The same place. — And that man was simple and upright. 16. He held simplicity and uprightness. — In uprightness justice, but in simplicity meekness, is signified. Very often, when we pursue the uprightness of justice, we forsake meekness; and when we desire to keep meekness, we turn aside from the uprightness of justice. But the incarnate Lord held simplicity together with uprightness: because neither in meekness did He lose the strictness of justice, nor again in the strictness of justice the virtue of meekness. Whence, when certain men, having brought forward the adulteress, wished to tempt Him, that He might fall into the fault either of unmeekness or of injustice, He answered to both, saying:
'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her' (John viii, 7). He gives the simplicity of meekness who says, 'He that is without sin among you'; He gives the zeal of justice, 'let him first cast a stone at her.' Whence also the prophet says to Him: 'Attend, prosper, proceed, and reign for the sake of truth and meekness and justice' (Ps. xliv, 5). For, pursuing truth, He preserved meekness together with justice; so that neither did He lose the zeal of uprightness in the weight of meekness, nor again disturb the weight of meekness by the zeal of uprightness. There follows: