Fragments on Proverbs 191–209

part of the soul, which some call irrational and others the … part. The one who, from the good things he did and teaches, gains for himself and his disciples knowledge of bodies and incorporeal things here, and the kingdom of heaven in the age to come … ; but [the merciless] destroys not only his own body but also his soul, perishing in the fire together with those who obey him. [Prov 11:21] He lays hands on hands unjustly who becomes a teacher of evil deeds and doctrines; but he sows righteousness who puts forth words about the virtues and the knowledge of God. [Prov 11:24] Against those who sow their own and make it more are set those who gather and are diminished; for those who sow their own are those who sow to the Spirit and reap life; but those who gather and are diminished are those who sow to the flesh and gather corruption for themselves. [Prov 11:26] The grain is the divine word, which the Jews hid away and so left to the nations. Similar to this is what is said by our Saviour in the Gospels: "No one lights a lamp and puts it under the bushel, but on the lampstand, to give light to all in the house." For just as grain is food for the body, so divine knowledge is food for the soul; and whoever has the food of both and does not provide it, but demands payment for these things from those who have nothing to give, may leave it to the demons. It also writes "cursed by the people", because under the people of angels and of all the righteous standing at the day of judgment he will be accursed. [Prov 11:27] Carpentry, according to the Spirit, is the practical working of the good virtues; and the one who does what is owed to God seeks men pleasing to God, who receive what is owed to God, so that, as he himself, they too may …; but those who seek not good things but evil things will be … [Prov 11:30] This is the tree of life planted in the middle of paradise, which Adam was prevented from touching after his sin, having cast away the seeds of righteousness from which the tree of life grows.

"But by your hardness and your unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God." [Prov 13:22] The good man will make those who obey him like sons to a father inherit, and will adopt them for that one into the kingdom of heaven. [Prov 14:7] They are unconquerable, just as weapons provide safety; for nothing evil will stand against wisdom, since it is an invincible weapon; against it alone the demons are powerless. But to the fool all things, visible and incorporeal, are hostile. [Prov 14:9] By houses he here means bodies, for they are the houses of souls. The lawless owe it to those who know piety and contemplative knowledge to learn not only the knowledge of God but also all of the life-giving commandments, so that, having become pure, they may see God with the eyes of the mind; for this is the blessed end, which is kept for every rational nature. And the houses of the righteous are ready to receive all, as the Lord commands. [Prov 14:14] By "thoughts" he now means the divine visions and the habits of the virtues, to which he has opposed the bold-hearted man in the ways of the mind. "For out of the abundance of the heart the lips speak," said the Lord; for the good man intends not to do evil, but to do good. But the bold-hearted man, acting and speaking as a fool, will be filled with scourges and the taking away of his goods, and at the end will lose his soul. [Prov 15:10] … reprove those who sin; but those who hate them and die together with the shamefulness of their sins will melt away wretchedly with the evil one who invented them. And the instruction of the innocent, the sinlessness, becomes known to those who pass by wickedness. [Prov 15:15] Stillness is abstaining from wickedness in act and in sight, which the good keep at all times; but the eyes of the mind and of the body of the wicked devise evils all the time. [Prov 15:24] The man of understanding is not in the Hades of sinners; the ways of life are the thoughts of the divine words and works. The man of understanding always does and teaches these, so that, turning aside from Hades, he may be saved together with his disciples. [Prov 16:7] Those who do not do his commandments are his enemies; and they become his friends when they run to the righteous, confessing their evil deeds; and, led by them out of these, they will walk, like them, in the ways that give life; as Paul proclaimed, "Who, being once enemies, were reconciled to God through the death of his Son." Note that all enemies become friends through the righteous, so that Christ may say to all: "No longer do I call you servants, but friends."

[Prov 16:14] Here again wisdom is needed, to appease. Or the angel who knows the teachings about punishment is called the wrath of God; but the one who is wise in divine works and words, being of one mind with him, will not be terrified by him. [Prov 16:16] The nests of wisdom are the churches, or the tents in heaven; and wisdom is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And the nests of prudence, "more to be chosen than silver," are the practical virtues: justice, knowledge, wisdom, self-control, courage, long-suffering, forbearance, freedom from anger, almsgiving, faith with hope and love; through these, as through the rungs of a ladder, those who wish to go up and dwell there may enter the tents of wisdom without hindrance. [Prov 16:17] By instruction he means that of the fear of God: fasting, self-control, vigil, hymnody, and the instruction that comes upon us in sicknesses, as God's testing. By reproofs he means the commandments of God, for these reprove us when we sin. Here he calls the senses "ways"; and the one who guards them keeps his soul from death for life. For life is the holy Trinity, which gives life to all things and brought them from non-being into being. And the one who loves life and longs always to live in it will spare his mouth from words and works that are not of God, and will hold fast to the knowledge of God. [Prov 16:22] God is life; and the spring of the thrice-radiant Life itself is wisdom, knowledge and the virtues; those who drink from this spring share in immortality and life without end. To those who possess such a spring belongs understanding of the words of life. The instruction of fools is wickedness; and unreproved instruction is folly. [Prov 16:23] He has called knowledge "recognition", because it recognizes all things; and the heart of the wise understands what comes from its own mouth, both in the judgment of bodies and incorporeal things and in what they themselves teach and do. [Prov 16:28] The demons, learning teachings from the devil, attack the saints and contrive to try to separate them from knowledge, which by nature joins them in friendship with the heavenly powers. Solomon, I think, has shown this very thing by this proverb: calling the devil a crooked man; the deceitful lamps that go about, the evil demons taught by him; and friends, the saints, who through knowledge are joined to God and to one another. [Prov 16:29–30] The lawless man is the devil; he tests the friends of God and leads them away on ways to destruction and not good ones. And when he has deceived one of the saints, he fixes thoughts in his eyes and plots perverse things, lest the one he has caught should repent and be saved; and with his lips he whispers into that one's ears all evil designs, despair and every pleasure of licentiousness. He is a furnace

of all wickedness, and in it he burns the souls of those who will slip; but the divine Spirit shakes off the flame of this furnace, whistling a wisdom of dew. Yet many wicked people still go about the same way, accustomed to imitate the devil, their father. [Prov 16:33] Here he has called the hearts of the unjust "bosoms"; I think that everywhere the bosom signifies either the mind or knowledge. The devil takes the wicked to his bosom, and the Lord the righteous. [Prov 17:2] If everyone who commits sin is a slave, then everyone who has withdrawn from wickedness through virtue has mastered the demons, who are senseless masters; and he will become a house of the mysteries of God, giving to each of the brothers spiritual knowledge in proportion to his state: as Paul gave milk to those in Corinth, but nourished those in Ephesus with more solid food, discussing height and length and breadth and depth, and signifying by these dimensions the distribution of rational nature, which contains the teachings about God's judgment and providence, very deep as they are and beyond the human state. [Prov 17:3] Furnaces are the trials; for through trials God chooses the hearts of the elect, cleansed and spotless. [Prov 17:4] The heretic obeys the tongue of godless doctrines; and "obeys" shows the voluntary act, as one who has sinned against God's wise ordering. He obeys the tongues of the lawless who receives unjust thoughts from them and hastens to act according to them; to these the righteous is said not to attend, whether visible or invisible, that is, not to nurture them any longer in himself. [Prov 17:6] The faithful, he says, will see the inner principles of this world, which he figuratively called the mind's riches; but the unfaithful will not know the principle of even the least thing, because of the impurity of his soul. That the knowledge of God is the wealth of the soul Paul teaches when he says: "In everything you were enriched, in all knowledge and all wisdom." If anyone should wish to show that this is not the meaning of the proverb, let him say where those found riches who "went about in sheepskins and goatskins, ill-treated, afflicted, distressed." And how is it that the unfaithful does not have an obol, when many unfaithful people are clothed in great wealth, I mean the kings and rulers of this world? [Prov 17:7] By "faithful lips" he means good thoughts; and evil thoughts will be acceptable to the fool. For "what has righteousness in common with lawlessness?" Unless he repents and receives prudence and faith. [Prov 17:9] Through righteousness we hide injustice; through self-control, licentiousness; through love, hatred; through freedom from avarice,

avarice; and through humility we hide pride, and through meekness rashness, seeking the spiritual friendship that signifies holy knowledge. In Paul, too, some are said to have become fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of the Jerusalem above, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. [Prov 17:13] Here he calls the body the house of the soul, and again the soul the house of the mind; and the mind itself is called the eye of the soul. The one who has learned the divine knowledge and wisdom, yet has given himself up to wickedness and brings forth evil words instead of good, and does not wish to turn back and be saved: from his bodily house wickedness and evil will not depart, but they remain firmly in him, so that the final evils may come upon him, remaining immovable in him on the day of the Lord's wrath. Here he calls "house" the body formed for us by the Lord from the earth; and "will not be moved" means that wrath and affliction, sent by the Lord through men and demons, will not depart from the house of the one who has repaid evil for good to the person who did him good. If the one who repays evil for evil is lawless, how much more lawless is the one who repays evil for good! Such was Israel in the wilderness, to whom Moses says in Deuteronomy: "A crooked and perverse generation, is this how you repay the Lord?" [Prov 17:14] Here he calls knowledge the "beginning"; righteousness follows knowledge, for righteousness is born of knowledge. Want is ignorance; strife and fighting are all wickedness; and wickedness precedes ignorance. Why does he again accuse the poor? To draw us away from idleness. So authority does not come from appointment: if you wish to walk with boldness, be righteous. Strife and fighting precede want, that is, want of virtue in those who do injustice. [Prov 17:15] Like this is the one who calls bitter sweet and sweet bitter, naming light darkness and darkness light. [Prov 17:16] Here he calls wisdom and knowledge "riches". To the fool, why should there be the learning of wisdom and knowledge? For just as a vine cannot grow in the sea, so wisdom cannot bear the fruit of virtue in fools. For the riches of the fool are the follies in each of his affairs; through them he has become heartless and cannot acquire wisdom. In every matter, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, for "the Lord resists the proud"; and the one who is crooked in learning the things of God … [Prov 17:17] Here he calls Christ a friend, who for friendship with man became man. "No longer do I call you servants," he said to the disciples, "but friends." At every time let Christ be with you as a friend. And if the sons of Christ are friends of one another, the angels and righteous people are brothers of one another,

born by the Spirit of adoption; for this is why they are born of wisdom, so that they may guide people from wickedness to virtue and from ignorance to the knowledge of God. [Prov 17:20] The fickle one is the one who easily changes from virtue to wickedness, carried away along with evil thoughts. [Prov 17:21] Here he calls God the father, and the mother his love for humankind, which also caused him to become flesh and to endure sufferings for us. Our God and Father does not rejoice over a son who has been adopted but has not been instructed in the wisdom and knowledge of God, and has given himself over to wickedness and evil. But a prudent son gladdens his mother, the love of God for humankind, which also brings us to God himself and the Father, as sons who have been weaned and long for solid spiritual food; so that, as his Son Jesus Christ has become our brother by likeness, so we too may live in deed and word. Our mother is also the church, which God the Father joined to himself as a wife by the Holy Spirit; for through her he is always bearing sons and daughters for himself. Over those who have been instructed in the knowledge and wisdom of God both our Father God and our mother the church rejoice; but over the uninstructed they are deeply concerned and grieved, when we do not wish to turn and be saved but remain in wickedness. [Prov 17:24] Here he calls the face contemplation; for the contemplation of the thoughts of an understanding man is wisdom, knowledge and righteousness; but the mind's eyes of the fool, even while he is in the body, are at the extreme of wickedness and evil. [Prov 17:25] Wrath is sent from God the Father on the foolish son on the day of judgment; and to the church which bore him by the Spirit, and to the choir of the saints, there will surely then be grief at the destruction of the foolish son. And the prudent son has one who bore him who is also a mother, while the foolish son has only one who bore him. For a mother has also borne; but one who has borne will not necessarily also be a mother; for if what was born dies in wickedness and ignorance, she has borne but is not a mother, since what was born has not shared in the Spirit of adoption. The same will be understood of mothers according to the senses and of death according to the senses: for we shall call a woman both mother and one who has borne, but no longer the mother of a child who has died. [Prov 17:26] Someone does wrong, and sins, who takes the righteous man's righteousness from him or turns his disciples aside to injustice; for having them as his possession he has suffered loss: "for we do not seek what is yours, but you." By rulers he means those who reign in Christ. [Prov 18:2] The one who is led by the folly of the demons has no need of the wisdom or knowledge of God, because he has loved rather

to have need of folly than of wisdom. [Prov 18:4] Just as water gives life to plants, so the word of a man whose mouth is trained in the virtues refreshes, and gives wings toward God to those who wish to be made wise. By the river that leaps up he means the indescribable wisdom of the graces of the all-holy Spirit, the ever-flowing wisdom of the thrice-radiant one Godhead. [Prov 18:5] The one who accepts the wickedness that belongs to the devil and acts according to it in contemplation and word admires the face of the ungodly; it is not holy to turn aside what is just in judgment, in the account of bodies. [Prov 18:6–7] … rashness, separating the soul from the meek, gives it over to death. [Prov 18:8] It is not the fear of God that throws down the sluggish who would repent, but the fear of the demons, for they rouse them to despair; or else the fear of the Lord, separating them from the sluggish one and rousing them out of wickedness through good works to repentance. The effeminate in soul and body is the one who is dissolute and soft, who can neither teach himself nor wishes to learn from others. Or else the fear of evils casts down beforehand those who are sluggish toward virtue, since they have nothing to embolden them for what is to come; and a man who is womanish in his choice will not have the virtue that nourishes; they will hunger when they see the kingdom opposite them while they are tormented in torment. [Prov 18:10] He calls the wealth of the knowledge of the Lord and the effective working of the Word "strength"; for he alone knows the things before, the present things and the things to come. He commanded, saying, "Let there be light," and heaven and earth and the things in them were brought from non-being into being; and they show that he alone is Lord and God. Through an upright life the righteous run to him, and through contemplation they are lifted up. Or: from the creatures, or from their greatness, it is clear that God is almighty. [Prov 18:13] This saying is to be used against those who have not received knowledge from God but try to teach others. For David says: "To hear the voice of your praise, and then to tell others of your wonders"; and Solomon says: "What your eyes have seen, speak." For many who have not even made a beginning of virtue not only urge others to achieve it, but also force and command them. [Prov 18:14] Here he calls God "man"; for the one who has served him in his commandments calms toward himself God's anger at the judgment. Likewise also with things of the senses. Just as our Lord is said to become a leopard at a loss toward those who offend, and a stone of stumbling to the unbelieving, so too he is said to be faint-hearted toward sinners. He may also call the evil one faint-hearted, and every demon that has fallen from virtue and knowledge.

[Prov 18:16] He has called the upright life a person's gift, which enlarges him and makes him worthy of the fullness of God; this he calls the seat of rulers, that is, of the holy powers. For the seat of the mind is the best habit, which keeps the one seated in it hard to move or unmoved. [Prov 18:18] Knowledge ends folly; for knowledge is the lot of rational nature; and among rulers it determines that something is to be, and they do it; for all bow to the one who has divine knowledge. Or else by "contradictions" he here means the thoughts raised against us by the demons, opposed to virtue and hastening to separate us from God. The lot of knowledge ends these for us, and commands the ruling demons to withdraw, since the one who has divine knowledge is allotted to God, from himself and from others. [Prov 18:21] Or he means the soul, which is capable of life and death; by these the freedom of the will is shown, in the present and in the future, to enjoy its fruits, good or evil. [Prov 18:22] Whoever has found good wisdom has found the graces of God. The one who holds fast to wickedness is foolish and ungodly, as is the devil, its inventor. [Prov 19:4] The wealth of knowledge and wisdom adds many angels to us; but the impure, whom he calls poor, is separated even from the angel given to him from childhood. For spiritual friendship is virtue and the knowledge of God, through which we are joined in friendship with the holy powers; since people who repent become a cause of joy to the angels. So too the Saviour calls friends those who were once servants, having counted them worthy of his greater contemplation. So too Abraham, rich in knowledge, set that mystical table before his friends who appeared at midday. But Saul is separated even from the friend he had, because of his wickedness; for it is written: "And the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord choked Saul," calling the angel the Spirit of the Lord; for "he makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire." That angels have been entrusted with human beings the Lord teaches in the Gospels, saying: "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for their angels always behold the face of my Father in heaven"; and again Jacob: "The angel who delivered me from all evils." [Prov 19:5] All who blaspheme the Creator because they do not know the teachings about judgment and providence are false witnesses, and they will not remain unpunished on the day of judgment; and again, all who, troubled by their own passions, think that virtue cannot be achieved accuse the Lawgiver unjustly. [Prov 19:6] The vulgar render the

fear, not honouring the dignity, but being flatterers they show partiality; but the true man will not flatter evil but will reprove it. [Prov 19:7] Everyone who hates his poor brother (poor in the sense of "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven") will be far from the love of God and of the angels. Or: everyone who hates a brother who is poor in virtue is also far from friendship with the passions of life. He has named the knowledge of God "good understanding", and it usually draws near to those who know it, the pure in heart; and the one who is persuaded by them to learn is prudent and will find it. The one who does much evil by works and words brings wickedness to completion, which is all sin; and the one who completes words against people for their destruction, and blasphemies against God, will not be saved. [Prov 19:10] Neither delight of the soul nor delight of the body is of benefit to the fool; for he will trample the one underfoot, being a pleasure-loving swine; and by the delight of the senses his flesh will be moved to passions and will hurl blasphemies against God, even if he is made free from being a slave, he will do this. [Prov 19:11] If the one who boasts rightly boasts in the Lord, and our Lord is wisdom, then the one who boasts rightly boasts in wisdom. The boast, then, of the long-suffering and merciful man is wisdom and his knowledge; and it comes upon the lawless, freeing them from wickedness: now as a possibility, but in the age to come of necessity. [Prov 19:12] Our Lord is a consuming fire and an angry lion: toward sinners he burns and consumes, as wood, grass and straw, the flesh that wars against the spirit; but toward those who do right he is light and dew, showing them the inner principles of created things, quenching the fiery darts of the evil one, and cooling the heat that comes from action. [Prov 19:13] … He has named the impure soul a harlot, and her hire he has called her state, from which prayers do not become pure. [Prov 19:14] To teach sons about virtue and the knowledge of God belongs to the fathers; but to give wisdom to children belongs to the Lord; for here he calls wisdom a wife: "Love wisdom," he says, "and she will keep you; honour her, that she may embrace you." [Prov 19:16] The commandments, in relation to God who gave them, are called commandments; but in relation to the mind that walks in them, they are called ways. The one who keeps them guards his soul from death for life; but the one who despises them will die the endless death. [Prov 19:17] So it is with things of the senses; but as the sun surpasses the moon, so does the one who has mercy on those poor in virtues and restores them by instruction and admonition … of the Lord; and to give a gift to God is

he has named purity of heart; for we are counted worthy of knowledge by God in proportion to our freedom from passion. [Prov 19:19] What he says concerns the things of this life; but I think that the great loss consists in being deprived of the contemplation of created things, and "adding to the soul" means the disappearance of the natural thoughts about God, when the soul has fallen wholly into irrationality. And the Saviour says in the Gospels: "What will a man profit if he gains the whole world but loses his soul and suffers loss?" Here the loss of the soul indicates ignorance of bodies and incorporeal things, and the "suffering loss" the utmost irrationality. [Prov 19:23] If the fear of the Lord leads to life for a man, and the fear of the Lord is wisdom and instruction, then the life of a man is wisdom and instruction; so to know wisdom and instruction is to know Christ and his teaching. The fearless one, then, will dwell in wickedness and ignorance, in which Christ is not. Those who live in wickedness and ignorance do not visit the fear of God within themselves, nor hope for mercy upon themselves; nor is Christ in them, because they do not wish it. [Prov 19:24] The one who does not live rightly hides his hands in his soul unjustly, not wishing to work his own land, that is, his body, nor to be filled with the bread of the soul. For the practical virtues have the role of hands, which bring to our mouth the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world through divine wisdom and knowledge. [Prov 20:1] If "their wine is the wrath of dragons," and wine is licentious, then wrath is licentious, making people licentious; and anger is insolent, for it comes from boiling wrath. And if the Nazirites abstain from wine according to the law, then it is laid down by law that the Nazirites are to be free of wrath. [Prov 20:2] Here he has plainly called Christ king; for the one who provokes him by sins sins against his own soul. [Prov 20:4] As the fool is not ashamed of reproach, neither is the one who borrows grain at harvest to sow, since it will be repaid to the lender from his farm, even if the borrower should happen to die. If it is possible at harvest to borrow grain from those who have worked their land in the six years, that is, to imitate the virtues of the righteous and the prophets who shone in the six ages before the coming of Christ, who also fed the widow and orphans in the seventh year, so that they may be repaid in the kingdom of heaven the reward for showing their virtues, as having become the first fruits of the virtues. [Prov 20:7] Clearly the one who has begotten according to virtue … image