May the Lord grant me the ability to say something worthwhile to you about the words of this psalm that we have sung just now. What we said was, I will praise the Lord all my life, I will play music to my God as long as I live. The first thing I would do regarding these words is warn you, dear friends, against assuming, when you hear or say as long as I live I will play music to my God, that when this life comes to an end that is the end for us of God’s praises. Not at all; we shall praise him then much more, when we are living without end. If we praise him during the exile we are passing through, how, do you think, shall we praise him at the home we are never going to leave? As it is said, read and sung in another psalm, Blessed are those who dwell in your home; they shall praise you forever and ever.^[1] Where you hear forever and ever, there is no end. And living the blessed life in which God is to be perceived without any uncertainty, to be loved without any weariness, to be praised without end, why, yes indeed, that will be what our being alive consists in—seeing, loving, praising God.

To these^[1] were added the sons of Maximin,^[2] with whom he had already shared imperial honors and whose features he had displayed publicly in portraits. Those who previously had boasted that they were related to the tyrant and tried to lord it over others endured the same sufferings and disgrace, for they did not accept correction or understand the precept in the sacred books:

Put not your trust in princes,

In the sons of men who cannot save.

His breath shall depart and he shall return to his earth.

In that day all his thoughts shall perish. When the impious were thus removed, the rule that belonged to them was preserved secure and undisputed for Constantine and Licinius^[1] alone. They had made it their priority to purge the world of hostility to God, and, acknowledging the blessings he had conferred on them, they showed their love of virtue and of God, their devotion and gratitude to the Deity, through their edict^[2] in behalf of the Christians. ^[3]

A Christian sees this, poor, proletarian, moaning and groaning at his daily drudgery, and perhaps he says to himself, What’s the good of my having become a Christian? Has it made me any better off than that fellow who isn’t, than that guy who doesn’t believe in Christ, than that so-and-so who blasphemes my God? That psalm warns him, Do not put your trust in princes. Why do you take pleasure in the flower of the field? All flesh is grass, says the prophet. He does not merely say it, he shouts it. The Lord shouts to him: Shout, he says. And he answers, What shall I shout? All flesh is grass, and all the honor of the flesh as the flower of the field. The grass has withered, the flower fallen. So has everything perished then? Heaven forbid! But the word of the Lord abides forever.^[1] Why take pleasure in grass? Look, the grass has perished. Do you want to avoid perishing? Hold fast to the Word.

So too in this psalm. Perhaps a poor, lowly Christian had his eyes fixed on a pagan, rich and powerful perhaps, had his eyes fixed on the flower of the field, and was perhaps halfway to choosing him for a patron rather than God. The psalm has a word for this person: Do not put your trust in princes and in the sons of people, in whom there is no help. He immediately replies, It cannot be speaking of this person, can it? He was very well off. Look how healthy he is. This very day I see him flourishing. It is me, rather, who am constantly and miserably ill. Why are you obsessed with these things as the only means of pleasure and satisfaction? That is not well-being. His spirit will go out, and he will return to his earth.

There can be no doubt, of course, that the poor man^[1] being God-fearing, while trapped in his temporal miseries, was thinking how this life must end sometime and how eternal rest is to be gained. They both died, but that poor man’s thoughts did not perish on that day. You see, it happened that the beggar died and was taken away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. On that day all his thoughts were healed. And because Lazarus translated into English^[2] means Helped—if you are called Lazarus in Hebrew, you are called Helped in English^[3]—this psalm has rightly advised us, Blessed is he whose helper is the God of Jacob. When his spirit goes out and his flesh returns to its earth, his thoughts will not perish, because his hope is in the Lord his God. This is the lesson learned in the school of Christ the teacher, this is what is hoped for by the heart of the faithful hearer, this is the reward of the only true savior.^[4]

There are many uses of the word spirit in general in the sacred Scriptures, and a person could easily become confused from ignorance, if he did not know to what sort of spirit the particular text refers. Therefore, we must be sure of the nature of the Holy Spirit according to Scripture. For example Aaron is called Christ (anointed), and David also, and Saul and others are called Christs, yet there is only one true Christ; similarly since the name of spirit has been given to many things, we must determine what in particular is called the Holy Spirit. Many things are called spirits; our soul is called spirit; this wind that is blowing is called spirit; great valor is called spirit; impure action is called spirit; and a hostile devil is called spirit. Take care, therefore, when you hear such things, not to mistake one for another because of the similarity of name. Scripture says of the soul, When his spirit departs he returns to the earth; and again of the soul, Who forms the spirit of a person within him.^[1] It says in the Psalms of the angels, Who make your angels spirits;^[2] it says of the wind: With a vehement spirit you shall break in pieces the ships of Tharsis;^[3] and As the trees of the woods are moved with the spirit;^[4] and Fire, hail, snow, ice, spirit of storm.^[5] Our Lord says of his blessed teaching: The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life,^[6] that is, they are spiritual. The Holy Spirit is not an utterance of the tongue; he is living, granting wise speech, speaking and discoursing himself.

I am afraid, says the apostle, that just as the serpent led Eve astray by his cunning, in the same way your minds too may be corrupted from the chastity that is in Christ.^[1] Now the minds of these people are corrupted by that sort of conversation, Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die.^[2] Those who love these things, who pursue these things, who assume this is the only life there is, who hope for nothing further, who either do not pray to God or pray to him for this life alone, who find any talk of diligence very tedious, will be very downcast when they hear me saying all this. They want to eat and drink, for tomorrow they die. If only they would give genuine thought to the fact that they are going to die tomorrow! Can there be any, after all, so mindless, so perverse, so hostile to their own souls, that they do not reflect, when they are about to die the next day, on how everything they have worked for has come to an end? That, you see, is what is written: On that day shall all his schemes come to nothing.

Hold most firmly and never doubt that the holy Trinity, the only true God, is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible—concerning which it is said in the psalms, Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them. Concerning this the apostle too says, For from him and through him and in him are all things. To him be glory forever.^[1]

We not only do not hold back, but even encourage, compassion, wisely and divinely set up by the church, that even for such people you should pray to the Lord with us. We also, with tears of sorrow, have pity on the downfall of misled souls. Following the example of the apostle’s compassion, we are made weak with the weak,^[1] and we weep with those who weep.^[2] We hope that the mercy of God may be gained with many tears and requisite satisfaction on the part of those who have lapsed. While we live in this body, no one’s rehabilitation is to be despaired of. We should desire the amendment of all, with the Lord helping us, who raises up those who have been broken down, sets captives free, gives sight to the blind, to whom is honor and glory with the Father and with the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

She^[1] owed her recovery to none other than to [God] with the result that people were no less impressed by her unexpected recovery than by her misfortune. They concluded that the tragedy had happened for her glorification through sufferings—the suffering being human, the recovery superhuman. This will provide a lesson for people in the future who exhibit a high degree of faith in the midst of suffering and patience in calamity, but in a still higher degree experience the kindness of God that she received. To God’s beautiful promise to the righteous though he fall, he shall not be utterly broken,^[2] has been added a more recent one, though he be utterly broken, he shall speedily be raised up and glorified. For if her misfortune was unreasonable, her recovery was extraordinary, so that health soon replaced the injury, and the cure became more celebrated than the illness. ON HIS SISTER ST.

For it is not free will but the Lord who looses those who are bound. It is not our strength, but the Lord who raises those who have fallen. It is not our diligence in reading, but the Lord who enlightens the blind where the Greek says kyrios sophoi typhlous, that is, the Lord makes wise the blind. It is not our care, but the Lord who cares for the stranger. It is not our courage, but the Lord who assists (or supports) all those who are down.^[1]

For as long as your blessed husband was with you,^[1] you enjoyed honor and care and zealous attention. In fact you enjoyed such as you might expect to enjoy from a husband; but, since God took him to himself, [God] has taken his place with you. And this is not my saying but that of the blessed prophet David, for he says, He will take up the fatherless and the widow,^[2] and elsewhere he calls him father of the fatherless and judge of the widow. Thus in many passages you will see that he is earnestly concerned about the cause of this class of people.

But what excuse for despondency will we have left if we take to heart God’s own promises and the hopes of Christians: the resurrection, I mean, eternal life, continuance in the kingdom, and all that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of people, the things that God has prepared for them that love him?^[1] Does not the apostle say emphatically, I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not even as others which have no hope?^[2] I have known many people who even without hope have got the better of their grief by the strength of reason alone, and it would indeed be extraordinary if they who are supported by such a hope should prove weaker than they who have no hope at all. Let us then, I implore you,^[3] look at the end as a long journey. When he went on a journey, we used indeed to be sorry, but we waited for his return. Now let the separation sadden us indeed in some degree, for I am not exhorting what is contrary to human nature, but do not let us wail as over a corpse; let us rather congratulate him on his setting forth and his departure hence, because he is now free from a world of uncertainties and fears no further change of soul or body or of corporeal conditions. The strife now ended, he waits for his reward. Do not grieve too much for orphans and widows. We have a greater Guardian whose law it is that all should take good care of orphans and widows and about whom the divine David says, The Lord relieves the fatherless and widow, but the way of the wicked he turns upside down. Only let us put the rudders of our lives in his hands, and we shall meet with an unfailing providence. His guardianship will be surer than can be that of any man, for his are the words Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yet will I not forget you.^[4] He is nearer to us than father and mother for he is our Maker and Creator. It is not marriage that makes fathers, but fathers are made fathers at his will.