The office of the valiant woman: her clothing, her husband in the gates, the fine linen and the girdle, wisdom on her tongue; and the beginning of her praise (Prov. 31:22–30)

Hence, for the further declaration of this sectreligio privata; secta: private religion; sect of the churchecclesia: church, it is added eleventhly: "She hath made for herself clothing of tapestry: fine linen, and purple, is her covering."¹ "It was not fitting," says Augustine, "for the matron of so great a husband to go about naked or in rags, but adorned on every side with precious things." For since the membersmembrum: member whom Christ clothes, from the clergyclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric and 485the laity, are woven together variously, as a garment of varied quality, and this matron has woven this varied garment in herself, it is clear that "she hath made for herself clothing of tapestry"; and since of each [kind of] member some are white with virginity like fine linen, and others flourishing with martyrdom like purple, and Christ is clothed with both of these lights as with a garment, it is clear that she, putting on Christ, has fine linen and purple as garments, just as she also has [them] from the white soul of Christ and his reddened bodily nature.² From these it follows twelfthly that "her husband is honourable in the gates, when he sitteth among the senators of the land"; for it is necessary, on the side of the good as much as of the wicked, that this course have an end, and consequently it is necessary (as is said in Isaiah 3:14) that the husband come to judgment with the ancients of his people. Hence also in Matthew 25:31 it is said: "When the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all his angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty: and all nations shall be gathered together before him." And the place of judgment can be called "gates" because of its openness and the entry into the twofold city. Then the nobility of Christ will be manifest: first in his twofold form, as regards himself; secondly in his whole church without spot or wrinkle, as regards his householdfamilia: household; and thirdly in the expulsion of the damnable, dishonest servant, since his nobility does not suffer the perpetual joint dwellingcohabitacio: joint dwelling of such an evildoer, nor so great an injury unpunished.³ But let us recognize that the said father of the household has placed the increase from the body of his spouse in the free power of every man. Therefore it is inferred thirteenthly: "She made fine linen, and sold it, and delivered a girdle to the Chanaanite." By the fine linen I understand the evangelical doctrinedoctrina: doctrine, with which, as with a most pure and most fine linen garment, the mind is clothed.⁴ And she sold [it] by a spiritual sale, 486since in Luke 19:23 it is said: [the husband] of this spouse gave his money at usury; and so this sale is quite gratuitous, of which it is said in Isaiah 55:1: "Come ye, buy wine and milk without money, and without any price."⁵ And in spiritual usury the price is given freely and the giver seeks the fruit, and so upon the increase, so that he may possess [it] jointly, to the profit of the receiver and to his own honour; indeed (as Augustine relates), since the one who preaches the gospel has a temporal wage for his preaching of the gospel, it seems that there is an account of mutual giving and receiving. For in 1 Corinthians 9:11 the apostle says: "If we have sown unto you spiritual things, it is no great matter if we reap your carnal things."⁶ But it is not a civil contract, since the one who preaches the gospel principally seeks the salvation of the people and not his own things; therefore wages are owed to those who preach the gospel, not as an exchangecommutacio; commutare: exchange; to exchange for things civilly possessed. Those who receive this fine linen must therefore give themselves, since it is better that for spiritual grain we sell ourselves as perpetual servants to our Joseph than that we perish under the devil for spiritual hunger; for when you give yourself to the flesh, the world or the devil, you give as great a price for transitory pleasure and sin as you would give for blessedness and for God. Therefore, when the weariness that goes with these things is weighed, it is clear that in the damned there is a foolish trade.⁷ And she delivered the girdle when she preached the gospel precepts to the gentiles; for the Chanaanites were, in the letter, unbelieversinfidelis: unbeliever; with a dative, faithless (to) and aliens from Israel; and after the bridegroom said to his apostles, "Go, teach all nations," Luke, last [chapter], the apostle says in Ephesians 2:19: "Now you are no more strangers and foreigners: but you are fellow citizens with the saints and the domestics of God"; which the woman of Canaan, coming out 487of her coasts, prefigured, Matthew 15.⁸ For by the preaching of the faith to the gentiles, those who went out from the error of heathendom were girded to fulfil the Lord’s precepts.

And since this redounds to the profit of the church, therefore it is inferred fourteenthly: "Strength and beauty are her clothing, and she shall laugh in the latter day." For by the grafting in of the gentiles the church has put on the Lord Jesus Christ more abundantly.⁹ Strength, according to Augustine, signifies the constancy of bloody suffering, and beauty the flower of virginal chastity, according to what was said above: "Fine linen and purple is her covering." For these two virtues grew strong beyond Judea in the church of the converted gentiles, and hence, no wonder, this matron will have jubilee on the day of judgment.¹⁰ Nor let us wonder why scripture so often commands us to put on our Isaac; for it is known that the garments of the soul are the virtuesvirtus: power (faculty) / virtue (moral habit), and Christ is "the power of God and the wisdom of God", and the extrinsic exemplary form, the efficient [cause] and the end, without the informing of whose inflowing no creature is virtuous. And habits, which are qualities and intrinsic forms, are nothing but customsconsuetudo: custom and readinesses for acting. Hence Christ, having flowed into his member as into something accidental to him, is said both to clothe it and, weaving it with virtues, to adorn it with wisdom.¹¹ Hence it follows fifteenthly: "She hath opened her mouth to wisdom, and the law of clemency is on her tongue." For the Power that is the wisdom of the Father, having flowed into the church, made her bubble over with wisdom, according to acts as much as to habits of virtue, which are its traces; and on her tongue is set in order the law of praising, each in its order, the Lord and each work of his.¹² "May he grant us," says Augustine, "who are set in her, praising her, cleaving to her, awaiting his glory with her and in her as in a mother, that we too may open our mouth in fear, attentively and cautiously and solicitously." For in 1 Corinthians 2:3 the Apostle writes: "In fear and in much trembling 488I was with you." And it follows: "Our mouth is open to you, O ye Corinthians."¹³ "She has set order," he says, "on her tongue, praising the Creator and each creature" in its order; or, more beautifully, in this order, by which a man loves each thing not as something else but truly in the order of goodness in which God has set it. For then he truly loves it as itself; hence our mothermater nostra: our mother, in Canticles 2:4, testifies expressly of the bridegroomsponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom: "He set in order," she says, "charitycaritas: charity in me."¹⁴ But since for that is required the philosophical knowledge by which the orders of the goodnesses of things are known according to wisdom, therefore sixteenthly and lastly he adds thus: "She hath looked well on the paths of her house, and hath not eaten her bread idle." For one who watchfully considers the way by which holy mother church must ascend into God, contemplating him in order in his effects, will not be at leisure in culpable idleness, since he must studiously "watch at the doors" of uncreated wisdom. And in these sixteen stands the office of our mother.¹⁵

As to the third part of the song, in which the commendation of this matron is proclaimed, first it is added thus: "Her children rose up, and called her blessed: her husband, and he praised her." The infallible testimony of the praise of this lady is taken by ascending from expert witnesses, who rose from the miseries of this wayvia / patria: the way / the homeland, up to the testimony of her husband. For he is the uncreated truth, John 14; for many rose from purgatory and from limbo who communicated to us knowledge of the blessedness and glory of the church triumphant; and the Truth testifies, in the fact of his transfiguration and in the words of his preaching, to the praise of the bridesponsa / sponsus: bride / bridegroom, Matthew 25:34: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you"; and the word of praise follows: "For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat."¹⁶ 489"And now," says Augustine, "we live in poverty, and when we die we sleep in poverty; but we shall rise and be truly enriched."¹⁷ Hence, since a part of blessedness is the possession of true goods, therefore secondly it is added in commendation of this mother: "Many daughters have gathered together riches: thou hast surpassed them all." For all temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods pass away and deceive whoever love them preponderantly. Therefore in Matthew 6:19 it is said: "Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven"; and it follows: "For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also."¹⁸ And the daughters, according to Augustine, are called the foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown heretics, as those who are finally to be divided from the church. Among these daughters the church shines "as the lily among thorns": "Such thorns," he says, "have a flower without fruit"; for, being in the church for a time, they receive deceitfully the faith and the sacraments of the church, because consummated charity is lacking to them.¹⁹ Hence, since such men very often abound in worldly glory and the fame of the world on account of its riches, therefore thirdly it is added: "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: the woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." For the favour of human praise, of worldly glory or of carnal concupiscence turns men aside from God to the threefold enemy. Therefore it must be that this is deceitful favour, since it draws [men] away from the bridegroom, who is "full of grace and truth".²⁰ Vain, too, is any perceptiblesensibilis: perceptible beauty whatever, since there is no beauty except on account of the proportional number, imperceptibleinsensibilis: imperceptible; of a thing that cannot feel, without sensation and uncreated, in which beauty is first, of itself and properly (as is clear in the chapter Multe). Therefore such perceptible, and above all temporal, beauty is expressly called vanity.²¹ Hence the right and essential order of beginning the matter of true praise is the fear of the Lord; for from the fact 490that the bridegroom is feared chastely and filially, the aforesaid woman works for her bridegroom all the good narrated, in the said order; and it is certain that such good working cannot finally fail of praise.²²