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temptation." But if Christ's apostles and the other righteous men besought this, not to be tempted, they were never heard, if indeed they speak the truth when they say: "afflicted in every way, but not crushed."

9 And you have not shut me up in the hand of the enemy. I am shut up in the hands of those who plot against me when I am overcome by necessities and afflictions. But when I am saved from them, I am not shut up in their hands, I do not do what they wish to bring against me.

9 You have set my feet in a broad place. This too must be understood in two ways. The way of life according to the earthly place and according to wickedness is said to be broad and spacious. And it is a great thing, being in this broad and spacious place, not to be dragged down but to stand. But the standing comes from God. Therefore he says thankfully: "You have set my feet in a broad place." My feet do not feel the affliction surrounding them. At least those 142 saying: "Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or distress?" will say: "You have set our feet in a broad place." Even if the place where we are, and the road on which we happen to be, is narrow, yet we see it as spacious, with you widening the affliction. You provide a broader road of affliction by helping.

10 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am afflicted. But you say that he also said: "You have set my feet in a broad place." This is so that the holy one may pray without ceasing; for there is not one affliction, for there is not one circumstance in life, for there is not one temptation. If, therefore, someone after beseeching is delivered from one or from some, he sees others lying in wait, and again he prays concerning those; for the things that are expected afflict him. Since he foresaw as a prophet? -Such things not even a prophet can foresee. I am in a place where there are many evil men. And they hate the righteous man who is there. And if they ever attack and bring on some struggle or trial and someone gets out of it, knowing their subsequent evil, he vigilantly expects something similar again; "For they will not," he says, "sleep, unless they do evil; their sleep is taken away and they do not rest." And having been delivered many times, he prays also for what is to come.

10 My eye is troubled by anger. My mind was troubled not by my own anger, but by the anger of my enemies or by your anger; for you are angry with sinners, and having sinned I fall under your anger and my mind is troubled.

10 My soul and my belly. Not only, he says, was my eye, that is, my mind, troubled by anger. This too is possible: "My eye was troubled in anger." When I am angry, my mind is troubled; for the passions are disturbing to the mind. And my soul too was troubled, of which the eye is that which was troubled by anger. "and my belly"; here he does not mean the belly of the body, but that which conceives from the bridegroom and gives birth; "by your fear we have conceived in the womb and have been in travail," so as no longer to preserve the things conceived, but to cast them out as miscarriages. This is also possible: since I was not nourished on the bread of heaven which makes the belly calm, but I took some other harmful, poisonous food, my belly too has been troubled. He does not, therefore, despair of salvation. Since the soul is troubled? -Some wish to say that the soul has three powers; but they say it is rather coarse and divisible. And they call its rational part the mind; for this is receptive of knowledge, this can have understanding. The desiderative part does not receive knowledge, but sometimes it obeys the rational part, it is compliant, but it does not itself have knowledge. And just as when the winds of the air blow favorably, the ship becomes compliant to the pilot, not having such a motion itself, but not opposing the art when the winds are not contrary, so too the desiderative part again obeys the rational part, not having reason itself. One would not be wrong, therefore, to call the rational part the mind. But all these coming together at once is the soul. And take

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πειρασμόν". εἰ δὲ τοῦτο παρεκάλουν οἱ Χριστοῦ ἀπόστολοι καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι δίκαιοι τὸ μὴ πειρασθῆναι, οὐδέποτε ἐπηκούσθησαν, εἴγε ἀληθεύουσιν λέγοντες· "ἐν παντὶ θλιβόμενοι, ἀλλ' οὐ στενοχωρούμενοι". 9 καὶ οὐ συνέκλεισάς με εἰς χεῖρας ἐχθροῦ. συνκλείομαι εἰς τὰς χεῖρας τῶν ἐπιβουλευόντων, ὅταν ἡττηθῶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀναγκῶν καὶ τῶν θλίψεων. ὅταν δὲ σωθῶ ἀπ' αὐτῶν, οὐ συνκλείομαι εἰς τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν, οὐ πράττω ὅπερ βούλονται κατ' ἐμοῦ ἐπαγαγεῖν. 9 ἔστησας ἐν εὐρυχώρῳ τοὺς πόδας μου. διχῶς καὶ τοῦτο νοητέον. ἡ ἀγωγὴ ἡ κατὰ τὸν περίγειον τόπον καὶ ἡ κατὰ κακίαν λέγεται πλατεῖα εἶναι καὶ εὐρύχωρος. μέγα δέ ἐστιν γενόμενον ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ πλατείᾳ καὶ εὐρυχώρῳ μὴ ὑποσυρῆναι ἀλλὰ στήκειν. ἡ στάσις δὲ παρὰ θεοῦ γίνεται. χαριστηρίως οὖν λέγει· "ἔστησας ἐν εὐρυχώρῳ τοὺς πόδας μου". οὐκ αἰσθάνονται οἱ πόδες μου θλίψεως περιεστηκυίας. οἱ 142 λέγοντες γοῦν· "τίς ἡμᾶς χωρίσει ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ θεοῦ; θλῖψις, στενοχωρία"; ἐροῦσιν· "ἔστησας ἐν εὐρυχώρῳ τοὺς πόδας" ἡμῶν. εἰ καὶ ὁ τόπος, ἐν ᾧ γεγόναμεν, καὶ ἡ ὁδός, ἐν ᾗ τυγχάνομεν, στενή ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ εὐρύχωρον αὐτὴν ὁρῶμεν σοῦ πλατύνοντος τὴν θλῖψιν. εὐρυτέραν ὁδὸν τῆς θλίψεως παρέχεις βοηθῶν. 10 ἐλέησόν με, κύριε, ὅτι θλίβομαι. ἀλλὰ λέγεις, ὅτι καὶ μὴν εἶπεν· "ἔστησας ἐν εὐρυχώρῳ τοὺς πόδας μου". ἵν' ὁ ἅγιος εὔχεται ἀδιαλείπτως· μὴ γὰρ ἕν ἐστιν θλιβηρόν, μὴ γὰρ μία περίστασίς ἐστιν ἐν τῷ βίῳ, μὴ γὰρ εἷς πειρασμός. ἐάν τις οὖν παρακαλέσας ῥυσθῇ ἀπό τινος ἢ ἀπό τινων, πάλιν ὁρᾷ ἄλλα ἐφεδρεύοντα, καὶ πάλιν περὶ ἐκείνων εὔχεται· θλίβουσιν γὰρ αὐτὸν τὰ προσδοκώμενα. ἐπερ · ὡς πρ̣οφήτης προεθεώρει; -τὰ τοιαῦτα μὲν καὶ οὐ προφήτης δύναται προθεωρεῖν. ἐν τόπῳ εἰμί, ἔνθα πολλοὶ κακοί εἰσιν. μισοῦσιν δὲ τὸν ἐκεῖ ὄντα δίκαιον. κἄν ποτε γοῦν ἐπιθῶνται καὶ προσαγάγωσίν τι πάλαισμα ἢ πειρατήριον καὶ γένηταί τις ἔξω αὐτοῦ, εἰδὼς αὐτῶν τὸ ἔπειτα κακὸν ἐπάγρυπνον προσδοκᾷ πάλιν τοιοῦτό τι· "οὐ γὰρ μή", λέγει, "ὑπνώσουσιν, ἐὰν μὴ κακοποιήσουσιν· ἀφῄρηται ὁ ὕπνος αὐτῶν καὶ οὐ κοιμῶνται". ῥυσθεὶς δὲ πολλάκις εὔχεται καὶ περὶ τῶν ἑξῆς. 10 ἐταράχθη ἀπὸ θυμοῦ ὁ ὀφθαλμός μου. ὁ νοῦς μου ἐταράχθη οὐκ ἐν θυμῷ τῷ ἐμῷ, ἀλλ' ἐν θυμῷ τῶν ἐχθρῶν ἢ ἐν θυμῷ τῷ σῷ· θυμοῦσαι γὰρ κατὰ τῶν ἁμαρτανόντων, καὶ ἁμαρτήσας ὑποπέσω τῷ θυμῷ καὶ ταραχθῇ μου ὁ νοῦς. 10 ἡ ψυχή μου καὶ ἡ γαστήρ μου. οὐ μόνος, φησίν, ὁ ὀφθαλμός μου, τουτέστιν ὁ νοῦς, ἐταράχθη ὑπὸ θυμοῦ. δύναται δὲ καὶ τοῦτο· "ἐν θυμῷ ἐταράχθη ὁ ὀφθαλμός μου". ὅτε θυμοῦμαι, ταράττεταί μου ὁ νοῦς· τὰ γὰρ πάθη ταρακτικά εἰσιν τοῦ νοῦ. καὶ ἡ ψυχή μου δὲ ἐταράχθη, ἧς ἐστιν ὁ ὀφθαλμὸς ὁ ταραχθεὶς ὑπὸ τοῦ θυμοῦ. "καὶ ἡ γαστήρ μου"· γαστέρα ὧδε οὐ τὴν τοῦ σώματος λέγει, ἀλλὰ τὴν συνλαμβάνουσαν ἀπὸ τοῦ νυμφίου καὶ τίκτουσαν· "ἀπὸ τοῦ φόβου σου ἐν γαστρὶ ἐλάβομεν καὶ ὠδινήσαμεν", ὥστε μηκέτι σῴζειν τὰ συνλημφθέντα, ἀλλὰ ἀμβλωθρίδια αὐτὰ ἀπορίπτειν. δύναται δὲ καὶ τοῦτο ὅτι· ἐπειδὴ τὸν γαλήνιον τὴν γαστέρα ποιοῦντα ἄρτον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ οὐκ ἐτράφην, ἀλλὰ ἄλλην τινὰ τροφὴν ἔλαβον βλαπτικήν, δηλητήριον, καὶ ἡ γαστήρ μου τετάρακται. οὐκ ἀφελπίζει οὖν τὴν σωτηρίαν. ἐπερ · τὴν ψυχὴν ταράττεσθαι; -τινὲς βούλονται λέγειν τὴν ψυχὴν τριδύναμον εἶναι· παχύτερον δὲ καὶ μεριστὴν αὐτὴν λέγουσιν. νοῦν δὲ αὐτῆς τὸ λογιστικὸν λέγουσιν· τοῦτο γὰρ ἐπιστήμης ἐστὶν δεκτικόν, τοῦτο γνῶσιν ἔχειν δύναται. τὸ επιθυμητικὸν οὐ δέχεται γνῶσιν, πείθεται δὲ ἐνίοτε τῷ λογιστικῷ, ἐπιπειθές ἐστιν, οὐκ αὐτὸ δὲ ἐπιστήμην ἔχει. καὶ ὥσπερ ὅταν τὰ πνεύματα τοῦ ἀέρος καλῶς πνέῃ, ἐπι πειθὲς γίνεται τῷ κυβερνήτῃ τὸ πλοῖον οὐκ ἔχον κίνησιν τοιαύτην, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἀντιταττόμενον τῇ τέχνῃ τῶν πνευμάτων μὴ ὄντων ἐναντίων, καὶ τὸ επιθυμητικὸν πάλιν πείθεται τῷ λογιστικῷ οὐκ αὐτὸ ἔχον λογισμόν. τὸ λογιστικὸν οὖν οὐκ ἄν τις ἁμάρτοι νοῦν λέγων. ὅλα δὲ ἅμα συνελθόντα ἡ ψυχή ἐστιν. καὶ λάβε