The office of the valiant woman: good to her husband, wool and flax, the merchant’s ship, rising in the night (Prov. 31:11–15)

Fourthly it is inferred that the wife of so great a lord, whose are all things, she being one person with him (as is taught in Matthew 19:5), will be "as a fruitful vine, on the sides of [her] house"; therefore it is added that "he shall have no need of spoils".¹ "Not," says Augustine, "because she does not seek spoils, since she receives as her own his trophies spread through the world"; for in Wisdom 10:19 it is written: "The just took the spoils of the wicked." And hence, no wonder, the bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom says in Psalm 118:162: "I will rejoice at thy words, as one that hath found great spoil." And so this fourfold proposition declares in part the aforesaid marriage.²

As to the second part of the song, in which the office of this woman is declared, first it is premised in general that the bride, so pleasing, so faithful and so fruitfully dowered³

by her husband, "will render him good, and not evil all the days of her life." "She works," says Augustine, "eternal goods for her husband continually"; for (as it seems to me) all the predestinatepredestinatus, -i: the predestinate (sg. "a predestinate [person]") always profit the churchecclesia: church, without demerit of their damnation or detriment to the church.⁴ For in this the sin of a predestinate [person] differs from the sin of a foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown [person], that the first is necessarily remissible and the second damnable. The first by accident profits the church and the sinner (as is clear from the sin of Peter); and the second, although by accident it makes for the good of the church, yet continually harms the sinner himself; since, as whatever a predestinate [person] has done here tends to his salvationsalvacio: salvation, so whatever a foreknown [person] has done here tends to his damnation.⁵ And as for what some say, that the sin of a predestinate [person] is damnable: there is equivocation in the name "damnable", taken broadly or properly. Broadly, that blameworthy [thing] is called damnable which would be damned perpetually were it not 477preserved by the grace of Christ; and so every sinner would be damnable. But properly only that is called damnable for which there is an ordinanceordinacio; ordinancia: ordinance; of the sacrament, ordination of God that it be damned; and so this woman, or any membermembrum: member of hers, never did evil damnable to her bridegroomsponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom.⁶ And (as Augustine notes) whatever good this woman has done, she did not principally for herself but for the bridegroom, as for her husband and headcaput: head, in the way in which the Apostle speaks in 2 Corinthians 5:15: "He who lives, let him not now live to himself, but unto him who died for all and rose again"; so that the church and each member of it, whatever it has worked, does it so as to please him to whom it has engaged itself. For all others seek the things that are their own, not the things that are the Lord Jesus Christ’s.⁷ And this is the reason (as I said above) why Christ did not use civil property, in himself or in his apostles. Nor let it trouble [anyone] that no one is to render good to this husband, on the ground that every man is an unprofitable servant to him when he has done all that this ruler commanded, as is said in Luke 17:10; and in Psalm 15:2 it is said: "I have said to the Lord, thou art my God, for thou hast no need of my goods." It is true that Christ in his own person has no need now, either humanly or divinely; but we have need to do all our works first for him, that is, to his honour and to the profit of his body, in which he has need.⁸

The general care of this mother of the household having been treated, [the song] secondly specifies her work, when it is added: "She hath sought wool and flax, and hath wrought by the counsel of her hands." According to Augustine, the wool is the habit gathered from the field of scripture for ruling a praiseworthy bodily life, and the flax is the habit for leading a spiritual manner of lifeconversacio: manner of life. For so, in the order of our bodily garments, the inner ones are linen, but the outer garments are woollen. Correspondingly in the garments of the soul, which according to the faith of scripture are the virtuesvirtus: power (faculty) / virtue (moral habit): 478"whatever we work in the flesh is on the right hand, perceptiblesensibilis: perceptible; whatever in the spirit, in secret."⁹ This woman, then, with her householdfamilia: household, must be clothed with this twofold garment. "And to work in the flesh and not in the spirit, though it seems good, yet is not profitable. But to work in the spirit and not in the flesh is [the part] of the slothful; for one who gives almselemosina: alms for the praise of men seems to be clothed with a bare garment, as [is] one who says that it suffices him to worship God in his conscience, and not that he ought to go to church or to take part in the other perceptible christian acts." "Such a one," says Augustine, "wants to have a bare linen garment."¹⁰ Not so does this woman teach; but she sets [us] to work at once according to practice and theory; for we ought to gather these habits to this end, that we may work by the counsel of [our] hands. For virtue, according to the philosophers, is for the sake of works, and hence happiness consists in act or work, and is better than virtue. Now every moral virtue must be ruled [by] prudence; and therefore it is said expressly that this mother "hath wrought by the counsel of her hands",¹¹

Hence, to denote the variety of the operations of this matron, he adds thirdly: "She is like the merchant’s ship, she bringeth her bread from afar." It is known from those who treat of the ark of Noe and the little ship of Peter how the church is likened to a ship, in which riches and diverse merchandise are gathered, and it has within itself traders, sellers as well as merchants; and since it is spread through the whole of our habitable [world], at least potentially, indeed through purgatory and the heavens, it is clear that it carries from afar the bread by which it is fed.¹² And the ship not only in figure tends to the likeness of the matron, but its smoothed timbers, put together in imitation of the wood of the cross, bear up the voyager in the world, lest he be sunk by the storms of the waves 479and the other perils of the sea. The merchandise and riches of this ship are all kinds of virtues, and the merits by which the goods of the homelandvia / patria: the way / the homeland are purchased; so the wayfaringviator: wayfarer soul is fed by a far-off outflow from the church triumphant, but the soul to be purged receives bread from the church militantecclesia militans / triumphans / dormiens: the church militant / triumphant / sleeping.¹³ "The riches," says Augustine, "in which the church is fed and trades are the overflowing praises of the bridegroom, of which it is said in Psalm 112: 'From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, the name of the Lord is worthy of praise.'" For a member of the church is not fed, nor busied, except in the praise of the Lord.¹⁴ But since neither the said ship nor its inhabitants ought to be idle from works, therefore fourthly the provident prudence of this matron in working is added: "She hath risen," he says, "in the night, and given a prey to her household, and victuals to her maidens." The night, according to Augustine, is the time in which the devil’s torturers persecute the worshippers of ChristChristicole: worshippers of Christ, in which, wrapped in the darkness of sins, they seem to harm the faithful; but as these rise to a more prosperous life, they really harm themselves.¹⁵ Hence, since in such tribulations the church has shone and profited, like grain separated from the chaff by threshing, the wise man therefore says expressly that "she hath risen in the night". "We are straitened," says the apostle, "and have not failed" (2 Corinthians 4:8); and Isaiah 26:9: "My soul hath desired thee in the night"; and Job 36:20: "Prolong not the night that people may come up."¹⁶ And she gave a prey to her household when to evangelical men, those of the household of the faith, she gave, by force of the communion of saints, the people converted to Christ, whom the devil had before taken captive; and she gave victuals to her maidens when to lower christians, hungering and thirsting after justice, she gave the food of the Lord’s law and the drink of delight in the fulfilment of justice.¹⁷ And so the doctrinedoctrina: doctrine of the matron Anna, Tobias 10, is verified of our mothermater nostra: our mother, 480where [the daughter] was taught by her parents "to honour her father and mother in law, to love her husband, to take care of the family, to govern the house, and to behave herself irreprehensibly."¹⁸ Nor let it trouble [anyone] that the sons of the church are handmaids, since the husband of the whole church is its lord; which is figured in Sara, Genesis 18:12, calling Abraham "her lord" (as blessed Peter notes, 1 Peter 3:6). "Let her not fear," says Augustine, "her condition", but let her hope for mercy; for truly, if to serve God is to reign, the handmaid of the Lord is a queen. And hence the Psalmist truly and meritoriously professes in Psalm 115:16: "I," he says, "am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid." For the members of the church must especially beware of idleness and serve continually, since otherwise spiritual victuals are not given them. Hence the Apostle says in 2 Thessalonians 3:10: "He who does not labour, let him not eat."¹⁹