Homilies on Psalms 36–38 (LXX numbering; Psalms 37–39 in English Bibles) 6.5–7.9

“I have been afflicted with miseries and bowed down to the end.” You may sometimes see one who has sinned grieving and saddened with the sorrow that is according to the world; but the sorrow that is according to God works repentance leading to a lasting salvation. This man, however, says: “I have been afflicted with miseries and bowed down to the end.” Therefore perhaps the holy Apostle himself, knowing that he had once sinned, says: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” For he too sinned when he persecuted the Church of God, on account of which he says: “I am not worthy to be called an apostle.” “I have been afflicted, then, with miseries,” he says. He does not say, “I am still afflicted.” For if my sins have already passed, I have been afflicted with miseries; but if they remain and I live in them, I am still afflicted with miseries. “Afflicted, then, with miseries,” he says, “I am bowed down to the end.” If you see the one who has sinned unable to look up to heaven, his body bowed and his face sunk to the earth, the face not only of his body but of his soul as well, his neck twisted round like a hoop, you understand how one is bowed down to the end. And if you want to learn from examples too how each one is bowed down by his sins, so that he cannot look up nor raise his eyes to heaven, look at the tax collector in the Gospel who went into the temple and, standing far off, not daring to lift his eyes to heaven, but beating his breast and confessing his sins, said: “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” To him it surely belongs to say: “I am bowed down to the end, and all day long I went about sorrowful.” In saying this he sets out, as it were, the very disposition and soul of the penitent, who says: “Since I sinned I have never laughed, never been glad, never allowed myself any pleasure, but have always been in grief, always in penitence, always in mourning.” Such is what is enjoined in the Gospel, when the Lord says: “Blessed are those who mourn, and blessed are those who weep.” But on the contrary, if someone is a sinner, liable for many evils, and is struck by no sting of his crimes, but even laughs, is glad and cheerful, and is moved in nothing by the stings of conscience, … the Apostle listed among the first sacrileges, saying: “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Far from it!” When, then, someone has flowed too readily and incontinently into such wantonness, his kidneys or loins are said to be filled with illusions. For illusion belongs to the devil, who mocks man and provokes the incontinence of this kind of sin. It is no wonder, then, if the kidneys of sinful people are filled with illusions, since Job too says of the dragon, by which the devil is meant: “All his strength is in his loins, and his power in the navel of his belly.” The strength of the devil, then, lies chiefly about a man’s loins, from which sexual immorality and adulteries proceed, from which the corruption of boys and all filth are begotten. So too in women the fault lies about the navel of the belly, which Scripture wished to indicate with more decent language; and in both it shows that the strength and power of the dragon, the devil, are found. “And there is no health in my flesh.” In this he shows his progress and indicates that he is near the mortification of the flesh and its destruction. For he repeats this here a second time to declare that a remedy has already been applied to the troubles of temptation. “I have been afflicted and humbled exceedingly.” At the Lord’s festivals we are commanded to eat the bread of affliction, and at those festivals it is said that a man should humble his soul; and when the feast of propitiation is proclaimed, it is said: “Humble your souls.” Since, then, he who repents of his offenses afflicts and humbles himself, like the tax collector of whom we spoke above, therefore, knowing that he repents from the heart and begging not to be reproved in the Lord’s fury nor rebuked by his anger, he says consistently: “I have been afflicted and humbled exceedingly.” For he does not say only, “I have been afflicted,” nor only, “I have been humbled,” but, “I have been exceedingly afflicted and exceedingly humbled.” For example: if someone who is rich by the world’s measure, living in great affluence, suddenly falls and is reduced to the utmost want, driven from his house and his homeland, banished to islands and crags, and leads a squalid and unhappy life in solitude; and if he then remembers his homeland and his parents, his nobility, his household, his property, his abundant riches, and all that life which he had lived in delights, with what laments, with what bellowings will he recall the memory of his former happiness, … what he endures? Look, after the likeness of this example, at one who has spent his life in sobriety, chastity, and righteousness, and had a good conscience about his actions. If he falls from his homeland, that is, from the Church, and is driven to some island and rough crags, which are the seat of sin, and is rolled down from the resources and riches he had in all his good works, and sees himself placed in the utmost poverty (for none of the righteous deeds he has done will be remembered because of his sin): if, then, he sees himself in such a state, with what groans and roars will he cry out, saying: “I roared from the groaning of my heart”? “Lord, all my desire is before you, and my groaning is not hidden from you.” Everything, then, since I sinned, whether I desired worldly desire or committed anything else, I bring before you and set in your sight in my prayers. “And my groaning is not hidden from you,” for you know that I am always groaning. “My heart is troubled, and my strength has forsaken me.” You see, Lord, that my heart is troubled for my sins; and so I pray that I may not be reproved in fury nor rebuked in anger. And if my strength has forsaken me, then I was doubtless strong once, and my way of life was good; but afterward I fell, because my strength forsook me, “and the light of my eyes is not with me.” This seems to be the voice of one who, after enlightenment, after the handing on of doctrine, after the knowledge of truth, has fallen into darkness. Lest we too suffer the same, and so that our light may rather always be in us and we, doing the works of light, may have confidence as sons of light in Christ Jesus, let us always pray and entreat God the Father unceasingly, to whom be glory and power for ages of ages. Amen.

He who confesses to God for his sins and grieves in his mind as he repents, knowing what punishment awaits the sinner after the end of life, says these things, setting out how much one must suffer who turns to repentance and amendment: how his friends and neighbors forsake him and withdraw far off, because he has turned to exomologesis and to grief for his sin. He says, then: “My friends and my neighbors drew near against me and stood.” Picture, if you will, a faithful man, but weak, who could even be overcome by some sin, and who therefore groans for his offenses and seeks in every way the treatment and healing of his wound; though he was overtaken and has fallen, he nevertheless wishes to recover the remedy and his health. Suppose such a man, mindful of his offense, confesses what he has committed and, despite human shame, makes little of those who reproach him as he confesses, who brand him or laugh at him; he understands that through this pardon is given him, and that on the day of resurrection, for the things for which he is now put to shame before men, he will escape shame and reproaches before the angels of God; and so he does not wish to cover and hide his stain, but declares his offense, and does not wish to be a whitewashed tomb, which outwardly appears beautiful to men (that is, so as to seem righteous to those who see him), but inwardly is full of all uncleanness and dead men’s bones. If, then, someone is so faithful that, if he is conscious of anything, he comes forward into the midst and becomes his own accuser, while those who do not fear the future judgment of God, hearing these things, are not weak with the weak, do not burn with those who are scandalized, do not lie down with the fallen, but say, “Keep away from me, do not come near me, for I am clean,” and begin to detest the one they formerly admired, and withdraw from the friendship of one who would not hide his offense: about these the one who makes exomologesis, that is, confession, rightly says: “My friends and my neighbors drew near against me and stood, and my neighbors stood far off.” But one who after an offense desires to be saved ought not to fear these things, nor dread the censure of those who do not think of their own sins and do not remember divine Scripture, which says: “Do not reproach a man who is turning from sin, but remember that we are all at fault.” Let him not think, then, of such people, but think of his own soul, praying God that he may be heard by him and lifted up after his fall, so that he can also say what follows: “For I will declare my iniquity, and I will be anxious for my sin.” Although my friends and my neighbors are against me, and my kinsfolk keep far from me, while I become my own accuser, while I confess my crimes with no one forcing me, while I refuse to imitate those who, even when they are convicted in court, refuted by witnesses, and examined by torturers, still cover up their evils, and with whom shame for the deed counts for more than the pain of the torturer; I who know that nothing escapes God, but that all things are naked and laid bare in his sight, and that whatever I hide or conceal he knows, why should I not rather convict myself and refute myself? Why do I wait for an accuser, when my accuser, my conscience, is with me? So perhaps he too will spare me, if I do not spare myself. “So my neighbors stood far off, and those who sought my soul used violence. And those who sought evil for me spoke vanity.” This he says again of others. For there are some who seek evil for the righteous man, who do not rejoice so much when they hear something good of him as they exult when they hear something evil, and who as it were mock him when they see the righteous man in some misfortune. These are the ones who, when they see the righteous man confessing his sins, spew out a kind of harmful poison; and therefore he says: “And those who sought my soul used violence, and those who sought evil for me spoke vanities.” And truly it is most plainly seen that not only those who seek evil for the righteous, but everyone who tries to inflict evil on anyone, speaks vanity; for one who seeks to do evil does not speak the things that are according to God. Hence we should rather seek what is good. Would that we could render good for evil even to those who hate us, and either persuade our enemies of what is good, or at least desire to call their fierce minds back to concord and peace, so that through this we may become sons of the Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the bad, and sends rain on …

“Those, then, who sought evil for me spoke vanities, and plotted deceit all day long.” See the one who lies in wait for the righteous man. For I now call righteous the one who first of all becomes his own accuser, as the word of Scripture indicates. For as Scripture calls him wise who, when he is reproved, does not hate the one who reproves him but loves him besides, so too he is called righteous who after an offense does not remain in his offenses, nor waits for the devil to become his accuser and bring his sins into the open, but convicts and refutes himself, and through his confession is freed from death. “For those who sought evil for me spoke vanity, and plotted deceit all day long. But I, like a deaf man, did not hear.” Nothing more glorious, nothing more excellent than this virtue can be found: that each one, hearing his slanderers and detractors speak ill of him, carp, disparage, and accuse, should turn away his ear as if he did not hear, and turn aside his eye as if he did not see, lest he be exasperated by anger and leap to vengeance, lest he seek eye for eye, or lie for lie, or charge for charge. Such, then, is the righteous man; for, as I said, I now call righteous the one who through the confession of his sins has cast off his passions.

“But I, like a deaf man, did not hear, and was like a mute who does not open his mouth. And I became like a man who does not hear.” When I was cursed, when I was accused, when people brought every reproach against me, I was like a deaf man and did not hear, and like a mute I did not open my mouth; I returned no curses for curses. But what use is it for us to expound these things? What use is it to open them up from the holy Scriptures, if we do not remember them at the very time the situation calls for them: when we are cursed by brothers, when they disparage us, when we are even attacked to our face with reproaches and insults, when everything is done to rouse our fury and move our mind to anger? Then we must remember these things; then let us recall that it is written: “I became like a man who does not hear and has no rebuke in his mouth.” Sometimes someone speaks against me, and perhaps he lies; sometimes what he says is even true; yet I could say much worse things about him, and say them truly. And if I am a sinner and remember none of what we have now said, I shall imitate his malice, and by returning curses for curses I shall become like him; but I do not become like God. But if I am righteous, like a deaf man I do not hear, and like a mute who has no rebuke in his mouth I answer nothing, and though I have things for which to reprove him, I do not reprove him. For I understand that one who reproves rightly must reprove without passion, so as to seek the salvation of the one reproved, not vengeance. When, then, someone disparages me or speaks ill of me … For unless I had hoped in you and believed you when you say, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,” I would certainly have avenged myself; but as it is, I remember that precept by which we are commanded not to avenge ourselves but to give place to wrath. You will find these things in the divine Scriptures, and you read them there. “And I became like a man who does not hear and has no rebukes in his mouth. For in you, Lord, I have hoped; you will hear me, O Lord my God.” I, like a deaf man, did not hear those who accused me, but you hear what they say. If we were such as the divine word wishes us to be, we would surely ask God, like Elijah, to give rain, and it would rain; like Samuel, we would ask him in the days of harvest to grant abundant showers from heaven, and we would be heard. But as it is, how will God hear us, when we do not hear him? How will he do what we wish, when we do not do what he wishes? God wants us to be such that we speak with God as gods. He wants us to be sons of God, so that we become partakers and co-heirs of the Son of God, and say as he himself said: “Father, I know that you always hear me.” We know that God said to us: “I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.’” But because of our deserts we expect rather what we are worthy of, what follows: “But you will die like men, and fall like one of the princes.”

“For I said, ‘Lest perhaps my enemies insult me.’” When I was accused and did not repay my accusers in kind, I said this: If I repay evil to those who repay me, I shall certainly be forsaken by God, and, forsaken, I must fall. And when I have fallen, my enemies will insult me. But if I do not render evil for evil, but leave judgment to God, I shall not fall, since he helps me; I shall stand firm, and my enemies will not insult me. I also said this: “While my feet were shaken, they spoke great things against me.” As long as I stand fearless and immovable, my enemies will not speak great things against me, for they have nothing to say. But as soon as I tremble (I will not say fall), at once they will begin to reproach me and say: “Do you see this man? See what he too has done! He teaches one thing and does another; he does the opposite of what he teaches.” These people, then, must say something of this kind: “While my feet were shaken, they spoke great things against me.” But another, better than this one, as far as concerns the persons who are introduced by the prophets or compared with one another, says: “But my feet were almost moved.” This one’s feet were moved; but mine were almost moved. And perhaps there is someone else whose feet were not moved even a little, nor almost: his, I think, who says, “He set my feet upon a rock.” He testifies nothing at all about his feet being moved, but only about their stability. Blessed, then, are we if no moving at all is charged against our feet, but they stand upon the rock, that is, upon the Lord Jesus Christ himself. But if we cannot be so stable, let at least this second and lower step receive us, that our steps may be only almost moved.

“For I am ready for the scourges.” This too is the voice of a good and excellent sinner, so to speak, who has indeed sinned, but looks for the scourges due to his offenses, by which he wishes to be corrected in the present, lest he be punished and perish in the future. Set before your eyes a sinner who says to the Lord: “Since I have sinned, I am ready for the scourges now; do not reserve me for the eternal fire, do not reserve me for the outer darkness. While I am in this life, repay me for my sins, since you scourge every son whom you receive. I pray you, scourge me too, and do not reserve me with those who are not scourged, who are not in the troubles of men and are not scourged with men,” that is, who are utterly forsaken by you, whose amendment and correction you do not seek. Knowing, then, the difference between the sinner who is scourged by him who scourges every son whom he receives and the one who is not deemed worthy of scourges, he says to the Lord: “I am ready for the scourges”; that is, if you wish to bring sicknesses upon me, to send illnesses, I will bear them patiently. I know that I deserve to have my sins loosed not only through illnesses; I desire to be purged through every affliction, provided only that I am not reserved for eternal punishments and torments. If it pleases you to inflict losses, I endure them; if it pleases you that all my possessions perish, let them perish, provided only that my soul does not perish before you. If you wish to purge me through the death of those dear to me and of my kinsfolk, let them die too, so that they also … sons, while they are still children and in their tender years and not yet stained with the graver filth of sins. I am ready, then, to be corrected and beaten with every scourge, and I refuse none of them, provided only that I escape the torments of eternal fire. “For I am ready for the scourges, and my sorrow is ever before me.” I keep my sorrow before my eyes, so that I may make up for the future sorrows of punishment with present sorrows.

“For I declare my iniquity.” We have often spoken of the declaration of iniquity, that is, the confession of sin. See, then, what divine Scripture teaches us: that sin must not be concealed within. For perhaps, as those who have undigested food shut up inside them, or an abundance of humor or phlegm lying heavily and painfully on the stomach, are relieved if they vomit, so also those who have sinned, if they hide and keep the sin within themselves, are oppressed inwardly and almost choked by the phlegm or humor of sin. But if one becomes his own accuser, then, while he accuses himself and confesses, he at the same time vomits out the offense and disperses every cause of the disease. Only look around very carefully to whom you ought to confess your sin. Test first the physician to whom you should set out the cause of your illness, one who knows how to be weak with the weak and to weep with those who weep, who knows the discipline of grieving and suffering with others; so that then, if he says anything (he who has first shown himself both a skilled and a merciful physician), if he gives any counsel, you may do it and follow it. If he understands and foresees that your illness is such that it ought to be set out and cured in the assembly of the whole Church, by which perhaps the others too can be edified and you yourself more easily healed, this must be arranged with much deliberation and on the well-tried counsel of that physician. “For I will declare my iniquity, and I will be anxious for my sin.” Whoever of you is conscious of some sin, and is as carefree as if he had done nothing wrong, let him be moved by this saying: “I will be anxious for my sin.” It is good that one who sins should not be carefree, nor feel no anxiety as though he had committed no offense, nor fail to think how he can blot out his sin. If some spot or wound appears on your body, or it swells from some blow, you are anxious and inquire what treatment should be applied and how the body’s former health may be restored. If some bitter humor has spread around your eyes, you are anxious and inquire how to help and forestall blindness. When your soul is sick and oppressed by the illnesses of sins, are you carefree? Do you despise Gehenna, and scorn and laugh at the torments of eternal fire? Do you make little of the judgment of God, and despise the Church that admonishes you? Do you not fear to receive the body of Christ as you approach the Eucharist, as if you were clean and pure, as if there were nothing unworthy in you, and do you think that in all this you will escape the judgment of God? Do you not remember what is written: “For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and many sleep”? Why are many weak? Because they do not judge themselves nor examine themselves, nor understand what it is to communicate with the Church, or what it is to approach such great and excellent sacraments. They suffer what the feverish usually suffer when they presume to take the food of the healthy, bringing destruction on themselves. So much on the words: “I will be anxious for my sin.”

It follows: “But my enemies live, and have been made strong over me.” To all of this the reply must ring out: “But I will be anxious for my sin.” And although I see it (for we sinners, if we see our enemies living more prosperously, are often saddened and pour out complaints against divine providence), yet one who wishes to be saved should always answer himself in all these things: Even if my enemies live and have been made strong over me, I will still be anxious for my sin. And although I see that I am a sinner, yet considering also the sins of others, which are perhaps graver, and seeing too that they are not anxious for their sins, comparing myself with those who think nothing at all of their gravest offenses, and being anxious for my sin, I have hope in you.

“And those who hate me wrongfully have been multiplied.” It is impossible for one placed in this life not to be hated. Christ Jesus was hated. And why do I say that it is impossible for one placed in this life not to be hated? God himself, who did not come into this life, is hated by some. For if he were not hated, the prophet would never say: “Did I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and pine away over your enemies? I hated them with a perfect hatred.” The Marcionites, Basilides, and Valentinus hate God, and they hate his words. Since, then, God is hated, and Christ is made anathema by the Jews to this very day, and the Holy Spirit who spoke in the prophets is hated by the heretics, do you want not to be hated but to be loved and blessed by all? Beware lest that sentence find you which says: “Woe to you when all people bless you.” Let us rather take care only of this, that we too may say: “For those who hate me wrongfully have been multiplied.” I wish, when I am hated, that my conscience may know that I suffer hatred unjustly. The prophets too were hated, but unjustly; Christ was hated, but without cause. But if I am hated for my sin, they cannot say, “Those who hate me wrongfully have been multiplied”; for I am justly hated if I have become loathed for my dishonorable and shameful acts. Such people cannot say, “They hated me without cause.” And would that we too could say with such confidence: “Those who hate me wrongfully have been multiplied.”

“Those who repay me evil for good.” I did them good, but they, forgetting my kindnesses, repaid evil for good, and accused me because I followed righteousness. My enemies accuse and reproach me for anything I may once have committed, and they do not blush at my now following righteousness, nor do they forgive past evils in view of present good. But you, Lord, since I followed righteousness, “do not forsake me, O Lord my God.” And this is the voice of one who confesses and asks for mercy: “Do not forsake me, O Lord my God; do not depart from me.” In another psalm he says: “Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.” In this one he says to God himself: “Do not depart from me.” This shows that God departs from some because of their deserts, and remains with others because of theirs. Unhappy is the man from whom God has departed; but blessed is he with whom God remains. “Attend to my help, O Lord, God of my salvation.” Let us too, then, pray and say: “Attend to my help,” for great is the fight and mighty are the adversaries. The foe is hostile; the invisible enemy attacks us through these visible ones. Attend, then, to our help, and help us through your holy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom you have redeemed us all, through whom be glory and power to you for ages of ages. Amen.