{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-4105","native_reference":{"book_number":250,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":14,"verse_to":14},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: And first of all, let us understand that the structure of the human body is like that of the world. Just as the sky towers over the air, the earth, and the sea, which are like certain members of the world, so too we see that the head stands out above the other parts of our body and is the most excellent of all, like the sky among the elements, like a citadel among the other fortifications of a city. In this citadel, a certain royal wisdom resides according to the prophetic saying: The eyes of the wise are in their head; this is the safest for the rest and from it strength and providence are derived for all the members.<br/><i>— The Six Days of Creation</i></p><p><b>Didymus the Blind</b>: If we think about \"eyes\" in the visible sense, then (one can say) that both the foolish and the wise have eyes in their head. The wise [person], insofar as he is wise, turns upwards to Christ, his head. Thus it is written: \"Christ is the head of every man.\" The head of the wise is the mind; therefore it is written: \"But we have the mind of Christ.\"<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON Ecclesiastes 48:23</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: [Daniel 2:28] \"But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.\" Therefore it is only in vain that thou inquirest (other MSS have: \"that he inquire\") of men as to something which is known only to God in heaven. Also, by indirectly drawing Nebuchadnezzar away from the worship of many gods, Daniel directs him to the knowledge of the one (true) God.</p><p>\"Who hath shown thee, King Nebuchadnezzar, what is going to take place (the Vulg. reads: \"the things which are going to take place\") in the last times.\" Avoiding the blemish of adulation but cleaving to the truth, he courteously suggests that it is to the king, for it was to him that God had revealed secrets concerning what was to occur in the last times. Now either these \"last days\" are to be reckoned from the time when the dream was revealed to Daniel until the end of the world, or else at least this inference is to be drawn, that the over-all interpretation of the dream applies to that final end when the image and statue beheld is to be ground to powder.</p><p>\"Thy dream and the visions of thy head upon thy bed were as follows.\" He does not say, \"The visions of thine eyes,\" lest we should think it was something physical, but rather: \"of thy head.\" \"For the eyes of a wise man are in his head\" (Ecclesiastes 2:14), that is to say in the princely organ of the heart, just as we read in the Gospel: \"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they are ones who shall see God\" (Matthew 5:8). Again: \"What are ye meditating in your hearts?\" (Matthew 9:4). To be sure, other authorities in treating of this chapter, conjecture that the authoritative part of the soul (to hegemonikon) lies not in the heart but, as Plato says, in the brain.<br/><i>— St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER TWO</i></p><p><b>Jerome</b>: \"The<br/>wise man has his eyes in his head, whereas a fool walks in darkness. But I also realised that the same fate awaits<br/>them all. \"Whoever attains complete wisdom and has<br/>deserved Christ to be his aim always raises his eyes to the heavens and will<br/>therefore never think about terrestrial matters. When these things are considered in this way<br/>and there is such a distinction between a wise man and a fool, one being<br/>compared with day and the other with darkness, the former raises his eyes to<br/>heaven, the latter looks on the ground. <br/>Suddenly this thought occurred to me, why both the wise man and the fool<br/>are constrained by a common mortality - why the same wounds, the same fate, the<br/>same death and equal troubles confine each one.<br/><i>— Commentary on Ecclesiastes</i></p><p><b>Origen of Alexandria</b>: In Ecclesiastes there is a curious saying. To the undiscerning it will seem meaningless, but it is precisely for the wise man that Ecclesiastes says: \"The wise man's eyes are in his head.\" In what head? Every man, even a madman and a fool, has fleshly eyes on his fleshly head. But the eyes of the wise man, of which it is said that they are enlightened by the commandments of God, are in his head, in Christ, because \"the head of the man is Christ,\" says the Apostle. The capacity to think proceeds from Christ.<br/><i>— DIALOGUE WITH HERACLIDES</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"79110426935cc7258712210c60f6589464a115905e5f9743e491b85835df57bd","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":4105,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"4206ff40b5730547f18ea6d43c53511ff566a8056477947053f184f8fc452c46","translator":null,"work":null}