Apology of the Prophet David 36–60

With so many and such wonderful works, then, do we not believe that the blood of one man was covered? Rightly did the voice of the blood of just Abel cry out to the Lord, because wicked Cain was covered by no good works, because he was a fratricide, because he did not confess his crime but denied it. David indeed had killed a man by no means guilty, but he had killed him not driven by a passion for cruelty, but to overshadow his shame and cover the disgrace of his desire. I do not dare say that he was overwhelmed by the force of the crime (for he was not overwhelmed who knew how to lift himself from that ruin of sin); I say, however, that he was bent by the force of temptation. For he had said above: “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart”; and elsewhere: “But I said in my abundance: I shall never be moved”; and: “You have tested me with fire, and no iniquity was found in me.” The Lord willed that he should be subject to temptation, lest he claim for himself something above man; for power is made perfect in weakness. For he did not act with a bloodthirsty disposition: nothing less can be ascribed to the holy prophet, who even as he was departing this life charged his son Solomon with his last words to remove from him the innocent blood which Joab, the commander of his army, had shed, when Abner, while negotiating an alliance, was attacked by treachery and fell, though he was the commander of the opposing army. David wept for him and, walking behind his bier with the insignia of power laid aside, attended to the rites of his funeral. By this deed he taught that faith promised is to be kept even to adversaries, and that virtue is to be honored even in an enemy. Did he not, by the inheritance of such mild devotion, wipe away the stain of this error too?

And how splendid it was that, when three conditions were offered him, to choose which he wished, when he had incurred offence by numbering the people, and it was proposed whether he wished a famine on the land for three years, or to flee for three months before his enemies pursuing him, or a death in the land for three days, he chose the third, because he preferred to commit himself to the power of the Lord rather than of men; for the Lord, quickly moved to pity, would forgive. So he said: “I am in great straits in these three; but let me fall rather into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, than fall into the hands of men.” By this humility, prudence, and mildness he brought it about, to use the words of Scripture, that the Lord repented of his own anger. Indeed it is written thus: that the Lord repented of the evil.

And how admirable too that he offered himself to the angel striking the people, saying: “What have these sheep done? Let your hand be against me and against my father’s house!” By this he was at once judged worthy of sacrifice, who was thought unworthy of acquittal. Nor is it any wonder if by such an offering of himself for the people he obtained pardon for his sin, since Moses, by offering himself to the Lord for the people’s error, blotted out the sins of the people too.

Did he, then, cover his sins or not? But who would deny it, since this very prophet has taught that iniquities are forgiven, sins covered, and not imputed by the Lord? He himself taught that sin was forgiven him, as it is written: “I acknowledge my offence and I have not covered my injustice. I said: I will declare my injustice against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my heart.” If he said, “I will declare,” and merited pardon before he declared, how much more, when he declared against himself, saying, “I acknowledge my iniquity,” was all sin forgiven him. Although, specifically about this, the prophet Nathan too answered: “And the Lord has taken away your sin.”

So he merited the remission of his iniquity, and covered his sins with love and hid them, and covered them with good works. Nor was the sin imputed to him, because in him there was no guile of malice, but a slip of error; then, because there was no heat of wickedness, but the shadow of a mystery. And yet he confessed his offence, acknowledged his iniquity, saw the washing, and saw and believed. He loved much, so that by his great love he could cover any error.

But now let him defend himself; for he wrote the fiftieth psalm on that history. And although he placed later the history of his earlier deeds, as of the betrayal by Doeg the Syrian, whose title is in the fifty-first psalm, and of the Ziphites, which seems to be included in the title of Psalm 53, he set first this history, which is later; since Doeg, or the Ziphites, betrayed him before the prophet David took up the kingdom, for he was still wandering as an exile through various hiding places, fleeing King Saul, whereas he took Bathsheba when he was already reigning.

Why, then, does the order of the psalms not agree with the order of the deeds? Because he wished not so much order to fit order as the mystery to fit the deeds, and therefore he wished to fit the number of remission to this history. For the fiftieth number is the number of remission, as the Lord himself taught us in the Gospel, saying: “There were two debtors to a certain moneylender. One owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty. When they had nothing to repay with, he forgave them both. Which of them, then, loves him more?” And in the law you have that the jubilee is the name of the number of fifty years, a most festive recurrence, in which debts are cancelled, the liberties of the Hebrews confirmed, possessions restored. This number we celebrate joyfully after the Lord’s passion, the debt of all guilt forgiven and the bond cancelled, free from every tie, and we receive the grace of the Holy Spirit coming upon us: on the day of Pentecost, fasting suspended, praise is offered to God and alleluia is sung. Indeed, the father of a girl who, betrothed to no one, has suffered intercourse by force receives fifty silver didrachms, and she herself will remain in marriage. By this number, then, even vices are turned into grace. Great, therefore, is the psalm by which we are taught how penance is to be done.

“Have mercy on me, O Lord,” he says, “according to your great mercy; and according to the multitude of your compassions blot out my iniquity. Wash me thoroughly from my injustice, and cleanse me from my offence. For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my offence is always against me. Against you alone have I sinned and done evil before you, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in offences my mother bore me.” Who of us, even if he confesses his offence, does not think it should rather be touched on lightly than repeated? Who repeats it a second or a third time? See in how many verses so great a prophet sounds forth his sin, how no verse is without confession of offence. He gathered all his iniquities together, and, joining injustice to them by sounding them forth, adding offences to sins and often repeating them, he rightly asks for great mercy, and not only great mercy but also a multitude of compassions. What sin would such lamentation not wash away, what fault would such prayer not cleanse? He prays for a multitude of compassions for one sin; we, for many sins, hardly think his mercy should be begged once. Then we read that “with his great power and his high arm” he freed his people from the land of Egypt, when he led them across through the Red Sea, in which there was a figure of baptism. If, then, there was great power in the figure of the sacraments, how much more is there great mercy in their truth. Rightly too is a multitude of compassions asked for there, where there is a multitude of sinners.

“Wash me thoroughly from my injustice, and cleanse me from my offence.” He asks to be washed not so much more often as more fully, so that he may wash off the filth he has contracted. He knew that according to the law there were indeed many aids to cleansing, but none full and perfect. To that perfect one, then, he hastens with all his effort, by which all righteousness is fulfilled, that is, the sacrament of baptism, as the Lord Jesus himself teaches. For when he had come to John, the Baptist said: “I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” The Lord answered: “Let it be so now; for thus it befits us to fulfill all righteousness.” But after Christ was baptized, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove, and the Father sealed the Son from heaven, all righteousness was fulfilled. Therefore the prophet says: “Wash me thoroughly from my injustice”; for great filth and stain is removed not by a slight but by a full washing.

But if anyone wishes to take it otherwise, he can form his understanding thus. The divine word cleanses, our confession cleanses: the one while it is heard, the other while it is uttered; good thought cleanses, honorable action cleanses, the practice of a good way of life too. Cleansed by these, each one more easily drinks in and, as it were, seizes into himself the splendor of spiritual grace. Indeed, a precious dye does not shine out at once by a single dipping of the fleece, but first the fleece is stained with a common dye, then its natural appearance is often washed out by one dye after another and changed more often by different colors, and so afterwards the dyeing of a fuller bath, as it were, is applied, so that the truer and more perfect brightness of purple may glow. Just as, then, there is much murex in the dyeing of purple, so in the washing of regeneration there is a multitude of heavenly compassions, so that iniquity may be blotted out. And so one who is washed thoroughly is cleansed from injustice and from offence, and lays aside a kind of habit of sinning ingrained in his pursuits and character, and forgets its quality. And well is he washed from injustice, or iniquity, which is greater, and cleansed from offence, which is less.

And therefore he added: “For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my offence is always against me.” It is no small thing that each one should acknowledge his sin. And therefore above too he says: “Who will understand his falls?”, that is, who is so great as to understand? As in that saying: “Who will dwell in your tabernacle, or who will ascend the mountain of the Lord?” Not no one, surely, but few; for one who can acknowledge can avoid, can choose what to follow. Many glory in their falls and think praiseworthy what is criminal: if one has defiled another’s bed and overcome the feeling of a chaste woman, if by some fraud he has changed a widow’s purpose; another thinks it a mark of virtue to live by killing a man, by the ambushes of robbery and by plunder; some think it wisdom to cheat and deceive. None of these can say: “For I acknowledge my iniquity,” but he can who is able to grieve over what he has done, to condemn what he has offended in, whom his vices pierce. Hence the prophet too says: “What you say in your hearts, be pierced on your beds.” Many horses, when they have fallen, are accustomed to throw themselves about, and those whom the fall did not hurt are weakened and broken by throwing themselves about. Others, such as the nature of Greek horses is said to be, when they have been thrown in a chariot race or have fallen by chance, are accustomed not to move at all, and keep a kind of discipline of quiet and patience. For these, if the fall did no harm, the quiet helps; certainly the injury is not aggravated. Are not those to be thought worse than dumb animals who boast in their shameful deeds and think it a mark of virtue where there is the fall of crime? Therefore it is said as to a dumb beast: “You have sinned; be still.”

Hence he beautifully added: “And my offence is always against me.” For the fool delights in his errors and thinks he is helped by overshadowing old sins with new ones, and therefore he exults in crime. But the wise man judges his offence to be against himself, and thinks that the falls of his faults stand against him like hostile battle lines, in the manner of adversaries. Whatever sounds, whatever makes a noise, his own fault always meets him; whatever is said or read he thinks said of himself; whatever anyone looks at, he thinks he is being pointed out by a nod or by eyes. If he feasts, if he thinks, if he prays and makes supplication, his own error is always before his eyes, and at every moment guilt knocks at his conscience and does not allow him to rest or forget. Like a stern censor he harasses himself with continual terror. So he has everything against him who is displeasing to himself; he is his own accuser, his own witness, and finds nowhere to flee, since he himself presses and goads himself. But it is the mark of a good mind to feel the wound of sin. For those who are without pain do not feel the bitterness of the wound, which is the mark of an incurable disease; but those who are pricked by some pain, as they are not without the sense of pain, so they are not without progress toward health. For where there is the sense of pain, there is also the sense of life; for to feel belongs to vital vigor and function. Hence too one who does not acknowledge his error is mad, raves, is out of his senses; but one who acknowledges it surely comes to his senses: he does not reject the remedies of health but restrains himself, repents of his fault, always thinks of it and in thinking condemns himself. For the just man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech. He who accuses himself is just; he who is just is sober, is sound. The just man does not know how to favor himself; he does not know how to bend the rigor of judgment even in his own case; he shudders at the memory of his own fall and blushes at the error committed; he dreads, fears, and shrinks from all memory of it; he judges himself severe toward himself; he flees himself as judge and does not dare entrust himself to himself, because he thinks no one more severe to him than the one from whom he cannot hide, whom he cannot deceive, whom he can find no way to flee or avoid, except by denying himself and taking up the Lord’s cross.

Great is the force of a guilty conscience, great its punishments. Eve and Adam were afraid, and when they heard the voice of the Lord walking in paradise they wished to hide, though no one was looking for them. Cain too feared lest everyone who found him should kill him. So he bore the sentence in himself, that he deserved that no one should pardon him. Hence he says well: “And my offence is always against me,” that is: without any interval the memory and very image of my error assails me. Consider how it confounds us when we have done wrong, how it rushes upon our eyes, how it always returns to memory. One who is ashamed of what he has done does not know how to commit afterwards anything like it, for which he would likewise blush.

Iniquity goes before, sin follows. Iniquity is the root; fault is the fruit of the root. Hence iniquity seems to refer to wickedness of mind, sin to a slip of the body. Iniquity is graver, as the material of sins; sin is lighter. Indeed iniquity is forgiven through the washing; sin is covered by good deeds and overshadowed by works as by wings. Hence this same prophet says well above: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.” For love hides error and covers a multitude of sins. Much love also forgives sins themselves, as it is written of the woman who poured ointment over the Lord: “Her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much.”

There are also those who take the first little verse to be about the washing, the second about penance. For this reason Peter too, who had been baptized before, is questioned after he was seen to have denied the Lord: “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He says to him: “Certainly, you know, Lord, that I love you.” And again he is asked: “Simon son of John, do you love me?” And again he answers: “You know that I love you.” And a third time he is asked: “Simon son of John, do you love me?” And he was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?”, and he says to him: “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” And it was said to him three times: “Feed my sheep; follow me,” as to one who had covered his sin with great love. Nor is it idle that, after the confession of great love, he is commanded to rule the people, he who even when troubled had not lost the way to rule himself. We have said this because of the grace of love, since it covers sin. Indeed some have said that the threefold question about love was made because the denial had been threefold, so that the profession of love, repeated as many times, might blot out the fall of the threefold denial.

There follows: “Against you alone have I sinned.” He was a king, of course; he himself was bound by no laws, because kings are free from the bonds of offences; for they are not called to punishment by any laws, safe under the power of rule. So he did not sin against a man, to whom he was not liable. But although he was safe in his rule, he was nevertheless subject to God in devotion and faith, and, knowing that he was subject to his law, he could not deny his sin, but confessed it with bitterness as one guilty, knowing that he was held by greater bonds, because he owed more, since more is required of him to whom more has been entrusted. We can also take it thus: Who judges me, since all are under sin? Indeed the Lord said of that adulteress: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone at her.” And no one stoned her. This, then, is what the prophet says: “Against you alone have I sinned,” who alone are without sin. But one who is liable to sin cannot judge as a sinner. For every man is inexcusable who condemns in another the things he himself does; for in judging another he condemns himself. “Against you,” he says, “I have sinned and done evil before you, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.” Against you I have sinned, who called me to the pursuit of virtue, who instructed me in your law. Against you alone have I sinned, whom alone the hidden things of the thoughts and the secrets of the mind do not deceive.

“And done evil before you,” to whom holiness alone is fitting. We avoid the testimony of a man, but in your sight we commit unworthy things. It is an injury to a man to watch shameful deeds; we know that God is the witness of all, and we sin with him as witness. And yet in these things the Lord our God is the more justified, because our injustice commends God’s justice and our lie celebrates the truth of God; for let God be true, but every man a liar.

“That you may be justified in your words.” The words of God are full of truth and justice, and therefore whatever the Lord has said about human frailty is true: that their heart is inclined to wickedness, leans to fraud. And because he has defined that there is no man who does not sin (for all have turned aside and become worthless), therefore he prevails while he is judged, since by the fall of all he has proved whatever he judged of our deceitfulness. So if we say that we have done iniquity, we justify God in his words; but if we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar; but it is impossible for him to lie.

It is clear, then, that we are all under sin. How great a crime it is, then, for a man to deny he is a sinner, since, as far as lies in him, he seems to accuse and refute the most high God of falsehood, who is so moderate and patient that he prevails when he is judged. For one comes to judgment: God says: “My people, what have I done to you, or how have I grieved you, or how have I troubled you? For I brought you out of the land of Egypt and freed you from the house of slavery, and sent before your face Moses and Aaron and Miriam. My people, keep in mind what Balak planned against you.” He sets each of his benefits before your eyes, so that you may judge as it were concerning the things you ought to have kept, so that you become the more guilty, who could not stand by the divine benefits. “What have I done to you?” he says. He makes himself the defendant and you the judge. “Or how have I grieved you?” He does not deny the charge of an offended countenance, if you were grieved, God being the cause. “Or how have I troubled you?” He confesses the wrong of interfering, if he was thought too troublesome; he adds his benefits, by whose grace he who was thought ungrateful did not blush. In this case too consider how the Lord offered himself to be judged by David himself, so as to prevail; for Nathan says: “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul, and I gave you all that was your master’s, and I gave his wives into your bosom, and I gave you the house of Israel itself; and if these are few, I will add to you. And why have you despised the Lord, to do evil in his sight?” Convicted by the recalling of these things, when he saw that he was inferior while he judged, he said: “I have sinned against the Lord.” So he justified the Lord, he who did not dare to deny his sin. We can also take it thus:

he who confesses his sin justifies the Lord. Indeed, in the Gospel you have that the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John. And John the Baptist practiced a baptism of repentance. And one who does penance does not deny his offences. So because David always had his offence against him, he surely did not deny what he also blushed at, did not deny what he also acknowledged. And by not denying, he surely did penance for the error committed, and so by confessing his offence he justified the Lord and was himself justified by the Lord. For the Lord is justified when his justice is proclaimed and pardon is asked of him. At the same time he both justifies the one who confesses and is justified in his words, as it is written: “Tell your iniquities, that you may be justified.”

There follows: “For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in offences my mother bore me.” Who does penance with such feeling? He lay prostrate on the ground, dissolved in tears; he did not taste food; he renounced bathing. Why should I now mention the rest, that he abstained from royal adornment and retinue? He added the confession of his iniquity and transmitted it to be sung throughout the whole world for all ages. “Behold,” he says, “I was conceived in iniquities, and in offences my mother bore me. Turn your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Do not cast me away from your face, and do not take your holy Spirit from me. Deliver me from blood, O God, God of my salvation.” Before we are born we are stained with contagion, and before the enjoyment of light we receive the injury of our very origin. “In iniquity we are conceived” (he did not state whether the parents’ or our own) “and in offences each one’s mother bears him.” Nor did he declare here whether the mother gives birth in her own offences or whether there are already some offences of the one being born. But consider whether both are not to be understood. Nor is conception free of iniquity, since the parents too are not without fault. And if not even an infant of one day is without sin, much less are the days of the mother’s conception without sin. So we are conceived in the sin of our parents and born in their offences. But birth itself also has its contagions, and nature itself has not only one contagion. Marriage indeed is good, the union holy; but still “let those who have wives be as though they had none.” The marriage bed is undefiled, and no one ought to defraud the other of it “except perhaps for a time, that they may devote themselves to prayer.” Yet, according to the apostle, one does not devote oneself to prayer at the time when one engages in the use of that bodily union. And for a menstruating woman the cloth is unclean, and she cannot offer sacrifice in the days of her purification; and the days of childbirth of a woman who has given birth, and many others, are free from sacrifice until the new mother is purified by the lawful rite.

Therefore to the one in whom the Lord willed there to be no contagion of such an origin the Lord says: “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you; and before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you and appointed you a prophet among the nations.” Who is so great, to whom such great things have been granted? Is it Jeremiah? But he surely was not set as a prophet among the nations, but in Judea at that time, though now also among the nations that have believed in the Lord Jesus. Consider rather whether it is not said to him who, before he was born of the Virgin, had long existed and existed always, and was at work even when placed in Mary’s womb, and was so holy that he sanctified his prophets. In him alone both the virginal conception and the birth were without any defilement of mortal origin. For it was fitting that he who was not to have the sin of bodily fall should feel no natural contagion of generation. Rightly, then, David tearfully lamented in himself the very defilements of nature, because in man the stain begins before life.

While he says these things and confesses the filth of special and common sins, suddenly the splendor of truth and the brightness of spiritual grace shone upon him. For, having passed beyond the shadow in the prophetic Spirit, he saw the very sacraments of the heavenly mysteries, whose type Moses prefigured in the law. Wounded, then, with the wound of love and seized with desire to search out the truth, he stretched the gaze of his mind to higher things and, looking into the future, saw the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ; he foresaw the sacrament of baptism and, marvelling at the grace, suddenly cried out, saying: “For behold, you have loved truth; the uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom you have made manifest to me.” Not uncertain mysteries, for they are certain, nor uncertain the secrets and hidden things of wisdom, but not manifest. For this is what it means, that they had been made manifest to no one; for “what eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, this God has prepared for those who love him.” Seeing them, then, he says: Behold, no longer in shadow or in figure, not in type, but in truth the open light shines; behold, now I behold the truth, I recognize the splendor of truth; now, O Lord our God, I revere you with greater affection. “For behold, you have loved truth”: not through a mirror, not in a riddle, but face to face you have shown yourself to me, O Christ; I find you in your sacraments. These are the true sacraments of your wisdom, by which the hidden things of the mind are cleansed.

So now, glad and secure because the fullness of wisdom had flashed upon him, he says to the Lord: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; you will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.” He does well both in not emptying the sacraments of the Old Testament and in teaching that the mysteries of the Gospel are to be preferred. He asks to be cleansed with hyssop according to the law; he longs to be washed according to the Gospel, and he reckons that, if he is washed, he will be made white above snow. By a bunch of hyssop one who wished to be cleansed by the typical baptism was sprinkled with the blood of a lamb. But he is washed who is cleansed by the stream of the eternal spring, and he is made white above snow whose fault is forgiven. Indeed of the soul itself it is said: “Who is she that goes up made white?” Before she was baptized, she is the one who said: “I am black and beautiful, daughter of Jerusalem.” For she was black, disfigured with the dark horror of sins; but after, washed by baptism, she merited the remission of offences, she goes up made white to Christ. Hence the Lord too spoke through Isaiah, saying: “If your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow”; that is: if they are bloody, if they are foul, I will cleanse them. This is the spiritual snow, of which it says in the Gospel that the garments of the Lord Jesus shone like snow, because his flesh did not know sin, the flesh which, coming into this world, he put on, clean from every offence. Why do you wonder that he saw the sacraments of baptism, since he said above, where he described the Lord’s passion: “The Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing; in a green place he has set me; he has brought me up by the water of refreshment,” and elsewhere: “The voice of the Lord upon the waters, the God of majesty”? And of the sacrament itself he spoke more fully: “You have prepared a table before me; you have anointed my head with oil, and your cup that inebriates, how excellent it is!”

Rightly, then, exulting in these things, he says: “To my hearing you will give joy and gladness; the bones that have been humbled will exult.” You have proved, Lord Jesus, that your words never pass away; you have proved that saying of the Gospel which you spoke: “Many prophets and just men desired to see what you see and to hear what you hear.” See, David rejoices by hearing alone that there would be remission of sins, and he prophesies that the humbled bones will exult. Just as all the bones of the just man will say: “Lord, who is like you?”, so the humbled bones will exult, those, that is, of the just man humbling his soul. Bones, then, are the name for the virtues; bones are the name for certain motions, as it were, of the mind or of the soul, which motions are humbled by sins and exult by the gift of heavenly grace. The peoples of the churches are also called bones; hence you have it said in the psalm: “My bone is not hidden from you, which you made in secret.” By “his bone” he meant the church and the sacred assemblies of the devout people, since we are members of the body of Christ, of his flesh and of his bones. This, then, is what he says: that the church of the Lord will know all the divine works and receive faith in the resurrection.