Purity of Face and the Forgetting of Sins

By personifying the ignorance of men regarding judgments, happy David says: 'Behold, these sinners, though they prosper, possess wealth for eternity (Ps 73:3-4). And I said: Therefore I justified my heart in vain, and washed my hands among the innocent (Ps 26:6), and became whipped all day long.' And after these things he says: 'I became beast-like beside You (Ps 51:16).' And the 'beside You' is good; for as regarding the knowledge of God, he says, 'I became beast-like.'

Then, in order to show that he was assuming the face of men, he says: 'But I am with You always (Matt 28:20),' indicating that: by Your participation and communion, I know. Similar to 'I became beast-like beside You' is 'But I am irrational' and 'I am earth and ash.'

For if you have nourished your heart purely, and you bow hands toward Him, if there is something lawless in your hands, make it far from you; and let injustice not entangle itself in your judgment. As if introducing an exhortation to himself as a teacher, he approaches it saying: that if even though you are exceedingly pure in this way, as always lifting up hands in prayer asking for what is from God (1 Tim 2:8), you will be well-disposed and will cast away the triviality remaining in you, but also let injustice not entangle itself in you. That is: even if it happens that you become in the beginning of doing wrong, let the wickedness not remain as entangling itself in your life.

He says these things, that moral virtue should be suitable to the purity of the soul according to understanding. Similar to this is 'lifting up hands without anger and reasoning (1 Tim 2:8).' And one is perhaps secured, thinking it possible to have a pure heart and unjust deeds. But anyone says the opposite of this, claiming it is possible to have 'just deeds and yet not' a pure heart, is one performing almsgiving in order to be seen by men, the practice of the heart appearing equal to the outward act. For thus will He take up your face just like pure water. He says, that...

Having been freed from every stain and injustice, you will have a face clean like water; it is clear he speaks of the soul. For the human, having been separated from every defilement, will truly show the 'according to the image' as pure and sincere. He will strip off filth and will not be afraid.

He moves without irregularity by the Word. For after saying 'he will lift up his face like clean water,' saying again 'he will strip off filth' is a great irregularity. However, he says this to mean that by making oneself supple toward purity, one will be freed from all filth so as to be fearless and no longer dread retribution. Likely he also says this to mean that after stripping off filth, he is fearless; for God, seeing 'the mind' and 'the hidden things,' does not punish such a person. For humans, while they are ignorant of the hidden, once they have come to know it and have received something, they are exposed and punished as having formerly sinned. But God, receiving the present virtue, forgets the former sins, just as the one who repents presents a face saying, 'Remember not our former iniquities' (Ps 103:12). And he will let the labor pass like a wave passing by and will not be tossed. He says that the labor of wounds, which they thought the holy one would suffer through sin, will be let pass and will easily pass like a wave without being tossed by it.

He says 'forgetfulness' clearly to mean not the total decay of memory, but the passing of pains; for so it has been said concerning the righteous: 'For their first tribulation shall pass upon them, and it shall not come up upon their heart' (2 Cor 4:8). 'For in the day of good things, there is an amnesty of evils' (Isa 65:17). And your prayer, like the morning star, and from midday, life rises for you. Following this, he says to those who have perished, that if you make yourself as pure that you do not even become filth, your prayer will shine like the morning star. This signifies to him that morning light, by which the brightness of virtue begins; thus the light will be as strong as its peak. Observe then, what he intends by 'life rises for you,' lest perhaps the virtue...