Chapter 26
[Proverbs 26:1] -- Just as snow in summer, etc. This verse warns that the teaching honor should not be conferred on the unlearned. Snow in summer and rain in harvest represent the persecutions of the unbelievers at the time of the preaching of the gospel, which, when they perhaps more heavily pursue, impede the warmth of love in many and spoil the fruits of good work. Glory given to a fool is rightly compared to harvest because if the unlearned is given the chair of teaching, the church is equally harmed by the persecution of the unbelievers, which the disaster of the Arian tempest has proved to be very true.
[Proverbs 26:2] -- For as a bird flying to lofty places, etc. Words are rightly compared to birds because they fly through the air sounding, from the mouth of the speaker to the ears of the listener; but they differ in this, that it can happen that a bird flying anywhere settles where no necessity or use is served to it. However, the words we speak do not disappear and vanish dispersed anywhere into the wind, but all return to their author, and either benefit the speaker if spoken well or burden them if spoken poorly, so that we are forced to account for every idle word on the day of judgment. How much more do curses oppress not only those maliciously aimed at the innocent but even those indiscriminately uttered by negligent customary practice against anyone. For indeed, the revilers will not inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor. VI). Not without reason does he say, a curse uttered in vain, for there is also a curse not uttered in vain, but released in just wrath of divine strictness against the impious; as that of blessed Peter against Simon Magus, Your money perish with you (Acts VIII); and those pronounced against apostates and heretics by ecclesiastical censure, anathema [anathemas]; about which the Lord says to the same Church, Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven (Matt. XVI, and XVIII).
[Proverbs 26:4] -- Do not answer a fool according to his foolishness, etc. Answer a fool according to his foolishness, lest he be wise in his own eyes. These should not be seen as mutually contradictory, not to answer a fool according to his foolishness, and to answer a fool according to his foolishness: for both correspond according to the diversity of times and persons, while the fool is also disregarded because he does not receive wisdom, and foolish pride is checked by another kind of foolishness, just as the Apostle also says, I have become a fool, you compelled me (II Cor. XII).
[Proverbs 26:7] -- Lame in his feet and drinking iniquity, etc. It may happen that any wise person sends a fool on a mission, not knowing that he is a fool; yet he does not lose the glory of his wisdom, since he believed in the good from the unknown, which he had heard. But he who knowingly sends a heretic to preach to the people is lame in his feet and drinks iniquity, because he has lost both the outward walk of good work and the inner sense, being drunk on foolishness.
[Proverbs 26:8] -- As he who casts a stone into the heap of Mercury, etc. He who grants the honor of teaching to the foolish, that is, to the heretic, sins no less than he who worships the gods and idols of the pagans in vain.
[Proverbs 26:9] -- As if a thorn should spring forth in the hand of a drunkard, etc. A thorn springs forth in the hand of a drunkard when, in his works, who serves carnal seductions, the pricks of sins arise. To these rightly is compared a parable which the foolish propose, for although the foolish may know how to utter wise words, they do not know how to avoid the pricks of sins by which they either lacerate themselves or their neighbor. For often indeed, the imprudent one, in saying good things, either secretly seeks his own praise from men or the censure of others.
[Proverbs 26:11] -- As a dog returns to his vomit, etc. When a dog vomits, he surely ejects the food that was weighing down his chest; but when he returns to his vomit, he is again burdened by what had relieved him; and those who lament their sins, surely confess and cast out the wickedness which was badly satisfying them and which was weighing down the innermost parts of their mind, which, after confession, they resume while they long for it.
[Proverbs 26:12] -- Have you seen a man who thinks he is wise in his own eyes, etc. The Lord explaining this, says: For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind (John IX).
[Proverbs 26:13] -- The sluggard says, A lion is in the way, etc. Many, when they hear words of exhortation, blame the devil, saying that they indeed wish to begin the path of righteousness, but are hindered by Satan so that they might not accomplish it; and thus, with such words of excuse, they always turn on the hinge of their own sloth like a door; proposing now to go out to work and now to return to rest, they never cease to lie in their own perversities.
[Proverbs 26:16] -- The sluggard thinks himself wiser, etc. He speaks of seven men delivering sentences, who, full of the sevenfold grace of the Spirit, have ministered to us the knowledge of holy Scripture. The fool thinks himself wiser than these because, often, some so turn aside their minds from performing what the Lord has commanded that they argue that not even all these things can be done or ought to be fulfilled by man. And as if wiser than those who have written the divine words, they claim that man cannot do what those, dictated by the Holy Spirit, have commanded man to do; indeed also what many men have been shown to have accomplished with the help of the grace of the same Spirit.
[Proverbs 26:17] -- As he who takes a dog by the ears, etc. The Apostle says, Do not strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers (II Tim. II). Therefore, whoever is simple-minded, and if the ear of one of the two who are quarreling is captured by his biting word, he quickly begins to bark like a dog and generate contentions; but the wise man avoids this altogether.
[Proverbs 26:22] -- The words of a whisperer are as simple, etc. He calls the whisperer an instigator of strife and double-tongued, who pretends to praise words and seeks to hear that from which he can sow discord.