Works (CSEL) 1 part 1/3

Perhaps the title of the psalm, which you have heard read, has given offense to many: namely that 'Nathan the prophet came to him, when he had gone in to Bathsheba.' At the same time, the reading from the Gospel which has just been gone through could also raise no small scruple in the unlearned, in which you have observed an adulteress brought to Christ and the same woman dismissed without condemnation. For surely, if anyone receives these things with idle ears, he runs into an incentive to error, when he reads of the adultery of a holy man and the absolution of an adulteress, well-nigh falling by both a human and a divine example: that a man should have thought adultery was to be committed, and that God should have judged adultery was not to be condemned. Slippery, therefore, is the road to a fall, whether of pardon or of concupiscence.

There is added this further point, that he seems to be kindling the very torches of youthful wantonness, in that he did not blush at his own adultery, did not conceal it, but as it were published it abroad by the proclamation of a divine song. What then? Was holy David so shameless and so improvident that he himself should sing of his own disgrace, especially when in another psalm too, which has been gone through today, he said: 'How long, O sinners, how long shall sinners glory?' Does he forbid others to glory in their sin, and does he himself even glory in a consecrated song? How then do we distinguish these things? Yet grant that David erred wantonly: did Christ also err, so that we should suppose He did not have right judgment? Rightly therefore did David prophesy today as it were to those very men, saying:

'Understand, you senseless ones, and you fools, at length be wise.' For how could Christ have erred? It is not lawful that this should enter into our minds. 'He who planted the ear, does He not hear? Or He who formed the eye, does He not consider? He who rebukes the nations, shall He not reprove—He who teaches man knowledge?' Was Christ, then, incapable of inquiring into a fault and of hearing a just accusation? Could Christ have approved wantonness? Did Christ, who rebukes the nations, judge that an adulteress was not to be reproved? Did Christ, who knows the inner things of each one's heart, who teaches the knowledge of the law, either allow Himself to be deceived by an error or to judge contrary to the tenor of the law? And how did He Himself say: 'I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it'? Could Christ, who condemns hidden things, have connived at things made public?

Can Christ, who made the seasons, be ignorant of the seasons? Can he who knows the empty thoughts of men not also know their guilty ones? And so let this suffice as an answer to those who, though they cannot deny the Creator, yet deny the power of the Creator; who, though they confess his wisdom, assert his folly by charging him with ignorance of things to come. On this I could discourse at greater length, but another subject seems to be set before us. And although a series of varied readings has been run through, they nonetheless serve toward the same affirmation, and especially the title of the psalm and the Gospel reading. But although one affirmation suits them all, yet according to the order of the readings let there be an order of treatment, and therefore it seems that we must first treat of the title of the psalm.

A story has been set before us which contains both adultery and murder. For thus we find it written in the Book of Kingdoms: that King David, while walking about in his house, saw Uriah's wife washing herself, loved her at once, and ordered her to be summoned. Then he commanded her innocent husband—as the Scripture relates—to be exposed to the fiercest warriors, that he might be overwhelmed by the force of the enemy. These things were done and are not denied. How then shall they be defended? The Gospel reading admonishes us well: that even when sin is manifest, the judgment of the judge ought nevertheless to be sober, and each one ought to be mindful of his own condition and merit. For often, even in judging, the sin of the judgment is greater than the sin of the very thing about which judgment has been passed.

For if it has been prescribed by certain wise men of the world that in judging one should take care lest the punishment be greater than the fault, and if this is observed, how much more does it seem that this should be observed: that whoever is about to judge another should first judge himself, and not condemn lesser errors in another while he himself has committed graver ones. Who then are you who judge David, a holy man? I speak to the Gentile, I speak to the Jew, I speak to the Christian. And therefore it seems to me that this treatise must be divided into three parts: one against the Gentiles, another against the Jews, the third among Christians. First, then, my discourse is against the Gentiles, who for the most part are accustomed to bring this objection:

Behold how the Christians pursue innocence, prize faith, venerate religion, and teach chastity—yet their chief men are reported to have committed both murders and adulteries! David himself, of whose lineage, as you say, Christ chose to be born—he himself sang aloud both of his murders and his adulteries. What kind of disciples can they be whose masters are such?" What then? Do we deny the deed or repudiate the master? Neither of these. But let him who casts up the particular instance consider what is common to our nature. The particular instance of the deed is the common quality of nature. It is therefore no wonder if within what is general there is a particular case. For I acknowledge that David was a man, and it is no wonder; I acknowledge the common lot, that man sins.

For the weakness of the human condition is nothing new, and it seems more a matter of wonder if a man is free from sin than if sin befalls him. The holy David therefore committed sin—I will hold you with no ambiguity—he committed adultery, he contrived murder, both contrived it and carried it out. He sinned as kings are wont to do, but he did penance and wept, as kings are not wont to do. He begged pardon, not presuming upon his power, but conscious of his weakness; prostrate upon the ground he covered himself with sackcloth, forgetful of his sovereignty and mindful of his guilt. What man of this sort can you find me, who, set in power, does not rather cherish his crimes, proclaim his fault as a virtue, and defend his sins—who supposes that what is not seemly for him is nevertheless permitted to him?

Who binds himself by his own laws, and recognizes that what is not permitted through justice is not permitted through power either? For power does not loose justice, but justice looses power. The king is loosed from the laws not by the laws, but he looses the laws by his own example. Or can it be that one who judges concerning others should himself be free from his own judgment, and take upon himself that for which he binds others? Good therefore is David, and far more to be admired in that he conquered power than in that he conquered love. For chastity is sometimes yielded to the body, often through error; but power is here subjected to God, and he who restrains himself in love does so more easily than he who moderates himself in power. Do you then not pardon what is the lesser, in which you marvel at the greater?

In all men the nature inclined to sinning is slippery and prone to fall; slippery too, even in good characters, is the license of power and the opportunity that offers itself. For the wrath of a king does not differ from the wrath of a lion; but he who goads it on and mingles himself with it sins against his own soul. Let each one therefore beware lest he goad power, lest the soul, ensnared in the body's nets, be unable to strip off its vice. It is no wonder, then, if even David slipped under the guise of power, but far more to be admired that he was called back by the contemplation of faith. You see therefore that this worldly power often profits nothing and for the most part does harm; for often the outcome of the fault lies in the authority of power.

Do not therefore, whoever you are who are king, presume upon your might and resources; for the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. Do not flatter yourself over the subjection of peoples, for a king shall not be saved by the multitude of his strength, neither shall a giant be saved by the greatness of his strength. For not in the lofty pinnacles of tents nor in the costly summit of roofs, but upon those who fear him is the Lord well pleased, and upon those who hope in his mercy. We see, then, that power is slippery toward vices; yet I would not say it is always bent that way, since we read that even David, exalted in royal power, increased the worship of God, and that Solomon consecrated a temple to the Lord.

Now let us establish what we touched upon—that the faculty of commanding is an incitement to sinning—and let us pursue it according to the sequence of the history. David would not have committed adultery against the right of another's bed and the covenant of a plighted marriage, had he not seen a woman naked and bathing from within his own house. And therefore it is well written: Fall not upon the beauty of a woman, and lust not after a woman; and elsewhere: From the eyes of every irreverent woman keep watch. Presume nothing upon your own continence and virtue. For the fornication of a woman shall be known in the lifting up of her eyes and in her eyelids; and therefore flee the first occasion of sin, for no one is long strong; and it is said not only to the weak, but to every man:

Let not the desire of beauty conquer you—if you do not wish to be conquered, do not engage with sins, lest vices be crowned at your expense—neither be captured by the eyes nor swept away by the eyelids. The woman seems to you cheap as to price, but strong as to mischief, for a woman captures the precious souls of men. It is therefore difficult for anyone ensnared by the allurements of lust to escape unscathed. Nor is this judged difficult by my opinion alone, but in the Proverbs of holy Solomon it is judged impossible; for he, taught by his own example, says: Can a man bind fire in his bosom, and not burn his garments? Or can a man walk upon coals of fire, and not burn his feet?

Beware then, you also, lest within the bosom of your mind you kindle the fire of lust and love, lest your bodily garment be consumed by that conflagration of the soul, and the perpetuity of the resurrection, or at least the very trace of your mind, be burned, if you suppose you must walk over the torches of lusts; for he who is burned in heart is consumed in body. By all means, therefore, the encounter of female wantonness must be avoided. And so, He says, acquire prudence as your disciple, that she may guard you from the alien wife and the harlot, lest she hold you bound in the snares of her lips and entangle you in the cords of error. And so the prophet has taught you whence you must beware the harlot, namely, that you beware her entrance through a window.

For she enters from the window of her own house; her window is the eye, and therefore from the eyes of every irreverent woman keep watch, lest through the window love enter and lust penetrate. For the harlot allures her lover by sight, and unless you restrain the wanton gaze of mind and spirit, death enters through the window. The wantonness of the harlot is not idle, nor her lasciviousness at leisure, which makes the hearts of young men take wing, so that they cannot keep the constancy of their own mind and are snatched here and there by burning passion. Beware then such a woman, who does not rest with her feet, who wanders abroad, who lies in wait at the corners. She binds with her eyes, allures with her words, weaves her couch with cords, and with carpets spread from Egypt.

For she takes up her adornment not from divine knowledge but from worldly enticement—she who fittingly says that her husband is absent, since no adulteress can have Christ present. You see therefore by how many nets the hearts even of the saints are captured, and so do not wonder if even holy David was captured, a great man indeed, who conquered by faith the foreigner monstrous in body and bristling also with the weapons of war. But would that he had conquered himself! Would that, as he laid that adversary low, so he had been able to lay low and overcome his inward adversary! Heavier is the battle of him who fights within than of him who fights without. But why do I speak of David alone?

Let us summon also others to a treatment of this kind, lest we suppose the frailty to have been David's—that is, of one man only—rather than that of the bodily condition. Samson, mighty and strong, throttled a lion, but he could not throttle his own love. He loosed the bonds of his enemies, but he did not loose the knots of his own desires. He set fire to the harvests of strangers, and himself, kindled by the little fire of one woman, lost the harvest of his own virtue. Solomon built a temple to God: but would that he himself had kept the temple of his own body! Yet let our discourse return to him from whom it departed.

David triumphed over ten thousands, but he erred over twenty thousands and more; and because he erred, he recognized himself to be a man, confessed his fault, and entreating pardon said to the Lord: O Lord, rebuke me not in your wrath, nor chastise me in your fury. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak. If David is weak, are you strong? If Solomon fell, are you immovable? If Paul is the chief of sinners, can you be the chief of the saints? Therefore, if these men erred, they erred as men, but acknowledged their sin as the righteous do. If the righteous received the sentence of a harsher penalty, how do you set before yourself the hope of impunity, when the Scripture says: If the righteous man is scarcely saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?

You perceive then, my children, how often even a good resolve is undermined by the occasion of sinning, and therefore you ought first to flee and avoid the very occasions. You do not wish to be captured by love: do not gaze upon the beauty of a woman, for when your eyes have seen another's, then your mouth will speak perverse things, and you will lie down as in the heart of the sea, and as a helmsman in a great storm. For the multitudes of desires raise a great tempest, which, as in some strait of the body, throw the voyager into confusion on this side and that, so that the mind cannot be master of itself, ignorant of day and night through the darkness of love. By the eyes, then, lust is roused, but by drunkenness it is kindled; and every drunkard and fornicator shall become poor. Nor flatter yourself upon your capacity for drinking.

Noah was made drunk, and he who was not drowned by the flood was drowned by wine. But he knew not the nature of wine, for he had not drunk before; you have learned in his case what you ought to beware. Lot was deceived through sleep, and you, if you do not wish to be deceived, shake off the sleep of your mind, lest a son or daughter mock you when drunk and sleeping. There it is not piety but drunkenness that is laughed at; nor is the father there, but a sleeping man who is circumvented. You do not wish to be burned: do not approach the fire. You do not wish to be cast headlong: flee tottering places, beware of precipices, shun what is ready to fall. You see therefore in those who deserved to be righteous that it was not another nature, but another discipline.

For after the fall of the first man and the just sentence, when in the one appetite of the flesh he was condemned, the condition contracted a flaw, guilt infected nature; but the flaw of nature itself was tempered by faith, and the intention of devotion soothed the offense. Turn therefore to God, you nations, and know that the Lord himself is God. He made us, and not we ourselves. Know that we are flesh and dust. Let us therefore forsake the things we have done, and venerate our own Author, who gave us life, who forgave our sins, who alone can say: I am, I am he who blots out your iniquities, and will remember them no more. Great indeed and merciful is God, who confers a benefit and does not reproach with the gift of his benefit.

Do you marvel that he made David a king and victor over many nations? Thus is he accustomed to exalt his little servants. He is not grudging of gifts, nor sparing of benefit, nor narrow in grace, nor stingy, but rich in liberality; those whom he has redeemed from sin he increases in reward. These things are against the Gentiles. But since we promised a threefold division of this treatise—one against the Gentiles, another against the Jews, the third among the Church—now it seems we must treat against the Jews. Let us therefore review what is set before us. The title, it says, is: Of the understanding of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, when he had gone in to Bathsheba. Surely this history presents David as both an adulterer and a murderer—and this man, you Jews, say is the Son of God!

But God is the God of virtues, not of crimes, and concerning this God the Father says: His throne shall be as the days of heaven. He who has wrought deceit has not conquered sins; and how is it written: No one is without sin save God alone? If therefore he who is the Son of God cannot fail to be God, surely the Son of God is the arbiter of justice, not subject to guilt. By what notion, then, do you either judge David to be the Son of God, or suppose Solomon to be so? Is it because it is written: God, give your judgment to the king, and your justice to the king's son; and because the title of the psalm says that the seventy-first psalm was composed concerning Solomon? But mark which Solomon it speaks of. For Solomon means "peaceable"—this is what the interpretation gives.

The psalm is spoken concerning him whom we truly know to be a lover of peace. But how was Solomon peaceable? The blood of Joab does not show this, whom he ordered to be slain between the altars of the temple; nor the punishment of Adonijah, whom he struck down as guilty of aspiring to royal kinship, not called back from his indignation even by his mother's entreaty. And how do you reckon that to be fitting for Solomon, David's son, which is written: that he shall endure with the sun, and before the moon, throughout all generations—when that man, having received but the loan of a brief life, passed his span of living within narrow bounds? And how is it said of him:

He shall have dominion from sea to sea—when that man, confined within Syria, that is, having the bounds of his empire circumscribed within the province of a single region, whereas Christ alone propagated his empire even to the ends of the whole earth? For he alone is the one of whom the sequence of the psalm well prophesied, that the kings of the Arabs and of Sheba shall bring gifts, and all the kings of the earth shall adore him, all nations shall serve him. For this is the one whom we know to rule over all peoples and nations with an uncircumscribed empire, with boundless power. Solomon then is not the Son of God. But on what ground did you suppose him to be the Son of God? Is it because he was wise? But this man asked for wisdom, that he might receive what he did not have.

Christ himself is wisdom, having by nature universally that which Solomon received in human affairs through grace. Moreover, what is received in time is possessed only for a time. For Solomon neither had wisdom at the beginning of his life nor possessed it at the end. For he did not believe that he had what he asked for, and afterward, turned away from the worship of God, he fell not as one wise but as one foolish, so that he gave offense. And he offended, so that he lost even what he had merited. Why then did you believe him to be the Son of God? Is it because he built a temple to God? But from this you ought rather to have believed that he was not Lord and God, because it is written: Unless the Lord build the house for himself, in vain have they labored who build it.

In vain did he labor who built that temple which the fire set beneath it burned up. Or is it because it was said to David his father: You shall not build me a house, but when you sleep, I will raise up your seed after you? But there too a temple not corporeal, not material, is promised; for God does not dwell in things made with hands, but the temple is the holy Church, which is surely founded not by human but by heavenly power. For if we admire the works of a virtue more excellent indeed, yet still human, we find many men of this sort whom we can compare with Solomon. And therefore, where there is equality of work, there is no excellence of power. Nor can we call many sons of God, since we have read of one Son of God.

But injury must not be done to the Son of God on account of the benefits which he conferred upon our fathers. For there were many illustrious men, yet it was through one Joshua son of Nun that, as it says, the sun stood still over Gibeon. You see him to have advanced beyond David's power; for David ruled over earthly things, not over the stars. You see too that the sun is a minister, not a lord, since it obeyed even a human voice. Yet it stood still, because in Joshua it recognized both the type of the One to come and the name. For Joshua son of Nun commanded the heavenly luminaries not by his own power, but by the mystery of Christ; for it was signified that the Son of God would come into this world, who by divine power would defer the setting of the world's light then declining and already sinking into darkness, would restore the light, and bring back brightness.

Enoch too was caught up to heaven; but yet he was caught up, while this One returned. He was caught up, lest malice should change his heart; this One abolished the very malice of this world. Elijah ascended to heaven by chariot and horses, but Christ descended from heaven neither by chariot nor horses; as the former ascended, because he could not otherwise, so this One returned by his own power. Elisha bade the leper wash in the Jordan, that he might be cleansed from all contagion; this One washed the whole world in the Jordan. Moses himself, to whom it was entrusted that the people of the Jews should cross over, divided the water. And he indeed divided the elements, because he did not divide the power of the Trinity; he parted the masses of the waters, because he did not separate the Father from the Son.

You see how great men, and the testimonies of what works, they left behind. How then, when you recognize men equal in virtue to King David or to Solomon, do you judge them unequal in condition—so as to suppose that Solomon, David's son, sits at the right hand of God—especially when David himself plainly expressed of whom it had been said? For he would not say of his own son: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand. For how would he name his own son his Lord? The Law forbids, religion resists, faith shudders, that you should place a mortal man at the right hand of God Almighty.

It is another who sits at the right hand—he who took up a body, not he who began from a body; he who was begotten before the morning star, that is, before the brightness of all lights, since he himself created the brightnesses of the various lights; for Solomon at any rate is after the morning star. Solomon was not a priest; and therefore it could not be said to him by God Almighty: From the womb before the morning star I begot you; it could not be said to him: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek—especially since at that time in which Solomon lived, the priests were after the order of Aaron, not after Melchizedek. For up to that time the priests still offered the blood of goats and bulls for the sins and errors of the people;

but after he came who offered himself for the salvation of the world, that the blood of Christ might wash clean those whom the blood of bulls could not wash, the priests began to offer their very selves as victims. And so by a single question our Lord Jesus Christ stopped the mouths of all heretics and shut up their sacrileges. For not only the Jews, but also the Photinians and Arians and Sabellians did he refute by this question. And therefore, since we now see that the Jews have failed and that their execrable faithlessness has been diminished, we must now touch upon something in the treatment of this question against the Arians—who do not differ much from the Jews—and the Photinians and Sabellians.

Let Photinus therefore be silent, who says that Christ is the son of David, not of God, and let him be silenced, condemned by a heavenly voice. For how does he say that Christ is the son of David, when David himself said in the Book of Psalms: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool under your feet? If David, he says, calls him Lord, how is he his son? Therefore Christ is not the son of David, but the Son of God. Let the Sabellian also be silent: when he reads that the Lord said to the Lord, let him understand that the one who speaks and the one to whom he speaks are not one and the same—for the Father does not say to himself: Sit at my right hand, nor did he say to himself:

I will make your enemies—and let all at length understand that it is the Son who sits at the right hand, and let them preserve this distinction between Father and Son, so that there is a distinction of Father and Son in that the Father is one and the Son another; but because they sit on one throne, possess one majesty, and sit not by reason of a difference of dignity nor for an order of power, but for the bond of love, let them understand the power of Father and Son to be one. Herein let Arius also fall silent, who urges the contrary tracks of Sabellius's error. Let him hear the Lord speaking to the Lord, let him hear the Son sitting at the Father's right hand, and let him cease to raise a question against the divinity from the speech and order of men. Nor let him argue here that the Father says "Sit";

for we read elsewhere also that the Son sits even without any word of the Father, as it is written: And he sits at the right hand of God; and elsewhere: Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God. For it is he to whom it is said "Sit" who is named the Son of Man. He hears as man, he sits as the Son of God. What can be called more excellent than this power, which placed even the flesh of man at the right hand of God, and, after the Word was nevertheless made flesh, joined that infirm thing of the human condition to the eternal divinity? But what is this? After Photinus has fallen mute, Arius has fallen silent, Sabellius has lost his voice, I behold yet another heresy raising diverse mouths against the Church.

For behold, Manichaeus and Valentinian and every derivation of the Manichaeans rely on that very weapon by which the others were slain: with a testimony of faith they contrive a prejudgment against faith. For the detestable heresy says: "Behold, Christ denied that he was the son of David, and therefore," it says, "it must be believed that he did not take up flesh." To these the Scripture replies most plainly at the very beginning of the Gospel and says: The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David. Why then is he elsewhere called the son of David, and elsewhere denied to be the son of David, except that you may understand that it is one thing to be the Son according to the divine substance, another according to the assumption of flesh? For according to the divine substance he is the Son of God, according to the flesh the son of David.

And so where the generation of the Savior according to the flesh is described, he is named the son of David; but where the fullness of confession is required, when the generation of the Savior is designated, the Son of God does not will to be named the son of David; for the designation of his majesty interprets his nature. But now that the perverse interpretations have been refuted, the discourse must be turned to the Church. Indeed, that we so often repeat the title of the fiftieth psalm is an example not of presumption but of weakness. For in a single day, whether through the narrowness of my talent or the frailty of my voice, I cannot fill out the whole sequence of the treatise.