Tractates on the Psalms 131.7–131.28

Nor did he vow that he would go up to the couch of his bed. A couch is the rest of human labors and the refreshment of tired bodies. But in heaven there is always rest, and because that untiring nature knows no labor, it is always on its couch, that is, always at rest. Our Lord, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, so as to suffer something, I know not what, more than death. And he was obedient so far as the death of the cross only in order to make us worthy of God's dwelling. He who is life, then, willed to die, and untiring power did not refuse to be made a weak bodily dwelling, so that, remaining in the form of God, he might take the form of a servant. He went out, then, from that couch of his eternal blessedness. And the fortieth psalm is our witness, which in the person of the Lord speaks the whole mystery of the passion, saying: "You have turned his whole couch in his weakness." When, through obedience to the Father's will, he is said to be man from God, weak from mighty, dead from life-giving, a criminal of the cross from eternal judge of the ages, then his couch is turned in weakness. He vowed, then, not to return to that couch of eternal and blessed rest unless the tent of God had been found, nor even to give sleep to his eyes before then.

What is this sleep? Surely that of which he says: "I slept and took sleep and rose up, for the Lord will sustain me." This sleep is that of death, which he will not give to his eyes until he finds a place of dwelling. The blessed patriarch Jacob also recalls this sleep in the blessing of Judah, who became the prince of that nation, saying: "A lion's whelp is Judah; from a shoot, my son, lying down you slept like a lion and like a lion's whelp. Who will rouse him?" Both the preceding and the following blessing fit neither the life nor the deeds of Judah, but him who is from the shoot of Judah as he is from the root of Jesse, who is both a lion's whelp and will be Jacob's son. For from this tribe of Judah is Mary, who was the mother of our Lord according to the flesh. He, then, lying down, slept like a lion. The lion is a terror to all wild animals and as it were the master of the other beasts; and he alone, from confidence and security, sleeps without fear. Awake, he is the terror of all; but he himself is secure in sleep. And therefore he added, "Who will rouse him?", because no timidity of outside terror can disturb the security of a fearless and all-powerful nature. Lest, then, we should think that the impassible substance of the only-begotten God suffered anything lowly and passible in the death he underwent, the example of this beast sleeping without fear was brought in to make us understand a secure death: so that it might be taught that he was beyond the disquiet of human fear in that sleep, since by the power of his kind and nature he could not fear, even though he slept. And the reasoning has been most carefully kept, so that in the only-begotten God the glory of the eternal God who begot him might be recognized, when it says: "like a lion and like a lion's whelp." In that he subsists from God, he is a lion's whelp; in that he is a lion, the undiminished nobility of the Father's majesty in him is proclaimed. That both may be one, he is a lion; lest he be one and the same person, he is a lion's whelp.

The sequence of the psalm shows this very thing. Lest that untiring power and impassible nature of the only-begotten God should be thought to fall asleep in the sleep of death, he referred the whole matter to the function of the body, for which the departure of the immortal soul is death, saying: "If I give sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids and rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tent for the God of Jacob." "Temples," according to the faithfulness of the translation, denies rest not to spans of time but to parts of the head. And these are bodily conditions, which long labor and the anxiety of life disturb. But he rested for whom death is sleep; and what for us is a penal change was for the only-begotten God, even remaining in the body, a rest.

But before this rest the apostles are chosen, receive the right of loosing and binding both in heaven and on earth, take power against every opposing force, are the temple of God, and, coming themselves from the law, are found a worthy tent for the God of Jacob. And lest some should think that through the manifold ingenuity of human cleverness we do violence to the truth, transferring what was said in the person of David to our Lord and Savior by many subtleties of figurative interpretation, we must look at what follows, so that from it we may press the truth upon them, however unwilling and resisting. For it says: "Behold, we heard of it in Ephrata, we found it in the fields of the wood; we will enter into his tents, we will worship where his feet have stood." Above, where the swearing and vowing are, we showed that the oath of the vow does not fit human nature, since the toil of an earthly body would refuse watches of so long a time. And now, where the places themselves and their names are mentioned, the truth itself and the evidence of the region existing today contradict any reference to David. For David, having in his kingdom a scattered people with no seat of worship, bought a threshing floor in Jerusalem for the site of the temple, so that they might gather there to fulfil the solemnities of the law. But this temple his son Solomon built, adorned, and dedicated with its rites.

The Jews, then, would have it that David, the buyer of this threshing floor, vowed absence from home, the harm of watching, and bodily toil until he could find this place and this tent for the God of Jacob. But neither the history of the Kingdoms nor that of the Chronicles, in which David's deeds are contained, says this, nor does the psalm admit it. And why it does not admit it is plain. David bought a threshing floor; the place of the temple was the place of a threshing floor, where the crops were heaped, where they were threshed, where the chaff was to be separated from the wheat. But the rest of the Lord is in Ephrata; and it was first heard of in Ephrata and afterward found in the fields of the wood. And what has Jerusalem in common with Ephrata? And what has a threshing floor to do with the fields of a wood? Nothing here fits; everything is discordant. The threshing floor on which the God of Jacob is thought to have rested, the Lord in the last times cleanses with the winnowing fan: he stores his wheat in barns but burns the chaff with unquenchable fire. He holds the approved men of the law worthy of the storehouses; the useless and fruitless he assigns to the fire of judgment. That temple today no longer exists; it has been burned, torn down, shapeless in ruins: where, then, is the rest of God? Did the prophet lie, and is the vow of his oath void? Has God lost the rest that he had sworn and vowed he would find for him? Since, therefore, these fictions of irreligious opinions fit neither the dignity of God, nor the nature of man, nor the truth of the places, nor the change of times, we must now show from these authorities of the heavenly Scriptures that the psalm is to be referred to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and to the sanctification of the church.

We said above that this prophet too prophesied in this psalm about that David, righteous, shepherd, king, rising, and spoke in his person when he said: "If I enter the tent of my house, if I go up to the bed of my couch, if I give sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids and rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tent for the God of Jacob." But now, so that the prophet might show himself not ignorant or unskilled concerning his vow, he speaks in his own person, saying: "Behold, we heard of it in Ephrata, we found it in the fields of the wood." Above, where the religious obligation of the oath is mentioned, one swore and vowed. For one, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant; and there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and one God the Father, from whom are all things. But now, where the knowledge of prophetic understanding is shown, it is said in the person of many: "We heard of it in Ephrata, we found it in the fields of the wood," because the rest of the Lord was prophesied by many.

It is heard of, then, in Ephrata. Ephrata is the same as Bethlehem, in which the Lord was born of Mary. The prophet is our witness, saying: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrata, are not least that you should be among the thousands of Judah; for from you shall come forth one who will be king in Israel"; and again: "And you, Bethlehem of Judah, are not least among the princes of Judah; for from you shall come forth one who will rule my people Israel." There first the rest of God is heard of, where first the only-begotten God dwelt in a body of human flesh; and what is heard of in Ephrata is found in the fields of the wood. So the beginning of the church is heard of in Bethlehem, for it began to exist from Christ; but it is found among the Gentiles, who are fields out of woods: bright out of bristling, fruitful out of barren, a region of life-giving food out of fodder for fire, God's rest, house, temple, and possession out of the lairs of wild beasts. That the Gentiles were like a wood, the lair of the devil, the seventy-ninth psalm will be our witness, saying: "The boar out of the wood has laid it waste, and the solitary wild beast has fed on it." There the speech is about the vine, that is, about what was then thought to be God's people, which the devil, dwelling in the Gentiles, had laid waste as unbelieving and impious. In these fields of the wood, then, is found the rest of God that was heard of in Ephrata.

The order of times has been kept, so that "we heard" and "we found" signify the past age, while what follows teaches the hope of the future, when it says: "We will enter into his tents, we will worship where his feet have stood." Despairing of this in the bodily function of the present life, the prophet anticipates by faith and in the Spirit that he will enter into the tents of God's rest, since he has both seen and heard them. But above the oath was about one tent only; now they will enter many tents. For from the one church of the apostles, about which the vow was made above, there are many churches and many tents; but the same rest of God is in many. These tents of God's rest, then, they will enter; and not only will they enter, but they will also worship where his feet have stood. When one stands in one place from which one must not depart, one takes a firm stand; and where one stands on one's feet, there one rests one's whole bodily weight. The law has passed away, prophecy is closed; their end is Christ; there is no room for any further change: in him we must stand for ever, where the Lord stands now that the law and the prophets have run their course. Preaching runs about, indeed, through the apostles, whom we remember are often signified as feet; but one takes one's stand in the Gospels. There, then, worship will be offered where the feet of the Lord, that is, the last of the preaching, have taken their stand without passing over into any change.

And since we read in the Gospels the saying, "Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and to hear what you hear," the holy prophet is impatient with this longing. For after he heard of and found God's rest, after he believed he would enter and worship, he prays to become a sharer of so great a hope at once, saying: "Arise, O Lord, into your rest," which your David vowed he would find, which we heard of in Ephrata, which we found in the fields of the wood, into whose tents we will enter to worship there where your feet have stood. Arise, then, into that rest which was sought by the oath of the vow, which was heard of in its place by the knowledge of prophecy, which was found by the fruitful cultivation of the Gentiles, which is thronged by those who enter, which is unchangeable in place, which is venerable by the devotion of those who worship.

But not only you, O Lord, arise into your rest, but "you and the ark of your sanctification." Not the ark of the covenant, not the ark of the law, but the ark of your sanctification. We remember indeed that there was an ark of the covenant, golden within and without, where the tablets of stone were, where the holy writing, where the book of the covenant, where the omer of manna. But all these are a figure of the body the Lord assumed, containing in itself the whole mystery of the law. Now, united both by the Spirit of deity and by the origin of the flesh, it is golden within and without, for the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father; it contains the eternal manna within itself, for he himself is the living bread; it keeps within itself the tablets of the covenant and the book of the law, for in him are the words of life. The prophet prays, then, that together with the Lord this ark of sanctification too (for this one God the Father has sealed, according to the Gospels) may arise into rest. But that earthly ark was often captured by foreigners and defiled by kings; and today, with the temple and the city overthrown, it no longer exists. And let us see what follows.

For it says: "Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your saints rejoice." When God and the ark of his sanctification rise again into rest, the priests are clothed with righteousness, the strongest breastplate, as the apostle says, putting on the breastplate of righteousness, with which to receive the enemy's darts and fortify the inner man; and the saints are to rejoice. And let us see the reason why the priests both put on righteousness and the saints rejoice. For it says: "For the sake of David your servant, do not turn away the face of your Christ." He referred "Christ" to the Spirit of deity, "David" to the flesh of the body. For he who remained in the form of God took the form of a servant. He asks, then, that he not turn away the face of Christ from the priests and saints, so that he may enlighten with the glory of his divinity those who rejoice for the sake of David, that is, for the sake of the mystery of the body he assumed.

And why he should not turn away the face of his Christ for the sake of David his servant, he shows, saying: "The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not disappoint him." The Lord swears, and swears truth; he confirms the faith of his word even with an oath, so that we may not doubt. He will not, then, defraud his David of the truth sworn. And what he swore to him is worth considering: "Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon my throne. If your sons keep my covenant and these testimonies of mine which I will teach them, their sons also shall sit upon your throne for ever. For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has chosen it as a dwelling for himself. This is my rest for ever and ever: here I will dwell, for I have chosen it." What is contained here that is proper to David? That city which was the royal city of his line, captured and overthrown by the Babylonians, did not keep the dignity of a kingdom under the rule of its masters; afterward, captured and burned by the Romans too, it no longer exists. And where is God's rest for ever? Where are kings from the fruit of his womb on God's throne? For today they serve as exiles, without a homeland, scattered over the whole world. And where is that truth which was sworn? Where is the promise that he will not be disappointed of the truth? And where is the everlasting throne of an eternal kingdom for the sons of David? What is called the chosen Zion bristles with ruins and is empty of inhabitants: and how is it God's rest for ever and ever? Times run on, and this age of our life remains: is God, then, without rest?

But let those who believe these things in the opinion of an unhappy error hear to whom the oath was sworn to David: surely to him of whom it is said: "I have laid help upon one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from my people. I have found David my servant, and with holy oil I have anointed him. For my hand will help him, and my arm will strengthen him. The enemy will gain nothing against him, and the son of iniquity will not again harm him. And I will cut down his enemies before his face, and those who hate him I will put to flight. And my truth and my mercy are with him, and in my name his horn shall be exalted. And I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers. He will call upon me: You are my Father, my God, and the upholder of my salvation. And I will make him the firstborn, high above the kings of the earth. For ever I will keep my mercy for him, and my covenant faithful to him. And I will establish his seed for ever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they profane my statutes and do not keep my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with the rod and their sins with stripes. But my mercy I will not scatter from him, nor deceive in my truth, nor profane my covenant, and what proceeds from my lips I will not make void. Once I have sworn by my holy one, that I will not lie to David: his seed shall remain for ever, and his throne like the sun in my sight, and like the full moon for ever." These promises belong to that David who was chosen as helper against the mighty, whose hand is on the sea, whose right hand is on the rivers, who dares to call God Father, because he is; who himself is the firstborn, who is high above the kings of the earth, whose seed is for ever and ever, for whom what has been said is not void, to whom an oath is sworn once by the holy one without falsehood, whose throne is like the sun in the sight of God and endures like the full moon for ever. From the fruit of this one's womb, then, they will be placed upon God's throne.

How we are of the fruit of his womb, let us hear the prophet Jeremiah teaching: "If," he says, "you have heard such a thing: whether a male has given birth." That sex does not admit childbirth; but the begetting that is from God has taken the likeness of childbirth. Let us hear Paul too in labor to bring forth sons, when he says: "My children, with whom I am again in labor." And that we are all his children the Lord himself testifies in the Gospel, saying: "Son, your sins are forgiven"; and again: "Little children, yet a while I am with you." His children, then, are to be placed on the Lord's throne.

And a condition of the hope is set first: "If," it says, "your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies, which I will teach them." Moses wrote the law, in which the testimonies of God are contained; this same prophet spends himself wholly in the law: how, then, are the sons of that David still to be taught the testimonies? The saying is not of the present time but is proper to those of whom it is said: "I confess to you, O Lord God, Father of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones." But taught and remaining in what they will be taught, what will they obtain? "For ever," it says, "they shall sit upon your throne." And who are these who will sit? Surely those of whom it is said: "And you will sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

We must not neglect what is said above and below. For above it was said: "I will set upon my throne"; but now it is said: "They shall sit upon your throne." And what will this be? Surely what is said: "All that the Father has is mine." The Father's throne is the Son's throne too, because "I and the Father are one." Or how will "I will set upon my throne" and "they shall sit upon your throne" be understood, except that, through the concordant and not unlike nature of the Unbegotten and the Only-begotten, the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, the substance of deity in both differing neither in kind nor in will, since the glory of the Father's majesty is inborn in the Only-begotten? And therefore the Father calls the Son's throne his own throne, because the Only-begotten was born both from him and in the glory of his unchangeable divinity, true God; nor does he feel it an affront to share thrones with him, since in him, begotten from himself in likeness of nature, there is no diversity.

Then the dignity of those who will sit upon the throne for ever is shown thus: "For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has chosen it as a dwelling for himself. This is my rest for ever and ever: here I will dwell, for I have chosen it." He did not, of course, choose Mount Zion, deserted and useless, nor a city torn down and overthrown. For God is not contained by places, nor does the almighty and eternal substance rest either in the deserted solitudes of mountains or in the names of cities now disfigured by ruins. But he chose the rest of those of whom the Lord says in the Gospel: "No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." He chose that holy Zion and heavenly Jerusalem, namely the harmonious assembly of the faithful and the souls sanctified by the sacraments of the church, in which, as in a house rational, intelligent, cleansed, and eternal through the glory of the resurrection, the rational, intelligent, undefiled, and eternal nature of the ineffable divinity may rest: not that it leaves the immensity of its infinity in which it is, so as to be confined within the narrow bounds of human minds, but that he who is everywhere, the same, whole, and always, rests in the saints and the approved through the seat of a dwelling worthy of him; where there is no offense, no change, but for ever and ever, that is, for eternal times, a worthy and pleasing dwelling has been chosen.

Then follows: "Her widow I will surely bless." One of the translators has been found to have rendered it thus: "Her catch I will surely bless," as though, the apostles having been made hunters and fishers of men, their catch were blessed; especially since Bethsaida, from which the apostles came, is called by interpretation of the Hebrew language "house of hunters." But we must follow that first authority of translation, sealed for the teaching of the church in the times of the Jews before the Lord's coming: "Her widow I will surely bless." How great is the dignity of widows, the honorable consciousness of a single marriage bed, and the unchanged constancy of a happy continence! For she is blessed, and blessed by blessing: that is, she becomes worthy of the blessing by the judgment of the one who blesses. But the apostle, the teacher of the Gentiles, urges us to think something else too about the widow who is to be blessed. For he teaches that the widow is she who from the synagogue has become the church, the law being dead not in the power of its spiritual working but by the end of its observance, saying: "Or do you not know, brothers (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? For the woman who is under a husband is bound to the law while the husband lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of the husband. So while the husband lives she will be called an adulteress if she is joined to another man. But if her husband dies, she is freed from the law, so that she is not held an adulteress though joined to another man. So, my brothers, you too have been put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who rose from the dead." By the comparison of a widow, who, her husband dead, is free for whatever marriage she will, he shows that the church, the law now ceasing, is the widow of the law, to be lawfully joined to Christ. This widow of the law, then, he will surely bless.

Then it says: "Her poor I will satisfy with bread." It is good that the poor not go hungry in the church: because when the needy is fed, or the thirsty given drink, or the naked clothed, or the sick visited, or one shut in prison sought out, these services of duty are rendered to him who in each of us hungers and thirsts and is cold and sick and shut in, and who says: "Amen I say to you, what you did to one of the least of these, you did to me." Through this faithful profession of his words, then, he satisfies the poor with bread. And he satisfies with bread those too who through humility of heart and contempt of the world place themselves in poverty, whom he will fill with the food of everlasting life, as is said in another place: "The rich have become needy and hungry, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing."

Then follows: "Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints shall exult with exultation." Above, the priests were clothed with righteousness; but they receive an advance in their honor: they are clothed with salvation, made conformable to the saving glory, because, according to the apostle, we await from heaven our Savior, who is able, according to the working of his power, to conform the body of our lowliness to the body of his glory. With this salvation, then, the priests are clothed; and the saints too shall exult with exultation. Above, they were only to exult, while still placed in the body of lowliness and glad only in the hope of eternity; but now they exult with perfect exultation, not in hope but in truth, not in image but in body. For there is often an exultation that is wont to be changed by chance or weakness or time; but this exultation of the saints is such that they exult with the exultation of an exultation complete in itself.

The cause of the exultation is shown: "There I will bring forth the horn of David." The horn is the emblem of kingship: for through it the royal ointment was poured on those who were to reign. When "there" is said, the rest is signified, of which it is said: "This is my rest for ever and ever." In this rest, then, God brings forth the horn of David, that is, the kingdom of that David who is prophesied: not that human, corruptible, and perishable kingdom, but the one that, according to God's rest, is for ever and ever. And whose will the kingdom of heaven be? Surely of those of whom it is said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," that is, the kingdom in which the eternal king, whose kingdom according to Daniel has no end, will reign.

This king, then, is not hidden: the law proclaims him, the prophets promise him, John, the preacher of repentance, points him out. For he, according to the Lord's saying in the Gospel, is the burning lamp, showing Christ to the darkness of this world. Every prophecy about him, then, is his lamp, showing the light of knowledge to the night of our ignorance, confounding the unbelieving and impious with the light of truth, and teaching the glory of the Father's majesty in the Only-begotten. And this is what follows: "I have prepared a lamp for my Christ. His enemies I will clothe with confusion; but upon him my sanctification shall flourish." The lamp has been prepared, so that the night of ignorance may not stand in the way of knowing him. His enemies will be clothed with confusion; for they will see the Son of Man in the majesty of his Father, and they will be clothed not with salvation but with confusion, being earthly and rising in a body of disgrace. "But upon him my sanctification shall flourish." "God exalted him," it says, "and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bend, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father," who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.