1Boast not for to morrow, for thou knowest not what the day to come may bring forth.Non ti vantare di cosa, che abbia da essere, mentre non sai quel, che possa produrre il dì vegnente.BOast not for to morow, being ignorant what the day to come may bring forth.Ne glorieris in crastinum, / ignorans quid superventura pariat dies. 2Let another praise thee, and not thy own mouth: a stranger, and not thy own lips.La bocca altrui, e non la tua dia lode a te; l'estraneo, e non le tue proprie labbra.Let an other prayse thee, and not thine owne mouth: a stranger and not thine owne lippes.Laudet te alienus, et non os tuum; / extraneus, et non labia tua. 3A stone is heavy, and sand weighty: but the anger of a fool is heavier than them both.Grave è il sasso, e pesante l'arena; ma l'ira dello stolto pesa più dell'uno, e dell'altra.A stone is heauie, and sand weightie: but the anger of a foole is heauier then both.Grave est saxum, et onerosa arena, / sed ira stulti utroque gravior. 4Anger hath no mercy: nor fury, when it breaketh forth: and who can bear the violence of one provoked?L'ira, e il furore, che scoppia, non lascian luogo alla misericordia; ma all'impeto dell'invidioso chi potrà reggere?Anger hath no mercie, nor furie breaking forth: and the violence of a moued spirit who can susteyne?Ira non habet misericordiam nec erumpens furor, / et impetum concitati ferre quis poterit ? 5Open rebuke is better than hidden love.E migliore un'aperta riprensione, che un amore che si nasconde.Better is manifest correption, then loue hidden.Melior est manifesta correptio / quam amor absconditus. 6Better are the wounds of a friend, than the deceitful kisses of an enemy.Sono migliori le ferite, che vengono da chi ama, che i falsi baci di chi odia.Better are the woundes of him that loueth, then the fraudulent kisses of him that hateth.Meliora sunt vulnera diligentis / quam fraudulenta oscula odientis. 7A soul that is full shall tread upon the honeycomb: and a soul that is hungry shall take even bitter for sweet.L'anima satolla calpesta il favo di miele; ma l'anima affamata prende per dolce anche l'amaro.A soule that is ful shal treade vpon the honiecombe: and a soule that is hungrie shal take bitter also for sweete.Anima saturata calcabit favum, / et anima esuriens etiam amarum pro dulci sumet. 8As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that leaveth his place.L'uomo che abbandona il suo posto, è come l'uccello, che scappa dal suo nido:As a bird fleeting from her nest, so a man that forsaketh his place.Sicut avis transmigrans de nido suo, / sic vir qui derelinquit locum suum. 9Ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart: and the good counsels of a friend are sweet to the soul.L'unguento, e la varietà degli odori, rallegra il cuore, e i buoni consigli dell'amico danno conforto all'anima.The hart is delighted with oyntement and diuers odours: and with the good counsels of a frend the soule is sweetned.Unguento et variis odoribus delectatur cor, / et bonis amici consiliis anima dulcoratur.
10Thy own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not: and go not into thy brother’s house in the day of thy affliction. Better is a neighbour that is near than a brother afar off.Non abbandonare l'amico tuo, e l'amico del padre tuo: e non andare a casa del tuo fratello nel giorno di tua afflizione. Giova più un vicino, che ti sta presso, che un fratello assente.Thy frend, and thy fathers frend do not leaue: and goe not into thy brothers house in the day of thyne affliction. Better is a neighbour neere thene a brother far of.Amicum tuum et amicum patris tui ne dimiseris, / et domum fratris tui ne ingrediaris in die afflictionis tuæ. / Melior est vicinus juxta / quam frater procul. 11Study wisdom, my son, and make my heart joyful, that thou mayst give an answer to him that reproacheth.Applicati alla sapienza, figliuol mio, e consola il mio cuore: affinchè tu possa rispondere a chi ti screditasse.Studie wisedom my sonne, & make my hart ioyful, that thou maist make answer to the vpbrayder.Stude sapientiæ, fili mi, et lætifica cor meum, / ut possis exprobranti respondere sermonem. 12The prudent man seeing evil hideth himself: little ones passing on have suffered losses.L'uom prudente alla vista del male, va a nascondersi: gli imprudenti passano avanti, e ne soffrono il danno.The subtel man seeing euil, hideth himself: litle ones passing through haue susteyned euil detriments.Astutus videns malum, absconditus est: / parvuli transeuntes sustinuerunt dispendia. 13Take away his garment that hath been surety for a stranger: and take from him a pledge for strangers.Prendi la veste di colui, che è entrato mallevadore per uno straniero, e levagli il pegno in grazia dei forestieri.Take his garment, that hath bene suretie for a stranger: and for alienes take from him a pledge.Tolle vestimentum ejus qui spopondit pro extraneo, / et pro alienis aufer ei pignus. 14He that blesseth his neighbour with a loud voice, rising in the night, shall be like to him that curseth.Colui che prima del giorno va a benedire ad alta voce il suo prossimo, sarà simile a chi lo maledice.He that blesseth his neighbour with a loud voice, rising in the night, he shal be like him that curseth.Qui benedicit proximo suo voce grandi, / de nocte consurgens maledicenti similis erit. 15Roofs dropping through in a cold day, and a contentious woman are alike.Il tetto, che per cui passa l'acqua nella fredda stagione, e la donna, che piatisce, sono due cose somiglianti.Dropping through in the day of cold, and a brawling woman are compared together:Tecta perstillantia in die frigoris / et litigiosa mulier comparantur. 16He that retaineth her, is as he that would hold the wind, and shall call the oil of his right hand.Chi vuoi ritenerla è come chi vuoi tenere il vento, e strigner l'olio nella sua destra.He that reteyneth her, as he that should hold the winde, and shal cal in the oyle of his right hand.Qui retinet eam quasi qui ventum teneat, / et oleum dexteræ suæ vocabit.
17Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.Il ferro assottiglia il ferro, e l'uomo assottiglia l'ingegno del suo amico.Iron is sharpened with iron, and a man sharpeneth the face of his frend.Ferrum ferro exacuitur, / et homo exacuit faciem amici sui. 18He that keepeth the fig tree, shall eat the fruit thereof: and he that is the keeper of his master, shall be glorified.Chi custodirà la sua ficaia ne mangerà il frutto, e chi custodisce il suo padrone sarà onorato.He that kepeth the feegtree, shal eate the frute therof: and he that is the keper of his master, shal be glorified.Qui servat ficum comedet fructus ejus, / et qui custos est domini sui glorificabitur. 19As the faces of them that look therein, shine in the water, so the hearts of men are laid open to the wise.Come nelle acque risplendono le facce di quelli, che vi si mirano, così i cuori degli uomini sono manifesti ai sapienti.As in waters the countenance of them that looke therin shyneth, so the hartes of men ate manifest to the prudent.Quomodo in aquis resplendent vultus prospicientium, / sic corda hominum manifesta sunt prudentibus. 20Hell and destruction are never filled: so the eyes of men are never satisfied.L'inferno, e la morte mai dicono, basta; così gli occhi degli uomini sono insaziabili.Hel and perdition are neuer filled: in like maner also the eies of men are vnsatiable.Infernus et perditio numquam implentur: / similiter et oculi hominum insatiabiles. 21As silver is tried in the fining-pot, and gold in the furnace: so a man is tried by the mouth of him that praiseth. The heart of the wicked seeketh after evils, but the righteous heart seeketh after knowledge.Come nella fornace ai prova l'agento, e l'oro nel grogiuolo; così è provato l'uomo per le parole di chi lo lauda. Il cuore dell'iniquo agogna al male: il cuore diritto va cercando prudenza.As siluer is tried in the forge, and gold in the fornace: so a man is proued by the mouth of him that praiseth. The hart of the wicked seeketh after euils, but the righteous hart seeketh after knowlege.Quomodo probatur in conflatorio argentum et in fornace aurum, / sic probatur homo ore laudantis. / Cor iniqui inquirit mala, / cor autem rectum inquirit scientiam. 22Though thou shouldst bray a fool in the mortar, as when a pestle striketh upon sodden barley, his folly would not be taken from him.Quando ben tu pestassi lo stolto nel mortaio, come si fa dell'orzo, battendolo col pestello, non gli leveresti la sua stoltezza.If thou shalt bray a foole in a morter, as when a pestle striketh vpon prisane, his follie shal not be taken from him.Si contuderis stultum in pila / quasi ptisanas feriente desuper pilo, / non auferetur ab eo stultitia ejus.
23Be diligent to know the countenance of thy cattle, and consider thy own flocks:Abbi esatta conoscenza delle tue pecorelle, e bada attentamente al tuo gregge:Know diligently the countenance of thy cattel, and consider thy flockes:Diligenter agnosce vultum pecoris tui, / tuosque greges considera: 24For thou shalt not always have power: but a crown shall be given to generation and generation.Perocché tu non potrai sempre farlo: ma ti sarà data una corona perpetua.For thou shalt not haue power always: but a crowne shal be geuen into generation and generation.non enim habebis jugiter potestatem, / sed corona tribuetur in generationem et generationem. 25The meadows are open, and the green herbs have appeared, and the hay is gathered out of the mountains.I prati sono aperti, e spuntano le verdi erbe, e il fieno de' monti è raccolto.The medowes are open, and the grene herbes haue appeared, and the grasse is gathered out of the mountaines.Aperta sunt prata, et apparuerunt herbæ virentes, / et collecta sunt fœna de montibus. 26Lambs are for thy clothing: and kids for the price of the field.Gli agnelli ti vestiranno, e i capretti pagheranno il campo.Lambes for thy garment: and kiddes the price of the filde.Agni ad vestimentum tuum, / et hædi ad agri pretium. 27Let the milk of the goats be enough for thy food, and for the necessities of thy house, and for maintenance for thy handmaids.Contentati del latte di capra per tuo cibo, per sostentamento di tua famiglia, e per vitto delle tue serve.Let the milke of the goates suffice thee for thy meates, and for the necessities of thy house: and for victual to thy handmaides.Sufficiat tibi lac caprarum in cibos tuos, / et in necessaria domus tuæ, et ad victum ancillis tuis.
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Lips. All hate affectation and vanity, John 5:51.
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Both. He is insupportable to himself and to others, Ecclesiasticus 22:17.
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And who. Septuagint, "but envy (zeal) beareth nothing." The more we yield to the envious, the more he is offended at our good behaviour.
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Love. Which can be of no service to us, while reproof may cause us to amend.
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Haydock
And. Septuagint add, "wine and incense....but accidents tear the soul." (Haydock)
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Affliction. He will be less compassionate than a tried friend.
Pliny
Better, etc. This daily experience evinces. "Those who purchase land, should consider if there be plenty of water, and a neighbour." (Pliny, [Natural History?] 18:5.)
The Persians honour most those who live nearest to them. (Herodotus 1:134.)
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Thou. Hebrew, Complutensian, and Sixtus V, "I may," etc. Septuagint, "and cast reproaches from thee."
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In the night. Or "early in the morning," de nocte, as the Hebrew implies.
Haydock
Curseth. His importunity will be equally displeasing. (Haydock)
Cicero
Flattery is dangerous, (Calmet) and unworthy of a free man. (Cicero, de Amic.)
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Calmet
Hand. As it will flow away, such a woman is commonly incorrigible. (Calmet)
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Horace
Sharpeneth. Or instructeth. Fungar vice cotis. (Horace, Art.)
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Glorified. He who serves his master well shall be promoted.
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Calmet
Are. Hebrew, "to men." Our hearts have all something similar. (Calmet)
Haydock
Septuagint, "as faces are not like each other, so neither are the hearts of men." They have all some peculiarity. (Haydock)
But this agrees not with the original.
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Destruction. Hebrew abaddo, or abadon, Proverbs 15:11., and Apocalypse 9:11. People die, and are plunged in hell daily.
Eyes. Avarice and ambition, Ecclesiasticus 14:9.
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Praiseth. If he be not puffed up, or if all agree in his praises, we may conclude that they are well founded.
The, etc., is not in Hebrew, Comp.[Complutensian?], St. Jerome, or Chaldean, and destroys the connection.
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Calmet
Mortar. Such were used by those who could not afford handmills. (Calmet)
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Flocks. John 10:3., and Ecclesiasticus 7:24. This may be applied to pastors.
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Generation. Thou wilt be cited as an example of prudence, if thou hast forseen the change of thy affairs, and provided for it. In the east it was not unusual to see a general of an army reduced to the meanest condition, and economy is necessary for all.
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Field. If thou wishest to purchase, or to pay the workmen.
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Haydock
Milk. We cannot but admire such frugality. Septuagint are rather different; (Calmet) ver. 25., "Be careful of the grass in thy field....that thou mayst have lambs for thy clothing. Honour the field, that there may be lambs for thee. (27) Son, thou hast from me solid instructions for thy life, and for that of thy servants." (Haydock)
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Trust not to future vncertainties.
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Praise not thyself.
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Beware of a fooles wrath:
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for it hath no mercie.
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Loue freindlie seueritie not enemies flaterie. Temperance in meate. Iust care of thy familie.
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Esteme freindlie counsel.
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Old friendes are better, & surer then a kinsman. Be wise euen for thy fathers sake. Foresee and preuent dangers. Trust not enimies. Suspect extraordinarie curtesie. Tolerate incorrigible brawlers with patience; lest they become worse, by thy striuing to amend them. Conserue that is good. Conscience is best witnes. Contentment with our state. Humilitie desireth not praise.
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Right of hart.
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Strine not to teach a foole. Discharge thy dutie: VVhiles thou art in this life. Be content with thinges necessarie, and they shal be geuen to thee. Mat. 6. v. 33.
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St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 16.3
… For “a good understanding,” he saith, “have all they that do thereafter,” not they who proclaim it. Time is the best touchstone of this wisdom, and “the hoary head is a crown of glory.” For if, as it seems to me as well as to Solomon, we must “judge none blessed before his death,” and it is uncertain “what a day may bring forth,”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch 20.22
22. Let us not then be procrastinating till to-morrow. For we “know not what the next day may bring forth;”
Theodoret of Cyrus † AD 458 Letters of the Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyprus 29
I have seen many who have come thence, and I have felt afraid, for I know not, as the Scripture says, “what the morrow will bring forth.”
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Pope St Clement I † AD 99 The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians 38
… Let the rich man provide for the wants of the poor; and let the poor man bless God, because He hath given him one by whom his need may be supplied. Let the wise man display his wisdom, not by [mere] words, but through good deeds. Let the humble not bear testimony to himself, but leave witness to be borne to him by another.
St Gregory of Nyssa † AD 395 Against Eunomius 1-2.12
… and if we did anything in those struggles for our religion that redounds to our honour in the telling, Wisdom commands us to leave it to others to tell. “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Marriage and Concupiscence a-letter-addressed-to-the-coun.1
… Now his information respecting you was all the more pleasant to us, inasmuch as he gave me to understand, what it was out of your power to do, that you would not, even at my earnest request for an answer, become the extoller of your own praises, contrary to the permission of Holy Scripture.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 36.3
… “Ye,” then, “judge after the flesh.” Because I bear witness of myself, I therefore appear to you arrogant. For every man, when he wishes to bear commendatory witness of himself, seems arrogant and proud. Hence it is written, “Let not thy own mouth praise thee, but let thy neighbor’s” mouth praise thee.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 58.3
3. “Ye call me,” He says, “Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.” “Ye say well,” for ye only say the truth; I am indeed what ye say. There is a precept laid on man: “Let not thine own mouth praise thee, but the mouth of thy neighbor.”
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St Jerome † AD 420 Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus 3.43
… He who layeth wait for his friends when he is discovered saith, I did it in sport. A faggot for the coals, and wood for the fire, and a man of evil words for the tumult of strife. If thine enemy ask thee aught, sparingly but with a loud voice, consent thou not to him, for there are seven degrees of wickedness in his heart.
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John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 18.16
… “If a serpent bite without hissing, there is no supply for the charmer.” For those are silent bites, to which alone the medicine of the wise is no succour. For that evil is so far incurable that it is made worse by attentions, it is increased by services, is irritated by presents, because as the same Solomon says: “envy endures nothing.”
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St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Duties of the Clergy 1.34
173. Good-will also is wont to remove the sword of anger. It is also good-will that makes the wounds of a friend to be better than the willing kisses of an enemy.
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Duties of the Clergy 2.10
50. We entrust our case to the most prudent man we can find, and ask advice from him more readily than we do from others. However, the faithful counsel of a just man stands first and often has more weight than the great abilities of the wisest of men: “For better are the wounds of a friend than the kisses of others.”
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Duties of the Clergy 3.22
… For rebukes are good, and often better than a silent friendship. Even if a friend thinks himself hurt, still rebuke him; and if the bitterness of the correction wounds his mind, still rebuke him and fear not. “The wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of flatterers.”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Two Homilies on Eutropius 1.1
… Did I not say to thee when you continually rebuked me for speaking the truth, “I love thee better than they do who flatter thee?” “I who reprove thee care more for thee than they who pay thee court?” Did I not add to these words by saying that the wounds of friends were more to be relied upon than the voluntary kisses of enemies.
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles 3
… I would gladly manifest, if it were possible, with my very eyes, the love which I bear to you: for then no one would be able to reproach me, though my language were ever so rough. “For speech of friends, yea, were it insult, can be borne;” more “faithful are the wounds of a friend, rather than the ready kisses of an enemy. (
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Letters of St. Augustin 82.31
… “wounding friendship and setting at nought the laws of brotherly union.” For I would hesitate to give the name of Christian to those friendships in which the common proverb, “Flattery makes friends, and truth makes enemies,” is of more authority than the scriptural proverb, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Letters of St. Augustin 93.4
4. Not every one who is indulgent is a friend; nor is every one an enemy who smites. Better are the wounds of a friend than the proffered kisses of an enemy.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist 2.104
… what more manifest? I had rather, he says, be healed by a rebuke administered in kindness, than be deceived and led astray by smooth flattery, coming on me as an ointment on my head. The self-same sentiment is found elsewhere in Scripture under other words: "Better are the wounds of a friend than the proffered kisses of an enemy."
Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 Register of the Epistles of St. Gregory the Great 7.27
… But meanwhile I return to meditation on the words of Solomon, That better are the wounds of one that loves than the kisses of a flattering foe (
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St John Chrysostom † AD 407 A Treatise to Prove that No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Injure Himself 8
… For it is not the nature of the food, or of the drink, but the appetite of the eaters which is wont to produce the desire, and is capable of causing pleasure. Therefore also a certain wise man who had an accurate knowledge of all that concerned pleasure, and understood how to moralize about these things said “the full soul mocketh at honeycombs:”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch 2.22
… And that you may learn that this is the actual state of the case, besides that you are all witnesses to it, let us hear the Scripture telling us the same truth; “The full soul,” it is said, “loaths the honey comb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 14.13
… For it is a sure sign of a mind that is cold and proud, if it receives with disdain and carelessness the medicine of the words of salvation, although it be offered with the zeal of excessive persistence. For “a soul that is full jeers at honeycomb: but to a soul that is in want even little things appear sweet.”
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 The Confessions 12.27
… Which words, if any one despising them, as if trivial, with proud weakness shall have stretched himself beyond his fostering cradle, he will, alas, fall miserably. Have pity, O Lord God, lest they who pass by trample on the unfledged bird; and send Thine angel, who may restore it to its nest that it may live until it can fly.
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St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Duties of the Clergy 1.34
174. To conclude, the same duties are not owed to all. Nor is regard ever paid to persons, though the occasion and the circumstances of the case are generally taken into consideration, so that one may at times have to help a neighbour rather than one’s brother. For Solomon also says: “Better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.”
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St Irenaeus of Lyons † AD 202 Against Heresies 3.25.1
1. God does, however, exercise a providence over all things, and therefore He also gives counsel; and when giving counsel, He is present with those who attend to moral discipline.
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St Jerome † AD 420 Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus 3.43
… Answer not an unwise man according to his lack of wisdom, lest thou become like unto him; but answer a fool according to his folly, lest he appear to himself to be wise. He who layeth wait for his friends when he is discovered saith, I did it in sport. A faggot for the coals, and wood for the fire, and a man of evil words for the tumult of strife.
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St Jerome † AD 420 Against Jovinianus 1.28
… how much more if the wife be the richer of the two, and the husband but a lodger in her house! She begins to be not a wife, but mistress of the house; and if she offend her husband, they must part.
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 6.17
… for “by slothfulness a building is cast down, and through the weakness of hands the house shall drop through.” And that the same thing happens spiritually to the soul the same Solomon thus tells us in other words, when he says: “water dripping drives a man out of the house on a stormy day.”
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St Hippolytus † AD 235 On Proverbs 1
… Now pleasures are not simply sensual enjoyments, but also riches and luxury. And the “left” indicates envy, robberies, and the like. For “Boreas,” says he, “is a bitter wind, and yet is called by name right.”
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 2.115
… when the fourth, those who have by no means been able sufficiently to soften the hardness of their hearts by the commandments of spiritual utterance, and therefore are said to be towards the north—for, according to Solomon, the north is a hard wind.
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Origen † AD 254 Origen Against Celsus 6.45
But since Celsus rejects the statements concerning Antichrist, as it is termed, having neither read what is said of him in the book of Daniel nor in the writings of Paul, nor what the Saviour in the Gospels has predicted about his coming, we must make a few remarks upon this subject also; because, “as faces do not resemble faces,”
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Theodoret of Cyrus † AD 458 The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret 4.19
… in the desert, had subdued their inclinations to pleasure by reason and by discipline, had fearlessly preached the true faith of piety, had imbibed the pious doctrines, had again and again won victory against demons, were ever putting the adversary out of countenance by their virtue, and publicly posting the Arian heresy by wisest argument. Yet like Hell,
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St Jerome † AD 420 Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus 3.43
… As the birds and the sparrows fly away, so the curse shall be vain and shall not overtake him. Answer not an unwise man according to his lack of wisdom, lest thou become like unto him; but answer a fool according to his folly, lest he appear to himself to be wise. He who layeth wait for his friends when he is discovered saith, I did it in sport.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 The Confessions 10.37
60. By these temptations, O Lord, are we daily tried; yea, unceasingly are we tried. Our daily “furnace”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 70.5
… “The proving,” he saith, “of silver and of gold is fire; but a man is proved by the tongue of men praising him.”
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St Hippolytus † AD 235 On Proverbs 1
That is one confirmed in wickedness. The apostle, too, says, “Them that sin, rebuke before all;” that is to say, all but reprobate. Who are meant by the “conies,” but we ourselves, who once were like hogs, walking in all the filthiness of the world; but now, believing in Christ, we build our houses upon the holy flesh of Christ as upon a rock?
Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 The Book of Pastoral Rule 3.13
… For let them hear that in them is fulfilled that which is written, If thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar, as if with a pestle pounding barley, his foolishness will not be taken away from him (
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In Hebrew: Do not boast about tomorrow, because you do not know what the day will bring forth or generate, namely what will come upon you, that is, tomorrow, or even today, as the Chaldean translator rendered it: You do not know, he says, what the present day will bring forth; the Septuagint: do not glory in things to come tomorrow, or in those things which are awaited for the day of tomorrow: for you do not know what day will come upon you and bring forth. Tomorrow signifies any future time in Scripture by synecdoche, as if to say: Do not glory in future things, saying, for example: Tomorrow we shall feast, tomorrow I shall go to a wedding, tomorrow I shall become consul, doctor, canon, senator, bishop, viceroy, etc.; tomorrow I shall build a palace, I shall buy a vineyard, I shall plant a paradise, etc.; tomorrow I shall found a hospital, I shall erect a college, I shall establish an academy: because you do not know "what it will bring forth," that is, what the coming day will bring, indeed even the present day. For you do not know whether you will live tomorrow or this evening; you do not know whether your mind will be the same then as it is now; you do not know whether the same opportunity for doing will then exist as exists now. Therefore this maxim forbids excessive confidence in future things, as being uncertain, and consequently that no one should defer to the future the good works which he has determined in his mind: but rather let him execute them immediately, lest afterwards he be unable to execute them. Note here: Time is said to bring forth metaphorically, because it brings forth into light future things and makes them present; and metonymically, because it produces secondary causes, which bring forth and cause new things; and because it serves God and God's ordinance, which what He has conceived in His mind and decreed, at the appointed time brings forth and produces, as if to say: Not what you conceive will happen, nor what fate has decreed, but what the day will bring forth is what has been conceived by God. Properly, however, those things which happen by chance and fortune are said to be generated by time: because time, which, as Aristotle says, is the number of the motion of the first movable, from this motion brings about various combinations of stars, winds, qualities and other secondary causes, whose casual occurrence and concurrence is the cause of fortuitous and contingent events: therefore chance and fortune are the offspring of time. Akin to this maxim is that one of Ben-Sira at the end of the second Alphabet: "Let not the hardship of tomorrow's day trouble you, because you do not know what the day will bring forth." And that of Horace: Who knows whether the gods above will add tomorrow to today's sum of time? And that of Propertius: Perhaps tomorrow's fate will enclose the day. Believe every day has dawned as your last. And that of the Comic poet: You do not know what late evening will bring. Long is tomorrow, live today. And that of Ovid, book III of the Art of Love: One must use one's time; with swift foot does age slip away, nor do good things follow as well as the first good things did. And that of Virgil, III Georgics: But meanwhile it flees, irretrievable time flees. And that of Seneca, book On the Brevity of Life, chapter vii: "Each one hurries along his life, and labors in desire for the future, wearied by the present. But he who devotes every moment to his own uses, who arranges all his days as a life, neither desires tomorrow nor fears it. For what is there that any hour can now bring of new pleasure? All his wishes have been fulfilled to satiety; for the rest, perhaps fortune, as it will, may order; his life is now secure. To this nothing can be added, nothing can be taken away, and it can be added just as someone with a belly already very full and satisfied neither desires nor can take any more food." The same, epistle 1 to Lucilius: "A great part of life escapes those who act badly, the greatest part those who do nothing, the whole of it those who do something else. Who will you give me who sets any value on time? who esteems a day? who understands that he dies daily? In this we are deceived, that we look ahead to death: a great part of it has already passed, whatever of our age is behind us, death holds. Do therefore, my Lucilius, as you write that you are doing, embrace all your hours, so it will come about that you depend less on tomorrow, if you have laid hold of today. While life is deferred, it passes away. All things, my Lucilius, are another's; time alone is ours." The same: "All, he says, who defer life will be forestalled by uncertain death. Therefore every day ought to be arranged as if it were the last." Consider the image of time with this inscription: "Why do you hope for long things? Brief is whatever you see here." More sublimely the Psalmist, Psalm xciv, 8: "Today, he says, if you shall hear His (the Lord's) voice, harden not your hearts." From which the Apostle urges today, Hebrews III, 13: "Exhort, he says, one another every day, while it is called today." More plainly and fully St. James, chapter IV, 13, explains this maxim of Solomon as a paraphraser, saying: "Behold now you who say: Today or tomorrow we shall go into that city, and there we shall spend a year, and traffic, and make our gain: whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is a vapor that appears for a little while, and afterwards shall be made to vanish away." Where I have said more on this matter. Whoever therefore is wise, live today, tomorrow perhaps you will die.
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Septuagint, let thy neighbor praise thee, and not thy mouth: a stranger, and not thy lips; St. Augustine, tract. 36 and 58 in John: Let not thy mouth praise thee, but let the mouth of thy neighbor praise thee. "Stranger," in Hebrew זר zar, is called an outsider, namely one who is of another kindred, or family and house, or city, or nation, or faith and religion, such as the Gentiles were to the Jews, who on that account were called זרים zarim, that is, strangers and foreigners. The same is called נכרי nachri, that is, unknown, foreign. Wherefore nachri properly does not signify an enemy or adversary, but it can be extended to him, because an enemy is supremely foreign, and because the enemies of the Jews were Gentiles, who were foreigners. For by this very fact that they were born from Esau, Ishmael and other nations, not from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, from whom the Jews were descended, they drew as it were from their very stock and parents an alienation, and as it were a natural hatred of the Jews: just as even now we observe that certain nations from their very birth naturally as it were oppose certain others, and as it were are born enemies. The sense therefore is, as if to say: It does not befit thee to praise thyself, but to conduct thyself worthily of praise, which by its own splendor compels others, especially strangers, to praise thee, not that thou seekest and intendest this praise, but that praise from virtue naturally as it were emanates and results even from him who is praised in ignorance, nay even unwillingly: for praise is the proper gift of virtue, according to that saying of Socrates in Stobaeus, serm. 1: "Honor is due to the gods, but praise to good men." And that saying: "Virtue praised grows." And that of St. Basil, in Anthony's Melissa, part. I, cap. 51: "The chief benefit is to be praised in honorable things; for praise begets emulation, emulation virtue, virtue happiness, which is the supreme end and goal of all things that are desired, and to which all the motion of a good man is referred." Therefore allow thyself to be praised not by thy kinsmen, friends, and household, but by strangers and foreigners, and the more foreign they are to thee, the greater will be the praise if they praise thee. Whence the highest praise is that which is given to anyone by enemies. For they are moved to praise thee not by hope, not by flattery, not by friendship, but by truth and the magnitude of virtues: therefore praise extorted from an enemy is pure. The a priori reason for this saying is that to praise oneself is vain, proud and foolish. For this praise proceeds from self-love, by which one loves, and thus also praises himself excessively. For proper love blinds a man, so that he esteems all his things, however depraved or small, as good or great. But outsiders who have no connection with us judge more purely and sincerely concerning our affairs and deeds. Whence their judgment and praise or blame is more true. Thus all wise men, both faithful and pagan, judge: the faithful, such as St. Paul, who, compelled to recount his praises in order to defend his apostolate, says: "I have become foolish; you compelled me; for I ought to have been commended by you," II Corinthians xii, 11; and Christ: "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true; there is another that beareth witness of me," John v, 31; St. Chrysostom, homil. 5 On the Praises of Paul: "It is," he says, "the height of madness, with no necessity impending, and with no violent necessity, to wish to be adorned with one's own praises." Lucas the physician, a man of great eloquence, when he had delivered an oration before Alfonso, king of Aragon, most eloquent, and had extolled him with exquisite and heroic praises, the king, hearing these things, is said to have spoken thus: "If the things which thou predictest of me, Luke, are true, I give thanks to God the best and greatest; but if otherwise, I pray and beseech that he may make them true," hinting that it is most fitting for kings to show themselves worthy of praises everywhere. Thus the Panormitanus, lib. I On the Deeds of Alfonso. King Agesilaus used to say that it was pleasant to him to be praised by enemies, who do not fear to censure if anything displeases them. For such men, if they praise anything, they praise it by judgment, not by fear or flattery. Thus Plutarch in the Laconian Sayings. Themistius in Stobaeus: "There is, he says, no narrative so hateful as one's own eulogy." Hence that common saying: "Praise in one's own mouth is base." And that of Zenodotus: "You praise yourself, woman, like Astydamas," which Julian uses in his epistle to St. Basil: "I praised myself, he says, like Astydamas." Pliny the Younger, book 1, epistle 8 to Saturninus: "That which would have been magnificent when related by another, he says, vanishes when recounted by him who performed it." He adds the reason: "Those who adorn their benefits with words are believed to have done what they proclaim, not in order to proclaim what they have done, but in order to be proclaimed as having done it." To someone boasting before Lysander that he would both exalt himself with praises and defend himself against detractors, he said: "There are two oxen in the field, and though both are silent, yet I certainly know which one is lazy and which one is diligent at work." He perceived that true virtue does not need human praises, since it carries its own praise and honor with itself. Moreover, those who accomplish nothing remarkable have need of heralds. Thus Plutarch in the Laconian Sayings. When Pescennius Niger, upon being created Emperor, someone wished to recite a Panegyric, the Emperor is reported to have said: "Write praises of Marius, or Hannibal, or some excellent general who has finished his life, and tell what he did, so that we might imitate him. For to praise the living is mockery, especially Emperors from whom it is hoped, who are feared, who can excel publicly, who can kill, who can proscribe; but to wish to please oneself while living, and even to be praised, is mystical." Thus Aelius Spartianus in his Life. Cyril illustrates the truth of this opinion to the eyes with a beautiful fable of a cock and a fox, varied with fine similitudes, in book II of his Moral Apology, chapter xxviii, which has the title: Against those who commend themselves: "A cock, he says, placed near a raven, being not a little puffed up with the light of understanding and the windy pride of feathered appearance, and with neck raised in many colors began to praise himself with his song, and said: O how great in heaven is the fountain of wisdom, and the vein of splendor, and the primary art of beauty, since to us earthborn he has granted such gifts of beauty and understanding? To which the raven answered learnedly thus: Understanding is indeed precious, and beauty is pleasant; but wisdom is best, without which either they are not to themselves, or all things are nothing. But from our wiser ones I have heard that to lose light by light, and virtue by virtue, is the greatest madness. Surely also to lose praise by praise is the same thing. Indeed, by Aristotle, praise is defined to be a discourse illuminating the magnitude of virtue; whence it is not the least virtue, but rather the greatest vice, to praise oneself. For those who say they are wise have become fools (Rom. 1, 22). Yet truly a wise man, while praised in the face, is scourged in the mind." Then he demonstrates the same thing by a priori reasoning: "For true virtue, like a most chaste virgin, does not suffer itself to be seen without shame, and like a shining star is hidden by the appearing sun, and like chrysoprase shining in darkness, thus blushing praise is hidden in the light. Therefore he who commends himself condemns himself, because his praise generates vice, while without the splendor of virtue and chastity, it shows this to be deformed. But if you have perceived this with the ear of understanding, it is written (John, chapter viii, verse 13): Thou givest testimony of thyself, and thy testimony is not true. And in the common law of the world no one is accepted for himself, because the balance of the tongue draws the weight of private love to itself. Therefore self-praise is disgrace, because the tongue is not received as a witness to itself, or it lies. And indeed that which exalts us approves us; but this is the fleeing humility of praises (Matt. xxiii, 12). For he who humbles himself shall be exalted. For humility through the path of worldly confusion and darkness leads to the end of clarity." Finally, with a new dilemma he proves the same thing, and thereby elucidates the saying of Solomon: "But why do you praise yourself? Certainly if you are known, you do something superfluous; if you are not known, remember that true virtue desires to be hidden. But there is no time to praise anyone while he lives; for true commendation does not pass away, which the eternity of possessed virtue has established. Let therefore another mouth praise you (Prov. xxvii, 2), let your own mouth accuse you, let the virtue of humility approve you, let the last and eternal day commend you. Having heard these things, the cock, because he had praised himself, blushed."
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"Graver," that is more troublesome, more pressing and afflicting, difficult to bear and endure. For gravity properly belongs to bodies; but metaphorically, when transferred to the mind, it signifies trouble, affliction, torment. In Hebrew, the gravity of a stone, and the weight (or elevation or heap) of sand, and the anger of a fool is graver than both. The Septuagint: a stone is heavy, and sand is scarcely bearable, but the anger of a fool is graver than both. First, Rabbi Solomon takes the anger of a fool not as passive, which he himself has within himself, but as active, which he himself namely stirs up and causes in God, as if to say: The anger of God, which his foolishness, that is impiety, arouses and provokes—the fool, that is the impious man—is graver than any rock and sand: because he himself causes that same anger and vengeance of God to overflow not only upon himself and his own, but also upon the whole commonwealth, indeed upon the whole universe. For God often chastises the whole people on account of the crime of one fool and impious man, as He chastised the sacrilege of Achan by laying low the entire camp of Israel, Joshua chapter vii, 13. But others commonly take the anger of a fool as passive, which namely is and remains in the fool himself. Whence Second, Lyra explains that the anger of a fool is grave and unbearable to the fool himself and to other fools, but not to the wise, as if to say: A stone is certainly very heavy to carry, and the weight of sand is likewise not light, but nevertheless a fool of some strength will be able to lift these two things; but the anger of a fool is far graver and more burdensome: for no fool can bear its weight. Again, the anger of a fool is graver than stone and sand, because an unwise man can neither bear great indignation like that of stone and vehement, nor lighter and frequent movements of anger (which are like fine sand). Third and genuinely, as if to say: The anger of a fool is graver than stone and a heap of sand, and more burdensome and unbearable to the wise than both, for many reasons. The first is, because the burden of stone and sand weighs down the body; but anger presses down and oppresses the mind of the wise man. But burdens which afflict the mind are greater and more keenly felt than those which afflict the body. Second, stone and sand placed on the back can be set down and shaken off by the wise man; but the anger of a fool cannot be. For, as the Author of the Greek Catena says, a fool enraged does not notice himself inflamed with fury, and thus he does not labor to turn his mind away from anger and to suppress his rage; indeed he loves and cherishes it. For he believes himself to be prudent and intelligent, and therefore justly to be enraged: the wise man therefore must endure this fury of the fool stirred up against him. Third, because stones and sand can be lightened by tools and instruments, namely can be carried by cart, horse, mule: but the anger of a fool cannot be diminished by any natural thing (but only by God's illumination and grace), I do not say removed, but not even lessened, especially because the fool holds anger for reason, and thinks himself to be justly and rationally angry. Wherefore he allows himself to be admonished, taught or appeased by no one, but strives plainly to vent his anger; wherefore he speaks and acts angrily, insultingly, unworthily, by which he wounds and injures anyone, presses down and oppresses, nor does he allow himself to be pacified or restrained. Is not this graver and more troublesome than stone and sand however heavy? for the fool cannot bear and moderate his angers, but allows himself to be wholly overwhelmed by them, and gives and binds himself captive, as Nabal did, who oppressed by foolish indignation died, I Kings xxv. The same then presses down and oppresses others, upon whom he pours it out. A fourth is suggested by the Septuagint version, and sand is scarcely bearable, as if to say: Sand cannot be carried, nor elevated and compacted, as some translate from the Hebrew, inasmuch as it is too dense, burdensome and heavy; nor divided and fine, because grains of fine sand no one can grasp and hold in his hands, without very many slipping through his fingers. Thus likewise the anger of a fool if it be elevated and exaggerated, that is, if it proceed from great pride and arrogance of mind, is so intolerable and insurmountable as the same arrogance is insurmountable; but if it be small and like fine sand, it is equally intolerable, because like sand it is very much and innumerable: for the fool grows angry at any minimal causes, indeed he grows indignant without cause, clamors, quarrels, strikes, and stirs up fights. Who would bear such a one? whence it follows: "Anger hath no mercy, nor fury when it breaketh out: and who can bear the violence of one provoked?" The anger therefore of a fool is graver than stone, because it is irrational, because it is impetuous and immoderate, because it is implacable, and cannot be calmed: since the anger of the wise man is rational, moderate, placable, according to that saying of Ovid: Whoever is the greater, the more easily appeased from anger: And a noble mind captures easy hearts. The fifth is that the heaviness of stone and sand by their nature are indeed borne toward the center of the earth, but from the extreme surface of the earth, and by its weight are hindered and stopped, so that they rest in it: but the anger of a fool truly tends, and draws many with it to the very center of the earth itself, namely to hell and to eternal fires. Whence Solomon being followed by Sirach, cap. xxii, 17: "Upon lead, he says, what shall be heavier? and what other name has it than fool? Sand, and salt, and a mass of iron is easier to bear, than a man imprudent and foolish and impious." Mystically Bede: "It is indeed very heavy, he says, either by some one capital crime, as if pressed by the weight of some vast stone, or as if burdened by grains of sand, with innumerable lighter sins; but the anger of a fool is heavier than either. Because truly this, the more certainly it is shown to be evil, the more sharply it pierces the mind: but anger, because it is not a bodily but a spiritual vice, the less it is detected, the more it weighs down; whence he said not anger absolutely, but the anger of a fool. For the wise strive to examine and correct their mental movements as carefully as their deeds and words." Following Bede, Dionysius explains this more clearly, while he says: A stone is heavy, like a millstone, any mortal sin, which by its weight soon draws to another, and casts the impenitent into hell; "and burdensome sand," glued together, or multiplied, or a multitude of venial sins; but the anger of a fool, that is of a vicious man, as anger through vice, not through zeal, is heavier than either to bear for men, unless they are wise and perfect. For many mortal sins, not all, anger is heavier, before God and men. Thus Dionysius.
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In Hebrew, cruelty of indignation and an overflowing of the nose (that is of anger, for this shows itself in a burning nose), and who shall stand before the face of zeal? For zeal in Hebrew is קנאה kina, that is zeal, likewise emulation, envy, jealousy. The Septuagint, cruel is indignation and sharp anger, but zeal sustains nothing; the Chaldean, cruelty is indignation and an overflowing of anger, but who shall stand before zeal? St. Jerome Against Rufinus, but zeal is impatient; the Scholiast, but zeal is more difficult than either. First, some refer these to the anger of a fool, which preceded, as if to say the anger of a fool is not bent by those admonitions or prayers, which might move him to mercy, nor his fury bursting forth and raging; for who could bear the impulse of his fury; or his raging spirit? which like a spirit and most powerful wind, by its force and violence sweeps through and levels all things, nor can be held or restrained by anyone. Second, others think that three degrees of anger are noted here; for anger increases gradually: for first there is anger which, as long as it lasts, is devoid of mercy, yet still capable of reason, so that a man remains master of himself; second, increasing anger becomes fury, so that now a man is bereft of himself and reason, and is driven by fury, and rages and is savage like one insane; third, anger and fury becomes zeal, when it occupies not only body and reason, but the very spirit itself; and becomes an impulse of an aroused spirit, as Our translator renders it, when namely the angry and raging spirit inflames all the forces of soul and body, and converts and directs them to taking vengeance, such as is the anger of Lucifer and demons, of the damned and the desperate. Third, others more plausibly think that here zeal, that is envy, is set in opposition to and placed before anger and fury. For the Hebrews do not distinguish anger from fury, but only anger, or rather the nose, that is indignation, they oppose to zeal or envy, which Our author calls the impulse of an excited spirit; as if to say: Grave and difficult to bear is anger and hot temper, when it breaks forth and rages, and far graver and more difficult to bear is zeal or envy: for anger quickly passes like wind and flame, as the Poet says: "Anger is a brief madness;" but malice and envy fix their seat in the soul which they occupy, and stir up the whole spirit to harm him whom they envy; wherefore they can scarcely be eradicated. Hence Pagninus translates, cruelty is in anger, and impetuousness in fury, and who shall stand before envy? and Vatablus, anger is cruel, and wrathful indignation is impetuous (or inundation, that is, impetuousness befits wrathfulness); but who shall stand before envy? as if to say, "We cannot resist envy, although we can resist anger and an angry man." Hence Cassian, Collation XVIII, final chapter, expounding this saying about envy: "For so incurable, he says, is this pernicious vice, that it is exasperated by blandishments, inflated by obedience, irritated by gifts, because, as Solomon himself says, zeal sustains nothing. For the more another has advanced either in the subjection of humility, or in the virtue of patience, or in the praise of munificence, so much the more is he who envies incited by greater stings of envy, who desires nothing but the ruin or death of him whom he envies." He proves this by the example of the sons of Jacob envying their brother Joseph: "Finally the zeal of those eleven Patriarchs was such that it could not be softened by any subjection of the brother, so that Scripture records of them: And his brethren envied him, because his father loved him; and they could not speak to him any thing peacefully; until their zeal, which sustained no blandishment of a brother obedient and subject, desiring his death, could scarcely be satisfied by the crime of fraternal sale. It is therefore established that envy is more pernicious than all other vices and more difficult to purge, which is kindled by the very remedies by which the rest are extinguished." Moreover, through קנאה kina, that is zeal, jealousy could also be understood; for this is the fervor, the height and summit of zeal. Hence we see jealous husbands of their wives, from zeal becoming maniacs and insane; for no one can restrain this jealousy, no one can overcome it, no one can bear it. Thus the Author of the Greek Catena. Hence the Chaldean, who shall stand before zeal? and the Septuagint, zeal sustains nothing. See what is said about the force of jealousy at chapter vi, verse 34. To this pertains that saying of St. Chrysostom, homily On Virginity: "Nothing can draw a man away from this zeal, but this tempest is more violent than all care of advantages or anxiety about disadvantages. For the madness of this disease is such that even when punishment is inflicted by him from whom he was injured, the sufferer does not cast off his pain. Thus many, when the adulterer was often removed, could neither bear anger nor anguish. There are also those who, when their wife was slain, remained the same, or were consumed by a greater pyre." The same author also, homily 38 on Genesis, thus has it: "Those who labor under jealousy, and lose the good of peace, devise tumults and waves for themselves daily, and can have no pleasure, with internal war confounding all things, and bringing much bitterness upon them." Add that envy and zeal are more powerful than anger and fury, because zeal is kindled by anger, and sharpens itself as if on a whetstone. Hence Gregory of Nazianzus, oration 1 in Praise of St. Athanasius: "Zeal, he says, has sharpened anger," as if to say: Zeal hones and sharpens the natural keenness of anger itself, and so before zeal which constrains anger and ignites it, so that it burns and flashes forth, nay thunders, no one can stand safe and unharmed. Parallel to this sense are the maxims of the wise men, which Antonius cites in the Melissa, part I, cap. xxvi, and Maximus, serm. 54. Of St. Basil: "No affection is born more pernicious to the souls of men than envy; for as rust consumes iron, so envy consumes the soul which it infects." Of St. Gregory of Nazianzus: "Would that envy perish from among men, the consumption of those who possess it and the rust of affections! Alone among the affections both most unjust and most just: most unjust, because it troubles all the excellent; most just, because it harms those by whom it is fostered." Of Socrates: "Envy is the saw of the soul." Of Cleobulus: "Two things are chiefly to be avoided, the envy of friends and the snares of enemies." Of St. Chrysostom: "O envy, root of death, manifold disease, sharpest key of the heart! For what nail so sharp pierces as envy wounds the occupied heart?" Wherefore Euripides in the Phoenissae: "Envy, he says, is the worst and most unjust goddess, and rejoices in evils and grieves at goods." And Palladas in Stobaeus, serm. 38, exclaims: "O the greatest wickedness of envy! The envious man hates the fortunate one, whom God loves. So foolishly and through envy does he err; for manifestly he fights against God himself, receiving the greatest wrath from envy. For he ought to be loved whom God loves." Wherefore Abbot Pastor in the Lives of the Fathers, lib. V, booklet x, num. 45, used to say: "Do not dwell in a place where you see some bearing zeal against you, because there you will not make progress." The other wise men also teach that it is prudent to studiously flee envy and the envious as far as possible, not so anger and the angry, because envy can scarcely be overcome and cannot be avoided when present. Finally, the Hebrew kina, that is, zeal, could here be taken generally both of the good, which is directed toward a good object, and of the evil, which is carried toward evil, so that it might be signified that the force and violence of any zeal is more powerful and efficacious than anger and fury, as if to say: Savage and violent is raging anger, but more savage and violent is zeal; for this breaks through or transcends all obstacles, and nothing can resist it, just as the Apostles, armed with zeal for God, subdued the world to Christ, and Elias, inflamed with zeal for God, conquered the angers of Jezabel and the army of the Baalites. Whence Elisaeus, when he was caught up to heaven, cried out to him: "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the driver thereof," IV Kings cap. ii, 12. Mathathias and his son Judas Maccabaeus, instructed with this zeal, with a small force conquered the angers of Antiochus and defeated his great armies. Aristonymus in the Diatribes: "Envy, he says, like a bad demagogue, opposes honest actions." Josephus in the work On the Captivity: "Nothing, he says, among all goods is so firm as to perpetually resist envy." Excellently St. Ambrose in Psalm. cxviii: "Even the angels, he says, are nothing without zeal, and they lose the prerogative of their substance unless they sustain it with the ardor of zeal." Whence the Psalmist, Psalm. ciii, 4: "Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." And below: "God the Father himself says: I am zealous for Jerusalem with great zeal; because God is great, therefore zeal also is great, and according to the quality of each one's power, so also is zeal either moderate or great; by zeal Jerusalem is avenged, by zeal the Church is gathered, by zeal faith is acquired, by zeal chastity is possessed. The Lord Jesus also says: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up, rebuking the Jews because they had made the house of prayer a den of thieves and a house of merchandise." And after interposing certain things, explaining that passage of the Canticle viii, 6: Strong as death is love, hard as hell emulation: "Hard, he says, is zeal, which no allurement of this life conquers. Hard as hell, through which we die to sin that we may live to God." And St. Chrysostom, homil. 52 in Acts, speaks thus of the zealous man: "Whoever shall be captivated by the fire of Christ, let him be such as a man would be dwelling alone upon the earth; so little does he care for glory and ignominy, and temptations he so despises, and scourges and prisons, as if he suffered them in another's body, or as if he possessed an adamantine body. But those things which are sweet in this life, he so laughs at and does not feel, just as we ourselves dead regard dead bodies. And just as flies do not fall into the midst of flame, but flee: so affections do not dare to approach those men." For zeal is like a fire which devours all things and transforms them into itself. Whence Christ, speaking of this zeal: "I have come, He says, to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I will but that it be kindled?" Luke xii, 49. Let Christians hear St. Augustine, tract. 10 in John: "Let zeal for the house of God devour each Christian. For example, you see a brother running to the theatre, forbid him, admonish him, grieve him, if zeal for the house of God has devoured you. You see others running and wishing to become drunk, and this wishing in holy places, which is fitting nowhere, forbid those whom you can, restrain those whom you can, those whom you can flatter, do not cease. Yet, if he is a friend, let him be admonished gently; if she is a wife, let her be restrained most severely; if she is a maidservant, let her even be restrained by blows. Do whatever you can according to the person." Christ showed this zeal of charity appearing to Carpus, so that He might shake from him the zeal of wrath and indignation: "Strike me, He says, for I am ready again to endure death for the sake of the salvation of men; and this is most pleasing to me while other men do not sin;" as St. Dionysius relates, epist. 8 to Demophilus.
27:5
Septuagint: Better are manifest corrections than hidden friendship; Author of the book On Friendship in St. Augustine: "Better are corrections than silent friendship," that is, which conceals and dissimulates the lapses of a friend, and does not correct and chastise them. "Manifest correction" is not public, but open and free; for it is opposed to hidden correction, which is done in the heart, or behind the back of him who is reproved. You may ask, what is hidden love? First, the Author of the Catena of the Greeks responds that it is feigned and simulated love; whence, connecting this verse with the following, he thus translates and explains both from the Septuagint: Better is open reproof than simulated friendship; just as the wounds of friends also testify to greater faith and benevolence than the voluntary kisses of enemies. For when he feigns that he does this from love, and yet does not do it (since he does not love from the heart, but holds him in hatred), he wickedly sins against the laws of friendship. Another there: The corrections of friends, he says, and their manifest wounds, who openly reprove sins, are more useful than their kisses and flatteries, who conceal and hide them. For when they wish to please and profit in this way, they harm more. Thus the Author of the Catena. Second, Bede and Salonius consider hidden love to be venereal love; for this, on account of its baseness, seeks hiding places out of shame in which to conceal itself, as if to say: "It is far better to reprove someone openly so that he may be corrected, than to love him secretly with a desire to sin together." Or, as if to say: It is far better to be reproved openly, that is, to be vexed, beaten, even killed for the pursuit of virtue, for example chastity, than to perpetrate evil secretly, for example fornication. Thus Susanna preferred to expose herself to the danger of calumny and stoning rather than to fornicate with the elders, Daniel xiii. And Joseph preferred to suffer long imprisonment rather than to consent to the desires of his mistress, Genesis xxxix. Third, Lyra and Dionysius: Hidden love, they say, is habitual love, which does not pass into act, as if to say: The act of charity, such as fraternal correction, is preferable to idle habitual charity, which accomplishes nothing. Fourth, Aben-Ezra: Hidden love, he says, is secret correction, as if to say: Public correction is more useful than private and secret correction. For he who is corrected publicly is suffused with shame and amends his vice; yet often the contrary happens. For from public correction the powerful and magnanimous are more gravely irritated, and burn with hatred toward the one who corrects them, because they see themselves being disgraced; wherefore in order to protect their reputation and honor, they defend their sin, and harden themselves in it. Fifth and genuinely: "Hidden love" is delicate and faint-hearted love, which hides itself in the heart and does not dare to reprove an erring friend from shame, or lest it sadden him: just as mothers often indulge all things to their sons out of feminine love, and do not dare to reprove them when they sin. Thus R. Levi, Jansenius and others commonly. The sense therefore is: Love which reveals itself by correcting the vices of a friend is preferable to hidden love, that is, lurking love, which does not reveal itself, nor finds fault with vices, but dissimulates them, or even conceals and hides them: the former is masculine love, prudent, efficacious; the latter is feminine, abject, inert and useless: for which reason also correction which proceeds from an enemy is more useful than the hidden love of a friend which dissimulates vices; for the former amends vices, the latter dissimulates, conceals and fosters them. Wherefore Plutarch in his Morals: "Just as Telephus, he says, because he lacked a friend, was forced to seek a remedy from an enemy for the healing of his wound: so those who do not have frank friends by whom they may be admonished, often hear their vices from enemies." Whence for hidden love in Hebrew it is אהבה מסתרת, which if you read with another pointing מסתרת mesatteret, it is the same as love concealing, namely the vices of a friend. Indeed Baynus takes absconditus for abscondens. Thus in Psalm lxvii, 17, mountains are called coagulated, that is, coagulating. And Job xx, 26: "Hidden darkness," that is, which things conceal and hide. This maxim therefore signifies that it is the mark of true love and friendship to correct the vices of a friend; for this is required by charity, and by the law of fraternal correction sanctioned by Christ, indeed by the very nature and character of love and charity itself, Matthew cap. xviii, 15: "If thy brother, he says, shall offend against thee, go, and reprove him between thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother." And Ecclesiasticus cap. xix, 13: "Reprove, he says, a friend, lest perhaps he understood not, and say: I did it not; or if he did, that he add not to do it again." "Reprove from love, not from rancor," says St. Augustine. Hear the Author of the book On Friendship, chapter xxvii, in St. Augustine, vol. IV, elucidating this passage from St. Ambrose: "Friends must not only be argued with, but, if need be, rebuked. A friend must be rebuked if he spurns the truth and is led into crime by compliance and flattery; but let the admonition lack harshness, and the rebuke lack contumely. Ambrose: If you discover any fault in a friend, correct him in secret; if he does not listen to you, correct him openly. For there are good corrections, and often better than silent friendship. And if your friend thinks himself injured, yet correct him. For the wounds of a friend are more tolerable than the kisses of flatterers." Most excellently St. Augustine, epistle 1 to Boniface: "A physician," he says, "is troublesome to a raging madman, and a father to an undisciplined son: the one by binding, the other by beating, but both by loving. If, however, they neglect these, and permit them to perish, this gentleness is rather false cruelty. For if a horse and a mule, which have no understanding, resist men with bites and kicks, from whom their wounds are being treated, and when among hundreds of their bites and kicks men often are in danger, they sometimes fear, yet do not abandon them, until by pains and medicinal troubles they recall them to health; how much more should a man not be abandoned by a man, a brother by a brother, lest he perish eternally, he who when corrected can understand how great a benefit is conferred upon him, when he was seeking to suffer persecution?" Wherefore Clement of Alexandria, book I of the Paedagogus, chapter v: "Reproof," he says, "is as it were a certain surgery of the soul. Admonition is as it were a certain regimen of a sick soul." But Clement of Rome, book II of the Apostolic Constitutions, chapter xiv: "You therefore," he says, "as a merciful physician, care for all sinners, using remedies suited to salvation, not only by cutting, burning, applying the knife, but also by binding, drying, applying gentle medicines, those that form a scar, softening with consolatory words. If the wound be deep, restore it with sweet ointment, so that when filled it may be level with the remaining parts; if filth has gathered, cleanse it with the knife, that is, with speech fit for cutting; if it has swollen, flatten it with sharp eye-salve, that is, with threats of judgment; if it spreads, restrain it with cautery, and cut away the decay with the harshness of fasting." The Philosophers held the same view. Diogenes the Cynic used to say that one needs not only faithful friends, but also sharp enemies, because the former admonish us, while the latter reprove and chastise our errors and the shameful deeds of our life. Thus Laertius, book VI. Memory-worthy and worthy of imitation is what I add. Demades the orator, when he saw King Philip drinking excessively, dancing with friends through the midst of a crowd of captives, and petulantly reproaching them for their misfortune, freely said: "Since, O king, fortune has imposed upon you the role of Agamemnon, are you not ashamed to act the part of Thersites?" That word changed the drunken king into a different manner of life.
27:6
In Hebrew: Faithful are the wounds of one who loves, and deceitfully flattering are the kisses of one who hates. Where, although the particle of comparison is not expressly stated, it is nevertheless tacitly understood. For it is an antithesis, by which the wounds of one who loves are opposed and preferred to the kisses of one who hates, because those are faithful and sincere, while these are flattering and false. For who does not see that faithful things are better than simulated and false ones? Whence the Septuagint, expressing this comparison, translates: The wounds of a friend are more faithful than the willing kisses of an enemy; and the Chaldean: Beautiful or pleasant are the wounds of one who loves, and the kisses of one who hates. For who would not prefer good, indeed beautiful things to evil ones? Akin to this is an Arabic proverb: "The enmity of a wise man surpasses the friendship of a fool;" for the former corrects and amends, the latter flatters and destroys. "Wherefore an enemy who is wise surpasses a friend who is foolish." And that saying of Cato in Cicero, in the book On Friendship: "By far better do certain bitter enemies deserve of us than those friends who appear sweet." Furthermore, St. Augustine, in tract. 6 on John: "Let us have," he says, "true peace with our neighbors, let us have the peace of doves; for doves kiss one another, and ravens also kiss. In doves there is true peace; in ravens false peace, because they kiss and tear." For the fraudulent Hebrew word, there is נעתרות nataroth, which the Chaldean translates as evil; the Septuagint as willing, that is friendly, benevolent; the Zurich Bible as forced; Aben-Ezra and Vatablus as thick, dense, close: for those who are false are accustomed to repeat and multiply kisses; Pagninus and Cajetan as many; Symmachus as disturbed; most excellently Aquila as supplicating, that is supplicatingly flattering, beseeching and adulatory. For the root עתר athar signifies to supplicate, to pray, to wheedle, or to flatter with sweet words, so that you might obtain something. The sense is clear; for he approves what he said in the preceding verse, that manifest correction is good, indeed better than hidden love, from the fact that the wounds of one who loves are better than the kisses of one who hates. He signifies therefore that, just as hatred has bitter kisses, so conversely love has sweet and pleasant wounds. Such are the wounds of mortification and of charity mortifying itself or its own. "Better" therefore, that is milder and sweeter, not only because charity wounds in order to heal the sick, but because wrapped in its own sweetness it strikes gently and pleasantly: for those proceed from love, these from rancor and hatred; those heal, and therefore are not so much wounds as remedies, these seduce and lead into snares and destruction; those are faithful and sincere, these are painted and fraudulent; those flow from the desire of saving, these from the intention of deceiving and destroying. The wounds of one who loves are called in Hebrew faithful, both because they are sincere, not treacherous; both because they proceed from faithfulness and faithful love; both because they are directed to a faithful end, namely that the friend be corrected and withdrawn from evils, as Rabbi Levi says; both because they excite faith in the friend, so that he may safely and securely trust and commit himself to the one who loves him, even though wounding, as Baynus says; finally both because faithful, that is firm and strong, because they wound and strike publicly the one who needs chastisement, so that he may be amended, as Aben-Ezra says. By wounds understand severe correction, which strikes and wounds the soul, and also serious chastisement, by which when necessary the body is beaten, scourged and bloodied. Furthermore, physicians, such as Galen, and from him Celsus, in book I, call unfaithful those wounds which do indeed cure the disease, but injure the incised part, for example when a vein is cut in such a way that a nerve is injured: but faithful ones, which are so tempered that they cure without injuring, which namely do not penetrate to the depths, but open only the skin, so that they remove putrid flesh, but do not touch the sound flesh, as if to say: Corrections which one who loves must exhibit to the beloved for his good, namely for the amendment of vices, ought to be wounds touching and removing vice, not injuring reputation, and therefore not injurious, not wrathful, not reproachful, not abusive; for these do not heal old sores, but inflict new ones. For, as St. Isidore says, in book III On the Highest Good, chapter xci: "He who corrects one who has sinned with a proud or injurious spirit does not amend, but strikes." Whence the Chaldean translates: Beautiful or pleasant are the wounds of a friend, both because they please the corrected one, while the kisses of the fraudulent greatly displease; both because they calm his soul, soothe it, compose it to modesty, gravity and every virtue and excellence: thus beautiful are the wounds which a soldier receives from an enemy, while he fights bravely with him in close combat: for these wounds are marks and signs of his fortitude and generous struggle. More beautiful are the wounds of Martyrs, of whom the Poet says: And seek through wounds a beautiful death. For these indeed adorn Martyrs like crowns and triumphal laurels. Whence St. Augustine, in the book On the Conflict of Vices: "A certain kind of martyrdom," he says, "is not ignoble, to bear reproofs with equanimity." Just as therefore the bodies of Martyrs, glorious in heaven, will preserve the marks and scars of their wounds, as it were the tokens of their passion, martyrdom and triumph (as for the same reason Christ will preserve his own), so that they may display them gloriously to the Lord, Angels and the Blessed for all eternity: so likewise those who receive corrections, rebukes and chastisements as wounds humbly, patiently and lovingly, these will gloriously display in the day of judgment to the whole world the beautiful marks and notes of those wounds, rivaling martyrdom. On the other hand, the fraudulent kisses of an enemy are shameful to the one kissing, and harmful and deadly to the one kissed, concerning which Clement, in book II of the Paedagogus, chapter ix: "There is," he says, "a certain incestuous kiss, full of poison, simulating holiness. Do you not know that even phalangia, if they touch with the mouth only, bring grave pains to men?" A phalanx is a kind of spider, which if it touches flesh even lightly, instills venom, and disperses it through the limbs, which torments them grievously. The same does he who kisses a friend deceitfully. The kiss of Judas was fraudulent, by which he betrayed Christ, concerning which St. Ambrose, on chapter xxii of Luke, at those words: Judas, dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss? thus adds: "Dost thou inflict a wound with the pledge of love? Dost thou shed blood with the office of charity, and bring death with the instrument of peace? Servant betraying master, disciple betraying teacher, chosen one betraying author? This is that: The wounds of a friend are better than the voluntary kisses of an enemy." The same St. Ambrose, in book I of the Duties, chapter xxxiv: "Benevolence," he says, "is accustomed to wrest the sword of anger. Benevolence makes it so that the wounds of friends are more useful than the voluntary kisses of enemies, etc. At the same time we observe also that corrections in friendship are pleasing, which have stings but do not have pain. For we are pricked by censorious words, but we delight in the diligence of benevolence." St. Chrysostom, in the homily On Bearing Reproofs, and On the Conversion of St. Paul: "Indeed I do not approve even of an enemy praising, but a friend even reproving I embrace. Though he kiss me, he is unpleasant; though this one wound me, he is lovable; his kiss is full of suspicion, his wound has the force of medicine. For this reason someone says: The wounds of a friend are more faithful than the flattering kisses of an enemy. What does he say? He calls the wounds of friends more faithful: for he does not attend to the nature of the things that are done, but rather to the affection of those who do them. Do you wish to learn how the wounds of a friend are more faithful, etc.? Judas kissed the Lord; but with his kiss he betrayed the poison which his mouth had, and malice filled his tongue. Paul wounded him who had fornicated among the Corinthians, but he saved him," etc. Secondly, this maxim can be applied to those guilty who are punished by judges and magistrates, namely flogged or deprived of their heads, as if to say: Better and more faithful are the wounds inflicted on the guilty by the judge than the kisses of the fraudulent who enticed them to crime; for these wounds proceed from love of justice, by which the judge loves the guilty party, and therefore justly punishes him, lest he sin henceforth; and from love of the commonwealth, so that others by fear of similar punishment abstain from sins, and thus the commonwealth dwells in peace and justice. Whence St. Augustine, epistle 48 to Vincent, from this place and similar ones teaches that it is not repugnant to Christian charity, but consonant with it, that princes compel heretics to return to the orthodox faith, with penalties proposed not only of confiscation of goods, but also of head and life: "Not everyone who spares is a friend, nor is everyone who strikes an enemy: the wounds of a friend are better than the voluntary kisses of an enemy; it is better to love with severity than to deceive with gentleness. And he who binds the frenzied man, and he who arouses the lethargic man, troublesome to both, loves both. Who can love us more than God? and yet He does not cease not only to teach us gently, but also to terrify us salutarily, adding to the gentle fomentations with which He consoles us, often also the most biting medicine of tribulation." The same also in Against the Letters of Petilian: "I would prefer," he says, "to be healed by merciful reproof than to be deceived and perverted by bland flattery, as if my head were being anointed: for the wounds of a friend are better than the voluntary kisses of an enemy." Moreover, these words of St. Augustine have been transferred into canon law, and are found in 5, Question V, chapter II, at the beginning, and 23, Question IV, chapter Nimium. Third, this maxim can be applied to any of the faithful whom God chastises through tribulations of hunger, disease, war, persecutions, etc. For these wounds are remedies, indeed love-potions of God, which God out of supreme love administers to us, so that He may transfer us from the flesh, the world, and sins to Himself, that is to the spirit, virtue, and heaven; and since the flesh, the world, and the devil deceive us with their enticements as with deceitful kisses and lead us to destruction. Whence St. Chrysostom, in the homily already cited, opposing the wounds inflicted upon Adam by God to the flattering kisses of the devil, by which he seduced Adam through the serpent: "But let us inquire," he says, "how this saying applies not only to men, but also to God and the devil. For the one is a friend, the other an enemy; the one is a savior and cares for us, the other is an enemy and deceiver. And this one indeed gave a kiss at some time, but the other inflicted a wound. And how did this one kiss, and the other wound? This one said: You shall be as gods; but the other said: You are earth, and into earth you shall go. Which therefore benefited more, this one who said: You shall be as gods; or the other who said: You are earth, and into earth you shall go? The one threatened death, the other promised immortality. Yet this one who promised immortality cast him out of paradise; the other who threatened death brought him into heaven. Do you see how the faithful wounds of a friend are better than the flattering kisses of an enemy?" He then adds: "Therefore I first wished to declare this, that I am grateful to those who reprove me. For friends reprove either justly or unjustly, not wishing to approve, but they do this in order to correct; but enemies, even if they reprove justly, do this nevertheless not in order to correct, but in order to hiss at: just as those, while they praise, look to this one thing, that they may make him better, and these, while they praise, study how they might be able to supplant." Fourth, this maxim can be applied to true preachers thundering severely against vices, and to false ones who flatter the vices of the powerful. Whence Philo of Carpathus in chapter six of the Canticles: "Nor is it hard for him," he says, "to be rebuked more harshly, provided he understands that it will please the Lord; whence Solomon: Better are the wounds of a friend than the deceitful kisses of an enemy; for these lead to eternal salvation, those most miserably kill. Would that the bride of Christ (namely the Church) were constantly beaten with these blows; for not so many (alas, wretched!) Christians would perish miserably every day through the flatteries of preachers!" And after some remarks, he honors those who inflict these wounds on their hearers out of love in this way: "These are they who beat most holily, and wound most healthfully, and from these let sinners desire to have a wound inflicted upon them, and from these wish to be healed: for from these it is better to be killed for a time than to be kissed to hell by flatterers." And St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, octon. 5: "We too," he says, "confess a wound, when we preach Christ crucified; but we are a good odor to God, etc. By this wound the Church is wounded, when she preaches the death of her Savior; but this wound is of charity. Finally, he who does not believe denies, he who loves confesses. The Manichaean denies, the Christian confesses; and therefore it is written: The wounds of a friend are more useful than the voluntary kisses of an enemy. Beautifully therefore the Church says: Because I am wounded with charity. Let us bare our members to the good wound; let us bare ourselves to the chosen arrow. This arrow is Christ, who says: He has made me like a chosen arrow. It is good therefore to be wounded by this arrow." And then he adapts these wounds to the Martyrs: "Not all," he says, "can say that they are wounded with love. The Apostles said it, when they were stoned for Christ and preached Christ. Paul said it, when he was beaten three times with rods, and day and night disputed to the Gentiles that Christ should be adored. The Martyrs say this, who are wounded for Christ, and because they merited to be wounded for His name, they love more." Mystically, the same St. Ambrose in Psalm 118, octon. 18, at the end, understands by wounds the mortification of the flesh, which the faithful inflicts upon himself out of love of Christ, which is better than the flatteries by which the flesh deceitfully flatters us.
27:7
In Hebrew, and the soul that is hungry finds every bitter thing sweet; the Septuagint, the soul that is in satiety mocks at honeycombs, but to the needy even bitter things appear sweet; Cassian, Collations XII, chapters xiv and xv, reads, the soul that is hungry; the Chaldean, and to the soul that is hungry whatever bitter thing is, is sweet; the Syrian, to the soul that is hungry even bitter things will be sweet. Grammatically, or in the letter of the text, this maxim signifies that satiety produces disgust with food, while hunger brings flavor and delight; for he who is satiated loathes all foods even the most delicate; but he who hungers judges all foods, however insipid or bitter, to be pleasant and agreeable. Whence that saying: "The best seasoning of food is hunger, of drink is thirst." And that saying: "Hunger makes it so that raw beans taste like sugar; hunger sweetens all things besides itself." And that saying of Lucius: "Abundance of things produces disgust." Hence Socrates, walking about until late evening before the doors, being asked what he was doing, said: "I am preparing seasoning for my supper." Parabolically, however, and especially under this letter and grammatical sense, this parable signifies, first, how much poverty differs from, indeed how much it surpasses, riches, and want surpasses wealth and abundance of things. For the rich, since they abound in all things and are always satiated, even loathe the most delicate foods, always seeking something that might excite appetite and please the palate. But the poor, who often suffer great hunger and rarely have a full belly, even dry bread and pure water they consume most eagerly and with pleasure, and things which are insipid and unpalatable to others taste excellent to them. "What my soul refused to touch before, now through distress are my meats," says Job chapter vi, 7. To this applies the proverb of the Arabs: "Every shoe is worn by the barefoot man," that is to say, the poor man, lacking better things, is content with and rejoices in the basest things. I add clear examples. Ptolemy, son of Lagus, when traveling through Egypt with companions not following him, having been given a baker's bread in a house, denied that any food had ever seemed to him more pleasant. For the best seasoning, hunger, was present. Thus Cicero, book V of the Tusculan Disputations. Darius in flight, when he had drunk turbid water polluted with corpses, denied that he had ever drunk more pleasantly. For he had scarcely ever or rarely drunk while thirsty. Thus Cicero, book V of the Tusculan Disputations. Artaxerxes, when in a certain flight his provisions having been seized, he was eating dried figs and barley bread: "Good gods," he said, "I have until now been inexperienced in such pleasure." Thus Plutarch in the Sayings of Kings and Emperors. To Artaxerxes now failing with thirst Peribarzanes the eunuch, since nothing else was permitted, brought from some rustic a filthy wineskin containing eight cups of putrid water; when the king had drunk that water, he confessed that he had never drunk wine more pleasantly, nor had any water, however pure, seemed to him more pleasant. Second, that pleasure consists not in the abundance and satiety of things, but in hunger and desire. For just as satiety produces nausea, so hunger and desire produce pleasure when one enjoys the desired thing; for desire makes all things savory and sweet. Wherefore the good things of this life are esteemed by men more from their appetite and desire for them than from the things themselves. For we often see that we vehemently desire something, and to obtain it we make light of all labor, and we marvel at our joy when we acquire it; but truly when, the desire being satisfied, we are satiated with that thing, we make little of it, and finally loathe it. St. Chrysostom teaches this most excellently, in the homily "That no one is harmed except by himself": "By the prudent, he says, it is thus defined, that this alone is pleasure when one enjoys his desires. But where one cannot enjoy his desires, since either sickness does not permit it, or satiety itself does not make desirable what abundance renders burdensome, without doubt both pleasure and enjoyment perish in them likewise. Finally, consider the sick who are tormented by disgust, how, although sweet and delicate foods are set before them, they receive them rather with horror than with pleasure. Thus therefore, when through abundance desire has been extinguished, pleasure and enjoyment are likewise destroyed, because satisfaction of desire generates pleasure not so much for the sake of foods as for the vigor of desire. Whence also a wise man, and one who knows how to philosophize well in this discipline, said: The soul placed in satiety mocks the honeycomb; showing also himself that pleasure consists not in the nature, as we have said, of foods, but in the vigor of desire." He then proves this elegantly from the rock, which when struck by Moses gave water to drink to the Hebrews thirsting in the desert, Psalm lxxx: "For this reason also the Prophet, recounting the wonders which were wrought in Egypt and which were in the wilderness, among other things also says this: He satisfied them with honey from the rock. Indeed we nowhere find that honey flowed from stone: what then is it that he said? Because indeed after much weariness of journey and labor, thirsting they enjoyed cold waters flowing from the rock, and they drank them with much desire. By this very fact therefore that the thirst for drinking was most sweetly and desirably satisfied, he called those waters honey, not because the nature of the waters was changed, but because the sweetness of the drink obtained the sweetness of honey for those thirsting and desiring." The same holds in spiritual things. For many from continual pious reading and daily confession, communion, sacrifice, hours, etc., conceive a certain satiety, and from it tedium and nausea, to which Cassian gives this remedy, that daily they stir up hunger and desire for spiritual things, even the same ones, as if this pious reading, conversation, communion were new and hitherto unheard of to them, according to that saying of Thomas the Didactic, book IV of the Imitation of Christ, chapter ii: "So great, he says, new and pleasant should it appear to you when you celebrate or hear Mass, as if on that very day Christ first descended into the womb of the Virgin and became man, or hanging on the cross suffered and died for the salvation of men." But hear Abbot Nesterus in Cassian, Collation XIV, chapter xiii: "It behooves you to guard with all diligence that, even if those things which you know well perhaps you hear brought forth in a collation, you do not on this account that they are already known to you receive them with scorn and disgust; but commend them to your heart with that eagerness with which the words of salvation ought to be ceaselessly poured into our ears or continually brought forth from our mouth. For it is evident proof of a lukewarm and proud mind if it receives with disgust and negligence the medicine of saving words, however much it has been administered with excessive assiduity of study. For the soul which is in satiety mocks the honeycomb; but to a soul in need even bitter things appear sweet." Hence Abbot Chaeremon, in Collation XII, chapter v, teaches that one who tends toward perfection must daily sharpen his desire for it. "For," he says, "whom once his desire for it has inflamed, hunger, thirst, vigils, nakedness, all bodily labors compel him to endure not only patiently, but even willingly. For a man labors in labors for himself, and does violence to his own destruction;" and again: "But to a soul in want even bitter things appear sweet. For otherwise the desires of present things cannot be restrained or torn away, unless in place of those harmful affections which we wish to cut away, other salutary ones shall have been introduced. For in no way can the liveliness of the mind subsist without the affection of some desire or fear, joy or sorrow, unless these very things shall have been changed to a good end. And therefore, if we desire to thrust out carnal concupiscences from our hearts, let us at once plant spiritual desires in their places, so that our mind, always leaning on these, may have things in which to dwell continually, and may reject the allurements of present and temporal joys." Thirdly, this maxim teaches that all creatures must be used moderately, even pleasant ones, even studies and sciences, because pleasures are commended by rarer use. Whence that saying: "All satiety is evil, but satiety in studies is worst of all." Hear St. Chrysostom, Oration 6 On Providence or On Fate, which is found at the end of volume V: "If we seek pleasure, we shall find it in sufficiency rather than in delights. Hear how there is in it greater and more abundant pleasure than in these. For these cannot moderate themselves henceforth, nor do they find a nature of blood suitable to themselves, but that one on the contrary can moderate itself. Who says this? he who enjoyed these things most of all. Souls, he says, empty, to which bitter things appear sweet: a soul satiated even plays with honeycomb; for if in abundance we do not even desire honeycomb, what can be pleasant thereafter? If that which is most sweet cannot bring pleasure, what can place us in pleasure? Wherefore if we seek pleasure, here rather, that is in poverty, we shall find it." Symbolically some expound it thus, as if to say: Elders who are satiated with carnal pleasures trample them and loathe them; but youths who hunger for them undertake all labor for them, and esteem them sweet. Mystically Bede, Salonius and Hugh: "The soul of the rich (who have their consolation in this world, of whom it is said in the Gospel: Woe to you who are filled, for you shall hunger), the soul, I say, of the rich tramples the honeycomb, because for earthly goods it spurns the sweetness of the kingdom of heaven; but the soul that hungers will even take bitter for sweet, because he who hungers and thirsts for justice eagerly takes all the adversity of this life for love of the heavenly homeland." So also the Author of the Catena of the Greeks. Contrary, but more aptly, Jansenius, so that satiety be taken in a good sense, hunger in a bad sense, as if to say: He who no longer hungers for temporal goods, but with his mind joined to divine things is satiated with them, content with food and clothing, and through them judging with Paul that he has all things, loathes all these earthly things which others esteem most sweet. On the contrary, those who are held by an insatiable desire either for goods or for the pleasures of this life judge these fleeting things and the pleasures of this life (which are truly bitter to those who are imbued with heavenly wisdom and do not have a corrupted palate) sweet, preferring them to the virtues of the soul and heavenly things, which is truly to take bitter for sweet. According to this adaptation, loathing is in the same things in which there is satiety; likewise hunger for the same things which are taken as sweet: whereas in the former it is not so, which nevertheless the true understanding of the parable seems to require. Dionysius adds: The soul, he says, satiated with internal consolation from contemplation and taste of the supreme and uncircumscribed good will trample the honeycomb, that is, all earthly delights.
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The Arabian, his nest. Some, such as Aben-Ezra, Clarius, Baynus, Vatablus, take this name in a good sense, as if to say: Just as a bird, in order to seek food, flies from place to place, and in the time of winter, in order to flee the cold, migrates to a warm region: so likewise he who is devoted to his affairs does not remain idle and sluggish at home, but flies forth from there to the forum, to the field, indeed even to foreign regions, so that he may procure for himself and his the necessities of life. But truly others generally take this name in a bad sense. He therefore censures those who, without just cause, from levity of mind, fickleness and inconstancy of spirit, like birds, rashly migrate from one place to another and yet another, as vagabonds do. For the Hebrew nadad signifies to wander, to be driven about, to flee, to pass swiftly. Whence the Hebrews have it, as a bird wandering from its nest, so a man wandering from his place; Vatablus, a man who migrates from his place is like a little sparrow abandoning its nest; the Syriac, as a bird transferring its nest: so he who is unstable changes from his place. I said without just cause, because a just cause makes the change of place to be honourable, useful and necessary. But a just cause is threefold: first, necessity; second, utility; third, piety. Necessity exists when someone changes his place on account of famine, plague, war, etc., as Naomi did on account of famine, sojourning in Moab, who nevertheless lost her husband, sons and wealth there; but she brought back with her one Ruth and converted her, from whom Christ was born, Ruth chapter 1. Again, necessity exists when persecution presses: as Elias fled the persecution of Achab and Jezabel, and St. Athanasius, an exile and fugitive, wandered throughout the whole world for forty-six years on account of the persecution of the Arians. Of such the Apostle says, Hebrews xi, 37: "They wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted: of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Utility exists when someone goes to foreign regions for the sake of trade so that he may enrich himself, and may bring back merchandise useful to the commonwealth. Again, when someone is appointed Senator, Prefect, Bishop, Viceroy of another city or province. Piety exists when someone journeys by the command of God, as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did, "confessing that they are pilgrims and strangers upon the earth: for they that say these things do signify that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful of that from whence they came out, they had doubtless time to return. But now they desire a better, that is to say, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city," Hebrews xi, 11. Again, when someone enters Religion, and in it is sent from one monastery or college to another, from one province to another: but here he is at home everywhere, being as it were a cosmopolitan and citizen of the world, such as Socrates said he was. For the religious man finds everywhere the Fathers and Brothers of his institute, everywhere the same kind of religious life, the same discipline, piety, charity, and thus according to the hundredfold promised by Christ he receives a hundred houses, fathers, mothers, brothers in place of one which he left for the love of God. Greater piety exists when someone journeys from zeal for evangelizing to heretics or Pagans, for example to the Indians, Japanese and Chinese, as the Apostles did, and as today zealous men emulating the Apostolic life do. Furthermore, when these causes cease, to migrate from place to place from mere fickleness of mind is unseemly, useless and harmful, for various reasons. The first is that such a person lacks quiet and stability, since he is everywhere a vagrant and a stranger: for nowhere does he have his own house or chamber in which he may dwell in quiet, but everywhere he is as it were in a lodging and common inn. For this wandering life is miserable, and the more miserable the more it flows from a wandering mind, of which it is the index. Truly Seneca, epistle 2: "First," he says, "I consider a sign of a composed mind to be able to remain still and to stay with oneself;" and soon after: "He is nowhere who is everywhere. This happens to those who live in travel, that they have many lodgings, no friendships. The same must necessarily happen to those who do not apply themselves familiarly to any pursuit, but pass through everything hastily and hurriedly. Food does not benefit, nor does it accrue to the body, which is immediately expelled after being taken. Nothing so much impedes health as the frequent change of remedies; a wound does not come to a scar in which frequent medicines are tried; a plant does not recover which is frequently transplanted: nothing is so useful that it profits in passing." The second is, that a wanderer cannot attend to the education of his children, the instruction and increase of his family, the procurement of life's necessities, because he is in perpetual motion and change, and therefore is like a bird, which neither establishes wealth nor family, but is in constant flight, indeed is worse than a bird: for a bird, while it incubates eggs and cherishes its young, until they grow up and are able to seek food for themselves, remains in the nest to care for its young, but a wanderer abandons both wife and children and family, whence it is necessary that they be afflicted by want of things. Wherefore he is similar to the ostrich, concerning which Job, cap. xxxix, vers. 13: "The wing of the ostrich," he says, "is like the wings of the heron and the hawk: when she leaveth her eggs in the earth, thou makest her forget them, that they may be trodden under foot, or crushed by the beasts of the field: she is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers, she laboureth in vain without fear: for God hath deprived her of wisdom," etc. The third is, that he who changes his place loses acquaintances and friends, and goes to strangers and foreigners, who neither trust him, nor does he trust them: wherefore alone without a friend, often in want of all things, without hope of aid he lives. Wherefore Plato, Dial. 7 De Legibus, says: "Change in all things, except in evils, is dangerous." The fourth is, that, just as birds when they fly from place to place often fall into nets, or are struck by javelins: so he who goes abroad, ignorant of the laws and dangers of the place, often incurs the risk of imprisonment, loss of goods, reputation and life. Whence the Septuagint translates, as when a bird has flown from its own nest, so a man becomes a slave when he has wandered from his own places; the Author of the Catena of the Greeks, as a bird when it abandons its nest exposes itself to the danger of capture: so a man when he goes abroad from his place is sometimes carried off into servitude; Symmachus, when he has been removed, etc. The fifth, as a bird lives most conveniently in its own nest, and if it flies from it, it must migrate to a less convenient place: so also each one dwells most conveniently in his own place and home: wherefore if he passes from it to another, he must necessarily pass to a less convenient one. To these things: As a bird, says R. Levi, having left its nest is often stripped of it, and forced to build itself another: so he who rashly abandons his place is pressed by want of all things. Again, as a bird which, when winter approaches, abandons the nest in which it dwelt through the summer, when it returns again after winter, finds the nest completely overturned and scattered, so that it is necessary for it to construct and build a new one: so also a man, whom it has happened to be away from his home and from his household for a time, when he returns again and seeks his dwelling, finds his entire family and all his domestic affairs confused and disturbed, so that it is necessary to restore all things. Thus Salazar. Solomon being followed in his manner by Sirach, Eccli. xxix, 31: "A wicked life," he says, "is the life of lodging from house to house, and where he shall lodge, he shall not act with confidence, nor shall he open his mouth." And cap. xxxvi, 28: "Who will trust him that hath no nest, and that turneth aside whithersoever the shadow inclineth?" etc. See the sayings in both places. Mystically Bede: "As a bird which neglects its eggs, or its young which it had cherished, abandons them to the prey of other animals or birds: so surely he who abandons the custody of virtues, in which he was making progress, becomes himself a betrayer of those same virtues, which he seemed to have, to unclean spirits." Wherefore you may aptly attribute this maxim to those who lightly change their studies, duties, occupations, pious exercises, indeed their state, for example, those who lightly migrate from one monastery to another, from one Order to another, pretending greater quiet or holiness, when truly this cause does not underlie it, but only fickleness and inconstancy of mind, which accompany them everywhere. For stability of mind, and consequently of place (which therefore many cenobites vow), is necessary to him who strives for great perfection in virtue and religious life. Therefore this maxim admonishes that one must persist in his degree and vocation, he who loves his own quiet, stability, security, progress and perfection: for he who abandons this incurs a thousand disturbances, by which he becomes restless, unstable, doubtful, erring and prone to falling. Wisely the Poet: Where thou hast been placed in thy station, remain. Those who are led by instability now profess this art, now that, make progress in none. The same is true in studies, duties, virtues. Excellently St. Basil, Monastic Constitutions cap. xxii: "Every," he says, "pretext, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason, is cut off and taken away from him who wishes to separate himself from the spiritual community, and it has been demonstrated that the origin of such a counsel is nothing other than the intemperance of vices, and the flight from labor, and the corruption of judgment and instability." St. Ephrem the Syrian thus decrees: "In the place of your dwelling, or which you have received as assigned by God, willingly remain there, driving away idleness and sloth from yourself, since it is not situated in the change of place and distance that we might restrain our passions, but in the attention and care of the mind." Hear St. Bernard, epistle 32 to the Abbot of St. Nicasius: "We admonish Frank Hugo of Lausanne by your mouth and our spirit, not to believe every spirit, and lest he quickly move to abandon what is certain for what is uncertain, knowing that the devil always lies in wait for perseverance alone, which is the only virtue he knows is crowned, and it is safer in that vocation to which he was called to persevere simply, than under the appearance of a quasi better good, that which indeed he has already begun to lose, nor is he perhaps sufficient for that which he presumes." Finally St. Thomas, II II, Question clxxxix, article 8, disapproves the transfer from one Religious order to another, unless a grave cause compels it. I have said more on this matter in Ecclesiastes xvii, 24.
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In Hebrew: And the sweetness of a friend from counsel of the soul, or for the counsel of the soul, or, as Pagninus translates, on account of the counsel of the soul. First, Rabbi Solomon thus explains it, as if to say: He who so confirms his actions that they become pleasing and sweet to God, does better than if he were to fulfill the desires of his own mind. But this exposition departs further from the words of Solomon. Second, better the same Rabbi Solomon, Aben-Ezra, Rabbi Levi and Baynus translate from the Hebrew word by word: ointment and incense gladden the heart, and sweet is a friend more than the counsel of the soul; or, as Vatablus, and sweet is the counsel of a friend more (repeat: gladdens and exhilarates the heart of man) than the counsel of the soul, namely one's own, that is than one's own counsel, as if to say: Just as ointment with which we are anointed, and the odor of balsam, frankincense, and other aromatics, whose fragrance recreates the spirit, wonderfully exhilarates and refreshes man: so likewise the sweetness of a friend exhilarates the soul more, when he communicates some secret counsel to him, than exhilarates the counsel of which he himself was the author. Rabbi Levi gives the reason: Why ointment and incense of various odors delight the soul by their sweetness, this happens because things in a certain way external flow into the soul: thus the sweetness of a secret shared with a friend for receiving counsel is more excellent than counsel which one deliberated with himself without the help of another, because on both sides the communication of sweet counsel flows externally, and as it were from heaven into the soul of the friend. Third, the Chaldean translates: just as good oil and aromatics gladden the heart: so a man sweet to his friend in the counsel of his soul; the Syrian, thus a man who delights his friend in the counsel of his soul; which the Zurich Bible clearly explains, and to have a friend who counsels from the heart is the sweetest thing. For friends who are benevolent and gentle please and delight more than those who are learned and prudent in counsels. Fourth, from the Hebrew you may plainly translate with Pagninus, and the sweetness of a friend from counsel, that is on account of the counsel of the soul, that is, as our author translates, and the soul is sweetened by the good counsels of a friend. For ointment in Hebrew is שמן scemen, that is oil, which because it holds the principal place in anointings, hence is extended by synecdoche to signify any ointment. If you translate oil here, the sense will be, as if to say: Just as oil shines, nourishes, anoints: so the counsel of a friend illuminates the mind, nourishes the will, soothes and softens the affections of anger and sadness. The same things are more excellent when ointments are made from balsam and other precious substances. For odors in Hebrew is קטורת ketereth, that is frankincense, and whatever exhales a sweet odor by its burning. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Just as ointments gladden the heart, and odors gladden and strengthen the head and brain: so likewise sound and sincere counsels of a friend rouse and gladden the heart oppressed by sorrow, anguish, anger, or any other passion, and illuminate, gladden and comfort the mind more than counsels which one's own mind suggests to each. Second, just as sweet odors and ointments strengthen the brain and resist drunkenness, and for that reason they were formerly wont to be used at banquets: so also sound counsels of a friend ward off precipitousness and rashness, which are as it were the drunkenness of an unwise soul, and cause a man to proceed soberly, cautiously and providently in his affairs, especially in doubtful and perplexing matters. Third, in adverse matters sound counsels raise up and gladden the depressed and sorrowful soul like precious ointment; but in prosperous matters, lest it become insolent, they strengthen it like aromatics. Fourth, by pleasant odors drawn in through breathing, the soul, as it were, returns, that is, the vital breath which was before languid, prostrate and dying, as is evident in a fainting fit: whence that passage of the Bride in the Canticle ii, 5: "Strengthen me with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love," as if to say, I am almost dying from the languor of love; therefore by the odor of flowers and apples recall my fleeing soul. The reason is that all odorous things are hot; indeed odor is heat, as Aristotle says in the Problems, section xii, number 4. But hot things recall life; for life consists in heat and moisture, both of which odorous things possess; they therefore exhale sweet and fiery breaths and vapors, which wonderfully refresh and strengthen the vital spirits and the brain: thus likewise good counsel recalls the soul prostrate with sorrow and anguish to the body and head, and brings back to itself one prone to fall into sin, so that it may live and serve itself and God in holiness. Thus Paul concerning himself and the other Apostles giving sound counsels unto salvation says: "We are the good odor of Christ unto God, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one indeed the odor of death unto death, and to the other the odor of life unto life," II Cor. ii, 15. Just as the odor of a rose kills a beetle, it vivifies a man. To this pertains what Pliny, lib. VII, cap. 11, relates from Megasthenes, that there are peoples in India called astomos, who without food and drink live from the sole breath and odor of flowers, fruits and roots; but I consider this fabulous. Fifth, odorous things increase in man judgment and discernment: for they excite and strengthen the vital and animal spirits, which comfort the brain for choosing and judging rightly; the same does sound counsel of a friend. Hence the Emperor Aelius Verus ordered that a small net filled with rose leaves (which among flowers is most fragrant, whence in Greek it is called ῥόδον, because, as Plutarch says, ῥεῦμα πολὺ τῆς ὀσμῆς ἀπίει, that is, a great flow of odor departs) be spread under his couch, in which he was accustomed to recline anointed with Persian odors, so that by these odors his mind might be excited and his judgment sharpened and made vivid. Indeed Apuleius in the Golden Ass relates that he, transformed from a man into an ass, having sought roses throughout the whole world and endured so many hardships, until at last a supply of them was offered which he could pluck, was restored to human form, to his former beauty, mind and judgment. Sixth, Aristotle in the Problems, section xii, numbers 7 and following, teaches that aromatics smell more acutely and for longer when suffused with ash than with fire, because fire quickly tames their powers and cooks them, and thus alters and changes the odor. Again, aromatics and flowers smell more sweetly from a distance than from close by; likewise when they are moved; moreover roses smell more sweetly those which have a rough navel than those which have a smooth one, because they have fully attained the measure of their nature: for the rose by nature is thorny and rough. Thus likewise sounder and sweeter are the counsels of a friend which are mature and modest than those which are ardent and rash; likewise those which have something rough and difficult about them rather than those which are delicate and soft. Hence also nearly all odorous things are bitter in taste, and so those which are strong in odor lack taste. Hear Pliny, lib. xxi, cap. vii: "To an odorous thing a bitter taste is rarely lacking: on the contrary, sweet things are rarely odorous. And so wines are more odorous than must, and wild things all more so than cultivated. The odor of some is sweeter from a distance, when brought closer it is dulled, as with violets. A fresh rose smells from a distance, a dried one from close by. But all are more acrid in spring, and in the mornings: whatever tends toward the midday hours of the day is dulled. New things also are less odorous than old; yet the most acrid odor of all is in the middle of summer. Rose and saffron are more odorous when gathered on clear days, and all things in warm weather than in cold." Moreover the Septuagint goes another way, namely reading רעהו reehu, that is his friend, with different points as רועה roah, that is it is worn away, broken, burst, and for עצת atsa, that is counsel, reading אנקה aka, that is affliction, distress, they translate, with unguents, and wines, and odors the heart is delighted, but the soul is burst asunder by calamities, as if to say, Those who indulge their inclination and devote themselves to delights, namely to sumptuous banquets and symposia, in which the guests are anointed with unguents and refreshed with precious perfumes; these indeed for a short time delight the heart: but when they have exhausted their wealth in these things, reduced to poverty, they fall into hunger, nakedness, labors and pains, which lacerate the soul and almost burst it asunder. Whence the Author of the Greek Catena translates, but the soul by various misfortunes (for thus the Greek word συμπτωμάτων signifies, which the Complutensians translate, tossed about by accidents, is almost burst asunder. The same Author, understanding by heart the mind, by soul the concupiscible and irascible power, thus expounds it symbolically, as if to say, The heart, that is the mind, which holds dominion in its thoughts, delights itself in various ways in the study of wisdom: for these are the unguents, wines and odors of the heart or mind. But when the soul, that is the concupiscible or irascible power, holds the principate in the soul, then it is obscured and burst asunder, and reduced to nothing.
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Aquila, in the day of distress; in Hebrew, in the day of ruin; the Septuagint, atychon, that is, existing in misfortune; the Chaldean, in the day of thy destruction; the Syrian, in the day of thy breaking; Vatablus, in the time of thy calamity; Pagninus, in the day of thy crushing. The Hebrew אד ed properly signifies vapor, cloud, or rather a gulf of waters, as I have shown in Genesis ii, 6, and metaphorically disaster and calamity, which suddenly and unexpectedly like a cloud and gulf pours down and thunders, especially the supreme and extreme kind, such as destruction, ruin or devastation. Some here understand two friends, namely one of thine, the other of thy father's. More simply others take one and the same. He admonishes therefore that an old friend should not be abandoned, nor his friendship dissolved, who has proved his faith to thee over a long time, and so is not called upon yesterday, but from of old is as it were a hereditary friend, who was namely not only thy friend, but also thy father's friend. For thou knowest him, thou canst surely trust him. Thou knowest in what manner thou ought to deal with him, thou hast experienced his probity, faith, constancy: by his counsel, as by the fragrance of perfumes, thy heart shall be made glad. Finally friendships ought to be immortal. And old friendships are more solid than new and recent ones, says Lyra. Whence Isocrates to Demonicus says, "Children are heirs not only of their fathers' property, but also of their friendships." And Cicero: "Friendship," he says, "is the best and most beautiful furnishing of life." And Herodotus: "A prudent and benevolent friend," he says, "is the most precious treasure, and surpasses all riches." Furthermore Seneca gives the reason why a friend sometimes abandons a friend, in epistle 9: "He who looks to himself, and for this reason comes to friendship, thinks badly: as he began so he will end. He who is taken up for the sake of utility will please so long as he is useful." How often, as Plutarch used to say, just as that foster-child of Hypsipyle sitting in the meadow plucked one flower after another, infancy making the choice useless: so each of us by a certain love of novelty, and disgust of present things, is captivated always by a fresh and as it were verdant friend, and is changed from time to time, undertaking many friendships at once and imperfect? Mystically, Rabbi Solomon: God, he says, is the friend of Israel and of his father, namely Abraham; whence He is called the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, who therefore is never to be abandoned in any circumstance. AND ENTER NOT INTO THE HOUSE OF THY BROTHER IN THE DAY OF THY AFFLICTION. — Some think the brother is the same as the friend who preceded, as if to say, Go to the house of thy brother, that is thy friend, when he himself can help thee, and thou canst be helped by him; but when thy affairs are utterly afflicted and desperate (namely in the day of thy ruin, as the Hebrew has it), so that neither can he help thee, nor canst thou be helped by him, do not go to him in vain and ask for aid, lest in place of the cheerfulness which he is wont to bring thee, thou repay him with troubles, and in place of favor return weariness. Again do not go to him, when by going thou art about to create danger for him, so that as thy companion he may be thrust with thee into the same ruin into which thou art thrust. In other cases however in the day of affliction the friend is to be visited, so that he may bestow aid and consolation. For to this end friendship and a friend are contracted, that in adverse matters he may help and sustain the afflicted friend, as I have shown elsewhere. Secondly and more plainly, take the brother here properly: for he sets it in opposition to and places it after the friend, as if to say, Thou shalt by no means abandon thy proved and old friend and thy father's: for he will be more faithful, more friendly and more useful to thee than a brother; wherefore in the day of affliction go rather to the friend than to the brother: for thou shalt draw more aid, consolation and help from a prudent friend than from a brother, who either is far away, or rarely spends time with thee, and does not know or does not care for thy affairs, nay sometimes even exercises quarrels and disputes with thee. Whence that saying: "Even the favor of brothers is rare." Thus it often happens, but not always: for it is possible to find brothers most friendly, who devote themselves and their possessions to their brothers. This maxim therefore teaches how much friendship and a true friend ought to be valued and cultivated, inasmuch as thou canst trust him more than a brother, and from whom thou canst hope for more aid in adversity than from a blood brother, according to that in chapter xviii, 24: "A man that is friendly to society shall be more a friend than a brother." See the things said there. For in calamity it is almost hateful and troublesome to brothers and kinsmen that brothers or kinsmen should implore their aid, as was said in chapter xix, 7, especially if they are distant, but a friend is near. Whence it follows:
A Neighbor That Is Near Is Better Than a Brother Far Away In Hebrew: A good neighbor near is better than a brother far off; the Septuagint: Better (the Author of the Greek Catena, more opportune) is a friend who is near than a brother who is far away. Bede and Hugh understand by neighbor a friend, as if to say: Better is a faithful and prudent friend than a brother far removed. For often there is greater communion of friendship than of brotherhood. For among brothers there are often quarrels, as there were between Isaac and Ishmael, between Jacob and Esau, between Joseph and his brothers. Whence Rabbi Solomon thus expounds it, as if to say: Do not, O Israel, place your hope in the offspring of Ishmael, that they will be near to you. On which account he then narrates a history, or rather a fable. Secondly and more simply, understand neighbor properly, as if to say: You can hope for more help from a benevolent neighbor than from a brother far removed: both because a neighbor is more opportune and at hand, so that in your necessity he may immediately run to you and help you, whereas a brother who is remote, whom you cannot therefore reach, or if you do reach him, you arrive too late after the matter is done; and because the nearness of continual communication and mutual aid suggests more occasions daily, whereas distance of place between brothers often diminishes and wears away communication, and hence friendship and mutual aid. Therefore this maxim admonishes, first, that neighbors rather than those far away ought to be chosen for friendship. For a friend ought frequently to converse with a friend: which cannot happen unless he be a neighbor; secondly, that neighbors ought to be cultivated with, if not full friendship, certainly with benevolence, beneficence, and communication of mutual aid, and we ought to beware lest we offend them, or, if they are offended, we should reconcile ourselves with them: if they cannot be reconciled, we ought to think of moving to another neighborhood. Whence St. Ambrose, in the book On Duties, chapter thirty-four: "In short," he says, "the same duties are not always owed to all, nor are they determined by persons, but for the most part by causes and times, so that one may sometimes help a neighbor more than a brother. Since Solomon also says: Better is a neighbor near than a brother dwelling far away, and therefore friends more readily commit themselves to each other's benevolence than to the necessity of brotherhood. So much does benevolence avail that it often surpasses the bonds of nature." For which reason St. Augustine, in his first sermon On the Seasons, teaches that neighbors ought sometimes to be invited to table, so that greater love and benevolence may grow with them. And this is what honorable and prudent men do. To this pertains the maxim of Ben-Sira, in the alphabet, first letter resen: "Depart far from an evil neighbor, and be not numbered in the society of them, for their feet run to evil; nevertheless let your neighbors move you to pity, even if they are evil; and give them of your food, because at the time when you shall stand for judgment, they will testify for you." To this also pertains that saying of Cato: It is more useful to a kingdom to acquire friends by merit. And that of the Comic poet: Better is a lark on the earth than a crane in the sky. Following Solomon in the usual manner, other wise men and philosophers hold that nearness of neighborhood is to be reckoned as a kind of affinity, and Terence in the Heautontimorumenos reckons it in the near part of friendship. Cicero, in book I of On Duties: "You will help a neighbor," he says, "more quickly in gathering fruits than either a brother or a familiar friend." Herodotus, in book I, relates that those Persians especially observe with reverence those who dwell nearest, give second place to those who are nearest to the first; and thus proceeding further, the nearer they are, the more closely bound they consider them by necessity. Hesiod at the end of book I, which is titled Works and Days, admonishes that neighbors especially ought to be invited to a banquet. Therefore in St. Luke, chapter fifteen, verse six, he who found the sheep which he had lost, coming home, calls together his friends and neighbors (but says nothing of kinsmen) saying to them: "Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost;" which is also repeated in the Canons, in the chapter Penitent, twenty-six, Question seven. From which we can easily gather that we have a somewhat closer friendship and familiarity with neighbors than with kinsmen. And therefore the sacred Scriptures in the order of Scripture place neighbors before kinsmen, Luke chapter i, verse 58: "And his neighbors and his kinsmen heard." Hesiod asserts the same thing in several eloquent verses, in Works and Days: If any matter befalls you at home, then immediately, leaving all things, Neighbors are at hand, girding themselves, but kinsmen gird themselves: New is a neighbor how great an improper one, But on the other hand the greatest advantage, if a suitable one be at hand. Honor is lacking to him whom good neighborhood fails; and nor does it matter to these, unless an improper neighbor be present. He brings forward that saying, "proximity to ruin is an evil nearby," as proverbial, Callarus in his epistle to Callicles, among the rustic epistles of Aelian. When a certain Spartan was extolling this saying with praises, Diogenes that Cynic, hearing it, said: "Yet the Messenians also perished, and their cattle, being situated in your vicinity;" for indeed the Lacedaemonians had afflicted Messenia in war. The author is Pausanias. But Themistocles, the leader of the Athenians, as Plutarch related in the Apophthegms and in his Life itself, when he put a field up for sale, ordered the herald to add to the other commendations that which concerned having good neighbors, as if by the commendation of neighbors it would be far more saleable. And this is supported by what Cicero writes in his epistles to Atticus, book xii, epistle 27, or the 258th overall: "I see your house will be worth more with Caesar as a neighbor." And that passage of Martial, book vi, epigram 9: Not by force, nor by slaughter, nor by poison Is my dispute, but concerning three goats: I complain that these are absent through the theft of a neighbor. And elsewhere, namely book vii, epigram 92: Because of a neighbor who was precious. Nor should we omit here that there exists among Jovianus Pontanus in the Actions, dialogue 1, an example of an ancient instrument of sale, in which among other things it is written: "He has good tribesmen and neighbors," whom he then names. Many nations, abandoning their native soil, sought foreign lands, such as the Achaeans, Iberians, Albanians, Sicilians, Pelasgians, Aborigines, Arcadians, for no other reason than that they could not bear bad neighbors. Pliny, book xviii, chapter v: "One ought, he says, before all else to consider the force of waters and the neighbor when preparing a field;" each of these has great and undoubted interpretations. Palladius also, who wrote on the same discipline, book I, chapter vi: "Three, he says, evils harm equally, barrenness, disease, a neighbor." Before these, Plautus in the Merchant, act iv, scene 4: Now I experience that old saying to be true: That something evil exists because of an evil neighbor. And to this also alludes that passage of Virgil, eclogue 1: Nor shall the evil contagions of a neighbor's flock harm. And eclogue 9: Mantua, alas, wretched, too near to Cremona! Whence also that passage of Martial was taken, book viii, epigram 55: He had lost acres near wretched Cremona. That saying of Sallust in the Jugurthine War is well-known: "As each was nearer to the powerful, he was driven from his seat." And that of Demosthenes against Callicles: "There was nothing, men of Athens, more pernicious than a dishonest neighbor, nor one who had obtained not to be content with his own." To this assents that passage of Aristides against Themistocles: "Let the neighborhood be brackish (as they say);" which Plato cites, book iv On Laws, concerning bad neighborhood. These and many more things Tiraquellus, book On Tempering Punishments, Case 23. It is well-known how much damage Cacus, an inhabitant of the Aventine mount, inflicted on those neighboring the Palatine. Wherefore wisely Cato, book I On Agriculture, chapter v, commends to the overseer a good and suitable neighbor, and that he should win him over and gain his favor: "The forehead, he says, is prior to the back of the head. Be good to your neighbors; do not allow your household to do wrong. If the neighborhood will see you willingly, you will sell your goods more easily, you will hire out your labor more easily, you will hire workers more easily. If you build, they will help with work, beasts of burden, and materials. If anything (with good health) should come to pass, they will defend you kindly." Following Cato, Columella, book I On Agriculture, chapter iii, praises to the farmer a good neighbor, and cites that saying of Hesiod: "Nor would the ox perish, if an unjust neighbor were absent." Finally Plutarch, book On the Education of Children: "If, he says, you dwell next to a lame man, you will learn to limp." And Pindar in the Nemean Odes, hymn 7: "If a man needs a man, what shall we say if a neighbor is a friend to a neighbor of steadfast character? A joy worthy of all things." And Alexander of Aphrodisias: "He learns to stammer who constantly associates with a stammerer." St. John fled from the bath in which the heretic Cerinthus was bathing, not wishing to have such a neighbor, lest with him, if the earth should open, he would perish. St. Ambrose is said to have fled from a villa when he heard from the master that he had had nothing of misfortune in life: "Let us flee, he said, from the vicinity of this house; for great misfortune impends upon one so fortunate." He fled, and behold, soon after the house, struck by fire from heaven, was consumed.
27:11
Some with the Greeks and Hebrews read "possim," but it comes to the same meaning: for father and son are reckoned as one civil and domestic person; wherefore what the son answers for the father, that is, says or does, this the father appears to say and do, especially since the father, now aged, has transferred the care of the household to the son, or uses him as administrator for all his affairs. The Hebrew words therefore sound thus to the letter: Be wise, my son, and gladden my heart, and I will answer to him that reproaches me; the Chaldean: I will answer a word to those who reproach me; the Septuagint: Be wise, my son, that thy heart may be glad, and turn away from thyself reproachful words; Symmachus: and I will answer to him that reproaches me a word; the Syriac: and reproach shall cease from me from those who reproach me. Repeatedly Solomon after the precepts of wisdom inserts exhortations to their study, as teachers are wont to do among disciples, and parents among sons. The meaning therefore is, as if to say, Apply thyself with diligence, O my son, to wisdom, which I hand down to thee with paternal affection; for thus thou wilt affect me with a twofold good and benefit: first, with gladness, and gladness of heart, that is, cordial, intimate and supreme; for a father loves his son supremely; whence he rejoices supremely if he learn wisdom, that is, prudence and virtue, in his mind, and exercise it in deed; secondly, with honour: for a wise son and one of good conduct is an honour to his parents; wherefore if anyone reproach either the son or the parent, the son will answer for the father, and will confute both the calumnies concerning his own vices contracted from bad education by the father, and concerning the poorly administered household, or injury inflicted on others, whether on the father or on the son himself, objected both in words and in deeds, effectively, and will assign an exact account of the matter prudently managed. Strive therefore, O my son, for wisdom, that thou mayest gladden my heart as well as thine own, and that thou mayest be an honour to me and to thyself, and that from both thou mayest strenuously repel all reproach and disgrace.
27:12
In Hebrew, they are mulcted; Pagninus, they are punished; the Septuagint, kunian tiscousin, that is, they will pay a penalty. Thus the Complutensian; or they will suffer loss. Thus the Vatican; the Chaldean, through it they endure. This verse in Hebrew is word for word the same as verse 3 of chapter xxx, where Our translation renders it, the crafty man saw the evil, and hid himself; but the innocent passed through and was afflicted with evil. Wherefore innocent is the same as little child, in Hebrew pethi, that is, simple, unrefined, inexperienced, unskilled. Whence the Author of the Greek Catena from the Septuagint thus clearly translates, the crafty man withdraws himself from impending evils: but the foolish, who rashly undertake anything whatsoever, suffer loss. The rest I have explained there, wherefore I shall not do the work again.
27:13
For strangers sometimes treacherously transcribe their debts to a surety, nor can they be compelled to keep the surety harmless except through a pledge. Whence the Septuagint translates, "Take away his garment: for an unjust man hath come, who indeed lays waste the property of others": the Scholiast: "Take away his garment; for when they are unjust, others bring ruin"; clearly the Author of the Greek Catena: "Take thy garment: for there is present a violent oppressor, who scatters the property of others." This Author reads here with St. Ambrose σαυτοῦ, that is, thine, for αὐτοῦ, that is, his. Aquila and Symmachus, "because he hath become surety for a stranger." Hear St. Ambrose, in the book On Tobias, chapter xx, explaining this saying mystically: "This is the garment, which even if you have pledged it, is to be recovered; in the Proverbs St. Solomon commands, saying: Take away thy garment, for an unjust man hath passed by. The garment of wisdom is from those garments which wisdom made for herself from hyssop and purple, that is, the raiment of faith, which consists both in the preaching of heavenly things and in the blood of the Lord's passion. For by hyssop the heavens are figured, by the appearance of purple the mystery of sacred blood is declared, by which the kingdom of heaven is conferred." And after some things he thus extended this saying: "Take away thy garment, take away, namely, lest thou receive damage from imprudence, and lest that most wicked common usurer, recognizing thee stripped of thy own garment, should attempt to uncover thy confusion with reproach, and persuade thee to cover thyself with leaves, and seeing thee naked to come into the sight of God's reverence." I cite the words of the Fathers at length, because I hold it a matter of conscience not to curtail them; and if I should do so, I would mutilate the sense. We have heard this saying in the same words at chapter xx, verse 16, where I explained it.
27:14
In Hebrew, blessing his companion in a loud voice in the early morning while eating (that is, very early in the morning), it shall be reckoned as a curse to him; in the Zurich Bible, to one praising his neighbor with a loud voice, rising in the morning it shall be reckoned as if he had cursed him; in the Septuagint, he who blesses a friend with a loud voice will appear to differ nothing from one who curses; in the Syriac, he is not unlike one who curses. I presuppose that to curse and to bless in Holy Scripture are taken in three ways: first, for praying ill and well; second, for reviling and praising; third, for doing harm and doing good. Now first, R. Levi thus expounds it, as if to say: When someone with raised voice prays happy things for his companion, and this has a solemn character, so that he rises at the very early morning each day to perform it, that, I say, God will turn into a place of curse for him, because he has such a person as God, and pursues him with such praises and blessings in that manner in which these ought to be bestowed upon God. Second, R. Solomon thus expounds it, as if to say: There is one who pursues a friend with daily raised voice and great praises on account of benefits liberally bestowed upon him by that friend; but these praises are turned into revilings, when presently a rumor is spread about the same man, that he is a spendthrift and excessively powerful in wealth, so that all beg a loan from him, and thus the royal treasury is stirred up against him to wring out his riches. Thus also R. Levi, who illustrates the matter by example: If Reuben, he says, pursues Simeon with the proclamation of raised voice, because he was given a flask of generous wine by him, when some wicked person learns of it, it will befall Simeon that someone will approach him and ask him to provide a supply of this wine, from which he will suffer loss on account of the benefit he conferred upon another. Thus he. Third, Aben-Ezra, connecting this verse with the preceding one about a pledge, thus expounds it, as if to say: He who has become surety for another blesses the moneylender with raised voice, so that it is heard by others, in order to gain favor from him, lest, when he rises in the morning to conduct his business, he take away his garments. But he will regard this as a curse of ill omen, nor will he refrain from taking away the garments. Fourth, Vatablus, as if to say: He who at night, that is, inopportunely and too hastily, exalts a young man with great voices of praise, on account of a slight appearance and specimen of virtue which he displays; his praise is turned into revilement, when the young man, growing insolent from these praises, or seduced by his companions, deviates from his specimen, and becomes degenerate and wicked, or certainly negligent and sluggish. Bede adds: "He blesses a neighbor with a loud voice, who exalts him with the favor of excessive praise, or by favoring his evil deeds against justice, or by praising good things more than is just; but he is likened to one who curses, because he greatly harms him to whom, by praising, he gives confidence either in an evil action, or diminishes in a good work the simplicity of a pure heart, so that namely the good which he had begun with a view to supernatural virtue, he may consume for the love of transitory praise." Fifth, others, taking to bless and to curse for to do good and to do harm, and by a loud voice understanding the reproaches and objurgations which one doing a benefit arrogantly casts upon the poor, thus expound it, as if to say: He who bestows a benefit upon his neighbor, and at the same time violates him with proud and abusive words, even if otherwise he does not delay such a benefit, but hastens and hurries it, and performs it studiously and carefully, his gift will certainly be obtained as a loss by him who received it. Sixth and genuinely, this is a parable-saying, by which grammatically and in the bark of the letter are properly noted and censured the morning and pre-dawn greetings and acclamations of praises and good prayers, which the poor for the sake of alms, or those seeking some office or benefit, used to bring to the rich and powerful, in order to gain their favor and benevolence for themselves; for they cried out: "Hail, most liberal prince, may God preserve this day for you, and advance you, and bless you," etc. But these acclamations and blessings were rather curses, both because they were often made by those who were most hostile toward them, mocking rather than truly praying well, as Seneca testifies in book VI of On Benefits; hence those who openly acclaimed praises to their patrons, privately among themselves reviled them, both because they drained the patrons' purses, by asking from them alms or a pension; both because to patrons wishing to sleep they shook sleep away with their clamor, and dulled their ears; finally they did not proceed from the heart, but were feigned and simulated to capture the favor of the powerful. That these early morning acclamations were customary among the Romans is made manifest from Seneca the tragedian in Hercules Furens; from Juvenal, Satire 5; from Symmachus, book VIII, epistle 41: "Not yet," he says, "has the saluter experienced a watchful night before the doors of those in eminent power;" and from Seneca the philosopher, in the book On the Brevity of Life, chapter xiv, who graphically depicts how troublesome and importunate these nocturnal saluters were: "Why not," he says, "from this small and fleeting passage of time give ourselves wholly to those things which are immense, which are eternal, which are shared with the better? Those who run about through their duties, who disturb themselves and others, when they have thoroughly worn themselves out, when they have traversed all thresholds daily and passed by no open doors, when they have carried about their mercenary salutation through various houses, how many from so vast and variously distracted a city will they be able to see? How many will there be whom either sleep, or luxury, or inhumanity removes from them? How many who, after having tormented them for a long time, pass them by with feigned haste? How many will avoid going forth through an atrium crowded with clients, and will flee through dark passages of the house? As if it were not more inhuman to deceive than to exclude! How many, heavy and half-asleep from yesterday's debauchery, will, while these wretched men break their sleep so that they might wait for another's attention, scarcely raise their lips and return their name whispered a thousand times with the most arrogant yawning?" That the same custom was used among the Hebrews is evident both from this maxim of salutation, which openly signifies the same thing; and from the Rabbis already cited; and from R. Tanchuma (whom R. Solomon cites), who takes this maxim from Balaam, who blessing the Israelites with a loud voice, nevertheless sought to curse them, that is, to entice them to the worship of Beelphegor through beautiful women, and thus to destroy them, Numbers xxiii, xxiv.
27:15
The Seventy: Drippings cast a man out of his house on a winter's day; similarly a cursed woman casts her husband out of his own house. For the bridegroom was accustomed to lead the bride into his own house; but she, if contentious, casts the bridegroom out of his own house. We have heard this maxim in chapter xix, 13, where I explained it. "For by constant quarrels," says St. Jerome, in book I Against Jovinian, "and daily chatter she makes his house drip, and casts him out of his dwelling, that is, out of the Church." Parabolically, however, beneath this covering and the grammatical sense of the letter, it signifies something deeper, namely that blessings, that is, excessive praises and commendations, which are made with a loud voice at night, that is, inopportunely and importunately, are feigned and simulated flatteries, and therefore are not so much blessings and praises as curses, that is, mockeries and reproaches. Whoever praises someone too carefully and magnificently, says Vatablus, seems to curse: to praise someone too early, that is, before he is known to you, is turned into a fault. Inopportune commendation will be held just as a curse. Such are the praises of hypocrites and flatterers, who fabricate them so that they might beg or extort something through them, which the wise man therefore ought to avoid; since they bring not honor but dishonor, inasmuch as those who offer them do so falsely, not from love, but for their own gain, and therefore are not so much praisers as reproachers, indeed mockers. Whence St. Augustine in Psalm lxix: "There are," he says, "two kinds of persecutors, namely those who reproach and those who flatter; but the tongue of the flatterer persecutes more than the hand of the persecutor," both because it harms more: for it puffs up a man so that he thinks himself to be and to be able more than he really is and can; and because he who thus praises a man afflicts him with reproach: for in fact he indicates that he is vain and desirous of vain glory, and therefore hunts for human praises, and at the same time is unworthy of another's commendation on account of the lack of his own virtue: which is not praise but reproach and contumely; wherefore he who is such is not so much a praiser as a calumniator and curser; but the wise man will flee from and repel him as a curser. That this blessing of Balaam was early morning and matutinal is evident from Numbers xxii, 41. The same is suggested by what we heard in chapter viii, 34, from the mouth of Wisdom: "Blessed is the man that heareth me, and watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors: for he that shall find me shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord." And that passage from Wisdom xvi, 28: "It is necessary to prevent the sun in blessing thee, and to adore thee at the rising of the light." And Psalm lxii, 1: "O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day." And that passage from Lamentations ii, 19: Arise, praise in the night, in the beginning of the watches. Grammatically, therefore, Solomon in this maxim censures these nocturnal and importunate saluters, in that they would pester their patrons' heads so that they might extort a gift or maintenance. In a similar manner Columella, in book I, censures the same, and exhorts that this dishonorable and shameful means of livelihood be abandoned and agriculture be pursued, and by its labor they might honestly provide themselves with sustenance: "Or would I have deemed it more honorable," he says, "than the most mendacious hunting of a mercenary saluter, fluttering about the thresholds of the powerful, and inaugurating the king's sleep with his rumors? For the servants do not deign to answer those who ask what is happening inside."
27:16
Thus the Roman, Hebrew, Chaldean and others. Therefore Lyra and others wrongly read "shall call" for "shall empty"; others read "shall call forth." The Hebrew texts have it thus: "He that hideth her hideth the wind, and the oil of his right hand shall call, or shall cry out." The sense is, as if to say, Whoever wishes to restrain a clamorous and litigious wife so that she may be silent, does the same as one who attempts to hold an impetuous wind in his hand or to shut it up in a certain place, or to detain it hidden within the bowels of the earth lest it burst forth and sweep the earth, as if to say, As this is impossible, so is that also. For just as the wind cannot be held and hidden, but rather the greater the obstacles and restraints it finds, the greater the tempest with which it bursts forth and breaks through, so much so that it prostrates trees, houses and towers: so he who wishes to close the mouth of a quarrelsome woman or to shut her up at home causes her to burst forth with greater force outside, and to fill, shake and overturn not only the house and family with her cries, but also the neighborhood, according to that saying of Persius: You would say so many basins, so many bells Are being struck. Therefore she cannot be restrained by force, threats and blows; for it is the same as if you were to threaten the wind and beat it. The husband must therefore yield to the wife's clamors through silence and modest gravity, until she thunders out those storms of hers and of her own accord becomes silent and subsides, as Socrates did when Xantippe thundered forth. Thus R. Solomon, Aben-Ezra, R. Levi, Lyra, Baynus, Jansenius and others everywhere. Most excellently St. Chrysostom in Antonius in the Melissa, part II, cap. xxxiv: "O evil," he says, "worse than any evil is a wicked woman! Dragons are harsh, maleficent serpents; but the harshness of a woman is more bitter than that of beasts. A wicked woman will never become tame; if treated harshly, she rages; if treated gently, she becomes puffed up and exalted. It is easier to smelt iron than to chastise a woman. He who has a wicked wife should understand that he has received the reward of his sins. There is no beast in the world that can be compared with a wicked woman. What is more fierce than a lion among four-footed beasts? Nothing like a wicked woman. What is more cruel than a dragon among serpents? Nothing like a wicked woman." AND THE OIL OF HIS RIGHT HAND SHALL CALL. — First, as if to say, A clamorous and wandering woman cannot be restrained, just as the wind cannot be confined, and just as oil cannot be held in the right hand without flowing away and pouring out by its slipperiness, so that she can be called a wind flowing through, and oil pouring out from the right hand. Second, "shall call," that is, shall call back, as if to say: A quarrelsome woman cannot be checked by her husband in the home, just as the wind cannot be checked: but if she has burst forth from the home and fled from her husband, she can much less be called back into the home, just as oil that has fallen and been scattered into ashes or earth cannot be gathered and called back. Third, Aben-Ezra, as if to say, The husband, in order to persuade an angry and clamorous wife to quietness and modesty, shall flatter her, and shall call her the oil of his right hand, that is, myrrh ointment, with which the right hand of a woman is anointed. He will therefore say to her gently: Come, my beloved; come, oil of my right hand. Whence the Chaldean translates, the ointment of his right hand is called. Our Salazar agrees, who explains it thus: "He that retaineth her, as he that holdeth the wind," that is, the man who wishes to contain and restrain a wife swollen with pride, difficult and morose by force and severity, is like unto him who strives to compress and check a fleeting and slippery wind. "And the oil of his right hand shall call," as if to say, On the contrary, the gentleness and flatteries of the husband will call forth, allure and turn her to the husband. Therefore "the oil of his right hand" Solomon calls flatteries, cajolings and blandishments: for these far better soften and mollify the rigidity of a difficult woman than the severity and harshness of the husband. Fourth, R. Levi, as if to say, Just as he who has poured ointment on his right hand cannot hide it, since his right hand by its odor proclaims it, that is, declares and cries out, namely that it is anointed with ointment: so likewise the quarrel and strife of a wife cannot be hidden, because they reveal themselves by themselves, that is, by their noise, their voice and their cries, and cry out that she is quarreling and striving. He persists in the metaphor of a woman with ointment, says "shall call," or "shall cry out"; for he attributes to the ointment what was to be attributed to the woman, namely the cry. Thus Vatablus, who translates, he that hideth her, hideth the wind, and (repeat hideth) the oil which shall cry out. Hence the proverb: "Three things cannot be hidden, because they reveal themselves and make themselves felt by themselves, namely a woman, the wind, ointment;" a woman by voice, the wind by force, ointment by odor. Fifth, fully and genuinely, that is to say: To wish to restrain a quarrelsome wife is impossible, just as if you wished to hold slippery and fluid oil in your hand, and to call it, and command it not to slip out to the right, or if it has slipped out, to wish to recall it; thus Cajetan. Whence the Zurich version translates, he that restraineth her restraineth the winds, and his right hand encountereth oil, so that namely the flowing oil he may restrain. For the Hebrew קרה kara by he signifies to encounter; אקרא kara by aleph signifies to call, to cry out. Now these two roots are interchanged with each other, because the letters aleph and he are interchangeable. Furthermore the Septuagint, for צפן tsophen that is hiding, reading with other points צפון tsaphon, that is the North, or the North Wind, which is the part of the world hidden by cold, frost and snows, and for שמן scemen, that is ointment, reading שם scem, that is name, translate, The North a hard wind, but by name is called right; and the Chaldean, as the North wind heavy; Aquila and Symmachus, hidden the North wind; the Syriac, the wind Boreas heavy is, and by name right is called. The sense is, that is to say: The North is a cold and rigid wind: it is called however by some theman, that is right, from the root ימין iamin, that is right hand, both because if you turn your face to the West, you will have the North to your right, and the South to your left, says St. Jerome in Sophonias, chapter ii. Just as conversely if you turn your face to the East, the North will be to your left, the South to your right; and therefore throughout Scripture (which speaks fittingly according to the situation of Judaea and our hemisphere) the South is called Theman, that is right. Finally the Antipodes turned to the East have the North to their right, the South to their left, both because those who dwell in Africa and in hot places, rejoice in the North, because it itself tempers the excessive heats of that climate by its cold. Whence at Rome all long for the North even in winter, as fish long for water; for the North is the health and healthfulness of Rome. Right therefore, that is prosperous, healthful and auspicious; for the right hand is the symbol of felicity and prosperity, as the left is of misfortune and adversity: whence Cicero, in the book On Divination: Prosperous Jupiter with these right thunderbolts sends forth. The sense therefore is, that is to say: A quarrelsome wife is like a rigid and impetuous North wind; but just as the North wind to those dwelling in a hot region and burning with heat is right, that is prosperous and auspicious, because it tempers the heat: so a husband if he burn with love for his wife, will easily bear a quarrelsome wife, as the fan of his love, so that it may moderate and temper him. Again just as the North wind in itself harsh, is called by some right: so a wife although harsh, if nevertheless she be honored by her husband, and placed at his right hand (as is wont to be done by honest husbands) so that she may be his right hand, and by this and similar honorific names be addressed gently, will be softened and soothed, so that she will put away her harsh manners, and become pleasant and benevolent. For this reason to some men their wives seem harsh, because they themselves are harsh or cold toward them, so that they love them little: but if they loved them greatly, love would convert all harshness into dexterity, that is into gentleness and ease. Mystically, the North denotes troubles and tribulations, which in themselves are harsh; but if you look to the West, that is to death, Purgatory and hell, compared to those these are right, that is light, easy and happy. Again the North denotes impiety and the impious, as those in whom charity has grown cold, and who "have stiffened with the cold of wickedness, and have lost the heat of faith," says St. Jerome in chapter i of Jeremiah. Moreover by the North you may understand the detractor and reviler, who harshly assails the reputation of another, as the North wind bites the ears and head, that is to say: The detractor like the North wind rages against the reputation of his neighbor, but nevertheless is often right, that is auspicious and happy, because he is the cause that his neighbor lives cautiously, lest anything in him be found fault with, and if he has any vice, he may amend it; wherefore he is not to be hated, nor called a slanderer, but in theman, that is right, ingenious, expeditious, witty. For such are wont to be sharp-tongued, who with their witticisms and false acuteness bite others, and in biting often heal. Finally the Author of the Greek Catena: The North, he says, is the devil, who said: "I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the North," Isaiah chapter xiv, 13. He is called by the impious and obedient "right," because he offers them the allurements of the world and the flesh; but by the pious he is called "right," that is happy and auspicious, but by accident, because through the temptations which he sets before them, and which they themselves overcome, to them he is the occasion of eternal happiness.
27:17
In Hebrew, iron is sharpened by iron, and a man sharpens the face of his friend; Vatablus, as iron is joined with iron, so man is associated with man. For the Hebrew word יחד (iachad), if it be derived from the root חדד (chadad), signifies to sharpen; but if from יחד (iachad), signifies to unite, join, associate; but if from חדה (chada), signifies to gladden. Whence thirdly thou mayest translate, as iron is polished by iron, so shall a man gladden the face of his friend. For sadness is as it were the rust of the soul and countenance, which is scattered, polished and gladdened by a friend who gladdens. First, R. Levi and R. Solomon expound it, as if to say, Those who are instructed in the works of a wise teacher are sharpened by mutual questions, as we see happen daily in schools through philosophical and theological disputations, in which the respondent, when pressed by arguments from the arguer, becomes more acute. Secondly, Aben-Ezra, as if to say, Iron is sharpened by another iron, so likewise a man is sharpened by another's anger unto anger, when namely he is stirred up to contention with the same, on account of the anger by which that one is inflamed. Whence the Septuagint translate παροξύνει, that is, sharpens, irritates, provokes, exacerbates the face of the friend. It is a metaphor from smiths who sharpen swords, spears, knives by rubbing them with an iron file. Baynus with others refers this gnome to the preceding verse, as if to say, As iron is sharpened by iron, so a rigid man if he fall upon a rigid and quarrelsome wife, one sharpens the other unto anger and quarreling; wherefore that this may not happen, the gentleness and patience of one should receive the harshness and anger of the other as a file receives, dull and blunt it, nay rather soften and mollify it. Whence Vatablus translates, one sword sharpens another: so a man sharpened the face of his friend, with whom namely he contended. It is necessary therefore to yield and give place to anger. The Arabs have a similar proverb: "All corruption of a thing," they say, "is from its own kind, and so iron is split and cleft by iron: iron does not bite, except iron." Others, as if to say, If the wife be harsh, let the husband endeavor to soften her, namely to mollify her by the oil of the right hand, as the preceding verse said; but if she be not softened by the oil of gentleness, let the man put on the hardness of iron, and blunt and beat down her harshness by greater harshness of words and blows, if need be. Wherefore the Poets gave to wanton Venus a husband Vulcan the blacksmith, who by hammering would beat down her wantonness. For anger is sharp, as the Septuagint have it, verse 4, and is rightly compared to sharpness, because it cuts, destroys, penetrates all things. Thirdly, the Zurich Bible translates, as iron is joined with iron, so man is associated with man. Which aptly accords with the preceding gnome, and gives its remedy, as if to say, From this it often happens that wives are litigious, because they are richer or more noble than their husbands: hence they grow proud, and wish not to be subject to their husbands, but to be superior. That therefore husbands may escape these quarrels, let them marry wives equal to them in wealth, condition and birth, or inferior, not superior. For as iron is associated and coalesces with iron, not with gold or silver: so likewise equals should be joined in marriage with equals, that they may coalesce in mutual love. Whence that saying of Ausonius: "Let a mate be joined with a mate as consort: what is unequal, disagrees." And: "If thou wishest to marry, marry with an equal." Concerning which matter I have said more above. Again, as iron coalesces with iron by the force of fire, when namely it is ignited, and being ignited is beaten by hammering, so that it coalesces into one, for example a sword, knife, spear, etc.: so likewise man and wife should be kindled by love, that they may coalesce into one household and economic person. This Zurich version can also be adapted to any friendship and association, in which equals are coupled together as iron with iron most excellently, and this is what τὸ "the face of his friend" signifies: yet under friend both man and female friend are to be understood. For there is also friendship among women; but that it be solid, it should be entered into between equals. Fourthly, our Salazar understands by iron steel, which is a kind of hardest iron: for steel when mixed with iron forms a sword, knife, spear, etc., so that iron of itself pliant and flexible becomes hard and rigid from the hardness of steel, and apt for cutting: so "a man sharpened the face of his friend," that is, hardened it against all misfortunes, and strengthens it for all actions. For it is permitted thus to say: Two singular men, even if one be steely, and the other iron, yet this one pliant and flexible, that one fragile will be: but if friendship and familiarity couple both, they will be well-tempered and courageous for all arduous and difficult things. This exposition is elegant, but does not so well correspond to the Vulgate, which translates 'sharpened': for steel does not sharpen iron, but makes it hard and rigid; it better corresponds to the Zurich version: As iron is matched with iron, so one man is joined with another: for there is a communion and association of steel with iron. Fifth, plainly and genuinely, as if to say: Just as iron is sharpened by similar iron, namely by a file: so one man sharpens another man like himself in any matter, for instance in knowledge, art, counsel, industry and virtue. He could have said: Iron is sharpened by a whetstone. Whence that saying of Horace, from the Art of Poetry: I shall serve in the place of a whetstone, which is able to make sharp iron, though itself lacking the power to cut. But he preferred to say: "Iron is sharpened by iron," both because a whetstone does not sharpen iron unless it is already wrought and polished, for example a knife or sword; but iron, namely a file, sharpens iron even rough and unpolished, while a knife or sword is being made from it; and because iron is similar and of the same nature as iron, but not a whetstone. Therefore it more aptly signifies that a man similar in nature, art and office sharpens another man similar to himself in the same things. For this maxim signifies that men similar are sharpened by those similar to themselves in the same art or occupation; whence that saying: "One man is no man;" sharpened, I say, by comparing, questioning, disputing, encouraging, instructing, exhorting, etc. The matter will become clear from examples. In wit a teacher, indeed even a student, sharpens a fellow student by teaching, questioning, arguing: for in argument minds are as it were rubbed together and collide, and thus are sharpened. In counsel one counselor by putting forth his counsels sharpens the counsels of another counselor; and therefore Solomon says: "Safety of the people, where there are many counsels;" for what one does not see, others see and bring forth. In art one craftsman sharpens another: for each has his own methods and ways of making, by which the other is instructed and sharpened: for each has his own genius, which discovers methods and ways proper to himself, which the genius of another does not discover. This is what Euripides says: ὁμιλία ἔτικτε τέχνας, that is, association brought forth arts, association, I say, of opinions, and conversation of men and their meeting together. In prudence one prudent man sharpens another: for each suggests the dogmas and admonitions of his prudence. In any virtue one sharpens another; the chaste sharpens the chaste, the humble the humble, the joyful the joyful, the courageous makes the courageous. Whence St. Antony considered the virtue which was eminent in each, and learned patience from one, humility from another, charity from a third, etc. Wherefore St. Basil in his Monastic Constitutions, cap. xix, prefers the cenobitic life, as being social, to the anchoretic and solitary life, because in the cenobitic life one helps another, and polishes him by word and example, which does not happen in the solitary life. Hence also Victor of Antioch in cap. I of St. Mark, among the advantages of social life counts this, that by living together and the constant friction of many, those who have lived long among companions become iron-like and as it were steely: "Soon," he says, "and by this friction as if hardened iron, you will become stronger thereafter," etc. For society, in which each must help another, and sustain, indeed cure his faults and imperfections, not only sharpens and polishes men otherwise iron-like; but also wears away any pusillanimity or courage of theirs, and thus any weakness of theirs to the firmness and strength of iron. This is what is said in Eccles. cap. iv, 9: "It is better that two be together, than one: for they have the advantage of their society; if one falls, the other shall lift him up. Woe to him that is alone! for when he falls, he has none to lift him up."
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Others, he shall be honored, that is, he shall be promoted to honors. For keeps in Hebrew is נוצר notser, that is, he keeps, he preserves: whence Christ was called Nazarene, that is, keeper, savior. Under keeping understand care and cultivation, as if to say: He who keeps, that is, cares for and tends the fig tree: yet he says keeps, or guards, rather than cultivates, because the fig tree, compared to the vine, olive, etc., requires little cultivation. For the vine must be planted, dug up again, heaped up, pruned, its leaves stripped away, so that the grapes may be cooked by the sun and ripen, etc., none of which is done to the fig. Whence the Septuagint translates, he who plants a fig tree; for the fig tree scarcely requires any other cultivation than planting and clearing around the roots, like other trees, by which their roots are uncovered by digging around them and exposed to the air: the fig tree therefore, with little cultivation of itself, yields many fruits, namely the finest figs; thus he who diligently and faithfully tends the Lord by obeying him, and carefully caring for his affairs entrusted to him, shall receive great rewards and fruits from his master for small services and duties, and thus shall be glorified, that is, if he be a servant, he shall be granted freedom. For, as Julius Caesar says: "There is no pleasure sweeter to free men than liberty." And Seneca, epistle 79: "It is an inestimable good to be one's own." But if he be free, he shall be promoted by his master to great offices, benefits, honors and prefectures, as we daily see in the court of Rome those who faithfully and diligently serve Cardinals and Prelates promoted to great things. This therefore is a prudent maxim giving counsel to servants, namely that they serve their masters faithfully and dutifully: for thus it shall come to pass that they are adorned with great benefits and rewards from them. Secondly, the fig tree produces figs, which is a most sweet and most healthful fruit, and surpasses the fruits of all trees, both in taste, in healthfulness, and in integrity: in taste, because it has a flavor similar to honey and manna; in healthfulness, because it is thoroughly ripe, whence it has nothing harsh, undigested and raw, as all others have; in integrity, because it has no seeds or stones, as all fruits of other trees have. Thus the fruits which diligent servants receive from benevolent and beneficent masters are most sweet, most healthful and most perfect: and therefore the master, namely a Prelate or Prince, ought to be like the fig tree, so that he may impart his sweetness and sweet fruits to his subjects, but reserve austerity for himself, and therefore in the fable the bramble and the fig, although invited, refused to be king or queen of the trees, saying: "Can I forsake my sweetness and my most pleasant fruits, and go that I may be promoted among the other trees?" Judges ix, 11. By which it is signified that those who rejoice in their own peace and sweet contemplation, shrink from ruling others, lest they exchange sweet leisure for troublesome business. Thirdly, the fig is bifera: for it bears figs twice, namely early figs in autumn, namely in September, as other trees do, and early figs in summer, namely in June and July; hence the fig does not produce flowers, but immediately without a flower produces fruit. Pliny adds, lib. XIII, cap. xviii, that the Chalcidian figs are trifera, or bear fruit three times in a year: indeed "there are, he says, even winter figs in some provinces;" thus a servant, who faithfully serves his master, shall receive manifold reward from him, namely the agreed wage according to the covenants made at the appointed and fixed time, and before that honest treatment, gifts, presents and rewards, which honest masters are accustomed to liberally bestow on diligent servants, as if he were to obtain early figs. "Admirable (says Pliny in the place cited) is the haste of this fruit (the fig), of one hastening to ripeness in all by the art of nature." Fourthly, manuring makes the fig fruitful. Hear Pliny, lib. XVII, cap. xxvii: "The most abundant figs are produced by rubric diluted with amurca, and mixed with dung applied to the roots when they begin to leaf." And lib. XV, cap. xviii: "Cato thus records concerning figs: Plant Moorish figs in a chalky or open place, but in a thicker place manured;" thus also servants, if they humble themselves to the vilest services, win the favor and beneficence of their masters. Pliny adds: "The fig tree is cultivated in the very forum and comitium of Rome, born there, sacred on account of the thunderbolts deposited there, and more on account of the memory of it, because it was called the nurse of Romulus and Remus the founders, since under it was found the she-wolf providing her breast, that is, her udder, to the infants." Fifth, τὸ keeps some expound as waits for, whence they translate, he that waits for the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof, and he that is a waiter upon his lord shall be glorified. For he who desires that the fig tree produce abundant fruits, shakes off its first figs, or the large ones, and thus he waits for the later ones which are better and more abundant. Hear Columella, lib. V, cap. ix: "If you wish to make a fig tree, though not naturally early-bearing, and to gather more abundant fruits from it at last, then shake off the small figs or the first fruit, it will produce another, which it will defer until winter." The Scholiast adds: "It will make another more abundant." For this reason in the old law, Levit. xix, 23, thus the Lord ordained concerning the fig and other fruit-bearing trees: "When you shall be come into the land, and shall have planted in it fruit trees, you shall take away the firstlings of them; the fruits that grow shall be unclean to you, neither shall you eat of them. But in the fifth year you shall eat the fruit, gathering the fruits thereof: I am the Lord your God." See the remarks there. In like manner servants, in order to gain the favor of their masters, serve them faithfully and diligently for some time, exacting little or no reward from them: for once their favor is gained, they will receive a more abundant and more excellent reward. Mystically, he who keeps and cultivates God and Christ, His will and laws, and especially the Eucharist, which is as it were the most excellent fig of the Church, shall certainly obtain from Him all grace and glory. For Christ in the Eucharist is our fig and our manna, containing in itself without labor all delight and all sweetness of taste, Wisdom xvi, 20; John vi, 31. Thus the Author of the Greek Catena: "The Lord," he says, "is the fig tree; its fruit heals leprosy. He who keeps the word received shall be in honor and esteem." The Psalmist had tasted the sweetness of this fig when he sang: "O taste and see that the Lord is sweet," Ps. xxxiii. And when he exclaimed: "How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee!" Ps. xxx.
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In Hebrew, as waters show face to face (resplendent), so the heart of man to man. Which words, because they are indeterminate, are variously determined and explained by various interpreters, as may be seen among the Rabbis and Latin Interpreters. From many, I shall bring forward a few more apt and probable ones. First, R. Solomon explains it, as if to say: As waters represent the face which you offer to them, in that what you show they return: so likewise a man shows himself equal to his companion, so that as he himself understands that he is dear to another, so in turn he loves him back, and presents a benevolent countenance to him. Second, Aben-Ezra, that is to say: As waters increase on account of other waters which are mixed with them: so also face on account of face, that is, anger is increased by the anger of another: so likewise the heart of a man is accumulated with evil on account of another, whose heart he perceives to be hostile to him. Third, Vatablus translates it, as the face of waters to face, so the heart of man to men; and thus explains it, as if to say: As the same water renders different faces, so different are the hearts of different men. Or, as in water face answers to face, so the heart of man answers to the heart of man, as if to say: As the heart of one man inclines to evil, so also the hearts of all others: for they are similar. But this exposition is too broad, and therefore cold and insipid. Fourth, R. Samuel takes these things concerning fraudulent and false friends, who present love in countenance, conceal hatred in heart; for he translates it, how in waters face to face, so the heart of man to man, that is to say: As the face appearing in water deceives the eyes, which seem to themselves to behold not a false image, but the very thing itself: so likewise men deceive one another, offering falsehoods and frauds to each other under the appearance of truth. Fifth, others take these things concerning the mutability and inconstancy of man, that is to say: As the face appearing in water is mobile and unstable, and changes and varies continually with the motion of the water itself: so likewise the heart of man is inconstant and mutable, so that it cannot be beheld by another man with certainty and solidity, because it does not have firmness and constancy, but changes its purposes and counsels from day to day, from hour to hour, indeed often in single moments. Sixth, others on the contrary refer these things to the firmness which is born from the agreement of many, as if to say: As waters added to waters have the greatest force, and faces to faces, that is, men joined to men are most powerful: so also hearts to hearts, that is, opinions cohering with opinions have the greatest weight for persuading. Seventh, the Septuagint translates negatively, as faces are not similar to faces, so neither are the thoughts of men. Origen, homily 2 in Numbers, reads: As faces are diverse from faces, so also are the hearts of men diverse. So also the Author of the Catena of the Greeks. For waters agitated and flowing agitate likewise the species and faces received in them, so that they do not appear to be the same, but different from those which they represent. Or rather, that is to say: In the same waters appear various faces of various persons, and none is similar to another, but all are dissimilar: so likewise in the same house, city, assembly there are many hearts of men, minds, thoughts and opinions; yet none is similar to another, but all are dissimilar and diverse. For this is as it were a miracle of nature, that, although many are similar in hands, feet and other members, yet none has the same face, just as neither the same voice, so that each may be recognized and distinguished from another both by voice and by face, as St. Augustine beautifully teaches, book XXI of the City of God, chapter viii. Whence Persius: A thousand forms of men, and things of varied use: Each has his own will, nor does one live by a single wish. Hear Origen, in the homily already cited: "The motion of one soul," he says, "is gentler, milder, more peaceful; that of another is turbulent, more elevated, more wanton. One is cautious, solicitous, diligent; another is lazy, negligent, incautious. And in these things one has more, another less. I dare to say that perhaps as great a diversity in the appearance of the face exists among men, so great a difference is found in souls, according to that saying of Solomon: As faces differ from faces, so do the hearts of men differ from one another." Thus Origen reads it somewhat differently than our author, and gives an example: "The same," he says, "are letters, and yet in writing them there is such diversity that each person is recognized from his own character, whence he signs himself with them as it were with his own handwriting. So also the same virtue is grasped and practiced by one in this way, by another in another way: 'Behold,' he says, 'the handwriting of individual men, and see, for example, how the mind of Paul proposed chastity, and the mind of Peter likewise; but there is a certain chastity proper to Peter and another chastity of Paul, even if one and the same appears. Finally, the chastity of one of them is such as to require the body to be mortified, and he says: I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps while preaching to others I myself should become a castaway; but the chastity of another is such as perhaps not to fear this. Similarly justice also has something of its own character in Paul, and it has it in Peter. In the same way wisdom and the other virtues.' Whence that saying: 'There was not found the like to him, who kept the law of the Most High,' which the Church attributes to individual holy Confessors, because in each there shone forth some peculiar virtue, or a peculiar kind and manner of the same virtue. But the Chaldean translator renders it thus: as water, and as faces which are not like to one another, so the heart of the children of men is not like among themselves, that is to say, Just as one and the same water exhibits and renders different appearances to different ones beholding it, so one and the same question suggests different answers to different ones, so that all go off into various opinions, and not one agrees with another in all things. Finally the Syrian translator renders it: as face is not like to face, so heart is not like to heart, that is to say, From unlike faces it is permitted to conjecture unlike affections of hearts: for these shine forth in the face as in a mirror; so from physiognomic signs which shine forth in the face, it is possible to discern who is magnanimous, who timid, who envious, who luxurious, who ingenious, who sanguine, who melancholic, etc., as Aristotle teaches in the Physiognomics. Eighthly, our author translates most excellently, how as faces are reflected in waters for those looking upon them, so the hearts of men are manifest to the prudent, that is to say, Mirrors made of bronze, tin, crystal, are often deceptive; for some enlarge the object reflected, others diminish it, others distort it; but the mirror of water is natural and sincere, and plainly represents the thing as it is presented to it: so also the hearts of men are plainly known to the prudent as they are. See concerning the deception of mirrors Seneca, book I of Natural Questions, chapter xvii, and St. Augustine, letter 150 to Nebridius, and Pliny, book XIII, chapter ix. Hearts here can be understood both as one's own and as those of others. Jansenius and Salazar take it of one's own hearts, as if to say: Just as waters are like a mirror, which receives the appearance of the face of one looking into it, and renders and represents it back to the one looking: so likewise the heart, that is the mind and conscience, is like a mirror of man, that is of man's affections, which represents those same affections to the man himself: "For just as, says Jansenius, in waters the faces of those looking are reflected, so that each one can contemplate his own face there as in a mirror, which otherwise he does not see: so likewise the prudent know themselves and their own hearts, when they return to them, and by careful consideration observe what they are like, by weighing namely to what things they are inclined, in which things they are chiefly occupied and fixed, so that the very heart of man is especially for the prudent, to man and to the heart itself as a mirror, or as clear water, in which man beholds himself and his heart, according to that saying of Paul: For who among men knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? As therefore it is necessary for a man, if he wishes to see his own face, that he see it in a mirror, or in water, or in something similar: so if anyone wishes to know what sort of person he is, he cannot know it better anywhere than in his own mind." Moreover, just as in water, being easily movable and agitable, the appearances of men's faces are often disturbed, altered, halved and confused with the motion of the water: so likewise in the heart the appearance of itself is often disturbed by passions, which are like waves, mixing and confusing these appearances: for if the heart is agitated by anger, hatred, fear, envy, it will not be able to know itself sincerely and plainly. Wherefore in order that it may see itself sincerely, it is necessary that it be calm and tranquil, and free from passions and disturbances: for thus it will be like clear and unmoved water, which renders and represents clearly and faithfully things and faces such as they are presented to it. Again, you may understand foreign hearts here, and that in two ways: first, as if to say: Just as waters are a mirror of your face, so as to represent it to you: so likewise your heart is a mirror of another's heart, so that, if you wish to know what another's heart is like, that is his affections toward you, you will be able to know it from your own heart, and from it you can measure another's heart. Examine your own heart, and see how it is disposed toward another: if you see it benevolent, pleasant, sincere toward another, know that the other likewise bears a heart full of love and benevolence toward you: but if you see your heart turned away from another, rancid, bitter, know likewise that the other's heart is also turned away from you, and rancid with hatred or envy. The reason is that the affections of hatred and love cannot be so hidden in the heart that they do not sometimes burst forth through signs, namely through words, countenance and deeds, which when another sees, he assumes, takes on and returns the same affections; for love is a magnet of love, and hatred is a magnet of hatred. For he who feels himself to be loved, loves in return the one who loves him; he who feels himself to be hated, hates in return the one who hates him. Hence it often happens from a certain natural antipathy or sympathy, that when two who love each other mutually meet, the heart of each opens, expands, is gladdened, exults: on the other hand when two, who have also silently hated each other mutually, meet, the heart of each closes, is constricted, is saddened, becomes bitter. Secondly, just as your heart is a mirror of another's heart, so conversely another's heart is a mirror of itself, as if to say: Just as water is a mirror in which appear the faces not only of one's own but also of another, so that you recognize them from them, even if you do not see them directly in the face: so likewise the heart of man is a mirror, in which his affections toward another appear: for the heart reveals itself through gestures, words and deeds, by which as in a mirror it lays bare and shows to others its affections of hatred, fear, love, anger, etc., so that prudent men from the words and actions of anyone can conjecture and discern the internal affections of another's heart. In the Saints this is clear. For thus St. Louis and St. Aegidius, the companion of St. Francis, greeting each other without words, spoke to each other with hearts alone, and represented and inspired to each other their affections of love and piety. Thus St. Anthony, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Hilarion and many others in the Lives of the Fathers, perceiving from the countenance alone the heart of anyone, recognized his state and affections. The same holds in any prudent and sagacious persons, but in a lower degree. For the prudent easily detect from signs and marks any deceit and imposture of the face, if there be any. Thus Lyra, Hugh, Dionysius and others. To this belong those wise sayings of the wise men in the Melissa of Antonius, part I, cap. xlviii, of Photius the Patriarch: "A discourse is like a mirror (namely, the heart shining through in speech and discourse), and just as in it the appearance of the body and form is represented, so in conversations the form of the soul is seen expressed;" of Isidore of Pelusium: "But if discourse and life agree, they will perfect a likeness of the whole life;" of Theognis: "In mirrors indeed the face is seen, in conversations the character of the soul;" of Romulus: "Just as a clay vessel is tested by a blow and sound, so a man is tested by discourse." To this belongs that passage of St. Ambrose, On Elijah and Fasting, cap. x: "The face is often an index of conscience, and a certain silent discourse of the mind, when we are either stricken by sin or gladdened by integrity." Note: God alone is the knower of hearts, that is, the knower and inspector of hearts, because He alone perceives and looks into all the thoughts, volitions, intentions, even the most intimate, deepest and most secret ones of all Angels, demons and men, which are revealed by no sign. The reason is that God alone, as creator and preserver, occupies, possesses and comprehends the mind and volition of each; hence He alone enters into the soul and mind, so that He may work in it by illuminating the mind and bending the will wherever He wills. Yet prudent men equally with Angels can through nods, voices, signs and gestures probably know and conjecture many thoughts and intentions of the heart: for prudence includes shrewdness or sagacity, that is, shrewd and sagacious conjecture. Now this prudence has three degrees: the first is natural prudence, which rests on reason and discourse and natural experience, and through these conjectures about the natural thoughts of hearts; the second is supernatural prudence, which rests on faith, grace, discourse and supernatural experience, such as Christians and the just possess, and through it they conjecture also about the supernatural thoughts of hearts; the third is singular and divine prudence, which is called the gift of discernment of spirits, through which God reveals to certain eminent Saints the secrets of hearts, as He revealed to St. Anthony, St. Hilarion, St. Francis and the like; and even now He reveals them to great and Apostolic men, especially to Confessors, through which they sometimes look into the consciences of penitents even to their depths, and bring to light the hidden intentions which the penitents themselves do not see or pass over in silence, so that penitents may be directed more securely in spirit to their salvation and perfection. Whence this gift, or certainly a part of this gift, befitting their office, should be sought by them from God.
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Perdition is death which destroys all things, and the state of the dead. Wrongly does R. Levi understand by hell and perdition the prime matter, which is never filled with forms, but always desires one form after another. Better does R. Solomon: "Hell and perdition, he says, are never satisfied, so as not to receive and admit the punishments of the wicked, just as the eyes of the wicked can never be filled to satiety, since they constantly obey the evil inclination soliciting them to crimes, and strive to obey its desires." Most rightly do Cajetan and Jansenius understand by eyes the desire both of seeing and of having: for neither is ever satisfied, but desires to see and have more. But desire is attributed to the eyes, because the eyes transfer the species and ideas of beautiful and desirable things to the imagination, and thence to the mind and will, and through them excite in the will the desire for them; whence that saying: "The eyes are leaders in love." The Wise Man therefore signifies the great evil of cupidity, namely that it is inexhaustible and insatiable, like death and hell, and therefore we ought to pursue it with hatred as death and hell: and therefore the eyes, which are the messengers of cupidity, nay rather the enticers and excitors thereof, ought to be restrained and closed. I shall say more on this matter in chapter xxx, verses 15 and 16. Again it signifies that a bridle ought to be put upon cupidity, so that it may be reasonable and moderate; for this can be satisfied, whereas unbridled desires are insatiable. Wherefore Plato, in book V of the Republic, cites and praises that paradox of Hesiod: "The half is more than the whole," and applies it to tyrants, the avaricious, the ambitious, who wish to rule over all things, and to extend their boundaries everywhere, when it would be better to live content with their own and few possessions. The same, in book III of the Laws, in order to show that the infinite power of princes, determined by no limits, is the present plague of all empires, adds that this happens because covetous and ambitious princes do not know that Hesiod speaks rightly, "the half often surpasses the whole; for it is harmful to take the whole thing: to take only the half is moderate; and the moderate surely excels the immoderate and excessive, as being rather better." Thus in lawsuits avaricious plaintiffs who desire the whole thing, unwilling to settle for half with the opposing party, often lose the whole; to whom it would surely have been more useful to seek half than the whole, since, on account of the half which they refused, they lose the whole which they greedily sought. See more on this matter in Maximus, in his last sermon. The Septuagint adds after this maxim another, which is not in the Hebrew, nor in the Vulgate, namely this: "It is an abomination to the Lord to harden the eyes, and the undisciplined incontinent tongue," or "the untaught petulant are of tongue."
27:21
In Hebrew, a crucible for silver, and a furnace for gold, and a man according to his praise; the Septuagint, a testing of silver, and a burning of gold: but a man is tested by the mouth of those who praise him; the Chaldean, a crucible is for silver, and a furnace for gold, and a man from the mouth of those who praise him, namely is tested and judged. First, Rabbi Solomon and Aben-Ezra explain it, as if to say: Just as the goodness or badness of gold and silver is known by the fire by which it is melted: so likewise the goodness and badness of someone is known from the mouth of those who praise him. For if the people praise him, it is a sign that he is upright and praiseworthy; but if they blame him, it is a sign that he is wicked and blameworthy. For the voice of the people is the voice of God. Second, the Author of the Greek Catena: "A man," he says, "is tested and explored by the mouth of those who praise, that is, it is known from this, that he is neither exalted in prosperity, nor cast down in adversity and sorrows: for the good praise him because he is good; but the wicked praise him because he is wicked." Thus he. Third, St. Augustine in Psalm 69, by the mouth of the one praising he understands the mouth of the flatterer: "There are," he says, "two kinds of persecutors, those who revile and those who flatter; the tongue of the flatterer persecutes more than the hand of the murderer. For Scripture also called it a furnace. Certainly when Scripture spoke of persecution, it said: As gold in a furnace he proved them; concerning the Martyrs slain: And as a holocaust victim he received them. Hear that the tongue of flatterers is also such: A testing, it says, of silver and gold is fire, but a man is tested by the mouth of those who praise him. Of silver, it says, and gold, that fire, and this fire, from both you must come forth safe. The reprover broke you, you became in the furnace like a vessel of clay." And soon after: "Again if you are praised by flatterers and those who assent, and you nod to them, just as one buying oil, not carrying it with you, as the five foolish virgins, there will be a furnace of your breaking, even the mouth of those praising you." Fourth and genuinely, as if to say: Just as fire shows the probity and purity or impurity of gold and silver, so likewise praise shows the virtue or vice of a man, truth or vanity. For just as if gold and silver persists intact, and gives off no dross, it is a sign that it is pure; but if it gives off dross, it is a sign that it is impure: so likewise if someone is puffed up and swells from praise, it is a sign that his virtue is impure and weak: for swelling and pride is the dross of virtue; but if one praised remains in his former humility and modesty, it is a sign that his virtue is pure and solid. For the humble reject praise of themselves; the vain and proud are inflated and become insolent from it. True virtue and praise therefore is to spurn praise, just as true glory is to despise glory: for this is of a great and lofty soul, which rises above glory and all things, fixed in heaven. Hence just as goldsmiths, in order to test whether gold and silver is pure, or impure and mixed, are accustomed to weigh it both before and after melting by fire: for if it returns the same weight after it as it gave before, it is a clear sign that it is pure: but if it weighs less than before, it is a sign that it was or still is impure: for the fire removed dross from it, and therefore it weighs less; so likewise if after praises a man remains the same, equally modest and grave, it is a sign that the man is of approved and solid virtue; but if after them he is lightly puffed up, and vainly exalts himself, it is a sign that his virtue is light, vain, and swollen like wind. The mouth also is as it were a crucible, in which by praise, as by fire, the virtue of the one praised is tested. For the light and vain boil up in it, and go off into bubbles and fumes of vanity and pride, and the praised look about themselves with high brow, and dilate their nostrils, raise their breast, spread their arms, and whatever beauty they have, they display with ostentation; indeed they exaggerate and magnify it more than is fitting, just like peacocks, when they notice themselves being looked at by men, they puff out their breast, and swollen they spread the train of their tail, so that they may display the eyes in it, like so many stars variegated with wonderful color. On the other hand the wise and prudent, if they are praised, remain the same, unshaken and unchanged, equally humble, composed and grave, because they are neither exalted by praises, nor cast down by blame. Indeed Nazianzen in the Melissa of Antony, part I, cap. li: "Excessive praises, he says, reduce some to the utmost elation." And St. Augustine in serm. 5 On the Words of the Lord according to Matthew: "These praises of yours, he says, burden us rather, and put us in danger; we tolerate them, and we tremble among them." Indeed even the pagan Seneca, lib. II On Anger: "By praise, he says, license grows; the spirit rises up if praised, and is brought to good hope of itself; but these same things generate insolence and anger." Again, just as fire in the crucible burns, cooks and as it were torments gold and silver: so praise burns and torments prudent men, both because they are modest and humble; both because they fear lest through it they become proud and vanish, and thus lose virtue along with praise; both because they fear lest God, the sincere inspector of works, sees in them defects which men do not see, and therefore condemns works which men praise. Whence St. Augustine, lib. X Confess. xxxvi: "He who, he says, wishes to be praised by men, will not be defended by men when you condemn (O Lord), nor will he be snatched away when you judge, nor rescued when you condemn;"; both because they fear lest the praise of men be to them in place of reward, and thus they lose the eternal reward which they await in heaven. Thus St. Gregory, lib. XXII of the Morals, cap. v: "But on the contrary, he says, if the heart is truly humble, and hears good things of itself, either it does not recognize them at all, and because false things are said it fears, or certainly if it truly knows that these things belong to it, by that very fact it dreads lest they be lost from the eternal retribution of God: for it fears greatly lest the hope of future reward be reckoned as the recompense of transitory favor. From which it comes about that the mind of the elect is tortured by a great fire of their own praises, and is purged from all the rust of their body by the sorrow of thought: for with cautious consideration it trembles lest either concerning those things of which it is praised, and which are not, it undergo greater judgment of God, or concerning those things in which it is praised, and which are, it lose the fitting reward." And afterwards he proves this from this saying of Solomon: "whence it is well said through Solomon: As silver is tried in the crucible, and gold in the furnace, so is man tried by the mouth of one who praises. For silver or gold, if it is reprobate, is consumed by fire; if it is genuine, it is declared by fire: so indeed it is also with the sense of the one working. For what sort it is, is shown in that which is praised; for if he exalts himself at hearing his own praises, what else was this one than reprobate silver or gold, which the furnace of the tongue consumed? But if hearing his favors, he returns to consideration of the judgment on high, and fears lest he be burdened concerning these things before the hidden judge, as it were growing to the magnitude of his purification unto brightness, and whence he sustains the fire of trembling, thence he shines forth more clearly," etc. Besides, just as gold and silver tried by fire shines more brightly and brilliantly: so the Saints, while they are praised, become more brilliant, both on account of the reasons recounted by St. Gregory, both because this praise is to them a stimulus to greater virtue, according to that saying: "Virtue praised grows." For, as St. Gregory says, hom. 9 in the Gospel: "When gifts are increased, the accounts of gifts also grow: therefore each one ought to be so much more humble, and more ready to serve God from the gift, as he sees himself more obligated in rendering account." Hence it is useful to praise the fainthearted, so that through praise they may lift up their abject minds, and raise themselves to heroic works of praise, as St. Gregory teaches, III part. Past. admonit. 9. "But on the contrary, he says, we more aptly lead the fainthearted back to the way of acting well, if we seek out some of their good deeds from the side, so that while we correct others by reproving them, we embrace others by praising them, so that the tenderness of their nature may be nourished by the praise heard, which the fault reproved chastises. But we often make more progress with them if we also recall their well-done deeds. Although those things which were done by them in disorder, we now correct not as if perpetrated, but as if still to be prevented from being perpetrated, so that both those things which we approve, the favor shown may increase, and against those things which we reprove, modest exhortation may prevail more among the fainthearted." And another Gregory, namely Nazianzen, in the Melissa of Antony, part I, cap. li: "The chief benefit, he says, is to be praised in honest matters; for praise begets emulation, emulation virtue, virtue happiness." In the same place St. Chrysostom: "Praise, he says, on account of excellent deeds increases the desire for better things." Moreover, just as silver is refined in fire by means of lead: for lead is consumed by fire, and leaves the silver pure and whole; yet because lead always has some silver mixed with it, that which is added to the silver being purified comes from it, and increases it, so that silver comes forth from the refinery greater than it was before, and increased, as goldsmiths and those skilled in metallurgy testify: so likewise the Saints, when they are praised, come forth increased by praise, both because they increase their virtues so as to correspond to the praise; and because through praise they become more humble, and rise up to God through giving of thanks: for they know that from themselves, namely from their corrupted nature, they have nothing except concupiscence and sin, but if they have anything good, it comes to them from the grace of God, to whom therefore they rightly pour back and ascribe all the glory and praise of their work, according to that saying of St. Paul: "What hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" 1 Cor. iv, 7. They also say with the Psalmist: "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to thy name give glory," Ps. cxiii. And with the twenty-four elders they cast their crowns before the throne of God, saying: "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and virtue, because thou hast created all things," Apoc. iv, 11. Such was St. Gregory Nazianzen, who writes thus of himself, oration 14 On Peace: "Neither, says he, shall those who praise me nor those who blame me change me. For what I am, that I remain, whether I am afflicted with curses or carried up to heaven by praises." And St. Augustine, epistle 64 to Aurelius: "It is a great thing, says he, not to rejoice in the honours and praises of men, but to cut away all empty pomp; and if anything necessary is retained from it, to devote it entirely to the benefit of those who honour and the salvation of others." To this pertains the teaching of Cato in the Distichs: When anyone praises thee, remember to be thy own judge: Believe less about thyself from others than from thyself. THE HEART OF THE WICKED SEEKETH EVIL, BUT THE HEART OF THE RIGHTEOUS SEEKETH KNOWLEDGE. — "Knowledge," that is, prudence, integrity and virtue. This saying is wanting in the Hebrew and Greek and some Latin texts: yet it is found in the Vatican manuscripts. The sense is, as if to say, The mind and thought of the impious inclines toward evil, so that namely he may fulfill his evil desires, anger, gluttony, envy, lust, pride, etc., and therefore he studiously seeks out and inquires into the reasons and means of fulfilling them. On the other hand the heart of the righteous and just inclines toward good, namely toward works of virtue, by which he may please God; and therefore he studiously seeks them out, so that day by day he may please God more, and exhibit works more pleasing to Him, by which he may delight his God, according to that saying of the Apostle, Rom. xii, 2: "That you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God;"; concerning which matter I have said more above.
27:22
In Hebrew, if thou shalt pound a fool in a mortar, in the midst of grain or barley with a pestle, his foolishness shall not depart from him; the Chaldean version: even if thou shalt strike a fool with blows among the assembly, and that with a pestle, his foolishness shall not pass from him; the Syriac: if thou shalt beat a senseless man in the assembly, thou shalt gain nothing, nor shalt thou remove foolishness from him. Akin to this is the proverb of the Arabs, Century 2, number 51: "The tail of a dog is not corrected, even if it be pounded in a mortar." For a dog is a symbol of insolence, quarreling, filthiness and shamelessness, which are proper to a fool. Barley is grain with the husk removed, which is then boiled in water and drunk or sipped, and is most healthful, especially in fevers; commonly they call it barley-water or barley-drink. Hear Pliny, book XVIII, chapter vii: "The use of barley-water from barley is approved as most powerful and most healthful; Hippocrates dedicated one whole volume to its praises." And book XXII, chapter xxv: "Hippocrates praised barley-water only as a drink, because it was smooth and easily drawn in, because it checked thirst, because it did not cause swelling in the belly, because it was easily digested, and for those accustomed to it this alone could be given as food in fever twice a day." For barley in Hebrew is ריפות riphot, that is grain, or crushed or to be crushed grains of wheat; whence also far is said to be from breaking, as Varro says. Again riphot signifies barley and any legume which is pounded in a mortar, either that it may be stripped of its husks, or that already stripped it may be ground and reduced to powder: for the root רוף ruph signifies to grind, to pound. The Septuagint, II Kings xvii, 19, translates riphot as masses of figs. For the Greeks were accustomed, and, as it appears, the Hebrews also, to pound worthless and insipid figs into masses, so that thus softened they might be preserved for the use of servants and slaves. Thus the fitting sense will be, as if to say: Just as he who pounds insipid or tasteless figs does not remove from them the insipid and tasteless flavor, and does not make them sweeter and more savory: so he who has beaten a fool repeatedly with words and blows does not beat out from him lack of wisdom, nor does he make him any wiser and better. But the sense of the Vulgate version (which is the common one) is this: thou shalt more easily clean barley than a fool; for grain is indeed pounded with great labor, and with frequent blows of the pestle in a mortar, first that it may cast off its husk or shell, then that cast off it may be ground and reduced to powder; but at length with great effort and repeated blows it is truly stripped of its shells, and is ground and reduced to powder: but a fool cannot be brought by any blows, by any threats and scourges to cast off foolishness, and to break and grind down foolish, proud and perverse habits; but he remains hard, nay harder like flint or diamond, which becomes harder by pounding, and escapes the scourges. Understand fool and foolishness both physically, namely as unteachable, dull, senseless; and ethically, namely as imprudent, wicked, criminal, hardened: for neither can the dull be taught, even if thou shalt beat him with clubs, nor can the hardened be softened, even if thou shalt strike him with blows. Whence St. Gregory teaches from this passage that the hardened must be dealt with harshly. For thus he writes in the Pastoral, part III, admonition 14: "Those who fear scourges and therefore live innocently must be admonished in one way; and those who have become so hardened in iniquity that they are not corrected even by scourges must be admonished in another way. For it must be said to those who fear scourges, that they should not greatly desire even temporal goods, which they see present even to the wicked; and that they should not flee present evils as intolerable, by which here often even the good are not ignorant that they are afflicted." And further below: "But on the contrary, those whom scourges do not restrain from iniquities must be struck with so much sharper invective, as they have become hardened with greater insensibility. For they must often be despised without disdain, despaired of without despair, in such a way that both the despair shown may strike fear, and the admonition added may lead back to hope. Therefore strict sentences of divine judgment must be pronounced against them, that they may be recalled to knowledge of themselves by consideration of eternal punishment. For let them hear that in them is fulfilled what is written: If thou shalt pound a fool in a mortar as with the pestle of those that pound grain, his foolishness shall not depart from him." Hence Aquila and Theodotion translate: if thou shalt strike a fool in the midst of those pounding in a mill. For servants and wicked men were accustomed to be relegated to the mill, that in it they might pound and grind grain for making bread, as if to say: Even if thou shalt relegate a foolish and perverse man to the mill, that in it he may be pounded with the grain by the pestle of the millers, thou shalt not yet beat out foolishness from him, so pertinaciously does he cling to it, that it seems to him innate and inborn. The Septuagint, not translating word for word but rendering the same sense paraphrastically, translate: if thou beatest a fool in the midst of an assembly dishonoring him, thou shalt not remove his foolishness. To this pertain the sayings of the wise: "What profit is it to teach an ass to bray? for on that account it will not cease to bray." And that verse in Painted Poetry: If thou persist in wishing to teach an unteachable nature, thou wilt lose thy unhappy labor, as if someone should teach an ass in the field to run under the bridle, etc. Whence he concludes: Therefore cease: for never does art overcome nature, and a horse never becomes noble from a degenerate ass, and never does a dull one become wise in art. Petrarch gives the reason a priori, dialogue 41: "Thus hold, he says, that all who are and who will be or have been renowned for virtues cannot kindle one mind unless there are some sparks within the soul which, excited and aided by the spirit of the teacher, seize upon a noble fuel of discipline; otherwise thou wilt blow in vain upon cold ashes." To this pertain the proverbs: "Thou whitenest an Ethiopian. Thou teachest a pig. Thou instructest a head empty of brain. Mind is not in Centaurs. Midas has the ears of an ass. A Boeotian mind." And that of Persius: He knows not what the differences are between filth and a head. A Phrygian is corrected by blows. More dull than a pestle. Colophonian a shoe. Again, Ecclesiasticus cap. xxi, 17: "The heart of a fool, he says, is like a broken vessel, and it will not hold all wisdom." And cap. xxii, 7: "He that teacheth a fool is as one that glueth a potsherd." Hear St. Gregory, in the place already cited: "Against these the Prophet, he says, complains to the Lord saying: Thou hast broken them, and they refused to receive discipline. Hence it is that the Lord says: I have slain and destroyed this people, and yet they have not returned from their ways. Hence again he says: The people hath not returned to him that struck them. Hence with the voice of those scourging the Prophet complains saying: We have cured Babylon, and she is not healed; Babylon indeed is cured, yet is not brought to health, when a mind confused in perverse action hears words of correction, receives blows of correction, and yet disdains to return to the straight paths of salvation. Hence to the captive Israelite people, and yet not converted from iniquity, the Lord reproaches saying: The house of Israel is turned to me into dross; all these are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead in the midst of the furnace." Examples of this saying are in the Jews and heretics, and others hardened in some sin, as was Pharao, who are moved by no threats, no plagues to become wise and to abandon perfidy or crime. Finally, change and adapt this saying to a wise man in this way: "If thou beatest a wise man in a mortar like barley, with a pestle striking from above, thou shalt not remove from him his wisdom," that is, his virtue and constancy. Thus the philosopher Anaxarchus, when by Nicocreon tyrant of the Cyprians, after other most bitter torments, was being beaten in a mortar with an iron pestle, generously replied: "Beat, beat Anaxarchus's skin (thus he called the flesh and bones, of which the spirit is the soul), thou art not beating Anaxarchus;" for the soul is immortal and unconquered in the wise man, which cannot be beaten. Thus Philo relates in the book, That every good man is free. The same said the seven brothers Maccabees, when they were being beaten and fried in a pan by Antiochus, II Maccabees vii. The same said the Martyrs beaten in a mortar.
27:23
In Hebrew, "knowing thou shalt know the face of thy cattle, and lay up thy heart to the flocks, because there is not for ever strength, and is there a crown unto generation and generation?" For "strength" in Hebrew is חסן chosen, that is, strength, power, might, treasure, riches. Whence Pagninus translates it, because riches are not lasting for ever; the Chaldean, because possession and peace (the Zurich version, crown) do not last to perpetual posterity; the Septuagint, "thou shalt evidently know the souls of thy flocks; and thou shalt apply thy heart to thy herds; because there is not for ever to a man strength and might, nor doth he deliver from generation to generation," that is, as the Author of the Greek Catena translates it, "for the power and strength of a shepherd do not extend into eternity, nor will he provide sustenance from generation to generation for them"; the Syriac, "feed thy flocks, know thy sheep," according to that saying of Christ: "I know my sheep, and mine know me," John x. Hitherto Solomon has given ethical precepts; now he gives economic ones, which namely pertain to instructing and maintaining a family: wherefore he commends the art of cattle-raising and shepherding, which is most innocent and most ancient, being born with man. For Abel, the son of Adam, was a shepherd of sheep, just as Cain his brother was a farmer, Genesis iv; so also the other sons and grandsons of Adam were shepherds alike of sheep and herds, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Joseph with his brothers, Moses, David and other ancient Patriarchs, who became very rich from these, indeed princes and kings. Whence David sings of himself: "And he chose David his servant, and took him from the flocks of sheep, from following the ewes great with young he took him, to feed (that he might feed, that is, rule as a king) Jacob his servant, and Israel his inheritance," Psalm lxxvii, 70. That great Spyridon, made Bishop of Trimythus from being a shepherd of sheep, nevertheless did not cease to feed sheep: whence he shone forth in holiness and the glory of frequent miracles in the Council of Nicaea. Thus Romulus from a shepherd became king and founder of Rome, and the first Romans were shepherds and farmers. Whence Camillus was called from the plough to command. Hear Pliny, lib. XVIII, cap. iii: "What then," says he, "was the cause of such great fertility? The fields were then cultivated by the hands of emperors themselves (as it is right to believe), the earth rejoicing in the laurelled ploughshare and the triumphal ploughman: whether those same men handled the seeds with the same care as wars, and arranged the fields with the same diligence as camps; or whether all things prosper more happily by honest hands, because they are done more carefully. They found honours given to Serranus sowing, whence the surname. To Cincinnatus ploughing his four acres in the Vatican, which are called the Quintian meadows, a lictor brought the dictatorship, and indeed, as is related, with mouth still bare and full of dust. To whom the lictor said: Cover thy body, that I may deliver the commands of the Senate and people of Rome. Such were the lictors then also, so that the name itself was afterwards given to those who summoned the Senate and leaders from the fields." Therefore, literally Solomon commands the father of a family, whether farmer and shepherd, that he have diligent care of his cattle: thus he will give milk, wool, meat, hide and all things necessary for the sustenance and clothing of the family. He also commands that the face of the cattle be carefully inspected, because in the face of cattle, just as in that of man, the whole complexion and constitution of the body shines forth: whence from the face thou mayest gather the health or sickness of cattle just as of man, leanness or fatness, strength or weakness, etc.; again, whether they eagerly seize and take food and nourishment with their mouth: for this is a sign of good health and strength; or whether they do so sluggishly and intermittently, as if nauseated: for this is a sign of ill health and weakness. Improperly also Vatablus and certain others understand by cattle wealth and money: for the wealth of the ancients was situated in cattle; whence also from cattle the word money is derived, because it was marked with the image of cattle, as Pliny testifies, lib. XVIII, cap. iii. He adds a twofold reason. The first is: "For thou shalt not have power perpetually"; the second is: "But a crown shall be given from generation to generation." From the Hebrew they translate both passages variously in the negative sense, in this manner, neither shall the treasure be perpetual, nor the crown from generation to generation, that is to say, Although thou mayest have wealth, namely a treasure of gold and silver, yet that shall not be perpetual, nor lasting, because it is gradually consumed by spending, nor is it rarely taken away by theft, fire, plunder or similar misfortune. Although also thou mayest be a prince or king crowned with a crown, yet this principality and kingdom shall not be perpetual to thee and thy posterity: for often grandsons, indeed even sons do not succeed their father in the kingdom: nay, fathers themselves are not rarely cast down from the kingdom, either by rivals and enemies, or by subjects, especially if they rule them tyrannically. But the care and custody of flocks gives the shepherd continuous sustenance year by year, indeed immense wealth. Therefore it is better to feed flocks than to brood over and sleep upon wealth or honors as uncertain and unstable things. But Our Author translates, thou shalt not have power perpetually, namely to feed and nourish flocks, because thou shalt grow old, nor shall strength suffice that thou mayest feed them. Whence Varro, lib. II De Re rustica, cap. xvii, wishes shepherds to be young, strong and vigorous, so that they may keep watch in the fields with the flocks, and be able to follow them through mountains and forests, and defend them from wolves and wild beasts. BUT A CROWN SHALL BE GIVEN FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION. — For but in Hebrew is או veim, that is, although, that is neither, as others translate it variously. Our Author takes veim for ki im, that is but; for in Hebrew vau is general, and signifies any conjunction, such as ki. The sense therefore is, that is to say, If thou shalt feed the flock diligently, thou shalt obtain great wealth, which shall bring forth for thee a crown, that is immense honor and glory. Again a crown properly so called, that is to say, Thou shalt become prefect and prince of shepherds, whom Varro in the place cited wishes to be senior to the rest; for he was crowned as it were as a prince, equally as the president of a banquet, Ecclus. xxxii, 3. Hence Romulus gave a crown of grain to the priests of the fields, who among farmers and shepherds stood out as princes. Hear Pliny, lib. XVIII, cap. ii: "The priests of the fields Romulus instituted first, and called himself the twelfth brother among them, from Acca Laurentia his nurse, a crown of grain, which was bound with a white fillet, given to him in the priesthood as the most sacred insignia, which was the first crown among the Romans." But Pan, the prince of shepherds, was crowned by the ancients with a crown of pine as a sign of purity and virginity; for the pine is the symbol of this, according to that saying of Virgil: The bridal pine shall not kindle chaste perfumes. Whence Propertius, lib. I: The beech and pine beloved of the Arcadian God. And Ovid, IV Metamorph.: "The Pans girt with pine horns." He proves the same thing with more examples, Charles Paschalius, lib. VI De Coronis, cap. xxviii. The same, lib. II, cap. iii, teaches that rural deities are accustomed to be crowned with flowers. Moreover a king properly is a prince and king: for formerly when almost all men were farmers and shepherds, he who excelled among them in art, industry and wealth was created prince and king. Finally a crown of glory in heaven shall be given to thee, of which presently. Thus Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were shepherds and at the same time princes, or kings. Thus Moses, Joseph, David, were called from the sheep to the principality of the Hebrews and Egypt, equally as Cyrus to the kingdom of the Persians. See the sayings of Exodus iii, 1. Symbolically, by the shepherds of flocks understand the princes and prelates of men. For what shepherds provide to sheep, this superiors and prelates ought to provide to their subjects, namely to carefully observe, direct, instruct, and correct the countenance of each, that is, their morals and actions. Whence for "thy flocks" consider, the Seventy translate, "and thou shalt apply thy heart to thy herds"; Aquila and Theodotion, "set thy heart upon thy herds," so that as it were thy whole heart's intention be upon the herds. By heart understand mind and will: mind, that thou mayest intently consider what is useful and profitable for the flocks; will, that thou mayest procure this for them with singular love and care. Wherefore Christ the Lord, about to ascend into heaven, leaving St. Peter as shepherd of his flock, that is of his Church and his faithful, demanded love from him a third time, saying: "Peter, lovest thou me?" and when he had answered a third time: "Lord, thou knowest that I love thee," he entrusted to him his flock to be fed, saying: "Feed my sheep," John, cap. xxi, 17. He adds the reason, namely that they will not have perpetual power to feed and govern them; but if they shall have diligently fulfilled the pastoral office for a short time, they shall receive from God an unfading crown of glory, which the prince of shepherds Christ the Lord shall place upon their head, as St. Peter says, epist. I, cap. v, vers. 4. See the things said there. Hear Bede: "Carefully know the countenance of thy cattle, and consider thy flocks. To a pastor, he says, it is said concerning the Church: Apply care diligently to those whom it has fallen to thee to preside over, know the souls and deeds of each; and if thou shalt find anything of sordid vice in them, remember to correct it quickly: for thou shalt not always have power to feed the Lord's sheep; but eternal is the crown which thou shalt receive, if thou shalt have well ministered the office committed to thee in its proper time."
27:25
In Hebrew, the grass is revealed, the sprout appeared, the herbs of the mountains are gathered; the Chaldean, the hay is humbled, and the grass appeared, etc. The Seventy, apply care to those who are in the field, to the green things, and thou shalt cut the grass, and gather the summer hay; the Syriac, spring appeared, namely Nisan or April, which is called from opening, as it were opening the lands rigid from winter by its warmth, as Servius says. He demonstrates how easily food is prepared for flocks by God and nature with little or no labor of man, so that he may commend their pasture and the art of shepherding from its facility, soon about to commend the same from its fruit and utility; for without the digging of man in spring the earth, cold and rigid from the severity of winter, warmed by the heat of the returning sun, opens itself, and produces sprouts and grasses for the nourishment of sheep and cattle. Whence most farmers value meadows more than fields, and from meadows they gather as much fruit as from fields. It is also easy to feed a flock, when in other arts great labor is undertaken by the craftsman, as for the farmer ploughing, harrowing, sowing, reaping, etc.; for the merchant the buying of goods, transportation, selling, distribution; for the smith, baker, tailor, shoemaker immense and continuous labor of making, baking, mending, sewing, etc. Moreover he says: "The hays are gathered from the mountains"; for not more hay is gathered from the valleys than from the mountains, yet what is gathered from the mountains, as being in dry places and destitute of water, is drier, and therefore putrefies with difficulty, but can be kept in barns throughout the whole winter; whereas what is gathered from the valleys is more moist, and therefore putrefies more quickly, nor can be kept so long. Hence also sheep and goats, which love dry fodder, lest they be burdened by moisture and become sick, love the grasses of the mountains, as being drier, and therefore healthier. Whence that saying of Virgil: A thousand of my Sicilian lambs wander (wandering are fed) in the mountains. Mystically Salonius: "The meadows are opened, because through the grace of the Saviour the heavenly sacraments are revealed, when he opened the minds of his disciples, that they might understand the Scriptures; then appeared the green grasses, that is the new sentences of evangelical truth and glory. Again by mountains are signified the holy Fathers of the Old Testament; by hay, their writings. The hays are therefore gathered from the mountains, because the writings of the holy Fathers are gathered for the food of the Lord's sheep," etc. So also Bede. Tropologically the Author of the Greek Catena: "He calls a field or meadow," he says, "the mind of these; but the green grasses and sweetly smelling flowers, the virtues which exist in it. Now he who has care of these things cuts the green grass, namely the knowledge of God. By mountain hay the knowledge of heavenly and holy virtues and powers is designated, which is fitting for the weaker and still rude condition of souls. For the Scriptures are wont to express the saints by the name of mountains; as: I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, whence help shall come to me. Again: The mountains exulted as rams, namely on account of the salvation of Israel," Psalm. cxiii, 4.
27:26
The Chaldean: the lambs are for your clothing, and the kids for the business of your field; the Syrian: for your food; the Septuagint: that you may have sheep for clothes, till the field, that lambs may be yours; the Scholiast: that herds of cattle may be yours. He shows from the parable that the pasture of the fields, which lambs and kids fed upon, provides food and clothing comparable to it, as it were saying. Thus Jansenius: "Your lambs are for your clothing, because from the wool of lambs, under which all sheep are comprehended, garments are woven, and they are made from their hides. And the kids are for you as the price of the field, that is, by selling which you will be able to pay the price of the field hired by you, or the expenses of tilling the field, or by which you will be able to buy the fruits of fields, such as wheat necessary for your household; as if he said: If you feed your flock diligently, it will not be necessary to till the fields. For by the price of the kids you will be able to obtain the fruits of fields." Under lambs and kids he understands synecdochically cattle, oxen, horses, and all beasts of burden and livestock, which bring great profit. But he mentions lambs and kids especially, because the first shepherds of the world fed almost only these, such as Abel, Jacob, Moses, David, etc.; for these are easy to feed and govern, whereas larger animals are governed with difficulty and often with danger; or, as Vatablus says, as if to say: You will sell the kids, and from the money you will purchase slaves who will till your field. It signifies that from the flock and livestock all other things necessary for sustenance can be gathered. Symbolically, just as lambs are accustomed to be shorn for wool, so that clothing may be made from it, but not to be flayed: so a prince, who is the shepherd of the people, should not burden him with excessive and unjust taxes, but should take from him only moderate and necessary ones, and thus he will receive more from him; for the riches of the people are the riches of the prince. Whence the Emperor Tiberius rebuked Aemilius Rectus, the prefect of Egypt, because he burdened the people with excessive taxes: "I shear," he said, "the flock, I do not flay it." Thus Dio of Nicaea in his account of Tiberius. Mystically, Bede says: "He calls the lambs the innocent, the kids the penitent. Therefore you will clothe yourself with the fleece of lambs, when you, the shepherd, protect yourself with the good morals of obedient disciples, and seeing their praiseworthy deeds, you yourself become more glorious in the adornment of virtues and in the warmth of charity. You will prepare the field for the kids, when calling sinners to penance, you acquire for yourself a more sublime place among those living on earth."
27:27
In Hebrew, the sufficiency of the milk of goats for bread of thy house, and lives of thy handmaids; in the Septuagint, son, thou hast from me strong words for thy life, and for the life of thy servants; in Aquila, for the bread of thy house; in Symmachus and Theodotion, for the necessaries of thy house. By the milk of goats understand the milk of sheep and also of cows, likewise butter, cheese and other dairy products, as if to say: Be frugal in food and clothing; clothe thyself also with the fleeces of lambs, as Adam, Eve, and the other first men were clothed, Genesis iii, 21; and the ancient Romans, indeed even modern farmers and shepherds dwelling near Rome, who place pure sheep's fleeces lightly sewn upon the neck, and thus clothe the breast and back; feed moreover on the milk, butter and cheese of thy flock, as the ancients fed on these from Adam until Noah: for before the flood men abstained from flesh, as I have shown in Genesis ix, 3. Thus Solomon here sets before our eyes the simplest and most innocent manner of life, which Abel and the other first men followed, living on the milk of the flock, and clothing themselves with its fleeces, so that he might show how few and how simple things human nature is able to be content with; and he rebukes the insatiable gluttony and luxury of men, who seek delicacies throughout the whole city and world. St. Paul followed Solomon: "Having," he says, "food, and wherewith to be covered, with these let us be content," I Timothy vi, 8. Indeed the ancient Romans did not live on bread and meat, but on milk and pottage; whence they are called pottage-eaters. Hear Pliny, book XVIII, chapter viii: "That the Romans lived for a long time on pottage rather than bread is manifest; for from this reason pottages are called by that name even today. And Ennius, the most ancient poet, describing the hunger of a siege, recalls that fathers snatched morsels from weeping children. And even today the ancient sacred rites and birthday pottages are made with fritillae. This frugality made the Romans healthy, strong, wealthy, and masters of things. Hear the same Pliny, book XVIII, chapter vi: 'The height of their providence was,' he says, 'that there should be the least possible expense; for they condemned those things, who gave ten pounds of silver in household goods as a crime, who when a steward died demanded to leave victories, and to return to their own lands, whose estates the republic undertook to cultivate, and they led armies with the senate serving them as steward. From this came those remaining oracles that a bad farmer is whoever would buy, which the estate could provide for him; a bad head of household, whoever would do by day what he could do by night, except in bad weather; worse one who would do on working days what should be done on holidays; worst one who on a clear day would rather work under a roof than in the field.' The same frugality is to be seen today in the Dutch, which accordingly makes them vigorous, robust, and wealthy. Finally, Columella, book II On Agriculture, places the faithfulness of shepherds in this, that content with milk and cheese, they do not slaughter sheep or lambs. Seneca most excellently commending simple and obtainable food, epistle 120: "Whatever," he says, "exceeds nature, know to be precarious, not necessary; am I hungry? I must eat: whether this bread be common or of fine wheat, it pertains nothing to nature. Nature does not wish the belly to be delighted, but filled. Am I thirsty? whether this water be that which I have drawn from the nearby lake, or that which I have obtained with much snow, nothing chilled by foreign cold, pertains nothing to nature: nature commands only this one thing, that thirst be quenched; whether it be a golden cup or crystal, or glass, or a Tiburtine cup, or a hollow hand, nothing matters. Look to the end of things, and you will abandon what is superfluous. Hunger calls me, let the hand reach to the nearest things. Behold, hunger itself has commended to me whatever I shall grasp; the hungry man despises nothing." Mystically Bede: "With such," he says, "earnestness feed the flock committed to thee, that new milk not fail thee in summer, nor in cold; but let it suffice thee and thine always, that is, so diligently attend to doctrine, that thou mayest even advance certain pious penitents to the office of teaching through those who formerly on account of the foulness of vices seemed to be placed on the left at the judge's seat, now rational and without deceit, milk of the word be ministered to little ones in sense. But the milk of goats becomes food for handmaids, when those who not yet with perfect love, but still with servile fear serve the Lord, through the example or words of those who have been saved through penance, are refreshed with the life-giving feasts of the word, and are helped to advance to greater increases of virtues." Symbolically, milk signifies that pastors ought to receive from their subjects only small and simple things, namely those which suffice for simple sustenance and clothing: milk, he says, not blood, because flocks need this, not that. He also hints that it is most unjust if necessary food for sheep be transferred to the pleasures of pastors. Hence that passage in chapter xxx, verse 34: "He that violently presseth the udders to draw out milk, bringeth out butter; and he that strongly bloweth his nose, bringeth out blood." Anagogically, the same Bede expounds it thus from a certain source: "The meadows are opened," that is, the monuments at Christ's death, Matthew xxvii; "the bodies of the risen appeared, sinners were separated from the saints: hay for burning from the high places. The lambs were separated to the right hand, the goats to the left; the lambs for the garment of the king, because he himself said: I dwell in them; the goats for the price of the saints whom they harmed, are sold for fires." Furthermore, the Septuagint translates milk as strong words: "Son," they say, "you have received from me strong words, by which you may sustain your life and that of your ministers." These words are economic teachings delivered here for nourishing the household; they are called strong, that is, severe and frugal, which will make you strong in body and robust in spirit: for frugality and parsimony accomplish both: indeed frugality is superior.
Machine translation from the Latin, not reviewed.
27:6
… incerta cernitur"; id. 6, 13 is paraphrased by St. Ambrose (De off., 3, 137): "Inimicus vitari potest, amicus non potest, si insidiari velit"; elsewhere St. Ambrose (ibid., 128: "Sunt bonae correptiones et plerumque meliores quam tacita amicitia") recalls Prov. 27, 6.
27:20
The primitive general sense (preserved in Job 31:12) is usually replaced by the metonymic meaning "dwelling of the dead, sheol": Job 26:6 and Prov. 15:11; 27:20 (parallel with sheol); Ps. 88:11 (with "grave"). …
Is. 14, 9; Ez. 31, 15. Others prefer to give the root ἐδ'ῶ the meaning popascit, which would indicate an insatiable abyss that devours men, or even a place of interrogation, as it were the dwelling of the spirits that were consulted (cf. Prov. 27, 20; 30, 16; Is. 5, 14; Ps. 6, 6; 89, 49).
… out from the depths" to God to be delivered (Ps. 129:1; Ecclus. 51:9). The f. personified like death (Job 28:22; Is. 5:14; Ecclus. 14:12-19), is poetically depicted as an insatiable monster with enormous jaws (Is. 5:14; Hab. 2:5; Ps. 141:7; Prov. 1:12; 27:20; 30:16), with a vast belly (Ios. 2:3; Ecclus. 51:5). The fruit of the power of the f.-death is destruction (Os. 13:14 = I Cor. 15:54): v. ABADDON. …
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.