'What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the water of Geon?' There is also the river Tigris, flowing past the Assyrians; there is also the Euphrates, stretching toward Babylon; there is also the Phison, which in the Latin rendering is called 'change of mouth,' encircling the land of Evilat, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good, and the carbuncle stone and the green stone. Rightly is the mouth there changed, so that no faithfulness to promises is kept, but there is deceit in the mouth where there is good gold; for avarice breaks faith and does not keep the simplicity of words, and precious ornaments likewise change the mind and the spirit, so that one thing is in the heart and another in speech.
In those regions of rivers, then, the Jews were carried away captive into Egypt and to the Assyrians and to the Babylonians, where by the rivers of Babylon they sat and wept over the misery of their calamity, and, as this same prophet testifies, there they hung up their instruments and laid aside all gladness, where they bore the heavier sufferings. Thus the remaining ten tribes were led away to the Assyrians, but the two, Judah and Benjamin, passed over into Babylonia as guilty of a graver crime. For a priest's daughter who commits adultery is punished more harshly than the rest, because she has stained the grace of the priestly line with shameful reproach.
Just as they, then, underwent the gravest trials, so our Saviour exposed himself to many temptations, that he might pass over none of the contests of our temptation. He is rightly said, therefore, to be planted beside the streams of these rivers, not in the very streams themselves, that you may understand him as bordering upon them, not as submerged. He had a first encounter of flesh and blood. And so he says: 'Father, take away this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou willest.' There was the temptation of riches set before him, when the enemy offered him all the kingdoms of the earth, if the Lord falling down would worship him. You have the streams of two rivers, Geon and Phison.
He had a wrestling against the princes of the world; in his very Passion there was a contest against the tempters, whom the Hebrew interpretation calls Persians, who brought false testimonies, against those who said 'Let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in him,' which things the devil was prompting. You have the Tigris and the Euphrates, rivers. But that our contest is fourfold the Apostle also comprehends, saying that 'our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world and of darkness, against the spiritual wickedness which is in the heavenly places.' These are the rivers which go forth from paradise.
Hence I think that he who longs to return into paradise must cross over these streams of waters. And this same holy prophet expressed not idly, showing that he who has undergone all temptations may now hope that the rest of paradise is owed to him. And so he says thus: 'Streams of waters have run down from my eyes.' For just as there is a fiery sword at the entrance of paradise, so that whoever returns may return through fire, may burn away his sins, may prove his gold, so he who returns, returns through these streams; and rightly the saints say: 'We have passed through fire and water.' Of these streams Isaiah too says: 'If thou pass through the water, the rivers shall not shut thee in.' What rivers? Hear David speaking of those who were hastening to paradise:
'Perhaps our soul would have passed through the unbearable water.' Some, regarding these four temptations, also take this text: 'Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample on the lion and the dragon,' so that he walked in the Incarnation, trampled in the Passion, or trampled in the handing over of the kingdom, which he will deliver to the Father, when he shall have emptied out every principality. Beautifully, moreover, Aquila said 'transplanted'—that is, transferred in planting—because he was first planted in the Virgin, and afterward transplanted into paradise, as he said to the thief: 'Verily I say to thee, today thou shalt be with me in paradise.' This tree, therefore, shall give fruit in its season.
Earthly trees are said not to give fruit, but to bear it; but the tree of life and of wisdom gives fruit—that is, it lavishes and bestows it. Again this question arises: 'If it is the tree of wisdom, why will it give in its season and not always?'—lest perhaps it be hard for us to think this of Christ. But you who have read that 'the Lord will set a faithful and prudent steward over his household, to give them in due season their measure of wheat'—in due season, certainly, not always—you ought not to be disturbed at all. Wisdom can always give fruit, but, because it is wisdom, it ought to give wisely, to dispense prudently, whenever we either deserve or are able to receive the full measure.
Just as here in the latest time he will give fruit, so also there he will give good fruit to those in need, that we may be able to receive and to keep the fellowship of his resurrection. Now we cannot; in this corrupt age we do not endure it, for here there is corruption. And care had to be taken lest we corrupt the good fruits which the tree of life would give, because now we are corruptible, but there incorruptible, when, he says, 'the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.' What, then, would it profit one about to die to receive what death was going to take away from him? Wisdom, therefore, knows to whom and when it ought to give, that loses not even a leaf of its tree.
And therefore let us consider what is the fruit of wisdom, and what the leaf. The fruit is within; the leaf is that by which the fruit is shielded either from the scorching sun or from the cold. The fruit seems to be faith, peace, excellence of doctrine, intentness upon true knowledge, the understanding of the mysteries. These fruits a good life guards; an evil life, even if it has gained them, loses them. But to the sinner God said: 'Why dost thou declare my righteous ordinances?' In the mystical things is the fruit; in the moral things is the leaf, through the contemplation of the heavenly mysteries. For virtues without faith are leaves; they seem to be green, but they cannot profit; they are tossed by the wind, because they have no foundation. How many of the Gentiles have mercy, have sobriety, but have no fruit, because they have no faith!
The leaves quickly fall when the wind has blown. And some Jews have chastity, much diligence in reading and care, but they are without fruit; rather they are tossed about like leaves. These perhaps are the leaves which the Saviour found on that fig tree, but found no fruit. Mystical things save and free from death; but moral adornments are ornaments of beauty, not aids of redemption. That mystical things excel the moral things, the Lord himself also teaches in his Gospel, speaking of Mary, who sitting at the Lord's feet was hearing his word, while Martha was busy about the serving and complained that her sister did not help her with the very serving at table: 'Martha, Martha, Mary hath chosen for herself the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.'
If she who was serving Christ at the table was not compared to her who desired to hear the word, to whom shall we be able to compare one who works, when set against one zealous for eternal knowledge—yet in such a way that neither does faith fail that one's work, nor, as in Mary's case, does work fail this one's knowledge—lest either the leaves be without fruit, or the fruit, uncovered without its natural protections, lie open to injury?
We can also understand this: that Adam and Eve covered themselves with leaves, seeking bodily garments, because the resurrection of the Lord's body was being foretold—since neither would the flesh, which before had been wont to perish in the place of leaves, be doomed to perish in Christ and in all the righteous, who, according to the Gospel, being born of the Virgin, would shape their life and their deeds after the likeness of the tree of wisdom. For the Greek said thus: 'which shall give its fruit,' which can be referred to the blessed man—'blessed is he who shall give fruit,' in Greek—but in Latin it is rendered 'who,' so that the sense is: 'who being blessed shall give fruit' in his resurrection, when he is able to give it perpetually. It can also be taken thus, 'its fruit':
'over the son'—so that it may be referred to the tree, whose works shall all prosper. In which there is clear testimony that it is spoken of the Saviour; for whose deeds but his own can all be praised and have prosperous outcomes? But Aquila says 'they shall be directed,' which seems also to be referred to any man whom the Lord directs with heavenly favour; for 'by the Lord are the steps of a man directed,' and David the prophet besought that his prayer be directed in the sight of God. But the Lord himself also directed his works, that they might be bent by no winding turn of error. There follows: 'Not so the ungodly, not so; but like the dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth,' that is:
not so as the blessed man, who is blessed for this reason, because he walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, because he stood not in sin, sat not in the company of the pestilent who wish to pervert either those who believe piously or those who live piously; who had his will in the law, and shall meditate therein—or, as Aquila put it, 'shall resound in the law,' so that his life resounds the precepts of the law, his conduct re-echoes them, like those whose 'sound went out into all the earth.' Perhaps here the sound of the teaching of men goes forth, but there, where it shall be given to see face to face, a certain fuller expression of the word seems to come to be. Not, then, as that blessed man who shall have done these things, who shall be like a tree planted, whose every deed shall prosper—not so shall the ungodly also be.
Therefore he—whether the one who wrote it or, as some think, the one who afterward added it—repeated it, so that the sentence might become more firmly established by being repeated, saying: 'Not so the ungodly, not so,' who shall be like dust. For they are earthly, and as dust is driven from the face of the wind, so these too shall be driven and scattered by the Holy Spirit, who is wont to breathe upon the fertile and fruitful soil of the saving soul like the south wind. To this wind it is said in the Canticles: 'Come, south wind,' that by the gentleness of a milder air the fields of our heart, more pliant, may be opened up—those fields which, bound tight by winter's frost, were refusing their bosom to the seeds to be received.
It is good for us that this wind should breathe, which leads the ships of Tharsis, bearing to Solomon the things that seem necessary for his temple, safely into harbour. But this wind breathes only if that heavy north wind has ceased to blow. Therefore either the Church or the pious soul says: 'Arise, north wind, and come, south wind,' that is: 'Withdraw, north wind, and come, south wind, breathe upon my garden, that thou mayest not scatter the flowers, but preserve them.' The soul, then, full of piety, has a garden, or is itself a garden that bears fruit; but the soul that lies open to impiety has dust, which is barren of fruit. The Lord indeed made that soul fruit-bearing, but it gathered for itself the dust of impiety. Why dost thou boast, O thou full of impiety?
Is it because thou art powerful in honours and aboundest in riches? Dost thou not perceive that thou art dust, and thou too shalt be scattered and dissipated? 'I have seen,' he says, 'the ungodly highly exalted and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not.' Why dost thou glory, because many servants attend thee, many friends guard thy flanks, very many horses follow thee, whose ancestry thou recountest to us as though it were the lineage of thy forefathers? Thou dost flaunt thy riches, because thou feedest thy boon-companions at banquets. Would that thou didst feed the needy! Would that thou hadst, not the servants of jests, but the helpers of vows! Thou boastest, because as thou comest forth way is at once made for thee, and men avoid thee as a wild creature or a beast. 'Is this nothing?' Dost thou not hear that all these things pass away like a shadow?
What do the consular bordered robes profit, or the triumphal palm-embroidered garments gleaming with gold? Naked thou shalt go forth; no one there will recognize a consul. What do innumerable possessions profit? They are public, not thine; today thou holdest them, tomorrow another. When thou hast departed, another enters; scarcely hast thou stirred thy foot, when another sets his step within. How many were there before thee, how many after thee shall be lords! And dost thou think this to be private property? Whom have riches ever redeemed from death—nay, whom have riches not driven to death? Whom have his own wealth recalled from the lower world, whom has power excused from punishment? Impiety is dust, just as the power of the ungodly is dust; it brings on darkness, it cannot give salvation.
As soon as a vehement wind begins to blow, it scatters and dissolves it, troubles the air, lays bare the ground; it is driven off like dust, it fails like smoke, it melts like wax. Hence very many have raised no small question, whether the divine Scripture seems to assert that nature shall perish, especially because elsewhere it says: 'I will grind them small as the dust before the face of the wind, and as the mire of the streets I will destroy them,' and elsewhere: 'Behold, they shall be confounded and put to shame, all that are adversaries; for they shall be as though they were not.' First, then, I ask whether they hold impiety to be according to nature or beyond nature. If they assert it to be according to nature, it is certain that their opinion errs. So then let them say whether sin befits nature or not.
But it is certain that to sin is to deviate from that which is according to nature. What, then, could be so absurd as for them to say that to be ungodly seems less than to be a sinner, when the most bitter of all is whatever is seen to be done in injury to God? But if to act impiously is not beyond nature, then to live impiously according to nature is neither to be reckoned in the place of sin nor to be judged worthy of reproof; for no one is reproved who acts according to nature. Whence it is concluded that impiety is beyond nature.
How then does Scripture introduce 'natures that perish together'—that is, natures that are to perish—along with the destruction of a habit, since impiety is by no means natural, but beyond nature? For what thou hast not, thou dost not lose; nor can that substance perish which never was. For dust too, when stirred, is changed either into the substance of water, or into air, or into fire—that is, it is often seen to pass over into another nature. It does not, then, fail into nothing, but passes over into something else. What, then, stands in the way, but that he too, who by the power and reason of the word is ground small like dust, should not be dissipated into nothing, but be changed for the better, so that from earthly he may become a spiritual man, and that the mire of the streets may be so destroyed, that
whatever seems rough and filthy be taken away, and whatever is smooth and clean may remain? And what he says of the adversaries of Jerusalem, 'They are as those who are not,' he could certainly have said 'they shall not be.' But when he has said 'They shall be confounded and put to shame,' surely thou understandest that they shall be, in respect of substance and the gain of conversion, but they shall not be as adversaries, which they were. And so, through the failing of their wickedness, they shall not be—they shall be, changed by faith and devotion. Indeed elsewhere too it is said in the person of a sinner: 'And I will bear the wrath of God, because I have sinned, until he justify my cause'; for God, desiring to convert the sinner, punishes him and burns him, that he may purge him. Whence he says: 'And he will bring me forth into the light.'
For fire also burns the wax, and it melts that it may be purified; and we are tried through fire; and smoke, when all its material is consumed, is purged away, and yet it does not pass beyond nature. And so the soul too, purged from every stain, fails into that which is, not into that which is not, as Balaam says: 'Let my soul die in the soul of the righteous,' that its falling and a certain practice of wickedness might die, but that it might pass over into the custom and life of the righteous; for God wills all things to be saved. Whence Solomon also said: 'God made not death, nor doth he rejoice in the destruction of the living. He made the soul that it might be; he created man for incorruption, whom he made to his own image'; but men, deviating from the gift of nature, made themselves subject to death, so that they are corrupted as though earthly.
But God, through tribulations, compels men to repentance, so that through repentance that accidental evil of wickedness may be burned and consumed and perish, and that place of the soul, which was the possession of the accidental impiety, may lie open to the reception of virtue and grace. It is certain, moreover, that the nature of the soul is precious, which, being made to the likeness of God, admits the reception of every virtue, inasmuch as it has not been defrauded of fellowship in the knowledge of things above. Now we think this remains, which is on the lips of many, by what reasoning God—without whose will not even the cheapest sparrow falls, and with whom the very hairs of the head are numbered—said through Isaiah:
'If all the nations are esteemed as a drop from the bucket, and as the turning of the scale, they shall also be reckoned as spittle.' Shall, then, all the nations so perish, like a drop from the bucket, and like spittle that perishes and is of profit for no use? But thou who knowest that our God did not so hold the nations for nothing—seeing that he said to Abraham, 'In thee shall all nations be blessed,' and spoke through David to the Son, saying, 'I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance,' and further on, 'All nations shall serve him'; thou who hast read that he offered his Son for every nation, that he might save sinners—thou oughtest in this passage to consider the force of the divine sentence.
For by the contemplation of the heavenly creatures, which are many—as the heavens, which are manifoldly greater than the earth, so that by very many the earth is reckoned a mere point in comparison with the heaven; of the angels, archangels, principalities and powers, thrones, dominions, thousands and ten thousands and innumerable thousands—by the contemplation, then, of these, the nations are esteemed as a drop from the bucket, whose is all fullness. From that heavenly fullness, therefore, the nations are esteemed as a falling drop. For how could they seem greatest, when the very earth, in which the nations are, is the smallest portion of the world, and, of all the things which God has made, the nations are as the slight tipping of the scale?
At the same time, know that by this balance God established all things with justice, and that in the nations themselves there is something naturally, in which there might seem to be even a slight weight of justice, and that the spittle itself exists as an inner portion, as it were, of the whole body. Here, then, mercy is rather proclaimed, since he who came to seek that which was lost neither despised that drop as worthless, and lifted up the tipping of the scale, and deigned to give to that spittle the substance of a good body—that is, to gather all the nations into the one body of the Church. And among the nations, moreover, Israel too can be numbered, by no means devoid of his divine justice, because Moses himself said of Israel:
'Behold, a wise people, and one tenacious of instruction, a great nation.' And know that the goodness of God overflowed beyond our merit; the Apostle, interpreting this prophetic passage, said: 'God hath concluded all things in unbelief, that he may have mercy upon all,' and added: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him?' But the prophet, setting this passage before, says: 'If all the nations are esteemed as a drop from the bucket,' and the rest, that thou mayest recognize that this understanding agrees with the apostolic interpretation.
But what could be plainer than this, that he does not seem to introduce natures that perish, when the holy prophet himself subjoined: 'For the ungodly shall not rise again in judgment'? For he did not say 'they shall not rise,' but said 'they do indeed rise, but not in judgment.' And he who rises certainly both is and remains; but because he did not believe in Christ, he is already judged, and therefore he comes not into judgment, since the penalty of a judgment already accomplished awaits him. And of the resurrection indeed there are very many testimonies of the Scriptures, which we have not passed over in the books of Consolation and of Resurrection. But concerning what he says, 'the ungodly shall not rise in judgment,' according to the Gospel the sentence is absolute, that not all shall be judged.
But the Apostle says: 'For we must all stand before the tribunal of Christ, that everyone may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether good or evil.' Many think these things contrary, and do not perceive that the Saviour spoke of the faithless and ungodly, who did not believe in the Lord Jesus. For he says thus: 'He that believeth in me is not judged; but he that believeth not is already judged, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that light is come into this world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil.' It is clear, therefore, of whom it was spoken—that is, of those who did not believe in the Lord Jesus.
The Apostle too, although he said 'all,' certainly spoke of those who believed, but who shall render an account of their deeds in the day of judgment. Indeed he says elsewhere that the testimony of our conscience shall be revealed unto the day of judgment, when our thoughts among themselves shall either accuse, as it is written, or defend, and the secrets of the heart shall be laid open. But what is plainer than this, which he says elsewhere: 'We shall all indeed rise again, but we shall not all be changed'? For the righteous shall be changed into incorruption, the truth of the body remaining. Daniel too says: 'The judgment sat, and the books were opened.' He shows, therefore, that judgment is to come, especially since elsewhere he says the same:
'Many who sleep in the mound of the earth shall arise, these unto life eternal, and these unto reproach and everlasting confusion; and they that understand shall shine like the brightness of the heaven, and of the righteous many shall shine like the stars.' What is this judgment of judges sitting, and what are the books that are opened, but our consciences, like books containing the catalogue of our sins? Although it is base to esteem this very thing as though it were like a human judgment. The judgment of Christ is another thing, where the conscience itself betrays itself, which cannot lie hidden from the Judge of hidden things, where thoughts shine bright before him who, while men were still thinking, said: 'Why do you think evil in your hearts?'
When he was speaking to the Jews, he was speaking to all, lest anyone should think that the things he did could be hidden, lest anyone should think that, shut within walls, he might escape the witness of his secret error. And therefore the evangelist too testifies, saying: 'But Jesus knew their thoughts.' How, then, does he say, 'the books are opened'? Not, certainly, written with ink, but with the traces of transgressions and the defilement of crimes. The book of thy conscience shall be opened, the book of thy heart shall be opened, our fault shall be recited.
There is a book where there is a tablet; nay, there are books inscribed where there are tablets inscribed, which the apostolic teaching inscribes with the Holy Spirit, as we read in Paul's words: 'Ye are our epistle, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart.' There are, then, tablets of the heart inscribed with the Holy Spirit; these shall be recited; if thou hast done well, the writing shall remain. See that thou take not away the grace of the Holy Spirit; see that thou blot not out, and write with ink thine own crimes, lest the day of judgment come and the Judge say: 'Let the books be recited, let the tablets of his deeds be recited,' and say to thee: 'I wrote thy tablets; why hast thou erased my letters? I too wrote my gifts;
how hast thou blotted out my gifts and written thine own reproaches? Hast thou not read that I write? Did I not tell thee through the mouth of my prophet: "My tongue is the pen of a ready writer"? And the judgment is of the word.' Many, then, of those sleeping in the mound of the earth shall rise, they that have done well unto the resurrection of life, they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment. What Daniel says, 'unto life eternal,' this the Saviour said, 'unto the resurrection of life'; likewise what Daniel says, 'unto reproach and confusion,' the Saviour said, 'unto the resurrection of judgment.' Whence it is not expedient for us to come unto judgment, and it is not expedient not to come, lest we either seem already condemned, or, in this stain of vices, undergo the weight of so great a judgment.
The prophet prays that the Lord may not enter into judgment with his servant; how much more ought we to fear the judgment of the Lord! Suppose the merciful Lord will pardon; how much shall be brought forth that I believed was hidden! What shame, what confusion will there be, when I, who professed to teach others, shall myself be caught in that very thing in which I was reproving others! And therefore, since both the Saviour set down two kinds of resurrection, and John in the Apocalypse, saying:
'Blessed is he who hath part in the first resurrection'—for these come to grace without judgment; but those who come not to the first resurrection, but are reserved unto the second, these shall be burned until they fulfil the times between the first and the second resurrection, or, if they have not fulfilled them, they shall remain longer in punishment—therefore, then, let us pray that we may be counted worthy to have part in the first resurrection. There are those who rose again in the Passion of Christ, and these are plainly blessed, who received the grace of Christ and heard his voice, of which it is written: 'The hour cometh when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live,' and: 'They entered into the holy city.'
I think that this signifies rather that heavenly Jerusalem than this one which he abandoned, which he reproached; because into this they entered with their feet, but into that heavenly one by their merits. But let us also beware of this, that, being placed here, we may rise from the mound of the earth. There are those who, though living, are surrounded by a sepulchre and filled with the dead, whose throat is a sepulchre of those who speak not the words of life, but of death. If here we have risen from the dead, there too we shall rise; if here we have not been dry bones, but have received the dew of the word, the moisture of the Holy Spirit, there too we shall live;
if here Jesus has roused us with his loud voice, as he roused Lazarus also, and through his disciples has loosed us from the bonds of death, and has brought us into Bethany, where Lazarus was—that is, into the house of obedience—and has admitted us to his banquet, there too we shall ever feast with him, and there too we shall recline with the same Lord, and there the ointment shall give forth its fragrance for us, which the betrayer alone grieved to have been poured out. Therefore the ungodly do not rise in judgment—that is, into the portion of those who shall undergo judgment; nor do sinners rise in the counsel of the righteous. Thou seest that the ungodly rise, yet rise not in judgment; for sinners also, although they rise not in the counsel of the righteous, nevertheless rise in judgment.