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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

11. For, behold, truth You have loved: uncertain and hidden things of Your wisdom, You have manifested to me. 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: 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? 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. 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. Thence is that voice of the Lord, I will smite and I will heal. 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. Uncertain and hidden things of His wisdom He manifested to him.

12. You shall sprinkle me, he says, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed. Hyssop we know to be a herb humble but healing: 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 your love, on your Rock: be humble in your humble God, in order that you may be exalted in your glorified God. You shall be sprinkled with hyssop, the humility of Christ shall cleanse you. 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: he was breathing out slaughter, breathing out blood, his lung not yet cleansed. Hear also in this place one humbled, because with hyssop purged: You shall wash me, that is, shall cleanse me: and above snow I shall be whitened. Although, he says, your sins shall have been like scarlet, like snow I will whiten. Out of such men Christ does present to Himself a vesture without spot and wrinkle. 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 follows: To my hearing You shall give exultation and gladness, and bones humbled shall exult. I will rejoice in hearing You, not in speaking against You. You have sinned, why defendest you yourself? You will speak: suffer thou; hear, yield to divine words, lest you be put to confusion, and be still more wounded: sin has been committed, be it not defended: to confession let it come, not to defense. Thou engagest yourself as defender of your sin, you are conquered: no innocent patron have you engaged, your defense is not profitable to you. For who are you that defendest yourself? You are meet to accuse yourself. 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 you say you have done nothing, you will be nothing, you will receive nothing: God is ready to give indulgence, you close the door against yourself: He is ready to give, do not oppose the bar of defense, but open the bosom of confession. To my hearing You shall give exultation and gladness…

14. Turn Thou away Your face from my sins, and all mine iniquities blot out. For now bones humbled exult, now with hyssop cleansed, humble I have become. Turn Thou away Your face, not from me, but from my sins. For in another place praying he says, Turn not away Your face from me. 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 turns not Himself away, he adverts: if he adverts, he animadverts. And all mine iniquities blot out. He is busied with that capital sin: he reckons on more, he would have all his iniquities to be blotted out: he relies on the Physician’s hand, on that great mercy, upon which he has called in the beginning of the Psalm: All mine iniquities blot out. God turns away His face, and so blots out; by turning away His face, sins He blots out. By turning towards, He writes them. You have 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: He shall destroy the remembrance of them, not by blotting out their sins. But here he does ask what? Turn away Your face from my sins. Well he asks. For he himself does not turn away his face from his own sins, saying, For my sin I acknowledge. With reason you ask and well ask, that God turn away from your sin, if you from thence dost not turn away your face: but if you set your sin at your back, God does there set His face. Do thou turn sin before your face, if you will that God thence turn away His face; and then safely you ask, and He hears.

15. A clean heart create in me, O God. 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 has said create he shows. And a right spirit renew in my inner parts. By my doing, he says, the uprightness of my spirit has been made old and bowed. For he says in another Psalm, They have bowed my soul. And when a man does 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 chastises for his sin him that He pardons in the world to come. For even to David himself, to whom it had been already said by the Prophet, Your sin is put away, there happened certain things which God had threatened for that very sin. For his son Abessalom against him waged bloody war, and many ways humbled his father. 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 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 always, ever His praise was in his mouth. 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 You? 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 Your face. Turn away Your face from my sins: and cast me not forth from Your face. Whose face he fears, upon the face of the Same he calls. And Your 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 belongs, that what you have done displeases you. The unclean spirit sins do please; the Holy One they displease. Though then thou still implore pardon, yet you are joined to God on the other part, because the evil thing that you have committed displeases you: for the same thing displeases both you and Him. Now, to assail your fever, you 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 does he say, Your Holy Spirit give to me, but, Take not away from me.

17. Give back to me the exultation of Your salvation. Give back what I had; what by sinning I had lost: to wit, of Your 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; 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. For that which is not body, and yet is, seems 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. 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 says, 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 annexes: With Principal Spirit, he says, confirm Thou me. Wherein confirm? Because You have pardoned me, because I am secure, that what You have 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 Your ways. 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 Your ways. What ways will you teach unrighteous men? And ungodly men to You shall be converted. If David’s sin is counted for ungodliness, let not ungodly men despair of themselves, forasmuch as God has 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 says has the force of superabundance, And ungodly men shall to You be converted. So full are you of the fatness of mercy, that for those converted to You, not only sinners of any sort, but even ungodly, there is no cause for despair. Wherefore? That believing on Him that justifies an ungodly man, their faith may be counted for righteousness.

19. Deliver me from bloods, O God, God of my health. The Latin translator has expressed, though by a word not Latin, yet an accuracy from the Greek. For we all know that in Latin, sanguines (bloods) are not spoken of, nor yet sanguina (bloods in the neuter), nevertheless because the Greek translator has thus used the plural number, not without reason, but because he found this in the original language the Hebrew, a godly translator has preferred to use a word not Latin, rather than one not exact. Wherefore then has 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, says, Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God. For doubtless, after the true faith of the same Apostle, that flesh shall rise again and shall itself gain incorruption, as He says 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 plays 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 in the expression above, And all my iniquities blot out, and ascribing them to the corruption of flesh and blood, Free me, he says, 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 Your righteousness.

20. O Lord, my lips You shall open, and my mouth shall tell of Your praise. Your praise, because I have been created: Your praise, because sinning I have not been forsaken: Your praise, because I have been admonished to confess: Your praise, because in order that I might be secured I have been cleansed.

21. Because if You had willed sacrifice, I would have given it surely. David was living at that time when sacrifices of victim animals were offered to God, and he saw these times that were to be. Do we not perceive ourselves in these words? Those sacrifices were figurative, foretelling the One Saving Sacrifice. Not even we have been left without a Sacrifice to offer to God. For hear what he says, having a concern for his sin, and wishing the evil thing which he has done to be forgiven him: If You had willed, he says, sacrifice, I would have given it surely. With holocausts You will not be delighted. Nothing shall we therefore offer? So shall we come to God? And whence shall we propitiate Him? Offer; certainly in yourself you have what you may offer. Do not from without fetch frankincense, but say, In me are, O God, Your vows, which I will render of praise to You. Do not from without seek cattle to slay, you have in yourself what you may kill. Sacrifice to God is a spirit troubled, a heart contrite and humbled God despises not. Utterly he despises bull, he-goat, ram: now is not the time that these should be offered. They were offered when they indicated something, when they promised something; when the things promised come, the promises are taken away. A heart contrite and humbled God despises not. You know that God is high: if you shall have made yourself high, He will be from you; if you shall have humbled yourself, He will draw near to you.

22. See who this is: David as one man was seeming to implore; see ye here our image and the type of the Church.

Deal kindly, O Lord, in Your good will with Sion. With this Sion deal kindly. What is Sion? A city holy. What is a city holy? That which cannot be hidden, being upon a mountain established. Sion in prospect, because it has prospect of something which it hopes for. For Sion is interpreted prospect, and Jerusalem, vision of peace. You perceive then yourselves to be in Sion and in Jerusalem, if being sure ye look for hope that is to be, and if you have peace with God. And be the walls of Jerusalem built. Deal kindly, O Lord, in Your good will with Sion, and be the walls of Jerusalem built. For not to herself let Sion ascribe her merits: do Thou with her deal kindly, Be the walls of Jerusalem built: be the battlements of our immortality laid, in faith and hope and charity.

23. Then You shall accept the sacrifice of righteousness. But now sacrifice for iniquity, to wit, a spirit troubled, and a heart humbled; then the sacrifice of righteousness, praises alone. For, Blessed they that dwell in Your house, for ever and ever they shall praise You: for this is the sacrifice of righteousness. Oblations and holocausts. What are holocausts? A whole victim by fire consumed. When a whole beast was laid upon the altar with fire to be consumed, it was called a holocaust. May divine fire take us up whole, and that fervour catch us whole. What fervour? Neither is there that hides himself from the heat thereof. What fervour? That whereof speaks the Apostle: In spirit fervent. Be not merely our soul taken up by that divine fire of wisdom, but also our body; that it may earn their immortality; so be it lifted up for a holocaust, that death be swallowed into victory. Oblations and holocausts. Then shall they lay upon your altar calves. Whence calves? What shall He therein choose? Will it be the innocence of the new age, or necks freed from the yoke of the law?…