How good is God to Israel, to them that are right in heart! Growth in moral perfection is evident as a theme from the beginning of the psalm. Indeed, no one can truly proclaim that God is good but one who knows that goodness is not from his own successes and profits but out of the depth of the heavenly mysteries and the height of God’s plan. For it^[1] is to be weighed not by the appearance of things present but by the advantage of things to come. Consequently, to the just person God is always good. Whether tormented by bodily pain or overwhelmed by bitter punishments, he always says, If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why do we not bear up under those that are evil?^[2] He rejoices that he is being chastised here, so that he may gain consolation for the future; he knows that one who has received good things in this life has his reward.^[3] The person who has not struggled or been tried in the combat of various contests will not be able to hope for future rewards.

It was in this way, you see, that the psalmist whose feet were shaken blamed himself, because he had started to find fault with God and was already on the point of doing so; but he was almost on the point of it; he was not quite there yet. He did not deny that God knew,^[1] but he staggered, as if his feet were shaken. What does it mean to stagger? To doubt. When he blamed himself, though, for not having an upright heart, what did he say? Why were my feet disturbed? Because I was envious, he said, of sinners, seeing the peace of sinners. Because I saw that the wicked were rich, I envied them; and I said I have lost out on justice, and for no reason have I made my heart just, and washed my hands among the innocent.^[2] And while I am in doubt, this is how I have begun to understand.

This is how I have begun, he says, to understand this; there is toil ahead of me. Great toil, to solve this problem. It really is hard labor. All is well with that one, and he is a bad man; all goes badly with this one, and he is a good man; and over them both is God the judge. So the just judge is giving good things to bad people, bad things to good people. There is toil ahead of me. But for how long is the toil there? Until I enter into the sanctuary of God and understand about the last things.^[3] So if you understand about the last things, you will enjoy the quiet rest of discovery, the toil of inquiry will be over and done with.

If someone speaks like this: If ever someone is deceived or snatched away in one of these [abysses], is he already lost and has he no longer repentance, I will tell him that a person who has repentance and a true understanding regarding the faith and God’s commandments, with a zeal for this, even if he comes close to falling through negligence, yet the Lord will not let him be lost altogether. As it is written, My feet were on the point of stumbling. He shows him his grace through the scourge of a sickness or a grief or the shame of his offense, so that becoming conscious [of his negligence] he may walk in the middle of the narrow path until he arrives and may not wander a single foot off, because the path is four cubits wide.^[1] He who wanders off is like Judas, who after receiving great benevolence from the Lord and seeing great signs—even the resurrection of the dead—having the purse,^[2] was not aware of grace. Because of this he was completely lost through love of money and betrayal. But the good, although as people with free will they may somehow have neglected what is fitting, are still refined through fire like silver^[3] casting away rust. This is why blessed David says, I, in the abundance of your mercy, will enter your house.^[4] If he says this, how much more we wretches!

Indeed, in what follows, David describes his own experience when he says, But my feet were almost moved, my steps had well nigh slipped, for I was envious in the case of sinners, when I saw the peace of sinners. He is surely not speaking of bodily feet and bodily steps but of the uprightness of the heart and of the step concerning which he says in another passage, Let not the foot of pride come to me and let not the hand of sinners move me.^[1] And so, we ought always to ask that the Lord may direct the footsteps of our spirits. Else they may fall, slip in a kind of morass of error and be unable to maintain their firm hold. Moreover, the reason for David’s fall is that he emulated the peace of sinners. But we ought to emulate what is good, not what is filled with shame, even as the apostle Paul also put it when he said, to emulate the good is always a good thing.^[2]

Although the hearts of all the faithful do not doubt that divine providence is never absent in any part of the world or at any time or that success in temporal affairs does not rest on the power of the stars (which is no power) but it acknowledges that all things are disposed according to the most just and most kind decision of the King on High, as it is written: All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.^[1] Still, since some things do not happen according to our desires, and since the cause of the wicked is often favored over that of the righteous in the mistakes of human justice, it is a fact very near to us and well known that these things trouble even great souls and drive them to some complaint of an unlawful matter. Even David, most renowned of prophets, confessed himself distressed by these diversities to the point of danger and said, My feet were almost stumbling, my steps were all but slipping, because I was envious of the arrogant, seeing the prosperity of the sinners.

We have seen that rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen.^[1] In this world, he reclined at table and feasted elegantly every day, while the poor man Lazarus would gather what fell from his table. When he was in torments in hell, he could not lean back and rest; but with great difficulty he lifted up only his eyes to Abraham, not his whole body, and asked him to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and to cool his tongue. Therefore there was no rest to his death nor strength in his affliction.^[2] For scourges have no value after death. And so, while David was in this bodily life, he made himself ready for scourges, so that the Lord might receive him as one that had been chastised. Think again, I ask you, on holy Job. He was covered all over with sores, afflicted in all his limbs and filled with pain over his entire body. He dissolved clods of earth with the corrupt matter and the liquid from his wounds,^[3] and since he could not rest in this body, he found death a repose. And so, thinking of his own case, he said, Death is a repose for a person.^[4] He, therefore, was not moved in his affliction, nor did he totter in the morass of his own speech, for in all those things, he did not sin with his lips, even as Scripture testifies.^[5] Rather, he found strength in his affliction, through which he was strengthened in Christ. And thus both Job and David, because they were scourged here, had strength in their afflictions, because the father scourges the son whom he receives.^[6] But those who are not scourged here are not received as sons there. And there they are not in the toils of people and they shall not be scourged with people, so that they may be scourged forever with the devil.

Hence we should know that the Holy Spirit has condemned those detestable people who hold such views. For what other people does he specifically condemn except the Arians, who say that the Son of God does not experience periods of time and years? For there isn’t anything with which that God is not familiar. If, however, Christ is God and Christ is the highest God, then he is God above all things. Notice how outraged the blessed David was with such people who limit the Son of God’s knowledge. He says, They do not share the troubles common to human beings, and they will not be plagued like other people. They are burdened with their pride; they are clothed in iniquity and impiety. Their iniquity is proportionate with their portliness. They extend into the condition of the heart. Without a doubt he condemns those who believe that divine things must be determined from the condition of the heart. For God is not subject to [any temporal] condition or order because these are things that are peculiar to human beings and according to succeeding generations. But we know that they do not always occur according to some formal plan but more often happen according to some secret and hidden mystery.

They have thought, he says, and they have spoken wickedly and sinfully against God. They have set their mouth against heaven. And so we see that he condemns those who are responsible for impious blasphemy and who claim for themselves the right to arrange the secrets of heaven according to the manner of human nature.

Perhaps someone may say, Why did God cause Pharaoh to be hardened by sparing him, and why did he remove his scourges? At this point I reply with assurance: God removed his scourges so often because by the immense number of his sins Pharaoh did not merit to be rebuked as a son for the amendment of his life, but like an enemy he was allowed to become hardened. Such great sins of his had preceded, and he had despised God so often with wicked boldness, that in him was fulfilled what the Holy Spirit said concerning such people: They are free from the burdens of mortals and are not afflicted like the rest of humanity. So pride adorns them as a necklace; as a robe violence clothes them. Out of their crassness comes iniquity.^[1] Behold how a person is hardened if he does not deserve to be chastised by our Lord for his correction. Moreover, what is written concerning those whom God’s mercy does not allow to become hardened? God scourges every son whom he receives;^[2] furthermore, Those whom I love I rebuke and chastise;^[3] and again, For whom God loves he reproves.^[4] Concerning this hardening the prophet also exclaims to the Lord in the person of the people: Why do you harden our hearts so that we do not fear you?^[5] Surely, this is nothing else than: You have abandoned our heart, that we should not be converted to you.

Therefore their pride has gripped them; they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.^[1] Iniquity affords a bad covering, and if anyone wishes to hold it over us, we ought to remove it; else he may begin to come into judgment with us. And if anyone tries to carry off our spiritual tunic that we have received, remove the cloak of iniquity and take up the covering of faith and of patience, with which David covered himself in fasting, so that he would not lose the garment of virtue. Fasting is itself a covering. Indeed, unless a sober fasting had served to cover the holy Joseph, he would have been stripped by the wanton adulteress.^[2] Had Adam chosen to cover himself with that fasting, he would not have been made naked. But because he tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil contrary to heaven’s prohibition and violated the fast imposed on him by taking the food of incontinence, he knew that he was naked.^[3] Had he fasted, he would have kept the clothing of faith and would not have beheld himself uncovered. Let us not, therefore, clothe ourselves with iniquity and wickedness; else it may be said about one of us, He clothed himself in cursing.^[4] Adam clothed himself badly; while he searched for coverings of leaves, he received the sentence of a curse. The Jews clothed themselves with a curse, for in regard to them it is written, Their injustice will go forth as from fat; it has passed into the condition of their heart. For from fat is derived fatty, that is, rich. For just as a soul that is fed on good things and stuffed with virtues is filled as with fat and richness, as it is written,^[5] so iniquity, which proceeds, as it were, from fat, is not symbolized as thin and poor but as filled with vices. In fact, they did not fall into error by some chance misstep but passed into sacrilege by plan and intent.

Let us come also, if you wish, to the circumcision of lips. I think that he would be uncircumcised in lips^[1] who has not yet ceased from silly talk, from obscene language, who disparages good people, who slanders his neighbors, who instigates quarrels, who promotes false accusations, who sets brothers against themselves by making false statements, who utters vain words, inept words, profane words, shameless words, filthy words, injurious words, wanton words, blasphemous words, and other words that are unworthy of a Christian. But if anyone curbs his mouth from all these things and orders his words with judgment,^[2] if he restrains verbosity, governs his tongue, keeps his words in due bounds, that person deservedly is said to be circumcised in lips. But also those who speak iniquity on high and stretch out their tongue against heaven, as the heretics do, are to be called uncircumcised and unclean in their lips. But he is circumcised and clean who always speaks the word of God and brings forward sound doctrine fortified with evangelic and apostolic norms. In this way, therefore, also circumcision of lips is given in the church of God.

They have set their mouth against heaven, and their tongue has passed over the earth. We learn the meaning of to set one’s mouth against heaven from the younger of the two brothers, who returned to his father and said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.^[1] But those who think that freedom to sin is given to them by some inevitability of birth are setting their mouth against heaven. Such people usually spare neither heaven nor earth, that they may believe that people’s lives are governed by the course of the stars, as it were. They leave nothing to providence, nothing to good character. And would that they also had returned like that one of the two young men—the good Lord would not have denied them a remedy! And yet, even if they do not wish to be healed, the Lord keeps open the option of a return, so that those in Israel who were driven out by the blindness of their own hearts may come back through the fullness of the church. Thus they may spend the days of their lives, not in emptiness but filled with good works and faith, when the Lord has filled them with his spiritual favor. Learn how they may return. A partial blindness only has befallen Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles should enter and thus all Israel should be saved.^[2] But it was fitting that the mystery be fulfilled, that God should shut up all things in unbelief,^[3] that is, that he should refute and convict them. (For when two parties contend, if one is the stronger, it is said, He has shut up the other.)^[4] And thus, by his mercy, that people indeed went back among the heirs, so that the world might be made subject to God. But they were led astray by the delusion of their late wickedness, so that they would not believe that God had foreknowledge of things hidden. But that they may be redeemed at some time, the Lord has kept open for them the option of future salvation and has said, Therefore will my people return here.^[5] What is here? It is to me, to my equity and justice, to my worship. And full days will be procured for them.^[6] This you will interpret as follows, that the people who have believed are assuredly redeemed. According to this, even though those who have not believed are not redeemed, still the redemption of the people is granted as a special favor of God.

Therefore those who were in sin said, How has God known? And is there all knowledge in the most High? Indeed, they suppose that knowledge is not in God, because sinners abound in worldly prosperity. And the Scripture still represents such individuals as saying, Behold, these are sinners, and abounding in the world they have obtained riches. You find this more clearly portrayed in the Gospel where Simon the Pharisee, seeing that the sinful woman had come into his house and had poured ointment over Christ’s feet, said to himself, This man, were he a prophet, would surely know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.^[1] But God’s patience is not prejudicial to truth, while his foreknowledge and providence are proved even more by this very fact, that one who is in sin abounds in worldly prosperity and success. Seeing this, one who is stronger laughs, but one who is incautious is moved and led astray.

Why, you have it here in so many words: Look, these are sinners, and prospering always; they have become rich. Is it to no purpose that I set my heart right or washed my hands among the innocent and was scourged every day? I worship God; they blaspheme God. For them good fortune, for me misfortune. Where is the justice of it? That is why feet were shaken, that is why steps were almost pulled from under, that is why destruction was looming. Yes, just notice please what a dangerous position he had got into. He adds, And I said, How did God know? Can there be knowledge in the most High? Notice what a dangerous position he has got into by looking for earthly good fortune from God as though it were of great value.

And therefore I conferred with my heart and I said to myself, if I will speak thus, that I have justified my heart in vain, and the voice of God replied to me and said, Behold the generation of your children, to which I have made distribution. This means: Behold, you find in the Scriptures, O you son of Adam, that I have made distribution to the generation of your children, that wealth may be granted to the wicked simply by chance and not from some merit. Neither are the rewards of virtue the profits of a treasury, just as poverty . . . is not a punishment for sin. But such things come without distinction, for they roll along on a kind of flow of life that is like a river.

But because the psalmist realized afterward—as he goes on to say in the same psalm, When I tried to understand this, and he added, it was a wearisome task, why the wicked have all the luck; it was a wearisome task, he says, until I went into the sanctuary of God and understood about their latter end, that for the wicked who are now for a time given good fortune, eternal punishment is being saved up for the last day. So when he realized this he became upright of heart and began to praise God for everything, both for the troubles of decent people and for the good fortune of the wicked. For he observed that God is just in his retributions at the end and that he now gives some people temporal good fortune while keeping in store for them at the end everlasting misfortune, and that in the present life he is subjecting some decent people to the rigors of misfortune while saving up for them eternal good fortune in the next. He remarks that they have to change places, like that rich man who used to feast sumptuously every day and that poor man, full of sores, lying at the rich man’s gate and longing to fill himself with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. But when they were both dead the first began to be in pain in hell, and the second was at rest in Abraham’s bosom. When the rich man thought this was unfair and wanted a drop of water dripped on his tongue from Lazarus’s middle finger (changing places, he now longed for a drop from the finger of the man who had longed for a crumb from his table), he heard from Abraham the judgment of the upright God: Son, he said, remember that you received good things in your life and Lazarus bad things; but now he is at rest, and you are in torment.^[1]

Such, then, is the first supposition of true knowledge, that things in the world happen by chance.^[1] The second is that on account of the subterfuges you have placed before them prodigious success, worldly profits and an abundance of riches. Otherwise, they might plead by way of excuse that they had been less devout by reason of want or of some bitter pain or grief and had been driven to the guilt of robbery and to the desire to plunder under compulsion of poverty. For they were enriched with wealth and exalted with honors, not for tranquility of life or the enjoyment of delight but that complaining might be foreclosed and distress piled up.

Therefore, in regard to the latter,^[1] David also says, They have ceased to be and have perished by reason of their iniquity as the dream of one that wakes up. This means: The wicked cease to be, and they disappear as a dream does when one first wakes up from sleep, because they are in darkness and have walked in darkness;^[2] not a trace of their good work remains, but they are like those who see a dream. Now one who dreams, dreams at night, whereas night is in darkness. The children of darkness are deprived of the Sun of justice^[3] and the splendor of virtue, for they sleep always and do not keep watch, and of them it is appropriately said, They have slept their sleep and have found nothing.^[4] For indeed, when their souls are separated from the body, and they are, as it were, released from the sleep of the body, they will find nothing, they will possess nothing, and they will lose what they thought they possessed. For although the unwise and foolish person may overflow with riches, he will leave his riches to strangers, and the glory of his house will not descend to hell together with him.^[5]

Subsequent events also go to show how the image of such a person is not found but perishes, since his image is not found in the city of the Lord, that Jerusalem which is above.^[1] For the Lord has painted us in his image and likeness, even as he teaches us, saying, Behold, O Jerusalem, I have painted your walls.^[2] If we have acted well, that heavenly image continues in us; if anyone acts badly, this image is destroyed in him that is the image of him who came down from heaven, and there is in him the image of the earthly. On this account also the apostle says, Even as we have borne the image of the one that is earthly, let us bear also the image of the other that is heavenly.^[3] Therefore, the images of good continue to shine forth in that city of God. But if anyone has turned aside to graver sins and has not done penance, his image is destroyed or else cast out even as Adam was cast out and excluded from paradise. But whoever has conducted himself in a holy and honorable fashion enters into that city of God^[4] and brings in his own image so that it may shine in that city of God. O Lord, in your city you shall reduce their images to nothing, because those who have clothed themselves with the works of darkness cannot shine in the light. Let us adduce an example from the world. See how the images of good rulers continue in cities, whereas the images of tyrants are destroyed.

Abbot Pimenius asked Abbot Nesteron, who was sitting in the monastery, Where did you acquire this virtue, brother, that, whenever a quarrel arises in the monastery, you neither speak nor interfere as mediator? Though he was unwilling to speak, he was compelled by the old man and said, Forgive me, father, for in the beginning when I entered here I said to my thought: ‘Lo, you and this donkey are alike. Just as it gets beaten without speaking and gets thrashed without returning an answer, so you must be also, for the psalm says, I am become as a beast of burden before you: and I am always with you. ’

For this reason David says, as if visited by him, You have held my right hand, and in your will you have conducted me and have taken me up with glory. This is the text we have received, and it is in accord with the Greek, for the Greek said, ekratēsas tēs cheiros, that is, you have held the hand, tēs dexias mou, my right hand. A person receives good guidance when God takes hold of his right hand with his own hand. Such a one can say, The Lord is at my right hand, that I be not moved.^[1] Had Adam chosen to have the Lord at his right hand, he would not have been deceived by the serpent. But because he forgot God’s command and fulfilled the will of the serpent, the devil took hold of his hand and made it to reach out to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to pluck things that were forbidden. In him, judgment was passed beforehand on all people, and the adversary began to stand by the right hand of every person. From this, there also came that model of the curse against Judas, And may the devil stand at his right hand.^[2] If that curse is severe, that blessing, whereby the bonds of the harsh curse are undone, is very momentous. For that reason the Lord Jesus, who had taken up humanity’s cause and condition, set the devil at his right hand, just as we read in the book of Zechariah.^[3] And so, where the inheritance of Adam stood, there Christ stood. Like a good athlete, he permitted Satan to stand at his right hand so that he could drive him back, and he said, Be gone, Satan.^[4] Consequently, the adversary was cast down from his place and departed; so that the devil may not stand at your right hand, Christ says, Come, follow me.^[5] Therefore, David foresaw the coming of the Lord, who came down from heaven to free us from the power of the adversary, and he said, The Lord is at my right hand, that I be not moved. But one who had the devil at his right hand was moved. David was justified, then, in saying this also, You have held my right hand, that is, so that now I cannot sin, so that I can take my stand in a trusty place, while before I was swaying and my step was unsure. How aptly the apostle said this! For the Lord, seeing that he was troubled, stretched out his right hand and did not allow him to falter but steadied him to walk without fear.^[6] And on his deliverance, what else did Peter say but these prophetic lines, You have held my right hand, and in your will you have conducted me and have taken me up with glory? What is the right hand but the power of the soul in operation? And if it is guided by the will of the Lord, it desires nothing and is in want of nothing; it demands none of the helps or aids of this world.

Therefore the holy man says, For what awaits me in heaven? And besides you what do I desire on earth? This means: You are my portion, you are abundant to me for all things, I have sought nothing but that I might possess you as my share, I have not made myself subject to any creature in the heavens, as the Gentiles do, and I have desired none of the wealth and enticing pleasures of this world. I have no want, for I have been taken up by you, and there is nothing further for me to seek in the heavenly bodies. Possessing nothing, I possess all things,^[1] because I possess Christ, and him the Father on high has not spared, but he has delivered him for us all; how has he not, then, given us all things with him?^[2] even as the apostle said. For all things are in Christ, through whom are all things and in whom all things hold together.^[3] Therefore, possessing all things in him, I seek no other reward, because he is the reward of all. And so, Christ said to him that was made perfect, Take up your cross and follow me.^[4] For one who follows him is not led to perfection by the reward, but by perfection he is made perfect for the reward. For the imitators of Christ are not good by reason of hope but for their love of virtue; for Christ is good by nature, not by reason of a desire for a reward. And, therefore, he suffered because it pleased him to do good, and not because he sought an increase of glory from his passion. Thus one who desires to imitate him does not do what is for his own advantage but what is for the advantage of others. It is not without reason, therefore, that he fails for himself, while for others he grows strong by the increase of virtue.

It is good for us to cleave to the Lord, and to put our hope in the Lord God, so that when we have exchanged our present poverty for the kingdom of heaven, we may be able to exclaim, Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you. Surely if we can find such blessedness in heaven we may well grieve to have sought after poor and passing pleasures here on earth.

And the psalmist says, appropriately, My heart and my flesh have failed, God of my heart. Indeed, abiding things cannot follow unless earthly things have failed. Therefore the flesh falls when fleshly things are put to death. And those who bear about in their flesh the dying of Jesus Christ^[1] also fail, for the death of Christ works in them^[2] so that every enticement to sin dies. From this it is inferred that the human heart fails when evil thoughts, which proceed from the heart, are put to death. Thus forgetfulness may hide all earthly things, and, for those who are blessed with a clean heart and deserve to see God, there may come the God of their heart^[3] that they may draw near to you and not separate themselves. For God, who is near, does not drive back those who draw near to him;^[4] he wishes to be for all people a cause of salvation and not of death. Indeed, he rejects no one except one who has decided to remove himself from his sight.

A cleric, then, as he serves Christ’s church, must first understand what his name means; and then, when he realizes this, must endeavor to be that which he is called. For since the Greek word klēros means lot, or inheritance, the clergy are so called either because they are the lot of the Lord, or else because the Lord himself is their lot and portion. Now, he who in his own person is the Lord’s portion, or has the Lord for his portion, must so bear himself as to possess the Lord and to be possessed by him. He who possesses the Lord and who says with the prophet, The Lord is my portion,^[1] can hold to nothing beside the Lord. For if he holds to something beside the Lord, the Lord will not be his portion. Suppose, for instance, that he holds to gold or silver, or possessions or inlaid furniture; with such portions as these the Lord will not deign to be his portion. I, if I am the portion of the Lord, and the line of his heritage,^[2] receive no portion among the remaining tribes; but, like the priest and the Levite, I live on the tithe,^[3] and serving the altar, am supported by its offerings.^[4] Having food and raiment, I shall be content with these^[5] and as a disciple of the cross shall share its poverty. I beseech you, therefore, and again and yet again admonish you;^[6] do not look to your military experience^[7] for a standard of clerical obligation. Do not seek worldly gain through service to Christ, so that, if you should be better off than when you first became clergy, you will not hear people say to your disgrace, Their portion shall not profit them.^[8] Welcome poor people and strangers to dine with you so that with them Christ may become your guest. Avoid as you would a plague a cleric who engages in business and who rises from poverty to wealth and from obscurity to a high position. For bad company corrupts good character.^[9] You despise gold; he loves it. You avoid wealth; he eagerly pursues it. You love silence, meekness, privacy; he takes delight in talking and insolence, in [town] squares and streets and apothecaries’ shops. What unity of feeling can there be where there is so wide a divergence of character?

Indeed, when we are abandoned by God, we are given over to the devil. When we have been given over to the devil, we are afflicted with countless terrible consequences. Well, then, in order to frighten his hearers the sacred writer said, He has hardened and He has given up. Listen to what he was really saying, when he said that he himself not only does not give us up but does not abandon us, either, unless we wish it: Have not your iniquities caused a division between me and you? And again, They who withdraw from you perish.^[1] Furthermore, Hosea declared, You have forgotten the law of your God; I also will forget you.^[2] And he himself said in the Gospels, How often would I have gathered your children together, but you would not!^[3] Isaiah, also, in another place said, I came, and there was no one: I called, and there was no one that would hear.^[4]

Therefore, the human being began to sin in the matter by which he departed from God. For it is written that the beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord. And in another place, Indeed those who are far from you will perish; you put an end to those who are false to you. Therefore, they who are far from God and are false to him indeed perish by sinning through their evil will that is not from God. God will destroy them by his just judgments as is proper to God. For God would not destroy them by his judgment, unless they had perished through their iniquities. For it is written, How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.^[1]

Behold, [the psalmist] says, people who separate themselves far from you [God] will perish. For every individual either unites or separates himself from your mercy by his deeds. The person who does things he fears will be discovered flees from God, just as the person who is protected by walls or surrounded by darkness^[1] thinks he will not be seen by God. On the contrary, he is seen, as it says: You destroyed everyone who fornicates himself away from you. . . . And so, whoever does not cling to God but devotes himself to the vain worship of idols separates himself far from the Lord by perverse sacrilege. Whoever is separated from the Lord perishes. Therefore, the saintly person who greatly fears the judgment of God always wants to cling to Christ and to put his hope in him so that he may praise the Lord, to whom belongs honor, glory and infinity from all ages, both now and into all eternity.

For if anyone should have love, he sees God because God is love, and that eye is cleansed more and more by love so that he may see that unchangeable substance in whose presence he may always rejoice, which he may enjoy forever, joined together with the angels. But let him run now that he may one day rejoice in his homeland.

So if you want to keep the order of true charity, act justly, love mercy, shun self-indulgence; begin according to the Lord’s instruction to love not only friends but also enemies.^[1] And when you strive to maintain these standards faithfully with your whole heart, you will be able to climb up by these virtues, as by a flight of steps, to being worthy to love God with your whole mind and your whole strength. And when you reach this happy state of perfection, you will reckon all the desires of this world as nothing but dung, and with the prophet you will be able to say, But for me to cling to God is good.

We ought to be on our guard against loving God for any reward. What is the point, after all, of loving God for a reward? What sort of reward is it that God is going to give you? Whatever else he gives you, it is less than he is. You are worshiping him not freely, not gratuitously, in order to receive something from him. Worship him freely, and you will receive God himself; God, you see, is keeping himself for you to enjoy him. And if you love the things he made, what must he that made them be like? If the world is beautiful, what must the architect of the world be like? So tear your heart away from the love of creatures, in order to cling to the creator, and to be able to say what is written in the psalm, But for me it is good to cling to God.

If you^[1] recognize that you have received the virtues that you have, and if you return thanks to him from whom you have received them, directing them to his service even in your secular office; if you rouse the people subject to your authority and lead them to worship God, both by the example of your own devout life and by your zeal for their welfare, whether you rule them by love or by fear; if, in working for their greater security, you have no other aim than that they should thus attain to him who will be their happiness—then yours will be true virtues, then they will be increased by the help of him whose bounty lavished them on you, and they will be so perfected as to lead you without fail to that truly happy life that is none other than eternal life. In that life, evil will no longer have to be distinguished from good by the virtue of prudence, because there will be no evil there; adversity will not have to be borne with fortitude, because there will be nothing there but what we love; temperance will not be needed to curb our passions, because there will be no enticements to passion there; nor shall we have to practice justice by helping the poor out of our abundance, for there we shall find no poor and no needy. There will be but one virtue there, and it will be the same as the reward of virtue, which the speaker in the sacred writings mentions as the object of his love: But it is good for me to stick close to my God. This will constitute the perfect and eternal wisdom, as it will constitute the truly happy life, because to attain it is to attain the eternal and supreme good, and to stick close to God forever is the sum of our good. Let this be called prudence because it will cling most providently to the good that cannot be lost, and fortitude because it will cling most stoutly to the good from which it cannot be parted, and temperance because it will cling most chastely to the good in which there is no corruption, and justice because it will cling most uprightly to the good to which it is deservedly subject.

I will briefly set forth the manner of life according to these virtues,^[1] one by one, after I have brought forward, as I promised, passages from the Old Testament parallel to those I have been quoting from the New Testament. For is Paul alone in saying that we should be joined to God so that there should be nothing between to separate us? Does not the prophet say the same most aptly and concisely in the words, It is good for me to cling to God? Does not this one word cling express all that the apostle says at length about love? And do not the words it is good point to the apostle’s statement, All things issue in good to them that love God? Thus in one clause and in two words the prophet sets forth the power and the fruit of love.

There have been some philosophers of this world who have thought that the only happiness is to live according to the flesh, and they have placed human-kind’s good in the pleasures of the body. These philosophers were called Epicureans, from a certain Epicurus, their founder and teacher, and any others like them. However, some proud people came along who claimed to distance themselves from the flesh and set all their hopes of happiness on their souls by placing their supreme good in their own virtue. Your religious feelings, clearly, have recognized in yourself the words of the psalm; you know, realize and recognize how the holy psalm mocks those who trust in their own virtue.^[1] These were the philosophers who were called Stoics. The Epicureans lived according to the flesh, and the Stoics lived according to the soul—neither of the two groups lived according to God.

That is why, when the apostle Paul came to the city of the Athenians, where these philo-sophical schools engaged in feverish study and wrangling, as you can read in the Acts of the Apostles—and I am glad to see you are already ahead of me in what I am saying, with your quick and lively memories—it is written there, Certain philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics conferred with him.^[2] Those who were living according to the flesh conferred with him, and those who were living according to the soul conferred with him. He, living according to God, conferred with them. The Epicurean said, For me to enjoy the flesh is good. The Stoic said, For me to enjoy my mind is good. The apostle said, For me, though, to cling to God is good. The Epicurean said, Blessed is the one who has the enjoyment of the pleasures of his flesh. The Stoic said, Blessed, rather, is the one who has the enjoyment of the virtue of his mind. The apostle said, Blessed is the one whose hope is the name of the Lord.

The Epicurean has got it all wrong. I mean, it is simply not true that a person who has the enjoyment of the pleasures of his flesh is blessed. The Stoic, too, is quite mistaken. I mean it is simply not true; it is absolutely incorrect that a person who has the enjoyment of the virtue of his mind is blessed. So, [the psalmist says], Blessed is the one whose hope is the name of the Lord.^[3] And because those others are vain windbags and liars [he adds], and who has not paid attention to vanities and lying follies.^[4]

What is so finite and limited as a fulfilling [of the law]? Therefore, whatever you do, do it for the love of Christ, and let the intention or end of all your actions look to him. Do nothing for the sake of human praise, but everything for love of God and the desire for eternal life. Then you will see the end of all perfection, and when you have reached it you will wish for nothing more. When the psalm is read and you hear, Unto the end, a psalm of David,^[1] do not understand it except as Christ, for the apostle says, Christ is the consummation of the law for the achievement of justice.^[2] If you come to anything else, pass beyond it until you reach the end. What is the end? But for me, to be near God is my good. Have you adhered to God? You have finished your journey and will remain in your true country.

But, if there are any who say that sins are only superficially put away in baptism, what can be more against the faith than such preaching, whereby they would willingly undo the very sacrament of faith, wherein principally the soul is bound to the mystery of heavenly cleanness, that, being completely absolved from all sins, it may cleave to him alone of whom the prophet says, But it is good for me to cling to God? For certainly the passage of the Red Sea was a figure of holy baptism, in which the enemies behind died but others were found in front in the wilderness. And so to all who are bathed in holy baptism, all their past sins are remitted, since their sins die behind them even as did the Egyptian enemies. But in the wilderness we find other enemies, since, while we live in this life, before reaching the country of promise, many temptations harass us and hasten to bar our way as we are proceeding to the land of the living. Whosoever says, then, that sins are not entirely put away in baptism, let him say that the Egyptians did not really die in the Red Sea. But if he acknowledges that the Egyptians really died, he must acknowledge that sins die entirely in baptism, since surely the truth avails more in our absolution than the shadow of the truth. In the Gospel the Lord says, He who is washed does not need to wash but is entirely clean.^[1] If, therefore, sins are not entirely put away in baptism, how is he that is washed entirely clean? For he cannot be said to be entirely clean if he has any sin remaining. But no one can resist the voice of the truth, He who is washed is entirely clean. Nothing, then, of the contagion of sin remains to him whom he himself who redeemed him declares to be absolutely clean.