Works (CSEL) 14

EXPOSITION OF PSALM 1. God set forth, as the highest incentive to virtue, the delight of future blessedness; while the devil devised that delight should be a vehement spur to error. Of both judgments the first man of the human race, Adam, affords the proof: he was placed by the Lord God in the paradise of pleasure, that he might enjoy eternal delight and so spur on the virtue of his future offspring -- for it was not unknown to God that this place would give occasion to error, and that to the rest there ought to be set forth a hope of salvation, by which they might strive to be restored to the seat snatched away from the human race -- and the same Adam, through the form of the serpent, which prefigured the allurements of delight, was deceived by his wife's persuasion.

Having therefore seized the occasion, the adversary wrought death for me through delight. And so what had been granted by divine grace unto life was turned for me into death; and the enemy obtained the more ready consent of man to his fall, because he held out the appearance of nature. For God's works delighted Him, the first beginnings of nature delighted Him, which the Lord, beholding, said: 'Very good.' The angels praise the Lord, the powers of heaven sing psalms to Him, and before the very beginning of the world the Cherubim and Seraphim, with the sweetness of their tuneful voice, say: 'Holy, holy, holy.' Innumerable thousands of angels stand by, and the elders and a great multitude, like the voices of many waters, sing in concert: 'Alleluia.'

A more expressive account holds that the very axis of heaven revolves with a certain sweetness of perpetual harmony, so that its sound is heard in the farthest parts of the earth, where there are certain secret places of nature. Nor does this seem foreign to the practice of nature, since a voice sent forth re-echoes with more pleasing applause from the groves or the mountains, and they give back with sweeter sound what they have received. In the very crags and stones too nature has found something to delight; some are delighted by their gleam, others by their use or beauty. The very wild beasts and birds are soothed by the delight of a pleasanter place or a more melodious voice; for suckling infants too, either sternness is a terror or coaxing a pleasure. Delight, then, is natural.

Whence holy David also, who perceived from what state and by what fraud man had been cast down -- for if he had held fast the grace of that eternal and heavenly delight infused into him by the Lord, and had not, caught by worldly allurements, lost it, he would never have undergone the injuries of so wretched a calamity -- therefore, striving to repair and reform it, instituted for us, by the office of psalm-singing, the likeness of the heavenly manner of life.

For although all divine Scripture breathes the grace of God, yet the book of Psalms is especially sweet; since Moses himself, who described the deeds of the ancestors in plain speech, nevertheless, when he had led the people of the fathers across the Red Sea with memorable wonder, and beheld King Pharaoh sunk beneath the waters with his hosts, raising his genius to greater things -- because he had attained things greater than his own strength -- sang a triumphal song to the Lord. Miriam too, taking up a timbrel, exhorted the rest, saying: 'Let us sing to the Lord, for gloriously is He honoured; the horse and the rider He has cast into the sea.' Moses himself also, when he had read the law of the Lord, that he might fix the memory of it in the breasts of his hearers, spoke by way of a song, saying:

Hear, O heaven, and I will speak; let my discourse be awaited like the rain, and let my words come down like the dew, like the shower upon the grass and like the snow upon the hay.' God, then, is delighted by song, not only to be praised, but also to be reconciled. Hence Moses too made use of song chiefly then, when he was calling heaven and earth to witness, so that the world might the more eagerly hear his salvation chanting with the sound of heavenly grace, and that observance of the law might, by the sweetness of holy delight, take root forever in human minds. In short, the tables of the law, before they were confirmed by song, were broken and shattered through the indignation of Moses;

but when they were consecrated by such a seal, human anger had no place, because sanctification, by its sacred sweetness, shut anger out. So the song of the Lord, like a gentler dew, came down from heaven, and infused the faith of men, like grass, with a certain shower of spiritual grace. These two songs, then, in the books of Moses, like two eyes of the world and lights of heaven, illumine the whole body of his work. But David indeed was chosen by the Lord principally for this office, that what in others seems rare and to stand out above the rest of the work, in him might shine forth continuous and unbroken. We read one song in the book of Judges, the rest run through after the manner of history, by which the deeds of the ancestors are set forth.

Isaiah wrote one song, by which he might soothe the hearts of his readers; in the rest he thundered with the terrible trumpet of rebuke. Even his very enemies could not cast that song against him, though for other sayings they persecuted him even unto death. Daniel wrote one, Habakkuk one; Solomon himself, the son of David, although he is said to have sung innumerable songs, yet left behind one alone which the Church has received, the Song of Songs; the same man wrote the Proverbs. In the others, then, one may note single things. History instructs, the law teaches, prophecy announces, rebuke chastises, morality persuades; in the book of Psalms there is the advancement of all, and a certain medicine of human salvation.

Whoever reads it has wherewith to cure the wounds of his own affliction by a special remedy. Whoever wishes to look on, as in a common gymnasium of souls and a kind of arena of virtues, finding the various kinds of contests there prepared, may choose for himself that one for which he understands himself the more fit, that he may the more easily arrive at the crown. If anyone is eager to review the deeds of the ancestors and wishes to imitate them, within a single psalm he receives the whole sequence of his fathers' history comprehended, so that he may acquire a treasury of memory by a brief reading. Those things too seem easier which are unfolded more briefly.

That too is of what great loftiness, that in a brief interval he distinguished the adversities of offences and interwove the prosperities of reconciliation, so that you might at once recognize what injury the offence of unbelief brings, and what a ready faith confers! If anyone explores the force of the law, which wholly consists in the bond of charity -- for he who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the law -- let him read in the Psalms with how great an affection of love David, for the warding off of the whole people's reproach, alone exposed himself to grave perils; in which he will recognize a glory of charity not unequal to a triumph of valour. If anyone dreads the savagery of rebukes, let him hear David saying: 'O Lord, rebuke me not in Your anger, neither chasten me in Your fury,' and let him learn how he ought to temper the censure of an angry judge.

If anyone longs to learn an example of patience, let him read in the Psalms: 'If I have rendered evil to those who repaid me,' and let him observe that David foresaw the evangelical precept in spirit and anticipated it in virtue. So you have that proverbial saying, that the meek man is the physician of the heart. If anyone, moreover, wishes to be fortified against the assaults of the spiritual wickedness, what better than that he should know psalm-singing is his task? David sang as a youth and put to flight the wicked spirit of Saul, which before had gripped him. And of the virtue of prophecy what shall I say? What others announced through riddles, to him alone it seems to have been plainly and openly promised, that the Lord Jesus should be born of his seed, as the Lord said to him:

Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne.' In the Psalms, then, for us not only is Jesus born, but He also undergoes that saving passion of the body, rests, rises again, ascends into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father. That which no man would have presumed to say, this prophet alone announced, and afterward the Lord Himself proclaimed it in the Gospel. Moreover, all the writers of psalms set in their writings examples or certain sayings of those before them; the psalms have nothing except what is their own. What, then, is more pleasing than a psalm? Whence David himself beautifully says: 'Praise the Lord, for a psalm is good; let praise be joyful and seemly unto our God.' And truly so;

for a psalm is the blessing of the people, the praise of God, the laudation of the multitude, the applause of all, the speech of every man, the voice of the Church, the tuneful confession of faith, full devotion of authority, the joy of liberty, the cry of gladness, the resounding of joy. It soothes from wrath, it dismisses anxiety, it relieves from grief; it is arms by night, a teaching by day, a shield in fear, a feast in holiness, an image of tranquillity, a pledge of peace and concord, after the manner of a lyre producing one melody out of various and differing voices. The rising of the day re-echoes a psalm, the setting resounds a psalm. The Apostle bids women keep silence in the Church; yet a psalm they sing well even aloud; this is sweet to every age, this is fitting for either sex.

This the old men sing, laying aside the rigour of old age; this the sad veterans answer back in the gladness of their heart; this the young men sing without the envy of wantonness; this youths chant without the danger and temptation of slippery age; the young women themselves sing it without loss of matronly modesty; the little maidens, without a fall of their bashfulness, with the sobriety of gravity, modulate a hymn to God with the sweetness of a bending voice. This childhood longs to hold, this infancy rejoices to ponder, which shuns to learn other things by heart; it is a kind of play that yields a greater advancement of learning than when serious instruction is imparted. How great is the labour in the Church to make silence, when the lessons are read! If one man speaks, all murmur against him;

but when a psalm is read, it is itself the maker of its own silence; all speak, and none makes a din. Kings sing a psalm without the haughtiness of power; in this ministry David rejoiced to be seen; a psalm is sung by emperors, it is shouted in jubilation by peoples. Each strives to cry aloud that which profits all. At home a psalm is sung, abroad it is rehearsed; it is grasped without labour, it is kept with pleasure. A psalm joins the dissenting, unites the discordant, reconciles the offended; for who would not forgive him with whom he has sent forth one voice to God? A great bond of unity indeed, that the whole number of the people should come together into one choir. Differing are the strings of the lyre, but one is the symphony.

Among very few strings the fingers of the craftsman often go astray, but in the people the Spirit, the Craftsman, knows not how to err. A psalm is the commerce of nightly toil, the wage of daily rest, the instruction of beginners, the confirmation of the perfect, the ministry of angels, the heavenly warfare, the spiritual sacrifice. To a psalm even the rocks make answer; a psalm is sung, and even rocky breasts are softened: we see the exceeding hard weep, the unmerciful bent. In a psalm teaching contends with grace; at once it is sung for delight, it is learned for instruction. For more violent precepts do not endure; but what you have received with sweetness, once instilled into the inmost heart, is not wont to slip away. What is there that does not come to meet you as you read the psalms?

In these I read a song for the Beloved, and I am inflamed with the desire of sacred charity; in these I recognize the wine-presses of the divine mystery; in these I review the grace of revelations, the testimonies of the resurrection, the gifts of the promise; in these I learn to avoid sin, I unlearn to blush at repentance for my faults. So great a king, so great a prophet, has provoked me by his own example, so that I may either strive to lessen the sin I have committed or to beware of the one not committed. What, then, is a psalm but the organ of the virtues, which the venerable prophet, striking with the plectrum of the Holy Spirit, made to resound on earth the sweetness of a heavenly sound?

At the same time, when he, upon strings and chords -- that is, upon dead remnants -- modulated the distinctions of various voices and directed his song of divine praise toward heavenly things, he taught us assuredly that we must first die to sin, and then at last, in this body, that the various works of the virtues are to be discerned, by which the grace of our devotion might come through to the Lord, so that, while we are occupied with the intention of heavenly things, no lust of earthly vices might creep in, and at the same time the soul might shine bright with the sweetness of heavenly grace. Deservedly, then, the Lord, praising the minister of so great an office, says: 'I have found David after My own heart.'

They say also that those more skilled among players of the lyre sing inwardly -- as the fables tell of Aspendius the lyre-player -- and that the causes of the modulations and certain bars of the rhythms lie in the upper part of the psaltery. David therefore taught that we ought to sing inwardly, to sing psalms inwardly, even as Paul also sang, saying: 'I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind,' and to form our life and acts toward the contemplation of things above, lest the delight of sweetness should rouse the passions of the body, by which our soul is not redeemed but weighed down; whereas the holy prophet recorded that he sang psalms for the redemption of his soul, saying: 'I will sing to You, O God, upon the lyre, O Holy One of Israel.'

My lips shall rejoice when I sing to You, and my soul, which You have redeemed. But let us now enter upon the opening words of this very psalm which has been set before us. 'Blessed,' he says, 'is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.' How apt, how opportune a beginning! For just as those who have undertaken to put on some solemn contest are wont to set forth a prize and to vaunt the nobleness of the crown, so that the contestants may assemble with greater zeal and strive also with more eager effort, so our Lord Jesus has set forth, as incentives to human virtue, the glory of the heavenly kingdom, the grace of perpetual rest, the blessedness of eternal life.

An emperor too, when he goes forth to war, promises the soldier a donative and promotions of ranks within the military grades, so that hope of advantage may steal away their toils and hide the fear of danger. As the herald, then, of the great Emperor, holy David exhorts the soldiers, calls them athletes, and sets forth the prize, saying: 'Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.' He began from the prize, in order to lighten the burden of the coming contest; he set the reward beforehand, so that each one, leaping over in his heart the anxieties and toils of present things, might strive with eager haste toward earning the blessedness of things to come. 'Blessed,' he says, 'is the man.' What more could be granted to man than that beyond which nothing greater could, by apostolic authority, be ascribed even to God?

For God is called blessed, and alone mighty, and King of kings, and Lord of lords. He alone mighty, He King of kings, He Lord of lords, yet does not surpass the power of blessedness; He granted us a common partnership in that title of His, which has been deemed worthy of divine honour. Let us now consider for what reason he said 'blessed man' and not rather 'blessed human beings,' since either sex is called to grace. Has He perchance excluded women from the fellowship of blessedness, because He named the man alone blessed? Far from it; for neither did God exclude women from the fellowship of creation, because He first formed the man. For God said:

Let us make man according to our image and according to our likeness; and God made man, he says, after the image of God He made him, male and female He made them.' In 'man' both are signified; in 'the man' the sex is expressed. But just as, when 'man' is said, both are comprehended, so, when 'the man' is named, the woman also, whose man he is, is understood. In short, 'she shall be called woman,' he says, 'because she was taken from her man.' There is added this further point, that of those whose nature is the same, the operations surely cannot be distinct, and of those whose work is equal, surely equal also is the reward. Scripture, then, by saying 'man,' did not pass over the partner of the marriage-bond, because by saying 'human being' it did not keep silent about the partner of nature.

And so, just as there we read that 'man' was made, and, though the nature is one, yet we cannot deny that the principal sex was created first, so here too, when we read 'the man,' we recognize from the principal portion the sex that is somewhat subordinate as well. Equal, then, are the pursuits of virtue, because equal is the prerogative of the creature. But why should you make a question of sex, where not the contests of the body, but of the soul, are demanded of you, which has no sex? Do not, then, in that case distinguish honour or divide the reward, where the sex is not distinguished. Yet not without good reason, if the one who was later in the fall is called first to the exercise. She who began ill ought to follow, not to go before; or, after the trial, let her be more modest.

Eve wrongly overstepped the order of nature; she ought to have awaited him who went before. The serpent cunningly began from the latter; therefore the prophet returns to the former, namely to him who surely would not have fallen, had he not followed the latter one. In short, he called us back from the fall before he summoned us to the palm of victory. 'Blessed,' he says, 'is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.' See, O man, wherein you may be called blessed: not in riches, not in powers and honours, not in nobility of birth or in comeliness and beauty, not in health of body -- in which there is nothing good belonging to nature; for not only do they have an easy change into their opposites, but they also furnish a means to fault for him who knows not how to use them.

For who is righteous on account of money, who humble in powers, who merciful on account of nobility, who chaste on account of comeliness? These things are rather alluring to sin than fruitful for the advancement of virtue. What, then, does he mean in preferring to say 'has not walked' and 'has not stood,' as of the past, when he might have said: 'Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, and stands not in the way of sinners, and sits not in the seat of pestilence'? Mark the doctrine; for he is not at once blessed who is not ungodly or a sinner, on account of the uncertain outcome. For it is not idly written: 'Praise no man before his death.'

Therefore, so long as any man is in this life, he cannot be praised with a definite declaration, since he may still lie open to error; but he who has closed his life without offence is by right reckoned with the appellation of the blessed, and enjoys the fellowship of the blessed. But perhaps you may say: 'For what reason, then, did he say elsewhere: Blessed is he who has understanding of the needy and poor? For he did not say blessed is he who shall have understood, but he who understands.' Because those who do a good work find in the very work that whereby they are proved, obtaining their recompense in the very work, inasmuch as a good deed is the fruit of a blessed conscience.

But those who refrain from evil are not at once blessed if they have turned aside from fault once or twice, but only if they have been able to escape the contagion of fault throughout the whole time of their safe estate. Now this occurs to us: why he preferred to call blessed not the man who has performed some office of piety, but the man who has refrained from the counsel of the ungodly. For he seems rather to be praised who has fulfilled the duty of virtue than he who has escaped sin, since neither ox nor horse nor stone is wont to be in sin or to sit in the seat of pestilence. But those things have not the fruit of blessedness which have not the sense of virtue; for how do they attain to the reward of the law which have not the affection of following the law?

I see, then, that the proposed sentence is about rational beings, that is, about us. But for us the beginning of good things is abstinence from sins, since we read: 'Turn aside from evil and do good.' For this is the order of discipline, that from the lower you should strive toward the more perfect, lest you be terrified by the mass of greater things, you who ought to be summoned by the beginning of lighter ones. For Scripture teaches us that the ascent of piety is like a ladder, by which holy Jacob, a man of exercise, who is set before us, saw the angels of the Lord ascending and descending; so that through him we might learn that we ought to advance the step of virtue little by little, and thus be able to strive from the lowest to the highest, if through small progressions we may step toward those things which seem loftier than human nature.

Keep these stairs always set before you. Do not fear, O man, to ascend these steps of discipline. The first step is near the ground, the next is like the first. Thus by equal steps one mounts to the heights. Do not disdain, O man, that first step as though it were the meanest. That first ascent separates you from the earth -- you tread the air, when you have lifted your footstep from the ground. Set in virtue, by rising you have left the earth; you leave the earth, if you turn aside from fault. The beginning, then, of advancement toward virtue is to abstain from sin. But that we may know this discipline to be of doctrine, hear the law saying: 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit murder'; for to the imperfect these precepts seemed suitable.

In short, the Lord Jesus Himself, knowing the imperfection of the man by whom He was asked by what works he might attain to eternal life, answered him: 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit murder, you shall not steal,' and the rest. Then, to the man who said that he had done all these things, He added the more perfect, saying: 'Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven'; and He taught that there is so great a distance between turning aside from evils and imitating good things, that the man who judged the former easy for himself refused these latter. But because he had not even ascended those former steps, he could not therefore fit himself to these; for if he had loved his neighbour, he could have been able not to deny to the poor the supports of his patrimony.

And therefore ascend the first step of the law, that you may be able to come to the heavenly summit of the Gospel. Whence I judge that the holy prophet, being as it were set under the law and following the manner of the law in the first psalm, from his own person denounces rather the things to be avoided than sets forth the things to be followed; whereas in the fortieth psalm, which is spoken from the person of the Saviour, there is rather an exhortation to virtue than a repression of error; for it speaks of the passion of the Saviour. And therefore the dispenser of the Gospel also, as we may reckon, when we have heard Him saying 'Blessed are the merciful,' crowned mercy both in the psalm of His own passion and in the Gospel. But let us now set about the exposition of the psalm and inspect the prophetic power.

'Blessed,' he says, 'is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and in the way of sinners has not stood, and in the seat of pestilence has not sat.' We may say that there are three species of sins which we think are here expressed -- of thought, of deed, of persistence -- and that he is signified as blessed who has not even thought that which is evil. For how can he be blessed who must be convicted in the day of judgment by his own accusing thoughts? Even if he has deceived a man, fled the witness, escaped the accuser, yet he will not be able to avoid himself as his own accuser -- whom he ought most of all to fear, because he will have both an accuser and a confessing defendant.

Blessed therefore is he who has neither devised what is evil nor wrought sin — for at times we offend even without deliberate thought; for in much speaking we do not escape sin — and who has not persevered in sin. Or thus: he who has neither devised what would be error, nor stood firm in that thought, nor at least persevered in those thoughts which he perceived to be full of error. But whether these things rightly agree, the reader will judge. For he who has once thought evil ought neither to have stood firm in it nor to have persevered. Yet even if he did not persevere, he could not be blessed, because he stood firm in that which he wickedly devised;

and even if he did not stand firm, yet by the very fact that he thought evil, whether he has the fruit of blessedness — for this he must seek some merciful interpreter. Finally, since no one can say that he has a clean heart, granted that the thought be pardonable: is the working of sins likewise pardonable? Finally, if the standing be pardonable, is it also full of blessedness, on the ground that one does not persevere in the crime? Then again — he who has not thought what is wicked, how could he have stood firm or persevered in sin? So that he is blessed who has rightly kept these three; surely the order is reversed. For the first is that he should not persevere in sin, the second that he should not have stood firm in it, the third that he should not have devised what would be error.

For he who has not persevered could yet have stood firm; he who has not stood firm could have thought; but he who has not even thought is truly blessed. Hence I thought that another tradition also should not be passed over, by which we may assert that the three steps are made in their right order: that he who wishes to be blessed should not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, that is, should not walk in their thoughts; then should not stand in the way of sinners; thirdly should not sit in the seat of pestilence. You therefore, who in the Church have been made a Christian, or you who are striving toward grace, abstain from the counsels of the ungodly, that you may be able to say: Destroy not my soul, O God, with the wicked, nor my life with men of blood; and devise not the things that are ungodly. And what are these but the things that are contrived for an injury to God?

For piety toward God is first, toward parents second. And indeed the enemy frequently inserts diverse things into our minds; and therefore the prophet cautiously held that thoughts, rather than unforeseen infusions, are to be reckoned as crime. You have therefore abstained from the counsels of the ungodly; rightly so, yet you are not at once blessed. Beware also lest you stand in the way of sinners. With how great scrutiny are the words of divine Scripture set down! For because we are all under sin, He does not demand of you what is beyond nature, namely that you commit no sin — since not even an infant of one day is without sin — but that you do not remain in sin by some long-continued halting. Not all are ungodly; therefore you are called back from all the thoughts and conspiracies of the ungodly; but all are sinners;

therefore you are admonished to cease from sinning. If you have fallen in the age of fuller youth, the advance of maturity ought to amend you. Therefore do not go off into more grievous sins, do not stand in lighter ones. You have this also said by the Lord in Isaiah: Go forth from Babylon, fleeing from the Chaldeans; that is: even if you have entered into the confusion of vices, go forth. You ought not to have entered, but you did enter by the law of the flesh compelling you and taking you captive into the law of sin; go forth, depart even if late, strip off the grievous servitude. You could not but enter into sin through frailty; it is granted you to go forth from sin through sobriety. Go forth then from Babylon, fleeing from the Chaldeans. Babylon is confusion, which keeps no order of the virtues; for it is with a mind confounded by enticements that we offend.

The Chaldeans are those who, with zeal for vain superstition, search out the courses of the stars and sow the errors of impious heathenism. Flee from these, lest they seize you, lest they entangle you in the heavy snare of captivity. Abraham was a Chaldean, but he fled from the Chaldeans, and that before the Law; you have already been born under the Law — flee from the ungodly. He cast off the inheritance of his fathers that he might possess that of faith; do you forsake the succession of the body and acquire the inheritance of devotion. But if you have not stood in sin, not even thus are you blessed; you still have something of which you ought to be rid.

Many are the enticements, many the turnings-away from virtue; grievous are the goads of pleasures, grievous the kindling of avarice, the lust for power, the ambition for honor, which, as with a kind of poison, contaminate the minds of men and certain souls with the pestilent decay of vices. This is the seat of pestilence, upon which the scribes and Pharisees sat, who lay grievous burdens upon men, but themselves will not move them with a finger. These seats the Savior cast out of the temple — the seats of those who boasted themselves of honor, who sought the primacy of dignities, of those who used the priesthood or the primacy of honor for gain, of those who, indulging the belly, in no way kept the due guard of continence. This is the true pestilence;

in short, the sons of Eli were sons of pestilence. In this seat, as it were, of the vices, Scripture forbids us to bend back our neck and recline the strength of the whole body. Mark therefore the distinctions. Blessed is he who has not stood in the way of sinners, and who has likewise not sat in the seat of pestilence. That the 'way' means the course of this life is beyond doubt, since Scripture itself says: In this way wherein I walked they have hidden a snare for me; and: Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are with him in the way. For as long as we run the course of this life, we have a path along which we walk daily, until we arrive at the end; and even though we do not seem to go bodily, we are advancing.

For just as those who sleep in ships are borne by the winds into harbors, even though those at rest have no sense of sailing, yet the course urges them to the end and drives them on, unaware; so, as the span of our life flows away, each one is led by a hidden course to his own end. Hence it is said: Rise, you who sleep — for indeed you sleep, and your time is walking on — and see that, while you sleep long, your time does not pass by. Therefore, even though you sleep, let your heart keep watch; let your heart not be struck idle; if your heart be not idle, your times are not idle. You are on the way, O man; walk, that you may arrive, lest night overtake you on the way, lest the day of your life be consumed before you hasten the advance of virtue.

You are a wayfarer of this life; all things pass away, all things come to be behind you, all things on this way you behold and pass by. You have seen the loveliness of trees, the greenness of grass, the purity of fountains and whatever is of this kind, in which the eyes delight; it was pleasant to gaze; it delighted you to attend for a little while; while you attend, you have passed on. Again, while you walk, you have come upon a rocky and rugged road, the hollows of crags, the steeps of mountains, the thickets of forests: you wearied a little; again you have passed on. Such is this life, whose prosperous things do not abide nor are its adverse things long-lasting. Therefore, as one set on a journey, let neither favorable things exalt you nor adverse things break you, let neither applauded things delay you nor sorrowful things detain you. Hasten ever to the end, hasten that you may arrive;

yet choose the way before you run. There are two ways, one of the just, the other of sinners, one of equity, the other of iniquity, of which the prophet said: And see if there be a way of iniquity in me. Now not only is our life a way, but our very life is either the way of virtue or of iniquity. Beware therefore lest avarice set its steps within you and you become a way of crime; lest wickedness, lest lust, and you become a way of iniquity, worn down by the disgraceful deeds of those who travel it. It is permitted you to choose whom you follow, either the just or the unjust. The way of the just is narrower, that of the unjust broader; the former, of sobriety, narrower; this, of drunkenness, broader, that it may be able to receive the wavering; this has the enticements of this present age, that has the rewards of things to come.

In the latter the fruit is more immediate, in the former the hope is slower; for those things which are sweet do not defer to a long-continued expectation, but have a present enjoyment, whereas that which is serious is sought with toil, and is scarcely grasped by blessed thought — that which eye has not seen nor ear heard, which God has prepared for those who love Him. We are wont to believe with difficulty the things we do not see; and therefore the soul is restless and, hither and thither, as it were with certain eyes, carries about its thoughts. Then diverse appearances of things meet it and pour themselves upon it; if it strains toward things everlasting, it chooses virtue; if toward things present, it prefers pleasure. Grievous and unequal is the struggle against the delights of present things.

Here is the liberty of lusts, there the wrong of servitude — to do what you would not, and to abstain from the things you have desired; here a banquet, there a fast; here the intemperance of joys, there the perseverance of tears; here dancing, there prayer; here sweet songs, there grievous groans. It is indeed written: The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of fools in the house of feasting. It is better to hear the rebuke of a wise man than a man hearing the song of fools; but few hear these things, fewer follow them. The sweetness of sin allures men more — which flows in for the present moment and fattens the disposition of the hearer — than the sadness of virtue, which wraps up the hope of faith, as it were, in a certain rind of bitter toil.

Blessed therefore and wondrous is he who, set in the choice of such ways, has not been bent aside by the enticements of pleasure, so as to set his step upon shallows and crooked places; to him it is not said: You who have forsaken the straight paths to go away into the ways of darkness. We have learned, therefore, what the way of sinners is, in which we are not to stand, as the prophet admonishes us, and as Ecclesiastes also teaches, who says: Do not stand in an evil word, that is: do not persist in evil words, and likewise in works to be condemned. How one is to stand in good things, the same holy prophet enjoins, saying: Our feet were standing in your courts, O Jerusalem. In Jerusalem one must stand; from Babylon one must flee. And to Moses it is said:

But you, stand with Me — he who fled from Egypt and, standing with the Lord, persevered. And in the Gospel, those who stood until the eleventh hour received equal wages with those who labored; and the virgins who had stood firm until the coming of the bridegroom were counted worthy to enter together to the wedding, while those who departed and afterwards returned are shut out by the authority of the Lord's sentence. We have learned, then, not to stand in the way of sinners, but to stand in the office of virtue, because it is written: But you stand by faith. Now let us consider what this means: And he has not sat in the seat of pestilence. And indeed we premise this, that it is not the simple sitting-together upon the kind of throne that is in common use which is censured — for what cause for blame would it have?

— but since the eyes of the Lord are ever upon the faithful of the earth, we ought to stand as those placed under the gaze of an emperor and set, as it were, in a certain ministry. The soldier stands ready for battle, he does not sit; the soldier in arms does not bend himself back, but rouses and lifts himself up. And therefore it is said to the soldiers of Christ: Behold now, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord. But on the contrary, iniquity sits upon a leaden talent, in that, fixed in sin, it cannot separate itself from it. For those grown old in error and zealously cleaving to disgraceful deeds are said to sit, who will not rise up nor hear Him who says: Rise up, after you have sat. Finally this same prophet elsewhere says: The princes sat and spoke against me.

Or are we ignorant that an inveterate habit of sinning has such force that it shuts out nature, which, though it be curable unto health, yet, when the passions are strengthened by time, is found incurable? Let us not therefore remain in vices, but let each one, even if he has fallen, leap out from his fault, as it is written concerning the harlot woman: Set not your eye upon her, but leap away, do not delay, leap away before the years of youth find you. But — and this is more grievous — once the flame of seething disgrace has been kindled in the bosom of the mind, it will quickly burn up the garments of its own body.

And as fire, leaping upon stubble, clings and remains until it consumes all that it has caught, so even a small spark of sin, if it be kindled by any fuel of vices, stirs up a great conflagration. Do not therefore stand in sin. Finally, you have set your footstep upon the abyss of fault; quickly take away your foot, lest defilement mount upon you above the sole, and, deceived by an easier slip, you settle down upon the mire. The first vices, therefore, must be guarded against, lest afterward they creep on into more and more grievous ones. For just as those who roll in mire are the more befouled the more they wallow, so he who has once besmeared himself with the mud of wickedness, unless he leaps swiftly out of it, draws over himself daily the more grievous filth of his own disgrace by his muddy way of living.

And so, by the heavy stench of that foul and disgraceful abyss, a certain pestilence of souls is contracted, and, the breathing of wholesome thoughts being corrupted, the pitiable plague of seething passions stalks abroad. Hence a deadly venom pours itself into the mind; hence sickness creeps over the body, languors over the soul. For an evil languor is the languor of error: all its days are in darkness and mourning and much wrath and languor and anger. For how can he sleep who keeps anxious guard over his gold, who dreads losses, who plots gains, who reckons interest, who counts his storehouses? An evil languor, therefore, which takes away the good repose of the mind.

An evil languor is luxury, lust, concupiscence, worldly delight, ambition, which quickly corrupts the health of sobriety. Finally, every corruption of this world is a pestilence. Touch it not therefore, defile not yourselves with it: it is a plague, it contaminates; it is a disease, it pollutes. Taste not the things which are all unto corruption by the very use of them, as the Apostle said, who also elsewhere cries out: Avarice is the root of all evils. It stirs up diseases, it brings in pains; finally, those who have coveted it have entangled themselves in many sorrows. This is the pestilence which for the most part makes men neither hot nor cold, but — which is worse than the hot and worse than the cold — lukewarm, so that they are spewed out of the mouth of the Lord Jesus, whom on account of grievous sins He has cast away.

This is that which stirs up the sicknesses not of a few but of all. Every head is in pain, every heart in sadness. From the feet even to the head of sinners there are sores. Every head is in pain, when those who are reckoned wise are tortured by the pain of avarice. For the sense of the wise is in his head; which may also be referred to those who are preeminent in the Church. Every heart is in sadness, when we relish the things that are carnal and bury the keen edge of our heart in bodily pleasures. Hence the Lord says to such a one that He has given them a heart of flesh.

From the feet even to the head creeps the dire plague of diseases, when they labor under contagion, when they suffer along with others — if anyone be cheated of the accomplishment of his lust, if he could not storm the chastity of a widow, or invade another's field — and all the sick mutually transfer their languors to one another. How often do old men groan that they cannot drink for long! How often do they grieve that they have ceased to consort with harlots, while they still have the will to do so! How often, amid the tales of drunkards, are virtues a reproach, sins a praise, honesty a mockery, continence a thing of laughter, mercy a vanity! These are the diseases which transfer their evils into many; from a few the corruption reaches to all.

They sit in councils disparaging the sober, belching their surfeit; they sit in taverns contending over drunkenness; among them a harlot full of wine, smiling on this one, inflaming that one, and kindling all with the ardor of lust. If a modest man pass by, he blushes, he is plucked at by each one; if a disgraceful man, he is praised by the mouth of all, and like a disease it passes into the souls of individuals; for he who is notorious in disgraceful deeds draws very many to the imitation of his error. And so, while they imitate another's sin, they make the evil their own. Do not sit among those whom the holy prophet fled; imitate him as he fled — assuredly not sitting — who says: I have not sat in the council of the malignant, and with those who do iniquity I will not enter.

By what reason did you flee them, David? Explain to us; point out these parts, that we too may flee them, lest we be infected by their contagion. They are corrupted, he says, and become abominable; there is none that does goodness, there is not even one. Generally, therefore, it can be referred to all the disgraceful; or finally in a special sense to the mockers of the good, whom Aquila called 'scoffers,' because these are truly diseases, who by mocking the good work very much error in souls and corrupt minds. How many things he has named, from which the blessed man ought to abstain! And he still adds others. But in the law of the Lord was his will, and in His law will he meditate day and night; that is: blessed is he who does these things by counsel, by reason, by prudence.

For even a little child can abstain from the things that have been said, not through virtue, but through the impossibility and ignorance of sinning; this can also belong to an irrational beast, which has no power of counsel, no sense of error. This therefore is the fourth, or that which follows, in which the definition of the blessed man is distinguished from the beast: that the wise man is subject to the law by will, not by necessity. For it makes the greatest difference, since in the will is the fruit of reward, in necessity the compliance of a stewardship. For so the Apostle taught us, saying: If I do this willingly, I have a reward; if unwillingly, a stewardship is entrusted to me. And the fitting order is that first you love the law, secondly that you meditate upon it.

He who loves does the commands of the law from will; he who fears observes them unwillingly. This discipline of teaching we have received also from the righteousness of God in the Law; for thus it is written: Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one God; and you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart and in your soul; and you shall show them to your sons, and shall speak of them sitting, and on the journey, and at rest, and in waking; and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as ornaments before your eyes; and you shall write them upon the lintels of your dwellings and on your doors. And below:

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but that you love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways? Wisdom also says: Desire therefore my words, love them, and you shall have instruction. Bright is wisdom, and that which never fades, and easily is she seen by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her. Lawfully, therefore, we are taught by the holy prophet to have the will in the law, and meditation according to the law. The will in the law is not only in zeal, but also in deed; the will is first, the working second. Finally, to the one who said to Him, If you will, you can make me clean, the Lord answered: I will; be clean — that He might show that in our works the will ought to go before.

Finally, the law seeks the willing, because the law of the Lord is blameless, converting the soul; but no one is converted except he who is converted by will. Now the willing man conceals and steals away even the sense of toil. And therefore he meditates in the law day and night, in which not so much a continual intentness of reading is required as an affection for keeping the law; for he meditates fully who is himself a law to himself, intent upon the work of the law written in his heart. Aquila, however, set down only the day, and not also the night; which he set down not so much as differing from the rest as referring it otherwise, since he who meditates on the law is always in the light and has no night.

For indeed, he whose works shine cannot at all walk in darkness, because his righteousness blazes forth like light. Let our life therefore meditate on the law, let our conversation meditate, let our deed meditate, let the understanding of the heavenly mysteries meditate. For the law is the pattern and shadow of heavenly things, the shadow of good things to come. Let him who recognizes in the Gospel the things he believes in the Law meditate in darkness and in day, that is, both when set in adversity and in prosperity; for the law commands that we love the Lord. He who loves ought, in every state of his, to keep the affection of an enduring charity. A father loves his son; he loves him even when he reproves him, he loves him even when he beats him with the rod; for he who spares his rod hates his son.

Us also the Lord chastises and loves. And so even when we commit things worthy of correction, He nevertheless loves, who also receives the one He has been offended by; for the Lord chastises every son whom He receives. And do you, when you are chastised, love, because you are chastised for this end, that you may be received. For what great thing is it if you love the Lord your God then, when all things abound for you, when you enjoy your wishes, when you rejoice in honors, means, and children? Even to a man from whom we have received a benefit we are wont to render thanks. Finally, when Job was praised by the heavenly judgment, the devil retorted this: it was no wonder at all if he were grateful to God, to whom so great an affluence of prosperous things lay ready; but then he would be proved, if he should lose all those things and still render the office of a pious worshiper.

This therefore is the first virtue: that you be not broken by adversities, nor exalted by prosperities. This the law teaches you: that in affliction you slacken not your intentness nor put on despair; that, now a victor, you say not, My virtue and my strength have given me these things, but that you know all things are to be ascribed to the divine mercy. Isaiah cries: He who is in straits shall not be confounded until the time. Drink this first. What is, 'Drink this first'? Let us set aside the mystical, let us pursue the moral things which the letter teaches. On account of grievous errors he says that grievous contritions and vexations of the people are to come, and it was fitting that these go before, so that mercy might follow. Drink therefore tribulation first; for through many tribulations it behooves us to enter into the kingdom of God.

Drink, that the sense of tribulation may be poured into the inward parts of your breast; drink, with the affection of one suffering, the grief of one mourning; for when, being converted, you have groaned, then you will reconcile to yourself the Lord whom you have offended. Drink therefore this first, that you may be in grief and in straits; gladness too quickly pours in error. The people, made fat and grown gross, rose up to play and departed from the Lord. It profits you to have a contrite heart; drink this first, that your sacrifice may be received by the Lord. Let the Apostle teach you what 'Drink this first' is — that is, the cup of tribulation; for tribulation works patience. There can be no patience unless tribulation has gone before;

tribulation, he says, works patience, and patience probation, and probation hope; and hope does not confound. Drink first tribulation, that afterward so many cups of virtues may be ministered to you. And that you may know that tribulation is drunk, you heard the prophet today saying: You have given us to drink the wine of compunction; and in the later parts he says: And you will give them drink in tears by measure. By measure he seeks the drink, not above measure, lest they be unable to bear it. Finally, with what good affection he prayed this, he proved by his own example, who mingled his own drink with weeping, that he might incline the Lord's mercy upon himself. Drink therefore this first, that you may drink also the second — for now is the time that we should insert the mystical things —;

drink first the Old Testament, that you may also drink the New Testament. Unless you first drink the former, you cannot drink the latter. Drink first that you may assuage your thirst, drink the second that you may draw a fullness of drinking. In the Old Testament is compunction, in the New is gladness. See how the Lord met the arts of the devil on behalf of His little servants. He by the food of deceit deceived one, that in the one he might circumvent all; but Jesus by the food of salvation redeemed all, that in all He might also restore him who had been deceived. He devised the golden cup of Babylon, that whoever drank the more might thirst the more, and, because the drink could not please, he enticed to the drinking by the price of gold. He gave to drink of his own wine, for which he required the support of metal;

but truly the Lord Jesus poured out water from the rock, and all drank. Those who drank in the figure were satisfied; those who drank in the truth were inebriated. A good inebriation, which pours in gladness, brings not confusion; a good inebriation, which steadies the gait of a sober mind; a good inebriation, which waters the gift of eternal life. Drink therefore this cup, of which the prophet said: And your cup which inebriates, how excellent it is! Nor let it move you that the cup of Babylon is golden, because you too drink the cup of wisdom, which is more precious than gold and silver. Drink therefore both cups, of the Old and the New Testament, because in both you drink Christ.

Drink Christ, because He is the vine; drink Christ, because He is the rock that gushed forth water; drink Christ, because He is the fountain of life; drink Christ, because He is the river whose surge gladdens the city of God; drink Christ, because He is peace; drink Christ, because out of His belly shall flow rivers of living water; drink Christ, that you may drink the blood by which you were redeemed; drink Christ, that you may drink His words. His word is the Old Testament, His word is the New Testament. Divine Scripture is drunk and divine Scripture is devoured, when the sap of the eternal Word descends into the veins of the mind and the strength of the soul; finally, man lives not by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Drink this word, but drink it in its order, first in the Old Testament; quickly act so that you may drink also in the New Testament. And as though He Himself hastens, He says: Galilee of the Gentiles and the parts of Judea, people who walked in darkness, see a great light; you who dwell in the region of death, light shall shine upon you. Drink therefore quickly, that a great light may shine forth upon you — a light not daily, not of the day, not of the sun, nor of the moon, but that which shuts out the shadow of death. For those who are in the shadow of death cannot at all see the light of the sun or of day. And as though to you inquiring whence so great a splendor, so great a grace should be, He answers:

Because a child is born to us, a son is given to us; a child, because He is sprung from a virgin; a son, because, born from God, He is the author of so great a light. A child is born to us — to us who believe, not to the Jews who did not believe; to us, not to heretics; to us, not to the Manicheans. He is born to us, because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; He is born to us who took flesh from the virgin, because man was born of Mary. Flesh is born to us, the Word is given; that which is ours was born among us, that which is above us was bestowed upon us.

We have, as we think, run on far enough, yet not idly, that we might teach that even in tribulations we ought to love the Lord and not withdraw from Him, since tribulation often succeeds gladness, and gladness tribulation. Finally, he who is not broken by tribulation and follows the law is blessed. And he shall be like a tree which is planted beside the courses of waters, which shall give its fruit in its season, and its leaf shall not fall off; and all things whatsoever he shall do shall prosper. What is this blessedness, which is compared to the wood of a tree, unless we understand, in paradise, that place of the blessed, the tree of life brought forth from the earth in the midst of the other trees?

For among many trees which were fair to look upon and good for food, this tree too the earth brought forth, and it was in the midst of paradise, that the other trees might flourish by its greenness. What do we say this tree is, except that through which salvation came to us? And rightly did the earth bring it forth, because a virgin bore Him, who was earth according to the sentence of the Author which was spoken concerning her: You are earth, and into earth you shall go. Beautifully too it is read to be in the midst of the other trees — He who was in the midst of the apostles, His disciples; or because He was in the midst of the mind and heart, as He Himself says: There stands in the midst of you One whom you do not know; and elsewhere He says: But I am in the midst of you. Finally, concerning Him Solomon too said:

He is a tree of life to all who lay hold of him. Whoever, therefore, is blessed will be an imitator of the Lord Jesus, who is the tree of life, the tree of wisdom, planted in the womb of the Virgin by the will of the Father, by whom he is planted to abide forever, that he might give fruit in his season. For that planting could not wither, which had within itself the abiding richness of spiritual grace. And so Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan. These are the streams of waters, of which he says in the Gospel: 'Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' But this he spoke of the Spirit, which those who were to believe in him were beginning to receive. There is also another tradition, that there are waters from which Jeremiah forbids us to drink, saying:

'What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the water of Geon?' There is also the river Tigris, flowing past the Assyrians; there is also the Euphrates, stretching toward Babylon; there is also the Phison, which in the Latin rendering is called 'change of mouth,' encircling the land of Evilat, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good, and the carbuncle stone and the green stone. Rightly is the mouth there changed, so that no faithfulness to promises is kept, but there is deceit in the mouth where there is good gold; for avarice breaks faith and does not keep the simplicity of words, and precious ornaments likewise change the mind and the spirit, so that one thing is in the heart and another in speech.

In those regions of rivers, then, the Jews were carried away captive into Egypt and to the Assyrians and to the Babylonians, where by the rivers of Babylon they sat and wept over the misery of their calamity, and, as this same prophet testifies, there they hung up their instruments and laid aside all gladness, where they bore the heavier sufferings. Thus the remaining ten tribes were led away to the Assyrians, but the two, Judah and Benjamin, passed over into Babylonia as guilty of a graver crime. For a priest's daughter who commits adultery is punished more harshly than the rest, because she has stained the grace of the priestly line with shameful reproach.

Just as they, then, underwent the gravest trials, so our Saviour exposed himself to many temptations, that he might pass over none of the contests of our temptation. He is rightly said, therefore, to be planted beside the streams of these rivers, not in the very streams themselves, that you may understand him as bordering upon them, not as submerged. He had a first encounter of flesh and blood. And so he says: 'Father, take away this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou willest.' There was the temptation of riches set before him, when the enemy offered him all the kingdoms of the earth, if the Lord falling down would worship him. You have the streams of two rivers, Geon and Phison.

He had a wrestling against the princes of the world; in his very Passion there was a contest against the tempters, whom the Hebrew interpretation calls Persians, who brought false testimonies, against those who said 'Let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in him,' which things the devil was prompting. You have the Tigris and the Euphrates, rivers. But that our contest is fourfold the Apostle also comprehends, saying that 'our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world and of darkness, against the spiritual wickedness which is in the heavenly places.' These are the rivers which go forth from paradise.

Hence I think that he who longs to return into paradise must cross over these streams of waters. And this same holy prophet expressed not idly, showing that he who has undergone all temptations may now hope that the rest of paradise is owed to him. And so he says thus: 'Streams of waters have run down from my eyes.' For just as there is a fiery sword at the entrance of paradise, so that whoever returns may return through fire, may burn away his sins, may prove his gold, so he who returns, returns through these streams; and rightly the saints say: 'We have passed through fire and water.' Of these streams Isaiah too says: 'If thou pass through the water, the rivers shall not shut thee in.' What rivers? Hear David speaking of those who were hastening to paradise:

'Perhaps our soul would have passed through the unbearable water.' Some, regarding these four temptations, also take this text: 'Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample on the lion and the dragon,' so that he walked in the Incarnation, trampled in the Passion, or trampled in the handing over of the kingdom, which he will deliver to the Father, when he shall have emptied out every principality. Beautifully, moreover, Aquila said 'transplanted'—that is, transferred in planting—because he was first planted in the Virgin, and afterward transplanted into paradise, as he said to the thief: 'Verily I say to thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise.' This tree, therefore, shall give fruit in its season.

Earthly trees are said not to give fruit, but to bear it; but the tree of life and of wisdom gives fruit—that is, it lavishes and bestows it. Again this question arises: 'If it is the tree of wisdom, why will it give in its season and not always?'—lest perhaps it be hard for us to think this of Christ. But you who have read that 'the Lord will set a faithful and prudent steward over his household, to give them in due season their measure of wheat'—in due season, certainly, not always—you ought not to be disturbed at all. Wisdom can always give fruit, but, because it is wisdom, it ought to give wisely, to dispense prudently, whenever we either deserve or are able to receive the full measure.

Just as here in the latest time he will give fruit, so also there he will give good fruit to those in need, that we may be able to receive and to keep the fellowship of his resurrection. Now we cannot; in this corrupt age we do not endure it, for here there is corruption. And care had to be taken lest we corrupt the good fruits which the tree of life would give, because now we are corruptible, but there incorruptible, when, he says, 'the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.' What, then, would it profit one about to die to receive what death was going to take away from him? Wisdom, therefore, knows to whom and when it ought to give, that loses not even a leaf of its tree.