Letters 133.13–140.11

As for the fact that in the holy Scriptures people are called righteous, such as Zechariah and Elizabeth, Job, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah, and many with whose names sacred Scripture is woven, although I shall speak more fully in the promised work (if the Lord gives grace), in the present letter it is enough to have touched briefly on this: that they are called righteous not because they lack every fault, but from the greater part of their virtues. In fact Zechariah is condemned with silence, and Job is reproved for his own speech, and Jehoshaphat and Josiah, who are without doubt described as righteous, are said to have done things that displeased the Lord. One of them brought help to an impious man and was rebuked by a prophet; the other, against the Lord's command through the mouth of Jeremiah, went out to meet Necho, king of Egypt, and was killed; and yet both are called righteous. Of the rest this is not the time to write; for you did not ask of me a book, which must be dictated at leisure, and all their objections are to be destroyed with Christ's help. This must be asserted by us from the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, in which God speaks daily to believers. And through you I beg and warn that holy and illustrious household not to take in, through one or at most three little men, the dregs of such great heresies, or, to say the least, the disgrace, so that where virtue and holiness were first praised, there the baseness of diabolical presumption and most sordid fellowship should dwell. And let those who supply wealth to men of this kind know that they are gathering a multitude of heretics, making enemies of Christ and nourishing his adversaries, and that it is in vain for them to profess one thing with the tongue when they are proved to think another by their hand.

The honourable man, my brother, the son of your esteem, the presbyter Orosius, I have received, both for his own merit and at your bidding. But a most difficult time has come upon us, when it was better for me to be silent than to speak, so that our studies ceased and, as Appius says, a dog's eloquence was exercised. So I could not for the time answer your two little books, which you dedicated to my name, most learned and shining with all the splendour of eloquence; not that I think anything in them is to be blamed, but because, according to the blessed apostle, let each abound in his own sense, one in this way, another in that. Certainly, whatever could be said and drawn with lofty genius from the fountains of the holy Scriptures has been set out and discussed by you. But I ask your reverence to allow me for a little while to praise your genius; for we discuss among ourselves for the sake of learning. But rivals, and especially heretics, if they see differing opinions between us, will slander us as arising from rancour of mind. For my part I have resolved to love you, to receive you, to honour you, to admire you, and to defend your words as my own; indeed in the dialogue which I recently published I have mentioned your blessedness, as was fitting; and let us rather strive that a most pernicious heresy be removed from the churches, which always pretends repentance in order to have the opportunity of teaching in the churches, lest, if it showed itself in open light, it should be driven out and die.

Your holy and venerable daughters Eustochium and Paula walk worthily of their family and of your exhortation, and greet your blessedness especially, as does all the brotherhood who strive with us to serve the Lord our Saviour. Last year we sent the holy presbyter Firmus on their business to Ravenna, and from there to Africa and Sicily; we think he is now staying in the regions of Africa. I pray you to greet with my respects the saints who cling to your side. I have also sent a letter to the holy presbyter Firmus; if it comes to you, please do not mind forwarding it to him. May Christ the Lord keep you safe and mindful of me, truly holy lord and most blessed father. We suffer a great … of Latin-speaking secretaries in this province.

Our fellow presbyter Jerome has rightly trusted to your affection as a most dutiful way of reaching us. We suffer with a member of our flock, and what we thought we should do, or could do, we have speedily carried out. Let your brotherliness, dearest brother, make haste to deliver the letter quickly to the person mentioned.

The apostle testifies that contention has never done any good in the church, and therefore he commands that the first rebukes of heretics be made rather than that they be drawn out in lengthy debate. When this rule is carelessly regarded, the evil that ought to be guarded against is not avoided but increased. Yet, since your grief and groaning so shake our heart that there is no … for discussing and deliberating, I first address the faith of your constancy. You have often told many that whoever is struck with injury, or, as you say, danger, for the truth may expect blessedness; and we remind you, who remember your preaching well. Likewise, roused by so great a scene of evils, we hastened to take up the authority of the apostolic see to suppress every crime; but we have not read against whom we should rise up, since he is neither named nor charged with any account of the crime. What we can do, therefore, is grieve with you. But if you lodge an open and plain accusation against any persons, I will either appoint competent judges or, if anything more urgent and careful can be done by us, I will not delay, dearest son. However, I have written to my brother bishop John to act more circumspectly, lest anything further of the kind happen concerning the church entrusted to him, which it would be most troublesome for him too afterward to have to foresee and ward off.

The most noble holy virgins Eustochium and Paula have lamented plunder, murders, arson, and every crime of extreme madness, which the devil has perpetrated in places belonging to your church; for they kept silent about the name and cause of the man. And though there is no doubt by whom it was committed, your brotherliness ought to have taken more careful thought for the protection of that flock, so that nothing of this kind should arise, which, with danger to others, reproaches your negligence. We have heard that the Lord's flock, and such lambs, stripped by fire, weapons, and persecutions, weakened after the slaughter and deaths of their people, can scarcely live: does nothing move that fatherly care of your priesthood at so great a power of the devil let loose against you and your people? Against you, I say; for so great a crime committed in the church altogether condemns the gravity of a bishop. Where were your precautions? Where, at least, if these misfortunes had occurred, your help and consolation, since they say that they still fear more than they complain of having suffered? I would judge more severely if they had spoken to me more openly about this matter. Look, brother, at the snares of the ancient enemy, and keep watch in the spirit of a good ruler, so that these things, which have come to us more as report than as a plain accusation, may be either corrected or repressed, lest the law of the church compel him who has not defended them to answer for the causes of those who have been ruined.

I have learned from your letter and from the report of many that you are fighting Christ's battles against the enemies of the catholic faith, and that the winds are contrary, and that those who ought to be defenders of the world are patrons of perdition to their mutual ruin. Yet know that in this province, by no human help but properly by the sentence of Christ, Catiline has been driven out not only from the city but also from the borders of Palestine; and we grieve very much that many companions of the conspiracy have remained with Lentulus, who are staying at Joppa. It seemed better to us to change our place than to lose the truth of the faith, and to lose the pleasantness of our buildings and dwelling rather than be stained by communion with those to whom, for the present, we had either to yield or certainly to fight daily, not with the tongue but with swords. How much we have suffered, and how the lofty hand of Christ raged against the enemy on our behalf, I think you have learned from the common report of all. I ask you, then, to complete the work you have taken up, and not to allow the church of Christ to lack a defender while you are present. Certainly let everyone know that you are enough, as far as a man can be, since the fight is to be waged not with bodily strength but with the charity of the mind, which can never be overcome. The holy brothers who are with our littleness greet you warmly. I think also that the holy brother Alentius the deacon will tell your esteem everything faithfully. May Christ our almighty Lord keep you safe and mindful of me, truly holy lord and brother to be revered.

I do not know by what temptation of the devil it has happened that your labour, the diligence of the holy presbyter Innocent, and our desire seem for the present to have had no effect at all. Thanks be to God that I have learned that you are safe and fervent with the warmth of faith amid the very temptations of the devil. This is my joy, when I hear that my sons are fighting in Christ; and may he in whom we believe confirm this zeal in us, so that we may willingly shed our blood for his faith. I grieve that a noble house has been utterly overthrown, and yet I could not learn what the cause is; for the bearer of the letter said he did not know. So we can grieve for our common friends and for Christ, who alone is mighty and Lord, and pray for his mercy, although on our part we deserve God's displeasure, since we cherish the Lord's enemies. You will do best if you leave everything and come to the East, and especially to the holy places; for here all is quiet. And although they have not lost the poison of their hearts, they do not dare to open the mouth of impiety, but are like deaf asps that stop their ears. I greet the holy brothers. Our house, utterly overthrown as to fleshly wealth by the persecutions of the heretics, is by Christ's favour full of spiritual riches. It is better to eat bread than to lose the faith.

Before this, Cyprian, most zealous of presbyters, I knew only from letters that you were one of those concerning whom Moses hears, 'Choose presbyters whom you yourself know to be presbyters,' and that you had obtained the name of the blessed man who meditates on the law of God day and night. But now, since we have also come to know each other as to the outward man, and after the greeting and sweet embraces by which friendship is bound, you at once ask me, to prove true what I had heard, to explain to you the very difficult psalm which among the Greeks and Latins is numbered the eighty-ninth, not in an elaborate arrangement of words and with popular applause, which usually deceives and flatters the ears of the unskilled, but in simple speech and the truth of the church's language, so that our interpretation may not need another interpreter; which often happens to the overly eloquent, so that there is greater difficulty in understanding their explanations than in the things they try to explain. I will attempt a very difficult work, and, supported by the help of your holy prayers, I will remember that little verse: 'The Lord will give the word to those who preach the good news with great power.'

First we should know that the title of this psalm according to the Hebrew is 'A prayer of Moses, the man (vir) of God', and according to the Seventy, 'A prayer of Moses, the man (homo) of God.' What the difference is between homo and vir, let holy Scripture teach us. The captain of fifty says to Elijah, 'Man of God, the king calls you.' He answered him, 'If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.' And the apostle writes to Timothy, 'But you, O man of God, flee these things.' Further, concerning vir, the same apostle instructs: 'I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ.' This is the man who ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God, and who prays daily, saying, 'But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.' And in another place: 'Until we all attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.' So both the name vir and the name homo befit the holy man, who saw God face to face and his soul was saved; from whose mouth we learned the creation of the world (at least of the things that are visible), the making of man, and the truth of all past history; who left us not only five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but also eleven psalms, from the eighty-ninth, which begins, 'Lord, you have become our refuge,' to the ninety-ninth, which is entitled 'A psalm of praise.' As for the ninety-eighth having in most manuscripts the title 'A psalm of David', this is not found in the Hebrew; holy Scripture has this custom, that all psalms which have no titles saying whose they are are ascribed to those whose names appear in the preceding psalms.

There are four psalms that have the title 'prayer': the sixteenth, entitled 'A prayer of David', which begins, 'Hear, O God, my righteousness'; the eighty-fifth, likewise, 'A prayer of David'; the eighty-ninth, which is now in hand, 'Lord, you have become our refuge'; and the hundred and first, which has the title, 'A prayer of the poor man, when he was distressed and poured out his supplication before the Lord.' David and the poor man are referred to Christ, who, though he was rich, became poor for us, and who sat on the foal of an ass, poor and meek, according to Zechariah. But Moses, through whom the Lord gave the law, from whose mouth we heard God saying, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness,' and then immediately, 'And God made man; in the image of God he made him; male and female he made them,' explains everything from the beginning of man's creation to death and resurrection: how he was created, how long he lives, what he does in the world, what fruit of life he has, why he labours, where he strives to go. And since he who writes this is a man, he testifies in his own person about the condition of the whole human race. There are some who refer this psalm or prayer to the people of Israel: how in the wilderness they offended God and fell and did not deserve to enter the land of promise (the sons entered instead of the fathers), and again wait for God to be appeased, which is fulfilled in the coming of Christ.

According to the grammarians, oratio is any speech of those speaking, and they express its etymology thus: oratio is oris ratio, 'the reckoning of the mouth'. But in the holy Scriptures we hardly read oratio in this sense, but in the sense that concerns prayers and supplications. The Hebrews say that five books are contained in the one volume of the Psalms: from the first to the fortieth; from the forty-first to the seventy-first; from the seventy-second to the eighty-eighth; from the eighty-ninth, which begins the fourth book and which we are now discussing, to the hundred and fifth (at the end of all of these a double 'amen' is placed, which the Seventy translate 'so be it, so be it'); and from the hundred and sixth to the end; like the twelve prophets, who, though they published their own little books, are included under the name of one volume. But there is something I almost passed over: my assertion that the ninety-eighth is also among the eleven psalms of Moses, in which it is said, 'Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool. Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among those who call on his name,' seems to contradict our view: how can the psalm be Moses' which names Samuel, who we know lived long afterward? The solution of this question is easy: the name of Samuel was prophesied, who was of such merit that he is placed with Moses in Jeremiah: 'Though Moses and Samuel should stand'; after the example of the time when the man of God speaks in Samaria: 'Altar, altar, thus says the Lord: Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name.' Let us also know that those are mistaken who think that all the psalms are David's, and not of those in whose names they are inscribed. Hence they would have this psalm too composed by David under the name of Moses, on the ground that the lawgiver describes with sacred mouth the common offence and calamity of the human race and then its expectation of salvation.

'Lord, you have become our dwelling place in generation and generation.' The Seventy: 'Lord, you have become our refuge in every generation and generation.' For 'dwelling' and 'refuge' the Hebrew has maon, which means 'dwelling' rather than 'refuge.' About to tell of sad things and to lament the human race, he begins with the praises of God, so that whatever adversity afterward befell man may be seen to have happened not by the harshness of the Creator but by the fault of the creature. One who endures a storm seeks the refuge of a rock or a roof; one whom an enemy pursues flees to the walls of cities; the traveller wearied by sun and dust alike seeks the comfort of shade; if a most savage beast thirsts for a man's blood, he longs to escape the present danger however he can. So man too from the beginning of his creation has God as his helper; and since it is of his grace that he was created, of his mercy that he subsists and lives, he can do no good work without him who so granted free choice as not to deny his grace in each work, lest the freedom of choice should redound to the injury of the Creator and to the insolence of him who was created free precisely so that he might know that without God he is nothing. And the words 'in generation and generation' signify all times: before the law, under the law, and in the grace of the Gospel. Hence the apostle too says, 'By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, but by the gift of God'; and all his letters in the opening greeting have not first peace and then grace, but first grace and then peace, so that, our sins forgiven, we may obtain the peace of the Lord.

'Before the mountains were born, and the earth and the world were brought forth, from age to age you are.' The Seventy: 'Before the mountains were made firm, and the earth and the world were formed, from age to age you are, O God.' Some overturn this passage by wrong punctuation, especially those who hold that souls existed before man was created on the sixth day. For they read and punctuate thus: 'Lord, you have become our refuge in generation and generation, before the mountains were made firm and the earth and the world were formed,' so that there follows afterward, 'from age to age you are, O God.' And they argue thus: 'If the Lord was the refuge of men before the mountains were made firm and the earth and the world were formed, then souls existed in the heavens before men's bodies were formed.' But we, as we have set out, ought to punctuate the reading thus: 'Before the mountains were made firm and the earth and the world were formed, from age to age you are, O God'; so that it does not mean that he was our refuge before the creation of the world, when we did not yet exist, but that God is always God from eternity to eternity. For where the Latin translator put 'from age to age', and the Hebrew says olam, we shall more correctly translate 'from everlasting to everlasting.' Something similar is read in Proverbs in the person of Wisdom, who is Christ: 'The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he established me, in the beginning, before he made the earth and the depths, before the springs of water came forth, before the mountains were made firm; before all the hills he begets me.' No one should be troubled by the word 'creation', since in the Hebrew it is not 'creation', which is called bara, but 'possession.' For it is written thus: adonai qanani reshith darko, which in our language is expressed, 'The Lord possessed me as the beginning of his ways.' Between possession and creation there is a great difference: possession means that the Son was always in the Father and the Father in the Son; creation means the beginning of the making of one who previously did not exist. According to the laws of tropology, the words 'before the mountains were made firm and the earth and the world were formed' can mean that, before lofty doctrines were made firm in our soul, and the earth of our body was formed or established by God, and the world (which in Hebrew is called tebel, in Greek more expressively oikoumenē, which we can translate 'the inhabited') was made firm or established, God was always our refuge. And that soul is inhabited, not deserted, which deserves to have God as its guest, as the Saviour says, 'My Father and I will come and make our dwelling with him.' But what both the Hebrew and all the other translators have, 'before the mountains were born and the earth was brought forth,' plainly draws us to tropology. For mountains and the rest do not undergo birth and childbearing, but creation. From this it is clearly shown that the saints and the lofty powers too are always brought forth by the mercy of God.

'You turn man back to contrition and say: Return, sons of Adam.' The Seventy: 'Do not turn man away to lowliness; and you said: Be converted, sons of men.' According to the Hebrew, what is said is this: O God, who created man and are his refuge and dwelling from his beginning, you turn him back to contrition; you made and formed him so that he might be broken in death, and your vessel be shattered at the last moment of his life; and though this condition hangs over him, that having risen he should perish and, however long he has lived, be dissolved at the end, you speak to him daily through the prophets: 'Return, sons of Adam, who by your fault offended God and from immortal became mortal.' For you refused to hear the command of him who instructed you: 'Of every tree that is in paradise you shall eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For on whatever day you taste of it, you shall surely die.' Further, according to what the Seventy translated, 'Do not turn man away to lowliness; and you said: Be converted, sons of men,' it has this sense: I beg you not to humble with perpetual sin the man whom you created in your image and likeness and whom you honoured so highly as to call him son instead of servant, and not to let the ancient sentence prevail over him: 'You are earth, and to earth you shall go.' For you have permitted us repentance, saying, 'I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that he turn and live'; you have said through the utterance of all your saints, 'Be converted (or, Return), sons of men,' to the most merciful Father, who runs to meet those who come and offers the ring which they lost by their own fault and bestows the ancient robe of incorruption.

'For a thousand years in your eyes are like yesterday, which has passed, and a night watch' (or 'in the night'). You who through the prophets always call us to repentance, saying, 'Return, sons of men,' we ask, as I said before, that you do not make man to be held in everlasting lowliness. Nor do we think long what you promise, and that salvation is to be given us after many ages. Compared with eternity, the length of all times is short. For in your sight a thousand years are reckoned as one day. And at once he corrects himself: I said wrongly 'one day', and that the length of a thousand years is compared with you to the space of one day, when I ought rather to have said that the space of one watch is equal to the length of a thousand years. The night is divided into four watches, each reckoned at three hours. Hence the Lord too came to the apostles as they sailed in the fourth watch. So, as one watch of the night passes quickly, especially for those wearied by the labour of watching, so the spans of a thousand years are reckoned as a very short time with you, who always are and will be and have been. And what he adds, 'like yesterday, which has passed', let us take according to what the apostle writes to the Hebrews: 'Jesus Christ yesterday and today, the same also for ever.' I think that from this place and from the letter written under the name of the apostle Peter a thousand years have customarily been called one day; so that, since the world was made in six days, it is believed to last only six thousand years, and afterward comes the number seven and the number eight, in which the true sabbath-rest is kept and the purity of circumcision is restored. Hence too the rewards of good works are promised in eight beatitudes. Peter writes thus: 'Do not let this one thing escape you, beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord does not delay in his promise, as some count delay.'

'When you strike them, they will be a dream; in the morning like grass that passes. In the morning it flourished and passed; in the evening it will be cut down and wither.' The Seventy: 'Their years will be things counted as nothing. In the morning let it pass like grass; in the morning let it flourish and pass; in the evening let it fall, harden, and wither.' According to the Hebrew the sense is this: it has greatly helped our conversion and salvation that the whole life of mortals has been cut short like a dream by swift death, and in the likeness of flowers and hay it withers and perishes almost at the same time. 'When you strike them,' he says, that is, men; and when that word is fulfilled, 'Fool, this night they will require your soul of you; and what you have prepared, whose will it be?', the whole human condition will be compared to a dream. For as the grass, green in the morning and blooming with its flowers, delights the eyes of those who look at it, and little by little withering loses its beauty and turns into hay that is to be trodden down, so all the beauty of men blooms in children, flowers in youths, is vigorous in men of full age; and suddenly, without their knowing it, the head grows white, the face wrinkles, the skin once stretched contracts, and at the last end, which is here called evening, that is, old age, one can hardly move, so that one does not recognize who he was before, but he is almost changed into another. Why do we speak of the times from infancy to extreme and decrepit old age, when sickness and fasting (and) grief do this too, so that the once most beautiful face of women passes into such ugliness that love is changed into hatred? Isaiah too speaks of this condition of mortals: 'All flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass; the grass has withered, the flower has fallen.' According to the Seventy too it is to be explained similarly: everything that seems long in the world is short with you, O God. For the days and years in which human life is compressed, if compared with eternity, will be reckoned as nothing. For as grass grows in the morning, flowers, and withers, hardens and perishes toward evening, so will be all the beauty of men.

'For we are consumed in your fury, and in your indignation we are troubled.' The Seventy: 'For we have failed in your anger, and in your fury we are troubled.' Where we said 'we are troubled', Symmachus and Aquila translated 'we have hastened'; and it signifies the shortness of human life. And his adding 'in your anger and in your fury' shows the persistence of God's sentence, to which all we men are subject, namely: 'You are earth, and to earth you shall go.' And it is finely said, not 'we are troubled' as in the Seventy, but, according to the Hebrew, 'we have hastened', so that, although the age of men seems long, yet compared with eternity it is short. The illustrious poet also testifies to this, saying, 'But meanwhile it flies, time flies irretrievably,' and again, 'Rhaebus, we have lived long, if anything is long for mortals.'

'You have set our iniquities before you, our negligences in the light of your face.' The Seventy: 'You have set our iniquities in your sight, our age in the illumination of your face.' Where we, following the Hebrew and Symmachus, put 'our negligences', for which the Seventy translated 'age', the Hebrew has alumenu, which the fifth edition translates 'youth', Aquila paroraseis ('oversights'), and which we can turn in our language as 'errors' or 'ignorances.' Hence he says in another place too, 'Remember not the sins of my youth and my ignorances,' and again, 'Who understands his offences? Cleanse me, Lord, from my hidden faults, and spare your servant from those of others.' For those vices are 'others'' to us which we commit, often by will, sometimes by ignorance and error; and yet, though there is no will in the crime, error is a fault. I wonder why the Seventy chose to say 'age' for youth, negligences, and errors or ignorances, unless perhaps because vices are committed in the age and time of this life. And his adding 'in the illumination' or 'in the light of your face' has this sense: none of our sins has escaped you; your eye has looked even into our secrets, according to what is written: 'Darkness will not be hidden from you,' and, 'God searches hearts and reins,' and again, 'As its darkness, so also its light'; for man looks on the face, God on the heart.