Caput 24. Quod nihil sine Dei gratia possimus.
I Will Hope in You Alone
The speaker confesses that he cannot rely on his own strength but only on God's mercy, acknowledging human frailty and God's gentle nature.
But I, the work of your hands, confess to you in the fear of you, because I will not put my hope in my bow, and my sword will not save me (Ps.✦ 43:7), but your right hand and your arm and the light of your face.1 Otherwise I would despair, except that you are my hope, you who created me, and you will not abandon me, because you do not abandon those who hope in you. For you are, Lord our God, kind and gentle, patient, and ordering all things in mercy (Wis.2 11:21). And if we have sinned, we are yours; and if we have not sinned, we know that we are counted as yours before you.3 We are a leaf of all creation, and every living human being is vanity (Ps.✦✦4 38:6), and our life on earth is a wind (Job 7:7): do not be angry if we fall, your orphaned children, because you know our frame (Ps.✦5
Pleading for Mercy
The speaker asks why God would condemn such weak creatures as a leaf or a flea, and appeals to God's mercy, which does not desire death.
102:14), Lord our God. Will you, God of immeasurable strength, show your power against a leaf the wind snatches away, and chase dry stubble (Job 13:25)? Will you condemn, eternal King of Israel — will you condemn a single flea (1 Kings6 24:15)? We have heard of your mercy, Lord, for you do not make death, nor do you rejoice in the ruin of those who are dying (Wis. 1:13). For your own sake we pray to you: do not let what you did not make rule over this creature you made.7 If you grieve over ruin, what keeps you, Lord — you who can do all things — from always rejoicing in our salvation?8
Without Your Grace, I Can Do Nothing
The speaker acknowledges that even the will to do good requires God's grace, and ends with a prayer that God's will be done and that he be delivered from death.
If you will, you can save me; but I, even if I want to, cannot — so great is the multitude of my miseries with me. For the will is at hand for me, but to carry it out I do not find (Rom. 7:18). But I cannot will what is good unless you will it; nor can I do what I will unless your power strengthens me; and what I can do, I sometimes refuse, unless your will is done as in heaven so on earth; and what I will and can do, I do not know, unless your wisdom enlightens me. And even if I know, sometimes unwilling, sometimes unable, my wisdom passes away incomplete and empty, unless I am helped by your true wisdom. But all things are subject to your will, and there is no one who can resist your will, Lord of all, who rules over all flesh; and whatever you will, you do in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in all the deeps. Therefore let your will be done in us, over whom your name has been called; do not let this noble creation of yours perish, which you created for your honor.9 And who is the man born of woman who lives and does not see death, and snatches his soul from the hand of the underworld, unless you alone snatch him away, living Life of every life, through whom all things live?
Read the original Latin
Ego autem opus manuum tuarum confiteor tibi in timore tuo, quia non in arcu meo sperabo, et gladius meus non salvabit me (Psal. XLIII, 7), sed dextera tua et brachium tuum et illuminatio vultus tui. Alioquin desperarem, nisi quia spes mea es tu qui creasti me, et non derelinques me, quoniam non derelinquis sperantes in te. Tu quippe es, Domine Deus noster, suavis et mitis, patiens et in misericordia disponens omnia (Sap. XI, 21). Et nos si peccaverimus, tui sumus: et si non peccaverimus, scimus quoniam apud te sumus computati. Nos folium universi, et vanitas omnis homo vivens (Psal. XXXVIII 6), et ventus est vita nostra super terram (Job VII, 7): ne irascaris si cadimus pupilli tui, quoniam tu nosti figmentum nostrum (Psal.
CII, 14), Domine Deus noster. Num, Deus inaestimabilis fortitudinis, contra folium quod vento rapitur ostendere vis potentiam tuam, et stipulam siccam persequi (Job XIII, 25)? num damnabis, rex Israel aeterne, num damnabis pulicem unum (I Reg. XXIV, 15)? Audivimus de misericordia tua, Domine, quoniam tu mortem non facis, nec laetaris in perditione morientium (Sap. I, 13). Propter te oramus te, ne permittas dominari quod non fecisti huic creaturae tuae quam fecisti. Si doles de perditione; quid te prohibet Domine, qui omnia potes, ne semper laeteris de nostra salvatione?
Si vis, potes me salvare: ego autem etsi velim non possum, tam magna est multitudo miseriarum mearum mecum. Velle quippe mihi adjacet, perficere autem non invenio (Rom. VII, 18). Velle autem quod bonum est non possum, nisi tu velis; nec quod volo possum, nisi tua potentia me confortet; et quod possum, aliquando nolo, nisi tua voluntas fiat sicut in coelo et in terra; et quod volo et possum, ignoro, nisi tua sapientia me illustret. Et si sciam, quandoque nolens, quandoque non valens, imperfecta et vacua transit sapientia mea, nisi adjuver a vera sapientia tua. In tua autem voluntate cuncta sunt posita, et non est qui possit resistere voluntati tuae, Domine universorum, principatum tenens omnis carnis: et quaecumque vis, facis in coelo et in terra, in mari et in omnibus abyssis. In nobis igitur fiat voluntas tua, super quibus invocatum est nomen tuum; ne pereat hoc nobile plasma tuum, quod creasti propter honorem tuum. Et quis est homo natus de muliere, qui vivat et non videat mortem, et eripiat animam suam de manu inferi, nisi tu solus eripias, vita vitalis omnis vitae, per quem omnia vivunt?
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.44.7 — For I do not trust in my bow, and my sword will not save me.
- ↩Ps.39.6 — Surely you have made my days a mere handbreadth, and my lifetime is as nothing before you; surely every person, standing at their strongest, is only a breath. Selah.
- ↩Isa.64.6 — And there is no one who calls on your name, who rouses themselves to hold fast to you; for you have hidden your face from us, and you have dissolved us by the power of our iniquity.
- ↩Ps.102.14 — You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show her favor — yes, the appointed time has come.
Notes
- 1 ↩Elliptical continuation after the Psalm citation: the contrast implies that God's right hand, arm, and face-light save, not the speaker's weapons; verb of saving is understood from s1.
- 2 ↩Wording is very close to Vulgate Sap. 15:1 (suavis et verus...), but the supplied citation opens Sap. and closes in s5 as XI, 21; mitis appears here instead of verus.
- 3 ↩apud te sumus computati rendered as 'counted as yours before you'; could also be 'reckoned in your presence'.
- 4 ↩folium universi kept as the compact biblical image 'a leaf of all creation' (cf. Isaiah's folium universi); not paraphrased away.
- 5 ↩pupilli tui rendered 'your orphaned children' (wards under a guardian Father); figmentum nostrum as 'our frame' (how we are formed).
- 6 ↩Vulgate I Reg. = 1 Samuel in common modern Protestant numbering; the flea image is David's to Saul.
- 7 ↩quod non fecisti likely names death/evil/nothingness as not God's creature, set over against the creature God did make.
- 8 ↩prohibet ... ne is taken as the standard 'prevent from' construction: what prevents you from always rejoicing, not a negative purpose against rejoicing.
- 9 ↩Latin plasma (formed/molded work) rendered as "creation"; it stresses God-fashioned creaturehood more than abstract creatureliness.
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