The song of the valiant woman; her finding, her price and her husband’s trust (Prov. 31:10–11)

The fruit of this long contention about our holy mothermater nostra: our mother the churchecclesia: church would be the knowledge of holy scripture that follows, and consequently the love of the bridegroomsponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom and the bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom, leading those who labour faithfully in this faith into the house of the Lord to rule [it], so that to it may be applied that [text] of the last [chapter] of the Apocalypse: "And the spirit and the bride say: Come."¹ And although every book of scripture requires for its sense the knowledge of this article of faitharticulus fidei: article of faith, the holy catholic church, yet especially [so] the book of the Apocalypse, the song of the church in Proverbs 31, and the Canticle of canticles.² For when the parts of the church are troubled about very many things, they are called young maidensadolescentula: young maiden having no breasts, of whom Solomon says there is no number, because of the fickle affection of the mind about many things; but when Martha, the active life left behind, puts on the figure of Mary, attending, though incompletely, to the one thing necessary by contemplating, brought 472into the bridechamber, she is called a concubine, according to the number eighty;³ but thirdly, coming nearer to the unity which is all in all, she is marked under the name of queen and under the number sixty, after the triumphal soldierymilicia; milites: knighthood; knights; but fourthly, when all exaction shall cease, the floor of the whole church being fully purged of the chaff by the fan of the final judgement, and no spot or wrinkle being left in the body of the whole church, then she is called one dove, the end of the unity of charitycaritas: charity being attained, according to which the whole church is Christ.⁴ This teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence is clear from Canticles 6, and here and there elsewhere in the course of the bookprocessus (of a book): the course, the argument. I intend, therefore, to run briefly through that middle part, namely the song of the valiant womanmulier fortis: valiant woman, and to leave the deep difficulties, expository as well as scholastic, to my superiors. Yet I see (though darkly) how every difficulty, logical, philosophical or metaphysical, is included in scripture concerning holy mother church; indeed (to speak more abundantly), if any subtlety has been found by us in any of these arts, the Holy Spirit intimates its teaching to us in the song of the most wise Solomon about holy mother church, Proverbs 31:10, "Who shall find a valiant woman?" It can be divided into three parts: in the first of these the marriage of the holy church is narrated, in the second its office is described, and in the third its praise is concluded.⁵

Now first it is supposed that there is one first marriage, which is to be the measure of all the others, to be made between the strongest of men and a woman proportioned to him; for according to the philosophers such a first is to be found in every genus.⁶ In the genus of marriage, then, the incarnation of the Word being supposed (who is God "strong and mighty in battle"), a spouse right strong must be found for him. Therefore first it is asked of her: "Who shall find a valiant woman?" 473Here, according to the holy doctors with one accord, we must understand by the valiant woman holy mother church; for although "there are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and young maidens without number" (as is said in Canticles 6:7), yet of all of them one dove is made up (as is said in the same place). Who, then, shall find a spouse worthy of so great a bridegroom? And it seems: no one of men but he himself; for in the constitution of the first carnal marriage the first spouse concurred materially in causing his spouse (as is clear from Genesis 3); much more, then, in that heavenly marriage must the spouse concur in a threefold cause in causing his spouse out of angelic and human nature.⁷ First, then, by the work of creation, according to the exemplary reasons in the Word; secondly, by the work of ministration, according to the seminal reasons in the human race; and thirdly, by the work of re-creation in Christ, made in a circle these two, this valiant woman was found. For according to that part she fell and strayed into the byway, like the sheep that perished among the brambles of sins; and (as is said in Matthew 18:12) the shepherd and bridegroom, leaving the ninety-nine sheep in the ever-green pastures in heaven, found the lost sheep and carried it back on his shoulders with due labour and hardshippenalitas: hardship.⁸ Nor let it trouble [anyone] that blessed Augustine says in his treatise on this song that this woman is a city seated on a mountain, which it is hard not to know. For we see now through faith, according to which, as a second light, she illuminates the world, making us, purblind and darkened by the darkness of ignorance, see her as in a glass and darkly; so that we are ignorant, as to distinct knowledge, of the parts of the church, as one who sees a city from far off sees indistinctlyconfuse / confusus (fides, noticia): indistinct(ly) and 474without distinction its houses and its other ornaments.⁹ Nor should we suffice to discern even so, unless the said woman had first been found by the bridegroom in the exemplary reasons and in the bowels of mercy. Hence, after the conclusion propounded, supposing that he found this woman who according to divinitydeitas / divinitas: the Godhead / divinity is immense, from whose eyes nothing can be hidden, and according to humanity ascended above all the heavens, it is added that that finder was "far" off, as to nature and as to time, with respect to the old fathers; as that woman too was far off in place from the Jews, partly in heaven in the angels and partly on earth in the gentiles to be converted in the time of grace, as she was far from God by guilt, since nothing can possibly be more distant from God than sin.¹⁰ The valiant woman to be joined in the first marriage having, then, been found, we must see secondly about her attributessubiectum / passio: subject / attribute, whether she is fit to marry so great a bridegroom; and the letter answers next that "from the uttermost coasts is the price of her". This, it seems, can be understood thus: the final cause why the church is strong, so as to be joined to Christ in matrimony, is the predestinations of its membersmembrum: member. For the cause of the particular heavenly marriage is the meritorious work of the wayfarerviator: wayfarer, and the cause of the meritorious work is infused grace, and the cause of infused grace is predestination, which, as the last end, as it were, short of God, makes the church worthy of that marriage; since (as is said in John 1:16) "of his fulness we all have received grace for grace."¹¹ For out of eternal charity he gave us subjective charity, according to which, with meritorious work, we are worthy, or (as Augustine’s text has it) "more precious than precious stones is she who is of this kind"; by which word he intimates that a woman of this kind 475has in mind love unto the end, which in Canticles 8:6 is called "strong as death".¹² From which it followssequitur: it follows that a woman having members so strong in love is a bride precious by reason of consummate strength, since she loves her bridegroom unto the end. But the other stones, namely charities for an hour that finally fall away (as it was in Donatus and other foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown men), are not of such price that their subjects should be joined to the bridegroom of the church;¹³ or, thirdly, it is understood, not contrary to what was said above, that the price is from the uttermost ends of the heavens and of the ages, whence is the dignity of this bride; or, fourthly, the price of this woman is from the divinity and the humanity in Christ, which are the uttermost ends of the intelligible circle, as is clear, as faith teachesex fide: as faith teaches; with a genitive, from the faith of [scripture], since as the Word creates, so it makes its bride worthy. And of him it is said in Psalm 18:7: "His going out is from the end of heaven"; and in the last age of the world the grace of union was consummated, by virtue of which the whole dignity of this marriage takes its origin; in 1 Corinthians 10:11 it is written: "We are [those] upon whom the ends of the world are come."¹⁴ The spouse, then, having been found, and her dignity found from her price or value, since the bridegroom is the whole, of himself making his work worthy, nothing remains that should delay that marriage. Therefore, thirdly, the heavenly affiance is intimated, when it is added: "The heart of her husband trusteth in her." "Plainly," says Augustine, "he trusts, and he has taught us to trust in him. Foreknowing his own predestination, he trusts who cannot be deceived." And the woman with her sons can trust in him, because he cannot lie, nor fail his bride or his members; but the whole fear of this affiance stands in our sloth, lest through us the price or dowry of this marriage should not be consummated.¹⁵