Tractates on the Psalms 52.1–52.21

The present psalm almost agrees with the thirteenth psalm, but in this very likeness of words it has no small difference of understanding. First, by the force of the inscription itself. For the thirteenth is inscribed thus: "For the end, of that David," by which title it is signified that that psalm was prophesied by David; but this one: "For the end, for Maeleth, understanding, to that David." For where it is "for the end, understanding," there is the meaning of an exhortation and admonition, by which we are told to bring the judgment of our understanding to the knowledge of the end, so that we may understand that those things are announced in the psalm which will be completed at the end, according to the apostle's saying: "Then the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has destroyed every rule and authority and power; then he himself will also be subjected to him who subjects all things to himself. And the last enemy, death, will be destroyed." This, then, is the end that is understood in the psalm. And the fact that the psalm is inscribed "to that David" shows that the whole is prophesied of Christ, who is the true David: for where "of that" is inscribed, it signifies the one who spoke; but where it is "to that," it shows the one to whom it is spoken.

"The fool has said in his heart: There is no God." It is a human vice not to dare to commit shameful utterances to the words of the mouth but, under the pressure of inner wickedness, to speak them within the heart; while the iniquity of the will struggles against the constraint of public shame, what one is ashamed to say one is not ashamed to think. And therefore the fool says in his heart, "There is no God," because if he wished to say it with the words of his mouth, he would be convicted by the judgment of public consent of being a fool, as he is. For who, looking at the world, does not perceive that God exists? But it often happens that, while the necessity of truth compels us to confess God, the delight of vices persuades us that there is no God for us, and what we believe against faith we nevertheless speak from the counsel of an ungodly heart. From this comes that saying of God through the prophet: "This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me"; because they do not wish to believe what they cannot deny.

He shows the cause of this most foolish utterance in the heart, saying: "They are corrupt and have become abominable in iniquities." Whatever is outside the law is iniquitous. And those who go beyond the law of God are subjected first to corruption, then to abomination; for iniquity brings corruption, and corruption deserves abomination. For when someone transgresses the law of God, then he will deny God; and to deny God is corruption. For our Lord, to drive away corruption, the Word became flesh; for, according to the apostle, corruption must be clothed with incorruption. But he who is iniquitous, who does not believe that God the Word became flesh, and who says in his heart that there is no God, will remain corrupt and abominable. The thirteenth psalm, instead of "they have become abominable in iniquity," says thus: "They have become abominable in their inventions." The sense and the crime do not differ, since men, following what pleases them, have transgressed the ordinances of the divine law.

Then follows this complaint: "There is none who does goodness." Since this verse is repeated below with an addition, we shall treat it in its place. Yet it is fittingly and suitably added now: when all are corrupt and abominable, no one is found in works of goodness; for although we sometimes speak what is good, we do what is good with difficulty in our very deeds.

And so that God's will toward men should not be thought careless, he added: "The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there was anyone who understands or seeks God." The Lord's looking down from heaven is known to have been frequent, whenever, moved by the sins of the human race, for our salvation he chose Noah before the flood, or justified Abraham through faith, or promised Isaac as heir of his pledge, or prefigured in Jacob the birthright of the later people, or set Moses over them as prophet and leader and appointed him giver of the law, or inspired prophets in every time of the law. Through these and such workings of his power, then, he looked down upon the sons of men to see if there was anyone who understands and seeks God.

What God deigns to look down in order to see is no easy thing; and great is that which is so carefully examined to see whether it can be found in anyone. For God looks down from heaven to see whether any man seeks him with understanding. For how few men will you find who wish to seek God with perfect understanding? Who, examining first the causes of creatures and then the constitution of the human race, seeks through the reasoning of understanding the author and parent of so great a universe? Then: why the world, why men, why the times of the age; why the patriarch was chosen, why the law was established, why the prophet was sent ahead, and to what advance the origin of all causes was directed? And besides, what advance the powers of the heavens, the ministries of angels, the powers of archangels, the kingdom of the devil, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and God from God, the only-begotten Son of God, impart to us through such varied kinds of offices? This man, then, who seeks him through understanding, God looks out to see.

For understanding has no small merit, as Solomon says: "For understanding is good to all who find it"; and again through another prophet: "O Israel, what does God require of you but to do judgment and to understand righteousness?" For understanding is the proper function of human reason; and therefore the nature of a spiritual soul has been placed in us, so that through it we might reach toward the sense of understanding, which alone shares in reason. But overwhelmed by vices and weighed down by the heaviness of bodily nature through the delights of the body, we turn aside from the pursuit of understanding inquiry.

And we turn aside after we have begun to be useless; for the prophetic word signifies this: "All have turned aside, together they have become useless." They do not become useless when they turn aside; but when they have begun to be useless, they turn aside. The force of the saying is easily understood from the habit of human change. For when from good we have begun to be bad, and have separated ourselves through vices and disgrace from the company of the prudent and the honour of public reputation, becoming useless by this, then we turn aside from every meeting with upright men, following byways, and avoid the presence of the good out of the shame of our conscience. So Adam, having become useless through sin, then turned aside from God's coming; having lived for a time innocent and useful through keeping the commandments, he fled the meeting with God, formerly familiar to him, as soon as he began to be useless.

When none are found seeking God with understanding, and all turn aside as soon as they have become useless, the complaint of the speaker is repeated out of grief of heart: "There is none who does goodness, not even one." Heavy is God's declaration and indissoluble his judgment upon human vices when not even one does goodness. And it will be asked after this: how did Abel please, Seth was approved, Enoch was translated, Noah was preserved, Melchizedek was sanctified, Abraham was chosen, Isaac is heir, Jacob is Israel, Job is blameless, Moses is a friend, Aaron is an anointed one, David is after God's heart, the prophets are spiritual, the apostles received the keys of heaven, if, with the exception of only one, no one is good? And how will that saying be understood: "The good man brings forth good things from his good treasure," and that: "Good servant, enter into the joy of your lord"? For how will anyone be called good if no one does goodness?

First, the sense of the preceding words prevents us from thinking that the declaration of this general sentence falls also on those whom we mentioned above, men most approved by God's judgment. For the whole discourse began about fools, the corrupt, and the abominable; and when God looked down from heaven to see if anyone sought with understanding, and all, after they had begun to be useless, turned aside, no one was found doing goodness, not even one, that is, among those who were fools, corrupt, abominable, and who, after they had become useless, had begun to turn aside; the sentence of divine judgment fitting those with whom the discourse began. And when it says "not even one," it did not except one from all; but since all were useless and turned aside, when no one does goodness, not even one, it set apart not even one from all. For it does not say "except one" but "up to one"; and in "except one" the exception of one is signified, but in "up to one" the whole generality is contained, through the careful knowledge of the one who looks down from heaven, under a kind of particular and personal number.

We remember that such is the weakness of human nature that, by comparison with divine goodness, no one is good; but that incomparable exception of divinity did not shut off the work of goodness, as if by human comparison no one among men were good. For goodness first and perfect is that which, consisting in the power of an unchangeable nature, does not know being at any time other than it was, and cannot not be what it always is. But human impulses are mostly varied by change itself, and the imperfect nature of the earthly law becomes something else, changing as one impulse after another disturbs it. The movement of different feelings drives us to this: when we are angered by insult, moved by loss, kindled by wrath, disturbed by fear, swayed by love, driven by hatred, carried away by joy, stung by grief, divided in judgment, changed by age. Subject, then, to these weak movements of nature, we cannot be constant, since we are changeable both in feeling and in time. And therefore perfect goodness is in no one, since the incitements of natural disturbances change it. Yet when we are in goodness, whether in will or in deeds, we cannot at that time not be what we are. And although we are imperfect in this, that we are not always what we nevertheless are at a given time, yet, though liable through the weakness of nature to change from goodness, it is not taken from us that we are good at least when we are.

But God, alone always good through his unchangeable nature, was no harsh judge of this changeableness of ours, granting indulgence to our weakness, by which we do not always remain good, according to the merit of the will by which it delights us to be good; and he was more propitiated by what we wished than angered by what we could not. For when he had said to Moses, certainly his faithful friend and the one he had appointed as a god to Pharaoh, "Because you did not glorify me at the water of contradiction, go up the mountain and die," he afterwards kept him, whose burial place no one knew, to be seen with Elijah by the apostles on the mountain as a sharer and witness of his blessed and eternal kingdom. And, not to run through Aaron, David, Solomon, and many others as examples of such goodness of God, to whom, when the offences of their changes were rebuked, ready pardon was still present because of the merit of their faith: the Lord, aware of human weakness, said to the apostles, "All of you will be offended in me this night," and warned blessed Peter of what he would deny, not so much to announce a condemned change as because man is changeable through fear of the flesh; and he did not take the keys of the kingdom of heaven from him even when he denied. For though the denial had crept in through fear, the faith of a will to confess even to martyrdom was not lacking. And it is one thing not to will, another not to be able. For Peter, terrified, though through the sense of the flesh he could not keep steadfastness in his answer, through the faith of his mind at once wept. And when he recognized that he had been shaken from what he willed, he poured out the feeling of his faith in the grief of tears. And that very time was both one of change and of weeping, the firmness of the will being stronger than the change from fear. For soon steadfast faith wept over the inconstancy of fear, confirming thereafter the most approved firmness of apostolic steadfastness by the confession of martyrdom. We have mentioned these things in the present place so that we might not think it said universally, "There is none who does goodness, not even one," since these many great men pleasing to God, even if through the changeableness of nature they had departed a little from the purpose of faith, nevertheless attained by the greatest and most beautiful works of goodness the glory of heaven's judgment upon them.

And what follows settles this reasoning of our understanding: "Do not all who work iniquity know, who eat up my people like a meal of bread? They have not called upon God; there they trembled with fear where there was no fear. For the Lord has scattered the bones of those who please men; they are confounded, because God has despised them." For if no one, not even one, does goodness, how is there a people of God, which is eaten like a meal of bread by those who work iniquity? The generality of the sentence is therefore removed, since those who work iniquity are separated from the people of God, who undoubtedly remain in works of goodness. So the workers of iniquity eat up the people of God like a meal of bread, those who live on injuries to the saints, whom the harassing of the prophets, the devastation of the church, and every work of iniquity delight. Those too eat up the people of God like a meal of bread who tear it with the bite of detraction and the mangling of envy, according to the apostle's saying: "But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another." And there are also those who eat up the people of God like a meal of bread whose god, as the same blessed apostle says, is the belly, who treat their ministry as trade, enriching themselves with the people's contributions and gifts, while under pretext of religion they pursue costly banquets, while they swell their storerooms with the useless service of devout people (although the custom of this necessary contribution was instituted by the apostles only for the daily food of those who renounce the world or of those in need through poverty); of whom it is written: "Devouring the houses of widows and praying at length for a pretext." These, then, eat up God's people like a meal of bread and have not called upon God. For they are fools who said in their heart, "There is no God." They do not call, then, on one whom they deny. Or certainly, if any placed in the church eat up God's people like a meal of bread by detraction, persecution, and expense, even if they think they call on the Lord, they will hear that it was said in the Gospel: "For we know that God does not hear sinners." These, then, have not called upon the Lord, because prayer is a profession not of words but of faith.

But those who do not call upon God add this too to their ungodliness, that they fear what is not to be feared; for "there they trembled where there was no fear," venerating stones, metals, wood, fire, water, the sky, kings dead or about to die, or the other superstitious inventions of religions; and by this very ungodly fear of empty things and contempt of necessary fear they are to be condemned by comparison, since it is not so much ungodly to forget the fear of God as it exceeds in ungodliness to have preferred fear of empty things to fear of him. The Lord taught that there ought to be in us only the fear of what is truly to be feared, when he says: "Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear rather him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna." It is ungodly fear, then, when what is not to be feared is feared and what is to be feared is not feared. And often we think we flatter kings piously, as if from due religious duty, because they have some power over our body; yet they are allowed nothing more over us than a robber, than a fever, than a fire, than a shipwreck, than a falling building. For with these misfortunes of bodies they rage at their utmost power; and for the sake of brief pain we surrender the freedom of the church, the confidence of our hope, the confession of God, not fearing God, the punisher and destroyer of both our body and our soul in the fire of judgment, and preferring momentary punishments that will pass away to the eternal penalties of divine vengeance, while we boast of pleasing these very men and remaining in their favour by ungodly servility.

And the divine sentence condemns this very thing with a most severe decree. For to what he had said, "Do not all who work iniquity know, who eat up my people like a meal of bread? They have not called upon God; there they trembled where there was no fear," he added this as the sum of the discourse begun: "For God has scattered the bones of those who please men; they are confounded, because God has despised them." Will not these, then, who work iniquity, eat up the people like a meal of bread, have not called upon God, and have trembled at what is not to be feared, recognize that God has scattered the bones of those who wish to please men? That holy teacher of the Gentiles feared the sentence of this prophetic saying, when he said: "If I were still pleasing men, I would not be a servant of Christ." The pursuit of human favour is useless and irreligious. For men are to be pleased from God rather than to God's dishonour, so that one pleases through the divine ordinances and the uprightness of a faithful and innocent life. But to wish only to please men is to displease God. God does not, however, call the minds of the righteous and the rational holiness of the faithful away from the favour of men. Let us hear him saying through Paul: "Be without offence to Jews and Greeks and to the church of God, just as I too please all in all things, not seeking what is useful to me but what is useful to many, that they may be saved." This is to please not men but God, when through pleasing God one must also please men. For from the cause of pleasing God there comes also an approved cause of pleasing men. But the effort spent only to please men is not referred to pleasing God, since it is applied only for the sake of those who are pleased. And there is no greater bond for pleasing men than that no one should wish to please, for his own sake, those he pleases; for what is done for the advance of one's own advantage cannot help sometimes provoking some offence from accompanying causes, since what is useful to one often becomes inconvenient to another. But one who wishes nothing for his own sake and does everything for the advantage of others must acquire a reason for being pleasing without offence, since he pleases through the advantages of others and does not offend through his own. The apostle taught that this is an approved cause of pleasing all, because, neglecting his own advantage, he had given himself to the advantage of others.

God, then, has scattered the bones of those who please men. And these bodily bones are not to be understood as being scattered; but since the hope of eternity is customarily signified by bones, it is said: "This now is bone of my bones," which the blessed apostle, because it is a great mystery, refers to Christ and the church, which borrows the substance of eternity from the eternity of its Adam. This bone is not broken in the Lord's body, though wounded and pierced: "Not a bone of him," it says, "shall be broken"; because although the wicked had the right of inflicting suffering on the flesh, suffering had no power over the eternal and impassible nature of the divinity. That the hope of eternity, whole and incorrupt, is signified by bones we remember also where it is said: "God guards all the bones of the righteous; not one of them shall be broken"; because, according to the resurrection shown to Ezekiel, its mystery was revealed under the figure of bones. So, as God guards the bones of the righteous, so he has scattered those of the men-pleasers; and scattered them not so that they would cease to be what they were, but that, through God's contempt, they would become worthless as lost and cast away.

For this follows: "They are confounded, because God has despised them." Each person is confounded both by shame at his own disgrace and by comparison with another's honour. Hence what the apostle signifies when he says: "We shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed." The prophet too distinguishes the confusion and the honour of the resurrection, saying thus: "And they shall rise, some to life, others to eternal confusion." Those, then, will be confounded whose bones have been scattered, whom God has despised, whom he has cast away as unworthy to be conformed to his glory and resurrection: they will rise so as to be confounded, but they will not be changed, and they will be confounded for that very reason. For this is the appointed condition of the resurrection; and therefore the discourse is in the past tense, as the definition of a decree, because it has been established that it shall remain so.

Having recounted the ungodliness of human insolence and iniquity, so that the "understanding for the end" set in the title may be understood, the prophet confirms the hope of the blessed with this exhortation of the end itself, saying: "Who will give out of Sion the salvation of Israel? When the Lord turns back the captivity of his people, Jacob will exult and Israel will be glad." For this one hope remained to human weakness and faith, through which it might rest amid so many calamities of the present life in the expectation of eternal goods. And therefore the prophet, certain of this blessedness, cries out as from the vast depth of human miseries: "Who will give out of Sion the salvation of Israel?" For according to another prophet: "Out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." This word of the Lord became flesh. This flesh is both Sion and Jerusalem, our city of peace and our watchtower. From here comes salvation, from here Jesus. For Jesus, as we have often said, is salvation by his very name. But the law from Sion was not saving, giving life indeed by works but not justifying by faith.

This awaited salvation was given to Israel, but not to that carnal Israel. For not the children of the flesh are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. John too testifies that they are not children of Abraham according to the flesh, since they are also children of vipers, and God is able to raise up children to Abraham from stones. And the Lord himself taught that the right of succession comes from the works of faith, and the origin of children is not reckoned by fleshly generation, when he says: "If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham." And Daniel too, condemning the elders, says thus: "Not the seed of Abraham, but the seed of Canaan and not of Judah." Ezekiel too, rebuking the iniquities of the people, says: "Your father was a Canaanite, your mother a Hittite; your root and your generation are from the land of Canaan." This Israel, then, is not of bodily succession, to whom, because of unbelief, the origin of a most profane race is ascribed. Nor was salvation given to this one, who did not receive it when offered, but to the one who became the people of God when captivity was turned back.

He freed the captive minds of ignorant nations, subject to most ungodly vices and religions, into the freedom of faith and the name of the heavenly family. For those who were the slaves of demons became the people of God. And who this is who turns back the captivity he himself testified. For neither the law, nor patriarch, nor prophet, nor angel, nor any other power of heavenly beings, dominions, powers, thrones, or virtues turned it back, but he who, having taken the book in the synagogue and read these words, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach release to captives and sight to the blind, to set free the broken into release, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord," signifying the faith and the author of the fulfilled prophecy, said: "Today this prophecy has been fulfilled in your ears." This, then, is the captivity of God's people turned back: when the eyes of understanding are opened, when hearts broken by sins are released into rest, when the acceptable year of the Lord is announced, in which the confession of our repentance is accepted by God, when nothing of the past is counted as a crime, when all things are new, there is new freedom, new children, and eternal gladness.

"Jacob will exult and Israel will be glad": for the same patriarch received both names by merit. For because he held his brother's heel with his hand at birth, he was called Jacob, being later to supplant him both by buying the birthright and by seizing the blessings. And Genesis explained the force of the interpretation, that he was called Jacob because he was the supplanter of his brother. But through the recognition of God whom he confessed, when he asked to be blessed by that man over whom he prevailed in the wrestling (because, according to the mystery of the future passion, he had seen with the eyes of faith in the body the God against whom the people of his race prevailed in a wrestling of the flesh), he deserved to be named Israel, because Israel is "one who sees God." And according to the prophecy of Genesis itself, it is settled that in Jacob the younger people is signified, which would believe from the Gentiles. Here, then, Jacob will exult and Israel will be glad: according to the order of the church, this one people of a twofold profession and honour; for the heavenly word does not signify the same thing by doubled sentences. But because the first faith, by which someone prays that the name of God be called upon him, supplants by faith the earlier people, when the Gentile wishes not to be an unbeliever with the Jew, this is Jacob, exulting in the hope of the blessing seized beforehand. But when, reborn in baptism and perfected in faith, he has beheld God with the eyes and mind of understanding, then Israel will be glad, because, having supplanted the elder, he now sees God by faith, and will see him with a truer sight, according to that promise of blessedness: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," our Lord and God Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.