True Will and the Seat of Folly

Therefore there are also wombs, according to that which the soul or the mind brings forth; those he calls kidneys along with the named heart. 'You are near,' he says, 'to their mouth, but far from their kidneys' (Psalm 51:4). From these kidneys you are far, O God, not from the physical parts. Therefore I have directed my kidneys and my heart, test me (Psalm 51:6). I do not have seeds capable of bearing offspring, such as to become exalted children, destructive children, like those Judas had; for it is said: 'Let them be brought to destruction. Let there be no redeemer for him' (1 Samuel 2:9), nor a helper to his children, not concerning physical children. Perhaps we do not even know if he had children. He calls all the traitors of the truth his children. Just as Paul brings forth through the gospel, he brought forth through the betrayal of those from whom he came in order to hand over Jesus: 'What do you want me to give you, and I will hand him over to you?' (Matthew 26:25). Through this eagerness, he became the father of all the traitors of the truth. 'And I rejoiced in your truth' (Psalm 96:11). The one rejoicing in the truth of God is not ashamed of his words; for Jesus said: 'Whoever is ashamed of me and my words' (Mark 8:38). But if he himself is ashamed of the one being ashamed, the one speaking boldly and remaining in the truth and preferring it above all, he himself is a weakling; let him remain in him.

4 I did not sit with a seat of futility and with law-breakers, I will by no means enter. The evil and the good are not co-existing. The one having the good cannot partake of evil. The one having been set upon evil, insofar as he is evil, is unfit for virtue. And since abstaining from evil—when one, having a nature toward them, abstains from them by choice—the children do not have intemperance, but I do not say they abstain from intemperance. The soulless and the irrational do not have impiety; and I do not say they abstain from impiety; for abstaining is a volitional movement. In the first psalm, therefore, he blesses the man who is perfect according to the inner man: 'Blessed is the man who walked not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of scoffers' (Psalm 1:1). The sophist and deceiver can say that neither the child, nor the irrational, nor the soulless 'walked in the counsel of the ungodly and in...'

"He does not stand in the way of sinners, nor does he sit in the seat of mockers" (Ps 1:1). Denying the perfect man such things, he says: how can one abstain from these by having "his own will in the law of the Lord" (Ps 119:2)? For it is not possible for everyone to have "his own will in the law of the Lord." For those who think they do not sin by returning to the law only because they fear punishment, do not have "their own will in the law of the Lord." If indeed someone were to persuade them that there is no punishment, they would do everything that is forbidden. But he who has "his own will in the law of the Lord," even if a thousand trials and many punishments were hanging over him, does not depart from the will of the law. Such were the Maccabees, such were the witnesses of the truth among us.

Just as he does not previously say that the perfect man abstains from evils by having his own will in the law of the Lord, and having said the appropriate good things here, he then says what is forbidden and says: because I walked in integrity (Ps 26:4) and hoped in you, not having my mercy weak before your eyes, since I am such a person, "I did not sit with a seat of futility" (Ps 26:5). He did not distinguish the futility of the seat by anything other than being in such a life; for life is divided among men, not a place. Diligence divides the serious man from the base men, and knowledge separates the one who has it from the ignorant. So also here, the one who walked in integrity and having hope in God, and because of this being strong and not weak, "did not sit with a seat of futility" (Ps 26:5).

And here one might say: "the child and the irrational and the soulless did not sit with a seat of futility." But they did not sit with a seat of futility because of not being by nature, but because of walking in integrity and hoping in God. "And after those who transgress, I shall by no means enter" (Ps 26:6). I never consented with those who consult in vain and sit in council to do such things, nor did I enter after transgressors. I did not only not sit, but I did not even enter; for after the entrance, the sitting is that which is in the council. Jeremiah also was attaining to this choice and virtue, saying: "I did not sit with those playing, but I was reverent from the face of God" (Ps 26:6-7).