Tractates on the Psalms 91.1–118.0.5

“A psalm of a song on the day of the Sabbath. It is good to confess to the Lord and to sing psalms to your name, O Most High,” and the rest. After the times of the law and the knowledge of the truth, it is fitting to look at the body itself rather than at the shadow of the body. For the law contains the image of the things that were to be fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ; not the truth itself, but in it a meditation on the truth, useful by faith rather than by effect, by imitation rather than by kind. For the things commanded to be observed were not useful by the power of their own efficacy, but saving by the faith of those who observed them: such as the various sacrifices, the rites of burnt offerings, the care of circumcision, and the rest of the Sabbath. For all these both carried guilt when neglected and profited when done in faith in things to come, as the blessed apostle says: “Before faith came, we were kept shut up under the law for that faith which was beginning to be revealed. So the law became our tutor in Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But when faith came, we are no longer under the tutor; for you are all sons of faith.” So whenever anything from the law is read again, a mirror of things to come is to be seen in the performance of the commandments then present. It would indeed have been fitting to give an account of each of the things listed above, so that, according to the apostle’s teaching, all might be understood to have profited by faith in things to come rather than by the power of their own efficacy; yet, lest all gathered into one should bring the hearers a burden rather than knowledge, let us take up again one of the parts listed above, namely the one necessary for the occasion, that is, the Sabbath day; because the psalm is titled “A psalm of a song on the day of the Sabbath”: so that, when we have learned through the authority of the heavenly Scriptures what meaning is contained in the rest of the Sabbath, we may perceive the like efficacy of the other things in the law.

There are many precepts about the rest of this day. For on it the Lord rested when the firmness of this world was completed; for it is written: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had begun to make.” And again this same day is sanctified by him in the law, so that all work is forbidden, as is written in Exodus: “Remember the Sabbath day, to sanctify it. Six days you shall work and do all your works; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God: you shall do no work on that day.” So the Sabbath is both God’s rest and men’s leisure. But how will this help with the psalm, in which there is joy in the making of God and in his deep thoughts, and the sinner is to be burned like hay, and the righteous is to flourish like the palm and be multiplied like the cedar? No rest of the seventh day, no leisure from human works, is sung here. So, since the psalm contains nothing about the rest of this Sabbath, the proper meaning of the resting and Sabbath prescribed in the law is to be sought in the psalms. We read, then, said of the impious: “As I swore in my anger, they shall not enter into my rest.” God confirms by the solemnity of an oath that they will not enter his rest; he does not, I think, mean the rest of this Sabbath, on which he is written to have rested after the building of the world. For all the Jews enter into the solemnity and joy of this day, glorying in it, even those many who must live and act in sins; for they honor this day as a kind of testimony of God’s favor toward them. If, then, this is God’s day of rest (let it be said with pardon), God is now a liar, since those who are stubborn toward him and murderers of his Son possess the rest of this day.

Next, since all without any exception were commanded to do no work but to rest in leisure, how then did the Lord break the Sabbath, saying: “Do you not know that the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath and are without guilt?” This, then, is not the rest of the Sabbath, nor is this its leisure, since those who did not rest on the Sabbath would be accursed … receiving under a law of stability. If the sun and the other signs go through their courses and have, from him by whom they were arranged in these courses and these tasks, the substance to remain in what they are; if the earth brings forth its fruits, taking day by day the material of fruitfulness, through which a certain nature of fertility is subjected to it according to the turns of the seasons; if daily the origins of souls and the shaping of bodies proceed by the working of divine power hidden and unknown to us: it is a great thing to perceive the gifts of so great a bounty, though how they were established is not known. But although these are the work of God, there is no labor in them. And although they have from their author and ruler that they are such, yet they do not weary him from whom they arose and through whom they are such daily.

These are indeed great works of God: to hold the heavens together, to light the sun with the other stars, to supply the growth of the earth’s seed, to strengthen man, to bring back the soul. But works far greater than these have been accomplished. For Moses recounted only the creation of visible things to the untrained minds of men, setting forth for the knowledge of God things that could be understood and seen, so that through the greatness of these visible works the power of him who worked them might be known and the might of the Creator understood through wonder at the creation. But Paul, the interpreter of the New Testament, giving now the food not of milk but of bread, handed down about the Lord thus: “who is the image of God, the firstborn of all creation, because in him were established all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers: all things were made in him and through him, and he is before all, and all things hold together in him.” The teacher of the Gentiles, then, draws us from knowable matter to the understanding of invisible things, and leads us up from earthly and lowly things to know principalities, powers, thrones, and dominions. But these remain and came to be both in heaven and on earth at the nod of God the Father; and though all things are through the Son, yet all things are from God. For he is the head and beginning of all things, and in him all things were stored up, though afterward he brought out each thing from the treasuries stored in himself according to the decision of eternal power. But though Christ works in all things, yet it is the work of him who works in Christ; and therefore he says: “My Father works daily, and I work,” because whatever God the Son of God, Christ, works, God the Father remaining in himself, is the work of the Father; and so all things are daily through the Son, because the Father works all things in the Son. Christ, then, works daily; and, as I think, the beginnings of souls, the shaping of bodies, and the progress and growth of living things show his work.

But so that we may understand more fully what the working of God is and how the Father works and the Son works, we must know the origin of this saying. Among the other healings by which the Lord taught that he was God in the flesh of a man, showing the might of invisible power under visible matter, he found in the pool of Solomon’s porch a man paralyzed for thirty-eight years, waiting for someone’s help by which he might be carried down at the moving of the water stirred by an angel. There was this power, both of time and of person, that when the spring of the pool was stirred, the one who first entered the waters escaped every weakness by which he was afflicted. These things were both useful in their present effects and imaged as a mirror of the future, since, when the angel called to the waters, the abolition of all sicknesses was ready. When the Lord saw this paralytic on the Sabbath day, he healed him by a word, accomplishing the sick man’s health by a command. So he says to the paralytic: “Rise, take up your bed, and walk.” Now the paralytic was not only well but even made useful for a burden. The Jews accuse the paralytic of violating the Sabbath, saying: “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” He answered them: “He who made me well said to me: Take up your bed and walk,” putting forward the same author of his deed as of his health, so that the guilt of violating the Sabbath might not be thought able to proceed from him by whose word the restoration of a human body had come about. So, because the Lord had healed the paralytic on the Sabbath, where veneration of the deed ought to have followed, there the hatred of all the Jews was stirred up. The Lord answered them: “My Father works until now, and I work.”

But here a heavier indignation arises over the Sabbath violated, as they thought, because he called God his Father, making himself equal to God. But why is this a grief to the Jews? For he did not speak thus: “God is my Father.” But the truth applied force, and reason wrung confession from the unwilling; for his works declared that he was equal to God. They are angry at what they do not hear, and they refuse to endure what they cannot be ignorant of; and in Christ they hate this, that they are compelled to understand. Where, then, is the work of the Father? In what the Son does, namely; for he says: “The Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing.” He certainly did not take away his own power, but bound it in obedience to the Father’s will. For he does not say with bare words, “the Son cannot do,” but added: “anything of himself, except what he sees the Father doing.” So everything that he does is service, because he does nothing of himself but what he sees: a ministry coming from the example not of a work but of a will, because the work of the Father lies in his will. For the Lord says this: “I came not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me,” teaching that he wills nothing other than what he who sent him wills. So the Son looks into the Father’s will as the example of working, because all things are formed within the foresight of the Father’s thoughts by a kind of predestination of things to come. He looks into it through mutual love and nature; for he says: “The Father loves the Son and shows him all things that he himself does.” So it is open to him to know the will of God, from whom he was born God; and it is kind of the Father to have begotten together with the Son the knowledge of his will.

So to the Sabbath day, from which the hatred was stirred up, the answer was given: “My Father works until now, and I work.” Is there, then, a work of God on the Sabbath? There plainly is. For if there were not, the heavens would fall apart, the light of the sun would set, the earth would not stand, the growth of all fruits would fail, and the lives of men would perish, if by the law of the Sabbath the ordering of all powers took a holiday. But there is no rest, the course is the same, and the offices of all the elements are maintained on the Sabbath as on the six days. So at all times the Father works through these things; and he works in the Son, who is from him and through whom all these things are his work, the Son working them, as the Father works in him; and the work of the ministry is referred to the work of the author. So the Son worked in the paralytic on the Sabbath, as in other things, and through the Son the work of the Father is on the Sabbath; and so there is no rest in the day of God, since no day is without work for God.

Since, then, the works of God exist, we must ask what his rest is. The work of God, then, is the work of Christ; but the rest of God too is God Christ, because all things that are God’s are so truly in him that the Father rests in them. For he is perfect from the perfect, because, as the apostle says, “all things hold together in him,” and as he himself testified of himself: “As the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself”; and again the apostle says: “For in him dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily.” So what is in him, or what is perfected by him, neither needs nor awaits from elsewhere what subsists and remains, but has it by the love and power of the Father. So life is also in the Son in such a way that, though he is born from the Father, he exists in that life in which the Father also lives. For in him too the beginnings of all things that would afterward be created were established; and contemplating all things in him, the Father was delighted when all things had been completed through him, since he both rested in the Son, the Creator, and rejoiced in the things that had been created worthy of the Son’s love. Hence that saying in Proverbs: “When he prepared the heavens, I was present with him,” and: “I was with him arranging; he rejoiced in me when he was glad over the completed world.” This is the rest in which the Father rejoices, which the impious will not enter, as confirmed even by an oath. The rest of the Lord Jesus Christ is also to be understood as that of invisible things, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers: for all these remain incorrupt, unwearied, everlasting. And therefore rest is to be thought of in them, because, eternity having been granted, rest is taken in their completed creations.

We must know, however, how the godly and those subject to God will be able to enter into the rest that the impious will not enter; for the hope denied to the wicked must be left to the good. But if Christ is God’s rest, then those who were in Christ will be in God’s rest. The apostle cries out that he wishes to be in Christ, saying: “But I press on, if I may lay hold of that for which I also was laid hold of,” and again: “I counted all things loss and consider them dung, that I may gain Christ,” and again: “Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, in whom he chose us before the foundation of the world in himself, that we should be holy and spotless in his sight in love; who predestined us to adoption through Jesus in himself”: because the Word became flesh; because, “when we were once alienated and enemies in mind in evil deeds, now we have been reconciled in the body of his flesh.” So through the joining of the flesh he assumed we are in Christ; and this is the mystery of God hidden from the ages and generations in God, which has now been revealed to his saints: that we are fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ. Access in Christ, then, lies open to all through the joining of the flesh, if they put off the old man and nail it to his cross, are buried with him in his baptism away from what they did before, to life, and, so that they may enter into the fellowship of Christ’s flesh, crucify the flesh with its vices and lusts. For he will conform such bodies to the transformation of his own body and will carry their lowliness over into the glory of his flesh, those who, crushing all the stings of desires and washing away the filth of pleasures, remember after the mystery of the new birth that they have not their own flesh but Christ’s.

This is the perfect Sabbath, this the true rest, for which, after the manner of the worldly Sabbath, we are commanded to prepare all the necessities of life on the day before. For the Jews, according to the precept of the law, prepare on the day before the Sabbath all that is needed on the Sabbath, and all food and drink must be provided, prepared, and stored beforehand, not understanding that in this the shadow of future truth is shown. For just as, to obtain the leisure of the Sabbath, the duties of the previous day must be doubled (for what is needed both for that day and for the Sabbath must be seen to), so for us too, awaiting the eternal Sabbaths, the things we may use there must be prepared by the business of the present life, necessary now indeed, but such as will purchase the rest of the Sabbath. So that we may not be shut out from the rest of this Sabbath, that is, as we showed above, from the fellowship of Christ and the angels, as by God’s oath too, we must work and earn it, and the rest of eternity must be prepared by the diligence of earlier works: by vigils of prayer, frequent reading, willing fasting, calm humility, works of goodness, the brightness of chastity, and the strength of patience. These are to be prepared on the day before, for the leisure of the eternal Sabbath, so that, when the weakness of our corruption has been transformed into heavenly glory, the will may desire no vice, ambition no glory, pride no honor, toil no leisure, the body no food, weariness no sleep of night by day; but there may be for us eternal light, watchful life, the common use of good things, being filled with the heavenly word of God, and an eternal hymn of praise to God with the choirs of angels. This is the reward of faith, this the glory of bodily resurrection, in which nothing is to be desired, because nothing will be lacking; there will be no rivalry through envy, because we will live in communion; no grieving from any weakness or growing with age, because we will endure in immortality. Rather, the devil is to be burned, all evil destroyed, and the flower of our eternity obtained. For the rest of this Sabbath, then, the Son confesses to God the Father. This is sung in his person to the end. This, as we shall learn from the interpretation of each verse, is celebrated, now that immortality has been gained for men.

Psalm 118. Those who are being prepared for instruction in reasoned and complete understanding must be taught from the very elements of letters, so that they may attain complete and true reason as it were from the starting point of their first training. Holy Paul the apostle knew this: that the only true and useful understanding in teaching is the one begun from the first years of life and from the very beginnings of infancy. So among the great and splendid commendations of faith and zeal he writes to Timothy in his second letter: "But you, remain in the things you have learned and believed, knowing from whom you learned them, and that from infancy you have known the sacred writings, which can instruct you for salvation." Let this be said on account of the present psalm, in which, since the knowledge of truth was to be set forth for the instruction of human ignorance, the order of teaching is laid out through the very beginnings of letters and elements; for following the letters of the Hebrews, one letter stands at the head of each group of eight verses. The whole number of verses is one hundred and seventy-six. For since the whole Hebrew language is made up of twenty-two letters, and each letter unfolds eight verses, this number of verses is reached by multiplying by eight. I think this was the reason for it, that the order of this whole psalm should run through the letters: so that, just as small children, untaught and needing to be trained to read, first learn the elements of letters from which words are put together, so human ignorance too might be trained in conduct, in discipline, and in the knowledge of God through this eightfold number of the individual letters, as through the first beginnings of a child's schooling.

For it is hard and most difficult for a human being to attain the reason of the heavenly precepts by himself or through the teachers of this world; nor does the weakness of our nature allow us to be trained in divine ordinances except through the grace of him who gave them. Those who simply read whatever comes to hand think that there is no difference in the words, none in the names, none in the things. But if even the speech of ordinary conversation does not allow different meanings not to be understood under different names for things, shall we believe that the words of God are so unskilled and so confused that they either suffered from a lack of words to use, or did not know the kinds of distinctions?

For many, when they hear "law," "justification," "precepts," "testimonies," "judgments," all of which Moses arranged under the distinct force of each kind, think them one and the same thing, not knowing that the law is one thing, justification another, a precept another, a testimony another, and a judgment another. That these differ and diverge greatly from one another, the eighteenth psalm is our witness, in which the proper character both of each name and of each kind is contained: "The law of the Lord is spotless, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is faithful, instructing little ones; the righteous acts of the Lord are right, gladdening hearts; the precept of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is holy, abiding for ever and ever; the judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves." So there are differences between each of these things, and it belongs to a prudent and understanding man to distinguish in what is written where the law, where a precept, where testimonies, where justifications, and where judgments are set: lest the untaught weakness of our ignorance, by an unskilled opinion, confuse what the prophetic word has distinguished by the wonderful proper character of each thing. And so this psalm, the greatest and far richer than the rest, has distinguished all these through the individual letters, so that through these elements of words the reason and distinction of the teaching of believing, living, and being trained toward God might be taught.

Many think that simplicity of faith can suffice for the full hope of eternity, as though innocence by the world's judgment had no need of the ordinances of heavenly teaching. And because the matter stands otherwise, the knowledge of living innocently in God and of remaining devoutly in innocence is set out here at great length in the prophetic word: because it is hard for anyone to gain by himself, that is, through the ordinances of the world, this knowledge of devout innocence and the true practice of a godly and innocent life. The apostle too knew that human nature by itself is weak for grasping this knowledge of how to live. For when he was teaching about the gifts of the charisms and endowments of God, after he had put the word of wisdom first, he at once added the word of knowledge. This is the gift that follows from God after wisdom, because the use of wisdom is made complete in the use of knowledge.

In the present psalm we also meet this difficulty: we have received only two psalms written by the Hebrew letters, namely the hundred and eleventh and hundred and twelfth, in which the number of verses agrees with the letters from the first to the twenty-second according to the Hebrews and each verse begins with one of the letters; but in this psalm each letter holds eight verses. But since all the precepts for living, believing, and pleasing God were contained in the psalm, all the initial letters are contained in that number which, by the full and holy force of that number, is the first of all to be made complete by the equality of the parts that fit together in it from every side. For first it is made up of two equal parts, and then also of four equal parts; and the force of the psalms placed in this number, single or multiplied, shows that the fullness of this number is holy and sacred. This number is also holy in the law. For it was commanded that one who was born should receive the sign of circumcision on the eighth day. This reckoning was kept also in the circumcision of the Lord; and on this number of days, although he himself had no need of circumcision, he was presented in the temple, so that in his body the weakness of human flesh might be cut away. This number also makes every kind of livestock clean, so that they are held worthy of sacrifices; for they are commanded to be offered on the eighth day. And in this number the new beginning of the human race was chosen in the days of the flood. So now the completion of our teaching and instruction is concluded through the individual letters under the fulfillment of this perfect number, before which no victim was clean for God, nor was anyone received into the family of the race while circumcision was lacking, and from which the beginning of a renewed generation began. These, then, are the verses of the first letter: