He intends the new Jerusalem, or the sanctified flesh. By the seven pillars he means the sevenfold unity of the Holy Spirit resting upon it.

Christ, [Solo-mon] means, the wisdom and power of God the Father, has built his house, that is, his nature in the flesh derived from the virgin, even as [John] said beforetime: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.^[1] [As likewise the wise prophet Solomon] testifies: Wisdom that was before the world, and is the source of life, the infinite wisdom of God, has built her house by a mother who knew no man—to wit, as he assumed the temple of the body. And has raised her seven pillars, that is, the fragrant grace of the all-holy Spirit, as Isaiah says: And the seven spirits of God shall rest upon him.^[2] [But others say that the seven pillars are the seven divine orders which sustain the creation by his holy and inspired teaching: namely, the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs, the hierarchs, the hermits, the saints and the righteous.]^[3]

Wisdom has built her house, and has set seven pillars. Since wisdom is the Son of God, once he became man he built his house, that is, the flesh from the Virgin. He [Solomon] calls the seven pillars the spirit of God, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of the fear of God,^[1] as Isaiah says. [Solomon] also calls the church house and the apostles pillars. The wise individual is the one who is safe and self-sufficient, lacking nothing. As the house of wisdom is the church, the pillars are those who appear to be pillars in the church.^[2]

[Wisdom said] to the unwise, Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. In these words, surely, we recognize that the wisdom of God, the Father’s coeternal Word, has built a house for himself, namely, a body in the virgin’s womb. And to this body, as to the head, he has united the church as his members, has slain his martyrs as victims, set his table with bread and wine in allusion to the priesthood according to Melchizedek, and called the weak and unwise.

The Holy Spirit through Solomon shows forth the type of sacrifice of the Lord, making mention of the immolated victim and of the bread and wine and also of the altar and of the apostles. Wisdom, he says, has built a house and she has set up seven columns. She has slain her victims, mixed her wine in a chalice, and has spread her table. . . . He declares the wine is mixed, that is, he announces in a prophetic voice that the chalice of the Lord is mixed with water and wine.

We say, therefore, that when he said in his previous discourse that wisdom built a house for itself, he is speaking enigmatically about the formation of the Lord’s flesh. For true wisdom did not live in someone else’s building but built a home for itself from the Virgin’s body.

It was the Holy Ghost that gave fecundity to the Virgin, but it was from a body that a real body was derived. And when Wisdom was building herself a house, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,^[1] that is, in that flesh which he assumed from a human being and which he animated with the spirit of rational life.

We are his flesh, the flesh that had been taken up from the Virgin’s womb. If this flesh had not been from ours, that is, had it not been truly human, the Word made flesh would not have dwelt among us. He did in fact dwell among us,^[1] however, for he made the nature of our body his own. Wisdom built itself a house, not from just any material but from the substance that is properly ours. The fact that he had taken it on has been made clear from when it was said, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.^[2]

We may also not inappropriately interpret the pillars of heaven as the churches themselves. Being many in number, they constitute one catholic church spread over the whole face of the earth. So, too, the apostle John writes to the seven churches, meaning to denote the one catholic church replenished with the Spirit of sevenfold grace, and we know that Solomon said of the Lord, Wisdom has built her a house; she has hewn out her seven pillars. And to make known that it was of the seven churches he had spoken, which sedulously introduced the very sacraments themselves also, he says, She has killed her sacrifices, she has mingled her wine, she has also set forth her table.

Because it had spoken sufficiently of the divinity of Christ, it goes on to speak of the humanity he assumed. Wisdom has built her house, therefore, because the Son of God created the man whom he received into the unity of his person.

She has set up her seven pillars. She erected churches throughout the world by the sevenfold grace of the Spirit to be his home, that is, the mystery of his incarnation, lest the memory for believing, worshiping and preaching be destroyed by the wickedness of the faithless, as though they remained together by supporting each other.^[1] Or at least the house of wisdom is the church of Christ, while the pillars are the doctors of the holy church filled by the sevenfold Spirit, such as James, Peter and John.^[2] Wisdom undoubtedly raised up these pillars because it elevated the minds of preachers who were detached from love of the present age for the purpose of bearing the work of his church.^[3]

The phrase she has killed her beasts denotes the prophets and martyrs [who in every city and country] are slain like sheep every day by the unbelieving, in behalf of the truth, and cry aloud, For your sake we are killed all the day long, we were counted as sheep for the slaughter.^[1] And again, she has mingled her wine in the bowl [by which is meant that the Savior, uniting his Godhead like pure wine with the flesh in the Virgin, was born of her at once God and man without confusion of the one in the other].^[2] And the phrase She has furnished her table [denotes the promised knowledge of the Triad^[3]].^[4] . . . And again, She has sent forth her servants. Wisdom, that is to say, has done so, [and it is Christ] who summons them with lofty announce-ment. Whoever is simple, let him turn to me, she says, alluding manifestly to the holy apostles who journeyed the whole world and called the nations to the knowledge of him [in truth, with their lofty and divine preaching]. And again, To those who lack understanding she said [denotes] those who have not yet obtained the power of the Holy Spirit. Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine I have mingled for you [indicates that he gave his divine flesh and honored blood to us to eat and drink it for the remission of sins].^[5]

Wisdom has prepared her table, she has slain her victims, she has mingled her wine in the bowl and cries with a loud voice, Turn in to me and eat the bread which I have prepared for you, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. The mind, when nourished by this food of wisdom to a whole and perfect state, as man was made in the beginning, will be restored to the image and likeness^[1] of God. [Thus], even though a man may have departed out of this life insufficiently instructed but with a record of acceptable works, he can be instructed in that Jerusalem, the city of the saints. That is, he can be taught and informed and fashioned into a living stone, a stone precious and elect,^[2] because he has borne with courage and endurance the trials of life and the struggles after piety. There, too, he will come to a truer and clearer knowledge of the saying already uttered here, that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.^[3]

Come, eat my bread and drink my wine which I have mingled for you. Do you find delight in songs which charm the banqueter? Listen to the voice of the church, who exhorts us not only in canticles but in the Canticle of Canticles, Eat, O friends, and drink and be inebriated, my brethren.^[1] But this inebriation makes people sober. This inebriation is one of grace, not of intoxication.

Come and eat of my bread and drink the wine which I have mixed for you. Plato judged that the discourse over this bowl should be copied into his books,^[1] he summoned forth souls to drink of it, but did not know how to fill them, for he provided not the drink of faith but that of unbelief.

And so he comes; whether you eat or drink, if you call upon Christ he is present, saying, Come, eat of my bread and drink of my wine. Even if you are asleep, he is knocking at the door. He comes, I say, frequently and reaches in through the window. Frequently (but not always and not to everyone) he comes to that soul which can say, At night I had put off my garment.^[1] For in this night of the world the garment of corporeal life is first to be taken off as the Lord divested himself in his flesh that for you he might triumph over the dominions and powers of this world.

The same food is called meat, bread, milk and wine. However, fools say that they take it as [simply] bread and mixed wine. But if it were really taken in that manner, how would we interpret the words: So men ate the bread of angels?^[1] Now bread, it seems to me, should be understood as the firm commandments of God and wine as the knowledge of God through meditation on holy Scripture; similarly also [the knowledge of] his divine body and his precious blood.

By divine eloquence, the nature of his divinity and humanity conjoined in Christ’s one person is expressed through this bread and mixed wine, as was said above. Or at least the sacrament^[1] through which we are satiated at the table of his altar is clearly shown in the bread of his body and in the mixed wine of his most holy blood.

It happens regularly and it happens often that a man is cast down for a short time while he is being reproved, that he resists and fights back. But afterwards he reflects in solitude where there is no one but God and himself, and where he does not fear the displeasure of others by being corrected, but does fear the displeasure of God by refusing correction. Thereafter, he does not repeat the act which was justly censured but now loves the brother, whom he sees as the enemy of his sin, as much as he hates the sin itself.

Let us always admonish each other in charity. As often as any one of us sins, let us willingly and patiently accept the reproof of a neighbor or a friend, because of what is said: Reprove a wise man, and he will love you; rebuke a foolish man, and he will hate you. Therefore I beseech you, brethren, to chide, rebuke and reprove those who you know are dancing, leading songs, uttering disgraceful words voluptuously or drunkenly on the holy feasts.

Discipline is an index to doctrine. [The heretics] say that God is not to be feared. So everything is free to them and unrestrained. But where is God not feared, except where he is not present? Where God is not present, there is no truth either; and where there is no truth, discipline like theirs is natural. But where God is present, there is the fear of God, there are decent seriousness, vigilant care and anxious solicitude, well-tested selection, well-weighed communion and deserved promotion, religious obedience, devoted service, modest appearance, a united church, and all things godly.

Observe that the wise man must be useful to many, so that he who is useful only to himself cannot be wise. For great is the condemnation of wisdom if she reserves her power simply for the one possessing her.

Scripture sets down bread and water in clear reference simply to the heresies that use bread and water in their offertory contrary to the rules of the church. There are some who actually celebrate the Eucharist with plain water. Jump up; do not linger in her place. Scripture is using the ambiguous word place to designate the synagogue rather than the church. Then it adds, In this way you will be crossing a foreign water, regarding heretical baptism as foreign and improper, and traversing a foreign river—one which takes you astray and dumps you in the sea, where everyone who allows himself to be led away from the firm ground of the truth is deposited.

I came upon that brazen woman, empty of prudence, who, in Solomon’s obscure parable, sits on a seat at the door outside her house and says, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. This woman seduced me, because she found my soul outside its own door, dwelling externally in the eye of my flesh and ruminating within myself on such food as I had swallowed through my physical senses.

Bread is used in a good sense in I am the living bread which came down from heaven,^[1] but in a bad sense in hidden bread is more pleasant. Many other things are used in the same way. Those examples that I have mentioned create little doubt as to their meaning, for things ought not to be used as examples unless they are clear. There are, however, instances in which it is uncertain whether the signification is to be taken in a good sense or in an evil sense.

The foolish and bold woman comes to want bread. What bread? Surely that bread which comes down from heaven. And he immediately adds, The earth-born perish in her house, rush into the depths of hell. Who are the earth-born that perish in her house? They of course who follow the first Adam, who is of the earth, and not the second, who is from heaven.

What does water signify but human knowledge? This is in accord with Solomon’s words implying the voice of heretics: Stolen waters are sweeter. What does the Lamb’s raw flesh indicate but his humanity that has been thoughtlessly and irreverently disregarded? Everything which we think of profoundly we cook, as it were, in our minds. The flesh of the Lamb was not to be eaten raw or boiled in water, because our Redeemer is not to be judged merely a human being, nor are we to use human science to explain how God could have been made man.