Verse 21. — Naked came I out of my mother's womb: naked shall I return thither. 85. He who reckons himself naked of virtues is the better clothed with humility itself. — As if the tempted soul, caught in the poverty of its own weakness, should say: Naked did grace beget me in the first faith, naked shall the same grace save me at the assumption. For it is a great solace to the troubled soul, that, assailed by vices, when it beholds itself as it were stripped of virtues, it should have recourse to the sole hope of mercy; and it does not suffer itself to be stripped, in that it humbly reckons itself naked of virtues: for even if perchance it is stripped of some virtue in temptation, yet, acknowledging its own weakness, it is the better clothed with that very humility;
and it lies far more robustly than it had stood, when it ceases to ascribe to itself, without divine aid, what it has. Whence also it presently humbly acknowledges the hand of the Bestower and Judge, saying.