A Way Of Improvement

Quia cogitavi vias meas, et converti pedes meos in testimonia tua. Ordinem humanae conversionis exponit. Prius est enim ut nosmetipsos districtius arguamus, et sic ad Domini mandata migremus. Cogitaverat proinde examen illud gloriosum vias suas, id est actus humanos; sed quoniam ei omnimodis displicebant, pedes suos convertit ad testimonia Domini gradienda: in quibus si aliquis ambulat, firma potest habere vestigia. Videbat siquidem in humanis actibus esse peccata; in divinis autem mandatis florere justitiam, et sapienter illud deseruerat, quod expositum periculis sentiebat. Dicendo enim, converti pedes meos, ostendit primitus fuisse perversos. Cassiodorus, Expositio In Psalterium, Psalmus CXVIII Source: Migne PG 70.855c-d

Because I thought on my ways, I turned my feet to your testimony... 1 He expounds the order of human conversion. Firstly that we strictly dispute with ourselves, and so we move toward the commandments of the Lord. 'He has thought' so with good examination of his own ways, that is, human deeds, and because in every way he displeased Him, he turned his feet to walk according to the testimony of the Lord, in which if someone walks, he is able to walk on a firm path. He certainly saw sin in human acts and then righteousness flourish in the Divine, and wisely he abandoned the former which he knew was revealed as perilous. For when he says, 'I turned my feet' he shows that initially he was wicked. Cassiodorus, Commentary On The Psalms, Psalm 118 1 Ps 118.59