Latin original · 37 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 16:490–16:526 (1267 verses in all)
What knowledge is, let Solomon teach you, who says concerning the Lord our God: 'For he himself gave me the true knowledge of the things that are.' And elsewhere this same prophet says: 'He who teaches man knowledge.' But he who asks for knowledge believes the commandments of God. Now it is one thing to believe in the commandments of God, another to believe the commandments. For he who believes the commandments of God quickly brings it about that he is within the commandments of God and conducts himself in them. Through faith, then, knowledge is taken up, through knowledge discipline; for in that which we know can please, our very conduct delights us. Finally it is written: 'But our conversation is in heaven.' Knowledge came first, conduct followed. We have spoken of 'believing the commandments of God'; but 'within the commandments of God' means this:
to be within them and to believe that the commandments are true. But unless you have believed the commandments of God, you certainly will not be able to have the knowledge of the things that we are taught through the commandments of God. There follows the third verse: 'Before I was humbled I went astray; on account of this I have kept thy word.' Another rendering has: 'Before I was humbled I did not know.' Whence some suppose that the soul of man says this: 'Before I was humbled, that is, before I entered into this mire of the body, I did not know thy commandments, which I had not read.'
But since the Church rather follows the renderings of the Seventy men, and this sense is plainer and admits nothing offensive that could stir up a scruple in anyone, let us therefore take it thus, that 'I was humbled' is said because he seems to have been humbled by sin. For on account of sin temptations often arise; finally Adam and Eve after their fault were certainly cast down. Therefore the cause of our humiliation, or rather our being humbled, is sin; for I do not flee this. For humility can for the most part be understood of adversities, as: 'It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications,' and: 'Unless thy law had been my meditation, then perhaps I should have perished in my humiliation,' and: 'I was humbled exceedingly.'
Here, then, he shows that humility arose from fault. And because the fault came first, therefore he shows that he was humbled, that is, worn down by temptations and adversities and handed over to anxieties, just as that man too, who was handed over by Paul to the destruction of the flesh, was certainly humbled, that afterward he might be able to merit reconciliation. But although this humility, that is, as it were a certain casting down, belongs to disturbance, not to virtue, nevertheless it often begets virtue and becomes not a punishment but a remedy for the sinner. For if you attribute to your sins the fact that you have been humbled, you turn back upon yourself whatever has befallen, and from a guilty man you will begin to be a just one, you who condemn yourself; for the just man is the accuser of himself at the beginning of his discourse.
Nor can you judge yourself unworthy of humiliation, you who acknowledge your own errors, in which, by blushing for them, you are certainly not exalted but humbled. You see, therefore, that you were humbled because you went astray and did not keep the words of God. Whence keep them more diligently, lest you sin; lest again, because you have been cast down, you be swallowed up by sorrow, and your casting down become for you an increase of iniquity, when it ought to be an occasion of correction. For in temptations man is proved like gold in the furnace. You see what the prophet says: 'Before I was humbled,' he says, 'I went astray.' Rightly, then, was he handed over to temptations, since he was going astray; and he was going astray because he did not hold to the word of God. But thence he found the order of his amendment, whence the fault had proceeded;
he began to be subject to the divine word, and the fault ceased. There follows the fourth verse: 'Thou art good, O Lord, and in thy goodness teach me thy justifications.' Even the practice of secular discipline has accepted that each one should praise his own judge. Whence the apostle, following the order of the divine Scriptures, when he was pleading his cause, thus began: 'Concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa, I count myself happy that I am to give my account before thee,' and below: 'Believest thou the prophets, King Agrippa? I know that thou believest.' Therefore, if men are praised in whom for the most part things not their own are praised, how much more ought each one to win for himself the grace of God, so that he may say: 'Thou art good, O Lord!'
For if one says this to a man, that he may be reminded to be what perhaps he is not, and the man himself by the proclamation of his goodness grows gentle and lays aside the dread of his harsh disposition; how much more is his own praise to be offered to God, who, unless he were good, who could stand upon the earth? Now it is proper to God to be good. Finally in the Gospel you have that 'the good tree makes good fruits.' His fruits are the angels, his fruits are men, that is, the rational ones, the holy ones, if they keep the precepts of the Lord; his fruits are these who are born on the earth, his fruits are the virtues of men. Rightly, then, the good tree makes good fruits. First, therefore, let the root be praised, that the fruit may be proved. But elsewhere too the same Lord Jesus says:
'And your Father, who is good, will give good gifts to those who ask him.' But although God is good, whose bitter things too profit more—for they are not inflicted to harm, but to correct—nevertheless he is asked, that in his goodness he may teach us his justices. Consider the physician applying useful medicines to wounds, yet such as bite the poison of the sore, or at any rate cutting away with the knife the parts festered with corruption.
Although by this very thing the physician is good, because he works for the patient's benefit and does what he knows to be profitable, nevertheless, because the sick man either will not or cannot endure the pain on account of the weakness of his own feeling, he asks that the physician cure him with a certain goodness and gentleness of his own, that he may not apply the harshness of medicines, may not cut the fibers of the wounds with the knife, or, if it cannot be otherwise, that he may do it with moderation and mitigate the force of the pain with a certain delicacy. And therefore in the goodness of the Gospel the justifications of God are taught better than in the severity of the Law. Now the work of justice is justification. Whence it is written that the Pharisees would not justify themselves, not being baptized with the baptism of John.
For in this they did not work justification, because they would not do penance for their offenses—penance which the prophet wishes to be done in goodness, that the remission of sins may come to him without the cruelty of condemnation, with the grace of remission. There follows the fifth verse: 'The iniquity of the proud is multiplied above me, but I will search out thy commandments with my whole heart.' The more anyone desires to serve God, the more he stirs up adversaries against himself, and, like a strong athlete desiring to carry off the crown of justice, he provokes and challenges very many who envy our progress. This he also clearly shows in what follows: 'With those who hated peace,' he says, 'I was peaceable.'
Yet his tranquillity availed nothing to compose by his calm those who hated peace, and to restrain their endeavors; 'when I spoke to them, they assailed me without cause,' that is: though they had no grounds for assailing, nevertheless they did not lay aside the zeal of assailing. So, then, whether spiritual wickednesses or men are multiplied, and their iniquity is multiplied above the just man. For example, if a just man should lose a son, as often happens in the course of the world, if he should lose his inheritance, or be afflicted with diverse misfortunes of property or with infirmities of body, then the proud say: 'Where is his justice, where his mercy?'
'Behold how he has been thus punished, behold how his innocence profits him nothing!' And so, to draw out a specimen for this life, those three men—friends in appearance, but unjust in their detraction, envious of his uprightness and justice—heaped up grievous reproaches by way of reproach, and those who had come to console began to insult him. But the just man is not moved by these things, and therefore neither was Job broken. Finally, in the loss of his children and of his patrimony, he said: 'The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' Therefore let us too, when set in adversities, say: 'Thou hast dealt graciously with thy servant.'
For the Lord can change for the better the things that have been done, as we have in holy Job an example, and he can restore the things that have been lost, who for him, when his children were lost, begot better ones. Is it difficult for God to bestow better things? He can, even if he bestow nothing, by this very thing have made provision for the just man, if perchance those who would have been wicked were snatched away, lest malice should change their heart. Likewise concerning the patrimony: as though we did not see very many led into peril of salvation on account of the riches of their patrimony, and for very many the cause of sinning arising from the abundance of riches. For he who has not what he may give cannot have a fault ascribed to him for not having given; but he who has what he may give and does not give certainly begins to be liable to sin. There follows the sixth verse:
'Their heart is curdled like milk, but I have meditated on thy law.' Subtle is the heart of the holy, but curdled the heart of the proud. For as milk by its nature is pure, fair, and sincere, but by corruption turns sour, so the nature of the human mind and heart is pure, sincere, transparent, before it turns sour by the admixture of vices. For when milk is curdled there comes a certain coagulation, having neither the same sweetness nor the same charm. So men who before, by the diligence, charm, and sweetness of their words, presented the appearance of milk uncorrupted by any envy—if these begin to envy, their heart is curdled into vice, and from the sweetness of friendship comes the bitterness of malevolence and a certain unlovely horror of envy.
Therefore the heart is curdled through pride, through envy, which have corrupted by the coagulation of malice the gentleness of nature and its flowing benevolence. The heart of the unjust, then, is curdled, but the just man is humbled by meditating on the precepts of the law, he who has the schooling of humility. There follows the seventh verse: 'It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications.' Following this, the apostle says: 'I take pleasure in infirmities, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses.' For when he is well pleased in infirmities and is not broken in spirit nor yields to injury, he has both merited and fulfilled the learning of God's justifications. Therefore here 'thou hast humbled me' means: thou hast exercised me with diverse temptations and misfortunes, he says.
This Symmachus also disclosed in his writing: 'It profited me that I was afflicted, that I might learn thy justices.' Therefore let him who is humbled not cast down his spirit nor be broken, but rather profit by being humbled, so that by his humility he may soften the proud, confound the insolent by the severity of his conduct, break the contumelious by his patience, and sometimes by an even-tempered loss draw the greedy away from the intention of quarreling. For thus you have read that 'wisdom is justified by her children,' while Christ offers himself to suffering, yields to injuries, does not withdraw from reproaches nor turn his face from the shame of spittings; and therefore he instructed all by his patience and healed by his bruise. There follows the eighth verse: 'The law of thy mouth is good to me, above thousands of gold and silver.'
Not just anyone says this; rather it is the rare man who says it, that is, one who prefers the law of God to gold and silver, who is able to leave all things for the sake of God's law. But not even Christ found such a one except among those whom he himself deigned to teach. Peter said this and proved it by the effect, because he held the law to be of more worth than gold. And so he says: 'Silver and gold I have not.' The miser does not say this, who broods over his buried gold; the moneyed man does not say it, who with anxious affection searches out his daily gains, who daily heaps up wealth, who lies in wait for inheritances, who keeps tireless vigils around the bedside of the dying. Here some take 'the law of God's mouth' as though it were the law of the word of God, as if you should say 'the law of God's right hand.'
Rightly, then, this also fits Peter when he says: 'Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we will not leave thee'; that is: 'The law of thy mouth is above thousands of gold and silver; and can we forsake so great a good and chase after the gains of this world?' But Moses too can be called the law of God's mouth, through whom the Lord spoke and gave the Law. X. THE LETTER IOTH. Among the Hebrews the tenth letter, 'Ioth,' begins, which in the Latin signification is called 'confession,' or assuredly 'desolation.' Nor does the interpretation seem discordant and dissonant, since those who are desolate confess the more quickly. For the mind is wont to be lifted up rather by prosperous things; but when it is pressed by adversities, then it implores divine aid.
For even in human affairs we recognize this to be the custom, that he to whom prosperity falls is more elated in mind, while he who finds the things of this world hostile and the power of someone adverse, then takes refuge, then seeks help, that either by entreaty he may soften the power of a superior, or arm himself with allied forces, lest as an inferior he be overborne by more powerful forces. Finally Jeremiah under this letter thus says: 'He who afflicts has stretched out his hands over all her desirable things; for she saw the nations entering into her sanctuary, of whom thou hadst commanded that they should not enter into her church.' Of Jerusalem indeed the prophet says this, whose distress he bewails, whose desolation and abandonment came first, that afterward confession might follow;
for the Lord chastises every son whom he receives. Therefore, about to receive Jerusalem, he scourged her with afflictions before the captivity. For she had grown too unruly and had boasted herself with an inflated heart, so that she could not hold her head, that is, the Lord Jesus—that is, she did not hold humility, grace, justice, wisdom, which is the schooling of the true faith. And therefore the Lord chastised her, who as the moderator of all things knows how to chastise each one. For as a physician is wont to cure graver wounds with harsher medicines, lighter ones with lighter remedies, so too our God chastises graver sins with greater severity, but that very chastisement profits unto salvation; for the Lord said: 'I will strike, and I myself will heal.'
Finally, concerning Jerusalem the prophet Jeremiah began to promise hope; for in what follows, under this letter, he says: 'He will give his cheek to him that strikes, and he will be filled with reproaches. He will give his mouth in burial, if yet there be hope of patience.' In the Gospel the Lord Jesus, teaching the virtue and the mark of patience, says: 'Whoever strikes thee on the cheek, offer him the other also'; for he wishes his disciples to be patient of injuries too, and not readily to strike back, much less to strike first; for patience is the token of humility. And therefore, since Jerusalem was desolate and abandoned: 'He will give,' he says, 'his cheek to him that strikes,' so that he may not withdraw himself from injury nor decline the pain of being beaten, but offer his cheek to him that strikes.
Both can be understood, whether of him who is beginning to strike or of him who has already struck, so that the Gospel saying may be fulfilled: 'Whoever strikes thee on the cheek, offer him the other also.' And this is set down prophetically, to teach that Jerusalem—that is, the church of the Jewish people—is to be saved in no other way than through the discipline of the Gospel; so that, when she shall have begun to keep the precepts of the Gospel and to fulfill in works the commandment of the Lord Jesus, then she may lay down the yoke of captivity from the neck of her soul, when she has submitted herself to the yoke of Christ. 'And he will be filled,' he says, 'with reproaches.' He did not say: 'He will undergo a reproach'; for it is easy to endure one or another contumely. He added:
'He will be filled with reproaches,' so that he may the more easily move the Lord's mercy, pitiable through the deformity of his many reproaches. This indeed you can understand from the book of Kings. For when Shimei the son of Gera reviled holy David, calling him a man of blood, and cursed him, while he was fleeing from his son Absalom, avoiding for a time the parricidal war, the king kept silent and showed forth the highest mark of patience. For since he understood the time of his temptation, that a parricidal battle should be stirred up against him, he wished rather to seem humble, that he might soften the Lord's offense, than he judged that the Lord's judgment should be exasperated in his temptation, if perchance he should go to avenge his own injuries.
Whence also to Abishai, the leader of the people, who desired to take vengeance, he said: 'What have I to do with thee, son of Zeruiah? Therefore he curses me, because the Lord has told him to curse. Behold, my son, who came forth from my womb, seeks my life. But if now a stranger curses me, let him alone, that he may curse, since the Lord has told him, that the Lord may see my humiliation and may requite me good for this cursing.' This he said both in a prophetic spirit and proved by the outcome; for when the humiliation is filled up, the sin is loosed. Finally also in the book of Isaiah you have that the Lord says to the priests: 'Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, comfort her, for her humiliation is filled up;
her sin is loosed, for she has received from the Lord's hand double for her sins.' You perceive, therefore, that where there is desolation, there is humility; for in due order desolation is followed by humility, humility by patience, patience by proving, proving by consolation. This you have written also in the apostle, that 'tribulation works patience, and patience proving, and proving hope; but hope does not confound, because the love of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,' who indeed is the consoler of our affections. But as to what he says:
'He will give his mouth in burial,' he shows a certain silence of patience beyond measure, so that he may, as it were, bury his own mouth, that he speak not, and may, as if by some rampart of virtues, block it up, that he send not forth a voice of grief, asserting so great a weight of patience as hope may foster, that he may bury and shut up the very voice as in a tomb and grave, which no injury can wrest forth, none even rouse. The interpretation of this letter too we have explained as we were able; let us come to the psalm. And so the first little verse is: 'Thy hands have made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.'
He used a great opening of commendation, that he might say he is the work of God, so that the favor of the author might the more easily be inclined toward the grace of his own work. For it is a great prerogative even in human affairs, that someone should favor his own works and benefactions and not regard another's merit, but bend his attention to the gift of his own grace, lest he seem to abrogate what he himself has bestowed. And so, although our substance be of the mire of the body, although we are clothed with flesh and the body is interwoven with bones and sinews, nevertheless no one will doubt that we are the most precious work of God. For if anyone should wish to consider the very fabric of the human body, he will be able to judge nothing on earth more precious.
For man is lofty in his stature, comely in countenance, pleasing in his head of hair, not bent toward the belly after the manner of the other living creatures, but sublime by the very law of his nature, who may gaze into heaven with a free regard, pressed down to the earth by no servitude of a captive neck, but rather as one conscious of his own liberty and a rich witness of his own Author. Yet in the other living creatures the form of the limbs is praised, in which there is nothing else to be sought beyond the grace of the body.
Man is more beautiful in that which is not seen than in the body which is seen, having within himself the grace of eternity and the loveliness of present things — for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal — clothed in this earthly lodging yet with a heavenly habitation, to whom it belongs at once both to be seen on earth and to be joined to God. A great gift indeed, if he know himself, and a certain form of Righteousness, to be born for the world rather than for himself. Whence also Solomon says: A great thing is man, and a merciful man is precious, but a faithful man is hard to find. And truly great is he who is both an interpreter of the divine work and an imitator of God. For he is a man who could say: Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.
He tills the earth, he uses the sea as a possession, and as a grateful witness he admires the adornments of heaven. The nature of things would have vanished away, had not one been added who should use it by divine providence. In fine, after God had made heaven and earth and the seas, after all creeping things, birds, and living creatures, afterward He made man, whom He would set before the living creatures; concerning whom not without reason the heavenly sentence resounded: Let us make man after our image and likeness. The rest He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created: but that man should be made, a special exhortation of God is added, that the working of God might be signified, as it were of one laboring, in the gift of this creature. God indeed is free of all labor;
yet what else do the words of Scripture show but His diligent working of you? Therefore, if God created you with some greater zeal, why do you yourself abandon the care of yourself? If God labored over you, He who knows not how to labor, why are you yourself a fugitive from labor? Thy hands, he says, have made me and fashioned me. The prophet cries out to God: Thy work, O Lord, forsake not, do not abandon it. I appeal to Thee as Author, I hold Thee as Founder; I seek no aid from elsewhere. Gird Thyself for help, Thou who wast girded to create. Say Thou Thyself, David, what thou hast felt, why thou hast said: Thy hands have made me. But thou hast said below: O Lord, Thou wilt requite for my sake; O Lord, Thy mercy endureth for ever; despise not the works of Thy hands.
This is to say: Thy hands made not the beasts, but Thou saidst: Let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls; and the earth brought forth quadrupeds after their kind, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth. But me, he says, Thou hast made; me Thou hast fashioned with Thy hands; that is: Thou didst not fashion the beasts with Thy hands, nor the creeping things, nor the birds; but me Thy hands have made and fashioned. No mean work is that which has been prepared, when each thing is disposed and prepared by wisdom. In fine, Wisdom says: When He prepared the heavens, I was with Him. And the same prophet says of men: The voice of the Lord preparing the harts. And what is the voice of the Lord but: Let us make man?
And who are these harts, but the enemies of serpents, who walk upon asps and feel no venom? Therefore I judge that what God prepared is not cheap, nor merely corporeal. Know thyself, O man; to thy soul it is said in the Song of Songs: Unless thou knowest thyself, O fair among women. Know thyself, O soul, that thou art not of earth, not of clay, because God breathed into thee and made thee into a living soul. Thou art a magnificent work, inspired by the generation of God. Take heed to thyself, as the law says; that is, 'to thyself,' that is, to thy soul. Let not worldly and mundane things hold thee fast; let not earthly things detain thee. Hasten with thy whole intention toward Him from whose inbreathing thou hast thy being. A great thing, he says, is man, and a merciful man is precious, but a faithful man is hard to find.
Learn, O man, wherein thou art great and precious. The earth shows thee to be cheap, but virtue makes thee glorious, faith makes thee rare, the image makes thee precious. Is anything so precious as the image of God, which ought first to pour faith into thee, so that a certain likeness of the Author may shine forth in thy heart, lest He who questions thy mind should not recognize the Author? Is anything so precious as humility, that, perceiving the nature of body and of soul, thou mightest subject thyself by the one and recognize thyself by the other? The enticement of the flesh, prone to vice, persuades mercy, because what thou hast bestowed on another thou dischargest for thyself; whatever proceeds from thee returns upon thee, and whatever thou doest thou dischargest for thyself, and whatever thou profitest profits thyself.
Let the vigor of the living soul, the faculty of reason and the mind capable of understanding and of judgment, so that the house may seem worthy of so great an inhabitant, not lose the prerogative of its own nature, lest it lose the name of man. For Scripture calls him a man who is after the image and likeness of God, but the sinner it is wont to call not a man, but either a serpent, or a horse neighing after females, or a little fox, or a beast of burden. Be not made like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding; with bit and bridle bind fast the jaws of those who draw not near to thee; and: Tell that fox, He says of Herod; the people of men is called a brood of vipers by John. Therefore thou art a great work of God, O man; great is that which God has given thee.
See that thou lose not that great gift which God bestowed, namely that thou art after the image of God, and lest this rather be punished in thee. For God does not punish His own likeness, but He punishes him who, having been made after the likeness of God, could not keep that which he received. Therefore that is punished which ceases to be after the likeness of God, that is, thy sin. For God does not condemn His own image, nor send it into that eternal fire, but rather vindicates His own image against him who did injury to that image, so that through malice thou shouldest cease to be what thou wast, and become a mule out of a man. Therefore the image is vindicated, not condemned; it is vindicated as one cast out, not condemned as one guilty. For after thou hast sinned, thou hast begun to be something else; thou hast ceased to be that which thou wast.
How then is that punished in thee which is not found in thee? For if the image and likeness of God be found in thee, thou beginnest to be worthy not of punishment but of reward. Thus that image, by which thou wast made after the image and likeness of God, is not condemned but crowned. But thou art condemned in this, that thou thyself art changed, so as to become out of a man a serpent, a mule, a horse, a little fox. For by these names Scripture has already condemned us, because, stripped of the adornment of the heavenly image, we also lose the name of man, we who do not keep the grace of man. Yet in some manuscripts we find: Thy hands have made me and formed me. Nor is this foreign to the matter, for Job too said: Thy hands have formed me and made me.