Tractates on the Psalms 118.9.1–118.10.18

We already noted at the beginning of the psalm that it contains nothing other than teaching for human beings, by which we might be trained to the knowledge of God through the very elements of letters, like little children. For the prophet strengthens us from his own person, showing how we ought to be occupied in every kind of divine duty, so that through the discipline of the instruction we have received we may keep the order of faith, as is taught in that first verse of the ninth letter. For it says thus: "You have dealt kindly with your servant, Lord, according to your word." And perhaps some will think that the prophet spoke of prosperity and gave thanks to God for the things that had gone well for him. But he knows that thanks must be given to God in adversity too; he knows that in every suffering and tribulation he by whose judgment they come must be honored with thanksgiving. He knows that a physician who spares the festering pockets of wounds is careless. He remembers that the severity of fathers toward their sons is loving. He wishes to be reproved by God through temptations and proved through patience; and he gives thanks in the things that are thought adverse.

And the verse that is added teaches this understanding of ours, so that we believe the prophet prayed this, saying: "Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge, because I have obeyed your commandments." Whatever God does to his servant, then, is good; for he does it according to his word. And whatever is according to his word cannot be evil, because the will of him who alone is good is inclined to goodness.

So the second verse, as we said, sets out the prophet's disposition, when he prays, saying: "And teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge." He confessed above that goodness had been done toward him; how then does he pray to be taught it as if he did not know it? Only because then there was thanksgiving from the confession of faith, when he believed that whatever was done to him was good; but now, through human nature, there is cause of ignorance, when he prays to be taught. But he wants to learn that goodness to which discipline is joined. For discipline must be the work of severity, reproving sins and correcting vices. And the correction of vices brings great progress in goodness. Good, then, is the discipline of severity, but the prophet does not yet know it. For he wants to be taught not only goodness and discipline but also knowledge: showing in this his faith, since he confesses that goodness and discipline, which he does not yet know, are nevertheless good for him from God. Of knowledge we have reminded you in many places that both the apostle and the prophet counted it among the gifts of spiritual graces. So he prays to be taught knowledge as he does goodness and discipline; and to be taught because he believes God's commandments: showing that only the faithful and believing can attain teaching.

The sense of the same understanding remains also in the third verse. For he says: "Before I was humbled, I sinned; therefore I have kept your word." The tribulation of sufferings does not come upon us before offenses come first; nor are we humbled by sufferings before we are worthy of sufferings through the iniquity of sins. So the prophet teaches that his humiliation is the amendment of his offense; and therefore he knows that whatever comes from God is good for him, because he deserved to suffer what he suffers. And he knows that discipline is the amendment of vices. First, then, he sinned; second, he was humbled; and through the discipline of humility he must be taught and remain in God's words, because, having sinned, he has now been humbled and will remain in God's commandments so that he can sin no more.

"You are good, Lord; and in your goodness teach me your justifications." The prophet knows that God's justifications are good, because he who established them is good. He knows that nothing happens to him except by God's justification, since he professed that first he sinned and then afterwards was humbled. And because above he had prayed to be taught goodness, discipline, and knowledge, now he prays to be taught God's justifications in goodness: because justification is the work of a just thing, which is to his good, since the justifications established in the law contained in themselves the shadow of the heavenly justifications.

Then he added: "The iniquity of the proud has been multiplied against me; but I will search your commandments with my whole heart." The prophet, bearing all things patiently and calmly, was brought into the reproach of the proud and wicked. For if anyone recalls the reproofs of the three kings to Job, he will understand how much he is embittered by the reproach of mockers. For when irreligious people see God's servants being corrected through some sufferings, they usually reproach them thus: "Where is your faith? Where is your hope in God? Where is the power of the helper? Where is the mercy of the good God?" Against this there is need of a firm and faithful mind, intent and occupied in God's commandments, so as not to give way when so many iniquities of the proud are multiplied against it, but always to say: "You have dealt kindly with your servant, Lord"; as that glorious and blessed conqueror of human sufferings said: "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

Then follows: "Their heart has curdled like milk; but I have meditated on your law." He says the heart of the proud is like milk. Milk is most pleasant in appearance and taste; when corrupted by some fault it usually curdles, and departing from the sweetness of its nature it is spoiled into a useless and bitter taste. So the wicked, earlier, when they saw the prophet in prosperity, friends of good fortune, flattering with an appearance of simplicity, were like milk. But when pride and disdain for the holy man's humiliation took hold of them, they curdled like milk and were turned from flattering and sweet adulation into the bitterness of a spoiled and souring taste. Yet while they were curdled like milk, the prophet meditated on God's law: meditated, that is, so as to say what is contained in the following verse.

"It is good for me that you have humbled me." Though the iniquity of the proud is multiplied and their heart curdles like milk, the prophet knows that his humiliation is good for him; he knows that strength is made perfect in weakness. Good is every suffering, good are all tribulations, through which God's justifications are known: so that he may amend sinners by humiliation, restrain offenders by severity, teach the ignorant by teaching. For this reason he says it is good for him that he was humbled, because through humiliation he learned God's justifications. For he sinned before he was humbled, and humility is good for him, because through it God's justification is learned.

He concluded: "The law of your mouth is good to me above thousands of gold and silver." The wording of this conclusion is not simple. For it would have been enough for the prophet's thanksgiving to say, "Your law is good to me." But when he says "the law of your mouth," he wanted more to be understood. God spoke the law through Moses, he spoke through the prophets; but this is the law of God, not also the law of God's mouth. But the mouth of God is he who is also the power of God, who is also the wisdom of God, who is also the arm of God, who is also the image of God, namely God and our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom"; saying: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted"; saying: "Bless those who persecute you, and pray for those who slander you." The prophet declares that this law of God's mouth is good to him; and good not with a number of comparison, limit, and measure, but "above thousands of gold and silver." This expression is without limit, when "thousands" is said, because the law of God's mouth is good without limit; and by comparison with the most precious things on earth he signifies the usefulness of the goods that are established by God.

It is the common judgment that among all God's earthly works nothing is more useful, nothing more beautiful than man: because, even if some things are beautiful and adorned, they testify indeed to the greatness of him who brought forth such fair things, but they themselves do not perceive the fruit of their beauty, adornment, and formation. We are speaking of the things subject to human sight, namely those created on land, in sea, and in air, and mingled in their several kinds and natures. These are beautiful; but what good, after all, will the things created in the ocean, earth, sky, or air gain from the fact that they were created such? But in man, whatever there is profits himself. And he alone on earth was established as a rational, understanding, and judging animal; and of all these kinds that are in him, none serves any other purpose than that he himself should use both all the others and those in which he was born: and use them for knowing and worshipping him who is the author and parent of such great goods in him.

From this that great and wonderful saying of Solomon will be understood, which runs thus: "A great and precious thing is a merciful man; but a faithful man is hard to find." For what is so rare, or what is of such hard labor, as to find one who remembers that he was made according to the image and likeness of God, who, intent on the study of the divine words, has known the reason of his soul and body and perceived the origin and nature of each kind, and toward what end, finally, this formation and birth of his tends? And for this reason man is something great. For he loses this name when, neglecting the knowledge of the things mentioned above, he has fallen into vices, judged unworthy now to be called man, and as one not made according to the image and likeness of God; but according to the reproaches of the prophets and the gospels, his name is serpent, or brood of vipers, or horse, or mule, or fox; and the proper character of his name is taken from him as he falls from his innocence.

But one who has searched God's teaching and precepts with zealous faith and wishes, by his zeal, to be worthy of being one made according to the image and likeness of God, will be able himself to use the prophet's voice, saying: "Your hands have made me and prepared me." And in some manuscripts we have found it written thus: "Your hands have made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, and I will learn your commandments." And without doubt it must not be thought idle that it was not enough for the prophet to say, "Your hands have made me," unless he had added "fashioned" or "prepared"; but the prophet, understanding the honor of his condition, wanted to signify by this the special dignity of his origin, first saying: "Your hands have made me."

In the creation of the world we have received that all things were made by a word, when it is said, "Let there be light," when it is said, "Let there be a firmament," when it is said, "And let the dry land appear," when it is said, "Let the earth bring forth the herb of pasture, yielding seed according to its kind," when it is said, "Let there be lights in the firmament," when it is said, "Let the waters bring forth creeping things with living souls." So everything from which or in which the body of the whole world exists takes its origin from a saying, and subsists in what it is from the word of God. But concerning man God spoke thus: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." So the nature and origin of man differ from those of the whole creation: and he is properly deliberated on beforehand and confirmed, that he should be made, whereas the other things were commanded to exist without any decision of counsel. The origin of man therefore has this first dignity, that it was proper to it to be deliberated on beforehand.

And in this present prophetic saying too a great privilege of human origin is contained. For the Lord's hands did not make cattle and fish and birds: nowhere is that handed down. This, then, is excellent and splendid in man, that he is set apart from the rest by the dignity of the work. Of the establishing of the heaven we read in a certain place thus: "With my hand I established the heaven." Is that element, then, preferred to the making of man, since it is recorded that it was established by God's hand? But though heaven was made by a hand, man was made by hands. So the work of two hands surpasses the service of one: and what is enough for establishing is not enough in the making of man. But we must understand why the prophet says he was made by hands, and not only made, but also fashioned or prepared.

The creation of all the other elements was both established and completed at the very moment in which they were commanded to exist, and no time separates their beginning from their completion; for the beginning received completion in what each is. But man, since he contains within himself an inner and an outer nature, discordant one with another, and was made a sharer of reason out of two kinds into one, was established with a twofold beginning. For first it was said: "Let us make man in our image and likeness"; then, second: "And God took dust from the earth and formed man."

The first work does not contain in itself an origin of another nature taken from elsewhere. Whatever is then begun by the decision of counsel is incorporeal: for it is made after the image of God. Not the image of God, because the image of God is the firstborn of all creation; but after the image, that is, according to the form of image and likeness. What was then made according to the image and likeness of God was to be founded as divine and incorporeal in him: namely, a certain copy of the image and likeness of God is in us. So it is in the rational and incorporeal substance of our soul that what was made after the image of God first exists. But how much does the working of the second work differ from the first formation? God took from the earth. For dust is taken, and earthly matter is formed or prepared into man and is polished from one thing into another by the work and care of the craftsman. So the first he did not take, but made; the second he did not make like the first, but took and then formed or prepared.

Both can rightly be understood, because we find both written: that he formed him into what he is, namely the form of a body, or into what is said: "And he breathed into him a spirit, and man became a living soul." So he was prepared or formed for this inbreathing, through which the nature of soul and body would be held together in completeness by a kind of covenant of the breathed spirit. The blessed apostle Paul knows that there is a double nature in him, when according to the inner man he delights in the law, and when he sees another law in his members which leads him captive in the law of sin. So what is made according to the image of God belongs to the dignity of the mind; but what is formed from the earth is the beginning of the form of the body. And because either God is understood to have spoken to another when he says, "Let us make man," or the perfection of man made and formed is recognized as threefold, since he is both made after the image of God and formed from the earth and moved into a living soul by the inbreathing of the spirit, therefore the prophet testifies that he was made and formed by hands, not by a hand only, because in his constitution the work is taught to have been not of one alone, and also threefold.

And because the prophet knows that this is very hidden and secret, namely how far he was formed by God's hands, yet, in order to attain a full and complete account of it, he says: "Give me understanding, and I will learn your commandments." He speaks as one who does not know these things and prays for understanding to be given him as one who has not yet attained it; and yet some, I do not say men of the church, but of the nations, dare to wish to treat of the formation of human nature; we even dare to boast that we have attained a right and perfect life. But we must be taught by this prophet's example either to confess our ignorance of divine things or to pray for understanding of what we do not know. It is best to ask God by prayer for the knowledge of heavenly commandments and to recognize the weakness and poverty of our mind. For according to the apostle the first gift of graces is the gift of wisdom, the next that of knowledge; and therefore the prophet kept this order here too, saying: "Give me understanding, and I will learn your commandments." First he prayed for understanding, afterwards also for knowledge.

Then follows: "Those who fear you will see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your words." It is the custom of the impious to be gloomy at the sight of religious men. For the drunkard must hate the sober man, the unchaste the continent, the unjust the just, and he cannot bear the presence of any holy man, as if it were a burden. But on the contrary, at the sight of a faithful and religious man all who have the fear of God rejoice even at the mere bodily sight of him, as certain birds and herbs, merely by being seen, are said to heal some diseases. So the presence of a holy man is useful to those who fear God, because they must gain some progress from beholding him. But the prophet does not think that only what is open to public and common eyes should be seen in him. He wants his uprightness to be seen, his righteousness, religion, and self-control to be perceived. For those who fear God will rejoice not only because they see him, but because they see him hoping in God's words: and hoping not moderately nor with the confused error of human opinion, but saying with freedom what follows:

"I have known, Lord, that your judgments are equity, and that in truth you have humbled me." In other places we remember that the prophet was accustomed to say thus: "Give me understanding and teach me your commandments"; but now he professes it as of things attained, saying: "I have known, Lord, that your judgments are equity." But here the discourse is not about those eternal judgments, but about present ones. Those eternal judgments, according to the same prophet, are like the great deep, and according to the apostle, "the judgments of God are untraceable and unsearchable." But he knows that in these judgments that are now, whatever is done to him is done by God's judgment: all tribulations, all pressures, all hatreds of harassment, all assaults of persecutions come upon him from God's judgment, so that through these he may be proved, through these amended, and as through fire tested and purged.

But there is somehow more in knowing than in the faith of work; and therefore here he did not "believe" but "knew," because faith has merit, but not the merit of known truth. The apostle distinguished how greatly knowledge and faith differ, counting faith in a later place among the gifts of graces: first wisdom, next knowledge, third faith; because one who believes can be ignorant while he believes, but one who already knows cannot, having attained knowledge, not believe what he knows.

So here the prophet admits no doubt that he knows God's judgments to be just, that is, the judgments of humiliation, tribulation, contempt, injury, and pain. For he says thus: "I have known, Lord, that your judgments are equity, and in truth you have humbled me": that is, that not without cause was he subjected to tribulations, not without cause given over to sufferings, not without cause humbled by injuries, but that he was subjected by the just and true judgments of God to expiate the sins of human vices.

But because he is occupied in these sufferings by the divine judgment, he prays for encouragement in his present humiliations from God's mercy, because human weakness is unequal to the endurance of sufferings: "Let your mercy be, that it may encourage me, according to your word to your servant." But he remembers that it is good for him to be humbled, good for him to be subjected to sufferings, and that all the things by which he is harassed are a purging of earthly vices for him. For he does not pray that humiliation and tribulation be taken away from him, but that encouragement in tribulation be granted him by God's mercy. So he wishes to serve long as a soldier in these weaknesses of his body, he wishes to stand in the contest against the wickedness of this world. But he hopes for encouragement from God's mercy, so that even though afflicted he may be strengthened by the help of encouragement. Paul too, who had gone through every kind of temptation, knows how to use the encouragement of mercy, saying: "Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Father of mercies and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in every tribulation." And the prophet knows that this encouragement is promised him by the Father and Lord of mercies, who tests through temptations the one who believes in him; and therefore he says, "according to your word to your servant," that is, according to that promise by which he pledged that he would not abandon those afflicted in sufferings. For he said in the gospels: "When they hand you over, do not think how or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you on that day. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." And this indeed as far as it concerns the present time.

But the prophet is not unmindful of the future hope, saying: "Let your mercies come to me, and I shall live; for your law is my meditation." The weakness of bodily nature needs God's mercies. For it will not be able to attain that blessed life by its own merit unless it is carried forward by the mercies of him who is the Father of mercies. The prophet knows that he does not yet live that life which is true life; for none of us will dare to think that what he now lives is life. For now we are in the body of death, as Paul says: "Who will free me from the body of this death?" and as this same prophet testifies thus: "And he has brought me down into the dust of death." For our true life is hidden with Christ in God. Nor is this, in which we now live, the land of the living; but it is that of which this same prophet says: "And in the land of the living." And therefore he said "I shall live," because he does not live in the use of this life, but in God's mercy. But he hopes for this because God's law is his meditation. Let us, then, give ourselves to divine reading, give ourselves to God's precepts, and carry out the works of our law in their duties: because through meditation on the law the prophet hopes that he will live when the Lord's mercy comes to him.

But it is not enough for this man to be anxious only for himself and mindful only of himself. He must take up care for the human race, undertake the feeling of public concern, and pray for those who live in sins and irreligion. So he teaches the anxiety of this feeling of his in the following verse, saying: "Let the proud be put to shame, who have done iniquity against me." This is not a prayer of cursing, nor does he ask for repayment of his injury. Far be it that the prophet should have gone beyond the gospel's rule of love; for since the Lord says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who slander you," reason does not allow that he should now pray for vengeance on the proud and injurious. But because one who stops sinning blushes at his sins, and one who abandons vices must abandon them because he hates them, the prophet prays that those who were proud and unjust toward him may, through recognizing their vices, blush at what they have done. For as long as one sins, he is not put to shame in what he sins, through the habit and will of sinning. But when he stops sinning, he has the end of sinning from shame at sin. He himself meanwhile is exercised justly in God's commandments, preaching devoutly, not repaying injuries and bearing them patiently. For this reason he endured the contradictions and iniquities of many proud men against him.

In the following verse what we are treating about the shame of the proud is understood to have been signified plainly. For there follows: "Let those who fear you turn to me, and those who know your testimonies." So the prophet wants those who have begun to fear God to turn to him, so that through his teaching they may blush at their vices and crimes, having come to know the testimonies of God, of which we have already said much; and, put to shame in their old offenses, may turn to the prophet's instruction and teaching: whose conversion is from their former sins to piety and modesty.

He concluded in his usual manner, saying: "Let my heart be spotless in your justifications, that I may not be put to shame." He is exercised in the commandments, he meditates on the law, he has known the justice of God's judgments, those who fear the Lord rejoice at the sight of him, he was made and formed by God's hands, and yet he does not dare to say that his heart is spotless. And do we sometimes dare to put forward our innocence, to boast of abstaining from vices, and to glory that we are pure from sins and iniquities? But as we should learn faith from the prophet, so too humility and modesty, as he prays that his heart be made spotless. For he knows that from it all evils proceed, according to what is said: "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, sexual immorality, thefts, falsehoods, blasphemies," and the like. So he prays that this be made spotless, from which so many and such great vices come as from a kind of tinder; knowing that it is made spotless in this way, if he remains in God's justification. And he understands this to be the fruit of the justifications, that remaining in them he is not put to shame. For shame comes from the awareness of sins and from the reproach of offenses. So where there will be no shame, there will be no sin. And where there will be no sin, one will remain in God's justifications. And God's justifications will make the heart spotless.