that is, the law and the prophets, abhorred a dead body, because the law says: 'Everyone who touches a dead body shall be unclean,' and they refused the last offices of humanity to the dead; but to the law no one is dead except him who is unjust. This is the uncleanness of the righteous, namely iniquity. For what is more unclean than to defile with shameful crimes the mind, than which nothing more precious has been given to man, and to make it savage with atrocious devices? What does it profit them that they shrink from looking upon a dead man? Would that their life did not pollute one who draws near, whose death can contaminate no one! Death harms no one; would that life did not harm! The contagion of defilement is fellowship in iniquity.
How then can he contaminate who can no longer be unjust, since, even if he was, he has nevertheless ceased to be so? Flee iniquity, therefore, lest it seize you; flee injustice, which makes those still living to be dead. But no one flees iniquity except him who loves equity, and therefore he says: 'But your law I have loved.' In the law is equity. If you receive the law spiritually, if you rise together with Christ and there behold that sacrosanct heavenly altar, not the earthly altar, which was destroyed by hostile ravaging; if you look upon that Jerusalem which is in heaven, not this one which was frequented by the people of the Jews on earth, which, because of the perfidy of its inhabitants, was triumphed over by the Roman army and, fire being cast in, was burned;
If you fix your gaze upon that Prince of priests, of whom it is written: 'Having therefore a great high priest who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our faithful confession.' He daily is our advocate before the Father, that for those toward whom in the days of his flesh he was moved with merciful compassion, for these he may daily work the remission of sins. For what other hope has the human race, unless the offenses of all the living are pardoned? He, therefore, alone is the Prince of priests, beside whom stand the holy priests, who have entered into that loftiest sanctuary of the heavenly places by the merit of their own blood.
That law, therefore, is to be loved, in which the true Hebrew is free from all bondage to vices; in which is the great Sabbath and the undisturbed rest of the departed; in which the seed of a dead people is raised again, not by intermingling, but by brotherly redemption. According to this law, then, the holy man holds in hatred injustice, but not the unjust man, who can often be converted; nor does he abominate the remains of the dead, but dead iniquity. There follows the fourth verse: 'Seven times a day have I given praise to you, because of the judgments of your righteousness.'
And by the number indeed the zeal of holy devotion is expressed; but I rather think that what is declared is an affection pure and tranquil and emptied of every burden of sins, so that prayer may be offered without any fire of angry imprecation or of shameful desire; that we ask nothing which may harm another, nothing which may stain us with worldly petitions. Let us praise in hymns and songs, confessing as ever true and just those things which we sing of the divine praises. Let there be no doubtful and wavering judgment, no discolored intent of mind; let it not, occupied with material affairs, turn aside from the carrying out of a spiritual purpose. Let the righteousness of God ever be justified with a peaceful soul, not in idle leisure. There follows the fifth verse:
'Great peace have they that love your name, and there is no stumbling-block to them.' We said above that love casts out fear; now we say that it casts out all disturbance. For indeed, in him who loves God there is a deep tranquility of a settled mind. 'Many waters,' it says, 'shall not be able to quench love, neither shall the floods overwhelm it.' The many waters are of the diverse passions, and the floods of worldly desires stirred up by bodily motions, which nevertheless cannot overthrow the wall of love. And therefore, founded upon love, he says: 'Our soul has passed through the torrent.' Could the water of the sea quench the love of Moses?
And that the order of the psalms may support you according to the letter as well: surely he who loves God believed that his way through the seas was safe; but those who did not love God, these, sunk by the waves, suffered an end worthy of their sacrileges. Elijah and Elisha crossed the Jordan on foot; and this was the great reward and grace of love. These, therefore, that they might cross the waters of the river Jordan, first passed over the floods of our passions by the tread of the mind. Of this water the Lord says: 'If you pass through the water, I am with you, and the rivers shall not overwhelm you.' He is ever present to his righteous ones, when they are worn down by certain adversities, provided they pass through with a steadfast mind, not a doubting one, and are not troubled by uncertainty of faith. Pass over, therefore, you also, by the love of a faithful soul.
If you wish the divine presence to be with you, let there be in your soul not only peace, but even great peace; let no battles of contrary desire assail you, let not anger goad you, nor lust; and if there is a fight, let it nonetheless be without, not within. Wage war against your persecutors, although even to them one must often yield in silence. For thus they conquer you—their power is your victory; then at last they are triumphed over, when they have believed themselves to have won. Let not avarice, then, assail you, let not cupidity drive you on, let not sadness cast you down, let not lust inflame you, let not pride lay you on your back, let not ambition bend you, let not dread strike you down. Let great peace abound, which surpasses every mind, according to the saying of the Apostle, than which nothing more beautiful could be said.
For the highest end of wisdom is that we be of a tranquil mind, that our slippery affection be not troubled by the fictitious fables of poets. The highest end of righteousness is that iniquity may not be able to move the mind of the righteous. This is the end of all virtue and of bodily fortitude itself, that, the war being finished, it may restore peace. To peace, therefore, even the very fortitude of warring for the most part does service; let no one, then, disturb a peaceable affection. Many things are produced for the disturbing of a man: a wife, often deceived by the serpent's snares, tries to stir up her husband's mind; a father frequently mocks the faith of his son; a husband tests his wife's mind with reproaches. But in all these things the righteous man prevails and says: 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?'
Tribulation? or distress? or persecution? How often are good deeds reckoned as a crime, how often is virtue led to reproach, how often is grace itself unwelcome! The righteous man has sold his goods, distributed to the poor, kept nothing for himself: he is often despised within the Church itself, because he has ceased to be rich, as it is written: 'If a man should give all his substance in love, with contempt shall he be despised.' Let him not be moved, then; for he sought not the reward of this world nor its favor, but the reward of eternal life. Let him not be indignant that men defer to riches rather than to good works. For if deference be shown him in this world on account of a good work, and he obtains here the fruit of this zeal, it is said of him: 'He has received his reward.'
A good work indeed has its grace even here, but it is a brief portion of the salvation to be earned. Keep your reward for the things to come, and judge the reproaches of this world to be increases of your reward. Always consider that apostolic saying, that the sufferings of this present time are unworthy compared with the glory to come. Let the righteous man, therefore, be broken by no injuries, moved by no dangers, tempted by no storms, whether death press upon him without life or the angels of the heavens. Let him neither be cast down by adversity nor lifted up by prosperity; let his affection nowhere be weak. Both death tempts and life tempts; beware the stumbling-block. He who has the peace that surpasses every mind is great; he is not of these little ones.
Therefore he ought not to suffer a stumbling-block, because it belongs to little ones to be agitated by a stumbling-block. Whence also the Lord says: 'Whoever shall cause to stumble one of these least little ones.' He said not only 'little ones' but even 'least,' those whom stumbling-blocks disturb; and therefore he is liable to grave punishment, as you have read, whoever shall trouble the infancy of a weak mind. For just as he is subject to graver punishment who has persuaded a little child to a crime and has cast headlong an unwary age, so too is he who has cheated a weak, foolish, and improvident affection of heart by the persuasion of error or the agitation of the heart. Do you wish to know how weak is he who is made to stumble? 'I will not eat flesh,' he says, 'lest I cause my brother to stumble.'
How great a weakness and a kind of infancy of soul, that even a brother's food should agitate him! Whence there can be no occasion of ruin for a man, when even from this there is peril? And what is worse, a weakness of this sort creeps into many. You see a righteous man in want—you are tempted; you see a wicked man in riches—you are tempted; you see a holy man without children—you are tempted; you see an unjust man abounding in children, honors, and worldly praises—you are tempted. How many pits, how many snares, and—what is graver—snares that strangle very many! In the city of Sodom scarcely one Lot was found who was not tempted; yet even his wife could not escape the snares of temptation. The people of the Hebrews crossed the seas, but could not cross over their temptations.
All were tempted except Joshua and Caleb, who therefore among the elders merited to enter the land of promise, because they were free of temptation. Neither Aaron entered, nor Miriam, because they too were tempted; nor did Moses enter, because he was the leader of the people that was tempted—a type of the law, which could not exclude temptations, could not lead into the land of resurrection, because that grace was owed to the Gospel. The law could not give peace; therefore Moses, as long as he lived, was always at war; the people of the law is always in the uncertainty of wars. But Joshua the son of Nun settled the minds of the people in a deep peace, since he who is under the law is tossed about by uncertainties, while he who is under the Gospel hears him saying:
'Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you'; and therefore to those who love there is no stumbling-block. Take it another way: the cross of the Lord is a stumbling-block to the Jews, foolishness to the Greeks. It is a stumbling-block to the faithless, for the Jew says: 'So is this God who appeared as a man, this God who fasted, this God who was beaten, this God who was crucified, who could not come down from the cross and free himself?' Indeed they said this at the time of the Lord's passion: 'Let him come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusts in God; let him deliver him now, if he wishes him.' Let not these things tempt you, let not these things disturb you, let not thoughts of this sort insinuate themselves into your mind. Where there is peace and great peace, there the cross of Christ is not for reproach, but for salvation.
The cross of the Lord was no reproach to Peter, which gave him such great glory that he honored Christ with inverted feet, fearing that, if he were crucified in the same manner as the Lord, he might seem to have aspired to the Lord's glory. The cross, therefore, is a reproach to the faithless, but to the faithful it is grace, to the faithful redemption, to the faithful resurrection, because the Lord suffered for us, because he redeemed us with that blood, because by that resurrection he recalled us to paradise. He who believes these things, how can he be troubled, for whom the hope of the heavenly kingdom arises? There follows the sixth verse: 'I awaited your salvation, O Lord, and I did your commandments.' He who awaits, hopes; therefore hope precedes love, and salvation follows. Hope, then, runs ahead of the effect.
Therefore he who awaited salvation from the Lord did the commandments of the Lord. Whence also the Lord in the Gospel calls them friends, not servants, who have done his commandments. For he who loves, does; and he who has done is, by the merit of love, gifted with a reward. There follows the seventh verse: 'My soul has kept your testimonies, and has loved them exceedingly.' That to love is more than to keep we have said above, because to keep is sometimes a matter of necessity or of fear, but to love is of charity. Therefore here, when he had said 'I have kept,' he added 'I have loved,' so that the keeping might be that of one who loves, not of one who fears. He who loves exceedingly, keeps exceedingly. There follows the eighth verse: 'I have kept your commandments and your testimonies, for all my ways are in your sight, O Lord.'
Blessed is he who can say: 'All my ways are before you'—who would not wish to hide all his thoughts, all his deeds. Adam hid his way; Eve hid hers after the fault; Cain hid the slaying of his brother. We have hiding in our affection, not in the effect. Full of treachery is he who hides, even though with God there is no hiding-place. Therefore the Church in the Song of Songs showed him her secrets, saying: 'I will take you and lead you into the house of my mother, into the chamber of her that conceived me.' For although God sees all the hidden things of the heart, yet it is good that each one open and spread out his soul to him, and run toward him as toward his light or his warmth. And not without merit does the Church glory, saying:
'I was in his eyes as one finding peace,' since she did not fear to disclose her ways. Therefore this is the voice of the righteous; for 'the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous.' And so to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way and the truth, this is well said by those who desire to find that true way by faith, by morals, and by deed: 'All my ways are before you, O Lord.' For no way can be good except that which you have judged should be illumined by the visitation of your light—to whom be honor, glory, praise, perpetuity, from the ages and now and ever and unto all ages of ages. Amen. XXII. THE LETTER TAU. The letter 'Tau' begins, which in Latin interpretation signifies 'he has erred'; another interpretation has 'he has completed.' What is 'he has erred'?
It is the twenty-second letter, which among the Hebrews is the last. And in this psalm, that is, the hundred and eighteenth, we have said that the progress of man is signified, who, instructed by the teachings of moral doctrine, would lay aside all the infancy of an untrained mind, but would take up the knowledge of a veteran's counsel and the maturity of an elder's prudence. But where there is error, fault is marked. This, then, is the progress: that there should be an end to fault. But what is it that is to be interpreted? 'He has erred,' it says; not 'he errs,' but 'he has erred.' To have erred belongs to past time, to err to the present; he who has erred has ceased to err and condemns his old error. For of him it is said 'he has erred' who is now no longer in error.
For he who still remains in error is not said to have erred, but to err; for to err belongs to one persisting in vice, while to have erred belongs to one correcting his lapse. Finally, the reformer of morals says: 'For we too were once foolish, unbelieving, erring in desires and pleasures.' He surely would not have said 'we were once foolish' had he not afterward attained the discipline of wisdom, nor would he have said 'we were erring' had he not laid aside his former error. Finally, that he might teach that the lapse was abolished and that no trace of offense remained, he says:
'But when the kindness and humanity of our Savior appeared, not by the works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.' Therefore, the old error laid aside and renewed by the Holy Spirit and by every amendment of morals, he says: 'For we were once erring.' You see, then, that to have renounced error is a matter not of vice, but of progress. Finally, let the Lord Jesus himself teach you, if you think one should not believe human counsels or opinions. For in his own Gospel he himself asserted that the shepherd left the ninety-nine sheep and seeks the one that had erred. It is the hundredth sheep that he says had erred;
let the very perfection and fullness of the number instruct and form you. Not without merit is it preferred to the rest, because it is more to have called oneself back from vice than never to have known vices at all. For to strip souls steeped in vices of the reins of their desires and to amend them belongs not only to perfect virtue but also to heavenly grace. For to amend things to come belongs to human attention; to pardon things past belongs to divine power. Finally, the shepherd, having found the sheep, places it upon his shoulders. You surely recognize the mystery—how the wearied sheep is restored, because the wearied human condition cannot be recreated otherwise than by the sacrament of the Lord's passion and of the blood of Jesus Christ, whose dominion is upon his shoulders;
for on that cross he bore our infirmities, that there he might empty out the sins of all. Rightly do the angels rejoice, because he who erred now no longer errs, has now forgotten his error. It is therefore not error, but consummation, as the other interpretation teaches; and consummation is the perfection of discipline. Whence also Jeremiah in his Lamentations says under this letter: 'Your iniquity has failed, O daughter of Zion; he will no longer add to drive you out. He has visited your iniquities, O daughter of Edom; he has revealed your sins.' Do you observe that iniquity could not fail without the visitation of God, nor could correction be complete except through the grace of the Lord and Savior? But how iniquity fails, hear the Church saying:
'I have put off my tunic, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?' Therefore the garment of the old man, woven with the vices of error, laid aside in the laver of regeneration, knows not how it can be put on again; for by zeal of correction the forgetting of sins had grown ingrained. So great is the power of a consummated amendment, that one returns to a kind of spiritual childhood, which is ignorant of the ways of error, and cannot, even if it should wish, admit a crime, because it has unlearned the knowing of the practice of sinning. And now I think enough has been said concerning the interpretation of this letter. Now let us learn from what follows what is the sentence of the consummate man. And so he says thus: 'Let my prayer draw near in your sight, O Lord;'
'according to your word give me understanding.' A good life makes prayer to fly, and gives spiritual wings to petitions, by which the prayer of the saints is borne up to God. But also the Spirit by whom we pray lifts up the prayer of the righteous, especially if, with a contrite heart, a compassionate affection commends it. Now this is the confidence of the consummate man. Finally David himself, in the earlier parts of this psalm, asked for a lamp for his feet, lest, walking on this earthly journey, he might be able to err.
But now, as if already placed at the end and his journey consummated by progress, he rises wholly in the office of one journeying and directs his prayer toward the heavenly things, sending it into the sight of the Lord and Savior, giving it the breezes of righteousness, the gusts of wisdom, the oars of devotion and faith, the supports of innocence and purity; for by sin prayer grows heavy and is made far from God. And it is weighed down all the more, the more wicked is the life of the one praying. But the prayer of the innocent ascends, and the groan of a compassionate affection, if they have hated the mud of Egypt and decline to work earthly things. Finally, you have read thus, that of the Hebrews—
who could not bear the harsh dominion of the Egyptians, and who, as grievous, so also muddy works unworthy of the nobility of their race refused—the voice of that race ascended to the Lord our God. For prayer ascended, because, although they worked, yet they worked unwillingly. And so the mercy of God descended to them, because their devotion ascended to God. And so it ascended not bodily; for so great a prophet did not seek that his prayer should draw near bodily. For he who thinks thus surely confines God to some certain place and seat, so as to suppose a more diffuse place in which God might be, whereas surely the invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible one fills all things, and the fullness of divinity dwells in him.
I have read that Moses drew near to God when he received the law; but David, with his accustomed modesty, asks not that he himself, but that his prayer, should draw near to God, so that there might seem to be a certain distinct order, whereby those who are more perfect themselves draw near to God, while the righteous men of the following order have it enough if their prayer draws near. But let us consider, from the usage of our speech, what it is to draw near. Set before yourself a master and a disciple. If the disciple has more diligently either drunk in the master's genius or attended to his precept, so that he seems to come very close to the likeness of his work and teaching, do we not usually say that he has drawn near to the master? Therefore you also, if you show yourself an imitator of Christ, like him who says:
'Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ'—if you know no deceit, hate falsehood, follow the truth, do not flee from righteousness, love chastity—you have drawn near to Christ, and through Christ to God. He himself is the way by which one comes to the Father, who is ever with the Father. We have learned what it is for prayer to draw near, that is, 'let it be lifted up by our deeds.' If you lift up your deeds, you have lifted up your prayer. He who knows how to lift up his hands, directs his prayer in the sight of God, as you have read below: 'Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.' This indeed is the prayer unto life; another prayer is unto sin: 'and let his prayer become sin.'
And you, if you ask for worldly things, if you request shameful things, your prayer is not directed to God, but unto sin; and therefore understand what you ask. 'According to your word,' he says, 'give me understanding.' Mark what he requests. He did not say 'understanding' generally, but understanding according to the word of God; for there is an understanding unto death, just as there is a prudence unto destruction: 'the children of this world are more prudent than the children of light in this generation.' But that prudence which is of the world does not support unto eternal life. It concerns honor, it concerns small gains, intent on heaping up profits, not on procuring merits.
Finally, it concerns the elements of the world, a wisdom more gilded than true, such as is all philosophy, which seeks the things of others while it does not know its own, scrutinizes the regions of heaven, ransacks the spaces of the world—things which can profit it nothing—and is ignorant of the God whom alone it ought to seek out. Therefore the true wise man says: 'If any among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise; for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.' We must labor, therefore, to be fools in this world, to have nothing to do with philosophy, lest anyone lead our faith away from the truth through the elements of this world, lest anyone plunder our profession through philosophy.
For thus we have learned that the Arians rushed into faithlessness, while they thought that the generation of Christ was to be gathered by the usage of this world. They abandoned the Apostle, they follow Aristotle. They abandoned the wisdom that is with God, they chose the snares of disputation and the bird-catching of words according to the discipline of dialectic, while the Apostle cries out: 'Let no one plunder you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the elements of this world, and not according to Christ.' Would that I might imitate that foolishness by which I may be wise.
—that man having ample possessions, but neglectful of their fruits, intent on God; that man who spurns even honors offered to him, who does not seek the teaching of philosophy, who, even if he formerly knew it, yet pretends not to know it and unlearns it by not seeking it; who does not seek the things that are his own, but confers his own on others, and acquires for himself things eternal! Such a one can say:
'According to your word give me understanding'—that is, not according to philosophers, not according to advocates, not according to merchants of this world, not according to architects of houses, but according to your word, which is the foundation of true wisdom and of good works, so that upon it the prophet may set the gold of his heart, the silver of his speech, the precious stones of his works, so that his work may not be able to slip and perish. There follows the second verse: 'Let my petition also enter before you; according to your word deliver me.' See the order. First he said: 'Let my prayer draw near'; afterward he sought understanding: 'according to your word'; thirdly he says: 'Let my petition enter before you.'
Does not the Lord by a certain custom invite us and deign to receive us with affection? When you desire to meet with one of the chief men, do you not first draw near to his house, afterward seek to be informed and instructed, that you may know the mind of the head of the household, then implore that you may enter his house, lest anyone cast you off and shut you out? Knock, therefore, you also at that heavenly palace; knock not with the hand of the body, but with a certain right hand of your prayer. Not the hand of the body alone knocks; the voice also knocks; for it is written: 'The voice of my brother knocks at the door.' We knock also with the finger; finally, Thomas with his finger merited to open the door of the resurrection. And to you Jesus says:
'Put your finger here and put it into my hands and my side, and be not unbelieving, but believing.' Knock, therefore, with your finger, if you cannot with your whole hand. Knock at the door; Christ is the door, who says: 'Through me, if anyone enters in, he shall be saved.' When, therefore, you have knocked at this door, see how you enter, lest perhaps, having already entered, you be outside the king's sight. Many enter palaces and do not at once see that king of the earth, but frequently wait that they may at some time merit to see him. Nor do they presume on the opportunity of seeing, but, being summoned, are presented and pour out their petition, that they may be received with benevolence; that the first entrance of their speech may not stumble at anything, may not give offense at anything.
How much more is God to be entreated, that our prayer may enter the door of his mercy! Finally, Paul also asks that a door of the word be opened to him for speaking the mystery of Christ. But because the Greek has: 'May my dignity (εἰσέλθοι τὸ ἀξίωμά μου) enter,' that is, 'my dignity'—although the scribe too could have erred, and it might have been ἀξίωσις, that is, 'entreaty'—nevertheless let us explain this also, as we can. Surely when you entreat a man who is a king, you ask that he have regard for your honor, that the consideration of your dignity may touch him, so that either he may have mercy, if pardon is to be sought, or he may show deference according to the order of dignity. And what shall I say? Each one who entreats enters in such a way as to be shown deference according to his dignities. Rightly, then, the man devoted to God also says: