The Cry of the Gentiles and the Wages of Sin

He will fear lest he fall before the one judging in righteousness and uprightness because of false deeds and an impious mindset; for the judgment of him will be inescapable. This is shown by the expression 'at an acceptable time God heard you' (Ps 9:10), and by the first Psalm: 'Arising, you will have mercy on Zion' (Ps 9:11)—what a time to have mercy, what a time that is.

Having ascended above all human confidence (for having knowledge of your name they have strong and complete trust), they will hope for nothing of those things; but those who want all things from him seek God, wanting to exist not from themselves, and they are not abandoned by him. It is fitting to hear this word piously and wisely. For if anyone thinks that he who prospers in worldly things is not abandoned by God, he errs. For many impious people live thus. It is not to say that Abel was abandoned (for he was slain), but also the prophets and apostles; for they were continually afflicted, and in the end most of them were slain by men. Because of this distinction, we do not say that one held until the last breath is not abandoned by God, even if he suffers myriad times from enemies. For this is truly the not being abandoned by the Lord. The manner in which one must seek God is shown by those having such wisdom: 'Think about the Lord with goodness, and seek him with a simple heart, who is found by those not testing him, but is revealed to those not being unfaithful to him' (Ps 9:12–13).

Those who have practiced singing with spirit and mind are commanded to sing a hymn, but they do not sing thus with pious understanding and thought of the spirit; for they are commanded to sing even dreadfully and to sing with the heart. Those who do not sing thus to the Lord dwelling in Zion according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit receive another command toward him in the...

To announce to the nations his excellencies. These are, namely, what he marvelously did having arrived, both intelligible and sensible things. And the second command is said especially to the apostles having been sent, to disciple all the nations. And what they seek, their souls remembered those having been snatched away by the fiery arrows of the evil one.

By these, he says, the 'He did not forget the cry of the poor' is applied, so that no one will be at a loss saying: how did the poor from the nations cry to God, even though having been snatched away by the prevailing many-minded deception and by the invisible enemies working it? It must truly be said to bring up their cry, just as the blood of Abel cries to God and the reward having been deprived of the workers; for he says, 'Behold, the reward of those who have not sown your lands cries out, that which has been deprived from you' (Ps 9:13).

And another understanding is said; not entirely the same as those from the nations, of whom the souls remembered, the poor are those of whom the benefactor did not forget the voice. For they are not able to be those concerning the nations having prophetically pre-announced, of whom one says, 'Those from the ends of the earth' (Ps 72:32) and the other, 'All the nations, all that you have done, shall worship before you' (Ps 86:9). And the poor are also in these, it is said, those lacking much of the wealth of divinity and of the divine knowledge; for they were partially prophesying in the end.

Regarding that one being below death, it is not written, 'Death swallowed up by strength' (Ps 88:4); the enemies make those being humbled by it to become, either through maltreatment or through sinning. From this death and from the humbling upon it, it is possible to be outside by the mercy of God. For he who is concerning these things and suffering to the world, finding himself in humbling, if he should receive...