Tractates on the Psalms 61.1–62.12

The word of prophecy is written only for some advance of its hearers, either to teach toward knowledge or to confirm toward innocence of will; as now this psalm is sung by David "for Idithun," in which one is instructed in the fear of God and in steadfast endurance of human or spiritual wickedness, and is strengthened in contempt of riches, because avarice is the root of all evils. For in these the state of a blessed and eternal life is secure: if there is godliness toward God, patience in adversity, and contempt of wealth. So the psalm began with the confession of God.

"Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from him is my salvation. For he is my God, my saviour, my upholder; I shall not be moved any more." The prophet began the confession of God with the common feeling of men, as follows. After a long night of ignorance, after the doubtful and uncertain teaching of human opinions, after the empty opinion of various religions, when there had long been error and inquiry about God: whether he is one or many, of one sex or two, of equal or unequal power, of uniform or varied age, and whether all are of unbegotten nature or some were at some time begotten; then, when some had contended with great age and long labour that there are no gods at all or that they are absent from the care of human life; further, when many had argued either that the sun and the other stars are gods, or that the world itself, remaining in this form of eternity and its changes, with all that it brings forth from itself, is god; and when many had honoured fire or waters or air with the divine name and honour, and others too had worshipped wood, stones, and metals in the shape of men, birds, and beasts; finally, when the pursuits of all were exhausted and abandoned, and many of them, especially the wisest, had taught that they knew this one thing, namely that man knows nothing of these matters: then, after this ignorance of a confession made, as it were, of necessity, every prudent person, turning to the prophets and apostles, would grasp the whole law of God under the mystery of the eternal dispensation. In it he would consider the reason why the soul was brought down into this body and joined to it; in it he would learn the division of the nations according to the number of the angels; in it he would hear both that there is a prince of the world and of the choice of one nation; in it he would not be ignorant of the author of human death, and would feel and groan that the law of sin dwells in his flesh, warring against the law of his mind; after he had come to know that the Spirit of God, the power of God, the wisdom of God, the Son of God and only-begotten God was born man for the forgiveness of sin and the condemnation of the law of sin, who, having gone through the lot of human sufferings, died to condemn in himself the ungodly temptations of heavenly wickedness, so as to bring eternity to all of us who were dying through the law of sin dwelling in our flesh. And then, having received this mystery of godliness, placed in the light of knowledge after the night of ignorance, he would say: "Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from him is my salvation. For he is my God, my saviour, my upholder; I shall not be moved any more." Having found the seat of faith after wandering errors and the opinion of ungodliness, because he has known his upholder and saviour, he is no longer moved. For what is left any longer for human ignorance and anxiety, when the eternity of soul and body, that is, of the whole man, is proclaimed; when the assumption and taking up of our earthly flesh by God has been shown under the mystery of this great godliness; when the forgiveness of sins has been granted, the law of sin having been condemned; when our man has a seat at God's right hand in the heavens?

But the pursuits of pagan ungodliness diminish this hope of human blessedness, denying through the emptiness of worldly prudence that man can advance to God and taking from God fellowship in an assumed body, making themselves judges and governors of divine power: as if it were harder for God to have assumed man than to have formed him with so great a reasoning of nature and life. The prophet soon rebukes this ungodly disparagement of theirs: "How long will you rush upon a man? You all kill, as at a leaning wall and a tottering fence." For these ignorant and ungodly disputations push man, already prone to vices, and sink him, shaken and already falling, destroying him with the counsels of deceitful and harmful exhortations: as if the will itself were a small promoter of vices, which despair of eternal judgment and recompense urges on further to the enjoyment only of present and bodily things.

But he knows that this wall of his body, which lust, drunkenness, avarice, and anger had previously dug through, is now built in him into the house of God with living stones, and he recalls that he was created in the image of God; and, certain that he is being prepared to be conformed to God's glory, he added: "But they plotted to cast down my honour; I ran in thirst." While they plotted to take away his honour, he ran in thirst. For there is in the saints a thirst for eternal goods and a spiritual hunger, of which it is said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." Thirsting, then, he kept the course of his righteousness, preserving his whole life intact even from the disparagement of those who opposed him. For he learned from his Lord that all his works should be praised even by the judgment of pagan testimony, when it is said: "So let your works shine before men, that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven." So too Paul, pleasing all in all things, is a stumbling block neither to Jews nor to Greeks nor to the church, so that the adversary may have nothing evil to say of him, though the adversary keeps his zeal and wish to disparage, however free Paul made himself of every occasion of disparagement; which we recognize also in this saint running in thirst. For there follows: "With their mouth they blessed, and with their heart they cursed," since, keeping his honour, they blessed him by confessing his upright life, and cursed him with the malice of inner hatred.

But what is most saving to him this saint repeats even with a diapsalma intervening, showing that there must be in us a tireless perseverance in confession. For there follows: "Yet my soul is subject to God, for from him is my patience. For he is my God and my saviour, my helper; I will not depart. In God is my salvation and my glory. God of my help, and my hope is in my God." Let them push the leaning wall and the already tottering fence, and, though blessing with the mouth, curse with the heart; yet he knows that his soul must be subject to God, because from him is his patience. For he learned from him not to turn away his face from spitting, not to withdraw his cheeks from blows, not to refuse vinegar to drink with gall, not to curse after fists and scourges. For he himself is his God and saviour, he also his helper, so that he may not depart, moved from the perseverance of this patience and the confidence of his hope. For in him is the salvation and glory and hope of the one who will restore him, raised together with him, conformed to his heavenly glory.

And since, as a prophet, he is also a preacher of this hope to others, he added: "Hope in him, all the assembly of the people, and pour out your hearts before him, for God is our helper." Nothing hidden, nothing closed, nothing bound is to be kept in the heart under the confession of God. Every feeling is to be poured out before him, so that there is no confidence in ourselves, but that we may be helped by him before whom we pour ourselves out as for sin. Our hearts are to be poured out before him with tears and weeping, according to the saying: "My tears have been my bread day and night, while it is said to me daily: Where is your God? These things I remembered and poured out my soul within me"; showing that the pouring out of the soul is in the shedding of tears, because through them he is to be entreated who alone is the faithful helper.

But having performed his duty, the prophet knows that his admonition is of little weight with the ungodly; for at once, with a diapsalma intervening, he added: "But vain are the sons of men, liars are the sons of men in the balances, so that they themselves deceive from vanity into the same." Vain men, because either they hope for vain things or it is vain to hope in them; liars too, because by the sense of their ungodliness they either are deceived or deceive; and liars in this, that they deceive in the balances, doing unjust things under the name of justice. For where they promise a weighing of moderate prudence from themselves, there they practise the pursuits of immoderate ungodliness, entangling themselves in the error which they professed to drive away from others; and therefore they themselves go from vanity into the same, falling back into that from which they boast they depart.

But the root of iniquities is above all in the love of money; whoever seeks it will be sunk in the shipwreck of a most grievous storm. For there follows: "Do not hope in iniquity, and do not covet plunder. If riches flow, do not set your heart on them." For there are great enticements of desire and love in them: they seize talents and grasp wavering minds. So not only is their plunder not to be coveted, but our will must be drawn back from them even if they are offered and flow in, lest, desired and longed for, they become masters. For these are not goods co-eternal with our hopes, nor do they go down with us into the underworld or rise again with us from the underworld. Faith, godliness, self-control, and kindness are to be sought, and above all the knowledge of God is to be pursued. But these vain things, by their nature captious and leading to every necessity of iniquity, are to be avoided.

And as to what is rather to be sought for the hope of eternity, the prophet added, saying: "God has spoken once; these two things I have heard: that power is God's, and mercy is yours, Lord, for you render to each according to his works." When God spoke once, he heard two things; and those things must be joined to each other which are known under the meaning of one utterance. For at the beginning of the psalm he had referred the prophetic confession to God, saying: "Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from him is my salvation." The fury of Jewish ungodliness had to be driven off completely, so that it might be taught that in God the Father the Son too is signified, as now in one the other also is shown. For he testified that the faith of subjecting his soul to God is this, that from him is his salvation; and it has often been discussed that Salvation is Jesus. And when God spoke once, two things were understood and heard; just as the saying, "Father, I have manifested your name to men," signified in the Father also the Son; so the two things heard when God spoke once are: "that power is God's, and mercy is yours, Lord, for you render to each according to his works." Paul knew how to confess both in one, that is, neither without the other, saying: "There is one God and one Lord," since the Lord is signified in God and God in the Lord. When God spoke once, then, these two things are heard: "that power is God's, and mercy is yours, Lord." For from him is his salvation; and the Son received all things from the Father; and therefore in him the power of God was either received or born. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. He, then, who is judge is the one who repays each. But the power is his from whom the only-begotten God was born as judge; and his power is from God, he who received judgment from the Father; and so neither does he who is judge lack power, nor he who is God lack mercy. Certainly he must remain guilty of eternal judgment who does not confess both in one; though he is not to be understood as being one who is both, he who says, "The Father is in me and I in the Father," our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

It is contained in the book of Kingdoms that David lived in the desert, so that he who prefigured the Lord's sufferings might prophesy them even when he lived in the desert, since the only-begotten God would likewise stay in the desert. But as befitted a holy man and was worthy of so great a prophet, when, avoiding the hatreds of the ungodly, he had given himself to solitude, he is occupied with the greatest mysteries of heavenly things, and, removed from every gathering of human ungodliness or ignorance, he turns his mind to the things by which the knowledge and merit of eternity were acquired. Not occupied, not hindered by the cares of common things and the world, but in that quiet and leisured secrecy of his solitude, when nothing offensive ran into his eyes or mind, he is busy with divine pursuits alone. Let us see where the discourse of the psalm began.

"God, my God, I watch for you from the dawn." For this man the day plainly began with thanksgiving and knowledge of God, for whom the very beginning of praying to God is that of the light. He entreats the God of the universe, yet his own God through the knowledge of acquaintance.

Prayer is not so much of words as of feeling; and therefore he added: "My soul has thirsted for you, how simply my flesh too, in a desert land, pathless and waterless." For God, then, with whom is the fountain of life, his soul thirsts, intent with the desire of drinking. And indeed the mind of every person is carried by a kind of natural instinct toward the knowledge and hope of eternity, since it is as if implanted and impressed in all to think that there is in us a divine origin of souls, since the mind itself recognizes in itself no small kinship with the heavenly race. But these earthly bodies, compacted from matter fit for vices, while they are stained with the things in which they delight as if by nature, despair of being able to attain heavenly fellowship and reward: as if the vices of the body in which it delights did not also stain the nature of the soul, or as if, when the delight of the body overflows to the mind, the body did not also draw the mind with it to the feeling of delight. What is in the same pleasure must be in the same condemnation of pleasure. But we, instructed by spiritual teachings, know that salvation has been given by God to both soul and body, provided that after the grace of regeneration the sense of the body is imbued with the joys of the mind, that is, if we live not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit; because according to the apostle the works of the Spirit and of the flesh are distinguished by the pursuits of vices and of self-control. It is hard, but most true, to hope for eternity for the body as well as for the soul. And therefore to the thirst of the soul the prophet added, "My soul has thirsted for you, how simply my flesh too," keeping nothing uncertain in himself under the doubt of unbelief, but his flesh thirsting as simply as his soul thirsts for God. For he thirsts not for the body, but thirsting for God. For although the very necessity of nature held him, remaining in a desert, pathless and waterless place, to bodily thirst, yet he knows that through these sufferings of want and thirst the faith of believers is to be proved, so that the soul thirsts more for God than for the body, though thirsting for the body too; because neither hunger nor distress nor any kinds of suffering would separate the apostle from the love of God that is in Christ. The saint thirsts for God, then. And what he thirsts for he testified in another psalm, when he says: "My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?" This is the desire of the soul, this the thirst of his hope: that the sight of God may come to him, that as soon as possible, caught up in the clouds and raised to meet God the Christ, he may appear.

And now too the prophet declares the feeling of this desire. For after the declaration of thirst, after the want of the desert, pathless and waterless, because in these there is, as it were, the warfare and victory of faith, he added: "So in the holy place I have appeared to you, to see your power and your glory; for your mercy is better than life." It belongs to the knowledge of prophecy to record things to be done as done. And hence comes the frequent authority, when "they gave him vinegar to drink" was said while it was still to be given in the passion, when "they divided the garment," which was to be divided later; so now, thirsting for God in the thirst of the body, he appears such to him in his holy one: in simplicity of flesh, in thirst of soul, in prayer at dawn, because only through these will they be held approved or taken up by Christ, or be caught up to meet him in the clouds. But in the holy one of God they will appear to God in no other way than according to that saying, "He who has seen me has seen the Father," and that, "I and the Father are one"; because in the nature and name of the Son the meaning of the eternal nature and name is contained: appearing to the Son or taken up by the Son, he will appear to the Father in the Son.

And to show, by this meaning of his thirst, the desire for that holy one in whom he would appear to God, he added: "to see your power and your glory"; that is, to see him who, according to the apostle, is both the power of God and in the glory of God; and he would see him for nothing other than to merit fellowship in eternity and to obtain the eternity of the heavenly kingdom, since these are prepared through God's mercy beyond the blessedness of this life.

For there follows: "for your mercy is better than life." It is indeed a great gift of God that we have come into life, and with nature itself as guide we rejoice at being born. But since our whole age is full of anxieties and pains, there is more hope in God's mercy than in life; for death follows this life from the law of sin, but mercy will restore eternity from death. As the sowing and dissolving of wheat is better than keeping the wheat (for God clothes it in the ear as he wills), so it is a great gift of God's mercy if, having died with Christ, we live in Christ. For even Adam's death, lest he remain in the punishment of eternity, was appointed under the meaning of mercy; and the apostle judges that it is better for him to depart. And the prophet shows the joy of the death that awaits him, saying, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints," because through it, when we have been released together with the law of sin, by the advance of glorious change, eternity of soul and body, now without the body of sin, will be repaid.

Certain, then, of God's mercy, which is better than life, the prophet performs the duty of thanksgiving, saying: "My lips will praise you. So I will bless you in my life, and in your name I will lift up my hands." He praises and blesses God both in word and in work; for blessing in his life, he will lift up his hands in his name. We have often taught that the lifting of hands signifies not the posture of praying but the sign of lofty work. In this life of his, then, he will praise God, because his mercy is better than lives. For there is also a life after life, in which one is to live in Abraham's bosom, in which the name of God is blessed in the rest of the poor man, according to the prophet's saying: "The dead will not praise you, Lord, nor all who go down to the underworld; but we who live bless the Lord." Above these lives, then, is that mercy which has prepared for those who love the Lord what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has it entered the heart of man.

This mercy, then, he praises and blesses, no longer now expecting the sacrifices of the law from burnt offerings of cattle and the richness of fat, but offering himself to God as a sacrifice in the sole confession of the soul and the praise of blessing, according to the sayings: "The sacrifice of praise will honour me"; and, "Offer to God the sacrifice of praise"; and, "For if you had wanted sacrifice, I would have given it; you will not delight in burnt offerings"; because, the prescription of the letter and the allegories of the law ceasing, God is to be honoured with the praises of a living and understanding sacrifice. For he added: "Let my soul be filled as with fat and richness, and lips of exultation will praise your name." He does not condemn those things as abominable, but confirms these as more expected, since he asks that his soul be filled with the praise of exultation as with fat and richness, which were held to be the firstfruits of sacrifices.

But these are duties not so much of words as of the mind, so that the sacrifice of praise comes down from holiness of works. So he at once added: "If I remembered you upon my bed, in the mornings I meditated on you." Remembrance at night completes meditation in the morning; and therefore he watches for God from the dawn, because the confidence and consciousness of morning prayer come from the purity of the bed, that is, of the couch. So he suppressed by remembrance of God the thoughts that creep in under the secrecy of night, and the fear of his God's name helped him as he struggled against the incitements of the flesh. For there follows: "For you have been my helper, and in the covering of your wings I will hope," the meditation on God, through which he is his helper, protecting him. For he has no other care than to please God: he remembers him alone on his bed, meditates on him in the morning from the remembrance of the night; he is his helper, and he exults under the covering of his wings, that is, he is safe under the shelter of his protector.

But the advance and cause of all these is this, for there follows: "My soul has clung after you; your right hand has taken me up." This is the force of love, that we cling to those we love even if they are absent, since neither place nor time ever tears away the feeling implanted. The prophet, then, clung to God, the allurements of the world and the vices of the body not drawing away his love and affection from him; because according to the apostle, "He who clings to God is one spirit," and the Lord prayed for the disciples: "Father, as we are one, so that they too may be one in us." Clinging to God, then, he was taken up by God's right hand: that is, through the power of God, which is signified by the right hand, he was taken up by him who is the power and wisdom of God and the Word made flesh, being now about to be conformed to the glory of his body.

And since, taken up by God's right hand, he has cast off all fear that could come from his enemies, he did not keep silent about the security of his confidence, nor is he ignorant of the severity of God's just judgment, saying: "But they have sought my soul in vain; they will go into the lower parts of the earth; they will be handed over to the hands of the sword; they will be the portion of foxes." They seek his soul in vain, then. For according to the Gospel man does not destroy the soul with the body; and God's mercy is better than life; and he has already been taken up by God's right hand. They will go into the lower parts of the earth, because they are separated from the saints by an impassable chasm; and they will be handed over to the hands of the sword, because, as with the rich man, the power of punishment, which is signified in the edge of the sword, will be exercised on the ungodly. They will also be the portion of foxes, about to obtain the lot of deceitful little beasts: because Herod too is a fox, and foxes destroy the bridegroom's vineyard, and they have made for themselves a den in the hearts of the ungodly, while the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head; and there is no doubt that the wickedness of demons is signified in them, for whom, with their prince, the fire of Gehenna has been prepared.

But amid these things he shows the gladness of him who often exulted to the Father for joy at human salvation: "But the king will rejoice in the Lord; everyone who swears by him will be praised, for the mouth of those who speak wicked things has been stopped." He indicates the reason why the king rejoices: because whoever swears by him will be praised in God by the devotion of this oath; namely, whoever knows Jesus as king, and also as God over all; who, according to Paul, bears witness to the coming of the great God and Saviour; who, according to Isaiah, swearing by him, will swear by the true God. For the mouth of those who speak wicked things has been stopped, because it is proclaimed from the law and from the prophets and by the apostle, and taught, that in him the Father both chose and blessed us before the foundation of the world, and that he himself raised us together and seated us at the right hand of God in the heavenly places, when they will see him in his majesty judging the living and the dead. Through these things, then, the mouth of those who speak wicked things will be stopped. For he himself is king for ever, and at the name of the Lord Jesus every knee will bend, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.