Ver. 14, 15. If thou wilt put away from thee the iniquity that is in thy hand, and let not injustice remain in thy tabernacle, then mayest thou lift up thy face without spot, and thou shalt be steadfast, and shalt not fear. 26. That the mind may be clean, first the iniquity of work, then of the heart, must be cut away. Every sin is either committed by thought alone, or perpetrated by thought and deed together. Iniquity in the hand, therefore, is guilt in deed, but injustice in the tabernacle is iniquity in the mind. For our mind is not unfittingly called a tabernacle, in which we hide within our very selves, when outwardly in deed we are not seen. Zophar, then, because he is the friend of a just man, knows what he says;
but because he rebukes a just man, holding the character of heretics, even the things he knows he cannot bring forth rightly. But let us, treading down what is proudly said by him, weigh how true his words are, if they were rightly spoken. For he admonishes that first iniquity be taken away from the hand, and afterward injustice be cut off from the tabernacle, because whoever now cuts away depraved works outwardly from himself, must without doubt, returning to himself, skillfully discern himself in the intention of the mind; lest the guilt which he now has not in action should still endure in thought. Hence too it is well said through Solomon: Prepare thy work without, and diligently till thy field, that afterward thou mayest build thy house (Prov. xxiv, 27).
For what is it to till the field diligently outwardly, the work being prepared, but, the brambles of iniquity having been rooted out, to cultivate our action unto the fruit of recompense? And what is it, after the tilling of the field, to return to the building of the house, but that very often from good works we learn how great a purity of life we should construct in thought? For almost all good works proceed from thought, yet there are certain sharp insights of thought which are born from operation; for just as the work is taken from the soul, so again the soul is instructed by the work. For the mind, taking the beginnings of divine love, commands the good things that are to be done;
but after the things commanded have begun to be done, exercised by those very actions of its own it learns, when it had begun to command good things, how much less it saw. Outwardly, therefore, the field is cultivated, that the house may afterward be built, because very often from the outward work we gather how great a subtlety of uprightness we hold in the heart. This order Zophar was careful to preserve well, when he said that first iniquity is to be taken away from the hands, and afterward injustice from the tabernacle, because the soul is by no means fully raised in thought while it still errs outwardly in deed. [Old Version, ch. XVII.] 27. This purity affords confidence in prayer; otherwise, if it be lacking. If we perfectly wipe away these two things, we lift up our face without spot at once to God.
For the inward face of man is the mind, in which indeed we are recognized, so that we may be loved by our Author. To lift up this face is to raise the soul toward God through the pursuits of prayer. But a spot defiles the lifted face, if the consciousness of its own guilt accuses the straining mind, because it is at once shattered from the confidence of hope, if, intent on prayers, it is gnawed by the memory of a guilt not yet overcome. For it distrusts that it can receive what it seeks, when it assuredly recalls that it is unwilling still to do what it has heard from God. Hence it is said through John: If our heart reprehend us not, we have confidence toward God, and whatsoever we shall ask of him we shall receive (1 John iii, 21). Hence Solomon says:
He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, his prayer shall be an abomination (Prov. xxviii, 9). For the heart reprehends us in our petition when it remembers that it resists the precepts of him whom it entreats, and the prayer becomes an abomination when it turns away from the censure of the law, because it is assuredly fitting that whoever is unwilling to be subject to his commands should be a stranger to his benefits. 28. What is to be done when it is not present. In this matter this is the wholesome remedy: that when the mind reprehends itself from the memory of guilt, it should first bewail in prayer that it has erred; so that, the spot of error being wiped away with tears, in its petition the face of the heart may be seen clean by its Author.
But great care must be taken lest one rush again into that which he exults to have cleansed with tears, lest, while the bewailed guilt is committed again, in the sight of the just Judge those very laments be made of little worth. For we ought skillfully to remember what is said: Repeat not a word in thy prayer (Ecclus. vii, 15). By which saying the wise man in no way forbids us to seek pardon often, but to repeat our faults. As if he plainly said: When thou hast bewailed evil deeds, by no means do again what thou wouldst in thy prayers bewail anew. 29. Before prayer, unclean and earthly thoughts are to be banished. In order, therefore, that the face may be lifted to prayer without spot, before the times of prayer whatever can be reproved in prayer ought always to be anxiously examined;
and the mind should hasten to show itself such, even when it ceases from prayer, as it longs to appear to the Judge in the very time of prayer. For often we turn over in our soul certain unclean or unlawful things, as often as we are free from prayers. But when the mind has raised itself to the pursuits of prayer, it suffers, beaten back, the images of those very things by which it was formerly, in its idleness, willingly pressed; and, as it were, the soul is now not sufficient to lift its face to God, because, with a mind indeed defiled, it blushes at the stains of polluted thought. Often we are willingly occupied with the cares of the world. And when after these things we are intent on the pursuit of prayer, the mind by no means raises itself to heavenly things, because the weight of earthly solicitude has plunged it into the depths;
and in prayer the face is not shown clean, because it is stained with the mire of the lowest thought. [Old Version, ch. XVIII.] 30. The offenses of others against us are to be relaxed. Who is free from fear. Sometimes indeed we shake the heart free from all things, and, even when it is at leisure from prayer, we resist unlawful motions; but yet, because we ourselves commit faults more rarely, we relax the offenses of others more sluggishly; and the more anxiously our soul fears to sin, the more strictly it recoils from that which is committed against it by another. Hence it comes to pass that everyone is found the slower to pardon in proportion as, by making progress, he has become cautious against fault; and the more he himself fears to transgress against another, the more harshly he seeks to punish that in which he is transgressed against.
But what worse can be found than this spot of resentment, which in the sight of the Judge does not defile charity, but slays it? For any guilt whatsoever pollutes the life of the soul, but resentment harbored against a neighbor kills it. For to the mind, as it were, a sword is fixed, and by its point the very hidden things of the inward parts are pierced through. And if it is not first drawn out from the transfixed heart, nothing is obtained in prayers of the divine aid, because to wounded limbs the medicines of health cannot be applied unless the iron is first withdrawn from the wound. For hence it is that Truth says through himself: Unless ye forgive men their sins, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive you your sins (Matt. vi, 15). Hence he admonishes, saying:
When ye stand to pray, forgive if ye have aught against any (Mark xi, 25). Hence again he says: Give, and it shall be given unto you; forgive, and it shall be forgiven you (Luke vi, 38). Hence to the ordinance of petition he set the condition of piety, saying: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt. vi, 12); so that assuredly the good which, pricked with compunction, we ask from God, we may first, turned toward our neighbor, do it. Then, therefore, do we truly lift up our face without spot, when we neither commit the evils forbidden, nor retain out of our own zeal those things which have been committed against us.
For our mind is oppressed at the time of its prayer with grievous confusion, if either its own action still defiles it, or resentment harbored against another's malice accuses it. When anyone has wiped away these two things, he rises at once free to the things that are annexed. And thou shalt be steadfast, and shalt not fear; because indeed one trembles the less before the Judge, the more solidly he stands in good acts. For he overcomes fear who preserves steadfastness, because while he anxiously strives to accomplish what the gentle Creator commands, he secure also considers what he terribly threatens. 31. In the active life one perseveres more easily than in the contemplative. Who may be reckoned to persist in contemplation.
It must besides be known that there are certain goods in which we persist unwearied, and again certain goods from which, continually failing, we slip away, and to which we are restored with great efforts through intervals of time. [Old Version, ch. XIX.] For in the active life the mind is fixed without failing, but in the contemplative it is wearied, overcome by the weight of its own infirmity. For the former endures the more firmly, the more it extends itself toward the neighboring interest of one's neighbor; the latter slips the more quickly, the more, transgressing the barriers of the flesh, it strives to go above its very self. The former directs itself along level ground, and therefore fixes the foot of its work more robustly; but the latter, the higher it desires things above itself, the sooner, wearied, it descends to itself.
This Ezekiel well and briefly intimates, when he narrates the motions of the living creatures which he had seen, saying: They returned not when they went. And a little after he subjoins, adding: And the living creatures went and returned (Ezek. i, 9, 14). For the holy living creatures sometimes go and do not return; sometimes they go and straightway return, because the minds of the elect, when through the grace of the active life conferred upon them they forsake the ways of error, know not how to return to the evils of the world which they have left; but when, through the keenness of contemplation, they suspend themselves from this same active life, they go and return, because, inasmuch as they are by no means able to persist long in contemplation, they pour themselves out again to operation;
so that in those things which are near to them they may refresh themselves by exercise, and again may gather strength to rise above themselves by contemplation. But while this same contemplation is repeated in due manner through intervals of time, without doubt one persists unfailingly also in the solidity of it, because although the mind, overcome by the weight of its own infirmity, fails, yet, restored by continual efforts, it grasps it again. Nor is it to be said to have lost its steadfastness in that from which, although it always fails, it also, even when it has lost it, always seeks it. There follows: