enemy. For this reason, although the malicious one assails daily with infinite swords of fiery darts, and with the malice of passions, and also with absurd thoughts; although he makes an assault and induces despair; all the more ought one to flee to God, and to fix hope in Him. For thus God wishes to prove His own, so that it may be evident that they love Him alone." O Lord, protector of my soul, my strength and my salvation, so join me to Thee, so glue me to Thee, that by no tribulation can I be separated from Thee. So show Thyself to me, so communicate Thyself, that, saturated with the delights of Thy sweetness, I may abhor all the vain delights of the world and the flesh. Write upon the tablet of my heart the most joyful memory of Thee, never to be blotted out by any temptation, so that I may always burn with desire for Thee, may be inflamed with the fire of Thy hope and love, and may be wholly absorbed in the flood of Thy charity.
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EVERYTHING THAT SHALL BE BROUGHT UPON THEE (ἐπαχθῇ, that is, imposed; Complutensian: brought), RECEIVE. — In Greek δέξαι ἀσμένος, that is, receive willingly; Arabic: Endure that which God has brought upon thee, with thanksgiving; Zurich: Whatever shall invade thee, receive it willingly, as if to say, Whatever shall come upon thee, whatever adversity shall befall thee, receive it promptly, indeed joyfully from the hand of God. For whatever He shall bring upon thee, He brings it as thy Lord and Lord of all things, to whom thou oughtest to submit thyself. He brings it as a most loving father, whom, even though chastising, thou oughtest to love. He brings it as a most skilled physician, whose healing of thy soul's wounds, even though with sharper medicine or cautery, thou oughtest to receive eagerly, so that thou mayest say with St. Job cap. II, 10: "If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?" And cap. 1, 21: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it hath pleased the Lord, so it is done: blessed be the name of the Lord." Indeed, even Pindar, though a Gentile, in ode 3 of the Pythian, says: "Always shall I accommodate myself in mind to that fortune which shall embrace me, cherishing it according to my ability." For it is the part of a wise man to accommodate himself to fortune, or rather fortune to himself. Hence the axiom of the Stoics: "Yield to fate. It is the part of a wise man to present himself to fate; for fate leads the willing, and drags the unwilling." Moreover Rabanus says: "It should be known that patience is wont to be exercised in three ways. For some things we endure from God; others from the ancient adversary; others from our neighbor. From our neighbor indeed persecutions, losses and insults; from the ancient adversary temptations; from God however we endure scourges. But in all three of these ways the mind ought to look about itself with watchful eye, lest against the evils of the neighbor it be drawn to the repayment of evil. Lest against the temptations of the adversary it be seduced to the pleasure or consent of sin. Lest against the scourges of the Maker it rush forth to excess of murmuring. For the adversary is perfectly overcome when our mind, both amid his temptations is kept from pleasure and consent; and amid the insults of the neighbor is guarded from hatred, and amid the scourges of God is restrained from murmuring: and not doing these things, let us not seek that present goods be repaid to us. For in return for the labor of patience, good things of the life to come are to be hoped for, so that then the reward of our labor may begin, when all labor has now completely ceased." AND IN PAIN ENDURE. — These words are now wanting in the Greek. The sense is, as if to say, Do not strive through impatience to shake off pain, because thus thou wilt stir it up and increase it the more: but endure it through patience, because thus thou wilt diminish it. For patience is the remedy for all evils, especially because patience merits that the yoke be removed or diminished, which impatience merits to be made heavier. Finally, to escape all pain is impossible; for this life is one of tribulations and sorrows, and one does not live in love without pain. AND IN THY HUMILIATION HAVE PATIENCE. — Humiliation here does not signify the virtue, but humiliation, dejection, affliction and pain, of which the preceding spoke. Whence in Greek it is ἐν ἀλλάγματι (others read in the plural, ἀλλάγμασι, that is, in changes), τῆς ταπεινώσεώς σου μακροθύμησον, that is, in the change of thy humiliation, or rather of thy humbling be long-suffering, that is, in the change by which thou art humbled, namely when thy happy lot is changed into a miserable one, so that thou art humbled, depressed, afflicted; endure this change and humiliation with long-suffering. Zurich: In that vicissitude by which thou art depressed, show thyself strong. For in Hebrew ענה ana, that is to be humbled, signifies to suffer, to grieve, to be afflicted. Whence עני oni, is humility, that is, pain and affliction. Hence that common phrase in Scripture, "Humble," that is, mortify and afflict, "thy soul in fasting;" and often elsewhere humiliate signifies to afflict, because for the proud (such as we all are from the fall into sin) the greatest affliction is to be brought low and humiliated. Again ana signifies to suffer poverty; whence עני ani is poor. The Syriac, following this, translates, be long-suffering in poverty; and the Arabic, be patient toward weakness and necessity. Seventh, this is a remedy for temptation, namely, to resign oneself to the will of God, and to receive humbly and patiently whatever He applies to us, thinking that it is applied to us out of God's great love for our good, and therefore this is a great gift of God. For, as follows: "For gold is tried in the fire; but men receptive in the furnace of humiliation." By this reasoning St. Pachomius appropriately consoled Theodore his disciple when sick, as his Life has in chapter II. "For Theodore was seized by a grave affliction of the head which excited the sharpest pains. When he asked Pachomius to relieve him with his prayers, he said to him: Do you think, my son, that pain or affliction or anything of this sort befalls anyone without the permission of God? Therefore endure in pain, and have patience in humility, and when the Lord wills, He will grant you health; for if He deigns to test you longer, be grateful, like the most perfect Job, who in many tribulations blessed the Lord: and you too, like him, will receive greater rest from the Lord for your pains. Abstinence indeed is good, and perseverance in prayer; yet the infirm acquires a greater reward, when he is found long-suffering and patient." Antistrophic to this saying is the apologue of wheat and the lily, which Cyril, in book I of his Moral Apology, chapter XXI, presents with eyes wide open to the parables read, and argued with vigorous reasons from Physics, whose title is: "That you may overcome every adversity, magnanimity avails for patience." The apologue goes thus: "A grain of wheat cast into the ground and dead, when it sprouted beside a dry stone, the lily is said to have spoken thus to it: Whence comes to you, crushed and dead, the spirit of germinating, when I, when I am crushed, am thereby destroyed? To which the grain answered: This befalls me from the greatness of nature, by which it comes about that my passion is my action, and while I die, I revive. For by the virtue of the greatest things then is health (valor, force and vigor) more intensified, when their bodily magnitude is crushed or dies: namely the phoenix dead generates, and cinnamon crushed inflames more. But truly things in which virtue prevails less, if they are crushed from such crushing are confused, and lose their preciousness. As the draconites stone if crushed, its virtue is lost; and the magnet does not attract iron, if it is crushed. Thus the infirm member does not suffer to be touched without pain, and the healthy, when touched, delights. Did you not notice that the virtuous ...is crushed by adversities, then is found more magnanimous? In calamity indeed he takes greater spirit, and then reason triumphing is more vigorously strengthened." He assigns the reason a priori, and confirms it with examples of Job, Joseph and Tobias, saying: "For in evils not to be conquered is the victory of virtue. But no one is conquered except one to whom his good is taken away. But all the good of the magnanimous consists in his virtue: for being sufficient to itself, since it excels, and itself rejoices in virtue preserved, no deprivation strips him from without, no confusion dishonors him, no affliction of the senses saddens him. Did not Job, chapter I, St. Job, rich in virtue, not become impoverished by the disgust of temporal things? The same Joseph excelling in Genesis, chapter XXXIX, was not at all dishonored by infamy? And the same Tobias rejoicing in Tobias, chapter II, was not desolate in the darkness of blindness?" Finally from these things he gathers this epimythium of the apologue, as its end and fruit: "Whoever wishes, let him do or say injury to you, yet you will suffer nothing, if only magnanimity be virtue. Nay rather the prudent magnanimous glories in adversities, II Corinthians XII, 9, because in infirmity virtue is perfected, and poison is beaten down by poison. Asbestos wood is purged by fire, and chosen gold shines approved in the furnace. In adversity therefore only the impatient is conquered, and in it the wise man by magnanimity is unconquered or corrected, or preserved by remedy, or lifeless is resurrected. Having said these things, he fell silent."
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In the way of humiliation. — The Syrian [version], in the furnace of poverty; St. Ambrose on Psalm CXVIII, octon. XX, in the furnace of humility: "For indeed," he says, "humility is a virtue, and humility is also affliction;" the Zurich [Bible]: "For as gold is tried by fire; so men of commendable character are tried in the furnace of affliction. Just as fire does not harm, but benefits gold, because it proves it, purges it, perfects it, illuminates it, and makes it splendid and gleaming; so the furnace of humiliation and affliction proves the patient one, purges him, perfects him, illuminates him, and makes him acceptable and worthy to God. Wherefore, just as gold made brilliant by fire ought to give thanks to the fire by which it shone; so also should the patient one give thanks to temptation. Whence the Psalmist says in Psalm CXVIII: "It is good for me," he says, "that thou hast humbled me." But the impatient one, who does not deserve to be received by God, is not purged by the fire of temptation, nor illuminated like gold, but is burned and consumed like chaff. This is what St. Ephrem says in his tract on the Fear of God: "Many have the habit of monks; but few are wrestlers: in the time of temptation, however, the proof of monks appears." And the Angel says to Tobias, cap. XII: "Because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee." And Daniel, cap. XI, 35, ...speaking of the saints sharply tempted by Antiochus, and to be tempted by Antichrist: "Of the learned," he says, "some shall fall, that they may be refined (in temptation as gold in a furnace), and chosen, and made white." See the words there. Most excellently St. Augustine on Psalm LXI: "Does gold," he says, "shine in the furnace of the goldsmith? it will shine in the ornament, it will shine in the adornment; yet let it endure the furnace, that purged of filth it may come to the light. This furnace, there is chaff, there is gold, there is fire, the goldsmith stands at this. In the furnace the chaff burns, and the gold is purged. That is turned to ashes, it is stripped of filth. The furnace is the world, the chaff is the wicked, the gold is the just, the fire is tribulation, the goldsmith is God. What the goldsmith wills, I do: wherever the goldsmith places me, I endure: I am commanded to endure, he knows how to purge. Let the chaff burn even to set me on fire, and as it were to consume me; it is turned to ashes, I am free from filth. Why? Because my soul shall be subject to God, for from him is my patience." Furthermore, St. Chrysostom assigns the measure of this trial in homil. 4 to the People: "For indeed," he says, "the goldsmith, as long as he sees the gold well purged, does not draw it from the crucible: so also God does not remove this cloud, until he has thoroughly amended us. For he who permitted temptation, he himself knows also the time of releasing the temptation. And just as the lyre player neither tightens the string so as not to break it; nor loosens it beyond measure, lest he harm the harmony of the music: so also God acts, neither placing our soul in continual ease, nor in prolonged tribulation, doing both according to his wisdom. He does not allow us to enjoy continual ease, lest we become sluggish: but neither does he allow us to be in continual tribulation, lest we collapse and despair. Let us therefore leave to him the time of ending adversity: we, however, should only live in holiness." Again St. Augustine, serm. 78 of the Temporal: "The wicked," he says, "serve the good not by obeying, but by persecuting, as persecutors serve Martyrs, as files or hammers serve gold, as millstones serve wheat, as furnaces serve bread to be baked; that those may be baked, these may be consumed: as in the furnace of the goldsmith chaff serves gold; where without doubt the chaff is consumed, the gold is proved." See Cassian, Collat. VI, cap. XI, where he assigns three causes and ends of temptation: "It should be known," he says, "that all men are tempted for a threefold reason: often for the sake of trial, sometimes for the sake of cleansing, at times on account of the merits of sins." Which he then proves and illustrates with examples and sentences of Holy Scripture. And then he adds a fourth cause, by which "for the sake of manifesting only the glory and works of God, we know by the authority of Scripture that certain sufferings are inflicted on some," according to that passage of John concerning the blind man, cap. IX: "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him;" and concerning Lazarus sick, cap. XI: "This infirmity is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it."
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AND HE SHALL RECOVER THEE. — In Greek ἀντιλήψεται, that is, he shall take thee up, and shall restore him who has fallen into afflictions to his former state of happiness; which our translator renders, he shall recover thee. AND DIRECT (that is, make straight) THY WAY (that is, thy conversation) (and thus at length); HOPE IN HIM, — because a right and approved life begets confidence; for God protects and guards the upright in heart as his own. The Zurich Bible: Trust in God, that he may bring thee aid, persist in right ways, and lean upon him. For faith alone does not bind God, unless it be joined with right and approved life; for sins turn away God and God's aid. For how can a sinner believe that God will be present to him, when he himself is not present to God, nay when he himself is not present to himself? Whence the Arabic version renders it: Believe in God, that he may be thy helper, and hope in him, and he himself shall make thy ways easy. This is the eighth remedy of temptation, namely confidence in God; for this makes the soul lofty, magnanimous, divine, and obtains from God aid and strength to overcome temptation; for God cannot abandon or deceive him who hopes in him; for he promises him certain aid everywhere in Scripture, as in Matthew VIII, 13: "Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee;"; and chapter IX, 22: "Thy faith hath made thee whole;"; Psalm XC, 1: "He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of heaven;"; and verse 4: "He will overshadow thee with his shoulders, and under his wings thou shalt hope. His truth shall compass thee with a shield, thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night. Of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the darkness, of invasion or of the noonday devil;"; and verse 14: "Because he hoped in me, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he hath known my name. He shall cry unto me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him and will glorify him." And so that entire psalm is concerning this matter, and therefore in temptation and fear it is accustomed to be read by many, nay it is read by all the Ecclesiastical by daily in Compline against temptations, terrors and nocturnal illusions. See upon it St. Bernard. The reason is, that confidence in God is to his honor and glory, because he who hopes, distrusting himself, trusts, and commits himself wholly to God, and thus as it were binds God to protect him, nay to recover him, even if he has fallen and is almost lost. Therefore the honor of God is at stake here, which moves God to aid his client. Most excellently Philo, in the book On Abraham: "Alone, he says, faith by which one believes God, is a solid and certain good, a solace of life, a supplement of good hope, a repulsion of calamities, a conciliation of felicities, a dismissal of superstition, an assertion of piety, an inheritance of posterity, and finally a progress ...in all things. For he who has this, trusts in God the author of all things, who can do all things; and he wills the best things." But in the book which is inscribed: Who is the Heir of Divine Things: "How difficult it is, he says, to believe in God alone, with sense resisting, and nature itself, even reason itself occupied with depraved opinions! Assuredly, mortal things, with which we are surrounded, persuade us to believe and trust in glory, power, friends, health and bodily strength, and especially in our own prudence, lest we exchange certain things for uncertain, and present things for future, and lest, as we are forbidden by the old proverb, we buy hope at a price. To draw these persuasions wholly from the soul, to trust no creature; but to place all one's hopes and resources in God alone, and to depend wholly upon him in mind and spirit, is a thing of a great and heavenly soul, and not ensnared and captivated by earthly things." KEEP THE FEAR OF HIM, AND GROW OLD IN IT. — This verse is now lacking in the Greek; the Zurich Bible has: Guard his religion, and grow old in it. For fear signifies the reverence of God, worship, religion, "by which we serve pleasing to God with fear;"; in Greek αἰδοῦς, that is, shame, modesty, "and reverence", Hebrews XII, 28. The ninth remedy for temptation is this, namely filial fear and love of God, if anyone keeps it steadfastly, and persists fixed in it even to old age, indeed to the last breath of spiritual life, and says with the Apostle: "Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? tribulation? or distress? or hunger? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? etc. I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the charity of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," Rom. VIII, 35. This remedy is easy, efficacious and supremely meritorious. For who would not love his God, and by his love endure any temptation whatsoever? What does not the love of God effect? What does not merit, which is the fountain and principle of all merit? How would God abandon one who loves him and not love him in return, indeed far exceed and transcend with greater love? Wherefore, just as a soldier grows old and decrepit in arms and swords, a teacher in books, a preacher in pulpits, a physician in medicines, a jurist in laws, a rustic in fields, a tailor in garments, a goldsmith in gold, each craftsman in his own art and work: so does the faithful and holy one in the fear and love of God. For this is his sword, this his book, this his pulpit, his medicine, his law, his field and land, his garment, his gold, his altar and work. Thus Blessed Oresietis, disciple of St. Pachomius: "Let us sow, he says, in tears, that we may reap with joy, not failing, knowing that the Lord frees his worshippers from temptation." Blessed Peter of Ravenna: "It is the mark of tender warfare, he says, to gain victory over all temptations and vices by love alone." St. Chrysostom: "Be adamant, athlete of Christ, and you shall overcome all things." St. Basil to Chilon: "Subdue your body through the exercise of labors, accustom your soul to endure temptations with equanimity." St. Bernard: "A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts." Indeed, St. Antony speaks most clearly through St. Athanasius: "Great, he says, are the weapons against demons: a sincere life and undefiled faith toward God. Believe me who have experience: Satan greatly fears the vigils of the righteous, their prayers, fastings, gentleness, voluntary poverty, contempt of vain glory, humility, mercy, mastery over anger, and especially a pure heart in love toward Christ." The a priori reason is that the fear of God brings humility, which is the conqueror of all temptations; and poverty of spirit, which removes the matter of temptation. St. Augustine teaches the former in book I of his Sermon on the Mount, where, equating the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit with the eight beatitudes, he assigns fear to the first beatitude: "The fear of God, he says, befits the humble, of whom it is said here: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that is, not puffed up, not proud, of whom the Apostle says: Be not wise in your own conceit; but fear, that is, do not be exalted." St. Thomas teaches the latter equally as the former in II II, Question XIX, article 12: "To fear, he says, poverty of spirit properly corresponds. For since it pertains to filial fear to exhibit reverence to God and to be subject to him, that which follows from such subjection pertains to the gift of fear. From the fact that someone subjects himself to God, he ceases to seek to be magnified in himself, or in anything else, except in God; for this would be repugnant to perfect subjection to God. Whence it is said in Psalm XIX: Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will call upon the name of the Lord our God. And therefore from the fact that someone perfectly fears God, it follows that he does not seek to be magnified in himself through pride; nor does he seek to be magnified in external goods, namely honors and riches, both of which pertain to poverty of spirit." And thus through it, and consequently through the fear of God attached to it, all temptations are removed; for these are born almost from the appetite for either honors or riches. I have said more about the remedies for temptations in Jacob. I, verse 12.
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...splendor of souls, when the light of bodies shall have the splendor of the sun." The same, sermon 17 in the psalm, He that dwelleth: "Eternal life," he says, "is itself fullness, itself length of days; the true day which knows no setting: full midday, fullness of true glory, eternal truth, true eternity, true and eternal satiety; since indeed that length knows no end, nor that brightness any setting, nor that satiety any disgust. For there shall be security concerning eternity, boasting concerning truth, exultation concerning satiety." Natio was held by the Gentiles to be a goddess who presided over the continuation of the human race: "She, because she protects the births of matrons, was named Natio from those being born," says Cicero, book III of On the Nature of the Gods. Wherefore the Syriac translates: Understand the thing which was from the beginning, and from the generations of the age. Understand and see, who believed in Him, and forsook Him? or, who trusts in Him and cast Him away? or, who called upon Him, and He did not answer him? The Arabic: Consider what was in ancient times, and what was fitting in the generations past. Look upon it, and carefully govern yourselves: who is there that hoped in Him, and forsook Him? and who trusts in Him, and despised Him? It then adds certain things which are found neither in the Latin, nor in the Greek, nor in the Syriac, namely: He who wishes to inherit life and unfailing joy, let him receive all my words, and work in them, that he may confirm his name in the book of life. Be confirmed in the fear of the Lord, that your heart may remain upon it, and do not be greatly afraid. Draw near to it, and do not delay, because you shall find blessedness and life: and when you have drawn near to it, draw near as a giant and a strong man. The Zurich version: Look back into the ancient ages past, and consider these. Whoever trusted in the Lord, and brought back shame? that is to say, Who ever, hoping in the Lord, was frustrated in his hope? who fell short of the thing hoped for, and therefore was confused, that is, affected with shame, and marked with ignominy? that is to say, No one, but all obtained the fruit of their hope, and either obtained the thing hoped for, or something better, and therefore attained honor and glory. Consider Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samson, David, Hezekiah, Josiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, the Maccabees and other righteous men throughout the ages, who, trusting in the Lord, were delivered by Him from all perils and evils, as Mattathias vigorously recounts, who exhorted Judas and the other sons of the Maccabees by these examples to undertake war heroically for God and faith against Antiochus, relying not so much on arms as on the hope and aid of God, I Maccabees, chapter II, verse 51. To this St. Paul alluded to the Romans V, 3: "Tribulation worketh patience, and patience worketh probation, and probation worketh hope, and hope confoundeth not." Furthermore, St. Chrysostom refers this promise not only to the just, but also to sinners: "He did not say, the just," he says, "but who? Even if, he says, he be a sinner. For this is wonderful, that even sinners, holding this anchor of hope, are unconquerable by all things." The same in Psalm CXVII: "You will say, I hoped, and was put to shame. Good words, I beseech you, O man! do not speak against the divine Scriptures. For if you were put to shame, you were put to shame for this reason, that you did not hope as you ought, because you ceased, because you did not await the end, with a small and narrow spirit. For this especially is to hope, when you have been cast into the midst of evils and perils, to be raised up."
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Again, to truth, that is, to integrity, he opposes a double heart, that is, a divided one, namely one that is distrustful, which, to wit, partly adheres to God, partly to creatures, which now places hope in God, now in men; which now invokes God, now wizards and magicians. Whence St. Augustine in tract. 7 on John: "He has a double heart," says he, "who gives part of his heart to God, part to the devil." God hates this one as directly opposed to himself: for he himself is by nature most simple, and therefore most entire, most sincere, most truthful, most faithful, most holy. First therefore, Sirach calls "double-hearted" those who distrust God, who have hope as it were divided, and trembling now place it in God, now in creatures. Whence St. James alluding to this, when he treats of prayer, says cap. 1, 6: "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering," and soon after subjoins vers. 8: "A double-minded man," in Greek δίψυχος, that is, two-souled, or having two souls, one hoping, the other despairing, "is inconstant in all his ways." For which St. Ignatius, epist. 13 to Heron, reads: "Be not double-minded in thy prayer. For blessed is he who wavers not." Such are many today who are hesitant, ambiguous and as it were amphibious: who in time of peace trust and serve God; but when persecution or fear comes upon them, they distrust God and abandon him, that they may please men; and, as Christ says in Luke cap. VIII: "For a while they believe, and in time of temptation they fall away." Secondly, "double-hearted" is the hypocrite, who falsely and deceitfully worships and invokes God, according to that Psalm XI, 3: "In heart and heart," that is, with double heart, "they have spoken." Such are the fraudulent, who have one heart within their breast, another on their lips: like the partridges of Paphlagonia, which are two-hearted, and therefore fraudulent and pernicious, as Pliny testifies lib. XI, cap. XXXVII, Aelian lib. X De Animal. XXXV, Gellius lib. XVI, XV. Whence also St. Ambrose, lib. VI Hexam. cap. III, wishes the partridge to be named from destroying. Such imitate the demon, whose name is zabulus, as if to say διάβουλος, that is, δίβουλος, that is, of double counsel, a shape-shifter, in order to deceive; for za to the Greeks is the same as διά, although St. Jerome in cap. VI to the Ephesians interprets "zabulus" as διαβρίων, that is, flowing downward, which, to wit, has gradually flowed down from truth to vice, and from heavenly things to earthly things. Others think zabulus to be the same as diabolus, which is very probable. The Arabic version assigns these two senses when it translates: My son, do not defraud in the fear of God, and do not approach when you are doubtful in your heart, and do not glory in it (in fear) among men, that your speech may be in equity and truth: and do not reject his word, and do not fear, and do not bring shame upon your soul, lest perhaps the Lord confirm your bonds, and bring punishment upon you in the midst of the assembly. Most excellently the Nazianzene in the Tetrastichs: "It is better to be good than to seem so. What profit is it to have a lion and be a monkey?" St. Antony explaining these words, "Woe to the double-hearted," says that a man of double heart is a strange and foreign monster: for nature, permitting monstrosity in members, never admits it in the heart; for you will see a man having four hands or feet, or two heads; but a man having two hearts has never and nowhere been seen, because the heart is the principle of life. Whence, just as there cannot be a double life in a man, so neither a double heart: we rightly therefore call a man of double heart a monster; who, to wit, carries one heart in his mouth, another in his breast. Thirdly, δίψυχος, that is, "double-hearted" in mind, or two-hearted, is he who is fickle, changeable and various like a chameleon, so that now he wills, now he wills not, now he trusts God, now he distrusts. Fourthly, "double-hearted" is he who fixes his heart partly to heaven, partly to earth; who desires at once to serve God and mammon. Whence it follows: "Woe to the hands that do evil, and to the sinner entering the earth by two ways:" See those things which I said Jacob. I, 8. The Arabic version already recited also insinuates these two senses. The Greeks, for "woe to the double-hearted," have οὐαὶ καρδίαις δειλαῖς, that is, woe to timid and cowardly hearts; and thus St. Cyril reads it in book I of On Worship in Spirit and Truth; but Our Author reads διπλαῖς instead of δειλαῖς, that is, double; and thus even now some Greek codices read it, and St. Chrysostom in homily 4 on that passage of I Corinthians XV: "When all things shall be subdued unto him." But either reading can be reconciled; for the timid and those impatient of hardship are distrustful, and they have a double heart, and a double hope: for they place one hope in God, another in their own and their friends' strength. Hence in the Apocalypse XXI, verse 8: "To the fearful, he says, and unbelieving (that is, distrustful) etc., their part shall be in the pool burning with fire." WOE TO THE DOUBLE-HEARTED, AND TO WICKED LIPS (the Greek has nothing about these lips), AND TO HANDS DOING EVIL, AND TO THE SINNER ENTERING THE EARTH BY TWO WAYS. — Here is noted a threefold duplicity, namely, of heart, of mouth and of hands, that is, of deed: for from a double heart proceeds a double mouth, namely wicked lips, that is, feigned and deceitful, and hands doing evil: and therefore such a sinner and wicked man is one who enters the earth by two ways: for one way tends toward God, worshipping him outwardly in peace; the other goes toward the world and worldly people, trusting in them in time of temptation, and conforming himself to them, lest he be mocked by them, nor suffer loss of reputation, goods or life. Thus St. Augustine in tract. 9 on John: "Christ does not wish, he says, communion, but wishes alone to possess what he bought. He bought at such a price that he alone might possess it: you make the devil his partner, to whom you had sold yourself through sin. Woe to the double-hearted, who in their heart make part for God, part for the devil. God is angry, because the devil is made a part there, he departs, and the devil will possess the whole. Not in vain therefore does the Apostle say: Neither give place to the devil." The Greeks now have: Woe to cowardly hearts, and to hands παρειμέναις, that is, slack, torpid, despairing and therefore abandoning the good, and inclining to evil: which Our Author translates "doing evil," and the wicked man "entering the earth by two ways"; but the Syriac: A foul heart, and slack hands, a man who has walked through many ways. The Arabic: A coagulated heart, and trembling hands, and feet walking in many paths. Thus in chapter III, 28, is called a heart _____ derachaim, that is of two ways, that is, double, feigned, deceitful. "A heart, it says, entering two ways shall not have success:": such is one that enters the way of heaven and the way of earth, which wishes at once to please God and earthly beings. Thus to the Israelites worshipping God and Baal at once Elias says: "How long do you halt between two sides? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him," III Kings XVIII, 21. Wherefore St. Paul exhorts the Hebrews, chapter XII, 12, saying: "Lift up the slack hands and the feeble knees, and make straight steps with your feet, that he who is lame may not go astray." Such today are those who speak and live as Catholics with Catholics, as heretics with heretics, as chaste with the chaste, as unchaste with the unchaste. Such were the Samaritans, who worshipped the true God together with the gods of the Gentiles, IV Kings XVII, 33. Thus Rabanus, Jansenius, Palacius and others. These are like flies, which on a wheel are moved by two contrary motions: forward, namely, from themselves, backward, from the rotation of the wheel: likewise like wandering stars, namely planets, which besides their own motion are carried and moved by the contrary motion of the first mover. Whence a certain wise man, answering a certain Counselor of Queen Elizabeth of England who asked what foreigners thought of him (for he wished to be held as Orthodox while obeying the queen), wittily replied: "My Lord, they say you imitate the planets, which besides their own motion allow themselves to be carried by the motion of the first mover." Seneca excellently in his Sayings: "The safest thing, he says, is to fear nothing except God." Moreover, since this whole passage concerns diffidence, opposed to the hope of those who fear and worship God; hence to walk in two ways in this place properly means to worship two gods, to profess two religions, to place hope in two different, indeed contrary, things. For these people now go in one direction, now in the opposite; now they show their face, now their back; now they present themselves as friends, now as enemies. This phrase is taken from the Israelites, especially the Samaritans, who together with the true God worshipped the gods of their fathers, namely the golden calves introduced by Jeroboam, and therefore now they went to Jerusalem to adore the true God; soon they proceeded to Dan and Bethel to adore also the golden calves; or to Assyria or Egypt to seek help for themselves from both the gods and the kings of Assyria or Egypt. That this is so is evident from Jeremiah, chapter II, 18: "And now, he says, what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the troubled water? and what hast thou to do with the way of the Assyrians, to drink the water of the river?" And verse 36: "How vile art thou become exceedingly, repeating thy ways! and thou shalt be confounded by Egypt, as thou wast confounded by Assyria." And Hosea, chapter XIII, 4: "Thou shalt know no God but me, and there is no saviour but me, etc. And I will be to them as a lioness, as a leopard in the way of the Assyrians." And chapter IV, 15: "Go not into Galgal; and go not up into Bethaven," that is, into Bethel, which was once called and made Bethel by Jacob, that is, the house of God; but now through the golden calves it has been made Bethaven, that is, the house of idols and sin. Similar things the other Prophets have and inculcate. Siracides repeats the same thing here for this reason, that in this time, namely under Alexander the Great (to whom Ptolemy Lagus succeeded, under whom Siracides appears to have written), the Samaritans with the help of Sanballat, prefect of Darius, king of the Persians, erected for themselves a temple on Mount Garizim, as it were a rival and opposed to the temple of the Jews in Jerusalem; and to that temple they invited not only Samaritans but also Jews. Whence, as Josephus says at the end of book XI of the Antiquities: "If anyone among the Jerusalemites were accused of eating unlawful food, or of violating the Sabbath, or of a similar crime, he would flee to the Sichemites (that is, Samaritans), claiming that he had suffered injustice." For this reason Siracides, chapter L, 27: "Two nations, he says, my soul hateth; and a third is not a nation (is not worthy of the name of nation), which I hate; they that sit in mount Seir and the Philistines; and the foolish people that dwell in Sichem," namely the Samaritans, whose temple was in Garizim near Sichem. This temple and schism lasted until Christ: hence the disciples marvelled that Christ spoke with the Samaritan woman. And the Samaritan woman to Christ, John IV, 9: "How, she says, dost thou, being a Jew, ask of me to drink, who am a woman of Samaria?" And verse 20: "Our fathers adored on this mountain (Sichem and Garizim), and you say that Jerusalem is the place where men must adore." Because therefore some of the Jews defected to the Samaritans, others striving to please both, went to adore in Jerusalem and then in Sichem; hence he rebukes them here and threatens them with woe and the wrath and eternal damnation of God, concerning which Siracides will speak again, chapter L, 27. Morally, St. Gregory, book III on Kings, chapter VI, explaining that passage about the cows drawing the ark of the Lord: "And they went in one way. In one way, he says, he walks who preserves in right intention the virtue which he displays in good work. On the contrary, of each reprobate it is said: Woe to the sinner entering the earth in two ways. For the sinner enters the earth in two ways, when what he does appears to be of God; but from all that he displays as religious outwardly, he holds inwardly the intention of the world. But the Lord indicates that His elect walk in one way, saying: If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome. Hence Paul says: For our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience. Hence David: All the glory of the king's daughter is within. Therefore in one way against Bethsames the cows go because the elect hastening to the eternal homeland do good works outwardly, but from those same good works do not seek the rewards of the world." This is what God sharply rebukes through Osee, cap. X, 2, saying: "Their heart is divided, now they shall perish." And through Sophonias, cap. I, vers. 5: "I will destroy them that swear by the Lord, and swear by Melchom," that is, who worship God, and worship Melchom: for to swear is an act of latria: whence by synecdoche it signifies all latria and worship of God. For, as Richard of St. Victor says, lib. IV De Contemplat. cap. XV: "Singular love does not receive a partner, does not admit a companion." And Gregory of Nyssa, orat. 7 in Cant.: "He who, he says, directs the keenness of his sight to that nature of God alone, is blind in all other things, to which the eyes of many look," so as to say with the Psalmist: "What have I in heaven, and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?" Psal. LXXII, 25: from the Hebrew truth, I desired no companion with thee upon earth. To which alluding, St. Bernard, epist. 249, confessing from humility that he had not yet wholly delivered his heart to God: "My monstrous life cries out, he says, to you, my wretched conscience. For I am a certain chimera of my age, and I bear neither the character of a cleric nor of a layman. For I have long since put off the conversation of a monk, not the habit." How truly do certain Religious appropriate this very thing to themselves today! The same, serm. 2 de S. Michaele: "He who, he says, adheres to God with a simple eye, has himself become simple: or certainly now the eye is not other, but one with him, the Apostle bearing witness: For he that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit with him," I Corinth. VI, 17. Forcefully Bede in Proverb.: "As the eyes of all are in the head, so in Christ ought all the intention of the faithful to consist." And: "It is better to make divorce with man, than with God." Again, they have a double heart and a double tongue, who rashly judge and accuse the defects of others, even the smallest; their own, though greater, they conceal and excuse. For they have a double heart; one broad and distended by the vice of self-love, in which they hide their own sins, and as it were bury them like putrid corpses; the other narrow, and sufficiently constricted by the stain of envy, in which they cannot hide even a slight sin of another. They have wicked lips, because they sound forth nothing except the sins and crimes of their neighbours; and their good deeds they either wholly defile from innate malice, or, if they cannot do that, they diminish. They have hands that do evil: for, even if they do not strike a brother with the hand, yet with the tongue and words they strike in place of the hand; and they walk in two ways: one, by which they excuse and cover their own sins; the other, by which they accuse and expose the defects of brothers. Nor are these certainly taxed too much, whom St. Bernard, serm. 3 de Dedic. Eccles., with much greater acrimony censured: "They are traitors, he says, whosoever endeavour to introduce the enemies of the Lord into this fortress of the Lord, such as are certainly detractors, hateful to God, who sow discord, nourish scandals among brothers. For as the place of the Lord is made in peace, so it is manifest that the place of the devil is made in discord." Finally, most excellently the same St. Bernard, serm. 66 in Cantic.: "Hypocrites, he says, are sheep in habit, foxes in cunning, wolves in act and cruelty. These are they who wish to appear good, not to be; not to appear evil, but to be. For always has malice done less harm when open, nor has a good man ever been deceived except by the simulation of goodness. Thus therefore in evil they study to appear good; the evil do not wish it, so that they may have more licence to act maliciously. For it is not with them to cultivate virtues, but to tolerate vices as a certain quasi minimum of virtues." Cyril adorns and illustrates this meaning with an apt comparison of the thorn and fig tree, and with beautiful and clever parables, in book II of his Moral Apology, chapter XXIII, which has the title: Against those who appear otherwise than they are. "The thorn," he says, "was flowering, and the fig tree before it was producing leaves and thick branches; when soon the thorn, swollen from its flowers, said to the fig: Fig, where are your flowers? But it answered: Thorn, where are your fruits? Then the thorn said: Nature did not give me fruits. Nor did nature add flowers to me, the fig replied. But since a flower is converted into fruit, it is better to produce fruit without a flower than to flower deprived of fruit: yet because I do not flower, I produce the sweetest germ." Then he demonstrates the same thing by various emblems of the palm, the honey reed, the painted sepulcher, the sapphire and the onyx: "Thus also the palm, not pouring out its honey in flowers, produces the sweet date. And the honey reed, because it did not put forth flowers, keeps all the sweetness of fruit hidden within itself. Why therefore do you glory in appearance contrary to reality? A sepulcher indeed is painted with flowers on the outside, and inside is full of the filth of death. Moreover the sapphire, which shines more brightly, is worth less; and the onyx gem is preferred to the white stone: and the Bius stone, the paler it is, the more precious it is considered. And thus nature itself, the marvelous maker of things, condemns appearance even in its own works." Finally he proves the same thing by the example of gold, pearls, shells, embryos and roots. "Why therefore do you rejoice only in external pomp? Consider that gold is born in the hidden recesses of the earth, and the pearl through dew diffused from heaven germinates as a gem in the hidden shells of oysters. Man also is born in the maternal womb, and the substance of things is not seen. The tree draws vital sap through its hidden roots beneath the earth, and the foundation of human life lies hidden in the heart. Indeed, the most precious things of nature are invisible. What more? I certainly rejoice more to be fruitful without a flower than to be a thorn with a flower: Having said these things, he confounded the pompous one."
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Moreover, those are dissolved in heart and broken in spirit who, on account of adversities lasting long, lose the constancy of mind. For in the heart is the principal seat of the soul, of life, of hope, of boldness; for it is itself the principle of sense, motion and life, as Aristotle teaches in book II of the Parts of Animals, chapter IV. "The heart," he says, "is the first origin and fountain of blood. For the heart, being the first part to be formed in all parts, is sanguineous; and the motions also of joy and sadness, and finally all the senses appear to arise from here and to end in the same place." Wherefore when vigor and strength of mind are loosened through fear, the vigor and strength of the heart are likewise loosened and dissolved through sympathy. Whence Aristotle, in book III of the Parts of Animals, chapter VI, gives this cause of the palpitation of the heart: "The heart," he says, "palpitates in man, I would say almost alone among animals, because man alone is moved by hope of a future thing and by expectation." The same author, in the book On Youth, Old Age and Respiration, chapter XIII, teaches that the supreme ardor of the soul consists in the heart, so that it needs respiration to temper it: "Nature," he says, "has absolute need of cooling, on account of the fervor of the soul in the heart; and those animals accomplish this through respiration, which have not only a heart but also a lung." And Pliny, in book XI, chapter XXXVII, describes the nature, position, character and use of the heart thus: "The heart," he says, "in other animals is in the middle of the breast; in man alone it is below the left breast, projecting forward with a conical point. In fish alone it faces toward the mouth. They say that this is formed first in the womb in those being born; then the brain, as the eyes most slowly. But these die first, the heart last. To this belongs the principal heat. It certainly palpitates, and as if another animal moves within, covered with a soft and firm membrane, protected by the wall of the ribs and breast, so that it produces the principal cause and origin of life. It provides the first dwelling place within itself for the soul and blood, in a sinuous cavity, and in large animals a threefold one, in none not a twofold one. There the mind dwells. From this fountain two great veins run forward and backward, and scattered in a series of branches, through other smaller ones they irrigate all members with vital blood. This alone of the viscera is not worn away by vices, nor does it endure the punishments of life, and when injured it immediately brings death. When others are corrupted, vitality endures in the heart. Brute animals are thought to be those in which it is hard and rigid, bold those in which it is small, timid those in which it is very large. However, it is largest in proportion in mice, hares, asses, deer, panthers, weasels, hyenas and all timid animals, or those wicked on account of fear. In Paphlagonia partridges have two hearts. In the heart of horses and oxen bones are sometimes found. The Egyptians, whose custom it is to preserve bodies with medicinal treatment, believe that it grows in man through individual years, and adds two drachmas of weight up to the fiftieth year, from that point the same amount is taken away, and therefore man does not live beyond the hundredth year on account of the defect of the heart. It is reported that some men are born with a hairy heart, and no others are stronger in courage, just as Aristomenes the Messenian, who killed three hundred Lacedaemonians." Wherefore from the heart arise the affections of the soul, and conversely from the soul they flow back into the heart; hence the heart is taken metonymically for the soul, as place for the thing placed. Hence again in hope, fortitude, boldness the heart is tightened and strengthened, equally as the soul; in distrust, fear, pusillanimity it is loosened, dissolved, weakened. Whence the Roman version has the Greek here: Woe to the dissolved heart. The Zurich version: Woe to the collapsed heart; for, since it has no confidence, it will also lack defense. Again, the heart is dissolved in distrust and fear, because the veins and nerves, which proceed from the heart, and through which, as Aristotle and Pliny teach in the places cited, the heart moves and gives life to the whole body, are loosened and dissolved; so that the members, with these bonds by which they are bound to the heart loosened, are loosened, dislocated, and deprived of sense and motion. Apply this symbolically to the soul. For there are three cords by which the soul is bound to God, as to its heart, from which it draws all the sense and motion of spiritual life, namely faith, lest it be snatched away by every wind of errors; hope in time of tribulation; charity, lest it be snatched away by love of flesh and world into crimes. If these cords are loosened, all the vigor of the soul is loosened: and they are loosened in this way: faith through doubt, hope through distrust, charity through lukewarmness and torpor. Here properly the cord of hope is treated. Whence follows:
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our sweetness, let Jesus the Lord be sweet and pleasant to your affection, against the evilly sweet enticements of carnal life, and let sweetness overcome sweetness, just as one nail drives out another nail."
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Therefore in the morning he forms a firm purpose, and determines and says: Today I will mortify that vice; today I will conquer myself, and I will overcome that difficulty by the love of Christ; today I will bear with Christ that cross which shall come upon me; today I will undertake that labour for God with cheerfulness; today I will bear generously those sorrows, that contempt of me; today I will elicit so many acts of contrition, of prayer, of charity; today I will add so many degrees to humility, to patience, to love. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 59 in the Canticles: "The soul, from the fact that it feels itself to love and to love vehemently, likewise does not doubt that it is loved vehemently; and from its singular intention, solicitude, care, work, diligence and zeal, by which it watches incessantly and ardently how it may please God, it recognizes all these things equally in Him without doubt. Therefore from its own things, which are with God, it recognizes; nor does it doubt that it is loved, which loves. So it is. The love of God begets the love of the soul; and His preceding intention makes the soul intentional, and His solicitude makes it solicitous. For I know not by what nearness of nature, when once the soul has begun to behold the glory of God with unveiled face, it must straightway be conformed to Him, and be transformed into the same image. Therefore such as thou hast prepared thyself for God, such God must appear to thee. Thou art good, O Lord, to the soul seeking thee, thou comest to meet it, thou embracest it, thou exhibitest thyself as a spouse, who art Lord; nay, who art above all things God blessed for ever. Amen." AND THEY THAT LOVE HIM SHALL BE FILLED WITH HIS LAW,—that is, they shall devote themselves fully to the law of God. "Shall be filled," therefore, that is, they shall fully seek it, know it, execute it and perfect it; for thus by catachresis the Siracides takes τὸ replete, as I said cap. I, 35. Secondly, Palacius thus explains it, as if to say: "They who love God fill themselves with the law of God. They leave nothing in themselves empty of the law of God: they fill their eyes, hands, ears, memory, intellect, will with the law of God, so that nothing in us may be alien from the law. For as the Jews anointed all their doorposts with blood, lest they perish: so the pious fill all the corners of the soul with the law of God, lest those not marked with the divine Tau perish." Thirdly Jansenius says that τὸ replebuntur signifies the fruit of the fear and love of God, as if to say: Those fearing God shall be filled with abundant doctrine and knowledge of the law. For thus the Lord is wont to reward the piety of men towards Him, according to that Psalm XXXIII: "Draw near to Him, and you shall be enlightened," that is, you shall be enlightened. O light, which always shinest, and art never darkened, enlighten me. O fire, which always burnest, and art never extinguished, kindle me. O love, which always burnest, and art never lukewarm, absorb me, and transform me into thee. O bright light of my eyes, Jesus, drive out all darkness from the dwelling of my mind, and illuminate me wholly with the splendour of thy grace. Enter into my soul, O supreme sweetness, that it may taste sweetly, and in thee alone rejoice and rest. O my beloved, beloved of my vows, grant that I may find thee, and having found thee hold thee, and with spiritual arms embrace thee most tightly. I desire thee, and I long for thee, O eternal beatitude. Would that thou wouldst give thyself to me, and unite me intimately to thee, and inebriate me wholly with pure divine charity! Fourthly, the Syriac renders it: He who fears the Lord, his substance shall be multiplied, and his seed shall be blessed after him.
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You will say: Those who fear God with a chaste and filial fear are already just and holy; for this fear is an act of charity; how then does Sirach exhort them to sanctify themselves? I answer, 1) they shall sanctify themselves, in the Hebrew manner signifies an act, not begun but continued and growing, that is to say, Those who fear God will increasingly strive for holiness, will make progress in holiness day by day, will purify themselves day by day from vices and defects, however slight and small, will become holier each day, so that they may ascend to the summit of holiness, according to that passage in Psalm LXXXIII, 6: "Blessed is the man whose help is from thee: he hath disposed the ascents in his heart, in the vale of tears, in the place which he hath appointed." And verse 8: "They shall go from virtue to virtue: the God of gods shall be seen in Sion." Which verse St. Furseus heard the Angels singing to him, and thereby stirring himself to progress in virtue, as Bede relates in book III of his History, chapter XIX. And indeed this ought to be the constant study of each one, not only of the Religious and Priest, but also of the Christian, and he ought to set it before his eyes daily in the morning, refresh it and renew it. For what is Christianity but a profession of holiness, but a study of virtue, but an imitation of the life of Christ? concerning which St. Luke says in chapter II, 52: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men." This is what the Angel taught John, saying in the Apocalypse XXII, 11: "He that is just, let him be justified still; and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still." And St. Paul: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification," I Thessalonians IV, 3. And verse 7: "For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification." And II Corinthians VII, 1: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and of spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God." And to the Romans VI, 19: "As you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity, unto further iniquity: so now yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification." Wherefore wisely St. Ambrose in the book On the Institution of Virgins, chapter XI: "Why," he says, "do we labor rather for the world, and defraud our soul of such great goodness, we who ought to serve no one but this Lord alone?" And St. Anthony in St. Athanasius: "Why do we not willingly abandon for the sake of gaining the heavenly kingdoms what will be lost at the end of this light? Let Christians care for nothing of those things which they cannot take with them. Rather ought we to seek that which leads us to heaven, namely wisdom, chastity, justice, unwearied virtue, care for the poor, faith in Christ, a strong spirit victorious over anger. God has entrusted our soul to us: let us keep the deposit as we received it." And most angelically St. Basil, in his first epistle to St. Gregory the Theologian: "What," he says, "is more blessed than for a man on earth to imitate the concert of Angels, to go into prayers at the very beginning of the day? to venerate the Creator in hymns and canticles? then when the sun has already dawned to turn to works, never without prayer? finally to season actions as it were with salt by means of canticles?" Note here six acts and duties, according to which let him who fears God institute daily examination of conscience, which Sirach here sets down in order and by degrees. Those who fear the Lord, he says, will be faithful, that is, will believe the words of God. Secondly, they will keep his ways: will observe, namely, the Decalogue. Thirdly, they will inquire how they may please God more abundantly. Fourthly, they will be filled with his law, taking care that nothing in themselves is not regulated by the law of God. Fifthly, they will sanctify their souls, being cautious of the smallest sins. Sixthly finally, they will take care to remain firm until death in this state.
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But St. Augustine in the Mirror, Rabanus and others plainly read in the manner which our Interpreter reads. Whence it is evident that it is very ancient, and he used a fuller Greek codex. Add also that the Greek already has ἐμπεσούμεθα, which properly signifies, we shall fall into, as the Complutensian translators render it, not we shall not fall into; and therefore in the Greek certain things are to be understood which must be supplied, as the Zurich Bible supplies them, namely, saying: If we do not repent sufficiently, we shall fall into the hands of the Lord, not into the hands of men. Which plainly agrees with ours. The sense of it therefore is this, that is to say, Those fearing God shall humble themselves to God and sanctify their souls, and shall patiently receive whatever adversities, as scourges sent by Him to chastise past faults, whether more or less grave. For they shall say: Unless we willingly undertake this penance as a paternal chastisement, we shall fall into the avenging hands of God the avenger, which, being more powerful, are also more rigid than the hands of men, and therefore rage more fiercely, and penetrate more deeply and punish sins, especially after this life in the fire, either of hell or of Purgatory. Whence Paul says: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," Hebrews X, 31. Nay, even the Poet: "The gods have woolen feet, but iron hands:" because they compensate the slowness of punishment by its severity.
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Again, just as God is His own being and His own sublimity, so also is He His own mercy. Wherefore, just as He cannot depart from His being and His sublimity, so neither can He depart from His mercy, but He actually has mercy on all. "For in eternal things there is no difference between being and power," says Aristotle in book II of the Physics. This sentiment of Sirach is to be referred to the patience they shall have, they shall sanctify, they shall prepare their hearts, and the other preceding passages, and at the same time to that which immediately preceded, "saying: If we have not done penance;" for in this is tacitly included the sense that we should therefore do penance, as if to say: Those fearing God shall fix all their hopes in Him, shall prepare and sanctify their hearts to Him, shall have patience in adversities, receiving them in place of penance for the faults committed by them; because they know that by doing these things they shall conciliate to themselves God's mercy, which is great, indeed immense: for it is as great as God's magnitude and majesty, which is certainly infinite and immense. Whence the Syriac version renders it: He that feareth the Lord shall prepare his heart; and he that forsaketh him shall lose his spirit: because, as his majesty is, so also is his mercy; and as his name is, so also are his works; and the Arabic: Those fearing the Lord seek out his good pleasure, and his works according to his name. Morally, learn from this how great God's mercy is, namely, as great as His magnitude, majesty, and immensity: for the measure of mercy is as great as that of majesty; for they are the same in each. Again, by this sentiment Sirach signifies that from the magnitude of majesty and power arises the magnitude of divine mercy, beneficence, and clemency: for it is the mark of a great and lofty spirit to rule over wrath, to be unmoved by injuries, to spare sinners, indeed to do them good; whereby it comes to pass that God's immense magnitude and omnipotence are chiefly exerted and shown forth through immense clemency, according to that which the Church prays: "O God, who dost manifest thy omnipotence chiefly by sparing and showing mercy," etc. And St. Fulgentius, epistle 7 to Venantius, chapter IV: "God," he says, "is great in forgiving: in this greatness nothing is lacking, in which there is omnipotent mercy, and merciful omnipotence. So great is the benignity of omnipotence, and the omnipotence of benignity in God, that there is nothing which He is unwilling or unable to remit to the penitent." This is what the Wise Man says in chapter XI, 24: "Thou hast mercy on all, because thou art able to do all things, and thou overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance," as if to say: Thy omnipotence is to thee as it were the cause and reason of all thy mercy: nay rather, to have mercy on the sinner, and to remit his sins to him when penitent, is a work of supreme power, and greater than the creation of heaven and earth, for reasons which St. Thomas recounts from St. Augustine in III, Question CXIII, article 9. For this reason God commits judgment and vengeance to the lower magistrates and those subordinate to Him; but He reserves to Himself the pardon of sinners and mercy, as it were a royal and divine work. Whence Fulgentius, epistle 7, chapter III: "If God is merciful," he says, "He can remit all sins. There is not perfect goodness from which all malice is not overcome." Finally, "mercy exalteth itself above judgment," James II, 13. Hence again God is supremely patient, dissembling the most atrocious offenses and blasphemies against Himself, because He Himself is supremely powerful over all things and all things: for patience is power; impatience, on the other hand, is weakness of spirit, as Boethius teaches in book III, meter 5. Wherefore God, when Moses asked to see God's glory and all good, showed him His mercy, and thus designated Himself not as omnipotent, but as merciful, Exodus XXXIII, 7. See what I said there. For this reason Sirach adds: "So his mercy is with him:" for although justice, wisdom, strength, and the other attributes are equally with God, yet this is properly attributed to mercy, because this is supremely proper and intimate to God, and as it were born from His very bowels and enclosed in them. Whence mercy and almsgiving appeared in the form of a most beautiful virgin to St. John, archbishop of Alexandria, surnamed the Almsgiver, saying "that she was the daughter of the Most High King, and most familiar and intimate to Him, and that she could obtain anything from Him, and whomsoever she commended to Him, He would make most friendly to Him." Upon seeing this, he was so inflamed with such zeal for almsgiving that he distributed all things to the poor, and almost squandered them, as Leontius relates in his Life. Mercy, therefore, is a divine work, which makes the merciful as it were gods, according to that saying of St. Gregory of Nazianzus On the Care of the Poor: "Be thou a god to the afflicted." Again, the other works of God ad extra, namely, the works of wisdom, justice, fortitude, are limited and finite: for God did not create the infinite. But He poured forth infinite mercy upon us, when He delivered Himself to us made flesh in human nature, that He might abolish our sins, according to that: "Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us," Luke I. Therefore the work of the Incarnation and Redemption, as well as the remission of sins, is in itself immense. For the gift which is made and given in it is immense, namely, Christ Himself, and His merits of infinite price, and through them grace and glory, which objectively (because it has for its object God seen and possessed by the Blessed), and in duration is infinite, because it will endure for ever. Finally, learn from this what power penance hath, which abolishes all sin, draws down the immense mercy of God, and as it were conquers the majesty and vengeance of the judge, and, as he says, binds as it were the Almighty. Again, how much the penitent, as a suppliant of God's mercy, ought to humble himself for pardon and grace and give thanks to Him: for sin, since it is the greatest and infinite evil, in order to be pardoned, needs the greatest and infinite mercy of God. Whence David, fallen into sin: "Have mercy on me, O God," he says, "according to Thy great mercy. And according to the multitude of Thy compassions blot out my iniquity," Psalm L, verse 1. Considering this, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Pelagia, St. Matthew, St. Mary of Egypt, even if they knew their sins to be forgiven; yet they wept for them their whole life, that in some way they might make satisfaction for so great mercy of God. All these things Sirach signifies here, saying "According to His greatness, so also is His mercy with Him." For by this mercy of God the just have need, not only that they be purged from sins, but also that henceforth they avoid them, overcome all temptations, be preserved and grow in all virtue, be perfected in holiness and persevere, and obtain the prize of eternal glory. On all sides therefore the mercy of God surrounds them, fortifies them and crowns them, so that with good reason each one ought continually to sing with the Psalmist: "O Lord, Thou hast crowned us with the shield of Thy good will," Psalm V, 13. And: "Thou shalt bless the crown of the year of Thy goodness, and Thy fields (of faithful souls) shall be filled with abundance," of virtues and merits, Psalm LXIV, 12. For God hath woven and plaited for the just as it were a continuous crown with so many, so great and so varied benefits and graces, as if distinguished and variegated with gems. O Lord, who art rich in mercy, who crownest and surroundest us with Thy gifts; O life eternal; life, by which I live, without which I die; life, by which I rejoice, without which I grieve; life sweet and lovable, grant that I may be joined to Thee, embrace Thee, and lulled by sweet charity, in Thee, who art most pleasing peace, may I sleep holily. Grant, O my Lord, that my soul, melted by the force of burning love, and liquefied by the sweetness of penetrating charity, may wholly flow forth into Thee. Possess it, O supreme and unchangeable good, possess it, that it may itself possess Thee. Pierce, my beloved, and transfix my heart with the sharpest dart of love, that I may languish healthfully in love of Thee, that all transitory things may become vile to me, that Thou alone mayest please, Thou alone with incomparable beauty mayest gladden me: because Thou art all possession, and all beatitude of my soul.
Machine translation from the Latin, not reviewed.
2:16
… For this reason Sacred Scripture insists on the necessity, especially in the spiritual life, of constancy (Eccli. 2, 16; 27, 12; Ps. 17, 38; Mt. 10, 22; Io. 4, 34; 17, 4; I Cor. 9, 24; 15, 58; II Io. 8, 9, etc.); which in the end comes down to the maxim of popular common sense: "he who perseveres wins."
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · Vulgata Clementina · original Douay-Rheims (Douay 1609-10), transcription by EEBO-TCP (CC0) · La Sacra Bibbia, tradotta dalla Volgata da Antonio Martini (1769-1781) (LaParola (laparola.net), Martini OSIS text, Public domain (LaParola's electronic edition marks it 'Dominio pubblico')). Public domain.