Concerning the words of Simeon, where he says to the virgin mother of the Lord, And a sword shall pierce your soul,^[1] I have set forth in another letter what I think, and I sent you a copy some time ago, which you^[2] saw among other things. As to his adding, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed, I think it is to be taken in the sense that by the passion of the Lord both the plots of the Jews and the weakness of the disciples were made manifest. It is possible to believe that tribulation is signified by the word sword, that tribulation through which Mary’s mother’s heart was wounded by the feeling of grief. That sword was in the lips of the persecutors, of which it says in the psalm, And a sword is in their lips.^[3] They were the sons of men whose teeth are weapons and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.^[4] The iron that pierced the soul of Joseph^[5] seems to me to be an expression of bitter tribulation; thus, it is plainly said, The iron pierced his soul until his word came, that is, he remained that long in bitter tribulation until his prediction was fulfilled. From then on he was held in great esteem and was free from tribulation. But, lest human wisdom should receive the credit because his word came, that is, what he foretold came to pass, in its own way the holy Scripture gives the glory of it to God, and adds at once, The word of the Lord inflamed him.^[6]

Therefore, it is good for a person to say truthfully and with the full strength of his free will, I will provide you with my strength, because the man who thought he could keep it without the help of him who gave it went abroad into a far country and wasted his substance, living riotously. But, worn down by the wretchedness of a harsh slavery, he returned to himself and said, I will arise and go to my father.^[1] But how could he have had this good thought if the most merciful Father had not whispered it to him in secret? It was because he understood this that the minister of the New Testament^[2] said, Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.^[3] Consequently, when the psalmist also had said, I will provide you with my strength, lest he should attribute to himself the fact that he was keeping it, and as if he recalled to mind that except the Lord keep the city, they watch in vain that keep it,^[4] and that he shall neither slumber nor sleep that keeps Israel,^[5] he added the reason of his being able to keep it, or, rather, the guard by whom it is kept and said, For you, O God, are my protector.

There is no need of such self-deception on the part of those who, through giving, however profusely, alms of their fruits or of money of whatever kind, believe that they are purchasing the right to persist with impunity in the enormity and wickedness of their misdeeds and vices. Not only do they perform such wickedness, but they so love it as to desire to persist in it forever, provided they can do so with impunity. But one who loves iniquity hates his own soul;^[1] and whoever hates his own soul does not show mercy but cruelty toward it. For in loving it according to the world, he hates it according to God. If, then, he wished to give to it those alms by which all things would be clean to him,^[2] he would hate his soul according to the world and love it according to God. Now no one gives alms at all unless he has the means of giving from One who has no need of it; and therefore it has been said, His mercy shall go before me.

For a person’s good will comes before many other gifts from God, but not all of them. One of the gifts it does not antedate is—just itself! Thus in the sacred Writings we read his mercy goes before me and his mercy shall follow me.^[1] It predisposes a person before he wills, to prompt his willing. It follows the act of willing, lest one’s will be frustrated. Otherwise, why are we admonished to pray for our enemies,^[2] who are plainly not now willing to live piously, un-less it is that God is even now at work in them and in their will? Or again, why are we admonished to ask in order to receive, unless it is that he who grants us what we will is he through whom it comes to pass that we will? We pray for enemies, therefore, that the mercy of God should go before them, as it goes before us; we pray for ourselves that his mercy shall follow us.

But far be it from us to say that those who according to his purpose are called . . . , whom he foreknew and predestined to be conformable to the image of his Son^[1] should be abandoned to their own desire, so that they perish. For this is suffered by the vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction,^[2] and by their very perdition God makes known the riches of his glory on the vessels of his mercy.^[3] It is for this reason that after saying, My God, his mercy shall come before me, the psalmist at once adds, God shall let me see over my enemies. Therefore it happens to them as is written, Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart.^[4] But this does not happen to the predestined, whom the Spirit of God rules, for their cry is not in vain, Give me not up, O Lord, from my desire, to the wicked,^[5] since it is also against these same desires that they have prayed, as is written, Take away from me the greediness of the belly, and let not the lusts of the flesh take hold of me.^[6] God grants this favor to those over whom he rules but not to those who think they are fit to rule themselves and who, in the stiff-necked presumptuousness of their own will, disdain to have him as their guide.

There remains the Pelagians’^[1] second act of wickedness, because they posit free will to such a degree in human strength that they think that they by themselves, apart from the grace of God, can conceive of some good or do it. But if this were the case, why would the prophet say, O my God, his mercy will precede me? When you hear that you were preceded by the mercy of the Lord, one is given to understand that nothing of yours preceded God’s mercy. In another psalm he also says, Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who built it.^[2] Again he says, The steps of a person are directed by the Lord and he delights exceedingly in his way.^[3] In another place the psalmist also attests, The Lord raises up those who have been broken; the Lord loosens those who have been shackled; the Lord gives light to the blind.^[4] When you hear that the Lord goes before, builds, directs and raises up, unbinds and illumines without any preceeding merits, what of your own do you recognize that you have begun except only that by which you are rightly damned for your haughtiness? . . . But you interpret these words and others similar to them with the most evil intention, namely, in order that you may believe that people take the beginning of their good will from their own powers and afterwards receive the help of grace, so that (it is wrong for this even to be uttered!) we are the cause of his kindness rather than he being the cause of his own kindness.

In order not to falter in good works, we ought always to rely for support on the help of the one who says, For without me you can do nothing.^[1] Hence in order to express the fact that the start of faith and good action is given to us by the Lord, the psalmist properly says, My God, his mercy goes before me. Again, in order to teach that the good things we do must be accomplished with his assistance, he says, And your mercy follows after me all the days of my life.^[2] In order to show that the prize of eternal life rendered for good works is bestowed on us freely, he says, Who crowns you in compassion and mercy. He crowns us indeed in mercy and compassion when he repays us with the reward of heavenly blessedness for the good works that he himself has mercifully granted us to carry out.

So likewise that conditional threat of the sword, If you refuse and do not listen to me, the sword shall devour you,^[1] has proved that the sword was Christ, for rebellion against whom they have perished. In the fifty-ninth psalm he demands of the Father their dispersion: Scatter them in your power. By Isaiah he also says, as he finishes a prophecy of their consumption by fire: Because of me this has happened to you; you shall lie down in sorrow.^[2] But all this would be meaningless enough, if they suffered this retribution not on account of him who had in prophecy assigned their suffering to his own cause but for the sake of the Christ of the other god.^[3] Well, then, although you affirm that it is the Christ of the other god^[4] who was driven to the cross by the powers and authorities of the Creator, as it were by hostile beings, still I have to say, see how manifestly he was defended by the Creator: there were given to him both the wicked for his burial, even those who had strenuously maintained that his corpse had been stolen, and the rich for his death,^[5] even those who had redeemed him from the treachery of Judas, as well as from the lying report of the soldiers that his body had been taken away.

Like Cain, who in envy and pride killed his just brother, they^[1] have been marked with a sign so that no one may kill them. Indeed, this fact can be quite definitely noted in Psalm 59, where Christ, speaking according to his human nature, says, My God has made revelation to me concerning my enemies: do not kill them lest they forget your law. Strangely enough, by means of this people, enemies of the Christian faith, proof has been furnished to the Gentiles as to how Christ was foretold, lest, perhaps, when the Gentiles had seen how manifestly the prophecies were fulfilled, they should think that the Scriptures were made up by the Christians, since things that they perceived as accomplished facts were read aloud as foretold about Christ. Therefore, the sacred books are handed down by the Jews, and thus God, in regard to our enemies, makes clear to us that he did not kill them, that is, he did not annihilate them from the face of the earth so that they might not forget his law, for by reading it and by observing it, though only outwardly, they keep it in mind and thus bring judgment on themselves and furnish testimony to us.