but if anyone acts wickedly, this image is blotted out in him, and there is in him the image of the earthly one, that one who came down from heaven. Whence also the Apostle says: 'As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.' The images of the good therefore endure and shine forth in that city of God. But if anyone turns aside to graver sins and does not do penance, his image is abolished or cast out, just as Adam was cast out of paradise and shut out. But whoever conducts himself piously and honorably enters into the city of God and brings in his own image, that it may shine in that city of God. 'O Lord, in thy city thou wilt bring their images to nothing,' for these cannot shine in the light who have clothed themselves with works of darkness.
Let us fetch an example from the world. See how in cities the images of good rulers endure, but the images of tyrants are destroyed. Considering these things therefore and bending his mind upon them, the holy prophet was delighted, who had before been troubled. Whence he himself says: 'Because my heart was delighted and my reins were loosed; and I was brought to nothing and knew it not; and I have become as a beast of burden before thee, yet I am always with thee.' ('When I had recognized,' he says, 'that God cares for and regards human things, my reins found rest,' that is: out of the greatest weariness of my former imprudence I found rest through the knowledge of the heavenly good and of grace. There are also certain reins of the soul, which are tormented within us through the toil of ignorance:
these are loosed unto rest by the heavenly knowledge of doctrine, and as though propped on some support of heavenly precepts, they are cherished. 'Then,' he says, 'I understood that I was wearied in vain, because I did not know that which is true; and I have become as a beast of burden.' Beautifully he added 'before thee'; for in comparison with heavenly things what is man but an irrational beast of burden? For even the stars, though they be bright, fade away at the rising of the sun. And Moses says: 'I am not fit, since yesterday and the day before, from the time thou didst begin to speak with thy servant; I am of a feeble voice and slow of speech.' So therefore man, I will not say in comparison with Christ, but even with the angels, seems to be a dumb beast of burden. Yet let no one despair, for the Lord saves both men and beasts.
And therefore, because I have learned not from myself but from thee, I will cleave to thee always, that I may cease to be a beast of burden, and that thou mayest say to me: 'But thou, stand here with me.' For being encompassed by the grace of God, the man begins to be truly man who through imprudence put forward a beast-like insensibility and ignorance; for a man is proved to be such if he is capable of reason and grace. And so he rejoices to be separated from dumb animals and to be admitted into the fellowship of those men whom God visits and protects. For what is man, except that the Lord is mindful of him, or that he is visited by the Lord? Whence, as one visited by Him, he says: 'Thou hast held my right hand, and in thy will thou hast led me, and with glory thou hast taken me up.' Thus have we received it, and thus it agrees with the Greek.
For the Greek said: ekratēsas tēs cheiros, that is, 'thou hast held the hand,' tēs dexias mou, 'my right hand.' Well is he directed whose right hand God holds with His own hand. He can say: 'The Lord is at my right hand, that I be not moved.' Had Adam wished to have the Lord at his right hand, he would not have been deceived by the serpent. But because he forgot the commandment of God and fulfilled the will of the serpent, the devil held his hand and made it stretch out to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that he might pluck what was forbidden. In him judgment was prejudged for all, and the adversary began to stand at the right hand of all. Whence also against Judas there went forth that form of curse: 'And let the devil stand at his right hand.'
If that curse is grievous, this is the greatest blessing, by which the bonds of the harsh curse are loosed. Therefore the Lord Jesus set the devil at His own right hand, as we read in the book of Zechariah; for He had taken up the cause and the place of man. There then He stood, where Adam's inheritance stood. Like a good athlete He permitted him to stand at His right hand, that He might thrust him backward, saying: 'Get thee behind me, Satan.' And so the adversary, cast down from his place, withdrew; but to thee, that the devil might not stand at thy right hand, He said: 'Come, follow me.' David therefore, foreseeing the coming of the Lord, who came down from heaven to free us from the power of the adversary, said: 'The Lord is at my right hand, that I be not moved.' But he at whose right hand the devil stood was moved.
Rightly therefore here too he says: 'Thou hast held my right hand,' that is: so that I can no longer sin, so that I, who before wavered with slippery footstep, may be able to stand firm in a faithful station. How well the Apostle said this, when the Lord saw him troubled and, stretching out His right hand, did not suffer him to totter, but steadied him with fearless gait. And so Peter, having been delivered, what else did he speak but these prophetic verses: 'Thou hast held my right hand, and in thy will thou hast led me, and with glory thou hast taken me up'? And what is the right hand but the active virtue of the soul? If this be directed by the will of the Lord, it desires nothing else, requires nothing, demands no wealth of this world, no helps. Therefore the holy one says:
'For what have I in heaven? And besides thee what have I desired upon earth?' That is: thou art my portion, thou aboundest unto me for all things; I have sought nothing else but to have thee as my portion. I have subjected myself to no heavenly creature, as the heathen do; I have coveted no riches of this world nor the allurements of pleasures. I lack nothing, who have been taken up by thee, nor does there remain in the heavens anything further that I might seek. Having nothing, I have all things, because I have Christ, whom the most high Father spared not, but delivered Him up for us all; how then has He not with Him given us all things? As the Apostle said; for all things are in Christ, through whom are all things and in whom all things consist.
Having all things therefore in Him, I seek no other reward, because He Himself is the reward of all. And so to the perfect one He said: 'Take up thy cross and follow me.' He who follows Him is not led to perfection by a prize, but by perfection is consummated unto the prize. For the imitators of Christ are not such for the hope of good, but for the love of virtue; for Christ is good by nature, not because of desire for a prize. Therefore He suffered, because it delighted Him to do good, not because He sought from His passion an increase of glory. Therefore he who desires to imitate Him works not what profits himself, but what profits others. Whence not undeservedly does he fail himself, yet grows strong for others by the increase of virtue. And fittingly he says:
'My heart and my flesh have failed, O God of my heart.' For things eternal cannot succeed unless earthly things have failed. The flesh therefore fails when the things that are carnal are mortified; and those also fail who carry about the mortification of Jesus Christ in their flesh; for the death of Christ works in them, that every allurement of errors may die. Whence it is gathered that the heart of man also fails when evil thoughts are mortified, which proceed from the heart, so that oblivion may hide all earthly things, and God may become the God of the heart of those who, blessed with a clean heart, are counted worthy to see God, that they may draw near to thee and not separate themselves. For God, drawing near, is not one who repels those who draw near; for He wills to be unto all the cause of salvation, not of death.
In short, He repels no one save him who thinks he should set himself apart from His sight. 'For behold,' he says, 'they that remove themselves far from thee shall perish.' For each man by his own works either joins himself to thy goodness or separates himself; for he flees God who works those things by the knowledge of which he fears to be caught, like that man who, covered by walls and encompassed by darkness, thinks himself unseen by the Lord God, yet is seen, as it is said: 'Thou hast destroyed all them that go a-whoring from thee.'
For just as a woman who commits fornication does not cleave to her husband, nor is one flesh with her husband, nor one spirit, but divides and separates herself by fornicating, so whatever soul does not cleave to God, but serving the vain cults of idols commits fornication, divides itself by the perversity of sacrilege and is made far from the Lord, when it ought to be near; and he perishes who is separated from the Lord. Whence the holy one, who dreads the judgment of God, ever wishes to cleave to Christ and to place his hope in Him, that he may praise the Lord, to whom be honor, glory, and perpetuity from the ages, both now and always and unto all ages of ages. Amen. IV. (II.) ON THE PRAYER OF DAVID. Many indeed have bewailed the weakness of human frailty,
but more excellently than the rest the holy Job and the holy David. The former, loftier, vehement, keen, and as it were exasperated by grievous pains, on a higher buskin; the latter, gentle and placid and meek, of milder affection, so that he might truly imitate the affection of the deer which he set before himself for imitation. Nor let it move thee if I seem to praise so great a prophet by the likeness of a wild beast, since thou hast read what was said to the apostles: 'Be ye wise as serpents, simple as doves.' Yet, although likenesses of this kind are built up with pious examples, and the nature of deer is innocent and meek, I judge that the deer set forth in this place for the imitation of the prophet is that one of which Solomon, the upholder of his father's mind, said in Proverbs:
'Let the deer of friendship and the fawn of graces converse with thee.' For the true Son of God expressed in Himself the nature which He Himself bestowed on living creatures, who came into this world like a deer and joined Himself with marvelous simplicity to those by whom snares were being prepared for Him. For it is said that the simplicity of deer of this kind is such that, when they see themselves being driven, they attach themselves to those horsemen who, set to the work of deceit, by the appearance of flight and the pretense of fellowship, lead them on, beguiled, even up to the nets. So therefore the Lord, as though ignorant of the danger and unforeseeing, mingled with the Jews who were contriving a snare for Him, and took to Himself the fellowship of Judas the betrayer, by whose deadly pretense He came even to the snares of the cross and the nets of the passion.
Whence, turning to him, He said: 'Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?' And in this manner indeed He came willingly to the nets of the synagogue and clothed Himself in them, but was not entangled nor bound, He who looses all. In short, He stood out above the nets. And because His own received Him not, He called the Church and conferred His grace upon her, as that holy and sacred Church herself testifies in the Song of Songs, saying: 'I have adjured you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the powers and strengths of the field, that ye stir up and reawaken charity until it shall please.'
She seeks therefore, in the fragrance of the field which holy Jacob smelled, that is, by that faith, by that devotion, that her bridegroom be stirred up by the daughters of Jerusalem, that He may hasten to the bride, and that His charity be stirred up within itself, or even that He Himself be stirred up, because charity is the bridegroom. For God is charity, as John said. But He, not suffering Himself to be stirred up by others, since He was hastening of His own accord, going forth from His chamber, exulted as a giant to run His course. The bride saw Him and heard the voice of Him coming, and suddenly turning she said: 'Behold, here He comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills'; for He leaps over the greater and bounds over the lesser, lest He suffer hindrances to His pious haste.
'My kinsman,' she says, 'is like a roe or a young hart of the stags upon the mountains of Bethel.' A good deer, whose mountain is the house of God, to which He was running with such swiftness that He outran the vows and desires of the bride. In short, Him whom she had seen coming from afar, she suddenly recognized to be present with her, whence she says: 'Behold, He is here behind our wall, looking through the windows, showing Himself through the lattices. My kinsman answered and said to me: Arise, come, my near one, my fair one, my dove, for behold the winter is past, the rain is gone and departed; the flowers have appeared in the land.' The winter is the synagogue, the rain is the people of the Jews, who could not see the sun; the flowers are the apostles. And she added:
'The harvest of the reaping has come, the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.' That harvest is the faith of the Church, the voice of the turtledove is chastity. And not only by these alone... but Christ also took on the likeness of the deer, because, coming to the earth, He trod down that serpent the devil without any harm to Himself, to whom He offered His heel, yet felt not its venom. Whence it was said to Him: 'Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk.' Let us therefore also be deer, that we may be able to walk upon serpents. We shall be deer, if we follow the voice of Christ, which prepares deer and makes them not to fear the bites of serpents, and if perchance they have been wounded, takes away their pain by loosing the offense. Of these deer the Lord says to Job: 'Hast thou kept the bringing forth of the deer?'
'Hast thou numbered their full months of bringing forth? And hast thou loosed their offspring, or nourished their young, that they may not fear?' Hear how the young of such deer do not fear. Let Isaiah teach thee, saying: 'And the little child shall put his hand into the den of asps, and they shall not hurt him.' And that thou mayest recognize that it seems to signify the children of the Church, he added: 'And wilt thou send forth their offspring? Their children shall break forth and be multiplied in their generation; they shall go out and not return back.' For no man putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Rightly therefore the Lord became a deer, that the voice of the Lord might prepare for Himself such deer, of whom He says:
'In my name they shall cast out demons, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.' For they took up serpents when by the breath of their holy mouth the apostles drew forth the wickednesses of the spiritual from the lurking-places of bodies, nor did they feel the deadly venom. In short, when a viper, leaping out of the brushwood, had bitten Paul, the barbarians, seeing the viper hanging from his hand, thought he would suddenly die. But he stood undaunted, neither was he moved by the wound nor suffused with the venom. Whence, seeing him, they reckoned that he was not begotten under the condition of a man, but brought forth by the grace of God to be above men.
See the deer drawing forth vipers from their lurking-places by the divine Spirit, which was in his nostrils, as Job said. 'Paul,' it says, 'turning in the spirit and looking back with grief upon the python, said: I charge thee in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to go out from her at once. And it went out that same hour.' See the deer when he comes to baptism and, washed by the watering of the sacred font, casts off all the venoms of persecution. See the deer, the Lord Jesus, when He came to John the Baptist, and when John said to Him: 'I ought to be baptized by thee, and dost thou come to me?' He answered: 'Suffer it now.' And with this word, thirsting for the salvation of the public, He went down into the waters with all eagerness. But now enough has the deer sported with us at the beginning of the treatise, as at the start of the year after the custom of the common folk.
Let us proceed to the rest. David, as I have said, prays, saying to the Lord: 'As the deer longs for the fountains of waters, so my soul longs for thee, O God. My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?' The holy one burns and cannot contain himself—for the magnificence of the spirit is greater than the magnitude of any body—and, secure in his mind, he longs to fly away from earthly things to heavenly ones, as he himself says elsewhere: 'Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly away and be at rest.' For here are snares, by which, even if the just man is not entangled, yet he is hindered; here are griefs and anxieties, there is gladness, where there is grace:
here, finally, are the bonds of the body, which Paul yearned to loose, that, stripped of all hindrances, he might stand free before the Lord. This therefore was what David's soul thirsted for, that he might now see God not through faith but face to face, and not only be a pilgrim away from the body but be loosed from the body; for to be dissolved and to be with Christ is far better, since for the just man to die is gain. And it is indeed a great gain to be without sin, not to be moved by the allurements of offenses. For who is clean from filth, when not even one day of man's life on earth is without the contagion of offenses? By living, therefore, we contract the damages of innocence; by death we attain the end of error.
Gain therefore is acquired by death, but by the use of life, as for wretched debtors, the interest of the usurious account is increased unto guilt. And well does that soul thirst which hastens to the fountain, not of this water, but of eternal life, of which he said above: 'For with thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light we shall see light.' Rightly therefore did David hasten to arrive and appear before the face of God, whose countenance is light, for all whom the Lord beholds He enlightens. 'My tears,' he says, 'have been bread to me day and night, while it is said to me daily: Where is thy God?' There rightly are tears bread, where righteousness is hungered for. For blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
There are therefore tears which are bread and which strengthen the heart of man. To this discussion that saying of Ecclesiastes also agrees: 'Cast thy bread before the face of the water,' because there is the heavenly bread, where the water of grace is, since they rightly receive the substance of the Word and the nourishment of the mystic reason, from whose belly flow rivers of living water. Likewise also there is this living bread, where there is the water of tears and the weeping of penitence. For so it is written: 'They went out in weeping, and in consolation I will bring them back.' Blessed therefore are they whose tears are bread, who have merited to laugh, because 'blessed are ye that weep.' 'Being mindful of these,' he says, 'I poured out my soul over myself.'
The holy one gathers himself from those things which are outside, and pours out his soul above himself, that the soul, poured out above the body, may hide the weakness of the flesh, may cover the appetite of the body, and that the virtue of the soul and mind may everywhere stand forth. Whence also in later verses he says: 'I will pour out my prayer in His sight.' Where prayer is poured out, there sins are covered. But of what does he say he is mindful? Surely of those things which he desired, that he might come and appear in the sight of God, that he might see that eternal hall of His, in which he walked about in mind and delighted in the entrance he had anticipated. 'For I will go in,' he says, 'into the place of the wondrous tabernacle, even to the house of God, with the voice of exultation and confession, with the sound of one feasting.'
Not undeservedly did he weep, since he was dwelling on earth, to whom heavenly tabernacles were owed and whom the entrance of a mighty hall awaited. In short, that one hall alone he preferred to all the riches of his kingdom, as he himself testified elsewhere, saying: 'One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, and that I may behold the delight of the Lord.' The delight of the Lord is in the Church. The Church is the image of heavenly things; for after the shadow passed, the image succeeded. The shadow is the synagogue: in the shadow is the law, in the Gospel is the truth. Therefore in the light of the Gospel the image of truth shines forth. The prophet wept therefore because the goods full of grace and filled with gladness were deferred. In short, in later verses too he says:
'Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged!' And therefore he prayed to the Lord, because he was hastening to better things. Yet in the very afflictions of the world there was a great consolation of present things, the hope of things to come. For who would not raise up his soul, who could hope that those blessed fellowships were reserved for him in the heavenly tabernacle? But because to a weak condition things to come are for the most part a weariness, and present things a vexation, therefore the holy prophet too, with the waves of the body rising up, was troubled in soul. For I would not have thee wonder if the prophet says his soul is agitated, since the Lord Jesus Himself said: 'Now is my soul troubled.'
For He who took up our infirmities also took up our affection, in which He was also sorrowful even unto death—not because of death; for a voluntary death could not have had sorrow, in which was to be the gladness of all, the refreshment of all. Of which He also said elsewhere: 'And I rose up and saw, and sweet sleep came to me.' A good sleep, which made the hungry not to hunger, the thirsty not to thirst, for whom He prepared the sweetness of the sacraments. How then was His soul troubled with fear, who made the souls of others not to fear? Sorrowful therefore even unto death, until grace should be consummated. Which is proved by His own testimony, when He says of His death: 'I have a baptism to be baptized with.' And how am I straitened, until it be accomplished?
David therefore, troubled by the slippery windings of this world, says: 'Why art thou sorrowful, O my soul, why dost thou disquiet me? Hope in God, for I will confess to Him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.' Therefore, when we are anxious and troubled, let the hope of things to come confirm us by their expectation. Mark each word. 'Hope, for I will confess,' he says—not 'I confess,' but 'I will confess'—that is: then I shall confess better, when, with face revealed, having beheld the glory of God, I shall be transformed into the same image. Suddenly, when he consoled himself, returning into himself he said: 'My soul is troubled within myself,' that is: I who ought to confirm others am myself disquieted, and because I have no firmament from myself, let us take it from the Author.
'Therefore,' he says, 'I will remember thee, O Lord, from the land of Jordan and Hermon.' He remembers from the land of Jordan, in which grace accumulates the memory of devotion. Into the Jordan that Naaman the Syrian went down and was made clean from leprosy. In the Jordan Christ was baptized, when He instituted the form of the saving washing. The name Jordan signifies a descent, which the Lord Jesus descended, who cleansed those near the river Jordan from the contagion of offenses. This river goes out from Egypt and divides the land of promise. Therefore he who is troubled, if he takes good counsel, goes out from Egypt and follows the way of light; for they have interpreted Hermon as 'the way of the lamp.' Go out therefore first from Egypt, if thou wilt see the light of Christ.
The Canaanite woman went out from the borders of the nations and found Christ, to whom she said: 'Have mercy on me, Son of David!' Moses went out from Egypt and became a prophet and was sent back to the people, that he might free their souls from the land of their affliction. But the lamp of Christ is in the body. This lamp shows thee the way. Whence also the holy one says: 'Thy word is a lamp to my feet'—a lamp, because it has enlightened the souls of all and has shown the way in the darkness. The Gospel is the way of the lamp; it shines in the shadow, that is, in the world. Whence also elsewhere thou hast: 'They shall be made white as snow in Salmon,' that is, in the overshadowing. Christ also is the Jordan, who divides the land. Hear how He divides:
'And a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed,' inasmuch as He is the divider of our souls, who descends into the inmost secrets of the heart and detects the thoughts of minds. This sword is the living Word of God. In short, to the Hebrews thou readest thus: 'For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any most keen sword, penetrating even to the division of soul and spirit, of the joints also and marrow.' This is the fountain of Siloah, which is interpreted 'sent,' since Christ said that He was sent by the Father.
There is also that division which is gathered from the fact that two and a half tribes of the Jews dwelt on either bank of the Jordan, since the Son of Man, who in the later times descended from heaven, that true Jordan, that true divider of earthly and heavenly things, gave a divided possession to the fathers: one that should be possessed on earth, the other that should be reserved for the merits of the life to come. Both of these belong to Christ alone—either to divide heavenly things or to detect hidden things; for he divides inward things who detects hidden things, which is surely the mark of divinity. In short, thou hast it thus written, that God said: 'I will rejoice and divide Shechem.' This is that magnificent portion which Jacob assigned to his son Joseph as more excellent than all.
Whence he says: 'But I give to thee Shechem, magnificent above thy brethren, which I took from the hands of the Amorites with my sword and my bow.' Because the division is owed to the Lord alone, which is comprehended by the Word, that is, by that spiritual sword of the true Solomon. What is 'alone'? The Father without Christ, or Christ without the Father? By no means. When I say the Father alone, I do not separate the Son, because the Son is in the bosom and secret of the Father. When I say the Son alone, I also join the Father, just as the Son also joined Him, saying: 'Behold, the hour comes that ye shall leave me alone; yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.' Thus therefore the Father too is called blessed and alone mighty, in such a way that the Son is not severed from Him, who is always in the Father. In short, John excellently:
'In the beginning was the Word,' but it was not without the Father. And God was the Father, but He was not without the Word, because 'the Word was with God.' This Shechem is the Church; for Solomon chose her, whose hidden affection he distinguished. This Shechem is Mary, through whose soul the sword of God passes and divides. This Shechem is 'ascending,' as the interpretation has it. What it is that ascends, hear him say of the Church: 'Who is this that ascends, made white, leaning upon her brother?' This is the active one, which in Greek is called enargēs, because she shines forth in faith and works. To whose children it is said: 'Let your works shine before my Father, who is in heaven.' David therefore is mindful of God from the land of Jordan and Hermon, from a little mountain.
What is this little mountain? Let us consider whether perhaps the divinity of Christ is the great mountain. In short, 'I fill heaven and earth,' says the Lord. If therefore the divinity of Christ is the great mountain, surely His incarnation is the small mountain. Christ therefore is both—both the great mountain and the lesser: truly great, because great is the Lord and great is His power; lesser, because it is written: 'Thou hast made Him a little less than the angels.' Whence Isaiah says: 'We saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness.' Yet the same was both made lesser from the great and made great from the lesser: from the great, lesser, because, though He was in the form of God, He emptied Himself and took the form of a servant; and from the lesser, great, because Daniel says: