Wisdom 8:7
And if a man love justice: her labours have great virtues; for she teacheth temperance, and prudence, and justice, and fortitude, which are such things as men can have nothing more profitable in life.
Open Wisdom 8:7 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et si justitiam quis diligit, labores hujus magnas habent virtutes : sobrietatem enim et prudentiam docet, et justitiam, et virtutem, quibus utilius nihil est in vita hominibus.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἰ δικαιοσύνην ἀγαπᾷ τις, οἱ πόνοι ταύτης εἰσὶν ἀρεταί· σωφροσύνην γὰρ καὶ φρόνησιν ἐκδιδάσκει, δικαιοσύνην καὶ ἀνδρείαν, ὧν χρησιμώτερον οὐδέν ἐστιν ἐν βίῳ ἀνθρώποις.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine On the Morals of the Catholic Church, Harmony of the Old and New Testaments
27. And as the apostle says that the Son of God is the virtue of God and the wisdom of God, virtue being understood to refer to action, and wisdom to teaching (as in the gospel these two things are expressed in the words, "All things were made by Him," which belongs to action and virtue; and then, referring to teaching and the knowledge of the truth, he says, "The life was the light of men"), could anything agree better with these passages than what is said in the Old Testament of wisdom, "She reaches from end to end in strength, and orders all things sweetly?" For reaching in strength expresses virtue, while ordering sweetly expresses skill and method. …
St Ambrose On the Duties of the Clergy, Chapter XIII. The beauty of wisdom is made plain by the divine testimony. From this he goes on to prove its connection with the other virtues
65. We have spoken of its beauty, and proved it by the witness of Scripture. It remains to show on the authority of Scripture that there can be no fellowship between it and vice, but that it has an inseparable union with the rest of the virtues. “It has a spirit sagacious, undefiled, sure, holy, loving what is good, quick, that never forbids a kindness, kind, steadfast, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things.” And again: “She teacheth temperance and justice and virtue.”