Works (CSEL) 16 part 19/34

'Unless your law had been my meditation, then perhaps I should have perished in my lowliness'? How gratefully does he say this today who in martyrdom endured very many scourgings, being tested by the rack and by hooks, by lead, by burning plates, by the sword! For he could have perished, had he not, meditating in the law, believed that the punishments to come were heavier than those present. How great were the things that holy Joseph bore, how bitter, how hard! First the hatred of his brothers, the hardships of a degrading servitude; defrauded of his parents, banished into exile, the home-born slave of traders and the cheap chattel of an ignoble Egyptian. What heavier temptation could there be for a boy of noble lineage, than that, cast down from such splendour of his family, he should be a slave among the Egyptians? Servitude is bearable when one serves even the just;

By the equity of his master the injury of his servitude is lightened. Cast down, then, from so great a lineage, he counted it gratifying enough if his obedience won approval from the royal steward. Yet not even this sufficed against the bitterness of his trial. The adversary returned to his wonted arts, and stirred up all his familiar powers with every deceit, that through a woman he might weave snares for an innocent conscience. He roused against him, with the goads of lust, the wife of his master, who demanded an adulterous embrace from the young servant, so that, if he yielded, he would commit the crime, and if he refused, he would fall into her displeasure, and could not escape the bond of false accusation. At length, thrust into prison and reckoned, though innocent, among the guilty, he began to be the more sorely pressed by the very man to whom he had shown his loyalty at the cost of dangers.

But because insults could not break the man, the trial was changed into one far harsher under the appearance of prosperity; for prosperous fortunes have supplanted very many whom bitter torments had not broken. He is brought forth from prison at the king's nod, he interprets the dream, he is chosen to be more eminent in honour than all the Egyptians, second to the king, to distribute food to the starving peoples. His brothers are cast in his way, who out of no brotherly love had sold him into the injury of slavery, so that, tempted by the grief both of the insult and of the salvation he now had within reach, he might cast off the affection of kinship. But the just man forgot the insult, and heaped up grace; he wished to show himself the more a brother in that he himself had not found brothers.

At last by this kindness he both received back his father and sought out his brother by a holy stratagem. What better thing, then, could holy Joseph say to the Lord than this: 'Unless thy law had been my meditation, then perchance I should have perished in my lowliness'? It is told of a certain prophet—and many relate that it was Isaiah, set in prison—that, when he was pressed by the burden of impending destruction, the devil said to him: 'Say that what thou hast spoken was not spoken by the Lord, and I will change the minds and dispositions of all men toward thee, so that those who are indignant at the wrong may grant thee acquittal.' But he judged punishment for the truth more welcome than a benefit for flattery. And this assuredly he would not have done, had he not been trained by meditation on the law.

Let daily reading, therefore, be for us an exercise, that we may meditate to imitate what we read. Let us toil hard in this wrestling-school of the virtues, so that, when temptations rage, the season of temptations may not find us as men untrained, not as men untasted of spiritual foods and weakened by a fast from reading. But if it can find our soul fed upon athletes' fare, if there be the gospel's juice within us, if apostolic food has firmly built up the maturity of our mind in sturdy sinews and strengthened the soul, if by frequent meditation a memory tenacious of the heavenly precepts brings forth its examples ready for the moment, no onset of temptations will be able to disturb us. There follows the fifth verse:

'I will never forget thy justifications, for in them thou hast quickened me.' The law, according to the Apostle, is a pedagogue of little ones, until we come to a riper age of perfect faith. Now in the law there are commandments, justifications, testimonies, judgments, precepts; we are therefore quickened in the law, whence the Apostle says: 'But the law is not of faith, but he that doeth it shall live in it.' Yet because the same Apostle says above: 'Since in the law no one is justified,' you understand assuredly that the justification of the law is an appearance and an image, not the truth. According to truth, then, and perfection, no one is justified in the law; according to the appearance he is justified.

Therefore the holy prophet, who still lived under the justification of the law, yet beheld the splendour of the gospel, as one mindful of the old discipline reserved his gratitude to the law as to a useful pedagogue. Consider a man who has passed beyond youth and is set amid riches and honours, yet who reserves honour for his pedagogue, knowing himself to have been shaped by his services so as to be able to govern a riper age. For the law itself admonishes that we should by no means be ungrateful to those who have once profited us.

For just as we have it in the Old Testament, the Passover was celebrated within the borders of Egypt, when our fathers, still set under King Pharaoh, were bewailing the injury of their wretched servitude, and afterwards, once delivered, again celebrated the Passover in the land of promise—the former for admonition, the latter for remembrance. If, then, anyone asks a Hebrew why it was celebrated in Egypt, he will answer: 'Because we were still held bound by the chain of servitude to King Pharaoh; that lamb delivered the people of our fathers, that lamb called us to liberty, that lamb made firm the depths of the sea, that we might be able to pass through Egypt.'

As often, then, as we celebrate the Passover, we ought to remember our old servitude and our new liberty—what we were and what we have received; for no one can fully understand what he has received unless he remembers what he was before. Let us not forget, then, that the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, the victim for the world, has loosed us from the bonds of grievous transgressions, by which that most foul Pharaoh—prince not of one Egypt only, but of this present age—held us bound fast under the chain of servitude.

Let us not forget for ever, so that, when we shall have come into that truly promised land, where is the region of the living, we may remember how great evils the dread Pharaoh here brought upon us, how many things we have endured in this age, and from what evils we have at last been snatched, and may give thanks to the Lord Jesus who snatched us away, who made the disturber of all to be himself a captive. There follows the sixth verse: 'I am thine, save me, O Lord, for I have sought out thy justifications.' The utterance seems easy and common, but it belongs to few. For he is rare indeed who can say to God: 'I am thine.' For he alone says it who cleaves to God with all his senses, who knows not how to think of anything else. He uses this utterance who can say: 'Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.'

Does he who is greedy for money, honour, power use this utterance? For many it is not enough to know God—indeed for the greater number. So many peoples, so many nations, so many rich men deem it poverty to serve the Lord; and he who is above all is to them a small and narrow thing; to them the Son of God, in whom are all things, is not enough. Hence that rich man in the gospel, to whom it was said: 'If thou wilt be perfect, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor,' judged that God did not suffice him. And so he was even grieved, as though he were bidden to leave behind what was greater and to choose what was less. He, then, says: 'I am thine,' who can say: 'Behold, we have left all and followed thee.' This, therefore, is the voice of the apostles—yet not of all the apostles;

for Judas too was an apostle, and reclined at Christ's banquet among the apostles. He too kept saying: 'I am thine,' but with his voice, not with his heart. Satan came and entered into him and began to say: 'He is not thine, Jesus, but mine. For he ponders the things that are mine, and turns over in his breast the things that are mine. He feasts with thee and is fed by me, from thee he receives bread, from me money, with thee he drinks and to me he sells thy blood; he is thy apostle and my hireling.' The worldly man cannot say: 'I am thine,' for he has many masters. Lust comes and says: 'Thou art mine, for thou desirest the things that are of the body.'

'In the love of that young girl thou hast sold thyself to me; in the embrace of that harlot I have counted out the price for thee.' Avarice comes and says: 'The silver and gold thou hast is the price of thy servitude; the property thou holdest is the purchase of thy bondage, the sale of thy liberty.' Luxury comes and says: 'Thou art mine. A single day's banquet is the price of thy life; that expenditure of feasts is the bidding for thy head, the sum of thy contract; and, what is worse, thou art bought for meat, cheaper than thy own food; thy table of one day is more precious than the life of all thy time. Among the cups I have ransomed thee, amid the feasts I have acquired thee.' Ambition comes and says to thee: 'Plainly thou art mine. Knowest thou not that for this very reason I made thee rule over others, that thou thyself mightest be a slave to me?'

'Knowest thou not that for this reason I conferred power upon thee, that I might subject thee to my power? Or art thou ignorant that it was said to the Lord of salvation himself by the prince of this world, when he had shown him all the kingdoms of the world: All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me? He, then, is first made subject who wishes to have others subject to him.' All the vices come, and each says: 'Thou art mine.' What a cheap chattel is he whom so many claim! How, then, canst thou, who art of this kind, say to Christ: 'I am thine'? He will answer thee: 'Not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven'; not everyone that saith to me, 'I am thine,' is mine.

Plainly thou art mine, if thy conscience does not refute thy voice, if thy mind or thy works do not belie thy speech. I do not deny that he is mine who does not himself deny himself, or who at least denies himself for my sake. I will not have a servant who serves many masters. For how is he mine, if he says to me in word, 'I am thine,' and denies it by his works, and by his deeds adjudges and binds himself over to the devil? He is not mine whom lust inflames, for chastity is mine; he is not mine whom the care of despoiling a weaker man harasses, for integrity is mine; he is not mine whom shifting anger disquiets, for tranquillity is mine;

he is not mine who is drunk with wine's surfeit into the daylight, drunk into peril by ambition for worldly glory, who cannot keep the footstep of sober moderation. I am peace, I know not how to quarrel. What have I to do with him of whom the devil, coming, says: 'He is mine; for he has bent his neck to me, I find more of myself in him; he claims thy name for himself, yet does my service'? He, then, is not Christ's save he who is a stranger to crime; he is not Christ's save he who can ever show himself the servant of Christ. For if anyone is changeable, so that he is changed, as I am, either by grief or by indignation, anger comes and says: 'He is mine; an hour ago he was mine, I hope that he will become mine again.' Sadness comes and says: 'He is mine;

an hour ago he was in my possession, under my right; for grief he could not lift up his spirit nor raise his eyes; and if anything sorrowful befalls, he will straightway return to me.' Who, then, is God's, save he who can say: 'I am conscious of nothing in myself'? For this reason Paul was called the apostle of Jesus Christ, because he was held bound to none other. But I am now my God's, now sorrow's, now wrath's, now of an idle word. And therefore he who has many masters cannot say to one: 'Lord Jesus, I am thine.' Whence I think Paul spoke also of the lords of this world:

'For although there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, yet to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things and we unto him, and one Lord Jesus, by whom are all things and we by him.' The apostle Paul, therefore, belonged wholly to the Word. For this reason he said: 'Since you seek a proof of him that speaketh in me, Christ.' He, then, said: 'I am Christ's,' and the Lord answered him: 'Thou art mine.' He who truly says: 'I am thine,' hears from the Lord: 'Thou art mine.' Hence concerning him the Lord said to Ananias, when he sent him to heal Paul: 'Go, for he is to me a vessel of election.' And because he persevered in being Christ's, he merited, as it were with the contest fulfilled, to find the crown of righteousness. Rightly, then, did the prophet David say:

'I am thine'—he who ever abode in the Lord. And the reason why he said 'I am thine' he added: 'I have sought out thy justifications,' that is: 'I have sought nothing of others, but desired that alone which is thine.' Others seek precious necklaces; I seek only thy justifications as certain garlands of righteousness. Others join house to house, farm to farm, as though they alone could dwell in this earth, and they wish to seize the common element; others to claim ownership of the very air; for me my whole patrimony is in thy justifications. I know not how to possess save what is of thy right; in thy oracles a spiritual care of silver has shone upon me.

God is my portion, I am thine, for my share of inheritance is not in gold, not in silver, but in Christ Jesus. There follows the seventh verse: 'Sinners have waited for me, that they might destroy me; I have understood thy testimonies.' This utterance can befit martyrdom, in which the saint, set therein, may already say, having come forth from the judgment of his persecutor: 'Sinners have waited for me, that they might destroy me,' that is: they applied every kind of penalty, all the arts of persuasion, yet they could not draw me away from my purpose; the faith of this life overcame the enticement and the torment of the body. Sinners have waited, that they might bear off a triumph over me; but thanks be to Christ, who has granted me to triumph over my persecutors.

Return vanquished, you who hoped to be victors; return cast down, you who had come in your pride. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? Now the victory has begun to be not thine but ours, for in thee we conquer, in whom before we were being conquered. Well, then, does the martyr say: 'Sinners have waited for me, that they might destroy me.' After a moment—nay, while still set in the body—he sees the choirs of those leading him forth, the joys of the angels (for if they rejoice over the conversion of one sinner, how much more at the passion of the righteous!), he sees the glory and says: 'The righteous have waited for me, that they might lead me forth'; he sees the Lord Jesus and says: 'Christ has waited for me, that he might crown me.' Another, who wishes to understand it otherwise:

'Many,' he says, 'have endeavoured to persuade me to sins and to wrest faith out of my breast—one to adultery, another to a man's murder, another to the oppression of a widow or an orphan, another to something else—and they thought that I was to be caught in their nets. They waited for me, that they might destroy me by the contagion of sin, but I did not turn my mind away from the pursuit of divine knowledge by the enticements of sinners, nor did I, O Lord, turn aside my intent from the order of thy commandments, but I understood thy testimonies; for had I not understood, the sinners would assuredly have destroyed me. What I understood by perception, I also followed by works; for it is not a bare understanding, but one that deeds also attest. Hence: blessed is he who understands concerning the needy and the poor.'

He assuredly understands concerning the poor man who bestows upon the poor; for what does it profit to pity the needy, unless you bestow nourishment upon him? There follows the eighth verse: 'I have seen the end of all consummation; thy commandment is exceeding broad.' We cannot in all things express the force of the Greek speech; for the most part the force and pomp of speech is greater in the Greek. 'Telos' is said in Greek for what we in Latin call both 'end' and 'consummation'; and the 'end' is itself the end of the consummation, just as the end of the law is Christ unto righteousness to everyone that believeth. You have it written: 'Behold, I am with you even unto the consummation of the age.' The consummation of the age, then, is the end of the age, but the end of all things is Christ. Yet consummations are many.

There is a consummation when there is the resurrection unto salvation; a consummated work is also called a perfected work; a consummated malice is spoken of, that is, a full one, to which nothing is lacking for zeal and skill in doing harm; there is a consummation of a man and many consummations, until he comes to perfection. We read, then, both of the consummation of the age and of the end. Of the consummation of the age we set down an example above, which the resurrection follows; for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. After the resurrection, the consummation, but everyone in his own order;

the firstfruits Christ, then they that are Christ's, who have believed in his coming, then the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father, when he shall have made void all principality and power. Therefore the end follows the consummation of the age, according to the Apostle; whence it is gathered that the end follows every consummation. The world is set in wickedness, as John said. Therefore the age too is in wickedness, the world full of sin. The world had consummated its malice, just as Saul had consummated his; whose consummated malice his son Jonathan, seeing it, announced to David the prophet, that he might turn aside and flee. There is, then, a consummation of malice, a consummation of sinners.

There comes the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who is Christ Jesus, the end of the law, the beginning and the end and the remission of sins. This end of the consummation the prophet saw in spirit, who would abolish the consummated error of the age, who saw the diverse sins of all cleansed by his blood. Well, then, did he say: 'I have seen the end of all consummation,' that is: I saw the remitter of consummated adultery, I saw him forgiving the offences of consummated luxury and wantonness, of consummated cruelty and savagery, and finally of every wickedness, through his cross. There is also a consummated virtue and a consummated wisdom, a consummated righteousness, but it has an end. The end of all virtues is Christ, who is the end of the law unto righteousness to everyone that believeth.

You see that he is the end of faith. Well, then, did he say: 'I have seen the end of all consummation.' Now, since we have recognized the end of consummation, let us recognize what this is: 'thy commandment is exceeding broad.' We read that the gate is narrow through which they enter who attain the fruit of eternal life. For virtue is rare, the endurance of sufferings difficult, and many are they who follow the spacious ways of this age, who say: 'Narrow and strait is the way for us that leads to God; we are worn out upon it, let us leave it.' How, then, does the prophet say that the commandment of God is broad and exceeding broad? For this reason, because for the narrow way a broad commandment is necessary. Hence this same prophet says: 'In tribulation thou hast enlarged me'; and again:

'In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard me in a broad place.' This breadth of the heavenly commandments enlarges the prophet's heart, and enlarged also the apostle's. Hence he himself said: 'Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged.' For by dispensing the heavenly commandments he had enlarged his own heart, and what before the perfidy of persecution had cramped, this the grace of Christ enlarged. And the reason the commandment is broad is that we might not be cramped in the straits of the commandments, whence he says: 'Be not straitened in us.' If Paul did this, how much more Christ, who unbarred what was shut up! Therefore he says: 'I will not have my people cramped.'

On the narrow path of the virtues the breadth of my precept ought to be a solace to the travellers, lest anyone be able to fail or be worn out. Let us walk, then, in the commandment of God, for it is broad enough. For there is a commandment of wisdom which is sung at the going-out, and in broad places she acts confidently; for 'plateia' is of the Greek speech, which in Latin is called 'breadth.' Let us, then, enlarge our heart, that we may receive the force of the apostolic saying, who says: 'Receive us.' Let us receive, then, his words into our heart, let us put on the bowels of mercy, kindness, humility, patience. O man, how broad thou art, if thou expand the bosom of thy mind to the amplitude of the heavenly precepts! How broad is the commandment of charity! 'Love,' he says, 'your enemies.'

He assuredly included all in the affection of charity who did not exclude enemies; for who seems excepted, when even an enemy is received? Whence the Apostle says: 'If it be possible, having peace with all men.' This cannot be said to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, that they should have peace with all. They scarcely love their own; but for the Christian it is not lawful even not to love enemies. When I say Christian, I mean the perfect man; for in Christ is the fullness of divinity, whose name you usurp. You who bear the title, why do you flee the interpretation and perfection of the title? Hear the broad commandment: 'Bless them that persecute you, and curse not.' He who says the commandment is broad proved it by saying above:

'They indeed detracted, but I prayed.' What dost thou pray, David? Tell us thyself. But thou hast told us; for I read thee saying: 'They will curse, and thou wilt bless.' XIII. THE LETTER MEM. Here begins the thirteenth letter, which is called 'Mem,' which sounds in Latin 'from the inmost parts' and, as others say, 'fire from the uttermost,' and neither disagrees with the text. For at once the first verse expresses the charity of the inner bowels, which assuredly proceeds from the deepest marrow and is entwined with the bones by a certain bond of warmth. Hence in the Lamentations of Jeremiah the text of this letter contains this: 'From on high he hath sent fire into my bones.' Good, then, is God, who sends into us that whereby, loving him, we may be able to find merit in his sight.

What fire he sends, let him himself teach us: 'I have come to send fire upon the earth, and what will I but that it be already kindled?' Good is the fire which the Saviour of all desires to be kindled, especially since we have read that God himself is a fire, who consumes our sins and into our inmost breasts pours the desire of divine knowledge and irradiates within us our heart, when we read the series of the divine Scriptures, if perchance we take up with spiritual understanding something whereby the hidden things of the prophetic reading may be opened. With this fire Cleopas said his heart burned, when Christ opened the Scriptures to him and to his companion. Of this fire the Lord said in the book of Ezekiel:

'Behold, I will go forth into Jerusalem and breathe upon you in the fire of my wrath, that you may melt away like lead and iron and the rest of the materials.' We see deep mysteries in customary words, all this spiritual. With what prayers may I deserve that the Word of God may come, enter the Church, become a consuming fire, that it may burn up the hay and stubble and consume whatever is worldly, that the heavy lead of iniquity, which is in very many, may be liquefied by the divine fire, and a certain iron rigidity of sin be softened by the heavenly burning, that the vessels of gold and silver may be bettered, so that all the perception of the wise, all the speech of the prudent, with the heat of glowing passions boiled away, may begin to be more precious.

Good is the fire of charity, by which the whole body of the Church grows up into mutual grace; good is the fire of love, by which each saint is kindled to reverence for his Maker. But he who loves God does not love perfunctorily, but loves his law, keeps his precepts, justifies his heart not by the sonorous proclamation of words, but by the zealous imitation of deeds. Let God, then, teach us how he is loved by his saints. Thus, then, the prophet adds, saying: 'How I have loved thy commandment, O Lord! All the day it is my meditation.' This is the utterance of one diligent about the zeal of knowing the law, which instructs the perfection of man, which this whole psalm shapes.

And because he recognized that the greatest commandment of the law is that we should love the Lord our God with our whole heart and with our whole soul, by imitation of himself he wishes us also, whom he is zealous to instruct, to be perfect, saying: 'How I have loved thy commandment, O Lord!' By this very affection charity grows, in that he calls as witness the very One to whom the gift of love is rendered, and by such a covenant attests not the appearance, but the fullness of charity. This Peter used: 'Thou knowest, O Lord,' he says, 'that I love thee.' But he who loves the Lord loves his law, just as Mary, loving her Son, kept all his words in her heart with a mother's affection. 'Loving thee, I have done thy will,' it is written.

Therefore Christ also entrusted it to Peter, that he should feed his flock and do the will of the Lord, because he recognized his charity. For he who loves does of his own will the things commanded him; he who fears does them of necessity. And so the Lord approves the voluntary workings of his servants rather than the constrained. Therefore from servants he makes them free, that we may render the gifts of our wills rather than the services of necessities. The Marcionite cannot say: 'How I have loved thy law!' since he does not accept the law; the Jew cannot say it, who is ignorant of the spiritual law and meditates on the bare letter of the law, not the sense and understanding of the law.

Therefore only the Christian says it, who has already advanced much in the knowledge of the law, who does not dread the penalty of the law with a timid heart, but with intrepid affection searches out the divine mysteries of the true Hebrew, the true Sabbath, the true remission. Truly, then, he loves who keeps the precepts without sorrow, without fear, of voluntary zeal rather than of constraint. But in another verse he quickly proved the effect of his long meditation, when he understood the commandment of the Lord above his enemies. But what enemies has the prophet, who ought both to embrace the men of his own people with lawful charity and to invite foreigners by gospel preaching to the grace of God? The beasts are said to love the partner of their own nature: