Second Apology of David 1–31

Perhaps the title of the psalm which you heard read has offended many: that Nathan the prophet came to him when he had gone in to Bathsheba. At the same time the reading of the Gospel which has been gone through could also have raised no small scruple among the unlearned, in which you noticed that an adulteress was brought to Christ and dismissed without condemnation. For certainly, if anyone takes these things in with careless ears, he incurs an incitement to error, when he reads of the adultery of a holy man and the acquittal of an adulteress, with an example of falling, as it were, both human and divine: that a man thought adultery could be done and God judged that adultery should not be condemned. Slippery, then, is the road to a fall, whether of pardon or of desire.

There is also this, that he seems to kindle the very torches of youthful wantonness, because he did not blush at his adultery, did not hide it, but published it by a kind of proclamation in a divine song. What then? Was holy David so shameless and improvident as to sing his own disgrace, especially since he himself said in another psalm too, which was gone through today: “How long, O Lord, how long shall sinners boast?” Does he forbid others to boast of sin, and himself boast of it even in a sacred song? How, then, are we to distinguish these things?

Suppose, however, that David erred wantonly: did Christ also err, so that we should think he did not have right judgment? Well, then, did David prophesy today as if to them, saying: “Understand, you senseless ones, and you fools, be wise at last.” For how could Christ err? It is not right for this to enter our minds. “Does he who planted the ear not hear, or he who formed the eye not see? He who rebukes the nations, will he not reprove, he who teaches man knowledge?” Did Christ, then, not know how to question guilt and hear a just accusation? Could Christ approve wantonness? Did Christ, who rebukes the nations, think that the adulteress should not be reproved? Did Christ, who knows the inner things of each heart and teaches the knowledge of the law, either be deceived by an error or judge against the order of the law? And how did he himself say: “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it”? Could Christ, who condemns hidden things, overlook public ones? Can Christ, who made the times, not know the times? Does he who knows the vain thoughts of men not know the criminal ones also?

And so let that be a sufficient answer to those who, though they cannot deny the Creator, nevertheless deny the Creator’s power, and who, though they confess his wisdom, assert his foolishness by charging him with lack of foresight about the future. On this I could discourse more broadly, but another treatise seems to be set before us. And although a series of different readings has been gone through, they nevertheless serve the same argument, especially the title of the psalm and the Gospel reading. But though the argument is one, let the order of the treatise follow the order of the readings, and therefore it seems we must first treat the title of the psalm.

The history set before us contains adultery and murder. For we find it written thus in the book of Kingdoms: that King David, while walking in his house, saw Uriah’s wife bathing, loved her at once, and ordered her to be fetched. Then he ordered her husband, innocent as Scripture presents him, to be thrown against the fiercest warriors, so that he might be overcome by enemy force. These things were done, and they are not denied. How, then, will they be defended? The Gospel reading admonishes well that, even when sin is apparent, the judgment of the judge ought nevertheless to be sober, and each one ought to be mindful of his own condition and merit. For often in judging the sin of the judgment is greater than the sin of the one who was judged. For if it has been prescribed by certain wise men of the world that in judging care must be taken that the penalty be not greater than the fault, and this is observed, how much more does it seem it should be observed that each one who is about to judge another should first judge himself, and not condemn lesser errors in another when he himself has committed graver ones. Who are you, then, who judge David, a holy man? I say it to the Gentile, I say it to the Jew, I say it to the Christian. And therefore it seems to me the treatise should be divided into three parts: one against the Gentiles, another against the Jews, the third among Christians.

My first discourse, then, is against the Gentiles, who usually object: “See how the Christians pursue innocence, display faith, revere religion, teach chastity, whose leaders are reported to have committed both murders and adulteries! David himself, from whose race, as you say, Christ chose to be born, himself sang of his murders and adulteries. What sort can the disciples be, whose teachers are such?” What then?

Do we deny the deed or repudiate the teacher? Neither; but let one who objects a particular case consider what is common. The particular case of the deed is the commonness of nature. It is no wonder, then, if the particular lies within the general. For I acknowledge that David was a man, and it is no wonder: I acknowledge what is common, that a man sins. For the infirmity of the human condition is nothing new, and it seems more wonderful if a man is without sin than if he falls into sin. Holy David, then, committed sin (I will not keep you in any doubt): he committed adultery, he devised a murder, both devised and carried it out. He sinned, as kings are wont to do; but he did penance and wept, as kings are not wont to do. He asked pardon, not presuming on his power but conscious of his weakness; prostrate on the ground, he covered himself with sackcloth, forgetful of his rule and mindful of his fault.

Find me a man of this kind, who, placed in power, does not rather love his crimes, proclaim his fault, defend his sins; who thinks that what is not fitting is not permitted to him; who binds himself by his own laws and recognizes that what is not permitted by justice is not permitted by power either. For power does not dissolve justice, but justice power; the king is not released from the laws, but releases the laws by his example. Or can it be that

he who judges others should himself be free from his own judgment and permit himself what he binds others in? Good, then, was David, and much more admirable as one who conquered power than one who conquered love. For chastity is sometimes yielded up by the body, often by error; but power is subject to God, and it is easier for one to restrain himself in love than to be moderate in power. Do you not, then, pardon what is less in one in whom you admire greater things? Slippery in all men and prone to sinning is nature; slippery too, even in good characters, is the license of power and the offer of opportunity. For the anger of a king differs not from the anger of a lion; but one who provokes him and meddles with him sins against his own soul. Let no one, then, provoke power, lest the soul, entangled in bodily snares, be unable to free itself from vice. It is no wonder, then, if David too slipped through the appearance of power; but much more to be admired is that he was called back by the contemplation of faith.

You see, then, that this worldly power often profits nothing and generally does harm; for often the outcome of a fault lies in the authority of power. Do not, then, whoever you are, O king, presume on your might and resources; for “the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord.” Do not flatter yourself on the subjection of peoples, because “a king will not be saved by the multitude of his strength, nor will a giant be saved by the multitude of his strength.” For not in the lofty peaks of tents and the costly summit of roofs, but “in those who fear him the Lord is well pleased, and in those who hope in his mercy.”

So we see that power is slippery toward vices; yet I would not say it is always bent toward them, since we read that David, exalted by royal power, increased divine worship, and that Solomon consecrated a temple to the Lord.

Now let us establish what we touched on, that the opportunity of ruling is an incitement to sinning, and let us follow the course of the history. David would not have violated the right of another’s bed and the compact of a covenanted marriage had he not seen from the inner part of his house a woman naked and bathing. And therefore it is well written: “Do not fall upon the beauty of a woman, and do not desire a woman,” and elsewhere: “Beware of every irreverent eye.” Presume nothing on your continence and virtue. For “the fornication of a woman is recognized in the haughtiness of her eyes and in her eyelids”; and therefore flee first the cause of sin; for no one is strong for long. And it is said not to the frail only but to every man: “Let not desire for beauty overcome you” (if you do not wish to be overcome, do not engage with sins, lest vices be crowned at your expense) “and do not be captured by her eyes or carried off by her eyelids.” A woman seems to you cheap in price but strong toward vice, because a woman captures the precious souls of men.

It is hard, then, for anyone entangled in the enticements of lust to escape unharmed. Nor is this judged hard by my opinion alone; it is judged impossible in the Proverbs of holy Solomon too, who, led by his own example, says: “Will anyone tie fire in his bosom and not burn his clothes? Or will anyone walk on coals of fire and not burn his feet?” Beware, then, you too, lest you kindle within the bosom of your mind the fire of lust and love, lest the bodily garment be consumed by that burning of the soul, and the everlastingness of the resurrection, or at least the footstep of your mind, be burned, if you think you must walk through the torches of lusts; for one who is burned in heart is consumed in body.

In every way, then, encounter with feminine wantonness must be avoided. And therefore, it says, “acquire prudence as your disciple, so that she may guard you from another’s wife and the fornicating woman,” lest she hold you bound with the snares of her lips and entangle you in the little curls of error. And so the prophet has taught you from where you ought to beware the harlot: that you beware her entrance from the window. For she enters from the window of her house, and her window is the eye; and therefore “beware of every irreverent eye,” lest love enter through the window and lust penetrate. For the fornicating woman entices the lover by sight, and unless you check the wanton gaze of the mind and spirit, death enters through the window. The wantonness of a harlot is not lazy, her lasciviousness not idle; it makes the hearts of young men fly, so that they cannot hold the constancy of their own mind and are swept this way and that by burning love. Beware, then, of a woman of this kind, whose feet do not rest, who wanders outside, lies in wait at the corners, binds with her eyes, entices with words, has woven her bed with bands and spread it with tapestries from Egypt. For she takes her adornment not from divine knowledge but from worldly enticement, she who rightly says that her husband is absent, since no adulteress can have Christ

present. You see, then, with how many nets even the hearts of saints are captured, and therefore do not wonder if holy David too was captured, a great man indeed, who conquered by faith the foreigner, huge in body and bristling with weapons of war. But would that he had conquered himself; would that, as he laid that adversary low, so he had been able to lay low and overcome his inner adversary! Harder is the fight of one who fights within than of him who fights outside.

But why do I speak of David alone? Let us summon others too to a discussion of this kind, lest we think the weakness was David’s, that is, of one man, rather than the infirmity of our bodily condition. Samson, strong and mighty, strangled a lion, but could not strangle his love. He broke the bonds of enemies, but did not break the ties of his own desires. He burned others’ crops, and, himself kindled by the little fire of one woman, lost the harvest of his strength. Solomon built a temple to God: but would that he had kept the temple of his own body! But let our discourse return to the one from whom it departed. David triumphed over ten thousands, but he erred among twenty thousands and more; and because he erred, he recognized that he was a man, confessed his fault, and begged pardon, saying to the Lord: “O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak.” If David was weak, are you strong? If Solomon fell, are you immovable? If Paul was the first of sinners, can you be the first of saints? So if these erred, they erred as men, but they acknowledged their sin as just men. If the just received the sentence of a harsher punishment, how do you set before yourself a hope of impunity, when Scripture says: “If the just man is scarcely saved, where will the sinner and the wicked appear?”

You notice, then, my sons, how often an occasion of sinning undermines even a good purpose, and therefore you ought first to flee and avoid the occasions themselves. You do not wish to be caught by love: do not gaze at the beauty of a woman, because “when your eyes see a strange woman, then your mouth will speak perverse things, and you will lie as in the heart of the sea and as a pilot in a great storm.” For the multitudes of desires make a great tempest, which toss one sailing as in a strait of the body this way and that, so that the mind cannot be its own pilot, not knowing day from night in the fog of love.

So lust is roused by the eyes but inflamed by drunkenness; “and every drunkard and fornicator will become poor.” Do not flatter yourself on your power to drink. Noah became drunk, and he who was not drowned by the flood was drowned by wine. But he did not know the nature of wine, for he had not drunk before; you have learned in him what you ought to beware of. Lot was deceived through sleep; and you, if you do not wish to be deceived, shake off the sleep of your mind, lest a son mock you when drunk or a daughter when asleep. It is not piety that is mocked there but drunkenness; it is not a father who is cheated there but a sleeper. Do you wish not to be burned? Do not approach the fire. Do you wish not to be thrown headlong? Flee what totters, beware of steep places, turn aside from what is falling.

You see, then, that in those who deserved to be just there was not a different nature, but a different discipline. For after the fall of the first man and the just sentence, since appetite was condemned in the one flesh, our condition contracted vice, fault infected nature; but faith tempered the vice of nature itself, and the effort of devotion softened the offence.

Turn, then, to God, you nations, and know that the Lord himself is God. He made us, and not we ourselves. Know that we are flesh and dust. Let us leave, then, what we have done and revere him who is our author, who gave life and forgave sins, who alone can say: “I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities and will not remember.” Great indeed and merciful is God, who confers a benefit and does not reproach the gift of the benefit. Do you wonder that he made David king and conqueror of many nations? So he is accustomed to raise up his little servants. Not stingy with gifts, nor sparing of benefit, nor narrow in grace, nor frugal, but opulent in generosity, those whom he redeemed from sin he increases in reward. So much against the Gentiles.

But since we promised a threefold division of this treatise, one against the Gentiles, another against the Jews, the third within the church, it now seems we must treat against the Jews. Let us review, then, what is set before us. The title of the psalm, it says, is: “Understanding of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, when he had gone in to Bathsheba.” Certainly this history presents David as both an adulterer and a murderer, and this is the man you, Jews, say is the Son of God! But God is God of virtues, not of crimes, and of him God the Father says: “His throne as the days of heaven.” One who has committed guile will not have overcome sins; and how is it written: “No one is without sin but God alone”? If, then, he who is the Son of God cannot but be God, surely the Son of God is the judge of righteousness, not liable to fault.

By what opinion do you judge either David to be the Son of God, or think Solomon to be? Is it because it is written: “O God, give your judgment to the king and your righteousness to the king’s son,” and because the title of the psalm says that the seventy-first psalm was composed for Solomon? But notice which Solomon it means. For Solomon is “peaceful”: this is what the interpretation contains. The psalm is spoken of him whom we truly know to be the lover of peace. But how was Solomon peaceful? The blood of Joab does not show it, whom he ordered to be killed among the altars of the temple; nor the punishment of Adonijah, whom he struck down as guilty of aspiring to a royal marriage-alliance, and was not called back from his indignation even by his mother’s entreaty. And how do you think it fits Solomon, son of David, that it is written that “he will remain with the sun and before the moon for ages of ages,” when he, having obtained the use of a short life, passed the span of his living within narrow limits? And how is it said of him: “He will rule from sea to sea,” when he, set within Syria, that is, within the province of one region, had the bounds of his rule circumscribed, while Christ alone has extended his rule to the bounds of the whole world? For he alone is the one of whom the course of the psalm prophesied well that “the kings of the Arabs and of Sheba will bring gifts, and all the kings of the earth will worship him, all nations will serve him.” For we know him ruling all peoples and nations with an uncircumscribed rule and unlimited power.

Solomon, then, is not the Son of God. But for what reason did you think him the Son of God? Because he was wise? But he asked for wisdom, so as to receive what he did not have; Christ is himself wisdom, having by nature in the whole universe what Solomon received by grace in human affairs. Indeed, what is received from time is possessed in time. For Solomon neither had wisdom at his beginning nor possessed it at his end. For he did not believe he had what he asked for, and afterwards, turned away from the worship of God, he fell not as a wise man but as a fool, so as to give offence; and he gave offence so as to lose even what he had merited. Why, then, did you believe him the Son of God? Because he built a temple to God? But from this you ought to have believed that he was not Lord and God, because it is written: “Unless the Lord builds his house, in vain have they labored who build it.” In vain did he labor who built that temple which fire set beneath it burned up. Or because it was said to David his father: “You shall not build me a house, but when you sleep, I will raise up your seed after you”? But there too a temple not bodily, not material is promised; for God does not dwell in things made by hand, but the temple is the holy church, which is founded not by human but by heavenly power.

For if we admire works of a more excellent, but still human, power, we find many of this kind whom we can compare with Solomon. And therefore where there is equality of work, there is no excellence of power. Nor can we speak of many sons of God, since we have read of one Son of God; but an injury must not be done to the Son of God on the basis of the benefits he conferred on our fathers. For there were many illustrious men; but through one, Joshua son of Nun, “let the sun stand,” it says, “over Gibeon.” You see that he went beyond David in power; for David commanded earthly things, not the stars. You see too that the sun is a servant, not a lord, since it obeyed even a human voice. Yet it stood, because in Joshua it recognized both the type of the one to come and the name. For Joshua son of Nun commanded the heavenly lights not by his own power but by the mystery of Christ; for it was being signified that the Son of God would come into this world, who by divine power would put off the setting of the world’s light, already sinking and verging into darkness, would restore the light and bring in brightness. Enoch too was taken up to heaven; but he was taken up, this one returned. He was taken up lest malice should change his heart; this one abolished the very malice of this world. Elijah ascended to heaven by chariot and horses; but Christ descended from heaven without chariot or horses. The one went up thus because he could not otherwise; this one went back by his own power. Elisha ordered the leper to wash in the Jordan, so as to be cleansed from all contagion; this one washed the whole world in the Jordan. Moses himself, to whom it was entrusted that the people of the Jews should cross, divided the water. And he divided the elements because he did not divide the power of the Trinity; he separated the masses of the waters because he did not separate the Father from the Son.

You see how great these men were and what proofs of works they left. How, then, do you judge unequal in condition those whom you recognize as equal in power to King David or Solomon, so that you think Solomon, son of David, sits at the right hand of God, especially since David himself clearly expressed of whom it was said? For he would not have said of his own son: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand.” For how would he call his own son Lord? The law forbids, religion opposes, faith shrinks from your placing a mortal man at the right hand of almighty God. Another is he who sits at the right hand, who took up a body, not who began from a body, who was begotten before the morning star, that is, before the brightness of all the lights, since he himself created the brightness of the various lights; for Solomon certainly comes after the morning star. Solomon was not a priest; and therefore it could not be said to him by almighty God: “From the womb before the morning star I begot you”; it could not be said to him: “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek,” especially since in the time in which Solomon lived the priests were after the order of Aaron, not after Melchizedek. For the priests were still offering the blood of goats and bulls for the sins and errors of the people; but after he came who offered himself for the salvation of the world, so that those whom the blood of bulls could not wash the blood of Christ might cleanse, priests began to offer themselves as victims.

And so with one question our Lord Jesus Christ has stopped the mouths of all heretics and shut in their sacrileges. For by this question he refuted not only the Jews but also the Photinians and Arians and Sabellians. And therefore, since we now see that the Jews have failed and that execrable faithlessness diminished, some things must now be touched on in the treatment of this question concerning the Arians, who do not differ much from the Jews, and the Photinians and Sabellians. Let Photinus, then, be silent, who says that Christ is the son of David, not of God; and let him be silent, condemned by the heavenly voice. For how does he say that Christ is the son of David, when David himself said in the book of Psalms: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”? “If David,” he says, “calls him Lord, how is he his son?” So Christ is not the son of David, but the Son of God. Let the Sabellian too be silent: when he reads that the Lord said to the Lord, let him understand that he who speaks and he to whom it is spoken are not one and the same (for the Father does not say to himself, “Sit at my right hand,” nor did he say to himself, “I will put your enemies”); and let all at last understand that it is the Son who sits at the right hand, and let them keep this distinction between Father and Son, that the Father and the Son are distinct, in that the Father is one and the Son another; but because they sit on one throne, they enjoy one majesty, and they sit not for a distinction of dignity nor for an order of power but for the bond of love; let them understand one power of Father and Son. In this let Arius too fall silent, who presses the footsteps of an error contrary to Sabellius. Let him hear the Lord speaking to the Lord, let him hear that the Son sits at the right hand of the Father, and let him cease to raise a question about the Godhead from the speech and order of men. Nor let him argue here that the Father says “Sit”; for we read elsewhere too that the Son sits without the Father’s word, as it is written: “And he sits at the right hand of God,” and elsewhere: “From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God.” For he is the one to whom “Sit” is said, who is called the Son of Man. He hears as man; he sits as Son of God. What more excellent can be said than this power, which placed even the flesh of man at the right hand of God, and joined that weakness of the human condition, after the Word was made flesh, to eternal divinity? But what is this?

After Photinus has fallen dumb, Arius gone silent, Sabellius lost his voice, I still see the mouths of heresy stirring up various things against the church. For see, the Manichee and the Valentinian and every offshoot of the Manichees relies on the weapon by which the others were slain: it contrives a prejudice against faith from the testimony of faith. For the detestable heresy says: “See, Christ denied that he was the son of David; and therefore,” it says, “it must be believed that he did not take up flesh.” To these Scripture answers most plainly at the very beginning of the Gospel and says: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David.” Why, then, is he elsewhere called son of David, or elsewhere denied to be son of David, unless that you may understand that it is one thing to be son according to the divine substance, another according to the taking up of flesh? For according to the divine substance he is Son of God, according to the flesh son of David. And so, where the generation of the Savior according to the flesh is described, he is named son of David; but where the fullness of confession is required, when the generation of the Savior is designated, the Son of God does not wish to be named son of David; for the designation of his majesty interprets his nature. But now, the interpretations of the perverse having been refuted, our discourse must turn to the church.

But that we often repeat the title of the fiftieth psalm is an example not of presumption but of weakness. For in one day, whether through the narrowness of my talent or the frailty of my voice, I cannot complete the whole course of the treatise. And therefore, since on the previous day our discourse was directed against the Jews, whom the proofs of faith so far overcame that Christ was placed on the heavenly throne (which certainly cannot fit a man, for it is not credible that anyone other than the Son of God sits at the right hand of God), no one else, all ambiguities removed, is to be thought by us to sit at the Father’s right hand but the Son of God. Again, since Scripture has: “Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne,” the same Son of God is surely to be believed to have taken flesh from Mary, in whom is the fruit of the prophetic womb, so that you may recognize truly the succession of origin and not doubt that he, the Son of God, made afterwards the Son of Man by the taking up of flesh, sits on the heavenly throne. For Christ did not have any royal throne in this world, so that you should think another throne was promised to David’s seed, especially since the Lord himself said: “My kingdom is not of this world.”

So, shut in on every side, they divert the attempts of their faithlessness to asserting that it is incredible that God took up flesh; but they cannot explain for what reason he could not take it up. For I ask whether they think flesh could not be taken up by God because of impossibility or because of injury. If because of impossibility, is anything then impossible to God? For there is nothing he has willed to do and could not do. It remains, then, that it be shown either that he willed or that he did not will. And what greater sign of will than what he himself said: “I appeared openly to those who did not seek me. I spread out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting”? If, then, he willed and was able, do we think he was unwilling because of injury? And what injury does the Godhead feel to itself? For it is free from insult and not subject to our passions; for flesh could bring neither loss nor increase to the Godhead.

Those, however, who object that the Son of God could not take up flesh: if they are Gentiles, how can they, who testify that their gods, since they cannot deny that they were men, were seen in human form? Or could their king, whom they set before all their gods, take up monstrous forms for love, and could Christ not take up the flesh of man, whom he made in his own image, that most excellent work of his, for the salvation of the world? And does it seem finer to them that the form of flesh was assumed for the adultery of another’s bed than for the redemption of all? But if the Jew objects to this, how does he read: “Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and his name will be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us”? How does he read: “Behold, I who spoke am present”? And how does he assert that it is read: “Behold, as a panther and as a bear bereaved I will meet them”? Could the Son of God, then, not take up flesh for the redemption of all, when they themselves cannot deny that for the punishment of our sins God put on a kind of disposition of wild cruelty, so that he who is by nature kind and merciful, yet moved by the atrocity of our crimes, takes on against us a kind of savagery of beasts?

But now, since I think enough answer has been given to the Jews both on the previous day and today, to you, dearest brothers, I must render an account of the prophetic deed. For when this title of the psalm was first read, that Nathan came to David when he had gone in to Bathsheba, we said that many are offended by the course of this history, and therefore we undertook a threefold treatment of it, and I thought the division of the treatise should be made thus: that with the Gentiles the fall of our condition should not be denied and the correction of the error should be established; with the Jews, that we should teach that holy David fell so that the faithlessness of the Jews might limp no longer and they might cease to believe him the Son of God, whom they saw to have been liable to sin by the common condition; and that Christians might notice the mysteries of the rising church. So the threefold division was made: one according to nature, another according to faith, the third according to grace. Weakness does not exclude from pardon, and faith excuses from fault, and the sacraments win the grace long promised.