The advantages of wisdom: and the evils from which it delivers.
Gaining of wisdom bringeth much good, 10. and auoydeth much euil: 16. deliuering from error of Idolaters and Haretikes.
1My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and wilt hide my commandments with thee,Figliuol mio, se tu vorrai dar ricetto alle mio parole, e riporre gli insegnamenti miei nel tuo seno,MY sonne, if thou wilt receiue my wordes, and wilt hide my commandments with thee,Fili mi, si susceperis sermones meos, / et mandata mea absconderis penes te: 2That thy ear may hearken to wisdom: incline thy heart to know prudence.Affinchè le tue orecchie siano intente alle voci della sapienza, rivolgi il cuor tuo a conoscere la prudenza:that thyne eare may heare wisdom: incline thyne hart to knowe prudence.ut audiat sapientiam auris tua, / inclina cor tuum ad cognoscendam prudentiam. 3For if thou shalt call for wisdom, and incline thy heart to prudence:Perocché se tu invocherai la sapienza, e il cuor tuo rivolgerai alla prudenza;For if thou shalt cal for wisdom, and incline thyne hart to prudence:Si enim sapientiam invocaveris, / et inclinaveris cor tuum prudentiæ; 4If thou shalt seek her as money, and shalt dig for her as for a treasure:Se cercherai di lei, come si fa delle ricchezze, e la scaverai, come si fa dei tesori,If thou shalt seeke her as money, and as treasures shalt dig her vp:si quæsieris eam quasi pecuniam, / et sicut thesauros effoderis illam: 5Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and shalt find the knowledge of God:Allora tu apparerai il timor del Signore, e troverai la scienza di Dio:then shalt thou vnderstand the feare of our Lord, and shalt finde the knowlege of God.tunc intelliges timorem Domini, / et scientiam Dei invenies, 6Because the Lord giveth wisdom: and out of his mouth cometh prudence and knowledge.Perocché il Signore è quegli, che da la sapienza, e dalla bocca di lui (viene) la prudenza, e la scienza.Because our Lord geueth wisdom: and out of his mouth prudence and knowlege.quia Dominus dat sapientiam, / et ex ore ejus prudentia et scientia. 7He wilt keep the salvation of the righteous, and protect them that walk in simplicity,Egli è il custode della salute de' giusti, e protettore di quelli, che camminano nella innocenza.He wil keepe the saluation of the righteous, & protect them that walke simplyCustodiet rectorum salutem, / et proteget gradientes simpliciter, 8Keeping the paths of justice, and guarding the ways of saints.È regge i passi de' giusti, e governa le vie dei santi.Keeping the pathes of iustice, & garding the wayes of saints.servans semitas justitiæ, / et vias sanctorum custodiens. 9Then shalt thou understand justice, and judgment, and equity, and every good path.Allora tu intenderai la giustizia, la rettitudine, e l'equità, e tutti i sentieri della onestà.Then shalt thou vnderstand iustice, and iudgement, and equitie, and euerie good path.Tunc intelliges justitiam, et judicium, / et æquitatem, et omnem semitam bonam.
10If wisdom shall enter into thy heart, and knowledge please thy soul:Se entrerà in cuor tuo la sapienza, e se la scienza sarà tuo diletto,If wisdom shal enter into thy hart, and knowlege please thy soule:Si intraverit sapientia cor tuum, / et scientia animæ tuæ placuerit, 11Counsel shall keep thee, and prudence shall preserve thee,Tuo custode sarà il buon consiglio, e la prudenza ti salverà,counsel shal keepe thee, and prudence shal preserue thee,consilium custodiet te, / et prudentia servabit te: 12That thou mayst be delivered from the evil way, and from the man that speaketh perverse things:Lontano tenendoti dalla via del male, e dagli uomini di lingua perversa:that thou mayst be deliuered from the euil way, and from the man, that speaketh peruerse thinges:ut eruaris a via mala, / et ab homine qui perversa loquitur; 13Who leave the right way, and walk by dark ways:I quali abbandonan la via diritta, e battono vie tenebrose.who c leaue the right way, and walke by darke wayes:qui relinquunt iter rectum, / et ambulant per vias tenebrosas; 14Who are glad when they have done evil, and rejoice in the most wicked things:I quali si rallegrano del male, che han fatto, e delle loro malvagità fanno festa.who are glad when they haue done euil, and reioyce in most wicked thinges:qui lætantur cum malefecerint, / et exsultant in rebus pessimis; 15Whose ways are perverse, and their steps infamous.Le vie de' quali son storte, e vituperesi i loro andamenti.whose wayes are peruerse, and their steppes infamous.quorum viæ perversæ sunt, / et infames gressus eorum. 16That thou mayst be delivered from the strange woman, and from the stranger, who softeneth her words;Ella ti farà star lontano dalla donna altrui, e dalla donna straniera, che ha melate parole.That thou mayst be deliuered from the strange woman, and from the forener, which mollifieth her wordes,Ut eruaris a muliere aliena, / et ab extranea quæ mollit sermones suos, 17And forsaketh the guide of her youth,E abbandona il rettore di sua giovinezza,forsaketh the guide of her youth,et relinquit ducem pubertatis suæ, 18And hath forgotten the covenant of her God: for her house inclineth unto death, and her paths to hell.Ed ha messo in dimenticanza il patto del Dio suo: la casa di lei declina verso la morte, e le sue vie verso l'inferno.and hath forgotten the couenant of her God. For her house is bowed downe to death, and her pathes to hel.et pacti Dei sui oblita est. / Inclinata est enim ad mortem domus ejus, / et ad inferos semitæ ipsius. 19None that go in unto her, shall return again, neither shall they take hold of the paths of life.Tutti quelli, che entrano in casa di lei non torneranno indietro, né ripiglieranno le vie della vita.Al that goe in vnto her, shal not returne neithet shal they apprehend the pathes of life.Omnes qui ingrediuntur ad eam non revertentur, / nec apprehendent semitas vitæ.
20That thou mayst walk in a good way: and mayst keep the paths of the just.Affinchè tu segua la buona strada e non esca dai sentieri de' giusti.That thou mayst walke in a good way: and mayst keepe the pathes of the iust.Ut ambules in via bona, / et calles justorum custodias: 21For they that are upright, shall dwell in the earth; and the simple shall continue in it.Perocché gli uomini retti abiteranno la terra, e gli innocenti vi averan ferma stanza.For they that are right, shal dwel in the earth, and the simple shal continue in it.qui enim recti sunt habitabunt in terra, / et simplices permanebunt in ea; 22But the wicked shall be destroyed from the earth: and they that do unjustly, shall be taken away from it.Ma gli empj saranno sterminati dalla terra, e quelli, che operano iniquamente, ne saranno rapiti.But the impious shal be destroyed from the earth: and they that doe vniustly shal be taken away from it.impii vero de terra perdentur, / et qui inique agunt auferentur ex ea.
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Worthington
If. This proves free will. To become truly wise, we must desire it with the same avidity as a miser seeks for riches. (Worthington)
Calmet
We must also pray, (ver. 3.) with humility (ver. 2.) to God, the giver of wisdom, ver. 6. Every science which has not Him for the beginning and end, is vain and dangerous. (Calmet)
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Salvation. Protestants, "sound wisdom." Tushiya (Haydock) often occurs in this book, and is very comprehensive, (Calmet) denoting the substance (Haydock) of goodness, virtue, etc., Job 5:12.
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Calmet
Justice. In his servants. (Calmet)
Calmet
God gives them grace to follow virtue, (Haydock) and protects them from every danger. (Calmet)
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Haydock
Things. The danger of such company for young people is very great, as the heart is misled by the understanding, (Calmet) if it do not itself shew the way to error. (Haydock)
Calmet
We all possess a fund of corruption. (Calmet)
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Calmet
Evil. These signs prove whom we ought to shun. St. Augustine depicts his own conduct before his conversion in the darkest colours. (Calmet)
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Calmet
Strange. Idolatress, (Grotius) or rather the abandoned woman, whether married or not. (Calmet)
Worthington
This description, as well as the former, guards us against heretics, who leave the right way of the Catholic Church, (ver. 13.) and devise perverse doctrines of rebellion against princes, etc., as if faith alone were sufficient. By this faith, Protestants do not mean any article which all must believe, but only that each one must be convinced that he himself is just, and will be saved. Like the strange woman, they preach a comfortable doctrine, and use sweet speeches, Romans 16:18. Their conversion is a very difficult matter, (ver. 19.) because they are condemned by their own judgment, (Titus 3:11.) and will not admit of the ordinary means of instruction in the Church. (Worthington)
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Youth. Her husband, whom she married young when love is more lasting. This increases her guilt. It may also signify her father, or preceptor.
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Calmet
God. The law forbids adultery, and all impurities, Deuteronomy 23:17., and Leviticus 20:10. Both the parties, guilty of adultery, were punished with death. (Calmet)
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Calmet
Life. A sincere conversion is so rare among people once addicted to impurity, (Haydock) which resembles a deep pit. (Calmet)
Menochius
This illness is hardly removed. (Menochius)
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Earth. Happily. This was the wish of the carnal Jews. But the more enlightened raise their thoughts to heaven.
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This frequent maner of proposing the vvay and meanes to vvisdom If thou vvilt receiue my vvordes, &c. shevveth most cuidently the povvre of mans free vvil.
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Not euerie desire, or sleight seeking of vvisdom sufficieth, but such laborious seeking is required, as a couetous man s•ekerb•re• sure vvhich he knoweth to be hid in the ground.
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Concordance Sap. 3. v. 32. 10. v. •.
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13. VVho leaue the right vvay.] Generally this description of wicked men, agreeth to al that committe and persist in mortal sinne, whether they walked Foure markes of an heretike. 1. He forsaketh the knowen faith. right at anie time before or no; but most especially sheweth the properties of heretikes: who forsake and leaue the direct, ancient, beaten, knovvne vvay of Isaiae. 35. v. •. the Catholique Church, and teach nevv obscure doctrines, not heard of, or not approued in our forefathers time Secondly (v. 14) they glorie in their ovvne deuises, and reioyce in most vvicked thinges, as in seducing multitude 2. He glorieth in his ovvne invention. of peoples, to rebel against their Catholique Princes, and other Superiors spiritual and temporal, in breaking vovves; in despising good vvorkes; trusting to only faith, and that not the Catholique faith of al true Christians, but euerie one his particular persvvasion, that himself is iust, & shal be saued, vvhich by their ovvne doctrin, none is bond to beleue of an others state, but of his owne only. In so much that the chiefest point of a Protestants imagined faith, is not a general Article, which al do or should beleue, but a most particular and singular phantasie, which each one must conceiue of himself, or herself. Thirdly (v. 16.) Heresie, called here the strange and forrene woman, tempereth 3 Teacheth pleasing thinges. her vvordes, to please the itching eares of her auditorie, framing her doctrine to the humour of those, vvhom she seeketh to peruert. The same vvich the Apostle saith in other vvordes, by svvere speaches and benedictions Rom. 1•. v. 18. they seduce the hartes of innocents Fourthly (v. 19.) Those that do enter into 4. Admitteth no iudge but himself. error of heresie, shal not returne, that is, very hardly and rarely returne into the right vvay of life; the reason whereof the same Apostle yeldeth, because an •it. •. v. 11. heretike is condemned by his ovvne iudgement. For being in error, and admitting no iudge but himself, he parteth from the Church, excludeth the meanes of better iustruction, & through his erronious iudgement, remaineth in damnable opinion, and so in the state of damnation.
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A description of peruers sinners especially of heretikes.
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St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 2.77
… And the words of God were made sweet as honeycombs to me, and I cried after knowledge and lifted up my voice for wisdom.
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St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John 15
… xxxii. 42, &c.; Ps. cxix. 18 .) And after him his son again shows that we ought to “seek out wisdom as silver, and to make merchandise of her rather than of gold.” (
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Origen † AD 254 Origen De Principiis 1.1.9
… So also we say that it makes use of teeth, when it chews and eats the bread of life which cometh down from heaven. In like manner, also, it is said to employ the services of other members, which are transferred from their bodily appellations, and applied to the powers of the soul, according to the words of Solomon, “You will find a divine sense.”
Origen † AD 254 Origen De Principiis iv.section24
… For it is placed in the body, and advances from sensible things themselves, which are corporeal, to things that are intellectual. But lest our statement that things intellectual are not cognisable by the senses should appear unbecoming, we shall employ the instance of Solomon, who says, “You will find also a divine sense;”
Origen † AD 254 Origen Against Celsus i.48
… But he who examines such matters more profoundly will say, that there being, as the Scripture calls it, a kind of general divine perception which the blessed man alone knows how to discover, according to the saying of Solomon, “Thou shalt find the knowledge of God;”
Origen † AD 254 Origen Against Celsus 7.34
… and was not deceived,” —no one is so foolish as not to see that the word “hands” is taken figuratively, as when John says, “Our hands have handled the Word of life.” And if you wish further to learn from the sacred writings that there is a diviner sense than the senses of the body, you have only to hear what Solomon says, “Thou shalt find a divine sense.”
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Christian Doctrine 3.37
… For in these very books on the study of which they are intent, they read, “The Lord giveth wisdom: out of His mouth cometh knowledge and understanding;”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on Grace and Free Will 40
… The true faith, however, and sound doctrine declare that both graces are from God; the Scripture says, “From His face cometh knowledge and understanding;”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints 2.43
… The Apostle James says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.” It is written also in the Proverbs of Solomon, “Because theLord giveth wisdom.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints 2.68
Let those who read this, if they understand, give God thanks, and let those who do not understand, pray that they may have the inward Teacher, from whose presence comes knowledge and understanding.
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St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 First Arian Persecution under Constantius 1
… But whenever the Emperor, or a General, or other magistrate, sent him a letter, he was as much overjoyed as those in the Proverbs, of whom the Word has said indignantly, ‘Woe unto them who leave the path of uprightness who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 78.22
… “a spirit walking and not turning back,” while a weight of evil deserts doth weigh it down unto the lowest and far places of evil, save through the election of grace?…For thus also is solved this no unimportant question, how it is written in the Proverbs, when the Scripture was speaking of the way of iniquity, “all they that walk in her shall not return.”
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on Nature and Grace 83
… “A new commandment,” says He, “do I give unto you, that ye love one another;” and “He that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law;” and again, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” In accordance with these sayings is that passage, “Had they trodden good paths, they would have found, indeed, the ways of righteousness easy.”
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 24.24
… How is it that the exceeding lightness of the Divine burden becomes heavy, but because in our obstinate presumption we despise Him by whom it was borne, especially as Scripture itself plainly testifies to this very thing saying: “For if they would walk in right paths, they would certainly have found the paths of righteousness smooth”?
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Pope St Clement I † AD 99 The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians 14
… Let us be kind one to another after the pattern of the tender mercy and benignity of our Creator. For it is written, “The kind-hearted shall inhabit the land, and the guiltless shall be left upon it, but transgressors shall be destroyed from off the face of it.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness 32
… ‘He maketh His sun to rise on the good and on the evil.’ Then in another passage it is written, ‘For the good things are created from the beginning;’ and yet again, ‘They that are good shall dwell in the land.’”
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist 2.39
… nor can the party of Macarius in any way be part of us, because he pollutes the likeness of our rite. For the enemy’s line, which fills up an enemy’s name, is no part of the force to which it is opposed; but if it is truly to be called a part, it will find a suitable motto in the judgment of Solomon, ‘Let their part be cut off from the earth.’"
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1 and 2. MY SON, IF THOU WILT RECEIVE MY WORDS, AND WILT HIDE MY COMMANDMENTS WITH THEE (the Syrian, in thy heart), THAT THY EAR MAY HEAR WISDOM, INCLINE THY HEART TO KNOW PRUDENCE. — The Arabic: if thy ear shall have heard wisdom, thou hast delivered thy heart to understanding. The word "son" signifies not the words of wisdom, as Baynus wishes, but of the wise man himself, namely Solomon, as if to say: Thou shalt be my son, if thou hast hearkened to my words, says R. Levi. For Solomon throughout here instructs the disciple, and calls him son. This is evident from the following verse, where he says: "If thou shalt seek for wisdom," etc. For if wisdom were speaking, it would certainly say: "If thou shalt seek me." Our version has a difficulty; for how do these cohere: "If thou wilt receive my words," etc., with "incline thy heart"? For he who receives the words of wisdom has surely already inclined his heart to it. The Septuagint saw this, and therefore translate clearly: Son, if receiving the word of my commandment thou wilt hide it with thee, thy ear shall obey wisdom (some codices less correctly have, let it obey thy ear; Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion translate, to attend to wisdom), and thou shalt add thy heart to understanding. Moreover they add: And thou shalt add it in admonition to thy son, which is not in the Hebrew: whence it seems to have crept in from elsewhere; and it can have a fitting sense, as if to say: If thou, O son, shalt hear me as a father teaching and admonishing thee, I promise thee that thy son also shall hear and obey thee teaching and reproving: but if thou shalt despise my admonitions, thy son also shall despise thine. For this is a just law of retaliation ordained by the just judge God, that what one gives to his father, this he shall receive from his son. Or, as the author of the Catena of the Greeks explains it, as if to say: If thou shalt be an eager and diligent hearer of wisdom, thou shalt soon make such progress in it, that thou shalt be able to impart to another also, as to thy son and disciple, the doctrine which thou hast drawn. Our Latin version could have the same sense, if for "incline" thou shouldest read "thou shalt incline," as Baynus, Pagninus and others read it. Secondly. Vatable thinks the sense of these two verses depends on it, and after verses 3 and 4 which are inserted by way of parenthesis, is finally completed in verse 5. Whence he thus translates: My son, if thou shalt have received my words, and shalt have laid up my precepts with thee, that thou mayest accommodate thy ears to wisdom, and incline thy heart to instruction, etc., then thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord. Thus also St. Hilary reads and connects this in Psalm 127, at the beginning: "For if," he says, "thou shalt invoke wisdom and give thy voice to understanding, and shalt seek it as silver, and shalt search for it as treasures, then thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord." Thirdly, Our version translates more obscurely, but more profoundly and genuinely, "incline." For Solomon here teaches the way and manner of acquiring wisdom, which is to incline one's heart to wisdom, and to expand the whole bosom of one's mind to it with great attention, humility and eagerness. This will be evident from what follows. The genuine sense therefore is, as if to say: If thou wilt receive (in Hebrew, if thou shalt receive), that is, if thou shalt be willing to receive my words, and if thou wilt hide my commandments (in Hebrew, if thou shalt hide), that is, if thou shalt be willing to hide them with thee in the bosom of thy mind, if, I say, thou art desirous of this and determined to it, incline thy heart to know prudence, so that thy ear may hear wisdom: for whither the heart inclines, thither it inclines also the ear itself; and the phrase "that thy ear may hear wisdom" is to be referred to what follows: "Incline thy heart." Whence Baynus from the Hebrew thus translates: that thou mayest present an attentive ear to wisdom, thou shalt incline thy heart to understanding. For these are the same, as I have already often warned, prudence, knowledge, understanding; for by these and many other names, for the sake of abundance and amplitude, practical or ethical wisdom is called, which conforms morals to honesty. The reason is, that the words of the Hebrews often signify not a real act, but a mental or verbal one, so that from "thou wilt receive" it is the same as if thou wilt be willing to receive, not however if thou hast already received in past act. Thus God says to Jeremiah cap. 1, 10: "I have appointed thee this day over the nations, that thou mayest root up, and pull down, and destroy," that is, that thou mayest prophesy and preach that the nations are to be rooted up, pulled down and destroyed. For not in real act, but in mental act, or rather in verbal and prophetic act, did Jeremiah root up, pull down and destroy the nations. See the remarks there. Again, the words of the Hebrews often signify an act begun and destined in the mind, not completed and perfected in deed: thus here from "if thou wilt receive," that is, if thou shalt have determined and begun to receive. It is signified therefore, says Jansenius, that it is necessary for the student of wisdom to turn his heart away from the love of earthly things (to which his corrupted nature always inclines and tends) and to devote himself entirely to the knowledge of prudence, seriously desiring this from his heart, so that he does not disdain to receive wisdom from others through his ears, but accommodates his ears attentively to perceive the sayings of the wise. For unless a propensity and desire of the heart toward wisdom precede, wisdom is heard in vain by the bodily ear from the mouth of the wise. You shall incline therefore your heart to prudence, so that your ear may hear wisdom; or you shall incline your heart to prudence for this reason, that your ear may hear wisdom with fruit and attentively. For that serious desire is required to obtain wisdom, he teaches in what follows. For the voice "you shall hide" signifies that wisdom is a precious thing and a treasure most to be desired, and to be carefully stored away in an ark, not of silver, but of the mind, according to that Psalm 118: "In my heart have I hidden thy words," lest namely the birds of the air, that is the aerial powers, snatch them away and devour them according to the parable of the seed which Christ proposes, Matthew 13, 4 and 19. Hence for "that you may hear," in Hebrew it is להקשיב lehacseib, that is that you may attend, that you may listen, that you may intently apply yourself; for the word קשב kascab signifies great attention of the mind, which is made with gesture, namely with the pricking up of the ears; whence in Scripture it is frequently attributed to the ears. In the Hebrew words therefore "that you may hear" and "incline," there is something of energy, says Baynus, which the Latin language does not attain to, by which great study and diligence in hearing is commended, and humility of heart, while it inclines the ear. If you shall hear, he says, so that you make your ear attentive to wisdom. This is what Christ so often repeats: "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." It is very difficult for young people to delight themselves in serious things, to have an ear attentive to the precepts of wisdom, to have a heart inclined to understanding, namely of those things which wisdom teaches. Or rather, to incline the heart to understanding is to apply the mind to things which are perceived by mind and understanding, as if to say: Remove your heart and desire from things which you see, which you hear and which are drawn in by the remaining senses, and have it attentive to heavenly things, which are comprehended by thought and understanding: so difficult is it that it somewhat exceeds human strength; and therefore recourse must be had to prayers, according to what follows. Therefore that you may become possessed of wisdom, give to it your ears and heart, incline your whole heart to it, listen to it with your whole ear. For the heart is the center of the soul and the weight of our internal clock, according to that saying of St. Augustine: "My weight is my love, by it I am borne whithersoever I am borne." For love is an act and affection of the heart, which causes the will to pursue the thing loved with all affection, the intellect to consider its beauty continually, memory to remember it always. To this tend those commonly repeated sayings: If you are eager to learn, you will learn much. To be willing to be taught is the highest learning. Where the mind is lacking, discipline avails nothing. Never is enough learned, never too much what is learned. Love, the best teacher of learners. Finally, the heart is the mind and the steadfast will: hence the heart is a symbol and, according to Galen, is the seat of wisdom, according to that saying: The heart is wise, and the lung speaks, the gall stirs anger, The spleen causes laughter, the liver compels love. See what I have said at length concerning the heart, Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 26.
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3. IF THOU SHALT INVOKE WISDOM AND INCLINE THY HEART TO PRUDENCE. — The Syriac: if thou shalt lift up thy voice to understanding. Some Greek codices add, but thou shalt seek sense with a great voice. But the others delete these: whence in the Vatican they are written in the margin, but in another they are marked with an asterisk: they therefore appear to have crept into the text from another version. He gives the reason why he said: "Incline thy heart to know prudence." The word invocaveris can be expounded in three ways. First, St. Hilary in Psalm cxxvii: "For indeed," he says, "wisdom must be invoked, that is, the whole office of reading is to be assigned to the intellect," as if to say: To invoke wisdom is to seek it by reading; for to the reader the reading itself responds with a silent voice, and impresses upon the eyes and mind the wisdom which the book contains. Secondly, Baynus: "If thou shalt invoke," he says, that is, if thou shalt choose. For thus Israel is called מקורא mecora, that is, called, that is, chosen of God, Isaiah xlviii, 12 and 15; and St. Paul glories in this title, that he is "called," that is, chosen, "Apostle," Rom. cap. 1, vers. 1. Thirdly, simply and plainly: "If thou shalt invoke"; in Hebrew, if thou shalt call, or cry out, namely to wisdom, sighing after it, and by ardent prayers beseeching it from God, so that thou dost expand the whole bosom of thy heart both to ask for it and to receive it. The Chaldean: if thou shalt call upon the mother of the intelligent. It signifies that wisdom is to be obtained by great desire and prayers, as much as by labour and study. Following Solomon thus, Sirach explains it, saying cap. xxxix, vers. 1: "The wise man will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, etc., he will give his heart to rise early to the Lord who made him, and in the sight of the Most High he will make supplication." See the sayings there. To this pertains the exposition of Aben-Ezra, as if to say: If thou shalt thus cry out to summon wisdom, as one is accustomed to call a friend whom he desires. Moreover Salonius: "He," he says, "inclines his heart to know prudence, who humbles himself and cleanses his soul from sins, that he may be worthy to perceive the mysteries of divinity." Therefore thou invokest wisdom when thou callest to thyself by prayer the knowledge of the beauty and worth of true virtue, and dost earnestly ask it from God. Then thou inclinest thy heart to prudence when, being placed in prayer, thou not only addressest God, but also reverently hearest his voice, so that he himself may teach thee prudence, and may instruct thee concerning the nature and worth of virtue. If thou shalt thus seek the notion of virtue, it shall be given to thee so profound and efficacious that it shall stir up in thy heart a great desire of virtue, and shall urge thee to its pursuit. To this pertains that saying of Seneca in the Proverbs: "Thou shalt think thyself an orator, if thou shalt have persuaded thyself of what is fitting." And that of the Wise Man: "Prudence is guarded not by cunning, but by counsel."
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4. IF THOU SHALT SEEK HER AS MONEY (In Hebrew, as silver; in Syriac, as treasure), AND SHALT DIG FOR HER AS FOR TREASURES. — In Hebrew תחפשנה tachpesenna, that is, thou shalt have searched; the Septuagint, thou shalt investigate her. For treasures, Symmachus and Theodotion render ἀπόκρυφα, that is, hidden things, secret things, stored away things; such are treasures: for θησαυρός in Greek is said as it were θέμενος εἰς αὔριον, that is, laid up for tomorrow, namely stored away for a long time. And in Hebrew מטמון matmon (whence the Chaldean, Syriac, Greek and Latin mammon or mammona) is said from טמן taman, that is, to store away: for riches and treasures are closely stored away. He compares therefore wisdom to a treasure: First, because just as a treasure is secret and hidden, so also is wisdom. Secondly, just as a treasure is sought with great eagerness by the covetous, so also is wisdom by those devoted to it. Whence St. Chrysostom in the Catena of the Greeks: "Just as," he says, "the greedy seek silver, so do thou seek wisdom." For this reason Christ alluded to this in the parable of the treasure, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field: which when a man hath found, he hideth it, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field," Matt. xiii, 44. Thirdly, just as a treasure is sought with great and unconquerable labour, and is found and possessed with great pleasure, so also is wisdom: for the fruit corresponds to the labour; and what one seeks assiduously, one finally finds, namely: The heavenly ones gain all things for mortals by sweat. All things are servants, and will obey all diligence; High diligence conquers nature. Clement of Alexandria, book IV of the Stromata, asserts from Hesiod that sweat is placed before virtue: The way is long, he says, and steep to it: For it is difficult at first, but when the heights are reached, It becomes easy. And from Simonides: "It is said," he says, "that virtue dwells on rocks with difficult access, but now she holds a swift and chaste place, and she whom not even the eyes of all mortals can behold, but only he to whom sweat has come, who heals anger, and has advanced to the height of greatness of soul." Hence the interpreters of philosophy mystically, as Pierius says in Hieroglyphics of the heart and arrow, say that the heart of Pluto was wounded by the arrow of Hercules, and by this it is signified that there is nothing so hidden in the nature of things which the study of philosophy has not penetrated. Thus St. Gregory of Nazianzus, oration 20, says that St. Basil by his study of philosophy penetrated all the hiding places. For this reason mystically St. Gregory, book V of the Morals, cap. v, by wisdom and discipline understands mortification, explaining that passage of Job, cap. iii, As those digging for treasure: "For all," he says, "who by digging seek a treasure, when they have begun to dig deeper, burn with more intense labour; because the more they think they are approaching the hidden treasure, the more earnestly do they labour in digging. Those therefore who fully desire their mortification seek as those digging for treasure; because the nearer they become to the end, the more ardent do they show themselves in the work." And below, explaining the same thing otherwise: "Because indeed we cannot die perfectly to the world unless within the invisible things of our mind we are hidden from visible things; rightly those who desire their mortification are compared to those digging for treasure. For we die to the world through invisible wisdom, of which it is said through Solomon: If thou shalt seek her as money, and shalt dig for her as for treasures. For wisdom does not lie on the surface of things, because it lies hidden in invisible things. And then, touching our mortification, we apprehend wisdom, if, leaving visible things, we are hidden in invisible things, if thus digging in our heart we seek her, so that all that the mind thinks earthly, it casts from itself by the hand of holy discretion, and recognizes the treasure of virtue, which was hidden. For easily in itself it finds the treasure sought, if it repels from itself that mass which had pressed it badly, of earthly thought." Bede presses the point of shalt dig for her; for many dig, but do not dig out. "He who digs out treasures," he says, "casts out the rubbish of the earth, makes a deep pit, and applies himself diligently to the labour, until he reaches the treasures which he seeks. And he who desires to find the treasures of wisdom, let him purge from himself whatever earthly thing he finds in himself, let him cut off carnal enticements, let him make a pit of humility, and let him not rest from working until he knows that he has found the vein of truth." Again, shalt dig for her signifies that the whole treasure of wisdom, as far as is possible, is to be exhausted. For just as those who have found a treasure, not content with having dug out part of it, continue with assiduous labour to dig, until they exhaust the whole: so likewise the one eager for wisdom and virtue, not content with having acquired part of it, continues indefatigably, until he possesses it wholly and its perfection and summit. Here is true that saying: "He who strives is helped. The deed helps the striving, The Thunderer helps the one striving." Again, shalt dig for her signifies that the whole treasure of wisdom, as far as is possible, is to be exhausted. For just as those who have found a treasure, not content with having dug out part of it, continue with assiduous labour to dig, until they exhaust the whole: so likewise the one eager for wisdom and virtue, not content with having acquired part of it, continues indefatigably, until he possesses it wholly and its perfection and summit. Here is true that saying: "He who strives is helped. The deed helps the striving, The Thunderer helps the one striving."
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5. THEN SHALT THOU UNDERSTAND THE FEAR OF THE LORD, AND SHALT FIND THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD (Chaldee, from the face of God). — You will ask who this "fear of the Lord" is here, and what it contributes to wisdom, which the Wise Man promises to its student here? First, Cajetan takes "fear" metonymically for the object of fear, namely for the reverent regard of God, as if to say: Then shalt thou understand by fearing from the highest God, what things are truly to be feared before Him. For thou shalt discern things to be feared from things not to be feared relatively to the source of being (for this is what Hebraice Jehova signifies), and thou shalt not fear what worldly men fear: namely thou shalt fear sin, judgment and hell, which God threatens to the sinner, and therefore are truly terrible and supremely to be feared; but thou shalt not fear poverty, ignoble birth, mockeries, which worldly men threaten and fear as if they were terrible things, when they are ridiculous, fleeting, and of little moment. "And shalt find the knowledge of God;" in Hebrew Elohim, as if to say: And thou shalt find to know according to Elohim, that is the judge of all things, so that namely thou mayest know that He is supremely to be feared, and sins which He Himself will judge are to be avoided, and which He will punish with eternal fire. But others commonly take fear of the Lord here properly for His fear, worship, religion and love. Now since fear is twofold, namely servile and filial, thou mayest likewise expound this passage in two ways: First, concerning servile fear, as if to say: If thou shalt have sought wisdom and inclined thy heart to its precepts, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, that is then shalt thou begin to fear God, as the supreme judge and avenger of foolishness and sin, and thus shalt thou come to wisdom and virtue: for the beginning of this is the fear of the Lord, as He said in chapter 1, verse 7. He alludes to the searching of treasures: for skilled men are accustomed to search these by signs and indications, which being found they proceed by the right way to finding the treasure. Such signs were formerly coals and ashes: for those who hid treasure were accustomed to scatter these on the ground, so that by these as it were indications they might know the place where it was to be sought, lest they forget it, and thus lose it. Moreover coals and ashes are the remains of fire, and consequently a symbol of the burning of hell, which is the object of servile fear. Second, thou mayest expound it more fully concerning filial fear, as if to say: If thou shalt have sought wisdom with thy whole heart, and its precepts, thou shalt certainly obtain the fear of the Lord, which is the very wisdom itself and knowledge of God, which Wisdom 10:10 calls "the knowledge of the holy ones," according to that passage Job 28:28: "The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding." For this fear is the love and charity of God: for by love it binds and embraces God, as the supreme good, by fear it takes care lest it lose or offend so great a good. Just as therefore the ancients imagined that gold mines and treasures are guarded by griffins and dragons: so the guardian of wisdom, virtue and charity is chaste and filial fear. Thus St. Hilary in Psalm 127, cited in this place: "For us, he says, the fear of the Lord is wholly in love, and perfect love consumes its motion. But this is the proper office of our love for Him, to obey His warnings, to comply with His statutes, to trust in His promises." So also Bede, Hugh and Jansenius, who also wisely notes: It is not to be understood thus, he says, as if the fear of God or some wisdom of God were not had before. For from the fear of God and wisdom it proceeds that one prays for wisdom, and seeks it with ardent desire. But he says that then the fear of God is to be understood, and the knowledge of God is to be found: because then it will be established in man, perfected, and will begin to please and become sweet to him, and there will be given what he still lacked, according to that Gospel saying: "To every one that hath shall be given." And Dionysius: "Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord," that is, he says, thou shalt truly and experimentally know, and shalt find the filial fear of God. For the more intently thou shalt have striven to be illuminated from above, and to be perfected by the gift of wisdom, so much the more shalt thou fear to offend the sight of the highest God the Father, and to conduct thyself with fear before Him: and wisdom itself infused will teach thee this chaste and holy fear, showing thee how infinitely and incomparably the most high God is to be sincerely feared, honored and loved; and thus it will instill in thee a wise shame, so that everywhere thou mayest blush before the presence of the divine countenance to conduct thyself dishonestly, negligently or shamefully. To which also Seneca admonishing says: Conduct thyself not otherwise in secret, otherwise in public. "And thou shalt find the knowledge of God," that is, thou shalt obtain wisdom and its progress and perfection from the Lord. Concerning which the Psalmist says, Psalm xxxiii: "Come ye to him, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be confounded." Concerning which knowledge the Lord says in Osee chapter vi: "I desire the knowledge of God more than holocausts." The Apostle also in Philippians iii, 8: "I count, he says, all things to be but loss, for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord." Thus Dionysius. Similarly St. Ambrose explains this passage in Psalm cxviii, octon. 5, at that verse: "Establish thy word to thy servant;" who also assigns the reason: "For indeed, he says, true wisdom begins from the fear of God, nor is there spiritual wisdom without the fear of God; thus fear ought not to be without wisdom. A certain foundation of the word is holy fear. For just as some image is set upon a base, and then has greater grace when the statue has been placed upon the base and has received firmness for standing: so the word of God is better established in holy fear, more firmly rooted in the breast of him who fears the Lord, lest the word slip from the heart of the man: lest birds come and take it away from the affection of the careless and dissembling one." And soon after: "Fear therefore is the place of the word, as peace is its place. Fear is a certain station of the word, the word of fear is discipline. For fear full of discipline does not waver toward falling." And below: "Fear is informed through wisdom, is instructed through understanding, is directed by counsel, is strengthened by virtue, is ruled by knowledge, is adorned by piety."
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6. BECAUSE THE LORD GIVETH WISDOM, AND OUT OF HIS MOUTH COMETH PRUDENCE AND KNOWLEDGE. — The Syriac, Septuagint and Chaldean: and from his face knowledge and understanding. The quia (because) gives the reason for what he said in verse 3: "If thou shalt seek wisdom, etc. thou shalt find," as if to say: Wisdom is not to be obtained by hearing and study alone, but also by prayer and invocation, because it itself is a gift of God: for the Lord gives this wisdom and knowledge of the saints. For human wisdom thou mayest learn from Aristotle, Plato, etc., but this divine wisdom not except from God, according to that in Ecclesiasticus chapter xxxix, verse 8: "For if the Lord who is great shall will it, he shall fill him with the spirit of understanding." And James i, 5: "But if any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly." Hence Thalassius in the Hecatontade 2: "What light is to those who see and are seen, this God is to those who understand and are understood. God alone is by nature good and wise: but the mind becomes such also by participation, provided it be studious." What follows: "And out of his mouth prudence," signifies first, that this wisdom proceeds from the revelation of God, made to the Prophets and Apostles in Holy Scripture, which teachers and preachers expound and preach to the people; secondly, that this revelation and preaching is not sufficient for perceiving this wisdom: but moreover there is need of internal illumination by God, by which God persuades the mind of those things which it hears and reads from without, according to that saying of Christ in John vi, 43: "All shall be taught of God. Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me." "When therefore, says St. Augustine, lib. I to Simplicianus, Question ii, the Gospel is preached, some believe, some do not believe; but those who believe the preacher sounding from without, hear and learn from the Father within: but those who do not believe, hear from without, but within they do not hear, nor do they learn." Note that wisdom is so much a gift of God, that it is also a work of man: for man ought to prepare it for himself partly by study, partly by prayer. In like manner virtue, for example chastity, is a gift of God, and at the same time a work of man freely embracing it, and fighting for it against vices, as I have said at length in I Corinthians vii, 7. Thus the works of grace are works both of grace as the principal cause, and of free will as cooperating. Furthermore wisdom, knowledge, and prudence are the same thing, as I have often noted; although Lyra and Baynus distinguish them in this way, that wisdom is the knowledge of heavenly things, knowledge is of things necessary in this life, prudence or understanding regards morals and integrity of conduct among men. Symbolically Bede: The Word, he says, which is Wisdom, proceeded from the mouth of the Father, when it was conceived from his mind, spoken and begotten from eternity. Again from his mouth flows knowledge and wisdom, because the mouth of man, unless it has been sanctified and consecrated by him, is not able to speak wisdom.
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7. HE SHALL KEEP SALVATION FOR THE RIGHTEOUS, AND WILL PROTECT THOSE WALKING SIMPLY. — In Hebrew, he shall hide salvation for the righteous, a shield (buckler) for those walking in perfection; the Septuagint, he treasures up for those acting rightly (St. Augustine, book I Against the Adversaries of the Law and the Prophets, chapter xvii, reads, for those loving him) salvation, he will protect their steps; the Zurich Bible, he stores up for the just essence (that is, says Vatablus, he preserves for the just true doctrine), he protects those walking innocently; the Chaldean, he shall hide for the just safety, and shall help those who walk without blemish; the Syriac, he keeps for the righteous hope, and shall aid those walking without blemish. Note: For "shall keep" in Hebrew is יצפון iitspon, that is, he shall hide, he shall store up, he shall preserve as a treasure. For a treasure includes two things: first, that the thing is precious; second, that it is secret and hidden away. For "salvation," in Hebrew is תושיה tusciia, which Pagninus, the Zurich Bible and others translate as ousian, that is, essence, existence, substance, from the root ies, that is, is. For the Hebrew ies has passed into all languages. Whence R. Levi, he shall reserve for the righteous that which is; the Chaldean, safety; our version and the Septuagint translate it as salvation, as if tuscia by allusion and change of one letter might refer to ישע iesca, that is, salvation, and תושיע toscia, that is, shall save; R. Moses translates it as law; others as form, prescription, and whatever is stable and solid; others as fortune, success; others more rightly translate it as wisdom: because wisdom is the noblest and most solid thing and essence, as Isaiah explains this passage in chapter xxxiii, 6, where the Septuagint translates thus, in treasures is our salvation; which they explain by adding: "Wisdom and knowledge and piety toward God, these are the treasures of wisdom." All these versions come down to the same thing: for tusciia properly signifies essence; hence wisdom, because this is as the soul and life of the essence of man; hence law, because wisdom consists in the observance of the law, or, as R. David says: The Law, he says, is called tusciia, that is, essence, because while other things are perishable and vain, the law alone endures perpetually; hence salvation, because wisdom bestows this, and so with the others. Whence Aben-Ezra: "Wisdom," he says, "receives the name of essence, in that it is, and endures to all eternity. This indeed is reserved by God for the just, so that by its aid they may keep the path of justice, that is, the divine precepts." Therefore first, Lyra thus expounds it, as if to say, God will give to the righteous and just as a reward of justice salvation, that is, health of mind and body. Second, Jansenius, as if to say, God keeps hidden with himself wisdom and salvation as an immense treasure, and distributes it not to all, nor always, but to the righteous and just alone at the time decreed by him. Third, Cajetan and Salazar refer this verse to what he said in verse 4: "If thou shalt dig for her as for treasures, namely wisdom, thou shalt surely find her; as if here he gives the reason for his saying, namely because God keeps, stores up, hides, treasures (all come down to the same thing) salvation, namely true wisdom, which is justice itself and the health of the soul. For if God hides wisdom after the manner of a treasure, it rightly follows that it must be dug for in the manner of a treasure. Now it is said to hide or treasure up for the righteous, or for those acting rightly, in Hebrew lesarim, that is, the diligent; Augustine, for those loving him: because this rich treasure, which God wished thus to lie hidden, is not brought forth except by the diligent and those who bestow careful attention." Thus they themselves. All these expositions are true and coincide: for to those zealous for wisdom, in place of a reward, wisdom itself was promised to be given by God: now however how great a reward that is and how many fruits, goods and advantages it brings, he explains, saying that God through wisdom keeps the salvation of the righteous, while he causes them to walk wisely amid the very temptations, dangers and shipwrecks of the world, by which the unwise and impious fall and perish, so that they contract no stain of graver sin, but proceed rightly and happily to the harbor of eternal salvation. This is a fitting reward, while those observing God and God's law are in turn preserved and observed by God. Whence some thus expound it: God shall keep tusciia, that is, essence, that is, the solidity and steadfast perseverance in good of the just, which is an immense treasure; for it rightly leads to heavenly glory: for perseverance is the supreme gift of God. For, as St. Bernard says (or whoever is the author), in the sermon On the Virtue of Obedience: "Perseverance is the singular daughter of the highest king," she whom one shall have taken, receives heaven as a dowry. And he adds: "The end of virtues is, and their consummation is, and the whole repository of good is perseverance." Behold, this is what is said here: "He layeth up sound wisdom for the just." Therefore the great gift of perseverance is in the hand of God alone, which the just cannot merit by condignity, but can only beg and obtain from Him by suppliant prayers. Wherefore this most salutary prayer is: O Lord, give me perseverance; give me continually the grace which Thou foreseest will be fitting for me; direct me through those ways, duties, states, and actions which have no scandal of sin, by which Thou foreseest that I shall certainly and infallibly persevere and arrive at eternal happiness. Anagogically therefore Pagninus in the Treasury of the Hebrew Language, in the word תושיה, that is, essence: God, he says, reserves and treasures up for the just His essence, namely that He may offer the same to them to be clearly seen in heaven; He therefore hides this as it were a treasure for them: hence Christ compares the same to a treasure, "which when a man hath found, he goeth, for joy thereof, and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field," Matt. xiii, 44. Thus also from Pagninus, Jansenius and Salazar. Allegorically, certain Rabbis refer these things to the Incarnation of Christ: for Christ is Wisdom proceeding from the mouth of the Father, which took upon itself our mouth and all things, that He might teach us true wisdom and the way to salvation hidden from the Jews. For in the Midrash, that is, in the exposition of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, it is said: "The holy God shall sit, and expound before the just the sense of the law through the hands of the Messiah, as it is said in Prov. ii: He revealeth or concealeth the law to the upright, a shield to those who walk simply or perfectly. Rabbi Abraham Aben-Ezra said: He concealeth the law from the upright, because He concealeth from them the word of wisdom, until the time come and He expound it by His mouth before the masters." Thus Galatinus, lib. III, cap. xix, On the Mysteries of Faith. AND HE PROTECTETH THEM THAT WALK SIMPLY. — In Hebrew, a shield to those walking in simplicity, that is, in innocence and perfection, as if to say, Like a shield He will defend the innocent and the perfect. These words are to be connected with the following in this way: "He protecteth them that walk simply." 8. KEEPING THE PATHS OF JUSTICE, AND GUARDING THE WAYS OF HIS SAINTS. — "Keeping," that is, causing to keep: for the Hebrew is לנצר lintsor, that is, to keep, so that namely the just keep, God keeping them, the paths of justice. Or it is hypallage, as if to say, God keeps in the just the paths of justice, that is, God keeps the just in the paths of justice, that they may not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. The sense is, as if to say, God protects the just through His wisdom and grace, continually keeping their mind, so that amid so many precipices of erring and falling they may firmly hold the paths of justice, so that they may continually walk through them; and thus He guards the way of the saints, directs it and leads it to the goal, namely to heavenly happiness. Whence the Septuagint clearly translates, and He protecteth their steps to keep the ways of justifications, and He keepeth the way of those who fear Him; the Syriac, He shall keep the ways of His pious ones. Thus God promised to Abraham the reward of justice and obedience, saying: "Fear not, Abraham, I am thy protector (in Hebrew, I am thy shield), and thy reward shall be exceeding great," Gen. cap. xv, 1; see the things said there. This is what the Psalmist prays: "Make thy steps direct in my paths, that my footsteps be not moved," Psal. xvi, 5. He alludes to, nay rather cites that passage of Anna the mother of Samuel, I Reg. ii, 9: "The feet of His saints He shall keep, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness," for which Solomon here, vers. 13, has: "They walk in the ways of darkness."
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9. THEN SHALT THOU UNDERSTAND JUSTICE, AND JUDGMENT, AND EQUITY, AND EVERY GOOD PATH. — Then refers to the preceding, as if to say: When thou shalt have performed those things which I have said concerning the invocation and investigation of wisdom; or, when God shall have given wisdom, "then thou shalt understand justice, judgment and equity," that is, every good path: for in these three things wisdom is situated. Whether and how these three are distinguished I have said in chapter 1, verse 3. Most excellently Thalassius, in the fourth Hecatontade: "He who loves Jesus," he says, "shall be freed from malice, and following him shall see true knowledge. A mind free from disturbances sees more subtly. A mind purified to the highest degree finds all things that are to be narrow, and always wishes to be outside all things that have been made. Do you wish once to be freed from all affections? Accustom yourself to charity, continence and prayers. A mind dwelling with God by praying liberates the affective powers of the soul from passions." Note that the way of wisdom and virtue is called a "path," first, because it is narrow, whereas the other way by which chariots travel is broad and wide. Thus St. Augustine in Psalm 121. Second, because it is short and direct to perfection and happiness: for thus paths are shorter ways. Third, because it is straight, as a path is. Fourth, because paths are for travelers over mountains and rocks, which chariots go around: similarly the way of virtue is steep and lofty. Thus Lyra. For path in Hebrew it is מעגל magal, that is, a round orbit, by which a chariot, namely the roundness of the wheels of the chariot, travels: for עגול agol is round and circular; whence Aquila translated it, καμπτούς, that is, flexed; Symmachus, ἐπικυλισμούς, that is, involutions, gyrations, flexings; the Septuagint translate it, ἄξονας, that is, axes, orbits, tracks, paths. Whence thus they have it in the Greek Catena: "Then thou shalt understand justice and judgment, and shalt successfully complete all the orbits of honesty." Orbits and axes of wheels, says the author of the Catena, are aptly transferred to the soul: for just as axes, into which wheels are inserted, hold them in a certain perpetual equality: so justice strengthens the soul and its powers, especially the lower ones (for these are signified by wheels in this place), and keeps them constantly in duty. Moreover, through wheels the precepts of God, which lead to God and direct the soul to his knowledge, can be understood. Thus the author. Orbits therefore, first, signify the equality of wisdom and virtue; second, the facility which practice itself prepares: for although virtue at the beginning for one beginning, on account of contrary desires, is difficult, yet through practice overcoming them it becomes easy. Whence St. Augustine on that Psalm 30: "Thou hast set my feet in a spacious place," seeking how the way of virtue is at once narrow and spacious, hitting the mark precisely responds: "Certainly it is a narrow way, to the laboring it is narrow, to the loving it is broad." Third, orbits signify that the way of virtue is open, public, well-trodden and royal: for such is the orbit of chariots. Fourth, that it is perfect: for the circular figure, such as that of orbits, is complete and most perfect. Flexings and gyrations, however, as Aquila and Symmachus translate, signify first, that the way of virtue is steep and precipitous, which therefore now by flexing must decline and gyrate, now generously overcome and transcend. Second, that wisdom and virtue are flexible, because in all things it allows itself to be bent, gyrated and regyrated by the bridle of reason, law and divine will. Thus by this bridle the tongue must be governed, as St. James teaches, chapter 3, verse 3, concerning which I have said much there. Third, Bede thinks that man is moved by a threefold motion, namely to satisfy God through justice, to the neighbor through equity, to himself through judgment. In a similar way in Angels, as St. Dionysius teaches, chapter IV On the Divine Names (and in like manner in holy souls), there are three motions, namely reflexive, straight and circular. Reflexive is, when an angel or soul reflects from creatures, and springs back to the Creator, acknowledging, loving and praising him in all things. Straight is, when it tends straight to neighbors, and provides them with what it ought from the rectitude of justice or charity. "A straight line," says Dionysius, "moves the soul toward those things around it going forth." Circular is, when the soul gathers itself together, and returns into itself to the quiet of its own conscience, and consulting the conjunction with God. Then indeed, says St. Dionysius, "around the beautiful and good author of identity they lead an unceasing dance." Thus aptly Solomon says: "Then shalt thou understand justice, and judgment, and equity," namely serving God, consulting thyself, providing for thy neighbor, namely every good path, all good flexings, and all good gyrations; thus expressing spiritually all the differences of motions. Thus Salazar.
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10 and 11. IF WISDOM SHALL ENTER INTO THY HEART (Septuagint, if it shall come into thy mind), AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL PLEASE THY SOUL (knowledge is the same as wisdom), COUNSEL SHALL KEEP THEE, AND PRUDENCE SHALL PRESERVE THEE. — Septuagint, holy thought shall preserve thee. For "shall please" the Hebrew is נעם inam, which the Septuagint translates as "shall appear beautiful"; Aquila, εὐπρεπίσει, that is, it shall be becoming and graceful; Pagninus, if it shall be sweet; others, if it shall be lovely, pleasant, agreeable; others word for word, if knowledge shall beautify thy soul, so that thou mayest appear beautiful to thyself from the beauty of knowledge, which thou dost admire and wonder at; Vatablus, if wisdom shall have invaded thy heart, and knowledge shall have delighted thy soul, foresight shall keep thee, and the instruction of understanding shall preserve thee. He repeats the same thing in various ways, amplifies and impresses it, so that he may commend to the disciple the honesty and beauty of wisdom, and kindle in him a love for it as for a most beautiful and chaste bride. The sense is, as if to say, If thou shalt have admitted wisdom into the innermost recesses of thy soul, and shalt have perceived and embraced its beauty, the counsel which it itself shall suggest to thee, and by which it shall govern all thy affairs wisely and becomingly, shall keep thee (in Hebrew, over thee, as if to say, it shall keep watch over thee round about, as a watchman keeps watch over a camp), and the prudence which it shall teach thee shall preserve thee from all evil, lest thou shouldst stumble anywhere through imprudence: namely, that thou mayest be delivered first from the evil way, and from the man who speaketh perverse things; secondly, that thou mayest be delivered from the strange woman; thirdly, that thou mayest walk in the good way, as follows: for it is not enough to decline from evil, unless thou also doest good. To this pertains what St. Chrysostom, homily 63 to the People, teaches, that the sweetness of virtue is so great that all other things which are sweet in the world, compared to it, appear bitter and gall, nay, that it seasons all labors, pains, crosses with its own sweetness, sweetens and makes them pleasant. Thus wisdom, virtue and charity made the fires sweet to St. Lawrence, the lions to St. Ignatius, the arrows to St. Sebastian, the rack to St. Vincent, the coals to St. Tiburtius. Thus St. Lucy the virgin, wise, proceeded to the pyre as if invited to a feast, joyful and exulting. Thus also St. Agnes, St. Cecilia, and the other virgins and martyrs. Hence the Church sings of St. Stephen: "The stones of the torrent were sweet to him; all just souls follow him." Therefore wisdom and virtue is the beautiful Naomi (for from inam and naam, that is, beautiful, she was called Naomi) of whom it is said, Ruth 1, 20: "This is that Naomi" comely and fair, who captivates the eyes of all in her appearance and admiration. For, as St. Augustine says, epistle to Consentius: "What else is justice and virtue to us than the beauty of the inner man?" And Philo, in the book On the Life of Moses, from Plato in the Symposium: "Virtue," he says, "is not only beautiful, but is the very idea of beauty itself," namely of that beauty which is the exemplar and mirror in creatures. The reason is, because wisdom and virtue is the highest participation of God: but God in himself is beautiful, and therefore is himself uncreated, essential and immense beauty, which he who sees cannot but love supremely, as is evident in the Blessed, who are wholly rapt and absorbed in it. God therefore communicated his beauty to wisdom and virtue before all other things and impressed it upon them, and showed in them his image and beauty: especially in the incarnate Word, namely in Christ, who was the mirror of all virtue, of whom therefore it is said in Psalm 44: "Thou art fairer in beauty than the sons of men;" and even in his passion, purpled with his own blood, he proceeded fair, so that the Angels admiring his beauty cried out: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra? this one is fair in his robe, marching in the greatness of his strength," Isaiah 63, 1. Whence St. Augustine in Psalm 44, after the beginning: Christ, he says, is fair in heaven, fair on earth, fair in miracles, fair in scourges, fair on the wood, fair in the sepulchre. And he adds the reason: "Supreme and true beauty is justice. If just everywhere, everywhere becoming." Hence also the Martyrs shine with beauty in their fortitude, and seek a fair death through wounds: wherefore they proceed in heaven clothed in purple, crowned with palms and laurels, Apocalypse 7. This is so true that the Gentiles were rapt in admiration of this beauty of wisdom and virtue. Whence the Lyric poet in a hymn on the praises of virtue exclaims: "O virtue, arduous and laborious to men, most beautiful discovery of life. For thy beauty, O virgin, even to die is reckoned in Greece a desirable lot, and to endure vehement and unceasing labors. By thy grace therefore Hercules, born of Jupiter, and the sons of Leda declared by their deeds what they could accomplish." It was said by the ancients: "The wise man alone is becoming, every worthless man is base." And: Virtue, knowing not shameful repulse, Shines forth with untainted honors, says Horace, book III of the Odes.
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12. THAT THOU MAYEST BE DELIVERED FROM THE EVIL WAY (from the Hebrew, translate it as evil, that is, which leads to evil; the Syriac, wisdom shall deliver thee from the evil way), AND FROM THE MAN WHO SPEAKETH PERVERSE THINGS. 13. WHO LEAVE THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND WALK IN THE WAYS OF DARKNESS. — In Hebrew, who leave the paths of rectitude, that they may walk in the ways of darkness. 14. WHO ARE GLAD WHEN THEY HAVE DONE EVIL, AND REJOICE IN MOST WICKED THINGS. — The Chaldean, they rejoice in the perversion of malice. The Septuagint sets forth these things with pathos, and mingles in an exclamation; for thus they have it, that (wisdom and holy thought) may deliver thee from the evil way, and from the man speaking nothing πιστόν, that is, faithful, or nothing worthy of faith, to whom credit should be given, but all things false, deceitful, pernicious and poisoned. O ye who have forsaken the straight ways, going into the ways of darkness, who rejoice in evils, and are glad in the perversion of evil. These depend upon the preceding verse: "Counsel shall keep thee, etc., that thou mayest be delivered from the evil way." As if to say, There are two ways, that is, modes and manners of living: one evil, the other good; wisdom shall keep thee from the evil, and shall lead thee to the good, namely that thou shouldest flee from every sin leading to hell worse than a dog and a serpent, and shouldest pursue with all thy heart every virtue leading to heaven. For "who speaketh perverse things," others translate more effectively, "who speaketh perverting things"; Cajetan, "who speaketh subtleties," that is, tricks, turnings and twistings of words, by which a crafty person leads others into error, fraud and evil. For in Hebrew תהפכות tahapuchot signifies perversities, by which one turns another away from truth and virtue, and converts him into fraud and vice, and thus drives him into ruin, overturns and subverts him: and it alludes to פוך puch, that is, paint or cosmetic, because such people paint others with cosmetics, and by the false appearance of wisdom and virtue lead them astray into error and vices. Solomon therefore says that wisdom teaches that one must especially beware of the wicked and perverse, who not only do wicked things, but also teach or persuade the same to others, and this craftily through frauds and enticements: these wisdom detects and lays bare. Moreover, because such people are very many, hence by changing through enallage from the singular number to the plural, describing them, he says first: "Who leave the straight way"; for such is the way of wisdom and virtue. Secondly: "They walk in the ways of darkness and gloom," as if to say, They live in blindness and errors, at least practical ones, and in dishonorable works, which seek darkness, and are most similar to darkness, and lead into eternal darkness. Wherefore the Nazianzen, in his oration to the 150 Bishops, aptly compares such people to cuttlefish: "For those, he says, discourses, just as the ink of cuttlefish, spurt forth against themselves, that they may escape those hunting them, and hide from those seeking them." Thirdly, what is more, that they rejoice when they have done evil, and exult in most wicked things. This is a climax, or gradation. For by degrees the discourse grows, declaring the growing malice of the impious. For that malice grows gradually to such a point that they laugh at sins, rejoice and exult in them; but this laughter is canine and sardonic, which brings pain and death: for while laughing outwardly, they are tortured by the internal consciousness of evils, says St. Augustine, sermon 24 On the Seasons, and they die laughing, concerning which Eusebius of Emesa, homily On SS. Epiphor and Alexander: "They exult, he says, in most wicked things, and rejoice in their own perdition, like those who perhaps, taking the deadly juices of herbs, are said to perish with laughter." For "they exult" in Hebrew it is גילו gilu, that is, they sing, leap, dance: גול gol indeed denotes dancing, exultation and external rolling about, by which one opens and displays the internal joy of the heart by external gestures, as when one leaps, makes circles, and rolls himself in turnings and rotations. Whence it does not greatly differ from the Greek ἀγαλλιάω. Thus St. John the Baptist, hearing the greeting of the Blessed Virgin, exulted, that is, leapt for joy, and sprang in the womb of his mother, Luke 1, 41. Such therefore are like unto those whom we see in Apulia bitten by tarantulas straightway to leap and dance, and dancing and leaping to die. St. Ambrose, book I, epistle 6, compares them to cicadas, which by singing, that is by making noise, die: "Those who, saith he, under the heat of burning desires soothe themselves with a song harmful to themselves, and straightway perish." Thus the Turks in honour of their Mahomet are wont to turn themselves in a circle and rotate (which properly denotes in Hebrew gol), until failing in breath and mind they fall and collapse, and they call that the dance of Angels, to which thou mayest rightly apply that: "In the circuit the wicked walk," Psalm xi, 9. These therefore as "they drink iniquity like water," as St. Job testifies, cap. xv, so in turn laughing and exulting they proceed as calves to the slaughter, as drunkards to the gallows, as madmen (saith St. Gregory citing this passage, hom. 4 in Ezech.) to exile, of whom Isaiah cap. iii, vers. 9: "They have proclaimed their sin as Sodom. Woe to their soul, for evil is rendered unto them!" saith St. Bernard, serm. 16 in Cant. 15. WHOSE WAYS ARE PERVERSE, AND THEIR STEPS INFAMOUS. — The Septuagint, whose paths are crooked (Symmachus σκαμβαί, that is curved, walking obliquely after the manner of crabs; Theodotion, σφαλεραί, that is tortuous, twisted like those who are cross-eyed, who have distorted and twisted eyes: likewise crafty, cunning, wily, sinuous like serpents), and their crooked course; Aquila, and they boast themselves in their bendings, and mock in their turnings or gyrations; Zurich, who pervert their ways, and are shameless in their orbits; Vatablus, whose paths are oblique, and who are perverse in their paths; or, whose reasons of life depart from the right and perversities are in their ways. So also Pagninus and others, and receding or going backward in their paths, like crabs. The Septuagint add, to make thee go far from the right way and alien from understanding. Therefore the steps and actions of the wicked are oblique and sinuous like crabs and serpents. For crabs, as Aristotle and Pliny testify, either walk backward, or obliquely to the side, especially since it is a symbol of perversity, just as straightness is of virtue and pure life and goodness. "Crabs, saith Cassiodorus, move sideways, and when caught, abandoning the straight course do not return straight." Wherefore St. Ambrose, lib. VI Hexaemeron, cap. vi, thus reads and explains: "Their crooked course, like the slippery and crooked author of theirs," namely the devil the ancient serpent. Hence St. Ephrem, treating of dances and shameful leaping, saith: "The dance not Peter, not John, but the ancient dragon taught with his coils." Alluding to this also Nazianzenus in a poem On Virginity thus paints the wicked: But as crabs walking by an oblique path, Or as serpents of length sinuously drawing their limbs, ye shall live pressed down by the weight of flesh. For thus the wicked like crabs, not whither the eyes look, that is not whither reason and the law of God dictates, but backward, as if turned away from the law and God they walk, and prefer left to right, false to true, perishable to eternal; for, as St. Ambrose saith, lib. De Abraham: "The goods of this world are unstable, and like wheels turn with the world itself." Again like serpents in a thousand circles of vices they wind and turn themselves, while from one crime they soon slip into another and another, until they have completed the whole circle of crimes, which completed they return again from the beginning in a circle; wherefore they are deservedly infamous before God, Angels and men.
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16. THAT THOU MAYEST BE DELIVERED FROM THE STRANGE WOMAN, AND FROM THE STRANGER WHO SOFTENETH HER WORDS. — Vatablus, she who flatters with her words, or allures with blandishments; Symmachus, whose words are slippery; the Chaldean, whose words are soft; Baynus, she who polishes her words; "whose song it is more tolerable to hear than the hissing of a basilisk," says St. Cyprian, On the Singularity of the Clergy. For a woman, like a Siren, enchants and bewitches even the minds of the wise, as appeared in Solomon himself, Samson, and David. Read the life of St. Martinianus in Surius, 13 February, and you will find wonderful examples of this matter. He calls the adulterer strange and foreign, she who, being the wife of another man, seeks other lovers; although others understand by the stranger a foreigner, that is, not a Jewess, but a Gentile. But simply the Hebrews call a foreign woman a harlot. This verse depends upon verse 11; for thus it should be connected with it: "The counsel of wisdom shall keep thee, that thou mayest be delivered from the woman," etc. Whence the Septuagint paraphrases at this place: my son, let not evil counsel (of the woman) seize thee, she who hath forsaken the doctrine of her youth, etc. He warned against avoiding the company and conversation of the wicked; now he warns against avoiding the alluring and immodest woman; for nothing is so contrary to wisdom as an alluring woman. Thus Bede. The theological reason for this is that the Holy Spirit, the author of wisdom, being the purest spirit, abandons and flees from lustful men, as those immersed in flesh and belly. The ethical reason is that among the desires lust is the most vehement: but desire is directly opposed to reason, and therefore to wisdom. Whence lust is called from the fact that it pleases, says Cassian, Conferences xii, chapter ii. For this reason St. Wolstan, Bishop of Worcester, when tempted to lust by a noble matron, making the sign of the cross: "Flee," he said, "companion of wantonness, daughter of death, vessel of Satan," and struck her with the utmost force, and thus like another Joseph suppressed the woman's enticements. Thus Surius, vol. I, in his Life. So also St. Agnes to the Prefect's son: "Depart from me," she said, "food of death, fuel of sin." For unbridled lust rushes into forbidden harm. A fair and flattering woman softens even a man of stone. Lust enervates the strength of body and the powers of the mind. The physical cause is first, that lust by its vehemence snatches all the senses, the mind and the whole soul to itself, so that the lustful can perceive, understand, or think of nothing besides it, much less think of heavenly and divine things, which wisdom suggests. Second, that in the act of lust, along with the seed there are excreted many and the noblest spirits, which the mind needs for thinking and contemplating. Again, seed is the noblest blood: therefore when the seed is exhausted, the blood is also exhausted, in which the strength of life and mind consists. Whence we see that the lustful are destitute of bodily strength and mental vigor, so that they cannot grasp those things which belong to wisdom and prudence, indeed they sometimes fall into delirium, madness, epilepsy, apoplexy. Thus Galen, book XIV, part, chapter x, says that excessive venery induces spasm. Wherefore some (which is not rightly attributed to Plato, as a Greek): Venus, they say, was called from ve, that is without, and νοῦς, that is mind, as if to say Without mind, because it snatches reason and mind from man. Just as vecors is the same as ve, that is without, and cor. But this is an ingenious allusion, not a genuine etymology: for Venus is a Latin word, not Greek; Venus, says Giraldus, syntagm. 13, from Cicero, book II On the Nature of the Gods, was called because it comes to all things, or because through it all things come forth. Varro, however, book IV On the Latin Language: "Venus is called, he says, not because it wishes to conquer, but because it binds, and is itself bound. Viere is to bind, from which in Ennius's Asotus: They went binding evil Venus with a garland." And soon after: "The poets, he says, from heaven, which they say fiery seed fell into the sea, and Venus was born from the foam by the conjunction of fire and moisture, signifying by this the power of Venus, from which power life is said to be named," according to that of Lucilius: "Power is life, you see what compels us to do all things." Venus therefore is called either from coming, or from binding, that is conquering, or from power. St. Isidore followed this last, book VIII of the Origins, near the end: "Venus, he says, is said from this, that without power a woman does not cease to be a virgin." Among the Greeks Venus is called Ἀφροδίτη from ἀφρός, that is foam, because it is said to have been born from the foam of the sea, as Hesiod testifies in the Theogony, or, as Aristotle says, because seed is foamy. There are those who think it is called from τὸ ἀφρονεῖν, that is to be mad. Whence Euripides: "For foolish Venus is next to mortals." Hence Venus is painted bearing a burning torch in her breast with the Graces and Pitho, that is, Persuasion, because she fixes burning love in the beholder, and persuades him of all that she wishes. Euripides, however, in the Hecuba thinks Venus was called Aphrodite as if ἀφροσύνην, that is imprudence and foolishness; for this is what Venus induces: whence he calls her the goddess of foolishness. Furthermore, wisdom, that you may be snatched away from an alien woman, is situated not in the strength of struggle, but in the prudence of fleeing from the sight and company of the same. Thus St. Cyprian, On Individual Clergy: "See, he says, now prudence in this war, not faith given to us as victorious, which would have freed us by the remedy of timidity: and consider what arms must now be taken up, if you wish to have the help of the law. Be fearful, that you may be intrepid, and although fear in battle appears to be weakness, nevertheless according to the word of the Apostle, virtue is made perfect in weakness. Separate yourselves, I beseech you, separate yourselves from the contagion of pestilence." On the allurement of women, Ecclesiasticus treats at xxv, 29, and xlii, 6. See the things said there. Symbolically, by this adulterous woman both here and at chapter vii, verse 19, chapter ix, verse 13, elsewhere is signified heresy or false doctrine: for this adulterates and corrupts the true faith and wisdom of God. Indeed, Vatablus thinks that heresy is signified here literally, with R. Solomon and the Hebrews. Hear Bede: "By an alien woman can be understood the depravity of heretics, alien from Christ and the members of the Church, which by the softness of eloquence and the blandishments of tongue is accustomed to deceive the hearts of the innocent. Whence the Psalmist, Psalm xlv: They have softened their words above oil, and they themselves are arrows." Moreover, Rabbi Levi and others understand by this woman any concupiscence whatsoever, repugnant to reason and wisdom in man. For this is like an adulterous woman, wandering, wanton, unfaithful, unstable, seething with desires, the mother of all sins and evils. Whence Thalassius, in the second Hundred: "Just as concupiscence, he says, and anger multiply sins, so continence and humility empty them out. For the soul to be purified is to be freed from affections. But this freedom begets for us the charity of God. Spiritual sunsets are souls troubled by perturbations; for the sun of justice sets upon them." And in the third Hundred: "A mind which affections command thinks things that are not fitting. But what sort of thoughts they are, speeches and deeds reveal. Evil affection is the guide of evil thought, the author of affection is sense: that we use it badly is the fault of the mind. Great indeed is the mind which is free from affections and separated from the things that are, and dwells in God." And in the fourth Hundred: "Just as it is absurd for a good master to be subject to a wicked slave, so also it is absurd for a rational mind to be the slave of a corruptible body. Do you also command Eve, and beware of the serpent, lest deceived you too it offer you of the tree. A true monk is he whose mind has so renounced the senses that he does not even wish to see the thought of pleasure. A mind commanding affections is outside danger and fear. The expectation of future goods joins the mind to the goods expected, and dwelling in them it forgets the present." Moreover, Archytas of Tarentum, as Cicero testifies in the book On Old Age, used to say "there is no more capital plague in the world than concupiscence and pleasure." For from this come betrayals of the fatherland, from this the overthrows of republics, from this secret treaties with enemies are born: finally, there is no crime, no infamy, to the undertaking of which the lust of pleasure does not impel. And Socrates in Laertius, book II, admonished young men "to flee pleasures like Sirens," if they wished to look upon virtue as their fatherland like Ulysses, who with waxed ears sailed past the Sirens, that he might see the smoke rising from Ithaca. And Seneca: "The wise man, he says, desires this one thing, to desire nothing." That saying of the Egyptian monk in Nicephorus, book xi, chapter xliii, is celebrated, who when asked "why he so often deprived himself of pleasures," answered: "I deprive myself in order to cut off the cause and occasion of anger. For I know that it always wages war from pleasures, and disturbs my mind, and puts to flight knowledge itself." And that of Mark the Hermit, in the tract On the Spiritual Law: "A heart loving pleasure is a prison and chain for the soul at the time of its departure (death); but the same, devoted to labor, is an open door." 17 and 18. AND HE LEFT THE GUIDE OF HER YOUTH, AND FORGOT THE COVENANT (the Syriac: testament or promise) OF HER GOD. — For guide the Hebrew is אלוף alluph, which Theodotion, Pagninus and others with our Vulgate properly translate ἡγούμενον, that is, a guide, a ruler, that is, as the Syriac, her nourisher; the Zurich Bible, the husband of her puberty, that is of her youth, or adolescence, as the Hebrew has it: for then she began to be of age and fit for marriage; the Chaldee, she who left the leadership; the Septuagint however, looking to the root אלף alaph, that is, he learned, translate διδασκαλίαν, that is, doctrine, and Symmachus μάθησιν, that is, discipline; others, habituation or guidance (for this is what aloph properly signifies), by which namely the girl, previously accustomed to the discipline of her father or husband, allowed herself to be ruled by it. Thus all these versions come down to the same thing. The sense is, as if to say, Wisdom will make you escape both from a wicked man and from an adulteress woman, who has left her husband, to whom in her youth, when she began to reach puberty, she betrothed herself, and whom she received as it were as the guide and governor of her youth. In this sense it is clear that the discourse is about an adulteress. Thus Bede, Baynus, Jansenius and others. Yet there could be a sense concerning a fornicatress: for she too leaves the guide of her puberty, that is her father or guardian, who is the protector of her adolescence and virginity. For in adolescence maidens, when they reach puberty, suffer the greatest temptations, equally as snares against chastity: hence then they especially need the protection of parents and guardians. But that it is rather about an adulteress is evident from the fact that he adds: "And she hath forgotten the covenant of her God," as if to say, She has forgotten the sacrament and the marriage contract instituted by God, she has violated the covenants and rights of matrimony sanctioned by God, Genesis ii, 24. Aben-Ezra adds something subtle: The most holy name of God, he says, God placed between man and wife: if you remove it, nothing else will remain except fire and burning. For in Hebrew איש isch is man, אשה isscha is woman: remove from them יה ia, which is the name of God, nothing remains except אש וש es vaes, that is fire and fire. Let the wife therefore equally with the husband abhor adultery. They will abhor it, if they perceive its baseness, how many and how great evils it contains in itself. For first, the adulterous spouse deceives the conjugal faith, which is supreme, given to the other spouse. Second, she violates matrimony, which nature willed to be one with one, and God himself, the author of nature, Genesis ii, 24. Third, she violates a Sacrament: for now in the new law matrimony has been made through Christ a great Sacrament, and therefore is to be held sacred, Ephesians v, 32. Fourth, she does injury to offspring, both to that born from the marriage, inasmuch as she unjustly ascribes to it adulterous brothers and heirs; and to that to be born from adultery, inasmuch as she makes it spurious, adulterous and incapable of inheritance. Fifth, she does injury to the commonwealth which she harms by her scandal and injustice. Wherefore this injury redounds to God. Hence the Septuagint translates it, "forgotten the covenant of God." For this reason God is accustomed to be a severe avenger and punisher of adultery, as is evident from histories both sacred and profane. Further, the guide of puberty notes three causes on account of which a girl needs a guide and protector. The first is, that puberty is an age intermediate between infancy and youth: in infancy there is a lack of reason and judgment, and therefore security from sin: in youth there is maturity of both: in puberty and adolescence there is the beginning of both. Wherefore if then a girl is rightly directed and instructed, she will become wise and holy; but if she is left to herself and to those lying in wait for her, she will become unchaste and a harlot: therefore then she needs a guide and protector, either a parent, or a guardian, or a spouse. The second is, that this puberty is in the female sex, that is soft, weak and slippery, and on account of inexperience and imprudence incautious and pliant, which therefore will easily be seduced by men, unless guarded by a guide. The third is, that puberty brings with it maturity of generation and the stimuli of the flesh, and incentives of lust, which girls hitherto inexperienced in them do not know how to resist. Hence lest they follow them, they need a guide, monitor and protector. Wherefore in Ecclesiasticus cap. xlii, vers. 9: "A daughter," he says, "is a secret anxiety to her father, and the care of her banishes sleep, lest perhaps in her youth she become an adulteress." See the words there. Therefore it increases the girl's crime, injury and foolishness, that leaving the guide of her adolescence, whom she has found so faithful, prudent, cautious and loving, she follows an adulterer, unfaithful, imprudent, incautious, an enemy. Hence Tropologically: A soul betrothed to God in baptism or justification, enticed by concupiscences, while consenting to them, leaves God her spouse and the guide of her puberty, by whose love and fear she had been nourished, when through heresy, or even any other sin whatever, forgetting the covenant made with God, she breaks the faith given to God in baptism, and conceives a new opinion, love and offspring of illicit pleasure. Hence God, complaining of this injury and contempt of himself, and recalling the wandering soul to himself, Jeremiah iii, 4: "Thou," he says, "hast committed fornication with many lovers: yet return to me," etc. "Therefore at least henceforth call me: Thou art my Father, the guide of my virginity," as I have explained in that place. 18. HER HOUSE IS INCLINED TOWARD DEATH, AND HER PATHS TOWARD HELL. — The Septuagint, she has placed (Symmachus, finished, that is terminated) indeed her house near death, and beside hell with the earthborn her wanderings; Aquila, her turnings; Symmachus, her circuits, concerning which I have spoken verse 14; the Chaldean, because in the pit of death is her house, and toward the giants the paths of her paths; the Syrian, she has forgotten the threshold of her house, and the paths of her paths. To this St. Ambrose looked, book I On Cain, chapter v, saying: "The ways of hell are her house, leading into the seclusion of death," that is to say, The house of the adulteress or harlot is as it were a certain valley inclined, leading and leaning toward the abyss of death and hell that is near to it. For inclined is, in Hebrew שחה schacha, that is, it is bowed; and there is a beautiful paronomasia between שכחה schachecha, that is, she has forgotten, and schacha, that is, it is bowed, that is to say, Forgetfulness, that is, her sin and adultery, having first made her erect, bowed her, curved her and depressed her even unto death, indeed even unto hell. For hell in Hebrew is רפאים rephaim, that is, giants: thus are demons and the damned called in hell, both on account of gigantic pride, and because they are plunged into the abyss of hell, just as giants were plunged into the abyss of the flood, Genesis chapter vi, 2 and 7. He rightly compares the houses and brothels of harlots to the houses of giants, because both were depressed and as it were subterranean pits. Whence that passage of Virgil, book III of the Aeneid: For such and so great as Polyphemus in his hollow cave. And earlier, he says that the giant Enceladus dwells beneath Aetna, and shakes it: The report is that the half-burned body of Enceladus is pressed by this mass, and the mighty Aetna placed over it breathes forth flame from broken furnaces; and whenever the weary one shifts his side, all of Sicily trembles with the murmur, and the sky is covered with smoke. More coldly Rabbi Solomon Isacides interprets rephaim as נרפים nirpim, that is, the weakened and infirm, who assuredly wander from the right path and waver, and finally miserably fall into hell. And Aben-Ezra: Rephaim, he says, signifies the dead as it were nirpim, that is, the weakened; because their strength is enervated by women, according to that: "Man shall be stripped and weakened." Therefore Solomon here alludes to brothels, which were made in caves, subterranean places and vaults; whence also fornicating is said, that is to say, The house, namely the vault of the harlot, depressed and subterranean, inclines and tends toward tombs and hell, so that by this very situation it may testify that she and her lovers tend toward death and hell. Again these viler harlots used to dwell outside cities in tombs and monuments; whence Jeremiah ii, 23, the Septuagint says of the harlot: "See thy ways in the tombs of the multitude." Hence also that passage of Martial book I: Tombs hide the foul harlots. Hence also Venus was surnamed Libitina, because she presided over the biers and tombs of the dead, in whose temple therefore were sold and placed those things which pertain to burial, as Plutarch testifies in the Problems. "From libation Libitina is said," says Varro: thus Giraldus in the Syntagm. Finally St. Chrysostom, homily on Psalm l: "What is," he says, "a beautiful woman? She is a whitewashed sepulchre." The sense therefore is, that is to say, The dwellings of harlots are in vaults and dark, deep, foul, fetid monuments, so that by this very thing they may represent death and hell, toward which they themselves with their lovers go straight and proceed. For on account of lusts many have incurred present death, and so most nations punish adultery with death, as I have shown Genesis xxxviii, 24. Again, how many murders are committed on account of mistresses and adulteresses? Moreover all incur the guilt of eternal death and hell, and so grave men think that by far the greater part of mankind are damned on account of lusts. Hell therefore is the house and torture-rack of the lustful. This is what Job says concerning adultery and lust, chapter xxxi, verse 12: "It is a fire devouring even to destruction, and rooting up all that is generated." Where St. Gregory: "What," he says, "is lust, if not fire? And what are the virtues sprung from flesh and mind, if not flowers? What also are foul thoughts, if not chaff? Who also does not know, that if fire is carelessly extinguished in chaff, from a small spark all the chaff is kindled? Whoever therefore does not wish to burn up the increase of virtues, so ought he to extinguish the fire of lust, that through a thin spark it can never burn." Because therefore lust is fire, for this reason it is punished by the fire of hell, and leads to it. Wherefore St. Chrysostom, homily 21, from various passages in St. Matthew, paints the wicked woman with these colors and epithets: "What is a woman, he says, but an enemy of friendship, and an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delightful loss, evil nature painted with the decoration of good?" Finally, one might suspect that there is an allusion here to Geben Ennom (whence gehenna is named), that is, to the valley of the son of Ennom, in which parents burned their sons alive to the idol Moloch. For it is likely that in the same valley there were brothels and dens of harlots: for the Gentiles worshipped their gods, that is, demons, not only with sacrifices, but also with feasting and lusts, especially Beelphegor, or Priapus, whom Cajetan thinks to be the same as Moloch. These things are evident from Osee chapter 4, verse 14, and the third book of Kings chapter 15, verses 12 and 13. Just as therefore in this valley of Ennom the houses of harlots were inclined and depressed, and thus were in gehenna itself with Moloch: so likewise they were inclined toward the gehenna of Lucifer: for from that one the way was directed to this one, and a certain passage after death. Whence St. Augustine calls lust the rival of eternal fire. 19. ALL THAT GO IN TO HER SHALL NOT RETURN, NEITHER SHALL THEY TAKE HOLD OF THE PATHS OF LIFE. — The Septuagint explain these paths in two ways; for thus they have: All going into her shall not return, nor shall they take hold of the straight paths; for they are not taken hold of by the years of life; the Chaldean, all who enter into her shall not return in peace, nor shall they take (the Syriac, nor shall they remember) the paths of life. Vatable, whosoever enter into her do not return, nor do they take hold of the ways of life. Some refer "to her" to death, as if to say: Beware of the strange woman, because she will lead you to death; which if you once incur, you will never return to life. Others more forcefully refer it to the woman, as if to say: Beware of the strange woman, do not go in to her, that is, do not have dealings with her, because if you have gone in to her, you will incur death, and you will fall into the abyss of lust and gehenna, from which you cannot return and emerge, just as from death and hell there is no return to life. This is true, both because by itself and by the powers of nature no one can rise from mortal sin, such as adultery and fornication, to the life of grace; and because whoever is once entangled in the loves of adulterers and harlots, becomes so intricately bound with them, that he can scarcely extricate himself from them, even if he has the common measures of grace, which God is accustomed to bestow upon sinners for rising again. Not to return, therefore, is rarely and with difficulty to abandon the burning and insane allurements of seductive women, which blind the hearts of fornicators, and bind them to women as if with birdlime, so that they do not repent except by great and rare grace. Thus mystically, from true and formed heresy, few return to the orthodox faith. There are many causes: The first is the weakness of fallen nature contracted from the sin of Adam: for this is great in the concupiscible appetite. For in it there is great proneness to sensible and carnal things, to which if you indulge and serve, you make it your mistress, and yourself its slave, so that you delight to wallow in it continually. Wherefore just as a magnet draws iron to itself, so carnal desire draws its Agnes to itself, as St. Basil teaches, On Virginity. The second, that cupidity is insatiable, and hence the insatiability of sins, as Cajetan says. The third, that harlots know a thousand arts of flattering and binding lovers to themselves, so that they may drain their wealth. The fourth, that the devil refreshes in the fallen the image of past pleasure, and continually impels him to capture it again: for through sin the devil acquires right and dominion over sinners: whence he so harasses them, that they seem to be demoniacs and possessed by a demon. Wherefore St. Chrysostom calls lust "a voluntary demon;" and homily 23 to the People, he says: It is as difficult for the lustful to return to chastity as to restore the dead to life. The fifth, that lust drives man mad, and makes him animal and brutal. This is seen in harlots, who are sometimes moved to compunction and repentance by preachers and the instinct of God, but immediately upon seeing their lover, they relapse into their former loves, and as if they lacked brain and mind, they rush into wicked embraces. This is what Osee says, chapter iv, verse 11: "Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the heart." And chapter v, verse 4: "They will not set their thoughts to return to their God: because the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them." See the words in both places. Wherefore Clement of Alexandria, book II of the Paedagogus, final chapter: "The sophist of Abdera," he says, "called love a small epilepsy, thinking it an incurable disease." Thus also Alexander the Great compared the use of Venus to the falling sickness, and from this he asserted that he could clearly perceive himself to be a man, not some god. Clement adds: "The pleasure of the flesh is paid for in three ways:" because it deprives the carnal man of life in a threefold manner through threefold death, namely the life of grace through sin, the life of nature through swift death, the life of glory through the death of eternal hell. And this is what the Septuagint translators meant, they shall not be comprehended in the years of life. The wise man therefore, solicited by some Thais demanding a great price for the use of Venus, should say with Demosthenes: "I do not buy such repentance at that price." I do not trade so brief and foul a pleasure, at so great a cost of three lives and eternity. The Chaldean translator renders it, they shall not return in peace, that is to peace and prosperity: because namely they will be entangled in a thousand anguishes of conscience, diseases, troubles, cares, anxieties, etc., so that they live restless, sad, miserable, poor, wretched. A notable example is in St. Augustine, who narrates at length how hardly and by violent motion of grace he freed himself from the loves of his concubine, in book VIII of the Confessions, chapter vii and following. And in Solomon, who clung to his wives even in old age unto death, whence on this account his eternal salvation becomes very doubtful.
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20. THAT THOU MAYEST WALK IN A GOOD WAY (Heb. and Chald., in the way of the good), AND KEEP THE PATHS OF THE JUST. — This sentence depends on verse 11: "Prudence shall keep thee, that thou mayest be delivered from the evil way," etc., and "that thou mayest walk in a good way." For he assigns two fruits and offices of wisdom and prudence, namely to decline from evil, and to do good: for it is not sufficient for justice and salvation not to do evil, but it is required that one also persevere in good works. The paths signifies that the life of the just is narrow, difficult and lofty. For "a path is the narrow and beaten way of beasts among mountains, called from the path of beasts, as if hardened by the path of beasts," says St. Isidore, lib. XV Origin. cap. ult. Moreover the Septuagint translates thus, for if they had walked in good paths (Cassian, straight), they would surely have found the paths of justice easy; for a path of virtue becomes easy by walking in it, and by practice and use. Thus also St. Jerome reads, or rather St. Paulinus, epistle to Celantia: "The excessive habit of vices, he says, has made the way of virtues harsh and unpleasant to us; which if it be transferred to the other side, will be found, as Scripture says, the path of justice easy." Thus also Cassian reads, Coll. xxiv, cap. xxiv, where he teaches that the law of God and of virtue is in itself easy, but is made difficult by our concupiscence and vice: "It is manifest, he says, that we are those who make the straight and easy paths of the Lord rough by the harsh and hard rocks of desires, etc., while blinded by the allurements of present pleasures, we crawl through the dark and obstructed paths of vices with lacerated legs and that torn nuptial garment, not only to be pierced by the sharpest thorns, but also to be struck down by the bites of venomous serpents or scorpions lurking there." So also St. Augustine, lib. De Natura et Grat., cap. lxix, where he teaches that to those who love the law of wisdom and charity it is easy, but to those who fear it, difficult. "All things indeed, he says, become easy to charity, to which the burden of Christ is light: or that one thing itself is the burden which is light." And below: "According to this also that saying was made: If they had walked in good paths, they would surely have found the paths of justice easy." He then objects: "How then is it said, Psalm xvi: 'For the sake of the words of thy lips I have kept hard ways,' unless because both are true? They are hard to fear, easy to love: therefore charity begun is justice begun: charity advanced is justice advanced: charity great is justice great: charity perfect is justice perfect." Again, the way of justice is easy, because it is unobstructed and free from the love of temporal things, by the desire and burden of which the wicked are weighed down. Third, it is easy, because it is borne aloft and carried by the wings of God's grace. Whence Christ, Matt. cap. xi, verse 28: "Come, he says, to me all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light." 21 and 22. FOR THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL DWELL IN THE LAND, AND THE SIMPLE SHALL REMAIN IN IT. BUT THE WICKED SHALL BE DESTROYED OUT OF THE EARTH: AND THEY THAT DO UNJUSTLY SHALL BE TAKEN AWAY OUT OF IT. — For shall dwell, Symmachus translates, shall inherit; Arabic, and the way of the wicked shall perish from the earth, and those who transgress the law shall be cast out of it. For simple, in Hebrew it is תמימים temimim, that is perfect; the Septuagint, holy; Pagninus, immaculate; Vatablus, whole. For shall be destroyed, in Hebrew it is יכרתו iicaretu, that is shall be cut off. For shall be taken away, in Hebrew it is יסחו iissechu, that is shall be overturned, eradicated; the Chaldean, plunderers shall be uprooted from it; Vatablus, shall be utterly torn up; the Syrian, shall be extracted root and branch. By land understand earthly wealth and happiness, namely a long, peaceful, prosperous and wealthy life on earth: for this was promised to the Jews in that age by God, if they cultivated piety, Deuteronomy xi. Anagogically and especially under the present earth is understood the land of the living, promised and prepared by God for the holy and elect in heaven: for thus, as I said recently, these promises of earthly happiness are to be taken literally, insofar as they were made to the Jews; but under these spiritual things were shadowed forth, insofar as they are directed to Christians. Thus St. Augustine, book IV of the City of God, chapter 33: "This," he says, "is the sacrament of the Old Testament, where the new was hidden, in which there the promised and earthly gifts are to be understood, etc., and what in those temporal things would signify eternity, and in which gifts of God there would be true happiness." For temporal goods, as the same author says in Psalm 105, "therefore will confer true happiness on no one, because they do not extinguish insatiable desire. For he who drinks," he says, "of this water, shall thirst again," John chapter 4. Whence Bede and Hugh understand by land the Church both militant and blessed and triumphant. Moreover the author of the new Catena of the Greeks takes by land the aether, in which as in a land after death the meek and holy dwell, so that from there on the day of judgment they may be transferred into heaven to see God: "In that," he says, "the meek as in tabernacles spend their time, to be assumed into heaven itself at some point, so that they may appear before the face of God." It seems therefore that this author holds that the souls of the just after death rest in the aether, and do not see God before the day of judgment, when they would be transferred into heaven. But this is an error approaching the error of the Chiliasts, who held that the saints would reign in this world with Christ for a thousand years, and then be transferred into heaven, concerning which I spoke at Apocalypse 20:4. Worse is Aben-Ezra: "The pious," he says, "will obtain the inheritance of the land in the future age." For this is the faith and hope of those who judaize, who under their Messiah expect nothing but earthly goods, ignorant of heavenly things. Note on "shall inherit" from Symmachus: for it signifies the land both present and future in the heavens, to be owed to the just and holy alone by a right as it were hereditary, as being sons of God, whose is the earth and the fullness thereof. Whence that saying: "To the faithful the whole world is wealth." The impious therefore, while they occupy the land by a right not their own, if not unjustly, certainly wickedly occupy it: for they invade the inheritance of God and of the sons of God, whose enemies and foes they themselves are: wherefore as it were wicked possessors they are not only removed from it, but utterly rooted out and eradicated, so that no offspring, fame or memory of theirs survives. God did this commonly among the Jews; among Christians however he permits the impious for a time to enjoy the land, but in the end he utterly scrapes them from it, and hurls them down into hell. Again, "shall be scraped away and rooted out" signifies the impious unwillingly, and with great pain and torment being removed and torn from the land, as those wholly fixed with their whole heart to it, and having no hope of heavenly things; whereas to the contrary the land is exile to the holy, heaven is their homeland, and therefore they desire to migrate from the land into heaven. He alludes to Job chapter 18, verse 17: "Let his memory perish from the earth, etc. He shall drive him from light into darkness, and shall remove him out of the world. His seed shall not remain, nor his offspring among his people, nor any remnant in his regions." What I said concerning the unjust or wicked possession of the land by the impious, understand ethically and morally, not juridically and civilly. For juridically the impious possess their own things equally and justly. Wherefore deservedly in the Council of Constance, session 8, among other errors of John Wyclif this one is condemned in order 45: "No one is a civil lord while he is in mortal sin." For God grants this right and dominion to the impious, although they do not deserve it. Whence it is ethically true that saying: "Riches and wealth are the patrimony of virtue," because virtue deserves this and often in fact acquires it, so that it may rightly administer and distribute it. The reason a priori is, that the foundation of dominion and jurisdiction is not divine grace, which is taken away through mortal sin, but the law of nature and nations, and the consent of men respecting the political good of the commonwealth, which often attributes dominion, indeed even principality, to wicked men, even to infidels. For if the impious were incapable of it, great confusion and disturbance of the commonwealth would follow through wars and seditions. See among others Gregory of Valencia, chapter 2, verse 2, treatise On Justice, disputation 5, Question 4, point 2.
Machine translation from the Latin, not reviewed.
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ASSIDEANS. - "Pious" men of Judaism in the Maccabean and Hasmonean era. The Hebrew ḥāsidhim "pious" (in the Septuagint 'Aou82[6]os) occurs often in the Old Testament (Ps. 4, 4; 11, 2 etc.; Prov. 2, 8; Mic. 7, 2, etc.); in the 2nd century B.C. it designates the adherents of a strong group made up of the best of the Jewish people, devoted to the strictest observance of the Mosaic …
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… replete terram" (ibid., 1:28; cf. Tob. 8:9) and toward the secondary end of mutual help: "Dixitque quoque Dominus Deus: non est bonum hominem esse solum, faciamus ei adiutorium simile sibi" (Gen. 2:18); d) it carries from its origins something sacred (cf. Prov. 2:17; Tob. 8:9; P. Heinisch, Teologia del Vecchio Testamento, Italian trans., Rome 1950, p. 217), which all peoples recognized in the religious ceremonies with which they surrounded marriage.
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the inhabitants of šē'ōl (Isa. 14:9; 26:14, 19; Ps. 88:11; Prov. 2:18; Job 26:5). Their name evokes the idea of weakness, of lack of consistency, contained in the root rāphāh (Septuagint: laxpoî, Vulg. medici, from the root rāphā' [Ps. 87:11]; Isa. 26:14).
This concept was already hinted at in the biblical texts that oppose the f. to life for sinners (Prov. 2:18;
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… Thus frequently in Sacred Scripture (Job 1:1; Prov. 2:21-22, etc.). …
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.