Tractates on the Psalms 137.1–138.10

We have shown in very many places that there is a double meaning in confession: either of our sin or of the praise of God. And that this is so is easy to learn from the sayings of the Gospels. For when the Lord says, "I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent of the world and revealed them to little ones," he confesses the praise of God the Father for revealing to little ones what was unknown to the prudent, teaching that these things were hidden from those who seemed prudent because they had not believed the Gospel commandments with the innocence of little ones. But where in the same Gospels it is said, "And all were baptized in the Jordan, confessing their sins," there confession of sins is contained without ambiguity of another meaning.

The greatest and most useful medicine for the diseases of deadly vices lies in confessing them. But confession of sin is not like the declaration of things unknown to others, as when a thief questioned about a theft, or a murderer about a killing, confesses; nor does God, who searches hearts and reins, need your confession for his knowledge as if he were ignorant, for whom it is easy to see not only what has been thought but what is going to be thought. Confession of sin is this: that you confess what you have done to be sin, through knowledge of sin. For no one undertakes what he does except either for the fruit of some delight or from the judgment of a good opinion of it, while he either thinks it right or rejoices in it. But when through the teaching of God and the reasoning of truth he understands that what he did under the appearance of usefulness or pleasure is sin, through the understanding of sin he confesses that what he has done is sin.

No one will afterward commit with pardon what he has confessed to be sin, because confession of sin is a declaration of ceasing. But to remain in sins understood and confessed: this long-standing knowledge of sin loses the pardon of confession. For one cannot confess as newly known what one has done with knowledge of sin. One must cease from sins, then, once the knowledge of sin is in confession; and one must confess, as the prophet taught, with the whole heart, not in part, nor with any working of known sins still remaining with us. For what if someone, repenting of theft, increases his money by unjust and shameful gains? He will not indeed be a thief, but he will be greedy and a robber. Or if someone, ceasing from sexual immorality, corrupts himself with too much wine? He will not indeed pollute his body, but he will defile his soul. And if someone, refraining from killing, persists in cursing? He will not indeed have a murderous hand, but he will have a murderous tongue. And how will anyone be able to confess with his whole heart if no small part of sin remains with him? All vices being wiped away, then, the work of ceasing is needed in confession, and we must always pray to God that he may strengthen the wavering efforts of our will in restraining sins and extinguishing their incitements.

Therefore, now confident through his confession and prayer, the prophet says he has been placed in the harbor of innocence: "I will confess to you, O Lord, with my whole heart, for you have heard the words of my mouth." There is a double sense to this understanding, as we said above. For either he confesses praise to God because the words of his mouth were heard, or, helped by God's mercy after praying long, he confesses now that all his sins have ceased. Both suit our faith: that we both praise the Lord and confess the sins we have understood.

Then follows: "And in the sight of the angels I will sing psalms to you." The prophet thinks it too little to sing psalms only in the presence of men, because men see only the performance of bodily affairs. In that he sings psalms, he shows the motion of a work pleasing to God. He does not desire, then, that what is seen in the body be observed, but hastens to do what spiritual natures behold spiritually. For he knows that he leads his whole life and conduct under the watch of the angels, and that these aids of divine ministers stand by all the faithful everywhere, as it is written: "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him." The apostle teaches too that the law of Moses was ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator. And Elisha also taught most plainly that human weaknesses are defended by the help of angels, and that in all dangers, if faith remains in us, the defense of spiritual powers is present. For when the king of Syria was preparing to capture the city of Geth, in which this same prophet Elisha was, and had sent his army by night marches to besiege the city before dawn, Elisha's servant, seeing the siege, said: "O lord, what shall we do?" And Elisha said: "Do not fear, for there are more with us than with them." And Elisha prayed to the Lord and said: "Open, O Lord, the eyes of this servant, and let him see." And the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots around Elisha, and they came down to them. So great and noble a prophet alone was worthy of the contemplation of spiritual aid; but his prayer to God won the sight of incorporeal things for his servant too. In the sight of these angels, then, who stand by to help men, the prophet sings psalms, intending to please spiritual beings by the contemplation of spiritual works.

But he not only sings psalms before the angels; he will also do what follows: "I will worship toward your holy temple": not in the temple, lest he seem to speak bodily according to the custom of the Jews if he worshipped in the temple, but toward the temple, that is, intending to worship at the temple in spirit and body. And that every holy person is a temple for God the apostle teaches, saying: "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you." The dwelling, then, that will be made from us worthy of God is a temple for God.

At this temple holy to God, then, he will worship, not without the perfect reasoning of doctrine, lest any occasion of irreligion should open to heretics for their pursuits from the confusion of an ill-composed prayer. For he says: "And I will confess to your name for your mercy and your truth." When he confesses to God's name, he holds the faith in which the Gospels and the law agree. For God willed it to be known what his name was: the Lord showed it by the same saying of the Gospel and the law, answering the Sadducees who denied the resurrection of bodies: "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, saying: I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living." The error of the heretics, then, is plain, who assert one God of the Gospels and another of the law, since the Lord recalls what is principal in the law to confirm the hope of the Gospel. But there is also another name for God, which we learn in the Gospels when the Lord says: "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you." And after much else there follows: "I have manifested your name to men." And what the name was he showed above, saying: "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son." He worships, then, the name of him who is both, according to the law, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, and, according to the Gospels, the Father of the only-begotten God.

He also extinguishes the insolent profession of those who, forgetful of human nature and weakness and preaching a merciless God, leave no pardon or comfort for the sins of the penitent: whereas the teaching of the law, the prophets, the Gospels, and the apostles urges those who have sinned to repentance, by which one desists from sins, so that through it some little comfort may be gained for a hope already despaired of, so that, even if we have lost the blessed, greatest things nearest to God, we may at least not lack those that are second to them.

He also removes the most foolish rashness of those who contend that the Lord was seen in the flesh with an unreal and false body, as though the Father had shown him with feigned truth in the appearance of false flesh, not remembering that after the resurrection of the body it was said to the apostles, who believed they were seeing a spirit: "Why are you troubled, and what thoughts have arisen in your heart? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have." The prophet distinguishes his confession from the confession of these, holding the order of perfect faith, when he confesses God in the name of the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; merciful to the penitent in his mercy; and in his truth the Word who was made flesh.

The cause of confession is also taken from this: "For you have magnified your holy name above all things." The name of God is not known to one nation only: it has been magnified above all things, and the greatness of its holiness extends to all. No barbarian, no Scythian, no slave, no free, no woman, no man, no age is set apart: for the name of God has been magnified above all things. The temples have collapsed, the idols are mute, the soothsayers fall silent at the intervention of the saints, faith deceives the augurs: the one name of God is holy among all nations. For he is always present among his saints who hope in him, and wherever he is called upon he gives present help.

For he says: "On whatever day I call upon you, hear me." No righteous person spends any day without fear, nor does faith, always anxious about itself, admit the leisure of a secure time. He knows that all days are full of snares for him, the devil and his angels always plotting his destruction. He knows that the day of the Lord will be hidden, unexpected, sudden like a thief in the night. He prays, then, that God may hear him calling on whatever day. Nor does he doubt what he will obtain when heard on whatever day. For there follows: "You will multiply me in my soul in your power." Through God's great care, namely, he will be multiplied in the power of the soul, so that nothing in him may lie open to tribulations, nothing to terrors, but, when temptations assail and fear falls, all things may be borne by the multiplied power of the soul.

And since this hope is certain, that the power of the soul will be multiplied by the help of divine mercy, he declares that confession is therefore owed to God by all, saying: "Let all the kings of the earth confess to you, O Lord, for they have heard all the words of your mouth. And let them sing in the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord; for the Lord is high and regards the lowly, and knows the lofty from afar." Whom the prophet means by kings of the earth has already been shown in very many psalms: kings not of nations but of the earth, that is, each king of his own body, the reign of sin having ceased in him. For we have been called into the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of death having been overthrown: for death reigned from Adam to Moses; and now each is his own king, according to the apostle: "Already without us you reign." The confession of these, then, is worthy of God. For they have heard all the words of God's mouth and know they have been made kings.

And not only are they to confess, but also to sing in the ways of the Lord, not overstepping the ways of God but going in them. The ways of God are all the prophets and apostles, each directing his own way into the one way. And that from all one runs together into one way, the prophet shows, saying: "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." For the ways of the Lord are eternal. In these ways of the Lord, then, we must sing and join in prophetic hymns, because the glory of God is great; for of his greatness there is no end. For his works testify to the greatness of his glory: heaven, earth, seas, the upper air, and man himself, who, sharing in reason, has been perfected for knowledge of these things, so that through these visible things he might behold the invisible glory of God.

And not only is God's glory great, but he is also high and regards the lowly. Hence the greatest wonder at his surpassing loftiness is that he who is high regards the lowly. But what lowly things does he regard? Surely these: "A contrite and humbled heart God does not despise"; and again: "And upon whom shall I look but upon the humble and him who trembles at my words?" But he who, being high, regards the lowly has in himself another wonder too, that he also knows the lofty from afar. Proud and insolent thoughts do not deceive God: he knows all things, and nothing is impenetrable to his knowledge. God, as it is written, is near to those who are of a troubled heart; but he does not mingle with the arrogant, nor is he near the insolent. To each of us, according to the difference of faith, he is either near or far, resting by spiritual power where it is worthy of him. And therefore he knows the lofty from afar, because he is absent from the insolent through their unworthiness, and by his power, though far off, he knows what is proud.

"If I walk in the midst of tribulation, you will give me life." This righteous man does not refuse to walk in the midst of tribulations. For he knows that tribulation, according to the apostle, works patience. He knows that untested gold does not please, he knows that a soldier will not be victorious except in war, he knows that untried faith languishes, he knows that, according to the apostle, we must glory in tribulations. He knows that he is unequal to tribulations without God's help; and therefore through God he is sure of his salvation and trusts that, walking in the midst of tribulations, he will be given life through the same. For he says: "Against the anger of my enemies you stretched out your hands, and your right hand saved me. The Lord will repay for me." When enemies are angry, the outstretched hand of God protects us. For enemies, angry at our faith and hope, bring tribulations: because our adversary, according to the apostle, the devil, like a roaring lion, walks about seeking to devour us. But over the anger of the enemies, through whom the devil always works, the hand of the Lord is stretched out, and his right hand saves those who hope in him. Power is signified by the right hand; and therefore the Lord, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God, is sometimes called and named the right hand of God, through whom we shall be protected against all enemies in every war of tribulations.

The prophet has kept the reasoning of Gospel meekness, by which we are forbidden to repay injury to those who persecute us, saying: "The Lord will repay for me." For vengeance is to be reserved for him who commanded that, in a lawsuit over a tunic, the cloak be let go too, who willed that after the injury of one blow the other cheek also be offered, who forbade returning evil for evil: those who reserve the punishment of present injury for the eternal Judge will obtain more vengeance.

Then he concludes with the voice of most faithful hope: "O Lord, your mercy is for ever; do not neglect the works of your hands": so that, since the mercy of God is for ever, stretching out his hand against the anger of enemies, protecting his faithful with his right hand, and repaying on their behalf, he may not neglect the works of his hands, namely man, who says: "Your hands made me," and the rest. Things made by the hand of God are sometimes mentioned; but man is always made by hands, a nobler work toward him being shown by the counting of hands. He prays, then, that he may not neglect him and may be his constant helper, through and in him who says: "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age," our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

All prophetic speech proceeds from the prompting of the divine Spirit. And this is not obscure, when we read: "Thus says the Lord"; and again: "Hear the words of the Lord"; and again: "For the Lord has spoken"; and in the same: "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." Concerning the psalms, the Lord himself confirms it in the Gospels, when he says of himself: "If," he says, "David in the Spirit calls him Lord, how do you say that he is his son?" teaching that David spoke everything by the prophetic Spirit. And although in this same place he showed that David spoke of him, when he says he was named Lord by him in the Spirit, yet he showed more completely that the whole mystery of his bodily coming is contained in the psalms, saying: "These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything must be fulfilled that is written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms concerning me." There is no doubt, then, that it is written of him in the psalms. For although many things in them are such that they ought to be referred to the person of the patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, apostles, and of the first generation and the following generation, yet, since all things are in Christ and through Christ, whatever is prophesied in the psalms under the persons of different people is all about him: because all teaching, however manifold in different kinds of precepts, accomplishes this through different people, that he may be known. These things had necessarily to be recalled by us for the sake of the present psalm, lest we should be thought to have presumed without credible authority to refer this whole prophecy to the person of Christ.

But we must carefully observe this rule: that whatever seems fitting and suited to that man whom he assumed from the womb of the holy virgin, and in whom he, who was God, willed to be born a man, be treated with the dignity due to his heavenly nature, and that we not fit the mystery of our salvation, by which, remaining in the form of God, he took the form of a servant, to an affront against his unchangeable, invisible, incorporeal, and impassible substance. For that he was man profited us and took nothing from him. For he emptied himself while remaining in the form of God, so that he might also be in the form of man, not so that he might cease to be in the form of God. For he himself says: "Whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise." Did he, remaining in the form of a servant, lose the power and divinity in which he remained in the form of God? For since in the body of our lowliness he does likewise whatever the Father does, he falls short in nothing of the power of the Father's divinity through fellowship with the flesh; nor did the body that was assumed abolish the power of the nature that remained before, since in the body that was assumed the power of the nature that remained before was at work.

So if anything weak is found said in his person, it must be referred to the man through whom he dwelt in us. For "the Word was made flesh and dwelt in us." And it is to be so referred because he assumed a man of a nature not foreign or feigned. For the Word, made flesh, dwelt in us: not failing from the power of the Word into the vices and weaknesses of the flesh, but, born a man, taking on the weaknesses of our nature. The taking on of weakness did not make him weak, because it is one thing to be a nature, another to have taken on a nature. And the addition of will lies outside the necessity of kind. For he was not a sinner, but he took up sins; nor was he weak, but he bore weaknesses. For he himself, according to the prophet, took up our sins and bore our weaknesses. And lest anything of weakness be thought to fall upon the impassible and unchangeable divinity, he added: "And we thought him to be in pains." He took up weaknesses, then, because he is born a man; and he is thought to feel pain, because he suffers; but he himself is free from pains, because he is God. And since he dwells in us, and takes up our weaknesses, and does not feel pain in the weaknesses taken up, he who dwells cannot not exist, nor can he who takes up have failed from himself, nor can he who does not feel pain have been abolished as God. These things have been recalled briefly for the sake of the present psalm, because it seems to begin at once in the person of the man, lest by speaking as a man he should seem to have departed from the glory of the Father's divinity.

For he says: "O Lord, you have proved me and known me." The apostle, when instructing us in the teaching of patience and hope, says: "Tribulation perfects patience, and patience proof, and proof hope, and hope does not put to shame." And we know that this was so in the life and works of all the saints, that, tossed by many sufferings and tribulations, they were made proven before God. For if anyone remembers that Abraham, an exile, remained always faithful in fear of being murdered, in childlessness, and in the injuries of other sufferings; if anyone recalls Jacob's flight and, besides the labor of summer days, the watches of winter nights guarding the sheep; if anyone reviews Moses' servitude of forty years, and in it the bitter reproaches of the people and the rival powers of the magicians against him: he will understand that, proven by patience and constancy of hope, they not undeservedly obtained this reward, that in Abraham's seed the nations should be blessed, that from Jacob Israel should come, that Moses should be made a god to Pharaoh. It is long to recall the sufferings of the other patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, and those blessed and unconquered proofs of Paul's faith at sea, in rivers, on land, in deserts, in cities, among his own and among strangers, in stripes, in chains, in prisons, in theaters. Certainly patience made all these proven, through which they proved the confidence of a hope that does not put to shame. But these things should be treated more fittingly and fully in their own places: now we must return to him in whose person we said the psalm stands.

The person of the divinity and that of the body must not be confused. For the whole prayer now at the beginning is in the person of the man whom he assumed: "You have proved me, O God, and known me." He was proved so that he might be known, because knowledge comes after proof. And let us see, according to the teaching of the Gospels, how this Son of God was both proved and known. For his humility, through which he deserved to be adored by everything in heaven, on earth, and under the earth and to be in the glory of God the Father, was his proving. For thus the apostle says: "He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at his name 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." Because of this obedience unto death and the death of the cross, then, the weakness of the flesh assumed is set in the name and honor of immortality and in the glory of God the Father. For the name of God is given, and the name is not given without honor. The honor given can be none other than that of the name; and the name of the honor granted is nothing other than the Father's glory: so that he who, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant, should, because of the obedience of the servant's form taken up together with the death of the cross, be in the glory of God the Father, in whose form he was remaining before. But the apostle spoke of these things as already perfected: we must show in the Gospels where he was both proved and known.

His humility, then, is his proving. For the only-begotten God, the forgiver of sins, the Lord of the eternal kingdom, asks to be baptized as if a sinner. The Baptist refuses this service, recognizing him as the one who should rather forgive him his sins. But he fulfilled the righteousness of the man taken up into himself even by the sacrament of baptism: he does not refuse to become a sharer in our sin, himself knowing no sin, and, taking upon himself all the humility of perishable flesh, he enters the Jordan mingled with the crowds of sinners. He is proved in all these things as they are done; but let us see whether, proved, he is acknowledged. For the evangelist says: "And when Jesus had been baptized, he came up at once from the water. And behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending from heaven like a dove coming upon him, and behold a voice from heaven saying to him: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Knowledge soon followed the proof: and him whom humility had made proven, the Father's voice, after proving him, showed to be his Son, well-pleasing to him. There is also a proving that knowledge followed at once. He spends time in the desert, is subjected to the devil's temptation, and allows himself to be carried now to the pinnacle of the temple, now to a high mountain. So he gave himself to the affront of so grave an injury: while he is in the desert, while he is mocked by the condition of temptation, while he can be lifted up to the temple and the mountain. But the proving of the temptations did not lack the testimony of one who acknowledges him. For Scripture says: "Then the devil left him, and behold, angels ministered to him." A man is tempted, a man is carried about, but after this angels minister. Through proving he is known; through being known he is worthy of the ministry of angels. And in the rest, as often as he was proved, so often was he also known. Peter rejected his passion, not enduring the stumbling block of the cross in him, out of love and out of the knowledge of the divinity he had already confessed; but because he had called him Satan for unbelief in the cross, not long after, when he stood on the mountain in the appearance of his glory, he is acknowledged by such a voice from the Father: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him." The acknowledgement of the Father's voice followed the proving that the apostle's temptation had brought about.

Then follows: "You have known my sitting down and my rising up." That teaching is signified by sitting is the authority of the Gospel. The seats we speak of are those which the Greeks call cathedrae. Moses had a chair, according to the Lord's saying: "The scribes and Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses. So do and observe all that they tell you; but do not do according to their works; for they speak and do not do." Since, then, the teaching of the Pharisees is taught to be acceptable because they sat on the chair of Moses, teaching is necessarily signified by the chair. He knew his sitting, then, when he proclaims his dignity in all things, when he carries out the will of him who sent him, when, asking glory for the humility of his body, he hears from heaven: "I have both glorified it and will glorify it." But no less than teaching in his sitting, work is known in his rising. For as sitting is the precept of teaching, so rising is the effect of working. Jesus taught sitting on the mountain; but after teaching he went down to works. For thus it is written: "And when he came down from the mountain, crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came and worshipped him, saying: Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And stretching out his hand Jesus touched him, saying: I will; be clean." The Lord also rose to heal the centurion's daughter; for it is written: "And Jesus rose and followed him with his disciples." And when he fulfilled that perfect service of his humility in washing the apostles' feet, we read thus: "He rose from supper and laid aside his garments and, taking a towel, girded himself." So teaching and work are known in his sitting and rising, because by word and by work he proclaimed the glory of God the Father in himself.

"You have understood all my thoughts from afar." God is the searcher of hearts and reins; and how were his thoughts understood from afar? "From afar" refers not to place but to time. For he does not say "you understand from afar," so that a meaning of place might be believed, as though the knowledge of his power, placed far from human works, understood what is thought; but "you have understood from afar," signifying rather an age of past time. And where shall we find that he knew his thoughts long before? Surely where it is said: "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will announce judgment to the nations. He will not cry out, he will not quarrel, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets." And the evangelist recalls this prophecy when he commanded those he healed to be silent about him. These thoughts of his, then, of humility and patience, he understood long before, because he had testified of them through the mouth of the prophets.

"You have searched out my path and my measured way." Before treating this, something must be said in advance about "path" and "measured way." What with us is "path" has another force and meaning among the Greeks: for they call it τρίβον, that is, worn by frequent going and running about, a way walked not once or occasionally but always. And what our translators rendered as directio, they translated from the Hebrew as σχοινίον. Σχοινίον, by the custom of certain nations, means a fixed and set measure of journey, so that what we call miles, they call σχοινίον.

Our Lord, then, in the body he assumed, ran the path already traversed and worn by him in the prophets, and completed the fixed and set end of his journey. That he walked by the worn path of preaching, let us hear him saying: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not!" When he says "how often," he shows the frequency of a numerous meaning. He did and suffered nothing new, then, when through Jerusalem, which was unwilling for her children to be gathered, he was so often both heard and dishonored in the prophets.