Hence it appears that those who have believed well and have followed up their faith also with works are themselves not judged, but rise in the council of the righteous; while sinners, who cannot rise among the righteous, shall rise in the judgment. You have two orders; a third remains, that of the ungodly, who, because they have not believed, are already judged, and therefore do not rise unto judgment, but unto punishment; for they loved darkness more than light. Therefore their judgment is itself a punishment, and perhaps the punishment of darkness. It could indeed be understood that those who do evil works, yet believing in Christ, wishing indeed to live rightly but overcome by the enticements of sins, loved darkness more than light, that is: they loved both, but darkness more.
But because he had spoken before of those who did not believe, I think it should be taken thus, that they loved darkness and not light; for Christ is the light. Those, then, who did not believe in the light, it is absurd that they should be thought to have loved the light which they did not know; for they did not know nor understand, they walk in darkness, as it is written. There follows: For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, and the way of the ungodly shall perish. Mark the sense: the ungodly do not rise again in the judgment, because the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous. He certainly knows the ways of those whose steps He directs; for there are steps of men that are directed by the Lord. By the Lord also are the ways of a man directed. These ways the Lord knows, which are straight, which tend to that life of Him who says:
I am the way and the truth and the life. This is the good way; but crooked is the way of the world; He does not deign to know that way. For He recognizes those who are His own, who do His works; but to those who work iniquity the Lord says: Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity; I never knew you. They are unknown not through ignorance, but because they are unworthy of the knowledge of God. And beautifully he says: and the way of the ungodly shall perish. The Latin distinguished, so as to say 'path' (iter), and as it were separated 'path' from 'way' (via); but the Greek said 'way' in both places. Yet the Latin did not do so idly, for the Lord too said I am the way, He did not say 'I am the path.' Moreover he said that the path of the ungodly perishes, not the ungodly themselves;
He preserves their substance, that if they should be converted, they would lose only the path of impiety, which neither was from the beginning nor will be. Therefore what is accidental perishes, what is substantial remains. But the ungodly perish in the manner in which it is said: The soul that sinneth, it shall die; so that they die by the sting of sin, not by the dissolution of their whole substance. EXPOSITION OF PSALM XXXV. Being about to speak in the following psalm of what the form of the righteous man is, the prophet first set forth the form of the unrighteous. For we cannot know what is the form of righteousness unless we know what is the likeness of iniquity; for they are opposed and contrary to one another. For in the one is the simple disposition of nature, in the other the deceitful cunning of wickedness;
the one presents the images of virtues, the other puts forward the contrivances of vices. That this order is fitting both reason itself teaches, and, if testimonies are to be drawn from adversaries, the very teachers of philosophy have confessed it, while they follow it. But who would doubt that David was far earlier than the times of Plato, whom not only his master but not even the grandfathers of his grandfathers could have seen, since David lived at the beginning of the kingdom of the Jews, which was propagated through countless courses of years, while Plato lived after the times of the captivity, by which the kingdom of his nation had already been dissolved?
Therefore he himself, who holds the chief place among all in worldly wisdom, when he said that the form of righteousness could not be comprehended unless they had first supposed that the series of unrighteousness must be examined, brought this example: that those who wish to seek gold first smear themselves with mud. So gold is righteousness, iniquity is mud. That this also was said by our own writers is not in doubt, since it is written: I will blot them out like the mire of the streets; and truly mire, because it defiles those who draw near to it. Let us therefore flee unrighteousness, lest we be defiled with muddy filth and lest into its gulf not our outward foot, but, what is more grievous, our mind be plunged.
And philosophy indeed says that it seeks gold, but it stirs up mud, since it seeks the Godhead in statues; but the potter's vessels the rod shatters. We seek gold, with which to cleanse our bodies, bearing about the mortification of Jesus Christ in our body, that the life also of Jesus Christ may be made manifest in our body. The good gold is the blood of Christ, rich for a ransom, flowing freely to wash away every sin. We have spoken of the order; let us consider the title. To the end, it says, a psalm of David, the servant of the Lord. In the whole body of the psalter this is the only title in which David testifies that he wrote the psalm as 'the servant of the Lord.' Who is this servant of the Lord? Let us see what the course of the psalm signifies, to whom this psalm was spoken.
Let us hear to whom He speaks: O Lord, it says, thy mercy is in the heavens, and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds; thy righteousness is like the mountains of God, thy judgments are a great deep. To whom is this said but to the Son of God? For these things belong not to human but to divine power. But what does it mean that the title declared this psalm to be spoken 'to the servant of the Lord,' whereas in a later title he preferred to entitle it the prayer of Moses the man of God rather than of 'the servant of the Lord'? What then the design of the prophet was I do not understand, or rather the design of the Lord and Saviour Himself, who spoke in the prophet. Truly His judgments are like a great deep, that He might reserve honor for the servant, and ascribe to Himself the condition of servitude.
I seem to myself to understand, I seem to have drawn something from spiritual grace. This psalm, as we have said, was written against unrighteousness, and therefore the unrighteousness of the faithless is the more heavily weighed, who would not receive Christ Jesus the Lord, since He for their sakes took upon Himself servitude. For what is so iniquitous as to have been ungrateful for benefits so great, that those to whom He would give salvation should shed His blood? Indeed elsewhere, when He spoke of His own passion, in order to make sharper the odium of Jewish impiety, He thus says: Turn not away thy face from thy child; for I am troubled, hear me speedily. I am poor and sorrowing.
Come, Paul, interpret for us by what reasoning the Lord of heaven and earth called Himself poor, what this poverty is. You surely called Him rich; how is the same one both rich and poor? Let us hear the testimony of Paul: You know, he says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sakes He became poor, though He was rich, that you through His poverty might be made rich. Come you also, Isaiah, interpret for us how Christ called Himself sorrowing, who was wont to heal the pains of wounds. The physician came to cure the sick: what had He Himself that He should grieve over? Let us hear also the testimony of Isaiah: For us, he says, He grieves, and we esteemed Him to be in sorrows.
He expressed the affection of the physician, who, even though he himself had no wound to grieve over, yet had compassion on the wounded. This, then, in the psalm the Lord reproaches to the Jews: 'I was poor for your sakes, I was sorrowing for you, and you laid impious hands upon me, saying: Let us take away the just one, for he is unprofitable to us. Let us cast wood into his bread.' Well does he say 'bread' for His flesh; He brought nourishment, they returned punishment for the benefit. No wonder, then, if they hunger who denied to themselves the nourishment of eternal life. Beautifully too they joined those two things: Let us cast wood into his bread; the Jews knew not what they said, and yet they were speaking a mystery. The cross of Christ restored Paradise to us;
this is the wood which the Lord pointed out to Adam, saying that of the tree of life which was in the midst of paradise he might eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he might not eat. Adam erred, he did not keep the commandments, he tasted what was forbidden; through wood we began to hunger, until the flesh received its proper nourishment. Therefore the Lord in Christ joined together flesh and wood, that the ancient hunger might cease, that the grace of life might be restored. Blessed wood of the Lord, which crucified the sins of all; blessed flesh of the Lord, which ministered food to all! Concerning the poverty and sorrow of the Lord, then, we have brought forth, as I think, fitting testimonies of the saints, of whom the one saw and spoke, the other was chosen that he might speak.
Let us therefore again bring forward the testimonies of those very ones who were approved concerning the servitude of the Lord, nay rather His own testimonies, which He spoke of Himself in both. Let us hear, then, what He says: Thus saith the Lord who formed me from the womb to be a servant to Himself, to gather Jacob and Israel to Him. We perceive therefore that for the sake of gathering the people He took upon Himself the form of a servant. Hear, O Jew: even from grace you draw an insult, and turn this to faithlessness, on account of the very thing for which you ought rather to have believed. He came to call you, and you revile Him. He said 'a servant from the womb.' Hear, O Arian, from what womb; run back a little above: from the womb, He says, of my mother the Lord called my name. What His name may be, let us hear, by which the Father called Him:
Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb and shall bring forth a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted: God with us. For what else is the name of Christ but 'Son of God'? Receive another. Gabriel indeed had said to Joseph concerning Mary: She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. Receive the voice of God: And thou, Bethlehem of Judaea, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a prince who shall rule my people. Mark the mystery: out of the womb of the virgin the same one came forth both servant and Lord, a servant to work, a Lord to command, that He might root the kingdom of God in the minds of men; both are one, not one from the Father and another from the virgin, but the same who before the ages was from the Father, He afterward took flesh from the virgin.
For this reason, then, He is called both servant and Lord, a servant for our sake, but by the unity of the divine substance God of God, prince of prince, equal of equal; for He did not beget one of degenerate nature in whom He recorded that He was well pleased with Himself. Great is it, He says, for thee to be called my child, that thou shouldst establish the tribes of Jacob. Everywhere He keeps the appellations of His dignity: a great God and a great child, nor in the flesh does He lose the name of His greatness, of whose greatness there is no end. And rightly secure, since being in the form of God, as the apostle says, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;
and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. This, then, is He who is equal as the Son of God, this is He who took the form of a servant in the flesh, this is He who tasted death, whose greatness has no end, for Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth, that we may all believe in Him, and adore Him with our inmost affection. Good is the servitude which made all free, good is the servitude which acquired a name above every name, good is the humility which brought it about that in His name every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.
To this end, then, this psalm is directed, that we too may be servants unto righteousness, not proud unto arrogance; for servitude is the wages of liberty, but the wages of death is arrogance. But let us now approach the course of the psalm. The unjust man said, that he might transgress in himself. What he said he did not express, and therefore I think it should be understood thus, that whatever the unjust man says is sin. For all unrighteousness is sin, since, where the instrument is faulty, how can the song not be faulty? Discolored is the offspring of degenerate material. Whatever, then, the unjust man speaks is iniquity, which is referred back to its own author like the offspring of the viper, which first rends its own parent, as the common saying goes; therefore he transgresses against himself.
Nothing more sublime than this sentence has, I think, been spoken; among those who claimed for themselves the wisdom of the world I have read nothing of the kind, I have known nothing of the kind. And no wonder, since they spoke by human genius, but this the Spirit of God instilled, the Spirit of truth, that the unjust man transgresses against himself, begets wounds for himself, pierces himself through. For as thorns grow in the hand of the drunkard, as Scripture asserts, so too in the speech of the unjust man grow things that prick the speaker. The unjust man speaks, and his inner conscience is wounded, for in every word he speaks he is not free from deceit. For whose punishment is heavier than his own, since for every word he pays the penalty? The serpent pours venom into others, the unjust man into himself;
for whatever he pours out is poured back upon him. The unjust man, then, is both useless to others and harmful to himself, but the life of the just man is fruitful to others and sweet to himself; for Solomon says: My son, if thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself and for thy neighbors; but if thou turn out evil, thou alone shalt drink in evils. We perceive, therefore, that righteousness is born rather for others than for itself; it looks to the common good, not its own, and reckons another's good as its own profit. Blessed and glorious righteousness, whose good profits all; for the most part it proceeds from one and reaches unto all.
Just was David, who spared his enemy and preferred to safeguard his own innocence rather than his life, lest he should be avenged by public harm and set an example to others, in evil causes also, of seeking the throne, when he himself might have taken vengeance on the one who lay in wait for him. Just was Abel, who thought that the firstfruits of his sheep, which the Lord had given him, should be offered to the Lord, and therefore pleased God the more because he made no delay, and proved his devotion. But this the ungodly one could not bear, the transgressor of righteousness, the root of iniquity, and therefore he slew his brother, because his victim had been approved by God more than his own offering.
But the slain one spoke to God in the voice of his blood, while the living one was driven away from the face of the Lord, and, although the punishment from the Lord still held off, the conscience of his sins tormented him. The wretch lay hidden, trembling and fearing, and, though the executioner was still lacking, the very life of the unjust man tortured itself. He had received a sign that no one should slay him, not that he might enjoy the sweetness of life, but lest death should take away his misery; that he might suffer, fearing his own executioner daily. He had indeed deserved that the executioner should be restrained, but without any intermission he was his own butcher, his own executioner. What punishment is greater than to fear what you cannot avoid, nor to escape what you have feared?
Whence David, beautifully expressing the most grievous arraignment of a sinful conscience, says: For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is ever before me. For the avenging image of our sin is set before us and does not allow its own culprit to be at rest, bringing in a wretched servitude and dragging him into its own chains, so that he cannot extricate himself, since he willingly sold himself, though he was free not to take on the debt of his transgressions and to keep the liberty of innocence. And so while we pray, sin is set before us; when sleep relaxes the bodily sense, sin returns. Always our error meets us like an evil tax-collector, or like a relentless usurer dunning a debtor. Whence the Lord says:
He that committeth sin is the servant of sin. But the just man knows how to loose the chains of his sins, and does not wait for the accuser, but anticipates him, so that by confessing he may lighten his every transgression, that the adversary may have nothing whereof to accuse. And therefore Scripture says to you: The just man is in the beginning of his speech the accuser of himself; for he snatches the voice from the adversary and, as it were, certain teeth made ready for the prey of hostile accusation, by confessing his own sins. But iniquity, as it were by a certain leaden talent, as Scripture testifies, weighs down the conscience, and rightly David says: Like a heavy burden they are made heavy upon me; and Solomon: As an unripe grape to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is iniquity to all who use it.
A grievous punishment which hinders food, dims the sight, and, what is more, pours a dark mist over the eyes of the inner mind, so that the unjust man cannot see what is true. And therefore he transgresses against himself who snatches away from himself the things that are precious. The unjust man, then, speaks that he may transgress against himself, but the just man speaks that he may profit both others and himself; the one speaks unto destruction, the other speaks unto salvation. But of the just and the faithful it is said: With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. The tongue of the one wounds, but the tongue of the prudent heals.
Whence, when David remonstrated with King Saul, because, forgetful of the benefit of his deliverance, he ungratefully pursued him to death—he by whom he had so often already seen himself preserved—and sought the life of the very one who had offered his own life amid dangers for the king's safety, he said that the fruit of righteousness did not perish for him, since he had not destroyed the one who lay in wait for him, delivered into his hands by the Lord. From the unjust came forth iniquity, the venom was poured out from the serpents; the venom and the weapons of iniquity have perished. Therefore it is written: The unjust man said, that he might transgress against himself. What did he say? I will set my throne above the clouds, and I will be like the Most High. The words have no effect, but they have sin;
an empty pomp of boasting indeed, but criminal in the spirit of pride, he does not fear by his reviling to violate the divine majesty. For if any fear of God were in his affection, he would not have presumed, with rash daring, that he could carry on his deeds full of deceit in the sight of God, as though God could not know hidden things—He who is the searcher of inmost things. God beholds all things; there is nothing that escapes Him, no one who can deceive Him, to whom all things are present, both what are future and what are manifest, and what are hidden, which lie concealed. For if this worldly sun for the most part inserts its light into the closed dwellings of houses, how much more does God, the supreme and eternal, search out with His knowledge even the secret recesses of the human mind and the whole counsel of the angels, and anticipate it!
What else, then, does the unjust man do but seek for himself iniquity and hatred? For thus it is written: There is no fear of God before his eyes, for he hath dealt deceitfully in His sight, so that he should find his iniquity and his hatred. What is 'that he should find'? For every one who seeks finds; therefore if evil is sought, it is sought that it may be found. But as that man is praiseworthy who finds the good which he sought, so he is to be found wretched who labored that he might find the evil which he had sought; we ought to spend our labor on good things, not on disgraceful deeds and crimes. What, then, is it but the height of folly and madness to seek hatred, to find by evil arts the iniquity which no good man ever sought?
Let us therefore consider how the wicked seek their iniquity and hatred. Herodias, surely, was joined in lawful wedlock to the tetrarch Philip, abounding in the riches of royal power. She received Herod—as he was journeying all the way to Rome—as though by the right of hospitality and kinship, as her husband's brother; and joining her sins with him, not long after, having abandoned her husband, she changed the rights of her partnership. Did she not seek iniquity and hatred, who forsook wedlock that she might find adultery? And because the holy Baptist steadfastly rebuked the unlawful nuptials, saying to Herod: 'It is not lawful for thee to have her to wife, who left her husband against the law and united herself to her husband's brother as though by law,' the adulteress was moved to wish to slay him.
But knowing that she could not easily bend Herod to the slaying of the just man, she devised by what means she might accomplish it. It was Herod's birthday, which, as is the custom with most kings, he had been wont to celebrate with excessive luxury. She adorned her daughter, that she might dance in the king's banquet as a royal pledge. And when it had pleased Herod, what would displease his brother, he offered her that she should ask whatever reward she would for the shamefulness of the dance. She consulted her mother, at whose instigation she demanded the head of the Baptist. Herod, overcome because he had bound himself by oath to give whatever his niece herself might ask, commanded that John be slain and his head be brought. When it was brought he gave it to the girl, and she carried it to her mother.
It is true, therefore, that iniquity and hatred are sought after, since that woman, what she could not obtain by an easy request, she elicited by the wicked arts of a contrived deceit. What shall I say of Judas the traitor, who sought avarice and found sacrilege, saying: What will you give me, and I will deliver Him unto you?—nor, satisfied with the spoils of the poor, did he come to the fullness of the gravest crimes by heaping up crimes, mingling the pious sacraments of love with disgraceful deeds, when he said: Whomever I shall kiss, that is He; hold Him fast; truly so that it cannot be doubted what was said of him: The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit? He bore kisses on his lips, he poured out poisons upon their hearts; he was meditating bitter tortures, he was bringing the pledge of affection.
Well did the prophet add concerning him: He would not understand, that he might do well; for he transgressed not through nature, but through will. In short, he was an apostle, he heard daily the divine commandments, he was learning the heavenly mystery; he could have understood so as to do well, had he been willing. He saw paralytics healed, sight restored to the blind, the dead raised; ought he not to have understood that He was God who could work such things? But he would not understand, because, being a covetous man and intent on money, he turned away the vigor of his mind from the knowledge of the Godhead. For everyone who has glutted himself with disgraceful deeds is unwilling to understand the things that belong to the heavenly commandments, lest he be called back from his vices. See that man fleeing to understand, who says:
Darkness covers me, and walls surround me; who knows whether the Lord sees? For he is unwilling to seek and to find that God sees and knows all things, lest he be drawn back from his crime by fear. See King Ahab asking of Naboth his vineyard, and learn how the latter answered: Far be it from me, that I should yield up the inheritance of my fathers. Ought he not to have understood that Naboth was reporting what was just? But he would not understand, that he might do well and not seek what belonged to another. Ought he not to have understood that Elijah truly served God, when he saw heaven shut up at the word of Elijah for three years and three months, and at his prayers rains sent down, that all the dry places might be watered? But he would not understand, lest he should condemn his faithlessness and follow faith.
Nay even he devised iniquity in his bed, where he ought to have sought the truth... For in our beds our sins ought to prick us with compunction, not to be committed by transgressing in those very beds, as the prophet says: What you say in your hearts, be moved to compunction also in your beds. He stood, it says, at every way that is not good, but evil he did not hold in hatred. For not without reason does he meditate unjust things who stands in the way of error and loves the evil which he ought to hate. He said more by 'he stood,' as though he were already long remaining in the way of wickedness by a lasting station; for blessed is that man who has not stood in the way of sinners, not he who does not cease to stand in it.
And therefore the first precepts of the holy prophet David are to flee impiety, not to stand in sin, to meditate in the law, that you may understand the things that are good and may distinguish the just from the unjust. In all things, therefore, the root of generation must be watched, lest a useless sap infect it from the very beginning; and the vices of souls are far graver than those of saplings. We must beware, then, before all else, lest the practice of malice grow inveterate in human genius and every succeeding age degenerate; for an evil tree brings forth evil fruits. For if for the most part we do what we do not wish, and cannot avoid it, and do what we hold in hatred, bound by some delight in the shameful deed or by the stealthy creeping of sin, how can we avoid what we love? We are constrained even unwillingly;
how can we, being willing, not be held? Scarcely did Paul extricate himself from his errors, wrestling in daily struggle, that, stripped of the chains of captivity, he might be preserved through the grace of Christ; and do you suppose that by standing in your transgressions you can attain to the reward of the heavenly promises? By struggling the crown is sought, not by struggling against; by zeal, not by resistance, is it gained. For those who contend also the support of the divine mercy must be sought, that the crown of righteousness may be granted for the merits of their labors. In short, let us consider what follows: O Lord, it says, thy mercy is in the heavens, and thy truth reaches unto the clouds; thy righteousness is like the mountains of God, thy judgments are a great deep. Did not Paul follow this passage, so as to say: O wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For where the human mind is troubled and the hard and harsh things of conflicts wear us down, the help of the Lord must be sought. And therefore, turning to the Lord, he calls upon Him and implores Him to stand as a helper to those who labor. Mercy, then, is to be sought from heaven; the truth of God is to be gathered from the oracles of the prophets, who as it were veil the mysteries of divine knowledge like clouds. For God set darkness as His hiding place, that first you may receive the rain of mystic fertility, and then, suffused with the heavenly dew, you may recognize the splendor of the unsealed light, that you may be able to say: Of His fullness we have received.
For who can easily comprehend the secrets of God, whose righteousness is like the mountains of God, or, as Aquila rendered it, like the mighty mountains, because the precepts are full of mighty power? Whence the apostle also, seeing that they are sublime, dares and says: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counselor? He therefore referred the depth of the riches of wisdom to the height of the mountains; hear of what mountains. For the Son of God Himself is a great mountain, and therefore go up into this mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion, that you may stand rooted and planted in Christ.