If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
All Commentaries on Psalms 11:3 Go To Psalms 11
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
6. Let the Catholic soul then say, "In the Lord I trust; how say ye to my soul, Remove into the mountains as a sparrow? For, lo, the sinners have bent the bow, they have prepared their arrows in the quiver, that they may in the obscure moon shoot at the upright in heart:" and from them let her turn her speech to the Lord and say, "For they have destroyed what Thou hast perfected" (ver. 3). And this let her say not against these only, but against all heretics. For they have all, as far as in them lies, destroyed the praise which God hath perfected out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, when they disturb the little ones with vain and I scrupulous questions, and suffer them not to be nourished with the milk of faith. As if then itwere said to this soul, why do they say to you, "Remove into the mountains as a sparrow;" why do they frighten you with sinners, who "have bent the bow, to shoot in the obscure moon at the upright in heart"? She answers, Therefore it is they frighten me, "because they have destroyed what Thou hast perfected." Where but in their conventicles, where they nourish not with milk, but kill with poison the babes and ignorant of the interior light. "Butwhat hath the Just done?" If Macarius, ifCaecilianus, offend you, what hath Christ done to you, who said, "My peace I give unto you, My peace I leave with you;" which ye with your abominable dissensions have violated? What hath Christ done to you? who with such exceeding patience endured His betrayer, as to give to him, as to the other Apostles, the first Eucharist consecrated with His own hands, and blessed with His own mouth. What hath Christ done to you? who sent this same betrayer, whom He called a devil, who before betraying the Lord could not show good faith even to the Lord's purse, with the other disciples to preach the kingdom of heaven; that He might show that the gifts of God come to those that with faith receive them, though he, through whom they receive them, be such as Judas was.
