Apology of the Prophet David

We have taken up our present pen to write a defense of the prophet David, not because he needs this service, he who shone with such great merits and flourished with virtues, but because many, having read the account of his deeds without looking into the force of the Scriptures or the hidden meaning of the mysteries, wonder how so great a prophet did not avoid the stains first of adultery and then of murder. Therefore we have been eager to review the history itself.

It seems to lie open to the charge of sin. For in the second book of Kingdoms we read that David, walking in his royal house, looked out and saw a woman bathing (her name was Bathsheba), of exceptional figure, lovely in grace and countenance, and of very striking appearance; and that, softened by these allurements, he conceived the desire to possess her. But the woman was married; her husband’s name was Uriah, for whom, by royal orders, the scene of his death was arranged. For although his life was thought no hindrance to desire, it was thought a great obstacle to the shame of adultery.

So, to begin with the plainer points: do not judge one whom God has justified. “It is a very small thing to me,” says Paul, “that I should be judged by you or by any human day; I do not even judge myself.” And he was still placed in the body, still liable to temptation; but he did not judge himself for this reason, that the spiritual man is judged by no one except God alone. Indeed he added: “He who judges me is the Lord. Therefore do not judge anything before the time.” But David has already completed his time and earned grace and been justified by Christ, since the Lord himself was glad to be called the son of David, and those who so confessed him were enlightened. Why do you summon the man of God from his reward to judgment? The Lord has already judged concerning him, of whom he said to Solomon: “If you walk before me as David your father walked, in holiness of heart and righteousness, so as to do according to all that I commanded him.” Is this man, then, worthy of judgment or of reward, who did according to all the heavenly commands, walking in holiness and righteousness of heart? Where the sins and vices of others lie hidden, there David received the divine testimony of his virtue and glory. And we idly dispute about the sin of one for whose merit and grace the sins of others have been relieved! For when Solomon had given offence, because he had not kept the Lord’s commands, and God had resolved to tear his kingdom into several parts, he said to him: “Yet I will not do these things in your days, for the sake of David your father; I will take it from the hand of your son. Yet I will not take the whole kingdom; I will give one sceptre for the sake of David my servant.” Since the Lord justifies him, then, who is it that judges so great a man? “What God,” he says, “has cleansed, do not call common.”

Saving, however, the heavenly judgment, by which you too may honor so great a prophet, enter into his acts and character. Do you not wonder that a man who for most of his life was worthy to be compared to the angels, or rather who from boyhood lived amid riches, honors, and power, placed in many temptations, gave place to error only once, and to that error by which, as Scripture records, even the angels of heaven were cast down from their grace and power? There is indeed another error of his recorded, that he had the people numbered.

Each of us sins so much every hour, and yet everyone of the common people thinks he need not confess his sin; but that king, so great and powerful, did not allow the consciousness of his offence to stay with him even for a short moment, but by a prompt confession and immense sorrow he rendered his sin to the Lord. Whom will you easily find for me now, honored and rich, who, if he is accused of some fault, does not take it ill? But he, illustrious with royal power, approved by so many divine oracles, when he was rebuked by a private man for having sinned grievously, did not roar with indignation but confessed and groaned with sorrow for his fault. Indeed the sorrow of his inmost feeling so moved the Lord that Nathan said: “Because you have repented, the Lord has also taken away your sin.” So the speed of the pardon declared that the king’s repentance had been profound, since it removed the offence of so great an error.

Other men, when they are rebuked by priests, make their sin heavier while they wish to deny or defend it, and there their fall is greater where correction is hoped for. But the saints of the Lord, who are eager to complete the devout contest and run the course of salvation, if perhaps as men they have fallen, more from the frailty of nature than from lust for sinning, rise again keener to run, renewing greater contests under the spur of shame, so that the fall is thought not only to have brought no hindrance but even to have heaped up incentives to speed. If, then, the race of runners is not cancelled when some of them happen to fall, nor the struggle of wrestlers, but the contests remain unharmed, and indeed many after one or two falls have won with greater grace: how much more ought those who have entered the contest of piety not to be judged by the offence of a single fall, since blessed is he who has been able to restore himself after a fall, since to rise again even after death is the gift of the blessed.

We can understand in other ways too that sin can be profitable, and that offences crept upon the saints by the providence of the Lord. For they are set before us for imitation, and therefore it was arranged that they too should sometimes fall. For if they had completed their course free from vices amid so many slippery places of this world, they would have given us weaker ones occasion to think that they had been of some higher and divine nature, so that they could not admit offence or have any share in fault; and this opinion would surely have called us back, since we have no part in that substance, from an impossible imitation. So the grace of God passed them by for a little while, so that their life might become a discipline for us to imitate, and we might take from their acts a lesson in repentance as well as in innocence. So when I read of their falls, I recognize them as sharers in weakness; when I believe them sharers, I presume that they are to be imitated.

The apostle Paul also reminds us that the Lord our God took care that human feeling should not be puffed up even in the saints, either by the sublimity of revelations or by the continued success of their works, and that they should not credit to themselves and attribute to their own virtue what had been conferred on them by divine working. So, lest they rush into such a judgment and fall into the pit of faithlessness, the Lord allowed fault to slip in upon them, so that they too might notice that they needed divine help and recognize that the guide of their salvation must be sought. Indeed Paul testifies that weakness was profitable to him, the Lord saying to him when he asked that the thorn of his flesh might depart from him: “My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in weakness.” And rightly he glories in weaknesses; for he knew that many even of the saints had fallen without remedy from abundance of virtue. How much more advantageous, then, to have given place to one or two reproaches than to have incurred the everlasting offence of God!

What shall I add of those things we can infer from the very practice of the world: that when we have proved many in some office, we wish to test the same men, as diligent and energetic, in another task? How many athletes, when they have prevailed in one kind of contest, are called to another kind of contest! What if the Lord your God too, when you have given some proof of your virtue, wishes to test you in another kind of virtue? He allowed holy Job, running without stumbling, to be tempted nevertheless by the death of his children and by sores over his whole body, so as to test his virtue in this too, whether, compelled by injuries and bitterness, he would not lessen the devotion of his heart. Is it not clear that he wished also to test holy David, noble in faith, most excellent in gentleness, strong of hand, in how he would cover his fault and amend his fall, so as to teach us how we could cover a sin committed?

Unless perhaps it seems to someone a cheap reason that so great a prophet should have erred for our correction, since for the redemption of all Christ took up our infirmities, who was made sin for us, though he knew no sin. And is it thought unworthy and not believed probable that David incurred the disgrace of a single fall for the benefit of posterity, when the Lord himself was made a reproach for us, as he himself says: “But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and the outcast of the people,” and elsewhere: “And the reproaches of those who reproached fell upon me”? So he sent ahead in his own servants the mystery of the dispensation to come; and the little servants bore the sins of their own condition, and therefore they could not themselves be free of sin; but the Lord took up another’s burden, and therefore he alone was without any share in offences.

In sum, we know, the apostle also teaching it, that many things done in earlier times were done in figure. For when he had said that the fathers wounded by serpents in the desert could not be healed in any other way than by Moses hanging up a bronze serpent, at the sight of which those deadly bites and harmful infusions of poison were cured, he added: “Now these things happened to them in figure, for our correction.” The bronze serpent was in figure as if fixed to the cross, because the true one who was to be crucified was being announced to the human race, who would empty the poisons of the serpent the devil; in figure he was cursed, but in truth he was the one who would blot out the curses of the whole world. Elsewhere too, that is, to the Galatians, he says that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free, and added: “But the one by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, the one by the free woman through the promise. These things are said by way of allegory.” What “by way of allegory” means he explained clearly in what follows, saying that those two generations, one by the slave woman, the other by the free, are two testaments: one from Mount Sinai, bearing children into slavery, the mountain on which Moses received the law from the Lord; the other from Jerusalem, which is free, which bore children in Isaac, that is, in the freedom of grace, not in the slavery of the letter; for punishment is decreed for slaves, grace is conferred on the free. Did not Jacob take two wives as a type of the twofold people, from whom he begot different offspring? Why do we read that the patriarch Judah, after the death of his son, sought intercourse with his own daughter-in-law, from which the birth of twins came forth, unless that a figure should go before of the two testaments of the Lord Jesus, one of which was established as a type of his future death, the other in the truth of the Gospel: that two peoples were to be begotten, of whom the later would cut through, in the sign of the cross, every hedge and fortification of the former people (this is the people first by the hand, later by birth); or because the Lord Jesus himself, born of the tribe of Judah, sent his works ahead before he was born to us of the Virgin?

What shall I say of Joseph, who, attacked by his brothers, stripped of his father’s garment, thrown into the pit, sold into slavery, expressed a clear sign of the Lord’s incarnation, since that beloved of the Father, though he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, so that, taking the form of a servant, he came and humbled himself even to the death of the cross; and by his price, both bought and sold by his brothers, he redeemed the human race? As a type of him David, the youngest, chosen from among his brothers, anointed alone to the kingdom, in the danger of a grievous war freed the whole people by single combat; he triumphed over ten thousands, so that the girls sang with timbrels: “Saul has triumphed over thousands, and David over ten thousands.” What figure is in those young women but of souls, who sing the triumphal psalm to Christ? He begot sons from himself, one incestuous and the other a parricide, because an incestuous and parricidal people was going to violate the flesh of its own Author fixed to the gibbet of the cross. Indeed in the third psalm the title of Absalom is set before it, and the passion of the Lord is prophesied.

What shall I say of holy Solomon, whose later deeds are not free of grave error, yet whom the Jewish common people think came as the Christ? And how many has the offence of his grave error called back! So the greater fault profited more, lest he be believed to be above man who was not without human vice. So there was in him an enviable wisdom and a persuasive fault, which proved him a man.

What, then, prevents us from believing that Bathsheba too was joined to holy David in figure, to signify the congregation of the nations, which was not united to Christ by a kind of lawful marriage of faith, because it was to enter into his grace by certain hidden entrances, beyond the prescription of the law; in which the naked sincerity of the mind and open simplicity, through the justifying mystery of the washing, would draw the mind of the true David and eternal King and provoke his love? Rightly he came hidden, and so as to deceive the prince of the world, like that Uriah, whose name is interpreted “my light,” who transforms himself into an angel of light. He came, I say, into this world, and came hidden; he entered like an adulterer, so as to claim the lawful right.

We have set out strong arguments, as we think, and have shown that the text of this history was woven in figure. Now let us return to the earlier points and, as if stripped of the spiritual garments, look into the error itself. David sinned, as kings are wont to do; but he did penance, wept, groaned, as kings are not wont to do; he confessed his fault, begged for pardon, lying on the ground he lamented his misery, he fasted, prayed, and transmitted to all ages the testimony of his confession by making his sorrow public. What private persons blush to do, a king did not blush to confess. Those who are bound by laws dare to deny their sin, disdain to ask for pardon, which he sought who was bound by no human laws. That he sinned belongs to our condition; that he made supplication belongs to correction. The fall is common, but the confession special. So to have fallen into fault is of nature; to have washed it away is of virtue. “Who will boast,” it says, “that he has a chaste heart?” Not even an infant of one day is declared clean by the testimony of Scripture.

Give me anyone without the slip of an offence. Samson is read to have been the strongest of all, who strangled even a lion with his hands; but would that he had been able to choke his love! He burned the crops of the foreigners, and he himself burned with the little fire of one woman. Jephthah returned victorious from the enemy, but, bringing back triumphal standards, he was conquered by his own oath, so that he thought the devotion of his daughter, who came to meet him, should be repaid by parricide. First of all, what need was there to swear so easily and to vow uncertain things for certain ones, whose outcome he did not know? Then, does anyone render sad oaths to the Lord God, so as to pay his vows with bloody funerals?

Nor do I think I should be silent about priests, lest I seem to hide our own offences. Aaron himself, the high priest, under whose leadership together with Moses the people of the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea on foot, when asked by the people to make them gods to worship, asked for gold, threw it into the fire, and the head of a calf was formed, to which sacrifices were offered. By this sign it became clear that desire for gold is the material of faithlessness and that sacrileges are usually born from the pursuit of avarice. Again, so great a priest fell into offence with his sister Miriam. For while both disparaged their brother because he had taken a foreign wife, Miriam at once broke out with the contagion of spotted flesh.

In this place there was a figure of an evident mystery: that the priestly people of the fathers would in later times disparage its brother people, not knowing the mystery of that Ethiopian woman. For had it known, it would not have blamed what agreed with the ancient mystery. And so, when the Jew calls the one who has believed from the Gentiles “common” and wishes to separate him from the law, he has a leprosy which he will not be able to escape unless the spiritual knowledge of the law comes to his aid for pardon.

So David too, who knew that he had been born a man liable to fall, asked for pardon, and did not despair of the Lord’s mercy.

Nor does the parable seem to differ from the mystery. For who is the rich man but our Lord Jesus, who said of himself, as was read today, that a certain man, being rich, went into a far country to receive a kingdom and return? And truly he was rich in the wealth of his majesty and the fullness of his own divinity, whom angels and archangels, virtues and powers and principalities, thrones and dominions, cherubim and seraphim served with tireless obedience. Yet, though he was rich, he left the ninety-nine sheep on the mountains and sought the one sheep that had remained behind exhausted. This sheep the prince of this world, poor and needy in comparison with that rich man, was feeding like a daughter on his own food. Rightly, then, had she grown faint, whose substance was the food of the world. This sheep had strayed in Adam, enticed by the snares of the serpent.

And she was not a bad sheep, for she was full of the Word, being the daughter of the rational seven and the gift of a holy Author; yet she was fed not on any precious things but long on the poor man’s cheap resources. Indeed, “she ate of his bread,” it says, “and drank of his cup and slept in his bosom.” Not good is the food of the Ethiopians; harmful is the golden cup of Babylon, which makes the nations drunk; sleep is not useful to those who sleep in evil. Indeed, “all the foolish in heart were troubled; they slept their sleep and found nothing.” For the sake of hospitality, then, because he had received a guest, to set a feast before him, he took away the poor man’s sheep; for if he had sacrificed any animal from his own flocks or herds, it could not have profited us, whom he would not have redeemed had he not sacrificed.

So with a kind of hospitable affection he took up in his own flesh the infirmities of our frailty, and to relieve them, or rather to restore them, he offered his flesh to that saving passion, so as to provide us the food of eternal life. And Scripture rightly called it a ewe lamb, because it was the offspring of a virgin. Rightly is this rich man pronounced worthy of death by the prophetic judgment, since Caiaphas too prophesied, saying: “It is expedient that one man die for the people.” And the Lord Jesus alone was chosen as worthy of such a death, by which he would take away the sin of the world. Beautifully too he added: “He shall restore the ewe lamb,” because he raised up his own flesh, he restored that flesh of virginal integrity. Nor is it idle that he says: “He shall restore it fourfold”; for the resurrection of the dead is fourfold, as the apostle teaches, saying: “It is sown in corruption, it rises in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it rises in glory; it is sown in weakness, it rises in power; it is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body.” He will indeed restore the ewe lamb fourfold also in the sense in which a man can now say: “If I have taken anything from anyone, I restore it fourfold.” Fittingly too he added: “Because he did not spare”; for Christ did not spare himself, so as to come to the help of all.

And therefore it was said by the Lord Jesus Christ to his servant David, to declare the mystery: “Because you did this in secret, I too will do this thing before all Israel in the sight of this sun.” And at first, not knowing the mystery, David was moved with indignation, but he did not err in his feeling. But afterwards, when he recognized the great mystery (for great is the mystery of Christ and the church), seeing the future remission of all sins, foreseeing the brightness of grace through the washing of regeneration and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he said, sure of pardon: “I have sinned against the Lord,” so that he too might come into the fellowship of those to whom remission of fault would come. Do you notice how he lamented his own sin? Who, then, should wonder that it was forgiven him?

Now let us consider his works, by which he could cover his sin. For since human frailty cannot be without sin, we must take care that sins are not more than works of virtue. This holy Paul expressed with great force of wisdom, saying: “The sins of some men are manifest, going before them to judgment; but in some they also follow after”; that is: no one is found untouched by fault; a man has good merits, he has also vices and sins. So all our deeds are weighed as in a balance. If, then, sins outweigh good deeds, they go before to judgment; for sins tip down as into the depth; those that are manifest tip it either by their weight and bitterness or by their number. “But in some,” he says, “they also follow after”; that is, those who have conducted themselves soberly but through the frailty of their condition have sometimes given place to error, their good deeds go before, the bad follow. These are more honorable, but still men who have slipped by lighter vices and errors. So sins follow the just and do not go before them; they go before the unjust. The sins that tip down outweigh, and if there are any right deeds, they follow, weighed down as by a kind of prejudgment of the preceding sins. Likewise good deeds too are manifest. For they shine with the work of virtues and the splendor of merits, and those that are otherwise cannot be hidden. Such sins, then, are not covered: love, which covers a multitude of sins, does not overshadow them; the grace of good works does not cover them; the multitude of virtues does not hide them; they are exposed as naked and uncovered. For there is no one among these who says: “Protect me under the shadow of your wings”; for the cross of the Lord abolishes and hides all errors.

Who, then, covered and hid more than holy David, who says elsewhere too: “And in the shadow of your wings I have hoped, until iniquity passes,” and so loved the Lord that by his great love he covered and hid every sin? For if the holy apostle Peter abolished his fall by the confession of love, when he was asked by the Lord, who said to him a third time: “Simon son of John, do you love me?”, so that he might confess three times the one he had denied three times, and so hide the fall of a threefold denial by a kind of threefold veil of love; if, because Peter wept once, he obtained pardon, how much more David, who washed his bed every night and watered his couch with tears, whose tears were his bread day and night, who ate ashes like bread and mingled his drink with weeping! For if Jesus has mercy on one who has turned and groaned, if he looked at Peter and Peter wept, how much more on one who wept long and did not depart from the Lord’s sight? Peter denied and did not weep, because Jesus had not looked at him; he denied a second time and did not weep, because the Lord had not looked at him; he denied a third time, Jesus looked at him, and at once he wept, and wept most bitterly. Therefore David, who was always weeping, said: “My eyes are always toward the Lord”; he who was always seen by Christ said: “My eyes have run down with streams of water.”

But now let us consider his deeds too. Who would not overshadow the odium of one crime with the praise of such great virtues? Chosen by divine choice, he at once proved that he was not unworthy of so great a judgment. He went out to battle and, while the rest trembled, he alone, with faith and courage together, laid low the foreigner Goliath, terrifying with the boasting of his words and the huge bulk of his body, as he charged him. The courage of one became the victory of all. Let a private crime be compared, if you please, with a triumph for all; the death of one with the life of the peoples, so many whom he freed from death.

Let us come to other things. He suffered plots from the king; the king sought to extinguish his life; but when by divine arrangement the king was delivered into his power and lay wholly open to a wound, holy David ran to meet his companions who were about to strike and turned the deadly wound away from the body of one who would have perished, saying: “Do not touch the Lord’s anointed.” Indeed he even avenged the death of his enemy, lamented his end most tearfully, and long put off the kingdom owed him, which he knew was owed him by God’s authority. By this alone he taught all men that a kingdom is not to be seized beforehand, even if it is owed, but to be awaited until it is conferred in its own time. Would that later men had imitated this man! We would not have endured such bitter wars. You blame him for killing one man; you do not consider that he taught how lasting peace might be preserved for the Roman world. With what grievous devastation we are still paying for it! By what public funeral, as it were, of the whole world have we paid for the murder of a king who was attacked? Alas, harsh punishments! From this the barbarian enemy still insults us, while the arms prepared against him are turned against us. So the public strength has fallen, so Roman valor, broken by its own upheavals, has grown old, while what is undertaken with the reverence of a father’s care is snatched away by public parricide. And David guarded against this so carefully that, when he learned that his son Adonijah was usurping the kingdom and gathering assemblies, he chose not the one who was eager to seize it beforehand but the one who waited.

The most powerful of kings danced before the ark of the Lord, and when he was reproached by his own wife for having stripped himself before the eyes of the maidservants, he answered: “Before the Lord I will be uncovered still, and I will be a trifler before your eyes, so that the Lord may be honored,” he says, “who chose me rather than your father for the kingdom”; teaching that regard for royal power is not to be kept where service is being shown to religion. For it is honorable to act for the sake of religion, even if it is unbefitting to power.

Look at another memorable thing. A parricidal son had violently seized his father’s kingdom. His father first gave way to his fury and avoided a place of battle, so that the wicked son might thus come to his senses from his fury. He refused to take part in the war, and asked those setting out to battle to spare his son. He was sure of victory who asked that they spare him, and not a stranger to fatherly love, who did not think that even a wicked son ought to perish. He wept and lamented the end of the parricide with great grief, saying: “My son Absalom, who will grant me to die for you, my son Absalom?” He thought he should punish the man who had killed him to avenge his father’s love.

And how patient he was of injury and pain! When, as we said, he was giving way before the fury of his son Absalom, surrounded on right and left by strong warriors, a man named Shimei cursed him, calling him bloody and a man of blood, cast down from the kingdom by the just judgment of the Lord; but he was not moved even by such insults, though his companions were moved. Indeed one of his companions, a man named Abishai, threatened to take off his head as the price of the insult. But the king turned to Abishai and said: “What have I to do with you, son of Zeruiah? He curses me because the Lord has told him to curse.” How morally he taught that the times of our injuries or dangers are contests of temptation and tests of proof, and that therefore they are not usually inflicted without divine judgment! The good athlete is exercised by insults, exercised by labors and dangers, so that he may be worthy to receive the crown of righteousness. And therefore things thought adverse must be borne patiently. Indeed elsewhere too divine Scripture teaches you this, the just man saying: “If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why should we not bear evil things?”

And the holy prophet added, saying: “Behold, my son, who came out of my body, seeks my life. And if the Benjaminite curses me, let him curse, for the Lord has told him, so that he may see my humiliation, and the Lord will repay me for this curse.” O depth of prudence, O mark of patience, O great discovery for swallowing an insult! Are you troubled, he says, Abishai, that a stranger curses me, whom my son seeks to kill? The Lord told him to curse me. But the Lord is not a curser, nor does he delight in insults.

See how carefully he keeps each point. He does not accuse the Lord as the author of the injury, but rather praises him because he suffers it. We suffer lesser things … so that we may obtain pardon for greater sins. See, the insult of words lightened the hardship of the parricide, and acquitted the insolent man, whose curses profit the more because they are rewarded by divine recompense. Who would not offset such an injury against himself, so that the one whom a man has harmed God may console with the repayment of better things?

Let us consider his other deeds too. He fought against the offspring of the giants, when one of them had almost struck the king as he was engaged in battle; yet the adversary paid for his daring with the price of the death he received.

Having won this triumph over a fierce conquered nation, he again undertook a mighty war in the valley of the Titans, no less against nature than against the enemy. For being thirsty while engaged in war, he had nothing to drink. “Who,” he said, “will give me a drink from the well that is in Bethlehem by the gate?” Now between the well and holy David lay the enemy and the enclosures of the hostile camp. Three men cut through the multitude of the adversaries, filled water from the well that was in Bethlehem, and offered it to the king to drink. But the king would not drink and poured it out to the Lord (for it was worthy of so great a gift that what had been a mark of living courage should become a sacrifice of devotion), and he spoke a sentence worthy of the prophetic spirit: “Far be it from me to do this, lest I drink the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives.” So he conquered nature, so that though thirsty he did not drink, and he gave an example from himself by which the whole army might learn to endure thirst. He also trained his subjects in the duty of courage, so that even through dangers soldiers might willingly obey the royal command. By not wishing to drink, he showed that he had given the command for the sake of proving his soldiers, not conquered by the necessity of thirst; that he had also taken care that no king should seek the enjoyment of drinking by others’ dangers; finally, that he had averted a wound to his devout conscience, since water sought with the blood of so many men could have no sweetness in drinking, consisting as it did in the horror of death set before them.

But if you wish to look higher and examine the mystery, David was thirsting not for water from the well that is in Bethlehem, but in the Spirit he foresaw Christ to be born of the Virgin. So he wished to drink not river water but the drink of spiritual grace; that is, he thirsted not for the element of water but for the blood of Christ. Indeed he did not drink the water offered him, but poured it out to the Lord, signifying that he thirsted for Christ’s sacrifice, not the stream of nature: that sacrifice in which there would be remission of sins; that he thirsted for the eternal spring, not one sought by others’ dangers, but one that would drive away others’ dangers.

With so many and such wonderful works, then, do we not believe that the blood of one man was covered? Rightly did the voice of the blood of just Abel cry out to the Lord, because wicked Cain was covered by no good works, because he was a fratricide, because he did not confess his crime but denied it. David indeed had killed a man by no means guilty, but he had killed him not driven by a passion for cruelty, but to overshadow his shame and cover the disgrace of his desire. I do not dare say that he was overwhelmed by the force of the crime (for he was not overwhelmed who knew how to lift himself from that ruin of sin); I say, however, that he was bent by the force of temptation. For he had said above: “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart”; and elsewhere: “But I said in my abundance: I shall never be moved”; and: “You have tested me with fire, and no iniquity was found in me.” The Lord willed that he should be subject to temptation, lest he claim for himself something above man; for power is made perfect in weakness. For he did not act with a bloodthirsty disposition: nothing less can be ascribed to the holy prophet, who even as he was departing this life charged his son Solomon with his last words to remove from him the innocent blood which Joab, the commander of his army, had shed, when Abner, while negotiating an alliance, was attacked by treachery and fell, though he was the commander of the opposing army. David wept for him and, walking behind his bier with the insignia of power laid aside, attended to the rites of his funeral. By this deed he taught that faith promised is to be kept even to adversaries, and that virtue is to be honored even in an enemy. Did he not, by the inheritance of such mild devotion, wipe away the stain of this error too?

And how splendid it was that, when three conditions were offered him, to choose which he wished, when he had incurred offence by numbering the people, and it was proposed whether he wished a famine on the land for three years, or to flee for three months before his enemies pursuing him, or a death in the land for three days, he chose the third, because he preferred to commit himself to the power of the Lord rather than of men; for the Lord, quickly moved to pity, would forgive. So he said: “I am in great straits in these three; but let me fall rather into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, than fall into the hands of men.” By this humility, prudence, and mildness he brought it about, to use the words of Scripture, that the Lord repented of his own anger. Indeed it is written thus: that the Lord repented of the evil.

And how admirable too that he offered himself to the angel striking the people, saying: “What have these sheep done? Let your hand be against me and against my father’s house!” By this he was at once judged worthy of sacrifice, who was thought unworthy of acquittal. Nor is it any wonder if by such an offering of himself for the people he obtained pardon for his sin, since Moses, by offering himself to the Lord for the people’s error, blotted out the sins of the people too.

Did he, then, cover his sins or not? But who would deny it, since this very prophet has taught that iniquities are forgiven, sins covered, and not imputed by the Lord? He himself taught that sin was forgiven him, as it is written: “I acknowledge my offence and I have not covered my injustice. I said: I will declare my injustice against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the impiety of my heart.” If he said, “I will declare,” and merited pardon before he declared, how much more, when he declared against himself, saying, “I acknowledge my iniquity,” was all sin forgiven him. Although, specifically about this, the prophet Nathan too answered: “And the Lord has taken away your sin.”

So he merited the remission of his iniquity, and covered his sins with love and hid them, and covered them with good works. Nor was the sin imputed to him, because in him there was no guile of malice, but a slip of error; then, because there was no heat of wickedness, but the shadow of a mystery. And yet he confessed his offence, acknowledged his iniquity, saw the washing, and saw and believed. He loved much, so that by his great love he could cover any error.

But now let him defend himself; for he wrote the fiftieth psalm on that history. And although he placed later the history of his earlier deeds, as of the betrayal by Doeg the Syrian, whose title is in the fifty-first psalm, and of the Ziphites, which seems to be included in the title of Psalm 53, he set first this history, which is later; since Doeg, or the Ziphites, betrayed him before the prophet David took up the kingdom, for he was still wandering as an exile through various hiding places, fleeing King Saul, whereas he took Bathsheba when he was already reigning.

Why, then, does the order of the psalms not agree with the order of the deeds? Because he wished not so much order to fit order as the mystery to fit the deeds, and therefore he wished to fit the number of remission to this history. For the fiftieth number is the number of remission, as the Lord himself taught us in the Gospel, saying: “There were two debtors to a certain moneylender. One owed five hundred denarii, the other fifty. When they had nothing to repay with, he forgave them both. Which of them, then, loves him more?” And in the law you have that the jubilee is the name of the number of fifty years, a most festive recurrence, in which debts are cancelled, the liberties of the Hebrews confirmed, possessions restored. This number we celebrate joyfully after the Lord’s passion, the debt of all guilt forgiven and the bond cancelled, free from every tie, and we receive the grace of the Holy Spirit coming upon us: on the day of Pentecost, fasting suspended, praise is offered to God and alleluia is sung. Indeed, the father of a girl who, betrothed to no one, has suffered intercourse by force receives fifty silver didrachms, and she herself will remain in marriage. By this number, then, even vices are turned into grace. Great, therefore, is the psalm by which we are taught how penance is to be done.

“Have mercy on me, O Lord,” he says, “according to your great mercy; and according to the multitude of your compassions blot out my iniquity. Wash me thoroughly from my injustice, and cleanse me from my offence. For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my offence is always against me. Against you alone have I sinned and done evil before you, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in offences my mother bore me.” Who of us, even if he confesses his offence, does not think it should rather be touched on lightly than repeated? Who repeats it a second or a third time? See in how many verses so great a prophet sounds forth his sin, how no verse is without confession of offence. He gathered all his iniquities together, and, joining injustice to them by sounding them forth, adding offences to sins and often repeating them, he rightly asks for great mercy, and not only great mercy but also a multitude of compassions. What sin would such lamentation not wash away, what fault would such prayer not cleanse? He prays for a multitude of compassions for one sin; we, for many sins, hardly think his mercy should be begged once. Then we read that “with his great power and his high arm” he freed his people from the land of Egypt, when he led them across through the Red Sea, in which there was a figure of baptism. If, then, there was great power in the figure of the sacraments, how much more is there great mercy in their truth. Rightly too is a multitude of compassions asked for there, where there is a multitude of sinners.

“Wash me thoroughly from my injustice, and cleanse me from my offence.” He asks to be washed not so much more often as more fully, so that he may wash off the filth he has contracted. He knew that according to the law there were indeed many aids to cleansing, but none full and perfect. To that perfect one, then, he hastens with all his effort, by which all righteousness is fulfilled, that is, the sacrament of baptism, as the Lord Jesus himself teaches. For when he had come to John, the Baptist said: “I ought to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” The Lord answered: “Let it be so now; for thus it befits us to fulfill all righteousness.” But after Christ was baptized, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove, and the Father sealed the Son from heaven, all righteousness was fulfilled. Therefore the prophet says: “Wash me thoroughly from my injustice”; for great filth and stain is removed not by a slight but by a full washing.

But if anyone wishes to take it otherwise, he can form his understanding thus. The divine word cleanses, our confession cleanses: the one while it is heard, the other while it is uttered; good thought cleanses, honorable action cleanses, the practice of a good way of life too. Cleansed by these, each one more easily drinks in and, as it were, seizes into himself the splendor of spiritual grace. Indeed, a precious dye does not shine out at once by a single dipping of the fleece, but first the fleece is stained with a common dye, then its natural appearance is often washed out by one dye after another and changed more often by different colors, and so afterwards the dyeing of a fuller bath, as it were, is applied, so that the truer and more perfect brightness of purple may glow. Just as, then, there is much murex in the dyeing of purple, so in the washing of regeneration there is a multitude of heavenly compassions, so that iniquity may be blotted out. And so one who is washed thoroughly is cleansed from injustice and from offence, and lays aside a kind of habit of sinning ingrained in his pursuits and character, and forgets its quality. And well is he washed from injustice, or iniquity, which is greater, and cleansed from offence, which is less.

And therefore he added: “For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my offence is always against me.” It is no small thing that each one should acknowledge his sin. And therefore above too he says: “Who will understand his falls?”, that is, who is so great as to understand? As in that saying: “Who will dwell in your tabernacle, or who will ascend the mountain of the Lord?” Not no one, surely, but few; for one who can acknowledge can avoid, can choose what to follow. Many glory in their falls and think praiseworthy what is criminal: if one has defiled another’s bed and overcome the feeling of a chaste woman, if by some fraud he has changed a widow’s purpose; another thinks it a mark of virtue to live by killing a man, by the ambushes of robbery and by plunder; some think it wisdom to cheat and deceive. None of these can say: “For I acknowledge my iniquity,” but he can who is able to grieve over what he has done, to condemn what he has offended in, whom his vices pierce. Hence the prophet too says: “What you say in your hearts, be pierced on your beds.” Many horses, when they have fallen, are accustomed to throw themselves about, and those whom the fall did not hurt are weakened and broken by throwing themselves about. Others, such as the nature of Greek horses is said to be, when they have been thrown in a chariot race or have fallen by chance, are accustomed not to move at all, and keep a kind of discipline of quiet and patience. For these, if the fall did no harm, the quiet helps; certainly the injury is not aggravated. Are not those to be thought worse than dumb animals who boast in their shameful deeds and think it a mark of virtue where there is the fall of crime? Therefore it is said as to a dumb beast: “You have sinned; be still.”

Hence he beautifully added: “And my offence is always against me.” For the fool delights in his errors and thinks he is helped by overshadowing old sins with new ones, and therefore he exults in crime. But the wise man judges his offence to be against himself, and thinks that the falls of his faults stand against him like hostile battle lines, in the manner of adversaries. Whatever sounds, whatever makes a noise, his own fault always meets him; whatever is said or read he thinks said of himself; whatever anyone looks at, he thinks he is being pointed out by a nod or by eyes. If he feasts, if he thinks, if he prays and makes supplication, his own error is always before his eyes, and at every moment guilt knocks at his conscience and does not allow him to rest or forget. Like a stern censor he harasses himself with continual terror. So he has everything against him who is displeasing to himself; he is his own accuser, his own witness, and finds nowhere to flee, since he himself presses and goads himself. But it is the mark of a good mind to feel the wound of sin. For those who are without pain do not feel the bitterness of the wound, which is the mark of an incurable disease; but those who are pricked by some pain, as they are not without the sense of pain, so they are not without progress toward health. For where there is the sense of pain, there is also the sense of life; for to feel belongs to vital vigor and function. Hence too one who does not acknowledge his error is mad, raves, is out of his senses; but one who acknowledges it surely comes to his senses: he does not reject the remedies of health but restrains himself, repents of his fault, always thinks of it and in thinking condemns himself. For the just man is his own accuser at the beginning of his speech. He who accuses himself is just; he who is just is sober, is sound. The just man does not know how to favor himself; he does not know how to bend the rigor of judgment even in his own case; he shudders at the memory of his own fall and blushes at the error committed; he dreads, fears, and shrinks from all memory of it; he judges himself severe toward himself; he flees himself as judge and does not dare entrust himself to himself, because he thinks no one more severe to him than the one from whom he cannot hide, whom he cannot deceive, whom he can find no way to flee or avoid, except by denying himself and taking up the Lord’s cross.

Great is the force of a guilty conscience, great its punishments. Eve and Adam were afraid, and when they heard the voice of the Lord walking in paradise they wished to hide, though no one was looking for them. Cain too feared lest everyone who found him should kill him. So he bore the sentence in himself, that he deserved that no one should pardon him. Hence he says well: “And my offence is always against me,” that is: without any interval the memory and very image of my error assails me. Consider how it confounds us when we have done wrong, how it rushes upon our eyes, how it always returns to memory. One who is ashamed of what he has done does not know how to commit afterwards anything like it, for which he would likewise blush.

Iniquity goes before, sin follows. Iniquity is the root; fault is the fruit of the root. Hence iniquity seems to refer to wickedness of mind, sin to a slip of the body. Iniquity is graver, as the material of sins; sin is lighter. Indeed iniquity is forgiven through the washing; sin is covered by good deeds and overshadowed by works as by wings. Hence this same prophet says well above: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.” For love hides error and covers a multitude of sins. Much love also forgives sins themselves, as it is written of the woman who poured ointment over the Lord: “Her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much.”

There are also those who take the first little verse to be about the washing, the second about penance. For this reason Peter too, who had been baptized before, is questioned after he was seen to have denied the Lord: “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He says to him: “Certainly, you know, Lord, that I love you.” And again he is asked: “Simon son of John, do you love me?” And again he answers: “You know that I love you.” And a third time he is asked: “Simon son of John, do you love me?” And he was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?”, and he says to him: “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” And it was said to him three times: “Feed my sheep; follow me,” as to one who had covered his sin with great love. Nor is it idle that, after the confession of great love, he is commanded to rule the people, he who even when troubled had not lost the way to rule himself. We have said this because of the grace of love, since it covers sin. Indeed some have said that the threefold question about love was made because the denial had been threefold, so that the profession of love, repeated as many times, might blot out the fall of the threefold denial.

There follows: “Against you alone have I sinned.” He was a king, of course; he himself was bound by no laws, because kings are free from the bonds of offences; for they are not called to punishment by any laws, safe under the power of rule. So he did not sin against a man, to whom he was not liable. But although he was safe in his rule, he was nevertheless subject to God in devotion and faith, and, knowing that he was subject to his law, he could not deny his sin, but confessed it with bitterness as one guilty, knowing that he was held by greater bonds, because he owed more, since more is required of him to whom more has been entrusted. We can also take it thus: Who judges me, since all are under sin? Indeed the Lord said of that adulteress: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone at her.” And no one stoned her. This, then, is what the prophet says: “Against you alone have I sinned,” who alone are without sin. But one who is liable to sin cannot judge as a sinner. For every man is inexcusable who condemns in another the things he himself does; for in judging another he condemns himself. “Against you,” he says, “I have sinned and done evil before you, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.” Against you I have sinned, who called me to the pursuit of virtue, who instructed me in your law. Against you alone have I sinned, whom alone the hidden things of the thoughts and the secrets of the mind do not deceive.

“And done evil before you,” to whom holiness alone is fitting. We avoid the testimony of a man, but in your sight we commit unworthy things. It is an injury to a man to watch shameful deeds; we know that God is the witness of all, and we sin with him as witness. And yet in these things the Lord our God is the more justified, because our injustice commends God’s justice and our lie celebrates the truth of God; for let God be true, but every man a liar.

“That you may be justified in your words.” The words of God are full of truth and justice, and therefore whatever the Lord has said about human frailty is true: that their heart is inclined to wickedness, leans to fraud. And because he has defined that there is no man who does not sin (for all have turned aside and become worthless), therefore he prevails while he is judged, since by the fall of all he has proved whatever he judged of our deceitfulness. So if we say that we have done iniquity, we justify God in his words; but if we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar; but it is impossible for him to lie.

It is clear, then, that we are all under sin. How great a crime it is, then, for a man to deny he is a sinner, since, as far as lies in him, he seems to accuse and refute the most high God of falsehood, who is so moderate and patient that he prevails when he is judged. For one comes to judgment: God says: “My people, what have I done to you, or how have I grieved you, or how have I troubled you? For I brought you out of the land of Egypt and freed you from the house of slavery, and sent before your face Moses and Aaron and Miriam. My people, keep in mind what Balak planned against you.” He sets each of his benefits before your eyes, so that you may judge as it were concerning the things you ought to have kept, so that you become the more guilty, who could not stand by the divine benefits. “What have I done to you?” he says. He makes himself the defendant and you the judge. “Or how have I grieved you?” He does not deny the charge of an offended countenance, if you were grieved, God being the cause. “Or how have I troubled you?” He confesses the wrong of interfering, if he was thought too troublesome; he adds his benefits, by whose grace he who was thought ungrateful did not blush. In this case too consider how the Lord offered himself to be judged by David himself, so as to prevail; for Nathan says: “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul, and I gave you all that was your master’s, and I gave his wives into your bosom, and I gave you the house of Israel itself; and if these are few, I will add to you. And why have you despised the Lord, to do evil in his sight?” Convicted by the recalling of these things, when he saw that he was inferior while he judged, he said: “I have sinned against the Lord.” So he justified the Lord, he who did not dare to deny his sin. We can also take it thus:

he who confesses his sin justifies the Lord. Indeed, in the Gospel you have that the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John. And John the Baptist practiced a baptism of repentance. And one who does penance does not deny his offences. So because David always had his offence against him, he surely did not deny what he also blushed at, did not deny what he also acknowledged. And by not denying, he surely did penance for the error committed, and so by confessing his offence he justified the Lord and was himself justified by the Lord. For the Lord is justified when his justice is proclaimed and pardon is asked of him. At the same time he both justifies the one who confesses and is justified in his words, as it is written: “Tell your iniquities, that you may be justified.”

There follows: “For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in offences my mother bore me.” Who does penance with such feeling? He lay prostrate on the ground, dissolved in tears; he did not taste food; he renounced bathing. Why should I now mention the rest, that he abstained from royal adornment and retinue? He added the confession of his iniquity and transmitted it to be sung throughout the whole world for all ages. “Behold,” he says, “I was conceived in iniquities, and in offences my mother bore me. Turn your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Do not cast me away from your face, and do not take your holy Spirit from me. Deliver me from blood, O God, God of my salvation.” Before we are born we are stained with contagion, and before the enjoyment of light we receive the injury of our very origin. “In iniquity we are conceived” (he did not state whether the parents’ or our own) “and in offences each one’s mother bears him.” Nor did he declare here whether the mother gives birth in her own offences or whether there are already some offences of the one being born. But consider whether both are not to be understood. Nor is conception free of iniquity, since the parents too are not without fault. And if not even an infant of one day is without sin, much less are the days of the mother’s conception without sin. So we are conceived in the sin of our parents and born in their offences. But birth itself also has its contagions, and nature itself has not only one contagion. Marriage indeed is good, the union holy; but still “let those who have wives be as though they had none.” The marriage bed is undefiled, and no one ought to defraud the other of it “except perhaps for a time, that they may devote themselves to prayer.” Yet, according to the apostle, one does not devote oneself to prayer at the time when one engages in the use of that bodily union. And for a menstruating woman the cloth is unclean, and she cannot offer sacrifice in the days of her purification; and the days of childbirth of a woman who has given birth, and many others, are free from sacrifice until the new mother is purified by the lawful rite.

Therefore to the one in whom the Lord willed there to be no contagion of such an origin the Lord says: “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you; and before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you and appointed you a prophet among the nations.” Who is so great, to whom such great things have been granted? Is it Jeremiah? But he surely was not set as a prophet among the nations, but in Judea at that time, though now also among the nations that have believed in the Lord Jesus. Consider rather whether it is not said to him who, before he was born of the Virgin, had long existed and existed always, and was at work even when placed in Mary’s womb, and was so holy that he sanctified his prophets. In him alone both the virginal conception and the birth were without any defilement of mortal origin. For it was fitting that he who was not to have the sin of bodily fall should feel no natural contagion of generation. Rightly, then, David tearfully lamented in himself the very defilements of nature, because in man the stain begins before life.

While he says these things and confesses the filth of special and common sins, suddenly the splendor of truth and the brightness of spiritual grace shone upon him. For, having passed beyond the shadow in the prophetic Spirit, he saw the very sacraments of the heavenly mysteries, whose type Moses prefigured in the law. Wounded, then, with the wound of love and seized with desire to search out the truth, he stretched the gaze of his mind to higher things and, looking into the future, saw the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ; he foresaw the sacrament of baptism and, marvelling at the grace, suddenly cried out, saying: “For behold, you have loved truth; the uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom you have made manifest to me.” Not uncertain mysteries, for they are certain, nor uncertain the secrets and hidden things of wisdom, but not manifest. For this is what it means, that they had been made manifest to no one; for “what eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, this God has prepared for those who love him.” Seeing them, then, he says: Behold, no longer in shadow or in figure, not in type, but in truth the open light shines; behold, now I behold the truth, I recognize the splendor of truth; now, O Lord our God, I revere you with greater affection. “For behold, you have loved truth”: not through a mirror, not in a riddle, but face to face you have shown yourself to me, O Christ; I find you in your sacraments. These are the true sacraments of your wisdom, by which the hidden things of the mind are cleansed.

So now, glad and secure because the fullness of wisdom had flashed upon him, he says to the Lord: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; you will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.” He does well both in not emptying the sacraments of the Old Testament and in teaching that the mysteries of the Gospel are to be preferred. He asks to be cleansed with hyssop according to the law; he longs to be washed according to the Gospel, and he reckons that, if he is washed, he will be made white above snow. By a bunch of hyssop one who wished to be cleansed by the typical baptism was sprinkled with the blood of a lamb. But he is washed who is cleansed by the stream of the eternal spring, and he is made white above snow whose fault is forgiven. Indeed of the soul itself it is said: “Who is she that goes up made white?” Before she was baptized, she is the one who said: “I am black and beautiful, daughter of Jerusalem.” For she was black, disfigured with the dark horror of sins; but after, washed by baptism, she merited the remission of offences, she goes up made white to Christ. Hence the Lord too spoke through Isaiah, saying: “If your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow”; that is: if they are bloody, if they are foul, I will cleanse them. This is the spiritual snow, of which it says in the Gospel that the garments of the Lord Jesus shone like snow, because his flesh did not know sin, the flesh which, coming into this world, he put on, clean from every offence. Why do you wonder that he saw the sacraments of baptism, since he said above, where he described the Lord’s passion: “The Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing; in a green place he has set me; he has brought me up by the water of refreshment,” and elsewhere: “The voice of the Lord upon the waters, the God of majesty”? And of the sacrament itself he spoke more fully: “You have prepared a table before me; you have anointed my head with oil, and your cup that inebriates, how excellent it is!”

Rightly, then, exulting in these things, he says: “To my hearing you will give joy and gladness; the bones that have been humbled will exult.” You have proved, Lord Jesus, that your words never pass away; you have proved that saying of the Gospel which you spoke: “Many prophets and just men desired to see what you see and to hear what you hear.” See, David rejoices by hearing alone that there would be remission of sins, and he prophesies that the humbled bones will exult. Just as all the bones of the just man will say: “Lord, who is like you?”, so the humbled bones will exult, those, that is, of the just man humbling his soul. Bones, then, are the name for the virtues; bones are the name for certain motions, as it were, of the mind or of the soul, which motions are humbled by sins and exult by the gift of heavenly grace. The peoples of the churches are also called bones; hence you have it said in the psalm: “My bone is not hidden from you, which you made in secret.” By “his bone” he meant the church and the sacred assemblies of the devout people, since we are members of the body of Christ, of his flesh and of his bones. This, then, is what he says: that the church of the Lord will know all the divine works and receive faith in the resurrection.

There follows: “Turn your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.” It is a customary prayer that we ask those we have offended to forget the offence done to them. So the prophet, speaking in human terms, asks God to turn his face from his sins and, as it were, to take on forgetfulness of his sins. But because he sees all things and nothing escapes him, he cannot forget as we do, from whom, in a short interval of time, the memory of what we have known slips away. Therefore he says well that he should turn his face, not from him, lest he fail, forsaken, but from his sins, so that his sins may have no strength. For those whom the Lord looks upon he enlightens, and in the countenance of the Lord there is love and pardon. And therefore this same prophet says: “Let my judgment come forth from your countenance”; for from the Lord’s countenance comes pardon, not punishment. We must ask, then, that he look upon us, but turn his face from our sins, so as to blot them out. For what he does not look upon he blots out, and what he has blotted out will be buried in forgetfulness, as the Lord himself says: “I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, and I will not remember; but you remember, and let us be judged.”

Sin is either forgiven or blotted out or covered. It is forgiven by grace, blotted out by the blood of the cross, covered by love. Likewise iniquity too, which is thought to be the habit of an unjust mind, although John in his letter said that one who has committed sin has also committed iniquity, as we have it written: “Everyone who commits sin commits iniquity also. Sin is iniquity,” because in sin itself there is iniquity. Yet, as it seems to us, sin is the work of iniquity, but iniquity the worker of fault and offence. It is more, then, that iniquity itself be blotted out, that the root and seedbed of sins be cut out. Let the evil root be removed, lest it bear evil fruits; let every disposition of error be abolished, let all kinds of iniquities be taken away.

And so, just as the discipline of wisdom, entering the soul, takes away imprudence, and knowledge ignorance, so perfect virtue blots out iniquity and the remission of sins blots out all sin. Hence the apostle says splendidly that the Lord Jesus forgave us our sins, “blotting out the bond of the decree that was against us, and he took it,” he says, “out of the way, nailing it to the cross.” He blotted out with his blood the ink of Eve; he blotted out the obligation of a liable inheritance. So faith lessens sin. And therefore the Lord, forgiving sins, used to say: “Let it be done to you according to your faith.”

There follows: “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Above he asks to be cleansed from hidden faults; here he asks that a clean heart be created for him, which comes to one who is renewed by the Spirit; for in the new man the heart is clean, in whom the filth of old offences has been blotted out and no image of iniquity remains inscribed. It is a great gift to have a clean heart. Hence Solomon says beautifully: “Who will boast that he has a chaste heart?” And the Lord in the Gospel: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.” For this reason David too desired to have a clean heart, lest he be cast away from the Lord’s face.

In one whose heart is clean, the spirit is renewed in his inward parts. For as the viscera are the inward parts of the body, so there are also spiritual viscera of the soul, such as the heart of mercy, such as the inward parts that bless the Lord, of which he says: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, his holy name.” The viscera of the soul are the inventions of the senses, the pursuits of good thought, perseverance in the virtues, finally those things which in Greek are called ἔννοιαι (“conceptions”).

The right spirit is the one that directs well, that leads into the right way: this is the Spirit of truth, or certainly the right conscience of a man bent by no sins, or the spirit which is in man. We have not passed over what others think; yet it seems to us that, since the reading speaks of mysteries and the grace of the renewal to come is expressed, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is being asked for.

Indeed there follows: “Do not cast me away from your face, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.” If any of our slaves offends us, we usually turn our face away from him. Many of the rich are accustomed to banish their slaves and relegate them to their little farms, and this is thought a heavier punishment. Indeed they usually prefer to offer themselves to the lash. If this is thought grievous among men, how much more with the Lord our God. Was it not from this that the fratricide’s pain broke out (which should indeed have been restrained, if any piety could have tempered him), that God turned his face from Cain’s gifts but looked upon Abel’s gifts? So by his silent countenance he pronounced the one innocent, the other a sinner. So, like the lowest slave, he humbles himself, and, as one caught in sin and guilty of offence, he begs to be scourged rather than cast away from the Lord’s face.

Hear how God casts away from his face: “Take him into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” One who is not corrected by his face is placed in darkness. Therefore the just man, so as not to suffer darkness, says: “Your face, O Lord, I will seek.” For where the Lord’s face is, there is light, as it is written: “Make your face shine upon your servant.” Indeed, as soon as he looked at Peter, he also enlightened him.

It is a great punishment, then, to be cast away from the face of God. Adam was cast out of paradise, and not without reason; for he had first hidden himself from the face of God. Cain too went out from the face of God, not only after the fratricide committed, but also after he thought God could be deceived, so as to deny his crime. So the sinner is shut out from the face of God, but the just man says: “Here I am.” Indeed David himself, when he saw the people perishing, offered himself, saying: “Here I am; I have sinned, and I, the shepherd, have done evil,” and so the Lord’s anger was appeased and pardon granted.

At the same time he shows that the saints remain, the criminals are cast away. And therefore we must keep spiritual grace, lest it be taken from us because of our sins. For one in whom the Holy Spirit is is not cast away, but with the unhindered fruit of his gift he is eager always to offer himself to the Lord, like the one who, when the Lord said, “Do you too wish to go away?”, answered: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we believe.”

At the same time it must be considered that the Spirit is not taken away except by the Lord’s will, as he is not given except by the Lord’s will. And surely when he is given, he does not work as one compelled, but is distributed according to his own will, as it is written, the apostle saying: “All these things one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each as he wills.” Since, then, he is not taken away except by the Lord’s will, it is plain that the will of the Trinity is one.

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a princely spirit.” To whom it is owed, to him it is restored: the joy of salvation is restored to rational nature. And joy and gladness are the fruit of the Spirit; our firmness too is the princely Spirit. Indeed one who is strengthened by the princely Spirit is not liable to slavery, does not know how to serve sin, does not know how to waver, how to stray, nor does he totter uncertain in his pursuit, but, made firm on the rock, he is established with solid footing.

Whom do we think is called the princely spirit? Many refer the right spirit to the Lord Jesus, who took away the sin of the world and renewed the whole human race by the shedding of his blood; and therefore it is said, “And renew a right spirit within me.” The Holy Spirit, of whom he says, “And do not take your Holy Spirit from me,” they understand as the Spirit of truth; and the princely spirit they think is God the Father. And how morally he says: “Do not cast me away from your face!” Faithfully he fears to have taken from him the grace he received. And therefore he says elsewhere: “My eyes are always toward the Lord,” and later: “Behold, as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of a maid on the hands of her mistress, so our eyes are on the Lord our God, until he has mercy on us.” Certainly this is the Spirit, author and prince, who rules the mind, strengthens the affection, draws where he wills, and directs to the higher life.

There are also those who have taken it as the spirit of man, which is in him. Of it the apostle says: “For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?” The one who can know all things, whom the hidden things of man do not escape, can have the princely rule in man.

There follows: “I will teach the unjust your ways, and the wicked will be converted to you.” He is the outstanding pilot who steers the ship on a rocky shore; he is the good teacher who sharpens duller minds for progress in learning; he is the excellent warrior and wonderful general who fires the more timid for battle and, having explored the terrain, props them up by its features, so as to make up for weakness of strength by the advantage of a favorable position; likewise he is a great preacher of the faith who teaches the unjust. Hence he says beautifully: “I will teach the unjust.” He did not say, “I will teach the just” (for the just know the ways of the Lord), but “the unjust,” he says, “I will teach.” Indeed the author of prudence and teacher of all says: “I came not to call the just, but sinners.” And that heavenly physician says: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”

Whether, then, in the person of him who called the nations, or in his own, he put it well: “I will teach the unjust,” because heavenly teaching can change inmost affections and turn purpose, and divine working can pour the pursuits of piety into sacrilegious breasts, so that those who lived without law may be converted to the true Lord, who before were turned away; and that by the example of the king’s penitence those who practice iniquities and bitter shameful deeds may be corrected and, converted in faith and work, receive the remedy of saving teaching and enter the ways of the Lord, in which they will meet no windings of error, no byways of headlong fall. For just as the model of good life and the pattern of virtue is in those men who have run the times of their life without stumbling, so those who, renouncing former shameful deeds or the errors of unbelief, have corrected the course of their later life are set forth for imitation by those who slip in deed or thought.

There follows: “Deliver me from blood, O God, God of my salvation.” This can also be referred to Uriah’s death: conscious of having ordered his killing, he asks pardon for so great a deed, and although as king he was released from the laws, he was nevertheless guilty before his own conscience. Desiring to untie himself from these bonds, he prays for divine help, so as to be cleansed from every stain of the crime committed. And indeed, since the holy prophet, meek and gentle of heart, always gave outstanding marks of his gentleness and devotion, so that he often pardoned his adversaries and thought he should refrain from killing them, it is no wonder that he grieves so heavily that the sin of shedding innocent blood had crept upon him. Therefore he asked to be delivered from blood, that is, from deadly sins. He praised the Lord his God, he proclaimed the Lord’s justice, and therefore he added: “My tongue will exult in your justice.”

“O Lord, you will open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” For one who praises the Lord will be saved from his enemies, as it is written. And certainly he had said above, in the forty-ninth psalm: “But to the sinner God said: Why do you recount my justice?” Since, then, he had said with his own mouth that God forbade the sinner to recount his justice, surely by recounting the justice of God he himself declared that this deed was by no means imputed to him as sin.

And he added: “You will open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” God shuts the sinner’s mouth, lest he speak the justice of God; he opens the just man’s, so that he may speak. One whose lips he opens, then, he acquits of the guilt of sin. And the Lord opens the lips of one who receives the word in the opening of his mouth. Hence the apostle too asks to be helped by the prayers of the people, that a door of the word may be opened to him to speak the mystery of Christ. And by “tongue” we understand the speech of one who exults in God’s praises. Hence that saying too is so understood: “My tongue is the pen of a scribe writing swiftly,” the word poured into the prophet.

But if we take it as said in the person of Christ, consider whether the scribe writing swiftly is not the Word of God, which runs through and penetrates the inward parts of the soul and writes in it the gifts either of nature or of grace; and the tongue that holy body born of the Virgin, by which the poisons of the serpent were emptied and the works of the Gospel to be celebrated throughout the whole world were accomplished. He came to empty sin, because he took on humility; he crushed his heart, which the Lord chose as a sacrifice rather than burnt offerings for sins, which used to be offered according to the law. Indeed he says above: “Burnt offerings for sin you did not require; then I said: Behold, I come”; that is: not thinking it robbery to be equal with God, I come, taking the form of a servant; I come in the appearance of the humanity I took up, in the truth of the cross, to prove obedience by the humility of death, so that disobedience may be blotted out.

Rightly, then, he says here too: “For if you had wished, I would surely have given sacrifice; you will not delight in burnt offerings. The sacrifice to God is a crushed spirit: a crushed and humbled heart God will not despise.” And, as I said above, it is certain that it fits the mystery that the Lord Jesus himself seems to speak here too in his own person, he who brought forth that earlier saying with evident testimony of his person. For he is the true David, strong of hand, truly humble and gentle, the first and the last, first in eternity, last in humility, through whose obedience the guilt of the human race was blotted out and righteousness poured back. He, I say, Jesus, the end of the shadow and of the law, came as the teacher of humility, to teach the proud, puffed up in mind and swelling of heart, that they must pass over to gentleness and simplicity. How, then, can sin be imputed in the type of his mystery, when in the mystery itself is the remission of sins? Unless perhaps David confessed his iniquity and the sin of that deed precisely so that he himself might share in the remission of sin and the grace of the mystery.

For what does it mean that a man confessing his sin sings of Zion and Jerusalem, saying: “Deal well, O Lord, in your good will with Zion, and let the walls of Jerusalem be built,” unless that it pleases him that the gathering of the church be hastened through the calling of the nations, so that, not by the sons of the slave woman but by the free Jerusalem, that which is in heaven, it might spread the lineage of its faith throughout the whole world and lay the foundations of spiritual walls by the assertion of the apostolic teaching?

So the walls of Jerusalem are the bulwarks of faith, the fortifications of disputations, the summits of virtues; the walls of Jerusalem are the assemblies of the churches founded throughout the whole world; for the church says: “I am a wall, and my breasts are a tower.” And well are the gatherings of the churches the walls of Jerusalem, since everyone who enters the church in good faith and work becomes a citizen and inhabitant of that heavenly city which comes down from heaven. These walls are built by a structure of living stones.

Seeing, then, the true Jerusalem and Zion, he said: When you have blessed Jerusalem and Zion in your will, then you will accept the sacrifice of righteousness, that is, the sacrifice of the body of Christ, who said, when he spoke of his own passion: “Open to me the gates of righteousness, and entering them I will give thanks to the Lord.” And in the Gospel he says to John: “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness,” and further on: “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake.” Christ is righteousness; so he asserts that the sacrifice of Christ will be acceptable to the Father. This, then, is what he says above too: “Sacrifice a sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord.” This is the offering of spiritual righteousness and the burnt offering of fervent devotion and of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which he says will come when the souls of believers begin to be brought to that spiritual altar of the Lord, souls which, renouncing pleasures and delights, draw as it were a plough through their inward parts, so as to be able to bear the fruits of devout cultivation.

Or certainly thus: when you have blessed the church acquired from the nations, and the spiritual sacrifice of righteousness has begun to be frequented, then the holy martyrs too, who offered their bodies for Christ to be ploughed, will be offered like calves on the sacred altars, as we find written in the Apocalypse of John: that under the altar were the souls of those who offered their bodies to martyrdom for the name of the Lord Jesus, so as to gain for themselves the grace of Christ. To him be honor, glory, everlasting praise with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, from the ages, and now and always, and for all ages of ages. Amen.