Works (CSEL) 16 part 16/34

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so through Christ our consolation also abounds. With so great force of apostolic petition he asks that he may receive consolation from the Lord in every tribulation, so that not only may he himself put on endurance, but may also console others, that they too may be able to sustain the straits of their own mind. If, therefore, you have yourself been approved as fit in every tribulation, then at last you will be worthy to receive consolation in every tribulation. And yet not every suffering is worthy of consolation, but the suffering that is through Christ—this merits the consolation of Christ. And beautifully he added: 'according to thy word to thy servant.'

For the Lord himself promises help to those who fight for his name, saying: 'When therefore they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak; for it is not you who speak, but my Father who speaks in you.' Therefore, lest we be unequal to the contest, let us always pray for divine help, that he may grant us exhortation; for if we have him who exhorts us, we do not easily yield. But very many have: 'who may console us,' nor does this shrink from the truth. For there is a certain coaxing exhortation of one who urges another on, which kindles the contender with zeal for praise and soothes him as with a kind of consolation, lest he be called back by the harshness of his toils. There follows the fifth verse:

'Let thy compassions come unto me, and I shall live, for thy law is my meditation.' To him whose meditation is the law of God, mercies are at hand, that he may live forever. For how can anyone be blessed without the divine compassion? 'Blessed is he who meditates in the law of the Lord day and night.' But he who meditates in the law is instructed in the law, and whomever the law has instructed, the Lord has instructed, who spoke the law. And therefore it is written: 'Blessed is he whom thou shalt instruct, O Lord, and shalt teach him out of thy law.' Let us too, then, learn to meditate in the law; let us not be drawn away by worldly enticements, let us not be occupied by hindrances, but let us be ever attentive to the law. For it is written: 'The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom, and his tongue shall speak judgment.'

This in the Old Testament; hear it spoken also in the New: 'The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart.' And he shows that this meditation is especially necessary for priests, writing to Titus, that a bishop ought to embrace the faithful word that is according to doctrine, that he may be able to exhort in sound doctrine and to convince those who contradict. This surely is the work of careful and intent meditation, not of perfunctory reading. And writing to Timothy he says: 'Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.' For frequent reading, not left off by any interruption, accomplishes the office of doctrine.

But as to his asking that he may live, we have frequently shown that the life of this body does not possess the grace of true life, but that the true life is to be that one, whose goods each of the saints believes he sees 'in the land of the living.' What we believe we shall see is surely not present but future. There follows the sixth verse: 'Let the proud be confounded, for they have unjustly done iniquity against me; but I will be exercised in thy commandments.' Above, the same prophet says: 'If I have rendered evil to those who repaid me.' Does he then curse those who have wrought iniquity against him? Surely not; for he saw that charity must be shown even to the bitterest enemies, since the herald of the Gospel had come.

Whence I judge that, like a physician, he wishes to heal those very ones who have injured him, so that, convicted by the contemplation of their own iniquity, they may blush at their own crimes—wherein they begin not only to prove the prophet's patience but also to amend their own insolence. For shame is for the most part our correction, and while we begin to be ashamed of what we have committed, we are admonished to forsake the things to be blushed at, that we may no longer be ashamed. The prophet, then, does not curse, but, like a good physician, wishes them to recognize what they have done, so that, when they have taken into their own conscience how great is the filth of their offenses, they may begin to blush, and, blushing, may be able to renounce their former sins.

Consider now for me certain men fornicating, riding roughshod over widows and orphans, plundering what belongs to others, and in these things not only not blushing but even wont to glory, as though displaying the titles of their beauty or of their power; concerning whom the Apostle well said that their glory is in their own confusion, the more detestable than their very crimes in this, that, while they commit such great things, they are not confounded. But if any of them afterward comes into the Church, believes in the Lord Jesus, hears the Gospel, is pricked at heart, then at last he will begin to recognize how atrocious and grievous are the things he has transgressed, and to blush at those things which he has recognized. But what it is to be exercised in the commandments of our Lord—since he said:

'But I will be exercised in thy commandments'—in the law you have learned this, namely: if your adversary's ox should fall under its load, that you should not think it must be deserted, but rather lifted up. But as to his saying: 'they have unjustly done iniquity,' consider against whom this is said, unless against him who perhaps justly does iniquity—that is: if one who has been injured desires to avenge himself through the law according to the precepts of Moses, he seems to do iniquity justly, but not according to the precepts of the Gospel. And therefore he says: 'I came not to call the just, but sinners,' because the Jews use the authority of the law for avenging themselves. You have this also in the Apostle: 'Be sober and justly.' He plainly taught that we ought to be not only sober, but also justly sober.

Someone can be both sober and not justly sober, so that he is sober from wine yet is not sober in fairness and justice—for there is a drunkenness of iniquity—; and someone can also, while ever indulging in drunkenness and luxury, yet, while he strives to plunder what belongs to others, being occupied by that pursuit, be sober from wine and not sober from robberies; nor is this man justly sober. Therefore the Apostle admonishes that there be in us a just sobriety. Finally he added: 'and do not sin.' For he who sins, even though he be sober, cannot nevertheless be proclaimed as justly sober. 'Do not,' he says, 'be led astray'—that is: let not the drunkenness of another's error make you drunk—;

'Evil communications corrupt good manners,' because, as it were a kind of drunkenness, it is poured into the manners of the hearer through the mouth and lips of the unfaithful. And deservedly he added: 'Be soberly just and do not sin.' For some have an ignorance of God, so that he is sober who has no ignorance of God and does not stagger with the drunkenness of perfidy; and he is justly sober in whom the grace of works shines forth together with the sobriety of faith. There follows the seventh verse: 'Let those who fear thee turn to me, and those who know thy testimonies.' Another has, especially according to the Greek: 'let them turn to me.'

If we read 'to me,' let those who fear God turn, let them blush at their own deeds or at least pay the penalties of their offenses, and let them turn to God's little servant and the prophetic doctrine, that they may unlearn the committing of shameful things and, by the amendment of so great a teacher, put off their own manners and, the stain of their offenses wiped away, put on the discipline of virtues. But if we read it thus: 'let them turn to me,' that is: since I will be exercised in thy commandments, let them turn to me, to me now no longer sinning, now no longer erring. 'Let them turn,' he says, who, fearing thee, have renounced their own sins, so that, by the fellowship of the just, the prophet may be advanced to richer things, and himself may impart very much to his hearers from that grace which is in him.

Let the just, therefore, turn to the just one, when I now no longer sin. But concerning the testimonies I think there is now no need to repeat, since it has already been said before. There follows the eighth verse: 'Let my heart be undefiled in thy justifications, that I be not confounded.' The loftier the prophet is, whether by the gift of prophecy or by the grace of kingship, the more he follows humility and teaches what we ought to imitate, in that so great a prophet asks that an undefiled heart be made for himself. Above he asked: 'Create in me a clean heart, O God.' He did not say 'make,' but 'create,' that he might restore and cleanse his heart anew. There is a certain greater compass in this discourse;

for great is the heart created by the Lord, which may receive the word from the heavenly virtues and powers; a great heart, which may receive the Lord himself saying: 'I will dwell in them and walk in them.' That it may receive these things, then, he beseeches that not an angel become the creator of his heart for him, but the Lord himself, who created heaven and earth. And well he says 'undefiled,' because the heart of man is defiled as it were by the filth of unseemly thoughts. If thought itself pollutes, how much more do deeds themselves contaminate! Do not contaminate with extraordinary thoughts the inner chambers, lest by a grave defilement you pollute that which you suppose you have clean. You wash your hands,

as though you could wash away the crime, when you cannot wash your mind defiled by unclean thoughts. Pilate too washed his hands, but he could not wash his heart; he remained polluted by crime, although he had washed his hands by the pouring on of water. Hear that thought too defiles: 'Not what enters into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man.' If therefore you are defiled within, cleanse first what is within. If you cleanse what is within, you have cleansed the outer things also; just as, if foul water flows, you suppose in vain that the cistern is to be cleansed, if the spring runs muddy;

for it will profit nothing to have wiped the receptacles, when the defect is in the spring. You yourself must first be purged, that all that is pure may flow. Your heart is the wellspring of your thoughts. In that spring either the turbid water of impurity is spewed out, or the pure wave of piety bursts forth. You have learned that the heart must be cleansed; learn how you may cleanse it. A lawful justification cleanses this spring—that is, the confession of sins. Finally that publican, who confessed his own sins, went down from the temple justified rather than the Pharisee, because the Pharisee preferred his own fastings and gifts and innocence. Cleanse therefore your water, that water of which it was said: 'Counsel in the heart of a man is deep water.'

Nature has given you good water, unless you pollute it with your own mire; it washes you clean, if it is pure, if simple, if also natural, if it have nothing sordid and earthly. What evil is it, if that water which ought to cleanse should pollute! But it is not your own water that pollutes you; this is another's water. Finally it has been said to you: 'Abstain from another's water.' Another's water lies and deceives and flows contrary to nature. Therefore he says: 'Strange children have lied to me'; for if they had not been strangers, they surely would not have deceived. Let no one therefore glory that he has a chaste heart, as Solomon said, but let him who glories glory in the Lord, who has deigned to create a clean heart in his saints and to make it undefiled by his justifications.

What the justifications are, you have heard him saying: 'Declare thy iniquities, that thou mayest be justified.' Therefore he who declares his iniquities is justified, and he who is justified is not confounded, because by timely confession he forestalls the shame of sins. XI. THE LETTER CAPH. Here begins the eleventh letter, 'Caph,' which in Latin interpretation signifies 'they are bowed down.' The very sound of the interpretation teaches us what it is to be bowed down; for he who is bent toward the earth seems to be bowed down. Whence the prophet says under this letter: 'They had almost made an end of me upon earth.' But he is bowed down who does penance, in that he bends his neck while he is humbled to the Lord, and the inner neck rather, that is, the neck of the mind and heart. For of this neck it has been said:

'Not even if thou bend thy neck like a hoop.' For he who does not bend his heart will have bent his neck in vain. Jeremiah the prophet too teaches that humility is signified by this interpretation; for he says under this letter in the Lamentations: 'For the Lord will not cast off forever; for when he has humbled, he will have mercy according to the multitude of his mercy, for he has not humbled with his whole heart, nor cast off the sons of men.' Good it is therefore to be bowed down, that we may be humbled to the Lord and the Lord may have mercy. Finally, also in the preceding passages under this letter the same prophet Jeremiah, showing the groanings and humility of the people, says: 'All his people are groaning, seeking bread; they have given their desires for food, to refresh the soul.'

'See, O Lord, and behold, for she is become without honor.' Therefore he who seeks refreshment for his soul, let him be bowed down by humility, that he may the more quickly attain to the mercy of the Lord. And so, as one bowed down much more in soul and mind than in body, David began, saying: 'My soul has fainted for thy salvation, and in thy word I have hoped.' Let not the ordinary usage of the word take us captive, so that we should judge such a fainting to be like that of bodily weariness. For he did not only say: 'my soul has fainted,' but: 'has fainted for thy salvation.' And so, that we may take an example from common usage, if, for the sake of argument, we should say: 'so-and-so has fainted for that woman,' it seems to be expressed by this word that he has passed wholly with desire into longing for the woman.

And whatever it is that we vehemently long for, unless we have a speedier attainment of it, it seems to weary us with a kind of prolonged straining. Impatient love, knocking day and night at the harlot's doors, if the desires of enjoyment are deferred too long, faints with the very expectation while it hopes; in which, surely, there is not the end of love, but its increase. And whatever is desirable, if it does not befall the one who desires, he faints for it, and the one who desires as it were lays down his very soul. Yet if a nearer hope arises, the nearest hope gives strength; but if there is absence of the beloved, by that very thing—that he desires the absent one—he who has conceived desire suffers a fainting of his soul. And so, the farther off is that which is desired, the more does he who desires faint.

This, then, is to faint: for each one to migrate with all his zeal into that which he loves. He thinks of that, he clings to that, that which he has received to be loved resounds in him, into that he is transfused with a certain fainting of soul; as if a mother should await the presence of her son, just as Tobias's wife awaited her son journeying abroad, fainting from desire and set in straits and as though her strength were undone. For what else do her words signify but a kind of fainting? But the more the affection is wearied, the more does love grow, and the longer the one desired is absent, the more do the desires of the one waiting burn with a certain greater force of love. The flesh faints, but desire is nourished and increased. From this, then, we can gather what it is:

'My soul has fainted for thy salvation.' For the soul, clinging to the spirit, faints from that which is soul and becomes one spirit, since 'he who clings to the Lord is one spirit.' And so the holy man who fears the Lord knows not to desire anything other than the salvation of God, which is Christ Jesus. Him he longs for, him he desires, toward him he strains with all his strength, him he cherishes in the bosom of his mind, to him he opens and pours himself out, and this alone he fears: lest he should be able to lose him. And so, the greater the desire with which the soul has been exercised, longing to cling to its salvation, the more it faints. Therefore this fainting works indeed a diminution of frailty, but an assumption of virtue. Finally, the same man saying elsewhere:

'My soul has thirsted for thee,' he added below: 'My soul has clung after thee; thy right hand has upheld me.' For he who thirsts longs ever to cling to the spring and seems to seek and touch nothing for himself but the water, that he may be fed by that very affection. Therefore thy right hand, upholding my soul and imparting to it from its own power, makes it to be what it was not, so that it may say: 'I live, yet not now I, but Christ lives in me.' Learn also by example that this fainting belongs to excessive desire: 'My soul longs and faints,' he says, 'for the courts of the Lord.' First longing, he says, and as it were pouring herself wholly into desire, she is dissolved in a long-ending suspended fainting.

Finally, how the soul faints for the salvation of God, Jeremiah teaches: 'And it came to pass,' he says, 'in my heart as a burning fire flaming in my bones, and I am dissolved on every side and cannot bear it.' Inflamed therefore by this desire, David says: 'My soul has fainted for thy salvation, and in thy word I have hoped.' Rightly he said 'I have hoped' 'in thy word'; for hope goes before, and therefore fainting follows. But he hoped in the word which was preached to be coming, which can be understood of God the Word. Or certainly he hoped in the word who believed the heavenly word, by which the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is announced, or by which his glory is declared.

Therefore the prophet, considering what he had read, and perceiving that, while he was present to the body as though bound by certain chains of this life, he was absent from the salvation of God, was longing, was desiring, was fainting, and was wholly dissolved in affection, so that he might become wholly his whom he desired, just as he himself also says in the later passages: 'I pour out my prayer in his sight; I declare my tribulation before him, while my spirit faints within me.' For his spirit faints—nay rather, his own spirit faints from him who denies himself, that he may cling to Christ. Whence his paths are known to the Lord, because they are not the paths of the flesh, but of Christ. For indeed the way of those who seek God is Christ.

Let us too, therefore, long for that eternal thing, that salvation of God; let us not long for money which the most avaricious long for, let us not long for the beauty of another's wife, let us not be agitated by the desire of ambition, let us not strive after worldly glory, let us not be occupied with the pursuits of deceitful circumvention, let us not desire to overreach our neighbor with iniquity, let us not, finally, be 'the portions of foxes,' sunk into the inner parts of earthly pleasure as exiles of things eternal and cast down from that presumption of the supernal hope. Let our soul therefore, fainting from its own strength, be raised up, that it may cling to the salvation of God, who is Christ the Lord Jesus, which by interpretation is called 'the salvation of the Lord.' For he himself is salvation, truth, power, and wisdom.

He, therefore, who faints to himself that he may cling to virtue, loses what is his own, and receives what is eternal. There follows the second verse: 'My eyes have fainted for thy word, saying: When wilt thou comfort me?' Above, the practical; here, the contemplative. There the soul fainted for salvation, in that it longs for him by whose passion it has been preserved; here the prophet's eyes have fainted for the word of God. And let us see whether, just as there, clinging to Christ in mind, he faints into one spirit and becomes one spirit, so also the eyes may faint, that they may become one mind. For these are the eyes of the mind, the eyes namely of the inner man, not these eyes which perform the office of sight.

For there is also an eye and mind of the flesh, but that eye is blind which does not see the things that are divine, which is vainly puffed up with the mind of the flesh. There is also another, the sense of Christ, by which the Church sees Christ, as he himself says to the bride: 'Thou hast wounded our heart with one of thine eyes.' Deservedly Christ is seen with one eye, because he is not seen with the eye of the flesh. Or because the Church, having two eyes, the moral and the mystical, sees Christ more with the eye of faith; for the mystical eye is keener, the moral sweeter. And perhaps these are the eyes with which Paul saw eternal things, when he began not to see corporeal things. Finally, he who did not see Christ before he lost his eyes, saw him after he had lost the sight of his eyes. For he saw, who said:

'Who art thou, Lord?'—he surely saw Christ, whom he even confessed as Lord—and below he says: 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' Did he not then see him whose command he awaited? With what eyes, therefore, did Paul begin to see more, except with those which he himself showed us, saying: 'I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind'? Finally, that you may know that he saw while praying, 'It came to pass,' he says, 'when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I was in a trance, and saw him saying to me: Make haste and get quickly out of Jerusalem; for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.' These eyes, therefore, faint for the word of God and say: When wilt thou comfort me?

With these eyes the prophets were called 'seers,' because through revelation they discerned with the mind the things that were hidden. What is it for the eyes to faint? Let us speak of corporeal things, that we may understand of spiritual things. When we desire someone and hope that he will be present, do we not direct our eyes thither, whence we hope he is coming? And so, intent for a long time with daily expectation, we faint. Thus Anna, looking around toward the road, explored the coming of her son with anxious watchings. Thus David the prophet, the assiduous father, was eager to inquire about the welfare of his son, of one running from the battle, scouts having been posted in the tower.

Thus the wife of tender age awaits with unwearied expectation the coming of her husband from a watchtower on the shore, so that, whatever ship she sees, she thinks her spouse is sailing therein, and fears lest another forestall the favor of seeing the beloved, and lest she herself not be able to be the first to say: 'I see thee, my husband,' just as Anna said to her son: 'I see thee, my son; from now on I will gladly die,'—not feeling, of course, the pain of death because of the sweetness of the longed-for sight.

Therefore, just as she who wishes to offer herself to her arriving husband, having put away all domestic occupations, gathers up the paths of the traveler or the traces of his feet, so the prophet, stripped of secular cares, was straining the gaze of his inner eyes toward the word of God as a vigilant watchman, even to the fainting of himself, reducing his body to servitude and training his soul to the patience of humility after the manner of a wasting spider's web. For he was desiring 'as the hart the fountains of waters,' and was thirsting for the Lord his God, longing to see his presence and to appear before the face of God, and, fainting with excessive longing and vehement desire, he then presumed by prophetic grace that he was the more fit for obtaining the things he had asked concerning the Lord.

Let us too, therefore, direct our heart, that we may be able to understand the sequence of the Scriptures, and let us ask that the word come to us from the Lord, and that understanding be given. If anyone has beheld the word of God from afar with the gaze of the mind, not yet plain and distinct, he, as it were with certain inner eyes, perceives the ship of the word drawing near to his soul. But the more clearly he has begun to see, the more he hastens, as it were, to draw near to the harbor of truth, that he may be next to the one to be brought in. Therefore the eyes of the prophet have fainted for the word of God, saying: When wilt thou comfort me? If these eyes are signified by which we discern and see, they ought to have said: 'When wilt thou comfort us?'—that is, not in the singular, but in the plural.

But because the eye of the mind and the eye of the flesh become one eye, and a man is then upheld by consolation when flesh and mind do not crave diverse things but desire one thing and seek one thing, therefore, intent upon him who says, 'I and the Father are one,' these eyes too confess themselves to be one, because they fulfil one and the same desire and duty. The prophet therefore was failing for longing of the Word. But we account ourselves idle if we are seen merely to give zeal to the word, and we esteem more highly those who labor than those who exercise the zeal of coming to know the Godhead. For very many say, 'Behold, the man and his works,' as though one who applies himself to the word does not labor, whereas this work is greater than the rest.

For if righteousness is a work, if temperance is a work, if fortitude is a work, surely wisdom too is a work; for these four are held to be the chief virtues. For if Christ works according as he is righteousness, surely he also works according as he is wisdom, and he was working when he was in the beginning with the Father. Indeed through him all things were made; and you may know that Christ Jesus is the worker of all things and is our work. For according as he is the Word, the Word is a great work for those who seek it. Hence, when Martha was busy about her service, but Mary heard the word of the Lord, the things she heard deserved to be preferred to those Martha ministered. For to Martha when she said:

'Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me,' the Lord answered and said: 'Martha, Martha, Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.' Thus by the authority of a divine sentence it is determined that to come to know the word is a greater work than to minister. But perhaps someone may say that it was said by the Apostle that 'the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.' I do not deny that it is written; but learn in what sort of word: namely that which one puffed up has poured out, a word that cannot profit its hearers, that is without the showing of the Spirit and of power; such a word Paul does not deign to acknowledge; for he wills rather to acknowledge the power of the word.

In short, the Apostle did not wish his own word to be of such a sort: a word which came in weakness, that it might make others stronger; in fear and trembling, that those who feared might dread nothing save the Lord Jesus, and that, trembling, they might keep his peace and tranquillity. Hear, then, what sort of word the Apostle had: 'And my speech,' he says, 'and my preaching was not in the persuasion of the wisdom of words, but in the showing of the Spirit and of power,' because faith is established not by the wisdom of the forum's speech, but by the power of God. Therefore in the speech of the saints there is power, but in that forensic and philosophic speech there is the vanity of the world. And that there is power in the speech of the saints let this same prophet also teach you, who says: