Works (CSEL) 16 part 9/34

Therefore those do not escape whose flight takes place in winter, because they do not follow the Lord's Passion, do not take up their cross and follow Christ. The rain hinders the flowers, and now the flowers are seen on the earth; the good flowers are the apostles, who poured forth the fragrance of their various writings and works. The time of cutting has come, since the ripe grain is stored in the barns and he who reaps receives his reward. The voice of the turtledove is heard, because it has found for itself a nest; for the Church is the house of chastity. The fig tree, which because of its barrenness was ordered to be cut down, has now begun to bear fruit.

The vine, transplanted out of Egypt, is now no longer assailed by wild beasts, its fences cast down and destroyed, nor disfigured by thorns, but already fragrant with flowers; it that was wont to make thorns now bends low with the fruit of its grapes. Rightly therefore did holy David, celebrating the Passover of the Lord and entering with fervent spirit upon the summer seasons — he who gathered varied fruits in the word of God, turning away from the adversities of winter — say: 'And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for in Thy judgments have I greatly hoped.' How great is the labour to receive the word, how great again the peril if you lose it! And therefore it is said to you: 'Neglect not the grace that is in you.' Cultivate diligently, like a good farmer, your field, that your lambs may feed and your crops may flourish.

Let not the word be taken out of your mouth, lest perhaps your deeds do not agree with your words, and the works of iniquity disgrace the teaching of discipline. The word is taken out of the mouth when it is said to the sinner: 'Why dost thou declare my righteous decrees?' And eloquence itself falls silent if the conscience is sick. The birds of the air come; they too take the word out of your mouth, even they who take the seed of the word from off the rock, that it may not bear fruit. Now let us consider whether the word of truth can also be taken out of the heart; for the word that is rooted and pressed down and fixed in our minds can with difficulty be taken away. Indeed it was said by the Lord: 'Why dost thou declare my righteous decrees' — He did not say, 'Why dost thou think upon my righteous decrees?' — 'and take up my covenant through thy mouth?'

He did not say 'through thy heart.' The speech of an unworthy soul is restrained, it is not barred by penitence; He forbids insolence, He does not exclude correction. Yet care must be taken lest the very hearts within be troubled, and malice spread a darkness over them, so that the heart, blinded by vain thoughts, may lose the light of truth and be unable to grasp the splendour of the word. If therefore David prays that the word be not taken out of his mouth, and, if it be taken away, not 'utterly,' that is, not wholly taken away, who is so great as to make claim that the grace of discourse is in his own power, especially if his life refutes what his teaching presumes, and he commits things to be condemned by the judgment of God? For he who hopes in the judgments of God can keep the word of truth, because,

while he fears punishment, he guards grace. Therefore he says: 'And I have kept Thy law always, for ever and unto the age of the age.' He said two things, when one might have sufficed, had he wished to signify one. But because it is promised that it must be kept not only in the present time of this life, but also in the time to come after the course of this life, therefore I think that, both according to those who serve the copy and shadow of heavenly things, and according to those who, placed in the heavenly realms, render to God a worship in accordance with the true law, he promises that he must live so as to keep the law both here and there — here in the copy, in the mirror, in the riddle, there in the very face of truth.

We can also understand this, that διὰ παντὸς signifies not only what is said by 'always,' but also that which means 'through all things.' For he keeps the law through all things who, although he be instructed in the law, born under the law, and advancing the step of his devotion above the law, having been freed from the law — for 'Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law' — is made not without the law of God, but within the law of Christ. Or at any rate let us thus keep the law through all things, if the lawful discipline of childhood and youth, the conduct of young manhood, the maturity of old age, and the path prescribed for each several age, the use of our life in no way exceeds.

Likewise our soul too seems to have certain ages, through which it runs and passes, so that it may be able to say: 'I have finished my course.' Indeed there is also an age of the soul, of which it is said: 'And the age of old age is a life unstained.' Through all things therefore he keeps the law who, both in these ages of our body and in those progresses of our soul, has not strayed from the law. The fifth verse is: 'And I walked in a broad place, because I sought out Thy testimonies.' He who, according to the commandments, treads the narrow and strait way, walks in a broad place. Whence we read: 'In tribulation Thou hast enlarged me,' and elsewhere: 'In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and He heard me in a broad place.'

For the wise man walks in the innocence of his heart, and from his fountain waters overflow upon his streets — he who confines not his mind within things corporeal and earthly, but directs it toward heavenly things, so that his conversation may be in heaven. Hear one who feels no straits: 'We suffer affliction,' he says, 'but are not straitened.' And how could he be straitened, whose mouth was ever open, lest believers should be confined? Let him himself expound what it is to walk in a broad place. For he says that, if the body is straitened, our heart is enlarged. 'You are not straitened in us, but you are straitened in your own bowels.' They could not be straitened in Paul, in whom was the height of wisdom and the breadth of faith.

For how could they be straitened in him who was the vessel of eternal election? But they were straitened in their own selves, because the wicked man is straitened in himself, strangled by the snares of his own malice. Set before me a covetous man, daily extending the boundaries of his estates, shutting out his neighbours: does he seem to you to be enlarged or to be straitened, he whom the very earth does not contain? However great the spaces of his house he may have stretched out, he is shut in by the narrow limits of his own opinion, to whom what he has is not enough. But not such is he who can say: 'And I walked in a broad place.' He added also the cause: 'because,' he says, 'I sought out Thy testimonies.' 'And I spoke of Thy testimonies in the sight of kings, and was not confounded.'

This utterance fittingly suits the martyr, who, summoned to sacrilege, was not ashamed of the crucified Jesus before the kings who reproached him, but rather gloried in the cross of Christ and proved by heavenly testimonies that it was the salvation of the world. These Christ calls in the bride, saying in the Song of Songs: 'And come, my dove, in the covering of the rock, beside the outwork,' that is: come, beside the Gospel. The bulwarks of your faith are the deeds of Christ, the walls of your defences are the words of the Lord, the Passion of the Lord's body is your strength. 'Show me your face and let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is fair.'

Sweet is the voice, because with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, and fair is the face which is not ashamed of its Author, is not confounded by its Redeemer. She therefore shows her face, bearing the seal of the cross before it, and presents her voice, taking up the authority of preaching. For in the covering of the body of Christ, by which she was redeemed from sin, she finds the safeguard of spiritual grace, that she may both feel and speak things salutary for herself. Sweet therefore is the voice which spoke in the divine testimonies, fair the face which in the sight of kings was not confounded. We can also understand those kings to whom it is said by Peter: 'But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people unto adoption.'

For there are kings who offer in Jerusalem the gifts of their wisdom, to whom is given the grace to speak the word and by a certain royal power to sway peoples and to soothe the souls of the saints, not being ashamed in this, that they speak nothing foreign to honour, whom no one may refute or confound, as though they were unworthy whom Christ made fit ministers of the New Testament, and who now in Him are not ashamed, in that they did not fear lest they be confounded, overcome by the counter-assertion of those who dispute against them. A king therefore is he who is not ashamed, who is not reprehended in his action nor refuted in his discourse, in that he ought to be well-founded both in life and in word.

And so, although the prophet was so perfect that he was not ashamed in the sight of kings, yet he meditated in the precepts of God all the time of his life and lifted up his works, doing nothing that clung to earthly desires. Therefore he says: 'And I meditated on Thy commandments which I loved exceedingly, and I lifted up my hands to Thy commandments which I loved exceedingly, and I exercised myself in Thy justifications.' Most beautiful is this order, that first we meditate, and that the meditation of those precepts which we love may be habitual to us; for by the meditation of the heavenly commandments the practice of good work grows ingrained.

For just as the end of the meditation of words is memory, that we may retain the words we meditate, so the aim or end of the meditation of the heavenly precepts is action, and a deed directed to the fulfilling of the divine precepts, which no one can fulfil unless he love, and not only love, but love exceedingly. Therefore he first set down: 'And I meditated on Thy precepts which I loved exceedingly,' and added: 'and I lifted up my hands to Thy precepts which I loved exceedingly.' For after meditation it is good to lift up our actions to the precepts of God, and to do this with charity, with joy, so that our good may not be of necessity, not with grief and sorrow, but voluntary; for a slave acts unwillingly, a friend willingly.

But let us strive that it may be said to us: 'I no longer call you servants, but friends,' because, like friends, you have done the commandment of God of your own will. But he who meditates and loves and lifts up his actions, so as to do the things that please God, ought not to neglect nor run heedlessly past the divine commandments, but to exercise himself in them, to dwell upon them most of all, often turning over the justifications of God with the affection of an anxious mind. VII. THE LETTER ZAIN. The letter which in Hebrew is Zain signifies in Latin 'lead thyself'; elsewhere it signifies 'hither.' What this interpretation may mean is not sufficiently clear, unless perhaps that each one should govern himself and be his own leader; or 'hither,' that is: whither the letters of this verse call, let him direct his journey.

And rightly, in the very first verse, does he ask for his own rest, since the number seven is itself the number of rest in the letter. But what greater rest is there than to rest in the word of God and to be soothed by His grace and consolation? 'Remember,' he says, 'O Lord, Thy word to Thy servant, in which Thou hast given me hope.' The word of God has summoned us, cast down and depressed as we were, to heavenly grace, that we may long for eternity, despise the present, and—careless of temporal things—seek after things future and invisible. Therefore the word of God calls us to itself, as you have it written: 'Come unto me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.' And therefore let us follow the Lord Jesus who calls us.

that we may pass over from worldly things to things eternal, and may learn to govern our very selves. Therefore David, since he had often been invited by heavenly responses by which he might hope that the reward of his faith and merits would come—as you have it written, when God spoke through Nathan the prophet: 'I took thee from the sheepfold out of one flock, that thou shouldst be prince over my people Israel, and I was with thee in all things wheresoever thou didst go, and I cut off all thine enemies from before thy face,' and further on: 'and I will give thee rest from all thine enemies'—having received this response, David said: 'Who am I, O Lord my Lord, and what is my house, that Thou hast loved me in these things? And the least things have been remembered in Thy sight, O Lord, and Thou hast spoken concerning the house of Thy servant for a long time to come,' and further on he says:

And now, O Lord my Lord, Thou art God and Thy words are true, and Thou hast spoken these good things concerning Thy servant. And now begin to bless the house of Thy servant, that I may be in Thy sight for ever, since Thou, O Lord my Lord, hast spoken; from Thy blessing shall the house of Thy servant be blessed for ever.' Called therefore by this response and by others, David does not cease to hope, and with the authority of prophetic faith he approaches the Lord, that He may be mindful of His promises, of which He is not wont to be forgetful. For to the saints whatever He has promised He is accustomed to fulfil, unmindful of our iniquities, not unmindful of His own pledges. Finally it is written: 'I am, I am He who blot out thine iniquities, and I will not remember; but do thou be mindful.'

and let us be judged. He wishes to forget whatever He has threatened against sinners, if at any time they turn from their ways; He even wishes to be appealed to, so that if anyone—since rewards have been set before those who follow virtue—has striven well, he may expect the fruit of recompense, nay even demand it, as you have it written: 'I have fought the fight, I have finished my course; there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.' For this is no arrogant presumption, but a faithful one, since it confesses that the true God cannot deceive. And therefore David too admonishes, saying that the Lord may be mindful of His word, by which He calls us to hope, that we may renounce earthly things and cleave to heavenly. David therefore says: 'I have fought the fight; I claim the prize of Thy word which Thou hast promised me.'

'Be mindful of Thy promises which Thou hast pledged to Thy servant. I have not hoped as a usurper, for Thou Thyself hast made me hope. I am a servant, I await sustenance from my master; I am a soldier, I demand wages from my commander; I have been called, I ask for the promise from Him who invites me.' Yet modestly he tempered the authority of his faith by calling himself a servant, since 'the eyes of servants are upon the hands of their masters.' These things are well brought forward from David's own person. But if anyone considers the instruction of each man, he can balance promises common to the Levites, as you have it: 'Give to Levi his men, give to Levi his manifest ones';

He can also fit this address to the elect of the believing people, to whom—through the type of Joseph, first into the tribe of his own name, then through that tribe into the heirs of the first election—the divine promise was poured over, when Moses said: 'His glory is as the firstling of a bull; his horns are the horns of a unicorn; with them shall he winnow the nations together, even to the ends of the earth.' For by this oracle is prophesied the one word of God, to be poured forth through the nations over the whole world. This promise therefore of the Church that was to arise, David—modest concerning himself, yet impatient of the common progress being delayed—seems to demand. And he added: 'This has comforted me in my humiliation, for Thy word has quickened me.'

This is the hope—this hope which came to me through Thy word—that has comforted me, so that I might endure the bitterness of present things, while it makes me also trust in things to come. How it comforts us, hear: 'Who,' he says, 'shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or peril, or sword? As it is written: For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' And by what reasoning those things can be patiently borne, he added: 'But in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.'

Therefore if anyone wishes to overcome adversities—if there be persecution, if peril, if death, if grievous sickness, if the onslaught of robbers, if the proscription of property, if any of those things accounted adverse in this world—they are easily overcome, provided there be a hope to comfort. For even if those things befall, yet they cannot be grievous to one who says: 'For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come.' For whoever hopes for better things is never broken by lighter ones. In the time therefore of our humiliation there is a consoling hope which does not confound; and I judge the time of temptations to be the time of the humiliation of our soul.

For our soul is humbled while it is delivered to the tempter to be tried by hard labours, that it may wrestle and contend, experiencing the encounter of the opposing power. But in these temptations it is quickened by the word of God; for this is the vital substance of our soul, by which it is nourished and fed and governed, nor is there anything else that makes the rational soul live than the word of God. For just as the word of God is increased in our soul while it is received, while it is understood, while it is comprehended, so too its life is increased; and just as, on the contrary, the word of God fails in our soul, so its life also incurs failure.

Therefore, just as this union of our soul and body is animated and nourished and held together by the vital spirit, so by the word of God and by spiritual grace is our soul quickened. Whence we ought by every means to strive that, setting aside all other things, we may gather to ourselves the words of God and heap them up in our governing part, in our senses, our cares, our considerations and our acts, so that our deeds may agree with the words of the Scriptures, and our action may not seem to be at variance with the sequence of the heavenly precepts, that we too may be able to say: 'because Thy utterance has quickened us.' The third verse is: 'The proud have done iniquity exceedingly, but from Thy law I have not turned aside.'

The greatest sin in man is pride, since from it flowed the origin of our transgression. With this dart the devil first wounded and struck us. For unless man, deceived by the serpent's persuasion, had wished to be as God and to know the true and the false—which by human frailty he was utterly unable to discern, and therefore he had received a command, lest by rash usurpation he should fall from that seat of paradise—unless, I say, man, not content with his own bounds, had violated what was forbidden, never would the inheritance of that deadly fault have passed over to us. And why do I speak of man? The devil himself, through the pride of his nature, lost grace. For when he says:

'I will set my throne above the clouds, and I will be like the Most High,' he fell from the fellowship of the angels; and condemned with the deserved recompense of his crime, he sought out man as his partner, into whom the fellowship of his offence might be poured over. What therefore can be worse than this sin, which began from injury to God? And therefore the Scripture also says: 'God resists the proud.' As the avenger, as it were, of His own contumely, He undertakes a kind of special combat against pride, as if to say: 'This is my adversary, who provokes me; to me is owed this encounter.'

Whence the Apostle also declared pride to be the material of manifold fault, saying of the heretic that he does not consent to the doctrine which is according to godliness, but is proud, knowing nothing, but languishing about questions and strifes of words, from which arise envies, contentions, blasphemies, evil suspicions, and conflicts of men corrupt in mind and destitute of the truth, supposing gain to be godliness. Of how many transgressions therefore has he expressed pride to be the cause! Whence David, wishing to commend his own devotion as assailed by no iniquity of the proud, said: 'The proud have done iniquity exceedingly.' He declared not only their working iniquity, but likewise their exceeding iniquity, which is fitting to the proud.

Lest he should be tempted by any contagion of these, hear him saying elsewhere: 'With the proud eye and the insatiable heart, with such a one I did not eat.' And so, since he had expressed how great the force of evil there is in pride, he ought also to teach us how it might be conquered; and rightly, as a good physician, he who magnified the poison shows the remedy. Hear therefore how you may shut out the venom of pride: 'From Thy law,' he says, 'I have not turned aside.' The law of God alone, therefore, can blunt the venom of pride—the law which has instructed the man given to devotion with what caution he ought to govern himself.

For many—not only those alien to the faith, but even those who seem to have tasted no mean precepts of the Scriptures—are wont to be tempted by the prosperous advances of the proud, seeing that those who transgress the law, the arbiters of impiety, the arrogant, the despisers of the faithful, exalting themselves against those who humble their heart according to the fear of God and the heavenly precepts, abound in this world in riches, in renown, in honours, in powers; and that the more grievously they have offended, the more abundantly do worldly comforts attend their success; while on the contrary just men for the most part labour under want, under the loss of their children, under the barrenness of their wives—whereby, harassed and troubled, they bend the judgment of their mind, so that they think the judgment of God errs somewhat in this, not holding fast the head of truth, by which it is most evidently grasped that the recompense of our merits is laid up not in this world, but in the world to come.

But it belongs to few to notice this. Indeed, in the beginnings even David himself was tempted, as you have it written: 'Behold these are sinners, and abounding in the world they have obtained riches. And I said: Have I then in vain justified my heart and washed my hands among the innocent? And I have been scourged all the day.' Therefore each one of us also, who are not perfect, seeing these things says: 'Where is the providence of God, where the justice? This proud man abounds, this arrogant man is enriched, this impious man is happy and powerful; but that just man—you see how he lies cast down and faint, how he is in need of his very sustenance; he is afflicted with insults by that impious one, trampled by that insolent one, shut out.'

This is assuredly no slight temptation, unless you look forward to the things that are to come, unless you are more fully instructed in the heavenly precepts. Indeed, David too thought that he knew these things before, but he did not know, and therefore, anxious, he laboured with a wavering mind. Whence he says: 'And I supposed that I knew this; it is a labour before me, until I go into the sanctuary of God and understand in the last things,' wherein, through that whereby the proud exalted themselves, he saw by the prophetic spirit that they would be cast all the lower, and he said: 'How are they brought into desolation? They suddenly failed and were destroyed for their iniquity, like the dream of one awaking.'

He recognized therefore that the successes of the impious in this world are like a dream, not the truth, whose gains seem to last only while they sleep. When they have slept out their dream, those who seemed to themselves to be drinking now thirst; those who feasted now hunger, bringing back nothing solid or perfect from that dream. And well do worldly men sleep a dream, who, although they are awake to the world, sleep to God; concerning whom holy Job—who marvelled at their former abundance—well says that they are tossed like chaff by the wind and scattered like dust by the whirlwind; and they die with bitterness of soul, eating nothing and having nothing good.

But the just man, having confidence of a good conscience, rather rejoices in his own last days, and understands that by the departure from this life he is freed from his labours, and he requires the reward of his good work and deeds, saying: 'There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me in that day; and not only to me, but to those also who love His coming.' But this he says who could say: 'But from Thy law I have not turned aside,' in which not only the grace of a good work shines forth, but also the purity of an inmost conscience. For the law not only forms the duty of acting, but also cleanses the affection of the hidden mind. For not only in works, but even in the very secret things, do we serve the Lord according to the law, since the law says:

'Let not the word of injustice be hidden in thy heart,' so that not only mayest thou offend in no deed or act, when thou seest the proud glorying, nor slip in speech, but not even in the inmost heart, while thou disputest concerning the judgment of God, mayest thou contract the offence of iniquity, which the more hidden it is thought to be, the more frequent it is wont to be; for each one thinks it safe, because he believes that disputes of this kind are, as it were, fenced within his own bowels and conscience—whereas he himself will be his own accuser on the day of judgment, when the hidden things of the heart are revealed, conscience bearing witness in our accusations. Of what sort therefore the purpose of the holy man is, is here more clearly set forth.

For first he ought to be mindful of the heavenly promises, according to which a reward is appointed and owed to those who live aright. Then another purpose of the holy man is that, even if he be placed in dangers and adversities, yet by the hope which he has drawn from the sequence of the Scriptures he ought to console himself. The third purpose is that, even if he see the impious and sacrilegious and the proud working iniquity abound in riches in this world, he should not, like an unbeliever, turn aside from the law, but persevere in its paths and flee the contagions of the proud. For everyone unclean defiles, and the proud man is unclean, concerning whom it is written: 'Every haughtiness of heart is unclean before God.' The fourth purpose of the man is that he be mindful of the heavenly judgments, as David asserts, who said:

'I remembered Thy judgments which are from of old, and I was comforted.' For unless each one, instructed in the law and formed by examples, believes that the judgments of God are always true, he quickly turns aside from the law. But he who recalls past examples and gathers the sequence of antiquity recognizes that neither does the sinner escape the punishment of his wickedness, nor is the just man defrauded of the rewards of his uprightness.

For he unfolds in his mind that from the beginning Adam, because of the transgression of the heavenly command, was cast out from the dwelling of paradise; and Cain paid the price of his parricidal crime by the authority of the divine sentence; that Enoch, because of his devotion, caught up to heaven, escaped the venom of earthly malice; that Noah, because of his righteousness, made conqueror of his race, was the survivor of the human kind; that Abraham, because of his faith, spread the seed-plot of his posterity over the whole world; that Israel, because of his endurance of labours, consecrated a people of believers with the seal of his own name; that David himself, because of his meekness, endowed with royal honour, was preferred before his elder brothers; that Elijah, because of his zeal for God, raised in a chariot into the air, acquired by a new manner of dwelling the lodging of a heavenly abode.