What does Ecclesiasticus Chapter 41 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The chapter’s wording is retained in order with explicit attribution. Edition headings and annotations remain distinct from the chapter’s speech. Requests, comparisons and warnings are preserved without invented outcomes.

Chapter breakdown

Ecclesiasticus 41 contrasts bitter remembrance of death for someone prosperous and able to eat with welcome death for need, failed strength, decrepit age and exhausted patience. The universal sentence is attributed to the Lord; ten, hundred and thousand years appear in a question. Among the dead there is no accusing of life, without an added explanation of legal appeal rights.

Sinners' children and inheritance face reproach, and the children complain about an ungodly father. The text does not say they curse him. Earth returns to earth, ungodly names are blotted out, and a good name exceeds a thousand treasures and endures beyond life's days. Hidden wisdom and unseen treasure prompt a question about profit; hidden folly is preferable to hidden wisdom.

A separate edition note explains appropriate shame. The list covers fornication, lies, offenses, iniquity, injustice, theft, divine truth and covenant, elbow over food, deceitful exchange, silence to greetings, harlot-gazing, turning from kin and neighbor, taking a portion without restitution, another's wife, her handmaid and bed, and reproaching friends or recipients of gifts. Commentary is not expanded into a new absolute rule about virtue.

The story inside

Opening: The chapter’s wording is retained in order with explicit attribution. Development: Edition headings and annotations remain distinct from the chapter’s speech. Conclusion: Requests, comparisons and warnings are preserved without invented outcomes.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The chapter’s wording is retained in order with explicit attribution.
2
Edition headings and annotations remain distinct from the chapter’s speech.
3
Requests, comparisons and warnings are preserved without invented outcomes.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 77441–77442
41:1. O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that hath peace in his possessions!
Lines 77498–77501
Have a shame, etc.... That is to say, be ashamed of doing any of these things, which I am now going to mention; for though sometimes shamefacedness is not to be indulged: yet it is often good and necessary: as in the following cases.