Tractates on the Psalms 67.14–67.32

And so that these spoils divided for the beauty of the house, for whom it was wished that they might sleep among the lots, that is, be completed in death as such, might be understood as referring to the leaders of the churches, through whom the beauty of the house stands, he added at once: “While the heavenly one appoints kings over it, they will be made white as snow in Salmon, the mountain of God, a mountain of abundance; a consecrated mountain, a fat mountain.” While the heavenly one, then, appoints these kings over it, that is, while the Lord, coming down from heaven, establishes as kings those who were spoils and sets each one over the house that is most beautiful through them, they will be made white with snow in Salmon; that is, in peace, for Salmon means peace, they will receive the glory of eternity. For this mountain of God, in which the peace of God is signified by the force of the name itself, is abundant, consecrated, and fat. That they are kings is not obscure, those of whom it was said: “Already you have reigned without us; and would that you did reign, so that we too might reign with you.” The heavenly Lord, then (for as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly), will set these kings over his house in Salmon, through whom it will be adorned with the divided spoils, made white with snow, as kings. For his place was made in peace, and according to Isaiah scarlet will be made white as snow. But the kings in whose keeping the beauty of the house lies must be made brighter than the whiteness of snow. For they are the light of the world; and everyone who will be worthy to climb with the Lord the mountain of the heavenly kingdom will be made white above snow; for when he showed himself to the apostles in the appearance in which he would reign with the saints, his garments were seen to be white above snow. This mountain, then, and this kingdom belong to the God of peace.

But there are many who falsely claim the peace of the church in fellowship with heretics, breaking apart the connected and joined account of the New and Old Testaments, since many invent one God of the Gospels and another of the law. Some, coming against the nature and name of the only-begotten God, confess him to be only a man born in time, and pretend that he was not brought down from the form of God into the form of a servant, but began to exist only from the form of a servant. Many argue that he is not God of true divinity, nor subsists from the proper character of the Father’s majesty and nature, but is of an external substance, different from God, chosen for adoption as Son, and came to be out of nothing in the manner of creatures, having no earlier origin. Many also speak of the Father as extended out of himself and flowing into a body, so that that assumption of flesh from the Virgin received the name of Son, and it was not the one who was formerly the Son of God who was born in the body as the same Son of man. All these things are fitted to the appearance of human prudence, since they did not grasp the account of heavenly wisdom; they have been answered, as I hope, more fully and abundantly in other places.

Since, then, this is the one seat of true faith that is pleasing to God, and this is the one mountain of the eternal kingdom, in peace, the prophet reproaches us about the many we have received, saying: “Why have you received curdled mountains?” Milk, when it is spoiled, thickens and from the fault grows together into the form of curd and cheese; for one Greek word covers both. So, just as milk itself degenerates from its own nature when a fault comes upon it and turns sour through a kind of corruption of itself, so these kinds of teachings, which derive the beginnings of knowledge from harmless and pure milk, are corrupted into faults and by their own corruption become curdled or cheesy, so as no longer to be milk. He recalls this very thing in another place thus: “Their heart has curdled like milk; but I have meditated on your law”; because the heart, infected by counsels and deeds of impiety, though in the simplicity of infancy it had had the nature of milk, afterward degenerated through the corruption of vices into curd, thickened and clotted. Our mind and zeal, then, must be drawn back from all these, and no other mountain must be inhabited more than this mountain of peace. For after reproaching the cheesy and curdled mountains he added at once: “the mountain in which it pleased God to dwell; for the Lord will dwell in it to the end,” showing that the seat of eternal dwelling pleasing to God is in that mountain which was chosen as the seat of peace.

But since, after the times of the law, the rules of circumcision, and the precepts of sacrifices, those who glory in the law, that is, carnal Israel, think that through the faith of the gospel confession a change of God’s peace has been made by us and a confession of another knowledge introduced than that prescribed in the law (since we teach that all that was commanded by the law was a foreshadowing, through the Lord Jesus Christ, of the gospel hope), when they boast against us that God the Father spoke with them and gave them the law, we must answer from this very prophecy of the psalm that the law was ordained rather through angels in the hand of a mediator, and that nothing has been changed by us; but that we remain in the things that alone are, that is, that we dwell in one and the same seat of the God of peace, since we hold the same Lord Jesus Christ to be both the preacher of the gospel and the giver of the law. For after the seat of the one mountain pleasing to God, which the heavenly one will inhabit to the end, so that this seat of gospel peace might be understood to have been prefigured in the law through the mediator of the law, he added at once: “The chariot of God is ten thousandfold, thousands of those who rejoice; the Lord is among them in Sinai, in the holy one; he ascended on high, he took captivity captive, he gave gifts among men. For they did not believe that they would dwell.”

These words are brief, but they signify the whole faith, embracing in their force things great and infinite. The prophet Daniel described the dignity of this chariot or throne of God in much the same way, saying: “His throne was flame; his wheels burning fire; a river of fire went before him; thousands of thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood by him.” In these words, whether under the appearance of such adornment or by way of figurative example, a conception and sense of the heavenly retinue in a chariot is conveyed to us, so that under a harmonious yoke we may understand the heavenly service of the thousands who rejoice. And this was shown at Sinai by the burning torches, the gleaming fires, the deepening thunders, and the terror of the Lord’s whole coming: that the ministries of angels stood by, ordaining the law in the hand of a mediator. This, then, is God’s chariot, ten thousandfold, and these are the thousands of those who rejoice. And since the Lord is the mediator of God and men, in whose hand the law was given through angels, as has been said, the following words added: “The Lord is among them in Sinai,” among those rejoicing thousands, namely, and the chariot of manifold number of ten thousands, that is, the notion of the infinite placed under the multiplication of ten thousand. Among these, then, God is in Sinai.

But lest the Gospels should seem in any way not to be the fulfillment of the law, the Lord who is among them in Sinai is the same who in turn ascended on high in the holy one and took captivity captive: in that holy one, namely, whose form he took when emptied from the form of God. That he is holy, many prophecies testify, and so does the angel Gabriel, saying to Mary: “And what is born of you, holy, will be called Son of God”; and the demons cry: “We know who you are, the Holy One of God.” In the holy one, then, he ascended on high. And what it is to ascend on high Paul taught under the meaning of this very saying, saying: “But what is ‘he ascended’ except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same who also ascended above all the heavens.” Ascending on high, then, and carrying himself back as man from the dead into the heavenly places, he received those who had been captured by the devil, whom he also divided as spoils for the beauty of the house. Then he received gifts among men, when the firstborn from the dead testifies of himself, saying: “The Lord said to me: You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession.” He received, then, gifts among men, namely the nations as an inheritance; among whom, in the holy one, the firstborn from the dead went up on high, having taken captivity captive. And since it is beyond the reach of human hope that he carried the corruption of earthly flesh over into heavenly glory, and that impious nations, formerly possessed by the frenzy of vices and superstitions, were brought to the knowledge and fellowship of God, he therefore received gifts among those men who did not believe that they would dwell with God. And so the knowledge of this mediator from the law is complete: that he who had been among the thousands rejoicing in Sinai is the same who, again ascending on high in the holy one, having taken captivity captive, received as gifts us who despaired of dwelling with him.

After this inheritance of gifts received among men, against the despair of our hope, there follows this fitting confession of the prophet to God: “Blessed be the Lord God from day to day; God will make our journey prosperous, the God of our salvation.” Blessed, then, is the Lord and God who ascends on high, takes captivity captive, and receives gifts among men, namely those who did not believe that they would dwell. Daily, through the increase of the believing people, the confession of blessing is multiplied and grows, when pagan superstitions and impious fables about gods, when the altars of demons and the vanities of idols are abandoned, and the journey and progress of all is directed toward salvation. This, then, is the Lord and God of our salvation, whose blessing from day to day is signified. For in what is daily, there is continuance and always, since the infinity of the age stretches as far as the succession of day after day follows.

The prophetic speech has always warned most carefully that no one should disturb our notion of the knowledge of divine truth through pagan fables and the teaching of philosophy; for their varied and most impious opinions have embraced many foolish and profane things about God. But we, instructed in the knowledge of God the Father and God the Son, have attained the mystery of true and heavenly wisdom in this, that the Word became flesh. For that very thing which is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, that is, the passion, cross, death, and burial of God, is for us either perfect and heavenly wisdom by reason of the divine will, or the eternity of power by the might of the resurrection. To the knowledge of this God, then, who suffered, died, and rose for us and is Lord, the prophet instructs us, saying: “Our God is the God of saving, and the Lord’s are the issues of death”: making known to us that God who, being God, undertook all things for the increase of our salvation. And therefore he is our God, because he is the God of those who will be saved. And our God made us saved through this, that the issue of death was his going out; for this is contained in these words, which have been translated into Latin less expressly and plainly. For I have warned above that almost all translators, not daring to change and adjust the arrangement and order of words, have declared the proper sense of the sayings less clearly. Yet in the words “Our God is the God of saving, and the Lord’s are the issues of death,” both the God of our salvation and his going out beyond the issue of death are shown, because the issues of death are the Lord’s. For all who come into life have an entry into death; but only to the firstborn from the dead was going out from death proper. And therefore the issue of death is properly the Lord’s, because this is the power of the flesh he took, that after the issues of death it carries the corruption of our nature into heavenly glory. But neither the cause nor the reason of the death he undertook was to be hidden; and what help the only-begotten God, emptied from the form of God and taking the form of a servant, brought us, had to be revealed for the security and knowledge of our faith.

And first, it cannot seem foreign to God’s mercy and goodness that he should restore life to all from the dead in himself: for it was he who first poured out the soul into us from the treasuries of his power and divinity, for the breath and respiration of living, when he established man according to his image and likeness. For according to the apostle we are his offspring, and according to the same: “All things are from him and through him and in him”: so that in him our dwelling and the abode of our sojourn might be shown, since he embraces all things by the immense might of his power; and through him the work and accomplishment of our begun origin might be shown, since he worked in us that very thing which we are; and from him the beginnings of life granted for the first breath of the spirit might be known. It was not foreign, then, to the beneficence of divine goodness that he who from himself had given us, who are his offspring, the elements of life and spirit, should also in himself, through the only-begotten God, begin for us the first beginnings of our eternity. And truly we would now remain both from him and through him and in him, since he who is all in all, having set us in this dwelling and seat of this world, would again, more fully and perfectly, having entered into fellowship with our flesh, set us, now eternal after the issues of death, in himself, through himself, and from himself. Let these things be said thus to signify the divine goodness.

But a greater and deeper reason for the only-begotten God taking flesh and going to death is treated both by the apostle and now by the prophet. And first let us understand through the apostle what was accomplished by the only-begotten God and Lord of majesty in the mystery of the cross and death, so that, taught by him as guide, we may attain the knowledge of the prophecy. For he says thus: “And you, when you were dead in sins and in the uncircumcision of your body, he made alive together with him, forgiving us all sins, blotting out the handwriting in decrees that was against us, which was contrary to us, taking it out of the way and nailing it to the cross; stripping himself of the flesh, he made a show of principalities and powers, confidently triumphing over them in himself.” The mystery of our salvation, then, he fulfilled first by rising himself from the dead and by cancelling in himself the decree of our death, by which we were previously held, since he would now remain eternal from the dead. But in that very fact by which he is in himself the author of life for us, since through the assumption of a body he was born a man and died and is again eternal from the dead, he also made a show of all the hostile powers, the powers of the world and the princes of this air; that is, he made them displays either of our hope or of their own condemnation, and set them up as monstrous spectacles out of the gods of the age, confidently triumphing over them in himself. For through the security of eternity death itself, in God dying, is confidence; and the authors of human death, since, through the heart of Judas seized by Satan, they are authors of death even against him, he triumphs over from the dead: so that they should not escape the penalty of death, since he who is eternal had submitted himself even to the weakness of death, and that they should receive the whole penalty of human death as its authors, since they had become the authors of death against the Lord of eternity through the Word having become flesh. So the apostle says.

But the prophet, though in brief words, embraced these same things with words that signify the same understanding. For when he had shown the Lord in the issue of death, he added: “But God will shatter the heads of his enemies, the crown of the hair of those who walk about in their sins.” For he made a show of the principalities and powers, by which the heads of the enemies are meant. These, then, he shatters in the issue of death, and he teaches their spiritual wickedness and nature by their walking over the crown of the hair: since they both press upon men’s heads as if ruling them, and, as spiritual wickednesses, trample that very crown of the hair without the awareness of those they press upon; because they slip into and penetrate even the bodies themselves, up to the seat of the soul and mind, without their approach being felt. For they are the powers of this air; and therefore they walk over the crown of the hair, either by the lightness of their pressing or by the power of ruling, passing over the whole world in single moments. But they do these things in their sins, since they are the authors to each person of the sin he commits, according to this saying of the apostle: “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and from sin he condemned sin in the flesh”; since he condemns in them the cause and beginning of sin from that very thing by which they sin in his flesh through the prompting of the betrayal, that is, from the sin of the flesh he condemns sin in the flesh.

The prophetic speech, then, keeps the order of the divine dispensation, and by those very works of the law it declares that the works of the Gospels were foreshadowed through the law. For many things are often so expressed and completed through the proper meanings of names that they were spent no more on things done in the present than on things to be signified for the future: as now, after so many and such manifest proclamations of the gospel hope, the following order of sayings brings us something deeper and beyond the sense of the ears: “The Lord said: From Bashan I will turn into the depth of the sea.” This seems to have been a word of the Lord when he turned to divide the sea for the journey and to unleash his anger on Pharaoh. But did the law teach that he turned from Bashan? Certainly not. Bashan is a city of what was once a hostile kingdom, the residence of King Og; but the interpretation of the name means shame and confusion. It may indeed seem that God turned from the shame of the people serving in Egypt, when, oppressed by Pharaoh, they had lost the very freedom to preserve and raise their offspring, into the depth of the sea, that is, to the magnificence of freeing his people. But he who in the psalm next to this one said: “Save me, O God, for the waters have come in even to my soul; I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no standing; I came into the depth of the sea, and the storm overwhelmed me,” must without doubt be understood, after the shame of the human body (for the very origins of our bodies and elements are shameful), to have turned into this sea, that is, into this storm of the world, so that, subjected even to the disgrace of the utmost confusion, the death of the cross, he might through it shatter the heads of the enemies in himself, triumphing by making a show of the spiritual wickednesses and all the powers and principalities of this air, when, after he himself had suffered and died, he destined them to eternal punishment. For this reason, then, he is to be understood as having turned into the depth of the sea, that is, as having descended even to the utmost sufferings of the world, so that, trampling the heads of the enemies, he might exercise the vengeance of divine power.

The following words seem to embrace this very thing, when it is said: “that your foot may be dipped in blood, the tongue of your dogs in it from the enemies.” The anger of divine vengeance is signified by the example of human revenge. For he turned from Bashan into the depth of the sea for this purpose, that his foot might be dipped in blood, and that the tongue of dogs too might be dipped in that very blood which comes from the enemies. These things usually happen to all who are destroyed in war, wiped out by captivity, and punished at the will and vengeance of the victors. So, as I said, through the manner of human custom, when sword, bow, arrow, spear, and the other weapons of punishment and death are mentioned, the offices of divine severity are signified. All these things indeed befell the Jews after the cross and death of the Lord, when, captured by the Romans, they suffered every kind of torment and misery, so that the feet of those who walked were dipped in the blood of the slain and the tongue of dogs was sated. But this is no less to be referred to the punishment and condemnation of those who were made a show of and triumphed over with confidence.

And since, under the things that were fulfilled in the people of Judea in the times of the law, the salvation of almost all the nations was begun as an image of future mercy, so that through what was done then what was to be done later might also be taught (when the very people for whom those things were then done were enclosed in the gospel hope and faith by the shadow of the cloud, the passage through the sea, the spiritual food of manna, and the spiritual drink from the rock), now too, as always, in these very things the connection of the New and Old Testaments has been made through the prophet, when he says: “Your ways have been seen, O God, the ways of my God, the king, who is in the holy one. The princes went before, joined with those singing psalms, in the midst of young women playing timbrels. In the churches bless the Lord from the fountains of Israel. There is Benjamin the younger in fear, the princes of Judah their leaders, the princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali.” The ways of God were indeed seen when, the waters gathered into ice, he going before in the pillar of fire and cloud, a dry road was made for the people, when, in the midst of the women with timbrels, the young singing psalms sang of the Lord gloriously glorified. But we know other ways too of the king in the holy one, when, the heavenly powers and the souls of the saints going before him on his way, there is sung in the psalm that belongs to the first day of the week: “Lift up your gates, princes, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the king of glory will come in. Who is this king of glory? The Lord of powers, he is the king of glory.” These ways too, then, of our God and king in the holy one were seen, when such great joys of heavenly companies went before his entry.

But since what had been prefigured in Pharaoh and in Israel was perfected in the overthrow of the devil and his followers and in the salvation of all peoples, the prophet exhorts us not to the confession of the synagogue but to the blessing of the church, so as to strengthen those to whom the ways of God and king in the holy one had been seen, saying: “In the churches bless the Lord from the fountains of Israel,” recalling, that is, that the teaching of the church flowed down from the beginnings of the law and the foreshadowing of its deeds. And lest the churches as they blessed should have any doubt who would be the greatest preacher of the gospel hope, he shows it, saying: “There is Benjamin the younger in fear”: Benjamin the younger, that is, who would remain in fear among the fountains of the church. For after the shock of fear, Paul from the tribe of Benjamin was chosen for the gospel of Christ, dividing at evening for salvation the flesh devoured in the morning. He shows the other princes of Judah too, so that they may not be unknown, revealing those who were to be chosen by him who, from the stock of Judah, was to be the expectation of the nations: “the princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali.” For from these, as the Gospels declare, the choosing of the apostles began, and he shows them as princes of those who would be gathered in the churches. For although according to the law princes were established for each of the peoples from all the tribes, yet now, where the princes of the gospel dispensation were being declared, only the names of the tribes from which they were to be called were mentioned. For when a great light arose in the territories of Zebulun and Naphtali after the shadow of death, fishers of men were appointed from them. Only that, then, was mentioned under the meaning of the prophecy from that whole number of princes which was to be fulfilled, for the confirmation of the gospel, by the very events and by the choosing of the apostles.

And since they are held by the hope of so great an expectation (for there is no doubt that all the saints and prophets longed with heavenly desire for the time of gospel blessedness, as the Lord says: “Truly I tell you that many prophets and saints desired to see what you see, and to hear what you hear”), he prays that what he so greatly desires may be fulfilled, saying: “Command, O God, your power; confirm, O God, what you have worked in us. From your temple in Jerusalem kings will bring gifts to you.” He marks out the meaning to be understood, so that nothing confused or ambiguous may creep in, in his saying “Command, O God, your power”; which he certainly said against human sense and the usage of natural custom. For no one seems to command anything to his own power, since through it the effect of inner might is present; and since all things are done by power, it is not thought that anything is usually commanded to power itself to be done. But the power of God and the wisdom of God is the Lord Jesus Christ, who also received from the Father the command to lay down his life and take it up again. Therefore it does not seem to be said against the sense of common understanding, though it was spoken with the proper character of prophetic knowledge, that God should command his power, namely the only-begotten God, who is also the power of God. Next, since no new and sudden undertaking of unexpected things befalls God, whose knowledge things to be done do not escape, since his nature has embraced all things that will be by the might of his power, the prophet now asks that what the same God has already worked in us be confirmed, according to the apostle’s saying: “Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places; in whom also he chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and spotless in him.” God, then, who according to the prophet made the things that are to come, confirmed in the Lord what he had already worked in us before the foundation of the world by determining what was to be done.

And what that is, the order of the sayings goes on at once: “From your temple in Jerusalem kings will bring gifts to you.” The temple in Jerusalem is where the lawful sacrifices were offered; but now gifts are to be brought by kings from the temple in Jerusalem. This is certainly against the meaning of places and the reason of things done, that gifts should be offered from the place into which they ought rather to be brought, that is, from the temple. But since that heavenly Jerusalem is our mother, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled and of those gathered, and everyone reborn in Christ is a temple of God, especially one in whom death will no longer reign but life, and who is himself king over that of which he had formerly been the slave, sin, offering himself as a living, reasonable sacrifice, pleasing to God: then, from this temple, that is, from this holy dwelling of his body, in that gathering of assembled angels, that is, in that heavenly Jerusalem, any who are kings, that is, who no longer serve sin, will offer themselves to God as a gift.

Since carnal Israel, claiming God’s mercy as peculiar to itself alone, seems to defend it as if it belonged to it alone, the prophet at once added: “Rebuke the beasts of the forest, the council of bulls among the cows of the peoples, so that those who have been proved like silver may not be shut out; scatter the nations that want war.” That cows were worshiped in Samaria is known from the books. That the princes of this people are now no longer leaders of a people but of herds is the prophetic speech, when it is said in the person of the Lord: “Fat bulls have besieged me.” By the beasts of the forest is to be understood the meaning of the spiritual wickednesses that walk over the crown of the hair in their sins, according to this: “The boar from the forest has laid it waste, and the solitary wild beast has fed upon it,” in which place both the savagery and the strength of the prince of the world himself, that is, Satan, are signified. This, then, the prophet now asks: that he rebuke either these beasts of the forests or this council of bulls among the cows of the peoples, so that those who have been proved like silver may not be shut out. Those proved like silver are those who, purified like silver and refined in the fire of all sufferings, now shine spotless, without admixture of earthly dross.

For since the prophetic speech very often rebukes the faith of the nations and the wicked will of this embittering people, and since salvation from God for all and through all is now known, and this is known from knowledge of God’s plan, then, the impiety of the people having been reproached, all the saints are called into the hope of the heavenly kingdom. For he is not the God of the Jews only, and not of the Gentiles also: yes, of the Gentiles also; for there is one God, who justifies the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. After, then, these were rebuked and deserved to be the princes of Sodom and the princes of Gomorrah, the knowledge and understanding of God flowed down to the nations, and they are no longer held by ignorance within error and contradiction. And having rebuked the beasts of the forests, the councils of bulls, and the cows of the peoples, he condemns those who still persist in fighting against the hope and salvation of the nations with perpetual hatred of unbelief, saying: “Scatter the nations that want war.” For the Lord has made peace for all things in heaven and on earth, and according to the apostle God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. He announces, then, the scattering of those nations that refuse the covenant of heavenly peace and prefer the wars of discord, though under the gathering of various nations.