If, therefore, the crime is already delayed in the mind by an intervention, what will it befit a Christian man to do, knowing himself beset on every side by so many testimonies of spiritual powers — I do not say of his own works, but of his very will alone? When we are stirred by the goads of our weakness into some willing of a turbid affection, do we not fear the choirs of angels standing round us on every side, and the world full of heavenly ministering spirits? For if the angels of the little ones daily behold our Father who is in heaven, surely we must fear the testimonies of those whom we know both to abide with us and daily to stand before God.
Nay more, we ought to fear that very devil himself, through whom those very incentives of our vices are supplied, and all his witnesses — he who in a moment of time traverses the whole breadth of this world: to whom it is sweet that we sin, that he may glory in the testimony of our sins. For this is his own peculiar cunning: to instigate to sinning and to accuse those who sin. For so it has been said. And because these powers, along with the rest, would remain as a testimony to us, it was fitting that the prophet should make mention only of the holy ones, saying: 'Blessed are they that search his testimonies' — not others, that is, but those which are of God. But the searching of the testimonies of God ought not to be negligent; wherefore it was said: 'They seek him with their whole heart.'
Zeal is not to be applied to heavenly teaching in part only, but the testimonies of God are to be sought with the whole heart, so that — since there are also others which are not of God — we may search those which we learn to be of God with a heart not called away to other business. [The verse follows:] 'For they that work iniquity have not walked in his ways.' In the first verse the 'way' is mentioned in the singular, in this third one in the plural. From which it is to be understood that through many ways one comes to one; in which whoever is undefiled is blessed. Concerning the many ways and the one, Jeremiah testified likewise, saying: 'Stand in the ways, and ask the ways of the Lord, and seek which is the good way.' In the many ways, therefore, one must stand, and many must be inquired of:
And indeed the many ways are both of the Lord and good, and among these it must be discerned which is the best way. Many and very many are the commandments of the Lord, many the prophets, through all of whom one journeys into one way; but in these the workers of iniquity have not walked, for if they had remained in the law, they would have come even to that best way of the New Testament. There is a way through Moses, there is one through Joshua, there is one through David, there is one through Isaiah, there is one through Jeremiah, there is one through the apostles; and through all these it is necessary to come to him who said: 'I am the way, and no one goes to the Father but by me.' Something similar is to be understood as spoken under the name of the pearl. For one must be a merchant of many pearls, in order to obtain one pearl of great price.
When speech is made about pearls, it suffices for their honour that they are pearls; but that one pearl which was found is said to be of great price. So too, when it is prophesied about the many ways, it is said that they are both of the Lord and eternal; but when among these ways it is asked which is the profitable way, the one that is found is proclaimed the best. Therefore, although both those ways and the pearls are honourable by their very name, one must stand among the many ways so that the good way may be found, and all the pearls must be sold so that the one which is found to be of great price may be bought up. Next follows this verse: 'Thou hast commanded that thy commandments be kept most diligently.' Above we recalled that 'commandments' signify one thing, 'law' another.
And concerning the law, so far as I judge, the apostle was our witness that it is a shadow of things to come, in which the appearance of truth is depicted as a body within a shadow. But a commandment is that which is to be fulfilled through observance, such as this: 'Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill.' For in it no appearance of a future image is contained, but it has the present effect of action: 'Thou hast commanded that thy commandments be kept most diligently.' Nothing, therefore, is to be done with a slack mind, nothing carelessly, but it behoves us to carry out the care of God's commandments solicitous and anxious, so that what we do we may accomplish unto the advancement of our faith, with care and with reverence for him for whom we act. But if we do anything with a slackened will and with our thought occupied in other matters,
the offices of the body will indeed be occupied in the doing, but through negligence we shall not attain the merit of devotion. We have now, after the keeping of the commandments, also the observance of the justifications. And the commandments — what we should judge them to be — we have already shown above. But the justifications are many, and are to be measured out in observing each kind of duty; for the keeping of which, unless we be directed by God, we shall be weak through our nature. We are therefore to be helped and directed by his grace, so that we may attain the order of the appointed justifications.
There is a justification appointed for us concerning the Hebrew servant, one concerning the son, one concerning the father, one concerning brothers, one concerning faithful men, one concerning the leaders of the Church, one concerning the angels, one concerning God and our Lord, the only-begotten Word of God. In each several kind and name, therefore, there is a rule of justification; because unless all these are maintained by the corresponding duties of a devoted will, we shall not hold the justification of God. He who is dutiful toward the father, if he hates the son, has lost the measure of justification. He who is dutiful toward a brother, if he hates a servant, has lost the order of God's justification. He who is dutiful toward
the Lord is dutiful, if he hates the priest — what observance of justification will he fulfil in the religion of God, exercising hatred against the very ministries of justification? But now, in the very truth of faith itself, that is, in the understanding of God the Father and of the Lord, through which especially justification will be ready for us, how great is the grace of God we need, that we may be rightly wise, that from the prophetic and evangelical authorities we may hold one and the same thing, that our opinion and our speech may not disagree in this or that, but that we may direct all the justifications of God by an equal and even observance of works and of teaching! And when we shall attain this, then it will be permitted to say what is contained in the following verse: 'Then shall I not be confounded, when I look into all thy commandments.'
For unless we are attentive in all his commandments and dwell in them, and there be some things passed over, only some observed according to our own pleasure, we do not hold the order of justification. But if, our ways being directed, there is an equal and even keeping toward all, then, confounded by no shame of forgetfulness, we shall rejoice in the observance of all the commandments. Then follows this seventh verse: 'I will praise thee in the uprightness of my heart, in that I have learned the judgments of thy justice. I will keep thy justifications.' Therefore all perversity of soul must be cast away, and one must give praise with a heart upright and turned aside to no other part, lest the soul fall down into the care of the world, lest it wander off from those paths of God's teaching into byways.
But the cause of this upright confession is that which is contained in the following verse: 'in that I have learned the judgments of thy justice.' First, then, he prayed that his ways might be made straight for the keeping of the justifications. Secondly, he added that he would be confounded in nothing, since he looked into all the commandments of God. Thirdly also he promised that he would give praise to God in the uprightness of his heart, for this reason: that he had learned his judgments — rendering praise to God, that is, through the teaching of an upright heart and of the knowledge attained. But this is the fruit of justice once known, that the justifications of God may be maintained; and therefore he added: 'I will keep thy justifications.'
For what fruit is there in having learned the judgments of God, unless the observance of the justifications should follow upon our knowledge? But we ought to remember that, although knowledge is to be granted by God, yet he must always be prayed to, that he may favour us in those things which we wish to keep in the keeping of his justifications; knowing indeed that we are frequently forsaken by him on account of temptations, so that through them our faith may become approved. Nevertheless, according to the prophet, he must be entreated not to forsake us utterly; for he says: 'O forsake me not utterly.' Which is also contained in the order of the Lord's Prayer, when it is said: 'Lead us not into temptation which we are not able to bear.'
The apostle knows that we are forsaken to be tempted, but he knows also that God knows the measure of our weakness, saying: 'God is faithful, who will not permit us to be tempted above what we are able.' In the case of Job, God, permitting him to temptation, left to the tempter power over his soul according to the right of the devil and according to the measure of what is human. Therefore the prophet, conscious of his own weakness, prays that he may not be greatly forsaken: that the Lord may sustain his frailty, as he sustained Peter when he was about to be sunk in the waves, so that, although he is about to leave him to be tempted, yet not utterly and greatly — that is, lest it come even to the peril of the soul and of faith. BETH. 'Wherewith doth a young man correct his way?' and the rest.
In the second letter of the eight verses that follow, the prophet has himself set before himself those words to which he is about to reply, saying: 'Wherewith doth a young man correct his way?' These words are spoken in the person of one proposing a question. Then now, as it were, the confession of one replying is subjoined: 'By keeping thy words.' But it is to be observed, according to that discourse which we had at the beginning, that the true and perfect institutions of the fear of God are contained under these elements of letters, by which, as it were unto the practice of the confession of God, we are formed through the very rudiments of infancy. Therefore the prophet is to be understood not to have spoken idly: 'Wherewith doth a young man correct his way?'
It is indeed desirable for every age to be transferred from these vices of its body to the pursuit of innocence, because, though late, an amendment is profitable by the forgetting of vices. But the prophet, forming the man who is to please God, does not wait for him to be instructed by the teaching of God and by the precepts of fear after a long and lasting habit of misdeeds, but wishes years still raw from sins, and an age as yet ignorant of misdeeds, to be imbued not only, at length, with zealous pursuits, but even with the very habit of virtue. For it is difficult to cease from things accustomed, difficult to be drawn away from familiar things; habit holds within itself a great bond:
and therefore he will be the best worshipper whom not only the remission of offences has established without crime, but whom that very ignorance of vices has rendered innocent. The prophet Jeremiah knew the blessedness of this age, saying: 'It is good for a man when he has borne the heavy yoke in his youth: he shall sit solitary and shall keep silence.' He does not wait for the years grown cold with old age, nor for a habit of vices already deadened through age. He wishes a soldier for a long battle; he wishes him a servant of Christ whom not even the recollection of past misdeeds may defile; for in those who have believed already at a more advanced age there is indeed, through the gift of grace, the pardon of things past, but there is not absent, by nature, the recollection of things done.
'It is good,' he says, 'for a young man to bear the heavy yoke.' Years still raw for obeying bear that burden with difficulty; but the tender age, through the increases of virtue, does not feel the trouble of a heavy burden. But when the burden has been taken up in youth, what will he do? 'He shall sit,' he says, 'solitary and shall keep silence.' Rare is he with whom the perfection of the fear of God grows together through the increase of years; and therefore he shall sit solitary, leaving the wanton assemblies of adolescence and set apart from the very gathering of the old who have but recently believed; because it does not befit him to say: 'Remember not, O Lord, the offences of my youth.' He will also keep silence, deeming silence suitable to faith and to youth:
not mingled with the tumults of worldly affairs, but keeping silence through modesty, occupied solely with the divine knowledge of the sacraments, and guarding the words of God by a silent observance of things and works. Then the prophet returns to his own person, so that what he had said above might be known to have signified something concerning himself, saying: With my whole heart have I sought thee: cast me not away from thy commandments. It does not seem to accord with the goodness of God that he should cast anyone away from his commandments; but the addition of the words and the force of the utterances, framed from the perfect design of heavenly teaching, has in itself nothing doubtful, nothing contradictory. He therefore who, according to the prophet, prefers rather that sinners should repent than die, does he cast anyone at all away from his commandments?
Let it be far from us to think so. Yet neither did the prophet now mean this—he above all who sought God with his whole heart. But the resolution of difficulties must be sought in those very things from which the difficulty seems to arise. For what the prophet meant is easy to know. We read written in Jeremiah: Cursed is he who does the works of the Lord negligently. We read also written in the Gospels: For to everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall abound; and from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him. Therefore he that hath shall abound; but he that hath not shall be in want even of that very thing which he hath. The prophet is not liable to the condition of the curse, because he did not do the works of God negligently, seeking him with his whole heart.
Then he confidently asks that he be not called away from the commandments of God, because he seeks him with his whole heart. For according to the Gospels, to him that hath it shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away. God therefore will not take away except from him that hath not, just as he casts away none but the negligent. And so full is he of goodness that he rewards him that hath with abundance; and so truly does he not will that anyone should be without, that from him that hath not he takes even that which he hath. He casts away therefore none but the resisting, he rejects none but the negligent. For this is the reason the prophet set forth, why he prayed not to be cast away from the commandments of God: because he had sought God not in part nor through sloth, but with his whole heart;
By which we understand that he is cast away from the commandments who, through much carelessness, has become unworthy to be admitted: and it lies outside any grudging on the part of him who forbids, since it proceeds from the fault of one who does not deserve. This is the third verse of the second section: In my heart have I hidden thy words, that I sin not against thee. We recall that a like saying is wont to be read where it is said: It is good to hide the secret of a king. We recall too that Paul hid the words of God from the Corinthians, still little ones in the faith, when he says: I have given you drink, not meat; for hitherto you were not able, nay neither yet now are you able. We read also in the Gospel that a treasure was found in a rich and fruitful field, and that same treasure was hidden by buying the field. We know that pearls are not to be cast before swine, nor ought that which is holy to be given to dogs.
Therefore we understand that things we keep in the secret of our heart, once divulged, will incur the guilt of sin. For thus he said: In my heart have I hidden thy words, that I sin not against thee: because, whereas other sins, according to the differences of things, are committed either against ourselves or against others, yet these would then become sins properly against God, when things that ought to be stored in the secret of the heart are brought forth into the knowledge of understanding. But we must here consider, in this fourth verse which follows, the order of teaching. The first verse concerned the young man's keeping of the commandments of God; the next, that having sought God with his whole heart he might not be called away from the commandments of God; then, that he might keep the hidden mysteries and secret sacraments of God within the secret of his mind;
in the fourth he now entreats that God would show him his ordinances of justice: and he entreats, giving precedence to the honor of confession, saying: Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statutes of justice. Concerning the statutes of justice we have embraced some matters in an earlier discourse, and it is superfluous to repeat the same things often. The greatest, then, and chief labor is to attain this knowledge of the ordinances of God, and the weakness of human nature attains only with difficulty the knowledge of so many and so great things: and for this reason he prays to be taught, because it is the gift of the divine goodness to temper the inexperience of the human mind to a fitting observance of duties suited to each kind. Then follows also discourse concerning the judgments of God, in which he says:
With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. How great is the difference of things and of names! First, from his youth the commandments of God are kept; then God is sought with the whole heart; then the words of God are hidden and the statutes of justice are desired to be learned; now they are proclaimed. But perhaps the prophet will be thought to have fallen away from himself and to have been forgetful either of his own words or of another's. For in this book of Psalms we read: Thy judgments are like a great deep. Paul the apostle says: The judgments of God are unsearchable; and again the prophet: For great are thy judgments and innumerable. And how will the prophet dare to say: In my lips are all the judgments of thy mouth?
But the prophet of the same Spirit has now spoken nothing either against himself or against another. For he did not say: In my lips have I declared all judgments, but he said: all the judgments of thy mouth: knowing that there is some difference between the judgments of God and the judgments of the mouth of God. When he said: Thy judgments are like a great deep, did he say: The judgments of thy mouth are like a great deep? But now he says: The judgments of thy mouth have I announced. Those judgments, therefore, which could be known through the prophets or from the words of God, the prophet did not keep silent: which were for this reason proclaimed, that they might be taught. But after the judgment of the mouth of God, there follows this public and constant declaration: In the way of thy testimonies I have delighted, as in all riches.
The prophet does not fear witnesses, but delights in them; and to him the awareness of those who watch and observe him is pleasant. For the fear of conscience trembles at every rebuke of it; but where there is the steadfast confidence of an innocent man, the intervention of many witnesses is welcome. Yet the prophet is glad not with the common custom of joy: for he delights as in all riches; not only in riches, but in all riches. There are resources in gold, there are in silver, there are in moneys, there are in garments, there are in houses, there are in fields and their vines or olives or crops:
but the prophet of the Lord is made perfect in the fruit of doctrines, and is rich in the resources of the law and of the prophetic institutions, and, though earlier in time, is nonetheless not ignorant of the Gospel and apostolic precepts. For Paul too knew these riches, speaking to the Corinthians: I give thanks to my God always for the abundant grace of God, given in Christ Jesus: for that in all things you are made rich in him, in all utterance and in all knowledge. In these things, therefore, the prophet is rich, and in these he delights; but he is not to be thought to have delighted in the acquisition of wealth, who could not be rich in the Lord except with contempt and poverty of the world. And delighting in the ways of the testimonies of God, he ought to do the work of delight;
and there is no doubt that he does it. For he says in the seventh verse: In thy commandments will I exercise myself and I will consider thy ways. There is need, therefore, of exercise and diligence, that the practice of necessary things may be retained; because the sloth of human minds is dangerous and troublesome: and, lest the habit of idleness creep in, the diligence of exercise must be applied. But here too the order of reason is preserved. For first one must be exercised in the commandments of God, then afterward his ways are to be considered; because unless the practice of faithful works has gone before, the knowledge of doctrine will not be grasped. And we must first act faithfully, that we may attain knowledge. The ways, therefore, according to the earlier exposition, we hold to be the law, the prophets, all things, and the apostles:
which the prophet, exercising himself in the commandments of God, considered, that he might know them. But he concluded the eighth number with the verse: In thy statutes of justice will I meditate, I will not forget thy words. The prophet does not depart from the order of perfect teaching. In the statutes of justice, which he prayed to be taught, he meditates, just as he exercises himself in the commandments. For the nature of the commandments is such as instruct us unto observance and work, as is this: Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, and other things like these. These, therefore, are exercised, because in them is the practice of activity, confirming himself unto things to come through the exercise of things present.
But the statutes of justice are those by which a Hebrew boy, after being a slave for six years, becomes free thereafter in the seventh year, and after the fruits of six years the field is to be left fallow, and other things appointed for the observance of the statutes of justice, which have in themselves a mighty meditation of future hope through the accomplishment of a present business. And therefore he meditates on these, as he exercises himself in the commandments: because exercise retains the practice of an established custom, but meditation extends itself toward that which it has not yet obtained, so that through meditation it may reach that which it strives after; the meditation of the statute of justice attains this, that the forgetfulness of the promises may not creep in. GIMEL. Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live: and I will keep thy words, and the rest.
Those who do not have the steadfast conscience of a cleansed heart cannot pray these things with the prophet's voice: Deal bountifully with thy servant. For if a recompense worthy according to our works be given, we shall remain in the punishments of our sins and transgressions. But it is enough, if to anyone there be even this least confidence of rejoicing before the Lord: He hath not dealt with us according to our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the height of heaven above the earth, so hath he removed our iniquities from us, for he knoweth our frame. It is a great thing to recognize in oneself the mercy of God, and to know that the habit of crimes is far removed from oneself, and that one is worthy of the mercy of God.
But this prophet, in whose body, that is, the dwelling of God is worthy, who being full of the Holy Spirit thinks and utters nothing common nor earthly, has this liberty, that he may pray: Deal bountifully with thy servant. But perhaps it is a mark of insolence to have desired the merit of recompense without any modesty of confession, and not to have remembered that he is set in a body, that is, in a base and lowly lot. But the prophet excluded all suspicion of vanity concerning himself. For when he had said Deal bountifully—out of innocence—he added thy servant—out of the office of servitude and out of the confession of his own condition. Steadfastly, therefore, does he ask these things, who remembers that he is the servant of God, not of sin; because everyone who sins is the servant of sin.
I shall live, he says, and I will keep thy words. I shall live and I will keep—these are not a matter of present time, but the meaning of his utterance extends itself into future time. For the prophet knows when that blessed and true life of the living shall be. For now we remain in the dust of death and are in the body of death, from which the apostle prays to be freed, saying: Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? But even now we have matter mingled with us, which is subject to the law of death and of sin; and in the dwelling-place of this frail flesh and its weak corruption we borrow a stain of decay from its fellowship, and unless the body be glorified into the nature of the spirit, the true nature cannot be in us.
Let us hear him who remembers that he dwells in the body of death, saying: For your life is hidden with Christ in God. When our life shall appear, then you also shall appear in glory. This recompense, therefore, the prophet prays for himself, that he may live, teaching that the time of this future is in another place, where he says: And I will please God in the region of the living. He knows that this seat of the present world is not the region of the living; he knows that we must yet be cleansed according to the law. For now we are mingled; and in the law whoever touches a dead body is unclean. But far be it that any of these things should be understood in the law corporeally, as though anyone becomes unclean through the touching of a dead body.
Moses himself, the giver of the law, carried away the bones of Joseph when leaving Egypt; Elisha lay upon a dead man, that he might make him live; the Lord himself drew back the dead by his hand into life: and if the touching of a dead body had been apt to make one unclean, the law would in no way have been violated either by such great men or by the Lord, since he himself says: I am come not to loose the law, but to fulfill it. But because the law is a shadow of good things to come, therefore through this signification it taught us that in this dwelling of the earthly and dead body we cannot be clean, unless through the heavenly washing we obtain cleansing, after the transformation of the resurrection of our earthly body, a more glorious nature having been wrought.
And perhaps if anyone should think that in the sacrament of baptism there was rendered to him that perfect purity worthy of innocence and of the heavenly life, let him recall that John the Baptist said: I indeed baptize you in water; but he that cometh is mightier than I: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire; and let him remember that the Lord himself, having been baptized by John while he was still in the body, spoke: I have yet another baptism to be baptized with. There is, therefore, so far as it is permitted to judge, a cleansing of perfect purity laid up even after the waters of baptism, which sanctifies us by the coming of the Holy Spirit, which shall refine us by the fire of judgment, which through the injury of death shall purge us from the stain and fellowship of the dead flesh, which shall wash us in the passion of martyrdom by devoted and faithful blood.
And therefore the holy prophet says that he shall live, when he lives—being transferred, namely, through this shadow to that true region of the living. According to which example, as he said: I shall live, so also: I will keep thy words. They are kept meanwhile, as the apostle Paul says, in part and through a glass. For there are many stumbling-blocks of the world that prevent the keeping of the commandments from being perfect in us. I say nothing of the natures of bodies, which meanwhile compel us to be imperfect, whether through weakness or through the enticements of vices. But truly, when death is conquered and its sting blunted, and when we hear and behold face to face, then shall we truly both live and keep the commandments of God. The order which is contained in the first verse is the same in what follows. For he says: