Augustine of Hippo

Who can explain, who expound that which is said to Him in another Psalm, "For my goods You need not"? He has said that He needs not from us any necessary thing. "If I shall be hungry, I will not tell you" [Psalm 50:12]. He that keeps Israel shall neither hunger nor thirst, nor be weary, nor fall asleep. But, lo! According to your carnality I speak: because you will suffer hunger when you have not eaten, perhaps you think even God does hunger that He may eat. Even though He shall be hungry, He tells not you: all things are before Him, whence He will He takes what is needful for Him. These words are said to convince little understanding; not that God has declared His hunger. Though for our sake this God of gods deigned even to hunger. He came to hunger, and to fill; He came to thirst, and give drink; He came to be clothed with mortality, and to clothe with immortality; He came poor, to make rich. For He lost not His riches by taking to Him our poverty, for, "In him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden." [Colossians 2:3] "If I shall be hungry, I will not tell you. For Mine is the whole world, and the fullness thereof." Do not then labour to find what to give Me, without whom I have what I will.

Say then, Lord our God, what do You enjoin your people, Your Israel? "Immolate to God the sacrifice of praise" [Psalm 50:14]. Let us also say to Him, "In me, O God, are your vows, which I will render of prose to You." I had feared lest You might enjoin something which would be out of my power, which I was counting to be in my pen, and but now perchance it had been taken away by a thief. What do You enjoin me? "Immolate to God the sacrifice of praise." Let me revert to myself, wherein I may find what I may immolate: let me revert to myself; in myself may I find immolation of praise: be Your altar my conscience. We are without anxiety, we go not into Arabia in quest of frankincense: not any bags of covetous dealer do we sift: God requires of us the sacrifice of praise. Zacchæus had the sacrifice of praise in his patrimony; [Luke 19:8] the widow had it in her bag; [Mark 12:42] some poor host or other has had it in his jar: another neither in patrimony, nor in bag, nor in jar, has had anything, had it wholly in his heart: salvation was to the house of Zacchæus; and more this poor widow cast in than those rich men: this man, that does offer a cup of cold water, shall not lose his reward: [Matthew 10:42] but there is even "peace on earth to men of good will." [Luke 2:14] "Immolate to God the sacrifice of praise." O sacrifice gratuitous, by grace given! I have not indeed bought this to offer, but You have given: for not even this should I have had. And this is the immolation of the sacrifice of praise, to render thanks to Him from whom you have whatever of good you have, and by whose mercy is forgiven you whatsoever of evil of yours you have. "Immolate to God the sacrifice of praise: and render to the Highest your prayers." With this odour the Lord is well pleased.

"And call thou upon Me in the day of your tribulation: and I will draw you forth, and you shall glorify Me" [Psalm 50:15]. For thou oughtest not to rely on your powers, all your aids are deceitful. "Upon Me call thou in the day of tribulation: I will draw you forth, and you shall glorify Me." For to this end I have allowed the day of tribulation to come to you: because perchance if you were not troubled, you would not call on Me: but when you are troubled, you call on Me; when you call upon Me, I will draw you forth; when I shall draw you forth, you shall glorify Me, that you may no more depart from Me. A certain man had grown dull and cold in fervour of prayer, and said, "Tribulation and grief I found, and on the Name of the Lord I called." He found tribulation as it were some profitable thing; he had rotted in the slough of his sins; now he had continued without feeling, he found tribulation to be a sort of caustic and cutting. "I found," he says, "tribulation and grief, and on the Name of the Lord I called." And truly, brethren, tribulations are known to all men. Behold those afflictions that abound in mankind; one afflicted with loss bewails; another smitten with bereavement mourns; another exiled from country grieves and desires to return, deeming sojourning intolerable; another's vineyard is hailed upon, he observes his labours and all his toil spent in vain. When can a human being not be made sad? An enemy he finds in a friend. What greater misery in mankind? These things all men do deplore and grieve at, and these are tribulations: in all these they call upon the Lord, and they do rightly. Let them call upon God, He is able either to teach how it must be borne, or to heal it when borne. He knows how not to suffer us to be tried above that we are able to bear. [1 Corinthians 10:13] Let us call upon God even in those tribulations: but these tribulations do find us; as in another Psalm is written, "Helper in tribulations which have found us too much:" there is a certain tribulation which we ought to find. Let such tribulations find us: there is a certain tribulation which we ought to seek and to find. What is that? The above-named felicity in this world, abundance of temporal things: that is not indeed tribulation, these are the solaces of our tribulation. Of what tribulation? Of our sojourning. For the very fact that we are not yet with God, the very fact that we are living amid trials and difficulties, that we cannot be without fear, is tribulation: for there is not that peace which is promised us. He that shall not have found this tribulation in his sojourning, does not think of going home to his father-land. This is tribulation, brethren. Surely now we do good works, when we deal bread to the hungry, home to the stranger, and the like: tribulation even this is. For we find pitiful objects upon whom we show pity; and the pitiful case of pitiful objects makes us compassionate. How much better now would it be with you in that place, where you find no hungry man whom you may feed, where you find no stranger whom you may take in, no naked man whom you may cover, no sick man whom you may visit, no litigant whom you may set at one! For all things in that place are most high, are true, are holy, are everlasting. Our bread in that place is righteousness, our drink there is wisdom, our garment there is immortality, our house is everlasting in the heavens, our steadfastness is immortality: does sickness come over? Does weariness weigh down to sleep? No death, no litigation: there peace, quiet, joy, righteousness. No enemy has entrance, no friend falls away. What is the quiet there? If we think and observe where we are, and where He that cannot lie has promised that we are to be, from His very promise we find in what tribulation we are. This tribulation none finds, but he that shall have sought it. You are whole, see if you are miserable; for it is easy for him that is sick to find himself miserable: when you are whole, see if you are miserable; that you are not yet with God. "Tribulation and grief I found, and on the Name of the Lord I called." "Immolate," therefore, "to God the sacrifice of praise." Praise Him promising, praise Him calling, praise Him exhorting, praise Him helping: and understand in what tribulation you are placed. Call upon (Him), you shall be drawn forth, you shall glorify, shall abide.

But see what follows, my brethren. For now some one or other, because God had said to him, "Immolate to God the sacrifice of praise," and had enjoined in a manner this tribute, did meditate to himself and said, I will rise daily, I will proceed to Church, I will say one hymn at matins, another at vespers, a third or fourth in my house, daily I do sacrifice the sacrifice of praise, and immolate to my God. Well you do indeed, if you do this: but take heed, lest now thou be careless, because now you do this: and perchance your tongue bless God, and your life curse God. O my people, says to you the God of gods, the Lord that spoke, "calling the earth from the rising of the sun unto the setting," though yet you are placed amid the tares, [Matthew 13:25] "Immolate the sacrifice of praise to your God, and render to Him your prayers:" but take heed lest you live ill, and chant well. Wherefore this? For, "Unto the sinner, says God, why do you tell out My judgments, and takest My Covenant in your mouth?" [Psalm 50:16]. You see, brethren, with what trembling we say these words. We take the Covenant of God in our mouth, and we say these words. We take the Covenant of God in our mouth, and we preach to you the instruction and judgment of God. And what says God to the sinner? "Why do you?" Does He then forbid preachers that be sinners? And where is that, "What they say do, but what they do, do not"? [Matthew 23:3] Where is that, "Whether in truth or on occasion Christ be preached"? [Philippians 1:18] But these words were said, lest they should fear that hear, from whomsoever it be that they hear: not that they should be without care that speak good words, and do evil deeds. Now therefore, brethren, you are without care: if you hear good words ye hear God, through whomsoever it be that you may hear. But God would not dismiss without reproof them that speak: lest with their speaking alone, without care for themselves they should slumber in evil life, and say to themselves, "For God will not consign us to perdition, through whose mouth He has willed that so many good words should be spoken to His people." Nay, but hear what you speak, whoever you are that speakest: and thou that writ be heard yourself, first hear yourself; and speak what a certain man does speak in another Psalm, "I will hear what in me speaks the Lord God, for He shall speak peace to His people." What am I then, that hear not what in me He speaks, and will that other hear what through me He speaks? I will hear first, will hear, and chiefly I will hear what speaks in me the Lord God, for He shall speak peace to His people. Let me hear, and "chasten my body, and to servitude subject it, lest perchance to others preaching, myself be found a cast-away." [1 Corinthians 9:27] "Why do you tell out my judgments?" Wherefore to you what profits not you? He admonishes him to hear: not to lay down preaching, but to take up obedience. "But you, why do you take My Covenant in they mouth?"

"Your mouth has abounded in malice, and your tongue has embraced deceit" [Psalm 50:19]. Of the malevolence and deceit, brethren, of certain men he speaks, who by adulation, though they know what they hear to be evil, yet lest they offend those from whom they hear, not only by not reproving but by holding their peace do consent. Too little is it, that they do not say, You have done evil: but they even say, You have done even well: and they know it to be evil: but their mouth abounds in malice, and their tongue embraces deceit. Deceit is a sort of guile in words, of uttering one thing, thinking another. He says not, your tongue has committed deceit or perpetrated deceit, but in order to point out to you a kind of pleasure taken in the very evil doing, He has said, "Hath embraced." It is too little that you do it, you are delighted too; you praise openly, you laugh to yourself. Thou dost push to destruction a man heedlessly putting forth his faults, and knowing not whether they be faults: thou that know it to be a fault, sayest not, "Whither are you rushing?" If you were to see him heedlessly walk in the dark, where you knew a well to be, and were to hold your peace, of what sort would you be? Would you not be set down for an enemy of his life? And yet if he were to fall into a well, not in soul but in body he would die. He does fall headlong into his vices, he does expose before you his evil doings: you know them to be evil, and praisest and laughest to yourself. Oh that at length he were to be turned to God at whom you laugh, and whom you would not reprove, and that he were to say, "Let them be confounded that say to me, Well, well."

"Sitting against your brother you detracted" [Psalm 50:20]. And this "sitting" does belong to that whereof he has spoken above in, "has embraced." For he that does anything while standing or passing along, does it not with pleasure: but if he for this purpose sits, how much leisure does he seek out to do it! That very evil detraction you were making with diligence, you were making sitting; you would thereon be wholly engaged; you were embracing your evil, you were kissing your craftiness. "And against your mother's son you laid a stumbling-block." Who is "mother's son"? Is it not brother? He would repeat then the same that he had said above, "your brother." Hath he intimated that any distinction must be perceived by us? Evidently, brethren, I think a distinction must be made. Brother against brother does detract, for example's sake, as though for instance one strong, and now a doctor and scholar of some weight, does detract from his brother, one perchance that is teaching well and walking well: but another is weak, against him he lays a stumbling-block by detracting from the former. For when the good are detracted from by those that seem to be of some weight and to be learned, the weak fall upon the stumbling-block, who as yet know not how to judge. Therefore this weak one is called "mother's son," not yet father's, still needing milk, and hanging on the breast. He is borne as yet in the bosom of his mother the Church, he is not strong enough to draw near to the solid food of his Father's table, but from the mother's breast he draws sustenance, unskilled in judging, inasmuch as yet he is animal and carnal. "For the spiritual man judges all things," [1 Corinthians 2:15] but "the animal man perceives not those things which are of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him." [1 Corinthians 2:14] To such men says the Apostle, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as to babes in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not able, but not even now are you able." [1 Corinthians 3:1-2] A mother I have been to you: as is said in another place, "I became a babe among you, even as a nurse cherishing her own children." [1 Thessalonians 2:7] Not a nurse nursing children of others, but a nurse cherishing her own children. For there are mothers who when they have borne give to nurses: they that have borne cherish not their children, because they have given them to be nursed; but those that cherish, cherish not their own, but those of others: but he himself had borne, he was himself cherishing, to no nurse did commit what he had borne; for he had said, "Of whom I travail again until Christ be formed in you." [Galatians 4:19] He did cherish them, and gave milk. But there were some as it were learned and spiritual men who detracted from Paul. "His letters indeed, say they, are weighty and powerful; but the presence of his body weak, and speech contemptible:" [2 Corinthians 10:10] he says himself in his Epistle, that certain his detractors had said these words. They were sitting, and were detracting against their brother, and against that their mother's son, to be fed with milk, they were laying a stumbling-block. "And against your mother's son you laid a stumbling-block."

"These things have you done, and I held my tongue" [Psalm 50:21]. Therefore the Lord our God shall come, and shall not keep silence. Now, "These things have you done, and I held my tongue." What is, "I held my tongue"? From vengeance I have desisted, my severity I have deferred, patience to you I have prolonged, your repentance I have long looked for..."You have imagined iniquity, that I shall be like you;" You have imagined that I shall be like you, while you will not be like Me. For, "Be," he says, "perfect, even as your Father, which is in the heavens, who makes His sun to rise on the good and evil." [Matthew 5:48, 45] Him you would not copy, who gives good things even to evil men, insomuch that sitting thou dost detract even from good men. "I will reprove you," when "God manifest shall come, our God, and shall not keep silence," "I will reprove you." And what to you shall I do in reproving you? What to you shall I do? Now yourself you see not, I will make you see yourself. Because if you should see yourself, and should displease yourself, you would please Me: but because not seeing yourself you have pleased yourself, you will displease both Me and yourself; Me when you shall be judged; yourself when you shall burn. But what to you shall I do? He says. "I will set you before your face." For why would you escape yourself? At your back you are to yourself, you see not yourself: I make you see yourself: what behind your back you have put, before your face will I put; you shall see your uncleanness, not that you may amend, but that you may blush....

Hear therefore these words, and say thou with him: "Have pity upon me, O God, after Your great mercy" [Psalm 51:1]. He that implores great mercy, confesses great misery. Let them seek a little mercy of You, that have sinned in ignorance: "Have pity," he says, "upon me, after Your great mercy." Relieve a deep wound after Your great healing. Deep is what I have, but in the Almighty I take refuge. Of my own so deadly wound I should despair, unless I could find so great a Physician. "Have pity upon me, O God, after Your great mercy: and after the multitude of Your pities, blot out my iniquity." What he says, "Blot out my iniquity," is this, "Have pity upon me, O God." And what he says, "After the multitude of Your pities," is this, "After Your great mercy." Because great is the mercy, many are the mercies; and of Your great mercy, many are Your pitying. 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 says, "I obtained, because ignorant I did it in unbelief." [1 Timothy 1:13] 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."

"More and more wash me from mine unrighteousness" [Psalm 51:2]. 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 Your 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 will you give that you may be purged? For see upon whom you call, upon a Just One you call. He hates sins, if He is just; He takes vengeance upon sins, if He is just; you will 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 ask 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.

"For mine iniquity I acknowledge, and my delinquency is before me ever" [Psalm 51:3]. 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; [Matthew 7:5] 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. For says Nathan the Prophet to David, "There 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 lithe ewe sheep of the poor man his neighbour he lusted; her he slew for the stranger: what does he deserve?" But the other being angry does pronounce sentence: then the king, evidently knowing not wherein he had been taken, 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....

"Against You alone have I sinned, and before You an evil thing have I done" [Psalm 51:4]. 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 Samuel 11:4, 15] What is, "Against You alone have I sinned, and before You an evil thing have I done." Because You alone are without sin. He is a just punisher that has nothing in Him to be punished; He is a just reprover that has nothing in Him to be reproved. "That you may be justified in Your sayings, and conquer when You are judged." To whom he speaks, brethren, to whom he speaks, is difficult to understand. To God surely he speaks, and it is evident that God the Father is not judged. What is, "And conquer when You are judged"? He sees 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 you have found in Me sin, say." [John 8:46] But perchance there was what escaped men, and they found not what was really there, but was not manifest. In another place [John 14:30] He says, "Behold there comes the Prince of the world," being an acute observer of all sins; "Behold," He says, "there comes the Prince of this world," with death afflicting sinners, presiding over death: for, "By the malice of the devil death came into the world." [Wisdom 2:24] "Behold," He says, "there comes 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 condemnation. And as if it were said to Him, Why then do You die? He continues and says, "But that all men may know that I do the will of My Father; arise, let us go hence." I suffer, He says, 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, says on the present occasion the Prophet David, "Against You only have I sinned, and before You an evil thing have I done, that You may be justified in Your sayings, and conquer when You are judged." For Thou overcomest all men, all judges; and he that deems himself just, before You is unjust: Thou alone justly judgest, having been unjustly judged, That hast power to lay down Your life, and hast power again to take it. [John 10:18] Thou conquerest, then, when You are judged. All men Thou overcomest, because You are more than men, and by You were men made.

"For, behold, in iniquities I was conceived" [Psalm 51:5]. 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 do you ascribe some sins, in order that He may conquer all men when He begins to be judged. David has taken upon him the person of mankind, and has heeded the bonds of all men, has considered the offspring of death, has adverted to the origin of iniquity, and he says, "For, behold, in iniquities I was conceived." Was David born of adultery; being born of Jesse, [1 Samuel 16:18] a righteous man, and his own wife? What is it that he says 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 says also in another place, "No one is clean in Your 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 avails 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 does Baptism wash off? What does that Grace loose? There is loosed the offspring of sin. For if that infant could speak to you, it would say, and if it had the understanding which David had, it would answer you, Why do you heed me, an infant? Thou dost not indeed see my actions: but I in iniquity have been conceived, "And in sins has 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 you, and the Virtue of the Highest shall overshadow you." [Luke 1:35] 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 punishment. 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 says, "because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." [Romans 8:10] 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 has not sin, but the origin of sin draws 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 looses our guilt. With reason then, "In Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive." [1 Corinthians 15:22] For, "Through one man," says the Apostle, "sin has entered into this world, and through sin death, and so has passed unto all men, in that all have sinned." [Romans 5:12] Definite is the sentence: "In Adam," he says, "all have sinned." Alone then could such an infant be innocent, as has not been born of the work of Adam.

"For, behold, truth You have loved: uncertain and hidden things of Your wisdom, You have manifested to me" [Psalm 51:6]. That is, You have not left unpunished even the sins of those whom Thou dost pardon. "Truth You have loved:" so mercy You have granted first, as that You should also preserve truth. Thou pardonest one confessing, pardonest, but only if he punishes himself: so there are preserved mercy and truth: mercy because man is set free; truth, because sin is punished. "Uncertain and hidden things of Your wisdom You have manifested to me." What "hidden things"? What "uncertain things"? Because God pardons even such. Nothing is so hidden, nothing so uncertain. 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:" [Jonah 3:4] they said to themselves, Mercy must be implored; they said in this sort reasoning among themselves, "Who knows whether God may turn for the better His sentence, and have pity?" [Jonah 3:9] It was "uncertain," when it is said, "Who knows?" 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 seems 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, built in good; just as Saul the persecutor was overthrown, Paul the preacher built. [Acts 9:4] Who would not say that this city, in which we now are, was happily overthrown, if all those madmen, leaving their triflings, 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 built. So is said to Jeremiah, "Behold, I will give to you to root up, to dig under, to overthrow, to destroy," and again, "to build, and to plant." [Jeremiah 1:10] Thence is that voice of the Lord, "I will smite and I will heal." [Deuteronomy 32:39] He smites the rottenness of the deed, He heals 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 knows?" 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, "Your sin is put away from you." [2 Samuel 12:13] "Uncertain and hidden things" of His wisdom He manifested to him.