An exhortation to seek God sincerely, who cannot be deceived, and desireth not our death.
Superiors are admonished to do iustice, sincerely seking God. 7. Who being euery where seeth al thinges. 11. Murmuration, detraction, and lying bring to perdition. 13. God created men to liue, but they brought death vpon themselues.
1Love justice, you that are the judges of the earth. Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart:Amate la giustizia, voi che governate la terra: pensate bene di Dio, e lui cercate colla semplicità del cuore.LOVE iustice, you that iudge the earth. Thincke of our Lord in goodnes, and in simplicitie of hart seeke him:Diligite justitiam, qui judicatis terram. / Sentite de Domino in bonitate, / et in simplicitate cordis quærite illum: 2For he is found by them that tempt him not: and he sheweth himself to them that have faith in him.Perocché egli si trova da quei, che nol tentano: e si da a vedere a quelli, che in lui hanno fede.because he is found of them, that tempt him not: and he appeareth to them, that haue saith in him.quoniam invenitur ab his qui non tentant illum, / apparet autem eis qui fidem habent in illum. 3For perverse thoughts separate from God: and his power, when it is tried, reproveth the unwise:Conciossiache i pensieri malvagi allontanano da Dio, e la dimostrata possanza di lui corregge gli stolti:For peruerse cogitations seperate from God: and proued powre chasteneth the vnwise:Perversæ enim cogitationes separant a Deo; / probata autem virtus corripit insipientes. 4For wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins.Perocché in anima malevola non entrerà la sapienza, e non abiterà in corpo venduto al peccato.because wisdom wil not enter into a malicious soule, nor dwel in a bodie subiect to sinnes.Quoniam in malevolam animam non introibit sapientia, / nec habitabit in corpore subdito peccatis. 5For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful, and will withdraw himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and he shall not abide when iniquity cometh in.Perocché lo spirito di disciplina santo fugge l'ipocrita, e si tien lungi dagli imprudenti pensieri, ed è disonorato dalla sopravvegnente iniquità.For the Holie Ghost of discipline, wil flie from him that feyneth, and wil withdraw himselfe from the cogitations, that are without vnderstanding, and he shal be chastened of iniquitie •ni• wing.Spiritus enim sanctus disciplinæ effugiet fictum, / et auferet se a cogitationibus quæ sunt sine intellectu, / et corripietur a superveniente iniquitate. 6For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent, and will not acquit the evil speaker from his lips: for God is witness of his reins, and he is a true searcher of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue.Or lo spirito di sapienza è benigno, e non lascerà impunite le labbra del maldicente; perché degli affetti di lui è testimone Iddio, scrutatore vero del cuor di lui, e uditore di sue parole.For the spirite of wisdom is gentle, and wil no〈…〉 the •• for from his lippes: because God is witnes of 〈…〉 is a true searcher of his hart, and an hearer 〈…〉causeBenignus est enim spiritus sapientiæ, / et non liberabit maledicum a labiis suis: / quoniam renum illius testis est Deus, / et cordis illius scrutator est verus, / et linguæ ejus auditor.
7For the Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world: and that which containeth all things, hath knowledge of the voice.Perocché lo spirito del Signore riempie il mondo tutto: e questi, che il tutto contiene, ha cognizione fin d'una voce.the Spirite of our Lord hath 〈…〉 whole world and that, which contayneth al 〈…〉 iudge of voice.Quoniam spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum, / et hoc quod continet omnia, scientiam habet vocis. 8Therefore he that speaketh unjust things, cannot be hid, neither shall the chastising judgment pass him by.Per questo chi parla male non può star nascosto, e non sarà risparmiato dal giudizio di vendetta.For this cause he that speaketh ••••st thinges, can not be hid, neither shal the chastising iudgment passe him.Propter hoc qui loquitur iniqua non potest latere, / nec præteriet illum corripiens judicium. 9For inquisition shall be made into the thoughts of the ungodly, and the hearing of his words shall come to God, to the chastising of his iniquities.Perocché si farà ricerca de' pensieri dell'empio, e a Dio giungerà il suono di sue parole, affinchè sian punite le sue iniquità.For in the cogitations of the impious there shal be examination: and the hearing of his workes shal come to God, to the chastising of his iniquities.In cogitationibus enim impii interrogatio erit; / sermonum autem illius auditio ad Deum veniet, / ad correptionem iniquitatum illius. 10For the ear of jealousy heareth all things, and the tumult of murmuring shall not be hid.Conciossiachè un'orecchia gelosa ascolta ogni cosa; e non rimarrà nascosto lo strepito delle mormorazioni.Because the eare of ielousie heareth al thinges, and the tumult of murmurings shal not be hid.Quoniam auris zeli audit omnia, / et tumultus murmurationum non abscondetur. 11Keep yourselves, therefore, from murmuring, which profiteth nothing, and refrain your tongue from detraction, for an obscure speech shall not go for nought: and the mouth that belieth, killeth the soul.Guardatevi adunque dalla mormorazione, che non è utile; e rattenete la lingua dalle detrazioni; perocché i segreti discorsi non saranno senza castigo: e la bocca, che proferisce menzogna, da morte all'anima.Kepe your selues therfore from murmuring, which profiteth nothing, and refraine your tongue from detraction, because an obscure speache shal not passe in vaine: and the mouth that lyeth, killeth the soule.Custodite ergo vos a murmuratione quæ nihil prodest, / et a detractione parcite linguæ: / quoniam sermo obscurus in vacuum non ibit, / os autem quod mentitur occidit animam.
12Seek not death in the error of your life, neither procure ye destruction by the works of your hands.Non andate cercando la morte cogli errori di vostra vita, e guardatevi dal tirarvi addosso la perdizione colle opere delle vostre mani.Zeale not death in the errour of your life, neither procure ye perdition by the workes of your handes.Nolite zelare mortem in errore vitæ vestræ, / neque acquiratis perditionem in operibus manuum vestrarum. 13For God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living.Perché Dio non ha fatta la morte, né gode della perdizione de' viventi.Because God made not death, neither doth he reioyce in the perdition of the liuing.Quoniam Deus mortem non fecit, / nec lætatur in perditione vivorum. 14For he created all things that they might be: and he made the nations of the earth for health: and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor kingdom of hell upon the earth.Perocché tutte le cose egli creò, perché fossero, salubri fece le cose, che nascono nel mondo, nelle quali non è veleno sterminatore, e il regno dell'inferno sopra la terra non è.For he created al thinges to be: and he made the nations of the earth to health and there is no medicine of destruction in them, nor kingdome of hel in the earth. (Creavit enim ut essent omnia, / et sanabiles fecit nationes orbis terrarum: / et non est in illis medicamentum exterminii, / nec inferorum regnum in terra. 15For justice is perpetual and immortal.Imperocché perpetua, ed immortale ell'è la giustizia.For iustice is perpetual and immortal.)Justitia enim perpetua est, et immortalis. 16But the wicked with works and words have called it to them: and esteeming it a friend, have fallen away and have made a covenant with it: because they are worthy to be of the part thereof.Ma la morte e co' fatti, e colle parole la chiamarono a se gli empj, e credendola amica si consumarono, contratta avendo con lei alleanza, come quelli, che degni sono di appartenere a lei.But the impious with handes & wordes haue prouoked it: and esteming it a freind, haue fallen to decay, and haue made couenances with it: because they are worthie to be of the part therof.Impii autem manibus et verbis accersierunt illam, / et æstimantes illam amicam, defluxerunt; / et sponsiones posuerunt ad illam, / quoniam digni sunt qui sint ex parte illius.
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Goodness. Entertain just sentiments of the Deity, and avoid all duplicity. This truth is placed in the strongest light in the five first chapters, or preface.
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Calmet
Unwise. He shews that their wisdom is all folly, and that they cannot withstand his power. (Calmet)
Worthington
There are mortal sins of thought. (Worthington)
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Haydock
Subject. Or "enslaved to sin." (Haydock)
Soul and body are intimately connected, so that the actions of one defile the other, and banish wisdom.
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Discipline. The instructive light of the Holy Ghost.
Haydock
Understanding. Those who deny God or Providence, (Calmet) and lead a wicked life, are abandoned. (Haydock)
Menochius
Not abide. Elegchthesetai: "He shall be connected or manifested," shewing that he will not acquit the guilty, ver. 6. (Menochius)
Calmet
When Solomon fell, his wisdom ceased. Iniquity soon betrays itself. (Calmet)
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Haydock
That. St. Augustine reads hic, "this who," more correctly than hoc, as it refers to the spirit, (Calmet) which having made and filled all things, must be perfectly acquainted with every transaction. (Haydock)
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Calmet
Jealousy. God is strong and jealous, Exodus xx. (Calmet)
Haydock
He examines the smallest deviation from the paths of rectitude. (Haydock)
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Seek not with such eagerness (zelare) your own ruin, (Calmet) by an evil life, (Worthington) or rather throw not the blame on death, as if you were necessitated to sin. God created man to be immortal.
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Worthington
Poison, or medicine, (Worthington) medicamentum. (Worthington)
Poison and wild beasts become noxious to man only after sin. It is this which infects the veins. All may derive an antidote from Jesus Christ.
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It. Septuagint, auton.
Haydock
Death. The wicked strive (Menochius) to draw upon themselves the second death (Calmet) as they will not repent. (Worthington) (Isaias 28:15.) (Haydock)
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Concordance 3. Reg. 3. Isa 56. 2. Par. 1•.
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Mortal sinnes are not only committed in dedes & vvordes, but also in though tes.
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He that maliciously curseth s•u•sed of God.
•al. 5. v. 22.
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Be not cause of your owne eternal death by euil life.
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Desperate death deliuereth not the wicked from calamities.
Neither are anie damned vvhile they are in th•• life.
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But sinners not repenting being eternal 〈…〉 them 〈…〉.
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Tertullian † AD 220 The Prescription Against Heretics 7
… What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from “the porch of Solomon,” who had himself taught that “the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart.”
Tertullian † AD 220 Against the Valentinians 2
… since it is perhaps better to have a wisdom which falls short in quantity, than that which is bad in quality —better to be in error than to mislead. Besides, the face of the Lord is patiently waited for by those who “seek Him in simplicity of heart,” as says the very Wisdom—not of Valentinus, but—of Solomon.
St Cyprian of Carthage † AD 258 Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews 3.54
In the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: “We see now through the glass in an enigma, but then with face to face. Now I know partly; but then I shall know even as also I am known.” Also in Solomon, in Wisdom: “And in simplicity of heart seek Him.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount 1.2
8. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” How foolish, therefore, are those who seek God with these outward eyes, since He is seen with the heart! as it is written elsewhere, “And in singleness of heart seek Him.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount 2.14
… But let not any one who wishes to love God, and to beware of offending Him, suppose that he can serve two masters; and let him disentangle the upright intention of his heart from all doubleness: for thus he will think of the Lord with a good heart, and in simplicity of heart will seek Him.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 3.7
… if ye do now detest and abhor such impiety, if ye keep clean for the Creator His own temple, if ye would that He should come and make His abode with you, “Think of the Lord with a good heart, and in simplicity of heart seek for Him.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 46.3
3. In respect, then, of the profound nature of this question, I shall tell you what I think: let each one make the choice that pleases him, but let him think of it reverently; as it is written, “Think of the Lord with goodness, and in simplicity of heart seek Him.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 4.9
… tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth on many things.” A soul like this, by the departure and succession of temporal goods, that is, “from the time of His corn, wine, and oil,” filled with numberless idle fancies, is so multiplied, that it cannot do that which is commanded, “Think on the Lord in goodness, and in simplicity of heart seek Him.”
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 12.10
… being slain by death, He slew death. And you know, brethren, that this death entered into the world through the devil’s envy. “God made not death,” saith the Scripture, “nor delights He in the destruction of the living; but He created all things to be.” But what saith it here? “But by the devil’s envy, death entered into the whole world.”
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Origen † AD 254 Origen Against Celsus 3.60
And as we teach, moreover, that “wisdom will not enter into the soul of a base man, nor dwell in a body that is involved in sin,”
Origen † AD 254 Origen Against Celsus 5.29
… For such a procedure would be impious, being equivalent to a betrayal of the mysterious declarations of God’s wisdom, of which it has been well said: “Into a malicious soul wisdom shall not enter, nor dwell in a body subject to sin.”
St Basil the Great † AD 379 The Letters 8.12
… For, it is said, into a malicious soul Wisdom shall not enter, nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin.
St Gregory of Nyssa † AD 395 On Virginity 15
… So the soul whose life is in God will find her pleasure in no single one of those things which make a beauteous show to deceive her. If she were, in some fit of weakness, to admit the defilement to her heart, she would herself have broken the covenant of her spiritual marriage; and, as the Scripture tells us, “into the malicious soul Wisdom cannot come
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Holy Spirit 3.11
… “For the Spirit Himself intercedeth for us with groanings which cannot be uttered;” that is, the grace of the Spirit, unless perchance you have been able to hear the groanings of the Holy Spirit. Therefore here too God is worshipped, not in the wickedness of the heart, but in the grace of the Spirit. “For into a malicious soul wisdom does not enter,”
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Holy Spirit 3.17
128. Or because, “into a malicious soul wisdom does not enter,”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on Ephesians 15
… Whereas whenever a bitter man fares prosperously, one and all lament it, as though some evil thing happened; but if he is unfortunate, one and all rejoice. Let us then pity them, for they have common enemies all over the world. Jacob was a guileless man, yet he overcame the treacherous Esau. “For into a malicious soul wisdom shall not enter.” (
St Jerome † AD 420 Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus 1.17
That Book of Wisdom also which is read to us as the work of Solomon says:
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 14.2
… and if these follow each other in turn in the order of which we have spoken, man can attain to a height to which he could not fly, if the first step were wanting. In vain then does one strive for the vision of God, who does not shun the stains of sins: “For the spirit of God hates deception, and dwells not in a body subject to sins.”
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 14.16
… “For the Spirit of God will avoid deception, and dwelleth not in a body that is subject to sin.”
Pseudo-Clement The Recognitions of Clement 8.59
… But He is soon found by those who diligently seek Him through love of the truth, and whose souls are not taken possession of by wickedness. For He is present with those who desire Him in the innocency of their spirits, who bear patiently, and draw sighs from the bottom of their hearts through love of the truth; but He deserts malevolent minds,
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Origen † AD 254 Origen Against Celsus 7.8
… but since that time these signs have diminished, although there are still traces of His presence in a few who have had their souls purified by the Gospel, and their actions regulated by its influence. “For the holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and remove from thoughts that are without understanding.”
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Festal and Personal Letters of Athanasius 3
… but because bad and unthankful men are such as manifestly wish to quench it, since they, like the impure, persecute the Spirit with unholy deeds. ‘For the holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit, nor dwell in a body that is subject unto sin; but will remove from thoughts that are without understanding
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John 41
Wherefore we must cast out all wickedness from our souls, and never more contrive any deceit; for, saith one, “To the perverse God sendeth crooked paths” ( Prov. xxi. 8 , LXX.); and, “The holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and remove from thoughts that are without understanding.” (
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On the Morals of the Catholic Church 16
29. Paul says, "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us;" and the prophet says, "The Holy Spirit of knowledge will shun guile."
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Baptism, Against the Donatists 1.12
Chapter 12.— 18. What if he approached baptism itself in deceit? were his sins remitted, or were they not? Let them choose which they will. Whichever they choose will answer our purpose. If they say they were remitted, how then shall "the Holy Spirit of discipline flee deceit,"
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Baptism, Against the Donatists 5.23
… For it is not restored to him when he returns, just because he did not lose it when he seceded. But as the disaffected sons have not the Holy Spirit in the same manner as the beloved sons, and yet they have baptism; so heretics also have not the Church as Catholics have, and yet they have baptism. "For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit,"
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Baptism, Against the Donatists 6.12
… For we must perforce grant one of two things,—either those who renounce the world deceitfully are born of the Spirit, though it is to their destruction, not to salvation, and therefore heretics may be so born; or if what is written, that "the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit,"
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist 2.26
… You will certainly answer, False. Why then were they able both to have and to give true baptism? Why did not their falseness as men corrupt in them the truth of God? Is it not most truly written, "For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit?"
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist 3.29
… If, therefore, we are to follow this precedent in declaring that each several baptizer is now to be examined, then each must also be believed, whatever he may say of himself. But who is there that is made up of deceit, whom we know that the Holy Spirit flees from, in accordance with the Scripture,
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist 3.31
… While their true character was concealed, while they wished to be thought good, though really bad, and to be reputed chaste, though really guilty of adultery, so long they were involved in deceit; and so the Holy Spirit, according to the Scripture, was fleeing from them.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist 3.35
… Why did they who were baptized by that hypocrite, whose sins were concealed, fail to try the spirit, to prove that it was not of God? For the Holy Spirit of discipline was even then fleeing from the hypocrite.
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 The Correction of the Donatists 11
… Therefore they have not the Holy Ghost who are outside the Church; for it is written of them, "They separate themselves being sensual, having not the Spirit." But neither does he receive it who is insincerely in the Church, since this is also the intent of what is written: "For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit."
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on the Soul and its Origin 3.2
… but if you do think him to be just and holy, you ruin yourself by holding communion with catholics. You are, indeed, only feigning yourself a catholic if you are in mind the same as he was on whom you bestow your love; and you are aware how terribly the Scripture has spoken on this subject: “The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the man who feigns.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 21.32
32. But neither can he be said to be in the Church, and to belong to that fellowship of the Spirit, who is mixed up with Christ’s sheep by a bodily intercourse only in deceitfulness of heart. For the “Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit.”
Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 The Book of Pastoral Rule 3.11
Let the insincere hear what is written, He that walketh in simplicity walketh surely ( Prov. x. 9 ). For indeed simplicity of conduct is an assurance of great security. Let them hear what is said by the mouth of the wise man, The holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit (
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Tertullian † AD 220 A Treatise on the Soul 15
… and better than all others, there are our Christian authorities. We are taught by God concerning both these questions—viz. that there is a ruling power in the soul, and that it is enshrined in one particular recess of the body. For, when one reads of God as being “the searcher and witness of the heart;”
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 41
… And He is the Author of spiritual regeneration. Here is your proof:—None can see or enter into the Kingdom, except he be born again of the Spirit, and be cleansed from the first birth, which is a mystery of the night, by a remoulding of the day and of the Light, by which every one singly is created anew. This Spirit, for He is most wise and most loving,
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Lying 31
… For the ear of jealousy heareth all things, and the tumult of murmurings will not be hid. Therefore keep yourselves from murmuring, which profiteth nothing, and from backbiting refrain your tongue: because an obscure response will not go into the void. But the mouth that lieth, slayeth the soul.”
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Origen † AD 254 Origen Against Celsus 4.5
… not from what, next raises an additional objection against us, as if we asserted that “God Himself will come down to men.” He imagines also that it follows from this, that “He has left His own abode;” for he does not know the power of God, and that “the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world, and that which upholdeth all things hath knowledge of the voice.”
St Basil the Great † AD 379 De Spiritu Sancto 9
… not growing by additions; but straightway full, self-established, omnipresent, origin of sanctification, light perceptible to the mind, supplying, as it were, through Itself, illumination to every faculty in the search for truth; by nature unapproachable, apprehended by reason of goodness, filling all things with Its power,
St Basil the Great † AD 379 De Spiritu Sancto 23
… nor yet did the angel who spoke with Zacharias from the altar at the same time occupy his own post in heaven. But the Spirit is believed to have been operating at the same time in Habakkuk and in Daniel at Babylon, and to have been at the prison with Jeremiah, and with Ezekiel at the Chebar. For the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world,
St Basil the Great † AD 379 The Letters 8.10
Furthermore if he calls the Holy Ghost a creature he describes His nature as limited. How then can the two following passages stand? “The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world;”
St Gregory of Nazianzus † AD 389 Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 28
VIII. And how shall we preserve the truth that God pervades all things and fills all, as it is written “Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord,” and “The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world,”
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Holy Spirit 1.7
87. But lest they should object that this was said according to the flesh, though He alone from Whose flesh went forth virtue to heal all, was more than all; yet, as the Lord fills all things, so, too, we read of the Spirit: “For the Spirit of the Lord filled the whole world.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On the Holy Trinity 3.pref.3
… we undertook then to inquire, since the Son was sent thither, where He already was, for He came into the world, and “was in the world;” since also the Holy Spirit was sent thither, where He already was, for “the Spirit of the Lord filleth the world, and that which containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice;”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 75.8
… Take heed what thou doest. Thou art speaking iniquity against God. “The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the round world” (another Scripture saith this), “and that which containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice: wherefore he that speaketh unjust things cannot be hid.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 139.7
7. Behold thou findest that the runaway in a far country cannot escape His eyes, from whom he fleeth. And whither can he go now, whose “limit is tracked out”? Behold, what saith he? “Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?” ( ver. 7 ). Who can in the world flee from that Spirit, with whom the world is filled?
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 City of God 20.26
… and that He will be “swift,” either because He is to come suddenly, and the judgment which seemed to lag shall be very swift by His unexpected arrival, or because He will convince the consciences of men directly and without any prolix harangue. “For,” as it is written, “in the thoughts of the wicked His examination shall be conducted.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 75.8
… For the Lord maketh question of the righteous and of the ungodly. This you know ye have sung, this have we sung together; “The Lord maketh question of the righteous and the ungodly.” And what follows? “But he that loveth iniquity, hateth his own soul.” And in another place, “Into the thoughts of the ungodly there shall be questioning made.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 58.1
… There hath been set before their eyes that which in their conscience to see they would be compelled; and as if from without the voice of God were brought to them, to his own inward parts hath man been thus driven, the Scripture saying, “For in the thoughts of the ungodly man there will be questioning.”
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St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Defence Against the Arians (Apologia Contra Arianos) 1.3
… and from indignation at his deliverance venture on still more atrocious schemes against him, and are ready with an accusation, fearless of the words in holy Scripture
St Athanasius of Alexandria † AD 373 Apology to the Emperor. (Apologia Ad Constantium.) 5
… I beseech you, either cause me to appear before you that the thing may be proved, or else condemn these calumnies, and follow the example of David, who says, ‘Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I destroy .’ As much as in them lies, they have slain me; for ‘the mouth that belieth, slayeth the soul
St Jerome † AD 420 The Letters of St. Jerome 14.6
… Now the perfect servant of Christ has nothing beside Christ. Or if he have anything beside Christ he is not perfect. And if he be not perfect when he has promised God to be so, his profession is a lie. But “the mouth that lieth slayeth the soul.”
St Jerome † AD 420 Against Jovinianus 2.10
… You must either deny that you are a sinner if you are not to be in danger of Gehenna: or, if you are a sinner you will be sent to hell for even a light offence:
Sulpicius Severus † AD 420 The Doubtful Letters of Sulpitius Severus 2.10
… Cleanse thine eyes, whilst thou dost withdraw them from all concupiscence, and dost never turn them away from the sight of the poor, and dost keep them from all dyes, in that purity in which they were made by God. Cleanse thy tongue from falsehood, because “a mouth
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Lying 6
… for whoso utters any thing bears witness to his own mind. But lest any should contend that not every lie is to be called false witness, what will he say to that which is written, “The mouth that lieth slayeth the soul:”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Lying 9
… For that death which men are foolishly afraid of who are not afraid to sin, kills not the soul but the body, as the Lord teacheth in the Gospel; whence He charges us not to fear that death: but the mouth which lies kills not the body but the soul. For in these words it is most plainly written, “The mouth that lieth slayeth the soul.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On Lying 31
31. Thus then what is written, “The mouth that lieth, slayeth the soul;”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist 2.15
35. Augustin answered: Their throat is an open sepulchre, whence they breathe out death by lies. For "the mouth that belieth slayeth the soul."
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 A Treatise on Nature and Grace 16
… As it is, however, it simply goes on to say: “The tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison,” —such, of course, as is more noxious than that of beasts and creeping things. For while the one destroys the flesh, the other kills the soul. For, “The mouth that belieth slayeth the soul.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 15.6
… that I might understand whether the soul was alive also. So also when I hear a man speak, I understand that the body is alive; I ask what does he speak, that I may know whether the soul is alive also. He speaks a lie. If so, then is the soul dead. How do we prove this? Let us ask the truth itself, which saith, “The mouth that lieth, slayeth the soul.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 31.5
… He wished to persuade thee out of the Law to tell a lie. For he said, “speak.” And perhaps he did not dare to say, “speak a lie;” but thus, “speak what the other wishes.” Thou sayest, “But it is a lie.” And he to excuse it, says, “All men are liars.” Then do thou, my brother, say against this, “The mouth that lieth slayeth the soul.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 57.10
… What canst thou do to me? Thou wilt kill my body; my soul will depart at liberty, to receive again at the end of the world even this very body she hath despised. What canst thou do to me then? Whereas if I should give false witness for thee, with thy tongue do I kill myself; and not in my body do I kill myself; ‘For the mouth that lieth killeth the soul.’”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 47.8
8. How can I know, thou wilt say, that mine dieth not? Slay it not thyself, and it cannot die. How, thou asketh, can I slay my soul? To say nothing meanwhile of other sins, “The mouth that lieth, slayeth the soul.”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 5.7
… since those who only lie in this way, will attain in time to a freedom from all lying. For in those that are perfect, not even these lies are found. For to these it is said, “Let there be in your mouth, yea, yea; nay, nay; whatsoever is more, is of evil.” Nor is it without reason written in another place, “The mouth that lieth slayeth the soul:”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 27.13
13. “I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living” ( ver. 13 ). And since my Lord hath first suffered these things, if I too despise the tongues of the dying (“for the mouth that lieth slayeth the soul”
Pope St Gregory I the Great † AD 604 Register of the Epistles of St. Gregory the Great 3.53
… But, if your Holiness knew both what I referred to in my letter and what had been done, whether against John the presbyter or against Athanasius, monk of Isauria and presbyter, and wrote to me, I know not; what can I reply to this, since the Truth says through His Scripture, The mouth that lieth slayeth the soul (
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St Cyprian of Carthage † AD 258 The Epistles of Cyprian 51.22
… And in the Gospel He says, “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.” For since it is written, “God did not make death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living,”
Archelaus † fl. AD 278 The Acts of the Disputation with the Heresiarch Manes 29
… Manes said : But in that way it would also follow that God was its maker. Archelaus said : By no means; away with such a supposition! “For God made not death; neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living.”
St Ambrose of Milan † AD 397 On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 2.47
47. And, indeed, death was no part of man’s nature, but became natural; for God did not institute death at first, but gave it as a remedy. Let us then take heed that it do not seem to be the opposite. For if death is a good, why is it written that “God made not death,
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 On the Holy Trinity 4.12
… yet both persuaded us to ungodliness, and thereby brought it to pass that we deserved to come into the death of the flesh. We desired therefore the one through wicked persuasion, the other followed us by a just condemnation; and therefore it is written, “God made not death,”
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Reply to Faustus the Manichæan 21.9
… himself;" or again, in the passage already quoted of the judgment of God, "God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." Similarly, in the Old Testament, after the words, "God did not create death, nor hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living," we read, "By the envy of the devil death entered into the world."
John Cassian † AD 435 The Conferences of John Cassian 13.7
… “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God;” nor can we believe that “death passed on all men.” And so far do all who perish, perish against the will of God, that God cannot be said to have made death, as Scripture itself testifies: “For God made not death, neither rejoiceth in the destruction of the living.”
St John of Damascus † AD 749 An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.28
… For the origin of all things is from God, but their destruction has been introduced by our wickedness for our punishment or benefit. For God did not create death, neither does He take delight in the destruction of living things
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St Methodius † AD 311 From the Discourse on the Resurrection, Part I 1
… But God did not work in vain, or do that which was worst. God therefore ordered the creation with a view to its existence and continuance, as also the Book of Wisdom confirms, saying, “For God created all things that they might have their being; and the generations of the world were healthful, and there is no poison of destruction in them.”
St John Chrysostom † AD 407 Homilies on Philippians 4
… xi. 23 .) For this cause they were anointed with oil: and indeed it was from mercy He appointed the priesthood. And kings were anointed with oil; and would one praise a ruler, he can make mention of nothing so becoming him as mercy. For pity is peculiar to power. Consider that the world was established by pity,
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 136.4
… but not that we should believe that He makes sky, earth, and luminaries, of His Mercy; since they are marks of His Goodness, who created all things very good. For He created all things, that they might have their being;
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St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Reply to Faustus the Manichæan 21.9
… and thinking her a friend, they are drawn down."
St Augustine of Hippo † AD 430 Expositions on the Book of Psalms 42.12
… Does man “call on” man as God is called upon? No, but “calls on” is equivalent to “calls to him.” For it was said of a certain person, he calls on death;
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Therefore, O man, O priest, O religious, whatever you conceive in mind, speak with tongue, work with hand, think of the ear of zeal, that is God zealous, hearing and beholding you with great affection and ardor, so that you conceive, say and do nothing except what is pleasing and acceptable to him. The bride thought of this, saying Cant. II, 9: "Behold he standeth behind our wall, looking through the windows, looking through the lattices." To this pertains the saying of an ancient rabbi in Pirke Aboth, that is in the Apophthegms of the Hebrew Fathers, cap. II: "Three things you must observe, that you may never fall into sin, first, that you attend to the eye that sees all things; second, that you revere the ear, to which even silence itself does not remain silent, in every place; third, that you think that all and each of your works are written in the book of his knowledge." Tropologically Dionysius the Carthusian: God, he says, is not only zealous, but is himself zeal in the abstract, on account of the fervent and singular zeal for souls which he possesses, according to that, Zach. VIII, 2: "I have been zealous for Sion with great zeal, and I have been zealous for her with great indignation;" wherefore we ought to be moved and inflamed with like zeal toward him, so that with great study and solicitude we strive to please him in all things, and neither say nor do anything that would offend the eyes of one so jealous of such majesty, holiness and goodness; nay, whatever is of this kind not only in us, but also in any others whatsoever, let us labor with all our strength to remove it, especially when we hear blasphemous, cursing, filthy words, etc.: thus Elias did, pursuing Baal and the Baalites, nay killing them, III Reg. XIX, 10: "I have been zealous," he says, "with zeal for the Lord God of hosts;"; and David saying, Psalm. CXVIII, 139: "My zeal hath made me pine away, because my enemies forgot thy words;"; and Mathathias, I Machab. II, 27: "Whosoever," he says, "hath zeal for the law and maintaineth the covenant, let him come out after me," where see more examples of zeal, which he himself proposes to his sons to imitate, vers. 54 and seq.
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For tumult in Greek is bogos; that is, a murmuring and tumultuous noise, such as is the grunting of pigs, from borborizein and borboreisthai, or borbyrizesthai, that is, to disturb and be disturbed, and to make a tumult; Arabic, and threats shall not be hidden from him; St. Augustine, in the book On Lying, chapter XVI, takes tumult to mean the internal thoughts murmuring against God, or one's neighbor, for these are equally manifest to God as if they burst forth into external noise and tumult; others more literally take tumult properly for a tumultuous voice and gesture. The sense therefore is, as if to say, The tumult of murmurings, even those by which the impious secretly mutter among themselves against God, or one's neighbor, are not hidden from God, but strike his ears and offend him like the grunting of pigs: wherefore they shall be severely punished by him, as God always punished the murmurings of the Hebrews in the desert, while he dissembled other sins and left them unpunished in this life, as is evident from Exodus XVI, 2, and Numbers XI, 1 et seq., and chapter XII, verse 8. 11. KEEP YOURSELVES THEREFORE FROM MURMURING, WHICH PROFITETH NOTHING, AND FROM DETRACTING SPARE YOUR TONGUE, FOR A WORD SPOKEN IN SECRET SHALL NOT GO OUT IN VAIN: BUT THE MOUTH THAT LIETH KILLETH THE SOUL. He proves that murmuring and detracting are to be avoided by three reasons; the first is, that they profit nothing, and are anopheleis, that is, useless, as the Greek texts have it, nay rather they harm greatly and bring serious damages: for it is a lessening: thus Job, chapter XV, verse 16, and Solomon, Proverbs VI, 12, calls an apostate, who does no good but much evil, useless; useless therefore, that is, plainly impious, harmful, wicked, and reprobate for every good work, as Paul says, II Timothy II, 21. The second is, that a word spoken in secret, that is, spoken obscurely, latently and secretly, shall not go out in vain, but shall be turned back upon the mouth of the speaker and shall strike and wound it. The third is, that a mouth lying in cursing killeth the soul. Understand murmuring, both against God and His providence, for example, in that He sends sterility to crops, vines, trees, or plague, or war, and similar calamities; and also against one's neighbor through detracting, or whispering, which by clandestine whispers dissolves friendship among friends. COMMENTARY ON WISDOM, CHAPTER I. FROM DETRACTING. - In Greek it is, apo katalalias, that is, from speaking against, by which you speak against someone secretly, and accuse him either falsely or unjustly: for this is indeed a companion, nay rather a daughter of murmuring, as Blessed Antiochus teaches in sermon 29. The Wise Man prudently admonishes that detracting is to be avoided, because, as St. Jerome says, epistle 14 to Celantia: "Very few indeed are they who renounce this vice; and you will rarely find one who wishes to exhibit his life so irreproachable that he does not willingly find fault with another's; and such is the lust of this evil that has invaded the minds of men, that even those who have withdrawn far from other vices nevertheless fall into this one as if into the final snare of the devil:" see what is said in James IV, 11 et seq. The Syriac version renders it, from the detractor, or on account of the detractor, spare your tongue, as if to say, Do not mix your speech with the detractor.
SPARE YOUR TONGUE. - The Hebrew chamal, that is, to spare, also signifies to have mercy and to be moved with compassion; whence some render it, be moved with compassion for your tongue, that you may not suffer it to be violated by detracting, and to be bound with flames of punishments, as happened to the rich glutton, Luke XVI, 25, who perhaps, drunk with wine, loosened the reins of his cursing tongue against Lazarus and God; raging harshly against both, but more harshly against himself, whence placed in hell, he begged of his burning tongue a drop of water, and obtained it not, because he denied Lazarus a crumb of bread, as St. Augustine says. Hence Lyra, Hugh and Dionysius expound it, as if to say, Do not inflict this injury upon your tongue, which shall be so harmful and damaging to it: for the office and right of the tongue is to praise God and one's neighbor, wherefore a great injury is done to it if anyone abuses it for reviling God or one's neighbor. Bonaventure adds: The detractor, he says, first harms himself and his own tongue and soul. Then in Greek it is pheidesthe glosses, that is, abstain with your tongue, namely that you may not speak curses through it: spare therefore, that is, restrain and curb your prurient tongue, lest by its garrulity it burst forth into murmurings and curses; whence Guarinus renders it, keep your tongue from detraction; others word for word, abstain from contradiction: thus Virgil, I Aeneid: "Spare your fear, Cytherea," that is, put aside fear; and Seneca, epistle 115: "To spare the sword," that is, to abstain from slaughter; and Cicero, book II to Atticus: "To spare grief and anger;" and Lucretius, book VI: "To spare laments," that is, to abstain. Thus we commonly say: To spare labor, expense, danger, injuries, that is, to restrain oneself from labor, expense, danger, injuries.
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Arabian, shall not be justified: for obscure, in Greek it is lathriaios, that is, hidden, lurking, secret, such as is clandestine detraction and whispering; whence Vatablus translates it, clandestine speech shall not depart unpunished; Lyra and Hugo translate it, veiled speech, doubtful, equivocal; St. Bonaventure, sophistical and deceitful, although covered with the golden color of truth; it shall not therefore return empty, but full and laden with punishment and torment befitting and due to it. Less correctly does Osorius explain it, as if to say: Impure speech, although uttered clandestinely among companions, is not uttered in vain; but it infects and wounds the minds of hearers with its impurity, and makes the pure and chaste impure and unchaste. For speech in Greek is phthegma, which among other things signifies an ingenious utterance, sententious and briefly pronounced, such as are witty, but sharp and biting jests of detraction and mockery, which are likewise obscure, that is, concealed, ambiguous, dissemblingly and shrewdly signifying the vice of him against whom detraction is made. Hence Cicero, in the third book of the Offices, calls an obscure man astute and deceitful, whose counsels are obscure and unknown. Wisely does St. Ephrem, in the treatise On the Fear of God: "Just as," he says, "he who lays up some good thing for himself in a treasury, so the man who celebrates and praises his neighbor in his absence." Thus indeed the truth of the matter stands, confirmed by frequent experience, but to many it appears obscure, nay paradoxical, because they esteem the vituperations of others as their own praises, in which matter they are greatly deceived. Do you wish therefore to be praised? Praise others, even the absent; nay, those who oppose you and vituperate you: for this makes you, as magnanimous and magnificent, praiseworthy and admirable to all. BUT THE MOUTH THAT LIETH, KILLETH THE SOUL.
Syrian, the lying mouth. Namely, that which lies by murmuring, detracting, cursing, as he said a little before; and this is signified by the Greek word katapseudomenos, as if to say: A mouth that lies against someone, namely either against God, blasphemously denying his providence or other attributes of his, or affirming and attributing to him ignorance, negligence, or other vices, or feigning and teaching errors and heresies, as heretics do; or against one's neighbor, by affixing a false crime to him, or by exaggerating a true one mendaciously: thus St. Augustine, in the book On Lying, chapter XVI. Whence from this passage do not conclude that every lie is a mortal sin, but only that which is pernicious, namely that which brings grave harm or ruin to the reputation, goods, or life of one's neighbor; this therefore kills the soul of both the speaker and the hearer, especially of him who consents to the speaker and hears his accusations with pleasure. But this is contrary to nature, namely that the mouth, through which we draw vital breath, should transmit the lethal poison of detraction into the soul, which kills it; therefore officiously mendacious speech, as well as jocose, is only a venial sin, as theologians commonly teach. COMMENTARY ON WISDOM, CHAPTER I. Wherefore, because some, as St. Augustine, in the book On Lying, chapter VI, says: "If someone flees to you, who could be freed from death by your lie, you must not lie, because the mouth that lieth killeth the soul, Wisdom I, 11; and since by lying eternal life is lost, should one lie for the sake of anyone's temporal life?" This, I say, understand of pernicious lying, by which unjustly either faith and God, or one's neighbor is harmed, for example, if someone, in order to free another from death, swears falsely, or denies the faith, or says that he denied the faith before a tyrant, who persecutes him unto death on account of the faith: thus St. Augustine explains it, at the end of chapter XVI, saying: "But just as it is asked in what sense he said: But the mouth that lieth killeth the soul, Wisdom I, 11: so it can be asked concerning what lie: for he seems to speak properly of that by which someone is detracted from. For he says in the same place: Refrain yourselves therefore from murmuring, which profiteth nothing, and keep back your tongue from detraction. But this detraction is made through malevolence." And Chromatius in St. Matthew chapter V (found in volume VII of the Library of the Holy Fathers): "Perjury," he says, "and lying are condemned by the penalty of divine judgment, Scripture saying, Wisdom I, 11: The mouth that lieth killeth the soul," which words are cited in Canon Law 22, Question V, chapter Oath. Whence by this maxim are refuted the Basilideans and Helceceites, teaching that it is lawful in persecution to deny the faith by word, provided you retain it in your heart. See Alphonsus a Castro, book X Against Heresies, on Martyrdom.
HE KILLETH THE SOUL. - In Greek anairei, that is, takes away, removes the soul, that is the life of the soul, namely the grace of God and His friendship: for as the life of the body is the soul, so the life of the soul is God and the grace of God, as St. Augustine says: wherefore he brings upon himself death and destruction in hell. Some expound, he killeth the soul, that is, often takes away the bodily life of him whose reputation he destroys: thus St. Athanasius, in his Apology to the Emperor Constantius, says that the Arians persecuting and slandering him, as far as in them lay, commit murder, because "the mouth that lieth killeth the soul:" for the Arians sought the life of Athanasius. To this our a Castro adds, who thus expounds it, as if to say, A mouth lying against God, and detracting from His power, goodness or providence, killeth the soul, that is the life, both present and eternal: and so he shall not escape punishment, however secretly he may lie; but he entangles his soul in a grievous crime unto the destruction of both lives: for a blasphemer and one cursing God was ordered by the old law to be stoned and put to death, Levit. XXIV, 14; and God Himself afflicted him with great hardships and calamities. Less aptly the Arabian translator renders it, the mouth that lieth delivers or leads the soul, as if to say, Liars by their lies allure to themselves the ears and minds of their hearers. Furthermore, material falsehood is every error and everything false that is uttered; formal and properly so called is that alone which is uttered against the mind and the conscience of the mind, namely when someone speaks what he knows in his heart to be false; whence falsehood is called as it were menda, that is, an error or mistake of the mind, namely a statement against the mind: this properly is to lie, the former however is to speak a falsehood, as P. Nigidius says in Nonius: "He who lies, says he, is not himself false, he strives to deceive another: he who speaks a falsehood, is himself deceived as far as in him lies. A good man ought to ensure that he does not lie: a prudent man, that he does not speak a falsehood; judge the one in a man, the other not." Hence St. Isidore, lib. X Origin. litt. M: "A liar, says he, is called one who deceives the mind of another." Clement of Rome, citing this definition in his first epistle, says: "St. Peter commanded, says he, to guard his mouth from much and wicked discourse, and not to speak vain words and falsehoods; because the mouth that lieth killeth the soul." All indeed must beware of falsehood, but especially rulers and princes, whom the Wise Man chiefly addresses here, as is evident from verse 1; hence St. Thomas, in his work On the Education of Princes, proves by many arguments that a prince ought to love truth and abhor falsehood: "A prince must beware of falsehood as of poison, says he. Let princes therefore beware of bodily poison, but much more must they beware of the poison of falsehood, which is so deadly that while still in the mouth of a man it killeth the soul, according to that passage, Wisdom I, 11: The mouth that lieth killeth the soul. This poison the serpent had in his mouth, which deceived Eve our mother, nay this poison is said to have been the reason why the serpent has bodily poison in his mouth." Symbolically Caesarius of Arles, serm. 33 On the Possessed: "The mouth that lieth, says he, killeth the soul, because it admits the devil into itself, who is the slayer of the soul." Again St. Augustine, lib. On Lying, cap. XVI, by the mouth that lieth, does not understand the mouth of the body, but the mouth of the heart, namely the seal of the mind: "When he says mouth, says he, he means the very receptacle of the heart, where it is pleasing and determined whatever is also uttered by the voice when we speak truth, so that one lies in the heart, to which falsehood is pleasing." He proves this from a similar phrase in Psalm XIV, 3: "Who speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue;" and Matt. XV, 19: "For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies: these are the things that defile a man." But this sense is symbolic, for literally the mouth of the body is understood here. 12. BE NOT WILLING TO DIE IN THE ERROR OF YOUR LIFE, NEITHER ACQUIRE DESTRUCTION IN THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS. In Greek, neither do you draw upon yourselves, that is, you attract. The Syriac: do not envy death in the seduction of your dwelling, and do not be drawn to the loss (destruction) of the works of your hands. Lyra thinks this is said against those who believe the soul to be mortal, and therefore in adverse circumstances kill themselves out of desperation; but no mention of them is made here; therefore this maxim looks to what preceded: "A lying mouth killeth the soul," as if to say: Since lying and all iniquity kill the soul, do not these very things envy and desire, in error, that is, through error and the folly of your wicked life, namely indulging errantly and foolishly in concupiscences, envies and passions, and therefore wandering from the law, virtue, God and salvation. By error, therefore, he here calls that by which someone, in order to increase his own things, reputation and wealth by his life, detracts from his neighbor and slanders him, so that he may seize his wealth and station: for it is an error to wish to procure the comforts of one's life through the damage of others; because, as the Wise Man says here, through this one brings upon oneself not life, but death. COMMENTARY ON WISDOM, CHAPTER I. To his words he adds the works of his hands, because from curses one comes to misdeeds, and from words one springs forth to more severe blows; do not therefore envy, that is, vehemently desire and eagerly affect, or likewise bring upon yourselves destruction through the works of your tongue and hands. To envy is taken in an exercise performed, not signified, for no one is so foolish as to signify that he envies death: for, as the Comic poet says: "No one is blessed unwillingly, nor miserable willingly," but he who dies is miserable: yet he is said to envy death, who envies, that is, eagerly desires, calumnies, detractors, desires and crimes, which bring death to the soul: thus the glutton and the lustful one, by envying, that is, by eagerly gaping after feasts, wines and lust, implicitly desires and envies present and eternal death, because both feasts, wines and lusts bring both: thus of a petulant man, who provokes a powerful man or a prince with insults and injuries, we commonly say: This man seeks blows for himself, he desires his own death. Thus the sinner, by envying his desires, envies and desires hell, according to that, Psalm 48:5: "Like sheep they are laid in hell (Symmachus, they have constituted themselves), death shall feed upon them;" St. Augustine, he shall be their shepherd. St. Jerome: "Deservedly, he says, they are fed by death, who refused to have Christ as their good shepherd." Theodoret: "They brought punishments upon themselves, and chose death rather than life."
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13. For God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. The Syriac: nor does he will it. The Arabic: neither does he strike the living with a stroke, as if to say: Therefore the impious envy and draw death upon themselves, because God did not make it in the first place, but rather life: because he created man for life and immortality; but man by sinning brought death upon himself: for by sin he offended God and God's justice, which therefore justly inflicted the punishment of death upon sinning man: for, as the Apostle says, Romans 5:12: "By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned." Sin therefore extorted death from God as it were against his will: for God, as he rejoices in the life and happiness of men, so he grieves over their death and misery; this is signified by his words, Isaiah 1:3: "Alas! I will be comforted over my enemies, and I will be revenged of my foes:" for alas is the voice and mark of one grieving and lamenting; and when he was about to send a deluge upon the wicked world, "being touched with sorrow of heart within: I will destroy, he says, man whom I have created, from the face of the earth," Genesis 6:6; and Christ, seeing Jerusalem and foreseeing its destruction, wept over it, Luke 19:41. That therefore God is said subsequently to rejoice in the punishment of the impious, understand that he rejoices not in the evil of the punishment, but in the good of justice and just vengeance; whence he himself says, Ezekiel 5:13: "I will accomplish my fury, and I will cause my indignation to rest upon them, and I will be comforted:" similar passages are Deuteronomy 28:63; Isaiah 1:24, and elsewhere. Understand death, both of the body and of the soul, which is twofold: the first, by which the soul dies to God through sin; the second, by which it shall always die, that is, shall endure the punishments of death, and yet shall never be dead in hell.
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God indeed made the world, and all bodies whatsoever; but that a corruptible body should weigh down the soul, and the flesh should lust against the spirit, is not a preceding condition of human nature as instituted, but a consequent punishment of sin:" some read "of the damned" for "of sin." Moreover, Faustus of Rheims also, On the Grace of God, cap. I, tom. IV of the Library of the Holy Fathers: "God, he says, did not make death; death therefore is a foreign and adventitious evil, not an order of nature, but the punishment of sentence:" see the passages in Genesis cap. II, vers. 17. Thus St. Chrysostom also expounds this saying, lib. I On Providence, tom. V, and St. Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints cap. IV and V, and St. Thomas, part. I, Quest. XLIX, art. 2, and I II, Quest. XIX, art. 1, and Quest. CLXIV, art. 1. COMMENTARY ON WISDOM, CAP. I. Again, God did not make death, because He did not make sin, through which alone death could be introduced: for death is nothing other than the punishment of sin, as the Council of Trent teaches, sess. V; and the Council of Arausicanum II, can. II: "He is convicted of giving injustice to God, who teaches that death, which is the punishment of sin, has passed to us without sin, which is the merit of death." Whence St. Augustine throughout, against the Pelagians, from the death of all men, even infants, proves original sin poured forth from Adam into all his posterity. Hence Symbolically St. Bonaventure, Dionysius and Holcot understand death to mean sin: Holcot here recounts many analogies of both. Finally, St. Augustine, in Soliloquies cap. XXIV, from this saying wisely and piously thus prays to God: "That our salvation is from God, we have heard, he says, of thy mercy, O Lord, that thou makest not death, nor delightest in the destruction of the dying; for this, O Lord, we beseech thee, suffer not that to rule which thou hast not made, thy creature whom thou hast made: for if thou grievest over destruction, what prevents thee, O Lord, who canst do all things, from always rejoicing in our salvation?" to transfer non-being to being: but to this is opposed to transfer the same things from being to non-being: therefore God did not create death, for death transfers things from being to non-being, because it destroys the being of things. Again, creation is of a positive thing, namely some good: but death is not something positive, but privative: for it is the privation of life, and therefore it itself is an evil, which God did not make by Himself and primarily; but because a creature, namely man, abused his being, and by sinning deprived God of the honour and worship due to Him, hence in turn by a fitting punishment of retaliation God, as a just judge and avenger of crimes, deprived man of his being, and punished him with death: death therefore is not a condition of nature, but a punishment of guilt. Moreover, St. Thomas, I Quest., disp. LXV, art. 2, ad 1: "In this very thing, he says, that some creature has being, it represents the divine being and His goodness; and therefore by this that God created all things that they might be, it is not excluded (but rather included) that He created all things for the communication, manifestation, love, and veneration with thanksgiving of His goodness to creatures. You will say: God created man composed of four elements: but these are contrary to one another, and by acting and reacting upon each other will wear away and destroy; therefore He created in him the causes and principles of death. It is answered: This is true, if you consider the pure nature of man; but God did not create man in pure natural state, but in creation clothed his nature with original justice, which both the actions and motions of soul and body so composed and adjusted among themselves, that man would have lived peaceful, joyful, healthy, and holy for many centuries, namely until God would have transferred him to heaven to blessed and full immortality. Add that the original cause of corruption in man and in other bodies is to be attributed not to God the author of nature, but to the natural condition and imperfection of things themselves, namely both to the elements themselves, which have contrary natures and qualities, and therefore destroy one another, and to prime matter itself, which is always capable of and desirous of new forms. Anagogically St. Ambrose, lib. On the Faith of Resurrection: "God did not make death, because, he says, God did not institute death, but gave it as a remedy," namely that it itself might heal, and give an end to the miseries, as well as to the sins of this life, and open an entrance to blessed and eternal life. 14. FOR HE CREATED ALL THINGS, THAT THEY MIGHT BE. St. Anthony the Great, epist. 2, called forth from nothing, that all things might be, that is to say, God created things to being, that is, that they might be, and be preserved in their being; but not to non-being, namely that they might die and perish. He proves that God did not make death, from the fact that He is the creator of all things: for the office and work of a creator is to draw things forth from nothing, and from
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Sanabiles, that is, healthful, healing, which could heal, not be healed: for this is what the Greek word soterious signifies: thus to heal is taken for to save in Psalm X, verse 5: "Heal (that is, save) my soul, because I have sinned against thee," Job XXXIV, 17; Prov. XXVIII, 25; Jerem. XVII, 14, and elsewhere. For nations in Greek is geneseis, that is, generations, as St. Jerome translates in Zachar. cap. XII, that is the generative powers of the world, namely the virtues which God implanted in plants, herbs, animals, gems, etc., in their creation so that they might propagate themselves and generate their like. Likewise the things themselves created and generated by God at the beginning, these are called nations, that is, things born and produced, as if to say God made it so that things created by him from the beginning should be salutary, not deadly. Whatever in the world has been created by God, those things are salutary: thus Festus: "In cattle," he says, "a good yield, a good nation is called;" and Pliny, lib. XXII, cap. XXIV, and lib. XXIV, cap. VI, calls the generations and yields of honey and resin nations: for nation alludes to being born, just as genesis to ginesthai, and gennesis to gennasthai. It is similar in the last chapter, verse 10. The nations therefore of the world are all things which are born in the world. Or nations, or generations, he calls the births, origins and beginnings of the world, as if to say God made the first principles and nativity of the world, namely the work of creation of six days, at the beginning of the world salutary, not deadly. God made it so that at the beginning of the world nothing harmful to itself from what he created was in it, but all things healthful; wherefore "God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good," Gen. I, 31. Thus it is said Gen. II, 4: "These are the generations of heaven and earth," that is, these are the births and origins by which heaven and earth were born and brought forth into light by God through creation; hence Vatablus translates in this place, the beginnings of the world are salutary;
COMMENTARY ON WISDOM, CAP. I. The Syrian, in the generation of the world life: The Arabic, and the generations of the world having salvation, supply, God made. Again, St. Jerome by nations, or generations, precisely understands the first men generated by God and born in the world, namely Adam and Eve, from whom the generations of the world and all men to be born were to come, whom God created sound and immortal, so that they could not die, so long as they persisted in the obedience and justice of God; and thus they themselves would have transmitted this soundness and immortality through their generation to all their posterity. This is true, but in this place rather harsh. Moreover Lyran thus explains it, as if to say God made the first men sanabiles, that is, medicable, or remediable: because namely against the death of the soul contracted through sin, he suggested to them the remedy of penance, which resuscitates the soul dead through sin to spiritual life through grace: against the infirmities moreover and death of the body he suggested to them, both various medicines which would heal its infirmities, and hope of resurrection to eternal and blessed life. It was otherwise in the angels; for God created these insanable; hence Lucifer and his companions fallen into sin could neither repent, be healed, nor be saved. "God created men therefore," says St. Bonaventure, "in spiritual soundness through innocence, reducible to soundness through penance:" thus also Hugh and Dionysius; hence St. Chrysostom, hom. 8 and 22 to the People, which is on penance, and hom. 24 in Matthew, and hom. 24 in Acts, teaches that many wounds of the body are insanable, but none of the soul; but all things can easily, namely through contrition and penance, be healed and cured. But this sense is not genuine, but symbolic, or rather accommodative. AND THERE IS NO POISON OF DESTRUCTION IN THEM.
medicine, that is to say bearing a remedy; now in a bad sense for poison, that is to say bringing sadness; whence that saying: You shall not sell medicines to me, apothecary. A medicine of destruction, in Greek olethrou, that is of perdition, is a medicine destroying from life, destroying, killing, namely a deadly poison; whence the Syrian translator renders it, poison of death; the Arabic, poison of perdition. The sense therefore is, that is to say God in the genesis, or in the nativity or origins of the world, created all things salutary, and therefore there is nothing in it poisoned, nothing which destroys, kills and destroys; whence Guarinus translates, in those nations, or beginnings of the world there is no poison destroying; Jansenius, there was not created by God in the generations of the world a poison destroying, or losing, that is, there is not among creatures created by God, created perdition corrupting, or corruption or evil of perdition; Vatablus, the beginnings of the world are salutary, and there is not in them a pernicious medicine; St. Jerome in Zechariah chapter XII, created that all things be, and the salutary generations of the world, and there was not in them a deadly poison. It is asked here whether any poisons were created by God in the genesis of the world, for example poisonous herbs or animals? St. Augustine, book I On Genesis against the Manichees chapter XIII, holds that in genesis poisonous herbs were not created, but only after sin, and that in punishment of sin, and this whole thing seems to be said here by the Wise Man; and Scripture favors it, Genesis I, 12, and chapter III, verses 17 and 18. Related to this is what St. Basil teaches, homily 3 of the Hexaemeron, and Ambrose, book III of the Hexaemeron IX, Damascene, book II On the Faith, chapter X, Bede and Rabanus in Genesis, that the rose was first produced before sin without thorns, but after sin armed with thorns. COMMENTARY ON WISDOM, CHAPTER I. But the contrary opinion, as more probable, is held widely by others. I say therefore, first: It is more probable that poisonous herbs and animals, likewise the rose with thorns at the beginning of the world with other herbs and animals were created by God: thus St. Augustine, who what he had said in book I On Genesis against the Manichees, he retracts in book III On Genesis according to the letter chapter XVIII, Basil, homily 3 of the Hexaemeron, and Ambrose, book III of the Hexaemeron chapter IX. The same they hold concerning herbs, except the rose, St. Thomas, I part., Question LXIX, article 2, to 2, and there scholastics and widely recent writers writing on Genesis, or on the work of six days, such as Pererius, Molina, Valencia, etc. It is proved, first, because this plainly seems to be said Genesis II, 2, and 5, where God is said to have created every herb; therefore also the poisonous one. Second, because animals harmful to man were then created, namely whales and the serpent; the same therefore must be said of wolves, bears and poisonous herbs. Third, because this required the perfection of the universe, that all perfect species of things were then created: especially because what are poisonous to men are often not so to other animals, as is evident from hemlock; indeed what at one time is poisonous to man, at another time is salutary to the same. Thus hemlock is food for starlings, hellebore for quails, mandrake brings sleep; opium, or poppy, soothes bodily pains, says St. Basil homily 5 of the Hexaemeron, and from him St. Ambrose, book III of the Hexaemeron chapter IX, and book VI, chapter VI; and because those things, although in themselves harmful, nevertheless when mixed with other things in medicines, are medicines for men and animals; and at least knowledge of them could then have been useful to man. Again the rose was then born with thorns, because this is the nature of the rose, this its good and perfection. I say, secondly: Yet these poisons and poisoned things before the sin of man were not harmful to man, at least in the second act, or proximate potency: for as the Wise man says here, and in the following chapter, verse 23, God created man immortal; although therefore poisons in themselves were harmful to man, yet partly because man had dominion over all animals; partly through the knowledge by which he knew all poisons, and through the prudence and dexterity by which he could easily avoid all things, especially through the assistance and protection of God, preserving man in innocence, just as neither sword, nor fire, nor stones, so neither poisoned herbs or animals, and therefore nothing could harm him. Whence she spoke with the serpent innocently and fearlessly, Eve: for God restrained the serpent, lest it touch Eve and bite her, and pour its deadly poison into her; and Adam imposed names upon all animals, even bears, wolves and leopards. But after man sinned against God, that singular protection of God being taken away, all things were left free, and restored to their nature, so that they might rise up against man as against an enemy, and lay snares for him, and strive to harm him, as if from that time war had been declared and published between noxious animals and other poisonous things, and man, against whom the whole world armed itself, and this is what after sin God is said to have placed enmities between the woman and the serpent. It is answered therefore here first, that simple poisons are not denied, but only that poisonous medicines (as the Greeks have it) are composite things made by God: because these were discovered by the devil and wicked men: again God instilled poison into no nature or particular creature, or anything harmful, which would destroy it and bring death. It is answered secondly and better, that there was no poison, neither simple nor composite, which God either gave to man to drink, or placed before him unwarily; but rather he took the greatest care (as I have already said) lest anything of that sort befall man, and consequently, that nothing in the second act should be to man a medicine of death; and this is what the Wise man properly intends here: for he only wishes to prove that death is not procured by God, but brought into the world by sin. Thus in Genesis I, 31, God is said to have made all things good, in themselves namely, and with respect to the whole universe; but not with respect to some particular thing, to which they can be evil and contrary, as experience makes clear. Thus in Genesis III, the earth is said to be cursed, and to bring forth thorns, because the earth itself, which before had been blessed by God, fertile and fruitful, man being expelled from paradise, and condemned to till it, began to be cursed and troublesome: nay, the earth, deprived of its native goodness and fertility on account of man's sin, was made degenerate, abounding in briars and thorns.
NOR THE KINGDOM OF THE UNDERWORLD ON EARTH. For kingdom in Greek is basileion, that is, royal palace, palace, hall of the king; likewise a royal sign, royal insignia, diadem. The Greeks therefore have it word for word, neither the palace, nor the royal insignia of Orcus upon the earth: Orcus is feigned by the poets to be the king of the underworld; whence the Syrian, neither to the underworld is there a kingdom upon the earth, that is to say, God did not make it so that the underworld and demons would have power over the earth and over men, but man's fault and injustice did this; because by believing the temptations of the devil they willingly consented to him, and subjected themselves to his power. Again, of the underworld, that is, of death and destruction the kingdom, or the palace of death and royal fortress, was not originally on the earth, but was brought forth from the underworld to us by the art of the devil, impelling Adam to sin: for the punishment of this is death, that is to say, The kingdom and palace of death was not on the earth, but in the deepest bowels of the earth among the underworld, "where the shadow of death, and no order, but eternal horror dwells," as Job says, cap. X, vers. 22. Therefore to Adam and to men established in the state of innocence there ruled grace, life, heaven and the heavenly ones, namely angels and God himself; but after they sinned, there ruled over them sin, death, the underworld, demons and Lucifer; whence all who died before Christ, even the just, descended to the underworld. Hence St. John, Apocalypse cap. VI, vers. 8, is invited to see: "And behold, he says, a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death, and hell followed him, and power was given to him over the four parts of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." Note, for underworld in Greek is Hades; Hades moreover is Orcus, Pluto, Tartarus, the underworld: called thus as it were from apo tou aeidous, from the privative a, and idein, that is to see, that is to say, A place deprived of sight, that is, dark, deep, gloomy, destitute of the sun, which by the Hebrews is called tsalmaveth, that is, the shadow of death, Isaiah IX, 2. Whence Plutarch, tract. in that passage Lathe biosas, that is, live in secret: "Those who, he says, believe the sun to be Apollo from the mysteries of their ancestors and the ancients, call him the same Delian and Pythian. But he who is the lord of the opposite part, whether he be God or daemon, they call Haden, that is, Orcus, (because the dead migrate to a dark and obscure place) and the king of dense night and of inert sleep." COMMENTARY ON WISDOM, CAP. I. Hades therefore is the king of the underworld, and as it were a god, who in reality is none other than Lucifer, whose kingdom is in Gehenna: that after the sin of Adam he exercised power over men is shown by the name Orcus, which Festus derives from urgendo, because he urges all men to death: the same is called Pluto from riches, because he is rich both in wealth and in sinful and damned souls: for ploutoi are riches, namely gold, silver, gems, which are hidden away in the deepest bowels of the earth; hence the poets establish Jupiter as god of the sky, Neptune of the sea, Pluto of the underworld, and give him Proserpina as wife, concerning whom Statius thus sings: Sitting in the middle by lot, in the fortress of the unhappy kingdom / The leader of Erebus, he demanded the peoples' crimes of life. The same is called Tartarus, and in the plural Tartara, from tarassein, that is, to disturb, because it disturbs all things, and mixes them up and down, or from tartarizein, that is, from the tremor of cold, because it is the deepest and coldest place: whence Virgil, V Aeneid., calls the innermost tartara of death; elsewhere sad, fatal, black, dark, deep tartara. Hence the same in VI Aeneid. thus sings: But on the left the wicked / Suffer punishments, and to impious Tartarus sends. And again: Twice it opens downward so much, and stretches beneath the shadows, / As much as to the ethereal heaven of the sky is looked up to. Therefore Orcus, Pluto and the underworld, namely Lucifer, the kingdom of death, which he had in Gehenna, after the sin of Adam extended over the earth upon all men born from Adam, whom he pierces with the dart of death: for, as he will say in the following cap. vers. 23: "God created man incorruptible, etc.; but by the envy of the devil death came into the world." He alludes to the poets (from which you may gather that the author of this book is not Solomon, inasmuch as he was far earlier and more ancient than Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, and all poets and philosophers) who assert that Haden, or Orcus, and Pluto, are the king of the underworld, ruling in a dark and horrible region beneath the earth, who binds the souls of all the dead with inescapable chains, and has for his royal stemma keys, because the underworld is barred to those entering as if with adamantine locks, and to no one who has entered is exit given, concerning which more in Natalis Comes, lib. X Mythol. cap. IX. Thus the author of the book of Judith cap. XVI, vers. 8, alludes to the fable of the Titans, that is, of the giants fighting with Jupiter: "Nor did the sons of Titan, he says, strike him," namely Holofernes.
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15. For justice is perpetual and immortal. The Greek texts have dikaiosyne, that is, it is perpetual and immortal. Some codices add, such as the Complutensian, but injustice is the acquisition of death: which words are not authentic to the text, but an exaggeration and explanation of it by antithesis: for the Vatican codices, Greek codices, and others of better quality do not have them. He proves that death was not made by God, and consequently neither an external remedy, from the fact that God originally gave to man justice, which is the medicine of immortality: for justice by God's decree, gift and reward is immortal, and makes man immortal: wherefore as long as Adam persisted in original justice, he could not die; and if he had always persisted in it, he could never have died. Understand justice here not as special, as St. Augustine seems to wish, in book XIV of On the Trinity, chapter IX, but as general and original, which was a chorus or complex of all virtues: for this gave to Adam life and immortality; which being overthrown, sin inflicted upon him and all his posterity the debt of mortality, and death itself. Justice therefore, like the sun, gives light, life, joy, happiness, and blessed eternity. Who therefore would not love and desire it? It is itself immortal: it therefore makes immortal, glorious and immortal. Furthermore Cantacuzenus understands justice not of men, but of God, as if to say, Justice, that is, the just, beneficial and sweet providence and beneficence of God the best, as far as it concerns itself, causes that what it once gave to creatures, it does not revoke, but establishes, and makes it perpetual; and our a Castro: "Justice, he says, which God preserves, while he gives to things according to their implanted nature what is proper to them, for their perpetuity, makes them perpetual;" and Didymus in the epistle II of St. John, chapter II (it is found in volume V of the Library of the Holy Fathers): "God's, he says, will remaining with the saints is virtue, concerning which it is written, Wisdom 1, 15: Justice is immortal." But the former sense is the genuine one. COMMENTARY ON WISDOM, CHAPTER I.
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St. Augustine is followed by St. Thomas, II-II, Question LXVIII, article 1, where he teaches with precision that all four cardinal virtues will remain in heaven, as ornaments of the rational soul, and as bright trophies, which the soul having nobly overcome concupiscences in this life, namely the prizes and trophies of its victories. 16. BUT THE WICKED WITH HANDS AND WORDS HAVE CALLED FOR HER: AND ESTEEMING HER A FRIEND, HAVE MADE A COVENANT WITH HER: BECAUSE THEY ARE WORTHY TO BE OF HER PART. The wicked, in Greek asebeeis, that is the irreligious, the impious, the criminal, who do not know God, or do not fear, do not reverence, do not worship Him, and therefore pour themselves out into all crimes. Her, namely death, for in Greek it is auton masculine, which cannot refer to dikaiosynen, that is justice, nor to adikian, that is injustice, which some add from verse 13, as St. Bonaventure wishes, since both are of feminine gender, but masculine thanaton, that is death. He proves the just man to be sound, holy, immortal: now he assigns the true cause of death, the madness of the first parents and of other wicked ones, who so ardently loved their deadly desires, that they did not shudder at death, which they knew was lodged in them; but rather they themselves called it upon themselves by wicked deeds with their hands, committing slaughter and robbery, and by words murmuring, hurling blasphemies against God, insults against their neighbors (as tyrants and insolent princes and judges do, whom especially he censures here, as is evident from verse 1), as if they esteemed it their friend, when it was truly their bitterest enemy; hence they flowed toward their pleasures, and toward death and destruction lodged in them, and there they wasted away, that is they brought decay and corruption upon both soul and body; wherefore they thus conducted themselves with death, as if they had made a pact and covenant with it, and that foolishly, but justly, worthily and deservedly, because they are worthy to have part and fellowship with death, and to be sharers in its afflictions and sorrows, because they willingly made a covenant with it. Understand death, first of the body, as is evident from verse 14; then of the soul through sin and damnation in hell. Note that each word has emphasis, and they mark in the wicked a singular burning or fury of desire, by which, blind, like unbridled and love-maddened horses, they hurl themselves into present and eternal death. He says therefore: "With hands and words they have called for her," namely death, that is with all effort and study, which is commonly said, with full sail, or with hands and feet: for those ardently in love are accustomed to call upon those far off and distant by the waving, extending and gesticulating of their hands. Again, the first parents by extending their hands to the forbidden fruit, and mixing words with the serpent, called death upon themselves and their posterity. The Gloss explains it as by deeds and words; St. Bonaventura, by hands of defense, and by words of boasting: for they defend their desires and crimes with their hands, and magnify and celebrate the same with their words. Eve did this, when she offered the forbidden fruit to Adam, and enticed him to eat it; which he did, even though he knew it had been said to him by God: "In whatsoever day thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death," Gen. II, 17. To this proverb is antistrophic that saying of the ancients: "Drawing evils to themselves like the Caecian cloud. Those who seek good things scarcely attain them, but evils come even to those not seeking them." A fable exists in Aesop about a porter groaning under a burden, and therefore invoking death. She stood before him; then the porter: "I invoked thee," said he, "not that thou shouldst kill me, but that thou shouldst lighten the burden with me upon thy shoulders." COMMENTARY ON WISDOM, CHAPTER I.
AND ESTEEMED IT A FRIEND, - not directly, but indirectly and concomitantly: for Adam, and any sinner, esteems a friend not death itself, but his own gluttony and pleasure, which he loves ardently and desperately, even if he knows it is forbidden to him by God under penalty of death; therefore while he drinks it in ardently and drunk with love, he drinks in death itself. Again, properly the voluptuous esteem death as a friend, because, wholly intent upon their desires in this life, they finally esteem that all things end in death, and that all things perish with the body, as he will say at the beginning of the following chapter, and therefore they freely indulge in all pleasures in life, and flow into all vices. Our author adds another exposition from Castro, as if to say: Having supposed that death, which they had summoned, would not harm them, on account of that promise of the serpent: "You shall not surely die," they experienced it to have happened otherwise than they thought: for immediately struck by the sting of death, they began to waste away, and like a flowing wave to flow and hasten toward death, and thus finally perished. THEY FLOWED AWAY, - In Greek etakesen, that is, like wax they were gradually melted, liquefied, perished, consumed and resolved into decay; the Arabic version: they were liquefied; the Syriac: they were corrupted. "They flowed away" therefore, that is, like wax liquefied, from the solidity of original justice, holiness, grace, joy and immortality, they transferred themselves to fleeting pleasure, intemperance, sin, sorrow, death and hell; they began to flow into death, first of guilt, as St. Bonaventure says, then of punishment and hell, namely into all the miseries of this life and the future, which they brought upon themselves and all their descendants. THEY MADE COVENANTS WITH IT, - that is, with its companion, nay rather its mother, namely with pleasure forbidden by God under penalty of death: for they were joined to it with such ardor, as if they had made a most strict covenant with it: and therefore they are said equally with death, which is inseparably attached to pleasure, to have made a covenant; whence the Arabic version translates: and they made a pact with it; the Syriac: they swore and made a covenant with it. Again, properly they made as it were a covenant with death itself, when they so securely surrendered themselves wholly to lust and tyranny, just as if they were not going to die, or rather as if they were not going to die except after many centuries, and in death itself were going to rest peacefully and amicably, expecting no judgment after it, no life, no punishment, because they esteemed that all things are consummated in death, nor is any other life remaining; wherefore they thought they would die happily, according to that passage, Job. XXI, 13: "They spend their days in prosperity, and in a moment they go down to hell;" thus Augustus Caesar wished for himself euthanasia, that is, an easy and cheerful death, and this befell him, as Suetonius testifies. The covenant therefore of the impious with death is, as if they had said to it: Do not harm us, O death, we in turn will not harm you, but will be friends; but they erred: for, as God threatens them, Isaiah, chapter XXVIII, verse 18: "Your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand: when the scourge shall pass through, you shall be trodden down by it." BECAUSE THEY ARE WORTHY TO BE OF HIS PART.
Machine translation from the Latin, not reviewed.
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… Prat, Evēques, in DThC, V, coll. 1658-59). In the Septuagint translation this name designates governors (Iude, 9, 28), prefects (II Esdr. 11, 9), magistrates (Is. 60, 17), royal ambassadors (II Mach. 1, 46), and God himself (Iob. 20, 20; Sap. 1, 6). In the New Testament the word ἐπίσκοπος is used only five times, four of which designate the superiors of the Christian community (Act. 20, 28; Phil. 1, 1; I Tim. 3, 4; Tit. …
… (Prov. 16, 2 and 21, 2), who infuses into Adam's body a spiritual soul that must return to him after death (Gen. 2, 7; Eccl. 12, 7); "God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth" (Jn. 4, 24; cf. Is. 31, 3; Wis. 1, 6; 6, 24; 9, 17). Nor do the biblical expressions cause difficulty, which present God metaphorically, as a man who walks, speaks, etc. (v. ANTROPOMORFISMO).
… The opposite of the flesh, or animated matter (σάρξ) enclosing the ψυχή, was the invisible dynamism of man called "spirit" (πνεῦμα; I Cor. 5:5); the "fragile flesh" resists the "willing spirit" (Mt. 26:41; Mc. 14:38) in which God or the Spirit of God (Sap. 1:6-7; Iob 10:12; Proc. 8:31) works with mysterious efficacy (Io. 3:6-8; 6:64). The spirit-flesh dualism (πνεῦμα-σάρξ) is one of the great antitheses of Pauline preaching.
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… In this sense speak Sacred Scripture (cf., for example, Ps. 14:3; 33:14; Prov. 20:19; 30:10; Wis. 1:11 agg.; I Tim. 3:2; Rom. 1:30; II Cor. 12:20; Inc. 4:11, etc.) and patristic tradition (especially the Fathers' commentaries on the cited biblical passages).
1:12
… Iud., II, 8, 11; VII, 8, 7). Wis. 1:12-4:20 insists on future retribution: the glorious immortality of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked in the afterlife, which will be ratified by divine judgment (ibid. 5:1-25). …
1:13
… God does not delight in the death and sorrows of men (Wis. 1:13); rather, in a plan of providence that was frustrated by sin, He had established that man should pass from earthly life to heavenly life without passing through dissolution: but because …
1:14
… Iud., III, 8, 5). In the New Testament the f. is called ᾱᾱᾱ, whose dominion is not over the earth (cf. Wis. 1:14), but beneath it (Mt. 11:23 = Lk. 10:15; Rev. 9:1). God cast the rebel angels down into Tartarus (ἐταρτάρωσα), shutting them in those dark cavities (II Pt. 2:4); so too Enoch …
1:16
… ff. and often in the book of Wisdom, which speaks of immortality (Sap. 3, 4; 4, 1; 8, 17; 15, 3), of incorruptibility (ibid. 2, 23; 6, 18 ff.) and of the different lot that awaits the just (ibid. 3, 1 ff. 7, 9; 4, 4-17; 5, 15) and the wicked (ibid. 1, 16; 2, 21-25; 5, 6-13), always in messianic or eschatological contexts. …
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.