Psalms 128:3

Next: "Your sons will be as olive shoots around your table." In regards to Wisdom, the wife, rightly are the children called "sons," not "daughters." By the male sex strength of mind is often indicated. Or it may be because whenever this sex is named, it embraces both male and female, as elsewhere he says, "Blessed is the man who fears the Lord." Not only is a man blessed who fears the Lord, but also a woman is blessed who fears the Lord.

But in the Psalms too, finding something similar, they slip into the same error: "your wife", it says, "like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house, your children like young olive shoots around your table", up to that place where it says: "may the Lord bless you out of Zion, and may you see the good things that are of Jerusalem". Therefore, when Jerusalem has been furnished and restored to its ancient state, then the holy one will see the good things which the Scripture mentions. Those who understand Jerusalem spiritually, and know that it is said of her: "which is heavenly, which is above, which is our mother", will see her good things, of which we have often spoken, and that which we have now cited from the psalm: "your wife like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house, your children like young olive shoots around your table".

Let us now come to the words, "Thy wife" [Psalm 128:3]: it is said unto Christ. His wife, therefore, is the Church: His Church, His wife, we ourselves are. "As a fruitful vineyard." But in whom is the vineyard fruitful? For we see many barren ones entering those walls; we see that many intemperate, usurious persons, slave dealers, enter these walls, and such as resort to fortune-tellers, go to enchanters and enchantresses when they have a headache. Is this the fruitfulness of the vine? Is this the fecundity of the wife? It is not. These are thorns, but the vineyard is not everywhere thorny. It hath a certain fruitfulness, and is a fruitful vine; but in whom? "Upon the sides of thy house." Not all are called the sides of the house. For I ask what are the sides. What shall I say? Are they walls, strong stones, as it were? If he were speaking of this bodily tenement, we should perhaps understand this by sides. We mean by the sides of the house, those who cling unto Christ...."Thy children." The wife and the children are the same. In these carnal marriages and wedlocks, the wife is one, the children other: in the Church, she who is the wife, is the children also. For the Apostles belonged to the Church, and were among the members of the Church. They were therefore in His wife, and were His wife according to their own portion which they held in His members. Why then is it said concerning them, "When the Bridegroom shall be taken from them, then shall the children of the Bridegroom fast"? She who is the wife, then, is the children also....