Scholia on Proverbs 1 part 5/5

He who lives wantonly from childhood will become a servant;

but in the end he will grieve over himself. If wantonness produces sin, and everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin, then everyone who lives wantonly is a slave of sin.

but the Lord upholds the humble-minded with glory. Here he calls vice the insolence of the rational soul.

He who shares with a thief hates his own soul. "The thief," he says, "does not come except to steal and kill and destroy." But if, when an oath is put forward, they hear it and do not disclose [what they know], being afraid and ashamed before men, they will be tripped up. By "oath" he means the law;

for just as the oath sets God within the soul, so also the law introduces God into the soul;

and in the way that, conversely, perjury removes God from the soul, so also transgression of the law casts God out from it.

If, then, he says, when the law has been set forth, they hear it and do not confess their own sins, being afraid and ashamed before men, they will be tripped up.

"I have sworn and determined to keep the ordinances of your righteousness." And again Solomon says:

He who conceals his own impiety will not prosper;

but he who confesses and reproves [himself] will be loved. And David:

"I said," he says, "I will confess my lawlessness against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my heart;"

"and you, declare your lawless deeds first." Many court the faces of rulers;

but justice for a man comes from the Lord. In acting rightly, we serve the angels;

for they are our rulers, who received us from the beginning, when the Most High divided the nations and set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of his angels.

But the justice that comes from the judgment will be ours from the Lord on that day when he will judge the world in righteousness, since indeed the Father has given all judgment to the Son.

"Who will find a courageous woman?" Courage is the best disposition of the rational soul, according to which it has mastered the enemies opposed to it.

"Such a woman will not lack good spoils." Having conquered the opposing power, we despoil it by learning the accounts concerning it.

"Winding wool and flax, she made [them] profitable with her hands." The soul winds wool and flax when it exercises the accounts concerning things animate and inanimate, or examines the accounts concerning the practical [life] and the natural [order].

But someone said that the soul winds wool and flax when, through the practical [life], it draws to itself the contemplation concerning bodies and bodiless things.

The sun of righteousness finds the soul rising, watchful, and certainly also praying, that it may not fall into temptation;

for it too hastens to say, "I kept vigil, and I became like a sparrow alone upon the housetop."

"She tasted that labor is good, and her lamp is not extinguished the whole night." The lamp is the pure mind, filled with spiritual contemplation.

"She stretches out her hands to what is profitable;"

but she fixes her forearms upon the spindle. The spindle is the pure mind, weaving virtue together with virtue, and doctrine with doctrine; or, it is the spoken word, drawing spiritual contemplation from the mind.

"Her husband does not worry about matters in the house, wherever he tarries;"

"for all who belong to her are clothed." The mind could not go forth, nor could it come to be in the contemplation of the bodiless [realities], without first setting right the things within;

for the disturbance of domestic matters is wont to turn it back toward the things from which it had gone forth.

But having acquired freedom from passion, it will linger in contemplation and will not be anxious about matters in the house;

for the irascible part is clothed with gentleness and humility, and the desiring part with self-control and continence.

"She made double cloaks for her husband;"

"and garments of fine linen and purple for herself." The accounts of earth and sea are the garments, of fine linen and purple, of the rational soul.

But someone else will say that the contemplation of created things, and the contemplation of the Holy Trinity, are the garment, of fine linen and purple, of the pure mind.

"She made linen cloths and sold them, and girdles for the Canaanites." The linen sheet that appeared to Peter upon the housetop was a symbol of the sensible world;

for the animals contained within it signified the various characters of men, cleansed by the cross of Christ.

If, then, the one linen sheet signified this world, perhaps the several linen cloths contain the contemplation concerning the various worlds, which the pure soul, having contemplated, also imparted to others.

But if the Canaanites are interpreted as "the humble," rightly did she not give the linen cloths to those of humble understanding, but gave the linen cloths to the pure, and to the Canaanites the girdles — which are symbols of the practical [life], binding tight the passible part of the soul.

"The dwellings of her house are sealed." If the devil is king of all that are in the waters, and finds no rest as he passes through waterless places, then rightly are the dwellings of the pure soul said to be sealed.

"And she did not eat the bread of idleness." They say that "the food of idleness" signifies the vices.

"For it is a prudent woman who is praised;"

"But let her praise the fear of the Lord." If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then rightly does the soul that has attained wisdom praise the fear of the Lord, which has become for her the source of such knowledge.

"He who does not conduct himself well toward his own household shall inherit the wind, and the fool shall serve the prudent man." This is a commendation of the fool.

Every wicked man is foolish; every fool is a slave; therefore every wicked man is a slave.

"Friends will hate their poor friends, but the friends of the rich are many." For the holy angels love the saints on account of their virtues;

but they hate sinners on account of their poverty.