Works (CSEL) 16 part 18/34

In a word, he who was humbled by the Lord said: 'I was humbled, and he saved me.' Therefore, just as one must prudently weigh when humility from the Lord is the cause of testing, and when it is rather the affliction of humiliation brought upon a man by man — which nevertheless is wont to be borne with patience and magnanimity — so too one must wisely consider what it means that the word of the Lord abides in heaven 'for ever,' or, as some manuscripts have it, 'unto the age'; for the Greek put eis ton aiona, which the translators rendered variously, some 'for ever,' others 'unto the age.' 'Unto the age, then, your word abides, O Lord, in heaven.' And how is it that you yourself said: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away'?

'Unto the age the word abides' — not beyond the age and the ages; for the ages belong to time. Heaven, therefore, and earth, that is, the works of this world, shall pass away, but the times shall abide. Another, who is spiritual and discerns the words of the law, says: 'For ever, O Lord, your word abides in heaven'; for the eternity of the abiding word excludes the notion of a word that passes away. But how does the word abide in heaven, if heaven itself passes away? And how can the summits stand if the foundations give way, or how can the dweller remain in his dwelling unless the dwelling too endures? But perhaps this objection arises, since it is written: 'There shall be a new heaven.'

Yet not even thus is the difficulty resolved, since neither can that abide which passes away, nor can that be said to have remained which has had a beginning. The moth will gnaw your understanding if you suppose that the word, like heaven, either begins or passes away. Hence, if we wish to come to know the power of the prophetic meaning, let us first consider the ethical aspect in things that are visible and perceptible, so that from it we may make plain those things that are intelligible. If the word of God abides in heaven, let us imitate heaven, where the word abides, where the solemn order of the heavenly statutes abides, and where the frequent recurrences of the Lord's benefits persist in their appointed gifts. For indeed by the showers from above, or by warmth, or by the cherishing of this air, abundant fruitfulness is poured upon the lands and is nourished.

By heaven the year glides on through days and months and the seasons of autumn and winter, of spring also and of pure summer well-ordered. From heaven take the image of your life: even when you are not putting forth fruit, sow nonetheless the seed for fruit. There are seeds that come from heaven and are sown in the earth. There is also a harvest from on high, whence the prophet says: 'Sow for yourselves unto righteousness, reap unto fruit.' And when your works do not flower, yet cherish your seeds, lest by running wild they grow rank. What runs rank in the flower of the seed is thinned and dulled in the fruit. Cook down the fruits themselves until they ripen. Let us also be imitators of this very heavenly element:

It is not always aglow with the burning sun; often, before the violent rains, it bristles with clouds, and with the snows that fall it covers the earth. Let there not, then, be in you either a long-continued wantonness; let the sad times of the cares of old age succeed, and let a grey-haired ripeness, as it were, restrain this field of your body. Sadness is often more useful, for it is wont to have gravity as its companion. Is there ever any deviation in the sun itself? Does it not keep its daily courses? Does the moon know unbroken waning and abandon the office of its appointed service? By the very same recurrences the year returns, by the same constancy the seasons are renewed, by the same offices they are reshaped.

The sun lights the day, keeping its appointed times; the moon shines with its nocturnal splendours, and its light glimmers in the darkness. The orb of the gleaming stars glows red, and they perform their solemn station and their revolution and their changing. There is one law for these diverse bodies: to keep the once-appointed turns of their courses and not to overstep the bounds prescribed for them. That very change remains unchangeable, and the revolution knows not how to alter its order. There is one obedience for all: with their separate offices to hold the undivided harmony of the appointed constitution. In heaven, then, the word abides, because Satan fell from heaven. He had no place in heaven, and therefore he fell. Whither did he fall but to the earth? For this reason adulteries, murders, and drunkennesses began here to abound.

Thence cast out, he comes to us all the fiercer, and like one enraged he plies temptations harsher than usual. In heaven, then, the word abides, because from there the devil was cast down; on earth it does not abide, because hither he has come in his entirety. And consider whether the word can abide here in us, where the devil has scattered so many snares — he who, while he was in heaven, could not even there keep the word abiding. In short, because he himself did not hold fast the word, he fell from heaven. In heaven, then, the word abides, which is ruled and governed according to the disposition of the word.

But because heaven itself also passes away, therefore he did not say that the word abides 'unto the ages,' but 'unto the age' — although it passes away for this very reason, that there may come to be a new heaven, a new earth, a new testament, so that we may be able to behold face to face the glory of the Lord. Nevertheless, since even in heaven there was a place for vices — for assuredly the adversary would not have fallen thence had he not been caught in crimes; for the fool too is changed like the moon, and heaven itself is overcast with darkness — it seems clearly to be said not of the physical element, but of the heavenly virtues and powers. For there are holy virtues in heaven, in which there is nothing slippery or earthly. There are also on earth heavens that 'declare the glory of God.' Who these heavens are, hear him who says:

'As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.' These, then, are the heavens, who even while placed on earth dare to say: 'But our citizenship is in heaven.' These are the heavens in whom dwell faith, gravity, continence, doctrine, the heavenly life. For just as he is called 'earth' who, having fallen from that transgression of heavenly grace and been cast down into these earthly vices, has bound himself in the chains of his own transgression, so on the contrary he is called 'heaven' who pursues the life of the angels by guarding his integrity, governs his body with continent sobriety, composes his mind also with gentle tranquillity, and dispenses his money to the poor with merciful generosity.

There is, then, even on earth a heaven in which heavenly virtues can dwell. 'Heaven is my throne': I understand rather the disposition of the righteous man than the physical element. That I deem heaven, to whose soul Christ comes and knocks at the door, and, if you open, he enters. Nor does he enter alone, but also with the Father, as he himself says: 'I and the Father will come and make our abode with him.' You see, therefore, that God the Word both provokes the idle and rouses the sleeper. For he who comes and knocks at the door wishes always to enter. But it lies with us that he does not always enter, does not always remain. Let your door lie open to him who comes; open your door, spread wide the bosom of your mind, that he may see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace.

Enlarge your heart, go to meet the sun of eternal light which enlightens every man. And indeed that true light shines upon all; but if anyone shuts his windows, he will defraud himself of the eternal light. Christ also, then, is shut out, if you close the door of your mind. Although he could enter, yet he does not wish to burst in importunately, does not wish to compel the unwilling. Risen from the Virgin, he came forth from the womb, irradiating the whole of the entire world, that he might shine upon all. They receive him who desire the brightness of the perpetual radiance, which no night interrupts. For upon this sun alone, which we daily behold, dark night succeeds; but the sun of righteousness never sets, because upon wisdom malice does not follow. Blessed, then, is he at whose door Christ knocks.

Our door is faith, which, if it be sturdy, fortifies the whole house. Through this door Christ enters, whence the Church too says in the Song of Songs: 'The voice of my kinsman, he knocks at the door.' Hear him who knocks, hear him who desires to enter: 'Open to me, my sister, my bride, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.' Consider when God the Word knocks at your door most of all: when his head is filled with the nocturnal dew. For he deigns to visit those set in tribulation and temptations, lest perchance anyone, overcome by hardships, should give way. His head, then, is filled with dew or with drops, when his body labours. Then, therefore, one must keep watch, lest, when the Bridegroom comes, he depart shut out.

For if you sleep and your heart does not keep watch, he departs before he knocks; but if your heart keeps watch, he knocks and asks that the door be opened to him. We have, then, a door of our soul, and we have also gates of which it is said: 'Lift up your gates, you princes, and be lifted up, you everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall come in.' There is, then, a heaven in those in whom there are everlasting gates. If you wish to lift up these gates of your faith, the King of glory will enter to you, bearing the triumph of his own passion. Righteousness too has gates. For of these also we read it written, the Lord Jesus saying through his prophet: 'Open to me the gates of righteousness'; and further on the prophet David says:

'Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion, for he has strengthened the bars of your gates.' There is, then, a soul that has a door, and one that has gates. To this door Christ comes and knocks; he knocks also at the gates. Open, therefore, to him; he wishes to enter, he wishes to find the bride watching. Do not put delays in the way of the good Lover; quickly he withdraws, and you will seem, in the torpor of your sleep, to have shut out the one who knocks. For you shut him out when you are slothful, when you are lazy, when you are drowsy; by these bars Christ is shut out. Even if you are chaste, even if you are sober, beware lest you be negligent; he does a greater injury to Christ who repels him when he comes. Sometimes too, if you delay, he sends his hand through the window, as the bride says:

'My kinsman put his hand through the opening, and my belly was stirred within me. I rose up to open to my kinsman; my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers were full of myrrh.' First, then, he puts his hand as if through an opening, when God is judged to be present in his works; whence he says: 'If you do not believe me, believe at least the works.' Then love grows, and, conceived in the inmost vitals, it takes root. Thereupon, with his seeds poured into the intelligible womb, in which is the receptacle of the Word, our soul desires to drink in his fullness, which dwells bodily within. For the womb of women is not stirred save in those who have grown heavy in the belly. The soul, therefore, rises up to open to the Word of God.

But while she spreads herself out and opens, that by the reception of the Word she may mortify the works of this world — like him who says: 'We carry about in our body the mortification of the Lord Jesus' — therefore, while she opens, the Bridegroom passed by. For he wishes always to be sought, and more frequently to be found; and if he finds the door shut, he knocks; and if through delay he is shut out, he withdraws. But he quickly returns and knocks again, that even afterwards he may find the bride prepared. It can indeed be taken thus too: 'My kinsman passed by,' as we read, in that he penetrated the inmost marrow of his beloved; and as it was said to Mary: 'And a sword shall pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.'

Finally, the bride added that her soul had gone forth at his word, which happens when the soul sojourns away from the body and is present with God. We have explained, then, as best we could, what this meant: 'For ever, O Lord, your word abides in heaven.' Yet we can also understand it thus: that in heaven it rather abides for ever, where are the angels and archangels, the Cherubim and Seraphim; whereas men, however holy they may be, nevertheless have their affections often changed. Now we rejoice, immediately we mourn; we grow angry, we groan. In penitence itself the Apostle does not wish us to be too greatly saddened, lest we be swallowed up by sorrow. Where, then, there is wrath, where there is heavy sadness, there the word does not abide.

In short, it was said of the Lord Jesus alone by John, that he saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and abiding upon him. For even the prophets did not always prophesy, but only when the Spirit poured into them the grace of prophesying. Thus not even David foreknew what Nathan, sent by the Lord, would announce; and assuredly the prophet Nathan, the lesser, knew what David, the more excellent, did not know; and another prophet said: 'The Lord has hidden it from me.' Hence very many take it that the word of God abides in heaven in the heavenly powers, in which there are no fluctuations of the affections. But some take it of the Trinity itself, which alone is unchangeable. And therefore the word abides in heaven, that is, in the Father, because the Word said:

'I am in the Father, and the Father in me.' 'From generation to generation is your truth.' There are many who are called gods, but they are not. Therefore among the nations there is falsehood, in the Church there is truth. This truth, however, the synagogue had first, which possessed the oracles of God; for there is truth also in the Old Testament, which was earlier among the people of the Jews; for 'God is known in Judaea.' But God is truth, therefore in Judaea there was truth. There was, then, truth in the fathers, in Moses and Joshua son of Nun, in Samuel, in David, Elijah, Elisha, and in those seven thousand men who did not bend the knee to Baal. But because the later offspring of the Jews swerved from the ways of the fathers, the truth withdrew from them and came to the Church.

For it withdrew from them when they said of the Lord Jesus: 'Away with him, away with him, crucify him'; for they betrayed the truth and chose iniquity. All the other generations, therefore, that have no share in the truth, all the generations of the heretics, do not hold the truth. The Church alone possesses the truth with pious affection, because the generation of the Jews, which possessed it before her, lost it. The people of the Jews, then, was the first generation of faith, and therefore the more childlike and the weaker, which could not stand on the slippery ground of its youth. But the Christian people is the second generation of faith, and therefore the sturdier, and more mature with venerable old age. That was the generation of the law, this of grace. Hence too elsewhere he says: 'From generation to generation he will declare your truth.'

There follows the third verse: 'You have founded the earth, and it abides. By your disposition the day abides.' How God founded the earth, Scripture has taught us, the prophet saying: 'God by wisdom founded the earth, and prepared the heavens by understanding.' The earth, then, is as it were a foundation, upon which we stand, although both the reasoning of the man outside [the Church] commonly affirms, and Scripture seems to indicate, that it lies within the hemicycle of heaven — Job saying: 'He hangs the earth upon nothing.' It is enclosed, then, by the heavenly orb, and therefore the sun is not seen by night, because, going around, it is found in the lower part of the heavenly orb. But it is no concern of the saints to describe, in the manner of the philosophers, the axis of heaven and the spaces of the elements and their numbers — for what does this profit salvation?

— for the saints always strive after spiritual things, and either eagerly desire to know, or to teach, the things that will profit eternal life. In short, Ecclesiastes has beautifully opened this passage to us as being spiritual, not material, saying: 'What abundance is there for a man in all his labour with which he labours under the sun? One generation passes and another generation comes, and the earth stands unto the age' — that is: what abundance is there for the spiritual man labouring under the sun of righteousness? And he added: 'One generation passes and another comes.' A generation passes, because the rich went needy and hungry. Those who before abounded in grace, afterwards, because of their faithlessness, began to be in want. But those of the peoples of the nations who were poor are now, through faith in Christ, satisfied and abound, as it is written:

'The poor shall eat and be satisfied.' For they heard him who said that they should be 'abounding in every good thing' — not, to be sure, in money, not in gold and silver, but 'in every word,' he says, 'and in knowledge'; and elsewhere he says: 'in the riches of simplicity.' These riches are wholesome; for worldly resources cannot bring salvation. But he who has spiritual abundance — his earth stands fruitful unto the age, well founded upon the root of the virtues, whether it be the soul indeed putting forth good fruits, or the flesh, or that part which is movable by desires toward a fall. This earth the saving sun of righteousness circles, of which it is written: 'And the sun rises and sets, and is drawn to its own place; itself rising, it goes thither to the south and circles to the north.'

'Circling, the wind circles, and the wind returns upon its circuits.' The sun rises for the just, but sets for the unjust; it rises for the tranquillity of a devout mind, but sets for wrath. Hence he says: 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.' From this it can be gathered that it rises and sets for the same persons, whose vices it buries and whose grace it illumines. For he has died to sin, that he might live to God — that is: we have died in him to sin, that we might live to God for ever. See the very mystery foretold: 'And the sun,' he says, 'rises and sets, and is drawn to its own place.' This is what the Lord says: 'When I have been lifted up, I will draw all things to myself.'

For he drew to himself the zeal of all, that he might either crucify our sins or summon a good disposition to righteousness. Mark how he draws to himself: 'Father, I will that where I am, these also may be with me'; and to the robber he says: 'Today you shall be with me in paradise.' Mark how he draws all things: he was lifted up on the cross, and the whole world believed. 'Itself rising,' he says, 'it goes to the south and circles to the north' — that One, assuredly, who rises, who says: 'Dayspring is my name'; who always rises for the devout, never sets.

That Dayspring went first to the south, to the Hebrew people — a softer people, slippery rather through the wantonness of a body too inflamed than hardened by the monstrousness of impiety; or at any rate to a more noble people, which laid claim to itself as a chosen race, the lineage of the patriarchs. But because it persisted in its vices and did not amend its error, therefore the sun of righteousness circled round to the nations, which before, defrauded of the heavenly oracles, were accounted savage and ignoble; for the north is a heavy wind, like the people of the nations. But those who before were heavy through faithlessness have now been made lighter than eagles through faith and piety, after he came who would say: 'Bring from the north'; and in the Gospel:

'They shall come from the east and the west and from the north and the south, and shall recline in the kingdom of God. And behold, there are last who were first, and there are first who were last.' Finally, the psalmist himself says: 'Mount Zion, the sides of the north, the city of the great King' — that is: those who were the side of the north have become the people of the eternal King, who alone is the great Lord. But perhaps you may say: 'How is it that in the Song of Songs it stands: Arise, north wind, and come, south wind?' For very many take it as though the north wind were cast off and the south wind invited. And if they take it thus, then the icy harshness of faithlessness is driven out from the Church, lest our flight be in winter or on the sabbath, and the springtime mildness of the south is invited. Or at any rate, 'Arise, north wind' means this:

'Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead' — O people of the nations, you who long before were asleep, awake at last, and Christ shall give you light. Finally, all are invited to the Church, both the people of the synagogue and of the Gentiles, but the synagogue first, because the apostles, the earlier believers, believed from among the Jews, and through them afterwards the peoples of the nations were gathered. See, therefore, our Sun coming to the south and afterwards circling to the north. 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem' — he came indeed to her whom he even deigned to call, but this Jerusalem is the earthly one, which 'killed the prophets,' that is, the synagogue of the Jews — 'how often,' he says, 'would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not. Behold, your house shall be left to you desolate.'

He circled, then, round to the nations; and in circling, the Spirit of God circled and was turned upon his own circuits, that God might become all and in all. Therefore the holy man is called heaven, because the nearer brightness of the sun ever illumines him; he has his own domestic splendour, so that he does not feel the darkness of night. Therefore the Church too is called both heaven and world, because she has saints to be compared with angels and archangels, and has also very many who are earthly. She is called also the round world, which 'is founded upon the seas and prepared upon the rivers.' In short, the Church speaks as though she were the round world:

'Do not look upon me, because I am swarthy, because the sun has not regarded me' — inasmuch as the sun of righteousness long deemed unworthy the gathering of the nations, bound as it were by wintry frosts and ice in the congregation of Gentile error, that he should sweep over it with the serene light of his countenance. Did it not seem to you the rigour of a wintry season, when God was known in Judaea alone? But now the fullness of summer light shines forth, when Christ is all things and in all. Is not 'the earth the Lord's, and the fullness thereof'? And truly the round world is in the Church, in which there is not Jew only or Greek, not barbarian or Scythian, not slave or free, but we are all one in Christ. The sun shines for all, the day gives light to all. And therefore he says: 'By your disposition the day abides.'

For unless you take it thus, how does the day abide, since after the brief moment of day there follows the setting and the succession of night comes about? But there are those for whom it is always day — namely, those to whom Christ is present, who says: 'Walk while you have the light.' You have him whom Abraham saw, the day of the remission of sins, of which you read: 'This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and be glad in it.' There are, then, saints for whom the sun never sets, because the Lord is their light, as it is written: 'And the Lord shall be to them an everlasting light.' And he expressed the cause of the abiding day and subjoined: 'By your disposition,' he says, 'the day abides, because all things serve you.'

It seems, then, to signify that future state, when there shall be no more night, and there shall be no need of lamp or of the light of the sun, because the Lord shall enlighten them. Who these are, he said above, saying: 'And his servants shall serve him' — that is, they shall do the will of the Lord. For now not all of us serve; but when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God the Father, then shall all things be made subject to him who subjected all things to himself, acquiring the faith of all through the passion of his Only-begotten. The subjection of minds, therefore, makes diligent service. Therefore when all shall have believed in the Lord Jesus, then shall all things serve God, that God may be all and in all. But now not all are servants of God, because very many are servants of sin; for 'whoever commits sin is the servant of sin.'

But the Lord does not wish to share his lordship with others; the day, therefore, abides for those who are present. He could have said 'it shall abide,' but to the prophets future things appear, by the Spirit, to be at hand as though present. There follows the fourth verse: 'Unless your law had been my meditation, then perhaps I should have perished in my lowliness.' The prophet shone like the day, he whose meditation was the law; for indeed he received the oil of his light from the law. In short, lest the light of day might be extinguished by the body of death, he walked in the law, and therefore walked in the light. 'Otherwise,' he says, 'I should have perished in my lowliness.'

Lowliness is not always of virtue, but is also of affliction — that is, it is not always voluntary, but is also that which is undertaken of necessity, when we are tried by some affliction. Otherwise no one perishes in the lowliness which is rather wont to preserve. Therefore when we are in a time of affliction and are shaken by adversities, let meditation in the law be ours, lest the storm of temptation afflict us unprepared. The athlete, unless he has first been habituated by the exercise of the wrestling-school, does not dare to enter the contest. Let us therefore anoint with the oil of our reading the sinews of our mind.

Let our practice of exercise be all day and night, as it were in a certain wrestling-school of the heavenly Scriptures, and let the wholesome food of spiritual viands strengthen the limbs of our souls, so that, when the adversary begins to confront us and sprinkles us with the dust of his temptation, we may stand undaunted, striving not as into the uncertain nor as beating the air. We strike the better when we are beaten, if we offer the other cheek to him who strikes, if we seek no vengeance, but reserve the whole cause of vengeance to him who said: 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay.' We strike the powers of the air, if we know how to chastise our own selves. Paul chastised his flesh, that he might beat the adversaries, and brought his body into subjection, that he might have dominion over his enemies.

Let us therefore exercise ourselves with the untiring practice of meditation; let us exercise ourselves before the contest, that we may be always ready for the contest; and when the adversary's blow falls more frequently — now by want, now by plundering, now by bereavement, now by sickness of the body, now by grief of mind, now by the terror of death and the bitterness of punishments — let each of us who has been able to endure and bear it say: 'Unless your law had been my meditation, then perhaps I should have perished in my lowliness.' How many things were heaped up together at once, that holy Job might perish in that affliction! But because he had been shaped by the ways of the patriarchs and formed by the instruction of the heavenly oracles and of the natural law, therefore in such great temptations he could not perish.

In short, when he had suddenly lost such ample resources and his dearest sons, like one whose daily meditation was in the divine law, he said: 'Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, naked shall I go thither. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass; blessed be the name of the Lord.' And when, smitten too with sores over his whole body, he was tempted by the words of his wife, he who remembered that Adam was thus cast down while he trusted his own wife, answered: 'You have spoken as one of the foolish women.' For if he had been willing to listen to her as though she were wise, he himself would not have been wise. Tempted also by the diverse words of his friends, when he had merited from the Lord the rewards of steadfast faith and unshaken patience, did he not say: