The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^3. But now ye do what? Why these things to you do I speak? “Because in heart iniquities ye work on earth”. Iniquities perchance in heart alone? Hear what follows: both their heart hands do follow, and their heart hands do serve, the thing is thought of, and it is done; or else it is not done, not because we would not, but because we could not, Whatever you will and canst not, for done God does count it. “For in heart Iniquities ye work on earth.” What next? “Iniquities your hands knit together.” What is, “knit together”? From sin, sin, and to sin, sin, because of sin. What is this? A theft a man has committed, a sin it is: he has been seen, he seeks to slay him by whom he has been seen: there has been knit together sin with sin: God has permitted him in His hidden judgment to slay that man whom he has willed to slay: he perceives that the thing is known, he seeks to slay a second also; he has knit together a third sin: while these things he is planning, perchance that he may not be found out, or that he may not be convicted of having done it, he consults an astrologer; there is added a fourth sin: the astrologer answers perchance with some hard and evil responses, he runs to a soothsayer, that expiation may be made; the soothsayer makes answer that he is not able to expiate: a magician is sought. And who could enumerate those sins which are knit together with sins? “Iniquities your hands do knit together.” So long as you knit together, you bind sin upon sin. Loose yourself from sins. But I am not able, you say. Cry to Him. “Unhappy man I, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” For there shall come the Grace of God, so that righteousness shall be your delight, as much as you delighted in iniquity; and you, a man that out of bonds has been loosed, shall cry out to God, “You have broken asunder my bonds.” “You have broken asunder my bonds,” is what else but, “You have remitted my sins”? Hear why chains they are: the Scripture makes answer, “with the chains of his sins each one is bound fast.” Not only bonds, but chains also they are. Chains are those which are made by twisting in: that is, because with sins sins you were knitting together....

4. “Alienated are sinners from the womb, they have gone astray from the belly, they have spoken false things”. And when iniquity they speak, false things they speak; because deceitful is iniquity: and when justice they speak, false things they speak; because one thing with mouth they profess, another thing in heart they conceal. “Alienated are sinners from the womb.” What is this? Let us search more diligently: for perhaps he is saying this, because God has foreknown men that are to be sinners even in the wombs of their mothers. For whence when Rebecca was yet pregnant, and in womb was bearing twins, was it said, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated”? For it was said, “The elder shall serve the younger.” Hidden at that time was the judgment of God: but yet from the womb, that is, from the very origin, alienated are sinners. Whence alienated? From truth. Whence alienated? From the blessed country, from the blessed life. Perchance alienated they are from the very womb. And what sinners have been alienated from the womb? For what men would have been born, if therein they had not been held? Or what men today would be alive to hear these words to no purpose, unless they were born? Perchance therefore sinners have been alienated from a certain womb, wherein that charity was suffering pains, which speaks through the Apostle, “Of whom again I am in labour, until Christ be formed in you.” Expect thou therefore; be formed: do not to yourself ascribe a judgment which perchance you know not. Carnal you are as yet, conceived you have been: from that very time when you have received the name of Christ, by a sort of sacrament you have been born in the bowels of a mother. For not only out of bowels a man is born, but also in bowels. First he is born in bowels, in order that he may be able to be born of bowels. Wherefore it has been said even to Mary, “For that which is born in you, is of the Holy Spirit.” Not yet of Her It had been born, but already in Her It had been born. Therefore there are born within the bowels of the Church certain little ones, and a good thing it is that being formed they should go forth, so that they drop not by miscarriage. Let the mother bear you, not miscarry. If patient you shall have been, even until you be formed, even until in you there be the sure doctrine of truth, the maternal bowels ought to keep you. But if by your impatience you shall have shaken the sides of your mother, with pain indeed she expels you out, but more to your loss than to hers.