Bonaventure — on Wis 1:12 (Commentary on Wisdom, Chapter 1)

“Concerning the justice of works, the treatment is twofold. Do not be zealous for etc. Here he exhorts to the justice of works, and first by reasons taken from the side of creation; second, from the side of retribution, at: For justice etc. From the side of creation, first by a reason taken from the goodness of the Creator: For God; second by a reason taken from the side of the end of creation: He created; third by a reason taken from the side of the condition of the creature: There is not in them. Do not be zealous for etc., as if to say: because lying kills, do not be zealous for, that is, do not love or desire with affection, death, namely of the soul, which one incurs through fault, according to that saying of Augustine: "True death is that which men do not fear: namely the separation of the soul from God, who is the blessed life of souls, just as bodily death is the separation of the body from the soul." Death, I say, causally established in the error of your lives, according to that passage of Proverbs fourteen: "They err who work evil"; for every wicked person is in error, according to the Philosopher. Nor acquire, in effect, perdition, of eternal punishment, which is in our power, according to that passage of Hosea thirteen: "Your destruction, O Israel; only your help is from me." By the works of your hands, causally, that is, by the merit of your works. But it is objected that, according to Augustine, all desire life and beatitude: therefore no one desires death or perdition. It must be said that this is true per se: but per accidens and consequently those are said to desire it who desire the act that is the cause of death and perdition. Whence he posits the consequent for the antecedent, adding: I rightly said that error is the cause of death, and evil works the cause of perdition.”