Psalms 4:3

And again by Isaiah, “Who shall measure heaven with a span, and the whole earth with his hand?” Behold God’s greatness, and be filled with amazement. Let us worship Him of whom the prophet says, “Before Thy face the hills shall melt, as wax melteth before the fire!” This, says he, is the God “whose throne is heaven, and His footstool the earth; and if He open heaven, quaking will seize thee.” Will you hear, too, what this prophet says of idols? “And they shall be made a spectacle of in the face of the sun, and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and the wild beasts of the earth; and they shall putrefy before the sun and the moon, which they have loved and served; and their city shall be burned down.” He says, too, that the elements and the world shall be destroyed. …

2. In those years I taught the art of rhetoric, and, overcome by cupidity, put to sale a loquacity by which to overcome. Yet I preferred, Lord, Thou knowest, to have honest scholars (as they are esteemed); and these I, without artifice, taught artifices, not to be put in practise against the life of the guiltless, though sometimes for the life of the guilty. And Thou, O God, from afar sawest me stumbling in that slippery path, and amid much smoke sending out some flashes of fidelity, which I exhibited in that my guidance of such as loved vanity and sought after leasing, I being their companion. …

1. Hear, O Donatists, what the Catholic Church says to you: “O ye sons of men, how long will ye be slow of heart? why will ye love vanity, and follow after lies?” Why have you severed yourselves, by the heinous impiety of schism, from the unity of the whole world? You give heed to the falsehoods concerning the surrendering of the divine books to persecutors, which men who are either deceiving you, or are themselves deceived, utter in order that you may die in a state of heretical separation: and you do not give heed to what these divine books themselves proclaim, in order that you may live in the peace of the Catholic Church. Wherefore do you lend an open ear to the words of men who tell you things which they have never been able to prove, and are deaf to the voice of God speaking thus: “The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. …

3. “O ye sons of men, how long heavy in heart” ( ver. 2 ). Let your error, says he, have lasted at least up to the coming of the Son of God; why then any longer are ye heavy in heart? When will ye make an end of crafty wiles, if now when the truth is present ye make it not? “Why do ye love vanity, and seek a lie?” Why would ye be blessed by the lowest things? Truth alone, from which all things are true, maketh blessed. For, “vanity is of deceivers, and all is vanity.” “What profit hath a man of all his labour, wherewith he laboureth under the sun?” Why then are ye held back by the love of things temporal? Why follow ye after the last things, as though the first, which is vanity and a lie? For you would have them abide with you, which all pass away, as doth a shadow.

15. That thirst of the Church, would fain drink up that man also whom ye see. At the same time also, in order that ye may know how many in the mixed multitude of Christians with their mouth do bless, and in their heart curse, this man having been a Christian and a believer returneth as a penitent, and being terrified by the power of the Lord, turneth him to the mercy of the Lord. For having been led astray by the enemy when he was a believer, long time he hath been an astrologer, led astray, leading astray, deceived, deceiving, he hath allured, hath beguiled, many lies he hath spoken against God, That hath given to men power of doing that which is good, and of not doing that which is evil. …

3. “How long will ye judge unrighteously, and accept the persons of the ungodly” ( ver. 2 ); as in another place, “How long are ye heavy in heart?” Until He shall come who is the light of the heart? I have given a law, ye have resisted stubbornly: I sent Prophets, ye treated them unjustly, or slew them, or connived at those who did so. But if they are not worthy to be even spoken to, who slew the servants of God that were sent to them, ye who were silent when these things were doing, that is, ye who would imitate as if they were innocent those who then were silent, “how long will ye judge unrighteously, and accept the persons of the ungodly?” If the Heir comes even now, is He to be slain? Was He not willing for your sake to become as it were a child under guardians? Did not He for your sake hunger and thirst like one in need? Did He not cry to you, “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly o …

36. “O remember what my substance is” ( ver. 47 ). That David, who was placed among the Jews in the flesh, in Christ in hope, speaks “Remember what is my substance.” For not because the Jews fell away, did my substance fail: for from that people came the Virgin Mary, and from her the flesh of Christ; that Flesh sins not, but purifies sins; there, saith David, is my substance. “O remember what my substance is.” For the root has not entirely perished; the seed shall come to whom the promise was made, ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator. “For Thou hast not made all the sons of men for nought” ( ver. 47 ). Lo! all the sons of men have gone into vanity: yet Thou hast not made them for nought. …

27. “Though they curse, yet bless Thou” ( ver. 27 ). Vain therefore and false is the cursing of the sons of men, that have pleasure in vanity, and seek a lie; but when God blesseth, He doth what He saith. “Let them be confounded that rise up against me.” For their imagining that they have some power against Me, is the reason that they rise up against Me; but when I shall have been exalted above the heavens, and My glory shall have commenced spreading over the whole earth, they shall be confounded. “But Thy servant shall rejoice:” either on the right hand of the Father, or in His members when they rejoice, both in hope among temptations, and after temptations for evermore.