Verses 65–72

The ninth stanza of eight verses falls under the letter “tet”—meaning “clay” or “mud.”

Clay or mud is, among other things, a term of reproach; we sometimes say “dragged through the mud.” But there are also healing muds; and the Lord, having made clay from spittle, anointed the eyes of the blind man and healed him. Clay in the hands of the potter yields various wares suited to every need. What guiding thought, then, should we take for our meditation on this stanza? We may take the thought of clay as a healing substance, and see in this passage an indication of what healing remedies the Lord employs for the cure of souls sick with sin; or we may take the thought of clay as the material from which the potter fashions various vessels, and see in this passage how the Lord, taking souls as clay, makes of them vessels of honor. Both thoughts apply readily; but to avoid confusion in the analogies, we take the latter. The word “clay” is used in a similar sense by the Apostle Paul: “Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?” (Rom. 9:21). As the potter makes vessels by subjecting clay to various processes, so the Lord forms the soul by subjecting it to various actions, both inward and outward. These formative means in the hands of the Lord are spiritual—grace and the word of God (verses Ps. 118:65, 66)—and external, by God’s ordering: a sorrowful or prosperous course of life (verses Ps. 118:67, 68), and by God’s permission: the attacks of people who do not fear God (verses Ps. 118:69, 70). Having indicated these, the prophet, as it were, sums up God’s formative actions and notes how effective this action has been (verses Ps. 118:71, 72). He speaks of himself throughout; yet one must suppose that in each individual case he has particular persons in mind as well. He refers everything to himself so that the reader, having understood what pertains to him, may apply the prophet’s words to himself in the same manner of speech. This stanza is clearly in direct connection with the preceding one. There the prophet showed how a sinner, breaking free ever more and more from the bonds of sin, at last surrenders himself entirely into the hands of the Lord; and here he shows how the Lord deals with such a soul, having taken it as clay. The prophet touched briefly on the spiritual working upon the soul, and expounds more fully how “the Lord, through the outward lot of those who come to Him, furthers their inner advancement.” Such, in brief, may be the expressed meaning of this stanza.

Ps. 118:65. You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word.

To whom is such a word fitting? To one turned by God’s grace from sin to virtue. In his person the prophet speaks: “I have known Your goodness by experience.” “One instructed in the divine commandments,” says Saint Athanasius, “is taught the lesson of not being insensible to the benefactions of God, since he would not have been freed from sin or numbered among the servants of the Lord had not some divine grace been the cause of it. Such was Saint Paul, who never forgot the great mercy of God shown to him in his conversion to faith in Christ, and who never missed an occasion to glorify the grace of God that enlightened and keeps him. Such also are all who make proper use of such grace, for to be unmindful of it would mean that they had fallen away from it.”

One who walks the road of perdition enters upon it of his own accord; no one is to blame here but himself. By our way of thinking, let him go; but the goodness of God cannot endure that one adorned with the image of God should disfigure it through sin and through fellowship with the enemies of God. Therefore God opens for Himself by various means an entrance into that person’s soul, to suggest to it the danger of such a path and to make it feel that danger: He acts inwardly through the mind and conscience, and outwardly through His word, through the wondrous works of His providence, through the example of God-fearing people, and through the manifold weaving of life’s corrective circumstances. By all of this the sinner is halted on his path and plunged into reflection. But even then, as he begins to reflect, the grace of God watches over the good intentions arising in him and gives them the upper hand. Then, when a person declares his resolve—“You are my portion, O Lord; I have resolved to keep Your law” (verse Ps. 118:57)—grace encourages him and fills him with the strength to carry out that resolve. When one who has begun to live in this new order looks back and recalls how everything came about, he can say nothing other than: “You have dealt well, O Lord, with Your servant”; I was going to perdition, but behold—Your grace awakened me from carelessness, enlightened my blindness, and brought me forth “from the pit of passions, from the miry clay” of sin (Ps. 39:3). Glory to Your long-suffering, O Lord, which did not destroy me during my sinful disorder! Glory to Your loving-kindness, which called me to the path of virtue and teaches me to please You according to my strength! Glory to Your condescension, which, despite the smallness of my zeal, does not forsake me and does not allow my enemies to prevail over me again! “You have dealt well with Your servant!” I was not Your servant, or rather I was then Your servant by obligation, yet I fled from Your face by my own willfulness and walked in my own desires, having cast off Your good yoke and utterly forgotten my duty to You. But whither can one flee from Your face? Only the enemy so blinds us that we think God does not see; yet Your eye sees all things. It saw me too in my wandering and in all my impurity; yet it did not disdain to return me to the right path and, from an unworthy servant, to make me worthy—one who has at least begun to please You and is doing at least a little in Your house according to Your will. “You have dealt well with me, O Lord,” making me Your servant once again!

“You have dealt well with me, O Lord, according to Your word.” What word is this? “As I live,” says the Lord, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). And it is already a kindness that such a promise exists, for a sinner, so long as he sins, knows no limit to his insolence and self-confidence, yet when he is caught by his lawful Master, he dares not even lift his eyes to Him. Were it not for so firm a promise, the enemy would always succeed in plunging souls into despair. Only by leaning upon it, contrary to his own faint-heartedness, does the sinner approach the Lord. And only afterward, once he has been granted the merciful reception and welcome of his Heavenly Father, does he rise to the reassuring hope. Remembering this, the prophet confesses that the Lord has indeed dealt well with His servant according to His word—exactly as He promised, fully in accordance with it.

Ps. 118:66. Teach me goodness, discipline, and knowledge, for I have believed Your commandments.

You have called me from sin onto the path of Your commandments; I have believed that there is truly no other path than the path of Your commandments, and I have entered upon it. Complete then the work of Your goodness: teach me how to walk this path so that my walk may be well-pleasing to You. “Teach me goodness, discipline, and knowledge”—“goodness, as Zigabenus explains, that is, love for my brethren; discipline, that is, skill in active virtue (practical wisdom); knowledge, that is, the understanding of divine things or the perfection of contemplation. Teach me in such a way that I may possess these qualities.”

The first verse spoke of the reception of the penitent into God’s school; here the curriculum of instruction is set forth. All the subjects indicated are pointed to in the word of God: study that word and you will come to know them. But the prophet seeks instruction from the Lord Himself, because self-instruction through the word of Revelation is only an outward learning; whereas the building up and formation of the inner man is accomplished under the action of the word by the invisible grace of God. Therefore he prays: Come Yourself, O Lord, and graft these qualities into my soul, so that in acting according to them I act not as if following a written rule, but from within myself, as though it were simply my own nature to act thus.

“Teach me”: I am ready to hear and to do everything as You will suggest—only teach me; for I know that one learns nothing if one does not begin to learn; yet I know also that one cannot learn without being taught. “Perhaps,” interprets blessed Augustine of this passage, “I will prove slow of understanding in some matter, but do You, as You once opened the minds of Your disciples to understand the Scriptures, open mine as well. Perhaps I will even understand something, but not know how to do it—then teach me ’to do Your will’ (Ps. 142:10). Perhaps I will even know how to do it, but lack the zeal for doing; then breathe into me that good love, the source of zeal for every good, so that the earth of my heart may always bring forth good fruit to Your glory. ’Behold, my soul is as a thirsty land’ (Ps. 142:6), thirsting for Your instruction.”

Teach me “goodness.” “He prays,” continues blessed Augustine, “that God will breathe into him a love of the good—sweet, willing—or, to say it more plainly, that love of God may be granted by God, and for God’s sake, love of neighbor.” By this is desired the building up within of the entire moral and religious order pleasing to God. This is the summit of God’s instruction. Whoever has love established within him needs no further teaching. Love itself will do everything further.

Teach me “discipline.” People who are undisciplined (uninstructed) are, in other words, unreasonable people. Therefore discipline is the reasonableness of action, or the skill to act fittingly—practical wisdom. It determines the place, the time, the means, the appropriateness to persons and to all the other circumstances of deeds, so that every act may be beautiful, like the beautiful work of a skilled craftsman. Love is the spirit of life; discipline is its outward comeliness.

Teach me “knowledge”—that is, the understanding of the mysteries of faith. As the sun, once risen, illumines everything on earth and makes the entire atmosphere bright, so the knowledge of things divine illumines the whole realm of the mind and makes all that exists and all that comes to pass clearly luminous. Brightness gives one a taste of the joy of life, drives away sleep, and rouses one to labor and work. Things illumined draw one to themselves of their own accord and show of themselves how to approach them. Therefore one who sees everything brightly cannot be inactive. Mental darkness, on the contrary, saps energy; and if it moves by natural impulse, it acts as something foreign. The light of knowledge matters so much in life that without it life cannot succeed. Therefore, though this instruction stands last among the others, in practice it always comes first.

The instruction indicated here takes place in a spiritual manner. It is drawn from the word of God and grafted by God’s grace to the heart of one who translates everything he learns into action. The foundation of instruction, however, is faith. If a pupil does not trust his teacher, he will not even learn the alphabet. Still less can one learn the spiritual life by approaching it without full faith that these are the commandments of God, that they lead to God, make one well-pleasing to Him, and by a straight path bring one to the inheritance of eternal blessedness. Only an unwavering faith in all of this sustains zeal for learning and gives the strength and power to carry it through to the end.

Ps. 118:67. Before I was humbled, I transgressed; therefore I have kept Your word.

From this verse onward the outward side of God’s instruction is depicted. Here the subject is instruction through sorrows, calamities, and deprivations; the following verse treats instruction through the prosperous course of life. “Here,” as Zigabenus explains, “the prophet says: before I was subjected to afflictions, I sinned; but having sinned, I brought chastisement upon myself and was humbled by it. Having been corrected thereby, I came to my senses and began to keep Your law, and I keep it, so as not to sin again and be subjected once more to humbling chastisement.”

Saint Athanasius writes: “Having been given over to calamities for sins I had previously committed, I was brought to humiliation, having suffered this by the righteous judgment of God. Therefore, having undergone this healing, I ask to be taught and brought to the understanding that the humiliation to which I was brought serves for my benefit and correction.”

Here also is the word of blessed Theodoret: “I myself,” says the prophet, “brought chastisement upon myself; there is not the least injustice in the decree concerning my punishment; sin was followed by chastisement, chastisement by the keeping of the laws. I was sick, I endured the physician’s incision, and I became well.”

“Behold the goodness of God in His not sparing,” cries Saint Ambrose. “Chastisement is a sign of love, not of rejection. The Lord is good in all things—both when He forgives the penitent and when He punishes the sinner: ’for the Lord disciplines the one He loves’ (Heb. 12:6). The prophet speaks as though saying: the chastisement seemed bitter to me for a time, but it has borne good fruit—it recalled me from sin: ’The Lord has chastened me sorely, but has not given me over to death’ (Ps. 117:18).” Hence, to everyone whom circumstances have humbled, here is the lesson: “Do not be ashamed to acknowledge your fault and to correct yourself, and then take care not to sin again.”

The prophet only points to how sorrows and deprivations turn one onto the path of virtue. Examples of this happening in reality are everywhere. But in the hands of God’s Providence, which saves us, they sometimes serve as a sure and often exclusive means also of keeping one on that path and of raising the one who is reforming toward such perfection as is possible. The prophet does not say that the circumstances which humbled him changed when he began to keep the word of God; he only points to what change they produced in him. For some, the narrow and sorrowful path is the surest guardian of virtue—and perhaps for the greater part of us. Not without reason do zealots of moral perfection, after mature deliberation, find it far better to leave everything behind and lead a life amid sorrowful privations. If human prudence finds it so, how much more does divine wisdom? Or is it not perhaps because human wisdom thus acts that it follows the promptings of God, or the examples of God’s arrangements in ordering the lot of those who serve Him with zeal?

Let us hear on this subject the instruction of Saint Paul: “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed” (Heb. 12:5–13).

Ps. 118:68. You are good, O Lord, and in Your goodness teach me Your statutes.

For one person sorrows are instructive; but they may harden another. Such a one will more readily be brought to his senses by unexpected good fortune than by any losses. It is precisely such a person that the prophet takes up here and, fearing, as it were, lest a blow from on high quickly follow, prays: do not chastise, but as One who is Good, teach me by Your goodness!

In medicine too, not all remedies are bitter and not all plasters tear or burn: there are sweet medicines, there are plasters that act pleasantly. A good physician, when he sees that treatment can be given without pain and without detriment to the cure, always chooses the latter both of his own accord and still more when asked to do so. How much more will our compassionate Heavenly Father act thus—He who sees better than anyone what is beneficial for each? “Look at the physician,” says Saint Ambrose: “at times he employs bitter medicines, cutting and burning; at other times, pleasant ones that cause nothing painful. But when the patient by reason of his constitution cannot endure painful treatment, it is the physician’s duty to avoid bitter medicines or to prepare them in such a way that the bitterness is hidden in the pleasant. This is also how the Lord acts upon us, healing our moral infirmities.”

We are often troubled by the question: why is the lot of people unequal? No one has yet succeeded in explaining this with palpable clarity in every particular case. But the general law of God’s Providence in this regard is clearly revealed in the word of God, and in the most comforting terms. Wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, dominant lordship and humble obedience, and everything else that variegates the life of mankind on earth—these are in the hands of God instruments for the moral formation of persons. Whatever best serves this purpose for each individual is what is given to each. If a prosperous life is best—a prosperous life is given; if a lowly one is best—a lowly one is given; if a middle condition is best—a middle one is given. And there is no way to enter into dispute: see how well that one has it, and yet he is by no means so exemplary. But how do you know—perhaps if his prosperity were reduced he would become even worse? Equally, one cannot say: now if that person were to have good fortune, how much good would come from him! But do you know that if his condition were improved, he himself would become better? To each has been given the lot in which alone he can do the greatest sum of good. In any other lot he cannot do as much, and to change it for a better or a worse would be to cast him into genuine evil. The purpose of our existence on earth is moral perfection, for the proper preparation of ourselves for eternity. Everything is directed toward this by the Lord.

The full explanation of the diversity of our lots will be revealed there. There everyone will see how everything was arranged well, whereas here we live for now in darkness. The wisest of all is he who, having committed his own lot and the lot of all people entirely to the hands of the Lord, keeps himself at peace with regard to its inequalities.

There is a story of one who lived by the labor of his hands and gave away everything he earned to the poor, keeping for himself only as much as was needed for subsistence—so that nothing remained by morning. Someone among the godly, seeing how he gave alms, thought: what if he had sufficient means, how much good he could do! — and began to pray that God would send him prosperity. God sent it; but the man, having become wealthy, not only ceased to help the poor but drove them from him with harshness. Seeing this, the same person prayed again that the Lord would better restore him to his former laborious life. The Lord did restore it, and he again began to live as before, sharing what he earned with the poor. Of the same kind would be all the other rearrangements of people’s lots that we sometimes devise with our own prudence and justice.

The same applies to changes in lots: for some a steadily even condition is best; for others now an improvement, now a worsening of it; and for others a single change from better to worse or from worse to better. Job is at one time supremely happy, then extremely wretched, then happy again; Abraham lives his whole life in full prosperity; Joseph rises from slave to ruler of an entire kingdom; Saul ends his life disastrously and brings to an end the royal greatness for his entire line.

The Lord acts thus not because He has power and authority to change people’s lots, but because to act thus is best of all for them, for their ultimate ends. And since the Lord also leads to the good by means of prosperity, the prayer is entirely fitting: “In Your goodness, O Lord, teach me Your statutes.”

Ps. 118:69. The proud have forged a lie against me, but I will keep Your commandments with my whole heart.

This verse and the next show how the injustices of men contribute to moral perfection. In the hands of God even these are turned into instruments for the formation of a person and for instructing him in the good.

The Savior said to the holy Apostles, and through them to all the faithful, that He would take them out of the world and that the world would hate them for this. If you were of the world, He says, the world would love you as its own offspring; but now, since I have taken you out of the world, the world will not cease to hate you. So it always is: whether one zealous for pleasing God comes into contact with the people of this age or not, the mere knowledge that such a person exists alienates those who live for self-indulgence. And this is understandable: he rebukes them by his very being. They cannot deny that they themselves ought to be as he is; but they cannot bear to be reminded of it. And although he says nothing to them, yet the very thought of him—and all the more his presence—disturbs their conscience, which begins to gnaw at them; so he must be to blame. Without encounters, ill will toward him circulates dully through their hearts; but at the first encounter it manifests itself in ill will and in the desire to hinder and harm him in all things; desires turn into deeds, and the further it goes, the more. The God-fearing man, guilty of nothing, is showered from all sides with reproaches, slanders, insults, and offenses. He cannot but see this, and though he bears it with equanimity, he justly testifies before God that human injustice has multiplied against him and grows ever more.

“Has multiplied.” The prophet is not complaining, but merely testifying to the fact, in order to say: they do their part, and I do mine. “The more earnestly one serves the Lord,” says Saint Ambrose, “the more enemies one stirs up against oneself—like that courageous wrestler who calls forth the greatest number of opponents against himself, so that by overcoming them he may win a more brilliant crown of righteousness.”

“Injustice.” What is inspiring is precisely that it is injustice. When you suffer afflictions, says Saint Peter, do not grieve overmuch over this. Be anxious about one thing only—that this is not for any fault of your own. If, however, you suffer solely because you zealously serve the true God, then rejoice. “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Since you share in Christ’s sufferings, rejoice, so that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed” (1 Pet. 4:13–14).

“The proud.” The prophet refers as “the proud” to those who live in general without the remembrance of God and are unwilling to know His commandments, yet who are at the same time the powerful of the earth, holding some authority in their hands, or are the noble and the rich. Even in ordinary sinners, for all their poor outward circumstances, pride is the chief cause of sin; and all the more so in those who stand above others for some reason. A man grows conceited, forgets God, and begins to despise His law. After that he also finds all God-fearing people and strict keepers of God’s commandments disagreeable. But however much they may rage, “I will seek Your commandments with my whole heart.” “However much injustice may multiply,” expounds blessed Augustine, “my love for Your commandments will not be exhausted. So speaks one who delights in meditating on God’s statutes. God’s commandments are sweet to him, and he searches them with love, in order to do what he has learned and to learn more by doing; for what is known is more perfectly known when it is carried out in deed.”

“I will search”—I will examine and penetrate into the meaning of Your commandments, to understand them in all the breadth of Your will expressed in them, not clipping or curtailing them merely because I encounter obstacles and because this is contrary to the sons of this age. As I come to know them, so I will fulfill them—that is, I will show forth the performance of Your commandments in their fullness, before the face of the enemies of You and of all righteousness who hate me as well. I resolve to be always faithful to Your commandments, taking no account of the opposition of the proud to it. I will even learn from them, for what they most resist is what is and must be Your true will. And I will learn further from devising how, despite their resistance, I may always bring to fulfillment the deeds that are pleasing to You.

Ps. 118:70. Their heart has curdled like milk, but I have meditated on Your law.

What came of the proud’s multiplication of injustice and of the God-fearing man’s faithfulness to the commandments? Their hearts hardened and grew thick, while he was fully instructed in the law of God.

“The heart has curdled”—hardened like cheese. Milk, when it thickens and hardens, becomes cheese; likewise the hearts of the proud, soft by nature, harden through injustice. “They have carried their pride so far,” says Saint Athanasius, “that the heart within them has become like cheese.” “This corresponds,” writes Theodoret, “to the prophetic utterance: ’For the heart of this people has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed’ (Isa. 6:10); it also corresponds to what is said in the book of Exodus regarding Pharaoh: ’Pharaoh’s heart was hardened’ (Exod. 8:19). Therefore the prophet says: they have a stubborn heart and have themselves transformed its softness into coarseness, just as milk is thickened and curdled; while I have melted, meditating on Your law.” The meaning of all this is the same—stubborn resistance to God and to God’s ordinances: “he grew fat, thick, and gross, and forsook God who made him” (Deut. 32:15). “The hearts of the saints,” says Saint Athanasius, “are made thin, while the hearts of the proud are made thick.” This happens to the poor human heart because injustice leads it into the wrong sphere—one contrary to its proper nature—and so it contracts. “Milk,” writes Saint Ambrose, “is by nature pure, pleasant to look upon, and fluid; but when it spoils, it turns sour. So also the human heart is by nature pure, soft, and warm; but when evil enters it, it grows cold, hard, and darkened. Milk, once soured, curdles and loses its native pleasantness; so also a person, as long as he is unharmed by injustice, is pleasant in speech and in manner, but when he turns to injustice—he changes, for his heart becomes different. Injustice contracts it, and in place of pleasant goodwill it is filled with the bitterness of ill will. Thus is the heart curdled by pride and enmity, when the natural meekness of the heart, which flows with goodness, is corrupted by the leaven of malice and cunning.”

The heart hardens from one’s first experiments in injustice and then grows ever harder; the end of this is a state of complete hardening. In contrast, in the God-fearing man, under the action of injustices, there ripens an instructedness in the law, a readiness for every good, and a firmness in bringing the good deeds he undertakes to completion. And since he stood in the good not merely from a sense of duty but with his whole heart, out of love for it and above all for Him who gave the law, the more he holds his ground in it despite hardened opposition, the more warmly his heart glows with love, the softer it becomes, and the more tenderhearted the man. He is himself always warm, and diffuses warmth all around him.

The prophet says: “I have meditated”—I have learned, come to understand, thoroughly considered everything, or learned it by deed, and I know it firmly, holding it in my heart. Whatever I may encounter, there is no need to rack my brains to see how best to act: my heart itself will tell me. Just as evil thoughts proceed from an evil heart, in the words of the Lord, when various situations arise, so from a good heart proceed good thoughts, pointing out what good should be done and how in these or those circumstances. “I have meditated”—this recalls the apostle’s word about the senses trained to distinguish between good and evil. Thus it is confirmed in actual fact that the injustice of the proud—directed, by God’s permission, against those who fear God and keep His law—is, by His providential ordering, a school for instructing the latter in the good. And the prophet, by saying that he has learned, testifies that the goal of the instruction has been achieved, that this school truly brings those who enter it to what needs to be learned and for the sake of which they are led into it.

So it is in life—everything depends on the spirit with which one meets what comes. Not one of the events of life, by its own nature, leads to evil: evil comes from free will. What harm did the wife of Potiphar do to Joseph? None. She only displayed his chastity in a brighter light, while others seek out sin of their own accord. Stand firm; and external occasions that might lead to sin will not only not harm you but, on the contrary, will serve to confirm you all the more in the good. One act of steadfastness will open the way to another, and so on. In the end there will be won a steadfastness in the good—not reluctant, but loving, heartfelt, and attractive.

Ps. 118:71. It is good for me that You have humbled me, that I might learn Your statutes.

Just as someone who has successfully completed a course of study in some institution expresses heartfelt gratitude to those who taught him, so the prophet, having passed through God’s school of moral instruction through the sorrows of life and the unjust accusations of men, gives thanks to God, who led him onto this grievous path of instruction and brought him through it with success. When he says ‘that I might learn,’ he is not pointing to God’s purpose in humbling him, but testifying that this purpose has been achieved. His thought is this: the Lord brought me into this school in order to teach me; I have completed this course, and now, glory be to God, I have been taught—otherwise I never would have learned.

St. Athanasius writes: ‘The prophet speaks as if saying: I take courage in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in straits—if only I might be found worthy of Your judgments, seeking that which cannot be learned any other way.’

‘The prophet,’ says Theodoret, ‘returns thanks to the Physician for the harsh remedies, having learned that by them his health has been restored.’ The Lord could have taught without introducing hardships and sorrows, but righteousness and goodness require it. A sinner who repents and reforms—that is, who is being trained in the commandments—is moving out of the realm of sin in the opposite direction from how he entered it. Having loved sin, he accumulated sinful habits and became attached to a multitude of things that gratify those habits. Such things are precious in his eyes. The Lord strips away this illusory value by taking them away, showing in practice how worthless they are and how sinful it is to act in order to please men. For this the sinner repays, once he has repented, by bearing with cheerful composure the unjust accusations of men—sometimes even of those whom he previously sought to please. Deprivations and unjust accusations are the purifying path.

Let us also recall the tactics of the enemy, who insinuates himself everywhere with his malicious scheming. As long as the repenting and reforming person still has not shed his sympathies for the objects of the passions, the enemy hopes to bring back to himself the one who has fled from his domain, by stirring up evil thoughts and desires. But when this sympathy is exhausted, and sobriety and purity are established in the heart, this method of temptation no longer gives him any hope of success. He turns to another: unable to draw the person into lust, he will arrange matters so as to draw him into hatred instead. To this end he raises up against his unwilling subject those people who are under his sway; and they begin to shower him with insults, mockery, offenses, oppressions, persecutions, every kind of injustice—sometimes not even understanding why they do so. But the laborer, who understands where all this comes from and to what end, bears everything with good cheer, and however keenly he feels the unjust accusations, he strives by every means not to fall into enmity toward anyone, and thus not to give the enemy victory over himself, and not to forfeit the fruit of all his previous labors undertaken in the struggle against lust. The Lord Himself, who permits such temptations, helps him to stand firm. Then the enemy ceases to attack him from this side as well, seeing that his assaults only earn the laborer crowns, and avail nothing to his schemes. When the enemy withdraws, the unjust accusations of men also cease: some make peace with him, others leave him in peace, stepping away from him.

This course of events is repeated everywhere. That is why we see in the patristic writings indications that when someone is subjected to unjust accusations from men, it means he is being raised to a higher degree of perfection. One who has passed through these trials emerges purified as gold in a furnace, and shines with the brightness of a God-pleasing character—humility, contrition, meekness, uprightness, mercy, purity, love of peace, and peacemaking. He is among those of whom the holy Apostle testifies: they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts… against such there is no law (Gal. 5:23–24); because the law is not prescribed to them from without, but appears within themselves, established in their hearts.

Ps. 118:72. The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver.

This is the very perfection with which the laborer emerges from the furnace of temptations, as described above. The law is good to him, because he is wholly permeated by it; neither thought nor impulse, nor desire nor aspiration, nor heart nor delight exist outside the law—all revolves within it. The mind finds in it a satisfying answer to all its questions, the heart finds satisfaction for all its tastes, the will finds the fulfillment of all its desires. It is good precisely because it gives the highest good that a person can desire—namely, rest for the spirit. The Apostle, in his Epistle to the Philippians, explains why this is so: ‘Finally,’ he says, ‘brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things… do these things; and the God of peace shall be with you’ (Phil. 4:8–9).

The law is an expression of the will of God. If the law fills everything within, it means the will of God fills everything; the divine element has been received inwardly and blended with the whole being of man. It serves as the channel through which God dwells within, and prepares for Him a worthy habitation. And God, who loves to commune, comes to dwell; and where God is, there is everything desired and longed for.

Even the strict schooling mentioned earlier has as its purpose, on God’s part, to cleanse the soul and prepare within it a dwelling for Himself. Already in the creation of man in His image and likeness He destined the soul for this end, but the Fall disrupted the work. It introduced into us the uncleanness of the passions, which drove the Lord away. It became impossible for Him to enter into communion with the soul while the passions remained in it; they must first be driven out, and they are driven out by the reception and ingrowth of the commandments contrary to them. Then, just as an object made of iron is soft and unreliable for use until it is tempered, so likewise God tempers the soul that has received all the commandments in the furnace of all-encompassing temptations, from which it emerges not only well-fashioned in all its parts, but also firm and durable—that is, it becomes a trustworthy vessel for the indwelling of the Lord. And He comes to dwell within. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt. 5:8)—they shall see Him not outside, before them, but within themselves, in their own home. This is the good the law gives; that is why it is good.

‘Better than thousands of gold and silver.’ By the words ‘gold and silver’ all the goods of this world are represented, and ‘thousands’ signifies their number beyond reckoning. Gather, he says, an incalculable multitude of worldly goods; they are all as nothing to me in comparison with the law of the mouth of God. And do not think that there is any exaggeration in this expression. For those who have tasted, through faithfulness to the law, how good the Lord is, all other goods arouse not sympathy but revulsion. There are things that fill a person with disgust; and what a person experiences when encountering such things is what one who has tasted the Lord experiences when encountering the goods of the world—not as works of God’s hands, but as objects offered in opposition to God’s law. Someone might think: well, that is too much. No, it is not too much; indeed, even this comparison is inadequate to explain how the heart that has tasted the goodness of the law relates to thousands of gold and silver. Why does one person give away everything with the same eagerness with which no one else gathers it? Because he has settled accounts with everything; everything is foreign to him, everything is refuse to be swept away. And in the end, life itself—his most precious possession—he gives for the law of the mouth of the Lord; and all because in heart and mind and consciousness he is no longer on earth, but in another world, toward which he strives, having cast off this fragile garment that hinders him from standing face to face with the Lord. This, however, is the natural course of the development of the spiritual life; those who possess it even in its beginnings easily understand this, since the spirit’s demand from the very start presses toward such a disposition. But in its fullness it appears at the highest stages of the spirit’s development, under the action of the Spirit of God.