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But when King David had suffered this injury at the hands of his
impious and unnatural son, he not only bore with him in his mad
passion, but mourned over him in his death. He certainly was not
caught in the meshes of carnal jealousy, seeing that it was not his own
injuries but the sins of his son that moved him. For it was on this
account he had given orders that his son should not be slain if he were
conquered in battle, that he might have a place of repentance after he
was subdued; and when he was baffled in this design, he mourned over
his son's death, not because of his own loss, but because he knew to
what punishment so impious an adulterer and parricide had been hurried.
For prior to this, in the case of another son who had been guilty of
no crime, though he was dreadfully afflicted for him while he was
sick, yet he comforted himself after his death.
31. And with what moderation and self-restraint those men used
their wives appears chiefly in this, that when this same king, carried
away by the heat of passion and by temporal prosperity, had taken
unlawful possession of one woman, whose husband also he ordered to be
put to death, he was accused of his crime by a prophet, who, when he
had come to show him his sin, set before him the parable of the poor
man who had but one ewe-lamb, and whose neighbor, though he had
many, yet when a guest came to him spared to take of his own flock,
but set his poor neighbor's one lamb before his guest to eat. And
David's anger being kindled against the man, he commanded that he
should be put to death, and the lamb restored fourfold to the poor
man; thus unwittingly condemning the sin he had wittingly committed.
And when he had been shown this, and God's punishment had been
denounced against him, he wiped out his sin in deep penitence. But
yet in this parable it was the adultery only that was indicated by the
poor man's ewe-lamb; about the killing of the woman's husband, that
is, about the murder of the poor man himself who had the one
ewe-lamb, nothing is said in the parable, so that the sentence of
condemnation is pronounced against the adultery alone. And hence we
may understand with what temperance he possessed a number of wives when
he was forced to punish himself for transgressing in regard to one
woman. But in his case the immoderate desire did not take up its abode
with him, but was only a passing guest. On this account the unlawful
appetite is called even by the accusing prophet, a guest. For he did
not say that he took the poor man's ewe-lamb to make a feast for his
king, but for his guest. In the case of his son Solomon, however,
this lust did not come and pass away like a guest, but reigned as a
king. And about him Scripture is not silent, but accuses him of
being a lover of strange women; for in the beginning of his reign he
was inflamed with a desire for wisdom, but after he had attained it
through spiritual love, he lost it through carnal lust.
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