Proverbs — Chapter 31
These annotations are from the original 1609 Douay Old Testament, the first complete English Catholic Bible translation, produced by English scholars in exile at the English College of Douai. The archaic spelling is preserved.
This content was digitized from the original 1609 Douay (Old Testament) and 1582 Rheims (New Testament) print editions by OCR. The OCR process sometimes confused print page numbers with verse numbers, and may have assigned annotations to the wrong chapter. Chapter and verse labels on this page reflect the OCR output from the original print pagination and may not correspond to canonical Scripture chapter/verse numbers. For canonical reference, consult a standard Douay-Rheims edition. The annotation texts themselves are authentic 1609/1582 Douay-Rheims content.
Verse 10
A valiant woman who shal finde?) Upon occasion of his mothers most prudent admonition, the wiseman singularly praiseth a perfect vertuous woman. And that in an exquisite kind of stile: in Tetrametricall Iambike verse, with perfect order and number of the Alphabet letters, signifying, as S. Ierom teacheth, that as none can reade, or speake words, vnles they first learne to know the letters: so we can not attaine to know the greater Mysteries in holie Scriptures, except we beginne with moral good life, according to that the Prophet sayth: By thy commandments I have understood. And therefore wise Salomon, by instinct of the Holie Ghost, as wel by the manner of stile, as by the doctrine conteined, concludeth his Booke of Parables, with praise both of the Church in general, which hath al the vertues, and good properties here mentioned, and of everie faithful soule, sincerely serving God, which either in deed, or in desire of mind, hath such part of them, as may suffice to the attaining of eternal life.