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the instrument is a subject for melody, but of the opposite things. The calamity is greater, when I have used the same thing for opposite purposes. The instrument becomes for me a reminder of my former prosperity.” For the ancients used music when they sang psalms. From this it is clear to us that it existed before Moses; for there was a psalm after him, but before him in no way.

31,1a I made a covenant with my eyes, 1b and I will not look upon a virgin.

31,2a and God has appointed from above, 2b and an inheritance of the Mighty One from the Most High. 31,3a Woe and destruction to the unjust 3b and estrangement to those who work iniquity. 31,4a Shall he not himself see my way, 4b and shall not all my steps be numbered? 31,5a If I have, he says, walked with jesters, 5b or if indeed my foot has hastened to deceit. Oh, the precision! "No one can say, no one can, that having misused my former wealth and goods for laziness and profligacy, I am paying this penalty and I have been changed, with God having applied to me a suitable medicine.” For one might reasonably place someone fond of laughter and given to luxury and fond of games into the opposite condition, having delivered him to a certain mournful and lamenting life. But as for the one who even before this was fleeing revels and shunning playful men and jesters, 159 what reason could there be for him to fall into a gloomy and dejected life? Do you see that the words of the psalm were fulfilled also in his case, "and rejoice in him with trembling"? And yet, though he set a lavish table and enjoyed great prosperity and lived continually in luxury, he suffered nothing like what the race of the Hebrews did in one day. He did not say: "If I laughed," but "If I walked with these." "I did not even share the same path," he says. And yet what law forbade this? Or if my foot has hastened to deceit. "No one can say," he says, "that while I did not pursue laziness and dissipation and this lax life, being hardened and austere I fell into the vices that differ from that life, I mean wickedness and deceit, but I stood far apart from both kinds of wickedness alike. 31,6a For I am standing in a just balance. "My life partakes of such great precision even in small things, as much righteousness as the scales have, not even the smallest thing has been neglected by me. Of these things I do not call a man as witness," he says, "one who is able to show favor, one who is ignorant of many things, but God who knows precisely even all the secret things, from whom none of our affairs can be hidden.” 31,6b But the Lord, he says, knows my innocence. 31,7a If my foot has turned aside from his way, 7b or if indeed my heart has followed my eye. This is still a small thing, but it is great indeed as in those times, and perhaps also as in the present. For not even to desire is a great thing, 160 and no less than this is it, having received the desire, not to add the deed. But going on he says something even greater than this, that not even his eyes suffered any such thing. 31,7c and if I have touched gifts with my hands,- and he calls God as a witness and curses himself. 31,8a Let me sow, he says, and let others eat 8b and may I become rootless upon the earth. 31,9a If my heart has gone after another man's wife, 9b or if I have even lain in ambush at her doors, 31,10a then may my wife also please another, 10b and may my infants be humbled. He did not say: "my eye," but "not even my heart." "I did not even allow my thought," he says, "ever to be corrupted, much less my body.” Which is what Christ says: He who has looked at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 31,11a For it is the fury of unrestrainable wrath 11b to defile a man's wife. 31,12a For it will be a fire burning on all sides; 12b and wherever it enters, it destroys from the roots. But for what reason does he also explain the punishment? "I knew," he says, "the magnitude of the injustice, I considered precisely the excessiveness of the outrage.” which if we too experienced, we would not have sinned. The greedy man, if the

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μελῳδίας ἐστὶν ὑπόθεσις τὸ ὄργανον, ἀλλὰ τῶν ἐναντίων. μείζων ἡ συμφορά, ὅταν τῇ αὐτῇ πρὸς τὰ ἐναντία κέχρημαι. ὑπόμνησίς μοι τὸ ὄργανον τῆς παλαιᾶς εὐπραγίας γίνεται.» τῇ γὰρ μουσικῇ ἐχρῶντο οἱ παλαιοὶ ψάλλοντες. ἐντεῦθεν ἡμῖν δῆλον, ὅτι πρὸ τοῦ Μωσέως ἦν· ψαλμὸς γὰρ ἦν μετ' ἐκεῖνον, πρὸ ἐκείνου δὲ οὐδαμῶς.

31,1a διαθήκην ἐθέμην τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς μου, 1b καὶ οὐ συνήσω ἐπὶ παρθένον.

31,2a καὶ ἐπεμέρισεν ὁ θεὸς ἄνωθεν, 2b καὶ κληρονομία ἱκανοῦ ἐξ ὑψίστου. 31,3a οὐαὶ καὶ ἀπώλεια τῷ ἀδίκῳ 3b καὶ ἀπαλλοτρίωσις τοῖς ποιοῦσιν ἀνομίαν. 31,4a οὐχὶ αὐτὸς ὄψεται ὁδόν μου, 4b καὶ πάντα τὰ διαβήματά μου ἀριθμηθήσεται; 31,5a εἰ δὲ ἤμην, φησίν, πεπορευμένος μετὰ γελοιαστῶν, 5b εἴ γε καὶ ἐσπούδασεν εἰς δόλον ὁ πούς μου. βαβαὶ τῆς ἀκριβείας. «οὐκ ἔχει τις εἰπεῖν, οὐκ ἔχει, ὅτι τῷ πλούτῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς τοῖς ἔμπροσθεν εἰς ῥαθυμίαν καὶ διάχυσιν ἀποχρησάμενος ταύτην τιννύω τὴν δίκην καὶ μεταβέβλημαι τοῦ θεοῦ κατάλληλόν μοι φάρμακον ἐπιθέντος.» τὸν μὲν γὰρ φιλογέλωτα καὶ τρυφῇ προσεσχηκότα καὶ φιλοπαίγμονα εἰκότως ἄν τις εἰς τὴν ἐναντίαν καταστήσειεν ἕξιν γοερῷ τινι καὶ πολυθρήνῳ παραδοὺς αὐτὸν βίῳ. τὸν δὲ καὶ πρὸ τούτου φεύγοντα μὲν κώμους, διώκοντα δὲ ἀνθρώπους παίζοντας καὶ γελωτοποιοῦντας 159 ποῖος ἂν ἔχοι λόγος ἐμπεσεῖν εἰς σκυθρωπὸν καὶ κατηφῆ βίον; ὁρᾷς, ὅτι τὸ τοῦ ψαλμοῦ καὶ ἐπὶ τούτου ἐπληροῦτο τὸ καὶ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε αὐτῷ ἐν τρόμῳ; καίτοι πολυτελῆ παρατιθεὶς τράπεζαν καὶ πολλῆς ἀπολαύων εὐετηρίας καὶ τρυφῇ συζῶν διηνεκεῖ οὐδὲν τοιοῦτον ἔπαθεν, οἷον ἐν ἡμέρᾳ μιᾷ τῶν Ἑβραίων τὸ γένος. οὐκ εἶπεν· «εἰ ἐγέλασα», ἀλλ' «εἰ ἐπορεύθην μετὰ τούτων». «οὐδὲ τῆς αὐτῆς ὁδοῦ», φησίν, «ἐκοινώνησα.» καίτοι ποῖος τοῦτο ἀπηγόρευσε νόμος; εἰ δὲ καὶ ἐσπούδασεν εἰς δόλον ὁ πούς μου. «οὐκ ἔχει τις εἰπεῖν», φησίν, «ὅτι ῥαθυμίαν μὲν καὶ διάχυσιν καὶ τὸν ὑγρὸν τοῦτον οὐκ ἐδίωκον βίον, κατεσκληκὼς δὲ ὢν καὶ κατεστυμμένος ἐπὶ τὰς διαφερούσας ἐκείνῳ τῷ βίῳ κακίας κατέπεσον, πονηρίαν λέγω καὶ δόλον, ἀλλ' ἑκατέρας ὁμοίως τῆς πονηρίας ἀπέστην μακράν. 31,6a ἵσταμαι γὰρ ἐν ζυγῷ δικαίῳ. «τοσαύτης ἀκριβείας ὁ βίος μου μετέχει καὶ ἐν τοῖς μικροῖς, ὅσης δικαιοσύνης τὰ ζυγά, οὐδὲ τὸ μικρότατόν μοι παρημέληται. τούτων οὐκ ἄνθρωπον καλῶ μάρτυρα», φησίν, «τὸν καὶ χαρίσασθαι δυνάμενον, τὸν καὶ ἀγνοοῦντα πολλά, ἀλλὰ τὸν καὶ τὰ ἀπόρρητα μετὰ ἀκριβείας ἐπιστάμενον ἅπαντα θεόν, ὃν οὐδὲν δύναται τῶν ἡμετέρων λαθεῖν.» 31,6b οἶδε δὲ ὁ κύριος, φησίν, τὴν ἀκακίαν μου. 31,7a εἰ ἐξέκλινεν ὁ πούς μου ἀπὸ τῆς ὁδοῦ αὐτοῦ, 7b εἰ δὲ καὶ τῷ ὀφθαλμῷ μου ἐπηκολούθησεν ἡ καρδία μου. ἔτι τοῦτο μικρόν, μέγα μὲν οὖν ὡς ἐν ἐκείνοις τοῖς χρόνοις, τάχα δὲ καὶ ὡς ἐν τοῖς παροῦσιν. τὸ μὲν γὰρ μηδὲ ἐπιθυμῆσαι μέ160 γα, καὶ τούτου δὲ οὐκ ἔλαττον τὸ δεξαμένους τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν μὴ προσθεῖναι τὴν πρᾶξιν. προϊὼν δὲ καὶ τὸ τούτου μεῖζόν φησιν, ὅτι οὐδὲ οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ἔπαθόν τι τοιοῦτον. 31,7c καὶ εἰ ἐν ταῖς χερσί μου ἡψάμην δώρων,- καὶ τὸν θεὸν μάρτυρα καλεῖ καὶ ἐπαρᾶται ἑαυτῷ. 31,8a σπείραιμι, φησίν, καὶ ἄλλοι φάγονται 8b ἄρριζός τε γενοίμην ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. 31,9a εἰ ἐξηκολούθησεν ἡ καρδία μου γυναικὶ ἀνδρὸς ἑτέρου, 9b εἰ δὲ καὶ ἐγκάθετος ἐγενόμην ἐπὶ θύραις αὐτῆς, 31,10a ἀρέσαι ἄρα καὶ ἡ γυνή μου ἄλλῳ, 10b τὰ δὲ νήπιά μου ταπεινωθείη. οὐκ εἶπεν· "ὁ ὀφθαλμός μου", ἀλλ' "οὐδὲ ἡ καρδία μου". «οὐδὲ τὴν διάνοιάν μου», φησίν, «εἴασα διαφθαρῆναί ποτε, μή τί γε τὸ σῶμα.» ὅπερ φησὶν ὁ Χριστός· ὁ ἐμβλέψας γυναικὶ πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτὴν ἤδη ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ. 31,11a θυμὸς γὰρ ὀργῆς ἀκάθεκτος 11b τὸ μιᾶναι ἀνδρὸς γυναῖκα. 31,12a πῦρ γὰρ ἔσται καιόμενον ἐκ πάντων τῶν μερῶν· 12b οὗ δ' ἂν εἰσέλθῃ, ἐκ ῥιζῶν ἀπώλεσεν. τίνος δὲ ἕνεκεν καὶ τὴν τιμωρίαν ἐξηγεῖται; «ᾔδειν», φησίν, «τῆς ἀδικίας τὸ μέγεθος, ἐπεσκεψάμην ἀκριβῶς τῆς ἐπηρείας τὴν ὑπερβολήν.» ὅπερ εἰ καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐπάσχομεν, οὐκ ἂν ἡμάρτομεν. ὁ πλεονέκτης, εἰ τὴν