Fragments on the Psalms 8–45

[Psalm 8] “O Lord, our Lord.” You, Lord, are our Lord, says the Church. For after coming to the knowledge of Christ and departing from slavery to the idols, she began to call the one who is truly God and Lord her own Lord, … with which God’s creation is filled, and still more since his name, that is, the name of Christ, … among all, Greeks and barbarians alike, … marveled at …

“You have subjected all things under his feet.” By “the birds of the sky” he means those occupied with theology, who search out lofty and sublime doctrines; by “the fish of the sea,” those who swim in the affairs of this life as among waves. Salvation is laid up for these too, when they travel paths no longer of the sea but of the seas, journeying by baptism and repentance. For the things perceived by the senses are subject to him by the law of creation: cattle, oxen, and sheep. But again there are spiritual sheep subject to Christ: we find them in those who live in innocence; and oxen, those … of whom Moses the lawgiver said, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it threshes.” Hence the Psalmist set down not simply “oxen” but “all” of them; for God is found with all who practise any virtue at all. He calls sinners “cattle,” since they turn their gaze downward … men who are workers of the commandments … whom he will receive through the way of life of the gospel. For, he says, “Men and cattle you will save.”

[Psalm 9] “I will confess to you with my whole heart.” How do we confess with the whole heart? When we no longer return to that sin for which we entreat God’s pardon.

“The nations are caught in the destruction they made.” By “nations” he here means the band of demons. For having contrived the saving cross, they fell from their tyranny through it; and “in the snare which they hid their foot was caught,” and “in the works of his hands the sinner was caught.”

“Let the sinners be turned back.” Many kinds of sinners are recognized, as of righteous too. Here he calls the unbelievers sinners, those of whom he also said that they suffer forgetfulness of God. So then, as those who believe in God live even if they die (“He who believes in me,” says Christ, “even if he dies, will live”), so the unbelievers are dead even before they die, because of the sentence that lies upon them.

“Arise, Lord.” For what sin does God most turn away from the ungodly one, that is, the devil, or the very ungodly man? Then, having himself put the question, he answered it: “For he said in his heart, He will not seek it out.” He slanders God, he says, as allowing our affairs to go unprovided for and untraced; and this is found to be an incitement to perdition for those who are deceived. Therefore he fittingly added, “To you the poor man is left.”

[Psalm 12] “How long, Lord, will you forget me?” For God’s forgetting is grievous, and though it lasts but a time, it brings complete and undying death.

“How long will the enemy be exalted?” For the height of Satan is the humiliation of men. As God is said to be exalted in our salvation, so the devil is said to be lifted up in our destruction.

[Psalm 14] “Speaking truth in his heart.” He wants us first to be truthful in heart, and after that in the tongue; for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth” speaks. By saying, “He did no evil to his neighbour,” he forbade here not only murder but every other sin as well.

“And he did not take up a reproach” against those nearest him. … Let us regard … as weak, so that we who are sinners may not reproach others with their sin, but rather admonish and teach one another.

“But he honours those who fear the Lord,” even if they are weak, even if poor, even if barbarians and strangers. For the one who sets at nothing those who do evil and honours those who fear the Lord turns many away from wickedness and urges them on to godliness.

[Psalm 15] “You are my Lord.” For you see the Church’s good sense: she has confessed at once both her own poverty and the Bridegroom’s wealth. I said, she says, to the Lord, that is, to Christ, “You are my Lord.” Not, she says, a mere man, but Lord, since you took into the fellowship of marriage a slave-girl, and an outcast at that.

“The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup.” Of the inheritance, he says, that is, of this mystery. For in this age the Church possesses no inheritance except God alone, who prepares for her the lot that is to come. Therefore the following verse is fittingly added: “You are the one who restores my inheritance.”

“I will bless the Lord.” The Church blesses God, as having received from him understanding of the mysteries and having turned aside from the error of the Jews.

“… shaken.” Do you see the equal honour of Son and Father? For at times the Son is said to stand at the right hand, or to sit there; but now he assigns the place at the right hand to the Father, so that you may learn that the power of the Begotten and of the Begetter is one, even if he now speaks lowly things because of the flesh.

[Psalm 16] “Make your mercies wonderful, you who save those who hope in you.” What steps does the Prophet pray may be made firm in God’s paths, and what steps may not be shaken? We possess as our first steps the movements of the soul; and he prays that these may be made firm, that is, established, in God’s paths, namely in the divine commands. For when these are established, our other steps, that is, our actions, are not shaken either; for sin cannot prise them loose.

“My enemies … my soul.” For the demons encircle our soul and, like wild beasts, each tries to seize it, wishing to ensnare it. The fat of the demons and their rich food are those who sin, enjoying their pleasures … What … no longer to escape …? Apostasy from God, unbelief about what is to come, rejection of the judgment. For those who have resolved to sin urge these things on those who are deceived.

“Arise, Lord.” … the justice of God … the sword … the ranks of the demons …

“They were filled with sons.” … he does not blame them for the … (for what goes into the mouth does not defile a man), but blames them themselves as very ungrateful, because, though they received children from God in great number, they handed down to them as their inheritance not virtue but the leftovers of their own wickedness.

[Psalm 17] “And he bowed the heavens and came down.” He bowed the heavens in order to join the earth to heaven and to grant those below fellowship with the things above. This would not have happened had he not come down in that way and dwelt on the earth in the manner in which it could receive him, that is, in flesh, which he called the “darkness under his feet.”

[Psalm 32] “He loves mercy and judgment.” By mercy he means love for mankind, which he set before judgment because God first uses love for mankind, and only after that uses judgment against those who have persisted in sin.

“Gathering the waters as in a wineskin.” By “the deeps” he means the masses of waters which the Creator placed in hidden places beneath the earth, so that in this too his wisdom might be admired: he founded the dry above the wet, and gave the heavy to be borne by the lighter.

“A king is not saved by great power.” So we care in vain for the body’s strength, and to no purpose surround ourselves with power from relatives and friends and wealth; for nothing else can save without the help from above. Take Goliath and Pharaoh as an example. The one, a strong giant, was conquered by David, a mere boy; the other, pursuing Israel with a multitude of chariots, had the sea for his grave.

[Psalm 33] “Come, children, listen to me.” “Come,” he says to those near and to those far off, so that those far off may draw near and those near may become nearer, offering obedience to God as to a father, and may be taught the fear of God, which brings release from fear of the demons. Hence he adds, “I will teach you the fear of the Lord.”

[Psalm 34] “A psalm of David.” The title of the psalm is plain; yet it refers to the spiritual David, who also speaks words of prayer, which one should reckon as belonging not to the dignity of the Godhead but to the lowliness of the humanity. For if “he humbled himself, taking the form of a slave,” it was fitting that in the time of the passion he should pray, at the same time teaching us to pray in our afflictions.

“Judge, Lord.” By those who wrong him he means the Jews, and by those who fight, the demons, who … fought against Christ. He wants these to be fought, that is, to be made powerless.

“Let a snare come upon him which he does not know.” This is said of Judas the traitor, but also of the people of the Jews, and still more of the devil himself. For Judas fell into the snare of the noose; the people of the Jews, thinking to ensnare, is ensnared and … caught; likewise the devil, having plotted the snare of the cross, fell from his kingdom through the cross.

“They repaid me evil.” For as householder and farmer he reckoned the fruitlessness of the Jews as done to himself.

“As a neighbour, and as a brother.” He means his kindness toward Judas, so that he entrusted him with carrying the money-box and let him alone dip into the dish with him, as a brother and neighbour: a brother who pleases, that is, who is agreeable to him and behaves well in all things.

“They tested me, they mocked me with mockery.” Out of savagery they gnashed their teeth, perhaps all but wishing to devour Jesus. … So he wished the Father to be witness against those who blasphemed … “Lord, when will you look on?” …

[Psalm 35] “The lawless one says … that he may sin.” The psalm supposes not simply a lawless man but the hypocrite and deceiver, who has much of the mire of lawlessness …, and for that reason says it “within himself.” Why “within himself”? Because he ponders the things he either fears or is ashamed to say openly, storing up within himself the intention to sin.

“They will be drunk with the fatness of your house.” The house of God is his body, … from his side blood and water, from which all of us believers have been made drunk with a saving drunkenness. … the sufferings of Christ are the torrent of delight. A torrent, that is, a winter stream … of our …, when all love toward God had grown cold and died; so that … at the height of the winter …, as the prophet Zechariah says of the day of the cross: “In that day there will be no light; there will be cold and frost; the day is great.” And fittingly of “delight”: for Christ took great delight in his sufferings for us, mocking the devil for the salvation of men, and rejoicing … This torrent of delight he gives us to drink in a mystery; for the Master’s passion …

[Psalm 36] “I was young.” He rightly reminds us of the judgment, so that we may not be confused … about those who live in virtue yet meet with dishonour among men and with toils. For God “will not forsake” them, that is, he will not overlook them; he keeps them for the age to come, where the giving of good things has no end.

[Psalm 37] “For your arrows have been fixed in me.” Not in vain does Christ say these things to his Father … let us not, seeing …, grow careless; seeing … he prays for the human race. But since the arrows aimed at them, he says, all the blows that came upon our common nature because of Adam, have been fixed in me. For since I took up the sins of the human race, I must also undergo the chastisements due for them. Therefore “you have pressed your hand upon me,” the chastising hand, of which Job said, “It is the hand of the Lord that has touched me.”

[Psalm 38] “I said, I will guard my ways.” This befits every prophet and teacher: to guard his own ways, that is, the courses and paths of his actions, so as not to turn aside to wickedness, nor to sin with the tongue by doing things contrary to his own words. For he truly sins with the tongue who accuses wickedness in word but commends it in deed by the very things in which he pursues it, and gives the lie to his own teaching by his way of life.

“I was made deaf, and was humbled.” You see that first he was made deaf through disobedience, and once made deaf he was humbled. For nothing humbles a man so much as insensibility, and after it disobedience. Or else he was silent “from good things” for this reason, that he had ceased from the study of the law, the good teacher. Hence the pain of sin was fittingly “renewed”; for the wound that befalls us from sin is heavier when we withdraw ourselves from the study of the law. And, as when no remedy from the divine commandment is applied, putrefaction sets in. Therefore he did not remain in silence, but, coming to his senses, he thrust it away as destructive of the soul. Making this plain, he went on: “My heart grew hot.”

[Psalm 39] “I proclaimed righteousness.” He calls a church “great” not only when it holds a populous company, but much more when it is able to receive the lofty and magnificent doctrines of theology. The lips of the Church, and its eyes, may be taken figuratively as the all-praised apostles and all the teachers after them. The rest of the body of the Church not only does not hinder them from proclaiming Christ, who is righteousness itself, but rather spurs them on, giving them a corresponding cooperation.

[Psalm 40] “To the end.” Although the Prophet often entitled psalms “to the end,” one must nevertheless think that he does not set this title on each of the psalms in vain. What is the reason here? It is that the psalm speaks of what belongs to the end of Christ’s dispensation; and Christ was called David not only by this prophet but by another as well, namely Hosea, who said, “After these things the sons of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king.” Yet David had died many generations before this prophet, for Hosea set out his prophecy in the days of King Hezekiah. He means the new David, to whom those who were saved turned.

“May the Lord help him.” The truth of the prophetic promise is often found even to the present day. For many who were seized by illness and severely afflicted, and then emptied their wealth upon the poor and needy, were at once changed for the better. For if even on the coming day “mercy triumphs over judgment,” what wonder if here too abundant mercy overturns an expected death and changes it into health? But there is also an illness of the soul, which takes hold of the inner man; in it the soul has its hands slack, that is, its powers for action. Knees too are found paralysed, and therefore unable to walk the road that leads to life. At such a time, when the soul is held as by a grievous disease of slackness and is hastening for that reason toward the death of sin, almsgiving to the poor heals and changes it. Therefore he immediately added, “I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.”

“But you, Lord, have mercy on me.” He does not say this from a wish to repay them with punishment because he suffered death at their hands, for he himself said at the time of the cross, “Father, forgive them their sin.” But since he saw the impartial and just judgment of the Father condemning the murderers, for this reason, as one who works the same works as God the Father, he said, “And I will repay them,” to show that the activity of both is one. For “the Son,” he says, “can do nothing of himself; for whatever he sees the Father doing, these things the Son also does likewise.” Thus he establishes that both have the same will and the same working.

[Psalm 41] “To the end, for understanding, for the sons of Korah.” These too were psalm-singers, borrowing psalms from David, which he himself had prophesied. The psalm is perhaps entitled “for understanding” because Korah, their forefather, had been lawless, he who rose up together with Dathan and Abiram. But these did not emulate their forefather at all …; hence, when the whole congregation of Korah was perishing, they, having separated themselves, as is likely, from Korah’s wickedness, were saved. For this is what Moses commanded the people at that time. But more truly the psalm is entitled “to the end, for understanding” because it foretells baptism, which was enacted at the end, after the Jewish purifications. And to come forward to it is truly a kind of wisdom and understanding …

[Psalm 44] “Gird your sword.” He calls the cross a sword; for using it as a sword he slew two enemies, the devil and death. By “thigh” he means the flesh, naming the whole from a part, as in “nor a leader from his thighs.” So he calls upon the one who is truly mighty to gird on the cross in the flesh “in his beauty and his loveliness,” that is, in his Godhead and his humanity: by the one he might endure the sufferings on our behalf, and by the other, as impassible, overcome the sufferings. Or we may understand the beauty and loveliness as love for mankind; for nothing so befits God as to save his own creature.

“And bend your bow, and prosper, and reign”: bend it against the enemies, prosper for the faithful, and reign … the enemies. For this is the work …, to subject the one and to crown the faithful; this is proper to a judge and king. And “for the sake of truth” Christ exposed the hypocrisy of the Jews, and for the sake of “meekness” he endured being tested.

… The Father is also the right hand of the Son, as the Son is of the Father. So Christ is guided by the Father, not as needing a guide, but … as a common way of the Father and the Son, the dispensation on our behalf: the Son travels it (for he carries out the work), and the Father guides it, because by his good pleasure …

[Psalm 49] “… will burn before him.” … of that storm or tempest …, when we are beaten as by waves by our conscience, lashing us with its accusations, or by our thoughts, accusing or else defending us.

“He will summon the heaven.” By heaven he means those whose minds are set on heavenly things, of whom Paul said, “As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.” By earth he means those whose minds are set on earthly things, who serve the clay and the brick; by heaven, those whose minds are set on heavenly things. These, then, he promises to gather together, in order to distinguish his own people. And concerning the people of the Jews: … he calls these “holy” because of …, who … God’s … by sacrifices, not knowing that God … the rational sacrifice, not …. Therefore he commanded them to be gathered together, so that they might be taught this.

“Not for your sacrifices will I reprove you.” Perhaps the children of the Jews disbelieved when they heard these things, and were at a loss whether it could ever come about completely. But now the word has been seen as fact: their sacrifices no longer operate, since the temple has been destroyed, the altar has fallen, and the whole order of worship upon it has perished, and the city too, where alone the sacrifices according to the law had to be performed. I have no need, he says, of irrational sacrifices; otherwise what prevents wild beasts and cattle from being offered? Perhaps by wild beasts and cattle he means the nations, and by oxen he means those from the people of the Jews who believed. Possessing their offering, he no longer accepts the offerings from the people of the Jews, as superfluous; for what follows is also said about them. Understand by “the birds of the sky” those who practise virginity or continence, since they fly on high about heaven, living the life of wisdom like the angels. He calls the Church herself “the beauty of the field,” that is, of the world; for she became comely by the grace of baptism. Hence he did not say “is beside me,” but “is with me,” as a bride with her bridegroom; for the Church is reckoned to be the bride of Christ.

“Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise.” Become, he says, a rival of the angels; imitate the Cherubim in giving glory; recount, as the heavens recount the glory of God; sacrifice the sacrifice which all creation offers as it glorifies him unceasingly. Perhaps by “sacrifice of praise” he also means the virtues, by which God is glorified most; therefore he said to the apostles, “Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Understand by “affliction” the trial that comes from men or from Satan. If then at that time we call upon God, he will deliver us, as once he delivered Susanna; and we fittingly glorify him, since affairs are arranged for us beyond all expectation.

“Understand these things, you who forget.” He is describing the day of death, on which each one, being called, is swiftly snatched away. So we must look to the blotting out of our sins while the time for repentance is still given us in abundance.

“A sacrifice of praise will glorify me.” What is this, and what kind of way? The communion of the Master’s body and blood, which he himself first began for us in Zion … Since, then, it has been given to those who receive it for the redemption of their sins, it is fittingly “the salvation of God,” and fittingly also a “way,” showing those who … how one travels to heaven. … is pleased with many irrational …