Works (CSEL) 14 part 11/28

He who wishes to be healed does not dread to be reproved, but does not wish to be reproved in wrath, but in the word of God. The word of God is health; for so we read: 'He sent His word, and healed them.' He does not wish to be instructed in anger, but in teaching, as if you should ask a physician not to cut your wound, but to apply medicine. He presses with the medicine, but does not cut; there is pain, but not beyond the measure of pain; it bites, but does not draw blood. And he added: 'For Your arrows are fixed in me.' He seems to say the same as holy Job, but they are different. For he too says: 'For the arrows of the Lord are in my body, whose fury drinks my blood; when I begin to speak, they prick me.' The one complains of the wound of his body, this one bewails the wounds of his soul.

And perhaps this one does penance for sin, while that one pleads the cause of human weakness and, as it were, as an advocate of our frailty demands the help of the Creator for the remedy of His work. This one therefore prays, that one pleads as advocate, and therefore the sorrow of this one is more vehement, because the wounds of the soul are heavier than those of the flesh. That one says the arrows of the Lord are in his body, this one bewails them as fixed deep; the blood of that one is drunk, of this one is poured out; that one is pricked, this one is wounded; the hand of God touched that one, upon this one it is laid heavily with grievous weight; this one bewails that his soul is filled with delusions, that one that his body is filled with ulcers. But by the 'hand of God' we understand the power of punishing.

This hand scourged the king of the Egyptians for the injury to Abraham, on account of the assault upon Sarah's chastity; this hand sank into the deep the chariots and horses and peoples of the Egyptians in the Red Sea; this hand weighed down the mind of king Saul, so that he hated the favor of his preserver, and for the transgression of the heavenly command — deserted by his companions, bereft also by the slaying of his sons, conquered by his enemies, than which spectacle nothing is more disgraceful for a king — turned his own sword against himself, lest as a captive he should live an old man, surviving both his sons and his kingdom.

This hand David experienced in his very self, and bewailed in his children the incest of the one, the parricide of the other, and — what is heavier for a devout father than the destruction of his own safety — at once bewailed the disgraces of his offspring and the ruins of his familial love; of whom the one was inflamed to incest by the affection of kinship, the other was armed for the slaying of his brother by zeal for chastity. How in their gravest crimes the borders of virtues mocked them! Would that either the one had not loved his sister, or the other had not avenged! At the last he himself too, driven from the borders of his country, fled from his son, the enemy whom he wished to be his heir, and feared to conquer, lest he be conquered by the loss of fatherly love. But perhaps someone may say, how in parricide or incest could the hand be God's, since that work is the enemy's.

Let us understand therefore that even where the devil wounds, the arrows of the Lord are said to wound. For indeed thus we read, that when in the council of the angels the Lord, turning to the devil, praised His servant holy Job — that the envious one and adversary of the human race might be inflamed (for the praise of a man of inferior substance is the condemnation of him who was cast down from a higher state) — the devil answered that Job did not worship the Lord without reward, since by God's favor he abounded in all things. 'But put forth,' he says, 'Your hand and touch all that he has; let us see whether he does not bless You to Your face.' And God gave power to the devil, that he might put forth his hand upon all that Job had.

When these things were done, since holy Job remained in his fortitude, because Job was moved neither at the destruction of his sons nor at the loss of his goods, again the Lord said to the devil, mocking him, that he had scattered all that Job had and had slain his sons, yet had been by no means able to move him from the station of virtue. And he answered: 'Whatever a man has he will give for his life. But put forth,' he says, 'Your hand and touch his flesh and bones.' And he received power again, that he might put forth his hand upon his body, yet so that he should preserve his soul, and he covered holy Job with ulcers, when he had gone forth from the Lord.

We observe therefore that the hand of the Lord is spoken of where there is the temptation of man through the devil's assault, since Job too said that it was the hand of the Lord that touched him and recorded that the arrows of the robbers were the arrows of the Lord: 'And He delivered me,' he says, 'into the hands of the unjust.' He himself therefore resolves it, that, when the devil wounds, the arrows are the Lord's, who permitted the devil the power of wounding. In short, if you command that your servant be beaten, is he not, even if he be struck by another standing by, said to be beaten by you? There is also that reason, that the Lord gives power to the tempter for this purpose, that the disposition of men may be proved in temptations; therefore persecution comes about, that faith may shine, virtue may excel, and the inner mind may be made manifest to all.

Therefore temptation penetrates the inner parts of man like an arrow, and like the sword of God which searches the inner things. Now the sword is the word of God, mighty and sharper than every sharpest sword. Of which sword hear it said to Mary: 'And a sword shall pierce through your own soul too, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.' For by the word of God all things are revealed, in whose sight all things are naked and open. The soul itself is divided, the inner marrow and the thoughts are made manifest, and finally there is no creature, as Scripture says, that hides itself from His knowledge. Therefore let us sell all things, that we may buy the word, and store it up in our own bowels.

The devil himself at last testifies that a man gives all that he has for his life, and confesses that the price of his whole patrimony is not worthy for the redemption of one soul. Why do we spare our patrimony, which even the devil himself judges cheap for salvation? I have said too little, 'for salvation'; he testifies that it is too little even for error. In short, 'All these things,' he says, 'I will give you, if falling down you will worship me,' and he showed not only the riches of the world, but also honors and kingdoms. If it costs so much that the devil may be worshiped, how much ought a Christian to offer, that he may be raised again with Christ? But let us dismiss the devil like the scapegoat into the desert; for he is no faithful assertor of the truth, even though he sometimes transfigures himself into an angel of light.

The testimonies of the divine Scriptures abound for us, by which we are instructed that nothing in man is more precious than faith, and that there is no patrimony so great as to be compared with the price of our salvation and soul. By faith Abraham left his country and his land and even the kinsmen whom he saw, and followed Him whom he did not see as though beholding Him; Moses too esteemed the price of his soul greater than all the riches of Egypt. But why do I speak of exalted men?

Rahab the harlot, that foreigner from the world, yet thought that her soul was to be redeemed not only by the contempt of all that she had, but even at the perils of her life — she who denied the spies of Joshua son of Nun to her fellow citizens who sought them, and chose rather to hide the enemies of her country, who were nevertheless the envoys of faith, than to betray them. Neither the threats of her fellow citizens, nor the perils of war, nor the burnings of her country, nor the dangers of her own people frightened her. Learn, O man, learn, O Christian, how you ought to follow the true Jesus, when a woman despised all her own things and followed Jesus in figure, on account of the likeness of the name. Whence Solomon excellently said: 'The riches of a man are the redemption of his soul.' Redeem therefore your soul. Money is cheap, but it becomes precious through faith;

it is cheap when it is hoarded, precious when it is scattered; for so it is written: 'He has dispersed, he has given to the poor, his righteousness remains forever.' If therefore you become such that you can despise not only all your possessions, but even your very flesh for the sake of righteousness, than which no possession can be richer — for a clean man is a precious possession — even if the upper rivers shut you in, you pass through; even if the Lord has given power for your testing, yet He commands the devil that he himself preserve your soul, according to that which is written: 'That You may destroy the enemy and the defender'; for he tempts as an adversary, defends as a servant. For it is written: 'And the unicorn shall be willing to serve you.'

For he serves who carries out what he desires not of his own will, but of necessity unwillingly obeys imperial commands. See the loftiness of Christ, who turned back upon the devil the price of his own malice. He compels us to do what we hold in hatred; 'for what I will, this I do not do,' as the Apostle said, 'but what I hate, that I do.' The Lord turned it back upon him, so that he too for the most part does not do what he wills, but does what he hates; in short, the soul which he wishes to conquer he guards. We condemn the corruption of the flesh and yet follow it, like that widow who made void the faith promised to her husband and afterward wishes to marry, which before she fled.

He is an enemy to the saints, and yet is employed as a defender, that he may be more greatly punished, so that he who desires to harm may not dare to harm. And how much more tolerable it is to love the virtues, even if you cannot fulfill them, than to hate the virtues which you cannot harm! 'There is no health,' he says, 'in my flesh, because of the face of Your anger.' Isaiah expounded this passage for us: 'You were angry, and we sinned.' Yet what is the face of the Lord's anger? Is it perhaps that, 'because the eyes of the Lord are upon those who do evil'? For if the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, how is the prophet weakened by the face of God's anger? Whence consider also that which David himself said in later passages: 'For You have delivered me from all tribulations, and Your eye has looked upon my enemies.'

For just as He looks upon the good things of the righteous, so too He detects the hidden things of sinners. Unless perhaps you should refer this to Christ, who was rescued from all by whom He was crushed, when He stripped Himself from the people of the Jews, who crushed Him with frequent sacrileges and daily impieties, and called His enemies to grace, whom the eye of God saw and loved. Therefore, because God is merciful, one must by no means despair; though He is angry, He pardons; though He strikes, He heals; though He delivers the flesh to destruction, He saves the spirit. Do not therefore fear the weakness of the flesh, because the holy one, when he is weak, is then more powerful. But what is it that he says: 'There is no peace in my bones because of the face of my sins'? What are these bones? Whether of the soul or of the body?

But the care for bodily pain would not be so great where the soul too labors, since it belongs to a holy man to wish the flesh to be scourged for the sake of the soul, as Paul too scourged himself, lest his preaching be rejected. There are certain bones of the inner man, just as there are also the other members, the eyes of the mind and the nostrils, as Job said: 'The divine spirit which is in my nostrils.' There are therefore also bones, by which a certain framework of charity is formed. Whence Adam too said of the partner of his love and coheir of the grace of life: 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,' which the Apostle interpreting said: 'This is a great mystery, but I speak in Christ and in the Church.'

But who would doubt that the mystery of Christ and the Church is not carnal but spiritual, since every good man in marriage itself is held not by the beauty of the flesh, but of virtue, and loves the character in his wife, not the use of her? In short, hear that he speaks not according to the flesh, but according to the inner virtue: 'My bone is not hidden, which You made in secret.' It is therefore virtue, not flesh, that knows the hidden things of God the Father. Therefore there is no peace to the soul's virtues, when our sins rush before our eyes and pour themselves over our minds. And this the chosen teacher of the nations well interpreted, saying in the second epistle to the Corinthians:

'For even when we had come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted in everything; without were fightings, within were fears.' The sins of the Macedonians vexed him; how much more do our own sins disturb each one of us, so that there can be no rest for us! Our own fault is a heavier adversary to us, which troubles the idle, afflicts the healthy, saddens the joyful, disquiets the calm, agitates the gentle, rouses the sleeping. We are guilty without an accuser, we are tortured without a torturer, we are bound without chains, we serve without a seller. Whence Scripture too says: 'You were sold for your sins.' These therefore are the sins which are always against us, as the prophet said: 'They have sold us and they lord it over us.'

A servant who is sold goes out from his former servitude, to migrate to another master; but we neither lay down the yoke of our former masters and yet bend to new sins. Whence the holy one groaned, saying: 'For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they have weighed upon me,' that is: my iniquities have passed over my head and tower above me, so that they press down my senses; 'for the eyes of a wise man are in his head.' And therefore Nabal was evil and hard, because malice and iniquity barred up his senses. Whence he could not bear the word of Abigail, but his heart hardened and he sank down as one infirm. Or see whether this be the head, of which the Apostle says that he who is puffed up by the mind of the flesh does not hold it.

But this head is Christ, because the head of every man is Christ. This is the head which through the joinings and bindings of the whole people grows into the increase of God, because in all of us through His individual members Christ rises up. Therefore when our sins weigh us down and we are pressed to earthly things by a certain leaden talent of iniquity, let us burst their bonds and cast from us their yoke, that we may be able to lift up the eyes of our mind and hear Him saying: 'Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.' In short, avarice burdened Egypt, the merchandise of the Ethiopians vexed it with money, as it is written: 'Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabaeans, men of stature, shall pass over to you.'

Egypt labored before it knew the truth, but now it labors no more, after it has passed over to Christ. The men of Sheba, who once fled, now follow willingly, because the bonds of charity hold them fast, bonds stronger than adamant. That word of Isaiah too is beautifully fitted to this passage: 'Every head is in pain and every heart in sorrow. From the feet even to the head there is no wound, nor scar, nor inflamed sore.' For iniquity grows hot when it lords it over our head, exalting itself and seizing the place, lest Christ the master of repentance should hold sway there.

These iniquities have no slight force, if you consider that man of iniquity who is to come according to the working of Satan, in all power and signs and lying wonders and every seduction of unrighteousness, whom the Apostle showed us must be guarded against, for he 'shall receive a working of error, that the faithful may be proved and the unfaithful judged.' Rightly therefore, set under his iniquities and—what is worse—under his own, David says that his scars have festered and rotted away because of his foolishness, since the remedy followed too slowly upon him who was lifting the burdens of iniquities.

Yet even to holy Job, who scraped the matter from his sores, covered with ulcers from the feet to the head, health was poured back; and Lazarus the poor man, who lay at the rich man's gate while the dogs licked his sores, was lifted up from the stench of his scars by the angels and set in Abraham's bosom. There is therefore in holy David hope and the remedy of healing, because the wounds of his sins do not give off the fragrance of ointment but a stench; and because he is afflicted by them and bowed down, and takes no delight in them.

Look now at some wanton and notably lustful young man, who spends his life in debauchery, lying like that rich man amid fine linen and purple and feasting sumptuously every day, for whom the floors swim with wine, the ground is strewn with flowers and scattered with spines of various fishes, and the dining-couches are filled with the burning fragrance of many incenses—see how he thinks himself blessed and judges that he smells sweet, though he bears grave and chronic wounds in his soul and pours forth corrupt blood, yet perceives no stench of his own scar. He has nostrils stopped with filth, and cannot say: 'The divine breath which is in my nostrils.' Therefore that rich man could not find the remedy of salvation; the poor man found it.

in the end, the one is in torment in hell, the other at rest. So holy David the prophet also found the remedy of everlasting salvation, he who confessed that the wounds of his soul stank to him and declared that his own scars had festered because of his foolishness. But there is also a foolishness which, through the foolishness of preaching, brings salvation to those who surrender themselves. The prophet therefore, now in the spirit of the Gospel, shunned the wisdom of this world by which God is not known, which conceals its own wounds and does not reveal them to the Lord. Better, then, is that foolishness which has eyes to see its sores than that wisdom which has none.

And therefore, admonished by the spiritual contemplation of his own foolishness, so great a king declares himself afflicted with miseries, that he may be able to find the remedy of repentance—the remedy which Judas, who possessed a field from the wages of iniquity, could not find. 'In my miseries,' he says, 'I was bowed down even to the end; all the day long I went mourning.' To what end does he say he was bowed down? Whether to the lawful end of repentance, or further—that we may understand it mystically—even to Christ, who is the end of the law, who suffered himself to be stoned, suffered his own dead body to be wounded? But those wounds gave off no stench of penance, but the fragrance of grace.

Indeed, no corruption of death came from his wound, as from that of other men, but a fountain of eternal life gushed forth, as the Scripture teaches us, saying: 'And you shall draw water with joy from the wells of salvation.' Water therefore leaped out from the wound, that we might drink salvation; let all the sinners of the earth drink, that they may lay aside their sins. Consider each point. Christ was afflicted with miseries, that he might make blessed the men who were set in miseries. Let no one call him miserable who is righteous, for he himself said: 'No one shall make you miserable.' He was bowed down, that we might be raised up; he was made sorrowful, that he might gladden us, according to what is written: 'For if I make you sorrowful, who is he that gladdens me but he who is made sorrowful by me?'

He therefore who is made sorrowful in the Lord Jesus Christ himself gladdens Christ and is himself gladdened by Christ. Therefore we too recognize that we must make satisfaction not perfunctorily. Let us be bowed down even to the end—that is, offering to Christ not only faith, but also perseverance in our sufferings—and let us rejoice in our sufferings, as Christ too rejoiced in his sufferings, which he took up on behalf of his servants; let us undergo them for our Lord. This then is the end, as he says: 'that I may fill up what is lacking of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh for his body, which is the Church, of which I was made a minister.'

We see what we must take up, who undertake the priestly ministry: that we ought to bear sufferings of the body bravely, not only for ourselves but also for the Church of the Lord. But David added the sufferings of the soul as well. For he himself says: 'For my soul is filled with mockeries, and there is no soundness in my flesh. I am bowed down and humbled exceedingly; I roared from the groaning of my heart. And before you is all my desire, and my groaning is not hidden from you. My heart is troubled, and my strength has forsaken me, and the light of my eyes, even it is not with me.' We perceive, therefore, that the labor of the soul is greater than that of the flesh.

Understand, then, with what mockeries the soul is filled, in that in temptations the devil seems to mock and insult it as if it were heavily laboring. Symmachus, however, renders it 'loins,' in which are the seed-beds of human generation. Hence the wisdom of God commands you to keep your loins girded, lest your chastity be loosened. And so that you may know that in the loins are the stirrings of lust, which are for the most part roused by the devil when he strives to scatter the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot—'Behold,' it says, 'his strength is in his loins and his power in the navel of his belly.' In the loins of the man is the seed, in the womb of the woman. The devil therefore mocks in these, to bring about adultery, incest, and fornications.

And therefore he who commits fornication sins against his own body, not outside the body: first because the flesh is weakened, which dissolves in lusts and does not keep the restraints of chastity; then because the seed-beds, which ought to serve for offspring to be procreated, work the defilement of the body, not the fruit of posterity. These therefore are called 'mockeries,' perhaps because in them the heat of the body often mocks without the consummation of intercourse. Hence the Seventy aptly called them the 'mockeries' of the soul, in that the devil, mocking someone's affections, strives in vain to pour out his strength and to empty his vigor, to loosen his fortitude. And so elsewhere he says: 'And my reins are loosened.'

In this the blessed Apostle too confirms us, that we ought to fear the mockeries of the soul, not the infirmity of the flesh, since Christ is the strength of both our soul and our body—he who heals the sick like a physician, who strengthens the weak as being the fortitude of all. Indeed, 'though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward is renewed day by day.' Wearied therefore by these mockeries of the soul, holy David had bowed himself down and humbled himself exceedingly—not so as to give place to iniquities setting themselves above his head, as we have said, nor to yield to the enemy, whom in what follows he teaches must not be yielded to, saying: 'How wickedly has the enemy wrought among your holy ones! And they that hated you have boasted in the midst of your feast.'

'They have set up their own signs as signs, and I knew it not, as on the way above the summit. As in a forest of trees with axes they cut down its doors.' 'When my enemies,' he says, 'set the signs of their iniquity above the summit'—and what is the summit but your head, where the senses are, where Christ is wisdom?—'I knew it not,' that is, I did not consent, I did not agree with these things nor join the verdict of my thought to them. Hence elsewhere too: 'I have not known a wicked word, and the malicious who turn aside from me I did not acknowledge.' Indeed, though Christ knows all things, he did not know sin; for he acknowledges what is his own, that is, what belongs to the virtues, not what belongs to disgraceful deeds. And therefore Scripture says to you: 'The Lord knows those who are his'; but to the unrighteous he says:

'Depart from me, for I never knew you'; and through Jeremiah he spoke, saying: 'Like a lamb I was led to be sacrificed, and I knew it not.' How did he not know what he had foretold beforehand would happen? But 'I knew not,' he says, their thoughts, their malice; I will not know the things of blood; indeed, 'I will not gather their assemblies of bloods.' I blot out their iniquities and remember them not; I will not know the things which I came to remit. I have not known the wood that burns, nor what is set in the heap of wood, whether stubble or hay, that the flame may the more quickly consume it with its fuel. Those things I will to know which endure, that they may receive the fruit of their reward.

Those things I will to know which are built upon the foundation, that they may be bettered; not those that are in the way, where passersby plunder them. Those things I will to know which are of the vine, those sound trees which bear fruit, not those gathered in a bundle and prepared for burning—that is: I am not the judge and partner of those things which are perishable. It is not therefore partnership in anything, but criminal partnership, that is at fault. But on what principle did he not know those who gloried in barren and frail things? Because by evil works and by the axes of their iniquity they overturn the entrances of the faithful soul, and by cruel deeds they cleave the vestibules of the pious mind, that Christ may not be able to enter through them.

But each one ought to guard his own gates and doors, so that, when Christ comes and knocks, the ministering powers that go before and run ahead may say: 'Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, O eternal gates.' Truly princes are they who have governed themselves well, so that there may be for Christ an entrance into their souls. Like to this also is that saying of Solomon: 'If the spirit of one having power rises up against you, leave not your place, for healing will assuage great offenses.' For diligence and faith hold the higher place, treachery the lower. Therefore let good diligence ascend to you, which shuts out the snares of the enemy and takes away sin, so that the malice of him who has power may not be able to harm.

In Ecclesiastes the Preacher saw this malice under the sun, that is, in this world, whence Scripture also called this a place 'beneath the sun.' Under the sun, then, he saw it, not above the sun, where is the peace of angels or the holiness of the heavenly powers. Or perhaps he said 'under the sun of iniquity'; for the devil presides over malice, Christ over the virtues. And so, that he might conquer the spirit of him who has power, which he received for a time, David bowed his neck in prayer, bending it like a circle, and humbled himself in his entreaties; for the prayer of him who humbles himself pierces the clouds and transcends the heights of the elements, that it may draw near to Christ. 'And he roared from the groaning of his heart.' He roars who utters only a groan, not words.

This, then, is that excellent prayer, when the Spirit intercedes for us with unutterable groanings, as the vessel of election declared. This is the groaning which God does not despise, who does not despise 'the younger servant bereft of his father,' nor the widow, if she pours out her speech. The Apostle therefore sets the groaning before all things as a sign of the Holy Spirit, as we read. And so let us guard the doors of our soul, lest the entrance of our confession be cleft by the axes of much speaking. Let nothing insolent or proud proceed from our mouth, nor let us lift up an axe or a hammer, which do not enter into the house of the Lord. Shut the doors when you pray, lest the wicked spirit intrude itself, so as to wrest sin where we wish to gain the profit of piety.