Bonaventure, on Wis 2:6

“Come therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth.”

“Come therefore etc. Here he describes the unjust life, and first is touched upon the concord of the unjust and their mutual exhortation to the dissolution of their own life; second, the oppression of the just, at: Let us oppress etc. First, therefore, they exhort one another to devote themselves to dissolution: first, swiftly; second, abundantly, at: With costly wine etc.; third, openly, at: Let us crown; fourth, in common or universally, at: Let none of us; fifth, merrily, at: Let us leave everywhere. (Vers. 6.). Come therefore, as if they were saying: since the present life passes away, and we do not hope for a future one; come therefore etc. Come, they say, because as Seneca says, "the possession of no thing is pleasant without a companion"; and therefore they exhort one another. For this is the invitatory at the matins of the devil. For it should be noted that just as the Church of the just has different invitatories and Venite according to different feasts, so too does the synagogue of sinners. One is of vanity: Genesis 11: "Come, and let us make for ourselves a city and a tower." Another, of iniquity: Genesis 37: "Come, and let us kill him and cast him into an old cistern." The third, of avarice and cupidity: Proverbs 1: "Come with us" etc. The fourth, of pleasure, which is treated here, namely: Come, and let us enjoy the good things that are etc. To these corresponds that saying of Matthew 25: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the fire" etc. Let us enjoy, I say, with loving affection, desiring nothing beyond; "for to enjoy is to cling with love to something for its own sake"; the good things that are, that is, present goods, and let us use, taking delight in the effect: Augustine: "To use is to take something into the power of the will"; Augustine: "The whole evil of man is to enjoy things that should be used and to use things that should be enjoyed." Let us use, I say, the creature, namely with contempt for the Creator: for otherwise it would not be a sin to use the creature. As in youth, that is, as long as we are young: because the senses of the young perceive pleasure more than those of the old: whence 2 Kings 19: "I am eighty years old today; are my senses still vigorous?" etc.; therefore Ecclesiastes 11: "Rejoice, O young man, in your youth." Swiftly: The Gloss: "Lest we and those things pass away before we enjoy them," according to that saying of Isaiah 22: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die."”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.