Latin original · 37 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 16:1084–16:1120 (1267 verses in all)
By these works charity is sought, that no one may be torn from Christ even by the peril of death. Whence he says: 'Who shall separate us from Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution?' And further: 'For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.' By this same likeness the jealousy of charity also is hard, and its wings are wings of fire. It has wings like a dove; for the wings of the dove are covered with silver, on which he who loves flies away, saying: 'Lo, I have gone far off in flight, and have remained in the wilderness.' But the wings of charity are wings of fire, with which it kindles the ardor of love.
With this fervor the Lord made his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire, burning yet not consuming. We read also of the pinnacle of the temple, upon which the devil, tempting, made the Savior ascend, which was on the summit of the temple. There are, then, summits of piety, there are heights of charity, which are wont to send up the vapor of grace to human breasts, so that much water cannot extinguish nor shut out charity, and no floods of worldly tempests can enclose it. Since, therefore, so great a grace of the Church and so great rewards of devotion invite us, let us anticipate the rising sun, let us run forth to meet its dawning. Before it says 'Behold, I am here,' the Sun of righteousness wishes to be anticipated, and waits to be forestalled.
Hear how he waits and desires to be anticipated: he says to the angel of the church of Pergamum, 'Do penance, otherwise I come to thee.' He says to the angel of Laodicea, 'Be zealous therefore, and do penance. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; and if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him.' He will be able to enter; for indeed, when he rose again with his body, no bars of closed doors could hold him back: suddenly, unforeseen, he poured himself into the apostles' inner chamber. But he longs to put to the test the zeal of your devotion; the apostles he already held as proven. Or perhaps in persecution he comes beforehand; where there is tranquillity, he desires to be anticipated.
Anticipate, surely, this sun which you see; 'arise, thou that sleepest, and rise up from the dead, that Christ may give thee light.' If you anticipate this sun, before it rises, you will receive Christ enlightening you. He will first dawn within the secret of your heart. To you who say, 'In the night my spirit watches for thee,' he will make the morning light to shine in the night seasons, if you meditate on the words of God. For while you meditate, it is light, and seeing a light not of time but of grace you will say, 'For thy precept is a light.' But when day finds you meditating on the divine words, and the work of praying and singing psalms, so pleasing, delights your mind, again you will say to the Lord Jesus, 'Thou shalt make the outgoings of the morning and evening to be joyful.'
But indeed the people of the Jews, using Moses as their teacher, daily through their elders, who were chosen for this office, night and day without any ceasing rehearse the divine Scriptures; and if you ask the elder anything else, he knows nothing but to give back the sequence of the divine Scripture. There discourse about worldly matters is idle; there alone is Scripture woven together; the mouths of each in turn succeed one another, lest at any time that sacred sound of the heavenly commandments should fall silent. And you, O Christian, do you sleep, you whose teacher is Christ? And do you not fear lest it be said of you, 'This people honoreth me not even with the lips'? The Jew honors at least with the lips; but you, not even with the lips?
If the heart of him who honors even with the lips is far from God, how can your heart be near, who do not honor him even with the lips? How long this sleep, how long do worldly things hold you, how long the cares of this life, how long earthly things! At least divide your times between God and the world; or when you cannot do in public the things that belong to this world, and the darkness of night prevents you, give yourself leisure for God, indulge in prayers, and that you may not fall asleep, sing psalms. By a good deception defraud yourself of your sleep. Hasten in the morning to the church; bring the firstfruits of a devout vow; and afterward, if worldly necessity calls, you will not be excluded from saying, 'My eyes have prevented the morning to meditate on thy words'; secure, you will proceed to your duties.
How delightful it is to begin from hymns and canticles, from the beatitudes which you read in the Gospel; how prosperous, that the word of Christ may bless you, and that while you sing again the Lord's blessings, you may take up the pursuit of some virtue, so that in yourself too you may recognize the merit of the divine blessing! There follows the fifth verse: 'Hear my voice according to thy mercy, O Lord, according to thy judgment quicken me.' Always a man, even if he be holy and just, ought to pray that the Lord may hear him according to his mercy, not according to the merits of any virtue, because virtue is rare, sins many; and according to his judgment, that he may bring help to the weak. And especially ought we to pray this when we are pressed by some adversities.
Whence not idly was the petition for the divine mercy set forth first by holy David. For there follows: 'They that persecute me wickedly have drawn nigh, but they are gone far from thy law.' The Greek has put it thus: 'They that persecute me with iniquity have drawn nigh,' that is, those who were persecuting me with iniquity. The more they drew near to me, the more they separated themselves from thy law, since he who persecutes his brother is cut off from the law; for the law says: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, thou shalt love thy neighbor.' Let me not, then, hate my brother, lest it be said to me, 'If you do not love your brother whom you see, how can you love God whom you do not see?' Do you not know that your brother is the price of the blood of Christ?
Therefore you do not love the price of Christ, if you do not love your brother. So the persecutor draws near to me to harm me, but he separates himself from the law—for what fellowship has righteousness with iniquity?—and he who separates himself from the law of God separates himself also from eternal life; for the law is life. Finally, the prophet, showing the law of God, says: 'Behold, this is life, for he that doeth the things of the law shall live in them,' which surely befits the spiritual law. And perhaps he who draws near to me to harm me, while he is separated from the law, is separated from Christ, because Christ is life. But I, if I cleave to Christ, he does not draw near to me, because even if he should have power over my body, yet he will not be able to harm my soul.
Finally, how far the persecutors of the martyrs are separated from their merits! But perhaps you will say, 'How do the saints cleave to God?' And therefore there follows: 'Thou art near, O Lord, and all thy precepts are truth.' The Lord is near to all, who is everywhere present, and we cannot flee from him if we offend, nor deceive him if we do wrong, nor lose him if we worship him. God beholds all things, sees all things, stands by each one, saying, 'I am a God at hand.' And how can God be absent anywhere, when you read of the Spirit of God, 'The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole earth,' because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is the Lord God. 'I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord.'
Where, then, does he fail who fills all things, or how have we all received of his fullness, unless he draws near to all? Finally David, knowing him to be everywhere and to fill heaven and earth and seas, says: 'Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art present; if I take my wings before the dawn and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.' How quickly he signified that God is everywhere, and that wherever the Spirit of God is, there God is, and where God is, there his Spirit is present.
In this passage the bond of the indivisible Trinity is expressed, since the Son of God spoke these things through the mouth of the prophet, speaking in the person of the man who through the incarnation descended into the lands, through the resurrection ascended into heaven, through the death of the body penetrated hell, that he might loose those who were bound. Or if you refer it to the prophet, you perceive it expressed that everywhere the hand and right hand of God, Christ, stands by, where the Father, God, and the holy Spirit of God are. But since we cannot doubt concerning the sun, that, going forth, it diffuses its rays over the whole world and pours light upon all—which even those who cannot see it nevertheless feel to be present by the very warming of the air—for where is its heat lacking?
Where do its rays not reach, when, the darkness of night or of clouds being dispelled, it illumines the lands? In heaven it shines, in the sea it gleams red, on the earth it glows—if, then, you do not doubt concerning the sun that it shines everywhere, do you doubt concerning God that the brightness of his glory and the image of his substance gleams everywhere? What would the Word of God not penetrate, the eternal Splendor, who illumines even the hidden things of the mind which this sun cannot penetrate? For the Word of God is a spiritual sword, reaching even to the divisions of soul and joints and marrow. Of him the just man says to Mary: 'And a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.' It penetrates the soul, then, and like the brightness of eternal light illumines it.
But although his power is diffused through all and into all and above all, because he has risen from the Virgin for all, both good and evil—just as he commands his sun to rise upon the good and the evil—yet he cherishes him who draws near to himself. For just as he shuts out from himself the brightness of the sun who has closed the windows of his house and has chosen a dark place in which to dwell, so he who turns himself away from the Sun of righteousness cannot behold its splendor, walks in darkness, and amid the light of all is to himself the cause of his own blindness. Open, therefore, your windows, that your whole house may shine with the splendor of the true sun; open your eyes, that you may see the Sun of righteousness rising for you, but take heed lest any straw of chaff disturb them.
If there be any filth in the eye of your mind, you will not be able to gaze; if any sickness, it will weigh the more heavily; the light strikes the confused keenness of the eyes and arouses greater pain. Let your eye, then, be single, lest your whole body begin to be full of darkness and stagger in the light, as are the steps of the blind. If anyone closes the doors of his house, is it the fault of the sun that it does not illumine his house? So if anyone judges that his own mind is to be barred with the bolts of his sins, and foolishly turns away from himself the splendor of the Word, and brings upon himself the blindness of folly, can he allege that the Sun of righteousness was unwilling to enter, or accuse the weakness of the heavenly light? The Word of God knocks at your door.
'If any man open to me,' he says, 'I will come in.' If, then, anyone does not open, is the fault not rather that of the one not opening than of the one who would enter? Nothing indeed is barred to God, nothing closed to the eternal Light, but he disdains to open the gates of malice, he does not wish to penetrate the inner chambers of wickedness. But indeed, since the vigor of our soul recoils from the rotten portion of the body, because the corrupted limbs cannot feel its grace, does God deign to inhabit certain members of a corrupted soul? Yet the vigor of the soul is diffused through the whole body, whether hand or foot or finger partakes of sensation: can the wisdom of God be lacking anywhere, can his majesty be wanting anywhere?
Truly he does not hold back those who flee, he does not compel; but neither does he disdain those who draw near, and his power indeed, his Word, God, is near to all; for in him all things consist, and he is the head of the body, the Church, in whom all fullness dwells. But sins separate many from him, of whom it is said: 'Behold, they that remove far from thee shall perish.' Whence the saint says: 'But it is good for me to cleave to God,' and the apostle says that God is not far from every one of us: 'In him,' he says, 'we live and are and move.' For, supplying to all the grace of life, he is present to all by the gift of his goodness, but he is nearer to those who are of a contrite heart. This the ancient history also teaches through riddles.
Moses was on the brow of Mount Sinai, and he was alone; the people in the valley at the foot of the mountain, the elders on a part of the mountain above the merits of the common folk, but separated by a great interval from the merits of Moses. Not all on the summit, nor all at the foot, but the people; Moses alone on the summit of Mount Sinai, which in the Latin interpretation is called 'temptation.' And you, if you ascend above temptations and offer your prayer with a contrite heart, you will be near to God; if you are of a pure heart, you too shall see God; for 'blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' He, then, who is near to God says: 'Thou art near, O Lord, and all thy precepts are truth.' The Jew cannot say this, who does not receive the Lord Jesus;
for he separated himself, and believes not in the truth but in the shadow. How does he say, 'Thy precepts are truth,' when grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, since he does not acknowledge him who by the truth and fullness of his circumcision redeemed the whole world? The eighth verse is: 'From the beginning I have known concerning thy testimonies, that thou hast founded them for ever.' 'Concerning thy testimonies,' he says, 'from the beginning I took up knowledge and faith, because they are founded for ever'; for the testimony is faithful, and gives wisdom to little ones.
If Adam and Eve had known that the more cautious precepts had been given to them as to little ones, lest they should usurp to themselves the knowledge of good and evil, which they could not define by right discernment, they could have claimed the dwelling of paradise for ever. If men would consider that the blood of man cries out to God, they would withhold their own hands from the slaughter of man. If they would keep the precepts which the Lord gave with heaven and earth as witnesses, saying, 'Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth,' knowing that whatever crime they have committed they have done against the law of the Lord, and would be convicted by the testimonies of angels and powers, and of holy men also, upon these testimonies they would establish a foundation for themselves, because they are eternal and everlasting.
Let us too, then, build our work upon the foundation of the heavenly testimonies, that it may not burn like wood or stubble, but be proved like gold, that it may remain resting upon an eternal foundation. XX. THE LETTER RESH. The letter 'Resh' begins, which in the Latin interpretation is called 'head' or 'primacy.' It is the head, that we may consider the form of the human race, which cherishes all the members and directs them and fills them with the senses; for the sense of the wise man is in his head. Thence the channels of the veins are drawn, and the passages of the breath, and the powers of the blood are distributed into the parts of the whole body; it surveys all, it adorns all. With the head removed, the body is without a name, is not recognized, nor does any use of living remain.
Therefore those who are condemned for any crime are deprived of that which is the ornament of the whole body, and because they are detected as having committed, by their base or wicked guilt, the foulness of beastly savagery or the horror of bestial monstrosity, they are commanded to put off also the form of the human condition, as those who have fallen away from the resolve of human moderation. For with the head cut off, the trunk of the rest of the body is likened to the body of beasts, and he who could not keep the principle of wisdom is defrauded of the citadel of wisdom. The body, therefore, is buried without its dignity; for in the head is the vigor of life, in the head is the grace of comeliness.
It is said that the serpent, when it is pressed by danger, always hides its head, and, coiling itself into a circle and exposing the rest of its body, guards this alone, so that, the other limbs being struck and crushed, it may restore them while the vigor of the head is kept safe. This head do you too keep morally, and keep it also mystically. The mystical head is Christ, because all things consist in him, and he himself is the head of the body, the Church. He who loses this head will not be able to have the use of living; in this alone do we differ from the beasts, formed unto the image of God and unto the likeness by the vigor of virtues. Faith separates us from comparison with irrational cattle. This head of mankind, O serpents, do you keep.
Even though all the members be cut off, the whole body be burned with fire, plunged into the deep, disemboweled by beasts, yet, this head being guarded, life is entire, salvation is secure; for no one can perish from whom Christ has not been taken away. There is also a head of the sum of our zeal and work, the sum of our business, the sum of our hope, the sum of virtues. But the whole sum of our zeal is that we be humbler, that we follow the truth, which he does not see who exalts himself, being vainly puffed up in the mind of his flesh and not holding the head. What this head is he plainly expressed, saying: 'From whom the whole body, by joints and bands supplied and knit together, grows unto the increase of God.' And in the book of Isaiah the Lord says through the prophet:
'I will take away from Judah the head and the tail, the beginning and the end.' This head Judea lost which she held, she who did not receive the Lord Jesus. Where faith is, there we have both beginning and end; where unbelief is, there is neither beginning nor end. The Church has a beginning, which has Christ: for Christ is the beginning of the Church, the firstborn from the dead. She has also an end, because he himself is the first and the last, he himself is the end of the law unto righteousness to everyone that believeth. The Synagogue has neither beginning nor end, because neither in the beginning does she find what to follow, nor in the end what to hope for. Puffed up, therefore, she does not hold the head—that is, that humility of Christ by which he descended even to the cross, descended even to the lower regions. Therefore the Jew did not believe,
because he despised him who said, 'Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.' This humility is the head of all virtues, which cherishes the whole body, as it were, of our actions. Although someone be weak, poor, ignoble, yet if he does not exalt and prefer himself, he commends himself by his very humility. Let someone be very rich and noble: the same, if he boasts of the nobility of his birth and his riches, is by his own insolence made base. Let someone be eloquent and strong, who, lifted up by the swelling of eloquence and strength, arrogates much to himself: is not the man who is often unwise and weak preferred to him on account of his modesty? Finally, the Pharisee in the Gospel, although he was abstemious and sparing of another's goods,
liberal with his own, not shrinking from fasting, as he himself said, yet on account of his boastfulness he lost even those things which he might have had; nothing did so many kinds of virtues, discolored by one vice, avail him. The publican, who could enumerate nothing that could be approved, yet on account of his humility went down from the temple justified rather than that Pharisee, according to what is written in the prophet, that 'he will save the humble in spirit.' That this is the head, which this letter expresses, we are plainly taught also in the Lamentations of Jeremiah; for, having set this letter before it, the prophet says: 'The spirit before our face, Christ the Lord; under his shadow we shall live among the nations.' This, then, is truly the head which is the head of all. We have spoken of the head.
Let us speak also of primacy, which, although it differs in word and letter, yet in sense converges into the same understanding. For we read of the primacy in the Old Testament, which Esau yielded to his brother among the firstborn rights, and therefore his name was called Edom, that is, earthly and crafty. But these are the brothers concerning whom the Lord was entreated by Isaac their father, that he might give him heirs of his posterity from Rebecca his wife, who for twenty years had given no token of conceiving offspring. He heard him, and Rebecca conceived, and she entreated the Lord, when the little ones seemed to toss themselves about in her womb, and she received the answer: 'Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated from thy womb;
and one people shall overcome the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger.' Is not the mystery plain, that two peoples are signified, that is, the Jewish people the elder and the Christian people the younger, who on account of a mess of lentils received the primacy of the elder brother? By this sign it is plainly expressed that the elder, earthly people, on account of the intemperance of the gullet, lost the primacy which it had, but the people of the Church by sobriety and continence seized the primacy which by order of age it did not have, by confession and a pious theft of the paternal blessing. What is it, then, that the Christian people seized, if not the Lord Jesus?
For from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force, as the Lord himself declared. A good theft is that which steals eternal life. But since we judge enough has been said concerning the interpretations of this letter, let us consider what the prophet has subjoined to this letter. The first verse, then, is: 'See my humility and deliver me, for I have not forgotten thy law.' Perhaps someone may say, 'The prophet glories in himself.' Even if he glories, he glories in his infirmities, in which the apostle also glories, saying, 'I will glory in my infirmities'; one glories in riches, another in titles of nobility and lineage, another glories in administrations and honors:
the just man glories in humility; for it is a good glory to be subject to Christ. But that you may know that he does not desire to boast of himself, but to call forth the Lord's grace within him, elsewhere the same prophet says: 'See my humility and my labor.' Therefore, as one who has humbled his heart, as one who has labored greatly: there he desires that his sins be forgiven him, here he prays to be delivered.
Picture some priest anxious for the salvation of his servant, whom he perceives to be approved before God; some father for his son set in grave sickness; some woman sorrowing either for her son or for her husband, brooding over prayers, pouring out abundant tears night and day, humbling herself and stretching herself upon the ground, multiplying fasts, and—what is more grievous than these—worn out with grief of mind and soul, languishing in the delay of the disease and danger, saying to the Lord: 'See my humility and deliver me.' Consider also that with a certain spiritual oil of the heavenly precepts the divine Scripture and our Lord daily anoint and exercise us.
Eager to summon very many to undertake the contests, he set forth diverse prizes of crowns; consider, I say, the athlete of Christ, wearied by countless struggles and resisting with his strength now almost exhausted, troubled by the weight of danger, when he sees that his wrestling is not only against flesh and blood, but also against the spiritual wickednesses which are in the heavenly places, saying: 'See my humility and deliver me, for I have not forgotten thy law.' For he could not forget who contended according to his precepts. Behold also someone set in martyrdom.
A man of persevering faith, afflicted with frequent torments, thrust into darkness, broken by the heavy weight of chains, his legs stretched apart on the rack, disemboweled on the wooden horse, plowed with iron claws, scorched with glowing plates. Yet now, his soul wearied because the crown of a sacred death is too long delayed, he says: 'Behold my lowliness and deliver me, for I have not forgotten Thy law.' For we are taught by the testimonies of the Scriptures that lowliness can be spoken of not only in pursuits and resolutions, but also in trials. For it is written: 'Men acceptable in the furnace of lowliness'; the Greek indeed said 'tapeinōseōs,' which means 'of lowliness.' I have set this down because very many Latin manuscripts read 'in the furnace of affliction.'
The Latin distinguishes; the Greek does not separate: 'tapeinōsis' is called both the lowliness of virtue and the lowliness of affliction. There is no harm if the Latin separates them; for the Greek did not translate from the Latin, but the Latin from the Greek. Finally, the Hebrews too, as long as they were in Egypt, were in an iron furnace—that is, in the furnace of trial, in the furnace of affliction, when they were oppressed by harsh commands. Hence it is also written: 'For God brought them out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt.' It was an iron furnace, because as yet no one's works full of virtues shone there, no one's gold had been proven there, no one's lead of iniquity had been burned away. A hard furnace, the furnace of perpetual death, which furnace none could escape.
a furnace that would consume all, in which there was only pain and mourning. But truly that furnace in which Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael sang a hymn to the Lord—that golden furnace, not iron, through which throughout the whole world the wisdom of faithful devotion shone forth. This furnace too was indeed in Babylon, where there was no spiritual gold except perhaps that held captive; for the Lord led captivity captive. This was the gold among the saints, who were captive in body among the Babylonians, but in spirit free before God, loosed from the chains of human captivity, bound by the yoke of spiritual grace. And perhaps the same furnace is iron to the fragile, golden to those who persevere. All who desire to return to paradise must be tested by fire; for it is not written idly.
For when Adam and Eve were cast out of the seat of paradise, God set at the exit of paradise a flaming, turning sword. All must pass through the flames, whether it be John the Evangelist, whom the Lord so loved that He said of him to Peter: 'If I will that he so remain, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.' Some have doubted concerning his death, but we cannot doubt concerning his passage through the fire, for he is in paradise and is not separated from Christ. Or whether it be Peter, who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, who walked upon the sea, it is fitting that he say: 'We passed through fire and water, and Thou hast brought us into a place of refreshment.' But for John the fiery sword will turn swiftly, because no iniquity is found in him whom righteousness loved.