The Nature of Divine Evils and the Shadow of Death

He led me on the paths of righteousness because of his name (Ps 23:3). This was not so much because of my own worth, but because of his own designation he provided this for me; for even if someone runs toward good things and has a desire for them, if God does not show mercy, the things being striven for are not achieved.

Likewise also in the 118th Psalm it is said: 'I have run the path of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart' (Ps 118:32). Because you enlarged my heart and gave breadth to my understanding, I have run the path of the way of your commandments. Therefore, through God, the things being striven for are always achieved. For he created the rational beings so that they might share in his designation.

And by designation I mean not a collection of syllables joined together, but a designation showing the quality of the one named; here is how a name is defineds a principal designation representing the specific quality of the one named.' And this is especially true of a nickname. One is called 'wise' from wisdom, and it does not have a mere designation, not one consisting of syllables joined together, but one declaring the quality which wisdom provided to the soul. A principal designation is therefore the name that is primarily representing the quality of the one named.

So if you say 'man,' it is representing the quality of a man—and by quality here I mean the specific identity—for you have said the specific quality of the one named. And the specific quality of a man is manliness; for if you were to say another quality, others would share in it; it would not be specific. Let it be said that someone is a disciple of a physician, but he knows nothing of medicine; he does not have the quality of medicine, and he is a reproach to the one who taught him medicine when he knows nothing of it nor practices it.

For even if I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will not fear evils, because you are with me (Ps 23:4). Since 'because of his name' he 'restored my soul' (Ps 23:3), he is with me. And since he is with me, driving away every evil, not even the shadow of death approaches me.

But 'evils' is said in two ways in Scripture, and perhaps also in common usage. The opposites of virtue, the kinds of wickedness, are called evils; as if one says: 'In the laughter of a fool, he does wrong,' and: 'Turn away from evil and do good.' But they also call unpleasant things evils, since men call pleasant things good.

The good things. And even if they are good things for men, they are not truly good. For this reason, even toward the rich, Abraham said: 'You have taken the good things for yourself.' If he were speaking about the 61 virtues, he would not have said: 'the good things for yourself.' 'The Lord will give good things to those asking him.' He did not say: 'their good things.' For when Job says: 'If we have received good things from the Lord, shall we not also receive evil?' (Job 2:10), he says 'evil' regarding the plague, the most pitiable death of children, and other things.

But it appears most clearly from Isaiah, the prophet saying thus concerning God: 'And he himself was wise to bring evils upon them' (Isa 59:21). Even for a wise man it is not easy to bring the kinds of evils that are the 40 evils, how much less for God. Indeed, even the wicked, when they pretend virtue, do not say: 'we are bringing evil to someone.' But it is said concerning God that as a wise one he brings evils. He speaks of things that are harmful. And he views the end of the bringing of evils: 'and his word shall by no means be set aside.'

On account of his word not being set aside, he brings difficult things; for they heard by a commanding word what they must do and what they must abstain from, but they despised this word, and as much as reached their misery, was set aside; so he brings evils, so that his word might not be set aside. And medical surgery and cauterization, bringing health to the one suffering these things, are not evils.

But he speaks here of a shadow, not that one which we say the law has—'for the law has a shadow of the things that are to come' (Col 2:17)—but here he speaks of a shadow standing in the way of death. And sin stands in the way of death. And now I say death, not the common one. See: the painters, before the images and the forms, draw in shadow. And that shadow is the beginning of the image. Therefore death has a shadow, namely sin. And this prefigures and demonstrates death.

For if I become in the midst of the shadow of death, I do not fear it. Such as Joseph, how much, at the exhortation desiring to seduce him into immorality, he became in the midst of the shadow of death, and he did not fear evil, and that did not seize him. But: is the shadow the one in the midst? Since the word is not concerning common death, neither was it necessary to think of its shadow in this way; for just as that which you say is a prefiguration, being a certain sensible thing, shall be seen.