Latin original · 38 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 5:2231–5:2268 (4615 verses in all)
this fear charity casts out, charity which takes no delight in iniquity even were impunity offered — not that fear by which the soul fears lest it lose the very grace by which it has been brought about in it that it should delight not to sin, by which it fears lest God forsake it, even though he punish it with no torments of pain. This fear is chaste; charity does not cast it out, but takes it in. For of it is it written: 'The fear of the Lord is chaste, enduring for ever and ever.' By no means would he call this one 'enduring' unless he knew of another which would not endure; and well did he call this one 'chaste,' for it does not lack that love by which the soul cleaves to God, which soul says in another psalm: 'You have destroyed everyone who fornicates away from you; but for me it is good to cleave to God.'
For a wife too, who bears an adulterous mind, even if through fear of her husband she does not commit adultery, yet what is lacking to the deed is present in the will; but the chaste wife fears otherwise, for she too fears her husband, but chastely. In short, the former fears lest her husband come hostile, the latter lest, being offended, he depart; for to one who does not love, the husband's presence is troublesome, but to one who loves, his absence. Therefore with a chaste fear, enduring for ever and ever, let all the seed of Israel fear God; let them fear him whom they love, not by being high-minded but by consenting to the humble; let them work out their own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in them both to will and to work for his good pleasure. This is the righteousness of God; this is what God gives to man when he justifies the ungodly;
this righteousness of God the proud Jews, being ignorant of it and wishing to establish their own, were not subject to the righteousness of God; by this pride they are cast down, that the humble wild olive may be grafted in. And they shall go into the outer darkness — concerning whom, among other things, you inquired — while many come from the east and the west who shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. For they are now in outer darkness, whence correction is not to be despaired of; but if they despise it, they shall go into the outer darkness, where there will be no place for correction, since God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all — but the light of the heart, not of these eyes which are in the flesh, nor at all such as is imagined by the fantasy of this visible light;
although there too there is seeing, but in a far other manner, far unlike. For what such light charity itself is, who can unfold in words? Who can demonstrate it by any example of those things which lie open to the senses of the body? Or is charity perhaps not light? Hear the apostle John; for he himself said that which I just now mentioned: 'For God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all,' and who again says: 'God is charity.' And by this, if God is light and God is charity, assuredly charity itself is the light which is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. Likewise he says: 'He who hates his brother is in darkness even until now.' These are the darkness into which the devil and his angels, by greatly exalting themselves in pride, have advanced.
For charity does not envy, is not puffed up; therefore it does not envy, because it is not puffed up; for where inflation goes before, envy immediately follows, since pride is the mother of envy. The devil, therefore, and his angels, turned away from the light and fervour of charity, and having advanced exceedingly into pride and envy, grew torpid as with an icy hardness. And therefore by a figure they are placed as it were in the north. Whence, since the devil was brooding over the human race, the coming grace of the Saviour is spoken of in the Song of Songs: 'Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, and blow through my garden, and the spices shall flow.' Arise, you who rushed in, who lie upon your subjects, who press those you possess; arise, that those whose souls you have bent by pressing them may be relieved of your weight and raised up;
'and come, O south wind,' he says, invoking the Spirit of grace blowing from the south as from the fervent and luminous quarter, that the spices may flow. Whence the apostle says: 'We are the good odour of Christ in every place.' Hence also it is said in a certain psalm: 'Turn, O Lord, our captivity, as a torrent in the south' — that captivity, namely, by which they were held under the devil as under the north wind, where, iniquity abounding, they had grown cold and in a manner frozen. For hence too the Gospel says: 'Because iniquity shall abound, the charity of many shall grow cold.' But when the south wind blows, the ice is dissolved and the torrents flow — that is, sins being remitted, the peoples run together to Christ in charity. Hence too it is written elsewhere:
'As ice in fair weather, so are your sins dissolved.' Accordingly the rational creature, whether in the angelic spirit or in the human soul, is so made that it cannot be to itself the good by which it becomes blessed, but its mutability, if it be turned toward the immutable good, becomes blessed; whence, if it be turned away, it is wretched. Its turning away is its vice, and its turning toward is its virtue.
Nature, therefore, is not evil, because a creature of rational spirit of life, even when deprived of the good by whose participation it is made blessed — that is, even when vicious — is better than a body, than that which is highest among bodies, that is, than this light which is perceived by the eyes of the flesh, since it too is a body; but than every body, any incorporeal nature whatever is more excellent, not by mass, since mass belongs only to bodies, but by a certain power by which it surpasses every phantasm which the mind revolves, drawn from the senses of the body.
But just as, among bodies themselves, those which are inferior, such as earth and water and the air itself, are made better by the participation of a better — that is, when they are illumined with light and quickened with warmth — so incorporeal rational creatures are made better by the participation of the Creator himself, when they cleave to him with the purest and most holy charity; and if they be wholly deprived of this, they grow dark and in a manner harden. Accordingly, unfaithful men are darkness, who, being converted to God by faith, become light by a certain illumination sent before. And if, advancing in this, they pass from faith to sight, so that they merit to behold what they believe — in so far as so great a good can be beheld — they will receive the perfect image of God.
For it is to such people that the Apostle says: 'You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.' Moreover the devil and his angels are the outer darkness to unbelieving men, for they have turned away further from that love and have advanced into their own pride and obstinacy. And since at the last judgment Christ is to say to those whom he will set apart on his left hand, 'Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels,' he will declare that they must go, to be joined with these malignant spirits and condemned together with them, into the outer darkness—that is, into the penal fellowship of the devil and his angels. To this punishment is opposed what is said to the good servant, 'Enter into the joy of your lord,' so that by as much as those are the outer darkness, by so much that is the inner light.
These things are not to be conceived by intervals of place through some empty phantasm; spatial extensions are occupied only by masses of bodies. The spirit of life is not such a thing, nor is the rational soul such, and much less is God, the most kindly Creator of all things and their most just Ordainer. It is by wills and affections that these things are said to draw near or become distant, to enter or to go out. But because those who do so delight in an evil, that is, a dark work, while punishment which shall torment them will follow, therefore where the Lord says 'the outer darkness' he also adds 'there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,' lest by such delights—
—such delights as the wicked here enjoy while they grow dark through unbelief and injustice—they might madly suppose they will still make use of them even in that torment. For because they willingly use good things unjustly, they will justly and unwillingly be tortured with evil things. Hence the outer darkness can also be understood as bodily punishments—for the body is exterior to the soul—so that the evils of the soul, by which, turned away from the light of love, it takes delight in sins, are the outer darkness, while the evils of the body, by which it will be tormented eternally without end, are the outermost darkness. These alone are feared by those who are still held by a servile fear.
For if it were permitted them always to will and to be wrapped up with impunity in those outer things which are in sins, surely they would never wish to draw near to God and to be enlightened and to cleave to him through love, where 'there is a chaste fear, enduring for ever and ever'—a fear which does not torment but makes the soul more tenacious of that good, which if it lets go it falls. 'Let all the seed of Israel fear him.' And see the cause which he adds: 'Because,' he says, 'he has not scorned nor despised the prayer of the poor man.' By 'poor man' he means the humble; hence: 'Do not be high-minded, but fear.' Let all the seed of Israel therefore fear him, because he has not despised the prayer of him who was not high-minded but feared.
This can also be fitted to the Head, since the Saviour himself became poor for our sake, though he was rich, that by his poverty we might be enriched. For it was out of the form of a servant that he became poor, and out of it that he poured forth his prayer; for in it he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death. See therefore what he says: 'Because he has not scorned nor despised the prayer of the poor man, nor turned his face away from me.' Where then is that saying, 'Why have you forsaken me,' if he did not even turn his face away from him, unless it be that even in forsaking he does not forsake, when in temporal goods he does not hear us—not to our folly, but that we may understand what he takes away and what he offers us?
'He has not,' he says, 'scorned nor despised the prayer of the poor man, nor turned his face away from me; and when I cried to him, he heard me.' He did, therefore, what a little before, when asked, he was begged to do, when in supplication he said to him, 'Do not depart from me.' For if he heard, surely he did it, and so he did not depart. He did not therefore forsake in that way, who in another way forsook, that we might understand in what way we ought rather to wish not to be forsaken by him. 'My praise is with you.' What harm then do they do who insult me as one conquered, because you have forsaken me in temporal things? 'In the great church I will confess to you'—not as great as this synagogue is, which mocks the death of the forsaken one, but in the great church spread abroad through all nations, which believes in the resurrection of him who was not forsaken.
This is that unique one, which he asks to be rescued from the hand of the dog, of which also a little before he said, 'In the midst of the church I will sing to you'; and now what he says, 'I will confess to you,' is assuredly among those who will confess, in whom he also speaks. But confession is not only of sins but also of God's praise, just as he himself says in the Gospel: 'I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones.' Therefore it follows and he says: 'My vows I will render before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and they shall praise the Lord who seek him.' These are the little ones of whom he said:
'And you have revealed them to little ones'—those who fear him and are poor, that is, the humble, who are not high-minded but fear with that chaste fear, not the fear by which punishment is dreaded, but that by which grace is preserved. But by 'his vows' he wishes us to understand the sacrifice of his own body, which is the sacrament of the faithful. Therefore, when he had said, 'My vows I will render before those who fear him,' he at once subjoined, 'The poor shall eat and be satisfied.' For they themselves shall be satisfied with the bread which came down from heaven, they who, cleaving to him and keeping his peace and love, imitate his humility—therefore poor. In this poverty and satisfaction the apostles above all were made illustrious. 'And they shall praise,' he says, 'the Lord, who seek him,' understanding that it belongs not to their own merits but to his grace,
the fact that they are satisfied. For they seek him, because they are not of those who seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ. Finally, even if the flesh of those who praise him suffers temporal tribulation or death, their hearts shall live for ever and ever. This life of the heart is not in the senses of the body; it is hidden in the light which is within, not in the darkness which is without, in the end of the commandment, not in the beginning of sin. Now the end of the commandment is 'love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned'—love which is not jealous, is not puffed up, because it is not high-minded but fears; and therefore it cleaves with a chaste fear, enduring for ever and ever.
But the beginning of all sin is pride, by which the devil irrevocably advanced into outer things, and by envying man and persuading him to something like it, cast him down—to which man it is said in a certain Scripture: 'Why is earth and ashes proud, since in his life he has cast forth his inmost parts?' ('In his life' is said as though into his own and, as it were, private life, in which all pride takes delight. Hence love, taking counsel for the common rather than for the private, is said 'not to seek its own.') By these things the hearts live for ever and ever, as though satisfied with the heavenly bread, of which the Satisfier himself says: 'Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in you.' Rightly therefore the hearts of these—
—those who are satisfied—the hearts shall live for ever and ever. For life is Christ, who dwells in their hearts, meanwhile through faith, afterward also through sight. For now they see 'through a mirror in an enigma,' but then 'face to face.' Whence this same love now is exercised in the good works of charity, by which it reaches out to bring help wherever it can—and this is its breadth; now it endures adversities with long-suffering and perseveres in that which it has truly held—and this is its length; and it does all this for the sake of attaining eternal life, which is promised to it on high—and this is its height.
But this love arises out of the hidden depths, where we are in a certain manner grounded and rooted, where the causes of God's will are not to be traced out—by whose grace we have been saved, not out of works of righteousness which we ourselves have done, but according to his mercy. For 'of his own will he begot us by the word of truth.' And this will of his is in a hidden place. Somehow shuddering at the profundity of this secret, the Apostle cries out: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord?' And this is the deep.
For 'height' (altitudo) is a name common to what is lofty and to what is deep; but when it is spoken of the lofty, the eminence of sublimity is commended; when, however, of the deep, the difficulty of investigation and of knowledge. Hence also that is said to God: 'How magnified are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts have been made exceedingly deep.' And again: 'Your judgments are like a great abyss.' This, then, is that saying of the Apostle, which among the rest you have set down to be inquired into:
'For this cause,' he says, 'I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts, that being rooted and grounded in love you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know also the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.' Attend to everything diligently. 'For this cause,' he says, 'I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.'
You ask for what cause. This he had said above: 'Wherefore I ask that you be not disheartened in my tribulations for you.' This, therefore, he wishes for them, that they be not disheartened in the apostle's tribulations, which he was enduring for their sake; and for this he was bowing his knees to the Father. Accordingly, whence it may come to them not to be disheartened, he follows and says: 'That he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit.' These are the riches of which he says: 'O the depth of the riches!' For they have hidden causes, where, with no preceding merits, 'what have we that we did not receive?' Then it follows and he adds what he wishes: 'That Christ may dwell,' he says, 'through faith in your hearts in the inner man.'
This is the life of hearts, by which we live for ever and ever, from the beginning of faith unto the end of sight. 'That being rooted and grounded in love,' he says, 'you may be able to comprehend with all the saints.' This is the communion of a certain divine and heavenly commonwealth; hence the poor are satisfied, not seeking their own things, but the things of Jesus Christ—that is, not pursuing private advantages, but taking counsel for the common good, where the salvation of all lies. For concerning that very bread with which such are satisfied, the Apostle says in a certain place: 'One bread, one body, we many are.' What then are they to comprehend? 'What is the breadth,' he says—as I have already said, in good works, by which benevolence is extended even to the loving of enemies.
And the length, that with long-suffering troubles may be endured for the sake of this breadth; and the height, that for these things the eternal reward which is in the heavens above, and not some vain temporal thing, may be hoped for; and the depth, whence the free grace of God arises according to the secret and hidden purpose of his will. For there we are rooted, there we are grounded: rooted with respect to cultivation, grounded with respect to building; which, since it is not from man, the same Apostle says in another place: 'You are God's cultivation, God's building.' All this is done when, in this our pilgrimage, faith works through love.
But in the age to come, perfect and full love, without any enduring of evils, does not believe by faith what it does not see, nor desire by hope what it does not possess, but will contemplate for ever the unchangeable form of truth, whose restful work without end will be to praise what it loves and to love what it praises. Concerning this he consequently says: 'To know also the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.' In this mystery the figure of the cross is shown. For he who, because he willed it, died, died in the way he willed. Not in vain, therefore, did he choose such a kind of death, save that in it too he might be the master of this breadth and length and height and depth.
For the breadth is in that wood which is fixed crosswise above; this pertains to good works, because there the hands are stretched out. The length is in that which is visible from the very wood down to the ground; for there in a certain manner one stands, that is, one persists and perseveres, which is ascribed to long-suffering. The height is in that part of the wood which is left projecting upward from that which is fixed crosswise—that is, at the head of the crucified—because the expectation of things above belongs to those who hope well. But now that part of the wood which does not appear, which lies hidden fixed, from which all that rises up, signifies the depth of the free grace;
in which the minds of many are worn out as they attempt to trace it, until at last it is said to them: 'O man, who are you that you should answer back to God?' The hearts, therefore, of the satisfied poor—that is, of the humble who burn with love, who seek not their own things but rejoice in the fellowship of the saints—shall live for ever and ever. This was first done in the apostles. But by praising God—that is, by preaching the grace of God, since it was said, 'They shall praise the Lord who seek him'—see, in what follows, what they have gained of the peoples. 'They shall be reminded,' he says, 'and all the ends of the earth shall turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship in his sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he shall have dominion over the nations.'
That mocked one, that crucified one, that forsaken one acquires this kingdom and will hand it over at the end to God and the Father—not so that he himself may lose it, but that what he sowed in faith, when he came as less than the Father, this he may bring through to sight, in which, as equal, he did not depart from the Father. 'All the rich of the earth have eaten and worshipped.' By 'the rich of the earth' we ought to understand the proud. If above we rightly understood by 'the poor' the humble, of whom he says in the Gospel: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'—for these are the meek, the mourners, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, to which several classes he joined a blessing one by one.
then, on the contrary, by 'the rich of the earth' in this place the proud are to be understood. For not in vain are they thus distinguished, that above it was said of the poor, 'The poor shall eat and be satisfied,' but here, 'All the rich of the earth have eaten and worshipped.' For these too have indeed been brought to the table of Christ and receive of his body and blood, but they only worship, and are not also satisfied, because they do not imitate. For while eating the poor one, they disdain to be poor, because Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his footsteps.
Yet, that he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross, the rich disdain, and refuse to suffer like things—out of swelling, not greatness; out of weakness, therefore, not health. But because God raised him from the dead and gave him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth—moved by the report of his loftiness and the glory of his name spread everywhere in the Church, these too come to the table, eat, and worship, yet are not satisfied, because they do not hunger and thirst for righteousness; for such shall be satisfied.
Although perfect satisfaction will be in that eternal life, when we shall have come out of this pilgrimage from faith to sight, from the mirror to the face, from the enigma to the clear truth. Yet not unfittingly is he called satisfied with the poverty of Christ, who for the sake of his righteousness—that is, for the sake of participation in the eternal Word, which he has begun meanwhile by faith—not only temperately despises all temporal goods, but even patiently endures evils. Such were the fishermen and the tax collectors, because he chose the base things of this world, that he might confound the strong. Of these it was said, 'The poor shall eat and be satisfied.' But because they did not keep this satisfaction to themselves, in a certain manner, belching it forth, they praised the Lord.
That is, they preached, as those who seek him—that is, not seeking their own things, but burning with love toward him. By their preaching the world was stirred, so that all the ends of the earth may be reminded and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations may worship in his sight, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he shall have dominion over the nations. By this enlargement of the Church even the proud—that is, the rich of the earth—were brought in to eat, and, although not satisfied, yet they worship. For the prophecy of the psalm in this place held to that very order which we see being fulfilled. And it adds: 'In his sight shall fall down all who go down into the earth'—that is, all who, by loving earthly goods, do not ascend into heaven. For they do not do what the Apostle says:
'If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth'—but rather, the more they seem to themselves happier in earthly goods, the more they go down into the earth, that is, are pressed down into earthly things. And therefore 'in his sight they shall fall down'—that is, where he himself sees, not where men see, who reckon them lofty and sublime. 'And my soul,' he says, 'lives to him'—to him indeed, not to itself, as with the proud who rejoice in their own private good and, in empty exaltation, spring back from the common good of all, which is God.
This above all let us shun, and let us rather seek to enjoy the common and true good of all than to rejoice in our own private good, so that he who lives may now live not to himself, as the Apostle says, but to him who died and rose again for them. For through this he was made a mediator, that he might reconcile us to God through humility, from whom through impious pride we had gone far away. For not only is that written which I set down above, 'The beginning of all sin is pride,' but also this is read there: 'The beginning of pride is for men to apostatize from God.' Let no one, therefore, live to himself but to Christ, doing not his own will but Christ's, and abiding in his love, just as he himself did the will of the Father and abides in his love.
For admonishing us of these things and exhorting us by his own example, he spoke in his Gospel. But if he himself, though in the form of God he is equal to the Father, nevertheless, through the form of a servant which he took for our sake, commended that he did not his own will but the Father's—how much more ought we, our own private will despised, by which we have been darkened, to draw near to that common light, that we may be enlightened and our faces not be ashamed, which enlightens every man coming into this world, that our soul may live to him! For this he consequently adds concerning us too, when he says: 'And my seed shall serve him,' since 'he who sows the good seed is the Son of man; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom.'
Moreover, all these things which are said in this psalm, since they pertained not to the present time but to the prophecy of things to come—as also appears from the very facts—he willed so to conclude it, that he might show himself not to be pointing out present things or narrating past things, but prophesying things to come. 'There shall be announced,' he says, 'to the Lord a generation to come, and they shall announce his righteousness to a people that shall be born, whom the Lord has made.' He does not say, 'The Lord shall be announced to a generation to come,' but 'To the Lord shall be announced a generation to come.' This is not to be taken as though something is announced to one who does not know it, that he may know it, but as the angels announce not only to us the benefits of God but also to him our prayers.