He who knows how to unfold these things has whence to acquire the grace of his own consolation, and on the contrary he who knows it not has nothing whence to be consoled. Wherefore let us keep the judgments of God, since the judgments of God are true, as you have it: 'The judgments of God are true, justified in themselves, more to be desired than gold and the precious stone, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. For Thy servant keeps them.' To him therefore who keeps them the divine judgments are sweet, but to him who neglects them there is no doubt that they are bitter, since he perceives that, set before him in the disgrace of reproach for sinners, is the issue of the divine sentence. But he who is well conscious to himself is by no means troubled, saying:
'We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.' But who among us is of such a kind that he may console himself with the sequence of the divine judgments? Even human judgments are terrible to sinners; how much more are the divine to be dreaded! Finally, that we may gather by this example the things which are eternal, we see in this world the innocent hastening joyful to judgment, hating delays, eager for the swiftness of judgment; but the guilty fleeing and fearing, deferring, avoiding, and finally grieving when they have heard the day of judgment appointed. Blessed therefore is he who joyful awaits that heavenly judgment; for he knows that there is laid up for him the kingdom of heaven, the fellowship of the angels, and also the crown of his good merits.
Let us now consider what is another purpose of the holy man; and let us estimate it from what follows. 'Faintness,' he says, 'took hold on me because of the sinners who forsake Thy law.' This is not common with many. For it belongs to most to be grieved if they suffer any injury from someone, if they are hurt, if assailed, if disgraced; for in our own cause we grieve that some have made us weaker, that some have been a fraud to us. But indeed he who is stronger does not grieve over his own contumely, but over another's sins, and groans over another's fall in his own injury, and laments that he has been the cause of the offender's error. Take an apostolic example. For Paul wept over another's sin, as he himself says:
'For out of much tribulation and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears'; and though he himself was grieved, he did not wish those very ones whom he was reproving to be grieved. Finally he added: 'not that you should be grieved, but that you may know the charity which I have more abundantly toward you.' For he wished the fallen to be grieved unto repentance, not unto a deeper sadness, only that out of the sadness of those who were being reproved there might come joy to the one reproving. Whence he says: 'For if I grieve you, who is he that can make me glad, but he who is grieved by me?' He reproves therefore, that he may lighten the duration of the sadness, so that repentance might come unto salvation; he condemns that he may absolve, he shuts out that he may receive, he does not pardon that he may set free.
Therefore such was Paul, who, well skilled in the law, had recognized the precept of the one who said: 'Faintness took hold on me because of the sinners who forsake Thy law.' David grieved, not because he was despised, not because he himself was assailed, but because the law of God was being forsaken, and he grieved over the loss of those who did this, that they were perishing to God. Just as a good father, when his son set in a frenzy curses him, beats him, afflicts him with injuries, weeps not over his own, but over the sick one's distress, and grieves over the insult—not because it was inflicted on himself, but because in his madness the sick one knows not what he does—so the good man, when he sees the sinner not revere, not honour even gray hairs;
by a certain madness of sinning not to recognize an elder, in whose presence he does something unworthy, how unseemly and dishonourable the things are which he commits—the good man grieves over him as over one about to die, groans over him as over one despaired of by physicians, and like a good physician first admonishes, then, even if he suffer grievous things, yet—as that physician bears with the sick man even if he be struck, and does not abandon him even if he be cursed—offers whatever of medicine he can, and does not refuse it, nor desert him as obstinate, but as one well-deserving of him strives with all zeal to heal him, exercising not only the skill of his art, but also the kindness of his mind.
So therefore even the just man, both when he is despised by the sinner, is not turned away, and when he is hurt, thinks that this belongs to madness, not to wickedness, and rather desires to bring medicine to his wound, and has compassion and grieves—not for himself, but for that one who labours under a desperate ailment—and says that this one of his brothers thus labours, is thus afflicted, that he does me injury, who, if he recognized me, would surely honour me, certainly would not hurt me. For in what is he hurt by my deed, that he should have the disposition of one hurting? Since therefore there is no sufficient cause for hurting, there cannot be a fault of purpose. Therefore, if I am just, I am afflicted on account of charity, on account of love, on account of the loss of the Church, on account of the detriment of the body.
I can also grieve over this: that, even if I have not hurt the one hurting me, and am not conscious to myself that I have stirred him up against me by any injuries, yet I have been to him the cause of his fall, in that by hurting the innocent he transgresses, in that I have been made to him the material of sin. This therefore David grieves over, and grieves for this reason: that, when one member suffers, the other members also suffer with it. Therefore perhaps that too is set down: 'The just man at the beginning of his speech is his own accuser.' For even if the just man may have in himself something to accuse, and yet be just—since no one is without sin except the one God—and even the sinner may by this very thing be just, in that he is his own accuser, according to that:
'Declare thine iniquities, that thou mayest be justified'; nevertheless perhaps to some it may not seem absurd that even of him it be said that he is just who accuses himself on behalf of another, even if he have in himself nothing to accuse. Let us therefore consider how, in all these things, the first person of holy David, a just man, fits. He accused himself when none accused him; he confessed his own sin, when he was smitten in heart because he had numbered the people. And he said to the Lord: 'I have sinned, O Lord, in that I have done this thing. And now, O Lord, take away the iniquity of Thy servant, for I have grievously transgressed.'
And so, although the Scripture has it that the wrath of God was added, that He might be angry against Israel—whereby the king's lapse might seem to be excused—nevertheless, when he had seen the angel that was working the slaughter of the people, he cast himself before the stroke of the smiter, saying: 'Behold, I have sinned, and I the shepherd have done wickedly, and this flock, what has it done? Let Thy hand be upon me and upon my father's house.' As a just man therefore, the accuser of himself, in the very beginning of his speech he both acknowledged his sin and, by confessing his own iniquity, was justified in himself. Elsewhere also, convicted by the prophet concerning the death of Uriah, he says: 'I have sinned against the Lord'; to whom it was answered that, on account of his penitence, his sin had been taken away from him by the Lord.
Likewise in another place, when Shimei cursed him and stoned him, fenced about as he was by warriors through whom he could have avenged himself, he patiently bore it, not even returning the insult by a word. Nay even when Abishai his captain wished to take off the head of the one cursing, the king said: 'What have I to do with thee, son of Zeruiah? Let him curse, since the Lord has told him to curse David.' First therefore he excused his fault and referred the cause to the will of the Lord; secondly he turned it back upon his own desert, so that he might signify that the other had not erred, but that he himself had deserved it; thirdly he recorded that the cursing of that man not only did not harm him, but even profited him, as it is written: 'And David said to Abishai and to all his servants:
'Behold, my son, who came forth from my own bowels, seeks my life; how much more this son of Jemini!' Mightily did he break the impulse of the avenger: for how could he avenge the cursing of a stranger as an injury to the king, while the parricide of his son yet remained unavenged? Surely the cursing of a stranger and the parricide of a son were not to be weighed in an equal balance. And he added: 'Let him curse, since the Lord has told him; until He see my humiliation, and the Lord requite me good for the cursing.' There is also another purpose of the just man, far more perfect and powerful than all: to intervene for those who persecute, to excuse those who sin—which we read in the Gospel when the Lord Jesus, when He was crucified by the faithless, said: 'Father, forgive them:
for they know not what they do.' It is plain therefore from these masterly lessons of heavenly teaching that the just man would rather accuse himself than disparage another. Finally, concerning Joseph, to whom Mary the mother of the Lord was espoused, it is written that, when he had seen her great with child, being a just man, he was not willing to make her a public example—and certainly he had as yet heard no oracle. Thus the person of the just is alien not only from the atrocity of vengeance, but even from the severity of accusation, and he rather chooses that his own forbearance be accused, in that he did not avenge, than to press another's crime. But you will say: 'How did David himself say: The just shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance of the impious?' It seems to me that he rejoices because he himself has escaped, not because the impious are punished.
Let us seek another purpose of the just man from what follows. And so he says: 'Thy justifications were songs to me in the place of my severity (pilgrimage).' Rightly he was not broken by his pilgrimages, he declined the proud and was not moved by their prosperous successes, he consoled himself in the heavenly judgments, he was distressed over the sins of others, because he held the justifications of God as songs. For the things which we hold well we are wont to sing, and the things which are sung cleave better to our senses.
For let us not pass over carelessly the things which we read, so that only then, when we read them, do we seem to bring them back to remembrance; but even when the book is absent from our hands, like the living creatures which are approved and held clean in the law, which are wont to ruminate even when they are not grazing, bringing forth from themselves the nourishment stored up for them—so we too from the treasure of our memory, from our inner parts, should bring forth the spiritual fodder to be ruminated by us. Let hymns be to us, let canticle be to us, let psalms be to us the justifications of the Lord. Let us sing with the spirit, let us sing also with the mind, lest, if we have forgotten, in the time of necessity it be said to each one of us: 'Thou hast cast my words behind thee.' And therefore.
that forgetfulness might be expelled and banished from His holy house, the true Solomon made for Himself singers, who with their whole spirit might be intent on seeking the knowledge of the divinity, lest singers should be wanting to His Church, by whose song the wicked spirit might be put to flight—as we are taught by the example of holy David, by whose psalming that evil spirit was expelled which vexed the heart of king Saul. The prophets too, that they might prophesy, bade one skilled in psalming to psalm, so that, invited by the sweet pleasantness, spiritual grace might be poured in. And in the Gospel we read that in the house of the father recovering his son a symphony resounded, with which the feasting faithful were delighted, but the faithless one heard it impatiently.
Sweet therefore is the song which does not effeminate the body, but strengthens the mind and spirit. And therefore the testament of the Lord is called a canticle, since with sweet exultation of mind we sing together in the Scriptures of the Gospel the remission of all sins and the righteousnesses of the Lord. The Lord Himself too did not disdain to say: 'We have sung to you, and you have not danced.' He sang to us in the Gospel the pardon of transgressions; the Jews ought to have raised their mind, not with a stage-player's motion of the body, but with the Holy Spirit—they did not, and therefore they are reproved. But even the dancing of the body in honour of God is held praiseworthy.
And so David danced before the ark of the Lord, and Michal the daughter of Saul saw him dancing and striking upon harmonized instruments before the Lord; and she said to him, after he had returned to his house: 'How honored was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself before the eyes of the maidservants of his handmaids, like one of the dancers!' And David said to Michal in the sight of the Lord: 'Blessed be the Lord who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me prince over his people Israel; and I will play before the Lord, and I will yet uncover myself still more thus, and I will be a trifle in your sight; yet with the maidens of whom you said that I was uncovered, I shall be glorified.'
And Michal, it says, the daughter of Saul, had no son until the day of her death. This therefore is a clear example: that the prophet, who both struck upon the instruments and danced before the ark of the Lord, was justified, while she who reproached him was condemned with barrenness. But it is not enough for someone to hold the justifications of God worthy of song, unless he depart from the servitude of earthly cares. Therefore he added: 'in the place of my pilgrimage.' This befits him, since elsewhere too he says: 'I am a sojourner in this land.' Hence also the Apostle does not wish us, in the house of God and in the calling of faith, to be strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God.
For he who is of God's household is an exile to the world; he who dwells in heavenly things is a sojourner upon the earth. The Hebrews were pilgrims in this world, not feeling the nature of the fire; they held the justifications of God worthy of song, when they sang a hymn to God in praise of his creatures. In short, he who sings is at leisure and banishes the cares of diverse thoughts; he sets aside greed and soothes himself not only with the voice of the body but also with the liveliness of the mind. For not as one sorrowful in the anxiety of want, but as one free from all the affections of bodily passions, did the same prophet sing: 'I will sing praise to you, O God, upon the harp, O Holy One of Israel. My lips shall rejoice when I sing to you, and my soul, which you have redeemed.'
He sang these things joyfully, as though he were fed by these better banquets; for his spirit feasted on the nourishment of holy devotion. And so not only hymns and psalms, but even the precepts of the law are worthy of song to the saints. In short, Moses sang, who received the law, when, having crossed the sea on foot as leader of the rescued people, he proclaimed the justifications of the Lord. There still remains the excellent purpose of the just man: that at all times he ought to be intent upon the praises of God, not only by day but also by night. Therefore he added: 'I was mindful of your name in the night, O Lord, and I kept your law.' Let us see whether he too is mindful, who calls upon the Lord with his word but does not keep the divine commandments.
Concerning whom it has been said sufficiently, that not everyone who says 'Lord, Lord' is accepted by Christ, but he who by good works has been able to prove his faithful affection. Faith, therefore, uprightness, innocence prove the mindful one. But that he says 'I was mindful of your name' is full devotion, since no one says 'Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit. Let this name be invoked by day and by night; let holy devotion suffer no time of prayer to pass empty. If, then, those who apply themselves to worldly learning indulge themselves very little in sleep, how much more ought those who desire to know God not to be hindered by the sleep of the body, except so far as is enough for nature!
David every single night washed his bed with tears; he even rose at midnight to confess to the Lord; and do you think the whole night is to be assigned to slumber? Then all the more must the Lord be prayed to by you, then must safeguards be sought, fault be guarded against, when it seems to have secrecy; then most of all, when darkness is round about me and walls cover me, it must be considered that God beholds all hidden things. Do not therefore say: 'I am surrounded by darkness; who sees me, and whom do I fear, fenced in by walls and enclosed?' — because the face of the Lord is upon those who do evil. Then, if you do not see the witness, do you not see yourself? Do you not fear the testimony of your own conscience?
Do you not know that the gloom of night is not a covering but an incitement to sin? When bodies are heated with sleep and food, then also the vigor of the mind is relaxed by drowsiness and dissolved by sleep; then the lust of impure intercourse creeps in, then the heart is troubled, the squalor of uncleanness has no shame, the purity of chastity is not considered, the glory of modesty is not reckoned. It was night when Judas betrayed, when Peter denied. At that time, therefore, above all, the justifications of God must be re-woven in the soul, the exhorting commandments must be re-read, those precepts about chastity must not be absent, so that the mind, occupied with these, may quench the burning of lust, the heat of the flesh. Hold this in your soul: 'I will wash my bed every single night.' For he who is given over to debaucheries,
entangled in disgraceful deeds, does not wash his bed every single night. He who commits things to be wept over does not know how to weep, and, though he himself be lamentable, he has no tears for his own punishment. But that other man, who chastises his body and is a careful pilot of himself, and groaning and grieving over the offense of his earlier fall, seeks how he may wash it away with the tears of penitence — this man washes his bed every single night. Let us therefore not sleep through whole nights, but assign the greatest part of them to reading and prayers. Hear the voice of the Church seeking Christ even in the nights: 'In my bed,' she says, 'in the nights I sought him whom my soul loved.' Take it according to the letter: she sought in the nights by praying, by beseeching, also by lamenting with tears.
She sought in the nights, because he set darkness as his hiding place, that we might learn to seek him more anxiously. The Church gathered from the nations therefore sought him in the prophets, and so she believed. In short, the evangelists and Paul set forth from the prophets the testimonies of the Lord's coming; whence it is written: 'For night unto night shows forth knowledge.' She sought in the nights, in persecutions and adversities, in tribulations and hard labors. It is night for all those for whom there is no perfect security. Hence the Lord says: 'The night will come, when no one can work. While I am in this world, I am the light of this world.' Let us not, therefore, work in the darkness. For if our works shine, we do not work in darkness, but in the light of God;
in the light of God is he with whom Christ is present. It is no great thing, therefore, if you give thanks to the Lord then, when you are in prosperity and good fortune; but rather if you cling to Christ then, when the persecutor harasses you, when some storm troubles you. You have lost a son: in that grief, in that night, in that abandonment, be mindful of the Lord your God, lest, as though not heard, you become ungrateful and transgress in your distress. You have been driven into exile: be mindful of the Lord your God, lest you prefer love of the homeland forbidden you to God. Oppressed by the power of some lord, you have lost your own possessions, you are in need of provision: be mindful of the Lord your God, lest the night of want lead you away from the affection of devotion.
For this is the commandment of the law, that you should seek the more in the night, so that, when you are the more heard by the Lord, you may also be able to say: 'In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard me in a broad place.' But neither does seeking carelessly suffice for grace, but rather that you persist and apply yourself to the duty. In short, that Church or soul which searched in its bed, sought in the nights, at first did not find, perhaps because she sought in her bed; but after she rose and went into the city — see whether into that city to which the Lord, about to celebrate the Passover, sent his disciples: 'Go into the city to a certain man' — after she had sought, as I said, in the marketplace, where oil is sold, which those awaiting the bridegroom were accustomed to buy, where there is law, where there are statutes.
If the law is spiritual, then assuredly the marketplace too is spiritual, where those skilled in the eternal law dispute — a marketplace not tumultuous with lawsuits, but glorious with the tribunals of Christ. Where she sought, I say, in the marketplace, and afterward sought in the broad streets — from which those who would come together to the banquet of the gospel's father of the family were gathered, who, being called, did not think they must excuse themselves from such a feast — after she had sought, I say, in the marketplace and the broad streets, she fell in with those who go about the city, and then at last she was able to find what she sought, perhaps because, placed in tribulation and fear, she the more found grace. In short, afterward she says: 'Those who go about the city found me; they took my mantle from me.' She had, therefore, a contest;
but by what reason they did not take her mantle earlier, I am at a loss to discover, unless perhaps because there she said that she had asked: 'Have you seen him whom my soul loved?' She who was speaking of Christ was not stripped of her mantle, and she found him whom she sought. Learn how Christ is sought by those, namely, who do not seek carelessly, who hold him fast violently, like she who says: 'I held him and I did not let him go' — by faith she found him, by meditation she bound him fast. If we take it that there are good guardians, surely they are the angels. He, therefore, who passes beyond the angels finds the Word. Therefore there was not much interval, when she passed beyond these and found Jesus.
How then did they below take her mantle, unless perhaps because, in the progress of her laborious faith, the Church, while she is uncovered, is the more loved by the Lord, stripping off the old man that she may put on the new — whom garments do not cover, but the secrets of the mind make glorious — or because she laid aside the cloak of worldly wisdom as she was about to come to Christ? Noah too was stripped of his mantle, after he had begun to be more perfect. Let us therefore be mindful of the heavenly justifications, so that, while with the secret voice of the mind we sing, we may be mindful in the night of the name of the Lord, and may say, as it is written: 'This has become mine, because I sought out your justifications,' that is:
this memorial has become mine, that I might be mindful in the night also of your name — not lulled by drunkenness, not dissolved into sleep by feasting, not occupied by worldly cares, so that forgetfulness of your veneration might creep in upon me; but chastising my members by daily meditation and exercising the intention of the mind, so that by constant practice this solemn course may become ours, that we may venerate the Lord Jesus even in the nights with our whole affection, to whom is glory, praise, and perpetuity from the ages, both now and always and unto all the ages of ages. VIII. THE LETTER HETH. The eighth letter is 'Heth,' which in the Latin rendering is called 'dread' (fear). Dread has been wont to belong to the saints. In short, dread fell upon Abraham, when he was offering a sacrifice full of spiritual mystery.
David himself too says: 'I said in my dread: every man is a liar.' For it signifies the reverence of religion rather than the weakness of fear, although even fear itself, when it is according to God, is holy; for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Therefore those who fear God are wise, and those who are wise are blessed; for 'blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach him out of your law.' These too, who fear God, are blessed, as the authority of the example stands forth, for 'blessed are all they that fear the Lord.' Thus it is gathered that those who fear God are both wise and blessed. Holy, therefore, is the fear of the Lord, because dread truly belongs to the saints. In short, with this letter set forth, there immediately follows the person of the just man, saying: 'My portion, O Lord;
I said that I would keep your law.' Very many codices place this little verse, which is the first of the eighth letter, in the last position of the seventh letter; but the book of Psalms, corrected among the Greeks according to the Hebrews, taught us that this verse must be joined to the eighth letter. Moreover, the very order and number of the verses agree thus, that the eighth letter should begin from it. The Lord, it says, is my portion. How rare upon earth is he who can say:
the Lord is my portion — how free from vices, how separated from every stain of sin, one who has nothing in common with the world, who claims for himself nothing of this world, who is not the possession of bodily desires, whom lust does not inflame, greed does not goad, wantonness does not effeminate, luxury does not discolor, ambition does not lay low, envy does not waste away, no care of worldly affairs disquiets — a true minister of the altar, born for God, not for himself! For Levi, as the interpretation has it, signifies 'he himself taken up for me'; it signifies also 'he himself mine'; it signifies also merely 'taken up'; it signifies also 'taken up for myself, he himself.'
The same Levi is both mine and God's, just as the same one is both my priest and God's, and is for me an advocate and an intercessor with the Lord, offering sacrifice on my behalf and at the same time offering himself to the Lord. In short, Levi is also said by another interpretation, that is, 'for me'; for if Levi be named by me, he is for me; if he offer for me, he is for me; if he intervene for me, he is for me. But if he be called by the Lord, he is said to be 'his own to me' (he himself mine), that is, no tributary to another, no payer of tithes, no giver bountiful out of his own possession. 'He himself mine,' that is, as though abundant in place of all these things. From him I seek no tithes, no fruits, no gifts, no offerings.
He himself is to me in place of a gift, he himself in place of tribute, not bountiful to me out of his own possession, but he himself is my possession, he himself my fruit, he himself my revenue, taken up for me or taken up by me. This cannot be without divine grace. For just as a possession cannot be mine unless I buy it, so he cannot be Levi unless he has been taken up by the Lord; for when he has been taken up, he is rightly called 'mine.' In short, when it had been said to Moses that he should divide the dwelling-places among the people of the Jews tribe by tribe, and distribute to each tribe a portion, God excepted the Levitical tribe, saying: 'To the sons of Levi there shall be no portion nor lot in the midst of their brothers, because the Lord God is their part'; and elsewhere: 'I the Lord am their portion.'
The earthly division is denied to these, so that they themselves, while they do not claim for themselves a worldly portion, may become the possession of heaven; or that they may know to possess this alone, that is, the obedience of faith and devotion, being far richer than those who spread out the broad expanses of their possessions. However far they extend their boundaries, both the land fails and the sea encloses their insane desires, and they pay tributes greater than the fruits are. But that man, possessing nothing for himself, serves no one but God; above the earth is his portion, the land does not fail him, he is not shut in by the sea. He whose portion is God is the possessor of all nature. In place of fields, therefore, he is sufficient for himself, having a good fruit that can never perish;