Psalms 73:2

But what to you? "But my feet were almost moved" [Psalm 73:2]. When were the feet moved, except when the heart was not right? Whence was the heart not right? Hear: "My steps were well near overthrown." What he has meant by "almost," the same he has meant by "well near:" and what he has meant by "my feet were almost moved," the same he has meant by "my steps were overthrown." Almost my feet were moved, almost my steps were overthrown. Moved were the feet: but whence were the feet moved and the steps overthrown? Moved were the feet to going astray, overthrown were the steps to falling: not entirely, but "almost." But what is this? Already I was going to stray, I had not gone: already I was falling, I had not fallen.

It was in this way, you see, that the psalmist whose feet were shaken blamed himself, because he had started to find fault with God and was already on the point of doing so; but he was almost on the point of it; he was not quite there yet. He did not deny that God knew, but he staggered, as if his feet were shaken. What does it mean to stagger? To doubt. When he blamed himself, though, for not having an upright heart, what did he say? "Why were my feet disturbed? Because I was envious, he said, of sinners, seeing the peace of sinners. Because I saw that the wicked were rich, I envied them; and I said I have lost out on justice, and for no reason have I made my heart just, and washed my hands among the innocent. And while I am in doubt, this is how I have begun to understand.""This is how I have begun," he says, "to understand this; there is toil ahead of me." Great toil, to solve this problem. It really is hard labor. All is well with that one, and he is a bad man; all goes badly with this one, and he is a good man; and over them both is God the judge. So the just judge is giving good things to bad people, bad things to good people. "There is toil ahead of me." But for how long is the toil there? "Until I enter into the sanctuary of God and understand about the last things." So if you understand about the last things, you will enjoy the quiet rest of discovery, the toil of inquiry will be over and done with.

If someone speaks like this: "If ever someone is deceived or snatched away in one of these [abysses], is he already lost and has he no longer repentance," I will tell him that a person who has repentance and a true understanding regarding the faith …

Although the hearts of all the faithful do not doubt that divine providence is never absent in any part of the world or at any time or that success in temporal affairs does not rest on the power of the stars (which is no power) but it acknowledges that all things are disposed according to the most just and most kind decision of the King on High, as it is written: "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth." Still, since some things do not happen according to our desires, and since the cause of the wicked is often favored over that of the righteous in the mistakes of human justice, it is a fact very near to us and well known that these things trouble even great souls and drive them to some complaint of an unlawful matter. Even David, most renowned of prophets, confessed himself distressed by these diversities to the point of danger and said, "My feet were almost stumbling, my steps were all but slipping, because I was envious of the arrogant, seeing the prosperity of the sinners."

Indeed, in what follows, David describes his own experience when he says, "But my feet were almost moved, my steps had well nigh slipped, for I was envious in the case of sinners, when I saw the peace of sinners." He is surely not speaking of bodily feet and bodily steps but of the uprightness of the heart and of the step concerning which he says in another passage, "Let not the foot of pride come to me and let not the hand of sinners move me."