multitude of Thy pities, blot out my iniquity." What he saith, " Blot out my iniquity," is this, " Have pity upon me, O God." And what he saith, " After the multitude of Thy pities," is this, " After Thy great mercy." Because great is the mercy, many are the mercies; and of Thy great mercy, many are Thy pityings. Thou dost regard mockers to amend them, dost regard ignorant men to teach them, dost regard men confessing to pardon. Did he this in ignorance? A certain man had done some, aye many evil things he had done; " Mercy," he saith, " I obtained, because ignorant I did it in unbelief."4 This David could not say, " Ignorant I did it." For he was not ignorant how very evil a thing was the touching of another's wife, and how very evil a thing was the killing of the husband, who knew not of it, and was not even angered. They obtain therefore the mercy of the Lord that have in ignorance done it; and they that have knowing done it, obtain not any mercy it may chance, but " great mercy."
7. " More and more wash me from mine unrighteousness" (ver. 2). What is, "More and more wash "? One much stained. More and more wash the sins of one knowing. Thou that hast washed off the sins of one ignorant. Not even thus is it to be despaired of Thy mercy. " And from my delinquency purge Thou me." According to the manner in which He is physician, offer a recompense. He is God, offer sacrifice. What wilt thou give that thou mayest be purged? For see upon whom thou callest; upon a Just One thou callest. He hateth sins, if He is just; He taketh vengeance upon sins, if He is just; thou wilt not be able to take away from the Lord God His justice: entreat mercy, but observe the justice: there is mercy to pardon the sinner, there is justice to punish the sin. What then? Thou askest mercy; shall sin unpunished abide? Let David answer, let those that have fallen answer, answer with David, and say, No, Lord, no sin of mine shall be unpunished; I know the justice of Him whose mercy I ask: it shall not be unpunished, but for this reason I will not that Thou punish me, because I punish my sin: for this reason I beg that Thou pardon, because I acknowledge.
8. " For mine iniquity I acknowledge, and my delinquency is before me ever" (ver. 3). I have not put behind my back what I have done, I look not at others, forgetful of myself, I pretend not to pull out a straw from my brother's eye, when there is a beam in my eye; 5 my sin is before me, not behind me. For it was behind me when to me was sent the Prophet, and set before me the parable of the poor man's sheep.6 For saith Nathan the Prophet to David, " There « 1 Tim. i. 13.
i Matt. vii. 5.
[Psalm LI.
was a certain rich man having very many sheep; but a poor man his neighbour had one little ewe sheep, which in his bosom and of his own food he was feeding: there came a stranger to the rich man, nothing from his flock he took, for the little ewe sheep of the poor man his neighbour he lusted; her he slew for the stranger: what doth he deserve?" But the other being angry doth pronounce sentence: then the king, evidently knowing not wherein he had been taken,1 declared the rich man deserving of death, and that the sheep be restored fourfold. Most sternly and most justly. But his sin was not yet before him, behind his back was what he had done: his own iniquity he did not yet acknowledge, and therefore another's he did not pardon. But the Prophet, being for this purpose sent, took from his back the sin, and before his eyes placed it, so that he might see that sentence so stern to have been pronounced against himself. For cutting and healing his heart's wound, he made a lancet of his tongue...
9. " Against Thee alone have I sinned, and before Thee an evil thing have I done " (ver. 4). What is this? For before men was not another's wife debauched and husband slain? Did not all men know what David had done?2 What is, "Against Thee alone have I sinned, and before Thee an evil thing have I done." Because Thou alone art without sin. He is a just punisher that hath nothing in Him to be punished; He is a just reprover that hath nothing in Him to be reproved. "That thou mayest be justified in Thy sayings, and conquer when Thou art judged." To whom he speaketh, brethren, to whom he speaketh, is difficult to understand. To God surely he speaketh, and it is evident that God the Father is not judged. What is, " And conquer when Thou art judged "? He seeth the future Judge to be judged, one just by sinners to be judged, and therein conquering, because in Him was nothing to be judged. For alone among men could truly say the God- Man, "If ye have found in Me sin, say."3 But perchance there was what escaped men, and they found not what was really there, but was not manifest. In another place 4 He saith, " Behold there cometh the Prince of the world," being an acute observer of all sins; " Behold," He saith, " there cometh the Prince of this world," with death afflicting sinners, presiding over death: for, "By the malice of the devil death came into the world." s " Behold," He saith, " there cometh the Prince of the world: " — He said these words close upon His Passion: — " and in Me he shall find nothing," nothing of sin, nothing worthy of death, nothing worthy of condemna- 1 Al. " he was captive," or, " was held captive."
tion. And as if it were said to Him, Why then dost Thou die? He continueth and saith, " But that all men may know that I do the will of My Father; arise, let us go hence." I suffer, He saith, undeserving, for men deserving, in order that them I may make deserving of My Life, for whom I undeservedly suffer their death. To Him then, having no sin, saith on the present occasion the Prophet David, " Against Thee only have I sinned, and before Thee an evil thing have I done, that Thou mayest be justified in Thy sayings, and conquer when Thou art judged." For Thou overcomest all men, all judges; and he that deemeth himself just, before Thee is unjust: Thou alone justly judgest, having been unjustly judged, That hast power to lay down Thy life, and hast power again to take it.6 Thou conquerest, then, when Thou art judged. All men Thou overcomest, because Thou art more than men, and by Thee were men made.
10. " For, behold, in iniquities I was conceived" (ver. 6). As though he were saying, They are conquered that have done what thou, David, hast done: for this is not a little evil and little sin, to wit, adultery and man-slaying. What of them that from the day that they were born of their mother's womb, have done no such thing? even to them dost thou ascribe some sins, in order that He may conquer all men when He beginneth to be judged. David hath taken upon him the person of mankind, and hath heeded the bonds of all men, hath considered the offspring of death, hath adverted to the origin of iniquity, and he saith, " For, behold, in iniquities I was conceived." Was David born of adultery; being born of Jesse,7 a righteous man, and his own wife? What is it that he saith himself to have been in iniquity conceived, except that iniquity is drawn from Adam? Even the very bond of death, with iniquity itself is engrained? No man is born without bringing punishment, bringing desert of punishment. A Prophet saith also in another place,8 " No one is clean in Thy sight, not even an infant, whose life is of one day upon earth." For we know both by the Baptism of Christ that sins are loosed, and that the Baptism of Christ availeth the remission of sins. If infants are every way innocent, why do mothers run with them when sick to the Church?« What by that Baptism, what by that remission is put away? An innocent one I see that rather weeps than is angry.
What doth Baptism wash off? what doth that Grace loose? There is loosed the offspring of sin. For if that infant could speak to thee, it would say, and if it had the understanding which David had, it would answer thee, Why * John x. 18.
* Job xiv. 5, LXX.
7 1 Sam. xvi. 18.
9 Against the Pelagians.
Psalm LI.]
heedest thou me, an infant? Thou dost not indeed see my actions: but I in iniquity have been conceived, " And in sins hath my mother nourished me in the womb."
Apart from this bond of mortal ' concupiscence was Christ born without a male, of a virgin conceiving by the Holy Ghost. He cannot be said to have been conceived in iniquity, it cannot be said, In sins His mother nourished Him in the womb, to whom was said, " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Virtue of the Highest shall overshadow thee."2 It is not therefore because it is sin to have to do with wives that men are conceived in iniquity, and in sins nourished in the womb by their mother; but because that which is made is surely made of flesh deserving punishments For the punishment of the flesh is death, and surely there is in it liability to death itself. Whence the Apostle spoke not of the body as if to die, but as if dead: " The body indeed is dead," he saith, " because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." 4 How then without bond of sin is born that which is conceived and sown of a body dead because of sin? This chaste operation in a married person hath not sin, but the origin of sin draweth with it condign punishment. For there is no husband that, because he is an husband, is not subject to death, or that is subject to death for any other reason but because of sin. For even the Lord was subject to death, but not on account of sin: He took upon Him our punishment, and so looseth our guilt. With reason then, " In Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive." s For, " Through one man," saith the Apostle, " sin hath entered into this world, and through sin death, and so hath passed unto all men, in that all have sinned." 6 Definite is the sentence: " In Adam," he saith, " all have sinned." Alone then could such an infant be innocent, as hath not been born of the work of Adam.
11. "For, behold, truth Thou hast loved: uncertain and hidden things of Thy wisdom, Thou hast manifested to me" (ver. 6). That is, Thou hast not left unpunished even the sins of those whom Thou dost pardon. "Truth Thou hast loved: " so mercy Thou hast granted first/ as that Thou shouldest also preserve truth. Thou pardonest one confessing, pardonest, but only if he punisheth himself: so there are preserved mercy and truth: mercy because man is set free; truth, because sin is punished. " Uncertain and hidden things of Thy wisdom Thou 1 So most mss. Ben. M carnal," but see below.
2 Luke i. 35.
3 [The mother need not be conceived of as sinning in her passive relations to an act which is undented in itself (Heb. xiii. 4); but she is a sinner like all mortals, and in that estate of sinfulness her offspring is begotten and nourished in the womb. So he argues. — C] 7 Prarogasti.
hast manifested to me." What " hidden things "? What " uncertain things "? Because God pardoneth even such. Nothing is so hidden, nothing so uncertain.8 For this uncertainty the Ninevites repented, for they said, though after the threatenings of the Prophet, though after that cry, "Three days and Nineve shall be overthrown: " ^ they said to themselves, Mercy must be implored; they said in this sort reasoning among themselves, " Who knoweth whether God may turn for the better His sentence, and have pity?"10 It was " uncertain," when it is said, "Who knoweth?" on an uncertainty they did repent," certain mercy they earned: they prostrated them in tears, in fastings, in sackcloth and ashes they prostrated them, groaned, wept, God spared. Nineve stood: was Nineve overthrown? One way indeed it seemeth to men, and another way it seemed to God. But I think that it was fulfilled that the Prophet had foretold. Regard what Nineve was, and see how it was overthrown; overthrown in evil, builded in good; just as Saul the persecutor was overthrown, Paul the preacher builded.'2 Who would not say that this city, in which we now are, was happily overthrown, if all those madmen, leaving their triflings,'3 were to run together to the Church with contrite heart, and were to call upon God's mercy for their past doings? Should we not say, Where is that Carthage? Because there is not what there was, it is overthrown: but if there is what there was not, it is builded. So is said to Jeremiah, " Behold, I will give to thee to root up, to dig under, to overthrow, to destroy," and again, " to build, and to plant." '* Thence is that voice of the Lord, " I will smite and I will heal." '* He smiteth the rottenness of the deed, He healeth the pain of the wound. Physicians do thus when they cut; they smite and heal; they arm themselves in order to strike, they carry steel, and come to cure. But because great were the sins of the Ninevites, they said, " Who knoweth? " This uncertainty had God disclosed to His servant David. For when he had said, before the Prophet standing and convicting him, " I have sinned: " straightway he heard from the Prophet, that is, from the Spirit of God which was in the Prophet, " Thy sin is put away from thee." l6 " Uncertain and hidden things " of His wisdom He manifested to him.1' 12. "Thou shalt sprinkle me," he saith, "with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed" (ver. 7). Hyssop we know to be a herb humble but heal- 8 i.e., as His mercy is to us beforehand.
9 Jonah iii. 4. IO Jonah iii. 9.
11 [Here the translator has " did penance," which has no meaning at all apart from ecclesiastical discipline, to which the men of Nineve were certainly not subjected. — C] *7 [The English Version is not sustained by Jerome, whose rendering is (happier than that so beautifully expounded by our author), absconditum tt arcanum sapietaiia maniftstasti. — C.J [Psalm LI.
[Psalm LI.
ing: to the rock it is said to adhere with roots. Thence in a mystery the similitude of cleansing the heart has been taken. Do thou also take hold, with ' the root of thy love, on thy Rock: be humble in thy humble God, in order that thou mayest be exalted in thy glorified God. Thou shalt be sprinkled with hyssop, the humility of Ghrist shall cleanse thee. Despise not the herb, attend to the efficacy of the medicine. Something further I will say, which we are wont to hear from physicians, or to experience in sick persons. Hyssop, they say, is proper for purging the lungs. In the lung is wont to be noted pride: for there is inflation, there breathing. It was said of Saul the persecutor as of Saul the proud, that he was going to bind Christians, breathing slaughter: 2 he was breathing out slaughter, breathing out blood, his lung not yet cleansed. Hear also in this place one humbled, because with hyssop purged: " Thou shalt wash me," that is, shalt cleanse me: " and above snow I shall be whitened." " Although," he saith, " your sins shall have been like scarlet, like snow I will whiten." 3 Out of such men Christ doth present to Himself a vesture without spot and wrinkle.4 Further, His vesture on the mount, which shone forth like whitened snow,' signified the Church cleansed from every spot of sin.
13. But where is humility from hyssop? Hear what followeth: " To my hearing Thou shalt give exultation and gladness, and bones humbled shall exult " (ver. 8). I will rejoice in hearing Thee, not in speaking against Thee. Thou hast sinned, why defendest thou thyself? Thou wilt speak: suffer thou; hear, yield to divine words, lest thou be put to confusion, and be still more wounded: sin hath been committed, be it not defended: to confession let it come, not to defence. Thou engagest thyself as defender of thy sin, thou art conquered: no innocent patron hast thou engaged, thy defence is not profitable to thee. For who art thou that defendest thyself? Thou art meet to accuse thyself. Say not, either, " I have done nothing; " or, " What great thing have I done?" or, "Other men as well have done." If in doing sin thou sayest thou hast done nothing, thou wilt be nothing, thou wilt receive nothing: God is ready to give indulgence, thou closest the door against thyself: He is ready to give, do not oppose the bar of defence, but open the bosom of confession. " To my hearing Thou shalt give exultation and gladness."...14. "Turn Thou away Thy face from my sins, and all mine iniquities blot out " (ver. 9). For now bones humbled exult, now with hyssop cleansed, humble I have become. " Turn Thou away Thy face," not from me, but " from my * Oxf. mss. radice.
* Eph. v. 27.
2 Acts ix. 1. » Matt. xvii. a.
> Isa. i. 18 sins." For in another place praying he saith, "Turn not away Thy face from me."6 He that would not that God's face be turned away from himself, would that God's face be turned away from his sins. For to sin, when God turneth not Himself away, he adverteth: if he adverteth, he animadverteth. " And all mine iniquities blot out." He is busied ' with that capital sin: he reckoneth on more, he would have all his iniquities to be blotted out: he relieth on the Physician's hand, on that " great mercy," upon which he hath called in the beginning of the Psalm: " All mine iniquities blot out." God turneth away His face, and so blotteth out; by " turning away " His face, sins He blotteth out. By " turning towards," He writeth them. Thou hast heard of Him blotting out by turning away, hear of Him by turning towards, doing what? "But the countenance of the Lord is upon men doing evil things, that He may destroy from the earth the remembrance of them: " 8 He shall destroy the remembrance of them,? not by " blotting out their sins." But here he doth ask what? " Turn away Thy face from my siris." Well he asketh. For he himself doth not turn away his face from his own sins, saying, " For my sin I acknowledge." With reason thou askest and well askest, that God turn away from thy sin, if thou from thence dost not turn away thy face: but if thou settest thy sin at thy back, God doth there set His face. Do thou turn sin before thy face, if thou wilt that God thence turn away His face; and then safely thou askest, and He heareth.
15. "A clean heart create in me, O God" (ver. 10). " Create " — he meant '° to say, " as it were begin something new." But, because repentant he was praying (that had committed some sin, which before he had committed, he was more innocent), after what manner he hath said " create " he showeth. " And a right spirit renew in my inner parts." By my doing, he saith, the uprightness of my spirit hath been made old and bowed. For he saith in another Psalm, "They have bowed mysoul." " And when a man doth make himself stoop unto earthly lusts, he is " bowed " in a manner, but when he is made erect for things above, upright is his heart made, in order that God may be good to him. For, " How good is the God of Israel to the upright of heart! " " Moreover, brethren, listen. Sometimes God in this world chastiseth for his sin him that He pardoneth in the world to come. For even to David himself, to whom it had been already said by the Prophet, 6 Ps. xxvii. 9.
7 Satagit. Oxf. MSS. Sattgit, " he hath done enough for."
8 Ps. xxxiv. 16.
9 Oxf. MSS. add, perdet de terrA memoriam eorum.
10 So mss. Hen. " He meant not," but " as it were " seems to meet the difficulty.
« Pi. lvii. 6. " Ps. lxxiii. I.
Psalm LI.]
" Thy sin is put away," ' there happened certain things which God had threatened for that very sin.2 For his son Abessalom against him waged bloody war, and many ways humbled his father.3 He was walking in grief, in the tribulation of his humiliation, so resigned to God, that, ascribing to Him all that was just, he confessed that he was suffering nothing undeservedly, having now an heart upright, to which God was not displeasing. A slanderous person and one throwing in his teeth harsh curses 4 he patiently heard, one of the soldiers on the opposite side, that were with his unnatural son. And when he was heaping curses upon the king, one of the companions of David, enraged, would have gone and smitten him; but he is kept back by David. And he is kept back how? For that he said, God sent him to curse me. Acknowledging his guilt he embraced his penance, seeking glory not his own, praising the Lord in that good which he had, praising the Lord in that which he was suffering, " blessing the Lord alway, ever His praise was in his mouth." s Such are all the upright in heart: not those crooked persons who think themselves upright and God crooked: who when they do any evil thing, rejoice; when they suffer any evil thing, blaspheme; nay, if set in tribulation and scourging, they say from their distorted heart, " O God, what have I done to Thee?" Truly it is because they have done nothing to God, for they have done all to themselves. " And an upright spirit, renew in my inner parts."
16. "Cast me not forth from Thy face" (ver. 11). Turn away Thy face from my sins: and " cast me not forth from Thy face." Whose face he feareth, upon the face of the Same he calleth. " And Thy Holy Spirit take not away from me." For in one confessing there is the Holy Spirit. Even now, to the gift of the Holy Spirit it belongeth, that what thou hast done displeaseth thee. The unclean spirit sins do please; the Holy One they displease. Though then thou still implore pardon, yet thou art joined to God on the other part, because the evil thing that thou hast committed displeaseth thee: for the same thing displeaseth both thee and Him. Now, to assail thy fever, ye are two, thou and the Physician. For the reason that there cannot be confession of sin and punishment of sin in a man of himself: when one is angry with himself, and is displeasing to himself, then it is not without the gift of the Holy Spirit, nor doth he say, Thy Holy Spirit give to me, but, " Take not away from me."
1 7. " Give back to me the exultation of Thy salvation"6 (ver. 12). "Give back" what I had; what by sinning I had lost: to wit, of Thy Christ. For who without Him can be made whole? Because even before that He was Son of Mary, " In the beginning He was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; " ' and so, by the holy fathers a future dispensation of flesh taken upon Him, was looked for; 8 as is believed by us to have been done. Times are changed, not faith. "And with Principal Spirit confirm me." Some have here understood the Trinity in God, Itself God; the dispensation of Flesh being excepted therefrom: since it is written, " God is a Spirit." 9 For that which is not body, and yet is, seemeth to exist in such sort as that it is spirit. Therefore some understand here the Trinity spoken of: " In upright Spirit," the Son; in " Holy Spirit," Holy Ghost; in " Principal Spirit," Father.10 It is not any heretical opinion, therefore, whether this be so, or whether " upright Spirit " He would have to be taken of man himself (when He saith, "An upright spirit renew in my inner parts"), which I have bowed and distorted by sinning, so that in that case the Holy Spirit be Himself the Principal Spirit: which also he would not have to be taken away from him, and thereby would have himself to be confirmed therein.
18. But see what he annexeth: "With Principal Spirit," he saith, " confirm Thou me." Wherein " confirm "? Because Thou hast pardoned me, because I am secure, that what Thou hast forgiven is not to be ascribed, on this being made secure and with this grace confirmed, therefore I am not ungrateful. But I shall do what? "I would teach unrighteous men Thy ways" (ver. 13). Being myself of the unrighteous " (that is, one that was myself an unrighteous man, now no longer unrighteous; the Holy Spirit not having been taken away from me, and I being confirmed with Principal Spirit). " I would teach unrighteous men Thy ways." What ways wilt thou teach unrighteous men? "And ungodly men to Thee shall be converted." If David's sin is counted for ungodliness, let not ungodly men despair of themselves, forasmuch as God hath spared an ungodly man; but let them take heed that to Him they be converted, that His ways they learn. But if David's deed is not counted for ungodliness, but this is properly call ungodliness, namely, to apostatize from God, not to worship one God, or never to have worshipped, or to have forsaken, Him whom one did worship, then what he saith hath the force of superabundance, "And ungodly men shall to Thee be converted." So full art thou of the fatness of mercy, that for those converted to Thee, not only sinners of any 10 Jerome on the Epist. to Gal. iv. 6.
11 Ex iniquo. Oxf. MSS. ex iniquus.
9 John iv. 24.
i g6 [Psalm LI.
sort, but even ungodly, there is no cause for despair. Wherefore? That believing on Him that justifieth an ungodly man, their faith may be counted for righteousness.'
19. " Deliver me from bloods, O God, God of my health" (ver. 14). The Latin translator hath expressed, though by a word not Latin, yet an accuracy from the Greek.2 For we all know that in Latin, sanguines (bloods) are not spoken of, nor yet sanguiria (bloods in the neuter), nevertheless because the Greek translator hath thus used the plural number, not without reason, but because he found this in the original language the Hebrew, a godly translator hath preferred to use a word not Latin, rather than one not exact. Wherefore then hath he said in the plural number, " From bloods "? In many bloods, as in the origin of the sinful flesh, many sins he would have to be understood. The Apostle having regard to the very sins which come of the corruption of flesh and blood, saith, " Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God." J For doubtless, after the true faith of the same Apostle, that flesh shall rise again and shall itself gain incorruption, as He saith Himself, " This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality." * Because then this corruption is of sin, by the name thereof sins are called. In like manner as both that morsel of flesh and member which playeth in the mouth when we articulate words is called a tongue, and that is called a -tongue which by the tongue is made, so we call one tongue the Greek, another the Latin; for the flesh is not diverse, but the sound. In the same manner, then, as the speech which is made by the tongue is called a tongue; so also the iniquity which is made by blood is called blood. Heeding, then, his many iniquities, as 5 in the expression above,6 " And all my iniquities blot out," and ascribing them to the corruption of flesh and blood, " Free me," he saith, " from bloods: " that is, free me from iniquities, cleanse me from all corruption...Not yet is the substance, but certain hope. " And my tongue shall exult of Thy righteousness."
20. " O Lord, my lips Thou shalt open, and my mouth shall tell of Thy praise" (ver. 15). " Thy praise," because 7 I have been created: " Thy praise," because sinning I have not been forsaken: " Thy praise," because I have been admonished to confess: " Thy praise," because in order that I might be secured I have been cleansed.
21. " Because if Thou hadst willed sacrifice, I would have given it surely" (ver. 16). David was living at that time when sacrifices of victim animals were offered to God, and he saw these ' Rom. iv. 5. a [t£ nluaTuiv, Sept. — C] * 1 Cor. xv. 53. * Some MS*, vt. 7 Most mss. whereby" throughout.