APPENDIX TO THE WORKS OF ST. BASIL THE GREAT
NOTICE
Whatever savors of antiquity is accustomed to please many. This is the reason why we have taken care to have committed to print a Latin interpretation of certain orations of Basil, long ago adorned by that most ancient writer Rufinus; and we hope it will be all the more pleasing in that it now comes to light for the first time from old books. More is in the Preface.
HOMILIES OF SAINT BASIL THE GREAT, BISHOP OF CAESAREA, WHICH RUFINUS TRANSLATED FROM GREEK INTO LATIN.
PREFACE BEGINS.
You had long ago requested, Apronianus, my dearest son, that certain things be translated for you into Latin: which I have in part accomplished at the present time while I was in the City, and have also now added somewhat. I have therefore translated these eight brief homiletic little books of the blessed Basil. However, I wish you to know that his style in the splendor of the Greek language and the grace of his discourse greatly resembles our blessed Cyprian, because in truth they do not differ much in the merits of their lives. For although the blessed Cyprian purchased the first prize of martyrdom with his happy blood, Basil no less attained the second prize of confession; for day by day and moment by moment, against luxury through sobriety, against lust through virginity, against anger through gentleness, against pride through humility, he was crowned by the A incessant martyrdom of his own conscience. His discourse is therefore more moral, one that can both instruct souls for a good life and relieve them from labors. And it has in this an even greater grace, that his reading is found to be most suitable even for religious women, and especially for your daughter, a matron of admirable zeal, our dear child, since it is not roughened by any doctrinal inquiries at all, but the most limpid river of his eloquence is borne along in gentle and very tranquil streams. Indeed, if it should seem less splendid in Latin, in the poverty of our speech, do not ascribe it to him, nor to me, but rather to yourself, who set a less suitable minister over a good work.
*Preface ends.*
HOMILY I. On the first Psalm.
1. "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching"; for this very reason it was written by the Holy Spirit, that, as from a common fountain of sanctity, all of us might draw remedies for our own passions. For health, he says, suppresses many sins. For some things are what the prophets deliver, others what the historians. The Law, too, is one thing; the admonition of the Proverbs is another. But the book of the Psalms contains whatever is useful from all of them; it predicts the future, it commemorates the deeds of the ancients, it gives laws to the living, it sets a standard for those who are at fault; and, to speak briefly, it is a certain common treasury of good doctrine, providing what is suitable and necessary for each individual. For it knows how to heal the old wounds of souls; but it also knows how to apply a most swift remedy to recent ones, and to provide perseverance in salvation to those who are unscathed, but also to aid with equal measure all the passions that drive human souls with various tyrannies: and this is done with a modulated and delightful song, provoking the human sense toward purity. For indeed the Holy Spirit, seeing that the human race is struggling and resisting the path of virtue, and is more inclined to the pleasures of life than to be raised up to the straight path of virtue, mingled the force and sequence of doctrine with the delightful measures of a chant, so that while the hearing is soothed by the sweetness of the melody, the utility of the divine word might be simultaneously inserted, according to wise physicians, who, if the occasion demands, are accustomed to offer more bitter medicines to sick mortals, B so that the patient may not flee from the utility because of the bitterness, they smear the rims and tops of the cup, by which the remedy is offered, with honey. Therefore, for this reason, the songs of the Psalms have been adapted for us through musical modes, so that those who are either children in age or adolescents in character may seem to be delighted as if by a certain chant, but in truth may have their souls illuminated and their minds enlightened. For many of those who come into the Church are not able to retain the apostolic precepts easily, nor the prophetic ones, when they have departed; C but the responses of the Psalms, adapted through musical modes, as if by a certain chant, may be sung by them...
A even within their homes, and sometimes even in public. And if anyone, however much he may be seized by a fierce and rabid spirit, should by chance be enchanted by the songs of the Psalms, as I may call them, immediately all the rabies of his ferocity departs.
2. The Psalm is the tranquility of souls, and the arbiter B of peace, restraining the perturbations or waves of thoughts, repressing anger, repelling luxury, suggesting sobriety, gathering friendships, bringing the discrepant into concord, and reconciling enemies. For who would consider him an enemy, with whom he has uttered one voice of a Psalm to God? From which it is understood that the Psalm also restores what is the greatest of all goods, charity, effecting a kind of conjunction through the consonance of voice and joining together a diverse people into the concord of one choir. The Psalm puts demons to flight; it invites angels to the aid of salvation. It is a shield in nocturnal terrors, rest from daily labors, protection for children, an ornament for youth, consolation for the old, and the most fitting decoration for women. It makes deserts habitable and teaches cities sobriety; to the simple, it becomes the first element; to those progressing, an increase; to the perfect, a stable foundation: it is the one voice of the whole Church. The Psalm adorns solemnities; the Psalm assuages the sadness that is according to God; the Psalm even moves tears from a heart of stone. The Psalm is the work of angels, the spiritual incense of the heavenly hosts. O truly the wise invention of an admirable teacher, that we may appear to sing and at the same time be taught what pertains to the utility of the soul, by which a more necessary doctrine is informed in our minds! For if any things have been inserted into our minds by force and some difficulty, they immediately slip away; but those things which we receive with grace and delight, I know not how, seem to reside more in the minds and to inhere in the memory! But what is there that cannot be learned from the Psalms? Does not all magnitude of virtue, does not the norm of justice, does not the decorum of modesty, does not the consummation of prudence, does not the mode of penance, does not the rule of patience, does not everything good that can be said proceed from them? The perfect knowledge of God, the foretelling of Christ about to come in the flesh, the commination of future judgment, and the hope of resurrection, the fear of punishments, the promise of future glory, the revelation of mysteries. All goods whatsoever are stored up and gathered in these, as if in some great and common treasury. Which book the Prophet, although there are many musical instruments, has nevertheless adapted to this organ which is called the psaltery, teaching, as it seems to me, that the grace inspired into it through the Holy Spirit—since indeed this instrument alone of all musical ones is said to have its sounds adapted from above. For the cithara or the lyre, having bronze or a tympanum in the lower part, resonates C as it results from the plectrum: the psaltery, however, is said to have its harmonies from above and to provide the causes of sounds from on high: so that by this, too, He might teach us to seek the things which are above and higher, and not to decline toward inferior things, that is, toward carnal vices, by the pleasure of songs. But I also think that something deeper is indicated to us by this prophetic reason, and that we are taught by the form of this organ that those who are diligent and apt and moderate in their morals may have an easy and unobstructed path to the higher things. But let us see at last what is indicated even by the very beginnings of the Psalm.
3. *Blessed*, he says, *is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly*. If those who build houses prepare to construct massive heaps of buildings and bring them to an immense height, they lay such foundations as can conveniently bear the magnitude of the superstructure. But also, when shipbuilders wish to construct huge and cargo-bearing craft, they first place the keels as a kind of foundation for the vessel, suitable for the burdens to be placed upon them. Likewise, in the generation of animals, the heart is said to be the first of all to be coagulated and bound together by nature, from which, following the sequence of such a principle, the remaining coverings of the members are also said to be interwoven and bound together, which, according to the magnitude of the first foundation, which is the heart, are maintained by nature to be superimposed and to grow upon it. What therefore the foundation is in a house, and the keel in a ship, and the heart in the body of animals, this short little verse of the beginning seems to me to have the same power for the entire body of the Psalms. For, seeing that He was about to give many precepts to men, full of labor and sweat, to those who wish to prepare themselves for the struggles of piety, for this reason He uses the term "blessed" before all else, that by the hope of such great rewards we might more tolerably endure the sorrows and pains of this life. Thus does the hope of an inn refresh those who travel and tread upon rough and difficult ways; and the desire for profit makes merchants dare to endure marine dangers; and the hope of crops leads the labors of farmers into oblivion. For which reason, the instructor of our common life and the unique doctor, the Spirit of truth, with most wise art names the rewards before the labors, by the desire for which, being provoked, we may more easily tolerate the weight of oncoming troubles. *Blessed*, therefore, *is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly*. There is indeed one first and true and proper beatitude, just as there is one good, which is God: even as Paul also commemorates, saying, *According to the Gospel of the blessed God and our Savior Jesus Christ*. For in very truth that alone is blessed which alone is good, to whose aid all things look, which all desire, which is the only inconvertible nature, an imperturbable life; where no sorrow approaches D
in which there is no immutability, in which no conversion happens; a perennial fountain, incessant grace, a treasure without end. But ignorant men and those who love this world, while they are ignorant of the nature of the good, sometimes think those things blessed which are to be called of no account, that is, riches, or bodily health, or the glory of honors, none of which is strictly good according to its own nature; not only because it may easily be changed into the contrary, but because those things cannot be believed to be good which cannot make those who possess them good. For who has been made righteous by wealth? Who made chaste by health? Nay, truly, they have sometimes even supplied the occasion for sinning to those who knew not how to use health or riches A competently and profitably. Blessed, therefore, is he who possesses those things which are truly precious: who obtains wealth that does not fail. But how do we know him who "walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly"? But before we say what it is to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, it seems fitting to solve the question which arises in this place. Why, he asks, does the Prophet call only the man blessed? Are women excluded from blessedness? Far from it! For the virtue of the mind is one for both man and woman: since indeed the creature is similar, whence also the same reward is prepared for both. Hear what he says in Genesis: *God created man in his own image; male and female he created them*. But whose nature is one, their operation also and their virtue is the same; and whose work is equal, their reward also is one. Why, therefore, when he had spoken of the man, did he remain silent about the woman? Because he deemed it sufficient, since the nature of both was one, to make mention of him who was primarily created by God, so that in his commemoration both might be comprehended. Blessed, therefore, is he who "walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly." Observe the most diligent order of the words: how each word is sustained by the reason of its own dogma. He did not say, he who "does not go" in the counsel of the ungodly, but he who "walketh not." For one who still lives in this life cannot yet be called blessed, on account of the uncertain outcomes of life; but whoever, having fulfilled all that was commanded, has finished a peaceful end with the works of righteousness, he can already without any B discrimination or ambiguity be called blessed. Why, therefore, does he say again, "Blessed are they who walk in the law of the Lord"? For the divine word does not declare them blessed who "have walked," but them who "walk" in the law of the Lord. Therefore I think that those who do what is good, in that very fact that they do it, are embraced; and that not so much they themselves as their work deserves the commendation of blessedness. Yet not immediately are those who have begun to flee evil, and have once or twice turned away from sin, to be called blessed, unless they can in all things, whether in words or in deeds, C avoid evil, so that they are never captured by it, and adhere to what is good. But what shall we do because some things are suggested to us in the reading of the present verse which are contrary? For he did not say, "blessed is he who has done some good," but "blessed is he who has not done this or that evil," that is, he who "hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and hath not stood in the way of sinners, and hath not sat in the seat of the pestilent." For in this way even horses and oxen or other dumb animals, which can do none of these things, will seem to merit blessedness. For when has a horse committed something ungodly, or sat in the seat of the pestilent? But wait a little, and the question will perhaps be fittingly explained. For the Prophet added: *But his will is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night*, which certainly designates work, and the work of any rational being. In which also that one thing is signified, that the beginning of virtue is not to do evil, the progress is to do good, but the completion is to remain in good. For so he says also elsewhere: *Decline from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it*. D 4. Wisely, therefore, and learnedly enough, he opens to us the beginning of virtue, through the declination of evil. For it was not necessary that perfect things should be shown first; nor is it fitting to tell one who still acts badly to act well, but rather that he should recede from evils: so that, being emptied and void of evils, he may then also be made capable of good, and be accustomed to good works without the companionship and mingling of the contrary. For I would liken the way of virtue and piety to a certain ladder and ascent [al. to the steps of the ascent] and similar to that ladder which blessed Jacob saw in his sleep, of which some part was still established on the ground and was near and contiguous to earthly things, but part was stretched out and raised toward heaven. In which it is undoubtedly indicated that those who are still taking the beginnings and first elements for the journey of virtue, relying as it were on the first steps, endeavor to ascend; but when they have stood with firmer feet and stable footsteps, they will be able from these, with a more intense effort, to ascend even to things higher, until, as far as it is possible for human nature, gradually as progress succeeds, they reach the highest things. As therefore for those ascending the ladder the first step is to depart from the earth, so also the ascent of virtue and piety has the beginning of departing from evil. For whatever leisure is to be preferred to any not-right work, just as those things are which are commanded: *Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal*; all of which induce rather the leisure and quiet of the soul than the efficacy of any work. But those things which pertain to the progress of perfection demand work, as that: *Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself*; and: *Sell all thy goods, and give to the poor*; and: *If anyone shall compel you to go a mile, go with him another two*.
A Since, indeed, each of these things contains certain struggles of pious combat and demands of the soul not idleness, but useful activity. The reason for divine wisdom is, therefore, to be admired, which provokes us from easier beginnings to better things and leads us to more perfect ones. There are, therefore, three things that it has proposed for us to observe: not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, not to stand in the way of sinners, not to sit in the seat of pestilence. This order, for its part, taken from natural things, it has inserted into the verses written above. For first of all, things revolve in the thought and counsel of men; then, afterward, men are accustomed to remain and persist in those things which have been decreed by thought and counsel. The first blessedness is therefore granted to the thought and counsel, if they be just. From these, as it were roots, we bring forth good fruits through the acts of the body, which the good and pious root of the heart suggests. For adultery is conceived first in the mind of the unchaste when the heart, inflamed by lust, seethes with impure desires; then, afterward, the corruption itself is fulfilled through the acts of the body. Whence also the Lord was saying that the things which defile a man are from within. Since, therefore, impiety is properly said of that which is sinned against God, let it not happen to us, because of unbelief, to receive at any time some ambiguity concerning God. For this is to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, if you say in your heart: "Do you think there is a God who dispenses each thing and every individual? Do you think there will be judgment and retribution for everyone according to his works? Why, therefore, do the just suffer need, and sinners abound? B The just are weak; those are strong? The just are ignoble, those are truly powerful and noble? Lest, perhaps, all things are rolled along by chance and fortune, and events are uncertain—I know not how—and human lot is vexed by unjust and fortuitous motions?" If you think such things, if you look upon these in your heart, you have walked in the counsel of the ungodly. Blessed, therefore, is he who does not conceive ambiguity in his heart concerning God, who is not overcome by present weariness and troubles, but awaits the justice of God in the time of future examination; who has not entertained infidel opinions about God, the creator of all. But also that man is called blessed who has not stood in the way of sinners. The C way, for its part, is called this span of our life, for the reason that each of mortals hastens and tends toward a certain and manifest end. For just as those who sleep in ships, even if they themselves do not perceive it, are nevertheless carried to port by the ship agitated by the winds, and the journey itself leads them to the end: so, too, we, when the time of our life has flowed away, constrained and driven by certain natural motions, are carried to our proper end. For example, you sleep, and time passes; you wake, and you are occupied in mind, and you are distracted by thoughts, and without your knowing it, time departs, and life is consumed. We all run a certain course, all men, and each is compelled toward his proper end, and therefore we all are in the way. You can perceive the sense of this matter in this way: D You are a traveler on the present road, you leave all things behind your back. Have you never seen on the road a dark grove and pleasant greenery, or if there were some other things by which the gaze is fed and delighted? You were delighted a little, then you passed by. And again, rough rocks met you, broken valleys, steep precipices, overhanging crags; sometimes also beasts, serpents, and other things bothersome to the eyes and harsh to the senses met you; you were saddened a little, then you left all things behind. Such is our life. Neither those things which are pleasant, nor those which are sad, persist. Therefore, neither is the way yours, nor are those things which are in the way yours. Among those who make the journey, as soon as the former has moved his foot, the latter, pressing on his footprints, strives with the same steps; then, afterward, another who is behind him labors at the same things that the prior did. A B C Look, if there are not such things and very similar ones which human life has. You hold land today; tomorrow another will hold it. Do you see noble possessions and powerful houses? How many times have the individual names of their owners already changed! It was called by the name of the first, then afterward it was transferred to another, and was named by the name of the other. Then it comes to another, and now is called by his. Is our life not a road? And it receives now one, now another again as possessor, and they have individuals following one another. Blessed, therefore, is he who has not stood in the way of sinners. But what is it that he said, "did not stand"? When men are placed in early age, we are neither in malice nor do we stand in virtue (for such an age and disposition is destitute of either): but when the reason of the intellect begins to be fulfilled in us, then that which is written is fulfilled: *But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died* 18. For then the evil thoughts die, generated from the passions of the flesh and the motions of the soul. For in very truth, when the commandment has come, that is, when the discernment and intelligence of good and evil have begun to be in the heart, if right thought has not obtained the soul and defended it so that it might not be captured by carnal vices—when there is indeed to man the faculty and reason for acting rightly, and yet he does not act rightly—then it happens that sin revives, but the soul dies, from the fact that, oppressed by delicts, it is numbered among the dead. Blessed, therefore, is he who has not stood nor lingered in the way of sinners, but has turned himself with better thought to the exercises of piety. For there are two ways mutually contrary to each other. One is broad and spacious; the other is narrow and tight. And these two ways have two guides of the journey, of whom each provokes and instigates those who make the journey to follow him. And that way which is broad and spacious has as guide a seductive demon, a most wicked spirit, who precipitates those following him through lust and luxury into perdition and D
death. But that way which is narrow and arduous has as a guide a good angel, who, through the labor of virtue, leads those who follow him to a blessed and most excellent end. Therefore, so long as one of us is an infant and in this present life pursues all that is soft and sweet, he has no foresight of things to come; but when he has already become a man and has arrived at a perfect intellect through the sense of his own mind, he finds suggesting to himself the very order of mortal life, whether it pertains to virtue or to lust. And when he begins to turn the eye of his mind more frequently to both, it is ready for him to discern and judge each. For the life of sinners immediately shows him everything that belongs to the present age as pleasing, and suggests that it is to be sought; but the life of the just determines that those things alone are good which are future, and the more it promises that these are good and excellent, the more it persuades that they are to be sought through the virtue and labor of the present life. That fleeting and luxurious life, however, suggests that nothing of the future is to be sought, nothing that cannot be seen and held, or rather, that cannot be tasted; it persuades one to enjoy present things rather than to depend on future ones. Every soul, therefore, is in turmoil and is torn by thoughts; and now, indeed, when it thinks of eternal things, it loves and embraces virtue and labor; when, however, it considers present things, it prefers lust to all things that are hoped for and sets pleasure before them. For in these it sees the delights of the flesh, in those its destruction; here it perceives drunkenness, there sobriety and fasting; here it is dissolved by laughter, there it is afflicted by tears; here it sees luxury, there prayers; here delights, there groans; here it catches sight of unchastity, there of chastity. Since, therefore, that which is truly good can be conceived only by thought through faith—for it is very far removed from us in reality, and the eye has not seen it, nor has the ear heard it (but the sweetness of sin is always ready and at hand, and always abundantly offers its resources)—blessed is he who cannot be deceived by its enticements and plunged into perdition, but waits for the hope of salvation through the patience of labor. Blessed, therefore, is he who, when he has come to the beginning of this vice, is not deceived in the choice of his way, nor stands in that way which leads to death, but, having abandoned and left it behind his back, follows the path that leads to life.
6. *And in the seat of the pestilent he hath not sat.* Do you think that those are the seats in which we rest in bodily sitting, and from that wood in which we sit occasion is afforded us for sin, so that we must shun the seat or chair which by chance some sinner has occupied, lest we sit there as if in the seat of pestilence? Or must it be thought instead that this is called a seat when anyone resides in evils with a certain judgment of mind and deliberate resolve? This must surely be avoided, since with resolve and clear definition of purpose, as if from a judge’s seat, we persist in the works of sin. For then A the mind is strengthened by a kind of stability and immobility, and renders itself difficult to convert. For a habit of the soul that has become inveterate, and an evil confirmed by long meditation and by the length of time, can scarcely ever be eradicated and cast out, having by long custom and use been turned into a kind of nature. Therefore, it is to be prayed for first of all, if possible, that evil should not even touch us. But the second, so to speak, is that it is good, after the experience of an evil contagion, to escape like a poisoned wound, according to what is written in Solomon concerning the evil woman: *Do not*, he says, *confirm your eye upon her, but recoil from her, and do not linger* 16. But now we see some who have indeed fallen into the vices of the flesh in their youth, and remain and persist in their evils even unto gray hairs. For just as those who have fallen into a pit of mud, wherever they seem to turn or move themselves, always remain stuck in the same mire: so also these daily renew the filth of their lust through all their movements. It is blessed, therefore, not even to think of evil. But if by the stealth of the enemy you have received an evil or impious counsel, do not stand, nor remain in sin. And if this has happened, do not at once confirm yourself and reside in evil. Therefore, do not sit in the seat of pestilence. If you have understood what the seat is which the discourse has described—that is, that one persists and continues in evil—let us also inquire who these pestilential persons are, whose seat the divine discourse urges is to be shunned. Those who are concerned to know such matters say that a pestilence is when such a disease has seized either men or animals, which is accustomed to be transmitted from one to another and to spread and extend through all. Such, therefore, are these workers of iniquity B who, when they have transmitted the disease of their illness one to another, all fall ill together; and they also perish together and alike. Or do you not see how those who besiege the doors of a brothel for the sake of harlots mock chaste and sober men, while they themselves count up among themselves the tales of their own shames as if they were brave deeds, and proclaim the works of darkness and the disgraces of their uncleannesses as if they were ornaments of their own virtue? These are the pestilential ones, who, by teaching others their own evils, make them the common evils of all, when they entice those who hear them to imitation and strive to associate many into the fellowship of their own evils; no differently than when a fire is introduced to fragile straw and withered brushwood, if by chance it is also fueled by the blowing of the winds, it ravages and consumes fields and forests alike: so the flame of sin, kindled from one to another and lashed by frequent narrations as if by certain blasts of winds, and further stirred up by the more wicked fires and whirlwinds of malignant spirits, feeds upon and consumes the whole forest of the human race alike. For what else is enacted in those most shameful [acts] of the luxurious
banquet are prepared, when obscene narratives are told, and harlots are mixed in with the drinking? Among whom, if anyone by chance is found to be a little more modest or more sluggish toward sin, he is ridiculed by all and judged to be slothful and useless. Is this, I ask, a slight pestilence of this kind, or a meager contagion of vices? What then, if someone begins to imitate the diseases of avarice, and to trample upon all the paths and entrances of greed? What if [he imitates] the plague of ambition, the desires for honor, the lust for power, and individual things of this sort? When those who are earlier in line, so to speak, pursue these with shameful vice, they present the worst of examples to others, and implant the disease itself into the very marrow of the human race, wasting cities and peoples far and wide. Now, truly, what royal court B has not groaned with the emulation of envy and jealousy, or who has not felt them in the ranks of the military? What camp, what forum, what city, what order has not lamented them? When, through factions and conspiracies, treachery is offered by the greater against the lesser, and the lesser perpetrate crimes. Thus, in every single crime, one is ignited by another, and is laid prostrate by the contamination of the pestilence, whence such men are deservedly to be called pestilential. "Do not," he says, "sit in the council of such men; do not seek their consensus or their meetings, lest you be stained by the contagion of their disease, and become either a participant in or a witness to their evil counsels." But what are we doing? We are still at the beginning of our discourse, and already we exceed the limit of brevity which ought to suffice for the multitude; since, indeed, you cannot easily commit everything to memory if more is said, and the ministry of the word supplies us nothing more, owing to the innate frailty of the body, as our voice fails—although those things which have been said seem to possess a certain perfection in their very brevity. For they contain how evils are to be fled from, or how goods are to be sought. If, with God’s help, we see these things C retained by you in memory and fulfilled in deed, we will be encouraged to complete the things that remain in the exposition. God will provide both for us a reward for what has been said, and for you the fruit from these things which you have heard, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
HOMILY II.
*Concerning that which is written*: "Attend to yourself, lest perhaps there be a hidden word of iniquity in your heart" (17).1. God, who has created us, has granted us to bring forth the hidden counsels of the heart to one another through the ministry of the word, and for the sake of our common affection toward one another, for each of us to reveal to our neighbor, as if from certain secret D dwellings, the mysteries of his counsel. For if we lived by the soul alone, naked and uncovered, we would be known to one another solely from the very movements of the mind and the intentions of our thoughts. But since the vigor of the soul is covered by the veil of the flesh, we have need of words, names, and terms to indicate and bring forth into the public view those things which we stir up within the depth of our thoughts or senses. When, therefore, this movement of the mind has obtained the significance of a voice, then, carried as if by a certain vehicle of the air struck by speech, it is transferred from the speaker to the hearer. And if indeed it finds a tranquil and quiet hearing, the speech is stored away in the ears of the listeners as in a most faithful and safe harbor; but if, like certain waves and rocky shoals, it clashes with the tumult and murmuring of the listeners, the speech, crossing through the space of the air, will be shipwrecked. Therefore, provide tranquility through silence for the word; for perhaps the word of truth will be able to bring some benefit, if indeed it does not easily slip away through the sloth of the hearer while the mind is less attentive. For the very nature of the word is fashioned by the spirit to be cohesive, so that it may be swift and brief, and in a rapid course designate many things in few, so that through its very brevity it may be held more tenaciously in the memory. For this is the nature of an emended discourse: that it does not obscure what is being said with complexity, nor, abounding in inanities, cause the force of the matters being indicated to vanish. Such indeed is the discourse which has now been read to us from the volumes of Moses, provided you remember, you who have a more attentive care for the divine word, unless perhaps the hearing of the more sluggish has let it slip by on account of its brevity. The discourse is this: "Attend to yourself, lest perhaps there be a hidden word of iniquity in your heart." We human beings are prone to the faults of our thoughts, which is why He who fashioned our hearts individually (18), knowing that no small amount of offenses is admitted in these motions which have been conceived by the purpose of the mind and intellect, commands and enjoins upon us, before all else, the hardness and purity of heart. For in that part toward which we lean more readily toward sin, He fortifies it for us with greater caution and diligence. For just as a more skillful and very prudent physician, before the disease itself threatens, anticipates with pre-emptive zeal and the diligence of a certain precaution: so also God, the provider for all and physician of souls, concerning that which He foresaw would be most slippery for us toward guilt, sought to surround it with safer fences, and to wall it round with more cautious fortifications. For those acts which are accomplished by the ministry of the body have need of time, opportunity, labor, aids, and other instruments of this kind; but the movements and thoughts of the mind...
are accomplished without labor, and they have all time available. For consider for me A some ambitious person who is puffed up with enormous pride, carrying the image of continence and sobriety in his outward appearance, and sitting even in the midst of laudable and wise men; this person, by a sudden thought of his mind, runs off and flies to places of sin, conceives wicked desires in his mind, and even fashions dishonorable and shameful conversations within himself: entirely within the secret workshop of his mind he has fashioned the whole image of lust for himself and has drafted its gestures. He has committed a sin 718 which is unknown to all and without any witness; but it will be argued and revealed without a doubt by the coming of Him who brings to light the hidden things of darkness and makes manifest the counsels of the hearts 19. Observe, therefore, lest by chance a hidden word of iniquity be made in your heart. For B he who has looked at a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart 20. On account of this, while the acts of the body can be hindered by some intervening obstacles, when a person sins in the mind, because it is easy to wander in a point of thought, the harm of the offense will adhere most swiftly. Where, therefore, there is a swift opportunity for sin, there a swift care for a remedy is provided, and for this reason he protests, saying: Lest by chance a hidden word of iniquity be made in your heart. But let us now return rather to the beginning of the word itself.
2. Attend, he says, to yourself. Every animal C has received from God, the creator of all things, for its own defense and protection, certain proper occasions by which they might bring aid to their own safety when it is necessary; and you will find, if you attend diligently, that most creatures, with no one teaching them, either struggle more vehemently against those things which plot their destruction, or avoid them more cunningly; and again, by a certain natural impulse, they are moved and compelled toward those things that are advantageous. Therefore, for the sake of our instruction, God has commanded this magnificent precept, so that what is present in them by nature may be added to us by the help of the word and reason, and what in mute animals is done without a command may here be sought out by us through the diligence of the precept: so that we might conserve with greater providence those things which we perceive have been divinely granted to us; indeed fleeing from sin just as mute animals of their own accord flee from noxious and deadly foods: let us pursue justice just as they, with no one compelling them, pursue fecund and useful pastures. Attend, therefore, to yourself, that you may be able to discern the harmful from the useful. But since to attend D is twofold—one thing is to behold corporeal things with the eyes of the body, another is to behold incorporeal and spiritual things with the virtues of the intellectual soul—if we were to think that it is spoken in this place of carnal eyes, the statement of the word would immediately be shown to be absurd. For how could anyone possibly attend to or comprehend himself entirely with a bodily eye? Because, in the first place, the eye is neither able to consider and behold itself, nor can it observe its neighbors and those things looming above it; nor does it direct its gaze to the top of the head, nor in any way see its own back, nor will it see anything at all of its own face: not the secrets of the innards, not the hidden things of the veins. But if this is so, it will appear impious to say that the commandments of the Holy Spirit are impossible. It remains, therefore, that the vigor and intelligence of the precept be transferred to the intuition of the mind. Attend, therefore, to yourself, that is, look around yourself on all sides: exercise wakeful eyes for the guarding of your soul. You walk in the midst of snares (Eccli. IX, 20), hidden from you; snares, deceits, engines, and traps are dug everywhere by the enemy. Look around, therefore, at everything, and consider with cautious intention, so that you may escape like a fawn from the snares (Prov. VI, 5), and like birds from the nets. For neither does the fawn run into a snare, for the reason that it is said to possess very sharp vision, whence it also keeps the etymology of its name in the Greek; but the bird, using the aid of its wings, when it wishes to escape the deceits of the net, cuts through the higher paths of the air. See to it, then, that you do not happen to be worse than mute animals for the caution of your own safety, lest by chance, entangled in snares (II Tim. II, 26), you become the quarry and prey of the devil, captured by him according to his will.
3. Attend to yourself, that is, not to those things which are about you, but attend only to yourself. For we ourselves are one thing, those things which are ours are another, and those things which are about us are another. For we are soul and mind, according to which we were created in the image of Him who created us; our body and corporeal sense are ours; but worldly substance, the arts of living, and the rest of the instruments of mortal life are about us. What, therefore, does the word command? Do not attend, it says, to the flesh, nor pursue with a more intense study those things which appear to be goods of the flesh; that is, the health of the body, the comeliness and grooming of the face, the pleasure of the flesh and delights: nor sigh for the wishes of a longer life, do not admire the riches of the world, nor the glory of ambition, nor the power of fleeting happiness, and do not esteem and desire as 719 great anything at all that pertains to the ministry of the present life; so that, while you are caught up in the intention of your solicitude, you neglect those things which are truly great, and in which there is truly life: but attend to yourself, that is, to your soul. Cultivate it, consult it with all these cares and all these studies: so that you may wash away and purge with a better intention every stain that might have crept into it by the vices of iniquity: adorn it, and cultivate it with all the ornaments of virtue and piety. For indeed your body is mortal, but the soul is immortal, and our life is a certain duality. One life is indeed familiar to this flesh, and quickly failing with it: the other is kin to the soul, and to be closed by no end or boundary. Attend, therefore, to yourself, and do not lean upon mortal and fleeting things as if they were perpetual and eternal, nor again neglect and despise those things which are eternal as if they were fleeting and passing. Despise rather
the flesh: for it passes away. Apply diligence and study to the soul: for it is immortal. Look therefore and attend with all caution to yourself, so that you may know how to distribute to each part what is fitting: to the flesh, indeed, food and clothing; but to the soul, the doctrine of piety, a severe and grave conversation, the exercise of virtue, and the amendment of vices; and not to serve the fatness of the body, nor to run about for the sake of the pleasures of the flesh. Since, indeed: *The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary one to the other*, A see to it that you, in the conflict of this war, by lending your hands to the flesh and supplying it with as many aids as possible, do not raise up its power against the spirit and make the better part of yourself subject to the worse. For just as if you were to depress the balance of a scale to one side, you would without doubt make the other side lighter: so in this yoke of soul and body, when you have become more inclined to one side, the diminution of the other will be clear and manifest. For who doubts that, when the body overflows with luxury and is swollen with flesh, the vigor of the mind becomes sluggish and dull? But if the soul is imbued with the more flourishing exercises of virtue, and is raised by the meditation of better things to the height of its own greatness, it causes the state of the body to wither and to fade away through convenient infirmity. And the blessed Apostle points this out when he said: *For if our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day*. B
4. Now this command is useful even for the weak, and convenient for those who are more robust. For even in infirmities, physicians are accustomed to command the sick to attend to themselves, and to neglect nothing at all that can be applied for a cure. Similarly, therefore, the divine Word, the physician of our souls, succors the soul languishing from the bitterness of sins with the aid of this most brief command, saying: *Attend to thyself*, that is, so that if you should ever perchance fail, the care of the remedy and of amendment may be weighed according to the magnitude of the fault. If a great and grave sin has been committed by someone, it requires confession with great study, penance with many and bitter tears, intense and nightly vigils, and constant, continuous fastings. If the fault is light, let the penance be similar and equal to what was committed. Only attend to yourself, that you may understand and recognize both the health and the languor of your soul. For many, while they do not attend to themselves, do not know that they are suffering from grave and incurable diseases, and do not even realize themselves that they are sick. On account of which, the utility of this command is great, through which both care is suggested to the sick, and the integrity of perfection is demonstrated to the healthy. Moreover, each one of us who has surrendered ourselves to the discipleship of the Word of God C bears the ministry of some one work of those which are precepts in the Gospel. For in a great house—I mean in this Church—there are not only different vessels of gold and silver, or earthen and fragile, but also very many and diverse kinds of workmanship. For the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, has hunters or catchers; it has travelers, it has architects, builders, farmers, shepherds, athletes, soldiers, to all of whom the vigor of this very brief command will be adjusted suitably enough, so that it may grant to each one diligence in his work, and may stir up the desires and incitements of his purpose and mind. Are you a hunter, and destined by the Lord for the catch, who said: *Behold, I will send many fishers and hunters, and they shall catch them upon every mountain*? D Attend therefore to yourself diligently, lest the hunting of the Lord escape you and flee, whereby you might catch them with the word of truth and offer them to the Lord for salvation, those who, deceived by the errors of wickedness, wander as beasts and stragglers through all the rough places of sinners. Are you a traveler? Such as he who prays to the Lord: *Direct my steps in thy paths, that my footsteps may not be moved*. Attend to yourself, lest you perchance err from the way, lest you decline to the right or to the left, but walk by the straight way, the royal way. Are you an architect? Attend to yourself, that you may lay the foundation of faith, which is Christ Jesus, with all diligence and caution. Are you a builder? See how you build; do not pile up wood and hay, nor stubble or straw, but silver and gold and precious stones. Are you a shepherd? Attend to yourself, lest anything escape you of those things which pertain to the study and diligence of a shepherd. But if you inquire what these things are, listen: Convert and recall what has strayed, bind up what is bruised, heal what is sick. Are you a farmer? Attend to yourself, that you might diligently dig around the fruitless fig tree, and apply the squalor of dung, and do everything that looks toward a fruitful outcome. Are you a soldier? Attend to yourself, that you do not, as a soldier of God, entangle yourself in secular business, so that you may please Him who has proved you: but *labor with the Gospel, as a good soldier of Christ, fighting against the spirits of wickedness and against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness*. And then also against the vices of the flesh assume the shield of faith, and all the weapons of the spirit, by which, when clothed, you can resist the fiery darts of the devil. Are you an athlete? Attend to yourself, lest you do anything against the laws of athletics, because *no one is crowned except he who has contended lawfully*. Imitate Paul, who so runs that he may comprehend, and so struggles not as if beating the air, but *chastises his body and brings it into subjection, lest perhaps when preaching to others, he himself might be found reprobate*. Awake therefore, you too, and keep an unceasing eye for considering the snares of the adversary. If you run, 720 so run that you may comprehend, forgetting those things which are behind, and to
A press toward the goal, according to the words of the Apostle (Phil. 3:13). If you are struggling, fight against invisible adversaries. The meaning of this precept requires that you be such a person: nothing remiss, nothing hindered by sleep and sloth, but solicitously and vigilantly circumspecting all things; it wants you to be prudent in counsels and strenuous in deeds. Therefore, take heed to yourself.
5. Do not let time be wanting in those individual things which are taught as necessary to be done for the work of the Gospel, by the virtue of this precept. Take heed to yourself, that you may be awake to all things, so that nothing in your counsel escapes you; observe the present, foresee the future, conveniently manage what is in your hands, and faithfully await what is hoped for. Do not by chance think that you can boastfully and vainly enjoy things present, as some light and unstable youths, inflated by the vain cogitation of the mind, do—if perhaps, through a silence of time and nightly rest, by false images conceived in the mind through thought, they describe to themselves lofty dignities, illustrious marriages, the happiness of children, a long old age, the obedience of subjects, the service of clients; and, though in reality there is nothing, they are carried away by the tumor of vain thought above all men: they build huge houses in a moment, they fill them with sudden faculties seen only by the mind, they occupy immense spaces of lands and fertile fields, and they defend as many rights of possessions as the nod of their wandering mind has enclosed; but they also store up the fruit of these in more widely constructed barns of vanity. They add, B nonetheless, flocks, herds, servitudes, magistracies; they even presume upon kingdoms themselves and the high pinnacles of empire; they wage wars, stir up standard-bearers, set up trophies, lead triumphs, and rave with vain anxiety through the cares of the whole kingdom, so that they judge themselves to be enjoying all things as if present, when they hold nothing at all in their hands. This languor is proper to an idle and slothful soul: to see dreams while awake. The divine Word, cutting off and restraining this dissolution of the mind and inflammation of the heart and thoughts, comes to the aid through the authority of this most wholesome precept, saying: "Take heed to yourself," that is, do not think of things that are nowhere, but diligently attend to things present and those that are manifest. But I think that the legislator, wishing to cut off also that vice, brought forward the help of this commandment, because it is easy for everyone to inquire curiously into the affairs of others rather than to manage his own and those of his home. Therefore, that this may not happen, "cease," he says, "from discussing the evils of others; cease from making noise and celebrating parties about the acts of others; cease from mixing the reproaches of others into your own cups, and from lacerating the innocence of another's life amidst your feasts." Therefore, do not take heed to the languors of others, but take heed to yourself; that is, turn the eyes of your soul to the examination of yourself, you who, according to the word of the Lord, see the mote in your brother's eye, but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye (Matt. 7:3). Therefore, never cease from examining yourself; if your life is directed according to the standard of the commandments, if your way of life is free from all blame. Therefore, take heed and look around at yourself; do not count the faults and sins of those who are outside you, nor solicitously inquire if you can find any stain in your neighbor, according to that proud and boastful Pharisee who stood justifying himself, and reproaching and despising the publican; but do not cease to discuss and judge yourself, lest you have sinned in thought, lest you have tripped in tongue, while speech has forestalled and run before counsel through incautious loquacity; lest you have also committed anything in your acts and the work of your hands that has been ministered to avarice, or anger, or lust. If you always discuss and inquire into these things within yourself, you will find many things within you that you ought to amend, for which you ought to bear penitude. And if, as a human being, you find anything of the sort, say as that publican said: "God, be propitious to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13). Take heed, therefore, to yourself. This C discourse will appear both useful and necessary to you always—even if you live in prosperous circumstances and all your life proceeds in secondary happiness—as a good and faithful counselor suggesting exhortations for a better life. But if you are pressed by adverse and sad things, and this admonition is suggested to you in a time of necessity, it will immediately provide the greatest solace of remedies, so that you are neither puffed up too arrogantly in prosperity, nor resolved too softly and remissly in adversity. Are you flourishing and powerful in riches, and swelling with the consulships of illustrious ancestors? Do you boast of the nobility of your parents’ fatherland? Are you uplifted by bodily beauty and grace? Are you exalted by honors and supported by the obsequies of followers? Then especially take heed to yourself, and remember that you are mortal, and that earth you are, and into the earth you shall go (Gen. 3:19), and that it is possible for it to be said to you: "Fool, this night your soul shall be required of you, and those things which you have prepared, whose shall they be?" (Luke 12:20). Look at those who formerly shone with dignities of similar power. Where are they? What are they doing? Where are their D fasces? Where are the magistracies? Where are the badges of various dignities? Where, finally, are the most eloquent rhetoricians and most vehement orators? Where are those who celebrated frequent assemblies with the favors of their orations? Where is popular acclaim? Where are the exquisite prepared races of horses? Where, finally, are the satraps? Where are the kings? Where are the tyrants? Is not all things dust and ashes? Are not all things old tales and a superfluous narrative? Is not all their memory contained in the tiny bones enclosed in the vessel of a small urn? Finally, look and inspect their sepulchers, if you can discern who is a servant there and who is a master, who is a pauper and who is a rich man. Discern there, if you can, the commoner from the king, the strong man from the weak, the comely from the deformed. If, therefore, you are mindful of all these things, no occasion for elation will arise for you, but you will always be mindful of yourself, if you take heed to yourself, mindful of the precept.
A 6. But if you are base-born and born in an obscure place, a pauper begotten of paupers, not rejoicing in a home, not in a country, weak in strength, in need of daily sustenance, living under the blows of the powerful, subject with fear and trembling to everyone, and exposed to all by the humility of poverty—as it is said, "The poor man does not endure threats"—do not therefore despise yourself in yourself and despair, nor, because nothing magnificent is available to you in the present life, cut off and amputate from yourself every hope of good things; but recall your spirits 721 to those goods which the divine indulgence has already granted you, and nevertheless raise your mind to those which it has promised for the future. Consider, therefore, first of all, that you are a man; that is, the only animal on earth fashioned by the very hands of God. Would this alone not be sufficient for one who is wise, upright, and whole, for great and supreme consolation, that you, a man, were fashioned and formed by the hands of God Himself, who made all other remnants of creation subsist by the authority of a mere command? Then, furthermore, because you are in the image and likeness of the Creator, you are able by your own will even to return to the dignity and pinnacle of the angels. For you have received a soul, intellectual and rational, through which you can recognize God, and contemplate the nature of things with the clear intelligence of reason; it is ready for you to enjoy the sweetest fruits of wisdom. Every genus of living creatures yields to you—those that are carried across the convexities of mountains or the crags of rocks or the dark forests; everything that is covered by the waters, or hangs in the air on swift wings. Everything, I say, that belongs to this world, the liberal munificence of the Creator has yielded to your service and subjection. Have you not, with your reasonable sense suggesting it to you, discovered the diversities of the arts? Have you not invented the founding of cities, and all the rest of their use which is most necessary for the living? Does not the sea, through the reason that is in you, become passable for you? The earth, rivers, and fountains serve your needs or your pleasures. Does not this air, and the heaven itself, and all the choirs of the stars, observe their courses and orders for the ministry of mortal life? Why, then, do you fail in spirit and think that anything is lacking to you if a horse is not brought forth for you, adorned with trappings and chewing on silver reins with foaming mouth? But the sun is brought forth for you, B following its swift and rapid course, carrying for you, at the same time, the burning torches of heat and light. You do not have golden and silver platters; but you have the disk of the moon, radiating with the purest and most pleasant splendor. You do not ascend a chariot, nor are you carried by the rolling of wheels; but you have the vehicle of your own feet, born with you. Why, then, do you deem those blessed who possess gold, but lack the feet of others for their necessary travels? You do not recline on ivory couches; but fertile, verdant sods lie nearby, grassy couches painted with a variety of flowers better than the dyed colors of Tyrian purple, in which sweet and healthy sleep is driven away by no pangs of cares. You are not covered by gilded ceilings; but the sky covers you, depicted with the ineffable brightness of the stars. These things, indeed, pertain to the common life of humanity; but receive greater things. On your behalf, God [is] among men, the distribution of the Holy Spirit, the offering of death, the hope of resurrection. On your behalf, divine precepts were brought to men, which might teach you the perfect life, and direct your journey toward God along the path of the commandments. The kingdoms of heaven are opened to you, the crowns of justice are prepared for you; if, however, you do not refuse to bear labors and hardships for justice.
7. And if you take heed to yourself, you will find more and greater things than these, and you will not fail in spirit to tolerate present hardships, while you are lifted up to future things by the education of this precept. But I will not pass over that part [unmentioned] either. If at any time anger exasperates you—that is, your mind—and you swell with the stings of persistent distress, when there is the rabid gnashing of teeth, paleness of cheeks, trembling of lips, when, in short, you act out all the beastly movements, if you take heed to yourself—that is, if you remember the precept—you will immediately coerce anger, like an untamed and ferocious horse, with the beating of the divine word; you will immediately restrain your tongue from insolence, and you will by no means stretch out your hands for the vengeance of the one who provokes you. But if at any time the enticements of obscene desire vex your soul with suggestions and snatch it headlong into the luxury of lust, if you take heed to yourself, and remember this precept, you will find that this present sweetness of lust verges toward the most bitter end, and that this luxury which now burdens our flesh will generate from itself the sleepless worm of punishments, gnawing on the conscience with perpetual vengeance. But also, that heat of carnal desire and the fervor of temporal lust will proclaim the eternal fires of Gehenna and the perpetual conflagrations of avenging flames. With these thoughts conceived in the mind, lust will depart, thoroughly driven away, but a certain admirable quiet and tranquility of soul will be restored: as if the tumult and noise of impudent and wanton maidservants were compressed by the coming and presence of a grave and modest mistress. Take heed, therefore, to yourself, and understand that one part of your soul is rational—the better part—but the other part is irrational and susceptible. And to that better part, it is naturally ready to command: to this one, it is inherent to serve and obey reason. Take heed, therefore, to yourself, lest perhaps you suffer your rational mind to be handed over, bound and surrendered, to irrational passions, nor indulge vices to grow insolent against the virtue of reason, and to convert the summit of the kingdom to their own rights and dominion. If, therefore, you consider each of these things with diligent examination, they will be enough, and more than enough, to demonstrate to you the straight path of your life's journey, which may lead you without any error all the way to the very kingdoms of heaven. In short, if you take heed to yourself, you do not require...
one to confirm you through the contemplation of the entire universe; rather, you may discover the wisdom of your Creator within yourself, as in a certain small and lesser world. For you understand God, who is incorporeal and incomprehensible, from the soul itself, which is immortal in you; for because your mind is not contained principally in any place, but is only found in a place through the companionship of the body. You will believe that God is invisible by contemplating the substance of your own soul, since it too cannot be looked upon by carnal eyes. For it has no color, nor habit, nor is its form expressed by any bodily description; but it is known only through its virtues and its operations. And therefore, do not seek the sight of the eyes in God, but turn yourself to Him with mind and faith alone, and behold the intellectual sense and understanding of Him. Admire also the wisdom of the A Maker, how He has tempered the virtue of your soul through its companionship with the body, so that it is infused and drawn through all its parts, and how it binds together members that are distant from one another into one harmony and accord. Observe, therefore, and pay attention to what this virtue of the soul is which is handed over by it to the body and diffused throughout the members, and what, in turn, is the affection that returns and redounds from the flesh to the soul; or how the body receives life from the soul, yet the soul receives pains and sorrows from the body. Seek out what are its receptacles of memory, what are the treasuries of learning and literature; how those things we have learned first are not obliterated by the additions of new things and the augmentations of recent ones, but the unconfused distinction of each discipline remains, as if engraved on certain bronze tablets of the heart and books of the mind: how the soul, when it slips and declines into the vices of the flesh, loses the beauty of its own virtue, and how, in turn, having cast away the disgrace of wickedness and being purged by the instructions of virtue, it is reformed to the image and likeness of the Creator.
8. Observe, it is seen, after this consideration of the soul, what reason also produces within it for the bodily nature, and admire what a worthy dwelling the admirable craftsman has constructed for a rational soul. He fashioned only the human body erect among all living creatures, so that from this very habit you may see and know that you have a kinship with heavenly and celestial things. For all four-footed animals were made prone and obedient to the belly; but to man, an upright gaze toward heaven was given, so that he might neither look at the belly nor be free for vices placed beneath the belly, but might have every impulse and effort toward the course of the higher way. For that reason also the head is situated at the highest summit of the entire human fabric, and in it—that which is the most noble in man—these bodily senses have been established: that is, sight, hearing, taste, and smell— B all of which, being close and almost clinging to one another, yet separated by brief spaces, in no way hinder or obstruct one another in their uses and duties. The eyes, indeed, being more elevated, have been allotted a place as watchtowers, so that by the addition of a small prominence of the eyebrows, the gaze might be directed straight ahead, and consideration of all things might be made easier and more moderate for them. The ears, however, opened with certain uneven windings, receive the sound of the air when it is struck with distinct modulation. It is also an act of the wonderful and inestimable wisdom of God that they receive the voice from without with nothing preventing, and indeed, that while it is led through the winding curves, it is rendered more resonant; yet the obstacles themselves do not allow anything else to fall in from outside that could impede hearing.
Now, if you consider the nature of the tongue, how it is soft and very easy in its movement, so that it serves every use of speech with various and diverse movements without any difficulty of stiffness; yet also, the wall of the teeth provides service at once to it and to the organ of the voice, while it presents the strongest obstacles of circumvallation to the tongue itself, and at the same time ministers to food, by some teeth grinding it, and by others cutting it. And thus, drawing your thought through all these things, consider them competently and piously. Also ponder that which we recall of the breath of air through the lungs, and how we preserve heat in the heart; ponder the members of digestion, the passages of blood through the veins. Seeing the uninvestigable wisdom of God in all these things, you too, struck with wonder, exclaim with the Prophet: *Wonderful has your knowledge become from me*. Take heed to yourself, therefore, that you may be able to take heed to God.
HOMILY III
*Concerning that which is written in the Gospel*: "A certain rich man's field brought forth abundant fruit," *etc.*1. There are two kinds of temptation. For sometimes tribulation vexes the human heart, and as gold is tested in a furnace, so everyone is proven and acknowledged through patience; or at other times, even the prosperity of life itself yields to temptation for men. For it is of the same slothfulness to become humble and miserable in adversity, and to be carried away by insolence in prosperity. We have, indeed, a magnificent example of one who ought not to be cast down in spirit in adversity: Job, who, knowing nothing at all of being bent by sorrows, received the violence of the devil—coming against him like a certain swirling torrent—with an immovable heart and an unshaken vivacity of mind; rendered all the more illustrious by trials, the more difficult and dangerous were the struggles directed against him by the enemy. We have, indeed, many other examples of those who are tempted by the favorable successes and prosperous things of life; yet no less than that of the rich man who was read from the Gospel, who on the one hand was hoarding hidden riches, and on the other was vainly setting...
A about his greed, while the kindness of God did not punish his intemperance either at the beginning or continuously as it began to sprout; nay rather, He accumulated even recondite riches with new and additional wealth, if perhaps by that very excess he might some day be satiated, and be led to a sense and understanding of humanity, and his mind, through abundance, might be persuaded to think somewhat of the needy. But let us see what the divine Word says of him. Of a certain man, it says, a rich man, whose land brought forth abundant fruits, and he thought within himself, saying: What shall I do? I will pull down my barns, and build greater. Perhaps you say: Why did the land of a man who does no good deed bring forth such abundant fruits? That the patience of God might be known more and more, while He extends the benefits of His kindness toward such men: He makes His sun to rise upon the just and the unjust, and raineth upon the good and the evil. But such is that kindness of God, that B just as through excessive patience He mercifully grants gratis the opportunity for conversion and amendment, so He accumulates greater and more severe punishments for the ungrateful. The Lord therefore bestowed abundant showers upon the lands of the covetous man, He provided sun for nourishing his crops, and for increasing his fruits, that a moderate temperature might increase the heaps of the rich man in all things. Therefore, what are bestowed by God even upon the ungrateful are these: the fertility of the earth, the temperateness of the air, the joy of fruits, the aids of oxen, and all things by which the yearly harvest is filled with fecund successes: but let us see what those things which proceed from man—what they are, I pray you. A narrow mind, and thinking little of all that is born; calculating that there is always something lacking to his abundance, and then, regarding the human purpose of sharing with anyone, deems no cause sufficient. Do you see how ungrateful the C rich man finds himself for divine benefits? He does not remember the common nature of man. He does not think it right even to distribute something from his superfluities, mindful of the command: Never cease to do good to the needy. He does not read, nor does he remember, the precept that is written: May faith and mercy not desert you, and Break thy bread to the hungry; and whatsoever is preached daily either by the prophets or by other doctors, the rich man neither sees, nor hears, nor understands, but indeed pulls down his barns, and builds greater, and fills them with larger fruits. Yet the heart and the purpose of the covetous rich man is not filled. For he is always eager to accumulate the old with the new, and to surpass the past with the increase of the present; and while he desires to surpass the accustomed numbers of his storerooms with ever-growing heaps, he has been led into these inextricable exits of thought, such that he yields neither to old things, nor would he suffice for new. Therefore his thoughts are indeed vain, and his solicitude useless and empty. What, he says, shall I do? Who would not pity such a man? D who would not grieve over his unhappiness? Does he taste of his abundance, is he constrained and narrowed in his opulence? Unhappy in present goods, more unhappy in the future. And, as you see, the land brought him not so much larger revenues, as heavier groans. To him the earth brought forth not an abundance of fruits, but the vexation of cares; so that, spurred on by cares and sorrows, he endures torments similar to those of the needy and the hungry. In fine, this is also the voice of the needy: What shall I do? whence the food, whence the clothing? The rich man complains of the same things. What shall I do? where shall I store? He is tormented by the same anxieties for the sake of his faculties, with which the poor man is tormented for his indigence. You see that the rich man can neither rejoice in his opulent supplies, but his mind is consumed and undone by a superfluity, while, warned by no sense of humanity, he cannot feel that it abounds to him which is lacking to others. For he does not incline his ear to the apostolic admonitions, that he might learn from him the reason for his abundance, when he says: That your abundance may become, that is, may profit to the need of others.
2. And indeed such a passion of the soul seems to be like those who so much indulge their gullet, that they choose to burst rather from excessive food than to indulge the remnants to anyone. But remember, O man, who is the one who has bestowed you upon yourself: call to mind who you are. You are a servant of God, and the stewardship of the Lord's property has been committed to you. Remember, therefore, who it is who has enjoined upon you the office of dispensing His family. Why is it that you are set over many? It is surely not without cause that the office of giving is assigned to you by the good and just God, and the necessity of needing is imposed upon others. Recognize, therefore, that you are a steward of your fellow servants from the Lord's faculties; and do not think that the earth produces all things for your belly and your delights. Recognize that the things you have in your hands are committed to you rather than granted. For a little time you rejoice somewhat over these: and you take pleasure in abusing them voluptuously. But when these shall have flowed away together with our life, we are called by the Lord to render an account of our stewardship. Here, indulge me for a little while, whoever you are, who are a steward of riches in this world; and consider yourself, standing before that terrible judgment seat of God, a little free from cares; when you begin to be interrogated: with what needy people did you divide the wealth committed to you? to whom, suffering necessity, did you bring relief? whom did you free from prisons, from bonds, from the sword, with profuse money? to which orphans did you act as a father, to which widow as a husband, with chaste provisions? My money, my fruits, what work, what utility have they had with you? You to these, without doubt, will answer: All [were] at once stored and hidden behind the most sturdy bolts and most secure seals.
A And to protect them I added my watches, expended my cares, and devoted my anxieties. But you have used yourself as a foolish counselor. For deliberating, you say: "What shall I do?" It was surely logical for one deliberating on such matters to say: "I will open my barns, and I will fill the hungry souls of the poor, I will throw open what has been stored away, and I will invite the needy and relieve the afflicted. I will imitate the blessed Joseph, and with a voice of humanity I will proclaim: 'If any man is in need of bread, let him come to me,' so that the grace which the Lord has bestowed with more indulgent liberality B I may make common with all: thus, as from common fountains, let everyone draw what is sufficient." But you not only do not speak any such thing, but you do not even think it; nay rather, you grudge men the divine benefits, while you torture and crucify your own soul with malignant plans, and you conceive that the abundance of God creates human scarcity. There were even those at hand to demand back your soul, to revoke the pledge of this life: and that man was still speaking of his soul in terms of opulence, and saying to the soul about to be taken away from him this night: "Soul, you have many goods for many years: eat and drink and feast." But observe the dispensation of the just judgment of God. He permits him to produce and bring forth all his plans, to publish his own sentence, so that he himself might pass a sentence of condemnation worthy of such a mind and desire. Which, indeed, is written for this reason, not only that we might know what he suffered: but how we ought to escape, so that we may not be condemned in the same way.
3. But if you think it is difficult, O man, to imitate the magnitude of divine bounty, imitate the earth. If you cannot lift your eyes upwards, at least look at those things which are below and at your feet. Bring forth fruit yourself, just as the earth does: do not be worse than an insensible element. For it does C not claim the fruits which it brings forth for its own uses, but serves your needs; you, however, usurp the fruits of the earth alone, and lock them up for yourself alone. But if the disease of greed binds you to such an extent that you wish to make everything your own, receive even this as a salutary remedy. The benefit of the giver remains more with the one who gives than with the one who receives; for while mercy reaches the needy, the grace of a multiplied reward remains for the giver. You have given bread to the hungry; he indeed is fed and refreshed; but what you gave returns to you with fruits and interest. But if you think this is difficult, consider the grain which is sown in the earth, whether it yields for the profit of the sower rather than the receiver. So also food, when it is distributed to the needy, will be returned with much interest of divine grace hereafter. 724 Let the end of this agriculture of yours be the beginning of celestial sowings. "Sow for yourselves," He says, "unto justice." Why then are you afflicted? Why do you torment yourself, shutting yourself up with mud and bricks D and the subsidies of human life? Do you not read what is written: "A good name is better than much wealth"? If, therefore, you also seek glory from wealth, know that it is better to be called the father of a thousand children whom you have acquired as children through mercy, than to be called the master of a thousand gold coins. For faculties will be left behind here, even if we are unwilling; but the conscience of good works proceeds with us to the Lord. And consider how great your glory will be then, when all the people who have been fed and refreshed from your storehouses, shall surround you in a throng before the tribunal of that great and most just Judge, and will bear witness to you with every voice of thanksgiving as their shepherd and their pious guardian and merciful father. But if, for the sake of magistrates in theaters, mimes and athletes, and gladiators, and other such kinds of men, one squanders and wastes his whole patrimony, in order to acquire the favor of the crowd for a single hour, which will profit him nothing further, why do you hesitate and delay to be munificent in such target-gifts as these, in which the Lord sits as judge, the crowd of applauders and acclaimers the angels are, where all who were holy from the beginning of the age are your laudators and heralds; where praise and favor do not cease with the day, but remain with the ages; where a crown, not of gold but of justice, will be given to you, where you will earn not the honor of one city, but the kingdoms of heaven? And all these things are sought through the mercies of the poor, the stewardships of the needy, in which, for the price of corruptible food, you purchase the incorruptible, eternal glory of the kingdom of heaven.
4. Come then, if it seems right, if the faith that is in you is true, let us usefully and thoughtfully dispose of our wealth, let us prepare new and most illustrious gifts. Let us give the first, a white garment, to the clothing of the naked; the second, no less noble, let us use to repair souls weary and perishing of hunger. Let us go around the city and seek those who could not even come to ask for mercy on account of their weakness; let us provide the expense, let us distribute whatever is necessary. Nor let it irk you to visit the sick, to seek out the bedridden. Remember that when we also were lying on our bed, when we were weak, and could not go to God by ourselves, God Himself came to us. For He sent His Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, who brought to us food, Himself. For He Himself is the bread of life which descended from heaven, and gives life to this world. And with what mouth, I ask, with what impudence, receiving bread from heaven, do we not give bread from earth to our brothers? But if the abundance of our patrimony still suffices for us, let us give also that newest, but no less favorable, edition: let us go to the prisons, let us seek out the bound, let us condole with human miseries and torments. In all these, Christ meets you, who, though He is incomprehensible...
A according to the nature of His divinity, will yet be found by you through the works of mercy; for He Himself has said: For I was hungry and you gave Me to eat: I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink: I was naked and you clothed Me: I was sick and in prison, and you came to Me. Do you see what rewards the Divine Word prepares? There, play-actors and gladiators receive, and all that is given to the lost perishes; here, in these hungry and thirsty, naked, sick, and bound, Christ professes Himself to be received. What are you doing, O rich man? What are you thinking? What are you deliberating? While Christ is hungry, do you shut up your barns? Or rather, do you not shut them, but destroy smaller ones and build larger ones? While Christ is in need of clothing, are your garments consumed by moths? While Christ is in want, you seek gold, you desire gold, you store up gold; do you see gold in everything, is gold your thought while awake, and your dream while asleep? For just as those who are deranged in their minds see not the objects themselves, but the phantasies of their own passion; so too the mind of the covetous man, once bound by the chains of greed, always sees gold, always sees silver, always calculates returns: he contemplates gold more gladly than he beholds the sun, his very prayer and supplication to God seeks gold; and he would wish and desire that all things be converted into gold for him. Finally, what he can, he attempts to turn into gold—he turns grain into gold, wine into gold, wool becomes gold for him. His every fruit, his every business, everything that moves, is turned into gold: sometimes even by the most wicked art of usury, gold is born of gold itself. But what are you doing? There will never be satiety, nor an end to greed. For sometimes we indulge children who are too much given to gluttony by letting them take desired foods more greedily, so that, satiated by the very excess, they may be repulsed and turn away for the future from such greed. Avarice, however, suffers no such thing, but the more it finds, the more it seeks. But what does the Divine Scripture say? If riches abound, set not your heart upon them. You, however, dam up and enclose your flowing riches, so that within your stagnant pools even irruptions may take place. B Hence, finally, it is that now your barns are bursting and failing, not content with their paternal enclosures, and exceeding their ancestral boundaries. But what do you say? I will rebuild greater ones. But this is quite uncertain. Who grants you the time for rebuilding? For you will be cast down far more quickly than they are built up. But let that rich man have a conclusion and a fitting end for his vain and malignant thought. If money remains still and lies idle, it will be useless; if it is moved and put to work, it brings forth and yields a common benefit and fruit to all. Reap, therefore, the rich fruits of your money—I mean the prayers of the poor, and the intercession of the saints, who, mindful of your services to them, may plead before God, the just judge, with worthy allegations of your deeds. Let us beware of the example of this rich man, C who, while he locks up his present riches and worries about the future, is snatched away, both from his riches and from his life, and is dragged to the horrific tribunal, where his accuser stands—that very avarice which has been the companion of his whole life; but no defender or intercessor appears anywhere: for he looks around at the multitude of saints standing by the divine tribunals, and with intent and anxious eyes he scans them, if perhaps he might see some one dear and familiar to him, who had been made such by his services in this life, but he finds no one anywhere. No one is there to say, "Lord, he is worthy for whom You should grant pardon, for he loved our nation, and he himself built the church for us." No widow exists who, falling down and weeping, might plead through Peter, showing the garments which the rich man had bestowed upon them. Therefore, no one will have mercy on him who has not had mercy; for it is written: Blessed are the merciful, for they themselves shall obtain mercy: and again, Give, and it shall be given to you, and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. But lest we perhaps seem to heap these things up against him rashly and undeservedly, let us examine his own words, and see, when his field had brought forth rich fruits, what he feels. Does he do at least this, which at any rate would have been fitting even for a miser? Does he pray to God and entreat Him that the fruits may reach maturity without injury, so that hail may not strike, that a whirlwind may not lay waste, that a storm may not overthrow—for these are things that often happen to fruits even when ripe? Nothing of the sort, but he prepares to destroy his barns and to rebuild larger ones. D He who sees in secret the one speaking within himself, hears in the heavens; therefore, and from thence, answers are returned. And what are the things that he says? "Soul," he says, "you have many goods; eat, drink, be merry." Is this not, if it can be said, the voice of a brute beast? For if he had possessed the soul of a swine, what else should he have ordered for it than the goods of eating and drinking? But now he is a totally animal man and totally carnal, so that he esteems his soul to be nourished by carnal and corruptible foods, and he prepares for it to be used the things that are cast out into the draught; whereas its nature is such that it should be nourished by virtues, should be fattened by the word of God, and should be adorned by pious intellects and religious disciplines, and by exercises. If you have any such good, offer these goods to the soul. But for you, since your belly is your God, and you are entirely a slave of the flesh, listen to what is worthy of you— [5.] But you, brothers, if you hearken to me, open wide the entrances of your storehouses, and let a more bountiful and more affluent outlet for your riches be provided than the entrance that had previously been sought: so that, like a most abundant river flowing to irrigate the crops, the overflowing wealth of your mercy may be drawn through the whole earth. Or do you not know that even the water of wells, if it be drawn more frequently, becomes both more wholesome and more abundant: whereas if it remains idle, it becomes more useless and more corrupt? So also money, if it ceases and lies still, will be useless; if it is moved and works, it brings forth and yields a common benefit and fruit for all.
A appellation, by which not any man, but the Lord Himself calls you; for He says, "You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you; and these things which you have prepared, whose shall they be?" For those very eternal torments, the mark of folly is greater. For he who was to be snatched from life a little later, what does he think? "I will tear down," he says, "my barns." To whom I reply: And you do so rightly indeed; for you ought truly to tear down the barns of iniquity, and you yourself ought to overturn those things that you have built up wickedly with your own hands. Tear down the storehouses from which no one has received mercy; cast down and pull apart the dark and dismal dwellings of mammon. "I will tear down," he says, "my barns, and I will build larger ones." But if you fill these also, what, I ask, are you going to do? Without doubt you will tear them down again, and again you will rebuild them. And what is the end of this foolish and vain labor? To build instantly, and to tear down more instantly. If you wish, I will show you barns already prepared: the bellies B of the hungry poor; shut up your treasures in them. For such treasures will be kept for you in heaven, where "neither moth eats, nor thieves break through and steal." But you say: "When I have filled the second barns, then I will give to the poor." You promise yourself long years, and offer yourself wide spaces of life. Such a promise of yours does not contain future kindness, but a delay of present mercy. For what prevents mercy from being done now? There is an abundance of grain, the time of year is favorable, the hungry are present, the naked stand around you wailing, those bound in prisons and the sick from their beds surround you with miserable and piteous lamentation. Why do you delay mercy until tomorrow, when today you become cruel and unmerciful? Hear, at least, the counsel of the most wise Solomon: "Do not say," he says, "Go now, and return tomorrow, and I will give to you; for you do not know what the coming day may bring forth." But lest you receive mandates of this kind, avarice obstructs your ears. Was it not your duty to give thanks to God, to exult and rejoice that you, not being a beggar yourself, do not go around to the doors of others, but that others sit before your gates, asking mercy of you? But you are difficult in giving, and you are saddened and draw back lest anyone be somewhat more troublesome to you by the pressing necessity of poverty; as if it could not have happened that you should be one of those who lie perishing C of hunger before your gate. And you indeed quite worthily: for in desire and mind and purpose you are a pauper, and destitute of all good. For when you do not have charity, when humanity is wanting to you, when faith is wanting, when hope in God is wanting, when mercy is wanting to you, what is more destitute than you? What is more of a beggar? Your portion will be with the moths and the mice that gnaw your barns. Who, indeed, if you did not see such things, if you did not perceive them being corrupted and consumed, who could persuade you to distribute something from them?
7. But you say: "What is unjust, if I do not invade the property of others, but guard my own more diligently?" O impudent saying! You call them your own? From what and from whom did you bring them into this world? When you entered into this light, when you came forth from your mother’s womb, with what wealth, I ask, with what resources were you surrounded when you entered? Learn your arrival into this world from the Apostle Paul, who says: "For we brought nothing into this world, and neither can we carry anything out. And having food and clothing, let us be content." The earth was given to all men in common; let no one say it is his own, for what one took beyond what was sufficient from the common store, was obtained by violence. Nevertheless, you came forth naked from your mother’s womb, and naked likewise you shall return to the earth. And if indeed you think that the element of earth subsisted by chance, you are impious, for you do not know God the Creator. But if you acknowledge the kindness of the Giver, be grateful to the Creator, and seek an account with yourself, why He granted more to you than to others. Is God unjust, so as not to distribute the necessities of life equally to us, so that you indeed might be affluent and abounding, while others lack and are in need? Or is it rather because He wished to confer the proofs of His kindness to you, and to crown another D through the virtue of patience? But you, having received the gifts of God and drawn them into your bosom, think that you do nothing unjust if you alone hold the necessities of life for so many. For who is so unjust, so greedy [alt. avid], so avaricious, as he who makes the food of many not now his own use, but his abundance and luxury? For it is not a greater crime to take from one who has, than, when you can and abound, to deny the needy. The bread of hungry men is what you detain, the clothing of the naked is what you lock away, the redemption and absolution of the miserable is the money which you bury in the earth. Know, therefore, that you are invading the goods of as many as you could provide for, if you wished.
8. "Those are good words," you say, "but gold is better." No wonder, for if someone speaks of chastity with the unchaste, and reproaches and denounces harlots, those souls over whom lust dominates are incited much more keenly to unchastity by the very admonition itself: but I will again bring before your face the very forms of the future judgment of God, so that you may understand what wailing you are storing up for yourself. O of how much value will that word appear to you on the day of judgment, which we spoke of above, which says: "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink: I was naked, and you covered me." What horror again, what sweat, what darkness will come upon you when you hear the sentence of that condemnation, by which it is said: "Depart from me, you cursed, into exterior darkness, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you did not give me to eat: I was thirsty, and you did not give me to drink: I was naked, and you did not cover me." For indeed in these words, he who...
has invaded another's property is reproved; but he who has not shared what he possessed is condemned. We, for our part, have given counsel on what we believed to be useful. If any man wishes to obey the divine precepts, he is not ignorant of what the reward of the promises is. But he who does not wish to obey, and neglects them, the threat of eternal fire is manifest, of which I pray you may be made void and estranged, and that you may escape the punishments promised to the impious; doing that which is written, that your wealth may be the redemption of your souls, and that you may proceed to the prepared heavenly kingdoms, through him who called you, Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and empire for ever and ever. Amen.
HOMILY IV. On Envy.
A 1. God is good, and bestows good things upon those who are worthy. The devil is evil, and the malice which he once conceived himself, this he also teaches to men: and just as the liberality and generosity of the good God is His own, so is malice and envy the own property of the devil. And therefore, brothers, let us observe the incursion of this vice, lest we perchance be made partakers of the devil's works and be condemned by the same judgment as he. For if he who is puffed up and proud falls into the judgment and snare of the devil, how much more shall the envious man not escape the punishment and judgment of the devil? There is, therefore, nothing more ruinous that can befall the human soul than the evil of envy. For this evil harms those against whom it is directed only a little, but it truly afflicts more gravely and ruinously those from whom it proceeds. For just as rust consumes iron, so likewise does envy consume and destroy the very soul in which it exists; and just as they say that vipers are born having torn and eaten through that very maternal womb in which they were conceived, so does the nature of envy consume and destroy the soul itself before all others—the soul in which it was conceived or from which it is generated. For the vice of envy is a certain sadness and sorrow regarding the prosperities of others; and therefore, the occasion for sorrow can never be lacking to the envious one. If a neighbor's field be joyful with rich fruits, if he abounds in success and resources, if he is joyful in spirit and rejoices in his prosperities, all these things are like a certain fodder and nourishment for the sickness of envy. Nor does one differ from a naked man in the face of him who can be pierced on all sides by incoming missiles. If he sees a man strong and robust, this is one wound for the envious one. He sees another who is handsome, and distinguished in form; this is that other dart of the envious one. If anyone is renowned for virtue of soul and excels others in prudence; or if he is magnificent in the delivery of his speech and in his virtue: this also stings the envious man most of all, and torments his inner mind. Another uses his increasing wealth wisely, and makes the fortune given to him by God common with the needy; he becomes renowned for mercy, and is celebrated in everyone's praise as a benefactor of humanity: all these things the envious man cannot even bear to bring forth and make public; but he is always in groanings and sorrow and confused in mind, and is completely consumed by the evil of the vice that is spreading, yet when asked, he cannot even indicate his sickness. For he blushes to declare in public that he is pining away from envy, that he is consumed by the goods and successes of his friend, that his brother's good things are his own evils. For he would certainly have to say these things, if he wished to speak what is true. But because he blushes to confess any of these things, he hides and conceals within himself the disease that is consuming his very inner vitals. So he can neither take on a physician for his sickness, nor find any remedy, especially since all the Scriptures are filled with the divine word's medicines, by which these things can be cured.
B 2. But he does not even seek a remedy for such a state. But he thinks the only remedy for himself is if perchance something unlucky happens to the one he envies, if some fall occurs. He leads this solely to the remedy of his sickness: if he sees him who, a little before, was thought to be renowned and blessed, now unhappy and failing: C then at last he becomes a friend, then he joins his own lamentations, then he borrows tears, when he has seen the one he envied weeping and mourning. And he did not endure to rejoice with the one who rejoiced, but now he weeps with the one who weeps in joy. For he does not show compassion for the common misfortunes of mortals out of humanity, nor to wipe away the stain of his former vice from his soul, but to inflict a deeper sense of grief upon the one who has fallen. If perchance the loss of a son occurs, then he lingers more upon the praises of the deceased, and with a thousand herald- Cries he magnifies the boy, as handsome in face, as sharp in intellect, as fit and suitable for all things; [727] and he himself praises the deceased, whose praise, when he was alive, he could not bear to hear uttered by anyone. But in this very act of praising, if he sees that others feel either similar or even more excellent things, he turns immediately and demonstrates the disease of envy. He marvels and praises his wealth, but after his ruin; he declares the beauty of his face and the strength of his body in the thinness of sickness and the wasting away of disease, and in all things keeps himself an enemy to the living, but a friend to the dying.
D 3. What, therefore, is more foul than this disease? What is more ruinous to human life? What is so hostile to nature? What is so opposed to God Himself? And no wonder, for the very prince of malice, the devil, is ignited by nothing other than the disease of envy against the human race. For prodded by this, he even dared to resist God. For, indeed, being indignant against God for those gifts which He had granted to man, because he could do nothing against God Himself, he plotted ruin and death for the man whom He loved. Nevertheless, the devil's first disciple also perpetrated the same things, having been taught by him both the vice of envy and the work of homicide, crimes which are his companions and kin, which also
The holy Apostle, remembering and reckoning them together as if they were inseparably connected, says: A "Full of envy, murder." What is it, then, that the devil performed in this matter, due to the honor that was given by God to man, and he was immediately inflamed with envy, so that he might slay one who had been honored by God? Without doubt, so that the injury might redound upon Him who had bestowed the favor. But because he could not fight against God himself, he taught man to fight against his brother. Let us, therefore, flee, brethren, from the cause of this vice, which first taught one to oppose God, which became the mother of parricide, which confounded the laws of nature, which introduced ignorance of kinship. For why are you grieved, O man, when you have suffered no evil? Why do you attack one who appears to you to live in prosperity, when he has defrauded you in nothing? B And what if it even profited you somewhat? You seem to do nothing other than to envy your own goods and utilities. Such was Saul, who accepted the benefits of David as an occasion for his persecution. First, in that by that spiritual lyre divinely modulated, and by the plectrum of the Holy Spirit, he was liberated from the onset of the demon. But what did he repay in return for these benefits, mindful of them? In place of the life-giving plectrum, he hurled a death-dealing spear at David. Then, liberated simultaneously from the crisis of war and from shame, with the slaughter of Goliath, whom no one dared to encounter when he challenged, since for this the choirs of women exulting in triumphal hymns were referring the grace of safety back to him who had acted bravely, saying, "Saul struck in his thousands, C and David in his ten thousands," for this single utterance which had proceeded from the very truth, he is incited to snares and the slaughter of him who had brought safety to the fatherland. And when he had made him a fugitive and an exile from his native borders and dwellings, not even then did his envy cease, but he sends armed men after him, and sometimes pursues him with a thousand, sometimes with three thousand soldiers. But, even if he fled to the deserts, even if he hid among the foreigners, he does not spare him even there; he always sends pursuers after him; he always circumvents with wiles and factions him to whose benefits he knows himself to be beholden within his own conscience. If, therefore, he is asked what the cause of the war is, what else will he reply, unless that the man's benefits are the cause of hatred for him? D Even at that very time when he was being sought out by him for death, and was found by him sleeping at night, and without any hesitation was exposed to destruction and handed over into the hands of an enemy, he is nevertheless spared and forgiven, and dismissed to repentance. And that voice is a witness to him, in which the just man refrained from staining his hands in the blood of the persecutor who had been betrayed and exposed to him; nor yet by these such great and such kinds of benefits is the mind of the envious man bent, but he moves his arms again, and again excites more wicked persecutions. But none the less he is handed over into his hands: and again he is found in the cave, and becomes an opportunity for slaughter. In which the piety and mercy of David shines forth more clearly, and the malice or cruelty of Saul is more manifestly declared. There is nothing, therefore, more difficult than these enmities which descend from the most bitter fountain of envy. For since those who are enemies for other reasons, if one happens to attack the other to defeat him with benefits, their ferocity is immediately mitigated; but if benefits are conferred upon the envious man, he is inflamed all the more; and the more he has received, the more he will burn with greater fires. A For he is more enraged and grieved that something has been obtained from him whom he would not wish to have or to be able to offer anything good. What wild beast, what poisonous serpents do their ways not surpass? You may see dogs mindful of a benefit; lions and other wild beasts grow tame and are overcome by B grace: only the envious are more grievously inflamed by benefits.
4. What, then, did the envy of his brothers do to that most strong and most noble man Joseph? C Is it not because of the envy of his brothers? Regarding which the vanity of the plot itself is also worthy of admiration. Fearing the outcome of the dreams, they submit their brother to servitude: so that, clearly, having been made a slave, he might not be adored by the free. But if indeed the dreams are true, what will the kind of argument profit you? If it is necessary that what was predicted be fulfilled, the intent of one resisting is superfluous; but if the youth is deceived in his dreams, you envy the one who is wandering in vain. He is not worthy of envy, but of pity, who is deluded. But the dispensation of divine providence tempered their cunning plots far otherwise than they supposed. For through those very things by which the end of the predicted things was thought to be averted, it is built up and fulfilled. For it is certain that unless Joseph had been sold, he would certainly not have come into Egypt; nor, if he had not fallen into the snares of a lascivious mistress who was clinging to chastity, would he have been thrust into prison, nor would he have become more intimate with the ministers of Pharaoh, nor would he have been chosen as the interpreter of the king’s dreams, from which he obtained the supreme power of ruling and moderating Egypt; and because of the grain distribution he was adored by his brothers who were hurrying there for this very reason. But let us pass on to the species of that envy which exceeds every kind of sin of the human condition. Did not the hatred of the Jews against the Savior descend from envy? And D what was the cause of the envy? The wonders of the signs. And of what kind were the wonders? The salvation of the soul and the health of the bodies. The hungry were fed, and He who fed them was attacked. Life was restored to the dead, and He who was bestowing life was enduring the snares of life through envy. Demons were cast out, and wiles were set by men for Him who was commanding the demons. The lepers were cleansed, the lame were walking, the deaf were hearing, the blind were seeing. He who was bestowing such grace to men was driven away by men with servile scourges. They afflicted Him who had come to restore liberty to mortals: and men were judging the judge of the world. At the last, however, even to the extent
of the fury of the transgression, they broke forth so as to slay the Author of life. Thus all evils are born from the root of envy, and using this one thing as a most powerful sword, from the beginning of the world even unto its consummation, the devil has slaughtered and destroyed almost all souls. In short, he omits nothing, but because he himself was cast down by the passion of envy, he strives to cast us down by the fall of a similar vice. Therefore, Solomon, the wisest of all, advises not even to dine with an envious man, nor to come to his banquet (Prov. xxiii, 6), showing by this that during the whole time of our life we ought to be entirely estranged and segregated from the company of men who are entangled in such vices. For just as it is our concern to place dry and fragile material far from fire, so it is necessary, as much as possible, to be segregated from the friendships, and even from the stories and conversations of all envious people, and to be hidden away as if from malignant and venomous darts. For it is not possible to incur envy otherwise than by the pretext of acquaintance and familiarity; since indeed, according to the word of Solomon, "Envy is unto a man from his friend" (Eccl. iv, 4). For the matter is truly so. For the Scythian does not envy the Egyptian, nor does the Indian emulate the Briton; but each one envies the men of his own nation and fellow-tribesmen, and not those who are unknown, but his neighbors and those closest to him and his acquaintances, nay indeed those who exist in the same art or office or work. The disease of envy sometimes arms even the closest ages, and it rages against blood relatives and often against the very laws of fraternal kinship. And just as rust is the specific corruption of iron, so envy is the specific corruption of friendships.
But one might by now be able to wonder at or praise that aspect of this malady, that the more it grows, the more pernicious it becomes to the one in whom it grows. For just as every missile that has been hurled with great force, if by chance it strikes some solid and hard body, instantly rebounds and flies back against the one who had thrown it, so also the movement of the envious person and the dart of his mind, while it has done no harm to him against whom it is aimed, nevertheless becomes a wound to the envious person himself. For no one has ever been able to diminish the good things of a neighbor by his own sadness; yet the one who emulates him, he himself is consumed by the rot of envy. And I indeed think that the poisons of this malady are more grievous than those of venomous and deadly serpents. For they say that when the latter first fix their bites into the body, the poisons are diffused through the wound of their teeth: but the virus of envy is sometimes poured in even by the mere sight of the eyes; sometimes it is even conceived by mere hearing. For as soon as someone sees or hears those things which he does not want regarding those whom he envies, he immediately wastes away, immediately collapses, immediately pines: and although he be of beautiful countenance, although of solid and healthy body, suddenly he is consumed and wastes away as if struck by the bites of a poisonous serpent, with the venomous rheum of the disease flowing through the eyes even to the depth of the heart A penetrating the secret parts and wasting the interior of the viscera. But I omit to use such an assertion; for the speech will seem vulgar. This, however, I say, that the demons, the adversaries of the human race, when they have seen a man’s purpose apt for their pursuits, they abuse it as an instrument for every crime of their own will. And why do you not shudder to be made a minister of demons, but receive into yourself the evil through which you become an enemy to those who have not harmed you, and also an enemy of God, with whom all goodness is without the stain of envy? Let us flee envy, the obstacle to piety, the impediment to the kingdom of heaven, the way to Gehenna, the pledge and first-fruits of eternal punishment.
5. Let us flee this evil, which has been taught by the teaching of the serpent, which was invented by the demons, and which the enemy man has sown over the good seeds of God. But envious people are also sometimes manifested by their very countenance no less. For their eyes are more obstructed, and their cheeks darker: their eyebrows are cast down and sad. The soul itself also, cast down by the passion, is deeply bowed. Nowhere is the judgment of truth preserved in their dealings; no speech seems honest or pleasing to them; nothing noble, nothing bright is approved by them; but just as vultures pass over everything pleasant and delightful, and fly over meadows fragrant with the sweetest scents, but fly toward every fetid carcass and places filled with foul stenches; and just as flies, ignoring the healthy body, gather headlong wherever there is a sore: so also the envious, if anything has been done well by anyone in this life, if anything is excellent in works, laudable in words, admirable in character, they see absolutely nothing, they weigh nothing: but wherever anything has been done culpably, or spoken in incautious speech, as is wont to happen to men, this they bring forward, or bandy about in public; and they want the knowledge of the man to be formed not from good deeds and words, but from the least probable things. What is more wicked than this evil? What is more foul? What shall I say is more pernicious? To omit and keep silent those things which are worthy of praise: but to search thoroughly wherever one might find something by which a work of virtue might be criminated from the occasions of an accidental fault? In short, such people as these call the magnanimous man insolent; but the constant and patient man they call devoid of affection and sense of pain. They call the sober man bitter; the just, they call cruel; the prudent, they call cunning. They accuse the generous man of being extravagant; but the liberal man they call luxurious. They name the miserly man frugal; and they delight to discolor all the forms of the virtues with opposite and maliciously assumed names; so that often they even call themselves envious of those whom they themselves envy. What then is it? Shall we put an end to our speech regarding the accusation and detraction of vices? But this is only a partial remedy. For to show to a sick person the magnitude of the disease, and through this to stir up his anxiety, so that he may not neglect the force of the languor, will seem a part of the medicine. Truly, if you leave him at this stage, D lest the remedies...
be dispensed to him, he hasten toward luxury and shame, he is not even then worthy of envy, but of pity; for indeed he does not carry anything worthy of praise, but of reproach and censure. Similarly, he who abounds in word, if he speaks by the grace of the Holy Spirit; if he commends it by the merit of his own life, and proves that the things he preaches are true; if the conduct of the teacher does not contradict the words of his doctrine; if, in short, he does not present his tongue merely as a servant to the will of the Holy Spirit: to envy and oppose such men is nothing other than to say: "I would that the commandments of God were not made known to men; I would that men were not called back from the way of death to the way of salvation." But if he who speaks does not speak according to God, and does not teach by the grace of God, but brings forth words composed merely by the craft of human intellect, having in them nothing of the Divine Spirit, nothing that pierces the heart, strikes the conscience, or moves to tears; if, in short, the life and character of the teacher contradict the uttered discourses, if the things he teaches to others are foreign to his own deeds and character: then by no means, I pray you, let envy be stirred up against such men. For the apostolic speech cries out against them immediately, and is retorted upon their face and countenance, saying: "Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest that a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?" B Nay rather, as we have said, these men are worthy of pity and mourning. But do you hear David warning you through the Holy Spirit, and saying: "Be not emulous of evildoers; neither envy them that work iniquity. For they shall shortly wither as grass, and as the green herbs shall quickly fall." C It becomes the servant of God, therefore, not to envy good men, nor to fret over false and simulated ones; and to prefer emulation in imitating good things rather than to entertain envy. If you have seen a man temperate, patient, steadfast in the contests of piety, if indeed you are such a person yourself, love him as another self. If, however, anything is lacking to you, imitate him whose life you see to be praiseworthy. By such a manner of application you will both progress yourself, and you will be praiseworthy to those who see you. For this is the nature of virtue, that it can be acquired by anyone who wills and labors for it through the freedom of the will. For the power of this application is situated within us; for riches, the beauty of the body, strength, and other things of this kind which are thought to be good, it is not in our power to possess. But if the greater good which is truly good, that is, the virtue of the soul, is deservedly preferred by all who judge rightly to all bodily goods, why do we neglect to imitate what is the highest and truly good, and is placed in our power, while we are moved by such intent studies for these goods which are false and not rightly called good, so that for their sake we succumb to envy, that most pernicious plague? D You are shown the way, it is nothing other than to have put forward the health of the languishing one. What is it, therefore? In what way is a malady to be avoided lest we suffer it, or if we suffer, to be shunned? First, as it seems to me, we ought to determine in our minds that there is nothing magnificent or to be sought after in visible things; that we should not set much store by opulence, nor admire the inflation of flourishing glory; nor the strength and health of the body. For nothing of those things which are temporal and pass away is to be thought of as good, nor indeed anything at all of these things which we see; because "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." Therefore, let us not think him who abounds in riches worthy of envy; nor should he who excels in high standing be held worthy of emulation, because of the greatness of a power that will tomorrow be nowhere. But neither should the virtue of the body and magnificent strength lead to envy, which is to be dissolved by the heat of a single fever, unless perhaps one uses these as if they were instruments of virtue for useful and most excellent acts. For he who abuses the bodily strength granted to him for impious and wanton ministries is nothing other than one who turns a sword received for repelling the enemy toward his own destruction. But if one dispenses the faculties granted to him by God in the ministries of the needy and for the sustenance of the poor, this one is not worthy of envy, but of love, who has preferred the need of the poor to his own delights and pleasures, and has made his own sustenance common with his brethren. 6. Then, moreover, it is manifest who, through prudence and the accepted grace of the divine word, opens the sense of the Scripture, and explains the obscurities of divine and prophetic discourse: who would ever oppose such men? Who would contaminate the benefits of the divine gift with the stain of savage envy, especially if those things which are spoken are brought forth through the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit, and for this reason the favor and applause of the auditors also follow? You should take this as if that good were your own, and the gift of doctrine were destined for you by God through your brother; if only you receive it willingly for your own sake. Then, afterward, no one bars the vein of a spring flowing more abundantly; nor is any gaze inhibited by the splendor of the sun, and no one envies another for seeing the sun; nor is it enough for him to have a share of light above the rest, but with the rest. And do you, when the spiritual word is flowing in the Church and announcing the dogmas of piety through the grace of the Holy Spirit, not bring and join your hearing with joy, and be instructed and progress, but does the favor of the hearers bite and sting you; and do you wish that if no one progresses, it is only that no one might praise? And what will be the excuse for this thing before God, the judge of our hearts? If, therefore, as we have said, one abounds in faculties, but abuses them as commodiously as the divine word has taught, placing a common treasury for himself with the needy, such a one is not worthy of envy, but of charity and love. But if he acts in the contrary way, that is, [so that he uses] the faculties which he ought to have dispensed properly, to abuse them through luxury and filth, he is not even then worthy of envy, but of mercy; for indeed he carries nothing worthy of praise, but [everything worthy] of reproach and censure. Similarly, he who abounds in word...
A in some way instructs souls. For they describe the harmony and union of the bride with the bridegroom, which is the connection of the soul to the Word of God. But let us return to the subject.
Does one not see how much evil dissimulation holds in the life of men? And this proceeds from the root of envy; for a man being double-tongued and double-minded is born of nothing else than envy. For he hides hatred in the depths of his heart, but brings forth a colored sweetness on the surface of his lips, according to rocks concealed by the waves of the sea, which, covered by the sprinkling of a little water, prepare unexpected shipwrecks for the ignorant and unwary. Thus, therefore, death also flows into us from thence as if from malignant fountains, that is, when we depart from the good, when we become alienated from God, when we confound the order and peace of holiness, when we violate the laws of an entirely honest life. Let us flee from it and acquiesce rather to the Apostle who persuades and says: "Let us not be made desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another" (Galat. V, 26); but rather be kind, merciful, "forgiving one another, even as God hath forgiven you in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ephes. IV, 32); with whom there is glory to God the Father with the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
HOMILY V
On the beginning of the Proverbs of Solomon, which he spoke when he was a priest, at the bidding of the bishop.1. Great is the reward of obedience; and therefore we obey the high priest and most benign father who proposes to us certain struggles concerning the pronouncements of the Holy Spirit, who, like a most skilled master of hunters, delights to test the courses of his whelps in rough and difficult places. He has proposed, however, that we should begin our discourse on the beginning of the Proverbs. But how difficult this book—that is, the understanding of proverbial speech—is to grasp, no one is ignorant of among those who have either knowledge or study of the Scriptures. Nevertheless, one's foot must not for that reason be withdrawn from every effort, but we must lift the hope of our discourse to the Lord through the prayers of the high priest and our pastor, so that speech may be given us in the opening of our mouth (Ephes. VI, 19). We know that those three books belong principally to the most wise Solomon: the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and what are called the Canticle of Canticles. Each one of them contains a certain and proper method: yet the utility and purpose is the same for all, namely, to instruct the human mind and to cultivate the life of mortals. Proverbs, therefore, is moral instruction and the emending of vices and a rule of a probable life, directing human acts by a certain more cautious line. Ecclesiastes, however, discourses on natural things, and demonstrates how great is the vanity in this world, and how much is empty in things: so that through this he may by no means persuade us to cling to this thing which he has taught is vanity, and to- [word break]
occupy our cares in vain with fleeting things. B Indeed, it is the custom of men that the name of Proverbs should have a place in common words, that is, those things which are spoken publicly as if by a certain tradition of antiquity, just as the very etymology of the spoken word among the Greeks shows. We misuse this type of speech for many things that happen similarly in life: but let the common opinion of the people hold this regarding the name of a proverb. With us, however, a proverb is a useful speech containing hidden things within itself, and possessing indeed something of utility even openly, yet concealing the greatest part of its meaning in the depths and in the occult. Finally, the Lord also spoke thus: "These things I have spoken to you in proverbs, but the hour cometh when I will no more speak to you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the Father" (John XVI, 25): by which he indicates that proverbial speech does not have its understanding plainly and in the manifest, but by certain oblique and occult indications, it insinuates the will of the speaker to those who are wiser and more learned.
"The Proverbs, therefore," he says, "of Solomon, the son of David," that is, words necessary for the course of the whole of life. He added also the name of the author, so that by the authority of the person he might invite the desire and study of the reader. For the prejudice of the teacher always makes the speech indeed commendable, but it arouses the minds of the hearers to a desire for study. The Proverbs, therefore, of Solomon, namely, of him to whom the Lord said: "Behold I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, in so much that there hath been no one like thee before thee, nor shall arise after thee" (III Reg. III, 12); and again: "God gave to Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart as the sand that is on the sea shore: so that the wisdom of Solomon surpassed all the wisdom of all the ancients, and all the wise men of Egypt" (III Reg. IV, 29, 30). Do you see how much force the superscription of the name possesses? Proverbs, he says, of Solomon, son of David. The name of the father is also added, so that it may be known that Solomon was wise, born of a wise and prophetic parent, that is, one who from his infancy was instructed in the sacred letters, who did not assume the kingdom or principate by any iniquitous lot, as if he had invaded kingdoms not due to him; but by the just judgment of the prophet father, through whom, by the will of God, the fullness of the kingdom was handed down to the worthier of his sons. This, therefore, was the king in Jerusalem (III Reg. I, 33). Nor has this been said idly. For not only are the kingdoms of certain places named for the sake of distinguishing the remaining kingdoms, but so that you might also know him as D the founder of that most famous temple, and one constructed at the same time in the figure of future goods,
and of all things that were wondrously established in that city, you might recognize the author and parent. It greatly conduces, moreover, to the embracing of the instruction of the discourse, that it be a king who writes. For if, as some have defined it, a kingdom is a certain legitimate care and institution, it is certain that the institutions which are given by that king, who has nevertheless obtained it worthily and deservedly, hold the force of laws and sanction the rights of living, especially when it consults for the common good of all, and is determined not with a view to private utility. For in this a king differs from a tyrant, since the latter consults for what is useful to himself, the former for what is useful to all.
3. He proceeds then to enumerate how great the utility of this book is, and says first, because from the proverbs it is to know wisdom and discipline. But wisdom is the knowledge or science of things divine and human, and of the causes by which these things consist. If anyone, therefore, brings forth a discourse worthily concerning God, he has recognized wisdom, just as Paul did who said: *Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect: yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are coming to nought, but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds*. B But even he who from the condition of the world and the magnitude of creatures understands and notices the Creator, he also has known God through the wisdom of this world. *For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made*. But the proverbial discourse leads us to the understanding of God when it says: *The Lord by wisdom founded the earth*, and again: *When he prepared the heavens, I was present with him, and I was by him, arranging; and I was one in whom he delighted*. For he disputes all these things as if from the person of Wisdom, and transmits her science to us more manifestly, as if she herself were speaking these things to human ears. But also that which he says: *The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways*, C he spoke concerning that wisdom which is shown in the work of this world, which she herself emits, as if by a voice, through the things that are seen, because they were made by God and did not proceed of their own accord, which are seen to be so wisely and so magnificently arranged. For as *The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork*, yet they declare it not by the sound of a voice, but by the confession of a wisely disposed work: *There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard*; so there are certain discourses and reasons of wisdom which have been inserted into creatures before all things, that is, that very reason by which each thing was created by wisdom, and by which she herself, even when silent, cries out and confesses her creator, the Lord. For first of all D the reason and wisdom of things was produced, and then their substance itself, when already the reason and wisdom of them could have subsisted, through which the intention of mortals might also be directed to the understanding of the only wise God.
4. Furthermore, there is also a certain human wisdom, that is, the experience of things which are carried out in common life, according to which we call those who are expert in any art wise. A very great part of this book, therefore, looks to the exhortation of wisdom, when it says: *Wisdom uttereth her voice in the broad places; she crieth in the chief place of concourse; at the entering in of the gates, in the city, she uttereth her words*. In these, although it comprehends deeper sacraments, yet it also suggests this nonetheless, that through those things which it knows to be sufficiently pleasing and acceptable to men by nature, that is, through the praise of wisdom, it might provoke and invite souls, so that they might not sluggishly or remissly seek its disciplines, whose praise and utility is found in all things, that is, in the ways, in the broad places, and in the fortifications of the city. He enumerates each of these for this reason, that he might show the magnificence of the reason which is held in things. For the exits and the broad places indicate the acts of our whole life, in which we must be careful that wisdom is always present. But he designates the caution and defense or continence of our life in the walls, in whose summit, not in the foundations, nor in the beginnings, but in the highest perfection, wisdom is designated to act confidently. Wishing also to join and associate us more familiarly to wisdom, he says: *Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister*; and again: *Love her, and she shall keep thee*. Then next, demonstrating her utility common to all: *She hath killed her beasts, he says*, that is, she has prepared strong and solid foods, for those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. *She hath mingled her wine in the bowl, he says*: the wine which *maketh glad the heart of man*. He calls the bowl itself the mystical participation of the purified wisdom, from which it is allowed to all, though to each according to the capacity of their powers and the progress of their merits, to draw what is sufficient. But he says that she has prepared her table. In this, by certain magnificent forms of discourse, he introduces to us the spiritual understanding in carnal words. For he names the rational food of the soul, and such as we have this explanation of the word of God in our hands, a prepared table. *With great preaching*, he says, *calling and inviting*. Do you hear that preaching is spoken of, and do you doubt that these things are referred to the mystery of the Word? But that he says with exalted preaching, he declares that there is nothing humble, nothing dejected or obscure in the dogmas of wisdom. How, however, does he invite? Hear. *Whoso is simple, he says, let him turn in hither*; for *God hath chosen the foolish things of this world, that he might put to shame them that are wise*. For as the infirm need medicine, so also the simple need wisdom.
A It further speaks: *Better is it to trade for it, than for treasures of gold and silver*; and, *It is more precious*, it says, *than precious stones, and whatsoever is precious is not worthy of it*; and, *My son, if thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself, and for thy neighbor*; and, *To the wise son, ways are made straight*, and many other things which, if you run through the text of the book itself more diligently, you will find said concerning wisdom. But since Solomon himself says: *For wisdom will not enter into a malevolent soul*, he strives first that the minds of those whom he invites and provokes to the study of wisdom be cleansed by the fear of God. For it is not right to entrust the saving sacraments of wisdom to sordid and polluted minds, nor for those who are unprepared and incapable of understanding B—and who are inexperienced in all reasonable doctrine and learning—to be suddenly blinded by the light of wisdom. For it is as if someone were to store sweet and precious ointment in a dirty and foul-smelling vessel. Therefore he says: *The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom*. But the fear of the Lord is the purification of the soul, according to what the Prophet also says: *Pierce my flesh with thy fear*; as if he were to say that where the fear of God is, there every crime ceases, while the members of the body, as if fastened with nails, are not lent to the service of any turpitude or wickedness. For just as he who is fastened with iron nails and pierced through with pain remains immobile regarding bodily actions, so also do those whose hearts the fear of the Lord has pierced; they can neither move their eyes to things that are not lawful, nor perform the service of their hands for wicked deeds, nor, in short, do aught that the divine law forbids, C because they are fixed with the pain of those nails which they suffer from the expectation of future judgment.
5. Wisdom therefore drives away and excludes from her hearers those who are contaminated and incapable of learning, saying: *But they that are without fear shall wander before the gates*; and again: *Wisdom shall be sought among the wicked and shall not be found*; and again: *The wicked shall seek me and shall not find me*, for the reason, namely, that they are not cleansed by any divine purification of fear. Therefore, if anyone desires to approach the schools of saving wisdom, let him first draw near, having been cleansed from all contagion of malice through the fear of God. Thus there appeared to us another good, coming from the doctrine of Proverbs, the utility of the fear of God introduced into the institutions of wisdom. But D because the second discourse of Proverbs also promises the knowledge of discipline, let us see what the power of the discourse itself signifies. Discipline, or education, is a certain instruction applied to the soul with labor, so that it might sometimes purge it of the filth of malice, which *for the present indeed seems not to be of joy, but of sorrow; afterward, however, it yields a most peaceful fruit of justice to those who have been trained by it to salvation*.
A Whoever the person is, because many, when approaching those things that befall them as troublesome or sad, through the ignorance of an untaught mind do not at all foresee the useful outcome of affairs from correction, they immediately faint through the desperation of a slothful mind, and, impatient at the austerity of care, give themselves over all the more to the languors of ignorance. Therefore, they bring forth a voice worthy of themselves and of the just, saying: *O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger, nor in thy fury correct me*. For they do not shun correction, but they avoid anger. Similar to this also is that: *Correct us, O Lord, yet in judgment, not in anger*. And again elsewhere: *The discipline of the Lord hath opened mine ears*. For just as boys, when they apply themselves to their studies too negligently, if perhaps they are stirred up by the lashes of B their masters and tutors, they become more solicitous and lay hold of what is taught more capably—and the same discourse, which was not heard by the boy before the corrections and lashes, is now, as it were, with the ears opened by the force of the lashes, both heard and grasped, and committed to memory—so also it happens to those who do not hear the Word of God, and who neglect and despise divine doctrine; when the correction brought by God has been applied to them, and they have been whipped by the tribulations and pressures of the world, then at last they receive those things which they always heard, or which were recited to them from divine precepts, as if now brought for the first time to their ears. Therefore he said: *Because the discipline of the Lord hath opened mine ears*.
Discipline, therefore, as we have said, warns or corrects the restless, C just as was done also through the Apostle Paul, when he says he delivered a certain one to Satan so that he might learn not to blaspheme, as if a criminal had been handed over to a certain executioner and headsman, by whom the flesh might indeed suffer destruction, but the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. Others, however, discipline, once they are amended, recalls and restores to salvation, like that one who said: *After my captivity I did penance*. And therefore it seems necessary to look more diligently into the virtue and utility of this discipline always. The most wise Solomon himself, therefore, knowing what advantage would arise from it, gave instruction, saying: *Cease not to correct the little one, that is, to recall him to discipline: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. For thou shalt strike him with the rod, and thou shalt deliver his soul from death*. D And again: *For who is the son whom the father correcteth not?* Then he next shows that this discipline is more precious than the riches of this world among those who are sane of mind, when he says: *Receive discipline, and not silver, that ye may not fail in the time of tribulation*; that is, when we are afflicted either by bodily illnesses or are pressed by the adversities of our relatives and loved ones, let us not think of God otherwise than piety and religion demand, but let it be that in all patience [we receive] the corrections of the Lord.
For those things in which we have sinned, we endure; and you, as one taught in the discipline of piety, speak in tribulations: "I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned" (Micah 7:9); and add to these also this: "It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy statutes" (Ps. CXVIII, 71). Such was the Apostle, who said: "As chastened, and not killed" (II Cor. VI, 9); and again: "But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world" (I Cor. XI, 32).
6. Since, therefore, it is said that there is a discipline of letters, that is, erudition and instruction, according to what is written of Moses, that "he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts VII, 22), so that one might not surrender and submit oneself indiscriminately to whatever A studies and disciplines are handed down, this first verse of the Proverbs competently warns us, saying that it is necessary to know wisdom and discipline—that is, that we should follow that wisdom and discipline which conducts us to the salvation of truth by its own light. For very many people surrender themselves to the disciplines of geometry, discovered by the studies of the Egyptians, others to astrology, introduced by the Chaldeans, and others to various other things; while they seek certain shadows and empty lines of signs, and calculate the movements of the stars through the air, the true discipline of God, which is handed down in the divine writings, becomes cheap in their eyes due to the simplicity of its speech. But also the discipline of poetry or rhetoric has occupied very many, where the entire subject matter of speaking is a lie. For nothing will appear poetic unless it is fabulous and feigned, nor rhetorical unless it is connected by artifice and cunning, nor will anything be sophistic unless it is deceptive and false. Therefore, since very many, occupied with such studies, have grown old in errors of this kind, taking no labor B or effort to know God, the proverbially wise speech suggests the necessary science of discipline, through which it is fitting to know to what disciplines we ought to devote ourselves as if they were useful and salutary, and from which ones we ought to turn away as if they were vain and useless. Moreover, he who diligently attends to the Proverbs can understand also the "words of prudence," so that if he can investigate anything from them, he may acquire it for the profit of his own salvation. We know, therefore, that prudence is one of the general virtues, through which we are rendered knowledgeable of good and evil, or if there is anything that is neither, we comprehend it. The prudent one, therefore, is named from the basic term of prudence. But perhaps someone might object to me: "How then was the serpent said to be the most prudent of all beasts?" (Gen. III, 1), and again the Lord commands us to be "prudent as serpents" (Matth. X, 16), and again the dishonest steward is said to be "prudent" (Luc. XVI, 8)? To me it seems the name of prudence is to be understood in three ways: either when someone cunningly harms another so that he may benefit himself, seeing that he cannot provide for himself except by the loss of the other, as this dishonest steward did, providing for himself by his master's losses—he who is designated as having acted prudently by the sentence of the Lord himself; or again, when someone, with no regard for his own utility but solely from an impulse of anger or envy, or some other evil that descends from a corrupt character, so supplants and deceives another that he himself gains nothing beyond the effect of the evil work: just as the serpent is described to have deceived the first man in paradise, in which it not only profited nothing from the subversion of another, but also accepted a heavy, more grievous condemnation. But the third kind of prudence is that by which each one looks out for himself and his own salvation more astutely without the detriment of anyone else, while we C either diligently choose what is advantageous, or certainly, when caught in the dangers of those who persecute us, we guard with all caution and observance our head, which is Christ, and the faith that is in him: according to which, as I believe, the Lord commands us to be made prudent like serpents, in whom, they say, there is this natural caution: that when the other members are exposed to persecutors, they guard only the head more cautiously from the dangers of those pressing in. Therefore, he who understands the words of prudence immediately discovers which are the words of fallacy, in which there is a deceitful trick, and which are composed more with the appearance of truth than with truth itself. Nevertheless, he recognizes also what are the words that are brought forth for the utility of life and honest acts, from which, as a most skilled moneychanger, he will hold fast to what is good, and abstain from every appearance of evil (I Thess. V, 21). This is the prudence through which he is also called that prudent one "who built his house upon a rock" (Matth. VII, 25)—that is, he who in the faith of Christ places the structure of his own acts, so that when winds and storms are stirred up, and rains and rivers beat against it, the house remains immobile and unshaken. By which the Lord teaches the prudent man in temptations—whether those that arise from the earth, and in the manner of rivers and torrents move *rheumata* (flows) of flesh and blood within us, or in those which, in the manner of winds and storms, are stirred up from the regions of the air by those against whom we have a struggle and fight, [namely] the principalities and powers, and the prince of this air of the world who now works in the children of disobedience (Eph. II, 2)—in all these things, I say, he who is a prudent man—that is, he who, hearing the speech of the Proverbs, has learned well the words of prudence and has bolstered himself with assiduous erudition and instructions—remains unshaken and immobile. Such were those five prudent virgins, who, by the discipline of prudence, having provided for themselves and D having prepared oil in their lamps, were able to enter the bridal chambers with the Bridegroom (Matth. XXV, 10). But the foolish ones, who ceased from such studies, being made aliens to those for whom oil could be prepared, were cheated of the joy of the marriage (cf. Matth. XXV, 12). These things have been said in order to show what it is to "know the words of prudence."
7. Now let us see what this also is which is said, "To understand the subtlety of speech" (Prov. I, 5, juxta LXX).
Indeed, he who is true and proceeds from a sound mind is pure and simple, saying the same things and always confirming the same. But he who is various and unstable is always bound by a certain art and by diverse ties and machinations; he is entangled and transformed into many faces, and is always spun through a thousand subtleties, for the reason that he is not supported by any foundations of truth or solidity, but is tempered for the delights of the hearers and for the lust of their ears. Therefore, that we might be able to firmly and constantly resist those words which are supported by art rather than truth, the proverbial mandate instructs us that, if we attend to its institutions and do not pass over its reading negligently and perfunctorily, having taken up from it certain defenses of intelligence, when such a conflict of battles B is cast upon us, we may know how to take up the subtleties of words, and, as if from certain ambushes, how to repel direct missiles with the shield of intelligence.
When, however, the structure of a matter is one way, but speech pronounces upon it in another, and we are not truly compelled to assent to the matter, it is a certain subtlety of the word and a subversion of the truth; or, when an image of truth is deceitfully proposed to us, whereas the guile of a lie is established with deceptive words, so that what is said appears to be one thing to one person, but the sense of the speaker tends toward another. Whence, when foxes or hares chasing dogs have shown an impulse of running elsewhere, but then suddenly turn in another direction, they are said to have made a *strophe*, that is, a turn.* Therefore, those are verbal subtleties which are put forward by heretics from the knowledge of a falsely so-called science; who, not accepting the simplicity of spiritual doctrine, elude the fortitude of truth through the subtleties of sophisms and the guiles of words. He who has been more diligently instructed from the books and sermons of Proverbs takes up these verbal subtleties, so that if ever a question is aimed at him that accepts conclusions on both sides and admits a most difficult access for answering, nevertheless, if he has been more fully instructed from the divine letters, he will not immediately be confused and stick in his mind; but even if an outcome of resolution is not at hand, he will nonetheless immediately find equal things to object, and, having turned the blade of his zeal upon his adversary, will strike him, so that even if he does not depart superior, he may at least depart equal. These Proverbs also grant us that we may be able to understand true justice. And since justice is called a virtue or an affection of the mind, rendering to each as is worthy; and it is very difficult to fulfill this competently, while to some, through prudence, the ability is lacking to grasp what merit each thing possesses; others are occupied by their own vices, and hindered by anger, hatred, favor, or pity, and cannot consult what is true and just: from which it happens that they either despise and scorn the poor, or do not rebuke the unjust and violent rich and powerful.
8. The book of Proverbs therefore promises to provide its disciples with the understanding of true justice. For just as through the light of the world, which the apostles are, saying, "For you," he says, "are the light of the world" (Rom. X, 3), we arrive at the true light, which is Christ, and just as through the sermons of the wise we arrive at the true wisdom, which is the Son of God; so through the instruction into justice which we are taught from the divine books, we arrive at this which he calls true justice, which is Christ the Lord. There is, however, also in human acts a true justice, and there is also a simulated justice. Regarding which matter many wise men of the age have also left behind very many writings. But because from them that justice of God, which is truly true, was unknown, C nothing worthy could be brought forward concerning human justice. But the proverbial doctrine, because it descends from that heavenly source of justice, deservedly promises that it will provide men with the understanding of true justice, through which we may also simultaneously recognize what the fallacy of simulated justice is. For Israel also is deceived in the quality of justice; for seeking to establish their own justice, they are not subject to the justice of God. But also the laws of diverse nations are for this reason diverse and contrary to one another in very many things, because the reason of true justice could not be clear among them. For among some, parricide is deemed just; among others, all homicide is considered execrable. Among some nations, chastity is held in the first place, among others every incest is deemed a certain more sacred marriage; and you will discover that things which are just among each individual nation are held to be unjust among others. But this book frees all who have been instructed by it from such confusions. There is, therefore, a certain justice which is practiced among us men, through which, by rendering what is just to individuals, or if we cannot grasp that to a clear degree, yet by acting with such a mind and purpose, we are in no way excluded from the limits and equalities of justice.
There is, indeed, also a celestial and divine justice, through which the just Judge disposes his whole creation with a most just reason, which can be seen or considered by men only with the greatest difficulty and scarcely in any part, due to the magnitude of the dogmas which are contained in it. For I believe this is what is said in the Psalms by the prophet: "Thy justice is as the mountains of God" (Ps. XXXV, 7), and the magnitude of his dogmas is made equal to the mountains. Therefore, he promises that he will lead this true and divine justice into the manifest for those who have devoted themselves to proverbial instruction.
9. But he will teach, in like manner, that since indeed we commit some sins by will, we also fall into others against our will. Therefore, the examination of justice cannot be kept the same in both cases: for example, if the case of two harlots is acted out before us, one of whom, having been dragged by procurers and prostitutes in brothels, is forced to append a base gain of the body to greedy masters, [while] the other of whom...
stimulated by luxury and precipitating lust, A surrenders herself to base embraces: will not one, since the crime is under a single title, receive a different judgment from justice? Likewise, if someone sins who has been most poorly instructed from childhood, and who entered into this world through wicked and unjust parents, among whom his mind was infected by shameful and base words and deeds and he grew up wickedly instructed, while another [comes] who has had many opportunities by which he might be provoked to virtue, the honest admonitions of his nurturers, the most serious instructions of his parents, the education of the divine word, a strict manner of life, and all things by which unrefined minds ought to be cultivated toward virtue; after this, if even this person incurs a similar transgression to the former, does he not deserve a more serious B punishment under the guilt of the same title? For while the former will be blamed for this alone, that he did not cultivate the seeds of saving grain naturally inserted in him, and—if I may say so—did not stir them up from the earth; this one, however, because he had these things similarly, but squandered and lost even those things which had been added to him through the industry of good training, having fallen into the depths of a most depraved life through the lapses of negligence. Therefore, to understand true justice is the mark of an excellent mind and perfect understanding. For it is undoubtedly the mark of a perfect mind to understand Christ, Who was made unto us wisdom from God, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption. C Finally, to this is joined the understanding of true justice, and to direct judgment, which is certainly impossible to be done unless one has first learned it from Christ, the just Judge. For not even that most wise of all, Solomon, could have delivered that most famous judgment concerning the two harlots and the child, unless inspired by the power of Christ, the true Judge. For when no witness could be brought for the question and case proposed to him, he at once turned to the testimony of nature, so that by its silent suggestions he might recognize what was hidden, while the other mother willingly and fearlessly accepted the death of the child, but the true mother, stimulated by natural affection and trembling in her inmost visceral parts, was killed by the mere hearing of the death of her little one. He therefore who knows true justice, and is instructed and taught by it, D this one directs judgment competently, while it depends upon each person to do what is just. For just as the military training of young men involves, if a target happens to be fixed at which it is proposed for the contest to vibrate missiles and aim shafts; he doubtless is judged to be competent who has neither moved beyond the mark of the target nor fallen short, but whose arrow, trembling under the guidance of eyes directing the very point of the proposed sign, struck the bullseye: so too must the judge of justice direct the examination of his own judgment; neither to admire the persons of the eminent, nor to deflect to the inferiors through unjust pity: for the divine law prohibits both, when it says: "How long will you accept the persons of sinners?" and again: "Do not pity the poor in judgment." The Apostle, indeed, pronounces concerning all equally, saying: "You shall do nothing, turning aside to either part." A straightforward and indeclinable judgment, therefore, provides the skill of true justice: provided, however, that it be administered from such a heart as is not able to be corrupted by money, nor inflamed by friendships, nor infringed by the favor of the powerful. To these the Prophet says in the Psalm: "Judge rightly, you sons of men." For the equity of judgment is an argument that justice truly dwells in the heart.
The definition of judgment in our soul
Whence even Solomon himself in the following verses execrates greater and lesser weights, for both are an abomination before God, figuratively designating iniquity in the inequality of weights. This usefulness is not only applied in our judgments, but also in the individual things which we choose in life to use: for we have within ourselves a certain natural judgment of the mind, through which we distinguish the bad from the good. Which virtue of the mind, having inborn and inserted seeds of judging, if it be cultivated by the teachings of true justice, will hold to the straightforward and fair examination of judgment and discretion: which, residing as if in a certain tribunal of our mind, embraces those things which are praiseworthy, but condemns those which are base and vicious. By way of example, chastity and unchastity are judged before you: to your mind the sum of this judgment is committed. Your mind sits on a high seat: yielding the examination of either side. And indeed, unchastity employs lust as an advocate for itself: but chastity uses the fear of God as its patron. And if you have indeed condemned unchastity and made it move entirely from your tribunals, but have conferred the palm upon chastity, you have delivered a straightforward judgment of the examination entrusted to you. But if, leaning toward the persuasion of lust, you have preferred sin to chastity, you have delivered a perverse judgment. At once that sentence of the prophet will be brought against you, which says: "Woe to those who call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet. Woe to those who put darkness for light, and light for darkness." 10. Therefore, since according to Solomon himself "the thoughts of the just are judgments," internally within the secret chambers of our heart, we ought to hold judgment—through which we live—without any perversity or turning aside, and to use our mind as a certain balance, by which we weigh each and every one of our deeds with the most equitable moderation. Since, therefore, every command of God acts with us—that is, in our mind and thought—in a matter against the iniquity resisting it, you always grant the palm to the law of God against sin. If iniquity approaches you with equity, bring forth a sentence against unjust desires: allow equity to return victorious from the audience chamber of your mind. Injuries and patience plead their cause before you: spurn the injuries,A casting them as exiles from your home and the borders of your fatherland; but praise charity before the assembly, and, magnifying her with all honor, see that she clings inseparably to your dwelling. Simulation and simplicity, constancy and fear, prudence and folly, justice and injustice, frugality and luxury—and to sum them all up, every virtue having a contest against every vice within you, that is, within your heart, stirs up its business at the judgment seat of your mind. What, then, is the result? If you have learned true justice and hold a right and direct judgment, always condemn the vices within yourself and always grant the palm to virtue. For if, in each and every one of your actions, those things which are good always prevail, you will be blessed on that day on which God will judge the hidden things of men according to our Gospel, and those thoughts B that accuse or even defend one another, you will not be condemned as one who—in no way having betrayed justice or holiness to the evil thoughts by which you are then accused—shall receive those crowns with which you had previously crowned virtue as she conquered within you. Behold how many causes for your good the book of Proverbs has afforded, teaching you what true justice is, and how judgment is directed.
11. But after this, it is also added: *To give C to the innocent craftiness, and to the young boy sense and thought.* We understand innocence in a twofold way. One is considered innocent in that he becomes alien to sin, and corrects himself, and turns away through long meditation on good things, and, having cut away the very root of malice from himself, because he no longer harbors the intention of harming; or innocence is said of those who do not yet have the will or capacity to harm, whether because of their age or because of the nature of their pursuits and contemplation; for example, if we say that a child knows no pride, knows no guile or deceit. And again, there are those living in the country, ignorant of the fraud of merchants and of craftiness, but also alien to forensic malice and guile—whom we also call innocent, not because they turn aside from malice by deliberate choice and intent, but because they have not yet fallen into the practice of wickedness. Nevertheless, he is truly innocent who is such as was David, who said: *But I have walked in my innocence* (Ps. XXV, 1), that is, he who has cast off and driven away from his soul every intention of harming, having received and introduced into his mind the virtue of a good vow: for which reason he rightly hopes for the inheritance of the good when he says, for the *Lord will not withhold good things from those who walk in innocence* (Ps. LXXXIII, 13). Therefore, finally, he said with all confidence: *Judge me, O Lord, for I have walked in my innocence* D and again: *Judge me according to my justice, O Lord, and according to my innocence that is upon me* (Ps. VII, 9).
He therefore designates and describes in a certain way the innocent person also by simplicity of morals and sincerity of speech, and by having nothing affected in actions or colored in speech. Such also was Jacob, *a simple man, dwelling in a house* (Gen. XXV, 27), that is, living in natural simplicity: having nothing composed by art, nothing prepared by pretense to deceive the eyes of those who see. It seems to me that the proverbial discourse now mentions such an innocence, which is entirely devoid of wickedness and knows not the use of harming. Whence it also requires a praiseworthy craftiness for it, so that to the simplicity of nature there may also be added the caution of diligence; and, clothed as if with a certain shield of this good craftiness, one may remain invulnerable against the darts of wickedness. For it behooves a perfect man, according to the Apostle, to be prudent indeed in good, but simple in evil. The work of craftiness, therefore, is to avoid evil; but the virtue of simplicity is to do no evil. From these sources, therefore, let everyone who is simpler derive craftiness for his own salvation, understanding what its works are described to be. For, he says, *A crafty man is the seat of senses* (Prov. XII, 23); and *The crafty man shall be hidden from evil things coming upon him* (Prov. XXII, 3: LXX); and *He who guards rebukes is craftier* (Prov. XV, 5). Craftiness, therefore, as the etymology of the Greek word shows, is the skill of all works and arts. He, then, who receives the skill of all works is rightly called crafty. But works are some good, and some are evil: therefore, craftiness is understood sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. And he, indeed, who craftily and cunningly plots something for the ruin of another is wicked; but he who provides something craftily and prudently in good works, or who anxiously and cautiously avoids the snares of those lurking for him, uses craftiness in a praiseworthy manner. Attend, therefore, more diligently and consider what kind of craftiness is enjoined upon you, because there is a certain intermediate meaning to this name; and, as we have said, he who uses it in good matters is praiseworthy, but he who uses it in sinister matters is found execrable.
12. And since the understanding of divine Scripture is found inserted for both sides, that good craftiness was used by the Hebrews setting out, when they circumvented the Egyptians, taking from them golden and silver vessels and garments, by which they could certainly be compensated for their labor by which they had built their cities, and so that material or expenses could be prepared for the building of the tabernacle of God (Exod. XI, 35). With praiseworthy craftiness the Hebrew midwives acted against the commands of the tyrant, bringing safety to the male infants of the Hebrews who were being born (Exod. I, 17). With praiseworthy craftiness Rachel, the mother of the younger son, obtained the first fruits of the blessings (Gen. XXVII, 28). Raab used good craftiness (Jos. II, 4), and so did Rachel (Gen. XXXI, 34); the former by hiding the explorers, the latter by deceiving her father in his superstitious search for the idols. Bad
craftiness was used by Absalom, who, under the guise of kindness, turned the hearts of the people toward himself and, through insidious cleverness, bent the paternal kingdom to his own wishes. A Blamelessly, and of those concerning whom the prophet pronounces, saying: "They have wickedly devised counsel against thy people" (Ps. LXXXI, 4). Nevertheless, the proverbial discourse teaches us a praiseworthy craftiness which, as we have said, must be a kind of shield for the simple against the wiles of wickedness in all the affairs of life. In short, if the first woman had possessed this craftiness, she would certainly never have been deceived by the serpent’s wiles. Therefore, one who is simple and innocent and who rashly believes every word is surrounded and strengthened by craftiness, so that his senses may not be corrupted from the simplicity of Christ; by providing him with certain aids, it fights for him against the struggles of this life.
13. But let us see just now how it provides sense and reasoning to the young boy. For, as the Apostle describes (I Cor. III, 1-2), every man is indeed twofold: one is exterior, the other interior—that is, one which is seen, and another which is understood; and therefore it is necessary that we adapt those things which are said concerning age to the man to whom it seems most suitable. If indeed we speak of the age of the exterior man, that this book provides a bodily sense to a young boy—that is, sight, hearing, smell, or taste and touch—it will seem a ridiculous thing; for these things exist in us equally from the very moment of birth, and such things are never added by way of educational instruction. For the boy is not to be understood corporally, nor is the sense to be thought of as one of those which we enumerated above; but the intellect is to be referred to the age of the interior man: since also in many places of Scripture we are taught concerning the childish age of the soul, and elsewhere of the youthful, and likewise also of the elderly, as we learned from the apostle Paul, who said of the Corinthians (I Cor. III, 1-2) B that they were little children, and therefore he had given them milk to drink, because he had instructed them with the first and simple elements of the Gospel, as they were not yet able to take the solid food of perfect dogmas. But a youth is called "youthful" according to the inner man who is perfect in every part in the virtue of the soul: who, fervent in spirit in the deeds of piety, strives, robust and strong, toward every good work; whom the Gospels also designate as violent—that is, he who, using force, is able to take the kingdom of heaven by storm (Matth. XI, 12); who is also invited to praise the Lord through the prophet saying: "Young men and maidens, let them praise the name of the Lord" (Ps. CXLVIII, 12); of whom it is spoken also through the prophet Joel: "And your young men shall see visions" (Joel II, 28). But "elderly" is called, according to the inner man, whoever possesses perfect sense and mature counsel: as was Daniel in his still tender body, showing the maturity of a wise mind and the sentiment of consummate prudence (Dan. XIII, 50).
14. But since we have drawn the differences of age to the interior man, it follows that we must also pursue the rest with the same understanding; and that we must recall the sense which we have spoken of not to a bodily intellect, but to the virtue of the soul. And therefore if at any time it says: "Incline thy ear to my words" (Prov. XXII, 17): we must know that it requires the ear of the soul, that is, the obedience of the mind, just as the Lord also said: "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Matth. XIII, 9); and elsewhere: "A wise discourse is for the ears of the hearer" (Prov. XXV, 12). By these things therefore and things similar to them, it gives to this young or new boy, of whom we spoke above, the sense of obedience. But when it says: "Do not attend to a bad woman" (Prov. V, 2), and again: "Do not fix your eye upon her" (Eccl. IX, 8); and: "Let your eyes look straight ahead" (Prov. IV, 25): it manifests through these things that it confers, as it were, a certain vision of the soul upon this new boy. And again it warns, saying: "Eat honey, my son, that your throat may be sweetened" (Prov. XXIV, 13). It calls the words of celestial doctrine honey figuratively; D "How sweet are thy words to my throat, more than honey and the honeycomb to my mouth" (Ps. CXVIII, 103); and through this spiritual warning, it informs the taste of the soul in the boy, the very taste of which it is said: "Taste and see that the Lord is sweet" (Ps. XXXIII, 9). Moreover, there is also a certain touch of the soul, according to which touch it is attained by wisdom, and embraces it as its own beloved. For so it says: "Love her, and she shall embrace you" (Prov. IV, 6). And again Ecclesiastes: "A time," it says, "to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces" (Eccl. III, 5). For while bodies are indeed polluted by impure embraces, the soul, coming into the embraces of wisdom and conceiving the seeds of life, brings forth the holy births of salvation. This
A doctrine of the Proverbs will provide a sense—in a way—to one who is younger or a novice: it will provide reflection when it says, "Riches will not profit in the day of wrath" (Prov. XI, 4); for through these words, it casts into your heart a reflection of that day in which an abundance of riches will be unable to assist you, nor will it free you from those eternal punishments. But also when it says, "The innocent, however, shall inherit the earth" (Prov. II, 21), that is, the earth that even the meek shall receive as an inheritance—as the Lord promises in the Gospel (Matth. V, 4), and as the Prophet designates in the Psalms when he says, "The meek, however, shall inherit the earth" (Psal. XXXVI, 11). Moreover, when he says, "The wise shall inherit glory" (Prov. III, 35), he stirs the soul's senses toward the desire of the promised beatitude; and this is the reflection that, through the institution of doctrine, is implanted into the heart of the novice: by the denunciation of the punishments that are prepared for sinners, the desire for goods and the longing for beatitude are set in motion by those things which have been promised to the just and the faithful. For having heard these things, "the wise man will be wiser" (Prov. I, 5). B It is a great thing that is promised by the speech of the Proverbs, that is, that it exceeds even the wisdom of the wise, and, transcending the measure of all their doctrine, this book contains something more than the rest; so that it may be seen that, whereas every other doctrine receives unskilled hearers, a wise man ought to approach to hear and learn the proverbs, so that, having heard them, he may not so much be wise—which he ought already to be—but rather become wiser. We know, moreover, that "wise" is said in many ways. For both those who are learned according to the wisdom of this world are called wise (1 Cor. I, 20), and those who have come to the faith of Christ—who is the true wisdom of God—are deservedly named wise, as disciples of wisdom; and when the wise men of this world approach their doctrine—this very one we have in our hands, that is, the speech of the Proverbs—the judgment of the Scripture promises that they will be wiser. And how will they not be wiser, rejecting vain knowledge and adopting the knowledge of the truth? Or certainly, since "wise" is said in many ways; for he who desires wisdom is called wise, and he who has already begun to progress in the teachings of wisdom is also called wise; and he who is learned to perfection is without doubt named wise. C He, therefore, who has heard these things is wise, that is, he who has conceived the first desires of learning and inquiring into wisdom; or those who already appear to be in some state of progress and are on this account called wise, will without doubt be made wiser, recognizing from these words a great many things concerning heavenly and divine dogmas, and also a great many things concerning human and earthly matters. Since this whole book, by various admonitions of precepts, now banishes malice from human minds, now arouses and introduces virtue, it now curbs the temerity of a petulant tongue, now keeps the eye from evil sights, now restrains the hands from the motions of an iniquitous work, drives away unjust concupiscences, removes sloth and negligence, praises labor and patience, teaches prudence, and urges sobriety and chastity. D Since, therefore, through all these things, it indicates to the learning soul a hatred of vices and of every evil work, but truly stirs up a desire for every good, it is certain that it makes those who are wise, wiser.
15. "The intelligent man, however, shall acquire government" (Prov. I, 5). Every man who wishes to take up the discipline of any art must first examine whether that art which he seeks and desires is suitable and appropriate to his natural motions or dispositions; for example, if someone wishes to be an athlete, he must have the lines of his body well-composed, robust limbs, and a frame tightened by a strong structure of nerves. Conversely, he who desires to enter the contests of runners considers, of course, whether he is light in body and agile in motion. So too, the helmsman: if he is mindful of the places, if he is prudent in intellect, if he is vigilant in all things. Therefore, for this reason, the proverbial speech does not assume just anyone for governing, but an intelligent person. But what is government? Without doubt, a certain discipline of the soul, through which we may cross this unstable and fluctuating sea of our life with complete moderation and observance. For in many places of Scripture, we find this life of ours called "waters" and "seas," as in the Psalms when he says: "He sent from on high and took me, and took me up from a multitude of waters" (Psal. XVII, 17). For he most manifestly calls the mobility and perturbation of this life "waters," in that neither those things which seem good and prosperous to men remain immutably, nor, conversely, do adverse and sad things persevere; but all things glide away with a certain inconstancy and with changes and permutations. For just as it is impossible for the sea to remain in the same state of tranquility for very long, but what once seemed quiet and placid, you may see a little later being stirred up by monstrous waves; and again, those swells of the waves that you see now, raving and almost lashing the clouds, a little later you see stagnating and laid out in a placid equality like marble—so too do the affairs of human life receive easy and sudden vicissitudes and changes. Therefore, our life is in need of government; and so that, positioned in tranquility—that is, when all things proceed for us according to our judgment and will—we may foresee future permutations and not lean upon these present or prosperous things as if they were immortal; and conversely, in sad or adverse times, we may by no means feel despair, lest someone be perhaps absorbed by greater sadness (II Cor. II, 7) and be submerged into the depths of the troubled sea, that is, into the errors of a more licentious life. Neither, therefore, is the health of the body,
nor the opulence of one's house, nor the other prosperities of this life permanent and lasting. But while you dwell in such things, while you sail in the tranquility of life, look ahead and foresee some tempest—that is, the future disturbance of affairs. For sickness hangs over after health, and poverty after opulence. For the wind does not always blow from the stern, nor are the sails always filled with even lines. For sometimes those living in supreme happiness are submerged by sudden disturbances, as if by some unexpected incursions of squalls; and, in turn, some whom the harassment of various temptations and the more miserable straits of life had fatigued like fierce waves and savage whirlpools have received the quiet of their life, and, with all things passed and repelled, they have been restored to the joy of mind and the tranquility of soul. D Here, therefore, is the intelligent helmsman, who with a prudent and solicitous watchfulness, having foreseen the instability of mortal affairs, prepares his heart for the permutations and vicissitudes of things, and standing always intrepid and undaunted, he is the same, and always finds himself consistent with himself—that is, neither boastful and elated in prosperity, nor dejected and collapsing in adversity. But another benefit of navigation, and a discipline of the helmsman, occurs to us. I know, moreover, other waves; I know other billows rising against the soul, which are stirred up against it from the vices of the flesh. For anger and fear, lusts and sadness, avarice and rapine, and diverse kinds of luxury, like squalls and violent whirlpools, are stirred up against the soul by the prudence of the flesh. If these find it without the discipline and vigilance of a helmsman, they immediately crush it and submerge it, drowning it in foul and miserable shipwrecks. It behooves us, therefore, that our mind and sense should sit as a kind of helmsman of the whole ship in a high place; and having become superior to vices and passions, let it steer the rudders of the ship, that is, the thoughts, with most skillful art, and let it direct our whole body like a ship on a course with certain lines, constantly meeting the waves, and let it curb the rising swells of the waters with the force of the furrowing keel; but let it, placed in a high and lofty position, not be sprinkled at all by the bitterness of vices as if by the surging of a restless sea, but lifting its eyes always to heaven, let it pray to God and say: *Save me out of the deep waters, and let not the tempest of water drown me: nor let the deep swallow me up* [Psal. LXVIII, 3].
16. Do you wish that I recount to you another navigation, which is necessary for us by the grace of such steering? *The kingdom of heaven is like to a merchant* [Matth. XIII, 45]. We, therefore, all who live according to the Gospel are merchants, who, through the merchandise of the commandments of God, acquire for ourselves the possession of the kingdom of heaven. We ought, therefore, to gather various and diverse goods of heavenly faculties, so that, in case when the talents which have been entrusted to us for the purpose of trading begin to be sought, we might not be confounded if we show no gains of the Lord's money committed to us, and that sad and terrible voice might not follow us, saying, *Thou wicked and slothful servant* [Matth. XXV, 26]. If, therefore, any merchandise has been surrendered to us, with all caution we must traverse the spaces of this life. For we see very many in their youth to have gathered many riches from the works of the commandments of God; but in the middle time of their life, when temptations arose from malicious spirits, they were unable to bear the weight of the temptations, truly from the fact that the discipline of steering was not present to them; but they lost everything that had been well acquired before, just as they certainly are those *who have made shipwreck concerning the faith* [I Tim. I, 19]. Others, indeed, of the chastity which they kept from their youth, as if a certain squall arising, have incurred the shipwrecks of most wicked lust, and—O miserable and lamentable spectacle!—after fasts, after afflictions of the body, after tears poured forth abundantly, after long-continued continence, through the sloth and negligence of the soul, he is left naked and empty of all these goods. Does not this man, therefore, seem to you like to a merchant who, driving joyfully and happily a ship laden with infinite and magnificent wares, and loosening his sails to prosperous breezes, after he has crossed the infinite spaces of the immense and savage sea, at the very harbor and at the very doors, so to speak, of quiet, having crashed the ship, and with all things in which he rightly boasted submerged, naked and shipwrecked, he barely escaped himself by clinging to a plank? Such, without doubt, is he who has lost in a sudden incursion of the demon the treasure of virtue and sobriety acquired with many labors and much sweat; he who, submerged by the violence of sin as if by the force of a dire squall, and made shipwrecked from every virtue of goods alike, will utter that worthy voice: *I am come into the depth of the sea, and a tempest hath overwhelmed me* [Psal. LXVIII, 3].
17. Exercise yourself more diligently and cautiously in the steering of your life, and steer your eye, lest perhaps the rapid wave of concupiscence crush you through the wantonness of the eye. Steer your hearing, lest perhaps the bitterness of those detracting and speaking evil sprinkle you: do not receive vain hearing. Steer your tongue, lest you speak anything that is not useful, or that is not permitted. Steer your mind, lest you be disturbed by the threats and terrors of men; lest the weight of sadness absorb you. All the passions of vices are a kind of wave rising against the soul. If you sit always higher and more elevated than these, and are intent upon steering your soul, you will be delivered from the shipwreck of life. If you do not watch and curb and decline these vices in you one by one, but indulge your soul to live in the pleasures of its vices, like a ship without rudders wandering and always...
striking upon the rocks of sin. But listen to how the very discipline of steering yourself is sought. It is the custom for those who are sailing to look always toward the sky and from it to recognize the paths of their course, guided by day by the indications of the sun, and by night by the signs and lines of the North Star and the other constellations. You, too, therefore, keep your eyes always lifted toward heaven, according to him who said: "I have lifted up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help," or as it is said elsewhere: "Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens." Look to the Sun of righteousness, and with certain brighter stars—which are the commands of God—direct your course, and fix your wakeful gaze upon them. "Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids," so that through the observance of the commands no error of the path may overtake you. "For thy word, O Lord, is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my paths." For if you have never slumbered at the helm of your life while you make your crossing through this unstable and fleeting nature of the things of this world, you shall even deserve the help of the Holy Spirit, who leads you always by gentle breezes toward the things that are before and at the front, until you are restored to that most quiet and most tranquil harbor of the divine will in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
HOMILY VI. On Faith (16)
1. It is pious to remember God without intermission, nor can the faithful soul ever become sated with him; but to dare to discourse about God with words, or to explain him, is foolhardy, since the sense of the human mind falls very far short of the truth of things, and the interpretation of speech expresses more obscurely and weakly what is felt in the heart. If, therefore, our sense is very far removed from the truth of things, and speech is far inferior and weaker than sense, how is it not better in matters of God to observe silence, lest perhaps the fullness of faith worthy of us be endangered by the baseness of our speech, and admiration for the nature of God be diminished by the weakness of the human word? For we feel that the desire to inquire into and tell of the glory of God is divinely implanted in all rational nature; but to speak of God competently and worthily is lacking to all of us alike. In the vow and purpose of piety, indeed, we differ somewhat from one another: yet no one is so puffed up and bereft of his senses as to think he has grasped the highest summits of understanding. But he who searches more religiously, the more he sees himself to have progressed in the consideration of knowledge, the more he will grasp the understanding of his own fragility. Such was Abraham, such also was Moses; who, when they were able for the first time to see God as it was permitted for men to be seen, then each humbles himself the more—Abraham indeed calling himself earth and ashes, Moses truly confessing himself to be of a thin voice and a very slow tongue; for he perceived that the weakness of his tongue could not serve the magnitude of divine meanings.
Nevertheless, since the hearing of the whole brotherhood is now open and attentive, desiring to hear something concerning the faith of the Divinity, and the scope of the Church cannot ever be sated in discussions of this kind, according to the opinion of the Preacher who says, "the ear is not filled with hearing," I think it necessary to say a few things according to my strength. We shall say, therefore, not what and how great God is, but as much as it is permitted for the human tongue to speak. For neither, because we cannot penetrate with our eyes the entire space which is between heaven and earth, shall we therefore decline to see even as much as is possible for us. So therefore, even now, we explain the piety of faith with such speech as we can; but we concede the palm to that preeminence of his nature above all speech and above all sense. For neither would the tongues of angels themselves, if such there be, nor of archangels, gathered together with every rational creature, be able to touch or express even a little of that nature. Nevertheless, if you wish either to say or to hear something about God, leave aside for a little while the senses of the body; nay, I should say, leave aside even your whole body. Leave the earth, desert the seas, subject even the air to you: cross over time, and traverse the order of the courses of the ages. Exceed the state of the whole world: ascend even above the ether, and pass beyond the brightness of the stars, or their course, or their order, or their various and diverse motions, or the connection and dissension they have among themselves. Exceed all things, look down having become superior even to heaven itself, and positioned in the regions above it, behold with your mind alone what splendor there is in those regions, what beauty of the rational and heavenly virtues. Look upon the choirs of angels, observe the ministry of the archangels, behold the glories of the dominations, the sitting of the thrones, the virtues, the principalities. And these things, I say, none the less exceeding and passing beyond, and lifting the head of your sense above every creature, and having become superior to all these in mind and intelligence, there at last behold that ineffable nature of God, a certain inconvertible and immutable, impassible, simple, incomposite, invisible, inaccessible light, inexplicable virtue, endless magnitude, inconspicable glory, desirable goodness, unsearchable beauty, which might touch and move the affects of a pure mind, but cannot be indicated or explained by speech.
2. There is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; the only nature which is not created, the power of domination, natural goodness: the Father beginning of all, cause of all things, root of the living, from whom proceeds the fountain
of life, wisdom, virtue, and the unchanging image of the invisible A God, who is the Son begotten of the Father, the living Word or Reason, who was God and was with God, and always was: not made, but born of the Father before the ages, not assumed later or adopted into Sonship: not a possession, nor a creature, but the creator and maker of all things: who is all that the Father is, I said the Son and the Father: always observe for me these properties. Since, therefore, He is the Son, and it is proper to Him that He is the Son, He is all that the Father is, according to His own word where the Lord and Savior says: All things that the Father has, are mine. For in truth it is certain that all things are in the image that are in the prototype, whose image it is. For we have seen B his glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, in which it is indicated that He does not have the power given by a gift of grace, but as possessing from natural fellowship the unchanging glory of the Father’s majesty: for to receive is common to every creature, but to have naturally is proper to Him who is born from the nature of the Father. That the Son, therefore, naturally possesses what belongs to the Father; that the Only-begotten, indeed, embraces in Himself all things equally that are the Father’s, while among many there is no such hereditary division. Whence from the very name of Son we are taught that He is a sharer in the Father’s nature; not created by a command, but shining forth from the very substance; inseparably and without any beginning co-inhering with the Father. He is equal in goodness, equal in power, a partaker of glory. And what more? From the fact that He is the seal and image of the Father, He indicates and shows entirely in Himself that He is what the Father is. Whatever, however, has been said to you after this concerning His assumption of a body, He speaks while structuring the dispensation of human C salvation, which He had come to fulfill in the flesh. He says that He is sent, and that He cannot do anything of Himself except what He sees the Father doing; and that He received a commandment, and many other things of this kind; but let these not provide you with an occasion to defraud the deity of the Only-begotten Son. For this fact—that for the sake of your indulgence and compassion He behaves and acts as one lower than Himself—ought not to be taken as an attenuation of His natural dignity; but understand the nature as worthy of God: yet for the humility of the words, heed the reason of the dispensation. Of which, D if we wished now to discuss each individual point, we would consume an infinite number of words and much span of time. But let us return to the proposition.
3. Therefore, if the human mind could transcend every bodily and material nature, and even surpass the whole intelligible and rational creation, and like some fish coming forth and born from the deep to the surface of the waters, could perceive the freedom of a sincere and pure insight, there it will also see the Holy Spirit, where it saw the Son and the Father, having the same all things, of the same A substance and nature, of goodness also and of immutability, of holiness and of life. For it is written: Your Spirit is good, and, A right Spirit; and, The Holy Spirit. And Paul said: The law of the Spirit of life. Therefore, none of these things happens to Him from without; but just as heat is inseparable from fire, and radiance from light, so also is sanctification, and vivification, and goodness, and immutability from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Holy Spirit assists there, or rather He is there in that blessed nature, not numbered in the count of the rest of the multitude, but He is perceived in the Trinity, and is comprehended in that unity, nor is He attached to other substances. For just as the Father is one and the Son is one, so also the Holy Spirit is one: but the others, who are called ministering spirits, indicate B by their individual orders innumerable multitudes. But you do not look among creatures for Him who is above every creature; nor rank among those who are sanctified Him who sanctifies, by whom angels are filled, archangels are inspired, the virtues are sanctified, and all things are vivified: who is divided among every creature, and for this reason is participated in differently by one and differently by another. And while He bestows His gifts upon all, He is nevertheless neither taken nor spent by those who participate, but both they are filled, and He remains undiminished and entire. But if this seems difficult to you and foreign to your understanding, look at the radiance of the sun, how while it illuminates individual and diverse bodies, and grants the grace of light and heat to all, yet in no way is its substance C either seen to be diminished or split by those who participate in it: so also the Holy Spirit illuminates all things for the knowledge of God; He inspires the prophets, teaches wisdom to the legislators, perfects the priests, strengthens kings, makes the perfect just, teaches the sober what is honorable; He grants the gifts of healings, vivifies the dead, releases the bound, calls outsiders through adoption into the regeneration of baptism. If He takes a publican, He produces him as an evangelist filled with faith. If He takes a fisherman, He makes him a theologian, that is, a herald of the Word of God. If a persecutor of the faith, He shows him as a vessel of election. Through Him those who are infirm become strong, and the poor become D wealthy in wisdom. Those unskilled in speech become wiser than the wise. Whence also Paul in much infirmity, and in fear and trembling, was preaching the word of God; but through the grace of the Holy Spirit, napkins taken from his body, and applied to maladies, provided most complete health. Peter himself, even when he was placed in the infirmity of his body, nevertheless through the grace of the Holy Spirit, those whom even his shadow had touched were saved from every sickness. Poor were Peter and John, for they had neither silver nor gold, but they gave the gift of health more precious than all gold. For when
A that lame man had frequently received gold or silver from many, he remained a beggar nonetheless; but after he had obtained the grace of the Spirit through Peter, he ceased begging, and leaping like a stag, he honored God with praise. John did not know the wisdom of this world, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, he spoke words which no philosophy, no language of the learned, could encounter. This Holy Spirit, therefore, is both in heaven and fills the earth, and is present everywhere, and is nowhere contained. He is whole in individuals, and whole with God. He does not bestow divine gifts as if performing the office of a servant; but with authority He distributes grace: "The Spirit distributes to each one as He wills." For while He is sent according to dispensation, He works according to authority and power. Let us pray that He be present and inspire our souls, and He will never abandon us through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.
HOMILY VII. Or the Epistle to a Fallen Virgin (17).
It is time for us to exclaim that prophetic word, "Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes, that I may weep for the destruction of the daughter of my people?" And although deep silences may have covered others, and having been stupefied by the atrocity of the wound, they have almost lost the vital movements of the soul and the very sense of pain, yet we cannot look upon so cruel a funeral without tears. For if Jeremiah [Isaiah] the prophet pursues those who were wounded in battle with such manifold lamentation, what shall we suffer concerning the wound of so deadly a soul? "Your slain," he says, "are not dead, wounded by the sword and deceased"; but the sword of this death which we mourn is the sword of sin, in which the fiery darts of the wicked one cause the hostile flame to consume bodies and souls together. Divine laws grieve with me at this funeral, which always cried out and warned with the loudest proclamations: "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife." The sacrosanct Gospels, seeing such a fall, draw long sighs with me, because they have cried out in vain, and commanded in vain, since "Everyone who looks on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And how can they now look upon her whom they had joined to the Lord as a bride, now playing the adulteress with a certain freedom? The spirits of the saints even groan and are indignant with me, and especially Phinehas, who was full of the zeal of God, because it is not permitted for him B now also, having seized his sword, to take worthy vengeance for the crime committed. John the Baptist is also indignant with me, that he cannot run from his abandoned seat, just as he had then abandoned the desert, to rebuke the crime; and if the matter required it, to lose his head rather than his freedom. Indeed, according to the blessed Abel, "though he is dead, he still speaks," and he cries out and says much more now than he did then on behalf of Herodias: "It is not lawful for you to have her"; for although the body of John may be buried, and his tongue may now be silent, yet the word of God is not bound. For if he exerted his freedom even unto death for the marriage of a fellow servant that had been defiled, what will he do now, seeing so great an insult toward the royal bridal chambers? Seeing that you, casting off the yoke of sacred virginity and spurning the immaculate couch of the heavenly King, have associated yourself with a base and infamous corruption. And since there remains for you no escape from so wicked a deed, nor does any excuse come to your aid, you cover a crime with a crime; for "even the wicked man, when he falls into the depths of evils, shows contempt." You now deny your own pledge and attempt to deny those things which you had promised to the Bridegroom, nor do you assert that you promised virginity. But how will you be able to deny it, when you have both men and angels as witnesses of your profession which you C made to God? Remember and recall to mind your good confession; remember how you had chaste and honorable associations; how you were numbered in the choirs of virgins and were mingled in the conventicles of the saints. Remember your venerable grandmother, weary in body indeed, but green in virtue. Remember your mother, suffering the greatest struggles in the Lord, and curbing her own body with new and unheard-of labors away from her old habits. Remember your sister, and observe her; in some things imitating those who came before, in other things even surpassing them, and heaping up the glory of your elders in religion by the advancements of her virginity; she who, as she thought of you as her sister and a rival in her own purpose, provoked you to a similar course of life by the examples and words of her instruction. Remember how you used to frequent those virginal choirs, similar to the angels, and how you lived spiritually while placed in the flesh: how you had your conversation in heaven while on earth. Remember how you passed your quiet days and bright nights, delighted in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles; how you poured forth holy prayers to God; how you guarded your chaste and immaculate bed, and also your frugal table, your sober banquets, and your walk decorated with all virginal reverence. Where now is that honest habit for you, where is the look of modesty, and the simplicity of dress, the index of your soul? Where is that laudable blush of honest shame, which a pallor pleasing from abstinence would nevertheless cover over, and the leanness of vigils, more pleasing than all adornment, would make dim? How many times in your prayers did you pour forth tears for the sake of preserving your virginity? How many times, writing to the servants of God, did you beg that they might pray for you? Why, I ask? To obtain the grace of this infamous corruption D
fear that you will be joined to the Lord through incorruption? How often, O ungrateful one, have you received the gifts of the heavenly bridegroom? How great is the honor bestowed upon you by the contemplation of his name? How often have his virginal choirs gathered around you, and held you as one of their own number in their banquets, in their fellowships, in their sodalities, as a simple and chaste life requires? How often have the blessings of virgins been given to you, and the letters of the saints—as if to the bride of Christ—been honorably sent? And now, at the light breath of this spirit of the air, which now operates in the sons of disobedience, you deny all those things, you reject everything, you consign everything to oblivion, and you exchange the heavenly treasure for the pleasure of petty lust, which for the present indeed sweetens your palate, but which you will afterwards find to be more bitter than gall.
For all these things, who is there that would not, with mourning and tears, bring forth that prophetic voice over you, saying: *How has the faithful city Sion become a harlot?* Or how would the Lord himself not respond to one of the priests, whom he has deemed worthy of his colloquy, and say: "Have you seen what the virgin Jerusalem has done to me?" I had betrothed her to myself in faith, and in incorruption, and in justice, and in judgment, in mercy and in pities, as I commanded through the prophet Hosea; but she loved strangers, and while I, her husband, was yet alive, she did not fear to be called an adulteress, nor did she fear to join herself to another man.
What, then, of that paranymph of such a marriage—I speak of Paul, that apostle, and he who has now been for you a teacher and a witness and a physician, when, leaving your father’s house, you were joined to the Lord? Do you not, I say, feel the Apostle bringing forth these words to you: *For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ; but I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his subtlety, your minds should be corrupted*? Therefore, I have incessantly tried with innumerable admonitions to repress and restrain every approach of lust, and to ward off the disturbances of the passions, and to guard with all vigilance the bride of the Lord. Finally, I commanded and said that the unmarried woman thinks of the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body A and in spirit. Finally, I even pointed out to you the pinnacle of virginal dignity: I said that you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, in doing so fitting you with wings, as it were, so that you might hasten with swift flight to Jesus. But also, lest any force from among the snares should contrive some fall for you, I terrified you with dreadful precepts, saying: *If any man violates the temple of God, him will God destroy.* In my prayers, too, I always added a safeguard, saying that your whole body and soul and spirit might be preserved without blame; but, as I see, I have labored in vain in you, you who for so many and such great labors of mine have returned a bitter end. And now it is necessary that I should mourn, for whom I ought to have rejoiced. For I see that you have been seduced by the serpent, somewhat B worse than Eve, because not only is your mind corrupted from simplicity, but your body is also corrupted from virginity; and you have incurred that horrible thing, which I am ashamed to speak of and yet cannot remain silent about, because it is *like a burning fire and a flame kindled in my bones*, and I am dissolved on every side and cannot bear it, because you have taken the members of Christ and have made them the members of a harlot. This is what is evil above all evils; this is what has no comparison in wickedness. Finally, the prophet also says this: *Pass, he says, to the islands of Cethim and see: send to Cedar and consider if such things have been done, if a nation has changed its gods, and C indeed they themselves are not gods; but my virgin has changed her glory, and her glory has been brought into confusion.* The heaven was astonished at these things and shuddered exceedingly.
The Lord also says this now: "Because the virgin has done two evil things: she has abandoned me, the true bridegroom of her soul, and has gone after an impious and wicked lover, a corrupter of soul and body. She has departed from God her savior, and has exhibited her members to serve uncleanness and iniquity; but she has forgotten me, and has gone after her lover." It would be better for that most unhappy one that a millstone were tied about his neck and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause my virgin to stumble. Who ever was such a reckless servant, who has progressed to such a degree of insanity, as to attempt to approach the Lord’s bedchamber? What robber was ever so carried away by fury as to dare to break into the temple of God—that is, the living vessels, the vessels in which the soul of God, made in his image, dwelt? Who ever discovered, in all this age, in the midst of a city, royal D icons violated in broad daylight, and the shapes of pigs put in place of imperial countenances? What then, if someone were to corrupt a man’s marriage, would he not, without any mercy, die upon two or three witnesses? How much more will he deserve heavier punishments, who has trampled upon the Son of God, and has defiled the bride who was consecrated to Him, and has done outrage to the spirit of grace? But she says: "She was willing, and I did not use force upon one who was unwilling." And that forward and impudent Egyptian mistress, she herself of her own will leapt upon the holy Joseph; but lust, however raging, did not overcome the virtue of modesty. Although she may have used force and her hand, the mind of the chaste one was stronger than the forwardness of the unchaste one. But she says: "She had determined this in her mind, and was no longer a virgin by resolution; and if I had not wished it, she would have undoubtedly taken another." What then? It must needs be that the Son of Man should suffer, and it must need be that he be betrayed; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. And it is necessary that scandals come, but woe to the one by whom they come. Indeed, after all things, is it the case that he who has fallen will not add that he should rise again? Why has the virgin turned away with such impudent aversion, she who hears it said by Christ through Jeremiah: "And I said, after you have committed fornication, through all these things return to me"?
For is there no balm in Gilead, or is there no physician there? Why does the health of the daughter of my people not go up? But you will find many other remedies for this evil in the divine Scriptures. There are many medicines which, after destruction, call one back to salvation. Is there death? Is there not also resurrection? Look at how horrifying are the things that are written concerning the eternal judgment; see how much is said about penance, how many decrees have been established concerning the remission of sins, how many countless examples have been written regarding conversions and amendments. The drachma that had been lost was found; the sheep that had wandered was brought back on the shoulders; the son who had squandered his paternal substance, living luxuriously with harlots, both returned and was received, and is said to have been made alive from the dead. You see how many medicines you find, if you wish to use them, if you desire to heal your soul. Bring to your thought the last day (for you will not be the only one who will live forever); but bring before your eyes that time when we are already bound by death; when the final breath is compressed by the strictest straits: remember that hour which the sentence of God urges on, and the angels hasten to lead the soul out of the body. What is the perturbation in that hour? Where then are the desires of the flesh, where is the flame of lust? Where is the allurement of the body and of pleasure? All these things depart far away; nowhere does a memory of them remain; only the conscience of sins goads us, and observing from here and from there those things which we leave behind, we shudder with all fear and consternation at those things alone to which we are to be led. Revolving in our thought the necessity of that eternal perfection alone, we remember miserably from where we are torn away, and we gaze terribly at where we are led. Describe this to yourself through the moments in your heart, and always remember the common end of life: or certainly, which is the greater of these, place before your eyes the coming of the Son of God coming with His holy angels; for He will come and will not keep silent, He will come to judge the living and the dead, and to render to each according to his works, He will come with that terrible sound of the trumpet, resounding so that it may awaken all who have slept from the ages, so that those who have done good may precede into the resurrection of life, but those who have done evil into the resurrection of judgment. Remember that vision which Daniel saw, through which he places the future judgment before the eyes of each person. For he says: "I was looking, and behold a throne was set, and the Ancient of Days sat: and His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like clean wool. His wheels like burning fire: a vast river ran before Him. Thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The judgment was set, and the books were opened." Whether good, or evil, whether secret or manifest, whether spoken or thought, all things at once are to be brought into public, and individual things are to arrive at the hearing of all, so that everything is to be revealed both to angels and to men, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
HOMILY VIII. On Psalm LIX (18).
1. To me, considering and providing for the attention of your souls and the weakness of my powers, there occurs a certain likeness of a child already indeed stronger, but not yet weaned from milk, demanding the mother's breast which perhaps had grown cold and dry from a long sickness. And although the mother knows that the fountain of milk in her breasts has run dry, yet, struck and tugged by the child more frequently, she offers the breast, not that it may nourish the little one, but that it may quiet the weeping and restrain the wailing one. Thus, therefore, even in us, although all strength of speaking has withered from this constant sickness and various infirmity, yet, with you looking on and as if weeping, we are compelled to bring forth the word; not that it may worthily feed and nourish you, but that it may only satisfy those who desire it: since indeed so great is the magnitude of your love, that even the voice of greeting alone from me suffices for you. Hail, therefore, Church of God, and learn more frequently, nay, incessantly to say that which we recently sang in the response of the psalm (VERS. 15): "Give us help from tribulation, and vain is the salvation of man." In which, as I see, not even the occasion of our infirmity assists us. Since, according to the understanding of the psalm, tribulation is not an occasion of infirmity, but invites the divine help of the soul. Whence those who had been cast out on account of sins, and restored on account of mercy, shall appropriately say (VERS. 3): "O God, Thou hast cast us off and destroyed us: Thou hast been angry, and hast had mercy on us." And since the discourse has devolved to the order and sequence of the psalm, if it seems good, let us take up the origin of the exposition itself, as we are able.
2. The history of this psalm, in its labeling, is manifestly and evidently not found in the holy Scriptures: yet a similar thing can be found by those who read more attentively in the second book of Kings, where it is written: "And David struck Adrazar the son of Moab, coming to lay his hand upon the river Euphrates: and David occupied a thousand chariots from his camp, and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand men: and David dissolved all his chariots, and there remained from these a hundred chariots." After a few things he says: "And David reigned in Israel: and David was doing judgment and justice, and Joab the son of Sarvia was the commander of the army." And again after a few things he says: "And the children of Ammon sent and hired Syria Roob, and..."
Syria Soba, twenty thousand men. And Joab saw that the battle was against his face, and he chose from all the chosen ones of Israel and set them against Syria. And the servants of Adrazar saw that the Israelites stood against them, and they delivered themselves to the Israelites, and served them." To this history alone we find that the titling of this psalm can be conveniently applied: but let us see what that time was, namely, when the ascription of the title was being written. For when are titles ascribed to kings, unless when some clearer and more magnificent deeds of theirs are marked, without doubt those which are performed in victories and in military affairs? It seems therefore worthy of question that it begins as if from certain miseries and lamentations; for it was necessary to be joyful and exultant in one's successes, and not to use the voices of one mourning, but of one rejoicing. For when the solemnity of a victory is celebrated, there is joy not only for military men, but for merchants and farmers and craftsmen, and for all those generally to whom, after hostile fear is dispersed, the secure joys of peace follow. How then does he say, "O God, thou hast cast us off," since it is surely certain that they could not have won, unless the Lord had both taken them up and helped them? How, moreover, did He destroy those whom He had brought to such great growth, to whom He had added arms, chariots, horses, warriors, and had even subjected provinces to their rule: wealthy Arabia, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, and the other surrounding lands; and had given the powerful king Adrazar to be destroyed, and caused his whole army to be scattered? Let us see then if perhaps they may appear ungrateful, to say after all these things to God, "O God, thou hast cast us off and destroyed us: thou hast been angry, and hast had mercy on us." I think, therefore, that this was indeed the time for the titles to be ascribed when the title of victory ought to be affixed; but the virtue of those things which are written ought to be referred to the end: the end, however, is said to be that which is fitted at the end of the age, that is, in its consummation. For which reason the psalm is said to be written for those who shall be changed, which is, to say everything at once, to be understood of the whole human race, for the understanding of the psalm ought to reach to all. For those who shall be changed, or who are to be changed, are those who hold neither the same order of bodily conversation as before, nor do they bear the same minds as before. It seems therefore that the psalm through prophecy shows and describes those who, having forsaken the conversation of their parents, or the superstitions of the Gentiles, have betaken themselves to the evangelical institutes, and are changed, that is, we who transfer the worship of many gods to the veneration of one God, and have translated the errors of idols to the truth of the Creator; who have converted the disgraces of lust and the corruption of luxury into the ornaments of sobriety and chastity, who have changed sobriety for drunkenness, and fasting for wantonness, honesty for obscenity, and engage in spiritual psalms instead of shameful songs, and A for couches in the prayer of God, we are prostrate. How, therefore, is this change not named for us? How are these eloquent words of the Holy Spirit not prepared for us? How is this divine word, having fallen from heaven, not given to the Church of God in place of a gift, and as it is read and recited, is it not ministered by the Holy Spirit as a certain richest and most abundant food for souls? The psalm is therefore inscribed with the ascription of a title, that is, lest perhaps its singing might be thought of as light and perfunctory; and lest, as if written upon some corruptible material, it might seem to have a swift result of abolition, and, inserted for a little while into the memory, then might immediately wither away by the confusion of things and thoughts. This is therefore what it indicates, that this scripture, as the inscription of some title, should be carved more deeply into the soul, and remain fixed and always immovable, sufficient for the eternal monuments of the soul’s remembrance. But if the Jew wishes to insolently claim that the things which are written belong to us as alien, he will be convicted from the consequences, in which diverse congregations are, and those which are far off with those which are near: for he says (v. 9), "Galaad is mine, and Manasses is mine." This same thing also concerning Ephraim and Juda, to whom he adds and associates Moab and Idumaea, and simultaneously declares all the Allophyli to be subjected to him. B We have made ourselves far from Him. By the intervention, therefore, of sins, and by transgressions standing between us and God, God is said to have cast us off. For another prophet also says that sins separate between us and God. "Thou hast destroyed us," he says, without doubt because we were built and very badly edificed: for to this one who builds his house on high, and elevates the high summit of pride, destruction will be a remedy; whence also for the highest benefit must be taken C 744 the infirmities which are inflicted by God upon bodies, through which the elation of minds is cast down, or the arrogance of flesh and blood is destroyed. He was angry then indeed when we were children of wrath, that is, even as others, "having no hope, and without God in this world." And He had mercy on us, without doubt when He gave His only-begotten Son to propitiate for our sins, that in His blood we might have our redemption. Which benefits, indeed, we could never have understood nor perceived, had He not given us to drink (VERS. 5) the wine of compunction. By wine he means the word which is able to rouse an insipient and dissolute heart to understanding by its austerity and stings. (VERS. 6.) "Thou hast given," he says, "to those who fear thee a sign that they might flee from before the bow." Moses indeed smeared the Israelite doorposts with the blood of the Lamb; but you have given us the sign itself, the blood of the true immaculate Lamb, who was offered as a victim for the salvation of the whole world. But also Ezechiel says this sign is given on the foreheads; for he says: "Go..."
after him and strike; do not spare, and do not have pity on old man or young, or on little children; but kill virgins and women, and destroy them utterly; but do not approach any upon whom is the sign on their foreheads."
(VERS. 8.) God, he says, has spoken in his holy one, and I will be exalted and will divide Sichem. Sichem is a field called by this name, which his father Jacob had given to his son Joseph as a pre-eminent and elect portion. This field seems to me to have held a type of the Old Testament, which seemed granted [to the sons of Israel] as a private endowment to the people. A Now, therefore, he says, I will call this pre-eminent and, as it were, private heritage of the people into a division, and I will make it common with all others. But when the testament has been made common to all, and all its utility begins to be common to everyone—God providing something better for us all—then also will the valley of the tabernacles be measured out, that is, the whole world, which is called the valley of the tabernacles for the dwellings of the bodies. This, as if by some lot divided and measured out, shall be distinguished throughout the individual places of the churches of God, by parishes and habitations. Then also shall he gather those things which have been divided, "He who makes peace through his blood, whether they are things on earth, or things in heaven," and who "breaking down the middle wall of partition, has made both one."
4. VERS. 9, 10. Gilead is mine, and Manasses is mine. This Manasses is the grandson of Gilead; therefore he shows that the succession of the patriarchs descended from God, from whom Christ came according to the flesh. And Ephraim is the strength of my head, Juda is my king. Those parts which had been in the division of the earth, he connects and associates back to themselves. Moab is the laver of my hope. Another interpreter says that by the "laver" is meant the heir of the bath, or a vessel of security; for indeed it was a race cast off by God, with B an interposing threat that it should not enter the Church of God, as it says: "The Moabites and Ammonites shall not enter the Church of the Lord to the third and fourth generation, and even to the end of time." But since forgiveness is given to sinners through Baptism, and from then on security is born from past deeds, showing also that salvation and security are to be granted to them through Baptism, he says: "Moab is the laver of my hope," or of security; but we receive hope fittingly; for the things that were being spoken of were not present, but to be hoped for. Therefore all the Gentiles have been subjected to Christ, willingly bowing their necks to His sweet yoke; and for that reason "He extends His shoe into Idumea." The shoe is the divinity of the Word C of His flesh which bore the subject God, and with which, as if shod, the word of God trod this world, and entered it. Therefore the prophet, blessing the future time, in which such great hope for the arrival of Christ would smile upon the human race, adds: "Who," he says, "will lead me into the city of circumstance?" I think he means the Church: a city, because it lives by the law of equity and divine statutes; but "of circumstance," because it is said better in the Greek meaning of fortification, it seems to designate the defenses of the faith; but another interpreter also says "a walled city." Who, then, will give me to see this great and venerable gift coming to the human race? This is indeed what the Lord was also saying: "For many prophets and just men have desired to see the things which you see, and have not seen them."
5. VERS. 13. Give us, he says, help from tribulation. I will not seek help from the strength of the body, nor from the pleasures of the flesh, nor from those things which are called glorious and prosperous among men; I will not ask for help from riches, nor from the abundance of resources, nor from magnitude of strength, nor from the nobility of honors will I seek aid: but from tribulation, from distress, from affliction I will ask for help from the Lord. For Paul also did this, who when he was boasting in D tribulations, was saying: "For when I am weak, then I am powerful." Give us, therefore, help (O Lord) from tribulation. Why, I ask? Because "tribulation works patience, and patience trial, and trial hope: but hope does not confound." Do you see to what heights you are made to ascend by tribulation? It leads to the very summits of hope. Are you sick? Endure equitably, since "Whom the Lord loves, He chastises." Are you poor? Rejoice, because the succession and inheritance of Lazarus awaits you. Do you suffer insults for the name of Christ? You are blessed, because this confusion prepares for you the glory of angelic company. Let us persuade ourselves, brethren, and let us be persuaded with a most certain understanding, that in the time of temptation we should not look to human hope, nor hope to be helped by human aids: but, remaining in tears and sighs and affliction, in watchful prayer, in constant and intent supplication, only thus may we hope for God's help to us from tribulation, if we despise human aids as empty and of no profit: fixed and confirmed and strengthened in our hope, who is Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom is glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.