A prayer for the church of God. Of a good heart, and a good wife.
A prayer for conuersion of al nations: 14. and for conseruation of the Israelites. 20. Discretion is necessarie in al actions, and desires.
1Have mercy upon us, O God of all, and behold us, and shew us the light of thy mercies:Dio di tutte le cose abbi misericordia di noi, e volgi lo sguardo a noi, e fa vedere a noi la luce di tua benignità.HAVE mercie vpon vs ô God of al, and respect vs, and shew vs the light of thy mercies:Miserere nostri, Deus omnium, et respice nos, / et ostende nobis lucem miserationum tuarum: 2And send thy fear upon the nations, that have not sought after thee: that they may know that there is no God beside thee, and that they may shew forth thy wonders.E infondi il timore di te nelle nazioni, le quali non ti conoscono, affinchè veggano, che Dio non havvi fuora di te, e raccontin le tue meraviglie.and send in thy feare vpon the nations, that haue not sought after thee, that they may know that there is no God but thou, and that they may shewforth thy glorious thinges.et immitte timorem tuum super gentes quæ non exquisierunt te, / ut cognoscant quia non est deus nisi tu, / et enarrent magnalia tua. 3Lift up thy hand over the strange nations, that they may see thy power.Alza il tuo braccio contro le straniere nazioni, affinchè veggano il tuo potere.Lift vp thy hand ouer the strange Nations, that they may see thy might.Alleva manum tuam super gentes alienas, / ut videant potentiam tuam. 4For as thou hast been sanctified in us in their sight, so thou shalt be magnified among them in our presence,Perocché siccome sotto degli occhi loro tu dimostrasti in noi la tua santità, così sotto degli occhi nostri dimostra sopra di loro la tua grandezza,For as in their sight thou art sanctified in vs, so in our sight thou shalt be magnified in them,Sicut enim in conspectu eorum sanctificatus es in nobis, / sic in conspectu nostro magnificaberis in eis: 5That they may know thee, as we also have known thee, that there is no God beside thee, O Lord.Affinchè eglino ti conoscano, come noi pure abbiam conosciuto, che non v'è Dio fuori di te, o Signore.that they may know thee, as we also haue knowen, that there is no God beside thee ô Lord.ut cognoscant te, sicut et nos cognovimus / quoniam non est deus præter te, Domine. 6Renew thy signs, and work new miracles.Rinovella i prodigj, e fa nuove meraviglie.Renewe signes, and change meruels.Innova signa, et immuta mirabilia. 7Glorify thy hand, and thy right arm.Glorifica la tua mano, e il tuo braccio destro.Glorifie thy hand, and thy right arme.Glorifica manum et brachium dextrum. 8Raise up indignation, and pour out wrath.Sveglia il furore, e versa l'ira.Raise vp furie, and power out wrath.Excita furorem, et effunde iram. 9Take away the adversary, and crush the enemy.Togli via l'avversario, e conquidi il nimico.Take away the aduersarie, and afflict the enemie.Tolle adversarium, et afflige inimicum.
10Hasten the time, and remember the end, that they may declare thy wonderful works.Accelera il tempo, né ti scordar di por fine; affinchè siano celebrate le tue meraviglie.Hasten the time, and remember the end, that they may declare thy meruels.Festina tempus, et memento finis, / ut enarrent mirabilia tua. 11Let him that escapeth be consumed by the rage of the fire: and let them perish that oppress thy people.Quelli, che avranno scampo sian divorati dal fuoco dell'ira, e quelli, che straziano il popol tuo, trovin la perdizione.Let him that is saued be deuoured in the wrath of flame: and let them that euil intreate thy people, finde perdition.In ira flammæ devoretur qui salvatur: / et qui pessimant plebem tuam inveniant perditionem. 12Crush the head of the princes of the enemies that say: There is no other beside us.Spezza le teste de' principi avversi a noi, i quali dicono: Nissuno è fuori di noi.Breake the head of princes of the enemies, that saie: There is none other beside vs.Contere caput principum inimicorum, / dicentium: Non est alius præter nos. 13Gather together all the tribes of Jacob: that they may know that there no God besides thee, and may declare thy great works: and thou shalt inherit them as from the beginning.Aduna tutte le tribù di Giacobbe, affinchè conoscano, che Dio non v'è fuori di te, e raccontin le tue meraviglie, e siano tuo retaggio, come da principio.Gather together al the tribes of Iacob: and let them know that there is no God but thou, that they may declare thy great workes: & thou shalt inherite them as from the beginning.Congrega omnes tribus Jacob, / ut cognoscant quia non est deus nisi tu, / et enarrent magnalia tua, / et hæreditabis eos sicut ab initio. 14Have mercy on thy people, upon whom thy name is invoked: and upon Israel, whom thou hast raised up to be thy firstborn.Abbi misericordia del popol tuo, che porta il tuo nome, e di Israele, cui tu trattasti come tuo primogenito.Haue mercie on thy people, vpon which thy name is inuocated: and vpon Israel, whom thou hast made equal to thy first begotten.Miserere plebi tuæ, super quam invocatum est nomen tuum, / et Israël quem coæquasti primogenito tuo. 15Have mercy on Jerusalem, the city which thou hast sanctified, the city of thy rest.Abbi misericordia della città santificata da te, di Gerusalemme, città, in cui tu riposi.Haue mercie on the citie of thy sanctification Ierusalem, the citie of thy rest.Miserere civitati sanctificationis tuæ, / Jerusalem, civitati requiei tuæ. 16Fill Sion with thy unspeakable words, and thy people with thy glory.Empi Sionne delle ineffabili tue parole, e il popolo tuo di gloria.Replenish Sion with thy wordes that can not be vttered, & thy people with thy glorie.Reple Sion inenarrabilibus verbis tuis, / et gloria tua populum tuum.
17Give testimony to them that are thy creatures from the beginning, and raise up the prophecies which the former prophets spoke in thy name.Dichiarati in favor di coloro, i quali fin da principio son tue creature, e risuscita le predizioni annunziate in tuo nome dagli antichi profeti.Geue the testimonie to them, that are thy creatures from the beginning, and raise vp the prophecies, which the former prophets spake in thy name.Da testimonium his qui ab initio creaturæ tuæ sunt, / et suscita prædicationes quas locuti sunt in nomine tuo prophetæ priores. 18Reward them that patiently wait for thee, that thy prophets may be found faithful: and hear the prayers of thy servants,Rendi mercede a coloro, i quali vivono nella espettazione di te, affinchè fedeli riconoscansi i tuoi profeti, ed esaudisci le orazioni de' servi tuoi,Geue reward to them that patiently expect thee, that thy prophets may be found faithful: and heare the prayers of thy seruants,Da mercedem sustinentibus te, / ut prophetæ tui fideles inveniantur: / et exaudi orationes servorum tuorum, 19According to the blessing of Aaron over thy people, and direct us into the way of justice, and let all know that dwell upon the earth, that thou art God the beholder of all ages.Secondo la benedizione data da Aronne al tuo popolo, e guida noi nella via della giustizia, affinchè gli abitatori tutti della terra conoscano, che tu se' il Dio ordinatore de' secoli.according to Aarons benediction of thy people, and direct vs into the way of iustice, and let al knowe that inhabite the earth, that thou art God the beholder of the worldes.secundum benedictionem Aaron de populo tuo: / et dirige nos in viam justitiæ, / et sciant omnes qui habitant terram / quia tu es Deus conspector sæculorum. 20The belly will devour all meat, yet one is better than another.Il ventre riceve ogni sorta di nudrimento, ma v'ha cibo, che è migliore d'un altro.The bellie wil eate al meate, and one meate is better then an other meate.Omnem escam manducabit venter: / et est cibus cibo melior. 21The palate tasteth venison and the wise heart false speeches.Il palato discerne la pietanza di cacciagione, e il cuore assennato le parole di menzogna.The iawes taist venison, & the wise hart lying wordes,Fauces contingunt cibum feræ, / et cor sensatum verba mendacia. 22A perverse heart will cause grief, and a man of experience will resist it.Il cuore perverso sarà cagion di dolori, ma l'uom sapiente gli farà resistenza.A peruerse hart wil geue sorow, and a cunning man wil resist it.Cor pravum dabit tristitiam, / et homo peritus resistet illi. 23A woman will receive every man: yet one daughter is better than another.La donna sposerà un maschio qualunque sia, ma delle fanciulle una è migliore d'un'altra.Some woman wil receiue euerie man: and one daughter is better then an other daughter.Omnem masculum excipiet mulier: / et est filia melior filia.
24The beauty of a woman cheereth the countenance of her husband, and a man desireth nothing more.La avvenenza della moglie esilara la faccia del marito, e induce in lui un affetto, che sorpassa ogni umano desiderio.The beautie of a woman chereth the face of her husband, and increaseth the desire aboue al mans concupiscence.Species mulieris exhilarat faciem viri sui, / et super omnem concupiscentiam hominis superducit desiderium. 25If she have a tongue that can cure, and likewise mitigate and shew mercy: her husband is not like other men.Se ella ha una lingua sanatrice, se lingua di mansuetudine, e di carità; il marito di lei non è come i figliuoli degli uomini.If there be a tongue of curing, there is also of mitigating and of mercie: her husband is not according to the sonnes of men.Si est lingua curationis, / est et mitigationis et misericordiæ: / non est vir illius secundum filios hominum. 26He that possesseth a good wife, beginneth a possession: she is a help like to himself, and a pillar of rest.Chi possiede una buona moglie, comincia a stabilir la sua casa; egli ha l'aiuto simile a se, e la colonna di suo riposo.He that possesseth a good woman, beginneth riches: she is an helpe like vnto him, & a piller as rest.Qui possidet mulierem bonam inchoat possessionem: / adjutorium secundum illum est, et columna ut requies. 27Where there is no hedge, the possession shall be spoiled: and where there is no wife, he mourneth that is in want.Dove manca la siepe, sarà saccheggiato il podere, e dove non è una moglie l'uomo sospira in povertà.Where there is no hedge, the possession shal be spoiled: and where there is no wife, he mourneth wanting.Ubi non est sepes, diripietur possessio: / et ubi non est mulier, ingemiscit egens. 28Who will trust him that hath no rest, and that lodgeth wheresoever the night taketh him, as a robber well appointed, that skippeth from city to city.Chi vuoi fidarsi di uno, che non ha nido, e va a dormire dove lo coglie il buio della notte, ed è come uno spedito ladro, che salta da una città in un'altra!Who doth credite him that hath no nest, and turning aside wheresoeuer it waxeth darke, as a robber girded, leaping from citie to citie.Quis credit ei qui non habet nidum, / et deflectens ubicumque obscuraverit, / quasi succinctus latro exiliens de civitate in civitatem ?
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Calmet
Have. He has pointed out the conditions for prayer, and now he gives a model. The Jews were at this time dispersed and subservient to the Egyptians or Syrians, which greatly afflicted them. (Calmet)
And shew. Greek, (2.) "send."
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Haydock
That. Roman Greek omits the rest. But Grabe retains, "all nations which seek not after thee." (Haydock)
Worthington
This prayer implies a prediction of the Gentiles' conversion, as the psalms do frequently in like terms, Psalm lxiv. (Worthington)
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Sanctified, by chastising us, or by protecting our fathers in the desert.
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End of our sufferings. The malice of our enemies is at the height.
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Escapeth the sword, Deuteronomy 32:36. He foretells the event, or wishes that they may be chastised, in order that they may enter into themselves, and adore the true God.
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Calmet
Other lord. The Syrian and Egyptian monarchs sometimes claimed divine honours, Daniel 7:25., and 11:36. (Calmet)
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Haydock
That. Greek transposes the rest, and has only, and thou, etc. (Haydock)
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Rest, where the temple is built, 2 Paralipomenon 6:41., and Psalm 131:8.
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Words, predictions, as heretofore; or with thy favours.
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Thee. The Jews were more faithful after the captivity. The author seems to beg for the coming of the Messias.
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Calmet
People, which thou hast prescribed, Numbers 6:24. (Calmet)
Direct. Greek, "All shall know."
Haydock
Art. Greek, "Lord art the God of ages." (Haydock)
Calmet
Here the prayer ends. (Calmet)
Haydock
The author continues to instruct. (Haydock)
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Calmet
Another. Thus act discreetly in the pursuit of knowledge. The good may be distinguished from bad, as easily as venison can from other meats. (Calmet)
Worthington
As there is a difference of meats, so must discretion be used in words, in the choice of a wife, etc. (Worthington)
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Haydock
Resist. Greek, "requite it," as it deserves. (Haydock)
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Man. Yet in marriage the temper of the person is to be considered.
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Calmet
More. Love is the most violent of all the passions, and nothing can afford greater content than a virtuous and consoling wife, Ecclesiasticus 26:21. (Calmet)
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Haydock
Good, is not in Greek, but the context shews that it is necessary. (Haydock)
Worthington
By concord small possessions increase, as by discord the greatest are lost. (Worthington)
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Want. If he be not so at first, servants will soon ruin his affairs.
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Calmet
Rest, or abode with his wife and family. The Jews in general married, and such as delayed were deemed suspicious characters, Proverbs 27:8. (Calmet)
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A woman will receive every man.... That is, any man that her parents propose to her to marry, though she does not like him, but marries in obedience to her parents, who make the choice for her.
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This prayer implieth also a prophecie of the conuersion of the Gentiles, as the like very often in the Psalmes. 58. 6•. 65. &c.
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Concordance Exo. 4.
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Concordance Num. 6.
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As there i• difference of meates. 〈◊〉 so there ought to be discret on in wordes, in choosing a wi•e & in al actions, and desires.
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In concord smal thinges increase, by discord al thinges goe to hauocke.
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 City of God 17.20
… lift up Thine hand over the strange nations, and let them see Thy power. As Thou wast sanctified in us before them, so be Thou sanctified in them before us, and let them acknowledge Thee, according as we also have acknowledged Thee; for there is not a God beside Thee, O Lord.”
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Letters of St. Augustin 130.22
… and I know not how carnal prayers can be lawful, since it becomes those who are born again by the Spirit to pray in no other way than spiritually. For example, when one prays: “Be Thou glorified among all nations as Thou art glorified among us,” and “Let Thy prophets be found faithful,”
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Learn morally here that knowledge of God is the fountain of all good. Hear St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration on the State of Bishops: "The kingdom of heaven," he says, "I think to be nothing other than the attainment of that which is most pure and most perfect. Now the most perfect of all things is knowledge of God," which Clement of Alexandria, book VI of the Stromata, calls "the most perfect good and desirable for its own sake." The same author, in book VII, asserts that he who has truly and magnificently known God cannot serve pleasures and other disturbances of the soul; but always does and thinks holy things, prays with the angels, and, even if he prays alone, has the choir of angels attending him. Most excellently indeed St. Jerome: "Knowledge," he says, "of the one God is the possession of all virtues." And elsewhere: "The memory of God excludes all wickedness." Finally St. Augustine: "By knowledge of God," he says, "nothing is better; because nothing is more blessed, and it itself is true blessedness." Finally St. Bernard, sermon 37 on the Canticles: "If you are ignorant of God, can there be hope of salvation without ignorance of God? not even this; for you cannot either love what you do not know, or possess what you have not loved." Soon however he admonishes that this knowledge of God must be joined with knowledge of oneself: "Know therefore," he says, "yourself, that you may fear God; know Him, that you may equally love Him. In the one you are initiated into wisdom, in the other you are also perfected; because the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and the fullness of the law is charity. So both ignorances must be avoided by you, as without fear and love of God there can be no salvation."
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right hand. The proud and tyrants glory in their right hand, in sword and strength, and say: "Our hand is exalted, and not the Lord, hath made all these things," Deuteronomy xxxii, 27. But God breaks down their pride, and shatters hand with a mightier hand, so that they may know that the divine hand surpasses the human; nor can this do anything against that, indeed without it, anything at all. God often showed this very thing to holy men through visions. Blessed Juniper, one of the first companions of St. Francis, while praying on a certain occasion, and perhaps conceiving something great of himself, saw a hand hanging in the air, and immediately a divine voice resounded: "A hand without a hand can do nothing," that is to say, No one is so good, so wise, so powerful, that he can do anything without a hand, that is, God's power and assistance. Hearing this and rejoicing, and leaping through the house, he said: "Lord, it is true." Thus the Annals of the Minors have it, by the author Luke Wadding, in the year of Christ 1210, no. 36. This is what the Psalmist prays, Psalm lxxix, 18: "Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand: and upon the son of man whom thou hast confirmed for thyself;" and Psalm cxliii, 4: "Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to fight, and my fingers to war." St. Bernard refers these to the incarnation of the Word (for to this point the aim of the Holy Spirit extends itself in this place, as I shall soon show) concerning which he speaks thus in sermon 4 on the vigil of the Nativity: "Add further, Lord Jesus, renew signs, change wonders; for the former ones have indeed become worthless through familiarity. Indeed the rising and setting of the sun, the fruitfulness of the earth, the succession of seasons, are miracles, and great miracles; but we have seen these so often, that there is now no one who pays attention. Renew signs, and change wonders. Behold, saith he, I make all things new. Who saith this? The Lamb surely who sat upon the throne," Apocalypse v, etc.: "O truly new miracles! He was conceived without shame, brought forth without pain. The curse of Eve was changed in our Virgin. For she bore a son without pain. The curse was changed, I say, into a blessing." In Christ indeed and the Blessed Virgin God wrought new prodigies unheard of from the beginning of the world, and thus changed the order of the world and all things. Thus also Rabanus, whose words I shall presently recite. A woman bears a son wise in knowledge, a man in age, a boy in years, the Word in person, God in nature, born of the Virgin in time, full of grace, Jesus in name and in reality, Christ in surname. How many and how great are the wonders here, nay miracles, in this one mystery of the incarnation! There are as many in the mystery of the passion, the cross, death, resurrection, ascension, etc. Wonderfully Aaron's dry rod budded and bore fruit; more wonderfully the Virgin remaining intact bore a son. Wonderfully the serpent on the pole healed the wounded; more wonderfully Christ on the cross healed all believers. Wonderfully Elias raised the widow's son, III Kings xvii: more wonderfully God the Father raised His Son from the dead. Wonderfully Samson by dying overthrew the Philistines; more wonderfully Christ by dying overcame death itself and demons. Wonderfully Jonas leapt from the belly of the whale; more wonderfully Christ rose from the underworld. Wonderfully Elias in a fiery chariot ascended to paradise; more wonderfully Christ made immortal ascended to heaven. There Eliseus sought Elias ascending, here the company of Apostles marveled at Christ ascending. There Elias ascending left his mantle, here Christ sent the Holy Spirit to the right hand of the Father. This is the renewal of signs, and the change of wonders. The petition of Jesus son of Sirach is therefore fulfilled, signs have been renewed, wonders have been changed. Behold I make all things new, saith the Lord, Apocalypse xxi, 6. For such things the Prophet sings: Sing to the Lord a new canticle, because he hath done wonderful things."
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He turned: Hasten the time, and remember thy oath; so that μεγαλεῖα (others read θαυμάσια, that is, wonders), that is, "thy magnificent deeds may be celebrated;" the Syriac: Make manifest the punishment, and cause the time to come; because there is none who says to thee: What dost thou? as if to say, Bring quickly, O Lord, the time in which thou mayest free us, and crush or rout our enemies; the time, I say, defined by thee, nay, confirmed by oath, especially concerning the sending of the Messiah, who shall free us from all enemies and evils. That Sirach, or rather the Holy Spirit, directed the aim of his mind toward the Messiah, Rabanus, Palacius, Jansenius and Lyra teach from R. Solomon, who also adds the reason: "All the Prophets," he says, "have spoken of nothing except the days of the Messiah, so that their words are ordered toward the coming of the Messiah, as toward their end." For from the time of Sirach they have been awaiting, and indeed even now the Jews await, the coming of the Messiah, that they may be freed from the servitude of the gentiles. For the end of the Law and the Prophets is Christ, Rom. x, 4; Apoc. xxi, 6. Moreover Augustine also, XVII De Civit. Dei, xx: "In Ecclesiasticus," he says, "the faith of the gentiles is foretold in this manner: 'Have mercy on us, O ruler God of all, and send thy fear upon all nations, etc. That they may know thee, as we also have known thee, that there is no God besides thee, O Lord. This prophecy under the form of wishing and praying we see fulfilled through Jesus Christ.'" Hear also Rabanus: "He prays this," he says, "that divine majesty through the hand and right arm, that is, the Lord Christ, may renew the miracles which were formerly done in the times of grace: so that the same and one God of the old and new Law may be understood, namely the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit then and now works wonders alone. But what he asks, to stir up fury and pour out wrath, so that the adversary may be exalted and the enemy afflicted; this he wishes to signify, that by the coming of Christ the devil will necessarily be taken away from the hearts of the unfaithful, lest he hold them captive any longer in error and in idolatry." And a little later: "But in that he says: Hasten the time, and remember the end; this is what the Prophet says to God in the Psalms: Thou rising up, O Lord, shalt have mercy on Sion; because the time of having mercy on it is come. He prays this, because the time is the last hour, and the end of the world draws near, let him come who is promised, and have mercy on mankind: because he himself is the expectation of the Gentiles." Excellently St. Augustine, tract. 55 in John: "Christ," he says, "is the end perfecting, not destroying: the end toward which we go, not where we perish." So also St. Bernard, tract. De diligendo Deo, calls God and Christ the end not consuming, but consummating. For speaking of the impious, who "walk about in a circle," Psalm. xi, verse 9: "They walk," he says, "naturally seeking whence they may end their appetite, and foolishly rejecting whence they may draw near to the end. The end, I say, not of consumption, but of consummation. Wherefore they hasten not to be consummated in a blessed end, but to be consumed in vain labor: who, delighted more by the appearance of things than by their author, wish to run through all things first, to experience each one, before they care to come to him, the Lord of the universe." Moreover in Christ there are many wonders, which Sirach here urges to be recounted, so that Christ is rightly called by Isaiah, cap. ix, verse 5, wonderful, as being θεάνθρωπος καὶ δικόθεος, that is, God-man, as the Greeks speak. The first wonder is, that the complete human nature, which in the instant of its formation would otherwise have subsisted by itself and constituted its own hypostasis, was anticipated, receiving the mode of inexistence, by which it existed elevated above every creature in the Word. The second, that the Word so received that nature, sustaining it and terminating its inexistence, that nevertheless it underwent no change, contracted no new intrinsic relation to it, no order, no propensity or inclination: for that infinite hypostatic force sufficed, so that it might extend itself to that nature extrinsically drawn and as it were inserted, without any change of itself, as it were as term and hypostatic basis. The third, that the divine Word without any new relation to human nature, became true man, and there is between divine and human nature by reason of union in the Word a mutual complexion, or περιχώρησις, as Damascene says lib. III, cap. II. The remaining miracles are extrinsic, and due to so great a mystery, as it were consequent upon it. First, that the body was perfectly formed in an instant; second, that the almighty virtue of the Holy Spirit supplied the place of seminal virtue; third, that that most blessed soul in the first instant of its creation and infusion was most eminently filled with the light of glory and all heavenly goods, so that through the course of time no increase could be made to it; fourth, that it was conceived of a virgin; fifth, that it was born of a virgin without the opening of the virginal enclosure, by a wondrous penetration of bodies, poured forth from the womb, as light through glass; sixth, that the glory of the soul did not overflow into the body, as the glory of the divinity overflowed into the soul, but the body remained passible; seventh, that beatific joy did not exclude sadness of soul and the bitterness of sufferings. Behold ten stupendous miracles in this wondrous union, each of which merits lengthy consideration. Thus our Lessius, On Divine Perfections, book XII, chapter v. Wherefore St. Dionysius, epistle 3 to Caius: "Moreover," he says, "in the Sacrament of the humanity of Christ, I think Theology wished to signify this also, that that supersubstantial God from concealment suddenly came forth into our sight, clothed in human substance and flesh; yet remaining hidden even after revelation, or, to speak more divinely, He endures hidden even in His very revelation itself." Finally, in this work of the Incarnation of the Word there shines forth in a wondrous and stupendous manner the wisdom, power and clemency of God. For, as St. Thomas wisely and piously says, in Opuscule LX: "This work was fitting for God, whom it behooved to show forth His wisdom, power and goodness. But what is more powerful than to join extremes most greatly distant? For great power was shown in the joining of unlike elements, greater in the joining of those to a created spirit, but greatest in the union with an uncreated spirit. But what is wiser than that for the completion of the whole universe there should be a joining of the first and the last, that is, the Word of God which is the principle of all things, and human nature, which in the works of the six days was the last of creatures? But what is more benign and better than that the Creator of things willed to communicate Himself to created things? which benignity was great in the joining of Himself with all things by presence; greater, because He communicated Himself to the good through grace; greatest, because He communicated Himself to Christ man, and consequently to the kinds of individuals in the unity of person." See more on this same matter in St. Thomas and the Scholastics, III part, Question I, article 1.
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Tropologically, Rabanus holds that what is said here is what Christ said: "Whosoever will save his soul, shall lose it," Luke ix, 24. "This," he says, "he foretells, that those who love their souls in the pleasure of this life, and are unwilling to lay them down for Christ, nay, who persecute the Catholic people and deliver the faithful of God to slaughter; in the wrath of the future flame they shall be devoured, and find eternal destruction in the fire of Gehenna."
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Allegorically, Rabanus says: "The head, he says, of all iniquities and infidelities is the devil. The Church asks this, that he himself be crushed, who is the prince of this world, and stirs up idolaters into persecutions of Christians, saying: There is no other besides us; because they reckon themselves alone to rule in the world, nor do they wish to be subject to the eternal power of God." Tropologically, "the head of the princes of enemies," that is, the head and prince of the seven capital vices is pride. For the proud man says: There is no other besides me. This one merits to be crushed and is accustomed to be crushed, so that he who alone among all wished to be and to rule may be exterminated by all, according to that Psalm 67, 22: "God shall break the heads of his enemies, the crown of the head of them that walk on in their sins." For when pride is cut away, the other vices are cut away; just as when the head of a serpent is broken, the whole serpent is broken. For pride among vices is that which the head is among members.
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three tribes of Jacob or Israel were led into captivity and scattered among various nations by Salmanasar and Nabuchodonosor. After 70 years they were gathered together, at least Juda and Benjamin, by Cyrus. Again they were made captive and scattered by the kings of Persia, and finally by Ptolemy Lagus and the kings of Syria. He prays therefore that God would gather them into one Synagogue or Church, which would be to God as it were a possession, a peculiar treasure and inheritance, just as He first gathered and inherited them through Moses, when He led them separated from the Egyptians and other nations into Sinai, and there gave them the law and priesthood, and chose them as it were a faithful and holy people from all peoples for Himself and increased them. Allegorically and primarily (and therefore this sense is rather literal than allegorical. Thus also elsewhere the literal sense sometimes embraces the letter together with allegory, as I have shown in the Prophets) he prays that the Messias would come, who would gather the Jews and gentiles into one Church, so that there would be one fold and one shepherd; for Christ came for this: "That the children of God, who were scattered, He might gather together in one," John xi, 52. Hear Rabanus: "After she has completed her prayer against sinners, and their head the devil, Wisdom prays for the state of the Church and the salvation of believers. For what are the tribes of Jacob but Churches gathered from the gentiles? For the younger son, who stole away his brother's blessing, prefigured them. These she asks to be gathered, that is, to be solidified in the unity of the Catholic faith, so that faithfully knowing God, and declaring His wonders in the preaching of the holy Gospel, His inheritance, just as from the beginning of faith they were possessed by Him, so also may they remain unto the age." Because Israel, that is Jacob, was the father of the twelve Patriarchs, each of whom established his own family and tribe, all of which and only these God chose for Himself as a Church and a faithful people and peculiar to Himself; hence Israel is a type of the Christian people, and his twelve tribes are a type of all the faithful nations: both because formerly the faithful people was no other than Israel; and because from Israel was born Christ, the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles and the first Christians; and so to the Jewish Israel succeeded Christian Israel, into which were then grafted the faithful of the gentiles. For, as the Apostle says, Rom. ix, 6: "For not all that are of Israel are Israelites: nor are all they that are the seed of Abraham, children: but in Isaac shall thy seed be called: that is, not they that are the children of the flesh, are the children of God: but they that are the children of the promise, are counted for the seed." Whence that saying of Christ to the Apostles, Matt. xix, 28: "When the Son of man shall sit in the seat of His majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," that is all the faithful, both Jews and Gentiles: for Christ and the Apostles shall judge all these; for formerly the twelve tribes of Israel were the chosen people and the Church of God; indeed even in the time of Christ; nay, this was the kingdom of the Messias promised. Whence the gentiles, who believed in Christ, were grafted as it were into this Church and Jewish people, and endowed with citizenship; so that now they are called not Gentiles, but Jews, that is, those confessing and believing, as is evident Rom. xi, 17, 19 and seq. Hence St. John, Apocal. xxi, 12, says he saw inscribed on the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
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Note: To invoke the name of someone over another, in Hebrew is the same as for another to be called by another's name, and to be taken into his name, protection and as it were family, to be devoted to him, to revere and worship him. For this phrase signifies this, Genesis xlviii, 16; Deuteronomy xxviii, 10; II Kings vi, 1; Jeremiah xliv, 9; Baruch ii, 15, and elsewhere often. Whence the Greeks have at this place: λαὸν κεκλημένον ἐπ' ὀνόματί σου, that is, have mercy on the people called upon thy name, or from thy name, or by thy name, so that namely the name of God may be usurped and arrogated to itself, and the people be called the people of God; which indeed is a great dignity both of the whole people and of each faithful and holy soul, according to that of Isaiah lxii, 2: "Thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. And thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Thou shalt no more be called Forsaken: but thou shalt be called My delight in her; because the Lord hath been pleased with thee;" and verse 12: "And they shall call them the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord." Mystically, the faithful and holy one is made equal, not precisely and geometrically, but analogically, morally and in a certain proportion, to the firstborn of God, Jesus Christ; because, as Christ is the natural Son of God, so the faithful and holy one is the adopted son of God, and therefore heir of God; but coheir with Christ: which indeed is an admirable dignity, which the Apostle, admiring it, Romans viii, 29: "Whom he foreknew, he said, and predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son (that they may be like and conformed to Christ in grace and glory), that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren." Thus Rabanus. To Christ therefore the Saints are made equal not arithmetically, but analogically, that is they are made similar and adapted as members to the head. Thus II Kings xxii, 34, David says to God: "Making my feet like the feet of harts." Making equal, that is making similar not equal in swiftness; for indeed the swiftness of a human foot cannot be precisely equalled to the swiftness of a hart's foot, but only in some way imitate and follow it, not attain it. "A Christian therefore is as it were another Christ," as the Nyssenus teaches, On the Profession of the Name of Christian: "Let him live therefore as another Christ."
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Second, that it is Jerusalem, that is vision of peace, as if to say: Thou, O Lord, hast called this city vision of peace, because thou didst will that the people in it, with thee as protector, should dwell in peace, and worship thee peacefully. Restore therefore to it this peace, first promised and granted. Third, that it is the city of the rest of God; because namely God in its temple, as in a house proper to himself, rested pleasantly, and dwelt in the Holy of Holies, sitting upon the mercy seat above the ark as upon a footstool of his feet, surrounded on both sides by Cherubim, and thence gave oracles and answers, Exodus xxv, 22. Whence the Zurich Bible translates: Have mercy on the city of thy holiness, the city (it reads πόλιν, others read τόπον, that is place) of thy rest; the Syriac: Have mercy on the city of thy holiness, Jerusalem, the place of thy dwelling. Allegorically, Jerusalem is the Church of Christ. Tropologically, it is the faithful and holy soul, to which all these things are easily adapted. Thus Rabanus.
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Moreover, when God bestows these things, He likewise fills His people with glory, because the great glory of Israel was that it alone among all nations possessed the domestic oracle of God, likewise the law of God and Holy Scripture, and its teachers and preachers, according to that saying of Moses, Deuteronomy iv, 7: "Neither is there any other nation so great, that hath gods so nigh them, as our God is present to all our petitions. What other nation is there so renowned, that hath ceremonies and just judgments, and all the law which I set before you this day?" Moreover, in the time of Sirach, indeed far earlier, namely in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, this oracle of God had failed and all the Prophets and prophecies, as I have shown in Haggai cap. 1, vers. 8. Sirach therefore prays that God restore these things to Israel, especially through Christ. Wherefore this prophecy has been fully and completely fulfilled by Christ, when He Himself in Sion uttered words unspeakable and hidden from the foundation of the world. For He Himself is the λόγος, that is the Word of the Father, and therefore the λόγια once mute and silent, He made vocal to Israel; and thus He heaped upon Him the greatest glory. Thus Rabanus, Lyra, Palacius, Jansenius and others. Allegorically Rabanus: "Sion," he says, "is called contemplation; and with good reason Holy Church is called contemplation; because from thence the hearts of the faithful contemplate the joys of the heavenly kingdom, which the Lord fills with His unspeakable words, when He instructs it with knowledge of divine books, wherein the unspeakable power of God, and the inestimable glory of His majesty is proclaimed. He causes it to be eminent among all nations by the signs of miracles, so that from thence it becomes both a terror and an honor to all the surrounding nations. Hence it is read in the Acts of the Apostles that, when Paul preached and worked miracles, fear fell upon all those in the city of the Ephesians, that is upon the Jews and Gentiles who dwelt there, and they magnified the name of the Lord Jesus," Acts xix, 17.
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were verified in mind." Thus it is found in his Life, cap. v, written by Philip, Bishop of Eichstätt, which our Gretser illustrated with notes. Note: The faithful and Saints are "creatures" of God; because faith and sanctity surpasses all nature, and all its debt and merit, and is mere grace, and as it were a gratuitous creation of God, according to that saying Ephesians ii, 10: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them." See the remarks there.
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Anagogically, the same Rabanus: "A reward," he says, "is given to those who wait upon God, when to the faithful awaiting the grace of Christ, and hoping in Him, the recompense of future life is granted. For thus the divine Prophets are found faithful and true, and the devout prayer of His servants is heard, who pray daily that the kingdom of God may come, and His will be done as in heaven so on earth." Galatinus notes, lib. II De Arcanis fidei, cap. 1, and others, that the Aaronic priests in blessing the people, formed over it the sign of the cross, or in the manner of a cross placed their right hand transversely upon their left, or by raising and moving the right hand upward and downward, leftward and rightward formed a cross; that they might foreshadow the mystery of the cross of Christ, and its fruit, namely, that through it all blessing upon all men of all ages would descend, does descend and shall descend. Galatinus adds that with three fingers raised and the other two contracted, and pronouncing the name tetragrammaton Jehova, otherwise ineffable, they blessed the people, so that they might represent to the people both the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and of the Word incarnate and crucified (which two are the first mysteries of religion, indeed the sum and comprehension of all faith). See the remarks on Numbers cap. vi, 24, where I have shown that to signify this, the high priest blessing the people repeated the name God three times, just as we forming the cross express the very three persons of the Holy Trinity, saying: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
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Note, secondly, that by this blessing the pontiff has indeed prayed for peace to the people, that is, all good things, but especially that God would direct his actions "in the way of justice," as Sirach says here, and this same thing is shown, Num. vi, 24. For thus the people is directed to heaven unto eternal life, which is the reward of justice, and the supreme happiness of man. Thus also St. Paul blesses the Ephesians, saying cap. iii, 16: "That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts; being rooted and founded in charity, that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth: to know also the supereminent charity of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fulness of God." Hence also St. Clement of Rome, lib. II Constit. cap. lviii, relates that the Bishop in the beginning of the Church ought to have blessed the people with these words: "Preserve, O Lord, thy people safe, and bless thy inheritance, which thou hast possessed and acquired by the blood of thy Christ, and hast called a royal priesthood and a holy nation." Finally St. Augustine, epist. 90 to Innocent, testifies that Bishops, by blessing the people, have prayed to God for them, that by living rightly and piously they might please him in all things. Moreover, that the blessings of pontiffs and priests have been and are efficacious, and are wont to be heard by God, is evident from the fact that God himself promises this, Num. vi, 27; whence also II Paral. xxx, 27, it is said: "And the priests and Levites rose up blessing the people: and their voice was heard: and their prayer came unto the holy habitation of heaven." Allegorically Rabanus: "What is," he says, "the blessing of Aaron, but the order and rite of priesthood, which the Lord gave to his people, when he gathered it to Christ his only-begotten Son? For he is the true priest, who offered himself a victim to the Father for us, and delivered to us the sacraments of his body and blood, of whom it is written: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech. Who hath made us a kingdom and priests to God and his Father. Whence Peter the Apostle says, epist. I, cap. II, vers. 9: But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: to whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and made honourable by God; and you yourselves, as living stones, are built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. According to the blessing of Aaron, therefore, it is truly then given to the people of God, when it is directed in the way of justice; so that what Aaron prefigured in the bodily victims of the law, this one fulfils in the spiritual sacrifices of the Gospel. Let all who dwell on the earth know (he says), that thou art God, the beholder of ages. That is, let all nations acknowledge in the marvellous salvation of the Christian people, that thou art God before all ages, and after all ages remaining the same, thou who didst so ordain the times past, that thou didst make the times to come to excel on account of the grace of Christ."
ON THE CHOICE OF WORDS AND WIVES, AND ON AVOIDING WANDERING LUST AND WANDERING DISCOURSE. After prayer, Sirach returns in his customary manner to the precepts and doctrines of wisdom; wherefore in this place he adds precepts of discretion, which is the most important part of practical wisdom, or prudence. He therefore gives various admonitions in various matters, as it were parallel and compared. For he teaches that discretion and choice must be employed first in those things which we hear and read, so that separating good from evil, true from false, joyful from sorrowful, we commend to the mind nothing but good, true and joyful things; secondly, verses 24 and 25, he teaches that a wife should be chosen who has easy and suitable manners along with beauty; thirdly, verses 27 and 28, he teaches that stable matrimony should be chosen before wandering discourse; fourthly, in the following chapter, verse 1, he teaches that a sincere friend should be distinguished from a false one and chosen; fifthly, in the same place verse 7, he teaches that a skilled and faithful counselor should be distinguished from an unskilled and unfaithful one. Thus Lyra. He compares therefore the discretion of foods, which the throat and belly exercise, to the discretion of words, which the ear and heart, or mind, exercise: for just as food nourishes the throat and belly, so speech nourishes the ear and mind: and just as one food is healthful, another harmful to the belly; so likewise one speech is healthful, another harmful to the mind. Wherefore just as God and nature gave man a throat and gullet, as it were pre-tasters and fore-tasters of food, so that they might discern suitable food from unsuitable and harmful food, and transmit the suitable into the belly, but reject the harmful: so likewise God gave man eyes and ears, as it were fore-tasters of speech read or heard, so that they might transmit the healthful into the mind, but reject the harmful. Finally, just as the belly makes the final examination of food, and the harmful food, which creates pain, nausea, griping, etc. in the belly, it expels by vomiting of the mouth or evacuation of the bowels; but the healthful it embraces, digests, preserves, and converts into its own substance, and by it is nourished, refreshed, strengthened: so likewise the mind makes the final examination of speech; which if it be wise and prudent, immediately rejects harmful speech, eagerly receives the healthful, digests it, retains it, and converts it into its own nourishment, and by it is nourished, recreated, strengthened for all good thinking, meditating, willing and accomplishing in deed. It is a beautiful and apt allegory. For reading or hearing is compared to eating, food to speech, the throat to the ears, the belly to the mind: whence it is left to be gathered that just as he is foolish who burdens the belly with harmful food, but wise he who admits into it nothing but healthful and sober food: so likewise he is foolish who indiscriminately admits all useful and useless, vain and solid, false and true speeches into the mind: for by vain, false and harmful speeches the mind likewise becomes vain, false, and brings upon itself the harm of errors and vices, and thence punishment and damnation; on the other hand he becomes wise who admits into his ears, eyes and mind nothing but useful, solid, true, pious and holy speeches: for by these he is nourished and strengthened in all virtue, so that he may advance with great strides toward eternal happiness.
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Whence the Zurich version translates: The belly receives all food (it is capable of all food); yet one food is better than another. As the palate discerns wild meat by taste, so the keen mind lies; Vatable, falsehoods; the Syriac: The soul receives all food, but one food is more pleasant than another. The mouth tastes the flavor of food, and the heart of the wise the words of the wicked. What therefore Our author translates, «the palate tasteth wild meat,» tasteth, that is, as the Greek has it, γεύσεται, that is, they taste, and by tasting they judge wild meat: so also the sensible heart by the taste and sense of its own mind judges lying words, and discerns true from false. He aptly compares falsehood to the flesh of wild beasts; because just as this is wild and savage, and therefore hostile to the human belly and body, or at least less suitable: so likewise lies are wild and savage, and therefore hostile to the human mind, whose food is truth; for falsehood is the food of demons, as Palacius says. For the Devil is the father of lies, as Christ says, John viii: but truth is the food of angels and men.
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Our text reads ἀνταποδώσει, that is, shall go to meet with his feet, that is, shall resist him, namely sadness and grief. Now some read ἀνταποδώσει, that is, shall repay him, as if to say: A man skilled and wise shall repay to the perverse heart the deserved chastisement and punishment of his perversity. But the Zurich edition thinks that the elder Sirach wrote in Hebrew ישלים לו iaslim lo, that is, shall provide for his peace; which the younger Sirach translated ἀνταποδώσει, that is, shall repay, as if it were written ישלם iescallem, that is, shall repay. But the younger Sirach knew better what his grandfather wrote than the Zurich edition, especially since the Church approved and received his version, although what the Zurich edition translated: A perverse mind creates sadness; but a skilled man shall provide for his tranquility, could rightly be adapted to the Vulgate version: for he who resists in himself the perverse heart sowing sadness and sad things, he surely provides for his own tranquility. To the perverse heart he opposes a sensible heart, that is, prudent and wise, which, as far as it is able, drives out and excludes all sadness; both because it opens and dispels the frauds and malices of the perverse heart, which cause sadness; and because it suggests a thousand arts and ways of avoiding the evil which the perverse heart threatens, and which is the cause of sadness, and on the other hand it discovers a thousand reasons and objects of joy, and presents them to the mind, which, with sadness excluded, make it cheerful and pleasant. For sadness is caused by a sad phantasm and object, which afflicts a man; but joy from a joyful one, which cheers a man. Now the prudent man suggests to his imagination many motives of joy, which exclude all motives of sadness. See what is said in chapter xxx, 22 and following. Morally, note that the prudence and experience of a skilled man heals and resists both the perverse heart and sadness; on the other hand, the wise man becomes such, who admits into his ears, eyes and mind nothing but useful, solid, true, pious and holy words: for by these he is nourished and strengthened in every virtue, so that he may advance with great strides toward eternal happiness.
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Secondly, Palacius thinks there is a hypallage: "Every male shall a woman receive," that is, every woman shall a man receive: but let him see which and what kind; because one woman and daughter is better than another. Thirdly and plainly, "every male" as a husband "shall a woman receive," as if to say: Women do not examine very carefully what kind of men they marry, but they receive the husband who offers himself; but the man, who is more prudent than woman and the head of the family, must carefully consider what kind of wife he takes: for one daughter is better and more excellent than another, not only because she is more beautiful, but also because she is more obedient to her husband, peaceful, prudent, diligent, and suited to governing a family. This verse is parallel and equally corresponding to verse 20, and is as it were its apodosis and the return of the similitude. For just as verse 20 said: "Every food shall the belly eat, and one food is better than another food;" so here he says: "Every male shall a woman receive, and one daughter is better than another daughter," as if to say: Just as the belly receives every food, and the ears and mind every word; so a woman can receive any male, and a man any female, and often does; but just as one food is better to the belly than another, and one word to the mind than another, so likewise one daughter is more suited to a man than another. When therefore he seeks a wife, let him carefully examine which is better and which is more suited to him, and with her let him spend his whole life peacefully, honorably and holily. For what madness is it to choose better foods for the belly, but not to choose a better wife? Mystically Rabanus says: "Woman, because she is beautiful and gracious, is a sign of the grace of God, which makes us pleasing and beautiful to God and the angels. But in that he says: One daughter is better than another daughter; he shows that there is a difference in the progress of knowledge and in the working of virtues, and that some works are good, but others perfect; just as the Lord himself showed in the Gospel, saying: If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. And again: If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor; and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me. Whence also Paul, wishing to show that there is a difference in the reward of the Saints, says: For star differeth from star in brightness, so also is the resurrection of the dead," I Cor. xv.
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Learn here morally how alluring is the appearance of woman, and how much it must be avoided by young men and the chaste; because she herself is a thing of desire, which above all things stirs up concupiscence. Whence St. Bernard, sermon 66 in the Canticles: "When a woman, he says, is always present, and one does not know woman, is this not more than raising the dead?" And St. Francis: "By the sight and conversation of women, even a strong spirit is weakened. For who can walk upon coals of fire, so that his feet are not burned?" Proverbs vi, 28. It is therefore dangerous to draw inward the images of their forms, which can either rekindle the spark of subdued flesh, or stain the brightness of a chaste mind. Truly, any conversation with a woman is frivolous, except only confession, or the briefest instruction, according as it is expedient for salvation, or befits honesty." St. Dominic, dying, gave this last admonition to his followers concerning chastity: "Behold, even to this hour God's mercy has kept me uncorrupted in the flesh, and has preserved for me the undefiled purity of virginity; that this may also remain inviolate in you, let the company of all women be suspect to you." Thus it is found in his Life in Surius, book V, chapter I. Mystically, Rabanus and from him the Gloss: Woman is the Church, and the faithful and holy soul; likewise Christ's grace itself, which through preaching heals souls and mitigates the concupiscence of the flesh. This abounds in the Church; whose desire is above all the concupiscence of man, because in her is the beauty of virtues and the comeliness of doctrine, according to that: "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: the woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised," Proverbs xxxi, 30. Her appearance and beauty, which she has in right faith and good works, gladdens the face of the man, namely her spouse Jesus Christ, who delights in her progress, according to that: "The heart of her husband trusteth in her, and he shall have no need of spoils. Strength and comeliness are her clothing," etc., Proverbs xxxi, 11 and 25: "Her husband is not like the men of this world;" because Christ her spouse exceeds all human beauty, according to that: "Thou art beautiful above the sons of men: grace is poured abroad in thy lips: therefore hath God blessed thee for ever," Psalm xliv, 3. This therefore is a good possession, nay the best: this is a help given to man to bear strongly all the labours and sorrows of this life: this is the pillar and rest of the whole of present and eternal life; and, as Rabanus says, she is said to become a pillar so as to be rest, because she who in the present is the support of man's frailty, she in the future through glory will become the supplement of his rest. Far more aptly, and as it were properly, these things befit the Blessed Virgin, whose beauty, virtues and the splendour of graces gladdened "the face of the man," that is of Christ her spouse, whom she conceived not as an infant, but as a man perfect in all wisdom and virtue, according to that of Jeremiah xxxi, 22: "The Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth. A woman shall compass a man." Whence by her beauty she drew to herself the desire of all men and angels; nay, even of the divine Word itself, so that he might descend into her womb, and assume human flesh from her. Thus Cardinal Halgrinus, in the Canticles iv, explains these words of Sirach thus: "The beauty indeed of woman, he says, humbles a powerful man, softens the severe and austere; but the Lord so desired the beauty of the Virgin, and her desire so surpassed his, that is, led to such excess, that the Almighty humbled himself to our infirmity, and he who is the life of the living was softened unto death." For it is clear that these things are to be understood mystically of the Virgin from what follows: "Her husband is not like the sons of men," etc.
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Note here three distinguished gifts and virtues required in a wife: The first is, that in her mouth, equally as in her heart (for the mouth follows the heart, and as the heart is, so too are the mouth and tongue) mercy may shine forth; namely, that she be merciful to her husband, children, servants, handmaids and outsiders, especially the poor and afflicted, so that she may bear their infirmities and miseries, console, sustain, and relieve them as much as she is able; The second is gentleness and meekness, by which she may show herself meek to all both in words, in gestures, and in deeds; The third is grace in speaking and acting, by which she may know how to soothe, heal, and reconcile the quarrels, angers, harshnesses, sorrows and pains of her husband, household, and any others. For there are many women, especially the beautiful, who take pride in their beauty and form, and therefore are arrogant, haughty, unmerciful, clamorous, quarrelsome, imperious, and consequently troublesome and hateful to their husbands, to the whole household and to outsiders. These virtues Abigail possessed, and by them she preserved both life to her husband Nabal and conscience to David lest he slay Nabal, when she mitigated David's just anger by her humble, gracious and efficacious speech; and Esther, who appeased Ahasuerus when offended against the Jews, and thus rescued all the Jews from death, and fastened their enemy Haman to the cross; and that woman of Tekoa, who reconciled David with Absalom, II Kings xiv, 2; and another who saved the city of Abel from destruction by Joab, II Kings xx, 16. The second is gentleness and meekness, by which she may show herself meek to all both in words, in gestures, and in deeds; The third is grace in speaking and acting, by which she may know how to soothe, heal, and reconcile the quarrels, angers, harshnesses, sorrows and pains of her husband, household, and any others. For there are many women, especially the beautiful, who take pride in their beauty and form, and therefore are arrogant, haughty, unmerciful, clamorous, quarrelsome, imperious, and consequently troublesome and hateful to their husbands, to the whole household and to outsiders. These virtues Abigail possessed, and by them she preserved both life to her husband Nabal and conscience to David lest he slay Nabal, when she mitigated David's just anger by her humble, gracious and efficacious speech; and Esther, who appeased Ahasuerus when offended against the Jews, and thus rescued all the Jews from death, and fastened their enemy Haman to the cross; and that woman of Tekoa, who reconciled David with Absalom, II Kings xiv, 2; and another who saved the city of Abel from destruction by Joab, II Kings xx, 16. Mystically; the Blessed Virgin possessed these three virtues in the most eminent degree, and is therefore greeted and invoked by the Church: "Hail, Queen, Mother of Mercy; our life, our sweetness and our hope, hail." For she soothes all the sorrows and pains of those who invoke her. She mitigates the anger of Christ and God. She heals and cures every vice, every infirmity of soul: because "her husband," namely Christ the Lord, "is not according to the sons of men;" for he is not mere man, but God and man. And therefore, inasmuch as God he surpasses all men immensely; inasmuch as man he far excels other men in wisdom, virtue, grace and glory.
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Secondly, such a "helper according to him is," that is to say, such a husband has a helper similar to himself, namely a wife similar to him in human nature and in duties: for she was created by God to be a helper to the man, and to help him in the generation, education and governance of offspring and family, Genesis ii, 20. Thus also St. Joseph had as a helper St. Mary almost as a spouse, in the education of Christ; equally as in all progress in virtues, so as to make him most similar. Hear St. Bernard, in a sermon on St. Joseph: "Moreover, because all things that are the wife's are the husband's, I believe that the most blessed Virgin most liberally exhibited to Joseph the whole treasure of her heart, which Joseph was able to receive, and in a brief interval. How many exhortations, consolations, promises, illuminations, inflaming, and revelations of eternal goods do you think Joseph received in his passing from his most holy spouse Mary!" And below: "How," he says, "can a discreet mind think that with such a union such a great Virgin would unite to her mind any soul, unless one most similar to her in the working of virtues? Whence I believe Joseph was most pure in virginity, most profound in humility, most ardent in charity, most exalted in contemplation." Thirdly, to a husband a wife is as it were a "pillar as a rest," that is, as a pillar in which he may rest securely: for to a wife the husband entrusts children, family, coffers, riches, and indeed himself, so that in her as in a pillar he seems to rest, indeed to subsist. Whence for pillar, the Zurich version translates basis; Vatable, stabiliment; for all these things are signified by the Hebrew עמוד amod, that is, a standing and subsisting pillar, from the root עמד amad, that is, to stand, to subsist, to stabilize. A wife therefore is a good pillar of the weakness of a man and a rest from labor, so that the man may safely lean upon her as upon a pillar, inasmuch as he is raised up, supported, sustained and strengthened by her. That this is the sense is evident from the Greek, which the Romans thus read and translate: He who possesses a woman, begins a possession, a helper according to him, and a pillar of rest; thus Rabanus, Lyra, Jansenius and Palacius, whom hear: The sense, he says, is, that is to say, he who begins to possess a good woman, namely one suitable for marriage, he begins to be rich; which will be made clearer in the following text: but experience also opens up the text. The second part openly alludes to the word of the Lord, Genesis ii: "Let us make," he says, "a helper like unto him." In Hebrew it is: A helper as before him; so that a woman may be a helper to a man not to be sought from afar, but one that is at hand, and stands before him. But the Latin text hints at a deeper sense, namely, that a woman is a helper to a man, as if she were another man. For if a friend is another self; much more a wife, who was taken from the man's side, will be another man; so that she may care for the man's affairs as the man himself. And indeed it is so; for what the man acquires outside, the woman preserves inside as a man. The third part indicates that a wife is not only such a pillar upon which a man leans; but also is as a house in which he rests: a wife is therefore to a man a pillar in firmness; but in capacity a house, a rest; she is therefore as a house built within a pillar. But this hints that other friends are sometimes pillars; but not so a wife, who is a perpetual rest to a man, namely, while she lives. The second part openly alludes to the word of the Lord, Genesis ii: "Let us make," he says, "a helper like unto him." In Hebrew it is: A helper as before him; so that a woman may be a helper to a man not to be sought from afar, but one that is at hand, and stands before him. But the Latin text hints at a deeper sense, namely, that a woman is a helper to a man, as if she were another man. For if a friend is another self; much more a wife, who was taken from the man's side, will be another man; so that she may care for the man's affairs as the man himself. And indeed it is so; for what the man acquires outside, the woman preserves inside as a man. The third part indicates that a wife is not only such a pillar upon which a man leans; but also is as a house in which he rests: a wife is therefore to a man a pillar in firmness; but in capacity a house, a rest; she is therefore as a house built within a pillar. But this hints that other friends are sometimes pillars; but not so a wife, who is a perpetual rest to a man, namely, while she lives.
36:27
Secondly, Lyra understands by the needy a poor man who wanders about begging, as if to say: Where there is no wife, there the poor will groan; because alms will be denied to them: for women are accustomed to be more merciful to men than men are. Finally, St. Ephrem, in his tract On the Fear of God, reads patience instead of woman. For thus it runs: "Have you gone forth from your cell, monk, to minister? Guard your senses, that you do not bring upon yourself wars and disturbances through wicked thoughts. Where there is no hedge, says Holy Scripture, the possession will be plundered; and where there is no patience, the wanderer will groan." Unless one should say that St. Ephrem mystically understands patience by the wife: for this is the hedge of the soul, which makes it impervious and unconquerable to enemies. In like manner our Alvarez de Paz, book II, part I, chapter xv, understands by this wife self-denial and mortification: for this so fortifies the soul that it fears no plundering of its virtues. This again is the good possession, of which follows; for he who possesses self-denial already has the beginning of great riches, namely the most precious virtues, which such a spouse prepares by her industry. He has also a helper most fitting for him, which restrains the crowd of servants, namely the affections, and keeps the whole house of the heart in peace. Self-denial is also to him a column, which defends him from many falls and faults: and a rest, in which freed from the desires of the world he may find repose.
36:28
Paul otherwise, Palacius says: A wife, he says, is a nest where a man rests: he who lacks one, to whom does he entrust himself, in whom does he have confidence? For if he commits himself to servants, he commits himself to robbers. Already a man lacking a wife, who sleeps in that house in which night overtakes him, is like a robber; for as this one leaps from city to city, so that one from woman to woman, whom he pollutes by adultery or fornication. Secondly, just as birds, lacking a nest, invade and occupy the nests of others and whatever they encounter, seize, plunder, devour, destroy: so also a wandering and desirous youth invades and occupies whatever beautiful, handsome, convenient things he sees anywhere. Thirdly, just as wandering birds and those flying from one place to another are easily caught in the nets of hunters: so also wanderers easily incur dangers, servitude and death, especially if they commit theft, robbery, rape, murder, or a similar crime in the manner of robbers, as I said a little before. Thus we see fowlers especially laying snares for cranes and wild geese, at the beginning of spring when they fly in, and in autumn when they fly away in flocks in great numbers: then indeed some they capture and kill with arrows, some with bombards, some with birdlime, some with nets, some with other arts. Whence St. Ambrose, noting these fowlers in book V of the Hexaemeron, chapter xviii: "To which," he says, "we with inhospitable savagery (that is to say, violating the laws of hospitality through savagery) contrive snares, and in various ways now deceive them with an unreliable perch, now ensnare them with birdlime, now strive to capture them with nets or snares." In a similar way he who leaves his homeland and migrates to other regions and wanders about is easily thrust into prison, or forced to serve basely, or dies from hunger or the incursion of the inhabitants or robbers. Whence the Septuagint translates the place cited from Proverbs xxvii, 8, thus: As when a bird has flown away from its own nest, so a man becomes a slave when he has wandered from his own dwelling; Thirdly, just as wandering birds and those flying from one place to another are easily caught in the nets of hunters: so also wanderers easily incur dangers, servitude and death, especially if they commit theft, robbery, rape, murder, or a similar crime in the manner of robbers, as I said a little before. Thus we see fowlers especially laying snares for cranes and wild geese, at the beginning of spring when they fly in, and in autumn when they fly away in flocks in great numbers: then indeed some they capture and kill with arrows, some with bombards, some with birdlime, some with nets, some with other arts. Whence St. Ambrose, noting these fowlers in book V of the Hexaemeron, chapter xviii: "To which," he says, "we with inhospitable savagery (that is to say, violating the laws of hospitality through savagery) contrive snares, and in various ways now deceive them with an unreliable perch, now ensnare them with birdlime, now strive to capture them with nets or snares." In a similar way he who leaves his homeland and migrates to other regions and wanders about is easily thrust into prison, or forced to serve basely, or dies from hunger or the incursion of the inhabitants or robbers. Whence the Septuagint translates the place cited from Proverbs xxvii, 8, thus: As when a bird has flown away from its own nest, so a man becomes a slave when he has wandered from his own dwelling; The Syriac version indeed translates this passage of Sirach thus: He who trusts in a youth who is like a slave, who leaps from city to city? so a man who does not have a woman, in the place where he shall be found, will die. Thus daily we see in Rome foreigners who are honorable, rich, learned and splendid in their own homes, reduced to the point that they act as cooks, grooms, beggars, and finally die in a hospital. He alludes therefore to wandering birds lacking a nest, which invade the nests of other birds, suck out eggs, destroy chicks, and place their own eggs there, so that they may be brooded and hatched by the birds whose nest it is, as cuckoos do, as Aristotle testifies, lib. IX Hist. Animal. cap. xxix, to which therefore fornicators and adulterers are compared by the common people. Again he alludes to Prov. xxvii, 8: "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is the man that leaveth his place." A wandering man therefore is similar to a bird lacking a nest and wandering: first, because he is similarly light, inconstant and vagrant, and therefore no one trusts him, no one wishes to have dealings with him. For, as our Salazar rightly notes there, all birds, so long as they nourish their young in nests, indeed remain there, nor do they wander further, but walk about round about; but when the young have grown and flown away, they do not settle anywhere, but fly about here and there vagrant and wandering. Solomon therefore says: Every man who is inconstant and light, who does not persevere long in any matter, but changes and exchanges occupations, arts, houses, cities and lands day by day, is similar to a bird which has now abandoned its nest, and therefore settles nowhere, and therefore neither ought one to trust nor believe him. Hear Seneca, epist. 21: "He is nowhere, who is everywhere; it happens to those living a life of wandering that they have many lodgings, no friendships. Food does not benefit, nor does it accrue to the body, which is immediately expelled after being taken: nothing so much impedes health as the frequent change of remedies: a plant does not take root, which is often transplanted. Nothing is so useful that it profits in passing." To this pertains the acute but religious jest of Blessed Aegidius, who called Blessed Bernard of Quinta Valle (both were among the first companions of St. Francis) a swallow, because for a full fifteen years, abstracted in face and mind from earthly things, he looked toward heaven, and running through mountains and solitudes, indeed flying across like a swallow, spurning earthly things, was wholly seized by God. Thus Wadding in Annal. Minorum, anno Christi 1241, num. 3 and 4. Again he alludes to Prov. XXVII, 8: "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is the man that leaveth his place." A wandering man therefore is similar to a bird lacking a nest and wandering: first, because he is similarly light, inconstant and vagrant, and therefore no one trusts him, no one wishes to have dealings with him. For, as our Salazar rightly notes there, all birds, so long as they nourish their young in nests, indeed remain there, nor do they wander further, but walk about round about; but when the young have grown and flown away, they do not settle anywhere, but fly about here and there vagrant and wandering. Solomon therefore says: Every man who is inconstant and light, who does not persevere long in any matter, but changes and exchanges occupations, arts, houses, cities and lands day by day, is similar to a bird which has now abandoned its nest, and therefore settles nowhere, and therefore neither ought one to trust nor believe him. Note: For "the robber girded," in Greek it is εὔζωνος, in Hebrew גדוד gedud, that is girded with a sword, armed, equipped, prepared for battle, for assault, or for flight. Whence follows: "Leaping from city to city." Wherefore our Pineda in Job xxxviii, 3, thus expounds it, as if to say: He stands always prepared for flight, never secure. For "leaping" our text reads ἀπαλλόμενος, or ἐφαλλόμενος; now they read ὁμαλλόμενος, that is wandering, roaming about. The Greek texts change the order here, and therefore make one comparison, which by force includes two. For thus they have it: For who will believe the robber girded wandering from city to city? thus the man not having a nest, and turning aside wherever it grows dark, repeat, who will believe? as if to say: No one. The Zurich edition: For who will trust the equipped robber, wandering from one city to another? who likewise the man not having a nest, and remaining (others, turning aside, or lodging) wherever it grows dark. Mystically Rabanus: "The nest," he says, "here he calls the holy Church, where the pious souls of the elect nourish the children of good works. Whence it is written in the Psalm: The sparrow hath found her a house, and the turtle a nest for herself, where she may lay her young: where therefore has he rest and protection, who does not remain within the holy Church? For wherever he has turned aside through the dogmas of heretics, or the studies of philosophers; he will always be in error, and will never find the light of sincere truth. As if also the robber girded leaps from city to city, because unstable in all things vagrant and fugitive he falls from error into error." From what has been said it is clear that Sirach in this place commends marriage and one's own household in such a way because these things had to be counseled to the rude and earthly Jews; yet he does not reject the celibacy of priests and Religious, nor their poverty, by which they renounce themselves from all possession and dominion through zeal and love of heavenly things; even if he passes over it in silence, because the weakness and dullness of the Jews could not rise to it: whence he left it to be commended to Christ and the Apostles, sons of the New Testament, those zealous for perfection. For these, says Jansen, if, as they ought, they take wisdom to themselves as a bride in place of a carnal wife, following the Wise Man who says: "I sought to take her as a bride for myself, and I became a lover of her beauty," Wisdom viii, 2, will easily overcome all the inconveniences of celibacy which are here insinuated. For in her they will find supreme beauty and pleasure, because in her tongue is clemency, and health that refreshes: for her conversation has no bitterness. In her they will have help, so that both in all tribulations they may receive consolation, and are urged to do all good things. Likewise this will be to them as a column, in which their mind will rest sweetly, free from carnal wandering. Through this they are well fortified, and it easily comes to pass that they choose for themselves some fixed dwelling and manner of living, in which they may serve God. Add that priests and Religious are superior to earth and earthly things, namely to marriage, house, possession, and God has sent them word to devote themselves to God, and to live on earth not a human and common life, but an angelic and divine one. Wherefore these precepts of Sirach, which regard the common life of men, do not pertain to them: for to them, as St. Ambrose says, Christ is all things, and therefore that saying of the Apostle most fitly applies to them: "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ," II Corinthians xi, 2. And that of the Psalmist, Psalm xv, 5: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; it is thou that wilt restore my inheritance to me." Finally, to Religious and apostolic men leaving wives, houses and all things, that they may follow Christ, Christ promises a hundredfold, Matthew xix, so that for one wife they receive a hundred brothers, for one house a hundred monasteries, and they become cosmopolitans, nay, lords of the world: "For to the faithful the whole world is full of riches." Whence Climacus, in step 17, asserts that a poor monk is lord of the world; and, because he has cast his care upon God, possesses through faith all nations as servants. And he adds the same thing, that a poor servant of God loves one thing viciously: for all things which he has or can have, he reckons as if they were not; and, if it should happen that he depart, he esteems them as dung. Therefore "the avaricious man hungers for earthly things like a beggar, the faithful" and religious "despises them like a lord," says St. Bernard, sermon 21 in the Canticles. For, as St. Cyprian says, treatise On the Lord's Prayer: "He who has already renounced the world is greater than its honors and kingdom; and therefore he who dedicates himself to God and Christ desires not earthly but heavenly kingdoms." There therefore is his nest and house. Whence St. Augustine, book X of the Confessions, xl: "Nor in all these things," he says, "which I run through, do I find a safe place for my soul, except in thee, by which my scattered things may be gathered together, nor let anything of me recede from thee." See Jerome Platus, On the Good of the Religious State, book II, chapter iii, vi and following.
Machine translation from the Latin, not reviewed.
36:6
… 49, 8; Hag. 2, 9). Such a precursor, of whom Elijah (v.) is the type, "will turn the heart of the fathers toward the children" and vice versa (Mal. 4, 5 f. = Lk. 1, 16 f.; Mt. 11, 10; 17, 10-13). There is no lack of allusions to the messianic hope in Sir. 36, 6-22; 45, 22, etc.; and in Wis. 18, 4; 14, 11-14.
36:14
… Firstborn were the object of the greatest affection (cf. Gen. 22:2, 12, 16; Ios. 6:26; II Reg. 3:27; Zach. 12:10). God therefore calls Israel "his firstborn" (Ex. 4:22 ff.; Eccli. 36:14; cf. Ier. 31:9). And "beloved son" (Lk. 20:13: ἀγαπητός) is equivalent to only son (Mc. 12:6: cf. M.-J. …
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.