How admirably Psa. 38Ps. xxxix. [xxxviii.] takes the place of an introduction. Incited thereto by this psalm the saint determines to write on duties. He does this with more reason even than Cicero, who wrote on this subject to his son. How, further, this is so.
23. Not without thought did I make use of the beginning of this psalm, in writing to you, my children. For this psalm which the Prophet David gave to Jeduthun to sing, 57 I urge you to regard, being delighted myself with its depth of meaning and the excellency of its maxims. For we have learnt in those words we have just shortly touched upon, that both patience in keeping silence and the duty of awaiting a fit time for speaking are taught in this psalm, as well as contempt of riches in the following verses, which things are the chief groundwork of virtues. Whilst, therefore, meditating on this psalm, it has come to my mind to write “on the Duties.”
24. Although some philosophers have written on this subject,—Panætius, 58 for instance, and his son amongst the Greek, Cicero amongst the Latin, writers—I did not think it foreign to my office to write also myself. And as Cicero wrote for the instruction of his son, 59 so I, too, write to teach you, my children. For I love you, whom I have begotten in the Gospel, no less than if you were my own true sons. For nature does not make us love more ardently than grace. We certainly ought to love those who we think will be with us for evermore than those who will be with us in this world only. These often are born unworthy of their race, so as to bring disgrace on their father; but you we chose beforehand, to love. They are loved naturally, of necessity, which is not a sufficiently suitable and constant teacher to implant a lasting love. But ye are loved on the ground of our deliberate choice, whereby a great feeling of affection is combined with the strength of our love: thus one tests what one loves and loves what one has chosen.
This psalm in the Hebrew is inscribed to Jeduthun, one of the three leading musicians in the temple services.
5:58A Stoic philosopher who lived and taught at Athens, c. b.c. 120. His chief work was a treatise περὶ τοὺ καθήκοντος, which Cicero himself afterward used as the groundwork of his own book de Officiis.
5:59