Tractates on the Psalms 127.1–128.14

Whenever the fear of the Lord is spoken of in the Scriptures, we must note that it is never left on its own, as if it sufficed us for the completion of faith, but that many things are added after it or set before it, from which the meaning and the perfection of the fear of the Lord may be understood. So we learn from what is said through Solomon in Proverbs: "For if you call upon wisdom and give your voice to understanding, and seek her like silver and search for her like treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord." We see by how many steps one arrives at the fear of the Lord. First wisdom must be called upon, the whole task of reading must be devoted to understanding, and wisdom must be sought and searched out; and then the fear of the Lord is to be understood. Yet, so far as the common sense of human opinion goes, fear is not thought of in this way. For fear is the trembling of human weakness, dreading to suffer what it would not wish to befall it. It arises and is stirred in us from consciousness of guilt, from the right of one more powerful, from the assault of one stronger, from the cause of sickness, from meeting a wild beast, and from the suffering of every evil. This fear, then, is not taught but arises from the nature of weakness. Nor do we learn what is to be feared; rather, the very things that are feared cast their terror upon us.

But of the fear of the Lord it is written thus: "Come, sons, hear me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord." The fear of God, then, must be learned, because it is taught. For it lies not in terror but in the reasoning of teaching; nor does it come from the trembling of nature, but is to be entered upon by keeping the commandments, by the works of an innocent life, and by knowledge of the truth. For if God is to be feared because many things have been burned by thunderbolts, laid low by thunder, now fallen in an earthquake, now swallowed in a chasm, the fear that is stirred by fear of what befalls is no fear of faith. For us, however, all the fear of God lies in love, and perfect love completes the fear of him. And this is the proper duty of our love toward him: to obey his admonitions, to comply with his statutes, to trust his promises. Let us hear, then, the Scripture saying: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord your God and walk in all his ways and love him and keep his commandments with all your heart and with all your soul, that it may be well with you?" In keeping and agreement with these words the prophet spoke at the beginning of the psalm, saying: "Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways": showing that those who fear are blessed not from our trembling, since that is what causes fear in other matters, nor from the terror of him who is terrible, but from the fact that they walk in the ways of the Lord. For fear, as we have said, lies not in dread but in obedience, and compliance is the proof of fear. But if anyone fears and does not obey, he will indeed be fearful from the trembling of nature, but he will not be blessed from the duties of fear.

The ways of the Lord are many, though he himself is the Way. When he speaks of himself, he calls himself the Way and shows the reason why he called himself the Way, saying: "For no one can come to the Father except through me." But when the prophets and their writings, by which one proceeds to Christ, are spoken of, then there are many ways, converging from every side into one way. Both of these are signified in the same passage through the prophet Jeremiah, who says: "Stand in the ways of the Lord, and ask for the eternal paths of God, and see which is the good way, and walk in it." Many ways, then, must be asked about, and we must press on in many, so that we may find the one that is good, namely, that through the teaching of many we may discover the one way of eternal life. For there are ways in the Law, ways in the Prophets, ways in the Gospels, ways in the apostles; there are ways too in the various works of the commandments, walking in which through the fear of God they are blessed to whom it is said:

"You shall eat the labors of your fruits." Speech begun to many is turned to one, teaching us that all of us who have believed in Christ are one, as the apostle confirms: "For you are all one in Christ Jesus." Whether, then, he speaks to one or to many, there will be the same meaning in the one as in the many.

We must observe, however, that this prophetic saying departs from the usage of common opinion. For in this arrangement of life, those who eat eat the fruits of their labors, taking them from the yields of work performed. But the prophet says that the labors of fruits are to be eaten. Human sense does not reach the understanding of this saying, for fruit comes from labors, not labor from fruits. Then, labor is a service of the body, while fruit is the reward of labor. But the service of the body is incorporeal, and we can eat nothing but what is bodily.

But the prophet treats nothing earthly and present: his speech is about the blessedness of those who fear the Lord and walk in his way. For those who walk in the ways of the Lord will eat the labors of their fruits. This is not eating with the body, since what is to be eaten is not bodily either. Rather, we have here a spiritual food, nourishing our soul for life: the good works, namely, of kindness, chastity, mercy, patience, and calm, in which we must labor against the vices of our bodies. The fruit of these labors is in eternity; but the labor of eternal fruits must be eaten beforehand, and our soul must be nourished by it in this bodily life, as through the food of these labors we obtain the living bread, the heavenly bread, from him who said: "I am the living bread from heaven," which whoever receives unworthily, according to the apostle's command, brings judgment on himself. These, then, are the labors of fruits to be eaten, of those fruits, namely, which will be reaped in heaven. Now, while we are on earth, the works must be taken as food; for these now satisfy the soul, and these will follow into heaven with their fruits. Finally, in the following verse the prophet shows the blessedness of both these times, saying: "Blessed are you, and it will be well with you." Of these, the one is obtained in the present, that you are blessed; but that it will be well with you is laid up for the future, since in the meantime the labor of future fruits is eaten.

"Your wife like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house; your sons like young olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall every man be blessed who fears the Lord." To many, perhaps, this saying will seem suited to the joy of a present blessing: that by God's mercy there may be in the home the peaceable and useful wellbeing of a wife, and a most sweet company of sons around the feast. But if these things had been perfectly good, which, though they are goods, are not heavenly goods, and if the blessedness of the fear of God had consisted in them, then surely Abraham, the chief of faith and of the fear of God, would have obtained it, whose long-barren wife was twice carried off, and whose one son by promise, commanded to be offered as a victim and brought to the sacrifice, brought on him the grief of bereavement. Then Isaac's own two sons were at odds and enemies even to the hatred of death. And did Jacob, the unwitting husband of a wife he did not know, forced by deceit into another marriage, and mourning the funeral of a living son through the murderous lie of his brothers, lack the blessings of those who fear God? And among those with whom and from whom faith comes, will the sanctification of faith not be found? Yet how many sinners we see flourishing in house, wife, and children! And will that happy and blessed virginity be deprived of God's blessings, leaving itself no ground of blessedness? And where will that saying of Paul be: "But I would that all men were even as I myself"? I do not know how the prophet could have established as perfect a blessedness that was denied to the saints, is common among sinners, and is not to be hoped for by virgins.

Since, then, according to human understanding, the wording of this saying does not set out a proper and perfect blessedness, minds and ears must be raised to spiritual teaching. For according to the apostle the whole Law is spiritual, and he himself did not pursue a lowly or earthly hope of blessedness, saying: "Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." Since, then, he shows that he is blessed in spiritual and heavenly things, that perfect blessedness of the saints is not to be hoped for in these earthly and bodily things; rather, it must be understood that through the naming of bodily and earthly things the understanding of heavenly goods is to be attained. When, according to the Gospels, the Lord is the bridegroom, and according to John has the bride, are we to think that earthly and bodily brides are meant? Certainly not: but by this manner of speaking we are taught that he is the one who was promised to the nations, and to whom the church was betrothed by the Father as an inheritance through the adoption of the body he would take from the virgin.

So that we may now learn what is to be understood under the name of wife, we must consider what is treated elsewhere under this same name of wife. Solomon says: "I sought to bring wisdom home as a bride for myself." And since one who seeks a bride seeks a rich one, he recalls the riches of this bride of his, saying: "She glorifies her nobility by having the companionship of God, and the Lord of all loved her"; and: "If anyone desires much knowledge, she knows what is from the beginning and sees what is to come"; and again: "Who will find a manly wife? She is more precious than precious stones of this kind." And these things are said in Proverbs, because proverbs do not set out what they sound like in words, but announce the force of the sayings through the use of common words. The Lord teaches in the Gospels how proverbs are to be understood, saying: "The hour will come when I will no longer speak to you in proverbs, but will tell you plainly of the Father." According to the manner of proverbs, then, we ought to recognize the manly wife: namely, the one whom Solomon desired to take as his bride, of whom he also says again: "I resolved, therefore, to bring her to live with me, and I became a lover of her beauty." This wisdom, then, taken as a wife, is manly, accomplishing all things and subduing them to herself, strong in the labor of useful works, pleasing to God, worthy through his teaching, and perfect in knowledge of the past and understanding of the future.

This wife of one who fears God, spread over all the sides of his house, extends herself, like a fruitful vine, over all the sides of our works. There is no doubt that the house is this dwelling of our soul, which each one cleanses for himself as a habitation for wisdom by the fear of God and by entering upon his ways. The sons who will come from her, then, will be like young olive shoots around our table. He does not say they will be around the feast, but around the table. For it is the table of the Lord, from which we take food, namely the living bread, whose power is this: that, being itself alive, it gives life also to those who receive it. There is also the table of the Lord's readings, at which we are nourished with the food of spiritual teaching; but of it it is written in another psalm: "Let their table become before them a snare, and a trap, and a retribution, and a stumbling block." Those who pursue the teaching of God will not profit from the food of that table unless they are engaged in the service of good works; for to them every reading of the prophecy itself, once understood, turns into a trap and a stumbling block. For as children are begotten of a wife, so the works of good will are begotten of wisdom. These, then, like young olive shoots, will surround our table, that is, they will shade the knowledge of our teaching with the fruits, as it were, of the finest branches. The prophet also kept this reasoning in calling it a neophyte olive, that is, newly planted: because through wisdom, taken as a wife, whose sons are faithful works, these same works are planted in this earth of our body. This, then, is the wife, spread like an abundant vine on the sides of our house; these are the sons, that is, the works begotten of such a wife, who will stand like planted olives around our table. And since this is the blessedness of those who fear God, the prophet added: "Behold, thus shall every man be blessed who fears the Lord."

To the merit of the one who fears is joined also the prayer of the prophet, who says: "May the Lord bless you from Zion, and may you see the good things of Jerusalem." Of Jerusalem and Zion we have often spoken already in the earlier psalms: from which, or in which, the completion of all good things is to be hoped for. For now, although we enjoy heavenly goods, yet greater ones are reserved for us in the times of Zion and Jerusalem. This age cannot hold the promised goods. For "woe now to the world because of stumbling blocks"; in it the devil has also sown tares over the wheat; in it is the region of corruption, the place of iniquity, and the valley of weeping; in it are the world-rulers of this darkness. But meanwhile we have the light of the goods promised us, in which we behold the image of blessed things as through a mirror and in a riddle; then we shall see face to face, with no cloud of obscurity in between and no imitating brightness of a mirror, but we shall rejoice in the true and visible contemplation of our blessedness, beholding the fruits of our works and seeing the reward of an innocent life. For as works are begotten of wisdom, so recompense is born of works. Wisdom, then, is the mother of innocence, and innocence in turn bears the fruits of recompense. These we shall obtain when the devil has been crushed, the sting of death blunted, and every ruler and power of this age removed, when peace is in us at last, the enemy defeated and destroyed. This the prophet testifies at the conclusion of the psalm itself, saying: "May the Lord bless you from Zion, and may you see the good things of Jerusalem all the days of your life, and may you see your children's children: peace upon Israel." Let us hope, then, for these good things of the heavenly Jerusalem, of Mount Zion, and of the peace of Israel, because the place of the Lord is in peace, in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

We are trained by the prophetic sayings to bear present sufferings, and the weakness of our nature, always impatient against the injuries of the world, receives the teaching of patience from him who says in the present psalm: "Often have they fought against me from my youth." The life of a religious man is not idle, nor does it lead a quiet life. He is fought against from the very years of his youth, and fought against often. The hatreds of those who fight against him are neither new nor rare, but often hostile even from the very beginnings of life. And therefore these are the things that prove faith, that attest patience, that earn the crown of unconquered virtue. The blessed apostle Paul knew this crown of a long battle, saying: "No one is crowned unless he has competed lawfully." The contest alone is not enough for the crown: one must compete lawfully, that is, carry through all the wars of suffering; it is not enough to have fought once, or in the war of a single contest. Let us hear this man himself competing lawfully, when he says of himself: "In labors more abundantly, in stripes beyond measure, in prisons more often, in deaths often; from the Jews five times I received forty lashes less one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I spent in the deep." Rightly did he, having gone through so many and such great battles, dare to say: "For the rest, there remains for me the crown of righteousness," since no one is crowned except one who has competed lawfully.

To this the prophetic voice also agrees: "Often have they fought against me from my youth." It is a rejoicing of the greatest confidence to remember so many and such numerous wars; but here, the name of the attackers being left unspoken, only the attack is mentioned. And we must learn the reason why the authors of the attack are passed over in silence. All the human injuries inflicted on religious men do not have the same authors as they have agents. The carrying out is indeed men's, but the prompting is the devil's. The apostle is our authority for this understanding, saying: "For our contest is not against flesh and blood, but against powers, the world-rulers of this darkness, spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places"; and again: "according to the prince of this air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience." These spiritual wickednesses, then, work in those who are disobedient to the law of God, whom they choose as workmen of their will, to use in their affairs the service of another's agency.

We understand this not only from the apostle's words, but we are also taught it from the book of Job. For when the devil had asked for power to tempt Job, intending first to rage against him by plundering his substance, he stirred up men to slaughter the shepherds and plunder the flocks, and kindled them to this will for robbery. He did, then, what he wanted through the service of human agency. Judas too, in the Lord's passion, was the devil's agent, and through him the devil carried out the effect of his own will, as the evangelist testifies thus: "Satan," it says, "entered into Judas, who is surnamed Iscariot."

In every injury we suffer, then, the deed is one person's and the prompting another's; and whoever does something through the impulse of a troubled will is not acting for himself. We must not, therefore, be angry with those from whom we suffer anything; rather, whenever we are provoked to anger by insults, whenever we are stirred to quarrels by abuse, whenever we are driven to grief and an impious complaint of loss by robbery and theft, or are solicited to the pleasures of the body by the prompting of flattering exhortation, we must recognize that enemy through whom these incitements of deeds and words are offered. Nor must we be angry with men, the workmen of another's instigation; rather, the foul agency of their detestable service in them is to be pitied, because they are the vessels of the devil, the servants of Satan, the weapons of robbers, and the attendants of another's warfare and wickedness. Because of this knowledge, then, the prophet mentions only the attackers, without distinguishing them by name, speaking of these and those indiscriminately, since what belongs to the spiritual wickednesses was being done against him through men.

The prophet began, then, as if in his own person; but by an example of confession he first speaks beforehand what we ought to say. For the order of the words is this: "Often have they fought against me from my youth, let Israel now say." First, then, Israel is taught what it ought to say; then, as one taught and instructed by the example of the prophet's confession, Israel itself now speaks: "Often have they fought against me from my youth, yet they could not prevail against me." Such ought to be the confession of the religious. And this is the true proof of faith: that those who fight often and from youth never prevail over those whom they have fought often and long. Against the stronger, the battle is both long and frequent; therefore the hostile spiritual powers try men firm in faith and in the fear of God both long and often, because what is waged long and never won must be repeated. Let us remain firm, then, so as to be fought against often, and, often fought against, let us have this glory: that we never yield. And let the persistence of the attack upon us come from this, that the strength of the attackers is not overpowering.

It is the habit of those who cannot prevail in long and continuous battles to come at a victorious army advancing in firm columns from the rear, and to plot ambushes against its back wherever it is passing by, to devise tricks there, and to employ all the arts of ambush there. So too sinners, having tempted the faithful in vain, come at them from behind as they now go on the way of truth: they lie in wait at their back, they contrive tricks at their back. And therefore it says: "Upon my back the sinners were building." The apostle runs, forgetting what lies behind and stretching out to what lies ahead. The Law spoke thus to the faithful: "Your enemies will pursue you and will not overtake you." And he teaches that they did not overtake them when he says "they were building," for it signifies an indefinite time. They were always building, never attaining the effect of their building, while he, upon whose back wars were daily being built, ran on in the untiring course of faith.

And the following verse completes this stubborn iniquity of the attackers: "They prolonged their iniquity." It is the prophecy of Isaiah, who says: "Woe to those who drag their sins like a long rope." For they do not cease to join sins to sins and, like a rope, always to stretch them out, twisted together, at length. For while the saint runs and the sinners build upon his back, since he has no limit to running toward the goal and they none to building, a long series and manifold length of sins comes about.

But we must learn what awaits this length of iniquities at last. For there follows: "The righteous Lord will cut the necks of sinners." The righteous Lord, patient in vengeance, overlooking sins for a time of repentance, not quick to punish at the beginnings of human iniquity, but awaiting the will of sinners to cease from their crimes, however late, will cut their necks when they build without any limit of ceasing, when sins are stretched out at length, when all the time of patient mercy has been shut out. We remember that the stubborn are always reproached by the Law for being stiff-necked: when Moses accuses the people before God of being stiff-necked, when the prophet reproaches the daughters of Zion for walking with outstretched neck, a neck, namely, that disdains the yoke, is insolent toward the works of faith, and abuses the patience of God to prolong the length of sins. The neck must be bowed to the sweet yoke to which the Lord invites, saying: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." The neck that submits to this yoke is not to be cut. For this is the yoke of humility and meekness: not always attacking, not building on the back, not prolonging sins, but cherishing the neck bowed in humility and patience, while that proud and insolent neck is to be cut by the decree of righteous judgment.

Then follows: "Let all who hate Zion be confounded and turned back." We have often pointed out that Zion is a mountain next to Jerusalem. But when the prophets speak of the king of Zion, the daughter of Zion, the gates of Zion, we must first understand from the very name that something else is shown under the meaning of Zion; for Zion means watchtower, and what with us is called a watchtower is in Hebrew called Zion. Then it is fitting for us to remember the apostle's saying, that by believing in our Lord Jesus Christ we have come to Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem; in his glorious body, which has been transformed into heavenly glory, we behold from the watchtower the honor of our hope, since the body of our lowliness is to be conformed to the glory of his body. And the apostle is witness that the church is the body of Christ, whose members we are of one another; and she herself is Zion, the mountain of the Lord, the king's daughter, the holy city built with living stones on the foundation of the prophets and apostles. Whoever, then, hates this Zion hates him whose body she is; for the hatred of unbelievers against the faithful is a special one. Those who hate Zion, then, will be confounded and turned back, not running toward heavenly things nor stretching toward the future, but turning back to their earthly and original things, feeling in the time of judgment the shame of their iniquity and unbelief, and returning to the penal sensation of their bodies, having lost the transformation of the resurrection.

The sequence of the psalm teaches this very thing: "Let them become like the grass of the housetops, which withers before it is plucked up: with which the reaper will not fill his hand, nor he who gathers sheaves his bosom. And those who passed by did not say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you." There is, I think, no grass of buildings in the bodily sense: grass belongs to a field, and a most fruitful one. So nothing here is to be treated and supposed according to the sense of the ears. According to the authority of Scripture there are firm buildings and there are weak ones. Firm are those which, laid on faithful foundations upon the rock, are not moved by rivers, winds, and floods. Weak too are those which, built on a sandy foundation, make a great ruin when storms arise. There are also two sowings, according to the apostle, of the spirit and of the flesh: and he who sows spiritual things will reap spiritual things, and he who sows carnal things will reap carnal things. Those, then, who fight often and long, who were building on the back, who prolonged iniquities, whose necks will be cut, who hate Zion, will be useless like the grass of the housetops, bringing back an empty and vain fruit of this bodily and present life. For buildings and roofs, according to the Gospel comparison, are human bodies, either firm by faith or about to fall through unbelief. From this roof of the building the Lord forbade each one to come down when persecution presses, saying: "And let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything from the house." Certainly one must flee in persecution; and how did he forbid coming down from the roof, except that, the care of the body being abandoned, he who stands on the roof, that is, remains above his earthly nature, is forbidden to seek again lowly things and go down to what is beneath? But the impious are the grass of buildings, for they have sown empty things; and grass that withers even before it is plucked up, with which the reaper will not fill his hand, nor will the one about to gather sheaves load his bosom; and the passer-by has not blessed it with rejoicing over its fruits. They are empty, they are void, they are useless; for they have sown empty and useless things. O unhappy labors and fruitless works of the flesh, compared to the fruitless grass of buildings, dry before they are plucked up, that is, dead before the very time of their own useless harvest!

But since we have treated this grass of buildings as the fruit of carnal works, we must consider what difference there is between him who fills his hand and him who gathers sheaves into his bosom. For it is not the same, nor is Scripture accustomed to repeat the same things in two expressions; for to gather into the bosom is more than to fill the hand. Those who fill the hand seem to receive the fruit of things rightly done, since in the hands the divine word signifies works; but in the bosom is shown the disposition of conscience, of faith, and of a perfect will. For conscience reaps more than deeds; deeds fill the hand, but conscience gathers sheaves into the bosom. The Lord holds the two coins of the poor widow more acceptable than the abundant money of the rich. So much does the will surpass works. And works therefore fill the hand, but the bosom can hold the sheaves. This grass of the building, then, will fill neither the reaper's hand nor the bosom of the one who gathers sheaves.

"But neither will those who pass by say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you." And who are those who pass by, if not those who, as pilgrims, pass through the age of bodily life, not remaining in things that are nothing but stretching toward eternal things, not lingering among what lies before the eyes but proceeding to the invisible? And so that we may understand fully who those passing over are, let us hear Moses speaking when he saw in the bush a fire burning without harm to the bush in which it blazed. For he says: "I will pass over and see this sight." What is this "I will pass over"? No distance of place separated him; he speaks and sees in the same place. What, then, does he pass over? Plainly he passes over fleshly and bodily cares: and while pasturing the sheep of his father-in-law, he leaves earthly works behind and goes out into heavenly knowledge. He too passes over who says in an earlier psalm: "I saw the wicked highly exalted and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not." The one he admired in the affairs of the world, the one whom, while remaining in bodily works, he saw lofty and exalted, this one, in passing over, that is, having become a pilgrim to the world and going out from earthly and perishable things into heavenly and spiritual knowledge, he held as nothing, said no longer existed, and counted as dead. Those who pass by, then, deny God's blessing to the grass of buildings, knowing that the grace of the divine gift must be refused to dry and perishable fruits.

But the prophet's prayers will be thought harsh and severe; for all his speech was as of one who wishes, when he says: "Let them become like the grass of the housetops." But far be it that the prophet should be believed to have prayed this. He spoke from prophetic knowledge, and this saying was one of knowledge, not of wishing: at the same time, that terror might fall upon sinners who would come to know the emptiness of the fruits of their buildings.

Moreover, he shows the disposition of his own wishes, saying: "We bless you in the name of the Lord." Blessing is ready for those who were sowing the grass of the housetops, if they begin to sow what will fill the reaper's hand and the bosom of the one who gathers sheaves. By denying blessings, then, the prophet showed their fruits dead in the grass of buildings because of their dry works; but by wishing again for the blessings he had denied, he showed his own wishes for the salvation of the penitent upon their return to good work. Let us sow profitably, then, and prepare our labors to fill hands and bosoms, so that we may share in the blessings of God in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.