The stain of earthly existence

He moves to the assumption regarding friends. For since it is assumed that those sinning follow the evil-doers to fall into bad circumstances, and that dying is worse for all according to life-lovers, he asks them: 'Since I am impious according to you, why did I not die?' In order that in the question he might provide them with an understanding, that there is some other cause bringing about the secondary things. And he does the same in other matters, asking again: 'Why do the impious live, having been prospered even in wealth, their seed according to the soul, and their cattle not having failed to calve?' In order that he might also instruct through these, he seeks the existing causes from God of the things happening to men, which are secondary and pleasant. For many times the wicked have remained in what are considered prosperities, as Solomon said of them, that—as even the blessed Job says, that 'even in the sleep of Hades they rested' (Job 3:13). For if I should wash myself with snow and cleanse myself with clean hands, you have sufficiently dyed me in filth, and my clothing has become loathsome to me. Again, so that we might not think him a deceiver, he says these things, that even if I am pure in such a waygh manifest deeds, which he named hands, cleansing myself, I have again filth; concerning which it is to be sought, comparing the similar to the spoken: 'No one is clean from filth, nor even for one hour is his life upon the earth.' And 'the mind of men is carefully set upon evil from youth' (Psalm 143:10), which shows the character that is youthful, just as it was said to someone not to receive a new listener. These things, then, trouble those who have nothing set upon this life; for how is the one now formed not unclean? And it must be understood sensibly that the sin of succession according to Adam is to be taken, which is brought forward by them incoherently. For even the saints, even if they have not come into life for the sake of anything else, have the filth in childhood age, which is not sin. According to this it was said concerning Samuel: 'And Samuel before knowing God' (1 Samuel 3:7). And the child was not knowing God, not because of malice, but because he had not the knowledge of the word. And you will sensibly understand 'all have sinned' (Romans 3:23) if you take those according to ignorance, those according to childhood age. And let it be by example: one being at the hundredth degree reaching the hundredth, if he descends three, one would say he is seeing the one beginning from...

The one who went from the first to the third is not being reproached. He who submitted the hundred, even if he did not depart from the ranks, is indeed in some filth. For Job says that even if he is pure, he has filth, and not a small filth, but something like a dye.

For it is not only through sin that one comes into this life, but also through the benefit of others, as one carries John or Jeremiah; therefore he says that even if he is pure through his deeds, he still has filth. For filth, in relation to pure life, is not the earthly place itself, but as it is said: 'All our righteousness is as a filthy garment before you, Lord' (Isa 64:6). Which the Lord washes according to what is said in Isaiah: 'The Lord will wash the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from their midst' (Isa 1:16). Filth, then, might be the unintentional things, but blood is that which is done by intention.

By what is he washed? Either 'by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning,' the spirit of judgment revealing discernment and the spirit of burning revealing punishment? Both work a correction. Because of this, he says, 'she has loathed me, my garment,' alluding to the weight of the stay here; which is also shown by 'hating even the tunic defiled by the flesh,' which is the mixing with those from among humans. He says, therefore, that she hated the human intercourse which he had.

That the garment signifies the state is clear from what was said to the prodigal by the father: 'Bring out his first garment' (Luke 15:22). And that the blood signifies sin is evident from what was said to the devil: 'In what way a garment stained in blood will not be clean, so also you will not be clean.' Through being stained in blood, the magnitude of the evil is shown. The blessed one should not be surprised that he says one thing toward friends and another toward God. For he encountered opposition when, speaking to the same person, he confessed himself both righteous and a sinner. Therefore, toward God, with moderation, he says he is stained with filth in relation to His own purity, but toward men he converses differently, saying: 'I know that I shall appear righteous.' That the saints use such a kind of speech can also be learned from the letters of Paul.