The Stability of Righteousness and Divine Life

We learn, if indeed the soul is not a human. For if it had the truth of living in its own life, the dead would not need resuscitation. Therefore the Lord said to the dead to live as if they did not yet have life, except insofar as they are in the power of the life-giving God; and he says they are lost if they do not happen to have a resurrection, saying he will raise his own, so that the one from it might not be lost. And Paul similarly says, 'If there is no resurrection of the dead, then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished' (1 Cor 15:17). For God did not give a life to the soul from the beginning as incorporeal, but immediately the one in the body, having breathed the breath of life into the body.

Regarding Psalm 118:53, to the sinner, godliness is a laughing matter, but to the God-fearing, lawlessness is a terror, because he foresees the dread of punishment. Regarding Psalm 118:54, he says, 'To me, also, the judgments looking toward your commandments are my only consolation, and your precepts, being taken up through song, bring cheer and lead to joy' (Ps 118:54). And I have known this alone as one who will dwell in a foreign and strange land and is truly unable to have any good, because for a stranger, houses are longed for, and before the return to these things, all is sorrowful.

Regarding Psalm 118:73, God does not twist the justice of man like a potter, even if it is said he twists; rather, whatever a potter works, he makes such by the power of the one working such a shape; and the present-day 'moldings' must be referred back to that first molding, such as 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you' (Jer 1:5); just as Job says, 'You formed me from clay' (Job 10:9), indicating the clay-molding in Adam regarding himself. Prayer regarding the making is thanksgiving, but following this is the power of the intellect which understands the commandments. Concerning this, Paul also says, 'Understand what I say: for the Lord will give you understanding in all things' (Rom 11:33). But treat the request as if toward a Creator: 'Care for your handiwork, and complete with intellect the living thing that is intellectual; and that which you prepared for indwelling with yourself, make it indwell through your knowledge of Your purposes.' Since from the beginning, man was in need of that which, of the many commands, made his mind unsuited to them, and indeed, having been made unstable, he needs those which fulfill the greater.

For without training in many evils and without the hope of God's helping, a man cannot stand firmly in virtue, for those competing are easily shaken when the struggle comes. Thus, he recognizes the strengthening from many sufferings, the strengthening of God's providence; then he asks for rest from his labors, saying, 'Let your mercy come that it may comfort me according to your word' (Ps 118:83).

Perhaps the righteous become more dead than living under afflictions, as if they resemble ascetics rather than men, losing their souls like dust being blown about, while choosing the hot and the practical way, as it is said elsewhere, 'I sat in darkness as if dead to the age' (Ps 118:84); but even while undergoing this, he says, I have not departed from God-taught righteousness, just as Joseph guarded righteous temperance. He calls the commandments 'promises.' He says, 'With courage, I seek the help from you, my God, through your promises and their truth' (Ps 118:86).

He asks for life, not yet eternal life, but the present life, worthy of not being handed over to the hands of the schemers unto death (Ps 118:88). He does not ask for this as an end, but as a means to a good end, for he says, 'I will guard the commands of God,' through which it is also possible to acquire eternal life. 'I will cling to your laws,' he says (Ps 118:93). For in them is life found, just as you have said to me, 'He who has made them, man, shall live in them.'

Thus the righteous lives alone even if he seems to have died, but the unrighteous are dead even if they seem to live. For the former have the constitution of life within them, which is righteousness, but those not having this resemble soulless things moved not by themselves but from without, because their life is from without, and they do not even have one life within them. Therefore the Lord himself, being truly righteousness, declares himself to be life, and says those not partaking of him do not have life within themselves; and the death of the Savior is not only life but is life-giving, becoming the release of men from death. The unrighteous, moreover, are blind to the beauty of righteousness and the majesty of the words concerning it.