I think therefore that Sarah, which means principal, or what has primacy,^[1] is a figure of the aretē which is the virtue of the soul. This virtue is joined and clings to a wise and faithful husband, like that wise one who said of wisdom, I sought to take her as my bride. For this reason God says to Abraham, In everything that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice.^[2]

In many places the sacred Scripture has avoided the term desire, replacing it with love. At times, however, even if somewhat rarely, it uses precisely the term desire and invites and urges the soul to this, as in Proverbs when it says of wisdom, Desire her, and she will serve you. Hold her close, and she will make you great. Honor her, that she would embrace you.^[1] And in the book entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, it is further written of wisdom, I desired her beauty.^[2] Nevertheless, I think that the Scripture used the term desire only where there was no possibility of equivocation. Indeed, whatever is passionate or shameful can be found in the desire for wisdom or in the one who claims to desire wisdom. In fact, if the Scriptures had said that Isaac desired Rebecca or that Jacob desired Rachel, one could have thought of passion or of something shameful in the holy men of God because of these words, especially among those who do not know how to raise themselves from the letter to the spirit. And precisely in this book that we have before us, it is clear that the word desire has been replaced by love, where it is said, I implore you, daughters of Jerusalem: if you find my beloved, tell him that I am wounded by love.^[3] It is as if she were to say, I have been pierced by an arrow of love. Therefore there is no difference if the sacred Scriptures speak of love or of desire, except that the term love is held in such high esteem that even God is personally called love, as John says, Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows him. The one who does not love, however, does not know God, because God is love.^[4]

Since, according to the Gospel, the Lord is the bridegroom^[1] and, according to John, he has a bride,^[2] must we think in terms of earthly, bodily spouses? Certainly not. But by this use of language we are taught that he is the one who has been promised to the nations. By the Father’s work, the inheritance of the church has been espoused to him, through the assumption of the body that he took from the Virgin. But, to learn what we should understand by the designation bride, we must examine closely what is said elsewhere regarding the term. For example, Solomon says, I sought to take wisdom as my bride. And because he seeks a bride, he wants her to be rich, and he recounts the benefits of his bride, saying, She manifests her nobility in a life of communion with God, because the Lord of the universe loved her. And if one desires wide experience, she knows what is past and infers what is to come. And further, A strong woman, who can find? Her value is far beyond precious stones.^[3] All of this was said in Proverbs, because a proverb does not explain what the words say but displays the power of what is said using ordinary words. In the Gospels, the Lord teaches how a proverb must be understood when he says, The hour will come when I will no longer speak to you in proverbs, but I will speak openly to you of the Father.^[4] Therefore, according to the rules governing proverbs, we must recognize that the strong woman is she whom Solomon desired to take as his bride. Of her he says further, I therefore decided to take her as the companion of my life. I am enamored of her beauty.

There is wisdom and there is wisdom. The apostle knew various kinds: that of which he spoke when he said, The world does not know God with the wisdom of God.^[1] And that which he spoke of saying, God condemned as foolishness the wisdom of the world,^[2] or when he said that he spoke not with the power of the flesh but by the power of God.^[3] Solomon, by contrast, spoke of that wisdom of whose charm he was enamored and that he made his bride (Job asked himself, Where can she be found, in what place of wisdom?^[4]). But did he speak of that despised wisdom of the poor person,^[5] of the wisdom guided by God^[6] or of the Wisdom of the Father, the only-begotten?^[7]

Your wife like a fertile vine within your home, and your sons like olive plants around your table.^[1] Once again the literal sense must be avoided here. We see in fact that many very holy men have neither wife nor sons and that the wicked have all that. How then can this part of the blessing be applied, which you know often does not pertain to the good but to the bad? Wife has the sense of sister. For this reason, as the wife of the blessed man one must understand wisdom, as Solomon says, Who sought to take her as a wife. And elsewhere, Love her, and she will watch over you. Do not abandon her, and she will care for you.^[2] She is therefore the wife of the righteous, who captivates her husband with a chaste embrace. EXPLANATION OF THE PSALMS 127.3.^[3]

Mary Is Beautiful Like Wisdom. Andrew of Crete: Foreseeing you, the prophet Isaiah exclaimed by divine inspiration, See, the virgin will be with child.^[4] And, The root of Jesse will be raised.^[5] And, Blessed is the root of Jesse.^[6] And, A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, a shoot will grow from his roots.^[7] Because of you the great Ezekiel proclaimed, Here is the door toward the east. The door will be closed, and no one may enter by it. Only the Lord God will enter and leave by it, and the door will remain closed.^[8] Prophesying of you, the beloved man^[9] calls you a mountain, saying, A stone taken from you, without human hands, hewn but not cut, removed but not split^[10] by the assumption of our humanity. You are the greatness of that awesome economy into which angels desire to look.^[11] You are the beautiful dwelling of the descent of God, the land truly desired. In fact, the king desired the glory of your beauty^[12] and was enamored with the riches of your virginity: he made his dwelling in you, and dwelled among us^[13] and through you reconciled us with God the Father. You are the treasury of the mystery hidden from ages past.^[14] You are truly the living book of the spiritual Word, silently written in you with the life-giving pen of the Spirit. You alone are truly the book, written by God, of the new covenant that God once established with humanity. You are that chariot of God in its tens of thousands,^[15] you who have led thousands of those gladdened by the incarnate one. You are Mount Zion, the fertile mountain, the rugged mountain,^[16] that God has chosen as his dwelling,^[17] from whom he who is above all being took shape and was formed in our flesh endowed with an intellectual soul.

Wisdom does not live with vice in any way but unites without conflict with the other virtues. Her spirit is intelligent, without blemish, trustworthy, holy, loving of the good, acute, not opposed to any good, beneficent, stable, sure, possessing all virtues and seeing all.^[1] And then, She teaches temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude.

I have used a passage of the book of Wisdom according to the copy in our possession, where it is read, Wisdom teaches sobriety, justice and virtue. Even using these words I have been able to speak of some truths, but, by chance, I became aware of their true meaning through an error. What is more true than the fact that Wisdom teaches the truth of contemplation, a concept that I had thought was expressed by the term sobriety, or that it teaches uprightness of action, which I thought was indicated by the other two terms, justice and virtue? But the best codices of that translation have, It teaches sobriety and wisdom and justice and virtue. With these terms the Latin translator meant to designate the four virtues that pertain especially to philosophical language. He calls temperance sobriety, gives prudence the name of wisdom, names fortitude by the term virtue, and has translated only justice by its own name. Much later, consulting the Greek copies, I noticed that in the book of Wisdom the four virtues are designated by the exact terms assigned them by the Greeks.

The Scriptures are accustomed to speaking of opinion in two ways. They in fact speak of opinion both when someone thinks something that is not true and when he knows with all certainty that something is true. Blessed Stephen, in the Acts of the Apostles, speaks of an opinion concerning uncertain knowledge when he says of holy Moses, He thought that his countrymen would have understood that God was offering them salvation through him. But, to show that this was an uncertain opinion, he adds, But they did not understand.^[1] Similarly, it is said in the same book when the angel brought blessed Peter out of the jail, he still did not realize that what was happening through the angel was real: he thought he was having a vision.^[2] In the book of Wisdom an utterly certain knowledge is given as an opinion, in the place where wisdom itself says, And if one desires wide experience, she knows what is past and infers what is to come. What does it mean that wisdom infers, if not that it knows with all certainty? Thus also Paul, who had the mind of Christ,^[3] spoke of thinking something that he knew with certainty, saying, I consider, in fact, that the sufferings of the present moment are not to be compared with the future glory that will be revealed in us.^[4] And neither in this case can it be said that Paul had an uncertain knowledge of these things. In fact, he had a certain knowledge of them. Similarly, blessed Jeremiah said of Christ, He is our God, and he will not be compared with another.^[5] Does he will not be compared perhaps not mean that another will not be known? Thus blessed Isaiah says, Lord, beside you we have known no other. We have invoked your name.^[6]

Who would dare deny the immortality of the Son, simply because he has given immortality also to others? Indeed, it is written of the wisdom of God, Through her I will obtain immortality. But the immortality of his nature is one thing and the immortality of ours another. Perishable things must not be compared with divine things: the being of the divinity is one alone and cannot die. Thus the apostle, though knowing that the soul and the angels are immortal, preached that God alone is immortal.^[1] In fact, even the soul dies: The soul that sins will die.^[2] And neither is an angel immortal by nature, because his immortality is dependent on the will of the Creator.

Make it your purpose to possess [wisdom]. Yearn for her, burn with desire for her, be consumed by her. Deny yourself,^[1] and do not deny her so as to please yourself. In her company there is no bitterness. If you are lovers, love her. If you are beautiful, be pleasing to God. If you are young, conquer the devil. Daniel was called a man by the angel, on account of his desires.^[2] What were his desires, if not those by which he fervently aspired to the beauty of wisdom? Indeed, at his young age he trampled lust underfoot, as a prisoner he crushed the pride of kings,^[3] and, shut in, he shut the mouths of lions.^[4]

What we think within ourselves we remember in our hearts, since mentioning both things, that is, a thought and a memory, has shown that they are not exterior but interior. It is said also in the book of Proverbs, Son, do not let evil thoughts ensnare you, thoughts that abandon the teachings of youth and forget the divine covenant. Their dwelling is near death, and their paths with mortals, alongside the netherworld.^[1] If evil thoughts, which have made their dwelling near death, are outside of death and not in it, they are certainly alive. And if they are near, but not in, the netherworld, the only remaining possibility is that what is not in death or in the netherworld would have life in heaven. For this reason it is said to God, You have rescued my soul from death,^[2] because, through faith, he has given life to the soul, saying, My righteous one, through faith, will live.^[3] And thus it is also said to him, From the depths of the netherworld you have rescued my soul,^[4] since souls are rescued from the netherworld by the grace of God, so that they would live in heaven. Thus the apostle says, Our homeland is in heaven.^[5] Moreover, how was the soul, which was near death because of evil thoughts, freed from death, if it was not dead? And how was it taken from the netherworld, if it was near the netherworld but not in it? If in fact it was not in death, it was not dead. But who does not know that the soul dies through an evil will—that is, through sin—since God says, The soul that sins will die.^[6] It is therefore certain that the soul that thinks wickedly, being near death, is in death, and being near the netherworld is in the netherworld. And what does the Savior say? What is impossible for human beings is possible for God.^[7]

After saying, I was a child of a noble nature, explaining why he was good-natured, he immediately adds, A good soul fell to my lot, receiving it, that is, from either the nature or the physical temperament of the father. He then says, Being good beyond the usual, I entered an unsullied body. . . . If we wanted to understand these expressions as referring to the Lord with respect to the human nature assumed by the Word, in the same context there are statements that cannot be applied to his sublime person, and especially the following. The same author, in the same book, a little above the passage we are now discussing, professes to have been formed from the blood that comes from the seed of a man.^[1] This kind of birth, however, is absolutely different from the birth from the Virgin, since no Christian doubts that she conceived the flesh of Christ without the cooperation of male seed.

Do you not know that when the male child is forty days old, he is presented at the altar to be purified,^[1] being impure from the conception itself, on account of both the paternal seed and the mother’s womb? Thus every person is impure from his father and his mother,^[2] but only my Lord Jesus entered this life purely and was not defiled in the mother. He in fact entered an undefiled body. It was he who once said through Solomon, Or rather, being good, I entered an undefiled body. Consequently, he was not defiled in the mother, and certainly not in the father.^[3] In his generation, Joseph offered nothing other than his service and affection. Thus Scripture, for his faithful service of a father, also gives him the name. Indeed, Mary says in the Gospel, I and your father have been searching for you in sorrow.^[4] Christ alone, therefore, is the high priest who was not defiled in either the father or the mother.^[5]

A closer examination is needed of the passage in the book of Wisdom that says, A good soul fell to my lot, and, because I was unusually good, I entered an undefiled body. This would in fact seem to support the opinion according to which it is believed that souls are not propagated from a single soul but enter bodies from on high. What, however, is the meaning of the phrase a good soul fell to my lot? One could imagine that in the creation of souls, if there is such a thing, some are good and others not, and these are distributed on the basis of a kind of lottery, which would decide which type of soul would be infused in each individual person. Or, at the moment of conception or birth God makes some people good and others not, in such a way that each of them would receive the soul that had been assigned to them by the draw. It would be odd if the cited text were a convincing argument, at least for those who believe that souls are created in another place and sent by God, one by one, into each human body. Not so, however, for those who assert that souls are sent into bodies based on the merits from works done prior to being united to the body. Indeed, based on what criteria could it be thought that souls, some good and others not, enter bodies, except according to their actions? This is inconsistent, however, with a nature in which all souls are created by him who creates all natures good. Far be it from us, however, to contradict the apostle, who, when speaking of the twins who were still in Rachel’s womb, says that, being as yet unborn, they had not done anything either good or evil. He thus concludes that, not based on works but by the grace of him who calls, Scripture says, The older will serve the younger.^[1] Let us therefore set aside for awhile the text being considered here from the book of Wisdom, because we must not ignore the opinion, correct or not, of those who believe that it especially and exclusively concerns the soul of the mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus.^[2] If necessary, we will examine the meaning of this text later in such a way that, if it cannot be applied to Christ, we will try to discover in what sense it must be understood so as to not contradict the doctrine of the apostle, starting from the hypothesis that souls have merits deriving from their actions prior to living in their bodies.

I said, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord. Heal me, for I have sinned against you.’^[1] So—I said. I do not, to excuse my sin, look for who sinned through me or who forced me to sin.^[2] I do not say that it was by chance or that Fate wanted it. And finally, I do not say that it was the devil. Certainly the devil has power to suggest, even to cause fear and even, if he is allowed, to seriously harass. But we must ask the Lord for strength, so that the seductions do not captivate us and the difficulties do not break us. Against the seductions and threats of the enemy he gives us two virtues: continence and patience. To curb pleasures, so that prosperity does not seduce us, and to endure fears, so that difficulties do not break us. But knowing, it is written, that no one can be continent unless it is granted him by God, we see that he asked him, Create a pure heart in me, O God.^[3] And also, Woe to those who have lost the strength to endure.^[4]

And this also was wisdom: to know whose gift it was.^[1] Therefore, if you have something from God and do not know from whom you have it, you will not receive a reward, since you will be ungrateful for it. If you do not know who gave it to you, you will not give thanks. And if you do not give thanks, you will also lose what you have. Indeed, to him who has, more will be given. What is it to possess fully? To know from whom it comes. But the one who does not have, that is, who does not know from whom it comes, will lose even what he has.^[2] Finally, as it also says, And precisely this was wisdom: to know from whom the gift came.^[3] The apostle Paul says this also when he exhorts us to give thanks to God in the Holy Spirit. And almost as if to respond to the question, How will we know the difference? he adds, that we may know all that has been given to us by God.^[4]

There is a gift of God the Father, a gift of the Son and also a gift of the Holy Spirit. Concerning the Father the apostle says, By grace you are saved through faith. And this is not from you, but it is the gift of God.^[1] About the Son, in Solomon, Because no one can be continent without the gift of God, and it was precisely intelligence to know from whom this gift comes. The Holy Spirit, in Acts, Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.^[2]

Continence is commanded of us. Where is this command? The apostle writes to Timothy, Be continent!^[1] It is a command, a precept—we must listen to it and put it into practice. But if God does not help us, we are unable to. We try to do something about it with our will, and the will engages in the attempt. Do not presume to do it without someone to help you in your weakness! You have certainly been commanded to be continent, but listen now to another passage of Scripture: Knowing that no one can be continent unless God grants it to him, and that it was a gift of wisdom itself to know who was the giver of this gift. So what did he do? He says, I turned to the Lord and implored him. What need is there, my brothers and sisters, to cite many passages? Whatever command is given us, we must pray so as to be able to carry it out. Clearly not in the sense that we must go off and, as lazy people do, lay on the ground on our backs, saying, God will rain food in our faces, so we’ll have to do absolutely nothing. And then, when food falls in our mouths, we add, God, stick it in our throats, as well! We also must do something. We must apply ourselves, we must make an effort, and we must give thanks for what we have been able to do and pray for what we have been unable to do. By thanksgiving, you will avoid being condemned for ingratitude, by asking for what you do not yet have you will avoid being left empty-handed against the obstacles that hinder you.