Tears are aptly called bread there, where a hunger for justice exists. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.^[1] And so there are tears which are bread and which strengthen the human heart.^[2] The maxim of Ecclesiastes is also appropriate to this discussion, Cast your bread on the face of the water. For the bread of heaven is there, where the water of grace is; it is right that those from whose belly rivers of living water flow^[3] should receive the support of the Word and a nurture of a mystical kind.

It happens with most people that they give indeed, but they do not do so freely and readily, which is a greater and more perfect thing than the mere act of offering itself. It is far better to be generous to the unworthy for the sake of the worthy than to deprive the worthy out of fear of the unworthy. This seems to have a bearing on our duty of casting bread upon the waters, not that it may be swept away or perish in the eyes of the just examiner, but that it may come to that place where all our goods will be stored up. And [it will] be there to meet us in due time, even though we may think otherwise.

When you give, give generously, with a joyous countenance, and give more than you are asked for, since it is said: Send forth thy morsel of bread toward the face of the poor man, and soon you will find your recompense. Do not separate the rich from the poor, nor try to discriminate the worthy from the unworthy, but let all persons be equal in your eyes for a good deed.

The Old Testament took note of this number eight, called by us in Latin an octave, for Ecclesiastes says, Give a portion to those seven, and also to those eight. The seven of the Old Testament is the eight of the New, since Christ arose and the day of the new salvation has shed light upon all. It is the day of which the prophet says, This is the day which the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.^[1]

The seventh day symbolizes the mystery of the law, the eighth that of the resurrection, as you have in Ecclesiastes.

The one who gives a part to the seven^[1] commits to the Old Testament, which was before the arrival of the Savior. The number seven indicates the institution of the sabbath. The one who gives a part to the eight is the one who believes in the resurrection of the Savior, since he came after the sabbath.

The Jews who give a part to the seven have not given a part to the eight and therefore they were not saved. The heretics . . . rejected the law and the Old Testament; since they did not give a part to the seven, they miss the goal.

Before the Lord’s resurrection there was rest for the departed but resurrection for none: Rising from the dead he dies no more, death has no more dominion over him.^[1] But after such resurrection had taken place in the Lord’s body, so that the head of the church might foreshadow what the body of the church hopes for at the end, then the Lord’s day—that is the eighth, which is also the first—began to be observed.

They need not be hesitant to pray at their own special hours, that is, the second, fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth, tenth, and eleventh, inasmuch as seven or eight are harmonious with the words of Solomon: Make seven or eight portions. [This is] in order that they may be able to climb through the sevenfold grace of the Spirit and the eight beatitudes on the day of resurrection with unhampered tread up the ladder of Jacob by its fifteen steps to the region of heaven, where Christ is resplendent above.

He who reads much and also understands is filled; he who has been filled sheds water upon others. So Scripture says, If the clouds be full, they will pour out rain upon the earth.

This sentence obviously is meant in a figurative and spiritual sense. . . .

The south is in many ways distinguished from the north geographically, but also in a spiritual sense: The bride in the Song of Songs says, Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind!^[1] So she sends the evil power away. The evil power was within her. When the evil was active, that is, the evil regarding faith and vocation, then she had the north wind living within. When she turned away from evil^[2] and went to the doing of good, she called for the south wind. Pay attention to the occasion: Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad,^[3] [she says to the south wind]; the north wind does not do this. She uses the terms in a quite physical sense, since the cold wind is called north wind. The cold wind closes the openings of the trees, the so-called invisible pores, so that the elements of fragrance are kept inside. But when the warm south wind blows through the garden of the soul, . . . then the pores are widened.

For what is expressed by the wind but the temptation of malignant spirits? And what are denoted by the clouds which are moved of the wind but the oppositions of bad people? The clouds, that is to say, are driven by the winds, because bad people are excited by the blasts of unclean spirits. He, then, that observes the wind sows not, and he that regards the clouds reaps not, because whosoever fears the temptation of malignant spirits, whosoever [fears] the persecution of bad people and does not sow the seed of good work now, neither does he then reap handfuls of holy recompense.

Let not much wisdom become a stumbling-block to your soul and a snare before you; but trusting in God, manfully make a beginning upon the way that is filled with blood, lest always you be found wanting and naked of knowledge of God. For he who is fearful or watches the winds, sows not.

Yet his work is not known, because even those who preach him venerate his impenetrable judgments. They therefore both know him whom they preach, and yet do not know his works: because they know by grace him by whom they were made, but cannot comprehend his judgments that are wrought by him above their understanding. ^[1] YOUTH AND OLD AGE. [ATTRIBUTED TO] PETER OF ALEXANDRIA: Let us turn now and ponder the word just as the natural philosopher has said, and let us know its power. Sow your seed, he said, in the morning hour and do not cease in the evening hour. And I say according to my dull mind, The morning hour is the young childhood of man, and the evening hour is old age. For infancy is in need of teaching and instruction for everyone so that they escape sin. Likewise moreover, he will continue to remember the sin into which he has fallen in the morning hour, which is his childhood, and he will not set his heart on his own teaching but will be first to the church, the school for little and great, and he will listen to the Scriptures inspired by God, that he might not be unmindful or fall but become new again through repentance. The word extends to us, too, we who are called bishop and presbyter and teacher, that we might continue to abide in the word of teaching every day from morning until evening every day, just as it is written, Speak [and] do not be silent.^[1] I am speaking with you, he said, personally, so that you will not be ashamed. I will sow in you the Word of God, the seed of truth and life from the morning hour to the evening hour. ^[2]

He shows himself to live with prudence and circumspection. Considering the shortness of the present life, he does not look to the furtherance but to the ending of it, so as to understand from the end, that delights, while life is passing, amount to nothing. For so it is said by Solomon: But if a man should live many years and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the time of darkness, and the days that will be many; and when they come, the past will be convinced of vanity.

In the spiritual sense [this saying] is even more valid, for young men are those who are strong because they have the Word of God and because they have power against evil. John, for example, writes, I write to you, young people, because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.^[1] He certainly does not write to a certain age group in a physical sense but to a soul made young, since it has clothed [itself] with the new self.^[2]

One statement is introduced [by Solomon] through his impersonation of the weak, while the other is added from the dictates of reason, for he immediately discusses the dictates of reason and shows the advantage of a house of mourning. For that is the end of every man, he says, and the living should take it to heart.^[1] And again he writes, Rejoice, O young man, while you are young. While a little later he adds, The dawn of youth is fleeting. In criticizing what he has just recommended, he indicates clearly that the former pronouncement proceeded from carnal desires, while the latter was based on a true judgment.

Therefore, if anger has held out with most shameful boldness in the heart of any one of you until these holy days, now at least let it depart. [Thus] your prayer may proceed in peace and . . . may not stumble, tremble, or become mute under the pricking of conscience when it has come to that passage where it must say, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive also our debtors.^[1]

Put sorrow far from your flesh and sadness from your thoughts, except only that for your sins you should be constant in sadness. Cease not from labor, not even though you are rich, for the slothful person gains manifold guilt by his idleness.

In Scripture the spirit is continuously called heart.

The passage therefore means: Even if we sometimes are caught up in anger, this anger should not be allowed into the heart, so that the anger does not become a permanent condition. And when suddenly a desire comes up in the part of the soul which deals with desire, this desire should not be transferred to the spirit and to the part of the soul that deals with reason. Otherwise it becomes a permanent condition and not just an affect or a precondition for this affect, but simply evil. . . . If anger is banished from your heart, you will not do evil through the members of your body. Whoever is caught by anger often fights and may even decide to kill. Thus, if you banish anger from your heart, then evil, which comes about through deeds, will vanish as well.

When the punishing evil comes, the years arrive in which you have no pleasure. Nobody has pleasure in being punished. When the years of promise arrive, the good have pleasure in them. They have pleasure in enjoying the promises, since they have acted exactly in accordance with the promises. In a similar way, those who are prone to amusement and only recognize what can be experienced with the senses have not pleasure in the time of hunger, but only in the time of excess. The right-eous have pleasure even in the times of retribution.

Ecclesiastes knew of the Lord’s coming at the end of the world when he said, Rejoice, O young man, while you are young. Subsequently [he said], Ward off grief from your heart, and put away trouble from your presence. Remember your Creator, before the evil days come, before the sun is darkened, and the light, and the moon, and the stars; and they who look through the windows go blind (this signifies the power of sight). [Remember] before the silver cord is snapped (he means the cluster of the stars, silvery in appearance). [Remember before] the golden fillet shrinks back (here is indicated the sun with its golden aspect, for the fillet-like flower is a well-known plant, with ray-like shoots of foliage circling it), and they shall rise up at the voice of the sparrow, and they shall see from the height, and terrors shall be in the way. What shall they see? Then they will see the Son of man coming upon clouds of heaven,^[1] and they will mourn, tribe by tribe. What happens when the Lord comes? The almond tree will bloom, and the locust will grow sluggish, and the caper berry will be scattered abroad. According to the interpreters the blooming of the almond tree signifies the passing of winter; our bodies, after the winter, then, are to flourish with a heavenly bloom.

The wheel of our life: The ceaseless advance of our earthly life by which we are continuously moved from the day of our birth right up to death as if by the always turning wheel of a carriage. [Thus] Solomon, when he said well, Remember your Creator in the days of your youth before the time of affliction comes, a little further on added, And the wheel above the cistern is broken, and the dust returns to the earth it came from.

Bird can here mean the Savior in his human nature. . . .

But also the message of truth itself can be called bird for this time. It can be compared for this time with a bird that comes from on high, from where truth came to the listeners. Since, however, now even the perfect listeners are lifted up and strive for what is above the earth, the bird on the roof calls to them. Standing above the cosmos it has announced the perfect, the encounter with truth from face to face.

The daughters of song are false teachers, the daughters only of the voice but not of the spirit, not of wisdom, not of knowledge, not of light. Because of their unmanliness and their feminization in the treatment of the perishable they are called daughters.

They will be brought low. Like darkness ends when light appears, they will be unveiled as nothing when the call of the bird, that is, of the market or the Savior or the divine teacher, the rising [human being], is here. It turns out that the teaching [of the daughters of song] is valid only for this present life and that—to say briefly what has been treated extensively by people elsewhere—human wisdom, which promises a program of nice speeches and good rhetoric, lasts only as long as the voice. Since, however, this voice will vanish, because no air is moving any more when they rise above the sphere of the air, they will be brought low. The daughters of song will be seen as nothing, since the wise teachers are not called daughters or daughters of song, but sons of light, and sons of wisdom.

Cities and their bloodstained leaders will wait for punishment from above. A most bitter and bloody time will arise like a blossoming almond tree, continuous punishments will be imposed like a swarm of flying locusts, and lawbreakers will be thrown out of the way like a black and contemptible caper plant. The good person will enter into his eternal home with rejoicing, but the bad people will fill all their homes with mourning.

Those who have dealt with the world of plants say the following about the almond: Among all the plants it grows leaves in springtime and sheds them not before all the other trees have gotten bare; it is very durable.

This is why it is said about the priestly rod^[1] that it was of almond wood. It did not last a short time; from Moses until the coming of the Savior it was a visible sign. . . .

This is what we think: Even if there are plants from other teachings, they bloom later, that is, after the true teaching, and cease before it; they vanish when it appears. This rod, therefore, has extinguished the other rods, those of the false apostles, and of the false prophets. . . .

The sentence the almond blooms can be understood in a moral sense. The almond has two layers around the edible kernel: something hard that has to be cracked and something bitter, that is, the outer shell. The outer shell can be seen as the body, since it is bitter, tending to the sensual. The hard part, however, is the soul, since it is strong and big. The edible in the kernel is the spirit. When the sentence of the apostle comes to fruition—May the God of peace sanctify you, perfect your spirit, your soul, and your body^[2]—then the almond blooms. In its blooming it envelops all the three.

The human being blooms, when it progresses in virtue, when it transforms its body so that it imitates the body of Christ.

Neither stored silver nor tested gold will be of any further use. A mighty blow will strike everything, right down to a water pot standing next to a well, and to a carriage wheel which happens to have been left in the ditch, its time of revolving ceased, and to the life that, by water, has passed through the age of washing.

By gold in Scripture one has to understand the spirit; but if one understands by silver the spoken word, we have to understand here by gold the thought and by bowl the sphere of reason, since it is the bowl and storage place for gold. When Scripture describes the spoken word and the written word as silver, this means a weaving of the words that fit to each other and a linking of the meaning of the different words among each other.

The silver cord indicates a pure life and the inspiration that is given to us from heaven. The return again of the golden band^[1] signifies the soul that returns to the place from which it descended. Moreover, there are two remaining [figures] which follow. The shattered pitcher at the spring and the broken wheel at the well, through the use of metaphor, are allegories for death. For if a pitcher is worn through it ceases to draw water, and when a wheel at the well is broken the water it would have drawn is left to become putrid.

Some are able to drink from the fountain without the pitcher. Rebecca, which means steadfastness in the good, stepped down to the fountain and scooped the water with the pitcher in order to give the thirsty servant [of Abraham] to drink; but she herself drank from the fountain without the pitcher. . . .

The imperfect knowledge and the imperfect prophecy^[1] are the pitcher filled from the fountain. When the imperfect will pass away,^[2] the pitcher is broken. Its content, however, is not lost. . . . When one does not need to drink from the pitcher anymore because the Savior has given to drink and prepared in the person who drinks a spring of living water, then the pitcher is not needed for the person who has the fountain of living water^[3] inside.

One can understand the cistern accordingly: Inasmuch as it is possible to scoop water from a fountain with a pitcher, it is also possible to pull up water from a cistern with a water wheel. When there is no need any more to pull up water in this way, then the [water] wheel will break at the cistern.

Do not therefore be afraid of death: for that which is from me—that is to say, the soul—goes to heaven; and that which is from the earth—that is to say, the body—goes to the earth, from which it was taken.

We ask that the will of God may be done both in heaven and in earth, each of which things pertains to the fulfillment of our safety and salvation. For since we possess the body from the earth and the spirit from heaven, we ourselves are earth and heaven; and in both—that is, both in body and spirit—we pray that God’s will may be done.

For people lying on earth there is one salvation, if their souls acknowledge and fly up to the One by whom they were brought into being.

Near the end of the book called Ecclesiastes there is a passage about the dissolution of man, brought about by that death through which the soul is separated from the body, where the Scripture says, And let the dust return into its earth, as it was, and the spirit return to God who gave it. This authoritative statement is unquestionably true and leads no one into error. But if anyone wished to interpret it so as to try to defend the view that there was a posterity of souls and that all the subsequent ones come from that one which God gave to the first man, this passage seems to support him. [This is so] because flesh is there spoken of as dust—obviously, dust and spirit mean nothing else in this passage than flesh and soul—and in that way it declares that the soul returns to God, as if it might be a sort of branch, cut from that soul which God gave to the first man, just as the flesh is returned to the earth, since it is an offshoot of that flesh that in the first man was fashioned of the earth. Thus, he might contend from this that we ought to believe something that is not known about the soul, but is perfectly well known about the body. There is no doubt about the propagation of the flesh, but there is about the soul.

Before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it. What could be said more clearly than that the matter of the flesh, which he styled dust because it springs from the seed of man and seems to be sown by his acts, must again return to the earth because it was taken from the earth? At the same time he points out that the spirit which is not begotten by intercourse between the sexes, but belongs to God alone in a special way, returns to its creator. This too is clearly implied in that breathing by God, through which Adam in the first instance received his life.^[1]

Such is vanity of vanities, your splendid buildings, your vast and overflowing riches, the herds of your slaves that bustle along the public square, your pomp and vainglory, your high thoughts, your ostentation. For all these are vain; they came not from the hand of God but are of our own creating. But why then are they vain? Because they have no useful end.

Hear what Solomon says, who knew the present world by actual experience. I built houses, I planted vineyards, I made gardens, and orchards and pools of water. I gathered also silver and gold. I got men singers and women singers, and flocks and herds.^[1] There was no one who lived in greater luxury or higher glory. There was no one so wise or so powerful, no one who saw all things so succeeding to his heart’s desire. What then? He had no enjoyment from all these things. What after all does he say of it himself? Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Vanity not simply but superlatively. Let us believe him and lay hold on that in which there is no vanity, in which there is truth and what is based upon a solid rock, where there is no old age or decline, but all things bloom and flourish, without decay or waxing old, or approaching dissolution. Let us, I beseech you, love God with genuine affection, not from fear of hell but from desire of the kingdom. For what is comparable to seeing Christ?