Exposition of Psalm 118

To each letter he has assigned eight little ; so that he might at once teach unity (for unity restrains and rules all things, to which all things are subject) and the purification of lawful sanctification. For the solemn purification is on the eighth day, either according to the Law, because the solemnity of circumcision was appointed to be fulfilled on the eighth day; or because the whole world had been defiled by our sins, and polluted by those seven days. But when the day of resurrection came, we, made alive together with the Lord Jesus, rose again, and were raised up, bearing forth the grace of ablution in newness of life. And rightly do we offer firstborn animals in figure of the firstborn Son of God, of chastity and simplicity, a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God, not on the fourth or fifth day, lest the sacrifice be unclean or unconsummated; but on the eighth day, on which all of us were, in the resurrection of Christ, not only raised up but also confirmed.

Whence, although in baptism purification is immediately complete, yet

because the baptized person ought to know the reason of that washing and of the sacrifice, he does not offer sacrifice until he enters upon the eighth day; so that, instructed in the knowledge of the heavenly sacraments, not as one untaught, but as one capable of reason, he then at last offers his gift at the sacred altars, when he has begun to be better instructed; lest the ignorance of the offerer contaminate the mystery of the offering.

Now the title of the psalm is Alleluia; that is, praise of God.

For in these hymns God is truly praised, in which there is remission of sins. Finally, in the preceding psalm, the passion of the Lord was set forth beforehand, which washed away this world, so as to make peoples worthy who might praise God with unblemished mouth. The very elements of the letters too, like all Hebrew names, are not devoid or empty of a rational interpretation, whose meanings we shall unfold in their proper places.

The hundred and eleventh psalm is arranged in Hebrew by these letters at the beginnings of the

is wholly ethical; and the hundred and tenth seems to me to be written likewise. Moreover, they have twenty-two

each, and in each

a single sentence is set forth.

Whence also they are said to be composed according to meters.

The first letter is called Aleph, whose interpretation is "doctrine." Let the attentive hearer, then, presume that the

which follow are full of doctrine.

Blessed, he says, are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that search his testimonies: with their whole heart do they seek him. How beautiful is the order, how full of doctrine and grace! He did not say first, "who searches his testimonies" (for that could have suited the letter equally well), but first: "Blessed are the undefiled in the way." For life must be sought before doctrine. For a good life, even without doctrine, has grace; doctrine without life has no integrity. For into a malevolent soul wisdom shall not enter. And so it says: The wicked shall seek me, and shall not find me; because the eye of the mind is blinded by wickedness, and, its own iniquity casting darkness over it, it cannot discover deep mysteries. Therefore first the warfare of life must be practiced, the correction of morals.

When we have set these in order to their due course, so that there be a correction of offense, the grace of purity, then let us come, in due order and way, to the pursuits of acquiring knowledge. First, therefore, come the moral matters, second the mystical. In the former is life, in the latter knowledge; so that, if you seek perfection, neither is life without knowledge, nor knowledge without life; each supports the other. And so Scripture says: Sow for yourselves unto justice, reap unto the fruit of life, light for yourselves the light of knowledge (Osee. X, 12). It does not say first "light," but "sow"; nor only "sow" first unto justice, but also "reap," it says, "unto the fruit of life"; and then "light the light of knowledge," so that perfection may be proven not only by things sown, but also by fruits received. In the first psalm too he kept this order, teaching first that one must walk in the way, and then meditate in the Law.

For he who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly has certainly not departed from the way of piety and the path of justice; and rightly is he pronounced blessed who walks in the way, and he who exercises meditation on the Law day and night has the grace of blessedness.

Following this instruction, Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs, in which he set forth the moral topic more fully, the natural topic in Ecclesiastes, the mystical in the Song of Songs; although, if you examine it carefully, you will find many mystical things also in the Proverbs, and the sweetness of morals in the Song. For assuredly this is mystical: Wisdom has built herself a house and set up her seven pillars, she has slain her victims. And this is illustrious in the Song, both mystical and moral, in which the sweetness of endearments and the affection of the one who loves is expressed: Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth; for your breasts are better than wine, and the smell of your ointments above all spices.

Picture, then, a virgin betrothed for a long time, burning with just love, who by the trustworthy testimony of reliable witnesses has come to know many proven deeds of her beloved, held often in suspended desire, delayed, no longer bearing the delays; who has done everything so as to see her betrothed: at length in possession of her wishes, at the unexpected arrival of the bridegroom, thrown into confusion by joy, she does not seek the preliminaries of greeting, nor the exchange of words; but at once demands what she had desired. So too holy Church, betrothed in the beginning of the world in paradise, prefigured in the flood, announced through the Law, called through the prophets, having for long awaited the redemption of men, the beauty of the Gospel, the coming of her beloved, impatient of delay, rushes into kisses, saying: Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth. And delighted with the kisses she adds: For your breasts are better than wine.

And to speak more morally, understand me to mean that flesh which had been steeped in Adam with the venom of the serpent, which was decaying with the stench of crimes, which went forth among the daughters of Sion with haughty neck and glances of the eyes, and with the gait of her feet trailing her tunics, and playing with her feet, with curled locks and composed countenance, and with headbands and every affected adornment, thereby the more unbecoming; the same flesh, however, instructed by very many oracles that he was to come who, the enticements of the serpent excluded, would pour in the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that all flesh might see the salvation of God, all flesh might come to God, had burned with desire: but fearing lest, as being impatient, as wanton, as luxurious, as querulous, as she had been before, she should displease, and be shaken by a longer waiting than she could now bear for the coming of the Lord's arrival, yet not murmuring nor transgressing, but lifting up in every place pure hands without wrath and disputing, in seemly attire, adorning herself with modesty and sobriety, not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly raiment, but with those things which befit the grace of chastity and good conduct, is said to pray: Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth; for your breasts are better than wine.

Now the flesh wished to cleave to Christ, now she hastened to be wedded; that she might be one spirit, and become the flesh of Christ, she who before had been the flesh of a harlot. "Let him kiss me," she says (the Word of God kisses us, when the Spirit of knowledge enlightens our understanding); and as though despising all her own pleasures and delights, desiring to cleave to the heavenly commandments, she says: For the best precepts of your testaments are above all the appetite of the flesh, and the pleasure of the world. For she remembered that she had once so fallen in Eve, when she preferred bodily pleasure to the heavenly commandments. She says: Your name is as oil poured out; that is, this whole world formerly reeked with the unclean impurities of divers crimes: now everywhere breathes the sweetness of chastity, the ointment of faith, the flower of integrity.

And from the things of mortality she comes to the mystical, saying: The King has brought me into his chamber, let us exult and be glad in you, let us love your breasts above wine. For a kiss is a simple thing, but the secret of the chamber is a weighty matter.

In the Gospel itself too there is a most beautiful passage concerning morals; that each one should cleanse his own vessel, the Lord saying: Blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and the dish, that that also which is without may become clean. For unless each one cleanses himself within, even if he seems outwardly comely and just, he will be like whitewashed sepulchers; so that outwardly indeed he seems just, but within is foul. So it is with doctrine without innocence of life. But not even doctrine itself can have its reward, where it does not have the grace of innocence. For to the sinner God said: Why do you declare my justices? But let us return to the proposed psalm.

Blessed, he says, are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.

Blessed are they that search his testimonies, with their whole heart do they seek him. The first

is moral, the second mystical.

Who says this? The prophet, of course, who was performing the discourse of the flesh, and says this after the psalm in which the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ was described. When, then, the divine sacraments had been revealed, and he had put on the joy of the Lord's resurrection, and tasted the grace of the passion, he saw the assemblies of the just, the peoples of the redeemed, the salvation of the lost, the resurrection of the dead, the sanctification of the sacraments, and cried out, saying: Blessed are the undefiled in the way; that is: behold, the earth, cursed in Adam, has begun to have blessedness, provided only it does not forsake the law of the Lord: behold, the man who was formerly polluted is now undefiled.

How precious it is to keep the commandment of the Lord!

How precious also to know the mystery of that very commandment!

But who is undefiled?

Not, surely, he who walks in whatever way, but he who walks in Christ. For he himself said: I am the way. He who walks in this way does not know how to go astray, provided he never departs from this way. The Law also is a way; and therefore, while he is undefiled, let him walk in the law of the Lord; and let him not cease to walk in this way, lest he cease to be undefiled. Let him not turn aside to the right hand or to the left, nor waver, nor stop, nor wait; but let him walk, forgetting the things behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before, pursue toward the mark, hasten toward the prize, strive even unto the end; for the end of the Law is Christ. Many wish to walk in the way, but not unto the end. The Jews do not walk unto the end, who do not walk as far as Christ.

The Manichean does not walk in the way, who rejects the Law; but true faith walks, which both receives the Law and recognizes the fullness of the Law.

If, then, anyone walks in the way, let him search the testimonies of the Lord.

Though these be mystical, yet they also have moral elements in themselves; since he can walk better in the way who searches the testimonies of the Lord.

For, as some most intemperate man, seized by the heat of adulterous desire, and overcome by lust, or indulging in shameful deeds, who is unwilling to resist the appetite of his flesh, turning this way and that, if perchance he sees no one, rushes into the crime: yet the same man, although he finds a ready opportunity of gaining his end, examines everything carefully, turns his eyes here and there, careless of justice, anxious for his reputation, and blushes at the witness of his error, though he does not blush at the error itself; and if perchance he learns that someone has been a spectator of his deed, shame restrains his intemperance; and although with a maidservant or common harlot, where there is no danger of being caught, he attempts the trial of lust, yet shame makes him abandon the undertaking: how much more, if one lifts up the eyes of the mind, and considers that all things are full of angels—the air, the lands, the sea, the churches, over which angels preside (for the Lord sends his angels for the defense of those who are to be heirs of the heavenly promises)—can he renounce the sin he had conceived!

Whence comes this multitude of the innocent, if not from among those very sinners?

The nature of all is the same, but the discipline is different. Circumcision is nothing, and gentilehood is nothing; but the observance of the commandments of God increases the grace of nature itself. He changes merits who says: Darkness surrounds me, and walls cover me: the Most High will not be mindful of my sins.

Would you not have reverenced the presence of angels, if you believed them to be present?

Would you not fear—I will not say to do, but even to speak, or even to think what is depraved, if the divine Scripture had persuaded you that God is the judge of thoughts, the true witness of secrets, as He Himself says: Be ye my witnesses, and I am a witness, saith the Lord God, and my servant whom I have chosen? Do you fear a man present, and do you not fear the presence of God the Father and the Son? But you do not wish to believe, lest you should be able to beware; you do not wish to hear, when it is read that God knows the hidden things of men, lest you begin to know what you should fear, and to fear lest you sin. Hear therefore the divine Scripture, that you may be turned from the depraved and wicked way.

Do not be like one blind in bodily eyes, or like a deaf man, who

because he cannot see or hear those present, believes himself alone; and in a gathering of many, while he thinks no one is present, attempts to perpetrate what he supposes to be secret—for he who does not see cannot see those who see; likewise you also, blinded in the eyes of the mind, do not suppose that you sin without a witness, because you were able to avoid the presence of man. There are more who would reprove you than those you were able to avoid. You cannot flee from your own accuser, whom your own conscience meets. And if you deny it to others, you do not deny it to yourself. And if you deny it to man, you confess it to God. And if you should wish to deny it, your own thoughts convict you.

Angels stood by Elisha, whom he saw; and therefore he did not fear the ranks of the enemy: but his servant feared, who did not see the angels.

By the voice of the prophet, God's grace opened his eyes; he saw the hosts of angels, and believed those to be present whom before, because he did not see them, he thought absent. And do you read the prophet, that you may see; read, that he may open your eyes: let not the hostile legion terrify you, nor believe yourself besieged, when you are free, when you are fortified by spiritual troops, if you do not forsake the prophet. When the prophet speaks to you, because God has said: I fill heaven and earth; when the prophet says to you, that more are with us, that angels are round about us: lift up the eyes of your mind, and you will see not only angels, but also God, who says to you: Open to me, my sister, my kinswoman.

He knocks at the door even when you are sleeping: if only, being awakened, you would rouse yourself, or, being called, would open the door of your breast, He will enter. But if you flee prophetic reading, if you do not read at home, if you are unwilling to hear it in Church; do you not, like one who with averted gaze winks so as not to see what he might see, close his eyes lest he look, though he has the power of seeing, or like those who in madness have often laid hands upon their own eyes—do you not likewise first turn away by winking dissimulation rather than by abrupt refusal?

For when you come to Church, and profess yourself a Christian, you appear sound, you open your eyes, with which you might see: but while you pretend not to hear what is being read, you close your eyes so as not to see for yourself, although you seem to others to see; you even lay certain hands of faithlessness and intemperance upon the eyes of your soul, and you bring a blindness upon your heart, which is more grievous because it is voluntary; so that seeing you do not see, and hearing you do not hear.

Do you think that you are alone when you fornicate, and do you not remember that the eyes of the Lord behold the whole earth?

Do you not hear Him saying: Behold, the hour comes that you shall be scattered every one to his own, and shall leave me alone: yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me? The Father, therefore, is present, the Son of God is present, the ministers are present, the Cherubim and Seraphim are present, who say: Holy, holy, holy: the earth is full of thy majesty. For the world is full of holy powers, because it is full of wickedness. The world is full of remedies, because it is full of snares. Do you think that in the brothel Christ does not see you, He who sees the brothel that you enter? Do you think that He does not catch you in adultery, He who sees you thinking of adultery?

Does He who beholds errors shrink from walls, and does He who beholds the scene of the crime shrink from the secret of the crime?

Or do you think that you first enter the house of ill fame when you enter the harlot's vault? You had already entered when the harlot entered your thoughts. You had already entered when, with a step of the mind, you entered to obtain the desire of the prostitute. You knocked at the doors of the brothel when you opened the eyes of your mind to the beauty of the woman you desired. And if you wish to hear the truth, how has Christ not seen you in the brothel, when He saw you at the moment when, by committing adultery in your heart, you made yourself into a brothel? Finally, the Lord Jesus Himself says: Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart. Whence, then, comes one so religious in reputation, who is so shameful in crime?

But I grant you this: that Jesus may not wish to see you, may not wish to convict you, He who does not wish to accuse; the angels too may not wish to see. But the devil sees, who entered with you, or rather who led you in: his ministers see, who surrounded you, that you might not see the angels of God: Belial saw, the legion saw, who drove you on; lest anyone should call you back, lest anyone should hold you. Do not think that he who wishes to have fellowship with you in punishment grants you the collusion of silence. He is eager to see many like himself; and in this he has his glory, that he has made many to perish. He himself is the instigator, he himself the accuser; he himself entered into Judas, he himself drove him to betrayal, he himself sent him to the halter. How many will say against him in that day: You have deceived us, you have driven us on! Do you seek an example?

Take Eve, who declared the serpent to be the author of her transgression.

But she entangled him, she did not free herself. To her the Lord answered: Had I not commanded that you should not eat of the tree alone, which is in the midst of paradise? So Truth will answer many likewise: You have listened to the devil persuading you to harmful things; you could not listen to me commanding what is life-giving. Let us therefore work righteousness: For they that work iniquity have not walked in his ways. Thou hast commanded thy commandments to be kept diligently. Oh that my ways were directed to keep thy justifications! Then shall I not be confounded, when I shall look into all thy commandments. He says not only that He commanded His commandments to be kept, but even to be kept diligently. When did He command this?

Indeed in paradise He commanded Adam to keep the commandments; but perhaps He had not commanded him to keep them diligently; and therefore he fell, therefore he was bent by the voice of his wife, therefore he was deceived by the serpent, thinking that if he withdrew in some part from the commandment, he would not err entirely: but because once he departed from the path of the commandments, he abandoned the whole way, and was stripped of all things and left naked. Therefore the Lord, because he who was in paradise had fallen, afterward admonished you through the Law, through the Prophets, through the Gospel, through the Apostles, that you should keep the commandments of the Lord your God very diligently. Every idle word, He says, which you shall have spoken, you shall render an account for it. Do not dissemble: from any commandment not one iota, nor one tittle, shall pass away. Do not depart from the way.

If, walking in the way, you are scarcely safe from the robber; what will you do if he finds you wandering outside the way?

Let your steps be directed; and lest you be too weak to direct them, pray that the Lord may direct your ways.

Here he wishes: Oh that my ways were directed! Elsewhere he says: With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and he was attentive to me; and he set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps. Pray, therefore, you too, that the Lord may direct the footsteps of your mind, so that you may be able to keep the justifications. You will not be confounded, when you have looked into all his commandments. For before, you were confounded in Adam and Eve. Indeed you were made naked, you covered yourself with leaves, because you were ashamed; you hid yourself from the sight of God, because you blushed, so that God said to you: Adam, where art thou? When He says it to him, He says it to you; for Adam, by Latin interpretation, is called man—that is: Man, where art thou? And Adam answered: Fearing because I was naked, and utterly confounded in mind, I did not dare to come before thy sight.

Therefore, that we may not be confounded, let us keep the commandments of the Lord, and let us keep them all. For if anyone keeps one commandment, and transgresses another, it profits him nothing. Someone has kept himself from bloodshed, but has not kept himself from adultery; being convicted in the one, he is punished even by secular laws: nor does abstinence from the other crime profit him, if he has been caught in the other. I will confess to thee, O Lord, in the uprightness of heart (you notice which ways he directs) when I shall have learned the judgments of thy justice. I will keep thy justifications: O do not thou utterly forsake me. In this place he testifies that he wishes to know the mystical things more fully, that he may enter the inner chambers of heavenly mysteries, and that the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ may be opened to him. Whence also Solomon says: Draw us after thee: we will run in the odor of thy ointments.

The King has brought me into his chamber.

And perhaps that which he says above: Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, signifies the grace of the Holy Spirit coming upon her, as the angel said to Mary: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. But when the King has brought her into his chamber, the time of the passion, the piercing of the side, the pouring out of the blood, the ointment of burial, the mystery of the resurrection declare it; so that she may have received the kiss as a bride: and into the chamber of Christ the Church is brought, no longer as merely betrothed, but even as married; nor has she only entered the bridal chamber, but has also obtained the keys of lawful union. And so, as though placed in the bridal chamber, she says: A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall abide between my breasts.

But if we seek the chamber, let Him teach us who says: But thou, when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber: and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret. The chamber of the Church is the body of Christ. The King brought her into all the interior mysteries, gave her the keys; that she might open for herself the treasures of the knowledge of the sacraments, might unfold the doors formerly closed, might know the grace of Him at rest, the sleep of the dead one, the power of the resurrection.

In that chamber the bride found the righteousnesses of the Lord Jesus.

What are those righteousnesses? Surely the sacraments of baptism, as we read, because when John said to Him coming to baptism: I ought to be baptized by thee, and thou comest to me; Jesus answered: Suffer it to be so now; for so it becomes us to fulfil all justice. In that chamber she learned the justifications of the Lord, she came to know the counsel of God, as it is written: For all the people hearing, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with John's baptism: but the Pharisees and the lawyers despised the counsel of God against themselves, not being baptized by him. What they despised, let us choose, and let us follow the counsel of God, than which nothing can be more sublime; for this is divine, whereby the remission of sins is effected. When, therefore, one has learned the justices of the Lord, fearing God, he shall not be confounded. Accordingly Paul also says: In nothing shall I be confounded.

And since no one can be perfect without the favor of God, nor safe; therefore he ought to ask that God not forsake him utterly.

For above David asked not to be forsaken, saying: Forsake me not, O Lord my God; here he says: Forsake me not utterly, that is, greatly. Above, perhaps as one still imperfect, and placed in great disturbances, he feared to be forsaken: but here, now stronger, he does not fear to be forsaken so as to be tempted; but he asks that he not be utterly forsaken. For God very often forsakes those whom he wishes to be proved: but he utterly forsakes those whom he abandons. He utterly forsook Judas: but he did not forsake holy Job, into whose patrimony, into whose body he gave power to the devil; but into his soul he did not give it. For if he had given it into his soul, he would have utterly forsaken him. Was not Job forsaken for this reason, that being left he might be proved, and being proved he might be crowned?

He forsook, then, Judas, to whom he said: What you do, do quickly. For he utterly forsook him whom he allowed to carry out his crime. But when he saw the other apostles were troubled, because he had said: Where I go, you cannot come; he added: Let not your heart be troubled. And further on: I will come again, and take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be. Then Peter, troubled, who feared to be forsaken, said: Lord, where are you going? The Lord saw him troubled, and answered him: Where I go, you cannot follow me now: but you shall follow afterward. So also when he wavered on the sea, he cried out to Christ; and Christ stretched out his right hand to him, lest, utterly forsaken, he should perish.

But no one ought to be puffed up

because he is never forsaken; nor grieve, because he is sometimes forsaken; since the Son himself says he was forsaken, as you have: God, my God, look upon me; why have you forsaken me? And yet he was never forsaken by the Father, with whom the Father always is. For it is written: Behold, the hour now comes that you shall be scattered, each to his own, and shall leave me alone: but I am not alone, because the Father is with me. But according to the body in which he was handed over to the passion, that voice went forth; because we seem to ourselves to be forsaken, when we are placed in dangers. Whence also Paul says of God the Father: Who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.

He seems to have forsaken him, because he did not spare him whom he delivered to death: but he did not utterly forsake him, to whom it is said: For you will not leave my soul in hell, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.

By what does a young man correct his way?

The discussion of the preceding eight

has not fallen absurdly to us; and so it was our zeal to pursue what follows as well.

And first the interpretation of the second letter, that is, Beth, must be considered, which, translated into Latin, is declared as "confusion." But he who corrects his way shall not be confounded.

Yet since he who corrects was before in error (for how is one corrected, unless he had before turned aside from the truth?), certainly, having been placed in a fall, and caught in the luxury of adolescence and in the allurements of a wanton age, when he comes to the borders of youth he grows sober-minded again: as though confused in mind, he turns over long within himself in what manner he may lay aside things to be blushed at, and take up things full of uprightness; and, wavering with diverse thoughts, he weighs and examines, forgetting the things that are behind and reaching for the things that are before, in what way he may correct his way, and cover the offense of his more youthful age with the serious countenance of maturity. Whence, lest one of this sort hesitate long, and cling to uncertainty, he gives counsel to the Prophet, as if deliberating with himself; for we believe counsels are the more wholesome, if they are seen to have been examined with more inclined meditation.

But the very undertaking of deliberation is distinguished by a learned definition, so that it removes the concourse of diverse thoughts, saying: By what does a young man correct his way? For there is the end of one deliberating, by which he may correct his way.

And he answered: By keeping your words.

And rightly, turned to the Lord, he answered the one deliberating, as though, having brought forward prayer and supplication, he had found this counsel by the inspiration of the Lord; so that it might be believed to be a remedy not of human presumption, but of divine condescension. For our mind, sprinkled with the seeds of heavenly words, which before was degenerating in its stock, begins to bring forth better cultivation, and to bear fruits. Let us therefore direct our paths, and not follow the winding turns of the twisting serpent. For the ways of the Lord are straight; but the ways of those who err are perverse, of whom it is said: O who have left the straight paths! The joyful crop is set out in order, and bound as it were in a row: the course of the stag is more direct, that of the little fox is winding.

Therefore it is said of Herod: Go, tell that fox; because he had turned aside from the straight way, and had not corrected his path in youth: worthy of the Lamentation of Jeremiah, wherein sinners are bewailed, who refused to take up the yoke of the word in youth. Therefore they were led captive, therefore they are mourned as though dead; because they knew not the paths of life, and did not turn aside from works fit for the tomb of corpses. Weeping, then, over the perpetual death of the Jews, Jeremiah says: It is good for a man when he takes up the yoke in his youth: he shall sit alone, and shall be silent; because he has taken it upon himself.

Not only must we take up the yoke of the word, but we must take it up in youth.

For if we take it up late, we begin to have more the penitence of what has gone before, than to hold onto grace. Let us therefore anticipate the years of youth with fitting correction; that each of us may rather say: God, who feeds me from my youth; than, having a remembrance of our fall, bewail it saying: Remember not the sins of my youth, and my ignorances. This is the remedy of weakness, that the strength of salvation. The medicine of salvation is sought for a wound: grace, for health. And so he says: It is good for a man, when he takes up the yoke in his youth. But for him who takes up the yoke after the years of youth have run their course, the good is not immediately perfect. For his sins goad him, the habit of sinning stirs up his conscience, and the practice of error makes him unsteady.

Such a man must struggle long, to abolish deeds done inveterately and long ago in his youth.

For this one the matter is in peril; for that one, it is in the good.

So then he shall sit alone, as one who does not easily find an equal, endowed with singular rewards: and he shall be silent, quiet and at leisure from every interruption of worldly care and pleasure; and he shall be free for divine oracles, which are wont to be revealed singularly to those who sit alone, as to holy David, who says: For you have singularly established me in hope. And he indeed did not sit alone in secret, but while presiding over peoples; yet he was preeminent by singular grace. Elijah sat alone, when he was fed by an angel, or even by ravens bringing him food. Alone, not only set apart from the crowds, but even segregated from the merits of the many. Then divine revelations of grace shone upon him, the fruit of whose gift he obtained as a reward; because from his youth he thought the yoke of the word should be taken up, and sins should not be dragged along on a longer rope.

This younger man, who did good by taking up the yoke of the word in youth, can be one not yet perfect, who, being still younger, separating himself indeed from the conversations of his equals, which often corrupt good morals, and wishing to flee the contagions of sinners; thus should be understood to sit alone and be silent, lest by the facility of an unformed age he slip: but rather attend to the precepts of the elders, the oracles of the prophets, the teachings of the apostles: praiseworthy in this, that he wishes first to know the things to be spoken, before he brings forth what he thinks; before he learns to speak, fearing lest by much speaking he contract sin.

Whence I think also that Pythagoras that philosopher, an imitator of this prophetic youth, established his school, so that his disciples, not speaking for five years, might learn to speak through such great silence; especially since David is not doubted to have been of an earlier age than Pythagoras, who says: I said, I will keep my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue. I have set a guard on my mouth. And because perhaps he had at some time spoken something incautiously; therefore afterward he asked that a guard be set on his mouth by God. Who also does not know that Isaiah was earlier than the Pythagoreans? Who, when he heard, "Cry out"; did not cry out before he heard what he ought to cry. For he answered: What shall I cry? Whence it was said to him: All flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of the field.

The grass has withered and its flower has fallen: but the word of the Lord endures forever; and he cried out with a prophetic voice.

Both youths, therefore, are to be praised: the one, however, though late, the other cautious; the one content with himself, and never alone for himself; the other, adopting for his slippery age the beautiful discipline of silence; not yet abounding in himself, but fearing to entrust himself to others: yet seeking from youth to gather together things that in old age may profit both himself and his neighbors, lest it be said to him: What you did not gather in youth, how will you find in old age? Therefore, if such a one sits in the council of elders, he will put his hand to his mouth; so that, hearing their opinions, he may gather what he may keep for himself for a more mature age: just as Mary, when she heard the words of Christ, kept them all together in her heart: just as John, when he reclined his head upon the breast of the Lord Jesus, drew in the deep secrets of wisdom.

Behold for you a young man who corrected his way in youth.

He was a fisherman with his brother; he saw the Lord Jesus, while he was folding his nets, and heard him saying: Come; I will make you fishers of men; and having left his nets, and his father, he followed him. He had begun to run the way of the world: but having heard the commands of Christ, he abandoned the life of the world, he followed Christ: he proved that in this a young man corrects his way, if he keeps the words of Christ, saying to him: Let us love your breasts above wine. Yet drinking in such a way that he was not overwhelmed by wine: but drew from grace the gladness of the heart, not staggering with the drunkenness of the body. Then, drinking this wine, he opened his eyes, and saw the straight way, he left the twisting ways, saying: Equity has loved you; that is, no winding paths follow you, but only the path of justice can arrive at you.

For he who loves justice does not turn away from Christ. For how should an innocent conscience fear the arbiter of justice and the rewarder of merits?

In this young man, then, correcting his way, behold the great mysteries, which holy Solomon, filled with the Spirit of the Lord, resounded in the Song of Songs. Set before yourself the Lord Jesus reclining at the banquet, John reclining himself upon his breast, others wondering that a servant should recline upon the Lord, that that flesh, sinful, should recline upon the temple of the Word, that that soul, bound by the chains of flesh, should search out the hall of divine fullness. To these, then, wondering, the soul of John answered: I am dark, and comely, O daughters of Jerusalem; dark through fault, comely through grace. The flesh also says: I am dark, and comely; dark with worldly dust, which I gathered by struggling: comely with spiritual oil, with which I have wiped away the dust and squalor of this world. Dark through vice: but now comely through the washing, which cleanses away every offense.

I am dark

because I have sinned: comely, because now Christ loves me: whom he had relegated in Eve, he has received back in the Virgin, he has taken up in Mary.

The Synagogue also speaks, whose mysteries seem in this place to be expressed by many: which, when she saw herself already rejected on account of the impiety of the whole people, nevertheless consoled herself

because she saw that Christ himself was of her own people, and Peter and John and James clinging to Christ, who had the oracles entrusted to them; and therefore she said: I am dark and comely, O daughters of Jerusalem; dark through unbelief, comely through the Law: dark through my fall; comely, because the sun loved me, and I was made the first congregation of God. Do not shrink from me because I am dark; I am dark for this reason, that the sun of righteousness has left me, who before was wont to give me light; I have lost the color of my countenance; the keenness of my eyes, with which I once beheld the sun, has been blunted: I walk in darkness, because I do not know the day of Christ.

Yet do not despise me; for he who left can look upon me again, and have mercy again.

He is wont to gather the scattered, to seek out the abandoned, to collect the forsaken. Come together, all you tribes of Israel, behold me comely before the beloved one: Do not look upon me, because I have been darkened; that is, do not look only at this, that I have been darkened. The sun has not looked upon me, and therefore I am darkened. But the sun shines upon the just and the unjust: upon the just through grace, upon the unjust through mercy; to the former granting the reward of their merits, to the latter forgiving their sins. And it did not shine upon the gentiles before, but now it shines: now it rises for them, he who used to rise for me; he who has forgiven them will also forgive me. Do not think that, because I am darkened, the sun has utterly abandoned me, and no longer looks upon me, no longer seeks the dark one.

He has hidden his face from me, because I did not keep his commandments: he will be reconciled, when he has seen the repentance of my sins. The sun has not seen me, because I did not receive him as he came; I did not open my windows, that the light of life might enter. When I shall have opened them, he who came to illumine the whole world will illumine my eyes, and even those who do not see shall see.

The sons of my mother fought against me, they set me as keeper in the vineyards.

My own vineyard I have not kept. Some think this is said of those who bind the Synagogue to the precepts of the Law; that she may keep the Law, that she may guard her own vineyard, which she was not able to guard. For indeed she kept watch so as to produce grapes, but she produced thorns. What this vineyard is, David comes to testify to us, saying: You brought a vineyard out of Egypt, you cast out the nations, and planted it. The apostles too can be understood as sons of her mother, who indeed fought against the Synagogue, saying: Behold, we turn to the gentiles; and began to sow the word of God among the nations. The prophets too can be understood, who by warning and proclaiming, that the Synagogue might guard her vineyard, accomplished nothing. For she produced the thorns of wickedness, which ought to have brought forth the abundant fruits of virtue.

And therefore she confesses that she was not able to keep her own people; and rightly does she now seek late to hold him whom, while she held him, she lost: far unlike her who says: I found him whom my soul loves, I held him, and I will not let him go.

Indeed she invites the Bridegroom into her garden: this one, seeking where he pastures, says to him: Tell me, whom my soul loved. Why do you say, whom my soul loved, and not whom it loves? Why did you let go of him whom you held? You loved him by the faith of the fathers, you lost him through unbelief: you held him with the bonds of charity, you lost him through the long rope of faithlessness. Therefore you do not know where he pastures, where he remains; for if you knew, you would not seek. For you say: Where do you pasture? Where do you remain at midday? You know that midday is the Church, which holds Christ: and do you seek him in the nights? Tell me, she says, O Christ; answer, if only because you were once dear and beloved to me: even though I have lost the prerogative of so great a love; yet do you, as one who is kind, answer me: Where do you pasture? Where do you remain?

You left me, you went away to the gentiles: you withdrew far from me; and you became nearer to those from whom you were far; but you became near

because they believed in your blood: you withdrew from me; because I did not receive your cross as the redemption of the world, but as the condemnation of a guilty one. But those who received you, Lord, as the author of salvation, are at midday. To them you shine, to them you gleam, for them your grace burns warm as the midday. To me you were as the morning, when I still believed: but I did not believe fully, because I was not found at midday; like Joseph with his brothers who dined at midday. To them you have become midday, who feed upon your riches, and hope in you. Therefore, as David said: You will lead forth their righteousness like the light, and their judgment like the noonday.

You seek, then, as a stranger, you who were closest; as a poor one, you who were rich.

You wish to follow, you who used to go before: and would that you at least follow those whom you ought to have preceded! You desire to be a hireling, you who before were gathering hirelings to yourself. For it is indeed the voice of a hireling saying: Lest perhaps I become as one wrapped about over the flocks of your companions. You who once received proselytes from the gentiles, now yourself wish to be received among the nations as a proselyte, and to be gathered as a stranger.

Jesus answered: Unless you know yourself to be comely among women.

What is it to know oneself, except that each one should know that he is a man made to the image and likeness of God, capable of reason, who ought to cultivate his own land as a good farmer, with a certain plow, and with the sickle of wisdom, so that hard things may be split, or luxuriant things be cut back: who ought to govern the lower part of his soul by the rule of his mind? Whence also it is written in the Law: Take heed to yourself, lest a hidden word arise in your heart. Take heed to yourself, he says—not, certainly, does he mean your money, not your possessions, not the strength of your body: but your soul and your mind; whence all counsels, deeds, and thoughts flow. Take heed to yourself, then, there, where you know yourself to have the greater part.

Know yourself—a saying which the gentiles ascribe to Pythian Apollo, as though he himself were the author of this saying; whereas they take what was appropriated from our own and transfer it to their own gods, since Moses, who wrote the book of Deuteronomy, was long before the philosophers who invented these things.

Whence Solomon too, following the divine oracle, wrote in the Song of Songs: Unless you know yourself to be comely among women

that is, unless you recognize yourself to be mortal, rational, and confess your sins, and quickly declare your iniquities that you may be justified; unless you be converted, and be the first to accuse your own transgressions, the day of death comes, and then there is no longer any remedy of conversion: you are forestalled while you are not thinking of it. Light your torch, before the door of the Bridegroom be closed to you, who is not wont to wait long for the negligent. Unless, he says, you know yourself to be comely among women; and say: I am dark and comely: I am dark, because I have sinned; but comely, because I am loved, because I am of the race of Abraham, a chosen race, beloved of God—the grace of the fathers will profit you nothing; for God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

And elsewhere in the Gospel you have read, that the devil had bound a daughter of Abraham with the fetters of his wickedness, whom the Lord loosed on the sabbath day. Unless, therefore, you know yourself, it will profit you nothing. And if you say: I am the daughter of Abraham, you who do not believe, who do not correct your error; Abraham indeed is saved: but the nobility of your lineage will not help you, unless faith has preserved it. Let not the promise given to the fathers deceive you. I do not accept the person of a man, I do not accept the prerogative of lineage; unless I see in the lineage a nobility of character to match it, so that the choice may be that of a righteous race.

But if you know yourself, and acknowledge that you are bound by sin, you must go out at the footsteps of the flocks.

Go out, then, barefoot, and pasture your kids in the tents of the shepherds. He who is without sin pastures lambs, pastures sheep. But she who is bound by sin pastures kids, which are on the left hand; for she cannot be on the right hand of the good shepherd. Let her rather follow him who said to Peter: Get behind me, Satan. By following, Peter merited to be placed on the right hand; and therefore it is said to him: Feed my little lambs. But hear where she is to go out: To the tents, he says, of the shepherds; that is, to the gentiles, to the dispersion.

And therefore it is said: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered; that the whole world may be filled with the flock of Christ, signifying that the Synagogue will then be saved, when she herself has joined this dispersion which has filled this world; for the tents of the shepherds are the kingdoms of the earth. And therefore the prophet David, announcing the nations that would believe, says: O kingdoms of the earth, sing to God. Let, then, the younger one know herself, that she may correct her way.

But you say: Who can know the way of a young man, that he may correct it; since the Prophet says: There are three things impossible for me to understand, and a fourth which I do not know: the footsteps of an eagle flying, the way of a serpent upon a rock, and the paths of a ship sailing, and the ways of a man in his youth. If Solomon confesses that he does not know the ways of a man in his youth, how can a young man know them?

To whom it will be answered that those ways of a man in his youth are not known, which are like the ways of a serpent on a rock, and like the paths of a ship on the waves, and the footsteps of a flying eagle, which has sharp talons, seizes its prey, and flies above the clouds, wanders in the air, and kills a fish in the sea; and yet this fourth thing is not impossible, as those three are; for the Lord knows who are his, and wills that each one should know himself, that the people of God should know themselves.

But suppose the ways of those who go astray are not known, as the Lord says: I do not know you, depart from me, workers of iniquity: yet this young man who can correct his own way, perhaps is young in age, not in character; and may have, in the first flower of his youth, an aged understanding, of which it is said: Gray hairs are understanding to men, to whom belongs maturity of counsel and gravity. Whence also it is said to Jeremiah: Do not say, I am a youth. And indeed he was young in age; but he who was of a more mature prudence is forbidden to call himself a youth. Daniel, when he was a boy, received a spirit by which he was deemed worthy of the first-fruits of old age; so that he himself, older not in length of years but in grace, might convict the elders; for in him was the age of old age with an unstained life.

To whom that saying of David fittingly applies: I have understood more than the elders (Infra vers.

100). And therefore, as of a man of veteran counsel and aged knowledge, the divine oracle pronounced: Who is wiser than Daniel (Ezec. XXVIII, 3)?

Now let us consider this, whether it is possible for a young man to correct his way, or not.

If it is not, then the Prophet lies: but because he does not lie, it is possible. Yet possible in such a way, that what seems impossible becomes possible; if the young man keeps the words of God: but if he does not keep them, it is impossible. Whence that saying of the Gospel: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Which too he said in this book to be impossible; yet thus we understand it to be impossible, because the rich do not keep the commandments of God: but if they keep them, that becomes possible which seemed impossible. This is the camel that enters through the narrow way; which before could not admit him when he was covetous, now admits him when he keeps the divine commandments.

Now Moses chose him who kept the words of God, as one who kept them, as an elder; and now those to whom this office is entrusted by the Spirit of God, that they may choose elders, choose without doubt, among the elders, a young man who corrects his way, in keeping the words of God. And if they have chosen a man of an elder age, they have surely not chosen him simply as one of long years, but as one who keeps the words of God: but if this is found in a younger man, he too indeed ought to be chosen. It is clear, therefore, from these things, that it is not length of old age that is chosen, but the keeping of the words of God. Indeed Moses himself approved Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb, young men, above the rest, whose counsel in the choosing of the land he himself followed rather than that of the many elders, and God preferred it.

Whence also that saying about Jacob which we mentioned above: God who feeds me from my youth; shows us that it is said of him who bore the yoke of the word in his youth, and, withdrawing from Esau and his likes, sat apart, awaiting within himself the time when he might bring forth speech with discipline; and therefore was he granted spiritual nourishment, still whole in age, but veteran in counsel. For it is not fitting that we should believe that so great a patriarch spoke of bodily food when he said: God who feeds me from my youth; since he did not desire bodily bread either, when he said: If the Lord God is with me, that he may give me bread to eat and a garment to wear; of all things which thou givest me, I will give the tenth to thee (—22). For if our fathers ate spiritual food, and drank spiritual drink, how much more was holy Jacob fed with spiritual food!

That understanding also serves at this place, nor is it alien to the truth

because that younger people gathered from the nations, who before it believed in Christ wandered by a tortuous winding path, corrects its way in this, that it has kept the words of God, which the Jewish people refused to keep; and therefore that people could not find the way of salvation. Let us consider the following

With my whole heart have I sought thee; cast me not away from thy commandments.

If God casts away each one whom he judges deserving to be cast away, let us see whether he affords excuse to one who, though wishing to follow God, was cast away. And first, how does the good God cast away one who follows, unless he himself deserves to be cast away? As the Lord himself says: Foxes have holes; and therefore he casts him away as it were a fox.

And elsewhere: For to everyone who has shall be given; but from him who has not, even what he seems to have shall be taken away from him. To whom does he add, except to him who seeks him with his whole heart; so that what nature lacks, he may acquire by the working and grace of God? As Solomon, who, seeking God with his whole heart, asked for wisdom: and because he demanded not royal riches for himself, but the gift of divine grace, he deserved to receive the discipline of wisdom: he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord, that he might know all the commandments. But he who has not that he should seek the Lord in his heart, and indeed does the work of God, but does it negligently, is subject to a curse, as we read: For cursed is everyone who does the work of God negligently.

Deservedly, then, is he cast away

because he is worthy of a curse, since he defiles rather and hinders the work which he thought to be carried out negligently.

Let us consider, then, whether it is a kindness that the negligent be cast away from the work, or rather that he be retained.

And let us take an image of this matter from other arts. A physician treats a sick man, but negligently; and through the physician's sloth the poison of the wound creeps deep. How much better, then, that such a physician be removed, one who wastes time while the wounded man feels no progress; so that the duty of healing may be transferred to that physician who can more promptly help the sick man by his diligence! Is not he more merciful who removes one making no progress, than he who keeps him to the peril of the sick man?

Set someone as overseer over builders, or even over weavers, whose duty it is to bring the sum of the work to completion; does he not seem to you more praiseworthy, if he diligently attends to it, and if by chance he notices someone careless among those working on the building of some house, he removes him, believing it better not to build, than that what was built should collapse with gaping cracks; and substitutes another in his place, who may build with diligence? Likewise also will you not approve more the overseer of a weaving-shop who removes the negligent, that he may substitute the diligent, lest long neglect ruin the weaving-shop, than the one who allows the idle to persist in their negligence?

Pass now to those who build the commandments, and weave the law, and have taken on themselves the soul of each one to be healed.

Is it not so, that if any of them builds the house of God with justice, weaves the garment with diligence, heals the soul with grace, he does a good work? But if some careless and remiss man occupies the place of builder, weaver, spiritual physician—as high priest, as presbyter, as minister of the holy altar—is it not more fitting that each one not undertake that office which he cannot fulfill, than that, having undertaken it, he neither vigorously discharges the office he has taken up, nor yields the place to another who could guard it zealously? What then! It is a benefit even to him who, being remiss, is cast away, lest he draw upon himself more offense.

Let us consider, then, what it means to be cast away; for it is written: Like the wounded sleeping, cast out among the tombs, whom thou dost not remember any more; and indeed they themselves have been cast away from thy hand. Let us note, then, whom he casts away, wounded and cast out among the tombs, whom he remembers no more. These are they who are cast away from the commandments of God. But to the sinner God said: Why dost thou declare my justices? And because they are cast away from the commandments of God, they are indeed cast away from the hand of God. And he wisely took care that no one should seem to be snatched from the hand of God; because no one can snatch anyone from the hand of God. He, then, who is deprived of the office or grace of the charge he had undertaken, is not snatched away, but rejected; as the Lord Jesus said to Jerusalem: How often would I have gathered thy children, and thou wouldest not!

Behold, your house shall be left unto you desolate.

He took away from them the sanctification, the altar of incense, and the sanctuary of prayer, the propitiatory altar of sacrifices, the ministries of priests and Levites; and yet, though all these were taken away, which they had according to the commandments of the Law, the Apostle says: Has God cast away his inheritance? No, he says, he has not cast it away; but he has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy upon all.

There are, then, those who for a time are cast away from the commandments for the sake of mercy; just as it is also a benefit for those who are vomited out.

For just as that which remains in a body which must be vomited grows more sour, so he who ought to be excluded, if he be retained and does not correct himself, ulcerates the whole body. And rightly does the faithful and true witness say to the angel of Laodicea: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; would that thou wert cold or hot: but because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth. He plainly condemns negligence with a graver judgment than imprudence. For he is cold who does not know the faith; he is hot who is kindled with the fervor of the Holy Spirit. He, then, who does not have the warmth of faith, it would have been more tolerable for him not to have received the faith, than to have neglected it.

For the lukewarm is worse than the cold, like the Jew who seems to himself to have faith which he does not have. How much more tolerable a case has the gentile, who can say: I did not know the Law, I did not hear the prophets, therefore I did not believe, than he who read all things from which he might have believed that Jesus was to come, and did not believe! Neither indeed is excused, neither he who read, nor he who refused to read: but he sins more who denied what he had read, than he who did not do the works which he did not know had to be done. But how great is the grace of faith and justice, that he who holds the faith and practices the works of justice should be in the mouth of God: and how much he loses, whom the Lord Jesus vomits out of his mouth, and casts out of his own bowels!

Yet how merciful he is, who both holds the just in his mouth, and does not vomit out the unjust before he announces that they are to be vomited out! So that even by such a warning, being converted, they may accomplish something worthy, by which they may not be vomited out. Now let us consider the third

In my heart, he says, have I hidden thy words, that I might not sin against thee.

Therefore it is good to hide the king's mystery; for he sins against God who thinks that the secret mysteries entrusted to him ought to be published to the unworthy. It is a danger, then, not only to speak false things, but even true ones, if one insinuates them to those to whom it is not fitting. Which vice is fourfold: either of adulation, or of avarice, or of boasting, or of unwary talkativeness; because while someone wishes to flatter the one to whom he speaks, he pours out the mystery.

Some also pursue, out of desire for gain, the reward of betrayal; that they may sell by speaking what ought to have been covered by silence. Others, that they may seem to know more things, and to boast of their knowledge, reveal what they ought to have concealed. Very many, while speaking without judgment, let slip a word which they cannot recall. Therefore a man is praised who speaks late, and not idly. There was a man hiding his words, as the apostle Paul, who knew what to say to each one, and when he ought to say what. Whence also he says to the Corinthians: I have given you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not yet able: but neither indeed are you able now. Therefore he sees these in passing: but he stays among the Ephesians; because a great door was opened to him, to make known to the gentiles the mystery of Christ. Therefore Solomon too teaches that there is a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

But beyond all others, the Lord Jesus declares this in his own Gospel, saying, that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. Certainly not gold, not silver, not money can be compared to the kingdom of heaven: but the words of the Lord, chaste words, silver tried by fire, by which that very kingdom is acquired. This treasure, then, of wisdom and knowledge hidden in the field, in which the words of the heavenly Scriptures are planted; when a man finds it, he hides it in his heart, and does not divulge it: knowing that if he divulges the treasure of God to the Babylonians, he will incur great offense; so that it may be said to him in the words of the prophet: They shall take of thy seed, and make them eunuchs in the house of the king (Isaiah XXXIX, 7). By which it is signified that he who betrays the divine mysteries cannot have posterity for his soul, or a seed-bed of merits.

Beware, then, lest you betray your riches to the treacherous: and if they feign friendship, do not open to them the inner chambers of your house; do not unlock the royal treasures, which the Babylonians ought not to know; lest they come and seize your posterity, and cut off the seed-bed of virtue. This is what the Lord also says in the Gospel: Do not cast your pearls before swine. Therefore he does well who hides the words of the Lord in his heart, as the prophet David hid them, as Mary, who kept all the words of the Lord Jesus in her heart. For if it is good for a man to hide his own words, how much more ought we to cover, ought we to hide, the word of God in the bosom of our heart! In the fourth

he says: Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statutes. For not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he who does the will of God.

Therefore this one, who has corrected his way from his youth, has kept the words of God with his whole heart, has sought the Lord his God, and has not been cast away from the commandments of God, and has been deemed worthy to have entrusted to him the secrets of wisdom, has hidden them in his heart, that he might not sin against God; as one having the words of God, he gives thanks, saying: Blessed art thou, O Lord; and desires to have him as teacher, wishing to know the secrets of the Law, and how the interpretation goes: If thou buy a Hebrew servant, and he shall serve thee six years, and the rest, before which it is stated that these statutes are to be learned, which he sets forth in the sight of the children of Israel: these he seeks to learn from the Lord, which men could not teach, unless God had taught before.

Which, after the apostles learned them from Christ, the Church says: The King has brought me into his chamber

that is, into that secret place of his, in which are the treasures of his knowledge and understanding. And therefore it is said to you: When thou prayest, enter into thy chamber, which signifies the secret place of the mind and soul. Into this chamber of the statutes the Bride asked to be led in; when, after the scent of the ointment, she ran forth, which ever flows, and never fails. Therefore, as one instructed in the statutes, the Prophet says in the fifth

With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth.

And how does he say elsewhere: Thy judgments are like a great abyss? How can the kingdom of heaven be compared to money? But here "compared" implies a comparison, not an acquisition.

The Apostle says: O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and how untraceable his ways!

For who has known the mind of the Lord? If the judgments are unsearchable, how then does the Prophet say, I have declared all the judgments of thy mouth? But perhaps the judgments of God are not the same as the judgments of his mouth. If they are different, well is it said: Who shall be like unto thy thoughts? And therefore his judgments are unsearchable; because in part we know, and in part we prophesy. But if no one save Christ says this, who alone can say: I and the Father are one.

Let us nevertheless make a distinction, and not fear that the venerable Scripture is at war with itself, as if by contraries.

For let us consider that it did not say: The judgments of his mouth are like a great deep; but it said, Thy judgments; nor did the Apostle put: The unsearchable judgments of his mouth; but: His unsearchable judgments. For we can estimate the judgments of God, which he has not disclosed to us as hidden; but the judgments of his mouth are those which he has declared, and has spoken through the mouth of the prophets. For the prophet is understood to be the mouth of God, to whom it is said: Cry out; and he says: What shall I cry? And it was inspired that he should say: All flesh is grass. Whatever indeed he spoke, he performed the office of the mouth of God; because he spoke the judgment of God.

Therefore the prophetic oracles are now not merely like a deep, but are themselves the deep; because no one could open the book, in heaven or on earth, except Christ. Let us now come to the sixth

In the way, he says, of thy testimonies I have delighted, as in all riches.

Some delight in gold, some in silver, some in garments; some in possessions, vineyards, olive-groves, cornfields; some in works of painting, of marble; in various things, in short, individuals have their delights: the spiritual man delights in the way of the heavenly testimonies, as one possessing the whole patrimony, rich in all things; as the Apostle says: I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you in Christ Jesus: that in everything you are enriched in him, in all utterance and in all knowledge.

To such a degree did the Corinthians profit by the teaching of the Apostle, that they who before could drink only milk like little children, afterward abounded in all the riches of knowledge and of the word. David, therefore, delighted in all the riches of understanding, of knowledge, of wisdom, and in every act of good works. And if anyone now, intent upon divine things, draws forth that threefold discipline of wisdom—the contemplative, the practical, the rational—good in the pursuit of gaining knowledge, he will be the more beautiful for holding the grace of rational and moral doctrine in the execution of it. He who has come to know the prophetic mysteries of God by the revelation of the Spirit, who has grasped the depth of the Gospel in its works and counsels, who has observed the moral teaching of apostolic discourse—he, as one rich in all things, will receive abundant delight.

And because bodily pleasure is sweet, therefore it is not compared with spiritual things as though of the same quality of grace; but it is summoned as it were for a testimony of sweetness. Since the Apostle also teaches that the invisible and eternal things of God are understood by us through the things that are made. In the Canticles also we have it written: I have compared thee, my love, to my company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. In which, while the likeness of swift horses in their running is seen to be compared to the Church, her grace is reckoned rich. You should not, therefore, take it as one mare of a wealthy king: but understand it absolutely for a body of cavalry, as we have often said, just as “that bird” is used for a flock of sheep. Pharaoh, then, as a most powerful and very wealthy king, had powerful horses, as Scripture calls them the chariots of Pharaoh; as a most mighty kind for the use of wars, and aid in fighting.

Indeed, with these chariots Pharaoh easily overtook the fleeing Hebrews. Just as, then, horses yoked together draw the chariot in harmony, and patiently take up the yoke, and bear fitting burdens gracefully, and grow gentle by continual bearing of that yoke: so also the congregation of the nations, once untamed in gentile ways, boasted of itself before; but when it took up the yoke of him who says: Take my yoke, for it is easy; and my burden, for it is light; then the Bride of Christ began, by the harmony and gentleness of the peoples, to be exalted, and to be carried about through the whole world, as though a chariot snatched above the world by swift horses, rising up to the Bridegroom.

Finally, in the later parts of the Canticles too, it says: I have made thee as the chariots of Aminadab.

The Church has many chariots in herself, all of which the Lord rules with spiritual reins: and one soul has many thoughts, which the rein of the Lord restrains and calls back; lest at any time our chariot here be borne over a precipice. Now Aminadab is interpreted to signify “the father of good pleasure,” whose son is read of in Numbers as Naason, the prince of the people, who is to be understood by interpretation as “serpentine”; and you recognize this, if you recall, that as a serpent hung upon the wood was he who redeemed you.

The soul, then, is God's chariot, so that its anger, and lust, and fear, and all worldly desires may be reined in.

The Church, too, is God's chariot, which must be guided by the reins of Christ; lest the movements and dissensions of diverse peoples disturb her. By that Naason, too, Christ is well understood; because the rod of Aaron, turned into a serpent, devoured those serpents of the Egyptians. Let us, then, possess these riches, let us delight in them, that rational horses may run for us, and let us abide in their commandments. And therefore he says: I will exercise myself in thy commandments, and I will consider thy ways. For he who exercises himself in the words of the apostles knows the commandments of the Lord Jesus, and considers his ways, whose end is Christ, who says: I am the way. And I will meditate on thy justifications; I will not forget thy words.

This passage admonishes us that we ought to be mindful of the Scriptures, and to meditate on his justifications not only in speech, but also by imitation in deed. For not those who dispute about the Law, and do not the things of the Law, but those who are doers of the Law, are justified.

The third letter according to the Hebrews is Gimel, which in Latin is called “retribution.” Accordingly, this is shown right at the first

Deal bountifully, he says, with thy servant.

How is it that David himself said above: Reward us not according to our sins: nor recompense us according to our iniquities; and yet here he asks for a reward? That seems to be the voice of a sinner, this the voice of one well conscious of himself, who demands the rewards of a good work. From which we can also understand this, that this psalm is formed as if from the person of him who, born of the Virgin for the redemption of the whole world, presumes to sit at the right hand of the Father, as he himself says: Henceforth you shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power.

It is not, however, foreign or arrogant, if even David asks a reward from the Lord his God for his outstanding labors. It is the prerogative of faith and righteousness, to claim a reward from the favor of the Lord. Accordingly, Peter is reproved, because in walking upon the waves, he doubted more with human feeling than he presumed with apostolic authority. In the Gospel also we are taught to have faith, and not to hesitate concerning the things that are to be done which are above man. Rightly, then, does David in the earlier passage, as one still imperfect, shrink from and decline to be repaid according to his sins: but in this psalm, which is later, as one now founded in the advance of virtue, he prays to be repaid according to the struggles of faith and work.

Since Paul too, who had earlier said: I am not worthy to be called an apostle, afterward says: There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the just Judge, will render to me on that day: and not only to me, but to those also who love his coming. And the Apostle there promises, but here he prays still more modestly: which indeed is not of insolent arrogance, but of an innocent conscience, to ask a reward from him whom you have served; since to despair is the material of sloth, but to hope is the incentive of labor.

Ask, then, confidently, if your merits support you; that by so asking you may labor more zealously, so that by that petition you may be more worthy. What athlete, if he despairs of the crown, would go down into the stadium: or if, being victor, he demands it, would he give offense? Trial produces hope, hope confidence. Such, then, is the prayer of the righteous man: the Lord delights in such a petition; so that, for the purity of your conscience, you may use authority.

Nevertheless, lest the petition seem arrogant, he well added: Thy servant; in which there is both the grace of humility, and the reward of servitude.

For he who has been called in the Lord as a servant, is the freedman of the Lord, bought at so precious a price of blood. It is a great thing for you to be called “my boy,” as it is said to a servant. If, then, anyone is a servant, and serves the Lord well, and does nothing as a servant of sin: but says: I am an unprofitable servant; what I ought to have done, I have done; he rightly says: Deal bountifully with thy servant.

Glorious is the servitude by which Christ also served on our behalf.

Blessed is the servitude by which you too serve: but only if the adversary can claim nothing from your servitude for himself. Christ, then, loves the liberty of a good little servant. Accordingly, in the Canticles he says: How beautiful are thy cheeks become as the turtledove's, thy neck as chains of jewels! The countenance is freer, where there is the consciousness of chastity: and it is sweet to bear the yoke of Christ, if you consider them the ornaments of your neck, not burdens. Lift up, then, your eyes always to the Lord your God, and seek God that you may find him. Raise up your neck; you bear chains of ornament, not bonds. Many animals, too, rejoice in ornamental chains, and seem rather to be adorned than bound by them. Let the cheeks like the turtledove's display the marks of modesty: let the chains upon the neck lift up the confidence of liberty.

For the yoke of Christ is light; and therefore the neck is not pressed down by it, but raised up.

Likenesses of gold, he says, we will make for thee, with studs of silver; while the King was yet in his repose.

For out of those who were of the Law and the Prophets, some had believed only moderately before in the glory of the Lord Jesus: but his inheritance, spread abroad through the peoples, the more frequently it was tried, so much the more was it proved. For frequent persecutions of the Church have brought forth for us the titles and victories of the just, and of martyrdom. And so, just as good gold, so the Church, when she is burned, suffers no loss, but rather her brightness is increased; until Christ comes into his kingdom, and reclines his head in the faith of the Church. He who, when he had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, had nowhere to lay his head: now, however, faith already gives forth its fragrance; and therefore the Church says: My spikenard sent forth its fragrance. And she says this with confidence, awaiting her reward.

The ointment of grace is fragrant, from which the Virgin brought forth, and the Lord Jesus took up the sacrament of the Incarnation.

The cluster of the grape, she says, is my cousin, my brother is to me the cluster of Cyprus, he rests between my breasts. For the Lord Jesus, taking up a body, bound himself with the bonds of charity: and he bound himself not only to our members and natural sufferings, but also to the cross; and therefore, like a cluster of grapes, he rests in the faith of the Church and in moral grace. The nard of Cyprus, my cousin, in the vineyards of Engaddi. Engaddi, if we seek the place, is the name given to a place of a certain region which is in Judea, in which balsam-gum is produced: if we seek the interpretation, Engaddi signifies in Latin "temptation." In those vineyards, therefore, is a tree, which, if one pierces it, sends forth an ointment: this is the fruit of the tree.

If the tree is not cut, it does not so give forth fragrance and odor; but when it has been pierced by the artisan's hand, then it distills a tear: just as Christ also, crucified on that tree of temptation, wept over the people, that he might wash away our sins, and poured forth from the depths of his mercy an ointment, saying: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Then, therefore, on the tree he was pierced by the lance, and there went forth from him blood and water, sweeter than every ointment, an acceptable sacrifice to God, pouring forth over the whole world the odor of sanctification: and, as balsam from a tree, so virtue went forth from his body. Whence he says: I perceive that virtue has gone out from me. Hence balsam-gum is called an "expression," because through the piercing of the tree the balsam bursts forth through the hollow of the puncture. Jesus, therefore, being pierced, poured forth the odor of the remission of sins, and of redemption.

For the Word also was constrained, when he was made man: and he became poor, though he was rich, that we might be enriched by his poverty. He was powerful, and offered himself to be despised, so that Herod scorned him and mocked him. He moved the earth, and hung fixed upon the wood: he covered the sky with darkness, he crucified the world, and was crucified: he bowed his head, and the Word went forth: he was emptied, and filled all things: God descended, man ascended: the Word was made flesh, that the flesh might claim for itself the throne of the Word at the right hand of God: a wound was inflicted, and ointment flowed forth: the worm was heard, and God was recognized.

Christ answered as well.

Behold, you are good, my neighbor, behold, you are good. Because the Church had come to know the mystery, and proclaimed the Lord Jesus crucified for the redemption of the whole world, she deserves to hear: Behold, you are good; you who call me good, are yourself good, who have seen the beauty of my glory, and are yourself good and comely. But what does it mean for Christ to say: You are good, or you are comely; except that saying of the Gospel: Be of good cheer, daughter, your sins are forgiven you? Therefore he to whom Christ has forgiven sins rightly says: Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live, and keep your words. He has nothing in that recompense to despair of; because the Lord Jesus came to save the world, not to destroy it.

And therefore he is unmindful of the injury, mindful of grace; as he himself testifies in the prophetic book, saying: I am he, I am he who blots out your iniquities, and I will not remember them: but do you remember, and let us be judged together. Declare your iniquities first, that you may be justified. Whoever, then, declares his iniquities to God is justified: and whoever is justified does not fear recompense, but demands it: and he who does not fear recompense will live.

But why did he say: That I may live, and not say: I live?

Because this life which is in the place of death is not in the place of reward. The Prophet grieves that he has been brought down into the dust of death: the Apostle longs to be freed from this body of death; and do we suppose that the Prophet is flattering himself concerning this life? Here all things are full of death. Death enters through the window, it enters through the door; unless the Lord sets a guard at your door. Indeed, from much speaking sin is born. Read the commandments of the Law, and you will find it written: For if a living man touches a dead one, he is defiled. How many dead do we touch? Among how many dead do we move about? Therefore the Author of life says to you: Leave the dead to bury their dead. Therefore it is said to you elsewhere: Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead.

How would it be said to you: Arise from the dead, unless you were living among the dead?

Suppose you to be clean from dead works, and from the defilement of sin; how are you clean, who are in a body of death, who live among the tombs of the dead? It was fitting for Peter to speak to the dead, that they might come forth from their tombs.

We need, then, purification, because we have touched the dead.

The Law bids us be cleansed: who is so great as to be above the Law? Even the holy Nazirite of God, if he touches a dead body, is declared unclean. And so he shaves his head, and lays aside his hair as if unholy; and again he prays that he may be heard, he who before, because of contact with the dead, could not obtain a hearing: he counted the days unreasonable, because he had drawn near to what is unreasonable. He lays aside, therefore, the dead and superfluous things of his head, that he may be reconciled to Christ. If, then, the Nazirite is purified, we too ought to be purified.

We have all touched the dead.

For who will boast that he has a pure heart, or who will dare to say that he is clean from sins? There may perhaps be someone who has not sinned in speech, though such a one is rare, of whom God might say, as of holy Job: He did not sin with his lips; yet he could not always keep the thoughts of his heart pure, for the devil injects himself into a man's heart. Suppose someone, with ever-ready and vigilant guard, has hedged in his heart; still, being engaged in the midst of sinners, he too of necessity needs to be purified. Whence Isaiah, when he had said: Woe is me! For I have unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips; at once one of the Seraphim came down, and touched his lips with a coal, that he might cleanse his unclean lips.

There is not one baptism only: there is that one which the Church here delivers, by water and the Holy Spirit, by which catechumens must necessarily be baptized. There is also another baptism, of which the Lord Jesus says: I have a baptism to be baptized with, which you do not know. And indeed he had already been baptized in the Jordan, as the earlier passages declare: but let this be the baptism of the passion, by which each one also is cleansed by his own blood. There is also a baptism at the entrance of paradise, which did not exist before: but after the sinner was shut out, there began to be a fiery sword, which God set, which did not exist before, when there was no sin. Guilt began, and baptism began: by which those who desired to return to paradise might be purified, so that, returning, they might say: We have passed through fire and water. There, through water; there, through fire.

Through water, that sins may be washed away; through fire, that they may be burned away.

But, what is more grievous, we endure fire both here and there.

Who is it who baptizes in this fire?

Not a presbyter, not a bishop, not John, who says: I baptize you unto repentance; not an Angel, not an Archangel, not Dominations, not Powers: but he of whom John says: He who comes after me is stronger than I, whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. He has the winnowing fan in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor; and he will gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. The Lord himself testifies that this is not said of that baptism which is done through the priests of the Church. For indeed, after the consummation of the age, when angels have been sent to separate the good from the evil, this shall be the future baptism: when, through the furnace of fire, iniquity shall be burned away; that the righteous may shine in the kingdom of God like the sun itself in the kingdom of their Father.

And if anyone be a saint like Peter, like John, he is baptized by this fire.

There shall come, then, the great Baptist (for so I name him, as Gabriel named him, saying: He shall be great), he will see many standing before the threshold of paradise, he will move the turning fiery sword, he will say to those on the right hand, who have no grave sins: Enter, you who are confident, who do not fear the fire. For I had foretold to you: Behold, I come like fire; and through Ezekiel I had said: Behold, I will go forth into Jerusalem, and I will blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, that you may waste away like lead and iron.

Let, then, the consuming fire come, let it burn away in us the lead of iniquity, the iron of sin, and make us pure gold.

Let it burn my kidneys and my heart, that I may think good thoughts, and desire the things that are of chastity. But since, being purified here, it is necessary to be purified again there; let it purify us there also, when the Lord shall say: Enter into my rest; that each one of us, scorched by that flaming sword, but not consumed, having entered into that pleasantness of paradise, may give thanks to his Lord, saying: You have brought us into refreshment. He, then, who shall have passed through the fire, enters into rest. He passes from material and worldly things to those incorruptible and everlasting.

That is a different fire, by which sins not voluntary but fortuitous are burned away, which the Lord Jesus has prepared for his servants, that he may purify them from this sojourning that is mixed with the dead: that is another fire, which he has appointed for the devil and his angels, of which he says: Enter into the everlasting fire; by which that rich man was burning, who begged that a drop of moisture might fall on him from the finger of Lazarus. But Lazarus, reclining in Abraham's bosom, was enjoying eternal life, which the Prophet promises to himself, saying: I shall live and keep your words. I shall live, he says, as one not yet living; for here we live in a shadow.

This life, then, in the body, is a shadow and image of life, not the truth. Indeed, man walks in an image, and we stand in a region of the shadow of death. But if anyone directs the eyes of the mind not to earthly things, but raises them to spiritual things; so that he can say: The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord; he will be worthy to say: In his shadow we shall live. For Christ is life; and therefore whoever lives in the shadow of Christ is in the shadow of life. And rightly the Saint of the Lord says elsewhere: Protect me in the shadow of your wings. All, then, even the saints, are in shadow, as long as they are in the body: they do not see perfectly: they know not perfectly, but in part. Paul himself says: For we know in part. The Vessel of election himself, to whom Christ restored sight, and enlightened by his own grace; saw not face to face, but through a mirror.

And David asks that his eyes be uncovered (below, verse 18), that the shadow which hindered the full view of his eyes might be removed.

But who can doubt that this is the region of the dead, since the Saint himself says: I will please the Lord in the region of the living? For no one can please him perfectly here, where, even if it could happen that he had no sins of his own; still, living in this very region of the dead, he needs purification, which may absolve him from the contagion of this region.

In shadow, therefore, we live here, and therefore in shadow we keep the words of God.

And to use an example: certainly they were formerly under the shadow of the Law, when men kept the sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come; just as today the Jews, who do not see the true sabbath, who serve the pattern and the shadow. We too, now living according to the Gospel, follow the shadow of the words of God. Nathanael is seen under the fig tree; David says he hopes in the shadow of the wings of the Lord Jesus; Zacchaeus climbed into the sycamore tree, that he might see Christ. For us also Jesus has stretched out his hands, that he might overshadow the whole world. How are we not in shadow, we who are protected by the covering of his cross? How are we not in shadow, whom the crucified One defends from the malice of the age and the ardor of the flesh?

Or do we not know that the Word of God, coming into this world, did not come as the Word, such as He was in the beginning, such as He was with God: but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant? He came in a light cloud: and though He was the power of the Most High, He overshadowed Mary; that He might transfigure the body of our lowliness to be made conformable to the body of His glory. As He, then, changed His form when He was born of the Virgin: so also the words of God appear transfigured to us; when they are read in the Gospel, when their appearance is seen in the Scriptures as if through a mirror, because the whole truth cannot be comprehended here. But when that which is perfect shall come, no longer by way of descent, no longer in appearance as things transfigured: but they shine forth in whole and express truth.

Nor let it trouble you that he says: I will keep many words; for whoever has come to know the one Word knows many words.

For in the one are many, and in the many is one. It must therefore be shown how one Word is many things, and how many words are one Word. Nor is it difficult to be taught this, since the Apostle has said that He Himself is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, in whom all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, whether visible or invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominions, or Principalities, or Powers, all things were created through Him and in Him. One, therefore, is the Word, which operates in individual things: and when it operates in individual things, it operates all things in all. This one Word with the Father has diffused itself into very many things; because of His fullness we have all received.

And so if you look at the individual things of all that has been created in Him, you will see in each one Word of all, of which we are partakers according to our capacity. In me there is a human word, but let the Apostle come to my aid and say: I think that I too have the Spirit of God; in another there is a heavenly word, and in very many there is the word of angels. There are those who have the word of Dominions and Powers, the word of justice, the word of chastity, the word of prudence, the word of piety, even the word of virtue. Thus one word is many things, and many words are one. Nor indeed is it hard to reckon this, since we have read that the Spirit of Wisdom can do all things.

And so, just as to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, and to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the grace of healings in the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another the spirit of understanding, to another the spirit of fuller counsel, to another the spirit of fortitude, to another the spirit of piety; yet in all of them it is one and the same Spirit, dividing to each as He wills. There is a spirit of the prophets, and a spirit of the apostles: there is even a spirit of craftsmen, as of Bezalel and Oholiab, whom the Lord filled with the divine Spirit of wisdom and knowledge and all craft; that they might make the vestment and the Tabernacle and the altar according to the understanding which God gave to them; but also to other wise men, that they might understand and make all the works according to all that the Lord commanded.

And so they made what they had neither learned nor seen, according to what the Spirit showed to them.

And to many it seems that the spirit of the apostles is one thing, that of the prophets another, and diverse in each: but it is not diverse, but it is one Spirit, dividing diverse kinds of powers. Whence it should seem no wonder, if to some the apostolic word is given, to others the prophetic, to others the evangelic, to others the operative word; and yet it is one Word, dividing itself to each according to our capacity, or according to His own free bounty. This Word, therefore, which is the head of all, I see here through a mirror; and therefore I cannot keep the words here: but when I shall have seen His glory with face unveiled, then I shall live, and living with that life I shall also keep the divine words. Therefore in the second

he says: Open my eyes, and I will consider the wondrous things of your law.

He who asks that his eyes be opened certainly understands them also to be burdened. For no one asks a physician, unless he seeks a remedy for his own sickness. This one, then, says to the physician coming from heaven: Open my eyes. If the eye is merely disturbed, every pain is easily settled with a salve; but if its keenness is veiled by a suffusion of humor, greater remedies are sought. There is, then, just as in the eyes of the body, so also in the eyes of the soul a certain kind of affliction, which must necessarily grow worse; unless the good physician takes away that veil, and a certain mist of thickened humor, which is thought to hinder, or rather to cover, the gaze of the mind, so that it does not see what it used to see.

Sickness has crept in through the old leaven

because we did not strip off, either the pagan or the Jewish film, when first we came to the Church: we did not hear the good physician teaching this discipline: Stripping off the old man with his deeds, put on the new, who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him who created him. Someone, then, has clothed himself further, but has not stripped off; a graver sickness creeps in, a long-standing veil weighs down the eyes; no one can take it away, not an Angel, not the Virtues, not the Dominions, not the Powers. That veil remains, it hinders reading, it covers vision; which is not revealed, says the Apostle, that is, by any other, unless it shall have been done away in Christ. But when such a one shall have been converted to the Lord, the veil will be taken away.

You have, then, how you may take away the veil that remains upon the eyes of your heart.

Turn to the Lord, and the veil will fall. Paul was converted at the blessing of Ananias, and as it were scales fell from his eyes; and he saw, who for three days before had not seen: at once the eye of body and of soul is healed; because that physician from heaven had shown him the medicine, of whom it is written: He sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered them from all their infirmities. This physician is not of earth, who heals all sicknesses, and makes whole entire peoples. Send, then, Father, this physician; let your Word come, let it open my eyes. The eyes of the Apostles too were closed, unless Jesus had opened them. So indeed, of the two of them going to the village called Emmaus, when He interpreted the Scriptures and blessed them, Their eyes, it says, were opened, and they knew Him.

Therefore unless Jesus had opened our eyes, no one would have seen: unless Jesus had taken away the veil, the grace of the Gospel would have shone forth for none. And Peter had his eyes closed, and John had his closed, and James had his closed. Indeed on the mountain they were weighed down with sleep, but roused by the flash of divine majesty they opened the eyes of their heart. And because they were still in the body, they could not see fully, a cloud overshadowed them, lest the flash of heavenly glory should dull the eyes of the body.

Who, then, is great enough to open his eyes, and see the mysteries of the Law, unless Christ show them to him?

Not Moses was great enough for this. Indeed, at the Lord's command, he cast down his staff, and it became a serpent, and fled from him: he took hold of the serpent's tail, and it became a staff again; and even then he did not know the mystery, by which it was declared that the Lord Jesus would descend to the earth, who, having emptied Himself, would suffer to be laid down on the cross and cast into the tomb, like a serpent made from a staff; because, cast into the tomb, He, according to the oracles of the Law, rising again into the glory of God and the royal fellowship of the divine throne, would return from serpent to that estate. Let us, then, also take hold of the tail of that crucified serpent; that we may be able to acknowledge his royal power. And she who poured ointment on his feet held him fast.

Moses, then, took hold of the tail of the serpent: and his mouth was opened.

He would not, then, have spoken of Him, unless the Lord Himself had opened his mouth.

David here asks that his eyes be opened, and above he said: Who has shown us good things?

He had been nourished under the Law, he knew that the Law has a shadow of the good things to come: he desired to see those good things themselves now not through a shadow, but with eyes opened. He knew that those who served according to the law of Moses served a pattern and shadow of heavenly mysteries. He wished to grasp the very truth of divine worship; and therefore, that he might shake off the veil from his eyes, turning to the Lord he prayed, saying: Open my eyes, and I will consider the wondrous things of your law. He understood that there truly was a heavenly service, which each one might come to know from the Law, provided the Lord should reveal it to him. For who, by a human step, without divine guidance, can ascend from earthly things to heavenly, from shadow to brightness, from pattern to the inner chamber of truth?

Who can consider that heavenly altar, and the true temple, the priests and the levites, not these according to the offices of the flesh, but those according to the grace of the spirit? Indeed David wished this alone as grace above all greatest things, saying: One thing have I 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, and consider His temple. Who could understand that a rich man offers a great gift, according to what his hand is able, that his sin may be loosed? Who could understand this, if he did not have it? Who could offer, for example, a ram, because his sin was not thereby loosed? Who could perceive what those uncleannesses were, which are loosed not by the Law which the Jews think, but by the spiritual law, which Paul recognized?

Who could see the true remissions of sins, whose pattern is in the Law, whose truth is in the Gospel, the Lord Jesus saying: Your sins are forgiven you; not through the blood of goats, but through the sacrifice of His own body? That man, then, is rich in the Law, who, confessing the fullness of perfect majesty in Christ, and offering it, as it were with the hands of faith, at that heavenly altar, has loosed his sin. He sees the true Priest, who sees the Prince of priests: he considers the true temple, who hears Him saying: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Great temple, from which power went out, and healed all. Wondrous that altar, on which the sacrifice of one lamb bore the sins of the world. He is the most excellent Levite, who came not to exact a service; but to render to all the service of His own passion: whose portion is God, who possessed nothing here, that He might possess all things.

But what shall I say of the Hebrew, whom the Law bids serve only six years, and in the seventh year to go out from service? Who is this Hebrew servant? Who could be understood as the free Hebrew? Who is great enough, holding the eternal years in mind, to see the true Hebrew, who does not remain a servant forever, but having performed the servile office for six years, in the seventh year obtains the grace of liberty? Of whom the patriarch Isaac seems not to have been ignorant of the mystery of servitude and freedom, when he says: You shall serve your brother, and it shall come to pass when you have put down and loosed his yoke from your neck, signifying that the time would come when, even if someone placed here should serve his brother, yet afterwards, when the years are completed which are gathered in these six days, and in these months which we spend here, he shall loose the yoke from his neck, which happens in the seventh year of release.

We may conjecture the type of the true Hebrew in Joseph, who bore the yoke of servitude: but guilt did not seize him, prison did not confine him, Egypt did not discolor him. We conjecture it in Peter, John, James, who, created and instituted under the yoke of the Law, nevertheless loosed the Jewish yoke of their brother, when the time of lawful rest came, when the remission of sins shone forth for them: and yet this was done here still in shadow by comparison with heavenly things.

But how great is that rest which is surmised from the Law, is revealed in the Gospel, and is still reserved whole and entire, the Lord Jesus saying: I will that where I am, they also may be with me! How blessed is he who shall be able to merit there the fruit of that dwelling, the fellowship of that rest! Then shall he understand what it is to have opened his eyes, that he might behold the wondrous things of God's law.

Well did that reading of the Gospel admonish us which has just been gone through, in which that leper was healed who said: If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean; placing the effect of the power in the will of the Lord. To whom He answered likewise: I will, be thou made clean. The devotion of the will was set forth first, the authority of the power followed. To all does Jesus say, I will, who wills that there be no sin. The willing of Christ is common toward all; being cleansed belongs to the faith of him who believes in Christ. And he touched him. He touches those by whom he is touched in faith. Finally he says: Someone hath touched me; for I perceive that virtue is gone out from me.

Thou hast the operation of the unspotted body, thou hast the remission granted by the Godhead.

But that he might be more fully healed, he opened his eyes, saying: Go, show thyself to the priest.

The Synagogue had many priests; but he whose eyes are opened does not see false priests, he beholds the true one. Who is the true priest, save he who is priest for ever? And therefore the Father said to him: Thou art a priest for ever. He opened, then, his eyes, and he saw, and understood what gift he ought to offer for his cleansing. Blessed is he who hears these things; how much more blessed is he who sees, who can show himself to the true Priest, so that he need have nothing in himself to fear being seen, who first looks upon himself with unveiled face! For unless he shall first have seen himself, he will not dare to show himself; as Adam, who wished to hide himself, because he did not recognize himself. But let us now consider also what follows. I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not thy commandments from me.

This is not the voice of just anyone; but of him who has renounced earthly pleasures, and has stripped himself of every attachment to worldly desire. He is a sojourner on this earth who can say: But our conversation is in heaven; who has his portion in the Lord, who can grieve that he lives longer on earth, who is wearied by the length of this life, to whom the extension of this dwelling is a weariness, which the holy man abhors, and says: Woe to those who dwell upon the earth! He who does not fear to be dissolved; and if he be dissolved, presumes that he shall be with Christ: this man is truly a stranger on earth; because he is a fellow-citizen of the saints, and of the household of God, and lays up for himself a treasure in heaven.

Such a one, having gone out of Egypt, does not at all desire to return to this intelligible Egypt, nor does he dread the borders of old age laid down and of death, nor does he build barns for storing up harvests, about to live for ages belonging to others: but rich only in the fruitfulness of virtue, he gathers those things which not even death can take from him. And rightly does he say: My soul hath coveted to long for thy judgments at all times. This indeed he does not do unless free from chains, and not only from the chains of worldly anxiety, but also from the chains of human affection. There are many chains in this world: the desires of living are chains, the delights of pleasures are chains, the chains of honors, the chain of marriage. Finally the good Master says to thee: Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife.

Yet he does not sin who has taken a wife, but he binds upon himself the chains of the mind

because he is anxious how he may please his wife. He would be more blessed, if he desired to please God alone. But you perceive that he is bound, who does not have power over his own body. Therefore, because it is the commandment of God, which is set forth both by the oracle of the Law and by the word of the Apostle, that no one should prefer wife, riches, honor, or ties of kinship to God: but he who shall have preferred them becomes liable to the judgments of God; therefore he asked first that God should not hide His commandments from him. For he who has known and kept the commandments of God does not flee the divine judgments, but desires them; and rightly, as though the commandments had been revealed to him, he says: I have coveted to long for thy judgments at all times.

He did not say: I have coveted judgments, but: I have coveted to long for. For just as to live by life is more than to live (for merely to live is common even to this life, but to live by life belongs to the blessed), so to covet that we may long for the judgments of God is more than to long for the judgments. For we covet to long for, as if the longing were not in our own power, but the gift of God's grace. For when the Lord sees us delighted with the desire to long for His judgments, He increases our sober affection. But when we sin, we do not covet to long for the judgments of God. For neither does a sick man desire to be cauterized or cut, that he may be able to recover health. He who is more gravely ill shrinks back, lest he be burned, lest he be cut, lest he be bound, lest he abstain from food. But he who has sound health goes securely to the physician.

Whence also the Lord not idly says: With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you; not merely desiring, but even with a doubled desire coveting to bestow the remission of sins. Let us also then covet to long for the judgments of God. It is a good conscience which, when it is examined, is approved. And let us covet to long for at all times; that no moment of good desire may pass empty. Thou hast rebuked the proud: cursed are they who decline from thy commandments. Since the Lord Jesus redeemed the human race through obedience, and restored righteousness; but the serpent through disobedience introduced sin; we can estimate from this what a vice pride is, whose author is the devil, whom the Prophet introduces saying: I will set my throne above the clouds, and I will be like the Most High. Thus, though he is most wicked, in that he did not give honor to the Lord our God; he nevertheless trained still worse disciples.

For he so exalted himself that he wished to be made equal and like to the Most High: but his disciple is signified by the Apostle as one who will be indignant to be esteemed equal and like to God. For it is written: When the man of iniquity shall be revealed, and the son of perdition, who opposes and is lifted up above all that is called God. The master, then, presumes himself to be like; this one, superior. And therefore the Lord also said to His disciples: Greater things than these shall you do; that to those from whom the serpent had taken away more than he himself had lost, Christ might grant to do greater things than He Himself had done on earth. For in Himself He willed to deceive the prince of the world, in His disciples to triumph.

Therefore, wishing to vindicate the human race from so great a crime, He introduced the Pharisee and the publican praying in the temple; and He taught that even if a man have other good qualities, the proud man offends more than the humble man who is propped up by no endowment of virtues; for the devil strives to trip up those intent on good works. How hard that Pharisee labored, that he might not seize what belonged to another, that he might not be unjust, that he might not commit adultery! How hard he labored, that he might not sin as the publican sinned! How hard he labored, that he might fast twice in the week! How hard he labored, that he might give tithes of all that he acquired! Which of us does these things? How many possess estates, and brood alone over their fruits, and store up harvests for themselves alone!

The devil noticed this, and drenched him with a grievous sore; so that, puffed up with fleshly pride, he lost his footing; and in that very thing wherein he was believed to be praiseworthy, there he was judged more reprehensible. For he gave thanks to God that he was not a robber, an adulterer, an unjust man. How harmfully did the serpent wrestle with him, and bind him with heavy coils! He made him higher, that he might cast him down from a greater height: he showed himself lower, that he might overthrow the loftier one with a heavier fall. Evil is the ruin of arrogance, which snatches away the one who is higher. Evil is this wrestling of the serpent, by which he twists himself into so many coils.

He wished to puff up even Paul. Which Paul? That apostle, indeed, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ. And he had almost deceived him, so that Paul asked that the thorn of his flesh, which humbled him, be taken away. But the good Lord, wishing to make Paul stronger through his infirmities, applied to him an angel of Satan; so that the devil might be conquered by his own arts. The Pharisee was not lying, indeed he even spoke true things: but everyone who exalts himself, even if he speaks true things, gives offense. Finally, the Pharisee entered the temple more approved than the publican; and yet he went out condemned. How great a crime is pride, that even adulteries are preferred to it!

Finally, the Lord, who bestows gifts on others, resists the proud, and, as it were, enters into contest with those who exalt themselves, and claims this struggle for Himself: and He who has compassion on others, rebukes the arrogant; because there is nothing more grievous than that we should look down with a haughty eye upon our poor brothers, driving away with intolerable disdain those who are formed like ourselves, judging them unworthy of our favor because they are needy: whereas poverty is more acceptable to God, and more welcome to Him than treasure.

Cursed, he says, are they who decline from thy commandments.

Above he had said: Hide not thy commandments from me; and therefore, as one who knows that the commandments have been revealed to him, he condemns those who shall have declined from the heavenly commandments. And well did he say: Who decline; for the commandment is straight, and therefore let no one turn aside from it.

But it moves one to ask by what reason he here said: Hide not thy commandments from me.

For that which is hidden becomes dark and secret; whereas above he had said: The commandment of the Lord is lucid, enlightening the eyes. If the commandment is lucid, how is it hidden; since no one places a lamp under a bushel? Unless perhaps one commandment is lucid, but many commandments are hidden. For thy judgments, he says, are like a great deep. It is not said "judgment is like a deep," but "judgments" are so spoken of.

But observe the order.

Above he says: Drive me not away from thy commandments; in what follows he says: Hide not thy commandments from me; here he says: Cursed are they who decline from thy commandments. Truly cursed are they who decline from thy commandments, who ought to have returned thanks: first, because they were not driven away; second, because they did not merit to have the divine commandments hidden from them. Someone, then, declines from that which he had desired. There follows: Remove from me reproach and contempt; because I have sought after thy testimonies. If contempt is reckoned in the place of reproach, how is it written: The contemptible things of this world hath God chosen? But consider that he said the contemptible things of the world, not of God. For what is contemptible in this world is precious with God. Finally, humility is despised in this world, but is approved by the judgment of God. And if the publican humbled himself, he is exalted. Hear whom God loves, and does not hold as nothing.

Whoever is holy, who lives without stain, keeps truth, has not sought after his neighbor's harm, in his sight the malicious man has been brought to nothing; he has rejected all that belongs to malice: such a one, even if he be a Gentile, is approved by God for the devotion of his humility. But the proud, like the Pharisee, are esteemed as nothing by Him because of their arrogance. Finally, being a Gentile does not remain; but devotion abides for ever. Beware, then, lest you become a reproach to Christ. I would not wish anyone to curse me, or to despise me as a sinner; how grievous a thing it would be, if Christ should reckon me worthy of reproach! Woe to thee, he says, Chorazin and Bethsaida. They are condemned; because they did not do penance for their sins. Let us, then, do penance, that reproach may be removed from us. But who is he who is not worthy of reproach? He who has sought after the testimonies of the Lord.

Many indeed there are who wish to bring reproach upon thy servants, but they themselves are the more disgraceful

because to suffer reproach for thy name is glorious.

therefore he says: For princes sat, and spoke against me. This is the voice of the martyr, who, brought to the judgment of persecutors, when he was compelled to sacrifice to idols and steadfastly resisted; while the judges, sitting on their tribunals surrounded by their retinues, indignant that their commands were not obeyed, conferred together as to what punishment they should deem him worthy of; he stood undaunted, saying: Princes sat and spoke against me. This is also the voice of the Lord, when the assembly of the elders of the people, and the chief priests and scribes had come together, and he had been brought before the council of the Jews, who said: What further need have we of witnesses?

For we have heard it from his own mouth; and he stood before the governor, and was led to the cross—what could he say more fittingly than: Princes sat, and spoke against me, that is, while I stood, the princes sat? And because they were exalted upon the support of their tribunals, they did not see the Lord. They sat, then; they were at the summit of power, and yet gave no thought to the Prince of princes. But this is too little. Against me, he says, they spoke. I, their redeemer, had come; I had come to cleanse the sins of all, to recover those who were lost, to restore to holy Jacob his inheritance in paradise; and they spoke against me. And therefore, imitators of me, my disciples, do not be ashamed of the injury if you stand before princes for my name's sake; since I stood for your salvation.

Finally, Peter, delivered into custody with the rest of the apostles, and set the next day before the council, said steadfastly: Rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, if we this day are judged for a good deed done to the infirm man, by which he has been made whole; be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, in this name does this man stand before you whole—that is: You are the ones who have set both this man and Christ on trial; we count this injury as a mark of glory, since we are accused for the healing of a sick man: this is the inheritance which the Savior of all left to his servants. But they conferred among themselves, saying: What shall we do with these men? And they let them go. Peter therefore gloried, and each of the apostles, because they were counted worthy to endure injury for the name of Christ.

Rightly, then, each might have said at that time: For princes sat, and spoke against me.

Princes sat against Isaiah, and debated that he should be sawn asunder: but he did not fear them who said: Hear, princes of Sodom.

They sat against Jeremiah, that he might be cast into the pit. They sat against Zachariah, who was slain between the temple and the altar. They sat against Susanna, and judged against a woman of chastity: but that it might be shown the counsel of princes was not good, the Lord roused the spirit of a boy; and she whom the princes had pronounced guilty of death, the same the prophet absolved of all accusation as wholly innocent.

There are also other princes who speak against us, 1008 of whom it is said: For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world's darkness, against spiritual wickedness in high places. These sit and watch out for whoever is righteous in this age, whoever, being Christian, intently serves God, zealous of good works and deeds. They speak against him, saying: Let us lie in wait for him, let us hinder him, let us prevent him from accomplishing what he desires, let us wear down his mind, let us break his spirit with frequent and sudden adversities; and if he is approved by God for his righteousness, let us ask that his temptations be granted to us. For they could not have had power over so great a prophet in so many temptations, of which he underwent very many, unless the Lord had granted it for the sake of testing his soldier, that He might crown him with greater glory.

Who then stirred up King Saul against him, but the evil spirit, as we read, who grieved that he was shut out whenever David soothed the mind and spirit of the king with the sound of the harp, or with the strings and chords of good counsels and deeds? Who stirred up the wickedness of Doeg the Syrian, that he should betray the holy man, and bring hospitable kindness into danger for the priest? Who inflamed the ardor of Amnon, that he should defile the house of the prophet, and grieve the mind of the father, one by incestuous lust, the other by injury: and he who prophesied for others could not foresee the evils of his own house? Who armed the fury of Absalom, that he should drive his father from his house, and pursue him in parricidal war?

But when the holy man was already nearly overpowered by the strength of the kingdom, he quenched with this one thing the darts kindled against him by the devil, that though his son sought his father's death, he yet commended the safety of his son with the affection of piety.

So the princes of the people, such as Ahithophel, and the other leaders of the warring army, sat.

The princes of the people conferred with Absalom against the Prophet. And therefore he says: For princes sat, and spoke against me: but thy servant was occupied in thy justifications. We observe the arms of the righteous man, by which he repels all the assaults of adversaries the assaults of adversaries. Elsewhere he says: They compassed me about, and fought against me without a cause: for the love which I gave them they detracted from me: but I gave myself to prayer: here he says that his zeal in youth was not exercised in arts of war, nor in any deceit of cunning against an adversary, in order that he might overcome the one whom he saw: but he fought against those whom he did not see; and greater piety than bodily strength was at work in him. He was thus occupied in the justifications of God, that with a returning blow he might wound the devil.

The devil tried to draw him away from his intention of justice and his zeal of devotion by warlike occupations: but he occupied himself the more in meditations upon divine work and worship. Thus the Lord protected him, in whom he hoped, with whom he spoke, to whom he clung with his whole affection. For the righteous man either speaks with God in prayer, or 1009 speaks divine words in praise; and he always speaks the works of God, lest his mouth speak the works of men. The righteous man speaks nothing earthly, does nothing mortal.

therefore he says: For thy testimonies are my meditation, and thy justification my counsel. You observe what he teaches, that these ought to be the counsels of the righteous man: to meditate on the commandments of God, and to be occupied in the praises and oracles of God, so as always to justify the Lord. He who does what God commands, what he believes pleases God, justifies God.

This we may understand from the reading of the Gospel, where the Evangelist says that the Pharisees despised the counsel of God, not having been baptized with the baptism of John. This in one book; but in another you have: they did not justify God, because they were unwilling to be baptized. Therefore the Lord, to John who said: I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me? Answered: Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becomes us to fulfil all justice. He, then, who does the commandments of God justifies God; let the counsels of men follow after; for the counsel of God is always sure, but our counsels are for the most part uncertain, proved by the outcome of events.

The fourth letter, according to the Hebrews, Daleth, signifies in Latin fear, or (as we find elsewhere) birth.

But both can fittingly agree with the sense. For birth belongs to those things which are begotten in this age, by which we understand bodily and material things, which are perishable, and therefore not far from fear; for from bodily and material things fear is born. For what is earthly birth, but fear?

Finally, from this the

begins: My soul hath cleaved to the pavement: quicken thou me according to thy word.

By pavement we understand the earth, by earth material things. But to the sinner it was said: Thou art earth, and unto earth thou shalt return; because he thought he need not cling to the divine commands, but turned aside into material and bodily things, upon whom the delight of this worldly life had made its impression.

Then, cast out of paradise

that is, from that sublime and heavenly place, to which Paul was caught up, whether in the body or out of the body he knew not: cast down, then, from that eminent place onto the earth, let Adam lament, saying: My soul hath cleaved to the pavement; as he says elsewhere: My soul is humbled in the dust, and my belly cleaveth to the earth. This is the voice of one repenting, who remembered that, while clinging to God, he had not known, nor been able to discern (as Paul also did not discern) whether he was in the body or out of the body; so little did he feel the weakness and sluggishness of the body, to whom the presence of the Lord clung. The prophetic spirit, then, which expressed the sorrow, or the Lord who took upon Himself its infirmity, represents the person of Adam, and assumes his feeling.

Let Adam then speak: My soul hath cleaved to the pavement.

He who before, most blessed, breathed the ethereal air, and knew not the cares and weariness of this life, now, bent down by the anxiety of this world, by zeal for luxury, and by the desire of money, like a fox burrows into holes and earthly lairs. Deservedly he clung to the dust, who could not raise himself, unless Christ had lifted him up above his cross. Deservedly he clung to the pavement, who was hiding himself from Christ. He does not cling to the pavement, to whom Jesus says: Follow me. He does not cling to the pavement who hears and follows the Law which says: Thou shalt walk after the Lord thy God, and shalt cleave unto him.

How then does each one cling to the pavement, how to God—hear him who says: He who cleaves to a harlot is one body; but he who cleaves to God is one spirit. This earth which we bear about takes us captive with certain allurements as of a harlot, and, as it were, smears over certain faces of pleasures with the paints of bodily delights; so that truth may lie hidden in them, and by a kind of outward show they may deceive those who draw near. But though for a time they have veiled the inner eye of the mind, afterward, however, when as it were the dust of such beauty of pleasures has been shaken off, it is easily perceived how vain is the grace of this age or of the body.

It is good, then, to cleave to the Lord, and not to have a neck bent to the yoke of the world. And therefore Wisdom says to the Church, or to the strong soul: Thy neck is like the tower of David, which is built for an armory: a thousand shields hang upon it, all the darts of the mighty (Song of Songs iv, 4). For the neck raised toward God, and fit for the yoke of Christ, which is bent by no allurement of earthly things, is like the royal tower of Christ, upon which Nebuchadnezzar cannot lay his yoke. For David, that man mighty in hand, built that tower, and built the heights above the walls, that it might serve both for support and for adornment: for support, because it foresees and repels the enemy; for adornment, because it stands out not only among the humble but even among the lofty.

Yet it serves for support or for adornment in this way, if it has within itself the doctrines of the word like certain ornaments of trappings, and also has the darts of the mighty prophets, which are directed with a certain strength of faith against every height that exalts itself.

Do not, then, bring your soul down into the dust of death—your soul, to which the Lord has granted even a natural loftiness, and a vigor by which it may rouse and raise itself. Whence also this is fitly understood of this union of soul and body; that in the natural mystery of our life the soul, joined to the body, as it were creeps upon the ground and cleaves to the pavement: partly because of this earthly dwelling, partly because this body is of the earth. Both the diversity of regions, therefore, and the very matter of our body, converge upon this same conclusion. And therefore the Apostle beautifully desires to be freed from the body of this death; because we are shut up as it were in a prison, and, dwelling in a certain den of luxury, we are wrapped in the darkness of sins.

Let us therefore walk according to the will of God, that we may be said to cleave to God.

For he who lives according to the desire of the body is flesh; he who lives according to the precepts of God is spirit. Let not our soul, then, become flesh, that is, let us not be called flesh, as were those who perished in the flood, of whom it is said, that they are flesh: but rather let our flesh, obedient to the guidance of the soul, become soul, and deserve to be called by this name, as was called the family of the patriarch Jacob, and the holy posterity of his generation. For thus it is written: These are the sons of Bala, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, and she bore these to Jacob, seven souls. And elsewhere: All the souls that went in with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides the wives, were sixty-six.

And in the beginning of Exodus we read: Now all the souls of Jacob were seventy-five that were with Jacob.

Those, then, who dwelt with Joseph, and came out of Egypt, are souls.

Now those who, though they were angels of God—that is, imitating by uprightness of life the grace of angels (for those who do not take wives, and those who do not marry, shall be as angels in heaven)—who then, though they seemed angels, were captivated by feminine beauty, these are flesh, as the Lord God said: My spirit shall not remain in these men for ever, because they are flesh. And rightly are those free of lust compared to angels: they are not flesh in the flesh, but in the spirit; such as were those who followed the Apostle their teacher, to whom he says: But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. But those who are captivated by the bodily lust of women are flesh: and would that they were flesh only, and not also neighing horses; because, it is said, they neighed after their neighbor's wife.

He therefore who feels the dejection of his soul bowed down even to the pavement asks to be quickened according to the word of God, which draws to itself whatsoever souls, and, desiring in its mercy to raise them up, draws them away from the earth. Now the soul is quickened which walks in the ways of Christ, dead to sin, living to God, so that the death of sin can no longer afterward have dominion in it, after it has been buried together with Christ and justified from sin. But he who desires to be justified must first declare his own ways. And so in the second

he says: I have declared my ways, and thou hast heard me: teach me thy justifications. In a beautiful order he thinks one must arrive at the justifications of God; that first he confess his own sins. For thus we are taught elsewhere also: Declare thou thy iniquities, that thou mayest be justified.

We ought therefore to know what it is for a man to walk in his own ways, and in the ways of God.

He who does the wills of the flesh, and lives according to the concupiscence of this world, walks in his own ways, in which he delights and rejoices. But he who comes to do the will of his Father who is in heaven, whose food it is to fulfil the commandment of God; who seeks not what may be pleasurable to himself, but what may please God—he pursues the way of the Lord, that way which says: I am the way, the truth, and the life. You see, then, that he lives according to the word of God who walks in the way of Christ.

The Lord God himself also teaches in Deuteronomy how you may walk in his ways, saying: And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but that thou fear the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and love him, and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and keep his commandments, and his justices? It is clear, then, that the ways of the flesh are one thing, and the ways of God another: and if anyone wishes to walk in the ways of God, let him know that he must first forsake the ways of the flesh, and of the body, and of worldly wisdom.

Leaving these things behind, then, David declares his ways, and before God he does not stay silent.

He confesses his errors, he does not conceal his falls. He said something similar elsewhere: I will declare against myself my iniquity to the Lord. For if the just man accuse himself, he shuts out the voice of the accuser standing ready, who is wont to embitter sins and to exaggerate the crimes of each one. He therefore stops that one's mouth who has already confessed of himself beforehand, and he prepares the way for pardon by his confession. Shame excuses the guilty man; his own modesty accuses the doer. For he who has not kept silent about his own faults seems to have grieved within himself over what he did, and to have betrayed against the devil what the devil urged upon him. And so Scripture says: The just man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech.

He who accuses himself, even though he is a sinner, begins to be just; because he neither spares himself, and he confesses the justices of God, whom he thinks can be hidden from in nothing. Would that Adam had been willing to accuse himself before he tried to hide! But it is not enough that we confess our error: rather, even if we wish to be corrected, let us ask of the Lord that he teach us his justifications; lest afterward we may be able to err. He asks, therefore, to be taught by the Lord, because there is one master of ours, as Christ says. Nor does he ask this idly; for that man is not blessed whom man teaches: but he whom thou, Lord, hast instructed. Everywhere he is mindful of himself, and does not think it enough that the Lord our God teach him his justifications, but he adds: Make me to understand the way of thy justifications, and I will be exercised in thy wondrous works. See the order.

First it is that we learn the justifications of the Lord, then that we come to know certain degrees of the justifications and their order, what ought to be first, what to follow. For to know what you should do, and not to know the order of doing it, is not perfect knowledge: things done out of order frequently give offense. In short, he is just who accuses himself at the beginning of his speech; but he is unjust who confesses what he had earlier denied. The former finds the grace of modesty: the latter incurs the mark of shamelessness. Thus ignorance of order disturbs the nature of affairs, and the form of merits. But he who shall first have learned the mysteries of God, and then the order of the mysteries, is exercised in the wondrous works of God.

The Greek put ἀδολεσχήσω, which the Latin renders, I will wander in thought (hallucinabor).

In this there seems to be some offense of speech according to common usage; because ἀδολεσχῆσαι is commonly reckoned either to wander in thought, or to speak something more than is fitting, and to seem superfluous, which is tedious to the hearer: and it seems to be beside the order of things, since the order of things seems to bring tedium; as if you wished to relate some matter and keep to the order, but the hearer hastens to the outcome of the matter, he finds the earlier parts tedious. But no one can be fully instructed except he who has come to know all things in their own order. From this not only is the deed grasped, but also the weight of the deed, and the disposition of the doer.

And so David, as a good judge and arbiter of himself, wishes to be taught nearly to the point of tedium, and to linger even a superfluous time rather than pass over the necessary order; for ἀδολεσχία, or wandering thought, seems to be a certain lengthy meditation, and a certain painstaking intentness of mind: from which the exercise either of the soul or of the body is not far removed. For as one who exercises his limbs in the wrestling-school exercises them longer, that he may grow strong: so he who exercises his mind in the divine Scriptures, or in counsels, ought to exercise it longer.

Isaac went out into the field.

The Greek says ἀδολεσχῆσαι: the Latin, to walk about, or to be exercised. Rebecca was coming: in her a type of the Church was prefigured: a marriage was being prepared, in which there would be a great sacrament. Seeing those mysteries, the patriarch went out into the field, pouring forth the keenness of his mind, and walking about in the innocence of his heart. He was exercising his mind, indeed, with various thoughts, and was delighting in wondrous mysteries: and that the holy prophet might prove an imitator of him, he was eager to be taught the justifications of God, and to know the way of the heavenly justices; that his soul might not sleep the sleep of this world, nor, caught by the enticements of worldly vanity, might slip away from the pursuit of the purpose of truth. By what reasoning, then, he wishes to be taught, he subjoins, saying: My soul hath slumbered/dripped for weariness: strengthen thou me in thy words. Some codices have, "hath slept," because ἐνύσταξεν and ἔσταξεν differ by two letters.

The translator or the ancient copyist could have been mistaken here: νυστάζειν means to sleep, στάζειν to drip.

He who directs his mind to divine mysteries, being more perfect, does not sleep. In short, he himself says elsewhere: If I shall give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids. But he is always watching, and even if the flesh sleeps, the heart watches. So he was not sleeping who was planning to build a temple to the Lord by the building up of heavenly words, not of stones. For the word of God is a repellent of weariness, by which the sleep of the soul, the drowsiness of the mind, is excluded. For from the sadness and anxiety of worldly things sleep steals in. But he who cleaves to God, fleeing cares, takes pleasure in the knowledge of eternal things, fearing there no change of worldly affairs.

Those, therefore, who use the easier shortcuts of labor, take "hath slept"; but Origen, who examined the interpretations of many with careful investigation, followed "hath dripped,"

because the soul of the perfect man, being as it were well constructed and strengthened, does not drip, like the peaks of roofs which are well covered and protected: whereas ill-constructed ones quickly drip. Hence it is said: The droppings drive a man out of his house in a winter day, in which we are tried by the harshness of cold and the frequent changing of the air. Hence we are taught to provide that our flight be not in winter, nor on the sabbath. For the days of trial ought now to find us proven, whether of judgment or of death; lest, stripped of the green freshness of prosperous things and despoiled of every flower of favorable successes, the end of death should find us.

Let us take care, then, that none of us be cast out of the state of his mind, and from a certain natural dwelling-place, if he has openings in his dwellings, from which flowing droppings, as it were from the foundations, undermine a man not founded upon any solidity of wisdom. And so the prophet says: My son, do not let thyself flow away. Our soul, then, must be strengthened, that it not drip; and it must be solidified by the undivided structure of the virtues, that it may be able to keep the mystery of the eternal King. But whoever is loose in words, as though full of cracks, flowing away here and there, empties out his inward parts, and is flooded with outward passions, not knowing how to cover himself, nor to keep the word he has received: unlike holy Mary, who kept all the words in her heart, lest anything should flow away from her heart.

The Church speaks of herself as fortified with such a dowry of virtues; that she may seem worthy that the invited Bridegroom may enter her lodging. Hence she first presumes that she will be pleasing, if Christ sees her well covered, and keeping faithful silences. Behold, she says, thou art beautiful, my kinsman, and comely indeed: our couch is shaded, the beams of our houses are cedar, our ceilings are of cypress. The Church praises the beauty of the Bridegroom, whom each one praises more with silent affection, and the faithful interpreter of mysteries proclaims more by keeping silent. For he who divulges secret things diminishes the beauty of Christ. Therefore let no one cast his pearls before swine, lest he cause precious ornaments to be trodden underfoot. Not, then, in the tent of the talkative and the chattering man—because in much speaking sin is admitted—but in that of the serious man, sparing in speech, not intemperate in words, and avoiding the drunkenness of loquacity by sobriety of speech, does Christ incline his head.

And rightly does she signify the couch as shaded; because the virtue of the Most High overshadows those established in the Church.

With this shade David asked to be protected; that the sun by day should not burn him, nor the moon by night. This shade spiritual grace ministers to those fleeing the scorching heats of this age and the summer heat of the world. The shaded couch, then, is of Christ and the Church, on whom that eternal rest of God the Father breathes. In this shade, then, let us rest, wearied by the heats of our sins. If lust has scorched any, let the cross of the Lord refresh them, on which he reclined; that he might take up our offenses. If any have grown weary from fault, let Jesus receive them into his bosom, and cherish them with a gentle embrace. Whence I dare to say that the flesh of Christ is the couch of the Church.

The beams of our houses are cedar.

By the likeness of the cedar is declared the glory of our forefathers who were just; for the just man shall flourish like the palm tree, and shall be multiplied like the cedar that is in Lebanon. For as the cedar does not decay: so the glory of our forefathers is corrupted by no age.

Our ceilings are of cypress.

This kind of tree never loses its greenness: in winter alike, in spring, and in summer it nourishes its foliage, nor is it changed by a differing color. This alone among trees is never stripped of its adornment by the wind: alone it is never divested of its old covering, nor clothed with a new blossom. So too the apostolic grace knows no failing: but flourishes in its very age. The soul, then, knows no corruption which, vigorous with flourishing merits, ever sustains with patient magnanimity the heights of justice and of the other virtues. And so it does not flow away, nor fail; because there is nothing cracked or slack in it, nothing unstable, nothing slippery, nothing that could be poured out from it by fault of speech. And so the Prophet asks to be strengthened in his words; lest his feet be moved, lest his steps be poured out.

Which things, if anyone flourishes with an upright heart, he does not suffer, but rooted and grounded he remains immovable against all the waves of the passions. Confirmed therefore in his words, he says: Remove from me the way of iniquity, and have mercy on me according to thy law. He did not say: Remove me from the way of iniquity; but, Remove from me the way of iniquity; as if it were within us, and were seen to inhere in us. For as long as we practice something base, the way of iniquity remains within, and does not withdraw from us; therefore let us strive earnestly to separate it from ourselves. But since the hereditary glue of iniquity has clung to human minds, the help of a liberator is needed. Pray thou also, and say: Wretched man that I am, who will remove from me the way of iniquity?

The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord; and he beautifully said the way of iniquity, not iniquity itself

because it is not as though iniquity were natural in us, but has been worn smooth by the footsteps of our forebears running after sins.

And deservedly, since the wound is great and old, and has long been creeping, it demands the remedies of a perfect medicine, beseeching that it be cured by the lawful mercy of the Lord. For a wound quickly reopens which has not been healed according to the law of medicine; indeed the cure feels an even slower progress. And so if the poison creeps into the inner parts, it does not feel the medicaments applied from without. The reason of medicine therefore requires that it be cured either by cutting or by cauterizing. For unless the putrefied parts are cut away, or the useless humor is boiled down, the hands of medicine are applied in vain to the wounds. And so the good physician says that a sick man of this kind must be treated according to the law, so that the medicine may be able to profit.

He therefore shows mercy according to the law, who shows mercy with justice and wisdom; so that he remits those things which he knows can rightly be remitted; lest, in showing mercy to another, he render himself liable to the law. Agag, after he was granted mercy, made Saul sin. For he sinned in the very act of mercy, and therefore sinned after mercy.

Let us also consider, lest we make even worse him of whom we have mercy unjustly.

For often not to restrain the delinquent is a matter of greater authority than if you should punish. For those who have committed something dishonorable and pay no penalty for their fault are handed over to passions of ignominy. Finally, of those who did not think God to be the observer of their crimes, and lived as it were without judge and without law, it is said: God gave them up, into a reprobate sense: because they chose the way of iniquity, but were unwilling to choose the way of truth. But the prophet, who wished to be converted with sincere affection, says: I have chosen the way of truth: I have not forgotten thy judgments. He who errs in doctrine cannot say this.

The Arian cannot say it, nor the Sabellian, nor the Manichean; the avaricious man cannot say it, who covets worldly and material things; he who trades in business cannot say it; for the pursuit of possessing, the desire of owning, is not the way of truth. How can it be the way of truth, when that rich man of the world cannot carry his riches with him, and after death begins to be needier than that beggar Lazarus? Worldly honor is not the way of truth, nor is anxiety about the world. Indeed he who has chosen the way of truth says a little further on: Turn away my eyes lest they behold vanity (below, verse 37). Vanity belongs to temporal things, truth to eternal things. If therefore we wish to walk the way of truth, let us be pilgrims from the world rather than from God, and let us walk by faith.

For he who walks by faith is present to God, and he who walks by sight is present to the world, and is a pilgrim from the Lord: but such a one is soon confounded. Whence, fleeing from a man of this sort, David says: I have cleaved to thy testimonies, O Lord, put me not to shame. He cleaves to the testimonies of the Lord who does not spurn his commandments, does not forget his judgments, nor indulges his own pleasures. He who cleaves to the testimonies of the Lord renounces the world, forgets the things that are behind, presses on toward the things that are before, that he may attain the prize, which is the mark of victory. He therefore is not put to shame whom the alluring things of this world have not captured; he is not put to shame, even if he has committed shameful things, if he seeks pardon of his sins from Christ. And so it is answered him: Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace.

But thus he is not put to shame, if the remission of sins has truly been worked in him; so that it takes away not only the sins, but also the disposition to sin. Let justice remit iniquities, let fortitude remit fear, let temperance remit impurities; that the remission of sins may become not only temporal but perpetual. Let Christ enter into your soul, let Jesus dwell in your minds; that in the tabernacle of virtue there may be no place for sin. I have run, he says, the way of thy commandments, when thou didst enlarge my heart. For he could not run the way, if his heart were constrained by narrowness. Indeed, to those running the way of the Lord the Apostle says: Be ye also enlarged, and bear not the yoke with unbelievers. And of himself he says: Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.

And so it is said of Solomon: The breadth of his heart was as the sand of the sea; and see the distinction: let the way be narrower, the heart wider, that it may sustain the dwelling of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; lest the Word of God come, and knock, and seeing the narrowness of the heart, disdain to dwell there. Finally, wisdom is sung at the going forth, but in the streets it acts with confidence. The streets are broad. Not in the ways, therefore, but in the breadth of the heart is wisdom sung. In this field, then, of the inner man, not in the narrow confines of the mind, must we run, that we may lay hold. For it is written: So run, that ye all may obtain. Indeed he lays hold, who ran so as to say: I have finished my course; for he ran as a good horse.

Indeed Christ has his horses, of whom the Prophet says: Thou didst send thy horses into the sea, troubling many waters; because by evangelizing the apostles stirred up the peoples of the nations, who are moved like many waters, and are stirred up like the waves of many waters; so that, rising up from earthly idolatrous ceremonies, they might believe in Christ. And above he says: I mounted upon thy horses: thy chariot-riding is salvation. O wondrous team of twelve good horses, for whom the reins are peace, the bridle-straps charity! They are bound together among themselves by the bonds of concord, and subjected to the yoke of faith, carrying by the four wheels of the Gospel the mystery into the bounds of the whole world, bearing the good charioteer, the Word of God, by whose whip the worldly allurements have been put to flight, the prince of this world has been driven out, and the course of the just has been fulfilled. O great contest of rational horses! O wondrous mystery!

Wheel within wheel was running, and was not hindered.

The New Testament was within the Old Testament, running within that by which it was announced. The wheels went into four directions, and did not turn back; because the spirit of life was in them, who ran into the four parts of the whole world; and they ran without stumbling, because the good life of the horses fitted well. The horses therefore ran; because he who had mounted the horses did not sleep.

Jesus, then, is the charioteer of our souls, who wishes us too to mount our horses

that is, our bodies; but always to keep watch, lest it be said of us: They that mounted the horses have slumbered. This sea must be crossed swiftly. It is scarcely crossed by the watchful: but if anyone should fall asleep, he will not be able to cross; but is submerged, like the Egyptian, whose soul and body both perished: For the horse and its rider he cast into the sea, those who did not follow the law, but persecuted it.

There follows the fifth letter He, which in Latin signifies, He is: or, as we find elsewhere, I live.

Each interpretation suits it well; for he who is, lives; and he who lives, is. Finally, the gentiles are not; and therefore they do not live, but are dead: but Jesus, yesterday and today, is the same, and forever. And he who is, lives: For I live, saith the Lord God. For how can he who lives, not be? But Jesus lives, who also gives life to the dead, and calls those things which are not, as though they were. It is no wonder if nature yields to the Lord, so that even the dead are given life, and those who were not begin to be. And therefore, since the way is also life, according to him who said: I am the way, the truth, and the life; let us seek the way, that we may deserve to have life. Let us hearken, then, to him who lives in Christ.

For he lives who says: But we who live, bless thee, O Lord; for in Christ Jesus even whoever has died, lives. Let us hearken, I say, to what he said in order that he might live: Set me a law, O Lord, the way of thy justifications: and I will seek it always. A soldier who enters upon a march does not himself arrange for himself the order of the journey, nor plucks his way according to his own judgment, nor seeks pleasurable shortcuts, lest he depart from the standards: but he receives the itinerary from the commander, and keeps it: he proceeds in the prescribed order: he walks with his arms, and completes the march by the straight way; that he may find the prepared supplies of provisions ready. If he should walk by another route, he does not receive rations, he does not find lodging prepared; because the commander orders all these things to be prepared for those who follow, who turn aside neither to the right nor to the left from the prescribed route.

And rightly he does not fail, who follows his commander; for he walks in moderation

because the commander considers not what is useful to himself, but what is possible for all: therefore he also arranges the stopping-places; the army marches for three days, on the fourth it rests. Cities are chosen, in which three days, four days, and more days are interposed, if they abound in waters, are frequented by trade: and so the journey is completed without toil, until that city is reached which is chosen as it were royal, in which rest is provided for the wearied armies.

I would have you recognize that this law of marching was prescribed, with Christ leading, for the holy ones as they journeyed.

For our fathers too set out from the land of Egypt through long stretches of lands, all of whose stopping-places and lodgings are described; until Cades, that is, the holy land, was reached. These are the stopping-places of the children of Israel, which Moses described at the command of the Lord. We note, then, who ordained these lodgings, and how the children of Israel had to walk. For God went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to give refreshment to the travelers: and by night in a pillar of fire; to show the way to those walking, and to dispel the darkness. The law of the ways was the pillar both of fire and of cloud: indeed, in the pillar of cloud he spoke to them.

Where he wished the army to rest from the labor of the march, the pillar of fire did not move, nor did the cloud of light pass on: but when he wished the army to move, the pillar of fire advanced by night, and the pillar of cloud by day. That pillar of cloud, indeed, in appearance went before the children of Israel, but in mystery signified the Lord Jesus who was to come in a light cloud, as Isaiah said; that is, in the Virgin Mary, who was a cloud according to the inheritance of Eve: light according to the integrity of virginity. She was light, who sought to please not man, but the Lord. She was light, who had not conceived in iniquity, but bore by the Spirit coming upon her: and gave birth not in transgression, but with grace.

It is also possible to take this interpretation otherwise. Christ came in a light cloud into Egypt, that is, he came in the taking up of a body into this world. He came in a cloud, whom the mist of the body overshadowed: but the flesh was light, which no sins of its own weighed down. For how could he be weighed down by his own sins, who took away the sins of all peoples? Behold, he says, the Lamb of God: behold him who takes away the sin of the world. It was read yesterday, that Jesus stood, and had filthy garments; for he was bearing my sins. He took our garments; that he might clothe us with the splendor of immortality. He came in a light cloud as justice; for iniquity sits upon a leaden weight: Christ dwells in the hearts of the just, in whom there were no sins. And so it was well read today: What shall I render to the Lord for all that he hath rendered unto me?

For us the Word took up the infirmity of the flesh: for us he hungered, was beaten, was crucified, died; that for us, in whom life before was held as base and degenerate, death might begin to be precious.

But let us return to the summary of the journey, and the order of the stations.

And do you spiritually follow this law of travelling; that you go out from Egypt, and thence advancing pitch your tent in Succoth—let this be your first station. Succoth is the first station, signifying a tent. Pitch, then, the tent that is within you, and make firm the station of your mind; that you may remain rooted and grounded in the faith of Christ. There follows the station at Marah, that is, in bitterness. Not all stations are equal. Thence they came to Elim, where there were twelve fountains and seventy palm trees. After bitterness, lest the people should faint, pleasant and fruitful things had to follow. Thence to Rephidim, which means the praising of judgment. Thence follows Sinai, having in itself both the temptation of the people and the promulgation of the Law. The merits of the stations vary; because in this world no one can have a continuous course of living.

So the good Emperor in one place ministered manna to the hungry people; in another place, by a majestic provision, he commanded drink to flow from the rock, whereby he might quench the people's thirst; in another place he gave the Law; in another he granted triumphs; that the army, nourished by these benefits, might feel no toil of the long journey.

Thus in that people there was a type, in us the truth.

Let us, therefore, entrust our journey to the guidance of the Lord Jesus, who first introduced the Law, and before that gave the land of promise to his people to possess through Joshua. But even when Moses seemed to be the guide, Jesus was present with him; present, however, not openly, nor showing himself openly as leader or prince of the people; for he was waiting until Moses should complete his time, which being completed, Jesus succeeded him. So if you consider the Scripture saying: "Their days shall be a hundred and twenty years", you will see the mystery of the fullness of time, and the hundred and twenty years, after which Moses too rested on the mountain, and Jesus openly took up the leadership of the stations; so that now the people should no longer be under the fear of the Law, but, raised from the dead, might enjoy the fruit of eternal life.

Let us walk, then, according to the doctrine of the Law: let the Law of God be our way.

Walking this way, the Church says: "I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys, as the lily among thorns"; for the faith of the believing people has gone out into all the earth, and Christ has set his feet in a broad place. And so she fittingly says she is the flower of the field. Paul too was a flower, who said: "We are the good odor of Christ unto God". And truly a flower, who could bring forth from the treasury of his heart things new and old. The Church is also fittingly called a lily: for as the lily shines, so also the works of the saints shine. Most beautifully too it is said, "lily of the valleys"; because grace shines forth more in the humble. But this lily is in the midst of thorns, that is, among the Jews and heretics, that is, amid the anxieties of this world, which prick the mind and soul of man.

We can also take it otherwise

because as the lily stands out among thorns, so the Church of God shines above all assemblies.

It is also worth considering that this lily is surrounded by brightness, but within, what it has, is red, and itself of good odor; because the flesh of Christ, as it were enclosed by the wall-like brightness of divinity, had the protection of heavenly grace. Hence in what follows she says: "My kinsman is white and ruddy". White with divine brightness; ruddy with the appearance of human color, which he assumed in the sacrament of the incarnation. And rightly that which is red also smells sweet; because the flesh of Christ is without sin, which the faithless, touching, defiled their hands; the saints, venerating it, were fragrant with the odor of piety.

The Lord Jesus received this fragrance of his fragrant Church, and said: "Behold, my companion, you are fair".

And the Church says to Christ: "Behold, my kinsman is good; behold, you are good; as an apple among the trees of the wood." A fruit of this kind has a gracious odor, so that it surpasses the fragrance of other fruits. Christ, therefore, fastened to the wood, like an apple hanging on a tree, poured forth the good odor of the world's redemption; because he wiped away the heavy stench of sin, and poured out the ointment of the drink of life. "As an apple," she says, "among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman among the sons"; because above the prophets and apostles he soothed the inmost hearts of men with the sweetness of his words. But not only is there odor, but also sweet food in the apple. Therefore Christ is sweet food.

"In his shadow," she says, "I desired, and sat down".

For she had received the Law, she was following this, running this way. Resting, then, in the Law, she was resting in the shadow of Christ. A good shadow, which alone defends us from the heat of iniquity. Who indeed doubts that the Law of God is the shadow of Christ? What is the law of the feast day, of the new moon, of the sabbaths, but a shadow of things to come? What day is it according to the law of Moses; that I may see six days, and again the seventh day, and so on through the perpetual ages? What month is it according to the law of Moses; that knowing the month, I may know the first new moon of the month, and that true holy things are to be offered at the new moons?

What year, according to the law of Moses, consists of those six days, of which it is said: "Six years the Hebrew shall serve, and in the seventh year he shall be freed"; so that six years are found, in which someone works the land, but in the seventh year he shall release it to the proselytes, and to the poor, and to the beasts of the earth? What is the seventh year, in which all debts are forgiven to the Hebrews? In this shadow rested the faith of the fathers, and the holy devotion of the prophets.

So the religious congregation, or the holy soul, says: "In his shadow I desired, and sat down".

His shadow is the Jubilee year. For who sees its mystical meanings so as to know face to face what things, to be fulfilled in the fiftieth year, were prescribed by the Law? A shadow are the feast days according to the Law, in the first month, from the tenth day of the month up to the fourteenth, and thence up to the twenty-first of the month. What a shadow is that celebration between the first and seventh month in that unnamed time! A shadow is the sanctified freedom on the sabbath.

A shadow is the feast day of the new moon of the seventh month, and the memorial of trumpets of the seventh month, the tenth day, the day of propitiation. You see that the one and the ten are two feast days. Likewise the fifteenth day, the day of tabernacles, through eight days. All these things are in shadow. In shadow is called the first day, and in shadow is called the eighth day, which is prescribed in the feast of tabernacles according to the Law.

Set before me some men of the circumcision who believe, learned in the Law, men of anxious observance, and now enlightened by the knowledge of the Gospel, nourished with spiritual grace; the Church says in these words, she who sees Christ, who receives the Bridegroom, who is fed by his food: "In his shadow I desired, and sat down: and his fruit is sweet to my throat". What is his sweet fruit, but the preaching of the Lord's passion, as he himself says: "Behold, the heritage of the Lord, children, the reward, the fruit of the womb"? For what fruit can be sweeter to our throats than the remission of sins? And well is the Church a flower who announces the fruit, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it was said to Mary: "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb".

Therefore when she has tasted the fruit of sweetness, impatient, she hastens to more perfect things, saying: "Bring me into the house of wine, set love in order in me, strengthen me with ointments, stay me with apples; for I am wounded with love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field, if you shall stir up, and awaken love, until it please". Rightly she seeks him, rightly she desires him; because our Emperor has arranged all things well in this course and journey. First of all he thought this tent should be established on the foundation of faith. Then if there is for us any harsh and dry and rugged station, this Emperor nonetheless calms the troubled, waters the dry, makes fruitful the deserted. If there is any bitterness, any temptation, any weakness, our leader both tempers the bitter and soothes the anxious, dissolves the hard, and strengthens the weak.

So when a king of the earth wishes his army to rest, he chooses not an ignoble village, not one lacking supplies, not sandy and barren of growing things, but a city noble in buildings, well-stocked, and rich in supplies, or a pleasant field green with pastures, or wooded and level places suitable for encampments. Therefore if the kings of the earth know how to provide advantages for those who follow them, how much more does God, who is good, know how to arrange things beneficial for those who love him? And first, if an unknown road must be traveled, guides of the ways are chosen, who run ahead of the column. But these emperors consider this beneath them; God, however, went before, when the Hebrews made their journey. Indeed he spoke to them in the pillar of cloud.

And that you may know that he went before: "God," it says, "went before them in the way, by day indeed in a pillar of cloud, showing them the way; but by night in a pillar of fire, and the pillar of cloud did not fail by day".

Following this leading pillar of cloud, which did not fail, the Church, lest she herself should fail, was refreshed by its shadow; and therefore she says: "In his shadow I desired, and sat down: and his fruit is sweet to my throat"; because she was fed by the Lord, led into the place of pasture, and to the water of refreshment. "Bring me into the house of wine". Thence, her provisions being prepared, she seeks to go forward to another station in which she may receive the grace of mysteries, and taste the sweetness of joy. Hence too advancing on the true way, she says: "Set love in order in me". Good encampments, where there is the fullness of charity. "Strengthen me," she says, "with ointments, stay me with apples".

You have other stations, to which the Church proceeds with delight.

These stations are those of the cross of Christ, and of the burial, in which the Church was wounded, but with the wound of charity. For it is a wound that Christ received; but it is an ointment that he poured forth. It is an apple that hung. This apple the Church tasted, and said: "And his fruit is sweet to my throat". And that you may know that the Lord is the apple, you have read above: "As an apple among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman". We too confess the wound, when we preach Christ crucified: but we are a good odor to God; because the cross of Christ is to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks foolishness; but to us it is the power of God and wisdom. With this wound the Church is wounded, when she preaches the death of her Savior: but this wound is one of charity. Finally, whoever does not believe, denies; whoever loves, confesses.

The Manichaean denies, the Christian confesses; and so it is written: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, better than the deceitful kisses of an enemy".

Rightly, then, the Church says: "Because I am wounded with love".

Let us bare our limbs to the good wound, let us bare them to the chosen arrow.

This arrow is Christ, who says: "He has made me as a chosen arrow". It is good, then, to be wounded by this arrow. This progress is no mediocre station: not all can say that they are wounded with love. The apostles said it when they were stoned for Christ, and were preaching Christ. Paul said it when he was beaten three times with rods, and by day and night was disputing that Christ should be worshiped by the nations. The martyrs say this, who are wounded for Christ; and because they have merited to be wounded for his name, they love the more.

Coming, then, to this station, the Church, to this advance, that she may offer her sons for Christ, that she may receive wounds of charity, finding, as it were, the good food of faith, tasted herself the fruits of piety, and began to exhort others, saying: "Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet, like an apple". And in the apple there is a wound, yet it is sweet nonetheless. Again she came to the valley of the cluster, she saw a grape of huge size, which two could scarcely carry: one to go before, the other to follow. She tasted the mystery, she tasted it in Joshua the son of Nun, she tasted it in Caleb, who said to the people: "We have seen a land flowing with milk and honey". Taste, and see how sweet is the Lord.

And the Church added, saying: His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.

I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the virtues and strengths of the field; that ye stir not up, nor awake love, until it please. And these are the dwellings on the royal road of the Church as she advances. For there are many mansions with my Father, as the Lord Jesus testifies; and: Behold, I come, and I will receive you. Good is the mansion of wisdom, and whether on her left or on her right, good is the mansion; because it is the royal road. Therefore the wise messengers say: We will go by the king's highway, we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left, until we have passed thy borders. This the messengers sent by Moses said to the king of Edom, that is, of the earthly one; because all earthly things, whether on the right or on the left, are evil.

Evil is the mansion of folly, evil the mansion of intemperance; and therefore the Hebrew passes through these mansions: he does not turn aside to them, but passes through; that he may come to the left hand of wisdom and to her right, and abide in them, where are the riches of simplicity, where is glory, where is length of days. For length of days is in her right hand, as Solomon says: and in her left hand riches and glory. In the right hand is life, in the left is rest. Would that I might rest upon her left hand, that I need not seek pillows. For woe to those who sew pillows, says Ezekiel. These mansions the good guide prepares for his Church, and directs her journey through the ways of wisdom. Finally the Wise One praises her ways: Her ways are good ways, and all her paths are peace.

But because wisdom, honor, and glory are so perfected if they have charity—for charity is the fullness of the Law—she wishes charity to be stirred up and awakened: stirred up in the Old Testament, awakened 1024 in the New. Charity is God, as we read: charity is Christ. He is stirred up like a lion, and a lion's whelp, that he may arise from the stock of Judah. He is awakened as one sleeping, as one reclining; because he was raised from the dead not by human majesty, but by his own and the Father's majesty. Whence Scripture says: Who shall rouse him up? For neither angel nor any foreign power could rouse him up, since he himself raised up others. Therefore when it says here: If ye stir up, or awaken love, until it please, it speaks of those who can fittingly preach his resurrection; that they may kindle in their hearers the ardor of faith and devotion.

Or Christ is stirred up in those who first come to him; he is awakened in those who, after having come, have fallen asleep.

Christ therefore sleeps in the negligent, he is awakened in the saints. The Church, therefore, has ways by which to walk: she has dwellings of mansions, in which the saints rest, of whom is this one who says: Set me a law, O Lord, in the way of thy justifications. Well does he say, set; that it may remain immovable and fixed in his breast, nor be torn away from his affection by any storm of the world; that he himself may be a law unto himself, having the work of the law written in his heart.

And I will seek it, he says, always.

For it is no small thing that is sought—the grace of paradise, the kingdom of God, the fellowship of angels, and the dwelling-place of immortality. It is not sought, then, in one day, nor two, nor a few months: but it is sought always, and it is sought through all things; that many suffrages of merit may come together; for διὰ παντὸς signifies both all time and through all things. When he says, therefore: I will seek always, he means it is to be sought without end. But it is not enough to seek, unless you understand what you seek. And so he says: Give me understanding, and I will search thy law, and I will keep it with my whole heart. First it must be sought, then understood and searched out in every mystery of the Law, and kept in the heart. But who can keep the law of God, unless he has received understanding? And he who understands and searches, by searching is led into the path of the commandments.

In which this must be noted, that the Law is justice, the commandment is judgment, as we also read in this letter.

It is the way of the Law to stand in the ways of the Law: it is the way of justifications according to the first

There is also, then, the way of testimonies: In the way of thy testimonies I have delighted.

There is also the way of commandments: I have run the way of thy commandments. Let us therefore ask about these ways, that it may be said to us: Stand in the ways of the Law, and ask for the eternal paths, and see which is the better way, and walk in it. When, therefore, we have walked all the ways, we shall come to the end of all the ways, who says: I am the way. Christ, therefore, is the end of the ways; for he is the end of the Law unto righteousness to everyone that believeth.

Hence I dare to say that the end of the justifications is Christ, who is justice: the end of the testimonies is Christ, of whom it is said: Be ye my witnesses, and I am witness, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen.

We observe, then, how much we must walk, that we may come to Christ.

We must walk in the Law; because the end of the Law is Christ. Without the Law, then, one does not arrive at Christ. Whence it is manifest that heretics, who do not accept the Law of the Old Testament, even though they say that they hold Christ, nevertheless cannot hold the end, who have not held the beginning. Jesus himself is the beginning and the end. It is fitting, therefore, that we walk according to the spiritual law; that we may come to the end of the Law, the Lord Jesus. It is fitting that we follow the testimonies; that we may be able to arrive at the great testimony, the Lord Jesus. It is fitting also that we walk in the precepts of the Lord; that we may arrive at the great precept, of which you have read: It was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; but I say unto you; that is, I speak above every precept.

Thus I would say, not by usurpation, but truly, that as there is a Holy of Holies: so there is a precept of precepts.

But that we may be able to keep these things, let us ask understanding from the Lord.

Let us understand what circumcision is. Jesus circumcises with knives of stone, and took away the reproach of Egypt from the children of Israel. The rock is Christ. Let the Word of God circumcise you, and the sword of his mouth; and thus you shall be free of the reproach of Egypt. It is not, then, circumcision of the body, but of the heart, that must be understood. If you have understood the Law, you will keep it in your heart. The Jew does not keep the Law in his heart: but recites the Law with his lips, and is ignorant of the Law. For, This people, he says, honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. How can he who is far from the author of the Law hold the Law? Let us consider what the third

contains. Lead me into the path of thy commandments: for I have desired it.

Who says this, except one who follows Christ?

No one else can say this, except one who follows out what is written: Thou shalt walk after the Lord thy God, and cleave to him; for he will lead thee. Hear how he leads: Unless he take up his cross, and follow after me, he is not worthy of me. Christ, therefore, goes before, that we may follow; the Word goes before. Christ is the beginning; therefore Wisdom says: The Lord created me the beginning of his ways. We observe that Christ is both the beginning and the end of the ways. I do not fear that someone may say: Do you then assert that Christ was created? I will answer: I say he was created in the same sense that I read he was made, that is, made of a woman, made under the Law, that is, created according to the assumption of flesh, according to which he was born of the Virgin.

He was created, that he might redeem creatures: he was made man, that he might free men from perpetual death. He was created, that he might show me the eternal ways, by which man might return to the kingdom of God. Therefore, since he is the beginning of the ways of God, let us follow this beginning. He first entered the way of the New Testament; that on this road of devotion he might pave the way for us. If we fast, he fasted before us: if for the name of the Lord we endure injuries, he endured them first for our redemption. He gave his neck to the scourges, his cheeks to blows: he ascended the cross, that he might teach that death is not to be feared. Finally, as one going before, he says to Peter, Follow thou me. And therefore Peter finished his course; because he followed Christ. There follows the fourth

Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.

Others have "advantage," and I think it was changed for this reason, that the advantage of a good thing seems rather to be sought than shunned. But

because many people think the gain of money is their advantage; therefore if we read "advantage," we should not understand the Prophet to be declining the advantage of the soul, but the advantage of money. For the saint does not know such gains: but reckons all these as loss, that he may gain Christ. And rightly. For what we think to be the gain of money, is loss to the soul; because it is the loss of virtue. Therefore, according to those who have so understood it, that the Prophet wishes to incline his heart to the testimonies, and not to covetousness; we also agree in assent. And would that, following the prayer of the saint, we might both pray what he prayed, and imitate in affection what we pray.

For what does it profit me, if I pray that God turn my heart away from covetousness, and yet day and night I seek gains of money? If we pray with speech, let us also be in accord in mind. Jesus hears our sense too, and knowing that these two things do not agree, speech and desire, he does not hear the speaker. And therefore he who wished to pray well, said: I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the understanding: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing also with the understanding. Thus he hears the one who prays the more, if he spurns covetousness. But because we are weak, and often, wishing to turn our heart away from money, or gold, or silver, we are captured by the sight, and seeing another's field or building, we covet it, the Prophet well added, saying: Turn away my eyes that they may not behold vanity: quicken thou me in thy way.

For he who is in the way of God does not look upon vanities. The perfect way is Christ. He, then, who is in Christ, how can he look upon vanities; since Christ in his flesh crucified all the vanities of this world? Let us turn away our eyes, then, from vanities; lest what the eye sees, the mind covet. But let us set aside the mystical sense for now. Would that by this interpretation we might be able to recall those hastening to various spectacles of the circus games and theatrical shows. Vanity is what you behold there. You look upon a pantomime, it is vanity: you look upon wrestlers, it is vanity; because you see them wrestling for a crown of green leaves. For they are the true wrestlers, who wrestle against the enticements of this age. Let not the wrestling-ground of limbs seize your eyes. You look upon running horses, it is vanity; because they run in vain, who cannot save the one riding them.

Finally, let the very return of the course teach you that they run in vain, who do not complete a straight path, forgetting the things behind, and reaching forward to the things which are before.

Before us is Christ, before us is his prize, to which he arrived, who did not run in uncertainty, nor called back his course, but urged it on. Direct your eyes to him, turn away from the spectacles, turn away from all worldly pomp. Wherever you recognize popular applause, turn your eyes away from these things, bend them down, press them down, and preserve them, that you may raise them up to better things. Raise them to heaven: whether by night gaze at the necklaces of the stars, the lovely orb of the moon, or by day the sun. Behold the sea, look around at the land: that every creature, made by the divine work, may nourish you. What grace of forms is in the very beasts? What great comeliness in men? What great beauty in birds? Look upon these things, and you will not see iniquity and contradiction in the city. See these things, and death will not enter through the windows of your eyes.

If you have seen a woman so as to desire her, death has entered through the window.

If you have seen the possession of a minor or a widow, and have desired to seize it, death has entered through the window. If you have seen another's jewels, gold, silver, and have desired to extort them, death has entered through the window. Close, therefore, this window, when you see the beauty of another's wife, lest death be able to enter. Let your eyes not see another's wife, lest your tongue speak perversely. Close, then, your own window, lest it lie open to death entering in. But also beware another's window. For through the window of her own house the harlot enters. She enters through her own window when the wantonness of a lascivious eye tempts someone. Shut out, therefore, this window with the door of the word, lest you be captured by the eyes of a harlot, and be carried away by her eyelids.

But there is not one window only through which death is wont to enter.

There is also the window of words, through which the speeches of a harlot pass. And therefore guard yourself from another's wife, lest she assail you with pleasing speeches; for she enters through the window of her own house. Death enters through kisses; therefore beware lest she bind you with the snares of her lips. Death enters if a harlot kiss you. Death enters if you readily assent to her speaking. Death enters if you speak much; for by much speaking sin is incurred. Death enters even if you do not speak, and fear to confess Christ. For with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Death enters also through the caverns of the ears; and therefore the ears must be hedged about with thorns, that you may shut out the allurements of a harlot's speech. These are the moral matters.

There are also mystical eyes which you ought to turn away from vanity.

For there is also a vanity of the senses, which the eyes of your soul ought not to see; because those see it whom the Apostle condemns. Whence we learn all the more from that very author what vanity is, and what those eyes are. For it is manifest that there are very many who have been darkened in heart by the vanity of their sense, and alienated from the way of God through the ignorance that is in them, through the blindness of their heart; these, however, the Apostle calls Gentiles. Let that Gentile, then, be ignorant of what he has not learned, ignorant of what he has not believed; but it is not permitted to you to be ignorant of what you confess. Christ did not come in vanity, but in power; he did not puff up man's sense, but gave it life; he wrought not blindness of heart, but illumination of mind.

He has kindled your heart, that you may comprehend what is the reason of the heavenly commandments, what the substance of the soul, what the grace of the life to come, in what state we shall be after these things.

Lift up, therefore, your mind, use your natural understanding: you were made in the image of God, that you might look upon heavenly things, and not seek earthly things. Do not bend your neck to be pressed down by the weight of the world; do not gape after gold and silver, lest you offer yourself to be bound by the chains of the age. Therefore the Lord said: Do not possess gold or silver, lest a greedy desire of gold and silver possess us. Do not, then, insert your neck into the devil's snares. Avarice strangles the poor man in this age; but the rich man is suffocated forever by his own snares, whose sense is in vanity, who walks in darkness; because he labors at things which can profit him nothing. The anxiety of this life is vanity. Whence we ought to place our delight not in gluttony and drunkenness, not in the pleasures of the body, but in the knowledge of the heavenly precepts.

He runs in vanity who seems to himself to abound in worldly successes, which pass away like a shadow. Turn away, therefore, your eyes, lest they see vanity.

But it is not enough that you turn them away; lest perhaps you should wish to but not be able, should the devil pour over you the spectacles of vanities, and insert the incentives of pleasures; ask that the Lord turn away your eyes. And this is the grace of God, and this is the gift of the Lord: that he turn away the eyes of our soul from the business of this world. For all blessedness is from the Lord. But blessed is the man whose hope is the name of the Lord, and who has not regarded vanities and false follies. He who does not regard these things is blessed; but he who regards them is mad and frenzied. And therefore let each one come to his senses from the frenzy of worldly desires, which so disturb the mind and soul that one cannot be master of oneself.

If you are set upon a ship on the waves, you turn your eyes away from the bilge, lest it move you to vomit.

If, walking in a city, you happen upon something of fetid odor, you flee far off and turn aside. If something occurs that your eye shudders at, it is closed or turned away. In the sea of this present age you are tossed, the bilge-water of vices flows in. In this ship of your body the tide of desires is stirred, and yet you do not turn away the eyes of your soul, lest they see the bilge of lusts, lest they behold the dung of this world, lest an unclean stench fill the nostrils of your mind, in which the Holy Spirit is wont to dwell, so that you may be able to say: The divine Spirit which is in my nostrils. Let, then, the nostrils of your soul be turned away from the stench of divers crimes; for in these there is, as it were, a certain mark of judgment.

Whence it is said to the Bride: Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus

because the ointment of the true Priest, which descends from the head to the beard, that is, that divine odor, the odor of spiritual grace, which was from the Father in Christ, and by the sacrament of the incarnation descended to the earth, so that all things might be filled with the poured-out ointment, stands out by the power of surpassing judgment, and fills the nostrils of the soul, that it may discern good will and things fetid; the sweet things of the saints, who can say: For we are the good odor of Christ to God; and the fetid things of sinners.

These are the nostrils, lofty as the tower of Lebanon above the world; and therefore it looks toward the face of Damascus

that is, the Gentile people, smelling out its faith, by whose grace the stench of its sins would be wiped away. The face of Damascus, then, is the faith of the Gentiles, veiled by no covering, clothed by no garment, naked and free, intent more on heaven than on earth. This the nostrils of the Church watch and look toward, gathering what is sweet in it and of the fragrance of aspiration and of grace. And well is her nose like the tower of Lebanon; because in sacrifices the Church has a sweet savor, in which is the sacrifice of good odor, the remission of sins.

Take up, then, these nostrils, O man, that you may set apart the flowering things from those of heavy odor; and then the Lord will give you life. For when he shall have turned to what you ask of him, that he turn away the eyes of your mind from vanity, he cooperates with your soul; so that if it is captured by some appearance, or by hardness, or is not bent by weakness, he may bend it with the yoke of the word, and rule it with his reins: so that by the will of God it may be led away from vices and take on the odor of eternal life. For this life is not the perfect life; but this life is in shadow. Therefore, that the man Christ Jesus might be born of the Virgin, the power of the Most High overshadowed the future mother; because he descended in shadow, beginning to work the salvation of man from the shadow, and destined to consummate it by the charity of the eternal sun.

This life, then, is a shadow: hasten to the sun, that it may defend you from the cold of this shadow, and pour upon you the summer heat. And therefore he counsels that we should pray that our flight be not in winter or on the sabbath, signifying not a time or a day, but forbidding us to grow cold in merits, and to be fasting from good works.

Learn now how he turns away the eyes of him whom the Lord pities, from vanity.

For from what follows we can understand this; for he added: Establish your word to your servant in your fear. The Prophet says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But what is the beginning of wisdom, except to renounce the world? For to be wise in worldly things is foolishness. Indeed, the Apostle says the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. But even the fear of the Lord itself, unless it be according to knowledge, profits nothing; nay, it is very harmful.

For the Jews have a zeal of God, but because they do not have it according to knowledge, in that very zeal and fear they incur a greater offense of the divinity. That they circumcise their infants, that they keep the sabbaths, they have the fear of God; but because they do not know that the Law is spiritual, they circumcise the body, not their heart. They dread to kindle fire on the sabbath, while the Law of sanctification forbids the kindling of the fire of lusts on that day.

And what shall I say of the Jews?

There are also among us those who have the fear of God, but not according to knowledge, establishing harder precepts than human condition can sustain. Fear is in this, because they seem to themselves to take counsel for discipline, to exact the work of virtue; but ignorance is in this, because they do not have compassion for nature, do not weigh possibility. Let fear, then, not be unreasonable. For indeed true wisdom begins from the fear of God, nor is there spiritual wisdom without the fear of God; so fear ought not to be without wisdom. Holy fear is a certain base of the word.

For just as some image is set upon a base, and then has greater grace, when the statue has been placed upon the base and has received firmness of standing: so the word of God, or the reasonable word of God, is better set upon holy fear, more firmly rooted, that is, in the breast of one who fears the Lord; lest the word slip from a man's heart, lest the birds come and carry it off from the affection of one who is careless and inattentive. But also fear itself seems to be fitted to the word of God for its usefulness and to be made stable; so that it is not alien to knowledge, just as a base which has received a statue is not alien to grace. The fear of the word, then, is its place, as its place is in peace. Fear is a certain station of the word: the word of fear is discipline; for fear full of discipline does not waver toward a fall.

And since we have said that fear is the base of the word, lest anyone should think we have set forth something alien to the Scriptures, let him receive what is read of the word of God in the Song of Songs: His legs are marble pillars set upon bases of gold, signifying that the pillars are the apostles of the Church, who are founded in the fear of the saints. For as Peter, James, and John, and Barnabas seemed to be pillars of the Church, and whoever shall overcome this world becomes a pillar of God, which he confirms who says: I have made firm its pillars: so also the golden base is fear full of discipline, because it is the beginning of wisdom. In the fear of the wise, then, the apostolic preaching is made firm as a pillar upon a golden base.

To the eloquence of Christ, therefore, and to the apostolic word, righteous fear is the tribunal, and the golden base full of prudence; and the good image, as it were the likeness of truth, is the speech of the saints. And see that the fear of the saints is, as it were, a golden base. Read Isaiah: see to how many things he subjected fear, that he might make fear blameless and good: The Spirit, he says, of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety, the spirit of the fear of the Lord. To how many things did he subject fear, that it might have something it could follow? It is formed through wisdom, instructed through understanding, directed by counsel, strengthened by might, ruled by knowledge, adorned by piety.

Take these away from the fear of the Lord, and it is an unreasonable and foolish fear, one of those of which it is said: Without were fightings, within were fears, by which even Paul would have been afflicted, had he not had the Lord consoling him.

Nor is it idle that in Proverbs it is said: Then shall you understand the fear of the Lord.

What is, "Then"? That is, when you shall have called upon wisdom, and given your voice to prudence; and if you shall have sought it as money, and searched for it as treasures, then shall you understand the fear of the Lord. And therefore, as upon a good base, he says: Establish your word to your servant in your fear. Prayer full of discipline, through which we are taught how we ought to pray: each saying is a doctrine of supplication. And since he has taught us to pray, the seventh

shows what the effect of that prayer is.

Take away my reproach, which I have suspected. This seems to be said somewhat obscurely: but the Apostle explained what here seemed obscure, where he says: I am conscious to myself of nothing: yet am I not hereby justified.

For he knew that he was a man, and so took what care he could, lest after receiving the sacraments of baptism he should sin; and therefore he was not conscious to himself of any offence: but because he was a man, he confessed himself a sinner, knowing that Jesus alone is the true light, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; that he alone is justified who is truly free from any fall. Similarly then the Prophet also, although he desired to avoid sin, nevertheless wished God to be the one who repelled sin from him. He wished to have taken away the reproach which he had suspected, either because he had thought it in his heart and had not done it: and though it was blotted out by penitence, yet it was suspected, lest perhaps its reproach might still remain; and therefore he prays God to take it away, he who alone knows what even the one who did it may himself not know. Indeed elsewhere the Prophet himself said: Thou knowest my reproach.

Although this reproach is that of Christ, which is not a true reproach, but the glory of God; for the cross of Christ is to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness.

To them therefore it is a reproach, to me it is virtue, by which I repel the adversary, conquer the world.

To me it is wisdom, by which I escape the snares of folly. This reproach Moses preferred to the treasures of Egypt. Esteeming, it says, the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. If thy reproach is glory, Lord Jesus, how great is thy glory? What then shall we be by participation in thy glory, we whose glory it is to bear thy reproach? I have set my back to the scourges, my cheeks to blows, and I have not turned away my face from the shame of spitting. Behold thy reproach, Lord, in which is the salvation of all, in which is the redemption of the world: through which reproach we who were ashamed have begun not to blush, we who were confounded have begun not to be confounded. Indeed it is written: Come to him, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed.

We do not wish this reproach to be taken away from us, the reproach of the cross of the Lord Jesus, by which our reproaches are taken away.

For just as he was made a curse, that he might blot out our curses, was made man, that he might relieve the infirmities of man: so he was made a reproach, that he might take away the reproaches of all.

Not at one time, not once did he take away reproaches: he takes them away daily.

We fall into sin, not one sin, but many: we are covered with reproach and confusion. We come to baptism, every sin is blotted out, and along with sin the reproach. The Lord Jesus has taken away my reproach by his own reproach, because he was crucified for me; because whoever of us have been baptized in Christ, have been baptized in his death. I have nothing which I should ask to be taken away. But after baptism I fall into a reproach, I ought to do penance, so that I may say: Take away my reproach. If I do not do penance, how shall I say: Take away my reproach; when this very thing is the reproach of sin, that I do not do penance? But if I do penance as I ought, I rightly say: Take away my reproach, which I have suspected; for thy judgments are sweet.

Why do I fear to confess, why do I fear to speak my sins?

Why do I fear to make mention of my reproach before him whose judgments are sweet? What is severe in others, in Christ is sweet, in Christ is pleasant; because he himself is sweet. Indeed: Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet. Judgments are sweet to one who confesses; because he himself said: I am he, I am he who blot out thy iniquities; and I will not remember them: but do thou remember, and let us be judged: declare thy iniquities, that thou mayest be justified. Judgments are sweet to one doing penance; because he himself said: There shall be joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance, more than over ninety-nine just who need not penance. If then the judgments of the Lord are sweet, let us labor to receive the fruit of their sweetness.

Do you wish to know how sweet are the judgments of the Lord?

The impious shall not rise again in judgment. But those who rise again in judgment have hope of pardon; because they have believed. They are not impious, though they may be sinners: they have faith, and if they have not avoided fault, yet they believe through faith: but he who believes in him is not judged. Sweet then are the judgments to believers. But those who do not believe are not condemned by Christ’s judgment, who came not to judge the world but to save and redeem it: but they undergo the judgment of their own impiety, who have refused to believe in the remission of sins. For they cannot pertain to his benefit whom they have refused to acknowledge. Therefore those who have not believed in him seem unworthy of his judgment. For learn what his judgment is, from his own saying: But this is the judgment, that light has come into this world.

Sweet then, because it is light: sweet is the judgment, because mercy precedes it.

For thus it is written: I will sing to thee, O Lord, of mercy and judgment. And because he knew the judgments to be sweet, he says: Behold I have desired thy commandments: quicken me in thy justice. He speaks of good judgments with authority. Behold, he loves the liberty of faith, he who gave liberty. He rejoices to be loved, who came into this world because he loved this world. He demands to be loved, who loves all; because he is charity. He desired the commandments of God, as a good servant, as a diligent worshipper. He desired, not as a lover desires meretricious union, not as a miser desires money, not as a wanton desires lasciviousness. For of these the Law says: Thou shalt not covet. But it commanded the Lord God to be loved, and to be loved with a certain tender and inward affection of desire.

And because he is a friend who loves, he is a servant who fears; as a friend who has done all things which the Lord commanded him: You, he says, are my friends, if you do the things which I command you.

In thy justice quicken me: he dares and says this

because that is true life which lives according to the justice of God, which the apostles lived; nay rather, which they live. For there are some who while living are dead: and some who though dead live. Indeed some descend into hell while living: others, though dead in body, live by their merits. For there are some who shall not taste death, until they see the Son of man returning on the day of judgment, when the saints shall rise again with glory.

The sixth letter Vau, whose interpretation is: He is, and not another.

Or whose interpretation is: And he. And let thy mercy come upon me, O Lord, thy salvation according to thy word. What the interpretation of the letter signifies, since it is obscure, I have thought should be gathered from the sequence of the psalm. For when the Prophet asks: Let thy mercy come upon me, O Lord: let thy salvation come; there is no doubt whom he asks to see, that is, in whom the fruit both of mercy and of salvation may come. Indeed above he asked the same thing in the eighty-fourth psalm, in which he prophesied more clearly the coming of the Lord Jesus. For that the earth which he asks to be blessed is well known, namely that which had contracted sin in Adam, to which it is said: Earth thou art, and unto earth thou shalt go. But God had cursed not the element of the nature of flesh, but the flesh of those who transgress.

Therefore the flesh is blessed in Christ, that by the former curse the flesh might be loosed. The flesh is blessed, which the blessed Son of God, having assumed the condition of man, took up.

And therefore he added: God, thou, turning, shalt quicken us, and thy people shall rejoice in thee. Show us, O Lord, thy mercy, and grant us thy salvation. I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me; for he will speak peace unto his people, and upon his saints, and unto those who turn their heart to him. Surely his salvation is near to them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. This whole passage speaks of the Lord Jesus, who quickened the dead: Lazarus before the passion, very many at the time of his own passion. He himself is mercy, inasmuch as he is the remission of sins. Therefore he says: Show, whom he might be able to see in the body. For he could not see God in his majesty; because no man hath seen God at any time. The Prophet, eager, desires to see him whom he hopes to hold: whom, if he shall have seen, he desires to embrace with his own hands.

And so he says: And grant us thy salvation.

The salvation of God is virtue, the salvation of God is Christ; and therefore his salvation is near to them that fear him. Christ was far from us, was far from the nations: he descended to the earth, he was made near, we began not to fear. For he who fears Christ is not subject to fear, but to devotion. This is the fear of piety, not of weakness. Indeed, nothing is lacking to them that fear him. But hear how he was made near: That glory, it says, may dwell in our land. Who is glory, but the Lord Jesus? Whence also the apostle Paul says: The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory. Deservedly the Father is well pleased in him; because he is the glory of the Father. Whoever separates him from the Father does greater injury to the Father, since he wishes him to be without glory.

Whoever does not think him equal to the Father, judges the Father also to be inferior, since by no other word can he praise the Father more, whose highest praise and glory is Christ.

He is asked, then, that the salvation of God may come. He is the one who is asked, that is, the Lord Jesus, and there is no other; as the interpretation of the letter has it. And even so, the Father alone is not asked: There is also He, that is, the Son also who is asked, and being asked he came, and gave salvation to the world. Therefore σωτήρ, that is, savior; therefore Jesus, as the angel said: Who shall save his people. When therefore the prophet called upon him, he was present; so that he might prove that saying, that while we are yet speaking he says: Here I am.

He is present, because he was roused by the daughters of Judaea, as if awakened again by the daughters of Jerusalem. The Church hears the sound of his voice, and says: The voice of my cousin. Behold, he comes here, leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills. It is a manifold book, having many noble persons, like a triumphal sheaf, and signifying many deeds, which we can rather understand than hold expressly. For as though hearing the Bridegroom approaching and conversing together with some fellow travelers, the Bride says: The voice of my cousin. While she is speaking with the daughters of Jerusalem, and asking them to arouse and awaken the Bridegroom, suddenly, as if perceiving the sound of a voice sent from afar, she says: The voice of my cousin, announcing him whom before she was seeking to have announced to her, whom she desired to be awakened by others: now believing him, awakened by her own prayer, to be coming from the Father, she says joyfully: The voice of my cousin.

She rightly added, my cousin; so that not others, but the cousin alone might claim his coming for herself.

Behold, she says, he comes.

Still I seek him, and he has already come: still I solicit favors that he may come, and he is already near. I desire that love be aroused for me, I think myself wounded by love; and love itself hastens the more to me. I said: Come; he leaps and bounds. I ask him to come with grace: he works increases of grace: and while he comes, he brings with him the growth of grace, and acquires it as he comes; because he too strives to please his beloved. He leaps upon the heights, that he may ascend to the Bride; for the bridal chamber of the Bride is the judgment seat of Christ. He leaps upon Adam, bounds over the Synagogue. He leaps upon the Gentiles, bounds over the Jews. Let us watch him leaping. He leaps from heaven into the Virgin, from the womb into the manger, from the manger into the Jordan, from the Jordan onto the cross, from the cross into the tomb, into heaven from the sepulchre.

Show me, David, him leaping, show him running; for you have said: He rejoiced as a giant to run his course: his going out is from the height of heaven, and his course reaches to the end thereof; nor is there any who can hide himself from his heat. Therefore even now he leaps, and now he runs from the heart of the Father over his saints, from the East over the West, from the North over the South. He it is who ascends above the going-down, he above the heavens of heavens toward the East. He ascends above the mountains, he above the hills.

Would that I, wretched, might say, that my soul might say: Behold, this one comes, and comes not over earthly things, not over valleys; but comes leaping upon the mountains; for God is God of mountains, and not of valleys. Where then does He leap? He leaps upon the mountains. If you are a mountain, He leaps upon you. He leaps upon Isaiah, He leaps upon Jeremiah, He leaps upon Peter, John, James. Mountains are round about him: if you cannot be a mountain, nor are you strong enough, be at least a hill, so that Christ may ascend upon you; and if He leaps over, let Him so leap over that the shadow of His passing may guard you.

We have spoken of Christ and the Church: let us speak of the soul and the Word.

The soul of the just man is the Bride of the Word. If she desires, if she longs, if she prays, and prays continually, and prays without any wavering, and directs her whole attention to the Word, suddenly she seems to hear the voice of Him whom she does not see, and by an inner sense she recognizes the fragrance of His divinity: which for the most part those who believe well experience. Suddenly the nostrils of the soul are filled with spiritual grace, and she feels the breath of His presence whom she seeks breathe upon her, and she says: Behold, this is He Himself whom I seek, He Himself whom I desire.

Is it not so, that when we ponder something of the Scriptures, and cannot find its explanation, while we doubt, while we seek, suddenly the loftiest doctrines seem to us to ascend as it were upon mountains: then, appearing to us as it were upon hills, it illumines the mind; so that it pours into our senses what had seemed difficult to discover? Therefore, as from one absent, the Word becomes present in our hearts. And again when something is somewhat obscure to us, the Word is as it were withdrawn, and we long for the coming of Him as of one absent: and again appearing, He shows Himself to us, as if He were present to us in the knowing of those things which we seek.

He leaps therefore frequently in the heart of each one: He leaps over and departs, and returns, if you follow, if you seek, if by the grace of the faithful, by the disputation of teachers, you ask that the Word which had gone out and passed by be raised up again; just as she who sought and found, who said: My brother has passed by: my soul went out at his word.

Therefore, whether He leaps upon mountains, follow; and whether upon hills, follow. For upon the mountains and upon the hills are found the hunters of the Lord, who track down those who are captured unto life. For thus God said through Jeremiah: Behold, I send many fishers, and many hunters, and they shall hunt them upon every mountain, and upon every hill. There then let the people of God be sought, and be found in the teaching, grace, discipline of Peter and Paul; that they be not in the valley, where there is weeping, but on the mountains, from which Christ illumines each one. And when we read of Peter, Christ illumines. And when we read of Paul, Christ illumines. Paul healed, Christ illumined; for by invoking the name of the Lord Jesus, he rose again by whose gift he was healed. Peter raised up a dead woman, Christ illumined; and therefore it is said: Thou dost wonderfully illumine from the everlasting mountains.

We, therefore, who cannot be mountains, let us stand upon the mountains or upon the hills; so that when the Lord shall send His fishers and hunters, to hunt those who are upon every mountain, or upon every hill—that is, having all their conversation in the precepts of the Law and the prophets, and in the knowledge of the New and Old Testament—they may find us prepared, and gather us like good ears of grain, the reapers being sent at the fitting time; for if anyone is found outside the mountain or the hill, he cannot be gathered as a good ear by those who (to make mention of another comparison) will be sent to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Lord, then, has skilled ministers for very many operations. The same are fishers, the same also are hunters, and reapers.

If in the time of harvest, to which these are directed, you await the ripening of merit, you will be able to behold Him leaping upon the mountains, and you will see the Lord Jesus like a roe, or a young hart, upon the mountains of Bethel. For He leaps upon the Church, which is the house of bread, in that He confirms the hearts of the faithful. Rightly like a roe; because the she-goat feeds on the heights. Dorcas is named from seeing. For dorcadion is of keen sight. What is sharper-sighted than Christ, who sees the Father whom no one sees? Or if anyone has seen in Christ, the Son Himself has revealed it. Rightly like a young hart: a young hart as it were a son, in whom the strength of paternal nature has grown; so that hidden things do not escape him, serpents flee, poisons do not harm.

Finally, the serpent, brought out from its hiding places, which was being expelled from the man, said: Why hast thou come before the time to torment us? Let us then behold this leaping young hart, that we may not be able to fear the serpent. David did not fear. Indeed, of these serpents he said: And I will answer a word to them that reproach me, for I have hoped exceedingly in thy sayings. Like a good hart, which had drunk from the fountains of waters, he feared not at all the coils of human serpents, nor the poisons of the slanderous. The snake was to him no harm, but prey. Food was the venomous poison of speech, and food was the praise of which he said: O God, be not silent of my praise; for the mouth of the sinner and the mouth of the deceitful is opened against me. He was fattened by the words of the venomous. Their mouths, hissing with detractions, raised themselves, and they surrounded the innocent with words of hatred.

The good hart, placed among many vipers, feared not, the hart of friendship, and the offspring of graces.

They feigned charity, they poured out detraction: But I, he says, prayed. The good hart, harmless, fed in the midst of vipers. Their mouths flickered with forked tongues; but holy prayer fed him, indeed he offered food to the detractors. He answered a word to those who detracted him; for the word is food. Indeed, not by bread alone does man live, but by every word of God. They saw me, he says, and shook their heads. They cursed, but I blessed. Those who detracted cursed: I, who preached the word of the Lord, blessed.

How good it is to bear an insult, and not to return the insult?

He acquires God as his patron, who knows not to be angered at the one insulting. Indeed, how great is the grace of patience in him who says: They will curse, and thou wilt bless? Blessed is he who does not feel curses. Blessed is he whom curses do not move. For he cannot be moved by a curse, who by the gift of divine blessing excludes the curses of men. He cannot feel a curse who has the word; and he cannot return a curse, who has the word always in his mouth.

But there is also a good serpent, which this hart does not harm.

Be, He says, wise as serpents. And: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up. In the brazen serpent my serpent was figured. On that tree my serpent was lifted up. A good serpent, a good serpent, who poured forth from his mouth remedies, not poisons. He can not fear serpents, who knows how to adore this serpent. Of this serpent she who loves says: Behold, he is here behind our wall, looking through the windows, showing himself through the lattice. My cousin answers and says to me: Arise, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove; for behold the winter has passed, the rain has gone away and departed, the flowers have appeared on the earth. He is truly a serpent, who, the winter being past, wished to strip off the garment of the body, that he might flourish in beautiful splendor. The hart and the serpent, then, are the same.

A hart having the horns of the Law and of grace (its two horns are the two Testaments), swift in his coming, tireless in his going, who easily runs through the whole world in one moment, everywhere celebrated. Also a good serpent, whose fore parts the tooth of the Law does not bite, whose hinder parts are not wounded, by the gentleness of the Gospel. He guards his head from wounding, who came not to destroy the Law, but to protect it from the interpretations of the faithless. He extends his tail freely into scourges, desiring rather to scourge his adversaries than to destroy them. The good snake glides easily into the bosom of his beloved, and into the very inmost recess of her mind, and, entwining without any touch, feeds the fire into the very bones, and consumes the very inward parts.

Beautifully it was read today: Behold I send you as lambs in the midst of wolves.

For we celebrate the day of the saints on which the bodies of the holy martyrs were revealed to the people, who, like good serpents, having laid aside the coverings of the flesh, having overcome the rigor of wintry temptations, and renewed by the grace of the Holy Spirit, shone with the summer light for the world, truly sent, as lambs, in the midst of wolves. For wolves are the persecutors, wolves are all the heretics: they know not how to teach, they are accustomed to howl.

But let no one be disturbed, if he is sent in the midst of wolves.

By the benefit of Christ even the wolf himself has been changed. Benjamin the ravening wolf became the apostle Paul, no longer a lier-in-wait for the sheepfolds of Christ, but a defender and guardian. It is pleasant to dwell with this wolf: through this wolf it has come about that we are safe in the midst of wolves. No one now fears wolves, since we feed with them, as it is written: Then the wolves and the lambs shall feed together. But now let us consider what the Prophet means when he says: And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped exceedingly in thy judgments.

The Church, or the soul of the just man, had seen Him leaping like a young hart upon the mountains, suddenly beholding him near, behind the wall of her house, looking through the windows, showing himself through the lattice; she exults and rejoices, because she too is loved by the Bridegroom: who, as though Himself also wounded by the beauty of love, when His beloved was at first absent, being asked, came to kisses (for He is asked when it is said: Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth), then did not spurn the prayers and blandishments of the Bride, praising her beloved breasts, and kindly led her into the inner chambers of the house; finally, as though playing in wanton love, wishing to test the feelings of the one who loved, He often went out that He might be sought by the Bride, often returned that He might be invited to kisses, He stood behind the wall, He looked through the windows, He showed Himself through the lattice; so that He was not wholly absent, nor as if wholly entering in, and He Himself called the Bride to Himself, that the exchanges of coming to one another might become the more pleasing, and might kindle the force of love by mutual words: Arise, He says, come, my neighbor, my beautiful one, my dove.

And you, if you have a founded wall, not that middle one which separates the members of one house, but one built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets; so that its joined structure grows into a temple, and does not delimit its interior, but fortifies it: if then you have in you the building of God, and your windows always lie open to the east, the Word comes, stands behind your wall (for the eyes of the Lord are upon the just), and looks through your windows.

What are these windows?

We read of windows, of which Jeremiah speaks: Death has entered through the windows, through which avarice entered, through which lust entered. Your eye is a window; death has entered through your eye. If you have seen a woman to lust after her, death has entered through your eye. If you have seen the possession of a widow or of a minor, and have desired to seize it, thinking her age or sex undefended (but they are not undefended, whom the Lord wills to be defended), death has entered through the window. If you have seen the beauty of a woman, or the treasures of a minor, and have stirred up your desires, death has entered through the window. Just as death enters through these, so also life enters.

If, gazing on the beauty of a consecrated girl, you venerate the Lord Jesus

because in her tender years there has come the age of old age, a spotless life: and you offer your own daughter, that she may be consecrated with the holy veil; if you look on the possession of a minor not as an anxious invader, but guard it with a religious affection as a diligent parent; through these windows Christ looks forth, that He may call the Bride, showing himself through the lattice.

Rightly showing himself, because He alone is whom the nets of sinners have not entangled.

All were within the nets, nay, we are still within the nets, since no one is without sin, save Jesus alone, whom the Father, though He knew no sin, made sin for us. For He delivered Him to snares, He delivered Him to nets, sending Him not in sin, in which all men were, but in the likeness of sinful flesh, that He might condemn sin in the flesh by sin. The flesh was sin according to that, because it was condemned by hereditary curse. The flesh was the allurement and the handmaid of sin. The Lord Jesus came, and in flesh liable to sin waged the warfare of virtue. Our members have now become no longer weapons of lust, but weapons of virtue. For where there were incitements of lust, there are now the dwellings of chastity. He, then, came to the snares, but voluntarily; He came to the nets, but securely.

All things were full of snares, crammed with nets.

Hear him saying: In this way in which I walked, they hid a snare for me. And in the book of the Wisdom of Sirach you are warned to know that you walk in the midst of snares. As many vices, so many nets: as many sins, so many snares: hereditary bonds already held you. Jesus came to the snares, that he might loose Adam: he came to free what had perished. We were all held by nets, none could rescue another, since he could not strip himself free. Such a one therefore was necessary, whom the bonds of human generation, liable to sins, would not hold, whom greed had not captured, whom deceit had not bound. Such alone was Jesus, who, when he had surrounded himself with the bonds of this flesh, was not captured, was not bound: but breaking and dissolving them, called the Church rather to himself, looking through the snares, standing out above the nets; that she too might learn not to be held by bonds.

Finally, he came so close to the bonds that he even underwent death for us: yet he was not made a servant of death, but free among the dead; for he was free who had the power to loose death. Finally, let him himself teach you, who says: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Let us hear then what he says: Arise, come, my neighbor

that is, rise from the dead, arise from the bonds by which you were held bound. Arise, because I have risen for you: loose the bond of iniquity, because I have already loosed it for you. Come, because the nets are now loosed. The Virgin bore, the boy was born of the Virgin. He owes nothing to a woman's inheritance: as the son of a woman he is not bound. Behold the middle wall of the barrier now loosed, which divided the concord of interior affections, and stirred up dissensions among bodily passions in various directions. Come, therefore, secure; I desire to see your face, and to hear your voice: come, that you may no longer see me through nets, but face to face, beloved, you may enjoy the countenance of your lover. Let these things, in the moral sense, be passed over. But let us look, if we can, even at the outer edge of the mystical sense.

The Bride sat within the house, devoted to the Lord, within the wall of the Law and the prophets, founded on the building of spiritual stones, which enclosed and fortified the royal house, full of joy and gladness. She marveled at the royal treasures, and gazed anxiously, desiring to obtain wisdom, which might show her these riches. It was in secret, but she sought the interpreter of that very secret. The Lord Jesus came leaping upon the mountains. To us he seemed to come late, but he was hastening. He was leaping and springing over, in order to leap over the bodily and stony doctrines of the Jews. He stood behind the wall of the house which was in the Old Testament, looking through the window of the Law, through the openings of the prophets. Not yet were the vestibules of that house opened: not yet had the keys of knowledge thrown open the bars of the gates by which the inner things of the Law were closed.

Yet looking out from the upper

that is, spiritual part, he calls the Church; that rising through the Law and the prophets to the summit of the Gospel, exalted, she might tread with fearless step upon the nets and knots of Jewish interpretation. Therefore she is called neighbor, that she may cling to Christ, not seek worldly things: therefore beautiful, that she may bring forth the beautiful feet of those who evangelize: therefore a dove, that she may seek spiritual things, and abandon earthly ones.

Behold, he says, winter has passed: the rain has gone away, has departed to itself, flowers have appeared on the earth.

Before the coming of Christ it was winter: Christ came, made it summer. Then all things were unworthy of flowers, bare of virtues: Christ suffered, and all things began to be made fertile with the shoots of new grace. The rain of overflowing luxury has gone away, and the clouds risen from foul crimes are now dispersed in the summer serenity of a pure conscience. Therefore those do not escape whose flight happens in winter; because they do not follow the Lord's passion, do not take up their cross, and follow Christ. Rain hinders flowers: but now flowers are seen on the earth. Good flowers are the apostles, who poured forth the fragrance of their various writings and works.

The time of cutting has come; since ripe grain is stored in barns: and he who reaps receives wages.

The voice of the turtledove is heard: because she has found her nest, for the Church is the house of chastity. The fig tree which, for its barrenness, was ordered to be cut down, has now begun to bear fruit. The vine, transplanted from Egypt, no longer with its walls destroyed and thrown down, attacked by beasts, nor shapeless with thorns, but now fragrant with flowers, that used to make thorns, now bends with the fruit of grapes.

Rightly, therefore, holy David, celebrating the Lord's Passover, and entering with fervent spirit into the summer seasons, he who gathered various fruits in the word of God, avoiding the adversities of winter, says: And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, because in your judgments I have hoped exceedingly. How great is the labor to grasp the word? How great, again, the peril if you lose it? And therefore it is said to you: Do not neglect the grace that is in you. Cultivate your field diligently like a good farmer; that your lambs may be fed, and your crops may flourish. Let the word not be taken from your mouth; lest perhaps deeds do not match words, and the works of iniquity disfigure the teaching of discipline. The word is taken from the mouth, when it is said to the sinner: Why do you declare my righteousness? And eloquence itself falls silent, if the conscience is sick.

The birds of the sky come; they too take the word from your mouth, they who take the seed of the word from the rock, lest it bring forth fruit.

Now let us consider whether the word of truth can also be taken from the heart.

For a word rooted and pressed down and fixed in our minds can be taken away only with difficulty. Finally it was said by the Lord: Why do you declare my righteousness? He did not say: Why have you thought upon my righteousness? And you take my Covenant through your mouth? He did not say: Through your heart. Speech is restrained for an unworthy soul, it is not blocked by penitence: it prohibits insolence, it does not exclude correction. Yet care must be taken lest the interior heart itself also be disturbed, and malice pour darkness over it, so that the heart, blinded by vain thoughts, loses the light of truth, and cannot receive the brightness of the word.

If therefore David prays that the word not be taken from his mouth, and if it is taken, not utterly

that is, not completely taken away: who is so great as to claim that the grace of discourse is in his own power; especially if his life refutes what his teaching presumes, and he commits acts to be condemned in God's judgment? For he who hopes in the judgments of God can preserve the word of truth; because while he fears punishment, he guards grace. And therefore he says: And I will keep your law always, forever, and unto the age of ages. He said two things, when one could have sufficed, if he had wished to signify only one.

But because the law is promised to be kept not only in the present time of this life, but also in the future after the course of this life; therefore I think that both according to those who serve the pattern and shadow of heavenly things, and according to those who, placed in the heavens, offer worship to God according to the true Law, he promises that he must live so; that both here and there he may keep the law. Here in the pattern, in the mirror, in a riddle: there in the very face of truth.

We can also understand this; that διὰ παντός signifies not only what is called "always," but also what is called "through all things"

because he keeps the Law through all things, who, being trained in the Law, born under the Law, and advancing above the Law the degree of his devotion, is freed from the Law (for Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law)—not without the law of God, but made under the law of Christ: or certainly if we keep the Law through all things, if the lawful discipline of childhood and adolescence, the conduct of youth, the maturity of old age, and the path prescribed for each age, is by no means exceeded by the practice of our life. Similarly, there seem to be certain ages of our soul also, through which it runs and passes; so that it may say: I have finished my course. Finally there is an age of the soul, of which it is said: And the age of old age is a life unspotted.

Therefore he keeps the Law through all things, who has not strayed from the Law either in these ages of our body, or in those advances of our soul. And I walked in a broad place; because I have sought out your testimonies. He who walks by the commandments walks the narrow and strait way, walks in breadth. Whence we read: In tribulation you have enlarged me. And elsewhere: In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard me in a broad place. For the wise man walks in the innocence of his heart, and from his fountain waters overflow upon his streets, he who does not confine his mind within bodily and earthly things; but directs it toward heavenly things, so that his citizenship is in heaven. Hear one feeling no straits: We suffer tribulation, he says, but we are not straitened. And how could he be straitened, whose mouth was always open; lest believers be constrained? Let him himself explain what it means to walk in breadth.

For he says: For though the body is straitened, our heart is enlarged. You are not straitened in us: but you are straitened in your own bowels.

They could not be straitened in Paul, in whom was the height of wisdom, and the breadth of faith.

For how could they be constrained in him, who was a vessel of eternal election? But one is straitened in oneself; because the wicked man is constrained in himself, strangled by the snares of his own malice. Set before me a greedy man, daily extending the boundaries of his estates, shutting out his neighbors; does he seem to you to be enlarged, not straitened, whom the earth itself cannot contain? However far he stretches the spaces of his house, he is enclosed by the narrow limits of his own opinion, for whom what he has is not enough. But not such is he who can say: And I walked in breadth. He added also the cause: Because your testimonies, he says, I have sought out. And I spoke of your testimonies in the sight of kings, and I was not confounded.

This word fittingly agrees with the martyr, who, called to sacrilege, when kings reproached him with the crucified Jesus, was not ashamed: but rather gloried in the cross of Christ, and maintained that the salvation of the world rested on that heavenly testimony. These Christ calls in the Bride, saying in the Song of Songs: And come, my dove, in the covert of the rock, near the outwork; that is, come near to the Gospel. The bulwarks of your faith are the deeds of Christ: the walls of your support are the words of the Lord: the passion of the Lord's body is your strength. Show me your face, and let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is beautiful. Sweet is the voice, because confession is made by the mouth unto salvation: and beautiful the face, that does not blush at its Author, is not confounded at its Redeemer.

It shows therefore its face, bearing forth the sign of the cross: and it lets be heard its voice, taking up the authority of preaching. For in the covering of the body of Christ, by which she was redeemed from sin, she finds the fortress of spiritual grace: so that she both feels and speaks what is salutary for her. Sweet, therefore, is the voice that spoke in the divine testimonies: beautiful the face, that was not confounded in the sight of kings.

We can also understand as those kings, those to whom it is said by Peter: But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for adoption. For there are kings who offer in Jerusalem the gifts of their wisdom, to whom grace has been given to speak the word, and by a certain royal power to bend the peoples, and to soothe the souls of the saints: not blushing in this; because they would speak nothing foreign to honesty, whom no one may refute or reject, as though they were unworthy, whom Christ has made fit ministers of the new Testament, and now in that not blushing; because they would not fear being confounded, overcome by the contrary assertion of disputants. He, then, is a king who does not blush, lest he be reproved in act, refuted in words; because he ought to be grounded both in life and in word.

And so, although the Prophet was so perfect that he did not blush in the sight of kings, yet he meditated on the precepts of God for all the time of his life, and lifted up his works, doing nothing that clung to earthly desires. And therefore he says: And I meditated on thy commandments, which I have loved exceedingly. And I lifted up my hands to thy commandments, which I have loved exceedingly: and I was exercised in thy justifications. This order is most beautiful, that we should first meditate, and that meditation on those precepts which we love should be habitual to us. For by meditation on the heavenly commandments the practice of good work grows into a habit. For as meditation on words produces a flowing memory, so that we retain the words we meditate upon: so the intention or purpose of meditation on the heavenly precepts is action, and conduct directed to the fulfilling of the divine precepts, which no one can fulfil unless he love them; and not merely love them, but love them exceedingly.

Therefore he first set down: And I meditated on thy precepts, which I have loved exceedingly. And he added: And I lifted up my hands to thy precepts, which I have loved exceedingly. For after meditation it is good to lift up our actions to God's precepts, and to do this with charity, with joy; so that our good may not be from necessity, not with sorrow and sadness, but voluntary; because a servant acts unwillingly, a friend willingly. Let us then strive that it may be said of us: I will now call you not servants, but friends, because as friends you have done God's commandment of your own will. But he who meditates and loves, and lifts up his actions so as to do what is pleasing to God: he must not neglect nor pass over the divine commandments carelessly, but must be exercised in them, dwell upon them a great deal, turning over God's justifications repeatedly with the affection of a solicitous mind.

The letter Zain, according to the Hebrews, signifies in Latin, "lead thyself"; elsewhere it signifies, "hither." What this interpretation means is not sufficiently clear, unless perhaps that each one should govern himself, and be his own guide. Or "hither," that is, let him direct his path whither the letters of this

call. And rightly, in the very first

he asks for his rest; because this letter is itself the seventh in number, the number of rest. But what greater rest is there than to rest in the word of God, and to be soothed by his grace and consolation? Be mindful, he says, O Lord, of thy word to thy servant, in which thou hast given me hope. The word of God has called us, cast down and depressed, to heavenly grace; that we may desire eternity, despise present things, and, unconcerned about temporal things, seek after things future and invisible.

God's Word therefore calls us to himself, as you have it written: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Let us therefore follow the Lord Jesus who calls us; that we may pass from worldly things to things everlasting, and may learn to govern ourselves.

Therefore David, since he had often been invited by heavenly responses, by which he might hope for a reward of faith and of merits, as you have it written, God saying through the prophet Nathan: I took thee from the sheepfold, from following one flock, that thou shouldst be prince over my people Israel; and I was with thee in all things whithersoever thou wentest, and I have destroyed all thy enemies from before thy face. And below: And I will give thee rest from all thy enemies. Having received this response, David said: Who, O Lord my God, and what is my house, that thou hast loved me thus far; and things that are very small have been regarded in thy sight, O Lord, and thou hast spoken also of the house of thy servant for a great while to come?

And below he says: And now, O Lord my God, thou art God, and thy words are true, and thou hast spoken these good things unto thy servant; and now begin to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue for ever before thee; for thou, O Lord my God, hast spoken it, and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever: therefore called by this response and by others, David does not cease to hope, and by the authority of prophetic faith he brings the Lord to account; that he might remember his promises, of which he is not wont to be forgetful. For whatever he has promised to the saints, he is accustomed to fulfil, unmindful of our iniquities, but not unmindful of his own promises. Indeed it is written: I am, I am he that blot out thy iniquities, and I will not remember them; but do thou remember, and let us plead together.

He wishes to forget whatever he has threatened to sinners, if they should ever turn from their ways; he also wishes to be called to account, so that if anyone, having pursued the virtues set before him, has fought well, he may await the fruit of reward, indeed even demand it, as you have it written: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course: there is laid up for me a crown of justice. For this is not an arrogant presumption, but a faithful one; because he confesses that the true God cannot deceive. Therefore David also admonishes, saying, that the Lord may remember his word; by which he provokes us to hope, that renouncing earthly things, we may cleave to the heavenly.

David therefore says: I have fought the fight, I seek the prize of thy word, which thou hast promised me: be mindful of thy promises, which thou hast pledged to thy servant. I have not presumptuously hoped for what thou thyself hast made me hope for. I am a servant, I await sustenance from my Lord: I am a soldier, I demand my pay from the commander: I have been invited, I ask from him who invites me the promise. But modestly he tempered the authority of his faith, by calling himself a servant; because The eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters. These things have been well brought forward from the person of David proper.

But if anyone considers the character of each man, he can weigh the promises common to the Levites, as you have it: Give to Levi his men, give to Levi his manifest tokens. It can also be fitted to this address, that it be applied to the elect of the believing people: to whom, through the type of Joseph, first in the type of his name, then through the tribe, the divine promise was transferred as to the heirs of the first election, Moses saying: His glory is like the firstling of his bullock: his horns are like the horns of a unicorn: with them he shall push the peoples together even to the ends of the earth. For by this oracle the one Word of God is prophesied, to be poured out through the whole world by way of the nations. This promise, therefore, of the Church that was to rise again, David, modest concerning himself, but impatient of the common welfare being delayed, seems to demand.

And he added: This hath comforted me in my humiliation, because thy word hath quickened me.

This is the hope, this which came to me by thy word, has consoled me, that I might bear the bitterness of present things. While Paul acts against the Name, he has no consolation of hope: while he suffers for the Name, he draws hope from consolation. And how, having become faithful, he consoles us, hear: Who, he says, shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or danger, or the sword? As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. And by what reasoning those things can be patiently borne, he added: But in all these things we overcome because of him who has loved us.

Therefore if anyone wishes to overcome adversities, whether it be persecution, danger, death, grave sickness, the incursion of robbers, the proscription of goods, or whatever of those things which are thought to be adverse in this world, they are easily overcome, if there be a hope that consoles. For even if these things happen, yet they cannot be grave to him who says: For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come. For whoever hopes for better things is never broken by lighter ones.

In the time, then, of our humiliation, hope is consolatory, which does not confound: but the time of temptations I consider to be the time of our soul's humiliation. For our soul is humbled, when it is handed over to the tempter, to be tested by hard labors; that it may wrestle and strive, experiencing an encounter with the opposing power: but in these temptations it is quickened by the address of God. For this is the vital substance of our soul, by which it is nourished, and fed, and governed. Nor is there anything else that makes the rational soul live, than the address of God. For as the word of God increases in our soul, while it is received, while it is understood, while it is grasped; so also its life increases: and just as, on the contrary, the address of God fails in our soul, so also its life incurs a failing.

And so, just as this connection of our soul and body is animated, nourished, and held together by the vital spirit: so our soul is quickened by the word of God and by spiritual grace. Wherefore we ought by every means to strive, that setting aside all other things, we may gather to ourselves the addresses of God, and heap them up into our principal part, into our senses, our cares, considerations, and actions; that our deeds may agree with the addresses of the Scriptures, nor may our actions seem to be at variance with the sequence of the heavenly precepts, so that we too may say: For thy word hath quickened us. The third

is: The proud did unjustly in every thing: but from thy law I have not declined.

The greatest sin in man is pride; since from it flowed the origin of our transgression. With this weapon the devil first wounded and struck us.

For unless man, deceived by the persuasion of the serpent, had wished to be as God, and to know true and false, which by human frailty he was utterly unable to discern; and therefore had received what would follow, lest by rash usurpation he should fall from that happiness of paradise: unless, I say, man, not content with his own bounds, had violated what was forbidden, never would the inheritance of that deadly guilt have passed to us. And what shall I say of man? The devil himself, through pride, lost the grace of his nature. For when he says: I will set my throne above the clouds, and I will be like the Most High, he fell from the fellowship of the angels: and, condemned by the fitting reward of his crime, he sought a man as his partner, into whom he might pour a share of his own offense.

What, then, can be worse than this sin, which began from an injury against God?

And therefore Scripture says: The Lord resists the proud. As it were the repeller of his own affront, he has taken up a certain special contest against pride, as if to say: This adversary is mine, who challenges me, this engagement is owed to me. Whence the Apostle also declared pride to be the source of manifold fault, saying of the heretic: Because he does not consent to the doctrine which is according to godliness: he is proud, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and strifes of words, from which arise envies, contentions, blasphemies, evil suspicions, conflicts of men corrupted in mind, and destitute of the truth, supposing gain to be godliness. Of how many sins, then, did he declare pride to be the cause? Whence David, wishing to commend his devotion as untouched by any iniquity of the proud, says: The proud did unjustly in every thing.

He declared not only the iniquity of those who do it, but also the excessive iniquity, likewise, which befits the proud: lest he should be tempted by any contagion of them, hear him saying elsewhere: With a proud eye, and an insatiable heart, I did not eat with this man.

And so, since he had expressed how great the force of evil in pride was, he ought to have taught us how it might be overcome: and rightly, like a good teacher, he demonstrates the remedy, having first exaggerated the poison. Hear, then, how you may drive out the venom of pride: From thy law, he says, I have not declined. The law of God alone, therefore, can blunt the venom of pride, which has instructed the man given to devotion with what caution he ought to govern himself.

For many, not only strangers to the faith, but even those who seem to have tasted not a few precepts of the Scriptures, are wont to be tempted by the prosperous advancement of the proud; seeing those who transgress the law, arbiters of impiety, arrogant, contemptuous of the faithful, exalting themselves against those who humble their hearts according to the fear of God and the heavenly precepts, abounding in this world in riches, renown, honors, powers; and the graver their offenses, the more abundant, the more the successes of worldly advantages favor them: while, on the contrary, just men for the most part labor under want, the loss of children, the barrenness of their spouses; by which, being harassed and troubled, they incline the sense of their mind, so as to think that God's judgment in this matter somehow errs: not holding to the head of the truth, by which it is most clearly understood that the reward of our merits is laid up not in this age, but in the age to come.

But it is given to few to observe this.

Indeed in the beginning David himself also was tempted; as you have it written: Behold, these very sinners and those abounding in the world have obtained riches, and I said: Have I then in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent, and been scourged all the day? So too each one of us who are not perfect, seeing these things, says: Where is the providence of God, where is justice? This proud man abounds, this arrogant man grows rich, this impious man is happy and powerful: but that just man, do you see how he lies cast down and failing, how he lacks even sustenance itself: he is afflicted with insults by this impious man, he is trampled underfoot by this insolent man, he is shut out? This is by no means a slight temptation, unless you look forward to the things that are to come, unless you are more fully instructed by the heavenly precepts.

Indeed David too thought that he understood these things beforehand, but he did not know; and therefore he labored anxiously with a wavering mind. Whence he says: And I thought to understand this: it is a labor before me, until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand in the last things. In which, by the very fact that the proud exalted themselves, he saw with prophetic spirit that their downfalls would come, and he says: How they are brought to desolation, they suddenly failed, and were destroyed on account of their iniquity, like the dream of one that awakens? He knew therefore that the successes of the impious in this world are like a dream, not like truth: whose gains seem to be theirs only so long as they sleep. When they have slept out their dream, those who seemed to themselves to be drinking now thirst; those who feasted now hunger, bringing back nothing solid or complete from that dream.

And well do worldly men sleep out a dream, who, although awake to the world, are asleep to God, of whom holy Job well says, who marveled beforehand at their abundance: For they are tossed about like chaff before the wind, and like dust which the whirlwind scatters; but they die with bitterness of soul, eating nothing, and having nothing good. But the just man, having confidence in a good conscience, rejoices rather in his last things, and understands that by the departure of this life he is freed from labors, and seeks the reward of good work and deeds, saying: There is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to those who love his coming.

But this he says who could say: But from thy law I have not turned aside; in which not only shines the grace of good work, but also the purity of the inmost conscience.

For the law forms not only the office of acting, but also purifies the affection of the secret mind.

For not only in works, but also in the very hidden things do we serve the Lord according to the law; because the Law says: Let there be no word of injustice hidden in your heart; so that you may not only offend in nothing by deeds done, when you see the proud glorying, nor waver in speech: but that not even in the inmost heart, while you dispute concerning the judgment of God, may you contract the offense of iniquity; which the more it is thought hidden, the more frequent it is wont to be; because each one thinks it safe to entrust such disputations, as though hedged about within his own inward parts, to his own conscience; whereas he himself is to be his own accuser on the day of judgment; because the hidden things of the heart are revealed, conscience bearing witness to our accusations.

Of what sort, then, the purpose of the holy man is, is more clearly set forth in this passage.

First, for he ought to be mindful of the heavenly promises: second, of what reward is established for those who live rightly. Then another purpose of the holy man is this, that even if he be set in dangers and adversities, he ought nevertheless to console himself with the hope which he has drawn from the sequence of the Scriptures. The third purpose is, that even though he see the impious and the sacrilegious, and the proud acting unjustly, abounding in riches in this world, he should not, as one lacking faith, turn aside from the law; but should persevere in its paths, and flee the contagion of the proud. For every unclean thing contaminates: and the proud man is unclean, of whom it is written: Every one that is proud of heart is unclean before God.

The fourth purpose of the holy man is that he be mindful of the heavenly judgments, as David asserts, who said: I remembered thy judgments which are from of old, and I was comforted. For unless each one, instructed and informed by the examples of the law, believes that the judgments of God are always true, he quickly turns aside from the law. But he who reviews the past, and gathers for himself from it the sequence of antiquity, knows that neither does the sinner escape the punishment of his wickedness, nor is the just man defrauded of the rewards of his equity.

For he unfolds in his mind that from the beginning Adam, on account of the transgression of the heavenly command, was cast out from the dwelling of paradise, and Cain paid the price of his parricidal crime, condemned by the authority of the divine sentence: that Enoch, on account of devotion, was caught up to heaven, escaping the poison of earthly malice: that Noah, on account of justice, victorious over the flood, was made the survivor of the human race: that Abraham, on account of faith, spread the seed-plot of his posterity throughout the whole world: that Israel, on account of the endurance of labors, consecrated a people of believers with the seal of his own name: that David himself, on account of gentleness, was endowed with royal honor, being preferred before his elder brothers: that Elijah, on account of zeal for God, was lifted up in a chariot into the air, acquiring the hospitality of the heavenly seat by a dwelling of a new kind.

He who knows how to unfold these things has whence he may acquire the grace of his own consolation: and on the other hand; because the judgments of God are true, as you have it: The judgments of God are true, justified in themselves, more desirable than gold and precious stone, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb; for thy servant keeps them. For him then who keeps them, the divine judgments are sweet: but for him who neglects them they are without doubt bitter; because he perceives that in the shame of reproach for sins, the outcome of divine sentence has been set before him. But he who is well conscious in himself is not troubled, saying: We are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together with him.

But which of us is of such a sort as to console himself by the sequence of the divine judgments?

Even human judgments are terrible to sinners, how much more are the divine ones to be feared? Indeed, that we may gather this by an example of things which are truly eternal, we see in this world the innocent hastening joyfully to judgment, hating delays, longing for the swiftness of judgment: but the guilty flee and dread it, put it off, avoid it, and finally are made sorrowful when they hear the day of judgment appointed. Blessed then is he who awaits that heavenly judgment with joy. For he knows that the kingdom of heaven is laid up for him, the fellowship of angels, and also the crown of good merits. Let us now consider what is another purpose of the holy man, and let us judge from what follows. Faintheartedness, he says, has taken hold of me because of the sinners that forsake thy law.

This is not common to many; for it is the way of most to be grieved if they suffer some injury from someone, if they are hurt, if attacked, if disgraced. For it is our own cause: we, being weaker, grieve that some have been treacherous toward us. But he who is stronger does not grieve over his own injury, but over the sins of others; and in his own injury he groans over the fall of another, and laments that he himself was the occasion of the erring one's fault. Take the Apostolic example: for Paul wept over another's sin, as he himself says: For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears. And though he himself was grieved, he did not wish those very ones whom he rebuked to be grieved. Indeed he added: Not that you should be made sorrowful, but that you might know the charity that I have more abundantly toward you.

For he wished those who had fallen to be grieved unto repentance, not unto deeper sorrow; only so that the sorrow of those who were rebuked might become joy to the one rebuking. Whence he says: For if I make you sorrowful, who is he then that can make me glad, but the same who is made sorrowful by me? He rebukes, therefore, so as to relieve the length of sorrow, that repentance might come unto salvation: he condemns, that he may absolve: he excludes, that he may receive back: he does not forgive at once, that he may set free. Therefore such was Paul, because well d in the law, he had come to know the precept of him who says: Faintheartedness has taken hold of me because of the sinners that forsake thy law.

David grieved, not

because he was despised, not because he himself was assailed, but because the law of God was being forsaken; and he grieved over the loss of those who did this, that they were perishing to God.

Just as a good father, when a son of his is seized with delirium, though he be cursed by him, struck, subjected to injuries, does not weep for his own misfortune, but for that of the sick one; and he grieves at the insult, not because it is inflicted upon him, but because through his madness the sick one does not know what he is doing: so the good man, when he sees a sinner showing no reverence, not even honoring the gray hairs of an elder, in whose presence he does something unworthy; not recognizing, through a kind of madness of sinning, how unseemly and dishonorable a thing he commits, grieves as for one about to die, groans as for one given up by physicians; and as a good physician first admonishes, then even if he suffers grievous things, nevertheless, just as with a patient, even if struck, he endures, and if cursed, does not abandon him: and whatever medicine he can apply, he does not withhold; nor does he desert him as one obstinate, but strives with all zeal to heal him as one who has well deserved of him, exercising not only the skill of his art, but also kindness of mind.

So then the just man too, even when despised by a sinner, is not turned away: and when injured, thinks it to be the effect of madness, not of wickedness, and desires rather to bring healing to his wound, and has compassion, and grieves not for himself, but for him who labors under a desperate malady: and says that this one, a brother, so labors, is so afflicted, that he does me injury; who, if he recognized me, would surely honor me, certainly would not injure me. For in what have I injured him by my act, that he should have the disposition of one injuring? Therefore, when there is no cause for injuring, there can be no fault in the purpose. Therefore if I am just, I am afflicted for the sake of charity, for the sake of love, for the loss of the Church, for the detriment of the body.

I can also grieve over this, that even if I have not injured the one who injures me, and am not conscious to myself that I have provoked him against me by any injuries, yet I have been the occasion of his fall, in that by injuring an innocent man he sins, in that I have become to him the material of sin.

This then David grieves over, and he grieves because, when one member suffers, the other members suffer with it. For this reason perhaps that saying too is set down: The just man at the beginning of his speech is his own accuser. For although the just man may have in himself something to accuse, and yet be just (since no one is without sin except God alone), and although even a sinner may by this very fact be just, in that he is his own accuser, according to that word: Declare thy iniquities, that thou mayest be justified; nevertheless perhaps it may seem to some not absurd, that it should be said even of him that he is just who accuses himself for another, even though he has in himself nothing to accuse.

Let us then consider how the first character of the just man agrees, in all these things, with holy David.

He accused himself, no one accusing him: he confessed his own sin, when he was struck in his heart, because he had numbered the people. He also said to the Lord: I have sinned, O Lord, in that I have done this thing: and now, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly. And so, although Scripture has it that the wrath of God was added, that it might be kindled against Israel, whereby the king's fall might seem to be excused: yet when he saw the angel who was working destruction among the people, he threw himself before the striking blow, saying: Behold, I have sinned, and I the shepherd have done wickedly: and this flock, what have they done? Let thy hand be upon me, and upon my father's house.

As a just man, therefore, he was the accuser of himself at the very outset of his speech, and he acknowledged his sin, and by confessing his own iniquity was justified in himself. Elsewhere too, being convicted by the prophet concerning the death of Uriah, he says: I have sinned against the Lord; to whom it was answered that on account of his repentance his sin had been taken away by the Lord.

Likewise in another place, when Semei cursed him, and stoned him, having seven warriors by whom he might have avenged himself, he bore it patiently, not even repaying the insult with a word: nay more, when Abisai his commander wished to take off the head of the one cursing, the king said: What have I to do with thee, son of Sarvia? Because he curses me, the Lord told him to curse David. First, therefore, he excused his fault, and referred the cause to the will of the Lord. Second, he turned it back upon his own merit, signifying that the man had not erred, but that he himself had deserved it. Third, he recalled that the man's curse not only did not harm him, but even profited him, as it is written: And David said to Abisai and to all his servants: Behold my own son, who came forth from my seed, seeks my life; how much more the son of Jemini? Greatly did he break the impulse of the avenger.

For how could he avenge on a stranger's curse an injury to the king, when he had not yet avenged the parricide of his own son though they do not see in themselves the grave sins by which righteousness is lost; let them at least see what suffices, that they may truly be able to accuse themselves: as the passage quoted from Proverbs sufficiently shows remained? Surely the stranger's curse and the son's parricide were not to be weighed in equal balance. And he added: Let him alone, let him curse; for the Lord told him, until he see my humiliation, and the Lord repay me good for the curse. There is also another purpose of the just man, far more perfect and powerful than all others: to intercede for persecutors, and to excuse sinners: which we read in the Gospel, the Lord Jesus saying, when he had been crucified by the faithless: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

It is clear, then, from these lessons of heavenly teaching, that the just man prefers to accuse himself rather than to disfigure another. Finally, of Joseph, to whom Mary the mother of the Lord was betrothed, it is written that when he had seen her with child, being just, he was unwilling to expose her; and indeed he had not yet heard any oracle. Thus the person of the just man is a stranger not only to the atrocity of vengeance, but even to the severity of accusation: he prefers rather that his own leniency be accused, because he did not denounce, than to press home another's crime. But you will say: How then did David himself say: The just man shall rejoice when he shall see the vengeance of the wicked? It seems to me that he rejoices that he himself has escaped, not that the wicked are punished. Let us seek another purpose of the just man from what follows.

And so he says: Thy justifications were the subject of my songs in the place of my pilgrimage.

Rightly was he not broken by his wanderings, he avoided the proud, and was not moved by their prosperous successes. He consoled himself in the heavenly judgments, he grieved over the sins of others; because he held the justifications of God to be worthy of song. For what we hold well, we are wont to sing; and what is sung clings better to our senses. Let us not pass over what we read in a perfunctory manner, so that we seem to return to the memory of these things only when we read them: but even when the book is absent from our hands, as the animals that are approved and held clean in the Law are accustomed to chew the cud even when not feeding, bringing forth from themselves the food stored within—so let us also bring forth from the treasury of our memory, from our inner selves, spiritual food to be chewed over.

Let hymns, let canticles, let psalms be to us the justifications of the Lord.

Let us sing with the spirit, let us sing also with the mind; lest, if we should forget, in the time of need it be said to each of us: Thou hast cast my words behind thee.

And so, that forgetfulness might be expelled and banished from his holy house, the true Solomon appointed for himself singers, who with their whole spirit devoted themselves to the seeking out of knowledge of the divinity; lest singers should be lacking to his Church, by whose song the wicked spirit might be put to flight: as we are taught by the example of holy David, at whose playing that evil spirit was driven out which troubled the heart of King Saul. The prophets too, in order to prophesy, bade a skilled player of the harp to play, that by the sweet delight thus invited, spiritual grace might be poured in. And in the Gospel we read that in the house of that father who was recovering his son, a symphony resounded beforehand, in which the faithful, feasting, took delight, while the faithless brother listened impatiently. Sweet, then, is song, which does not effeminate the body, but strengthens the mind and soul.

And therefore the Lord's Testament is called a canticle; because we sing together, with the sweet exultation of the mind, in the Scriptures of the Gospel the remission of all sins and the justices of the Lord. The Lord himself also did not disdain to say: We have sung to you, and you have not danced. He sang to us in the Gospel the pardon of sins; the Jews ought to have lifted up their mind, not with the theatrical motion of the body, but with the holy Spirit. They did not do so; therefore they are reproved.

But even the dancing of the body is held praiseworthy in honor of God.

Finally, David danced before the ark of the Lord, and Michol the daughter of Saul saw him dancing and playing on well-tuned instruments in the sight of the Lord, and she said to him, after he had returned home: How honored indeed is the king of Israel today, seeing he is uncovered today in the eyes of the maidservants of his slaves, as one of the buffoons! And David said to Michol, in the sight of the Lord: Blessed be the Lord who chose me above thy father, and above all his house, to appoint me prince over his people Israel and Judah: I will dance before the Lord, and will be uncovered even further thus, and I will be vile in your sight, and with the maidservants of whom you spoke, I will be glorified with them.

And Michol, it says, the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death A clear example, then, that the Prophet who played on the instruments and danced before the ark of the Lord was justified; and she who reproved him was condemned with barrenness.

But it is not enough that someone hold the justifications of God worthy of song, unless he strip himself of the servitude of earthly anxieties.

And so he added: In the place of my pilgrimage. It agrees with him; since elsewhere too he says: I am a stranger in this land. Whence the Apostle also does not wish us to be, in the house of God and in the calling of faith, strangers and pilgrims: but citizens with the saints, and members of the household of God. For he who is a member of God's household is an exile from the world: he who has his conversation in the heavens is a pilgrim on earth. The Hebrews were pilgrims in this world, not feeling the nature of fire: they held the justifications of God worthy of song, when they sang a hymn to God from the praise of creatures.

Then he who sings is at leisure, and dismisses the cares of various thoughts, sets aside avarice, and soothes himself not only with the voice of the body, but also with the liveliness of the mind. For that same Prophet sang not as one sorrowful with the anxiety of poverty, but as one free from all the affections of bodily passions: I will sing to thee, God, on the harp, O holy One of Israel. My lips shall rejoice when I shall sing to thee: and my soul, which thou hast redeemed. He sang these things joyfully, as though he were fed by these better banquets. For his mind feasted on the nourishment of pious devotion. Not only, then, are hymns and psalms, but even the precepts of the Law, worthy of song for the saints. Finally, Moses sang, who received the Law, when, having passed through the sea on foot, as leader of the saved people he proclaimed the justifications of the Lord.

There remains still an outstanding purpose of the just man, that he ought to be intent upon the praises of God at every time, not only by day, but also by night. And so he added: I have remembered thy name, O Lord, in the night, and have kept thy law. Let us see whether he is mindful, too, who calls upon the Lord in word, but does not keep the divine commandments. Of whom it has been sufficiently said, that not everyone who says: Lord, Lord, is acceptable to Christ: but he who can prove his faithful affection by good works. Faith, therefore, uprightness, and innocence prove one mindful. But when he says: I have remembered thy name, this is full devotion; for no one says the Lord Jesus except in the Holy Spirit. Let this name be invoked day and night; let holy devotion allow no time of prayer to pass by unused.

If, then, those devoted to secular studies indulge sleep very little, how much more ought those who desire to know God not be hindered by the sleep of the body, except so much as nature requires? David every single night drenched his bed with tears; he rose even in the middle of the night, that he might confess to the Lord: and do you think the whole night should be given over to slumber? Then above all the Lord must be prayed to by you, then aid must be asked, fault must be guarded against, when it seems that privacy is had: then especially, when darkness is round about me, and walls cover me, it must be considered that the Lord beholds all hidden things. Say not, then: I am surrounded by darkness, who sees me? And whom do I fear, hedged in and enclosed by walls? For the face of the Lord is upon those who do evil. Then, if you do not see the judge, do you not see yourself?

Do you not fear the testimony of your own conscience?

Do you not know that the gloom of night is not a covering, but an incitement to sin? When bodies are aglow with sleep and food, then too the vigor of the mind is loosened by drowsiness, dissolved by sleep: then the desire of impure intercourse creeps in: then the heart is troubled, the squalor of uncleanness is not seen, the purity of chastity is not considered, the glory of modesty is not recalled. It was night when Judas betrayed, when Peter denied.

At that time, then, especially, the justifications of God must be unfolded again in the mind, the exhortatory commandments must be reread.

Let those precepts concerning chastity not be absent; let the mind, occupied with these, quench the flagrant heat of lust and the ardor of the flesh. Hold this in your mind: I will wash my bed every night. For who, given over to debaucheries, involved in disgraceful acts, washes his bed every night? He knows not how to weep who commits things worthy of weeping; and though he himself be pitiable, he has no tears for his own punishment. But he who chastises his body, and is a careful governor of himself, and, groaning and grieving over the lapse of an earlier offense, seeks how he may wash it away with the tears of penitence—this man washes his bed every night. Let us not, then, sleep whole nights through: but let us devote the greatest part of them to reading and to prayers.

Hear the voice of the Church seeking Christ even in the nights.

In my bed, she says, in the nights I sought him whom my soul loved. Take it according to the letter. She sought him in the nights by praying, by beseeching, even by bewailing with tears. She sought him in the nights; because he made darkness his hiding place; that we might learn to seek him the more diligently. The Church, then, gathered from the nations, sought him in the prophets, and therefore believed. Finally, the evangelists and Paul set forth testimonies of the Lord's coming from the prophets. Whence it is written, that night unto night showeth knowledge. She sought him in the nights, in persecutions and adversities, in tribulations and hard labors. Night is for all those for whom there is no perfect security; whence the Lord says: The night cometh, when no man can work; while I am in this world, I am the light of this world. Let us not, then, work in darkness.

For if our works shine, we do not work in darkness, but in the light. Day is for those with whom Christ is present: night is for those to whom he denies himself.

It is no great thing, then, if you give thanks to the Lord when you are in prosperous and favorable circumstances: but it is great if you cling to Christ when the persecutor harasses you, when some storm troubles you. Have you lost a son? In that grief, in that night, in that desolation, remember the Lord your God; lest, as if unheard, you be ungrateful, and transgress in your affliction. Have you been driven into exile? Remember the Lord your God; lest, your homeland being forbidden you, you prefer it in your affection to God. Crushed by the power of someone's wealth, have you lost your own means, do you lack sustenance? Remember the Lord your God; lest the night of poverty lead you away from the affection of devotion.

For this is the commandment of the Law, that you should seek all the more in the night, when you are heard the more by the Lord, and can say: In my tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard me and brought me into a broad place.

But neither does it suffice to seek perfunctorily for grace, but you must persist and press on for the gift.

Finally, this Church or this soul, which sought in her bed, sought in the nights, at first did not find; because perhaps she sought in her bed: but after she arose, and went into the city, after she sought, as I said, in the marketplace, she found him whom she loved, where oil is sold, which those awaiting the Bridegroom were accustomed to buy, where there is law, where there are statutes. If the law is spiritual, then the marketplace too is certainly spiritual, where those skilled in the eternal law dispute. This marketplace is not tumultuous with lawsuits, but glorious with the tribunals of Christ. Where did she seek, I ask? In the marketplace: and afterward she sought in the streets, from which those who gathered to the banquet of the householder in the Gospel were assembled, who, being called, did not think they should excuse themselves from such a feast.

After she sought, I say, in the marketplace and the streets, she came upon those who go about the city: and only then at last was she able to find what she sought—perhaps

because, placed in tribulation and fear, she finds grace all the more. Finally, in a later passage she says: They that go about the city found me; they took away my veil from me. She had a struggle, then: but by what reasoning they did not take away her veil in the earlier passage, I am at a loss to discover; unless perhaps it is because there she said she had asked: Have you seen him whom my soul loves? She who spoke of Christ was not stripped of her veil, and she found him whom she sought.

Learn how Christ is to be sought.

By those, certainly, who do not seek perfunctorily, but hold on violently, as she who says: I held him, and would not let him go, found by faith, bound by meditation. If we understand the good guardians to be angels, then whoever has passed by the angels has found the Word; therefore there was not much interval when she passed by these, and found Jesus. How then did they take away her veil below, unless perhaps because, in the process, when faith is oppressed and the Church is stripped bare, she is loved all the more by the Lord, stripping off the old man that she may put on the new, whom garments do not cover, but the secrets of the mind make manifest: or because, about to come to Christ, she laid aside the mantle of worldly wisdom? And Noah was stripped of his mantle after he began to be more perfect.

Let us therefore be mindful of the heavenly ordinances of justice, so that while we sing them in the secret voice of the mind, we may be mindful in the night of the name of the Lord, and may say, as it is written: This has been done for me; because I sought your justifications; that is, by this remembrance it has been done for me, that I might be mindful even in the night of your name—not lulled by drunkenness, not dissolved into sleep by feasting, not occupied by worldly cares, lest forgetfulness of your reverence should creep upon me: but chastising my members by daily meditation, and exercising the attention of my mind, so that by constancy this solemn course may become habitual to us; that we may venerate the Lord Jesus with our whole affection even in the nights, to whom is glory, praise, perpetuity from the ages, and now, and always, and unto all ages of ages. Amen.

The eighth letter, Heth, which in Latin interpretation is called fear: it has been customary to be the fear of the saints.

Finally, fear fell upon Abraham, when he offered a sacrifice full of spiritual mystery. David himself also says: I said in my fear: Every man is a liar. For it signifies rather the reverence of religion than the weakness of fear; although even fear itself, according to God, is holy: For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Therefore those who fear God are wise: and those who are wise are blessed; for Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law. Those also who fear God are blessed, as the authority of the example stands, because Blessed are all who fear the Lord. Thus it is gathered that those who fear God are both wise and blessed. Holy, therefore, is the fear of the Lord; because it is truly the fear of the saints.

Finally, this letter having been set forth, at once the person of the just man follows, saying: My portion, O Lord: I said that I would keep your law. Most manuscripts have this

which is the first of the eighth letter, in the last place of the seventh letter: but the book of the Psalms, corrected among the Greeks according to the Hebrews, has taught us that this

is to be joined to the eighth letter.

Then the order itself and the number of the

agree in such a way that the eighth letter begins from it.

My portion, he says, is the Lord.

How rare on earth is he who can say: My portion is the Lord: how estranged from vices, how set apart from every stain of sin, who has nothing in common with the world, claims nothing of this world for himself, is not a possessor of bodily desires, whom lust does not inflame, avarice does not goad, wantonness does not make effeminate, luxury does not discolor, ambition does not lay low, envy does not waste away, no care of worldly affairs disquiets—a true minister of the altar, born for God, not for himself.

For Levi, as the interpretation has it, signifies "assumed to myself," it signifies also "he himself is mine," it signifies also "only assumed," it signifies also "assumed to me." He himself is both "Levi to me" and "to God"; just as he is both "priest to me" and "to God": and to me an advocate, and an intercessor of the Lord: offering sacrifice for me, and himself offering himself to the Lord? Finally, elsewhere Levi is interpreted "for me." For if he is named Levi from me, he is for me: if he offers for me, he is for me: if he intervenes for me, he is for me.

But if he is called by the Lord, he is said to be "himself to me,"

that is, not tributary to another, not a tithe-taker, but generous from his own possession: himself to me, that is, as abounding in place of all these things, I seek from him no tithes, no fruits, no gifts, no offerings, he himself is to me instead of a gift, he himself is instead of tribute: not generous to me out of his own possession, but he himself is my possession, he my fruit, he my income assumed to me, or assumed by me. This cannot be without divine grace.

For just as a possession cannot be mine unless I buy it; so he cannot be Levi unless he has been assumed by the Lord; for when he has been assumed, he is rightly called "he is mine." Finally, when it was said to Moses that he should divide the sojourning among the individual tribes for the people of the Jews, and distribute a portion to each tribe, God excepted the Levitical tribe, saying: To the sons of Levi there shall be no portion, nor lot in the midst of their brethren; because the Lord God is their portion. And elsewhere: I the Lord am their portion.

Earthly division is denied to these; so that while they do not claim a worldly portion for themselves, they may become a heavenly possession: or that they may know they possess this alone

that is, the service of faith and devotion; much richer than those who spread out the ample spaces of their possessions. For however far they extend their boundaries, both land fails them, and the sea shuts in their mad desires, and tributes weigh heavier than the fruits are worth. But that man, possessing nothing for himself, serves none but God; above the earth is his portion, no land fails him, no sea encloses him. He to whom God is a portion is the possessor of all nature. Instead of fields, therefore, he is sufficient for himself, having a good fruit which can never perish: instead of houses he is sufficient for himself, that he may be the dwelling of the Lord, and the temple of God, than which nothing can be more precious. For what is more precious than God?

Or what is lacking to that man who can say: God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world? In this the prince of this world can claim no share for himself, in whom he finds nothing his own.

And therefore the Lord, who came to teach that God should be our portion, says: For the prince of this world comes, and finds nothing in me. And rightly, wishing us to be imitators of himself, he says: Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money. Whence Peter, showing that his portion was in God, not in the world, says: Silver and gold I have not, but what I have, this I give you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk: this is my portion: this is my lot: my portion is Christ. In the name, therefore, of Christ Jesus rise up and walk—that is, in my portion I am rich, in my portion I am powerful: rightly do I presume such fruits of this portion, that health and life may be granted: because this is the patrimony of that portion which I have chosen for myself. This he said to a lame man, and he rose up who had been lame from his mother's womb.

How then could Peter feel the loss of his portion, who was repairing the loss of nature?

Why you should not have silver and gold, Peter, tell us: tell us also what it is that you say you have, you who said that you left all that you had. For thus you spoke to the Lord: Behold, we have left all things, and followed you, that is, we have not sought the things of the world, we have not sought a share of possessions: but we have chosen you as our portion. You left, then, before all things, Peter, what you had; whence do you have what you say you have? The lame man rises, and at the sound of your speech is raised up. You give health to others, you who yourself needed the help of your own salvation. You left, then, what you had, and received what you did not have. Christ is your portion, Christ is your possession. His name is generous to you, his name is fruitful to you, his name pays tribute to you, and good tribute—not of money, but of grace.

Your portion is not dried up by drought, not washed away by rain, not scorched by cold, not shaken by tempest.

By day the sun shall not burn you, nor the moon by night. Keep the portion you have chosen; for it is a portion which earthly shares cannot equal. For what is there that can be compared to those things of which God says: And I will dwell in them. What is more magnificent than a heavenly lodging? What more blessed than a divine possession? And I will walk, he says, among them. Others complain of the narrowness of their fields: in you God has an ample possession, in which he says he walks about, that is, finding wide spaces of habitation, he who encloses the earth with his hand; for thus it is written: Who has measured the waters with his hand, and the heavens with his span, and the whole earth enclosed in his hand? To whom the world is narrow, you are to him a spacious house. My portion, he says, is the Lord.

This the martyr says. Let us therefore live for him, for whom it is glorious to die. In other words how well Paul said this, showing that he has no portion in this world! For thus it is written: Even to this hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode, and labor, working with our own hands. We are cursed, and we bless: we suffer persecution, and we endure it: we are blasphemed, and we entreat. We are made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all things until now.

Perhaps it may trouble someone that he said he was refuse.

For he is not so. But this seems so to worldly people, who think the highest glory or beauty lies in riches. Do not these people think all men to be refuse, whoever they are, who serve them for the sake of riches, and admire them for their wealth, fear them for their power, praise them for their nobility? But Paul considered all these things rather losses than gains. And therefore he says: What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ, because of the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as dung, that I may gain Christ. I am counted, he says: not this my own judgment, but another's. For often that poor man is deemed worthy of scorn and execration because of the filth of his garments, or the scars of his wounds; because he has no portion on earth; and yet his portion is in heaven.

His soul has laid up its patrimony there

because he heard Jesus saying: Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth; but lay up for yourselves, he says, treasure in heaven.

But this the rich cannot hear.

They have closed ears, deafened by the sound of bronze: coin resounds more to them than the words of God. Accordingly a certain rich man came to the Lord, who did not have the Lord as his portion. For he had many possessions: but the Lord is not numbered among many things, for he does not deign to have fellowship with the world. For what portion has justice with iniquity? This rich man therefore says: What shall I do to possess eternal life? The Lord answered him: Do you know the commandments? You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not bear false witness: showing that eternal life consists in these commandments. But he, wishing to justify himself, says: All these I have done, what remains for me?

To whom the Lord, wishing to become his portion—the Lord, not money, not possessions, but the true God—says: If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me. But he, for whom gold and silver were his portion, without which he could not be, and with which the Lord could not be his portion, was made sorrowful. Whence the Lord declared it impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, but that what is impossible through human desires can become possible only through divine grace.

Elsewhere too he says: Whoever shall have left father or mother, house, or brothers, or sisters, shall receive a hundredfold in this age, and shall possess eternal life. But perhaps you may say: Surely he who, by leaving his house (by house understand his whole estate), by leaving his kinsmen, has followed God, is the Lord's portion, and God is his portion; he also has eternal life; and since, having received a hundredfold, he becomes rich in this age, you will say, the rich man enters the kingdom of heaven. Then, if the Lord gives a hundredfold of those things which even singly were wont to bring hindrance to the attainment of the eternal inheritance: he renders a hundred possessions for one possession, a hundred pounds of gold for one pound.

We know indeed that many in this age who gave their goods to the poor were enriched with a more abundant treasure.

And this is a most beautiful example, that people may also be provoked to mercy. But they ought not to demand from the Lord a worldly reward of this kind, nor to hope for the things that are of the world: but rather, because to those who have left all things, God is their portion. He indeed is the perfect reward of the virtues, who is reckoned not by the counting of a hundredfold, but by the estimation of perfect fullness. I am, he says, your God. He did not say, I will be, but I already am, I already dwell, I already possess. He removes delay where he finds the confession of the just. Indeed, elsewhere he says: Today you shall be with me in paradise. He promises what is to come: but that which is to come does not suffer to be postponed by the space of a single day.

Indeed he could have said: You shall be with me in paradise: but he added, today, lest the grace be diminished by delay.

But the Lord Jesus says not to him alone: Today you shall be with me in paradise: but he says also to you: You shall be with me in paradise, if you confess the Lord Jesus, if you seek his patronage, if you too say: Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom. But to you he does not say: Today you shall be with me: he says to the martyr: Today you shall be with me in paradise. To you he does not say it, because you are still set in this feverish body, in this body of desire, still desiring earthly things: but when you shall be able to say: You have broken my bonds, that is, you have dissolved the course of this life, you have freed me from this body of death, then he says to you: Today you shall be with me in paradise.

You have, then, O man, among the many portions proposed, also a portion of this kind.

The Lord has proposed to you as a portion possessions, as a portion gold, as a portion silver, as a portion honors, as a portion nobility: he has proposed also himself as a portion. You have very many portions; choose the one you think best. Let not the number disturb you, but let grace arouse you: let not toil turn you away, but let the fruit invite you. In the divine portion there are groanings and labors. Whence the holy Apostle also, whose portion was God, says: We are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. You see that where the inheritance of Christ is, there must also be compassion.

But he who suffers with him does not suffer perfunctorily, but so as to fill up in his own body the sufferings of Christ, as Paul also fulfilled them, as Jeremiah too fulfilled them, who says under this very letter: It is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed; because his compassions fail not. They shall be renewed like the morning light. Many are my groanings, and my heart faints. The Lord is my portion, I have said; therefore will I wait for him. He therefore who waits for the Lord is the portion of the Lord. Whence David also, who says: I waited for the Lord, and he regarded me, professes here that God is his portion.

How rare is he who claims this for himself: it is claimed neither by nobility nor by riches.

Indeed, that rich king says: I too am a mortal man, like all others, and of the earthly race of him who was first formed, and in my mother's womb I was fashioned into flesh: in the space of ten months I was congealed in blood, from the seed of man, and the pleasure that comes with sleep: and I too, being born, drew the common air, and likewise fell upon the earth, and uttered a first cry like all others, weeping: I was nourished in swaddling clothes, and with great cares. And he added: For no king had a different beginning of birth. There is therefore one entrance for all into life at birth, and a like departure. And because he saw that the beginning of birth is common to all, he labored to be a portion of God, and he called upon him, and the spirit of wisdom came upon him.

But the luxurious choose another portion, who say: Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and let not the flower of the season pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither. And further on: For this is our portion, and this our lot.

How great a thing it is to despise riches: but how rare this very thing is!

Certainly Moses too could have been the successor of the king, having been nourished by the king's daughter. He could then have been not merely as it were Pharaoh, but even Pharaoh, and Pharaoh could have been as Moses; for both were men: but all the power of man lies in disposition. Moses did not wish to be king, though he could have been: but he judged the reproach of Christ to be preferable to the treasures of Egypt: but by fleeing power, he was made more powerful; for he was made a god to Pharaoh the king. Pharaoh was king, but he was not a god: Moses was made a god to him, that is, terrible to the king himself, whom the king should fear and dread. But this was the power of holiness. In the assembly of such gods, God stands and judges.

And you, if you wish to be a god to sinners, a terror to kings, an object of reverence to others; so that they may seem to themselves subject to you as to God

because you work in God's name: despise the things of the world, and strive to prefer the reproach of the Lord's passion above all riches. I say reproach, because it seems to them a reproach, that is, to the Jews a scandal, to the Gentiles foolishness, but to us the power of God and wisdom. But Pharaoh, thinking this a reproach, that is, poverty, ignobility, insults, preferred to be the portion of the devil rather than of God: and therefore he who did not wish to be subject to God subjected himself to the intercession of a man. Therefore, because the holy prophet David was the portion of God, he rightly says: I have said that I will keep your law: he speaks assuredly of the spiritual law, as Paul also shows.

For those who have interpreted the Law bodily do not keep the Law, but transgress it. Let us come to the second

which is thus: I entreated your face, O Lord, with my whole heart: have mercy on me according to your word.

We read in the Old Testament that Moses entreated to see the face of God, and it was answered him: No one shall see my face, and live. Let us first understand this mystically. Moses received the figure of the Law: the Law announces Christ through hidden mysteries, but does not show him face to face, as the Gospel showed. For in the Gospel he spoke face to face; although in the Gospel the man born of the Virgin appeared, the Word showed himself through works. And perhaps this was declared to Moses, that the people of the Jews would die, and that though they had seen Christ face to face, they would not believe.

But if you refer this to the Law, the end of the Law also is Christ, according to that saying of the Apostle: For Christ is the end of the Law to everyone that believes. And the bodily interpretation of the Law died, where the Lord Christ Jesus showed its spiritual grace. Or certainly because all of us who have seen Christ, and have been baptized in Christ, have died to sin; because while living we were held by the bonds of the Law.

But when we died in Christ, we were surely made dead to the Law through the body of Christ; that we might belong to another who rose from the dead. But this is mystical.

But the moral sense should make us remember the ancient history, which concerns holy Moses, who asked God that God would show himself to him, and that he might see him face to face. The holy seer of the Lord assuredly knew that he could not see the invisible God face to face: but holy devotion surpasses measure, and he thought that this too was possible for God, that he should make that which is incorporeal to be comprehended by bodily eyes. This error is not reprehensible, but rather a pleasing and insatiable desire, in that he wished, as it were, to hold his Lord with his hand, and to see him with the gaze of his eyes. He knew that man had been made in the image and likeness of God. For when he was chosen by the Lord God to free the people, he was filled with the spirit of wisdom. He had seen that angel and his face in glory.

Then, dazzled by his shining light, he was struck with fear, and saw the bush burning, and not being consumed.

He began to marvel at the sight and the brightness: he approached, provoked by desire and grace, that he might more diligently observe that brightness in the bush. So if he received such ardor, if he underwent such desire, when he had seen the angel in the flame of fire from the bush, that though seized with fear he dared not gaze upon it, yet wished to gaze: how much more did he desire to see the face of the Lord bodily, saying within himself that that face was full of light, full of glory, full of power, full of divinity. I cannot say or perceive more of God; for when man has completed, then he begins: and when he has finished, then he will be at a loss, as it is written, because the eternal majesty of God is incomprehensible.

Vain indeed was the outcome of his request, but the disposition of the servant was praiseworthy

because, having advanced beyond his own nature through devotion, he judged from the angels of the Lord how much more he desired the countenance of the Lord, whereby he might rejoice to satisfy his desire. He knew that after death there would be for man himself another glory, another brightness. For as star differs from star in brightness, so also is the resurrection of the dead: which, though it is sown in corruption, will rise nonetheless in incorruption, will rise in glory, will rise in power, a spiritual body will rise. He who could know these things rightly presumed to desire to see the face of God, whom he was to see once the death of the body had been undergone. Such a form indeed he had already received, such the Lord already approved, that the heavenly minister and executor of the oracle did not differ from the angels.

And therefore, since he knew that the angels of little ones daily behold the face of the Father who is in heaven, he thought that he too ought now to see it, as though forgetting the body, and having laid aside the flesh, like that man who, while still placed in the body, when he was caught up into paradise, said he did not know whether he was caught up to the third heaven in the body, or out of the body. For the saints, even while bearing the body, are nevertheless not in the flesh, but in the spirit; since those who are in carnal desire and manner of life cannot please God. But the manner of life of the saints was not in the flesh, but in heaven, as Paul shows.

And what shall we say of the approvable desire for the divine countenance?

Men also, if they hear that someone is noble, that someone is strong, that someone is wise, judging him as it were above man, desire to see him. An emperor goes forth, to whose royal power a part of the world has been entrusted; all run together, and in so great a multitude they long to gaze upon him alone, and they reckon that there is something more in the emperor's countenance than the mere splendor of the purple. Do you marvel that the countenance of God is desirable, when every human affection marvels at a man conformed to itself? From this it is also given to understand this: that everyone who is guilty of no crime is eager to come into the emperor's presence.

For even if conscience harbor some crime, yet the hidden things of the heart conceal it, provided one is not entangled in public guilt, nor has any crime of his been made manifest: finally, when certain accused persons have had advocates, they are forbidden to present themselves to the emperor and to the judges themselves; just as the base persons of panders and harlots are kept away from the sight either of the judge or of the emperor, lest the sight of the most base offend the brightness of the royal countenance. But he who is well conscious of himself, guilty of no crime, comes forth into the midst as one innocent.

From these things, then, let us grasp the feeling of holy Moses.

As one innocent, he desired to see the face of God, as it were with a certain countenance of conscience: he was eager to have the face of the inner mind laid open to him, to be known more fully—both Moses and holy David himself, who says elsewhere: Prove me, O Lord, and try me. For he would not wish to be proved if he recognized crime in himself: nor to be tried, if he knew himself subject to grievous passions. Free, then, from sin, he offered himself desirous of God. But perhaps, because he was not yet cleansed from vice by more frequent visitations of God, he was not perfect at the beginning, inasmuch as it had a little before been said to him: Loose the shoe from off your feet; that shoe, namely, which he had brought from Egypt, that is, the wrapping of bodily conversation; therefore the Lord says to him: No man shall see my face and live.

Consider, however, when this was said.

It had not yet been said to him: I will make you a god to Pharaoh the king. He was still a man, and therefore this was said to him: an advancement was owed to him, that he might become a god; and therefore it was said to him: I have spoken of man, cease to have the sins of man, and you shall see my face. For he who sees my face ought to be without sin. But because man cannot be without sin, therefore he is admonished, that he may be able to grow up into the appellation of god. And what shall I say of the appellation of god? Be an angel, that is, a minister of the divine rule, obey the commands of the Lord. When you have become an angel, you shall see the face of the Lord. It is a great thing to see the face of God. The Law tells you to present yourself three times in Jerusalem.

The Lord Jesus himself says: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Do you note what is required of you, that you may see God; to what life the prerogative of seeing God is set forth? Cleanse, therefore, your heart, that you may be created anew as it were, your spirit renewed. Cast out from your heart all polluted thoughts; let there be nothing by which your affection is defiled: let the mind be simple, let there be pure sincerity. To such the Lord, when they have laid aside the wrapping of the body, deigns to show himself.

Now let us speak of the remaining part of this

Have mercy on me, he says, according to your word.

Mercy indeed is a portion of justice; so that if you wish to give to the poor, this mercy is justice, according to that: He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor: his justice remains forever. Then, because it is unjust that one who is your equal should not be helped by his fellow; since especially the Lord our God willed this earth to be the common possession of all men, and to minister its fruits to all: but avarice has distributed the rights of possessions. It is just, therefore, that if you claim something as private, which has been bestowed in common upon the human race, nay upon all living beings, you should at least sprinkle some of it upon the poor: so that you may not deny sustenance to those to whom you owe a share of your right.

It is also an act of mercy to forgive a sin: and it is both of mercy and of justice. Indeed, divine Scripture ascribes the forgiveness of sins to justice, according to what was read today: Blessed is the wood which is made through justice: but cursed is the wood which is made by the hands of men. The former he referred to the cross of the Lord, the latter to the error of the Gentiles, who worship wood. But what is the justice that belongs to the cross, except that the Lord Jesus Christ, ascending that gibbet, crucified the handwriting of our sins, and cleansed the sin of the whole world with his own blood? In what, then, is God just, except in this: that he knew that he had fashioned man from the slime of the earth, which earth indeed is subject to corruption, and to the vice of slippery passion?

Therefore the Lord, who according to the soul made you in his image and likeness, that is, rational, just, chaste (for in this you are in the image of God, if you are just, that you may be the image of justice: if you are chaste, that the figure of the immaculate may shine forth in you)—knowing, then, that man according to the fragility of the body lies open to corruption, as one just he granted pardon to the offenses of fragile and slippery nature.

And lest perhaps someone say: Why then did Adam lie under a curse and a sentence?

Is God then unjust? By no means. But because he had beforehand prescribed what a fragile and weak being should beware of (for the weak ought not to usurp, but to obey commands), therefore he held him guilty rather of transgression than condemned him for a mere lapse. Against him, therefore, the just sentence of severity proceeded; because he wished to know what it did not profit him to know. But to us, who are bound by hereditary chain, who are in this flesh, which, worn away and already habituated to sins by the prejudgment of our forebears, could not emerge—he granted indulgence as one just; for justly he pardoned the heir, who labored under the prejudgment of his author.

There is, then, a just mercy, but there is also an unjust mercy (23, q.

4, chap. There is unjust). Indeed, it is written in the Law concerning a certain one: You shall not pity him. And in the books of Kings we read that Saul incurred offense on this account, that he pitied Agag, king of the enemies, whom the divine sentence had forbidden to be spared. As if someone, moved by the pleas of a robber's children, and bent by the tears of his wife, should think he ought to be absolved, though the desire of robbery still breathes in him: would he not deliver the innocent to destruction, who frees one who plans the destruction of many? Certainly if he restrains the sword, looses the chains, relaxes the exile—why does he not, by whatever gentler way he can, remove the capacity for robbery, when he could not wrest away the will?

Then, between two

that is, the accuser and the accused, contending with equal peril concerning a capital matter—if the one has not proved his case, if the other has been convicted by the accuser—the judge should not follow what belongs to justice, but while he pities the accused, condemn the one proving; or while he favors the accuser who cannot prove his case, he condemns the innocent. This, therefore, cannot be called just mercy.

In the Church itself, where mercy ought most of all to be shown, the form of justice ought to be held to most of all; lest anyone, kept from the fellowship of communion, should by a brief tear, prepared for the occasion, or even by more abundant weeping, extort through the priest's easiness a communion that he ought to seek for a great many periods of time. Does he not, when he indulges one unworthy person, cause very many to be provoked to the contagion of a like fall? For the easiness of pardon gives an incentive to sin. This has been said so that we may know that mercy is to be dispensed to debtors according to the word of God, according to reason.

If a physician himself, finding within a hidden scar of a serpent's wound, though he ought to cut away the fault of the ulcer lest it creep more widely, yet, bent by the tears of the sick man from his purpose of cutting and cauterizing, covers with medicines what needed to be opened by the knife—is not this a useless mercy, if, for the sake of a brief pain of incision or cauterization, the whole body should waste away, and the use of life should perish? Rightly, then, the priest too, like a good physician, ought to cut away a grave wound from the whole body of the Church, lest it creep more widely, and to expose the poison of the crime that lay hidden, not to foster it; lest, while he thinks one man ought not to be excluded, he make many worthy to be excluded from the Church.

Rightly, then, the Apostle exhorts us by the divine example, saying: Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: toward those indeed who have fallen, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in goodness: showing that the people of the Jews was rightly separated from the body of the Church, lest the poison of unfaithfulness should contaminate the Church: while the people of the Gentiles, received by the goodness of the Lord, might glory in the gift of obedience. Rightly, then, does the divine goodness favor this people, so long as it continues in the divine goodness. But if it too should fall away, it will be condemned according to the quality of its crime.

By this grace the Lord is described as both light and fire: as light, to him who walks in darkness, lest he be able to wander longer who seeks the brightness of light; but to him who has done many things which ought not to remain, but to be burned, the Lord is fire; that he may consume the hay and stubble of our work, and make us safe by a beneficial loss, just as gold, which while it is being refined, is the more proved.

Perhaps someone may say: For what reason did the Prophet write: Have mercy on me according to your word?

For the word of God is justice. If, then, he relied on justice, why did he set mercy before it; or if he sought mercy, why did he think it should be requested according to the measure of justice? For he who does well and lives well has no need of mercy; because mercy frees from sin. Indeed, mercy is not usually conferred by us upon the rich, nor upon the strong and those propped up by good fortune; but upon the needy, or the weak, or those who from riches have fallen into poverty, or captivity, or some necessity. Therefore he who needs mercy is a sinner; but he who is not a sinner is surely just, and does not need the mercy of God.

According to what, then, that is, according to what state, each one needs mercy, or has justice, must be considered.

For an angel needs the justice of God in one way, man in another. An archangel needs mercy in one way, man in another. For the nature of angels is surely not subject to corruption as is the nature of the human race; and therefore he needs the mercy of God, lest he be able to err, and, the grace of God being turned away from him, fall into vice: man, however, though he be now of firmer resolve, yet on account of the sequence of sins contracted, seeks the mercy of God. And so, although each needs the mercy of God, mercy is owed to the angel in one way, to man in another; for a light fault in an angel is judged by a heavier judgment. The sin of adolescence too in a man is bound by a milder sentence than the sin of old age, and is more quickly released.

The Prophet, then, in this

divides the causes, so that he may both request mercy as a man

because no one is without the stain of sin: and demand justice as a prophet: or certainly, since although he has sinned as a man, and as a sinner needs mercy; yet he has corrected his error, has done penance, has abstained from the drunkenness of transgression, by the sobriety of virtue. He asks, then, for justice according to the word of God, because it is the judgment of the word of God, that pardon be granted to those who are converted; if, however, the conversion has been rightly made. I have thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto your testimonies.

There is a twofold sense: either

because I have thought upon my former ways, full of falling and of sin, and therefore, that I might merit the remission of sins, by conversion of morals and zeal for virtues, I have turned my feet unto your testimonies, that I might now walk not by my own steps, by which I had fallen before, but by the paths of your testimonies, so that the paths of your commandments would not allow me to wander, nor would I turn aside my footstep into byways and crooked paths. For frequently those who do not know the way, if they follow the highways of the roads, arrive where they wish to arrive, and are free from the winding of error.

But if they presume to know what they do not know, and think that certain shortcuts are to be followed, departing from the course of the public route, they frequently fall into the labyrinths of error; so that they repent of having turned aside from the road: and therefore, after many losses of labor, they strive to return to the road which they had left.

This then is one sense; but another is thus: I have thought upon my ways, not the ones already past, but the ones to come; that I might forestall my actions with thoughts, lest, proceeding by unadvised action, I should stumble upon some offence in the very thoughts themselves: so that if I wish to do something, I should first think whether that which I desire is to be done, or in what manner it is to be done: likewise if I am to speak to someone, whether I ought to speak; then whether publicly or in secret, with some present or with none; just as it is written, that if you wish to rebuke a brother, you should first rebuke him alone, secondly in the presence of two or three witnesses, thirdly, if he will not hear, before the Church. Therefore if, the order being disregarded, you wish to rebuke a brother before the Church, whom you ought to have admonished beforehand, you yourself know that you have erred.

Do everything, therefore, with forethought, so that you may not repent of your work.

Or rather, if having entered upon a road, when you come to some crossroads (for so is called a kind of confluence of many roads), if you do not know which way you ought to take, do you not stand and consider within yourself whether you should choose the first, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or even the fifth way, if such there be, to follow; nor do you think that the journey should be begun before you have made up your mind, and decided with a fuller intention of the mind? You stand, then, thinking which is the way that leads into the city to which you suppose you must go. How much more, therefore, ought you to stand still in mind and thought, you who are striving toward the heavenly kingdom, and consider within yourself, that not every way leads thither, not every way is directed thither to that Jerusalem which is in heaven!

There are ways that have evil endings, which the temptations of the devil have worn smooth; and therefore their endings are the endings of death.

These indeed are the ways of which you have read in Proverbs: For there are ways which seem right to a man, but their ends look down into the depth of hell. But narrower is that way which leads to the kingdom of God. Wishing, then, to enter upon that way which leads to God, will you not look about you, will you not consider within yourself, will you not weigh the matter; lest you be easily caught by inclination, if, enticed by the breadth of the road, you enter upon a path that leads down to the infernal regions? Think, therefore, beforehand, and weigh well what you are doing.

Whosoever, it says, looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Here surely he thought in order to look at the woman, to look with lust; but let this evil thought abandon its ways. Another did not think it out at all, but suddenly looked, and was captured, and saw, and lusted, and therefore fell. But if he had considered the frailty of his own inclination, and had feared beforehand lest, having seen the woman, he should be seized in mind and spirit; he certainly would not have looked upon the woman, lest he should lust after her. Seeing the woman, then, he did not direct his foot into the testimonies of the Lord, whereas, if he had been able to think before his fall, perhaps he would have directed it. Let each one, therefore, first consider how he shall look at a woman; that he may not look at her with lust, nor fix his attention upon her.

But if, seeing her suddenly, or grounded in a good thought, he directs his foot to the testimonies of the Lord, lest he remain in captivity: certainly the thought profited him. Finally, let one who loves, cherishes, and lusts after a woman consider Christ, His judgment, His testimonies concerning the rewards of chastity, and let him abandon the ways of lust, and follow the ways of Christ: he will have praise in them, if, contemplating the Lord Jesus, he despises the burning of the flesh, and quenches the flame of lust as if from some fountain, and dashes his tender and weak desires against the rock of Christ.

Let him then think first, to repeat the same things, how he shall look, how he shall speak.

Well thought he who said: Set, O Lord, a watch upon my mouth; lest, while the mind is inflaming its ardor, the tongue slip in speech, or by careless much-speaking incur, through readiness of talk, even what the mind had not thought: let him consider how he shall direct his foot, how he shall bring his hand; lest, driven by the impulse of indignation, when he ought to repel an injury, he himself deal another a notable blow of striking. We must therefore think about what we do; for where forethought precedes, maturity is applied to the action. And so this foot is the footprint of faith, which by weighed meditation has turned aside from bodily motions to the divine testimonies. What profit it is to think beforehand what you are afterward going to do, the following

teaches: I was ready, and was not troubled, that I might keep thy commandments.

Where one forestalls by thought what he is about to do, he is always ready to act, always fixed and firm; so that he cannot be troubled by any sudden offense of chance events. No blasts of over-craggy ambition shake him, no storm or tempest of unjust invasion disturbs him, no eye of a wanton harlot ensnares him; for the eye of a harlot is a snare for the lover. Wretched is he who is captured in another's possession, who, overtaken unaware by fire, has lost possession of his own mind. If persecution presses in, it finds him already prepared; so that where there might be disturbance of uncertain safety, there the hoped-for crown of the sacred contest, by provident meditation on the future, soothes him. If he is frequently gnawed at by slanderous detractors, let him consider that the disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. If unspeakable reproaches of revilers fell even upon the Son of God, how can a servant hope to be exempt from them?

Therefore he ought to prepare his mind; so that when these things happen, they cannot disturb him. Let him prepare his soul and compose it by meditation, that he may be able to say, if indeed he can: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or famine? But why he is not separated, he adds: But in all these things we overcome, he says, and conquer through him that loved us. And rightly strengthened he says: For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels; nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

The Apostle has said many things against which we have a struggle: but some are easy, or at least not of this time or place; that we should have to discuss all the things that could separate us from the love of God, unless we resist more diligently. That which now seems more obscure we do not pass over, because he says: Neither height nor depth: these are grave temptations. Finally, you have it written in Isaiah, to King Achaz: Ask thee a sign of the Lord, from the depth, or from the height above. He answered: I will not ask, nor will I tempt the Lord. A mystical thing was proposed to him, but he did not understand it: and he feared lest he should seem to tempt the Lord, if he should ask a sign in the height, or in the depth. But the Lord, wishing to overthrow grave temptations by a divine remedy, said: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb. This is the great sign, which destroyed the temptations of height and of depth.

For the Lord Jesus thought it not robbery to be equal to God; neither did he seek the things that were his own, but took the form of a servant, and humbled himself unto death. And so he was neither lifted up by power, nor troubled by any dejection at death. This sign, then, is set before the king; that he might ask for himself a remedy, by which he would neither be lifted up by the pride of royal power, nor be disturbed by the acceptance of any calamity; as he was troubled in heart, when he saw war being brought against him by the Assyrians. By the example of this divine oracle, then, we wish to show how grave these temptations were, to which Christ alone was able to bring a remedy.

Yet it is easy to teach, even by prophetic speech, a certain burden of these temptations.

For holy Solomon declared these two greatest temptations in his own prayer, and asked that he might exclude them, saying: Give me neither riches nor poverty: but grant me only what is needful and sufficient; lest, being filled, I become a liar, and say, Who sees me? Or being poor, I steal, and forswear the name of God. Can you then despise these temptations which Solomon feared, who asked for wisdom and deserved it? He was rich, he feared to be lifted up; he dreaded becoming poor, lest through the necessity of poverty he should not hold on to the grace of abstinence. How many who seemed to be holy have fallen from the height of their own heart? How many, cast down by some necessity, could not be content to bear injury, though they had been strengthened by the exercise of virtues?

Rarely is a Job found on earth, who both lost his riches and his sons, and, furrowed with weals upon his body, when worms flowed over his whole flesh, could not nevertheless be separated from the love of Christ. Let us, therefore, prepare our inclination; lest a sudden violence trouble us unprepared. Finally, the Lord, knowing that we are wont to break easily, says even to the apostles: Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. If desire and craving tempt you, read the Gospel, let Jesus Christ say to you: Let not your heart be troubled. If some terror presses in, let Christ say to you: Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. If a persecutor inflicts some punishments, read the Gospel, let Jesus say to you: Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Read the Apostle saying: For the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed.

If a heavy wave rises against you sailing on the sea, if a black tempest rages, let Jesus say to you: It, be not afraid.

Coming, then, into some great and grave contest, say first: I was ready, and was not troubled, that I might keep thy commandments.

And what shall I say of worldly matters?

Be ready not only against those things which you see, but also against those which you do not see. Without, it says, were fightings, within were fears. Within you yourself is your war: it is good that your soul be in tranquility, and in a certain serenity: but that pilot is better who steers his ship in a tempest. Rule yourself, then, when your soul is disturbed, when your mind wavers. Would I praise the virtue of a pilot who has felt no storms, and has directed the course of his vessel, tossed by no tempest? But I would praise him more, who strives against the winds, who rises against the waves, who fears neither when his vessel is lifted up by the waves, nor when it is set down to the depths of the deep. So too that man is to be praised as master of himself, who overcomes adversities by patience, conquers them by virtue, is not lifted up by prosperity, is not broken by adversity.

You have a war also against spiritual wickedness.

Do you notice against how great a foe your battle is? And therefore meditate, and resolve in your soul; so that, going forth to battles, you may say: I was ready, and was not troubled, that I might keep thy commandments. There follows the fifth

The cords of sinners have wrapped themselves round me, and I have not forgotten thy law

that is, sinners have encircled me with cords; that they might entangle my footsteps, so that I might not be able, by the speed of foreseeing, to escape their courses. These, then, are not the cords of which it is written: The cords have fallen unto me in goodly places; for those are the cords used by those who measure the boundaries of fields and mark out the limits, and determine the extent of possessions. Those cords, then, are stretched out as far as the possession of each is spread. So Israel became the cord of his inheritance. Those cords, then, are good.

But these are the cords by which sins are drawn, as by a long rope, and as by the strap of the yoke of a heifer of iniquity. For an untamed heifer more throws itself about and shakes itself, when held, nor does it submit to command, nor is it bound by a chain; but the more it is drawn back by the strap, the more it grows fierce. And so, neither does it submit under compulsion, nor yet is it free of its bonds. Just as, then, the heifer drags the strap of the yoke, which, though not held close by, is nevertheless held, nor does it loosen and free itself: so does every sinner, with untamed morals, drag along his iniquities, thinking himself free; because he is not subjected to the yoke, nor subject to judgment: and he does not know that he is not freed, but rather, like that heifer, he himself entangles himself in the bonds of his own sins.

These, then, are the cords of our transgressions, by which we are wrapped and bound, just as there are also chains of transgressions.

And therefore the Savior, who has power to forgive sin, says to those who are in chains: Go forth. Would that he might also say to me: Go forth from your chains: go forth from the bonds of your sins: loosen the cords of your error, by which you are surrounded and bound. For even if I be the most wicked of all, and the most detestable of sinners; yet at his bidding I shall be free, he who in one moment snatched a thief condemned to punishment from his sentence, and placed him in his kingdom.

There are, therefore, bonds by which we are bound, even if we seem to ourselves to be free.

Blessed is he who looses these bonds for himself. And so David says: Let us break their bonds, and cast away their yoke from us. He does not, of course, mean that visible bonds are to be broken with the hand, but that the invisible chains of sins are to be loosed by change of morals and profession of faith: or by hand, that is, by the work of your hand. Give to the poor, raise up the weak, redeem captives; and you have loosed your bonds. For almsgiving frees from sin. Deliver him who is being led to death, that is, deliver him by intercession, deliver by grace, you the priest: or you the emperor, deliver by the signing of a pardon; and you have loosed your sins, you have stripped yourself of the bonds.

For each one is bound by the bonds of his own sins, as you yourself have read: the enticement of the flesh binds us with bonds. Our bond is avarice, our bond is drunkenness, our bond is concupiscence, our bond is pride. There are also bonds of the devil. Indeed it is written: this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years. The devil also binds us by the chain of sins: he binds us with the bond of fornication, with the bond of adultery, with the bond of perfidy by which Christ is denied, with the bond of envy by which even a brother is often assailed, with the bond of cruelty by which sometimes a companion and kinsman is slain. These are the bonds by which each one, once bound, is bowed down; so that he cannot lift up his soul, nor raise the gaze of his mind to heaven, unless the Lord says to him: You are loosed from your infirmity; and raises him up by the gift of his blessing.

These are the bonds of the wicked which harshly bind sinners

that is, the devil and his ministers: or indeed Nimrod, that is, bitterness: or indeed Esau, that is, the earthly and crafty one. For these were hunters, who were accustomed to catch wild beasts in snares, and to bind dumb animals with bonds. Useless hunters, who capture beasts to furnish a spectacle for popular display, a service of cruelty. Indeed we find no just man among hunters in the whole course of the divine Scriptures.

But there are other bonds, as I have said, of the Lord Jesus, whom they follow, it is said (Hosea XI, 4), bound with bonds

that is, bound fast with the bonds of charity and love, bound with the bonds of faith. Though it can also be understood thus: bound with bonds they follow Christ, that is, the remitter of sins and crimes, the fount of pardons, the author of redemption. Let us therefore follow the bonds of Christ, let us flee the bonds of the hunters; lest, while we walk, while we are unaware, our mind's foot run into their snares, and we insert our soul's neck into their toils.

For they lie in wait like the worst of hunters: and when, through the outcome of prosperity, we relax our mind, and grow slack in favorable circumstances, and do not keep watchful guard of caution, then they cast their snares all the more, or hide them in the road by which we walk; so that when our footsteps have become entangled in their snares, they may drag off the unwary traveler to trip him, or strangle passersby by binding fast their necks.

Do not, then, walk with head held high, like the daughters of Judah; for a snare is quickly knotted round high necks.

Do not fix your mind and heart upon worldly things: but look about carefully with the eyes of the soul, because the Lord rains snares upon sinners; lest, falling, they be able to entangle you: which you will be able to avoid, if you do not forget the law of the Lord. For even one who is bound, if he is conscious of his own freedom, does not cease to remember his freedom, and sometimes pleads his case even from his chains, and defends it by the prescript of the laws, and is often acquitted by judgment. So you too, if you have sinned, remember the law. If you have sinned, remember Christ, who frees you, saying: I am, I am he who blots out iniquities, and I will remember them no more. Hold to him day and night, confess your sins to him. The Prophet teaches you how you should hold to the Lord Jesus.

At midnight, he says, I rose to confess to you, upon the judgments of your justice.

The day is not enough for prayer; one must rise even at night, and at midnight. The Lord himself spent whole nights in prayer; that he might invite you to prayer by his own example: and indeed he was asking pardon for your sins: he asked it of the Father, he worked it by his own will. The Prophet does not tell you to rise only at midnight: but that you should rise at night, and especially at midnight. For he had said before that one must rise at night, saying: I was mindful of your name, Lord, in the night (above, verse 55). Anyone can be mindful and not rise; anyone can also rise, and when he has risen, ask for those things which have settled by his own choice. He added: At midnight I rose, teaching that one must rise at midnight.

Nor is it idle that he added: To confess to you

that is, that at that time above all we ought to pray to God, and weep for our own sins: and not only ask pardon for the past, but also turn aside from what is present, and take care for what is to come; for many temptations creep in at that time.

Then the enticement of the flesh burns hot: then the tempter mocks: food is cooked, and drink is digested: the stomach is ailing, the mind drowsy, the soul preoccupied. And so, either the heat of sleep is increased for one resting, or, for one waking, a fuller vigor has not yet been restored, which could guard against the assaults of error. Then, therefore, the tempter stands by, then he casts his nets, with which he can disturb the unwary mind. Then the spirits of wickedness pour forth darkness: then they strive to persuade every wickedness, when there can be no judge of guilt, no accomplice of crime, no witness of error. Then they pour various disputations into the sleeping sinner; so that first they cast down his resisting state of mind, and the example of certain persons held to be holy is set forth, that they too once transgressed, but afterward obtained pardon, and covered over their former offenses.

For although our enemy hates all amendment, yet for a time, so that he may cast down a man of sober mind, he holds out future pardon; so that he may persuade to present sins: and when he has driven someone to assent to error, if he sees that the man is now called back from guilt not by love of virtue but by contemplation of punishment, he inserts various disputations, so that the man says to himself: Who sees me? And darkness surrounds me, and walls; whom do I fear? The Most High does not see, our sins do not reach him, he does not deign to look upon what is shameful. These things indeed we know by use and by experience; for no one can be free of temptation.

And so, just as this time is suited to temptations: so also it is a time of punishment, which we can learn from the divine reading. For it was not without purpose that the Lord our God, though he could have destroyed the firstborn of the Egyptians at any moment, judged this time more fitting for the sorrow and mourning of the sinner. For thus it is written, that at midnight the firstborn free children of the Egyptians were slain by the destroyer. And therefore the holy prophet Moses, in order to forestall this time, and pass through without deceit for the Hebrews, sacrificed the lamb beforehand, that is, in the evening; so that, eating it and celebrating the Passover of the Lord, they might not be caught unawares by the ambushes of the destroyer; lest, unarmed and empty of spiritual food, the nocturnal darts of the dark enemy should overwhelm them.

Attend to these things carefully, understand them prudently, seek them out diligently.

These things are not said in a perfunctory manner, but divine mysteries are being declared to you. You too must forestall the ambushes of the tempter, and first prepare the heavenly banquet. A fast has been proclaimed; take care not to neglect it. And if hunger compels you to your daily meal, or intemperance turns you aside from the fast; still, keep yourself rather for the heavenly banquet. Do not let ready-prepared feasts wrest you away, so that you go empty of the heavenly sacrament. Delay a little; the end of the day is not far off: indeed there are many such days that one must come to the Church at once at the midday hours, for the hymns to be sung, the offering to be celebrated. Then indeed be present prepared, that you may receive protection for yourself; that you may eat the body of the Lord Jesus, in which is the remission of sins, the plea for divine reconciliation, and eternal protection.

Receive the Lord Jesus beforehand in the lodging of your mind: where his body is, there Christ is.

When the adversary sees your lodging occupied by the brightness of the heavenly presence, understanding that the place is closed off to his temptations by Christ, he will flee and withdraw: and you will pass through the midnight hour without any harm. The evening sacrifice also admonishes you never to forget Christ. You cannot forget him, when you go up to your bed, that Lord, to whom you have poured out prayer at the setting of the day, who has satisfied your hunger with the feast of his own body.

For what you have thought about in the evening, you will quickly recall when you wake. The Lord Jesus himself will rouse you: he will admonish you to rise, and at that time to take up the arms of prayer, at which the tempter is wont to make his assault.

Hence it is not without purpose that the apostle Paul and Silas, thrust into prison, though their feet were in the stocks, rose nonetheless at midnight in the footstep of the mind, prayed to the Lord, and offered the sacrifice of praise. And so, where the duty of devotion was not lacking, the remedy of release was also present. For suddenly at midnight there came a great earthquake; so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, the doors opened, the bonds of all were loosed. Do you hear how, if you have been bound, by what hands, by what works you may loose yourself, how you may not need to fear the guards? Rise, then, to pray. That is the hour at which the tempter is accustomed to do harm, and wickedness is accustomed to rush in. That is the hour at which a heavenly remedy against grave temptations is accustomed to come.

You must keep watch, lest you be conquered by some deceit; you must take care that at the time when you can conquer, you by no means let the time of conquering slip away.

And since we have said that prayer must be undertaken at midnight, it seems no less fitting to speak also of such an hour of the day; for night is contrary to day. For what has light in common with darkness? And so night and day are, each in its own way, opposed to itself. For just as at midnight the tempter slew the firstborn of the Egyptians, and from this it is known that the adversary works especially at that hour; so, on the contrary, it is at midday that the power of the divine light works. Whence Abraham too, about midday, kept sober watch, and awaited some good outcome, lifting up his eyes, and scanning the neighboring region, because at that time he sought for himself the coming of grace. At that time, then, the divine guest came to him with two holy angels: at that time he received Christ as guest: at that time those mysteries were celebrated which you read and understand.

For when should a faithful man have been more illumined by the divine presence, than when the light of day shone more fully? And rightly too holy Joseph, having received his brothers, and having summoned his younger brother whom he loved most, prepares a banquet at midday. For it was midday in the breast of holy Joseph, when he served joyful feasts to his brothers out of the splendor of his grace, and divided the sweetest foods with kindly words; so that, though they feared punishment for the brother they had assailed and sold into slavery, he might tell them that it had been provided by divine judgment that he should be led into Egypt, so as not to deny food to those suffering famine.

We have, then, a midday within us.

Midday belongs to him for whom the sun of justice shines, and by whose good work, or innocent thoughts, and pure and sincere mind, Christ is fed. Learn, then, how you may make midday for yourself. Reveal, he says, your way to the Lord, and hope in him: and he will act, and will bring forth your justice as the light, and your judgment as the noonday. For where there is true faith, there is the grace of the true light: where there is a longer guard of innocence, and progress by long meditation on the virtues, where there is the splendor of a good conscience abiding long, there is midday in the understanding sense: there too you will offer Christ the feast of your mind, and in his riches you yourself will be fed; so that no premature and swift setting of the true light may follow, nor may some dark evening quickly overtake your pursuits and, interposing, hinder good works.

But if the night of temptations should come, not without reason must one rise at midnight, and pray at length, and prolong the hours with psalms, until day comes, and Christ dawns upon you.

See therefore that midnight does not come upon you even by day, whereby the dark and squalid prince of this world may pour upon you the fullness of temptation. Arise, then, and rouse your mind: he who keeps you will not slumber, if he does not find you sleeping; but he will rise, if he too has been awakened by the vigils of your soul, and he will command the wind, and there will be a calm in your breast, which had been tossed by the whirlwind of diverse storms. We must arise, then. The Bridegroom is wont to come at midnight: beware lest he find you sleeping, beware lest, drowsy, you be unable to light your lamp. We must rise, I say, and confess to the Lord, that you may give thanks.

His eternal judgments must also be confessed, so that whatever good befalls us we attribute to his justice; and whether we are rich, or enjoy sound health, let us ascribe this to the justice of the Lord; because he is just, that he may guard and preserve his own work, that those whom, naked, by a certain undowered lot of nature, he cast into this bodily weakness, he may deign to clothe in poverty with the vigor of the mind and the dowry of his mercy. This is clearly to be done at every time, so that neither by day nor by night, nor at any time, ought we to be free from the giving of thanks. There follows the seventh

I am a partaker with all them that fear thee, and that keep thy commandments.

Christ too has partakers and companions of himself. David proves this, saying: God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

He has partakers of flesh, because he took on flesh; he has partakers of prophecy, because, "The Lord your God will raise up unto you a Prophet from among your brethren, like unto me: him shall you hear in all things whatsoever he shall speak to you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people". He himself is the true prophet, who knows the future without another's gift; who spoke through the prophets the things that were to come. Is he not a prophet, who makes others prophesy? He is the one who is heard as the Law, because the Law also is his own. Hence: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rose again from the dead". And therefore the people of the Jews, because they did not hear this prophet, were cut off from the people; that they might cease to be the people of God, who before were called the people of God.

He has partakers of baptism, because he was baptized for us; he has partakers of justice, because he himself is justice, and has given us of his own to have a share in himself; he has partakers of truth, because he himself is truth, and he willed us to hold the truth; he has partakers of resurrection, because he himself is the resurrection; he has partakers of the unspotted life, because he himself is unspotted. And whoever has walked in newness of life, whoever has kept the path of justice, is a partaker of Christ. He has also partakers of his own tribulation; and therefore he who desired to be a partaker of him, said: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the Church". We are partakers also of his burial; for whoever has been buried together with him through baptism into death, is a partaker of him.

And so the Apostle himself, showing what grace the Lord Jesus has given us, says: "For we are made partakers of Christ".

But he too is a partaker of Christ, who comforts one who mourns with a sorrowing affection; who does not fail one placed in prison, by his own service; who stands by the bed of the sick, not that he may stretch out a snare to catch an inheritance, but that he may soften the force of the disease by anxious ministering, that he may soothe the weary one diligently with speech; who clothes the naked, refreshes the hungry. For in these Christ is frequently present, as he himself says: "I was in prison, and you came not to me; I was naked, and you covered me not; for what you did not do to one of these, you did not do to me". If I hate a lie, I am a partaker of Christ, because Christ is truth; if I flee iniquity, I am a partaker of Christ, because Christ is justice. Blessed is he who can say this.

For just as we say a member is a partaker of the whole body, so, joined to all who fear God, one who does not say to another, "You are not of my body," that is, the rich man does not say this to the poor, the noble to the lowly, the healthy to the sick, the strong to the weak, the wise to the ignorant—"you are not necessary to me"—he is a partaker of the body of Christ, which is the Church.

But one who knows that those who seem in the Church to be weak, poor, imprudent, even sinners, need a more abundant honor, and must be sustained by greater support—he who knows this, he can say: "I am a partaker with all who fear you." Let him have compassion rather than disdain for such men; let him have compassion on the weak, that he may know that we are all one body, and members joined to members, so that one cannot be without the other; and when one suffers, let him have compassion with the other. This man, then, can rightly claim the authority of this word.

See now with what modesty the Prophet has spoken: I am a partaker of them that fear you.

He did not say "of those who imitate," but "of those who fear"; for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. He set himself, out of humility, among the untried, though in devotion he surpassed the veterans. Yet even to fear is a matter of virtue; for it is written: Fear the Lord, all his saints.

But lest this fear seem to some not holy (for there are those who fear with a base dread, and tremble with a dull fright), he added: And of them that keep your commandments; that he might show himself a companion of holy fear. Or thus: One can indeed fear with a devoted heart, yet be slothful in deed; so as to be religious in affection, idle in action. But he who keeps the commandments of the Lord cannot be slothful. He therefore who fears, keeps. Therefore it belongs to him who fears, to keep. The saint therefore says this: but I cannot claim this for myself; for how many are there who fear God, and I do not have compassion on them? They seek help, and I am unwilling to bring it; they lack mercy, I do not help with expense. Whoever, however, does these things, he can say that he is a companion of those who fear Christ. Your mercy, O Lord, fills the earth: teach me your justifications.

How is the earth full of the mercy of the Lord, except through the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Prophet, foreseeing it as future, celebrates as though already promised? For to the prophets, who foresee things that are to come, it is customary that they be remembered as though already passed, though they belong to a later age. The earth, then, is full of the mercy of the Lord, because remission of sins has been given to all. The sun is bidden to rise upon all. And indeed this sun rises daily upon all. But that mystical Sun of justice has risen for all, has come for all, has suffered for all, and has risen again for all: and he suffered for this reason, that he might take away the sin of the world.

But if anyone does not believe in Christ, he defrauds himself of a general benefit: just as if someone, with the windows shut, excludes the rays of the sun, the sun has not therefore failed to rise for all, because he has defrauded himself of its warmth; but what belongs to the sun keeps its own prerogative; what belongs to the imprudent man excludes from himself the common grace of the light. Rain is upon all, and this too is attributed to divine mercy; for he rains upon the just and the unjust. Or certainly it is to be interpreted thus, that the earth is full of divine mercy; because the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; he has founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the rivers. For indeed through the Church the mercy of the Lord has been spread abroad into all nations, and faith has been spread abroad into all nations.

Perhaps you will say: For what reason is it not said, "The heaven is full of the mercy of the Lord"?

Because there are also spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places: but these do not belong to the common right of God's indulgence and remission of sins, for whom eternal fire is kept in store; and those which belong to the heavenly powers or ministries, although they are supported by the help of the Lord, yet do not need so great a mercy as those which are lower and earthly; for they are not clothed with the covering of flesh, in which is the enticement of frequent error. And so the same Prophet says above, that "The heaven of heaven is the Lord's, but the earth he has given to the children of men". Whence also the heaven is purer and more refined from every stain of sin, and much more removed from that of which it is written: "As the birds of the air".

For this heaven is called, as it were, a middle airy place between heaven and earth, in which are also spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places. For in that true heaven, not so called by mere name, even though we read that the devil was not absent from the council of the angels in the sight of God, yet I think that no workings of wicked temptation operate there. For it is written that "the angels loved the daughters of men"; because, taken captive by earthly enticements, the prince of this world and his ministers are held fast, in whom the spiritual wickedness, imbued with certain poisons of this flesh, has been infected also with human crimes. And so the Lord in his Gospel says: "Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth".

There is not the same iniquity there, to drive off a neighbor's field from a boundary with a bordering estate, to defraud a widow of the profits of an inheritance, to thrust lesser men from their right of partnership, or, finally, to enclose within wood, and whatever metal of silver and gold or bronze, as it were a certain heavenly power in effigy. These things, though full of the greatest sacrilege, are absent in the heavens, but frequent on the earth. For by the word of the Lord the heavens were established; not the earth was established.

And therefore he wishes to be taught the justifications of God by the Lord himself; because it is difficult to find on earth a teacher of this kind, who might teach the things he himself has not seen. To that teacher, therefore, the Prophet presses with inmost affection; who alone is the true Master. For how can man teach as true what he does not know, since he himself is a liar? And rightly the Lord says that no one on earth should call anyone his master; for one is the master of all. And how could David seek another teacher, since he himself said of God: "Who teaches man knowledge"? For God teaches, and illuminates the minds of each one, and pours in the brightness of knowledge, if you open the doors of your heart, and receive the brightness of heavenly grace. When you doubt, inquire diligently; for he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it is opened.

There is much obscurity in the prophetic Scriptures: but if with a certain hand of your mind you knock at the door of the Scriptures, and diligently examine the things that are hidden, you will gradually begin to gather the reason of the sayings; and it will be opened to you, not by another, but by the Word of God, of whom you have read in the Apocalypse, that the Lamb opened the sealed book, which no one before could open; because only the Lord Jesus in his Gospel revealed the enigmas of the prophets, and the mysteries of the Law: he alone brought the key of knowledge, and gave it to us to open.

The Jews say they have the key of knowledge, but they do not have it; for if they had it, they themselves would enter, they themselves would recognize the inner chambers of the Scriptures. But now: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, who have taken away the key of knowledge, and you yourselves have not entered in, and those entering in you have hindered". For how can you have the key of knowledge, who have denied the author of knowledge? And so David, turning to him, says: You, he says, teach me your justifications; because you are true justice. Teach what has been wisely spoken; because you are wisdom. Open my heart; because you have opened the book. Open that door which is in heaven; because you yourself are the gate. Through you, if anyone enters, he will possess that eternal kingdom. Through you, if anyone enters, he will not be deceived; because whoever has entered the dwelling of truth cannot be led astray.

The ninth letter Theth, whose interpretation is, exclusion.

What is exclusion? Is it as when someone is excluded from a house, and cast out from lodging: so that he who is excluded from the kingdom of God is defrauded of its goods; just as those virgins were excluded, who did not bring oil with them; and when the Bridegroom came, their lamps were extinguished, and while occupied in buying oil and lighting their lamps they made delay, and when the Bridegroom had already entered, they are read to have been excluded though desiring to enter? I do not think so. For how would the holy Prophet say, if he had been cast down from good things, and excluded from the kingdom of God: Thou hast wrought joyfulness with thy servant? Neither does the merit of the Prophet seem to admit an understanding of this kind, nor the sequence of what follows. You hear him saying: Sweet art thou, O Lord, and in thy joyfulness teach me thy justifications (below, v. 68).

You hear him saying: The law of thy mouth is good to me above thousands of gold and silver.

And can you say that he is excluded from the kingdom, who is not excluded from the Law? What then shall we understand? The interpretation sticks fast, and the word seems to strike against the obscurity of its own sense.

The merits of the Prophet call, his grace calls, the sequence of the subjoined

calls, so that we ought to draw out something of a higher understanding; and it occurs at the right time that we are sometimes excluded in a good sense.

For it is written: Perfect charity casteth out fear. And in general indeed charity excludes fear. As a soldier who loves his emperor does not fear wars undertaken for the emperor: as a servant loving his master, although sent through byways and precipices, nevertheless despises all dangers for love of his master; and if anyone should seek his master, he does not tremble to offer himself: as one who desires to see children placed across the sea does not fear shipwrecks, but enters the waves of the sea by love of his children, and undergoes the uncertainties of a voyage: but the desires for his children lighten the fear of danger.

How beautifully also is it said of the martyrs, who truly fight for Christ, who, not fearing persecutions, claws, swords, fires, offered themselves to hostile kings.

For the fear which they could have had of punishments, they excluded by love of martyrdom.

Moreover, we can prove that this is the sense of this interpretation also from the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

For there too, under this letter, it is written: The Lord is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good to wait, and to hope for the salvation of God. It is good for a man when he hath borne the heavy yoke from his youth: he shall sit alone, and shall be silent; because he hath taken up the heavy yoke. What indeed do these words establish, if not that this interpretation seems to be of a good exclusion? For who waits for the Lord, except by the zeal of charity? Who is it that hopes, except one who desires and loves what he hopes for? For what we hope for, we await through patience. Therefore he who hopes, waits: he who waits certainly excludes the disposition of impatience. Who is it that bears the heavy yoke from his youth, except one who renounces delights, flees luxury?

Who is it that sits alone, except one who, having renounced worldly pleasures, excludes the tumults of all troubles?

This man therefore will be able to fear nothing, because the grace of charity has swallowed up the force of fear.

There is also another who is excluded in a good sense, as that man who was removed from the midst of the people by apostolic authority

because he had done an evil deed, he was delivered unto the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved. From which we understand that he is excluded in a good sense, who is ordered to do penance; that he may be humbled, and be pricked in heart. For these are wont to be the aids of reconciliation.

Finally, the words written under this letter in Jeremiah also seem to signify this.

For thus we read of that earthly Jerusalem: Her filthiness is before her feet. She was not mindful of her last end, and she is fallen exceedingly: there is none to comfort her. Behold, O Lord, her humiliation; because the enemy is magnified. And because Jerusalem was thus humbled, afterward it is fittingly said to her: Thy iniquity is at an end, O daughter of Sion. And to everyone who has done penance, and has wept over his own sins with his own tears, it is rightly said: Thy iniquity is at an end. Elsewhere too, under this letter, Jeremiah says: Better were they that were slain by the sword, than they that were slain by hunger. They departed pierced through, from the fruitfulness of the fields. We are pierced, then, when we do penance for our sins: we are also pierced by the recollection of our sins.

Whence the prophet David says: The things which you say in your hearts, be pricked also in your beds.

But he who is pricked certainly excludes the delight of error: and he who does penance excludes shame: he sets aside the modesty that would keep him from confessing his disgrace; that he may find hope of recovering salvation. And rightly did David himself, when he recognized his fault, say: I have sinned against the Lord. So great a king, so great a prophet, was not ashamed to confess his own sin; and therefore it was said to him: And the Lord hath taken away thy sin. With sin thus taken away, he says: Thou hast wrought joyfulness with thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word. Many things seem to be joyful in this world, which are not, many things sweet, many things good. Luxury seems to be joyful: but it becomes bitter when the patrimony is exhausted. Lust is sweet while it burns: but the same is horrid and execrable, when it is exposed.

Feasts are sweet, while they are consumed: but foul, when they are digested.

Many things in this world are esteemed good while we live, because they are of use to us, such as money, gold, silver, possessions: these same things can profit the dead nothing: here all are left behind. Indeed a man dies with greater grief, when he groans at being defrauded of these resources. There is therefore no true joyfulness, except that which is according to the word of God; that one may rejoice to be fortified by the resources of good merits and virtues.

David rejoices in this joyfulness or goodness of God

because he bore the heavy yoke from his youth, and endured it, and awaited the Lord's grace toward himself, did not snatch at it—he who, though he often had the opportunity of killing King Saul, preferred nevertheless to await from the Lord the time of the conferring of the kingdom, rather than to seize it by killing the king. God is always good: and therefore Paul also says: Behold then the goodness and severity of God; for goodness is toward all, severity toward the few. Finally the same Apostle adds: Toward them indeed that fell, severity: but toward thee, goodness. For if they had not fallen, they too would certainly have enjoyed the goodness of God. For to you also He is good for this reason, because you remain; but if you do not remain in goodness, you too will fall away. God does not, therefore, cease to be good because you have lapsed, and stand in need of severity.

Since indeed the severity of God also recurs unto goodness; that each one, being chastised, may withdraw his foot from sins, and return to the path of virtues and to a good manner of life. Finally the Apostle teaches concerning those who fell: That if they abide not in unbelief, they shall be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again; that, just as with wild shoots, so also men, grafted as it were upon certain stocks of virtue, might be able to bear the fruits of good merits. Must you needs accuse the physician of cruelty, because he thought the putrefied fibers of a wound should be cut away with the knife; because he cauterized noxious and creeping ulcers with fire, lest the poison should spread further? Or because a master beat a negligent pupil, that through fear of blows he might put on diligence? For to chastise belongs to one who loves, not to one who abhors; and therefore it belongs to goodness, not to cruelty.

Rightly, then, the Lord is everywhere good, both when He remits offenses, and when He chastises sins: For the Lord chastiseth whom he loveth.

David too was chastised.

Finally he says: And I was scourged all the day. But the wise man, who understood that this chastisement of the Lord had profited him, says: Thou hast wrought goodness with thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word; that is, even though that chastisement seemed to me bitter for a time, bitter to me according to the flesh, bitter to me according to the sorrow of the body; yet according to thy word that chastisement bore the fruit of goodness. I understand that that chastisement profited me, that by that chastisement I was recalled from vices, that by that chastisement wrongdoing was not for long permitted anything in me, that through that chastisement of the Lord the adversary was permitted nothing in me, nor death anything. Finally, Chastising, the Lord hath chastised me, and hath not delivered me over to death, the Prophet himself recalled. For he is chastised who is received back; but those who are not received are not scourged.

For they are not in the labor of men, and shall not be scourged like men. And therefore he says above: How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart! Good therefore to all; because He wills all to be of a right heart. But he who has turned his heart aside, has himself turned away from himself the grace of divine goodness. There follows: Teach me joyfulness, and discipline, and knowledge; for I have believed thy commandments. According to the Apostle we understand χρηστόν as good; for he said: Behold then the goodness of the Lord. According to the Gospel we take χρηστόν as sweet. For he said: Take up my yoke; for it is light, and my burden, for it is sweet. For he said, τὸ φορτίον μου χρηστόν.

Whence he rightly seeks to be taught by God Himself the goodness of God, lest perhaps someone, taking it up perfunctorily that God is good, should persevere in errors, on the ground that through the mercy of God impunity can be granted to his sins; whereas, even though the Lord be indulgent, it is still a foul manner of life to remain always fixed in crimes. This goodness, therefore, is not of the common sort: but such as always looks for the advance of discipline.

And therefore he who understands that the goodness of God is deep, desires also to be taught discipline. For very many are turned away from the pursuit of discipline, while they think it severe and sad: but the more discerning mind understands that discipline, though sad for a time, becomes joyful in the times that follow. But there is a discipline or correction that is more severe: there is also one more moderate. It is the more moderate of which the Lord speaks: I will correct them when they hear of their tribulation (Osee vii, 12). There is also a more severe one, which is a correction in anger and in fury. Whence, fleeing that correction, David says: O Lord, rebuke me not in thy indignation, nor chastise me in thy wrath. And Jeremiah: Correct us, O Lord, but yet with judgment, and not in thy fury. Every discipline, then, even if it have bitterness for a time, and have disturbance; is nonetheless wont afterward to generate peaceful fruits.

But he who asks to be taught goodness and discipline, ought also to ask to be taught knowledge.

For unless he have knowledge, discipline is troublesome, correction is troublesome. Let Solomon teach you what knowledge is, who says of the Lord our God: For he hath given me the true knowledge of the things that are (Wisdom vii, 17). And elsewhere this same Prophet says: He that teacheth man knowledge. But he who seeks knowledge, believes the commandments of God.

But it is one thing to believe in the commandments of God, another to believe the commandments.

For he who believes the commandments of God quickly brings it about that he is in the commandments of God, and lives his life among them. Through faith, therefore, knowledge is taken up, through knowledge, discipline. For in that which we know can please God, we are delighted by the very living out of it. Finally it is written: But our conversation is in heaven. Knowledge went before, conversation followed. We have said, to believe concerning the commandments of God. But to believe in the commandments of God, this is to be in them, and to believe that they are true commandments. For unless you have believed the commandments of God, you will not be able to have knowledge of those things which we are taught through the commandments of God. There follows the third

Before I was humbled, I sinned: therefore have I kept thy word.

Another edition has: Before I was humbled, I knew not.

Whence some think that the soul of man says this: Before I was humbled

that is, before I entered into this mud of the body, I knew not thy commandments, which I had not read. But since the Church follows rather the opinions of the Seventy men, and this sense is plainer, and admits nothing offensive that could stir up scruple in anyone; therefore let us take "I was humbled" as said in this way, because one seems to be humbled by sin. For temptations often arise on account of sin. Indeed Adam and Eve, after their fault, were certainly cast out. Therefore the cause of our humility, or of humiliation, is sin; for I do not flee from this word. For humility can often be understood of adversities, as in that saying: It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications. And: Unless thy law had been my meditation, then perhaps I should have perished in my humiliation (below, verses 71 and 92). And: I am humbled exceedingly.

Here therefore he shows that humility arose from fault. And because fault came first, he therefore shows himself humbled, that is, worn down by temptations and adversities, and handed over to anxieties: just as also he who was delivered up by Paul unto the destruction of the flesh was certainly humbled; that afterward he might be able to merit reconciliation.

But although this humility

that is, a certain kind of casting down, belongs to disturbance rather than to virtue; yet it often begets virtue, and becomes not a punishment but a remedy for the offender. For if you attribute to your sins the fact that you have been humbled, you turn back upon yourself whatever has happened, and from being guilty you begin to be just, since you condemn yourself. For the just man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech. Nor can you judge yourself unworthy of humility, since you recognize your own errors, in which by blushing you are certainly not exalted, but humbled. You see then that you were humbled for this reason, because you sinned, and did not keep the words of God. Whence keep them more diligently, lest you sin; lest again, because you have been cast down, you be swallowed up by sadness: and your casting down become for you an increase of iniquity, which ought rather to be an occasion of correction.

For indeed in temptations man is tested like gold in the furnace. You see what the Prophet says: Before I was humbled, he says, I sinned. Justly therefore was he handed over to temptations, since he was sinning. But he was sinning because he did not hold to the word of God. But from the very source whence the fault had proceeded, he found the order of amendment. He began to be subject to the divine word, and the fault ceased. There follows the fourth

Thou art good, O Lord: and in thy goodness teach me thy justifications.

Even the practice of secular custom has accepted that each one should praise his judge. Whence the Apostle, following the order of the divine Scriptures, when he was stating his case, began thus: Concerning all things whereof I am accused by the Jews, king Agrippa, I think myself happy, that I am to answer for myself this day before thee. And below: Believest thou, king Agrippa, the prophets? I know that thou believest.

If therefore men are praised, in whom for the most part what is praised belongs to another: how much more ought each one to conciliate for himself the grace of God, so as to say: Thou art good, O Lord. For if a man says this to another man, so that he may be admonished to be what perhaps he is not; so that even by the proclamation of goodness he himself grows gentle, and lays aside the terror of an unmerciful disposition: how much more should praise be rendered to God, who, unless he were good, who could stand upon the earth? But it is proper to God that he is good. Indeed you have it in the Gospel, that A good tree bringeth forth good fruits. Its fruits are the angels: its fruits are men, that is, rational beings, holy ones, if they keep the Lord's precepts: its fruits are those who are born on the earth: its fruits are the virtues of men. Rightly therefore does a good tree bring forth good fruits.

Let the root therefore first be praised, that the fruit may be able to be approved.

But also elsewhere the same Lord Jesus says: And your Father, who is good, will give good things to those who ask him.

But although God is good, whose even bitter things profit more (for they are not inflicted in order to harm, but to correct), yet he asks that God teach us his justifications in his goodness. Consider a physician applying useful medicines to wounds; medicines, however, that sting the poison of the sore, or certainly cutting away with the knife what has become putrid; while in this very thing he is a good physician, because he works for the benefit of the sick man, and does what he knows will profit: nevertheless because the sick man either does not wish, or cannot bear the pain on account of the weakness of his condition, he asks that the physician cure him with a certain goodness and gentleness of his own, not applying the harshness of medicines, not cutting the fibers of the wounds with the knife: or if he cannot do otherwise, that he do it with moderation, and with a certain delicacy soften the force of the pain.

And therefore in the goodness of the Gospel the justifications of God are taught better than in the severity of the Law. Now the work of justice is justification. Whence it is written that the Pharisees were unwilling to be justified, not being baptized with the baptism of John. For in this they did not accomplish justification, because they were unwilling to do penance for their sins, which the Prophet wishes to do in goodness; so that remission of sins might come to him without the harshness of condemnation, but with the grace of remission. There follows: The iniquity of the proud has been multiplied against me; but I will seek thy commandments with my whole heart. The more one desires to serve God, the more he stirs up adversaries against himself: and like a strong athlete desiring to bring back the crown of justice, he provokes and irritates against himself very many, who envy our progress. This he also shows clearly in what follows. With them that hated peace I was peaceable, he says.

Yet his tranquility profited nothing, so that he might by his own calm compose those who hated peace, and check their zeal.

When I spoke to them, they fought against me without cause, that is, though they had no reasons for fighting, yet they did not lay aside their zeal for fighting. Thus therefore either spiritual wickednesses, or men, are multiplied, and their iniquity is multiplied against the just man. For example, if a just man loses a son, which often happens by the custom of the world: if he loses his patrimony, or is afflicted with various misfortunes of goods, or infirmities of body, then the proud say: Where is his justice? Where is his mercy? Behold, he has been so punished: behold, his innocence profits him nothing. And so, in order to draw out the pattern of this life, those three men, friends of holy Job in appearance but enemies in detraction, envious of his uprightness and justice, heaped up grave reproaches upon him; and they who had come to console him began to insult him.

But the just man is not moved by these things, and therefore neither was Job broken.

Indeed at the loss of his sons or of his patrimony he said: The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Therefore even in adversities it can be said: Thou hast done good with thy servant (above, v. 65). For the Lord can change for the better what has happened, as we have the example of holy Job; and can restore what has been lost. One can, even after losing sons, beget better ones. Is it difficult for God to grant better things? He can, even if he grants nothing, yet by this very thing provide for the just man, if perhaps those who would have been wicked were taken away, lest wickedness change their heart. Likewise concerning patrimony, as if we do not see very many led into danger of salvation because of the wealth of a patrimony, and for very many the abundance of riches has been the origin of a cause for sinning.

For he who has nothing to give cannot have blame ascribed to him for not giving; but he who has something to give, and does not give, certainly begins to be liable to sin. There follows: Their heart is curdled like milk; but I will meditate on thy law. Subtle is the heart of the saints: but the heart of the proud is curdled. For as milk, pure by its own nature, is fine and sincere, but through corruption turns sour: so the nature of the human mind and heart is pure, sincere, clear, before it turns sour through the admixture of vices. For when milk is curdled, a certain concretion is formed, having neither the same sweetness nor the same charm. So men, who before by diligence, charm, and sweetness of words displayed the appearance of milk, uncorrupted by any envy—these, if they begin to envy, their heart is curdled into vice, and out of the sweetness of friendship comes the bitterness of malevolence, and a certain unpleasant horror of envy.

Therefore the heart is curdled through pride, through envy, which have corrupted by the concretion of malice the gentleness of nature that flows with benevolence. The heart of the wicked, then, is curdled: but the just man is humbled, meditating on the precepts of the Law, who holds the mastery of humility. And so he added: It is good for me that thou hast humbled me; that I may learn thy justifications. Following this the Apostle says: I take pleasure, he says, in infirmities, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses. For when one takes pleasure in infirmities, and is not broken in spirit, nor yields to injury, he has deserved to learn the justifications of God, and has fulfilled them. Therefore here, thou hast humbled me, that is, thou hast exercised me with various temptations and misfortunes. This Symmachus also made plain, writing: It profited me that I was afflicted, that I might learn thy justices.

Therefore let him who is humbled not cast down his spirit, nor be broken; but rather let him profit by being humbled; so that he may soften the proud man by his humility, confound the insolent by the severity of his character, break the abusive by his patience, and sometimes even draw the greedy away from the intention of quarreling by an even-tempered acceptance of loss. For thus you have read, that wisdom is justified by her children, when Christ offered himself to punishment, gave himself over to injuries, did not withdraw from reproaches, nor turn away his face from the shame of spittings; and thus by his patience he instructed all, and by his bruise healed them. There follows: The law of thy mouth is good to me, above thousands of gold and silver. Not everyone who says this—indeed rarely does anyone say this, that is, one who prefers the law of God to gold and silver, who can, for the sake of the law of God, leave everything behind.

But even Christ found no one such, except among those whom he himself deigned to teach.

Peter said this, and proved it by the outcome: for he held the law of more worth than gold. Wherefore he says: Gold and silver I have none. No greedy man says this, who broods over buried gold. The moneyed man does not say it, who with anxious desire searches after daily gains, who daily heaps up wealth, who pursues the snaring of inheritances, who keeps tireless watch beside the sickbed of the ailing.

Here some take the law of the mouth of God as the law of the Word of God, as if you should say the law of the right hand of God. Well then does this also agree with Peter saying: Thou hast the words of eternal life, and shall we leave thee? That is, The law of thy mouth is above thousands of gold and silver. And can we forsake so great a good, and go seeking after the profits of this world? But Moses too can be called the law of the mouth of God, through whom the Lord spoke and gave the Law.

The tenth letter among the Hebrews, Iod, begins, which in Latin signification is called confession, or certainly desolation.

Nor does the interpretation seem discordant and dissonant. For indeed those who are desolate confess the more quickly; for the mind is generally accustomed to be lifted up in prosperity; but when pressed by adversities, then it implores divine help. For even in human affairs we recognize this custom to be so; that to whomever prosperous things fall, his mind is more elated: whoever has the hostile things of this world against him, and the adverse power of someone, then he takes refuge, then he seeks help; so that either by entreaty he may soften the power of one greater, or arm himself with allied strength; lest, as inferior, he be crushed by more powerful forces.

Indeed Jeremiah under this letter speaks thus: He hath spread forth his hand to all the desirable things she had. For she hath seen the Gentiles enter into her sanctuary, of whom thou gavest commandment that they should not enter into thy church. The Prophet says this certainly of Jerusalem, whose trouble he laments, whose desolation and destitution came first, so that afterward confession might follow. For the Lord chastises every son whom he receives. About to receive Jerusalem, therefore, he first scourged her with the troubles of captivity. For she had grown too insolent, and had exalted herself with a puffed-up heart; so that she could not hold fast the head, the Lord Jesus, that is, she did not hold humility, grace, justice, wisdom, that is, the mastery of the true faith. And therefore the Lord chastised her, who, as ruler of all things, knows how to chastise each one.

For as a physician is accustomed to cure more grievous wounds with harsher medicines, lighter ones with lighter remedies: so also our God chastises graver sins with greater severity. But the very chastisement works toward salvation. For the Lord said: I will strike, and I will heal.

Finally, the prophet Jeremiah began to promise hope concerning Jerusalem.

For in what follows, under this letter, he says: He will give his cheek to him that strikes him, and shall be filled with reproaches. He will put his mouth in the dust; if indeed there be hope of patience. In the Gospel, the Lord Jesus, teaching the virtue and mark of patience, says: Whoever strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also. For he wills his disciples to be patient even of injuries, and not readily to strike back, much less to strike first. For patience is a sign of humility. And therefore, since Jerusalem was desolate and forsaken, he says: He will give his cheek to him that strikes it; so that it should not withdraw itself from injury, nor shrink from the pain of the blow, but offer the cheek to him that strikes.

Both may be understood, whether of him who begins to strike, or of him who has already struck; so that that word of the Gospel may be fulfilled: Whoever strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also. And this was set down prophetically, to teach Jerusalem—that is, the Church of the Jewish people—that it can be saved in no other way except through the discipline of the Gospel; so that when it has begun to keep the precepts of the Gospel, and to fulfill in deeds the command of the Lord Jesus, then it may lay down the yoke of captivity from the neck of its soul, when it has submitted itself to the yoke of Christ.

And he shall be filled, he says, with reproaches.

He did not say: He will undergo a reproach; for it is easy to bear one or another insult; but he added: He shall be filled with reproaches, so that the Lord might the more readily be moved to mercy, one made pitiable by the disfigurement of many reproaches. This indeed you can understand from the book of Kings. For when Shimei, son of Gera, reviled holy David, calling him a man of blood, and cursed him, when he was fleeing from his son Absalom, avoiding for a time a parricidal war, the king kept silence, and showed the highest mark of patience. For since he understood the time of his trial, that a parricidal battle was being stirred up against him, he wished rather to appear humble, that he might mitigate the offense before the Lord; considering that the Lord's judgment in his trial would rather be exasperated, if he should perhaps go about avenging his own injuries.

Whence also to Abishai, the leader of the people, who was eager to take vengeance, he said: What have I to do with you, son of Zeruiah? He curses me for this reason

because the Lord has told him to curse; Behold, my own son, who came out of my own body, seeks my life. But if now a stranger curses me, let him alone, that he may curse; for the Lord has told him, that he may see my humility: and the Lord will repay me good for this cursing. This he said both by prophetic spirit, and proved by the outcome. For when humility has been filled full, sin is dissolved. Finally, in the book of Isaiah you have that the Lord said: Priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem: comfort her, for her humiliation is fulfilled, her sin is loosed; for she has received from the hand of the Lord double for her sins. You observe, then, that where there is desolation, there is humility.

For desolation is followed, in due order, by humility, humility by patience, patience by proof, proof by consolation. This you have also written in the Apostle: For tribulation works patience, and patience proof, and proof hope, and hope does not confound; because the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who is indeed the consoler of our affections.

But when it says: He will put his mouth in the dust; it shows a certain silence of patience beyond measure; as though he might bury his own mouth, that it should not speak; and by a kind of rampart of virtues block it up, so that it should not send forth the voice of grief; asserting so great a weight of patience which hope nourishes, that it buries the very voice as if in some tomb and grave, and encloses it, which no injury can wring forth, nor rouse up. This also, the interpretation of this letter, we have explained as we were able; let us come to the psalm. Thus the first little

is: Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.

He used a grand beginning of commendation, that he might say he is a work of God; so that the favor of the author might the more readily be inclined toward the grace of his own work.

For it is a great prerogative even in human affairs, that someone should show favor toward his own works and benefits, and not look to another's merit; but attend to the gift of his own grace; lest he seem to disown what he himself gave. Therefore even though the substance of our body be from the clay, and we be clothed with flesh, and the body be woven together with bones and sinews, yet that we are the most precious work of God, no one will doubt. For if anyone should wish to consider the very structure of the human body, he could judge nothing on earth more precious.

For man is lofty in stature, comely in countenance, graceful in hair, not bent down toward his belly after the manner of the other living creatures, but by the very right of nature upright, that he might gaze upon heaven with a free look; not bowed down to the earth by any servitude of a captive neck, but as if conscious of his own liberty, and a wealthy witness of his own author.

Yet in other living creatures the form of the members is praised, in which, besides the grace of the body, there is nothing else to be sought. Man is more beautiful in that which is not seen, than in the body which is seen: having in himself the grace of eternity, and the comeliness of things present. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. In this earthly lodging, clothed with a heavenly habitation, to whom it belongs at once both to be seen on earth, and to be joined to God. A great gift indeed, if he should know himself; and a certain form of justice, to be born more for the world than for himself. Whence also Solomon says: Man is a great and precious work, a merciful man: but a faithful man is hard to find. And truly great is he who is both an interpreter of the divine work, and an imitator of God.

For man is he who could say: Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ. He tills the earth, uses the sea as a possession, admires with gratitude the ornaments of heaven as one who claims them. Nature would have vanished away, had not divine providence been added to him who uses it.

Finally, after God made heaven and earth and the seas, after all the creeping things, flying things, living things, afterward he made man, whom he preferred to the living creatures: of whom not without reason the heavenly sentence rang out: Let us make man to our image and likeness. Other things he spoke, and they were made: he commanded, and they were created; that man might be made, a certain special exhortation of God is added; so that, as it were, the working of a laboring God might be signified in the gift of this creature. God indeed is without labor: but yet what else do the words of Scripture show, than his careful working concerning you? Therefore if God created you with a certain greater diligence, why do you yourself abandon diligence concerning yourself? If God labored in you, who knows not how to labor, why are you yourself a shirker of labor?

Thy hands, he says, have made me, and fashioned me.

The Prophet cries out to God: Do not forsake, do not abandon, your work, Lord. I approach you as author, I hold you as maker, I seek no other aid. Gird yourself for help, you who were girded to create. Tell us yourself, David, what you meant, why you said: Thy hands have made me? But you said further on: Lord, thou wilt repay for my sake: Lord, thy mercy endures forever, do not forsake the works of thy hands; that is to say: Thy hands did not make the beasts, but thou saidst: Let the waters bring forth creeping things having life, and the earth brought forth according to its kind quadrupeds, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth. But me, he says, thou hast made, me thou hast fashioned with thy hands, that is, thou didst not fashion the beasts with thy hands, not the creeping things, not the flying things: But me have thy hands made, and fashioned me.

It is no mean work that is prepared, when each thing is arranged and prepared with wisdom. Finally, Wisdom says: When he prepared the heavens, I was there with him. Which the same Prophet says of men: The voice of the Lord preparing the deer. What is this voice of the Lord God, but: Let us make man? Who are these deer, but the enemies of serpents, who walk over asps and feel not their poisons? I think, then, that what God has prepared is not something base, not something merely bodily. Know yourself, O man: to your soul it is said in the Song of Songs: Unless you know yourself to be beautiful among women. Know yourself, O soul, that you are not of earth, not of clay; for God breathed into you, and made you into a living soul. You are a magnificent work, breathed into by God's begetting. Attend to yourself, as the Law says, that is, to you, that is, to your soul.

Let worldly and secular things not hold you, let earthly things not detain you.

Hasten with your whole intention toward him, from whose breathing you subsist. Man, he says, is a great and precious work, a merciful man; but a faithful man is hard to find. Learn, O man, wherein you are great, wherein you are precious. The earth shows you to be base: but virtue makes you glorious, faith rare, the image precious. Is anything so precious as the image of God, which owes it to you first to instill faith; that a certain likeness of the author might shine forth in your heart: lest whoever questions your mind should fail to recognize the author? Is anything so precious as humility; that, discerning the nature of body and soul, you should submit yourself to another, and know that you must rule the other?

The enticement of the flesh, prone to vice, persuades to mercy

because what you have bestowed on another, you pay to yourself: whatever proceeds from you, runs back into you: and whatever benefit you confer, benefits yourself.

The vigor of a living soul is a capacity for sense, reason, and understanding, and judgment; that it may seem a worthy house for so great an indweller, and not lose the prerogative of its nature, lest it lose the name of man. For Scripture calls him man who is to the image and likeness of God: but the sinner it is accustomed to call, not man, but either a serpent, or a horse neighing after females, or a little fox, or a beast of burden. Do not become like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding. Constrain their jaws with bit and bridle, who do not come near to you. And: Tell that fox, he says, of Herod. The generation of vipers is the name John gives to the people of men.

Great, then, is the work of God which you are, O man; great is what God has given you; see that you do not lose what God has bestowed, that great gift, that you are to the image of God; and let this rather be punished in you. For God does not punish his own likeness: but he punishes the one who, made to the likeness of God, was not able to keep what he received. That, therefore, is punished which ceases to be to the likeness of God, that is, your sin. For God does not condemn his own image, nor send it into that eternal fire: but rather he vindicates his own image against him who has done injury to that image; so that through malice man might cease to be what he was, and become from a man a mule. Therefore the image is vindicated, not condemned. It is vindicated as one expelled: it is not condemned as one guilty. For after you sinned, you began to be something else: what you were, you ceased to be.

How then is that punished in you, which is not found in you?

For if the image and likeness of God be found in you, you begin to be worthy not of punishment, but of reward. Thus that image by which you were made to the image and likeness of God is not condemned, but crowned. But you are condemned in this, that you yourself have been changed; that you became, from a man, a serpent, a mule, a horse, a fox. For by these names Scripture has already condemned us; because, stripped of the ornament of the heavenly image, we lose even the name of man, we who do not hold the grace of man.

In some codices, however, we find: Thy hands have made me, and molded me.

Nor is this foreign to the sense; for Job also said: Thy hands have molded me, and made me. Whence also this is stated, that God may remember that we are dust; that he may pour in the gift of a more abundant grace, and not abandon the weak work. A pilot expends more labor on a wave-tossed ship, than when the rowing glides on with a favoring wave, or the breath of the winds, outrunning by its own force, speeds it on.

"Thy hands," he says, "have fashioned me." He says "hands" in the plural, not "hand." Yet elsewhere he says: "I with my hand established the heaven". And: "My hand made these things". It does not seem that what sufficed for the whole world to be made was insufficient in the constitution of man. One hand established the heaven, as it is written: and both hands of God fashioned man, as we read. The heaven was not made after a likeness, man was made after a likeness. The angels were made unto ministry, man unto the image.

Grant that the angels too are made unto the image.

Yet Scripture has spoken of man that he is made unto the image. For we have something perhaps that the angels do not have; for where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. For us Christ was born of the Virgin. For we read: "A child is born to us, and a son is given to us". For us he took on flesh: nay rather, he took us up in that flesh, in that he set the Son of man upon the seat of God. I read of angels upon the seat of God only as standing, only as bearing ministry. I do not read of angels, but of men buried together with Christ, and raised again in Christ. Finally the Apostle says: "For he has quickened us together in Christ, by whose grace you have been saved: and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus".

Therefore the Son of man is at the right hand of God, not an angel, not an archangel, nor Cherubim and Seraphim. Those praise: the Son of man sits. The Son of man is praised by the mouth of angels, because he has conquered the evil angels, has triumphed over the spiritual wickedness which is in the heavenly places, because he has made men like the angels, in whom before were the contagions of the dead.

"By the word of the Lord," he says, "the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their power".

Man too received the perfection of life and the consummation of virtue by the Spirit of the Lord. "God breathed into him the spirit of life, and man was made into a living soul". Our life therefore began from the divine inbreathing: but this life is dissolved by the separation of soul and body, whereas the divine inbreathing is not dissolved. And therefore understand that one thing is what was figured, another what was made, or prepared. And rightly you have it written twice concerning man. For first it was written: "Let us make man to our image and likeness". And: "They shall have dominion," he says, or "shall have principality." And: "God made man to the image of God." In the second place, however, it is thus written, because "God took dust from the earth, and formed man".

Where there is dust, there is fashioning: but where there is no dust, there is no earth, no matter; but the incorporeal, but the admirable: there not matter, but the immaterial. For that which is according to the image of God is not in the body, nor in matter, but in the rational soul. There it works, there man is shown to be after the likeness and image of God, where righteousness, where wisdom, where every form of virtue is assumed.

If you understand "image," you will see "unto the image"; for man is not the image of God, but was made unto the likeness.

Another is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, through whom all things were made. He is not unto the image, but the image: you are not the image, but unto the image. You have, therefore, in your substance something of the image and likeness of God, which is similar to the divine image. Therefore the image came to him who is unto the image: and the image seeks him who is unto its likeness; that it might again seal, that it might again confirm; because you had lost what you had received. For God had breathed into you, that by the gift of his inbreathing you might have the grace which your own fault had taken away from you. You had been made into a living soul: hear what it says, not into flesh, but into a living soul.

But because the sinner could not keep the seal, and, being set in guilt, did not have the things of God, but the things of men; therefore our Lord Jesus Christ came, as you have read in the Gospel, and rising from the dead, when he found the disciples shut in, entered though the doors remained closed, and said: "Peace be to you. As the Father sent me, I also send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them: "Receive the Holy Spirit".

Do you see, then, what hands made man, or what man they made; that man, certainly, whom we put on according to Christ: "putting off the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, who is renewed unto knowledge according to the image of him who created him; where there is not slave and free, but Christ is all, and in all". We put on Christ, therefore, as it is also said elsewhere: "You have put on Christ". We have received the Holy Spirit, who not only remits our sins, but also makes us his priests, to remit sins to others. Therefore the Prophet says: "Thou hast fashioned me, and hast laid thy hand upon me". He fashioned through clay; he laid his hand through spiritual grace; although many take this psalm as spoken in the person of the Savior. Hear that the hand of the Lord is also called the Spirit. Job cries out: "The divine Spirit, who made me". These, then, are the hands that prepared man: Christ and the Spirit.

Therefore the Lord Jesus is also the author of our body, who first made man unto the image, and afterward fashioned him out of clay, and wished to preserve what he had made, to save what he had formed; that he might make the whole man safe, as he himself said in the Gospel: "Are you angry at me, because I have made a whole man safe on the sabbath?" This the Church especially teaches, that not only the soul, but also our flesh is preserved: the soul through the knowledge of God, the flesh through the resurrection: the one of which he taught by the authority of the divine word, the other by the example of his own resurrection.

This, then, is man, of twofold substance. For one is the substance of what was made, another of what was formed: the one from the Spirit of God, the other from clay. Therefore Job says: "He shall raise up my skin again", because that which is of clay is raised up; for earth returns to earth; but that which was made so that it might have dominion over the other living creatures, that you understand to be more excellent. For in clay even the beasts have fellowship in common with us; and therefore a special prerogative has been given to the soul. Yet the same soul, because it commands the other living creatures, must, in order to be able to command, be subject to God. It is taught, therefore, to serve, that it may deserve to arrive at the kingdom. For he who serves Christ has pleased God. He who serves Christ certainly pleases truth, and ought to know no falsehood. He who serves righteousness ought to repel iniquity.

He who serves the unspotted one ought to keep the discipline of chastity. He who serves the light ought to hate the darkness of sins. Therefore, because the body is weak, let us ask for the visitation of the Lord. Whence the Prophet says: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him; or the son of man, that thou visitest him?"

And now in the remaining portion of the

he says: "Give me understanding, and I will learn thy commandments." The Prophet, therefore, knowing himself to be spiritual, asks for the grace of the Holy Spirit. For indeed you have learned in the Apostolic reading that understanding is given by the Lord, and is set first among the gifts of graces; because to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for profit; and in the prophet, first place is asked for the grace of wisdom and spiritual understanding. The gift of God, therefore, is asked for. Then notice the order: "Give me," he says, "understanding; that I may learn thy commandments." Understanding is put first, that knowledge may follow. For unless one has understood, he cannot be learned. Understanding, therefore, makes doctrine, not memory. For it profits nothing to have read much, unless you yourself understand what you have read.

And in the Apostle you have read that after the manifestation of the Spirit, the word of knowledge was afterward set in place; that you may know that understanding is to be preferred to memory, and that he can have knowledge upon whom understanding has first shone.

At the same time consider humility.

If the Prophet asks that understanding be given to him, who is so arrogant as to profess that understanding lies in his own power? He asks for understanding, that he himself may know himself, and be able to know the reason of his own nature: but those who dispute about the nature of things, who scrutinize the regions of the sky, who cannot know themselves, think that understanding can be granted without the gift of God. Whence we too ought to assume humility; lest we be puffed up if perhaps we have come to know some one parable from the Scriptures; or because sometimes we read plain things according to the letter—if perhaps we have understood something according to the letter, we should not thereby assume for ourselves the knowledge of doctrine.

That Prophet who received the Holy Spirit, after he was anointed unto the kingdom, was anointed unto the Prophet's office; and, writing the hundred and eighteenth psalm, asks that understanding be given to him, that he may understand the commandments of God: and he knows that unless he has received grace from the Lord, he cannot understand his commandments. In the Gospel too I read that the Lord Jesus put forth parables, and the apostles did not understand them. Finally they asked for an explanation of the parable that had been put forth.

The Lord Jesus himself, when he said, as you have read written in the book of the Gospel according to Matthew: "Blessed are the poor in spirit"; added afterward: "Everyone who hears these my words, and does them, shall be like a wise man". Not, therefore, he who only hears shall be like him: but he who does what he has heard. Therefore neither can deed be without hearing, nor hearing without deed, belong to the wise man: but he who hears and does. Let us hear, therefore, that we may understand: let us do, that we may prove that we have understood what we have heard. There follows the second

"They that fear thee shall see me, and shall be glad

because I have hoped exceedingly in thy words." Perhaps to some this may seem contrary, because the just man says: "They that fear thee shall see me, and shall be glad"; for the just man is grievous to many when he is seen.

Finally, in the Gospel, many could not bear to see the Lord Jesus: as the Gerasenes asked him to depart from their regions: and others denied him passage, when yet he did not wish to pass through them. Whence I think that just as there the form of Jewish impiety is expressed, so here the grace of the Church is revealed. For he prophesies that the whole world will be filled with divine fear; and therefore he says that those who, as it were, fear God, rejoice at the recognition of the saints; for he who sees a just man, and rejoices, himself also wishes to be just. For it is a beautiful thing that one should delight in others in that which one wishes to keep in oneself, if one has taken it up. For it is implanted in the good, that the wise man should love with pious affection the chaste, the modest, the prudent; the merciful should love the liberal; and should love their own virtues in others.

For to most, the sight of the just man is an admonition to correction; but to the more perfect, it is a joy. How beautiful, then, that you should be seen and profit others—good, therefore, is the just man.

For this reason, finally, Paul the apostle went up to Jerusalem, that he might see the just; and he remained with Peter fifteen days, that he might gain some profit from living with him. For this reason Paul himself and Barnabas, when they entered Jerusalem, were magnificently received by the Church, by the apostles, and by the elders. But when they wished to depart, they were begged not to leave; and, as we read afterward concerning Paul, they were escorted with tears. For if there is such power in natural things, that the sight of an animal profits those who have jaundice; so that even the horn of that dead animal is said to help, if it be shown to those who have fallen into such an affliction: can we doubt that the sight of the just man heals?

Therefore a vile, irrational animal has such power that it can heal a man in the brief moment it is seen: does the just man, if indeed he is looked upon with faith by one who desires to receive benefit from him, confer nothing? Or do not even the very rays of his eyes seem to infuse a certain power into those who faithfully desire to see him?

But just as a righteous man gladdens the heart of the innocent when he is seen, so the wicked are tormented by the acquaintance of the righteous

because they are convicted even by the silent conduct of the saints. Chastity torments incontinence, liberality torments avarice, faith torments impiety. Let us take an example of this also from the parallel case of a lowly animal. For just as we said that a dumb animal is beneficial when it is seen, so we perceive that the wolf is harmful if it should first catch sight of someone by looking; for they say that those whom a wolf first sees lose their voice. The basilisk too—that is, the harmful serpent—is said to kill whatever animal it first sees; and it is affirmed that whoever can be seen first by a serpent of this kind is straightway killed. The serpent itself likewise is said to die if it is forestalled by the gaze of a man.

If, then, there is so great a power either in the eyes of the serpent or in the eyes of man, that if the one has seen the other first, he can kill him—is there no power in the eyes of the righteous man, who is filled with the grace of virtue? Especially since faith works such great things, that even she who touched the hem of the Lord's garment was healed, and he upon whom the Lord Jesus fixed his gaze straightway drew from His eyes the grace of health?

But he who sees the righteous man ought to know what he sees: he does not see him in his body, not in his clothing, not in his patrimony, not in his face; but he sees him within—I say, he does not see him unless he has seen his mind, unless he has attended to his speech, unless he has been able to comprehend his understanding, to draw wisdom from discourse with him. Then, therefore, will he rejoice, when he has discerned these things, when he has come to know them. So then let us too, wherever we have heard of a righteous man, hasten to see him; just as that woman who heard that the Lord Jesus was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, went in, and anointed his feet with ointment. Let us be imitators of her; for who would doubt that the Church is figured in that woman? Wherever, then, the righteous man sits, wherever he reclines, let us hasten to see him.

It is a precious thing to see a righteous man; that you may see him according to the image of God. What is outward profits nothing; what is inward heals. Indeed, in him who is outward we frequently behold him who is inward; so that if we see a poor man, we may honor in that poor man the one to whose likeness he was made, of whom he says: You gave me to eat; for what you did to one of these, you did to me. For he who crowns the image of the emperor honors, of course, him whose image he has crowned; and he who despises the statue of the emperor is seen to have done injury, of course, to the emperor whose statue he has spat upon. The Gentiles worship wood, because they think it the image of God: but the image of the invisible God is not in what is seen, but of course in what is not seen.

Do you see, then, that we walk among many images of Christ?

Let us beware lest we seem to strip the crown from the image which Christ has placed upon each one. Let us beware lest we take anything away from those to whom we ought rather to add. But what is worse, we not only fail to honor the poor, but we even dishonor them, destroy them, persecute them: and we do not realize that we are heaping these injuries upon the image of God, when we think that those made in the image of God may be harmed. For he who mocks the poor man provokes him who made him. But he will be present who will say: I was hungry, and you gave me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; I was sick, and you did not visit me. And how much lighter are these words than if he were to say: You did me injuries, you stripped me, you beat me?

If someone should ask him: When did we do you injuries, when did we despoil you, when did we even beat you?

He will say: As long as you did it to one of these least, you did it to me. Therefore let us take all the more diligent care not to inflict insult upon anyone, even the least; lest we be seen to have insulted the Lord himself in those least ones.

But by what reasoning he said: Those who fear you will see me and rejoice, he himself explained, saying: For I have hoped exceedingly in your words

that is to say: They have seen me within, they have touched me within, they have beheld me within; where I took up hope from your words, where I received your words. Blessed, then, are those who see the righteous man and rejoice; because they hope in the words of God. But how many there are who hate the righteous, who search out the words of God, who are themselves righteous men: and when the wicked hear certain learned men, they are wont to avoid them on account of their teaching. There follows the third

I have known, O Lord, that your judgments are just: and in your truth you have humbled me.

Whoever is able to understand the things of divine providence uses that language which the holy prophet David used

because all things happen by the judgment of God—that one has a sick body, another a healthy one, that one is rich, another poor, that one dies young, another old. If anyone attends to the divine Scriptures, he understands that these things happen by the judgment of God; for nothing is outside the knowledge of God. Do we seek an example? It is not hidden; for Job would never have lost his own possessions, had he not been handed over to the adversary's power.

For the Lord gave the devil power over his possessions, that he might be tempted, so that it might be seen what disposition he would have when his patrimony was lost: he gave him power over his children, he gave him power over his own body; that it might be proved whether, by the grief for his dead children or by the torment of his body, he would fall away from constancy of mind and spirit. The Lord indeed knew he was strong; but in him He wished to teach and test us, whether we could be his imitators. Likewise He also tested Abraham, when He asked that the old man's only son be sacrificed to Him. He assuredly knew Abraham's mind: but the Lord tests knowingly, just as you have read in the Gospel, that when the Lord Jesus had asked the disciples how many loaves they had, and they had answered that they had only five loaves, He said: What shall we do among so many people?

But this He said testing them; for He knew what He was going to do.

He, then, who is righteous believes, by the testing of his own righteousness, that the judgments of God are just: or according to the Greek, that the judgments of God are justice itself.

But that he might come to know this, the prayer set before it was uttered; since he asked that understanding be given to him, that he might learn the commandments of God. Having received, then, the grace of understanding and knowledge, he came to know that the judgments of God are just: but to know is the mark of the perfect. Indeed, to believe is one thing, to know is another. The faith of the one who fears is one thing; the knowledge of the wise is another. For he who fears does not seek a reason: but the wise man also investigates the knowledge of whatever he desires to grasp. I believed, he says, therefore have I spoken: but he who understands what he has spoken has come to know it.

In what, then, are the judgments of God just?

In that through labors, and tribulations, and afflictions, one comes to the heavenly reward. For just as a crown is bestowed upon contending athletes by the just judgment of men, so upon Christians lawfully contending the palm is decreed by divine judgment. To him who conquers, He says, I will give to sit with me on my throne. Our life, then, is tested by fire, like the splendor of silver; that virtue may be approved by contests. We have passed, he says, through fire and water, and you have brought us into a place of refreshment. Through these things, therefore, I have known that your judgments are true. For I have been humbled, that I might see these things; because those who are exalted in heart cannot open their eyes to the truth. But when we are humbled, we come to know our sins, and by that very humility we cleanse our offenses. I was humbled, he says, and he saved me.

In truth, then, he is humbled who is humbled unto salvation: nor has he endured his suffering in vain, who has followed the salvation of truth.

There is a difference, then, between knowing and fearing, that we may be converted.

Indeed, the reading of the Gospel ought to teach us this. For the Lord says to those Jews who believed in Him: If you abide in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. If you abide, He says, you will know. You see that it is not from the beginning that anyone who fears God and has heard His word could know it. But not only are fear and knowledge not the same thing; even faith and knowledge are not the same thing. For the Apostle also taught that the gifts of graces are diverse. To one, he says, is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith in the same Spirit.

If, then, to one faith is given, to another knowledge; you see that where there is faith, there is not straightway knowledge; but where there is knowledge, there is both faith and prudence, nor can we separate diligence from it.

Holy David, then, possessed knowledge, as being a perfect prophet; since he knew so perfectly that he was humbled in the very truth.

Whether, then, set in adversity, he acknowledged the grace of testing, that things laborious and adverse must be endured; but that the judgment of God is just; and therefore those who contend well are never abandoned or forsaken, and the crown can be bestowed upon them after their labors: or whether, set in prosperous circumstances, he knew also that the riches of kings, and various successes, are wont to be present for the sake of temptation; so that he who enjoys them is tempted by the prosperity of things. In this, then, the prophet David is to be praised, that while he acknowledged these things, he humbled himself; that by his humility he might either exclude the temptations of prosperity, or undergo with steady equanimity the endurance of adversity.

The Prophet, then, would not be greatly praiseworthy if he praised the judgments of God while enjoying an abundance of prosperity.

For what great thing do we do, if, when we are in prosperity, when we are in riches, when we are afflicted by no injuries, we praise God? This is the magnificent thing: if, subjected to injuries and insults, you praise the judgment of God; if, afflicted with sickness, you proclaim the judgments of God; if want does not call you back from praising the justice of God. Therefore the judgments of God are always to be praised, as it is written: The daughters of Judah exulted because of your judgments. Who are the daughters of Judah, but the religious souls, the souls of the Church, who confess Jesus Christ the Lord, who, seeing the reason of your judgments, always exult? For he who puts on gladness not from some prosperous occurrence, but from knowledge of the reason of things, is established in nothing other than perpetual exultation.

There follows the fourth

Let now your mercy be, that it may comfort me, according to your word to your servant.

Some have in this place: Let it console me. But even in the Apostle we read exhortation spoken for consolation, and consolation for exhortation. Great, then, is the mercy of God, which not only grants the remission of sins, but also applies the spurs of exhortation to those who contend, lest they abandon, through cowardly fear, the sufferings of the contest they have undertaken. He does not implore mercy, therefore, as one who yields defeated, or as a suppliant for pardon; but that, girded with the mercy of God, he may accomplish things greater than his own strength, supported by so great a gift. Behold the excellent and singular virtue of the Prophet.

For another man, humbled by hardships, would ask that the trials around him cease, and that the Lord deign to calm his adversities, lest the storm of tribulations rage against him; but this man, like a strong and patient athlete, who knew that his soul must be exercised and anointed by tribulations, does not desire that sad things be removed, does not wish to avoid what assails him, does not ask that all that brings fatigue and labor should cease; but rather, in the time of his labor, against the storms of temptations, he asks that the word of consolation be given to him; that with a strong mind he may be able to bear what is brought upon him, lest he be wearied by some disturbance of sadness. In this, then, he beseeches the mercy of God, lest, destitute of help to carry on, he abandon the warfare he has begun.

Finally, that it is an exhortation of divine mercy, an evident testimony teaches; for God says to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I have shown mercy. Therefore it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Perhaps you may say: Therefore we ought neither to will nor to run; and yet God is wont to abandon the negligent. He does not therefore say this; but let us consider what he says. It is not the perseverance of the man willing or running; for it is not in man's power, but is of God who shows mercy, that you may be able to complete what you have begun. Finally, he says again to Moses: For this very thing have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee. It is gathered, then, that the exhortation is to be attributed to divine mercy.

Whence it follows: Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth.

This one, having pitied, he exhorts; that one, having execrated, he does not recall. And truly the mercy of our God is the warfare of our passions, through which our sins are diminished. Finally, Lazarus the poor man, because in this life he endured very many evils, found in Abraham's bosom the rest of consolation; but that rich man, who had consolation in the world, after the course of this life lost the fruit of quiet. If God had had mercy on him, He would rather have chastised him in this world, that he might not afterward be scourged. Finally, Job, although grievously scourged, indeed with very many scourges—of poverty, the loss of his children, bodily pains, the reproaches of friends—yet enjoys eternal consolation.

Therefore the greater the tribulations shall have been, the more abundant the consolation reserved. And yet, lest you fall and succumb, the greater the temptations you see, the more ask the Word of God to bring you exhortation: just as Paul also asked, who says: Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation, who exhorts us in every distress; that we ourselves also may be able to console those who are in every tribulation, through the exhortation by which we ourselves also are called by God; since as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so also through Christ consolation abounds. With such force of apostolic petition he asks that he may receive consolation from the Lord in every tribulation, so that not only he himself may put on endurance, but also may console others, that they too may be able to bear the anguishes of their own mind.

If therefore you yourself shall have been approved fit in every tribulation, then at last you will be worthy to receive consolation in every tribulation.

And yet not every suffering is worthy of consolation: but that suffering which is through Christ, this deserves the consolation of Christ.

He has beautifully added: According to thy word to thy servant. For the Lord Himself promises help to those fighting for His name, saying: When therefore they shall deliver you up, do not be anxious how or what you shall speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Father who speaks in you. Therefore, lest we be unequal to the contest, let us always pray for divine help, that it may grant us exhortation. For if we have one who exhorts us, we do not easily yield.

Many, however, have: Who may console us, nor does this depart from the truth.

For the exhortation of one urging on another is a certain kind of blandishment, which kindles the contestant with zeal for praise, and soothes him as it were with a certain consolation; lest he be turned back by the harshness of his labors. There follows the fifth

Let thy mercies come unto me, and I shall live; for thy law is my meditation.

For him to whom the law of God is meditation, mercies are at hand, that he may live forever. For how can anyone be blessed without divine mercy? But blessed is he who meditates in the law of the Lord day and night. But he who meditates in the Law is instructed in the Law: and whom the Law has instructed, the Lord has instructed, who spoke the Law. And therefore it is written: Blessed is he whom thou hast instructed, O Lord, and taught out of thy law.

Let us therefore learn also to meditate in the Law, let us not be called away by worldly enticements, let us not be occupied with hindrances: but let us always be attentive to the law of God. For it is written: The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom, and his tongue shall speak judgment. This in the Old Testament: hear one saying likewise in the New: The word is near, in thy mouth, and in thy heart. And he shows this meditation to be especially necessary for priests, writing to Titus, that a bishop ought to embrace him who, according to the doctrine, holds fast the faithful word; that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine, and to convict those who contradict. Which certainly belongs to careful and intent meditation, not to perfunctory reading. And writing to Timothy, he says: Attend to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. For frequent reading, not left off by any interruption, works the office of doctrine.

But that he asks that he may live, we have often shown that the life of this body does not have the grace of true life; but that will be the true life, whose goods each of the saints believes he shall see in the land of the living. That which we believe we shall see is not, indeed, present, but future. There follows the sixth

Let the proud be confounded; for they have unjustly practiced iniquity against me: but I will be exercised in thy precepts.

Above the same Prophet says: If I have rendered evil to them that repaid me evil. Does he here curse those who have done iniquities against him? Not at all. For he saw that charity was to be shown even to the bitterest enemies, since he had come as the herald of the Gospel.

Whence I judge that, like a physician, he wishes to heal those very ones who have injured him; that, being convicted by the contemplation of their own iniquity, they may blush at their own crimes: in which not only do they begin to prove the patience of the Prophet, but also to amend their own insolence. For shame is generally our corrector; and when it begins to shame us for what we have committed, we are admonished, lest we be ashamed longer, to abandon what is shameful. The Prophet therefore does not curse, but like a good physician wishes them to recognize and know what they have done; that when they have returned to their own conscience, they may begin to blush at how great a filth of their sins there is: and blushing, they may be able to renounce their former sins.

Consider now to me some who fornicate, who ride roughshod over widows and girls, who seize others' goods; and in these things not only do not blush, but are even wont to glory, as though bearing titles either of their beauty or of their power: of whom the Apostle well said, that their glory is in their confusion; the more detestable for their own crimes, in that though they commit such things, they are not confounded. But if any of them should afterward come into the Church, believe in the Lord Jesus, hear the Gospel, be pricked at heart: then at last he will begin to recognize how atrocious and grave were his offenses; and in the things he has recognized, to blush.

But what it is to be exercised in the precepts of our Lord, since he said: But I will be exercised in thy precepts, you have learned in the Law?

That is, if the ox of your adversary should fall, or his beast of burden; that you should not think it should be abandoned, but rather raised up. But as to what he says: They have unjustly practiced iniquity; consider against whom this is said, unless against him who perhaps justly practices iniquity: that is, if one who has been injured begins to avenge himself through the Law according to the precepts of Moses, he seems to do iniquity justly, but not according to the precepts of the Gospel. And therefore he says: I have not come to call the just, but sinners; because the Jews use the authority of the Law to avenge themselves.

You have this also in the Apostle: Be sober, and just.

He has taught evidently that we ought not only to be sober, but also justly sober. But someone can be sober, and not justly sober; so that he is sober from wine, and is not sober with equity and justice; for there is a drunkenness of iniquity. And someone, always indulging in drunkenness and luxury, while yet striving to snatch others' goods, occupied with that pursuit, can be sober from wine, and not sober from plunder: nor is such a one justly sober. Therefore the Apostle admonishes that there should be in us a just sobriety. Finally he added: And do not sin. For he who sins, even if he be sober, cannot however be proclaimed as justly sober. Be not, he says, seduced, that is, let not the drunkenness of another's error make you intoxicated. Evil communications corrupt good manners, because through the mouth and lips of the unfaithful, as it were a certain drunkenness is poured into the character of the hearer.

And rightly he added: Be sober justly, and do not sin.

For some have ignorance of God; so that he is sober who does not have ignorance of God, nor staggers with the drunkenness of unbelief: but he is justly sober, in whom the grace of works shines together with the sobriety of faith. There follows the seventh

Let them that fear thee be turned unto me, and that know thy testimonies.

Another has, especially according to the Greek: Let them be turned to me. If we read "unto me": let them that fear God be turned, let them blush at their own deeds; or certainly pay the penalties of their offenses: but let them be turned to God's little servant, and to prophetic teaching; that they may unlearn the doing of shameful things, and by the amendment of so great a teacher put off their character, and, the stain of offenses being wiped away, put on the discipline of virtues.

But if we read thus: Let them be turned to me

that is, since I will be exercised in thy precepts, let them be turned to me—to me, now no longer sinning, no longer erring. Let them be turned, he says, who, fearing thee, have renounced their own sins; that by the fellowship of the just, the Prophet may be advanced more abundantly, and he himself, from that grace which is in him, may confer very much on his hearers. Let them therefore be turned, now that I sin no more, the just to the just one. But concerning the testimonies, I think it is no longer necessary to repeat, since it has already been said before. There follows the eighth

Let my heart be undefiled in thy justifications, that I be not confounded.

The more exalted the Prophet is, whether by the gift of prophecy, or by the grace of kingship, the more he follows humility, and teaches what we ought to imitate; in that the Prophet demands only that his heart be made undefiled.

Above he asked: Create in me a clean heart, O God. He did not say, make: but create; that He might renew and cleanse his heart anew. Greater indeed is the scope in this expression. For great is the heart created by the Lord, which receives the Word from the heavenly virtues and powers. Great is the heart which receives the Lord Himself saying: I will dwell in them, and walk among them. That it may receive these things, therefore, he asks that not an angel become the creator of his heart, but the Lord Himself, who created heaven and earth.

And well does he say: Undefiled; because the heart of man is stained by a certain, as it were, filth of unbecoming thoughts.

If thought itself pollutes, how much more do the deeds themselves contaminate? Do not defile with extraordinary thoughts the inner chambers contrary to nature; lest you pollute with a grave stain what you think you have clean. You wash your hands as though you could wash away crimes, when you cannot wash your mind, defiled with unclean thoughts. Pilate too washed his hands: but he could not wash his heart. He remained polluted by crime, although he had washed his hands with a pouring of water. Hear that thought also defiles: Not that which enters into the mouth defiles a man: but that which comes out of the mouth. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man. If therefore you are defiled within, first cleanse what is within.

If you have made clean what is within, you have also cleansed the outward parts: for if the water flows turbid, you think in vain that the pool ought to be cleansed, if the spring itself flows muddy; for it will profit nothing to have wiped clean the receptacles, when the fault is in the spring. You yourself must first be purged, that all which flows may be pure. Your heart is the wellspring of your thoughts. In that fountain, either turbid water of impurity is vomited forth, or the pure wave of piety bursts out.

You have learned that the heart must be cleansed; learn now how you may cleanse it.

Lawful justification cleanses this fountain, that is, the confession of sins. Accordingly that publican who confessed his own sins went out of the temple more justified than the pharisee; because the pharisee put forward his fastings and his gifts, and his innocence. Cleanse, therefore, your water, that water of which it is said: Water is deep counsel in the heart of a man. Nature has given you good water, unless you pollute it with your own mire: it washes you clean, if it be pure, if simple, if also natural, if it have nothing foul or earthly. What harm is it, if that water which ought to cleanse, pollutes? But it is not your water that pollutes you. That water is a foreign water. Accordingly it was said to you: Abstain from foreign water. Foreign water lies and deceives, and flows contrary to nature.

Therefore he says: Strange children have lied to me; for if they had not been strangers, surely they would not have deceived. Let no one therefore boast that he has a chaste heart, as Solomon said: but let him who boasts, boast in the Lord, who has deigned to create a clean heart for his saints, and to make it spotless by his justifications. What these justifications are, you have heard him saying: Declare your iniquities, that you may be justified. Therefore he who declares his iniquities is justified: but he who is justified is not confounded; because he has forestalled the shame of his sins by a timely confession.

Here begins the eleventh letter Caph, which in Latin interpretation signifies, They have been bowed down. The very sound of the interpretation teaches us what it is to be bowed down; for he who is inclined toward the earth appears to be bowed. Whence the Prophet says under this letter: A little more, and they had consumed me upon earth (below, v. 87). But he is bowed who does penance; in that he bows his own neck, while he humbles himself before the Lord, and especially the inner neck, that is, the neck of the mind and heart. For of this neck it is said: Nor though you bow your neck like a circle; for he who does not bend his heart bends his neck in vain.

The prophet Jeremiah also teaches that humility is signified by this interpretation.

For he says under this letter in the Lamentations: For the Lord will not cast off forever; for though he has caused grief, he will have mercy according to the multitude of his mercies; for he has not humbled from his whole heart, nor cast off the children of men. It is good, therefore, to be bowed, that we may be humbled before the Lord, and the Lord may have mercy. Accordingly also above, under this letter, the same prophet Jeremiah, showing the groaning and humility of the people, says: All her people are groaning, seeking bread; they have given their desirable things for food to refresh the soul. Behold, O Lord, and look, for she is become without honor. Therefore let him who seeks refreshment for his soul be bowed by humility, that he may sooner arrive at the mercy of the Lord.

And so, as one bowed down much more in soul and mind than in body, David has begun, saying: My soul has fainted for your salvation, and I have hoped in your word. Let not an unfamiliar expression puzzle us; so that we should judge this to be a kind of bodily weariness and failure. For he did not say only this: My soul has fainted; but: has fainted for your salvation. So that we may take an example from common usage, if, for instance, we should say: So-and-so has fainted for such-a-one, it seems to be expressed otherwise than in Horace, Book II, Ode: the mind rejoices, turbulent. By this word, that he has wholly passed over into desire for the woman through longing. And whatever it is that we vehemently desire, unless we have its more speedy accomplishment, it seems to weary us by a certain prolonged straining.

Impatient love, knocking day and night at the harlot's doors, if the desires of possessing be delayed longer, faints itself from expectation, while it hopes: in which certainly there is not an end of love, but an increase. And whatever thing is desirable, if it does not befall the one desiring, he faints for it, and, as it were, lays down his very soul, he who desires. Yet if a nearer hope should arise, a hope close at hand gives strength: but if the beloved be absent, by this very fact, that he who has longed desires the absent one, he suffers a fainting of his soul. And so, the further off that which is desired is, the more the one who desires faints. This, then, is to faint; that each one migrate with his whole endeavor toward what he loves.

He thinks of that, he clings to that, he sounds forth that which he has taken up to be loved, he is poured out into it by a certain fainting of soul; as if a mother should await the presence of her son, as the wife of Tobias awaited her wandering son, fainting from longing, and set in anguish, and as it were dissolved in strength. For what else do her words signify but a kind of fainting? But the more the affection is wearied, the more love grows: and the longer the one desired is absent, the more the desires of the one awaiting are kindled by a greater force of love. The flesh faints, but desire is fed and increased.

From this, then, we can gather what it means: My soul has fainted for your salvation.

For the soul, clinging to the spirit, faints from being what it is as soul, and becomes one spirit; since he who clings to the Lord is one spirit. And so the holy man, and one who fears God, knows not to desire anything else but the salvation of God, which is Christ Jesus. Him he desires, him he longs for, toward him he strains with all his strength, him he cherishes in the bosom of his mind, to him he opens and pours himself out: and this alone he fears, lest he might lose him. And so, the greater the desire with which the soul is exercised in wishing to cling to its salvation, the more it faints. Therefore this fainting works indeed a diminishing of frailty, but an assumption of virtue. Accordingly he himself, saying elsewhere: My soul has thirsted for you; adds further on: My soul has clung after you: your right hand has upheld me.

For he who thirsts always desires to cling to the fountain, and seems to seek and to touch nothing else for himself but water, that he may be fed by that very affection. Therefore your right hand, upholding my soul, and imparting virtue of its own, makes it to be what it was not, so that it may say: Yet I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me. Learn also, by example, that this fainting is of an exceeding great desire. My soul, he says, desires and faints for the courts of the Lord. Having first desired, he says, and as it were pouring itself wholly into desire, suspended on a long cord, it is dissolved by fainting. Accordingly, how the soul faints for the salvation of God, Jeremiah teaches. And it came to pass, he says, in my heart as a burning fire, flaming in my bones, and I was dissolved on every side, and I am not able to bear it.

Inflamed, therefore, by this desire, David says: My soul has fainted for your salvation, and I have hoped in your word.

Rightly he said, I have hoped in your word; for hope precedes, and so fainting follows.

But he hoped in the word which was foretold as about to come, which can be understood of God the Word. Or certainly he hoped in the word, who believed the heavenly word by which the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is announced, or by which his glory is declared. Therefore the Prophet, considering what he had read, and perceiving that, while present in body, as though bound by certain chains of this life, he was absent from the salvation of God, desired, longed, fainted, and was dissolved with his whole affection; that he might become wholly that which he desired, as also in what follows he himself says: I pour out my prayer in his sight, I declare my trouble before him, in the fainting of my spirit out of me. For his spirit fainted, or rather his own spirit faints from him, who denies himself, that he may cling to Christ.

Whence his paths are known by the Lord

because they are not the paths of the flesh, but of Christ.

For indeed the way of those who seek God is Christ. Let us also therefore desire that eternal thing, that salvation of God: let us not desire money, which the most avaricious desire, let us not desire the beauty of another man's wife, let us not be shaken by desire of ambition, let us not aim at worldly glory, let us not be occupied with the pursuits of deceitful circumvention, let us not wish to overreach our neighbor with iniquity, let us not, lastly, be as the part of foxes, sunk in the inward things of earthly pleasure, as exiles from things eternal, and cast down from that presumption of heavenly hope. Let our soul, then, fainting in its own strength, raise itself up; that it may cling to the salvation of God, who is Christ the Lord Jesus, which by interpretation means, the salvation of the Lord. For he himself is salvation, truth, virtue, and wisdom.

He, therefore, who faints as to himself, that he may cling to virtue, loses what is his own, and receives what is eternal. There follows: My eyes have failed for your word, saying: When will you comfort me? Above is the practical, here the contemplative: there the soul faints for the salvation which it desires, by whose Passion it has been saved: here the prophet's eyes have failed for the word of the Lord. And let us see whether, just as there the soul, clinging to Christ, faints into one spirit, and becomes one spirit: so also the eyes may fail, that there may be made one mind. For these eyes are the eyes of the mind, namely of the inner man, not these eyes which serve the function of sight. For there is an eye, and mind, of the flesh: but that is a blind eye, which does not see the things that are divine, which is vainly puffed up by the mind of the flesh.

There is also another eye, the sense of Christ, by which the Church sees Christ; as he himself says to the Bride: You have ravished our heart with one of your eyes.

Rightly is Christ seen with one eye; because he is not seen with a carnal eye: or because, the Church having two eyes, the moral and the mystical, she sees Christ more with the eye of faith. For the mystical eye is sharper, the moral sweeter.

And perhaps these are the eyes with which Paul saw eternal things, when he began not to see bodily things.

Accordingly, he who did not see Christ before he lost his eyes, saw him after he had lost the sight of his eyes. For he saw who said: Who are you, Lord? He surely saw Christ, whom he even confessed as Lord. And further on: Lord, he says, what do you wish me to do? Did he not, then, see him whose command he was awaiting? By what eyes, then, did Paul begin to see more, if not by those which he himself showed us, saying: I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind? Accordingly, that you may know that he saw while praying: It came to pass, he says, that when I had returned to Jerusalem, and was praying in the temple, I was in a trance, I saw him saying to me: Make haste, and go quickly out of Jerusalem; for they will not receive your testimony concerning me.

These eyes, therefore, fail for the word of God, and say: When will you comfort me?

By these eyes the prophets were called Seers; because through revelation they perceived with the mind the things that were hidden.

What is it for the eyes to fail?

Let us speak of bodily things, that we may understand spiritual ones. Is it not so that when we desire someone, and hope for their arrival, we direct our eyes toward the place from which we hope they will come? And so, being long held in daily expectation, we grow faint. Thus Anna, looking about upon the road, kept anxious watch for the coming of her son. Thus the prophet David, when his son ran back from battle, having set watchmen upon the tower, longed as an anxious father to ask concerning his son's welfare.

Thus a wife of tender age awaits, from a lookout on the shore, with unwearied expectation, the coming of her husband; so that whatever ship she sees, she thinks her spouse is sailing on it, and fears lest another anticipate her in the joy of seeing her beloved, and that she herself might not be first to say: I see you, husband; just as Anna said to her son: I see you, son, now I would gladly die; not feeling, that is, the pain of death because of the sweetness of the longed-for sight. Therefore, just as she who desires to present herself to her arriving husband, having set aside all household occupations, watches the paths of the traveler or the footprints of his feet: so the Prophet, stripped of worldly cares, an ever-watchful guardian of his inner eyes fixed upon the word of God, strained his gaze even to the point of failing, reducing his body to servitude, and training his soul to the patience of humility, wasting away like a spider.

For he desired, as the hart desires the springs of water, and thirsted for the Lord his God, longing to see His presence, and to appear before the face of God; and failing from excessive desire and vehement longing, he presumed by prophetic grace that he would then be more fit to obtain from the Lord the things he had asked. Let us too, therefore, fix our heart, that we may be able to understand the order of the Scriptures, and let us ask that the word come to us from the Lord, and that understanding be given. If anyone gazes upon the Word of God from afar with the sight of the mind, not yet plain and distinct, he perceives, as it were with certain inner eyes, the vessel of the Word drawing near to his soul. But the more clearly he begins to see it, the more he hastens, as it were, to draw near to the harbor of truth, so as to be near to being carried in.

The Prophet's eyes therefore failed for the word of God, saying: When will You console me?

If these eyes are meant which we discern and see with, should they not have said: When will You console us; that is, not in the singular but in the plural? But because the eye of the mind and the eye of the flesh become one eye, and man is then supported by consolation, when flesh and mind do not desire different things, but desire one thing, seek one thing; therefore, fixed upon Him who says: I and the Father are one, these eyes too confess themselves to be one; because they perform one and the same desire and office.

The Prophet, then, was failing for the word.

But we think ourselves idle if we seem to devote ourselves only to the word: and we esteem more highly those who work than those who exercise study in the knowledge of divinity. For many say: Behold the man and his works. As though one who studies the word does not work; when this work is greater than the others. For if justice is a work, if temperance is a work, if fortitude is a work: surely wisdom too is a work; for these are held to be the four principal virtues. For if Christ works according as He is justice, He surely works according as He is the Word. And He was working when He was in the beginning with the Father. For through Him all things were made; that you may know that He is the worker of all things, and that our work is Christ Jesus. For according as He is the Word, to those who seek the word, the word is a great work.

Whence, when Martha was busy about her service, and Mary was hearing the word of the Lord: that which she heard deserved to be preferred to that which she who ministered was doing. For to Martha, saying: Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. The Lord answering, said: Martha, Martha; Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Thus it is defined by the authority of the divine sentence that to know the word is a greater work than to minister.

But perhaps someone may say that it was said by the Apostle: For the kingdom of God is not in speech, but in power.

I do not deny it is written, but consider in what speech; namely, that which one puffed up pours forth, which cannot profit those who hear it, which is without demonstration of spirit and of power—this speech Paul does not deign to acknowledge; for he wishes rather to recognize the power of speech. Furthermore the Apostle did not want his speech to be such as came in weakness, in order to make others stronger: in fear and trembling; so that those who feared might fear nothing except the Lord Jesus: trembling, that they might preserve His peace and tranquility. Hear, then, what kind of speech the Apostle had. And my speech, he says, and my preaching were not in the persuasion of the wisdom of words, but in the demonstration of the spirit and of power; because faith is confirmed not by forensic speech of wisdom, but by the power of God.

Therefore in the speech of the saints there is power, but in that forensic and philosophical speech there is the vanity of the world. That there is power in the speech of the saints let this same Prophet also teach you, who says: The Lord will give the word to those who preach the gospel with much power; that is, that they may be able to preach the Gospel with much power. It is proven, then, that in the preaching of the Gospel there is power: and the preaching of the Gospel is the speech of the saints: thus there remains no doubt that in holy speech there is power. There follows the third

For I have become like a wineskin in the frost; I have not forgotten Your justifications. This is the voice of the just man who has mortified his body; for rightly is he called a wineskin who, stripped, is not found naked: for a wineskin is made from the hide of a dead animal.

Let us too, then, die to sin, that we may live to God.

Filled with the joy of the spirit, and the sweetness of gladness, we shall be spiritual hides, lacking bodily weakness, and preserving in the whole bosom of the mind the grace of the divine mysteries poured into us. Of such wineskins it is said, that they put new wine into new wineskins, who wish to preserve both, the body and the grace. Let not, then, this wineskin of yours leak, let it not be cracked, let it not grow old with earthly mold; lest the new wine burst the old wineskins, by which the wineskins are torn and the grace poured out. Let them not again dry up from the sun of iniquity and the excessive force of heat, but let the various desires of the burning inward parts be tempered by a certain snowy chill.

Let the heat of lust grow cold, and, quenched by a certain frost of continence and of fasts, let it be washed by morning prayer; for as dew, so the words of God descend upon our earth, as rain upon grass, and as snow upon hay. This snow does not know how to harm the good wineskin, the snow which shines with the splendor of the divine word. This snow cools, it does not scorch; it fructifies the crops, it does not destroy them. This snow is the precept of continence, which makes the bodily heat grow cold, and quenches all the ardor of the inner nature. And perhaps for this reason, when He showed the glory of His resurrection, His garments were white as snow: that not only He Himself might be reckoned foreign to the contagion of sin, but also that whoever is raised up, with the desires of marriage frozen, might seem to rise cold. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be as the angels of God in heaven.

Good wineskins, then, are cold

that is, bound in frost by hoarfrost, not loosened by the heat of lust.

That this body is called a wineskin, though it may be understood from several passages, understand also from this, that Adam and Eve, when they laid aside the heavenly image which they had worn before, putting on the image of the earthly man, are said to have been clothed with tunics of skins; for the committed fault had made them corporeal instead of spiritual. Nor is it absurd to understand that David says he was made thus, like a wineskin in the frost; because, though set in the harshness of ice, he nevertheless mortified his body; lest he feel the harshness of that winter, which the Savior says will be grievous for those fleeing.

For as the wineskin does not feel the ice, because it is the skin of a dead animal; so the Prophet, dead to sin, could not feel the cold of sin: or certainly because it is not broken by necessities, nor does the flesh resist the mind; but, more pliant in its bearing, bends itself to the commands of the soul, and does not wither in this frost of the world: or because we are the body of affliction, and ought always to carry about in our body the death of the Lord Jesus. This is the wineskin that chastises its body, not like that fattened and obese people, who sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. There is the wineskin that inebriates not with wine, but with the spirit: in which there is no cluster of bitterness, no fury of dragons, no rage of asps, but how excellent a cup, inebriating! In this, then, David glories, that he was made like a wineskin in the frost, not feeling the operation of sin.

And rightly is sin compared to frost.

For just as frost is useful for no purpose, for no work; so fault serves no use, no work: and therefore, like frost, it is to be avoided, lest it harm and burn. It is good for me, then, to become like a wineskin in the frost; that I may be able not to forget the justifications of the Lord, so that, drenched by their liquor, all the fervor of inward desire may grow cool. This wineskin, then, ought not to be empty, but full, full of spirit, full of justifications; that I may confess my own sins, that I may suppress the wantonness of my flesh; for we must die to the world, that we may live to God. But if we live to the flesh, the prudence of the flesh is indeed death: we cannot live to God; because this carnal wisdom, and worldly life, is hostile to God. There follows the fourth

How many are the days of Your servant?

When will You execute judgment for me on those who persecute me?

This may be understood thus: How many are the days of Your servant, as if he said: How many are human days, how much time, how much space? Why is so brief a life begrudged; that we may not enjoy the tranquil course of this age? Why in so short a space are so many snares of persecutors stretched against us? Let judgment now be present, in which is the punishment of the faithless, in which fitting recompenses of their impiety are rendered to persecutors. Or thus: How long will they be able to insult, how long to trouble us, who seek to afflict us in various ways? The end will not be late; for the Prophet, as it were, reckons the swiftness of this life's passing not by the measure of years, but of days, saying: How many are the days of Your servant?

And rightly he said days; that he might not only pass through the delays of years by prophetic vision: but also declare to himself, by the light of the virtues, the splendid course of this life. And rightly, secure, he says: When will You execute judgment for me on those who persecute me? To me, he says, You will give judgment concerning the persecutors, not You will give judgment concerning me to the persecutors; since the wicked do not rise in judgment. But give me, he says, judgment; that when You reward innocence, advance faith, crown mercy, the wicked persecutors may be judged by the rewards of the Prophet's merits.

Nor is it absurd also that, since the days of this life are brief and few, the Lord should not delay His grace any longer toward His Prophet: but should Himself execute judgment concerning the persecutors. For here too there is judgment concerning the persecutors; since whoever does not believe in Christ has already been judged. And this is the judgment which the Lord Jesus gave to His servants, saying: You shall have power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. And this is a true judgment, in which the enemy is tormented, as he himself confessed, saying: What have we to do with You? Have You come here to torment us before the time?

This therefore the Prophet, founded upon the stability of the virtues, demands: that not man be subjected to him, but that one who has claimed a place for himself in man. Whence also the Apostle thought that it was rather he who should be condemned in man's sin, he who should be subjected, of whom he says: May God crush Satan under your feet quickly. From this persecutor, then, he longs that judgment be executed on his behalf; that the adversary be crushed by the footsteps of the Prophetic faith, and that the Prophet grind him beneath his feet as dust: and though set in this warfare of his body, though the days of his life be short, yet he may obtain the triumph over the adversary; that he may sigh for the liberty, and feel the power, of the man restored to the ancient grace, whom before he held bound by the chains of sins, and wearied with the burning heat of raging lust. The adversary, therefore, is subjected according to the sentence of the Lord.

For the Lord Jesus, coming into this world through the Virgin's childbearing, subjected to our soul all the contrary powers; that by your faith, your word, your conduct, and your works they might be crushed. If therefore you do not crush the adversary, it is your fault, who do not use the power granted to you. It is in us, then, that the adversary either be subjected or resist. For if our conduct displeases, the adversary begins to grow proud; but if we cling to good works, if we pursue the pursuits of chastity, justice, continence, we tread upon the serpent and the scorpion. For we tread him underfoot with the feet of chastity; we crush also the scorpion, that he cannot shake it off: we tread with the footsteps of continence, of modesty, and the steps of justice. We can, therefore, even in this brief life have a perpetual triumph over the adversaries. There follows the fifth

The unjust have told me fables, but not as thy law, O Lord.

Well does he desire that judgment be executed for him against the persecutors, who not only strove to impede the works of the just man, but also to overturn faith by superfluous narration.

For he calls the tales narrated to him, as it were, the trifles of some fable, ἀδολεσχίας, that is, superfluous loquacities. For superfluous narrators, like swallows, spoil the sweetness of discourse by the unbroken continuance of their native garrulity, as is the opinion of Aristotle.

Superfluous things, therefore, does the heretic speak, who does not speak the truth, does not speak according to the law.

But he who is founded in the law knows how to discern the true from the false; by the instruction of spiritual doctrine, to separate heretical dogmas from the Evangelical. And therefore, lest many be deceived, the sinner is bidden by the Lord to be silent: for God says to the sinner: Why dost thou declare my justices? Let perfidy, then, be silent, which knows not how to keep the path of truth, which does not observe the precepts of God. For why do sinners take up in their mouth the Gospel of truth, in whose mouth there is no truth? But all the precepts of God are truth, and Christ is truth. Christ, then, is not in the disputations of the perfidious, of whom it is said to the perfidious one: Thy mouth hath abounded with malice, and thy tongue hath framed deceit; for the tongue that wishes to establish a lie certainly weaves deceit into its assertions.

But such a one is a thief, and one who runs with a thief.

For many are thieves, who steal and snatch the word of God not for their profit but for fraud; and twist a certain patrimony of the heavenly Scriptures into their own thefts, gathering for themselves adulterated shortcuts, sought by deceit rather than by truth. But these are they who mix water with wine, like the worst tavern-keepers, adulterating the word of God, and offering unadulterated whatever they have brought forth from a perfidious and, as it were, drunken mouth; and therefore they speak things alien to the law. Whence the Prophet rightly shuns and reproves them: knowing what he has received by the prescription of the law. Rightly, therefore, he says in the following

All thy precepts are truth: they have persecuted me unjustly, help thou me.

Like a good soldier he does not shun wars, nor does the seasoned warrior tremble at conflicts, though of grievous battles; but faithful and provident, he prays that help be divinely inspired for him, and demands for himself the faithful aids of pious devotion. And therefore he does not ask that persecutions cease; but he asks to be helped amid persecutions. For he knew that all who wish to live piously in Christ Jesus suffer persecution. He prefers, then, to suffer persecutions, that he may be able to live piously in Christ. And well did he not say one persecution, but "persecutions," in the plural, nor did he express the names of the persecutors; because there are many persecutors, not only those we see, but also those we do not see. Spiritual iniquities persecute, the heretic persecutes, the Jew, the gentile. All, then, are under persecutors, who wish to live piously; because where there are many persecutors, no time is free from persecutors for one longing to live piously.

And perhaps when we do not suffer persecutions, we are to be reckoned as condemned

because we in no wise wish to live piously in Christ. For since indeed the sentence is fixed, that All who wish to live piously in Christ Jesus suffer persecution, he who does not suffer persecution seems to be disowned, as not being of pious intent in Christ; for battles pursue the devotion of faith. If contests are lacking, I fear lest he who desires to contend may seem to be lacking. All, he says, thy precepts are truth. What precepts, if not these: If they have persecuted me, you also shall they persecute? These precepts David, though prior to the mystery of the Incarnation, already heard in spirit: and as a disciple of Christ he did not withdraw himself from sufferings, but offered himself to contests: he knew that this was fruitful for him unto glory, this safe for the keeping of salvation, that by frequent exercises the piety of the just might be confirmed.

For faith unexercised quickly grows languid, and, made idle, is tempted by frequent troubles. The crafty ambusher breaks in upon relaxed watches: but a man accustomed to war, external deceit trains, and advances him to the palm of glorious victory. Peace of faith, then, is material for corruption.

How beautifully the times of persecution proceeded for us.

The inmost affection of mind toward God was intent, like a beggar: it clung to him, nor did the soul praying feel any thoughts clamoring against it: prayer was poured forth with the whole heart, and a certain converse was held with the Lord; daily meditation already had contempt of danger, and had received the habit of treading down death. What we have lost, leisure tempts those exercises which wars had not broken. Dangerous, therefore, is the leisure even of peace. In peace, more persecutions began to be. In the time of persecution there was no flatterer to tempt the mind with cunning flattery. There was no leisure for the mind to be dissolved by bodily delight, and to admit such passions as prosperity is wont to excite. Therefore the Apostles, when they were beaten, when they were imprisoned, rejoiced that by those injuries they gained the merit of eternal glory, they who had been counted worthy to suffer injuries for the name of Christ.

They had no care for patrimony, no zeal for powers and honors, no concern for precedence, which is wont to disturb even the just; but he thought himself preferred who had been most scourged.

Deservedly, therefore, David seeks occasions of triumphing, and does not fear abundance of contest for the sake of the instruction of devotion, he who knew that the persecutions of the wicked profit toward the increase of virtue. For he did not say: Because I suffer persecutions, help me; but: Unjustly, he says, have they persecuted me, help thou me. For one can also suffer persecutions, but not unjustly; because there is also a just persecution, if we hate the obscene, if we are hostile to the unjust, if we wish to oppress the wicked, lest they harm more, if we strip the avaricious man of the profits of his fraud, if we detest the insolence of the proud. But he who suffers persecution for faith, for justice, for chastity, rightly says: Unjustly have they persecuted me, help thou me. There follows the seventh

They had almost made an end of me upon earth; but I have not forsaken thy commandments.

Not superfluously did he seek divine help, he who knew that his contest was against strong ones, and that many battles were prepared for him about to fight, now against spiritual iniquities which are in the heavenly places, now against the heat of the blood, and the countless allurements of this body, wearied by whose varied bonds and long-continued struggle he would have fallen in shameful contest, had he not held himself by the root of faith. Let us learn to beware of what we carry within us; this domestic enemy of ours, this grave foe, is the very use of our own body. It is inflamed by wine, burns with lust, is kindled by the beauty of a woman crossing its path, is fed by hope, is burned by despair, is scorched by allurements, does not vent itself in the deed, is troubled by fear, is broken by dread, is softened by luxury, is dissolved by wantonness, is afflicted by labor, is wearied by anxiety, is worn down by passion.

Do you wonder if amid so many adverse changes of passions even the just man can scarcely hold himself, when we are unequal even to the contest of single ones? Whom does mere lust not vindicate to itself, whom does avarice not subdue, whom does dread not shake, whom does luxury not enervate, whom does wantonness not soften, whom does drunkenness not trip up?

As one conscious, then, of carnal infirmity, and an explorer of hostile persecution, he says: They had almost made an end of me upon earth.

On this earth indeed, on which Adam first fell, and, cast down by a shameful lapse, bent the step of all future posterity. On this earth, on which Cain, grieving that his brother's gifts were preferred to his, was laid low by the ruin of envy. Then the voice of a brother's blood cried out Therefore fear, you who always wish to be preferred. But that anyone would easily judge this to be a gloss earth. On this earth holy Noah, whom the floods of the whole world proved wakeful amid such great storms and waves, yet where, having relaxed his cares with an idle body, he encountered the sleep of drunkenness, and incurred an affront to his fatherly dignity, teaching that leisure is dangerous even to secure virtue.

On this earth Lot, imitator of a reverend parent, whom the impurity of the wanton Sodomite people did not stain, whom the flame of burning Sodom did not envelop, yet did not escape—through a pardonable ignorance indeed, yet a shameful incest of mixing. He is burned by the flames of women, whom the sulphurous flame did not burn.

On this earth even David said he had been almost made an end of.

Since he felt his feet almost moved, and his steps almost poured out: because he reckoned that worldly riches and the successes of bodily prosperity abounded to sinners in place of blessedness. For which reason also he was scourged; but scourges to the just man are remedies of salvation. For the Lord chastises every son whom he receives. Whence also David, turned to the love of the Lord, and instructed in his precepts, not ignorant that transitory things are brought by a certain chance event to transitory men, and that not the abundance of riches, but the grace of virtues, weighs the merits of an approved life, loved rather than forsook the commandments of God, by which alone he was able to overcome the encroaching spiritual iniquities, and the rising appetites of this body, in this so fragile infirmity of nature.

Great, therefore, is the virtue which, set under such persecutions, and almost oppressed, yet has not forgotten its own defense, nor forsaken the commandments of the Lord.

Because he knew that God alone had profited him, directing his prayers to the Lord, he says in the following

Quicken thou me according to thy mercy: and I shall keep the testimonies of thy mouth (Above, v.

17). What quickening of himself he asked, we have said above; because he prayed not for what he had, but for what he desired, that is, that he might live forever, understanding that the blessedness of life could not be in this wavering and untrustworthy body of ours, whose weakness abandons the soul's purpose. There is need, therefore, of the mercy of God, that there be a continual and perpetual quickening in this body; that the just man may daily live to God, and die to sin.

For if guilt dies in us, there will be a life living to God, and a persevering keeping of the heavenly precepts, which indeed he keeps who is quickened by the Lord.

Finally, he first asks to be quickened by the Lord, and afterward promises the keeping of the heavenly testimonies; for this common life does not keep the heavenly commandment, but that which is sustained by an eternal gift through the operation of spiritual grace. We can also understand it thus: that the Prophet, already having recognized what belonged to the Law, desires the mercy of the Lord's coming, that he may receive the precepts by which the Law may be fulfilled; that he might know not only that adultery is to be avoided, but also that the concupiscence of adultery is to be shunned. For the mouth of the Father, the Lord Jesus, spoke in the Gospel, that he who has looked upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery in his heart. How much have the pursuits of chastity gained from the Gospel, whereby not only the reproach of a baser deed, but even that of a degenerate desire, is banished!

But who are they of whom he says that they came near to consuming him in the earth, but the persecutors?

Of one of whom the Lord Jesus says: Go, tell that fox, that is, of Herod. And elsewhere, when he perceived that he was being questioned fraudulently, he said: Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests where they may rest; because they fraudulently linger in certain hiding-places of earthly passions. Whence also Samson bound together pairs of foxes for himself, to whose tails he fastened torches, and let them loose through the harvests of the Philistines; by this figure signifying that wicked and fraudulent men, and especially heretics, have free tongues for barking, but impeded outcomes: either quarrelsome beginnings, but the end of their fraud allotted to fire.

And therefore he also let loose three hundred foxes, because the perfidious desire indeed to commend themselves by the preaching of the cross, but cannot hold to its mystery, who, having composed this preaching falsely and deceitfully, strive rather to scorch the fruits of others; whereas the true cross of the Lord surely does not scorch the merits of others, but makes them fruitful. And rightly it is written in the Song of Songs: Take for us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards, that our vineyards may flourish. By which it is shown that either the Lord Jesus or the Church commands that the deceits of the fraudulent be exterminated from their vineyards; lest they harm the little vineyards, since they can no longer harm the vines already grown. For the heretic can tempt the imperfect, but cannot supplant the perfect.

The letter Lamed, the twelfth, begins, whose interpretation is "heart," or, as another interpretation has it, "serve." Whence it seems to admonish either that these precepts are to be understood prudently, or that they are to be kept diligently. For the very first

admonishes this at once.

For the Prophet, as we read above, asked that a clean heart be created for him. His son Solomon prayed that a prudent heart be given to him by the Lord. He therefore who has a clean heart, who has a prudent heart, himself understands the sequence of the

that follow, and their power.

Whence also elsewhere we find "heart" alone, that is, either singular, or such that no allurement of this world can impede it, nor can the wisdom of the flesh disturb it. But he who has such a heart keeps the commandments of God: just as you have read of Mary, who kept all the words or deeds of the Lord Savior in her heart.

Let us therefore circumcise our heart: let us seek nothing corporeal, nothing base; and base is everything earthly.

Let us therefore set nothing earthly, nothing worldly, nothing corporeal, nothing light and mutable, in the heavenly utterances. For the utterances of the Lord are chaste utterances; so that in these the immaculate and modest sincerity of heavenly mysteries may shine forth through spiritual interpretation. Let us not, by some adulterous opinion, mix earthly things with divine, nor violate by the estimation of our nature that inviolable sacrament of prophetic vision, or of the perennial oracle.

Therefore he also added: Silver tried by fire, purged of earth, tested seven times; so that, like good money-changers, we may test in spirit the silver of the prophetic word, setting apart the coin of the Lord, and purging it from every earthly stain by the infusion of the saving fountain; that we may be seen to hold thoughts worthy of Christ, who says: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where rust and moth destroy; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

Your treasure is faith, piety, mercy: your treasure is Christ.

Do not reckon him as of the earth, that is, of creatures; for the Lord is Lord of all creation. Cursed, it says, is the man who has hope in man: but to me salvation has come through a man. Yet see what the old Scripture says: He is also a man, and who shall know him? That man, therefore, has bestowed upon me the forgiveness of all sins, not by human but by divine power, God in the body, the Lord Jesus, reconciling to himself the world which he was redeeming from guilt.

Our precious treasure is understanding.

If our understanding is earthly, if it is fragile, the heretical moth and the rust of impiety will consume it. Let us therefore lift up and raise our senses, and let us not judge it impossible that this weakness of the human body should be brought forward to the knowledge of heavenly mysteries; since already the Lord Jesus, in whom the treasures of knowledge and wisdom were hidden, has, by his divine mercy, descended to us; that he might unlock what was closed, open what was hidden, reveal what was concealed. Come, then, Lord Jesus, open to us also the door of this prophetic word; for to many it is closed, even though at first sight it may seem open. Forever, it says, O Lord, your word remains in heaven. You see also that what remains and endures in heaven must remain in you as well. Keep, then, the word of God, and keep it in your heart, and keep it so as not to forget it.

Keep the law of the Lord, and meditate on it; lest the justifications of the Lord slip from your heart.

The interpretation of the letter teaches you to keep it diligently. The Prophet teaches you in the following

saying: Unless your law had been my meditation, then perhaps I would have perished in my humiliation.

I will never forget your justifications (Below, vv. 92-93). The meditation of the law, therefore, enables us to endure and bear the times of tribulation, the times in which we are humbled by certain adversities; so that we may not be broken by an affection either too humbled or too dejected. Indeed, the Lord does not wish us to be broken by humiliation unto despair, but unto correction.

Whence also the prophet Jeremiah, under this letter, says in Lamentations: That he might humble under his feet all the bound of the earth, and turn aside the judgment of a man before the face of the Most High, to condemn a man when he is judged, the Lord has not said. And below: Out of the mouth of the Most High evil things do not come forth. The humiliation, therefore, which is from the Lord, is full of justice, full of equity; because evils do not come forth from the mouth of the Lord. Indeed, he who was humbled by the Lord said: I was humbled, and he saved me.

Therefore, just as it must be prudently considered when humiliation is from the Lord as a cause of testing, and when also it is the very imposition of humiliation brought by man, which is nonetheless usually borne with patience and magnanimity: so also it must be wisely considered what it means that the word of the Lord remains forever in heaven: or, as some manuscripts have it, "in the age," because the Greek put εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, which translators have rendered differently: some "forever," others "in the age." "In the age," then, remains, O Lord, your word in heaven. And how did you yourself say: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away? The word remains for an age, not beyond age and ages; for ages belong to time. Heaven, then, and earth, that is, the works of this world, shall pass away, and the times shall remain. Another who is spiritual, and who judges the words of the law, says: Forever, O Lord, your word remains in heaven.

For the eternity of the remaining word excludes the notion of a passing word. But how does the word remain in heaven, if heaven itself passes away? And how can the summits stand, if the foundations give way? Or how can the dweller remain in his dwelling, unless the dwelling itself also endures? But perhaps this may occur to us, because it is written: There shall be a new heaven. But not even thus is it resolved; for that which passes away cannot remain in this, nor can that be said to have remained which has begun. The moth will tear your understanding, if you think the word, like heaven, either begins or passes away.

Whence, if we wish to know the power of the prophetic sense, let us first consider, among things visible and sensible, the ethical meaning; that from this we may make manifest the things that are intelligible. If the word of God remains in heaven, let us imitate heaven, where the word remains, where the solemn order of the heavenly ordinances remains, and where the frequent alternations of the Lord's benefits persist in solemn gifts. Indeed, by the rains from above, or by heat, or by the warmth of this air, a rich fecundity is poured into and nourished in the earth. In heaven the year glides by through days, and months, and the seasons of autumn and winter, of spring too and of pure summer, all set in order. From heaven take the image of your life. Even when you do not bring forth fruit, still sow the seed for fruit. There are seeds which are from heaven, and are sown in the earth.

There is also a heavenly vintage; whence the Prophet says: Sow for yourselves unto justice, gather the vintage unto fruit.

And when your works do not flower, still cherish your seeds, lest by wantoning they run to excess. What runs to excess in the flower of speech is thinned and dulled in the fruit. Boil down the fruits themselves even unto ripeness.

Let us also be imitators of that heavenly element itself: it does not always burn with a fierce sun, it is often woven over with clouds, it bristles with violent rains, it covers the earth with fallen snows. Let there not, then, be in you too a lasting wantonness; let the sorrowful seasons of old-age cares follow, and let a hoary maturity, as it were, restrain this field of your body. Sadness is often more useful, which is wont to have gravity as its companion. Is there any prevarication in the sun itself? Does it not keep its daily courses? Does the moon know continual failures, and desert the office of duty entrusted to it? Indeed, by the same rounds the year returns, in the same state the seasons are restored, by the same services they are reformed. The sun illumines the day, keeping its appointed times. The moon shines with nightly splendors, and its light gleams in the darkness. The globe of the shining stars glows red, and they perform their solemn station, revolution, and change.

There is one law for all diverse things, to keep once for all the turns of the appointed courses, and not to cross the prescribed bounds. That very changeless change remains, and the revolution knows not how to overturn its own order. There is one obedience of all, keeping, in distinct offices, an undivided harmony of the appointed constitution.

The Word, therefore, remains in heaven because Satan fell from heaven: he had no place in heaven, and therefore he fell.

Whither did he fall, but into the earth? Hence adulteries, murders, drunkenness began to abound here. Cast out from there, he came to us fiercer, and, as if enraged, exercises temptations harsher than usual. In heaven, therefore, the Word remains; because from there the devil was cast down: on earth it does not remain; because he has come here entirely. And see whether the Word can remain here in us, where the devil has scattered so many snares—he who, while he was in heaven, could not even there keep the Word remaining in him. For indeed, because he himself did not hold the Word, he fell from heaven.

In heaven, therefore, the Word remains, and that which is ruled and governed according to the disposition of the Word.

But because heaven itself also passes away, he therefore did not say it remains "for ages," but "for an age": although it will pass away, so that a new heaven may come to be, and a new earth, a new testament; that we may be able to see the glory of the Lord face to face.

Yet, because there was also in heaven a place for vices (for surely the adversary would not have fallen from there, had he not been caught in crimes; for even the foolish moon is changed, and heaven itself is overspread with darkness), it seems that this is said not of the element, but of the heavenly Virtues and Powers. For there are holy Virtues in heaven, in whom nothing slippery or earthly is found. There are also, on earth, heavens, who declare the glory of God. Who are these heavens? Hear him saying: As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly. These, then, are the heavens, who, even while placed on earth, dare to say: But our conversation is in the heavens. These are the heavens, in whom faith, gravity, continence, doctrine, and heavenly life are found.

For just as he is called "earth" who, fallen from that primeval transgression of heavenly grace, and cast down into these earthly vices, has bound himself with the chains of his own transgression: so, on the contrary, he is called "heaven" who exercises the life of angels by the keeping of integrity, and moderates his body with continent sobriety, and composes his mind too with gentle tranquility, and dispenses his money to the poor with merciful liberality. There is, then, a heaven on earth too, in which the heavenly virtues can exist. Heaven is my throne—I understand by this rather the disposition of the just man than the element. That, I think, is heaven, to whose soul Christ comes, and knocks at the door, and if it is opened, he enters. Nor does he enter alone; but also with the Father, as he himself says: I and the Father will come, and will make our dwelling with him.

You see, then, that the Word, God, both provokes the idle and rouses the sleeper.

For he who comes and knocks at the door always wishes to enter. But it is in us that he does not always enter, does not always remain. Let your door lie open to him as he comes, open your soul, spread wide the bosom of your mind, that he may see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace. Widen your heart, go to meet the sun of eternal light, which illumines every man. And that true light indeed shines upon all: but if anyone shall have closed his windows, he will defraud himself of the eternal light. Christ therefore is shut out, if you close the door of your mind: even though he could enter, yet he does not wish to rush in importunately, he does not wish to compel the unwilling. Born of a virgin, he came forth from the womb, shining upon the whole world entire, that he might give light to all.

They receive it who desire the brightness of perpetual splendor, which no night interrupts.

For upon this sun which we behold daily, dark night succeeds; but the sun of justice never sets, because malice does not succeed wisdom.

Blessed, therefore, is he at whose door Christ knocks.

Our door is faith, which, if it be strong, fortifies the whole house. Through this door Christ enters. Whence also the Church says in the Song of Songs: The voice of my brother knocks at the door. Hear him knocking, hear him desiring to enter: Open to me, my sister, my Spouse, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. Consider when God the Word most of all knocks at your door, namely when his head is filled with nocturnal dew. For he deigns to visit those placed in tribulation and temptations, lest anyone perhaps succumb, overcome by hardships. His head, then, is filled with dew, or with drops, when his body labors. Then, therefore, one must watch, lest when the Bridegroom comes, he depart shut out. For if you sleep, and your heart does not watch, he departs before he knocks: if your heart watches, he knocks, and asks that the door be opened to him.

We have, then, a door of our soul, we have also gates, of which it is said: Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. There is, then, also a heaven in those in whom are everlasting doors. If you are willing to lift up these gates of your faith, the King of glory will enter to you, bearing the triumph of his own passion. Justice also has gates. For of these too we read it written, the Lord Jesus saying through his Prophet: Open to me the gates of justice. And below the prophet David says: Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem: praise thy God, O Sion; for he hath strengthened the bolts of thy gates.

There is, then, a soul which has a door, and one which has gates.

To this door Christ comes and knocks, knocks also at the gates. Open to him, then: he wishes to enter, he wishes to find his Bride watching. Do not make delays for the good lover; he quickly withdraws: and you will be seen to have shut out him who knocked, by the sleep of your body. For you shut him out, when you are slothful, when lazy, when drowsy; by these bars Christ is shut out; even though you be chaste, even though sober, beware lest you be negligent. He does greater injury to Christ, who repels him as he comes.

Sometimes also, if you delay, he sends his hand through the window, as the Bride says: My brother put his hand through the opening, and my belly was troubled at his touch. I rose up to open to my brother. My hands dropped with myrrh: my fingers were full of myrrh. First, therefore, he sends his hand as it were through an opening, when God is judged to be present by his works. Whence he says: If you do not believe me, believe at least the works. Then love is increased, and once conceived, grows deep within the innermost parts. Thence our soul desires, in that intelligible womb in which is the receptacle of the Word, its seeds being poured in, to draw in the fulness of him dwelling bodily. For the womb of women is not troubled, except of those who are heavy with child.

The soul, therefore, arises, that it may open to the Word of God, but while it spreads and opens itself, that by receiving the Word it may put to death the works of this world, as he says who says: We bear about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus. Therefore while it opens, the Bridegroom has passed by. For he wishes always to be sought, more often to be found, and if he finds the door shut, he knocks, and if by delay he be shut out, he withdraws. But he quickly returns, and knocks again; that he may afterward at least find the bride prepared. It can indeed also be understood thus: My brother passed by, as we read, that the beloved pierced the inmost marrow, and just as it was said to Mary: And thy own soul a sword shall pierce; that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

Finally the Bride added that her soul went forth at his word, which happens when the soul goes abroad from the body, and is present to God.

We have explained, then, as best we could, what this means: For ever, O Lord, thy word standeth firm in heaven.

We can, however, also understand it thus, that it stands firm forever more especially in heaven, where are Angels and Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim; since men, although holy, yet their affections often change. Now we rejoice, presently we grieve, we grow angry, we groan. Even in penance itself the Apostle does not wish us to be too much afflicted, lest we be swallowed up by sorrow. Where, then, there is anger, where there is heavy sorrow, the Word does not abide there. Finally, of the Lord Jesus alone it was said by John that he saw the Holy Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and abiding upon him. For the prophets too did not always prophesy, but when the Spirit of prophecy poured grace into them.

Finally, not even David foreknew what Nathan, sent by the Lord, would announce, and indeed the lesser prophet Nathan knew what David the more excellent did not know And another prophet said: The Lord hid it from me. Whence also many understand that the Word of God abides in heaven, in the heavenly Powers, in whom there are no varieties of affections. But some understand it of the Trinity itself, which alone is immutable; and therefore the Word abides in heaven, that is, in the Father, since the Word said: I am in the Father, and the Father in me. Thy truth unto all generations. There are many who are called gods, but are not. Therefore among the nations is falsehood; in the Church, truth. Yet this truth first the Synagogue possessed, which had the oracles of God; for there is truth also in the Old Testament, which existed before among the people of the Jews. For God is known in Judea. But God is truth, therefore in Judea is truth.

There was, then, truth in the fathers, in Moses, and Joshua the son of Nun, in Samuel, in David, Elias, Elisha, and in those seven thousand men who did not bend the knee to Baal. But because the later offspring of the Jews departed from the ways of their fathers, truth withdrew from them, and came to the Church. For it withdrew from them, when they said of the Lord Jesus: Away with him, away with him, crucify him; for they betrayed the truth, and chose iniquity. All other generations, therefore, are strangers to the truth, all the generations of heretics do not hold the truth: the Church alone possesses truth with pious affection; because the generation of the Jews, which possessed it before her, lost it. The people of the Jews, then, was the first generation of faith, and therefore more infant-like and weaker, which could not stand in the slipperiness of adolescence; but the Christian people is the second generation of faith; therefore stronger, and more mature with venerable old age.

That generation was of the law, this of grace.

Whence also elsewhere he says: Unto generation and generation they shall declare thy truth.

There follows the third

Thou hast founded the earth, and it abideth.

By thy ordinance the day endureth. How God founded the earth, Scripture has taught us, the Prophet saying: God by wisdom founded the earth, and prepared the heavens by understanding. The earth, then, is as it were a foundation, on which we stand; although it is in the hemisphere of heaven, and outside discourse celebrates this, and Scripture seems to signify it, Job saying: Hanging the earth upon nothing. It is enclosed, therefore, by the heavenly sphere; and therefore the sun is not seen by night, because in its revolving it is found in the lower part of the heavenly sphere. But it is not the care of the saints to describe, in philosophic fashion, the axis of heaven, and the spaces and numbers of the elements (for what does this profit toward salvation?), since the saints are always intent on things of the spirit, and are eager either to know or to teach what will profit for eternal life.

Finally, this passage Ecclesiastes has beautifully opened to us as being spiritual, not material, saying: What profit hath a man of all his labour wherein he laboureth under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, and the earth standeth for ever; that is, what abundance is there for the spiritual man laboring under the sun of justice? And he added: One generation passeth away, and another cometh. The generation passes, because the rich have wanted and hungered. They who before abounded in grace, afterward, because of their unfaithfulness, began to want. But those who were the poor among the people of the nations, now through faith in Christ are filled and abound, as it is written: The poor shall eat and shall be filled. For they heard him saying: Enriched in every word, not indeed in moneys, not in gold and silver, but, he says, in every word and in knowledge. And elsewhere he says: In the riches of simplicity. Those riches are wholesome; for worldly abundance cannot bring salvation.

But he who has spiritual abundance, his earth, fruitful, stands forever, well founded upon the root of the virtues, either the soul indeed germinating good fruits, or the flesh unmoved by any desires toward a fall.

This earth the saving sun of justice circles, of which it is written: And the sun ariseth, and goeth down, and returneth to his place. There rising he goeth to the south, and turneth about to the north: the Spirit turneth about and about, and the Spirit returneth into his circuits. The sun rises for the just, but sets for the unjust: it rises for the tranquillity of the pious mind, it sets for wrath. Whence he says: Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. From this it may be gathered that it rises and sets for the same persons, whose vices it buries, and whose grace it illumines. For he is dead to sin, that he might live to God; that is, we are in him dead to sin, that we might live forever to God. See the very mystery foretold. And the sun, he says, ariseth, and goeth down, and returneth to his place. This is what the Lord says: When I shall be lifted up, I will draw all things to myself.

For he drew to himself the zeal of all, that he might either crucify our sins, or call forth good disposition toward justice. Observe how he draws to himself: Father, I will that where I am, they also may be with me. And to the thief he says: This day thou shalt be with me in paradise. Observe how he draws all things. He was lifted up on the cross, and the whole world believed.

He himself rising, it says, goeth to the south, and turneth about to the north. That rising one indeed, who says: The Orient is my name: who always rises for the pious, never sets. He, rising, went to the south for the people of the Hebrews, to the softer people, more slippery through the luxury of a more fervent body, than hardened by the immensity of impiety: or certainly to the nobler people, which was a chosen race, claiming for itself the lineage of the patriarchs. But because it persisted in vices, and did not amend its error, therefore the sun of justice turned to the nations, which before, deprived of the heavenly oracles, were held to be savage and ignoble; for the north wind is heavy, as is the people of the nations. But they who were heavy before through faithlessness, are now made lighter than eagles by faith and piety, after he came who would say: Bring from the north.

And in the Gospel: They shall come from the East and West, and from the North and South, and shall sit down with Abraham in the kingdom of God. And behold, the last are made first, and the first are made last. Finally, the Psalmist himself also says: Mount Sion, the sides of the north, the city of the great King; that is, those who were the side of the north have become the people of the eternal King, who alone is the great Lord.

But perhaps you may say: How is it that in the Canticle it is said: Arise, north wind; and come, south wind?

For most take this as though the north wind is being cast off, and the south wind invited. And if they so understand it: the icy harshness of perfidy is driven out from the Church: Let not our flight be in winter, or on the sabbath, and the mild springtime of the south is invited. Or certainly: Arise, north wind, that is, arise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead. O people of the nations, who have long slept before, awaken at last, and Christ will dawn upon you. Finally all are invited to the Church, both the people of the Synagogue and of the Gentiles: but the Synagogue first; because the apostles from among the Jews believed first, and through them afterwards the peoples of the nations were gathered together.

See therefore our sun coming toward the south, afterward wheeling round toward the north.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem (he came indeed to her whom he deigned even to call by name; but this is the earthly Jerusalem, which killed the prophets, that is, the Synagogue of the Jews), how often, he says, would I have gathered your children, as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. He therefore wheeled himself toward the Gentiles: and in wheeling, the Spirit of God wheeled, and turned in its circuit; that God might become all things, and in all. Hence heaven is called holy, because the nearer brightness of the sun always illumines it. It has its own domestic splendor; so that it does not feel the darkness of night. Hence the Church too is called both heaven and world, because she has saints comparable to angels and archangels, and also has very many earthly ones. She is also called the circle of the earth, which is founded upon the seas, and established upon the rivers.

Finally, as it were the circle of the earth, the Church says: Do not look upon me

because I am dark; because the sun has not looked upon me; because, as though bound by wintry frosts and ice, the Sun of justice long deemed unworthy the gathered congregation of the nations' gentile error, that he should visit it with the serene light of his countenance. Did it not seem to you the harsh rigor of a wintry season, when God was known only in Judea? But now the fullness of summer's light shines forth, when Christ is all things and in all. Is not the earth the Lord's, and the fullness thereof? And truly the circle of the earth is in the Church, in which there is not Jew only or Greek, not barbarian or Scythian, not slave or free: but we are all one in Christ. The sun shines for all, the day gives light to all. And therefore he says: By your ordinance the day endures.

For unless you understand it thus, how does the day endure; since after a brief moment of the day the setting follows, and there comes a succession of night? But there are those for whom it is always day, namely those to whom Christ is present, who says: Walk while you have the light. This is the day which Abraham saw, the day of the remission of sins, of which you read: This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it. There are therefore saints for whom the sun never sets: because the Lord is their light, as it is written: And the Lord shall be to them an everlasting light.

And he expressed the cause of the enduring day, and added: By your ordinance the day endures, because all things serve you.

He seems therefore to signify that future time when Night shall be no more, and there shall be no need of lamp, or of the light of the sun; because the Lord shall illumine them. Who these are he said above, saying: And his servants shall serve him, that is, they shall do the will of the Lord. For now we do not all serve: but when he shall have delivered the kingdom to God and the Father; then all things shall be subjected to him, who has subjected all things to himself, gaining the faith of all through the passion of the only-begotten. The subjection of minds, therefore, makes for diligent servitude. Therefore when all shall have believed in the Lord Jesus, then all things shall serve God; that God may be all things, and in all: but now not all are servants of God; because most are servants of sin.

For whoever commits sin is the servant of sin. But the Lord does not wish to have a partnership of dominion with others. The day, therefore, remains unchangeable. He could indeed have said, it shall remain: but to the prophets future things seem present at hand in the spirit. There follows the fourth

Unless your Law were my meditation, then perhaps I should have perished in my humiliation.

The Prophet shone like the day, for whom the Law was his meditation; for indeed he received the oil of light from the Law. Finally, that the light of day might not be extinguished by the body of death, he walked in the Law, and therefore walked in the light. Otherwise, he says, I should have perished in my humiliation. Humility is not always of virtue, but sometimes also of affliction; that is, not always voluntary, but sometimes undertaken out of necessity, when we are tried by some affliction. Otherwise no one perishes in humility, which is rather wont to preserve.

Therefore when we are in a time of affliction, and are shaken by adversities, let our meditation be in the law; lest the storm of temptation afflict us unprepared. An athlete, unless he has first been accustomed by the exercise of the wrestling-school, does not dare to enter the contest. Let us then anoint the sinews of our mind with the oil of our reading. Let us have the practice of exercise all day and night in a certain wrestling-school of the heavenly Scriptures, and let the wholesome food of spiritual dishes strengthen the limbs of our souls; that when the adversary begins to stand against us, and sprinkles us with the dust of his temptation, we may stand undaunted, and strive not as one uncertain, nor as one beating the air. We strike better when struck, if we offer the other cheek to him who strikes, if we do not seek revenge: but reserve the whole cause of vengeance to him who said: Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.

We strike the powers of the air, if we know how to chastise ourselves.

Paul chastised his own flesh, that he might beat down his adversaries: and he brought his body into servitude, that he might dominate his enemies. Let us then be exercised by the unwearied practice of meditation, let us be exercised before the contest; that we may be ever ready for the contest: and when the more frequent blow of the adversary presses on us, now by want, now by plunder, now by bereavement, now by bodily sickness, now by grief of mind, now by terror of death, and the bitterness of punishments; let each one of us, who has been able to sustain and endure, say: Unless your Law were my meditation, then perhaps I should have perished in my humiliation.

How many things at once were heaped together, that in that affliction holy Job might perish?

But because he had been formed by the customs of the patriarchs, and shaped by the instruction of heavenly oracles and of the natural law, he could not therefore perish in such great temptations. Finally, when he had suddenly lost such ample possessions, his dearest children, as one for whom daily meditation was in the divine law, he said: Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, naked shall I go thither. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away: as it pleased the Lord, so has it been done: blessed be the name of the Lord. Even when covered with sores over his whole body, when tempted by the words of his wife, he who remembered how Adam had thus been cast down, when he trusted his own wife, replied: You have spoken as one of the foolish women. For if he had wished to listen to her as though she were wise, he himself would not have been wise.

Tempted also by the various speeches of his friends, when he had earned from the Lord the rewards of stable faith and immovable patience, did he not say: Unless your Law were my meditation, then perhaps I should have perished in my humiliation?

How gratefully does he say this today, who in martyrdom endured very many scourges, tried by the rack and the claws, by lead, by burning plates, by the sword?

For he could have perished, had he not, meditating in the Law, believed the future punishments to be heavier than the present.

How great were the things holy Joseph endured, how bitter, how hard!

First the hatred of his brothers, the miseries of ignoble servitude, defrauded of his parents, sent off into exile, a slave-boy of traders, and the base chattel of an ignoble Egyptian. What temptation could be graver for a boy of noble lineage than that, cast down from such splendor of family, he should serve among the Egyptians? Servitude is consoling when one serves even the just. The equity of a master lightens the injury of servitude. Cast down, therefore, from so great a lineage, he counted it grateful enough if his service were approved by the king's steward. Not even this was sufficient for the bitterness of temptation: the adversary returns to his own arts, and stirred up his known powers by every deceit; that through a woman he might weave snares for an innocent conscience.

He incited against him, by the goads of lust, the wife of his master, who demanded adulterous union from the young slave; that if he consented, he would fulfill a crime; if he refused, he would fall into offense, unable to escape the tie of calumny. Finally, thrust into prison, and reckoned innocent among the guilty, he began to be pressed all the more by him to whom he had shown his fidelity even amid dangers. But because insults could not break the man, the temptation was changed, far harsher in the guise of prosperity. For prosperous circumstances have tripped up very many whom bitter punishments had not broken.

He is brought forth from prison at the king's nod, interprets a dream, is chosen that he might be preeminent in honor above all the Egyptians, second to the king, that he might distribute food to the starving peoples His brothers are set before him, who had sold him into the injury of servitude with no brotherly love: that, tempted even by the grief of insult and of endangered welfare, he might shake off the affection of kinship But the just man forgot the insult, heaped up favor instead; and wished all the more to show himself a brother, the more he himself had not experienced brothers Finally by this generosity he both received back his brothers, and sought out his father by a pious deceit. What else, then, could holy Joseph better say to the Lord than this: Unless your Law were my meditation, then perhaps I should have perished in my humiliation?

It is reported of a certain prophet (and many report that it was Isaiah, when placed in prison), when he was pressed by the weight of imminent destruction, the devil said to him: Say that you did not speak from the Lord the things you said, and I will change the minds and affections of all toward you; so that those who are indignant at the wrong may grant you release. But he judged punishment for the sake of truth more welcome than a benefit for the sake of flattery. This indeed he would not have done, had he not been trained by meditation on the Law.

Let daily reading, then, be for us a form of exercise, that what we read we may meditate to imitate.

Let us labor in this wrestling-school of virtues; that when temptations shall rouse themselves, the time of temptations may not find us untrained, as it were, nor devoid of spiritual food, and weakened by the fasting of reading. But if it can find our soul fed with athletic banquets: if there be Evangelic vigor in us: if the ripeness of our mind, strengthened by apostolic foods, has solidified the sinews and firm strength of the soul: if a tenacious memory, by frequent meditation, has laid up examples of the heavenly precepts ready to be brought forth in time of need, no encounter with temptations will be able to disturb us. There follows the fifth

For ever I will not forget your justifications; because in them you have given me life. The Law, according to the Apostle, is the pedagogue of little ones, until we come to a certain more mature age of perfect faith.

Now in the Law there are commandments, justifications, testimonies, justice, precepts.

We are given life, therefore, in the Law; whence also the Apostle says: But the Law is not of faith: but he who does it shall live in it. But because the same Apostle says above: For no one is justified in the Law, you understand indeed that the justification of the Law is a species and image, not the truth. According to truth, therefore, no one is justified unto perfection in the Law; according to appearance he is justified. Therefore the holy Prophet, who as yet lived in the justifications of the Law, but saw by the brightness of the Gospel; as though mindful of the old discipline, reserved gratitude for the Law as for a useful pedagogue. Consider someone passing out of boyhood, established in riches and honors, who yet reserves honor for his pedagogue, by whose offices he recognizes he was formed; that he might be able to govern a more mature age.

Indeed the Law itself also admonishes that we ought by no means to be ungrateful to those who have at some time profited us. For as we have it in the Old Testament, the Passover was celebrated in the territory of Egypt, when our fathers, still placed under King Pharaoh, were bewailing the wrong of their wretched servitude: and afterward, freed, they again celebrated the Passover in the land of promise: the former as an admonition, the latter as a remembrance. If, then, anyone should ask a Hebrew for what reason the Passover was celebrated in Egypt, he will answer: Because we were still held bound by the chain of servitude to King Pharaoh, that lamb freed the people of the fathers, that lamb called us to liberty, that lamb solidified the depths of the sea; that we might be able to pass through Egypt. As often, therefore, as we celebrate the Passover, we ought to remember our former servitude, and our new liberty; what we were, and what we have received.

For no one can fully understand what he has received, unless he remembers what he was before.

Let us not therefore forget that the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, the victim of the world, loosed us from the bonds of grievous sins, in which that most foul Pharaoh—not of Egypt alone, but the prince of this present age—held us bound fast with the heavy chain of servitude. Let us never forget it; so that when we shall have come into that truly land of promise, where is the region of the living, we may remember how much that dread Pharaoh inflicted upon us here, how many things we suffered in this age, and from what evils at last we were rescued; and let us give thanks to the Lord Jesus who rescued us, who made the disturber of all things become a captive. There follows the sixth

I am thine, save me, O Lord; for I have sought out thy justifications.

It seems an easy word, and common, but it belongs to few. For rare indeed is he who can say to God: I am thine.

For he says it who clings to God with his whole mind, who knows not how to think of anything else. He uses this word who can say: Show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Does he use this word who is greedy for money, honor, power? For many it is not enough to know God, and indeed for the greater number. So many peoples, so many nations, so many rich men think it poverty to serve the Lord: and he who is above all is to them small and narrow: to them the Son of God, in whom are all things, is not enough. Finally, that rich man in the Gospel, to whom it was said: If thou wilt be perfect, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, judged that God was not sufficient for him. And so he was made sorrowful, as though he were bidden to leave what was more, and to choose what was less.

He therefore says: I am thine, who can say: Behold, we have left all things, and have followed thee.

This, then, is the voice of the apostles, yet not of all the apostles. For Judas too was an apostle, and reclined at Christ's banquet among the apostles. He too said: I am thine, but with his voice, not with his heart. Satan came, and entered into him, and began to say: He is not thine, Jesus, but he is mine. For he thinks on the things that are mine; the things that are mine he turns over in his heart: he feasts with thee, and feeds with me: he receives bread from thee, money from me: he drinks with thee, and sells me thy blood: he is thy apostle, and my hireling.

The worldly man cannot say: I am thine; for he has many masters.

Lust comes, and says: Thou art mine; for thou dost covet the things of the body: in the love of that young girl thou hast sold thyself to me; in the embrace of that harlot I have counted out the price for thee. Avarice comes, and says: The silver and gold which thou hast is the price of thy servitude: the possession thou holdest is the purchase of thy rights, the sale of thy liberty. Luxury comes, and says: Thou art mine; the banquet of one day is the price of thy life: that expense of feasting is the bidding for thy head, is the sum of the contract for thee, and, what is worse, thou art bought with flesh, thou art cheaper than thy own food; thy table of a single day is more precious than the life of thy whole time. Among the cups I have redeemed thee, amid the feasts I have acquired thee. Ambition comes, and says to thee: Truly thou art mine.

Dost thou not know that I made thee rule over others for this very reason, that thou thyself mightest serve me?

Dost thou not know that I conferred power upon thee for this, that I might subject thee to my own power? Or art thou ignorant that it was said to the Lord and Savior himself by the prince of this world, when he had shown him all the kingdoms of the world: All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me? He therefore is first subjected who wishes to have others subject to him. All the vices come, and each one says: Thou art mine. He whom so many claim as their own—how vile a slave he is!

How then canst thou, who art of such a kind, say to Christ: I am thine?

He will answer thee: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: not everyone who says to me, I am thine, is mine. Thou art truly mine, if conscience does not refute the voice, if mind or deeds do not gainsay thy word. I do not deny that he is mine, who does not himself deny himself, or at least, if for my sake he denies himself to himself. I do not wish to have a little servant serving several masters. For how is he mine, if he say to me in word: I am thine, and deny it in works, and by his deeds adjudge and bind himself to the devil? He is not mine whom lust inflames; for chastity is mine. He is not mine whom the care of despoiling the lesser folk drives on; for integrity is mine. He is not mine whom fickle anger disturbs; for tranquility is mine.

He is not mine, the man made drunk with the debauch of wine until daylight, drunk with the ambition of worldly glory, who cannot keep in peril the footstep of sober moderation. I am peace, I know not how to quarrel. What is it to me concerning him from whom the devil comes and says: He is mine; for he has bent his neck to me, I find more of my own in him: he claims thy name for himself, and my gift?

He is not therefore Christ's, unless he is free from crime: he is not Christ's, unless he can always show himself Christ's little servant. For if anyone is changeable, as I am changed either by sorrow or by indignation, anger comes and says: He is mine: an hour ago he was mine, I hope he will become mine again. Sadness comes, and says: He is mine: an hour ago he was in my possession, in my right: he could not lift up his spirit for grief, nor raise his eyes: and if something sad should happen, he will straightway return to me. Who then is God's, except he who can say: I am conscious to myself of nothing? For this reason Paul called himself the apostle of Jesus Christ, because he was bound in debt to no other. But I now am my God's, now sadness's, now anger's, now of an idle word's; and therefore he who has many masters cannot say to the One: Lord Jesus, I am thine.

Whence I think Paul also spoke of masters of this kind: For although there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth: yet to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him: and one Lord Jesus, by whom are all things, and we by him. The apostle Paul, then, was wholly of the Word; therefore he said: Since you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me. He therefore said: I am Christ's; and the Lord answered him: Thou art mine. He who truly says: I am thine, hears from the Lord: Thou art mine. Finally, concerning him the Lord said to Ananias, when he sent him to heal Paul: Go, for he is a vessel of election to me. And because he persevered in being Christ's, as though the contest were finished, he deserved to find the crown of justice.

Rightly, then, the prophet David said: I am thine, he who always remained in the Lord.

And having said why he said: I am thine, he added: I have sought out thy justifications, that is, I have sought nothing of other things, but I have desired only that which is thine. Others seek precious necklaces, I seek only thy justifications as certain garlands of righteousness: others join house to house, farm to farm, as though they alone could dwell on this earth, and wish to seize the common element, others claim possession of the very air; for me, in thy justifications is my whole inheritance. I know not how to possess anything except what is of thy right. In thy words the spiritual care of silver has shone upon me. God is my portion. I am thine; for my portion of inheritance is not in gold, not in silver, but in Christ Jesus. There follows the seventh

The sinners waited for me, that they might destroy me: I have understood thy testimonies.

This word can apply to martyrdom, where the saint, now set free from the judgment of the persecutor, may say: The sinners waited for me, that they might destroy me—that is, they applied every kind of punishment, every art of persuasion: but they could not draw me from my purpose. Faith conquered the enticement of this life, and the torment of the body. The sinners waited, that they might carry off triumph over me: but thanks be to Christ, who gave me to triumph over the persecutors. Go back conquered, you who hoped to be conquerors: go back cast down, you who came proud. Where, O death, is thy victory? Where, O death, is thy sting? The victory has now begun to be ours, not thine any longer; for we conquer in thee, in whom before we were conquered. Well then does the martyr say: The sinners waited for me, that they might destroy me. After a moment, nay, while still placed in the body, he sees the choirs of those leading him forth, the joys of angels.

For if they rejoice over the conversion of one sinner, how much more over the passion of the just! He sees glory and says: The just waited for me, that they might lead me forth. He sees the Lord Jesus, and says: Christ waited for me, that he might crown me.

Another wishes to understand it thus: Many, he says, have tried to persuade and to extort sins from me; one adultery, another the killing of a man, another the oppression of a widow or an orphan, another something else: and they thought I was to be caught in their nets. They waited for me, that they might destroy me by the contagion of sin; but I did not turn my mind aside from the pursuit of divine knowledge by the enticements of sinners, nor did I bend my intention, O Lord, away from the order of thy commandments: but I understood thy testimonies. For if I had not understood them, those sinners would certainly have destroyed me. What I understood by sense, I also followed in deeds; for understanding is not naked, but such as deeds also attest. Finally, Blessed is he who understands concerning the needy and the poor. He truly understands concerning the poor man, who gives liberally to the poor. For what does it profit to have pity on the needy, unless you give him nourishment?

There follows the eighth

I have seen the end of all consummation; thy commandment is exceedingly broad.

We cannot in all things express the force of the Greek speech; usually there is greater force and grandeur in the Greek expression. τέλος is said in Greek, which we in Latin call both end and consummation; but τέλος is also the end of consummation itself, just as the end of the Law is Christ unto righteousness to every believer. You have it written: Behold I am with you, even to the consummation of the age. The consummation of the age, then, is the end of the age; but the end of all things is Christ. But there are many consummations. There is a consummation when there is resurrection unto salvation. A work also is called consummated when it is a perfect work. Malice is called consummated, that is, full, lacking nothing for zeal and skill in doing harm. There is a consummation of man, and many consummations, until he comes to the perfect state.

We read, then, both of the consummation of the age, and we read also of the end.

Of the consummation of the age we have set forth above an example, which the resurrection follows: For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. After the resurrection comes the consummation: But every man in his own order; the firstfruits Christ, then they that are Christ's, who have believed in his coming; then the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father, when he shall have brought to nought all principality and power. Therefore the end follows the consummation of the age, according to the Apostle. From this it is gathered that the end follows every consummation.

The world is set in wickedness, as John said: therefore the age also is in wickedness, the world full of sin.

The world had consummated its own malice, just as Saul had consummated his, whose consummated malice Jonathan his son, seeing it in relation to David the prophet, announced to him that he should turn aside and flee. There is, then, a consummation of malice, a consummation of sins. The Lamb of God came, who took away the sin of the world, who is Christ Jesus, the end of the Law, the beginning and the end, and the remission of sins. This end of consummation the Prophet saw in spirit, who would abolish the consummated error of the age: he saw the diverse sins of all men cleansed by his blood. Well then did he say: I have seen the end of all consummation; that is, I have seen the remitter of consummated adultery, I have seen him granting pardon, through his cross, for consummated luxury and wantonness, for consummated cruelty and savagery, and finally for every crime.

There is also consummated virtue, consummated wisdom, consummated righteousness, but it has an end.

The end of all virtues is Christ, who is the end of the Law unto righteousness to every believer. Do you see that he is the end of faith? Well then does he say: I have seen the end of all consummation.

Now since we have recognized the end of consummation, let us recognize what this is: "Thy commandment is exceeding broad".

We read that narrow is the gate through which those enter who obtain the fruit of eternal life. For virtue is rare, and the endurance of sufferings is difficult. There are many who pursue the spacious ways of this age, who say: "Narrow and strait is the way for us which leads to the Lord, we are worn down in it, let us leave it." How then does the Prophet say that the commandment of God is broad, and exceeding broad? Because for the narrow way a broad commandment is necessary. Accordingly this same Prophet says: "In tribulation thou hast enlarged me". And again: "In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard me, setting me at large".

This breadth of the heavenly commandments was enlarging the heart of the Prophet and of the Apostle. Accordingly he too said: "Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged". For in dispensing the heavenly commandments he had enlarged his heart: and what the treachery of persecution had before straitened, the grace of Christ had amplified. And for what reason is the commandment broad? Lest we be straitened by the narrowness of the commandments. Whence he says: "Ye are not straitened in us". If Paul does this, how much more Christ, who unlocked the closed doors? Therefore he says: I will not have my people be straitened in me. On the narrow path of the virtues the breadth of my precept ought to be a solace to travelers; lest anyone be able to fail or be worn down.

Let us then walk in the commandment of God; for it is broad enough.

For broad is the commandment of Wisdom, which is sung at the going forth, and acts confidently in the broad places (plateae); for πλατεῖα is a Greek word which in Latin is called breadth. Let us then enlarge our heart, that we may receive the force of the apostolic sentence, which says: "Receive us". Let us then receive his words into our heart: let us put on bowels of mercy, kindness, humility, patience. O man, how broad you are, if you spread out the bosom of your mind to the breadth of the heavenly precepts! How broad is the commandment of charity! "Love," he says, "your enemies". Surely he has included all within the embrace of charity, who has excluded no enemies. For who seems to be excepted, when even an enemy is received? Whence the Apostle says: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, having peace with all men".

This cannot be said of the Jews, nor of the Gentiles, that they should have peace with all men. They scarcely love their own; but to the Christian it is not permitted not to love even enemies. When I say Christian, I mean the perfect one; for in Christ is the fullness of divinity, whose name you assume. You who bear the title, why do you flee from the interpretation and perfection of the title? Hear the broad commandment: "Bless them that persecute you, and curse not". This very man who says the commandment is broad, proved it above when he said: "They indeed spoke against me, but I gave myself unto prayer". What did you pray for, David, tell us yourself. But you have told us; for I have read you saying: "They will curse, and thou wilt bless".

The thirteenth letter, Mem, signifies in one interpreter "bowels," in another "from them"; and neither disagrees with the text. For at once the first

expresses the charity of inward bowels, which surely proceeds from the innermost marrow, and by a certain bond of warmth is entwined with the bones.

Accordingly in the Lamentations of Jeremiah the text of this letter contains this: "From on high he hath sent fire into my bones" (Thren.

I, 12). Good therefore is the God who sends upon us that whereby, loving him, we may be able to find merit in his sight. Let him himself teach us what fire he sends: "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled"? Good is the fire which the Savior of all desires to be kindled: especially since we have read that God himself is fire, who consumes our sins, and infuses into the innermost recesses of our hearts a longing for the knowledge of himself, and makes our heart burn within us when we read the sequence of the divine Scriptures; if perchance we grasp with spiritual understanding something whereby the hidden things of prophetic reading may be opened. By this fire Cleophas said his heart burned, when Christ opened the Scriptures to him and his companion.

Of this fire the Lord spoke in the book of Ezekiel: "Behold, I will go forth into Jerusalem, and I will blow upon you the fire of my wrath, that you may waste away as lead, and iron, and the other materials". We see profound mysteries in these accustomed words. All this is spiritual. By what prayers may we deserve that the word of God come, enter the Church, become a consuming fire; that it may burn up the hay and stubble, and consume whatever is worldly: that the heavy lead of iniquity, which is in many, may be melted by the divine fire, and a certain iron hardness of sin be softened by the heavenly burning: that the vessels of gold and silver may be improved; that every sense of the wise, every word of the prudent, refined by the heat of burning passions, may begin to be more precious. Good is the fire of charity, by which the whole body of the Church grows into mutual grace.

Good is the fire of love, by which each saint is kindled to reverence for his Author.

But he who loves God does not love him perfunctorily: he loves his law, keeps his precepts, justifies his heart, not by the sonorous proclamation of words, but by the zealous imitation of deeds. Let God then teach us how he is loved by his saints. Thus the Prophet, saying, adds: "How I have loved thy commandment, O Lord: it is my meditation all the day." This is the voice of one loving the study of knowing the Law, which instructs the perfection of man, which this whole psalm forms.

And since he knew that the greatest commandment in the Law is that we love the Lord our God with our whole heart and with our whole soul, by his own imitation he wishes us also, whom he strives to instruct, to be perfect, saying: "How I have loved thy commandment, O Lord." By this very act charity grows in affection, in that it calls to witness him himself, to whom the gift of love is rendered: and by such a summons it testifies not to the appearance, but to the fullness, of charity. Peter used this: "Thou knowest, Lord," he says, "that I love thee". But he who loves the Lord loves his law, just as Mary, loving her Son, kept all his words in her heart with maternal affection. "Loving thee, I have done thy will," it is written. Therefore Christ also entrusted to Peter that he should feed his flock, and do the will of the Lord; because he recognized his charity.

For he who loves does out of will what is commanded him; he who fears, out of necessity. And so the Lord approves the spontaneous works of his servants rather than those done under compulsion. Therefore he makes free men out of servants; that we may confer the gifts of our will rather than the compliance of necessity.

The Marcionite cannot say: "How I have loved thy Law," who does not accept the Law.

The Jew cannot say it, who does not know the spiritual Law, and meditates only the bare letter of the Law, not the sense and understanding of the Law. Only the Christian says it, then, who has already made much progress in the knowledge of the Law, who does not fear the penalty of the Law with a fearful heart, but with fearless affection searches out the divine mysteries of the true Hebrew, the true sabbath, the true remission. He truly loves, then, who without sadness, without fear, keeps the precepts by voluntary zeal rather than by compulsion. Another

"Thou hast made me wiser than my enemies by thy commandment; for it is with me forever." He quickly proved the effect of prolonged meditation, when he understood the commandment of the Lord above his enemies.

But what enemies does the Prophet have, who ought either to embrace with lawful charity the men of his own people, or invite foreigners by evangelical preaching to the grace of God? Wild beasts love the companions of their own nature: how then would the Prophet spurn the love of one like himself? There must therefore be some just cause, by which those whom he signifies may rightly seem to be enemies. We can investigate what this is, if we remember that elsewhere this same man said: "And I pined away because of thy enemies, and I hated them with a just hatred". By evangelical authority, then, he says these are his own enemies who are enemies of God. For if he who does not leave parents for the sake of God's name is not worthy of God, how much more will he who loves God's enemies not be able to be acceptable to God? Whom, then, does he have as enemies? If the Gentiles: how, since he foresaw by prophetic spirit that they would believe?

Accordingly, in what precedes, he has exhorted that they too should bless the Lord.

And what great praise is it to understand above those who, by venerating metals and stones, have drawn to themselves a hardness like unto stupor?

Whom, then, does he have as enemies, if not heretics?

For they are the assailants of the faith, enemies of the truth. Whom, if not the Jews? For they are the more grievous enemies, who from friends have become enemies. He understands "above" those, who understands the Law to be spiritual. What then does the Law profit, if you are ignorant of the end of the Law, if you know not the mystery, if you are not acquainted with the sacraments? For the Jews a lamb from the sheep is slain for the celebration of the Passover; for us, for the redemption of the world, the Only-begotten of God, the offspring of the Virgin, is immolated. What do the Jews profit, in that they smear their houses and doorposts with the blood of a lamb? Nothing at all; since wood or stone cannot be of any profit to them.

For us the whole mystery profits, we who believe that we shrink not from spiritual grace; so that we do not stain our dwellings with the blood of a beast, nor dye our mouths with gore: but we consecrate our bodies with the sacrament of the Lord's cross, and sanctify the utterances of our mouth with the confession of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation". What does it profit that the Hebrews pierce the ear of a servant with an awl, and circumcise the foreskins of their bodies? They do not understand at all what the divine Law distinguishes. These are signs, not the truth. But he understands, who purifies his own heart by spiritual circumcision, that he may cleanse away all the defilement of bodily stain.

He understands, who transcends by strength of mind the awl and the ear, and raises to the reward of perpetual liberty that soul which the sword has pierced through to reveal the hidden things of the heart; or who, zealously serving in the examination of words, sanctifies with a spiritual mystery whomever he has received into the ear of his own virtue. The Jew is accustomed each year to make unleavened bread for himself, and does not know that he himself is the leaven of malice. But he understands what it is to purge out the old leaven, lest it corrupt the whole lump, who purges out the old man with his deeds, that he may become a new lump of truth. These things were said to the Jew, and the Christian heard them; because while that man pierces his ear with an awl, he could not hear: bearing a wounded ear, he has bloodied his ear not with the awl of the Law, but of his own foolishness.

That man, by hearing the things spiritually revealed, has pierced his ear with iron; for he preferred to believe in iron rather than in the Word.

Therefore he serves, therefore he has not deserved to be free, therefore not even the grace of the completed time favors him; because he has not received the fullness of time, in which the Son of God was sent for salvation, and came for redemption, made under the Law, born of a Virgin, victor over death, giver of resurrection. The wound remains, then, for him to whom Christ has not risen.

O wound which cannot be healed, unless perchance he abandon the awl, and take up for himself the sword which for the name of Christ he does not refuse, whereby he may distinguish bodily things from spiritual, the shadow from the truth: let him take up the word of God, the two-edged sword, and from that divine mouth be taught to recognize the commandment of the Lord, the precept of the Law, which does not have the observance of a temporal festival, but infuses saving and everlasting remedies with the sap of spiritual grace.

Meditate, then, all day long in the Law: your passage through it ought not to be perfunctory.

If you wish to buy a field, if to purchase a house, you employ a wiser counselor, and diligently consider what the right is; and lest perchance you be deceived in something, you do not trust yourself. But now you yourself must be bought by yourself: it is your own price that is in question; consider what you are, what name you bear, what you are acquiring for yourself—not a field, not money, not necklaces of gems, but Christ Jesus, to whom no prices, no ornaments can be compared. Take to yourself as counselors Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Peter, Paul, John, and the great Counselor himself, Jesus the Son of God; that you may acquire the Father. With these you must deal, with these you must confer wholly, all day long you must meditate; just as David meditated, and this was his sole meditation.

His mind was not drawn away by worldly allurements, he did not burn with the desire of amassing a pecuniary patrimony; the anxious tide of cares over extending a boundary and excluding a neighbor did not turn back the affection intent on the zeal of meditation; whatever the day could hold of time, this wholly meditation on the Law alone claimed for itself.

But even this is too little for one who is diligent, who wishes to arrive at the grace of blessedness.

For the blessed man meditates in the Law day and night. The day is too narrow for the meditation on doctrine. The day of time is not so great as the meditator in the Law. Wherefore see whether this rather seems to signify that for him who meditates in the Law it is always day, and light without failing, which no darkness of night interrupts. Otherwise how could he declare more negligent in the progress of the work him whom the Prophet had wished to be more diligent in the very beginnings of his work? In the day, therefore, is the meditator of the Law, and the preacher of the Gospel.

And perhaps those who do not receive the New Testament read in the night, and therefore neither knew nor understood.

Whence the Saviour, lest we too should read in darkness, admonishes us, saying that one must walk in the day, because he who walks in the day does not stumble; for he sees the grace of the light. But he who walks in darkness meets the rock of stumbling. There follows: Above all that taught me have I understood; for thy testimonies are my meditation. The scribes of the Jews profess doctrine; because they deserved to have the Law and the prophets first. But they profess to teach, yet they do not teach. But to that people who believed from among the Gentiles, it is fitting to say: Above all that taught me have I understood; because they did not understand. The Jew replies: Whence did you get understanding? It is written: Ask thy father, and he will declare unto thee: thy elders, and they will tell thee. I am thy Father, ask me.

But even if I ask, you will not answer me, said Jesus: and from that they cannot answer, and from that I understand above those whom I formerly did not understand

because I have learned testimonies which he does not know. I have learned: He who follows me, let him take up his cross. I have learned: Love your enemies. And therefore Paul wishes to be anathema for his brethren according to race, enemies according to faith.

Such a claim by the prophet might seem unfitting to prophetic modesty, in that he presumed to say that he understood above all who taught, since Moses received the Law from the Lord and delivered the ordinances to his people, Aaron taught the priestly discipline through the whole course and rite of all the sacrifices, Joshua the son of Nun showed how circumcision could be repeated, Samuel likewise showed the sacraments of prophetic and royal anointing. This presumption would seem, I say, incongruous, unless he had put forward the preceding words, by which he might not undeservedly prove that he understood above those who taught.

He ought to assume this confidence, who was taught by the Lord: and the commandment which he was taught was the Lord's, and the Lord himself was the one who taught (above, v. 2). Deservedly he understood above all whom Wisdom itself was teaching. Whence also elsewhere he says: Blessed is the man whom thou shalt instruct, O Lord, and shalt teach him out of thy law.

He shows, therefore, that it is a divine thing that men cannot teach: and so those who presume to teach do not know; but the disciple who is taught recognizes. In this, besides the gift of knowledge which he had obtained from the Holy Spirit, there is also a pleasant moral point, that there are many who teach what they do not understand, calling themselves teachers: and there are very many disciples who by their own study and industry attain what they did not learn from masters. Finally, someone before us said there was a difference between "those who teach" and "teachers"; perhaps thinking this because teachers are those chosen for this office by the judgment of others: but those who teach are those who by their own presumption have taken this office upon themselves. But even teachers must yield of necessity to him whom the doctrine of God, who teaches, has imbued through meditation on the heavenly testimonies. There follows: Above the elders have I understood; because I have sought out thy precepts.

Nor indeed is this difficult, that he whom the Lord has taught should understand above elders; since by the grace of God one may progress to the doctrine and maturity of elder age. For since the age of old age is a life unstained, surely the doctrine of an unstained life furnishes the age of an elder. Finally, to Jeremiah excusing himself as being young, the answer was given: Say not, I am a youth; because he was not to be reckoned young by divine definition, who possessed hoary prudence, which shone with the grace of heavenly sanctification.

Yet it does not seem to me that the Prophet praises himself, and prefers himself to elders, since he has read: Let not the discourse of the elders escape thee: for they also learned from the fathers. For elsewhere too the Wisdom of Sirach says: Where there are old men, speak not much. But he knows to which elders he prefers himself, namely those grown old in sin, and raving with the eternal old age of impiety and the senility of unfaithfulness. These are the elders of the people of whom it is said, who delivered the Lord Jesus to Pilate the governor: For the priests, and scribes, and elders assembled, as Mark says. And again: The priests made a council with the elders, that they might deliver him up. And against the apostles in their Acts, that the elders of Israel assembled, holy Peter and Luke the Evangelist testify.

He did not, therefore, disparage elder age: but by the voice of the people which is to be referred back to what precedes: The Jew replies he prophesied that that ancient of days people of the Jews would be unteachable in its old age, since what it had not acquired in its youth, it could not find in its old age. For from the beginning it provoked the Lord with frequent offenses. Whose grace, then, when it was young, it could not merit; the coming of this same grace, when old, it did not deserve to recognize, nor was it able to hold the gift. But understanding is in hoariness, the mark of old age is in understanding, and the knowledge of veteran counsel is preferred by maturity of understanding, not by length of life.

Let us therefore seek out the commandments of God; that we may understand above the elders.

Let us flee the slippery way of sinners; that we may be able to keep the heavenly precepts. For this is what the following words declare. Jacob, the younger brother, understood above the elders; for when Esau, the elder brother, demands for himself the prerogative of the blessing by the privilege of age, he leaves the milder repast, while he seeks wild game. While that one indeed went off to hunt, the younger brother took his garments, and gave them to me, the people of the nations, using his mother's counsel. That robe of wisdom, then, which the people of the Jews had before, Rebecca clothed me with. Her good robe is the Law and the prophets. Of this robe that people was stripped, we were clothed. That mother Jerusalem, which is in heaven, clothed us. We approach, therefore, the Father, we offer him the milder repast, the foods of patience, the gentleness of mercy, the sweetness of understanding.

I receive the blessing, I snatch from the elder brother the spiritual grace.

He comes, he is angry: he finds nothing to receive. The mother meets him, and instructs us with pious exhortation. That robe woven with good commandments remains with me. I have restrained, he says, my feet from every evil way; that I might keep thy words. Truly worthy to understand above elders; since he was honored with the divine spirit, that he might teach elders not only the truth of understanding, but also flight from sin, and caution against fault. And so, since human frailty is prone to be carried downward by its affections, and with running step into vice, he teaches how it cannot be entangled by the slipperiness of this way and the windings of this journey, as it travels. I have restrained, he says, my feet from the evil way, that is, from the vanity of this age; because the world is set in wickedness.

Whatever is doubtful and of uncertain outcome, this is evil; as a doubtful light is called evil: so whatever mixes the darkness of malice with truth is evil. Call back, then, from the slipperiness of this world the feet of your soul, and the steps of your mind. Restrain, I say, resist desires, withstand the movements which seem to rush in, like beasts and cattle; lest they graze upon the tender fruits and the new cultivated fields of this our country.

I have restrained, he says, my feet.

Certainly it is not the feet of the body they restrain, which for the most part obey the judgment of a pious mind. For they are not to be restrained, when they go forth to the temple of God, hasten to bring aid to a widow, to forestall someone impious, to trip up some deceitful person. There is, then, another foot which is rightly restrained. Let the Prophet himself teach us which this is: Let not, he says, the foot of pride come to me. There is also the foot of iniquity, which slips quickly, and cannot stand, just as is the foot of the unfaithful, of whom it is written: There have all they that work iniquity fallen, they are cast out, and could not stand. Restrain, then, your feet, lest you fall; for there are feet not only of crimes, but also of weakness. And take heed lest you fall.

And perhaps you seem to yourself to stand well: but Paul says to you: And thou that standest, take heed lest thou fall.

Attend diligently to your way, that you may hear: But stand thou here with me. For standing with God, you will not be able to fear a fall. Standing with God you will be able to say: He has plucked my feet out of a fall: but thus the Lord plucks your feet from every fall, if he has found that you restrain your feet from falling. Therefore David deserved this, that God should pluck his feet from a fall; because he himself restrained his feet, lest they slip with the headlong and careless step of sins: whence he was also able to keep the divine words. For no one will be able to keep who is not first able to stand. But when he has kept, the Word of God itself begins to bear him custody. Well does he say his feet were restrained from the evil way, who knows that Christ is the way.

I have not declined from thy judgments; because thou hast set me a law.

He explained what it was to restrain the foot from the evil way; namely, not to decline from the divine judgments, and to hold firm and unmoved the step of persevering innocence, not to deflect one's course, nor to turn aside from the racecourse of discipline, but to stand fast in the paths not only of the old Law on Sinai, but also of the new, according to the clarity of the Gospel.

There is also the law of the Gospel, of which this prophet speaks above: Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them: let the nations know that they are men. We understand certainly the coming of the Lord to be prophesied, and the calling of the nations, which before seemed fixed in a certain mire of this body, clinging to the pleasure of their own corruption as if to dregs, and to lust; because they did not know the Lord. And therefore, angered: Let sinners, he says, be turned into hell; that they might not see the soul of the Lord Jesus descending and ascending, and be converted to the Lord, who, while they lived, refused to be converted. But he speaks of those nations which forget the Lord.

They knew, then, and forgot: yet with prophetic kindness he prays that the Lord may arise, that man may not prevail; that earthly thoughts and all the fervent motions of this body may be quieted. Let the nations be judged; for then the Lord is known, when the affection of those who fear is converted, grave with the terror of judgment: And let the nations know that they are men, resolvable through the corruption of mud, and formed of hardening clay: which those who had not received the Law before did not know. Whence the Prophet, as if himself troubled by contemplation of earthly frailty, says: Why, O Lord, hast thou withdrawn afar off?

He rightly fears, who knows himself to be a man: but because he fears more for us, who are sinners from the nations, he prays that he not be made far from his own peoples; that we who were far off might begin to be nearer, and might know that we are men, made indeed to the image and likeness of God, to whom also Christ, through the birth of the Virgin, was made conformable. Rightly, then, it is taken both as to weakness, and as to grace: Let the nations know that they are men: in one sense through a certain common and carnal fellowship with beasts: in the other, through the image of God, and the sacrament of the Lord's flesh, that which seemed a degradation has begun to be a dignity.

Rightly, then, the people of the nations did not decline from the judgments of God, who is able to say

Because thou hast set me a law. Not through Moses, not through the prophets, but thou thyself, Jesus, hast set me a law, that is, the Gospel. Therefore I have not declined from the way; because I have beheld thee, I have known thee, and following thy paths, I have known the true way. And so, hearing the preaching of the Gospel which the prophetic spirit sang beforehand, he says: How sweet are thy words to my throat, above honey and the honeycomb to my mouth! And rightly sweet, by which is preached the remission of sins, the perpetuity of life, and even the resurrection of the dead, which have tempered the bitterness of perpetual death and its harshness. Through these we have begun not to fear death, we who have begun to say: O death, where is thy victory? And rightly sweet to the throat; because the spiritual grace is poured into the innermost parts.

Above honey and the honeycomb, he says, are thy words sweet to my mouth. And therefore, because thy words have begun to be sweet to us, thou sayest to the Church: Thy lips distil a honeycomb, O Bride. What is a honeycomb, teach us, Solomon? For thou hast said: Honeycombs of honey are good words. And truly a good honeycomb is that which the Church eats, redolent with the spiritual richness of many prophets gathered together like bees. This is the honey of which he says: I have eaten my bread with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. The mystical discourse of the heavenly Scriptures is like bread, which strengthens the heart of man, as the stronger food of the word. But the persuasive, moral discourse is sweet and softer; because by moral preaching the inner things of the mind are soothed: things bitter through fevers, that is, the penitence of sins, become sweet to hearts by a gentle discourse.

The lips of the preacher distil honey, when souls that have fallen, bruised by hard mishaps or ruin, have their members refreshed.

There is also a more fervent force of the word, as of wine.

There is also in the guise of milk a more lucid discourse. Eat, he says, my friends, and drink, and be inebriated. Good is that inebriation, which produces a certain excess of mind toward better and joyful things; so that our soul, forgetful of its anxieties, is made glad with the wine of joy. Good is the inebriation of the spiritual table. Hence: How excellent is the inebriating cup! But elsewhere too you have: Inebriate its streams, multiply its offspring; because the inebriation of the earth, when it has been drenched by the heavenly shower, is wont to rouse the seeds and multiply the fruits.

And so the word of God, which descends like rain from heaven, when it has inebriated the veins of our earth, or of the soul and mind, with divine preaching, has stirred up the pursuits of divers virtues, and has caused the fruits of faith and chaste devotion to grow; and rightly it is said to it: Thou hast visited the earth, and hast inebriated it. For by the assumption of the body he visited, that he might heal the sick; he inebriated with spiritual grace, that he might soothe the anxious with joy.

Rightly, therefore, it is said to the Bride: Thy lips distil a honeycomb, O Bride: honey and milk are under thy tongue.

For the mouth of the just man distils wisdom: from the mouth of the just man honeys of sweetness and mercy come forth: in the mouth of the just there is no guile, no deceit, no bitterness of sin. The Church hears the words of the just man, the people of God hear the precepts of the wise man, is delighted by the sweetness of his address, is soothed by the pleasantness of moral discourse, saying: How sweet to my throat are thy words, above honey and the honeycomb to my mouth! Because the honey of bees delights for a moment, but its flavor soon vanishes, and often the vitals are harmed by defect: but of moral words, even though their honeys sting, they do not harm. Know, however, to whom these things may be entrusted; for it is written: Speak nothing into the ear of a fool; lest at some time he mock thy prudent words.

For the fool will vomit forth and reject thy word, who cannot perceive its sweetness. There follows: From thy commandments I have understood: therefore have I hated every way of iniquity. Consequent upon this

is: Desiring wisdom, keep the commandments.

But no one can keep them, save he who understands. For all the words of the Law are recited daily by certain elders of the Jews, and none of them is able to keep the commandment. For I would not say that a tree keeps the fruitfulness of its nature, which luxuriates in leaves, and comes to nothing in fruit: nor would I say that the earth keeps its fruits, which bears fern hateful to farmers, and is not accustomed to yield grain: nor does a shepherd seem to keep the flock, who does not know how to choose pastures that will profit, to beware of wolves, to fence the sheepfolds with dogs, who knows not how to give drink when there is need.

For merely to bring forth the dumb flock without any care is just the same as for the people of the Jews merely to read the Scriptures. Where the spiritual pastures of the sacrament may be, where the letter kills, where intelligible wolves may attack, where there is the rest of refreshment, where the hope of resurrection, who are the dogs that can bark in defense of the flock—the people, more dumb than the flock itself, does not know.

And so if one should say: I keep the commandments; it is answered to him: But thou hast hated discipline, and hast cast my words behind thee. If thou sawest a thief, thou didst run along with him, and with adulterers thou didst set thy portion. Thy mouth hath abounded with wickedness, and thy tongue hath contrived deceits. Sitting, thou didst speak against thy brother. This is not to keep the commandments, but to transgress: to do things contrary to the statutes is not to understand, but to be ignorant. How can the words of God be sweet in thy throat, in which there is the bitterness of wickedness? How can honey and milk be under thy tongue? When thy tongue composes deceit: so that thou conceivest one thing in thy breast, and pretendest another in outward speech, that thou mayest deceive the unwary: when the apostle Peter tells thee to lay aside all malice, and to cast away the guile of pretense, saying: As newborn babes, rational, and without guile, desire the milk.

For he shows us what it is to have honey and milk under the tongue; that we may know not to curse those who curse us, but to return blessing: that we may know how to hate nothing except the way of iniquity; that we may take care, with a resisting affection, not to do what we execrate. Therefore Paul used to guard against evil in his flesh, because he hated it. Therefore John admonishes in his epistle that we should not love the world: Because all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life.

There is in us, therefore, both something we may rightly hate, and something we may rightly love.

For just as we can rightly love the servants of God, and can rightly love our enemies according to the Word of the Lord: so we can rightly hate the enemies of God, hate iniquity, hate perfidy, hate baseness, hate the vanities of this world. Those things, then, which are of the world ought to be hated; lest the enticement of pleasure, that little conciliator, creep in flatteringly upon careless and idle affections. The comeliness of a wanton harlot easily captures the eyes, unless just hatreds restrain them, and an indignant affection turns away from impurity. Frequently the boastfulness of nobility, and the abundance of worldly things, puffs up men, and lays them back with swollen disdain; unless it shame thee that things foreign to thyself, rather than thine own, are praised in thee. Christ, though he was rich, was made poor: in the poor man, not in the rich, he redeemed thee.

To those confessing him the Son of God he commanded silence; that God might be recognized rather by works than by words; and dost thou call thyself noble, who wast made from earth? King David says: Remember, O Lord, that we are dust: and dost thou glory in this frail and muddy race, and think thyself rich, who tomorrow mayest be a beggar; since thy life consists not in thy abundance, but in the mercy of God? To whom be honor, glory, praise, and perpetuity from ages, and now, and always, and unto all ages of ages. Amen.

Nun is the fourteenth Hebrew letter, whose interpretation is: Only-begotten; or, in another interpretation: Their pastures.

Behold, the very letters of the Hebrews testify that the Lord Jesus is the only Son of the Father, the Word of God. Hence at once in the first

David speaks of the only Son of God, saying: Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my paths.

Whence we understand that this psalm is arranged according to the letters of the Hebrews for this reason: that our human nature, like a little child, formed from infancy through the elements of letters, to which the age of childhood is accustomed, might grow up even to the maturity of virtue. And the several letters are, as it were, titles of those

which are inscribed under the same letters, declaring their sequence and content, just as here the letter signifies "only-begotten," and this portion of the psalm prophesies concerning the only-begotten Son of God, and the brightness of his eternal light.

Nor indeed is that other interpretation of this letter found in another codex at odds with this.

For what are our pastures—that is, the pastures of the faithful—but Christ? In whose pastures the Prophet rejoiced to be placed, saying: In a place of pasture there hath he set me. For he himself feeds us and refreshes us. Good pastures are the divine sacraments. There you pluck the new flower which gave the good fragrance of the resurrection. You pluck the lily, that is, the splendor of eternity. You pluck the rose, that is, the blood of the Lord's body. Good pastures too are the books of the heavenly Scriptures, in which by daily reading we are fed, in which we are refreshed and restored; when we taste the things that are written, or ruminate more frequently on what has been touched but lightly with the mouth's edge. By those pastures the Lord's flock is fattened.

Good too are the pastures of Christ, who feeds among the lilies, in the splendor of the saints: good pastures too are the mountains of the valleys. For in these too Christ is fed, like a young roe, or a fawn of the harts. The mountains are of the valleys, as the luminaries of this world shining with diligent humility, who by the summit of divers virtues stand out, and by their merits rise above the world. These are they of whom it is said: They are not of this world, as I also am not of this world; because those who follow Christ are above the world. But the valley is the world: and therefore he set weeping in the valley; because in this world there are weeping and tears. And the Lord, providing, set his Testament in this world; that here rather we might weep for our sins, than keep them to be wept for hereafter.

Our pastures too are these

of which we are today to treat, in which David says: I fed my father's sheep, showing the true lamp, teaching humility.

In such pastures the true David, truly humble, and mighty of hand, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself; and, being made man through the Virgin's childbearing, humbled himself even unto death, fed the sheep of his Father by divine preaching; when according to the Scriptures he proved his coming, when with five loaves and two fishes he satisfied many thousands of men. These, then, are our pastures, these the pastures of those who can say: How sweet to my throat are thy words (above, v. 103)! These the pastures of those who say: Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp to my feet. For our mouth is fed by the word, when we speak the commandments of God the Word.

And our interior eye also is fed by the light of the spiritual lamp, which shines before us in this night of the world; lest, as men walking in darkness, we stumble with uncertain steps, and be unable to find the true way. The step of the feet, then, is intelligible, and the lamp too is intelligible; because the Word of God is the lamp. Was not this in the beginning the Word with God: how then is it a lamp? Was not this the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world: how then is it called a lamp? Isaiah cries out: The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light: how then is this called a lamp here?

But let us see whether perhaps this same Word of God is a great light to some, a lamp to others.

To me it is a lamp, to the angels it is light. To Peter it was light, when the angel stood by him in prison, and a light shone round about him. To Paul it was light, when, as he went to persecute the Christian people, a light from heaven shone round about him, and he heard one saying to him: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And indeed a great light. Hence the lamplight of Paul vanished, where the splendor of the divine light flashed forth.

And truly Christ is a lamp to me, when he is recalled by this mouth of ours.

It shines in the mud, that treasure gleams in an earthen vessel, which we have in earthen vessels. Put in oil, lest it fail you; for the light of the lamp is oil, not earthly oil, but that oil of heavenly mercy and grace, with which the prophets were anointed. Your oil is humility, by which the hardness of our neck is softened: your oil is your mercy, by which even bodies dashed against the rocks of sins are soothed. This oil that Evangelical Samaritan poured upon the man wounded by robbers, going down from Jerusalem, who, seeing him, was moved with mercy, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine. This oil heals the sick; for mercy frees from sin. This oil shines in darkness, if our works shine before men. This oil shines in the solemnities of the Church.

In short, those to whom oil was not lacking, to them the light of faith did not fail either; but they were found worthy to enter with their lamps into the place of the wedding: but those who did not carry oil in their vessels, that is, who did not have faith, nor prudence, nor mercy—souls established in this body—were deservedly shut out for their unfaithfulness. Therefore do you too always keep your lamp burning, or your torch shining. For if neither your lamp nor your torch shines, you will be called a foolish virgin, and you will not enter into the bridal chamber of your higher Bridegroom: but you will remain in the darkness of blindness, as one who hates the light; lest your shameful deeds be exposed: For everyone who does evil hates the light. Have faith, have prudence, so that you may always have in your vessels the oil of mercy, the grace of devotion; because the prudent virgins received oil in their vessels along with their lamps.

Anoint, O men, your lamps: when you fast, anoint your head.

Let us pour oil into our minds; that our body may be full of light. Let the Word of God always shine as a lamp for you: and let your eye, the lamp of your body, shine also. Your shining conscience is rightly the light of the lamp in this body; for it is your eye. Let your eye be pure. If your conscience is clean, your flesh is clean: but if your conscience is dark, your body too is darkened by the night of your conscience. We ourselves, then, are lamps covered over with the whole body, scarcely having some small part by which we can shine.

Finally, John too was a lamp, as the Lord said of him: He was a burning and shining lamp.

A good lamp, which received its light from Christ; that it might shine in this world: rightly burning, rightly shining; because he was the messenger of Christ, illuminating by the preaching of faith the breasts of individuals. But to these lamps too he granted that they should be the light of the world, saying to the apostles: You are the light of the world. Therefore if the glory of the saints shone now as a lamp, now as the light of the world in this age, what shall we say of the Word of God, who is also a lamp to my feet?

And perhaps where there are no darknesses, the Word of God is not a lamp, but above a lamp; because it is light.

Darknesses do not exist for those who see the light. Finally, then the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. And perhaps according to the Law the Word of God is a lamp, according to the Gospel it is a great light. To the Jews it is a lamp, and a lamp under a bushel. The Law shines, but is not seen; because it is covered by their doctrine and by the thought of vices, and by the blindness of unbelief: but to the people from the nations it is a light. Finally, to the people that sat in the region of the shadow of death, a light has arisen for them. Open therefore your windows; that the splendor of the great light may enter you.

Make ready your candlestick; that your light may not be covered by the covering of your body, and by the measure of this earthly frailty: but that beyond the measure of bodily weakness you may shine forth by the virtue of your soul. Or if you are held to a measure, see that the measures themselves do not overflow beyond, lest they overflow above: but let them be content with good seeds. Let not your speech be idle, let your word not be at leisure and vacant; lest it become a lamp under a bushel. God is able to set your lamp upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all who are in the house, so that those entering may see the light. Our principal is a candlestick. Set your word in your principal place, and let it shine to all who enter the Church. Take another candlestick as well. Consider your mouth, consider also your speech. Is not your mouth a candlestick, and your word a lamp, when it is brought forth from your mouth?

Let this lamp always shine for you

that is, let your word shine, and never be extinguished.

You ask that I teach how it cannot be extinguished.

It is written: The light of the just is always unquenchable: but the light of the wicked shall be quenched. This was the light of the lamp that shone in the Tabernacle of the Testimony, and today which shines in the Church, the wise man. This is the eye of the Church, who does not say to the hands, that is, to those who work but are not sharp for understanding: You are not necessary to me. Therefore he who said, But our citizenship is in heaven, shone upon the candlestick. For David too, with his whole mind, was already living in heaven, and yet still said: A lamp to my feet is your word. Or perhaps, like a good teacher, he wished to go before me; that I might learn to follow the light, and walk by his feet.

He showed me, then, to learn to follow this lamp in the darkness of this ignorance, established in the covering of this body; that following Christ, I might strike against no stone of stumbling. Peter was erring in the darkness of ignorance, denying that Christ was to die; because he did not yet see that he was to die and rise again for us. The Lord, turning to him, said: Get behind me. He showed him the lamp which he ought to follow, saying, behind me. Having followed the word of God, he was strengthened: afterward he began to cling to Christ, fearing lest he fall again into some error. Did not he too, who said, A lamp to my feet is your word, hasten to this lamp when he said on the sea: Lord, bid me come to you upon the water? But because he was not following the lamp, he was shaken and staggered, disturbed by the weight of his more impetuous nature.

Let us follow, then, this lamp: and as in the night let us walk toward the light.

Many pits, many rocks are not seen in the darkness of this age. Hold before you the lamp which the Prophet has shown: see where you ought to transfer your step, watch where to set the foot of your inner mind: let there be care at every step: trust none of your progress unless the lamp goes before with its light. For where you think there is shining, there is a whirlpool; it seems to shine but it defiles; and where you think there is solid or dry ground, there it is slippery. But even if you have a lamp, the journey may be long. Let faith, then, be the guide of your journey, let divine Scripture be your road. Good is the heavenly guidance of speech. From this lamp light also your own lamp; that your inner eye, which is the lamp of your body, may shine.

You have many lamps, light them all, because it has been said to you: Let your loins be girded, and your lamps burning.

Because there are many darknesses, many lamps are necessary; that the light of our merits may shine forth amid such great darkness. These lamps the Law signified must always burn in the Tabernacle of the Testimony, not those which the Jews light daily. Those shine under a shadow, and are extinguished daily; because they do not see what they do: what they read, they do not know, taking according to the letter what is commanded according to the spirit.

For the Tabernacle of the Testimony is this body of ours, into which Christ came, through a greater and more perfect tabernacle, as it is written; that through his own blood he might enter into the holies, and cleanse our conscience from every work of the dead and from stain, so that in our bodies, which by the testimony and quality of their deeds bear witness to our hidden and secret thoughts, the clear light of virtues might shine after the manner of our lamps. These are the burning lamps, which shine day and night in the temple of God. If you keep the temple of God in your body, if your members are the members of Christ, your virtues shine, which none extinguishes, unless your own crime has extinguished them. By this light of a chaste mind and pious devotion may the feasts of our solemnity shine forth.

Let your lamp, then, always shine.

Christ rebukes even those who use a lamp, if they do not always use it, saying: Let your loins be girded, and your lamps burning. Let us not rejoice in the light only for an hour. He rejoices for an hour, who hears the word in the Church and is glad: but going out, forgets what he heard, and neglects it. This is he who walks in his house without a lamp; and therefore walks in darkness, who does the works of darkness, in revelings and drunkenness, in beds and shameful acts, in strife and jealousy, clothed in the garments of the devil, not of Christ. These things happen when the lamp of the word does not shine. Let us therefore never neglect the word of the Lord, from which for us is the origin of all virtues, and a certain process of all works.

If the members of our body, without light, cannot work rightly (for the feet stumble without light, and the hands go astray), how much more ought the footsteps of our souls, and the movement of our mind, be directed to the light of the word! There are also hands of the soul which rightly touch, as Thomas touched the marks of the Lord's resurrection, if the light of the present word shines upon us. Let this lamp be lit in every word, in every deed. Toward this lamp let our step, both outward and inward, be moved.

But now let us proceed to the rest, and let the word of God be a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths. A lamp is enough for the feet to walk by, it is not enough for paths to be illuminated: yet the same Word is both a lamp to the feet and a light to the paths; because the same only-begotten Son of God is both advocate for the offending and rewarder of the strong, forgiver of sins, giver of rewards. And so, whoever has had the Word of God as a lamp, for him, wherever he goes, the paths shine, as they shone for holy David; and therefore, as one walking in the light, he says: I have sworn, and am determined to keep the judgments of your justice.

I have been humbled in every way.

It is the voice of one walking in the light to say with authority: I have sworn, and am determined. For he who is determined is not moved, does not fear lest he fall, because it is more to be determined than to stand. David, then, stands, founded upon the station of his mind, and does not fear that in these darknesses of this world he might err; for if he feared, he would not swear: if he trembled as to whether he could keep the divine judgments, he would not have determined it with the sacrament of an oath. No one swears well, except one who can know what he swears. To swear, then, is a sign of knowledge, a testimony of conscience. And he swears well, who directs his feet to the lamp of the word, who discerns the light in his paths.

Let the light go before you, if you intend to swear

that is, let the knowledge of truth go before; that the bond of the oath may not be able to harm you. Where there is holier religion, there faith in the truth is fuller. Finally, therefore, the Lord, who came to teach little ones, to instruct the new, to strengthen the perfect, says in the Gospel: You must not swear at all; because he was speaking to the weak. Finally, he was speaking not only to the apostles, but to the crowds; for he wanted you not to swear, lest you perjure yourself. And he added, not to swear at all, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by Jerusalem, nor by your head, by these things, namely, which are not subject to your power. The Lord has sworn, and will not repent. Let him swear, then, whom it will not be possible to repent of his oath. And what did the Lord swear? That Christ is a priest for ever.

Was what the Lord swore uncertain, was it impossible?

Could it have been mutable? Do not, then, presume to use the example of the oath, you who do not have the power of fulfilling the oath.

What then did David swear?

To keep the judgments of the justice of the Lord. In no way indeed did the judgments of divine justice trouble him who was now perfect, now instructed. How many are troubled when they see some just man bereft of his children, and by frequent losses reduced to the extremity of utmost want, so that he cannot even have the means of sustenance: broken by grievous sickness, and vexed with perpetual infirmity, so that he cannot perform the common offices of nature? But he who is steadfast is not troubled, and he the more understands that the justice of God is to be proclaimed; because the Lord chastens whom he loves. Is not a son more often chastened than a little slave? Is then the piety of a father more unjust than the severity of a master? A father exercises his son with harsher discipline than a master his house-servant. But the hard stripes given by a father are not reckoned as harsh; because he wishes his son to be better than a slave.

Instruction, therefore, is full of justice.

The holy Job was bereft of his children, over whom the Lord gave power to the devil.

Is God then unjust? Far from it: rather he is just; because, in intending to prove his just servant, through such trials in which his patience was proved, he made him more worthy to be tested. For the brighter the merit of the one crowned, the more abundant is the justice of the one who crowns. He was stripped of his wealth though he was rich, and he underwent these losses by God's permission. These were no longer losses of money, but of life; since, though everything was gained, sustenance was lacking. Who would accuse the justice of God, since Job, if he had not lost all his money, would not have found such great grace? God willed to anoint his naked athlete with the oil of repentance; that by undergoing it he might make him stronger for the contest, and more worthy by earning the prize.

His whole body covered with a grievous wound, he sat in dung, scraping off the corruption flowing from the cruel weals of his sores: and this the devil had inflicted upon the just man by the Lord's permission. The devil would seem to have conquered for himself, had he not, upon receiving the power which he had demanded, himself also been overcome. What then was that trial, what the want of means, the bereavement of his children, the endurance of wounds, but an exercise of faith, a mark of patience, a glorious instruction of virtue, a full confession of victory; so that he who before had the devil as an adversary, might afterward have him no longer? Let no one, therefore, think that things which are just are harsh. They did not seem harsh to him who could say: Naked I was born, naked shall I depart: the Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. For the just man blesses the Lord when he labors, the sinner when he revels.

Therefore the force of justice is not to be estimated from our weakness.

What do we think harsh except whatever we cannot bear through weakness of soul?

Take away persecutions, and martyrs are lacking. But God has also allowed persecutors—that is, the powers of the world—to rise up; lest there be none to conquer for Christ. Who then did not say, being weak: Lord, why have you given your people into the power of those who persecute them? But who today would deny that those who suffered are more blessed than those whom no torments of persecutors ever afflicted?

The just man, therefore, chooses to be tested, and does not fear to be tried; for he who has resolved to keep the judgments of God does not fear temptations. Where has he resolved, if not in his heart? For there we ought to be rooted and grounded, not wavering, nor tossed about by every wind of doctrine. Let us therefore resolve within, in our heart, in our breast, in our soul; that it may be to us as the prophetic saying: The thoughts of the just are paths. In these paths the just man walks well; and therefore he says: Prove me, O Lord, and try me. Finally, here too, responding to his own authority—he who had sworn and resolved to keep the judgments of the justice of the Lord—he says that he wished to be tested, believing that humility ought to be undergone for the sake of Christ. And therefore he says: I have been humbled exceedingly. He rejoices not only to have been humbled, but exceedingly humbled.

Blessed is he who glories in humility rather than in power.

Power deceives, humility does not fail. Good is humility, which even in Christ finds the praise of virtue. This I venerate in him more than his creation; because we were created for labor, redeemed for rest. Finally, he himself, calling the peoples to his mercy, glories in his own humility, saying: I have been made manifest to those who did not seek me: I appeared to those who did not ask for me. And elsewhere: I gave my shoulders to the scourges, my cheeks to the blows: and I did not turn my face away from the shame of spitting. Rightly, therefore, did David wish to humble himself; that he might fill up in himself what was lacking of the afflictions of Christ.

He himself also could have said this from his own person through the mouth of David: I have been humbled exceedingly, he who said in the Gospel: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. Let us therefore learn from him who wished to teach us what would profit us for salvation, and who says to us: Learn from me. What he says is no small thing—Learn: and he added: Learn from me. Not easily can anyone who is puffed up teach humility; although he may be endowed with human wisdom, yet the mind is puffed up which the pride of the flesh exalts.

And he who is content with poverty is not content with injury: and he who can bear the punishment of blows is provoked by insulting words: and he who can despise offices of authority grieves that someone else has been preferred to him in honor. It is a great thing to keep the measure of humility in all things. Pride first cast man down. While we wish for more, we are wont to lose even what is less. Good is humility, which by seeking nothing, gains all that it despises. The Lord Jesus himself humbled himself; that he might raise us up: and he humbled himself even unto the cross. Wherefore, it says, God has exalted him; that at his name every knee should bow. How great are the things the Lord has done—dare I say it—and have I not bent the knee to him? But I have bent it to him after he humbled himself. For thus, that is, through humility, through the cross, he gathered the Church to himself.

David was king, he testifies that uncertain and hidden things of wisdom were revealed to him: but for this reason he humbled himself the more.

But Hezekiah fell from the height of his heart. That praiseworthy king, he who was delivered from siege, from sickness, by the benefits and wonders of the Lord, fell through pride, and diminished the grace of his former merit. What would Joseph have been, if he had not been humble? He knew that it had harmed him that he was preferred above his brothers: even pious love had discovered the misery of preferment. Preferment armed his brothers, humility won over strangers: preferment stirred up his own kin, humility made a king his subject; so that we may truly think it said, as it were, from the person of Joseph, what he himself said above: I have been humbled, and he has made me safe; although if we consider what this man endured, we shall find that he spoke it from his own person.

When Goliath was overcome, young women had come out singing: Saul among thousands, David among ten thousands: the king's bile was stirred, and he sought to kill him: and David humbled himself before Jonathan, the king's son, and turned his affection; so that the one whom he could have suspected as a rival to the succession of his father's kingdom, this same one he kept devoted against his father's designs, saying to his father: Why do you sin against innocent blood? And he wrung from him, unwilling, the admission that David did not deserve to be slain. Rightly, therefore, he says: I have been humbled, and he has made me safe. And again, when the prophet had come to him, and had announced the Lord's indignation in the matter of the woman Bathsheba, he humbled himself, and said: I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to him: Because you have repented, the Lord has taken away your sin; you shall not die. Good, therefore, is humility.

Finally, he was humbled, and was made safe.

And in another place, when the Lord was offended because of the numbering of the people, and had sent the prophet Gad, who said to king David: Choose for yourself what you wish to happen, three years of famine upon the land, or three months of fleeing from the face of your enemies who pursue you, or three days of death in the land, David answered: These three things are a strait for me: but I would rather fall into the hand of the Lord, since his mercy is very great, than fall into the hands of men. And when the Lord had brought death upon Israel from morning until the hour of dinner, seventy thousand men having died, David looked toward the Lord, and when he saw the angel striking the people he said: Behold, I have sinned, and I the shepherd have done wickedly: and these of the flock, what have they done? Let your hand be against me, and against my father's house.

And the Lord became gracious, when the sacrifice of reconciliation had been offered to the Lord.

Good, therefore, is humility, which saved both king and people. And so, once the Lord had been reconciled, David said: It is good for me that I have been humbled (above, v. 71).

Good, therefore, is humility, especially if voluntary devotion be joined to it.

And therefore he asks to be quickened according to the word; that he may live according to the word, and do all things with reason, not according to the will of the flesh. Whence that mystical saying can also be taken morally: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: this was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. And you, be an imitator of God. How an imitator? Can you make heaven, or earth, or sea? Certainly not; but so that you may do all things through the word, nothing without the word; all things with reason, nothing without reason; because you are not irrational, O man, but rational. There follows the fourth

Approve, O Lord, the free-will offerings of my mouth, and teach me your judgments.

He who humbles himself is quickened according to the promise of the Lord: he who is quickened by the Spirit of God is a voluntary minister; for it matters a great deal whether you do something out of will, or out of necessity, that which pleases God. Finally, the voluntary minister has a reward, the one compelled discharges an obligation, as we know from the Apostle's teaching. For he wrote: Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this willingly, I have a reward: but if unwillingly, a dispensation has been entrusted to me. Behold a voluntary executor of the heavenly will. He was free from all, and became the servant of all, by will indeed, not by necessity; that he might gain the greater number. To those also who were held by the bond of the Law he showed himself as though under the Law, though he was not under the Law; that he might save those who lived under the Law.

To the weak he became weak; that by taking on their weakness he might sustain the weak.

He became all things to all men, not by legal necessity, but by the compliance of his will. He opened to me the depth of this counsel in the epistle written to Philemon; because, being what he himself was, he wished another to be the same; that he might seem to have offered it to the Lord by will rather than by necessity. And so, interceding for Onesimus, he says thus: But receive him as my own heart, whom I had wished to keep with me; that he might minister to me in your stead in the bonds of the Gospel: but I was unwilling to do anything without your consent; lest your good deed should be as it were of necessity, but voluntary. What a diligent persuader, who, though he was a vessel of divine election, did not disdain to share counsel with another; lest he should defraud another of the fruit of his own will.

Rightly, therefore, David says, as a prophet: Approve, O Lord, the free-will offerings of my mouth, offering to the Lord the voluntary sacrifice of his mouth

because, like that prophetic bee, he was accustomed to gather good flowers with his mouth, to shape honeycombs with his mouth, to compose honey with his mouth, and from sweet herbs to gather offspring with his mouth; which, though weak in strength, he says, prolongs the life of its substance by the proclamation of wisdom. Recognize what this voluntary sacrifice of the mouth is: Offer to God, it says, the sacrifice of praise.

The Lord awaits voluntary ministers.

Finally, in the book of Isaiah the Lord says: Whom shall I send? Indeed he could have commanded his servant, whom he had found worthy to be sent: but he preferred not to defraud him of the reward of a spontaneous offering, and waited that he might offer himself. And although he knew his disposition, yet he awaited his voice; that he might increase the grace. Whence Isaiah, offering himself, says: Behold, here, send me; and thus afterward he was sent to the people. Therefore it was said of him: Because Isaiah is bold, and says. For indeed, as a voluntary instrument, Christ filled him with the more abundant grace of his Spirit.

Nor do I think this was placed idly; because he desires the willing offerings of his mouth to please the Lord.

There are many prophets, but in all of them the willing offerings of the mouth please. Jeremiah excused himself, saying: Who art thou, ruler, O Lord? Behold, I know not how to speak, for I am too young; and the Lord said to him: Say not, I am too young; for to all to whomsoever I shall send thee, thou shalt go: and according to all whatsoever I shall command thee, thou shalt speak. Modestly the prophet pleaded the age of his body, lest his youth should be found unequal to the execution of heavenly commands.

But God, as one who judged that the age to be considered was rather of character than of years, and who foresaw in that youthful body the maturity of a robust wisdom in his young servant, said: Say not, I am too young; that is, he forbade him to weigh his powers by consideration of youthful age, since faith would furnish him with the hoariness of wisdom. And again, further on, when the same prophet had said: Thou hast seduced me, O Lord, and I am seduced; and I said, I will not name his name, and I will speak no more in his name; he added: And it became in my heart as a burning fire, flaming in my bones; and I was dissolved on every side, and I cannot bear it.

We observe, therefore, that even for those who thought either to excuse their office, or to refuse it for some definite reason, our Lord nevertheless either persuades by reason, or inspires with the desire of prophetic revelation, so that they may run to undertake the office by will, not ascend by necessity; that a fuller reward of complete devotion might come to them. Caiaphas also prophesied, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people: but this was not a willing service of the mouth, for he spoke unwillingly. Indeed, he did not know what he was saying.

What, then, are the willing offerings of his mouth that David desires to please the Lord?

I have chosen to be abject in the house of the Lord, rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners. I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me. I will open my mouth in parables, I will speak propositions from the beginning of the world. I have prepared a lamp for my Christ. His own body, which before was muddy, and choked with the mire of hereditary defilement, so that it could not receive spiritual oil, he prepared for Christ, that it might shine. It shines for Christ, whose works shine in the light of Christ. Peter shone for Christ, when he said: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk. He shone for Christ who said: The Lord Jesus heal thee. The lamp of the martyrs shone for Christ, who underwent martyrdom for Christ. David shone for Christ, who could say: My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.

He had prepared his mind for Christ when, concerning him by whom he had often been sought to death, he said: Far be it from me, O Lord, if I should do this thing, to my lord, to lay my hand upon the Christ of the Lord. Though he had greater reason to protect his own safety by killing his persecutor, he even recalled others who counseled that his enemy should not be spared—him whom the Lord, according to his promise, had delivered into his hands—from the desire to kill him. The Prophet shone for Christ, when concerning him who had defiled his father's house with shameful incest, who sought his father's life in parricidal battles, the pious father nevertheless said to those setting out for battle: Spare my son Absalom. He kept silent about the wickedness of the crime; but he put forward the degree of piety, and the name of kinship; that those about to fight, thinking not of the king's adversary but of a son, might restrain the grief of wounded affection.

And after his death he covered his face, and cried out with a loud voice, saying: My son Absalom, my son.

The parricide did not deserve this utterance; but it prophesied the grace of Christ. The Prophet had learned that in Christ a good father serves a good son.

Finally, he said for this reason: And teach me thy judgments

because the judgments of God are like a great abyss, and inscrutable, as the Apostle says. Therefore he could not know them, except by Christ teaching; for Christ alone is the master of all. Now these are the judgments of Christ: that we should know that to those who have plotted against us, no injury should be repaid in kind, but rather favor should be shown in return for injury. Finally, being reviled, he did not revile again; being struck, he did not strike back: but rather, even crucified, he brought the help of pious intercession before the Father on behalf of his persecutors, saying: Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Whosoever, therefore, shall have done these judgments of the law, will be given a reward by Christ. But who can be taught the judgments of God, except one who has always directed his soul to the Lord? Who can say: My soul is in thy hands always, and I have not forgotten thy law.

Some have: My soul is in my hands always, without the following two words, the judgments of the law.

That is, in my acts, that is, in my works. Although placed in dangers, the just man says to the Lord: For thy sake I die daily, daily I am in peril: I am in peril from the plotter, in peril from the detractor, in peril from those whom I rebuke, whom I refute, in peril for truth and justice: yet, not terrified by dangers, I have not forgotten thy law; therefore, my soul is in my hands. But since most have: My soul is in thy hands always, I think this should be explained more fully.

The prophet knows, he knows where to place the protection of his soul, whence to hope for aid: he wishes to place his soul in the hands of God

because the heart of the king is in the hand of God. Whoever shall have subdued his own body, and shall not have allowed his soul to be troubled by its passions, its ruler restraining it with fitting vigor, he, well restraining himself by a certain royal power, is called king; because he knows how to rule himself, and is master of his own right: he is not dragged captive into fault, nor borne headlong into vice. His soul does not perish forever, nor does anyone snatch it from the hand of the omnipotent Father or of the Son. For the hand of God, which established the heavens, does not lose those whom it has held.

Let us consider, then, what these hands are.

In the Song of Songs you have: His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me. This the Bride speaks of Christ, the soul of the Word of God. But Christ is the same as the Word of God, and Wisdom; blessed, therefore, is the soul whom Wisdom embraces. Great is the hand of Wisdom, great the right hand that embraces the whole soul, for she who is betrothed to the Word of God is wholly fortified; for the fullness of wisdom is to fear God. The soul, therefore, that fears God fortifies itself with full protection: Wisdom sends her left hand under its neck, but her right hand into its embrace. Both arms indeed are extended to useful ends; yet each hand has its own properties. In the right hand of Wisdom is also length of life; in the left, riches and glory.

Both hands, indeed, are endowed with good gifts: yet they differ in this, that they embrace both present and future times; so that the left hand is the rewarder of things present, the right hand of things future.

We can also learn this from the prophecy of the holy patriarch Israel.

For when he had placed his right hand upon Ephraim, and his left upon Manasseh, and Joseph wished to change them by consideration of their ages, so that he might place the father's right hand upon the head of Manasseh, the elder son; he refused, and said: I know, my son; and this one shall be a people, and this one shall be exalted: but the younger brother shall be greater than he. In what was he greater? In this surely, that he was preferred in blessing, their descendants saying: May God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh: or because his seed is a multitude of nations, which in this world has chosen labor, believing in the Lord Jesus, that it may have the consolation of things to come. But Manasseh is the seed—a people of forgetfulness, who, forgetting his own author, was exalted for a time in this world, destined to pay heavy penalties in what remains; because he denied his God and Lord.

This we have said for the purpose of proving that the things which are future are more powerful. Finally, the left hand of Wisdom is under the head of the Bride: but the right hand is above, with which she embraces the whole Bride. Thus the left is, as it were, the support of present rest, on which the soul leaning reposes. It has where to lay its head; because the left hand of Wisdom is riches and glory. For a time these soothe, and are in part a consolation. And therefore the Son of Man had not where to lay his head; because though he was rich, he became poor: nor did he seek any glory of this world, for he had come not to help in part, but the whole human race, saying: Are you angry with me because I have made the whole man well on the sabbath?

That is, the whole, not that he might enrich by conferring wealth, not that he might heap up the insignia of honors, not with the increase of worldly glory; for these things do not have the fullness of blessedness and grace: but this is the whole; that he might embrace the length of eternal life. For the life at the right hand of Wisdom is not like the common life: but it is length of life; that he who receives life from Wisdom may obtain not the smallness of life, but its perpetuity, and the length of eternity.

A good garment is the eternity of life.

This mantle of the Bride the keepers of the walls wished to take away, of which the first man had been stripped: but the soul devoted to God, holding fast the one long sought, and not letting go the beloved, clothed herself with the precious wrapping of divine charity. Blessed, therefore, are they who are clothed with such a mantle, and have merited a garment of this kind by observance of the law; because they have not forgotten the law: but have done the things that belonged to the law. For he who acts apart from the law has forgotten the law. And therefore this radiant soul ascends from the earth; because she shines clothed in the garment of wisdom: and those powers which guard the gates of heaven say of her: Who is this that ascends white, leaning upon her brother?

Along with her who placed her head upon the left hand of Wisdom, that she might open her hands to the poor to help the needy: using riches prepared for her or left to her, not seized or plundered, she who, desirous of glory, acquired it by good works, did not seek after the vain dignities of worldly boasting. For this is to set one's head, and, as it were, some principal of one's senses, above the hand of Wisdom. That soul, I say, ascends with whitening merits from that desert, to that place ever blooming with everlasting delight. These are the powers which also in the book of Isaiah say: Who is this that comes from Edom, with garments red from Bosor, so precious in his robe?

These, I say, are they who marvel that from that rugged and rocky desert any soul can ascend without the stain of great vices; and therefore they rejoice at finding her, who has not polluted the garments of natural innocence with the ink of worldly folly: but has rather cleansed them with the brightness of spiritual wisdom and grace. That soul, now secure, now joyful, says: The sinners have laid a snare for me, and I have not erred from thy commandments. A worthy voice of one leaving this world, in that she has escaped the nets of persecutors, and the snares of plotters. A voice worthy of martyrs, to whom many torments were proposed, and many rewards also offered; that they might be recalled from the zeal of martyrdom either by the terror of punishments and the horror of a cruel death, or by the allurement of rewards.

Grievous is the snare of proscription, which often breaks the saints by the disgrace of poverty, whom the fear of death has not broken: another snare is that of fire, the snare of prison, and of prolonged torment: a great snare, when riches are promised, when honors, when the friendships of tyrants. Whoever, therefore, has escaped these, and has been able to attain to martyrdom, rightly says: The sinners have laid a snare for me: but I have not turned aside from the paths of thy commandments; to him who has despised present things, seeking future things, the kingdom of heaven has been unlocked by the promise of thy divinity.

Who are these sinners who have set snares?

The Apostle has revealed to you the author of all sins, and has shown him, saying: They who wish to become rich fall into temptation and the snare of the devil. You perceive, therefore, that riches are the devil's snare, which he stretched out even for the Savior: but he who had nothing which the prince of this world, coming, could call his own, loosed the bonds of his snares. And lest you think this a middling snare, this snare strangled the apostle Judas. He, wretched man, when he was ensnared to betray the Lord, when he perceived how great a crime had been committed, hanged himself with a noose. But this too was itself a snare of the devil, that he should not do penance, but should choke himself with a noose.

For God is merciful even toward betrayers themselves, that they may be summoned to penance, and turned back from a wicked purpose, and come to their senses from the snares of the devil, by whom, once caught, they are held bound to his will. Now it is no longer mere misfortune to have fallen in, but crime: for they are not only given over to be caught, but are also held bound to the devil's will; whereas they might say: Let us break their bonds asunder. For divine Scripture has granted you not only to beware of the devil's snare, but also, through penance, to break his bonds.

What have you, O man, to do with delights and pleasures?

The snare does not catch, unless the bait has first caught you. While you seek prey, you bind yourself in the snare. The bait of the snare is avarice; the bait of the devil is luxury, with which he wishes to lure us, not to feed us. And therefore the Apostle cried out: Touch not, taste not, handle not, all which things are unto corruption by their very use. Do not touch luxury, therefore, and it will not be able to defile you. Do not taste the corruption of avarice, and you will be free from the snare. What, finally, have you to do with earthly things, you who have risen with Christ? Seek the things that are above, where Christ is; savor the things that are above, not the things upon the earth. We are dead to the earth, we have hidden our life with Christ in our God: we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. Why do we return again to earthly things?

Behold, I have gone far off, fleeing, says the saint.

Behold the snares of iniquity and contention in the city. For snares are wherever there is usury and deceit. He went far off, fleeing earthly disgraces; therefore he arrived at heavenly rewards.

Why, I say, do you bend back toward the earth, if in Enoch you were caught up to heaven, in Elijah you were raised up in a chariot, in Paul you were caught up to paradise, conversing in the heavens, in David you were heard; that you might take the wings of a dove, and fly: in Christ exalted, made a bird in the Spirit; when, as a dove, he descended, he gave you those wings, that you might learn to fly out from the earth? Nor indeed should you think it a matter for hesitation how you are to fly, with what oarage of wings. David indeed said: Who will give me wings like a dove's, and I will fly away, and be at rest?

And he seemed, as it were, to have been in doubt from whom he might receive wings; although divine grace is wont to be revealed in this way, which cannot be found on earth: yet the same man, in what follows, taught plainly what these wings are, saying: If you sleep among the midst of the lots, the wings of the dove are covered with silver, and the hinder parts of her back with the shining of gold. Even though you sleep, yet your wings rise up. For there are those who watch while sleeping, as she watched who said: I sleep, and my heart watches. Even though it be night, the spirit watches, of which it is written: With my spirit within me have I watched for thee in the night. Then wings will be spread for you out of spiritual utterances, and your flight will rise up with the precious prudence of gold. Where, then, will you be able to fear snares, you for whom spiritual oarage is at hand?

If sincerity of soul, if purity of mind shine forth, you are a dove.

Therefore it was said to you: Be simple as doves. If the greater oarage is lacking, do not despise even the lesser. Be even a sparrow; that you may foresee snares with keen scrutiny, and though almost caught by the allurements of sins, yet, sometimes called back, you may be able to say: Our soul has been rescued like a sparrow out of the snare of the hunters: the snare is broken, and we are delivered. Since we have thought this ought to be treated elsewhere, it now seems we must pass on to another matter.

It is enough for you to know that you are a bird, having taken up the nature of flying, the Lord saying through the prophet: Deliver yourselves from the snare of the hunters, and from the word of disturbance; for it is not unjustly that nets are stretched out for birds. You are a bird, O man, who like a bird have been renewed into a kind of eagle's youth. And therefore it is not unjustly that nets are stretched out for birds. For why do you cast yourself down to the earth, you who were already seeking heaven? For it is not unjustly that nets are stretched for one renewed; because you have already begun to be Christ's, you have ceased to belong to the hunters. Consider the snares of the hunters. Before, the devil, as it were, seized his own prey by his own right: now why does a stranger assail the price of the Lord's cross?

Yet you can still avoid even these snares, lest you say: hunters have caught me like a sparrow; if you escape the snare of the heart, which the devil sent into the heart of Judas, and thus armed him for the crime of betrayal. May God turn away from us these snares, which he rains down upon sinners. And therefore the Prophet says: You will give them, Lord, the snare of their own heart, which you have prepared for them. But give us, O Lord, help; that we may follow after you, bound by your bonds. For there are no bonds more powerful, none more pleasing, than the bonds of charity. He who is bound to you is loosed from the world.

I have taken your testimonies as an inheritance for ever; for they are the exultation of my heart.

This too is the voice of the martyrs, saying that they have received an inheritance of the heavenly testimonies.

The Prophet says, then: I am heir of your commandments, I have sought your succession by the right of faith and piety.

No one can say this, except one who keeps the commandments, having acquired them with heaven and earth as witnesses. For the Lord said: Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth. The Lord calls the elements to witness, to refute those who would refuse to keep the divine precepts; that he may block up every refuge of excuse. He also calls men to witness, saying: Be witnesses for me, and I am a witness, says the Lord. The commandments of the Lord, then, are full of testimonies, and are themselves testimonies, of which God, who does not lie, is a witness sufficiently trustworthy; with whom also your conscience is a witness, your thoughts accusing or even defending, trustworthy enough even in an untrustworthy breast; since the Judge of all things, whatever has been done, cannot lie hidden from him.

For if in an earthly court even one who has come suborned to lie, yet, if convicted by another's testimony, usually reveals the truth; how much more in the heavenly court, before the Lord Jesus, must it be that what is true is confessed, since he is known to know what has been done?

And well does he say: By inheritance I have sought your testimonies; since, just as before we were heirs of the sinner, so now we are heirs of Christ. That was an inheritance of crimes, this is an inheritance of virtue: that bound us, this looses us: that adjudged us, indebted by the usury of our transgressions, to the enemy, this has acquired us, redeemed by the title of the Lord's passion, for Christ. Eve's evil succession devoured the whole man: Christ's glorious inheritance freed the whole man. Not indeed for one, not for a few: but for all did Jesus write his Testament. All of us are enrolled heirs, not by portion, but by the whole. The Testament is common, and the right belongs to all, the inheritance to all together, and the solid whole to each individually. Individuals enter upon the New Testament, and all possess it: nor is it diminished for the heir, whatever is claimed by his co-heirs.

The benefit remains whole, and grows all the more for individuals, the more it has been acquired by the many.

The condition of a human inheritance is different. If the benefits are divided, they are diminished: and the loss of a co-heir's share is the heir's own loss. Christ's kingdom is undivided, his inheritance undivided. How could it come to pass that the inheritance be divided, when the fruit of the inheritance is undivided, that is, the kingdom of heaven? Gold, silver, an estate left by a man to several is distributed and cut up: but Christ's gifts come whole to each individual: all possess them, and no one is cheated.

Let us then hear the benefits of the inheritance.

The remission of sins is the inheritance of Christ. Surely it is whole for each individually, and profitable in common; for to whomsoever it is granted, it is diminished for none, it accrues to all. Whatever is remitted to each one is gained for the body. For if the angels rejoice over one sinner doing penance, because they consider the redemption of a man their own gain: how much more is it the gain of the race, which is the gain of nature? The resurrection is the inheritance of Christ. Shall anyone call this his own loss, which finds in one man the name of a grace common to all? For Christ, rising, rose for all; since through a man came the resurrection of the dead. How, then, can that be the loss of individuals, which is the reformation of the whole body and of the human race? Let the Testament, then, be read out, and let us consider its provisions. The Holy Spirit also is our witness.

For when he said: This is the testament which I will make with them, says the Lord. I will give my laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. O truly eternal Testator, who fixes his laws upon our hearts, and writes them in our minds; that we may be able to think nothing else but the divine precepts, to perceive nothing else but the oracles of God. He gave grace, he reformed nature, and he who is not wont to forget anything took away from himself the memory of my sins, and gave to me the memory of his precepts.

Do not, then, take out of your heart the law of God, and fix in its place the law of sin.

Do not write in your minds the enticements of the devil, and blot out the commandments of God. Behold, he says, I have painted your walls, says the Lord to Jerusalem; that is, to the soul zealous for tranquility and peace, which he made in his own image. Do not, I say, take away the heavenly image, and impose the image of death. You have refused the inheritance of the world: keep the testimonies of Christ; since in these is exultation and gladness, seeing that all weeping shall be wiped away, and death shall be no more, neither mourning, nor weeping, nor crying out. The Passion of Christ was an image of the heavenly kingdom. No one heard his voice in the streets; because by that silence of his passion he was abolishing for the future every cry of an impious voice.

He did not wish it to be done, he who said to the daughters of Jerusalem: Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves. For, about to take away all tears by the benefit of his cross, in his own passion he was showing forth, as it were, an image of the future blessedness; that no one should weep, except one who did not hold to the benefits of Christ.

Rightly, then, does the Evangelic man say: By inheritance have I sought your testimonies for ever; for they are the exultation of my heart.

Who would not exult, who has sought by inheritance heaven and earth (which two elements God himself called to witness, when he gave the law), because he has sought God, of whom the Saint says: The Lord is my portion: he has sought the Lord Jesus, he has sought the Holy Spirit; and after these he has sought the angels, and lives with them, not only today and tomorrow, but forever: nor is he saddened by any wrongs for the sake of the Lord's name? Indeed the apostles rejoiced when they were beaten, when they were thrust into prison.

Exulting, then, in the testimonies of the Lord, he rightly said: I have inclined my heart to do your justifications for ever, for the reward.

He who hopes for the reward of good works from God, and hastens toward him, inclines his heart, that he may do the justifications of Christ.

What is the justice of Christ?

Suffer it, he said, that we fulfill all justice, by which sin is diminished, guilt loosed. And he says well, I have inclined; that it should not be arduous and difficult for you, when you turn your mind, as it were, to lowly and level things. Or certainly, since the wisdom of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, he seems to incline his heart, who makes the sense of his body, which exalts itself, subject to the law, and bends it by the regard of religion. And he who was formerly exalting himself in vain, and puffed up in the mind of his flesh, when he humbles himself, inclines.

For Christ himself also humbled himself, that he might establish a new Testament. When I read the Gospel, I hear that the Son of God took flesh from Mary, and I seem to descend with Christ himself. For I read of him who, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself. He emptied himself, moreover, that he might take the form of a servant, and being found in appearance as a man, humbled himself even unto death. For I read him saying: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. He did not say: Learn from me, for I am powerful; he did not say: Learn from me, for I am glorious; but, learn from me, for I am humble—which you can imitate. Do not exalt yourselves, do not lift up your heart.

He therefore taught me to be humbled, and to incline my heart to do justice; not to incline toward iniquity, but toward equity, for the sake of the reward. The reward is the kingdom of heaven, and the dwelling of paradise.

The fifteenth letter, Samech, begins, which has the interpretation, Hear.

It has also another interpretation, which is called, Firmament. What is it, Hear? It is not said idly, what is common to all and belongs to all by the very right of nature. And so it is not idle that you are admonished to hear; since even unwilling, and doing something else, we are nonetheless accustomed to hear sound or voice. But since it is not only this hearing which belongs to the duty of nature, but also that which is greater, that you should hear not merely by the exercise of the body, but by the intellect of the mind; therefore consider more diligently the interpretation of this letter, and the sequence of the

which follow.

But that you may know that hearing is mystical, so that you may hear and understand mysteries, it is written of the Jews: With the ear you shall hear

because they heard the mysteries of the law, but did not understand. Whence the Lord says: Hear, my people, and I will speak. The law indeed is spiritual; hear, then, spiritually. Finally, he who knew how to hear said: I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me, that is, I will know what God has spoken in me. And so elsewhere he says: How great things we have heard, and known them; that he might comprehend that he had not only heard, but also understood. For no one knows unless he has first understood. Hear, then, lest, if he sees you negligent, Peter come, seize the sword, cut off your ear: for you would have superfluously the ear of the body, if you did not know how to hear and examine.

And perhaps they have the power of the soul, by which things that are heard are examined, cut off, who cannot hear with that depth of which it is written.

Deservedly others have interpreted this letter as firmament: which agrees with the above interpretation; for unless each one has heard what he ought to follow, no one is made firm.

In the duty of hearing, therefore, is the firmament of all.

The prophet Jeremiah, then, says to you in the Lamentations, through this letter, Hear.

And that you may know that what you ought to hear is mystical, he subjoined to this letter a sequence of this kind: The Lord has taken away all my strong ones from my midst. He has called against me a time; that he might crush my chosen ones in me. The Lord has trodden the winepress for the virgin daughter of Judah. The Lord did not then take away all the strong ones of Judea, when the people of the Jews was led captive into the region of Babylon, but when Christ came, and the captive people did not see the liberty of its own soul, not knowing how to raise up the neck of its mind bent down under grave sins, and to lift up a certain neck of faith to the light of knowledge.

Therefore the Passion of the Savior became a pit for the Jews, which showed to the Gentiles a harbor of salvation; because the cross of the Lord is a precipice to unbelievers, life to believers. For this reason he prefixed, Hear, that he might know things to come.

In another place also he subjoined this to this letter: All who passed by the way clapped their hands over you: they hissed and wagged their head over the daughter of Jerusalem. Is this the city, they say, the crown of glory, and the joy of the whole earth? It is clear that the Passion of the Savior is prophesied, and that the destruction of the Jews is lamented by Jeremiah, which can be understood both from other passages and from this one; because in what follows he has: The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in our destruction, under whose shadow, we said, we shall live among the nations. What is more manifest than this, when both the name is expressed, and the seizing among the hands of the persecuting unfaithful is declared, and the life-giving shadow, and the grace to be conferred upon the Gentiles is described?

But even the very words themselves signify what we read in the Gospel concerning the Passion of the Lord

because in this place his death was announced by the Prophet. For thus Matthew wrote: And those passing by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying: Ah, you who destroyed the temple of God, and in three days built it up again! Save yourself, if you are the Son of God. The crowd of the people, when it insults someone, is accustomed to hiss. At the same time, because those who denied the Word did not have a voice, they hissed like irrational animals. And so they passed along the way, who ought to have stood in the way. They did not stand, therefore, as constant ones; but they passed by as unstable ones. But the feet of the just stood in the courts of Jerusalem, in which the faithless could not stand; and so they passed by, as Mark signified. A shadow passes by, not the truth. His day passes like a shadow, who forgets, who forsakes.

But we also read of the unfaithful passing by, as in that

all who pass by the way have plucked its grapes.

For who but the faithless despoils the vineyard of Christ? But it is also written elsewhere: And those passing by the way did not say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you. For to those standing it is said: Behold now, bless the Lord. Yet we also read of passing by in a good sense; as in that word of Moses: Passing by I will see this great sight. And he who saw the wicked man exalted above the cedars of Lebanon says: I passed by, and behold, he was not. And no one says to the servant: Pass by, recline.

Let us consider, then, what the distinction may be; unless perhaps this, that where "to pass by" is taken in a good sense, it is read absolutely: he did not say, passing by this or that, but simply, passing by. Where it is in a bad sense: Passing by the way, he says. For the way is good, which is frequented by travelers, not easily attacked by robbers, who are accustomed to lie in wait in the byways off the roads: the royal road is fortified. But Moses did not pass by the way, but stood in the way, to whom it was said: But stand here with me. He stood with him who says: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. He who passes by this way falls. But Moses did not fall; but he passed through from worldly things to spiritual things, from temporal things to eternal things.

And he who saw the wicked man, neither remained, but passed through, escaped

because he did not cleave to the wicked man, lest he become one body with him, but separated himself from him. And to him to whom it is said: Pass by, recline, he indeed escapes the laborious servitude of present things; that he may have the glorious rest of things to come. And to the Bride it is said: Come here from Lebanon, Bride, come here from Lebanon, you shall pass by and pass through from the beginning of faith. She passes by and passes through, who hastens to the Bridegroom. She passes through the world, and hastens to Christ.

Now let us discuss what it is to move the head.

Who is the head of the people, if not Christ? For the head of the woman is the man, but the head of the man is Christ. But the Law also is understood as the head of the intelligible woman. For finally the woman was under the Law as under a husband. But when the Judaic rite, which was according to the letter of the Law, had been put to death, the woman married him who rose from the dead. Whence certain ones, interpreting mystically, wished that, the Judaic rite having died, that intelligible woman should marry the Gospel as the brother of the deceased old rite; because the Law preceded the Gospel with a certain fraternal preaching. Therefore the head of the Synagogue is dead, that is, its head, the Law, is dead, namely the observance of the Law: the letter of the Law is emptied, its spiritual understanding is established.

David recalls this shaking in the forty-third psalm, saying: You have made us a byword to the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples

because a shaking, as it were a certain passing over, was made from the Law into the Gospel. But in the twenty-first psalm, in which the whole sequence of the Passion is prophesied, it has this: All who saw me scorned me and spoke with their lips, and shook their head. He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him: let him save him, since he desires him. They shook, therefore, the Law, which seemed immovable; and so the end of the Law, Christ, entered.

Those who shook their heads were the Pharisees, that is, those separated from the truth; whence also they did not believe in the truth.

But it can also be understood thus: they shook Christ their head, who had come into his own: but they shook him, because his own did not receive him. But they shook him, saying: Away with him, away with him, crucify him. And they shook their own head, who were unwilling to shake their own burdens; while they bound heavy burdens, and laid them upon others: But they themselves, he says, are unwilling to move them with a finger. This is mystical; because they never wished to change the observance of the bodily rite, and to introduce spiritual understanding. For we read finger for spirit, as the Law was written by the finger of God, and therefore the Law is spiritual. They were unwilling, therefore, to shake off their burdens, which are heavy, and to take up the light yoke of Christ and his sweet burden.

But because the Passion of the Savior redeemed all, it is not absurd to understand that these shook their heads just as that prince of the Synagogue prophesied: It is expedient that one man die for the people. He meant to say one thing, but signified another. And these likewise shook their heads as though insulting, and announced another thing; because he himself was the one who came, that he might shake that sluggish and earthly headship of men, whereby, the observance of the letter being emptied, we might seek the mystery in the words. Whence he says: You have made us a byword to the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples. Which is indeed taken in a good sense; for he had said before: And you have scattered us among the nations.

For the Jews were scattered; that their remnant might be saved according to the election of grace: but they were made a byword; that we might learn that the things said by way of parable were revealed by their outcome, or be admonished by their example to beware of faithlessness. For then Jeremiah recognized rather that Judea was to be defended: and so he prophesied that Jerusalem would be captured at that time, when it did not receive its own Redeemer. Of that insulting city, then, of which they say: Is this the city; of the whole earth—because where before there was the joy of faith, there now is the bitterness of faithlessness: or certainly by shaking its own head, and passing over from bodily things to spiritual things, it may deserve to hear, when it has believed in Christ, that it is the crown of glory.

But what is the crown of glory, if not the Church, which crowns Christ its head?

What is the joy of the whole earth, if not the house of the Christian people, the hall of the saints, of whom it is written: Their sound has gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world? Therefore, because the Church is the crown of glory; therefore it is said in the Canticle: Go forth; and see King Solomon in the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his espousals, and on the day of the gladness of his heart. It is said to souls that they should go forth from bodily hovels and enclosures, that they should go forth outside the thoughts of the body, that they should go out from desires and cares and the other affections and slippery passions of this flesh, that they should ascend above the world, go forth from this world, meet Christ, stand ready shining with burning lamps.

As it were the angels of Christ speak these things: You cannot see his brightness, his glory, unless you go forth from the cares of human frailty, daughters of Jerusalem. As if they said: Why do you seek the living among the dead? Christ is not sought within this world, who wished his disciples to be above the world. What is the crown with which Christ is crowned, if not the crown of glory? Joseph had the crown of chastity, Paul of justice, Peter of faith. There are crowns of the several virtues. Christ alone has the crown of glory, with which the Church has crowned him. In this crown are all the crowns; because glory is not the portion of one crown, but the reward of all the crowns.

By a third tradition they moved their head, that is, Christ, who is the head of his people.

His head is gold, cephas. Whence also Aquila called the rock gold: Symmachus, the golden stone, which signifies stable and eminent wisdom. The body of Christ is the Church. Its head, gold, that is, precious wisdom of the saints, that is, just and prudent men. His locks are black fir-trees, like the raven; of which elsewhere he says: Your hair is like a flock of the shorn. Hence "hair," because the power of all the senses is in the head. For the eyes of the wise man are in his head. Deep, therefore, is the prudence of teachers, which is able to reveal things that are obscure, and to open up the lofty things of the senses. And disputants of this kind are the locks of the Church, like the young of ravens, to whom the Lord gives food, as he gave to holy Jacob from his youth, and fed him.

These lofty and deep ones the Lord feeds with the richness of doctrine by heavenly sacraments.

His eyes also are like doves: the eyes are the men

that is, adorned with spiritual senses, who are keen to see mysteries, and prepared to penetrate the secrets of divine Scripture, gleaming with reasonable milk, in whom there is no spotted confusion of deceit, but the pure and undefiled sincerity of simple affection. Therefore he recalled these doves as washed in milk in an abundance of waters.

Now surely, the teeth, and the cheeks, and the lips of the bride like a scarlet thread, we understand to be the virtues of the soul, and the diversities of teachers: who either supply spiritual nourishment to the mind by diligent dispensation; or, by the preaching of the Lord's cross, bind the hearer as it were with a thread of the word; or, modest and reverent, and most pleasing in the flower of youth, even if they be held back from discourse by shame, yet in these the odor of Christ is fragrant, and as ointment descends as it were from the priestly head onto the cheek, the beauty of doctrine shines forth. And this head the Synagogue moved; and therefore the Lord took away the wonderful counselor, and the prudent architect, and the wise hearer: Head, he says, and tail; since those who did not hold the head cannot have the last things. But let us now consider what follows. I have hated the unjust: and I have loved thy law.

With how great an affection toward the Lord the holy prophet David extended himself, he declared by this ; since, though he never persecuted his enemies (as one who, even in respect of king Saul, from whose plots he could scarcely guard the danger to his safety, thought that neither should his life be sought nor his death avenged, and groaned over the destruction of his parricidal son, and forgave the crimes of many who pursued him, as he himself says, because he did not repay injury for injury upon those who wronged him) yet he shudders at those who transgress the divine law as hateful: in which certainly both the clemency of his character, and the gentleness of his piety, and the vehement intention of his devotion are disclosed, agreeing with the discipline of the evangelical precept, which he foresaw by prophetic spirit.

For indeed the Lord Jesus commanded that we should seek even the love of our enemies, and that the enemies of God, even if they be joined to us by the bond of parents, or children, or marriage and kinship, are to be pursued with hatred. For thus it is written: If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yea and his own soul also, he cannot be my disciple.

But if anyone should take this with idle ears, perhaps he might say: Thou, Lord Jesus, gave the law saying: Love the Lord thy God, love thy neighbor; and that thou mightest fulfill this law, thou camest: thou saidst through the Law: Honor thy father and mother; and in the Gospel thou biddest me to hate my parents. How do these precepts agree with one another? Didst thou come thus meek and humble of heart? I cannot, saving the right of piety, hate the father to whom I owe my creation, the mother who bore for ten months, with long distaste, the burdens of her pious offspring, for whom there is more danger in the delivery, more weariness in the delay. What do the sweetest children deserve, that they should be excluded from paternal love; since it is impious not to wish to die for one's children? What does the dearest wife deserve, a certain co-heir of life, and common partner of nature?

What do brothers, formed together from the same womb, and shaped in the same lodging of nature, sent forth into this use of the light?

Shall I then hate the pledges of affection? Dost thou thus bend the rigor of the very hard Law by the gentleness of the Gospel, so that thou, by thy Gospel, condemnest the grace of those whose injuries the Law condemns?

I see that I cannot answer such an assertion: but do thou, Lord, answer; for thou dost not need to be excused, who didst not need to speak. He will answer, therefore: Do I condemn piety, I who hate iniquity? Do I command that parents not be loved, I who persuade that enemies be loved? But hast thou not read: A time to love, and a time to hate, a time of war, and a time of peace? Of what does Ecclesiastes say this? Is it not of that which comes to be by reason of time; so that we may both piously love and hate some, and hate those whom you loved, and it may be fitting to love those whom you hated? I have not, therefore, poured hatreds of parents into the breasts of children; nor have I urged distaste of spouses into the minds of husbands. Ask nature what I required, which certainly testifies to the author's design by the innate affection of each relationship.

To love children is, for fathers, a law of nature: to love spouses is, for husbands, a divine law, which turns the love of marriage into nature; that they may become one flesh and one spirit. To love brothers is, for brothers, a prerogative of nature, which accustoms those long cherished in the same dwelling to the grace of charity.

I have not, therefore, commanded internal wars of relationships, but I have held suspect the allurement.

And is it not justly held suspect; since that cunning and crafty serpent, in order to construct the devices of his wickedness, by which he might weaken the affection of the first-created Adam, founded on the endowment of an uncorrupted and untried nature, entrusted his poisons rather to feminine allurements than to his own? And so the woman, by the food of her mouth and the force of love, turned aside the man, whom the serpent did not dare to tempt, leading him astray by a certain soft and conciliating affection of wifely attentiveness. And did not Eve, who did not yet have children—for whose sake, as sweet to love, so easy to fall—often recall very many from the consummation of martyrdom?

Indeed we have often known that one whom the fearsome pomp of executioners did not terrify, nor the furrow of a divided side break, nor the burning plates draw away from the rigor of triumphant fortitude, was—already established amid sacred rewards—deceived by his wife, through the offering of tender offspring, by the pity of a single wretched tear. Samson was captured through his wife: art thou stronger than he? Solomon was captured in his wife: art thou wiser than he? He, then, whose wisdom is celebrated throughout all ages, became foolish; because he loved his wife too much.

What shall I say of brothers?

Even the house of the Prophet experienced in its children kisses more detestable than fraternal hatreds would have been. And so the father wept over the parricide, but was more indignant at the incest. Indeed, though he called back the parricide, he called back the perpetrator of the incest even more.

A time, therefore, to love, a time to hate

that is, a time of martyrdom, when the things that are divine must be preferred to every affection of relationship. A time of war, in which we should even wage war against faithless pledges for the name of Christ. A time of peace; because in peace is his place. Finally, he himself in the Gospel clearly explained by what reasoning we ought to hate our own, saying: He who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me. He did not say that those who love their parents are unworthy; but he said that those are unworthy who love their parents more than Christ. For if we owe love to our parents because they are the authors of our generation: how much more ought we to love Christ, who is the author of the parents themselves? These gave what is not of their own power, but of their ministry: Christ grants salvation, who preserves the benefits of parents.

Beautifully, however, he said: I have hated the unjust, but I have loved thy law; since, if we love the law, we ought to hate the adversaries of the law, who by their works assail the precepts of the law. The Greek more aptly and properly named them, saying παρανόμους: παράνομος is called "lawless," because he is outside the law. He hates, therefore, those who—being in the law of Christ—do not keep the commands of the law. For not only he who does not know the law, but even he who does not act according to the law, is without the law; since Not the hearers of the law, but the doers of the law shall be justified. David himself would refute me if I understood otherwise. How would he have hated unjust men, he who commended his parricidal son to the warriors, lest anyone kill him? Who even avenged the death of king Saul on the one who reported himself as his slayer?

Therefore it was not unjust men, but unjust words, that he hated. Indeed: The unjust, he said, I have hated, he did not add, "men." Then, since Jesus says in the Gospel: Love your enemies, and the Apostle says: Bless those who persecute you, and do not curse, how could this man be excused, living under evangelical discipline, if he had hated unjust men? Unless you understand that he hated iniquity, not those who, although they wrought iniquity, could nevertheless be converted by evangelical preaching. Or certainly, unless we understand it thus: that just as he who does not honor his father is unjust, yet the same man, according to what is written—that he "hates" his father—is even held praiseworthy: Whoever does not hate father, or mother, or brothers, or sisters, or his own soul, cannot be my disciple: so also this man hated the unjust. He hated them in the same manner as he hated a transgressing father, or his own soul: preferring, that is, the grace of Christ to the sweetness of this life.

There follows: Thou art my helper, and my protector: and in thy word I have hoped.

Helper through the Law, protector through the Gospel. He who helped through the Law, took up in the flesh; since it is written: This one bears our sins; and therefore I hope in his word. The Greek, however, has ἐπήλπισα, which is "I have hoped over and above": which is said of one who always adds to his hope; and when he has hoped for something, hopes again, and advances in hope, always stretching himself toward higher things, and forgetting those things he has passed by.

Beautifully, however, he says: I have hoped in thy word

that is, I have not hoped in the prophets, not in the Law: but I have hoped in thy word, that is, in thy coming; that thou mayest come and take up sinners, forgive sins, and, as the good shepherd, place the weary sheep on thy shoulders upon the cross. If anyone hopes in Christ, he ought to separate himself from the fellowship of the faithless. And therefore he says: Depart from me, ye malicious, and I will search the commandments of my God. By the testimony of this

it is signified, that where there is malice, there the observance of the heavenly commandments cannot be; For wisdom shall not enter into a malicious soul. And elsewhere: The evil shall seek me, and shall not find me. Christ loves a simple mind, a pure and purified soul, nor can there be any fellowship of immaculate virtue with spotted vices. He hates, he flees, he spurns contagions, he who says: Learn of me, because I am meek.

He drives away the malicious, he calls those laboring. Jesus says to those: Depart from me, all ye that work iniquity; to these he says: Come to me, all ye that labor and are burdened, not indeed burdened with malice of mind, but with weakness of flesh: burdened, I say, with the inheritance of another's sin. I come to the aid of those laboring: I ought not to profit the deceitful, lest they harm many more. Let punishment restrain these: let grace amend those. For malice is the fount of sin: guilt is the fall of weakness. To him I owe help who labors: him also I ought to hate who deceives. He repels, therefore, evil workings. For unless you take it thus, he seems to say: Depart from me; because I am clean, because I am pure. This the Pharisee said, but he was rebuked by Christ. The Prophet, then, does not say this: although he had removed his brother by parricide, yet because he had slain the incestuous one, he was recalled to the court.

I am clean, but rather, Create in me a clean heart, O God.

And therefore, having renounced the company of the malicious, as one who, if he had before been mingled with them, could not be received by the Lord, he says: Uphold me according to thy word, and I shall live: and let me not be confounded of my hope. If he lives who is in the bosom of the patriarch Abraham, as that poor Lazarus; how much more does he live who is received by Christ? For how can he not live forever, whom eternal life has received, whom Christ has wholly taken to himself, who is wholly of the Word, whose life is hidden in Christ Jesus? But even he who sits in the bosom of Abraham has been received by Christ. It would seem, however, an intolerable presumption to say to God, Uphold me, unless he added his promise, that is: That we should dare this, thou thyself hast made possible; we agree with thee by thy own handwriting, thou who hast blotted out our handwriting.

We made the handwriting of death, thou hast written the handwriting of life.

Therefore let him not confound thy little servant of his hope, because in thee I hope; for hope does not confound. And if we are afflicted, thou dost supply patience, that we may be able to bear it; that because I wait for thee, I may not be crushed by weaknesses, may not succumb to temptations, may not be afflicted by storms, in which patience is to be tested, so that proof may follow, which confirms and strengthens hope, which does not confound; that is: We are frequently broken by labors, we grow weary: if hope is absent, we are confounded, and disturbed in our whole mind. But suppose there are some hardy for labors, firm in enduring injuries: if you take away hope, patience cannot be lasting. Patience itself is not proved, if faith is lacking, whose root is hope. For what proof can there be, unless for Christ's name you endure either hardships or all manner of dangers? Therefore hope alone is that which does not confound our affection.

Where hope is, that apostolic saying, "Fightings without, fears within", cannot do harm.

Another interpretation has: Do not make me blush.

He who hopes in Christ will not blush. Therefore he who hopes well says: In thee I trust, let me not blush. And well he says, I trust; for the strength of our hope, and a kind of authority of one hoping, is confidence. Hope therefore always, and no one will confound you from your expectation. Our expectation is eternal life. Our expectation is the kingdom of God, the fellowship of the Angels, spiritual blessings. Hope daily. This thing has no end, it knows no truce. Hope even when placed in adversities. If someone should say to you, perhaps struck by the loss of some kinship: What good is your righteousness to you; yet do you hope, let your faith not fail. If someone should say to you: What good have your daily fasts done you; what good is chastity of body, modesty of mind? Behold, you are wounded like the unjust and impious. Let your faith not fail. For even if you are weak, yet faithful Christ is solicitous for you.

He says to his disciples: Give ye them to eat, lest they faint by the way. You have the apostolic food, eat it, and you will not faint. Eat that first, that afterward you may come to the food of Christ, to the food of the Lord's body, to the banquet of the Sacrament, to that cup by which the affection of the faithful is made drunk; that it may put on gladness from the remission of sins, and lay aside the cares of this age, the fear of death, and anxieties. By this drunkenness, then, the body does not stagger, but rises again: the mind is not confounded, but consecrated. There follows: Help me, he says, and I shall be safe: and I will meditate always on thy justifications. He who hopes presumes to be helped: but where the help of God is, there is the sure assistance of salvation. Above he said: Thou art my helper and my protector (above, v.

112): here again he asks to be helped, as if he should say: Without ceasing help me.

It is not enough for me what I have asked; again I ask that I may be made safe. Here there is no great, no true safety: then shall I be safe, when I shall be in paradise, when I shall begin to live among thy chosen angels, when I shall have escaped the snares of this earth.

But lest perhaps, having been helped in necessities, we afterward, placed in prosperity, grow negligent, he teaches us that we ought by no means to be unmindful of heavenly benefits, but to meditate on the justifications of the Lord; so that even when we have done some good work, we should nonetheless always confess our sins to him; for this is the justification of the Lord. Indeed the Pharisees did not justify God, who refused to be baptized with the baptism of repentance. Therefore he justifies God, who repents of his own sins. For he who repents confesses, as is that saying: Against thee only have I sinned, and done evil before thee; that thou mayest be justified in thy words. And therefore the Publican went out of the temple more justified; because the Pharisee was justifying himself, by proclaiming his own righteousness: but the Publican was justifying God, by confessing his own iniquities. Therefore he who meditates on the justifications of the Lord is always humbled.

He is not humbled today and exalted tomorrow: but he is always humble in heart and gentle in affection. But "always" is more than "day and night," or "all the day"; for this is beyond time. Therefore, even numbered among the angels, you must say the justifications of God always, and that glory which you have attained, do not attribute to your own merits, but always ascribe to divine mercy; lest it be said to you: What hast thou that thou hast not received? But if thou hast received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received? For every creature, whatever good it has, has received it from Christ, who is the author of all creation. Thou hast despised, he says, all them that depart from thy justifications; for their thought is unjust. Every proud man is unclean in the sight of the Lord; because he cannot cleanse his sins by his pride, who by an arrogant spirit heaps up error. And therefore he is despised and scorned, because he holds the divine commands in contempt.

But well is the prerogative of heavenly clemency preserved

because it repels no one, but whoever are unwilling to confess their own sins, they themselves depart from the Lord our God. Indeed he departed, who, having journeyed abroad, squandered all the patrimony of faith and grace that he had received from his father. And because he repented of having departed, he afterward returned to his father, whom he had left when he was unwilling to confess his own sin. God is not, then, abandoned by distance of places, but by depravity of character and deformity of deeds. He departs from the Lord who removes himself far from him, just as, upon hearing of the presence of God, Adam desired to hide. But departing from the Lord he could not have salvation; since it is written: Behold, they that go far from thee shall perish. Each one, therefore, either joins himself to God or separates himself by his own pursuits.

Indeed, that distances of places do not separate very many, or that neighboring and adjacent places connect them, is shown by the fact that there are very many situated in the body, who are pilgrims from the body, and are present with God; as he who, when God said, Whom shall I send? Answered: Here, send me. Paul too dares to be present with God, because he saw nothing corporeal in himself except the matter of the flesh. Cain also went out from the face of God, after, having committed the crime of murder against his brother, he did not think fit to perform repentance for his sins.

Rightly, however, he says: Thou hast brought to nothing all them that transgress.

He did not say sinners, but transgressors. For what hope would there be for us, since we are all under sin? This too is beautifully said: Thou hast brought to nothing all transgressors. Whether he be rich, his riches profit him nothing: whether honored, his dignity nothing: whether powerful, his power nothing. But it is one thing to be a transgressor departing from the justifications of God: another to be a transgressor of the earth. The former is graver, the latter lighter. And therefore, lest what follows disturb you, observe; for he added to these: I have accounted all the sinners of the earth transgressors: therefore I have loved thy testimonies always. Rightly is he called a transgressor who departs from the Lord. Indeed, in Greek, from "departing" he is named apostate. Whence also that saying: Wine and women cause men to fall away. Therefore the incitements and allurements of sins are to be guarded against, lest they incline toward crime.

But "praevaricator" is also called in Latin a transgressor

because he passes from the law of the Lord to error, and transgresses the heavenly commandments, to whom it was said that he should cleave to the Lord his God. Cleave, therefore, always with undivided affection; lest any force be able to tear you away from him. If the adversary sees anything infrequent, anything interrupted, at once he thrusts himself into your breast and heart; that he may hold you in the snare of his fraud, and, bound by the chain of hostile power, you may be drawn back from devotion. But not only he is a transgressor, who, having set aside the Church, passes over to the worship of idols: but also whoever does not keep the commandments of the Law. Every sinner, therefore, is a transgressor. Whence that saying: Every transgression receives a just recompense. The name is common, but the merits of sins are diverse; and therefore the penalties of faults are diverse.

What is meant by what he says: Sinners of the earth?

There are, then, also sinners of heaven, as he who says: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee. There are those who say that he who does not keep the heavenly oracles is a transgressor of heaven. But whether this be so, or because he diminishes the grace which he received from heaven, which the Holy Spirit poured in: or because, having become a bird of heaven, you ought not to return to earth from heaven. You sin against heaven, then, if, being a dweller of heaven, you abandon heaven. There is, therefore, a diversity among them. Some are sinners of heaven, others sinners of the earth.

In the morning, he says, I put to death all the sinners of the earth.

How could one man kill all the sinners of the earth? But if you consider the just man, for whom night has gone before, and day has drawn near, you can see how, as the sun of righteousness rises for you, you may, watching from the light, put to death all the fomentations of sins. Would that this grace might breathe upon me, that with the spiritual sword, which is the word of God, I might be able to abolish from the Church of the Lord all incitements of vices, and remove earthly sins, by which we are cast down into a certain pit of slippery error, so that the worker of iniquity may be expelled from the city of God. The city of God is the Church: the Church is the body of Christ. He sins against heaven, who defiles the rights of the heavenly city, and violates the sanctity of the unblemished body by the filth of his vices.

And see whether there may perhaps be those who are sinners of both heaven and earth.

For certainly Adam, while he was in paradise, was heavenly: but after the fall he was made earthly, and was expelled and cast out of paradise. Whence also the Apostle says: The first man was of the earth, earthy; the second man is of heaven, heavenly. Let the image of the earthly, then, be cast off from us, let the image of the heavenly be taken up, not expressed in paint, not in wax, not shaded in colors, but in character, in which Christ may recognize himself. Nail my flesh with fear of thee; for I have feared thy judgments. He who loves the testimonies of the Lord nails his flesh with nails, knowing that his old man, crucified with Christ, destroys the wantonness of the flesh; lest its desires run riot with untamed fervor, lest the root of avarice spread itself with creeping roots.

Nail then with nails, and destroy the fomentations of sin: let every enticement of sins die in your flesh: let the desire of pleasures, fastened to the cross, have no liberty to wander. There is a certain spiritual nail, which fastens this flesh to the gibbet of the Lord's cross. And perhaps there are certain fleshes of the soul, just as the body is of the soul. The fleshes of the soul are carnal thoughts. Let the fear of the Lord and of his judgments nail these fleshes, and reduce them to servitude. But if these fleshes reject the nails of divine fear, without doubt it is said: My spirit shall not remain in these men; because they are flesh. Unless, then, these fleshes are fastened to the cross and nailed with nails by the fear of our God, the Spirit of God will not remain in them.

As there are stings of fear, by which we are pricked: so there are nails of fear, by which we are fastened.

He who is pricked is roused: he who is fastened is mortified; that he may die to sin, and live to God. But that we may know the nails to be spiritual, there are also spiritual goads, of which it is written: It is hard for thee to kick against the goad. By this goad Paul, being goaded, rose from the earth, and lifted himself up, that he might have his conversation in heaven. The apostle Thomas was fastened with nails, so that he said: Unless I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails. These were the nails of good desire: they were nails, though not of perfect faith, yet of a faith seeking its increase.

With these nails is he pierced who dies together with Christ, that he may rise again with Christ.

With these nails is he pierced who bears the mortification of the Lord Jesus in his body. With this nail is he pierced who merits to hear Jesus saying: Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell. Fix, therefore, upon thy breast and upon thy heart this seal of the Crucified, fix it also upon thy arm: that thy works may be dead to sin. Let nothing of guilt live again in them, let no error rise again. Perhaps they affix this image of the nail not only of fear, but also of charity; because love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell. Let not the hardness of the nails offend thee, then, for it is the hardness of charity: nor the strong rigor of the nails, for charity too is strong as death.

For charity puts to death guilt and all sins: charity slays like the stroke of death. Indeed we die to crimes and to sin, while we love the commandments of the Lord. Charity is God, charity is the Word of God, which is powerful, and sharper than every sharpest sword, penetrating even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints, and to the innermost parts of the marrow. Hard, then, is the jealousy of charity, which does not yield to the nether world; since for the sake of God's jealousy each one spares not even his own. With this nail of charity our soul and our flesh are pierced, so that it too may say: For I am wounded with love. Charity, then, has its own nail: it has its own sword, by which the soul is wounded. Happy is he who has merited to be wounded by this sword. These are the wounds which are preferred to kisses: More profitable are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy.

Let us offer ourselves to these wounds, by which whoever shall have died will not be able to taste death.

Such indeed is the death of those who follow the Lord, of whom it was said: There are some of those standing here who shall not taste death, until they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Rightly did Peter not fear this death; for he did not fear who said that even if it were needful for him to die for Christ, he would not forsake or deny him. Let us then take up the cross of the Lord, which may pierce our flesh, and destroy sin. There is a fear which pierces the flesh: Unless one takes up his cross and follows me, he is not worthy of me. For he is worthy who has the fear of Christ; that he may crucify carnal sin. This fear is followed by charity, which, being buried together with Christ, may not be torn away from Christ, may die in Christ, be entombed with Christ, rise again with Christ.

Here begins the sixteenth letter, Ain, whose interpretation is, Eye, or fountain. The eye exercises the office of seeing: but often we see things that please, and often things that displease; nor is there in the eye either fault or uprightness according to the quality of what it has seen; for it is the office of the eye to report what it has seen. There is indeed either offense or favor, if it either be delighted by pleasant things, or offended by adverse ones. Therefore the eye is frequently called the eye of punishments, the eye of temptation, the eye of the kid, the eye of the heifer, the eye of generation, or the fountain of generation.

We read in the Gospel that John was baptizing in Ennon.

Ennon they have interpreted as the eye of punishments. And so no one comes to baptism, except one who desires his own sins to be forgiven, whose punishments he dreads with foreseeing heart. And so, although it be called the eye of punishments, it belongs nonetheless to one foreseeing punishments, not to one enduring them: although the baptism of penance may have some measure of endurance in the undergoing of punishments. It belongs to the eye to perform the office of seeing: it is thine own part to beware of what thou hast seen.

Finally, it is also called the eye of temptation; because through the eye we are often tempted.

The eye of the harlot is the snare of the lover. But the eye commits no fault; and therefore the Savior's sentence is full of justice, saying: Whoever shall have looked upon a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart. He did not say: Whoever shall have looked upon a woman, but shall have looked to lust after her. He absolved the eye, he bound the mind. Nor did he say: He committed adultery with her in the eye, but in the heart. In the eye was the seeing, in the heart the sin.

The eye of the kid, which is on the left; because the sinner cannot see the things which are on the right.

But the saint says: I foresaw the Lord before my face always; for he is at my right hand, that I be not moved. And to the holy apostle Peter, when he had caught nothing the whole night, as we read in the Gospel, it was said by the Savior: Cast the net on the right side of the boat. And so, trusting in the heavenly command, he cast the net, and gathered together a very great multitude of fishes. On the left was night: on the right shone the daylight brightness of the divine word.

There is also the eye of the heifer: which likewise is referred to sinners

because just as with a continual halter heifers drag along their iniquities, not breaking nor cutting off what is their own, but dragging their sin along with a long rope. For the untamed heifer is tamed late, and drags the halter, does not accept it; because it is impatient of being held: and the longer it has dragged, the more it is entangled.

The eye is also called the eye of generation, or the fountain of generation

because from the sight of the eyes either good or adverse things are generated. Thou hast seen a woman's beauty, hast praised the work of the artificer, the loveliness of nature: the generation of faith, of devotion, is the offspring. Thou wast content with the comeliness of form, not with ambition of wealth, thou didst take her to wife, she bore sons of a more generous grace: thine eye was the generation of prosperous things. Thou hast beheld a consecrated maiden, the reverence of an august chastity pressed down thine eyes: thou hast proclaimed the Lord Jesus, who had given, in a maiden's youthful age, an aged gravity, and had poured into human affections a spotless life amid the frail enticements of this so slippery flesh: it is a fountain of good things.

Thou hast seen the possessions of orphans, not to invade, but to protect; and thou hast groaned with a father's inward feeling, if thou hast noticed anything of the lesser one's advantage being neglected: thou hast driven back him who wished to invade his boundaries: thou hast judged for the orphan: thine eye was to thee a fountain and origin of justice. Thou hast judged for the widow (for as a bad coin is not a coin, so a bad judgment is not a judgment); thou hast judged, then, as a just and good judge: thou hast seen a wicked usurper, who thought her, bereft of a husband's help, to be his prey: thou hast not suffered iniquity: thou hast brought help to the undefended, whereby, aided by that protection, she carried on the works of chastity without hindrance, nor was she compelled to seek a husband's aid; the Lord says to thee: Come, let us reason together. Because thou hast judged for the widow, thine eye has become to thee a fountain of grace.

Thou hast seen the naked body of a poor dead man lying, thou hast not passed by, as did that one set forth in the Gospel, the priest and the levite: but at once, moved with pity, thou hast committed him to the solace of burial: thine eye has generated for thee matter for redemption.

On the other hand, if, looking upon the field of an orphan planted with vines, joyous with crops, with shady groves, or with rivers running down, or with bubbling fountains, or pleasant with the grassy banks of their beds, and kindled by the torches of avarice thou hast moved the boundaries of the fathers, and wickedly rushed upon an undefended possession: thine eye has generated for thee the bitterness of perpetual death. Thou hast violated the rights of a neighboring widow: thou hast forced her, who ought to have nursed either her grief or her modesty shut within secret walls, to rush forth into public, to litigate more shamelessly than justly: thine eye has become the offspring of iniquity. Thou hast looked upon the needy man with a haughty eye and an insatiable heart: thou hast despised the prayer of the poor: and him whom thou oughtest to have pitied, thou hast passed by with disdain: thine eye was to thee a fountain and origin of sin.

Therefore let not thine eyes be the eyes of a wolf, lying in wait for prey, but as is said of the Bride: Thine eyes are pools in Esebon, in the gates of the daughter of many: thy nose is like the tower of Libanus. What is "pools in Esebon," but the abundance in rational thoughts, which is at the gates of the Church, to which is rightly attributed the multitude of doctrine? For she is made the daughter of many, the offspring of very many teachings, whose nostrils are the fragrance of sacrifices excelling all flowers. For what is more sublime than the fragrance of Christ, who did away with the fragrance of incense? Let this eye, then, foresee the things that are to come: and if it shall have foreseen adverse things impending, let it not cease to soften and mitigate them with weeping and tears.

Therefore Jeremiah, placed in the captivity of the Jewish nation, foreseeing the future affliction of perpetual captivity, which the people of the Jews were to pay at the price of their perfidy, said in the Lamentations under this same letter: For this I weep, my eyes are grown dim with weeping; because he who comforted me is gone far from me (Thren. I, 15, 16). He did not grieve, then, that he was being led away from his own lands, but he perceived that the people was to be forsaken by Christ, and that the consolation of the future life was lost. This is truly a captivity to be lamented, which seemed deprived of the hope of eternal liberty. In another place also, under this same letter, he repeats in the Lamentations, saying: The Lord hath accomplished what he devised, his word which he commanded from the days of old. He hath destroyed, and hath not spared, and hath made the enemy rejoice over thee, and hath exalted the horn of him that afflicteth thee (Thren. Ii, 17).

Is not the future judgment of Christ evidently announced here, just as it is certain to be declared also in the present psalm?

Let the eye, then, foresee the things that are to come, and let it turn them aside either by a flood of tears, or by correction of error. Finally, Jeremiah wept; because he had undertaken the evil cause of an impious people, which by the stubbornness of its perfidy denied its own author. But David, foreseeing by a prophetic spirit the judgment of Christ, in which no innocent man shall be endangered, no wicked man shall escape, says, relying on a good conscience: I have done judgment and justice: give me not up to them that oppress me. He does not praise himself as though boastful and insolent, since, being skilled in the law, he was certainly not ignorant that each one ought to be praised rather by another's mouth than by his own.

Not, I say, is there here any boasting of vaunted virtues, but the rightful and warranted assertion of an innocent life; lest he should be judged worthy to be forsaken by the Lord on account of grave sins, and to be handed over to the power of the wicked. It is, then, a defense, not an arrogance, since no excellence of honor is here assumed, but a fearsome affliction is being warded off. Finally, Peter uses this kind of defense, saying: Behold, we have left all things, and have followed thee: what then shall we have? In which, if there had been any discoloring blemish of arrogant speech, he would not have received so much grace from the sentence of the Lord Savior; so that he was not only by no means to be subjected to judgment himself, but was even announced as one who was to judge concerning the merits of others.

For not even in a judgment, if anyone, for the sake of defending his own innocence, should reveal what he had done, would this be reckoned rather as boasting than as defense of his cause. It is one thing to say oneself worthy of reward, another to say oneself unworthy of injury.

And yet that very man, the supreme master of philosophy, as they say, when he was accused, being asked with what penalty he thought himself worthy to be punished, is said to have answered, that he be received at public banquet daily in the Prytaneum. That man usurped honor, this man forestalled affliction: that man arrogated glory, this man kept humility. For what greater humility can there be, than that one, conscious in himself of judgment and reserved justice, should fear to be handed over to the power of the devil?

He knew himself to be a man, unequal to himself in war against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places: he knew that Enoch was taken up, lest malice should change his heart: that Noah was made drunk, Lot was violated, that the first priest, Aaron himself, together with his sister Mary, was tempted: that Mary was first sprinkled with the spots of leprosy, and afterward absolved: that Moses was well-nigh slain, had not his wife Zipporah, by the circumcision of his son and by the shedding of that sort of blood, driven away from him all danger. Admonished, then, by these examples, he by no means trusts in his own strength: but cautious humility procures for itself, by prayer, divine assistance, asking that he be not given up to them that oppress.

For he knows that the prince of the world is the author of all sins. He divides the affections of even the closest kinsmen, stirred up by the stings of wrath: he kindles the flame of lust: he inflames the desires of avarice; so that the more we have seized, the more we may seek. He himself supplies and ministers the fuel of luxury: he exasperates hatreds, and inflames the zeal of immoderate ambition. Which vice, alluring in its beginning, savage in its course, could not even be recalled by the contemplation of brotherly kinship. While the ambitious seeker of heavenly grace grieved that his brother was preferred, he proceeded from sacrifice to parricide. The Apostle, then, teaches that the devil is the author of incontinence: Lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinency. We read too that he is the instigator of avarice, Paul saying: They that will become rich fall into temptation and the snare of the devil.

And elsewhere: Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and avarice, which is idolatry.

For in these things we do the will of the devil, and carry out his power, who through the desires of this flesh works the incitement of his own fraud.

Whomever therefore he finds in the possession of his own vices, he claims as liable to his own jurisdiction.

Whoever commits adultery, practises luxury, plunders others' goods; he is the devil's portion: but the chaste, and continent, and merciful man is Christ's portion. He cannot therefore claim the servant of Christ for himself, unless perchance he has caught him fallen into vices: nor even then does he claim him, but demands that he be handed over to him as his own. Therefore David says: I have done judgment and justice, not that he might arrogate this to himself, but that he might excuse himself; lest as a sinner he be abandoned by Christ. Let the apostolic reading be an example to us of why each one is handed over. For that man who had his father's wife, because he had so acted, "I have handed over to Satan," says the Apostle: he would not have been handed over, unless he had done the works of the devil.

Whence not without reason does the prophet refuse to be handed over to those doing him harm, alleging that he has done not the works of the devil, but of Christ; for Christ says: Judge the fatherless, and justify the widow. This therefore is: I have done judgment and justice, in judgment I have not despised the poor man, I have not oppressed the widow, I have not accepted the person of the rich, in all my works I have preserved justice.

The end of judgment is justice.

In the one is the guarding of truth, in the other the fruit of equity: yet each is not a private virtue, but a public one. For to keep the body unstained from union with a man, and to carry up the palm of chastity in a body of clay by the guardianship of integrity even to the manner of life of the Angels, is a private advantage, a public praise: To be frugal and modest, and to hold the measure of a sober frugality, is approved by many, but profits only oneself. Fortitude stands out in battles, grows cold in leisure: its work is necessary in time of need, undesirable as a wish; for men prefer not to fight rather than to conquer. Justice alone is that which at all times, born rather for others than for itself, by daily use and public benefit, at its own cost guards the advantages of others: which has no advantage of its own, and very much praise.

This therefore the Prophet puts forward for the commendation of his merit, saying: I have done judgment and justice: do not hand me over to those who harm me. Where justice is, there mercy is. Mercy frees from sin. How then am I handed over to sinners? Similar is that in the Song of Songs: I have put off my tunic, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I soil them? I have put off the tunic of the sinner, and the covering of the earthly: why am I adjudged as though a sinner and earthly? I have washed my feet, lest any lot of guilt could cling to my footstep: why do you give power over me to those who transgress? There follows: Receive your servant unto good: let not the proud slander me. As one conscious of judgment and justice, he proceeds with prophetic authority; so that he does not fear to call himself the servant of the Lord: for the servant of the Lord owes nothing to strangers.

Precious is this servitude, which consists in the expenditure of virtues.

But why he fears to be handed over to those who harm him he plainly discloses; because they are calumniators, who hate the truth: they attack innocence, because they are proud. For what kind of a proud man can he be against the little servants of God, who exalts himself against God, and says: I will ascend into heaven: I will set my throne above the stars of heaven: I will sit on the lofty mount, above the high mountains that are toward the North: I will ascend above the clouds, and I will be like the Most High? What wonder then, if he who does not yield even to God with his obstinate spirit can oppress men? How will he keep the measure of truth, and faith toward man, who by a sacrilegious and shameless lie promises that he is to be made equal to the omnipotent Lord?

How does he not slander individuals, he who has provoked the whole earth, shaken kings, made the whole world a desert, and destroyed cities: he who did not release those who were in captivity?

Let us beware then lest he destroy the walls of our soul, lest he tear down the bulwarks of our mind, lest he set his throne above the stars. He sets it above the stars, when he deceives the elect, when he ensnares the just man, whose works shine like stars in heaven. Did not even Judas the betrayer hear along with the others: You are the light of this world? Did not the devil extinguish his light? Nay more, those whom he cannot ensnare, he slanders, envying the glory of the heavenly kingdom; so that those whom he could not separate from Christ by his enticements, he tries to defraud by his slanders of the fruit of due honor. Let us flee therefore from evil slanderers, who work sin in us, and themselves compose against us most hostile calumnies by accusation, charging that which they themselves have done. Behold the hand of the Lord is ready, which guards and protects you fleeing from adversaries.

Pharaoh, proud and merciless, held you among the fathers: you fled from him, the hand of the Lord received you, and freed you from dangers.

Pharaoh would not have let you go, had you not fled to the Lord. Pharaoh said: I know not the Lord, and I will not let Israel go. Do you see how proud? Rightly then he who flees evil is received unto good. God does not suffer us to be in evil: he receives us unto good; nor does he allow his own to lie under slanders. My eyes have failed for your salvation, and for the word of your justice. Consider what these eyes are, which fail for Christ, while they await his coming, namely the eyes of the soul, not of the body, fixed with the whole intent of faith; for in him whom we love, we are occupied with our whole eyes, nor does anything else delight us to see.

This cannot be said except by one who has turned away the whole intent of his mind from worldly cares and secular pleasures. For how can he say this, who is occupied with theatrical spectacles? But he says this, who said above: Turn away my eyes, that they may not see vanity. And what are the eyes that fail for the word of God, but the eyes of the inner man, and the gaze of the soul, which are stretched out that they may see the Word of God, and by excessive intent and expectation fail unto the salvation of God, suffering their own failing, that they may take up what belongs to the Word?

And because the word of God can move many, he therefore added: the word of justice; so that it ought not to trouble. But it could trouble, because it is written: The greater shall serve the less. For unless you take it as mystery, it is an injury to nature. And, "I gave you precepts that were not good." Does God then give evil precepts? And, "I am the Lord who creates evils." But regarding the precepts it is thus resolved; because he ought not to give perfect precepts to the weak, which they could not sustain. When would a Jew hear: Leave all your goods and follow me? When would a Jew hear: He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me? But these more perfect precepts are reserved for the Gospel.

And God did not create evils, but these things which seem harsh to us—stripes, death, and other such things which are prescribed for the correction of the guilty; for the law is not laid upon the just, but upon the unjust. For if the guilty feared nothing, the innocent would always be in fear.

Who then are these eyes which fail for the salvation of God?

We have said it to be the eye of punishments, which is evil, if taken in the sense of irony. Foreseeing the future punishments of sinners, it might announce that penitence must be undertaken. John the Baptist showed this eye, saying: Generation of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of penitence. For to the baptism of John came he who had the eye of punishments: but to the baptism of Christ comes he who sees grace. For this is the eye which the shadow of the Lord's passion watches over and protects. One thing therefore is Ennon, another is Ain. In Ennon is baptized one conscious of grave sins: but he who has a pure eye receives spiritual grace.

And perhaps the eye of an imperfect soul is the eye of punishments: but of the perfect soul the eye of graces is purer and more sincere, which is signified by this letter, toward which the form of the just is directed; because the imperfect only desires to avoid the judgment of sin, but the perfect to acquire the merit of the heavenly kingdom. We presume, however, that one soul has both eyes, both the eye of punishments and the eye of grace: the left eye of punishments, the right of grace; because men cannot be perfect from the first, but ascend by the progress of virtue. Each soul therefore first comes, as it were, to the baptism of John; that it may first send forth penitence for sins: and in the progress, gradually, when it has wept over its sins, washed by the spiritual baptism, it receives the sacrament of Christ.

Whence it seems also in the Song of Songs the Church is foretold, to whom it is said: You have captured our heart, my sister, Spouse, you have captured our heart with one of your eyes; so that this may be the eye of grace, which has acquired for itself the fuller love of Christ.

Many, however, take in this place two eyes of the Church: one which sees mystical things, the other moral things

because holy Church holds not only the discipline of morals, but also teaches the secrets of the heavenly mystery. Whence it is said of her: Your eyes are as doves, apart from your silence, that she may both see spiritually, and know that there is a time for silence, and a time for speaking; so that in due time she may bring forth her speech, lest by an untimely importunity of speaking she incur sin.

She has therefore eyes of a dove after the likeness of Christ; because of him too it is read: Your eyes are as doves upon the abundance of waters, washed in milk, sitting beside the fullness. The Lord baptizes in milk, that is, in sincerity. And these are they who are truly baptized in milk, who believe without guile, and bring pure faith, that they may put on unstained grace. Therefore the white Bride ascends to Christ; because she is baptized in milk. Therefore the Virtues and Powers marvel at her, saying: Who is this that ascends made white? A little before she was saying, I am black: now she is seen made white, and ascends to heaven, and leaning on the Word of God, now penetrates the heights. Nor without reason is there an abundance of waters there, where Christ is; that the human mind may desire to be filled. These waters the hart thirsts for, which having drunk it cannot thirst again. These waters the Prophet thirsted for, when he said: My soul has thirsted for you.

Christ therefore sits upon the abundance of waters, and upon the fullness.

And therefore he who is baptized in milk says: And of his fullness we have all received. Whence also the eye of punishments is not foreign to the Church; because though John baptized in Ennon, he baptized near Salim, where there was an abundance of waters, twelve springs, and seventy palm trees.

The Church has these springs, that is, in the Old Testament the twelve patriarchs, and in the New the twelve apostles.

And therefore it is said: In the churches bless the Lord God from the fountains of Israel. By these fountains is anyone first bathed, whoever attains the most sacred mysteries of Christ; for these fountains, flowing from the eternal fountain, have flowed through the whole world. Where these fountains are, there is the ascension of souls. Finally they have interpreted Salim as "Him ascending." For he truly ascends, who lays down his own sins. By this word, then, the use of purifying sanctification is expressed. Whence also well in the Song of Songs Christ says to the Church: Your teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep, which have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and none among them is barren. What is said in appearance of goats is said mystically of the flock of the Church.

Nor let these animals seem base to you.

Finally hear what the holy Spirit says of these: Your locks are like a flock of shorn sheep, which have been revealed from mount Galaad. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep, which have come up from the washing. You see that this flock feeds in high places, bold upon the mountain. And so where for others there are precipices, there for goats there is no danger: where for others there is danger, there is the food of this flock, there the sweeter fare, there the choicer fruit. They are watched by their shepherds hanging from the thorny cliff: there the attacks of wolves cannot reach, there the fruitful trees supply their whole fruit. One may see them, their udders swollen with abundant milk, solicitous with maternal love over their tender offspring. Therefore the Holy Spirit chose them, to which he might compare the assembly of the venerable Church.

And that you may hear it mystically: the lock of the Word is a certain height and eminence of just souls, since the mind of the wise man is in his head. For it is certain that wisdom is in the height of human thought. And just as goats are shorn, that they may lay aside what is superfluous: so also holy Church has a flock of shorn souls, that is, the virtues of many souls, in which flock you can find nothing insensible, nothing superfluous; since faith has made them wise, and spiritual grace has cleansed them from every stain of superfluous things.

Rightly, therefore, the souls of the just are revealed, whence we too have all received of his fulness.

And revealed from Mount Galaad, that is, from the migration of testimony; because the heavenly testimony migrated from the Synagogue to the Church. On this mountain, then, is born incense, resin, and the other spices which those Ismaelite merchants, as you have it in the first book of the Old Testament, were carrying. These spices the Church has, which merchants gathered from among the nations brought with faith and devotion. So then, just as goats, refreshed with good food and flourishing in the warmth of the sun, are washed in the river, and, exulting, rise clean from the river: so the souls of the just ascend from the spiritual washing.

These are truly they which bring forth twins, in whom there is no barrenness of virtues, no sterility of merits.

Well do they bring forth twins; because they double their senses. Whence you have it written in Proverbs: And write these things thyself threefold, in counsel and in knowledge. He set forth a threefold writing, and added two: counsel and knowledge: but knowledge is twin: one of incorporeal things, the other of corporeal things.

We have spoken of fecundity: let us speak of the teeth.

For also many who are sailing, and those hastening on an earthly journey, when they have seen some beautiful spot, linger for the sake of delight, they feed their eyes, and they lift up their spirit; nor is any delay in the journeying reckoned a loss, but rather a grace: so also it is dear to us to consider the most beautiful teeth of just souls. For Scripture has taught that the teeth of the just are most beautiful, saying, according to the letter indeed concerning the patriarch Judah, but spiritually concerning Christ: His eyes are joyful from wine, and his teeth as milk. In which he has proclaimed not indeed the offices of human flesh, but the gifts of divine grace. The example, therefore, teaches that the teeth are not to be passed over, where we shall have spoken of the eyes.

Who then are the teeth of just souls, but those who, receiving formless and hard food, sometimes cold, sometimes overly hot, now break it small, now warm it, now temper it, according as the quality of the food shall be? They break the hard things small, lest the harshness of the letter in the Old Testament, and the rigor of worldly understanding, unless it be dissolved by the spiritual tooth, should choke, with the passages of wholesome food shut up, the vital parts themselves, and a certain gullet of the soul, through careless voracity. It is right, therefore, that you first divide, if the food which is taken seems solid to you, and that you distinguish it, and, once softened without any harm to the soul, pour it out by a natural division into all its members; so that its whole body may feast upon the vital juice.

Take nothing corpse-like, nothing dead into your mouth, lest it be said: Their throat is an open sepulchre: but draw in the living word; that it may be able to work within the inward parts of your mind.

These teeth are whiter than milk, because they are the teeth of the just.

Finally, although all our fathers were baptized in Moses in the cloud and in the sea, yet it is not written idly, that All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; so that a certain greater brightness might come to these teeth of the saints, whom, after the crossing of the Red Sea, we know to have been cleansed by the bitterness of the fountain of Myrrha, tempered through the grace of the wood, then by the drink of the twelve fountains, and finally by the watering of the rock pouring out a spiritual stream; for the rock was Christ. Therefore they also ate manna; that, having been washed so many times, they might eat the bread, as it is written, of angels. Now also in the mysteries of the Gospel you recognize that, although baptized in your whole body, you are afterwards cleansed by spiritual food and drink.

Rightly, then, David, both his interior eyes purified, and his teeth as though illumined with the brightness of spiritual teeth, brings forth his words, saying: I have done judgment and justice (above v. 121). For

that is the true brightness of teeth, where the melodious confession of a mind well conscious of itself resounds. That is a clean eye, which no beam of grave sins has weighed down: which no straw of light impurities has disturbed. This eye has failed for the word of justice. For he who cleaves to Christ is one spirit. And Balaam asked that his soul might fail in the souls of the just, that is, that he might forget his own error: that he should lay aside what was his own, and take up what belonged to justice and equity. But let us proceed to the rest. There follows: Deal with thy servant according to thy mercy, and teach me thy justices. He has laid the path beforehand, and taken up the increase of his own commendation.

Above he asked not to be delivered to those doing harm (above vv. 121 and 122): again he asked to be received in good; lest the proud should slander him, that is: I do not decline judgment, but the slander of the faithless; for they know not how to judge, they know how to slander. I flee to thee, who knowest how to render judgment. And rightly he does not wish to be delivered to slanderers; for Job the just suffered many things, after he was delivered to the harmer. But that was a difficult and great struggle, which scarcely anyone could have overcome except by Job's exceeding patience; yet he was not delivered wholly, but was received in the better portion. He who says: Deliver me not (above v. 121), comprehends the greater things. But we are more in soul than in flesh; for to the just it is said: But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

He refuses, then, to have his soul delivered up, who in body was wasting away like a spider.

In this place, therefore, presuming upon greater things by a certain increased use of familiarity, he says: Deal with thy servant according to thy mercy, and teach me thy justices.

He asks that mercy be shown to him, and that justices be taught. Elsewhere also, that is, in the later parts, you have this sense: And enter not into judgment with thy servant. For we, conscious of our sins, ought rather to seek the mercy of our God than to implore justice. The one grants pardon: the other imparts examination. What hope have men of contending before him whom hidden things do not deceive, from whom sins cannot lie hidden? And therefore, knowing his power, he who would not fear man, says: To thee only have I sinned. The just man cannot deny this; because no one is without sin: the king cannot deny it, because although he has the laws in his power, so that he may sin with impunity; yet he is subject to God: indeed he himself owes more, to whom more has been entrusted.

This, therefore, he says: Deal with thy servant according to thy mercy; because even if I have done some good, I owe more, as a servant. A servant is not absolved by one deed; for no one, having a servant plowing, or feeding sheep, says to him: Go, sit down; but says to him: Prepare what I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me; does the servant have thanks, if he has done what was commanded him? Therefore even when we have done what was commanded us, we ought not immediately to exalt ourselves, but rather to humble ourselves; because it is not the case that, if we have done something, we have fulfilled all the duties of servitude. Who could match with worthy service such gifts of nature, the divine benefits of life and preserved salvation? Who can pay back what he has received? And therefore, knowing all things, he asks rather for mercy than for a hearing: Because, he says, no man living shall be justified in thy sight.

The fifth little

follows: I am thy servant: give me understanding, and I shall know thy testimonies.

Understanding is a spiritual gift; and therefore what belongs to God is asked of the Lord. Nor does he ask as a stranger, who confesses himself a servant. Well does he say: I am thy servant. For a servant does the will of his lord. A servant seeks the wages of servitude, hopes for reward. The servant of the Lord cannot at the same time be the servant of sin: and therefore he asks that understanding be given him, that he may know how to guard against sin. He had understanding indeed, but not such that he believed it to overflow for him: he seeks a richer one.

But there is also an understanding of nature, and there is an understanding that is not good.

Therefore Solomon also says: But good understanding gives grace. For if every understanding were good, there would have been no need of the addition. Rightly he seeks the grace of his Lord, for otherwise he cannot know the secrets of the Lord, unless understanding has received a spiritual gift. You have this in Jeremiah: Make known to me, Lord, and I shall know; because unless God has made his mystery known to men, we cannot know it. There follows the sixth little

It is time to act, O Lord: they have dissipated thy law, the wicked. Well does he say it is time to act; For there is a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

But the time for speaking has arrived: and by this he recalls that the time of the Lord's coming is now; that

because the transgression of the Law has been made, there may come the end of the Law, and its consummation, and its fulness, the Lord Jesus, who may grant to men all their offenses: and, the handwriting of debts having been abolished, may absolve all and free sinners. It is time to act, as when, with the sickness of some ailment growing worse, you run to the physician, that he may come the more quickly; lest afterward he be unable to help. For the physician is desired the more, when a grave sickness has settled upon the languishing one.

Therefore when the Prophet, in the Spirit, sees the transgressions of the people, the luxury, the delights, the deceits, the frauds, the avarice, the drunkenness, as if he intervenes for us, he runs to Christ, whom alone he knew could come to the help of such great sins: he urges that he come, nor does he suffer delays to be made. It is time, he says, to act, O Lord, that is, that thou shouldst ascend the cross for us, undergo death. The whole world is pressed toward its final peril: come, that thou mayest take away the sin of the world. Let life come to those dying: let resurrection come to those now buried. Let thy deed come to our help; since not even thy precepts could avail. In the Law there was precept, in the Gospel, ministry.

All the people were blind, not seeing their own author.

The world was lame, and wavered with a stumbling step of faith. There was no salve to lay on it, nor oil, nor bandage. That woman of the Gospel had spent her whole patrimony on physicians, bearing the likeness of the gathering of humankind, which was assembling from the nations: nor could the physicians of this age restrain the flowing blood, the deadly discharge of the inveterate affliction. The posterity of the prince of the people had perished, and all his inheritance had died. Seeing these things, the Prophet says to Christ: It is time to act, O Lord: not to command, he says, but to act; because he who was to save his people was not a legate nor a messenger, but the Lord. And he indeed knew the time, and did not delay: but we did not know at what time it would be better for him to come to our aid.

Or perhaps he wishes to be admonished by us, wishes to be asked: indeed if he had been asked, he came before the time.

He came to the fig tree; and he came before the hour, as he says to his mother. She was asking on our behalf, she was hastening, saying: They have no wine, son. Jesus answered: What is it to me and to thee, woman? My hour is not yet come. And the mother, who knew his affection, says to the ministers: Whatsoever he shall say to you, do. Jesus too, who had denied that his hour had come, did what he had before been deferring; for God has done all things in his own time. Whatever he does is not outside of time: but everything that he has done is fitting, and comes to me in its own time; for every time is opportune for salvation, nothing is too hasty for the salvation of those in peril: but he wished still to await the correction of the Synagogue.

Therefore he came to the fig tree before the time, that is, he came quickly for the Jews, opportunely for the nations: he came quickly for those about to perish, fittingly for those about to believe. There follows the seventh

Therefore have I loved thy commandments above gold and topaz. The Law is the herald of Christ: the precepts of the Law, therefore, bring the hope of future goods, for it is the command of the Lord: Take heed to thyself, that thou forsake not the levite all the time that thou livest upon the earth. Who is this levite? You understand, if you consider who he is that came to minister, who is priest forever. Another command he gives: Keep the month of new grain, and thou shalt make the passover to the Lord thy God. And below: In the place which the Lord thy God shall choose that his name be invoked there, there thou shalt kill the passover in the evening at the setting of the sun, at the time when thou camest out of Egypt.

Therefore the commandments of God hold the tokens of future redemption, the marks of resurrection; therefore he recalls that they are dear to him above gold and topaz. For what is more welcome than salvation, more precious than resurrection?

Or because Christ chose the foolish things of the world; so that since through wisdom the world did not know God, through the foolishness of preaching he might bring salvation to believers; and therefore he says: Above the wisdom of the celestial working, and of the worldly constitution, and above the ornaments of the sun and moon, and the precious jewels of the stars, I have loved the obedience of the Lord's passion. For it conferred more upon me in redeeming me than in creating me; for then I was born without sense, now I have been preserved by will. But not everyone who says: I have loved thy commandments above gold and topaz, says it truly. The greedy man does not say it, who broods over gold, gapes after riches, desires ornaments: but he says it who can say: Silver and gold I have none; because I do not seek it, because gold profits me nothing; but the precept and heavenly commandment has redeemed me.

We have spoken of the restraint of sense; now let us set forth the history concerning the topaz stone.

Concerning which we find it written in the history of Xenocrates, who wrote as it were a treatise on stones (lithognomon), that alabaster, or as some think, topaz, was born or found near the city of the Thebaid; whence it was also named from the place in which it was produced. There are, however, those who have thought that an island was called Topazion, to which the Troglodytes, driven there, when a sudden commotion of the sea arose, since they had no use of ships, were unable to return.

Then, tarrying there for a very long time, they found the stone on the island, and, delighted by its color, returned home and sold it to Arabian merchants who came there; from these Philo bought it, and it was brought by him to the mother of Ptolemy the second, whose name was Berenice; and she, although she abounded in royal ornaments, was nevertheless so astonished beyond measure by its color that she took pains that the appearance of so precious a stone should no longer remain hidden; and so, sought after by her zeal, the stone came into more frequent use.

We have told how the topaz stone became known; now let us speak more precisely of its quality.

There is in this stone a κρᾶσις of two colors, that is, a certain tempered mixture. It is πρασοειδὴς, that is, leek-colored, and like chrysopa, similar to chrysoprase, extending as it were certain figures of colors according to each, and indeed it is said by those experienced in it to extend more fully. It is moreover parichrus, and quite pure; and chrysochrus, and rich, resembling something resplendent, especially when struck by the brightness of the sun. It is also most beautiful and wondrous beyond all chrysoprases in magnitude, and, as I have said, richer to the sight. Its nature is such that if you wish to polish and smooth it, it becomes rather rougher, and is diminished by use.

It is, moreover, by a certain generative work of nature euglyphus, that is, well-marked and admirable: and, that it might be held worthy of the utmost esteem, it is difficult to find; and when found, it is nevertheless rarely in common use among men, as if it were that stone which the wealthy queen admired.

But now, just as those Troglodytes, once the price of their delay had been found, returned home, so let us too, having received the profit of this delay, return whence we turned aside. Nor is it fitting that we should extend the arms of our discourse any longer to royal ornaments, since we hold in our hands the cross of Christ, which the Prophet admonishes is to be preferred above gold and topaz, which recalls and corrects from every error and fault. For which of the just would not desire the comfort of Christ in death, fellowship in his resurrection? Who would not turn back his step, when he hears that all the sins that went before are forgiven him? For it is on this account that many were wont to be held back from the pursuit of conversion, because, being conscious of their own offenses, they presumed no hope of pardon; and in the Church, the holier they thought the precepts to be, the more they thought their sins were beyond pardon.

And therefore he says in the eighth

Therefore toward all thy commandments I was corrected: I hated every unjust way. Rightly was he corrected, since he loved; for charity covers a multitude of sins. See how much it covers, how much it corrects. Charity is patient, is kind. Charity envies not, deals not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeks not her own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices with the truth. She bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Charity never fails Among the lower things he set three perfect things, hope, faith, charity; but he called charity the greater, and rightly; for charity hopes all things, believes all things. Since therefore hope and faith are within charity, there is no doubt that charity is the greater. And rightly did the Prophet answer himself. For above he said: The law of the Lord is unspotted, converting the soul. If the Law converts the soul, then surely he who loves is a lover of the Law.

Then in this very hundred and eighteenth psalm he set down first: Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord (above, v. 1). If he is undefiled who walks in the law of God, then surely he is converted who loves the law of God. Therefore if the Law makes one undefiled, rightly does charity cover a multitude of sins; because the fullness of the Law is charity.

Every unjust way, he says, I have hated.

If he who loves the precepts of justice does those things which he loves, then surely he who hates iniquity does not do that which he abhors. Nor is it without cause that he who hates every way of iniquity is corrected in all the commandments of the Lord. For unless you hate every way of iniquity, you cannot be corrected in all the commandments of God. For it may happen that someone restrains himself from the horror of cruelty, yet, deceived by the slippery love of a harlot, and having entered the paths of youthful incontinence, cannot recall the footprint once impressed. For the gentler vices deceive many, while sad and excessively severe cruelty turns very many away from itself. But youth is freer toward love, more incautious toward falling, weaker toward infirmity, harder toward correction. Another restrains himself from luxury: but is dragged away by the desire of avarice.

For very often sins of this kind are such that if you avoid one, you fall into another; and the use of nature aids infirmity. You have hated luxury as though frugal, but through zeal for frugality the desire of possessing frequently creeps in. Rapacity itself is subject to avarice. And how much more tolerable it is to squander one's own than to plunder another's! There are those who, fearing to diminish something of their own wealth, deny expense even to the needy, and think mercy a loss. There are those who, avoiding degenerate lowliness, are stirred by the blast of worldly ambition, and, like shaken reeds, are carried hither and thither, uncertain.

There are also those who, while following the condition of their elders, as though content with a worthy manner of life, do not think even the errors of their fathers ought to be avoided; so that they do not judge that unbelief ought to be changed by faith: whereas to change one's purpose for the better is not fickleness, but virtue; not a fault, but a grace. Another, solicited by the circus games, or by theatrical pleasures, or occupied by other vanities, does not frequent the Church: another is delighted by the quiet of the countryside, and for this reason his approach to the Church is rare. Thus by different practice both run together into the same error of lack of devotion. But he who hates every way of iniquity is corrected and amended in all things. And well did he put it, The way of iniquity; for he more easily declines iniquity who has not entered its ways.

Phe, the seventeenth letter, which in Latin signifies, I have erred, or, I have opened my mouth.

Rightly, then, is this tearful sequence of the psalm placed beneath this letter: Look upon me, and have mercy on me; and let not all iniquity have dominion over me. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant (below, vv. 132, 133 and 135); so that to him who was in the shadow of death, the light of heavenly mercy might arise for the people, that Christ might come, the remission of sins, the redemption of captives, the aid of those who labor. But because he seemed to come rather slowly to those who desired him: My eyes, he says, have poured forth streams of water (below, v. 136).

In the Lamentations of Jeremiah too, there is a more tearful sequence under this letter: Sion has spread forth her hands: there is none to comfort her. She received a fitting recompense; that she who neglected to hear him who spread forth his hands, and to come under his wings, should herself afterward spread forth her hands, and be unable to find one to console her. For even though before the Lord's coming Jeremiah seems to bewail the captivity of the Jews brought upon them by the Babylonians, yet, foreseeing rather in prophetic spirit that captivity by which the intelligible Babylonian subjected them to the bonds of perpetual error, and, banishing them, stripped of their own domestic virtue, from the state of their fathers' devotion, afflicted them with the exile of a far-off pilgrimage, he laments with pitiable grief.

For no fatherland is truer than faith, which made those who were far off to be near, and joined strangers and pilgrims by the right of the heavenly city, as it is written: Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners: but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God.

Elsewhere too Jeremiah says under this letter: All thy enemies have opened their mouth against thee, they have hissed, and gnashed with the teeth, and said: We have swallowed her up; this is the day that we looked for, we have found it, we have seen it. And here, just as the people of the Jews opened their mouth against Christ, as you have read in the twenty-first psalm concerning his passion, that they opened their mouth reviling him: you recognize the lot of a fitting recompense; that they themselves should endure such things from their own enemies, and that the intelligible sinner, the devil, should gnash his teeth against them, like a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour. These, then, did not say: Blessed be the Lord who hath not given us to be a prey to their teeth; because they did not think they ought to hope in the Lord. Therefore the devil found the destruction which he presumed upon them.

He swallowed them up; because their offended shepherd was absent, who would have drawn the legs of the mouth, or the cartilage, out of the lion's mouth.

They would not follow, they would not hear: therefore, with the shepherd departing, he occupied their footsteps and their ears with his own jaws

because they did not receive the face of the saints, and gave no mercy to the noble, as Jeremiah says a third time under this letter in the Lamentations. Who were the noble, but those who lived not according to this obscure life, but in the light of holiness? And to all the needy, indeed, mercy is rightly owed: but a certain greater mercy, when misery casts down some from the rich and noble into the lowest state and the necessity of want, stirs the affection of compassion.

Jeremiah, then, grieves quite tearfully, as one who bewailed those lost by the sting of perpetual death: but David, moderately, as one who grieved the encroachment of error, yet did not despair of the remedy of correction; so that he might be saddened, not overwhelmed. Then, strengthened by the sobriety of penitence, and roused by hope of pardon, he began thus: Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore my soul hath sought them. A moral discourse, so that since he was ashamed of his error, he might yet approach God by the testimonies of his own mercy. This is to say: I, in the beginning of my speech, speaking of my sins, do not dare to lift up my eyes to thee, the living God: but thou, O Lord, hast provoked me to hope for pardon by the titles of thy so great indulgences.

Thy testimonies are wonderful: since in Abraham thou wast not offended by the slip of youthful carelessness: when thou didst admonish him to leave the errors of the Chaldeans, his fatherland, his kindred, and, having called him forth, didst instruct him in the exercises of virtue. When the people of the Hebrews, turned away from the pursuit of their father's nobility, and preferring the vile foods of Egypt above the divine gifts, thou didst not only free them by solidifying the waves of the Red Sea: but even didst raise them up to glory by very many triumphs, and gavest them the possession of a rich land for their rest. In utter security they forsook thee: pressed by the bitterness of wars they called upon thee; and to make thee forget thy wrongs, they merited it. Thee Jesus the son of Nave (Joshua) knew had come to him as leader of the heavenly host. Thee the triumphant people had offended, that Madian might rule over them: thee they besought, that Madian might be conquered.

Thee, in king Saul, they did not obey, that foreigners might triumph over them: thee, with David going before, they served, that they might bear off victory over the foreigners. I indeed, a shepherd, made him evil, and by confession of sin I brought back pardon. Therefore a most beautiful

for the encouragement of martyrs. Then the prophetic soul thus advances toward the better, while it believes the wonderful testimony of God: and because it believed, it sought with diligent inquiry. You ask what progress it made; recognize it from these

which follow.

The declaration of thy words giveth light, and giveth understanding to little ones. In the Gospel, when John sent his disciples to the Lord Jesus, he said: Art thou he that art to come, or look we for another? Jesus answered that the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear; for this he had signified through the prophet Isaiah would be the testimony of his coming.

These things, therefore, which he announced through the prophets, he made manifest in the Gospel: and what he himself spoke through the prophets, he himself fulfilled in the Gospel. His word, then, was the prophetic word, as you have it written: Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken.

Understanding therefore was given even to those who did not have perfect wisdom, since the dumb speak, the dead are raised.

For by these signs it was understood by those who were unlearned, and still, as it were, set in the cradle of faith, as was the people of the nations, that he had come who was awaited. He therefore enlightens with the brightness of faith, with the glory of his resurrection, and with the power of divine works: And gives understanding to little ones. To whom indeed, unless to those concerning whom in the Gospel he gives thanks to the Father, in that the Son himself was working, that God had hidden his mysteries from the wise, and had revealed them to little ones: showing that sooner the common people from the nations, or men of lower rank, than the scribes and princes of the Jews, and the rich of this world, would believe? For this reason, The rich have wanted and hungered: but the poor man cried out, and was heard.

There follows the third little

I opened my mouth, and drew in the spirit; because I longed for thy commandments.

We have in the Gospel that the Lord Jesus opened his mouth, when he pronounced the blessings. But he opened his mouth, in order to give the spirit to others: David opened his, in order to receive it. Finally Jesus says: Receive the Holy Spirit; Jesus says: Open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it: this he says to man; for it is the fullness of Christ. He who fills all things, fills thy mouth. Write therefore what he says in the breadth of thy heart, that is, let thy mouth cry out to the Lord. Thy mouth cries out, even when it is silent: just as also Moses, when silent in voice, cried out in spirit. He was not heard by men, but resounded before God; for it is the inward cry of feeling, which is heard from heaven.

Anna too, when she prayed, cried out in silence: she did not move her lips, and with the inward voice of a devout mind she stirred Jesus. Finally she returned with the effect of what she had asked in silence; because the Spirit of God was crying out in her, who even when we are silent cries out: Abba, Father.

Understand therefore what the mouth is: whether it is the heart, or the disposition of the inner man.

The soul has a mouth, as it has members. Open this mouth not only to Christ, but also to the disciple of Christ, who offered his own mouth to be filled by Christ; and therefore he says: Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians: our heart is enlarged. Therefore he admonishes that we ought to be his imitators, just as he himself is of Christ. He who is holier has opened his mouth to Christ: he who is lower, to the Apostle. First the prophet is read, and the apostle, and then the Gospel, in which the words are clearer, but the precepts more forceful. The Law says: Thou shalt love thy neighbor; and the Gospel says to thee: Thou shalt love thy enemy.

David then, as a perfect prophet, opened his mouth to Christ; and therefore in parables he opened his mouth.

He opened his mouth, he drew in the spirit. Rightly then he says: How sweet are thy words to my throat; above honey and the honeycomb to my mouth (above, v. 103)! The bride of Christ opened her mouth to the Bridegroom: she received precepts sweeter than all honey. And therefore she testified, saying: His throat is sweetness, and he is wholly desirable. Delighted therefore she held him, and did not let him go. And I brought him, she says, into the house of my mother, and into her secret chamber, who conceived me. Perhaps the house is that in which the discipline of morals shines forth beforehand: but that secret chamber is that in which are the higher mysteries. Rightly then she longed for the precepts of the Lord, in which the honeys of divine grace breathed fragrance. Is not the remission of sins sweeter than all honey? Is not the resurrection of the dead more pleasing than every flower?

The fourth little

Look upon me, and have mercy on me, according to the judgment of those who love thy name.

Beautifully he added: Look upon me, and have mercy on me; because he looks also in anger, as he looked upon the camp of the Egyptians, and, the axles of the chariots bound fast, cast them all down into the waves. He looked upon Sodom and Gomorrah, each of which, about to pay the penalty of their sins, paid the price of the divine offense. It is also written: He looks upon the earth, and makes it tremble. And on the contrary, He looked upon the gifts of Abel: but upon Cain's gifts he did not look. By which Cain, exasperated, poured out his brother's blood in a fratricidal crime.

But what it is for God to look is most clearly declared by that testimony

Because he has looked upon the sons of the poor, and has not despised their prayers; for the eye of the Lord does not spurn the gifts of the just. Finally we turn our eyes away when we are moved against someone; as if we judged him unworthy of a glance, whom we hate in feeling. There follows the fifth

Direct my steps according to thy word: and let no iniquity have dominion over me.

We are warned by frequent testimonies of the Scriptures that "steps" are to be understood as the soul's advances. For who is of such dull understanding as to think that David was concerned about the bodily gait of his feet, and asked for the aid of divine direction for these? He indeed, being holy, was eager that the course of his life be directed; just as also elsewhere Scripture testifies, saying: The steps of a man are directed by the Lord.

Finally let us use his own testimony, who says above: My steps had almost slipped; because I envied the peace of sinners.

He shows thus that the footprint of his mind had limped, while he thinks the peace of sinners a thing to be marveled at. They seem indeed to have tranquility, they seem to enjoy quiet: but there is no quiet where the mind is unquiet: there is no tranquility of mind where the mind is agitated by the goads of a guilty conscience. How is there security, where there is the battle of diverse passions, where there is the conflict of grave thoughts? Whence the Lord, defining what it is to have peace, says: My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave with you: not as the world gives, do I give unto you, showing that the peace which the world gives does not have the grace of true peace. And therefore, wishing to teach that peace is not in man, he added: My peace I leave with you.

And again: My peace I give unto you.

Finally the Prophet said: Peace, peace, and where is peace? It is clear therefore that he spoke of the wavering of his own judgment, in which the steps of the mind, not of the body, had wavered.

And Moses said: Passing over, I will see this great sight.

For in order to see God, he advanced further by a certain progression of virtue. He was a shepherd of sheep, and he was made a leader of citizens. And to the Bride it is said in the Song of Songs: Thy steps have become beautiful in shoes, O daughter of Aminadab: the joints of thy thighs are like necklaces, the work of the hands of a craftsman. There is no doubt that here too the steps of the Church, or the advances of the soul, are signified: How beautiful are the feet of those who evangelize peace, who evangelize good things! Surely he calls beautiful the advances of evangelical preaching and disputation, as is said elsewhere: Cross over the rivers: that is, run across the flowing and slippery things of this world with a stable step of mind. That this is said of the soul's step in what follows, David himself here clearly shows, asserting that his soul had crossed the torrent of iniquities.

But let us return to the steps of the Bride.

What does it mean that he added that the steps of the Church are beautiful "in shoes"? We read then that it was said to Moses: Loose the shoe of thy feet; by which he seems to be warned not to be held bound by bodily chains. Therefore in the Song of Songs he signifies the beautiful loveliness of the soul, which uses the flesh as a shoe, and in that very shoe suffers no hindrance: but excels in the grace of its gait. Let the soul, then, or the Church, put on the flesh as a shoe, and grace; that it may pass through the course and passage of this life with grace. This happens, if it does not soil its shoe with bodily mud, nor plunge it into the pit of vices: if it chastens its flesh; lest it be delayed in its course, and weighed down by the burden of fat richness. A good shoe of the soul is chastity.

A good step is in the footprint of chastity.

But wisdom is the garment of the soul; whence it is written: Honor her, and she will embrace thee. Let us then use the body as a shoe, for the works of a lower virtue: for service, not for command: for compliance, not for delight; for obedience, not for dissension: and let us set our footprint in the way of wisdom; lest some force of a torrent shut in our steps.

Therefore it was said to Moses: Loose thy shoe. It was said also to Jesus the son of Nun: but to Christ it was not said, but rather it is written, the Baptist saying: After me comes a man; of whom I am not worthy to carry the shoes; because they are rightly admonished to loose their shoe, who could not be without sin. But he not only did not loose his shoe, but even loosed the shoes of others; because he not only kept his own body immune from sin, but also gave indulgence for the sins of all. Therefore the Church, in imitation of Christ, is beautiful, and in her shoes has every fault taken away.

And perhaps when she speaks wisdom among the perfect, she is beautiful in her upper members; but when men also of lower rank or of learning follow the word, do not forget the sequence of faith, and keep the precepts of the priest; she is beautiful in her shoes. Often the clergy has erred, the priest has changed his opinion, the rich have sided with the earthly king of this age; the people has kept its own faith. Whence also of the Lord Jesus we may well say, that even in those things which are bodily, the Word has beautiful steps, when moral matters are discussed. And the apostles are perhaps therefore sent barefoot; lest their disputation be overshadowed, but that it might shine forth. Thus the Church, daughter of Aminadab, that is, of the willing one or the well-pleasing one; because the willing and well-pleasing one gathered her together, and she is beautiful in her shoes.

And rightly it is added in the Song of Songs: The joints of thy thighs are like necklaces, the work of the hands of a craftsman; that the ornaments of the Church's posterity might be sung. For by the thigh we recognize the mark of generation, according to that: Gird thy sword about thy thigh, O most mighty one; by which it is signified that the Son of God, when he had emptied himself, girded with the divinity of the Word, and shod with human generation, would come forth from the Virgin, about to give salvation to all. But "moduli" are called the precious ornaments which are wont to be hung on the necks of matrons. So great a progress of the Church, then, is signified; that it is compared to the most precious ornaments, and to the necklaces of those who triumph; for these are the ornaments of warriors. Whence also Symmachus says ἐπιτραχήλια, that is, the things which are about the neck.

Whether therefore the generation of Christ from the Virgin, or the propagation of the Church, in appearance indeed as if by the hand of a craftsman adorned with necklaces, but in the true insignia of virtue has crowned with spiritual ornaments the necks of the faithful.

Finally this whole description of the members of the Church is full of beauty and praise.

For her navel too is praised as a rounded goblet, never wanting mixed wine; because, rounded in every doctrine, she does not fail in the fullness of knowledge, and in the spiritual drink; and her belly is not only nourished with a heap of wheat, that is, with the stronger foods of the heavenly mystery, but also, as if with a certain lilies, is filled with the sweetness of moral things.

Whence she herself, as a well-deserving queen, is crowned with the blood of Christ, as it is written: And the adornment of thy head is like purple. The blood of Christ is purple, which dyes the souls of the saints, resplendent not only in color, but also in power; because it makes kings, and better kings, to whom it gives an eternal kingdom.

And rightly, at such great beauty of the Church, in which the blood of Christ glows red, the Holy Spirit exclaims: How beautiful and sweet hast thou become, O love, in thy delights! Beautiful in the loveliness of virtue, sweet in the delightfulness of grace, in the remission of vices, which no bitterness of sin troubles: and she herself is now love, who by loving God has received even his name; because God is love.

Rightly, therefore, does David ask that his steps be directed according to the word of God; that they too may stand comely, and that iniquity may not have dominion over him; which he rightly took precaution against. For he knew that Abraham too had directed his steps according to the precepts of the Lord, and, being tempted in modesty through the desire for a comely wife, was tested but not confounded; and in the demanded sacrifice of his only son, though he wrestled with the affection natural to a father's mind, was crowned; he himself too, assailed by the fury of Saul, the incest of Amnon, the parricide of Absalom, by the deadly temptations of shameless iniquity, escaped only by this, that directing his steps according to the piety of the Lord, he did not depart from paternal affection; groaning within himself at the crime of incest, banishing from himself hatred of the parricide.

"My son Absalom, my son Absalom," he said, "who will give me death for you?", his piety mindful of nature, forgetful of the offense—he who before had asked: "Is the boy alive?"

And perhaps it may be asked, for what reason he first called him "boy," and afterward named him "son"; why he did not, in both cases, say either "boy" or "son"? If he had lived, he was a "boy," because he sought his father's death by parricide. He ought not, therefore, to receive the name of piety, but of weakness. And so the just man kept silent about what belonged to religion; but touched upon what belonged to weakness. But when he had died, in the eyes of the loving father, the crime of the person ceased, the name of nature remained. There follows: "Deliver me from the calumny of men; that I may keep thy commandments." Our affliction is not of one kind alone; there is temptation, and there is calumny; but temptation is lighter, calumny more grievous: since indeed temptation can be calumny, calumny has in itself temptation too. There is also a human temptation, which we can bear; but calumny is grievous.

And therefore the Lord took upon himself what is more grievous, and when assailed with calumnies, offered a triumphant silence. Calumny, moreover, is the more grievous in that it not only fabricates falsehoods, but even discolors deeds done piously; as Joseph was not only tempted by the offer of adultery and the enticement of his mistress's allurement, but was also assailed by calumnies, it being fabricated that he himself had wished to commit adultery with his mistress, and, being seized, stripped off his garment—lest it be kept as evidence of the deceit and mark of the crime—when in truth, fleeing, he had left behind his cloak precisely in order to escape the snares of the one using force, and the toils of her seductive art. David himself had felt what he feared. For with what calumnies of King Saul did he not labor!

When all were terrified, he mocked the assault of the Philistine, and took upon himself in single combat the sum of the war and the whole weight of the battle, alone by his own valor refuting the common charge, and turning back upon the enemy the reproach of the whole people; and yet, because the young girls said: "Saul has triumphed over thousands, David over ten thousands", glory turned into envy, and he began to be pressed by hatred. And to speak of later times: Susanna was well conscious to herself of her innocence, yet before men she could not help herself. Two elder priests bore false witness; the number of the priests and their old age took away the girl's voice; only her conscience was free before God. In the end, condemned by the judgment of men, she was acquitted by the divine will.

Therefore the Prophet says: "Deliver me from the calumny of men, that I may keep thy commandments": for he who is oppressed by calumny cannot easily keep the divine commandments. It is necessary that sadness for the most part either yield to fear, or be afflicted either by the dread of calumny or by grief. There follows the seventh

"Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; and teach me thy justifications." The Lord illumines his saints, and shines in the heart of the just.

And so, when you see a wise man, know that the glory of God has descended upon him, and has illumined his mind with the splendor of knowledge and divine understanding. He also illumined bodily the face of Moses, and the glory of his countenance was transfigured, at the sight of which the Jews trembled; and thus it came about that Moses put a veil over his face, lest the children of Israel gaze intently upon it, and be troubled.

At the same time a mystery was made manifest, namely that the veil which was placed bodily upon the face of Moses was mystically placed upon the hearts of the Jews, in that they could not see the true brightness of the Law. For the countenance of Moses is the splendor of the Law; but the splendor of the Law lies not in the letter, but in spiritual understanding.

So then, as long as Moses lived and spoke to the people of the Jews, he had a veil upon his face; but when Moses had died, Joshua the son of Nun spoke to the elders and to the people no longer through a veil, but with unveiled face, and no one trembled: although indeed God had said to him that He would be with him just as He had been with Moses, and would likewise illumine him—illumine, that is, the glory of deeds, not of countenance: the Holy Spirit signifying by this that the true Jesus was to come, to whom, if anyone should turn and wish to hear him, he would take away the veil from his heart, and with unveiled face see the true Savior.

Therefore Almighty God the Father, who in the face of Moses blinded the people of the Jews, did so not out of hardness, but out of foreknowledge; not out of malice, but out of equity and justice; for they set the veil upon themselves, who were unwilling to understand the Law: for the Law is spiritual, as the Hebrew says. This same Lord, indeed, according to what He gives to each of us—in which the fault lies not with the One granting, but with the one not loving—this Lord, I say, illumined the heart of the people of the nations in the face of Christ Jesus, through his coming; which is clearly declared by the Apostle's example, as we have it written: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus".

For this reason, then, David says to the Lord Jesus: "Make thy face to shine upon thy servant." He desired to see the face of Christ, that his mind might be illumined. And this can be understood in reference to the Incarnation. For many prophets and just men desired to see it, as the Lord himself declared. But what had been denied to Moses he was not seeking—that is, to see bodily the face of God the incorporeal; even if Moses, wise and learned as he was, could have asked this simply rather than as a mystery; yet it is human to extend one's desires beyond oneself.

Nor without reason did he seek to see the face of him who was to come from the Virgin, that he might be illumined in his heart, just as those also were illumined who said: "Was not our heart burning within us while he opened to us the Scriptures?" But if anyone wishes this to be understood as spoken to God the Father, the face of the Father may be taken as the Son; for he who sees the Son, sees also the Father.

Yet the face of God illumines according to how his eyes are upon the just.

Though this is to be understood spiritually, nevertheless, since the historical account of the illumination of the face of Moses has come up, let one know it, lest anyone think it could not have happened bodily. For indeed, by the constant exposure to the sun, the very form of the whole body is changed even in many who are worn pale, and those warmed by the heat of fire show a reddened appearance of countenance. As the day rises, the earth reddens, suffused with a saffron color, borrowing an image from this benefaction, and even the glittering ornaments of gems transmit to their neighbors what they themselves have radiated; and do you marvel if the face of Moses was tinged with the divine brightness of the Presence? Do you marvel if, by the shining grace of God, the mind of the just should be as it were vaporized with warmth?

The prophet did not hesitate, who asked to be illumined first, that he might be able to learn the justifications of the Lord. There follows the eighth

"My eyes have sent forth springs of water

because I have not kept thy law." He expressed the greatly moved feeling of one bearing repentance, saying that his eyes have descended as streams of water: whether because through them, as through channels of overflowing floods, a certain conduit of overflowing tears poured itself forth, and a continual and constant flow of irrigating weeping; or because the eyes themselves descended. For this is a property of the force of the deepest grief, that along with tears the eyes themselves seem in some manner to descend; because such is the force of the tears that the eyes are thought to be dissolved into weeping, and poured out into tears.

The eyes themselves, then, descended as into streams of waters, by which word the vehement rush of those weeping is more expressly declared, according to what is written in the Canticle: "A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and a stream rushing down from Lebanon". This rush the Church has drawn down from Lebanon: by this rush sins are washed away: by this rush of the pure fountain, and of the Holy Spirit, the Bride flows down from Lebanon, and from the beginning of the faith has passed over into the age, and has passed on into the kingdom. To some the spiritual grace is a fountain, to others a well, according to our capacity: to some a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed: to others a fountain of gardens, which is numbered among the dowry of the Church: to others a stream rushing down from Lebanon, and a great rush which never fails.

For the breasts do not fail from the rock, nor the snow from Lebanon, nor the water which is borne by a strong wind of the virgin Jerusalem. The rush descends from Lebanon, when, the apostles and very many believers being gathered together in one place, there suddenly came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind, and all were filled with the Holy Spirit, who bestowed the diversity of tongues. A good rush, that knows not how to harm, but knows how to fill.

If anyone, then, wishes to merit this rush of grace coming down from heaven, let him too descend with his eyes into the streams of waters. He who first pours forth this rush will merit it. She descended with her eyes into these conduits of waters, who watered with her tears the feet of the Lord in the Gospel: and therefore, by the price of her faith, she purchased for herself the health of soul and body, no longer by the flow of blood, but by that of spiritual grace.

David the prophet, then, descended; and thus from sin he brought forth grace.

He descended into the conduits of waters, that is, he filled them, and heaped up with his tears the streams of the flowing waters: or he filled with his weeping alone conduits that were empty and void: or, as a certain moral sense of the expression shows, he descended into the conduits of waters, he passed through them. And we might say: he crossed over them and went beyond; but the force of the expression is diminished, by which the greater force of an overflowing that descends is expressed, rather than one that ascends. See, I ask, what force the words have from their usage, so that the prophetic speech may not lose its force; although usage itself of writers is generally accustomed to serve the sense with greater grace. This he signified variously and often, and almost always assumed increase. For he said first: "Every night I will wash my bed: I will water my couch with my tears".

He said again: "My tears have been my bread". He said also: "And I mingled my drink with weeping". Here he added, saying: "My eyes have sent down streams of water."

Following this, Jeremiah in the Lamentations expressed the feeling of grief, imitating the force of the descending eye; for thus you have it: "My eyes have failed with tears: my heart is troubled". As though the eyes descend, which fail into tears. And elsewhere: "My eye is consumed". But it is a greater thing to overcome the waters with tears, than for the eyes to be consumed with weeping. And elsewhere the same Jeremiah: "Their heart cried out to the Lord: let the walls of the daughter of Sion let down torrents, let tears flow day and night. Give thyself no rest, let not the pupil of thine eye be silent". The eyes, therefore, which let down torrents with their tears, themselves descend as conduits of waters, that is, they are heaped up; so that, increasing them with their weeping, they make them overflow with the rush of torrents.

Yet there are manuscripts which have: διεξόδοις ὑδάτων κατεβίβασαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου

that is, "My eyes directed the conduits of waters." But I read in my Greek manuscript κατέβησαν, that is, "descended": in which it can happen that the scribe erred in either direction by the addition or omission of two letters.

And indeed he had many things to weep for, whether the incest of his daughter, or the death of his sons: but here he says he did not weep for this, but

because he did not keep the law of the Lord. From a holy man, guilt is more bewailed than misfortune. He wept, therefore, when Nathan announced to him the Lord's indignation over the death of Uriah, and he acknowledged his sin of transgression of the law. Then, when his son was laid low in sickness, he took no food, nor did he ascend the royal throne or his couch, but lying prostrate on the ground, he bathed his fasting face with tears, desiring to lighten not so much his son's death as the punishment of his own sin in that death. He wept when, after the people had been numbered, he was suddenly stricken at heart. Then he said: "I have sinned grievously, I have sinned foolishly".

He wept, therefore, first because, elated by royal power, in seeking the number of the people, he overstepped the measure of the human condition; then because he was being avenged upon the people for the price of his error. But this punishment had been proposed by the Lord, not requested by the king. Yet by committing himself to the Lord's mercy, he proved the cause of his election; likewise, because the people were suffering on his account, by offering himself for the people he both paid the penalty of his elation and proved the affection of his piety.

There follows the eighteenth letter, Tsade, which in Latin interpretation is called "consolation." After tears flowing forth after the manner of torrents, and heavy weepings of grief, it was fitting that consolation should follow. For both those who are in griefs need consolation, and those who by grievous hardships have paid the penalties of the crimes they committed hope for indulgence, and those who have washed away their own offenses with weepings and tears deserve rest.

He who seeks all these things in the divine Scriptures finds them. For the first of these—that we should console those placed in grief—is taught by that voice which in the book of Jeremiah cries out tearfully to the captives and exiles of the Jews: "Go, depart, my children; for I have been left desolate. I have put off the robe of peace, and have put on the robe of my supplication, and I will cry out to the Most High in my days. Be of good heart, children, cry out to the Lord; and he will draw you out of the hand of the princes your enemies. For I have hoped in the eternal One for your salvation". For those, therefore, who believe in the Lord there is consolation in the Lord's mercy.

There is also another kind of consolation for those who have paid heavy penalties, as you have it written in the book of Isaiah: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord: priests, speak to the heart of Jerusalem, comfort her; for her humiliation is fulfilled, her sin is discharged, for she has received of the Lord's hand double for her sins" (Isaiah 40:1-2). Even if faith was lacking, the punishment had made satisfaction. Those who are absolved by the commendation of merits are relieved by the discharge of penalties. The third is when a crime is washed away with tears; as in that

"Depart from me, all ye that work iniquity; for the Lord hath heard the voice"—the sense not being very different.—of my weeping.

This is easily found also in this place, and in many places in the book of Psalms.

The first consolation, then, in order, is that God does not forget to show mercy, nor does he cast off forever those whom he has judged should be chastised. The second is that, once the punishments have run their course which we endured for our sins, we belong to pardon. Whence certain philosophers argued that acquittal is harmful to the wicked, but death beneficial: because in the former there is an incentive to sin, but in death an end of the offense; a claim taken, one may doubt not, from our own Scriptures, since it is in the Proverbs of Solomon: "He who spares the rod hates his son"; but "the Lord chastens whom he loves"; and further: "A whip for the horse, and a goad for the ass: and a rod for a foolish nation"; for punishment corrects and amends the erring. If such a one cannot be amended, he is removed from the midst, lest he commit graver things; for the dead man no longer knows how to err.

And so Ecclesiastes says: "And I praised the dead more than the living: and better than both is he who has not yet been born, who has not seen this evil work". The dead man is preferred to the living, because he has ceased to sin. He who has not been born is preferred to the dead man, because he never knew how to sin.

Now let us speak also of those who have paid the penalties of their crimes.

Have not these borne the price of their guilt, and is not full punishment now no longer owed to them? The Lord cries out through Isaiah: "Comfort my people; for she has received of the Lord's hand double for her sins" (Isaiah 40:1, 35). Learn whence Plato took these things. Having gone to Egypt for the sake of learning, that he might come to know the deeds of Moses, the oracles of the Law, and the sayings of the prophets, he heard of the consolation of the people, who seemed to have been punished beyond the measure of their sin; and this passage, veiled under a certain dowry of words, he transferred into the Dialogue which he wrote on Virtue.

Yet the Lord in the Gospel grasped this passage more fully, and declared it more openly, saying through the person of Abraham to that rich man of this world: "Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy life, and Lazarus likewise evil things; but now he is comforted here, and thou art tormented: and besides all this, between us and you there is fixed a great chasm; so that they who would pass from hence to you cannot, nor can they pass from thence hither". But now let us hear what the just man says in consoling himself. Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright is thy judgment. Thou hast commanded thy testimonies as righteousness, and thy truth exceedingly. Truly a righteous man, who, flowing with tears, wrapped in hardships, paying for his offenses with grievous punishment, is not overcome by weariness, is not broken by fear, is not wearied by toil, is neither ungrateful nor sorrowful.

For generally the common run of men, not reckoning their own offenses, think they are unjustly enduring what they suffer; but truly the righteous man, who at once at the very outset of his speech accuses himself, proclaims the righteousness of the Lord, because he is suffering things worthy of his own deserts. Now in calling God righteous, he pronounces beforehand indeed upon his own unrighteousness; but from the righteousness of the Lord he hopes also for pardon. For the righteous One is not always angry; for just as he is the avenger of guilt, so is he the moderator of punishment; just as he is the punisher of sins, so is he the rewarder of virtues and of the best deserts. He who wishes to give a prize must watch the contest; for no one is crowned without a contest. He allows us, therefore, often to be tempted, wishing justly to give rewards to one who wrestles indeed, not to one who sleeps.

It is not the garlanded with flowers who befits the crown, but the dust-covered; nor does victory adorn the soft in delights, but the hardened by the toil of exercise.

The righteous man, therefore, in his adversities praises the righteousness of God.

But this is not how a parent who has lost tender children feels, nor a bride bereft of an untimely-ended companionship, nor one sick in pain, nor a shipwrecked man in danger, nor a defendant on trial, nor a captive in a snare. Yet Jeremiah cried out, when announcing to the peoples the coming hardship of captivity, while about to be drowned in a foul mire in a pit of mud: "Righteous art thou, O Lord". He cried out again when he was anguished by the pitiable servitude of the conquered people: "The Lord is righteous; for he has provoked his own mouth to anger; from without I have been made childless, and from within, death".

The Hebrews cried out, when for their virtue of devotion and the grace of faith they were surrounded by the flames of the burning furnace: "Righteous art thou, O Lord, in all that thou hast done"; and therefore they deserved that, unharmed by the fires, they should proclaim the justices of the Lord. Daniel also the prophet, cast a second time into the den of lions, and surrounded by the savagery and horror of monstrous beasts, cried out with unshaken voice that all things were right in the sight of the Lord. Jonah, shut up in the belly of the beast, scarcely having passage for his breathing spirit—a righteous man condemned by the lot of the unrighteous—cried out from the belly of the whale in the sea: "With the voice of praise and confession I supplicate thee".

David, when he fled from the face of Absalom, driven by parricidal arms and lands, and gone forth from his kingdom; when he offered himself for the destruction of the whole people, said: "Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright is thy judgment. This innocent flock, what has it done? I the shepherd have done wickedly; let the penalty be exacted, before the righteous God, from the author of the guilt." The father of faith himself, Abraham, when as an old man his only son was demanded of him for sacrifice, tempered the affection of paternal piety by the confession of divine justice, saying: "Righteous art thou, O Lord; for thou dost not demand what is another's, but reclaim what is thine own: I restore to thee the very one whom thou gavest." In imitation of him, Job, his children destroyed and stripped of his patrimony, having lost it, tearing the garment of his body, said: "Naked was I born, naked," he said, "shall I die.

The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord".

Let all of us, then, proclaim the Lord righteous: both he who lays his dying limbs in the tomb, and he who is struck by loss, or by the death of his children, let him say: "Righteous art thou, O Lord." For what of our own do we lose? The Apostle cries out: "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" What we have, then, we have received; what we lose, then, we give back, we do not lose. The Lord is righteous in dangers, righteous in losses, righteous in acts of vengeance, not only because each one justly pays the price of his own guilt, but also because, while one is punished, very many are corrected. Ananias, in the Acts of the Apostles, committed a crime by defrauding of the price he had received from the sale of his field—he who could have offered nothing at all, and thus avoided the crime.

But lest anyone should think the apostles could be deceived with impunity, or should defile the gift of his mercy with the fraud of faithlessness, being condemned to eternal death, he composed all men, by a just terror, to zeal for the faith. Pharaoh, drowned with his people in the waves, is an example for worldly conduct, lest anyone should persecute the people of God. Indeed, God could have made him obedient to his will; but by his punishment he willed that all should be amended. And so the Lord says to him: "For this very purpose have I raised thee up: that I might show in thee my power: and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth". Surely the Lord was seeking not the increase of his own praise, but of our correction.

All the wise, therefore, say: "Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright is thy judgment"; for we are neither handed over to adversaries without his judgment, nor do we come into tribulations without his judgment.

This is the consolation of the righteous: this is the judgment of the Lord. Indeed, you have it also above: "I remembered thy judgments, which are of old, and I was comforted" (above, v. 52). You observe, therefore, that the judgments of the Lord are consolations. Thou hast commanded thy testimonies as righteousness, and thy truth exceedingly. Did he command "exceedingly," or is it "exceeding truth"? But both an exceeding truth is full of praise, and to command exceedingly belongs to providence and caution. For indeed he knew that men were weak; therefore he admonished them the more often, that they might not forget. There follows the third

My zeal hath made me pine away, because my enemies have forgotten thy words.

There is a zeal unto life, and there is a zeal unto death.

Zeal unto life is to keep the divine precepts, and out of love for the Lord to guard his commands, as Phinehas did, of whom we read in Numbers, the Lord saying to Moses: "Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel, in that he was zealous with my zeal among them: and I did not consume the children of Israel in my zeal, as I said. Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his seed after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel" (Numbers 25:11 and following). Twenty-four thousand of the people lay slain; the punishment was extending to all, and there was no end of destruction.

Phinehas seized the spear, slew the two who had joined themselves together contrary to the custom forbidden them, redeemed all, mitigated the Lord's indignation, gave victory to those to whom salvation was being denied. How salutary, then, is the zeal of God!

That fault was not of one time only: even now the Midianite woman is mingled with the Jew.

She is a Midianite who is joined by no lawful marriage of a wife, united by no partnership of faith. The Midianite woman is the perfidy of heretics, when it tempts the people of God. Into how many peoples has that deadly harlot crept in, who by a public death has entombed the whole people in a common death! Come now, Phinehas, seize the sword of the word, slay perfidy, cut the throat of heresy; lest the whole people perish because of it. Heavenly wrath presses; strike the very womb of impiety, and the generative organ of perfidy; lest an unhappy offspring be formed, lest an adulterous conception spread the seedbed of transgression and crime; that the Lord may establish with you a covenant of peace, and a covenant of grace, a covenant of heavenly promises.

The priest ought to have zeal, who strives to keep the chastity of the Church uncorrupted; and therefore the Prince of priests said: The zeal of thy house has consumed me. And Phinehas was a priest, and grandson of a priest, and son of a priest. Zeal is good, and useful in a priest: especially that he not be negligent, that he not be remiss. It is better that by the condemnation of one or two, many be freed, than that by the acquittal of two, many be endangered.

He says, The zeal of thy house has sought me out. You see that the zeal of God is grace, which seeks out, which comes upon, which pours itself into the breast of the just man. The zeal of God is life. Finally the Lord says: The zeal of thy house has consumed me. For just as before, in Adam, death, prevailing, had consumed man: so zeal has consumed him whom it has made alive in Christ. Elijah had zeal, and therefore he was caught up to heaven. With zeal, he says, have I been zealous for the Lord. Mattathias of the Butan family had zeal, who roused the people of God against the sacrileges of Antiochus. Those who have zeal consider all to be their enemies who are enemies of God, even if father, brothers, sisters. Of all he says: They have become enemies to me, as David says. What more? Even an apostle of the Lord was declared by this name, so that Judas was called the Zealot, as we read in the Gospel.

By zeal of faith the people of the Gentiles acquired for themselves eternal life, which the people of the Jews lost through negligence and idleness.

Therefore it is written: Zeal has seized an untaught people; since the people that was taught in the Law had no fervor of faith. Zeal betook itself to the Gentiles: whose grace is so great that it surpassed the prerogative of election, and the diligence of learning. Finally, seizing an untaught people, it made it better. And so that grace worked in the people of the nations, that it might merit the inheritance of the Lord, whereby the Lord worked, that he might join the Church to himself from the nations. Zeal, then, is charity. For, finally, charity is strong as death: zeal is hard as hell. Zeal is hard, which no allurement of this life overcomes. Hard as hell, through which we die to sin; that we may live to God.

Angels too are nothing without zeal, and lose the prerogative of their substance, unless they sustain it by the fervor of zeal.

Finally, in the Apocalypse of John, the Lord says to the Angel of Laodicea: I know thy works: thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold, or hot: but because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth; because thou sayest: I am rich, and made wealthy, and have need of nothing: and thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried by fire. This is the zeal of God, this is the vapor of faith, and the fervor of devotion, which softens and forms us as sweet food in Christ. How great is the grace of the Lord, that he sets us in his own mouth, and feasts upon certain dishes of our merits; and, if we deserve it, devours us, if he is delighted by the sweetness of our being food.

Blessed is he whom wisdom has devoured, whom virtue has drawn in, whom justice has received: fault can have no portion in him whom the remission of sins has absorbed; for where will error find a place, in one whom immaculate integrity has taken up?

And why should we wonder if angels have it?

God the Father himself says: With zeal I will be zealous for Jerusalem with great zeal. Because God is great, therefore his zeal too is great: and according to the quality of each one’s power, so zeal is either moderate or great. By zeal Jerusalem is vindicated, by zeal the Church is gathered together, by zeal faith is acquired, by zeal chastity is possessed. The Lord Jesus too says: The zeal of thy house has eaten me up; rebuking the Jews for having made a house of prayer into a den of thieves, and having made it also a house of trade.

But we ought not only to have zeal for the place of the Church, but also for this interior house of God within us; lest it be a house of trade, or a den of thieves. For if we go hunting after gains, profits, the increase of money, we have made it a house of trade. If we invade the possessions of others, the boundaries of the widow or of minors, we have made it a den of thieves. Let the Word of God come, then, and cast out from this house the thieves, the plunderers, the peddlers; that your heart, your breast, may be clean.

But there is a zeal unto fault, and there is a zeal unto grace.

For David himself also says: I was zealous concerning the peace of sinners. And in Ecclesiasticus it is written: Be not zealous over the wife of thy bosom; lest she show against thee the malice of wicked teaching. And a jealous woman is rightly reprehended toward a faithful wife. We observe, then, that there is a certain measure and discipline of zeal, as there is a discipline of virtue. And therefore blessed is he who has known the discipline of zeal, and has hated those who, abandoning the grace of the Lord, forsake their own salvation, and take to themselves the errors of deceit.

And therefore he says: Because my enemies have forgotten thy words. Who are these enemies? If it is the people of the Jews, how were they enemies while set under his own rule? For David governed all the Jews under his own kingdom. If it is the Gentiles: how had they forgotten the words of God, who did not know the law of the Lord? For no one can forget what he has not received. Those, then, are my enemies who are your enemies, who were not to receive the Lord coming into his own. The Prophet testifies that these are his grave foes, his enemies; not those who were his own, but those who were rebels against Christ. Finally, elsewhere he says: And I pined away over thy enemies: and I hated them with a just hatred; considering the weapons of perfidy heavier than those of war. For no enemy of all is heavier than one who wounds the author of all.

Therefore, then, with great zeal was the people of the nations acquired; since God was being denied by his own people. For they could hold neither the devotion of faith, nor the discipline of virtue, who did not hold the memory of the heavenly precepts. Thus Adam was cast out of paradise, thus the people of the Jews was excluded from the prerogative of election. There follows: Thy word is exceedingly fiery, and thy servant has loved it. Indeed the Lord sent fire upon the earth, not that it should burn again with a Sodom-like conflagration, as it is written, nor that he should strip it of the gift of granted fertility, or of the use and flower of its greenness. For the Lord is accustomed rather to approve and increase his work than to diminish or condemn it. Nor indeed would it be fitting that innocent elements should pay the penalty for our crime. What had nature offended, if the offspring, now grown, erred?

The birth was not at fault, if the progeny slipped into deviant error: but the use was at fault.

What fire, then, did the Lord scatter in the New Testament? One that should inflame the secret affections of minds with the ardor of divine knowledge, that should kindle the vapor of faith and devotion, that should light the desire of virtue. Warmed by this fire, Jeremiah says: And there was a burning fire in my bones. Vaporized by this fire of heavenly words, Cleophas, and that other who together with the Lord had made the journey from Jerusalem as far as the village, said: Was not our heart burning within us, while he opened to us the Scriptures?

This fire, then, is the word of Christ. And it is a good fire, which knows how to warm, but knows how to burn up only sins. By this fire that apostolic gold, laid upon a good foundation, is proved: by this fire that pure silver of works is tested: by this fire those precious stones are illumined, but hay and stubble are consumed. This fire, then, cleanses the soul, consumes error. Whence also the Lord says: Now you are clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. This is the fire that burns before the Lord; for unless one has taken up the flame of devotion, he will not be able to have the presence of the Lord. Kindle this fire first in your minds; that the light of Christ may shine upon you. By this fire the bush burned, and was not consumed. For the divine word burns, that it may correct the conscience of the sinner: it does not burn up, so as to destroy.

This fire is accustomed to dull, this fire is accustomed to extinguish the savage blazes of material flames. Finally, the Hebrews, set on fire with this fire, could neither fear nor feel the heat of the burning furnace. Rightly, then, does the good servant love the fiery word of the Lord, by which he is clothed with charity, which casts out fear.

Beautifully he added, exceedingly; for indeed every teacher inflames the affection of the hearer: but above all is the word of God, penetrating to the division of the joints and the innermost parts of the marrow. Describe to yourself, then, the fiery word of God in a threefold way: either as it cleanses, or as it kindles, or as it illumines the hearers. Therefore the Lord says: I have searched Jerusalem with a lamp. But he found no one in her either to be cleansed, or kindled, or illumined; therefore he left her in darkness.

Do not wonder if the servant loves the fiery speech of the Lord, which the Bride also loved, who says: Thy lips are as a scarlet thread; for in scarlet there is the appearance of fire, and the blood of the Lord’s cross glows red. The scarlet lips of the Lord, which spoke of his own passion. Finally, in Exodus scarlet was placed in the stead of fire. For the world does not consist of scarlet, but of four elements: but in scarlet the figure of fire was expressed, whose vapor, unless it penetrated heaven, and air, seas, and lands, all things would be dissolved as if with exhausted strength. By the thread, then, we recognize the bond of persuasion: by the scarlet, either the ardor of desire which sparkles in the souls of the hearers, or a token of the passion. Whence also elsewhere the Bride says: His lips are lilies, dropping choice myrrh.

For by myrrh is declared the ointment of the passion, and the grace of the resurrection, which infuses the revived odor of life into the raised bodies of the dead. Rightly, then, receiving the sweetness of his speech, the Bride cries out and testifies: His throat is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. There follows the fifth

I am young and despised: I have not forgotten thy justifications. This little

can fit many of the saints who from earliest youth were exercised in hard labors.

For Joseph too, when sold into Egypt by his brothers as the younger, was younger, and despised, being sold into the injury of slavery: and afterward, when brought forth from prison, set over Egypt, he divided grain to the peoples, did not return the injury to his brothers in kind, but repaid their price and gave them provisions, saved his father’s aged years from famine and starvation, and, with his chariot brought low, went to meet him, while the others served, bearing the insignia of ample power, and adored him—he could rightly say: I am younger, and despised: I have not forgotten thy justifications.

David himself too was younger than his brothers, when, feeding his father’s sheep as if assigned to a lowly service, he was not offered to the priest as if unworthy to be anointed for the kingdom: but, sought by the priest, and summoned from the pastures, he received the prerogative of royal anointing. Afterward too, going forth to war, when Goliath, despising the whole people of the Jews by the mass of his body, provoked them to single combat, while the rest were afraid, he asked of the king that he be given leave to engage him. He was not yet indeed judged fit for so great a combat, the king saying: Thou canst not go against the Philistine, and fight with him; for thou art a boy, and he is a man of war from his youth. Nor would he have been admitted, had he not given assurance that in his youth he had strangled a lion with his own hands, and had slain it after tearing off the legs of the stolen sheep.

He too, despised by the Philistine because he came against an armed warrior with a staff and stones, replied that he was not relying on his strength, not on arms: but that he had come forward to battle trusting in the name of the Lord; that he might remove the reproach from the provoked people. This youth, then, despised as he was, struck down the Philistine, and having gained the victory, triumphed in the testimony of ten thousand maidens singing.

For he bore the type of him who was to come into the lands as one despised, and without an envoy, without a helper, without a messenger, would free the whole people of this world through the battle of his cross; for whom the souls of the saints, renewed through the sacrament of baptism, would applaud, because he had slain that true Goliath, revealed and betrayed to us, with the sword of his word. So the true Goliath lies laid low by the humility of the Son of God; he lost the head which he turned to many arts and frauds. Now the souls, secure, sing who before wept over the torments of their sins. They say with timbrels, that is, with their bodies dead to sin, resounding: Saul has triumphed among thousands; David among ten thousands. That harsh king is indignant, and the devil rages, because young maidens sang; for the son of hardness deceived few, Christ redeemed the whole world. Therefore Christ, born of the Virgin, says: I am young, and despised: I have not forgotten thy justifications.

The people of the nations also says this—that people despised in the first election, still untutored in the faith, and youthful in the zeal of its first devotion, or indeed renewed in the youth of an eagle through the sacraments of baptism: I am young, and despised: I have not forgotten thy justifications. I, who was formerly despised, am now preferred, now set before the elect. I, that people of sinners formerly despised, now have the venerable fellowship of heavenly sacraments. Now I am received to the honor of the heavenly table; my feasts are not watered by rain, do not labor from the birth of the earth, nor from the fruit of trees. For my drink I need not seek rivers, nor springs: Christ is food to me, Christ is drink to me: the flesh of God is food to me, and the blood of God is drink to me. No longer do I await yearly harvests to my fill; Christ is ministered to me daily.

I shall not fear lest some intemperance of the sky, or barrenness of the field, diminish him for me, if the diligence of pious cultivation persist. No longer do I wish for showers of quails to descend, which I once marveled at; nor the manna which I once preferred to all foods; because the fathers who ate manna, hungered. My food is such that whoever eats it shall not hunger. My food is that which does not fatten the body, but strengthens the heart of man.

To me formerly that bread from heaven was a wonder; for it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat: but that was not the true bread, but a shadow of the future. The Father has kept for me that true bread from heaven. To me that bread of God has come down from heaven, which gives life to this world. It did not descend for the Jews, it did not descend for the Synagogue: but it descended for the Church: it descended for the younger people of God. For how could the bread that gave life descend for the Jews, when all who ate that bread, that is, the manna, which the Jews thought was the true bread, died in the desert? How did it descend for the Synagogue, when the whole Synagogue has perished, and has failed, wasted away by an eternal fast of faith? Finally, if they had received the true bread, they would not have said: Lord, give us always this bread.

What do you ask, O Jewess, that he grant you the bread which he gives to all, gives daily, gives always?

It is in yourself, that you receive this bread: approach this bread, and you shall receive it. Of this bread it is said: All who withdraw themselves from thee shall perish. If you withdraw yourself from him, you will perish; if you draw near to him, you will live. This is the bread of life: therefore he who eats life cannot die. For how shall he die, to whom food is life? How shall he fail, who has had a vital substance? Draw near to him, and be satisfied, for he is bread: draw near to him, and drink, for he is a fountain: draw near to him, and be illumined, for he is light: draw near to him, and be freed, for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty: draw near to him, and be absolved, for he is the remission of sins. Do you ask who this is?

Hear him say himself: I am the bread of life: he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. You have heard him, and seen him, and did not believe him; therefore you are dead: even now believe, that you may be able to live.

But you marvel at Moses, because he led your fathers through the sea with dry footsteps.

Moses did not command, but obtained; he did not order the sea, but served him who commanded the waves. You praise Moses, because he drowned king Pharaoh with his army: Moses prayed, and another commanded. Moses besought, Christ worked. Moses fled, Christ pursued. Moses followed the pillar, that he might avoid the darkness of night: Christ gave light. You recognize Moses, because he tempered the bitterness of the water. You recognize Moses, because he brought forth water from the rock: you do not recognize Christ, who laid low the army of that true Egyptian king, and drowned it in the depth of the abyss: who daily frees us from the waves of this world; lest the storm of this age overwhelm us. What did it profit the fathers to cross the Red Sea, who were not permitted to reach the land of promise? For all who went out of Egypt perished in the desert.

Aaron died, Mary died, Moses himself also died: only Jesus son of Nun the likeness of the sacred name preserved.

Let the Jew applaud, that for him thirsting the rocks vomited forth a stream: for me an eternal fountain flowed from the body of God: Christ drank my bitternesses; that he might give me the sweetness of his grace.

Therefore the Christian people says: I am young, and despised: I have not forgotten thy justifications. He rightly says this, who has justified God by the sacraments of baptism. For he who is baptized justifies God; because he confesses his own sins, and awaits from the Lord pardon of his sins. David justified God, who says: Against thee only have I sinned, and done evil before thee: that thou mayest be justified in thy words. The Pharisees did not justify him, who refused to be baptized with John's baptism, as you have read in the Gospel. Nor is it enough merely to justify, but also not to forget the justifications of God, that is, to keep the gifts of spiritual grace untainted, and to preserve the gifts of sacred remission unspotted and unoffended.

These things are general: but also a special prerogative of speech is available to each individual Christian, to say: I am young, and despised; if he be humble of heart, if gentle and meek. Let him then say: I am young, and despised. Let him first mention the general boastfulness of his age, that he may the more commend the grace of his humility. Humility is no wonder in old age, which, spent of strength, broken by infirmities, sad with pains, breathless with sighs, cooked by the heat of cares, and made mournful by the very weariness of living, has forgotten the eagerness of boasting. Rare indeed is humility in the young, and therefore to be wondered at. While age is vigorous, while strength is firm, while the blood is hot, while anxiety is unknown, while weakness is not recognized, while gladness is frequent: then boasting flourishes: then the proud disposition of youth exalts itself: then humility seems as it were cheap, despised as abject: then submission is reckoned the weakness of a degenerate conscience.

Great, therefore, must be the maturity of character habituated, which conquers nature.

Finally, if we consider, humility failed in paradise; and therefore it came from heaven.

In paradise disobedience arose; and therefore obedience descended with the Savior. The flesh was puffed up, wherefore the subjection of meekness could not be found on earth. All the inheritance of the transgressor had swollen with pride. The Lord Jesus, coming, first emptied himself, not thinking it robbery to be equal with God, taking to himself the form of a servant, and being found in appearance as a man: he humbled himself, made obedient unto death. Let it not disturb you, that it is written, as a man; for he did not take on the likeness of man, but the reality. For the Apostle himself also says elsewhere: There is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And to bring an example from the Gospel: We saw, says John, his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Is it

because he said, as of the only-begotten, that he meant it to be reckoned rather a likeness of the only-begotten than the truth?

Christ, then, did not come in vain.

Now man can say: I am young, and despised; who before was an aged and proud man in the former people. He says: I am young and despised, as the Church says: I am black, but comely. She put "black" first, that she might increase her comeliness. So also here he put "young" first, that he might increase his humility. He did not say: I am black, comely; lest what is black be thought comely. Nor did he say: I am young, despised; lest youth be thought despicable; but he says, Young, and, what you may marvel at, humble, not proud, nearer to the cast-down than to the swollen. So also there: I am black by former sin, but comely by confession of sin, and by zeal for correction, and by love of virtue.

Although, then, even the syllable, as the grammarians call it, is conjunctive; yet it has a distinction whereby confusion is separated and disjoined: as if you say Ambrosius Bassus is within, one is understood; but if you assert Ambrosius and Bassus are within, two are certainly understood.

Let him then say: I am young, and despised

because Christ redeemed the world in a poor and despised man, because Christ conquered the devil by humility. Let him say: I am despised; because God does not spurn a humbled heart; because that despised Lazarus now rests in Abraham's bosom, and that more boastful rich man is afflicted in hell. Moses was despised, and did not seem fit to himself, when he was sent to free the people of the Hebrews. Jeremiah was despised, who said: O Lord God, behold, I know not how to speak; for I am a youth. But this one, being despised, is chosen the more readily. Finally it is said to him: Do not say, I am a youth; for to all to whomsoever I shall send thee, thou shalt go; and whatsoever I shall command thee, thou shalt speak. Do not fear before their face; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.

That publican was despised, who did not dare to lift up his eyes to heaven: and therefore he was heard more readily than that Pharisee: For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. There follows: Thy justice is justice for ever: and thy law is truth. Individuals can indeed do works of justice, but not works remaining forever. That rich man, for whom riches abounded in this world, has perhaps done some works of justice, whose reward he received in the present life; because those works were not great, nor worthy of perpetual reward. What of the fact that, even if we do some works of justice, we do them not continually, but rarely. Many do not seize others' goods, but do not know how to give from their own. Others, invading undue possessions, so as to acquire for themselves a semblance of justice, are wont to give to the poor. That is not justice forever. Many just men have often grievously sinned, not having the fruit of eternal justice.

It belongs to God alone to possess justice perpetually through all things, who feeds the just and the unjust; for justice is not to be reckoned by benefits alone: but that is true justice which is shown even to enemies themselves. And rightly the Justice of God says: Love your enemies.

Therefore, just as justice belongs to God alone forever, so is the law of God truth. But how do we take this? Is it because the law of God is truth, that is, true: and whatever God has established is wholly true, as he says below: All thy commandments are truth? Or is it because the law of God is truth, that God does not lie? With him, therefore, truth is the law, deceit is transgression. But it can also be understood thus: the law of God is truth: therefore among the Jews there is not the law of God, because they do not receive the truth. The law of God is spiritual, as the Apostle said; therefore they do not have the true law, who have not received it spiritually. But what is not true is a lie: what lies, kills. The letter, then, that kills, lies: the spirit that gives life is true.

Let us take it also this way: The Law of God is not a type, not a shadow, not a pattern of heavenly things; but the very heavenly things themselves. Whence also it is written, that the end of the Law is Christ. It is not indeed a failing, but the fullness of the Law that is in Christ; for He came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it. For just as there is an Old Testament, but all truth is in the New Testament: so also the law given through Moses is a figure of the law. Truly, then, that Law is a pattern of the truth, for in the pattern the blood of a lamb is poured out, in the truth Christ is immolated.

And rightly the Apostle, when he had first mentioned the immolation of calves according to the Law, added: It is therefore necessary that the patterns of heavenly things be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices; for Christ has not entered into holy places made with hands, patterns of the true, but into heaven itself, and now appears before the face of God for us. But that we may know that the Lord Jesus gave a new law, you have the Holy Spirit saying: But this is the testament which I will testify unto them, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them, and their sin and their unrighteousness I will remember no more. Where, then, there is remission, there is no longer offering for sins.

By which it is clearly shown that all truth is contained in the Gospel

because the law of God is written in the minds of men and in their hearts, not on tables of stone (for they who do not have the precepts of God in their hearts, do not have the law), whether because it grows old among the Jews, or is renewed in us.

It is a shadow, not the truth; so that when an offering is made for sins according to the Law, there is no remission of sins made. For it is impossible that sins be cleansed by the blood of bulls and goats. That remission, then, was false, until the truth of remission should come. What then is more manifest than the saying of John the Evangelist, who says: For the Law was given through Moses: but grace and truth were made through Jesus Christ? By way of contrast πρὸς ἀντιδιαστολὴν he referred the truth to the law. For since “but” is a disjunction, it must be understood that the disjunction was inserted for this reason: because if the truth had been in the Law, it would not have been made through Christ.

We can also understand it this way: Christ is the truth; therefore the truth is the law.

And if the Lord's commandment is the law, much more is the living and operative Word of God the law. There follows the seventh

Tribulation and necessity have found me: thy commandments are my meditation.

Tribulations and necessities seek out the just man, and sometimes they find him, sometimes they do not find him. He is found for whom a crown is owed; he is not found who is proved unsuitable for the contest. Tribulation, then, is a kind of grace. Finally, A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit. Is it not grace, that which works patience? He, then, who knew that tribulation was profitable, being sought by tribulation, was found, and did not flee.

Wisdom says: The evil shall seek me, and shall not find me; not

because the Lord did not wish to be found by men, who offered Himself even to those not seeking Him: but because He was sought by such deeds, that those who sought were unworthy to find. But Simeon, who awaited Him, found Him. Andrew found Him. Finally he says to Simon: We have found the Messiah, which is interpreted, the Christ. Philip also says to Nathanael: Him of whom Moses wrote in the Law, and the prophets, we have found, Jesus those who have patched together the passage in this way do not seem at all to have grasped the sense of Ambrose; but we think it to be of this sort: Just as, although there was an old Testament, yet the truth, that is, the fulfillment of its figures, is in the new: so although the law was given through Moses, yet it was fulfilled only, and in no way otherwise, in the new law. The son of Joseph, who is from Nazareth.

And to show how Christ might be found, he says: Come, and see.

Let him, then, who seeks Christ, come not by the step of the body, but by the footprint of the mind: let him see Him not with the exterior eyes, but with the interior. For the Eternal is not seen with bodily sight; since the things which are seen are temporal: but the things which are not seen are eternal. Christ, therefore, is not temporal, but from the Father before all times, as God, the true Son of God, and as everlasting power above time, whom no end of time can enclose: as life above time, whom no day of death shall ever find; For in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he lives, he lives unto God.

Do you hear what the Apostle said today?

He died to sin once, he says. Once for you, sinner, Christ died: do not sin again after baptism. He died once for all in common, and He dies once for each, not repeatedly. You are sin, O man; therefore the Almighty Father made Christ to be sin. He made Him man, to bear our sins. Therefore to me, a sinner, the Lord Jesus died; that we might become in Him the righteousness of God. He died for me, that He might rise again for me. Once He died, once He rose. And you, having died with Him, buried with Him, raised up with Him in baptism, take heed lest, having died once, you die again. No longer will you die to sin, but to pardon: lest, when you have risen, you die a second time; for Christ, rising from the dead, dies no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. Did death then have dominion over Him?

Indeed, in that he said, "shall no more have dominion," he shows that it once had dominion. Do not lose so great a benefit, O man. For your sake Christ submitted Himself to the dominion of death; that He might strip you of the yoke of dominion. He took on the servitude of death; that He might grant you the freedom of eternal life.

He, then, who seeks Christ, seeks also His tribulation, and does not flee His passion. Finally David, who was worthy to be sought by tribulation, himself also sought tribulation. For unless he had sought, he would not have found it. That he found it, he himself testifies, saying: I found tribulation and sorrow, and I called upon the name of the Lord. And elsewhere: In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard me in a wide place. Good, then, is tribulation, which makes us worthy to be heard by the Lord in a wide place. It is a grace to be heard by the Lord our God.

He, then, who seeks tribulation, does not flee it: he who does not flee, is found. For he does not flee, who meditates on the commandments of God in sense and in works. For indeed contests find that athlete who has been established in the practice of exercise: but he who has abandoned the exercise, without doubt cannot be found; he is unworthy to be sought. David, then, like a good athlete, says: Tribulation and necessity have found me; because they always found him ready, not fleeing the battles of necessities and tribulations, but seeking them. There follows: Thy testimonies are righteous for ever; give me understanding, and I shall live. Who is so great as to be able to understand the testimonies of the Lord? And therefore understanding must be sought from the Lord, whose power is so great that its very beginning is the fullness of virtue. Finally it is written: But piety toward God is the beginning of understanding, which is the foundation of all virtues according to the discipline of human and heavenly things.

Piety is a friend to God, pleasing to parents, wins over the Lord, cherishes bonds of kinship, is the worship of God, the wages of parents, the stipend of children. Piety, I say, is the tribunal of the just, the harbor of the needy, the refuge of the wretched, the pardon of sinners.

He who has understanding is truly pious; for he understands the slipperiness of human frailty, and quickly forgives the one who errs. He understands the common fellowship of nature and use given to us; and therefore he pays to the poor as a debt, he does not refuse it as though it were not owed. He understands that calamities come by turns; and therefore, as though to shipwrecked men of this world, he meets them with a certain harbor of his own humanity. This is perfect virtue among men, this is the full praise in God.

Rightly Solomon too, following his father's teaching, asked understanding for himself from the Lord, saying: I am a humble child, and I know not my going in and my going out, and thy servant is in the midst of thy people, whom thou hast chosen, a people great as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude: and thou shalt give thy servant an understanding heart, to hear and judge thy people with justice, and to discern between good and evil. Whence it was pleasing to the Lord; because he asked not for himself length of days, nor abundance of royal riches, but wisdom to understand the Lord's judgments and righteousness: and therefore he governed so great a people in a peaceful kingdom; because he did not usurp, as Adam did, the knowledge of the distinction of good and evil: but prayed for the grace of understanding it from Christ. For what it is divine to know, this must be earned from the Lord your God, that you may be able to know it.

If Adam too had asked, as David asked, he would by no means have fallen into those inextricable snares of error, by which all his inheritance is strangled.

And therefore he died, and, what is more grave, by the death of sin; because he usurped to know before he received the understanding by which he might be given life.

Understanding, then, gives life, as the Spirit does; because understanding itself is a spiritual grace: and therefore the Holy Spirit works understanding by His gift.

Now good understanding is to all them that do it; by which we are taught that we ought not only to grasp with our sense, but also to carry out in deeds that which we understand.

The nineteenth letter Koph begins, whose interpretation is, Conclusion; and, as we find elsewhere, Behold.

The letter differs, the sense agrees. For he who is enclosed ought to look about himself, and not conceal the cause of the danger, especially when the peril is lethal. A man is enclosed when the bowels swell, or the inner throat, when, the passage of breath being blocked, the exchanges of breathing in and breathing out are constrained. A woman is enclosed, when there is a displacement of the womb, by which the principal part of the chest itself is oppressed; whence grave distresses arise, and unless that chamber for receiving seed is recalled to its own place, it is wont to shut out life. So too he who is anguished in mind, and is pressed by certain impending adversities, is said to be enclosed by no lesser straits of mind than of body. For greater are the surges of the soul, and the fervors of minds, than those of bodies.

He, then, who is enclosed by swelling of the bowels, seeks a physician; that he may be able to drive off the danger, and loosen what is constricted. The physician coming tries everything, explores the inner parts. So you also, enclosed by the fervor of the mind, behold yourself with the interior eye. The force of the disease presses, a harmful conscience burns, the weight of sins oppresses, anxieties intercept the sense of the mind: know yourself, and seek the medicine of prayer: ask that that physician come who came down from heaven, who especially seeks out the sick, as He Himself says: They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. Have you wounds? Do not delay: with Him there is no postponing of healing. Have you sores? Do not fear: He is accustomed to heal by word, not by iron. Look, then, with those eyes with which David sought help and obtained it. I have lifted up mine eyes, he says, unto the mountains: I sought whence help might come to me.

I found none but from the Lord; for He who founded the world, watches over the dwellers of the world.

Look, then, and look always; for the eyes of the just are always toward the Lord.

This too Jeremiah warns you in the Lamentations, under this very letter, saying to Jerusalem: Arise, and keep vigil in the night, at the beginning of thy watches pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands to the Lord for the souls of thy little ones, who faint for hunger at the corners of all the streets. Does he not openly show the straits of enclosure, and warn that by the intention of the heart, in which is the gaze of the better eye, you should provide for yourself a saving remedy? Finally also below, again under this letter, he says: For our time has drawn near, our days are fulfilled, our end has come. Those who persecuted us have become swifter than the eagles of the sky. They were kindled upon the mountains: in the wilderness they lay in wait for us.

He has demonstrated the ultimate conclusion, and that there is no remedy except in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can bring healing to those in despair. And as if pointing him out, he says: The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord, was taken in our destruction; In his shadow we shall live among the nations. And below: You shall drink, he says, and be made drunk. Further: He will visit your iniquities, he will uncover your sins. How briefly he has expressed his coming and passion, and the remission of all sins! How openly he has declared the future gathering of the nations! Hence that saying of the Apostle: For blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved.

Come, Lord Jesus: but no longer in shadow, but in the sun of righteousness.

If the shadow was of profit, if the shadow of your passion protected, if the shadow of your body saved; how much more will the open brightness of your virtue be able to bestow? By a shadow leprosy was cured; by a shadow also of that woman who touched the hem of the Lord's garment, the flow of blood stopped: by a shadow we saw you, when you had neither form nor comeliness. Your shadow was the flesh, which cooled the heat of our desires, which restrained the fires of lust, which tempered the burnings of avarice and of various passions. And what shall I say of the shadow of the Lord, when even the shadow of the apostles healed? For when Peter came, each one offered his sick, whom the shadow of the passing apostle restored to health.

Hear that the flesh of the Lord was a shadow: Behold, the Lord sits upon a light cloud, and he will come into Egypt.

And David says: Under the shadow of your wings protect me (Psa. XVI, 8). He was therefore made, when emptied, a shadow for us, whom the sun of iniquity had scorched. We saw him therefore in shadow, while as yet the first faith was going forward. But now he already illumines the whole world; and yet still we see him through the shadow of his body, which is the Church, not yet face to face; for the eyes of the body cannot receive the brightness of divinity. This shadow too daily protects the whole circle of the earth. The conclusion, then, was profitable; For God has concluded all things under unbelief, that he might have mercy on all. But let us now consider what must be said in the conclusion, and from where we must begin. I cried out with my whole heart, along with the LXX, in whom you may read: Ἀνάστα, ἀγαλλιάσαι ἐν νυκτί.

Arise, exult in the night.

Hear me, O Lord: I will seek out your justices. When we suffer bodily assaults, we are accustomed to cry out, so that we may call others to our aid. The holy Prophet was hard pressed, as his persecutors drew near to him. First Saul, hostile toward him, pursued him with an armed host: afterward his parricide son threatened; not content with the exile of the fugitive, he sought to take away his father's life. But he was able to suffer less from those whom he saw present, than from those whom he did not see; for there is a struggle for the saints not only against flesh and blood, but also against the principalities and powers of this world, the rulers of darkness, who, like brigands, lie in wait for human affections in the night of this age. Of these, therefore, the holy David, when he saw grave assaults being made against him, cried out with his whole heart.

For against the devil one must use not loudness of voice, but greatness of heart.

Yet there is also a voice of the heart; for there is also a voice of blood, which reaches to God.

Thus God says: The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the earth. Our heart, then, cries out not by the sound of the body, but by the loftiness of thoughts, and by the harmony of virtues. Great is the cry of faith. Thus in the spirit of adoption we cry, Abba, Father, and the Spirit of God himself cries in us. Great is the voice of righteousness, great is that of chastity, through which even the dead speak; and they not only speak, but even, like Abel, cry out. But truly the soul of the unrighteous does not cry out even while living; because it is dead to God. Nothing in it is lofty, nothing magnificent: unlike that of those whose sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. Moses spoke with a feeble voice, and was heard more than all.

He is heard daily in the Church: only by those, that is, the Jews, is he not heard, who hear with the ear but do not truly hear. To another prophet it is said: Lift up your voice with strength.

Yet Anna did not cry out in her heart, as Moses did, but she spoke; perhaps

because she was asking for sons, that is, for good things indeed, but private, not public, she did not cry out. But because she was asking from the Lord, because she was offering to the Lord the child she should receive, if she received one, she spoke to God: but Moses cried out; because he was praying not for himself, but for the whole people. Hence it was said to him by the Lord: Why do you cry out? He cried out with pious affection and profound feeling, and resounded in heaven, asking for miracles worthy of heavenly things: that he might change the elements of the world.

To recall, then, the sequence of that very passage: Pharaoh was pressing on, and, surrounded by countless chariots of the Egyptians, was harassing the Hebrews; on this side the enemy encircled them, on that side the sea, poured between, had shut in the people of God. There was no confidence in arms, no hope in strength. Only a wretched complaint resounded, that it would be more advantageous for them to endure the harsh burdens of servitude in Egypt, than to be consumed by bitter death in the desert: a complaint offering no help, but bringing much offense. Moses, then, stood sorrowful, anxious, troubled by the dangers and complaints of the people, awaiting faith in the heavenly promises; and silently he turned over in himself by what help at last the Lord, forgetful of the injury, mindful of grace, might come to their aid. The Lord says to him: Why do you cry out to me? I do not hear its sound, I recognize its voice: I read its silence, I perceive its cry in works.

The people cried out, and were not heard: Moses was silent, and was heard.

It was not said to the people: Why do you cry out to me? For the people were not crying out to God, who were crying out unjust things, unworthy of men. But to Moses it was said: Why do you cry out to me? That is: You alone cry out to me, who hope in me: you alone cry out to me, who arouse my power: you alone cry out to me, who await that my name be announced throughout the whole earth.

Moses, then, cried out in his heart, and every wise man cries out in his heart.

Thus wisdom, with the loftiest proclamation, calls to the mixing-bowl, saying: Leave foolishness behind; and seek wisdom. This is a proclamation of great loftiness, of great voice, which promises wisdom to the foolish. And the Lord Jesus cried out: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. And truly he was crying great things, who was calling men to the kingdom of heaven, to that venerable drink by which the flood of eternal life is poured in. And you, when you pray, pray for great things, that is, pray for things that are eternal, not things that are perishable. Pray for things that are divine and heavenly; that you may be like the Angels in heaven. Do not pray for money, for it is rust: do not pray for gold, for it is metal: do not pray for possessions, for it is earth: such a prayer does not reach the Lord.

God does not hear, except what he judges worthy of his benefits: but he hears a pious voice, full of devotion and grace.

Therefore one must cry out not only in the heart, but also with the whole heart. For just as, bodily, one cries out well when one cries with the whole mouth: so, spiritually, one must cry out with the whole heart, if we wish to attain great things, and to obtain from the Lord what we ask. This is the voice the Lord demanded from the people, which the people did not know. Therefore the Lord said: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Whoever, then, draws near with the heart, is heard by the Lord. Let the heart, then, cry out first, so that the word may be heard.

But it is not enough to cry out to the Lord, unless one also seeks out his justices.

And he seeks out the justices, who ascribes to divine providence what is just in all creatures, and especially in rational animals, or even in irrational ones. Whence the turtledove's zeal for chastity, which, having lost its mate, does not know how to indulge in mating again—which men cannot keep? Whence in so many animals such sober care in guarding their offspring, that where they have recognized the duty of conception, they do not think mating should be repeated there, lest there occur an adulterous mixing of received seeds? The phoenix knows no bodily matings, knows no enticements of lust, but rises again from its own funeral pyre: a bird surviving itself, itself the heir of its own body, and the offspring of its own ashes.

The eagle, lest it nurture degenerate offspring, weighs them with careful trial: and while the young are still tender, it suspends them with a devoted claw, and offers them to the very rays of the sun; so that if by chance they should turn their eyes away because of the force of the brightness, it may let them fall headlong from its loosened claw as degenerate; but if they are able to withstand the vigor of nature with a steady gaze against the rays of the sun, it may carry back with grateful burden the offspring worthy of its lineage.

All the birds of heaven neither sow nor reap, and God feeds them

because they keep the justices of the Lord, claiming nothing as their own: but content, with the fruitful tree, which by the Lord's judgment is given for common food, to relieve their hunger. From these things, then, we know how the aid of divine providence would not be lacking to men, if we were willing to keep the justice of God. He who feeds the birds, would he not feed men, whom he made in his image and likeness? Are we not worth more than they? By the privilege of nature we are worth more, but inferior in the grace of devotion, and in the injustice of transgression. There follows the second

I cried out to you, save me: and I will keep your commandments.

He repeats that he has cried out to the Lord, and promises himself to be a keeper of the heavenly statutes, which the Lord God has sanctioned with heaven and earth as witnesses; so that transgressors may be convicted by the testimony of the elements. How shall they look upon heaven, conscious of their transgression? How shall they expect fruits from the earth, which knows the ungrateful? See, then, how no small things the Prophet promises. In the crying out, a faithful and ready affection is expressed: in keeping the testimonies, the virtue of continence, the diligence of obedience, is declared. There follows the third

I anticipated in the early morning, and I cried out: I hoped in your words.

The Greek says ἐν ἀωρίᾳ, which means, before the hour, before the time. Whoever, then, entreats the Lord, should not wait as if for certain prescribed principal times, not knowing that there is any set time in the entreaties of the Lord, but should always be engaged in them.

Whether we eat or drink, let us proclaim Christ, let us ask Christ, let us think of Christ, let us speak Christ: in our heart always, always let Christ be on our lips.

But perhaps you say: How is it written: There is a time for all things, and a time for every matter under heaven?

But the Lord Jesus is above heaven, circumscribed by no time. Let Arian perfidy close its mouth. Time, it says, for every matter under heaven: how much more is there time under God, not above God? The generation from the Father has no time; for the work is not before its author, but the author is above the beginning of the work. Perhaps they will object that he said: My time has not yet come. And again he said: Father, the hour has come. But this is the hour of the passion. There is also a time of the virginal conception: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb: because the virgin conceived under time, and therefore at a prescribed age.

Whoever prays, then, let him always pray: and if he does not pray always, let him always have ready the disposition of one praying.

The Lord Jesus spent the whole night in prayer, not needing the help of prayer, but setting for you an example of imitation. He, praying for you, spent the night, that you might learn how to pray for yourself. Render to him, then, what he brought forth for you. Hear the Prophet saying above: I arose at midnight to confess to you. And you, arise at least at midnight, if you cannot always keep watch the whole night; so that while you pray by night, the brightness of the true sun may shine upon your breast; because every soul that thinks upon Christ is always in the light: the day shines, Christ always breathes upon you. But because the following

has clearly expressed the time of prayer, in this

I think one must understand rather the time of deeds and works, than of prayer.

Whoever, while still placed in adolescence, puts on the gravity of old age, and governs his youthful years with a certain seasoned continence, and tempers the fervor of a still-vigorous body with the hoary maturity of morals, outstrips the ripeness of his age. For what praise can it have, if a body worn out by pleasures, and now chilled with the frost of old age, its vigor already grown sluggish and set aside, turns only late to the duties of devotion? There is no crown except where there has been the struggle of a rather difficult contest: which few are able to attain, though not all who have entered the stadium arrive at it. That man is praiseworthy who, before the contest, has already conquered in himself—who restrains his own rebellious flesh under the rule of his mind, chastises it with sparing frugality, and reduces it to servitude; lest it run riot in unbridled liberty, and, burning with untamed desire, break the reins of the mind that governs it.

He is an old man in due season, then, if he exercises the duties of sober maturity; but a young man who runs ahead of his season, if with the weight of age he suppresses the incitements of pleasures and quenches the enticements of burning desire. For "the Lord is good to those who wait for him," says Jeremiah. And, "It is good for a man to have borne a heavy yoke from his youth: he will sit alone, and be silent; because he has taken up the yoke of the word". For he who has borne the yoke from his youth, and, willing, has bent his still tender neck under the reins of mature moderation, will sit alone, removed from the clamor of interfering passions, and will be quiet in silence; for whom it is no longer necessary to quarrel with the body, to contend with various desires; because the soul that seeks God has taken up the yoke of the word, having made captive to itself all the delights of youth.

Whence perhaps also that word of the Lord: "He will not cry out, nor strive, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets" (from), we can take not only for the silence of self-defense, and contempt of vindication, and endurance of suffering, but also for the suppression of all bodily pleasures. Whence it is also written elsewhere: "For he committed no sin". Rightly, then, did he keep silence when placed in the peril of death, he who did not fear the sting of death.

"In thy words," he says, "I have hoped." The Greek said ἐπήλπισα, which is to grow ever in hope, and to join hope to hope.

The just man always hopes, and, placed in adversities and afflicted with frequent troubles, he knows not how to despair; but the more grievous the things he has endured, the more he hopes, and takes on increase of hoping, according to that oracle: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord: priests, speak justice to the heart of Jerusalem, comfort her; for her humiliation is fulfilled, and her sin is loosed; for she has received of the Lord's hand double for her sins". How quickly he said that the fullness of humiliation is the loosing of sin, and repeated the cause of consolation, namely that the token of reconciliation is the greater, the more numerous the punishment has been than the fault.

Job, though weighed down with so many bitternesses of misfortunes, heaped up hope with pious affection, asserting that the cause of the impious is distinct from that of the pious, whose light will be extinguished. But light, according to Solomon, is always with the just. Whence it is gathered that the just man always hopes in the words of God, and adds hope to hope. Which Isaiah expressed more clearly, saying: "Expect tribulation upon tribulation, hope upon hope". He was speaking to those weaned and drawn away from the breasts, that is, to those who had passed the first nourishments of infancy, now capable of stronger food. Let it be an example that the patriarch Isaac, once weaned, turned out so great that, still placed among the rudiments of his earliest age, he yet did not shudder at the sword of the parent about to strike him. Abraham had many sons, but he weaned no other; only in this one, we read, did he make a great feast.

And Scripture rightly called it a great feast

because it was a type of that feast on which the hearts of the saints ever feast. There follows the fourth

"My eyes have prevented the morning, that I might meditate on thy words." Above

he said, "I anticipated," ἐν ἀωρίᾳ, that is, before the hours, before the time; here he says, "morning"—signifying another time for praying and singing psalms to the Lord; so that the former be earlier, according to what he says: "At midnight I arose"; but this one according to that: "I anticipated the rising sun." For it is a grave thing if the ray of the rising sun should find you idle in bed, meeting you with shameless embarrassment, and the clear light should strike your eyes still weighed down with sleepy torpor. So great a stretch of time passed in idle night without any offering of devotion, without the oblation of spiritual sacrifice, accuses us. Do you not know, O man, that you owe to God daily the firstfruits of your heart and voice?

Your harvest is daily, your fruit is daily.

Run, then, to meet the sun's rising, that the dawn may find you already prepared; lest the first gleam of day rouse your eyes still sunk in moist slumber.

"On my bed, in the nights, I sought him whom my soul loved", says the Church.

Therefore she deserved to find him, therefore to merit his grace; because even on her bed she sought, she sought in the nights. Therefore, having obtained abundance of him, she says afterward to the Bridegroom: "Come, my brother, let us go forth into the field, let us abide in the villages, let us get up early to the vineyards". Do you notice how the Bride invites the Word of God, that he may come into the lands, and take away the sins of the world? This field was before deserted, squalid with the briers of our sins, bristling with thorns. There was a stronghold, in which Adam, banished, held the heirs of his posterity in perpetual exile. There, then, the Church leads Christ, that she may free Adam. Then, the exiles set free, the field of this world began to have fit cultivators; and what before was barren, was made fruitful by the planting of the eternal vine.

Yet she does not thus wander abroad rejoicing merely in spiritual branches; but to these vineyards she calls Christ, where there may be those who sing psalms and pray, where by night and by day the harmless fruit may endure.

"There," she says, "will I give thee my breasts; the mandrakes have given forth their smell".

Many distinguish a certain sex among the mandrakes; so that they suppose there to be both males and females, but that the females have a heavy odor. It signifies, then, the nations which before stank, since they were weaker with a certain emasculated feebleness of unbelief, but which began to bear fruit of good odor after they believed in the coming of the Lord. We read too that holy Rachel received mandrakes from her sister Leah, that she might grant her that night to sleep with holy Jacob. Reuben the firstborn had brought mandrakes to his mother Leah, who, being weak-eyed, took on the figure of the Synagogue; because she could not see the grace of Christ, the gaze of her feeble mind being dulled.

By which it is shown that the fruits which the Synagogue had before received from the firstborn Son of God, she granted to the Church; but

because, having enjoyed the embrace of that night, Leah bore an heir of her posterity, she fulfilled the mystery, since, when the apostles believed, the remnants of the Jews were saved by the election of grace.

Whence the Church says: "New and old, my brother, I have kept for thee".

"Who will give thee to me as a brother sucking the breasts of my mother? Finding thee outside, I will kiss thee, and indeed they will not despise me. I will take thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, and into the secret chamber of her that conceived me: there thou shalt teach me". Having, then, the instruction of the new and the old Scriptures, and not feeling herself to be contemptible, she holds the Word not only by prayers in the secret of the heart, but also, with the voices of choirs singing psalms, kisses him as it were with certain eyes of grace.

And so, supported by pomegranates

that is, by diverse and innumerable fruits, and especially by the fragrances of faith, grace, wisdom, and glory, and by the riches of eternal life, which are at the left and right hand of the Bridegroom, she rouses Christ through the souls of the holy assemblies praising him with applause, saying: "I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up nor awake love, until it please".

Whence the daughters of Jerusalem marvel at her—the holy souls of the patriarchs and prophets and the ancient just, or the heavenly powers—saying: "Who is this that comes up made white, leaning upon her brother"? That is, with such solemnities the Church shines; and she who was before dusky through the day, now gleams and shines again in the nights.

The Lord himself too, delighted with so great a gift of those singing psalms, says: "Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell. The lamps thereof are lamps of fire and flame: much water cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it". Because he saw such great devotion of the Church, he thinks the peoples now fit that we may be able to bear his seal in our heart and on our arm. For the Father himself has sealed him God; and he who has received his testimony has sealed, because God is true; and therefore those who work for the food that endures unto life eternal are sealed to the image and likeness of Christ, who is the image of the invisible God.

As, therefore, God is true, so do you seal truth in your sense and work; that your mouth may not speak falsehood, that your hand may not work the works of men, which belong to this deceitful world, but those which are of God; that it may give bountifully to the poor, raise up the weak, honor the dead with burial in the tomb. By these works love is sought, so that no one can be torn away from Christ, even by the peril of death. Whence he says: "Who shall separate us from Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution?" And below: "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels".

In this same character, the jealousy of love is also hard, and its lamps are lamps of fire.

It has wings like a dove; for the feathers of the dove are silvered over, by which he who loves flies away, saying: "Lo, I have gone far off flying away, and I remained in the wilderness": but the wings of love are wings of fire, by which it kindles the ardor of affection. With this heat the Lord made his angels fervent spirits, and his ministers a burning fire, but not consuming. We read also of the pinnacle of the temple, upon which the devil, tempting, made the Savior ascend, which was on the summit of the temple. There are, then, summits of the pinnacle, there are heights of love, which are accustomed to kindle the vapor of grace in human breasts; so that much water cannot quench or exclude love, and no floods of worldly tempests can enclose it.

Since, then, so great is the grace of the Church, so great the rewards of devotion inviting us, let us anticipate the rising sun, let us run to meet its rising, before it says: "Behold, here I am". The Sun of justice wishes to be anticipated, and awaits being anticipated. Hear how he waits for it, and desires to be anticipated: He says to the angel of the church of Pergamos: "Do penance: otherwise I will come to thee quickly". He says to the angel of Laodicea: "Be zealous therefore, and do penance: Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; and if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him". He could have entered: indeed, when he rose again with his body, no bars of closed doors could hold him back; unforeseen, he poured himself suddenly into the apostolic inner chamber: but he desires to test the efforts of your devotion; he already had the apostles as proven.

Or perhaps, in persecution, he anticipates; where there is tranquility, he desires to be anticipated.

Anticipate, at least, this sun which you see. "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead; that Christ may enlighten thee". If you anticipate this sun before it rises, you will behold Christ giving light. He shines first in the secret place of your heart; to you saying, "By night my spirit watches for thee", he will make the morning light shine in the hours of night, if you meditate on the words of God. For while you meditate, there is light; and seeing the light not of time but of grace, you will say, "Thy precepts are light". But when day finds you meditating on the divine words, and so pleasing a work of prayer and singing psalms delights your mind, you will again say to the Lord Jesus: "Thou wilt make the outgoings of the morning and evening to be joyful".

But indeed the people of the Jews, using Moses as teacher, daily in their elders, who were chosen for this office, by nights and by days, without any cessation, recounts the divine Scriptures: and if you should ask an elder about anything else, he knows nothing but how to resound the series of divine Scripture. There, discourse of the world has no place; there only Scripture is woven together; the mouths of individuals succeed one another in turns, lest at any time that sacred sound of the heavenly commandments should cease: and you, O Christian, whose teacher is Christ, do you sleep? And do you not fear that it may be said of you: This people does not honor me even with lips? The Jew honors at least with lips; but you not even with lips. If the heart of him who honors even with lips is far from God, how can your heart be near, since you do not honor even with lips?

How long shall sleep hold you, how long shall worldly things hold you, how long the anxieties of this life, how long earthly things?

Divide, at least, your times between God and the world: or when you cannot do in public the things of this world, and the darkness of night forbids, give leisure to God, devote yourself to prayers; and lest you fall asleep, sing psalms: defraud your sleep by a good fraud. Hasten in the morning, and bring to the Church the firstfruits of a devout vow: and afterward, if worldly necessity calls, you will not be shut out from saying: My eyes have anticipated the morning, to meditate on your words: you will proceed securely to your tasks. How pleasant it is to begin from hymns and canticles, from the beatitudes which you read in the Gospel! How prosperous, that the word of Christ may bless you, and while you recite the blessings of the Lord, you may take up the pursuit of some virtue; so that you may recognize in yourself also the merit of the divine blessing. There follows the fifth

Hear my voice according to your mercy, O Lord: and according to your judgment give me life.

A man, even if he be holy and just, must always pray that the Lord may hear him according to his mercy, not according to the merits of any virtue

because virtue is rare, sins are many: and according to his judgment, that he may bring help to the weak. And this above all we ought to pray when we are pressed by any adversities. Hence it is not without purpose that the petition of divine mercy is set first by holy David. For there follows: They who persecute me unjustly have drawn near: but they have gone far from your law. The Greek has put it thus: They who persecute me with iniquity have drawn near, that is, those who persecuted me with iniquity. The more they drew near to me, the more they separated themselves from your law; since whoever persecutes his brother is cut off from the law. For the law says: You shall love the Lord your God; you shall love your neighbor.

Let me not hate my brother, then, lest it be said to me: If you do not love your brother, whom you see, how can you love God, whom you do not see? Do you not know that your brother is the price of Christ's blood? You do not love the price of Christ, then, if you do not love your brother.

Therefore the persecutor draws near to me, that he may do me harm: but he thereby cuts himself off from the law; for what portion has justice with iniquity? But whoever separates himself from the law of God separates himself from eternal life; for the law is life. Finally, the Prophet, showing the law of God, says: Behold, this is life, that whoever does the things which are of the law shall live in them: which pertains, of course, to the spiritual law. And perhaps he who draws near to me to do me harm, while he is separated from the law, is separated from Christ; because Christ is life. But I, if I cling to Christ, he does not draw near to me; because even if he should have power over my body, yet he will not be able to harm my soul. Finally, how far are the persecutors of the martyrs separated from their merits! But perhaps you may say: How do the saints cling to God?

And so there follows: You are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are truth.

The Lord is near to all, who is present everywhere: we cannot flee from him if we offend, nor deceive him if we sin, nor lose him if we worship him. God observes all things, sees all things, stands by each one, saying: Am I a God who draws near? And how can God be absent anywhere, since you read of the Spirit of God: The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world? For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is the Lord God. I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord. Where then is he lacking who fills all things? Or how could we all have received of his fullness, unless he draws near to all?

Finally David, knowing that he is everywhere, and fills heaven and earth and the seas, says: Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend into heaven, you are there: if I descend into hell, you are present: if I take my wings before the dawn, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. How quickly he signified that God is everywhere, and where God is, there his spirit is present, and wherever the Spirit of God is, there God is. In this place the undivided bond of the Trinity is expressed. For indeed these words were spoken by the Son of God through the mouth of the Prophet, speaking in the person of man, who through the incarnation descended to earth, through the resurrection ascended into heaven, through the death of the body penetrated hell, that he might loose those who were bound.

Or if you refer it to the Prophet, you note it expressed that Christ, the hand and right hand of God, is present everywhere, where God the Father is, and the Holy Spirit of God.

Or can we doubt of the sun, that as the day proceeds it pours out its rays over the whole world, and infuses light upon all, whom even those who cannot see nevertheless perceive to be present by the very warmth of the air? For where is its heat lacking? Where do its rays not reach, since, when the darkness of night or of clouds is dispersed, it illumines the lands? It shines in the sky, it glows red in the sea, it burns hot on the earth. Do you not doubt, then, of the sun, that it shines everywhere: and do you doubt of God, that the splendor of his glory and the image of his substance shines everywhere? What is there that the Word of God, the eternal splendor, does not penetrate, who illumines even the hidden things of the mind, which this sun cannot penetrate? For the Word of God is a spiritual sword, reaching even to the divisions of soul, and of joints, and of marrows.

Of which Simeon the just says to Mary: And a sword shall pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

He penetrates the soul, then, and illumines it as though with the brightness of eternal light. But although he be diffused through all, and into all, and above all powers; because he is risen for all, from the Virgin, both for the good and for the bad (just as he also bids his sun rise upon the good and the bad), yet he cherishes him who draws near to himself. For just as he shuts out from himself the brightness of the sun who closes the windows of his house, and chooses a dark place in which to dwell, so he who turns himself away from the sun of righteousness cannot look upon its splendor: he walks in darkness, and amid the light of all he is himself the cause of his own blindness. Open your windows to him, therefore, that your whole house may be lit up with the brightness of the true sun: open your eyes, that you may see the sun of righteousness rising for you. But beware lest any straw of chaff disturb them.

If there be any filth in the eye of your mind, you will not be able to see; if any sickness, it will burden the more; light strikes a confused sharpness of the eyes, and stirs up greater pain. Let your eye, then, be simple: lest your whole body begin to be full of darkness, and stumble in the light, as are the footsteps of the blind.

If someone should shut the doors of his house, is it the fault of the sun that it does not light his house?

So, then, if someone judges that his own mind must be barred with the bolts of his sins, and foolishly turns away from himself the splendor of the Word, and brings upon himself the blindness of folly; will he be able to blame the sun of righteousness for refusing to enter, or to accuse the weakness of the heavenly light? The Word of God knocks at your door. If anyone, he says, shall open to me, I will come in. If, then, someone does not open, is it not the fault of the one who does not open, rather than of the one entering? Nothing indeed is barred to God, nothing closed to the eternal light: but he disdains to open the gates of malice, he does not wish to enter the chambers of wickedness.

Or indeed, since the vigor of our soul shuns the corrupt portion of the body

because corrupted limbs cannot perceive its grace; does God deign to inhabit certain members of a corrupted soul? Yet the vigor of the soul is diffused through the whole body, whether the hand, or the foot, or the finger is a partaker of sense: can the wisdom of God be lacking anywhere, can his majesty be lacking anywhere? Certainly he does not hold back those who flee, he does not force the unwilling: but neither does he disdain those who draw near: and indeed his power, his Word, God, is near to all: For in him all things hold together, and he himself is the head of the body, the Church, in whom all fullness dwells. But sins cut off many from him, of whom it is said: Behold, those who remove themselves far from you shall perish. Whence the holy Prophet says: But for me it is good to cling to God.

And the Apostle, showing that God is not far from each one of us, says: In him we live, and move, and have our being.

For, supplying vital grace to all, he is present to all with the gift of his goodness: but he is nearer to those who are of a contrite heart.

Which the ancient history also teaches through enigmas.

Moses was on the brow of Mount Sinai, and was alone; the people were in the valley, at the foot of the mountain; the elders were on a part of the mountain above the merits of the people, but separated by a great interval from the merits of Moses. Not all were on the summit, nor all at the foot, but the people. Moses alone was on the summit of Mount Sinai, which in Latin interpretation is called "temptation." And you, if you ascend above temptations, and bring your prayer with a contrite heart, will be near to God: if you are of clean heart, you too shall see God; for blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.

He, then, who is near to God, says: You are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are truth. The Jew cannot say this, who does not receive the Lord Jesus; for he has separated himself, and believes not in the truth, but in the shadow. How can he say: Your commandments are truth, since grace and truth were made through Jesus Christ, when he does not acknowledge him who by the truth and fullness of his circumcision redeemed the whole world? The eighth

is: From the beginning I knew of your testimonies, that you have founded them forever.

From your testimonies, he says, I took up from the beginning knowledge and faith, that they are founded forever; for the testimony is faithful, and gives wisdom to little ones.

If Adam and Eve had known that more cautious precepts had been given them as to little ones, that they should not usurp for themselves the knowledge of good and evil, which they could not define with right discernment, they might have been able to secure for themselves the dwelling of paradise forever. If men consider that the blood of man cries out to God, they will keep their own hands from the slaying of man. If they keep the precepts which the Lord gave with heaven and earth as witnesses, saying: Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth: knowing that whatever crime they commit, they will be shown to have acted against the law of the Lord, by the testimonies of angels and Powers, and also of holy men, they will establish for themselves a foundation upon these testimonies, because they are eternal and perpetual.

Let us, too, then, build our work upon the foundation of the heavenly testimonies; that it may not burn like wood or straw, but be proved like gold; that it may remain fixed upon an eternal foundation.

Here begins the twentieth letter, Res, which in Latin interpretation is called "head," or "primacy." It is called head, that we may consider it as the form of the human race, in that it fosters all the members, and directs and fills them with senses. For the sense of the wise man is in his head. Thence the channels of veins, and the passages of breath, and the strength of blood are derived into all the parts of the whole body. It surveys all things, adorns all things. With the head removed, the body has no name, is not recognized, nor does any use of living remain.

Therefore those who are condemned for some crime—because it is the ornament of the whole body—are cast out by the head; and because they have been discovered to have committed, by a base or wicked charge, the filth of beast-like foulness, or the horror of bestial savagery, as those who have fallen away from the purpose of human moderation, they are ordered to strip off also the form of the human condition. For with the head cut off, the trunk of the remaining body is compared to the body of beasts, and is defrauded of the citadel of wisdom, because it could not hold to the reasoning of wisdom. The body is therefore buried without its own comeliness; for in the head is the vigor of life, in the head is the grace of beauty.

It is said that the serpent, when pressed by danger, always hides its head, and gathering itself into a coil, exposing the rest of its body, guards only this: that the other members may be struck and battered, while the vigor of the head, being kept safe, may restore them. This head keep thou also morally; keep it likewise mystically. The mystical head is Christ; because all things consist in him, and he himself is the head of the body, the Church. Whoever loses this head will not be able to have the use of living. In this alone do we differ from beasts, having been formed to the image and likeness of God by the vigor of virtues. Faith separates us from comparison with irrational beasts.

Guard this head, ye serpents of humankind; even if all the members be cut off, though the whole body be burned with fires, sunk in the deep, disemboweled by beasts—yet with this head kept safe, life is whole, salvation is secure; for no one can perish from whom Christ has not been taken away.

There is also a head

that is the sum of our zeal and work, the sum of our business, the sum of our hope, the sum of the virtues. And the whole sum of our zeal is this: that we be humble, that we follow the truth, which he does not see who exalts himself, vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh, and not holding the head. What this head is he expressed clearly, saying: From whom the whole body, being knit together and joined together through joints and bands, grows with the increase of God. And in the book of Isaiah the Lord says through the Prophet: I will take away from Judah the head and the tail, the beginning and the end. This head Judea, who did not receive the Lord Jesus, lost, which she had held. Where there is faith, we have both beginning and end. Where there is unbelief, there is neither beginning nor end.

The Church has a beginning, she who has Christ; for Christ is the beginning of the Church, the firstborn from the dead.

She has an end too; because he himself is the first and the last. He himself is the end of the Law unto righteousness for everyone who believes. The Synagogue has neither beginning nor end; because neither at the beginning does she find what to follow, nor at the end what to hope for. Therefore the one who is puffed up does not hold the head, that is, that humility of Christ by which he descended even to the cross, descended even to the depths below. Therefore the Jew did not believe; because he despised him who said: Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. This humility is the head of all the virtues, which cherishes, as it were, the whole body of our acts.

Although someone may be weak, poor, ignoble, yet if he does not exalt and prefer himself, he commends himself by his very humility.

Let someone be very rich and noble; if the same man boasts of the nobility of his lineage and his riches, he is made vile by his own insolence. Let someone be eloquent and strong, who, puffed up with the swelling of his eloquence and strength, arrogates very much to himself: is he not often preferred, out of shame, by one who is foolish and weak? Finally, the Pharisee in the Gospel, though he was abstemious and sparing of another's goods, generous with his own, not shrinking from fasting, as he himself said, yet on account of his boasting, even lost those things which he could have had. So many kinds of virtues, discolored by one vice, were able to profit him nothing.

The publican, who could enumerate nothing that could be approved, yet on account of humility, justified more than that Pharisee, went down from the temple, according to what is written in the Prophet: For he will save the humble in spirit.

That this is the head which this letter expresses is also clearly taught us in the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

For with this letter set before it, the Prophet says: The breath before our face is Christ the Lord; under his shadow we shall live among the nations. This, then, is truly the head, which is the head of all.

We have spoken of the head, let us speak also of the primacy—which, although it differs in wording and in letter, yet in meaning runs together into the same understanding. For we read of primacies in the Old Testament, which Esau yielded to his brother regarding the birthright; and therefore his name was called Edom, that is, earthly and cunning. Now these are the brothers concerning whom the Lord was asked by Isaac their father, that he would give him heirs of his posterity from Rebecca his wife, who for twenty years had given no sign of childbearing. He heard him, and Rebecca conceived, and she asked the Lord, when the little ones seemed to jostle within her womb, and she received the answer: Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be separated from your womb, and one people shall overcome the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger.

Is it not plain that the mystery signifies two peoples

that is, the elder people of the Jews, and the younger Christian people, who received the primacy of the elder brother for the price of a pottage of lentils? By which sign it is clearly shown that the elder people, that earthly one, on account of the intemperance of gluttony, lost the primacies it had; while the people of the Church, through sobriety and continence, snatched away, by fraternal concession and by pious theft of the paternal blessing, the primacies which it did not have by order of age. What, then, is it that the Christian people has snatched away, but the Lord Jesus? For from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who use violence take it by force, as the Lord himself declared. Good is the fraud that steals eternal life. But since we judge enough has been said concerning the interpretations of this letter, let us consider what the Prophet has set beneath this letter.

The first

then, is: Behold my humility, and deliver me; for I have not forgotten your law.

Perhaps someone will say: The Prophet glories in himself. And if he glories, he glories in his infirmities, in which the Apostle also glories, saying: I will glory in my infirmities. One man glories in riches, another in the titles of his nobility and lineage, another in offices and honors: the just man glories in humility; for it is a good glory to be subject to Christ. But that you may know that he does not wish to boast, but to call forth the grace of the Lord upon himself, the same Prophet says elsewhere: Behold my humility and my labor. Therefore, as one who has humbled his heart, as one who has labored greatly, there he desires that his sins be forgiven him, here he prays that he himself be delivered.

Picture someone, a priest, anxious for the welfare of a servant whom he perceives to be approved before God: some father set beside his son afflicted with grave sickness: some woman, sorrowful either for a son or for a husband, bent low in prayers, pouring out abundant tears by night and by day, humbling herself and prostrating herself on the ground, multiplying fasts, and—what is heavier than these—consumed with grief of mind and soul, numb with the delay of sickness and danger, saying to the Lord: Behold my humility, and deliver me.

Consider also that divine Scripture anoints us daily with a certain spiritual oil of heavenly precepts and trains us, and our Lord, eager to summon very many to undertake the contests, has set forth various rewards of crowns. Consider, I say, an athlete of Christ, wearied by innumerable contests, and now, his strength almost spent, resisting, troubled by the mass of danger; when he sees that his struggle is not only against flesh and blood, but also against the spiritual wickedness that is in the heavenly places, saying: Behold my humility, and deliver me; for I have not forgotten your law; for he could not have forgotten who has fought according to his precepts.

Behold also someone set in martyrdom, afflicted with frequent tortures, thrust down into darkness, broken by the heavy weight of chains, his legs stretched by sinews, disemboweled on the rack, furrowed by hooks, burned with glowing plates, a man of persevering faith, but now his soul wearying that the crown of holy death is delayed longer, saying: Behold my humility, and deliver me; for I have not forgotten your law. For we are taught by the testimonies of the Scriptures that humility can be spoken of not only in zeal and purposes, but also in temptations. For indeed it is read: Men acceptable in the furnace of humility; for the Greek said ταπεινώσεως, which is, of humility. I have set this down because most Latin copies have, "in the furnace of affliction." The Latin distinguishes, the Greek does not separate; ταπείνωσις is called both the humility of virtue and the humility of affliction. It does not matter if the Latin separates them; for the Greek was not translated from the Latin, but the Latin from the Greek.

Finally, even the Hebrews, as long as they were in Egypt, were in an iron furnace

that is, in a furnace of temptation, in a furnace of affliction, when they were afflicted with harsh commands. Whence it is written: For God brought them out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt. The furnace was iron; because as yet in Egypt the works of no one's virtues shone forth in full, the gold of no one there had been proven, the lead of no one's iniquity had been burned away. A hard furnace, a furnace of perpetual death: which furnace no one was able to escape, which consumed all, in which there was only grief and mourning. But indeed the furnace in which Ananias, Azarias, and Misael sang a hymn to the Lord—that furnace was golden, not iron: through which wisdom shone throughout the whole world by the faith of devotion. This furnace also was indeed in Babylon, where the gold was not spiritual, unless perhaps it was captive; for the Lord led captivity captive.

This was the gold in God's saints, who were captive among the Babylonians in body, but free in spirit before God, loosed from the bonds of human captivity, bound together under the yoke of spiritual grace. And perhaps that same furnace is of iron for the fragile, of gold for those who persevere.

All must be tested by fire, whoever desire to return to paradise; for it is not written idly that, after Adam and Eve were cast out of the seat of paradise, God set at the exit of paradise a fiery turning sword. All must pass through the flames, whether it be John the Evangelist, whom the Lord so loved that he said of him to Peter: So I will have him remain; what is it to you? Follow me. Concerning his death some have doubted; concerning passage through the fire we cannot doubt; because he is in paradise, and is not separated from Christ. Or whether it be Peter, who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, who walked upon the sea, it must be that he say: We have passed through fire and water, and you have brought us into a place of refreshment. But for John the fiery sword will quickly be turned away; because there is not found in him iniquity, whom equity loved.

If there was any human fault in him, divine charity has melted it away; for his wings are like wings of fire.

Whoever has here the fire of charity, will not there be able to fear the fire of the sword.

To Peter himself, who so many times offered his death for Christ, he will say: Pass by, sit down. But he will say: He has tested us with fire, as silver is tested by fire; for indeed in him whom much water could not shut out charity, how shall fire shut it out? But he will be tested as silver, I shall be tested as lead: until the lead wastes away, I shall burn. If no silver be found in me, woe is me! I shall be thrust down into the lowest parts of hell, or I shall be wholly burned up like stubble. If any gold or silver be found in me, not through my own acts, but through the mercy and grace of Christ, through the ministry of the priesthood, perhaps I shall say: For they who hope in you shall not be confounded.

By that fiery sword, therefore, iniquity shall be burnt up, which sits upon the leaden talent.

Therefore that One alone could not feel that fire, who is the justice of God, Christ, because he committed no sin; for the fire found in him nothing that it could burn. Finally, for him alone were the eternal gates lifted up, that the King of glory might enter in, not one guilty of a charge. And here indeed his flesh tasted death; for otherwise he could not have risen again. What I have read, I presume to affirm; what I have not read, I leave with reverence to those who know: confessing this one thing, that whatever that flesh underwent, it underwent it in order to trace out for others, by his own footsteps, the way either of triumphing through the passion of martyrdom, or of passing over into paradise.

Let no one, then, claim anything for himself; let no one boast of merits, no one of power; but let us all hope to find mercy through the Lord Jesus, since we shall all stand before his tribunal. From him I shall ask pardon, from him indulgence; for what other hope is there for sinners?

And he who here thinks himself gold, has lead; and he who thinks himself a grain of wheat, has stubble which can be burnt up.

But here many seem to themselves to be gold. I do not envy them; but nevertheless the gold will be tested, it will be burnt so that it may be proved. For thus it is written: I will test them as gold in the furnace. Let them consider, then, that all will be tested. Let many, then, who think themselves gold, themselves also follow humility, that they may burn away their vices. But here vain boasting exists; therefore to many who think themselves masses of gold, the wiser mass of gold says: The furnace will test us all. Therefore, since we are to be tested, let us so conduct ourselves that we may deserve to be approved by the divine judgment.

Let us hold fast to humility while placed here; so that when each one of us comes to the judgment of God, to those fires which we are to pass through, he may say: Behold my humility, and rescue me; for if he has been proud, if arrogant, if stubborn, he will not be able to say this. But no one will say: Behold my pride; but: Behold my humility; that by its grace he may deserve to be rescued from that fire.

There is, then, a humility of labor and weariness; and there is also a humility of virtue and of purpose, which the just man maintains even in prosperous and easy circumstances, and while set at rest. Though broken by no toil, though doubtful of the outcome of no contest, he shows a humble disposition to all, and does not strive to exalt his own deeds; but rather to lessen the price of his work, and the credit of his merit. Hear the just man humbling himself: I am, he says, the least of the apostles. That vessel of divine election, that teacher of the nations, says that he is the least, unworthy of the name of that office which he set before his own works; and he claims nothing for himself, but attributes everything to the grace of God. This assuredly befits the just man.

By this humility Abraham was called the father of faith, who, when he was granted converse with God, said that he was earth and dust.

The Lord himself also says: But I am a worm, and not a man; the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people, speaking of the passion of his own body; he who sought not the things that were his own, but the things of others. The Apostle wishes us to become imitators of him, and exhorts us, saying: For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, though he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.

Let us not, therefore, seek nobility of birth, nor riches, if we wish to follow Christ.

He emptied himself, though he was in the form of God; though he was rich, he became poor. Do not you, too, despise the common man, because you are noble; do not scorn the slave, because you are powerful; do not disdain the poor man, because you are rich. Are you, perchance, more noble, more powerful, richer than Christ? He took upon himself for your sake those things which you despise. He humbled himself for your sake even unto death, even the death of the cross; that he might abolish the fall of your pride; that what we had lost through the disobedience of one Adam, we might recover through the obedience of the one Lord Jesus. Wherefore, he says, God also exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow; since the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.

Consider, O man, what you are reading.

The Apostle did not labor to prove the power of Christ, but to proclaim his obedience; to show how great is the grace of humility, how great its profit. If you take it with simple ears, Christ was also exalted. But Christ, in that humility, sought not what was his own, but what was yours. Take it, then, with subtler ears: morally, it profited you; mystically, it redeemed your salvation. However you wish to understand it: it is your salvation. If you think that his humility profited Christ; to whom then will it not profit? If it exalted him; whom will it not increase? He who was Lord became the servant of all, and he who was the author of all things was scourged, washed feet, was crucified, died. But in all these things I see no diminishment of his divinity; I recognize a growth of his working. He who had nothing to add to his power, had something to add to the honor of his majesty.

I dare to say: he would have lost the office of his working, had not humility recovered it.

Thus he indeed redeemed us, but also acquired us for himself. Humility, then, brings no loss. He who emptied himself is full. He who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, taking the form of a servant, is in the glory of God the Father. I have received him whom I did not know, I have acknowledged him whom I did not recognize, I confess him whom I denied. To him I bend the knee of my body, to him I bend the knee of my mind, him I adore, whom before I fled.

We give thanks to you, Lord Jesus, that you created us, but having created us, you set us over wild beasts, animals, dumb creatures.

Greater are the gifts of your visitation. Us whom you visited, you honored with the fellowship of your majesty, saying: I will declare your name to my brethren; for having taken up a body, you became a brother, and yet did not cease to be Lord. Greater still is the grace of redemption: those in peril you redeemed by your own death, as it is written: It is expedient that one man die for the people. You raised the dead, saying: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up; for in that temple of the Lord's body the right of resurrection has grown for all. Those who rise again you made equal to the angels, as you said: For those who neither marry nor are given in marriage, will be like the angels in heaven.

Finally, you set them at the right hand of God, upon that throne of the Son of man, as you yourself deigned to say: But from now on the Son of man shall sit at the right hand of the power of God.

Whence the Apostle, admiring the gifts of divine kindness, and at the same time showing that the generosity of the Father and the Son is one, says: But God, who is rich in mercy

because of his great love with which he loved us. Do you hear, O man, in what you ought to be rich, what virtues you ought to have, to love in God, to prove in yourself: to enter into the benefits of mercy and of heavenly charity? And he added: And when we were dead in sins, he made us alive together in Christ, by whose grace you are saved: and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. In Christ, certainly, the flesh also is honored. He, then, who sits at the right hand of God, was humbled for our sake. And therefore he says to us: Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.

He did not say: Learn from me, for I am powerful, but that I am humble of heart; that you might imitate him, that you might say to him: Lord, I have heard your voice, I have fulfilled your commandment. You said that we should learn humility from you: we have learned it not only from your word, but also from your deed; I have done what you commanded: Behold my humility.

The good athlete shows his limbs, so that he may prove the discipline of his manner of life.

He also shows his limbs then, when after some more serious contests, he is compelled to contend again; that the judge, seeing his wearied body, may in no wise force him to contend. Do you also show the humility of your heart, that you may show the marks of virtue. Show also the contests of your body, that you may say: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course: and that the spiritual judge, seeing the contest, may decree the crown of righteousness; since you have fulfilled the law of the contest. There follows the second

Judge my cause, and deliver me: quicken me according to thy word.

The innocent hasten to judgment, and desire to be more quickly proved by the judges of their own innocence. This is a practice that exists even in the world, one shared with the saints.

But he who is just before God has another reason for not fearing judgment; for before the merciful Judge he has his cause in himself, and before his Redeemer he wishes and hopes to be quickly absolved. For a swift absolution belongs to the saints. Whence the Lord also says through Ezekiel to the angels who are ministers of vengeance: Begin at my sanctuary. The Lord does not wish there to be a common lot of judgment shared between the saints and the allies of the devil; for the devil and his ministers will not be scourged along with men. The punishment is separate, where the guilt also differs. And therefore in another place Scripture says: The time has come to begin judgment at the house of God. Those whom he pities, indeed, he chastises quickly; that they may not be afflicted longer by the expectation of the judgment to come, nor be tormented more lengthily by the wretched lot of their guilt; that each may repay even double for his sins, so that at last he may be absolved.

For the punishment of the guilty is in a certain sense an absolution of their offenses.

We see in this world guilty men bound in the links of chains led forth in a kind of pitiable procession; and sometimes even the innocent suffer this, so that it is more tolerable to die than to endure such punishments. Those who are conscious of their own innocence certainly desire to be heard; those too who are pressed by grave crimes desire to bring the penalty of death to a swift conclusion, that they may gain some abridgment of their punishments. There is hope also in the mercy of the judge. Exile itself is harder than the bars of a prison, nor is return forever barred to all who are banished. If human judgment achieves this, how much more is this to be sought from Christ by all! The judgment of the devil is deferred; that he may be always guilty amid punishments, always bound by the chains of his own wickedness, that he himself may forever endure the judgment of his own conscience.

Therefore that rich man in the Gospel, although a sinner, is pressed by penal distresses, that he may the sooner be able to escape: but the devil, on the other hand, is shown by no means to have come yet to judgment, by no means yet to be subjected to punishments; except those which he himself, conscious of such great crimes, undergoes through perpetual fear, lest he ever be secure.

Nay, to speak more truly, the holy man comes to judgment, the impious man does not come: For the wicked shall not rise in judgment.

This one asks to be absolved, another that being restrained, he be released. But he who is not judged, has not believed, but is himself punished by the judgment of his own impiety. Among those emperors, guilty barbarians are not punished for crimes they have committed within their own nation, because they are not subject to them; but they are held as enemies under a graver name, who are punished without inquiry for a private crime. So also Christ chastises his own whom he loves, but gives over those who are strangers, bound as it were by a general condemnation of impiety, to eternal punishment; For the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death: and yet the Prophet modestly teaches by his own example; that even he who distrusts his own works may hope, because of the word of God, for a more merciful sentence.

One man desires to live for the sake of riches, another for the sake of his children: this one asks to be quickened for the sake of the word of God, as Simeon awaited the coming of the Lord; for he saw the Lord in the temple, and said: Now dismiss your servant in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation: declaring that he had no other desire of living, except that he might see Christ. And finally he saw him, and asked to be loosed from the bonds of the body.

We can also understand it thus: Judge my judgment, as though the case concerning our judgment must be pleaded more gravely by us than one concerning error. For pardon is more readily granted to one who errs than to one who judges another wickedly. For it is necessary that that form of judgment return upon you, which you yourself thought should be decreed against another. There follows the third

Salvation is far from sinners; because they have not sought out thy justifications.

Those whose judgment is corrupt, their salvation is far off; but they themselves are the authors of their own peril, who have not drawn near to the Lord. Therefore they have been made far off, because by their own will they have separated themselves from the grace of salvation. Salvation does not flee from them, but they flee from salvation, having distanced themselves. It came to the Jews, but they did not receive salvation. How did they not receive it?

Hear: Jesus is salvation, Jesus was called the Son of man: For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost; but the Jews demanded that the robber be released to them, and rejected Jesus.

But who is it that makes himself far from the Lord, except one who does not seek out his justifications?

But he who seeks out God’s justifications is near, he cleaves to God. And therefore to those seeking God’s justifications the Apostle says: You who were far off, have been made near in the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ is justice. Finally he himself says to John: Suffer it; thus it becometh us to fulfill all justice. There follows the fourth

Many, O Lord, are thy tender mercies: quicken me according to thy judgment.

Even though salvation is far from sinners, yet let no one despair, because many are the mercies of the Lord. For they who perish by their own sin are freed by the mercy of the Lord. I will have mercy, he says, on whom I will have mercy. He appeared openly to those not seeking him, he called back those fleeing, he gathered the ignorant, he offered himself to passion for all. Is he then greatly merciful?

For the mercy of man is toward his neighbor; but the mercy of the Lord is upon all flesh, that all flesh might ascend to the Lord, given by that mercy of the Lord.

But since he had said that the mercies of the Lord are many, how does he ask to be quickened according to his judgments; especially since elsewhere he himself says: And enter not into judgment with thy servant? But that judgment of the benefits of Christ, which we cannot repay (for who can render the debt of nature, the debt of salvation and grace), is one thing; another is the judgment by which we are assessed according to the estimation of our frailty. Yet in this very judgment mercy has been joined with judgment, so that the truth of judgment is tempered by the mercy of the Lord.

Or perhaps, since he had said: Judge my judgment (above, v.

154), he therefore added that the mercies of the Lord are exceedingly many: for it is a grave thing to judge concerning another. Whence also it is written: Judge not, that ye be not judged. For since each one is conscious of his own sins, how can he judge concerning another’s sin? Let him judge concerning another’s error who has nothing in himself to condemn; let him judge who does not do the same things which he thought should be punished in another, lest, while judging another, he pronounce sentence upon himself; let him judge who is led to pronounce judgment by no hatred, no offense, no levity. You have heard today what the true and just Judge said: I cannot, he says, of myself do anything.

Certain heretics used to raise questions from this, as though the Son were weak, who did nothing of himself; as though he were also subject according to his divinity, and subordinate to the paternal command; nor do they notice that this rather proves the unity of the divine power, where they think there is a distance of power between the Father and the Son. The Son does nothing of himself, because through the unity of operation neither does the Son act without the Father, nor the Father without the Son. Finally the Father says to the Son: Let us make man to our image and likeness, asserting the operation to be common where the counsel is common. What does he do without Wisdom, who made all things in Wisdom, as we read: Thou hast made all things in wisdom? Finally Wisdom said, When he made the heavens, I was with him; I was he in whom he delighted.

And the Evangelist says: All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing; that he might teach that the Son is not only the maker of all things, but also a partaker of the paternal operation.

I, however, judge that this passage seems to be referred to the form of judgment; for the Gospel is not only a doctrine of faith, but also a teaching of morals, and a mirror of righteous conduct. I find in the Gospel that the Lord Jesus took up the affections and offices of many, that he might teach how we ought to conduct ourselves in these offices. He took up the person of a shepherd, and said: The good shepherd layeth down his life for his sheep. And therefore for the rational flock he did not refuse the passion of his body, that, placing the weary sheep upon the shoulders of his cross, he might refresh it by the function of a devoted burden.

He took up the person of an advocate: For we have an advocate with the Father. He spent the night in prayer for us, that he might instruct us by his example how we ought to entreat pardon for our sins. For he would not have spent the night thus, as though he could not otherwise reconcile the Father to us; but that he might show what sort of advocate one ought to be; what sort of priest, that not only by day but also by night he ought to stand as intercessor for the flock of Christ. Did he need help in obtaining, who himself could do what he asked, as he himself said: I go to the Father: and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do? Finally elsewhere he says, when he raised Lazarus: I knew that thou hearest me always. Here he spent the night as though weak, who knew that he is always heard, and he cried out: Lazarus, come forth. The resurrection spoke, death withdrew.

He also took up the character of the accused, and stood before the judge as one accused; nor did the Lord of all disdain the vileness of the governor. Being questioned, he was silent, showing that the defense of innocence lies not in the clamor of voice, nor in the assertion of forensic patronage, but in the integrity of conscience; and that not the safety of the body should be sought, but the purity of the soul. Finally, he who absolved Susanna in her silence offered himself to death. In that case he showed that no one should despair; in this, that he might not refuse the sacrifice of redeeming the whole. Finally, when struck, he did not revile, did not strike back; and the Lord of heaven and earth laid aside the desire of vengeance, and uttered the voice of humility, saying: If I have spoken evil, give testimony of the evil: but if well, why strikest thou me?

As though weak, he laments the injury of the blow; and though he could avenge himself, he preferred to complain rather than to avenge.

Therefore here too he took up the person and purpose of a judge, saying: I cannot of myself do anything. For a good judge does nothing of his own arbitrary will, nor according to the purpose of domestic desire, but pronounces according to laws and rights, obeys the decrees of law, does not indulge his own will; he brings nothing ready-made and premeditated from home, but as he hears, so he judges; and as the nature of the case stands, so he decides. He obeys the laws, does not oppose them; he examines the merits of the case, he does not alter them.

Learn, judges of the world, what disposition you ought to keep in judging, what sobriety, what sincerity.

The Lord of all says: I cannot of myself do anything. Elsewhere I read: He cannot deny himself. He cannot indeed, not through weakness, but through integrity; not through impossibility of doing, but through the observance of judging. What can he not do, who can do all things, except what he does not wish to be able to do? He does not wish to be able to do what he would condemn, he does not wish to be able to act against faith, he does not wish to be able to act against truth. Hear finally him saying why he cannot do anything of himself: As I hear, he says, so I judge, that is, I do not decree from my own power what pleases me, but from the reverence of judging, what is just; and therefore my judgment is true, because I do not indulge my own will, but equity.

Hear what the heavenly judge says: I cannot of myself do anything, but as I hear, so I judge.

And Pilate said to the Lord Jesus: I have power to release thee, and I have power to crucify thee.

You usurp, O man, a power which you do not have, since God denies that he has it, he who has power over all things! Hear what justice says: I cannot of myself do anything. Hear what the judge of equity asserts: As I hear, so I judge. Hear what the judge of iniquity speaks: I have power to release thee, and I have power to crucify thee. By your own voice, Pilate, you are bound, by your own sentence you are condemned. For the sake of power, therefore, not for the sake of equity, you delivered the Lord to be crucified; by power you absolved the robber, but killed the author of life. But you did not even have from yourself this power which you claim to have. Finally the Lord Jesus says to you: Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above. Evil power is to permit what is not permitted.

That power is of darkness, not to see the truth, but to spurn it.

Hear what the true judge speaks: I seek not my own will, but the will of him that sent me.

He speaks as a man; he teaches as a judge: since he who judges ought not to obey his own will, but to hold to what belongs to the laws. Set up a judge of this age: can he come against the form of an imperial rescript? Can he exceed the norm of an august decree? How much more ought we to preserve the form of divine judgment! Christ says: I seek not my own will, that is, that of man, which is either directed by hatred, or driven by zeal, or bent by favor, or perverted by the lies of others; For every man is a liar. But the will, he says, of him who sent me; that is, I came to teach the form of divine knowledge; that in judging, the guardianship of truth should be dearer to the heart than obedience to the will.

Therefore here too it is not weakness of power, but the expressed form of justice.

Just, therefore, is the judgment of the Son of God

because it is according to the will of God, not according to the disposition of man; for God is full of mercies, and his mercy is with judgment, and judgment with mercy; he neither has mercy without judgment, nor judges without mercy. Finally it is written: His mercy is in the balances. But the sons of men are liars in the balances, that they may deceive. God therefore examines and weighs the merits of each one, and just as he gives grace according to measure, lest it be beyond measure, so he gives mercy according to measure. Whence he says: Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over shall they give into your bosom. With the same measure that ye shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.

Likewise, in the balance the deeds of each are weighed; so that if good works outweigh the bad, the reward of recompense is bestowed; if sins outweigh virtues, a sadder punishment binds the guilty: which you have expressed to Timothy, the apostle Paul saying: Some men’s sins are manifest, going before to judgment: and some men they follow after. Likewise good deeds also are manifest, and those that are otherwise cannot be hidden.

All things therefore are made by the Lord our God by a certain measure and weight.

Who, he says, has set the rocks in a balance? And above: Who has measured the waters in his hand, and the heavens with his palm? He who examines our affairs certainly bestows things that have themselves been examined, and decrees all things with sound examination preserved. He weighs mercy, he weighs vengeance; in each there is a fixed weight and a fitting measure. Whence David also says: And thou shalt give them drink in tears, in measure; lest, without the moderation of measure, they should be weighed down by an accumulation of punishment, and be unable to bear it. And elsewhere the same prophet says: The cup in the hand of the Lord is full of unmixed wine mingled. And he has poured out from this into that; yet the dregs thereof are not emptied out.

And Jeremiah says: Babylon has been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, by which the nations were made drunk

that is, punishment has been paid by the nations, lest they should longer exult in having harassed God's people with most bitter devastation. The sense therefore of the

of David is this: prepared and full is the punishment owed to the wicked, which the Lord turns aside upon the faithless; but yet in his compassion he does not deign to pour it out even to the dregs, lest they should not be able to bear the fullness of the punishment. He inclines the cup, therefore, but does not empty it. That he inclines it belongs to judgment; that he does not empty it belongs to mercy.

Therefore the Lord our God tempers judgment also with mercy. For which of us can subsist without divine compassion? What can we do worthy of heavenly rewards? Which of us so rises up in this body that he lifts up his soul, so as to cling continually to Christ? To what merit of men, in the end, is it granted that this corruptible flesh should put on incorruption, and this mortal thing should put on immortality? By what labors, by what injuries can we wash away our sins? The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. It is not, therefore, according to our merits, but according to the mercy of God, that the pattern of heavenly decrees proceeds toward men. There follows the fifth

Many are they that persecute me, and afflict me: I have not declined from thy testimonies.

It is no great thing if at that time you do not decline from God's testimonies, when no one afflicts you, no one persecutes you.

For who, in the unimpeded course of favorable events attending him, would not become ungrateful? Who, abounding in riches, sturdy in unbroken well-being, would not refer to God's grace the fact that these things were granted to him? Indeed, when the Lord was praising holy Job, the adversary said: Does Job worship the Lord for nothing? Have you not hedged him about? Put forth your hand upon all that he has, and see if he does not bless you to your face. Then, therefore, was he more approved, when, having lost his wealth and his children, he did not withdraw from the worship and grace of the Lord. But there is not one persecutor only; he has many ministers; but let them not terrify you: For through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.

If there are many persecutions, there are many trials; where there are many crowns, there are many contests; it therefore profits you that there are many persecutors, so that amid many persecutions you may more easily find a way to be crowned.

Let us use the example of the martyr Sebastian, whose birthday is today.

He was a native of Milan. Perhaps either the persecutor had already departed, or had not yet come to these parts, or was milder. He perceived that there was no struggle here, or that it was lukewarm. He set out for Rome, where, on account of zeal for the faith, bitter persecutions were raging; there he suffered, that is, there he was crowned. And so there, where he arrived as a stranger, he established a dwelling of perpetual immortality. If there had been but one persecutor, this martyr certainly would not have been crowned.

But what is worse, not only those are persecutors who are seen, but also those who are not seen; and there are many more of these persecutors!

For just as one persecuting king would send out edicts of persecution to many, and through each city or province there were different persecutors, so also the devil sends out many ministers of his own, who make persecutions not only outwardly, but also inwardly, in the souls of individuals. Of these persecutions it is said: All who wish to live piously in Christ Jesus suffer persecution. He said "all," he excepted no one. For who could be excepted, when the Lord himself endured the trials of persecutions? Avarice persecutes, ambition persecutes, luxury persecutes, pride persecutes, fornication persecutes. Whence the Apostle also says: Flee fornication. For why would you flee, unless it were pursuing you? For there is an evil spirit of fornication, there is an evil spirit of avarice, an evil spirit of pride.

These are the grievous persecutors, who, without the terror of the sword, frequently crush a man's mind, who conquer the souls of the faithful more by enticements than by terrors.

These are the enemies to be guarded against, these are the more grievous tyrants, by whom Adam was captured. Many, crowned in public persecution, have fallen in this hidden persecution. Without, he says, were fightings, within were fears. You see how grievous a contest is that which is within a man, so that he fights with himself, so that he battles with his own desires. The Apostle himself wavers, hesitates, is bound fast, declares himself taken captive in the law of sin, and warred down by the body of death, and that he could not have escaped, had he not been freed by the grace of the Lord Jesus.

But just as there are many persecutions, so there are many martyrdoms.

Daily you are a witness of Christ. You were tempted by the spirit of fornication; but fearing the future judgment of Christ, you did not think the chastity of mind and body should be violated: you are a martyr of Christ. You were tempted by the spirit of avarice, to invade the possession of a lesser man, to violate the rights of an undefended widow; and yet, out of regard for the heavenly precepts, you judged that help should rather be brought than injury inflicted: you are a witness of Christ. Indeed, Christ wishes such to stand forth as witnesses, according to what is written: Judge the fatherless, and justify the widow: and come, let us plead together, says the Lord.

You were tempted by the spirit of pride; but seeing one poor and needy, you were moved with pious compassion, you loved humility rather than arrogance: you are a witness of Christ; and what is more, you have given testimony not merely of word, but also of deed. For who is a richer witness than he who confesses that the Lord Jesus came in the flesh, when he keeps the precepts of the Gospel?

For he who hears and does not do, denies Christ; even if he confesses him in word, he denies him in deeds. To how many who say: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and cast out demons, and done many mighty works? He will answer on that day: Depart from me, all you who work iniquity! He, then, is a witness who, with deeds bearing witness together, testifies to the precepts of the Lord Jesus.

How many, then, daily are martyrs of Christ in secret, and confess the Lord Jesus!

The Apostle knew this martyrdom and this faithful testimony of Christ, who said: For this is our glorying, the testimony of our conscience. How many have confessed outwardly, and denied inwardly! For, for the sake of marrying a wife who was denied to a pagan man by Christian parents, with faith feigned for a time, many are shown to have denied inwardly what they confessed outwardly. Or do we think it was only for the cause of fornication that the Lord our God was so severely moved against the people of the Jews, that twenty-three thousand of the people were slain, because they were mingling in intercourse with the women of the Midianite nation—and not because through those unions with foreign women they were being made to fall away from the faith, to deny the Lord?

Do not, he says, believe every spirit; but by their fruits know those whom you ought to believe.

Someone comes into the Church, while under Christian emperors he is seeking honor, with feigned reverence pretends to be offering prayer: he bows and prostrates himself on the ground, though he has not bent the knee of his mind; a man sees him, and thinks him a Christian; a man sees him praying humbly, and believes; but God hears him denying. He departs approved by man, but condemned by the Judge. How much more tolerable it would have been for him to have denied before man, and to have been confessing before God! Though this too is reprehensible; for perfect confession requires both devotion of soul and profession of voice: For with the heart man believes unto righteousness: but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Therefore in inner persecutions be faithful and strong, so that you may be approved also in these outward persecutions. And in the innermost persecutions there are kings, and governors, judges terrible in power. You will give an example in the temptation of the Lord which he endured; all the kingdoms were shown to him, and it was said to him: All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt worship me. It is also read elsewhere: Let not sin reign in your mortal body. Do you see, O man, before what kings you are set, before what governors of sins, if guilt reigns?

As many sins, as many vices, so many kings.

And before these we are brought, and before these we stand. These kings also have a tribunal in the minds of very many; but if anyone confesses Christ, at once he makes that king a captive, he casts him down from the throne of his own mind. For how can the devil's tribunal remain in him in whom Christ's tribunal rises up?

Many are they that persecute me, and afflict me.

And perhaps Christ says this, and says it in the voices of each one; for the adversary persecutes him in us. If you flee from the persecutor, you cast off Christ, who allows himself to be tempted, that he may conquer. Wherever the devil sees him, there he lays his snares, there he brings up the machinery of temptations, there he weaves his deceits, so that, if he can, he may shut him out. But where the devil fights, there Christ stands by. Where the devil lays siege, there Christ is enclosed, there he defends the ramparts of spiritual walls. Therefore he who flees from the persecutor also casts off his defender. But when you hear: Many are they that persecute me, and afflict me, do not fear, you who can say: If God is for us, who is against us? But he says this truly who declines from the testimonies of the Lord by no crooked path of vices.

There follows the sixth

I beheld those who kept not thy covenant, and I pined away; because they did not keep thy words.

Blessed is the man who pines away in the love of God; because he sees those who do not keep the covenant. Another pines away because of vicious loves, who melts away while delayed by love of the beloved; and while the outcome of his blazing desire is put off, his soul faints, the strength of his body diminishes through a certain deformity of paleness and the wasting of weary limbs. Another, who covets money, until he obtains it, wretchedly pines away with avaricious longing. Another, impatient of immoderate desire for honor, if he sighs with long-drawn desires, is consumed by no small pining of mind. Not such a one as he who says: How my flesh has pined away in a desert land, in a pathless and waterless place!

For this man was chastising his flesh, and making it pine away, while, intent with unwearied desire on divine contemplation, and anticipating the light of day with anxious expectation, he was eager to render to the Lord, before dawn, the homage of songs and hymns.

The man of peace, then, pines away, when he sees others break covenants, abolish the harmony of agreements, renew quarrels out of peace, return to tumult out of goodwill. This, certainly, he does not do who keeps the precepts of the Lord: he does not do it who hears him say: My peace I give you, my peace I leave with you. Therefore he who keeps the covenant obeys the commands of Christ; but he who does not keep it, he despises the precepts of Christ; and, what is worse, though he has known them, he disdains and neglects them. There follows the seventh

Behold that I have loved thy precepts, O Lord: quicken me in thy mercy.

Here too he invites the Lord to behold the full affection of his love. No one says, "Behold," unless he judges that, if seen, he will be pleasing. And he says beautifully, "Behold," and he says it according to the Law; for the Law commanded that each one should present himself three times a year in the sight of the Lord.

Daily the saint presents himself, daily he appears, and he does not appear empty; for he is not empty who has received of his fullness.

David was not empty, who says: Our mouth was filled with joy; for joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. And just as of the fullness of the Word we have all received, as John said, so also the Holy Spirit has filled the whole world from his own fullness. Zechariah was not empty, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied the coming of the Lord Jesus. Paul was not empty, who preached the gospel in abundance: and was filled, receiving from the Ephesians the odor of a sweet fragrance, a sacrifice pleasing to God. The Corinthians were not empty, in whom the grace of God abounded, according to the same Apostle's testimony.

David then offered himself daily to God, and he did not offer empty-handed, who could say: I opened my mouth, and drew in the spirit (Above, v. 131).

Therefore he said: Behold that I have loved thy precepts. Hear in what manner you ought to offer yourself to Christ. Not in things that are seen, but in secret and in hidden things; that your Father who sees in secret may reward you, and repay a faithful affection. Thy precepts, he says, I have loved. He did not say, I have kept them; he did not say, I have guarded them; for the unwise did not keep the precepts of the Lord. For some manuscripts have ἀσυνετοῦντας, that is, foolish, not understanding. Therefore those who do not understand, are not wise; these do not keep. But he who is perfect in understanding, perfect in wisdom, loves; which is more than to keep. For to keep is for the most part a matter of necessity and of fear; to love is a matter of charity.

He keeps who preaches the gospel; but he who preaches the gospel willingly receives a reward; how much more he who loves is granted a reward! For we can fail to love what we wish; we cannot fail to wish what we love. But although he awaits the reward of perfect charity, he also asks for the support of divine mercy, that in it he may be given life by the Lord. Therefore he is not an arrogant exactor of a debt owed, but a modest suppliant of divine mercy. There follows the eighth

The beginning of thy words is truth: all the judgments of thy justice are for ever.

Since the beginning of the words of God is truth, truth is indeed the foundation of faith. For first it is necessary that we believe that the oracles of the Most High God, which we read in the divine Scriptures, are true. The second is, that we learn their power by fuller knowledge.

For as The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but the fullness of wisdom is love; for the law is wisdom, and the fullness of the law is love: so the fullness of the words of God is wisdom, and the knowledge of justice. For as there is a certain progress from the fear of the Lord to the grace of charity, so there seems to be made a certain progress from truth to the judgment of divine justice.

You have come to the Church: you have heard that there is one God spoken of, with which the Law begins, as you have it written: Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God: believe that there is one God, not many gods. But when you have begun to read that the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, came in the flesh for the redemption of the whole world, distinguish wisely that there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things, and we through him. Know that he came for this purpose, that our affection might be formed by the paths of virtue, that we might learn the gentleness of manners from the example of his conversation, that guilt might be abolished through grace; and then you have proceeded from the confession of truth to the knowledge of justice. Faith is the beginning of the Christian; but the fullness of the Christian is justice.

Faith is in the confession of the peoples, justice is in the passion of the martyrs.

Knowing, therefore, that all the judgments of God's justice shall remain forever, let us take care that our works do not displease, and that we do not begin to undergo eternal judgment; nor, if we have done some good, let us relax with a complacent affection. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things proper to the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or evil. You see that Paul too will stand there, as he himself relates. Beware of wood, beware of stubble, lest you bring to the judgment of God, with yourself, things that the fire will burn up. Beware lest, while you have in one or two things what may be approved, you bring in many works what may offend. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. From which it is gathered that the same man is both saved in part, and condemned in part.

Knowing, then, that there are many judgments, let us examine all our works.

In a just man the loss is grave, the burning of some work is grave; in the impious the punishment is miserable. Let all judgments rather be full of grace, full of flourishing crowns; lest perhaps, while our deeds are weighed, guilt should outweigh.

The twenty-first letter begins, Scin, which in Latin is said, "Upon the wound." What is "upon the wound," but the medicine by which the bitterness of a wound is soothed? Upon the wound oil is poured, that all the harshness of the wound may be softened. Upon the wound a poultice, upon the wound a bandage, by which every wound is tended. Where, then, there is hope of restoring health, there medicines are applied to wounds. But where the whole head is in pain, and the whole heart in sorrow, there is neither wound, nor scar, nor sore with heat: this is where it is not a part, but the whole that is in danger, and a certain corruption is consumed by the wasting of the whole body: there it is not possible to apply a poultice, nor oil, nor a bandage. It is therefore much more advantageous that there be a wound which you may tend and bind, than that death should creep in within, without any wound.

But there is not only a wound of the body, but also of the mind, which grows mild with a certain oil of gentler speech, and the sweetness of peaceful discourse. There are fomentations of words, there are medicines of heavenly precepts, by which all the poison of wickedness is abolished. There are bonds of the law which do not burn, but rather set free those who are bound; there is a spiritual poultice, by which certain bruised members of the soul are made solid.

Let us therefore consider what is the wound, what is upon the wound.

Princes have persecuted me without cause: this is a wound. I will rejoice at thy words, as one that hath found great spoil: this is upon the wound; because by the words of the Lord the harsh things of the wound are healed.

In the Lamentations of Jeremiah too you have written under this letter: Thou hast heard their reproach, O Lord, all their devices against me, the lips of them that rose up against me, and their device against me all the day, their sitting down, and their rising up: this is a wound. But he added: Thou shalt render them a recompense, O Lord, according to the works of their hands: this is upon the wound; because vengeance is generally wont to soothe the pain of a wound. And below the same Jeremiah says: Rejoice, and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Hus: the cup also shall pass through to thee: thou shalt be made drunk, and shalt be naked: this is upon the wound; for the cup of the Lord is the remission of sins, by which the blood is poured out that redeemed the sins of the whole world. This cup made the nations drunk, so that they would not remember their own grief, but forget their old error.

Good, therefore, is spiritual drunkenness, which does not know how to disturb the gait of the body, but knows how to lift up the step of the mind. Good is the drunkenness of the saving cup, which abolishes the sorrow of a sinning conscience, and infuses the joy of eternal life. Therefore Scripture says: And thy inebriating chalice, how goodly is it!

Therefore a medicine is upon the wound; because the Lord Jesus himself is the physician who healed our wounds, pouring in wine and oil, and binding up the wounds of that Adam, who, going down from Jerusalem, was wounded by robbers. Let each one, then, take heed lest he go down from Jerusalem; for by his sins each one goes down, and by his merits ascends. Or, since we are frail, let him who has gone down run to that Samaritan, the guardian of his own work, the guardian of the Law and of grace; that he may find a remedy for his wound: who lays upon the wound the bandage of heavenly words, saying: Do penance; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Good is the bandage which joins together the broken bones of your soul, and, once soundness is restored, forms them again to their former strength, and restores the torn limbs without any injury of scarring to itself.

Concerning the interpretation of the letter, we think enough has been said for our capacity: let us set about to consider the

of the holy Prophet, which he added by the revelation of the Holy Spirit: Princes have persecuted me without cause; and my heart hath been in awe of thy words.

If we recall the old history, both Saul and Absalom, and many foreign princes, persecuted holy David; but none was able to triumph over him. There are also princes of the world, and rulers of darkness, who strive to overpower you within your own breast, and work savage persecutions inwardly, promising the kingdoms of the earth, honors and riches, if you should yield with a frail mind, and think that their commands must be obeyed. These princes sometimes persecute without cause, sometimes not without cause.

They persecute without cause him in whom they find nothing of their own, and they strive to subjugate him; they do not persecute without cause him who has given himself over to their power, and has entered into the possession of the whole age; for over their own they rightly claim dominion for themselves, and from them they exact the wages of iniquity.

The martyr rightly says this, that he unjustly sustains the torments of persecution, who has seized nothing, has violently oppressed no one, has shed no one's blood, has thought no one's marriage-bed something to be violated: who owes nothing to the laws, and yet is compelled to endure punishments graver than those of robbers: who speaks just things, and is not heard: who speaks things full of salvation, and is attacked, so that he may say: When I spoke to them, they fought against me without cause. He suffers persecution without cause, therefore, who is attacked without any crime: he is attacked as a guilty man, though he be praiseworthy in such a confession; he is attacked as a poisoner, because he glories in the name of the Lord; though piety is the foundation of all virtues. Truly he is attacked in vain, who is accused of impiety among the impious and the faithless, though he be a master of faith.

But he who is attacked without cause ought to be brave and steadfast.

How then does he add: And my heart hath been in awe of thy words? To be in awe belongs to weakness, to fear and dread, but it is also a weakness unto salvation; it is also the fear of the saints. Fear the Lord, all ye his saints; and: Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord. For what reason blessed? Because he shall delight exceedingly in his commandments.

Set, then, a martyr placed amid perils; when on one side the savagery of beasts roars to strike terror; when on another the hiss of glowing metal plates, and the flame of the burning furnace, blazes up; when on yet another the dragging of heavy chains resounds; when here a bloody executioner stands by: set, I say, one surveying all these things full of punishment, and then thinking upon the divine commandments, that everlasting fire, that endless burning of the faithless, that misery of ever-renewing punishment; trembling in heart, lest, while he yields to present things, he give himself over to perpetual destruction; being disturbed in mind, while he beholds, with a certain sharpness of his gaze, that terrible sword of the future judgment. Will you not equate this trembling to the confidence of a steadfast man? The confidence of one desiring eternal things, and the trembling of one in awe of divine things, run together into the same effect. Yet let him be the stronger who hopes; let him be the stronger who is confident.

Would that I might deserve to be such, that if perhaps a persecutor should assail me, I would not consider the bitterness of my punishments; I would not measure the torments, not the pains; I would not think upon the atrocity of any grief; but I would count all these things light; yet I would tremble, lest Christ deny me, lest Christ shut me out, lest he thrust me from the council of the priests, if he should judge me unworthy of that fellowship; let him see me rather, though moved by the terror of bodily punishments, nonetheless trembling more at the future judgments. And if he should say to me: O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt? He will yet stretch out his right hand, and, though I be troubled by the mass of the waves of this rising age, he will steady me with the faithful anchorage of the mind. There follows the second

I will rejoice at thy words, as one that hath found great spoil.

Good, then, is trembling from the words of God, if it engenders rejoicing; for he who trembles at the words of God afterward rejoices in the words of God.

Therefore he who has in his court—that is, in his heart—the words of God, shuts out the discourses of princes from his heart; fear excludes fear. For if one who enters the baths lays aside the heat of the sun, and heat excludes heat, how much more does the terror of the divine judgment exclude this human terror; the fervor of eternal grace excluding the fervor of worldly favor!

He therefore exults who has the Word of God; for he has many spoils, which he has taken away from the Jews; he has the spoils of the prostrate enemy. As David took away Goliath's sword, and with his own sword cut off his head; so the true David, the humble and gentle Lord Jesus, cut off the head of the intelligible Goliath with his own weapons. For the nations were the weapons of the devil; but wounded by the faith of the nations he lost the head which he had. The spoils were stripped from the prostrate one, his vessels were plundered; because the strong man was bound. The vessel of the devil was the flesh of sinful man; but after we believed in Christ, our flesh began to be a vessel of election; as you have it said of the apostle Paul, who was sent to the nations, spoken by the Lord Jesus to Ananias: Go, for he is a vessel of election to me.

Rightly then is it called by the name of Christ: Quickly take away the spoils, divide swiftly; for before the child shall know how to call father or mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians. Therefore the king of the Assyrians, namely of those whom his perfidy had made vain, lost the spoils which he held. And that you may again know that Christ vindicated the spoils from the devil, which he had seized in Adam; even the men of Saba, men of high rank, bound with chains, passed over to the Lord Jesus, and began to worship him, because he led captivity captive. Therefore he took away his head; that he himself might be the head of the slain body. Rightly now do the nations throughout the whole world carry about the royal head; because they are members of Christ.

You have learned about the nations: learn also about the Jews, from whom the Lord Jesus took away the spoils

that is, he took away the kingdom of heaven, and gave it to a nation bringing forth its fruit. He took away the strength of bread, and the strength of water, the prophet, and the admirable counsellor, and the prudent architect, and the wise hearer. From them he took away, to us he gave. Rightly do I exult; like one who finds many spoils. Without my labor I found spoils which I did not have. I found the Heptateuch, I found the books of Kings, I found the writings of the prophets, I found Esdras, I found the Psalms, I found Proverbs, I found Ecclesiastes, I found the Song of Songs, I found the admirable counsellor Christ, I found Paul the prudent architect: I found the wise hearer, the Christian people, who know how to hear the things that are read; for he hears who understands what he hears. The law is spiritual.

The Jew does not hear it, who hears it bodily; but he hears, who hears it in the spirit.

They have the books, but they do not have the sense of the books. They have the prophets, but they do not have him whom they prophesied. For how do they have him, whom they did not receive? Therefore he appeared to me with Moses and Elijah; because he departed from them. He has many spoils, who has the Word of God. He has resurrection, he has justice, virtue and wisdom, he has all things; because in him all things consist. The Hebrews spoiled the Egyptians, and took away their vessels: the Christian people has the spoils of the Jews, and we have wholly what they did not know they had. They took away material gold and silver, we have received gold of the mind, we have acquired silver of heavenly speech. There follows the third

I have hated and abominated iniquity; but I have loved thy law.

Rightly does he hate iniquity, who has the weapons of justice.

The Hebrew, though he had these weapons

that is, the Law and the prophets, abominated a dead mouse; because the Law says: Whoever shall have touched a dead body shall be unclean; and he refused the highest offices of humanity to the dead; but to the law he is not dead, save he who is unjust. This is the uncleanness of the just man, which is iniquity. For what is more unclean than to stain with base crimes, and to make savage with atrocious devisings, the mind, than which nothing more precious has been given to man? What does it profit them that they shrink from visiting a dead man? Would that their life did not pollute those who approach, whose death can contaminate no one! Death harms no one, would that life did not harm! For contagion of contamination is the fellowship of iniquity. How then can he contaminate, who can no longer be unjust; since even if he was, yet he has ceased to be? Flee therefore iniquity, lest it seize you.

Flee injustice, which makes the still-living already dead.

But no one flees iniquity, save he who loves equity; and therefore he says: But thy law have I loved.

In the law there is equity, if you take the law spiritually, if you rise with Christ, and there consider that sacrosanct heavenly altar, not the earthly altar, which has been destroyed by hostile devastation. If you look upon that Jerusalem which is in heaven, not this one which was frequented by the Jewish people on earth, which, on account of the perfidy of its inhabitants, was triumphed over by the Roman army, and blazed with fire set upon it. If you gaze upon that prince of priests, of whom it is written: Having therefore a great high priest who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession: who daily is advocate for us with the Father; that for those with whom in the days of his flesh he was compassionate with merciful affection, for these he may work daily the remission of sins.

For what other hope is there for the human race, unless the sins of all the living are forgiven? He therefore alone is the prince of priests, whom the devout priests attend, having entered by the merit of their own blood into that highest sanctuary of the heavenly things. That law therefore is to be loved, in which the true Hebrew is free from all servitude of vices, in which there is the great sabbath and the unoffended rest of the dead, in which the seed of the dead people is raised up not by intermixture, but by fraternal redemption. According to this law, then, the saint hates iniquity, not the unjust man who can often be converted: nor does he execrate and shun the remains of the dead, but dead iniquity. There follows the fourth

Seven times a day I have given praise to thee, for the judgments of thy justice.

And indeed by the number the zeal of holy devotion is expressed: but I think it is rather that a pure, and quiet, and empty affection, free from every burden of sins, is declared; so that the prayer may be offered without any fire of angry imprecation, or of shameful desire; let us ask nothing that may harm another; nothing that may stain us with worldly petitions. Let us praise in hymns and songs, confessing always the things that are true and just, which we sing of the divine praises. Let there be no ambiguous and doubtful judgment: no discordant intention of mind, let it not be turned aside from the execution of spiritual purpose by being occupied with material affairs. Let the justice of God always be justified with a tranquil mind, not with idle leisure. There follows the fifth

Much peace have they that love thy name: and to them there is no stumbling block.

Above we said that charity excludes fear; now we say that it excludes all disturbance.

For indeed he who loves God has a deep tranquility of confirmed mind in him. Much water, it says, shall not be able to quench charity, neither shall the floods overwhelm it. Much water is of various passions, and the floods of worldly desires, stirred up by bodily movements, which nevertheless cannot overthrow the wall of charity. And therefore, founded in charity, he says: Our soul hath passed through a torrent. Could the water of the sea shut out the charity of Moses? And that the series of the psalms may support you according to the letter, indeed loving God, he believed the way through the seas to be safe for him. But those who did not love God, these, submerged by the waves, endured an end worthy of their sacrilege. Elijah and Elisha crossed the Jordan on foot; and this was the reward and grace of excessive charity. These, then, that they might cross the waters of the river Jordan, first crossed the floods of our passions in the footstep of the mind.

Of this water the Lord says: If thou pass through the water, I am with thee; and the rivers shall not overwhelm thee.

He is present with his just ones always when they are ground down by any adversities; if only they pass through with a steadfast mind, not doubting; let them not be troubled by uncertainty of faith.

Pass over, therefore, you also, with a faithful direction of mind, if you wish the divine presence to be with you: if there be not only peace, but also much peace in your soul, let no battles of diverse desire assail you, let no anger prick you, no lust: and if there is a fight, let it be outside, not within. Fight against the persecutors, though it is often necessary to yield to them even in silence, because thus you conquer them. Their power is your victory. They are then at last triumphed over, when they have believed themselves to have conquered. Let not avarice therefore assail you, let not desire agitate you, let not sadness cast you down, let not lust inflame you, let not pride lay you flat, let not ambition bend you, let not fear dismay you. Much peace abounds in you, which surpasses every mind, according to the sentence of the Apostle: than which nothing more beautiful could be said.

For this is the highest end of wisdom; that we may be of tranquil mind; that our affection may not be made slippery and troubled by the fabricated fables of poets. This is the highest end of justice; that iniquity may not be able to move the mind of the just. This is the end of all virtue, and of bodily fortitude itself; that, war being finished, it may restore peace. To peace, therefore, does even fortitude of warfare itself for the most part do service: let no one, then, disturb the peaceful affection.

Many things arise for the disturbance of man: and a wife, often deceived by the serpent's snares, tries to agitate her husband's mind; and a father frequently mocks the faith of his son; and a husband tempts the mind of his wife with reproaches. But in all these things the just man prevails, and says: Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution? How often are good deeds themselves turned into a crime? How often is virtue held to be a reproach? How often is grace itself unwelcome? The just man has sold his possessions, distributed to the poor, kept nothing for himself; he is often held in contempt in the very Church; because he has ceased to be rich, as it is written: If a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing. Let him not therefore be moved; for he has sought not the reward of this world, nor favor, but eternal life.

Let him not be indignant, because men defer more to money than to good works.

For if deference is paid to him for a good work in this world, and he obtains here the fruit of this pursuit, it is said of him: He hath received his reward. He indeed has the good work, and here the favor; but this is a small portion of the salvation to be merited. Keep your reward for the future; and reckon the reproaches of this world as an increase to your reward. Think always of that saying of the Apostle, that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come. Let the just man, then, be broken by no injuries, moved by no dangers, tempted by no storms; whether death rushes upon him, or life, or the angels of heaven. Let him neither be cast down by adversity, nor exalted by prosperity. Let his affection be weak nowhere. Both death tempts, and life tempts; beware of stumbling.

He who has the peace which surpasses every mind, is great; he is not of these little ones. Therefore he ought not to suffer a stumbling block; because it belongs to little ones to be agitated by a stumbling block. Whence also the Lord says: Whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones, these least ones. He said not only little ones, but also least ones, whom stumbling blocks disturb; and therefore he is liable to grave punishment, as you have read, whoever has disturbed the infancy of a weak mind. For just as he is worthy of graver punishment, who has persuaded an infant to a crime, and hurled an incautious age headlong; so also is he who has circumvented, by the persuasion of error or by the agitation of the heart's affection, one that is weak, and foolish, and improvident. Do you wish to know how weak is he who is scandalized? I will not eat flesh, he says, lest I scandalize my brother.

How great a weakness, and a certain infancy of mind; that even food should agitate him for his brother's sake!

Whence can there not be a precipice for man, when even from this there is danger?

And what is worse, a weakness of this kind creeps into many.

You see a righteous poor man, you are tempted: you see an unjust rich man, you are tempted: you see a holy man without children, you are tempted: you see an unjust man abounding in children, honors, worldly praises, you are tempted. How many pits, how many snares, and what is more grave, how many that strangle very many! In the city of Sodom scarcely one Lot was found who was not tempted, whose wife nevertheless could not escape the snares of temptation. The people of the Hebrews crossed the seas, but they could not cross over temptations. All were tempted except Joshua and Caleb, who therefore alone of the elders deserved to enter the land of promise, because they were free of temptation. Neither Aaron entered, nor Miriam; because they too were tempted.

Nor did Moses enter

because he was the leader of the people who were being tempted: a type of the Law which could not exclude temptations, could not lead into the land of resurrection; because that grace was owed to the Gospel. The Law could not give peace; therefore Moses, as long as he lived, was always fighting: the people of the Law are always in the uncertainty of wars: but Joshua the son of Nun settled the spirits of the people in deep peace; since he who is under the Law is tossed by uncertainties: but he who is under the Gospel hears him saying: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. And therefore for those who love, there is no stumbling-block.

Understand it otherwise: the cross of the Lord is to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness.

It is a stumbling-block to the faithless; because the Jew says: Is this then God, who was seen as man, is this God who fasted, is this God who was scourged, is this God who was crucified, is this God who could not come down from the cross and free himself? Indeed they said this at the time of the Lord's passion: Let him come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusts in God; let him deliver him now, if he wills. Let not these things tempt you, let not these things disturb you, let not thoughts of this kind press themselves upon your mind. Where there is peace, and much peace: there the cross of Christ is not a reproach, but salvation.

It was not a reproach to Peter, the cross of Christ, which gave him such glory that he honored Christ by inverted footsteps: fearing lest, if he were crucified in the same manner as the Lord, he should seem to have aspired to the Lord's glory. The cross therefore is a reproach to the faithless: but to the faithful it is grace, to the faithful redemption, to the faithful resurrection; because the Lord suffered for us; because by that he redeemed us with his blood, by that resurrection he called us back to paradise. He who believes these things, how can he be troubled, to whom the hope of the heavenly kingdom rises up? There follows the sixth

I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord: and I have done thy commandments.

He who waits, hopes. Hope therefore precedes charity, salvation follows; hope therefore runs ahead of the effect; therefore he who waited for salvation from the Lord, did the commandments of the Lord.

Whence also the Lord in the Gospel calls friends, not servants, those who have done his commandments.

For he who loves, does; and he who has done, is deservedly given the reward of love. There follows the seventh

My soul hath kept thy testimonies: and hath loved them exceedingly.

It is more to love than to keep: and we said above

, no. 55) that keeping is sometimes a matter of necessity, or of fear: loving, of charity.

Therefore when he had here said, I have kept, he added, I have loved; that the keeping might be that of one who loves, not one who fears. He who loves exceedingly, keeps exceedingly. There follows the eighth

I have kept thy commandments and thy testimonies: because all my ways are before thee, O Lord.

Blessed is he who can say: All my ways are before thee: who would not wish to hide all his thoughts, all his deeds: Adam hid his way, Eve hid it after the fault, Cain hid the slaying of his brother.

We have it in desire to hide, not in effect.

Full is the perfidy of one who hides, even though there is no hiding-place before God. Therefore the Church in the Song showed her secrets to him, saying: I will take thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, and into the secret chamber of her that bore me. For although God sees all the hidden things of the heart, it is nevertheless good that each one open and spread out his soul to him, and go to meet, as it were, his light or his warmth. Nor without cause does the Church glory, saying: I was in his eyes as one that hath found peace; because she did not fear to disclose her ways. This voice therefore is that of the just: for the eyes of the Lord are upon the just.

And so, to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way and the truth, this is rightly said by those who desire to conform to that true way in faith, in morals, and in act: All my ways are before thee, O Lord. For no way can be good, except the one which thou hast judged worthy to be illumined by the visitation of thy light: to whom be honor, glory, praise, perpetuity from ages, and now, and always, and unto all ages of ages. Amen.

The letter Tau begins, which in Latin interpretation signifies, "He erred": another interpretation has, "He completed." What does "he erred" mean?

It is the twenty-second letter, which among the Hebrews is the last. But in this psalm, that is, the hundred and eighteenth, we said that the progress of man is signified (above, in the preface of this psalm), who, instructed by the teachings of moral discipline, would lay aside all the infancy of an unexercised mind, and would take up the knowledge of veteran counsel and the age of senile prudence. But where there is error, fault is marked. There, then, is the end of progress, that it may even be a matter of fault. But see what it interprets. "He erred," it says; not "he errs," but "he erred." "To have erred" is of past time: "to err" is of present time. He who has erred has ceased to err, and condemns his former error.

For it is said of him, "he erred," who is no longer in error; for he who still remains in error is not said "to have erred," but "to err," for "to err" belongs to one remaining in vice: "to have erred" belongs to one correcting his fall.

Finally the emender of morals says: For we ourselves also were sometime unwise, incredulous, erring in desires and pleasures.

He would certainly not have said, "We were sometime unwise," unless he were one who had afterward obtained the discipline of wisdom. Nor would he have said, "We were erring," unless he were one who had laid aside the former error. Finally, to teach that the fall was blotted out, and that no trace of the offense remained, he says: But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour to man appeared, not by the works of justice which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the laver of regeneration and renovation of the Holy Ghost. Having laid aside, then, the old error, and renewed by the Holy Spirit and by every amendment of morals, he says: For we ourselves also were sometime erring. You see, then, that to have renounced error is not a matter of vice, but of progress.

Finally let the Lord Jesus himself teach you, if you do not think human counsels or opinions ought to be believed.

For in his Gospel he himself declared that the shepherd left ninety-nine sheep, and seeks the one that has erred. It is the hundredth sheep that he says has erred: let the perfection and fullness of the number itself instruct and inform you. Not undeservedly is it preferred to the others; because it is more to have called oneself back from vice, than to have been near to vices themselves without knowing them. For to strip minds imbued with vices of the reins of desires and to have amended them, is not only a matter of perfect virtue, but even of heavenly grace. For to amend future things belongs to human attention: to condemn past things belongs to divine power. Finally the shepherd, having found the sheep, placed it upon his own shoulders.

You recognize indeed the mystery, how the weary sheep is refreshed

because the weary condition of humanity cannot otherwise be restored, except by the sacrament of the Lord's passion and the blood of Jesus Christ, whose government is upon his shoulders; for on that cross he bore our infirmities, that there he might empty out the sins of all. Rightly do the angels rejoice; because he who erred, no longer errs, has already forgotten his error.

It is not error, then, but completion, as the other interpretation teaches. But completion is the perfection of discipline. Whence also Jeremiah in his Lamentations under this letter says: Thy iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Sion: he will no more send thee into captivity. He hath visited thy iniquity, O daughter of Edom: he hath discovered thy sins. Do you notice that iniquity could not be accomplished without the visitation of God, nor could correction be full, except through the grace of the Lord Savior? In each of these, some things belong partly to the one, partly to the other.

But how iniquity may be accomplished, hear the Church saying: I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on?

I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? The garment of the old man, then, woven with the vices of error, once laid aside in the regeneration of the font, does not know how it could put it on; for by the zeal of correction the forgetfulness of sins had grown deep. So great is the power of accomplished amendment, that it returns to a kind of spiritual childhood, which knows nothing of the ways of error, and even if it wished, could not admit a crime; because it has become unaccustomed to the practice of sinning. And now I think enough has been said about the interpretation of this letter: let us now learn from what follows what the sentiment of the perfected man is. And so he says thus: Let my supplication come near before thee, O Lord: give me understanding according to thy word.

A good life makes prayer fly, and gives spiritual wings to petitions, by which the prayer of the saints is carried up to God.

But also the spirit by which we pray raises up the prayer of the just, especially if a compassionate affection commends it with a contrite heart. This, however, is the confidence of the perfected man. Finally David himself, in the earlier part of this psalm, sought a lamp for his feet (above, v. 105); lest, walking on this earthly journey, he might be able to err. But now, as if already placed at the end and completion, having accomplished the office of travelling, he rises up wholly. And he directs his prayer to the heavenly places: he sends it into the sight of the Lord Savior, giving it the breezes of justice, the breaths of wisdom, the oars of devotion and faith, the aids of innocence and purity; for by sin prayer grows heavy, and is made far from God.

But it is weighed down the more, the more reprehensible is the life of the one who prays.

But the prayer of the innocent ascends, and the groaning of a compassionate affection, if they hate the Egyptian mud, and turn away from working earthly things. Finally you have read thus, that of the Hebrews who could not bear the harsh dominion of the Egyptians; and as the works were grievous, so also they refused, as unworthy of the nobility of their race, the muddy works; their groaning and voice went up to the Lord our God. For prayer ascends; because although they worked, yet they worked unwillingly. And so the mercy of God descended to them; because their devotion ascended to God.

It ascended, then, not bodily; for the prophet, great as he was, did not ask that his supplication draw near to God bodily: for whoever thinks so certainly encloses God in some place and seat, so as to suppose there is some more spacious place in which God is; whereas he, invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible, fills all things, and the fullness of divinity dwells in him. I have read that Moses drew near to God, when he received the Law: but David, with his customary modesty, asks not that he himself, but that his prayer, draw near to God; so that a certain distinct order may be seen to exist, in that those who are more perfect themselves draw near to God, but the just men of the following order have enough if their prayer draws near.

Let us consider from the usage of our own speech what it is to draw near.

Suppose a master and a disciple: if the disciple has more zealously drawn in the master's genius, or has attended to his precept, so that he seems to come very close to the likeness of his work and doctrine; do we not usually say that he has drawn near to the master? Therefore you too, if you show yourself an imitator of Christ, as did he who said, Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ: if you know no deceit, hate falsehood, follow truth, do not flee from justice, love chastity, you have drawn near to Christ, and through Christ to God. For he is the way by which one comes to the Father, who is always with the Father.

We have learned what it is for prayer to draw near, that is, that it be lifted up by our deeds.

If you lift up your deeds, you have lifted up your prayer. He who knows how to lift up his hands directs his prayer in the sight of God, as you have read below: Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight. The lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice. This is indeed a prayer unto life; there is another prayer unto sin: And let his prayer become sin. And you, if you ask for worldly things, if you request shameful things, your prayer is not directed to God, but into sin. Therefore understand what you ask for.

According to thy word, he says, give me understanding.

Observe what he asks. He did not say understanding in general, but understanding according to the word of God; for there is an understanding unto death, just as there is a prudence unto destruction: The children of this world are more prudent than the children of light in this generation. But that prudence which is of the world does not avail unto eternal life. It is occupied with honors, with petty gains, intent upon heaping up profits, not upon acquiring merits. Finally, it is concerned with the elements of the world, more decked out than true wisdom; as is all philosophy which seeks what is another's, while it knows not its own: it searches the regions of the sky, it examines the spaces of the world, which can profit it nothing: it knows not God, whom alone it ought to seek.

Therefore the truly wise man says: If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise; for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. We must labor, therefore, to be fools in this world, having nothing to do with philosophy; lest anyone should lead our faith away from the truth through the elements of this world; lest anyone should despoil our confession through philosophy. For we know that the Arians rushed into perfidy in this way, while they think that the generation of Christ is to be gathered by the custom of this world. They abandoned the Apostle, they follow Aristotle. They abandoned the wisdom that is with God: they chose the snares of disputation and the fowling of words according to the discipline of dialectics, though the Apostle cries out: Let no man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world, and not according to Christ.

Would that I could imitate that folly by which I might be wise: that man having ample possessions but neglecting their fruits, that man intent upon God, who rejects even honors bestowed upon him, who does not seek the teaching of philosophy; even if he had known it before, yet he pretends not to know it, learning by not inquiring: let him not seek the things that are his own, but bestow his own on others, acquiring for himself eternal things. This man can say: According to thy word give me understanding, that is, not according to the philosophers, not according to pleaders, not according to the merchants of this world, not according to the builders of houses, but according to thy word, which is the foundation of true wisdom and of good works; that upon it the prophet may set the gold of his heart, the silver of his speech, the precious stones of his works; that his work may not be able to slip and perish.

There follows the second

Let my supplication come in before thee: according to thy word deliver me.

Observe the order. First he said: Let my prayer approach: afterward he asked for understanding, according to thy word: thirdly he says, Let my supplication come in before thee. Does not the Lord invite us by a certain custom, and deign to receive us with affection? When you desire to meet some man of the first rank, do you not first approach his house: then seek to be informed and instructed, that you may know the mind of the master of the house: then, to enter his house, you implore that no one may cast you out and shut you off? Knock, then, you also, at that heavenly palace: knock not with the hand of the body, but with a certain right hand of your prayer. Not the hand of the body alone knocks: the voice also knocks; for it is written: The voice of my brother knocks at the door. We knock also with a finger.

Finally, Thomas too deserved to open the door of the resurrection with his finger.

And Jesus says to you: Bring hither thy finger, and put thy hands into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. Knock, then, with a finger, if you cannot with the whole hand. Knock at the door. Christ is the door, who says: By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.

When, then, you have knocked at this door, see how you enter; lest perhaps, having already entered, you be outside the sight of the king. Many enter palaces, and do not at once see this earthly king: but they wait frequently, that they may sometime deserve to see him. Nor do they presume upon the opportunity of seeing him: but, when summoned, they are presented, and pour out their entreaty; that they may be received with benevolence. The first entrance of their speech is watched, lest anything falter, lest anything offend. How much more must God be entreated, that our prayer may enter the door of his mercy! Finally, Paul too asks that a door of speech be opened to him, to speak the mystery of Christ.

But since the Greek has, Εἰσελθέτω ἀξίωμά μοῦ

that is: Let my dignity enter, though the scribe may possibly have erred, and made it ἀξίωσις, that is, entreaty: nevertheless let us explain this too, as we are able. Indeed, when you ask a human king, you speak so that he may have regard to the consideration of your honor, so that the consideration of your dignity may touch him; that either he may pity you, if pardon is to be sought, or may show deference according to the rank of your dignity. And why do I say, you ask? Thus each one enters, in such a way that deference is shown to dignities. Rightly, then, one devoted to God also says: Let my dignity enter before thee. The Christian also has his dignity, who serves so great an Emperor.

There are the dignities of the greatest and true faith, there are diverse orders of honors also with Christ: God has set in the Church first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers. But these are dignities of administrations. There are also dignities of private persons, such as piety, justice, sobriety, chastity, discipline. There are also dignities of prayer: if you ask for a widow, if you ask for an orphan, if you ask for a merciful man, if you ask for one exceedingly devoted and faithful: if you ask in tribulation, if you ask with sorrow, if you yourself who ask sympathize with a mournful affection, your prayer enters into the grace of God: it enters his house, if the Church prays together with you, if the whole people implores, that it may bend the favor of the Lord.

But what does he ask?

That he be rescued, that he be freed; because he has now for a long time fought against spiritual wickedness, against the temptations of this world; because it is quite grievous, in so long a course of this life, to sustain a lasting warfare. Finally, below too he says: Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged! For he groans that he keeps unwearied watches with continual toil; and therefore he asks to be freed from so many adversaries, nor does he wish to have fellowship with earthly men. There follows the third

My lips shall utter a hymn; when thou shalt have taught me thy justifications.

He has uttered a hymn who can say: For we are the good odor of Christ unto God. And he utters well who has tasted the most abundant and sweet precepts of the Lord. He utters a hymn who has uttered a word. Finally, David before uttered a good word, here he utters a hymn.

For he has tasted the good bread that came down from heaven: the good bread, which if anyone eats, he shall not die forever. The word of God has its own feasts: some stronger, such as the Law and the Gospel; some sweeter, such as the Psalms and the Song of Songs. The Church, or the pious soul, was uttering a hymn, to whom God the Word said: Let me hear thy voice; for thy voice is sweet. She was uttering a hymn, to whom he said: Thy lips drop as the honeycomb, O spouse: honey and milk are under thy tongue.

But no one can first utter a hymn unless he has learned the justices of God, and learned them from the Lord his God himself.

Therefore David specially asks this, that God teach him; for he had heard and known in the spirit that One is the master; and therefore he everywhere asked that He himself be made his teacher, that he might learn from Him His justifications. For how can one sing who is placed in fear, and in the dread of punishments? How can one conscious of grave sins sing, unless he first becomes secure of pardon? Finally, in what follows you have: How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land, in which he is assailed, in which he is held captive under the law of sin, in which he bewails and laments the affliction of his captivity?

Do you, then, also eat the foods of the heavenly Scriptures, and eat that they may remain unto you unto eternal life, and eat daily, that you may not hunger, eat that you may be filled, eat that you may utter the richness of heavenly words. Spiritual feasts are not wont to burden but to profit those who are filled; and therefore the Prophet wished to be filled, who says: Let my mouth be filled with praise, that I may sing thy glory. He who sings the glory of God, his heart utters a hymn to the Lord. There follows the fourth

My tongue shall speak thy word; because all thy commandments are justice.

He who has learned the justices of God speaks the word of God; and he who speaks the word of God does not speak an idle word. It is an idle word to speak of the works of men.

Therefore the Saint says that grace is given him by the Lord, that his mouth may not speak the works of men; because that is an idle word: nor idle only, but even dangerous, for which we shall have to render account. For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it. For it is no small danger, when you have such great utterances of God, and the works of God which he wrought in Genesis, wrought in Exodus, wrought in Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, the book of Judges, of Kings, and the books of Esdras, wrought in the Gospel, or in the Acts of the Apostles—that, having passed over these, you should speak the things that are of the world, hear the things that are of the world. Hedge thy ears with thorns: would that you also hedge your tongue. But what is worse, your tongue is surrounded with thorns which prick and wound the one speaking the things of the world.

Therefore the adversary also frequently pours worldly thoughts even upon those praying. If, then, we ought not to hear things foreign or superfluous, how much more ought we not to speak them! Since the venerable Scripture says to each one of us: Bind up your silver and gold: and make for your mouth a yoke and a balance. Bind your sense with faithful silence: bind your words, impose a yoke upon your mouth; lest it toss itself about with untamed neck of words. Impose a weight, that we may weigh with careful scrutiny all that we speak. But with what thorns does Scripture bid you hedge your ears, except with a contrite heart and fear of judgment? These prick wholesomely: these goad, they do not wound; though even the wounds of a friend are useful.

All the commandments of God, he says, are justice; because they are commandments of justice, and therefore cannot be without justice.

It is a commandment of God, that you love your God. Whence Paul says: He that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law; for it is written: Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in this word. If every commandment is comprised in that very word, which word is justice (for what is so just as that you should love your God, and love your brother), then surely all the commandments of God are justice.

For just as he who can kill his brother certainly does not love him; he who commits adultery with his brother's wife certainly does not love his brother; he who steals, who covets another's goods, certainly does not love him whom he desires to defraud: so he who proudly despises his brother, who strives to disfigure him, who feeds on his injuries, is a stranger to the fellowship of charity. There follows the fifth

Let thy hand be with me to save me; for I have chosen thy commandments.

He seems to be praying for the coming of the Lord; because the hand of God is Christ. We read that He himself is the right hand of God, of whom he said above: The right hand of the Lord hath wrought strength: the right hand of the Lord hath exalted me.

Why, then, has he here said hand, unless perhaps not only on account of a variation of grace, which writers are not wont to omit, but also

because of a certain property of hands has this been said; so that there it is called the right hand, where it is written that he exalted with power; here the hand, where it must be understood that he preserved him with humility? The hand of the Lord can also be understood as it is said in common usage: Great is the hand of that king; that is, great is his army, and the army of that other is inferior; so that here too we may understand: Let thy help and thy aid be present, that thou mayest send thy angels, thy assistance, the aids of thy power to free thy people. This is the hand of God, of whom it is written: Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

He, therefore, who has chosen the commandments of God uses confidence; that with authority he may demand for himself divine aid. There follows the sixth

I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord: and thy law is my meditation.

One man delights in the length of this present life, and desires to prolong the life of this body even to the end of old age laid down. Others are broken by the weakness of sickness, of whom none can say: When I am weak, then am I strong. They think themselves blessed if they enjoy the advantage of unimpaired health, for whom weakness is not unto salvation. Of these too none can say: I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord; for they seek their own health rather than the salvation of God, obeying physicians rather than the Scriptures. But contrary to the precepts of those zealous for divine knowledge are the precepts of medicine. They call one back from fasting, they do not allow one to keep vigil, they draw one away from every intensity of meditation.

And so whoever has given himself to physicians denies himself to himself.

But whoever seeks the salvation of God follows Christ, who is called the salvation of God: seeking not the things of the body, but the things that are eternal, even while dwelling in this body. But he who seeks the salvation of God meditates in the law day and night indeed. His meditation on the divine decrees is continual, and no care for this body diverts him from zeal for discipline. There follows the seventh

My soul shall live, and shall praise thee: and thy judgments shall help me.

He flatters himself with the reward of the future life, certainly, not of the present; for how can that be called life, of which it is written: And thou hast brought me down into the dust of death? How many living are in hell!

Paul himself desired to be freed from the body of this death, he who truly longed for the salvation of God, saying: For I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, which is far better: but to remain in the flesh is more necessary, rather than voluntary. How then does the soul live, covered by the veil of death; or what is that life which is in shadow? We are in the region of the shadow of death; our life is hidden, not free; for it will be free in the region of the living, in which the just man assumes confidence of pleasing God, that he may please the Lord in the region of the living. There, then, our soul lives, where nothing mortal, nothing weak is put on, nothing owed to punishment.

There it will praise the Lord, where, the body of weakness having been laid aside, it will begin to be conformed to the glory of the body of Christ. For while we are in sin, who can praise fully? For to the sinner God said: Why dost thou declare my justices? We are placed here in shadow; we live in shadow; we praise in shadow; we cannot praise perfectly in shadow. We are in a foreign land; you have heard those saying further on: How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land?

Now the judgments of God help the saints, when for good works the reward of eternal life is conferred.

Blessed is he who says: And thy judgments shall help me. I, weak, I, a sinner, fear the judgments of God because of the conscience of my sins: they bring terror to me, they agitate me: they help the saints. But nevertheless they will help the sinner too, though in a different way. The saint will be helped while he is proved; the sinner will be helped while he is humbled, while he is chastised; that he may pay double for his sins: while his work is burned up, so that he himself may be saved, yet so as by fire. Perhaps also the sense fits thus: If I shall be worthy of judgment, I shall be worthy to be stripped of the fellowship of the impious; since The impious rise not again in judgment. And the judgments will help me; since he who believes in the Lord is not judged.

Faith will profit him, and will intercede for pardon, even if there be some offense in his works. There follows the last

I have gone astray like a sheep that was lost: quicken thy servant; because I have not forgotten thy commandments.

The Greek has: Seek thy servant, that is, ζήτησον: and the scribe could have erred, writing ζήσον, which is "quicken." Indeed either sense holds, but more fitting to this place is: Seek thy servant; since the sheep that has strayed must be sought by the shepherd, lest it perish. Therefore he says, I have erred. Declare thou also thy iniquities, that thou mayest be justified. In confessing your fall you have common fellowship with all; for no one is without sin: to deny this is sacrilege; for God alone is without sin. To confess this to God is a remedy of impunity. I have erred, he says: but he who has erred can return to the way, can be called back to the way.

And he added beautifully: Like a sheep that was lost; for he does not perish who recognizes his error.

Seek, he says, thy servant; because I have not forgotten thy commandments.

Come then, Lord Jesus: seek thy servant, seek thy weary sheep: come, shepherd, seek as the sheep of Joseph. Thy sheep has strayed, while thou dost delay, while thou dost dwell among the mountains. Leave thy ninety-nine sheep, and come to seek the one that has strayed. Come without dogs, come without evil workers, come without a hireling, who does not know how to enter by the door. Come without a helper, without a messenger: I have long awaited thy coming. For I know thou wilt come: because I have not forgotten thy commandments. Come not with a rod, but with charity, and gentleness of spirit.

Do not hesitate to leave your ninety-nine sheep in the mountains; because ravening wolves cannot attack those placed on the mountains.

In paradise the serpent did harm once: he lost his prey there, after Adam was thence expelled: there he could no longer do harm. Come to me, whom the assault of grievous wolves harasses. Come to me, whom, cast out of paradise, the poisons of the dire serpent's wound assail; because I have strayed from those higher flocks of thine: for thou hadst placed me there also, but the wolf of night turned me away from thy folds. Seek me; for I seek thee. Seek me, find me, take me up, carry me. Thou art able to find him whom thou seekest: thou dost deign to take up him whom thou hast found; to place upon thy shoulders him whom thou hast taken up. The pious burden is not tiresome to thee: the carrying of righteousness is no burden to thee.

Come then, Lord; for though I have erred, yet I have not forgotten thy commandments: I keep the hope of a remedy.

Come, Lord; for thou alone canst recall the straying sheep: and those thou hast left thou wilt not make sad; for they too will rejoice at the sinner's return. Come, that thou mayest work salvation on earth, joy in heaven.

Come then, and seek thy sheep now not through little servants, not through hirelings, but through thyself.

Take me up in the flesh, which fell in Adam. Take me up not from Sarah, but from Mary; that she may be an uncorrupted virgin, but a virgin through grace whole from every stain of sin. Carry me on the cross, which is salvation for the straying, in which alone is rest for the weary, in which alone shall live whoever dies.

And beautifully too may it be said, "quicken"

because he whom Power has carried on its shoulders cannot die.

The soul also says, and the Church also says: I have gone astray like a sheep that was lost.

But she says: I sought him whom my soul loved; for this is to say: Quicken thy servant; because I have not forgotten thy commandments. I have sought thee; but I cannot find thee, unless thou wilt to be found. And thou indeed dost will to be found; but thou dost will to be long sought, to be more diligently searched out. Thy Church knows this; because thou dost not wish that she seek thee sleeping; thou dost not wish that she search for thee while lying down. So thou knockest at the door, that thou mayest wake the sleeper: thou dost test whether the heart is awake, while the flesh sleeps. Thou dost wish to raise up her that lies down, saying: Rise, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead. Thou dost put thy hand through the opening, that she may rise: and if she rise too slowly, thou dost withdraw.

Thou dost wish her to seek again, and to seek by many means, and not to forget to seek, not to forget thy words: and if she keeps them, thou dost offer thyself to be seen, and dost not refuse to be held.

When she has merited to embrace thee, she will show her fruits, she will teach that she has not forgotten thy commandments, and will say to thee: Come, my brother: let us go out into the field; and at our doors are all the fruits of the trees: new and old; my brother, I have kept for thee.

This is to say: I keep all thy commandments, of the New and Old Testament. Only the Church can say this. No other congregation says it: not the Synagogue, which keeps neither the new according to the letter, nor the old according to the spirit. The Manichaean heresy does not say: I have kept old things for thee, since it does not receive the Prophets. Rightly is she seen made white, who shines with the grace of both Testaments.

The Bridegroom answered her: Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a signet upon thine arm, thou who hast kept for me things new and old. Thou art my seal, thou art after my image and likeness. In thee shines the image of righteousness, the image of wisdom, the image of virtue. And because the image of God is in thy heart, let it also be in thy works: let the likeness of the Gospel be in thy deeds, that thou mayest keep my precepts in thy conduct. The likeness of the Gospel will be in thee, if to him that strikes thy cheek thou offer the other; if thou love thine enemy; if thou take up thy cross, and follow me. Therefore I bore the cross for you; lest you should hesitate to bear it for yourself.

The daughters of Jerusalem heard this, that the Lord Jesus was now joining the Church to himself: and

because, considering the greatness of the Word, they judged her unequal to so great a marriage; lest by chance she might not be able to bear the weight of so great a union, they make excuse, saying: Our sister is little, and has no breasts. For thus are wont to make excuse those who wish to delay marriages, that they may plead the weakness of immature age, and allege that she has no breasts, which signify the marriageable time of age. This is wont to be a sign common to all virgins about to be married; that when the breasts begin to show, then they are judged fit for union.

Troubled therefore that the zeal of love urges on the Bridegroom's marriage, they say: What shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? Or, as Symmachus has it, in which he shall speak to her; that is, it is customary in the solemnity of espousals for a conversation and confirmation of the marriage to take place. What then shall we do, say they, troubled, since the spiritual union is being urged on? They cannot make excuse from so great a marriage; for there is no one who does not think blessed the union either of the soul and the Spirit, or of Christ and the Church. But because the fullness of the Word or of the Holy Spirit gleams and shines, and there is nothing that can be compared to it, therefore they desire to delay it; that by that delay either the soul or the Church may be able to become more perfect.

They say then: If she is a wall, let us build upon it chambers of silver: and if she is a door, let us carve upon it boards of cedar. The wall is the soul of the saint. The Church too has her walls, she who, now more perfect, says: I am a fortified city. This is the wall, which has twelve apostolic gates, through which entrance into the Church lies open to the people of the nations. But although a wall may enclose the whole circuit of the city, it is nevertheless then more fortified when it has chambers prepared, in which the defenders of the city can have safe means of watching and defending. But because this is a rational city, and all her hope is in the Word of God, she needs not iron but silver battlements, accustomed to repel hostile assaults more by heavenly eloquence than by bodily pleasures. Supported by that defense, shining with that splendor, she is judged more fitted for union with Christ.

And because the door is Christ, who says: By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved; the Church too is called a door; because through her lies open to peoples the entrance to salvation. Lest she be corrupted by the moths or worms of heretics, say the daughters of Jerusalem, or the Angels, or the souls of the just: Let us build upon her boards of cedar, that is, the sweet fragrance of a sublime faith; for the odor of this material is sweet, which neither worm nor moth corrupts. Therefore the use of this material is chosen for raising the heights of roofs, and for shaping the letters of the alphabet, by which boyhood is instructed in the study of liberal learning. This material, then, is sublime in grace, light in weight, sweet in fragrance, useful as an instrument of knowledge, fit for the service of eternal understanding.

But just as Christ, loving His Bride, was urging on toward the solemn celebration of spiritual union, so also the Church, now already captivated by the beauty of the Word, hastened toward the wedding.

And therefore, impatient of the delays and postponements which the daughters of Jerusalem were eager to contrive, she says: I am a wall, and my breasts are as towers, that is: Do not doubt whether I am a wall (for they had said: if she is a wall); I, she says, am a wall, and I do not have small breasts, but my breasts are as towers. How do you say that I have no breasts? I have perceptions, like towers, of wisdom, in which there is abundance, as it is written: And abundance in your towers. By these breasts, that is, by her perceptions, she reckoned herself fit for so great a marriage; but the daughters of Jerusalem could not yet judge so, because they did not see the abundance of her perceptions.

And she added: I was in his eyes as one finding peace

that is: When my perceptions had been weighed, since I had found the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, and guards hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Such, she says, was I in the eyes of the Bridegroom, as one who has peace. For it is written: They who rightly seek peace shall have it as testimony. As the Beloved and the Beloved One thus hastened, the spiritual union was celebrated, sought by mutual consent.

And therefore, as if singing a nuptial song, the Spirit exulted in the Prophet, saying: A vineyard was made for Solomon in Beelamon: he gave his vineyard to those who keep it. The Spirit therefore cries out: The congregation of peoples has been planted, and the vine of eternal root has been founded, and with meek heart has subjected spiritual necks to the yoke of the Word. It was planted, moreover, among a multitude of nations; for that this is to be understood by Beelamon, Symmachus, Aquila, and other Greek translations have taught. The old union, which could bring forth no fruit, was repudiated: the vineyard was given to new and faithful cultivators, who could not only produce fruit but also guard it. One sheep, then, went astray: but being called back, it filled the expanse of the whole world. Error had led away one sheep: but the grace of the Lord gathered together a multitude of peoples. Man went astray: but the Church is now a wall, and a strong wall.

Adam went astray: David is a wall, who did not forget the commandments of God.

This vineyard, then, guarded and fenced round with spiritual defense, gives a thousand fruits to Christ, but two hundred fruits to its keepers. And therefore the Church says: My vineyard is before me; a thousand for Solomon, and two hundred for those who keep the fruit. The perfection and fullness of Christ is the portion of the little servants. You have this mystery in Genesis, where Joseph gave five portions to his younger brother Benjamin, single portions to the rest of the brothers. To the Lord, then, is brought the portion and privilege of the five senses, which He indeed bestows upon him whom He loves: just as He loved Paul also, to whom He gave the primacy of wisdom for calling forth the nations.

Delighted, then, by these fruits, the Church says to Christ: You who sit in the gardens, the friends are attending to your voice: make your voice known to me. For she was delighted that Christ sat in the gardens: and the friends, placed in the gardens, attended to his voice. But because those friends were of the heavenly ones, the Archangels, or Dominions, and Thrones (for men had been expelled from paradise on account of disobedience to the heavenly commands, and therefore the Church could not yet hear his voice, which she desired), therefore she says: Make your voice known to me. Whence we too, if we wish him to sit in us, let us be enclosed and fortified gardens, let us bear the flowers of virtues, the sweetness of grace; that we may be able to hear the Lord Jesus disputing with the Angels.

But because it was to come to pass that, when the Church had arrived at her fullness, she would be tried by various persecutions; therefore, while she was delighting in the grace of the Word, she suddenly perceives the snares of persecutors: and fearing more for the Bridegroom than for herself, or because Christ is more sought after by persecutors in us, she therefore says: Flee, my brother, and be like a young roe, or a fawn of deer, upon the mountains of spices. He flees for the sake of the weak, who could not bear heavier trials. And so it is written that we should flee from cities to cities: and if we have been persecuted in this city, let us flee into another. For the sake of the weak, then, as we have said, let him flee from persecutors: or let him flee from the weak, and pass over to the mountains of spices, who by martyrdom can bring forth the fragrance of the blessed resurrection. The mountains of spices are the saints.

To them Christ flees, because His foundations are in the holy mountains.

To them, then, He flees, who are His firm foundations. In us He flees; in them He stands upon a steadfast station. The mountain of spices, then, is Paul, who can say: For we are the good odor of Christ unto God. The mountain of spices is David, whose fragrance of prayer ascended to the Lord; and therefore he said: Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight.

Symmachus, however, and Aquila have interpreted it thus, that Christ says to the Church: You who sit in the gardens

that is, you now sit in the gardens, worthy of the paradise above; and therefore: Make your voice known to me, to whom the friends attend. I too desire to hear it. The Church began to be in the gardens, after Christ suffered in the gardens.