Evil Angels and Solomon’s Proverbs

“He let loose on them the fury of his anger — anger, and wrath, and affliction, a mission carried out by evil angels.” [a]

By anger, wrath, and affliction he meant bitter punishments, for God has no passions. Understand the lighter penalties by “anger,” the heavier by “wrath,” and the heaviest of all by “affliction.” The angels, too, are called evil — not because they are evil in their nature or by their own choice, but because they hold this office and are appointed to bring about pains and sufferings. They are called evil, that is, with reference to how the people who undergo such things regard them, just as the day of judgment is called the evil day, since it is loaded with miseries and pains for sinners. The word of Isaiah means the same thing: “I, the Lord, make peace and create evil,” by which he means: I keep the peace, and I permit war.

Proverbs, then, are words of encouragement, useful for the whole road of life. To people looking for their way to God they serve as guides and signposts, reviving them when they are worn out by the length of the journey. And these are the proverbs of Solomon — that is, of the peacemaker, who in truth is Christ the Savior. And since we take the words of the Lord without stumbling, as being the words of the Lord, he tells us who wrote these things and over what people he was king, so that no one may mislead us by a likeness of names, and so that the standing of the speaker may make what he says welcome and his hearers attentive. For they are the words of that Solomon to whom the Lord said, “I will give you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has been no one like you on the earth, and after you no one like you will arise” — and so on, as it is written of him. He was the wise son of a wise father, and that is why the name of David is added, the man who fathered Solomon. From childhood he was trained in the holy Scriptures, and he came by his rule neither by lot nor by force, but by the judgment of the Spirit and the decree of God.

“To know wisdom and discipline.” Whoever knows the wisdom of God receives discipline from him as well, and by it learns the mysteries of the Word; and those who know the true heavenly wisdom will easily understand the words of these mysteries. That is why he says, “to take in the turns of speech” — for things said in strange language by the Holy Spirit become clear to those whose hearts are right with God.

He understands this of the people of the Jews and their guilt in the blood of Christ; for they thought that he had his citizenship on earth only.

They will not simply get it; they will inherit it. The wicked, on the other hand, are exalted only so as to carry the greater dishonor. A man who is ugly and misshapen is not honored by being raised up; he is dishonored all the more, since his shame is made plain to more people. In the same way God exalts the wicked, so that their disgrace may be out in the open. Pharaoh was exalted — and so got the whole world for his accuser.

Notice that he calls the law a good gift, and that he says it because of the man who unjustly takes gifts into the fold of his robe. And the man who forsakes the law is the man who breaks it: the law, that is, of which he is speaking, or which he has kept.

And what does “fortify her” mean? Surround her with holy thoughts. You need a large defense, since there are many things that put such a possession in danger. But if it is in our power to fortify her, and if there are virtues in our power that lift up the knowledge of God, these will be her ramparts — practice, for instance, and study, and the whole chain of the other virtues. The man who keeps these honors wisdom; and the reward is to be lifted up to be with her, and to be embraced by her in the chamber of heaven.

Those who hold a different teaching are the “wicked,” and the lawbreakers are the “evil men,” whose “ways” — that is to say, their deeds — he tells us not to enter.

A man “looks straight ahead” when his thoughts are free of passion, and his judgments are true when he is not worked up over outward appearances. When he says, “Let your eyes look straight ahead,” he means the sight of the soul. And when he urges, “Eat honey, my son, so that it may be sweet to your palate,” he uses “honey” as a figure for divine teaching, which restores the soul’s spiritual knowledge. But wisdom embraces the soul as well; for he says, “Love her, so that she may embrace you.” And the soul, made one with wisdom by that embrace, is filled with holiness and purity. More than that: the fragrant ointments of Christ are taken hold of by the soul’s sense of smell.

Virtue occupies the middle position — which is why he says that courage is the mean between recklessness and cowardice. And when he mentions “the right,” he does not mean the things that are right by nature, such as the virtues, but the things that look right to you because of the pleasure in them. And pleasures here are not only bodily enjoyments, but wealth and luxury as well. “The left” stands for envy, robberies, and the like. “Boreas,” he says, “is a bitter wind, and yet by name it is called right.” For under Boreas he is symbolically naming the wicked devil, by whom every flame of evil is kindled on the earth. And it has the name “right” because an angel is called by a right — that is, a favorable — name. You, he says, turn away from evil, and God will take care of how you end; for he will go ahead of you, scattering your enemies, so that you may go on your way in peace.

By naming the animal — the hind — he shows the purity of that pleasure, and by the roe he hints at the quick answering affection of a wife. And since he knows there are many things that stir a man up, he guards them against these by putting on them the bond of affection that cannot be untied, setting constancy before them. As for the rest, wisdom, spoken of as a figure, can drive off and crush the snaky teachings of those who hold a different teaching, as a stag does. So let her be with you, he says, like a roe, to keep every virtue fresh. And since a wife and wisdom are not the same in this respect, let wisdom rather lead you; for then you will conceive good thoughts.

So that you may not say, What harm is there in the eyes, when a man who looks does not have to be turned aside? — he shows you that desire is a fire, and the flesh is like a garment. The garment is easily caught; the fire is a tyrant. And when something harmful is not only taken in but held onto, it will not go out again until it has made its own way out. For a man who looks at a woman does not come away clean of all lust, even if he escapes the temptation. And why should anyone put himself to that trouble, when he could be chaste and have no trouble at all? See what Job says: “I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not think about another man’s wife.” So well does he know the power that harm has. And it was for this reason that Paul “punished his body and made it his slave.” Speaking in figures, a man keeps a fire in his breast when he lets an impure thought live in his heart, and he walks on coals when he ruins his own soul by sinning in act.

The cepphus is a kind of wild sea-bird with so unrestrained an urge toward sexual pleasure that its eyes are said to fill with blood in mating; and it often blunders blindly into snares, or into men’s hands. So he compares to it the man who gives himself up to a prostitute because his lust knows no restraint — or else the comparison is to the creature’s senseless folly, since he too chases what he is after like a witless thing. They also say the bird takes such pleasure in sea-foam that if a man holds foam in his hand as he sails, it will settle on his hand. And it gives birth in pain.

You have seen the harm she does. Do not wait to let lust rise in you, for her death lasts forever. And for the rest: by her words — her arguments, that is — she wounds, and by her sins she kills those who give in to her. For many are the shapes of wickedness that lead the foolish down to Hades. And the storerooms of death mean either its depths or its treasure. How, then, is escape possible?

He means the new Jerusalem, or the sanctified flesh. By the seven pillars he means the sevenfold unity of the Holy Spirit resting upon it, as Isaiah bears witness. “She has slaughtered her beasts.”

Notice that a wise man has to be useful to many; so a man who is useful only to himself cannot be wise. Wisdom stands under a heavy charge if she keeps her power for the one who has her and no one else. But as poison does no harm to another body, only to the one that takes it, so the man who turns out wicked will injure himself and not another. For no man of real virtue is injured by a wicked man.

The fruit of righteousness and the tree of life is Christ. He alone, as a man, fulfilled all righteousness. And out of his own life — for he is Life itself — he has brought forth the fruits of knowledge and virtue like a tree; those who eat of them will receive eternal life and will enjoy the tree of life in paradise, with Adam and all the righteous. But the souls of the unrighteous are driven out from the presence of God before their time, and are left by him to remain in the flame of torment.

He will find favor not from men, but with the Lord.

The man who asks wisdom is the man who is trying to learn what the will of God is. And he will show himself sensible if he is sparing with his words about the thing he has come to learn. If one man asks about wisdom because he wants to learn something about wisdom, while another asks nothing of wisdom — not only wanting to learn nothing himself, but even holding his neighbors back from learning — then the first is certainly reckoned the more sensible of the two.

About the horseleech. Sin had three daughters whom she loved dearly: sexual immorality, murder, and idolatry. These three did not satisfy her, for she is not to be satisfied. In destroying man by these acts sin never varies; it only keeps growing. As for the fourth, he goes on, it is never content to say “enough” — meaning lust in every form. In naming “the fourth,” he means lust taken as a whole. For as the body is one and yet has many parts, so sin, being one, holds within it many different lusts by which it lays its traps for men. So, to teach us this, he uses as examples Hades, and the love of women, and Tartarus, and the earth that is not filled with water. Water and fire, indeed, will never say, “It is enough.” And Hades never in any way stops receiving the souls of unrighteous men; nor does the love of sin, in the case of the love of women, stop being given over to sexual immorality, and it becomes the betrayer of the soul. And as Tartarus lies in a gloomy, dark place and is not touched by any ray of light, so is everyone who is a slave of sin in all the passions of the flesh. Like the earth that is not filled with water, he is never able to come to confession and to the washing of new birth; and like water and fire, he never says, “It is enough.”

For as a serpent cannot leave its track on a rock, so the devil could not find sin in the body of Christ. For the Lord says, “Look, the ruler of this world is coming, and he will find nothing in me.” — And as a ship sailing the sea leaves no traces of its way behind it, so neither does the church, set in the world as in a sea, leave her hope on the earth, since her life is kept in store in heaven; and as she holds her course here only for a short time, it is not possible to trace it out. — As the church does not leave her hope behind in the world — her hope in the coming of Christ in the flesh, which brings us every good thing — so she did not leave the track of death in Hades. — And of whom is this said, except of him who is born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin? — who, renewing the perfect man in the world, works miracles, beginning from the baptism of John, as the Gospel writer also testifies: and Jesus was then beginning to be about thirty years old. This, then, was the young and blooming time of life of the one who traveled among the cities and districts, healing the diseases and infirmities of men.

“The eye that mocks a father and dishonors the old age of his mother.” That is to say, the man who blasphemes God and despises the mother of Christ, the wisdom of God — may the ravens out of the ravines tear out his eyes; that is, may unclean and wicked spirits take from him the clear eye of gladness. And may the young eagles devour him. Such men will be trampled under the feet of the saints.

“There are three things I cannot understand, and a fourth I do not know: the tracks of an eagle in flight” — that is, Christ’s ascension; “and the ways of a serpent on a rock” — that is, that the devil found no trace of sin in the body of Christ; “and the ways of a ship crossing the sea” — that is, the ways of the church, which is in this life as in a sea, and is steered by her hope in Christ through the cross; “and the ways of a man in his youth” — the ways, that is, of him who is born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin. For look, says the Scripture, a man whose name is the Rising.