Theft, Adultery, and the Nature of Wisdom

Children being formed with health from the beginning. A false witness kindles lies and sends judgments among brothers. Brothers are those having the gift of adoption and being under the same father, Christ, whom the witness of injustice attempts to divide, casting tribulations and judgments among them.

And 'kindles', I think, is placed because of the passionate thoughts igniting the mind toward anger and hatred, and desire toward shameful works. These thoughts the holy Paul also named the fiery arrows of the evil one, piercing the soul and working death (Ephesians 6:16).

'Guard, son, the laws of your father and do not reject the statutes of your mother...' (Proverbs 6:20-22). Whenever you walk, lead her, and let her be with you. The mother is proposed to be led, who is the wisdom having begotten us according to God. Yet it was necessary for him to say the father; for he is more suitable for being in union with the son. But since it is not possible for him to know God before the contemplation of things having happened, for this reason he proposes the mother and not the father to be led, so that through the mother the son might see the father; for if she does not himself beget him, he does not see the light, which is the knowledge of him, the God.

That the commandment of the law is a lamp and light and way of life, a reproof and instruction. That the commandment of the law is a lamp and light. And perhaps the Old Testament is a lamp: 'for he was the lamp that was burning and shining' (Zechariah 4:6); but the New Testament is light: 'for I, he says, am the light of the world' (John 8:12).

For the honor of a prostitute is as much as one loaf. For such is the pleasure of wickedness as much as one loaf.

Will someone release fire in his bosom and not burn his clothes? Or will someone walk upon coals of fire and burn his feet? This one releases the fire in the bosom, the one forgiving the unchaste thought in the heart, corrupting the righteous thoughts through lingering. And this one walks upon the coals, the one destroying his own soul through the energy of sin.

Thus the one who entered toward an unchaste woman will not be acquitted, nor everyone touching her. An unchaste woman speaks of wickedness; for the devil is the man of her, who begets with her the lawless sons.

And the Savior says in the Gospels to the Jews: 'You are of your father the devil' (John 8:44).

It is no wonder if someone catches a thief; for he steals in order to fill a hungry soul. If he is caught, he will pay sevenfold and, by giving all his possessions, he will save himself. But if he is caught by true knowledge, he will lay aside all false knowledge, he who formerly stole through the need of knowledge from the foolishness made mad by our Savior's wisdom.

And the adulteress, through the need of wits, procures destruction for her soul. Everyone who has shared in the evil of the adulteress is a partaker of the devil, the first who rejoiced in evil and who from the beginning has been a murderer.

For the mind of a man full of zeal for it will show no mercy in the day of judgment. There he shows that we will have the devil as an accuser of the things done to us in the day of judgment. And this also the holy Paul says: 'so that the one against us, having nothing to say, may appear nothing trivial concerning us' (2 Cor 4:2).

'Son, honor the Lord and you will be strong; but fear no other besides him' (Prov 3:21). If through the transgression of the law someone dishonors God, by doing so he makes it manifest that he dishonors the law and God.

I have said that your wisdom is a sister; make practical understanding known to yourself. Our sister is wisdom, because he who made the incorporeal nature is Father and has made this. And there he speaks of wisdom not as the Son of God, but as the contemplation of bodies and incorporeal things, and of the judgment and providence in them, the vision of which is understanding, and knowledge, and instruction, and discernment.

In order that he may keep you from an alien and evil woman, if she should strike you with words of charm. The words that strike with charm are passions of thought.

For peeping from a window of her house into the streets, seeing the youth of any of the foolish children, lacking in wits, passing by a corner in the passages of her house, and speaking in the evening darkness, whenever the nocturnal silence is thick, the woman meets him having a prostitute-like appearance, which causes the hearts of the young to fall away. He now calls the flesh of the man a window; for through this the evil one works his snares for those who wish to do so.