On the Prayer of Job and David

Section 1

How wretched is the condition of man, who labors, as it were, hired out for others, while he himself is in need, and cannot sustain himself except by another's mercy! Daily, under dread, under fear, enduring a heavy servitude, and lest he be caught by the Lord, wandering and fugitive, he thinks he can hide himself under some shadow of this world. Consider him of whom it is said in Ecclesiasticus of Sirach: Every man who transgresses upon his bed, despising and saying in his soul, Who sees me? Darkness surrounds me, and the walls which I fear. And). Does he not seem to you truly to be a hireling who has squandered his substance, like that young man in the Gospel, who is said to have received from his father a portion of his substance, and, being needy and destitute, began to feed the flocks of others in order to relieve his hunger, that he might exercise his own labor for hire?

Yet he was at length converted; for he returned to his father, and did not suppress his sins, but confessed them. But this other man, who thinks himself unseen by him who sees all things, and believes that his deeds can be hidden in darkness, spreads out a shadow before him; but in vain does he believe himself hidden, since the eye of the Lord, brighter than the sun, detects all hidden things, illumines things dark, penetrates the consciousness of the inmost heart, and descends into things deep and profound. Vain, therefore, is he who thinks himself safe in darkness, since he cannot avoid the light, which shines in darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it. Like a fugitive, then, and wicked hireling, he is caught, and before he hides himself, he is recognized; for to the Lord all things are known before he seeks them, not only what has been done, but also what is to come.

Section 2

He perishes, then, in empty hope who thinks that he hides his own crime: this is a story, not truth. Indeed, the story of sinners is idle, bearing no fruit, but only a groan. For the narration of a fool is a burden on the road. For what else is sin but a burden that weighs down the traveler of this world, pressed down by the grievous bundle of guilt; who, if he did not wish to lie beneath the load, ought to have heeded him who says: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.

Section 3

What, moreover, is more wretched, when the very bed given for common rest inflicts a grievous wound? For then we are wont to recall what we have done, and the interior conscience is pierced by the goads of its own deeds. Whence Scripture says to such: What you say in your hearts, you are pierced with remorse upon your beds. It gave indeed a remedy, but wounded the conscience nonetheless. But suppose that at length sleep steals upon the weary; we are terrified by dreams, agitated by visions; so that it is no longer rest, but punishment. For so pass away the riches of this world, like the dream of one rising up. Someone has risen from the sleep of this body, and possessed nothing, and even that which he believed he had, he lost.

Section 4

Set before me now that rich man who was heaping up daily gains and various profits, and was driven by his own desires, suddenly coming to his senses, and considering within himself, that when he dies he will not take all with him, nor will the glory of his house descend together with him; and that the things he possesses have some pleasure in this life, but not also in the life to come; opening his eyes to heavenly things. Does he not seem to you like one who in dreams was drinking, to have drunk; and like one who in dreams was feasting, to have feasted; but on opening his eyes, to have recognized that his soul hoped for what was empty, and still hungers and thirsts; because avarice has no limit, nor is it filled by seizing, but is spurred on the more needy the more it has sought? And so this man too has risen, and the dream is vain.

Section 1

But let us hear him again, saying: In truth I know that it is so; for how shall a mortal man be just. Those friends who had come to console him pressed upon him, and, like enemies, urged him with bitter words. For one kind of comfort for those set in trouble and bitterness is to be free of guilt; so that they may not seem to endure the adversities they suffer as the price of some offense.

This too they were eager to take away from the holy man; that he himself might seem to be the author of his own trouble, as one who had incurred the Lord's offense through grievous sins, and was enduring these things for his own impieties: describing the punishments of the impious; that those who sowed vices should reap sorrows for themselves, because they perish by the command of God, and perish by the very breath of life, which he breathes into the houses of clay that dwell in them, and wither away, that the thoughts of the crafty be brought to nothing, and the mouth of the unjust be stopped. These things, true indeed concerning the power of the Lord, they asserted, but not fitting to the merits of so great a man.

Section 2

To these, then, he answered: In truth I know that it is so; for how shall a mortal man be just before the Lord? For if he wished to contend with him in judgment, he would not answer him one word in a thousand. For he is wise in understanding, and mighty, and great: who is so hard that he could stand firm in his sight? Who makes the mountains grow old, and they know it not, and overturns them in his wrath. Who moves the earth out of its place, and its pillars are shaken. Who commands the sun, and it rises not, and seals up the stars. Who alone stretches out the heavens, and walks upon the sea as upon a pavement. Who makes the Pleiades, and Hesperus, and the north, and the chambers of the south wind; who does great things and unsearchable, glorious things and beyond number. If he should pass by me, I would not see him; and if he should pass beyond me, I would not know it even so.

With how much more vehement a trumpet has this man proclaimed the power of the Lord! But in it is the help of the just, not their ruin. Indeed, power seems to be expressed here, but rather the mysteries of our redemption are being declared.

Section 1

For who are the mountains that he makes grow old, but Moses, Aaron, and Elijah, Joshua son of Nun, Gideon, the prophets, all the books of the Old Testament? The Lord Jesus came: he brought a new Testament, and that which was old was made new. The Christian was made new, the Jew grew old. Grace was renewed, the letter grew old. He overturns the mountains, and turns them about. For he overturns and undermines the understanding according to the letter, and establishes spiritual understanding. So that carnal understanding of the Law vanished, and became spiritual. Whence the Apostle says: We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am carnal. But even he who was carnal became spiritual, as he himself declared, saying: For I think that I too have the Spirit of God. These mountains, then, Jesus made old, and the Jews knew it not. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty; they would never still follow Jewish delusions. They, then, are the ones who do not know.

Whence also in the Gospel the Lord Jesus says: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Section 2

But they are not excused because they do not know, since they are unwilling to know what they ought to have known. Certainly we do not begrudge them if they follow the Lord's sentence. For a sentence is wont to absolve what has gone before, not what is to come. But neither is he free from guilt who crucified the author of his own salvation, and afterward did not seek pardon. Suppose that before he did not know whom he was persecuting; yet when he was placed on the cross he ought to have recognized that he was the Lord of all the elements, under whom all the elements trembled, the sky was darkened, the sun fled, the earth was rent, the tombs of the dead lay open, the dead received the company of the living. Whence also the Centurion said: Truly this was the Son of God. The Centurion recognizes one not his own, the levite does not recognize his own: the Gentile venerates, the Hebrew denies.

Not without reason, then, were the pillars of the earth shaken, when the chief priests did not believe. But the old pillars were shaken, that new ones might be confirmed, as he himself deigned to say: I have confirmed its pillars. Hear what pillars he confirmed. Peter and James and John, who seemed to be pillars, gave the right hand of fellowship to me and Barnabas.

Section 3

How then do they excuse themselves for not knowing, when some saw and others learned that the sun had withdrawn before the day's course was completed; and again that it went forth before the space of night was finished, making night in day, and day in night? Surely they ought to have understood that the sun withdrew at his command, and went forth at his command. For the Lord had foretold that he was to be three days in the heart of the earth, and three nights: the sun had learned this, and kept the precept. It hesitated, then, saying: What shall I do? I rise, and it is day: I set, and it is night. If I keep my course, I shall delay the salvation of the world. Let us hasten also to our redemption: I too ought to hasten to a new life; for by the benefit of the cross by which all things are renewed, there will be both a new sun and a new heaven.

I hasten, therefore, that I may be able to see that sun of justice, illuminating the souls of all. But what shall I do? He himself wills that the resurrection take place after three days. I have found what to do, so that I make no delay and yet keep the number of days. I will not make a whole day and a whole night. I will shorten the hours, so that indeed for three days and nights the Lord Jesus may be among the dead: yet he may rise from the dead sooner than the intervals of three days and nights allow. I will shorten, then, the hours from the moment he ascends the cross. From the sixth hour let night immediately fall; lest I see the Lord's passion, but flee the spectacle of that parricidal persecution.

I will set, and there will be a night of three hours: I will come forth, and I will renew the day, so that it too be of three hours: the first day is run through: a second night will follow in its own space, a day will likewise follow: a third night will begin, the Lord will rise in the night, and there will be day in the light of him rising; that this may be fulfilled: And night shall be lit up as the day. This is that great day which Abraham saw, and rejoiced: of which David also says: This is the day which the Lord has made, let us exult and rejoice in it: in which I shall take part not by the service of toil, but by the fruit of exultation.

Section 4

The Lord himself, then, guides the day, and before the consummation of the world that light will be seen which enlightens every man coming into this world. He is the Lord who marks and numbers the multitude of the stars: he is the Lord who alone stretched out the heaven, who walked as upon a pavement over the sea; when Peter saw him walking, and said: Lord, bid me come to you upon the waters. And the Lord bade him: but he wavered; and unless the Lord had stretched out his right hand to him, he would have sunk beneath the waves and perished. The flesh wavered, the right hand saved. And he said to him: O you of little faith, why did you doubt? Faith, then, walked in the Apostle, not flesh. Indeed faith wavered, and the flesh had begun to feel shipwreck. Which is not improperly said; for the flesh is the ship of the soul, as it is written: They who go down to the sea in ships.

And elsewhere: There pains as of a woman in travail, in a vehement wind you shall break the ships of Tharsis. For our souls, when they bring forth the Word in travail, bring forth pains: but she who has given birth no longer remembers the sadness for joy; because a man is born to her who has redeemed the world.

The ships of Tharsis; that is, the intelligible ships which bore gold and silver to Solomon, that is, our bodies, which have a treasure in earthen vessels, as the Apostle says: or because even this birth is broken by doubt, according to what is said: Woe to those who are with child and who give suck! For when the soul is shaken, the flesh wavers: or they shall be stirred by a vehement spirit poured in, when, the time being fulfilled, there must be a rising, according to what is written: Come, spirit, and breathe into these dead, and they shall live. Whence Job himself also says further on: For I know that he is eternal and powerful, who is to loose me on earth, to raise up again my skin which has borne these things. Now they are broken who are raised up for judgment. But there is a good breaking: for God does not despise a broken and humbled heart. And elsewhere: He heals its breakings.

But to Josaphat also it was said: The ships to go to Tharsis are broken (2 Chron. XX, 37); because he had joined himself to a sacrilegious man. Both, then, does the breaking signify; because both belong to the day of judgment: When all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they who have done good shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they who have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment. Which the prophet David also signifies, saying: There pains as of a woman in travail: as we have heard, so also have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God. For he comprehends both the future sorrow and the joy: sorrow of the judgment, and joy of the acquittal.

Section 1

But let us return to the sequence of the interpellation set before us. He says, He has made many breakings for me, he does not let me breathe, he has filled me with bitterness; and because he is mighty in power, no one can resist his judgment. If I am righteous in heart, my tongue errs. Wrath destroys the great and the mighty. The wicked are in grievous death: but the just are mocked. For they are given into the hands of the impious. See each particular. To the powerful, their own wrath is grievous; to the wicked, their own iniquity; to the just, the weakness of their condition. Thus nothing is free from peril. The strength and greatness of a man is betrayed by his own power, wickedness is afflicted, virtue is mocked. The one, because he can do more, falls; the other, because he can do nothing, is afflicted. It is a fault of the condition, because our life is lighter than a runner. It has passed, and has seen nothing.

Like the track of a ship, or of an eagle flying and seeking prey; so passes the life of man. What we speak, we forget, nor is any mark of our passing found, except that it is full of grief and groaning. I am shaken, he says, in all my members. Would that there were a mediator between us, one to argue and to judge between the two of us.

Section 2

I will say to the Lord: Why do you thus judge me? Is it good for you that I should be unjust; that you have rejected the works of your hands, and have looked favorably upon the counsel of the impious? Do you see as a mortal sees, or is your life as that of a man, or your years as those of a man; that you have sought out my iniquities, and searched out my sins? For you know that I have not acted impiously: but who is he that shall be delivered out of your hands? Great is the faith, great the authority of conscience, to call God to witness of one's own mind. What belongs to condition, he does not deny: what belongs to impiety, he rejects: what belongs to weakness, he confesses. To have sinned belongs to the condition, since no one has fallen who is exempt: to act impiously does not belong to the condition, but is the poison of perfidy and of a most wicked mind.

This the just man does not acknowledge: but the absolution of man rests in God's mercy, not in man's power.

Section 3

Your hands, he says, have fashioned me: afterward you turned and struck me. Remember that you made me out of clay, and you will dissolve me into earth. Have you not milked me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? You have clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews: you have set life and mercy in me; and your visitation has protected my spirit. How great is the lament of the holy man for our common weakness, how great the authority of the argument, that God made man with his own hands? The fault is excused by the plea of weakness, and by the condescension of celestial protection. On which point David also spoke most beautifully, saying: What is man, that you are mindful of him; or the son of man, that you visit him?

Section 4

These things, he says, you have in yourself: I know that you can do all things, and nothing is impossible for you. For if I shall have sinned, you will watch me, but from iniquity you have not made me spotless. If I shall be impious, woe to me! If I be just, I cannot lift myself up. For I am full of confusion, I am hunted like a lion unto death. See the three: If I shall have sinned, he says, you will watch me. And therefore, O man, confess your sin, that you may obtain pardon: Declare, he says, your iniquities, that you may be justified. Why do you blush to confess those things in which you were born? It is the crime of one who denies, not of one who confesses, to deny that you were born so. What you have received, would that you might keep. Why do you think you have what you have not received?

Let the sinner, then, confess, let the impious groan, let the just not lift himself up and exalt himself; lest through arrogance he lose the fruit of justice.

Section 5

And he says beautifully: If I am just, I cannot lift myself up; for I am full of confusion. For the just man notices his own frailty more than the unjust; and the wise man acknowledges it, the foolish does not acknowledge it. Finally, the wise man is stung by his own falls, the foolish delights in them: the just man is his own accuser, the unjust his own defender; the just man wishes to forestall his accuser by confession of sin, the unjust desires to hide his own sin: the former, at the beginning of his speech, hastens to disclose his error, the latter wraps the sound of his accusation in a multitude of words, lest he disclose his error.

Section 1

Adding again, he says: Why have you written down against me evils, and imputed to me the sins of my youth? Beautifully has he seized upon that age for his complaint, which is more accustomed to be slippery toward vice. For childhood has innocence, old age prudence, youth itself, neighbor to adolescence, has regard for good repute and shame in wrongdoing: adolescence alone is weak in strength, unstable in counsel, hot with vice, impatient of counsellors, alluring in pleasures. In so great, then, and so rugged and stormy a whirl of this world, why are such frequent shipwrecks ascribed to an unforeseeing age? Whence David most excellently asked pardon of the Lord for the whole of that time, saying: Remember not, O Lord, the sin of my youth and my ignorance, because then most of all the heat of the body burns, and it is set aflame by the fervor of boiling blood.

Section 2

But let us hear him again: Mortal, he says, born of woman, is of short life, and full of wrath, who has flourished like a flower, and has fallen, and departs like a shadow, and does not remain. Is not the reason for this also sought? And you have made this one enter into judgment in your sight. But who is clean from filth? No one, even if his life upon earth be but of one day. Truly a pitiable condition, that he is compelled to render an account of his sin which he could not avoid: he is forced to enter into judgment, to come into the sight of the Lord almighty, to give an account of the deeds he has done through so many ages of his life, since no one can be clean of sin, seeing that even from the cradle the fault of infancy creeps in before there is any sense of error. And how pitiable is this too, that his life is short, its sweet allurement, its manifold trouble, its daily wrath.

And so in a scant delight there is perpetual bitterness.

Section 3

There is, he says, hope for a tree. For if it has been cut down, it grows green again; and if its branch has died on the rock, at the scent of water it will flourish; and it will yield a harvest as if newly planted. But a man once dead is gone, and mortal man, when he falls, is no more. But in its season the sea is stirred by waves. We have observed the sequence of the prophetic speech drawn from the two lower elements, earth and sea, which are subject to every injury and to frequent storms: how strong an argument has it expressed of our trouble? Earthly, he says, shoots and the woodlands of trees, even when they have died, rise again for the uses of life. The sea also is wont to be stirred by the alternations of the seasons. But indeed our flesh is always in ferment, and is itself a storm to itself, nor is it ever given rest from the movements of tempests and pitiable shipwrecks.

Section 4

But when a man has slept, he does not rise again until the heaven be sewn together. This seems to declare, until heaven is renewed; for there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, as it is written. For that which is sewn together is old: that which is old, shall be changed. Then hear David saying: In the beginning, Lord, thou didst found the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish: but thou remainest; and all shall grow old as a garment, and as a covering thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed. We may also add this, that what is old is sewn together; what is new, is compressed/gathered together. But from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away. The Synagogue therefore sewed it together in few; the Church gathers it in thousands.

Or because now heaven seems to be sewn together with clouds and gloom, and the darkness of night, and with the saffron redness of the rising day, often woven with diverse and many-colored appearance. But then there shall be no more night, and they shall not need the light of a lamp, nor the light of the sun; because the Lord shall give them light, as John says. Or because: Woe to those who take pillows to overturn the souls of the people.

Section 5

To the prophet lamenting the misery of our frailty, which neither had rest in this life, nor kept anything by the sudden onslaught of death losing all things, the Holy Spirit instilled that men would not rise again until He came who would not sew old things with new, nor put a new garment upon an old garment; but who would make all things new, as He Himself said: Behold, I make all things new. For He Himself is the resurrection, He Himself the firstborn from the dead, in whom indeed we all have received the pledge of the future resurrection: yet He alone has as yet risen in a perpetual resurrection.

Section 1

Having heard, then, what God had spoken in him, and having learned through the Holy Spirit that the Son of God would not only come upon the earth, but would even descend to the lower regions, to raise up the dead (which indeed was then done as a testimony to those present, and an example to those to come), he turned to the Lord and said: Would that thou wouldst keep me in the grave, and hide me, until thy wrath be past, and thou appoint me a time in which thou wilt remember me. For if a man dies, he shall live, finishing out the days of his life. I will wait until I am made anew, then thou shalt call me; and I will answer thee: but do not despise the works of thy hands. Thou hast numbered my devices, and nothing of my sins has escaped thee. Thou hast sealed up my iniquities in a bag, and hast marked whatever I have passed over unknowingly.

How sweet a passage, which confirms us concerning the resurrection; and how it seems to agree with the word of the Lord which we read in the Gospel, where He says: Then they shall begin to say to the mountains: Fall on us; and to the hills: Cover us. For there shall be, at the consummation of the age, the wrath of the Lord. Rightly, then, does the Saint prefer to rise again unto judgment, rather than into the time of divine wrath, which is terrible even to the innocent.

Section 2

At the same time this too is understood to be prophesied, by saying: Appoint me a time in which thou wilt remember me; that he was to be raised up in the Lord's Passion, as is shown at the end of this book; and yet he does not cease to lament: and the more he understands that resurrection is set before him, the more he desires to flee this life, seeing himself delivered into the hands of adversaries, cast down into the power of the impious, and even his friends turned into enemies, who, though they ought to console him, heap ruin upon ruin; yet mindful of his pure conscience and clean prayer he says: Let not the earth cover the blood of my flesh; that his prayer might be directed like incense to the Lord, and not be turned aside upon the earth. For the prayer of the saint pierces the clouds; but the sinner's prayer, as was said by God to Cain the parricide, the earth, opening its mouth, hides in the blood of the flesh.

Cursed, He says, from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; for thou shalt till the earth.

They dare not seek it in the sea: that it is not to be sought in the abyss, nor in the sea; and for what reason: finally, that the knowledge of it lies open to God alone, and to those to whom He shall have revealed it.

Section 1

Thus the Saint tearfully laments the times of this life: I perish, he says, and am carried about by the spirit: I ask for burial, and do not obtain it; I plead in my labor. And what shall I do? My days have passed away in horror: the joints of my heart are broken. Yet nowhere does he detract from the judgment of God; for he knows that the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God is profound, and that His judgments are inscrutable, and His ways past finding out.

Section 2

The sons of those who glory in themselves, he says, have not trodden them, nor has the lion passed through them. For who could comprehend His ways, which have penetrated hidden and secret places? Whence, he says, was wisdom found, or what is the place of understanding? Mortal man does not know its way, nor is it found among men. The abyss said: It is not in me; and the sea said: It is not with me. It is not permitted to you, O man, to know other things of wisdom; therefore it is written to you: Be not high-minded, but fear. Why do you desire curiously to search out what it is not expedient for you to know, nor given to you to understand? Paul heard certain secrets of wisdom, which he was forbidden to disclose to others; and therefore he was caught up into paradise, caught up even to the third heaven, that he might hear things which, placed on earth, he could not hear.

If the things which a man heard, it was not lawful for him to speak, how does he inquire into what he has not heard? It is not permitted to you to know the counsels of this emperor on earth, and do you wish to know divine things? It is not permitted to you to search curiously into what is done on earth, and do you more curiously inquire what is done above heaven? Why do you dispute whence Wisdom was born? Man does not know its way, nor is perfect Wisdom found among men. It was not in Moses, not in Aaron, not in Joshua the son of Nun, not even in David himself, who says: Thou hast made known to me the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom; because he himself said in what follows: I have become as a beast before thee. It is above you, O man, to know the height of Wisdom; it is enough for you to believe. For if you will not believe, he says, neither shall you understand.

You cannot know the abyss, you cannot comprehend the abyss, how shall you comprehend the height of Wisdom? The abyss said: It is not in me; and can you say that Wisdom is in you?

Section 3

The abyss, then, said: It is not in me; because the Lord Himself said: Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. And the Apostle said: Who shall descend into the abyss? That is, to bring Christ up from the dead. Therefore if the abyss is asked: Where is Wisdom? It answers: It is not in me, because He has risen again. The sea is asked: Where is Wisdom? It said: It is not with me: because He trod upon me, nor could my waves trouble it. And you, therefore, set in the strait of this age, do not seek that perfect Wisdom of God in this world; because the world has not known it. But if you wish to find it, tread upon the waves of this world, as Peter trod, and walk upon the waters of this age, and Wisdom will stretch out her right hand to you, as she stretched it out also to Peter; for there was no one whom the wave of this age did not trouble.

It troubled Abraham, it troubled also Moses, it troubled also Peter. Moses passed through the sea, and led his army through the sea on foot: but he too was troubled beforehand. Peter trod upon the waters: but he was submerged in body, because he faltered in the footstep of a weaker faith. Therefore do not seek Wisdom in the sea; for the Lord Jesus did not say that He would be with the sea, but with His apostles; that they might know Him in some part, to whom He says: Behold I am with you even to the consummation of the age. Blessed are they with whom He is; would that He were with us also. But with us is the sea, Peter is with Christ, because he too trod upon the sea. To us gold is dear to the heart, and silver too: but Wisdom is above gold, not in gold.

Therefore he who wished to have Wisdom said: Silver and gold I do not have; but what I have, I give to you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. Because he did not have gold, in the name of Christ he had the grace of pious working. Therefore it is also said to you: And draw Wisdom into the inner parts; and below: It has been hidden, he says, from every man, and is concealed from the birds of the heaven. Neither men knew where it was, nor Angels, because they are the birds of heaven, of whom it is said: And I saw an Angel flying through heaven.

Section 4

No one could know Wisdom; for no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. He Himself, then, revealed to John with whom Wisdom was; and therefore he said, not what was his own, but what Wisdom poured into him: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. Destruction does not know Wisdom, malice does not know it. For destruction could not hold it, since it said: O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? Malice does not know it, of which it is said: The wicked shall seek me, and shall not find me. They can say: We have heard of its glory. God alone is He who knows it: for God, he says, has well established its way: He Himself knows its place.

That you may hear what is the receptacle of Wisdom, hear His disciple saying: The Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. For the Son knew the Father, since He Himself says: As the Father knows me, so I know the Father. There is an equal measure of knowledge, where there is unity of power. The Father, then, who made all things, knows the balance of the winds, the measure of the waters: He saw Wisdom, and declared it through His prophets, because the Father declared Wisdom, and searched it out; just as also the Son declared the Father, whom nothing escapes, and said: O man, why do you wish to know the deep things of Wisdom, which are above you? To fear God is wisdom, and to abstain from evils is understanding.

Many indeed have lamented the weakness of human frailty in an excellent manner; yet beyond the rest, holy Job, and holy David. The former loftier, direct, vehement, keen, and as if exasperated by grievous pains into a more elevated buskin; the latter gentle, calm, and mild, of a softer feeling; so that he truly imitated the affection of the stag, whom he set before himself to imitate. Nor let it disturb you, if I seem to praise so great a prophet by likening him to a wild beast, since you have read it said to the apostles: Be ye wise as serpents and simple as doves.

Section 1

But yet, although comparisons of this sort are built up for pious examples, and the nature of stags is innocent and mild; I think that in this passage the stag proposed for the Prophet's imitation is that one of which Solomon, the defender of a father's mind, said in the Proverbs: Let the stag of friendship, and the fawn of graces converse with you. For the true Son of God expressed in Himself the nature which He Himself had bestowed upon living creatures, He who came into this world as it were a stag: and joined Himself with mere simplicity to those by whom snares were being prepared for Him. For it is said to be the nature of such simplicity in stags, that when they see themselves being pursued, they attach themselves to those very horsemen who, set for the service of deceit, under the appearance of flight and the pretense of companionship, lead them, thus enticed, right up to the nets.

So, then, the Lord, as though unaware of danger and improvident, mingled Himself with the Jews who were weaving a snare for Him, and admitted into His company Judas the betrayer, by whose deadly pretense of friendship He came even to the snares of the cross and the nets of the passion. Whence, turning to him, He said: Judas, dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss? And in this way indeed He came to the nets of the Synagogue, and willingly put Himself into them: but He was not entangled, nor enrolled among the captives, He who set all free.

Section 2

At length he stood out above the nets. And because his own people had not received him, he called the Church, and bestowed his grace upon her, just as the most sacred Church herself testifies in the Canticles, saying: I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field; that you stir not up, nor awaken love, until it please. She asks therefore, in the odor of the field which holy Jacob had smelled, that is, by that faith, that devotion, that her bridegroom be roused by the daughters of Jerusalem, that he might hasten to the bride, and that his love toward her be awakened, or even that he himself be awakened, since love is the bridegroom. For God is love, as John says. But he did not suffer himself to be roused by others; he who of his own accord was hastening, coming forth from his chamber rejoiced as a giant to run his course.

The bride saw him, and heard the voice of him who was coming, and turning suddenly said: Behold, here he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills; for he leaped over the greater ones, and skipped over the lesser, lest he should suffer any hindrance of his loving haste. My kinsman, she says, is like a roe, or a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel. A good hart, whose mountain is the house of God, to which he ran with such swiftness that he outstripped the vows and desires of the bride. At length, him whom she had seen coming from afar, she suddenly recognized as present; whence she also says: Behold, he stands behind our wall, looking through the windows, showing himself through the lattice. My kinsman answered, and said to me: Arise, come, my near one, my beautiful one, my dove; for behold, the winter is past, the rain is gone, has departed, the flowers have appeared on the earth.

Winter is the Synagogue: the rain is the people of the Jews, who could not see the sun: the flowers are the apostles. And she added: The time of the harvest of cutting has come, the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land. That harvest is the faith of the Church: the voice of the turtledove is chastity.

Section 3

Nor is it only these likenesses, but Christ also takes on the likeness of a hart, because coming into the world he crushed that serpent the devil without any harm to himself, offering him his heel, but not feeling his poisons. Whence it was said to him: Upon the asp and the basilisk you shall walk. Let us too be harts, that we may be able to walk upon serpents. We shall be harts, if we follow the voice of Christ, which prepares harts, and makes them not fear the bites of serpents; and if any should chance to be wounded, it takes away their pain, by absolving the offense. Of these harts the Lord says to Job: Have you observed the birth-pangs of the harts? And have you numbered their months, which are full of bringing forth? And have you loosed their offspring, or nourished their young, that they may not fear? Hear how the young of such harts do not fear.

Let Isaiah teach you, saying: And the young child shall put his hand into the den of the asps, and they shall not harm him. And that you may recognize that this seems to signify the children of the Church, he added: You shall send forth their offspring, their young shall burst forth, and shall be multiplied in their generation, they shall go forth and shall not turn back. For no one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Section 4

Rightly, therefore, was the Lord made a hart; that the voice of the Lord might prepare for himself such harts, of whom he says: In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not harm them. For the holy apostles took up serpents, when with the breath of their holy mouth they drew forth spiritual wickednesses from the hiding places of bodies, and did not feel the deadly poisons. Finally, when a viper, leaping out from the brushwood, bit Paul, the barbarians, seeing the viper hanging from his hand, thought he would suddenly die. But he stood undismayed, neither moved by the wound, nor overcome by the poison. Whence, seeing that he was not begotten by the condition of a man, but brought forth as it were by the grace of God, they judged him to be above men. Behold the hart drawing vipers out of their hiding places by the divine breath which was in his nostrils, as Job said.

Paul, it says, turning in spirit, and looking upon him with grief, said to the Python: I command you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to come out of her immediately. And it came out that very hour. Behold the hart when he comes to baptism, and washed in the flowing waters of the sacred font, casts off all the poisons of persecution. Behold the hart, the Lord Jesus, when he came to John the Baptist, and John said to him: I ought to be baptized by you, and you come to me? He replied: Suffer it now. And having said this, thirsting for the salvation of the public, with all eagerness he went down into the waters. But now enough for us, in the exordium of this treatise, has the hart, as at the beginning of the year, played after the manner of the common people. Let us proceed to the rest.

Section 1

David, as I have said, pleads, saying to the Lord: As the hart desires the fountains of waters, so my soul desires you, O God. My soul has thirsted for God, the living fountain: when shall I come and appear before the face of God? The saint burns, and cannot contain himself. For the magnificence of the soul is greater than the magnitude of any body whatsoever; and secure in his merit, he desires to fly from the earth to the heavens, as he says elsewhere also: Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly away, and be at rest? For here are the snares in which, even if the just man is not entangled, yet he is hindered: here are griefs and anxieties; there, joy, where grace is: here, finally, the bonds of the body, which Paul longed to loose; that, stripped of all hindrances, he might stand free before the Lord.

This, then, David's soul thirsted for, that no longer through faith, but face to face, he might see God; and not only be a pilgrim from the body, but be released from the body. For to be dissolved and to be with Christ is far better; because to the just man to die is gain. And it is indeed a great gain to be without sin, not to be moved by the enticements of offenses. For who is clean from filth, since not even one day's life of man on earth is free from the contagion of sins? By living, therefore, we contract losses of innocence, by death we attain the end of error. Gain, therefore, is acquired by death, but by the use of life, as though we were wretched debtors, the interest, as it were of usury, accrues to our account of guilt.

And rightly does the soul thirst which hastens to the fountain, not of this water, but of eternal life, of which he said above: For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light. Rightly, therefore, did David hasten to arrive and appear before the face of God, whose countenance is light; because all whom the Lord beholds, he illumines.

Section 2

My tears have been my bread day and night, while it is said to me daily: Where is your God? There tears are rightly bread, where righteousness is hungered for. For blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. There are, therefore, tears which are bread, and which strengthen the heart of man. To this discourse also that saying of Ecclesiastes agrees: Cast your bread upon the face of the water; because there is heavenly bread, where there is the water of grace; since they rightly receive the substance of the word, and the nourishment of the mystical reason, from whose belly rivers of living water flow. Likewise, too, there is this living bread, where there is the water of tears, and the weeping of penitence. For thus it is written: In weeping they went forth, and in consolation I will bring them back. Blessed, therefore, are they whose tears are bread, who have deserved to laugh; for blessed are you that weep.

Section 3

Mindful of these things, he says, I have poured out my soul upon myself. The saint gathers himself from the things which are outside, and pours out his soul above himself; that his soul, poured out above the body, might hide the infirmity of the flesh, might cover the body for penance, and that the virtue of the soul and mind might extend itself everywhere. Whence also in what follows he says: I will pour out my prayer in his sight. Where prayer is poured out, there sins are covered. And of what does he say he is mindful? Of those things, surely, which he desired, that he might come and appear in the sight of God, that he might see that eternal court of his, in which he walked in spirit and delighted in the entrance he had already presumed.

Section 4

For I shall go, he says, into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God. With the voice of exultation, and the sound of one confessing and feasting. Not without cause was he weeping, since he lingered on earth, he to whom heavenly tabernacles were owed, and who awaited the entrance into the court of the Mighty One. Finally, that alone he preferred to all the resources of his kingdom, as he himself testifies elsewhere, saying: One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, and that I may see the delight of the Lord. The delight of the Lord is in the Church: the Church is the image of heavenly things; for indeed after the shadow passed, the image succeeded. The shadow is the Synagogue: in the shadow is the Law, in the Gospel, truth. Therefore in the light of the Gospel's truth the image shines forth.

The Prophet, therefore, was weeping; because the goods full of grace and filled with joy were being delayed.

Section 1

Finally, in what follows he also says: Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged! And therefore he pleaded with the Lord, because he was hastening toward better things. Yet in the very afflictions of the world there was great consolation—the hope of things to come. For who would not lift up his spirit, who could hope that in the heavenly tabernacle those blessed fellowships were reserved for him? But because, for the most part, to our weak condition future things are a weariness, present things a vexation; therefore also the soul of the holy Prophet, as the waves of the body arose against it, was troubled.

Section 2

I would not have you marvel that the Prophet says his soul was disturbed, since the Lord Jesus himself said: Now my soul is troubled. For he who took up our infirmities took up also our feeling, in which he was also sorrowful even unto death—not on account of death; for a death that was voluntary could not have sorrow in it, since through it was to come the joy of all, the refreshment of all. Of which he also said elsewhere: And I awoke, and I saw, and sleep became sweet to me. Good is the sleep which made the hungry not hunger, and the thirsty not thirst, for whom he prepared the sweetness of the sacraments. How, then, was his soul troubled with fear, he who made the souls of others not to fear? Sorrowful, therefore, even unto death, until grace should be accomplished: which is proved by his own testimony, saying of his own death: I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened, until it be accomplished?

Section 3

David, then, disturbed by the slippery windings of this world, said: Why are you sad, my soul: why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I will confess to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God. Therefore when we are anxious and troubled, let the hope of things to come strengthen us, in expectation. Consider each word: Hope, for I will confess, he says. Not "I confess," but "I will confess"; that is, then shall I confess better, when, with face unveiled, having beheld the glory of the Lord, I shall be transformed into the same image.

Section 4

Suddenly, while consoling himself, returning to himself he says: My soul is troubled within myself; that, who ought to strengthen others, am myself troubled. And because I have no firmness of my own, let us take it from the Author.

Section 1

Therefore, he says, I will be mindful of you, O Lord, from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites. He is mindful of the land of Jordan, in which grace heaps up the memory of devotion. Into the Jordan that Naaman the Syrian went down, and was cleansed from leprosy. In the Jordan Christ was baptized, when he instituted the form of the saving washing. The name Jordan signifies a descent, by which the Lord Jesus descended, because he cleansed those near the Jordan river from the contagion of sins. This river goes out from Egypt, and divides the land of promise. Therefore he who is troubled, if he takes good counsel, goes out from Egypt, and follows the way of light. The Hermonites also they have interpreted as "the way of the lamp." Go out, therefore, first from Egypt, if you wish to see the light of Christ. The Canaanite woman went out from the borders of the Gentiles, and found Christ, to whom she said: Have mercy on me, Son of David!

Moses also went out from Egypt, and became a prophet, and was sent back to the people, that he might free their souls from the land of affliction. But the lamp is in the body of Christ. This lamp shows you the way. Whence also holy David says: Your word is a lamp to my feet. A lamp, because it has illumined the souls of all, and shown the way in darkness. The Gospel is the way of the lamp; it shines in the shadow, that is, in the world. Whence also elsewhere you have: They shall be made white as snow in Selmon, that is, in the shadowing.

Section 2

The Jordan also is Christ, who divides the land. How he divides, hear: And a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed: in that he is the divider of our souls, who descends into the innermost secrets of the heart, and detects the thoughts of minds. This sword is the living word of God. Finally, in Hebrews you read thus: The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow. This is the fountain of Siloam, which is interpreted "sent," since Christ said he was sent by the Father.

There is also that division which is gathered from the fact that the Tribes of the Jews dwelt on both banks of the Jordan, since the Son of man, who in the latter times descended from heaven, that true Jordan, that true divider of things earthly and heavenly, gave to the fathers a divided possession: one which should be possessed on earth, another which should be reserved by the merits of the future life. Both of these belong to Christ alone, either to divide heavenly things or to detect hidden things. For he divides the inward parts who detects hidden things, which is indeed a mark of divinity. Finally, thus you have it written that the Lord said: I will rejoice, and will divide Sichem. This is that magnificent portion which Jacob accounted more excellent than all others for his son Joseph. Whence he says: I give thee Sichem, magnificent above thy brothers, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and bow.

That division is owed to the Lord alone, which is comprehended by the Word, that is, by that spiritual sword of the true Solomon. What does "alone" mean? To the Father without Christ, or to Christ without the Father? By no means. When I say the Father alone, I do not separate the Son; because the Son is in the bosom and secret of the Father. When I say the Son alone, I join the Father also, just as the Son himself joined him, saying: Behold, the hour comes, that you shall leave me alone: but I am not alone, because the Father is with me. Thus, therefore, the Father also is called alone blessed and alone powerful; so that the Son is not separated from him, who is always in the Father. Finally, John says excellently: In the beginning was the Word, but it was not without the Father. And God the Father was, but he was not without the Word: because the Word was with God.

Section 3

This Sichem is the Church. For Solomon chose her, whose hidden affection he distinguished. This Sichem is Mary, whose soul the sword of God pierces and divides. This Sichem is "ascending," as the interpretation has it. Hear from the Church who is the one that ascends. Who is this that comes up made white, leaning upon her brother? This is the radiant one, which in Greek is called ἀκτινώδης, because she shines with faith and works: to whose children he says: Let your works shine before my Father who is in heaven.

Section 4

Therefore David is mindful of God from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from a small mountain. Who is this small mountain? Let us consider whether perhaps the divinity of Christ is the great mountain. Finally, "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the Lord. If therefore the divinity of Christ is the great mountain, then certainly his incarnation is the small mountain. Christ, therefore, is both: both the great mountain and the lesser: great indeed; because great is the Lord and great is his power: lesser; because it is written: Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels. Whence Isaiah also says: We have seen him, and he had no form nor comeliness. Yet the same one is both made lesser from great, and great from lesser. Lesser from great; because though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself and took the form of a servant: great from lesser; because Daniel says: And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

If you ask who this stone is, recognize him. The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. Yet the same one, though he seemed small, was great. To this Isaiah agrees, saying: A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulders, and he shall be called the Angel of great counsel. All things are for you, Christ. The stone for you, that you may be built up: the mountain for you, that you may ascend. Ascend, then, upon the mountain, you who seek heavenly things. Therefore he bowed the heavens, that you might be nearer; therefore he arose to the summit of the mountain, that he might lift you up.

Section 5

Not without cause, then, did deep call unto deep, that this mountain might become small, of which the Prophet says: Deep calls unto deep at the voice of thy cataracts. The old Testament did not prevail for the redemption of this world: it called, and as it were summoned to its aid the new Testament. The Law cried out, announcing the Gospel. For it was only half-full: and therefore it was necessary that he should come who would fulfill the Law. For Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness to every one that believes, who came to fulfill the Law, not to destroy it. How the Law is a deep, hear him say: Thy judgments are a great deep. At the same time understand from this that both Testaments belong to one and the same wisdom, since he came, as it were, to fulfill his own. By the cataracts we understand the depths of words, and the force of heavenly eloquence: which have flowed to us like rain from heaven.

Therefore the remedy of all weariness is Christ, and the divine Scripture; and in temptations, the one refuge.

Section 1

Finally, when David perceived that the risings of worldly waves were coming upon him, which of necessity we must undergo very many of in this sea of life, mindful of the Lord's mercies which he promised in countless oracles, he turns to prayer and calls upon God, knowing that his mercy is commanded in the light, that is, in the Law; because thy precepts are light: but in temptations, as it were in the darkness of night, it is made manifest. Whence, like a traveler who desires to return home and to arrive where he is bound, yet wearied by the rough journey of this life, he summons a guide, and begs for relief.

Section 2

With me, he says, is prayer to the God of my life; I will say to God: Thou art my helper. Well does he already seek for himself the helps he knows, and he approaches the author of the promise, and the giver of the accustomed gift; so that in coming to his aid, if the merit of the man offends, the divine example may not offend. Someone says: When does God take him up? To establish this, come with me to the beginning of sacred Scripture, and see how the Lord fashioned man with his own hands out of clay. Whence also here he himself says afterward: Thy hands have made me and fashioned me. God, like a certain potter, wrought the fabric of human flesh. And to Jeremiah it is said: Go down to the potter's house, and there you shall hear my words. It often happens to a potter that while a vessel is being formed, it falls from his hands, and he gathers the clay again, that he may reshape the vessel.

Finally, Jeremiah also says: I went down, and saw how the vessel which he was making in his hands had fallen. And again he says: He made another vessel, as it seemed good to him. Rightly, therefore, is he called the helper; because with his own hands he himself took us up, he himself formed us. The vessels of human potters are these, some unto honor, others unto dishonor. We are all vessels of clay: and if one be a king, he is a vessel of clay; and if an apostle, he is a vessel of clay. Whence Paul also says: We have this treasure in earthen vessels. And the prophet says of a king: Jechonias is despised like a vessel, whose work is not needed. And he added: O earth, hear the word of the Lord, write this man childless. As it were by a father's right, our God is wont to disown degenerate sons; therefore he writes them also in the earth, because they are sons of the earth.

Whence, when the Jews accused the adulteress, the Lord Jesus wrote with his finger in the earth. But the just are not written in the earth, to whom it is said: Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.

Section 3

The Lord, therefore, took us up when he fashioned us: he takes us up also when he commands us to be born. Whence the just man says: Thou hast taken me up out of my mother's womb. Whose mother? Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee. Those whom he forms and takes up, he also takes up as they come forth. And before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you. He is the helper who takes up by his hands, so that as the worker of the human race he is called the helper; and he who takes up by visitation, that he may protect. Whence the Prophet says: He who dwells in the help of the Most High shall say to the Lord: Thou art my helper, and my refuge. The first taking up is of operation, the second of defense.

Finally, hear Moses saying: Spreading forth his wings, he took them up, and bore them upon his shoulders: as an eagle takes up, which is accustomed to examine its young; that it may keep and nourish those in which it has perceived the true character of the offspring and the grace of an uncorrupted nature; or drive away those in which, even in their still tender age, it has detected the weakness of a degenerate origin.

Section 1

Why hast thou forgotten me, and why hast thou cast me off? God does not forget. For it is impossible that he should forget, to whom all things that have been made and are to be made are present: but our sins instill in him the merit of forgetfulness; so that he blots out those whom he has known to be unworthy of his visitation. For the Lord knows those who are his. Yet where some work iniquity, to them he says: I never knew you. Who then is he who can say to God: Why hast thou forgotten me? And yet this is common to the saints along with us who are weak. The saint speaks as one conscious of his own unworthiness; and yet the more holy he is, the more humble he is. But if the saint scarcely dares say it, what shall I, a sinner, say, unless I refer it to this: Why hast thou forgotten thy work; why hast thou forgotten thy visitation? Finally, why hast thou forgotten my weakness?

For what is man, except that thou visitest him? Do not, then, forget the weak one. Remember, Lord, that thou hast made me weak: remember that thou hast fashioned me out of dust. How shall I be able to stand, unless thou always attend to solidify this clay, that from thy countenance my solidity may proceed? When thou turnest away thy face, all things will be troubled: if thou attend, woe is me; thou hast nothing to look upon in me, except the contagion of my sins; and it is neither useful to be forsaken, nor to be seen; because while we are seen, we give offense. Yet we may reckon that he does not reject those whom he sees; because he cleanses those whom he beholds. A fire burns before him, which burns away sin.

Section 2

It is good for us, then, not to be cast off. Therefore David complains, because he believed himself cast off, who had before been taken up. Finally, in the following verses he says: In thee have I been confirmed from the womb. But we also have it written above: I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly. It is good even to be cast off, but upon God. Finally, this in the twenty-first psalm is spoken from the person of Christ, who was truly cast upon the Father from the Virgin's womb; for earthly things did not receive him at his death. Whence, placed on the cross, when he gave up his spirit, he said to the Father: Into thy hands I commend my spirit.

Section 3

Let not some, then, add "Lord," as the psalm-singers do, which I have found neither in my Latin codex, nor in the Greek, nor in the Gospel, which is more evident still. Finally, he had said above: Father, forgive them this sin; and therefore, as if to the Father, he commends his spirit into his hands, in whose bosom the Son always is. And yet, even if they add that he said "Lord," let them consider that he speaks this as it were as a man placed in death.

Section 4

Therefore he was cast forth from the womb to the Father, from his mother's belly, that is, he defined that the womb which cast him forth is the belly of a mother. But the Father said: From the womb before the daystar I begot thee. The Father certainly did not cast forth the Son, from whom the Son never went forth, as he himself says: I was delivered up, and I did not go forth. He did not cast forth him to whom he is bound by unity of the same substance. It can therefore also be read thus: In thee was I cast from the womb, from my mother's belly, so that there follows: Thou art my God, depart not from me. It can also be read thus: From my mother's belly thou art my God; because, placed in the womb, I never departed from thee; I was with thee, who, like Jonah placed in the belly of the whale, prayed to thee on behalf of the people.

And truly from his mother's belly he was with God, according to what is written: For before the child knew good or evil, he chose that which is good. And: Before he could call father or mother, he took away the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria; that having called forth the nations he might acquire for the Father a kingdom by the devout worship of piety. Let us see the rest.

Section 1

Why, he says, hast thou cast me off: and why do I go sorrowful, while the enemy afflicteth me: my bones are broken: they that trouble me have reproached me, while it is said to me daily: Where is thy God? Why art thou sad, O my soul? And so forth. The first interpellation had the complaint that goods, whose fruit was already desired, were being postponed. The second interpellation was that the coming of Christ, awaited by the wise, was being delayed—the coming which the Law had announced, which the prophets promised, and at whose delay the impatient hearts of the just were burning, since they knew that he was to come for the redemption of all. Of all whom? Those for whom he might open the way of virtue by the Gospel path, and show the paths of good works, as he himself said in Proverbs: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways. Was it therefore said to him: Where is thy God; because Christ had not yet come, but was hoped for?

The devil raged, then, to crush those whom he knew would believe at the Lord's coming, and afflicted them with various forms of destruction. David therefore interpellates, so as to rouse the delaying one by his prophetic complaint, to urge haste, to admonish him to come to help. We have a similarity of this interpellation also in later passages, where the same prophet says: Why hast thou cast us off, O God, unto the end? And there he openly and tearfully lamented that he had forgotten his congregation, and cast away the rod of his inheritance; and that his enemies had risen up against the people of God, of whom he says: And they that hate thee have gloried in the midst of thy solemnity. Perhaps this verse might seem to declare the Assyrians, who triumphed over the Jewish people, were it not followed by: They have set up their ensigns for signs, and I knew them not. Standards are always in war, which are accustomed to go before those about to fight, and to lead the military column.

Every number or legion follows its own standards. And if they are scattered in the tumult of wars, wherever they perceive their standards to be, however far off they may be placed, they return. Every leader establishes these standards, and prescribes that they be followed. But there are also other standards, which a victorious enemy imposes, and decrees are to be observed as by captives; but the faithful soldier follows his own standards, and does not recognize those of another.

Section 2

Let us consider more intently and more earnestly what these foreign standards may be. Christ has set his own standard upon the foreheads of each; there too Antichrist will set his standards, that he may recognize his own. But he who is a Jew in secret, that true confessor, says: They have set up their ensigns for signs, and I knew them not. The devil and his ministers set them up, but I did not know them; because I did not consent to his arts, I did not acquiesce in his commands. Nabuchodonosor the Assyrian set signs upon the Hebrew children, and changed their names for them; and commanded that they should worship his image, and withdraw from the solemn rites of their fathers, and, the Law of God set aside, follow the Chaldean rites. The king ordained this, but Daniel resolved in his heart to avoid the contagion of the royal table. Rightly, then, it befits him to say, I knew not the foreign signs.

It was commanded that the Hebrew children should worship the king's image; they answered him, We do not worship thy image. Fittingly, therefore, each of them said: They have set up their ensigns for signs, and I knew them not; that is, I have not experienced them, I have not received them by any consent, I have not transferred them into myself by any fellowship. Whence also we read of the Son of God that he knew no sin. And elsewhere you have: For he who keeps the commandment knows not the wicked word: though it be perfectly clear that it is not the knowledge of wickedness but a criminal fellowship that is at issue—David himself also says in later passages: But as for the malignant who turn aside, I did not acknowledge them.

But where the adversaries wished to set these signs, he declares: As on the way, he says, on the summit: as in a forest of trees they have cut down its doors with axes, all at once, with the two-edged axe and the hatchet they have thrown it down. What does this mean, unless it show that our faith ought not to be, as it were, upon the road; lest the birds of the air come and carry it away, as that word which you read in the Gospel, that it ought not to be sown along ways and paths.

Section 3

Therefore the saints, wishing to root out the faith of this adversary, who see not their own signs in his heart, tried to place it, as it were, on the road, that is, in a thoroughfare. But the heart is on the summit; for the eyes of the wise man are in his head. And they set signs as in a forest of trees, which are quickly burnt up by fire, or cut down by axes. For fire goes forth from the forest, and burns even the cedars of Lebanon. And this they thought should be done: that they might pollute the tabernacle of the divine name, which is in us. For as we are the temple of God, so also are we the tabernacle of God, in which the Lord's festivals are celebrated. Do thou, therefore, O man, guard thy summit, that thou mayest crush the heads of thy enemies, the hairy crown of them that walk on.

For they walk in superfluous things, not in holy ones; in the crown of hair, not in the crown of devotion and faith. And if the spirit of one having power rises up against thee, as you have in Ecclesiastes, do not leave thy place. For Christ has made you superior, whom he made in the image of God. Hold, therefore, that superior place of faith and piety, which you received from Christ; that, being made superior, you may easily drive back the wicked spirit rising up from the lower parts, that is, from earthly and worldly things, and not admit its signs into your breast: let it not occupy the vestibule of your soul, nor the entrance of your mind; and let it not, as in a forest of trees, lay waste with its fires what is perishable and fragile, or with its axes cut down the doors of your heart.

Let there be, then, in us not a forest but a vineyard; let the gate of our mouth and heart be closed more diligently, lest the enemy enter in. It quickly gives way at the door, if it finds it open. But Christ knocks, he does not throw down—he who has strengthened, O Jerusalem, the bars of your gates. Christ knocks with his hand, that you may open; the adversary cuts down with axes; and therefore it is written, that neither axe nor hammer should enter the house of God. Pride and deceit ought to be outside, not inside. For outside are battles, but within is the peace which is above all understanding. Let not your soul be cut by iron: but as the soul of Joseph, so let iron pass through your soul; lest your principal part, as a kind of tabernacle of the Word, be thrown down at the very entrance of faith and of spiritual teaching.

For being founded by use and practice, it remains immovable, and gives no place to him who strives to ascend as it were in a dream, transfiguring himself into an angel of light; who, if he sees not his signs in us, will have no authority to resist. Therefore, that the enemy may not afflict us, that he may not break our bones, let us not fail to persevere in Christ, so that he may say of us: They have now been with me three days, and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way. Blessed is he to whom he himself has given firmness of heart, that he cannot fail while set upon the path of this life. For he does not fail who hopes in the Lord, and confesses to him with inmost affection; since even that horseman whose horse's heel the serpent bit, though he fell backward, was nevertheless not deceived, because he awaited salvation from the Lord.

Section 1

The third interpellation of the Prophet is also this: that, set in the midst of men practicing wickedness, he desires his own cause to be separated from their contagion. Many think this ought to be referred to the Lord Jesus, because it belongs to him alone not to fear judgment, since he conquers even when judged. For he has judgment from an unjust man, into which Christ willingly enters, as you have it written: My people, what have I done to thee, or in what have I grieved thee? But since the Father has given him all judgment, not as to one who is weak, but as to a son, how can he himself be subject to judgment? If they think the judgment of the Father must be undergone by the Son, then the Father surely judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son; that all may honor the Son, as they honor the Father. The Father honors the Son, and do you sit in judgment?

We have set this down lest anyone should think that we, as if out of fear of the question, were substituting the person of the Prophet in the place of the Lord, since holy David, foreseeing in spirit that the Jews would rise up against the Lord's passion, does not fear the judgment of his own faith: he also demands that his cause be distinguished from the nation of the persecutors; lest the whole lineage of the Jewish race be entangled with the evils of its own kin and the heirs of its posterity.

Section 2

Not without reason, then, is he troubled who sees that his struggle is against flesh and blood, and that within himself he suffers a grievous shipwreck, a tempest in his own body which he is unable to bear, unless heavenly aid come to his support. For no enemy is more grievous to man than those of his own household: and what is so much one's own as man himself, and the weakness of his own flesh? And therefore the Prophet hastens, and prays with his whole affection, that Christ may come, the strength of all, who may take up all infirmities, and make both one, and, the wall being removed, dissolve the enmities of mind and flesh warring against each other, which divided the inner affection from coming into harmony.

Therefore, because there was a battle within himself, and there were those among his neighbors who, forgetful of law and equity, prepared snares of deceit and ambush, and the hoped-for remedy was delayed; he thought himself cast off, as though he who had promised to be the remedy refused to come. And as one recalled from the hope of the dawning day into the depths of darkness, he prayed that the light, about to drive away the squalor of this age, might shine forth, that eternal truth might be present, which would abolish the deceptive image of this world.

Section 3

God was present to his prayers, he who is wont even unforeseen to assist, and to make himself known to those who do not ask him, as he himself says: I have become manifest to those who sought me not. And, having assented to the pious prayers, he anticipated with swift effect the course of the vows, and suddenly led the holy Prophet in spirit into the Church and into his tabernacles, and set before his eyes the sacred altar, on which was to be the redemption of the whole world, and the remission of the sins of all throughout the whole earth.

Section 1

Seeing therefore in spirit that sweetness of the heavenly sacraments, that table which repels the snares of those who wear one down, as he himself said above: Thou hast prepared a table in my sight, against them that afflict me, he says: And I will go in to the altar of my God, to God who gives joy to my youth. He said beautifully, as if speaking as Adam, And I will go in. For we had been cast out of the paradise of the Lord, from the time when Adam, conscious of his sin, turned away his face from the countenance of the Lord. He added fittingly also: And I will go in to the altar of God, as though he were returning into the sight of God. For he had been turned away from our offerings, when he did not approve the gifts of Cain that murderer of his brother.

Cain lay hidden, estranged from the sight of the Lord, the savage force of his mind raging, because the Lord had looked upon his brother's gifts but had not looked upon his own; under this offense he left his own heirs. Abel had died not for himself, whose blood also cried out to the Lord; but he had died for all of us. Almost no one's sacrifice was any longer approved; because there was none that did good, there was not so much as one, since neither faith was kept toward God, nor natural affection toward a brother. The Lord Jesus came that he might raise up Adam. Abel too was raised up, whose gifts had pleased God. The Lord Jesus offered himself, that is, the firstfruits of his body, in the sprinkling of blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel spoke on the earth. God looked upon his gifts, from which he himself left the grace of divine reconciliation to good heirs.

Rightly, therefore, holy David, as though speaking in the person of reconciled man, says: And I will go in to the altar of my God, to God who gives joy to my youth.

Section 2

Let us establish this point, if we can, also by the example of another prophet, how the Lord first turned away from man's sacrifices, and afterward was reconciled to him. We have it written in the book of Isaiah, the Lord saying: To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? Says the Lord. I am full, that is, I abound in my own things, I do not seek yours: burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs, and the blood of bullocks and he-goats I do not want, nor come thus into my sight. And indeed Abel had offered a sacrifice from the offspring of flocks, in which he had pleased God; but he who was awaiting the truth of the sacrifice did not require the type. For the saving passion of the Lord was awaited. For who has required these things of your hands? You shall not add to trample my court. And below, When you shall stretch forth your hands to me, I will turn away my face from you.

But wash yourselves, be clean, take away wickedness from your souls. Judge for the fatherless, and justify the widow, and come, let us reason together, says the Lord. It is clear, therefore, that the Lord was both formerly turned away from man's sacrifices, and afterward reconciled, so that he deigned to look upon our sacrifices.

Section 3

Therefore he enters secure who enters into the mercy of the Lord. Hence to the good servant it is said: Enter into the joy of thy Lord. But of the wicked servant it is said: Cast him into outer darkness. Therefore Adam also, cast down from his heavenly homeland and from that seat of paradise, was banished to the island of sin. Rightly, then, says Scripture: Be renewed, ye islands. Because we are surrounded by the waves of sins, as islands are in the strait of this world. These islands, therefore, through the coming of the Lord were renewed by the remission of sins, that is, men in the font, set in the middle of the waters like islands, were being beaten by the masses of waves like islands, with the resounding waves of sins dashing against them like islands, in which formerly, as though on rocks of deceits, frequent shipwrecks befell the simple; because there was guile in the heart, flattery on the lips.

But after the Lord Jesus, in whom there is no guile, coming into this world, calmed the depths of human minds by the exposition of heavenly doctrine, and poured back tranquility into the feelings of each, taking away the hedge of discord, they began to be, as it were, certain havens of refuge to those approaching; so that each one might set the vessel of his own rest in the affection of a neighbor or a brother, and might cling to a certain retreat of the shore of a pious mind.

Section 4

Not without reason, therefore, does David cry out as one renewed: And I will go in to the altar of my God, to God who gives joy to my youth; so that he who had said above that he had grown old among his enemies, as we read in the sixth psalm, here says that his youth was renewed to him out of the aged decline of the human fall. For we are renewed through the regeneration of the font; we are renewed through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; we shall also be renewed through the resurrection, as he says in a later place: Thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle's. How we are renewed, hear: Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. And in Isaiah he says: If your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.

Rightly is he renewed who is changed out of the darkness of sins into the light of virtues and grace: so that he who before was foul with dark filth, may shine again above snow with an exceedingly white brightness.

Section 1

I will confess to thee upon the harp, O my God. Our soul has its own harp. For Paul would not have said: I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the understanding: I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the understanding, unless he had a harp, which would resound to the plectrum of the Holy Spirit. Our flesh is a harp, when it dies to sin, that it may live to God: it is a harp, when it receives the sevenfold Spirit in the sacrament of baptism. For the tortoise, while it lives, is submerged in mud: when it has died, its shell is fitted for the use of singing, and for the grace of holy discipline; that it may sound forth, with modulated numbers, the distinctions of the seven tones. Likewise our flesh, if it lives by bodily allurements, lives in a certain mire and abyss of pleasures.

If it dies to luxury and incontinence, then it resumes true life, then it begins to bring forth the sweet melody of good works. Sweet is the sound of chastity: sweet is the sound of those who fear God; indeed, their sound has gone out into all the earth; sweet is the sound of the faith which is announced, as it is written, in the whole world. Let this sound go forth from us to God, as it went forth also from the Thessalonians (I Thes. I, 8); that even we, though not singing, may sing, and by the harmony of good works may proclaim the Lord, to whom be honor, glory, perpetuity from ages, both now and always and unto all ages of ages. Amen.

Our earlier discussion was concerning the interpellation of the saints, that the condition of man is fragile and weak, having its firmness nowhere except in heavenly protection: today we must take up that matter by which the multitude of men, and even many of the wise, are greatly troubled; when they see the unjust abounding in prosperous circumstances, but the just often afflicted in this age. And truly this is a slippery topic, in which even the saints were scarcely able to keep firm footing of a settled opinion. Hence even David himself was troubled, who had said above: Thou hast made known to me the hidden things of thy wisdom. Yet he afterward confirmed himself, and traced out the path of perfect reasoning. Holy Job also wrestled in speech on this same opinion with those three old friends who had come to console him Let us then bring forward the discussions of both into the open.

For they are worthy to bring us a teaching for living; since indeed, being placed in adversity, they deserved to please God the more. Let us hear, then, each in his own order.

Section 1

Eliphaz, king of the Themanites, and Baldad, tyrant of the Sauchites, and Sophar, king of the Minaeans, had vehemently rebuked holy Job, on the ground that he was undergoing so great a punishment on account of his sins. For with weak understanding they did not perceive that the Lord had given him to be tested; that, as an athlete of Christ trained by trials, he might attain to the crown with greater glory.

Not seeing, therefore, so great a mystery of wisdom; with the fear of a narrow heart, lest they should seem to accuse God of injustice for allowing an innocent man to suffer punishments, they turned back the deserts of punishment upon holy Job; saying that the whole life of the wicked man is full of anxiety, and that riches unjustly gathered will be vomited up; that all the grievous things a man suffers on earth, he suffers for his sins: that even if he be in prosperous circumstances, prosperity cannot be perpetual for him, and vanishes quickly like a dream, and his place is not found; but that the joy of the wicked is a heavier ruin; and therefore that holy Job also, changed from prosperity into adversity, had fallen from the heights to the depths as the price of his sins: that he who asserted himself innocent was in error; since the portion of the wicked man is of this sort, that indignation coming upon him from the Lord joins sorrows to him, and destruction envelops his house.

Section 1

Holy Job heard these things, and, like a strong athlete sitting in the dunghill, amid such great weals and the cruel pains of his wound, his whole body drenched with dire ulcers, spoke mysteries, and busied himself not with acquiring remedies for his own sickness, but with sacred discourse. Stronger, therefore, were the words of the sick man than of those who were not sick. For they were speaking injustices, but not according to knowledge: they preached the divine judgments, the punishments of the guilty, the rewards of the saints; but they did not know how to distinguish the guilty from the just: in short, him whom the Lord God pronounced just, they were condemning of injustice, they were charging with iniquity. They did not know, therefore, what befitted each. But holy Job discerned in spirit how he ought to speak to each; therefore he was stronger than those who seemed sound and unharmed. And what do I say, that he was found stronger than the rest? He was found stronger than himself.

For Job was stronger when sick than he had been when healthy, according to what is written, that virtue is perfected in weaknesses. Therefore Job too, when he was weakened, was then the more valiant. For he was not sick in mind, even though he suffered in body: because his soul was not in the flesh, to whose sufferings it did not cling; but it was in the spirit, by whose power it had clothed itself.

Section 2

Therefore he spoke not the groanings of the flesh and the infirmities of the body, but the voices of the spirit, by which he pressed upon them, not by which he yielded. And at first indeed more gently, that he might instill shame in them; because they were pressing upon a just man unjustly, saying that he was undergoing lesser punishments than his sins deserved, and they themselves, sinners, were not ashamed to accuse an innocent man with false charges. Suppose, he says, that I have erred, and that erring one who pours error into the minds of men dwells with me; so that I speak words which ought not to be spoken, as you say, and my words go astray, nor is my speech uttered fittingly: why do you leap upon me and revile me, not considering that this trial has come to me from the Lord, who has judged that I should be hedged about with a certain rampart of troubles?

I am worn away by adversities, hemmed in on every side by toils and dangers; and still you insult me, wishing to crush him whom you ought to help. Behold, I laugh at reproaches, and I will not speak, nor will I answer your revilings. For it is not you who judge; but he who judges me is the Lord; and yet the time of his judgment has not yet come. What need is there to cry out before the judgment?

It is good to keep silence while we await him who judges. It is good not to return reviling for reviling, lest we too be numbered among the detractors.

Section 3

Let us then imitate this man, who by his silence rebuked those who reviled him. For he showed the strength of his mind, which insults could not move: and he made manifest the innocence of his conscience, in that he did not acknowledge the things charged against him, but laughed at them as though they were foreign to him. But we, as though something were being charged against us, while we wish to clear ourselves, become embittered: while we desire to take vengeance, we are held back; whereas Scripture says that you should turn away a shameful word, and take off your garment; for the injurious man passes by. Let us then be silent, that he may pass by, lest, provoked, he burn our garment. For it is written: Do not kindle the coals of a sinner, lest perchance you be burned in the fire of his flame.

For this reason, therefore, the holy man is silent; and if a servant is insolent, and if a poor man reviles, the just man is silent: and if a sinner casts reproaches, the just man laughs: and if a sick man curses, the just man blesses.

Section 4

David was silent when Gera's son Semei was cursing him, Job laughed, Paul blessed, as he himself says: We are cursed, and we bless. For under divine instruction the advance of human virtue grew; because now He had come who would make the weaker stronger, and had heard him saying: Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who slander you. What He said in word, He proved by example. Finally, even set upon the cross, of His persecutors reviling Him He said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do; that He might pray for those who slandered Him, whom He Himself could forgive. Job therefore laughed, because Christ had not yet come, to whom alone was reserved the prerogative of great virtues; for He Himself is the beginning of virtues, as He said: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways.

Section 1

And laughing he was silent. For what reason silence is to be kept, he teaches: I will cry out, and judgment is not yet come. He, he says, willed that I suffer these things. As though shut in by walled temptations I cannot flee, until it please God to cast down the heights of my temptations. For now if I cry out, judgment is not yet. I am still in the contest, still I wrestle, still the struggle remains for me, for the crown has not yet come forth. But no one is crowned except him who has striven lawfully.

Section 2

A third contest was owed to him: he had lost all his own things, that is, his patrimony together with his children: his flesh was suffering wounds: it remained for him to overcome the temptations of words. Not a middling contest. By speech was Adam deceived, by a word was Samson overcome. For nothing so penetrates the soul as painted speech: nothing again so bites as harsher speech. Many, though they have overcome torments applied to them, have not withstood the harshness of words. Job was toiling, but he endured, and bore the burdens of words alongside the burdens of wounds. His judge of the contest saw him, out of the cloud and whirlwind gave a hand to him toiling, and pronounced that those wrestling against him had fallen with a heavy collapse, declared him victor, and bestowed the crown.

Section 3

But what is more beautiful than to laugh when we are cursed? For we ought to rejoice if things belonging to another are being said. First, because the enemy, wishing to say something against us, whereby he might inflict a crime, does not find what is true, but composes false things in place of true ones. Then, because the Lord Himself said in the Gospel, that in the case of this kind of accusation which is falsely brought against the innocent on account of righteousness: Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for your reward is great in heaven. Therefore he ought to be silent who recognizes the charge laid against him; lest he exasperate the wound, and the scar be torn open: and he too ought to be silent who does not recognize it; for he hears another's crime, not his own: for if he answers it, he makes it his own: if he is silent, he turns it back, and wounds the one who reviles him. He also ought to be silent who presumes upon the aforementioned reward.

For he suffers no prejudice, for whom there is no judgment yet. And if there has been prejudice in this age, there will be none in the judgment of God. Finally, that you may know that contumely does not prejudice a good conscience, hear holy Job saying—surely a richer witness than if he had gained possession of the empire of the Roman world: Now I will be silent and leave off: if now there is prejudice against me, then I shall not be hidden from thy face.

Section 4

These things therefore he answered rather sparingly at the beginning, that he might admonish them of God's judgment, and, recalling them from insolence and fury, might, like a good physician, make them come to their senses. But after he noticed that they persisted in their insults, being stronger he repeated more, and struck them as it were with a more forceful fist, they who were stoning the innocent man with the stones of their words. Hear, he says, hear my words; let there be no need for me to seek consolation from you: bear with me, for I shall speak stronger things: heavy will be the weight of my words. I too will speak according to your opinion; because many abound in this age with the successes of prosperous things, and others are burdened. They are placed in tribulation, and it seems that this is brought about according to the deserts of sins.

And even if I say this, do not laugh as though I have agreed with you; and if I am a sinner, I am not answerable to man, since he who judges is himself also under sin, and claims for himself power over me. Or if I am judged as a man, this is common to all; I ought not to be reproached: it is the weakness of our condition, not a special wickedness.

Section 1

But tell me: if I suffer this on account of my sin, as you object, why do the impious live? Nor do they merely live, but are also filled with riches, and multiply their fruits: but they also enjoy children, their houses abound? These things are evidently good in appearance: but by a deeper mystery you will find that what are thought good are not good; and what are thought evil are reckoned better than those things.

Section 2

They have grown old, he says, in riches; πεπαλαίωνται, he said; so that it seems signified not so much a long-lasting possession of riches, as the inveterate trouble of abundance; just as Ecclesiastes saw riches kept for the harm of the one possessing them, which perish amid utmost anxiety and distraction. For they carry what is left here, and it cannot profit the dead. The deceased then had anxiety from them, could find no rest, who left behind what he would be ashamed of, and did not carry with him what he held dear—far different from him of whom it is written: Blessed is the man who has filled his desire from these; he shall not be confounded when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

His inheritance is the Lord, and his reward from the offspring of the Virgin Mary: this man at his departure is praised with the praises of wisdom, since he had nothing to be ashamed of, having coveted none of the things of this age: but having laid aside the old man's spoils, wounded his adversary with the weapon of continence; so that the adversary could not raise an outcry against him at the end of this life, lame from the wound, and confounded by admiration of his virtues. You have then that he is not praiseworthy who has grown old in the desire for money, and is not renewed in the reception of grace.

Section 3

Let us see another point: Their seed, he says, is according to the soul, that is, they are not counted among the just. For the just sow in the spirit, and of the spirit shall reap eternal life: but those who sow according to the soul cannot reap spiritual things; because the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God: for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot know the things that are of the Spirit; and therefore he is not filled with spiritual things, but is judged.

Section 4

Their children before their eyes, that is, what they do, they do for this reason, that they may be seen by men, not because they take good counsel to choose that which will be approved at the future judgment. Scripture therefore frequently declares "children" in place of works, because our posterity is richer in good deeds than in children. Whence also Hezekiah, freed from grave sickness, said: From this day I will make children who shall proclaim thy righteousness, O Lord God of my salvation, and I will not cease blessing thee with the psaltery all the days of my life. For good posterity is that of devotion and faith, which knew not how to succumb to captivity, such as the children of Hezekiah bore.

Section 5

And he adds, saying: Because there is no fear in them, there is no scourge from the Lord. But the just man says: For I have been scourged all the day; and desires to be scourged, that he may be received by the Lord: and he wishes to fear the Lord; because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Nor does he think it a blessedness, if his heifer does not miscarry. As fools think. For by the ox what is signified, but the labor of rural cultivation, which always returns in its circle, and never ceases, but when it seems to be completed, is called back to its beginning? These are they who till Sodom and Gomorrah. Therefore those who till Egypt, and turn over the clods of the earth with a certain plough of a solid mind, beget labor for themselves, and reap sorrows. Therefore their heifer does not miscarry; but bears young, that their labor may be increased, and all that they have conceived they bring forth without fear of God.

But the just glory in a far different way. For not in abundance of riches, nor in the bringing forth of cattle; but they glory in the Lord, saying: From fear of thee have we conceived in the womb, and have brought forth the spirit of salvation. Of the just, therefore, it is said; because they have brought forth the spirit of salvation, which they received from the fear of God, not from the malice of this age, of which we read: Behold, he has brought forth injustice, has conceived travail, and has borne iniquity. Better therefore is miscarriage than the childbearing of the worldly. Finally, concerning the man who has come into this age, and has borne the vanity of this world and its darkness through long-lasting length of days, Ecclesiastes pronounced that better than he is the stillborn. For this one has rest more than that one; because he has not experienced the changeableness of the age, in which even if one should live a thousand years, he could not see what is good.

To have fled these things, therefore, is more a matter of grace, than to have undergone them.

Section 6

But perhaps this may move one, that he added: Because they remain like sheep, eternal ones; but their children play, taking up the psaltery and the harp, and delight in the voice of the psalm. They have finished their life, moreover, in good things, but in the rest of hell they have slept. Distinguish these things, and, since you are spiritual, judge them rightly. The impious are as though eternal, not eternal; because they cannot receive eternity from him who is not eternal. He cannot therefore give what he does not have, nor can he illuminate who does not possess light: but he transfigures himself into an angel of light, that he may deceive the unbelieving. He transfigures himself, however, by the pretense of a false light, not by the splendor of perpetual brightness. Whence also the Savior says: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven. Nor is he lightning, but like lightning.

Consider some heretic intent on bodily abstinence, and on the knowledge of heavenly mysteries; as he is thought eternal, he does not have the stipend of eternal life; because he who does not have the truth of faith has a false imitation of it. His little ones play, like her who, when she has grown wanton, wishes to marry. She has grown wanton in the psaltery and the harp, that is, in the sound of the voice, not in the depth of the mysteries; so that it might resound on the lips, not be gathered in the heart.

Section 1

Such men, then, have finished their life in the good things of this world, this life, certainly, which they were living, not that one whose reward they hoped for; and therefore they have slept in the rest of hell, not in the rest of heaven. But let us pray rather to undergo labor here, that in the kingdom of the heavens we may merit to attain the consolation of eternal rest. For a great enticement to sin is the abundance of prosperous things: it lifts up into pride, it pours in forgetfulness of the Author. Consider that rich man in the Gospel, reclining on scarlet and purple, from whose table that just poor man Lazarus was gathering crumbs. Does it not seem to you that that rich man says to God: Depart from me: I do not wish to know thy ways? And truly such men do not wish to know the ways of the Lord; for if they wished, they would know them. But because they are full of labor, they are shunned and avoided by the lost.

Thus, as a drunken man, he does not recognize the Author of salvation. Finally, turning to his fellow drinkers, he says: Let us eat and drink: for what profit is it if we serve him? Or what use is there if we keep his ways? These things, then, are said, drunk, by the abundance of things of the worldly; because in this age the deserts of crimes are not immediately repaid. He was lying back at ease, because everything was at hand to his hands for pleasure: and conscious of his own impiety, whose punishment was held in reserve, he thought that God did not see the crimes of the impious.

Section 2

To this opinion of his, then, holy Job responds: do not be secure and careless, thinking that in this very age the scourges of the Lord do not come upon you. Nevertheless even the lamp of the impious is extinguished: it shines for a time, it does not have eternal light; and to them, although the age may favor them, because they do the will of him who holds the principality in this age, there is wont to come a reversal of affairs, and sorrows from heavenly wrath and indignation, that they may be winnowed, as chaff by the wind. The unjust are winnowed like chaff, the just like wheat. Finally, hear the Lord saying to Peter: Behold Satan has desired you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. They fail who are winnowed like chaff; he does not fail who is in the likeness of that grain, which fell and rose again, heaped up with the increase of very many fruits.

Therefore the Prophet says: Woe is me, for I am become as one who gathers stubble in the harvest (Micah 7:1)! Stubble, then, which is quickly burned up, is compared to impiety, and to dust. Therefore after he said: They shall be as chaff before the wind, he added a verse immediately, saying: Or as dust which the wind has carried away. Finally, that you may know that the impious man, like dust, quickly wastes away and vanishes, you have it said in the first psalm: Not so the impious, not so, that is, not as the just; but like dust, which the wind casts away from the face of the earth.

Section 3

And he makes a distinction between the just and the impious. This one, he says, dies in the power of his simplicity, wholly in abundance and grace: his inward parts are full of fat, their marrow overflows. But that other one completes the course of this life in the bitterness of his soul, and receives his end having feasted on no good thing. What worthy return can be rendered him for his deserts? He is brought into the graves, and keeps watch in his own tomb. This is no small punishment: to have no rest even in death, to be carried not to the land of the living, but to the tombs of the dead. For he who lives is not sought among the dead, but plucks eternal life in Abraham's bosom. Therefore those two men in shining garments said to the women: Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here.

Section 4

Then he enumerates the crimes of the impious, how they overstepped boundaries, and stole the flock along with the shepherd, led away the ass's foal of the orphan, took the widow's ox in pledge, reaped a field not their own, how the weak labored in their vineyards without wages and food, how they stripped men of their clothing and made them sleep naked. Many, whose souls they deprived of covering, were wet with the dripping rain of the mountains; and because they lacked covering, they sheltered themselves with a rock. Orphans were snatched from their mothers' breasts, the fallen were oppressed, who ought rather to have been raised up. The hungry were defrauded of food, and the soul of little infants groaned heavily.

Section 5

Could these things be unknown to him whom nothing escapes? The nether regions are naked in his sight, and there is no covering for the most wicked; for they cannot hide. He stretches out the North over nothing: he hangs the earth upon nothing, binding water in his clouds, and the cloud is not torn beneath his feet; the pillars of heaven leapt apart, and feared at his rebuke. By his power he restrained the sea, and by his discipline he builds up the whale of the sea. The bars of heaven dread him; by his command he put to death the transgressing dragon. Who understands the power of his thunder? In such great crimes then, what hope is there for the impious? Will he be saved if he trusts in the Lord? I will tell you, he says, what is in the hand of the Lord; and cease adding vain things to vain things.

Section 6

And he describes how pitiable is the lot of the impious. For even if they have many children, they are without posterity, since they lack the succession of good merits. For that is the true posterity, which is not on earth, but in heaven. To men of this sort, therefore, inheritance is poverty, and death is succession. When they have heaped up riches, they will beg; for when they are dead, they will be in want, they who cannot find rest. No one will pity their widows: but they will remain deserted, destitute of the comfort of any bond. Even if money be gathered like earth, and gold be prepared like clay, their substance will be as empty as a spider's web, and the whole patrimony of their name shall be consumed as if by moths. The rich man sleeping shall add nothing; he opened his eyes, and now he is not. He remains in sorrows. Nothing therefore are all the things that are in this world.

Gold is in the ore, silver is in the ore: it is dug out of the ore, and returns into the ore. For what else but ore is the mind of the miser? Which holds fast, as if buried, whatever it has received, and hides it in the veins and hiding-places of the earth, because it does not know how to use it. Every day gold is brought forth from ore: who has ever been able to bring anything forth from a miser?

Section 7

Since, then, the vain hunger for gold profits nothing, because whatever it has gathered slips away: truly pitiable are they who have forsaken the just way, and have forgotten it, to which precious stones are by no means to be compared, hard to search out, impassable to the proud, closed off to the boastful; level to the humbler, open to the wise. And therefore we ought to seek wisdom, that we may walk in the just way, through which that adversary, like a lion seizing and roaring, who runs through this world, could not pass. But he who wishes to search out wisdom, let him not seek it in the abyss (as the philosophers do, who suppose that by their own devising, by their own wit, they can know its depths), let him not seek it in the sea. For where there is a tempest, where there is a storm of wind, wisdom cannot be there. But let him seek it there, where there is tranquility of mind, and the peace which is above all understanding.

The plea of holy Job has been traversed: let us now take up that plea which we find in the psalms. David himself indeed in many places did not keep silent concerning the vanity of the age, and frequently asserted that the goods of this world, which are thought good, are vain, and especially in the thirty-eighth psalm, where he says: Nevertheless every man living is entirely vanity; and although man walks in the image of God, yet he is disquieted in vain, he lays up treasure, and knows not for whom he gathers it. And elsewhere: How long, O Lord, shall sinners, how long shall sinners glory? Because they have here a shadowy glory, and when they have departed from the world, they cannot find the fruit of consolation.

Yet he also included the seventy-second psalm, in which he himself, under the name of Asaph, testifies that this was the beginning of his fall; so that he was struck with no small grief, when he saw sinners abounding in riches in this world, overflowing with prosperous things, while he himself, who had justified his heart, was in afflictions and hardships; and he incurred no small offense at the outset; but afterward, corrected by the scourges of the Lord, and illuminated by the grace of divine knowledge, he learned the true course of the tradition.

Section 1

Nowhere, however, do I find that holy Asaph was troubled by any adversities: but holy David endured very many grievous things full of dangers, for he speaks of his own labors. Whence the psalm is inscribed not as if of holy Asaph, but as if to holy Asaph, as the title teaches, which is more clearly shown from the Greek Psalter, so that it appears that David gave this psalm which he himself had written to be sung by this Asaph too, as by others. But since it is written in the very title that the psalms of David have failed, how then have they failed, when, after these ten psalms have been gone through, a psalm of David afterward comprises the inscription of the titles all the way to the very end? Therefore, setting aside this kind of definition, let us consider what the order of the psalm is, and let us take our beginning from the first verse of the prophetic plea.

From the very opening of the psalm I perceive the correction of David: that God is always good to the just, in that if they are troubled by adversities, they are refreshed by the hope of a future reward, and always consider that they suffer less than their sins deserve, nor can their wisdom be despoiled by any punishments: yet God is good even to the wicked, but they are unwilling to experience the goodness which he has prepared for all.

Section 1

How good is God of Israel to those who are upright of heart! Here the progress of an improvement of character shines forth at the very outset. For no one can truly confess God to be good, except he who acknowledges his goodness not from the successes of his own advantages, but from the depth of heavenly mysteries, and from the height of the divine dispensation: which is to be weighed not by the appearance of present things, but by the usefulness of things to come. Therefore God is always good to the just man: and when he is tormented by pains of the body, and when he is afflicted by the bitterness of punishments, he always says: If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why should we not endure the evil ones?

He rejoices to be crushed here, that he may find consolation in the future; knowing that whoever has received good things in this life has his reward; he will not be able to hope for future rewards, who has not wrestled, who has not been exercised by the contest of various battles. But whoever, whether justly or unjustly, is afflicted in this age, rejoices either because here he pays the penalties of his own offenses, or because he knows that there is a more abundant grace with God, if he suffers something bitter unjustly for his name, or for some good work, according to what is written: For there is no glory if, sinning, you are punished and endure it, but if, doing good, you suffer it patiently: this is grace with God. For to this you were called, because Christ also died for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his footsteps, who did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again: when he suffered, he threatened not.

Therefore the just man, even if he is on the rack, is always just; because he justifies God, and says that he endures less than his sins deserve: he is always wise; for true and perfect wisdom is not taken away by the torments of the rack: he does not lose what he is; because he casts fear outside, by zeal and purpose of charity: he knows, as a wise man, to say that the things we endure in this body are unworthy of the reward of future glory; and all the sufferings of this present time cannot equal the reward that is to come. Therefore God is always good to this man, who knows at what time he will reap.

And so, like a good farmer, here he plows his field with a certain harsher plowshare of abstinence: here he roots out with a certain scythe of the virtues that cuts away the vices: here he manures by humbling himself even to the earth, knowing that God raises up the poor man from the earth, and lifts the needy from the dung heap. Finally, the Apostle Paul, unless he had been counted as dung, could never have gained Christ for himself. Here he guards his fruits, that he may store them there more securely. Therefore God is always good to him, because he always hopes for good things from God.

Section 2

Take it another way: How good, he says, is God of Israel to those who are upright of heart! Is God then not good to all? He indeed is good to all, because he is the Savior of all, and especially of the faithful; and therefore the Lord Jesus came, that he might save what had perished: for he came that he might take away the sin of the world, that he might heal our wounds. But since not all seek the medicine, but very many flee from it, lest the strength of the ulcer be pierced by the medicines, therefore he heals the willing, he does not bind the unwilling by force. Those, then, who seek the medicine receive health; but those who refuse the physician and do not seek him, cannot feel the goodness of the physician which they do not experience. But whoever is treated is also healed; and therefore he is good to those whom he has healed.

To these, then, God is good, to whom he has forgiven sins: but he who has an incurable disease in the ulcer of his mind, how can he consider the physician good, whom he flees? Beautifully then the Apostle, as we have said above, explained that God is both good to all, who wills all men to be saved; and especially for the faithful is the prerogative of divine goodness reserved, whom both the will of God and his grace assist. But the Psalmist too, in saying: How good is God of Israel to those who are upright of heart! Referred it to the judgment of those very ones, who know how to think of God in no other way, except that he is good in all things and toward all.

Section 1

Finally, in what follows he himself explains what he meant, saying: But my feet were almost moved, my steps had well nigh slipped: for I was jealous of sinners, seeing the peace of sinners. He surely does not call the feet of the body "steps," but the direction and progress of the mind, of which he says elsewhere: Let not the foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of sinners move me. Therefore we must always pray that the Lord direct the footsteps of our souls, lest they slip, and, poured out on some slippery ground of error, be unable to hold their stability. Now the cause of the falling is this, that he was jealous of the peace of sinners. But we ought to be jealous for what is good, not for what is full of disgrace; as the apostle Paul also expressed it, saying: But it is good to be zealous always in a good thing.

Section 2

Nor let it trouble you that he set "peace" in the context of evil. Indeed, you also find in the Gospel that there is a peace which Christ refuses, as he himself says: My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. For there is a peace which has no stumbling-block, and there is one which has: that which comes from love has no stumbling-block; that which comes from pretense has one. Therefore the Prophet also says: Peace, peace; and where is peace? Let us flee, then, the peace of sinners; for they conspire against the innocent, they gather together to oppress the just, to exterminate the widow, or to assail her modesty.

Section 3

And therefore there is no reclining in their death: not "declining," as many Latin manuscripts have it written, but "reclining." For when we labor, and bend ourselves toward some task, and incline, we are accustomed to recline; but sinners—that is, those guilty of grave offenses, and especially the impious—cannot recline; of whom it is said: And bow down their back always. For they do not raise themselves toward the heavenly things, who have not clung to Christ. And therefore neither do they rise again with him, whose death is most evil, as it is written: The death of sinners is most evil. But he who dies with Christ, and is buried together with him, is not only reclined but also raised up again. Of whom that saying fittingly applies: Thou hast turned all his couch in his sickness; especially if he be a martyr, whose weakness is dissolved by suffering, and his death by resurrection.

Section 4

And therefore David, while he was in the life of this body, prepared himself for scourges, that the Lord might receive him chastised. Consider again for me holy Job, who was covered with sores, and was shaken in all his members, and was full of pains throughout his whole body, dissolving the clods of earth with the corruption and moisture of his wounds—how, since placed in this body he could not recline, he found the rest of death; and therefore, conscious of his own state, he said: Death is rest to a man. He, therefore, was not moved in his affliction, nor did he waver with any slip of speech, he who in all these things sinned not with his lips, as Scripture testifies: but rather in his affliction he found a foundation, through which he was confirmed in Christ. Therefore both Job and David, because they were scourged here, had a foundation in their affliction; for a father scourges the son whom he receives: but those who are not scourged here are not received there as sons.

And therefore they are not in the labors of men, and shall not be scourged with men; so that they may be scourged forever with the devil.

Section 1

Therefore, he says, their pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their impiety. We ought to cast off this evil garment, lest it begin to come into judgment with us; and if anyone should try to strip us of the spiritual tunic which we have received, cast off the mantle of iniquity, take up the covering of faith and patience, with which David covered himself in fasting, lest he lose the garments of virtue. Fasting itself is a covering. Indeed, unless sober fasting had covered holy Joseph, the shamelessness of the adulteress would have stripped him. If Adam had wished to cover himself with this fasting, he would not have been made naked. But because he tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil against the heavenly prohibition, and transgressed the commanded fast with the food of incontinence, he knew that he was naked. But had he fasted, and kept the garments of faith, he would not have seen himself uncovered.

Let us not, then, clothe ourselves with iniquity and impiety, lest it be said of any of us: And he clothed himself with cursing. Adam also clothed himself badly, who, while seeking coverings of leaves, received the sentence of cursing.

Section 2

The Jews clothed themselves with cursing, of whom it is written: Their iniquity came forth as it were from fatness, they have passed into the disposition of the heart. It is named from fat, that is, rich. For just as the soul fed on good things, and filled with virtues, is, as it were, filled with fat and richness, as it is written: so iniquity which proceeds as it were from fat is not signified as thin and slight, but as full of vices. Indeed, they did not fall into error by some chance slip: but passed into sacrilege by counsel and design.

Section 1

They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth. What it is to set one's mouth against heaven, he teaches us, that younger of the brothers, who, returning to his father, said: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee. But they set their mouth against heaven who think that the authority for their crimes is conferred by some necessity of their nativity. These are wont to spare neither heaven nor earth, so that they think the life of man is governed by a certain course of the stars. They leave nothing to providence, nothing to good morals.

And would that these too, like that one of the two young men, had returned: the good Lord would not have denied a remedy, and yet even if they themselves are unwilling to be healed, the Lord reserves the grace of return; so that those who were expelled from Israel through the blindness of their own heart, may return through the fullness of the Church; and may not lead the days of this life empty, but may have them full of good work and faith, when the Lord shall have filled them with spiritual grace. But how they may return, hear. Because blindness, he says, in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved.

But because the mystery had to be fulfilled, that God might shut up all things in unbelief, that is, refute and convict (for when two contend, if one is stronger, it is said: he shut in the other one), and therefore, that through his mercy the world might be made subject to God, the people indeed returned among the heirs; but it was led on by a swift error, so as not to believe that God was foreknowing of hidden things. But the Lord reserved for them, that they might sometime be redeemed, the grace of future salvation, saying: Therefore my people shall return hither. What is "hither"? That is, to me, to my equity and justice, to my worship.

Section 2

And he shall fulfil the days of his life. This you shall understand thus: that the people indeed are redeemed who shall have believed in him: in which, even if those who did not believe are not redeemed, nevertheless the prerogative of the redeemed people of God is conferred.

Section 3

These, therefore, placed in error, said: How doth God know; and is there knowledge at all in the Most High? For they think that there is no knowledge in God, because sinners abound in worldly prosperity. And he goes on to introduce them speaking further: Behold, these are sinners, and yet abounding in the world, they have obtained riches. You have this more plainly expressed in the Gospel, where that Simon the Pharisee, seeing that that sinful woman came into his house, and poured ointment upon Christ's feet, said within himself: This man, if he were a prophet, would surely know who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him; that she is a sinner. But the patience of God does not prejudice the truth, and his foreknowledge and providence are the more proven by this very fact, that one placed in sin abounds in the success of worldly prosperities. Seeing which, the stronger man laughs, while the incautious one is led astray and moved.

Section 1

Finally, the Psalmist says that he said: Therefore have I in vain justified my heart: and washed my hands among the innocent. That is: I see them abounding, I see all advantages favoring them, but myself worn out and harassed by very many temptations. In vain, therefore, have I given myself to innocence, and directed my zeal to the pursuit of sober conduct. And he beautifully says: I have washed my hands among the innocent; so that he might seem not to claim for himself the sum of innocence, but only to devote diligent effort.

Section 2

Meanwhile he attests that speech of this kind did not go forth from him without punishment. For he recalls that he was scourged all the day; because he had said in vain that he had justified his heart to the Lord: but after the scourges the correction of his wrong opinion followed at once. For straightway, he says, my avenger, in the mornings, that is, in the open and plain; for the light of truth, seizing hold of him, did not allow him to hold these things which he had said. So the light of truth, poured upon my mind, convicted and refuted me, because I had not spoken rightly: In vain have I justified my heart. For I spoke those things as one placed in darkness, and as I recalled them my heart was pierced with compunction: and when my heart was pierced, my affection was illumined; so that there was made in my heart a flaming fire, which brought about in me the spiritual beginning of day.

Illumined then as the day arose for me, and placed, as it were, in many mornings, I understood that I had been made outside the constitution of the generation of the sons of God. I who, when I had first believed, that the maker of the world, providing for the human race, made all things, whether sad or such as give little delight, for our profit; had afterward, disturbed by wrong opinions, lost so good a judgment.

Section 3

I conferred, therefore, with my own heart, and said to myself: If I shall tell it thus, that in vain I have justified my heart, the voice of God met me, saying: Behold, to the generation of thy sons which I have appointed: that is, behold, you find in the Scriptures, O Adam, that I have appointed to the generation of your sons; that riches come by chance to the impious, not by any merit, nor are the rewards of virtue the profits of a treasury: nor conversely is poverty the penalty of sin, but these things come without distinction, which are tossed about, as it were, in a certain flowing stream of this world's flux.

Section 4

And I thought, and it seemed to me that I understood that this was true, that this was congruent with divine providence and fitting; but that I had been disturbed in vain in those things in which I ought not to have clung.

Section 1

Therefore, because it seemed to me that I had grasped the true judgment, and had attained understanding of the matter itself, I said to myself: This is a labor before me, until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand in the last things. That is: there remains for me only this labor, that I enter into the sanctuary of God, where the Cherubim are, that is, the depth of knowledge, and that I not labor in uncertain and vain opinions; for the tale of the fool is like a burden on the road. Let us therefore enter the innermost shrine of sacred knowledge, and the interior sanctuaries of truth, so that there may be no labor in us; for wisdom leads us away from the sense of labor. Indeed, there is no labor in Jacob. But the cause of labor is ignorance; since he who does not know that rewards are laid up for the just is not turned aside from labors, but is rather bent and broken by the labor of his own imprudence.

Let us therefore enter the sanctuary of God, where the Cherubim are, in whom is the remembrance of sacred knowledge and of that true and eternal light.

Section 2

In that lampstand the image shines forth, by which we may understand in the last things. For the saint knows in the end, and attains perfect wisdom by the progress of age, saying: Make known to me, O Lord, my end, and what is the number of my days, that I may know what is wanting to me. What is the end, but that when the kingdom is delivered up to God the Father, when the hidden things of wisdom are revealed? This end of our contest the Prophet sought, desiring to know what was wanting to his perfection; for the end of our discipline and studies is perfection.

Section 3

This, then, is the first true account of understanding: that the things which are in this world happen by chance: the second is this: that on account of their tergiversations thou hast set for them flowing successes of worldly advantages, and abundance of riches; lest they might complain that on account of poverty and the bitterness of some grief and mourning they had been less devoted, and had been driven, under the compulsion of want, into the guilt of robbery and pillaging zeal. For they were not enriched with riches, nor raised up with honors, for the tranquility of life and the enjoyment of gladness: but so that complaint might be excluded, and misery heaped up.

Section 4

Thus men of this kind are cast down while they are lifted up. For it is not favor but ruin; where neither is the long enjoyment of the gift preserved, and the excuse for wrongdoing is taken away. For what heavier weight of complaint is there than that divine word which you have in the book of the prophet Micah: My people, what have I done to you, or in what have I grieved you, or how have I troubled you; answer me? Did I not bring you out of the land of Egypt, and free you from the house of bondage (Micah vi, 3 and 4)? Behold how the wicked are cast down while they are lifted up; their complaint is shut out, their punishment is made more bitter. For having been invited by heavenly benefits, they ought not to have forsaken the giver of security and prosperity in life, whom they ought rather to have obeyed. But as the justice of God is great, so also is his vengeance severe.

For when has the wicked man ever been accustomed to persevere, of whom also elsewhere you have it written: I have seen the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Libanus; and I passed by, and behold he was not: and I sought him, and his place was not found? Incredible is the swiftness of his extinction. You see the wicked man powerful for a moment in this world: while you are passing by, he is already no more. For how great is a shadow on the earth—how lasting is it? Move your foot, and the shadow has passed. Or if this troubles you at all, lift the step of your mind to the things that are to come, and you will find that there the wicked man will not exist, whom here you believed to exist; for he who is nothing, is not. Finally, the Lord knows those who are his own; but those who are not, he does not acknowledge; because they themselves did not acknowledge him who is.

Section 1

Of these, then, he speaks here also: They failed and perished on account of their iniquity, like the dream of one arising, that is, thus the wicked fail and vanish, like the dream of one arising first from sleep; because they are in darkness, and have walked in darkness, nor has any trace of good work remained of them, but they are like those who see a dream: for he who dreams, dreams in the night; and night is in darkness. They are sons of darkness, deprived of the sun of righteousness and the splendor of virtue, always sleeping, and not watchful, of whom it is well said: They have slept their sleep, and found nothing.

For when their souls, separated from the body, as if released from the sleep of the body, shall find nothing, shall hold nothing; and what they thought they held, they will lose; since the fool and the senseless man, when he has overflowed with riches, will leave his riches to strangers, nor will the glory of his house descend with him together into the grave.

Section 2

The following words also show how the wicked man is not found, but perishes. For his image is not found in the city of the Lord, that higher Jerusalem. For the Lord painted us to his image and likeness, as he himself teaches, saying: Behold, Jerusalem, I have painted your walls (Isaiah xlix, 16). If we act well, this heavenly image remains in us: if one acts badly, this image is blotted out in him (that image, namely, of him who descended from heaven), and there is in him the image of the earthly one. Whence also the Apostle says: As we have borne the image of that earthly one, let us also bear the image of this heavenly one. The images of the good, then, persist, and shine forth in that city of God. But if anyone has turned aside to graver sins, and has not done penance, his image is abolished or cast down; just as Adam was cast out of paradise and shut out.

But whoever has conducted himself piously and honorably enters into the city of God, and brings in his image, that it may shine in that city of God. Lord, in your city you will reduce their image to nothing; because they cannot shine in the light, who have clothed themselves with works of darkness. Let us bring an example from the world. See how in the cities of good princes the images of good rulers persist, while the images of tyrants are destroyed.

Section 1

Considering these things, then, and turning his mind to them, the holy Prophet was delighted, who before had been troubled. Whence he himself says: For my heart was delighted, and my reins were loosened. And I was reduced to nothing, and I knew not: and I became as a beast before you, and I am always with you. When he had recognized, he says, that God cares for and looks upon human affairs, my reins rested, that is, from the utmost weariness of my former imprudence I rested through the recognition of the heavenly good and grace. For there are certain reins of the soul, which are vexed within us through the labor of ignorance: these are relaxed to rest through the recognition of heavenly teaching, and are cherished as if resting upon some fair support of heavenly precepts. Then, he says, I understood that I had been laboring in vain; because I did not know what was true.

Section 2

And I became as a beast: fittingly he added, before you; for in comparison with heavenly things, what is man but an irrational beast? For even the stars, though they are bright, vanish at the rising of the sun. And Moses says: I am not fit from yesterday, from the time you began to speak with your servant: and I am, he says, of faint voice and slow of speech. So then even man, I will not say in comparison with Christ, but with the angels, seems to be a mute beast. But yet let no one despair; for God makes both men and beasts safe. And therefore, because I have learned not from myself, but from you, I will cling to you always; that I may cease to be a beast, and you may say to me: But stand here with me. For man, surrounded by the grace of God, begins to be, who through imprudence used to display insensibility and beastly ignorance. For man is proved to be such, if he is capable of reason and grace.

And so he rejoices to be separated from the mute animals, and to have been admitted into the fellowship of men, which God visits and watches over. For what is man, except that the Lord is mindful of him, or that he is visited by the Lord?

Section 1

Whence, as one visited by him, he says: You have held my right hand, and in your will you have led me, and with glory you have received me. Thus we have received it, and it agrees thus with the Greek. For the Greek said: Ἐκρατήσας τῆς χειρός, that is, you have held the hand, τῆς δεξιᾶς μου, my right hand. Well is he guided, whose right hand God holds with his own hand. He can say: The Lord is at my right hand, that I be not moved. If Adam had been willing to have the Lord at his right hand, he would not have been deceived by the serpent. But because he forgot the commandment of God and fulfilled the will of the serpent, the devil held his hand, and made it reach out to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to pluck what was forbidden. In him a precedent was set against all, and the adversary began to stand at the right hand of all.

Whence also that form of curse against Judas came forth: And let the devil stand at his right hand. If that curse is grave, this blessing is the greatest, by which the bonds of the harsh curse are loosened. Therefore the Lord Jesus set the devil at his own right hand, as we read in the book of Zachariah; for he had taken up the cause and place of man. There, then, he stood, where the inheritance of Adam stood. Like a good athlete he allowed him to stand at his right hand, that he might drive him back, saying: Get behind me, satan. And so the adversary, cast from his place, withdrew: but so that the devil might not stand at your right hand, he says: Come, follow me. Foreseeing, then, the coming of the Lord, who descended from heaven to free us from the power of the adversary, David says: The Lord is at my right hand, that I be not moved. But he at whose right hand the devil was, used to be moved.

Rightly, then, here also he says: You have held my right hand, that is, so that I can no longer sin; that I, who before was wavering on a slippery footing, might stand on firm ground. How well the apostle exemplified this, when the Lord saw him troubled, and stretching out his right hand did not allow him to totter, and steadied him with a fearless step. Peter, thus freed, what else did he say but these prophetic verses: You have held my right hand, and in your will you have led me, and with glory you have received me. What is the right hand but the active power of the soul? Which, if it is directed by the will of the Lord, desires nothing else, seeks nothing, demands no wealth of this world, no aids.

Section 1

Therefore holy David says: For what remains for me in heaven, and what have I desired from you upon earth? That is, You are my portion, you suffice me for everything, I have sought nothing else, except to have you as my portion, I have not subjected myself to any heavenly creature, as the gentiles do, I have coveted no riches of this world, and no allurements of pleasures. I need nothing, I who have been taken up by you: nor is there anything remaining in the heavens that I should seek further. Having nothing, I have all things; because I have Christ, whom the Father most high did not spare, but delivered him up for us all: how then has he not, along with him, given us all things, as the Apostle said? For all things are in Christ, through whom are all things, and in whom all things consist. Having, then, all things in him, I seek no other reward, because he himself is the reward of all.

And therefore to the perfect man he said: Take up your cross, and follow me. He who follows him is not led to perfection by reward: but is consummated by perfection unto reward. For the imitators of Christ act not for hope of gain, but for love of virtue. For Christ is good by nature, not for desire of reward. Therefore he suffered, because it delighted him to do good, not because he sought an increase of glory from his suffering. Therefore he who desires to imitate him works not what may profit himself, but what may profit others. Whence not undeservedly he fails as to himself, but grows strong for others through the increase of virtue.

Section 2

And fittingly he says: My heart and my flesh have failed, O God of my heart. For eternal things cannot succeed, unless earthly things fail. The flesh, then, fails, when the things that are carnal are put to death. Those also fail who carry about in their flesh the mortification of Jesus Christ; for the death of Christ works in them, so that every allurement of errors dies. Whence it is gathered that the heart of man also fails, when the evil thoughts that proceed from the heart are put to death; that oblivion may hide all earthly things, and God may become the God of their heart, who, blessed in cleanness of heart, may deserve to see God; that they may draw near to you, and not separate themselves. For God, drawing near, is not a repeller of those who draw near; for he wills to be the cause of salvation for all, not of death. Finally, he repels no one, except him who thinks that he must be separated from his sight.

Section 3

For behold, he says, those who put themselves far from you shall perish. For each one, by his own works, either joins himself to or separates himself from your piety. For he flees God who does those things, the knowledge of which he fears to have detected; like one who, sheltered by walls and surrounded by darkness, thinks himself unseen by the Lord God: but he is seen, when it is said: You have destroyed all who go a-whoring from you. For just as a woman who commits fornication does not cling to her husband, nor is one flesh with her husband, nor one spirit; but divides and separates herself by fornicating: so whatever soul does not cling to God, but, serving the vain worship of idols, commits fornication, separates itself from the ferocity of sacrilege, and is made far from the Lord, when it ought to be near. But he who is separated from the Lord perishes.

Section 4

Whence the Saint, who dreads the judgment of God, always wishes to cling to Christ, and to place his hope in him, that he may praise the Lord, to whom is honor, glory, everlastingness from the ages, and now and always, and unto all ages of ages. Amen.