Works (CSEL) 1 part 3/3

Although therefore in the history you hear bitter things, in the figure you recognize hard things, yet hope for fruitful things in the mystery. The adultery, I say, was committed for the figure of salvation; for not every adultery is to be condemned. In fine, it was said to the prophet: Go, take to yourself a harlot wife. The Lord commands this, that she who had committed fornication should be a spouse — of which marriage, as we said above, the offspring is Christ. For to the son who was born of the fornication a name was given by the Lord, Jezreel, which is 'divine generation.' If then that union with the harlot was holy, this fellowship too, surely, with the adulteress is a holy union. But that one concerned the Jews.

But concerning divine things I dare not name it a holy adultery, however pious it be, lest even the mere sound of the word offend anyone, although the more venerable meaning lies at hand. Yet what may be said more cautiously, if not more plainly: out of unequal unions a holy fellowship was made, when the Word was made flesh. For divinity and flesh are not lawful partnerships, nor, as by a certain covenant flesh agrees with soul as natures, and soul with flesh, so also do divinity and flesh observe in a manner the law of the marriage-bed. God took up flesh, He assumed a soul; through an unwonted and not lawful incarnation He made the fellowship to be lawful, that God might be all and in all. In fine, that you may know it to be a mystery, interpret the names.

For David you take as a figure of Christ; Bathsheba is called 'daughter of the sabbath' and 'daughter full' and 'well of the oath.' What therefore could be plainer than that the daughter of the sabbath is the flesh of Christ, since God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law? The same is 'full,' because in His passion is the fullness of the law, or because she is full of the Holy Spirit; for Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan. The same too is the 'well of the oath,' that is, of religion and faith. And well is it 'well,' because rivers of living water shall flow from His belly. This, then, God the Word, taking to Himself, made the union lawful — which mystery those nuptials also declared which are in the Song of Songs, in which the Church is wedded to Christ and the flesh to the Spirit.

And therefore she ran about and sought everywhere the Word of God, because she was wounded, because naked, because an adulteress in all things, even though spotless in Christ; the wretched flesh sought the Redeemer. This flesh Christ joined to Himself, that He might render it spotless; this He united to Himself, that He might take away the adultery. And because she was under the law, He had to die, that she might be freed from the law, that through that death a certain marriage, as it were, of the law and the flesh might be dissolved.

Therefore the flesh died in Christ, that we, having been put to death to the law through the body of Christ, as the Apostle said, might belong to Another, who rose from the dead; and that the passions and lusts of the flesh and the thoughts of sins, which through the law were in our members, might die in that death; and that we, loosed from the law of death, might rise again in newness of spirit, as by a new union with Christ. And yet all those who loosed the law in the flesh of Christ and thought it should be violated were slain by the warriors at David's command.

By which token is shown that which they taught afterward to have been signified: that of those who killed Christ none escaped; and this is most clearly revealed — that those whom Christ had taken up before His death perished, like the Jews, as little and unformed children, but those whom He adopted after His death into the number of His sons were preserved for the kingdom. Whence, according to this mystery, it agrees that the first offspring among the Jews was weak, that afterward among Christians there might be an eternal fruit. But now let us pass on to the message. For in what went before, our discourse was concerned with that invidious adultery and murder of David the prophet, and, the mysteries being traversed, we found not only nothing that should be condemned, but even something that should be praised.

Now the discourse begins to concern the message, which the title of the psalm we are treating, already so often repeated, points out. For it runs thus: A psalm of David, of understanding, when Nathan the prophet had come to him, when he had gone in to Bathsheba. And so this part of the history too must be reviewed, which is of this kind. 'A rich man,' it says, 'and a poor man were within one city. The rich man had many herds, many sheep; the poor man had one sheep, which was fed from the poor man's bread and wine and rested in his bosom. A guest came to the rich man; the rich man took nothing from his own herd nor from his own flocks, but slew the one sheep of the poor man.' When David learned this, he said, 'That man shall die and shall restore fourfold.' Nathan answered him:

'You are the man.' Then he opened to him the heavenly mandate, saying that the Lord had charged that He had conferred on him many good things — that is, royal wealth, having raised him from the number of shepherds — and that He had poured out His mercy upon him; and therefore, since by his sin he had provoked the Lord, all his possessions were to be taken away, snatched by his enemies, and his house laid waste. Then he said, 'I have sinned'; and Nathan answered, 'Since you confess that you have sinned, the Lord will remit your sin; but your son who was born of Bathsheba shall die.' While this son was sick, David wept, lay on the ground, covered himself with sackcloth, and fasted. When he learned that the child was dead, he arose, washed, dined, and consoled the others. See how many things.

First of all, because God is loving and merciful, the adversities that befall us we receive as the price of our own straying. We have learned, then, that captivity is the price of sin; for this penalty is decreed for the crime. Next we observe this, that the fall of kings is the punishment of the peoples. For just as by their virtue we are preserved, so too by their error we are imperiled. Hence it is to be desired by us that we may be able to have a glorious and perfect king. We, therefore, who wish to have a perfect king, do we not wish to have a perfect Lord? Or can those truly wish a man to be perfect who do not wish God to be perfect? This also the text of the history briefly conveys, that we may observe how quickly the hope of pardon followed.

It is no small thing, moreover, that Nathan announced it to him—that is, a prophet of lower rank; for it is a heavy shame and disgrace to be reproved for a fault by an inferior. You see how guilt diminishes grace. Nathan knew what David did not know; so darkened is the mind, overshadowed as it were by a certain cloud of vices. Furthermore, this is the very Nathan who in earlier passages had prophesied David to be acceptable to the Lord, so that David might grieve to have his sin rebuked by the same witness by whose prophecy his merit had been proclaimed. But now let us search out the mystery. There were, he says, two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. Who is this rich man or this poor man, unless perhaps the one is the people of the Jews, the other the Christian people?

That rich man was rich in the Law, rich in the oracles of God entrusted to him, rich in prophecies, rich in pronouncements; but this other is poor. Yet do not shun this poverty, which the kingdom of heaven follows; for it is written: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Good is the poverty that does not lose what it has had. Good is the poverty that, though it has no treasures of money, yet has the treasures of knowledge and of wisdom. Do not, my children, despise poverty as something base; this poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him. Do not, as it were, envy great riches; the rich have been in want and have hungered. But if you wish to have good things, seek the Lord; for those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.

Therefore do not reject any poor person. Peter was poor, and had no small coin to give, yet he gave salvation, more precious than all money. That Lazarus in the Gospel was poor, but the man who before lay rich in scarlet and purple, after the close of his life longed to be refreshed by the dripping finger of the poor man. Although that rich man, proud in his royal scarlet and purpled garments, had disdainfully shuddered at the wounds of the poor man, yet, placed in the nether regions, he longed to have been in that place where Lazarus was. In this passage the reading does not seem to describe a man rich and another poor in money, but that poor man who for the sake of faith and devotion did not shudder at the wounds of his body, and endured hunger and fasting.

Since, therefore, the people of the Jews had in their flocks very great supplies of victims, yet they seized the one little ewe-lamb which that poor people had, subjecting it to that glorious passion. Do you wish to know what sheep? He was led as a sheep to the slaughter—he who was nourished by the bread of the poor, and used the drink of the poor, and slept in the bosom of the poor. For he used our food, and rested in the lap of our breast. For he recalled that he could not find rest in the bosom of the Jews, saying: The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. And there came, he says, a guest to that rich man. Who is this guest, unless wretched sin? For indeed guilt entered into this world as a guest, foreign and alien to our nature.

And so he offered a victim not from his own flocks, but took the poor man's little ewe-lamb and slew it. Although its passion indeed availed unto the sanctuary of salvation, yet to that man it seemed to be an increase of his own fury, food for his guilt, and an incitement to sin. Indeed, Judas received bread from Christ, and then was the more filled with the devil, because he did not receive it from faith—he who, toward so hospitable a Lord, was preparing betrayal. And David was angry at that man. We have said that by the prophet the people of the Jews is signified, and therefore under this figure it condemns itself.

That man who did these things is worthy of death, and he shall restore the little ewe-lamb fourfold—that is, the people of the Jews who shall perish, but the Christian people who shall enjoy more abundant good things, because a more excellent state, which is owed from the resurrection, surpasses present things. My purpose was, that you might deign to remember, to reply by my discourse against those who condemn the homicide and adultery of holy David; and thus, by the favor of your unanimity, the course of our treatise has so issued that he whom we thought could not be defended seemed deservedly worthy to be praised by all. But since the holy man does not need our aid, let him now himself speak to you on his own behalf, and let his own words defend his deed.

Have mercy on me, he says, O Lord, according to your great mercy. This is a new conjunction of words, unless I am mistaken, dearest brethren, that mercy should be called great; and I do not easily recall having read it elsewhere. And therefore we ought to consider what this great mercy is. For although we may not easily read of great mercy, yet we do read of the great power of God. And so, by considering what the great power is, we shall be able to conjecture what great mercy he wished to designate. For we read in holy Jeremiah: Who are you, O Lord? You made heaven and earth in your great power and with a lofty arm. Therefore great power made heaven. Which is the great power, the Father's or the Son's?

The Father's power is indeed great—for he made heaven and earth through the Son, as you have it: In the beginning God made heaven and earth—but yet the Son also is great power. For when you read that the Son is the power of the Father, as you have it that Christ is the wisdom and power of God, certainly, since the Son is the power of the Father, the Son is great power. How then is omnipotence denied to him whom we confess to be the great power of God? This great power, then, made heaven, because the Son also made heaven, as you have it: All things were made through him. Therefore, if both the Father made and the Son made, surely the unity of what was made indicates a unity of operation. The operation of the Father and the Son, then, does not differ.

But if there is one operation, then surely there is one power of operation, and one majesty of the works. This concerning the Father and the Son. Why then are we silent about the Spirit, especially since the divine Scripture does not allow us to be silent? For the passage furnishes most opportune testimony for proving the unity of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, so that we cannot dissociate his operation from the work of the Father and the Son. For we have read that it is the great power of the Father that he made heaven, and that the Son also is great power, since he made heaven, and not only made it but also established it firmly; for by the word of the Lord the heavens were established.

Therefore, if both to have made and to have established heaven is a work of great power, neither can we separate the Holy Spirit from the majesty of that great power, because it is written: And by the breath of his mouth all their power. For indeed, when heaven and earth were being made, the Spirit was borne above, of whom elsewhere he says through the prophet David: Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created. Of whom also elsewhere he said: For I shall behold the heavens, the works of your fingers. For God did not make heaven and earth with corporeal fingers, but by the sevenfold grace of the Spirit—by that finger, namely, of whom you have in the Gospel: But if I cast out demons by the finger of God. For this finger he called the Spirit elsewhere, as you have it: But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God.

If, then, the Spirit of God is the finger, since the arm of God is the Son, certainly the Spirit, cooperating with the Father and the Son through the unity of operation, made heaven and earth. For the Son called him a finger for this reason, that he might express, as of one body, so the unity of the Godhead. And so, if great power founded heaven, certainly great wisdom founded heaven, because it is written: You have made all things in wisdom. We have learned, then, what the great power is: let us now gather what the great mercy is. If great power made the heavens, then great mercy too must be from heaven, and great justice must be from heaven; for justice looked down from heaven, and mercy came from heaven.

Great mercy, then, was wrought, because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Therefore great power made the heavens, great power bowed the heavens, as we read: And he bowed the heavens and came down. By which it is shown that the Son of God was never destitute of his own divinity, not even when he dwelt among men, since, although he assumed what he was not, yet he did not cease to be what he was. And so, when it is said: And he bowed the heavens and came down, he does not so much seem to have come down from heaven as to have come down with heaven itself. For when the Father addressed the Son set upon the earth, and angels ministered, the Son of God seems not so much to have changed his seat as to have transferred it. Therefore we have learned that the mercy is great.

And so, if it is great mercy to have come down from heaven, we ought to distinguish and understand what is the multitude of his compassions. For thus it follows: And according to the multitude of your compassions blot out my iniquity. For the two verses do not signify the same thing, but the former refers to the incarnation, while what follows seems to be referred to those injuries which the Son of God took upon himself in the flesh: that he fasted, that he hungered, that he wept, that he was beaten, that he was crucified, that he died, that he was buried; for these are the marks of the flesh, not of the divinity. And it was necessary that the multitude of compassions should drive away the multitude of afflictions, by the conflict of the Lord's passion that would profit us.

For he was not blotting out his own sins, because he had committed no sin, but because he was made sin, our sins were to be blotted out, as David said: Blot out my iniquity. What is 'blot out'? Let us examine this word; it is not idle. Indeed, elsewhere too he says: I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, and I will remember them no more. There are surely certain ulcers of our transgressions deeply imprinted on our conscience, and certain weals of our minds and souls, which are covered over by the ulcers of our errors. Guilt therefore has its own characters and marks by which it is betrayed. This we do not feign from our own invention, but seal with prophetic authority. It is written, then, and see where it is written. In the breast, he says, of your heart, that is:

there is the record of guilt written, where also is the form of virtue—not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart. But the things that are good are inscribed not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; while the things that are vicious are inscribed with a pen of iron and a point of adamant. Such, in a manner, is the writing as is the penalty of sin. The latter is written with a pen of iron; this is curbed with a rod of iron, as it is written: You shall rule them with a rod of iron. That other is a straight rod, the rod of your kingdom. The one curbs the guilty with punishment; the other governs the guiltless with rule. Guilt, then, is written; let us see where. Not without, but within, in your heart and in your breast.

For just as the word is near in your mouth and in your heart, so for the unfaithful there is impressed in the very heart the figure and image of sin and of error. Within, therefore, is guilt; within is virtue. And therefore the Lord says: I perceive that power has gone forth from me, in order to show that the things that are good proceed from within, and conversely that the things that are evil issue from within. For it is not what enters into the mouth, he says, that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth. For out of your heart thoughts proceed, and therefore beware lest evil thoughts come forth from your heart, which at a later time may convict and accuse you. For God does not need testimonies and arguments to refute you; your own guilt accuses and betrays you. Hence David well says in this psalm:

My transgression is ever against me. For woe is me, that I wish to lie hidden and cannot lie hidden! For how shall I hide, who bear inscribed upon my breast the tokens of my transgressions? On that day of judgment each one's breast shall be laid bare, his own conscience rendering testimony to all, and the thoughts mutually accusing or even defending, on the day when God shall judge the secret things of men. What shame will that be, when what we thought hidden begins to be disclosed to all, when the image of each one's transgression begins to open itself, so that each may be convicted by the record of his own crime?

What shame, when you shall have seen the one whom you judged contemptible in this world to be preferred—that servant of yours, the one whom, according to the cunning of this world, you reckoned foolish and unfit, you shall have recognized to be honored with the riches of his own simplicity? Therefore, while we live, let us take refuge in him who can blot out sin. And do not fear that it is written with a pen of iron and a point of adamant—for he has broken in pieces gates of iron and of adamant—nor be afraid to confess your guilt. David confessed, he acknowledged his iniquity, he acknowledged his error, and therefore he says: For I acknowledge my iniquity. David acknowledges, and do you not acknowledge? David confesses, and do you deny? Paul cries out that he is guilty, and do you assert that you are innocent?

There is therefore no very great cause for blushing, when shared fellowships are mingled with very many sins—provided, nevertheless, that we pursue the zeal of correction. Nor again should you be afraid that the confession of guilt may be held against you for punishment. For God, being good and merciful, is wont not only to pardon guilt to those who confess, but even to bestow rewards on those who amend, provided, however, that each one ask to be granted what he understands cannot lie hidden. Tell, then, your iniquities, that you may be justified. This is the voice of God willing to forgive; this is the voice of God promising that he wishes to blot out your sin. Against you, he says, have I sinned, and done evil before you—that is: although men do not see, yet you see:

although men cannot judge me, who are themselves partakers of transgressions, yet you are the judge of each, you who are free from transgressions. However much harmful thoughts may lie hidden in the inmost heart, yet they are present before you, who can say: Why do you think evil things in your hearts? Surely Christ says this. He, then, who knows what is written in the heart, can blot out whatever is inscribed in the heart. To him holy David confesses that he had sinned not only in himself, but also in the first man, when the divine precepts are violated. From which it may be observed, most beloved brethren, how all heresies, while they assail themselves, recoil upon themselves.

And so the Arians, while they separate the power of the Father and the Son, rush into so frenzied an outcome of their disputation that their assertion coincides with that of the Manichees; for the latter say that the God of the Old Testament is one, and the God of the New another. This profane assertion the holy Church condemns, which reads of one God, because there is one God the Father, from whom are all things and we unto him, and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things and we through him. Surely the omnipotent power, one and the same, of the Father and the Son is declared, so that we neither sever the Father from the grace of the New Testament, nor again separate the Son from the establishment of the world. Let us, then, consider whether the same God is the maker of both Testaments.

Surely we all sinned in the first man, and through the succession of nature a succession of guilt also was poured out from one upon all. Against whom, then, have I sinned—against the Father or against the Son? Surely against him who entrusted to me that which, by not keeping, I sinned. It was commanded to man that he should taste of all the things that were in paradise, but not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam, therefore, is in each of us. For in him the human condition transgressed, because through one sin passed upon all. I see the sum entrusted to me, I see what debts of transgression I have contracted while I taste the forbidden and prohibited things. Hence I owe the interest of the lot committed to me, because I could not keep with inviolate faith the entrusted loan of the heavenly commandments.

We have acknowledged the loan; let us also acknowledge the lender. It is surely the lender's right both to exact and to remit. And therefore the same one remits who has the right of exacting. When, then, Christ has said to me in the Gospel: Your sins are forgiven you, do I not understand the same one to be the Lord of the lot whom I recognize as the arbiter of pardon? Or if the Father lent and the Son remitted—not through unity, as we say, but as the Arians assert, through a difference of power—then one God lent and another remitted? Hence they run into the position of not escaping the perfidy of the Manichees. Furthermore, by calling one God good, let them observe into what snares of their own madness they fall. If he is good who lent, how is he not good who remitted?

Therefore the Arians share a part with those Manichees, with whose assertion they agree. Nor is it a wonder if he who has once begun to deviate from the truth should entangle himself in the bonds of another's error. And therefore there is one sentence which destroys the contrivances of all heretics, namely, that we should believe the Trinity to be of one power, majesty, and might; and therefore that we neither separate the Father from that which the Son did, nor sever the Son from that which the Father commanded. For thus it will come about that we do not introduce one God of the Old Testament and another of the New, but through the unity of power both the Son is understood to be in the Father and the Father in the Son, and the Son lends in the Father and the Father remits in the Son. For the Father too forgives sin; that the Son has forgiven, we have already said.

Receive proof that the Father also forgives. Forgive us, he says, our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Surely from our person the Son says this to the Father. Nor does he say it as though he himself could not forgive, but he says it for this reason, that you may understand the unity of power. Finally, if you seek authority in the Son: You are now clean, he says, because of the word which I have spoken to you. He forgives by word, he forgives by command, but he forgives with reason, saying: Go, after this see that you sin no more. You have authority, because he pardoned past things; you have judgment, because he prescribed concerning things to come.