Therefore the teacher of the Gentiles draws us on from knowable matter into the understanding of things invisible, and leads us up from things earthly and lowly to the knowing of principalities and powers and thrones and dominations. But these things abide and have come into being both in heaven and on earth by the nod of God the Father, and though all things are through the Son, yet all things are from God. For he himself is the head and the beginning of all things, and in him all things have been founded, although afterward, according to the judgment of eternal power, he brought forth each single thing from the treasures founded in himself. But although Christ works in all things, yet it is the work of him who works in Christ; and therefore:
'My Father,' he says, 'works until now, and I work,' because it is the work of the Father, whatever the Son, God Christ, works, while God the Father abides in himself; and thus daily all things are through the Son, because the Father works all things in the Son. Therefore Christ works daily: and, as I judge, the beginnings of souls, the configurations of bodies, the advancements and increase of living things, show his work. But that we may be able to understand more fully what the working of God is, and how the working Father works, and the Son also — we ought to know the origin of this saying.
For among the other cures by which the Lord taught himself to be God in the flesh of a man, showing under visible matter the power of an invisible virtue, he found in the pool of the portico of Solomon a paralytic of thirty-eight years, waiting for the aid of someone by whom he might be carried down to the movement of the water stirred by an angel. Now this was both in the time and in the man of virtue, that, when the spring of the pool had been moved, he who first entered the waters would escape whatever infirmity afflicted him. And these things were both useful for the effects of the present and imaged as a mirror of things to come, since, when the angel called to the waters, the abolition of all sicknesses was at hand.
This paralytic, therefore, when the Lord saw him on the sabbath day, he cures by a word, effecting the health of the sick man by a command. He says therefore to the paralytic: 'Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.' Now the paralytic was made not only whole, but even useful for a burden. The Jews accuse the paralytic of violating the sabbath, saying: 'It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for thee to take up thy bed.' To whom he answered: 'He who made me whole, he said to me: Take up thy bed and walk,' setting forth the same as the Author of his deed whom he had as the Author of his health, so that it might not be thought that any fault of violating the sabbath could proceed from him, in whose word the restoration of the human body had consisted.
Therefore, because the Lord had cured a paralytic on the sabbath, where reverence for the deed ought to have followed, there the hatred of all the Jews is aroused. To whom the Lord answered: 'My Father works until now, and I work.' But here there rises up a graver indignation at the violated sabbath, as they thought, because he called God his own Father, making himself equal to God. But whence comes this grief to the Jews? For he did not speak thus: 'God is my Father.' But the truth applied its force, and reason wrung a confession from them unwilling; for they were saying that to be equal to God is to work. They are angry at what they do not hear, and are unwilling to suffer what they cannot fail to know: and in Christ they hate this — that they are compelled to understand it. In what, then, is the work of the Father?
In this, namely, which the Son does; for he says: 'The Son cannot do anything of himself, but what he shall have seen the Father doing.' He did not indeed take away power from himself, but bound his own will by paternal obedience. For he did not signify by a bare word: 'The Son cannot do,' but he added: 'of himself anything, but what he shall have seen the Father doing.' Therefore all that he does is a service, because he does nothing of himself, but that which he shall have seen: a ministry coming from the example not of a work, but of a will, because the work of the Father is in his will. For this the Lord says: 'I came not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me,' teaching that he wills nothing other than what he wills who had sent him.
Therefore the Son beholds the will of the Father as it were the example of his working, because all things are formed within the providence of the paternal thoughts by a certain predestination of things to come. And he beholds it through mutual love and nature; for he says: 'The Father loves the Son and shows him all things which he himself does.' Thus both to this One, from whom he himself was born as God, it is easy to know the will: and to the other, it is a matter of kindness that he has begotten together with the Son the knowledge of his own will. Therefore, concerning the sabbath day, from which the hatred was aroused, the answer was: 'My Father works until now, and I work.' Is there then a work of God on the sabbath? There is plainly:
for unless it were so, the heaven would fall apart, the light of the sun would set, the earth would not stand, the increases of all fruits would fail: the lives of men would perish, if by the sabbath law the constitution of all the powers were to keep leisure. But there is no rest, and the course is the same, and, as on the six days, so also on the sabbath the offices of all the elements are maintained. Therefore in all time the Father works through these things; and he works in the Son, who is from him and through whom all these are his work — the Son who works these things in himself, while the Father works. And the work of the ministry is referred to the work of the Author. And so the Son, in the paralytic, as in other things, worked on the sabbath, and through the Son the work of the Father is on the sabbath; and thus there is no rest on the day of God,
since there is no day to God without work. Because therefore the works of God exist, we must seek what his rest may be. And so the work of God is the work of Christ; but the rest of God is also God Christ, because all things which are God's are so truly in him that in these the Father rests. For he is perfect from the Perfect, because, as the Apostle says, 'all things consist in him,' and as he himself testified concerning himself: 'As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son also to have life in himself'; and again the Apostle says: 'because in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.' And so that which is in him, or which is perfected by him, no longer — being that which subsists and abides — needs and awaits anything from elsewhere, but by the love and power of the Father.
So also in the Son there is life, so that, although he is born of the Father, yet he exists in that life in which the Father also lives. For in him too the beginnings of all things which were thereafter to be created were established; and in him, contemplating all things, when all had been consummated through him, he was delighted, since he both rested in the Son the Creator and rejoiced in those things which had been created as worthy of the Son's love. Hence that saying in Proverbs: 'When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him,' and: 'I was with him, ordering all things: he rejoiced with me, when he was glad, the world being perfected.' This is the rest in which the Father rejoices, which also, through the confirmation of an oath, the impious shall not enter.
There is also to be understood, in the Lord Jesus Christ, the rest of those things which are invisible: thrones, dominations, principalities, powers: for all these abide incorrupt, unwearied, perpetual. And on that account rest is to be reckoned in them, because, eternity having been granted, there is now rest in their perfected creations. But it ought indeed to be known how into the rest, which the impious shall not enter, the pious and those subject to God shall be able to enter; for it is necessary that the hope which is denied to the evil be left to the good. But if Christ is the rest of God, then those who were in Christ shall be in the rest of God. And the Apostle cries out that he wishes to be in Christ, saying: 'But I follow after, if I may apprehend that in which also I am apprehended,' and again:
'But I have counted all things to be loss and I esteem them as dung, that I may gain Christ,' and again: 'Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, in whom he chose us before the foundation of the world in himself, that we should be holy and immaculate in his sight in love: who predestinated us unto adoption through Jesus in himself'; because 'the Word was made flesh,' because, whereas we were once estranged and enemies of his mind in evil works, but now we are reconciled in the body of his flesh. Therefore through the conjunction of the flesh assumed we are in Christ:
and this is the mystery of God hidden from the ages and generations in God, which is now revealed to his saints — that we are fellow-heirs and of the same body and fellow-partakers of his promise in Christ. Therefore an entrance in Christ lies open to all through the conjunction of the flesh, if they put off the old man and fasten it to his cross, and from those things which they did before are buried together in his baptism unto life, and, that they may enter into the fellowship of the flesh of Christ, crucify the flesh with its vices and concupiscences.
For bodies of this kind he will fashion into the transformation of his own body, and will transfer their lowliness into the glory of his own flesh — those who, crushing all the goads of desires and washing off the filth of pleasures, after the sacrament of the new birth remember that they have not their own flesh, but Christ's. But this is the perfect sabbath, this the true rest, for which, after the manner of the worldly sabbath, we are commanded to prepare beforehand all things necessary for life. For the Jews, according to the precept of the Law, prepare on the day which is before the sabbath all things that are necessary on the sabbath, and every food and drink is to be provided, prepared, and stored up beforehand, not understanding that in this is shown the shadow of the truth to come.
For as, in order to obtain the leisure of the sabbath, the duties of the preceding day must be doubled — for what is necessary both for that day itself and for the sabbath must be seen to — so also for us who await the eternal sabbaths, the things which we may there enjoy must be prepared through the business of the present life, things now indeed necessary, but destined to purchase the rest of the sabbath.
In order, therefore, that we be not shut out from the rest of this sabbath — that is, as we showed above, from the fellowship of Christ and of the angels, nor even from the sacrament of God — we must labour and earn merit; and through diligence in prior works the rest of eternity must be prepared by the vigils of prayers, by frequency of readings, by willingness for fasting, by the tranquillity of humility, by works of goodness, by the splendour of chastity, and by the virtue of patience.
These things must be prepared beforehand for the leisure of the eternal sabbath, so that, the weakness of our corruption being transformed into heavenly glory, the will may not desire vice, nor ambition glory, nor pride honour, nor labour leisure, nor the body food, nor weariness of day the sleep of night; but there may be for us eternal light, a life ever-watchful, the common enjoyment of good things, the heavenly discourse of God fully satisfying, praise to God and, with the choirs of the angels, an eternal hymn. This is the reward of faith, this the glory of the bodily resurrection, in which nothing is to be desired, because there will be need of nothing; nothing to be envied through jealousy, because life is to be lived in fellowship; nor is there any grieving through some weakness, nor growing through age, because we are to endure in immortality.
But rather the devil is to be burned, and every evil destroyed, and the flower of our eternity obtained. For the rest of this sabbath, therefore, the Son gives thanks to God the Father. This is sung at the end in his person. This, as we shall learn from the interpretation of the individual verses, is celebrated once the immortality of men has been acquired. PSALM 118. Those who are being prepared for the teaching of reasonable and perfect prudence must be taught from the very elements of the letters, so that they may attain the perfect and true understanding as from the beginning of a first instruction.
Knowing this, the holy apostle Paul — that that alone is the true prudence of profitable teaching which begins from the very outset of one's age and from the beginnings of infancy itself — writes these words to Timothy, amid great and glorious proclamations of faith and zeal, in his second epistle: 'But do thou continue in those things which thou hast learned and hast believed, knowing from whom thou hast learned them, and that from infancy thou hast known the sacred writings, which are able to instruct thee unto salvation.'
Let this be said with regard to the present psalm, in which, since the knowledge of truth was to be set forth for the instruction of human ignorance, the order of teaching is arranged through the very beginnings of the letters and elements; for according to the letters of the Hebrews, in each set of eight verses single letters are set forth. Now the whole number of verses is contained in one hundred and seventy-six verses. For since the whole Hebrew tongue is composed of twenty-two letters, and each single letter unfolds eight verses, this number of verses is filled out by being multiplied into eight parts. This arrangement, therefore, I reckon to have come about, so that the order of this whole psalm might run on through the letters:
So that, just as little children and the unskilled, who are to be trained in reading, first learn the elements of letters through which words are woven together for them, so also human ignorance might be instructed unto morals, unto discipline, unto the knowledge of God through this octonary number of the individual letters, as by the very beginnings of an infant's teaching. For it is arduous and most difficult for man, by himself or through the teachers of the age, to attain the reason of the heavenly precepts; nor does the weakness of our nature admit of being instructed in the divine ordinances except through the grace of him who has given these very things. For those who simply read whatever falls into their hands suppose that there exists no difference in words, none in names, none in things.
But if the speech of common conversation does not allow that under diverse names of things diverse meanings should not be understood, shall we then believe that the utterances of God are so unskilled and so confused that either they laboured under a poverty of the words they used, or were ignorant of the kinds of distinctions? For many, when they hear 'law,' 'justification,' 'precepts,' 'testimonies,' 'judgments' — all of which Moses arranged under the distinct force of each several kind — suppose them to be one and the same, not knowing that law is one thing, justification another, precept another, testimony another, and judgment another; and that these differ and disagree greatly among themselves the eighteenth psalm is our witness.
In which is contained the property of each name and kind: 'The law of the Lord is unspotted, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is faithful, instructing little ones; the statutes of the Lord are right, gladdening hearts; the commandment of the Lord is lightsome, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is holy, enduring for ever and ever; the judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves.' There are therefore differences in each several thing, and it belongs to the prudent and understanding man to discern, in the things that are written, where law, where precept, where testimonies, where justifications, where judgments are set:
Lest the weakness of our ignorance, untaught, should by an opinion of inexperience confound those things which the prophetic word has distinguished by the wonderful property of each thing. And so this psalm, the greatest and beyond all others the most abundant, has distinguished all these things through the individual letters, so that through these elements of words the reason and distinction of the teaching of believing and of living and of being instructed unto God might be taught. But many think that the simplicity of faith can suffice for the absolute hope of eternity, as though innocence, according to the judgment of the age, had no need of the ordinances of heavenly teaching.
And because the matter stands otherwise, therefore now the knowledge of living innocently in God and of remaining religiously in innocence has been set forth with great abundance of prophetic speech; for it is difficult for anyone by himself, that is, through the institutions of the age, to attain this knowledge of religious innocence and the true practice of a pious and innocent life. The apostle too knew human nature to be weak of itself for grasping this science of living. For when he was teaching about the gifts of the charisms and endowments of God, when he had first put forward the word of wisdom, he immediately added the word of knowledge. For this gift of knowledge, following after wisdom, is from God, because the use of wisdom is made perfect in the use of knowledge.
But there also meets us in the present psalm that difficulty: that, whereas we have received only two psalms written according to the Hebrew letters — namely the hundred-and-eleventh and the twelfth — such that from the first up to the twenty-second letter, according to the Hebrews, the number of verses corresponded, and each single verse began from the beginnings of the individual elements, in this psalm now the single elements take up eight verses each. But since all the precepts of living, of believing, and of pleasing God were contained in the psalm, all the beginnings of the letters are contained in that number which, most of all, according to the full and religious power of that same number, is the first of all [perfect numbers], perfected by the equality of its parts that agree together on every side.
For first it is composed, within itself, of two equal parts; then next it agrees in four equal parts; so that the powers of the psalms which are set in this number, whether single or multiplied, teach that there is a holy and religious fullness in this number. Now this number is holy also in the Law. For it was commanded that he who was born should, on the eighth day, receive the sign of circumcision. This reckoning was observed also in the circumcision of the Lord; and on this number of days, although he himself had no need of circumcision, he was presented in the temple, so that in his body the weakness of human flesh might be cut away. This number also purifies every kind of animal, so that they may be held worthy for sacrifices; for on the eighth day they are commanded to be offered.
And in this number, in the days of the flood, the origin of the human race is again chosen. The consummation, therefore, of our teaching and instruction is now concluded, through the individual elements, under the completion of this perfect number — before which there was neither a victim clean unto God, nor in the family of the race was anyone received while circumcision was omitted, and from which the beginning of the generation to be renewed again took its start. The verses of the first letter, then, are these: ALEPH. 'Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that search his testimonies; they seek him with their whole heart.' The order of the sayings is not to be neglected; for if it is not diligently understood by us, we shall not attain even the order of the blessedness that is arranged. For it is not first:
'Blessed are they that search the testimonies of God,' but first: 'Blessed are the undefiled in the way.' For it is prior, when morals have been established and composed unto the pursuit of innocence out of the common uprightness of probity, to enter the way of truth; and it follows next, to search the testimonies of God and, with a mind cleansed and purified, to be present for the investigating. Of this order too another prophet is not unmindful, saying: 'Sow for yourselves unto justice, and reap the fruit of life, and enlighten yourselves in the light of knowledge.' Not enlightenment first, but our sowing is commanded, so that, when we have first sown ourselves — that is, the practice of our life — in hope of the fruits, and then, when we have reaped what has been sown, we may then enlighten ourselves with the light of knowledge.
This order, therefore, is to be held: of sowing, of harvest, and of enlightenment. For many of us hasten to be enlightened before sowing and reaping, whereas the sowing and the harvest are a certain preparation for attaining the light. This, then, is the first blessedness: that they are blessed who are undefiled in the way — but not in a chance and uncertain and wandering way, but in the way in which one walks in the law of the Lord. For many think they have entered upon a useful and necessary way; but they will not be undefiled in the way, because they do not walk in the law of the Lord. But this way is not only to be entered upon, but also to be traversed to the end. For no one, while he is on the way, has yet obtained that to which he tends by the way; blessed Paul says:
'Not that I have already received anything, or am already perfect: but I follow after, if I may lay hold, even as I too have been laid hold of by Christ.' So he was still journeying on; but he journeyed on 'forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching himself forth to the things that are before.' And so he who travels this way is blessed, who, with forgetfulness of things past, stretches himself out in hope of things to come. And what the way is, in which each one walking is blessed, the Lord teaches, saying: 'I am the way.' Whosoever, therefore, shall stand firm in his precepts, he is blessed, while he restrains the vices of the flesh, while he subdues the wantonness of the mind, while he conquers the hunger of avarice, while he shuns the glory of earthly honours. He, then, who abides in these is the one undefiled in the way and walking in the law of the Lord.
But the addition by which it was said 'in the law of the Lord' is not idle. For there is also a law of sin, of which the blessed apostle says: 'I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and leading me captive under the law of sin.' Therefore, because there was also a law of sin, for that reason it was said 'the law of the Lord.' For unless there were also an exterior law, the prophetic word would not have said 'the law of the Lord' with the addition of a distinguishing property. The next verse of the first letter follows: 'Blessed are they that search his testimonies; they seek him with their whole heart.' In the first verse it is: 'who walk in the law of the Lord.' In the second: 'who search his testimonies.' In the fourth — since the third gave a supplement to the second — he speaks concerning the commandments, saying:
'Thou hast commanded that thy commandments be kept most diligently.' In the fifth, concerning justification: 'O that my ways may be directed to keep thy justifications.' In the sixth, again concerning the effects of the commandments: 'Then shall I not be confounded, when I look into thy commandments.' In the seventh, concerning judgments: 'I will praise thee, O Lord, in the uprightness of heart, in that I have learned thy judgments.' In the eighth, concerning justification: 'I will keep thy justifications; O forsake me not utterly.' If, therefore, law is one thing, precept another, judgment another, justification another, testimony another, it is necessary for us to pray for the grace and gift of understanding from him who established and founded all things. Yet all this in common is called 'law.'
But there is something special in these which has in itself the property of 'law.' What, then, is law? A shadow, namely, as the apostle says, of things to come; which is nowhere written of the rest — that justification, or testimonies, or commandments are a shadow of things to come — but this alone is proper to the law, as the apostle teaches in very many places: that the law is not to be treated according to the understanding of the letter, but according to the spiritual teaching a shadow of things to come is to be recognized in it. For he says: 'Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn,' and he added: 'Doth God take care for oxen? Or were these things not said and written for our sakes?' And again: 'Reading the law, have you not heard that [Abraham] had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free?'
'But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; but he who was of the freewoman, according to the promise.' And because the law is a shadow of things to come, he added: 'which things are spoken by way of allegory, for these are the two testaments.' Therefore, whatsoever things shall embrace a shadow of spiritual teachings, these are to be called 'law'; because the law is both spiritual and a shadow of things to come. But the commandment of the Lord is that in which observance and keeping are contained, such as this: 'Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery,' and the rest like these. And because these are simple and splendid, and direct us into the true light through the observance of them, therefore it was thus said: 'the commandment of the Lord is lightsome, enlightening the eyes.'
But of the law it would not have been fitting to have said these things, because it is holy through the shadow of things to come and converts souls through the knowledge of things to come; whereas the commandment enlightens through the observance of itself. Therefore, since they are blessed who search the testimonies of God, and since law is one thing, commandment another, testimonies another, as we have said of the rest, it must be recognized what these testimonies of God are. For the book of the whole law was given under testimonies. For Moses, being about to hand down the book of the testament, called heaven and earth to witness as a testimony. And there are very many things established for the purpose of testimonies, as when Jacob says: 'This heap shall be a testimony to you, and this stone shall be a testimony.' And in Scripture it is written:
'Take up twelve stones, that these may be for a testimony to your sons.' To the leper he had cured, the Lord also says: 'Offer thy gift for a testimony, which Moses appointed for them.' The apostle, speaking many things to Timothy through his epistle, charges him under witnesses, saying: 'In the sight of many witnesses I charge thee, and in the sight of God who quickeneth all things, and of Jesus, and of the elect angels, that thou keep these things.' Many, therefore, and innumerable, are the testimonies of God; and if anyone should wish to search these through the knowledge of the law, of the prophets, of the gospels, of the apostles, he would remain in blessedness, nor, living as it were in an empty and solitary world, would he think himself to sin except under a witness. For all things are full of the divine testimonies;
and all this space, which is thought to be empty, is filled with the angels of God, and there is nothing which a multitude of ministering spirits does not inhabit. And so, whoever has attained the knowledge of these through teaching knows that he lives under witnesses. And although the nature of human weakness inclines to vices, yet it shrinks from sinning even under a witness — which the very rule of common custom teaches us. For who does not fear under a witness? Who has chosen for a crime any place but a hidden one? Who, for adultery, has not desired either solitude or the night? And if ever, when minds are already heated to a misdeed, it is ready to act, yet the frenzy of maddening lust is restrained by the encounter of a witness, and a sudden intervention has sometimes recalled human nature already plunging headlong into itself.