Chapter 30
[Proverbs 30:1] -- The words of the Gatherer, the son of Vomenti. Hitherto are the Proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied. From henceforth, again, the words of Solomon, by himself, which is called in Greek Ecclesiastes, now translated into Latin under that name, is called the Gatherer. For the church is called a congregation.
[Proverbs 30:1] -- The vision which the man spoke, with whom is God, etc. The vision, he said, which he spoke, because what he saw by contemplating the more secret things with God, he revealed to men by speaking outwardly. For whoever is strengthened by the Spirit of God, these things which follow, he speaks with a humble heart.
[Proverbs 30:2] -- I am the most foolish of men, etc. For the sons of this world are wiser in their generation than the sons of light (Luke XVI). And the Apostle says, If anyone seems to be wise in this world, let him become foolish, that he may be wise (1 Cor. III). And he himself about himself and his fellows, in whom is God, We preach Christ crucified; to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness (1 Cor. I).
[Proverbs 30:3] -- I have not learned wisdom, etc. Solomon did not learn wisdom from man, but received it from God who freely offers, so that he might know the knowledge of the saints. But also the Apostle who says, We are fools for Christ's sake, he again says, We speak wisdom among the perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world, and the rest (1 Cor. II).
[Proverbs 30:4] -- Who ascended into heaven, and descended? This is the knowledge of the saints, which is considered foolishness by the wise of this world, because evidently the Son of God, in assumed flesh, after His death and resurrection, ascended into heaven, and at the time of our resurrection will descend from heaven to judge the living and the dead. Who has gathered the wind in his hands? Every spirit, human and angelic, and of animals and storms, is contained by the power of God so that it may not fail.
[Proverbs 30:4] -- Who has bound the waters as with a garment? Gathering the waters of the sea as it were in a bottle.
[Proverbs 30:4] -- Who has established all the ends of the earth? The Lord, who now gives life and growth to all living things and plants. And on the day of judgment, He will raise the entire human race from the four winds of heaven from death.
[Proverbs 30:4] -- What is his name, and what is the name of his son, if you know? He speaks of the name of God the Father and the Son, whose mystery secular wisdom cannot naturally know. Although one can understand that there is one God, who has made all things by observing what has been wonderfully done. If you know, he says, it is understood as you, who boast of your wisdom, presume to call the mysteries of our faith foolishness.
[Proverbs 30:5] -- Every word of God is a fired shield for those who hope in him. This all of Christ's Church knows, and especially those who, with God dwelling in them, despise earthly wisdom, because every divine word kindles the hearts of the elect with the fire of charity, and enlightens with the knowledge of truth, and consumes the filth of vices, and protects against the snares of enemies and all adversities. But it should be observed more attentively because the peculiarity of the Greek language, which is pepyromenon, is not explained in Latin by one word; hence it is now translated as ignitum, now as ignited by fire, as Your word is vehemently ignited (Ps. CXVIII), and Silver tried by fire (Ps. XI). Both of which are said in Greek by one word, pepyromenon. And what sounds very similar to this saying of Solomon is, The words of the Lord are tried by fire (Ps. XVII): that is, pepyromena. Therefore, purified as though melted, in fire, it is cleansed; for just as any metals melted by fire do not contain in themselves any foreign and useless dross, all that remains in them is true and perfect, and cleansed from all stain of faults; so the word of God, testifying the faith of eternal goods in itself. Hence it is that the Lord says, Not one iota or one apex will perish from the law until all things are accomplished (Matthew V). For all things are true, and outside of all ambiguity, kindled by superfluous vanity.
[Proverbs 30:6] -- Do not add anything to his words, etc. Do not corrupt the conversations of the holy Scriptures, which some heretics are known to have done so that they would not be convicted by them.
[Proverbs 30:7] -- I have asked two things of you, do not deny them to me, etc. These things still a man with whom God is, his speech radiated by fire, addresses to the Lord himself with a converted voice, beseeching that he may never prefer the unity of the world or lying words to the truth of the heavenly Scripture; nor again, either through abundance or lack of passing things, may he fall into oblivion of eternal things.
[Proverbs 30:11] -- A generation that curses its father, etc. When previously he asked for the purity of life to be given to him by the Lord, he suddenly turns his gaze to contemplate the wickedness of the perverse, how many miseries they are involved in, how far they are from the truth, insinuating that they do not honor their parents.
[Proverbs 30:12] -- A generation that seems pure to itself, etc. Because God scatters the bones of men pleasing to themselves.
[Proverbs 30:13] -- A generation whose eyes are lofty, etc. As the Psalmist says: Lord, my heart is not exalted, etc. (Psalm CXXX).
[Proverbs 30:14] -- A generation that has swords for teeth, etc. Concerning this the Psalmist, Sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and other things (Psalm LVI). These are the persecutors of the Church of Christ. But if you consider more diligently, you will find these generations to be the most wicked congregations of Jews and heretics. Therefore, the generation of the Jews curses its father, that is, him who says, Israel is my firstborn son (Exodus IV), when it denied his Son living in the flesh. And it did not bless its mother, namely the synagogue, whose former faith concerning Christ it took away, which it had from the fathers and prophets. The generation of the Novatians seems pure to itself, saying: They do not need repentance. And yet it cannot be pure from the filth of sins, which, by denying the fountain of repentance to sinners, closes off forgiveness. Likewise, the generation of the Arians has lofty eyes, and eyelids raised above God, inquiring who was before, and saying there was a time when the Son was not, or what the power of the Holy Spirit is, whether equal or unequal. Likewise, the generation that has swords for teeth, is the congregation of the wicked, which strives to impart its perfidy to others; and just as bodies are wont to be cut down by swords, so it strives to subject the souls of those who hear the poison of its wicked speech to eternal death.
[Proverbs 30:15] -- The leech has two daughters, etc. The leech is the devil, who is incessantly inflamed with the thirst for sinning and persuading to sin. He has two daughters because there are two special allurements of the human race; they imitate the ardor of this ancient enemy, namely lust and avarice. For lust, the more its reins are loosened, the more noxious it becomes; and as one of the poets says, The love of money grows as much as the money itself grows. There are three insatiable things, etc. Fire does not say, It is enough; hell never overflows: similarly the nearby harlot, her body is not satisfied with delights; and the greedy man never says, It is enough. Some interpret hell as the devil, because he is insatiable in the seduction of humans. The mouth of the womb and the land, which are not satisfied with water, as above; fire that does not say, It is enough: the fire of hell, which never ceases, but with infinite ardor burns those who did not want to put an end to their sins.
[Proverbs 30:17] -- The eye that mocks a father, and despises the birth of his mother, etc. The perverse, while they reproach divine judgments, mock the Father; and any heretics, while despising the preaching of the holy Church with ridicule, despise the birth of the mother, because from her come those who speak against her. They went out from us, he says, but they were not of us (John ...). Whose intention, while the Catholic preachers rebuke them coming from the streams of the divine Scriptures, they pluck out the hateful eye of the raven from the torrents, and the sons of the eagle eat it. For the holy teachers are called ravens, because through the grace of humility, they confess the blackness of sin in themselves. But the sons of the eagle, because they are reborn through his grace, who in the habit of assumed flesh flies to the heavens. Hence elsewhere they are called the sons of the bridegroom.
[Proverbs 30:18] -- Three things are difficult for me, etc. As far as history is concerned, it is as it is written; but because he speaks through parables, the way of an eagle in the sky is difficult to find: that is, the subtlety of the enemy, which flies around the hearts of heavenly men, is discovered with great labor. Similarly, the way of a serpent on the ground, that is, the cunning of the poisonous enemy, never ceasing to lay snares for those he sees founded on the rock of faith. Likewise, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, that is, the way of iniquity, which runs through the bitter waves of this world, driven by the blasts of unclean spirits, with such subtlety that its path can hardly or not at all be discovered. For that the eagle signifies the malicious enemy, the prophet testifies, who says: Our persecutors were swifter than the eagles of the sky (Lamentations IV), that is, men who persecuted us were so cruel that they seemed to be more savage than the demons themselves. That the serpent often signifies the devil is proven both in the transgression of the first man and when a wise man said, Flee from sin as from the face of a serpent (Ecclesiasticus XXI). The ship, which signifies lightness, indicates those who are tossed about by every wind of doctrine, as the prophet demonstrates when he says, "And the Chaldeans in their ships glorifying" (Isa. XLIII); that is, the unclean spirits exalting themselves from the fragility and instability of the human mind, and rejoicing as victors over its ruin. Just as those things are so pure that they cannot be found, so is it difficult to comprehend how a youth who has deserted the way of truth can deviate with a wandering mind into countless thoughts every hour. Such is also the way of an adulterous woman, who eats and wipes her mouth and says, "I have done no wickedness." The adulterous mind is always unstable and wandering like those mentioned above. Whoever can conceal the vile act that they committed denies having done any crime.
[Proverbs 30:24] -- Four things are the smallest on the earth, etc. The righteous often seem smaller on the earth than the wicked, that is, humbler and more despised by this world; but yet they are wiser than the worldly-wise, in that they savor eternal and heavenly goods, and for the sake of desiring these which the others do not know, they strongly desire to endure all the adversities of the world.
[Proverbs 30:25] -- The ants, a people not strong, etc. And the people of the Church show themselves weak temporally amidst raging adversaries in order to maintain mental fortitude; with the Lord saying through the Gospel, "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matt. V). Those who prepare the fruits of good works in this life, by which they may merit to have eternal life.
[Proverbs 30:26] -- The coney, a weak people, etc. And this too denotes the people of the Church, who are called weak; either because, as we said earlier, they do not seek to avenge their own injuries; or because they have learned not to trust in their own strength, but to hope for salvation in the aid of their Redeemer. And this is to place their habitation in the rock, to say to the Lord, against the assaults of life, with the Psalmist: "Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me; for you are my rock and my fortress" (Psalm. . . .). Instead of coney, the ancient translation used "chirogrillus." It is an animal not bigger than a hedgehog, resembling a mouse and a bear, abundant in the regions of Palestine; and they habitually live in rock crevices and earth holes. It should be noted that in the psalm, where we sing, "The rock is a refuge for the hedgehogs" (Psalm CIII), in some manuscripts we find coneys, in others chirogrillus. And even in this saying of Solomon, some manuscripts have hedgehog instead of coney. For in the book of Hebrew names, we find the same Hebrew word, sapham in Jeremiah, translated as chirogrillus, coney, and hedgehog by Saint Jerome.
[Proverbs 30:27] -- The locusts have no king, etc. Some interpret the locust as the people of the Gentiles, who once existed without a king, that is, without Christ, without a prophet, without a teacher, and now gathered into the unity of faith, they hurry to a spiritual battle against the devil. But in the locust, the harmonious unity of hermits can also be understood, who, though governed by no human preceptor in their retreats, nevertheless customarily fight for Christ in tireless persistence in their respective places and consume the pernicious seeds of carnal desires.
[Proverbs 30:28] -- The lizard advances with its hands, etc. The lizard advances with its hands because it does not have wings to carry it. And it dwells in the king’s palaces, signifying the humility of those who, though naturally slow in intellect, by the diligence of their effort, either to the knowledge of divine Scriptures or to the grace of virtues, attain the entrance to the kingdom of heaven. Many times indeed birds, elevated by their wings for flight, dwell below. And the gecko, which does not have wings to fly, clings to the building of a king with its hands: because indeed often some clever people, while they become sluggish through negligence, remain in depraved acts, and the simple ones, who are not aided by the wings of intellect, are lifted to the walls of the eternal kingdom by the virtue of their actions.
[Proverbs 30:29] -- There are three things which go well, etc. In this place, a lion is introduced, about whom it is written, "The lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered" (Revelation 5). He is called the mightiest of beasts, because in him what is weak of God is stronger than men (1 Corinthians 1); he fears no encounter; for he says, "The prince of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me" (John 14). The rooster girded with loins, that is, the holy preachers announcing the true dawn among the darkness of this night; who are girded with loins, because they restrain the flowing of luxury from their members. And a ram, and there is no king who resists him. Whom else do we accept in this place as the ram, if not the order of priests first within the Church? About whom it is written, "Bring to the Lord the sons of rams" (Psalm 29), who lead the flock of sheep following them by their examples; to whom, living spiritually and rightly, no king at all can resist, because any persecutor who confronts them cannot impede their intention. And because after these, even the Antichrist will appear, he adds this fourth saying:
[Proverbs 30:32] -- And the fool who appears after he has been raised on high, etc. For he indeed will be lifted on high when he will falsely claim to be God. But raised on high, he will appear as a fool, because in his very exaltation, he will fall by the advent of the true judge; if he had understood this, he would have put his hand over his mouth, that is, if he had foreseen his own punishment when he began to grow proud, he perhaps would not have been lifted in such boasting of pride. Let it not disturb you what was said earlier, the fourth one that walks successfully: for he said that three walk well, and the fourth successfully; for not everything that is successful is good; nor in this life is everything that is good, successful. For the lion, the rooster, and the ram walk well, but not successfully here, as they endure wars of persecutions; but the fourth one walks successfully, and not well, because the Antichrist walks in his deception, but for the short time of the present life, that deception prospers for him.
[Proverbs 30:33] -- But he who presses the breasts strongly to extract milk, etc. We press the breasts strongly when we ponder the words of sacred speech with subtle understanding, by which pressure while we seek milk, we find butter, because while we seek to be nourished even with slight understanding, we are anointed with the richness of internal abundance: which is not to be done excessively nor always, lest while we seek milk, blood follows from the breasts, because while the words of the sacred text are dissected more than they should be, they fall into carnal understanding. For he who milks vehemently draws blood, because what is perceived from excessive examination of spirit becomes carnal.
[Proverbs 30:33] -- And he who provokes anger, etc. What the preceding parable signified literally, it reveals, because he who speaks to his neighbor with modest words receives a pleasant response, as if he extracts butter from the breasts in which he was seeking milk. But with an inept word, he provokes anger and discord from a brother's heart, as if extracting words excessively results in finding blood instead of milk.