Exposition of Psalm 118

Although David the prophet also sounded forth mystically, as with the blast of a trumpet, yet he is a great teacher of morals, and the surpassing grace of this psalm shows how much he excels in ethics. For while all moral teaching is pleasant, it delights the ears and soothes the mind most of all by the pleasantness of song and the sweetness of psalmody.

And rightly in many places he has scattered the sayings of the moral psalms like the lights of the stars, which shine and stand out; but the hundred and eighteenth psalm he has set like a sun of full light, glowing with midday heat, in the advanced age of the book, so that neither the half-full beginnings of a morning rising nor the aged failing, as it were, of an evening setting should take anything from the brightness of its perfect splendor.

He arranged it by the individual letters of the Hebrews, so that, just as the minds of little children grow accustomed to take up the practice of learning by the first elements of the letters, so we too may learn by such elements the practice of living.

To each letter he assigned eight verses, so as to teach at once both unity, not plurality (for unity holds together and rules all things, and all things are subject to it), and the purification of lawful sanctification. For on the eighth day is the solemn purification, 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 during those seven days. But when the day of resurrection came, made alive together with the Lord Jesus, we rose again and were raised up in newness of life, displaying the grace of washing. And rightly we offer the firstborn animals, in the figure of the firstborn Son of God, a spiritual sacrifice of chastity and simplicity acceptable to God, not on the fourth or fifth day, lest the sacrifice be unclean or incomplete, but on the eighth day,

on which in the resurrection of Christ we have all been not only raised up but also strengthened. Hence, although in baptism there is at once full purification, yet, because the baptized person must come to know the meaning of the washing itself and of the sacrifice, he does not offer sacrifice unless he enters the eighth day, so that, instructed in the knowledge of the heavenly sacraments, he may offer his gift on the holy altars not as an untrained victim but as one capable of reason, only when he has begun to be better instructed, lest the ignorance of the one offering defile the mystery of the oblation.

The title of the psalm is Alleluia, that is, “praise of God.” For God is truly praised in those hymns in which there is forgiveness of sins. Indeed, in the preceding psalm the passion of the Lord was set forth, which washed this world clean, so that it might make peoples worthy to praise God with a spotless mouth. The very elements of the letters too, like all Hebrew names, are not empty of, or free from, a rational meaning. Their meanings we will disclose in their places. The hundred and eleventh psalm is arranged in Hebrew by these letters at the beginnings of its verses, and it is wholly ethical; and the hundred and tenth also seems to me to be written in this way. They each have twenty-two verses, and in each verse a single thought is unfolded; hence they are also said to have been written in meter.

The first letter is called Aleph, which means “teaching.” You, then, an attentive hearer, ought to assume that the verses which follow are full of teaching.

“Blessed are the undefiled in the way,” he says, “who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who search his testimonies; with the whole heart they seek him.” How beautiful an order, how full of teaching and grace! He did not first say, “who search his testimonies” (that could have fitted according to the letter), but first, “Blessed are the undefiled in the way.” For life must be sought before teaching. A good life has grace even without teaching; teaching without life does not have integrity, for “wisdom will not enter a malicious soul.” And so it says: “The wicked will seek me and will not find me,” because the eye of the mind is blinded by wickedness, and when iniquity darkens it, it cannot find deep mysteries. First, then, the warfare of life must be practiced, and morals corrected. When we have set these on their due course, so that there is correction of offense and the grace of purity, then let us come in proper order and way to the pursuit of acquiring knowledge. First, then, come moral matters, second mystical ones. In the former is life, in the latter knowledge, so that, if you seek perfection, there is neither life without knowledge nor knowledge without life; each supports the other. And so Scripture says: “Sow for yourselves unto righteousness, gather the vintage unto the fruit of life, light for yourselves the light of knowledge.” It does not first say, “light,” but “sow”; and not only “sow first unto righteousness,” but also “gather the vintage,” it says, “unto the fruit of life,” and so “light the light of knowledge,” so that perfection may be proved not only by fruits planted but also by fruits gathered in. In the first psalm too he kept this order, teaching first that one must walk in the way and then meditate on the law. For he who “has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly” has surely not departed from the way of godliness and the path of righteousness, and rightly, walking in the way, he is pronounced blessed, and, practicing meditation on the law day and night, he has the grace of blessedness.

Following this method, Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs, in which he set out the moral part more fully, the natural part in Ecclesiastes, the mystical in the Song of Songs. And yet, if you examine carefully, you will find much that is mystical in Proverbs and the sweetness of morals in the Song. For surely this is mystical: “Wisdom

has built herself a house and set up seven pillars; she has slain her victims,” and so on. This too in the Song, though it is as mystical as it is moral, in which the sweetness of endearments and the affection of a lover are expressed: “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, for your breasts are better than wine, and the fragrance of your ointments above all spices.”

Picture, then, a virgin long betrothed and burning with a just love, who has learned many splendid works of her beloved from the statements of trustworthy witnesses; her longing held in suspense, often put off, no longer able to bear delay, she who would have done anything to see her bridegroom; at last, gaining her wish at the bridegroom’s unexpected coming, confused with joy, she does not look for the preliminaries of a greeting or an exchange of words, but at once demands what she had longed for.

So too the holy church, which was betrothed in paradise at the beginnings of the world, prefigured in the flood, announced through the law, called through the prophets, had long awaited the redemption of mankind, the beauty of the gospel, the coming of the beloved. Impatient of delay, she rushes into his kisses, saying: “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth,” and, delighted with his kisses, she added: “for your breasts are better than wine.”

And to speak more morally, understand, I pray, that flesh which had been soaked with the serpent’s venom in Adam, which was rotting with the stench of crimes, which went forth among the daughters of Zion with outstretched neck and with winking of the eyes and mincing steps, trailing its robes and playing with its feet, with curled hair and painted faces and headbands and every affected ornament, the more unseemly for it; and yet, taught by many oracles that he would come who, shutting out the serpent’s enticements, would pour in the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that “all flesh should see the salvation of God” and all flesh should come to God, it burned with desire, but feared that it would displease, as impatient, as wanton, as luxurious, as complaining, as it had been before. Although it was shaken by a waiting for the Lord’s delayed coming longer than it could bear, yet not murmuring nor transgressing, but lifting up pure hands in every place without anger and disputing, in modest dress, adorning itself with modesty and sobriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but with what befitted the grace of chastity and good conduct, it prayed, saying:

“Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, for your breasts are better than wine.” Already the flesh wished to cleave to Christ, already it hastened to be married, so as to be one spirit and become the flesh of Christ, which before was the flesh of a harlot. “Let him kiss me,” it says. (The Word of God kisses us when the Spirit of knowledge enlightens our understanding.) And, as though despising all its pleasures and delights, longing to cleave to the heavenly commandments, it says: “for the precepts of your testaments are better than every appetite of the flesh and pleasure of the world.”

For it remembered that it had fallen before in Eve, by preferring the pleasure of the body to the heavenly commandments. “Your name is ointment poured out,” that is: this whole world was unclean and stank with the impurities of various crimes; now the sweetness of modesty breathes everywhere, the ointment of faith, the flower of integrity. And from moral things it comes to mystical, saying: “The king has brought me into his chamber. Let us rejoice and be glad in you; let us love your breasts more than wine.” For a kiss is simple, but the secret of the chamber is a weighty matter.

In the gospel itself too there is a most beautiful passage about morals, that each should cleanse his own vessel, as the Lord says: “Blind Pharisee, first cleanse what is inside the cup and the dish, so that what is outside may also become clean.” For unless each cleanses himself within, even if outwardly he seems handsome and righteous, he will be like whitewashed tombs, so that outwardly he seems righteous but inwardly he stinks. So is teaching without innocence of life.

But teaching itself cannot have a reward where innocence has no grace. For to the sinner God said: “Why do you declare my righteous deeds?” But let us return to the psalm before us.

“Blessed,” he says, “are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who search his testimonies; with the whole heart they seek him.” The first verse is moral, the second mystical. Who says this? The prophet, surely, who spoke as one in the flesh, and he says it after that psalm in which the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is described.

When, then, the divine sacraments were revealed to him, and he put on the joy of the Lord’s resurrection and tasted the grace of the passion, he saw the assemblies of the righteous, the peoples of the redeemed, the salvation of the lost, the resurrection of the dead, the sanctification of the sacraments, and he cried out, saying: “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord,” that is: see, the earth cursed in Adam has begun to have blessedness, provided it does not abandon the law of the Lord; see, man is undefiled, who before was polluted. How precious it is now to keep the Lord’s precept, how precious too to know the mystery of the precept itself!

But who is undefiled? Not anyone who walks in any way at all, 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 too is a way, and therefore, as long as he is undefiled, he walks 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 or to the left;

let him not stagger, not stand still, not wait, but walk, “forgetting what lies behind and reaching out to what lies ahead,” let him press on to the goal, hasten to the prize, strive to the end; for “the end of the law is Christ.” Many wish to walk in the way, but not to the end. The Jews do not walk to the end, since they do not walk as far as Christ; the Manichee does not walk in the way, since he rejects the law; but the true faith walks, which both accepts the law and recognizes the fullness of the law.

If anyone, then, walks in the way, let him search the testimonies of the Lord. Though this is mystical, yet it has moral content too, since he who searches the Lord’s testimonies can walk better in the way. For take some utterly intemperate man, seized by the heat of adulterous desire and overcome by lust or given to vice, unwilling to resist the appetite of his flesh: turning this way and that, if perhaps he sees no one, he rushes into the deed; and yet, even with an opportunity ready to hand, he searches everything carefully, often turns his eyes in every direction, careless of righteousness but anxious for his reputation; he blushes at a witness to his sin, though he does not blush at the sin; and if he perhaps learns of some spectator of his deed, shame puts his intemperance aside, and even if he is attempting the temptations of lust with a slave woman or a common prostitute, where there is no danger of being caught, yet from shame he abandons what he began. How much more, if one lifts 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 a sin already conceived! Where does this crowd of the innocent come from, if not from those sinners? The nature of all is the same, but the discipline differs. Circumcision is nothing and being a Gentile is nothing, but the keeping of God’s commandments increases the grace of nature itself. (Or) does he change his deserts who says: “Darkness is round about, and the walls cover me; the Most High will not remember my sins”?

Would you not stand in awe of the presence of angels, if you believed them present? Would you not fear, I will not say to do, but to speak or even think what is wicked, if divine Scripture had persuaded you that God is the judge of thoughts, a true witness of secrets, as he himself says: “Be my witnesses, and I am a witness, says the Lord God, and my servant whom I have chosen”? You stand in awe of a man who is present; do you not stand in awe of the presence of God the Father and the Son? But you do not want to believe, lest you have to beware; you do not want to listen 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, then, divine Scripture, so that you may be turned from the crooked and evil way.

Do not be like one blind in his bodily eyes or like a deaf man, who, because he cannot see or hear those present, believes himself alone, and in a crowd of many, thinking no one is present, sets about doing what he thinks is secret (for he who does not see cannot see those who see); likewise, do not you, blinded in the eyes of the mind, think that you sin without a witness because you were able to avoid a man’s presence. There are more who will convict you than you were able to avoid. You cannot flee yourself, your own accuser, whom your own conscience confronts; 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 wish to deny it, your own thoughts refute you.

Angels stood by Elisha, whom he saw, and so he did not fear the ranks of the enemy; but his servant, who did not see the angels, was afraid. At the prophet’s word the grace of God opened his eyes; he saw the armies of angels and believed them present, whom before, because he did not see them, he thought absent. You too, read the prophet, so that you may see; read, so that he may open your eyes, lest the enemy legion terrify you and you believe yourself besieged

when you are free, you who are fortified by spiritual squadrons, provided you do not abandon the prophet. When the prophet tells you that God said, “I fill heaven and earth,” when the prophet tells you, “There are more with us,” that angels are round about us, lift 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 neighbor.” He knocks at the door even when you are asleep; if only you wake up when roused, or open the door of your heart when called, he will come in. But if you flee the reading of the prophets, if you do not read at home and will not listen in church, are you not like one who shuts his eyes with averted gaze so as not to see what he could see, who closes his eyes so as not to look, though he has the power of seeing; or as many in madness

lay hands on their own eyes, so you too at first turn away, by a pretended blinking rather than by outright refusal? For when you come to church and declare yourself a Christian, you seem sound, you open your eyes, with which you can see; but while you pretend not to hear what is read, you close them so as not to see for yourself, even if you seem to others to see. You even lay certain hands of unbelief and intemperance on the eyes of your soul and bring blindness on your heart, and what is worse, a voluntary blindness, so that seeing you do not see, and hearing you do not hear.

Do you think you are alone when you commit fornication, and do you not remember that “the eyes of the Lord see the whole world”? Do you not hear him say: “Behold, the hour comes when you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave me alone; but I am not alone, for the Father is with me”? The Father, then, is present, the Son of God is present too, the ministers are present, the Cherubim and Seraphim are present, who say: “Holy, holy, holy, the earth is full of your majesty.”

The world is full of holy powers, because it is full of wickedness; the whole earth is full of remedies, because it is full of snares. Do you think Christ does not see you in the brothel, when he sees you enter the brothel? Do you think he does not catch you in adultery, when he sees you thinking of adultery? Does he who watches over errors shrink from walls, and turn away from the secret of the crime, he who looks upon the stage of the crime? Or do you think you enter the house of hire for the first time when you go through the harlot’s arch? You have entered already, when the harlot entered your thoughts; you entered already when with the step of your mind you entered into the desire of possessing a prostitute; you knocked at the brothel door when you opened the eyes of your mind to the beauty of a woman to be lusted after.

And if you want to hear the truth, how did Christ not see you in the brothel, when he saw you, since by committing adultery in your heart you had made yourself a brothel? Indeed the Lord Jesus himself says: “Whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” How then can one so religious in reputation be so shameful in crime?

But suppose I grant you that Jesus is unwilling to see you, that he who is unwilling to accuse is unwilling to convict, and that the angels too are unwilling to see; yet the devil sees, who went in with you, or rather who led you in; his ministers see, who surrounded you so that you would not see the angels of God; Belial sees, the legion sees, who drove you on, lest anyone call you back, lest anyone hold you. Do not think that he who wishes to share punishment with you will grant you the collusion of silence. He is eager to see many like himself, and his glory is in having ruined many. He himself is the instigator, he himself the accuser;

he entered into Judas, he drove him to betrayal, he sent him to the noose. How many will say against him on that day: “You deceived us, you drove us on!” Do you want an example? Hear Eve saying that the serpent was the author of her transgression. But she implicated him without acquitting herself, and the Lord answered her: “Had I not commanded that you should not taste of the one tree which is in the middle of paradise?” So he will answer many too: “You listened to the devil persuading you to harmful things; could you not listen to me commanding life-giving things?”

And so let us work righteousness. “For those who work iniquity have not walked in his ways. You have commanded your commandments to be kept exceedingly. O that my ways may be directed to keep your statutes! Then I shall not be put to shame, when I look upon all your commandments.”

He says not only, “You have commanded your commandments to be kept,” but also, “to be kept exceedingly.” When did he command this? In paradise he commanded Adam to keep the commandments; but perhaps he had not commanded him to keep them exceedingly, and so he fell. So he was swayed by his wife’s voice, so he was deceived by the serpent, thinking that if he departed from the commandment in some part, he would not wholly go astray. But because he once departed from the path of the commandments, he abandoned the whole way; the serpent found him off the way, stripped him of everything, and left him naked. Therefore the Lord, because the one who was in paradise had fallen, afterwards through the law, through the prophets, through the gospel, through the apostles warned that you should keep exceedingly the commandments of the Lord your God. “Every

word,” it says, “that you speak, you will render an account for it.” Do not overlook it; from any commandment not one iota or one stroke passes away. Do not leave the way. If, walking in the way, you are hardly safe from a robber, what will you do if he finds you wandering off 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: “O that my ways may be directed!” Elsewhere he says: “Waiting, I waited for the Lord, and he heard me; and he set my feet upon a rock and directed my steps.” Pray, then, you too, that the Lord may direct the footsteps of your mind, so that you can keep the statutes of the Lord. You will not be put to shame when you look upon all the commandments; for before you were put to shame 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 are you?” When he says it to him, he says it to you; for Adam in Latin means “man,” that is: “Man, where are you?” And Adam answered: “Afraid, because I was naked and wholly put to shame, I did not dare to come before your sight.” So, that we may not be put to shame, let us keep the commandments of the Lord, and keep them all; for if anyone keeps one commandment and transgresses another, it profits him nothing. Someone has kept himself from bloodshed, but not from adultery; surely, convicted in the one, he is punished even by the laws of the world, and abstinence from the other crime does not profit him if he is caught in the other.

“I will confess to you, Lord, in uprightness of heart” (do you notice which ways you are to direct?) “when I have learned the judgments of your righteousness. I will keep your statutes; do not utterly forsake me.” In this place he testifies that he wishes to know mystical things more fully,

so that he may enter the inner rooms of the heavenly mysteries and the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ may be opened to him. Hence Solomon too says: “Draw us; we will run after you in the fragrance of your ointments. The king has brought me into his chamber.” And perhaps what he said above, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” signifies the grace of the Holy Spirit coming upon her, as the angel said to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” But when the king brought her into his chamber, the time of the passion is declared, the piercing of the side, the shedding of blood, the ointment of burial, the mystery of the resurrection, so that the church received the kiss as a bride, but was brought into Christ’s chamber no longer as only betrothed but also as married, and not only

has she entered the bridal room, but she has also obtained the keys of a lawful union. And so, as one placed in the bridal room, she says: “My brother is to me a cluster of drops; he rests between my breasts.” And if we seek the chamber, let him teach us who says: “But you, when you pray, go into your chamber and, having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret.” The chamber of the church is the body of Christ; the king has brought her into all the inner mysteries, he has given her the keys, so that she might open for herself the treasures of the knowledge of the sacraments, throw open the doors that were shut before, and know the grace of rest, the sleep of the dead, the power of the resurrection.

In that chamber the bride found the righteous acts of the Lord Jesus. What are those righteous acts? Surely the sacraments of baptism, as we read that, when John said to him as he came for baptism, “I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”, Jesus answered: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

In that chamber she learned the statutes, she came to know the counsel of God, as it is written that “all the people who heard, and the tax collectors, justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John; but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.”

What they rejected, we have chosen, and we follow the counsel of God, for nothing can be more sublime; for this is divine, by which forgiveness of sins comes about. When, then, she has learned the righteous acts of the Lord, fearing God she will not be put to shame. Indeed Paul too says: “In nothing shall I be put to shame.”

And because no one can be perfect without God’s favor, nor safe, one ought therefore to ask that God not abandon him utterly. For above David asked not to be forsaken, saying: “Do not forsake me, O Lord my God”; here he says: “Do not utterly forsake me,” that is, very much. There perhaps, as one still imperfect and set in great troubles, he feared to be forsaken; but here, now stronger, he does not fear to be forsaken so as to be tested, but asks not to be utterly forsaken. For God often forsakes those whom he wishes to be proved, but he utterly forsakes those whom he deserts. He utterly forsook Judas;

but he did not forsake holy Job, over whose property and over whose body he gave the devil power; over his soul he did not give it, for if he had given it over his soul, he would have forsaken him utterly. Was not Job left precisely so that, being left, he might be proved, and, being proved, might be crowned? He forsook Judas, then, to whom he said: “What you are doing, do quickly”; for he utterly forsook the one whom he allowed to carry out his crime. But when he saw that the other apostles were troubled because he had said, “Where I am going you cannot come,” he added: “Let not your heart be troubled,” and further on:

“I come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” Peter indeed, troubled because he feared to be forsaken, says: “Lord, where are you going?” The Lord saw that he was troubled and answered him: “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” So too, when he faltered on the sea, he cried out to Christ, and Christ stretched out his right hand to him, so that he should not perish utterly forsaken.

No one ought to be puffed up because he is never forsaken, or to grieve because he is sometimes forsaken, since the Son himself says he was forsaken, as you have it: “God, my God, look upon me; why have you forsaken me?” And he indeed was never forsaken by the Father, with whom the Father always is; for it is written: “Behold, the hour now comes when you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave me alone; but I am not alone, for the Father is with me.”

But that cry came forth according to the body, in which he was handed over to suffering, since we seem to ourselves to be forsaken when we are set in dangers. Hence Paul too says of God the Father: “He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all.” He seems to have forsaken him, because he did not spare him and handed him over 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 let your holy one see corruption.”

“By what does a younger man correct his way?” Our discussion of the previous eight verses did not turn out unfittingly, and so we were eager to pursue what follows too. And first we must consider the meaning of the second letter, that is, Beth, which, rendered in Latin, is declared to mean “confusion.”

But he who corrects his way will not be put to shame. Yet because the one who corrects was formerly in error (for how is something corrected, unless it had before turned aside from the truth?), surely one who had fallen and been captured by the luxury of adolescence and the enticements of a wanton age, when, advanced to the borders of young manhood, he comes to his senses with a sober mind, as though confused in spirit, turns over long within himself how he may lay aside what he should blush at and take up what is full of uprightness; tossing between different thoughts he weighs and examines, “forgetting what lies behind and reaching out to what lies ahead,” how he may correct his way and cover the offense of his more youthful age with the serious face of young manhood.

So that such a one may not doubt long and hang in uncertainty, the prophet gives counsel, as though deliberating with him himself; for we believe counsels to be more wholesome when they appear to have been examined with more careful meditation. But the very undertaking of deliberation is marked out by a learned definition, so as to remove the clash of different thoughts, when he says: “By what does a younger man correct his way?” For this is the goal of the one deliberating: by what he may correct his way.

And he answers: “By keeping your words.” And well, turning to God, he answered the one deliberating, as though, having offered prayer and supplication, he had found this counsel by the Lord’s inspiration, so that it might be believed a remedy not of human presumption but of divine condescension. For our mind, sprinkled with the seeds of the heavenly words, which before degenerated into wild shoots, begins to bring forth better cultivation and to bear fruit. Let us therefore make our paths straight and not follow the windings of the crooked serpent. For “the ways of the Lord are straight,” but the ways of those who go astray are perverse, of whom it is said:

“O you who have forsaken the straight paths!” In rows the glad crop stretches out, and vineyards are set in line; the stag runs straighter, the little fox winds about. That is why 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 lament of Jeremiah, in which sinners are bewailed who refused to take up the yoke of the word in youth. That is why they were led captive, that is why they are lamented as dead, because they did not know the paths of life and did not turn aside from works worthy of the tomb of corpses. Bewailing, then, the everlasting death of the Jews, Jeremiah says: “It is good for a man when he takes up the yoke in his youth; he will sit alone and keep silence, because he has taken it upon himself.”

We ought not only to take up the yoke of the word, but to take it up in youth; for if we take it up late, we begin to have repentance for the past rather than to hold on to grace. Let us therefore anticipate the years of youth with fitting correction, so that each of us may rather say, “God, who has fed me from my youth,” than, remembering our falls, weep and say: “Do not remember the sins of my youth and my ignorance.” The latter is the remedy of weakness, the former the strength of health.

Medicine 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 has taken up the yoke after the years of youth have run their course, the good is not at once perfect: for his sins goad him, the habit of sinning harasses his conscience, and the practice of error makes him unstable. Such a man must struggle long to abolish what is inveterate and long-standing. For the one the matter is in danger, for the other in good standing.

Then he will sit alone, as one who does not easily find his equal, endowed with singular rewards; and he will keep silence, quiet and at leisure from every disturbance of worldly care and pleasure, and will give himself to the divine oracles, which are usually revealed to those who sit alone, as to holy David, who says: “For you, Lord, have settled me alone in hope.” And he indeed did not sit alone in secret, but though he ruled over peoples, he nevertheless stood out by singular grace. Elijah sat alone, when he was fed by an angel and by ravens bringing him food; alone, not only set apart from the crowds, but also separated from the merits of most. And so the revelations of divine grace shone upon him; and he obtained the fruit of this gift as a reward, because from his youth he thought he should take up the yoke of the word, so that his sins should not have to be dragged on a long rope.

This younger man, who has done good by taking up the yoke of the word in youth, not yet perfect because still young, but separating himself from the conversations of his peers, which often corrupt good morals, and wishing to flee the contagion of sinners, can be understood to sit alone and keep silence in this way: so as not to slip through the pliancy of an untrained age, but to attend to the precepts of his elders, the oracles of the prophets, the teachings of the apostles; praiseworthy in this, that he wishes first to know what should be spoken before

uttering what he thinks, before he learns to speak, fearing lest he incur sin in much speaking. Hence I think that Pythagoras too, that philosopher, as an imitator of this young man of the prophet, established his school so that his disciples, not speaking for five years, might learn to speak by so long a silence; especially since there is no doubt that David was earlier in time than Pythagoras, he who says: “I said, I will guard my ways, so that I do not sin with my tongue; I have set a guard on my mouth.” And because perhaps he had at some time said something

rather carelessly, he afterwards asked God to set a guard on his mouth. Who does not know that Isaiah too was earlier than the Pythagoreans? When he heard, “Cry out,” he did not cry out before he heard what he ought to cry; for he answered: “What shall I cry?” Hence it was said to him: “All flesh is grass, but the word of the Lord abides for ever,” and he cried out with prophetic voice.

Both young men, then, are to be praised; the one, however, is more serious, the other cautious; the one content with himself and never alone with himself, the other adopting the discipline of silence, a fine thing for a slippery age, not yet sufficient for himself but afraid to trust himself to others, yet seeking from youth to gather what will profit himself and his neighbors in old age, so that it may not be said to him: “What you did not gather in youth, how will you find in old age?”

So if he sits in the council of elders, he will put his hand to his mouth, so that, listening, he may gather sayings to keep for himself for a riper age: as Mary, when she heard the words of Christ, pondered them all in her heart; as John, when he leaned his head on the breast of the Lord Jesus, drank in the deep secrets of wisdom.

Here is a young man for you who corrected his way in his youth! He was a fisherman with his brother; he saw the Lord Jesus as he was folding his nets, and he heard him say, “Come, I will make you fishers of men,” and leaving his nets and his father he followed him. He had begun to run the way of the world, but on hearing the command he deserted the life of the world and followed Christ; he proved that a younger man corrects his way in this, if he keeps the words of Christ, saying to him: “Let us love your breasts more than wine,” yet drinking in such a way that he was not swallowed up by wine, but by his grace drank in gladness of heart, and did not stagger with bodily drunkenness.

Then, drinking this wine, he opened his eyes and saw the straight way; he left the crooked ways, saying: “Uprightness has loved you,” that is: winding roads do not follow you, but only the path of righteousness can reach you. For whoever loves righteousness does not turn away from Christ; for how should an innocent conscience fear the judge of the just and the rewarder of merits?

In this young man, then, behold great mysteries, which holy Solomon, filled with the Spirit of the Lord, sounded forth in the Song of Songs. Picture the Lord Jesus reclining at the banquet, and John leaning on his breast; the others marveling that a servant should lean on his master, that that sinful flesh should recline upon the temple of the Word, that that soul, bound by the chains of the flesh, should search the court of the divine

fullness. To the others who marvel at this, John’s soul answers: “I am dark and beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem,” dark through guilt, beautiful through grace. The flesh too says: “I am dark and beautiful”: dark with the world’s dust, which I gathered in the contest, beautiful with the spiritual oil with which I wiped off the dust and grime of this world; dark through vice, but beautiful now through the washing that has cleansed every sin. “I am dark,” because I have sinned; “beautiful,” because Christ now loves me; whom he had banished in Eve, he has received back from the Virgin, taken up from Mary.

The synagogue too says this, whose mysteries most think are expressed in this place. When she saw herself now rejected because of the ungodliness of the whole people, she consoled herself nevertheless, because she saw Christ himself from her own people, and Peter, John, and James cleaving to Christ, and because she had the oracles entrusted to her; and so she said: “I am dark and beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem,” dark through unbelief,

beautiful through the law; dark through the fall, beautiful because the sun loved me and I was made the first congregation of God. Do not shun me because I am dark; I am dark for this reason, that the sun of righteousness, which used to enlighten me before, has left me. I have lost the color of my face; the keenness of my eyes, with which I once saw the sun, has been dulled; I walk in darkness, because I do not know the day of Christ. Yet do not despise me, for he who left can look on me again and have mercy once more.

He is accustomed to gather the scattered, to seek the deserted, to collect the destitute. “All you tribes of Israel, come together, look upon me, beautiful once, abandoned now; do not look at 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 so I have been darkened. But the sun shines on the just and the unjust: on the just by grace, on the unjust by mercy, granting to the former the reward of their merits, forgiving the latter their sins. And on the Gentiles it did not shine before; now it shines, now he rises for them who used to rise for me; he who forgave them will forgive me too.

“Do not think, because I have been darkened,” that the sun has utterly left me and no longer looks on me, no longer seeks out the sick one. He has turned his face from me because I did not keep his commandments; he will be reconciled when he sees the repentance of my sins. The sun did not see me because I did not receive him when he came, I did not open the windows so that the light of life might enter. When I open them, he will enlighten my eyes, who came to enlighten the whole world, so that even those who do not see may see.

“The sons of my mother fought against me; they made me keeper in the vineyards; my own vineyard I have not kept.” Some think this is said of those who constrain the synagogue to the precepts of the law, that she should keep the law and guard her vineyard, which she could not keep; indeed he kept it that it might yield grapes, but it yielded thorns. That such was the vineyard, David comes to testify to us, saying: “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you cast out the nations and planted it.” The apostles too can be the sons of her mother,

who truly 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 urging and warning that the synagogue should keep her vineyard, achieved nothing. For she produced the thorns of wickedness, she who ought to have borne rich fruits of virtue. And so she confesses that she could not keep her people, and rightly she seeks late to hold the one whom she lost while she held him, very unlike her who says: “I found him whom my soul loved; I held him and will not let him go.”

Indeed, the one invites the bridegroom into her garden; the other, seeking where he feeds, says to him: “Tell me, you whom my soul loved.” Why do you say “whom my soul loved” and not “loves”? Why did you let go of the one you held? You loved by the faith of the fathers, you lost by unbelief; you held by the bonds of love, you lost by the long rope of faithlessness. And so you do not know where he feeds, where he dwells; for if you knew, you would not ask.

For you say: “Where do you feed, where do you dwell at midday?” You know that the midday is the church which holds Christ, and you seek him in the night? “Tell me,” she says, “O Christ; answer, if only because you were once dear and beloved to me; even if I have lost the privilege of so great a love, yet answer me as one who is kind: where do you feed, where do you dwell? You have left me, you have gone to the Gentiles, you have withdrawn far from me and have come nearer to those from whom you were far. But you came near, because they believed in your blood;

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

So you seek as a stranger, you who were nearest; as a poor woman, you who were rich. You wish to follow, you who went before; and would that you might at least follow those whom you ought to have gone before! You wish to be a hired woman, you who formerly gathered hired workers; surely this is the voice of a hired woman, who says: “Lest perhaps I become veiled beside the flocks of your companions.” You who formerly received proselytes from the Gentiles now wish yourself to be received among the nations in the place of proselytes and to be gathered in like a newcomer.

Jesus answers: “Unless you know yourself, beautiful among women.” What is it to know oneself, but for each to know that man was made in the image and likeness of God, capable of reason, one who ought to cultivate his land like a good farmer with a kind of plough and pruning hook of wisdom, so that hard ground may be broken up and rank growth cut back, one who ought to govern the lower part of himself by the rule of the mind?

Hence it is written in the law too: “Attend to yourself, lest a hidden word arise in your heart.” “To yourself,” it says, “attend”: surely it does not say to your money, not to your possessions, not to the strength of your body, but to your mind and understanding, from which all counsels, deeds, and thoughts flow. Attend, then, to yourself there, where you know yourself to be the better part. “Know yourself”: this the Gentiles attribute to the Pythian Apollo, as though he were the author of this saying, though they transfer to themselves what they have usurped from what is ours, and Moses, who wrote the book of Deuteronomy, was far earlier than the philosophers who invented these things.

Hence Solomon too, following the divine oracle, wrote in the Song of Songs: “Unless you know yourself, beautiful among women,” that is: unless you know yourself to be mortal and rational, and quickly confess your sins, quickly tell your iniquities, so as to be justified; unless you turn and are the first to accuse your sins, the day of death comes and there is no longer any remedy of conversion;

you are overtaken while you are not thinking of it. Light your lamp before the door of the bridegroom is shut on you, who is not accustomed to wait long for the negligent. “Unless you know yourself,” he says, “beautiful among women,” and say, “I am dark and beautiful: dark because I have sinned, but beautiful because I am loved, because I am the race of Abraham, a chosen race, beloved by God,” the grace of the fathers will profit you nothing; for God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

And elsewhere in the gospel you have read that the devil bound a daughter of Abraham with the chains of his wickedness, whom the Lord loosed on the sabbath day. Unless, then, you know yourself, it will profit you nothing even if you say, “I am a daughter of Abraham,” you who do not believe, who do not correct your error. Abraham indeed is saved, but the nobility of your race will not help you unless faith has preserved you. Let not the promise given to the fathers deceive you. “I do not accept the person of a man, I do not accept the privilege of race, unless I see a nobility of conduct matching the race, so that it may be the election of a righteous race.”

But if you know yourself and recognize that you are liable to sin, you must go out in the footsteps of the flocks. Go out, then, barefoot, and feed your kids by the tents of the shepherds. He who is without sin feeds lambs, feeds sheep; but she who is liable to sin feeds kids, which are on the left; for she cannot be on the right of the good shepherd. Let her rather follow him who says to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan.” By following, Peter deserved to be placed on the right, and so it is said to him: “Feed my little lambs.” But where she should go out, hear: “to the tents,” it says, “of the shepherds,” that is, to the Gentiles, to the dispersion.

And so he said, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered,” so that the whole world might be filled with the flock of Christ, signifying that the synagogue would then be saved when she too joined herself to this dispersion which has filled this world; for the tents of the shepherds are the kingdoms of the earth. And so the prophet David, announcing that the nations would believe, says: “Kingdoms of the earth, sing to God.” Let the younger man, then, know himself, so that he may correct his way.

But you say: how can a younger man know his way so as to correct it, when the prophet says: “Three things are impossible for me to understand, and a fourth I do not know: the tracks of an eagle flying, the way of a serpent on a rock, and the paths of a ship tossing at sea, and the ways of a man in his youth”? If Solomon admits that he does not know the ways of a man in his youth, how can a younger man know them?

He 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 the paths of a ship tossing at sea and the tracks of an eagle in flight, which has sharp talons and flies above the clouds, wanders in the air, and kills fish in the sea. And yet this fourth thing is not impossible, like those three; for the Lord knows those who are his, and he wishes each one to know himself, the people of God to know itself.

But granted that the ways of those who go astray are not known, as the Lord says, “I do not know you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity”: this younger man, however, who can correct his way, is perhaps younger in age, not in conduct, and has in the first flower of his youth an aged understanding, of which it says: “But understanding is gray hair for men,” for those who have maturity of counsel and gravity. Hence it is said to Jeremiah too: “Do not say, I am a youth.” And surely he was young in age,

but he forbids him to call himself young, since he had a riper prudence. Daniel, when he was a boy, received the spirit by which he was held worthy of the first fruits of old age, so that he could convict the elders, himself not older in length of years but in grace; for in him the age of old age was an unstained life, to whom that word of David well applies: “I have understood more than the elders.” And so the divine oracle pronounced as of a man of veteran counsel and aged knowledge: “Who is wiser than Daniel?”

Now let us consider this: whether it is possible for the younger 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 younger man keeps the words of God; but if he does not keep them, it is impossible. Hence that word of the gospel:

“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” However much he called it impossible, we understand it to be impossible because the rich do not keep the commandments of God; but if they keep them, what seemed impossible becomes possible. This is the camel that enters by the narrow way, and the way that before could not take him in while he was full of desire now takes him in as he keeps the divine commandments. For keeping the words of God, because he kept them, Moses is chosen as an elder; and now those to whom this office is entrusted by the Spirit of God, to choose elders, without doubt choose among the elders a young man who corrects his way by keeping the words of God. And if they choose a man of older age, surely they chose him not as long-lived but as one who keeps the words of God; and if this is found in a younger man, he too should certainly be chosen. It is clear from this, then, that it is not length of years that is chosen but the keeping of God’s words. Indeed Moses himself approved the young men Joshua son of Nun and Caleb above the rest, whose counsel about the choice of the land he himself followed and God preferred to that of many elders.

Hence that word of Jacob too, which we cited above, “God who has fed me from my youth,” is shown us to have been said of one who took up the yoke of the word in his youth and, withdrawing from Esau and those like him, sat alone, waiting within himself for the time when he could bring forth speech with discipline; and for this reason he was given spiritual food, still young in age but a veteran in counsel. For it is not fitting for us to believe that so great a patriarch spoke of bodily food when he said, “God who has fed me from my youth,” since he did not desire bodily bread when he said: “If the Lord God is with me, let him give me bread to eat and clothing to wear; of all that you give me I will give a tenth to you.” For if our fathers ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink, how much more was holy Jacob fed with spiritual food!

That other understanding also fits this place and is not foreign to the truth: that the younger man is the people from the gathering of the Gentiles, which, before it believed in Christ, wandered on a crooked winding path, and corrects its way in this, that it kept the words of God, which the Jewish people would not keep, and so it could not find the way of salvation. Let us consider the following verse too.

“With my whole heart I have sought you; do not drive me away from your commandments.” If God drives away each one whom he thinks should be driven away, let us see that he does not give an excuse to one who was driven away when he wanted to follow God. And first, how does the good God drive away one who follows, unless he himself deserves to be driven away? As the Lord himself says, “Foxes have holes,” and so he drives him away as a fox; and elsewhere: “For to everyone who has will be given, but from him who does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken away.” To whom does he add, if not to him

who seeks him with his whole heart, so that what nature lacks he may acquire by God’s working and grace? Like Solomon, who, seeking God with his whole heart, asked for wisdom, and because he asked not for royal wealth for himself but for the gift of divine grace, he deserved to receive the discipline of wisdom; he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord, so as to know all the commandments. But he who does not seek the Lord in his heart, and does indeed do the work of God, but does it negligently, is subject to a curse, as we read: “Cursed is everyone who does the work of God negligently.” Rightly, then, he is driven away, because he is worthy of the curse, because he rather pollutes and hinders the work which he thought could be carried out negligently.

Let us consider, then, whether it is goodness to drive the negligent from the work or rather to keep him, and let us take an image of this from other arts. A physician treats a sick man, but through the physician’s negligence and sloth the poison of the wound spreads. How much better, then, that such a physician, who wastes time while the wounded man feels no improvement, should be removed, so that the duty of treatment may be transferred to a physician who by his diligence can help the sick man sooner! Is not he more merciful who drives away one who achieves nothing than he who keeps him to the sick man’s peril?

Picture someone placed over builders or even weavers, who is to carry through the whole of the work: does he seem to you more praiseworthy if he applies himself to it diligently and, if he perhaps notices someone careless among those working at building a house, drives him away, thinking it better not to build than to have what is built fall apart with gaping cracks, and puts in his place someone who will build with diligence? Likewise, will you not approve the overseer of a weaving shop who drives away the negligent so as to put diligent workers in their place, lest long carelessness ruin the weaving, more than one who lets the idle persist in their negligence?

Pass now to those who build the commandments, weave the law, and have received the soul of each person to heal. If one of them builds the house of God with righteousness, weaves the garment with diligence, and heals the soul with grace, does he not do a good work?

But if someone careless and slack occupies the place of a spiritual builder, weaver, or physician, as high priest, as presbyter, as minister of the holy altar, is it not better for each not to undertake an office he cannot fulfill, than to undertake it, neither performing the office he has taken on energetically himself, and to snatch the place from another who could keep it diligently? What of the fact that he too who is slack is cared for by being driven away, lest he incur greater offense?

But let us consider what it is to be driven away. For it is read: “Like the wounded sleeping, cast out into the tombs, whom you remember no more, and they have been driven away from your hand.” Let us note, then, whom he drives away as wounded and cast out into the tombs, whom he will remember no more. These are those who are driven away from the commandments of God; for to the sinner God said: “Why do you declare my righteous deeds?” And because they are driven away from the commandments, they are driven away from God’s hand; and he took good care that no one should seem to be snatched from

the hand of God, since no one can snatch anyone from the hand of God. He, then, who is deprived of the duty or grace of the office he has received is not snatched but cast off, as the Lord Jesus said to Jerusalem: “How often I would have gathered your children, and you would not! Behold, your house will be left to you desolate.” He took from them the sanctuary, the altar of incense and the sanctuary of prayer, the mercy seat, the altar of sacrifices, the ministries of the priests and Levites; and yet, when all these things that they had according to the commandments of the law had been taken away, the apostle says: “Has God cast off his inheritance?” He has not cast it off, he says, but “he has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all.”

There are, then, those who for a time are driven away from the commandments out of mercy, just as those too are cared for who are vomited out. For just as what must be vomited, if it stays in the body, sours further, so he who ought to be shut out, if he is kept and does not correct himself, inflames the whole body. And rightly the faithful and true witness says to the angel of Laodicea: “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! But because you are lukewarm, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth.” He plainly condemns negligence with a heavier judgment than ignorance; for he is cold who does not know the faith, hot who is set on fire by the fervor of the Holy Spirit.

He, then, who does not have the warmth of faith would have fared more tolerably not to have received the faith than to have neglected it. For the lukewarm is worse than the cold, like the Jew, who thinks he has a faith which he does not have. How much more tolerable is the case of the Gentile, who can say, “I did not know the law, I did not hear the prophets, and so I did not believe,” than that of him who read everything by which he should believe that Jesus would come, and did not believe! Neither, indeed, is excused, neither he who read nor he who would not read; but he sins more who denied what he had read than he who did not do works which he did not know were to be done.

How great is the grace of faith and righteousness, that he who holds the faith and practices the works of righteousness 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 heart! Yet how kind he is, who both holds the righteous in his mouth and does not vomit out the unrighteous before he has warned them that they are to be vomited out, so that, turned by such a warning, they may do something worthy of not being vomited out! Now let us consider the third verse.

“In my heart,” he says, “I have hidden your words, that I may not sin against you.” For this reason, then, it is good to hide the mystery of the king; for he sins against God who thinks the secret mysteries entrusted to him should be made common to the unworthy. There is danger, then, not only in speaking falsehoods but also in speaking truths, if one insinuates them to those to whom one ought not.

This fault is fourfold: of flattery, or greed, or boasting, or careless talkativeness. For while someone wishes to flatter, he pours out the mystery to the one he speaks to; some too, out of eagerness for gain, pursue the wages of betrayal, so as to sell by speaking what should be covered by silence; others, to seem to know more and to show off their knowledge, disclose what they ought to conceal; many, while they speak without forethought, let slip a word they cannot recall. Therefore a serious man is praised, and the man who hides his words does not babble idly,

like the apostle Paul, who knows what to say to each and when he ought to say what. Hence he says to the Corinthians too: “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able, and even now you are not able.” Therefore he sees them in passing, but he stays with the Ephesians, because a great door had been opened to him to make known to the Gentiles the mystery of Christ. And so Solomon too teaches that there is a time to speak.

But above all the Lord Jesus declares it in his gospel, saying that the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. Surely not gold, not silver, not money can be compared

with the kingdom of heaven, but the words of the Lord, “pure words, silver tried in the fire,” by which the kingdom itself is acquired. This treasure of wisdom and knowledge, then, 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 will be said to him in the prophetic word: “Of your seed they will take and make eunuchs in the house of the king.” By this it is signified that he who betrays the divine mysteries cannot have offspring for his soul or a seedbed of merits.

Beware, then, of betraying your riches to the faithless, and, if they pretend friendship, do not open to them the inner rooms of your house; do not unlock the royal treasures, which the Babylonians ought not to know, lest they come and capture your descendants and cut off the seedbed of virtue. This is what the Lord says in the gospel too: “Do not throw your pearls to swine.”

Therefore he does well who hides the words of the Lord in his heart, as the prophet David hid them, as Mary did, who kept all the words of the Lord Jesus in her heart. Indeed, if it is good for a man to hide his own words, how much more ought we to cover and hide the word of God in the bosom of our heart!

In the fourth verse he says: “Blessed are you, Lord; teach me your statutes”; for not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who has done the will of God.

So this man, who has corrected his way from his youth, has kept the words of God, has sought the Lord his God with his whole heart and has not been driven from God’s commandments, and has been held worthy to be entrusted with the secrets of wisdom, has hidden them in his heart so as not to sin against God; as one who has the words of God, he gives thanks, saying, “Blessed are you, Lord,” and he desires to have him as his teacher, longing to know the secrets of the law and how they are to be interpreted: “If you buy a Hebrew slave and he serves you six years,” and the rest, before which it is set: “These are the righteous ordinances which you shall set before the sons of Israel.” These he seeks to learn from the Lord, which men could not teach unless God had first taught them.

After the apostles learned these from Christ, the church says: “The king has brought me into his chamber,” that is, into his secret place, in which are the treasures of his knowledge and understanding. And so it is said to you: “When you pray, go into your chamber,” which signifies the secret place of the mind and soul. Into this chamber of righteous acts the bride asked to be brought, when she ran after the fragrance of the ointment, which always flows and never fails.

Therefore, as one taught the righteous acts, the prophet says in the fifth verse: “With my lips I have declared all the judgments of your mouth.” And how does he say elsewhere: “Your judgments are like a great deep”? How does the apostle say: “O the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out!

For who has known the mind of the Lord?” If the judgments are unsearchable, how then, says the prophet, “I have declared all the judgments of your mouth”? But perhaps the judgments of God are not the same as the judgments of his mouth. If they are different, it is well said, “Who will be like your thoughts?”, and so his judgments are unsearchable, because we know in part and we prophesy in part. But what if no one says this but Christ, who can say: “I and the Father are one”?

Let us nevertheless distinguish, and not fear that venerable Scripture fights against itself as if with contradictions. Let us consider that he did not say, “The judgments of his mouth are like a great deep,” but “your judgments”; nor did the apostle write, “unsearchable are the judgments of his mouth,” but “unsearchable are his judgments.” For we can consider the judgments of God to be

those hidden ones which he has not disclosed to us, but the judgments of his mouth those which he has announced and spoken through the mouth of the prophets. For the prophet is understood as the mouth of God, to whom it is said, “Cry out,” and he says, “What shall I cry?” And it was inspired in him to say: “All flesh is grass.” In saying this he surely performed the office of God’s mouth, because he spoke the judgment of God. Therefore the prophetic oracles are now not the deep, but they too are like a deep, because no one in heaven or on earth could open the book except Christ. Let us come now to the sixth verse.

“In the way of your testimonies,” he says, “I have delighted as in all riches.” Some delight in gold, some in silver, some in clothes, some in possessions, vineyards, olive groves, cornfields, some in works of painting or marble; each, in short, has his delights in different things. The spiritual man delights in the way of the heavenly testimonies as one possessing the whole inheritance, rich in all things, as the apostle says: “I give thanks to my God always for you, for the grace of our God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you have been enriched in him, in all speech and in all knowledge.”

The Corinthians advanced so far in the apostle’s teaching that they who before could only drink milk like little children afterwards abounded in all the riches of knowledge and speech. David, then, delighted in all the riches of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, in every action of good works. And if anyone now, intent on divine things, drinks in that threefold discipline of wisdom, the theoretical, the practical, and the logical, he will be the more beautiful for his good zeal in acquiring knowledge, holding the grace of carrying out rational and moral teaching. He who has come to know the riddles of the prophets by the revelation of the Spirit of God, has grasped the depth of the gospel in works and counsels, and has noted the moral teaching of the apostolic word, will, as one rich in all things, take abundant delight.

And because bodily pleasure is sweet, it is not compared with spiritual things as though equal in the quality of its grace, but it is called on as a witness to sweetness, since the apostle too teaches that the invisible and eternal things of God are understood by us through the things that are made. In the Song too we have it written: “To my mare among Pharaoh’s chariots I have likened you, my neighbor.”

In this, since a likeness of the church seems compared to the course of swift horses, her rich grace is valued. Do not, then, take it of one mare of a rich king, but absolutely, for cavalry, as we often say, “What is his sheep like?” for “a flock of sheep.” Pharaoh, then, as a very powerful and very rich king, had powerful horses, which is why Scripture speaks of “Pharaoh’s chariots” as the mightiest kind of force for use in war and for help in battle;

indeed with these chariots Pharaoh easily overtook the fleeing Hebrews. Just as, then, horses yoked together draw a chariot in harmony, patiently take the yoke, carry their load with fitting grace, and grow gentle by taking up that yoke, so too the gathering of the nations, untamed in Gentile ways, used to toss about before; but when it took up the yoke of him who says, “Take my yoke, for it is light, and my burden, for it is sweet,” and the bride of Christ began to be exalted by the harmony and gentleness of the peoples and to be carried about the whole world, she was caught up, as a chariot with swift horses, above the world and ascended to the bridegroom.

Indeed in the later parts of the Song too she says: “I have set you as the chariots of Aminadab.” The church has many chariots within her, all of which the Lord guides with spiritual reins; and one soul

has many thoughts, which the Lord’s rein restrains and calls back, lest this chariot of ours be carried over some precipice. Aminadab means by interpretation “father of good pleasure,” whose son, Naasson, is read in Numbers as a prince of the people. Understand who he is: by interpretation “serpentine”; and you recognize this if you recall that he who redeemed you hung on the tree like a serpent.

The soul, then, is the chariot of God, so that its anger and lust and fear and all worldly desires may be reined in. The church too is the chariot of God, to be steered by the helm of Christ, lest the movements and dissensions of different peoples disturb her. By that Naasson too Christ is well understood, because Aaron’s rod, turned into a serpent, devoured those Egyptian serpents. Let us have these riches, let us delight in these, so that rational horses may run for us and we may dwell on their precepts.

And so he says: “In your commandments I will exercise myself, and I will consider your ways.” For he who exercises himself in the words of the apostles comes to know the commandments of the Lord Jesus and considers his ways, whose end is Christ, who says: “I am the way.”

“And in your righteous acts I will meditate; I will not forget your words.” This place reminds us that we ought to be mindful of the Scriptures and to meditate on his righteous acts not only in speech but also by imitating them in deed. For it is not those who debate the law and do not do what belongs to the law, but the doers of the law who are justified.

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

“Repay,” he says, “your servant.” How is it that above David himself says, “Do not repay us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities,” and here he asks for repayment? That seems to be the voice of a sinner, this of one with a good conscience who asks for the rewards of good work. Hence we can also understand that this psalm is framed in the person of him who, born of a virgin for the redemption of the whole world, may confidently claim to sit at the right hand of the Father, as he himself says: “From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power.”

Yet it is neither unfitting nor arrogant if David asks the Lord his God for a reward for his outstanding labors: it is the privilege of faith and righteousness to claim a recompense from the Lord’s favor. Indeed Peter is rebuked because, walking on the waves, he doubted from human feeling rather than presuming with apostolic authority. In the gospel too we are taught to have faith and not to hesitate about doing things that are beyond man. Rightly, then, David in the earlier psalms,

as still imperfect, shrinks from and declines to be repaid according to his sins. But in this psalm, which is later, as one grounded by progress in virtue, he prays to be repaid according to the contests of faith and work, since Paul too, who had said before, “I am not worthy to be called an apostle,” afterwards says: “There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but also to those who love his appearing.” And the apostle promises it to himself, but this one still more modestly prays for it; which surely belongs not to insolent arrogance but to an innocent conscience: to ask a reward from him whom you have served; for to despair of it is a ground for sloth, but to hope for it is an incentive to labor.

Ask, then, with confidence, if your merits support you, so that by asking for such things you may labor more zealously, to be more worthy of that petition. What athlete would go down into the stadium if he despaired of the crown, or would give offense if, as victor, he claimed it? Testing produces hope, hope confidence. Such, then, is the prayer of the righteous; the Lord delights in such a prayer, that you should use authority in accordance with the purity of your conscience.

Yet, so that the petition might seem less arrogant, he well added “your servant,” in which there is both the grace of humility and the reward of service. For he who is called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord’s freedman; why should he not presume on the Lord’s favor, bought at so precious a price of blood? “It is a great thing for you to be called my servant,” as is said to a servant. If anyone, then, is a servant and serves the Lord well and does nothing as a slave of sin, but says, “I am an unprofitable servant; I have done what I ought to do,” he well says: “Repay your servant.”

Glorious service, in which Christ too served for us; blessed service, in which you too serve, but only if the adversary can claim nothing from your service for himself. Christ, then, loves the freedom of a good little servant; indeed in the Song he says: “How beautiful your cheeks have become, like a turtledove’s, your neck like ornaments!” The face is freer where there is the conscience of chastity, and to bear Christ’s yoke is sweet if you consider it the ornament of your neck, not a burden.

Lift up your eyes, then, always to the Lord your God, and seek God, that you may find him. Raise your neck: you wear ornaments, not chains. Even dumb animals rejoice in ornaments, and seem to themselves to be adorned rather than tied. Let the cheeks, like a turtledove’s, display the marks of modesty; let the ornaments of the neck lift up the confidence of freedom; for Christ’s yoke is light, and so the neck is not pressed down by it but lifted up.

“Likenesses of gold,” it says, “we will make for you, with studs of silver, until the king is at his reclining.” For of those who are of the law and the prophets, few had believed before in the glory of the Lord Jesus; but his inheritance, spread among the peoples, the more often it was tested, the more it was proved:

for the frequent persecutions of the church have brought forth for us titles of martyrdom for the righteous by their victories. And so, like good gold, the church, when she is burned, feels no loss, but her brightness is rather increased, until Christ comes into his kingdom and lays his head on the faith of the church. When he came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he had nowhere to lay his head; but now faith is fragrant, and so the church says, “My nard has given forth its fragrance,” and she says it with confidence, expecting repayment.

The ointment of grace is fragrant, from which the Virgin brought forth and the Lord Jesus took up the sacrament of the incarnation. “A cluster of drops,” she says, “is my cousin, a cluster of grapes of Cyprus is my brother to me; he rests between my breasts.” For the Lord Jesus, taking a body, bound himself with the bonds of love and bound himself not only to our members and natural passions but also to the cross, and so like a cluster of grapes he rests in the faith of the church and in moral grace.

“My cousin is nard of Cyprus in the vineyards of Engaddi.” If we seek the place, it belongs to a certain region in which balsam is produced; if the meaning, Engaddi signifies in Latin “temptation.” In those vineyards, then, there is a tree which, if anyone pierces it, gives off an ointment; this is the fruit of the tree. If the tree is not cut, it is not so fragrant and sweet-smelling; but when it has been pierced by the craftsman’s hand, then it drips a tear. So too Christ, crucified on that tree of temptation, wept over the people, to wash away our sins, and from the depths of his mercy poured out an ointment, saying: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

Then, therefore, on the tree he was pierced with a lance, and there came out of him blood and water, sweeter than any ointment, a victim acceptable to God, pouring the fragrance of sanctification through the whole world; and as balsam from a tree, so power went out from his body. Hence he says: “I perceive that power has gone out from me.” Hence too “opobalsam” is called an extraction, because when the tree is pierced the balsam bursts out through the hollow of the puncture. Jesus, then, pierced, poured out the fragrance of the forgiveness of sins and of redemption. For he was also confined, when, being the Word, he was made man.

And he became poor, though he was rich, so that we might be made rich by his poverty; he was powerful, and he offered himself to be despised, so that Herod scorned him and mocked him; he shook the earth, and he hung on the tree; he covered the sky with darkness, he crucified the world, and he was crucified; he bowed his head, and the Word went forth; he was emptied, and he filled all things. God came down, man went up; the Word was made flesh, so that the flesh might claim for itself the throne of the Word at the right hand of God. There was a wound, and ointment flowed; a beetle was heard, and God was recognized.

Christ answers her: “Behold, you are good, my neighbor; behold, you are good.” Since the church had come to know the mystery and was preaching 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 good yourself; and because you have seen the beauty of my glory, you too are fair and beautiful.” But what is it for Christ to say “you are good” or “you are beautiful,” but that word of the gospel: “Take heart, daughter, your sins are forgiven you”?

So she to whom Christ has forgiven her sins rightly says: “Repay your servant; I shall live and keep your words.” She has nothing to despair of in the repayment, because the Lord Jesus came to save the world, not to destroy it, and so he is unmindful of injury, mindful of grace, as he himself testifies in the prophetic book, saying: “I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, and I will not remember them. But you, remember, and let us be judged together; tell your iniquities, so that you may be justified.” Whoever, then, tells his iniquities to God is justified, and whoever is justified does not fear repayment but asks for it; he who does not fear repayment will live.

But why did he say “I shall live” and not “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 set free from this body of death; and do we think that the prophet flatters himself about this life? Here everything is full of death; death enters through the window, it enters through your mouth, unless the Lord sets a guard on your mouth;

indeed from much speaking sin is born. Read the commandments of the law and you will find it written that a living man, if he touches a dead one, is defiled. How many dead we touch, among how many dead we move! That is why the author of life says to you: “Leave the dead to bury their own dead”; that is why it is said to you elsewhere: “Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead.” How would it be said to you, “Arise from the dead,” unless you lived among the dead? Suppose you are clean from dead works, from the filth of sin: how are you clean, you who are in the body of death, who live among the tombs of the dead? Peter had to speak to the dead, so that they might come out of their tombs.

We need purification, then, because we have touched the dead. The law commands us to be cleansed: who is so great as to be above the law? It pronounces unclean even the Nazirite, the holy one of God, if he has touched a dead man. And so he shaves his head and puts off his hair as unholy, and again prays to be heard, he who before, because of touching the dead, could not obtain his prayer. He counts the days as void, because he had approached what is void of reason: he puts off, then, the dead and superfluous things of his head, so as to be reconciled to Christ. If, then, the Nazirite is purified, we too must be purified.

We have all touched the dead. For who will boast that he has a chaste 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 he is rare, of whom God might say as of holy Job: “He did not sin with his lips”; yet he could not always have the thoughts of his heart clean; the devil casts himself into a man’s heart.

Suppose someone has always fenced his heart with a ready and watchful guard: yet he moves in the midst of sinners, and he too needs to be purified. Hence, when Isaiah had said, “Woe is me, for I have unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips,” at once one of the Seraphim came down and touched his lips with a coal, to cleanse his unclean lips.

Baptism is not one. One is that which the church hands on here through water and the Holy Spirit, with which catechumens must be baptized. There is another baptism too, of which the Lord Jesus says: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, which you do not know.” And surely he had already been baptized in the Jordan, as what was said earlier declares;

but let this be the baptism of suffering, by which also each one is cleansed by his own blood. There is a baptism too at the entrance of paradise, which did not exist before; but after the sinner was shut out, there began to be the fiery sword which God set there, which did not exist before, when there was no sin. Guilt began, and baptism began, by which those who longed to return to paradise might be purified, so that on their return they might say: “We went through fire and water”: here through water, there through fire; through water, so that sins may be washed away, through fire, so that they may be burned away. But, what is more serious, we undergo fire both here and there.

Who is it that 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 the dominions, not the powers; but he of whom John says: “He who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor and gather

the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” The Lord himself testifies that this was not said of the baptism performed by the priests of the church, since after the end of the age, when the angels have been sent to separate good and evil, this baptism will take place, when iniquity will be burned out by the furnace of fire, so that in the kingdom of God the righteous may shine like the sun itself in the kingdom of their Father. And even if someone is a saint like Peter, like John, he is baptized with this fire.

The great Baptist will come, then (for so I name him, as Gabriel named him, saying, “He will be great”); he will see many standing before the entrance of paradise; he will wave the turning sword; he will say to those on the right, who have no grave sins: “Enter, you who are confident, who do not fear the fire. I had foretold to you too: ‘Behold, I come like fire’; and through Ezekiel I had said: ‘Behold, I will go to Jerusalem and will blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, so that you may melt away from lead and iron.’”

Let the consuming fire, then, soften us, burning out in us the lead of iniquity, the iron of sin, and make us pure gold. Let it burn my reins and my heart, so that I may think good things and desire what belongs to chastity. But because one purified here must again be purified there, let him purify us there too, when the Lord will say, “Enter into my rest,” so that each of us, scorched by that flaming sword but not burned up, having entered into that delight of paradise, may give thanks to his Lord, saying: “You have brought us into refreshment.” He, then, who has passed through fire enters into rest; he passes from material and worldly things to those that are incorruptible and everlasting.

That fire is one, by which sins are burned away, not deliberate sins but chance ones, which the Lord Jesus has prepared for his little servants, to cleanse them from this sojourn which is mingled with the dead; the other fire is that which he has assigned to the devil and his angels, of which he says, “Enter into the eternal fire,” in which that rich man burned who asked that moisture be dropped for him from Lazarus’s finger. But Lazarus, reclining in Abraham’s bosom, enjoyed eternal life, which the prophet promises himself, saying: “I shall live and keep your words.” He says “I shall live” as one not yet living; for here we live in shadow.

So this life in the body is a shadow and image of life, not the truth; indeed “man walks in an image,” and we dwell in the region of the shadow of death. But if anyone does not turn the eyes of his mind to earthly things but lifts 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 so he who lives in the shadow of Christ is in the shadow of life; and rightly the Lord’s holy one says elsewhere: “In the shadow of your wings protect me.”

All, then, even the saints, are in shadow as long as they are in the body: they do not see perfectly, they do not know perfectly but in part. Paul himself says, “For we know in part”; the vessel of election himself, to whom Christ restored his eyes and whom he enlightened by his grace, saw not face to face but through a mirror; and David asks that his eyes be unveiled,

so that the shadow which hindered the full gaze of his eyes might be removed. And who would doubt that this is the region of the dead, when the holy one himself says, “I will please the Lord in the land of the living,” because no one can please perfectly here, where, even if it were possible for him not to have sins of his own, yet, living in the very region of the dead, he needs a purification to free him from the contagion of this region?

Here, then, we live in shadow, and so in shadow we keep the words of God. And to use an example: surely before we were under the shadow of the law, when we kept new moons and sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, as the Jews do even today, who do not see the true sabbath and serve a copy and 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 climbs into the sycamore tree to see Christ. For us too Jesus spread out his hands, to 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 defends from the malice of the world and the heat of the body? 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 on a light cloud, and, being the power of the Most High, he overshadowed Mary, so as to transform the body of our lowliness to be conformed to the body of his glory.

Just as he, then, changed his form when he was born of the Virgin, so the words of God appear to us transformed when they are read in the gospel, when their appearance is seen in the Scriptures as through a mirror, because the whole truth cannot be grasped here. But when that which is perfect has come, they will shine no longer by descent, not by appearance, as transformed, but in complete and express truth.

Nor should it trouble you that he says he will keep many words, because, when one knows the one Word, one knows many words. In the one there are many, and in the many there is one. It must be shown, then, how the one Word is many and how many words are one Word. Nor is it hard to teach, since the apostle has said that he “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, in whom all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and in him.” There is, then, one Word that works in each, and when it works in each, it works all things and in all. This

one only Word with the Father has poured himself out into many, because from his fullness we have all received. And so, if you look at each of all the things that were created in him, you will see in each that there is the one Word of all, in whom we share according to our capacity. In me there is a human word, in another a heavenly word, in many the word of the angels; there are those who have the word of the dominions and powers. There is the word of righteousness, the word of chastity, the word of prudence, the word of godliness, the word of virtue too. So the one Word is many and the many words are one. Nor is this hard to grasp, since we have read that the spirit of wisdom can do all things.

And so, just as to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and to another the 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 powers, to another the spirit of understanding, to another the spirit of fuller counsel, to another the spirit of

strength, to another the spirit of godliness, and in all there is one and the same Spirit, distributing to each as he wills. There is a spirit of the prophets, there is a spirit of the apostles, there is even a spirit of craftsmen, as with Bezalel and Eliab, whom the Lord filled with the divine spirit of wisdom and knowledge and every art, so that they made the vestment, the tabernacle, and the altar according to the understanding which God gave them, and also to the other wise men, to 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 them. And to most it seems that the spirit of the apostles is one, that of the prophets another, and different in each; but it is not different: the Spirit is one, distributing different kinds of powers.

Hence it should not seem doubtful if to some an apostolic word, to others a prophetic word, to others an angelic word, to others a word of workmanship has been given, and yet the Word is one, dividing himself to each according to our capacity or according to his own free generosity. This Word, then, who is the head of all, I see here through a mirror, and so here I cannot keep the words of God; but when I see his glory with unveiled face, then I shall live, and living by the life I shall also keep the divine words.

So, then, in the second verse he says: “Open my eyes, and I will consider wondrous things from your law.” He who asks for his eyes to be opened surely understands that they are also heavy; for no one asks a physician unless he seeks a remedy for his illness. He says, then, to the physician coming from heaven: “Open my eyes.” If the eye is disturbed, all pain is easily soothed with eye salve; but if its sight is covered by an overflow of fluid, greater remedies are sought. So, as in the eyes of the body,

so too in the eyes of the soul there is a certain affliction of this kind which must grow worse unless the good physician removes that veil and a sort of cloud of congealed fluid, which is reckoned to hinder, or rather to cover, the gaze of the mind, so that it does not see what it used to see. The illness has crept in through the old leaven, because we did not put off the cataract of the Gentiles or of the Jews when we first came to the church, we did not hear the discipline of the good physician saying: “Stripping off the old man with his deeds, put on the new, who is renewed in knowledge

according to the image of him who created him.” Someone, then, has put clothing on over it and has not stripped it off: the illness creeps on more seriously, the long-standing veil weighs on the eyes; no one can remove it, not an angel, not the powers, not the dominions, not the principalities; the veil remains, it hinders the reading, it clouds the vision; which is not unveiled, says the apostle (that is, by anyone else), unless it has been done away in Christ. But when such a one has turned to the Lord, the veil will be taken away.

You have, then, how you may remove the veil that remains over the eyes of your heart: turn to the Lord, and the veil will fall. Paul turned at the blessing of Ananias; something like scales fell from his eyes, and he saw, who for three days before had not seen. The eye of body and soul is healed at once, because the 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 from the earth, who cures all infirmities and heals whole peoples.

Send, then, Father, this physician; let your Word come and open my eyes. The eyes of the apostles too were closed, unless Jesus had opened them. Indeed, when two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, as he interpreted the Scriptures and blessed them, “their eyes were opened,” it says, “and they recognized him.” So, 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 on no one. Peter too had his eyes closed, and John had his closed, and James had his closed. Indeed on the mountain they were heavy with sleep, but, roused by the brightness of the divine majesty, they opened the eyes of their heart. And because, being in the body, they could not see fully, a cloud overshadowed them, lest the brightness of heavenly glory dull their bodily eyes.

Who, then, is so great that he could open his eyes and see the sacraments of the law, unless Christ shows them to him? Moses was not so great. Indeed, at the Lord’s command he threw down his rod and it became a serpent, and he fled from it; he took hold of the serpent’s tail and it became a rod, and still he did not know the mystery, by which it was declared that the Lord Jesus would come down to earth, who, having emptied himself, would allow himself to be laid down on the cross and cast into the tomb, from which, rising again according to the oracles of the law, he would return from the serpent to the glory of God and to a royal share in the divine throne.

Let us too, then, take hold of the tail of that crucified serpent, so that we may recognize his royal power. She too who poured ointment on his feet held him. Moses took hold of the serpent’s tail, then, and his mouth was opened. So he would not have spoken of him, unless the Lord himself had opened his mouth.

David here asks for his eyes to be opened, and earlier he said: “Who will show us good things?” He had been raised under the law and knew that the law has a shadow of the good things to come; he longed to see the good things themselves no longer through a shadow but with open eyes. He knew that those who served according to the law of Moses served a copy and shadow of the heavenly mysteries.

He wished to grasp the very truth of divine worship, and so, to shake the veil from his eyes, turning to the Lord he prayed, saying: “Open my eyes, and I will consider wondrous things from your law.” He understood that there is truly a heavenly service, which each could learn from the law, provided the Lord had revealed it to him. For who could ascend by human steps, without divine guidance, from earthly things to heavenly, from shadow to brightness, from the copy to the inner rooms of truth?

Who can consider that heavenly altar and the true temple, the priests and Levites, not these according to the offices of the flesh, but those according to the grace of the Spirit? Indeed David desired this grace alone above the greatest things, saying: “One thing I have asked of the Lord; this I will 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 know that the rich man should offer a great gift, according to what his hand can afford, so that his sin may be loosed? Who could understand, if he had nothing to offer, for example a ram, why his sin was not loosed? Who could perceive what those uncleannesses were which are loosed not by the law as the Jews think of it, but by the spiritual law which Paul recognized? Who could see the true remissions of sins, whose copy is in the law, whose truth is in the gospel, when the Lord Jesus says: “Your sins

are forgiven you,” not through the blood of goats, but through the sacrifice of his own body? He, then, is rich in the law who has loosed his sin by confessing the fullness of perfect majesty in Christ and offering it, as it were, with certain hands of faith at that heavenly altar; he sees the true priest who sees the prince of priests; he considers the true temple who hears him say: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” A great temple, from which power went out and healed all; a marvelous altar, on which the sacrifice of the one Lamb took away the sins of the world; that most excellent Levite, who came not to demand service but to show to all the service of his passion, whose portion is God, who possessed nothing here and would possess all things.

But what shall I say of the Hebrew whom the law orders to serve only six years and to go out of servitude in the seventh year? Who is this Hebrew slave? Who could be understood to be the free Hebrew? Who is so great that, having the eternal years in mind, he sees the true Hebrew, who does not remain a slave for ever but, having performed the duty of a slave for six years, obtains in the seventh year the grace of freedom?

Isaac the patriarch seems not to have been ignorant of the mystery of this servitude and freedom, when he said: “You shall serve your brother, and it shall be, when you have put off and loosed his yoke from your neck,” signifying that there would be a time when, even if someone placed here has served his brother, yet afterwards, when the years are completed that are made up of these days and these months we spend here, he may loose the yoke from his neck, which happens in the seventh year of remission.

We can conjecture a type of the true Hebrew in Joseph, who bore the yoke of servitude, but guilt did not capture him, prison did not shut him in, Egypt did not discolor him. We conjecture it in Peter, John, and James, who, born and trained under the yoke of the law, nevertheless loosed the Jewish yoke of their brother when the time of lawful rest came, when the forgiveness of sins shone upon them.

And yet this is still done here in shadow by comparison with heavenly things; but how great is that rest, which is conjectured from the law and revealed in the gospel, when the Lord Jesus says: “I wish that where I am, these too may be with me”! How blessed is he who can earn there the fellowship of the rest which is the fruit of that dwelling! Then he will understand what it is to have opened his eyes, so as to see wondrous things from the law of God.

The reading of the gospel that has just been gone through gave a good reminder, in which that leper was healed who said, “If you will, you can make me clean,” placing the effect of power in the Lord’s will. He answered in like manner: “I will; be clean.” The kindness of will came first, the authority of power followed.

To all Jesus says “I will,” he who does not will that there be sin. Christ’s willing is common to all; to be cleansed belongs to the faith of one who believes in Christ. “And he touched him.” He touches those by whose faith he is touched. Indeed he says: “Someone touched me; I perceive that power has gone out from me.” You have the working of the spotless body, you have the forgiveness of the divinity.

But so that he might be healed more fully, he opened his eyes, saying: “Go, show yourself to the priest.” The synagogue had many priests; but he who opens the eyes does not see false priests; he looks upon the true one. Who is the true priest but he who is a priest for ever? And so the Father said to him: “You are a priest for ever.”

He opened his eyes, then, 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 he who sees, who can show himself to the true priest so as to have nothing he fears to have seen in himself, who first looks at himself with unveiled face! For unless he first sees himself, he will not dare to show himself, like Adam, who wished to hide himself because he did not know himself. But now let us consider also what follows.

“I am a stranger on the earth; do not hide your commandments from me.” This is not the voice of just anyone, but of him who has renounced earthly pleasures and stripped himself of every affection of worldly desire. He is a stranger in this land who can say, “But our citizenship 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 long stay of this dwelling is irksome, which the saint turns away from, saying: “Woe

to those who dwell on the earth”; who does not fear to be dissolved and, if he is dissolved, is confident that he will be with Christ. He is truly a pilgrim on earth who is a fellow citizen of the saints and a member of God’s household and lays up treasure for himself in heaven. Surely such a one, going out of Egypt, does not long to return to this intelligible Egypt, nor does he dread the borders of old age laid aside and of death, nor does he build barns to store up harvests, he who will live in other ages; but, rich only in the fruitfulness of virtues, he gathers what not even death can take from him.

And rightly he says: “My soul has longed to desire your judgments at all times.” This surely no one does unless he is free of bonds, not only from the bonds of worldly care, but also from the bonds of human affection. There are many bonds in this world: the desires of living are bonds, the delights of pleasures are bonds, there are bonds of honors, bonds of marriage. Indeed the good teacher says to you: “Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife.”

Yet he who has taken a wife does not sin, but he binds bonds on his mind, because he is anxious how to please his wife (he would be more blessed if he desired to please God alone), and bonds on his flesh, because he is bound who does not have power over his own body. Since, then, it is God’s commandment, set forth by the oracle of the law and the word of the apostle, that no one should prefer wife, riches, honor, or kinship to God, and he who prefers them becomes liable to God’s judgments, therefore he first asked that God not hide his commandments from him. For he who has known and kept the commandments does not shrink from the divine judgments but desires them; and rightly, as though the commandments had been revealed to him, he says: “I have longed to desire your judgments at all times.”

He did not say, “I have longed for your judgments,” but “I have longed to desire.” For just as to live by life is more than to live (for to live is common to this life too, but to live by life belongs to the blessed), so to long to desire God’s judgments is more than to desire the judgments; for we long to desire, as though the desire were not in our power but in God’s grace. For when the Lord sees that we delight in the longing to desire his judgments, he increases the sober affection; but when we sin, we do not long to desire God’s judgments.

For a sick man does not desire to be cauterized or cut, so that he may regain health. He who is gravely ill shrinks from being cauterized, from being cut, from being bound, from being kept from food; but he who is in sound health goes to meet the physician without fear. Hence the Lord too said, not idly: “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you,” not only desiring, but longing with a doubled desire to grant the forgiveness of sins. Let us too, then, long to desire the judgments of God (a good conscience, which, when examined, is approved), and let us long to desire them at all times, so that no moment of a good man may pass empty of longing.

The fifth verse follows: “You have rebuked the proud; cursed are those who turn aside from your commandments.” Since the Lord Jesus redeemed the human race by obedience and restored righteousness, while the serpent brought in sin by disobedience, we can judge from this how much vice there is in pride, whose author is the devil, whom the prophet brings in saying: “I will set

my throne above the clouds and I will be like the Most High.” And so, though he is most wicked, in not giving honor to the Lord our God, yet he has trained worse disciples. For he so exalted himself that he wished to be equal to and like the Most High; but his disciple is indicated by the apostle as one who will disdain to be thought equal and like to God. For it is written: “When the man of iniquity has been revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God.”

The master, then, presumes to be like, this one to be superior. And so the Lord too said to his disciples: “You will do greater things than these,” so that to those from whom the serpent had taken 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.

And so, wishing to deliver the human race from so great a crime, he brought in the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple and taught that, even if he has all other good things, the proud man offends more than the humble man who is supported by no endowment of virtues: for the devil is eager to trip up those intent on good works. How hard that Pharisee labored not to take what belonged to others, not to be unjust, not to commit adultery! How hard he labored not to sin as the tax collector sinned! How hard he labored to fast twice in the week! How hard he labored to give a tenth of all he acquired! Which of us does this?

How many have possessions and brood alone over their produce and store up harvests for themselves alone! The devil noticed this and covered him with a grievous ulcer, so that, puffed up in the mind of the flesh, he did not hold the head, and in the very thing in which he believed he would be praised he was judged more blameworthy. For he gave thanks to God that he was not a robber, an adulterer, unjust. How harmfully the serpent wrestled with him and bound him in heavy coils! He made him superior, so as to throw him down from a greater height; he made himself inferior, so as to lay low the loftier man with a heavier fall. Evil is the ruin of arrogance, which undermines the superior; evil is this wrestling of the serpent, by which he twists himself into many windings.

He wished to puff up Paul too. Which Paul? Surely that apostle “not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ.” And he had almost deceived him, so that he asked for the thorn of his flesh, which humbled him, to be taken away. But the good Lord, who wished to make Paul stronger by weaknesses, applied to him an angel of Satan, so that the devil might be overcome by his own arts.

The Pharisee was not lying; indeed he was even telling the truth; but everyone who exalts himself, even if he tells the truth, gives offense. Indeed the Pharisee entered the temple more creditable than the tax collector, and yet he went out condemned; so great is the crime of pride that even adulteries are preferred to it!

Indeed the Lord, who gives to others, resists the proud and, as it were, engages in battle with those who exalt themselves, claiming this contest for himself; and he who has compassion on others rebukes the arrogant, because nothing is more grievous than for us to look down with proud eye on our poor brothers, to repel those like ourselves with intolerable disdain, judging them unworthy of our favor because they are needy, when poverty is more easily acceptable to God than treasure.

“Cursed,” he says, “are those who turn aside from your commandments.” Above he had said, “Do not hide your commandments from me,” and so, as one who knows the commandments revealed to him, he condemns those who have turned aside from the heavenly commandments. And he well said “who turn aside”; for the commandment is straight, and so let no one swerve from it.

But one is troubled by why he said here, “Do not hide your commandments from me.” For what is hidden becomes obscure and secret, whereas above he said: “The commandment of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes.” If the commandment is bright, how is it hidden, since no one puts a lamp under a bushel? Unless perhaps one commandment is bright, but many commandments are hidden. For “your judgments,” he says, “are like a great deep”: not “judgment like a deep,” but “judgments” are spoken of.

But see the order. Above he says, “Do not drive me away from your commandments”; in the following verse he says, “Do not hide your commandments from me”; here he says, “Cursed are those who turn aside from your commandments.” Truly cursed are those who turn aside from your commandments, who ought to have given thanks, first because they were not driven away, second because they were found worthy not to have the divine commandments hidden from them. Someone, then, turns aside from what he wished for.

There follows: “Take away from me reproach and contempt, for I have sought out your testimonies.” If contempt is counted as a reproach, how is it written: “God has chosen the contemptible things of this world”? 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. Indeed humility is despised in this world but approved by God’s judgment, and if the tax collector humbles himself, he is exalted.

Hear whom God does (not) hold for nothing: whoever is holy, who lives without blemish, keeps the truth, has not attacked his neighbor. “The evil man is brought to nothing in his sight”; all things that belong to malice are reckoned as nothing by him. Indeed paganism does not exist, but devotion remains for ever. Beware, then, of being a reproach to Christ. I do not want anyone to curse me and despise me as a sinner: how grievous if Christ should count me worthy of reproach! “Woe to you, Chorazin and Bethsaida,” he says; they are condemned because they did not repent of their sins.

Let us act, then, so that reproach may be taken away from us. But who is not worthy of reproach? He who has sought out the Lord’s testimonies. There are indeed many who wish to bring reproach on your servants, but they themselves are rather the shameful ones, because to suffer reproach for your name is glorious.

And so he says: “For princes sat and spoke against me.” It is the voice of a martyr who, brought to the judgment of the persecutors, when he was being forced to sacrifice to idols and steadfastly resisted, while the judges sitting on their tribunals, surrounded by their attendants, indignant that their commands were not obeyed, conferred about what punishment they judged he deserved, stood unafraid, saying:

“Princes sat and spoke against me.” This is also the Lord’s voice. When the council of elders of the people and the chief priests and scribes had gathered and he had been led to 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 beautifully than: “Princes sat and spoke against me”? That is: while I stood, the princes sat, and because they were lifted up on the support of their tribunals, they did not see the Lord.

They sat, then, lifted up by the height of their rule, and did not think of the Prince of princes. But this is little. “Against me,” he says, “they spoke.” I had come as their redeemer, I had come to cleanse the sins of all, to recover the lost, to restore holy Jacob’s inheritance to paradise, and they spoke against me. And so, my imitators, my disciples, do not blush at injury, if you stand before princes for my name, since I have stood for your salvation.

Indeed Peter is put in custody with the other apostles, and the next day, set before the council, he said steadfastly: “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel, (if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a sick man, by what means this man has been made well, 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, by him this man stands before you whole),” that is: you are the ones who also set Christ before you. We count this injury as glory, because we are accused for the healing of a sick man; this inheritance the Savior of all left to his little servants.

But they conferred among themselves, saying: “What shall we do with these men?” And they released them. Peter and each of the apostles gloried, then, because they had been counted worthy to suffer injury for the name of Christ. Rightly, then, each of them could then say: “For princes sat and spoke against me.”

Princes sat against Isaiah and debated that he should be sawn in two; but he who said, “Hear, you princes of Sodom,” did not fear them. They sat against Jeremiah, that he should be thrown into the pit; they sat against Zechariah, who was killed between the temple and the altar; they sat against Susanna and judged against a woman of chastity; but so that it might be shown that the council of princes was not good, the Lord stirred up the spirit of a boy, and the prophet acquitted of every charge as innocent the very woman whom the princes had pronounced guilty of death.

There are other princes too who speak against us, of whom it is said: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” These sit and watch to see who is righteous in this age, which Christian serves God intently, eager for good work and deed.

They speak against him, saying: “Let us lie in wait for him, hinder him, prevent him from doing what he desires, let us crush his mind, break his spirit with frequent and sudden adversities, and, if he is approved by God for righteousness, let us ask that the temptation of him be given to us.” For they could not have had power over so great a prophet in the temptations of his, which he underwent in great number,

unless the Lord had granted it in order to prove his soldier, so as to crown him with greater glory. Who, then, stirred up King Saul against him but an evil spirit, as we read, which grieved at being shut out whenever David soothed the king’s mind and spirit with the sound of the lyre, or with the strings and chords of good counsels and deeds? Who stirred up the wickedness of Doeg the Syrian, to betray a holy man and bring hospitable kindness into peril for the priest? Who kindled the passion of Amnon, to defile the prophet’s house with incest and grieve the father’s spirit, by the incestuous lust of one and the injury of the other, so that he who prophesied to others could not foresee the evils of his own house?

Who armed the fury of Absalom, to drive his father from his house and pursue him with parricidal war? But when the holy man was nearly inferior in the strength of his kingdom, by this one thing he quenched the darts of the devil kindled against him: that, while the son sought the father’s death, he nevertheless, with the affection of fatherly love, gave orders for his son’s safety.

So the princes of the people, like Ahithophel, and the other leaders of the warriors sat; the princes of the people plotted with Absalom against the prophet. And so he says: “For princes sat and spoke against me, but your servant meditated on your statutes.” We notice the weapons of the righteous man, with which he may repel all the attacks of his adversaries.

Elsewhere he says: “They surrounded me and fought against me without cause. Instead of loving me, they slandered me, but I prayed.” Here he says that his eagerness was not for training his youth in the arts of war, nor for any cunning of heart to deceive the adversary, so as to defeat the one he saw; but he fought against those he did not see, and godliness fought in him more than bodily strength. And so he exercised himself in the statutes of God, so as to wound the devil with a counterstroke.

The devil tried to draw him away from the pursuit of righteousness and the zeal of devotion by the business of war; he occupied himself the more with meditations on the divine work and worship. And so 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 to God in prayer or speaks of God’s works in praise, and he always speaks of the works of God, so that his mouth may not speak of the works of men. The righteous man speaks nothing earthly, does nothing mortal.

And so he says: “For your testimonies are my meditation, and your statutes are my counsel.” Do you notice what he teaches: that these ought to be the counsels of the righteous, to meditate on God’s commandments and exercise himself in God’s praises and oracles, so as always to justify the Lord? He who does what God commands, what he believes pleases God, justifies God. We can understand this from the reading of the gospel, when the evangelist says that the Pharisees rejected the counsel of God, not being baptized with the baptism of John.

This is in one book; in another you have: “They did not justify God, who refused to be baptized.” Therefore the Lord answered John when he said, “I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” He, then, who does God’s commandments justifies God, because he does his righteousness; and it is good that men’s counsels should follow God’s counsel, because God’s counsel is always certain, but our counsels are often uncertain and are tested by the outcome of events.

Daleth, the fourth letter according to the Hebrews, signifies in Latin “fear,” or, as we find elsewhere, “birth.” But both can fit and agree with the sense. For birth belongs to the things that are begotten in this world, by which we understand bodily and material things, which are perishable, and so it is not far from fear; for fear is born from bodily and material things. For what is earthly birth but fear?

Indeed the verse begins from this: “My soul has cleaved to the pavement; give me life according to your word.” By the pavement we understand the earth, by the earth material things. For to the sinner it was said: “You are earth, and to earth you shall go,” because he did not think he should cleave to the divine commandments, but turned aside to material

and bodily things, he on whom the delight of this worldly life had been stamped. Indeed, cast out of paradise, that is, from that lofty and heavenly place to which Paul was caught up, not knowing whether in the body or out of the body, cast down, then, from that eminent place to the earth, Adam laments, saying, “My soul has cleaved to the pavement,” as he says elsewhere:

“My soul is humbled in the dust, and my belly has cleaved to the earth.” This is the voice of one doing penance, who remembered that, while he cleaved to God, he did not know and could not discern what Paul too 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, he to whom the Lord’s presence clung. The prophetic Spirit, then, which expressed the grief, or the Lord, who took up his weakness, represents the person of Adam and takes up his feeling.

Let Adam, then, say: “My soul has cleaved to the pavement.” He who, most blessed before, breathed the air of heaven and knew nothing of the cares and wearinesses of this life, now, bent down by the anxiety of this world, the pursuit of luxury and the desire of money, buries himself like a fox in holes and earthly lairs. Rightly he cleaved to the dust who could not raise himself, unless Christ had raised him upon his cross; rightly he cleaved to the pavement who hid himself from Christ. He does not cleave to the pavement to whom Jesus says, “Follow me.” He does not cleave to the pavement who hears and follows the law saying: “You shall walk after the Lord your God and cleave to him.”

How, then, each one cleaves to the pavement, and how to God, hear him say: “He who cleaves to a harlot is one body, but he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit.” This earth that we carry captures us with certain harlot’s enticements and smears, as it were, certain faces of bodily pleasures with the paints of delights, so that the truth may lie hidden in them and they may deceive those who approach with a kind of outward show. But although they cloud the inner eye of the mind for a time, yet afterwards, when the beauty of such pleasures has been shaken off like dust, it is easily discovered how empty is the charm of this world or of the body.

It is good, then, to cleave to the Lord and not to have one’s neck bent to the yoke of the world. And so Wisdom says to the church or to the strong soul: “Your neck is like the tower of David, which is built in Thalpioth; a thousand doors hang on it, and all the darts of the mighty.” For the neck raised to God and fit for the yoke of Christ, which is not bowed by any bending toward the enticements of the earth,

is like the royal tower of Christ, on which Nebuchadnezzar cannot lay his yoke. For that David, mighty of hand, founded that tower and built it above the heights of the walls, so that it might serve for defense and for beauty alike: for defense, because it sees the enemy in advance and repels him; for beauty, because it stands out not only among low things but even among lofty ones; yet it serves for defense or beauty only if it has in itself the doctrines of the Word like jewels of trappings, and has also the darts of the mighty prophets, which are aimed by the arms, as it were, of faith against every height that exalts itself.

Do not, then, bring down into the dust of death your soul, to which the Lord has given a natural loftiness and vigor, by which it may rouse itself and rise up. Hence it is also fittingly taken as said 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 on the ground and cleaves to the pavement, partly because of this earthly dwelling, partly because this body is from earth. Both the lodging of the region and the very matter of our body agree with this saying. And so the apostle beautifully longs to be set free from the body of this death, because we are shut in a kind of prison and, placed in a kind of hovel of luxury, are wrapped in the darkness of sins.

Let us walk, then, according to the will of God, so that we may be said to cleave to God. For he who lives according to the appetite of the body is flesh; he who lives according to God’s precepts is spirit. Let not our soul, then, become flesh, that is, so that we are called flesh like those who perished in the flood, of whom it was said, “because they are flesh”; but rather let our flesh, obedient to the soul’s guidance, become soul and deserve to be called by this name, as the family of the patriarch Jacob and the holy posterity of his line was called.

For so it is written: “These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to Rachel his daughter, and she bore these to Jacob: all the souls, seven”; and elsewhere: “All the souls that entered into Egypt, who came out of his thighs, besides the women, sixty,” it says, “and six.” And at the beginning of Exodus we read: “All the souls of Jacob were seventy-five, who were with Jacob.” So those who lived with Joseph and came out of Egypt are also souls.

But those who, though they were angels of God, that is, imitating the grace of the angels by uprightness of life (for those who do not marry and are not given in marriage will be like the angels in heaven), those, then, who, though they seemed angels, were captured 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 those free of lust are compared to angels; they are not flesh, because they are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, such as were those who followed the apostle their teacher, to whom he says: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.” But those who are captured by bodily lust for women are flesh; and would that they were only flesh and not also neighing horses, for “they neighed,” it says, “after their neighbor’s wife.”

He, then, who feels the casting down of his soul, bent even to the pavement, asks to be given life according to the word of God, which draws souls to itself and, wishing in its mercy to raise them, leads them away from the earth. And the soul is given life which walks the ways of Christ, dead to sin, living to God, so that death of sin can no longer have dominion in it, after it has been buried with Christ and justified from sin. But he who desires to be justified must first declare his ways.

And so in the second verse he says: “I have declared my ways, and you heard me; teach me your statutes.” In beautiful order he thinks one must come to God’s statutes by first confessing one’s sins. For so we are taught elsewhere too: “Tell your iniquities, so that you may be justified.” And so we ought to know what it is for a man to walk his own ways and God’s ways. He who does the wills of the flesh and lives according to the desire of this world walks his own ways, in which he delights and rejoices; but he who came to do the will of his Father who is in heaven, whose food is to fulfill God’s commandment, who seeks not what pleases himself but what pleases God, goes on the way of the Lord, that way which says:

“I am the way and the truth and the life.” You see, then, that he lives according to the word of God who walks the way of Christ. The Lord God himself also teaches in Deuteronomy how you are to walk in his ways, saying: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord your God and walk in his ways and love him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep his commandments and his righteous ordinances?” It is clear, then, that the ways of the flesh are one thing and the ways of God another, and that if anyone wishes to walk the ways of God, he must first abandon the ways of the flesh and the body and of worldly wisdom.

Leaving them, then, David declares them and is not silent before God: he confesses his errors and does not deny his falls. He said something similar to this: “I will declare my iniquity against myself to the Lord.” For if the righteous man accuses himself, he shuts out the voice of the ready accuser, who is accustomed to heap up sins and exaggerate each one’s offenses. He stops his mouth, then, who has first confessed about himself, and the shame of the one confessing prepares pardon in advance. His shame excuses the guilty and accuses the instigator; for he who has not kept silent about his sins seems to have grieved in himself over what he did, and to have exposed in the devil what the devil urged. And so Scripture says: “The righteous man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech.”

He who accuses himself, even if he is a sinner, begins to be righteous, because he does not spare himself and confesses the righteousness of God, from whom he thinks nothing can be hidden. Would that Adam had chosen to accuse himself rather than hide himself! But it is not enough to confess our error; we must also, if we wish to be corrected, ask the Lord to teach us his statutes, so that afterwards we may not be able to go astray. He asks, then, to be taught by the Lord, because one is our teacher, as Christ said; and not idly does he ask this: for that man is not blessed whom man teaches, but “whom you have instructed, Lord.”

Everywhere he remembers himself and does not think it enough that the Lord our God should teach him his statutes, but he added: “Make known to me the way of your statutes, and I will be exercised in your wonders.” See the order. First we must learn the Lord’s statutes, then come to know certain steps and order of the statutes, what should come first, what follow.

For to know what to do and not know the order of doing it is not perfect knowledge; things done in the wrong order often give offense. Indeed he is righteous who accuses himself at the beginning of his speech, but he is unrighteous who confesses what he had first denied; the one finds the grace of modesty, the other incurs the mark of shamelessness. So ignorance of order confuses the nature of affairs and the form of merits. But he who has learned first the mysteries of God, then the order of the mysteries, is exercised in the wonders of God.

The Greek has adoleschēsō, which the Latin renders “I will ramble.” In this there seems to be some offense of language according to common usage, because adoleschēsai is commonly taken to mean either rambling or saying something more than one ought and seeming superfluous, which is tiresome to the hearer; and it seems to be against order, since the order of things seems to bring tedium, as when you wish to narrate some case and keep to the order, but the hearer hurries to the outcome of things and finds the earlier parts tiresome. But no one can be fully instructed except one who has come to know everything in its order;

for from that is grasped not only the deed 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 almost to the point of tedium, and to linger even for a superfluous time rather than pass over the necessary order. For adoleschia or rambling seems to be a certain long meditation or a lingering attention of the mind; and from this exercise, whether of mind or of body, is not far off. For just as he who exercises his limbs in the wrestling school exercises them for a long time to strengthen them, so he who exercises his mind in the divine Scriptures or in counsels must exercise it for a long time.

“Isaac went out into the field”: the Greek said adoleschēsai, the Latin “to walk about” or “to exercise.” 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 these mysteries, the patriarch went out into the field, pouring out the keenness of his mind and walking in the innocence of his heart. Surely he exercised his mind with various thoughts and delighted in the wonderful mysteries. That the holy prophet might turn out an imitator of him, he longed to be taught God’s statutes and to know the way of the heavenly righteous ordinances, so that his soul should not sleep with the sleep of this world nor, caught by the enticements of worldly vanity, slip away from his intent pursuit of truth.

For what reason, then, he wished to be taught, he added, saying: “My soul has dripped away for weariness; strengthen me in your words.” Some manuscripts have “has slumbered,” because enystaxen and estaxen differ by two letters. The translator or the copyist could have been deceived here: enystaxen means to sleep, estaxen to drip. The more perfect man does not slumber who sets his mind on the divine mysteries (indeed he himself says elsewhere, “If I give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids”), but he is always awake, and if the flesh sleeps, the heart is awake.

He was not sleeping, then, who planned to found a temple for the Lord by building up heavenly words, not stones. For the word of God repels weariness; by it the sleep of the soul and the drowsiness of the mind are shut out; for sleep creeps in from sadness and anxiety over worldly things. But he who cleaves to God, fleeing cares, takes the delight of eternal knowledge, fearing no change of things there, as with worldly things.

Those, then, who use easier shortcuts for their labors take “slumbered”; but Origen, who examined the translations of many with careful investigation, followed “dripped,” because the soul of the perfect man, as one well composed and strengthened, does not drip, like the tops of roofs that are well covered and fortified, whereas those that are not well put together soon drip. Hence the saying: “Drippings drive a man out of his house on a winter’s day,” in which we are tried by the harshness of cold and the frequent change of the air. Indeed we are taught to take care that our flight be not in winter or on the sabbath; for the day either of judgment or of death ought to find us already proved, lest the end of death find us bereft of the green of prosperity and stripped of every flower of favorable success.

Let us beware, then, lest any of us be driven out of the state of his mind and, as it were, his natural dwelling, if he has holes in his dwelling, from which the flowing drips, as though from the foundations, undermine a man not grounded in any solidity of wisdom. And so the prophet says: “Son, do not flow away.” Our soul must therefore be strengthened

so as not to drip, and made solid by the undivided framework of the virtues, so that it can keep the mystery of the eternal king. But whoever is free with words, like one full of cracks, leaking this way and that, empties his inner parts and is flooded with outward passions, not knowing how to cover himself or to hold the word he has received; unlike holy Mary, who kept all the words in her heart, so that nothing should flow out of her heart.

The church speaks as one fortified with such an endowment of virtues, so that she may seem worthy for the invited bridegroom to come under her roof; hence she first presumes that she will please if Christ sees her well covered and keeping faithful silence: “Behold, you are fair, my cousin, and indeed beautiful; our resting place

is shady, the beams of our houses are cedars, our ceilings cypresses.” The church praises the beauty of the bridegroom, whom each one praises more by silent affection, and the faithful interpreter of the mysteries proclaims more by keeping silence; for he who divulges secrets lessens the beauty of Christ. Therefore let no one throw his pearls to swine, so as to have precious ornaments trampled. Christ, then, bows his head not in the tent of the talkative and the chatterer, since in much speaking sin is committed, but in that of a serious man, sparing of speech and not intemperate in talk, who by sobriety of words avoids the drunkenness of talkativeness.

And rightly she calls the resting place shady, because the power of the Most High overshadows those placed in the church. David asked to be protected by this shade, so that the sun should not burn him by day nor the moon by night; this shade spiritual grace provides for those who flee the scorching heats of this age and world. Shady, then, is the resting place of Christ and the church, on whom that eternal rest of God’s peace breathes.

In this shade, then, let us rest, wearied by the heats of our sins. If lust has scorched any, let the Lord’s cross refresh them, on which he reclined to take up our sins; if guilt has wearied any, let Jesus receive them into his bosom and cherish them with a gentle embrace. Hence I dare to say that the flesh of Christ is the church’s resting place.

“The beams of our houses are cedars.” By the image of the cedar is declared the glory of the forefathers who were righteous: “The righteous will flourish like the palm tree and will grow like the cedar that is in Lebanon.” For just as the cedar does not rot, so the glory of the forefathers is not corrupted by any age.

“Our ceilings are cypresses.” This kind of tree never loses its green; scorched in winter and in summer it nourishes its foliage and does not change to another color. This tree alone the wind never strips of its honor; it alone is never stripped of its old covering or clothed with new flower. So too apostolic grace knows no failing and flourishes with its own beauty.

The soul, then, does not know corruption which is vigorous with flourishing limbs and always upholds with patient magnanimity the heights of righteousness and the other virtues, and so it does not flow away or fail, because nothing in it is cracked or slack, nothing unsteady, nothing slippery, nothing that could pour out of it through a fault of speech. And so the prophet asks to be strengthened in the words, so that his feet may not be moved, so that his steps may not be poured out. These things he does not suffer who is vigorous with an upright heart; but, rooted and grounded, he remains immovable against all the waves of the passions.

Strengthened, then, in the words, he says: “Remove from me the way of iniquity, and by your law have mercy on me.” He did not say, “Remove me from the way of iniquity,” but, “Remove the way of iniquity from me,” as though it were in us and seemed to be within us. For as long as we practice anything wicked, the way of iniquity remains within and does not depart from us; and so let us act zealously to separate it from us.

But because a hereditary glue of iniquity has stuck to human minds, the help of a deliverer is needed. Pray you too, and say: “Wretched man that I am, who will remove the way of iniquity from me? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And beautifully he said “the way of iniquity,” not “iniquity,” because iniquity is not in us as something natural, but has been worn by the footsteps of forefathers running after sins.

And rightly, because the wound is great and old, long creeping, he asks for the remedies of a more perfect medicine, praying to be healed by the Lord’s lawful mercy. For a wound that has not been healed by the law of medicine is soon reopened; indeed the cure feels a later improvement. And so, if the poison creeps into the inner parts, it does not feel the medicines applied outside.

The method of medicine requires, then, that it be cured either by cutting or by burning. For unless rotten things are cut away or useless fluid is boiled off, the hands of medicine are applied to wounds in vain. And so the good physician says that such a sick man must be treated according to rule, so that medicine may do good. He, then, has mercy according to law who has mercy with justice and wisdom, so as to remit what he knows can rightly be remitted, lest, while he has mercy on another, he make himself liable to the law. After Agag was granted mercy, he made Saul sin; for he sinned in that very mercy, and so he sinned after the mercy.

Let us also take care not to make worse the very person on whom we unjustly have mercy: for often not to restrain offenders is a greater severity than if you punished them. For those who have committed anything shameful are handed over to dishonorable passions and receive no price for their fault. Indeed those who did not think God the judge of their crimes and lived as though without judge and without law, “God handed them over,” it says, “to a reprobate mind,” because they chose the way of iniquity and would not 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 your judgments.” He who errs in doctrine cannot say this; the Arian cannot say it, the Sabellian cannot, nor the Manichee; the greedy man cannot say it, who desires worldly and material things; he who trades cannot say it; for eagerness to have, the desire to possess, is not the way of truth. How is it the way of truth, when that rich man in the world cannot take his riches with him and begins to be poorer after death than that beggar Lazarus?

The honor of the world, the anxiety of the world, is not the way of truth. Indeed he who chose the way of truth says a little later: “Turn away my eyes, lest they see vanities.” Vanity belongs to temporal things, truth to eternal ones. If, then, we wish to walk the way of truth, let us be pilgrims from the world rather than from God, and walk by faith. For he who walks by faith is present to God; he who walks by sight is present to the world and is a pilgrim from the Lord; but such a one is soon put to shame.

Hence, shrinking from such a man, David says: “I have cleaved to your testimonies, Lord; do not put me to shame.” He has cleaved to the Lord’s testimonies who has not spurned his commandments, does not forget his judgments, and does not indulge his own pleasures. He who cleaves to the Lord’s testimonies renounces the world, forgets what lies behind, strains toward what lies ahead, so as to reach the prize, which is the badge of victory. He, then, is not put to shame whom the enticements of this world have not captured; he is not

put to shame, even if he has done shameful things, who asks pardon of his sins from Christ. And so it is answered to him: “Your sins are forgiven you; go in peace.” But he is not put to shame only if the forgiveness of sins has so worked in him as to take away not only the sins but also the inclination to sin. Let righteousness remit iniquities, fortitude fear, temperance impurities, so that the forgiveness of sins may become not only temporary but perpetual. Let Christ enter your soul, let Jesus dwell in your mind, so that in the tabernacle of virtue there can be no place for sin.

“I have run the way of your commandments,” he says, “when you enlarged my heart”; for he could not run the way if his heart were confined in narrowness. Indeed to those running the Lord’s way the apostle says: “You too be enlarged, and do not be yoked with unbelievers”; and of himself he says: “Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians; our heart is enlarged.” And so it is said of Solomon too: “The breadth of his heart was like the sand of the sea.” And see the difference: let the way be narrower, the heart broader, so 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 his heart, disdain to dwell there. Indeed wisdom is sung in the going out, but in the streets she acts with confidence. The streets are broad; not in the ways, then, but in the breadth of the heart wisdom is sung. In this field of the inner man, then, not in the narrowness of the mind, we must run, so as to win; for it is written: “So run that you may all obtain.” Indeed he obtained who so ran that he could say, “I have finished the course”; for he ran like a good horse.

For Christ has his horses, of which the prophet says, “You sent your horses into the sea, stirring up many waters,” because the apostles, by preaching the gospel, stirred the peoples of the nations, which are moved like many waters and roused like waves of waters, so that, rising from the earthly ceremonies of idols, they believed in Christ. And above he says: “You mounted your horses; your cavalry is salvation.”

O wonderful twelve-horse team of good horses, whose bits are peace and whose reins are love! Bound together by the bonds of harmony and placed under the yoke of faith, carrying on the four wheels of the gospel its mystery to the ends of the whole world, bearing the good charioteer, the Word of God, by whose whip the enticements of the world were put to flight, the prince of this world cast out, and the course of the righteous completed.

O great contest of rational horses, O mystery to be wondered at! A wheel ran within a wheel and was not hindered: the new testament within the old testament; it ran within that by which it was announced. The wheels went in four directions and did not turn back, because the spirit of life was in those who ran to the four quarters of the whole world, and they ran without stumbling, because the good life of the horses fitted together. The horses ran, then, 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 be watchful, lest it be said to us: “Those who mounted horses have slumbered.” This sea must be crossed energetically. It is crossed with difficulty by the watchful; but if anyone sleeps, he will not be able to cross, but will be sunk like the Egyptian, whose soul and body perished: for “the horse and its rider he has cast into the sea,” who did not follow the law but persecuted it.

There follows the fifth letter, He, which signifies in Latin “is” or, as we find elsewhere, “I live.” Both interpretations agree with each other; for he who is, lives, and he who lives, is. Indeed the pagans are not, and so they do not live but are dead. But Jesus is the same yesterday and today and for ever, and he who is, lives; for “I live,” says the Lord. For how can he who lives not be? And Jesus lives, who also gives life to the dead and calls the things that 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 things that were not begin to be. And so, because the way is also life according to him who says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” let us seek the way, so that we may deserve to have life. Let us hear, then, him who lives in Christ; and he lives who says: “But we who live bless you, Lord”; for in Christ Jesus whoever has died lives.

Let us hear, I say, what he said in order to live: “Set before me as a law, Lord, the way of your righteous ordinances, and I will seek it always.” A soldier who sets out on a march does not arrange the order for himself, nor take the way at his own choice, nor seize pleasant shortcuts, lest he leave the standards; but he receives the itinerary from the commander and keeps it, advances in the prescribed order, walks with his rations, and completes his march by the right road, so as to find the supplies of provisions ready.

If he walks by another route, he does not receive his ration, he does not find a lodging prepared, because the commander orders all these things to be prepared for those who follow and do not turn aside to right or left from the prescribed route. And rightly he does not fail who follows his commander; for he walks at a moderate pace, because the commander considers not what is useful for himself but what is possible for all; and so he also arranges the halts:

the army marches three days and rests on the fourth day. Cities are chosen in which three days, four days, or more are put in between, if they abound in water and are frequented by trade. And so the march is completed without toil, until they reach the city chosen as royal, in which rest is provided for the weary armies.

I would like you to recognize that this law of marching was prescribed by Christ as leader for the saints as they travel. For our fathers too set out from the land of Egypt through long stretches of land; all their halts and stations are described, until they reached Kadesh, that is, the holy land. These are the halts of the sons of Israel, which Moses described by the Lord’s command. We notice, then, who arranged these stations, how the sons of Israel had to walk.

For God went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to refresh the travelers, and by night in a pillar of fire, to show the way to those walking and to drive away the darkness. The law of the routes was the pillar both of fire and of cloud; indeed in the pillar of cloud he spoke to them. When he wished the army to rest from the toil of the march, the pillar of fire did not move nor did the cloud of light pass on; but when he wished to move the army, the pillar of fire went forward by night and the pillar of cloud by day.

That pillar of cloud in appearance went before the sons of Israel, but in mystery it signified the Lord Jesus who would come on a light cloud, as Isaiah said, that is, in the Virgin Mary, who was a cloud by the inheritance of Eve, light by the integrity of virginity; light, because she sought to please not man but the Lord; light, because she had not conceived in iniquity, but brought forth by the Spirit coming upon her, and gave birth not in sin but with grace.

One may take this interpretation in another way too. Christ came on a light cloud into Egypt, that is, he came into this world by taking up a body; he came in a cloud whom the mist of the body overshadowed, but light was the flesh which no sins of its own weighed down. For how should he be weighed down by his own sins who took away the sins of all peoples? “Behold,” it says, “the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world.” The day before yesterday it was read that Jesus stood and had filthy garments; for he bore my sins.

He took our garments, so as to clothe us with the splendor of immortality. Christ came on a light cloud, as righteousness (for iniquity sits on a talent of lead), into the hearts of the righteous, in which there were no sins. And so it was well read today: “What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me?” For us the Word took on the weakness of the flesh; for us he hungered, was beaten, was crucified, died, so that for us, in whom life before was counted ignoble and degenerate, death might begin to be precious.

But let us return to the completing of the march and the order of the stations. You too, follow this law of marching spiritually, so that you may go out of Egypt, and, moving on from there, pitch your tent in Succoth. Let this be your first station; Succoth, the first station, means “tent.”

Pitch, then, the tent that is in you and make firm the station of your mind, so 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. From there they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees; after bitterness, lest the people faint, pleasant and fruitful places had to follow. From there Rephidim, which is “praise of judgment.” From there follows Sinai, which held both the testing of the people and the giving of the law.

The merits of the stations vary, because in this world there can be no continual success in living. The good commander, then, in one place supplied manna to the hungry people, in another, by august provision, commanded drink to flow from the rock to quench the people’s thirst, in another gave the law, in another granted triumphs, so that the army, cherished by these benefits, should feel no toil from the long march.

So in that people there was a type, in us the truth. Let us, then, entrust our journey to the guidance of the Lord Jesus, who first brought in the law and earlier, through Joshua, gave the land of promise to his people for a possession. But even when Moses seemed to be the leader, Jesus was present with him; present, however, not openly nor plainly acting as leader or prince of the people; for he was waiting until Moses should complete his time, and when it was completed, Jesus succeeded.

So, if you consider the twenty, you will see the mystery of the fullness of times, and the hundred and twenty years after which both Moses rested on the mountain and Jesus openly took up the leadership of the stations, so that the people might 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 teaching of the law; let God’s law be our way.

Walking this way, the church says: “I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys, like a 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 beautifully says that she is the flower of the field. Paul too was a flower, who said: “We are the good fragrance

of Christ to God,” and truly a flower, who could bring out of the treasure of his heart things new and old. Beautifully too the church is called a lily; for as the lily shines, so the works of the saints gleam. Most beautifully too it is called “the lily of the valleys,” because grace shines more in the lowly. But this lily is among thorns: among Jews and heretics, among the anxieties of this world, which prick the mind and spirit of man. We can also take it otherwise: that, as the lily stands out among thorns, so the church of God shines above all assemblies.

It is worth considering also that this lily is surrounded with brightness, while what it has within is red, and that too has a good fragrance,

because the flesh of Christ, as mortal, surrounded by the brightness of the divinity, had the protection of heavenly grace. Indeed later she says: “My brother is white and red”: white with divine brightness, red with the appearance of the human color which he took up in the sacrament of the incarnation. And rightly that very part which is red smells sweet, because the flesh of Christ is without sin. The faithless who handled it defiled their hands; the saints who venerated it were fragrant with the scent of godliness.

The Lord Jesus received this fragrance of his fragrant church and said: “Behold, my neighbor is good.” And the church says to Christ: “Behold, my brother is good. Behold, you are good, like an apple tree among the trees of the forest.” Fruit of this kind has a fragrant grace, so that it surpasses the fragrance of other fruits. Christ, then, fixed to the tree, like an apple hanging on a tree, poured out the good fragrance of the world’s redemption, because he wiped away the stench of grievous sin and poured out the ointment of a life-giving drink.

“Like an apple tree,” she says, “among the trees of the forest, so is my cousin among the sons,” because above the prophets and apostles he soothed the inmost hearts of men with the sweetness of his words. But in the apple there is not only fragrance but also sweet food: Christ, then, is sweet food.

“In his shadow,” she says, “I longed and sat down”; for she had received the law, she followed it, she ran this way. Resting in the law, then, she rested in the shadow of Christ. Good is the shadow which alone defends us from the heat of iniquity. And who doubts that God’s law is the shadow of Christ? What is the law of the festival, the new moon, the sabbaths, but a shadow of things to come? What day according to the law of Moses, that I may see six days and again the seventh day, and so on through the everlasting ages? What month according to the law of Moses, that knowing the month I may know the first new moon of the month and the true holy things to be offered at the new moons?

What year according to the law of Moses is made up of those days of which he says, “The Hebrew shall serve six years and in the seventh year shall be freed,” so that six years may be found in which one works the land, but in the seventh year he will leave it to the proselytes and the poor and the beasts of the earth? What is the seventh year, in which all debts are remitted to the Hebrews? In this shadow the faith of the fathers and the holy devotion of the prophets rested.

So the religious congregation, or the holy soul, says: “In his shadow I longed and sat down.” The jubilee year is a shadow (for who sees its mysteries, so as to know face to face what the law has prescribed to be fulfilled in the fiftieth year?); the festival days according to the law are a shadow, in the first month from the tenth day of the month to the fourteenth and from there to the twenty-first of the month; that celebration between the first and the seventh month, at that unnamed time, is a shadow; the hallowed freedom on the sabbath is a shadow;

the festival of the new moon of the seventh month is a shadow, and the memorial of trumpets, and the tenth day of the seventh month, the day of atonement. You see that the first and the tenth are two feast days, likewise the fifteenth day, the day of tabernacles for eight days. All these are in shadow; in shadow is the first day called holy, and the eighth day called holy is in shadow, which are prescribed according to the law at the feast of booths.

Picture for me some believers from the circumcision, men learned in the law, of careful observance, and now enlightened by the knowledge of the gospel and fed with spiritual grace: in them the church speaks which sees Christ, which receives the bridegroom, which is fed on his food: “In his shadow I longed and sat down, and his fruit is sweet in my throat.” What is his sweet fruit but the preaching of the Lord’s passion, as he himself says:

“Behold, the inheritance of the Lord is sons, the reward the fruit of the womb”? For what fruit can be sweeter in our throat than the forgiveness of sins? And well is the church a flower, which proclaims the fruit, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it was said to Mary: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

So 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, surround me with apples, for I am wounded with love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand will embrace me. I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field, whether you will rouse and rouse up love until it pleases.”

Rightly she sought him, rightly she had desired him, because our commander arranged everything well in this course and journey. First of all he thought this tent should be made firm on the foundation of faith; then, if there is any rough, dry, or steep station for us, this commander nevertheless sorts out what is troubled, waters what is dry, makes fruitful what is desert. If there is any bitterness, any temptation, any weakness, our leader tempers bitter things, soothes anxious ones, loosens hard ones, and strengthens weak ones.

Wherever an earthly king wishes to rest his army, he chooses not an ignoble village, not one lacking supplies, not sandy and bare of growing things, but a city distinguished by its buildings, full and rich in provisions, or a pleasant field green with pastures, or wooded and level places suitable for camps. If, then, the kings of the earth know how to provide comforts for those who follow them, how much more does God, who is good, know how to arrange what will profit those who love him! And first, if an unknown road is to be taken, guides of the roads are chosen to go ahead of the column.

But these commanders think this beneath them; yet God went ahead when the Hebrews made their journey; indeed in the pillar of cloud he spoke to them. And so that you may know that he went ahead: “God,” it says, “went before them on their way, by day in a pillar of cloud showing them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, and the pillar of cloud did not fail by day.”

Following this pillar of cloud that went before and did not fail, the church, so as not to fail herself, was refreshed by its shade, and so she says: “In his shadow I longed and sat down, and his fruit is sweet in my throat,” because she was fed by the Lord, led into a place of pasture and to the water of refreshment.

“Bring me into the house of wine.” With provisions prepared, she seeks to advance to another station, in which she may receive the grace of the mysteries and the sweetness of gladness. Moving on from here too on the true journey, she says: “Set love in order in me.” A good camp, where there is the fullness of charity. “Strengthen me,” she says, “with ointments; surround me with apples.”

You have other stations, to which the church passes with delight. These are the stations of the cross of Christ and of his burial, in which the church was wounded, but with the wound of love; for it is a wound that Christ received, but an ointment that he poured out, an apple that hung. The church tasted this apple and said: “And his fruit is sweet in my throat.” And so that you may know that the Lord is the apple, you have read above:

“Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my cousin.” We too confess a wound when we preach Christ crucified, but we are a good fragrance to God, because the cross of Christ is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Greeks, but to us the power and wisdom of God. With this wound the church is wounded when she preaches the death of her Savior, but this wound is of love. Indeed he who does not believe denies it; he who loves confesses it: the Manichee denies, the Christian confesses. And so it is written: “Better are the wounds of a friend than the willing kisses of an enemy.” Beautifully, then, the church says: “For 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 like a chosen arrow.” It is good, then, to be wounded by this arrow. This is no slight advance in the stations; not all can say that they are wounded with love. The apostles said it,

when they were stoned for Christ and preached Christ; Paul said it, when he was beaten with rods three times and day and night argued to the Gentiles that Christ should be worshiped; the martyrs say it, who are wounded for Christ and, because they have deserved to be wounded for his name, love the more.

Coming, then, to this station, to this advance, so as to offer her sons for Christ and receive the wounds of love, as though finding good nourishment of faith, the church herself tasted the fruits of godliness and began to exhort others, saying: “Taste and see that the Lord is sweet,” like an apple. In the apple too there is a wound, but yet it is sweet.

She came further to the valley of the cluster; she saw a bunch of grapes of huge size, which two could barely carry, one going before and the other following. She tasted the mystery; she tasted it in Joshua son of Nun, she tasted it in Caleb, who said to the people: “We have seen a land flowing with honey and milk.” “Taste and see how sweet the Lord is.”

And the church went on to say: “His left hand is under my head, and his right hand will embrace me. I have adjured you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field, whether you will rouse and rouse up love until it pleases.” These too are stations of the church as she advances on the royal road;

for “there are many mansions with my Father,” the Lord Jesus testifies; “behold, I come and will take you.” A good station is that of wisdom, and whether at his left or at his right it is a good station, because it is the royal road. And so the wise messengers say: “We will go by the royal road; we will not turn aside to the right or

the left, until we pass through your borders.” This the messengers sent by Moses said to the king of Edom, that is, “earthly,” because all earthly things, whether on the right or on the left, are evil. An evil station is folly, an evil station is intemperance; and so the Hebrew passes through these stations; he does not turn aside to them, but passes through, so as to reach the left hand and the right hand of wisdom and to remain in them, where there are the riches of simplicity, where there is glory, where there is length of life; for “length of life 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 rest. Would that I might rest on his left hand, so as not to seek pillows! For “woe to those who sew pillows,” says Ezekiel. These stations the good guide prepares for his church and directs her journey through the ways of wisdom. Indeed the wise man praises her ways: “Her ways are good ways, and all her paths are in peace.”

But because wisdom, honor, and renown are perfect only if they have love (for love is the fulfillment of the law), she wishes love to be roused and roused up: roused in the old testament, roused up in the new.

God is love, as we read; love is Christ. He is roused like a lion and a lion’s whelp, so as to come up from the shoot of Judah; he is roused up as one sleeping, as one lying down, because he was raised from the dead not by human majesty but by his own and the Father’s. Hence Scripture says: “Who will rouse him up?” For no angel or power could rouse him by another’s strength, since he himself raised up others.

So when she says here, “whether you will rouse or rouse up love until it pleases,” she speaks of those who can fittingly preach his resurrection, so as to kindle in their hearers the ardor of faith and devotion. Or Christ is roused in those who first come to him, roused up in those who, after they have come, have fallen asleep. Christ, then, sleeps in the negligent and is roused in the saints.

The church, then, has the ways by which to go forward; she has the dwellings of the stations in which the saints rest, among whom is he who says: “Set before me as a law, Lord, the way of your righteous ordinances.” He well says “set,” so that it may remain immovable and fixed in his breast and not be torn from his affection by any whirlwind of the world, so that he may be a law to himself, having the work of the law written in his heart.

“And I will seek it always,” he says; for what is sought is no slight thing: the grace of paradise, the kingdom of God, the fellowship of angels, and the dwelling of immortality. It is not sought, then, in one day nor in two or a few months, but it is sought always and sought through all things, so that many supports of merit may come together; for dia pantos signifies both all time and through all things. When he says, then, “I will seek,” he says that it must 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 out your law and keep it with my whole heart.” First one must seek, then understand and search out every mystery of the law and keep it in the heart. And who can keep the law of God unless he has received understanding? But he who understands and searches is led by searching into the path of the commandments.

In this it must be noted that the law is righteousness, the commandment judgment, as we read in this letter too. There is a way of the law, to stand in the ways of the law; there is the way of righteous ordinances, according to the first verse. There is also the way of testimonies: “In the way of your testimonies I delighted”; there is also the way of the commandments: “I have run the way of your commandments.” Let us ask, then, about these ways, so that it may be said to us: “Stand in the ways of the law and ask about the eternal paths

and see which is the better way, and walk in it.” When, then, we have all walked the ways, we shall come to the end of all ways, who says: “I am the way.” Christ, then, is the end of the ways; for he is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Hence I dare to say that Christ, who is righteousness, is the end of the righteous ordinances; Christ is the end of the testimonies, of whom it was said: “Be my witnesses, and I am a witness, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen.”

We notice, then, how far we must walk to come to Christ: we must walk in the law, because the end of the law is Christ. Without the law, then, one does not come to Christ. Hence it is clear that the heretics who do not accept the law of the old testament, even if they say they hold Christ, nevertheless cannot hold the end, since they have not held the beginning. Jesus himself is the beginning and the end. We must

therefore walk according to the spiritual law, so as to come to the end of the law, the Lord Jesus. We must follow the testimonies, so as to be able to reach the great testimony, the Lord Jesus. We must also walk in the Lord’s precepts, so as to reach the great precept, of which you have read: “It was said to those of old, You shall not kill; but I say to you,” that is: I say above every precept. And so I would say not presumptuously but truly that, as there is the holy of holies, so there is the precept of precepts.

But so that we may keep these things, let us ask the Lord for understanding. Let us understand what circumcision is. Joshua circumcised with knives of rock and took away the reproach of Egypt from the sons of Israel. The rock is Christ; let the Word of God and the sword of his mouth circumcise you, and so you will be free of the reproach of Egypt. Circumcision, then, is to be understood not of the body but of the heart. If you understand 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 does not know the law. Indeed: “This people,” it says, “honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” How can he hold the law who is far from the author of the law? Let us consider what the third verse contains.

“Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I have desired it.” Who says this but he who follows Christ? No one else can say this but he who carries out what is written: “You shall walk after the Lord your God and cleave to him,” because he himself leads you. How he leads, hear: “Unless one takes up his cross and follows after me, he is not worthy of me.”

Christ, then, goes ahead so that we may follow; the Word goes ahead. Christ is the beginning; so Wisdom says: “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways.” We notice that Christ is both the beginning and the end of the ways. I am not afraid that anyone will say: “So you assert that Christ was created?” I will answer: I say he was created in the same way that I read he was made, that is, “made of a woman, made under the law,” that is, created according to the taking up of the flesh, according to his being born of the Virgin.

He was created so as to redeem creatures; he was made man so as to free men from everlasting death. He was created so as to show me the eternal ways by which man can return to the kingdom of God. Since, then, he is the beginning of God’s ways, let us follow this beginning.

He first entered the way of the new testament, so as to pave for us the road of devotion. If we fast, he fasted before us. If we suffer injuries for God’s name, he suffered them first for our redemption. He gave his neck to the scourges, his cheeks to the blows; he mounted the cross to teach that death is not to be feared. Indeed, as one going before, he says to Peter: “You follow me”; and so Peter finished his course, because he followed Christ.

The fourth verse follows: “Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to greed.” Others have “profit,” and I think it was changed because the profit of a good thing seems to be sought rather than avoided. But because most people think the gain of money is their profit, therefore, if we read

“profit,” we must understand that the prophet turns away not from the profit of the soul but from the profit of money. For the saint does not know these gains, but counts all these things as loss, so as to gain Christ. And rightly; for what we think is the gain of money is the loss of the soul, because it is a loss of virtue. So, according to those who have taken it to mean that the prophet wishes his heart to be inclined to the testimonies and not to greed, we too agree with the sense. 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 use is it to me if I pray that the Lord turn my heart away from greed while I myself seek gains of money day and night? If we pray with speech, let us feel it with the mind too; Jesus hears our thought and, knowing that these two, speech and desire, do not agree, he does not hear the speaker. And so he who wished to pray well said: “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the mind also.” So he hears the one praying the more if he spurns greed.

But because we are weak and often, wishing to turn our heart away from money, we are caught by the sight of gold or silver, and seeing another’s field or building we covet it, the prophet well added, saying: “Turn away my eyes, lest they see vanities; in your way give me life.” For he who is in the way of God does not look at vanities; the perfect way is Christ.

How, then, can he who is in Christ look at vanities, when Christ crucified all the vanities of this world in his flesh? Let us turn our eyes away from vanities, then, lest the mind covet what the eye has seen; the mystical sense we may put off for the moment. Would that by this interpretation we could call back those hurrying to the various shows of the circus games and the theater! What you see there is vanity. You watch a pantomime: it is vanity; you watch wrestlers: it is vanity,

because you see them win crowns of green leaves for their wrestling; but those are the true wrestlers who wrestle against the enticements of this world, and whose eyes the wrestling of limbs does not capture. You watch horses racing: it is vanity, because they run in vain who cannot save their rider. Indeed let the very turning back of the course teach you that they run in vain who do not complete a straight course, forgetting what lies ahead and reaching for what lies behind.

Christ is before us, his prize is before us, which he reached who did not run uncertainly nor turn back his course, but spurred it on. Direct your eyes to this; turn them away from the shows, turn them away from all worldly pomp. Wherever you notice popular applause, turn your eyes away from it, bend them, lower them, and keep them, so that you may raise them to better things.

Raise them to heaven; by night look on the jewels of the stars, the lovely orb of the moon, or by day the sun. Look at the sea, gaze around at the earth, so that every creature made by divine work may feed you. What grace of forms in the very beasts, how great a beauty in men, how much loveliness in birds! Look at these, and you will not see iniquity and contradiction in the city; see these, and death will not enter through the windows of your eyes.

If you look at a woman to lust after her, death has entered through the window; if you see the property of a minor or a widow and lust to seize it, death has entered through the window; if you see another’s

jewels, gold, silver, and lust to extort them, death has entered through the window. Shut this window, then, through which you see another woman’s beauty, so that death cannot enter; let your eyes not look on another’s wife, lest your tongue speak perversely. Shut your own window, then, so that it is not open to death as it enters. But beware of another’s window too; for “from the window of her house the harlot enters.”

She enters from her window; she enters when the wantonness of a lustful eye tempts someone. Shut this window, then, with the door of the word, so as not to be captured by the harlot’s eyes and carried off by her eyelids. But there is not one window only by which death is accustomed to enter. There is also the window of words, through which the harlot’s speeches pass. And so guard yourself from another man’s wife, lest she attack you with charming words; for from the window of her house she enters.

Death enters through kisses, and so beware lest she bind you with the snares of her lips. Death enters if the harlot kisses you; death enters if you quickly agree with her as she speaks. Death enters if you speak, death enters if you speak much (for by much speaking sin is incurred); death enters even if you do not speak and are afraid to confess Christ (for with the mouth confession is made unto salvation); death enters even through the openings of the ears, and so the ears must be hedged with thorns, so as to shut out the enticements of the harlot’s speech. So much for the moral sense.

There are also mystical eyes, which you ought to turn away from vanity; for there is also a vanity of thoughts, which the eyes of your soul ought not to see, because those see it whom the apostle condemns. So let us learn rather from him as authority what vanity is and what the eyes are. For it is clear that there are many who in the vanity of their mind are darkened in heart and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. Yet the apostle calls them Gentiles.

Let that Gentile, then, be ignorant of what he has not learned, be ignorant of what he has not believed: you may not be ignorant of what you confess. Christ did not come in vanity but in power; he did not puff up the mind of man but gave it life; he worked not blindness of heart but enlightenment of mind. He set your heart on fire, so that you might grasp what is the meaning of the heavenly commandments, what is the substance of the soul, what is the grace of the life to come, in what state we shall be hereafter.

Lift up your mind, then, use your natural ability; you were made in the image of God, so that you might look at things above 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 with the chains of the world. That is why the Lord said, “Do not possess gold or silver,” lest greedy desire for gold and silver possess us. Do not, then,

put your neck into the devil’s snares. Greed strangles the poor man in this world, but the rich man is choked by his own snares for ever, whose mind is in vanity, who walks in darkness, who labors at things that cannot profit him. The anxiety of this life is vanity: hence we ought to set our delight not in carousing 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 your eyes, then, lest they see vanity.

But it is not enough for you to turn them away, lest perhaps you wish to and cannot, if the devil spreads before you spectacles of vanities and inserts incentives to pleasures; ask that the Lord turn away your eyes. This too is the grace of God, and this

is the gift of the Lord, that he turns the eyes of our soul away from the business of this world. For all blessedness is from the Lord: “Blessed is the man whose hope is the name of the Lord and who has not looked to vanities and false madness.” He who does not look at these things is blessed; but he who looks is mad and raving. And so let each one come to his senses from the madness of worldly desires, which so disturb the mind and spirit that one cannot be master of oneself.

If you are placed in a tossing ship, you turn your eyes away from the bilge, so that it does not make you vomit; if, walking in the city, you come upon something with a foul smell, you flee far off and turn aside;

if anything meets you that your eye shrinks from, it is closed or turned away. You are tossed on the sea of this world, the bilge of vices flows in; in this ship of your body the tide of desires is stirred, and you do not turn the eyes of your soul away, so that they do not see the bilge of lusts, do not look at the dung of this world, so that the unclean stench does not fill the nostrils of your mind, in which the Holy Spirit is accustomed to be, so that you can say: “The divine spirit which is in my nostrils.” Let the nostrils of your soul, then, be turned away from the stench of various crimes; for in them there is a kind of mark of judgment.

Hence it is said to the bride: “Your nostrils are like the tower of Lebanon looking toward the face of Damascus,” because the ointment of the true priest, which comes down from the head onto the beard, that is, that divine fragrance, the fragrance of spiritual grace, which was in Christ from the Father and came down to earth by the sacrament of the incarnation, so that all things might be filled with the poured-out ointment, stands out by the power of a lofty judgment and fills the nostrils of the soul, so that it may distinguish the sweet-smelling from the foul: the sweetness of the saints, who can say, “For we are the good fragrance of Christ to God,” and the stench of sinners.

These are the nostrils, like the tower of Lebanon, lofty above the world, and so it looks toward the face of Damascus, that is, the Gentile people, scenting its faith, by whose grace it would wipe away the stench of its sins. The face of Damascus, then, is the faith of the Gentiles, overshadowed by no covering, covered by no clothing, naked and free, intent on heaven more than on earth.

This the church’s nostrils watch and look upon, gathering whatever in it is sweet and fragrant of inspiration and grace. And well are her nostrils like the tower of Lebanon, because in the sacrifices there is the sweet fragrance of the church, in which there is a good fragrance: the victim, the forgiveness of sins.

Take, then, these nostrils, O man, so as to distinguish the flowery from the evil-smelling, and then the Lord will give you life. For when he notices what you ask of him, that he turn the eyes of your mind away from vanity, he works together with your soul, so that, if it is captured by some beauty or does not bend through hardness and weakness, he may bend it with the yoke of the word and rule it with his reins, so that by God’s will it may be led away from vices and catch the fragrance of eternal life.

For life here is not perfect, but this life is in shadow. Therefore, so that the man Christ Jesus might be born of the Virgin, the power of the Most High overshadowed the mother-to-be, because he came down in shadow, beginning from the shadow to work man’s salvation and about to complete it in the brightness of the eternal sun. This life, then, is a shadow; hasten to the sun, so that it may defend you from the cold of this shadow and pour summer warmth on you. And so he advises us to pray that our flight be not in winter or on the sabbath, not indicating a season and a day, but forbidding us to be cold in merits and fasting from good works.

Learn now how the Lord turns away from vanity the eyes of him on whom he has mercy. For we can understand this from what follows; for he added: “Establish your word for your servant in your fear.” The prophet says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And what is the beginning of wisdom but to renounce the world, since to be wise in worldly things is folly?

Indeed the apostle says that the wisdom of this world is folly with God. But the fear of the Lord itself, unless it is according to knowledge, does no good; indeed it does great harm, since the Jews have a zeal for God, but because they do not have it according to knowledge, in that very zeal and fear they incur greater offense against the divinity. In circumcising their little infants, in keeping the sabbath, 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 a fire on the sabbath, whereas the law forbids the fire of lusts to be kindled on the day of sanctification.

And what shall I say of these? There are also among us those who have the fear of God, but not according to knowledge, laying down harsher precepts which the human condition cannot bear. There is fear in this, because they seem to themselves to care for discipline and to demand the work of virtue; but there is ignorance in this, because they do not have compassion for nature and do not weigh what is possible. Let fear, then, not be unreasonable.

For true wisdom begins from the fear of God, and there is no spiritual wisdom without the fear of God; so fear ought not to be without wisdom. Holy fear is a kind of base of the word. For just as a statue is set on a base and has greater grace when it has been placed on the base and has received firmness for standing, so the word of God, or the reason of God, is better established in holy fear, more firmly rooted, that is, in the breast of one who fears God, lest the word slip from a man’s heart, lest the birds come and take it away through the disposition of a careless and indifferent man.

But fear itself also seems to be fitted for usefulness and made stable by the word of God, so that it is not foreign to knowledge, just as the base, once it has received the statue, is not foreign to its grace. Fear, then, is the place of the word, as “his place is in peace”; fear is a kind of zeal for the word, the word is the discipline of fear; for fear full of discipline does not totter toward a fall.

And because we have called fear the base of the word, lest anyone think we have set down something foreign to the Scriptures, let him take what is read of the Word of God in the Song of Songs: “His legs are marble columns founded on bases of gold,” signifying that the apostles are the columns of the church, who are founded in the fear of the saints. For just as Peter, James, John, and Barnabas seemed to be columns of the church, and whoever overcomes this world becomes a column of God, which he strengthens who says, “I have strengthened its columns,” so 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 like a column upon a golden base. For the speech of Christ and the apostolic word, then, the fear of the righteous is a tribunal and a golden base full of prudence, while the good statue, the image of truth, as it were, is the speech of the saints. And see that the fear of the saints is like a golden base: read Isaiah, see how many things he set above fear, so as to make fear blameless and good: “The spirit,” he says, “of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel

and strength, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, the spirit of holy fear.” How many things he set above fear, so that it might have something to follow! It is formed by wisdom, instructed by understanding, directed by counsel, strengthened by strength, ruled by knowledge, adorned by godliness. Take away the fear of the Lord, and there is an unreasonable and foolish fear, one of those of which it is said, “Fighting without, fears within,” by which Paul too would have been afflicted, had he not had the Lord consoling him.

Nor is it idle in Proverbs: “Then you will understand the fear of the Lord.” What is “then”? That is: when you have called on wisdom and given your voice to prudence, and if you have sought her like money and

searched for her like treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord. And so, as on a good base, he says: “Establish your word for your servant in your fear.” A prayer full of discipline, by which we are taught how we ought to pray; each word is a teaching of supplication. And since he has taught us to pray, he shows what the effect of this prayer is.

“Take away my reproach which I have suspected.” This seems said somewhat obscurely, but the apostle explained what seemed obscure here, where he says: “I am conscious of nothing against myself, but I am not justified by this.” For he knew that he was a man, even if he took care as best he could not to sin after receiving the sacraments of baptism, and so he was not conscious to himself of any sin; but because he was a man, he confessed himself a sinner, knowing that Jesus alone is the true light, “who did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth,” that he alone is justified, who was truly free of any fall.

Likewise, then, the prophet too, though he desired to avoid sin, nevertheless wished God to be, as it were, the repeller of his sin. He wished the reproach which he suspected to be taken away, either because he had thought something in his heart and had not done it, and, though it had been abolished by repentance, he was nevertheless suspicious lest perhaps his reproach still remained. And so he prays God to take it away, who alone knows what even the one who did it may not know. Indeed elsewhere the prophet himself said: “You know my reproach,” although that is the reproach of Christ, which is not true reproach but the glory of God; for the cross of Christ is a stumbling block to Jews, folly to Greeks.

To them, then, it is a reproach; to me it is power, by which I repel the adversary and overcome 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 than the treasures of Egypt.” If your reproach is glory, Lord Jesus, how great is your glory!

By sharing in your glory, then, what shall we be, we who are made glorious by your reproach? “I gave my back to the scourges, my cheeks to the blows, and I did not turn my face from the shame of spitting.” Behold your reproach, Lord, in which is the salvation of all,

in which is the redemption of the world, through which reproach we who used to blush have begun not to blush, we who were put to shame not to be put to shame. Indeed it is written: “Come to him and be enlightened, and your faces will not blush.” We do not want this reproach 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 to blot out our curses, made man to lift up man’s weaknesses, so he was made a reproach to take away the reproaches of all.

Not at one time, not once, did he take away reproaches; he takes them away daily. We fell into sin, not one but many: we were covered with reproach and confusion. We came to baptism: every sin was washed away, and with the sin the reproach. The Lord Jesus took away my reproach by his reproach, because he was crucified for me, because whoever

of us have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death. I have nothing to ask to be taken away. But after baptism I have fallen into reproach; I must do penance, so as to say: “Take away from me my reproach.” If I do not do penance, how shall I say, “Take away from me my reproach,” when this itself is the reproach of sin, that I do not do penance? But if I do penance as I ought, I rightly say: “Take away from me my reproach which I have suspected; for your judgments are sweet.”

Why do I fear to confess, why do I fear to tell my sins? Why am I afraid to mention my reproach before him whose judgments are sweet? What is severe in others is sweet in Christ, is pleasant in Christ, because he himself is sweet;

indeed “taste and see that the Lord is sweet.” His judgments are sweet to one who confesses, because he himself said: “I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, and I will not remember them. But you, remember, and let us be judged together; tell your iniquities, so that you may be justified.” His judgments are sweet to one who does penance, because he himself said: “There will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents more than over ninety-nine righteous who need no repentance.” If, then, the Lord’s judgments are sweet, let us labor to gather the fruits of sweetness.

Do you wish to know how sweet the Lord’s judgments are? “The ungodly do not rise in the judgment.” But those who rise in the judgment have hope of pardon, because they have believed. They are not ungodly; they may be sinners; they have faith, and if they did not avoid fault, through faith they believe; and “he who believes in him is not judged.” His judgments, then, are sweet to believers.

But those who do not believe are not condemned by the judgment of Christ, who came not to judge the world but to save and redeem it; rather they have undergone the judgment of their own ungodliness, they who would not believe in the forgiveness of sins: for they cannot share in the benefit of him whom they refused to know. So those who did not believe in him seem unworthy of his judgment; for know what his judgment is, as he himself says: “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into this world.” It is sweet, then, because it is light; sweet is the judgment which mercy precedes; for so it is written: “Of mercy and judgment I will sing to you, Lord.”

And because he knew that the judgments are sweet, he says: “Behold, I have longed for your commandments; in your righteousness give me life.” He speaks of good judgments with authority. Behold, he loves the freedom of faith who gave freedom; he rejoices to be loved who came into this world for this reason, that

he loved this world; he who loves all demands to be loved, because he is love. He longed for the commandments of God as a good servant, as a diligent worker; he longed for them not as a lover longs for intercourse with a harlot, not as the greedy man for money, not as the luxurious man for wantonness. Of those the law says, “You shall not covet”; but it commands that the Lord God be loved and loved with a tender and inward affection of desire. And because he who loves is a friend, he who fears a servant, he longs as a friend who has done all that the Lord commanded him: “You are my friends,” he says, “if you do what I command you.”

“In your righteousness give me life.” He dares to say it, because that is true life which lives according to God’s righteousness, which the apostles lived, or rather live: for there are those who, living, are dead, and those who, dead, live. Indeed some go down alive into hell, while others, though dead in body, live by their merits. For there are those who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man returning on the day of judgment, when the saints will rise with glory.

The sixth letter is Vau, whose interpretation sounds either “so, not he”; another interpreter says “and he is not.”

“And let your mercy come upon me, Lord, your salvation according to your word.” What the interpretation of the letter signifies, since it is rather obscure, I thought should be gathered from the sequence of the psalm. For when the prophet asks, “Let your mercy come upon me, Lord, let your salvation come,” there is no doubt whom he asks to see, that is, him in whom the fruit both of mercy and of salvation comes. Indeed earlier he asked the same in the eighty-fourth psalm, in which he prophesied the coming of the Lord Jesus more clearly. For which land he asks to be blessed is well enough known, namely the one which had contracted sin in Adam, to which it is said: “You are earth, and to earth you shall go.” But God had cursed not the element of the nature of flesh, but the flesh of transgressors. Flesh, then, is blessed in Christ, so that flesh may be freed from the earlier curse; the flesh is blessed which the blessed Son of God took on in taking up the condition of man.

And so he added: “O God, turning, you will give us life, and your people will rejoice in you. Show us, Lord, your mercy, and give us your salvation. I will hear what the Lord God speaks in me, for he will speak peace to his people and to his saints and to those who turn their heart to him. Yet his salvation is near those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.”

This whole passage speaks of the Lord Jesus, who gave life to the dead: Lazarus before his passion, very many at the time of his own passion. He is mercy, being the forgiveness of sins. So he says “show,” meaning him whom he could see in the body; for he could not see God in his majesty, because no one has ever seen God. The prophet eagerly desires to see him whom he hopes to hold, whom, if he sees him, he desires to grasp with his own hands.

And so he says: “And give us your salvation.” The salvation of God is power; the salvation of God is Christ; and so this salvation is near those who fear. Christ was far from us, far from the nations; he came down to earth, he came near, we began not to fear. For he who fears Christ is not subject to fear but to devotion; this fear is of godliness, not of weakness. Indeed “those who fear him lack nothing.”

And how he came near, hear: “that glory,” it says, “may dwell in our land.” Who is the glory but the Lord Jesus? Hence the apostle Paul too says: “The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.” Rightly the Father is well pleased in him, because he is the Father’s glory. He who separates him from the Father does the Father a greater injury, whom he would make to be without glory. Whoever does not think him equal to the Father judges the Father inferior as well, since he cannot praise the Father more with any other word, because Christ is the highest praise of glory.

It is asked, then, that the salvation of God may come. He it is who is asked for, that is, the Lord Jesus, and not another, as the interpretation of the letter has it. And either “so, not he alone,” the Father, is asked; there is also “he,” that is, the Son, who is asked and, being asked, comes and gave salvation to the world. Therefore he is sōtēr, that is, Savior; therefore Jesus, as the angel said: “who will save his people.” When, then, the prophet called on him, he was present, so as to prove the saying that while we are still speaking he says: “Here I am.”

He is present, because, roused by the daughters of Judea, he is as it were roused up by the daughters of Jerusalem. The church hears the sound of his voice and says: “The voice of my cousin. Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.” It is a book in sheaves, having many noble persons like triumphal sheaves and signifying many actions, which we can understand rather than hold expressed. For as though she had heard the bridegroom coming and talking with some who were traveling with him, the bride says: “The voice of my cousin.”

While she speaks with the daughters of Jerusalem and asks them to rouse and rouse up the bridegroom, suddenly, sensing as it were the sound of a voice sent from afar, she says, “The voice of my cousin,” announcing him whom before she was asking to have announced to her. Believing that he whom she longed to have roused by others is now coming, roused up by the Father at her prayer, she says joyfully: “The voice of my cousin.” She well added “of my cousin,” so that not others but she alone, his cousin, might claim his coming for herself.

“Behold,” she says, “he comes.” I am still seeking him, and he is already coming; I am still canvassing for him to come, and he is already very near. I long for love to be roused for me, I think myself wounded with love, and love itself hastens to me the more. I said “Come,” he leaps and bounds. I ask him to come with grace, he works increases of graces and, as he comes, brings with him growth of grace and gains by coming, because he too is eager to please his beloved.

He leaps upon the heights, so as to go up to the bride (for the bride’s chamber is the tribunal of Christ); he leaps upon Adam, he bounds over the synagogue; he leaps upon the Gentiles, he bounds over the Jews. Let us see 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, from the tomb into heaven.

Show me him leaping, David, show me him running: for you said, “He rejoiced like a giant to run his course. His going forth is from the height of heaven, and his circuit to its height, and there is none who can hide himself from his heat.” So now too he leaps and now he runs from the heart of the Father upon his saints, from the east upon the west, from the north upon the south. He it is who goes up upon the setting sun; he upon the heaven of heavens toward the east; he goes up upon the mountains, he upon the hills.

Would that I, wretched as I am, might say, that my soul might say: “Behold, he comes,” and comes not upon earthly things, not upon valleys, but comes leaping upon the mountains! For God is a God of the mountains, not of the 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 and are not strong enough, be at least a hill, so that Christ may go up upon you and, if he bounds over, may bound over in such a way that the shadow of his passing guards you.

We have spoken of Christ and the church; let us speak of the soul and the Word. The soul of the righteous is the bride of the Word. If she desires, if she longs, if she prays and prays constantly and prays without any disputing, and is wholly intent on the Word, suddenly she seems to hear the voice of him whom she does not see, and in her inmost sense she recognizes the fragrance of his divinity, as often happens to those who believe well. The nostrils of the soul are suddenly filled with spiritual grace, and she senses the breath of his presence breathing on her, whom she seeks, and she says: “Behold, this is he whom I seek, he whom I desire.”

Do we not, when we are thinking about something in the Scriptures and cannot find its explanation, while we doubt, while we seek, suddenly seem to see him going up, as it were, upon the mountains of the loftiest doctrines, then, appearing to us as upon the hills, enlighten our mind, so as to pour into our understanding what seemed difficult to find?

So the Word, as if from being absent, becomes present in our hearts. And again, when something is obscure to us, the Word is as it were withdrawn, and we long for his coming as of one absent, and again, appearing, he shows himself to us, as though he were present to us in knowing the things we seek. He leaps, then, often in the heart of each one; he bounds over, goes out, and returns, if you follow, if you seek, if, by the welcome discussion of faithful teachers, you ask that the Word who had gone out and passed by be roused again, like her who sought and found, who said: “My brother passed by; my soul went out at his word.”

So if he leaps upon the mountains, follow; and if upon the hills, follow. For on the mountains and hills are found the Lord’s hunters, who track down those who are caught for life. For so God said through Jeremiah: “Behold, I send many fishers and many hunters, and they will hunt them on every mountain and on every hill.” There, then, let the people of God be sought and found, in the teaching of Peter and Paul, in the grace of discipline, so that they may not be in the valley where there is weeping, but on the mountains, from which Christ enlightens each one.

When we read Peter, Christ enlightens; and when we read Paul, Christ enlightens. Paul healed, Christ enlightened, because at the invocation of the name of the Lord Jesus he rose up who was healed by his gift. Peter raised a dead woman, Christ enlightened; and so it says: “You enlighten wondrously from the eternal mountains.”

We, then, who cannot be mountains, let us stand on the mountains or on the hills, so that, when the Lord has sent his fishers and hunters to hunt those who are on every mountain or on every hill, that is, who have their whole way of life in the precepts of the law and the prophets and in the knowledge of the new and old testament, they may find us ready, and as reapers sent at the right time may gather us like good ears of grain; because if anyone is found outside the mountain or the hill, he cannot be gathered like a good ear by those who (to mention another comparison) will be sent to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Lord has skilled ministers of very many tasks; the same are fishers, the same are hunters and reapers.

If, at the time of harvest when these are sent out, you wait ripe in merit, you will be able to see him leaping on the mountains, and you will see the Lord Jesus like a roe or a young stag upon the mountains of Bethel. For he leaps upon the church, which is the house of bread, because he strengthens the hearts of the faithful. Rightly like a roe, because the roe feeds on high places.

The roe, dorkas, is named from seeing; for dorkatikon means of sharper sight. What is more fitting for Christ than this, who saw the Father whom no one has seen, or, if anyone has seen him in Christ, the Son himself revealed him? Rightly like a young stag; the young stag as a son, in whom the power of his father’s nature has grown, so that hidden things do not escape him. Serpents flee, poisons do not harm. Indeed the serpent, drawn out from his lairs, who was being driven out of a man, said: “Why have you come before the time to torment us?”

Let us watch, then, this leaping young stag, so 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 those who reproach me, for I have hoped in your words.” Like a good stag that had drunk from the springs of water, he in no way feared the coils of human serpents and the poisons of slanderers.

The snake was no harm to him, but prey. The poison of serpentine speech was food to him, and food of praise. Of this he said: “O God, do not be silent about my praise, for the mouth of the sinner and the mouth of the deceitful has been opened against me.” He was fattened on the speeches of the venomous; they raised mouths hissing with slander and surrounded the innocent with words of hatred. The good stag, placed among many snakes, did not fear, the stag of friendship and the foal of graces. They feigned love, they poured out slander; “but I,” he says, “prayed.”

The good stag fed unharmed among the vipers. They flickered with three-forked tongues in their mouths, but holy prayer fed him; indeed he offered food to his slanderers. He answered a word to those who slandered him, for the word is food; indeed “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” “They saw me,” he says, “and shook their heads.” They cursed, but I blessed. Those who slandered cursed; I who preached the word of the Lord blessed.

How good it is to bear abuse and not return abuse! He gains God as his protector who does not know how to be angry with the one who abuses him. Indeed how great is the grace of patience in him who says: “They will curse, and you will 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 shuts out the curses of men by the divine gift of blessing. He cannot feel a curse who has the word, and he cannot return a curse who always has the word in his mouth.

But there is also a good serpent, which this stag does not harm: “Be wise as serpents,” and: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” In the bronze serpent my serpent was figured; on that tree my serpent was lifted up, the good serpent. The good serpent, who poured from his mouth remedies, not poisons. He can

not fear serpents who knows how to worship this serpent. Of this serpent she who loves says: “Behold, he stands behind our wall, looking through the windows, appearing above the nets. My cousin answers and says to me: Arise, come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove, for behold, the winter has passed, the rain has gone, it has departed; the flowers have appeared on the earth.”

He is surely a serpent, who, when winter had run its course, wished to strip off the covering of his body so as to flourish in spring with lovely beauty. The same, then, is both stag and serpent: a stag having the horns of law and grace (his two horns are the two testaments), swift of step, tireless in going, who easily runs through the whole world in one moment, celebrated everywhere; a serpent too,

a good one, whose front parts do not bite with the tooth of the law, and whose hind parts do not wound, by the gentleness of the gospel. He guards his head from wounding, he who came not to destroy the law but to protect it from the interpretations of the faithless. He spreads out his tail freely in lashes, wishing rather to scourge his adversaries than to destroy them. The good snake glides easily into the bosom of his beloved and into the very depth of the inmost mind and, entangling with no touch, consumes the heart itself with fire in the bones.

Beautifully it was read today: “Behold, I send you as lambs in the midst of wolves.” For we are celebrating the day of the saints on which the bodies of the holy martyrs were revealed to the peoples, who, like good serpents, having laid aside the cast skins of the flesh, having overcome the rigor of winter temptations and been renewed by the grace of the Holy Spirit, have shone on the world with summer light, sent truly as lambs in the midst of wolves. For the persecutors are wolves, all the heretics are wolves; they do not know how to teach, they are used to howling.

But let no one be troubled if he is sent into the midst of wolves. By the kindness of Christ even the wolf himself was changed: Benjamin, the ravening wolf, became the apostle Paul, no longer the plotter against Christ’s sheepfolds, but their defender and guardian. It is a pleasure to live with this wolf; through this wolf it has come about that we are safe in the midst of wolves. No one fears wolves now; we feed with them, as it is written: “Then the wolves and the lambs will feed together.”

But now let us consider what the prophet means when he says: “And do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for I have hoped exceedingly in your judgments.” The church, or the soul of the righteous, had seen him leaping like a young stag upon the mountains; suddenly seeing her neighbor behind the wall of her house looking through the windows, appearing above the nets, she exults and rejoices that she too is loved by the bridegroom, who, as though himself wounded by love for the beauty of his beloved, first, when he was absent, came when asked for 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 endearments of the bride as she praised the breasts dear to her, and kindly brought her into the inner rooms of the house; and finally, as though playing with a playful love, because he wished to test the feelings of the one who loved, often going out so as to be sought by the bride, often returning so as to be invited to kisses, he stood behind the wall, looked through the windows, appearing above the nets, so as neither to be wholly absent nor to come wholly in, and himself called the bride to him, so that the exchanges of coming to each other might become more pleasing and they might kindle the force of love by mutual words. “Arise,” he says, “come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove.”

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

What are these windows? We read of windows of which Jeremiah says: “Death has entered through the windows,” through which greed has entered, lust has entered. Your eye is a window; death has entered through your eye. If you look at a woman to lust after her, death has entered through your eye. If you see the property of a widow or a minor and lust to seize it, thinking that their age or sex is defenseless (but those are not defenseless whom the Lord wills to be defended), death has entered through the window. If you hear of a woman’s beauty or

the treasures of a minor and stir up your desires, death has entered through the window. Just as death enters through these, so life too enters, if, seeing the beauty of a sacred maiden, you revere the Lord Jesus, because the age of old age has come into tender years, an unstained life, and you yourself offer your daughter to be consecrated with the holy veil; if you look at the property of a minor not as an eager seizer but protect it as a diligent parent with religious affection. Through these windows Christ looks and calls the bride, appearing above the nets.

Well “appearing above,” because he alone is the one whom the nets of sins have not entangled. All were within the nets, indeed we are still within the nets, because no one is without sin but Jesus alone, whom, though he knew no sin, the Father made sin for us. For he handed him over to snares, he handed him over to nets, sending him not in sin, in which all men were, but in the likeness of sinful flesh, so as to condemn sin in the flesh by sin.

The flesh was sin in this sense, because it had been condemned by a hereditary curse; sin was the enticement and minister of sin. The Lord Jesus came and in flesh liable to sin carried on the warfare of virtue. Our members have now become not weapons of lust but weapons of virtue; for where there were incitements to lust, there are now dwellings of chastity. He came, then, to the snares, but willingly; he came to the nets, but secure.

All things were full of nets, crammed with snares. Hear him who says: “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 to free Adam; he came to set free what had perished. We were all held in nets; no one could rescue another, since he could not free himself.

Such a one, then, was needed whom the bonds of human generation, liable to sins, could not hold, whom greed had not captured, whom deceit had not bound. Jesus alone was such a one, who, though he surrounded himself with the bonds of this flesh, was not captured, was not bound, but, breaking and loosing them, called the church the more to himself, looking through the snares, appearing above the nets, so that she too might learn not to be held by bonds.

Indeed he came so near to the bonds that he even underwent death for us, yet he was not made the slave of death, but was free among the dead: for he was free who had the power of loosing death. Indeed let him teach you himself, 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 with which you were held surrounded. 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 already loosed.

A virgin has given birth, the child born of a virgin owes nothing to the inheritance of woman. As the son of a woman he is not held. See the middle wall of partition already loosed, which divided the harmony of the inner affections and stirred up in opposite directions the dissensions of bodily passions. Come, then, without fear; I long to see your face and hear your voice. Come, so that you may no longer see me through nets, but, face to face, as the beloved, may enjoy the countenance of your lover. Let these things have been gone through morally; but the mystical sense let us look at, if we can, at least in outline.

The bride, devoted to the Lord, sat within the house, within the wall of the law and the prophets, founded by the building up of spiritual stones, which closed in and fortified the royal house full of delight and gladness. She marveled at the royal treasures and gazed at them anxiously, longing for wisdom,

to take to herself someone who would show her these riches. She was in a secret place, but she was looking for an interpreter of that very secret. The Lord Jesus came leaping over the mountains (he seemed to us to come late, but he was hastening); he leaped, indeed, and bounded over, so as to bound over the bodily and stony doctrines of the Jews. He stood behind the wall of the house that was in the old testament, looking through the window of the law, through the openings of the prophets. Not yet were the entrances of that house opened,

not yet had the keys of knowledge opened the bolts of the gates by which the inner parts of the law were shut. Yet, looking out from the upper part, that is, the spiritual, he calls the church, so that, rising lofty through the law and the prophets to the summit of the gospel, she may tread with fearless foot on the nets and knots of Jewish interpretation. And so she is called “neighbor,” so as to cleave to Christ and not seek worldly things; therefore “fair,” so as to put forth the beautiful feet of those who preach the gospel; therefore “dove,” so as to seek spiritual things and leave earthly ones.

“Behold,” he says, “the winter has passed, the rain has gone, it has departed; the flowers have appeared on the earth.” Before the coming of Christ it was winter; Christ came and made summer. Then everything was lacking flowers, bare of virtues; Christ suffered, and everything began to be made fruitful with the buds of new grace. The rain of overflowing luxury has gone, and the clouds arising from foul crimes are now dispersed by the summer clearness of a pure conscience.

Therefore those do not escape whose flight is in winter, because they do not follow the Lord’s passion, do not take up their cross and follow Christ. Rain hinders flowers, and now flowers appear on the earth; good flowers are the apostles, who poured out the fragrance of their various writings and works.

The time of pruning has come, since the ripe grain is stored in the barns and he who reaps receives wages. The voice of the turtledove has been heard, because she has found a nest for herself; for the church is the house of chastity. The fig tree, which was ordered to be cut down for its barrenness, has now begun to bear fruit. The vine brought out of Egypt is no longer attacked by beasts because its walls have been laid low, nor misshapen with briers, but, now fragrant with flowers, she who used to produce thorns bends under the fruit of grapes.

Rightly, then, holy David, celebrating the Lord’s Passover and with fervent spirit entering the summer season, gathering various fruits in the word of God, turning away from the adversities of winter, says: “And do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for I have hoped exceedingly in your judgments.” How great is the labor to receive the word, how great again the danger if you lose it! And so it is said to you: “Do not neglect the grace that is in you.”

Cultivate your field diligently like a good farmer, so that your lambs may be fed and your crops flourish. Let the word not be taken from your mouth, lest perhaps your deeds not agree with your words and works of iniquity disfigure the authority of your teaching. The word is taken from the mouth when it is said to the sinner: “Why do you declare my righteous deeds?” And eloquence itself falls silent if the conscience is sick. The birds of the sky come: they too take the word from your mouth, which take the seed of the word from the rock, so that it does not bear fruit.

Now let us consider whether the word of truth can also be taken away from the heart; for the word rooted, pressed down, and fixed in our minds can hardly be taken away. Indeed it was said by the Lord: “Why do you declare my righteous deeds?” He did not say,

“Why do you think on my righteous deeds?” “And take my covenant in your mouth?” He did not say “in your heart.” The speech of an unworthy mind is restrained; penitence is not blocked; he forbids insolence, he does not shut out correction. Yet care must be taken lest the hearts themselves be disturbed within and malice pour darkness over them, so that the heart,

blinded by vain thoughts, loses the light of truth and cannot receive the brightness of the word. If, then, David prays that the word not be taken from his mouth, and, if it is taken, not utterly, that is, not wholly taken, 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 what is to be condemned by God’s judgment? For he who hopes in God’s judgments can keep the word of truth, because, while he fears punishment, he guards grace.

And so he says: “And I have kept your law always, for ever and for ever and ever.” He said two things when one could have been enough, if he had wished to signify one thing. 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, I therefore think that he promises himself to live both according to those who serve the copy and shadow of heavenly things, and according to those who, placed in heaven, offer worship to God according to the true law, so as to keep the law both here and there: here in a copy, in a mirror, in a riddle; there in the very face of truth.

We can also understand that dia pantos signifies not only what is called “always” but also “through all things”: that he keeps the law through all things who, though trained in the law, born under the law, and advancing the step of his devotion above the law, has been freed from the law (for Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law) and has become not without the law of God but under the law of Christ. Or surely we keep the law through all things in this way, if the course of our life in no way exceeds the lawful discipline of childhood and adolescence, the conduct of youth, the maturity of old age, and the path prescribed for each age.

Likewise our soul too seems to have certain ages through which it runs and passes, so that it can say: “I have finished the course.” Indeed that is an age of the soul of which it is said: “And an unstained life is the age of old age.” He keeps the law through all things, then, who has not strayed from the law either in these ages of our body or in those advances of our soul.

The fifth verse is: “And I walked in a broad place, for I have sought out your testimonies.” He who goes by the narrow and strait way according to the commandments walks in a broad place. Hence we read: “In tribulation you enlarged me,” and elsewhere: “In tribulation I called on the Lord, and he heard me in a broad place.” For the wise man walks in the innocence of his heart, and from its spring waters overflow upon his

streets, he who does not shut his mind up within bodily and earthly things but directs it to heavenly things, so that his citizenship is in heaven. Hear one who feels no narrowness: “We suffer affliction,” he says, “but we are not straitened.” And how could he be straitened whose mouth was always open, so that believers should not be cramped? Let him explain what it is to walk in a broad place. For he says that, if the body is narrow, our heart is enlarged. “You are not straitened in us, but you are straitened in your own hearts.”

They could not be straitened in Paul, in whom was the height of wisdom and the breadth of faith. For how could they be cramped in him who was a vessel of eternal election? But they were cramped in themselves, because the wicked man is cramped in himself, strangled by the snares of his own malice. Picture for me a greedy man, daily extending the boundaries of his estates, shutting out his neighbors: does he seem to you to be enlarged or straitened, whom the earth itself cannot contain? However far he stretches the spaces of his house, he is shut in by the narrow bounds of his own opinion, to whom what he has is not enough. But such is not he who can say: “And I walked in a broad place.” He added the reason too: “for I have sought out,” he says, “your testimonies.”

“And I spoke of your testimonies before kings, and I was not put to shame.” This voice fits a martyr pleasingly, who, summoned to sacrilege, when kings reproached him with the crucified Jesus, did not blush but rather gloried in the cross of Christ and established by the heavenly testimonies that it was the salvation of the world.

These Christ calls in the bride, saying in the Song of Songs: “And come, my dove, in the shelter of the rock, near the outer wall,” that is: come near the gospel. The bulwarks of your faith are the deeds of Christ, the defenses of your wall 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.” The voice is sweet, because with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, and the face is fair which does not blush at its maker and is not ashamed of its redeemer.

She shows her face, then, bearing the seal of the cross, and lets her voice be heard, taking up the authority of preaching. For in the shelter of the body of Christ, by which she was redeemed from sin, she finds the fortification of spiritual grace, so that she may both think and speak what is for her salvation. Sweet, then, is the voice which spoke in the divine testimonies, fair the face which was not put to shame before kings.

We can also understand those kings to whom Peter says: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for adoption.” For they are kings who offer the gifts of their wisdom in Jerusalem, to whom has been given the grace to speak the word and with a kind of royal power to bend peoples and soothe the souls of the saints, not blushing in this, because they spoke nothing foreign to uprightness, whom no one could refute and confute, as though they were not worthy whom Christ made fit ministers of the new testament, and not blushing now in this, that they did not fear

being put to shame, overcome by the assertion of those disputing against them. He, then, is a king who does not blush, lest he be reproved in action or refuted in speech, because he ought to be grounded both in life and in word. And so, though the prophet was so perfect that he did not blush before kings, yet he meditated on God’s precepts all the time of his life and lifted up his works, doing nothing that clung to earthly desires.

And so he says: “And I meditated on your commandments, which I loved exceedingly, and I lifted up my hands to your commandments, which I loved exceedingly, and I exercised myself in your statutes.” Most beautiful is this order: that we first meditate, and that meditation on the precepts we love become habitual to us;

for by meditation on the heavenly commandments the practice of good work grows. For just as the end of meditating on words is memory, that we may hold the words we meditate on, so the aim or end of meditating on the heavenly precepts is working and action directed to fulfilling the divine precepts, which no one can fulfill unless he loves them; and not only loves them, but loves them exceedingly.

Therefore he put first, “And I meditated on your precepts, which I loved exceedingly,” and added, “And I lifted up my hands to your precepts, which I loved exceedingly.” For after meditation it is good to lift our actions to God’s precepts, and to do this with love, with joy, so that our good may not be from necessity,

not with sorrow and sadness, but voluntary, because a slave acts unwillingly, a friend willingly. But let us strive that it may be said to us: “I no longer call you servants but friends,” because as friends you have done God’s commandment willingly. He who meditates, loves, and lifts up his actions to do what pleases God ought not to neglect or skim over the divine commandments, but exercise himself in them, linger on them very much, often turning over God’s statutes with the affection of an anxious mind.

The letter according to the Hebrews Zain signifies in Latin “lead yourself”; elsewhere it signifies “hither.” What this interpretation means is not clear enough, unless perhaps that each should rule himself and be his own leader; or “hither,” that is, that he should direct his journey where the verses of this letter call. And rightly in the very first verse he asks for his rest, because this seventh letter is itself the number of rest. And what greater rest is there than to rest in the word of God and to soothe oneself with its grace and consolation?

“Remember,” he says, “Lord, your word to your servant, in which you have given me hope.” The word of God has called us, cast down and pressed low, to heavenly grace, so that we may desire eternity, despise present things, and, careless of temporal things, seek things future and invisible. The word of God, then, calls us to himself, as you have it written: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.” And so let us follow the Lord Jesus as he calls, so that we may pass from worldly things to everlasting, and may know how to rule ourselves.

So David, since he had often been invited by heavenly answers through which he might hope that there would be a reward for his faith and merits (as you have it written, God saying through the prophet Nathan: “I took you from the sheepfold, from one flock, to be prince over my people Israel, and I was with you in all things wherever you went, and I destroyed all your enemies from before you,” and further on: “and I will give you rest from all your enemies”; having received this answer David says: “Who am I, my Lord, Lord, and what is my house, that you have loved me in these things? And the smallest things have been remembered in your sight, Lord, and you have spoken for the house of your servant far ahead,” and further on he says: “And now, my Lord, Lord, you are God, and your words are true, and you have spoken these good things for your servant. And now begin to bless the house of your servant, that I may be for ever in your sight, for you, my Lord, Lord, have spoken; by your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed for ever”), called, then, by this and other answers, David does not cease to hope, and with the authority of prophetic faith he appeals to the Lord to remember his promises, of which he is not accustomed to be unmindful.

For to the saints he is accustomed to fulfill whatever he has promised, unmindful of our iniquities, not unmindful of his own promises. Indeed it is written: “I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, and I will not remember them; but you, remember, and let us be judged together.” He wishes to forget whatever he has threatened against sinners, if at some time they turn their ways; he wishes also to be appealed to, so that if anyone, as rewards are set before those who pursue virtues, has fought well, he may expect the fruit of reward, indeed may even demand it, as you have it written: “I have fought the fight, I have finished the course; there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.”

For it is not arrogant presumption but faithful confidence, because it confesses that the true God cannot deceive. And so David too reminds the Lord, saying that he should remember his word, by which he calls us to hope, so that we may renounce earthly things and cleave to heavenly ones.

David, then, says: “I have fought the fight; I ask the prize of your word which you promised me. Remember your promises which you pledged to your servant. I have not hoped presumptuously for things which you yourself made me hope for. I am a servant; I expect food from the Lord. I am a soldier; I demand pay from the commander. I have been invited; I ask the promise from the one who invites.” But he modestly 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 are well set forth in David’s own person.

But if anyone considers the shaping 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 ones”; he can also fit this address to the chosen of the believing people, to whom, through the type of Joseph, the divine promise was passed first to the tribe of his name, then through the tribe to the heirs of the first election, as Moses says: “The firstborn of the bull is his glory; the horns of the unicorn are his horns; with them he will push the nations together to the end of the earth”; for by this oracle it is prophesied that the only Word of God was to be poured out through the nations over the whole world. This promise, then, to the church that was to rise, David, modest about himself but impatient of the delayed advance of all, seems to demand.

And he added: “This has comforted me in my humiliation, for your word has given me life.” This is hope; this, which came to me through your word, has comforted me, so that I might bear the bitterness of present things while it makes me trust in things to come. How it comforts us, hear: “Who will separate us,” he says, “from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or peril, or sword? As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long;

we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.” And by what means these things can be patiently borne, he added: “But in all these things we overcome because of him who loved us.” So if anyone wishes to overcome adversities, whether it is persecution, danger, death, grave illness, the attack of robbers, the confiscation of property, or whatever of those things are thought adverse in this world, they are easily overcome if there is hope to comfort. For even if they happen, they cannot be heavy to one who says: “For I consider that the sufferings of this 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 of our humiliation, then, there is consoling hope, which does not put to shame; and the time of temptations I think is the time of the humiliation of our soul. For our soul is humbled while

it is handed over to the tempter to be tested by hard labors, so that it may wrestle and strive, experiencing the encounter with the opposing power. But in these temptations it is given life by the address of God; for this is the life-giving substance of our soul, by which it is nourished, fed, and governed; nor is there anything else that makes the rational soul live but the address of God. For just as the word of God grows in our soul while it is received, understood, and grasped, so its life also grows; and conversely, as the address of God fails in our soul, so its life too incurs failure.

And so, just as this union of our soul and body is animated, nourished, and held together by the vital breath, so our soul is given life by the word of God and spiritual grace. Hence we ought to strive in every way, putting everything else second, to gather for ourselves the addresses of God and heap them up in our ruling part, in our thoughts, concerns, reflections, and actions, so that our deeds may agree with the addresses of the Scriptures and our action may not seem to be out of tune with the sequence of the heavenly precepts, so that we too may say: “for your word has given us life.”

The third verse is: “The proud acted wickedly exceedingly, but I have not turned aside from your law.” The greatest sin in man is pride, since the origin of our offense flowed from it. With this weapon the devil first wounded and struck us down. For unless man, deceived by the serpent’s persuasion, had wished to be like God and to know true and false, which by human frailty he could not wholly discern, and for that reason had received what he should follow, lest by rash presumption he fall from that seat of paradise; unless, I say, man, not content with his own limits, had violated what was forbidden, the inheritance of deadly guilt would never have passed to us. And what shall I say of man?

The devil himself lost the grace of his nature through pride. Indeed, while 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; condemned with the due reward of his crime, he sought man as his partner, into whom the fellowship of his offense might be passed.

What, then, can be worse than this sin, which began with an injury to God? And so Scripture too says: “The Lord resists the proud.” As one repelling an insult to himself, he takes up, as it were, a special contest against pride, as though he said: “This is my adversary, who provokes me;

this combat is owed to me.” Hence the apostle too declared that pride is the source of manifold guilt, saying of the heretic that, because he does not agree with the teaching that accords with godliness, “he is proud, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and disputes of words, from which arise envy, strife, blasphemies, evil suspicions, the wranglings of men corrupt in mind and

estranged from the truth, who think that godliness is gain.” How many offenses, then, he showed pride to be the cause of! Hence David, wishing to commend his devotion, untouched by any wickedness of the proud, says: “The proud acted wickedly exceedingly.” He declared not only the iniquity of those acting but also their excessive iniquity, which suited the proud. That he might not be tempted by any contagion of theirs, hear him say elsewhere: “With the proud eye and the insatiable heart, with him I would not eat.”

And so, since he had shown how great is the force of evil in pride, he had to teach us how it is overcome; and rightly, as a good teacher, he who magnified the poison shows the remedy. Hear, then, how you may shut out the poison of pride: “I have not turned aside,” he says, “from your law.” The law of God, then, alone can blunt the poison of pride, the law that has shaped the man devoted to God, teaching with what caution he ought to govern himself.

For many, not only those estranged from the faith but also those who seem to have tasted not a little of the precepts of the Scriptures, are often tempted by the prosperous advances of the proud, seeing those who transgress the law, arbiters of ungodliness, arrogant, despisers of the faithful, exalting themselves against those who humble their heart according to the fear of God and the heavenly precepts, abounding in this world in riches, renown, honors, and powers, and that the graver the things they commit, the more abundant the successes of worldly advantages that favor them; while righteous men, on the other hand, often labor under poverty, the loss of children, the barrenness of wives; disturbed and troubled by this, they incline the sense of their mind to think that God’s judgment errs in this, not holding the head of truth, by which it is most clearly grasped that the reward of our merits is laid up not in this world but in the future.

But few notice this. Indeed at the beginning David himself was tempted, as you have it written: “Behold, these are sinners, and abounding in the world they have obtained riches. And I said: Is it in vain that I have justified my heart and washed my hands among the innocent and have been scourged all the day long?” And so each of us too who are not perfect, seeing these things, says: “Where is the providence of God, where is his justice?

That proud man abounds, that arrogant man grows rich, that ungodly man is happy and powerful; but you see how that righteous man lies cast down and exhausted, how he lacks his very food; he is treated with insults by that ungodly man, trampled on by that insolent one, shut out.” This is certainly no slight temptation, unless you look ahead to the things that are to come, unless you are more fully instructed in the heavenly precepts.

Indeed David too thought before that he understood these things, but he did not know, and so he labored anxiously with a wavering mind. Hence he says: “And I thought I knew this; it is a labor before me, until I enter the sanctuary of God and understand their last end,” in which, by prophetic spirit, he saw that the proud, through their very exalting of themselves, would be the more cast down, and he says: “How have they become a desolation? Suddenly they failed and

perished because of their iniquity, like the dream of one who wakes.” He knew, then, that the successes of the ungodly in this world are like a dream, not like truth, whose gains seem to exist only as long as they sleep. When they have slept off their dream, those who seemed to themselves to be drinking are now thirsty, those who were feasting

are hungry, bringing back nothing solid or complete from that dream. And well do worldly men sleep a dream, who, though awake to the world, sleep to God; of whom holy Job, who had earlier wondered at their abundance, well says that they are tossed like chaff by the wind and scattered like dust by the whirlwind; but they die

with bitterness of soul, eating nothing and having nothing good. But the righteous man, having the confidence of a good conscience, rejoices rather in his last end and understands that by the end of this life he is freed from labors, and he seeks the reward of good work and deeds, saying: “There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but also to those who love his appearing.”

But he said this who could say, “But I have not turned aside from your law,” in which shines not only the grace of good work but also the purity of an inward conscience. For the law shapes not only the duty of acting but also cleanses the affection of the hidden mind. For we serve the Lord according to the law not only in works but also in hidden things, because the law says: “Let there not be a hidden word of injustice in your heart,” so that you may not only commit no offense in work and deed when you see the proud boasting, nor slip in speech, but may not even in your inmost heart, while you dispute about God’s judgment, contract the offense of iniquity, which, the more hidden it is thought, the more frequent it is wont to be, because each thinks it safe to entrust such disputes to his conscience, as though walled in by his own inward parts, though he himself will be his own accuser on the day of judgment, on which the secrets of the heart are revealed, while conscience bears witness to our accusations.

What sort of purpose the holy man has is set out more clearly in this place. First, he must be mindful of the heavenly promises, according to which the appointed reward is owed to those who live. Then another purpose of the holy man is that, even if he is placed in dangers and adversities, he should console himself with the hope which he has drawn from the sequence of the Scriptures.

A third purpose: that, even if he sees the ungodly and sacrilegious and the proud who act wickedly abounding in riches in this world, he should not turn aside from the law as one without faith, but persevere in its paths and flee the contagion of the proud. For every unclean person defiles, and the proud man is unclean, of whom it is written: “Every swelling of the heart is unclean before God.”

A fourth purpose of the man is that he be mindful of the heavenly judgments, as David asserts, who said: “I remembered your judgments which are from of old, and I was comforted.” For unless each one, instructed by the law and formed by its examples, believes that God’s judgments are always true, he quickly turns aside from the law. But he who recalls past examples and gathers the sequence of antiquity

knows that neither does the sinner escape the punishment of his wickedness nor is the righteous man cheated of the rewards of his justice. For he goes over in his mind that from the beginning Adam was cast out of his dwelling in paradise for transgressing the heavenly commandment, and Cain paid the price of his fratricidal crime, condemned by the authority of the divine sentence; that Enoch, for his devotion, was caught up to heaven and escaped the poison of earthly malice; that Noah, for his righteousness, became the conqueror of the flood and the survivor of the human race; that Abraham, for his faith, spread the seedbed of his posterity through the whole world; that Israel, for his endurance of labors, consecrated the people of believers with the seal of his own name; that David himself, for his gentleness, was given royal honor and preferred to his elder brothers; that Elijah, for his zeal for God, was lifted into the air in a chariot and gained the hospitality of the heavenly seat as a dweller of a new kind.

He who knows how to go over these things has the means to gain the grace of his consolation; and on the contrary he who does not know them has nothing to console him. Let us therefore keep the judgments of God, because the judgments of God are true, as you have it: “The judgments of God are true, justified in themselves, more to be desired than gold and precious stone, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.

For your servant keeps them.” To one who keeps them, then, the divine judgments are sweet; but to the negligent there is no doubt that they are bitter, because he notices that the outcome of the divine sentence set before him is in the disgrace of the shame of sinners. But he who has a good conscience is surely not disturbed, saying: “We are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”

But who of us is such as to console himself with the sequence of the divine judgments? Even human judgments are terrible to sinners; how much more are the divine ones dreaded! Indeed, to gather from this example the things that are eternal, we see in this world the innocent hurrying gladly to judgment, hating delays, seeking speed of judgment, but the guilty fleeing and trembling, putting off, avoiding, and in the end growing sad when they hear that the day of judgment has been set. Blessed, then, is he who gladly awaits that heavenly judgment; for he knows that the kingdom of heaven, the fellowship of angels, and the crown of good merits are laid up for him.

Let us consider now what another purpose of the holy man is; and let us judge from what follows. “Faintheartedness,” he says, “took hold of me because of the sinners who forsake your law.” This is not common to many. For most people are saddened if they suffer some injury from someone, if they are hurt, attacked, or disgraced; for, weaker as we are, on our own account we grieve that some have done us wrong.

But he who is stronger grieves not for his own insult but for the sins of others, and in his own injury groans over the fall of another and laments that he was the occasion of the error that hurt him. 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 while he himself was saddened, he did not wish those whom he rebuked to be saddened. Indeed he added:

“Not that you should be saddened, but that you may know the love that I have more abundantly for you.” For he wished the fallen to be saddened as far as repentance, not as far as deeper grief, only so far that the sadness of those rebuked might become joy to the one rebuking. Hence he says: “For if I

sadden you, who is there to gladden me but the one who is saddened by me?” He rebukes, then, so as to relieve the length of sadness, so that repentance may come about unto salvation; he condemns so as to absolve, shuts out so as to receive back, does not pardon so as to set free. Such was Paul, who, well skilled in the law, had known the precept of him who says: “Faintheartedness took hold of me because of the sinners who forsake your law.”

David grieved, not because he was despised, not because he himself was attacked, 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 his son is in a frenzy, when he is cursed, beaten, and treated with injuries by him, weeps not over his own but over the sick man’s misery, and grieves over the insult, not because it was inflicted on him, but because through madness the sick man does not know what he is doing; so the good man, when he sees the sinner not revering, not honoring even the gray hair of an older man in whose presence he does something unworthy, not recognizing, through a kind of madness of sinning, how unbecoming and dishonorable are the things he commits, grieves for him as one about to die, groans over him as one given up by the physicians, and, like a good physician, first warns; then, even if he suffers grievous things, yet, as the physician does with a sick man, even if he is struck he bears it, even if he is cursed he does not abandon him, he does not refuse whatever medicine he can apply, nor does he desert him as obstinate, but strives with all zeal to heal him as one who had deserved well of him, exercising not only the skill of his art but also kindness of mind.

So too the righteous man, even when he is despised by the sinner, does not turn away, and when he is hurt he thinks it madness, not wickedness, and desires rather to bring medicine to his wound, and suffers with him and grieves, not for his own sake but for him who labors under a desperate affliction, and says that this one of his brothers so suffers, is so affected, that he does me injury, who, if he knew me, would surely honor me, certainly would not hurt me.

For in what has he been hurt by my deed, that he should have the feeling of one who hurts? Since, then, there is no cause for hurting, there cannot be guilt in my intention. So, if I am righteous, I am affected on account of love, on account of affection, on account of the loss to the church, on account of the harm to the body. I can also grieve over this, that, even if I have not hurt the one who hurts me and am not conscious of having provoked him by any injuries against me, I have nevertheless been the occasion of his fall, in that he sins by hurting an innocent man, in that I have become for him the material of sin.

This, then, David grieves over, and he grieves for this reason, that when one member suffers, the other members suffer with it. That is perhaps why it was also said: “The righteous man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech.” For although the righteous man can have in himself something to accuse and still be righteous, because no one is without sin except God alone, and although even a sinner can be righteous by this very fact, that he is his own accuser, according to the saying, “Tell your iniquities so that you may be justified,” yet perhaps it may not seem absurd to some that it was also said of this, that he is righteous who accuses himself on behalf of another, even if he has nothing in himself to accuse.

Let us consider, then, how well the chief character of a righteous man in all these things fits holy David. He accused himself with no one accusing him; he confessed his own sin when his heart struck him because he had numbered the people. And he said to the Lord: “I have sinned, Lord, in doing this thing. And now,

Lord, take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have sinned greatly.” And so, although Scripture has it that the wrath of God was added so that he was angry with Israel, by which the king’s fall might seem excused, yet when he saw the angel who was making the slaughter of the people, he threw himself before the blow of the one striking, saying: “Behold, I have sinned, and I the shepherd have done evil; and this flock, what has it done?

Let your hand be against me and against my father’s house.” As a righteous man, then, his own accuser at the very beginning of his speech, he both acknowledged his sin and, by confessing his own iniquity, was justified in himself. Elsewhere too, when he was convicted by the prophet concerning the death of Uriah, he said, “I have sinned against the Lord,” to whom it was answered that because of his repentance his sin had been taken away by the Lord.

Likewise in another place, when Shimei cursed him and stoned him, though he was surrounded by warriors through whom he could avenge himself, he bore it patiently, not returning the insult even with a word. Indeed, when Abishai, his commander, wished to take off the head of the one cursing, the king said: “What have I to do with you, son of Zeruiah? Let him curse me;

the Lord told him to curse David.” First, then, he excused his fault and referred the cause to the Lord’s will; second, he turned it back on his own deserving, to show that the other had not erred, but that he himself had deserved it; third, he said that the other’s cursing not only did him no harm but even did him good, as it is written: “And David said to Abishai and to all his servants: Behold, my son, who came out of my seed, seeks my life; how much more the son of Jemini!

He broke the attack of the avenger powerfully: for how should he avenge a stranger’s cursing as an injury to the king, while the parricide of his son still remained unavenged? Surely a stranger’s cursing and a son’s parricide were not to be weighed in an equal balance. And he added: “Let him curse, for the Lord has told him, so that he may see my humiliation, and the Lord may repay me good for the cursing.”

There is also another purpose of the righteous man, far more perfect and powerful than all: to intercede for persecutors, to excuse those who sin, which we read in the gospel when the Lord Jesus, crucified by the faithless, says: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

It is clear, then, from these lessons of heavenly teaching, that the righteous man would rather accuse himself than disgrace another. Indeed it is written of Joseph, to whom Mary the mother of the Lord was betrothed, that when he saw her with child, being a righteous man, he was unwilling to expose her; and surely he had not yet heard any oracle.

So the character of the righteous man is foreign not only to the cruelty of revenge but also to the severity of accusation, and he would rather have his leniency accused, in that he did not avenge, than press another’s crime. But you will say: how did David himself say, “The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance on the ungodly”? It seems to me that he rejoices that he himself has escaped, not that the ungodly are punished. Let us seek another purpose of the righteous man from what follows.

And so he says: “Your statutes were songs to me in the place of my sojourning.” Rightly he was not broken by his wanderings, he avoided the proud and was not moved by their prosperous successes, he comforted himself in the heavenly judgments, he was distressed at others’ sins, because he had the statutes of God as songs. For what we hold well we are accustomed to sing,

and what is sung clings better to our minds. Let us not pass over perfunctorily what we read, so as to seem to return to the memory of it only when we read it; but even when the book is out of our hands, like the animals approved and held clean in the law, which are accustomed to chew the cud even when they are not feeding, bringing up from themselves food stored within, so let us too bring out from the treasury of our

memory, from our inner parts, spiritual fodder to be chewed. Let the statutes of the Lord be hymns to us, a song to us, psalms to us. Let us sing with the spirit, let us sing with the mind also, lest, if we have forgotten, in the time of need it be said to each of us: “You have cast my words behind you.”

And so, so that forgetfulness might be driven out and banished from his holy house, the true Solomon made singers for himself, who would apply themselves with their whole spirit to seeking the knowledge of the divinity, so that his church should not lack psalm-singers, by whose singing the wicked spirit might be put to flight, as we are taught by the example of holy David, at whose playing that evil spirit which troubled King Saul’s heart was driven out.

The prophets too, in order to prophesy, ordered one skilled in playing to play, so that spiritual grace, invited by the sweet melody, might be poured in. And in the gospel we read that in the house of that father who recovered his son a symphony resounded, in which the faithful feasting took delight, but the faithless one heard it with impatience. Sweet, then, is the song which does not make the body effeminate but strengthens the mind and spirit. And so the Lord’s testament is called a song, because

we sing together, with sweet exultation of mind, the forgiveness of all sins and the righteous deeds of the Lord in the Scriptures of the gospel. The Lord himself too did not disdain to say: “We sang to you and you did not dance.” He sang to us in the gospel the pardon of sins; the Jews ought to have lifted up their minds, not with the actor’s movement of the body but by the Holy Spirit; they did not, and so they are rebuked.

But even dancing of the body in honor of God is held praiseworthy. Indeed David danced before the ark of the Lord, and Michal, the daughter of Saul, saw him dancing and striking on tuned instruments in the sight of the Lord, and said to him after he had returned home: “How has the king of Israel been honored today, who was uncovered today in the eyes of the girls, his maidservants, like one of the dancers?”

And David said to Michal in the sight of the Lord: “Blessed is the Lord who chose me above your father and above all his house to appoint me prince over his people Israel; and I will play in the sight of the Lord, and I will be uncovered still more thus, and I will be a trifler in your sight, and with the girls with whom you said I was uncovered I will be glorified.”

“And Michal,” it says, “the daughter of Saul, had no son until the day of her death.” A clear example, then: the prophet who both struck the instruments and danced before the ark of the Lord was justified, and she who reproached him was condemned with barrenness.

But it is not enough for someone to have God’s statutes as songs, unless he goes out from the servitude of earthly cares. And so he added: “in the place of my sojourning.” This agrees with itself, since elsewhere too he says: “I am a stranger in this land.” Hence the apostle too does not wish us, in the house of God and in the calling of faith, to be strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of God’s household. For he who is of God’s household is an exile from the world; he whose citizenship is in heaven is a pilgrim on earth. The Hebrews were pilgrims in this world, not feeling the nature of the fire; they had the statutes of God as songs when they sang a hymn to God of the praise of creatures.

Indeed he who sings is free and banishes the cares of various thoughts, puts greed aside, and soothes himself not only with the voice of the body but also with the liveliness of the mind. For not as one sad with the anxiety of poverty, but as one free from all the affections of bodily passions, the same prophet sang: “I will sing to you, O God, on the lyre, Holy One of Israel. My lips will rejoice

when I sing to you, and my soul, which you have redeemed.” He sang these things gladly, as though he were fed on these better feasts; for his mind feasted on the food of godly devotion. So not only hymns and psalms but also the precepts of the law are songs to the saints. Indeed Moses sang, who received the law, when, having crossed the sea on foot, as leader of the people that was saved, he proclaimed the statutes of the Lord.

There remains still an excellent purpose of the righteous man, that he ought to be intent on the praises of God at all times, not only by day but also by night. So he added: “I remembered your name in the night, Lord, and I have kept your law.” Let us see whether he too is mindful who calls on the Lord in word but does not keep the divine commandments. Of him enough has been said, that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” is accepted by Christ, but he who can prove his faithful affection by good works. Faith, then, uprightness, innocence prove one mindful. But his saying, “I remembered your name,” is full devotion, because no one says “Lord Jesus” except in the Holy Spirit. Let this name be called on day and night; let holy devotion let no time pass empty of prayer.

If, then, those who study worldly learning indulge very little in sleep, how much more should those who long to know God not be hindered by the sleep of the body, except as much as is enough for nature! David bathed his bed with tears every night; he also rose at midnight to confess to the Lord; and do you think the whole night should be given to sleep?

Then above all the Lord must be prayed to by you, then his protection must be asked, guilt guarded against, when it seems to have secrecy; then above all, when “darkness is round about me and the walls cover me,” it must be considered that God sees all hidden things. Do not say, then, “I am surrounded by darkness; who sees me, and whom do I fear, walled in and shut up?”, because “the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Then, if you do not see a judge, do you not see yourself, do you not fear the testimony of your conscience? Do you not know that the darkness of the night is not a covering but an incitement to sin? When bodies are heated with sleep and food, then the vigor of the mind too is loosened by drowsiness and dissolved by sleep; then the lust of impure intercourse creeps in; then the heart is disturbed, the filth of uncleanness is not dreaded, 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 above all, then, God’s statutes must be gone over in the mind, the exhorting commandments reread; let those precepts about chastity not be absent, so that the mind, occupied with them, may quench the burning of lust and the heat of the flesh. Hold this in mind: “I will wash my bed every night.” For he who is given to debauchery and wrapped in vice does not wash his bed every night.

He does not know how to weep who commits what is to be wept for, and though he himself is lamentable, he has no tears for his punishment. But he who chastises his body and is an anxious governor of himself, groaning and grieving, seeks how to wash away the offense of his former fall with tears of repentance; he washes his bed every night. Let us not, then, sleep whole nights, but assign the greater part of them to reading and prayers.

Hear the voice of the church seeking Christ even in the nights: “On my bed,” she says, “in the nights I sought him whom my soul loved.” Take it according to the letter. She sought in the nights by praying, entreating, even lamenting with tears. She sought in the nights, because he made darkness his hiding place, so that we might learn to seek him more anxiously. The church gathered from the Gentiles sought him, then, in the prophets, and so she believed. Indeed the evangelists and Paul set out the testimonies of the Lord’s coming from the prophets; hence it is written:

“For night to night shows knowledge.” She sought in the nights, in persecutions and adversities, in tribulations and hard labors. It is night for all who do not have perfect security. Hence the Lord says: “Night will come, when no one 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 of God; (in the light of God) is he with whom Christ is present.

It is no great thing, then, if you give thanks to the Lord when you are in prosperity and good fortune, but if you cleave to Christ when the persecutor harasses you, when some storm disturbs you. You have lost a son: in that grief, in that night, in that bereavement, remember the Lord your God, lest, as though unheard, you be ungrateful and transgress in your distress. You have been driven into exile: remember the Lord your God, lest you prefer to God the love of the fatherland forbidden to you.

Overwhelmed by the power of some rich man, you have lost your own property, you lack means: remember the Lord your God, lest the night of poverty draw you away from the affection of devotion. For this is the commandment of the law, that you seek more in the night, so that, when you are heard the more by the Lord, you may also be able to say: “In tribulation I called on the Lord, and he heard me in a broad place.”

But even seeking perfunctorily is not enough for grace, but you must persist and apply yourself to the task. Indeed this church or soul that sought on her bed, sought in the nights, did not find at first, perhaps because she sought on her bed; but after she rose and went into the city (see whether it is not that city into which the Lord, about to celebrate the Passover, sent his disciples: “Go into the city to a certain man”), after she sought in the marketplace, as I said, where oil is sold, which those waiting for the bridegroom were accustomed to buy, where there is justice, where there are laws:

if the law is spiritual, the marketplace too is surely spiritual, where those skilled in the eternal law dispute, a marketplace not turbulent with lawsuits but glorious with the tribunals of Christ; where, I say, she sought in the marketplace and afterwards sought in the streets (from which those were gathered who came to the dinner of the householder in the gospel, who, being invited, did not think they should excuse themselves from such feasts), after, I say, she sought in the marketplace and streets, she fell in with those who go about the city, and then at last she could find what she sought, perhaps because, placed in tribulation and fear, she found grace the more.

Indeed in later passages she says: “Those who go about the city found me; they took my cloak from me.” She had a struggle, then; but why they did not take her cloak above, I am at a loss to find, unless perhaps because there she says she asked: “Have you seen him whom my soul loved?” She who spoke of Christ was not stripped of her cloak, and she found him whom she sought.

Learn how Christ is sought, surely by those who do not seek perfunctorily, who hold him by force, like her who says, “I held him and did not let him go”; she found him by faith, she held him fast by meditation. If we take the watchmen as good, they are surely angels. He who passes beyond the angels, then, finds the Word.

So there was no great interval when she passed from them and found Jesus. How, then, did they take her cloak further on, unless perhaps because by the advance of active faith the church, while she is stripped, is loved more by the Lord, putting off the old man so as to put on the new, whom garments do not cover but the secrets of the mind make bright; or because, about to come to Christ, she laid aside the covering of worldly wisdom? Noah too was stripped of his cloak after he began to be more perfect.

Let us, then, be mindful of the heavenly statutes, so that, while we sing them with the voice of the secret mind, we may be mindful in the night of the name of the Lord and may say, as it is written: “This has happened to me, because I sought out your statutes,” that is: this remembrance has happened to me, that I was mindful even in the night of your name, not lulled by drunkenness, not relaxed into sleep by feasting, not occupied with worldly cares so that forgetfulness of your worship crept in on me, but chastising my members by daily meditation and exercising the intention of my mind, so that by persistence this course may become habitual to us, so that we may worship the Lord Jesus even in the nights with our whole affection, to whom is glory, praise, and everlastingness from the ages and now and always and to all the ages of ages.

The eighth letter is Heth, which in Latin interpretation is called “dread.” Dread is wont to belong to the saints. Indeed dread fell upon Abraham when he was offering a sacrifice full of spiritual mystery. David himself too says: “I said in my dread: Every man is a liar.” For it signifies the reverence of religion rather than the weakness of fear, though even fear itself, if it is according to God, is holy; for “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.”

So those who fear God are wise, and those who are wise are blessed; for “blessed is the man whom you instruct, Lord, and teach from your law.” These too who fear God are blessed, as the authority of the example stands: “Blessed are all who fear the Lord.” So it is gathered that those who fear God are both wise and blessed. Holy, then, is the fear of the Lord, because dread truly belongs to the saints.

Indeed, once this letter is set first, the person of the righteous man at once follows, saying: “My portion, Lord; I have said that I will keep your law.” Most manuscripts have this verse, which is the first of the eighth letter, in the last place of the seventh letter; but the book of Psalms among the Greeks, corrected according to the Hebrews, has taught us to join this verse to the eighth letter. Then the order itself and the number of the verses so agree that the eighth letter begins with it.

“My portion,” he says, “is the Lord.” How rare on earth is he who can say, “My portion is the Lord”; how free of vices, how separated from every stain of sin, who has nothing in common with the world, claims nothing of this world for himself, is not possessed by bodily desires, whom lust does not inflame, greed does not goad, wantonness does not make effeminate, luxury does not discolor, ambition does not lay low, envy does not waste, no care of worldly business disturbs: a true minister of the altar, born for God, not for himself!

For Levi, as the interpretation has it, signifies “he himself taken up for me,” it also signifies “he himself mine,” and it signifies “only taken up,” and it signifies “taken up, he himself, for me.” The same is Levi both to me and to God, just as the same is priest both to me and to God, and advocate for me

and intercessor with the Lord, offering sacrifice for me and the same offering himself to the Lord. Indeed Levi is said by another interpretation too, that is, “for me.” For if he is named Levi by me, he is for me; if he offers for me, he is for me; if he intercedes for me, he is for me. But if he is called by the Lord, he is called “he himself for me,” that is, not tributary to another, not a payer of tithes, not generous from a possession.

“He himself for me,” that is, as one abundant in place of all these. From him I do not seek tithes, nor fruits, nor gifts, nor presents. He himself is a gift to me, he himself is in place of tribute; not generous to me from his possession, but he himself my possession, he himself my fruit, he himself my revenue, taken up for me or taken up by me. This cannot be without divine grace. For just as a possession cannot be mine unless I buy it, so there cannot be a Levi unless he has been taken up by the Lord; for when he has been taken up, he is rightly called “mine.”

Indeed, when Moses had been told to divide the dwellings among the people of the Jews by individual tribes and to distribute a portion to each tribe, God excepted the tribe of Levi, saying: “The sons of Levi shall have no portion or lot among their brothers, because the Lord God is their portion,” and elsewhere: “I the Lord am their portion.”

An earthly division is denied them, so that, while they claim no worldly portion for themselves, they may become a heavenly possession; or that they may know how to possess only this, that is, the service of faith and devotion, much richer than those who spread out the wide spaces of their possessions. However far they extend their boundaries, the land gives out, the sea shuts in their mad desires, and they pay taxes greater than the produce. But he, possessing nothing for himself, serves none but God; his portion is above the earth; the land does not fail him, he is not shut in by the sea. He whose portion is God is possessor of all nature.

In place of fields, then, he is enough for himself, having good fruit that can never perish; in place of houses he is enough for himself, being 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 does that man lack who can say: “Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world”? In such a one the prince of this world cannot claim a share for himself, since he finds nothing of his own in him.

And so the Lord, who came to teach that God should become our portion, says, “For the prince of this world comes and finds nothing in me”; and rightly, wishing us to be his imitators, he says: “Do not possess gold or silver or money.” Hence Peter, showing that his portion was in God, not in the world, says: “Silver and gold I have not, but what I have I give you: in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise and walk,” that is: my portion is Christ; in the name of Jesus Christ, then, rise and walk, that is:

in my portion I am rich, in my portion I am powerful. Rightly I presume on such fruits of this portion, that health and life may be given, because this is the patrimony of the portion which I have chosen for myself. He said this to the lame man, and he rose who had been lame from his mother’s womb. How, then, could Peter feel the loss of his portion, who was repairing the losses of nature?

Why do you not have silver and gold, Peter, tell us; tell us also what that is which you say you have, you who said you had left everything you had. For so you spoke to the Lord: “Behold, we have left everything 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, Peter, before all, everything you had: whence do you have what you say you have?

The lame man rises and is raised up at the sound of your word; you give health to others, you who yourself needed the help of salvation. You left, then, what you had and took 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 you taxes, and good taxes, not of money but of grace. Your portion is not dried up by drought, not washed away by rain, not burned by cold, not shaken by storm; “the sun will not burn you by day, nor the moon by night.”

Keep the portion you have chosen; for it is a portion which earthly shares cannot equal. For what can be compared with those of whom God says, “And I will dwell in them”? What is more magnificent than heavenly hospitality, what more blessed than a divine possession? “And I will walk,” he says, “in them.”

Others complain about the narrowness of their land; in you God has a broad possession, in whom he says he walks, that is, finding wide spaces for dwelling, he who encloses the earth in his hand: for so it is written: “Who has measured the waters with his hand and heaven with his palm and enclosed the whole earth in his hand?” To him for whom the world is narrow you are a broad house. “My portion,” he says, “is the Lord.” The martyr says this: let us live, then, for him for whom to die is glorious.

In other words, how well Paul said this, showing that he had no portion in the world! For so it is written: “To this very hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked and beaten with fists, and are unsettled, and labor working with our own hands; we are cursed and we bless, we suffer persecution and endure it, we are blasphemed and we entreat; we have become as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all until now.”

Perhaps it may trouble someone that he said he was refuse: for he is not. But so it seems to worldly men, who think that the highest glory or beauty is in riches. Do these not think all men refuse who do not submit to them for their riches and admire

them for their wealth, fear them for their power, praise them for their nobility? But Paul thought all these things losses rather than gains, and so he says: “What things were gains to me, these I counted losses for Christ, for the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things

and am counted as dung, so that I may gain Christ.” “I am counted,” he says. This is not his judgment but another’s; for often the poor man is counted someone to be mocked and cursed for the filth of his clothes or the scars of his wounds, because he has no portion on earth. And yet his portion is in heaven; his soul has placed its patrimony there, because it has heard Jesus saying: “Do not lay up treasure for yourselves on earth, but lay up treasure,” he says, “for yourselves in heaven.”

But the rich cannot hear this; they have their ears closed and dulled by the sound of bronze; coin resounds more to them than divine words. Indeed 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 share has righteousness with iniquity? This rich man, then, says: “What shall I do to possess eternal life?” The Lord answers him: “You know the commandments: You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit

adultery, you shall not bear false witness,” showing that eternal life is in these commandments. But he, wishing to justify himself, says: “All these I have done; what remains for me?” To him the Lord, wishing the Lord to become his portion, 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, whose portion was gold and silver, without which he could not be, and with which the Lord could not be his portion, was saddened. Hence the Lord pronounced that it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, but that what is impossible through human desires can be possible through divine grace alone.

Elsewhere too he says: “Whoever has left father or mother, house or brothers or sisters, will receive a hundredfold in this age and will possess eternal life.” Perhaps you say: surely he who by leaving his house (by house understand his whole property), who by leaving his relatives has followed God, is the Lord’s portion and God is his portion; he also has eternal life, and because, having received a hundredfold, he becomes rich in this age, a rich man, you say, enters the kingdom of heaven. Then, if the Lord gives a hundredfold of the things which even singly are wont to be a hindrance to receiving the eternal inheritance, he gives back, then, a hundred possessions for one possession, a hundred pounds of gold for one pound.

We know indeed of many in this world who gave their goods to the poor and were enriched with a richer treasure. And the passage is most beautiful, so that they may also be provoked to mercy. But they ought not to demand such a worldly reward from the Lord nor hope for the things of the world, but rather, because God is the portion of those who have left everything. He himself is surely the perfect reward of virtues, who is reckoned not

by the counting of a hundredfold but by the estimate of perfect fullness. “I,” he says, “am your God.” He did not say “I will be” but “I am already,” I already dwell, I already possess. He takes away delay where he finds the confession of the righteous. Indeed elsewhere he says: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” He promises what is future, but what is future he does not allow to be put off by the space of one day. Indeed he could have said, “You will be with me in paradise,” but he added “today,” so that grace might not be lessened by delay.

But the Lord Jesus does not say to him alone, “Today you will be with me in paradise”; he says to you too, “You will be with me in paradise,” if you confess the Lord Jesus, if you ask his protection for yourself, if you too say: “Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom.” But to you he does not say “Today you will be with me”; he says to the martyr:

“Today you will be with me in paradise.” To you he does not say it, because you are still placed in this feverish body, in this one that desires, in this one that still longs for earthly things. But when you can say, “You have broken my bonds,” that is, you have ended the course of this life, you have freed me from this body of death, then he will say to you: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

You have, then, O man, among many things set before you, a portion of this kind too. The Lord has set before you as a portion possessions, as a portion gold, as a portion silver, as a portion honors, as a portion nobility; he has also set before you himself as a portion. You have very many portions; choose which you think best. Let not the number confuse you, but let grace rouse you; let not the labor turn you away, but let the fruit invite you. In the divine portion there are groans and labors. Hence the holy apostle too, whose portion was God, says: “We are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may be glorified together.” You see that where the inheritance of Christ is, there suffering with him ought to be. And he who suffers with him does not suffer perfunctorily, but so as to fill up the tribulations of Christ in his body, as Paul filled them up, and Jeremiah filled them up, who says under this very letter: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we have not failed, because his compassions are not consumed. He will renew them like the morning light. Many are my groans and my heart has failed. The Lord is my lot, I said; therefore I will wait for him.” He, then, who has waited for the Lord is the Lord’s lot. Hence David too, who says, “I waited for the Lord, and he looked on me,” professes in this place that God is his portion.

How rare is he who claims this for himself! It is not claimed by nobility nor by riches. Indeed that rich king says: “I too am a mortal man like all, and of the earthly race of him who was first made; and in my mother’s womb I was formed as flesh in the space of ten months, curdled in blood from the seed of man and the pleasure that accompanies sleep; and when I was born I drew in the common air and fell upon the earth likewise, and my first voice was like that of all at birth; I was nursed in swaddling clothes and with great cares.” And he added: “For no king had any other beginning of birth; there is one

entrance for all into life and a like exit.” And because he saw that it is common to send forth a weeping beginning, he labored to be God’s portion, and he called on him, and the spirit of wisdom came upon him. But the luxurious choose another part, 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 part and this our lot.”

How great a thing it is to despise riches, but how rare this very thing is! Surely Moses too could have been the king’s successor, nursed by the king’s daughter. He could, then, have been not only like Pharaoh but even Pharaoh, and Pharaoh could have been like Moses (for each was a man), but all the power of man lies in his disposition. Moses did not wish to be king, though by birth he could have been, but judged the reproach of Christ to be preferred to the treasures of Egypt.

But by fleeing power he became more powerful: for he was made a god to King Pharaoh. Pharaoh was king, but he was not god; Moses was made a god to him, that is, terrible to the king himself, whom the king feared and dreaded. But this was the power of holiness: “In the assembly of such gods God stands and judges.” And you too, if you wish to be a god to sinners, a terror to kings, an object of reverence to others, so that they may be subject to you as to a 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 to all riches. I say reproach, which seems a reproach to them, that is, “a stumbling block to Jews, folly to Gentiles, but to us the power and wisdom of God.”

But Pharaoh, thinking this a reproach, that is, poverty, low birth, insults, preferred to be the devil’s portion rather than God’s, and so he who would not be subject to God subjected himself to the intercession of a man. Since, then, the holy prophet David was God’s portion, he rightly says: “I have said that I will keep your law”; he means surely the spiritual law, as Paul too shows. For those who have interpreted the law bodily do not keep the law but transgress it.

Let us come to the second verse, which is as follows: “I entreated your face, 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 understand this first mystically. Moses received the figure of the law.

The law proclaims Christ through hidden mysteries; it did not show him face to face, as the gospel showed him. For in the gospel he spoke face to face, although in the gospel a man born of a virgin appeared, while the Word showed himself through his works. And perhaps this was declared to Moses, that the Jewish people would die because it had seen Christ face to face and had not believed. But if you refer it to the law, Christ is also the end of the law, according to the apostle’s saying: “For Christ is the end of the law to everyone who believes”; and the bodily interpretation of the law died when the Lord Christ Jesus showed its spiritual grace. Or surely because all of us who have put on Christ and been baptized into Christ have died to sin, since while we lived we were held by the bonds of the law. But when we died in Christ, we were surely put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so as to belong to another, who rose from the dead. But this is mystical.

But the moral sense of the old history, which concerns holy Moses, makes us remember that he asked God to show himself to him and that he might see him face to face. Surely the holy prophet of the Lord knew that he could not see the invisible God face to face. But holy devotion goes beyond measure, and he thought that even this was possible to God,

to make what is incorporeal grasped by bodily eyes. This error is not blameworthy, but rather a welcome and insatiable longing, that he desired to hold his Lord as it were by the hand and to see him with the gaze of his eyes. He knew that man was made in the image and likeness of God. For when he was chosen by the Lord to free the people, he was filled with the spirit of wisdom; he had seen that angel and his face in glory. Indeed he was terrified by its shining light and saw the bush burning and not consumed. He began to wonder at the sight and its brightness:

he drew near, called by desire and grace, to consider that brightness in the bush more carefully. And so, if he received such ardor and was seized by such longing when he had seen the angel in the flame of fire from the bush that, though gripped with dread and not daring to look, he still wished to look, how much more did he desire to see bodily the face of the Lord, saying within himself that that face is full of light, full of glory, full of power, full of divinity! I cannot say or think more of God: for “when man has finished, he begins; and when he has ended, then he will be at a loss,” as it is written, because the eternal majesty of God is incomprehensible.

The result of the request was indeed void, but the affection of the servant was praiseworthy, who, advancing beyond his nature by devotion, judged from the Lord’s angels how much more he desired in the Lord’s face, with which he longed to satisfy his desire. He knew that in man himself there would be another glory after death, another brightness.

For just as star differs from star in brightness, so also is the resurrection of the dead; which, though it is sown in corruption, yet rises in incorruption, rises in glory, rises in power, rises a spiritual body. He, then, who could know this rightly presumed to desire to see the face of God, which he would see after the death of the body had been met. Surely he had already received such a form, the Lord was already approving such a one, that the minister and executor of the heavenly oracle did not differ from the angels.

And so, since he knew that the angels of the little ones daily see the face of the Father who is in heaven, he thought that he ought already to see it, as though forgetful of the body and with the flesh laid aside, like him who, still placed in the body when he was caught up into paradise, said he did not know whether he had been caught up to the third heaven in the body or out of the body.

For the saints, even when they bear a body, are nevertheless not in the flesh but in the Spirit, since those who are in carnal desire and conduct cannot please God. But the saint’s conduct was not in the flesh but in heaven, as Paul shows.

And what shall we say of the praiseworthy longing for the divine face? Take men: if they hear that someone is noble, someone brave, someone wise, they long to see him as though they judged him above a man. An emperor goes forth, to whose royal power a part of the world has been entrusted: all run together, and in so great a crowd

they long to look at him alone, and from the gleam of the purple they think there is something more in the emperor’s face. Do you wonder if God’s face is desirable, when every human affection wonders at a man like itself? Hence that too may be understood, that everyone guilty of no crime longs to meet the emperor. For even if the conscience

has a crime, the hidden places of the heart cover it, provided it is not caught up in public guilt and no crime of his is exposed. Indeed, when some accused persons have been summoned, they are forbidden to present themselves to the emperor and to the judges themselves, just as the shameful persons of pimps and prostitutes are kept from the sight of judge or emperor, lest the sight of the most shameful offend the brightness of the royal countenance. But he who has a good conscience, guilty of no crime, comes forward into the midst as innocent.

From these things, then, let us grasp the affection of holy Moses. As one innocent, he desired to see God’s face with, as it were, a countenance of conscience, and to open to him the face of his inner mind. Both Moses and holy David himself longed to be known more fully, David who says elsewhere: “Prove me, Lord, and try me”; for he would not wish to be proved if

he recognized a crime in himself, nor to be tried if he knew himself liable to grave passions. Free from sin, then, he eagerly offered himself to God. But perhaps, because by the more frequent visitations of God he was not yet clean from vice, he was not perfect at the beginning, since a little before it had been said to him: “Loose the sandal from your feet,” surely that sandal which he had brought from Egypt, that is, the covering of bodily conduct. So the Lord says to him: “No man shall see my face and live.”

Consider when it was said. Not yet had it been said to him: “I will make you a god to King Pharaoh.” He was still a man; so this is said to him. Progress was owed him, so that he might become a god, and so it was said to him: I spoke of a man. Cease to have the sins of a man, and you will see my face: for he who sees my face must be without sin. But because man cannot be without sin, he is therefore admonished, so that he may grow into the name of God.

And what shall I say of the name of God? Be an angel, that is, a minister of the divine command; obey the commandments of the Lord. When you are an angel, you will see the face of God. It is a great thing to see God’s face. The law tells you to present yourself three times in Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus himself says: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

Do you notice what is required of you, so that you may see God, you to whom the privilege of seeing God has been set as the aim of life? Cleanse, then, your heart, so that you may be created as new with a renewed spirit; cast away all polluted thoughts from your heart; let there be nothing by which your affection is defiled; let there be a simple mind, a pure sincerity. To such the Lord deigns to show himself, when they have laid aside the covering of the body.

Now let us speak of the rest of this verse. “Have mercy on me,” he says, “according to your word.” Mercy is indeed a part of justice, so that, if you wish to give to the poor, this mercy is justice, according to the saying: “He has scattered, he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains for ever.” Then, because he is like you, it is unjust that he should not be helped by his fellow, especially since the Lord our God willed this earth to be the common possession of all men and to supply fruits to all; but greed distributed the rights of possession. It is just, then, that if you claim for yourself as private something that was granted in common to the human race, indeed to all living creatures, you should at least sprinkle something from it to the poor, so that you do not deny food to those to whom you owe a share in your right.

It belongs also to mercy to forgive sin; and it is both mercy and justice. Indeed divine Scripture ascribes the pardon of sins to justice, according to what was read today: “Blessed is the wood through which justice comes, but cursed is the wood made by the hands of men.”

The former he referred to the Lord’s cross, the latter to the error of the Gentiles who worship wood. And what is the justice of the cross, but that the Lord Jesus Christ, mounting that gibbet, crucified the bond of our sins and cleansed the sin of the whole world with his blood? In what, then, is God just, but in this,

that he knew that he formed man from the clay of the earth, which earth is surely liable 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 you are in the image of God in this, if you are just, so that you are the image of justice; if you are chaste, so that the figure of the spotless one shines forth in you), knowing, then, that according to the frailty of the body man is open to corruption, as one just he granted pardon for the sins of a frail and slippery nature.

And lest anyone perhaps say: “Why, then, was Adam subject to the curse and the sentence? Is God unjust?” Surely not. But because he had prescribed beforehand to one frail and weak what he should beware of (for the weak man ought not to presume but to obey the commandments), he held him guilty of transgression rather than consigning him for a slip. Against him,

then, the just sentence of severity went forth, because he wished to know what it did not profit him to know. But to us, who are held bound by a hereditary bond, who are in this flesh, which, worn down by the prejudgment of those before and accustomed to sins, could not emerge, he granted pardon as one just: for he justly forgave the heir who labors under the prejudgment of the author.

There is, then, just mercy, but there is also unjust mercy. Indeed it is written in the law of someone, “You shall not have mercy on him,” and in the books of Kingdoms you read that Saul incurred offense because he had mercy on Agag, king of the enemies, whom the divine sentence had forbidden to be spared. As if someone, moved by the pleading of a robber’s children and swayed by his wife’s tears, should think he should be acquitted, when the desire to rob still breathes in him: will he not hand over the innocent to destruction who frees one who plots the destruction of many?

Surely, if he holds back the sword and loosens the chains, why does he release him to exile? Why does he not take away by whatever milder way he can the ability to rob, from one whose will he could not wrest away? Then between two, that is, an accuser and an accused deciding at equal risk of their heads, if the one has not proved his case and the other has not been convicted by the accuser, shall the judge not follow what belongs to justice, but, while he has mercy on the accused, condemn the one who proves, or, while he favors the accuser who cannot prove, consign the innocent? This, then, cannot be called just mercy.

In the church itself, where it is most fitting to show mercy, the form of justice must be kept as much as possible, lest someone excluded from the fellowship of communion should, by a brief little tear, ready for the moment, or even by more abundant weeping, extort through the priest’s easiness the communion which he ought to ask for over a very long time. When he indulges one unworthy man, does he not provoke very many to the contagion of falling? For easy pardon gives an incentive to sin.

This has been said so that we may know that mercy must be dispensed to debtors according to the word of God, according to reason. If a physician himself finds within the scar of a creeping wound, though he ought to cut away the fault of the ulcer lest it spread more widely, yet, swayed by the sick man’s tears from his purpose of cutting and burning, covers with medicines what should have been opened with the knife, is not this useless mercy, if, because of

the brief pain of cutting or burning, the whole body wastes away and the use of life perishes? Rightly, then, the priest too, as a good physician, must cut off the wound from the whole body of the church, lest it spread more widely, and expose the hidden poison of the crime, not cherish it, lest, while he does not think one should be excluded, he make many worthy of being excluded from the church.

Rightly, then, the apostle exhorts us by a divine example, saying: “See, then, the goodness and severity of God: on those who have fallen, severity, but on you goodness, if you continue in goodness,” showing that the Jewish people has rightly been separated from the body of the church, lest the poison of unbelief contaminate the church, while the people

of the Gentiles, received by the Lord’s goodness, glories in the gift of obedience. Rightly, then, divine goodness supports it, as long as it remains in divine goodness; but if it too falls away, it will be condemned according to the quality of its crime. For this reason the Lord is described as both light and fire,

so that he may shine like a light for one walking in darkness, lest he who seeks the brightness of light wander any longer. But to him who has done many works which ought not to remain but to burn, the Lord is fire, so that he may consume the hay and stubble of our work and make us saved by a useful loss, as gold that is refined is proved the more.

Perhaps someone may say for what reason the prophet wrote: “Have mercy on me according to your word”; for the word of God is justice. If, then, he relied on justice, why did he first put mercy? Or if he sought mercy, why did he think it should be asked according to the measure of justice? For he who acts well and lives well has no need of mercy, because mercy frees from sin.

Indeed we are not accustomed to grant mercy to the rich, to the strong, and to those supported by good fortune, but to the needy or the weak or those who have fallen from riches into poverty or captivity or some necessity. So he who needs mercy is a sinner, but he who is not a sinner is surely righteous and does not need God’s mercy.

According to what, then, that is, according to what state each one needs mercy or has justice, must be considered. For an angel needs God’s justice in one way, a man in another; an archangel needs mercy in one way, a man in another. For the angelic nature is surely not as liable to corruption as the nature of the human race, and so it needs God’s mercy lest it should err and, with God’s grace turned away from it, slip into vice; but man, even if he is now of firmer purpose, nevertheless seeks mercy because of the sequence of sins he has contracted.

And so, although both need mercy, mercy is owed differently to an angel and to a man. For a slight fault in an angel is judged with a heavier judgment, and the sin of youth in a man is bound with a milder sentence than the sin of old age, and is more quickly released.

The prophet, then, in this verse divides the cases, so that he asks for mercy as a man, because no one is without the stain of sin, and asks for justice as a prophet; or surely because, though he sinned as a man and needs mercy as a sinner, yet he corrected his error, did penance, and abstained from the drunkenness of sinning by the sobriety of virtue. He asks, then, for justice according to the word of God, because it is the sentence of God’s word that pardon be granted to those who turn, if the conversion has been done lawfully.

“I have thought on my ways and turned my feet to your testimonies.” The sense is twofold: either “because I have thought on my former ways, full of falling and sin, and therefore, so that I may deserve the forgiveness of sins by conversion of conduct and zeal for virtues, I have turned my feet to your testimonies,” so that I might walk no longer in my own steps, by which I fell before, but on the roads

of your testimonies, so that the paths of your commandments might not let me go astray, nor turn my step aside into byways and crooked places. For often those who do not know the route, if they follow the paved roads, reach where they wish to arrive and are free of the windings of error; but if they presume to know what they do not know and think some shortcuts should be followed, leaving the public highway they often run into labyrinths of error, so that they repent of having turned aside from the road, and so after much loss of labor they strive to return to the road they had left.

This, then, is one sense; the other is this: “I have thought on my ways,” not past but future, so that I might anticipate my actions with thought, lest, proceeding by ill-considered action, I should fall into some offense in my very attempts; so that, if I wish to do something, I first consider whether what I desire should be done, or in what way; likewise, if I must speak to someone, whether I ought to speak, then whether to speak publicly or privately, with some present or none; as in that saying, that if you wish to correct a brother, first correct him alone, second with two or three witnesses present, third, if he does not listen, before the church. And so, if, neglecting the order, you wish to rebuke before the church a brother whom you ought first to have warned, you yourself recognize the mistake. Do everything, then, with thought, so that you may not repent of your work.

Or if, having set out on a road, when you come to a crossroads (for so a kind of meeting of many roads is called), if you do not know which road you should take, you nevertheless stop and think with yourself whether you should choose the first or the second or the third or the fourth or even the fifth road, if there are so many, to follow, and you do not think you should set out on the journey before you have defined it in your mind and decided with fuller attention; you stop, then, thinking which is the road that leads to the city to which you think you must go: how much more ought you to stand firm in mind and spirit, you who strive toward the heavenly kingdom, and think with yourself that not every road leads there, not every road directs to that Jerusalem which is in heaven!

There are roads that have evil ends, which the temptations of the devil have worn, and so their ends are the ends of death. These are surely the roads of which you have read in Proverbs, that “there are ways which seem right to a man, but their last parts look into the depth of hell.” But the way that leads to the kingdom of God is narrower. Wishing, then, to enter on the way that leads to God, will you not look around, will you not discuss with yourself, will you not consider, lest you be easily caught by affection, if, enticed by the breadth of a road, you enter on a journey that leads down to hell? Think, then, beforehand and weigh what you do.

“Whoever looks at a woman,” he says, “to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” This man surely thought about seeing a woman, about seeing her to lust; but let this evil thought leave its ways. Another did not think about it, but suddenly looked and was caught, and saw and lusted, and so fell. But if he had considered his frail affection and had first

feared that, when he saw a woman, he would be captured in mind and spirit, he surely would not have looked toward the woman, so as not to lust after her. Seeing the woman, then, he did not direct his foot to the testimonies of the Lord, he who, if he had been able to think before his fall, would perhaps have directed it. Let each one, then, first think how he looks at a woman, so as not to look at her to lust after her, so as not to attend to her. But if, seeing her suddenly, or grounded in good thought, he directs his foot to the testimonies of the Lord, so as not to remain in captivity, surely the thought has profited him.

Finally, let one loving a woman, cherishing, desiring her, consider Christ, his judgment, his testimonies on the rewards of chastity, and let him leave the ways of desire, follow the ways of Christ, and he will have praise in them, if, contemplating the Lord Jesus, he despises the heat of the flesh, quenches the flame of lust as with a spring, and dashes his tender and weak desires against the rock of Christ.

Let him think first, then, to repeat the same things, how he looks, how he speaks. He thought well who said: “Set a guard, Lord, on my mouth,” lest perhaps, while the mind inflames

its ardor, the tongue slip in speech, or by careless talkativeness run into what the mind did not even think, through facility of speaking. Let him think how he directs his foot, how he lays his hand, lest, driven by an impulse of indignation, when he ought to repel an injury, he himself deal another a blow of notable slaughter. We must think, then, what we do; for where thought goes before, ripeness of action is applied. And so this foot is the footstep of faith, which, after weighing it in meditation, he turned from bodily movements to the divine testimonies.

What profit there is, then, in thinking beforehand what you will afterwards do, the following verse teaches: “I am ready and I am not troubled, to keep your commandments.” When someone anticipates by thought what he is about to do, he is always ready to act, always fixed and strong, so that he cannot be troubled by any sudden offense of events. No blasts of very rocky ambition shake him, no squall and storm of unjust seizure harass him, the eye of a wanton harlot does not ensnare him; for the eye of a harlot is the snare of a lover.

The wretch is caught in another’s property who, overtaken by an unforeseen fire, has lost possession of his own mind. If persecution falls upon him, it finds him already prepared, so that, where there could be disturbance over uncertain safety, there the hoped-for crown of the holy contest may soothe him through provident meditation on the future. If he is often gnawed at by slanderous detractors, let him think that the disciple is not above the master nor the servant above the lord. If the abominable reproaches of those reproaching fell upon the Son of God, how can a servant hope to be exempt from them?

And so he must prepare his mind, so that, when these things happen, they cannot trouble him. Let him prepare his spirit and compose it by meditation, so that he can say, if indeed he can: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation or distress or famine?” and the rest. And why he is not separated, he added: “But in all these things we overcome,” he says, “and conquer because of him who 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 can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”

The apostle named many things against which we struggle; but some are easy, or certainly not for this time or place, that we should discuss them all, which are those that could separate us from the love of God unless we resist more carefully. That which seems more obscure we will not pass over now, because he says: “neither height nor depth,” which are grave temptations. Indeed you have written in Isaiah to King Ahaz: “Ask for yourself a sign from the Lord, in the depth or in the height.”

He answered: “I will not ask, nor will I tempt the Lord.” A mystical proposal was made to him, but he did not understand it and feared that he would seem to tempt the Lord if he asked for a sign in the height or in the depth. But the Lord, wishing to undermine grave temptations by a divine remedy, said: “Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb.” This is the great sign, which destroyed the temptations of height and depth. For the Lord Jesus did not think it robbery to be equal with God, nor did he seek his own things,

but took the form of a servant, humbled himself even to death. And so he was neither lifted up by power nor troubled by any casting down of death. This sign, then, is set before the king, so that he may ask for himself the remedy by which he would neither be lifted up by the haughtiness of royal power nor be troubled by the onset of any hardship, as he was troubled in heart when he saw war being brought against him by the Syrians. By the example of the divine oracle, then, we wished to show what these grave temptations were, for which Christ alone could bring the remedy.

But from prophetic speech too it is easy to teach a certain burden of these temptations. For holy Solomon declared these two greatest temptations in his own prayer and asked that he might be able to shut them out, saying: “But give me neither riches nor poverty, but appoint for me what is needed and what is sufficient, lest, being filled, I become a liar and say, Who sees me? or, being poor, I steal and swear falsely by the name of God.”

Can you, then, despise these temptations which Solomon dreaded, he who asked for wisdom and deserved it? He was rich, and he feared to be lifted up; he dreaded becoming poor, lest through the necessity of poverty he not keep the grace of self-restraint. How many who seemed to be holy have fallen from the height of their heart! How many, cast down by some necessity, could not be content with injury, who had been strengthened by the exercise of virtues! Rarely is a Job found on earth, who lost both riches and children, and, furrowed with weals on his body, while worms flowed over his whole body, yet could not be separated from the love of Christ.

Let us, then, prepare our affection, lest a sudden force disturb us unprepared. Indeed the Lord, knowing that we are wont to be quickly broken, says even to the apostles: “Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.” If greed and appetite tempt you, read the gospel; let Jesus say to you: “Let not your heart be troubled.” If some terror falls upon you, let Christ say to you: “Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.” If a persecutor inflicts any tortures, read the gospel; let Jesus say to you: “Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.”

Read the apostle saying: “For the sufferings of this time are not worthy of the glory to come.” If, as you sail on the sea, a heavy wave rises up, a black storm rages, let Jesus say to you: “It is I; do not be troubled.” Coming, then, into some great and grave contest, say first: “I am ready and I am not troubled, to keep your commandments.”

And what shall I say of worldly things? Be prepared not only against what you see, but also against what you do not see. “Fighting without,” he says, “fears within”; there is war within yourself. It is good that your mind should be in tranquility and in a kind of calm;

but the better helmsman is he who steers the ship in a storm. Govern yourself, then, when your spirit is troubled and your mind tossed. Would I praise the skill of a helmsman who felt no squalls and directed the ship’s course tossed by no storm? But I would praise him who strains against the winds, rises against the waves,

is not afraid, whether the ship is lifted up by the waves or set down to the bottom of the deep. So too he is to be praised as helmsman of himself who conquers adversities by patience, overcomes them by virtue, is not lifted up by prosperity, is not broken by adversity. You have war also against the spiritual forces of wickedness. You notice with how many you have battle, and so meditate and resolve in your mind that, going out to battle, you may say: “I am ready and I am not troubled, to keep your commandments.”

The fifth verse follows: “The cords of sinners have wound around me, and I have not forgotten your law,” that is: sinners have surrounded me with cords, to entangle my steps, so that I could not avoid their attacks by quickness of foresight. These, then, are not the cords of which it is written: “The cords have fallen to me in pleasant places.” For those are the cords which those use who measure the boundaries of fields, mark out limits, and divide the extents of possessions.

Those cords, then, are stretched by which each one’s possession is laid out: so “Israel became the line of his inheritance.” Those cords, then, are good; but these are the cords by which sins are drawn “as with a long rope, and iniquities as with the strap of a heifer’s yoke.” For an untamed heifer tosses and shakes herself the more when she is held, and does not submit to command nor is bound by the bond, but rather, when she is pulled back by the strap, is exasperated. And so she neither submits when forced nor yet is free of the bonds.

Just as, then, the heifer drags the strap of the yoke, which, even if she is not held close by, is nevertheless held and does not free and loose herself, so each sinner of untamed conduct drags his iniquities, thinking himself free because he is not subject to the yoke nor subjected to judgment, and he does not know that he has not been freed, but rather, like that heifer, entangles himself in the knots of his own sins. These, then, are the cords of our offenses, by which we are wrapped and bound, as there are also bonds of offenses.

And so the Savior, who has in his power to forgive sin, says to those who are in bonds: “Come out.” Would that he might say to me too: “Come out of your bonds, come out of the knots of your sins, loose the cords of your error with which you are surrounded and bound.” For even if I am the most wicked of all and the most detestable of sinners, yet at his command I am freed, who in one moment snatched the condemned robber from punishment and set him in his kingdom.

There are, then, bonds by which we are bound, even if we seem to ourselves free. Blessed is he who looses these bonds for himself. And so David says: “Let us burst their bonds and cast their yoke from us.” He surely does not mean visible bonds to be broken by hand, but invisible knots of crimes to be loosed by conversion of conduct

and profession of faith; or by hand, that is, by the work of your hand: give to the poor, lift up the weak, redeem captives, and you have loosed your bonds; for “almsgiving frees from death.” Rescue him who is led to death, that is: rescue him by intercession, rescue him by favor, you, priest; or you, emperor, rescue him by signing a pardon; and you have loosed your sins, you have stripped yourself of your 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 greed, our bond is drunkenness, our bond is lust, our bond is pride. There are also the devil’s bonds: indeed it is written:

“But this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years.” The devil also binds us with the knot of crimes, binds us with the bond of fornication, the bond of adultery, the bond of unbelief by which Christ is denied, the bond of envy by which often even a brother is attacked, the bond of cruelty by which sometimes a companion and fellow man is killed. These are the bonds by which each one is bound and bowed down, so that he cannot lift up his soul or raise the gaze of his mind to heaven, unless the Lord says to him, “You are freed from your infirmity,” and raises him by the gift of his blessing.

These are the bonds of the wicked which bind sinners hard, that is, the devil and his ministers, or certainly Nimrod, that is, “bitterness,” or certainly Esau, that is, “earthly and cunning.” For these were hunters, who are accustomed to catch wild beasts with snares and bind dumb animals with bonds. Useless hunters, who catch beasts to provide a show for the popular spectacle, a service to cruelty. Indeed we find no hunter righteous in the whole series of the divine Scriptures.

But there are other bonds, as I said, those of the Lord Jesus, whom they follow, it says, “bound with bonds,” that is, bound 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 fountain of pardons, the author of redemption. Let us follow, then, the bonds of Christ; let us flee the bonds of the hunters, lest, while we walk, while we are unaware, the foot of our mind run into their snares, lest we put the neck of our soul into their knots.

For they lie in wait like the worst hunters, and when we relax our mind with the outcome of prosperity and slacken in good fortune and do not keep the watches of caution intent, then they cast their snares the more or hide them on the road on which we walk, so that, when our steps are entangled in their snares, they may drag us, so as to trip the traveler who feels secure or to strangle the passers-by caught by the neck.

Do not, then, walk with neck held high like the daughters of Judah; for a snare is quickly knotted on high necks. Do not fix your mind and spirit on worldly things, but look around carefully with the eyes of the soul, because “the Lord rains snares upon sinners,” lest they be able to entangle you as they fall; these you can avoid if you do not forget the law of the Lord.

For even one who is bound, if he is conscious of his innocence, does not cease to claim his freedom, and sometimes pleads his case from his chains and defends it by the prescription of the laws, and is often acquitted by the 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 your iniquities, and I will not remember them.” Hold him day and night; confess your sins to him.

The prophet teaches you how to hold the Lord Jesus: “At midnight,” he says, “I rose to confess to you for the judgments of your righteousness.” The day is not enough for entreaty; one must rise also at night and at midnight. The Lord himself spent the night in prayer, so as to invite you to entreaty by his own example.

And surely 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 only to rise at midnight, but to rise at night and especially at midnight. For he first set down that one must rise at night, saying: “I remembered your name in the night, Lord.” Each one can remember and not rise; each one can also rise and, when he has risen, ask for what has seemed good to his own judgment. 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 entreat God and weep for our own sins, and not only ask pardon for past sins but also avoid present ones and guard against future ones; for many temptations creep in at that time.

Then the enticement of the flesh is hot, then the tempter mocks; food is being cooked, drink digested, the stomach is uneasy, the mind sleepy, the spirit occupied. And so either the heat of drowsiness increases in one at rest, or in one awake the vigor that could guard against the attacks of errors has not yet been fully restored. Then, therefore, the tempter stands by, then he casts the nets by which he can disturb the unprepared mind.

Then the spiritual forces of wickedness pour out darkness, then they strive to urge every wrong, when there is no judge of guilt, no accomplice of the crime, no one can be a witness of the error. Then they pour various disputings into the breast of the drowsy, so as first to cast down from the steadiness of his mind one who resists, and the example is put before him of some who are held holy, that they once sinned, but afterwards obtained pardon and covered their former sins.

For although the enemy hates all our amendment, yet for a time, so as to crush a man of sober mind, he holds out future pardon, so as to persuade present sins; and when he has driven someone to consent to error, if he sees him called back from guilt now not by love of virtue but by the thought of punishment, he inserts various disputings, so that he says to himself: “Who sees me? 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 at what is shameful.” These things surely we know by use and example: for no one can be free of temptation.

And so, as this time is suited to temptations, so too it is a time of punishment, as we can be taught from the divine reading. For not idly did the Lord our God, though he could have destroyed the firstborn of the Egyptians at any moment, nevertheless judge this time more fitting for the sinner’s grief and mourning. For so it is written, that at midnight the firstborn children of the Egyptians were slain by the destroyer.

And so holy Moses the prophet, so as to forestall this time and so that it might pass without harm to the Hebrews, first sacrificed the lamb, that is, in the evening, so that, eating it and celebrating the Lord’s Passover, they might not be overtaken by the destroyer’s ambush, lest the nightly darts of the dark enemy overwhelm them unarmed and empty of spiritual food.

Attend to these things carefully, understand them prudently, seek them anxiously. These things are not said perfunctorily, but divine mysteries are declared to you. Forestall you too the ambushes of the tempter; first renew the heavenly banquet.

A fast has been proclaimed: take care not to neglect it, and if hunger drives you to the daily lunch or intemperance makes you turn aside from the fast, yet keep yourself rather for the heavenly banquet. Let not the prepared feast extort from you that you be empty of the heavenly sacrament. Put it off a little; the end of the day is not far. Indeed there are many such days on which one must come to church immediately at the midday hours, hymns must be sung, the offering celebrated. Then surely stand ready, so as to receive protection for yourself, so as to eat the body of the Lord Jesus, in which there is the forgiveness

of sins, the asking of divine reconciliation and eternal protection. Receive the Lord Jesus first into 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, he will understand that the place for his temptations

has been shut off by Christ; he will flee and withdraw, and you will pass midnight without any offense. The evening sacrifice too reminds you never to forget Christ. You cannot forget, when you go up to your bed, that Lord to whom you poured out your prayer at the setting of the day, who filled you when hungry with the feast of his body. For what you have thought of in the evening you will quickly recall when you wake. The Lord Jesus himself will rouse you, will remind you to rise and take up the weapons of prayer at that time when the tempter is wont to attack.

Hence not idly did the apostle Paul and Silas, thrust into prison with their feet in the stocks, nevertheless rise at midnight with the step of the mind, entreat the Lord, and offer the sacrifice of praise; and so, where the duty of devotion was not lacking, the remedy of release was present too. For suddenly at midnight there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; the doors were opened, the bonds of all were loosed.

Do you hear how, if you are bound, with what hands, with what works, you yourself may loose yourself, how you cannot fear the guards? Rise, then, to pray. That is the hour at which the tempter is wont to harm and wickedness wont to rush in; that is the hour at which the heavenly remedy is wont to come against grave temptations. You must keep watch, lest you be overcome by some fraud; you must take care that at the time when you can conquer you do not lose the time of conquering.

And because we have said that prayer should be undertaken at midnight, it seems that no less should be said about the corresponding hour of the day: for night is the opposite of day (for what has light in common with darkness?), and so the nightly and the daily hours are opposed to each other. For just as at midnight the tempter killed the firstborn of the Egyptians, and from this it is known that the adversary works most at that hour, so on the contrary the power of divine light works at midday.

Hence Abraham too, about midday, kept sober watch and was expecting some good outcomes, lifting his eyes and surveying the neighboring places, because at that time he was seeking the grace that was coming to him. 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 the divine presence have enlightened the faithful man more than when the light of day shone more fully?

And rightly holy Joseph too, having received his brothers and sent for his younger brother, whom he loved most, sets out a banquet at midday. For it was midday in holy Joseph’s breast, when he served his brothers a glad feast of shining grace and shared out the foods of a most sweet address, so that, when they feared punishment for the brother they had attacked and sold into slavery, he told them it had been provided by divine judgment that he should be brought into Egypt who would not deny food to those suffering famine.

We have, then, midday within us. It is midday for him on whom the sun of righteousness 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 your way to the Lord,” it says, “and hope in him, and he will do it, and he will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the midday.” For where there is true faith, there is the grace of the true light; where there is a longer guarding of innocence, and of the virtues

an advance by long meditation, where the brightness of a good conscience remains long, there is the intelligible midday. There you too will set before Christ the feast of your mind, and you yourself will be fed on his riches, so that no premature setting of the true light follows, nor any dark evening quickly falls upon your pursuits and, intervening, hinders good works. But if the night of temptations comes, not without reason must one rise at midnight and pray long and prolong the time with psalms, until the day comes and Christ dawns on you.

See, then, that midnight does not come upon you even by day, at which the prince of the world, dark and filthy, pours out on you the fullness of temptation. Rise, then, and rouse your mind. “He who keeps you does not slumber,” if he does not find you sleeping; but he will rise, if he too is roused by the vigils of your soul, and he will command the wind, and there will be calm in your breast, which was tossed by the whirlwind of various storms. We must rise, then. The bridegroom is wont to come at midnight; take care that he does not find you sleeping, take care that you are not, drowsy, unable to light your lamp.

We must rise, I say, and confess to the Lord, so as to give thanks; we must also confess his eternal judgments, so that whatever good happens to us we may attribute to his justice, and whether we are rich or in good health, we may ascribe it to the Lord’s justice, because he is just, so as to protect and preserve his work, so that those whom he cast naked, with a kind of undowered lot of nature, into this weakness of the body, he may deign to clothe, poor as they are, with vigor of mind and the dowry of his mercy. It is clear that this must be done with all virtue, so that neither by day nor by night nor at any time ought we to be idle from thanksgiving.

The seventh verse follows: “I am a companion of all who fear you and keep your commandments.” Christ too has his companions and partners. Indeed David proves it, saying: “God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.” He has companions of the flesh, because he took flesh. He has companions of prophecy, because “the Lord your God,” it says, “will raise up for you a prophet from your brothers, like me. Him you shall hear in all things whatever he says to you. And it shall be that every soul that does not hear that prophet will be destroyed from the people.”

He is the true prophet, who knows the future without another’s gift, who spoke in the prophets the things that were to come. Or is he not a prophet who makes others prophesy? He it is who is heard like the law, because the law too is his. Indeed, “if they do not hear Moses and the prophets,” he says, “neither will they believe if someone goes to them from the dead.” And so the people of the Jews, because it did not hear

this prophet, was destroyed from the people, so that it ceased to be the people of God which before was called the people of God. He has companions of baptism, because he was baptized for us; he has companions of righteousness, because he himself is righteousness and gave us of his own to have fellowship with him; he has companions of truth, because he himself is truth and willed us to hold the truth; he has companions of the resurrection, because he himself is the resurrection; he has companions of a spotless life, because he himself is spotless; and whoever has walked in newness of life, whoever has kept the path of righteousness,

is a companion of Christ. He also has companions of his tribulation, and so he who longed to be his companion says: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up what is lacking of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh for his body, which is the church.” We are also companions of his burial; for whoever has been buried with him through baptism into death is his companion. And so the apostle himself, establishing what grace the Lord Jesus has given us, says: “For we have become companions of Christ.”

But he too is a companion of Christ who consoles the mourner with sorrowful affection, who does not cheat the prisoner of his own service, who sits by the bed of the sick, not to set a trap for an inheritance, but to soften the force of the disease by anxious ministry, to soothe the weary with diligent conversation, who clothes the naked, refreshes the hungry. For Christ is often in these, as he himself says: “I was in prison and you did not come to me, I was naked and you did not cover me; for what you did not do for one of these, you did not do for me.”

If I hate lying, I am a companion of Christ, because Christ is truth; if I flee iniquity, I am a companion of Christ, because Christ is righteousness. Blessed is he who can say this. For just as we say a member shares in the whole body, so he who is joined to all who fear God, who does not say to another, “You are not of my body,” that is, the rich man does not say to the poor, the noble to the base-born, the healthy to the sick, the strong to the weak, the wise to the unlearned, “You are not necessary to me,” is a companion of the body of Christ, which is the church.

But he who knows that those who seem weak, poor, unwise, even sinners in the church need more abundant honor and are to be supported with greater protection, he who knows this can say: “I am a companion of all who fear you,” he who has compassion on such men rather than disdaining them, has compassion on the weak, so as to know that we are all one body and members joined to members, so that one cannot be without the other, and, when one suffers, he suffers with the other. This one, then, can rightly claim the authority of this saying.

But see how modestly the prophet said: “I am a companion of those who fear you.” He did not say “who imitate,” but “who fear”; for the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. He placed himself among the beginners by humility, though he surpassed the veterans in devotion. But yet to fear too belongs to virtue, because it is written: “Fear the Lord, you his saints.”

But for those to whom this fear might not seem holy (for there are those who are terrified with cowardly dread and tremble with dull fear), he added, “and who keep your commandments,” so as to show that he was a partner of holy fear. Or thus: one can indeed fear, devout in heart but slothful in work, so as to be religious in feeling, idle in action;

yet he cannot be slothful who keeps the Lord’s commandments. He, then, who fears, keeps; so to keep belongs to him who fears. The saint, then, says this; but I cannot claim it 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 need mercy, I do not help with means! But whoever does these things can himself say that he is a partner of those who fear Christ.

“The earth, Lord, is full of your mercy; teach me your statutes.” How is the earth full of the Lord’s mercy, except through the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, foreseeing it as future, the prophet celebrates as though already accomplished? For it is the custom of the prophets, foreseeing the things that are to come, to mention as though already past things that belong to a later age.

The earth, then, is full of the Lord’s mercy, because the forgiveness of sins has been given to all; the sun is commanded to rise upon all. And this sun indeed rises daily upon all, but that mystical sun of righteousness has risen for all: he came for all, suffered for all, and rose for all; and he suffered for this reason, to take away the sin of the world. But if anyone does not believe in Christ, he cheats himself of the general benefit, as if someone shuts out the rays of the sun by closing the windows: the sun has not therefore failed to rise for all because he has cheated himself of its warmth; but what belongs to the sun keeps its privilege, while what belongs to the foolish man

shuts out from himself the grace of the common light. The rain is upon all, and this is ascribed to divine mercy, because he rains on the just and the unjust. Or surely it is to be interpreted thus: that the earth is full of divine mercy because “the earth is the Lord’s and its fullness. He founded it upon the seas and prepared it upon the rivers.” For through the church the mercy of the Lord has been spread to all nations; faith has been spread to all nations.

Perhaps you may say: for what reason was it not said, “Heaven is full of the Lord’s mercy,” since there are also spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places? But those do not belong to the common right of God’s pardon and the forgiveness of sins, for whom eternal fire is reserved; and those beings that belong to the heavenly powers or ministries, though they are supported by the Lord’s help, yet do not need his mercy as much as things below and earthly; for they are not clothed with the covering of the flesh, in which lies the enticement of frequent error.

And so in an earlier psalm the same prophet says that God has given “the heaven of heaven to the Lord, but the earth to the sons of men.” Hence that heaven too is purer and more refined from every stain of sin and far more removed from that of which it is written, “like the birds of the heaven.” For this heaven is called a kind of airy place midway between heaven and earth, in which are also the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

For in that heaven, not so called but the true one, even if we have said that the devil was not absent from the council of the angels in God’s sight, I think nevertheless that no temptations of wickedness work. Indeed it is written that the angels loved the daughters of men, because the prince of this world and his ministers are held captured by earthly enticements, in whom spiritual wickedness has been steeped in certain poisons of this flesh and infected 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 a neighbor from his possession of the adjoining land, to cheat a widow of the gains of her inheritance, to thrust out minors by right of partnership, and finally to enclose within wood and any metal of silver and gold or bronze, as it were, an image of heavenly power. Since these things are full of the greatest sacrilege, they are absent in heaven, frequent on earth; for “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm,” not the earth.

And so he wishes to be taught God’s statutes by the Lord himself, because it is hard to find on earth a master of this kind who would teach what he has not himself seen. To that teacher, then, the prophet strives with inmost affection, who alone is the true master. For how can a man teach as true what he does not know, since he himself is a liar? Rightly

does the Lord say that no one on earth should call anyone master, because there is one master of all. And how could David seek another teacher, when he himself said of God: “who teaches man knowledge”? God teaches and enlightens the minds of each and pours in the brightness of knowledge, if you open the doors of your heart and receive the brightness of heavenly grace. When you are in doubt, inquire carefully; 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 kind of hand of your mind you knock at the door of the Scriptures and carefully examine what is hidden, little by little you will begin to gather the meaning 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 the Lord Jesus alone in his gospel revealed the riddles 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 rooms of the Scriptures. But now: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, who have taken away the key of knowledge; you have not entered yourselves and you have hindered those who were entering!” For how can you have the key of knowledge, you who deny the author of knowledge?

And so, turning to him, David says: “Teach me,” he says, “your statutes,” because you are true righteousness; you teach what has been wisely spoken, because you are wisdom; you open my heart, you who opened the book; you open that door which is in heaven, because you yourself are the door. 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 deceived.

The letter Teth begins, whose interpretation is “exclusion.” What is exclusion? Is it that, as someone is shut out of a house and thrown from hospitality, so he who is shut out from God’s kingdom is cheated of his goods, as those virgins were shut out who did not take oil with them, and, when the bridegroom came, their lamps went out, and, busy buying oil and lighting their lamps, they caused delay, and, when the bridegroom had already entered, desiring to enter, they are read to have been shut out? I do not think so. For how could the good and holy prophet, cast down and shut out from God’s kingdom, say: “You have made gladness with your servant”?

Neither the merit of the prophet nor the sequence of what follows seems to admit an understanding of this kind. You hear him saying: “You are sweet, Lord, and in your sweetness teach me your statutes”; you hear him saying: “The law of your mouth is good to me above thousands of gold and silver”: and can you say that he is shut out from the kingdom who is not shut out from the law? What, then, shall we understand? The interpretation hangs back; it seems to pour obscurity over the sense of its word.

The prophet’s merits call us, his grace calls, the sequence of what follows calls us, to draw out something of a higher understanding. And it occurs at the right time that we sometimes exclude in a good sense.

For it is written: “Perfect love casts fear out.” And in general love excludes fear: as a soldier who loves his emperor does not fear wars undertaken for the emperor; as a servant who loves his master, though he is sent through pathless and steep places, nevertheless despises all dangers for love of his master and does not tremble to offer himself if anyone attacks his master; as one who longs to see his children placed across the sea does not fear shipwreck; for love of his children he enters the waves of the sea and undergoes the uncertainties of sailing, but longing for his children lightens the fear of danger. How beautifully this is also said of the martyrs, who truly serve as soldiers of Christ, who, not fearing persecutions, hooks, swords, fires, offered themselves to hostile kings! For the fear they could have had of punishments they shut out by love of martyrdom.

That this is the sense of this interpretation we can also prove from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. For there too under this letter it is written: “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him; it is good to wait and to hope for the salvation of God. It is good for a man when he has borne a heavy yoke from his youth; he will sit alone and keep silence, because he has borne a heavy yoke.” What else do these things establish but that this interpretation is seen to be a good exclusion? For who waits for the Lord except by the zeal of love? Who is it that hopes except one who desires and loves what he hopes for? For what we hope for we await with patience.

So he who hopes waits; he who waits surely shuts out the feeling of impatience. Who is it that bears a heavy yoke from his youth but one who renounces delights and flees luxury? Who is it that sits alone but one who, having given up worldly pleasures, shuts out the tumults of all troubles? This one, then, can fear nothing, who by the grace of love has swallowed up the force of fear.

There is also another who is excluded for good, like him who by apostolic authority was removed from the midst of the people because he did an evil work, handed over to the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit might be saved. From this we understand that he is excluded for good who is ordered to do penance, so that he may be humbled and pierced in heart; for these are wont to be the supports of reconciliation.

Indeed what is written in Jeremiah under this letter seems to signify this too; for so we read of that earthly Jerusalem: “Her uncleanness was before her feet; she did not remember her last end, and she fell powerless; there is none to comfort her. See, Lord, her humiliation, for the enemy has been magnified.” And because Jerusalem was humbled, rightly it is afterwards said to her: “Your iniquity has come to an end, daughter of Zion.” And to everyone who has done penance and wept for his sins with his own tears it is well said: “Your iniquity has come to an end.”

Elsewhere too under this letter Jeremiah says: “Better were those wounded by the sword than those wounded by hunger; they went away pierced from the produce of the fields.” We are pierced, then, when we do penance for our sins; we are pierced also by remembering what was said. Hence the prophet David says: “What you say

in your hearts, be pierced for it on your beds.” He who is pierced surely shuts out the delight of error, and he who does penance shuts out shame, puts aside the bashfulness of confessing his wrongdoing, so as to find the hope of recovering salvation. And rightly David himself, when he recognized his error, said: “I have sinned against the Lord.” So great a king, so great a prophet did not blush to confess his own sin, and so it was said to him: “And the Lord has taken away your sin.”

When his sin had been taken away, then, he says: “You have made gladness with your servant, Lord, according to your word.” Many things in this world seem to be glad which are not, many sweet, very many good. Luxury seems glad, but when the inheritance is exhausted it becomes bitter; lust is sweet when it burns, but the same is horrible and accursed when it is exposed;

feasts are sweet when they are eaten, but foul when they are digested. Many things in this world are thought good while we live, because they are useful to us, like money, honor, gold, silver, possessions; the same can profit the dead nothing; here all things are left behind; indeed one dies with greater grief when he groans at being cheated of these resources. There is, then, no true gladness except that which is according to the word of God, that one should rejoice to be fortified with the supports of good merits and virtues.

In this gladness, or goodness, of God David rejoices, because he bore a heavy yoke from his youth and waited and awaited the Lord’s grace toward him; he did not seize it beforehand, he who, though often given the opportunity of killing King Saul, preferred nevertheless to wait for the time when the kingdom would be conferred by the Lord rather than seize it by killing the king. God is always good, and so Paul too says: “See, then, the goodness and severity of God”; for goodness is toward all, severity toward few.

Indeed the same apostle added: “On those who have fallen, severity, but on you goodness”; for if they had not fallen, surely they too would enjoy God’s goodness. For he is good to you too for this reason, that you continue; but if you do not continue in goodness, you too will be cut off. God will not, then, cease to be good because you have fallen and need severity, since God’s severity too returns into goodness, so that each one, chastised, may draw back his foot from sins and return to the path of the virtues and good conduct.

Indeed the apostle teaches of those who have fallen that, if they do not continue in unbelief, they will be grafted in; “for God is able to graft them in again,” so that, like cut-off shoots, so men too, grafted as it were onto stocks of virtue, may bear the fruits of good merits. Or else you must accuse the physician of cruelty because he thought the putrefied fibers of wounds should be cut away with the knife, because he cauterized harmful and creeping ulcers with fire lest the poison spread further; or because a teacher beat a negligent pupil, so that by fear of beating he might put on diligence. For to chastise belongs to one who loves, not one who curses, and so it belongs to goodness, not to cruelty. Rightly, then, the Lord is good everywhere, both when he remits offenses and when he chastises sins; for the Lord chastises him whom he loves.

David too was chastised; indeed he says: “And I was scourged all the day.” But the wise man, who understood that that chastisement of the Lord had profited him, says: “You have done goodness with your servant, Lord, according to your word,” that is: even if that chastisement seemed bitter to me for a time, to me according to the flesh, to me according to the sadness of the body, yet according to your word that chastisement brought the fruits of goodness. I understand that that chastisement profited me, that by that chastisement I was called back from vices, that by that chastisement nothing was long permitted in me

to crimes, that through that chastisement of the Lord nothing was permitted in me to the adversary, nothing to death. Indeed the prophet himself recalled: “The Lord has chastened me sorely and has not given me over to death”; for he is chastised who is received, but those who are not received are not scourged; for “they are not in the labors of men, and they will not be scourged with men.” And so above he says: “How good is the God of Israel to the upright of heart!” Good, then, to all, because he wishes all to be upright of heart. But he who has turned aside his heart himself turns away from himself the grace of divine goodness.

There follows: “Teach me gladness and discipline and knowledge, for I have believed in your commandments.” According to the apostle we understand chrēston as “good,” because he said: “See, then, the goodness of the Lord”; according to the gospel we take chrēston as “sweet”; for he said: “Take my yoke,

for it is light, and my burden, for it is sweet”; for he said: to phortion mou chrēston. Hence rightly he asks to be taught God’s goodness by God himself, lest perhaps someone, taking it superficially that God is good, persevere in errors because he knows that by God’s mercy impunity can be given to his sins, since, even if the Lord pardons, it is a foul way of life always to cling to crimes. This goodness, then, is not the common sort, but one that always looks for the progress of discipline.

And so he who understands that God’s goodness is deep desires to be taught discipline too. For most turn away from the pursuit of discipline, thinking it severe and sad; but one of keener sense understands that discipline, though it is sad for a time, becomes pleasant in later times. But there is a more severe discipline or correction, and there is also a more moderate one. The more moderate is that of which the Lord says: “I will correct them in the hearing of their tribulation.” The more severe is correction in anger and wrath.

Hence, shrinking from that correction, David says: “Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor correct me in your wrath,” and Jeremiah: “Correct us, Lord, in judgment and not in wrath.” All discipline, then, even if for a time it has bitterness, has disturbance, is nevertheless wont afterwards to produce peaceful fruits.

But he who asks to be taught goodness and discipline ought also to ask to be taught knowledge. For unless he has knowledge, discipline is troublesome, correction troublesome. What knowledge is, let Solomon teach you, who says of the Lord our God: “For he himself gave me true knowledge of the things that are.” And elsewhere this same prophet says: “who teaches man knowledge.” But he who asks for knowledge believes in God’s commandments.

But it is one thing to believe in God’s commandments, another to believe the commandments. For he who believes in God’s commandments quickly brings it about that he is in God’s commandments and lives in them. Through faith, then, knowledge is taken up, through knowledge discipline; for in what we know can please, our very way of life delights us. Indeed it is written: “But our citizenship is in heaven.” Knowledge went before, conduct followed. We have spoken of believing in God’s commandments; but “in God’s commandments” means this: to be in them and to believe that the commandments are true. But unless you believe God’s commandments, you will surely not be able to have the knowledge of those things which we are taught through God’s commandments.

The third verse follows: “Before I was humbled I sinned; therefore I have kept your word.” Another tradition has: “Before I was humbled I did not know.” Hence some think that the soul of man says this: “Before I was humbled so as to enter into this clay of the body, I did not know your commandments, which I had not read.” But because the church rather follows the judgments of the Seventy, and this sense is plainer and admits nothing offensive that could stir a scruple in some,

let us therefore take it so that “I was humbled” is said because he seems to have been humbled by sin. For temptations often arise because of sin; indeed Adam and Eve were surely cast down after their fault. So the cause of our humility, or humiliation, is sin; for I do not shun this word. For humility can often be understood of adversities, as in: “It is good for me that you have humbled me, that I may learn your statutes,” and: “Unless your law had been my meditation, I should perhaps have perished in my humiliation,” and: “I am humbled exceedingly.”

Here, then, he shows that humiliation arose from guilt. And because guilt went before, he therefore shows himself humbled, that is, worn down by temptations and adversities and handed over to anxieties, as he too who was handed over by Paul to the destruction of the flesh was surely humbled, so that afterwards he might deserve reconciliation.

But although this humiliation, that is, a kind of casting down, belongs to disturbance, not to virtue, yet it often produces virtue and becomes not a punishment but a remedy for the one who sins. For if you attribute to your sins that you have been humbled, you turn back on yourself whatever has happened, and from guilty you will begin to be righteous, you who condemn yourself; for the righteous man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech.

Nor can you judge yourself unworthy of humiliation, you who know your own errors, in which, by blushing, you are surely not lifted up but humbled. You see, then, that you were humbled because you sinned and did not keep the words of God. Hence keep them more carefully, so as not to 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, when it ought to be an occasion of correction.

For in temptations man is proved like gold in the furnace. You see what the prophet says: “Before I was humbled,” he says, “I sinned.” Rightly, then, he was handed over to temptations, since he sinned; and he sinned because he did not hold to God’s word. But he found the order of amendment from where the fault had come forth; he began to be subject to the divine word, and the fault ceased.

The fourth verse follows: “You are good, Lord, and in your goodness teach me your statutes.” Even the practice of worldly discipline has accepted that each one should praise his judge. Hence the apostle, following the order of the divine Scriptures, when he pleaded his case, began thus: “Concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa, I think myself happy to be making my defense before you,” and further on: “Do you believe the prophets, King Agrippa?

I know that you believe.” So, if men are praised, in whom often what belongs to others is praised, how much more ought each one to win God’s favor for himself, so as to say: “You are good, Lord!” For if he says this to a man, so that he is reminded to be what perhaps he is not, even he grows gentle at the proclamation of goodness and lays aside the terror of a harsh disposition; how much more must praise be offered to God, who, if he were not good, who could stand upon the earth?

But it is proper to God that he be good. Indeed in the gospel you have: “A good tree bears good fruit.” His fruits are angels, his fruits are men, that is, rational beings, holy, if they keep the Lord’s precepts; his fruits are those who are born on earth, his fruits are the virtues of men. Rightly, then, the good tree bears good fruits. First, then, let the root be praised, so that the fruit may be approved. But elsewhere too the same Lord Jesus says: “And your Father who is good will give good gifts to those who ask him.”

But although God is good, whose bitter things too profit more (for they are not brought on to harm but to correct), yet he is asked to teach us his righteous ordinances in his goodness. Consider a physician applying useful medicines to wounds, yet ones that bite the poison of the ulcer, or certainly cutting away putrefied parts with the knife.

Although he is a good physician in this very thing, that he works for the benefit of the sick man and does what he knows will profit, yet, because the sick man either will not or cannot bear the pain through the weakness of his feeling, he asks that the physician treat him with a certain goodness and gentleness of his own, not apply harsh medicines, not cut the fibers of the wounds with the knife, or, if he cannot do otherwise, that he do it with moderation and soften the force of the pain with a certain delicacy.

And so God’s statutes are better taught in the goodness of the gospel than in the severity of the law. The work of righteousness is justification. Hence it is written that the Pharisees would not justify themselves, not being baptized with the baptism of John. In this they did not perform justification, because they would not do penance for their sins, which the prophet wishes to do in goodness, so that the forgiveness of sins may come to him without the harshness of condemnation, with the grace of remission.

The fifth verse follows: “The iniquity of the proud has been multiplied against me, but I will search your commandments with my whole heart.” The more anyone desires to serve God, the more he stirs up adversaries against himself, and, like a strong athlete desiring to carry off the crown of righteousness, he provokes and challenges many against himself who envy our progress. This he also shows clearly in later verses:

“With those who hate peace I was peaceable,” he says. Yet his tranquility did not succeed in calming by his tranquility those who hated peace and in restraining their pursuits: “When I spoke to them, they fought against me without cause,” that is: though they had no reasons for attacking, yet they did not lay aside their eagerness to attack.

So, then, whether spiritual forces of wickedness or men are multiplied, their iniquity too is multiplied against the righteous. For example, if a righteous man loses a son, as often happens in the way of the world, if he loses his inheritance or is afflicted with various misfortunes or bodily infirmities, then the proud say: “Where is his righteousness, where is his mercy?

See, he has been so punished; see, his innocence profits him nothing.” And so, to draw out a model of this life, those three friends of the holy man, friends in appearance but wicked in slander, envious of his uprightness and righteousness, heaped up grievous reproaches against him, and those who had come to comfort began to insult.

But the righteous man is not moved by these things, and so Job was not broken either. Indeed in the loss of his children or his inheritance he said: “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” So, placed in adversity, let us too say: “You have done goodness with your servant.” For the Lord can change into better what has been done, as we have the example of holy Job, and he can restore what has been lost, he who begot for him better children after the children he had lost.

Is it difficult for God to give better things? Even if he gives nothing, he can by this very thing have provided for the righteous man, if perhaps children who would have been wicked were taken away, lest malice change their heart. Likewise with the inheritance: as though we did not see very many led into danger of salvation because of the wealth of their inheritance, and for very many a cause of sinning arising from the abundance of riches. For he who has nothing to give cannot be blamed for not giving; but he who has something to give and does not give surely begins to be liable to sin.

The sixth verse follows: “Their heart has been curdled like milk, but I have meditated on your law.” The heart of the saints is fine, but the heart of the proud is curdled. For just as milk is by its nature pure, lovely, and clear, but turns sour by corruption, so the nature of the human mind and heart is pure, clear, transparent, before it turns sour by the admixture of vices. For when milk curdles there comes a kind of solidifying which has neither the same sweetness nor grace.

So men who before, by their attentiveness, grace, and sweetness of words, showed the appearance of milk corrupted by no envy, if they begin to envy, their heart curdles into vice, and from the sweetness of friendship comes the bitterness of ill will and a kind of unpleasant horror of envy. So the heart is curdled through pride, through envy, which have spoiled the flowing gentleness of nature, its goodwill, by the solidifying of malice. The heart of the wicked, then, is curdled, but the righteous man is humbled by meditating on the precepts of the law, he who has the teaching of humility.

The seventh verse follows: “It is good for me that you humbled me, that I may learn your statutes.” Following this the apostle says: “I am content in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses.” For when he is well pleased in weaknesses and is not broken in spirit nor yields to insult, he has both deserved and fulfilled the learning of God’s statutes. So here “you humbled me,” that is, “you exercised me with various temptations and troubles,” he says. Symmachus too made this plain, writing: “It profited me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your righteous ordinances.”

So let him who is humbled not cast down or break his spirit, but rather advance by being humbled, so as to soften the proud by his humility, confound the insolent by the strictness of his conduct, break the insulting by his patience, and sometimes even lead the greedy away from their eagerness to quarrel by his calm acceptance of loss. For so you have read that “wisdom is justified by her children,” when Christ offers himself to punishment, gives himself to injuries, does not withdraw from reproaches nor turn his face from the shame of spitting; and so he instructed all by his patience and healed by his bruise.

The eighth verse follows: “The law of your mouth is good to me above thousands of gold and silver.” Not just anyone says this; rather, one rarely says it, that is, one who prefers God’s law to gold and silver, who can leave everything for the sake of God’s law.

Even Christ found such a one only among those whom he himself deigned to teach. Peter said this and proved it in effect, that he held the law of more value than gold. And so he says: “Silver and gold I have not.” The greedy man does not say this, who broods over buried gold; the moneyed man does not say it, who searches out daily gains with anxious affection, who heaps up wealth daily, who lays traps for inheritances, who keeps tireless watch around the bed of a sick man.

Here some take “the law of God’s mouth” as the law of the Word of God, as if you were to say “the law of God’s right hand.” This, then, also fits Peter well, who says: “You have the words of eternal life, and we will not leave you,” that is: “The law of your mouth is above thousands of gold and silver; and can we desert so great a good and grasp at the gains of this world?” But Moses too can be called the law of God’s mouth, through whom the Lord spoke and gave the law.

There begins among the Hebrews the tenth letter, Iod, which in Latin meaning is called “confession” or certainly “desolation.” Nor does the interpretation seem discordant or out of tune, since those who are desolate confess more quickly. For the mind is usually lifted up in prosperity, but when it is pressed by adversities, then it implores divine help. For even in human affairs we know this to be the practice: the one to whom prosperity comes is more elated in mind; the one for whom the things of this world are hostile and someone’s power adverse, then takes refuge, then seeks help, so as either to soften the power of a superior by asking or to arm himself with added forces, lest, as the weaker, he be overwhelmed by more powerful forces.

Indeed Jeremiah under this letter says thus: “The oppressor has stretched out his hands upon all her desirable things; for she has seen the Gentiles entering her sanctuary, whom you commanded not to enter into your assembly.” The prophet surely says this of Jerusalem, whose misery he laments, whose desolation and destitution came first, so that confession might follow afterwards; for the Lord chastises every son whom he receives. Being about to receive Jerusalem, then, he first scourged her with the miseries of captivity.

For she had grown too insolent and had boasted with puffed-up heart, so that she could not hold the head, the Lord Jesus, that is, humility, grace, righteousness, wisdom; that is, she did not hold the teaching of the true faith. And so the Lord chastised her, who, as ruler of all, knows how to chastise each. For as a physician is wont to treat graver wounds with harsher medicines and lighter ones with lighter, so our God chastises graver sins with greater severity; but the chastisement itself avails for salvation; for the Lord said: “I will strike, and I will heal.”

Indeed the prophet Jeremiah began to promise hope for Jerusalem; for later under this letter he says: “He will give his cheek to the one who strikes him, and he will be filled with reproaches. He will put his mouth in the dust, if perhaps there is 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 too”;

for he wishes his disciples to be patient of injuries and not to strike back readily, much less to strike; for patience is a sign of humility. And so, since Jerusalem was desolate and destitute: “He will give,” it says, “his cheek to the one who strikes him,” so as not to withdraw from injury nor avoid the pain of the blow, but to offer his cheek to the one who strikes. Both can be understood, whether to one who is beginning to strike or to one who has already struck, so that that word of the gospel may be fulfilled:

“Whoever strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other.” And this was set down prophetically, to teach Jerusalem, that is, the church of the Jewish people, that she can be saved in no other way than through the discipline of the gospel, so that, when she has begun to keep the precepts of the gospel and to fulfill in works the commandment of the Lord Jesus, then she may lay down the yoke of captivity from the neck of her soul, when she has subjected herself to the yoke of Christ.

“And he will be filled,” it says, “with reproaches.” He did not say, “he will undergo reproach”; for it is easy to bear one or another insult. He added, “he will be filled with reproaches,” so that, pitiable in the disfigurement of many reproaches, he may more easily move the Lord’s mercy.

This you can surely understand from the book of Kingdoms. For when Shimei son of Gera reviled holy David, calling him a man of blood, and cursed him when he was fleeing his son Absalom, avoiding for a time a parricidal war, the king was silent and showed the highest mark of patience. For since he understood the time of his temptation, that a parricidal battle was being stirred up against him, he wished rather to appear humble, so as to soften the Lord’s displeasure, than to think he should provoke his judgment in his temptation, if perhaps he went to avenge his injuries.

Hence too he said to Abishai, the leader of the people, who wished to avenge him: “What have I to do with you, son of Zeruiah? He curses me because the Lord told him to curse. Behold, my son, who came out of my womb, seeks my life. And if now a stranger curses me, let him alone to curse, because the Lord told him, so that he may see my humiliation, and the Lord may repay me good for this cursing.” This he both said by prophetic spirit and proved by the outcome;

for when humiliation has been filled up, sin is loosed. Indeed in the book of Isaiah too you have that the Lord says: “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 notice, then, that where there is desolation, there is humility; for humility follows desolation in just order, patience humility, proof patience, consolation proof. This you also have written in the apostle: “Tribulation works patience, and patience proof, and proof hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit,” who is surely the comforter of our affections.

But when he says, “He will put his mouth in the dust,” he shows a kind of silence of patience beyond measure, so that he as it were buries his own mouth so as not to speak, and blocks it as with a rampart of virtues so as not to utter a cry of pain, claiming so great a weight of patience, which hope fosters, that he buries and shuts up his very voice as in a tomb and a mound, a voice which no injury can wrest or even rouse. We have explained the interpretation of this letter too as we could; let us come to the psalm.

And so the first verse is: “Your hands have made me and prepared me; give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments.” He has used a great opening of commendation, so as to say that he was God’s work, so that the favor of the maker might more easily incline toward the grace of his work. For even in human affairs it is a great privilege that someone favors his own works and benefits

and does not look to another’s merit, but attends to the gift of his own grace, lest he seem to annul what he himself has given. And so, although the substance of our body is from clay, we are clothed with flesh and the body is woven with bones and sinews, yet no one would doubt that we are a most precious work of God. For if anyone wishes to consider the very structure of the human body, he will be able to judge nothing on earth more precious. For man is upright in stature, comely in face, pleasing in his hair, not bent toward the belly in the manner of the other animals, but lofty by the very law of nature, so that he looks to heaven with free gaze, pressed down to the earth by no servitude of a captive neck, but as one conscious of his own freedom and a rich witness to his maker.

Yet in the other animals let the form of the limbs be praised, in which besides the grace of the body there is nothing else to be sought. Man is more beautiful in what is not seen, not in the body which is seen, having in himself the grace of eternity and the charm of present things (for “the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal”), clothed in this earthly lodging with a heavenly dwelling, to whom it belongs at once to be seen on earth and to be joined to God.

A great gift indeed, if he knows himself, and a kind of form of justice: to be born for the world rather than for himself. Hence Solomon too says: “Man is a great thing, and a merciful man precious, but a faithful man it is hard to find.” And truly great is he who is both interpreter of God’s work and imitator of God. For it is man who could say: “Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.” He cultivates the earth, uses the sea as a possession, and gratefully admires and proclaims the ornaments of heaven. The world of nature would have been in vain, had not one who would use it been added by divine providence.

Indeed, after God made heaven and earth and the seas, after all creeping things, birds, and animals, afterwards he made man, whom he would set above the living animals, of whom not without reason the heavenly sentence resounded: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.”

The other things he spoke and they were made, he commanded and they were created: so that man might be made, a special exhortation of God was added, as though to signify the working of God laboring in the gift of this creature. God indeed is free of labor; but what else do the words of Scripture show than his zealous working on you? If, then, God created you with greater zeal, why do you yourself abandon zeal for yourself? If God labored on you, who knows no labor, why do you shun labor?

“Your hands,” he says, “have made me and prepared me.” The prophet cries to God: “Do not desert your work, Lord, do not abandon it. You I appeal to as author, you I hold as founder; I do not seek another’s protection. Gird yourself for my help, you who were girded to create.” Say yourself, David, what you meant, why you said: “Your hands have made me.” But you said further on: “Lord, you will repay on my behalf; Lord, your mercy

is for ever; do not neglect the works of your hands.” This is to say: your hands did not make the beasts, but you said, “Let the waters bring forth creeping things with living souls,” and “the earth brought forth according to their kind four-footed creatures and creeping things and beasts of the earth.” But me, he says, you made; me you formed with your hands, that is: you did not form beasts with your hands, not creeping things, not birds; but your hands made me and prepared me.

What is prepared is no slight work, when each thing is arranged and prepared with wisdom. Indeed Wisdom says: “When he was preparing the heavens, I was with him.” The prophet says the same of men: “The voice of the Lord preparing the stags.” What is the voice of the Lord but “Let us make man”?

Who are these stags but enemies of serpents, who walk upon asps and do not feel the poisons? I do not think, then, that what God prepared is cheap or bodily. Know yourself, O man; it is said to your soul in the Song: “Unless you know yourself, fair among women.” Know yourself, O soul, that you are not from the earth, not from clay, because God breathed into you and made you a living soul. You are a magnificent work, inspired by God’s begetting. “Attend to yourself,” as the law says; that is, to yourself, that is, to your soul. Let worldly and earthly things not hold you, let earthly things not delay you. Hasten with all your intention to him by whose breath you exist.

“Man is a great thing,” it says, “and a merciful man precious, but a faithful man it is hard to find.” Learn, O man, where you are great and precious. The earth shows you cheap, but virtue makes you glorious, faith rare, the image precious. Is anything so precious as the image of God, which ought first to pour faith into you, so that a kind of likeness of your maker may shine in your heart, lest he who questions your mind not recognize its maker?

Is anything so precious as humility, that, looking at the nature of body and soul, you subject yourself by the one and recognize yourself by the other? The enticement of the flesh, prone to vice, urges mercy, because what you have given to another you pay to yourself; whatever goes out from you returns to you, and whatever you have done you pay to yourself, and whatever you have profited others profits you.

Let the vigor of a living soul, a sense of reason capable of understanding and judgment, so that it may seem a worthy house for so great an inhabitant, not lose the privilege of its nature, lest it lose the name of man. For Scripture calls him man who is in the image and likeness of God, but the sinner it is accustomed to call not man but a serpent or a horse neighing after women or a little fox or a beast of burden.

“Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding; with bit and bridle bind the jaws of those who do not come near to you”; and, “Tell that fox,” he says of Herod; the crowd of men is called a “brood of vipers” by John. You are, then, a great work of God, O man; great is what God has given you. See that you do not lose what God has granted, that great gift, that you are in the image of God, and that this be punished the more in you. For God does not punish

his likeness, but he punishes him who, made in the likeness of God, could not keep what he received. What is punished, then, is that which has ceased to be in 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 avenges his image on him who did injury to that image, so that through malice you ceased to be what you were and became a mule instead of a man. The image, then, is avenged, not condemned; avenged as one driven out, not condemned as guilty.

For after you sinned, you began to be something else; you ceased to be what you were. How, then, is that punished in you which is not found in you? For if the image and likeness of God is found in you, you begin to be worthy not of punishment but of reward. So that image, by which you were made in the image and likeness of God, is not condemned but crowned. But you are condemned in that in which you yourself have been changed, so as to become from a man a serpent, a mule, a horse, a little 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 keep the grace of man.

In some manuscripts, however, we find: “Your hands have made me and fashioned me.” Nor is this foreign, because Job too said: “Your hands have fashioned me and made me.” Hence it is said here too, so that God may remember that we are dust and pour in the gift of more abundant grace and not abandon a weak work. A helmsman spends more labor when the ship is tossing than when it glides on a favorable wave with the oars and runs ahead, the breath of the winds filling the topsail.

“Your hands,” he says, “have fashioned me.” He says “hands” in the plural, not “hand.” But elsewhere he says: “I with my hand have made the heaven firm,” and: “My hand has made these things.” In the constitution of man there seems not to have been enough of what was enough for the whole world to be made. One hand made heaven firm, as it is written, and both hands of God formed man, as we read. Heaven not in the likeness, man in the likeness; for angels were made for service, man for the image.

Grant that the angels too are in the image; yet Scripture has said of man that he is in the image. For we have something that the angels perhaps do not have: for “where sin abounded, grace abounded the more.” For us Christ was born of a virgin; for we read: “A child is born to us, a son is given to us.”

For us he took flesh; or rather he took us up in that flesh, because he set the Son of Man in the seat of God. I do not read of angels in God’s seat except standing, except bringing service; I do not read of angels, but of men buried with Christ and raised in Christ. Indeed the apostle says that “he made us alive together in Christ (by whose grace you are saved), raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

The Son of Man, then, is at the right hand of God, not an angel, not an archangel, nor Cherubim and Seraphim. They praise; the Son of Man sits; the Son of Man is praised by the mouth of angels, because he conquered the evil angels, triumphed over the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, and made men, in whom before was the contagion of the dead, like angels.

“By the word of the Lord,” he says, “the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the breath of his mouth.” Man too received by the Spirit of the Lord the perfection of life and the completion of virtue. God breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Our life, then, began from the divine breath, but this life

is dissolved by the separation of soul and body, but the divine breath is not dissolved. And so understand that what was fashioned is one thing, what was made or prepared another, and rightly you have it written twofold about man. For first it is written: “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” and, “they shall have dominion,” it says, or “rule,” and, “God made man in the image of God.”

But in the second place it is written thus, that God took dust from the earth and fashioned man. Where there is dust, there is fashioning; but where there is no dust, there is no earth, no matter, but something incorporeal, something admirable; there is no matter there, but the immaterial. For what is according to the image is not in the body nor in matter, but in the rational soul. There it works, there man is shown to be in the likeness and image of God, where righteousness, where wisdom, where every form of virtue is taken up.

If you understand the image, you will see “according to the image”; for man is not the image of God, but was made according to the likeness. Another is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, through whom all things were made. He is not according to the image but the image; you are not the image, but according to the image.

You have, then, in your substance something of the image and likeness of God, which is like the divine image. Therefore the Image comes to him who is according to the image, and the Image seeks him who is according to his likeness, so as to seal him again, to conform him again, because you lost what you received. For God had breathed into you, so that by the gift of his breath you might have the grace which your fault had taken from you. You had been made a living soul; hear what he says: not into flesh, but into a living soul.

But because the sinner could not keep the seal, being placed in crime, he did not have the things of God but those of men; therefore our Lord Jesus Christ came, as you have read in the gospel, and, rising from the dead, when he had found the disciples shut in, he entered with the doors remaining closed and said: “Peace be with you; as the Father sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Do you see, then, what hands made man, or what man they made? Surely that man whom we have put on according to Christ, stripping off the old man with his deeds, and we have put on the new, who is renewed in 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 have put on Christ, then, as it is said elsewhere too: “You have put on Christ.” We have received the Holy Spirit, who not only forgives our sins but also makes us his priests to forgive sins to others. So the prophet says: “You formed me and laid your hand upon me.” He formed by clay, he laid it by spiritual grace, although many take this psalm as said in the person of the Savior. Hear that the Spirit too is called the hand of the Lord. Job cries: “The divine Spirit who made me.”

These, then, are the hands that prepared man: Christ and the Spirit. So the Lord Jesus is also the author of our body, who first made man in the image and afterwards formed him from clay, and willed to keep what he had made, to save what he had fashioned, so as to make the whole man whole, as he himself said in the gospel:

“Are you angry with me because I made a whole man well on the sabbath?” This the church teaches especially, that not only the soul but also our flesh is saved: the soul through the knowledge of God, the flesh through the resurrection; of which he taught the one by the authority of the divine word, the other by the example of his own resurrection.

So man is of a twofold substance; for the substance of what was made is one, that of what was fashioned another; the one from the Spirit of God, the other from clay. Therefore Job says, “He will raise up my skin,” because what is from clay is raised (for earth returns to earth); but what was made, so as to have rule over the other animals, you understand to be more excellent; for you understand that the beasts too share a common fellowship with us. And so a special privilege was given to man, that is, the soul, by which he rules the other animals;

but so that he can rule, he must be subject to God. He is taught, then, to serve, so as to deserve to come to the kingdom; for he who serves Christ pleases God. He who serves Christ surely pleases the truth and ought not to know lying; he who serves righteousness ought to repel iniquity; he who serves the spotless one ought to hold the discipline of chastity; he who serves the light ought to hate the darkness of sins. Since, then, the body is weak, let us ask for the Lord’s visitation; hence the prophet says: “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you visit him?”

And now in the remaining part of the verse he says: “Give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments.” Knowing himself to be spiritual, then, the prophet asks for the grace of the Holy Spirit. For you have learned in the apostolic reading that understanding is given by the Lord and is placed first among the gifts of grace, because “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for profit”; and in the prophet the spiritual grace of wisdom and understanding is asked for in the first place. It is sought, then, as God’s gift. Then see the order: “Give me,” he says, “understanding, that I may learn your commandments.”

Understanding is put first, so that knowledge may follow; for unless one has understood, he cannot be learned. Understanding, then, makes learning, not memory; for it profits nothing to have read much unless you understand what you have read. And in the apostle you have read that after the manifestation of the Spirit the word of knowledge was placed afterwards, so that you may know that understanding is to be preferred to memory, and that he can have knowledge on whom understanding has shone first.

Consider at the same time his humility. If the prophet asks for understanding to be given him, who is so arrogant as to profess that intelligence is in his own power? He asks for understanding, so that he may know himself and be able to know the reason of his own nature. But those who dispute about the nature of things search the regions of heaven; though they cannot know themselves, they think intelligence can be granted without God’s gift.

Hence we too ought to take on humility, lest we be lifted up if perhaps we have understood some one parable of the Scriptures, or, because we sometimes read plain things according to the letter, if perhaps we have understood something according to the letter, we claim for ourselves the knowledge of doctrine.

That prophet, who received the Holy Spirit after he was anointed for the kingdom, was anointed as a prophet; writing the hundred and eighteenth psalm, he asks for understanding to be given him, so as to understand God’s commandments, and he knows that unless he receives grace from the Lord he cannot understand his commandments. In the gospel too I read that the Lord Jesus set forth parables and the apostles did not understand; indeed they asked for an explanation of the parable set 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 later: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man.” Not he, then, who only hears will be like him, but he who does what he has heard. So neither deed without hearing nor hearing without deed can belong to the wise man, but he who hears and does. Let us hear, then, so that we may understand; let us do, so that we may prove that we have understood what we heard.

The second verse follows: “Those who fear you will see me and be glad, because I have hoped exceedingly in your words.” Perhaps to some this may seem contrary, because the righteous man says, “Those who fear you will see me and be glad”; for to many the righteous man is burdensome when he is seen. Indeed in the gospel many could not bear to see the Lord Jesus, as the Gerasenes asked him to depart from their region, and others refused him passage, when nevertheless he did not wish to pass through them.

Hence I think that, just as there the form of Jewish ungodliness is expressed, so here the grace of the church is revealed. For he prophesies that the whole world is to be filled with divine fear, and so he says that those who fear God, as it were, rejoice in the knowledge of the saints; for he who sees a righteous man and rejoices himself wishes to be righteous too. For it is a fine thing to delight in others in what one wishes to keep in oneself, if one can.

For it is implanted in the good that the modest man loves the chaste, the wise man the prudent, with dutiful affection, the merciful man the generous, and that they love their own virtues in others. For to many the sight of a righteous man is a warning to correction, but to the more perfect it is joy. How fine, then, to be seen and to do good! A good thing, then, is the righteous man.

For this reason, indeed, the apostle Paul went up to Jerusalem, to see the righteous, and he stayed with Peter fifteen days, so as to profit something 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 the elders.

And when they wished to leave, they were asked not to depart, and, as we read later of Paul, he was escorted with tears. For if there is such power in natural things that an animal, when seen, profits those with jaundice, so that even the horn of that animal when dead is said to profit, if it is shown to those who have fallen into this affliction, can we doubt that the sight of a righteous man heals?

So a cheap, irrational animal has such power that it can heal a man in the brief moment it is seen: does a righteous man, if indeed he is looked at with faith by one who desires to gain profit from him, confer nothing? Do not even the very rays of his eyes seem to pour a certain power into those who faithfully desire to see him?

But just as the righteous man gladdens the heart of the innocent when he is seen, so the wicked are tormented by the knowledge of the righteous, because they are convicted even by the silent conduct of the saints. Chastity torments incontinence, generosity greed, faith ungodliness. Of this too let us take a like example from a cheap animal.

For just as we said that a dumb animal profits when it is seen, so we observe that the wolf harms if it forestalls someone by seeing him first; for those whom a wolf sees first are said to lose their voice. The basilisk too, that is, a harmful serpent, is said to kill any animal it sees first, and it is alleged that he is killed at once who could be seen first by such a serpent.

The serpent itself is also said to die if it is forestalled by the sight of a man. So if there is such power either in the eyes of a serpent or in the eyes of a man that, if one sees the other first, he can kill, is there no power in the eyes of a righteous man who is filled with the grace of virtue, especially since faith works so much that she who touched the Lord’s fringe was healed, and he on whom the Lord Jesus fixed his gaze at once drew the grace of healing from his eyes?

But he who sees a righteous man ought to know what he sees. He does not see him in the body, not in his clothing, not in his inheritance, not in his face, but he sees within. He does not see him, I say, unless he has seen his mind, unless he has attended to his speech, unless he has been able to grasp his thoughts and take up wisdom from his discourse.

Then, therefore, he will rejoice, when he has perceived these things, when he has come to know them. So we too, wherever we hear of a righteous man, let us hasten to see him, like that woman who heard that the Lord Jesus was reclining in the Pharisee’s house and went in and poured ointment on his feet. Let us be her imitators; for who doubts that the church was figured in that woman? Wherever, then, a righteous man sits, wherever he reclines, let us hasten to see him.

It is precious to see a righteous man, so that you may see according to the image of God. What is outside profits nothing; what is inside heals. Indeed in him who is outside we often look upon him who is within, so that, if we see a poor man, we honor in the poor man him in whose likeness he was made, of whom he says: “You gave me to eat,” because “what you gave to one of these you gave to me.”

For he who crowns the emperor’s image surely honors him whose image he crowned, and he who despises the emperor’s statue is seen to have done injury to the emperor whose statue he 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 surely in what is not seen.

You see, then, that we walk among many images of Christ. Let us beware lest we seem to take away from an image the crown which Christ has placed on each. Let us beware lest we take anything from those to whom we ought to add. But, what is worse, we not only do not honor the poor, but even dishonor, destroy, persecute them, and we do not know that we heap these injuries on the image of God, when we think those made in God’s image may be harmed; for he who mocks the poor provokes him who made him.

But he will be present who says: “I was hungry and you did not give me to eat, I was thirsty and you did not give me drink, I was sick and you did not visit me.” And how much lighter are these things than if he says: “You did me injuries, you stripped me, you beat me!” And if anyone asks him, “When did we do you injuries, when did we strip 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 more careful heed not to inflict insult on anyone, even the least, lest we seem to have insulted the Lord himself in those least ones.

But for what reason he said, “Those who fear you will see me and be glad,” he himself explained, saying: “because I have hoped exceedingly in your words.” This is to say: they saw me within, touched me within, looked at 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 God’s words. But how many there are who hate the righteous because the righteous search out God’s words, and when the ungodly hear some learned men they are accustomed to avoid them because of their teaching!

The third verse follows: “I have known, Lord, that your judgments are righteousness, and in your truth you have humbled me.” He who can understand what belongs to divine providence uses the speech which the prophet, holy David, used: that all things happen by God’s judgment, that one has a sick body or a healthy one, that one is rich or poor, that one dies young or old. If anyone attends to the divine Scriptures, he understands that these things happen by God’s judgment;

for nothing is outside God’s knowledge. Do we seek an example? It is not hidden, since Job would never have lost his own property had he not been handed over to the adverse power. For the Lord gave the devil power over his property, so that he might be tested as to what disposition he would have when his inheritance was lost; he gave it over his children, he gave it over his body, so that it might be proved that his soul would not faint from steadfastness of mind through grief for his dead children or the torment of his body. The Lord

indeed knew him to be strong, but in him he wished to teach and examine us, whether we could be his imitators. Indeed he tested Abraham too, when he asked that his only son, born to him in old age, be sacrificed. He surely knew Abraham’s mind, but the Lord tests knowingly, 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 men?” But this he said testing them; for he knew what he would do. He, then, who is righteous trusts the examination of his righteousness, because God’s judgments are just, or, according to the Greek, because the judgments of God are righteousness itself.

But that he might come to know this, the prayer he had made before brought it about, since he asked for understanding to be given him, so that he might learn God’s commandments. The grace of understanding and knowledge, then, was received; he knew that God’s judgments are just. But to know belongs to the perfect. Indeed it is one thing to believe, another to know: faith belongs to one who fears, knowledge to the wise. For he who fears does not seek a reason, but the wise man investigates also the knowledge of whatever he desires to grasp. “I believed,” he says, “therefore I have spoken”; but he knew, understanding what he spoke.

In what, then, are God’s judgments just? Because through labors and tribulations and afflictions one comes to the heavenly reward. For just as the crown is conferred on athletes who contend by the just judgment of men, so the palm is decreed by divine judgment to Christians who contend lawfully. “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 brightness of silver, so that virtue may be proved by contests. “We passed,” he says, “through fire and water, and you brought us into refreshment.” Through these, then, I have known that your judgments are true.

For I was humbled so 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 know our sins and by humility itself we purge our offenses. “I was humbled,” he says, “and he saved me.” He, then, was humbled in truth who was humbled unto salvation; nor did he suffer in vain who followed the salvation of truth.

There is a difference, then, between knowing and fearing, to return to that. Indeed the reading of the gospel should teach us; for the Lord says to those of the Jews who believed in him: “If you remain in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” “If you remain,” he says, “you will know.”

You see that whoever, fearing God, heard his word could not know from the beginning. And not only are fear and knowledge not the same, but faith and knowledge are not the same either, since the apostle too taught that the gifts of grace are different. “For 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, faith is given to one and knowledge to another, you see that where there is faith there is not at once knowledge, but where there is knowledge there is also faith and prudence, nor can we separate diligence from it.

Holy David, then, had knowledge, as a perfect prophet, since he knew so perfectly that he was humbled in the very truth. Whether, then, placed in adversity, he knew that by the grace of testing laborious and adverse things must be endured, and that God’s judgment is just, and so those who contend well are never deserted or abandoned and the crown can be conferred on them after their labors; or, placed in prosperity and success, he knew that the riches of things and various successes are wont to be supplied as a cause of temptation, so that he who uses them is tempted by the prosperity of things: in this, then, the prophet David is to be praised, that when he knew these things he was humbled, so that by his humility he might either shut out the temptations of prosperity or undergo with steady calm the endurance of adversity.

The prophet, then, would not be greatly praiseworthy if he praised God’s judgments while enjoying the abundance of prosperity. For what great thing do we do if, when we are in prosperity, we praise God, when we are in riches, when we are troubled by no injuries? This is magnificent: if, subjected to insults, you praise God’s judgment; if, troubled by sickness, you proclaim God’s judgments; if poverty does not keep you from praising God’s justice. God’s judgments, then, are always to be praised, as it is written: “The daughters of Judah rejoiced because of your judgments.” Who are the daughters of Judah but religious souls, the souls of the church who confess Jesus Christ the Lord, who, seeing the reason of your judgments, always rejoice? For he who puts on gladness not from some outcome of prosperity but from knowledge of the reason is placed in nothing but perpetual exultation.

The fourth verse follows: “Let your mercy now be, so as to exhort me according to your word to your servant.” Some have in this place: “so as to console me.” But in the apostle too we read exhortation said for consolation and consolation for exhortation. Great, then, is the mercy of God, which not only grants forgiveness of sins but also applies the spurs of exhortation to those who contend, lest they abandon the sufferings of the contest they have undertaken from unwarlike fear. He does not, then, ask for mercy as one who yields defeated, or as a sinner implores pardon, but so that, girded by God’s compassion and supported by so great a gift, he may carry out things greater than his strength. Behold the excellent and singular virtue of the prophet.

For another, humbled by miseries, would ask that the temptations around him cease and that the Lord deign to calm adversities, lest the storm of tribulations rage against him; but this one, like a strong and patient athlete, who knew that his soul was exercised and anointed by tribulations, does not wish to remove sad things or avoid attacks, does not ask that everything bringing weariness and labor should cease, but asks that in the time of his greater labor against the storms of temptations a word of consolation be given him, so that he may bear with strong mind what falls upon him and not be wearied by any disturbance of sadness. In this, then, he entreats God’s mercy, lest, deprived of help, he abandon the warfare he has begun to carry out.

Indeed clear testimony teaches that divine exhortation belongs to mercy. 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.” So it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. Perhaps you say: then we ought not to will, to run? Yet God is wont to desert the negligent.

He does not, then, say this, but let us consider what he says. Perseverance does not belong to the man who wills or runs; it is not in man’s power, but it belongs to God who has mercy, that you can complete what you have begun. Indeed again he says to Moses: “For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you.” It is gathered, then, that exhortation is to be attributed to divine mercy. Hence follows: “So he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens.” This one, having mercy, he exhorts; that one, cursing, he does not call back. And truly the warfare of our sufferings is God’s mercy, by which our sins are lessened. Indeed the poor man Lazarus, because in this life he endured very many evils, found the rest of consolation in Abraham’s bosom; but that rich man, who had consolation in the world, after the course of this life lost the fruit of rest; if God had had mercy on him, he would rather have chastised him in this world, so that afterwards he would not be scourged. Indeed Job, though grievously scourged, and with many scourges of poverty, loss of children, pains of body, reproaches of friends, nevertheless enjoys eternal consolation.

So the greater the tribulations, 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, as Paul too asked, who says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all consolation, who exhorts us in every distress, so that we too may be able to console those who are in any tribulation through the exhortation with which we ourselves are called by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so through Christ our consolation also abounds.”

With such force of apostolic petition he asks to receive consolation from the Lord in every tribulation, so that not only might he himself put on endurance, but also console others, so that they too may be able to bear the distresses of their own minds. If, then, you yourself have been proved 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 the suffering that is through Christ merits the consolation of Christ.

And he beautifully added: “according to your word to your servant.” For the Lord himself promises help to those who fight for his name, saying: “When they hand you over, do not think how or what you should speak; it will be given you in that day what to speak; for it is not you who speak, but my Father who speaks in you.” So, lest we be unequal to the contest, let us always pray for divine help, that he may grant us exhortation; for if we have him who exhorts us, we do not easily yield.

But many have “to console us,” and it is not far from the truth. For the exhortation of one urging someone on is a kind of gentle thing, which kindles the contender with zeal for praise and soothes him as with a kind of consolation, lest he be called back by the harshness of labors.

The fifth verse follows: “Let your compassions come to me, and I shall live, for your law is my meditation.” To him for whom God’s law is meditation, mercies are at hand, so that he may live for ever. For how can anyone be blessed without divine compassion? But “blessed is he who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night.” But he who meditates

on the law is instructed in the law, and whom the law has instructed, the Lord has instructed, who spoke the law. And so it is written: “Blessed is he whom you instruct, Lord, and teach from your law.” Let us too, then, learn to meditate on the law; let us not be called away by worldly enticements, not be occupied with hindrances, but be always attentive to the law. For it is written: “The mouth of the righteous will meditate wisdom, and his tongue will speak judgment.” This in the old testament; hear him say in the new too: “The word is near, in your mouth and in your heart.”

And he shows this meditation to be especially necessary for priests, writing to Titus that a bishop must hold fast the faithful word which is according to the teaching, so that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict. This surely belongs to anxious and intent meditation, not to perfunctory reading. And writing to Timothy he says: “Attend to reading, to exhortation, to teaching.” For frequent reading, not deprived by any interruption, performs the office of teaching.

But as to his asking that he may live, we have often shown that the life of this body does not have the grace of true life, but that that will be the true life whose good things each of the saints believes he will see in the land of the living. What we believe we shall see is surely not present but future.

The sixth verse follows: “Let the proud be put to shame, for they have unjustly done iniquity against me; but I will be exercised in your precepts.” Above the same prophet says: “If I have repaid those who repay me with evil.” Does he curse those who did wicked things against him? Surely not; for he saw that love must be shown even to the bitterest enemies, since the preacher of the gospel had come. Hence I think that, like a physician, he wishes to heal the very ones who hurt him, so that, confronted by the contemplation of their iniquity, they may blush for their own wrongdoings; in this

they not only begin to approve the prophet’s patience, but also to correct their own insolence. For shame is often our correction, and when we begin to be ashamed of what we have done, we are warned to abandon what is to be blushed at, so that we may not be ashamed longer. The prophet, then, does not curse, but like a good physician wishes them to know what they have done, so that, when they have taken into their conscience how great is the

filth of their offenses, they may begin to blush, and, blushing, may renounce their former sins. Consider for me now some fornicators, men who ride roughshod over widows and orphans, who seize what belongs to others, and who in these things not only do not blush but are even wont to boast, as though bringing forward titles of their beauty or power, of whom the apostle well said that their glory is in their shame,

the more detestable than their very crimes because, though they commit such things, they are not put to shame. But if any of them afterwards comes into the church, believes in the Lord Jesus, hears the gospel, and is pierced in heart, then at last he will begin to recognize how atrocious and grave are the offenses he has committed and to blush at what he has recognized.

But what it is to be exercised in the precepts of our Lord, since he said, “But I will be exercised in your precepts,” you have learned in the law, that is: if your adversary’s ox or beast of burden has fallen, you should not think it should be left but rather lifted up. But as to his saying, “they have unjustly done iniquity,” consider against whom this is said, if not one who perhaps does iniquity justly; that is, if, when injured, he wishes to avenge himself by the law according to the precepts of Moses, he seems to do iniquity justly, but not according to the precepts of the gospel. And so he says: “I came not to call the righteous but sinners,” because the Jews use the authority of the law to avenge themselves.

You have this in the apostle too: “Be sober, and justly.” He taught clearly that we ought to be not only sober but justly sober. Someone can be sober and not justly sober, so that he is sober from wine and is not sober in equity and justice (for there is a drunkenness of iniquity); someone too who always indulges in drunkenness and luxury, while yet trying to seize what belongs to others, occupied with that pursuit, can be sober from wine and not sober from robberies; nor is he justly sober.

So the apostle warns that there should be just sobriety in us. Indeed he added: “and do not sin.” For he who sins, even if he is sober, cannot be proclaimed as justly sober. “Do not be deceived,” he says (that is, let not the drunkenness of another’s error make you drunk); “bad company corrupts good morals,” because from the mouth and lips of unbelievers a kind of drunkenness is poured into the morals 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 with the sobriety of faith.

The seventh verse follows: “Let those who fear you turn to me, and those who know your testimonies.” Another has, especially according to the Greek: “Let them turn to me” (as dative). If we read “to me,” let those who fear God turn, blush for their own misdeeds, or certainly pay the penalties of their offenses, but turn to the little servant of God and the prophetic teaching, so as to unlearn the doing of shameful things and, by the correction of so great a teacher, put off their ways and, the stain of offenses wiped away, put on the discipline of the virtues.

But if we read thus, “Let them turn to me,” that is: since I will be exercised in your precepts, let them turn to me, to me who now no longer sin, who no longer go astray. “Let them turn,” he says, “who, fearing you, have renounced their own sins,” so that by the fellowship of the righteous the prophet may be carried forward more abundantly and may himself confer very much on his hearers from the grace that is in him. Let the righteous, then, turn to the righteous, now that I no longer sin. As for the testimonies, I think there is no need to repeat, since it has already been said before.

The eighth verse follows: “Let my heart be made spotless in your statutes, so that I may not be put to shame.” The more exalted the prophet is, whether by the gift of prophecy or by the grace of the kingdom, the more he pursues humility and teaches what we ought to imitate, in that so great a prophet asks for his heart to be made spotless. Above he asked: “Create a clean heart in me, O God.”

He did not say “make” but “create,” so that he might restore and cleanse his heart anew. There is a greater scope in this word; for great is the heart created by the Lord, which can receive the Word from the heavenly virtues and powers; great the heart that can receive the Lord himself, who says: “I will dwell in them and walk among them.” So that it may receive these things, then, he prays that the creator of his heart be not an angel but the Lord himself, who created heaven and earth.

And he well says “spotless,” because the heart of man is stained as it were by the filth of unseemly thoughts. If thought itself pollutes, how much more do deeds themselves contaminate! Do not contaminate your inner rooms with extraordinary thoughts, lest you pollute with grave defilement what you think you have clean. You wash your hands, as if you could wash away a crime, 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 with crime, though he had washed his hands with the pouring of water.

Hear that thought too defiles: “Not what enters into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are what defile a man.” If, then, you are defiled within, cleanse first what is within.

If you cleanse what is within, you have also cleansed the outside; as, if water flows turbid, you would think in vain that the pool should be cleaned, if the spring flows muddy; for it will profit nothing to have wiped the reservoirs when the fault is in the spring. You must first be purified yourself, so that all that is pure may flow. Your heart is the wellspring of your thoughts. From that spring either the turbid water of impurity is spewed out or the clear wave of godliness bursts forth.

You have learned that the heart must be cleansed; learn how you may cleanse it. Lawful justification cleanses this spring, that is, the confession of sins. Indeed that tax collector who confessed his own sins went out of the temple justified rather than the Pharisee, because the Pharisee put forward his fasts and gifts and innocence. Cleanse, then, your water, that water of which it was said: “Counsel in the heart of a man is deep water.”

Nature gave you good water, unless you pollute it with your mud; it washes you if it is pure, simple, even natural, if it has nothing sordid and earthly. What evil it is if the water that should cleanse pollutes! But it is not your water that pollutes you; that water belongs to another. Indeed it was said to you: “Abstain from another’s water.” Another’s water lies and deceives and flows contrary to nature. Therefore he says: “Foreign sons have lied to me;

for if they had not been foreign, surely they would not have deceived.” Let no one, then, 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 in his saints and to make it spotless by his statutes. What the statutes are, you have heard him say: “Tell your iniquities, so that you may be justified.” He, then, who tells his iniquities is justified, and he who is justified is not put to shame, because he has forestalled the shame of sins by timely confession.

The eleventh letter, Caph, begins, which in Latin interpretation means “they have been bowed down.” The sound of the interpretation itself teaches us what it is to be bowed; for he who is inclined toward the earth seems to be bowed. Hence the prophet says under this letter: “They almost made an end of me on the earth.” But he is bowed who does penance, because he bows his neck while he is humbled before the Lord, and more the inner neck, that is, the neck of mind and heart. For of this neck it was said: “Not even if you bend your neck like a ring”; for he who does not bend his heart will have bent his neck in vain.

The prophet Jeremiah too teaches that humility is signified by this interpretation; for he says under this letter in the Lamentations: “For the Lord will not cast off for ever, for when he has humbled he will have mercy according to the multitude of his mercy, for he has not humbled from his whole heart nor cast off the sons of men.” It is good, then, to be bowed, so that we may be humbled before the Lord and the Lord may have mercy.

Indeed earlier too, under this letter, the same prophet Jeremiah, showing the groans 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. See, Lord, and behold, for she has become without honor.” So he who seeks the refreshment of his soul, let him be bowed by humility, so that he may come more quickly to the Lord’s mercy.

And so, as one bowed far more in soul and mind than in body, David began, saying: “My soul has fainted for your salvation, and I hope in your word.” Let not the ordinary use of speech catch us, so that we judge this to be a fainting from bodily weariness. For he did not say only, “My soul has fainted,” but, “has fainted for your salvation.”

And so, to take an example from usage, if, for example, we say, “He has fainted for her,” this word seems to express that he has passed wholly into desire for the woman with longing. And whatever it is that we eagerly seek, unless we obtain it rather soon, seems to weary us by a kind of long straining.

Impatient love, knocking day and night at the harlot’s doors, if the desires of possessing are put off too long, faints in the very expectation, while it hopes; in which surely there is not the end of love but its increase. And whatever is desirable, if it does not come to the one desiring it, he who desires faints for it and as it were

lays down his very soul. If, however, a nearer hope arises, the nearness of hope gives strength; but if the beloved is absent, by the very fact that he desires one absent, he who longs suffers a fainting of his soul. And so the farther off what is desired, the more he faints who desires. This, then, is to faint: for each one

to pass with all his zeal into what he loves. He thinks of that, cleaves to that, speaks of that which he has taken to love; into that he is poured as by a kind of fainting of the soul, as when a mother awaits her son’s presence, as the wife of Tobit awaited her son on his travels, fainting with longing, set in distress and as it were loosened in her 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 waiting burn with a greater force of love. The flesh fails, but the longing is fed and increased.

From this, then, we can gather what “My soul has fainted for your salvation” means. For the soul cleaving to the spirit fails from what it is as soul and becomes one spirit, since “he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit.” And so the saint

who fears the Lord does not know how to desire anything but the salvation of God, which is Christ Jesus. Him he longs for, him he desires, 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 only. He fears lest he lose him. And so the more the soul longing to cleave to its salvation has been exercised with greater desire, the more it faints.

This fainting, then, works a lessening of frailty but a taking up of strength. Indeed he himself, saying elsewhere, “My soul has thirsted for you,” added below: “My soul has cleaved after you; your right hand has upheld me.” For he who thirsts desires always to cleave to the spring and seems to seek and touch nothing for himself but water, so as to be fed by that very affection. Your right hand, then, taking up my soul and imparting to me of its power, makes it to be what it was not, so that it says: “I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me.”

Learn from an example too that this fainting belongs to excessive longing: “My soul longs and faints,” it says, “for the courts of the Lord.” Longing first, he says, and as it were pouring itself out wholly into longing, suspended for a long time, it is dissolved by fainting. Indeed how the soul faints for God’s salvation Jeremiah teaches: “And there was,” he says, “in my heart as it were a burning fire flaming in my bones, and I was dissolved on every side and cannot bear it.” Inflamed with this desire, then, David says: “My soul has fainted for your salvation, and I have hoped in your word.”

He rightly said “I have hoped in the word”; for hope goes before, and so fainting follows. And he hoped in the word that was proclaimed to be coming, 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 his glory declared.

So the prophet, considering what he had read and seeing that, while he was present in the body, bound as it were by the chains of this life, he was absent from God’s salvation, longed, desired, fainted, and was dissolved in his whole affection, so as to become wholly that which he desired, as he also says later: “I pour out my prayer before him, I declare my tribulation before him, when my spirit fails from me.” For his spirit fails, or rather his spirit fails from him, who denies himself so as to cleave to Christ. Hence his paths are known by the Lord, because they are not paths of the flesh but of Christ.

For Christ is the way of those who seek God. Let us too, then, long for that eternal thing, that salvation of God; let us not long for money, which the greediest long for; let us not long for the beauty of another man’s wife; let us not be harassed by the desire of ambition; let us not strain after worldly glory; let us not be occupied with the pursuits of deceitful fraud; let us not desire to cheat our neighbor by iniquity; let us not, finally, be the portion of foxes, sunk into the depths of earthly pleasure,

like exiles from eternal things and cast down from that confident hope of things above. Let our soul, then, be lifted up, failing in its own strength, so as to cleave to the salvation of God, which is Christ the Lord Jesus, which by interpretation is called “the Lord’s salvation.” For he is salvation, truth, power, and wisdom. He, then, who fails to himself so as to cleave to power loses what is his own and receives what is eternal.

The second verse follows: “My eyes have failed for your word, saying: When will you comfort me?” Above it was the practical, here the contemplative. There the soul fainted for salvation, because it longs for him by whose passion it was saved; here the prophet’s eyes failed for the word of God. And let us see whether, as there the soul cleaving to Christ fails into one spirit and becomes one spirit, so too the eyes fail so as to become one mind. For these are the eyes of the mind, the eyes, that is, of the inner man, not these eyes which perform the service of sight.

For there is an eye and mind of the flesh, but that eye is blind which does not see divine things, which is vainly puffed up by the mind of the flesh. There is also another, the mind of Christ, by which the church sees Christ, as he himself says to the bride: “You have taken our heart with one of your eyes.” Rightly Christ is seen with one eye, because he is not seen with the fleshly eye. Or because the church, having two eyes, the moral and the mystical, sees Christ more with the eye of faith; for the mystical eye is keener, the moral sweeter.

And perhaps these are the eyes with which Paul saw eternal things, when he began not to see bodily things. Indeed he who did not see Christ before he lost his eyes saw him after he 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? With what eyes, then, did Paul begin to see more but those which he himself showed us, saying: “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the mind also”?

Indeed, so that you may know that he saw by praying: “It happened,” he says, “when I returned to Jerusalem, while I was praying in the temple, I was in dread, I saw him saying to me: Hurry and go out quickly from Jerusalem; for they do not receive your testimony about me.” These eyes, then, fail for the word of God and say: “When will you comfort me?” By these eyes the prophets were called seers, because by revelation they discerned with the mind what was hidden.

What is it for the eyes to fail? Let us speak of bodily things, so that we may understand spiritual ones. When we desire someone and hope he will come, do we not direct our eyes to where we hope he will come from? And so, intent for a long time with daily waiting, we fail. So Anna, looking around at the road, watched with anxious vigils for her son’s coming. So David the prophet, a devoted father, longed to question the scouts placed on the tower about the safety of his son when a runner came from the battle.

So a wife of tender age, from a watchtower on the shore, awaits her husband’s coming with tireless waiting, so that, whatever ship she sees, she thinks her husband is sailing there and fears lest another anticipate the joy of seeing her beloved and she herself be unable to say first, “I see you, husband,” as Anna said to her son: “I see you, son; from now on

I will gladly die,” not feeling, that is, the pain of death through the sweetness of the longed-for sight. So, as she who wishes to present herself to her husband as he comes, putting aside all household occupations, reads the paths of the traveler or the traces of his feet, so the prophet, stripped of worldly cares, a wakeful guardian of his inner eyes, strained his gaze for the word of God even to the failing of himself,

bringing his body into subjection and training his soul to the patience of humility like a wasting spider. For he longed as the stag for springs of water and thirsted for the Lord his God, desiring to see his presence and to appear before the face of God, and, failing with excessive desire and

vehement longing, he then presumed by prophetic grace that he was more fit to obtain what he had asked of the Lord. Let us too, then, strain our heart, so that we may understand the sequence of the Scriptures, and let us ask that the word come to us from the Lord and that understanding be given. If anyone has seen the word of God from afar with the gaze of the mind, not yet plain and distinct, he sees, as it were with certain inner eyes, the ship of the word approaching his soul. And the more clearly he begins to see, the more he hastens to come as to the harbor of truth, so as to be closest to the arrival.

The prophet’s eyes, then, failed for the word of God, saying: “When will you comfort me?” If these eyes were meant by which we discern and see, they should have said, “When will you comfort us?”, that is, not singular but plural. But because the eye of the mind and the eye of the flesh become one eye, and then man is supported by consolation, when flesh and mind do not desire different things but desire one thing, seek one thing, therefore, intent on him who said, “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, fainted for the word. But we think ourselves idle if we seem only to study the word, and we value more those who work than those who practice the study of knowing the divinity. For many say, “Behold the man and his works,” as though he who studies the word does not work, when this work is rather greater than the others. For if righteousness is a work, if temperance is a work, if fortitude is a work, surely wisdom too is a work; for these four are held to be the principal virtues.

For if Christ works insofar as he is righteousness, surely he works insofar as he is the Word, and he was working when he was in the beginning with the Father. Indeed all things were made through him, and you may know that he is the worker of all things and that our work is Christ Jesus. For insofar as he is the Word, the Word

to those who seek is a great work. Hence, when Martha was busy about serving, but Mary was listening to the word of the Lord, she who was listening deserved to be preferred to her who was serving. For when Martha said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her, then, to help me,” the Lord answered and said: “Martha, Martha, Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her.” So by the authority of the divine sentence it is defined that to know the word is a greater work than to serve.

But perhaps someone may say that it was said by the apostle that the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. I do not deny it is written, but know in what word: surely that which a puffed-up man pours out, a word that cannot profit the hearers, that is without demonstration of the Spirit and of power; this word Paul does not deign to know;

for he wishes rather to recognize the power of the word. Indeed the apostle did not wish his word to be such, he who came in weakness to make others stronger, in fear and trembling, so that those who fear might fear nothing but the Lord Jesus, and those who tremble might keep his peace and tranquility. Hear, then, what kind of word the apostle had: “And my word,” he says, “and my preaching were not in the persuasiveness of wisdom of words, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” because faith is made firm not by the forensic word of wisdom but by the power of God.

So in the word of the saints there is power, but in this forensic and philosophical word the vanity of the world. Let this prophet too teach you that there is power in the word of the saints, who says: “The Lord will give the word to those who preach the gospel with much power,” that is, so that they may preach the gospel with much power. It is proved, then, that there is power in the preaching of the gospel; and the preaching of the gospel is the word of the saints. So no doubt remains that there is power in the holy word.

The third verse follows: “For I have become like a wineskin in the frost; I have not forgotten your statutes.” This voice is the voice of the righteous man who has mortified his body. For the righteous man is rightly called a wineskin, who, stripped, is not found naked; for a wineskin is made from the skin of a dead animal. Let us too, then, die to sin, so that we may live to God.

Filled with the gladness of the Spirit and the sweetness of joy, we shall be spiritual skins, lacking bodily weakness and keeping in the whole bosom of the mind the grace of the divine mysteries poured into us. Of these wineskins it is said that those who wish to preserve both, both body and grace, put new wine into new wineskins.

Let this wineskin of yours, then, not leak, not be cracked, not grow old with earthly mold, lest the new wine burst old wineskins, the skins be torn, and grace be poured out. Nor again let them dry up from the sun of iniquity and excessive force of heat, but let the various desires of the burning inner parts be tempered by a kind of snowy cold.

Let the heat of lust grow cold, and, held in by a kind of frost of continence and fasting, let it be blown upon by morning prayer, when the words of God come down upon our earth like dew, like rain upon the grass and like snow upon the hay. This snow does not know how to harm a good wineskin, the snow that shines with the splendor of the divine word. This snow cools, does not burn; it makes the crops fruitful, does not kill them. This snow is the precept of continence, which makes bodily heat grow cold and quenches all the burning of the inner nature.

And perhaps that is why, when Jesus showed the glory of his resurrection, his garments were white as snow, so that not only he himself might be judged free of the contagion of sin, but also whoever is raised might seem to rise cold, with the desires of marriage frozen; for in the resurrection they neither marry nor take wives, but will be like the angels in heaven. Good wineskins, then, are cold, that is, bound with hoarfrost in the frost, not loosened by the heat of lust.

That this body may be called a wineskin is permitted from many places, yet understand it also from this, that Adam and Eve, when they laid aside the image of the heavenly one which they bore before, putting on the image of the earthly man, are said to have been clothed in tunics of skin; for the fault committed had made them bodily from spiritual. Nor is it absurd to understand that David says he was made like a wineskin in the frost because, though placed in icy harshness, he nevertheless mortified his body,

so as not to feel the harshness of that winter which the Savior says will be grievous to those who flee. For just as a wineskin does not feel 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 the flesh is not broken by necessities nor resists the mind, but, softer, bends to the soul’s guidance and commands, and in this frost of the world does not

dry up; or because we are a body of affliction and must always carry about the death of the Lord Jesus in our body. This is the wineskin that chastises its body, not like that fattened and gross people who sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. This is the wineskin that makes drunk not with wine but with the Spirit, in which there is no cluster of bitterness, no fury of dragons, no fury of asps, but “the inebriating cup, how excellent!” In this, then, David glories, that he has become like a wineskin in the frost, not feeling the working of sin.

And well is sin compared to frost. For just as frost is useful for no purpose, for no work, so guilt profits no use, no work, and so like frost it must be avoided, lest it harm and burn. It is good, then, for me to become like a wineskin in the frost, so that I may not forget the Lord’s statutes, so that, soaked with their liquid, every heat of inner desire may be cooled.

This wineskin, then, must be not empty but full: full of the Spirit, full of statutes, so that I may confess my sins myself, so that I may restrain the luxury of my flesh; for we must die to the world so that we may live to God. But if we live to the flesh, surely the prudence of the flesh is death; we cannot live to God, because this carnal wisdom and worldly life is hostile to God.

The fourth verse follows: “How many are the days of your servant? When will you execute judgment for me on those who persecute me?” It can be taken thus: “How many are the days of your servant?”, as though he said: how many are human days, how much time, how much space? Why is so short a life envied, so that we may not enjoy the tranquil course of this world? Why in a short space are so many snares of those who persecute us stretched out? Let the judgment now be present in which is the punishment of the faithless, in which the persecutors receive the due price of their ungodliness.

Or thus: how long will they be able to insult, how long to ride roughshod, who seek in various ways to afflict us? The end will not be late; for, as a prophet, he reckons the speed of passing through this life not by years but by days, saying: “How many are the days of your servant?” And he well said “days,” so that he might not only pass over the delays of years by prophetic vision, but also declare the course of this life bright for himself by the light of the virtues.

And rightly, secure, he says: “When will you execute judgment for me on those who persecute me?” For me, he says, you will execute judgment on my persecutors; you will not give judgment on me to my persecutors, since the ungodly do not rise in the judgment. But give judgment for me, he says, so that, when you reward innocence, advance faith, crown mercy, the ungodly persecutors may be judged by the rewards of merits promised by prophetic mouth.

Nor is this absurd, that, because the days of this life are short and few, the Lord should not delay his grace toward his prophet any longer, but should execute judgment for him on his persecutors. For here too there is judgment on the persecutors, since he who does not believe in Christ is already judged. And this is the judgment which the Lord Jesus gave to his little servants, saying: “You will have power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy.” And it is a true judgment, in which the enemy is tormented, as he himself confessed, saying: “Why have you come before the time to torment us?”

This, then, the prophet, grounded in the stability of the virtues, asks: that not a man be subjected to him, but he who claimed a place for himself in man. Hence the apostle too thought that he rather should be condemned in the sin of man, he should be subjected, of whom he says:

“May God crush Satan under your feet soon.” From this persecutor, then, he longs to have judgment executed for him, so that the adversary may be crushed by the footsteps of prophetic faith and the prophet may grind him under his feet like dust and, placed in this warfare of his body, though the days of life are short, may yet obtain a triumph over the adversary, so that he may groan at the freedom of the man reformed to his former grace, whom he held bound before with the chains of offenses and wearied with the heat of burning lust, and may feel his power.

The adversary, then, has been subjected according to the Lord’s sentence. For the Lord Jesus, coming into this world through the Virgin’s childbearing, subjected to our soul all the opposing powers, so that they may be crushed by your faith, your word, your conduct, and your works. If, then, you do not crush the adversary, it is your fault, who do not use the power granted. It is in us, then, that the adversary be either subjected or rebound.

For if our action displeases, the adversary begins to grow proud; but if we cling to good works, practice the pursuits of chastity, righteousness, continence, we tread on the serpent and the scorpion. For we tread on him with the feet of chastity, we crush the scorpion lest he can shake us off, we tread on him with the footsteps of continence, with the steps of modesty and righteousness. We can, then, even in this short life have a perpetual triumph over our adversaries.

The fifth verse follows: “The unrighteous have told me idle tales, but not as your law, Lord.” He well wishes judgment to be executed for him on his persecutors, who tried to hinder not only the works of the righteous man but also his faith by superfluous storytelling. For he says that the trifles of some fable, as it were, were told him, adoleschias, that is, superfluous talkativeness. For superfluous storytellers, like swallows, spoil the sweetness of a discussion by the continuance of their native talkativeness, as is the opinion of Aristotle.

The heretic, then, speaks superfluous things, who does not speak the truth, does not speak according to the law. But he who is grounded in the law knows how to distinguish false from true and by the instruction of spiritual teaching to separate heretical doctrines from those of the gospel. And so, lest many be deceived, the sinner is commanded by the Lord to be silent; for to the sinner God said: “Why do you declare my righteous deeds?”

Let unbelief, then, fall silent, which does not know the path of truth, which does not keep God’s precepts. For why do sinners take up the gospel of truth in their mouth, in whose mouth there is no truth? But all God’s precepts are truth, and Christ is truth. Christ, then, is not in the disputations of the faithless, he who says to the faithless: “Your mouth abounded in wickedness, and your tongue framed deceit;”

for the tongue that wishes to establish a lie surely weaves deceit with assertions. But such a one is a thief and runs with the thief. For there are many thieves who steal and seize the word of God not for their profit but for fraud, and twist a kind of patrimony of the heavenly

Scriptures into their thefts, gathering adulterous gains for themselves sought by deceit rather than truth. But these are those who mix water with wine like the worst tavern-keepers, adulterating the word of God and bringing forth what is insincere, whatever they have produced from a faithless and as it were drunken mouth, and so they speak things foreign to the law. Hence the prophet well flees and rebukes them, knowing what he has received by the prescription of the law.

Rightly, then, he says in the following verse: “All your precepts are truth; they have persecuted me unjustly; help me.” Like a good soldier, he does not flee wars, nor does the warrior accustomed to conflicts tremble at even grave battles, but, faithful and provident, he prays that help be breathed on him from heaven and asks for himself the faithful aids of godly devotion.

And so he does not ask that persecutions cease, but asks to be helped in persecutions. For he knew that all who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus suffer persecutions. He prefers, then, to suffer persecutions so that he may be able to live godly in Christ. And well he spoke not of one persecution but of many persecutions, and did not name the persecutors, because there are many persecutors, not only those we see but also those we do not see. Spiritual forces of wickedness persecute; the heretic, the Jew, the Gentile persecute. All, then, who wish to live godly are under persecutors, because, where there are many persecutors, there is no time free from persecutions for one eager to live godly.

And perhaps, when we do not suffer persecutions, we are held as condemned, because we in no way wish to live godly in Christ. For surely, since the sentence is fixed that all who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus suffer persecutions, he who does not suffer persecution seems disowned, as not being of godly intention in Christ; for battles pursue the devotion of faith; if contests are lacking, I fear lest he seem to be lacking who has ceased to contend.

“All your precepts,” he says, “are truth.” What precepts but these: “If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you too”? These precepts David, though earlier than the sacrament of the incarnation, already heard in the Spirit, and, like a disciple of Christ, he did not withdraw himself from sufferings but offered himself to contests.

He knew that this was fruitful for him for glory, safe for the keeping of salvation, that the godliness of the righteous should be strengthened by frequent exercises; for an unexercised faith quickly grows faint and, idle, is tempted by frequent troubles. The cunning ambusher breaks in on slackened watches, but external fraud trains the man accustomed to war and advances him to the palm of glorious victory. Peace, then, is to the faithful a material of corruption.

How beautifully the times of persecution went for us! The affection of the inmost mind toward God was intent, like a physician’s. It cleaved to him, and the soul of one praying felt no thoughts making noise against it. Prayer was poured out with the whole heart, and a kind of conversation was mingled with the Lord.

Daily meditation already had contempt of danger and had acquired the practice of trampling on death. The exercise that we have lost, leisure now tempts those whom wars had not broken. Dangerous, then, is the leisure of peace too; in peace more persecutions have begun to exist. In the time of persecution there was no flatterer to tempt the mind with cunning flattery.

The soul had no leisure to be dissolved by the delight of the body and to admit passions of this kind that are wont to be roused in prosperity. That is why the apostles, when they were beaten and shut up, rejoiced that by those injuries they gained the merit of eternal grace, they who had been counted worthy to suffer injuries for the name of Christ. They had no care for their inheritance, no zeal for powers and honors, none for precedence, which is wont to harass even the righteous; but he thought himself preferred who had been scourged with more blows.

Rightly, then, David seeks occasions for triumph and does not fear an abundance of contests for the training of devotion, he who knew that the persecutions of the wicked profit the growth of virtue. For he did not say, “Because I suffer persecutions, help me,” but:

“They have persecuted me unjustly,” he says; “help me.” For someone can also suffer persecution, 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 restrain the wicked lest they harm more, if we strip the greedy man of the gains of his fraud, if we curse the insolence of the proud. But he who suffers persecution for faith, for righteousness, for chastity, well says: “They have persecuted me unjustly; help me.”

The seventh verse follows: “They almost made an end of me on the earth, but I have not forsaken your commandments.” Not superfluously did he seek divine help, he who knew that he had a contest against the strong and that many battles were prepared for him as he was about to fight, now against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, now against the heat of the blood and the countless enticements of this body, by whose various knot and long wrestling, wearied, he would have fallen in a shameful contest, had he not held himself by the root of faith.