One must beware also lest you forsake the straight path and the byways of crooked roads deceive you. Therefore it is said: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.' Let us therefore prepare the way of the Lord our God in our minds, let us make straight his paths, let us make straight the paths of our souls, lest we slip. Let our steps not be poured out like those of Lot's wife, who looked back behind her and could not keep her steps, but they were poured out when she was suddenly turned into salt. Let them not be poured out like those of the Egyptians, whose steps the waves of the sea poured out. Of the very Hebrews who were with Moses, because they sinned in the desert, the footprints of their feet fell, so that they did not enter into the land of resurrection.
Is it not also beautifully said of these, that their advances have been poured out, whose hopes have fallen, whose labor has been poured out in vain, whose vows have been deserted? For consider someone who for a number of years had zeal for uprightness, the guarding of chastity, the love of a more attentive life, the purpose of devout service, the duty of diligent observance, and who was suddenly changed, departed from the monastery, bade farewell to fasting, renounced continence, indulged in pleasures, devoted himself to luxury. A while ago they went out from the monasteries, and now they are masters of luxury, disseminators of incontinence, kindlers of wantonness, disparagers of modesty. Would you not beautifully say of these: 'Their steps have been poured out,' who came to regret having directed them well?
And so they performed a penance of a new kind, for their virtues, and they do not perform it for their sins. 'But these went out from us,' says John, 'but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.' These, then, condemned their own way, to whom it is fitting to say: 'O you who have forsaken the straight paths, going away into the ways of darkness, and who rejoice in evils and delight in evil overthrow, whose paths are crooked and whose courses are winding, like the slippery and winding author of them.' Why have you begun to hate the straight way and forsaken righteous counsel? The Lord has not directed you. But whomever the Lord directs, he shall desire his way, as it is written, and shall delight in his paths.
Yet both meanings can be understood — so it stands in the middle — that both he who is directed by the Lord will desire the way of the Lord, because under his leading every labor is lightened, every obstacle is removed, encouragements are supplied; and the Lord himself does not despise, but gladly accepts the way of the man whom he himself has directed unto virtue. And beautifully are the steps of a man said to be directed by the Lord, because it is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God who shows mercy, to keep one's footstep without stumbling. For 'he who plants and he who waters are nothing, but God who gives the increase'; to him alone the glory of virtues is by right ascribed. Then, even the righteous man at times falls. But if he is righteous, when he falls he shall not be cast down.
What belongs to the condition falls, what belongs to righteousness rises again, since God does not forsake the righteous, but strengthens his hand. For what reason did he say not 'foot' but 'hand,' unless perhaps for this, that he who falls does not so much slip with his foot, but, being weak, is often deceived by slippery ground or stumbles on a rock? Here, however, understand the fall of the righteous one, that is, of the stronger. Indeed, of a people that wrestles, if it has set its knee on the ground or slipped with its foot, it is reckoned as conquered.
An athlete who has skill in wrestling and contends for the crown even willingly plants his knee in order to win, and if he has slipped he is not excluded, and if he is pressed by one who is superior, yet supporting himself with his hands he rightly contends, nor is the prize taken away, unless he has been thrown flat on his belly or stretched out by the binding of arms. Thence arise frequent contests, because there are many kinds of falls, unknown to most. For their falls they properly call 'ruin'; in Greek they are termed πτώματα. So when he is gripped and pressed, he often turns himself and the one who was held to be lower comes to be on top and, while rising, dashes down the one who was above. This the Scripture seems to signify when it says: 'You have overturned all his bed in his infirmity.' And so it is said of him:
'When the good athlete falls, he is not troubled.' Many also wish to be held, in order to win the sooner, who presume upon their art. But even if he has been 'pinned' — to use the very word — both first and second time, he is not excluded; he is at times permitted to renew the wrestling and often succeeds in winning, and the one who had prevailed in the second bout yields. So therefore even the righteous, even if he has run into an obstacle and fallen, let him nevertheless not abandon the zeal of devotion and faith, let him keep sobriety, let him do penance, let him often restore himself. And therefore Peter asks: 'If my brother sins against me, how often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times?' And the Lord answered: 'Not only seven times, but even seventy times seven.'
And that you may know that we are athletes and are driven and others rush headlong and most are dashed down, hear him who says: 'The Lord upholds all who fall and sets upright all who are cast down.' Hence David also says of himself, or rather he who spoke in the prophet: 'I was thrust at and overthrown that I might fall, but the Lord received me'; for Jesus did not fall, but was thrust at. For since he himself turns back those who are cast down, how could he himself be cast down? But that the righteous, when he has fallen, can rise again, the Scripture testifies which says: 'Shall not he who falls add to rise again? Or he who has turned away, shall he not return? Woe to those who turn away with shameless aversion, says the Lord.'
Would indeed that Christ's athlete were unconquerable and insuperable, and glorious in every age, in every kind of virtue, as he says: 'But in all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us!' What does 'in all things' mean? There are athletes who are called boys, youths, men — that is, παῖδες, ἀγένειοι, ἄνδρες. Scripture too knows these ages in wrestlers, when David says: 'Turn not your face from your servant boy,' and: 'I have been young and now am old.' Hence also John says: 'I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning.' And so, writing to the more mature among the brethren, he designates the mature by the progress of faith and devotion.
These, then, are the ages of virtues, not of infirmity; for that boy is not without virtue who has known the Father, the God of virtues. From that Boy these are boys, who, before he knew to call father or mother, received the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria. He himself is the Boy who was born to us, the Son given to us, whose principality is upon his shoulders. He himself taught us that boyhood is a virtue, saying: 'Suffer them and forbid not the boys to come to me,' and elsewhere: 'Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as this boy, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' Boys also for the most part overcome men even in bodily strength.
And surely, if we consider the age of boyhood, a boy cannot either know the whole practice or undergo the force of wrestling; yet we know that boys have often conquered those whom they could not carry; to such a degree does vigor of mind exclude the infirmity of age. And as the boys are, such also are the youths, that is, the spiritual ones. Scripture knows the young man Paul, already near to his conversion; it knows also Eutychus the young man, who, while clinging intent to the words of Paul, was overcome by sleep, fell from the third story, and rose again; it knows also John the young man, reclining on the breast of Christ, who was so brave that he did not fear persecution and overcame evil.
This is the boy who left his natural father and followed that Father whom he knew to be eternal; the young man, clothed with a linen cloth, was following the Lord at the time of the Passion, having forsaken all that was his own; more mature, he knew that God the Word in the very beginning had ever been and is, and he proved that He abides in himself. Scripture has also taught us of spiritual men, as when the prophet Agabus says: 'This man, whose this girdle is, so shall the Jews bind him at Jerusalem'; and Festus says: 'A certain man was left in custody by Felix.' Before his passion Paul is called a young man; in his passion he is signified as a man, who, his course being finished, was now near to the crown. We have come to know the ages contending for faith and devotion.
Let us also come to know the kinds of contests of each. Let the tenor of Scripture teach us this too. And so in this worldly arena there are some who wrestle by a certain simple and lawful method and contend only with the gripping of the body, and do not know how to strike — these are called palaestae (wrestlers); others who mingle blows and the throwing of dust with the straining of their limbs, every right of striking being granted to them — these they call pammacharii, because they have full power of every kind of struggle and fight against one another; others who fight one another with the cestus and are tortured with their heads torn open — these are called pyctae (boxers). The apostle Paul underwent all these contests, as he himself shows. And so in another place he says:
'For we have not a wrestling (πάλη) against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and' — to use a concise term — 'against spiritual wickednesses.' In most Latin texts 'conluctatio' (struggle) is found, but in all the Greek texts πάλη is written; for πάλη of the Greeks is 'lucta' (wrestling) of the Latins. And it is truly πάλη, because flesh and blood and spiritual wickednesses are overcome by patience and continence of the body and by moderation of the soul. Anger, fury, slaughter — these are the weapons of the devil. Elsewhere too he signifies that he had been beaten with stripes beyond measure, saying: 'in stripes beyond measure, in deaths often,' and that at Jerusalem he was struck with blows.
There, when the Jews had at one time ceased to strike Paul because soldiers intervened, the high priest Ananias himself commanded the bystanders to strike his mouth. To him the apostle answered: 'God shall begin to strike you, you whited wall; and you, sitting, judge me according to the law, and against the law command me to be struck?' Surely he knew how to strike back, who struck back the high priest with a heavier fist; for he himself was beaten bodily, but he repaid the other with this, that he should be struck in his soul by Christ. Writing also in his first epistle to the Corinthians he says: 'I therefore so run, not as into uncertainty; so I strive, not as one beating the air.' What in Latin he said as 'enitor' (strive), in Greek he says πυκτεύω (I box).
And truly, like a good boxer, he was striking not the air, but the airy powers and the heads of the Jews, because they did not have Jesus the Lord as the head of all. And so in every contest the apostle was proved, who also received the crown when his course was finished. Hence he himself says: 'I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.' Christ too has those who in their boyhood have conquered men mature in age — as the boy Daniel with valiant spirit refuted those elders of the Jews and by the right of victory cast them down to death. He has also others who, before they were born, wrestled in their mother's womb. Finally Jacob supplanted his brother Esau and conquered evil, and so came forth from his mother's womb in such a way that he displayed the token of victory and, as victor, overturned the foot of the degenerate elder.
Jeremiah was sanctified and approved in his mother's womb. John the Baptist, not yet born, knew that the Prince of the human contest and the Rewarder of those who strive had come, and leaping in his mother's womb earned the prize of a holy confession. Rightly was he even then designated for the crown, who before all others had offered his own name as a witness of faith and a herald of virtue at Christ's contest. A good herald, who roused others to the struggle; and truly a good herald, who cried out with so great a voice that at its sound the secret things of heaven echoed back. What more? He moved the earth, he filled heaven. And therefore he received the name of 'voice,' because the sacred Voice went before the Word of God, just as He Himself taught us, saying: 'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.'
The prophet Isaiah said this, and this one (John) confirmed that it was said of himself. We have heard what the herald said: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths.' This is a unique and singular voice, so resonant that it was heard by all, so sweet that it soothed the hearts of all. The Lord therefore strengthened the just, His athletes, that they might conquer; for He never deserts and abandons His own. And therefore the prophet added: 'I have been young and I have grown old.' So the Latins; but some, following the Greeks, have: 'I have been young; indeed I have grown old and I have not seen the just man forsaken nor his seed seeking bread.' To one who wishes to understand it simply, the sense is plain: that in the time of his life David did not see the just man forsaken. But this is both of brief duration and incredible;
since we see many just men in the world forsaken by men, when certain powerful persons persecute them, and no one dares to approach them, when he sees himself placed in fear or in harm's way. Hence Job says: 'My brothers have departed, they have recognized strangers rather than me; my friends have become unmerciful, and those who knew me have forgotten my name.' David too cries out that he was not only abandoned, but even assailed by his friends and neighbors: 'My friends,' he says, 'and my neighbors have drawn near against me.' Therefore, if in this world the just are found forsaken, how did David say things contrary to himself, unless you understand that the just man, even though he is forsaken in the world, is nevertheless not forsaken by the Lord?
For Job, when he was on the dunghill, was not forsaken by the Lord, whom the Lord was praising with His own voice in the council of the angels, whom He suffered to be tempted that He might crown him; but He permitted the temptation against the body, while denying it against the soul. Nor was David forsaken, to whom He gave a kingdom that he might rule the chosen people, whom, when assailed by parricidal battles and driven from the borders of his kingdom, He restored by the right of victory. Jacob himself too, and Elijah and Elisha and John the Baptist and the rest, who going about in goatskins wandered in deserts and mountains and caves and holes of the earth, although they seem to have endured many mockings and bitter torments, nevertheless were not forsaken.
For when Jacob was fleeing his brother and wandering unaccompanied through the deserts, he fell asleep and, rising, saw there a multitude of the heavenly host and said: 'This place is called the camps of the angels.' It was not enough to call it a camp, but 'camps,' which would befit so great a multitude. You see, then, that he thought himself alone, and the camps of the heavenly army were following him, just as a rock, as it is written, followed our fathers in the time of Moses, lest they should thirst in the desert.
For when we read in Exodus that, the people thirsting, Moses struck the rock with his rod and water flowed and the people of God drank; and again we read in Leviticus or in Numbers that Moses again touched the rock with his rod and water gushed out for the fathers to drink — the apostle excellently interpreted this, saying: 'And they drank of the rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.' Those querulous ones, those murmuring ones, those transgressing ones, the Lord nevertheless did not desert, but followed. What shall I say of Elijah and Elisha, whom, as they walked through the deserts, horses from heaven and a fiery chariot met? How was Elijah forsaken, who was invited by Christ? How was he forsaken on earth, who was caught up to heaven?
How was he needy and naked and empty, who left to his disciple the inheritance of a doubled spirit, so that the heir, endowed with the single sheepskin mantle, might halt rivers, call back the Jordan to its source, feed the armies of kings in the desert, and minister drink to the thirsty? At his bidding cups flowed forth from heaven, on earth the dead rose again. How was Elisha exalted, who, when he was surrounded by the army of the Syrians so as to be carried off captive to the king, when his servant Gehazi said, 'Lord, what shall we do?' said: 'Do not fear, for those with us are more than those with them.' And he said: 'Lord, open his eyes, that he may see.' And his eyes were opened, and he saw the mountain and all around filled with countless horses and heavenly legions.
Paul too, who said that he was tossed about 'in perils on the sea, in perils in the desert,' nevertheless himself testified, saying: 'If God be for us, who is against us?' Therefore he who was thus forsaken and abandoned by men abounds and overflows with God. For Elijah too was so abandoned that he said: 'Lord, take my soul,' and yet he flourished with God, so that he was terrible in power even to kings themselves. How could the young David grasp this? For a young man considers temporal rather than eternal things, because that age inclines toward vices. But there are some who are old men in youth and others young men in old age.
There are, I say, men whose souls are esteemed for the gravity of old age, in whom the age of old age is an immaculate life, in whom grey-haired prudence flourishes, such as was Jeremiah, who, when he recalled himself young in regard to his age and excused himself on account of his youth, since he seemed unequal to the office of preaching, the Lord said to him: 'Do not say that I am young, for to all to whom I shall send you, you shall go.' Thus He did not regard as young the one whom He judged fit for the grace of prophecy. Such a young man, then, was David, who had been renewed and had flowered again, as he himself said, like the youth of the eagle. So, then, it ought to be understood thus:
'I have been young' — but sanctified, but a prophet set among the nations, who could already know the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom and consider the true rewards of righteousness — 'yet I have not seen the just forsaken.' Afterward too, elsewhere, both strengthened by experience and enriched by the gift, I acquired increases of wisdom; and the same grace was seen by me to abide concerning the just. We have explained, as best we could, how he said: 'I have been young.' But let us consider how he added: 'indeed I have grown old.' Good is youth, but better is old age; for he who shall persevere unto the end, this one shall be saved. Hence it is not idly said of the patriarch Abraham that he was nourished in a good old age. And John, an old man, began to write the Gospel and the epistles.
When he shrank from writing himself an apostle, he wrote himself an elder, and was esteemed no less for it, since a certain swan-like grace of old age attended him. The vessel of the Lord's election himself, writing to Philemon, says: 'Since you are such a one as Paul the aged, but now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus, I beseech you for my son, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus.' Wishing therefore to confer very much upon him, he compared himself to Paul the aged, not the young, and there he gloried in being an old man, where he was already held in bonds. And observe the difference: he was signified as a youth in another's passion, an old man in his own; there as a youth, because he was guarding the garments of the Jews, here an old man, where he was putting off the spoils of his own body.
Finally Peter too is called an old man there, where there is the contest of his passion: 'When you were younger,' He says, 'you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you have grown old, you shall stretch out your hands, and another shall gird you and lead you where you would not.' This He said, signifying by what death he should glorify God. Before the contest he is called younger; in the contest, an old man who shall have fulfilled the whole contest. This, then, David says — he who in youth was a warrior, in old age a peacemaker: 'I have been young,' he says, 'but I do not want you to think me still young; for indeed I have grown old and have not seen the just forsaken nor his seed seeking bread.' What is the seed of the just? 'To Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed.'
He does not say 'and to seeds,' as of many, but as of one: 'and to your seed,' which is Christ. Hear the seed of the just: 'My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.' And now if anyone coming from the nations should hear our discourse, and the Lord should deign to help, so that Christ may be formed in his soul, that he may bring forth the offspring of faith, Christ will be his seed both ways. Abraham, then, was both the father of generation according to the flesh and the one who first poured the word of the Lord into the breasts of the just. And therefore this seed of Abraham does not require those loaves by which bodily nourishment is supplied, because it has the bread of righteousness that came down from heaven.
For just as those are denied to be sons of Abraham who have not done the works of Abraham, so they are the seed of Abraham and are received among the sons who have accomplished his work. Truly the seed of Abraham was Elijah, to whom an angel supplied nourishment, and in the strength of that food he walked the courses of forty days. The true seed of Abraham did not require this nourishment of the body, to whom loaves were brought down from heaven; indeed, ravens ministered to him a daily banquet. He was so destitute of all things that he had nothing of his own, and yet he was sent to bestow food on others. The true seed was Daniel, to whom, set among the lions, airy viands packed with the meals of the reapers were carried by the prophet Habakkuk. There is therefore the bread of angels which man ate; for thus it is written:
'Man ate the bread of angels.' This is the bread of which David said: 'The Lord feeds me, and I shall want nothing. In a green place there He has settled me; He has brought me up over the water of refreshment.' Good David taught me the bread of angels, and he himself taught me the water of refreshment. This refreshment is spiritual, this refreshment is the rest of the inner mind. Good is the water which washes away sin, which cleanses the inward parts. What this water is, let us hear: 'If anyone,' He says, 'thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' And this He said of the Spirit, which those who were to believe in Him were beginning to receive.
Therefore the just man needs neither this bread nor the water of refreshment, for whom the Holy Spirit is rest and refreshment. But how can he be in want who 'all the day shows mercy and lends'? What is it that the just man lends? Not copper, not iron, not lead, but silver tried by fire. This he brings to the Lord's table and distributes to those who seek it — to one a single mina, to another two, to another five he distributes daily, and never fails. But we have heard usury reproved in the law, Moses saying, 'You shall not lend at usury.' Lending is twofold: one of money, the other of grace. Distinguish each, because it is written: 'If you offer rightly but do not divide rightly, you have sinned; be still.' And do you divide rightly, lest you sin.
Let Moses himself teach you to divide, who admonished that one should divide rightly, that you may follow what Abel did, who divided rightly, and flee what Cain was; for he was a parricide who knew not how to divide rightly. The Holy Spirit therefore divides distributions, who works all things, distributing to each one as He wills. He as He wills, you as you can, as you are able by your natural gift. Distinguish when the law speaks of money, when of grace. For it said to you: 'You shall lend to the nations,' from whom the Lord exacts interest, 'but you shall not borrow.' There is both the money of usury and the grace whose interest the Lord exacts; the money of usury has copper, grace confers faith. Lend faith therefore to the nations, that grace may abound to you;
but do not borrow as one in need, but lend as one rich and wealthy. Peter lent, Paul lent, John the Evangelist — or rather both — lent, and was not in want; that is, they lent the money of Christ, they did not lend money at usury. Lend therefore, and do not cease to lend. You hear what Scripture says: 'All the day he shows mercy and lends.' The just man lends by day, the miser by night; for grace belongs to the light, but avarice is the usury of darkness. And therefore the seed of him who lends faith shall be in blessing, having indeed the reward of blessing. 'Turn away from evil and do good, and dwell forever and ever. For the Lord loves judgment and will not forsake His saints; they shall be preserved forever;
but the unjust shall be punished, and the seed of the wicked shall perish. The just shall possess the land by inheritance and shall dwell upon it for ever and ever.' By these verses the prophet shows that we belong to the Lord, and that He Himself is the arbiter of our thoughts and works, watching the merits of each, who does nothing without judgment, but distinguishes by judgment the evil and good acts. One must turn away therefore from evil and do good. That you may not confound good and evil things, first you must be free of crime, afterward bring forth the fruit of innocence, that you may be able to be perpetual. Do not think that your sins escape God; for thus very many slip and fall.
He Himself discerns and condemns all things and exterminates the seed of the wicked — seed indeed not of bodily generation, but the succession of the inner mind and of impiety. For Job is certainly marked by the testimony of Scripture as begotten of the seed of Esau. How then did the seed of Esau perish in Job, since this man was so great that he foresaw the Lord coming into the lands, who would subjugate the leviathan of this world, the devil? This therefore is what is sought: that malice be not transfused into posterity. This Christ effects through the sacrament of baptism, that each one may put off what he was born, and put on what he is reborn, becoming not the heir of a family, but of grace, that he may be able to acquire for himself a perpetual dwelling of eternal habitation.
But he who shall have deserved to dwell for ever and ever, he too shall honor God for ever and ever. Where (the prophet) instructs the just man in moral disciplines, that he may teach you what sort you ought to be toward God and what is the form of perfect righteousness, he wishes his mind to rise up to wisdom and to lofty contemplations, and he stirs up its attention, that it may behold heavenly things with an intent heart and revolve within itself the divine oracles, and that it may shape its affection toward those things that please God, that it may meditate in the law and that no commandments of the Lord may pass it by, and that it may know the movements of the divine sacrament. Then, from this point, see the holy prophet rise up in his precepts: 'The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom, and his tongue shall speak judgment; the law of his God is in his heart.'