Second Apology of David 57–75

But now let us seek the mystery. “There were two men,” it says, “in one city, one rich and the other poor.” Who is this rich man or poor man unless perhaps the one the people of the Jews, the other the Christian people? The former rich in the law, rich in the oracles of God entrusted to it, rich in prophecies, rich in oracles; the latter poor. But do not flee this poverty, which the kingdom of heaven follows; for it is written: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Good is the poverty that does not lose what it has had. Good is the poverty which, if it has no treasures of money, nevertheless has treasures of knowledge and wisdom. Do not, my sons, despise poverty as cheap; “this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.” Do not envy great riches as such; “the rich have been in want and hungered.” But if you wish to have good things, seek the Lord; for “those who seek the Lord will not lack any good thing.” So do not refuse any poor man. Peter was poor and had no coin to give, but he gave health more precious than any money. Lazarus in the Gospel was poor; but he who before lay rich in scarlet and purple wished, after the end of life, to be cooled by the poor man’s dripping finger. Although, proud in royal scarlet and in purple garments, the fastidious rich man shuddered at the poor man’s sores, yet, placed in the underworld, he wished he had been in that place where Lazarus was. In that place the reading does not seem to describe a man rich and poor in money, but that poor man who for faith and devotion did not shudder at wounds of the body and endured hunger and fasting.

Though, then, the people of the Jews had in its flocks a great abundance of victims, yet it snatched the one little sheep which that poor people had, subjecting it to that glorious passion. Do you want to know what sheep? He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, who was fed on the poor man’s bread and used the poor man’s drink and slept in the poor man’s bosom. For he used our food, he rested in the lap of our breast. For he said he could not rest in the bosom of the Jews, saying: “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

“And a guest came,” he says, “to that rich man.” Who is this guest but wretched sin? For fault entered this world like a guest, foreign and strange to our nature. And so he did not offer a victim from his own flocks, but took the poor man’s little sheep and killed it. Whose passion, though it profited for a saving sanctuary, yet seems to have been for him an increase of his fury, food for his fault, and an incitement to sin. Indeed Judas received bread from Christ, and then was filled the more with the devil, because he did not receive it in faith, he who was preparing betrayal for so hospitable a Lord.

“And David was angry with that man.” We said that the prophet signifies the people of the Jews, and therefore under this figure it condemns itself. “That man who did these things is worthy of death, and he shall restore the little sheep fourfold”; that is, the people of the Jews would perish, but the Christian people would enjoy more abundant goods, because the state that is owed from the resurrection is better than the present.

My purpose was, as you will kindly remember, to answer in my discourse those who condemn the murder and adultery of holy David; and so, with the favor of your unanimity, the course of our treatise has turned out such that he whom we thought could not be defended seemed rightly to be praised by all. But since the holy man does not need our help, let him now speak to you for himself, and let his own words defend his deed.

“Have mercy on me, O Lord,” he says, “according to your great mercy.” This combination of words is new, unless I am mistaken, dearest brothers, that “great mercy” should be said, and I do not remember easily reading it elsewhere. And therefore we ought to notice what great mercy is. For although we do not easily read “great mercy,” we do read “the great power of God.” And therefore, by considering what great power is, we shall be able to infer what great mercy he wished to designate. For we read in holy Jeremiah: “Who are you, O Lord? You made heaven and earth by your great power and your high arm.” So great power made heaven. What is this great power, the Father’s or the Son’s? The Father’s power is certainly great (for he made heaven and earth through the Son, as you have: “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”); but the Son too is great power. For when you read that the Son is the power of the Father, as you have that Christ is the wisdom and power of God, surely, since the Son is the power of the Father, the Son is great power. How, then, is he denied to be almighty, whom we confess to be the great power of God? This great power, then, made heaven, because the Son too made heaven, as you have: “All things were made through him.” So if both the Father made and the Son, surely the unity of the deed indicates the unity of the working. So the working of the Father and the Son does not differ. And if there is one working, surely there is one power of working and one majesty of the things made. So much about the Father and the Son.

Why, then, are we silent about the Spirit, especially since divine Scripture does not let us be silent? For the passage gives a most fitting testimony for proving the unity of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, so that we cannot separate his working either from the work of the Father and the Son. For we read that the Father is great power, because he made heaven; that the Son too is great power, since he made heaven, and not only made it but also made it firm; for “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm.” So if both making and making firm the heaven belong to great power, we cannot separate the Holy Spirit either from the majesty of great power, because it is written: “And by the Spirit of his mouth all their power.” For when heaven and earth were being made, the Spirit was borne above, of whom he says elsewhere through the prophet David: “Send forth your Spirit, and they will be created.” Of him he also said elsewhere: “For I will see the heavens, the works of your fingers.” For God did not make heaven and earth with bodily fingers, but by the sevenfold grace of the Spirit, that is, by that finger of which you have in the Gospel: “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God.” For this finger he called elsewhere the Spirit, as you have: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God.” If, then, the Spirit is the finger of God, since the Son is the arm of God, surely the Spirit, working together with the Father and the Son through the unity of working, made heaven and earth. For the Son named him a finger precisely so as to express the unity of the Godhead as of one body. And so if great power founded heaven, surely great wisdom founded heaven, because it is written: “In wisdom you have made all things.”

We have learned, then, what great power is; let us now gather what great mercy is. If great power made the heavens, great mercy too ought to be from heaven, and great righteousness ought to be from heaven; for righteousness looked down from heaven, and mercy came from heaven. So mercy became great because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. So great power made the heavens, great power bowed the heavens, as we read: “And he bowed the heavens and came down.” By this it is shown that the Son of God was never without his divinity, not even when he lived among men; since, though he took up what he was not, he did not cease to be what he was. And so when it is said, “And he bowed the heavens and came down,” he seems not so much to have come down from heaven as to have come down with heaven itself. For when the Father addressed the Son placed on earth, and angels ministered, the Son of God seems not so much to have changed his seat as to have moved it. So we have learned that mercy is great.

And so, if it is great mercy to have come down from heaven, we ought to distinguish and understand what the multitude of compassions is. For thus it follows: “And according to the multitude of your compassions blot out my iniquity.” For the two little verses do not mean the same thing; the first refers to the incarnation, but what follows seems to refer to the injuries which the Son of God took up in the flesh: that he fasted, hungered, wept, was beaten, was crucified, died, was buried; for these are the marks of the flesh, not of the divinity. And it was necessary that the multitude of compassions should drive away the multitude of hardships, the struggle of the Lord’s passion being to profit us.

For he was not blotting out his own sins, because he had committed no sin; but because he was made sin, our sins had to be blotted out, as David said: “Blot out my iniquity.” What is “blot out”? Let us look at this word; it is not idle. Indeed elsewhere too he says: “I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, and I will not remember.” There are indeed certain ulcers of offences deeply impressed on our conscience, and certain weals of our minds and souls, which are covered over with the sores of our errors. So fault has its characters and letters, by which it is betrayed. This we do not invent by our own wit; we mark it by prophetic authority. It is written, then; and see where it is written. “On the breast,” he says, “of your heart”; that is, there the record of fault is written where also the form of virtue is, not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart. But good things are inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, while vicious things are inscribed with a pen of iron and a point of diamond. The writing is almost such as the punishment of sin. That is written with a pen of iron; this is restrained with a rod of iron, as it is written: “You will rule them with a rod of iron.” That other is the rod of uprightness, the rod of your kingdom. The one restrains the guilty with punishment; the other governs the innocent with rule. So fault is written; let us see where. Not outside, but inside, in your heart and in your breast. For just as the word is near, in your mouth and in your heart, so for unbelievers the figure and image of sin and error is imprinted in the heart itself. So fault is within, virtue is within. And therefore the Lord says: “I perceive that power has gone out from me,” to show that good things come forth from within and, on the other hand, bad things come out from within. “For it is not what enters the mouth,” he says, “that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth.” For from your heart thoughts proceed; and therefore beware lest evil thoughts come out of your heart, which in later time may convict and accuse you. For God does not need witnesses and proofs to convict you; your own fault accuses and betrays you.

Hence David says well in this psalm: “My offence is always against me.” For woe to me that I wish to lie hidden and cannot! For how shall I lie hidden, I who bear inscribed on my breast the marks of my offences? On that day of judgment each one’s breast will be laid bare, his conscience bearing witness to all and his thoughts accusing or even defending one another, on the day when God will judge the secrets of men. What shame then, when what we thought hidden begins to be revealed to all, when the image of each one’s offence begins to open itself, so that each is convicted by the record of his own crime! What shame, when you see preferred to you him whom you judged contemptible in this world, that slave of yours; when you learn that he whom you thought foolish and incapable by the cunning of this world has been honored for the riches of his simplicity! So while we live, let us flee to him who can blot out sin. And do not fear that it was written with a pen of iron and a point of diamond (for he broke the gates of iron and diamond), nor fear to confess your fault.

David confessed, recognized his iniquity, recognized his error, and therefore says: “For I acknowledge my iniquity.” David acknowledges, and do you not acknowledge? David confesses, and do you deny? Paul cries out that he is guilty, and do you assert that you are innocent? Is there not, then, the greatest cause for blushing, when our companionships are mixed with very many sins? If, however, we pursue the effort of correction … Nor again should you dread that the confession of fault will be held for punishment. For the good and merciful God is accustomed not only to pardon the fault of those who confess, but also to bestow rewards on those who correct themselves, if each one asks to be given what he understands is not hidden. “Tell your iniquities, then, that you may be justified.” This is the voice of God willing to pardon; this is the voice of God promising that he wishes to blot out your sin.

“Against you,” he says, “have I sinned and done evil before you”; that is: even if men do not see, you see; even if men, who are sharers in offences, cannot judge me, you nevertheless are the judge of each, you who are free of offences. However much harmful thoughts lie hidden in the inmost heart, they are nevertheless before you, who can say: “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” Surely Christ says this. He, then, who knows what is written in the heart can blot out whatever has been inscribed in the heart. To him holy David confesses that he sinned not only in himself but also in the first man, when the divine precepts were violated.

Here one may notice, dearest brothers, how all heresies, while they fight each other, run back into each other. And so the Arians, while they separate the power of the Father and the Son, rush madly into such an outcome of their argument that their assertion coincides with the Manichees’; for these say that there is one God of the Old Testament and another of the New. This profane assertion the holy church condemns, which reads of one God, because “there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things, and we through him.” Surely one almighty power of the Father and the Son is declared, so that we neither separate the Father from the grace of the New Testament nor again separate the Son from the founding of the world.

Indeed let us consider whether the same God is the founder of both testaments. Certainly we all sinned in the first man, and through the succession of nature the succession of fault too was poured from one into all. Against whom, then, did I sin, the Father or the Son? Surely against him who entrusted to me what I sinned by not keeping. It was commanded to man that he should taste of all the things in paradise but not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So Adam is in each of us. For in him human nature offended, because through one sin passed into all. I see the sum entrusted to me; I see what debts of transgression I have contracted, while I taste what is forbidden and prohibited. Hence I owe interest on the capital entrusted, because I could not keep with unviolated faith the loan of the heavenly commands. We have recognized the loan; let us recognize also the lender.

It is surely the lender’s right both to exact and to remit. And therefore the same one remits who has the right to exact. Since, then, Christ said to me in the Gospel: “Your sins are forgiven you,” do I not understand the same one to be the lord of the capital whom I recognize as the judge of pardon? Or if the Father lent and the Son remitted, not through unity, as we say, but, as the Arians assert, through difference of power, did one God lend and another remit? Hence they run into this, that they do not escape the faithlessness of the Manichees. Then, by calling one God good, let them notice what snares of their madness they fall into. If he who lent is good, how is he not good who remitted? So the Arians have a share with those with whose assertion they agree.

Nor is it any wonder if one who has once begun to stray from the truth entangles himself in the bonds of another’s error. And therefore there is one judgment which destroys the machinations of all heretics: that we believe the Trinity to be of one power, majesty, and strength, and therefore do not separate the Father from what the Son did nor separate the Son from what the Father commanded. For so it will come about that we do not bring in one God of the Old Testament and another of the New, but through the unity of power the Son will be understood in the Father and the Father in the Son, and the Son lends in the Father and the Father remits in the Son. For the Father too forgives sin; we have already said that the Son forgave.

Understand that the Father too forgives. “Forgive us our debts,” he says, “as we also forgive our debtors.” Surely the Son says this to the Father in our person. Nor does he say it as if he himself could not forgive, but he says it so that you may understand the unity of power.

Indeed, if you seek authority in the Son, he says: “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” He forgives by word, he forgives by command, but he forgives with reason, saying: “Go, and from now on see that you do not sin.” You have authority, because he pardoned the past; you have judgment, because he prescribed for the future.