Behold the man who made not God his helper. It is of extreme folly and impiety not to understand that we live under God and from God, but in those things which one does and awaits to wish rather to trust in one's own power—which, if there be anything of it in oneself, is from God. Let all our hope therefore be toward God, and let all our confession be in God, after the example of the prophet who says: Lord, my helper and my redeemer; and again: I have lifted up my eyes unto the mountains, from whence help shall come to me. My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Let us therefore ever fear, lest at some time that eternal fire should burn us and the immortal worm consume us, when we hear what the just, fearing and laughing, say:
Behold the man who made not God his helper, but hoped in the multitude of his riches. Wealth makes certain men insolent, and above all an empty confidence in riches turns away the fear of God: fools, not understanding that they ought for this reason to be the more religious because they are rich, since it is fitting to render thanks to the giver of the good things desirable to them, and that for this the guilt of avarice is the more inexcusable, since abundance does not excuse the necessity of avarice. But now how unhappy is confidence in an empty thing:
to despise God by possessing gold, as though gold were not from God's creatures, or as though anyone by the judgement of a sound mind gained by it any advance of a blessed life, because gold lies buried away for him, and from this the man became not one common to soul and body and able to be other than he was born; or, when he departs from life, would be about to use his gold in death! He will use it plainly, if he will use it rightly in life: if he shall feed the hungry with his bread, if he shall clothe the naked with his garment, or refresh the sick with his substance, or redeem the captive to his freedom—these plainly are the ambitious embassies of human treasure before God, this is the power to plead away crimes and the true suffrages.
Thus by gold we shall be transformed, so that from earthly we become heavenly and from mortal eternal. But that unbelieving people, not pondering these things and despising God's commandments, and thinking itself rich through the Law—which is the shadow of the good things to come—having ill used the riches it obtained, was rooted out and made to emigrate from the land of the living and the tabernacle, and torn away: believing itself all-powerful in vanities, namely in the glory of its own kingdom, in the gold of the temple, in the commandments of men, according to the prophet who says: In vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrines and precepts of men—the law of God being changed, insulting, by the observance of human custom. But the prophet, who must be understood to be just, speaks otherwise of himself and the confidence of his hope: But I, as . . .
a fruitful olive tree in the house of God, I have hoped in the mercy of God for ever and unto the age of the age. The age of men differs indeed in time, but the spirit of prophecy is the same. The prophet says that he abides in the house of God like a fruitful olive tree, a tree ever green and fruitful of the best fruit. To this olive the Apostle proclaims that, its branches being broken off for unbelief, the faithful nations have been grafted in from the ignoble wild-olive, so that against the nature of their kind they received the nature of the root. But the prophet, though abiding in the Law, being nevertheless an evangelical prophet, persists in being at once in the Law and in the Gospels, with his fruit, in the house of God:
not to be broken among the branches, not to be left in the trunk, not himself now useless to be offered for grafting upon the wild-olive, nor about to transfuse the strength of his own root into an alien tree, but whole and entire, as befits a preacher of the apostolic faith; not to be grafted from the nations into the root of the Law unto the evangelical faith, but even in the evangelical faith of the nations, by the strength of his own proper root and branches, himself wholly fruitful from the rich consciousness of the Law. But the house of God, according to the Apostle Peter, is the Church and all followers of the evangelical faith, as he says: Be ye built up a spiritual house, a royal priesthood. And Paul:
that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to conduct thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. In this house of God therefore the just and holy prophet, standing as a fruitful olive tree, using his own fruitful and rich root, hoped in the mercy of God; not for a time, not only in the short age of this bodily life, but unto the age of the age. For he extends his hopes to the infinite duration of perpetuity, nor is he shut in by the setting of death, since he knows that he is to live in the bosom of Abraham after the example of the poor man Lazarus, and knows also that by the change of the glorious resurrection he shall abide coeternal and conformed to God—and shall abide for this reason, which follows:
I will confess to thee, O Lord, unto the age, because thou hast done it: and I will wait for thy name, for it is good in the sight of thy saints. Hope is in the mercy of God unto the age and unto the age of the age. For those very works of righteousness will not suffice unto the merit of perfect blessedness, unless the mercy of God, even in this will of righteousness, should not reckon the faults of human changes and motions. Hence that saying of the prophet: Thy mercy is better than life: because, although the life of the just is commendable through the working of righteousness, yet through the mercy of God it shall obtain more of merit. For from this life it shall advance unto the eternal life;
and the mercy of God so rewards the working of righteousness that, having compassion on the will of righteousness, it grants each just one to be a partaker also of its own eternity. Therefore hope is in mercy unto the age and unto the age of the age: but confession only unto the age, not also unto the age of the age. For there is no confession of sins except in the time of this age, while each one is left to his own will and through the licence of life has the free choice of confession. For departing from life we depart at the same time from the right of will. For then, according to the merit of past will, the law now already established receives the will of those departing from the body either unto rest or unto punishment.
The prophet shows the will of that time to be no longer free but necessary, when he says: There is no will for me in those days. For, the freedom of will ceasing, the effect also of will, if there be any, shall cease. For the rich man, wishing to pass over to Abraham, is not permitted, a chasm being set between, whereas through the freedom of will he might have been in the bosom of Abraham. The freedom of will therefore is cut off, because there is no confession for the dead, according to that which is said: But in hell who shall confess to thee? Hoping therefore in mercy unto the age and unto the age of the age, the prophet confesses only in the age:
performing the temporal offices of confession in the time of the age, but extending his eternal hope by the eternity of the ages. But he added the cause of confession, saying: because thou hast done it; confessing namely that the Lord is the author of this universe, teaching that confession is to be made to no other than to him who made the fruitful olive tree of hope by his mercy unto the age of the age. And who this is, that has done these things, he shows, saying: And I will wait for thy name, for it is good in the sight of thy saints. He will wait therefore for the name of God, to whom he confesses, through whom all things were made: for there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.
He waits therefore for his name, that is, to see Jesus—to know his Saviour, the angel saying: And thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins. He waits to behold Christ, that through the profession of the noble family he may be a Christian. And good is this name, which archangels and angels adore, which demons tremble at and cannot bear, which men take up unto salvation; because it is written:
And everyone who shall call upon his name, this one shall be saved. But he waits, not secretly, not trembling, not alone, but in the sight of his saints—namely with free faith not refusing the testimony of his expectation even under the witness of the heavenly saints, or, after the example of prophecy, offering in himself to all the saints who are on earth an example of expectation. PSALM 52. Unto the end, for Maeleth, of understanding, to David himself. The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God, and the rest. The present Psalm is almost in agreement with the thirteenth Psalm, but it has in this very similarity of words no small distinction of understanding. First by the force of the inscription itself. For the thirteenth is thus inscribed:
Unto the end, of that David—by which title it is signified that that Psalm was prophesied by David; but here: Unto the end, for Maeleth, of understanding, to David himself. For where it is: Unto the end, of understanding, it is a signification of exhortation and admonition, by which we are bidden, according to the knowledge of the end, to apply the judgement of our understanding: so that we understand those things to be announced in the Psalm which shall be consummated in the end, according to that of the Apostle: Then the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God the Father; when he shall have made void every principality and power and virtue, then also shall he himself be subjected to him who subjected all things to him. But the last enemy, death, shall be made void. This therefore is the end which is understood in the Psalm.
But that which is inscribed "to David himself" shows that the whole is prophesied concerning Christ, who is the true David: because where it is inscribed "of him," there it signifies him who spoke; but where it is "to him," there it shows him to whom it is spoken. The senseless man hath said in his heart: There is no God. It is of human vice not to dare to commit shameful utterances to the words of the mouth, but, urged by the instinct of inner wickedness, to speak them within the heart: while, the iniquity of the will striving against the necessity of public shame, what one is ashamed to say, one is not ashamed to think. And therefore the fool says in his heart: There is no God, because, if he wished to utter this with the words of his mouth, he would be convicted of being a fool, as he is, by the judgement of public assent.
For who, beholding the world, would not perceive that there is a God? But it often happens that, when the necessity of truth compels us to the confession of God, yet the delight of vices persuades us that there is no God for us, and what against faith we believe, that we utter from the counsel of an impious heart. Whence that saying of God through the prophet: This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; because they will not believe what they cannot deny. And he shows the cause of this most foolish utterance in the heart, saying: They are corrupt and are become abominable in their iniquities. Iniquitous is whatever is outside the law. And those exceeding the law of God are first made subject to corruption, then to abomination:
because iniquity brings corruption, and corruption in turn deserves abomination. For when anyone transgresses the law of God, then he will deny God: and to deny God is corruption. For our Lord, to drive away corruption, was made the Word made flesh. For it behoves, according to the Apostle, that corruption be clothed with incorruption. But he who is iniquitous and who believes not that the Word, God, was made flesh, and who, because there is no God, will speak in his heart, shall remain corrupt and abominable. The thirteenth Psalm, for that they are become abominable in iniquity, thus says: They are become abominable in their devices. Nor does the sense and the crime differ:
because men, following those things which are pleasing to themselves, have transgressed the ordinances of the divine law. There follows then this complaint: There is none that doeth goodness. This verse, since it is set down below also with an addition, we shall treat in its own place. It has nevertheless now been opportunely and fittingly added, that, all being corrupt and abominable, no one is found in works of goodness: because, although we are wont sometimes to speak the things that are good, yet in the very deeds we with difficulty carry out the things that are good. And lest the will of God toward men should be thought careless, he added: The Lord hath looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there be one understanding or seeking God.
The looking-down of the Lord from heaven is known to have been frequent, as often as, moved by the sins of the human race, for the cause of our salvation he either chooses Noah before the flood, or justifies Abraham through faith, or promises Isaac the heir of his covenant, or in Jacob prefigures the firstborn of the later people, or sets Moses as prophet and leader and appoints him bearer of the law, or while he inspires the prophets in every time of the law. Through these efficacies then of his power and of this kind he looked down upon the sons of men, to see if there were any understanding and seeking God. But that is not easy, on account of which God deigns to look, that he may see:
and great is that which is so earnestly examined, whether it can be found in any one. For God looks forth from heaven, to see whether any of men intelligently seeks him out; for how few of men will you find who, according to perfect understanding, would wish to seek out God—who, first treating of the causes of created things and then of the constitution of the human race, would through the reason of understanding seek out the author and parent of so great a universe? Then why the world, why men, why the times of the age; why the patriarch chosen, why the law established, why the prophet sent, and unto what advancement the origin of all causes has stood firm? Then besides,
whom the virtues of the heavens and the ministries of the angels and the powers of the archangels and the kingdom of the devil and the gift of the Holy Spirit and the only-begotten Son of God, God from God, impart to us as an advance from so varied kinds of offices—this man, therefore, seeking him out through understanding, God looks forth to see. For the merit of understanding is not small, Solomon saying: Good understanding to all who find it; and again through another prophet: O Israel, what does God require of thee but to do judgement and to understand justice? For understanding is the proper office of human reason;
and therefore the nature of a spiritual soul has been implanted in us, that through it we might strive toward the perception of understanding, which alone is partaker of reason. But overwhelmed by vices and, through the delights of the body, oppressed by the nature of bodily heaviness, we turn ourselves aside from the pursuit of understanding's search. But we turn aside after we have begun to be useless; for this the prophetic word signifies: They have all turned aside, they are together become useless. It is not when they turn aside that they become useless; but when they have begun to be useless, they turn aside. And the force of the saying is easy to understand from the custom of human change.
For when from good we have begun to be evil, and by vices and disgraces have separated ourselves from the intimacy of the prudent and from the honesty of public repute, being thereby made useless, then we turn aside from all meetings with men of good report, following byways, and shun the presence of the good through the shame of our conscience. Finally Adam, made useless through sin, then turned aside from the coming of God; living for a while innocent and, through the observance of the commandments, useful, he fled the meeting with God that had before been familiar to him, as soon as he began to be useless. But none being found seeking out God intelligently, and all, as soon as they were made useless, turning aside, the complaint is repeated with the grief of affection, saying:
There is none that doeth goodness, there is not even up to one. Grievous is this profession of God and indissoluble is the judgement upon human vices, since no one doeth goodness even up to one. And it will be asked hereafter, how Abel pleased, how Seth was approved, how Enoch was translated, how Noah was preserved, how Melchizedek was sanctified, how Abraham was chosen, how Isaac was heir, how Jacob was Israel, how Job was blameless, how Moses was a friend, how Aaron was anointed, how David was according to the heart of God, how the prophets were spiritual, how the apostles were allotted the keys of heaven—if, one only excepted, no one is good? And now how shall that saying be understood: A good man out of a good treasure bringeth forth good things, and that: Good servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord?
For how shall anyone be called good, if no one doeth goodness? And first, lest we should think that this profession, as of a general sentence, falls even upon those whom we have above recalled, men most approved by the judgement of God, the sense of the foregoing sayings resists it. For the whole discourse was begun concerning the foolish and the corrupt and the abominable; and, God looking forth from heaven to see if there were any intelligently seeking, all turning aside after they had begun to be useless, no one was found doing goodness even up to one—that is, of those who both foolish and corrupt and abominable, and, after they were made useless, had begun to be turning aside:
The sentence of divine judgement falls in accordance with those with whom the discourse itself began. But that which he says, 'even to one,' does not except one out of them all; rather, since all being unprofitable and turning aside, no one, even to one, does good, he set apart not even one from among them all. For he does not say 'except one,' but 'even to one.' And in the phrase 'except one,' the excepting of one is signified; but in the phrase 'even to one,' the whole universal body is embraced, by the diligence of Him who looks out from heaven and knows all, under a certain particular and personal number.
Yet let us remember that it is a weakness of human nature that, in comparison with the divine goodness, no one is good; but that incomparable exception of the Godhead did not shut out the exercise of goodness, so as to make no one good among men according to a human comparison. For goodness is first that which is perfect, which, subsisting by the power of an unchangeable nature, knows never to be otherwise than it has been, nor can fail to be that which it always is. But human motions are for the most part diverse through their very changeableness, and the imperfect nature of earthly law becomes something else, altered by one impulse or another that unsettles it.
And to this the motions of our diverse affections impel us: when we grow angry at insult, when we are moved by loss, when we are inflamed by wrath, when we are unsettled by fear, when we are swayed by love, when we are driven by hatred, when we are carried away by joy, when we are goaded by grief, when we differ in judgement, when we are changed by age. Subject therefore to these weak motions of nature, we cannot be constant, since we are changeable both in affection and in time. And for this reason perfect goodness is in no one, because the incitements of natural disturbances alter it. Yet nevertheless, when we are in goodness either in will or in deeds, we cannot at that time not be what we are.
And although we are imperfect to the point of not always being what nevertheless we are for a time, still, though by the weakness of nature we are liable to a changing away from goodness, it is not taken from us that we are good even at the time when we are. But He alone who is good by His unchangeable nature, God, always the same, was not a harsh judge of this changing of ours, granting indulgence to our weakness, by which we do not always remain good, out of the merit of the will by which it delights us to be good; and He was more favourable to those things which we would wish than He was angered by those things which we could not perform. For indeed, when He had said to Moses, His faithful friend, whom He had appointed as a god to Pharaoh:
'Because you did not glorify me at the water of contradiction, go up into the mountain and die,' He afterwards, in the place of his burial known to no one, reserved this same Moses—seen together with Elijah by the apostles on the mountain—as a partaker and witness (martyr) of His blessed and eternal kingdom. And, that I may not run through examples of this kind of God's goodness by way of Aaron and David and Solomon and very many others, to whom, though their offences of change were rebuked, yet for the merit of their faith a ready pardon was at hand—the Lord, conscious of human weakness, when He had said to the apostles:
'You will all be scandalized in me this night,' yet even to blessed Peter—not so much by way of denouncing a condemned change, but because through the fear of the flesh man is changeable—though He forewarned him of that which he was about to deny, and though he did deny, He nevertheless did not take away the keys of the kingdom of heaven; for although through fear the denial crept in, yet the firm faith of a will to confess even unto martyrdom was not lacking. And it is one thing to be unwilling, another to be unable. For Peter, though terrified, even if through the sense of the flesh he could not maintain the constancy of his answer, yet through the faith of his soul he wept at once. And when he recognized himself shaken away from that which he willed, in the grief of his tears he poured out the affection of his faith.
And that very moment of weeping was the time of change—that is, the firmness of will proving stronger according to the change of trepidation. For the constant faith soon wept over the inconstancy of its trembling, thereafter confirming by the confession of martyrdom the most approved firmness of apostolic constancy. These things therefore we have here recalled, lest we should think it was said in a general sense: 'There is none that does goodness, there is not even to one,' since these men, so many and so great, pleasing to God, even if through the change of nature they had for a little departed from the purpose of their faith, nevertheless by the greatest and most beautiful works of goodness obtained the glory of the heavenly judgement concerning themselves.
And indeed this reasoning of our understanding is confirmed by what follows: 'Shall not all they know who work iniquity, who eat up my people as the food of bread? They have not called upon God: there they trembled with fear, where there was no fear. For the Lord has scattered the bones of them that please men; they are confounded, because God has despised them.' For if no one, even to one, does goodness, how is it the people of God who is eaten as the food of bread by the workers of iniquity? The generality therefore of the sentence is removed, since those who work iniquity are separated from the people of God, who beyond doubt abide in the works of goodness.
The workers of iniquity therefore eat up the people of God as the food of bread—those who live off the injuries done to the saints, who delight in the harassment of the prophets and the devastation of the Church and every operation of iniquity. Those also eat up the people of God as the food of bread who tear him apart with the bite of detraction and the mangling of envy, according to that saying of the Apostle: 'But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another.'
But there are also those who eat up the people of God as the food of bread, whose God, as the same blessed Apostle says, is their belly—who reckon their ministry as a means of trade, enriching themselves by the contributions and gifts of the people, while under the pretext of religion they pursue costly banquets, while they stuff their storerooms with the profitless service of the religious—whereas the custom of this necessary contribution was instituted by the apostles only for the daily sustenance of those renouncing the world or for the relief of the needy through want. Of such it is written: 'devouring the houses of widows, and for a pretence making long prayers.' These therefore eat up the people of God as the food of bread, and they have not called upon God. For the foolish have said in their heart: 'There is no God.' They do not call therefore upon Him whom they deny.
Or certainly, if any who are set in the Church eat up the people of God by detraction, by persecution, by expense, as the food of bread, even though they believe they call upon the Lord, they shall hear that it was said in the Gospel: 'For we know that God does not hear sinners.' These therefore have not called upon the Lord, because prayer is not a profession of words, but of faith. But those who do not call upon God add this also to their impiety, that they fear things not to be feared: for there they trembled where there was no fear—venerating rocks, metals, oaks, fire, water, the upper air, kings dead and about to die, or the other superstitious inventions of religions, and by this very impious fear of empty things and contempt of necessary fear deserving to be condemned by the comparison:
since it is not so much impious to forget the fear of God as it excels in impiety to have preferred the fear of empty things to the fear of Him. But the Lord taught that in us there ought to be fear only of those things which are truly to be feared, when He says: 'Do not fear those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul; but rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.' Impious therefore is the fear when things not to be feared are feared and things to be feared are not feared. And for the most part we think that we piously flatter kings as though out of a due religious duty, because they have some power over our body:
to whom nothing further is permitted over us than to a robber, than to a fever, than to a fire, than to a shipwreck, than to a collapsing ruin. For by these mischances they rage against our bodies as by a supreme power; and for the sake of brief pain we surrender the liberty of the Church, the confidence of our hope, the confession of God—not fearing God the punisher and destroyer of both our body and soul in the fire of judgement, and preferring momentary and passing torments to the eternal punishments of divine vengeance; while we glory in pleasing them and in remaining in their favour by an impious servitude. And this very thing the divine sentence condemns by a most grievous decree. For to that which he had said, 'Shall not all they know who work iniquity, who eat up my people as the food of bread?'
'They have not called upon God: there they trembled with fear, where there was no fear'—to this he added, as the sum of the discourse he had begun: 'For God has scattered the bones of them that please men; they are confounded, because God has despised them.' These therefore, who work iniquity and eat up the people as the food of bread and have not called upon God and have trembled in things not to be feared, shall they not know that God has scattered the bones of those who wish to please men? That holy teacher of the nations feared the sentence of this prophetic saying, when he said: 'If I still pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.' Profitless and irreligious is the pursuit of human favour.