Letters 140.27–140.48

For among those fathers too there were, though very rare, examples of patience even to death, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, whose blood the Lord Jesus says will be required of those who persist in the wickedness of their fathers by whom these were killed; and in the New Testament there has not been lacking, nor is there lacking, a multitude of good believers who are strong even in this temporal happiness and experience in it the goodness and mercy of God the giver, yet holding to what the apostle, the steward of the New Testament, commands the rich of this world: "not to be proud, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, who gives us all things richly to enjoy; that they do good, be rich in good works, give readily, share, lay up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may lay hold of the true life": such life as was manifested not only in Christ's spirit but also in his flesh when he rose from the dead; not the life which the Jews destroyed in him, when God did not deliver him from their hands and seemed to have forsaken him as he cried out, "God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He did this in order to transfer his martyrs to himself in this way: those who, even though they did not wish to die (as he said also to Peter, "Another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish," signifying by what death he would glorify God), and for this reason seemed for a time to be forsaken by their God, since he would not grant them what they wished, should utter that voice of the heart and show that affection of piety which the Lord, as his passion approached, expressed with his own mouth, again and again transferring them to himself: "Yet not what I will, but what you will, Father."

For in whom first should the life for whose sake we are Christians have appeared, if not in our head himself? That is why he does not say, "My God, you have forsaken me," but reminds us that the cause must be sought, when he adds, "why have you forsaken me?", that is, for what reason, on what account, for what cause? For surely there was some cause, and no small one, why he should deliver Noah from the flood, Lot from the fire from heaven, Isaac from the threatening sword, Joseph from the woman's slander and from the prison, Moses from the Egyptians, Rahab from the destruction of the city, Susanna from the false witnesses, Daniel from the lions, the three men from the fire, and other fathers who cried out and were saved, and yet not deliver Christ from the hands of the Jews, but leave him in the power of those who raged against him even to the end of death. Why this? For what reason, if not for what he says a little later in the same psalm: "and not for folly to me," that is, to my body, to my church, to my least ones? For in the Gospel too he says: "When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me." So "and not for folly to me" was said in the way "you did it to me" was said; and "why have you forsaken me" was said in the way it was said, "He who receives you receives me," and "He who rejects you rejects me." Not, then, for folly to us, but that we may be wise and understand that we ought to be Christians not for the sake of this life, in which God sometimes leaves us in the hands of persecutors even to death, but for the sake of that everlasting life; because we see that this went before in him from whose name we are so called.

See, so it was done; yet so many want to be Christians for no other reason than to enjoy the happiness of this life, and so when it fails they fall away. What if so striking an example had not been set in our head himself, by which we might learn to despise earthly things for heavenly, looking not at the things that are seen but at those that are not seen? For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. Whom did he deign to transfer to himself by those words? For as far as he himself is concerned, how could he wish to be delivered from that hour, when he had come for that very hour? Or how could he speak as if what he did not wish were happening to him, when he had power to lay down his life and to take it up again, and no one took it from him, but he laid it down himself and took it up again, as he says in the Gospel? But without doubt we were in those words of ours, and the head was speaking for his body, without separating the meaning of the words, where the connection of unity is not separated.

Finally, the psalm goes on; pay attention, as you pray, to what it says: "For you," it says, "drew me out of the belly; my hope from my mother's breasts. Upon you I was cast from the womb; from my mother's belly you are my God." It is as if he said: From one thing and away from one thing you have carried me over into another, so that you may be my good in place of the earthly goods of this mortality, which I received in my mother's belly, because I sucked the breasts. For this is the oldness from which you drew me out, and those are the goods of carnal birth, away from which you are my hope; for from there I turned to you. And "from the womb", that is, from the things I began in the womb, "upon you I was cast," passing, that is, to you, committing my whole self to you. And therefore "from my mother's belly you are my God," that is, from the goods of the flesh which I took in my mother's belly, so that instead of these you may be my good: it is said in the manner of speech as if one were to say, for example, "From the earth I dwell in heaven," that is, I have moved from here to there. And this is our transfer into him, we who through the grace of the New Testament change our life, passing from the old to the new. For he, signifying this by the sacrament of his passion and resurrection, changed his flesh from mortality to immortality, but did not change his life from oldness to newness, he who was never in ungodliness, from which to pass over to godliness.

There have, however, been some who thought that the words "from my mother's belly you are my God" refer to our head himself, because the Father is his God in so far as he is man in the form of a servant, not in so far as he is equal to him in the form of God; so that "from my mother's belly you are my God" would be as if he said: From the time I was made man, you are my God. But what does "You drew me out of the belly" mean, if it refers to him born of the virgin? As if God did not draw out others, in whose providence is the whole order of birth. Or did he wish to signify by this the virgin's childbearing, with the integrity of virginity wonderfully preserved, when he says "You drew me out of the belly," so that what was wonderfully done there may seem incredible to no one, since God is said to have done it? What then does "my hope from my mother's breasts" mean? How can this too be referred to the head of the church himself, as though his hope, which is in God, began for him from his mother's breasts, and not before, in the womb itself? For no other hope is to be understood than that by which it was to come about that God would raise him from the dead; for all this is said according to his being made man. Or perhaps, since women's breasts are said to begin to fill from the very moment of conception, he wished "from the breasts" to be understood so, as if he said: From the time I took flesh, a flesh for which immortality was to be hoped, so that there was no hope for him before, when he was in the form of God, in which nothing was to be changed for the better, but "from my mother's breasts," that is, from the very taking of flesh, which was conceived in hope, the reality of which hope was to come when he passed from death to immortality?

But how the words "Upon you I was cast from the womb" could be fitted to the head, I do not know: as though, when he was in the womb, he was not in God, in whom we live and move and have our being; or as though the rational soul of that infant, from whom the flesh came forth from the womb, began to hope in God. Unless perhaps we should believe that the rational soul came to him only when he was already born, having been lacking to him while still within his mother's body; and because that same soul, which was added to the flesh once born, clung to God, it should therefore be thought that "Upon you I was cast from the womb" was said according to that same flesh, as if he said: From the womb I received a soul that would cleave to you. But who would dare to throw himself rashly into this opinion, when the account of the coming or origin of the soul lies hidden in so great a depth of nature that it is better to seek it always, as long as we are in this life, than to presume that we have at some time found it? But how these words might be taken from that transfer of us into himself has been said. If anything more suitable could be said, or ever can be, we prejudge no one's talent and envy no one's learning.

Now see how what follows, "Do not depart from me, for tribulation is near," sheds light on how "Why have you forsaken me?" was said. For how has he forsaken one to whom it is said, "Do not depart," except that he has forsaken the temporal happiness of the old life? But he is asked not to depart and abandon the hope of eternal life. But what does "for tribulation is near" mean? As if his passion were still impending, when he is understood to be saying these things, prophesied of him in this psalm, in the very midst of his passion. For here he is about to say also what is written most plainly in the Gospel: "They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots," which was done when he was already hanging on the tree. What then does "tribulation is near" mean, when he was speaking in the midst of it? But no doubt he wishes this to be understood: that when the flesh is in pains and punishments, the soul then certainly has a great contest of patience, in which one must labor and pray not to fail. And nothing is nearer to the soul than its own flesh. Hence any great and perfect despiser of this world, when he suffers elsewhere, suffers nothing. For he can apply watchful reason when he loses goods that are external and doubtless far from the mind of the wise man, who does not cling to them by desire, and not care about what he suffers, because he does not suffer. But when he loses the chief goods of the body, that is, the body's life and health, then tribulation is near to the goods of the mind, in which the mind itself within is as it were the lord of the body. What can it do by any reasoning not to feel pain when the body is wounded or burned, the body with which it is bound in so close a fellowship, so that the body may suffer and the mind not feel pain?

Hence the devil too, keeping to this order of doing harm, first received power over the external goods of that great man whom he had demanded to tempt. When these had been taken away and lost and he saw him unshaken (for he had said, "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done; blessed be the name of the Lord"), he asked also that his flesh be tormented with a wound, contending with him in such a struggle as to attack the nearest goods, that is, the goods of the body. If, having lost these, he should perhaps give way and incline his heart to ungodliness, the goods of the mind too would perish; and to destroy them the tempter, now raging in the body close at hand, pressed on. In fact that man, in so great a temptation, when tribulation was near to the goods of the mind, although he says many things prophetically, nevertheless speaks very differently from when those external goods had been lost, among which he had not lost his sons, but sent them on ahead.

So the soul of the martyr, transferred into Christ, cries out when it has begun to be afflicted in the flesh, and says to God, by whom it has been forsaken in earthly happiness, but with whom it is in the hope of eternal life: "Do not depart from me, for tribulation is near": it is not in my field, not in my gold, not in my cattle, not in my roofs and walls, not in the bereavement of my family, but it is in my flesh, to which I am joined, to which I am bound, whose feeling I cannot help having; so from close at hand it presses me to fail in the virtue of patience. "Do not depart from me, for there is none to help": neither friend nor kinsman nor human praise nor the memory of past pleasure nor anything of those things by which the ruin of earthly happiness is propped up, nor that human virtue itself which is in my mind; because, if you abandon me, what is man's virtue? For what is man, except that you are mindful of him?

"Many calves surrounded me," that is, the lesser among the people. "Fat bulls besieged me," that is, the proud and rich, the rulers of the people. "They opened their mouth against me" (crying out, "Crucify, crucify") "like a lion ravening and roaring"; for they seized him when he was arrested, leading him to the governor, and they roared demanding his death. "I was poured out like water," as if so that my persecutors might slip and fall over me. "All my bones were scattered": what are bones but the supports of the body? Now the body of Christ is the church; who then are the supports of the church but the apostles, who are elsewhere also called pillars? These were certainly scattered when he himself was led to his passion, or when he had suffered and died. "My heart became like wax melting in the midst of my belly." How this is fitted to our head, the Savior of the body itself, is hard to find. For it happens only through great fear that a human heart melts like wax. How could this happen in him who had power to lay down his life and take it up again? But surely he either transferred to himself the case of his weak ones, either of those who tremble with fear of death, as Peter himself became from a bold boaster so frequent a denier, or of those who waste away with saving sorrow, as the same Peter did when he wept bitterly (for sorrow, as it were, dissolves the heart, which is why it is said to be called in Greek lypē); or certainly he wished us to understand a deep mystery, so that by the name of his heart he signified his Scriptures, where his counsel certainly lay hidden, which was opened when by suffering he fulfilled what had been prophesied of him. His Scriptures, then, were dissolved in the things that were accomplished by his coming, birth, passion, resurrection, and glorification. For who does not now understand them in the prophets, when they have reached the understanding even of the carnal multitude? This perhaps he signified by "the midst of his belly," so that in his body, which is the church, the carnal and weaker multitude holds as it were the place of the belly; or, if the name "belly" rather befits the inner parts, it is shown that the more perfect understanding of the Scriptures belongs rather to them, when his heart, that is, his Scriptures, which contain his counsel, in their midst, that is, in their thought, is dissolved like wax, that is, is opened, discussed, and expounded by the fervor of the Spirit.

"My strength is dried up like a potsherd." A potsherd is hardened by fire; so the strength of the body of Christ is not consumed by fire like hay, but hardened by passion as by fire, like a potsherd; for "the furnace tries the potter's vessels," as Scripture says in another place, "and the trial of tribulation tries just men." "And my tongue has cleaved to my jaws." This may indeed seem to signify his silence, which another prophet also commends when he says, "Like a lamb before the shearer he was without voice"; but if we understand his tongue to be those in his body, which is the church, through whom he speaks his Gospel, then they cleave to his jaws when they do not depart from his precepts.

But how will what follows, "And you have brought me down into the dust of death," be fitted to the head, since his body, which rose on the third day, was certainly not dissolved into dust? Nor did the apostles expound what is set down in another psalm, "Nor will you let your holy one see corruption," otherwise than that his flesh, which rose so quickly, was not corrupted. Hence likewise he says in another psalm: "What profit is there in my blood, while I go down into corruption? Will dust confess to you or proclaim your truth?", saying this, namely, that if, dead, he were left in the dust in the same way as the rest, and his flesh were kept for the last resurrection, there would be no profit in his blood, because his death would be of no benefit, nor would the truth of God be proclaimed, which had foretold that he would rise at once. What then does he mean by saying in this place, "And you have brought me down into the dust of death," unless we take his body to be the church, in which those who have suffered or suffer for his name do not rise quickly as he did, but are brought down into the dust of death, to rise then, when that time comes of which he says in the Gospel, "The hour will come when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth"? Or else, figuratively, he wished the Jews themselves, into whose hands he was brought down, to be understood as the dust of death; for it is written: "Not so the ungodly, not so; but like the dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth."

Finally there follows: "For many dogs have surrounded me; the council of evildoers has surrounded me," as if he had called these the dust of death into which he was brought down. He called them many dogs and the council of evildoers, calling them dogs, namely, because dogs mostly bark against innocent people with whom they are not familiar. Now in what he adds the Gospel is read out, as it were. For his crucifixion is expressed in his saying: "They dug my hands and my feet; they numbered all my bones; but they considered and looked upon me." For his hands and feet were dug by the nails, and when he was stretched out on the tree his bones were in a way numbered. And he was considered and looked upon, to see what would happen to him, and whether Elijah would come and deliver him.

What follows next needs no exposition: "They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots." Then the words that are added are those of one praying, both in the person of the head, that is, of the man who is mediator, and in the person of the body, which is the church, which he also calls his only one. "But you, Lord," he says, "do not put your help far off." This refers to his flesh, whose resurrection was not put off for long, as that of others is. "Look to my defense," so that the enemies may do no harm, who think they have been able to do something by killing mortal flesh. But they do no harm if, defended by the grace of God, the soul is not overcome and does not consent to them in evil; for, as has been prophesied elsewhere, "the earth has been given into the hands of the ungodly," that is, the earthly flesh.

"Deliver my soul from the sword." The framea is a sword; but Christ was certainly not killed with such a weapon but by the cross, nor did they pierce his side with a sword but with a lance. By a transferred word, then, he called the tongue of his persecutors a sword, as it is said in another psalm: "And their tongue a sharp sword." Hence, because the tongue of the wicked prevailed over his flesh, he prays that it may do no harm to his soul, when he says, "Deliver my soul from the sword"; so that this prayer in prophecy, if you refer it to the head of the body, may seem not the petition of one in need but rather a figurative prediction of what was to come. Or else, because his body, that is, the church, was going to suffer grievous persecutions, he spoke of the sword, by which the martyrs were mostly slaughtered; hence he wishes their souls to be delivered, so that they may not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, and consent to unlawful things. Or again, in their own sufferings he calls the tongue of the enemies a sword. Hence he wishes his soul, that is, the soul of his body, the soul of his saints, to be delivered.

What follows, "And my only one from the hand of the dog," seems to me most fittingly understood as the one church. He called the world a dog, barking against an unfamiliar truth not by reason but by habit. For this is the nature of dogs, that they do not bark at those with whom they are familiar, whether these are good or bad, but are provoked at the sight of unfamiliar persons, even innocent ones. By the hand of the dog he signified the power of the world, whose rule, which would be hostile to his body, that is, to his church, he also figured by the name of a lion in what he added: "Save me from the mouth of the lion." Hence it is written: "There is no difference between the threats of a king and the anger of a lion"; although the apostle Peter also compares the devil to a lion roaring and going about seeking whom he may devour. And showing that the proud of this world would oppose humble Christians, he goes on to say: "And my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns." For the proud are understood by the unicorns because pride hates fellowship, and every proud man, as far as he can, desires to stand out alone.

Now attend to where the fruit is, either of his being forsaken, so that he was not heard for earthly happiness, "not for folly," but that we might become wise as to what we ought to desire by the grace of the New Testament; or of his not being forsaken but heard in what he said, "Do not depart from me," he who had said, "Why have you forsaken me?" (which is certainly contradictory, unless the one is referred to one thing and the other to another). Attend and listen as far as you understand, drink in as much as you can take, and as far as I myself am able to speak of so great a matter, or rather as far as he grants it who hears us, both in Christ, in so far as he is man, the mediator between us and God, and with Christ, in so far as he is God equal to God, and is able, as the apostle says, to do beyond what we ask or understand: see the grace of the New Testament in this psalm. See what is done, what is suggested, what is commended, what is brought to light by the fruit of that forsaking, tribulation, and prayer. Consider what we read prophesied so long before, and what we now see fulfilled. "I will tell your name to my brothers," he says; "in the midst of the church I will sing to you." Those brothers are the ones of whom he says in the Gospel, "Go and tell my brothers." That church is the one he just called his only one: this is the one Catholic Church, abundantly spread throughout the whole world, which by growing extends even to the farthest nations; hence he says in the Gospel, "And this Gospel will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

And when he says, "I will sing," this is that new song of which it is said in another psalm: "Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth." You have both here: with what song he said he would sing, and in the midst of what church; the one belongs to the new song, the other to all the earth. For he sings in us, by whose grace we sing, as the apostle says: "Or do you want proof of him who speaks in me, Christ?" As for "the midst of the church," you may refer it either to prominence and manifestation itself, since the more clearly things are known, the more they are said to be in the midst; or else to the inner members of the church, since what is inner is in the middle. For not everyone who sounds with his lips sings the new song, but he who sings in the way the apostle admonishes, saying: "singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts." For this joy is within, where the voice of praise is both sung and heard; by this voice he is praised who is to be loved freely with the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole mind, and who by the grace of his Holy Spirit kindles his lover toward himself. For what else is the new song but the praise of God?

Finally, what follows shows this more clearly. For when he had said, "I will tell your name to my brothers" (because no one has ever seen God, but the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known), and had added, "In the midst of the church I will sing to you," he at once made clear how he sang, that is, that he sang in us when we make progress in the name he made known to his brothers, and that he sang the praise of God in us, saying: "You who fear the Lord, praise him." And who praises truly but one who loves sincerely? It is just as if he said, "You who fear the Lord, love him." For he said to man, as it is written, "Behold, piety is wisdom." Now piety is the worship of God, and he is not worshiped except by loving. The highest and true wisdom, then, is in that first commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul"; and so wisdom is the love of God, and it is poured out in our hearts only through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. "But the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord," and "there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." So fear, sent ahead into our heart, drives out from it the habit of evil works and keeps a place for love; and when love comes like a mistress, fear withdraws so that she may take her seat.

"You, then, who fear the Lord, praise him." So that you may worship God not as slaves but as free, learn to love him whom you fear, and you will be able to praise what you love. For the people of the Old Testament, fearing God because of the letter that terrifies and kills, not yet having the Spirit that gives life, ran with sacrifices to the temple, and offered bloody victims, as a figure, indeed, of the blood to come by which we have been redeemed, yet not knowing what was prefigured by them. But now, in the grace of the New Testament, "you who fear the Lord, praise him." For he himself, foretelling in another psalm that those things which were then offered in the shadow of what was to come would be changed, says: "I will not take calves from your hand, nor goats from your flocks." And a little later, to show the sacrifice of the New Testament, when those were to cease, he says: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High." And at the end of the same psalm he says: "The sacrifice of praise will glorify me, and there is the way by which I will show him my salvation." The salvation of God is Christ, whom the aged Simeon, when he had recognized him as an infant in the Spirit and taken him in his hands, said: "Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation."

"You, then, who fear the Lord, praise him; all the seed of Jacob, magnify him." It is not idle that it was not enough for him to say "the seed of Jacob" without adding "all", lest it be understood only of those of the Israelites who were going to believe. For the seed of Jacob is the same as the seed of Abraham; and to all who believe in Christ, not only to those of Israel who were believers, the apostle says: "Then you are the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise." For there he recalled the prefiguration of the New Testament in what is written: "In Isaac shall your seed be called," certainly not in Ishmael, the son of the slave woman. In these two sons of Abraham, the slave and the free, and the two women, the slave woman and the free, he says, writing to the Galatians, that the two testaments were prefigured in an allegory. Hence he says: "It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as seed." For this is the word of promise: "At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son."

It would be a great and very long task to explain carefully why the children of the promise, belonging to Isaac, are counted as belonging to the grace of the New Testament. Yet I will touch on it briefly; you will reflect on it the more fruitfully, the more devoutly you reflect. God does not promise all that he foretells; for he also foretells things that he does not do himself, since he foreknows all future things. He foretells, then, even the sins of human beings, which he could foreknow, not do. But he promises what he himself is going to do, and these are not evils but goods. For who would promise evils? So although he inflicts evils on the evil, not sins but punishments, he threatens them rather than promises them. He bestows all good things and foreknows all things; but sins he foretells, punishments he threatens, benefits he promises. The children of the promise, then, are children of benefit. This is grace, which is given freely, not by the merits of one who works but by the mercy of one who gives. Hence we give thanks to the Lord our God, which is a great sacrament in the sacrifice of the New Testament; where, when, and how it is offered you will find out when you have been baptized.