True Righteousness and the Peril of False Presumption

Passing over these things. God made the world in such a way regarding speech, so that no man might find anything behind Him. 'All things I saw in the days of vanity' (Eccl 1:2). God made such a word in the things that exist, so that man might find nothing of those that are to follow him.

Here he invalidates human foreknowledge; man finds nothing of those who will receive him. And concerning human things he says: for the diligent man knows that he will receive a blessed state, which is clear everywhere. If not—if the human designation, being present, submits another through thought, and if he calls man not the mortal rational animal, but the one 'walking according to the flesh' and pleasures—such a man, being such, will not be recognized by those who are to follow, as long as he lives by sensation alone. For sensation recognizes only the present things. Since such a man is entirely of sensation, walking 'according to the flesh' and pleasures and other evils, he does not know the 'behind', the things that are to follow. For it is the intellect to know this.

In the days of my vanity, therefore, I saw all things. And 'the days of vanity' (Eccl 1:2) he means the days of this life, upon which he must not hope. For he prepares those who expect to be miserable. There is a righteous man perishing in his own righteousness; and there is an ungodly man remaining in his own wickedness. There is simply righteous, and there is someone's righteous. When therefore the Divine, in that word, says 'to pursue the righteous thing justly', he does not say to each one, 'pursue your own righteous thing justly', but the simply and principally righteous. Since every man seems righteous to himself and 'the last ways seem to be right to man, looking into the pits of Hades', one must not remain in that subjective righteousness. For he who has this destroys him, and he withholds from the one who has it. There is therefore a righteous man perishing in his own righteousness. But those who are righteous according to truth, about whom much has been written, such as: 'the righteous shall do in wealth many years' (Ps 112:9), these do not remain in their own righteousness; they do not trust in their own righteousness. Therefore he does not perish in righteousness, as the hymnodist says: 'in your righteousness I shall live' (Ps 25:10). Paul, then, being a great man and finding himself in Christ, to whom was the revelation of yours...

It has become a matter of truth, he says: 'I do not know anything to myself, but not in this have I been justified.' For it enters into me, that I do not truly possess righteousness, and not because of this—that I have known nothing to myself of those things that harm—am I justified. And again the holy David says: 'If I saw iniquity in my heart, let not the Lord hear' (Psalm 138:23). A sign of having or not having iniquity is whether one is heard by God or not heard.

And it is possible also to take this in another way according to a second explanation: it is to cause someone to perish from his own righteousness; someone thinking himself righteous in his own righteousness, if... he knows that it is not the truth and the Lord of righteousness, he pulls himself away from this and perishes from his own righteousness. And this destruction does not corrupt. For just as we say of one departing from virtue that he has perished by virtue, so we say of one having changed from the presumption he formerly held, that he has perished from that presumption.

And there is an impious man remaining in his own wickedness, living in wickedness not recognizing his own wickedness, even though he was previously recognized as a righteous man before he was justifying himself. Is it then the same mind? That mind, even though being in righteousness, yet being less than the truly righteous, perishes from it, so that he may have the truly righteous. For example, let someone have a mistaken presumption, or let someone have a presumption that is not mistaken, but not in word, not in precision. If he knows the precision, he perishes himself, so that he may succeed in that intention by the better thing.

Furthermore, how does he call the perversion? To demonstrate that he is such a person, one who has turned aside; for example, many encounter the Scriptures and understand them as they ought not to. And no one else turned them aside except their own laziness. When someone therefore demonstrates such a person, that 'do not pay attention to him; he speaks errantly, what he says,' he has shown him to be turned aside, he has demonstrated him to be such. Do not become much righteous and do not philosophize excessively, lest you be struck with amazement. Do not be impiously much and do not become hard, so that you do not die not in your time (Job 20:5). And it has been said to us many times, that virtues are mediations, while their excesses and deficiencies are wickednesses. We say that wisdom...