Homilies on Psalms 36–38 (LXX numbering; Psalms 37–39 in English Bibles) 6.1–6.4

God, the creator of human bodies, knew that the frailty of the human body was such that it could contract various illnesses and was liable to wounds and other infirmities; and so, providing for the sufferings to come, he also brought forth medicines from the earth and handed down the discipline of medicine, so that if sickness befell the body, a remedy would not be lacking. Where is this preface leading us? Doubtless back to the soul. For when the Creator of all had made the soul too, he knew that it would be capable of vices and would therefore be subject to sins and weighed down by them. And so, as he prepared medicines for the body from herbs compounded by art and skill, he also prepared medicines for the soul in the words which he sowed and scattered through the divine Scriptures; so that those who are oppressed by some sickness, as soon as they feel the force of the disease and perceive the sting and pain of some wound, that is, when they see the soul doing something contrary to nature, may seek the rational discipline suited and fitting for them, which can heal them from the commandments of God. For he also handed down the skill of the medical art, whose chief physician is the Savior, who says of himself: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” He was the chief physician, who could cure every disease and every infirmity; but his disciples, Peter and Paul, and the prophets too, are physicians, and so are all those who after the apostles have been placed in the Church and entrusted with the discipline of curing wounds, whom God willed to be physicians of souls in his Church; for our God does not will the death of the sinner, but waits for his repentance and his prayer. Then this psalm too, which has just been read, shows us how, if we are ever overtaken by offenses, and with what disposition, we ought to pray and entreat the physician for our pains and infirmities. If, then, the enemy has ever overtaken us and wounded our soul with his flaming darts, this psalm first teaches us that after sin it is fitting to confess the sin and to call the offense to remembrance, so that the heart, stung and stirred by the remembrance of the fault for its offense, may meanwhile restrain and recall itself, so as not to commit anything of the kind again. And for this reason, I think, the psalm is entitled “A Psalm of David, for remembrance.” What “for remembrance” means it sets out through the whole body of the psalm. Let us see, then, all of us sinners, if we have been found in some offense, what we ought to say or do, so that, having learned it in sacred Scripture, we may also merit to obtain a remedy for our wound. It would indeed be good for the body, so to speak, of our soul always to remain in health, and, surrounded by the arms of God, to remain unwounded by all the flaming darts of the evil devil, to experience no illness or sickness, and for our inner man to take on nothing of vice or disease. But if through neglect of itself and sloth of mind it has fallen into sin, let it recognize what follows for it. To be reproved or rebuked is a punishment of pain, a torment, and so heavy that even those who seem faithful and devout, if as human beings they have at some time fallen into some offense and are reproved, are indignant against those who reprove them and hate them; yet they rebuke in order to correct. And this evil was the reason why the prophets were hated by the former people and harassed with persecutions. This was the reason that had Isaiah sawn asunder, that drove Zechariah to be slain between the temple and the altar, that had Jeremiah sunk in the pit of mire. And finally this was the reason that brought our Lord Jesus Christ to the cross. For all the crimes and outrages we have listed above were committed for no other reason than this: when they wished, by the discipline of medicine, to cut away sins through the rebuke of offenders, the people, impatient of treatment and of remedy, burned to destroy the healer. Blessed, then, and wise, by the very word of Scripture, are those who, when they have sinned and are reproved, do not hate those who reprove them. For so Scripture says: “Do not reprove the wicked, lest they hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.” You see how Scripture called wise the one who is liable to rebuke yet does not hate the one who reproves him, but rather loves him? Such were those who were reproved by the Apostle and, when refuted, did not hate those who reproved them. Hence I too think that the man who had sinned most grievously at Corinth obtained mercy because, when he was rebuked by the Apostle, and so sharply rebuked as to be cut off from the assembly of the Church, he did not hate the one who reproved him, but accepted the punishment patiently and bore it bravely. I think he even conceived greater affection for Paul and for all who had obeyed Paul’s instructions in punishing him. Hence Paul too revokes the sentence and rejoins the expelled man to the Church, adding: “Confirm your love toward him.” For he saw that he had kept love after his punishment; and so he said this, not that love might be given him after his sin (for it was in him), but that the love which was there might be confirmed by all. It is necessary, then, that one who sins be reproved; but since this rebuke, though useful, is heavy for us weaker ones, we avoid bearing it in the presence of all. And why do I say in the presence of all? Sometimes, when we are reproved, we do not even allow two witnesses to be present, but we blame the one who reproves us and say: “You ought to have told me what you wanted in private, and not made me blush in front of many.” We grieve, we toss about, we boil over, and are tormented in the inner senses of the soul. If such is the rebuke by which we are reproved by men or before men, what shall we do if God reproves us, if God himself refutes and reproves us in fury? We who cannot bear the anger of a bishop reproving us, but take it with indignation, how shall we endure that fury which is said to be God’s, when it reproves us? The prophet, then, knowing that there are very many differences in reproving, and wishing, as a man, to be reproved for his offenses, but fearing to be reproved with heavier weight, that is, in the Lord’s fury, says here too, as he had said before in another psalm: “Lord, do not reprove me in your fury.” And likewise he says what follows: “nor rebuke me in your anger.” We must, then, say something about rebuke too, of which the Apostle teaches us in general terms, saying: “All rebuke for the present seems to be not of joy but of grief; but afterward it yields the most peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Look at children too: when they are corrected with blows by their attendants or roused by their teachers, they take it badly and judge the pain inflicted on them for the sake of their education the greatest of evils; and although they know well that their progress lies in such instruction and correction, they still bear it with annoyance and impatience. If the education of children is like this, what should we think about ourselves, the old? What kind of education or rebuke do we think awaits us, inflicted not by stewards nor by attendants? For Scripture knows of the attendant, the steward, and the guardian of a minor. What, I say, should we think or feel when our education and rebuke is carried out by the householder himself? Let us return again to the likeness of children. If a child is corrected by his attendant, he need not experience the rebuke of a father’s severity, which is provoked by graver and more shameful offenses. If a child is corrected by his teacher, the master will not be as severe as a father can be if he learns of grave offenses in his son. For if a father rebukes for greater and graver sins, and the son’s offense is so great that it has roused the father to anger, then after torments and punishments the penalty of disinheritance too is doubtless to be feared. If you have understood the likeness, pass with me from the example to the reality, and understand what is said about all of us. All the bishops and all the presbyters and deacons instruct us, and in instructing us they apply rebukes and chide us with sterner words. And there are times when we are instructed also by stewards and agents, that is, by those angels to whom our souls have been entrusted to be managed and governed; as in a certain place the angel of repentance is described, who receives us to be chastised, as the Shepherd sets forth, if indeed that little book seems acceptable to anyone. Meanwhile we submit to various kinds of instruction from men who chastise and rebuke us; yet we are not yet chastised by the householder himself, but by the angels as stewards, who are allotted the office of chastising and correcting each of us; and it is more bearable when we are rebuked by one of these. So too our rebuke has sometimes been entrusted to the attendant. For all who were under the law, since the law was our attendant in Christ, when they sinned under the law were rebuked by the attendant, when they were punished according to the law; for they were punished when they were stoned, or when they suffered something of what Moses had written. None, then, of those we spoke of above was punished by the householder himself; for the law was not the householder, nor was the angel of repentance. But there are other sins for which the householder himself punishes the sinner, namely when someone has exceeded the measure of crimes and stretched the impiety of his wickedness beyond insult to the creature. Yet no one but God alone knows who is to be handed over to the stewards to be chastised and when, who is to be rebuked by the agents, and also who is to be put under the attendant; and the rebukes of all of these are lighter than that of one who is such as to provoke, so to speak, the divine hand itself to take vengeance on him. If you have understood what has been said, if you have followed the higher meaning, see now how the prophet pursues these things when he says: “Even if you rebuke me, O God, do not rebuke me in anger.” But we neither wish to be corrected, nor endure the attendant who admonishes us, nor willingly accept the rebukes of the stewards and agents; and therefore it is necessary that rebuke be brought upon us by the very anger of God. For the prophet says: “Lord, do not reprove me in your fury, nor rebuke me …” He who says this must bring forward some reason … if we sin, learning this reason and acting according to what we are taught, we may not incur the vengeance of the one who reproves in fury or rebukes in anger. “For your arrows,” it says, “are fixed in me, and you have strengthened your hand upon me.” The word of the Lord is like arrows. Thus the Savior too said: “He made me like a chosen arrow, and hid me in his quiver.” He who speaks the word of the Lord, then, shoots arrows; and when he speaks to rebuke and chastise, the dart of rebuke pierces the hearer’s heart. If, then, someone so receives the words of the Lord that his heart is pierced by the words he hears, and he is roused to repentance by the sting of what was said, it is certain that the dart of the word of God has not gone forth in vain against him, nor flown past him, but that all those arrows of the words of God are fixed in him. Thus it says in a certain place: “Have you seen how Ahab was pricked to the heart?” Rightly, then, the prophet now says: “Lord, do not reprove me in your fury, nor rebuke me in your anger.” For the reason that follows is a worthy one, which should temper for him the rebuke of the Lord’s fury: “for your arrows are fixed in me.” For example, even now, if out of this whole multitude of hearers there are some who are conscious of some sin (would that there were none! yet there must be some who are conscious of it), and if, hearing what we say, they hear rightly and faithfully, and their heart is pricked by the darts of our words, and they grieve, pierced by such darts, and, turned to repentance, say: “Lord, do not reprove me in your fury, nor rebuke me in your anger, for your arrows are fixed in me.” But if someone hears this and is not pricked, but, as in a body already dead, no arrow and no dart finds any feeling of pain in his soul, … are fixed in me. And would that we all might hear, pricked and stung by what is said, and, turned to repentance, say to the teacher: “For your arrows are fixed in me”; and, while you chastise us with the word of God, while you strike, while you smite us in the inmost parts of our conscience: “You have strengthened your hand upon me.” For the attendant strengthens his hand upon the children when he beats and corrects them, and keeps his hand at it, when the blows are not inflicted carelessly or lightly. … but through whomever he wills to send the arrows of his words: “for you have strengthened your hand upon me.” For since the hand of the Lord is present, which sends forth the darts of words and fixes arrows in the hearers’ souls, rightly he says to the Lord too: “for you have strengthened your hand upon me; and there is no health in my flesh from the face of your anger.” Therefore I ask not to experience the power of your anger itself; for, receiving only its judgment and seeing, as it were, only its face, which is portrayed by the mere words of divine Scripture, I already ache in my whole body and am troubled: there is no health in my flesh and no peace in my bones, only because I seem to have perceived the face of your anger from the holy Scriptures, though not yet to have felt or seen the anger itself. And if such are my sufferings from this alone, I pray for that reason that I may not suffer the anger itself. See, then, whether this is not said plainly in the words: “And you have strengthened your hand upon me, and there is no health in my flesh from the face of your anger.” He could have said, “from your anger,” but in fact he says, “from the face of your anger.” For if he had said, “from your anger,” what he said above, “Do not rebuke me in your anger,” would doubtless have been superfluous. But now he has said: “There is no health in my flesh from the face of your anger,” since the mere face of your anger, that is, the very consideration of your indignation, has so terrified and turned me that there ought to be no further place in me for your anger: “There is no health in my flesh from the face of your anger.” Concerning the one who had sinned at Corinth, the Apostle gave judgment, saying: “To hand over such a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.” Must we think that he wanted the man to perish whom he said was to be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh? On the contrary, it is clear that he handed over his flesh to destruction for the sake of his salvation. Indeed he adds: “I have handed over such a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord,” showing that the spirit could not be saved unless the flesh were handed over to destruction. Hear, then, what the destruction of the flesh is. What has perished is doubtless dead. The flesh lives in the sinner; the flesh is dead in the righteous man. For this reason the righteous say: “Always carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus Christ, so that the life of Jesus Christ may also be manifested in our mortal flesh.” And again we have received a command that says: “Put to death your members which are on earth.” And blessed is he who is dead to sin, according to what is said: “The body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” To be handed over for the destruction of the flesh, then, means this: that the mind of the flesh dies in us and the desire of the flesh no longer lives in it. For through the death of the mind of the flesh, so that we do not think according to the flesh, the spirit is saved. Otherwise, while the mind of the flesh lives in us and the flesh lives, we cannot think of spiritual things. In this way, then, the Apostle handed over for the destruction of the flesh the man who had lived according to the flesh, so that, the mind of the flesh being dead, the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. If you have understood the apostolic saying, let us return to our subject. Would that, whenever I sin in my body and the sin comes from the mind of the flesh, destruction of the flesh were brought upon it, so that the spirit might be saved! For if the flesh is weakened, the weakness, as it advances, doubtless comes to the mortification of the flesh; and then it is rightly said: “There is no health in my flesh.” But if the flesh is not weakened but returns to its health, that is, so as to think the things of the flesh and desire evil, then there is health in the flesh, which is certainly not good for the spirit. This man, then, who is reproved and begs not to be reproved by the Lord’s fury and rebuked by his anger, shows most just reasons for this plea, declaring that he has been pierced by the arrows of God’s words, and so troubled and terrified by the mere face of the Lord’s anger that no health at all, that is, no desire to sin any more, remains in his flesh. I remember once, when discussing the passage of the Gospel in which it is written, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,” that I thought something like this: before our Savior came to the cross, crucified the flesh, and made it die, before it was perfectly put to death, he first said that his flesh was weak; and while the flesh was weak, he said that the spirit was willing; but when he handed it over to the cross and completed it in perfect death, then he testified that the spirit was no longer willing but placed in the hands of the Father. In describing these things in himself he was offering an example for our instruction; for he was weak for our sake and for us. Therefore let us consider ourselves, whether our flesh is weak; if it is not dissolved in delights and luxury, this vicious health is present to it. See whether the flesh is made weak through daily abstinence, whether desires are restrained, lust suppressed, and vices quieted through continence; then, even if it is not yet dead, there is no health in your flesh, but your members are meanwhile put to death on earth. What is it that makes there be no health in the flesh? Our perceiving the face of God’s anger. For when we remember the anger of God and bring his countenance before our eyes, the flesh, troubled and terrified by the very sight of it, which is why it is called the face of anger, is weakened and languishes.

“There is no peace in my bones from the face of my sins.” He too must say this who has sinned and after sinning remembers that he has sinned, as David himself said in the fiftieth psalm: “And my sin is ever before me.” There are some who, when they have sinned, are entirely untroubled; they do not think of their sin, nor does it enter their mind what evil they have done, but they live as if they had committed nothing at all. These, then, cannot say, “My sin is ever before me.” But when after the offense someone is consumed and afflicted for his offense, driven by the stings of conscience, gnawed without ceasing and assailed by hidden reproaches, he rightly says: “There is no peace in my bones from the face of my sins.” There is indeed a kind of face of sins too, and, so to speak, a color and appearance, by which things once committed are remembered and recognized. When we set our sins before the eyes of our heart, and, looking at each one and recognizing it, we blush and repent of what we have done, then, troubled and terrified, we rightly say that we have no peace in our bones from the face of our sins.

Let him who repents for his sins add this too and say: “For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they have weighed upon me.” For those who neither grieve nor are weighed down for their sins, but are carefree and float in delights, cannot say this; they do not perceive that their iniquities grow and rise above the height of their head, while they themselves shrink and are reduced to nothing; and so they cannot say, “For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they have weighed upon me.” How could those say it who not only delight in their offenses but even exult in displaying their evils? For them their sin is surely not a burden but a pleasure. It is not for them, then, to say these things, but for those to whom lust has already become vile and vices horrible, who have at last discovered that all the pleasure of present favors is nothing, because afterward it will be nothing at all. These are the ones who can also say what follows: “My scars have grown foul and rotten.” “Do not,” says the Savior, “cast your pearls before swine,” calling swine there those who delight in the stench of sins, like swine, which seek out every stench as if it were the sweetest fragrance. Consider, then, the sinner who delights in his sins and is glad in his evils: he too wallows in foul dung and has no sense of the stench that comes from the dung of sin, but takes delight in it as in the highest pleasures and the most welcome delights. But if he ever comes to lay aside the sense and smell of swine and to receive the sense of the word of God, so that he can perceive the stench of his sins, at once he turns to repentance, seeks amendment, and can no longer bear his own stench; and, crying out to the heavenly physician and showing the scars of his rotting wounds, he says: “My scars have grown foul and rotten because of my foolishness.” Rightly did he call sin foolishness here, for no wise man ever commits it.