(Proverbs 10:27) 1ST CATEGORY OT QUESTION 33. SOLOMON SAYS THAT THE YEARS OF THE WICKED WILL BE SHORTENED; HOW DO WE SEE IMPIOUS PEOPLE IN GREAT NUMBERS PROLONGING THEIR LIVES ON EARTH? — Justice demanded that all the impious who forget their Creator, to attribute to their creature a sovereign authority, to see their abbreviated days, I would say more, were immediately deprived of life. But Scripture wants to speak here of the ungodly, who, while living under the law of God, were inclined to worship idols. These ungodly are of a worse kind than the others, for while they know God, they despise His authority to obey His servants. Now, the Apostle teaches us that it is good of them when he says: "We know that all that the law says is to those who are under the law. "(Rom. 9:19) As for the Gentiles, they are not numbered among the living.
(Proverbs 18:17) 1ST CATEGORY OT QUESTION 30. IT IS WRITTEN IN PROVERBS: "THE RIGHTEOUS ACCUSES HIMSELF FIRST FROM THE BEGINNING OF HIS SPEECH. HOW CAN HE BE RIGHT IF HE IS A SINNER? — All truth is at the same time justice. By confessing what he is, the man is right because he is telling the truth. Sinners, on the contrary, who do honor to their faults, cannot be justified. This man who accuses himself therefore deserves the name of righteous, because in confessing his sin, he asks for its forgiveness and implores the mercy of God, because he knows that it is written in the law: "Confess your sins for to be justified." (Isa. 43:26) But to make this admission at the beginning of one's speech is to do it without being forced to do so. For whoever lives even in the fear of God can be without sin, since he mixes with our thoughts, and we sometimes sin as in spite of ourselves? One can, however, hear these words of the catechumen who embraces faith to be justified. Since he asks to be changed, he certainly confesses his sins to be justified.
(Proverbs 22:2) 1ST CATEGORY OT QUESTION 32. WE READ IN THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON: "THE RICH AND THE POOR HAVE COME TOGETHER, THE LORD IS THE CREATOR OF BOTH.” HOW THEN CAN ONE SAY THAT THERE IS NOT IN GOD THE ACCEPTATION OF PERSONS? — Far from the spirit of the faithful, such an impious assertion. Scripture, so as not to appear to teach to despise the poor and to honor the rich, reminds us that God is the creator of both, not as rich or poor, but as that they are men. For if their fortune is different, their nature is the same; and if the opportunities which arise in life have the result of giving to some the prosperity which follows the riches, or the hardships which accompany poverty, it is not a reason to despise those whom God has not humiliated, or to honor those to whom the truth has not borne witness. Those who are unquestionably worthy of contempt are the public corrupters of morals and the sacrilegious violators of the law of God, just as we must honor those who love God and keep his law faithfully. The truly rich men in the eyes of God are those whose lives are pure, and the more they look despicable in the world, the more they are worthy of honor in heaven. Those whom the favors of the present life have made possessors of immense wealth, if they know each other well and understand the will of God who gave the earth to all men, which raises his sun for all and spreads indiscriminately on all the dew of heaven (Matt 5:45), seeing that the injustice of the times, or an unforeseen misfortune, or the indigence deny some what God has given to all, will tell them of what they possess, and thus fulfilling the will of God, they will be rich not only on earth, but in heaven, and these transient riches will not exclude them from the possession of eternal riches. As for those whom poverty seems worthy of contempt, if they meditate on the future judgment of God, they will see that they will be eternally rich, where the rich of the age will be reduced to extreme indigence, and will repent of having not been poor on earth. |