The Utility of Divine Wisdom and the Vanity of Mind

I will keep your statutes of righteousness. He says it asks for understanding, and it is promised that this will not be unfruitful. For I will not only learn, he says, but I will also keep your statutes (Ps 118:10).

Akyllas says, 'Let me not be ignorant' toward what we are saying. One using desire regarding the law fears the lack of understanding, which turns the zeal of many into the opposite. And in those things in which they seem to be upright, they have stumbled according to that which is said by Solomon: 'There is a way that seems right to men, but its end comes into the pit of Sheol' (Prov 14:12). For understanding does not come immediately from memory, but from the divine illumination; and the statutes are those capable of justifying (Ps 118:12b).

Pride is the mother of lawlessness. For through this they do not endure to obey the commands of God, such as the disobedient people who say, 'We will not be ruled, nor will we come to you anymore.' This shows his own readiness toward obeying the commandments to God. For he understands the guilty, and he will rebuke those who are disobedient and unruly through pride.

He prays to flee from the ignominy which is before God, which the Lord shows to be most fearful, saying that those who have shamed Him will be shamed (Ps 118:22). The lawful man, pointing out the opposite of this, says here mocking, that they are not to depart from the study of the holy oracles and the correction through them, and shortly after, he says, 'I have spoken in your testimonies against kings, and I was not ashamed' (Ps 118:23); such is also Paul, saying, 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel' (Rom 1:16).

What he himself says is to be a sacrifice to God, a broken and humbled heart, he says has now been fulfilled, having brought the soul down as to the ground and having been humbled voluntarily, just as regarding involuntary humbling it is said, 'Our soul was humbled into dust, our womb clung to the earth' (Ps 29:9). Having brought himself as becomes a humble man, he seeks from God a reward: a life-conduct according to the law and life according to the word of God (Ps 118:25). And this very thing is humbling: not to set the good life upon oneself, but to seek it from God.

To do all things greatly as in the eyes of God and to say these things and to recount (Ps 118:26-27).

And to ask for a corrective or confirming revelation regarding these things, while there remains for him also the benefit to others by conversing with a more divine understanding and announcing the wonderful benefit which God has stored up for those doing what is holy. For he who teaches concerning righteousness also teaches concerning the end, which is laid up for it, being something wonderful and unexpected, that God greatly and beyond measure rewards. Paul also conversed concerning self-control and righteousness and the judgment that is to come, as the ruler becomes a terror. Instead of 'I will not wander,' one says 'Akylas will preach,' and the other 'Symmachus will explain.'

If the heart of man is carefully directed toward evil from youth, it is necessary that God, by moving it toward righteous commands—that is, by leading our choice toward economies and realities and the illumination of the Holy Spirit—intervene.

Vanity is the madness concerning visions, the contemplation concerning non-existent things, and the absurd fantasy according to the intellect, which Paul makes clear, saying, 'Being darkened in the vanity of their mind, having been alienated from the life of God' (Rom 1:21). See that 'vanity of mind' is called so when one has a mind and does not use it for the contemplation of the truths, but provides it to the binding Satan. This, therefore, he says, 'Turn my eyes away, lest I see vanity'; for this is by the grace of God. For in this way one will be able, having turned away from such an understanding, to live in the way of God, walking in it and making oneself alive by it; for at once to be the way is to be life. Therefore the Savior says, 'I am the way and the life' (John 14:6).

And since the Son is the righteousness of the Father, he says this regarding one desiring to live in the Son; for the righteousness of God is revealed in him from faith to faith (Rom 1:17).

He says only that it is sufficient for us to be comforted in afflictions to have the promise of true life; 'fulfill this for us.' For if in this life only we are hoping in Christ, we are more to be pitied than all men, because we suffer evil now and not in expectation of a life to come. But the life that is to come is a resuscitation, since the soul itself is not life, nor is it true life.