One acquaints the heart with what one has decided to investigate. The heart in turn longs to know more about these things, which is why it is said, I turned my heart to know.^[1] Those spheres^[2] are the matters [of inquiry]. The one who directs the heart by meditating on these spheres causes the heart to know them. However, one should note that those spheres that encircle human beings and those that the heart knows are not the same, because we may look into a lot of things, yet only know a very few of them.

Except that our belief in Christ raises us up to heaven and promises eternity to our souls, the physical conditions of life are the same for us as for the brutes.

Better by far is a living dog in this problem than a dead lion. For a living saint may correct what had not been corrected by another who came before him.

For this reason Solomon also, in Ecclesiastes, covertly alluding to this grace, says, Come hither, eat your bread with joy, that is, the mystical bread. Come hither, he calls, a saving, beatific call. And drink your wine with a merry heart, that is, the mystical wine. And let oil be poured out upon your head: you see how he hints also of the mystical chrism. And at all times let your garments be white, because the Lord approves what you do. It is now that the Lord approves what you do, for before you came to the grace your doings were vanity of vanities.

No one, therefore, can hear the Word of God unless he has first been sanctified, that is, unless he is holy in body and spirit,^[1] unless he has washed his garments. For a little later he shall go in to the wedding dinner, he shall eat from the flesh of the lamb, he shall drink the cup of salvation. Let no one go in to this dinner with dirty garments. Wisdom also has commanded this elsewhere, saying, Let your garments be clean at all times. For your garments were washed once when you came to the grace of baptism; you were purified in body; you were cleansed from all filth of flesh and spirit.

Walk about adorned in white garments, anoint your head, embrace with joy whatever delights your femininity, pursue this vain, brief life with a vain, brief relish, quickly seize whatever it is that pleases you lest it perish, for you will have nothing more beyond this that you currently enjoy. Neither should you fear the frivolous fantasy that an account will be required in the afterlife for each of your deeds, whether good or evil. For there is no wisdom in death, nor any consciousness after the dissolution of this life.

The Holy Spirit actually teaches us not to put things off from day to day but to do to our soul all the good that is possible. [This we do] to adorn it with every virtue worthy of heaven, so as to clothe it with brilliant vestments according to this agreeable voice: Let your clothes be brilliant at all times; let your head not lack in oil.

Tropology (that is, a moral manner of speech) has regard to the establishment and correction of manners, pronounced in words that are either plain or figurative; in plain words, as when John admonishes, saying, My little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and in truth,^[1] or in figurative words, as when Solomon said: Let your garments be always white and let not oil be lacking on your head, which is to say openly, At all times let your works be pure and let not charity be lacking from your heart.

You love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.^[1] See, even the companions are anointed. But he himself was anointed before them, since he has not been anointed because of them, but they because of him. After all, they are called Christ’s companions, not Christ their companion.

The time of the days has an end and a definite number. The psalmist as well says, Lord, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is.^[1] . . .

The days of life which are given under the sun are days of vanity. Even if our lives which we live now are good and filled with illumination, they will be replaced with greater joys, about which God says: I will satisfy him through the length of the days.^[2]

You, who travel on the road of virtue, should be mindful of your departure from your parental home and know how to acquire your salvation with due precaution. For your temporal life is dissipated as a result of neglect during the days of your empty existence, and everything which is done neglectfully by the discerning during their lifetime brings them to be questioned once they have shaken off dust and corruption and woken up from the sleep of mortality.

May your action be according to your ability! Do with your might! Act, according to the might you have received. . . . That might consists in the gifts of grace from the Holy Spirit. The one who has might and still does not increase his spiritual capacity does not use his might. The one, however, who forcefully does more than is right, not out of real desire, but out of ambition or for another reason, commits a sin. . . .

The beginner acts like a novice, the one who has made progress like one who is on his way, the one who has reached perfection like one who is perfect. Thus, one has to act in accordance with one’s ability. If you are not weak, do not act in a way that would diminish your ability to assert your will. On the other hand, do not attempt something which you cannot do!

Since the hours and their moments are running away, see to it, dearly beloved, that they are filled with what will earn the wages of a good work. Listen to what Solomon in his wisdom says: Do vigorously everything your hand can do, because there will be no work or plan or wisdom or knowledge in the lower world, to which you are hurrying. Since we do not know the time of our coming death and we cannot work after death, it remains for us to seize the time granted us before death. So death itself will be defeated when it comes, if we always fear it before it comes.

Remember, my brethren, that there is no confession in the grave; nor can penance be granted when the time for repentance is past. Hurry while you are still alive.

Those who believe that human things are guided by providence do not ascribe anything accomplished by humans to their own effort. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.^[1] He does not say that no one should build or no one guard the city but that one should remember: if the Lord does not grant success to the effort, both the effort and those who strive for it will be without success. It is up to us to start, but it is up to God to grant success. We start to build the house; God helps and perfects the construction. We guard our own city and are watchful of that decision to guard it, but God preserves it, undestroyed and undefeated by the aggressors. This is also expressed in Proverbs: Keep your heart with all vigilance.^[2] But even if you yourself keep your heart with all vigilance, say nevertheless to God: You, Lord, will guard and preserve us. This thought is also affirmed by Paul, when he says, So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy.^[3] He does not prohibit running towards the goals of our endeavor and to desire them. But he does prohibit belief that they are reached through one’s own effort. Many who have had this expectation have been found without success in their efforts.

Question: How should we understand the swift?

Answer: You can understand it clearly in the visible world: Some who are runners run fast, but in spite of that they still do not always escape their pursuers. And the slow are often not caught because the pursuers sometimes stumble. Therefore it is up to God, not to the swift, to finish the race. . . . The strong do not necessarily finish a war victoriously. Goliath was strong, and the war nevertheless did not end well for him.^[4] He was struck down like someone unarmed, like one who is not a general or someone inexperienced in war. For David the war ended successfully, although he did not trust in many armed forces. Rather, he defeated this mighty giant in the name of the Lord. Goliath, on the other hand, who was so proud of himself, had no success in war.

Many can know chronological time. Everybody, for example, knows that noon is the time for healthy people to eat lunch. The time, however, which is determined by physicians, is not known to everyone but only to the physician. And since there is only one physician for the soul, to whom we say, O Lord, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you,^[1] only this physician knows our time. But the individual does not know his time. The inhabitants of Tyre, for example, who would have been ready to repent if the supernatural miracles had occurred among them^[2]—they did not know the time.

Now as these things are written in the Scriptures, the case is clear, that the saints know that a certain time is measured to every person, but that no one knows the end of that time is plainly intimated by the words of David, Declare unto me the shortness of my days.^[1] What he did not know, that he desired to be informed of. Accordingly the rich man also, while he thought that he had yet a long time to live, heard the words, You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall those things be which you have provided?^[2] And the Preacher speaks confidently in the Holy Spirit, and says, Man also knows not his time. Wherefore the patriarch Isaac said to his son Esau, Behold, I am old, and I know not the day of my death.^[3] Our Lord, therefore, although as God and the Word of the Father, both knew the time measured out by him to all and was conscious of the time for suffering, which he himself had appointed also to his own body. Yet since he was made man for our sakes, he hid himself when he was sought after before that time came, as we do; when he was persecuted, he fled; and avoiding the designs of his enemies he passed by, and so went through the midst of them.^[4] But when he had brought on that time which he himself had appointed, at which he desired to suffer in the body for all men, he announces it to the Father, saying, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son.^[5] And then he no longer hid himself from those who sought him but stood willing to be taken by them; for the Scripture says, he said to them that came unto him, Whom do you seek? And when they answered, Jesus of Nazareth, he said unto them, I am he whom you seek.^[6]

If riches and poverty are from the Lord, how can either poverty or riches be an evil? Why then were these things said? They were said under the Old Covenant, where there was much account made of wealth, where there was great contempt of poverty, where the one was a curse and the other a blessing. But now it is no longer so.

Flies falling into perfume, and drowning, make the appearance and use of that pleasant oil unseemly; so, too, it is improper to have both wisdom and foolishness together in one’s mind.

Indeed, it is said that Beelzebub means prince of flies; and it has been written of them, Dying flies spoil the sweetness of the oil.

These flies bring death as well as life. For example there is a divinized fly about which Elijah has said, Is there no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of the fly, the God of Ekron?^[1] I would be astonished if they really did divinize a fly. Rather he hereby has described the worthlessness of their enterprise.

What is called the prince of flies is shown to be prince of the wicked; another text of Scripture refers to him by saying, Dead flies destroy the perfumer’s sweet ointment. Who destroy except those who grieve the Holy Spirit either by the crime of infidelity or by the filthy obscenity of unclean deeds, while befouling themselves either with a false faith or an evil way of life?

Dead flies spoil the whole pot of sweet ointment, and when a king hearkens to unrighteous counsel, all the servants under him are wicked.^[1] So one scabbed sheep, if not separated from those that are whole, infects the rest with the same distemper; and a person infected with the plague is to be avoided by all; and a mad dog is dangerous to everyone that it touches. If, therefore, we neglect to separate the transgressor from the church of God, we shall make the Lord’s house a den of thieves.^[2]

If the anger of the ruler rises against you—if he seems to have power over you, it is only because you have subjected yourself to him. For as sin reigns in the mortal bodies of those who want to obey their passions,^[1] and as someone is ruled over if he is ruled by mammon and has focused his thinking on the desire for money, so he [the ruler] has power over the one who subjects himself as slave.

Do not say of your God, He is grievous to me,^[1] or of your position, It is useless to me, for it is written, Leave not your place. The devil wishes to take it from you, he wishes to carry you away, for he is jealous of your hope and jealous of your task.

He who sins gives place to the devil, taking no heed of him who said, Do not give place to the devil,^[1] or to Ecclesiastes, If the spirit of him that has power ascends upon you, leave not your place. Let us, then, who are in the Lord and who, as much as we are able, observe closely his wonders, so draw joy to our hearts from the contemplation of them.

You alone are not the source of the trouble, but there is also one who instigates you, the accursed devil. He makes his suggestions to all, but he does not prevail by force over those who do not give way to him. Therefore Ecclesiastes says, Should the anger of the ruler burst upon you, forsake not your place. If you shut your door, you will be out of his reach and he will not harm you. But if you are so careless as to admit the lustful thought, reflection will cause it to strike roots within you; it will capture your mind and drag you down into an abyss of sins.

We also read in Ecclesiastes, If the spirit of him that has power, ascend upon your heart, leave not your place. From this it is clearly evident that we have committed a sin if we surrender our place to him who ascends upon us and if we have not cast down headlong the enemy ascending upon the walls. However, it seems to me that when you call down upon the heads of your brothers, that is to say, upon your slanderers, eternal fires with the devil, you are not so much dashing your brothers to the ground as you are elevating the devil, since he is to be punished in the same fires as Christians.

By the name horse is understood temporal dignity, as Solomon witnesses, who says, I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. For everyone who sins is the servant of sin, and servants are upon horses when sinners are elated with the dignities of the present life.

Those who have come from paganism to the gospel—those who were slaves of desire, slaves of sin, slaves of the devil and of death—have become riders on horseback. About them it is said that, in the future, they will ride on divine words like on horses.

The Jews in their imaginings, and in their agreeing to act unjustly against the Lord, forgot that they were bringing wrath upon themselves. Therefore does the Word lament for them saying, Why do the people exalt themselves, and the nations imagine vain things?^[1] For vain indeed was the imagination of the Jews, meditating death against the Life, and devising unreasonable things against the Word of the Father. For who that looks upon their dispersion, and the desolation of their city, may not aptly say, Woe unto them, for they have imagined an evil imagination, saying against their own soul, let us bind the righteous man, because he is not pleasing to us.^[2] And full well it is so, my brethren; for when they erred concerning the Scriptures, they knew not that he who digs a pit for his neighbor falls into it; and he who destroys a hedge, a serpent shall bite him. And if they had not turned their faces from the Lord, they would have feared what was written before in the divine Psalms: The heathen are caught in the pit which they made; in the snare which they hid is their own foot taken. The Lord is known when executing judgments: by the works of his hands is the sinner taken.^[3]

Scripture says that there are deep things that must not under any circumstances be looked into, and the one who searches in a hedge will be bitten by a snake. ^[1] TO BREAK THE BOUNDARY HARMS THE CATHOLIC FAITH. VINCENT OF LÉRINS: Once they begin not only to use the divine expressions but also to explain them, not only to present them but also to interpret them, then people will realize how bitter, how sharp, how fierce they are. Then will the poisonous breath of their new ideas be exhaled, then will profane novelties appear in the open, then will you see that the hedge is broken, that the ancient bounds have been passed,^[1] that the dogma of the church is lacerated, that the Catholic faith is harmed. ^[2]

If a snake bites without hissing, Ecclesiastes says, there is no advantage for the charmer, showing that the bite of a snake in silence is dangerous. This means that if a suggestion or thought springing from the devil is not by means of confession shown to some charmer (I mean some spiritually minded person who knows how to heal the wound at once by charms from the Scripture and how to extract the deadly poison of the snake from the heart), it will be impossible to help the sufferer who is already in danger and will no doubt die.

These silent bites are alone in fending off the medicine of the wise people. This deadly menace is so utterly incurable that it is worsened by soothings, inflamed by serious treatment, and irritated by gifts.

The snake is powerful, when it spreads its poison secretly. In the one who is tricked, an impression is created that he has received something good which in reality is not good. The teacher who charms should not do so in a superflous way but in a way that accomplishes something. Then he shows his [student] the error, the guile of his seducer.

The church was admonished to shun the beginning of sin. Which is that beginning of sin, like the head of a serpent? The beginning of all sin is pride.

By town he does not mean a place but the deed according to the law. The fool does not even know the way to town. But the one who says, Even if we live on earth, our citizenship is in heaven,^[1] knows the way to the town in which he is a true citizen. And further: As we have heard, so we have received in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God.^[2]

And thus wandering from the king’s highway, they can never arrive at that metropolis, to which our course should ever be directed without swerving. And this Ecclesiastes has distinctly expressed saying: The labor of fools wearies those who do not know how to go to the city—namely, to that heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us.^[1]

Our intellect is not brought into submission unless our body is subject to it. The kingship of the intellect is the crucifixion of the body. The intellect is not subject to God unless the free will is subject to reason. It is hard to convey anything sublime to one who is still a beginner, and an infant in stature. Woe to thee, O city, when thy king is a child!

The passage from this book which I gladly quote is one touching the two cities and their kings, the devil and Christ: Woe to you, O land, when your king is a youth, and when the princes eat in the morning. Blessed is the land whose king is the son of freeborn parents and whose princes eat in due season, in strength and not in confusion. Here, the devil is spoken of as a youth because of the foolishness, pride, rashness, unruliness, and other faults usually rampant at that age; and Christ is spoken of as the son of freeborn parents because he descended in the flesh from those holy patriarchs who were citizens of the free city. The princes of the devil’s city eat in the morning, that is, before the proper time—in the sense that, being overeager to attain perfect happiness at once in the society of this present world, they are unwilling to await the only true happiness which will come in due time in the world to come. But the princes of the city of Christ await in patience the time of a blessedness which is sure to be theirs. The conclusion, in strength and not in confusion, means that their hope will not cheat them.

No house ever falls to the ground by a sudden collapse, but only when there is some long-standing flaw in the foundation or when by long-continued neglect of its inhabitants, what was at first only a little drip breaks through and the protecting walls are gradually ruined. In consequence of long-standing neglect the gap becomes larger and the walls break away, and in time the drenching storm and rain pours in like a river. For by slothfulness a building is brought low, and through lazy hands the house shall leak.

Our house, which was built to human stature, along with the habitation we shall have in heaven, will collapse if we are lazy and hesitant to do good works. And every floor that depends upon a rafter for support will crush its inhabitant when it falls to the ground. It is when the assistance of our hands and our strength is lacking that all the storm clouds and violent winds from above burst forth upon us. Moreover, because we translated this verse in the singular, it is better to understand it as pertaining to the church, all of whose sublimity will be ruined through the negligence of its leaders. And where the roof is thought to be strong, there will be found the enticements of wickedness.

But as long as we are among the living, while the foundation of our true faith continues unshattered, even if somewhat of the outer roofwork or inner building be disabled, it is allowed to renew by repentance the part rotted by sins.

Let each one do his work without chatting or shouting. Let absolutely no one laugh, so that there will not apply to us the reproach of the Scriptures, They make bread for laughter. If someone needs to ask his neighbor a question, he must do so quietly, without shouting.

If then those things, which are spoken in secret against you that are kings, are not hidden, is it not incredible that I should have spoken against you in the presence of a king and of so many bystanders?

Generally one is advised not to say bad things about others. A curse is nothing else but a wish for something bad. . . .

The word cautions against slander. Do not even have the intention, he says, of slandering someone—let alone actually slandering someone. Look at how great an evil this is: Do not love speaking ill [of anyone], lest you be cut off.^[1] Thus, he says the following: Not even in your thoughts, not even in your consciousness, should you curse the king. But if one is not supposed to curse anyone, the king should be cursed even less.