He opened to me the depth of this counsel in the epistle written to Philemon, because what he himself was he wished another to be, that he might seem to have offered it to the Lord by will rather than by necessity. And so, interceding for Onesimus, he says thus: 'But do thou receive him as mine own bowels; whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might minister to me in the bonds of the gospel, but without thy counsel I would do nothing, that thy good deed should not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary.' How diligent a persuader! Who, though he was a vessel of divine election, did not disdain the partnership of another's counsel, lest he should defraud the other of the fruit of his own free will! Rightly therefore David says, as a prophet:
'Approve the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Lord,' offering to the Lord the freewill sacrifice of his mouth, in that, like that prophetic bee, he was wont to gather good flowers with his mouth, to fashion honeycombs with his mouth, to compose honey with his mouth, and from sweet herbs to gather offspring with his mouth—which bee, though, it says, it be feeble in strength, yet by the proclamation of wisdom prolongs the age of its substance. What that freewill sacrifice of the mouth is, recognize: 'Sacrifice unto God the sacrifice of praise.' The Lord awaits willing ministers. Indeed in the book of Isaiah the Lord says: 'Whom shall I send?' Surely he could have commanded his servant, whom he had found worthy to be sent, but he chose not to defraud him of the reward of a spontaneous offering, who waited that he might offer himself.
And although he knew his disposition, yet he awaited his voice, that he might heap up grace. Whence, offering himself, Isaiah says: 'Behold me, send me'; and so afterward he was sent to the people. Therefore it was said of him, because 'Isaiah is bold and says.' For Christ filled him as it were a willing instrument with the more abundant grace of his Spirit. Nor do I think this set down idly, that he desires the freewill offerings of his mouth to please the Lord. Many are prophets, but in not all do the freewill offerings of the mouth please. Jeremiah excused himself, saying: 'Thou who art the ruler, O Lord, behold, I know not how to speak, for I am too young'; and the Lord said to him: 'Whithersoever I shall send thee, thou shalt go, and according to all that I command thee thou shalt speak.'
The prophet modestly put forward the age of his body, lest his youth should be found unequal to carrying out the heavenly commands. But God, who would judge that the age to be considered is that of character rather than of years, and who foresaw in his servant maturity of robust wisdom within a youthful body, said: 'Say not that I am too young'—that is, he forbade him to weigh his own strength by the consideration of his youthful age, since faith would furnish him with the hoary head of wisdom. And again, in later passages, when the same prophet had said: 'Thou hast deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived. And I said: I will not name his name, nor will I speak any more in his name,' he added:
'And it became in my heart as a burning fire, flaming in my bones, and I was utterly dissolved and cannot bear it.' We perceive, therefore, that even to those who should think to excuse themselves, or to refuse their office for some certain cause, our Lord nevertheless either persuades them by reason or inspires in them the desire of prophetic revelation, so that they may concur in undertaking the office by will, not yield to it by necessity, whereby a fuller reward of entire devotion may be able to come to them. Caiaphas too prophesied: 'that it is expedient that one man die for the people,' but this was not a freewill ministry of the mouth, because he spoke unwillingly. Indeed he knew not what he was saying. What freewill offerings of his mouth, then, does David desire to please the Lord?
'I chose to be abject in the house of the Lord rather than to dwell in the tents of sinners. I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me. I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter propositions from the beginning of the world. I have prepared a lamp for my Christ.' His own body, which before was muddy and obstructed by the filth of its hereditary defilement, so that it could not receive spiritual oil, he prepared for Christ, that it might shine. He shines for Christ whose works shine in the light of Christ: for Christ Peter shone when he said: 'In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk'; for Christ that man shone who said, 'The Lord Jesus heals thee'; for Christ shone the lamp of the martyrs, who underwent martyrdom for Christ; for Christ shone David, who could say:
'My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.' He had prepared his mind for Christ, when concerning him by whom he had often been assailed unto death he said: 'Let it not befall me from the Lord, if I do this thing, to lay my hand upon my lord, the Lord's anointed.' Though he had the greater cause for guarding his own safety, namely to kill his pursuer, he yet recalled others also, who urged that the enemy should not be spared—the enemy whom the Lord according to his promise had delivered into his very hands—from the desire of slaying him. For Christ the prophet shone, when concerning him who had stained his father's house with foul incest, who assailed his father's life with parricidal battles, the loving father nonetheless said to those about to go forth to battle: 'Spare my son Absalom.'
He kept silent about the crime of wickedness, but put forward the rank of piety and the name of kinship, that those about to fight, thinking not of the king's adversary but of his son, might restrain the grief of wounded affection. And after his death he covered his face and cried with a loud voice, saying: 'My son Absalom, my son.' This voice the parricide did not deserve, but he was prophesying the grace of Christ. The prophet had learned from Christ to be a good father, who served the good of his son. Indeed therefore he said: 'And teach me thy judgments,' because the judgments of God are 'as a great deep' and unsearchable, as the apostle says. Therefore he could not know them except by Christ's teaching, because 'one is the master of all, Christ.'
Now these are the judgments of Christ, that to those who have laid snares for us we should know not to repay the like of injury, but rather to offer grace in return for injury. Indeed, to those who reviled him he reviled not again; those who smote him he smote not in return, but rather even when crucified he offered for his persecutors the help of pious intercession before the Father, saying: 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.' Whosoever therefore shall do these judgments of the Law is rewarded by Christ. But who can be taught the judgments of God, save he who has ever fixed his soul toward the Lord, who can say: 'My soul is in thy hands always, and I have not forgotten thy law'? Some have it:
'My soul is in my hands always,' that is, 'in my deeds,' that is, 'in my works.' Although placed in dangers, the righteous man says to the Lord: 'For thy sake I die daily, daily I am in peril. I am imperiled by the plotter, imperiled by the disparager, imperiled by those whom I reprove, whom I refute; I am imperiled for the sake of truth and righteousness. Yet I, terrified by no perils, have not forgotten thy law. Therefore my soul is in my hands.' But because very many have it: 'My soul is in thy hands always,' I think this is to be explained more broadly. The prophet knows, he knows where to place the protection of his soul, whence to hope for help. He wishes to set his soul in the hands of God, because 'the heart of the king is in the hand of God.'
Whoever has subdued his own body and has not allowed his soul to be disturbed by its passions, governing himself with becoming vigor as his own ruler, he is rightly called a king, restraining himself by a certain royal power; for he knows how to govern himself and is the arbiter of his own right. Let him not be dragged as a captive into guilt, nor be carried headlong into vice. His soul does not perish for ever, nor does anyone snatch it from the hand of the almighty Father or of the Son. For the hand of God, which made the heavens firm, does not let go of those whom it has held. Let us therefore consider what these hands are. In the Song of Songs you have: 'His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.' This the bride speaks concerning Christ, the soul concerning the Word of God; for Christ is the very Word of God and Wisdom.
Blessed therefore is the soul whom Wisdom embraces. Great is the hand of Wisdom, great the right hand that embraces the whole soul. For she who is betrothed to the Word of God is wholly fortified; for the fullness of wisdom is to fear God. The soul, then, that fears God fortifies itself with a complete defense. Wisdom puts her left hand under his neck, but her right hand into his embrace. Both her arms indeed are stretched out toward what is profitable; yet the two hands of Wisdom each have their own properties: in her right hand is length of life, but in her left riches and glory. Each hand is endowed with good gifts, yet they have a variety in their gift, in that they comprehend both present and future times, so that the left is the rewarder of present things,
and the right hand of things to come. We can learn this also from the prophecy of the holy patriarch Israel. For when he had placed his right hand upon Ephraim and his left upon Manasseh, and Joseph wished to change them on consideration of their ages, so that he might set the father's right hand upon the head of Manasseh the elder son, he refused and said: 'I know, my son; this one too shall become a people, and this one shall be exalted; but the younger brother shall be greater than he.' In what is he greater? Surely in this, that he was preferred in the blessing, since later generations say: 'This is Ephraim — may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.' Or because his seed shall be a multitude of nations, which in this world has chosen toil, believing in the Lord Jesus, so that they may have the consolation of things to come.
But Manasseh, whose seed is the people of forgetfulness, who having forgotten his own Author was for a time exalted in this world, is destined to pay grievous penalties hereafter, because he denied his God and Lord. We have said this to prove that those things which are to come are more excellent. Finally, the left hand of Wisdom is under the head of the bride, but the right hand is higher, which embraces the whole bride. And so the former is, as it were, a prop of present rest, on which the soul leaning finds repose. She has where to lay her head, because the left hand of Wisdom is riches and glory. These soothe for a time and are in part a solace. And therefore the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head, because, though he was rich,
yet became poor, and sought no glory of this world, because he had come not to help a part, but the whole human race, saying: 'Are you angry at me because I made a whole man well on the Sabbath?' That is, 'a whole man' — not so as to enrich him by a bestowal of wealth, nor with badges of honor, nor to heap upon him an increase of worldly glory — for these things do not possess the fullness of blessedness and grace — but 'whole' in this sense, that he might embrace him with length of eternal life. For the life that is in the right hand of Wisdom is not like the life common to all, but it is length of life, so that he who receives life from Wisdom obtains not the brevity of life, but its perpetuity and the length of eternity.
A good garment is the eternity of life. This cloak of the bride the watchmen of the walls wished to take away, that cloak of which the first man had been stripped; but the soul devoted to God, by seeking him long and by holding fast and not letting go her beloved, clothed herself with the precious wrapping of divine love. Blessed therefore are they who are clothed with such a cloak, and have earned a covering of this kind by keeping the law, because they have not forgotten the law, but have done what belonged to the law; for he who acts apart from the law has forgotten the law. And therefore this radiant soul ascends from the earth, because it shines clothed in the garment of Wisdom, and those powers that guard the gates of heaven say of her:
'Who is this that ascends radiant, leaning upon her kinsman?' — since she, who laid her head upon the left hand of Wisdom in order to open her hand to the poor, to help the needy with her portion or with what was left to her, did not use riches seized and plundered, but, eager for glory, acquired her by good works, and did not seek worldly dignities with empty boasting. For this is to set one's head, and as it were the ruling principle of the senses, above the hand of Wisdom. That soul, I say, ascends by white-shining merits out of this desert of the present life — as most people have it deserted — to that ever-blooming place of eternal delight. These are the powers that say also in the book of Isaiah:
'Who is this that comes from Edom, with garments red from Bozrah, so beautiful in his robe?' These, I say, are they who marvel that any soul can ascend out of this rough and rocky desert without the stain of great vices, and therefore rejoice that one has been found who has not defiled the garments of natural innocence with the ink of worldly folly, but has cleansed them with the whiteness of spiritual grace. That soul, then, now secure, now joyful, says: 'Sinners have laid a snare for me, and I have not strayed from your commandments.' A worthy voice of one leaving this world, in that it has escaped the nets of persecutors and the snares of those who lay ambush.
A voice worthy of the martyrs, to whom many torments were set forth and many rewards also offered, that they might be turned back from the zeal of martyrdom either by the terror of punishments and the horror of a cruel death, or by the enticement of rewards. Grievous is the snare of proscription, which often breaks the saints by the deformity of poverty — saints whom the dread of death had not broken; another snare is that of burning, the snare of prison and of prolonged torment. Great is the snare when riches are promised, when honors, when the friendships of tyrants. He, then, who has escaped these and could attain to martyrdom, rightly says:
'Sinners have laid a snare for me, but I have not turned aside from the paths of your commandments.' To him who despised present things and sought things to come, the heavenly kingdom was unlocked by the promise of your divinity. Who are these sinners who laid the snares? The Apostle has disclosed to you the author of all sins and shown him, saying: 'Those who wish to become rich fall into temptation and the snare of the devil.' You perceive that riches are the snare of the devil, which he stretched out even against the Savior; but he who had nothing that the prince of this world, when he came, could call his own, loosed the bonds of his snares. And lest you think this snare a slight one, this snare strangled Judas the apostle.
When that wretched man had been ensnared into betraying the Lord, and perceived how great a crime had been committed, he hanged himself with a noose. But even this noose was the devil's snare, that he might not do penance but choke himself with the noose. For God is merciful even toward traitors themselves, that they may be provoked to repentance and turned back from their shameful purpose and come to their senses from the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive to do his will. It is now no longer a misfortune to have fallen, but a crime, because they not only surrender themselves to be taken, but are also held bound to the devil's will, when they could say: 'Let us burst their bonds asunder.'
For divine Scripture has granted you not only to beware of the devil's snare, but also through repentance to burst its bonds asunder. What have you, O man, to do with delights and pleasures? The snare does not catch you unless the bait has first caught you; while you seek prey, you yourself entangle yourself in the snare. The bait of the snare is greed, the bait of the devil is luxury, by which he wishes to lure us, not to feed us. And therefore the Apostle cried out: 'Do not touch, do not taste,' all of which are 'unto corruption by the very use.' Do not, then, touch luxury, and it will not be able to defile you; do not taste the corruption of greed, and you will be free from the snare. What, finally, have you to do with earthly things, you who have risen with Christ?
Seek the things that are above, where Christ is; savor the things that are above, not the things upon the earth. We have died to earthly things, we have hidden our life with Christ in our God; it is no longer we who live, but Christ lives in us. Why do we return again to earthly things? 'Behold, I have gone far off in flight,' says the holy one, 'I have seen the snares of iniquity and contradiction in the city'; for there are snares where there is usury and deceit. He went far off, fleeing earthly disgraces, and therefore attained to the heavenly rewards.
Why, I say, do you turn yourself back to earth, if in Enoch you were caught up to heaven, in Elijah you were lifted in a chariot, in Paul you were caught up to paradise, your conversation in the heavens, in David you were heard, so that you might take the wings of a dove and fly, in Christ exalted, made a bird in spirit? When he descended as a dove, he gave you those wings, that you might learn to fly away from the earth. Nor indeed should you think you need to hesitate over how you are to fly, with what oarage of wings. David indeed said: 'Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?' And he seemed as it were to have doubted from whom he could receive the wings, although the divine grace which cannot be found on earth is wont to be thus declared.
Yet the same David in what follows taught clearly what these wings are, saying: 'If you sleep among the lots, the wings of the dove are covered with silver, and her hinder parts with the sheen of gold.' Even if you sleep, yet your wings rise up. For there are those who keep watch while sleeping, as she kept watch who said: 'I sleep, but my heart watches.' Even if it is night, the spirit watches, of which it is written: 'From the night my spirit watches toward you.' Then your wings will be spread for you, and from spiritual utterances and the precious prudence of gold your flight will rise up. Where, then, will you be able to dread snares, you for whom a spiritual oarage is at hand? If sincerity of soul, if purity of mind shines forth, you are a dove. Therefore it has been said to you: 'Be simple as doves.'
If greater oarage is lacking, do not even despise the lesser. Be at least a sparrow, that you may foresee the snares with keen tracking, and though almost caught by the enticements of sins, yet at some time being called back you may be able to say: 'Our soul like a sparrow has been delivered from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken and we are set free.' Since we have thought this should be treated elsewhere, now it seems we must pass on to another matter. It is enough for you to know that you are a bird, taken up into the nature of flying, since the Lord says through the prophet: 'Deliver yourselves from the snare of the hunters and from the word of disturbance'; for nets are not unjustly stretched out for birds. You are a bird, O man, who like a bird have been renewed unto a certain youth of the eagle, and therefore nets are not unjustly stretched out for the birds.
Why do you cast yourself down to earth, you who were already seeking heaven? Nets are not unjustly stretched for one renewed, because you have now begun to belong to Christ, you have ceased to belong to the hunters. Before you the hunter, with his snare, before — the devil — seized you as his prey by his own right; now why does a stranger assail the merchandise of the Lord's cross? Yet you can avoid even these snares, lest you say, 'The hunters have caught me like a sparrow,' if you escape the snare of the heart which the devil put into the heart of Judas and so armed him for the crime of betrayal. May the Lord turn away from us these snares which he rains down upon sinners. And therefore the prophet says: 'You will give them, O Lord, the snare of their heart, which you have prepared for them.' But to us, O Lord, give help, that we may follow after, bound by your bonds.
For there are no bonds more powerful, none more pleasing, than the bonds of love. He who is bound to you is loosed from the world. 'I have inherited your testimonies for ever, because they are the exultation of my heart.' This too is the voice of the martyrs, saying that they have received as an inheritance the heavenly testimonies. The prophet therefore says: 'I am heir of your commandments,' for he cannot by any right of succession claim your inheritance unless he keeps the commandments acquired with heaven and earth as witnesses. For the Lord said: 'Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth.' The Lord calls the elements to witness, to refute those who refused to keep the divine precepts, that all refuges of excuse may be barred. He also testifies against men, saying:
'Be my witnesses, and I am a witness, says the Lord.' The commandments of the Lord, therefore, are full of testimonies, and they are themselves testimonies, of which God who does not lie is a sufficiently competent witness, before whom your conscience too is a witness, your thoughts accusing or also defending — a faithful enough witness even in a faithless breast, since whatever has been committed cannot be hidden from the judge of all. For if in an earthly court even one who has come suborned to lie, yet if he is convicted by another's testimony, is wont to betray the truth, how much more in the heavenly court before the Lord Jesus must one confess what is true, whom he knows to know what has been done! And well does he say:
'By inheritance I have sought your testimonies,' since, just as before we were heirs of the sinner, so now we are heirs of Christ. That was an inheritance of crimes, this is one of virtue; that bound us, this set us free; that delivered us, indebted by the interest of our offenses, over to the enemy, this acquired us for Christ, redeemed by the title of the Lord's passion. The evil succession of Eve was devouring the whole man; the glorious inheritance of Christ has set free the whole man. Not for one indeed, nor for a few, but for all, Jesus wrote his testament. We are all written as heirs, not according to a portion, but according to the whole. The testament is common and is the right of all, the inheritance of all and the entire possession of each.
Yet the new testament both individuals approach and all possess, nor is anything diminished to the heir which is claimed by the co-heirs. The benefit remains whole, and grows the more for each, the more it is acquired for many. The condition of a human inheritance is otherwise: if it is divided, the benefits are diminished, and the addition of a co-heir is a loss to the heir. Undivided is the kingdom of Christ, undivided the inheritance. How could it come about that the inheritance should be divided, when the fruit of the inheritance is undivided, namely the kingdom of heaven? Gold, silver, an estate left by a man to many is distributed and cut up; the gifts of Christ come whole to each; all have them and none is defrauded. Let us, therefore, hear the advantages of the inheritance.
The remission of sins is the inheritance of Christ. Surely it is whole through each and is a common gain; for to whomsoever it is bestowed, it is lost to none, it accrues to all. Whatever is remitted to each one is acquired for the body. For if the angels rejoice over one sinner doing penance, because they reckon the redemption of a man their own gain, how much more is it the gain of the whole race, which is the gain of nature! The inheritance of Christ is the resurrection. Could anyone call this his own loss, which in one finds the name of a common grace? For Christ rising rose for all, since through a man came the resurrection of the dead. How then can that be the loss of individuals which is the reformation of the whole body and of the human race?
Let the testament therefore be read out and let us consider its provisions: and the Holy Spirit too is a witness to us; for when he has said: 'This is the testament which I will make to them, says the Lord, giving my laws in their hearts, and in their minds I will write them, and of their sin and their iniquity I will no more be mindful.' O truly eternal testator, who affixes his laws to our hearts and writes them in our minds, that we may be able to think of nothing else but the divine precepts, and ought to feel nothing else but the oracles of God! He gave grace, he reformed nature; he who is wont to forget nothing took away from himself the memory of my sins, and gave to me the memory of his precepts. Do not, therefore, take away from your heart the law of God and affix the law of sin;
do not write in your minds the enticements of the devil and blot out the commands of God. 'Behold, I have painted your walls,' says the Lord to Jerusalem, that is, to the soul zealous for tranquility and peace, which he made after his own image. Do not, I say, take away the heavenly image and impose the image of death. You have refused the inheritance of the world; keep the testimonies of Christ, since in these is exultation and gladness, seeing that every tear shall be wiped away and death shall be no more, neither mourning nor weeping nor crying. The passion of Christ was the image of the heavenly kingdom. No one heard his voice in the streets, because by that silence of his passion he abolished for the future all the clamor of impious utterance.
He who said to the daughters of Jerusalem did not wish to be wept for: 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves.' For he who was about to take away all tears by the benefit of his cross was displaying in his own passion a kind of foretaste of the blessedness to come, so that no one should weep except him who did not hold fast the benefits of Christ. Rightly, therefore, does the evangelical man say: 'By inheritance I have sought your testimonies for ever, because they are the exultation of my heart.' Who would not exult, since he has sought as an inheritance heaven and earth, the two elements which God also called to witness when he gave the law, because he has sought God, of whom the holy one says:
'The Lord is my portion' — he has sought the Lord Jesus, has sought the Holy Spirit, and after these has sought the angels, and lives with them not today only and tomorrow, but for ever, nor is he grieved by any injuries for the Lord's name. Finally, the apostles rejoiced when they were beaten, when they were thrust into prison. Exulting therefore in the testimonies of the Lord, he rightly said: 'I have inclined my heart to perform your righteous deeds for ever, because of the recompense.' He who hopes from God for the recompense of good works and hastens toward him inclines his heart, that he may perform the righteous deeds of Christ. What is the righteousness of Christ? 'Suffer us,' he says, 'to fulfill all righteousness,' by which sin is diminished, guilt is loosed.
And well does he say 'I have inclined,' so that it may not be hard and difficult for you, when you turn your mind as it were toward what is lowly and level. Or surely, since the wisdom of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, he seems to incline his heart who makes subject to the law the carnal sense that exalts itself, and bends it down by regard for religion. And he who once exalted himself in vain and was puffed up by the mind of his flesh, when he humbles himself, inclines. For Christ himself also humbled himself, that he might establish the new testament. When I read the Gospel, I hear that the Son of God took flesh from Mary, and I seem to myself to descend together with Christ.