Works (CSEL) 1

Perhaps the title of the psalm, which you have heard read, has given offense to many: namely that 'Nathan the prophet came to him, when he had gone in to Bathsheba.' At the same time, the reading from the Gospel which has just been gone through could also raise no small scruple in the unlearned, in which you have observed an adulteress brought to Christ and the same woman dismissed without condemnation. For surely, if anyone receives these things with idle ears, he runs into an incentive to error, when he reads of the adultery of a holy man and the absolution of an adulteress, well-nigh falling by both a human and a divine example: that a man should have thought adultery was to be committed, and that God should have judged adultery was not to be condemned. Slippery, therefore, is the road to a fall, whether of pardon or of concupiscence.

There is added this further point, that he seems to be kindling the very torches of youthful wantonness, in that he did not blush at his own adultery, did not conceal it, but as it were published it abroad by the proclamation of a divine song. What then? Was holy David so shameless and so improvident that he himself should sing of his own disgrace, especially when in another psalm too, which has been gone through today, he said: 'How long, O sinners, how long shall sinners glory?' Does he forbid others to glory in their sin, and does he himself even glory in a consecrated song? How then do we distinguish these things? Yet grant that David erred wantonly: did Christ also err, so that we should suppose He did not have right judgment? Rightly therefore did David prophesy today as it were to those very men, saying:

'Understand, you senseless ones, and you fools, at length be wise.' For how could Christ have erred? It is not lawful that this should enter into our minds. 'He who planted the ear, does He not hear? Or He who formed the eye, does He not consider? He who rebukes the nations, shall He not reprove—He who teaches man knowledge?' Was Christ, then, incapable of inquiring into a fault and of hearing a just accusation? Could Christ have approved wantonness? Did Christ, who rebukes the nations, judge that an adulteress was not to be reproved? Did Christ, who knows the inner things of each one's heart, who teaches the knowledge of the law, either allow Himself to be deceived by an error or to judge contrary to the tenor of the law? And how did He Himself say: 'I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it'? Could Christ, who condemns hidden things, have connived at things made public?

Can Christ, who made the seasons, be ignorant of the seasons? Can he who knows the empty thoughts of men not also know their guilty ones? And so let this suffice as an answer to those who, though they cannot deny the Creator, yet deny the power of the Creator; who, though they confess his wisdom, assert his folly by charging him with ignorance of things to come. On this I could discourse at greater length, but another subject seems to be set before us. And although a series of varied readings has been run through, they nonetheless serve toward the same affirmation, and especially the title of the psalm and the Gospel reading. But although one affirmation suits them all, yet according to the order of the readings let there be an order of treatment, and therefore it seems that we must first treat of the title of the psalm.

A story has been set before us which contains both adultery and murder. For thus we find it written in the Book of Kingdoms: that King David, while walking about in his house, saw Uriah's wife washing herself, loved her at once, and ordered her to be summoned. Then he commanded her innocent husband—as the Scripture relates—to be exposed to the fiercest warriors, that he might be overwhelmed by the force of the enemy. These things were done and are not denied. How then shall they be defended? The Gospel reading admonishes us well: that even when sin is manifest, the judgment of the judge ought nevertheless to be sober, and each one ought to be mindful of his own condition and merit. For often, even in judging, the sin of the judgment is greater than the sin of the very thing about which judgment has been passed.

For if it has been prescribed by certain wise men of the world that in judging one should take care lest the punishment be greater than the fault, and if this is observed, how much more does it seem that this should be observed: that whoever is about to judge another should first judge himself, and not condemn lesser errors in another while he himself has committed graver ones. Who then are you who judge David, a holy man? I speak to the Gentile, I speak to the Jew, I speak to the Christian. And therefore it seems to me that this treatise must be divided into three parts: one against the Gentiles, another against the Jews, the third among Christians. First, then, my discourse is against the Gentiles, who for the most part are accustomed to bring this objection:

Behold how the Christians pursue innocence, prize faith, venerate religion, and teach chastity—yet their chief men are reported to have committed both murders and adulteries! David himself, of whose lineage, as you say, Christ chose to be born—he himself sang aloud both of his murders and his adulteries. What kind of disciples can they be whose masters are such?" What then? Do we deny the deed or repudiate the master? Neither of these. But let him who casts up the particular instance consider what is common to our nature. The particular instance of the deed is the common quality of nature. It is therefore no wonder if within what is general there is a particular case. For I acknowledge that David was a man, and it is no wonder; I acknowledge the common lot, that man sins.

For the weakness of the human condition is nothing new, and it seems more a matter of wonder if a man is free from sin than if sin befalls him. The holy David therefore committed sin—I will hold you with no ambiguity—he committed adultery, he contrived murder, both contrived it and carried it out. He sinned as kings are wont to do, but he did penance and wept, as kings are not wont to do. He begged pardon, not presuming upon his power, but conscious of his weakness; prostrate upon the ground he covered himself with sackcloth, forgetful of his sovereignty and mindful of his guilt. What man of this sort can you find me, who, set in power, does not rather cherish his crimes, proclaim his fault as a virtue, and defend his sins—who supposes that what is not seemly for him is nevertheless permitted to him?

Who binds himself by his own laws, and recognizes that what is not permitted through justice is not permitted through power either? For power does not loose justice, but justice looses power. The king is loosed from the laws not by the laws, but he looses the laws by his own example. Or can it be that one who judges concerning others should himself be free from his own judgment, and take upon himself that for which he binds others? Good therefore is David, and far more to be admired in that he conquered power than in that he conquered love. For chastity is sometimes yielded to the body, often through error; but power is here subjected to God, and he who restrains himself in love does so more easily than he who moderates himself in power. Do you then not pardon what is the lesser, in which you marvel at the greater?

In all men the nature inclined to sinning is slippery and prone to fall; slippery too, even in good characters, is the license of power and the opportunity that offers itself. For the wrath of a king does not differ from the wrath of a lion; but he who goads it on and mingles himself with it sins against his own soul. Let each one therefore beware lest he goad power, lest the soul, ensnared in the body's nets, be unable to strip off its vice. It is no wonder, then, if even David slipped under the guise of power, but far more to be admired that he was called back by the contemplation of faith. You see therefore that this worldly power often profits nothing and for the most part does harm; for often the outcome of the fault lies in the authority of power.

Do not therefore, whoever you are who are king, presume upon your might and resources; for the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. Do not flatter yourself over the subjection of peoples, for a king shall not be saved by the multitude of his strength, neither shall a giant be saved by the greatness of his strength. For not in the lofty pinnacles of tents nor in the costly summit of roofs, but upon those who fear him is the Lord well pleased, and upon those who hope in his mercy. We see, then, that power is slippery toward vices; yet I would not say it is always bent that way, since we read that even David, exalted in royal power, increased the worship of God, and that Solomon consecrated a temple to the Lord.

Now let us establish what we touched upon—that the faculty of commanding is an incitement to sinning—and let us pursue it according to the sequence of the history. David would not have committed adultery against the right of another's bed and the covenant of a plighted marriage, had he not seen a woman naked and bathing from within his own house. And therefore it is well written: Fall not upon the beauty of a woman, and lust not after a woman; and elsewhere: From the eyes of every irreverent woman keep watch. Presume nothing upon your own continence and virtue. For the fornication of a woman shall be known in the lifting up of her eyes and in her eyelids; and therefore flee the first occasion of sin, for no one is long strong; and it is said not only to the weak, but to every man:

Let not the desire of beauty conquer you—if you do not wish to be conquered, do not engage with sins, lest vices be crowned at your expense—neither be captured by the eyes nor swept away by the eyelids. The woman seems to you cheap as to price, but strong as to mischief, for a woman captures the precious souls of men. It is therefore difficult for anyone ensnared by the allurements of lust to escape unscathed. Nor is this judged difficult by my opinion alone, but in the Proverbs of holy Solomon it is judged impossible; for he, taught by his own example, says: Can a man bind fire in his bosom, and not burn his garments? Or can a man walk upon coals of fire, and not burn his feet?

Beware then, you also, lest within the bosom of your mind you kindle the fire of lust and love, lest your bodily garment be consumed by that conflagration of the soul, and the perpetuity of the resurrection, or at least the very trace of your mind, be burned, if you suppose you must walk over the torches of lusts; for he who is burned in heart is consumed in body. By all means, therefore, the encounter of female wantonness must be avoided. And so, He says, acquire prudence as your disciple, that she may guard you from the alien wife and the harlot, lest she hold you bound in the snares of her lips and entangle you in the cords of error. And so the prophet has taught you whence you must beware the harlot, namely, that you beware her entrance through a window.

For she enters from the window of her own house; her window is the eye, and therefore from the eyes of every irreverent woman keep watch, lest through the window love enter and lust penetrate. For the harlot allures her lover by sight, and unless you restrain the wanton gaze of mind and spirit, death enters through the window. The wantonness of the harlot is not idle, nor her lasciviousness at leisure, which makes the hearts of young men take wing, so that they cannot keep the constancy of their own mind and are snatched here and there by burning passion. Beware then such a woman, who does not rest with her feet, who wanders abroad, who lies in wait at the corners. She binds with her eyes, allures with her words, weaves her couch with cords, and with carpets spread from Egypt.

For she takes up her adornment not from divine knowledge but from worldly enticement—she who fittingly says that her husband is absent, since no adulteress can have Christ present. You see therefore by how many nets the hearts even of the saints are captured, and so do not wonder if even holy David was captured, a great man indeed, who conquered by faith the foreigner monstrous in body and bristling also with the weapons of war. But would that he had conquered himself! Would that, as he laid that adversary low, so he had been able to lay low and overcome his inward adversary! Heavier is the battle of him who fights within than of him who fights without. But why do I speak of David alone?

Let us summon also others to a treatment of this kind, lest we suppose the frailty to have been David's—that is, of one man only—rather than that of the bodily condition. Samson, mighty and strong, throttled a lion, but he could not throttle his own love. He loosed the bonds of his enemies, but he did not loose the knots of his own desires. He set fire to the harvests of strangers, and himself, kindled by the little fire of one woman, lost the harvest of his own virtue. Solomon built a temple to God: but would that he himself had kept the temple of his own body! Yet let our discourse return to him from whom it departed.

David triumphed over ten thousands, but he erred over twenty thousands and more; and because he erred, he recognized himself to be a man, confessed his fault, and entreating pardon said to the Lord: O Lord, rebuke me not in your wrath, nor chastise me in your fury. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak. If David is weak, are you strong? If Solomon fell, are you immovable? If Paul is the chief of sinners, can you be the chief of the saints? Therefore, if these men erred, they erred as men, but acknowledged their sin as the righteous do. If the righteous received the sentence of a harsher penalty, how do you set before yourself the hope of impunity, when the Scripture says: If the righteous man is scarcely saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?

You perceive then, my children, how often even a good resolve is undermined by the occasion of sinning, and therefore you ought first to flee and avoid the very occasions. You do not wish to be captured by love: do not gaze upon the beauty of a woman, for when your eyes have seen another's, then your mouth will speak perverse things, and you will lie down as in the heart of the sea, and as a helmsman in a great storm. For the multitudes of desires raise a great tempest, which, as in some strait of the body, throw the voyager into confusion on this side and that, so that the mind cannot be master of itself, ignorant of day and night through the darkness of love. By the eyes, then, lust is roused, but by drunkenness it is kindled; and every drunkard and fornicator shall become poor. Nor flatter yourself upon your capacity for drinking.

Noah was made drunk, and he who was not drowned by the flood was drowned by wine. But he knew not the nature of wine, for he had not drunk before; you have learned in his case what you ought to beware. Lot was deceived through sleep, and you, if you do not wish to be deceived, shake off the sleep of your mind, lest a son or daughter mock you when drunk and sleeping. There it is not piety but drunkenness that is laughed at; nor is the father there, but a sleeping man who is circumvented. You do not wish to be burned: do not approach the fire. You do not wish to be cast headlong: flee tottering places, beware of precipices, shun what is ready to fall. You see therefore in those who deserved to be righteous that it was not another nature, but another discipline.

For after the fall of the first man and the just sentence, when in the one appetite of the flesh he was condemned, the condition contracted a flaw, guilt infected nature; but the flaw of nature itself was tempered by faith, and the intention of devotion soothed the offense. Turn therefore to God, you nations, and know that the Lord himself is God. He made us, and not we ourselves. Know that we are flesh and dust. Let us therefore forsake the things we have done, and venerate our own Author, who gave us life, who forgave our sins, who alone can say: I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, and will remember them no more. Great indeed and merciful is God, who confers a benefit and does not reproach with the gift of his benefit.

Do you marvel that he made David a king and victor over many nations? Thus is he accustomed to exalt his little servants. He is not grudging of gifts, nor sparing of benefit, nor narrow in grace, nor stingy, but rich in liberality; those whom he has redeemed from sin he increases in reward. These things are against the Gentiles. But since we promised a threefold division of this treatise—one against the Gentiles, another against the Jews, the third among the Church—now it seems we must treat against the Jews. Let us therefore review what is set before us. The title, it says, is: Of the understanding of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, when he had gone in to Bathsheba. Surely this history presents David as both an adulterer and a murderer—and this man, you Jews, say is the Son of God!

But God is the God of virtues, not of crimes, and concerning this God the Father says: His throne shall be as the days of heaven. He who has wrought deceit has not conquered sins; and how is it written: No one is without sin save God alone? If therefore he who is the Son of God cannot fail to be God, surely the Son of God is the arbiter of justice, not subject to guilt. By what notion, then, do you either judge David to be the Son of God, or suppose Solomon to be so? Is it because it is written: God, give your judgment to the king, and your justice to the king's son; and because the title of the psalm says that the seventy-first psalm was composed concerning Solomon? But mark which Solomon it speaks of. For Solomon means "peaceable"—this is what the interpretation gives.

The psalm is spoken concerning him whom we truly know to be a lover of peace. But how was Solomon peaceable? The blood of Joab does not show this, whom he ordered to be slain between the altars of the temple; nor the punishment of Adonijah, whom he struck down as guilty of aspiring to royal kinship, not called back from his indignation even by his mother's entreaty. And how do you reckon that to be fitting for Solomon, David's son, which is written: that he shall endure with the sun, and before the moon, throughout all generations—when that man, having received but the loan of a brief life, passed his span of living within narrow bounds? And how is it said of him:

He shall have dominion from sea to sea—when that man, confined within Syria, that is, having the bounds of his empire circumscribed within the province of a single region, whereas Christ alone propagated his empire even to the ends of the whole earth? For he alone is the one of whom the sequence of the psalm well prophesied, that the kings of the Arabs and of Sheba shall bring gifts, and all the kings of the earth shall adore him, all nations shall serve him. For this is the one whom we know to rule over all peoples and nations with an uncircumscribed empire, with boundless power. Solomon then is not the Son of God. But on what ground did you suppose him to be the Son of God? Is it because he was wise? But this man asked for wisdom, that he might receive what he did not have.

Christ himself is wisdom, having by nature universally that which Solomon received in human affairs through grace. Moreover, what is received in time is possessed only for a time. For Solomon neither had wisdom at the beginning of his life nor possessed it at the end. For he did not believe that he had what he asked for, and afterward, turned away from the worship of God, he fell not as one wise but as one foolish, so that he gave offense. And he offended, so that he lost even what he had merited. Why then did you believe him to be the Son of God? Is it because he built a temple to God? But from this you ought rather to have believed that he was not Lord and God, because it is written: Unless the Lord build the house for himself, in vain have they labored who build it.

In vain did he labor who built that temple which the fire set beneath it burned up. Or is it because it was said to David his father: You shall not build me a house, but when you sleep, I will raise up your seed after you? But there too a temple not corporeal, not material, is promised; for God does not dwell in things made with hands, but the temple is the holy Church, which is surely founded not by human but by heavenly power. For if we admire the works of a virtue more excellent indeed, yet still human, we find many men of this sort whom we can compare with Solomon. And therefore, where there is equality of work, there is no excellence of power. Nor can we call many sons of God, since we have read of one Son of God.

But injury must not be done to the Son of God on account of the benefits which he conferred upon our fathers. For there were many illustrious men, yet it was through one Joshua son of Nun that, as it says, the sun stood still over Gibeon. You see him to have advanced beyond David's power; for David ruled over earthly things, not over the stars. You see too that the sun is a minister, not a lord, since it obeyed even a human voice. Yet it stood still, because in Joshua it recognized both the type of the One to come and the name. For Joshua son of Nun commanded the heavenly luminaries not by his own power, but by the mystery of Christ; for it was signified that the Son of God would come into this world, who by divine power would defer the setting of the world's light then declining and already sinking into darkness, would restore the light, and bring back brightness.

Enoch too was caught up to heaven; but yet he was caught up, while this One returned. He was caught up, lest malice should change his heart; this One abolished the very malice of this world. Elijah ascended to heaven by chariot and horses, but Christ descended from heaven neither by chariot nor horses; as the former ascended, because he could not otherwise, so this One returned by his own power. Elisha bade the leper wash in the Jordan, that he might be cleansed from all contagion; this One washed the whole world in the Jordan. Moses himself, to whom it was entrusted that the people of the Jews should cross over, divided the water. And he indeed divided the elements, because he did not divide the power of the Trinity; he parted the masses of the waters, because he did not separate the Father from the Son.

You see how great men, and the testimonies of what works, they left behind. How then, when you recognize men equal in virtue to King David or to Solomon, do you judge them unequal in condition—so as to suppose that Solomon, David's son, sits at the right hand of God—especially when David himself plainly expressed of whom it had been said? For he would not say of his own son: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand. For how would he name his own son his Lord? The Law forbids, religion resists, faith shudders, that you should place a mortal man at the right hand of God Almighty.

It is another who sits at the right hand—he who took up a body, not he who began from a body; he who was begotten before the morning star, that is, before the brightness of all lights, since he himself created the brightnesses of the various lights; for Solomon at any rate is after the morning star. Solomon was not a priest; and therefore it could not be said to him by God Almighty: From the womb before the morning star I begot you; it could not be said to him: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek—especially since at that time in which Solomon lived, the priests were after the order of Aaron, not after Melchizedek. For up to that time the priests still offered the blood of goats and bulls for the sins and errors of the people;

but after he came who offered himself for the salvation of the world, that the blood of Christ might wash clean those whom the blood of bulls could not wash, the priests began to offer their very selves as victims. And so by a single question our Lord Jesus Christ stopped the mouths of all heretics and shut up their sacrileges. For not only the Jews, but also the Photinians and Arians and Sabellians did he refute by this question. And therefore, since we now see that the Jews have failed and that their execrable faithlessness has been diminished, we must now touch upon something in the treatment of this question against the Arians—who do not differ much from the Jews—and the Photinians and Sabellians.

Let Photinus therefore be silent, who says that Christ is the son of David, not of God, and let him be silenced, condemned by a heavenly voice. For how does he say that Christ is the son of David, when David himself said in the Book of Psalms: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool under your feet? If David, he says, calls him Lord, how is he his son? Therefore Christ is not the son of David, but the Son of God. Let the Sabellian also be silent: when he reads that the Lord said to the Lord, let him understand that the one who speaks and the one to whom he speaks are not one and the same—for the Father does not say to himself: Sit at my right hand, nor did he say to himself:

I will make your enemies—and let all at length understand that it is the Son who sits at the right hand, and let them preserve this distinction between Father and Son, so that there is a distinction of Father and Son in that the Father is one and the Son another; but because they sit on one throne, possess one majesty, and sit not by reason of a difference of dignity nor for an order of power, but for the bond of love, let them understand the power of Father and Son to be one. Herein let Arius also fall silent, who urges the contrary tracks of Sabellius's error. Let him hear the Lord speaking to the Lord, let him hear the Son sitting at the Father's right hand, and let him cease to raise a question against the divinity from the speech and order of men. Nor let him argue here that the Father says "Sit";

for we read elsewhere also that the Son sits even without any word of the Father, as it is written: And he sits at the right hand of God; and elsewhere: Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God. For it is he to whom it is said "Sit" who is named the Son of Man. He hears as man, he sits as the Son of God. What can be called more excellent than this power, which placed even the flesh of man at the right hand of God, and, after the Word was nevertheless made flesh, joined that infirm thing of the human condition to the eternal divinity? But what is this? After Photinus has fallen mute, Arius has fallen silent, Sabellius has lost his voice, I behold yet another heresy raising diverse mouths against the Church.

For behold, Manichaeus and Valentinian and every derivation of the Manichaeans rely on that very weapon by which the others were slain: with a testimony of faith they contrive a prejudgment against faith. For the detestable heresy says: "Behold, Christ denied that he was the son of David, and therefore," it says, "it must be believed that he did not take up flesh." To these the Scripture replies most plainly at the very beginning of the Gospel and says: The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David. Why then is he elsewhere called the son of David, and elsewhere denied to be the son of David, except that you may understand that it is one thing to be the Son according to the divine substance, another according to the assumption of flesh? For according to the divine substance he is the Son of God, according to the flesh the son of David.

And so where the generation of the Savior according to the flesh is described, he is named the son of David; but where the fullness of confession is required, when the generation of the Savior is designated, the Son of God does not will to be named the son of David; for the designation of his majesty interprets his nature. But now that the perverse interpretations have been refuted, the discourse must be turned to the Church. Indeed, that we so often repeat the title of the fiftieth psalm is an example not of presumption but of weakness. For in a single day, whether through the narrowness of my talent or the frailty of my voice, I cannot fill out the whole sequence of the treatise.

And therefore, since on the previous day our discourse was directed against the Jews—whom indeed the proofs of faith brought to this point, that Christ should be set upon a heavenly throne, which surely cannot befit a man—for it is not credible that any other than the Son of God sits at the right hand of God—surely no other than the Son of God is to be reckoned to sit at the right hand of the Father, all ambiguities removed. Again, since the Scripture has:

Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne—surely the same Son of God must be believed to have taken up flesh from Mary, in whom is the fruit of the prophetic womb, so that you may truly recognize the succession of his origin, and may not doubt that that Son of God, made afterward the son of man through the assumption of flesh, sits upon the heavenly throne. For Christ had no royal throne of this kind in this world, such that you should suppose another throne was promised to the seed of David—especially since the Lord himself said: My kingdom is not of this world. And so, hemmed in on every side, they divert thither the assaults of their faithlessness, asserting that it is incredible that God took up flesh; yet by what reasoning he could not have taken it up they cannot explain.

For I ask whether they reckon that flesh could not be taken up by God on grounds of impossibility or of injury. If of impossibility, then is anything impossible to God? For there is nothing that he willed to do and was unable to do. It remains, then, that he must be shown either to have willed or to have been unwilling. But what greater indication of will is there than what he himself said: I appeared openly to those who sought me not; I stretched out my hands to a people unbelieving and contradicting? If therefore he both willed and was able, do we suppose that he was unwilling on grounds of injury? And what injury does his divinity feel? For it is free from insult and is not subject to our passions; for the flesh could bring neither loss nor increase to the divinity.

Yet those who bring this objection—that the Son of God could not take up flesh—if they are Gentiles, how is it that they testify that their own gods, since they cannot deny they were men, were seen in human form? Or could their king, whom they set above all their gods, take on portentous shapes for the sake of love, while Christ could not take up the flesh of man, whom he made in his own image, and assume that most excellent work of his for the salvation of the world? And does it seem more becoming to them that the form of flesh was assumed for the sake of adultery of another's bed than for the redemption of all? But if a Jew brings this objection, how does he read:

Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb and shall bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted "God with us"? How does he read: Behold, it is I who was speaking, I am present? And how does he assert that he has read: Behold, like a panther and like a bear at a loss I will meet them? Could then the Son of God not take up flesh for the redemption of all, when they themselves cannot deny that, for the punishment of our sins, God put on a certain disposition of beastly cruelty—so that he who is by nature gracious and merciful, yet moved by the atrocity of our crimes, takes upon himself toward us a certain savagery of wild beasts?

But now, since I think enough has been answered to such great matters of the Jews both on the previous day and today, to you, most beloved brethren, the account of the prophetic deed must be rendered. For indeed, when this title of the psalm was first read—that Nathan came to David, when he had gone in to Bathsheba—we said that very many are offended by the course of this history, and therefore we undertook a threefold treatment of it; and I thought the division of the treatment should be made thus: that among the Gentiles the lapse of the human condition should not be denied, but the correction of the error should be established; among the Jews, however, that we should teach the holy David to have lapsed for this reason, lest the faithlessness of the Jews should halt further and should cease to believe him to be the Son of God whom they saw to have been subject, by the common condition, to sin; while Christians might be able to perceive the mysteries of the rising Church.

A threefold division therefore is made: the one according to nature, the second according to faith, the third according to grace. Weakness does not exclude from pardon, and faith excuses from guilt; while the sacraments long ago promised reconcile us also to the grace once pledged. David may have sinned, lest the whole world should go astray; he may have sinned for himself, that he might amend us all; lastly he may have sinned against his own body — for he who commits fornication sins against his own body — he may have sinned against his own body that he might be redeemed in the body of Christ. Behold, the man we thought could scarcely be defended we now see to be worthy of proclamation. For who is there who would not wish that the divine gifts within him be proclaimed rather than human works? For we judge, according to the Apostle, that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law.

Let David then be justified by faith, who through the law acknowledged his sin, yet by faith believed in the pardon of sin; let David be justified, because in his sin the mysteries of the Church that was to arise shone forth. Someone will say: for what reason did the chosen author of the Lord's lineage commit both adultery and murder? But I say something else: such a one had to be chosen to be the author of the Lord's body. For what is the Incarnation but the remission of sins? And therefore he could not be wholly without sin, that he might set forth the divine grace both by example and by proclamation. In short, by that same design Bathsheba and Tamar are reckoned among the authors of the Lord's lineage, of whom the one committed adultery, the other incest.

By that same design also Ahab and Jechoniah, as the evangelist Matthew has recorded, are numbered among the forefathers of Christ, so that He who was to redeem all men might begin His benefit from His own forefathers; and at the same time, lest He who subjected Himself even to the suffering of the body should seem to have sought the nobility of a spotless origin. For this is the vainglory of men, to seek another's glory and not their own; and yet even among men themselves the grace of virtue is greater than that of noble birth. At the same time an example had to be given, that all might understand that the disgraces of forefathers cannot be a dishonor to their descendants, since each one is able by the merit of his own virtue to wipe out the stain of his lineage.

You see how many and how grievously guilty men the genealogy of the Lord's generation embraces — from whose stock Christ was not ashamed to be born for your sake. And if you believe this, these are the gifts of the divine mercy toward you, and this is the mark of heavenly power; for sin abounded, that grace might superabound. David therefore was not exempted from guilt, that he might be chosen for grace. But now let us review the mysteries of this very history, and draw from the very fountains of the Scriptures; and that we may be able to look into the whole sequence of the mysteries, let us go back over the text of the history itself.

For thus indeed we recall it set down in the Book of Kings: that David, when he had seen Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, bathing, fell in love with her, and then commanded her to come to his house while the woman's husband was away. Not long after, her husband returned as a messenger of the war — a man truly devout and dutiful, who in time of war did not think he ought to enter his house, when he saw his comrades intent on the war and keeping watch not in domestic dwellings but in the tents of battle. Afterward he was recalled to the war by David's order, under this charge: that he should be set against the enemy warriors, so that by the man's death the king might have free opportunity of possessing the woman.

And here there is some shame for the sin and some abashment over the guilt, in that he sought a hiding-place for his transgression, and for the unjust killing did not claim authority for himself by the right of royal power, but rather sought to avoid the odium of it. I confess the guilt; but more bearable is that which is pressed down by shame than that which is proclaimed with insolence. Uriah, then, exposed to the warriors, died; but afterward those very men who had slain him were themselves destroyed, by David's command, when the city was stormed. This is the sequence of the history, in which one may behold profound mysteries. And since we have undertaken to deal with David not as one to be defended — for indeed he needs no help of mine — but as one to be excused, or rather to be proclaimed, lest I waver in so great a depth of mysteries, it is right that I use the words of him whose history I use.

Let me therefore use the prophetic responsory, saying: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within my inmost parts. For no one without the infusion of the Holy Spirit can behold such deep recesses of the divine mystery. Indeed, if so great a prophet asks that the gift of the Holy Spirit be poured into him, what ought I, a weak man, to do — especially since even the holy Apostle asks to be aided by the prayers of the people also, that a door may be opened to him for speaking the mystery of the word? Oh, that Christ would deign to open to me that door! Yet let us knock; for He is wont to hear those who knock, since He Himself has said: Knock, and it shall be opened to you. Oh, that He Himself would unbar Himself to me, since Christ is the Door.

He Himself is within, He Himself without; He Himself is the Way that leads, He Himself the Life to which we strive to come. Come then, Lord Jesus, and open to us Your fountains, that we may drink of the water which whoever drinks shall never thirst forever; or if we cannot yet draw from Your fountain, deign to grant that we may at least draw from the well, from which You promise drink to that Samaritan woman who still doubts. And You indeed promise to all from the fountain, but to those who doubt — as to that Samaritan woman — Your fountain is still a deep well. Let us too drink the water of the heavenly secrets; and since we have been counted worthy to reach Your fountain, let it be permitted us at least to behold the image of the heavenly mysteries.

And so, unless I am mistaken, by the prophet we shall understand the Holy Spirit, while by the adulteress we may reckon the various fornications of the synagogue. And therefore long beforehand we see revealed, out of the Holy Spirit and out of the family of the Jews — whose fathers were those from whom Christ came according to the flesh — that the Lord Jesus was to be begotten; who indeed, as a Jew, was born of an adulterous family, but, as the spotless One, of a virgin. The family of the Jews was under the law, as it were under a husband. The observance of the law had to be abolished, that truth and grace might be put in its place. We have one mystery. Receive also another — yet so that you remember that from the first conception of Bathsheba a little child was born who died, and that afterward Solomon was born:

the former a little child from a stolen conception, but the latter, Solomon, from the acknowledged profession of wedlock. It is clear, therefore, that by David is understood the prophet, by the prophet the prophetic people, of whom both the synagogue and that one who was first born; since he degenerated from his forefathers, being formed amid outrages and conceived through vices, the people of the Jews could not reach the age of resurrection, nor grow up into a perfect man, but failed in the slender smallness of their understanding and in a certain infancy of virtue.

But that other one, who was afterward conceived from a lawful union — the Christian people, that wise and peaceable one (for these are the meanings disclosed by the interpretation of Solomon's name) — reached the hoary age of a long-lived resurrection and that heavenly kingdom. Through the former people the law was dissolved; through the latter grace was restored. Receive also a third mystery. What the Hebrews call David, the Latins interpret as 'humbled.' But who is truly humbled save He who did not count it robbery to be equal to God, but, taking the form of a servant, humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death?

This, then, is He who is signified by David: lofty by nature, but humbled through mercy; sublime in His divinity, but meek in His body. And so where He is humbled, there He is obedient. For from that source springs obedience, from which humility springs, and in that source it ends. For when He is said to have become obedient even unto death — death, however, not of His divinity but of His body — that obedience was surely not of His divinity but of His body, nor was that humility of His majesty but of His flesh. And so, as regards the assumption of the body, the apostolic reading has declared wherein the humility of Christ consisted:

But as regards the nature of His divinity, it was disclosed by the Gospel reading, which you followed with devout assent, when you heard the Son of God saying as it is read: I and the Father are one. For the Son and the Father are one in divinity, but the sacrament of the body and the eternity of the divinity are not one. Yet it was not the Apostle alone who said that the Lord was humbled, but He Himself also recorded that He was lowly, saying: Take My yoke upon you, for it is light, since I am meek and lowly in heart. And moreover it was marked not by interpretation alone, but also by plain designation, since it is written: I have found David My servant; with My holy oil I have anointed him; and below: He shall say to Me, You are My Father; and: I will say to him, You are My son.

Therefore the David whom we were seeking we have found: a servant indeed in appearance, but the Lord in truth. This David, then, was walking about within his own house. And what house is this but surely Christ's, save that of which He says: In My Father's house are many mansions? Set, therefore, in that royal palace, He saw the human condition stripped bare, and, taking pity, fell in love with it. For it was as yet bare of virtues, since through the wiles of the serpent it had been stripped of the coverings of its own nature. For it does not seem likely that a woman should be stripped before the king's house, that a woman should bathe before the king's house, as though no other place more suitable for bathing could be found. It does not fit, it does not agree, it does not accord with faith: it is far from the truth, it is repugnant to sense.

Such a woman, so wanton, so brazen, the king could have shuddered at, not loved. Or could she, if not modest after a womanly fashion, not even have respected the king's gaze? Or before the king saw her, could not even his servants have kept her away? Therefore, if this cannot agree with faith, let us seek who this naked woman may be: namely, the human condition, stripped of all the garments of nature, lacking the mantle of immortality and despoiled of the veil of innocence. For he is naked who is stripped bare by sin and guilt. In fine, that first sinner of our race — and would that he had been the only one — before he sinned did not perceive that he was naked; after he sinned, he saw that he was naked, and therefore thought he must be covered with leaves, because he came to know that he was naked.

He became, then, naked to himself after he became guilty of sin. In him the whole human condition was stripped bare, subjected through the succession of nature not only to guilt but also to misery. So he perceived and saw himself naked. Whence such is our whole condition, that whoever has thought himself naked both sees and feels himself to be naked. In fine, he who covets riches is naked; he who despises them is wealthy. So much is each man's own perception his misery, and each man's own virtue free from injury. Therefore Christ first claimed the human condition for Himself in wedlock through the law, which afterward He repudiated. Whence He also says: What is the bill of your mother's divorce, by which I put her away? By this manner, then, Christ saw His own household naked, and loved it;

for Christ loves the holy soul. In fine, Jesus loved Lazarus and Mary; Christ loved His own Church, although she was naked, although as yet clothed with no adornment of virtues. In short, that we may know that the sequence of the Scriptures agrees with the design set forth, let us learn of the Church naked, let us learn of her seeking, hastening, and bathing herself before the house of Christ, when John was baptizing in the Jordan, saying: I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance, but 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. Therefore, when the people were being baptized unto repentance, the Church — now near to His house — was surely seeking Christ, that she might come to grace.

The Church therefore was seeking Christ in John, saying: Tell me Him whom my soul has loved — calling Him both the cause of her longing and the cause of her bathing, as you have it: I am dark and comely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tent of Kedar, like the skin of Solomon. You have the reason why she is eager to bathe herself, because she records that she is dark. For, as it were to John questioning by what reason the great crowd thronging together was eager to be bathed, she answered, saying: I am dark and comely, O daughters of Jerusalem. Because she is dark, she desires to bathe; because she is comely, she does not fear to be seen naked. Do not look upon me, she says, because I am darkened, because the sun has not gazed upon me.

Therefore we are made dark when we are not seen by Christ, but when we are seen, we grow white. He, then, saw her — He to whom all things are naked and the hidden things of the breast cannot be concealed, since He is the searcher of heart and reins; to Him nothing is covered, nothing wrapped up. He saw His own Church naked, and as He saw her, He fell in love with her. He saw her naked and beloved, and, as a son of love, fell in love with her. See how He invites her, see how He calls her. Here are no reproaches of adultery, but the mysteries of chastity. You are wholly fair, He says, My neighbor, and there is no reproof in you. Come hither from Lebanon, My bride, come hither from Lebanon; you shall pass over and pass through from the beginning of faith. And rightly from the beginning of faith. Therefore where you have faith, you ought not to fear adultery;

for faith belongs to wedlock, deceit to adultery. But that she might be able to come from Lebanon, He first sent word beforehand, saying: Arise, come, My neighbor, My fair one, My dove, My perfect one. 'Neighbor,' surely by the longing of faith; 'fair,' by the beauty of virtue; 'dove,' by the grace of the Spirit. For the silvered wings of the dove signify that eternal power, and the dove's flight declared the presence of the Holy Spirit. Christ therefore calls her to Himself, that she may come, since she came already endowed with spiritual gifts, because, lo, He says, the winter is past, the rain is gone, it has departed; the flowers have appeared on the earth. See how the holy Church is invited.

The winter, He says, has departed — that she may not, being naked, dread the winter; not the winter of the season, but of weakness, which despoils the fertile field of the soul of every flower. For there is a winter, not of the earthly sun, there is a winter of the mind, when the chill steals into the soul, when the warmth of the spirit fades, when the vigor of perception is loosened, when excessive moisture overflows and weighs down the mind, when the inner sight grows dim. And therefore the Lord says: See that your flight be not in winter or on the sabbath. For it is good that the day of judgment or of death should come at the time when the soul's gentle mildness is in vigor, when the heavenly mystery shines with serene light, when our heart burns within us. For then Christ is present, as Ammaon and Cleopas testify in the Gospel, saying:

Was not our heart burning within us on the way, when He had opened to us the Scriptures? But the mind is in vigor when the flower too is seen on the earth. What is this flower of good fragrance but He who said: I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys? Of whom it is also written in Isaiah: There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a branch shall ascend from the root, and a flower shall come forth from the branch. The root, surely, is the family of the Jews; the branch is Mary; the flower of Mary is Christ, who, when He shines forth in our earth and breathes fragrance in the field of the soul, or blossoms in His own Church, then we can neither fear the cold nor dread the rain, but await the day of judgment. And therefore the Church, that she might see this flower, hastened with all eagerness, as she herself testifies, saying:

By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loved; I sought Him and found Him not, I called Him and He did not answer me. I will arise therefore and go into the city, into the marketplace and the streets, and seek Him whom my soul has loved. I sought Him and found Him not. The watchmen who go about the city found me, they struck me and took my mantle from me. You see how she seeks Him whom she longs to find, so that she does not fear to be wounded. But these wounds are not to be dreaded, but to be desired, because they are the wounds of love, as she herself said: I am wounded with love. Good are the wounds of love. In fine, more profitable are the wounds of a friend than the voluntary kisses of an enemy. Rightly therefore is she naked.

Because she lost her mantle; or perhaps she is naked for this reason, that sometimes it is a mark of virtue not to have the breast covered, not to have the heart veiled. In fine, the veiled one — that is, the synagogue, which had a veil in the reading of the Old Testament, which is not unveiled, since in Christ it is done away — that veiled synagogue, I say, Christ looked down upon and spurned; whence even today a veil is laid over the heart of the Jews. But she who is turned with her whole mind to the Lord is naked and clear to view. For when anyone has turned to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away, that we, beholding the glory of God, may be able to see. In fine, elsewhere too to be naked is a token of virtue, since it is written: I have put off my tunic, how shall I put it on?

I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? What tunic, then, she has put off and has not found how to put on, let us, if we can, disclose from the Scriptures. For there is a certain bodily tunic; there are certain veils woven of lusts; and therefore sometimes it is better to be naked in body than veiled in heart. Whence also Paul admonishes us that it is far better to be stripped than to be over-clothed, saying also elsewhere: Stripping off the old man with his deeds, put on the new, who is renewed unto the knowledge according to the image of Him who created him. Therefore she who has been stripped and has her feet washed, and therefore she who has washed knows not how she can be defiled; for through grace she forgets what she had drawn in through nature.

Great, then, and righteous is this love of the woman bathing herself before David's palace. But she not only bathed, she also called, as we receive in the same book when holy Church says: Come, my brother, let us go out into the field, let us rest in the villages; let us rise early to the vineyards, let us see whether the vines have flowered. Therefore she not only bathes, but also provokes and invites Christ to come to her, saying: I will give you my breasts. And not only her own, but she also promises things new and old, as you have it: New and old, my brother, I have kept for you. And, as if impatient of love, she seeks the help of someone by whom Christ may be entreated to come. See her burning, see her longing. Who shall give you, she says, my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother?

And by what reason she seeks, by what grace she invites, and how she may be able to hold Him fast, she shows; and how she awaits Him as He lingers outside, she makes plain; and that He may enter her house, she implores, saying: Finding you outside, I will kiss you; I will take you and bring you into my mother's house and into the inner chamber of her who conceived me. You see how she is naked, who cannot have a covered inner chamber — the inner chamber, surely, of an undefiled nature, the inner chamber of an inmost conscience not marked by any rashness of vices. For the Church is an enclosed garden and a spotless, immaculate virginity, which therefore earns this grace from Christ, because she sought, desired, and found the word of God, keeping watch before the doors of wisdom, as she herself says:

Blessed is the man who hears me, and the man who keeps my ways, watching daily at my doors, guarding the posts of my entrance; for my goings forth are the goings forth of life. Thus did Christ desire the beauty of His own Church and prepare to take her to Himself as wife. But because she was under the law — for under the law were Peter, John, and the rest of the apostolic band — He first thought we must be loosed from the hook of bodily observance.

For although the law is religious and just — as it is brought in under the person of Uriah, since he was so devout and chaste that, returning from war, he would not acknowledge his wife nor go in to her — yet when Uriah came to know the union of David, that is, of the humble husband, the Church, withdrawing from her union with the synagogue, was preparing a place for the marriage that was to come. Whence John also received the figure of the law, who, although he was of the fathers, announced that the ways of the Lord were to be prepared, and prophesied the union of the Church; and therefore he is brought in as slain, that he might show the failing of the lawful observance; for the law and the prophets were until John.

Therefore Uriah was now slain in the figure of the law, that the synagogue might be loosed from the snares of the law, since a woman who is under a husband is bound by the law to her husband while he lives; but if the husband is dead, she is loosed from the law of the husband. So while her husband lives she shall be called an adulteress if she is joined to another man; but if her husband is dead, she is freed from the law of the husband, so that she is not an adulteress if she is with another man. Therefore the human condition is no adulteress, which, although it was under the law, yet, the observance of the law being in a certain manner abolished, has been claimed into grace. But it was not Christ who abolished the observance of the law.

Whence Uriah did not slay David, but suffered himself to be slain by the warriors — that is, the rite of observance coming from the law was profaned through the incursion of the barbarians and the captivity of the Jews; this Christ suffered. In fine, Uriah is interpreted 'my light.' But what is the light of Christ save the law and the Gospel? — for if you believed Moses, you would believe Me also; for he wrote of Me — since the light of Christ went before in the law, whose grace afterward, in the Gospel, as in a sevenfold lamp filled all things of this world with the sevenfold Spirit. To this law, then, He took flesh and joined the Church to Himself. The light of which law the hostile people diminished, when they violated the holy things of the law.

The light of God therefore was diminished in the people of the Jews, because blindness in part befell Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved. There yet remains also a fourth mystery, which I beg you to receive with kindly ears, and to weigh our mind, not our words; for the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. Adultery was committed, murder was committed. This is what was said to the prophet: Take to yourself a rod of walnut. And elsewhere we read of a walnut staff, by which we understand a certain right and the summit of prophecy, which after the manner of a walnut is outwardly bitter in its husk, hard in the middle of its shell, but inwardly tender and fruitful.

Although therefore in the history you hear bitter things, in the figure you recognize hard things, yet hope for fruitful things in the mystery. The adultery, I say, was committed for the figure of salvation; for not every adultery is to be condemned. In fine, it was said to the prophet: Go, take to yourself a harlot wife. The Lord commands this, that she who had committed fornication should be a spouse — of which marriage, as we said above, the offspring is Christ. For to the son who was born of the fornication a name was given by the Lord, Jezreel, which is 'divine generation.' If then that union with the harlot was holy, this fellowship too, surely, with the adulteress is a holy union. But that one concerned the Jews.

But concerning divine things I dare not name it a holy adultery, however pious it be, lest even the mere sound of the word offend anyone, although the more venerable meaning lies at hand. Yet what may be said more cautiously, if not more plainly: out of unequal unions a holy fellowship was made, when the Word was made flesh. For divinity and flesh are not lawful partnerships, nor, as by a certain covenant flesh agrees with soul as natures, and soul with flesh, so also do divinity and flesh observe in a manner the law of the marriage-bed. God took up flesh, He assumed a soul; through an unwonted and not lawful incarnation He made the fellowship to be lawful, that God might be all and in all. In fine, that you may know it to be a mystery, interpret the names.

For David you take as a figure of Christ; Bathsheba is called 'daughter of the sabbath' and 'daughter full' and 'well of the oath.' What therefore could be plainer than that the daughter of the sabbath is the flesh of Christ, since God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law? The same is 'full,' because in His passion is the fullness of the law, or because she is full of the Holy Spirit; for Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan. The same too is the 'well of the oath,' that is, of religion and faith. And well is it 'well,' because rivers of living water shall flow from His belly. This, then, God the Word, taking to Himself, made the union lawful — which mystery those nuptials also declared which are in the Song of Songs, in which the Church is wedded to Christ and the flesh to the Spirit.

And therefore she ran about and sought everywhere the Word of God, because she was wounded, because naked, because an adulteress in all things, even though spotless in Christ; the wretched flesh sought the Redeemer. This flesh Christ joined to Himself, that He might render it spotless; this He united to Himself, that He might take away the adultery. And because she was under the law, He had to die, that she might be freed from the law, that through that death a certain marriage, as it were, of the law and the flesh might be dissolved.

Therefore the flesh died in Christ, that we, having been put to death to the law through the body of Christ, as the Apostle said, might belong to Another, who rose from the dead; and that the passions and lusts of the flesh and the thoughts of sins, which through the law were in our members, might die in that death; and that we, loosed from the law of death, might rise again in newness of spirit, as by a new union with Christ. And yet all those who loosed the law in the flesh of Christ and thought it should be violated were slain by the warriors at David's command.

By which token is shown that which they taught afterward to have been signified: that of those who killed Christ none escaped; and this is most clearly revealed — that those whom Christ had taken up before His death perished, like the Jews, as little and unformed children, but those whom He adopted after His death into the number of His sons were preserved for the kingdom. Whence, according to this mystery, it agrees that the first offspring among the Jews was weak, that afterward among Christians there might be an eternal fruit. But now let us pass on to the message. For in what went before, our discourse was concerned with that invidious adultery and murder of David the prophet, and, the mysteries being traversed, we found not only nothing that should be condemned, but even something that should be praised.