Tractates on the Psalms

That many hold differing opinions about the book of Psalms we know from the books they have left in writing. Some would have them divided, as among the Hebrews, into five books, so that the first book runs to the fortieth psalm, the second from the fortieth to the seventy-first, the third from there to the eighty-eighth, and the fourth to the hundred and fifth (on the ground that all these psalms have at their close "So be it, so be it"), and the fifth book then closes with the hundred and fiftieth psalm. Others have thought the psalms should be entitled "Psalms of David," by which title they mean that all of them were written by David. But we, following apostolic authority, both name and write it "the book of Psalms." For we remember that in the Acts of the Apostles it is said: "For it is written in the book of Psalms: Let his house become desolate, and let another take his office of overseer." So it is not to be called five books, as some Hebrews hold, nor "Psalms of David," as others simply say, but, following apostolic authority, it is to be known as the book of Psalms.

There are, moreover, several writers of these psalms. For some have David set at their head as author, some Solomon, some Asaph, some Idithun, some the sons of Core, one Moses. It is indeed absurd to call them Psalms of David when their authors are named in the very headings of the titles. It is more correctly called the book of Psalms, since prophecies of different authors and different times have been gathered into one volume. Some have also seen fit to set the names of Jeremiah, Haggai, and Zechariah before the headings of certain psalms, although nothing of this kind is found so issued in the authentic books of the Seventy translators; indeed, even in very many Latin and Greek manuscripts only the plain titles of the psalms appear, without these names.

As for those psalms that stand under various headings without the names of different authors, the tradition of the ancients is this: the psalms that follow without an author in the heading after a psalm whose author is named are to be reckoned as belonging to the author named for the preceding psalm, up to the psalm in which the name of another author is set at the head. So, if the heading of some psalm reads "A psalm of David," the rest that follow without a title are to be believed David's until the name of another prophet is placed in a heading; and from there to the next prophet, those that stand between without an inscription belong to the one who began to be set at the head as author in the heading of the earlier psalm.

But perhaps someone will withhold belief from this understanding on the ground that in the psalms that follow the one headed by Moses as author, namely in the ninety-eighth, it is written: "Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among those who call on his name," and so the psalm cannot be thought prophesied by Moses, since the name of Samuel, who was born so long after Moses, stands in the psalm. Let him remember that no one ought to find it strange or hard that so great a prophet should have uttered the name of so great a prophet, though he was yet to come, since in the books of Kingdoms the name of King Josiah was prophesied before he was born, the prophet saying: "Altar, altar, thus says the Lord: Behold, a son shall be born to David, Josiah is his name." From this it should not seem incredible that Samuel was foretold by Moses, especially since, according to Jeremiah, who says, "Not even if Moses and Samuel should stand," he was named alongside Moses and made his equal by the merit of his holiness. If this tradition, which, so far as is believed, originated with Ezra when he gathered the psalms into one book after the captivity, is judged false or improbable, those who contradict it must show who the authors of these psalms are. For it is settled that they could not have been prophesied except by prophets prophesying.

There is no doubt that what is said in the psalms must be understood according to the gospel proclamation, so that, whatever the person through whom the spirit of prophecy has spoken, the whole is referred to the knowledge of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, his taking a body, his passion and his kingdom, and to the glory and power of our resurrection. All prophecies are closed and sealed to worldly sense and the wisdom of this age, according to the saying of Isaiah: "And all these words shall be to you like the words of this sealed book. If they give it to a man who knows letters, saying, Read this, he will say, I cannot read it, for it is sealed. And if this book is given into the hands of a man who does not know letters, and it is said to him, Read this, he will answer, I do not know letters." The inability to read and understand the book of prophecy is shown in the person of each man, since the understanding of the learned man, who does not approach the seal of the closed mystery so as to read it, is likened to the ignorance of the unlearned through the lack of understanding common to both. For all things are woven together with allegorical and typical powers, through which are laid open all the mysteries of the only-begotten Son of God: his being born in the body, suffering, dying, and rising again, his reigning for ever with those who believe in him and are glorified with him, and his judging the rest. And because the scribes and Pharisees, not receiving the Son of God born in the body, denied everyone access to the understanding of prophecy, they are rebuked by the Lord under threat of punishment: "Woe to you, teachers of the law, who have taken away the key of knowledge: you do not enter yourselves, and you do not allow those who are entering to enter." For by denying Christ, whose coming is the work of the prophets, they took away the key of knowledge, since the faith in his bodily coming, once denied, shuts off the knowledge of the law, which proclaimed the Lord's bodily coming.

This is to be understood as said of every kind of prophetic Scripture: unless they are understood and recognized as referring to the Lord's coming to be begotten as man from a virgin, the force of their meaning remains sealed and closed. Yet that the book of Psalms in particular can be understood only through faith in his coming, we are taught by the Apocalypse of blessed John: "And to the angel of the church of Philadelphia write: Thus says the holy and true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one shall open." He has the key of David, then, because he unseals these seven seals, as it were, which David prophesies of him in the psalms concerning his bodily nature, passion, death, resurrection, glory, kingdom, and judgment, opening what no one shall shut and shutting what no one shall open. For through this prophecy fulfilled in him he will open what no one shall close, and conversely, when faith in the prophecy fulfilled in him is denied, he will shut what no one can open. For no one but he in whom these things were prophesied and fulfilled will impart the key to this understanding. Indeed, John taught this very thing in what follows, saying: "And I saw at the right hand of him who sat on the throne a book written within and without, sealed with seven seals; and I saw another mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice: Who is worthy to open the book and to loose its seals? And no one, in heaven or on earth or under the earth, was able to open the book or to look into it. And I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me: Do not weep; behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, to open the book and its seven seals." This book, containing both past and future things in what was written within and without, is worthy to be opened by no one; and the apostle's weeping springs from longing for understanding and from grief at the difficulty. But the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, to open the book and its seals, because he alone loosed the seven seals we described above, by which the book was closed, through the mystery of his taking a body and of his divinity. The Lord himself bore witness to this after his resurrection, saying: "For all things must be fulfilled that are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms concerning me." By these things, then, the whole book of prophecy is both sealed and closed; for when you believe the things that were fulfilled through it, all those things that were sealed and closed will be opened and unsealed.

And although we know from the Lord's own declaration that everything was spoken through David by the divine Spirit, yet the very form of this prophecy also teaches that the knowledge of a heavenly, celestial teaching was present in him. For the prophecy was uttered on the instrument called psalterium in Greek and nabla in Hebrew, which alone of all musical instruments is quite straight, having in it nothing crooked or slanting, and is not stirred to the sound of musical harmony from its lower parts. Rather, an instrument shaped in the form of the Lord's body, it is straight, with no bend or curve, an instrument moved and struck from above and animated to sing a heavenly and celestial teaching, not sounding with a low and earthly breath like the other instruments of earth. For he did not proclaim low and earthly things in that instrument of his body, as he himself testified: "He who is of the earth is of the earth and speaks of the earth; but he who comes from heaven bears witness to what he has seen and heard." Through this Spirit from above, then, God is sung in the psalms, in the form of the Lord's body in which the heavenly Spirit spoke, and the form of this earthly musical instrument, sounding from above, is likened to it.

One should also know that among the Hebrews the number of the psalms is not distinguished; they were written down without any indication of order. There the first, second, third, fiftieth, or hundredth are not marked, but they are mixed together without any distinction of order or number. For Ezra, as the ancient traditions report, gathered them, unarranged and scattered according to the diversity of their authors and times, and set them down in one volume. But the seventy elders, who remained in the synagogue according to the tradition of Moses to guard the teaching of the law, after King Ptolemy had entrusted them with the task of translating the whole law from Hebrew into Greek, understood with spiritual and heavenly knowledge the powers of the psalms and brought them into number and order, assigning to each number, complete in its effect and fulfilment, the place of psalms complete and effective in the same way.

Although this can be understood from the powers of the individual psalms, we are taught it most completely from the history of events and times: that the placing of the psalms was ordered according to the effects of perfect numbers. For according to the history the third psalm is later than the fiftieth, since the inscriptions of the two differ by a long interval of time and age. The latter covers what happened in the affair of Uriah and David, while the former signifies David's flight when his son Absalom was pursuing him. But the power and mystery of number brought it about that this one and that one were placed at the numbers fitting and suitable to them.

Again, the inscription of the fiftieth psalm is, according to history, later than the inscription of the fifty-first. But the power of the number fifty, and the unrepentant hatred of Doeg the Edomite against David, required that the earlier be placed after and the later before: so that the forgiveness of sins might be placed at the number fifty, and the punishment of faithlessness, going beyond the number of the appointed forgiveness, might be without pardon, since it had lost both the time and the number of repentance. For since in the fiftieth, in which are the sabbaths of sabbaths, the forgiveness of sins is appointed according to the foreshadowing of the year of jubilee, this psalm, in which forgiveness of sins is asked for through the repentance offered, is fittingly placed in the order at this number.

The book of Psalms consists of three fifties, and this arises from the reasoning and number of our blessed expectation. For whoever carefully notes the completion of the first fifty, then of the second fifty, and again of the third fifty, in which the book ends, will understand that the providence by which the psalms were arranged in this order agrees with the plan of our salvation. For the first step to salvation is to be reborn into the new man after the forgiveness of sins; after the confession of repentance, the kingdom of the Lord is kept for the times of that holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem; and afterwards, when heavenly glory is completed in us, we advance through the kingdom of the Son into the kingdom of God the Father, in which the whole company of spirits will proclaim the praises due to God. So we shall easily understand that the mystery of this arrangement by fifties is contained in the powers of the individual psalms placed at each fiftieth number.

That these are sabbaths of sabbaths is shown by the number seven multiplied seven times; yet the eighth, because the first day is the same as the eighth, completes it, being added according to the fullness of the gospel in the last sabbath. These sabbaths of sabbaths were observed by the apostles with such reverence that on these days of the fifty no one either worshipped with body prostrate on the ground or hindered with fasting the festival of this spiritual blessedness. The same was also established outside this period for the Lord's days, which by the fullness of the gospel proclamation go beyond the number of the sabbath. For although the name and observance of the sabbath was set on the seventh day, we rejoice in the festival of the perfect sabbath on the eighth day, which is also the first.

It is fitting to observe this power of the eighth, made perfect by heavenly mysteries, in the psalm placed eighth in number, which bears the title "for the winepresses": vessels prepared for new fruits and renewed to hold the heat of the fermenting new wine. This number is appointed according to the gospel eighth for receiving the gospel fruits, when these perishable vessels of our bodies have been remade. The text and wording of that psalm bear witness to this. The power of this eighth is contained also, as it were, in the power of the sixth psalm and number, which is a prayer "for the eighth"; and the reasoning of number brought it about that in the sixth there should be a prayer for the eighth and in the eighth the title "for the winepresses" should be added. This heading "for the winepresses" is found at three numbers: the eighth, the eightieth, and the eighty-third psalm all have this title, so that the order of this perfect blessedness might stand in perfect numbers, yet in such a way that the mystery of the triad, which among us is called the Trinity, should enclose the simple eighth and the tenfold eighth.

We can recognize this perfection of the eighth also in the hundred and eighteenth psalm. For in it the beginnings of the individual letters, according to the Hebrews, are gathered into groups of eight, eight verses each; and the very power of the psalm teaches the mystery of the eighth. There are twenty-two eights in it, for eight verses are assigned to the beginning of each letter. This is so arranged in order that, since this psalm completes the perfect man according to the gospel teaching, we might be instructed through all twenty-two letters of the Hebrew language under the mystery of the eighth.

This is the reason why the law of the Old Testament is reckoned as twenty-two books, so that they may agree with the number of the letters. According to the traditions of the ancients they are counted thus: the books of Moses are five; Joshua son of Nun the sixth; Judges and Ruth the seventh; first and second Kingdoms the eighth; third and fourth make the ninth; the two of Chronicles the tenth; the words of the days of Ezra the eleventh; the book of Psalms is the twelfth; Solomon's Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth; the twelve minor Prophets the sixteenth; then Isaiah, and Jeremiah with Lamentations and the Letter, and also Daniel, Ezekiel, Job, and Esther complete the number of twenty-two books. Some, however, have seen fit to add Tobit and Judith and count twenty-four books, according to the number of the Greek letters, the Roman tongue also being gathered in between the Hebrews and the Greeks; for in these three languages above all the mystery of God's will and the expectation of the blessed kingdom are proclaimed. From this came Pilate's act of writing in these three languages that the Lord Jesus Christ is king of the Jews. For although many barbarian nations have attained the knowledge of God through the apostles' preaching and the faith of the churches that remain there today, yet the gospel teaching is established especially in the Roman Empire, under which the Hebrews and Greeks are included.

It follows that after this eightfold number of twenty-two eights we should consider the number of psalms that comes next, in the fifteen Songs of Ascents. For after that perfect teaching of the preceding eights, this Song of Ascents had to come together into fifteen psalms from two perfect numbers, the seven and the eight, that is, the seventh and the eighth number. For through the observance of the law, which is established in the seven, and the progress of the gospel, which is completed by the eight both in present religion and in hoped-for expectation, one climbs by this Song of Ascents to heavenly and eternal things. For by this number of steps the chief priests used to go up in the temple into the holy of holies, so that, since neither the seven of the law without the eight of the gospels, nor the eight of the gospels without the seven of the law, could produce a perfect man, whoever had believed perfectly this perfect and true number of seven and eight that is in the fifteen Songs of Ascents might be placed in these perfect, blessed, and holy of holies.

Although we have said these things according to numbers pleasing in the observance of the law and distributed in the gospel mystery, yet we shall attain the power of each number in full from the headings of the psalms and from the understanding of what they say. The titles of all the headings are different. For besides those marked with the names of their authors or with indications of causes or times, there are others whose title is "for the end"; others with only "a psalm of a song" or "a song of a psalm"; and there must have been different reasons for the different headings. For it is not without reason that the order of titles changes with such variety, so that now "for the end," now "a psalm," now "a song," now "a song of a psalm," now "a psalm of a song" is placed in front to distinguish the psalm beneath. And although we shall try to give the reasons for each inscription in each psalm, yet for the convenience of the attentive reader we compress the meaning of all the headings into a short discourse.

The end is that for whose sake the other things exist, while it gives its own cause to nothing else. For all things are for the sake of the end, but nothing comes after the end. One strives toward the end and ceases at the end. So the end is the completion of what goes before and, reaching out from itself to nothing further, is its own possession in itself. The psalms inscribed "for the end," then, are to be understood as arising from the perfect and complete teachings and hopes of eternal goods, because the course of our faith reaches out to what is said in them and, with no further advance, rests in them at the very end of the blessedness it longed for and has attained.

In the musical arts these are the varieties of function and kind. A psalm is when the voice is silent and only the playing of the accompanying instrument is heard. A song is when the choir of singers, using its freedom and not bound to follow the harmony of the instrument, rejoices in a hymn of the melodious voice alone. A song of a psalm is when the instrument leads and the voice of the singing choir is heard following and rivalling the instrument, imitating the measures of the psaltery with the melodies of the voice. A psalm of a song is when the choir sings first and the art of the accompanying instrument is fitted to the hymn of human singing, and the psaltery plays with sweetness equal to the melodies of the leading voice. To these four kinds of musical art, then, the headings fitting to each psalm have been adapted. The reason for each heading is shown from the powers of the psalms and from the very differences of musical teaching.

In the psalm headed only "a psalm," there is teaching or confession of faithful works and religious deeds, when the prophet, by recalling what he has done, instructs us to do similar deeds, the movements of the instrument of our body being tuned to the godly uses of duty. But when only "a song" is set in the title, there is in it spiritual knowledge and understanding of the heavenly secret, which one attains through the knowledge of wisdom, since, without recalling works of faith, it displays only the teaching of the perfect knowledge of God. For not all knowledge is at once in good work, nor again does every good work attain true knowledge. For this reason there is also the third kind of heading, "a song of a psalm," when the teaching of knowledge is joined to the accomplishment of good works. For one must first live in good works, so that the knowledge of the divine mystery that follows may be perfect, according to what is said: "Do you desire wisdom? Keep the commandments, and the Lord will grant it to you." The Lord therefore grants wisdom to those who attain the grace of understanding through the merit of works. From these pursuits of works and teaching, then, the reason for the psalm headed "a song of a psalm" is to be known. But where it is "a psalm of a song," there the practice of good work is treated through the knowledge of understanding, when knowledge of God gained beforehand gives us the accomplishment of faithful deeds, which we should desire.

This fourfold variety of musical art, then, has been fitted to the varieties of the psalms: "psalm" concerns the recalling of deeds through the movement of the instrument of the body; "song" contains the knowledge of teaching through the knowledge of wisdom; "song of a psalm" is when knowledge is granted through the merit of deeds going before; and "psalm of a song" is when the work of faithful deeds is begun and carried on through the knowledge of understanding already attained. Through these properties of the headings, then, the understanding of the psalms will have to be sought, because to each kind of prophecy one kind of musical comparison has been fitted in the property of the titles. But those that have no inscription of any meaning, such as the first, the second, and many others, are to be understood as sung from the teaching of the Holy Spirit for the spiritual knowledge of general learning, so that each person might seek from them the reasoning of spiritual understanding according to the sincerity of his faith.

Other headings, which signify historical events, or times, or days, or include something else, show what the psalm consists of, either from the interpretation of names, or from comparison of deeds, or from the likeness of similar things. So, where there is "for the sabbath day," or "for the hidden things of the son," or "for the eighth day," the issue of the spiritual psalm is understood through the bodily meaning of the headings; or when "of that David" or "to that David," or Absalom, or Saul, or Doeg are noted in the title under the history of events, we may grasp the prophecy that is in the psalm either through the qualities of the pronouns, as "to that" or "of that David," or through the powers of the names, as in Absalom, Saul, and Doeg.

As for the diapsalma, which is inserted in very many psalms, one should know that it marks the beginning of a change either of person or of sense, with a change of musical mode: so that wherever a diapsalma comes in, it is to be understood that either something else is said, or it is said by someone else, or it is sung in another measure of musical art. And we shall try to give an account of the persons and senses where we find a diapsalma coming in. But the Greek and Latin translation could not preserve the discipline of musical mode. These things, then, my discourse has gathered into a short summary, hastening to the exposition of the psalms themselves.

Careful and well-weighed judgment must be given to the exposition of each psalm, so that it may be known with what key of understanding each of them is to be opened. For every book is like a beautiful and great city with many different houses, whose doors are closed with their own different keys. When these keys are heaped together and mixed in one place, they cause the greatest difficulty to someone ignorant who wants to open each house, to find the key of each house. It belongs either to familiar knowledge quickly to pick out the known key from that heap of variety, or to great labour to find the fit and suitable key for opening each entrance, since reason and nature do not allow keys that are not their own to be fitted to unmatched locks. So, by the Lord's mercy, as we seek the key for opening each psalm, let us lay open the entrance of this first psalm with its own proper and suitable key.

Psalm One. The chief point of understanding in the psalms is to be able to discern in whose person, or with reference to whom, what is said ought to be understood. For their composition is not uniform and undifferentiated, as though they did not have both different authors and different kinds. We often find in them that the person of God the Father is presented, as in the eighty-eighth psalm, when it is said: "I have exalted one chosen from my people; I have found David my servant, with holy oil I have anointed him. He will call upon me: You are my Father and the upholder of my salvation. And I will make him the firstborn, high above all the kings of the earth." The person of the Son, on the other hand, is introduced in very many, as in the seventeenth: "A people whom I did not know has served me"; and in the twenty-first: "They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots." But the matter itself plainly teaches that this first psalm cannot be understood either in the person of the Father or in the person of the Son: "But his will was in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night." For in the psalm in which we noted the person of the Father to be indicated, things proper and fitting to him are mentioned, when it is said: "He will call upon me: You are my Father, my God, and the upholder of my salvation." And in the one in which the Son is shown to speak, he declares himself, from what he recounts, the author of his own words, saying: "A people whom I did not know has served me." For when the Father says, "He will call upon me," and the Son says, "A people has served me," they show that they themselves are the ones speaking of themselves. But now, when it is said, "But his will was in the law of the Lord," no person of the Lord speaking of himself is shown, but rather that of another, proclaiming the blessedness of the man whose will is in the law of the Lord. So the person here is to be recognized as that of the prophet, through whose mouth the Holy Spirit speaks, instructing us by the service of his mouth in the knowledge of the spiritual mystery.

Since he says these things, we must ask of what man we ought to understand him to speak. For he says: "Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence; but his will was in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night. And he will be like a tree that is planted by the streams of waters, which will give its fruit in its season; and its leaf will not fall, and all things whatever he does will prosper." I have found that many, either in present discourse or from their writings, have thought of this psalm that our Lord Jesus Christ should be understood to be signified in it, whose blessedness is proclaimed in what follows. But they taught this neither with measure nor with reason; they did so from a well-meant opinion, since all the prophecy of the psalms is to be referred to him; but where and when the language of the prophecy refers to him must be discerned by the truth of reasoned knowledge.

The things placed at the opening of the psalm do not at all suit his person and dignity, and the very things contained in the psalm refute this careless readiness to proclaim it so. For when it is said, "And his will was in the law of the Lord," since the law was given through the Son of God, how will blessedness be ascribed to him because his will was in the law of the Lord, when he himself is the Lord of the law? That the law is his he himself testifies in the seventy-seventh psalm, where he says: "Attend, my people, to my law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable." And the evangelist Matthew confirms that these words were spoken by him, saying: "Therefore he spoke in parables, that what was said might be fulfilled: I will open my mouth in parables." So the Lord fulfilled his own prophecy in deed, for he spoke in the parables in which he had promised he would speak. And as for the words, "And he will be like a tree that is planted by the streams of waters," in which an advance in blessedness by comparison is expressed, how could that be fitted to his person, as though a planted tree were more blessed than the Son of God, so that he is blessed because at some time, by an advance in blessedness, he attains its likeness? Again, since according to Wisdom and the apostle he is before the ages and before eternal times, and is the firstborn of all creation, and in him and through him all things were created, how is he blessed when he becomes like things that were established by him? For neither does the power of the Creator need comparison with a creature for the perfection of his blessedness, nor does the antiquity of the firstborn admit, in the words "he will be like a tree," the time of a backward comparison. For what will be, through a time still to be awaited, cannot be thought either to have been or to be already in the nature of things. But whatever already is does not need delay of time to begin toward what will be, since it already remains in being by the antiquity of its beginning.

Since, then, these things are understood to be foreign to the divinity of the only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, the man whom the prophet proclaims blessed here is to be thought of as the one who, by zeal for equity and the perfection of all righteousness, has made himself conformed to that body which the Lord assumed, in which he was born as man. And that it ought to be understood so, the fuller exposition of the psalm will show.

The Holy Spirit took this most beautiful and most worthy opening for beginning the psalms, in order to exhort human weakness, through the hope of blessedness, to the innocent pursuit of religion; to teach the mystery of God made flesh; to promise fellowship in heavenly glory; to announce the punishment of judgment; to show the difference in the resurrection; and to display the providence of God in recompense. With perfect and complete reasoning he began the order of so great a prophecy, so that the hope of the blessed man might draw human weakness to the pursuit of faith; the blessedness of the tree, by comparison, might pledge the blessedness of the hope; the severity announced to the ungodly might restrain insolent ungodliness by fear; the order of condition in the counsels of the saints might distinguish the difference of merit; and the equity established in recognizing the ways of the righteous might show the greatness of God. But let us treat the things themselves and their words.

"Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence; but his will was in the law of the Lord, and in his law he will meditate day and night." The prophet records that the blessed man keeps five kinds of observance: first, not walking in the counsel of the ungodly; second, not standing in the way of sinners; third, not sitting in the chair of pestilence; then setting his will in the law of the Lord; and finally meditating in it day and night. It must be, then, that the ungodly man differs from the sinner, and the sinner from the pestilent, especially since counsel belongs to the ungodly, a way to the sinner, and a chair to the pestilent; and further, since one walks rather than stands in the counsel of the ungodly, but stands rather than walks in the way of the sinner. To understand the reasons for these things, we must discern how far the sinner differs from the ungodly, so that it may be understood why a way is assigned to the sinner and counsel to the ungodly, and then why one stands in the way and walks in the counsel, when human custom decrees that one stands in counsel and walks on a way. Not everyone who is a sinner is also ungodly, but the ungodly man cannot fail to be a sinner. Let us take an example from common experience. Sons can love their fathers even if they are drunkards, lustful, and prodigal; and amid these vices those who are not free of crime are free of impiety. But the impious, even if they excel in the virtues of self-control and frugality, still go beyond every other crime that lies outside impiety when they insult a parent.

According to the example given, then, there is no doubt that the ungodly is distinguished from the sinner. The very nature of common judgment shows that the ungodly are those who disdain to seek the knowledge of God; who with irreligious opinion presume that there is no creator of the world; who say that the world came to its present form and order by chance motions; who, so as to leave no judgment to their creator for a life lived rightly or criminally, want to be born from the necessity of nature and to be dissolved again by the same necessity. All their counsel, then, is fluctuating, uncertain, and wandering, and is carried about in the same things and through the same things without any place of standing; for it holds to no limit of definition. Their argument has not dared to teach a creator of the world. For when you ask why the world exists, and when, and how great it is; and whether the world is for man or man for the world; and why death exists, or how far it reaches, or what kind it is, the counsels of their ungodliness are always tossed about these questions and keep going, finding no place to stand in these counsels.

There are also other counsels of the ungodly, namely of those who have fallen into heresy and are held by the laws of neither the New nor the Old Testament. Their speech, bent always into a ring and circle of error, holding nothing and standing on nothing, is tossed back and forth in the course of undefined opinion. Their ungodliness lies in measuring God not by God's own declaration but by the wish of their own judgment, not knowing that it is no less ungodly to invent God than to deny him. When you ask them with what end of hope and faith they think this, they are confused, disturbed, they dissemble, they wander about and avoid the very end of the argument that is being asked about. Blessed, then, is the man who has not walked in this counsel of the ungodly, that is, who has not admitted even the wish to walk in this counsel, because to have even thought what is ungodly is already a crime.

It follows that one who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly should also not stand in the way of sinners. For there are many who, though separated from ungodliness by confessing God, are not thereby free from sin; they remain in the church but do not keep the church's discipline: the greedy, drunkards, the quarrelsome, the insolent, the proud, hypocrites, liars, robbers. The impulse of our nature drives us to these vices; but it is profitable for us to depart from this way into which we are carried, and not to stand there, but to make a prompt return and leave it. And for this reason blessed is the man who has not stood in the way of sinners, his nature carrying him down into this way, but the devotion of faith bringing him back from it.

The third step in obtaining blessedness is not to sit in the chair of pestilence. The Pharisees sat teaching in the chair of Moses; Pilate too sat on the judgment seat. Whose chair, then, shall we judge the sitting in to be pestilent? Certainly not that of Moses, since the Lord condemned those who sat rather than the sitting in the chair, when he said: "The scribes and Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses; whatever they tell you, do; but what they do, do not do." The sitting in this chair is not pestilent, since obedience to it is commanded by the Lord's authority. That chair, then, will be pestilent whose contagion Pilate avoids by washing his hands. For ambition for worldly honours corrupts many who are established even in the fear of God, and though subject to the laws of the church they wish to judge by the laws of the forum. And although they bring a religious will with them to the very duties they perform, showing themselves kindly and restrained, they must still be polluted by a kind of pestilent contagion from the affairs in which they are engaged. For the order of public business does not allow them, however much they wish, to remain in the holiness of church law. And though they hold firmly to their religious purpose, yet through the necessity of the seat they have obtained they are compelled, however reluctant their will, now to insult, now to injury, now to punishment; and necessity makes them sharers in that very necessity, as they are infected as if with a diseased plague. And for this reason the prophet calls their chair the chair of pestilence, because by its contagion it infects even the will of a religious mind.

But not having walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence does not yet complete the man's blessedness. For these things can be found even in a man of the world: he may hold that one God is the creator of the world, he may draw back from sins by the pursuit of modest innocence, he may prefer the leisure of a private and quiet life to the dignities of office. But the prophet, now shaping a man perfect for God, whom he sets among the great examples of eternal blessedness, teaches that he will not attain it with ordinary virtues but must be completed by the things that follow in order to be blessed: "But his will was in the law of the Lord." Abstaining from the former things is useless unless purpose is applied to what follows, namely that the will be in the law of the Lord. The prophet does not wait for fear to be present. For fear restrains many within the law, but will establishes few in the law; for it belongs to fear not to dare to neglect what is to be feared, but it belongs to perfect religion to wish to obey what is commanded. And for this reason that man is blessed in whom there is not fear but will in the law of God.

But sometimes something is lacking even to the will, and merely willing does not obtain perfect blessedness unless action follows the will. For there follows: "And in his law he will meditate day and night." Continual and unwearied meditation on the law completes this blessed man. But perhaps the nature of human weakness does not allow it, since we must rest, sleep, and give time to food; and for this reason we might fall from the hope of attaining blessedness by the very necessity of natural things, since at times we must cease from meditation day and night when bodily business intervenes. Similar to this saying is the apostle's: "Pray without ceasing"; as though our nature, whose necessity must be occupied with its own affairs, could pray always without interruption of time. Meditation on the law, then, lies not only in the words of reading but in the devotion of action; not that we should only go over books and writings, but that we should meditate in deeds and actions on what is contained in the Scriptures and books, and that our works by day and night should always exercise the law, as the apostle says: "Whatever you do, do it to the glory of God, whether you eat or drink or do anything else." For in this way it comes about that we pray without ceasing, when through works pleasing to God and always done for his glory the whole life of every holy man becomes prayer; and so, by living according to the law night and day, life itself will be the night and day meditation on the law.

Now that the blessedness of this man has been completed, who abstains from the counsels of the ungodly, the ways of sinners, and the chair of pestilence, and willingly meditates on God's law day and night, we must teach how great a fruit of this acquired blessedness will be his. For the wish to be blessed proceeds from the expectation of blessedness itself. There follows: "And he will be like a tree that is planted by the streams of waters, which will give its fruit in its season; and its leaf will not fall." This example of blessedness by comparison may perhaps be thought ridiculous and silly, in which the planting of a tree, streams of waters, the giving of fruit, its season, and a leaf that does not fall are proclaimed. By the standards of men of the world these things will perhaps be thought nothing. But let us see, according to prophetic teaching, how great a glory of blessedness by comparison is placed in these very things and words.

In the book of Genesis, where the lawgiver shows the paradise planted by God, he showed also that every tree beautiful in appearance and good for food was brought forth; he set out that there was also in the middle of paradise the tree of life and the tree of knowing good and evil; and that paradise was watered by a river, which afterwards was divided into four heads. What this tree of life is, the prophet Solomon taught, saying in his exhortation to wisdom: "She is a tree of life to all who embrace her and who lean upon her." This tree, then, is living; not only living, but also rational; rational so far as to give fruits, and to give them not confusedly, not out of season, but in its season. And this tree is planted by the streams of waters, in the possession of the kingdom of God, that is, in paradise, from which the river goes out and is divided into four heads. For he does not say "after the streams of waters" but "by the streams of waters," where the streams of waters first receive their divisions. For there this tree is planted, into which the Lord, who is Wisdom, brings that thief who confessed him as Lord, saying: "Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." And since we have taught by prophetic authority that Wisdom, who is Christ, is called the tree of life with reference to the mystery of his future taking of a body and his passion, the propriety of this understanding is also to be confirmed from the Gospels. For the Lord himself compared himself to a tree when the Jews had said he cast out demons by Beelzebul: "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit." For though casting out demons was the best of fruit, they were saying he was Beelzebul, whose fruits are the worst. Nor did he disdain to teach the power of this blessed tree in himself when, going to the cross, he said: "For if they do these things in the green wood, what will happen in the dry?", signifying by the example of the green wood that nothing in him was liable to the dryness of death.

To this tree, then, that blessed man will become like when, in the manner of the thief brought into paradise, he too is planted by the streams of waters; and he will become that blessed new planting that is not to be uprooted, which the Lord signifies in the Gospels when he complains of a planting not his own, saying: "Every planting that my Father has not planted will be uprooted." This tree, then, will give its fruits. Wherever the divine word signifies something about the fruits of trees, it speaks of them as making fruit rather than giving it, as when it says, "A good tree cannot make bad fruit," and when, in Isaiah, there is the complaint about the vineyard: "I waited for it to make grapes, but it made thorns." But this tree will give its fruits, governed by the judgment and reasoning of giving. For it will give in its season. And in what season? Surely the one of which the blessed apostle says: "That he might make known to you the mystery of his will, according to the good pleasure which he purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times." This, then, is the time of the dispensation, by which the opportunity both of receiving and of giving is regulated, when it will be its season for those to receive to whom it will give. The delay of time hangs on the fullness of times, for the dispensation of giving the fruit is reserved for the fullness of times. And what fruit will be dispensed here? Surely the one the same apostle mentions, saying: "And he will transform the body of our lowliness to be conformed to the body of his glory." These are the fruits he will give us, which he has already perfected in the man whom he assumed and who is signified in the tree, whom he transferred into the nature of his immortality when mortality was swallowed up. That blessed man, then, will be like this tree when he stands conformed to his Lord in the glory of God.

And the leaf of this tree will not fall. No wonder its leaves do not fall, whose fruits will be given rather than dropped: not shaken off by ripeness, not struck down by outside force, but measured out by the dispensation of a rational office. And what is signified by the leaves is clear from comparison with bodily things. For we see that the nature of leaves is to burst forth around the fruits to guard them, fortifying the tender beginnings of the fruit as with a rampart. The teaching of God's words, then, which clothes the fruits promised us, is signified by the leaves. For by these words our hopes are shaded, and by their protection they are covered amid the storms of this age. These leaves, then, that is, the words of God, will not fall, for the Lord said: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." For nothing of what has been spoken by God will slip away or fall.

That these leaves of this tree are not useless but bring health to the nations, holy John testifies in the Apocalypse, saying: "And he showed me a river of the water of life, bright as crystal, going out from the throne of God and of the Lamb; in the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, the tree of life, which bears fruit twelve times, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of that tree are for the healing of the nations." The heavenly mystery is set forth through bodily images in such a way that, although bodily things cannot fulfil the spiritual meaning, they are nevertheless defective by the reasoning of bodies. For it would have been fitting to say that trees, not a tree, were shown on either side of the river. But because the tree of life is everywhere one in the mystery of baptism, supplying the fruits of the apostolic preaching to those who come to it from every side, therefore one tree of life stands on either side of the river. For one Lamb was seen on the throne of God, and one river, and one tree of life: all of which embrace in themselves the mysteries of the taking of a body, of baptism, and of the passion; and its leaves, that is, the words of preaching, impart health to the nations through the teaching of speech that does not fall.

"And all things whatever he does," it says, "will prosper." No longer, as in Adam, will his gift and appointments be thrown into confusion (for he lost the blessedness of the immortality given him by the sin of transgressing the law); but through the redemption of the tree of life, that is, the Lord's passion, when we shall be like the tree of life itself, whatever is done in us is then eternal, and eternal with the sense of blessedness. For all the things that will be done will prosper, not by uncertain change, not in weak nature, when incorruption has swallowed up corruption, eternity weakness, and the form of God the form of earthly flesh. That blessed man, then, will be like this planted tree, which gives these its fruits in its season, being himself also planted in paradise, so that the planting of God may remain not to be uprooted; in him all things done by God will be directed prosperously, with no further change, either of our weakness or of time, to uproot them.

Having shown the perfect blessedness of this man, it followed to show what punishment awaits the ungodly. For there follows: "Not so the ungodly, not so; but like the dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth." No hope of this comparative blessedness is left to the ungodly; instead a wandering state awaits them, crushed, winnowed, scattered, and restless, so that, shaken loose from that firmness of bodily solidity, they are carried off into punishment as the plaything of dust: not dissolved into nothing, so that there may be in them material for punishment, but ground down into what is empty, light, and dry, so that they may be tossed about by the mocking mobility of punishment. The same prophet mentions this punishment in another place too, saying: "I will crush them like dust before the face of the wind; like the mud of the streets I will destroy them." So the comparison is set up for punishment as for blessedness. For as it is no labour for the wind to scatter dust, and as those who walk in the streets hardly feel they have trodden the mud, so it is easy for that infernal punishment to destroy and scatter the ungodly, whom the account of their sins has both dissolved into mud and crushed into dust, yet without leaving them even the substance of firmness, since they are dust and mud and, by being dust and mud, are reserved only in the nature of a substance for punishment.

And since through this change of their firmness, ground into dust, they will not share in the good that will be given the blessed man from the fruit of the tree in its season, he therefore added fittingly: "Therefore the ungodly do not rise in the judgment." It is not annihilation that is announced to those who will indeed be dust, by saying they will not rise; rather, resurrection to judgment is denied them. For they will not lack the sense of punishment by not existing, since what does not subsist for punishment would turn punishment into gain. But they will subsist, because they will be dust. To become dust, whether by drying or by grinding, is not to have lost the nature of subsisting, but to have come to subsist in another nature. By saying that they will not rise to judgment, it is made clear that they have not lost the nature of rising, but have lost the order of rising to judgment. What order of resurrection and judgment is to be understood, the Lord shows in the Gospels, saying: "He who believes in me is not judged; but he who does not believe has already been judged. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into this world, and men loved darkness rather than light."

The words of the Lord's saying trouble the careless readiness of hearers and the incurious ease of readers. For when he says, "He who believes in me will not be judged," he exempted the faithful from judgment; and when he added, "But he who does not believe has already been judged," he did not admit the unbelievers to judgment. If, then, he exempted believers and rejected unbelievers, allowing the lot of judgment to neither, how will he be thought consistent in what he says third: "And this is the judgment, that the light has come into this world, and men loved darkness rather than light"? For no place can be left for judgment if neither unbelievers nor believers are to be judged. So it will seem to careless hearers and incurious readers; but the very force of the words contains in itself the proper sense and understanding of the saying.

"He who believes," he says, "is not judged." For what need is there to judge a believer? Judgment arises from doubtful matters, and when doubt is removed, examination by judgment is not required. For this reason not even unbelievers need to be judged, because no doubt remains that they are unbelievers. But having removed judgment from believers and unbelievers, the Lord added the cause of judgment and the persons on whom judgment must be passed. For there are some between the godly and the ungodly who are in the middle, mixed from both, yet belonging properly to neither, because they consist of both: not to be mixed with faith, since some unbelief is woven into them, nor to be counted with unbelief, since they have something of faith. For the fear of God holds many in the church, yet the allurements of the world entice the same people to worldly vices. They pray because they fear; they sin because they will. They call themselves Christians, because the hope of eternity is good; they act as pagans, because present things are pleasant. They do not remain ungodly, because God's name is in honour with them; they are not godly, because they follow things foreign to godliness. And they must love more the things through which they cannot be what they call themselves, the will of their works being stronger than the will expressed in their name. And so the Lord, after saying that believers are not to be judged and unbelievers have already been judged, added: "And this is the judgment, that the light has come into this world, and men loved darkness rather than light." The judgment, then, is upon those, a judgment that has already been carried out on the unbelieving and is not necessary for believers, because they loved darkness more than light; not that they did not also love the light, but that their love inclined more to darkness. For one love is commonly preferred to another by comparison; and hence comes judgment, because, though they loved Christ, they loved darkness more. These, then, will be judged: those who neither will escape judgment like the godly nor have already been judged like the ungodly, on whom judgment falls because of the love they preferred.

The prophet too held the reasoning of this gospel arrangement, saying: "Therefore the ungodly do not rise in the judgment, nor sinners in the counsel of the righteous." To the ungodly he leaves no judgment, because they have already been judged; but to sinners, whom we showed above to be distinguished from the ungodly, he denied the counsel of the righteous, because they are to be judged. For ungodliness makes the former judged beforehand, while sin holds the latter for judgment. So neither is ungodliness, which has already been judged, allowed the judgment of sinners, nor have sinners, who are to be judged, deserved to be in the counsel of the righteous, who will not be judged.

And the order of this difference comes from this: "For the Lord knows," it says, "the way of the righteous, and the way of the ungodly will perish." Sinners do not come into the counsel of the righteous because the Lord knows the way of the righteous. He knows, not with a knowledge that removes ignorance, but by the favour of acknowledging. For there is no such change of human passions in God that he either knows something or does not know it. The blessed apostle Paul explained in what sense we are known by God, saying: "If anyone among you is a prophet or spiritual, let him know that what I write to you is from the Lord; but if anyone does not know, he is not known." He shows, then, that those are known by God who have known the things of God; to be known when they have known, that is, attaining the favour of acknowledgment through the merit of the religion they have known, so that being known is understood as the advance not of one ignorant but of one known. The Lord showed clearly in Adam and Abraham that he does not know sinners but knows the faithful. For to Adam after his sin it was said: "Where are you, Adam?", not because God did not know that one whom he still had in paradise was in paradise, but because, by being asked where he is, he is shown to be unworthy of God's knowledge through having sinned. Abraham, however, long unknown (for the word of God came to him when he was already seventy), when he had proved himself faithful to the Lord by offering Isaac, is received into divine familiarity with this favour: "Now I know that you fear the Lord your God, and you have not spared your beloved son for my sake." He was certainly not ignorant of Abraham's faith, which he had reckoned to him as righteousness when he believed about the begetting of Isaac; but because he had given a great proof of his fear by offering his son, now he is known, now he is approved, now he is worthy not to be unknown. So God both acknowledges and does not know: Adam the sinner is not known, and Abraham the faithful is acknowledged, worthy to be known by God, who is ignorant of nothing. The way of the righteous, who are not to be judged, is therefore known to God, and for this reason sinners, who are to be judged, are removed from their counsel. But the ungodly will not rise to judgment, because, their way having perished, they have already been judged by him who said: "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son," our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

Apostolic authority makes many of us uncertain whether to think this psalm joined to the first, as its conclusion so to speak, or rather to count it as following and second. For in the Acts of the Apostles we are taught, in a speech of blessed Paul, that this one is held to be, and is, the first: "And we bring you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled it for our children by raising up our Lord Jesus, as it is written in the first psalm: You are my Son, today I have begotten you; when he raised him from the dead, never again to return to corruption." On account of this apostolic authority, then, it is believed to be through the error of copyists that this psalm is numbered second in order, since it is known to be the first on the testimony of the teacher of the Gentiles himself. So we must learn the reason why it is to be understood by us as second and was shown by the apostle to be first.

In the middle of the times of the law, before the only-begotten Son of God, God the Word abiding before the ages, was born as man, the seventy elders, at the request of King Ptolemy, translated the books of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek letters. It had already been established by Moses that there should be seventy teachers in every synagogue. For Moses, although he had set down the words of the Testament in writing, had also separately made known certain more secret mysteries from the hidden things of the law to seventy elders, who were to remain teachers thereafter. The Lord too mentions this teaching in the Gospels, saying: "The scribes and Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses; therefore do and keep whatever they tell you, but do not do according to their deeds." Their teaching, then, remained for later times, received from the writer of the law himself and preserved in this number and office of elders. So these elders, translating these books and having acquired, according to the tradition of Moses, the spiritual knowledge of hidden understandings, translated the ambiguous sayings of the Hebrew language, and certain words that declare various things of themselves, with definite and proper meanings of words according to the powers of the things, governing that manifold understanding of the language by the knowledge of the teaching. From this it comes about that those who translated afterwards, interpreting in different ways, brought great error to the nations, since, ignorant of that hidden tradition which came from Moses, they issued by their own uncertain judgments what had been said ambiguously in the Hebrew language. We shall give one example of the ambiguity of the Hebrew language, from which the rest of this kind may be understood to be, and understood as they are. Bresith is a Hebrew word. It has three meanings in it: "in the beginning," "in the head," and "in the Son." But the seventy translators rendered it "in the beginning," while the others translated differently; and according to this ambiguity this confusion has been made by them in every translation.

But the authority of these seventy interpreters remains complete. First, because they translated before the Lord's bodily coming, and no flattery of the times can be charged against their interpretation, since it is so much older. Then, because these very leaders and teachers of the synagogue, perfected besides in the knowledge of the law by the more secret teaching through Moses, could not be unworthy judges of interpretation, being the most certain and weighty authorities for teaching. They, then, translating the psalms among the other books, brought them into number, placed them in order, and divided them with diapsalmata, all of which among the Hebrews both were and are kept in confusion. Their translations were then not necessary for those who used only their own language. Yet they were kept by them with careful and devout guarding; and when the Lord afterwards had fulfilled the whole law with the mystery of his taking a body, his passion, and his resurrection, and these books, which the same translators had issued for the king, were compared and found faithfully in agreement, the teaching was established as indissoluble by privilege, and so was the authority of its antiquity.

The blessed apostle Paul, then, a Hebrew of Hebrews by his own profession, called this psalm the first also according to Hebrew knowledge and belief, not using the translators' division. His greatest concern in preaching to the leaders of the synagogue was to show from the teaching of the law that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born, suffered, rose again, and reigns for ever. So he kept this method, that in preaching to Hebrews he used the custom of the Hebrews. But we must use the authority of the translators, who translated the law not by the ambiguity of the letter but by the knowledge of the teaching.

Apostolic authority now gives a most complete understanding of the person, the time, and the cause. For what the apostles thought of this same psalm in the book of their Acts we shall say in their own words. For it is written, they themselves saying: "Lord, you are he who made heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are in them, who by the mouth of our father David, your holy servant, said: Why did the nations rage, and the peoples meditate vain things? The kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For truly in this city there gathered together against your holy Son Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and counsel had predetermined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness." There is no doubt, then, what the psalm showed by prophecy so long before. For the raging nations and the peoples meditating vain things, mingled together at that time in Herod and Pilate, stood together with their own kings and rulers. For by the joint judgment of the governor and the tetrarch the passion of condemnation was confirmed against the Lord.

And indeed, according to prophetic knowledge, the propriety of each word has been carefully fitted to each kind and name: so that the nations "raged," moved with an ignorant and disordered motion, as they saw and heard the Son of God in the body. They raged so far that they pierced him with a crown of thorns, clothed him in a royal robe and mocked him with the greeting and honour of a king, beat his head with a reed, gave him vinegar and gall to drink, and pierced his side with a spear. For the cohort of soldiers under Pilate did these things from the rage of unrestrained anger.

The peoples "meditated vain things," that is, they were occupied in vain meditation on the teachings of God, since by meditating on the law they did not understand him who was proclaimed in the law. For already at that time the people of the synagogue abounded not only from Abraham's generation according to the flesh but from many peoples; under the one name of the people of Israel the diversity of many peoples was contained. This is written thus in the book of Acts: "There were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven." So these peoples, gathered from many peoples into one people, meditated vain things.

The kings also stood by, namely Pilate and Herod, in whom the kings of the earth are understood; and each of them, as the laws over which they presided required, gave the service of his presence. But those who in ungodly and irreligious counsel plotted against the Lord in many meetings, these rulers "gathered together," that is, all the chief priests frequently assembled in the house of Caiaphas. So Herod the tetrarch and Pilate the governor were called kings of the earth, because they stood by in right of earthly rule. But the others, who gathered together, are neither rulers of the earth nor chief priests, since, being subject to the Roman governor and the tetrarch, they did not hold the right of their own kingdom, nor did they any longer deserve to be called chief priests, because they had shown themselves ungodly toward God, the Lord of that very priesthood.

And since there is no doubt, according to apostolic authority, that the psalm began in the person of God the Father (for they said, "who by the mouth of our father David, your holy servant, said"), therefore the translators inserted a diapsalma to show the change of person, although it was not contained in the Hebrew books. The person that now changes is to be understood as that of the apostles, saying: "Let us break their bonds and cast away their yoke from us." They must detest what they rebuke. So they break the bonds and throw off the yoke of those who both raged and meditated vain things. And there is no doubt that throwing off a yoke differs from breaking bonds; and each suits one of the two kinds and names mentioned above: they break the bonds of the nations and throw off the yoke of the peoples. For the nations are bound by the bonds of their sins, from which they cannot free themselves through unbelief, according to the saying, "The sinner is bound fast by the cords of his sins"; but the Jews are burdened with the yoke of the law, which the apostles throw off from themselves, as blessed Peter says: "Now therefore why do you tempt the Lord by putting on the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?" They throw off this yoke of the peoples from themselves, then, because they were subject to it; but the bonds they break not for themselves but for the nations. And so the reasoning of both expressions is preserved: where bonds are broken they add no sign of their own person, but where they throw off the yoke, by saying "let us cast away from us," they are understood to speak of none but themselves; so that, having thrown off that heavy and intolerable yoke, they might subject themselves to the sweet and light yoke of gospel sanctification to which they were invited, and might break the bonds of the nations through the freedom of preaching, according to what they said in their recollection of this same psalm: "And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness." For these apostolic teachings break the snares of all unbelief and sins.

And since a double person was kept above when it said, "against the Lord and against his Christ," there follows now also a twofold expression of one who laughs and one who mocks. For insult to the one is not distinguished from insult to the other, nor is the honour of worship divided between them. For those who are one in the glory of divinity through the genuine and lawful nature of Father and Son as they are in themselves are one also in the injury of contempt and in the honour of reverence, and each is honoured or scorned in the other. The Lord himself testified to this, saying: "As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him." Honour is not divided, insult is not distinguished; equal worship is expected toward both, and injury to one is contempt of both. So, since both are scorned in one, those who are both one in divinity through glory are also both one in worship through honour; so that those who gathered against the Lord gathered also against his Christ, and those whom he who dwells in heaven laughs at, the Lord also mocks.

Not that the Lord too was not always in heaven, since he testified of himself: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven." He is not absent from heaven, then, because, though he had descended from heaven and was remaining and speaking as the Son of Man, yet while he was saying these things he was in heaven. The Son of Man had indeed descended, but by the power of his nature the Son of God was not absent from where he had descended; nor, when he was born as man, had he lost what he was before; nor, having become Son of Man, had he ceased to be Son of God. Rather, the Son of Man is so truly Son of God that the Son of God, descending from heaven, was through the substance of his power the same Son of Man in heaven.

But the prophet, wishing to signify by a distinction of person the Father, who, while his Son was on earth even as Son of Man, remained in that eternal and blessed seat of his and rested without any dispensation of descending, says: "He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them"; so that by him who laughed, dwelling in heaven, the Lord also might be understood, who mocked from heaven. There is no difference between mocking and laughing at, for both are done by the service of the mouth according to the disposition of the will. For divine matters are set forth to our understanding through bodily images, so that mocking and laughter are named in the derision of those who had gathered against the Lord and against his Christ; not that either the opening or the drawing of a mouth happens to the bodiless God, but that from the custom of our nature we might know with what judgment of the divine will the ungodly were derided. They were mocked, then, and laughed at. For those who had put together false witnesses, who had bought the betrayal, who had taken his blood upon themselves and their children, who had cried "Crucify," who had said "Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God," who had sealed the tomb, who had bought from the soldiers silence about the resurrection and the rumour of the stolen body, lost all the labour of their ungodliness. He whom they had fastened to the cross is God; he whose tomb they had sealed is eternal. Ungodliness is laughed at when it strives after what is unlawful, when it seeks what is not granted, when it loses what it hopes to have obtained, when it recognizes as God the one it condemns as a man.

Therefore this follows fittingly: "Then he will speak to them in his anger, and in his indignation he will trouble them." For after the rashness of fruitless ungodliness was laughed at, when God rose from the dead, God on whom death had fallen through the form of the body he assumed, God speaks to those whom he had mocked and troubles them in indignation. But before we show what this speech is and what this disturbance of indignation is, readers and hearers must be warned not to believe that any changes of passions or disturbances of emotions fall upon God. For nothing new befalls that eternal and perfect nature; nor can he who is such that he is always what he is, lest he ever not be the same, be made anything other than he always is. It belongs to earthly and imperfect kinds of things to become changeable by a conversion of nature, when grief disturbs joy, anger gentleness, offence goodwill, envy calmness, anxiety security; and through these we are at times something other than we were, when, creeping in through our inconstancy and weakness, the movement of another desire disquiets the present disposition of the mind, and a sudden conversion changes us from what we were into what we are. But God, blessed and perfect, needs no advance, since he lacks nothing; he is not made new by change, since he has no origin. He is the one who is not from elsewhere what he is: he is in himself, with himself, from himself, his own to himself, and himself all things to himself, without any change of novelty, since, being whole and entire to himself, he has left nothing else that could befall him.

From his excellent and kindly blessedness, then, all the creations of heavenly and invisible things and the formations of spiritual and bodily things proceeded through our Lord Jesus Christ, not so that he might gain some advance for himself from those to whom he gave their origin. For no one needs what he gives from himself, or advances by what he is the author of being what it is. Things that bring advance are external, since what remedies want is foreign. God, then, from whom all things are, needs none of those to which he has granted to be what they are; but he created all things for the advance of the things that were to be brought forth. And since the discourse will be long if we begin with heavenly and invisible things, let us treat of ourselves, to whom the prophecy of the psalm is addressed.

He established man not because he needed his service in anything, but because he is good he made him a sharer in his blessedness, and he perfected a rational living being with life and sense for the enjoyment of his eternity, which he would bestow. This is plainly understood from his own words, for he says: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but to fear the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his ordinances, which I command you, that it may be well with you?" God asks of us no service except that of innocence, religion, and faith. He requires to be loved by us, certainly not receiving any fruit for his own sake from our love for him, but the love itself benefiting rather us who shall love him. For he expects to be loved and obeyed, that it may be well with us, so that we may be judged worthy of the gift of his blessedness and goodness through the merit of our love and obedience. The use of goodness, like the brightness of the sun, the light of fire, the scent of a perfume, benefits not the giver but the user. What we are, then, is our advance rather than his who established us in what we are; for God, not begrudging the goods that are eternal in him, takes us up into the sense and enjoyment of his blessed goodness.

But he who is perfect and good has used his goodness and blessedness toward us not without reason and measure. For he allowed each of us freedom of life and sense, not fixing necessity on either side, so that a law of nature would compel each to be good or evil; but having created us out of kindness to enjoy his blessedness, he appointed our advance toward it through the merit of an innocent and honourable life. For what honour and reward would a necessity of goodness deserve, if some force joined to us did not allow us to be evil? Goodness, then, was left to the will, so that the will might gain for itself the reward of goodness, and so that our advance in and enjoyment of this eternal blessedness might come from merit, not from undiscriminating necessity by law. And although he drew us to will goodness, that is, to live well and honourably, through the hope of deserving and enjoying his goodness, he also added a punishment for goodness avoided and scorned; so that, since he had left us freedom of will to deserve goodness (because necessity of nature would have no merit), the terror of punishment set daily before us on the other side might restrain that very freedom. And so through equitable and just reasoning freedom was granted for the merit of reward, and through God's goodness the right of freedom was bounded by fear of his ordinance, so that the hope of merit might counsel us to will the good, and the punishment of the vengeance set before us might persuade us not to will evil.

So, for those who by freedom of will preferred wickedness, the vengeance appointed is believed to be the anger of God, not because that unchangeable and tranquil nature of God grows hot with a turbulent impulse, but because he who by the appointment of punishment remains in punishment feels that the author of this appointment is angry with him. For the punishment of the sufferer is believed to be the anger of the one who decrees it. And so God is angry when those punished feel through the pain of punishment that the anger of the decree is upon them; this anger is anger to those to be punished not through a change of nature moved from gentleness to anger, but from the appointment of punishment. That this appointment of punishment is called anger and is so, John shows in the Gospel, saying: "Brood of vipers, who showed you to flee from the anger to come?" For although it was due that they be punished for their ungodliness by the appointment of punishment, yet they were fleeing this coming anger by the confession of repentance. The apostle too mentions this anger, saying: "For if, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, much more, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved by him from anger," showing that anger is the punishment of an abiding appointment.

God, then, is not moved to change, nor carried from one thing to another; since he is of a certain and constant nature, he remains as he is, for he said: "I am who I am, and I do not change." That blessed and perfect goodness of eternal power does not suffer conversion, nor is it changed from one thing to another by the movement of an accidental impulse. The same prophet, speaking thus by the Holy Spirit, testifies to this here, saying: "God is a just judge, strong and patient; will he be angry every day? Unless you turn, he has brandished his sword, he has bent his bow and made it ready; and on it he has prepared the instruments of death, he has made his arrows for those who will burn." The patient one, then, is not changed to anger, but the powerful judge has decreed punishment for guilt. For against those who do not turn he has brandished his sword, bent his bow, prepared on it the instruments of death, and made his arrows for those who will burn. He has made them, not for a movement of sudden anger suddenly kindled by desire for vengeance, but he has made them for those who will burn, who by their unrepentant will appoint themselves to be burned. And the sword has been brandished at those who would not turn, not to be drawn against each one by a change into anger (for he who is patient is not angry every day), but because he has decreed judgment, his sword is already drawn by the appointment of punishment. The spiritual instruments of punitive judgment are named in the sword, the bow, and the arrows; and because they are held prepared for those who will burn, they are not prepared from a movement of temporary anger, but God has governed them, by the appointment of his decree, most temperately with the evenness of his goodness: by not leaving the severity of this appointment hidden and unknown, by warning beforehand of its terror through his announcements, and by holding back that punishment, though appointed, with a long delay for repentance of sin.

And so, after the nations raged and the kings stood by, after the peoples meditating vain things gathered together against the Lord and his Christ, and after they were laughed at and mocked, there was added: "Then he will speak to them in his anger, and in his indignation he will trouble them." How the Lord has always been accustomed to speak in his anger, we shall show by the weightiest and greatest example of prophetic teaching, where Isaiah says: "Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom; attend to the word of God, people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I am full. I do not want burnt offerings of rams, the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and goats; nor if you come to appear in my sight (for who required these things from your hands?) shall you continue to trample my court. If you bring fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me. Your new moons and sabbaths and the great day I cannot bear; my soul hates your fasting and holidays and new moons and festivals. You have become a surfeit to me; I can no longer bear your sins. When you stretch out your hands, I will turn my eyes away from you; and if you multiply prayer, I will not hear you; for your hands are full of blood." These things are terrible and full of anger: that the noble family of Abraham is called rulers of Sodom, that Israel, chosen as an inheritance, is called the people of Gomorrah, that the sacrifices are rejected, the solemnities abominable, the fasts loathed, the eyes turned away from the sight of those who approach, the ears closed against hearing those who pray, because their hands are full of blood. What is heavier than this threat? What more severe than these menaces? But let us see how God speaks in his anger.

For after it was said, "Your hands are full of blood," there follows: "Wash yourselves, be clean, remove the wickedness from your souls before my eyes. Learn to do good, seek judgment, rescue the one who suffers wrong, judge for the orphan and justify the widow; and come, let us reason together, says the Lord. Even if your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and if they are like crimson, I will make them like white wool. And if you are willing and listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you are unwilling and do not listen to me, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." Kindness follows terror. And to those to whom vengeance for crime is already due, there still remains the blessed confession of a repentant conscience. For God does not at once destroy in his anger, but speaks, and, with punishment still held back, only troubles them in indignation. Those who were like scarlet and crimson, discoloured with blood overflowing on their hands, will grow white as snow and will be made white with the garment of blessed wool. These things have been drawn from the authority of the Old Testament; let us see whether in the New too the anger of God is understood to be such that it saves.

For John thus urges toward salvation those whom he reproaches as a brood of vipers because of the wickedness of their fathers' ungodliness: "Bear fruit worthy of repentance." And again the Lord himself: "Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you." And to those who raged against him not only in the passion but even after the passion, not, I say, gathering together, but breathing out persecution of the church, flight of the apostles, slaughter of martyrs, God, angry, speaks thus: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" And he said: "Who are you, Lord?" And the Lord: "I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute." And he, trembling and afraid at what had happened to him, said: "Lord, what do you want me to do?" So he speaks in anger, so he troubles in indignation, when fear and terror are brought, by warning to desist, to the very ones for whom punishment has been decreed for the merit of their ungodliness.

But the prophet did not pass over even the chief and greatest proclamation of speaking in anger and troubling in indignation. For after saying, "Then he will speak to them in his anger, and in his fury he will trouble them," to show what that speech of anger was and what disturbance arose from it, he added: "But I have been established as king by him over Sion, his holy mountain, proclaiming his decree. 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. You will rule them with a rod of iron; you will break them like a potter's vessel." Speaking in anger and troubling in indignation, he tempers both the manner of being angry and of speaking. For he neither hides his anger, since his power is displayed, nor departs from his goodness, since terror is sent ahead, so that fear of him whose power had been shown might call us back to godliness. So those who rage and meditate vain things are troubled when they know he is king, when they hear he is the Son of God, when they learn he is the possessor of the ends of the earth and the heir of the nations, when they recognize that the right of ruling with a rod of iron is his, when they understand that peoples are to be shattered in the manner and with the ease of a potter's vessel. So he speaks in anger, so he troubles in indignation, not punishing the ungodliness committed, but troubling the unrepentant toward the confession of repentance by recalling the terror of his power.

Through the spirit of prophecy, which records things to be done as done (since God is accustomed, through unerring foreknowledge of what is to be done, to signify future things as past), it can be fully understood that all these things were said in the person of the only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and it would be the greatest unbelief to bring to them a hesitant sense of doubtful opinion. Yet it must also be shown from the teachings of the Gospels and the apostles that the prophet prophesied beforehand nothing but what was to be done and proclaimed; especially since no small error arises for the ignorant and simple from the words, "Today I have begotten you." For since the only-begotten Son of God abides before times, it is not understood to be fitting and consistent that he was begotten on a day, since all days are in time. For times, according to the knowledge handed down to us by Moses, have been measured out in this their movement and course from the origin and foundation of the world, being divided by moments, hours, months, and the year in a succession that revolves on itself; and time is made from time, since the mutual replacement of times both begets and ends all times. And therefore a day is in time, through which the whole of time, once begun, ends, and in ending begins. But the only-begotten Son of God, as he is the Word of God, so is God the Word; he is not with times but before times; he is not in anything but before all things. For he was when times were made, since he made them. He was, therefore, always. For he is not defined in time, not subjected to number; but he through whom is the origin of all things that are and can be said to be, himself continues to be by the birth of his infinite eternity, as begotten from eternity. So that the meaning of the prophetic saying, "Today I have begotten you," may be understood, we must bring in gospel and apostolic authority, so as to understand the prophet from the apostle or the apostle from the prophet. And the same order of gospel sayings must be kept as that of the psalm.

For this comes first: "But I have been established as king by him over Sion, his holy mountain." And I do not know for whom it would be safe to doubt that Christ is king, when the thief himself confessed it in the suffering of the cross: "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom." But the confession of the thief who professed him king is not enough. The magi too, coming to worship, testify when they ask: "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?" Pilate too testifies when he asks: "Are you the king of the Jews?" And the Lord professes it, answering: "You have said so." When asked, he does not deny; about to be humbled to death, he does not boast. Since the confession came only from an answer, he neither put himself forward as the author of the profession nor begrudged the questioner the truth of knowledge.

But it is not enough to have answered that he is king; let us also hear who this king is. For the chief priest also questions him with an oath, saying: "I adjure you by the living God to tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God." And Jesus says to him: "You have said so." Here too the question is not rejected, but the boasting and glorying of a spontaneous profession is avoided; yet the truth asked for is not denied. And so the modesty of humility and the confession of truth are tempered together, so that there is both courtesy in the answer and knowledge in the question. But we must wait to see what the outcome of this answer is, that the Christ is the Son of God; what, namely, follows on the words "You have said so"? "Truly I say to you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven." He who is Son of Man is also Son of God: the nature of his noble birth does not perish in the assumption of the Son of Man. For he is not therefore not the Son of God because he is also the son of man. The addition of lowliness does not come with a loss of divinity; nor did power receive dishonour through sharing weakness, since weakness was granted the honour of power. For the Son of Man sits at the right hand of God, to be seen coming with the clouds of heaven. By this saying that prophecy is fulfilled which said: "The Lord says to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet."

This king, then, has been established over Sion, God's holy mountain, proclaiming the Lord's decree: certainly not over the mountain of that lost city, the Jerusalem that was wept over, murderous and parricidal, but over his Jerusalem which is in heaven, which is our mother, which is the city of the great king, whose inhabitants today, I think, are those who rose at the Lord's passion. So this king, established, proclaims God's decree, that those who raged and gathered against him might remember that he would come with the clouds of heaven, so that, troubled by the knowledge of the divine coming, they might repent of the insult they had offered to his bodily lowliness, which they had mocked.

The gospel teaching keeps the order of the prophecy. For in the same place the meaning of both sayings is contained, namely of this one: "But I have been established as king by him over Sion, his holy mountain, proclaiming his decree. The Lord said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you." For when he says, "From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power," he shows the time at which the Son of Man, who is also Christ and Son of God, would be worthy to sit with God: so that, since he was Son of God before and then was also son of man, what was then son of man might be begotten into the perfect Son of God, that is, for resuming and bestowing on his body the glory of his eternity through the power of the resurrection, the glory which, as one in a body, he asked back from the Father. For he who was in the form of God had taken the form of a servant. And for this form of a servant he had taken he demands the glory of God, in which he had remained, saying: "Father, glorify me with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was." He does not seek new things, he does not desire what is foreign; he asks to be such as he had been, and prays to be what he was before, that is, to be begotten into what was his own. He was not then wholly that which he prayed to become; but to become wholly, he asked for nothing other than what he had been. But when he becomes what he was, and is to be what he was not, then that which was not whole was being born, by a kind of beginning of a new birth, into what it had been. This, then, is the day of his resurrection for taking up glory, by which he is born into what he was before times. But being born into what he was before times, he is nevertheless born in time to be what he was not. And therefore the Son of Man is to be seen from now on sitting at the right hand of power, because the nature of the flesh, glorified after the resurrection, was being carried forward to the advance of the glory he had had before, when the son of man, about to sit with the Father, with the corruption of the flesh swallowed up into immortality, was born into the Son of God, then living and never more to die.

The blessed apostle held this new begetting in him, the begetting of this temporal birth, distinguished from that which is before times, and a meaning divided accordingly. For after he had said of that blessed birth, bounded by no times, "the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible," he afterwards also mentions the firstborn from the dead in the resurrection, saying: "the firstborn from the dead, that he himself might have the first place in all things." For he is born into what he was not, though what came to be was what he had been. He is the firstborn from the dead who was the firstborn of creation; firstborn from the dead in order that he might remain firstborn of creation. For the same one is firstborn from the dead who was firstborn of creation.

He is not now something other than he was before, though he himself was also another thing from another; but what was another thing from another was reborn as another thing into that very thing from which it had come before. For he who was born of the virgin as man was then also Son of God; but he who is Son of Man was the same as the Son of God. And he was born again from baptism, being then too Son of God, so that he might be born both into the same and into another. For it is written, when he had come up from the water: "You are my Son, today I have begotten you." But according to the begetting of man being reborn, he too was then being reborn to God as perfect Son, so that in baptism he was prepared as Son of God as he was as son of man.

But by apostolic authority, what is now in the psalm, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you," refers neither to the virgin's childbearing nor to the begetting of the washing, but to the firstborn from the dead. For in the book of the Acts of the Apostles it is said thus: "And we bring you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled it for our children by raising up our Lord Jesus, as it is written in the first psalm: You are my Son, today I have begotten you, when he raised him from the dead, never again to return to corruption." According to the apostle, then, this voice of God the Father belongs to the day of the resurrection. Let us see whether the evangelists teach the same. For the Lord, rising, used these words to the apostles: "All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go now, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." For in rising he received every right in heaven and on earth. And by saying "has been given," he shows that he asked for what he received.

For there follows: "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, the inheritance of the nations which he asked for. For he asked when he said: "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, as you have given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to all whom you have given him." And again: "I do not pray for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word." This, then, is his inheritance: that he gives eternal life to all flesh, that all nations, baptized and taught, are reborn into life; no longer, according to that divine song of Moses, handed over to the dominion of angels nor divided according to their number, but received into the Lord's household, reckoned among the members of God's family, and transferred from the unjust, sinful, and perverse right of those who ruled them into the eternal and divine kingdom. For no longer is Israel alone the portion of the Lord, nor Jacob the measuring line of his inheritance, but all nations, formerly divided according to the number of the angels, now this whole universe of nations is the people of the one God, and all of it is one; and this is the eternal inheritance, consisting of all who rise from the dead, of this firstborn from the dead, the eternal heir.

In what was added, "and the ends of the earth as your possession," it must not be thought that the repeated expression signifies the same thing, as though only the possession of the nations inhabiting the lands had been given him. For it does not say "and as your possession up to the ends of the earth," but "the ends of the earth." What bounds differs from what is bounded. Being finished and finishing are not the same, nor is receiving a limit the same as limiting: one receives its limit from within, the other limits from outside by its circuit and the way it lies against it. For the earth is not so sunk in depth, extended in breadth, or raised in height that it is not contained on every side by a nature either poured around it or lying beneath it. The sunken and immeasurable abyss of the vast underworld sustains it; the breath of the air poured around and above overshadows and surrounds it. That it is suspended over the abyss beneath it, the prophet testifies, saying: "He founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the rivers." And again: "Who established the earth upon the waters." And Scripture is accustomed to call this immeasurable and boundless vastness the abyss, as when Jonah prays inside the whale and says: "The great abyss surrounded me." And this boundless immensity, which is understood to be signified, according to the proper sense of the word, by the abyss, is bounded by the spiritual power of the divine substance, according to the apostle's saying: "For all things are in him and through him; to him be glory for ever and ever." That there are many inhabitants of this infernal region and vast abyss we are taught by the Apocalypse of blessed John, where no one, in heaven, on the earth, or under the earth, was found worthy to open the sealed book. This is certainly not understood to refer to the dead buried in the earth, since, to show a third realm of inhabitants, those who are not within the earth but under the earth, not those who are dead but those who live, had among them no one to unseal the book. When, then, the possession of the ends of the earth is given to the Lord, it is not so much the earth that is given as the things by which the earth is bounded. For he received the ends of the earth, by which the earth itself is bounded.

The blessed apostle Paul, through whose mouth Christ spoke of himself, set out the whole mystery of this, saying: "Who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of man and found in appearance as a man; he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father." So, remaining in the form of God, he took the form of a servant, that is, from God he was born man. And after the death of the cross he is exalted to the name that is above every name: for he is raised up into God, since there is no name beyond God, and this is granted him when he asks it, namely, that he should be what he had been before. For remaining in the form of God he had taken the form of a servant. Then he received the possession of the ends of the earth, that is, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father: not only the earth but also things above and below, and the things by which the earth is enclosed, are given. And in the glory of God the Father he is born, begotten today; that is, the assumption of the form of a servant is honoured, as the reward of death, in the form of God which remained before. And a birth takes place in time, new yet not unheard of, when he who from the form of God had been found in the form of a servant was born firstborn from the dead to resume the glory of God the Father.

Then follows: "You will rule them with a rod of iron; you will break them like a potter's vessel." To many, who either think wrongly or do not know the power and proper sense of the divine words, these things seem contrary to the goodness of God: that the Son of God should rule with the terror of a rod of iron the nations he asked for as a possession and received as an inheritance, and break them in the manner of a potter's vessel. For it is not like any good person to give and to receive what is to be destroyed. And he who prefers the repentance of sinners to their death is not thought likely to act according to the declaration of his nature if he breaks with a rod of iron those he asked to be given him as an inheritance.

First, so that no room may be open for this rash and ungodly presumption, the proper senses of the words translated into the Roman tongue must be known. For what we have, "You will rule them with a rod of iron," although "rule" itself is not tyrannical or unjust but shows a rational governance by the judgment of equity and moderation, yet the Greek proper sense signifies a still gentler disposition in the ruler. For where we have "you will rule them," they have poimaneis autous, that is, "you will rule them as a shepherd," since he will have the care of ruling them with a shepherd's affection; for he is the good shepherd, whose sheep we are, for whom he laid down his life. And so that we may not think tyrannical right is signified by the rod, the proper sense of the word "rod" is to be learned from the New and Old Testaments.

The blessed Paul, writing to the Corinthians, whom he was calling back from many sins to repentance by moderate and useful exhortation, says: "What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?" Did Paul have a governor's right, so that he could threaten a rod and come to the church of Christ with the office of a lictor? Certainly that is not to be thought. But since every word of God by which we are drawn back from error to truth, by which through the threat and terror of judgment we are guided to the way of an innocent and holy life, is called a rod, by which, held within the discipline of divine fear, we are restrained by the warning of a moderate and provident ruler, the blessed apostle offered those he was warning the choice of how he should come: whether they preferred him to be present in the severity of teaching and rebuke or in a spirit of gentleness. Both were necessary according to the course of moderation, so that he might come more gently to the obedient and more severely to the insolent. This has been drawn from the authority of the New Testament.

That this teaching of the word is called a rod is known from the Old Testament thus, where it is said: "A rod of uprightness is the rod of your kingdom"; for the uprightness of the rod is the same as that by which we are directed through teaching into a straight and useful way, and what is the rod of the kingdom must necessarily be the very teaching of the kingdom. We have learned that our Lord himself is called a rod because of the useful and moderate proclamation of his teaching, as Isaiah says: "A rod shall come out of the root of Jesse." And so that no one should dare to suppose a tyrannical severity in him from the name "rod," the prophetic word added at once: "And a flower shall rise up from the root, and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him," so that the sweetness of the flower might temper the severity of the rod, while the terror of the teaching brings to each of us the governance of perfect blessedness. With this rod, then, he will rule the nations given him: not corruptible, not perishable, not fragile, but of iron, that is, most strong and, by the solidity of its nature, most firm.

With this rod of iron, then, as he will rule, so he will also break or crush; for the proper sense of the Greek according to the seventy translators expresses this rather. For it is written thus: hōs skeuos kerameōs syntripseis autous. But whether he crushes or breaks, he is not therefore to be thought to ask for an inheritance in order to break and crush it for destruction and abolition, since to him a contrite heart is the best sacrifice. That contrition or breaking, then, is the one that crushes in us bodily pleasures and the incentives of worldly vices and will make us worthy of the Lord's favour, according to the prophet's saying: "A contrite and humbled heart God will not despise." And how much clarity of understanding does the comparison with breaking a potter's vessel bring? For it is not without reason that he will break like a potter's vessel those whom he asked for as an inheritance, ruling them with a rod of iron, except that by the example of the comparison he shows that the loss of such a breakage serves for the restoration of the same vessel.

What kind of breaking we undergo from God, like a potter's vessel, he taught through the prophet Jeremiah, saying: "Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there you will hear my words. And I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he was making a work on the stones. And the vessel he was making fell in his hands; and again he made another vessel, as it pleased him in his sight to make it. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Can I not do with you as this potter, house of Israel? Behold, like the potter's clay you are in my hands. At last I will speak concerning a nation or a kingdom, to strike them and destroy them; and if that nation turns from its evils, I will repent of the evils I intended to do to them. And at last I will speak concerning a nation and a kingdom, to rebuild and to plant; and they will do evil before me, so as not to hear my voice; and I will repent of the good I said I would do to them." So God will break the nations of his inheritance, asked for and obtained, and crush them in order to remake them. For he will break in all of them all insatiable desires, seductive lusts, burning angers, empty superstitions, swelling pride, and ungodly opinions. And he remakes us for a rational use of life by contempt of money, shame at luxury, moderation of anger, knowledge of truth, fellowship in living, and the duties of religion, when through the governance of teaching and the terror of judgment we come alive again in these virtues after those vices. For he does not say "you will break them like a potsherd," lest a vessel that cannot be remade be understood through the fragment of a broken pot; but he says "a potter's vessel," which was becoming a vessel in the very work of the craftsman, so that, according to the example given, the repair of the same broken vessel by the will of the craftsman might be ready at hand.

But the vessel of irrational matter has also been fitted, under another understanding, to the reasoning of the human will: men fall through these vices of theirs, but if they repent in them, that is, if they cease from them, God too repents in the case of those whom he had appointed to punishment for this fall; not that this movement of mind falls upon God according to human nature, but because for man repentance of deeds done is the measure of deeds to be done, God too speaks of his repentance with respect to punishment, because those who have ceased to be ungodly would cease to be punished. As, then, it is easy for a potter to remake a lost vessel into the same form, or any he wishes, so it is easy for God, after the falls of vices, to restore from ungodliness to godliness those who wish to be raised up through the instruction of his teaching.

But that breaking like a potter's vessel must also not be overlooked which will take place when these bodies have been dissolved and broken by the fall of death, and restoration is brought according to the craftsman's will. The prophetic word seems to have signified both by the same saying. For when it shows that repentance in what was done before is profitable, it teaches that there must be a kind of new restoration of this present bodily life from vices to virtue, the anger of God against them ceasing as the will to crime ceases. And although it brought this forward from the comparison of the potter, yet when it says of the same potter, "And he made another vessel as it pleased him in his sight," there is understood to be signified also that restoration of rising bodies which will take place according to God's will. For as it pleases him and is worthy in his sight, he will repair what is broken, not from some other matter but from the old and very matter of their origin, giving them the form of beauty pleasing to him; so that the resurrection of corruptible bodies into the glory of incorruption does not destroy their nature by annihilation but changes it by the condition of its quality. For it is not another body, though it will rise into something other, as the apostle says: "It is sown in corruption, it rises in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it rises in glory; it is sown in weakness, it rises in power; it is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body." There is change, then, but no abolition. And when what was rises into what it was not, it has not lost its origin but has advanced to honour. Let us rejoice, then, to be broken like a potter's vessel both now and then: so that now, in the manner of a potter's vessel, having died with and been buried with the Lord in baptism, we may walk in newness of life and be reborn into the new man of Christ, having put off the old; and then, through this advance of the new birth, we may be remade into that blessed form, pleasing to God, of our repeated restoration.

Not ignorant of this good, the prophet after this exhorts and says: "And now, kings, understand; be instructed, you who judge the earth. Serve the Lord in fear and rejoice with trembling. Lay hold of discipline, lest the Lord be angry and you perish from the just way. When his anger is kindled in a short time, blessed are all who trust in him." This order of teaching is most useful, that it makes known the blessedness of what it exhorts us to; for it is hard to stretch the mind and hope toward what is unknown. So the prophet, wishing to exhort us to understand what he had recounted above, first mentioned the honour of understanding itself, saying, "And now, kings, understand," showing that those who would understand are kings. But we must ask which kings he urges to understand this prophetic exhortation, lest anyone think those are signified whose kingdom now is over human bodies, the services of war, and the fear of nations. These are not eternal and blessed kings with God, since they already fall away from God's commandments and have been assigned to the devil for his kingdom, as he said when he tempted the Lord: "And the devil led him up a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; and the devil said to him: I will give you this power and their glory, for they have been handed over to me." But the Gospels show us other kings: those to whom the kingdom of God has drawn near, and those who have overcome sin reigning in them, who are kings of their own body, subjecting all the incentives of vices to their rule; for this is the kingdom of God in us. So again Christ reigns in us when through him we ourselves reign with the right of lords over ourselves, according to the saying: "The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say: Behold here, behold there. For behold, the kingdom of God is within you." The blessed apostle mentions this kingdom, writing to the Corinthians: "Already you reign without us; and would that you did reign, that we also might reign with you." This, then, is the kingdom of God, where sin is conquered, where death is destroyed, where the enemy does not reign; for "death reigned from Adam to Moses," and the apostle says, "Let sin no longer reign in you." Through this kingdom of God, when the kingdom of sin has been dissolved and the opposing kingdom overthrown, we ourselves being kings, this is the kingdom of God for us, when, all the stings of our vices having been crushed, the stain of bodily weakness will be swallowed up.

These kings, then, the prophet urges to understand: that they may know that kings raged and peoples meditated vain things against the Lord and his Christ; that they may understand also the one laughing from heaven and speaking in anger, and the king established over Sion, the holy mountain, proclaiming the decrees of God the Father; that they may recognize who was begotten as Son, and also the time at which he who made times was begotten in time; that they may understand in what he asked for the inheritance of the nations and the possession of the ends of the earth; and that they may not be ignorant what this rod of iron is with which, ruling them, he breaks them like a potter's vessel. For understanding these things they will recognize the whole mystery of the divine will; and since through obedience to the commandments they will be heirs of God the Father and co-heirs of our Lord Jesus Christ, it necessarily follows that, being co-heirs of the eternal king, they are kings.

Since the Gospels and the apostle have testified about the kings, it follows that we should learn who the judges of the earth are, who likewise must be instructed; especially since he calls the kings by the bare name, without designation of any kingdom, to teach that they are kings of themselves and in themselves, but speaks of judges "of the earth." That a judge and a king differ we know from the very usage of earthly custom, for reigning is not the same as judging: kingship is dominion, judgment the measure of equity. So all the saints are to be understood as judges of the earth, whose life and faith are the judgment of the unbelieving and unjust. The Lord shows this in the Gospels, saying: "The men of Nineveh will rise in the judgment and will judge this generation, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise in the judgment and will judge this generation, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here." Such will be the judges of the earth, whose faith and fear, by comparison, condemn the unrepentant and ungodly. For if the repentance of the Ninevites, undertaken at Jonah's preaching, gained the fruit of repentance, their obedient repentance must judge the insolent impenitence of these. Or will not the queen of the South, hearing the longed-for wisdom of Solomon from the ends of the earth, condemn by her foreign hearing the unbelief and carelessness of those present? Christ, the author, increases the judgment of disobedience and unwillingness to hear, since he differs from Solomon and Jonah. And the apostle plainly shows that these are the judges of the earth, saying: "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world, and the world is judged by you?", since holiness, by comparison, through the merit of the blessedness it has attained, condemns the life of the guilty.

The prophet at once added the work of this understanding and instruction, saying: "Serve the Lord in fear and rejoice with trembling." He does not allow service to be careless or negligent; he wants fear mixed into every duty of service. For as fearful slaves serve their earthly masters more diligently, since fear mixed with obedience draws out the will to a more careful compliance, so too those who serve God, if they fear through a fear that hangs over them, will not be negligent in the service they have undertaken. And so that this fear of the faithful should not be thought a tyrannical terror, to what he had said, "Serve in fear," he added "and rejoice," so that the exultation of joy might temper the fear of service, since fear itself would bring a cause of gladness through the consciousness of faithful service. Further, so that the freedom of joy might not go beyond the bounds of fitting moderation, he added "rejoice with trembling," because gladness free of trembling would be dangerous, leading to forgetfulness of fear. And so the reasoning of the prophetic utterance is preserved: fear holds service in check, exultation moderates fear, and the trembling that follows restrains exultation.

He taught that the exultant fear and trembling exultation of this service consist in what follows, saying: "Lay hold of discipline." By the force of the word he shows the meaning of a will impatient and, as it were, overhasty toward it, teaching that discipline is not so much to be sought as to be seized: not content with a lukewarm faith in observing this obedience, but desiring the ardour of the spirit in eagerness to seize it. So those who seize the kingdom of heaven delight the Lord, when he says: "From the days of John the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force"; because, although the possession of the heavenly kingdom was proclaimed to Israel, the faith of the Gentiles seized this possession for itself first, while Israel distrusted.

So Paul too runs in order to lay hold, saying: "But I follow, that I may lay hold of that for which I also have been laid hold of." He does not hurry with slow step or follow with an idle course, for he follows in order to lay hold. It would seem enough to have said that he follows in order to attain, but he himself wishes to bring force, hurries to lay hold, and, in the manner of a bodily example, to seize. And he knows that he has already been laid hold of in that very thing which he hurries to lay hold of. For if God, born as man, laid hold of us, who differ from his nature, through bodily nature, becoming himself what we are, it is ours now to strive to lay hold of what he is, so that our haste may join itself to that glory into which he raised nature out of this bodily corruption; and so we shall lay hold of that in which we were laid hold of, if we attain the nature of God, God having first attained the nature of men. Discipline, then, is to be laid hold of and seized with a kind of embrace and a bodily grip, lest it slip away or fall.

The prophet added the reason for this careful embrace and grip, saying: "Lay hold of discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry and you perish from the just way, when his anger is kindled in a short time." For the day of punishment is at hand, which is understood to be signified by the Lord's anger being kindled; in it, if we do not hold the discipline we have laid hold of, we shall be lost from the just way. For whatever is taken away from a thing perishes for it, and what is lacking seems already lost to the one who lacks it. For though it remains in its own nature, it does not remain for the one from whom it is absent. And therefore the ungodly perish from the just way, because they will not be in it. And they perish from the just way when his anger is kindled in a short time.

This anger by which they perish from the just way is not slow, lest anyone flatter himself meanwhile with the gain of punishment delayed while judgment waits. For the anger is kindled in a short time. The avenging underworld receives us at once; and falling from the body, if we have so lived, we perish at once from the right way. Witnesses to us are the rich man and the poor man of the Gospel: angels placed the one in the seats of the blessed and in Abraham's bosom, while the region of punishment at once received the other. Punishment received the dead man so immediately that his brothers were still remaining above. There is no delay or postponement there. For the day of judgment is the eternal recompense either of blessedness or of punishment; but the time of death meanwhile holds each person under its own laws, while either Abraham or punishment reserves each for judgment.

And therefore the prophet concluded this psalm, so rich in heavenly mysteries, thus: "Blessed are all who trust in him." The perfection of blessedness does not require a fearful or doubtful hope. Trust is needed for it, that is, a firm conviction and an unchangeable will, because to trust is more than to hope. We must trust, then, lest the anger of God, kindled in a short time, destroy us from the right way. For he is faithful who said: "He who believes in me will not be judged, but will pass from death to life," our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The understanding of some psalms is plain, of others the sense is more obscure; the diversity of prophecy brings both kinds of diversity. For the Holy Spirit has instructed man in the knowledge of God through many and varied kinds of speech: now grasping the hidden things of the mysteries through natures and comparisons of human things, now commending the simplicity of faith by plainness of words, now confirming the order of life by the truth of commandments, now showing through the person of the prophet who writes the psalm what is to be foreseen and guarded against; so that through this manifold and rich abundance of teaching, by certain parts and increments of learning, the building up of the whole understanding may be achieved. And the psalm set before us as an example will be the one whose heading is this: "For the end, for the hidden things of the son, a psalm of David." So the understanding of the psalm is to be sought through the nature of the things that are both hidden and at the end.

The psalm was inscribed "for the end, for the hidden things of the son" only so that what the psalm consists of might be known. For everything added to the title of a discourse bears witness to the things from which the discourse began. It is not fitting that one thing should be in the discourse and another in the title, since the title is, as it were, an index of what is written about. The meaning of the word "for the end," then, must be understood. That is at the end beyond which there is nothing; that is at the end which goes beyond the present time; for the end comes from all things, not all things from the end, since all things cease in it, and it is a kind of last point of something done or said; and unless the last point of the whole universe is in it, it will not be the end, because what has something last beyond itself cannot be the last. From this it is to be understood that whenever the title has "for the end," not present things but the last things are contained in it. Hidden things are those that are concealed and lie unseen, and are hidden in secret, inaccessible, and impenetrable places, and are known only to him who stored them away, or only when he has brought them forward to be known by some.

The blessed apostle Paul is our witness concerning these, saying: "So that by reading you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other times was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed." And again: "To me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the dispensation of his mystery, hidden for ages in God." This, then, is the hidden thing of which the Lord also says: "There is nothing hidden that will not be known, nor covered that will not be revealed." But the psalm contains hidden things, not one hidden thing. Rightly so, for what follows teaches that there were several, not one. For it is a hidden thing that God, for the sake of human salvation, was present not in the heavenly glory and brightness of his name but put on the form of a human body. It is also a hidden thing that the nature of human flesh in him was not put on from the common kind of origin but came forth from a virgin, was brought forth by a virgin, and was begotten without the beginning of ordinary birth. It is a hidden thing that he who died came to life from death, taking up again from the body the glory of immortality. But this is not yet the end.

"The end" signifies not a kind of setting of things but the measure and completion of things running their course; not that they should cease into abolition, but that the things in question should be placed in a kind of abiding limit. What this end is, then, that is, what the complete perfection of all things is and what is hidden, the blessed apostle tells the Corinthians thus: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all are made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then those who are Christ's, who believed at his coming; then the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has destroyed every rule and authority. For he must reign until he puts all enemies under his feet; for God has subjected all things under his feet. The last enemy overcome in him is death. But when he has said, All things are subjected, except him who subjected all things to him, then he himself will be subjected to him who subjected all things to himself, that God may be all in all." This, then, is the end of the hidden things: the resurrection of the dead, the glorification of the saints, the abolition of ruling wickedness, the destruction of death; and through this the kingdom of Christ is also the kingdom of God the Father. For when these things have been done, after all things have been subjected to the Son by the Father, not so that eternity is taken from his kingdom by subjection, but so that he may lead us, glorified, clothed with immortality, and conformed to the glory of his body, into the kingdom of the Father, now worthy of co-inheritance with him, now taken into the Father's family, now sharers in his goods and glory, so that he may reign with the Father in us and God may be all in all, when the weakness of the human nature he assumed is swallowed up by the subjection of obedience into the divine nature. This eternal praise, then, is due through the Son to God the Father, when all who have lived by faith from Adam to the time of the kingdom have been raised and transfigured from the body into a heavenly state, when all the iniquity of wickedness has been taken away, the devil consigned to the punishment of eternal fire, and his name removed from human memory. These hidden things are sung in the psalm, these are celebrated when the end is complete. And because the Son is aware of all things to come, these are praised as already accomplished, because in him and with him and through him are all things: to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The apostle, instructing us in many things, teaches this too, that the word of God must be handled with all reverence, saying: "Whoever speaks, as the oracles of God." For in these things there must not be the careless ease of our ordinary speech; but when we speak what we have learned and read, honour must be paid to the author through care in discoursing. The custom of human service gives us an example for heavenly teaching. For if someone interpreting the words of a king and bringing his commands to the ears of the people takes care diligently and cautiously, out of reverence for his office, to do justice to the king's dignity, so that everything is read out and heard with honour and respect, how much more fitting is it that we, in setting forth the oracles of God for human understanding, show ourselves worthy of this office? For we are a kind of instrument of the Holy Spirit, through which the variety of the voice and the diversity of teaching are to be heard. We must be watchful and careful, then, to say nothing low, fearing the law of this sentence: "Cursed is everyone who does the works of God negligently"; while on the other side a reward is set for the care and diligence of those who, with reverence and fear, commit the holy Scriptures to themselves as the words of God and instil them with due dignity into the minds of hearers, as the Lord says: "And upon whom shall I look, but upon the humble and meek and the one who trembles at my words?" Preachers, then, must consider that they are not speaking to men, and hearers must know that it is not the words of men that are brought to them, but the voices of God, the ordinances of God, the laws of God, and that the greatest reverence befits both duties. For it is a matter of the greatest danger either to bring forward anything superfluous, or to hear negligently, about the treasures of God, the hidden mysteries, the eternal testament. Everything must be sealed in the mind and entrusted to the senses, because there is nothing in the words of God that is not to be fulfilled; and everything that has been said already has a kind of necessity of being accomplished, because the words of God are decrees.

The psalm that has been read is inscribed "for the end." If all were inscribed so, there would be no difficulty, for generality would exclude every question. But since one has one inscription and another another, the differences of inscriptions must have arisen only from different causes. Now in those inscribed "for the end" the understanding is twofold: either they will contain the things that will be at the consummation, or the end of the psalm will give the resolution of everything said in the whole psalm. Everything in the psalm is harsh, dreadful, loathsome, full of blasphemies, filled with crimes, heavy with complaints. There is no confession to God, no gladness in joys, no song in choirs; but accusation against the profane, complaint against the obstinate, grief for the afflicted. For it says: "The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt and have become abominable in their wills; there is none who does good, not even one," and the rest. At the end it follows: "Who will give out of Sion the salvation of Israel? When the Lord turns back the captivity of his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad."

Suppose someone enters a plague-stricken city and sees all its inhabitants without exception wasted by disease, burning with fevers, and worn out by every kind of illness; he finds no physician there and groans, grieving that there is no help, no remedy for such evils, and feels the plague raging more each day in their limbs; and he knows that a physician far away could heal them if he were present. He cries out in the grief of despair (the only thing left): "Who is there to make him present and bring his salvation?", turning all his anxiety to the one he knows. In the same way the Holy Spirit, seeing the error of the human race, seeing the growing evils of this age and the disease spreading with incurable death, where God is denied by the fool, where all are corrupted by the abominable deceits of pleasures, where no one wills good, where their throats are graves of the innocent, where they use the tongue in the service of fraud, where the poison of asps is poured over their lips and words, where the mouth is full of bitterness and cursing, where the course of their feet is swift to shed blood, and, as they do not know the way of peace, unhappiness grows heavier in all their ways; where there is no reverence toward God, where the devastation of God's people is like a meal of bread to the persecutors, and the deaths, losses, and tortures of the innocent become the fill of the wicked; where God is not called upon, and fear exists where there is no cause, as they reverence the creature in idols and abandon the Creator; where it is despaired that God dwells in the righteous generation, and the counsel of the poor is confounded, and the hope of his patience is mocked: with these evils so rampant and ruling over the whole world, the Holy Spirit, knowing the one who alone can bring help, cries out: "Who will give out of Sion the salvation of Israel?" For Moses had not given it, nor Elijah, nor Isaiah, nor the prophets; all the works of the law were weak against so great a plague of diseases. There was need of a physician who would heal everything by one and the same power of his help, and would heal so many and varied sicknesses in the whole world not by art, not by labour (for when would labour and art applied to each individual have availed?), but by the power of his word. This one the Spirit seeks, this one he awaits, at whose coming fever would rest, blindness end, paralysis cease, and death not seize: this one he awaits, this one he calls out for, to this one he prays: "Who will give out of Sion the salvation of Israel?" But the powers in each word must be explained one by one.

What Sion is, the apostle teaches when he says: "Let us draw near to Mount Sion and to the holy city Jerusalem"; for we all run to lay hold of that for which we were laid hold of by Christ, that is, to be found in his body, which he took beforehand from us, in which we were chosen by the Father before the foundation of the world, in which we were reconciled from being enemies and acquired from being lost, in which the apostle, at the loss of all things, wishes to be found, saying: "And I count all things as dung, that I may gain Christ and be found in him." Since, then, these diseases of our body could be taken away only by his assuming our flesh, and all our salvation in God comes from the assumption of the flesh, therefore he says: "Who will give out of Sion the salvation of Israel?"

But in "salvation" there is the power of the name. We do not adapt or invent it, but we are taught in the books of the Old Testament that our Lord God is called Salvation, and this name has always been granted properly to the Gentiles by promise. For Isaiah says: "And the Lord has revealed his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall know the salvation of our God." It has been revealed, then, to all nations and known by all. And again in the psalms the Holy Spirit cries out: "Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wonderful things. The Lord has shown his salvation; in the sight of the nations he has revealed his righteousness." And again: "Proclaim his glory among the nations, and his salvation among all peoples." And again: "Show us, Lord, your mercy, and give us your salvation." The Lord shows the longing for this hope in the Gospel, saying: "Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and to hear what you hear." Simeon long awaited this salvation, and when he had received it in his hands he recognized it, and amid the cries of infancy and the squalor of the cradle he saw God by faith. Recognizing him in such things, he worshipped, saying: "Now let your servant depart, Lord, according to your word, in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles." This salvation, then, is announced to the Gentiles, not to carnal Israel, which awaited, saw, and heard the Lord of majesty on the mountain, and which in the prophets stoned, beat, sawed, and killed him; but this whole word is to the Gentiles and is the salvation of the Gentiles.

So it says: "When the Lord turns back the captivity of his people." The captivity belongs properly to the Gentiles, who had said in their heart, "There is no God"; who had trembled where there was no fear; who had confounded and mocked the hope of the poor, because the Lord is his hope; who had denied that the Lord would dwell in the righteous generation, being captive to the worship of demons, the superstitions of times, and the service of the creature. This captivity is driven out, this slavery taken away. But Israel will be the one who believes, Israel will be the one who looks upon God with the eyes of the heart; for Israel is "one who sees God," who, after the captivity is turned back, recognizes this salvation of God. Jacob rejoices, Israel too rejoices, when captivity is turned back, freedom granted, God beheld, and Abraham and Jacob named fathers by adoption into the family. In these things, then, let us rejoice and exult, knowing that, through our redemption, there is joy among the angels in heaven over the salvation of one who repents; and since there is heavenly gladness for us, our joys must be perpetual in Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The psalm that has been read is entitled "A psalm of David," because the Holy Spirit spoke these things through him. And this rightly suits the psalm, for nothing in it is directed to another time, nothing is brought out of hidden things, but its whole work concerns the present. So it begins: "Lord, who will dwell in your tabernacle, or who will rest on your holy mountain?" It is the simple prayer of one who entreats the Lord and wishes to learn from him what the character, the pursuit, and the will are of one who is to dwell with God and rest in his high and heavenly places. For it belongs to no low mind or ordinary effort to be joined with God and to merit fellowship in his dwelling. So the question asked is answered at once, so that, since it is hard and difficult to obtain these things, it may be understood by what means it is to be attained.

For to what was asked he says: "He who enters without stain and works righteousness," and the rest that follows in the psalm. By such precepts is he formed, by such admonitions instructed, whose journey is toward God, whose ascent is to his height, whose rest is in his eternal things. Every precept has been gathered in brevity, so that it may be committed to memory, cling to the mind, and be kept abroad and at home, in public and private, by day and by night, so that it may be tempered and insisted upon. For this brevity is rich and boundless, gathered from all the precepts and ordinances of the New and Old Testaments, most suitable for children, women, men, and the old. And so that the wealth of this brevity may be the more commended, we shall go through what mystery there is in each word. There is no prophecy here, no obscurity, no figure. There is the voice of one who asks, the goodness of one who answers, the confirmation of one who hears. But in these the force of the words must be considered. For he distinguished thus: dwelling in the tabernacle, rest on the mountain; and dwelling in the tabernacle comes first, rest on the mountain later. So that the difference between dwelling and rest may be understood, the proper sense of mountain and tabernacle must be explained.

The tabernacles that we read existed earlier were light, perishable, withering, woven for a time from leaves, such as we sometimes make to avoid the heat, so that we may escape the burning and heat of the sun under their shade. Such tabernacles were instituted for the people through Moses. But these dried up and fell apart, for they were images, made after a pattern. For God says to Moses: "See that you make everything according to the form I showed you on the mountain." David too, wishing to build a temple, called it a tabernacle, as he says: "I will not give sleep to my eyes until I find a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob." But both the tabernacle of Moses and that of Solomon fell; and afterwards the apostles founded very many tabernacles, and in all parts of the world, wherever it can be reached, even from the islands of the Ocean, they have prepared very many dwellings for God. The Holy Spirit testifies to their glory: "How lovely are your tabernacles, Lord of hosts! My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord." So the prophet desires not one tabernacle, whether the leafy one through Moses, or the one longed for by David, or the one adorned by Solomon with all human works, but many and innumerable; for although the church is one in the world, yet each city holds its own church; and it is one in all, though there are many, because one is held in many.

The first and greatest step, then, for those ascending to heavenly things is to dwell in this tabernacle and there spend night and day the life of their whole age, removed from the cares of the world and leaving the business of this world behind, as many of the saints never left the tabernacle; as it is written of Joshua son of Nun: "And the young man Joshua did not go out of the tabernacle"; and Anna the prophetess did not depart from the temple, serving with fasting and prayers night and day. After this, rest is to be had on the Lord's mountain; for the way there is for those who set out from here, and there is no way except through this dwelling. So the question about dwelling in the tabernacle had to come first, because from it is the ascent to the mountain; and dwelling, moreover, belongs to time and labour. But rest is not interrupted from outside; it is leisure that is continual, perpetual, free of trouble, remaining in its own state; if disquiet mixes with it, it loses both the nature and the name of leisure.

But no mountain of the Lord is on earth, for the whole earth has long been liable to curses through the vices of men: it incurred offence in the works of Adam and the blood of Abel, under Noah it was full of the sins of its inhabitants, and now too all the lofty and high places of the mountains are stained with shrines, temples, and sacrifices. So this mountain is not to be looked for among such things. But as the highest parts of the ground are called mountains, so among heavenly things we must think of the greatest and loftiest under the name of mountain. And what is loftier than Christ? What higher than our God? His mountain is the body he assumed from man, in which he now dwells, lofty and high above every rule and authority and every name. On this mountain is built the city that cannot be hidden, because, as the apostle says, there is no other foundation but Christ. Since, then, those who are Christ's were chosen in Christ's body before the foundation of the world, and the church is the body of Christ, and Christ is the foundation of our building, and the city is built on the mountain, this is the mountain on which it is asked who can rest. In another psalm we read of this same mountain: "Who ascends the mountain of the Lord, or who will stand in his holy place?" And Isaiah will be our witness: "And in the last days the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, and they will say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob." And again Paul: "You have come to Mount Sion and to the city of the living God, Jerusalem." If, then, all the hope of our rest is in Christ's body, and rest is to be had on the mountain, we can understand the mountain as nothing other than the body he took from us, before which he was God and in which he is God, and through which he transfigured the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of his glory, provided we too have nailed the vices of our body to his cross so as to rise in his body. To it one climbs after dwelling in the church; in it one rests in the height of the Lord; in it, since we too are the city of God, we shall be joined to the choirs of angels. And there is rest, because there is no pain from weakness, no fear from want, but rest is to be had in those things outside which they lack nothing, as all enjoy their own firmness through the power of eternity.

So to what was asked, "Lord, who will dwell in your tabernacle, or who will rest on your holy mountain?", the Holy Spirit answered through the prophet: "He who enters without stain and works righteousness." The answer, then, is that this is one who enters undefiled and lives free of every stain of sin, to whom no filth has clung after the washing of baptism, but who is spotless and shining: his body not polluted with debauchery, his eyes not soiled by theatrical shows, his mind not drunk with wine, his life not the handmaid of money. It is a great thing, then, to abstain from these; but in these there is not at once the rest of a completed journey, for the way has begun in them, not been finished. For there follows: "and works righteousness." The good is not so much to be thought of as to be carried out; and goodwill is not to be begun but fulfilled. For the fruit of willing righteousness here will be that it is done. And in these things the course toward the Lord is useful; but there is more remaining.

For there remains: "He who enters without stain and works righteousness, who speaks truth in his heart." The former things, though great and illustrious, are often common with the pagans, so that they avoid vice and gain a reputation for goodness. But this is the virtue of natural men, not of spiritual ones. For the apostle distinguished the carnal man, the natural man, and the spiritual man: the carnal, who like a beast neglects divine and human things, whose life is the servant of the body, busy with food, sleep, and lust; the natural, who by the judgment of human sense perceives what is fitting and honourable and draws back from all vices on his own mind's authority, judging what is useful and honourable by his own sense, so as to despise money, be sparing with fasts, be free of ambition, resist pleasures, and be venerable for goodness; but he will have use for this only in the present and as a man among men. Of these the teacher of the Gentiles says: "According to the teachings and precepts of men, which have indeed a show of wisdom in superstition and humility of mind, in not sparing the body, not in any honour, for the satisfying of the flesh." But the spiritual man is one who has those former pursuits toward the Lord, and who does what he does through the knowledge of God, understanding and knowing what his will is, understanding and knowing through the revelation and gift of the Holy Spirit the secret of the hidden counsel concealed from the times of the world: what the reason is for God's assuming flesh, what the triumph of the cross, what the power of death, what the working in the power of the resurrection. These things, as the same apostle teaches, "the natural man does not perceive, the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are examined spiritually. But he who is spiritual judges all things, and he himself is judged by no one."

The Holy Spirit, then, knew that the former things, innocence of life and works of righteousness, are common to pagans and heretics. For many of them wear out their bodies with fasts, give proof of self-restraint by distributing their inheritances, and complete their chastity with virginity. But because these things and many like them would abound among them, the Lord spoke thus to the disciples: "Truly I say to you, when the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?" He knew that virginity, self-restraint, and fasting would be cultivated, and because these do not avail for holiness unless they are fulfilled in Christ, that is, unless they agree with the truth of Christ, the prophet added to what he had said above: "and speaks truth in his heart," showing those former things to be useless unless they are undertaken in the truth of confession. In these things there is a high step for those climbing to the rest of the Lord's mountain, namely in innocence, in works, and in confession; but though we have advanced through many, there are still others remaining.

For many are accustomed to display a glorious appearance of understanding in words and to feign the beauty of will and judgment even by honourable speech, thinking and speaking well of God, but belying their words and sense by their deeds and works. These are the ones who hate what they say and in their very actions are enemies of what they preach. So to truth of heart he added, saying: "who has not practised deceit with his tongue," so that he may not betray in words the truth he perceives, and so that action too may follow the profession of catholic teaching and the judgment of thinking and preaching so; because, according to the apostle's testimony, as one believes in the heart, so confession is made with the mouth unto salvation. So that the ascent to God's rest may be worthy, then, we must live in the truth of words and tongue, so that through the faithfulness of our works the words of our mind are not false.

But this is narrow and difficult amid the wickedness and vices of the world. For a lie is often necessary, and falsehood is sometimes useful: when we lie to a murderer about someone hiding, or frustrate testimony against someone in danger, or deceive the sick about the difficulty of their cure; and, according to the apostle's teaching, our speech must be seasoned with salt. Therefore the Holy Spirit now tempered the disposition to falsehood by the conditions of lying, saying: "who has not practised deceit with his tongue nor done evil to his neighbour," so that the crime of lying might be counted in harm to another.

But even if what we said above is fulfilled, and he enters innocent and works righteousness, embracing truth in his heart, not deceiving himself in what he says, not bringing evil on his neighbour, he will still not be perfect in these. There is still something in us to be tamed, spat out, and destroyed; and what it is, the same prophet confirms as in the earlier verses, saying: "and has not taken up a reproach against his neighbours." He drives out the vices of insolence and self-confidence and removes that common evil of pride. For what is so empty, so wretched as a man proud toward a man, as one confident in himself? Do we not see many who, in the insolence of wealth, reproached the poor with their need, then lost everything and were in need themselves, and, having scorned others' misery, needed in turn those who would pity them? Many too, through presumption on a long-innocent life, have rolled into crimes, and while reproaching others with their faults, hardly attain themselves to the pardon of repentance. A reproach must not be taken up against neighbours, then; but if anything careless, negligent, insolent, or incontinent is found in them, it must be corrected with the gentleness of amendment, without the bitterness of reproach. Humility sees to this, as does distrust of oneself through fear, which is the strongest guard against self-confidence: that admonition be not insult, amendment not reproach, teaching not abuse. So the Lord in the Gospels condemned the self-confidence of the praying Pharisee, when he stood in the middle and spoke thus: "I thank you, Lord, that I am not like other men, adulterers, greedy, like this tax collector too." But the tax collector was praying apart: "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." To this prayer of his Scripture added: "that the tax collector went out justified rather than the Pharisee." The tax collector obtained God's mercy by confessing his sin; but the Pharisee lost the honour of what he displayed about himself through the insolence of reproach.

But perhaps someone, having attained all these, now believes himself worthy of God's promises, since after innocence, after goodness, after the measure of prudence, he has also been moderated by humility. But more still remain. For as he indicated that sin lies in a lie if the falsehood of the liar procured evil for another, so now, where he decrees that reproaches are not to be taken up against neighbours, he added that account must still be taken of humility itself. What this account is is joined in the verse: "and has not taken up a reproach against his neighbours. The wicked man is brought to nothing in his sight." Humility must not lack constancy, and the freedom of God must be kept by us in the servitude we owe to all, so that we are not terrified by the onset of the powerful nor yield to the will of the malicious. For sometimes we serve kings who demand unjust things with base flattery, and through the weakness of our conscience we flatter the vices of others. So if someone has already broken out into the open profession of iniquity, as the verse explains, "the wicked man is brought to nothing in his sight," such a man must be of no account with us, not of some account, so that he is nothing to us, abolished, done away with. For one who deals with spiritual things and contemplates heavenly ones ought to despise the weight of human wickedness and, with a lofty and high mind, regard a man of such malice as if he were nothing.

But it may be judged that the prophet has raised the greatness of our faith too high against the wicked. But we must see what follows: "The wicked man is brought to nothing in his sight, but he honours those who fear the Lord." As, then, without respect of persons anyone who is wicked ought to be nothing to us, so without respect of persons everyone who fears the Lord is to be honoured. Let us not be moved by whether it is an innocent poor man, a fasting old woman, a faithful slave, or a stranger who trusts in the shelter of the church, but let us revere all with equal judgment, so that our humility in honouring those who fear the Lord may be such as our freedom ought to be in counting the malicious as nothing.

And since at the birth of our regeneration we swear to these mysteries, renouncing the devil, the world, and sins, when we answer those who question us, he decreed that the faith of this confession must be kept to the end, saying: "who swears to his neighbour and does not deceive." For although someone has remained long in God's commandments, yet if at some time he deceives, he no longer remains when he deceives, and former righteousness is lost in the time of unrighteousness. And therefore in the Gospel: "Blessed are those who remain to the end"; therefore in Solomon all praise is sung at the end; because in what has been promised to God there must never be deception.

But the heavenly admonition reaches all the way to perfect completion. For from him whom he has cleansed of every vice he also turns away the desire for money, which holds us back too much, saying: "who has not given his money at interest." This kindness is taught to be deceitful, this humanity fraudulent, this goodwill ruinous. For what is so intolerable as to give a kindness to the needy in such a way that he is in greater need, and to heap up the poor man's misery while you pretend to bring help? If you are a Christian, what reward do you expect from God, when you yourself expect from men not kindnesses but losses? If you are a Christian, why do you set your idle money to earn a return and make your brother's poverty, for whom Christ died, your treasure? If you are a Christian, I do not ask you to give; at least ask back the debt in such a way that you do not plunder, and remember that the one from whom you demand interest is needy and poor, for whose sake Christ willed to be needy and poor. So whether you do injury or kindness to the poor, know that you do it to Christ, because for their sake, though he was God, he deigned to take their need and their name.

But so that the word of this admonition should not be thought harsh, as if under the name of interest he had removed all concern for having, he did not take away the care of acquiring; indeed, he tempered the moderation of accepting a gift, adding to what he had said: "who has not given his money at interest and has not accepted gifts against the innocent." There is a certain custom of gifts that brings honour to the giver, so that it is a very great grief to have one's offering scorned, greater than the loss of having given what was taken. So he forbade those gifts that would work injury to another. For if he had taken away the use of gifts altogether, it would have been enough to say "and does not accept gifts." But because the simple use of gifts comes from reverence either for man or for God, he forbade those gifts that would corrupt the integrity of judgment, that would buy injury to the innocent, that contain in themselves no duty of mutual love. For as with what we offer to God, he does not need it, but through us the duties of due reverence are fulfilled, so he teaches that this account must be kept in gifts: that we accept what is pleasing and useful to those who offer, not what makes us venal, nor what is treacherous to the innocent, nor costly to the givers; taken out of duty rather than greed, offered out of honour rather than fear, received out of love rather than for gain.

"He who does these things will not be moved for ever." Through these, then, is dwelling in the tabernacle, through these rest on the mountain. What remains, therefore, is the keeping of the precepts and the work of the commandments. The psalm must be stored in our inmost parts, written on the heart, sealed in memory, and the treasure of this abundant brevity must be kept with us night and day, so that, having acquired this wealth as provision for eternity and dwelling in the church, we may at last rest in the glory of Christ's body.

The very heading of the psalm demands careful diligence in seeking its understanding. For at its opening is set at once: "For the end, understanding." The psalm is shown to contain things not of its own time, since the title "for the end" is set before it. And since the understanding is at the end, there can be in it the understanding of no other thing more than of the end. And the end, as we have often shown, is that in which all things are concluded, for whose sake the rest exist, to which all the works of hope, of affairs, and of business hasten.

The understanding of the psalm, then, consists in him for whose sake all things are, outside whom there is nothing. And who he is, the heading itself, which is thought to contain history, will show. For it is this: "For the end, understanding, to that David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul and said to him: David has come to the house of Abimelech." And so that we may grasp the meaning of the heading more fully, the order of the events themselves must be set out. Doeg was in charge of Saul's mules; he said to Saul: "I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob to Abimelech, son of Ahitub; and he inquired of the Lord for him and gave him food and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine." When the king heard this, he gave Doeg power over the priests and the city. Then Scripture added: "And Doeg the Edomite went around and struck the priests and killed that day eighty-five, all wearing the ephod; and he overthrew Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword." This is the whole faithful record of events, from which only so much has been taken for the title of the psalm as would satisfy both the mystery of the psalm and the prophetic teaching. For the heading contains only this: "When Doeg came and told Saul and said: David has come to the house of Abimelech." And necessarily this psalm, earlier in time, is placed later in order, after the fiftieth psalm, in which the forgiveness of sins is contained according to the power of that sanctified number, as we taught at the beginning of the Psalms; so that what is headed "for the end, understanding" may be understood when the kinds of mysteries have been completed and perfected on every side.

Abimelech, by interpretation of the word, signifies "my brother's rule." For what we call "my brother's rule" the Hebrews call Abimelech. When, then, Saul is told, "David has come to the house of Abimelech," David's enemy is told that he has entered the house of his brother's rule. What the house of his brother's rule is, the apostle Peter teaches, saying: "And you, like living stones, are built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood." And below: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy race, a people for possession." Into this spiritual house, then, we are to be built as a royal race, if through the spiritual building of our bodies, made conformed to God, we deserve to be perfected as a royal race. This house of Abimelech, then, that is, the house of the brotherly kingdom, was entered by that true David, holy, king, just, the dayspring, namely when he became man in our body. This house is a brotherly kingdom to him, because in the glory of the same body we are co-heirs of his kingdom, as he himself says: "Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." That those whose royal house he entered are his brothers he testifies through the prophet in the psalm, saying: "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the church I will praise you." So, the forgiveness of sins having been granted according to the preceding psalm, the Word made flesh dwells in us, who are both brothers and a spiritual house and a royal race.

But the ungodly, parricidal, and treacherous people, who is signified in Doeg, betrays to its king, the enemy of David, that he is in the house of Abimelech. This happens when he is handed over to Pilate, when the man is offered to be crucified, when, rejecting their king, they confess Caesar as their king. They betray him as being in the house of Abimelech, but do not understand that, in being in the house of Abimelech, he has entered the house of brotherly rule, that is, the body in which the church of the saints, which is the body of Christ, will reign with him, conformed to him; the house in which he both took the food he longed for (for he longed with desire to eat the Passover) and from which he took away the arms of Goliath, that is, of the devil, for he plundered the spoils of the strong man; after which the apostles were killed and the churches overthrown by this same Doeg, that is, the treacherous people. Hence, then, the title of the psalm, "for the end, understanding," because in Christ, who is David, the dayspring, the just one, the king, eternal and shepherd, is understood the completion of all our hope and the end of the law; who, according to both the title and the order of the psalm, was betrayed in that house of his body which is signified to be the house of brotherly rule.

"Why do you boast in wickedness, you who are mighty, of iniquity all day long?" The prophet's complaint is that he who is mighty in wickedness boasts of iniquity all day long. It is this boasting in iniquity that is rebuked. For there is a glory that is to be sought and confessed and spoken with a kind of feeling of exultant joy; another prophet shows both under the same words, saying: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches; but let him who boasts boast in the Lord." Having first forbidden the causes of unworthy boasting, he shows in turn the cause of fitting boasting. By this example the blessed apostle knows that he must boast in nothing except in one thing alone, when he says: "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world." It is not boasting of this kind that offends, then, but boasting in iniquity, and in iniquity that lasts all day. We remember that "day" is often used for the age or lifetime of a man, as when it is said, "I have not desired the day of man," or again when Abraham longed for the day of the Lord, or when the apostle hands someone over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, meaning not this day bounded by the rising and setting of the sun, but the day of an appointed time or age. The mighty one in wickedness, then, boasts of iniquity all day long.

But it is plainly understood that the reason for this complaint does not fit the person of Doeg. For what power did a keeper of mules have, one who had been given charge over the animals that carried the king, or who merely reported that David had entered Abimelech's house? Does he boast of iniquity all day long? Rather, under his person is to be understood the people whose whole age was in iniquity, for whom the glory of iniquity itself abounded from the power of wickedness. For it was mighty when, as a slave, it was visited by the Lord; when for its sake Egypt was struck with so many plagues; when in the three days' darkness it did not feel the darkness, since light remained with it; when it left Egypt itself, stripped of silver and every adornment, to its ruin; when, according to the times of day and night, it had the pillar now of cloud, now of fire; when it crossed the Red Sea on foot; when it lived on the food of angels; when it saw the majesty of God descending on the mountain; when it heard the voice of one speaking from the fire; when it overthrew many kingdoms in heavy wars; when it watched the Jordan flow back so as to become dry for it; when it had prophets; when it had priests for the cleansing of sins and the redemption of its soul; when it deserved to obtain its own kingdom. But though it was mighty in all these, it was always mighty in its wickedness: when it longed for the onions and garlic and meat of Egypt; when, from the habit of vices, it preferred ungodly slavery to godly freedom; when it worshipped the calf, cursed Moses, abhorred God, vowed its sons as sacrifices to demons, killed the prophets, and even raised on the cross its God and Lord himself, born as man for its sake and betrayed to the governor. And so, boasting of iniquity in the whole day of its life, though mighty, it remained mighty in wickedness.

After this complaint of the prophet's grief about him, the discourse now turns to address him: "Your tongue has devised injustice." The function of the human tongue is, driven by natural reason, with a varied yet regulated motion, to divide the voice into words, so that through it speech may stand out from the confused sound of breath bursting forth and be distinct for the understanding of things. And although its motion for doing this is rational, yet it is understood to be subject to reason rather than itself understanding by the sense of reason. But what lacks the sense of understanding lacks also the impulse of reason; and whatever lacks the impulse of reason lacks also the deliberation of counsel. How, then, is it understood to be rightly said by the prophet that the tongue devises injustice, since thinking begins from the rational sense of a living soul, whereas the tongue was established not for the nature of beginning reason but for the service of a rational nature? But another prophet too shows the authority of this perfect and prophetic saying, when he says: "The heart of fools is in their mouth"; because, handling nothing by the counsel of reason and not depending on the meditation of the heart, they utter disordered, random, and disordered things by the rash motion of the tongue alone. And so the heart of fools is in their mouth, because they will not speak what they have thought, but will think what they have said. So much for the tongue of the fool. But of the tongue of the wise we read thus: "The tongue of the understanding meditates wisdom"; and again: "My tongue is the pen of a scribe writing swiftly"; because the tongue of the one who understands proceeds from the meditation of wisdom, and again, like the pen of a writer, does nothing disordered, nothing uncertain, but, obeying what has been thought or read, quickly complies by the reasoning of counsel.

And since, by the reason of nature, the tongue serves thoughts rather than thinks, this tongue that devised injustice is shown not to have used the functions of its nature. For there follows: "Like a sharp razor you have worked deceit." A razor is sharpened for the neatness of the face, so that by shaving off the rough and bristly face it may make it smooth. If instead it wounds, it has worked deceit, since, prepared for adornment, it has given its service to a wound. This tongue, then, of the one mighty in wickedness, devising iniquity, has worked deceit: that is, the tongue which nature had prepared for uttering the rational thoughts of a deliberating heart itself thinks irrational iniquities. For that people, which is to be understood as signified in Doeg, chosen to magnify the name of God and prepared to celebrate his praises, dishonours him, betrays him, and, as far as it can, destroys him by the death of the cross; and it accomplishes this with the razor of its tongue, with which it cried, "Crucify, crucify." So this tongue, devising iniquity, worked deceit like a sharp razor; and what kind of deceit, what follows teaches.

For there follows: "You have loved wickedness more than kindness, iniquity more than speaking righteousness." The crime of this deceit becomes heavier by comparison, when wickedness is loved and goodness neglected, when iniquity is done and the word of righteousness passed over. The Lord condemns this disposition of love inclined to wickedness in the Gospels, saying: "And this is the judgment, that the light has come into this world, and men loved darkness rather than light." So the people for whose redemption from sins the Word became flesh and God was born man, so that through the justification of faith they might be free of the curse of the law, preferring to serve the curse in transgressing the law, handed over to punishment that very God of theirs, taking his blood upon themselves so that the governor might be innocent. And doing this they change the custom of nature: for they love wickedness more than kindness and turn love from good things to the worst. They preferred also to love injustice more than to speak righteousness.

The prophetic word, according to Jewish custom, kept a reasoning in the very force of the words when it said: "You have loved wickedness more than kindness, injustice more than speaking righteousness." For where it says, "You have loved wickedness more than kindness," it condemns nothing beyond the love itself, by comparison. But where it says, "injustice more than speaking righteousness," there it rebukes not the disposition of a preferred love but hatred itself in speaking, saying "more than speaking righteousness." For the Jews can and often do, though they do not love goodness, at least feign it in speaking. But they cannot in any way speak of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to the blessed apostle Paul became for us righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. They are not held to any patience of speech when we show from prophetic authorities that the only-begotten God, born before the ages, suffered, was crucified, and died in the man; then they avoid and flee every word about him; and if there is no place to go away to, overcome by a kind of force of silent grief, they stop their ears with their hands and shut out hearing so that it may not penetrate to them. They do not love goodness, but sometimes speak of it; righteousness, however, since it is Christ, they neither love nor speak.

The insertion of the diapsalma, though it brought no change of person, is understood to have made a change of sense. For although the discourse is both of the same person as before and to the same person as before, yet the same discourse now signifies something other than before. The earlier things were heavy with complaints, so much so that, through the prophet's grief, they were rebuked before they were stated: when the tongue devises injustice, when like a sharp razor it works deceit, when wickedness is loved more than goodness and injustice more than speaking righteousness. For these reasons a kind of accusation of the prophet as accuser before God was set first, when it is said: "Why does the mighty one boast in wickedness, of iniquity all day long?" And so that the grief of the complaint should not be found empty, the very cause of the complaint was added.

Now, however, with the diapsalma intervening, complaint does not go first; rather, the most grievous cause of sin having been shown before, this sentence of condemnation is then added: "You have loved all words of casting down, a deceitful tongue; therefore God will destroy you to the end, he will pluck you out and remove you from the tabernacle, and your root from the land of the living." It follows the example we read in Genesis in these words: "Because you have done this, cursed are you from the earth"; and again: "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife"; and also from the apostle, who, after listing the most grievous crimes of human ungodliness, said thus: "Therefore God handed them over to a reprobate mind." So now too: "You have loved words of casting down, a deceitful tongue; therefore God will destroy you to the end." The Latin language has not kept the force of the word. For what we have as "words of casting down" the Greeks have rendered ta rhēmata katapontismou: by which is signified that what is for us a casting down is for them a sinking into the depth of the sea. With us, according to the general sense, "casting down" can be understood not only in the sea but as the fall of those who drop from high places, whether buildings or cliffs or places of any kind. So, according to the meaning of casting down that has been shown, because Doeg loved words of casting down, he is subjected to most severe condemnation.

For every unbelieving soul, shipwrecked in the depth of this world as in a sea, is carried about with uncertain and wandering motion and tosses unsteadily on the swell of different desires, mocked by the power of the devil, who inhabits the world; and it stands on no firm solid ground beneath it from which to resist and push back against him. From this it is easily tossed about, hanging and wandering, by the incitements of the desires that drive it around. That the motion and waves of this world are compared to the swell of the surging sea, which is the dwelling of the ruling devil, the hundred and third psalm shows according to prophetic and allegorical understanding, yet under the bodily signification of creatures: "This great and wide sea, there are serpents without number, small and great creatures; there ships will pass; that dragon which you formed to mock him." And again in the sixty-eighth psalm: "I came into the depth of the sea, and the storm sank me." So the only-begotten Son of God, the Word of God and God the Word, came down to rescue us from shipwreck in the depth of this world, to draw out all these kinds of fish with the net of his teaching, to which the kingdom of heaven is like. He is betrayed and dishonoured by the ungodly people; and that people, conforming itself to the dragon as companion in mocking, sinks itself and casts itself down into this depth to share his dwelling. So too the people of the Egyptians, unbelieving toward Moses, deserved to be cast down and drowned, and the waves of the sea pouring back upon itself swallowed the ungodly nation, which loved words of casting down when it opposed God.

Because, then, the people of the Jews, unbelieving and betraying its king, loved words of casting down, saying, "I have no king but Caesar," neglecting God as king and confessing a man as king, it sank itself into this depth of the world. Therefore it is destroyed to the end (for it has lost the kingdom of its destroyed city until the consummation of the age), and it has been plucked from the tabernacle and removed: now wandering in the whole world and everywhere a stranger, all its sins having been completed in the Lord's passion.

Because it loved words of casting down, it lacks that tabernacle in which the prophet was always full of the Spirit of God, in which arose awesome contemplations of holy powers and saving visions, in which were the useful offerings of sacrifices for the redemption of the soul, in which was the Passover lamb, guardian of the faithful in the slaughter of Egypt and a mighty sign in the blood on the doorposts, in which were temporary festivals imitating eternal times. Plucked from this tabernacle, then, they lack these honours of spiritual gifts.

They have been plucked not only from this earthly tabernacle but also from that of which it is said, "I will raise up the tabernacle of David that has fallen": that holy and venerable body and temple of God born of the virgin, in which whoever believes will dwell as a sharer in the Lord's flesh. But every unbeliever will be plucked away and removed from this kinship with the body he did not believe in, that is, from the tabernacle of God, being unworthy to dwell in this spiritual tabernacle. The Lord is understood to signify this when he says: "I am the true vine, you are the branches, my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch that does not abide in me and bear fruit will be uprooted. And every branch that abides in me my Father will cleanse, that it may bear more fruit." If, then, any through faith in God made flesh deserve to remain in the nature of the body assumed by God, they are cleansed to bring forth eternal fruits from themselves, because a branch remaining in the vine must hold the nature of the true vine. But whoever is unbelieving toward God born in the body, or, even if believing, still lacks the fruits of his faith, will be uprooted either for unbelief or for the uselessness of fruits withheld. For the Son of God born of the virgin, not first Son of God when he became son of man, but also son of man in the Son of God, so that the son of man might be Son of God, assumed in himself the nature of all flesh, through which, made the true vine, he holds in himself the kind of every branch. If, then, any branch is unbelieving or fruitless, it offers itself to be uprooted; remaining by nature, yet torn away by unbelief or uselessness. From this tabernacle, then, as from the true vine, this ungodly Doeg is both plucked and removed, remaining by nature both in the tabernacle and in the vine, but deserving by unbelief to be torn away.

Torn from the tabernacle, he will also be uprooted from the land of the living. For whoever does not remain in Christ will not be an inhabitant of Christ's kingdom; and he will not be, not because the dwelling was not open to him (for it is open to all, that they may share in the body and kingdom of God, since the Word became flesh and dwelt in us, assuming in himself the nature of the whole human race), but each, according to his merit, offers himself to be torn from the tabernacle and uprooted from the land of the living, never forbidden to be in it, since through the assumption of nature he was received as an inhabitant; but he is uprooted for the crime of unbelief, showing himself unworthy of sharing that nature. He is uprooted, then, from the land of the living, which is being prepared in the blessed region for the saints who reign with the Lord; which he himself mentions in the Gospel, saying, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth"; and this same prophet: "And I will please the Lord in the land of the living," from which the treacherous people deserved to be uprooted after it was destroyed to the end and removed and torn from the tabernacle.

It is the land of the living because every believer in the Lord, though he has died, lives to God, as it is said: "I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob; he is not the God of the dead but of the living." And again through Jacob: "Let Reuben live and not die"; and that saying: "Let Ishmael live in your sight." And also the apostle's saying (if it seems so to the reader, since it has a double meaning): "And we who are alive, who shall remain, shall be caught up with the clouds to meet Christ in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord." The cutting off of bodies brings a temporary setting of death; but the law appointed for dying does not take away the law of rising, because a law brings no necessity on him who decrees the law, nor did God take from himself the right of giving life by decreeing for us the law of dying. Death is lawful only over those against whom it is decreed. But all live to God, by whose law they died. Nor can death, which prevailed only through the law of the one who decrees, prevail of itself so as not to be changeable by the law of living through the one who decrees the law of renewing life, since the power of the one who decrees changed, by the law of dying, the life established from the beginning in Adam under the condition of a decree. So all saints and faithful live to God. For when he says he is the God of those who had died, that is, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and at once testifies that he is the God not of the dead but of the living, he teaches by this that those who are thought dead in the judgment of human opinion are not dead to him who decrees the law, but living.

The insertion of the diapsalma renewed, if not the person, at least the sense. For after the condemnation of Doeg had been announced, to whom the discourse was addressed as if present, the prophet now turned to the meaning of another exposition: "The righteous will see and fear, and they will laugh at him and say: Behold the man who did not make God his helper, but hoped in the abundance of his riches and prevailed in his vanity." When Doeg has been destroyed to the end, plucked from the tabernacle, removed, and uprooted from the land of the living, all the saints must fear, when they see that a people helped and supported by so many and such great aids of divine mercy, after that immense dignity of a glorious kingdom beyond human resources, has given of itself the greatest and last example of human calamity. For who could recall its ancient glories and countless blessings, which we partly mentioned above: when, after the deaths of Egypt, the sea parted and gave way to their journey; when the pillar of cloud shaded the heat of the day; when the pillar of fire scattered the darkness of night; when heaven gave food through angels; when the rock flowed with a spring; when the Jordan flowed back; when a great city fell at the mere circling of the ark of the testament; when the sun, held back from its course, prolonged the day, and the order of divine law, departing from that tireless and undisturbed motion of the elements, stood still to delay the battle; and then, after that familiarity with seeing and hearing the divine majesty, could see them consumed by wars, dead of famine, and before that fed to the death of famine on the corpses of the dead, the rest then reduced to slavery, exiles everywhere, everywhere degenerate, nowhere known, always new and always obscure by change of dwelling, always foreigners? And if anyone raises his spiritual eyes, of which the Lord says, "Lift up your eyes and see the fields, for they are white for harvest," then let him know that they have been torn from fellowship in the body of God, from that kingdom of blessedness, from that honour of the resurrection, and are without the Spirit of God, without the understanding of prophecy, and appointed as fodder for Gehenna, to be eaten by the undying worm and burned by the unquenchable fire; though he knows that theirs was the giving of the law, theirs the covenants, theirs the fathers, from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all. With how much fear, then, will all the saints look upon these changes and present and eternal calamities of theirs, since the sight of the punished is terrifying by its example? The righteous will see, then, and fear, understanding that there is nothing they need not fear in so great a calamity. But because they are righteous, though they fear the example, they will rejoice in the fruit of their own righteousness. For they will laugh at him: laughing, then, and fearing, because they are subject to God, whose severity toward the punished is terrible. Laughter tempers fear, since fear comes from the example and laughter from merit. Fear in turn moderates laughter, since they will rejoice in good things in such a way that the terror of the example is not lacking; for to fear without joy belongs to an ungodly conscience distrustful of itself, and to rejoice without fear belongs to an insolent nature.

But those who laugh while fearing will add this too to their laughter tempered by fear, saying: "Behold the man who did not make God his helper." It is the folly of extreme ungodliness not to understand that one lives under God and from God, but to wish rather to trust in one's own power in what one does and hopes for, when that power, if there is any in oneself, comes from God. So let all our hope be toward God and all our confession be in God, after the example of the prophet who says, "Lord, my helper and my redeemer"; and again: "I lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from where my help will come. My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Let us always fear, then, lest that eternal fire burn us and the undying worm consume us, when we hear what the righteous, fearing and laughing, say: "Behold the man who did not make God his helper, but hoped in the abundance of his riches."

Wealth makes some rich men insolent, and empty confidence in riches above all turns away the fear of God: fools, who do not understand that they ought to be the more devout because they are rich, since it befits them to return thanks to the giver of the goods they desire, and the guilt of avarice is the more inexcusable because wealth does not excuse the necessity of avarice. How unhappy is confidence in an empty thing: to despise God by having gold, as if gold were not one of God's creatures, or as if anyone, in the judgment of a sound mind, could gain advancement toward a blessed life because gold lies buried for him, and thereby become a man not of the common soul and body, and be other than he was born; or as if, when he leaves life, he would use his gold in death! He will indeed use it, if he uses it rightly in life: if he feeds the hungry with his bread, covers the naked with his clothing, relieves the sick at his own expense, or redeems the captive to freedom. These indeed are the influential embassies of human treasure before God; this is the power of begging off crimes, these are true votes in our favour. Thus we shall be changed by gold, so that from earthly we become heavenly and from mortal eternal. That unbelieving people, not considering these things and despising God's commandments, thinking itself rich through the law, which is the shadow of good things to come, having made bad use of the riches it obtained, was uprooted, removed, and torn from the land of the living and from the tabernacle: believing itself all-powerful in vanities, namely in the glory of its kingdom, in the gold of the temple, in the commandments of men, as the prophet says: "In vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrines and precepts of men," the law of God having been changed by the insulting observance of human custom.

But the prophet, who must be understood to be righteous, speaks otherwise of himself with confidence in his hope: "But I, like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God, have hoped in the mercy of God for ever and for age upon age." The ages of men differ in time, but the spirit of prophecy is the same. The prophet says he remains in the house of God like a fruitful olive, a tree always green and bearing the best fruit. The apostle proclaims that into this olive, after its branches were broken off for unbelief, the believing Gentiles were grafted from the base wild olive, so that contrary to the nature of their kind they might receive the nature of the root. But the prophet, though remaining in the law, is yet a gospel prophet, and continues with his fruit in the house of God both in the law and in the Gospels: not to be broken in his branches, not to be left a trunk, not to be offered, now useless, to have the wild olive grafted onto him, nor to pour the power of his root into a foreign tree; but wholly intact, as he is a preacher of the apostolic faith; not one to be grafted from the Gentiles onto the root of the law for gospel faith, but, even in the gospel faith of the Gentiles, himself wholly fruitful by the power of his own root and branches from the rich conscience of the law. The house of God, according to the apostle Peter, is the church and all followers of the gospel faith, as he says: "Be built up as a spiritual house, a priestly kingdom." And Paul: "That you may know how one ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth." In this house of God, then, the righteous and holy prophet, standing like a fruitful olive, using his own fruitful and rich root, hoped in the mercy of God; not for a time, not only in the short age of this bodily life, but for age upon age. For he stretches his hopes to the infinite age of perpetuity and is not shut in by the setting of death, since he knows that he is to live in Abraham's bosom after the example of poor Lazarus, and knows too that by the change of the glorious resurrection he will remain co-eternal and conformed to God; and he will remain because of what follows: "I will confess to you, Lord, for ever, because you have done it; and I will wait for your name, for it is good in the sight of your saints."

Hope in the mercy of God is for ever and for age upon age. For the very works of righteousness will not suffice for the merit of perfect blessedness unless the mercy of God, even in this will for righteousness, does not reckon the faults of human changes and impulses. Hence the prophet's saying: "Your mercy is better than life"; because, although the life of the righteous is approved through the working of righteousness, it will obtain greater merit through the mercy of God. For from this life it will advance into eternal life; and the mercy of God rewards the working of righteousness so far that, pitying the will for righteousness, he grants each righteous man to be a sharer even in his own eternity. Therefore the hope of mercy is for ever and for age upon age; but confession is only for ever, not also for age upon age. For confession of sins exists only in the time of this age, while each is left to his own will and, through the freedom of life, has the choice of confession. For when we depart from life we depart also from the right of will. Then the law, already established by the merit of past will, takes up the will of those who leave the body, either for rest or for punishment. The prophet shows that the will at that time is no longer free but necessary, when he says: "I have no will in those days." For when freedom of will ceases, the effect of will too, if there is any, will cease. For the rich man, wishing to cross over to Abraham, is not allowed by the chasm between, though through freedom of will he could have been in Abraham's bosom. Freedom of will is shut off, then, because there is no confession among the dead, according to what is said: "But in the underworld who will confess to you?" So the prophet, hoping for mercy for ever and for age upon age, confesses only in this age, carrying out the temporary duties of confession in the time of the age, but stretching his hope eternally to the eternity of the ages. He added the cause of confession, saying "because you have done it," confessing that the Lord is the author of this universe and teaching that confession is to be made to none other than him who made the fruitful olive of hope in mercy for age upon age.

And who this is who made these things he shows by saying: "And I will wait for your name, for it is good in the sight of your saints." He will wait, then, for the name of God, to whom he confesses, through whom all things were made: for there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him. It is his name he waits for, namely to see Jesus, that is, to know his Saviour, as the angel says: "And you shall call his name Jesus; for he will save his people from their sins." He waits to behold Christ, so that by profession of the noble family he may be a Christian. This name is good, which archangels and angels worship, at which demons tremble and which they cannot bear, which men take up for salvation; for it is written: "And everyone who calls on his name will be saved." And he waits, not secretly, not fearfully, not alone, but in the sight of his saints: that is, with free faith, not refusing the testimony of his waiting even under the knowledge of the heavenly saints, or, by the example of prophecy, offering in himself an example of waiting to all the saints who are on earth.

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.

Holy and blessed David, as a prophet, is not ignorant of the gospel teaching, and though living this bodily life in the time of the law, yet as far as lies in him he fulfils the precepts of the apostolic command, giving proof of God's trust in him by the testimony about him, when it was said: "I have found a man after my heart, David, the son of Jesse." For he does not pursue his enemies with war nor resist those who plot against him by fighting with arms; but after the example of the Lord, whose name and gentleness he prefigured, when betrayed he prays, when in danger he sings psalms, when suffering hatred he gives thanks; and therefore he was found after the Lord's heart. For although twelve legions of angels could have stood by the Lord at the time of his passion, yet to fulfil every duty of humility he gave himself over to suffering and weakness, only praying and saying: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." By this example this same David, prophet of his future passion through the likeness of his own sufferings, does not contradict, does not resist his enemies, not returning evil for evil according to the gospel precept, but, as an imitator of the Lord's meekness, when he is afflicted, betrayed, put to flight, he entreats the Lord, whose arms alone he uses against the ungodly.

A title from history is set before this psalm; but before the history, it is shown how far, when, and with reference to whom what is said under the history is to be understood by us. For first there is: "For the end, understanding, to that David." Then follows: "When the Ziphites came and said to Saul: Is not David hidden among us?" So this betrayal of David by the Ziphites is to be understood "for the end." By this it is shown that what was then being done to David in the present contained in itself a prefiguring of future time: when the innocent man is harassed by persecution, when the prophet is mocked with insults, when one pleasing to God is sought for death, when the king is betrayed to his enemy, as the Lord was to Herod and Pilate, by those among whom he ought to have been safe. The psalm, then, is of understanding "for the end," and of understanding in that David in whom is the end of the law. And he who has the key of David opens the entrance to understanding when he fulfils what was prophesied of him by David.

The very interpretation of the name according to the Hebrew proper sense brings us no small advance in understanding. For Ziphites signifies what we call "sprinklings of the mouth"; these the Hebrews call Ziphites. Sprinkling, according to the law, was the cleansing of sins, purifying the people through faith by the sprinkling of blood; this same blessed David mentions this sprinkling thus: "You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean," the faith of the law meanwhile, by the blood of burnt offerings, making up for the mystery of the future sprinkling from the Lord's blood. But this people, as the people of Ziphites, sprinkled with the mouth rather than by faith and receiving the cleansing of sprinkling with the lips rather than the heart, became unfaithful to its David and his betrayer, as he had said before through the prophet: "This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me"; inclined to betray David for this reason, that, faith of the heart having ceased, it had performed all the mysteries of the law through the deceitfulness of the mouth.

"God, save me in your name, and judge me in your power. God, hear my prayer, give ear to the words of my mouth." According to the meaning of the title already shown, the suffering of the prophet David is an example of the passion of our God and Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore his prayer too is tempered for the understanding of the prayer of him who, the Word, became flesh, so that he who suffered all things as man might also speak all things as man, and might entreat God out of service for those whose weaknesses he bore and whose sins he took up. The proper senses and forces of the words, even against our will and hesitation, demand the sense of this understanding, so that we do not doubt that everything in the psalm is said in his person. For he says: "God, save me in your name." In the lowliness of the body the only-begotten Son of God prays this under the words of his prophet, he who was also asking back the glory he had had before the ages. He asks to be saved in the name of God, in which he was both named and born, so that the name of God might save, in that body in which he was born, the very thing that was proper to his former nature and kind.

And since this whole prayer is in the person of the form of a servant, for which form of a servant, assumed even to the death of the cross, he entreats the salvation of that name which is God's, and being to be saved by God's name, he at once added: "and judge me in your power." For by the merit of humility, because he had emptied himself taking the form of a servant, he was now asking again for the form of God as partner in that lowliness he had assumed, the man himself, in whom God had obediently been born, being saved into the name of God. And to teach that the honour of this name, in which he prayed to be saved, was not that of a bare title only, he prays to be judged in the power of God. For first there is what he deserves from judgment: "Having become obedient," it says, "to death, even death on a cross; therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name": so that the name above every name might be given him; then that this very judgment might be in the power of judgment, because through God's power he who from God had died as man rose again, the same, from dead man into God, according to the apostle's saying, "Crucified out of weakness, he rose out of power," and again: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." For through the power of judgment bodily weakness is saved into the name and nature of God; and so, by the merit of obedience, it is advanced by the power of judgment to the salvation of God's name, so that in it there is both the name and the power of God. Otherwise, if this discourse had begun from human custom, the prophet would have asked to be judged in mercy or equity rather than in power. But power was needed for the judgment there, where, the Son of God having been born as son of man from the virgin's childbirth, both the name and the power of the Son of God were to be restored again to that very son of man through the power of judgment.

Then follows: "God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth." It would have been easy for the prophet to say, "God, hear me." But because he speaks in the person of him who alone knew how to pray, therefore a confident request that the prayer be heard is shown. Blessed Paul teaches that no man knows how one ought to pray, saying: "For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought." It does not belong to human weakness, then, to ask that one's prayer be heard, since the teacher of the Gentiles, even after the form of prayer had been established by the Lord, does not know what and how far to pray. But this confidence belongs to him who alone sees the Father, who alone knows the Father, who alone can pray all night (for according to the Gospel the Lord spent the night in prayer), who, through the mirror of words, showed under common words the very form of the most hidden mystery, for when we pray. And he who asked that his prayer be heard, to teach that this belonged peculiarly to his confidence, added: "Give ear to the words of my mouth." And will anyone think it belongs to human confidence to wish the words of his mouth to be heard? Those words by which we utter the movements and impulses of our mind, when we burn with anger, when we disparage out of hatred, when we complain out of grief, when we flatter out of adulation, when we lie either for hope of gain or from shame at the truth, or curse out of offence at an insult? And who was ever of so amended a life and so patient in everything as not to be liable to these vices of human changeableness? He alone could wish this with confidence who did no sin, in whose mouth there was no deceit, who gave his back to the scourges, did not turn his cheeks away from blows, did not reproach the insult of spitting, and in nothing offended the will of him whose will he willingly obeyed in all these things.

Then he added the reason why he prays that his words be heard: "For strangers have risen up against me, and the strong have sought my soul; they have not set God before their sight." The only-begotten Son of God, the Word of God and God the Word (though he could certainly do all that the Father could, as he says, "For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise," and in the undivided name of deity and nature the power too was undivided), in order to give us a most complete example of human humility, both prayed and suffered all that belongs to men. And out of our common weakness he entreated salvation for himself from the Father, so that he might be understood to have entered our birth with the very duties of our weakness. Hence it is that he hungered, thirsted, slept, was weary, fled the gatherings of the ungodly, was sorrowful and wept, suffered and died. And so that he might be understood to have been subject to all these not by nature but by assumption, having gone through them all he rose again. All his complaint in the psalms, then, comes from the feeling of our nature. Nor is it surprising if we understand the sayings of the psalms so, since the Lord himself, according to the gospel faith, testified that the mysteries of his passion were written in the psalms.

Strangers, then, rose up against him. For they are no longer children of Abraham, nor children of God, but a brood of vipers, slaves of sin, the seed of Canaan with an Amorite father and a Hittite mother, and children of a devilish will from the devil as father. The strong also seek his soul: when Herod asks the chief priests where the Christ was to be born, when the whole synagogue conspires against him as false witness. But thinking this soul to be of human nature and weakness, they did not set God before their sight; because God, from being God, while remaining so, had humbled himself even to the origin of birth as man, that is, so that he who was before Son of God should be son of man. For the Son of God is no other than the son of man; and son of man not in part, but born, for the form of God emptied itself from what it was to what it was not, that is, so as to be able to be born into its own soul and body; and therefore both Son of God and son of man, therefore both God and man, that is, the Son of God was born in the condition of human origin, even to the nature of being born as man; he who is wholly formable from soul and flesh, the substance of God humbling itself. For this reason, when strangers rise against him, when the powerful seek his soul, which in the Gospels is often sad and sorrowful, they did not set God before their sight, because God the Son of God, abiding before the ages, had been born of the virgin's childbirth as man in the condition of human nature, that is, of our body and soul; not understanding through the magnificence of his works that the son of man whose soul they sought had come forth, as to what he had begun to be as man, from the Son of God, which he had always remained.

By the intervention of the diapsalma, the person changed is not the speaker's but the one addressed. For now the discourse of prophecy is general. For after the prayer addressed to God, so that the confidence of the one praying might be understood as obtaining what he had asked in the very time of his entreaty, he at once added: "For behold, God helps me, and the Lord is the upholder of my soul. He has turned back evils on my enemies." He gave proper effects to proper requests, teaching that God is not careless of our prayer and that the granting of his mercy is not to be thought irrational, since he heard us according to what we prayed. For to the words "for strangers have risen up against me" belongs "God helps me"; to "and the strong have sought my soul" belongs the particular effect of the prayer heard, "and the Lord is the upholder of my soul"; and to "and they have not set God before their sight" he fittingly added: "He has turned back evils on my enemies." God, then, both helps against those who rise up and takes up the soul of his holy one sought by the strong, and, not set before their eyes nor thought of by the ungodly, turns the very evils back upon the enemies; so that, while they do not think of God in seeking the soul of the righteous and rising against him, when he has been helped and taken up, they may feel as avenger of their wickedness, through the recompense of that wickedness, him of whom they did not think amid the works of iniquity.

Let innocent devotion, then, have this confidence: that amid human persecutions and dangers to the soul it does not doubt that God is its helper, and if at some time the force of an unjust death is brought upon it, it knows that the soul leaving the dwelling of the body rests in God's keeping; let it also have the most certain security of vengeance, since all evils return upon those who inflict them. God cannot be charged with iniquity, nor is the impulse and movement of a malicious will mixed with perfect goodness. For he does not stir up evils out of malice, but twists them back as avenger; nor does he bring them from his own malice, but turns them upon our merits. For these evils have been appointed against all for the ministries of vengeance together with the law of living, the stern equity of just judgment governing it. But these are turned away from the righteous by the law of righteousness and are turned upon the wicked by the equity of judgment. Both are just: that they are ready for the righteous as a cause of fear but not mixed with them, because they are righteous; and that they are to be turned upon the unrighteous for punishment, because they have deserved it: not mixed with the righteous, though ready, nor absent from the unrighteous, because they are ready.

Then the address turns again to the person of God, to whom the entreaty was first begun: "In your truth destroy them." Truth refutes the lie, and falsehood is destroyed by truth. We have taught that all the preceding prayer belongs to the man in whom the Son of God was born, who now also entreats this from God the Father, that he destroy his enemies in truth. And what the truth is is not in doubt: surely he himself who said, "I am the life, the way, the truth." The enemies are destroyed in truth, then, when, having procured Christ's condemnation by false witnesses, they hear that he has risen from the dead and know that he has resumed his glory in the truth of God; for afterwards, as punishment from God, they were driven onto crosses, consumed and destroyed by famine and war, having condemned the author of life to death and not considered the truth of God in him through the magnificence of his works. These, then, the truth of God destroys, when, rising to resume the majesty of the Father's glory, he proved in himself the truth of complete divinity.

As for our frequent, indeed constant, proclamation that the only-begotten Son of God was driven to the cross and condemned to death, he who is eternal by the birth that is natural to him from the eternal Father: he is to be understood to have been subjected to suffering not from necessity of nature but from the mystery of human salvation, and to have willed to be subjected to suffering rather than to have been compelled. And although that suffering was not of his condition and kind, since no force of injurious disturbance could harm the unchangeable nature of God, yet it was undertaken voluntarily, to satisfy indeed the penal office, yet not to wound the sufferer with the sense of punishment: not that it lacked the nature of wounding according to the very quality of the suffering, but that the nature of divinity does not feel pain. God suffered, then, because he subjected himself voluntarily to suffering; but taking upon himself the natural forces of the sufferings rushing upon him, by which pain must be inflicted on those who suffer, he himself did not fall from the power of his nature so as to feel pain.

For there follows: "I will sacrifice to you voluntarily." The sacrifices of the law, consisting of burnt offerings and the offerings of goats and bulls, do not have in themselves a profession of will, since the sentence of the curse had been decreed against those who violated the law. For whoever ceased from sacrifice made himself liable to the curse. It was necessary, then, that what was done should be done, since the addition of the curse did not allow neglect of sacrifice. From this curse our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us, as the apostle says: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us himself, because it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." He offered himself, then, to the death of the cursed, to dissolve the curse of the law by offering himself voluntarily as a sacrifice to God the Father, so that through a voluntary sacrifice the curse, which had been added because of the guilt of a necessary sacrifice left undone, might be dissolved. He mentions this sacrifice in another place in the psalms: "Sacrifice and offering you did not want, but you perfect a body for me," offering to God the Father, who rejected the sacrifices of the law, the pleasing sacrifice of the body he had taken. The blessed apostle mentions this offering thus: "For this he did once, offering himself as a sacrifice to God," to redeem the whole salvation of the human race by the offering of this holy and perfect sacrifice.

For all these things so done he renders praise to God the Father: "I will confess to your name, Lord, for it is good, for you have rescued me from every tribulation." He gave to each proposition its proper resolution. For at the beginning he had said, "God, save me in your name"; and after the satisfaction of his prayers there had to be a fitting profession of thanksgiving, so that he might confess to the name of him in whose name he had prayed to be saved; and since he had asked for help against the strangers rising against him, he records with exultant joy, by professing it, that he had obtained it: "for you have rescued me from every tribulation." And as to the fact that, when the strong sought his soul, they did not set God before their sight, he excellently taught the eternity of his unchangeable divinity in the words: "And my eye has looked down upon my enemies." For the only-begotten Son of God was not cut off by death. To fulfil the nature of man he subjected himself even to death, that is, to the separation, as it were, of soul and body, and went down to the infernal abodes, which seems to be what is due to man; but rising he remains and looks down on his enemies with an immortal eye, glorified into God and reborn through the glory of the resurrection from son of man into the Son of God, from whom he had also begun to be son of man. He looks down on his enemies, to whom he had said: "Destroy this temple, and after three days I will build it." Having built this temple of his body, then, he sees from on high those who had sought his soul, and, lifted beyond the law of human death, looks down on the authors of his death, suffering death but not knowing how to die, God and man, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The heading of the psalm has no history; it is only: "For the end, among the hymns, understanding." Some of our translators have called the hymns "songs"; but most have put "hymns," from the very usage of the Greek. The name makes no difference, provided it is understood that the thing signified, whether by "hymns" or by "songs," is one. This, then, is to be held about the psalm: what is contained in its hymn or song is to be understood "for the end," all our understanding being referred to our Lord Jesus Christ, whom the apostle taught to be the end of the law.

We have often warned that in knowing the psalms the reasoning of our sense must be so tempered that we remember that he of whom and through whom all prophecy is was born son of man from the Son of God: the nature of God, abiding before all ages, was begotten into the nature of man by the virgin's childbirth, in such a way that the addition of the later nature brought no failing of the former nature, nor did he who also began to be man cease to be what he remained before man, namely God. This one, then, taking the frailty of our flesh and remaining both his own and ours, acts, prays, professes, and awaits all those things that are ours in such a way as to mix in them also those that are his own. And he speaks sometimes in the person of man, because as man he was born, suffered, and died; but sometimes all his discourse is according to God, because from God he had come forth man and from the Son of God son of man: not forgetting in his words the confidence of his nature, which he did not lack even in the assumption of man. And so, speaking from us and from our weakness with the custom and usage of human speech, he spoke from himself and from his own power what is proper and worthy to God; as can be recognized in the present psalm, which begins thus.

"Give ear, God, to my prayer, and do not despise my supplication; attend to me and hear me. I was saddened in my exercise and troubled by the voice of the enemy and by the affliction of the sinner; for they turned iniquity upon me and in anger were troublesome to me. My heart was troubled within me, and the dread of death fell upon me. Fear and trembling came into me, and darkness covered me. And I said: Who will give me wings like a dove? And I will fly and be at rest. Behold, I have gone far off in flight and remained in the solitude." At the opening of the psalm, although he used the voice of humility when he said, "Give ear, God, to my prayer," yet he is understood to have said this not without some confidence proper to a loftier conscience. For it does not belong to every kind of innocence to ask that God give ear to one's prayer. For God's ears are always ready for the prayer of men, because he who imparted the nature of hearing to the human race cannot himself be outside the nature of hearing, and he who everywhere works this sense of hearing in us cannot fail to have everywhere in himself what he provides. God, then, hears everywhere and always; but it is not the merit of all that he should give ear to what he hears: the voice of the one praying reaches his hearing, but only the innocence of the prayer merits the favour of his giving ear, by which they are heard.

A threefold reason of prayer is set out at the opening. The first is that the prayer be given ear; the next, that the supplication not be despised; the third, that he attend to him and hear him. And the nature of each kind must be distinct, so that giving ear is not the same as not despising, and attending and hearing differ again from both. Since we have shown what can be understood about giving ear to prayer, we must treat what "do not despise my supplication" means. Prayers are despised that are light, divided, useless, anxious with the cares of the world, entangled in desires for bodily things, barren of the fruits of good works. These, then, are despicable prayers, not worthy of God's favour, of which he says through the prophet Isaiah: "And when you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn my eyes from you." And he at once added the reason for despising the prayer: "Your hands are full of blood." Where, then, the work of iniquity appears, there the prayer of the suppliant is despised. But he attends to the one who hopes when the faith of silent hope is held in by the devotion of a godly conscience. And we have a most complete example of each property. The Lord gave ear to the words of the Canaanite woman crying out often; he despised the prayer of that young man who asked the giver of eternity for a division of his inheritance; but he attended to that woman who in the silence of faith sought health for herself even from the fringe of his garment.

Having distinguished these kinds of his whole prayer, he now set out the very reason for praying: that in his exercise he was troubled by the voice of the enemy and by the affliction of the sinner. Exercise is never undertaken except for useful and saving things; and because the ungodly cannot bear these even in a holy man, they strive to afflict him with every injury and wear him out even to the dread of death. But in the Lord Jesus Christ this exercise is the working of our salvation, which the exercise of various healings, and then of the passion itself, carried forward. Exercising himself also in this world in sharing our weakness (an exercise which Isaac prefigured by going out into the field, when he went to meet Rebecca riding on a camel, as Christ, exercising himself in this world, went to meet the bride from the Gentiles), he is also troubled by the voice of the enemy, when he is called a Samaritan, when he is said to have a demon, when it is denied that he is salvation to others because he does not rescue himself from the cross. Turning upon him the iniquity of false testimonies and the sentence of death, they are also troublesome to him in anger, while they rage with scourges, with fists, and with blows.

But amid these, having the power to summon twelve legions of heavenly beings, he is not moved to anger nor provoked to vengeance. For there follows: "My heart was troubled within me." He resolved to suffer everything within himself, provided he accomplished the mysteries of human salvation. It is most difficult for human weakness to hold in disturbances and agitations of mind within itself, so that some sign of anxiety or indignation does not break out, though with a silent movement, even to a change of the face. But in the only-begotten God, although our weakness was taken up, the nature of his divinity was not abolished, so that he did not go through all these weak things with the dignity of his majesty intact, while he bore all things belonging to our death and fear in such a way that they fell upon him rather than were in him, since the weakness is ours rather than natural in God. Indeed, the following words joined this very thing, when he said: "And the dread of death fell upon me. Fear and trembling came upon me, and darkness covered me." All these things, which belong to our necessity, rushed upon him; but they were taken up by him by the power of his nature, since, able not to die, he did not refuse our death even when the fear of death was rushing upon him.

And although these same things had fallen upon him as on a man, to dominate his weakness, yet to teach that he was not subject to what rushed upon him, he added: "And I said: Who will give me wings like a dove? And I will fly and be at rest." He is not weak who does not need to take wings from elsewhere to fly away from the darkness covering him and the fear of death. For when he says, "Who will give me?", it is not one asking from someone, but one who hopes from nowhere else. He hastens to fly away like a dove, that is, to return to spiritual nature. For the Spirit too, in the form of a dove, came flying and rested upon him, having found a dwelling at one time in that man who was then coming up from the waters of the Jordan. And this is the reason for the prayer: that, weighed down by the weakness of the body, he had taken up what is mortal in us, so that, having become flesh, he might fly away into spirit. He mentions these wings of his in another psalm thus: "If I take my wings before the dawn and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me." He will take his own, then, so that it may be understood that, having emptied himself of them, he takes them up again.

But having taken wings so as to rest by flying, he shows where he will rest, saying: "Behold, I have gone far off in flight and remained in the desert." Darkness fell upon the light, but the darkness did not overcome it. For he went far off in flight, who could not be seized even by those who covered him. He fled, then, even those who persecuted him, and having gone far from them he dwells in the desert. And what this desert or solitude is (for the Greek expresses both by the same word) another prophet declares thus: "Rejoice, thirsty desert; let the desert exult and blossom like a lily; and let the deserts of the Jordan blossom and exult. Be strong, you weak hands and feeble knees; be comforted, you of little courage; be strong in mind and do not fear. Behold, God will render judgment; he himself will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will hear; the tongue of the dumb will be taught. Then the lame will leap like a deer." He had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; but driven away by them he gladdens these deserts. For he remains in them, and remains after he has rested by flying. For it is the rest of God that is denied to the ungodly, when it is said, "If they shall enter into my rest"; the only-begotten God, having taken up again his spiritual glory, rests in these bodies, which were formerly desert, as in a temple worthy of him; for now the children of the desolate are more than those of her who has a husband.

I am not unaware that many, looking only at the sound of the words and the letter, think that almost nothing in all the psalms is suited to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and suppose that the whole is a rebuke by the prophet's complaints. But we raise no dispute. For we do not destroy, but build up, adding understanding of obscure things rather than taking away from simple things; because whatever David either suffered or lamented was fulfilled also in the sufferings of him who became flesh for all of us. And, as I think, what follows will prove the course of our understanding.

The intervening diapsalma changed the sense too. For the whole discourse is again against those of whom the complaint is made, yet with honour first given to him to whom he is accustomed to refer everything. For there follows: "I was waiting for him who saves me from faintness of spirit and from the storm." This waiting of his is not new; for in that psalm too, which is undoubtedly in his person, he prayed thus: "Save me, God, for the waters have come in even to my soul. I am stuck in the mire of the deep, and there is no foothold. I came into the depth of the sea, and the storm sank me." From this storm, then, and from this faintness of spirit (for he had been humbled even to the death of the cross) he waits to be saved by him to whom he prayed, saying: "Father, glorify me with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was."

But in waiting to be saved, he now waits for more than the hope of salvation. For there follows: "Cast them down, Lord, and divide their tongues." Latin, as in many cases, has not expressed the proper sense of the word, whether Hebrew or Greek. For what is said "cast down" is expressed by them as katapontison, by which word it is prayed not that they be cast down but that they be sunk into the depth. He asks, then, that they be sunk and their tongues divided. We know that the one was done under Noah and the other after the building of the tower: the depth consumed the former, drowned by the flood, while the division of tongues separated the latter, to be a cause of perpetual contention among themselves, so that, not knowing and fearing one another, they might not hold together the conspiracy they had begun against God. No different punishment, then, is now asked for these: that, swallowed up by the right of the nations, which we recall are signified by the waters, and divided among all the languages with which they now live and which they speak, they might lose the dignity of their life and kingdom.

So that we might know that these things would follow because of the vices of the city and its contradiction of his precepts, he added: "For I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city; day and night it will surround it upon its walls; and iniquity and toil are in its midst; and usury and deceit have not departed from its streets." For these vices and crimes, then, the punishment of future captivity and dispersion is asked; but the chief crimes are iniquity and contradiction. For they rejected with ungodly contradiction the one whom the law and the prophets had announced. This contradiction, surrounding the walls of the city itself night and day, went over them, because on the very night of his passion, when he professed that he would be seen seated at the right hand of power, they tore their garment and contradicted him, with the odium of blasphemy besides. By walls, we recall, the protection of salvation is signified; as when the building and fortifying of the new Jerusalem, that is, the construction and guarding of the heavenly church, is desired, it is written thus: "Deal kindly, Lord, in your good will with Sion, and let the walls of Jerusalem be built." There was then in that people a spiritual guard, and it was fortified by the administration of the law ordained through angels. But when, the very mediator of the law having been rejected, iniquity surrounded and went over these walls and this guard, then sin began to be greater than the fortification itself, so that iniquity overcame the will of the guard, as usury, deceit, and other things forbidden in the law overflowed.

And showing his indignation at so great an iniquity he added: "For if my enemy had reproached me, I would surely have borne it; and if one who hated me had spoken great things against me, I would surely have hidden from him. But you, a man of one mind with me, my leader and my acquaintance, who took sweet food together with me; we entered the house of God in harmony." The complaint is not about the passion but about the apostle who betrayed him. For since by taking up the death of the cross he gave salvation to the human race, he cannot be thought to reproach this mystery of great godliness. For indeed, if it were an enemy, there would be no cause for complaint, since what he himself had willed to suffer for our salvation was being accomplished in him; just as, if one who hated him had spoken great things against him, he would have been hidden from him, because God in man was not known to him, and so there would be less crime for one who did not know (for the Gentiles had not learned from a law foretelling it that the Word would become flesh, which was adapted for those under the law even by events themselves as a likeness of the future truth, since Abraham worshipped a man and Jacob saw God in a man); he would surely have borne these reproaches from the Gentiles, that, being man, he made himself God, that, having a demon, he led the people astray, since they did not know that all these things were contained in the law given to Israel. But since one of one mind, a leader, and an acquaintance does these things (of one mind, when he was chosen as an apostle; a leader, when, while the Lord stayed behind, he was sent ahead to the villages to proclaim his coming and was appointed by him a leader and prince of the future kingdom; an acquaintance, since he had learned all his comings and goings and had known in the son of man the Son of God, and had shared in changing water into wine and in making the barley sweet as food for the people, and had used the same table and always entered the house of God with him), he, taken into this fellowship of divine ministry, gave cause for a greater complaint against himself.

But although these things were said particularly of his ungodliness, the decree of punishment refers to many: "Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into the underworld, for wickedness is in their dwellings, in their midst"; death coming upon them in such a way that they go down alive into the underworld to feel punishment, since works of wickedness surround them in their dwellings and in their midst, that is, wholly, within and without.

But while they were doing and plotting these things, he showed to whom his hope and prayer were directed, saying: "I cried to the Lord, and the Lord heard me. Evening and morning and noon I will tell, I will declare, and he will hear my voice. He has freed my soul in peace from those who draw near to me, for among many they were with me. And God will hear me; and he who is before the ages has humbled them." The Lord soon heard the faithful cry, and he will tell this very thanksgiving for his cry being heard evening and morning and noon, showing the whole day in these parts of the day by which the day is contained. Such an order of times was arranged only from prophetic knowledge, that he announces evening and morning and noon, because according to the law and the observance of the law, the day begun from evening is reckoned up to noon, since the beginning of the day is accomplished not by light returning in the morning but by night falling in the evening. He tells and declares, then, what is contained in the psalm: that he will hear his voice and free his soul in peace (for he has made peace for all things in heaven and on earth), and free it from those who draw near to him. For the earlier complaint was about those close to him, when one of one mind, a leader, and an acquaintance did these things together with the other apostles, himself chosen as an apostle. God, then, who is before the ages, that is, through whom all things are, because he is before all things, will hear him and has humbled them, since they have been made unworthy of the glory of the eternal resurrection.

For with a diapsalma interposed he cuts off from them all hope because of their unrepentant profession of ungodliness, saying: "For there is no change for them, and they have not feared." According to the apostle all will rise, but not all will be changed, because they did not fear God. For it would have been right for them, though they did not recognize God in the man, at least to believe God rising from the dead, since repentance and pardon were open to them even after the crime of the passion. For not only did they not fear God, but when he had stretched out his hand to repay them, that is, had offered help, they defiled his covenant, when they rejected him who was foretold for salvation by the covenant of the law. For there follows: "He stretched out his hand in repaying. They defiled his covenant; they were divided by the anger of his face." And therefore no change has been left them, because he who died once for sin and rose again granted change only to those who through faith both died with him and will rise with him. But these, when the city was overthrown, he divided by the anger of his face, and setting their portion with the unbelievers he either scattered them into all lands or divided them from the saints.

Then from the general complaint the discourse returned to signify him who had been leader, of one mind, and acquaintance: "And his heart drew near. His words were softer than oil, and they are darts." Mingled with the apostles and having the care of the poor, that is, caring for the greatest work of ministry, he drew his heart near (for he gave thanks that his soul was freed from those who drew near), not drawing near to the ministry of faith, but to the anger of God and the defiling of his covenant. Moreover, he was smooth-tongued, deceiving with speech softened beyond oil that he cared for the poor, even when he complained about the alabaster of precious ointment poured out, as if it ought rather to have been sold for the expenses of the needy. But he was seeking an occasion for theft from the collecting of money. And the prophet avoids the oil of such a smooth-tongued thief in another psalm, when he says: "Let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head," because under the appearance of a good work it moves the weapons of wickedness. There are darts in words too, as teeth are a shield and arrows, and the tongue a sharp sword. He detests, then, these darts of speech, which are the more harmful under flattery and adulation.

But amid these darts of the enemy he remains undaunted and shows us a safe and trustworthy harbour of security. For there follows: "Cast your thought upon God, and he will nourish you; he will not give the righteous to be tossed for ever." The Lord in the Gospels too took from us the necessity of anxiety, saying: "Do not be anxious about tomorrow; sufficient for the day is its own evil. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things will be given to you": that is, all care is to be placed in deserving God's kingdom and righteousness. Care, then, is to be cast upon him, for he will nourish, according to that saying: "He has nourished me by the water of refreshment." And nourishing he will not leave us in the waves of this world, as Jacob, nourished, escaped every storm both of hatred and of hard slavery, saying: "God, who has nourished me from my youth." For he is the author of life, he the giver of food, not only earthly but also spiritual.

But while he is brought up by the water of refreshment and freed from the waves of the storm, a worthy punishment follows the ungodly, when he says: "But you, God, will lead them down into the pit of destruction. Men of blood and deceit will not live out half their days; but I will hope in you, Lord." There is indeed a well of living water; but there is also a pit of destruction, according to that saying: "Let not the storm of water sink me, nor the deep swallow me up, nor the pit close its mouth over me." While the righteous one is not left to be tossed, then, they will be led into the pit of destruction, whose mouth could not be closed upon the only-begotten God when he rose from the underworld. Moreover, after the Lord's passion, the victory of war at once consumed them with the destruction of the city: every age without distinction was slain to satisfy the conquerors, and youth was laid low before half the days of life were lived. But full days are reserved for the saints and faithful, according to that saying: "And full days will be found in them"; in those whose hope is always in the Lord, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The heading of the psalm includes many things that, besides recording events, convey the sense of another understanding: that the psalm is "for the people that is far from the saints," that the inscription of a title is set before it, and finally that the beginning itself is headed "for the end." For if the present discourse sang only the complaint that David, while fleeing, was held by the foreigners in Gath, the whole movement of the iniquity rebuked here would have been directed to that alone. But since these things are set before the indication of the event to imbue and direct the reader's sense, we understand without doubt that, through the effects of the events that happened to David, there is impressed on us, according to the spirit of prophecy, the knowledge of the things signified under these headings: so that what David suffered was a prefiguring of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ; so that the inscription of a title may be seen to signify the eternity of him who conquered by dying, because the inscription of a title, which the Greek language calls stēlographia, is conferred for the glory of eternity above all on those who, living an honourable life, did not fear to die in war even for the safety of their country. And the people that has become far from the saints is to be recognized as Israel, made unworthy of the sanctification of the Gentiles and departing far from it. And "for the end" is to be understood as proper to him who is the end of the law; this will be recognized from the end of the psalm, since the words with which the psalm's end concludes declare most of all the resolution of this our understanding.

Through these things, then, which are joined to the heading besides the events, we shall treat the psalm also as in the person of the Lord, yet without departing from the prophet's own complaints. Nor is it to be thought that he did not also groan in what he endured; for the events are joined to these very things that convey a spiritual sense precisely so that through the prophet's action the sense and words of the prophecy might become known, since the prophet prophesied not so much by the spirit as by his sufferings. The discourse, then, will be balanced between David himself and the man Jesus Christ, so that, since he bore the weaknesses of all and often used the voice and tears of our sins, the feeling and speech that are man's may be free of dishonour to God.

"Have mercy on me, Lord, for man has trampled me; fighting all day long he has afflicted me; my enemies have trampled me all day long." We know that "day" is often used for a lifetime, so that where "all day" is said, the whole time of life is shown. For neither David nor the Lord was harassed by persecution on one day only. But he who asks for God's mercy and complains that he has been trampled has the weapons of his security and strength, with which he sustains not only earthly hatreds but also the wars of spiritual wickedness, against which, rather than against flesh and blood, the apostle teaches that our fight is. For they use the ministries of the ungodly to harass and afflict the saints, penetrating their hearts and inciting them to every onset of a turbulent mind.

Not fearing this height that towers over and exalts itself in this world, the prophet says: "From the height of the days I will not fear; for many who war against me will fear." He knows the day of eternal judgment, he knows also the eternal fire prepared for eternal punishments; and therefore those who try to war against him will fear the more, because, while the saint does not fear, the terror of judgment will press the more upon them. And for the confidence of his security he added: "But I will hope in you. In the Lord I will praise my words all day long." He places all his hopes in God and praises his words for the whole time of his life. Nor is it obscure what he praises in his own speaking.

For the words that follow are worthy of a saint: "In God I will hope; I will not fear what flesh may do to me." The terror of the world does not break him, nor do the hatreds of those conspiring against him disturb him. For hope that is in God does not fear the terrors of human hatred. We often take "flesh" to signify men, because of that by which they are contained in the body; as when it is said of the ungodly, "My Spirit shall not dwell in these men, because they are flesh," or that saying, "All flesh shall see the salvation of God," or the apostle's, "Are you not carnal and walking according to man?" He remains undaunted, then, under the mercy of God, and therefore, hoping in him, does not fear all the onsets and persecutions of flesh. But these words are indeed worthy also of the only-begotten God, from whom, when he emptied himself from the form of God, the form of a servant did not take away the power and nature of God. For God, made flesh, remained God even in assuming flesh, using the power of his strength in fellowship with our body. For he was not weighed down by flesh so as not to walk on the waves, nor so that the power of divine might should not go out even to the fringes of his garment, nor so as not to forgive sins, and with his spittle kindle the nature of sight in eyes blind from the womb, and, drawing out an ear, close the wound of the cut-off ear, nor so as not to pass through solid walls with his body slipping through. So neither the prophet, hoping in God, nor God, accomplishing divine works under the assumption of flesh, feared anything from the flesh.

In what follows, too, the meaning of what happened to him is contained. For he says: "All day long they cursed my words; all their counsels against me were for evil. They will dwell and hide; they will watch my heel." For nowhere except in secret counsels were false testimonies and captious questions prepared against him, as they dwelt together and hid their counsels of malice. They also did not bear the rebuke of his words, with which he did not cease to reproach their ungodliness, watching all his goings out at his heel, and then entering into fraudulent conspiracies to trip him up; for which this worthy sentence of judgment overtakes them.

For there follows: "As they waited for my soul, you will save them for nothing; in anger you will lead down the peoples." This is a new saying of the prophet, that God saves for nothing those who wait for his soul; and though nothing is one thing and being saved another, now the salvation that will come to them is for nothing. Is there, then, anything that is saved for nothing? There is indeed: whatever, when resurrection is granted, is not worthy of change. For although all flesh has been redeemed in Christ so as to rise, and all must stand before his judgment seat, yet the glory and honour of rising is not common to all. Those, then, to whom only resurrection, not also change, is given are saved for nothing. For these peoples will be led down in anger, for whom the salvation of resurrection is appointed for the feeling of punishment; from which anger the apostle promises that we are to be rescued, saying: "For if, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, much more, justified by his blood, we shall be saved through him from anger." For sinners, then, he died for the salvation of resurrection; but those sanctified in his blood he will save from anger.

Then, the peoples having been saved for nothing and led down in anger, this holy one announces the hope of his life, saying: "God, I have declared my life to you; you have set my tears in your sight, as in your promise." He is worthy of God's promise because of the constancy of his preaching and the merit of not keeping silent; for his tears, which either the prophet shed for himself or the Lord for us, are in God's sight, and he will use their embassy to obtain what God has promised.

But when he is about to enter the grace of the eternal promise, his enemies will be turned back, to show where they would be led down in anger. For this follows: "My enemies will be turned back on whatever day I call upon you." When he calls upon God, they will be turned back to where they came from, the anger of God leading them down and their body taken up again to be punished with penalties.

But when they have returned after the resurrection to the underworld for the eternity of punishment, he performs the duty of his thanksgiving, saying: "Behold, I have known that you are my God, and in God I will praise the word." He praises in God, then, this word of his, that he has known him to be his God.

Nor does he praise this only, but also that he hoped in him, not fearing what man may do to him. These words are indeed worthy of all the saints: to hold faith steadfastly amid human persecutions, not to be moved by fear of earthly turmoil, and with most certain hope not to fear that man will accomplish anything against the eternity of the soul, since after the interval of this death both our corruption and our weakness will be changed into immortal glory. And for this reason he praises his words, by which he protests that, hoping in the Lord, he does not fear human force, saying: "In the Lord I will praise the word, in the Lord I will hope; I will not fear what man may do to me." For this reason, then, he praises his word in the Lord, that, hoping in him, he will not fear man.

But to teach that he fears nothing from man for this reason, that if man exercised any of his power on the body, the glory of the resurrection would restore it again without bodily blemish, he added: "In me, God, are the vows of praise which I will render to you; for you have rescued my soul from death and my feet from slipping, that I may please before God in the light of the living." These things he hopes for are not outside him, nor are the vows of praise he will render to be sought from outside. For he himself is the lord of his own resurrection; he himself gives to this body, dead and left in the tomb, the fellowship of his divine nature. For a body is not acquired from outside material by all who will rise, nor is a nature of foreign origin and external causes restored; but the same body will emerge for the advance of eternal brightness, and what is new in it will come about by change rather than by creation. In him, then, are the vows which he will render when the weakness of bodies is taken away, that is, slips and tears; when incorruption devours corruption; when immortal power swallows up death; when God is all in all; when he, the light of the living, will please God in the same light of the living. For if, according to the declaration of Wisdom, the Father rejoiced over the sons of men at the creation of the world, much more is he to be understood as pleasing the Father in the reconciliation of the world. For he is the true light of the world, enlightening every man coming into this world, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

In the heading of the following psalm only this is changed from that of the preceding one: where "for the people that has become far from the saints" was noted, now "do not corrupt" or "do not destroy" is set, both of which the Greek language includes in one word, mē diaphtheirēs. For it followed that, since corruption would await those who departed far from the saints, the holy one should pray not to be subjected to it. For in another psalm too he shows thanksgiving for this corruption being turned away from him, saying: "Nor will you give your holy one to see corruption." Nor is there doubt that this psalm is to be understood, according to the apostles' declaration, in the person of the Lord.

So David, awaiting the time of the Lord's resurrection for the glory of human flesh, now both asks not to be corrupted and, with a prophet's foreknowledge, gives thanks that corruption has been turned away from him in him in whom are the firstfruits of the resurrection. The inscription of the title is "for the end" because both a glorious life undertaken for the honour of eternity and a death saving to many are inscribed on the tombs of brave men, and all these things must be referred to him who is the end of the law or whom the end of the psalm shows. And his saying these things while shut up in a cave is the time of the prophecy at which he is understood to have written the psalm, prophesying by that very dwelling in the cave the lowliness of the Lord, who was to dwell in a body. For it cannot be thought that one who had hidden in a cave out of fear would make a din with psaltery and harp, as he testifies in the psalm, that is, with the apparatus of the whole musical art.

It began thus: "Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me, for my soul trusts in you." He asks for mercy because he trusts in the Lord, teaching that the mercy of God is to be hoped for by those who believe. And he shows what weight and effect the mercy of God has, saying: "And in the shadow of your wings I will hope, until iniquity passes." It is the nature of birds to shade the weakness of their chicks with their wings and defend them from the force and wickedness of those flying past. We know this best in hens, when they either shade or protect their young gathered under their feathers. The Lord mentions their habit as an example of his own care, saying to Jerusalem, the killer of the prophets: "How often I wished to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not?" The holy one, then, hopes in the shadow of God's wings until iniquity passes, that is, while he escapes either the scandals of the world, or the iniquities of the ungodly, or the weakness of earthly lowliness, while David escapes this very cave, as it were, of his dwelling and body, in which he is now shut up.

But hoping under the shadow of God's wings, he is always intent on the duty of his hope, saying: "I will cry to God most high, to God who has done good to me." He cries by faith rather than by voice, he who cries while fleeing and hiding. Further, there is no thanksgiving for things obtained in the words of one who hopes; but it belongs to prophetic knowledge and faith to rejoice in things to be done no differently than in things done, and therefore he cries to him who, by the unchangeable constitution of his goodness, has already done good to him; and how far the Lord has done good he teaches in what follows, saying: "He sent from heaven and freed me; he gave over to reproach those who trampled me. God sent his mercy and his truth; he rescued my soul from the midst of the lions' whelps; I slept troubled." It was fitting, even if there were no change of person or sense, that a diapsalma should intervene, because the sense of believers was to be raised to the understanding of what is said. God did good to his holy one by sending from heaven, so that, when he was freed, those who trampled him were given over to reproach. And he sent his mercy and truth to rescue his soul from the midst of the whelps when he had slept troubled. If death is signified by sleep, as when David is to sleep with his fathers, or when the sleeping Lazarus is to be awakened, or when the girl of that centurion is not dead but sleeps, or when we shall not precede those who have slept in the resurrection; if the trouble of the sleeper signifies the passion, when it is said, "Now my soul is very troubled," which soul he had earlier prayed to be rescued from the hand of the dog thus: "Free me from the mouth of the lion, and my only one from the hand of the dog"; and if the whelps of dogs or lions can be understood as none other than those who are also a brood of vipers, from whose midst the soul is rescued, and rescued through the mercy and truth sent from heaven, according to the saying, "Mercy and truth have met each other"; and if mercy and truth is the Lord Jesus Christ: there is no doubt that those are led into reproach who, having trampled the Lord in that passion, do not believe; for whom indeed it is a reproach to have lost the coming of the only-begotten God and the forgiveness of sins.

And since the hatreds of persecutors or deniers would always oppose this hope of the saints, having recalled the mysteries of human salvation he added: "Sons of men, their teeth are a shield and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." The divine word signifies the vices and movements of minds under bodily functions, as in the song of Deuteronomy: "The beloved grew fat and kicked," where the luxury of ungodliness is rebuked under the image of a bodily habit; or that saying, "Who devour my people like a meal of bread"; or again, "You have broken the teeth of sinners"; and also the apostle's, "But if you bite one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another"; so that what is assigned as function and action to each member is referred to the working of minds and souls. So now, about to recount the effects of persecutors or detractors, he says, "Sons of men, their teeth are a shield and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword," since they both consumed by the cruelty of power and wounded with the darts of detraction.

But amid these things, which he knows and awaits, the prophet did not keep silent. For having prayed not to be corrupted, he longs for the time when this corruption will be swallowed up, saying: "Be exalted above the heavens, God, and your glory above all the earth." Things raised up on high from low places are seen to be exalted, because by a kind of advance they come out into what is higher; but what is to be exalted above the heavens must first have come down from the heavens to lower places, by which it is to be exalted again above the heavens. The apostle says this very thing most completely thus: "When he ascended on high he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men. What does 'he ascended' mean, except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same who ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things"; signifying that the cause of his being exalted above the heavens arose from this, that the lowliness of descending even to the lower parts of the earth had been assumed. The prophet, then, foretells as a vow that God is exalted above the heavens. And since, exalted above the heavens, he would fill all things on earth with the glory of his Holy Spirit, he added: "and your glory above all the earth," since the gift of the Spirit poured out upon all flesh would bear witness to the glory of the Lord exalted above the heavens.

All this advance, however, is desired not for the divine nature but for the weakness of man; because the prophet is not unaware that through the assumption of flesh he is to be placed in the heavenly places, since we have been made fellow members of the body and sharers in Christ Jesus. And therefore he joined these things to the weakness of his flesh, which was both to be denied in the Lord's sufferings and to be exalted above the heavens: "They prepared snares for my feet and bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face and fell into it." Through the faith of suffering with him, the prophet himself suffering in the Lord, as if he too had suffered, makes this complaint. But upon those who persecuted the Lord of majesty, when they fell into the pit they had prepared, both the sense and the punishment of death itself are turned back.

And since the faith of suffering with and dying with glorifies us in Christ, the prophet stands as if girded in this hope and faith, saying: "My heart is ready, God, my heart is ready; I will sing and say a psalm to you. Awake, my glory, awake, psaltery and harp. I will awake at dawn; I will confess to you among the peoples, Lord; I will say a psalm to you among the nations." With a diapsalma interposed the prophet referred this speech of the psalm to God, singing meanwhile by faith the very things for which his heart is ready; and under the image of the psaltery and harp he showed that he exhorted himself to the joys of his soul and body in singing and saying a psalm. For he says: "Awake, my glory, awake, psaltery and harp; I will awake at dawn," declaring that he himself is shown in the psaltery and harp, since, when the harp and psaltery are urged to awake, it is rather he who is signified in them that awakes. And awaking at dawn with his glory he sings the glory of the gospel hope, the time of dawn agreeing with that of prayer and of salvation. For there follows: "I will confess to you among the peoples, Lord; I will say a psalm to you among the nations." One who is to praise God among the peoples and nations must praise in him the salvation of the nations, because the measuring line of the inheritance is no longer confined to the one Israel, nor is Jacob the portion, but the fullness of the earth is now God's; and we are no longer the image of the earthly, but the image of the heavenly.

He showed what was to be confessed among the peoples and sung among the nations: "For your mercy has been magnified even to the heavens, and your truth even to the clouds." This, then, is the confession among peoples and nations, that mercy has been magnified even to the heavens and truth even to the clouds. For when the saints will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord, he himself having been raised in a cloud in the body of the resurrection, and according to the apostle the whole creation is to be freed from corruption, and all things have been made peaceful through him both in heaven and on earth, rightly the truth of our resurrection in him is carried even to the clouds, and his mercy is magnified even to the heavens, when the corruption of the groaning creation has been driven away. But the elevation of these is signified as reaching to the clouds and to the heavens; whereas it is proper to him to go beyond the heavens and to pass beyond every sense of conceived loftiness.

So, repeating the prayer of his hope, the prophet closed thus: "Be exalted above the heavens, God, and your glory above all the earth." There is no limit to the exaltation of God, for his elevation is above the heavens. For the Lord of creatures is to be understood as beyond creatures. And since nothing is in our knowledge but heaven, he who, exalted above the heavens, exceeds the sense of knowledge is beyond every sense. His mercy has indeed overflowed even to us, but has been magnified even to the heavens in the heavenly things soon to come. And though his truth has been raised even to the clouds for us who are to be caught up to meet him in a cloud, yet he himself, about to sit at the right hand of God, transcends all the heavens; and his glory too will remain on earth, that is, with us, as he says: "Behold, I am with you all days, until the consummation of the age," our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

From the heading of the preceding psalm only some indication of events is lacking. For there is "for the end," and "do not destroy," and "inscription of a title." For the psalm contains no prophecy through events, as in the others, where holy David prophesies both by words and by deeds; rather it contains a rebuke of the ungodly, the announcement of God's judgment on sinners, the recompense of joy for the saints, and the fruit of righteousness for man. This, then, is the end in the psalm, this the confidence of driving away corruption, this the inscription of the title for him who redeemed us through death.

And indeed the whole psalm presents itself thus: "If you truly speak righteousness, judge rightly, sons of men. For in your heart you work iniquities; on the earth your hands weave iniquity." Speaking of righteousness is common; but pursuing judgment is the zeal and habit of few. But one is to be thought truly to speak righteousness when he keeps the judgment of truth, since God judges for this not human words but the works of the heart, that is, the contrivances of thoughts. Iniquity is often not carried out for shame of public conscience; and therefore, though the hands may not have woven iniquity, yet the heart works iniquity before God on the earth. Hence adultery conceived in the heart alone is already a crime; hence, according to Paul's gospel, God judges the secrets of men, God beholding the wills of men already in the very beginnings of human birth. For since the power of a mighty nature enters not so much the fibres of the inner parts as the appetites of the mind, he must not take the beginning of his insight from the movements of the senses, but must grasp, through knowledge of nature, foreknowing even the future movements of the senses.

And therefore, of those who complete in the heart the iniquities woven with the hands, he at once added: "Sinners are estranged from the womb; they have gone astray from the belly; they have spoken false things." So Esau was estranged from the womb, when it was announced even before he existed that the elder would serve the younger, God not being ignorant of the future will, since both falseness of speech and error of life are from the belly; God knowing this rather than anyone being begotten to the necessity and nature of sin. And so that the fault could not be referred to origin, he reproaches the crime of a will hardened against obeying, saying: "Their fury is like that of a serpent, like a deaf asp that stops its ears, which does not hear the voice of the charmers, nor the medicine skilfully prepared by the wise." No natural necessity is excused in the crime. For the serpent could have been innocent, whose ears are stopped by itself so as to be deaf; and it does not hear the voice of the charmer and does not receive the medicines prepared by the wise. Nor does he recall here the songs of the Marsi and the lulled hissing of vipers, since these same things become numb with greater inertness through faith in the name and power of God; but he teaches that stubborn and insolent disobedience of the ancient serpent, which grows deaf to the songs of the saints and the medicines prepared by the wise; and though it is commanded daily, even under the invocation of the divine name, not to deceive, not to creep in, not to bite, yet with stopped hearing it rages; from which those who do not obey the gospel are a brood of vipers.

But since his power and that of his followers is crushed and all their weapons of cruelty are broken, these words were added: "God has broken their teeth in their mouth; the Lord has shattered the molars of the lions. They will be despised like running water; he will bend his bow until they are weakened. Like melted wax they will be taken away; fire has fallen upon them, and they have not seen the sun." We have often spoken of the teeth of sinners and the molars of lions, since in them the impulse of raging malice is signified. When these are broken and crushed, then, they will be despised like running water. For every course of overflowing waters is useless, since each person draws off only what he thinks useful for himself, the rest running on to perish, being carried down to the seas only to their own abolition. He mentions this nature and contempt in them in another psalm too, when he says: "I am poured out like water and my bones are scattered; my heart has become like melting wax in the midst of my belly." Many things dissolved from solid into liquid change their form without abolishing their nature, so that from rigid they become fluid; but wax, if received by fire alone, melts so as to perish. In the same way he has now set an example of both created things in the destruction of sinners: "They will be despised like running water; he will bend his bow until they are weakened. Like melted wax they will be taken away." First, then, they will be despised, flowing away uselessly without hope of standing firm and remaining; then the Lord's bow will be bent until they are weakened; and weakened, they will be taken away like melted wax. And we have often shown that the severity of God's judgment is signified by the bow, always bent upon the punishments of sinners for those who will be punished. And indeed, with the bow bent, the following words declare that they are to be taken away by the fire of judgment like melted wax: "Fire has fallen upon them, and they have not seen the sun." The fire cast upon them will take them away, so that they may not behold the sun of righteousness; for they are unworthy to be co-heirs of the eternal light.

And so that the words that they will be taken away like melted wax, the fire falling upon them so that they do not see the sun, should not signify their abolition rather than their punishment, he added: "Before your thorns produce the bramble, as living, so in anger he swallows you up." The bramble is a kind of thorn bush that puts forth many dense thorns like the briar; it blossoms when warmed in spring with the others. So before the bramble produces the thorns of sinners, fire swallows them up living in anger. For it was not fitting that, while the time of judgment is still suspended, sinners should rest without punishment; so the fire swallows them up living, that is, with the sense of punishment, even before they rise. For the resurrection of bodies is signified in the bramble, and the bodies themselves will display in themselves the thorns by which they are to be pricked: some will have the fruits of an eternal flower, but these will be raised only to bring forth in themselves the points of thorns like brambles. We remember that the force and pain of sins are signified by the thorn, when it is said, "He fell into misery while a thorn pierced him"; because he who was humbled even to death condemned sin in the flesh by means of sin, as when a thorn that pierces is pierced. And each, according to the apostle, will receive in the flesh whether good or evil, since the sinner will have the very material and sense in which to be pricked. Before the resurrection of the flesh, that is, before the bramble puts forth its thorns, his soul, which is living, is swallowed up alive for punishment, to be punished like the rich man of the Gospel.

But amid these things the joy of every righteous man, resting like Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, is shown. For there follows: "The righteous will rejoice when he sees vengeance; he will wash his hands in the blood of the sinner. And man will say: Is there then fruit for the righteous? There is indeed a God who judges them on the earth." The joy of the righteous is when he sees vengeance, because, while sinners are to be punished, he rejoices that he has been led by angels into eternal rest: not washing his hands in the blood of sinners, but, since sinners are in blood because they are guilty of blood, he will keep his hands washed of all guilt of blood. He testified this very thing in another psalm when he says: "I have hated the assembly of the wicked and will not sit with the ungodly; I will wash my hands among the innocent." And having recalled the duties of innocence he added: "Do not destroy my soul with the ungodly, nor my life with men of blood." In the blood of sinners, that is, he will wash his hands among the innocent. And these are men of blood to such a degree that the blood of all who were killed from Abel to Zechariah is to be required of them, and, when Pilate washed his hands, they declared that the blood of the righteous one was upon themselves and their own.

But while the righteous washes his hands and rejoices, man will say: "Will there be fruit for the righteous?" And he says that there certainly is, because God is on the earth judging them. Man, then, saying, "Is there fruit for the righteous?", undoubtedly awaits judgment; yet the righteous has already been judged on earth, since he has been led by angels into Abraham's bosom, according to that saying: "He who believes in me is not judged, but passes from death to life; but he who does not believe has already been judged." Since, then, the saint, who is to pass from death to life, is not to be judged, and the unbeliever has already been judged for punishment, it is understood that judgment remains for those who are to be judged, according to the quality of their deeds, between sins and faith, by our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The heading of the psalm does not differ from the preceding one, but the psalm differs in that certain things done to David himself are set before it: "When Saul sent and watched his house to kill him." But if the prayer were to be directed to God only for this reason, it would not have been necessary to set before it those earlier words, that is, "for the end," "do not destroy" or "do not corrupt," and "for the inscription of a title." These, however, though distributed especially by spiritual reasoning (since Christ is the end of the law, his eternity was not subjected to corruption, and the title of his glorious death is for the salvation of the nations), nevertheless declare that even the things set down about his deeds are prophetic, since David, as a prophet not ignorant of the Lord's passion, taught on the occasion and at the time of the hatreds he was suffering that he was a prophet both by suffering and by speaking. We shall treat the psalm in such a way as not to burden the understanding of those who are wise according to the letter; but also so that his being watched by Saul to be killed is no less a prophecy of that time when the Lord was shut in and watched for death by the people in Jerusalem as in his own house.

"Rescue me from my enemies, Lord, and free me from those who rise against me. Rescue me from those who work iniquity, and free me from men of blood." He has included the causes and progress of human vices, so that we might know where ungodliness arose and to what it would come. And for this reason the Gospel restrained anger, quarrels, and enmities (since being angry with a brother without cause brings the guilt of Gehenna, and the offering of a gift is not allowed except after reconciliation of a quarrel, and it decrees that enemies are not only to be loved but also prayed for), because from these one arrives at being a man of blood. For first they are enemies; then they rise against the one whose enemies they are; and rising, they are workers of iniquity; finally, workers of iniquity have advanced to being men of blood. And not only murder committed but also murder contemplated completes the man of blood.

For there follows: "For they have hunted my soul; the strong have rushed upon me. Neither my iniquity nor my sin, Lord; without iniquity I ran and went straight." David's soul was hunted when he was shut in his house to be killed. And although he was rescued from Saul's hands, yet those who desired his blood are men of blood. But according to the heading of the psalm, the prayer should have been against one, since it was the king who wished it. But the prophetic prayer had to be tempered so that the complaint referred to the people, when the strong rush in and hunt the soul: for he armed them as strong who also entered Judas's heart for the ministry of destruction. These strong ones, then, hunt the soul, and the soul of him in whom there is neither iniquity nor sin, who, running without iniquity, went straight.

And I do not know whether the earlier psalm allows these things to be referred to David, in which it is said: "Behold, I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is always before me." So great a difference does not suit the order of the psalms, so that both should be understood to have been said by the same person. But if, because the earlier psalm of confessed sin is later in time, David seems to have said these things before his sin, as one not knowing sin, let us remember that under the same sin he said, in confession of human necessity: "For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother bore me"; according to that saying: "For who will boast that he has a pure heart before God, not even if he were an infant of one day?", since even according to the apostle both the origin and the law of sin remain in us. These words, then, will not suit a human conscience.

But let us see whether these words denying iniquity of oneself do not suit the complaints of him who did no sin and in whom no deceit was found, who also said: "Behold, the prince of the world will come and will find nothing in me": that is, no charge of sin would be found in him, by which, through sin, he would condemn sin in the flesh. Here, then, he is to be understood as complaining that his soul was hunted and the strong rushed upon him; he who had this security in complaint, so as to profess that there was neither iniquity nor sin in him, and who said that he ran without iniquity, according to that saying: "He exulted like a giant to run the way. His going out is from the height of heaven, and his return to its height."

He alone, then, running, went straight, who, having taken the lowliness of our weakness, went out from the heavens and returned to the heavens; who, carrying us back with him and about to offer us to God as a gift, prayed: "Arise to meet me and see, Lord God of hosts, God of Israel. Attend to visiting all the nations; have no mercy on all who work iniquity." He prays that the God of hosts arise to meet him to visit all the nations: for in him the nations have been raised together and seated at his right hand in the heavenly places. And it was fitting that his return be adorned by the honour of a heavenly meeting, so that the Father's favour should not be lacking when he was about to enter the heavens. Nor is this surprising, since God the Father came down, as it were in the forefront of heaven, to meet Stephen, the first martyr of his name. So he prays that all the nations be visited at his meeting, according to that saying: "For God did not send his Son into this world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him." For rejoicing angels and opened heavens honoured his descent into flesh and his birth from Mary. This prayer for a meeting, then, is not shameless, for to him, the firstborn from the dead, for the salvation of the nations, as is contained both in another psalm and in the apostolic testimony, the voice of the one who met him was this: "You are my Son, today I have begotten you." He entreats, then, this meaning of his being met for the nations to be visited in him, yet without passing over the severity of judgment, since mercy is turned away from all who work iniquity: all the nations visited in him because he became flesh, but likewise all who do iniquity judged.

For with a diapsalma interposed he declares what was to await the ungodliness of the people. For soon followed both the desolation of the temple, the overthrow of the city, and the captivity of the people themselves. Indeed, even now they are forbidden entry into that same city by edict of the Roman emperor. And when they remember the holy of holies deserted, the prophecies silent, the sacrifices of propitiation lacking, and all the dignity of the Levitical ministry disfigured, turned back now and afflicted with hunger for the word of God and for saving food, they are accustomed to go around the city for consolation in their present miseries. For this follows: "They will return at evening and suffer hunger like dogs and go around the city." God announces the time of this hunger through another prophet too, when he says: "Behold, I will bring a hunger upon the land: not a hunger for bread, nor a thirst for water, but a hunger for the word, that the word of God be heard"; rebuking their shamelessness and madness by calling them dogs, according to that saying: "Free my only one from the mouth of the lion and from the hand of the dog." And they have this grief of their inner conscience when they groan over being scattered, captive, tributary, without temple, without priest, without kingdom; and this after they laid ungodly hands on the Lord of majesty and Saviour of the world.

But when they are convicted of the sin of crucifying the only-begotten God, they do not cease to be ungodly; and, inflamed with grief that the knowledge of God has been transferred to the Gentiles, they still rage with mouth and words. For there follows: "Behold, they will speak with their mouth, and a sword is on their lips."

But this ungodliness of disparaging and attacking is condemned by the divine word not only in them but also in the nations that refuse to hear, thus: "For who has heard? And you, Lord, will laugh at them; you will count all the nations as nothing." When no one hears, they are laughed at by God; for where "who?" is said, either a rare person or none is signified: none, according to that saying, "Who is like you among the gods, Lord?"; rare, when it is said, "Who will give out of Sion the salvation of Israel?" They are laughed at, then, who do not hear and in whose mouth and lips there is a sword; because God who dwells in the heavens will mock the kings and rulers gathered against God and his Christ. He will also spurn all the nations that were visited and did not obey; because, although from them there is some portion, however small, of believers, yet the whole is reckoned by the majority, according to the Lord's saying: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" Not that it will not be found in some, to whom it will be said, "Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world"; but since the faithful from all nations are few, it is not brought about by the few that all nations are not unbelieving. And the chief reason the nations are to be laughed at is that, while the folly of worldly prudence reproaches him as crucified, dead, and buried, not understanding the mystery of great godliness, they do not believe that the Son of God rose from the dead and is the Lord of majesty.

But he, having power to lay down his soul and to take it up again, because he received this command from the Father, added after the nations were laughed at and spurned: "I will keep my strength for you, for God is my upholder: my God, his mercy will go before me; my God has shown me among my enemies." He will keep his strength for God, that is, his soul, which he laid down to take up again; for no one will take it from him, since God is his strength and his refuge, into whose hands he commended his spirit. His mercy will go before him, so that he is understood to be Son of God even before the resurrection: when, as he dies, the sun is darkened and light perishes; when, as he hangs on the cross, the earth trembles; when, as he descends to the underworld, the underworld does not hold his saints; when, as he gives up his spirit, the veil of the temple is torn, as though the spiritual guard were breaking out from there; when finally the centurion cries out, "Truly this was the Son of God." Having kept his strength for God, then, because the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it, and his mercy going before him, he showed him among his enemies that he was his upholder, since this was made plain even by the confession of an enemy: the centurion proclaims that he truly is the Son of God. And these things were then known so.

But according to that saying, "And they will look on him whom they pierced," God will show also in the future, among his enemies, that he is his upholder, since, according to the apostle, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, what remains of Israel will be saved, so that what is written may be fulfilled: "The deliverer will come from Sion and will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them, when I take away their ungodliness." To signify this mercy and hope laid up, then, he added: "Do not kill them, lest at some time they forget your law; scatter them in your power and destroy them, Lord my protector: the sins of their mouth, the word of their lips; and let them be caught in their pride, and from cursing and lying they will be torn away in the consummation; in the anger of the consummation they will not be, and they will know that God rules Jacob and the ends of the earth." Enemies indeed for our sake, but beloved for the sake of the fathers; what remains of them is reserved for mercy. Scattered meanwhile among almost all nations, yet by the holiness of their lump and their root they will be freed. They will be destroyed, then, according to the prophecy, not killed but scattered; and destroyed in the sins of their mouth and the word of their lips, when the deliverer comes from Sion, of whom they cried "Crucify, crucify," and to whom they said, "We have Abraham as father," and again, "Who gave you this authority?" and "By what authority do you do these things?" In this pride, then, they will be caught, when they do not recognize that they inflicted these things on their Saviour; and, ungodliness having been turned away, they will be torn from cursing and lying, and this in the consummation, because when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then what remains of Israel will be saved. In the anger of the consummation they will not be, because he who comes from Sion will turn away their ungodliness; yet they will not cease to be, they who are to know and will know that the God of Jacob rules the ends of the earth: no longer known in the measuring line of the inheritance and in the portion of Jacob, but the God of Jacob, that is, he who was understood and seen as God in a man by Jacob, is ruler of the ends of the earth, of which he is also to be confessed creator.

But meanwhile the punishment of their desolation and dispersion awaits them. For although this dispensation of mercy is reserved for the consummation of the times for the sake of the fathers and the elect, yet with a diapsalma interposed it is shown, by a repeated meaning, what has been appointed for them meanwhile. For there follows: "And they will return at evening and suffer hunger like dogs and go around the city. They will be scattered to eat; and if they are not filled, they will also murmur." The city lost and the temple deserted, and, according to the edicts of the Roman emperor, going only around the city and not entering it, hunger will afflict them, not for this bread and food, but for the offerings, sacrifices, and visions with which they used to be filled, barking with the shamelessness of dogs against their guardian. And they will be scattered to eat: because in different places they imitate the appearance of that lawful priesthood, of burnt offering and circumcision, although these were established as lawful only within Jerusalem. But scattered to eat, they are not filled. For they will be satisfied only by the solemnities that are holy and pleasing to God and religious by the constitution of that place and temple. But they will murmur still, not tamed even by this hunger for their festivals, so as to come to their senses in the quiet of repentance, as after the murmuring with which they provoked God in the desert.

But amid these things he concludes all his hopes and thanksgivings at the end of the psalm, saying: "But I will sing to your strength; I will exalt your mercy in the morning, for you have become my upholder and my refuge in the day of my tribulation. My helper, to you I will sing psalms, for God is my upholder, my God my mercy." All these can be referred to the prophet's thanksgiving; but neither are they different from the Lord's confession. For this dispersion of theirs followed the ungodliness of the passion. But that he will exult in the morning in the mercy of God, because he has become his upholder and refuge, seems to be referred to the time of the resurrection; because, although the praise of God is to be sung by the prophet at every time, yet the exultation of morning thanksgiving belongs properly to him who rose from the dead at dawn and was to return to the heavens, our Lord, the witness, Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

Many things are set in the psalm before the events, which must be placed before the deeds to signify some understanding: since the heading includes "for the end," "for those who will be changed," "inscription of a title," and "for the teaching of David." After these the time of the events is added: "When he burned Mesopotamia and Syria Sobal, and Joab returned and struck the valley of Salt, twelve thousand." In this the whole psalm disagrees with the history. For when he struck Sobal together with Mesopotamia and Syria, which were stirred up, kindled, and taken by him for war, immense joy of thanksgiving followed the victory of this very great war. But the whole psalm is sad and sorrowful, since there is grief over a people rejected and pulled down, complaint over the earth shaken and troubled, and prayer for the healing of its brokenness. Further, what is mentioned of the valley of Salt is neither in the history nor in the understanding of some translators. For according to Aquila, who was the translator of the law for the Jews after the Lord's passion, it is written thus: "when he struck the valleys." But he, writing according to the letter and remaining outside spiritual understanding, gave the place of the battle. That translation of the seventy elders, however, both lawful and spiritual, undertaken before the Lord's passion and deeds, here too, as in all the psalms, makes the cause and sense plain through the forms of names and natures, showing in the record of events not the subject of the psalm but its time: so that it is known to have been written not because of what is contained in the events, but at the time when they took place.

But before we speak of the time of the prophecy, since it greatly helps the understanding of the psalm to know when it was written, let us treat the heading, which is to be understood as referring to the end and "to those who will be changed": those, namely, who, ceasing from ungodliness and vices, will be transferred to religion and innocence and will be changed from the sins of the synagogue to the grace of the church; as we showed in the psalm that was first written "for those who will be changed," when it is said: "Hear, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house, for the king has desired your beauty"; and again in the same: "In place of your fathers sons have been born to you; you will make them princes over all the earth." So, a change of sons having been made in place of fathers, she forgets her father's house, the queen about to please God the king more, by whose death she is renewed to life. And therefore the inscription of a title is added "for those who will be changed," the inscription of the title bearing witness to the glory of the death of him who died for all, and bearing witness "for the teaching of David," so that we may all know him as David, who is both the dayspring and the just one and the eternal king; who destroyed the powers hostile and dangerous to us together with their leader, all those being extinguished who used to kindle the wars of vices against us: not in the valley of lamentation, nor in the valley of tabernacles, but in the valley of salt; for the Greek expresses this rather than "salt pits," since this valley of the world now displays from itself not tearful dwellings nor lamentable tabernacles but rather salt, namely those and their like to whom it was said, "You are the salt of the earth," in whom above all that ancient enemy who burned us has been extinguished. For those, then, who are to be changed at the end and to be taught about David under the testimony and inscription of the title, this psalm is written, and at no other time than when the prophet Nathan announced a king of the eternal throne from the seed of David. For at that time the things recorded in the events were accomplished, at which the prophecy of the eternal king was shown. The psalm, then, is to be understood as for those who will be changed, who are to be taught about David the eternal king, and who in place of lost fathers will by the change already be sons. For it began thus:

"God, you have rejected us and destroyed us; you have been angry and have had mercy on us. You have shaken the earth and troubled it; heal its breaches, for it has been moved. You have shown your people hard things; you have given us to drink the wine of compunction. You have given those who fear you a sign, that they may flee from the face of the bow." According to the common sense of the world, anger and mercy do not agree, nor will both these feelings agree in the same person toward the same people, so that the will to mercy is mixed with the will to vengeance. This befits only fathers who are piously angry, that their anger at the sins of their sons is merciful; as also in that saying of blessed Paul, when he hands someone over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, showing that the severity of present punishment serves the salvation of the spirit. That eternal and heavenly Father of all, then, who also said, "I will kill and I will heal," so rejects and destroys his own as to have mercy while angry. For he destroyed the temple of Jerusalem but gave the saints the heavenly city; he rejected them from the works of the law but bestowed the justification of faith, justifying the ungodly by faith; he dissolved the earthly kingdom but established kings of the heavens. So mercy followed anger, since an immense recompense of eternal goods makes up for the loss of present earthly things.

And these things are adapted no more to Israel than to the whole human race; for from one the sentence of death and the toil of life went out to all, when it was said, "Cursed is the earth in your works"; but now through one the gift of life and the grace of justification has abounded to all, so that those whose earth was cursed now have bodies conformed to God; and the earth that was shaken by fear, troubled by ignorance, broken by toil, and pricked by the very drinking of gladdening wine, now, by the secure power of the sign it has received, flees the power of the coming anger. For in the bow, as we have often discussed, the terror of the anger prepared for punishment of the ungodly is shown, according to the saying: "Will he be angry every day? He has bent his bow and made it ready, and on it he has prepared the instruments of death; he has made his arrows for those who will burn." To those who fear him, then, he has given a sign: of the seal on foreheads, or of faith in hearts, or of testimony in works, or of glory in confessions, or of victory in martyrs; so that one may flee from the face of the bow and of anger, as it was said, "Brood of vipers, who showed you to flee from the coming anger?" This, then, is the voice of the human race giving thanks after the reign of death, after the terrors of the devil, after the burdens of toil and sins, after the pain of unhappy gladness; for the joys of vices, when they are understood, prick the heart. For according to the apostle, in wine is debauchery. And as there is a wine that gladdens the heart of man, so there is also a wine that pricks the heart of man. For there is a cup of anger, just as there is a cup of life.

After these things, then, and after this wine of compunction, the sign of fleeing the bow and anger having been granted, the whole body of the faithful exults in eternal hopes. For this the diapsalma that soon intervenes declares: "That your beloved may be freed, save with your right hand and hear me." The right hand of the Lord has done mightily, and the power of God, raised at God's right hand, has sat down with him in the flesh of our lowliness. When the sign of fleeing from the face of the bow has been given, then, the beloved are freed and saved through God's right hand. And from what face of the bow they are freed and saved, the apostle taught, saying: "Who has freed us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love." The beloved, then, are to be freed and saved through the right hand of God.

But for the firmness of faith the prophecy of this salvation must be known. For there follows: "God has spoken in his holy one: I will rejoice and divide Sicima and measure out the valley of tabernacles. Galaad is mine and Manasses is mine, and Ephraim is the strength of my head, Judah my king, Moab the pot of my hope. Into Idumea I will stretch out my shoe; the foreigners are subject to me." God has spoken in the holy one, namely in him to whom even demons cry out, "We know that you are the holy one of God," and of whom the angel announces, "And the holy one that will be born of you will be called the Son of God." In this holy one, then, he spoke, when he says: "The Father who speaks in me does his works himself." God, then, having spoken in the holy one, exults at the beginning of the discourse. For he will exult like a giant to run his way; he will exult in dividing Sicima. Sicima is Samaria, which is also Sichem, which Jacob assigned to his son Joseph under the blessing of the Spirit. Having remained in ungodliness through all the earlier times of the law, it received the Lord's gospel in part; for even today part of it is held by most irreligious pursuits from its old devotion: for there heifers were worshipped, there a mountain was chosen and the sanctuary abandoned, there a kingdom was raised against Judah. But the Lord, coming there first, brought faith even when the Samaritan woman believed and asked for a drink of living water; and soon, when the apostles preached, they became sharers in the Holy Spirit. Sicima was divided, then, when the faithful are separated from the unfaithful. And this division belongs to the future judgment, as it is written: "The lord of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect and at an hour he does not know, and will divide him and set his portion with the hypocrites." Samaria was divided, then, either by judgment or by faith, according to the saying: "I came not to send peace on the earth, but division."

And God, speaking in the holy one, not only divided Sicima but also measured out the valley of tabernacles, that sunken and lowly seat of human dwelling, which in another place, because of the sicknesses of life and the laments of calamities, he calls the valley of lamentation, saying: "They placed in the valley of weeping." He measured it out, then, because the fullness of the Gentiles is awaited. And where there will be a measure of believers, there is the testing of measurement, one part to be gathered within the church, another part remaining in the same valley.

Whoever measures things must measure what is his own. For Galaad is his and Manasses is his. That mountain is near Phoenicia and borders Arabia and Mesopotamia, assigned in part as Manasseh's possession; and therefore Manasses too is his, showing under the name of Manasses the fullness of the earth, as under Galaad the whole world, to be his. But in claiming these nothing is shown except the right of ownership.

Ephraim is the taking up of his head and Judah is his king. The holy one says these things, God speaking in him, who also through Jacob blessed Ephraim with a crossing of his sanctifying hands, and showed him Judah as king, who was to be the expectation of the nations. The taking up, then, is of Ephraim, not also of Manasseh, though both are sons of Joseph. But since the head also contains the meaning of the body, according to that saying, "He will drink from the brook on the way; therefore he will lift up his head," and every holy one is the head of the body of Christ, therefore Ephraim is the taking up of his head, because, against the order of birth, to show beforehand the sanctification of the church, the younger was preferred to the elder in Ephraim set first and Manasseh set after. So Ephraim is the taking up of his head, that is, of the people whom he prefigured in Ephraim; or rather, the church is taken up into the body.

"Judah also is my king," that is, arranged and chosen by him. Judah is certainly not king to David himself, since he himself is the first king from Judah; nor is he king to God speaking in his holy one; but this holy one in whom God speaks is to be understood as saying these things, he who also filled Jacob with the Spirit for the prophecy of this eternal king, when he said: "A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until the seed comes for whom it is laid up, and he is the expectation of the nations."

And since this holy one of God was to take up flesh not only from this lineage of saints but also from an origin of sinners, because God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, therefore Moab too is the pot of his hope. This lineage of Moab, according to the sentence in Genesis, received the disgrace of divine curse. But after ten generations, through the steps of succession, it becomes worthy of the holy lineage; and this holy one, taking his origin from Judah and from Moab, the rawness of the flesh boiled away as in a pot, is signified as the appearance of eternal food, since his flesh is truly the food of life. There is also a pot, according to Jeremiah, burning and taking away sins; just as the Lord himself came to send fire on the earth, and many, according to the apostle, will be saved as through fire, when, their vices refined and burned off, they are judged approved like silver tried by fire. Hence Moab is the pot of his hope, to whom even from Moab, though raw and faulty, that heavenly sanctification of the flesh for the food of life is now in hope.

Indeed, he says he will stretch out his shoe even into Idumea, that is, even to the failing of Esau; because Idumea, which is the seat of Esau, would direct the steps of the apostolic preaching. For beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news; and the feet are in the shoe, and in the feet the step is shown. And he will stretch the course of preaching not only into Idumea, but also the foreigners are subject, according to the saying: "Hear, God, the prayer; to you all flesh will come"; because it is worthy of God that all nations be subject to him and that all flesh be taught to confess this eternal mercy.

But having learned of those who will be changed, according to the inscription of the title, and having received the teaching of him who is the eternal David, the prophet hastens to enter that eternal Jerusalem of the firstborn in the heavens and the city of the saints who stand around God, awaiting a leader to lead him there. For there follows: "Who will lead me into the city of encirclement? Who will lead me even to Idumea? Will it not be you, God, who rejected us, and will you not go out, God, with our forces?" Esau is failing, and Edom according to Genesis is "one who fails"; and according to the apostle what remains of Israel is to be saved. The prophet, then, wishing to be led into the city of encirclement, knows that he will first come even to Idumea, that is, to that failing of the earlier people by which the elder will serve the younger. And the last preaching will turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, when the one coming from Sion takes away sins and ungodliness from Jacob. But the same one will lead who before destroyed and rejected them for ungodliness, who, when Jerusalem was taken and the kingdom abandoned, deserted them as unworthy and spurned, though he used to cherish them before with spiritual help and protect them with heavenly hosts against the wars of enemies. But now, since the guard of the Holy Spirit has deserted them, there is no help in their forces, that is, in the hosts of divine defence. And therefore, because he destroyed them, he will not go out with their forces.

But the prophet did not keep silent about the mercy of the hope laid up, since he will save what remains of Israel, saying: "Give us help from tribulation, for vain is the salvation of man. In God we shall do mightily, and he will bring to nothing those who afflict us." He knows that the salvation hoped for from men is vain, because there is no use of this life without God's mercy, according to the saying, "Your mercy is better than life"; because unless life is undertaken for the advance of eternity, it will be in us rather the origin of miseries than of life. So he hopes for help from God in tribulations, because the salvation of men is vain. He asks, then, for help from tribulation, about to do mightily in God when help is granted: when, all freed from the law of sin, we remain rather in the justification of God; when we carry on the fight not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness and the powers of the world, God himself killing Satan with the breath of his mouth; when he who afflicted us before, sin, no longer reigns in our immortal body; when death is swallowed up by life in the contest of victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The psalm is simple, containing the prophecy of eternal thanksgiving. For the heading includes neither events nor names with any significance: it is only "a hymn for the end," so that what was sung by the prophet is known to be explained at the end either of the psalm or of the times. It is the prayer of a righteous man who hopes for eternal things and gives thanks that he has been raised together with Christ in the heavenly places. For it began thus:

"Hear, God, my prayer; attend to my supplication. From the ends of the earth I have cried to you, while my heart was in anguish." This holy one asks that his prayer be heard, and he has the confidence to wish that attention be paid to his prayer, whether it is innocent, chaste, and faithful, and comes from the inmost fear of conscience and heart; because, according to the apostle, one must both believe with the heart and confess with the mouth for salvation. And the reason for praying that his prayer be attended to is that, while in anguish of heart, he has cried from the ends of the earth. He who cried from the ends of the earth with anguished heart was not living in the remotest solitudes or by the Ocean; but knowing that, living in the flesh, which is earth, he already dwells at the end of the flesh, since according to Paul, while dwelling in the body, he is away from the body, since, living, he no longer lives for himself, nor does he himself live, but Christ lives in him; groaning nevertheless in this dwelling of his and hastening to be clothed over; and therefore he cries with anguished heart from the ends of the earth, because he both has the necessity of living in the flesh and holds the hope of ceasing from the vices of the flesh, saying:

"On a rock you have lifted me up; you have led me; for you have become my hope, a tower of strength from the face of the enemy. I will dwell in your tabernacle for ever." Hence, then, the holy one cries already from the ends of the earth, because he has been lifted up on a rock. And the rock, according to the apostle, is Christ, whom God exalted and gave the name that is above every name, in whom also he chose us before the foundation of the world in the heavenly places. For through him we have been led into the hope of eternity, and in this hope we are not put to shame, because this same hope has become for us a tower of strength against the face of the enemy. For though there is strong and firm fortification in walls, all the firmness of the walls themselves is in the towers. And therefore God, lifting us up on the rock, has become a tower of strength, because through this hope we withstand the force of the devil and his snares, enclosed by the fortification of faith, most safe against him and his spiritual wickedness: since we shall dwell in the tabernacle of God for ever, remaining, that is, without any measure of age, for ages and times flowing on for eternity.

But since these things, though already laid up in hope for the saints, are still deferred under the dispensation of times, with a diapsalma interposed he shows by what fortification he is safe meanwhile, saying: "I shall be protected in the covering of your wings, for you, God, have heard my prayer." The divine word signifies the protection of God's mercy under the covering of his wings; since this was treated in earlier passages, further discussion would now be superfluous and idle. But the merit of protection has been granted from the faith of prayer, according to the saying: "Ask, and it will be given you."

Indeed, he showed for what hope he was to be shaded by the protection of God's wings, saying: "You have given an inheritance to those who fear your name. You will add days upon days of the king, his years to the day of generation and generation. He remains for ever in the sight of God." For this is the inheritance of the holy one: life, incorruption, the kingdom, and a dwelling co-eternal with God. This inheritance was written not for Israel alone but for those who fear God's name. For the days are of the eternal king: whether because the saints, who will not be slaves of sin, are kings, according to the apostle's saying, "Already you have reigned without us, and would that you did reign, that we also might reign with you"; or because the prophet himself is also a king; or because he who sits at the right hand in the eternal kingdom must reign until he puts his enemies under his feet; not that he himself is then not king, but when he has handed over the kingdom to God the Father, he will reign together with those who are kings. From which this reasoning seems to me to have been kept now: that his years were added over the days of days up to the days of generation and generation, but that he remains for ever in the sight of God; so that the time in which he must reign, until he puts his enemies under his feet, is included from generation to generation, because the generation from the dead, the generation of spiritual birth, will follow this generation; while the exception of his eternity is proclaimed, since he is for ever in the sight of God. And he is himself the firstborn from the dead. The Lord mentions this regeneration to the apostles thus: "Truly I say to you that you who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of his majesty, you too will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." He shows, then, the time of this generation, and up to it the years of the king are increased over the days of days. But he himself will remain eternal in the sight of God, having already taken up all whom he redeemed as kings of the heavens and co-heirs of eternity, handing them over as the kingdom to God the Father.

And since they have been made fellow sharers, fellow members of the body, and conformed to him, neither corruption nor death now ruling in them, since they are filled with all the fullness of God, the spirit of prophecy added: "Who of them will seek his mercy and truth?" These generations which he regenerated in himself from the dead to life, and which remained in the hope of the glory of God, will no longer be needy of his mercy and truth, when, handed over as the kingdom to God the Father, they are received as kings, his mercy and truth having been completed in all, through whom they give thanks that they have been redeemed to life, and all have access to the Father. After this, nothing of mercy and truth is to be sought from the Lord, since they are filled with the fullness of God. Similar to this prophetic saying is what the Lord spoke to the apostles: "Now you have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask me nothing"; because no one will take joy from them any more.

In this hope of eternity, then, the prophet strengthens himself, saying: "So I will sing psalms to your name, God, for age upon age, that I may render my vows day by day." He will sing psalms for age upon age and render vows day by day, enclosed by no end of times, about to render the joys of eternal vows in eternal hymns, when, every weakness of earthly bodies being released, he lives the heavenly life of angels, rendering vows day by day, according to the saying: "I will render my vows to the Lord in the courts of the Lord's house, in the sight of all his people, in your midst, Jerusalem," the heavenly mother, the free one, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

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.

The heading of the psalm contains no history. It is simple and issued by the prophetic Spirit; only by being headed "for the end" does it testify that it contains things not of its own time in which it was written. But we must ask in whose person it is spoken, or how it declares itself to be understood; for without doubt it is to be thought spiritual. For since those very psalms which, according to the inscriptions of their titles, are believed to contain events, in very many points disagree with the proper sense of their title, things, and persons, and rather signify the effects of spiritual workings through the mention of names and events, what is to be understood of one in which there is only the simple inscription of the psalm, "for the end," to be understood, except that in it a form of spiritual teaching has been set?

I remember that there are many who think that everything written in the book of Psalms is to be referred to the person of our Lord, the only-begotten Son of God, and that nothing else is contained in them than what is proper to him. This opinion of theirs cannot be blamed. For this whole sense comes from the feeling of a devout mind, and it is free of fault to fit everything with eager zeal to him through whom all things are. For although this is sometimes done unskilfully, yet since everything is referred to him, what is proper to him must be proclaimed truly and faithfully. But we must take care that, while we think everything applies equally to him, through the zealous intent of this assertion very much is not taken away from the dignity of his divinity, the mystery of his taking a body, the power of his works, the force of his passion, and the glory of his resurrection.

A measure must be kept, then, and it must be determined carefully and cautiously what was prophesied of the birth of his divinity, which is his from the Father; when the person of the man he assumed is being treated; where his working, passion, and resurrection are proclaimed; and what suits each time: when the faith of the nations is announced, when the sins of the former people are rebuked, when teaching of the fear of God and instruction in confession are given through the prophet's prayer. For in these the spiritual order of prophecy consists. And if the Lord is proclaimed, the advance of this knowledge is useful for faith. If we are taught to fear and confess him, we are formed for the Lord, we advance, we are gained, so that, as redeemed through his passion, we may likewise please him through the instructions of his teaching.

I understand that there are some things in the present psalm that may seem fitting to the man whom the Lord assumed, where it is said: "They searched out iniquities; those who searched failed in their searching." For perhaps it will be thought that the conspiracy of the Jews is signified in it, when testimonies by which he could be convicted were sought and not found, and all the wits of the searchers failed; then that they were wounded by the arrows of little ones, that is, by the teachings of the apostles, against whom they found no cause for just persecution, and so their tongues failed against them. We do not pass over these things as improbable; but there are some other things in the psalm that hinder the order of this understanding. Yet the discourse of our exposition will not differ far from these.

For we think that the present psalm contains the confession not only of the apostles, who were the first, but of every saint who hopes in the Lord. For we have been placed amid the greatest storms of the world and the most grievous ungodliness of the human race toward God; our faithful and true confession of him is now mocked by philosophy, now attacked by the fury of heretics, now condemned by the pursuits of avarice, now disturbed by the favour of ambition. For hiding from, enduring, avoiding, and refuting all of these, our mind is not sufficient unless instructed by God. With how many and how troublesome stings of disputations does philosophy attack God's providence and his principal and beginningless dominion in the world created by him, granting the name of God now to waters, now to the earth, now to atoms, now to the sky! With what ingenious use of cunning does the heretic falsify the teaching of the faith! With how great danger to his hearers does the avaricious man assert the glory of riches! With how great a ruin of self-control does the advocate of bodily pleasures pursue their joys! And how pestilent is the eloquence of the ambitious in urging toward honour! Against all these, watchful care, all-night prayer, and eternal confession toward God will fight. Because of these destructions of our faith and eternal salvation, then, the prophet will be understood to pray in the psalm in his own person, showing how far it befits us to hope in God.

For he says: "Hear, God, my prayer, when I am afflicted; rescue my soul from fear of the enemy." When the things we mentioned above rush upon us, through which our faith and hope are endangered, let prayer be directed to him who alone can heal them. For there is fear that the surge of enticements creeping in from every side may swallow up the soul, weak by nature and by fellowship with the flesh. For they are present daily and fight with deceitful flatteries, bringing up certain engines of destruction. So we are warned by the teaching of heavenly instruction to give watchful care to faith and always to fear the enemy lying in wait, lest he, placed on the watchtowers, attack our careless security. We must watch, then, in prayer to God and always pray, so that, when the soul begins to be wearied and afflicted by the stings of creeping enticements, God, always prayed to, may hear and rescue us from what we fear. For he says: "Rescue my soul from fear of the enemy." For God is to be prayed to not only when what is feared has rushed upon us (and those things are to be feared which, once they begin to be present, dominate), but always and with tireless prayers, that he may rescue us from fear of those whose domination we fear. For it is written in Proverbs: "When I called, you did not hear; and when I stretched out my words, you did not attend; but you made my counsels void and did not attend to my counsels. And I will laugh at your destruction. It will be, then, that when you call upon me, I will not hear." The prophet, then, though earlier in time, is not ignorant of what would be said later, but, anxious at tribulations always impending and concerned at every fear of the enemy, he prays to God because of what he fears, and entreats that he be with him in tribulation and hear him. For not our fear but our faith merits God's mercy; and there is need of the proof of long preparation for us to deserve to be heard. The prophet, then, remembers that he is freed from all these by prayer, and teaches that his prayer comes not from the domination of what he fears but from fear of domination.

For he says: "You have protected me from the gathering of the wicked, from the multitude of those who work iniquity, who have sharpened their tongues like a sword, they have bent the bow, a bitter thing, to shoot in the dark at the spotless one." The prophet here does not fear weapons of war, nor sword, darts, or the engines of the bow. All his fear is of the tongue; its swords, its spears he fears. From these indeed he is safe by his faith, for he says, "You have protected me from the gathering of the wicked"; but the bow of the murderous tongue is always bent and the edge of the sword is ready in its tongue. Its deadly arrows fly, and there is no doubt what they accomplish: "to shoot in the dark at the spotless one." And the proper sense of the word must be understood. They shoot not at the holy, not at the faithful, not at the just, but at the spotless: the one whose filth and stains of old crimes have been newly washed away through the mystery of baptism, but who is not yet firm in faith, not yet instructed in spiritual teachings, not yet fighting against these weapons of the combative tongue, but simple and tender from the infancy of the new birth. Him, then, without fear of any contradiction, their bow long since bent, they will wound, placed in the dark through ignorance of things. For he says: "Suddenly they will shoot him and will not fear": the simple nature, inexperienced in the newness of the spotless one. This they deceive; for this they stretch hidden snares, boasting in the secret lurking places of their plots.

For there follows: "They have strengthened for themselves an evil word; they have discussed how to hide snares; they have said: Who will see them?" A distinction of time is made between inflicting the wound and the counsel strengthened. For when it is said, "Suddenly they will shoot," the work of future time is taught; but when, "They have strengthened an evil word," the counsel of a will long since strengthened is shown from the past. For destructions against the faith are always ready, and the tricks of pestilent persuasion lie in hidden and deceitful snares, which they think are seen by very few. And therefore it is said: "They hid snares and said: Who will see them?" For if a heretic attempts to pervert the faith, it is incredible with how many tricks he strives to overthrow it; if a philosopher attacks the hope of our eternity, he will marvellously place every good of the present life in the body: both of them searching out, with all the eagerness of their wit, the things by which the institution of heavenly teaching might be undermined.

But what is human perversity against God? What is the craftsman's work's wit against the craftsman? Let them seek the destruction of truth with all the little questions of their argumentation; yet the assertion of falsehood will fail in the destruction of truth; and therefore there follows: "They searched out iniquities; those who searched failed in their searching." The failing of the searchers shows the failing of a superfluous persuasion against God. For what wits will not totter that are bent on contradicting the truth? Let them pry into all the secrets of natural causes and with the obstinate vigour of their studies search the inner workings of the heavenly motions themselves; yet in the very effort of their work they will fail, refuted by spiritual teachings. Those who teach that everything is driven by chance motions will hear from us that the God of eternal power does not abide in chance things but is the creator of the world, unlimited in essence as in power; that he is from no one, but all things from him; that he governs and holds together all these very things. He who proclaims the death of the soul with the body will hear that the soul is not earthly, but arisen from the breath of God and mixed with the elements of the body; and that death is not destruction but its departure from the body. He who denies the resurrection of the flesh will know that its restoration will not be difficult for him to whom its first beginning was easy. Further, he who takes from God the care of human conduct will learn that God is the judge of the eternal kingdom; and that man was created not only to exist (for what use was it to God that man exist?) but, brought forth for the knowledge of God, to hope for advancement for himself from the knowledge of his maker.

Now if the heretic would destroy the faith, he will learn that the Son of God always was, separated from the Father by no interval of time; that he is the Word, the power, the wisdom of God; that he was the maker of the world, he also the founder of man; that he washed away the first crimes of the world by the flood; he gave the law to Moses; he was in the prophets and through them sang those great mysteries of his taking a body and his passion; that, rising in the body, he brought the brightness of spiritual glory into perishable flesh and swallowed up the beginnings of earthly corruption into the nature of his divinity.

Those who search, then, will fail against these things; and through a man instructed in the teaching of God and raising the humility of his heart on high, these proclamations of divine working will be brought forward, so that this pre-eminence of God is praised by the confession of those very ones who hear them. And therefore there follows thus: "They searched out iniquities; those who searched failed in their searching. Man will draw near, and a deep heart, and God will be exalted." For when the failing of the searchers is known and a man of deep heart draws near, the greatness of divine goodness is recognized. And how great will be the advance of spiritual teaching! For who will not magnify God, knowing him as the founder of this world? Who will not fear one he knows as judge? Who will not wish to be reborn into innocence, when forgiveness of sin is granted by the mystery of the new birth? Who, now reborn, would not cease from sin and wish to remain in the innocence of a little child, knowing that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such? This profession of ours weakens the wits of the searchers; these spears of our teaching, which are the arrows of little ones through the beginning of the reborn, wound foolish disputations and ridiculous doctrines about God. The contradiction of a profane tongue cannot oppose these; against the faith of all our discussions and exhortations there is the trembling of those who refuse and the fear of those who hear.

For when the works of God have been announced, then his deeds will begin to be understood, then the righteous will rejoice in them, then all the upright in heart will praise him. And the psalm teaches this very thing thus: "Man will draw near, and a deep heart, and God will be exalted. The arrows of little ones have become their wounds, and their tongues had nothing against them. All who saw them were troubled, and every man feared. And they announced the works of God and understood his deeds. The righteous will rejoice in the Lord and hope in him, and all the upright in heart will be praised." Against the wounding arrows of the little ones the tongue of the adversaries had nothing to say. And those who saw the little ones shooting are troubled and afraid, when they recognize that they are in error, when they acknowledge the day of judgment and the recompense of life lived in the body, when they hear the works of God and understand his deeds. In these is the joy of the saints, in these their firmest hope. For these things those who are upright in heart praise God, knowing that he is the forgiver of sins, the destroyer of death and the conqueror of the devil, the judge of the world, the giver of eternity, our God and Lord, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

Fittingly this psalm, which lies beneath, has followed the preceding one. It too is "for the end" and announces the gathering of the nations who will praise the Lord; and it too will confirm this interpretation of ours.

At its opening, according to his custom, the prophet raises his whole prayer to God. For every action and word of ours must be begun with the confession of God. But the prophet, knowing that many, according to the diversity of their pursuits, linger in superfluous things, requires of us the special and proper honour of God, saying: "A hymn befits you, God, in Sion." Sion is indeed a mountain next to Jerusalem; but we have always taken this mountain and its name, and also the church of the city itself, which is the body of Christ, as so named, since the Lord says in the psalms: "But I have been established as king by him over Sion, his holy mountain." And so that we should not think him established in the kingdom of this hill, it is said in the prophets and also in the Gospels: "Rejoice greatly, daughter of Sion; proclaim, daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your king comes to you." And the apostle: "But the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother." This hymn, then, befits God, which is innocent in the spiritual song of the church in Sion and sweet with the praises of God.

He condemns all kinds of superstitions that are outside the religion of God. For there are many placed in the deepest pit of error who commend the perversity of their teaching by a kind of excellence of empty labour. For we see philosophers shivering with naked bodies; the magi abstain even from the use of marriage; heretics live on a dry food of bread. But what, in the end, is the advance of this idle purpose? All this is empty and ridiculous and, together with the very causes of superstition, pitiable. To God, then, are to be vowed contempt of the body, the keeping of chastity, the endurance of fasting. And therefore he says: "And to you a vow will be paid in Jerusalem." For only the vows of the church's religion are useful. When these are approved both by songs worthy of God and by zeal for the observance set before us in the church, then we shall be worthy that the Holy Spirit should intercede with God for us; for he speaks and teaches through the prophet. And according to the apostle he intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; and therefore it is said here thus: "Hear the prayer"; for "my" does not follow, so that the person of the speaker could be understood. For although many have added it, as if it were lacking, it does not stand in the authentic copies. For the prophet speaks these things not by his own sense but inspired: "Hear the prayer."

It follows that he shows whose prayer is to be heard, and he does not long delay our expectation; for he added: "All flesh will come to you." Scripture designates the whole human race under the name of flesh, as in the law: "And God said, My Spirit will not remain in these men, because they are flesh"; and in the same: "For all flesh had corrupted its way"; and the Lord in the prophet: "And I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh"; and in the Gospel: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt in us." God, then, will hear the prayer of this human race, which was held by the empty teachings of unhappy superstitions, since pagan precepts imbued all of them with the pursuit of ungodliness, proclaiming God in wood, stones, and metals and placing the maker of the world and the parent of our soul within lifeless matter. The nations confess this error, that the eloquence of philosophy held them in error, knowing at last that their old faults and the crimes of their ancient ungodliness must be propitiated to God through Christ. For according to the apostle he is our propitiation; for he says: "Whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood"; and again: "He is the propitiation for our sins." All flesh, then, will come to him, saying: "The words of the wicked have prevailed over us, and you will be propitious to our ungodliness."

But what, in the end, is the effect of propitiation? Or what will it profit to have left pagan error and spurned ungodly teaching? He did not hide this, saying: "Blessed is he whom you have chosen and taken up, to dwell in your tabernacles." All flesh will come, that is, we are gathered from every race of men; but blessed is whoever has been chosen. For according to the Gospel many are called, but few chosen. And the chosen are those conspicuous in the wedding garment, shining with the pure and whole body of the new birth. So election is not a matter of indiscriminate judgment, but a discrimination made by the choice of merit. Blessed, then, is he whom God has chosen: blessed for this, that he is worthy of election. We ought to know for what this blessed one has been chosen: namely for what follows: "He will dwell in your tabernacles." All perfection of goods is the rest of a heavenly dwelling. The Lord testifies that there are many mansions in heaven, but he prays the Father that the apostles may remain where he himself is, saying: "Father, I will that those whom you have given me may be with me where I am." Of the many mansions, then, he shares with his apostles the one that is his own. The prophet knows how great a blessedness it is to be in the tabernacles of God, saying elsewhere: "My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord." But the hope of heavenly goods is not taken away if not all are chosen to dwell with God. For many mansions are prepared for the different dignity of their inhabitants. But though the dignity is different (for star differs from star in glory), yet all who are held worthy of dwellings, however varied, will obtain the fruit of faith and the honour of heavenly glory.

For after the blessedness of him who has been chosen to dwell in God's tabernacles, this follows: "We shall be filled with the good things of your house: your temple is holy, wonderful in equity." With these good things of the house they will be filled, then, because the blessed one will dwell in God's tabernacles. Meanwhile we can consider what the good things of the house are, namely the gifts of the church, which Christ has granted it in manifold fruit, since it too, according to the apostle, is the house of God: "That you may know," he says, "how one ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth." This house has fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. With these good things of God's house, then, the faith of believers will be filled, which meanwhile is adorned with the distribution of gifts, as it is written: "To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing, to another kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues." But there are also other full and perfect gifts of God's house, in no way to be judged by the natures of fleshly senses. The apostle, caught up to the third heaven, knows them and proclaims them, saying: "What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him." With these gifts of God's house, then, we shall be filled. And he teaches the merit for receiving these fruits, saying: "Your temple is holy, wonderful in equity." For the apostle teaches that all the bodies of believers are the temple of God, saying: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone corrupts the temple of God, God will corrupt him. For the temple of God is holy." This temple of God, then, is God's temple by holiness and righteousness, so that it is filled with the good things of God's house and is wonderful in works of equity and faith. It will also be ready to hand to understand as the house of God the very man assumed by the Son of God, since in him dwells all the fullness of the divinity, and the Father dwells in him by the property of nature; each person being filled with his good things, that is, of power, glory, and eternity, who has kept himself a temple holy to God and wonderful in equity. This, then, is the hope of all: that we be filled with the good things of God's house, that we be his holy and wonderful temple. Blessed indeed are those already chosen by God to dwell in his tabernacles; but it is fitting that we hasten into the fellowship of this blessedness, attaining it by works and prayers.

For this reason there follows thus: "Hear us, God our salvation, hope of all the ends of the earth and of those far off on the sea." This prayer does not suit the Jew. And although this book is of the law, the prophecy is not of one nation. For this hope is of all the ends of the earth; and wherever the temperate zone of this habitable world extends, Christ is in hope for all. Indeed, even the islands of the inner and outer sea rest in the power of this name. For he is the hope of all the ends of the earth and of those far off on the sea. But hope must not be presumed from emptiness, lest it be a presumption of uncertain things rather than an expectation of known ones.

So he teaches in what follows why the hope of all is in him, saying: "Preparing the mountains in your strength, girded with power, and troubling the depth of the sea, the sound of its waves." This saying does not pertain to the nature of earthly mountains; for they have been established, not prepared; and preparation is the beginning of a future work. Then the preparation of the mountains mentioned is in the girding of power and in strength; but the whole earth was ordered to stand forth from nothing, and that thing did not need a girding of power which depended on the ease of commanding. It is useful to know where mountains are mentioned in the Scriptures. For the prophet says: "Hear, all peoples, and let the earth and all who dwell in it attend. And the Lord God will be a witness for you, the Lord God from his holy house. For behold, the Lord will come down from his place and will come down upon the high places of the earth and crush the mountains beneath him, and the valleys will melt like wax before the fire. For the ungodliness of Jacob are all these things, and for the sins of the house of Israel." And again: "The earth was moved and trembled, and the foundations of the mountains were troubled and moved, because God was angry with them. Smoke went up from his anger, and fire will blaze from his face, and coals were kindled by him. And he bowed the heaven and came down, and darkness was under his feet." And in what follows: "He sent arrows and scattered them, and multiplied lightnings and troubled them." In these, as far as the reading teaches, the Holy Spirit through the prophet shows the Lord's descent from heaven, the fear of the earth, and the trembling of the mountains, because the Lord is angry with them, smoke having arisen from his anger and fire thereafter to be kindled from his sight. In the smoke that went up is a matter of past time; but in the fire to be kindled the meaning of the future is contained. Then, so that nothing should be thought said of a dull and immovable nature, arrows sent scatter these mountains and multiplied lightnings trouble them.

By this name of mountains, then, must be understood every towering power which, exalting and lifting itself up against God, has subjected itself to God's anger. God the Word, then, coming down, girding with power the man he had assumed, first pressed down these mountain peaks, that is, he crushed the stubborn pre-eminence of the devil and his followers, whom through this power of the first crushing he prepared for the punishment of eternal judgment. The prophet kept this same reasoning, saying: "Smoke went up from his anger, and fire will blaze from his sight." For the smoke of the fire that will burn envelops them meanwhile, and so in the present psalm it is written thus: "Preparing the mountains in your strength, girded with power." The girding of power is fitted to the body, which needed it. For power is not girded, but the man whom the Lord assumed is girded with power in the strength of God.

We must consider what follows the preparation of the mountains: "who troubles the depth of the sea, the sound of its waves." He troubles not the sea but the depth of the sea, nor its waves but the sound of the waves. The sea, as the word of prophecy teaches, is named for the world, as it says: "The Lord will bring a terrible and great sword upon the dragon, the crooked serpent, and will slay the dragon that is in the sea." And again: "This great and wide sea; there the dragon will rest, which you formed to mock him." Or more plainly that saying: "I came into the depth of the sea, and the storm sank me." The mountains, then, that is, all the hostile and towering powers, are prepared for the punishment of judgment, and the foundations of the sea are troubled. For the world rested in confidence in these hostile powers, and they lay hidden in the invisible depths of this world. And the sound of the waves is troubled with the depth of the sea. For when the devil is troubled, all the ministries of his terror are troubled; and the very sound of the opposing powers, at which the nations used to tremble, itself trembles. Let us remember the mutterings of soothsayers and the disordered roarings of bacchants, and how sometimes, with the sense of the hearers confused, some uncertain sound came from images of bronze, and finally the whole world resounding with the profane chant of ceremonies; but now, when the Lord Christ is preached, everything is silent, refuted, and afraid, when these gods of temples and nations are subjected to punishment by the power of the faithful, when they are tortured, torn, and burned by the words of believers, and natures invisible and incomprehensible to us are held, punished, and driven out by a word, when the soothsayers are silent, when the temples are mute. Through these things they are already being prepared for judgment. And what does this preparation achieve? It has achieved this: "The nations will be troubled and will fear": seeing, namely, their gods mute and groaning with the cries of their punishment merely at the laying on of our hands. But after the troubling of the nations, some will fear; for the troubling will bring fear. Will all who are troubled also fear? Certainly not all who are troubled will also fear.

Who, then, will fear? "Those who dwell at the ends." Scripture did not add, as it usually does, "the ends of the earth"; for here it was not speaking of the ends of the earth. So the reasoning of the discourse does not allow us to think it was added. For it says: "those who dwell at the ends." Will the nations that are within the bounds not fear, and only the extremities of the lands fear God, the rest in the middle being strangers to fear of him? But an end is not the thing itself but the extremity of the thing; and the extremity is that in which the thing itself fails. Who, then, dwell at the ends? Namely those who, placed in the flesh, neither still act wholly according to the flesh nor yet hold altogether the end of sin through the habit of ceasing from sins; but, wishing to cease and not ceasing entirely, and still dwelling at the end, that is, a kind of nearest failing of sin, of the flesh, they are neither absent from the flesh nor wholly practise the inner things of the flesh. But the apostle, while in the body, is away from the body; the apostle, while in life, nevertheless dies daily; and he lives no longer himself, but Christ lives in him. He went beyond all ends of a doubtful will, and even dwells outside the ends of body and sin, being away from the body while he is in the body, dying daily while he lives, and no longer living himself in himself, but Christ. But the trembling of those who fear comes from the uncertainty of a doubtful dwelling, while, still dwelling at the ends, they fear, not yet entirely passing beyond what they now inhabit, and yet by the will to cease they already dwell at the end of ceasing.

But let us see why those who dwell at the ends will fear and whence fear comes upon them. Nor is this hidden; for there follows: "And those who dwell at the ends will fear at your signs." All fear, then, comes from signs. But what will these signs be? "The goings out of morning, and in the evening you will delight. You have visited the earth and made it drunk; you have multiplied to enrich it. The river of God is filled with water; you have prepared their food, for so is your preparation." From these signs, then, fear arose. For there is a great sign in each of them. For after the preparation of the mountains in the girding of power and the troubling of the depth of the sea and the sound of its waves, the going forth of the church in the morning and the delights of evening hymns are the greatest sign of God's mercy. The day begins in prayers to God, the day is closed with hymns to God, according to what is said: "May my praise be sweet to him"; and again: "The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice."

This following sign then comes next: "You have visited the earth and made it drunk; you have multiplied to enrich it." This earth we use is not enriched, but enriches by the abundance of its fruits. So the saying will not suit it, which both lacks the sense of being enriched and whose function is to enrich. But God visited the earth, that is, the birth of the human race; and, visited by God, it grows rich with multiplied gifts of graces, as the apostle says: "In everything you have been enriched in him, in every word and knowledge." For we are filled with these goods, and without ceasing to drink we draw daily the gift of heavenly goods, full and drunk with divine abundance. For the enrichment has been shown to be what above was called drunkenness.

And the fruit of this enrichment and drunkenness must be considered. And what it is, in the end, is not kept silent: "The river of God is filled with water; you have prepared their food, for so is your preparation." And about the river there is no room for doubt. For the prophet says: "The rush of the river gladdens the city of God." And the Lord himself says in the Gospels: "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give, rivers of living water will flow from his belly, springing up to eternal life." And again: "Whoever believes in me, as Scripture says, rivers will come out of his belly. This he said of the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive." This river of God, then, is filled with water. For we are flooded with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and from that fountain of life the river of God, filled with water, is poured into us. We also have food prepared. And what is this food? That, namely, in which we are prepared for fellowship with God through communion of the holy body, to be placed thereafter in the communion of the holy body. For the present psalm signifies this, saying: "You have prepared their food, for so is your preparation": because by that food, though we are saved in the present, we are nevertheless prepared for the future.

The prophet keeps his custom of distinguishing the times of which he speaks. For the earlier discourse was as of the past; things still to be done he recorded as already done by faith and knowledge of things to be done. But to teach that all these belonged to the future, he says: "Make its streams drunk, multiply its generations; in its drops it will rejoice when it springs up." This whole is the speech of one praying and entreating God to fulfil what has been recounted. The earth, once visited, has been made drunk; and how now are its streams made drunk? But we ought to remember that if anyone drinks of the Lord's water, rivers will flow from his belly: so there is need of drinking water so that rivers may flow. And we ourselves are made drunk when we receive the Holy Spirit, who has been called a river. Then, since different streams of graces flow from us, the prophet prays that the Lord make these same drunk: so that, when these have been made drunk and steeped in the gift of the divine bounty, our generations may be multiplied, the good earth, according to the gospel comparison, receiving the seed of the word and growing rich with fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. And for us, reborn through the mystery of baptism, there is the greatest joy when we feel in ourselves certain beginnings of the Holy Spirit, when there comes upon us understanding of mysteries, knowledge of prophecy, the word of wisdom, firmness of hope, the charisms of healing, and dominion over subject demons. For these penetrate us like drops, which, begun little by little, overflow with manifold fruit. In these drops, then, when it springs up, the earth will rejoice. But the drops multiply so as to be streams, and the streams are made drunk so as to be rivers.

It follows that the prophet confirms all our expectation and teaches what consummation the preparation of the mountains, the troubling of the depth of the sea, the visiting of the earth and its being made drunk, and the fullness of the river will have. So he teaches in what follows, saying: "You will bless the crown of the year of your kindness, and your fields will be filled with abundance. The ends of the desert will grow fat; the hills will be girded with exultation. The rams of the flock are clothed, and the valleys will abound with grain; for they will cry out and say a hymn." We have learned of the year of God's kindness from prophetic and apostolic teachings. For it is said in the person of the Lord: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to preach release to captives and sight to the blind, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of recompense": without doubt he declares the year of that eternal and blessed age. For this is the year of the Lord's goodness, in which those unwearied times of kind recompense are to begin. The crown of this year of God will be blessed, the most delightful and sweetest fruit of the earth visited and made drunk. For this is the victory of Christ, when the corruption of our bodies has been driven away and the power of death destroyed. This crown, blessed with the flower of our sanctified earth, is the Lord, glorious with the choir and circle of his saints. Then the fields will be filled with abundance, then the ends of the desert will grow fat, then the hills will be girded with exultation, then the rams of the flock will be clothed. For that is the time of recompense.

But the distinction within the recompense itself must be considered. In the fields, whose use is in cultivation, the works that were done under the law from God's cultivation will obtain abundance. But where the ends of the desert grow fat, the people of the church, which was long a desert, is enriched with the goods of the promise. In the hills girded with exultation the glorious joys of the martyrs are announced; for they are higher than the other lands. And when the rams of the flock are clothed, that eternal and blessed garment of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, who are the leaders of the holy flock, is shown, of which the blessed apostle Paul says: "For this corruptible must put on incorruption"; and again: "In which we do not wish to be stripped but clothed over, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." With this clothing, then, the rams of the flock are clothed, and with this garment of glorious immortality they are dressed.

But although different gifts of recompense have been shown, yet besides these God grants no small hope of his mercy, saying through the prophet: "And the valleys will abound with grain": that is, men of humbler, yet not ungodly, faith and work will obtain the fruit of life. For they will not be filled with abundance like the fields, nor grow fat from the desert, nor be girded with exultation like the mountains, nor be clothed like the rams of the flock, in all of which the gift of boundless glory is shown; but they will abound with grain, that is, they will not lack the substance of living, since through weakness of faith they are lowly and, like valleys, pressed down by the hills rising around them.

And so that the prophetic word should not be thought to signify these fields, these deserts, these hills, these rams, these valleys that lie before our sight, lacking voice and sense, he added: "For they will cry out and say a hymn," singing, that is, the praises of God with tireless and very loud voices for these different rewards of recompense.

The title of this psalm differs from that of the previous one in that it has “a song of a psalm,” whereas the previous one was issued as “a psalm of a song.” Otherwise both are headed alike, “To the end.” So, by the account of the inscription of titles that we gave at the beginning, it is clear that this psalm is sung on account of the teachings of spiritual doctrine obtained through the merit of good work. For when the title is “a psalm of a song,” the psalm contains the deeds of good work by way of the proclamation of heavenly knowledge; but when it is “a song of a psalm,” what is shown is a hymn of the spiritual knowledge obtained from obedience in action. A song is the work of the voice; a psalm is produced from the fitting together of an instrument, which they call harmony, and by the craftsman’s skill a fitting, consonant, and pleasing melody is made out of unequal and unlike notes. By this example we too produce, out of the various services of our duty and our knowledge, a work pleasing to God and consonant with itself. The psalms themselves will be our authorities for this understanding: in “a psalm of a song” the proclamation of good work is understood through the teaching of knowledge and understanding, and in “a song of a psalm” the thanksgiving for knowledge obtained through the merit of deeds. For this reason the spirit of prophecy began the present psalm with the teaching of thanksgiving. That the psalm is spoken in the person of the prophets, the matter itself and reason show.

“Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing a psalm to his name; give glory to his praise. Say to God: How terrible are your works! In the greatness of your power your enemies will lie to you.” First, then, he warns that we must shout for joy to God; second, that we must sing psalms to his name; next, that we must give glory to his praise; then that we must say to God, “How terrible are your works!”; and last, that we must confess this: “In the greatness of your power your enemies will lie to you.” But in order to understand the reason and order of a speech arranged in this way, we must first briefly clear up what causes difficulty.

In the Latin manuscripts we read: “Shout for joy (iubilate) to God, all the earth.” As far as the custom of our speech goes, we call iubilum the sound of a shepherd’s or a countryman’s voice, when in lonely places, either answering or calling, the sound of a voice is heard drawn out long and pressed out with effort to carry its meaning. But in the Greek books, which are closest to the Hebrew, the word does not have the same meaning. They read: alalaxate tō theō pasa hē gē; and with them alalagmos, which the Latins render iubilum, means the shout of an army in battle, either in the charge as it tramples the enemy, or as it testifies to the success of victory with a cry of exultation. Where the translation has been adjusted in this way, we shall understand more plainly in another psalm, when it says: “All nations, clap your hands; shout for joy to God with the voice of exultation.” The voice of exultation differs from a iubilum; but by the necessity of translation, since no proper name for the voice of one exulting was found, the voice of one exulting is shown by what is called iubilum.

Set, then, in the battles of this life and in this struggle of our flesh and blood, fighting with spiritual weapons against the devil and his armies, we are told to shout for joy to God with the voice of exultation. And so that the words should not be referred to this lifeless mass of the earth, all of us who were born from the earth in our first parent Adam are shown under a plural number when it is said, “Shout for joy to God, all the earth” (adorent, “let them worship”); for at once both the duty of all and their origin are taught. Every profane hearer, then, must be struck with terror by the words of our confession; we must fight against the devil and his weapons with the sound of our prayers, and the victory of our war must be shown with the voice of exultation. Let someone standing outside the church hear the voice of the people at prayer; let him observe the crowded sound of the hymns, and, amid the offices of the divine sacraments, let him catch the response of devout confession. Every adversary must be struck with terror, war must be waged against the devil, and death must be overcome by faith in the resurrection with such a shout, as has been said, of our exultant voice. He will know that this pleases God and that this is the testimony of our hope: that the public, victorious voices of our exultation resound. The prophet is not unmindful of them, saying in another place: “I went round and offered in his tabernacle a sacrifice of jubilation.” And lest we should think this teaching and practice of jubilation empty, he declares elsewhere: “Blessed is the people that knows jubilation.” It is therefore necessary to our faith, since blessedness lies in the knowledge of it.

For in the order of his admonitions the prophet set first that all the earth should shout for joy to God, and second that it should sing a psalm to his name. We must shout for joy to God, because the service of an exultant voice is owed to him by us. But we must sing psalms to his name because, as a psalm comes through an instrument, so we must please him by the skilled works of our body, which is the instrument of the soul, of its affections, and of all its business. We must therefore act in a way worthy of the name of God, so that, as far as we can, we comply with the words of the Lord, who says: “So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” For the integrity of our life is to be referred to the praise of him for whom we live. This very thing is taught by what follows: “Sing psalms to his name; give glory to his praise”; because from the psaltery of our instrument, that is, from the works of the body serving the soul, glorious praise is offered to God through us, when the nations, seeing our works, glorify our Father who is in heaven. And glory will be given to his praise if we sing psalms worthily to his name by the working of our instrument, that is, our body.

We are also taught by the admonitions that follow in order, the prophet, or rather the Spirit through the prophet, admonishing thus: “Say to God: How terrible are your works!” For who would not tremble at the majesty of him who established the ages, founded the world, measured out the times in their revolving succession and course, adorned the sky with stars, filled the earth with fruits, shut in the sea with barriers, and chose man either to use these things or to rule over them? Through all these the eternity of his power and might is known, as the apostle says: “For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, his eternal power also and divinity.” These things make the name of the Creator terrible, and the dignity of the works shows the majesty of him who made them. God must therefore be proclaimed by us, and confessed by others, as the maker of these works; we must not lie that all these things are gods.

For some say that these things came into being by chance; others assert that they have always existed. And for this reason they maintain that the world itself is God, since it either came to be by its own power when it willed, or, since it has no beginning, it has no ruler’s will over it. Others call only the sky God, because it is fiery; others the air, because it is carried round by a motion and nature that cannot be cut; others the waters, because they flow without tiring. Many have worshiped the metals of the earth, oaks, rocks, and herbs as gods. Some have falsely declared to be gods either the bones of rotted bodies or the ashes of burned-out pyres, not knowing God, the maker of all these. And for this reason the prophet taught that the order of our confession must be this: “Say to God: How terrible are your works! In the greatness of your power your enemies will lie to you”; that is, from the greatness of God’s powers they falsely transfer worship to false names of gods.

But since the enemies will lie, what all must do is taught thus: “Let all the earth worship you and sing psalms to you; let them sing a psalm to your name, O Most High.” Once the lie of the enemies about their so-called gods has been exposed, the rules of our salvation are given: that all our earthly race should worship and sing psalms to the Most High, abandoning the lies of impiety and acknowledging the true God, maker of all things.

The diapsalma marked off the sense. For the speech that had been addressed to God as a prayer is now turned to men, whom the prophet, as though they stood far from the knowledge of God, calls nearer, saying: “Come and see the works of God.” The apostle too taught that there are many placed far from God whom the exhortation of his teaching has brought, as it were, into the neighborhood, when he says: “And when he came, he preached peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near.” For many believed from the law, as though dwelling near, while the nations were called from far away.

The prophetic preaching, then, called all to look upon the works of God: not those works that lie open to everyone’s sight, sky, air, earth, and sea (for all look on these), but those that are known only to the zeal of the faithful, by which, with great terror at wonderful powers, provision was made for human salvation: when Pharaoh was restrained by the punishment of his impiety as an example for human fear, so that the terror of the condemnation of the irreligious might begin religion through fear; when the sea dried up into a road on land and the waters were turned into dry ground; when the people crossed the Jordan on foot, and, as Israel was about to enter the land of promise, the flowing waters were ordered to stand and the rest of the river’s bed ran down, so that they could walk in safety. To look upon these works of God, of the law and the prophets, the prophet calls the nations, saying: “Come and see the works of God; terrible in his counsels over the sons of men; who turns the sea into dry land; they will pass through the river on foot.” For he must be understood to be God from whose terrible counsels provision was made by these works for human salvation; so that the knowledge and recognition of such works may confirm for us, as to their author, the opinion we hold about God (for no one looking at the sky will fail to sense that God exists).

Yet these, although they are works of God’s power, do not satisfy the hope and salvation of all. For the sea was changed into land only for the people of the law, and the Jordan dried up only for their journey. What does this contribute to the salvation of the whole earth? For “Come” applies to all, since it had been written of all: “Let all the earth worship you.” What, then, does the Jordan dried up at that time give to me for salvation, born so long after? It certainly does give. For in its waters first the washing away of sins was granted, when John preached repentance; and by that through which the people had had their way into the land of promise, the way into the heavenly kingdom, and in the bath of the new birth the possession of eternal bodies, is begun for us, the waters themselves having been consecrated by the Lord’s baptism. Therefore, to what had been said, “Come and see the works of the Lord, how terrible in his counsels over the sons of men; who turns the sea into dry land; they will pass through the river on foot,” there was added, so that the security of our hope should not be cut off from what was done before, since he had said “they will pass” of the future: “There we shall rejoice in him.” For through these waters of the Jordan the passage was made, and is made, into those good things of the land promised by the prophets, by the step of bodies being washed; and there we rejoice in the beginnings of the heavenly mystery. The time and cause of this joy another prophet testifies, saying: “Rejoice, thirsty desert; let the desert exult and blossom like the lily; let the deserts of the Jordan blossom and exult. Be strong, weak hands and loosened knees; take comfort, you of little courage; be strong in mind; do not fear. Behold, God will render judgment; he himself will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will hear, and the tongue of the dumb will be heard. Then the lame will leap like a deer.” This, then, is what is meant by “There we shall rejoice in him”; these things were fulfilled at the coming of the Lord, in the baptism of the Jordan, and in the healing of every infirmity. And “there we shall rejoice” refers to the Jordan, for it was said thus: “They will pass through the river on foot; there we shall rejoice.”

As to “in him,” who it is in whom “we shall rejoice in him,” the prophet added, saying: “who rules in his power for ever.” We shall not be in doubt who this will be if we recall this saying of the Gospel: “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth; go now, teach all nations,” and the apostle’s: “Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.” And these words were not said of the power of his divinity; for that, as it always rules, so it will always rule. Rather, the nature of the flesh taken from the Virgin is carried over into his eternal glory. For “Jesus” is the name of the man who was born of Mary, and the name Jesus, which is above every name, is given to him. Here it is not, as elsewhere, “Jesus Christ,” but “Jesus” alone. To him, worshiped by things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and confessed by every tongue to be in the glory of God the Father, the authority of the eternal kingdom is given. But, as in many places, our Latin here too has not expressed the meaning of the Greek word properly enough. For where we have “who rules in his power for ever,” the Greek reads: tō despozonti en tē dynasteia autou tou aiōnos. Our “for ever” is simple and common to all time, without any particular limitation; theirs, tou aiōnos, carries the sense of a fixed and designated age.

For the only-begotten Son of God, although he always reigned, did not always reign in the body. So where the rule over a designated and, as it were, pointed-out age is contained in the force of the very word tou aiōnos, that time is shown in which, his body having been glorified into the glory of God, both the name of God and the kingdom are given to it. The apostle teaches plainly the time of this ruling over the age, saying: “When he has destroyed every principality and power and virtue, and the last enemy, death, is overcome”; then he alone will rule the age in his power. For now, although he reigns, the prince of this world asked to sift the apostles like wheat; and there are spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places, against which blessed Paul equipped us with spiritual weapons; and as we fight against them the angels of our faith, who according to the Gospels daily see God the Father in heaven, escort us, and the mercy of God protects us.

And therefore there follows: “His eyes look upon the nations.” For the face of the Lord is turned away from everyone who lingers in sins. This is the meaning of the turning of the unchangeable God: not that, as if by a bodily nature, he turns himself away from anyone or back again, but that, remaining always equal and the same, he is absent from or present to each one’s help according to the difference of their merits. For it is written in the person of sinners: “Turn your face from their sins,” and again: “Why do you turn away your face and your right hand?” and again: “You turned away your face, and I was troubled.” But where the person of the righteous is treated, these things are said: “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears toward their prayers,” and again: “Let your eyes behold what is right,” and further: “The light of your countenance is marked upon us, O Lord.” The incorporeal God, therefore, protects the nations with the eyes of his mercy and, as it were, by the ministry of serving angels, and pours himself out on all believers as the gift of divine compassion.

The Jews deny this; the unbelieving people contradicts these works of God, claiming for itself the glory of a race chosen in Abraham. And the prophet shows this in the words that follow, joining to what he had said, “His eyes look upon the nations,” this: “Let those who provoke him to anger not be exalted in themselves.” This being exalted in themselves the Lord condemns in the Gospels, saying: “Do not put yourselves forward among yourselves, saying, We have Abraham as father; for God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” That they provoke him to anger the prophets say in every way. Isaiah: “You have provoked the Holy One of Israel to wrath”; to Ezekiel also the Spirit says: “Son of man, I send you to the house of Israel, who embitter me”; and in the psalms: “They embittered his spirit,” and again: “Often I delivered them, but they embittered me.” Everyone, then, who denies the work and mercy of God for the salvation of the nations provokes to anger the author of mercy and salvation, because, glorious and exalted in themselves, they embitter the anger of him who alone can make men glorious.

The insertion of a diapsalma again indicates a change of sense and of person. For under this sign often one of them, sometimes both, are marked off. The preceding speech was entirely in the person of the prophet, saying: “Come and see the works of God, how terrible in his counsels over the sons of men”; but the following had to be apostolic, so that, the one inviting and the other preaching, the proclamation of the Old and New Testaments might be contained in one and the same teaching.

Their exhortation, then, is directed to the nations, when it is said: “Bless our God, you nations.” Not without reason did the words of the prophecy add “our”: certainly not those whom you thought gods, the names of heroes, or the created elements, or the material of metals, but ours, he whose works are recounted, who is terrible in his counsels over the sons of men, who turns the sea into dry land, who rules in his power for ever. And this belongs properly to apostolic teaching: to preach in the Gospels the God of the law and the prophets.

But what follows, “and hear the voice of his praise,” confuses the understanding. For the voice of praise that is heard is not that of the one praised but of the one who praises. How, then, are the nations told to hear the voice of praise? But here too our Latin has not rendered the proper sense of the word in translation. What we have written as “and hear the voice of his praise,” the Greeks have said thus: kai akoutisate tēn phōnēn tēs aineseōs autou. By this word it is meant that they should cause the voice of his praise to be heard. He will understand this more fully who remembers that the Lord said in the Gospels: “What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops.” For God is to be praised with steady and public preaching, and our faith must not tremble in recounting his powers.

But what, then, is the voice of his praise that must be made heard? Surely this: that he has set the soul of believers in life; that he granted to the apostolic preaching and to the confession of the martyrs constancy and perseverance in confessing, by whose running to and fro, as if on feet, the preaching of the heavenly kingdom ran across the whole world: “for their sound went out into all the earth.” And elsewhere the Holy Spirit, proclaiming the glory of this spiritual running: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things, who bring good news of peace!” This voice of the praise of God, then, is to be heard in the proclamation of the preachers, as the prophet testifies: “who has set my soul in life and has not let my feet be moved.” For the apostles were not turned aside from the course of their preaching by the scares of human threats, nor was the firmness of their planted feet moved from the step of faith, so that they always preached the Lord of judgment and of the eternal kingdom.

The spirit of prophecy, having spoken in the person of one, indicates that the matter does not apply to one name only. For after saying, “and has not let my feet be moved,” he added: “For you have proved us, O God; you have tried us with fire, as silver is tried with fire.” So the speech begun from one is carried over to many. For there is one Spirit and one faith of believers, and, as it is in the Acts of the Apostles, “the believers had one soul and one heart.” And so, when what was begun from one is applied to many, oneness of mind is taught among the many. But what likeness of comparison is it that they were tried by fire as silver is tried? As I think, the only purpose of trying silver is that the dross which has clung to it from the first material of the earth may be burned out, and that whatever has been fraudulently mixed in from the nature of another metal may be purged away. God, then, does not try those who believe in him as though ignorant of their faith; but since, according to the apostle, temptation brings proof, believers are tried not for God’s knowledge but for their own proving, so that, purged by fire and cleansed of the admixture of fleshly vices, they may shine with the brightness of tried innocence.

Looking at the kinds of temptations and the various victories of the martyrs, we know in what ways the soul is set in life: despising this life, they are not moved from the step and testimony of faith, however savagely ingenious the punishments. Some glory in the chains of prisons; others, beaten with scourges, give thanks; others submit the necks of their blessed heads to be cut off by the power of the irreligious; many run to the built-up pyres and, while the ministers of punishment tremble, leap into the fire with the bound of devout haste; others, about to be sunk in the deep, fall not into waters that will kill them but into the refreshment of eternal blessedness, offering their whole bodies to God as a victim, like burnt offerings.

Through these kinds of sufferings, then, the prophetic speech runs on in the person of the apostles, evangelists, and martyrs, saying: “You have tried us with fire, as silver is tried with fire. You led us into the snare,” that is, into the chains of custody; “you laid tribulations on our back,” namely the punishments of scourging, in which Peter with the apostles rejoices and Paul exults; “you set men over our heads; we passed through fire and water.” He recalls, clearly, the glorious deaths of the martyrs by sword, fire, and the deep. But one who passes through fire and water is not destroyed in them, but is carried over through them into something else. And the prophet knows where he is carried, saying: “You led us into refreshment.” He mentions this refreshment in another place too, saying: “Return, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has done you good. He has delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will please the Lord in the land of the living”; urging his soul, that is, toward the rest of that blessed resurrection in which, after the time of this death, every stain of human calamities wiped away, there is no grief, no weeping, no sin, but life. Into the refreshment of this blessedness, then, they were brought out through fire and water.

And lest the swimming of one crossing the waters, or the leap of one jumping over the fire, or the leading into refreshment should be thought to mean the rest of some common, earthly place, he added: “I will go into your house with burnt offerings.” Burnt offerings (holocausta) are the whole bodies of victims, which were called holocausts because they were brought entire to the fire of sacrifice. Through these kinds of punishment, then, the martyrs vowed their bodies as burnt offerings in testimony to the faith, so that, the sacrifices of their offerings completed, they might enter the house of God, that is, the dwelling of the heavenly home.

But what, then, did they vow in this offering of their bodies? Clearly, that by these examples of their martyrdom they might instruct the nations in the hope of the eternal kingdom. For those who preached Christ then preached not for themselves, to whom he was then known, but for us who were still to be, or for those to whom he was then unknown. Their preaching kindled the faith of all posterity to the desire for martyrdom. For they preached for no other reason than to instruct many martyrs by the example of their faith and martyrdom, as Paul taught, saying: “I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus for you Gentiles.” And therefore, in the fruit of this preaching, they confess that they pay their vows to God, saying: “I will pay you my vows, which my lips uttered distinctly, and my mouth spoke in my tribulation: I will offer you burnt offerings full of marrow, with incense and rams; I will offer you oxen with goats.” Does the prophet not know that he spoke in the Spirit in the person of God: “I will not take calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks,” and: “Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” and again: “For if you had wished sacrifice, I would surely have given it; but you will not delight in burnt offerings”? So let the error of our opinion cease, that we should think the martyrs vowed these things. But in their martyrdoms they will afterward pay to God the vows they spoke: first vowing themselves to God and offering themselves as burnt offerings, because in these they will enter the house of God, crying out in the tribulations of their sufferings with the voice of Paul: “Who shall separate us from the love of God? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger?” and: “I am confident that neither death, nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.” These, then, are first the vows of the blessed martyrs in tribulation, which they speak and pledge in their tribulations; and then, that they may complete burnt offerings full of marrow out of us. “Full of marrow,” because faith is the work of the soul and heart, and this is a matter of the inner will. With the incense, rams too are offered. What incense is, we are taught in this same book of Psalms: “Let my prayer be like incense in your sight,” meaning that prayers are to be understood by incense. And who are shown under the name of rams the previous psalm shows, when it says: “The rams of the sheep are clothed”; for by these, as the leaders of the flocks, he means the priests, whom the instruction of apostolic teaching, with the fragrance of prayers (for, according to Paul, we are the good fragrance in Christ), leads on to zeal for martyrdom. And not only will rams be offered with incense, but oxen also will be offered: that is, beasts of a stubborn nature are tamed for the worship of God, subdued to this martyrdom for the name of Christ by the apostolic teachings.

In the words “I will offer you oxen with goats,” the Latin has not kept the force of the word as it was changed from Hebrew into Greek. What we have as “I will offer you oxen with goats,” they have thus: anoisō soi boas meta cheimarrōn. Cheimarroi among the Greeks is not the proper but a descriptive name for goats, and especially for those born in the very season of winter. Scripture called them cheimarroi only in this place; in other places it used tragoi, which we call goats. The translation of others, which agrees and is consistent with itself, confirms the sense of this spiritual understanding: for cheimarroi they have rendered kairimoi; and kairimoi means those born at the right time, cheimarroi those that winter has produced; which is why the Greek language calls torrents by the same word, streams that winter has swelled from nothing into rivers.

So when he says boas meta cheimarrōn, the prophetic speech shows that it is not speaking of cattle, but that by the oxen it means the men of the church, and by the cheimarroi those whom the very storm of persecution has brought forth into the glory of martyrdom. For we know that many who did not know the divine mysteries ran to martyrdom by the example of the martyrs, and that, though they had lived before outside the knowledge of the faith, being taught the present faith by an act, they attained the very glory of the faith completed in martyrdom. Such was he who confessed the Lord in his own condemnation, saying: “Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom,” and who at once received from the Lord this gift of his martyrdom: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Those like him, then, the instruction of apostolic teaching offers to God together with men of long and fruitful cultivation, born in the very storm of a raging winter. And since God says: “What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? I am full; I do not want burnt offerings of rams, the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and goats. For who has required these from your hands?”, it is idle to think that perfect solemn vows were pleasing in oxen and goats.

The insertion of the diapsalma changes, as elsewhere, the person and the sense, though the order of the teaching does not break. For after he had shown, in the person of the apostles, evangelists, martyrs, and prophets, in what ways his soul had been set in life, that is, through the punishments of suffering and death, by which he had passed into the place of blessedness, paying his vows to God in burnt offerings, after this speech, all of which he had addressed to God, he now addresses those whom he had trained for the solemn rite of burnt offerings, saying: “Come and hear, and I will tell you, all you who fear God.” He calls not uncertain people, nor to uncertain things. For he teaches who they are whom he calls: “all you who fear God”; for the irreligious have no will either to come or to hear. Then he indicates what he is going to tell: “how great things he has done for my soul.” He set it in life, led it into refreshment, and it will enter the house of God with burnt offerings.

But in order that these things might be done for his soul, he earned by causes that they should be done. By what causes he earned it, he says: “I cried to him with my mouth.” He earned, then, good things for his soul because he cried to him with his mouth. But the cry of the mouth is often false, and the sound of words does not always announce the disposition of the mind. The mind, then, must follow the cry of the mouth: and it did follow. For the prophet joined: “and I exalted him under my tongue”: not on the tongue but under the tongue, that is, in the hidden places of the tongue and in a certain inward speech of silent will. This very thing pleased the Lord in the Gospels, who says: “Go into your room, shut the door, and pray; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.” So now God, who was cried to with the mouth, is exalted under the tongue.

But he who is exalted under the tongue must be revered with all purity of heart; nor is it enough not to have done anything impious, if impiety is thought in the mind. The prophet taught that this thought of impiety must be absent from one who exalts God under his tongue, saying: “If I regarded iniquity in my heart, let God not hear. Therefore God heard me; he attended to the voice of my prayer.” He not only did not commit iniquity in deed, but did not even regard it in his heart. Or at least he did not regard iniquity in his heart, seeing in his heart no vice of an unjust will; and therefore he was worthy to be heard. For his soul was set in life, his feet were not moved, he was led into refreshment, he will enter the house of God, and he has paid to God the vows his lips had uttered, upheld by the confession of honor and glory, saying: “Blessed be God, who has not removed my prayer and his mercy from me,” confessing at the end of the psalm the praise of God begun at its opening. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The psalm is short and complete in its gospel preaching. For it is both “to the end” and “a psalm of a song,” by which confession through the knowledge of what is to be done, and deeds that make progress through teaching, are sung. And its beginning has been taken from where it ought to be. All its speech is that of either the prophets or the apostles, of whom the former taught that the only-begotten God would come in the body and the latter that he had come, enlightened by the Holy Spirit and filled with the honor of heavenly glory. Their prayer, then, is to be recognized in the opening of the psalm.

“May God have mercy on us and bless us; may he make his face shine upon us and have mercy on us.” In the order of teaching, God’s mercy is asked for first. For out of the abundance of his goodness he bestows mercy in the forgiveness of sins; and the forgiveness of sins is not the reward of uprightness but the spontaneous will of indulgence, overflowing from the riches of goodness into the gift of mercy. So he who is merciful is asked to bless. We already know the fruit of blessing from the beginning, when man was formed, when these words were spoken to Adam while he still knew no sin: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and rule over it.” Although many think these words were spoken only of bodily things, to those trained in spiritual teaching they have offered more power. For this blessing did not grant Adam only the creation of bodily descendants. Although his offspring would be fruitful, they could not fill the earth; for though it is inhabited by a multitude of men, it is not filled. Rather, he willed that the earth of our body should be filled with spiritual teachings and multiplied and increased in the knowledge of God. For through Adam, and in Adam himself, who had been God’s first work, the knowledge of God ought to have begun; but since he was defiled by sins, the prophets and apostles pray for the fruit of this blessing for themselves. The blessed apostle obtained it and glories thus about himself: “Blessed be God, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Those, then, increase, multiply, and are filled who are heavenly in Christ; and those are blessed who are blessed with spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Let us see whether the present prayer of the psalm asks for the fruit of this blessing.

For after mercy and blessing there follows: “May he make his face shine upon us and have mercy on us.” It is the work of God’s blessing that his face should shine upon us, that the light of his knowledge should beam into our darkened hearts, that the Spirit of his majesty should give light to the darkened senses of our understanding, and that we may then glory, saying: “The light of your countenance is marked upon us, O Lord.” This shining of his face upon us his mercy bestows, which began in us with the forgiveness of sin. For what progress they pray for the shining of God’s face upon them, the following words teach.

“That we may know your way on earth, your salvation among all nations.” The insertion of the diapsalma, though it brought a change of person, did not change the sense; for now the speech is addressed to him who until now had been the object of prayer. What is written in the Latin books as “that we may know your way on earth” is in the Greek: tou gnōnai en tē gē tēn hodon sou. Between gnōnai and “that we may know” there is this difference: gnōnai has no definite person, whereas “that we may know” points to the very people who say these words. So, according to the true rendering of the Greek, they pray to be enlightened by God’s face so that God’s way may become known on earth, which is the teaching of the religious life; for by it one goes to God. And the teaching of the religious way is Christ, who shows in the Gospels that he is it, saying: “I am the truth, the way, the life,” and again: “No one goes to the Father except through me.” And the speech of the psalm, joined to itself, testifies that he is the way: it must be made knowable and known on earth, that is, either to those born of the earth or to those who inhabit it. “That we may know your way on earth, your salvation among all nations.” The very wording, in its proper sense, says that Jesus is called “salvation”; for what we call salutare is in Hebrew “Jesus.” The angel confirms this, speaking to Joseph about Mary: “She will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” So the angel shows that he was to be called Jesus because he would be salvation to the people. They show, then, that they are unequal to so great a proclamation unless they are enlightened, unless they shine with a certain splendor of the Lord’s face. For they too, according to the Gospel, are the light of the world (but the Lord himself is the true light), enlightened by the light so that the apostles and prophets might be lights. Otherwise it would be pointless for them to wish to be enlightened in order to know the things they were preaching as already known.

This whole prophetic and apostolic teaching must be followed by the confession of the peoples and by joy at the forgiveness of sins: and not only of sins forgiven, but because they know that he who forgave sins will be the judge of equity, and that through him all the nations inhabiting the earth are directed into the way of life, leaving the error of idols and instructed in the knowledge of God. Therefore these words follow: “Let the peoples confess to you, O God; let all the peoples confess to you. Let the nations be glad and exult, for you will judge the peoples in equity and direct the nations on earth.” When “the peoples” confess, those of the twelve tribes who believe or will believe seem to be meant. When “all the peoples” confess, no nation is excepted. When the nations are glad and exult because he will judge the peoples in equity and direct the nations on earth, the cause of joy is proclaimed to be the hope of eternal judgment and of the nations directed into the way of life.

The insertion of the diapsalma seems to have introduced nothing new here, especially since the sense is repeated in the same words: “Let the peoples confess to you, O God; let all the peoples confess to you.” But when there is added, “The earth has given its fruit,” it is understood that the repetition of the same words was not made for nothing, if indeed we ought to understand the same thing signified by the same words. For we find that confession is to be treated in two ways: one is the confession of sins, as when in the desert of the Jordan they confessed their sins; the other is the confession of praise to God, as when the Lord says to the Father: “I confess to you, Lord Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to little ones.” The first and earlier confession, then, is to be taken as the confession of sins, especially since it is joined to the prophetic and apostolic preaching; this following one is to be understood as the confession of praise to God, first of the peoples and then of all, that is, of all the nations, and that because the earth has given its fruit.

But we must ask what fruit the earth has given, for which all the peoples praise God. There is indeed an everlasting cause of praise owed to God, that the earth supplies these bodily fruits necessary to us; but they are not the earth’s. They are either ours, to whom they are given, or God’s, through whom they are supplied. Let us ask, then, what fruits the earth had and lost; and by what it lost we shall show that it had them. We remember that the earth of Adam, after sin, was stripped of the honor of the blessings given to it. For it was said to him: “For you are earth, and to earth you shall go.” Because he is earth, then, after sin he is condemned with this curse: “Cursed is the earth in your works; in sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life; it will bring forth thorns and thistles for you.” The element of earth was free of the crime; so it is free of the curse, as it was free of the crime. Rather, here the earth of Adam, which had become guilty through the allurement of food, is cursed. This earth, then, is consumed by him with all the sorrows of the present life and eaten with all the pains of sicknesses, pricked with the thorns and thistles of vices and the stings of desires. Everyone like the earthly Adam, then, yields these cursed fruits of his earth. But he who is already conformed to the heavenly Adam has the innocent fruit of his earth, rich first in the knowledge of God, then glorious with works of chastity, righteousness, and mercy, the old man with his vices and lusts having been put off. For this reason, then, confession is to be made to God, that the earth has given its fruit. “Its own”: because Adam, having had it, had lost it. It gave, then, what was its own, that is, the fruit that it has in the knowledge of God; it displayed it first in our Lord himself, who took an earthly body without sinning at all.

To show and teach these things the gift of God’s blessing is again prayed for, when it is said: “May God bless us.” And lest the blessing should be thought to be hoped for from an uncertain and unknown god, there was added: “our God”: the God, that is, of the patriarchs and prophets, and already the apostles’ own by a kind of inheritance in succession; in whom the earth gave its fruit of self-control, faith, righteousness, and mercy, and even, amid the very tortures and deaths of the most savage persecutions, devoted now to the very martyrdom of the divine name.

Then the prayer for blessing is repeated, when it is said: “May God bless us.” These prayers are not repeated for nothing, but so that, as the teaching grows through God’s blessing, all the ends of the earth may fear God. For he says: “and let all the ends of the earth fear him.” Let all the ends of the earth fear God, then, but our God, the God who blesses. Fear is not the least duty of faith. For it is counted among the chief gifts of spiritual graces, when it is said through Isaiah: “And the spirit of the fear of God filled him,” and through Solomon: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” Blessed is he to whom it has come to fear, not out of the trembling of human nature, but out of rational knowledge. For one who fears out of weakness in alarming circumstances grows insolent again in prosperity from a fault of nature. But one who fears out of knowledge always fears, and dreads prosperity no less than adversity. Wisdom, then, takes its origin from fear by carrying out useful and approved things, which are proper and peculiar to wisdom. This fear of God, then, the prophet wishes for all the ends of the earth, so that no nation inhabiting the earth may be outside his fear; the apostle unfolds the sum of this very prayer when he says: “and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father,” who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The psalm is headed not “by David” but “to David himself, to the end.” Next, it is not “a song of a psalm” but “a psalm of a song,” so that in it the utterance of prophetic understanding and knowledge might be taught. It is woven throughout with the mysteries of the law and the Gospels, and packed with the interpretation of allegorical sayings drawn from past and future alike. It contains the teaching of the law that was given; it brings the notion of the flesh taken by the Lord; it reproaches the impiety of the former people; it announces the faith of our future knowledge; it embraces the Lord’s ascension above the heavens; and it includes the glory of his future kingdom. The prophecy took its beginning from that in which the effect of our salvation consists. For it began thus:

“Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered, and let those who hate him flee from his face.” This is the speech of prayer, not of one asking in uncertainty but of one hoping from knowledge and understanding. For the time of resurrection is now desired in God, when, condemning sin in the flesh by sin, he made a show of the powers of this world, confidently triumphing over them in himself. For he came to conquer the world, to grapple with the prince of the world and with the law of sin, and to blot out the decree of death by the forgiveness of sin. This flight of his enemies, then, the prophet awaits. For this crowd of demons who hate him could not bear to meet him as he rose from the dead, since, when the spiritual wickednesses had been subjected to the first power of apostolic faith, it was proclaimed that Satan had fallen from heaven like lightning, and the prince of the world was judged in the passion. But as they flee from the face of God they show their terror in fleeing, yet they cannot escape the face of God, though they flee. For he declares the terror of these same spiritual wickednesses in an earlier psalm, saying: “He sent his arrows and scattered them; he multiplied lightnings and threw them into confusion.” So they are thrown into confusion and flee, scattered. But they do not escape the power of God’s face, according to this: “Smoke went up in his anger, and fire blazed from his face; coals were kindled by him.” The flight of these enemies, then, is followed by destruction and the punishment of judgment.

And indeed the same order of prophecy is now marked out as in the earlier psalm. For there follows: “As smoke vanishes, let them vanish; as wax melts before the fire, so let sinners perish before the face of God.” Smoke, when it rises, though in thick billows, gradually vanishes and is destroyed so as not to exist, just as wax melts in the presence of fire so as to be no more: the smoke slipping away into emptiness by its lightness and thinness, the wax consumed by the force and heat of the fire, because, weak in itself, it is torn apart by the burning of a stronger nature. In the same way all the power of the wicked melts away before the face of God, that is, at the judgment of God.

And this destruction of sinners before the face of God must be followed by the joy of the righteous. For at once there was added: “And let the righteous rejoice in joy.” For the fair and just measure of heavenly judgment is that, as it destroys sinners with death, so it rewards the righteous with joy. And this followed to display the examination of judgment: “Let them exult in the sight of God; let them feast in joy.” For the pure in heart, according to the merits of the Gospel blessing, are worthy of the sight of God. But “to rejoice in joy” has a deeper meaning, showing the cause of perfect joy. For many rejoice in things that will harm them, as the lustful delights in harlots and the thief rejoices in thefts, as each person is pleased, according to his vices, by what he practices. But one who rejoices in joy has taken the cause of his joy from the honorable and useful truth of joy itself; and they rejoice in joy because they will exult in the sight of God; he teaches that the true joy of exultation is that which is perfected by the delight of God’s sight. The joys of this exultation and of those feasting, from which the righteous has his joy, holy Moses recalled in that divine song of Deuteronomy, saying: “Rejoice, heavens, together with him, and let all the angels of God worship him. Rejoice, nations, with his people, and let all the sons of God strengthen them.” In this joy, then, the righteous too will rejoice, of one mind in heavenly gladness, rejoicing in the fellowship of divine exultation.

And to the thanksgiving of this time, under the confession of the gospel faith, the prophet now calls us, saying: “Sing to God, sing psalms to his name; make a way for him who rises above the setting. The Lord is his name; and exult in his sight.” Although every exhortation does much to stir our will and mind, when we are led to desire or do something by its persuasion or allurement, yet if the very cause of the exhortation is set before us, the mind then relies on reason and method as on the surest guide. So now the prophet, having exhorted us to sing to God and to sing psalms to his name, lest he should leave any ambiguity, showed both to what God and to whose name we must sing psalms, so that no longer an exhortation applied but a knowledge received might set us in the exultation and song of God.

We must sing psalms, then, and prepare the way of him who rises above the setting. By “setting” is understood that all things that come into life are destroyed; and the destruction of all things that set is, by common human opinion, reckoned to be in death. We must sing psalms to him, then, and prepare his way, who rose above the setting of death, that is, who passed beyond all setting without being held by the setting itself. His name is “Lord,” who, emptying himself from the form of God and taking the form of a servant, made himself obedient even to the death of the cross. Therefore God exalted him and gave him a name above every name, that at his name things in heaven and on earth and under the earth should bend the knee and every tongue confess the Lord Jesus in the glory of God the Father. He, then, whose name is Lord rose above the setting, and, passing beyond that by which all things set, he went out from the dead eternal, beyond the law of death. For him, then, a way must be prepared according to this: “Prepare the ways of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley will be filled and every hill brought low,” so that, when the way has been prepared in us, that is, when the swellings of our vices and unbelief have been pressed down or the lowness of our earthly stain raised up, he may come down into our hearts, entering by the paths of life made straight and level. In his sight, then, we shall exult, for whom a way is to be prepared by leveling both the swellings of insolence and the chasms of lusts, and in whom we shall see ourselves rising from the dead. For rising above the setting of our death, he gained life for us from the dead in his own rising. This is the joy of the apostles, when they saw him after the resurrection, beholding and touching him.

But this joy of the saints is followed by the terror of those whom he conquered together with the world; for he says: “They will be troubled before his face, the father of orphans and judge of widows.” He taught that the cause of their trouble is that he is the father of orphans and the judge of widows (for they will flee from the face of the father of orphans and judge of widows): not leaving as orphans those who, acknowledging the Father in heaven, have renounced the devil as father, and judging those widows who, dead to the law, have followed the Bridegroom. For blessed Paul taught that a widow who is free from the law passes to marriage with another without the charge of adultery, and he applied this whole example to the church, which, having died to the law, afterward joined herself to Christ. There is also a very fitting sense according to the lot of this world: that God, who gave us another Advocate from the Father so that we should not be orphans in the world, is the father of the bereaved and the judge of widows; for he both pities childhood bereft of parents and is the judge of widows who have rested in him. Judge, because under the name of widows many are not widows, who either, having grown wanton against Christ, wish to marry, or deceive human judgments; and because the dignity of the name lies in keeping the resolve of the will, God, who searches hearts and reins, is judge for this reason, that he alone discerns their mind and intent. And these things, as I said, may be said of orphans and widows according to the desolation of the human condition.

But so that these things may be understood as signified in this way to describe the whole church, he added at once: “God in his holy place; God makes those of one manner dwell in a house, leading out the prisoners in strength, likewise those who embitter, who dwell in tombs.” This, then, is the place holy to God, where there is the widow from the law, the orphan from the world, the peaceful and unanimous gathering of one manner and will (for according to the Acts of the Apostles the believers had one soul and heart), where those who are bound are led out in strength. For having first bound the strong man inside his own house, he set free those who were bound by their sins, as he led out into freedom, by a word of power, the daughter of Abraham bound for eighteen years. He also led out those who previously embittered, that is, who by transgressing the law stirred up against themselves the anger of God the judge, or who argued against his name with pagan eloquence; he instructed them in the teaching of divine knowledge, as he made Paul, from a persecutor, the apostle and teacher of the Gentiles. These who embittered, then, who formerly dwelt in tombs, that is, buried within the dead dwellings of their bodies, he led into heavenly and spiritual life. For there are many dead among the living. In the Gospels too those not thought dead are taught to differ in nothing from the dead, the Lord saying: “Let the dead bury their own dead”; and the apostle knows that certain women are dead while living, that is, that while they live they are already dead. But all these the Lord led out of the tombs, as they are reborn as sons of God.

But the same God who, rising above the setting, worked these things in us by the power of the resurrection, did all things in the law as foreshadowings in preparation for this hope of ours, so that one God of the prophets and another of the Gospels could not be imagined. And therefore he fulfilled these things toward us too in the same stages by which he led the people out of Egypt. For our fathers were under the cloud and were baptized into Moses in the sea, and were filled with manna falling from heaven in the likeness of the heavenly bread, and were given drink by Christ when the rock supplied water; and these things, done for their salvation, also held in themselves symbols of our salvation, as the following words of the prophecy declare, saying: “O God, when you went out before your people, when you passed through the desert, the earth was moved; for the heavens dripped before the face of God, Mount Sinai before the face of the God of Israel.” We know that God went before his people on their way, as they passed through the desert, in the pillar of cloud and fire, and that manna dripped from heaven until the people’s wandering ended. But after he had recalled all the earlier things that are proper and fitting to the church, namely when the Lord rose above the setting, when he is the father of orphans and judge of widows, when in his holy place, that is, in a house, he gathers those of one manner, and draws out of the tombs those bound in strength and those who embitter, he nevertheless said that he accomplished these things going out before the people and passing into the desert, so that it is now told as past that the earth was moved, the heavens dripped, and this was done before the face of the God of Israel at Sinai. He does this so that it might be known that, when he did the things of the law, he also prefigured in them the things of the Gospels. For he went out before his people and passed into the desert: into that desert of the Jordan, namely, in which lilies blossomed, in which the fountain of living water watered what was desolate and dry. For before, Jacob was the measuring line of his inheritance, and the desert nations were subject to the power of the elements. But now, while the one who was God’s people looks on, God has passed over to what was formerly desolate; and now the deserts of the borders, watered by him, will grow fat. And this is the same one who gave manna from heaven to the people. For if the law was ordained through angels, and man ate the bread of angels, and the heavens are written to have dripped at Sinai, there is no doubt that this ministry was carried out from heaven, that is, by angels. And the giver of the bread that is from heaven is the same who granted the manna at Sinai.

But God, passing to the desert, that is, crossing over to the once dry and desolate hearts of the Gentiles, set apart that happy rain of good will. For he himself set Paul apart from his mother’s womb to be an apostle, because “those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.” This rain of speech and preaching Solomon also announced to the earth in a psalm, for the security of hope, saying: “And he will come down like rain upon a fleece, and like drops dripping upon the earth.” And we remember that some clouds were commanded not to rain upon the vineyard. Holy Moses too, who under the veil of common words was hiding great mysteries of heavenly hope, sang that his words should be received like rain and showers, rain watering the deserted and dry inheritance prepared for God. And therefore there follows: “You will set apart a willing rain, O God, for your inheritance; and it was weakened, but you perfected it. Your creatures will dwell in it; you prepared it in your sweetness for the poor.” For God, foreseeing wills, set apart the willing rain by foreknowing. It is weak when Paul had the sentence of death in himself, when Peter, shaken by the scandal of the cross, denied three times though warned not to deny, when the apostles fear, flee, and lose confidence. But because there was in them the disposition of good will, they were so perfected that they became the foundations and pillars of the churches. This rain, then, is set apart for God’s inheritance.

What the inheritance is, is not obscure: namely, that which was given to the one who asked, when it is said: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance.” The nations, then, without understanding after the manner of animals and cattle (and therefore, since God has no care for cattle, that inheritance is the one set apart in this willing rain), are shown to dwell in it. For there follows: “Your creatures will dwell in it; you prepared it in your sweetness for the poor.” Creatures, then, will dwell either in God’s inheritance or in the willing rain; and this, either the inheritance or the rain, has been prepared in sweetness for the poor. For the words of God are sweet in the throats of the saints, and blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And though they were animal, they were made spiritual. All these things, then, have been set apart for the use of the inheritance or the service of the willing rain.

And so that it might be understood that, according to the sweetness prepared for the poor, what is meant is either the gathering of the church, which is God’s inheritance, or the speech of apostolic preaching, he added: “God the Lord will give the word to those who preach good news with many powers, the king of the powers of the beloved, and to the beauty of the house to divide the spoils.” To the rain set apart for watering the gospel, then, the Lord will give the word, pouring it into our minds and mouths, according to this: “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” But those who preach good news are many powers, to whom he will give the word: so that there is a power in Paul, a power in Peter, a power in John, and a power in the others; and he signifies that there are therefore many powers for preaching the gospel. Although God, Lord, and king will give the word to them, yet these powers are the beloved’s, that is, belong to him who is beloved by the king, Lord, and God. The Latin translation declares this laboriously and obscurely, since it does not change the arrangement of the words. But the speech as expressed in Greek states the whole more plainly: that this our God and Lord is the king of the powers that belong to the beloved; so that “powers” refers to the apostles and “beloved” to Christ, whose powers are understood to be either in these men or all these men themselves. Although there was one and the same Spirit in all, it was necessary, because of what follows, to mention numerous powers, since he himself would divide the spoils of the powers for the beauty of the house. For the spoils taken from the devil, and those of the nations, are divided for the adornment of the church; and from these spoils the beauty of the house is perfected, when they are drawn from the altars and temples of demons into priests of God for the sanctification of the ministry, and, watered by the Holy Spirit and preaching good news, they become the powers of the beloved.

For to these same powers, which either divide the spoils for the beauty of the house or are themselves the spoils, the divine speech refers, saying: “If you sleep among the lots, the wings of a dove silvered over, and the hinder parts of her back in the greenness of gold.” These are the prayers of the prophecy, by which it desires that these spoils, divided for the beauty of the house, should remain in the midst of the lots, so that until the day of their completion (for death is usually signified by sleep) they may persevere in the beauty of the house. For the use of preaching they are like the silvered wings of a dove, that is, precious with the gift and adornment of the Holy Spirit. But in the things that come after them they will stand in the greenness of gold, so that after the preaching of the gospel royal honor and unwearied eternity may be rendered to them in the greenness of gold, from the fruit of their conscience: gold referring to honor, and greenness showing eternal vigor. The hinder parts of the back, then (which the Greek word means rather as the part between the shoulders), that is, the honors of good conscience that come later in time, are to be honored beyond the honor of this preaching; while meanwhile the silvered wings, remaining under the gift of the Holy Spirit, will afterward also attain, as the fruit of their conscience, the greenness of gold, that is, the flower of perpetual honor.

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.

For to preserve and join the whole sense, after the councils of bulls and the beasts of the forests were rebuked and the nations that want war were scattered, so that arrogant and impious Israel should presume nothing further for itself, he added: “Envoys will come from Egypt; Ethiopia will be first with her hand; to God the kingdoms of the earth: sing to God, sing psalms to the Lord.” These things were fulfilled either in those who came from the east, or rather at the time when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles in the manner of divided fire. For there they are written to have gathered even from Egypt to the knowledge of the gospel preaching; and as they reported, like envoys, the greatness of the divine gift, almost all Egypt is now faithful. Ethiopia came first, in the eunuch of Candace, by the confession of faith; and “with her hand,” when he asked for the grace of baptism for himself, saying: “Here is water; who prevents me from being baptized?”, anticipating the very mystery of baptism with such longing of impatient desire that, eager for his salvation, he demanded of a deacon the ministry of the apostolic office. And since from then on the preaching of divine knowledge shone out through almost all nations (since all kingdoms will understand the Lord Christ to be God, though late, and every tongue will confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father), he longs for the completion of this time, saying: “To God the kingdoms of the earth: sing to God, sing psalms to the Lord.” He exhorts all, that is, to sing to God and sing psalms, either because with prophetic concern he rejoices in the salvation of all, or because, when all kingdoms know God, the eternity of the heavenly kingdom follows.

And as is usual elsewhere, now too he shows to what God and Lord we must sing and sing psalms, saying: “Sing psalms to God, who ascended above the heavens of heaven toward the east; behold, he will give his voice, a voice of power.” Fittingly, honor is now asked for God who ascends above the heaven of heaven toward the east: so that, since his humility had been signified above, when he either rose above the setting or went out by the issue of death, now, where he is made known to have passed beyond not heaven but the heaven of heaven, the eternity of his divinity and magnificence might not be unknown. “Toward the east,” because he himself, according to the prophet, is the Dayspring from on high, so that he might be known to have returned as the Dayspring to where he had come down from, and that he himself might again be for men the author of rising to this ascent to the heavenly seat.

For the following words signify this very thing, when it is said: “Behold, he will give his voice, a voice of power.” In all the things he did while remaining in the body he gave a voice of power: when he says to the paralytic, “Rise and walk”; when he calls Lazarus from the tomb; when he says to Peter and the other apostles: “Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven; and whatever you bind on earth will be bound also in heaven.” That is plainly a voice of power, to be able to grant so much to human weakness. But we know that yet another voice of power remains, of which he himself testified, saying: “Truly, truly I tell you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Can there be any greater voice of power than to gather the dust of dissolved bodies into form and the solidity of limbs, to call lives and souls back into men again, and to change the corruption of a weak nature into the incorruption of a heavenly nature? This is the true and perfect constancy of human hope; this is the complete goodness of divine magnificence. Therefore he exhorts all to honor this great power, saying: “Give honor to God,” so that we may refer the praise of the immortality we receive to the honor of him who is the parent of so great a gift to us.

Next, so that neither carnal Israel nor the whole of the impious nations should presume anything for themselves from these merits of godliness and knowledge of God, he shows by whom this honor is to be rendered to God, saying: “His magnificence is over Israel, and his power in the clouds,” showing, that is, that his magnificence will be over that Israel which would already be spiritual by comparison with the clouds, or which, according to the apostle, would deserve to be caught up to meet Christ in the clouds. And therefore his power is in the clouds, because to those who, living beyond their earthly and mortal origin, had raised themselves to a heavenly mind and to, so to speak, an airy life, and, borne up to meet him, had stood in the clouds, to them it would properly belong to rejoice in the power and magnificence of God. (He often recalls that these very clouds, as perfected in reason and knowledge, were commanded not to rain upon the impious vineyard of Israel, because those whom thorns and thistles, that is, earthly vices, had already beset had proved unworthy of the holy word.) For although the voice of power is to be used for all, for the new origin of the resurrection, yet the same glorious honor of resurrection is not prepared for all, as the Lord says: “Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice; and those who have done good will come forth to the resurrection of life, but those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” And therefore the magnificence and power of God is over that Israel which is in the clouds, because, according to the distinction between an innocent and an impious life, there is a distinct difference of resurrection, either to life or to judgment.

Then the following words point to this very thing, saying: “God is wonderful in his saints”: wonderful, that is, toward those whom he will raise eternal to the resurrection of life. He is wonderful when he confers on them the whole will of his beneficence, when he places them within the perfection of heavenly glory, as he prayed to the Father for them, saying: “Father, I will that where I am these may be with me”; or that: “that all may be one, I in them and you in me.” God, then, is wonderful in his saints, whom, when he has made them conformed to the glory of his body, he who is the mediator will take up through himself even into the unity of the Father’s majesty, since the Father is in him by nature and he in turn is in us by fellowship of the flesh: whom he will have placed to possess the kingdom prepared for them before the foundation of the world, to whom, death being swallowed up, he will have given immortal and eternal life. For no longer will change and toil be endured by the growth of bodies, the nourishment of food, and the chances of weakness in human life; but eternity will be given to all, which holds itself together by the power of its own nature, that is, which nourishes and preserves itself. And all, sure that they will be everlasting, are no longer held to life from elsewhere, that is, from outside, but from God, through whom they will have risen, and they remain immortal and eternal. And therefore the prophet concluded these mysteries of human hope with such a faith of confession: “God is wonderful in his saints; the God of Israel himself will give power and strength to his people; blessed be God.” God, then, gives power and strength to his people, which, made immortal, holds life and power within itself, and, the body having been stripped, has been clothed over with heavenly honor, so that, all corruption and weakness driven away, it may bless God with the praise of its eternity through his only-begotten and firstborn, our God and Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

This is the third psalm “for those who will be changed.” Although it contains nothing by way of historical record, as we discussed was present in the fifty-ninth, and although it does not put forward anything peculiar in its title, as the forty-fourth does, where “a song for the beloved” is prefixed, yet, since it is headed not “a psalm of David himself” but “to David himself, to the end,” the prophecy is to be understood as fitting rather that David who is the Dayspring, the Righteous One, and the end of the law. For by this the psalm is taught to have been sung not by him but about him. By “those who will be changed” we taught that the faithful of the gospel hope are signified, who, changed to the knowledge of God either from the observance of the law or from pagan impiety, would flourish, as if reborn, in the brightness of incorrupt eternity; and this will be treated at the end of the psalm. There is no doubt that the psalm contains the mystery of the Lord’s passion. For besides the apostle John, who testified that the fulfillment of the Scriptures consisted in the drinking of the vinegar, this saying too, taken up by the same in the apostles’ remembrance, “Zeal for your house has eaten me,” removes all doubt and confirms that everything said and done in it is to be referred to him. Having gone through the lot of all human sufferings, then, he speaks according to the weaknesses of ours that he took up; and he himself grieves, though placed beyond the necessity of fear and pain, yet adapting himself to the things he took up, so that he who had been born a man of our flesh might speak both with the complaints of our pains and with the prayer of weakness. So he began thus:

“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.” Death, appointed for all, prescribes an end of living for everyone. What, then, does this prayer mean, which begs to be saved, when the law of death has been appointed for all? Next, the reason for praying for salvation now is that the waters have come in to the soul; and the waters are able to come in to the soul because he is stuck fast in the mire of the deep; and one fixed in the mire of the deep has no standing. So, since no one prays except for what he hopes, and no one hopes not to die, this prayer rightly belongs to him who, though he was going to die, was not to be held by death. The weakness he assumed, then, had the task of praying for salvation, while the consciousness of divinity held the hope of salvation to be hoped for in death. He prays, then, to be saved, he who also said: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

For as the waters came in to the soul, he was being subjected to the death of the cross, when the onrush of all sufferings broke through even to the death of the soul. There is no doubt that by waters the persecutions of the people and the movements of the nations are usually signified, when it is said: “My soul has passed through a torrent,” or: “And my soul has passed through an immense water.” There are also waters that wash under the house built on sand and drive it to its fall and ruin. These waters, then, now coming in to the soul, compelled him to the prayer of asking for salvation.

But the force and power of these sufferings that came in come from nowhere else than from the assumption of flesh. For this terror of our weaknesses could not fall upon God, nor could the sufferings show themselves except in the flesh of our body, as in an underlying material. Moreover, the heavenly nature had to be drained, so that, emptying himself, he might fall from the form of God into the form of a servant and of a man. And therefore the waters penetrate to the soul, because there is no standing (substantia) for him, fixed in the mire of the deep. Certainly it was not that substance which was held as assumed, but that which, emptying itself, it had drained. Yet he who emptied himself, making himself void, was in no way without himself; and yet that very thing did not seem to stand forth which had already yielded itself by emptying into something else. There is no standing, then, because he is fixed in the mire of the deep. For the first man was from the mire of the earth; and the second Adam, descending from heaven into the depth of this mire, fixed himself in it as one coming from on high. Emptying himself, then, since he had no standing, he descended not only to the depths of the flesh but even to the depths of death, and the whole terror of the storm raging against us fell upon him. For when, against the difference between the heavenly and earthly natures, he fixed himself in this mire by the force of his power (since things that differ in nature come together into a kind of firm connection not by the nearness of their kind but are joined, as if fastened together, by a stronger force), then he began both to suffer and to be able to die, descending through the setting of death into the underworld.

For there follows: “I came into the depth of the sea, and the storm overwhelmed me.” Jonah, the imitator of the Lord’s death and of its time, plunged into the sea and taken up by the whale, testifies that he was set not so much in the sea as in the underworld: “I cried in my distress to my God, and he heard me out of the belly of the underworld, at my cry.” And although the whale had swallowed him as an image of death in the underworld, he says: “My head went into the clefts of the rocks; I went down into the earth, whose bars are tenacious and eternal.” To holy Job also, after that most glorious war of all sufferings, when he was now worthy of divine speech and of knowledge of nature, after the gates of the sea broken within itself and its roaring terrors in its mother’s womb, the Lord revealed again what was also signified by the sea, saying: “Have you come upon the springs of the abyss, or walked in the tracks of the sea? Do the gates of death open to you in fear?”, signifying that the gates of death are in the tracks of the sea, as in its depth or height. For since the depths of the sea are lower than the earth, the seat of death must be shown to be in the depth of the sea, that is, in the lower regions. Coming, then, into this depth of the sea, he was overwhelmed by the storm, which he recalls in an earlier psalm thus: “All your heights and your waves have passed over me.” And he too, as I said, the imitator of the Lord’s death, whom that most monstrous whale of this sea vomited out from the tenacious and eternal bars of the earth, lamented in much the same way: “All your billows and your waves passed over me.” Coming, then, to the depth of death, he was overwhelmed by the storm of death itself and pressed down by the tempests of the hostile powers.

Yet he was not silent toward the Father about those who were going to offer themselves to the devil as instruments of service to sin (for he sometimes reproached them with the plans they had made for his death, often cried out standing in the temple, and frequently lifted his eyes to God, so that they might look to him at each greatest work of his divinity); and so there follows: “I have labored crying out; my throat has become hoarse; my eyes have failed while I hope in my God.” Taking up our weaknesses and bearing our sins, he spoke in the usage and custom of human weariness; for he often gave himself to sleep and fatigue, even to the necessity of thirst and hunger. So his throat was hoarse and his eyes failed. He taught that the chief cause of his crying out and of the straining of his eyes was that he hoped in God: either when he cries out, saying: “He who believes in me does not believe in me but in him who sent me,” or when, about to call Lazarus with a loud voice, with his eyes lifted up he says: “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.”

But while he was either bearing witness to the magnificence of the Father’s name or carrying out the work of human salvation, hatreds against him multiplied without cause. For there follows: “Those who hate me without cause are multiplied above the hairs of my head. My enemies who persecute me unjustly have grown strong; then I was made to pay back what I did not steal.” The number of those who hate him is greater than the hairs of his head: either because of the abundant multitude of the impious, or because they are unworthy of God’s care (for we know that the apostles’ hairs are numbered, so great is God’s care for them), or because the number of unbelievers exceeds the number of the faithful. For since the beauty of the head lies in its hair, and the whole adornment of the church, which is the body of Christ, lies in the beauty of the apostles, the multitude of those who hate is above this beauty of his head. They hated him without cause, that is, having no reason for hatred. And his enemies, growing strong, persecuted him unjustly. For he had committed no sin, nor had he any deceit; and therefore he was made to pay back what he had not stolen. For though he was not a debtor of death and sin, he was held as a debtor of sin and death, by those, namely, who exercised in him the law of sin that is in our members. For from sin he condemned sin in the flesh.

Since in this he was fulfilling a great plan of divine wisdom, and the death of the cross in God seemed folly to the Gentiles, and great expectation of heavenly and earthly hope was present in him, he added: “O God, you know my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from you. Let not those who wait for you, Lord of powers, be put to shame in me; let not those who seek you, God of Israel, be confounded over me.” God is aware of his foolishness, and his sins are not hidden from him: that is, the penalties of foolishness and sins, which he had not stolen, he was made to pay. Even to the folly of the cross (that is, because it is folly to the Gentiles that he should take up our sins in this way) he is harassed without cause and unjustly as a sinner and a fool. But since he had taken up folly and sins for the sake of our wisdom and life, so as both to judge the prince of the world and to condemn sin in the flesh from sin (since in himself, that is, in the flesh of his body, in which no sin could be found, according to his saying, “Behold, the prince of the world will come and will find nothing in me,” this prince of the world, coming and finding no sin, nevertheless exercised the penalty, that is, the right of death, by which the author of human death is judged, because he contrived death against the author of life, who knew no sin); this was the expectation of the saints, that all flesh might be redeemed in Christ, that in him the firstfruits of eternal resurrection might stand forth. He asks that those who wait for the Lord may not be put to shame in him, nor those who seek the God of Israel be afraid and ashamed over him; because the time of his taking flesh was longed for, according to this: “Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and to hear what you hear.” He prays, then, that nothing weak and infirm may remain in him, lest the weakness of body and flesh confound the hope of those who wait. For through him and in him is all our expectation toward God. Coming into the body, then, he prays that the hope of the saints may not be confounded in him.

That he took up our weaknesses for the salvation of the human race by the Father’s will, since he came to do not his own will but the will of the Father who sent him, he now also declares through what follows: “For your sake I have borne reproach; shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother’s sons; for zeal for your house has eaten me.” There was no natural weakness, then, in the only-begotten God, but an assumed one, because for God’s sake he took up these reproaches of sufferings. And yet not even in the nature of men is there any necessity of sin; rather the practice of sin is seized from the appetite of the will and delight in vices. And therefore the Lord shows that he had not stolen what he was made to pay; because things desired against nature are stolen, and all will pay the last penny of such debts; and for this reason, by the rule of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray that our debts be forgiven us. He bore reproach, then, for God’s sake, when he takes up a body foreign to his nature, when, according to the apostle, the Father makes him who knew no sin to be sin, when he becomes obedient even to the death of the cross, when he is reproached that, saving others, he does not save himself, when he suffers the insults of spitting and blows.

Covered with this shame for God’s sake, then, he becomes a stranger to his brothers and is made a foreigner to his mother’s sons: a stranger, that is, to the vices of those who were held to be his kin according to the flesh, when, entering the temple, he overturned the tables of the money-changers, forbade the market of sheep and oxen, and reproached those who sold doves for having made his Father’s house a house of trade. For he did these things seized by zeal for God’s house. This is the indignation of devoted love, that we are moved by insults to those we love as by a boiling zeal. For by this zeal for the polluted house, as the Gospel testifies (as I showed above), he entered the temple and drove out the whole crowd of buyers and sellers. And it is praiseworthy that zeal for God was pleasing even to the severity and end of death.

Through this indignation at the greed he reproached in them, then, the abuse of all curses was heaped upon him. Whatever reproaches are usually directed at the impious were brought against him, when he is called a blasphemer, a Samaritan, Beelzebub, one who has a demon. For this is what follows: “And the reproaches of those who reproached you fell upon me.” The reproach of blasphemy is rather thrust upon one who casts insult upon God, just as the infamy of a demon belongs more properly to one who is estranged from God. Since all these were cast at him because of zeal for God’s house, the reproaches of those who reproach God are heaped on him. And the apostle, writing to the Romans, recalls this saying with this sense of meaning.

Even the self-denial of fasting turned into reproach, when he is tempted by the devil, when he is set on the pinnacle of the temple, when he is carried up on a mountain, when finally he is tempted to worship Satan by the ambition of ruling the whole world. At times he weeps, groans, and is sad, and this very thing is attributed to him as an example of weakness. Finally, he becomes both the object of disparagement and a song to every kind of men. For even those who sit at the gates begging for their living abuse and disparage him, and drunkards sing psalms about him. He laments that all these things were done to him, either according to the truth of events or after the manner of human custom: “And I covered my soul with fasting, and it became a reproach to me. I made sackcloth my garment, and I became a byword to them. Those who sat in the gate spoke against me, and those who drank wine sang psalms about me.” Fasting, then, was a reproach to him, because through the reproach of hunger he was tempted even to the insult of worshiping Satan. A garment of sackcloth is the dress of mourning, and every feeling of mourning lies in weeping. And when, about to raise Lazarus, he sheds tears, he was mourning the unbelief of the human race; for in the dress of mourning the feeling of weeping is signified. That he did not weep for Lazarus, at whose death he even rejoices and whom he was about to raise from the dead, the whole account of the Gospel declares. But since he wept that there would be no faith in the resurrection even in the very work of resurrection, his weeping became a byword, so that both then he was said to have given proof of his love for Lazarus by weeping, and by many today he is charged with being weak because he wept. In the drunkards who sing psalms and those who sit in the gate and disparage him, the insults against him even of all the weak are taught through this custom of the common people. So clear is it that no kind of men was silent about him that Cleopas is written to have answered him, when, as if ignorant of the matter, he asked the reason for their conversation: “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who has not known the things that have happened there in these days?” For there is astonishment at one man’s ignorance amid everyone’s knowledge.

But amid these disparagements and insults of all against him, he was carrying out the mysteries of human salvation; and he prays to God for salvation for the man he had taken up. For there follows: “But I, with my prayer to you, O Lord: a time of good pleasure, O God! In the greatness of your mercy hear me, in the truth of my salvation. Rescue me from the mud, that I may not stick fast, and free me from those who hate me and from the depth of waters. Let not the storm of water sink me, nor the deep swallow me up, nor the pit shut its mouth over me.” While the others are intent on insults and reproaches against him, he himself is wholly turned to God in his prayer: having in himself the weaknesses of ours that he took up, but in the things by which he is afflicted carrying out the gift of heavenly mercy toward us; and, not taking these things on unwillingly, he shows that in the greatness of mercy it is a time of good pleasure to God. In this time of good pleasure, then, he prays, because he is not ignorant of this prophecy of the Father about himself, recognized also by the apostle Paul: “In an acceptable time I have heard you.”

All things that have been done must indeed be understood to please God on account of the magnificence of his works; and when it is written in Genesis, “And God saw that they were good,” no fault is left in created things, even though some things have been corrupted by the wickedness of human ingenuity: as poisons from remedies, a sword from iron, a conflagration from fire, indigestion from food, drunkenness from wine, and finally the very parts and members of bodies, formed for natural and useful purposes, have offered themselves as the servants of vices and crimes. And though all things are pleasing to God, yet this is the time of good pleasure in which the only-begotten God, in the blood of our body, was to reconcile to God all things in heaven and on earth, as things hostile and at variance: when that manifold wisdom of God, hidden in other times and known to no princes and magistrates of the age, was to be revealed to the praise of God’s glory; when the nations were to become fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers with Christ; when in him all the powers hostile to God were to be put to shame; when death, after it had raged against God, was to cease; when the law of sin that is in our flesh was to be removed; when all creation, groaning together, was to hope for the revealing of the sons of God; when in the passion of the only-begotten God the effect of all causes and origins from before the foundation of the world was to be fulfilled: by judging the prince of the age, by redeeming man from the law of sin, by freeing creatures from the vanity of corruption which they serve, by condemning the spiritual wickednesses through the Lord’s death, and by praising God in all things and through all by the gift of eternity and the glory of our immortality. All these things the power of the resurrection fulfilled, because, death being driven away from the human race through the firstfruits from the dead, the penalty of eternal death was decreed against the authors of death. For in himself he triumphed confidently over the principalities and powers, putting them to shame.

And therefore, after the mention of the time of good pleasure, the whole prayer is for the granting of true salvation, so that the very truth of salvation might be understood as that which is hoped for from the resurrection. Next, he who was fixed in the mire of the deep asks that he may not stick fast in the mud, according to this: “For you will not leave my soul in the underworld, nor give your holy one to see corruption.” For he who is earth, and will return to the earth from which he was taken, will stick fast in the mud and mire in which he is fixed, dissolved into the origin of his nature, that is, of the body. He also prays to be freed from those who hate him and from the depth of the waters, because they had broken through even to his soul, that is, the sufferings inflicted by his persecutors. And having come into the depth of the sea and been overwhelmed by the storm, he now prays that he may not be sunk: so that above there was the profession of our weakness that he took up, when he professes that he was sunk, but now there is the confidence of salvation of which he is conscious in himself, when he prays that the storm of water may not sink him. For it does not belong to the same nature both to have been sunk already and to pray not to be sunk, but to that nature which, though sunk through the body, was not to be held through the spirit. And therefore he now prays that he may not be swallowed by the deep and that the pit may not close its mouth over him. For that the seat of death in the underworld is signified by a pit, another psalm also testifies, when it is said: “But you, O Lord, will bring them down into the pit of destruction,” showing that this sunken depth of pits signifies the lower regions of the earth. He asks, then, that the pit may not close its mouth over him; for it is impossible for the God of life to be held by the gates of the underworld.

And lest, in having taken the death of our weakness, he should grieve at all from the bitterness of death according to human necessity, he added: “Hear me, O Lord, for your mercy is sweet to me; according to the greatness of your mercy look upon me.” For this is the time of good pleasure in the greatness of mercy, when God, having mercy on the life of all men in himself, was, as the merciful God, to bestow life from the dead. But he who testified that this mercy of God was sweet to him does not relax the anxiety of our weakness that he took up, saying: “Do not turn your face from your servant; for I am in trouble, hear me quickly. Attend to my soul and free it; because of my enemies rescue me.” He suffers and speaks all things as a man. For from his taking of flesh he is also a servant (puer), according to this: “Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased”; and he prays for quick help in his trouble and asks that God attend to his soul, so that, through God’s attending to it, it may be worthy to be freed. These things he prays as our man, obedient even to the death of the cross. But when he asks to be rescued because of his enemies, he goes beyond the custom of human hope and behavior. For no one wishes to be saved for any other reason more than for the sake of his own salvation; and anyone will wish to be rescued from evils so that he may not be afflicted by evils. But now he asks to be rescued from the things that afflict him, not for his own sake but because of his enemies, because these enemies were soon to be put to shame in him as he suffered and triumphed over with confidence in him as he rose from the dead.

Finally, he teaches by what follows that he does and suffers nothing for his own sake, saying: “For you know my reproach and my confusion and my shame; all who trouble me are in your sight. My heart has awaited reproach and misery.” The earlier profession is not unlike, when he says: “O God, you know my foolishness, and my sins are not hidden from you.” For, against the error of human opinion, it was known to God alone that this weakness was assumed by him rather than natural. And since he had to endure these things because of his enemies, through which he was providing for human salvation and eternity, he testifies to his affection for this time of good pleasure, saying: “My heart has awaited reproach and misery,” signifying that the sufferings of this time were desired by him, according to that mystery of divine communion: “With desire I have desired to eat this”; because the effect of the time of good pleasure lay in these desires of his passion.

But while he awaited suffering for the advancement of our salvation, he was also held by the desire of another expectation. For there follows: “And I waited for one who would grieve with me, and there was none; and for comforters, and I found none.” He seeks not the solace of one who grieves with him and comforts him, but faith: that someone coming from the law, and understanding the prophecy of all these sufferings, might stand by him as at the fulfillment of the law itself; as afterward Paul, filling up the sufferings of Jesus Christ and buried with him in baptism, knows that Christ is the end of the law. For to the fulfillment of human sufferings and prophetic sayings, he who was to be the end of the deeds is also the end of the complaints. For there follows: “And they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” These things were fulfilled just as they are read written. For the Gospels testify both that gall was brought to him and that he was given vinegar to drink. According to Matthew, he refused the gall that was offered; but according to John, he thirsted so as to drink the vinegar. The passage is told in these words: “After this Jesus, knowing that all things were completed, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst. And a vessel full of vinegar was set there. So they put a sponge full of vinegar on hyssop and brought it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said: It is finished.” He had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and, waiting for one to comfort him and grieve with him, he found none: not that he needed comfort, since he was willing to suffer and die, but one who would grieve with him over the impiety of the whole people and who would comfort him by the very salvation of the one grieving with him; so that, when all had gone through so great a crime, he might receive solace at least in those who would be saved, according to this: “And he will be comforted in his servants”; because, when Israel did not believe, the nations would believe in him. Yet it is not written that he thirsted; rather he said that he thirsted so that all things might be fulfilled, because all our weaknesses that were in him are not natural but assumed. Then, so that he might be known to have satisfied the prophetic Scripture, after drinking the vinegar he testified that all things were completed, so that he who was completing the law and the prophets might stand forth as the fullness of the law and the prophets.

Now, since the prophecy of the whole passion was also to be fulfilled within the fulfillment of the gall offered and the vinegar to be drunk, the speech turned to what afterward followed the impiety of so great a crime, saying: “Let their table become before them a snare, and a trap, and a recompense, and a stumbling block. Let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see, and bend their back always.” That there is a table of sacrifices (to say nothing of the law, which contained in itself the image of what was to come), the apostle is witness, saying: “You cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons.” But that there is also a table of knowledge is known in several places, and that it ought to be so understood in these very words the same blessed apostle, writing to the Romans, is the interpreter, when he testifies that they were blinded so as to understand nothing. This table, then, from which the food of spiritual life is received, became before them a snare, a trap, a recompense, and a stumbling block: when the precepts of the law or the voices of the prophets are treated by the men of the church to reveal the divine plan; when, for faith in his taking flesh, the only-begotten God is shown in the form of a man both worshiped by Abraham and wrestling with Jacob; when the prince coming from Judah is announced as the expectation of the nations; when in Abraham’s seed all the families of the nations are to be blessed; when the Lord of the eternal kingdom is proclaimed from David’s womb; when, according to Isaiah, the Lord, led like a sheep to the slaughter, turned away neither his cheeks from the blows nor his face from the spitting; when, according to Jeremiah, “this is our God,” who, having given all instruction to Israel his beloved, was afterward seen on earth and lived among men; when, finally, the sayings of all the prophets agree about his coming. This table of teaching, then, or this word of life-giving food, is a snare, a trap, a recompense, and a stumbling block, when we show that he whom they crucified is the God of Jacob. For this is the recompense of so great an impiety, that what is for us the power of God is a stumbling block to them. For though they are snared and trapped by the Scriptures, they lack the sense of understanding; and therefore their eyes are darkened so that they do not see, that is, so that they do not behold the light of understanding, because, according to the Gospel, “to everyone who has, it will be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away”: unworthy, that is, to receive the sense and light of understanding; and therefore, not having attained the knowledge of gospel freedom, they are still pressed down for ever by the burden of the law, so that they bear what they cannot sustain. This is what he signifies by the bending of the back, through the image of bodily works.

But this ignorance of their blinded heart is followed by another penalty of due vengeance: “Pour out your anger upon them, and let the wrath of your anger seize them. Let their dwelling be deserted, and let there be none to dwell in their tents.” We have often discussed that by the anger of God is meant the establishment of a penalty, not a movement of mind blazing up with the will for vengeance: a penalty that he did not suddenly aim at in order to punish, but one into which a person worthy of punishment would fall. This condemnation, announced by all the prophets against this impious nation, stood fast. For soon the city was overturned and destroyed, and they were wiped out, that most glorious worship of the temple being abolished and its adornment stripped away. And therefore, their dwelling being deserted, no one will dwell in their tents.

But the prophecy of punishment and vengeance is extended further according to the growth of impiety: “For they have persecuted him whom you struck, and added to the pain of my wounds. Add iniquity upon their iniquity, and let them not enter into your righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous”: showing that the cause of adding iniquity upon their iniquity, of driving them back so that they should not enter into righteousness, and of their being blotted out of the book of the living and not written with the righteous, is this: that they persecuted him whom God had struck, and added to the pain of his wounds what would pain him.

And perhaps they might seem not unjustly to have persecuted him whom God had struck; so we must first discuss what is to be thought about those who have been struck by God, so that it may be understood how far this striking is salutary and that persecution of the one struck impious. The Lord struck Sodom and Gomorrah, polluted and abominable with the worst crimes; and I find that their being struck served them toward reconciliation with mercy, since it will be more tolerable for them on the day of judgment than for those cities in which the dust was shaken off the apostles’ feet. It is known too that the synagogue of Dathan and Abiram was struck with a most deserved plague; yet the works by which they had chiefly sinned were sanctified in their souls. And not to run through each case, which are many: since the apostle too hands one over to the destruction of the flesh for the salvation of the spirit, the Lord himself shows what he achieves by striking, saying: “See, see that I am, and there is no God besides me. I will kill and I will make alive; I will strike and I will heal”: to show that the cause of striking proceeds from the cause of healing.

The Lord too, then, was struck, taking up our sins and grieving for us, so that in him, struck even to the weakness of the cross and death, health might be restored to us through the resurrection from the dead. He himself testified that he was struck, reminding the disciples of this saying: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” The apostle too confirms the meaning of this saying in much the same way, saying: “who did not spare his beloved Son.” He did not spare his beloved Son, then, whom he also sent to the tenants of the vineyard, not unaware that they would kill him. Nor had he spared that first Adam from the mire of the earth, whom he cast out of paradise after his fault, lest, touching the tree of life, he should remain in an eternity of punishment; so that the second Adam from heaven, taking the nature of his body and struck by a like death, might call it back again into eternal life, now without an eternity of punishment. This one, then, so struck by God, they persecuted, adding to the pain of his wounds the pain of this persecution. For, according to the prophet, he grieves for us, and therefore he was reckoned to be in sorrows. For it is known how afterward they took up hatred of his name, how they bought the silence about the resurrection with money, and with what terrors and injuries they harassed the apostles. And since they added these things to the pain of his wounds, iniquity will be added to iniquity.

The penalty of the added iniquity is that they should not enter into the righteousness of God, that is, that they should not become of the same body and partakers with Christ, who, according to the apostle, was made by God our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And those shut out from entering righteousness must be blotted out of the book of the living. For they had been written in the blessings of Abraham, whose seed would abound like the stars of heaven and like the sand of the sea on the shore. When Moses feared that the whole people would be blotted out of that book, he prayed that he himself be blotted out first, wishing, as I think, according to the apostle, to be accursed for his brothers. And since, adding the pain of persecution to the pain of his wounds, they lost the way back of repentance, blotted out of the book of the living, they did not deserve to be written afterward even with the righteous: so that it can be understood that the book of the living is one and the book of the righteous another. And there is no doubt that those are in the book of the living who formerly, without any knowledge of Christ, lived devoutly in the law and fulfilled all its precepts, of whom the apostle taught according to the law thus: “for whoever does them will live in them.” But those are written in the book of the righteous for whom Christ has been made righteousness; for the righteous lives by faith. Of this book the Lord speaks to the apostles, saying: “Rejoice and exult, because your names are written in heaven.” And therefore the meaning of being blotted out of the book of the living and of not being written in the book of the righteous was twofold, because after the book of the living the book of the righteous remained. And here the apostles are given a cause of great rejoicing, because it is more to be written in the book of the righteous than not to be blotted out of the book of the living.

The psalm holds in itself that manner of confession which must be in us by faith, so that both the nature of man and the nature of God are known in him. For coming in the form of a servant, he emptied himself from the form of God. For how could one remaining in the form of God exist in the form of a man? Yet the form of God could not be abolished so that there should be only the form of a servant. For it is the same one who both empties himself from the form of God and takes the form of man; because neither is that emptying from the form of God the destruction of the heavenly nature, nor is the taking of the servile form a nature of his own origin and condition, since what was taken is not an inner property but an outward addition. He teaches this very thing by what follows, saying: “I am poor and sorrowful; and the salvation of your countenance, O God, has taken me up.” He is poor who, according to the apostle, though he was rich in all things, made himself poor so that we might become rich; he is sorrowful who, according to the prophet, grieves for us. But this poor and sorrowful one the salvation that is the countenance of God took up. Form, countenance, face, and image do not differ; common sense holds that the same thing is meant by any of them. This poor one, then, the countenance of God, which is the form of God, took up into salvation; that is, the only-begotten God, who is the image of the invisible God, placed the man taken up by him in the life of his eternity, which is understood to be salvation in God. For every tongue will confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father, that is, that the man taken up has been received into the nature of divinity.

That in him there is the end of the law and the sacrifice of praise is the confession of the gospel, so that, with the blood and offering of victims ceasing, the sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise is preferred. For when this poor and sorrowful one has been taken up into the salvation of God’s countenance and form, there continues and follows: “I will praise your name with a song; I will magnify it with praise. And it will please God more than a young calf putting forth horns and hoofs.” This praise of God’s name, then, and this magnifying of his praise, will please more than a young calf. For such a calf was formerly offered in the law for sin, whose age he indicates by the tender growth of hoofs and horns. The honor of praise, then, will please more than the calf for sin, according to this: “The sacrifice of praise will honor me, and there is the way by which I will show him the salvation of God.” The way of showing the salvation of God, then, lies in the sacrifice of praise.

And the psalm shows this very thing by what follows. For after the magnificence of praise that will please more than a young calf, he added: “Let the poor see and rejoice. Seek the Lord, and your soul will live; for the Lord has heard the poor and has not despised his prisoners.” Let them rejoice, that is, seeing this time whose sacrifice is in praise, because there the salvation of God will be shown. And therefore God will be sought by them for the life of the soul. For he forbade us to fear the judge of the flesh and body, because God alone is able to send the soul into Gehenna. The reason for seeking God for the life of the soul is that God heard the poor one, namely him who made himself poor that we might become rich, whom he took up into the salvation of his countenance, in whom he forgave us our sins, not despising his prisoners: either those who are prisoners of Christ, as Paul glories in his chains, or those whom Satan, as the armed and very powerful one, held bound by sins, according to this: “You have broken my bonds; to you I will offer a sacrifice of praise.” The poor, then, rejoice in what they see, because it is written: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

And since, when those who are poor in spirit have been established in the kingdom of heaven, the whole creation, groaning and in pain, is to be freed into the glory of the sons of God, having been subjected to vanity not by its own will, now too, on account of the rejoicing poor, those who seek life, the poor one who was heard, and the prisoners who were not despised, that very creation which awaits the revealing of the glory of the poor is called to the praise of God: “Let heaven and earth praise him, the sea and all things that creep in it,” signifying, under the mention of these elements, the sense and mind of all creatures to be freed; so that, when heaven, earth, and sea are mentioned, things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth may be understood to bend the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. For by the things that creep in the sea (although in water creatures swimming is natural rather than creeping) those that live in the underworld are meant, since we understand the depth of the sea to be the seat of the underworld.

He shows the reason why heaven, earth, and sea should still praise God, saying: “For the Lord has saved Zion, and the cities of Judah will be built; and they will dwell there and inherit the land; and the seed of his servants will possess it; and those who love his name will dwell in it.” All praise proceeds from the wonder of things. For a thing seems worthy of praise when the work itself is so magnificent and splendid that it contains both the foresight and power of the doer and the beauty and usefulness of what is done. So whatever surpasses the sense and opinion of common understanding earns praise through the wonder it causes. Heaven, then, adorned with such splendor, filled, and keeping such great motions and courses with incredible constancy and variety, so that it governs and completes the year between winter and heat with the tempered seasons of autumn and spring; the earth, which, shaded by the natures above, holds, nourishes, and makes fruitful the seeds either enclosed in itself or received into its bosom, and strengthens them to ripeness for use according to the nature of each kind; the sea, which, in the manner of our life, is animated and endures, now drawing in breath and now pouring it back, governs itself in its great variety of motion by the reckoning of the moon’s waxing and waning, and by the barrier of its infinite depths exceeds the mind of human opinion, so that we cannot grasp by following sense either what is beyond it or what is within it: amid such great and wonderful powers of things and natures, will heaven, earth, and seas praise God for this, that Zion is saved and the cities of Judea are to be built? Human works, surely, and perishable, to be dissolved by time itself and age! And if it were worthy of praise that they were built, would it not serve praise more that they were preserved from being destroyed?

So these greatest and most excellent natures of all things, or rather those by which all things are held together and nourished, the natures of sea, earth, and heaven, are not called to praise almost empty and trivial works: that is, because Zion was saved and the cities of Judea were built, which, after the victories of the Babylonians and of Antiochus, the war of the Roman king also destroyed. Further, the common knowledge and reason of the matter condemn this poor and impious opinion. For the prophetic speech declares that the cities of Judea are built so that they may dwell in Zion, which has been saved. What room is there here for understanding according to human buildings and the construction of cities, since there is no praise in building cities that are later to be destroyed, and reason and nature do not allow cities to be built so that they may dwell in a city?

But praise plainly worthy of God, to be given by the confession of heaven, earth, and sea, is this: that that daughter of Zion, who was carried into Jerusalem with so great a company going before and following, has been saved by God; she into whom the angels long to look, toward whom all creation, groaning and in pain, looks forward, in whom we contemplate the glory and praise of our eternity, in whom the cities of the built churches will remain. For Zion, though it is a hill joined to the temple that was in Jerusalem, is nevertheless, according to its interpretation from Hebrew into Latin and Greek, called “watchtower” (speculatio). In this body of the Lord, then, in which he rose from the dead, in which he sat down at the right hand of power, in which he is in the glory of God the Father, we contemplate our hope and life. And since all creation awaits the revelation of our glory in him and is itself to be freed into the same, it praises the salvation of this Zion under the figure of heaven, earth, and sea; because all things in heaven and on earth have been made peace with and reconciled to God through it, because sin, death, and corruption have been swallowed up and exhausted by life and immortality in the glory of the resurrection, whose hope we contemplate in him rising from the dead. For if there is great joy of the angels in heaven over the repentance of one sinner, how much more joy will there be at the reconciliation of the whole world?

And since the psalm is “to the end, for those who will be changed,” the cities of Judea are praised as about to be built so that they may dwell in Zion. And who would doubt that cities are themselves gatherings of men? It is known that the church is made from the gathering of the peoples. In this Zion, then, which embraces in itself that city of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, our dwelling is completed, who remain the seed of Judah as we are the seed of Abraham. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he who is a Jew inwardly and in the spirit. Therefore in these gatherings of ours we too are the cities of Judea.

And lest impious Israel should claim for itself glory in the cities of Judea on the ground that it is, according to the flesh, the seed of God’s servants, he shows that the inheritance and dwelling in Zion belong to those who love the name of the Lord: so that the choice is rather of godliness than of race, because the love of God which is in Christ surpasses all things, and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is blessed for ever and ever, asks Peter nothing else than whether he loved him. Amen.

This is another psalm “for remembrance”; for the thirty-seventh has the same title. From the meaning of the word itself and from common usage we are taught what is to be understood by the heading “for remembrance.” For a prayer for remembrance befits one who fears that he will fall into the forgetfulness of him from whom he expects either help or pardon, and who desires that remembrance be made either of himself for salvation or of those who are always hostile to him for punishment. In the earlier psalm with the same title, pardon and salvation were treated; it consists entirely of the person of the Lord grieving for us and bearing our sins. In this one, however, no need of asking pardon remains, since the preceding psalm, next to this one, concluded with the praise of Zion saved and the cities of Judea built. But in it there is remembrance of vengeance on the impious and of reward for the saints. And since the psalm is “to the end,” not to David himself but toward that David, it will be treated, according to the account given earlier from the proper meaning of the name, as in the person of the Lord, as will be known from the very end of the psalm.

“O Lord God, attend to my help.” This is the voice of devout confession, to hope for help from the Lord and God; but here the speech now signifies more than usually in prayers for hoped-for help. For it can be seen that he who has been set as help over the mighty now prays that attention be given to the help in which he has been set. And who this is is not in doubt from the psalm in which it is written: “I have laid help upon one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from my people; I have found David my servant.” And lest anything should be referred to that David son of Jesse, he added: “And I will make him firstborn, high above the kings of the earth.” And lest the fact that he is firstborn should be drawn to the firstfruits of the kingdom granted him by God, he showed what was proper to the Lord Jesus Christ alone, saying: “And his throne is like the sun in my sight, and like the full moon it remains for ever, a faithful witness in heaven.”

Now, then, he who has been set as helper against the mighty, and who prays that attention be given to his help, demands punishment on those who oppose him, saying: “Let those who seek my soul be put to shame and confounded; let those who plot evil against me be turned back and blush. Let those who say to me, Aha, aha, be turned away at once, blushing.” The divine speech is to be weighed from the words of our speech and talk. Shame and confusion come from disgrace; turning away comes from repulse; and a return is to no other places than those from which one set out. Those, then, who seek the soul of this holy one, who prays that attention be given to his help, will first be put to shame, afterward be turned away, and then be turned not elsewhere but back. And the order of the words is the same as that of the events. For they will be put to shame by seeking the soul of him whom, when they have killed him, they will know to be alive; because he is the God of life and the Lord of resurrection. Then afterward they will be turned away, so that they do not go to meet Christ with the saints caught up in the clouds. Finally, the turning is to nowhere else than back. For rising from the dead, they will return again to the judgment of punishment and vengeance in the lowest parts of the earth, from which they had come up. For all flesh will rise, but not all will be changed; and it has been appointed that each receive in the flesh, whether good or evil, according to what he has done. Those, then, who seek his soul, plot evil, and say “Aha, aha,” will be put to shame, turned away, and turned back: confounded by the resurrection, repelled from the meeting, called back to the underworld. “Aha, aha” is the voice of mockers, namely of those who said: “He saved others; he cannot save himself.”

But after this prayer about the impious, since the psalm was one of remembrance, prayer also had to be made for the hopes of the saints. For there follows: “Let all who seek you exult and be glad in you, and let those who love your salvation always say: Let God be magnified.” As shame and confusion come to those who seek the soul of the righteous one, so exultation and joy come to those who seek God; because, according to the prophet, some will rise to shame and others to joy. And as those who plot evil and say “Aha, aha” are turned back blushing, so those who love the salvation of God advance to the confession, “Let God be magnified,” so that from the grace of the exultation granted them by God the confession of praise may grow. For God, who is the same and eternal, needs nothing, nor is there anything in the natures of things or the opinions of minds that he awaits. For what can be changed by increase is often changed by loss. But God, who is himself origin and cause to things that come to be, sufficient to himself for the nature of eternal blessedness, leaves nothing outside lacking to him, so that he would await it from elsewhere. But he is magnified with us through the increase of his benefits, when his magnificence is heaped up by our sense and enjoyment of our blessings and by the praise of giving thanks. So whenever we say “Let him be magnified,” it is either a prayer for a gift to be desired by us from God, or a confession of a gift received and taken, his magnificence arising in our praise through the increase of our blessings.

The psalm of remembrance “to the end” had to be concluded with a fitting end of the remembrance itself. For there follows: “But I am needy and poor; the Lord helps me. You are my helper and my deliverer, O Lord; do not delay.” The profession of poverty and need fits neither the dignity of a king nor the wealth of a kingdom, but him who made himself poor so that we might become rich, who had not even for the Passover supper any house but one sought out and belonging to another. So he asks to be helped; for in the form of a servant he became obedient even to the death of the cross. He prays also for quick help to be delivered, so that there may be no delay in the remembrance, he who, not bearing even the delays of his passion, said to the betrayer: “What you are doing, do quickly,” as our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever, hastens to free the weakness of the flesh he took up in himself by the power of a speedy resurrection. Amen.

“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:

"Blessed are the spotless in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who search his testimonies; with their whole heart they seek him." The order of the sayings must not be neglected; if we do not learn it carefully, we shall not attain even the order of the blessedness that is laid out. For it does not say first, "Blessed are those who search the testimonies of God," but first, "Blessed are the spotless in the way." For the first thing is to enter the way of truth with conduct made firm and formed for the pursuit of innocence out of the common honesty of uprightness; the next is to search the testimonies of God and to come with a purged and cleansed mind to investigate them. Another prophet too was not forgetful of this order, saying: "Sow yourselves for righteousness, and reap yourselves for the fruit of life, and enlighten yourselves with the light of knowledge." Enlightenment is not commanded first, but our sowing, so that when we have first sown ourselves, that is, the conduct of our life, in hope of fruit, and then have reaped what was sown, we may then enlighten ourselves with the light of knowledge. This order, then, must be kept: of sowing, reaping, and enlightenment. For many of us hurry to be enlightened before sowing and reaping, although sowing and reaping are a kind of preparation for attaining the light.

This, then, is the first blessedness: that those are blessed who are spotless in the way; but not in a chance way, an uncertain way, a wandering way, but in the way in which one walks in the law of the Lord. For many think they have entered a useful and necessary way; but they will not be spotless in the way, because they do not walk in the law of the Lord. And this way must not only be entered but also travelled to its end. For no one, while he is on the way, has gained what he is heading for by the way. Blessed Paul says: "Not that I have received anything or am already perfect; but I follow on, if I may lay hold of that for which I also have been laid hold of by Christ." So he was still pressing on; but pressing on forgetting the things that are behind and stretching himself out to those that are ahead. And so he who travels this way is blessed, who, forgetting what is past, stretches out in hope of what is to come. And what the way is, in which each one who walks is blessed, the Lord teaches, saying: "I am the way." Whoever, then, stands firm in his precepts is blessed, while he restrains the vices of the flesh, while he tames the insolence of the mind, while he conquers the hunger of greed, while he shuns the glory of earthly honors. Whoever remains in these things is spotless in the way and walking in the law of the Lord.

The addition by which it is said "in the law of the Lord" is not idle. For there is also a law of sin, of which the blessed apostle says: "I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin." So because there was also a law of sin, it was called the law of the Lord. For unless there were also another law outside, the prophetic word would not have said "the law of the Lord" with the addition of what is proper to it.

Then follows the verse of the first letter: "Blessed are those who search his testimonies, and with their whole heart they seek him." In the first verse it says, "who walk in the law of the Lord"; in the second, "who search his testimonies"; in the fourth (since the third completed the second) it speaks of commandments, saying: "You have commanded your commandments to be kept exceedingly"; in the fifth, of justification: "O that my ways may be directed to keep your justifications"; in the sixth again of the effects of the commandments: "I shall not be put to shame when I look to your commandments"; in the seventh, of judgments: "I will confess to you, Lord, in uprightness of heart, in that I have learned your judgments"; in the eighth, of justification: "I will keep your justifications; do not utterly forsake me." If, then, law is one thing, precept another, judgment another, justification another, and testimony another, we must pray to him who established and founded all things for the grace and gift of understanding. All this together is called law; but there is something special in these which holds what is proper to law in itself.

What, then, is the law? A shadow, as the apostle says, of things to come. This is written nowhere of the others, that justification or testimonies or commandments are a shadow of things to come; it is proper to the law alone, as the apostle teaches in many places, that the law is not to be treated according to the understanding of the letter, but that in it, according to spiritual teaching, the shadow of things to come is to be recognized. For he says: "You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain," and adds: "Does God care for cattle? Or were these things said and written for our sake?" And again: "You who read the law, have you not heard? He had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. But the one by the slave woman was born according to the flesh; the one by the free woman according to the promise." And because the law is a shadow of things to come, he added: "These things are allegorical; for these are the two covenants." So whatever embraces the shadow of spiritual teachings must be called law: because the law is both spiritual and a shadow of things to come.

The commandment of the Lord is that in which observance and keeping are contained, such as "You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery," and the like. And because these are simple and bright and direct us into the true light by their observance, it was said: "The commandment of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes." It would not have been fitting to say this of the law, because the law is holy through the shadow of things to come and converts souls through the knowledge of what is to come; but the commandment enlightens through its observance.

So since those who search the testimonies of God are blessed, and since law is one thing, commandment another, testimonies another, as we said of the rest, we must learn what these testimonies of God are. The whole book of the law was given under testimonies. For when Moses was about to hand over the book of the covenant, he called heaven and earth to witness. Many things too were set up as testimonies, as when Jacob says: "This hill shall be a testimony to you, and this stone shall be a testimony." And in Joshua it is written: "Bring out twelve stones, that they may be a testimony to your sons." When the leper was cured the Lord said: "Offer your gift for a testimony, as Moses commanded, to them." The apostle, saying much to Timothy by letter, charges him before witnesses: "In the sight of many witnesses I charge you, and in the sight of God who gives life to all things and of Jesus and of the elect angels, that you keep these things." Many, then, and countless are the testimonies of God; if anyone would search them through the knowledge of the law, the prophets, the gospels, and the apostles, he would remain in blessedness, and he would not live as in an empty and solitary world, but would know that he sins only before a witness. For all things are full of divine testimonies; and all this which is thought empty is filled with the angels of God, and there is nothing that a multitude of ministering spirits does not inhabit.

Whoever has gained the knowledge of these through teaching knows that he lives before witnesses. And although human weakness by nature tends to vice, he still shrinks from sinning before a witness; ordinary custom itself teaches us this. For who does not fear before a witness? Who has not chosen secrecy for a crime? Who has not wished for solitude or night for adultery? And even when minds already burning are ready for the crime, the frenzy of raging pleasure is checked by the arrival of a witness, and a sudden interruption has sometimes called back human nature when it was rushing headlong. If, then, a crime already in the mind is delayed by an interruption, what is it fitting for a Christian to do, who knows that on every side he is besieged by the testimonies of so many spiritual powers, not, I say, to his deeds, but to his very will? When we are stirred by the goads of our weakness toward some desire of troubled feeling, do we not fear the choirs of angels standing around us on every side and the world full of heavenly ministries? For if the angels of the little ones see our Father who is in heaven daily, we can fear the testimonies of those whom we know both to stay with us and to stand before God daily. Indeed, we ought also to fear the devil himself, through whom the very incitements of our vices are supplied, and all his witnesses, who goes round the whole extent of this world in a moment of time: to whom it is sweet that we sin, so that he may glory in the testimony of our sins. For this is his own cunning, to incite to sin and to accuse those who sin. For it is said: …

And since these powers remain with us as witnesses along with the rest, it was fitting for the prophet to mention only the holy ones, saying: "Blessed are those who search his testimonies": not, that is, others' testimonies, but those that are God's. The searching of God's testimonies must not be careless; that is why it is said: "With their whole heart they will seek him." Zeal for heavenly teaching is not to be applied in part, but God's testimonies are to be sought with the whole heart, so that, since there are also other things which are not God's, we may search what we learn to be God's with a heart not called away to other business.

"For those who work iniquity have not walked in his ways." In the first verse "way" is mentioned in the singular; in this third verse, many ways. From this we must understand that one arrives at the one way through many ways; and whoever is spotless in it is blessed. Jeremiah testified to the same about many ways and the one way, saying: "Stand in the ways, and ask for the ways of the Lord, and seek which is the good way." So we must stand in many ways, and many must be asked about; and indeed many are the Lord's, and among them we must discern which is the best way. Many are the Lord's commandments, many the prophets, through all of whom one travels into the one way; but in these the workers of iniquity have not walked; for if they had remained in the law, they would have come as far as that best way of the new covenant. There is a way through Moses, through Joshua, through David, through Isaiah, through Jeremiah, through the apostles; and through all these one must come to him who said: "I am the way, and no one goes to the Father" except through me. Something similar must be understood to be said under the name of the pearl. For one must be a merchant of many pearls in order to obtain the one pearl of great price. When pearls are spoken of, it is enough for their honor that they are pearls; but the one pearl that was found is said to be of great price. So too when the many ways are prophesied, it is said that they are both the Lord's and eternal; but when one asks among these ways which is the useful way, the one that was found is proclaimed the best. So, although those ways exist and the pearls are honorable by their very name, we must stand in many ways in order to find the good way, and all the pearls must be sold in order to buy the one of great price that was found.

Then follows this verse: "You have commanded your commandments to be kept exceedingly." We mentioned above that commandments mean one thing and law another. Concerning the law, as I think, the apostle was our witness that it is a shadow of things to come, in which the form of the truth is outlined like a body in its shadow. But a commandment is what is to be fulfilled by observance, such as: "You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill." For in it there is no form of a future image; it has the present effect of action: "You have commanded your commandments to be kept exceedingly." Nothing, then, is to be done with a slack or careless mind; we must carry out the care of God's commandments anxiously and earnestly, so that what we do we may carry out for the advance of our faith with reverent care for him for whom we do it. But if we do something with a relaxed will and a thought taken up with other things, the body's duties will indeed be occupied in the doing, but through negligence we shall not attain the merit of devotion.

We now have, after the keeping of commandments, also the observance of justifications. We have already shown above what we think commandments are. But justifications are many, and they are to be balanced in observing each kind of duty; for keeping them we shall be weak by our nature unless we are directed by God. We must therefore be helped and directed by his grace, so that we may attain the order of the justifications commanded. There is a justification laid down for us concerning the Hebrew slave, concerning a son, concerning a father, concerning brothers, concerning faithful men, concerning the leaders of the church, concerning angels, concerning God and our Lord, the only-begotten Word of God. In each kind and name, then, there is a principle of justification; because unless all these are held with equal duties of a devoted will, we shall not hold God's justification. One who is devout toward his father, if he hates his son, has lost the measure of justification. One devout toward his brother, if he hates his slave, has lost the order of God's justification. One devout toward the Lord, if he hates the priest, what observance of justification will he fulfil in the worship of God, while he exercises hatred against the very ministers of justification? And in the very truth of the faith, that is, in the understanding of God the Father and the Lord, through which above all justification will be ready to hand for us, how much we need the grace of God, so that we may think rightly, so that from the authorities of the prophets and the gospels we may hold one and the same thing, and that our opinion and speech may not disagree in one point or another, but that we may direct all God's justifications with an even and equal observance of works and teaching!

When we attain this, then it will be permitted to say what is contained in the following verse: "Then I shall not be put to shame, when I look into all your commandments." For unless we are attentive and occupied in all his commandments, and some are passed over while others are kept at will, we do not hold the order of justification. But if, our ways being directed, our keeping is even and equal toward all, we shall rejoice in the observance of all the commandments, confounded by no forgetfulness or shame.

Then follows this seventh verse: "I will confess to you in the uprightness of my heart, in that I have learned the judgments of your righteousness. I will keep your justifications." All perversity of soul, then, must be cast off, and confession must be made with an upright heart turned aside to no other direction, so that the mind may not fall into the care of the world and wander off from those paths of God's teaching into byways. But the reason for this upright confession is what is contained in the following verse: "in that I have learned the judgments of your righteousness." First, then, he prayed that his ways might be directed to keep the justifications. Second, he added that he would be put to shame in nothing, since he looked into all God's commandments. Third, he promised that he would confess to God in uprightness of his heart because he had learned his judgments, giving praise to God, that is, through the teaching of an upright heart and of what he had learned. But this is the fruit of known righteousness, that God's justifications are kept; and so he added: "I will keep your justifications." For what fruit is there in having learned God's judgments, unless the observance of the justifications follows our knowledge?

But we must remember that, although knowledge is to be granted by God, we must still always pray that he may favor what we wish to keep in keeping his justifications: knowing indeed that we are often forsaken by him for temptations, so that through them our faith may be proved. Nevertheless, as the prophet says, we must pray that he not forsake us entirely; for he says: "Do not utterly forsake me." This is also contained in the order of the Lord's Prayer, when it is said: "Lead us not into temptation" which we cannot bear. The apostle knows that we are forsaken in order to be tested, but he also knows that God knows the measure of our weakness, saying: "God is faithful, who will not let us be tempted beyond what we are able." God, permitting Job to temptation, left power over his soul outside the devil's right, and left the tempter a right only according to the measure of human temptation. So the prophet, conscious of his weakness, prays not to be greatly forsaken: that the Lord may hold up his weakness, like Peter's when he was sinking in the waves, so that, although he is going to leave him to be tested, yet not utterly and greatly, that is, not to the point of danger to his soul and faith.

"Wherein does a young man correct his way?" and the rest. In the second letter of the following eight verses the prophet put a question to himself, to which he would answer, saying: "Wherein does a young man correct his way?" These words are spoken in the person of one who asks. Then follows the confession, as of one who answers: "In keeping your words." We must observe, according to the word we had at the beginning, that the true and complete ordinances of the fear of God are contained under these elements of letters, by which we are formed, as it were, for the practice of confessing God through the very rudiments of infancy. So we must understand that the prophet did not speak idly: "Wherein does a young man correct his way?" It is desirable for every age to be brought from the vices of its body to the pursuit of innocence, because amendment, even late, is useful in forgetting vices. But the prophet, shaping a man who will please God, does not wait for him to be trained in God's teaching and the precepts of fear after a long and lasting habit of crimes, but wants the years still untrained in sins and an age still ignorant of crimes to be steeped not only in its pursuits now and then but in its very habit. For it is hard to stop doing what one is used to, hard to be drawn away from what is familiar; habit holds a great bond in itself. And so the best worshipper will be the one whom not only the forgiveness of offenses has made blameless, but whom ignorance of vices itself has kept innocent.

The prophet Jeremiah knew the blessedness of this age, saying: "It is good," he says, "for a young man when he takes up a heavy yoke in his youth; he will sit alone and be silent." He does not wait for years grown cold with old age, or for a habit of vices already dead through age. He wants a soldier for a long battle; he wants as Christ's servant one whom not even the memory of past crimes pollutes. For in those who have believed at a more advanced age there is indeed, by the gift of grace, the forgiveness of what is past; but by nature the memory of what was done is not absent. "It is good," he says, "for a young man to take up a heavy yoke." Years hardened in disobedience bear this burden with difficulty; but a tender age does not feel the trouble of a heavy burden, through the growth of its strength. But having taken up the burden in youth, what will he do? "He will sit alone," he says, "and be silent." Rare is the one in whom the perfection of the fear of God grows with the increase of years; and so he will sit alone, leaving the wanton gatherings of youth and set apart even from the company of old men who have only lately believed; because it does not fit him to say: "Remember not, Lord, the sins of my youth." He will also be silent, thinking silence suited to faith and to youth: not mixed in the tumult of worldly business, but silent through modesty, occupied only with the divine knowledge of the mysteries, and keeping God's words by silent observance in things and deeds.

Then the prophet returns to his own person, so that what he had said above might be known to have been meant of himself, saying: "With my whole heart I have sought you; do not drive me away from your commandments." It does not seem fitting to God's goodness that he should drive anyone away from his commandments; but the addition of words and the force of the expressions are arranged according to the perfect reason of heavenly teaching and have nothing doubtful or contradictory in them. So does he who, as the prophet says, prefers the repentance of sinners to their death, drive anyone away from his commandments? Far be it that this should be thought. Nor did the prophet mean this now, least of all one who had sought God with his whole heart.

But the solution of difficulties must be sought in the very words from which they seem to arise. What the prophet meant is easy to know. We read it written in Jeremiah: "Cursed is he who does the works of the Lord carelessly." We read too in the gospels: "For to everyone who has, it will be given, and he will have abundance; and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." So the one who has will abound; but the one who does not have will lack even what he has. The prophet is not subject to the condition of the curse, because he did not do God's works carelessly, seeking him with his whole heart. Then he asks confidently not to be driven from God's commandments, because he seeks him with his whole heart. For according to the gospels, to the one who has it will be given, and from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. So God takes away only from the one who does not have, just as he drives away only the careless. He is so full of goodness that he rewards the one who has with abundance; and so little does he wish anyone not to have, that he takes from the one who does not have even what he has.

He drives away no one, then, except one who resists, rejects no one except the careless. For the prophet put forward this reason why he prayed not to be driven from God's commandments: that he had sought God not in part or with sloth but with his whole heart. From this we understand that the one driven from the commandments is the one who, through great carelessness, has been unworthy to be admitted; and what comes from the fault of the one who does not deserve it lies outside any blame of the one who refuses.

This is the third verse of the second letter: "I have hidden your sayings, that I may not sin against you." We remember that something like this saying is usually read, where it is said: "It is good to hide the mystery of a king." We remember too that Paul hid the sayings of God from the Corinthians, still little ones in faith, when he says: "I gave you milk to drink, not food; for you were not yet able, nor are you able even now." We read too in the gospel that a treasure found in a rich and fruitful field was hidden, and the field bought. We know that pearls must not be thrown before swine, nor what is holy given to dogs. So we understand that we hold in the secret of our heart what, if spread abroad, would incur the guilt of sin. For so he said: "In my heart I have hidden your sayings, that I may not sin against you": because, while other sins, according to the differences of things, are committed either against ourselves or against others, they would become sins properly against God when things that were to be stored in the secret of hearts were betrayed to the knowledge of those not fit to receive them.

In this fourth verse, which follows, the order of teaching must be observed. The first verse was about the keeping of God's commandments by a young man; the next, that since he had sought God with his whole heart, he should not be driven from God's commandments; then, that he had held the hidden mysteries and secret sacraments of God in the secret of his mind; and now, fourth, he prays that God may show him the justifications; and he prays, putting first the honor of confession, saying: "Blessed are you, Lord; teach me your justifications." We covered something about justifications in an earlier discourse, and it is superfluous to repeat the same things often. It is, then, the greatest and chief labor to attain this knowledge of God's justifications, and the weakness of human nature reaches the knowledge of so many and such great things with difficulty; and therefore he prays to be taught, because it is the gift of divine goodness to temper the inexperience of the human mind to the fitting observance of duties suited to each kind.

Then follows a word about God's judgments as well, in which he says: "With my lips I have declared all the judgments of your mouth." How great is the difference of things and names! First God's commandments are kept from youth, then God is sought with the whole heart, then God's sayings are hidden and the justifications are longed to be learned; now they are proclaimed. But perhaps the prophet will be thought to have forgotten himself and to have been unmindful either of his own sayings or of others'. For in this book of Psalms we read: "Your judgments are like the great deep." The apostle Paul says: "Unsearchable are the judgments of God"; and again the prophet: "For your judgments are great and countless." How then will the prophet dare to say: "With my lips all the judgments of your mouth"? But the prophet has now said nothing against himself, nor against another of the same Spirit. For he does not say, "With my lips I have declared all the judgments," but he says, "all the judgments of your mouth," knowing that there is some difference between the judgments of God and the judgments of God's mouth. When he says, "Your judgments are like the great deep," did he say, "The judgments of your mouth are like the great deep"? But now he says: "I have declared the judgments of your mouth." So those things which could be known through the prophets, or be judgments from God's words, the prophet too did not keep silent: they were proclaimed for this reason, that they might be taught.

After the public and steadfast declaration of the judgment of God's mouth there follows: "I have delighted in the way of your testimonies, as in all riches." The prophet does not fear witnesses, but delights in them; and the awareness of those who watch and observe him is pleasant to him. For the fear of a guilty conscience trembles at every interruption; but where there is the steadfast confidence of an innocent man, the presence of many witnesses is welcome. But the prophet is not pleased with a common kind of joy: he delights as in all riches; not only in riches, but in all riches. There is wealth in gold, in silver, in money, in clothing, in houses, in fields and their vines or olives or crops; but the prophet is made complete by the crop of the Lord's teachings and is rich in the resources of the law and of the prophetic ordinances; and although earlier in time, he is not ignorant of the precepts of the gospels and the apostles. For Paul too knew these riches, speaking to the Corinthians: "I give thanks to my God always for you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus: that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and in all knowledge." In these, then, the prophet is rich and in these he delights; he must not be thought to have delighted in the acquiring of wealth, who could not be rich in the Lord except with contempt for the world and poverty in it.

Having delighted in the ways of God's testimonies, he had to do the work of that delight; and there is no doubt that he does it. For he says in the seventh verse: "I will exercise myself in your commandments, and I will consider your ways." So exercise and persistence are needed, so that the practice of necessary things may be retained; because sloth is dangerous and harmful to human minds, and lest a habit of idleness creep in, persistent exercise must be applied. But here too the order of reason is kept. For first one must be exercised in God's commandments, and then his ways are to be considered; because unless the practice of faithful works comes first, the knowledge of teaching will not be grasped. We must first act faithfully in order to attain knowledge. So, following the earlier explanation, we take the ways to be the law, the prophets, all things, and the apostles: which the prophet, exercising himself in God's commandments, considered in order to know them.

He concluded the eightfold number with the verse: "I will meditate on your justifications; I will not forget your words." The prophet does not depart from the order of perfect teaching. He meditates on the justifications, which he prayed to be taught, just as he is exercised in the commandments. For this is the nature of commandments, that they train us for observance and work, such as: "You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery," and the like. These, then, are exercised, because in them there is the practice of action, which strengthens itself for the future through present exercise. But justifications are those by which a Hebrew boy, a slave for six years, becomes free in the seventh year, and a field is to be left fallow after six years of crops, and the other things laid down for the observance of justifications, which hold in themselves a vast meditation on future hope through the effect of present business. And so he meditates on these as he is exercised in the commandments: because exercise retains the practice of a settled habit, while meditation stretches toward what it has not yet obtained, so that through meditation it may attain what it seeks; the meditation on justification achieves this, that forgetfulness of the promises does not creep in.

Those who do not have the steadfast awareness of a cleansed heart cannot pray these words with the prophet's voice: "Repay your servant." For if a repayment worthy of our works were given, we would remain in the punishments of our sins and offenses. It is enough if anyone has at least this confidence to give thanks to the Lord: "He has not dealt with us according to our sins … because as high as heaven is above the earth, so far has he removed our iniquities from us, because he knows our frame." It is a great thing to recognize God's mercy toward oneself, and to know that the habit of crimes is far from oneself, and that one is worthy of God's mercy. But this prophet, in whose body a dwelling of God is fitting, who, full of the Holy Spirit, thinks and speaks nothing common or earthly, has the freedom to pray: "Repay your servant."

But perhaps it is insolent to have desired the merit of repayment without any modesty of confession, and not to remember that one is placed in a body, that is, in a mean and lowly lot. But the prophet excluded every vain opinion of himself. For when he had said "Repay" out of innocence, he added "your servant" out of the duty of servitude and the confession of his condition. So he asks these things steadfastly who remembers that he is God's servant, not sin's; because everyone who sins is a slave of sin.

"I shall live," he says, "and I will keep your words." "I shall live and keep" is not a matter of present time, but the meaning of his words stretches into future time. For the prophet knows when that blessed and true life of the living will be. For now we both remain in the dust of death and are in the body of death, from which the apostle prays to be freed, saying: "Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death?" Even now we have a matter mixed with us which is subject to the law of death and sin; and in the dwelling of this perishable and weak flesh we take on the stain of corruption from fellowship with it; and unless the body is glorified into the nature of spirit, true nature cannot be in us. Let us hear him who remembered that he dwelt in the body of death, saying: "For our life is hidden with Christ in God. When our life appears, then you too will appear in glory." This, then, is the repayment the prophet prays for himself, that he may live, teaching the time of this future life in another place, where he says: "And I will please God in the land of the living." He knows that this seat of the world is not the land of the living; he knows that we must still be cleansed according to the law. For now we are mixed in with the dead; and in the law whoever touches a dead body is unclean.

But far be it that any of these things in the law should be understood bodily, as though anyone becomes unclean by touching a dead body. Moses himself, the giver of the law, carried away Joseph's bones when leaving Egypt; Elisha lay upon a dead boy to bring him to life; the Lord himself drew the dead back to life by his hand. If touching a dead body had made one unclean, the law would never have been violated by such great men or by the Lord, who himself says: "I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it." But because the law is a shadow of good things to come, it taught us by this sign that in this dwelling of an earthly and dead body we cannot be clean unless we attain cleansing through heavenly washing, after the change of resurrection has given our earthly body a more glorious nature.

And if perhaps anyone thinks that in the sacrament of baptism that perfect purity of innocence, worthy of heavenly life, has been restored to him, let him recall that John the Baptist said: "I indeed baptize you in water; but he who comes is mightier than I; he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire"; and let him remember that the Lord himself, baptized by John, said while he was still in the body: "I have yet another baptism to be baptized with." So there is, as far as one may judge, a cleansing of perfect purity laid up even after the waters of baptism, which will sanctify us by the coming of the Holy Spirit, which will refine us in the fire of judgment, which through the injury of death will purge us from the stain and fellowship of what is dead, and will wash us in the suffering of martyrdom with devoted and faithful blood.

And therefore the holy prophet says that he will live when he lives, that is, when he has been carried through this shadow to that true land of the living. On this pattern, as he said "I shall live," so too "I will keep your words." Meanwhile they are kept, as the apostle Paul says, in part and through a mirror. For there are many stumbling blocks of the world, which prevent the keeping of the commandments from being perfect in us. I say nothing of the natures of our bodies, which meanwhile compel us to be imperfect through … or through the incitements of vices. But when death is conquered and its sting blunted, and we hear and see face to face, then we shall truly both live and keep God's commandments.

The order contained in the first verse is the same in those that follow. For he says: "Unveil my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law." He knows that a cloud of darkness stands in the way of mortal and bodily eyes. He knows that what is commanded bodily in the law is a shadow and mirror of things to come. He reads the law, indeed, but he longs to behold the law's wonders. He remembers that the Sabbaths are holy, but he desires to be in the rest of the eternal Sabbaths. He uses unleavened bread, but he hastens to cast out the leaven of the old nature. He sacrifices the Passover lamb, but he longs to stand beside the Lamb who is revealed through John. He satisfies the law of the seventh year, but he asks to be free himself when the seven thousand years of the world are completed. He fulfils the law of the fiftieth year of jubilee, but he hastens to obtain the remission and renewal of Pentecost. He knows that by God's command both the altar was set up by Moses after the pattern and Aaron was clothed in priestly dress and ornament, but he hastens to take part in the ministries of the high priest after whose pattern these things were done. Already a stranger to this whole world, he prays to be brought into the holy land, the land flowing with milk and honey. All these things they carry out bodily, but Paul understands this otherwise, saying: "For we know that the law is spiritual." So the prophet prays to see the wonders of the law that are foreshadowed to veiled eyes: that is, that set free from the perishable body he may behold the great and wonderful things in heaven which are prefigured through the bodily observance of the law.

The order of the one praying is not changed. For after this he says: "I am a sojourner on the earth; do not hide your commandments from me." A sojourner does not dwell on land that is his own by right, but as a newcomer and stranger he knows the fruit of temporary labor from it. The apostle states the order of this sojourning, saying that we must be away from the body and remain with Christ. So the prophet, seeing certain images of heavenly things by faith, though he dwells in a body, dwells in something not his own, with the eyes of his mind lifted to heaven. He knows that treasures are to be laid up in heaven, and that where the treasure is, there the heart will be. That man in the gospel comparison was not in his own mind a sojourner on earth, who built barns large enough for great crops and urged his soul to luxury through his abundance, a fool to be deprived of that very soul that same night!

So the prophet, confessing himself a sojourner, prays that God's commandments not be hidden from him. For no one who is not a stranger to his own body is worthy of the knowledge of God's commandments. Since God's commandment is bright and enlightens the eyes, it will now seem absurd that he said that God's commandments should not be hidden from him, when they have this nature in themselves, that they are bright and give light. But careless hearing makes the meaning difficult. There the commandment is bright and enlightening; here the commandments are hidden. The commandment is bright through which we are enlightened to behold the light of the commandments. Through the commandment which is first in the law, to love God with all one's soul and all one's strength, we are also made worthy of the enlightenment of knowledge. And just as we shall pass from glory to glory, so too in light we shall see light, so too through a mirror we shall one day see the face itself. For through this commandment of bodily life we are now enlightened by the sacrament of baptism and the precept of God, and we use the light and remain in glory. Through this, again, from the commandment we shall also see the commandments; through this, from light we shall see light; through this we shall be carried from glory to glory.

The prophet knows that in heaven there are many commandments of God; he knows that through the diversity of ministries there are diverse observances of precepts, of angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, and principalities. These must surely be diverse in their offices as they are in their names, yet they keep a perpetual keeping of the commandments in accordance with the firmness of their nature. And for this reason he prays that the mysteries of the heavenly commandments be revealed to him, because he knows that he is a stranger in the body of this earth.

This is the fourth verse of the third letter: "My soul has longed to desire your judgments at all times." This prophet's speech is not common with others' or with the world's; he raised the meaning of understanding higher under the signification of familiar words, saying: "My soul has longed to desire your judgments at all times." To many it will seem that it would have been more correctly said, "My soul desires your judgments at all times." And perhaps some think that this very thing is contained in these words.

But the prophet remembers that to desire God's judgments is hard and most dangerous for human nature. For since no one living is clean in his sight, how can his judgment be desirable? Or, since we must give account for every idle word, shall we long for the day of judgment, in which we must pass through that unwearying fire, in which those heavy punishments of the soul for sins must be undergone? A sword will pierce the soul of the blessed one, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. If that virgin who was able to hold God is to come into the severity of judgment, who will dare to desire to be judged by God? Job, who had gone through the whole campaign of human calamities and won the victory, who said when he was tempted, "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be his name," confessed that he was dust and ashes, and when he heard God's voice from the cloud, said that he must speak no more. And will anyone dare to desire God's judgments, when so great a prophet could not bear his voice from heaven, nor could the apostles standing on the mountain with the Lord endure it?

So the prophet kept to the measure both of human nature and of its condition, saying: "My soul has longed to desire your judgments at all times." For he does not desire the judgment, but longs to desire it: the longing for desire held him, not for judgment. For he longs to desire, that is, to remain in such innocence that he may desire safely and without the terror of a judgment to be feared; not yet desiring the thing itself, because of his awareness of the human condition, but longing for the desire of it, so that it may come from the awareness of innocence. And he knows that the longing for this desire must be continual and unwearying; and therefore he added "at all times," teaching that we must have no idle time in which we are not held by the longing for this desire.

Then follows: "You have rebuked the proud; cursed are those who turn aside from your commandments." O unhappy pride, which disdains to live under heavenly precepts, which scorns the divine commandments with the swelling of an unbelieving mind! Many are the crimes of human vices, and diverse and countless the workings of sins; but there is no greater cause of God's anger against us than pride. For you have rebuked not the greedy, not the lustful, to whom rebuke is certainly due, but the proud; because many, through the pride by which they despise human things, also scorn to obey God.

Though the other works of faith may be splendid and devotion may persist in every keeping of divine things, yet if pride creeps in, the memory of what we do rightly will be wiped out. With what labor that man in the gospel set himself on the way of life, so as not to grab what belonged to others, not to wrong anyone, not to be undone by adulteries! He labored fasting twice on the Sabbath, and wore down his body by abstinence from food with great strength. With what labor, then, to conquer greed, he gave a tenth of his substance for the use of the needy! What is more splendid than these? What harder to do? But he fell into the snare, saying, "that I am not like this sinner and tax collector"; and through this vice the unhappy man fell from great works into crime, and made insolent by this glory of his virtues, he went away less justified than the tax collector.

But what do we say of others? The apostle, called not from men nor through a man but through Jesus Christ, against whom the devil wrestled with every art of his power, received an angel to buffet him, so that through the unwearying troubles of every suffering no occasion for pride might creep in through a time of ease. He too, laying down a kind of law for choosing and appointing a priest, after setting out the qualities in which a bishop is worthy, forbade a newly baptized man to be chosen, lest he become proud, saying: "Not a new convert, lest being puffed up he fall into the judgment of the devil": that is, lest he grow insolent through the grace of regeneration lately received; he wants him to be tried beforehand by a long war of sufferings and by many campaigns of faith. For God does not despise a humbled heart, and a contrite heart is the best sacrifice; because whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

And so "cursed are those who turn aside from your commandments," because the proud are rebuked: because through the pride of an insolent mind we both despise human things and neglect divine ones. But the force of the word placed here must not be heard carelessly. For it would have been easy to say, "Cursed are those who do not obey your commandments." We said what was fitting in an earlier verse about one commandment and many. But those are cursed who, having been instructed in this teaching, turn aside from God's commandments, that is, who fall away from the hope of the eternal commandments through desires for present vices. For one who turns aside avoids the place where he is, is led from one side to another, and leaves the road by a kind of swerving. So the sentence of the curse takes hold even of one who turns aside slightly from God's commandments, so that we might understand how dangerous a thing it would be for us to be wholly ignorant of those things from which it is cursed to turn aside.

"Take away from me reproach and contempt, because I have sought your testimonies." Sins are worthy of reproach; and therefore sinners will rise to everlasting reproach. That all sins are worthy of reproach we may learn in the gospels, when the Lord reproached those cities in which many of his mighty works had been done and they had not repented, Chorazin and Bethsaida. What he did to them must be done to all who are equal in the same crime; and then he will reproach the human race, which does not repent nor go on in the way of the gospel, with what is contained in the psalm: "What profit is there in my blood, while I go down to corruption?" For he reproaches the proud and cursed for thinking there was no profit in the mystery of his blood and death, although he was born and suffered and rose for our sake.

The prophet also kept in view the reason of human weakness. He knows that there are certain things in us which must be taken away by God's mercy. He knows that God must be prayed to with such confession of our sins that, even if we have what deserves it, we may not be rebuked; for a crime must be confessed so that there may also be pardon. He knows then that after rebuke the nations go into contempt, that is, into nothing; for it is written: "All the nations are nothing, and all that they are is counted as nothing." But after the prophet's example we must pray that reproach and contempt be taken away from us with this hope and this confidence, adding to the words "Take away from me reproach and contempt" what follows: "because I have sought your testimonies." He seeks God's testimonies so that he need not be rebuked, and he prays that reproach and contempt be taken from him so that he may not abandon modesty: confessing indeed that in his nature there is a cause for rebuke and reproach, which he prays to have taken away from him, but hoping that it will be taken away through devotion to the testimonies he has sought.

The prophet seeks God's testimonies not in leisure nor in the insolence of prosperity, but while many sit against him and many talk against him, saying: "For princes sat and spoke against me." He knows that all the faith of prophecy is hateful to the princes of this world; he knows too that the apostles will be hated by all for the Christian name. Princes sit against the prophet and speak against him when they hear Isaiah saying: "Hear the word of the Lord, princes of Sodom, and attend to the law of God, you people." By the counsel of such men Isaiah was sawn in two, Jeremiah too was shut in prison, Daniel was thrown to lions stirred up by hunger, Zechariah was killed between the temple and the altar, the apostles are beaten, cut down, crucified, so that the word of God may be taken away, that teaching may be stopped, that the way of eternal life may be blocked. But steadfast faith scorned these assemblies of princes and these words of slander. For there follows: "But your servant was exercised in your justifications." While they roared and blocked him with all their arms, the spirit persevered in the exercises of God's justifications.

But, as we discussed above, the exercise of justifications and the meditation on testimonies is this: although the works of the law are exercised through bodily acts, yet by exercise and by meditation on the testimonies a kind of preparation for eternal goods is gained through meditation on present things. But he shows where the meditation on the testimonies arises from. For he added: "And your justifications are my counsel," confessing that every care, all the various and diverse movements of his counsels, are intent on the justifications of God in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

A manifold understanding cannot hold difficulty in its words, since, with all obscurity of understanding removed, the choice is all the more abundant, as we see in the first verse of the fourth letter. For he says: "My soul has cleaved to the pavement; give me life according to your word." This can be understood of persistence in prayer, as though the prophet, through confession of sins, were lying prostrate on the ground, on the pavement. But in order to understand something deeper under these words, we think it necessary to examine the force of the words more carefully. For he does not say, "I have cleaved," but "My soul has cleaved to the pavement"; and we are prompted to understand that here he is complaining of the fellowship of soul and body. And there are many things that prompt us to think this the more probable. For the apostle said, "the body of humiliation"; and the prophet said, "My soul is humbled in the dust"; and again: "And you have brought me down into the dust of death." So, either because it is on the ground of this earth, or because it was formed and shaped from the earth, the soul, which is of another origin, is believed to have cleaved to the body, undertaking the greatest struggle itself: that while remaining in it, it may tear itself away from fellowship with it, so as to use its dwelling as a stranger.

The prophet, though earlier in time, is not ignorant of the apostle's saying, that those who cleave to the Lord are one spirit with him. He knows also from himself: "My soul has cleaved after you." Indeed he reads in the law: "You shall walk after the Lord your God and cleave to him." So he longs to cleave to him rather than to the body. But because he remembers that he has contracted some stain of sin from its fellowship, he prays that through the word of God, although his soul is mingled with an earthly and mortal nature, he himself may be quickened into heavenly life. For he knows that he now cleaves to the ground and does not live; but according to the word of God, for whom the dead live, he prays to be quickened into life.

Then follows: "I declared my ways, and you heard me; teach me your justifications." Those who live according to the pleasures of the body walk in their own ways. But those who have left behind every habit of fleshly vices and live in the way of God no longer travel in their own way but in God's way. Let us hear this too in Deuteronomy: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord your God and walk in all his ways and love him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep the precepts of the Lord your God and his justifications, which I command you today, that it may be well with you?" So one who cleaves to God is in God's way.

And on what reasoning shall we think the prophet spoke here, saying: "I declared my ways, and you heard me; teach me your justifications"? For if he proclaims his own ways, he must be proclaiming ways of sin, because whoever is not in God's way is in the way of sin. But in agreement with this present saying seems to be what was said: "I will declare my iniquities against myself, Lord," and again: "The righteous man at the beginning of his speech is his own accuser." So the declaring spoken of here is not praise but confession of his ways, that is, a penitent profession of his sins; and the prophet, as one worthy of the spirit of prophecy, first confessed his ways, that is, the ways of sin, so that after this declaring of them he might be capable of the teaching of God's justifications. Both are taught. For when he says "I declared," he shows that this confession belongs to past time; when he says "teach me," it is a prayer for the future, because one must first confess one's sins, and after the confession is made, learn.

The prophet, remaining in the law, does not ask to be taught from the things then carried out by bodily ministry, but from those which, under the form of present things, embraced the mysteries of the future. "Make me understand the way of your justifications, and I will be exercised in your wonders." The present saying is seen to have distinguished the justifications from their way. And as far as is understood from the thing itself, everything toward which one heads by a way is not the same as the way itself by which one goes. So we must seek the reason why the prophet asks to be granted to understand the way of the justifications rather than to know the justifications themselves. For he remembers that all the justifications of the law contain in themselves a shadow of holy justifications: when a Hebrew boy is free after six years of slavery, when the fruits of the seventh year are left to the needy and the beasts of the land, when after the fiftieth year all things return to the ownership from which they had departed. And because these things laid down in the law are the way of those things whose pattern is prefigured in them, he prays that, understanding the way of these justifications, he may be exercised in God's wonders, that is, be occupied in the works of the law: because the law was set up as a mirror of good things to come.

On the following verse I have found that many have thought various things, because it was not rendered from the Hebrew by the other translators with the same exactness as it was written by the seventy translators. For some, in place of what they said, ἐνύσταξεν ἡ ψυχή μου ("my soul slumbered"), put ἔσταξεν ἡ ψυχή μου ("my soul dripped"); and one of them translated not ἐνύσταξεν but κατέσταξεν ("dripped down"). And it is understood that ἐνύσταξεν means one thing, ἔσταξεν another, κατέσταξεν another. But it is not safe for us to go beyond the translation of the seventy translators, and certainly the reason and sense of the words prompt us to understand that the verse was rightly and plausibly translated. For it stands with them thus: "My soul has slumbered from weariness." And all the preceding and following discourse contains the confession of humility and weakness: when his soul cleaves to the ground, when he confesses his sins, when he prays for understanding of the way of the justifications. It follows, then, that he now complains that his soul slumbers from weariness of its mortal dwelling, a soul which does not yet understand the way of the justifications and which even now cleaves to the ground. And therefore he prays to be strengthened in God's ways, because he slumbers from weariness.

But here this distinction is kept, that he says he slumbers, not that he sleeps; because one who sleeps is in the very act of sleep, while one who slumbers slumbers before he sleeps. This distinction is kept in another place too, when he says: "Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither sleep nor slumber." And there too, where he says: "If I give sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids," he called slumber that of the eyelids, but sleep that of the eyes, because it is the office of the eyelids to bring on sleep out of slumber. So the prophet, though he slumbers, does not sleep; and therefore, lest slumbering he fall asleep, he added: "Strengthen me in your words": that is, that strengthened through understanding of all the justifications he mentioned above, he may not only not sleep but may now keep watch without any slumbering.

He says: "Remove from me the way of iniquity, and in your law have mercy on me." It would have been easy to say, "Remove iniquity from me"; but though conscious of his weakness, since he remembers that the way of sinning is in his body, yet through the fear of God he is a stranger to all sin. So he prays that the way of sin, by which it is easy to go on to sin, be removed from him, that is, that all desires for bodily pleasures be taken away, and that no temptation of … or of ignorance, by which one goes to sin as by a way, may assail him. And he prays God not only for this, but also that he have mercy on him through his law. He obtains mercy through the law in this way, because, as I showed above, it is written thus in the law: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord your God and walk in all his ways and love him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep the precepts of the Lord your God and his justifications, which I command you today, that it may be well with you!" So since the law teaches that one must walk in God's ways so that it may be well hereafter with the one who walks in them, and now the prophet prays that the ways of unrighteousness be removed from him and that God have mercy on him according to the law, he prays for what is concluded in the law: that walking in God's ways he may be placed in blessedness.

Then follows: "I have loved the way of truth, and I have not forgotten your judgments." Many love a way, but not all love the way of truth. Whoever enters the way of pleasures or of riches or of honors, and those too who are carried about by wandering, uncertain, and impious teachings, are indeed on a way, but they are not on the way of truth. But the prophet speaks from the Spirit of him who was afterwards to say in the body: "I am the way, the truth, the life." And because this is judgment, as it is contained in the gospels, "For this is the judgment, that whoever believes in me has eternal life," the prophet rightly says: "I have loved the way of truth, and I have not forgotten your judgments." For these things were spoken to us later for our knowledge; but the prophet both lives and speaks in them.

The discourse of teaching and of confession holds together; for he says: "I have cleaved to your testimonies; Lord, do not put me to shame," because by cleaving to the Lord's testimonies he has deserved pardon for old and earlier sins. For he knows that it was said in God's words: "Behold, I have blotted out your iniquities like a cloud, and your sins like a mist." The Lord is able to remove all those things in us that belong to shame and confusion, if we too can say with freedom: "I have cleaved to your testimonies." For cleaving to these we are set free from the confusion of shameful and earlier crimes.

But all things are concluded in their order and in their matters. For above he said, "Remove the way from me"; then he added, "I have loved the way of truth"; third follows, "I have cleaved to your testimonies." Now he ends thus: "I ran in the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart." Step by step he has come to this: from the removal of the way of iniquity, the love of the way of truth, and the inseparable fellowship of the testimonies, to running in the way of God's commandments. But the way that leads to life is both narrow and afflicted: narrow, because one must enter it carefully and cautiously; afflicted, because it is approached through many afflictions and sufferings. And will the prophet be thought insolent, who boasts that he runs this way?

But he remembers that between zeal and the confession of humility the force of his words must be tempered. Therefore, after he had said, "I ran in the way of your commandments," he added this: "when you enlarged my heart." The heart is enlarged which is opened through faith to receive God's teaching. And this was said of believers: "And I will dwell and walk among them." So the heart is enlarged in which the mystery of the Father and the Son resides, in which the Holy Spirit delights in a roomy dwelling. Solomon too remembers this, saying: "Wisdom is sung in the exits; in the streets she acts with freedom." Our Latin for each of these two words either brings us obscurity or gives the impression of another meaning. For what we call "in the exits" was translated from the Greek, and an exodos is properly where one comes together out of many narrow ways into one open way. What we call plateas, Greek called by the same name; but the Greek word plateai means broad places, and we think these are the streets of cities. So Wisdom, who is Christ, is sung in that way into which there is an exit for us out of many; and in the broad places she acts with freedom, in which she promised not only to dwell but also to walk about. So the prophet runs the Lord's way freely, after he began to have an enlarged heart. For he could not run the way of God until he himself was made a worthy and spacious dwelling of God. Amen.

In the first verse of the fifth letter we find an unusual and new prayer of the prophet. For he began thus: "Set for me a law, Lord, the way of your justifications"; but it is hard to follow the reasoning of this verse from the Latin translation. For by the condition of our ordinary speech the force of both the Hebrew and the Greek word could not be expressed so completely. For the Greeks translated: "νομοθέτησόν με, κύριε, τὴν ὁδὸν τῶν δικαιωμάτων σου" ("give me a law, Lord, as the way of your justifications"). For in this verse he prays that a law of justifications be set for him; and what is in the Greek, Latin could not express for the understanding of the same sense. So the prophet prays that the Lord set for him a law for the way of his justifications, that is, that by a law he may understand and know the way of God's justifications. For he does not say only "a law", but asks for a law of the way.

And what, after all, will be the law of the justifications? For in common, earthly roads we remember there is a law in the measures of distance, when certain markers of the road's law are set at intervals of a thousand paces, when resting places are arranged, when intervals between stations suited to the refreshment of travellers are measured out again all the way to the city. But also when the people crossed from Egypt through the Red Sea on foot, we remember there was a certain law set for them, not by the judgment of human choice but of divine, in the pillar of fire and cloud. For when the people had to journey, the pillar of fire went before them at night, and the pillar of cloud by day. But when it pleased God that the people be kept long in the same camp, neither did the pillar of fire move forward by night nor did the pillar of cloud go before them by day. So he set this law. And if we carefully go over those stations and camp sites and the conditions of the places contained in Exodus, we shall see great wonders of the heavenly journey in them. For this reason the prophet often prayed, saying: "I will consider wonders out of your law." But now the prophet does not pray to be held by these laws; for he asks not for a law, but for a law of the way of the justifications.

He knows that there is a way of the testimonies, when he says: "I delighted in the way of your testimonies." He knows there is a way of the commandments, when he says: "I ran in the way of your commandments." He knows there is a way of the law, since blessed are those who walk in the law of the Lord. He knows there is this way of the justifications, for which he now prays. He knows too that there is a way in the prophets, a way in the gospels, a way in the apostles, to which he has often borne witness. So he wants by the law of this way to stretch all the way to that perfect way. For there are many who reject the way of the law, many that of the prophets, many that of the gospels, many that of the apostles. For we know that some are not in all these ways. But the learned scribe knows, by the example of the rich householder, how to bring out of the treasures things old and new. This law of the justifications, then, the prophet desires. For the law is contained in certain disciplines of a devout heart, and it has confined us within the bounds of its ordinance, which we are to use, lest by going beyond them we wander off into opinions. So he does not want to go beyond that law which he prays to have set for him.

But into what law does he pray to be instructed? Clearly, so that he may seek it out. There was a law of justifications written through Moses, and the prophet exercised it in works; so he does not pray for this to be set for him, since it was already set and was being devoutly carried out by him, but for the one he wishes to seek out. What, then, does he wish to seek out? The end of the law, clearly. And what will the end of the law be? Let us hear the apostle: "For Christ is the end of the law." But through these ways of the justifications, by which the law was set, he wishes to seek out the end of the law; and not only to seek it out, but always to seek it out. For he says thus: "And I will seek it out always." The duty of seeking out would not have been enough by an act of will, unless it were also carried on by him in an unwearied continuance of time.

We remember it written in the Proverbs of Solomon: "Wisdom will be reckoned to one without understanding who asks for wisdom." In this sense it seems to show that one who does not understand, and asks wisely, is believed to be wise. This, then, leads to this point: the prophet, who remained in the law, who according to the apostle was circumcised on the eighth day, by race of the tribe of Judah, by the grace of bodily anointing both chosen king and anointed, and by the mystery of birth worthy to have Jesus Christ as his son, prays as if a stranger to the law: "Give me understanding, and I will search your law and keep it with my whole heart." So he does not yet keep it, has not yet searched it, does not yet understand. So he is not speaking of that law in which the prophet was born, trained, and worked. Knowing, then, that the first part of prudence is that one ask wisely about what he does not understand, so as to understand what he does not know, he asks to receive understanding; and knowing that once the spirit of understanding is gained there is need of zeal, he says: "And I will search your law." Recognizing that the fruit of labor lies in keeping what has been found, he said: "And I will keep it." And understanding that perfect diligence lies in the duty of the whole heart, he completed the whole order of his speech, saying: "Give me understanding, and I will search your law and keep it with my whole heart."

But what, after all, is this that he wishes to understand, which he also promises to keep with his whole heart? For he remembers that the six days in the work of this world are shown in the book of Moses not to be idle. He knows that the rest of the seventh day is not superfluous. He recalls that in the observance of the months a heavenly festival is figured as in a mirror. He knows that year in which one is free after six years of slavery, in which the land rests after its working, its fruits left to the poor and the beasts of the land, in which all debts are also remitted to all the Hebrews. He longs to search the laws of the fiftieth year too; he wants to know why the observance is from the tenth day of the first month to the fourteenth and then to the twenty-first. He thinks too of that solemnity of the seventh month, whose memorial is in trumpets, and of the atonement of the tenth day in it, and after the fifteenth day of the joy of eight days in tabernacles, how from these both the first day is holy and the eighth is holy. He knows that the first circumcision took place, he knows that it was repeated by Joshua. He desires the holy unleavened bread, he longs to rejoice in the Passover, of which it is written at the sacrifice of the lamb itself: "It is the Lord's Passover." He knows that the land of promise, the land of milk and honey, was not yet truly obtained by the people who were circumcised a second time. For this, then, he prays for understanding; understanding these things he promises to search them; these he has professed he will keep; keeping these with his whole heart …

After which follows: "Lead me in the path of your commandments, because I have wished for it." In this verse too the force of the word is not properly expressed, through the condition of translation. For where ours said "in the path," the Greek speaks thus: ὁδήγησόν με ἐν τρίβῳ. And what with them is called τρίβος is understood as a worn and much-travelled path; but with us a path can be called a path whether it is worn or not worn. So since the word has embraced both under the same name, let us also understand it so, and know that this same path is one that is worn.

And it must be observed that here he speaks of the path not of the law but of the commandments. For the way of the law had people walking in it from Moses, after it was established. But the path of the commandments is so called because it has been travelled in God's commandments from the beginning of the world. For on this path Abel ran, Seth stood firm, Enoch pleased God, Noah deserved to be preserved, Melchizedek was able both to bless and to receive tithes, Abraham is the friend of God, Isaac is heir, Israel is …, from Judah is the expectation of the nations, Joseph was set as a testimony, Job, free of the law, triumphs over the enemy of the law, Moses avenges, Joshua circumcises Israel a second time, and Samuel is chosen as worthy to anoint a king.

And now he, anointed, king, and prophet, prays to be led on this path. For he knows that his nature is weak and that he cannot set out on this path without a guide. For God is the guide of all who travel this path. He is a guide when it is said: "You shall walk behind the Lord your God and cleave to him," and again: "Walk behind him, for he leads you." And he leads when he says: "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." He leads too in that he first wore down the whole path of the gospel sufferings. If the apostles teach this path, he was first; for Wisdom makes friends of God and prophets. If we do anything justly in this, he is the prince of our righteousness; for he himself is righteousness. If we are scourged to terrify us for the faith, he gave his back to the scourges. If we are slapped to insult us, he received these. If we are put to scorn, he did not turn his face from spitting.

He is the guide in all things; but he is guide to those who love the law, which the prophet professed above that he would keep with his whole heart. For here, according to the wording, what is said, "because I have wished for it," cannot be referred to the path of the commandments; because in the Greek, where "path" is written in the feminine gender, what he says he wished for he expresses in the masculine, saying: ὅτι αὐτὸν ἠθέλησα. For law is named by us in the feminine gender, but in Greek it is masculine, which is why it is expressed by them in the masculine. And while there "path" is named in the feminine, what he wished for is referred to what is mentioned properly in the masculine gender.

But now follows: "Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to profit." The prophet referred everything to God's gift: whether that the law of the way of justification be set by the Lord, or that understanding be granted him, or that he be led on the path, or that his heart be inclined to the testimonies, that is, to the things written before witnesses. For the law was handed down with heaven and earth as witnesses.

But perhaps through this devout modesty of the prophet someone will dare to speak impiously thus: "If," he says, "all things are from God, then human ignorance is free of blame, since it can obtain nothing except what it has received as given by God." And first, it is an impious will to think that one does not attain what is proper to believers because it has not been granted by God. But the prophet removed every occasion for this impious excuse. For first, when he prays, he performed the duty suited to his weakness; then he joined the efforts of human devotion to God's gifts. For when he says, "Set for me a law, Lord, the way of your justifications," he showed what belongs to the humility of prayer to God. But when he added, "And I will seek it out always," he set forth the duty of devotion. And in the rest too he bound them to one another in a kind of embrace: when he asks to be led on the path, and when he has wished for that very thing. For first he put what is from God, with honor; and then what is man's, with the humility of his duty. He prays, then, that God may grant. So it is from us, when we pray, that the beginning comes, so that the gift may be from him; then, because his gift comes from our beginning, it is again from us that it is sought, obtained, and kept.

Where it reads, "Incline my heart to your justifications and not to profit," some translated: "to your justifications and not to greed." What is contained in the manuscripts suits both, being ambiguous in its meaning. But we, as we ought, follow the devout and ancient authority of the seventy translators, while fitting the proper sense of each to our purpose by the judgment of the other translators. For since these said "to profit" and those said "to greed," from this very fact we shall learn how "profit" is meant here. For men of the world call money, silver, gold, and the other instruments of wealth "profit." So when the prophet prays that his heart be inclined to God's testimonies and not to profit, he undoubtedly turns his heart, inclined to God's testimonies, away from those things that are thought useful by human judgment. And the verse that follows confirms the sense of our understanding.

For he says: "Turn away my eyes, lest they see vanity; give me life in your way," teaching the vanity of things which are thought useful by men. And we must ask which eyes he prays to have turned away, and from what vanity. He prays for the eyes both of the mind and of the body: those, namely, which lie captive at theatrical shows, those which are slaves to the contests of the circus, those which admire costly clothing, those which the splendor of gold and gems has seized. As if the course of the stars were not more pleasing than the course of horses, and as if those divine words of human hope did not sing more delightfully than the obscene tales of shameful spectacles! As if the riches of eternity laid up, honor and glory, were not better than this use of earthly metals, and as if the sight of gold would be more charming to me than that of man and earth and light and heaven! From the vanities of these, then, he prays that his eyes be turned away, both these of his body and those of his soul; of which the blessed apostle teaches when he says: "Their understanding darkened in vanity, alienated from the life of God."

And what it means for the eyes to be turned away from vanity need not be sought far. For there follows: "And in your way I shall live." The eyes must be turned aside from vanity so that we may have life in God: not the life that is now, but the life laid up in heaven and hidden in Christ. For throughout this passage the prophet speaks as one who is to live, and not merely now. So the eyes must be lifted up, by which the glory of Christ may be seen rather than the empty and vain things of this world. For turning our eyes back from vanity, we shall live in the way of God.

Then follows: "Establish your word for your servant in your fear." The prophet knows that the words of God are received by many without fear. For many neglect the Scriptures of the heavenly word when they hear them, as a tale of empty things, and with great danger of rashness they mock the words of God, which cannot pass away even when heaven and earth pass away. He knows that the fear of God is the beginning. He knows that in that grace of the sevenfold Spirit fear is named last, as the foundation of what is said before it. So he prays that God's words be established in him in the fear of God, because he knows that those words will be useful to us if they are feared as God's. Then he added: "Cut away my reproach, which I suspected; for your judgments are pleasant." The prophet speaks as one placed in a body, and he knows that none of the living can be without sin. He remembers that there is one who did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. So when he prays that reproach be cut away from him, he prays that sin be cut away, because reproach follows sin. But when he prays for it to be cut away from him, he does not confess it as something committed and done, but because he suspects that it dwells in him through the weaknesses of his flesh. For he does not say, "Cut away the reproach which is in me," but he says, "Cut away my reproach, which I suspected," showing a suspicion of reproach out of awareness of his own weakness. For in the judgments many will rise to reproach; and because the judgments are pleasant to those in whom no reproach of sin will remain, he prays that the very suspicion of reproach which is in him be cut away, so that God's judgments may be pleasant to him.

And lest he be thought to have prayed out of awareness of a sin committed, he concluded the whole prayer which he offers under each group of eight verses with this freedom: "Behold, I have longed for your commandments; in your righteousness give me life." He prayed that God's words be established in him in the fear of God; then that the suspicion of reproach be cut away from him; now he shows his longing and desire for God's precepts, and prays to be given life in God's righteousness, knowing that it is the proper gift of divine equity to give life to one who has desired God's precepts, to whom, with the suspicion of reproach cut away, the judgments are pleasant, and in whom God's words are established in the fear of God. Amen.

There are many, as the apostle says, who, following wisdom, have rejected the wisdom of God; for this reason God has made the wisdom of the world foolish. For what is more foolish than the unbelievers, who, besides that common error of the irreligious, add this crime too, that they think the divine words of the Scriptures lack the reason of perfect teaching? And because in their impiety they cannot grasp the divine sayings, to excuse their dullness they break out into insult of heavenly things, saying that there is nothing reasonable in them, nothing perfect, and that only what is said by themselves is learned and polished by teaching: fools who deny wisdom to God and dare to claim it for themselves. Nor is it surprising if they think irreligiously of things whose understanding they do not attain because of their dullness. But although in the discourse we had above I think the perfection of the sayings has been made known to those who follow the wisdom of God, and that there is nothing in it that is not complete and perfect in every part, yet this too may be understood still more fully in these verses of the sixth letter.

For after the preceding thought he speaks thus: "And let your mercy come upon me, Lord, your salvation according to your word." So he first prayed for mercy, then for salvation. For our salvation is from God's mercy, and this gift of his goodness is in us; and so the prayer begins from where the one who prays begins. Then, lest the prophet be thought to pray out of an uncertain and unforeseen hope, he mentions first mercy, then salvation, and third he added "according to your word," to show that this confidence in praying proceeds according to God's word, that is, from the teaching of the law.

After this order of perfect prayer there follows: "And I will answer a word to those who reproach me, because I have hoped in your words." Perfect reason keeps its order: "If," he says, "your mercy comes upon me and your salvation according to your word, and I obtain mercy from you and salvation from you, as you promised, it will follow that I answer those who reproach me with folly and mistaken hope and with this word which I hope for in you." What, then, can an irreligious mind reproach against this answer of the prophet? Mercy is first prayed for from God, salvation too is expected from God; then God is shown to have promised it through his word. So the impiety of those who reproach is shut up by those who hope in God's words: since, whenever God is proclaimed, the faith of believers hopes both for mercy and for salvation from him, and the teaching of our hope is that, when prayed to, he both has mercy and saves.

Then follows: "And do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, because I have hoped in your judgments." Let human insolence receive the teaching of humility and modesty. The prophet prays for it to be granted him before showing that he deserves to obtain it. He wants everything in him to be begun by God's goodness; and yet he does not withhold the reason. For he says: "And do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth." In this he first confesses the majesty of him who must always be prayed to; then he added that he does not hope from nothing, saying: "because I have hoped in your judgments." But it is the custom of human rashness to thrust forward its merit for obtaining something before it deserves it, and to approach him from whom it asks something as if from an obligation of duty.

But it is not enough for us that the prophet kept only the measure of modesty; there are also arrangements and forces of the words that explain why he said: "And do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth." Every duty of the mouth serves the thought and movements of the heart. And why the prophet prays that the word of truth not be taken from his mouth, the sequence of this verse teaches. For this was not the prophet's fear, that he feared the word of truth would be taken from his heart; for he says, "because I have hoped in your judgments." Hoping, then, in God's judgments, he does not fear that the word of truth will be taken from his heart; but he knows that there are certain sins which take the word of truth from the mouth. For God said to the sinner: "Why do you declare my justifications?" For he does not say, "Why are you unmindful of mine?" but he warned one who had remained in sin to abstain from the duty of preaching. For he wants the preacher to be free from crime; he wants his words handled by the chaste mouth of a chaste body. So we must take care that the speaking of the word of truth is never taken from our mouth. Hence comes what the apostle warns: "Do not neglect the gift that is in you," lest through negligence and sloth we become unworthy of the word of God.

But the prophet does not dare to wish to be made so free from sin that he forgets that there is only one who did no sin and in whose mouth no deceit was found; and therefore he added: "utterly." Through the modesty of confession he prays that the word of truth not be taken from him, and out of honor for him who alone is without sin he asks that it not be utterly taken from him, because he remembers that he is a man who through the weakness of nature cannot be without sin.

"And I will keep your law always, for ever and ever." The prophet fears no end of life. For his faith is not shut in, but extends itself into infinite ages in the duty of keeping the law. He knows that the altar made by Moses was a copy of the altar above. He knows that the priest Aaron was clothed after the likeness of the priestly dress shown on the mountain. For God said to Moses: "Go, make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain." So he hastens to those laws of the eternal ages. For since the law is a shadow of what is to come, the body of the true law must be eternal. He distinguished the present duty from that unwearying continuance of perpetual duty, saying: "And I will keep your law always, for ever and for ever and ever." When he says "always, for ever," he allowed no time of forgetfulness in this life of time. But when he added "and for ever and ever," he knows that through this shadow of the law one ascends to the eternal age of the law. For he speaks of "the age of the age" as a time of time, because by a kind of succession there will be an age to follow this age.

He knows that, as with the rich man of the gospel and the poor man Lazarus, there is a law for souls freed from the body, by which one is separated from another by an impassable chasm. He knows, as the apostle Paul says, that there is also a law of the resurrection, in which star differs from star in glory. He knows that there are laws of the angels: some, standing by as Cherubim, praise God unweariedly; others stand before the face of God, invisible to us, as by the law of a more proper office. He knows too that the angels of the little ones see God daily by a certain law. He knows that there are certainly eternal laws, and he trusts that he will keep all of them in that age, because he always observes now in this age the things that were established as their shadow.

"And I walked in largeness, because I sought out your commandments." The prophet is not narrow; and above he had already said: "I ran in the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart." He knows that amid the suffering of human tribulations one must always have an open heart toward God. The apostle teaches this very thing, saying: "We are afflicted, but not straitened." The same apostle knows how to glory in this very largeness of heart about himself. To the Corinthians he says: "You are not straitened in us, but you are straitened in yourselves." Here too the prophet lies open to God, who says: "And I will dwell in them and walk among them." So the hearts of sinners are narrow, and a polluted mind does not receive God as a guest. For an open dwelling is needed for God, who cannot be contained, and therefore the prophet walks in largeness, because in him is the dwelling of God who speaks in him. He teaches the reason for his largeness, saying: "because I sought out your commandments." Let us recall the habit of our nature: whenever, with time for reading, we search God's commandments and precepts, into how great a largeness the narrowness of our minds is widened, and how open the sense of our lowliness becomes to divine desires. But through awareness of our sins every largeness of mind is narrowed for us, and all things are hard and narrow when we are unworthy of the indwelling of the divine word.

But the prophet, walking in breadth, must be occupied in a duty worthy of the largeness he has gained; and he plainly is. For there follows: "And I spoke of your testimonies in the sight of kings, and I was not put to shame." This is the duty of an enlarged heart, that from it words of teaching should come forth in abundance; for the prophet speaks steadfastly against the princes of the earth, proclaiming God. And this sense has a double meaning: first, that according to the Lord's precepts we must preach before kings and authorities, and that it is not right for us to be terrified by the power of earthly authorities so as not to confess, with all shame cast aside and with steadfast and public faith, the God who will deny those who deny him. The word may also be referred to those of whom the apostle says: "Already you reign without us, and would that you did reign": that is, the prophet spoke God's testimonies as in the sight of the saints, who are certainly often called kings of the earth, and was not ashamed to present the ordinances of heaven by his preaching. This twofold understanding offers a choice: since both can readily be understood from the testimonies of the Scriptures, either both may be thought to be meant, or whichever seems more probable may be chosen.

"And I meditated on your commandments, which I loved exceedingly." So it is fitting for us not only to speak of God's testimonies but to retain all the commandments of the law by daily meditation. Nor is meditation alone useful unless the law itself, which is meditated on, is loved; nor will it suffice to love with an ordinary love, unless what is loved is also loved exceedingly. And therefore the prophetic word runs through this whole order of perfect reason, saying: "and on your commandments, which I loved exceedingly."

But neither meditation on the law nor love itself, however intense, will suffice unless the fruit of works and the carrying out of the will follow. Nor did the prophet stop short in this; for he says: "And I lifted up my hands to your commandments, which I loved greatly." He raised his hands to the commandments which he loved: certainly not insolent or wanton hands, but hands serving the commandments of humility, intent on works, carrying out the precepts of faith. The duty of work must always be intent and never cease through the pretense of careless idleness. The prophet testifies that he remains in this too, saying: "And I was exercised in your justifications." Exercise shows persistence in working. So he teaches that his observance of the precepts is frequent and always intent, toward those heavenly justifications we mentioned above, exercising himself now in the justifications of the present law, which is a shadow of things to come.

Every word of God contained in the divine Scriptures calls us into the hope of heavenly goods. And therefore the prophet, confident that he has remained in all of God's precepts, says steadfastly: "Remember your word to your servant." Is God forgetful of his promise? Far be it that any kind of human weakness should be believed to creep into eternal and unwearying power. But the prophet, who believed God's promises, who was held by desire for heavenly things, who hoped for the future with contempt for the present, does not remind God to remember his word; but he prays that God be mindful of his word in him, his servant, that is, that he may be held worthy that God should now deign to be mindful of his word in him, the word in which he gave hope. And hope must not be empty, nor only proclaimed in words, but taught by deeds themselves, so that if ever illnesses, persecutions, losses, bereavements, or insults befall us, we may console ourselves against these present threats and powers by the hope of the eternal promises.

And we are taught for all these things; but the prophet has already gone through them himself, saying: "This has consoled me in my lowliness, for your word has given me life." This refers to the hope which God made him hope for. It consoled him in lowliness, that is, when he is despised, when he is …, when he is harassed with injuries, when he is dishonored with insults, knowing that this is his warfare of present temptations. But amid these wars of his, the hope from the Lord consoles him; and he is given life through God's words. He knows that in these the glory of humility is excellent; he knows that the soul refreshed by God's words holds in itself, as it were, a food of eternity. Living in God's words, he is not moved by the empty glory of the proud. For he knows that his need is richer than their wealth. He knows that his fasts are filled with the heavenly and gospel blessing. He knows that his lowliness is to be rewarded with the glorious prize of honor. And so he added: "The proud acted unjustly to the utmost; but I did not turn aside from your law." Amid the excessive and complete iniquities of the proud, for they acted very unjustly, the prophet turns aside from God's law by no swerving.

But one who does not turn aside from God's law must be mindful of God's judgments. For in every kind of our action the memory of the divine judgment must be implanted and kept in us, so that, when we do anything, with the memory of the judgment residing in us, or rather never departing, our works may serve God's precepts. Blessed will be whoever has done all things not without the memory of the divine judgment. The prophet professes this of himself, saying: "I remembered your judgments from of old, Lord, and was encouraged." These now only "from of old," not also "from age to age," because all God's judgments upon us have been set from the times of this age and world. In these he encouraged himself, that is, amid these whirlwinds of the world and these battles of bodily sufferings, he exhorted his lowliness by the memory of God's judgments to endurance of the evils that assail him.

Then follows: "Faintness of soul has seized me because of sinners who forsake your law." The prophet's own virtues are not enough for him for the hope of life: neither that he had hope in God's word, nor that he consoled himself in that same hope, nor that he is given life by God's word, nor that he does not turn aside from the law, nor that he encourages himself by the memory of the judgments; but he is also wearied with grief at human impiety and is afflicted because of the irreligious impieties of men. For every holy man, when …, has pity not on his own lowliness, but on the one who …: as a father insulted by a mad son, or a physician by a delirious patient, feels grief not from what he has suffered, but because the one whom he wished to be well has, in his madness, done him injury. And when one member suffers anything, as the apostle says, the other members suffer with it. So faintness, in this sense, holds the prophet over sinners who abandon God's law: he is wearied as one who pities and grieves, as though in his own members, on behalf of the wicked and irreligious.

But he himself, as far as he is concerned, remains always intent on God's justifications; and in every place where he dwells, the hymn of confession never leaves his mouth. For he says: "Your justifications were songs to me in the place of my sojourning." By his example he teaches that the songs of the psalms, once received into the ears, are to be retained in the heart and always repeated by the mouth's service. He did not read and hear carelessly, as he himself declares, nor did he read the divine words, as our irreligion does, with eyes busy with something else or uncaring, or receive them with soon-forgetful ears; but they are songs to him, that is, without ceasing. And he teaches that the habit of singing psalms never left him in any place of any kind, when he says, "in the place of my sojourning." For he does not say "in my sojourning," but "in the place of my sojourning," that is, in whatever seat he stayed: understanding that he is a stranger in this world, yet that God's justifications are always songs to him.

But he shows how much God's justifications are songs to him, since he leaves out no time in which he is not occupied in that heavenly work. For he says: "I remembered your name in the night, Lord, and kept your law." He knows that God's name must be remembered by us especially at night. He knows that the keeping of God's law must be held fast by us most of all when desires creep into the mind. When the goads of vices stir the body through food lately taken, then God's name must be remembered, then his law must be kept, establishing modesty, self-control, and the fear of God. He knows that God must be prayed to and entreated especially at this time, as he says in another place: "Every night I will wash my bed; I will water my couch with tears." The mind must not be relaxed in the dangerous idleness of the night watches, but occupied in prayers, entreaties, and confessions of sins, so that when most opportunity is given to the vices of the body, then above all those vices may be broken by remembering the law.

Then follows: "This has been made mine, because I sought out your justifications." This refers to the memory by which he remembered God's name in the nights. And when he says "has been made mine," it means not recurring suddenly or taken up for a time, but always abiding and established within him by a kind of work of faith; and it was made his because he sought out the justifications. So it is useful to search God's justifications without any break in time, because by seeking them out we keep the memory of God perpetually in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Reading the manuscripts of the Psalms, we too used to think that the verse which is the first of the eighth letter, namely, "The Lord is my portion," was contained among the preceding eight verses of the seventh letter, because it was so written in the Latin manuscripts and also in some Greek ones; and the sense certainly seemed more complete that way. But reading the corrected book of the Psalms among the Greeks, we found that this verse is not the last but the first. And so, following this knowledge, we too have undertaken to treat of it here.

For it reads thus: "The Lord is my portion; I said that I would keep your law." Rare is the one who has the confidence to dare to say that God is his portion. One must renounce all things and their world for God to be our portion. If ambition holds us back, if care for money occupies us, if the allurements of lusts take hold of us, if the business of household affairs detains us, God will not be our portion while we are held by the possession of cares and vices.

When Moses was commanded to distribute portions for dwelling among the tribes of the sons of Israel, it was said to him thus about the tribe of Levi: "The sons of Levi shall have no portion nor lot among their brothers, because the Lord God is their part." And again we remember it written: "I the Lord am their part." So the law that was given wanted those who serve God to have no earthly portion, because God was their part.

Peter too, that preacher of the gospel, remembered that he had no portion of human possession, when he answered the one who asked for alms: "Gold and silver I do not have; but what I have, this I give you." What is this, Peter, that you possess? You had renounced all things, saying to your Lord: "Behold, we have left all things and followed you; what will we have?" And he had answered you: "Truly I say to you, that you who have followed me will, in the regeneration, sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." And he had promised that others who left all things after your example would receive a hundredfold and would then possess life. What is it, then, Peter, that you have? You plainly have something, and I do not dare say that you hold more than a hundredfold; yet I say that you possess beyond any multiplying of reckoning. For you say: "What I have, this I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk." O happy possession, O perfect portion of God! You do not lavish earthly things, but you repay the work of nature and restore the losses of a defective birth. You bid one born lame to walk, and you rouse a man of many years to an unpractised gait. He bestows these riches whose portion is God. Paul too knew the glories of his riches, saying: "But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Such was the apostle's glory, such his portion.

So, in the manner of human inheritances, let us choose the portion which is better and more useful. If in the division of earthly patrimony among coheirs someone strives to get the lot of the more advantageous portion, with how much more eager care shall we choose a share of the heavenly inheritance? The Lord promises a hundredfold, and not for eternity, but in the present. The repayment of eternal goods is immeasurable and infinite; but the measure of present things is confined within the limit of a hundredfold. I am in doubt whether Peter's portion exceeded this hundredfold. Certainly, according to the Lord's precept, what is to be hoped for now in this age when all the things of the age are left behind is the gift of a hundredfold. For God is our portion, who says: "And I will dwell in them." Is it not then the reward of a hundredfold, that God dwells in this little earthly body of ours? But why do I say "dwells"? He himself also says: "And I will walk among them." The faithful heart is a possession open and spacious for God, so that he may dwell and walk in it. But he who dwells, he who walks within, what third thing did he add? "And I will be their God." Behold the portion he has promised us: that we be a dwelling for God, and that while he walks in us he himself be our possession, if we leave the world, if we renounce the stain of earthly possession, if we reject the inheritance of perishable things, if we go out of the world while living. For what merit is there in having left the world when the body is dead and the soul departs and is dissolved? We must do without it by contempt for it. We must not know it, through ignorance of its pleasures. We must die in it while we do not live for it. Paul knows that he no longer lives for himself, saying: "For what I live, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me."

So the prophet, living not for the world, according to the apostle, says steadfastly and freely: "The Lord is my portion." He kept the measure he kept above when he promised that he would keep God's law. For he is not understood to speak of the law which he carried out bodily, since he confesses rather that he will keep it than that he keeps it.

Then follows: "I have entreated your face with my whole heart; have mercy on me according to your word." We remember that Moses prayed to see God, and perhaps this prophet's prayer will be thought akin to his request. But he remembers that it was said by God: "No man shall see my face and live." So does he ask to be granted what he remembers was denied to Moses? But again, although he is earlier than the gospel saying, he still remembers that this blessedness is reserved for faith, because it is said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." So, since he knows that it was said in the law that no one sees God's face and lives, and does not doubt from the gospel beatitude that all the pure in heart will see God, he spoke the longing of his desire with the tempering of perfect modesty, saying: "I have entreated your face with my whole heart." He knows that it is now impossible for him to see what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has entered the heart of man. He knows that the glory of God is invisible to fleshly eyes. He remembers that, I do not say before the brightness of angels, the light of human vision is dimmed, but that the eyes of the human body could not bear even the glory of Moses' face.

But let us measure the prophet's desires by human desires. With what anxious expectation people run to the processions of kings, and what joy it is for those who see them when they show themselves to be looked at! What shall we think that man, able to hold the heavenly Spirit, wants? With what burning desire does he long to see God, he who measures that invisible majesty through these brightnesses of angels and this glory of Moses, and knows that even those who are worthy of the sight of God will take glory from the sight of glory, because the mere seeing and the favor of the majesty they contemplate will enlighten them? The holy apostle, understanding this, says: "We all, with unveiled face, awaiting the glory of God, shall be transformed into that same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." And now, because he knows this is impossible for these eyes of the body, he desires it with his whole heart. And since God is his portion, he confidently entreats his face: because, although no man sees God's face and lives, yet all the pure in heart will see God. So he asks this mercy from God, that the blessedness of seeing his face may befall him; and he asks it not without the reason and manner of its being granted.

For he says: "Have mercy on me according to your word." It is the voice of modest faith to entreat God's mercy not according to the awareness of one's sins but according to the words of that same God. He knows that God is also a consuming fire to sinners. For Moses says: "Your God is a consuming fire." He knows that the same God is light to the faithful, of whom the prophet himself also says elsewhere: "You give light wonderfully from the holy mountains." The apostle too distinguishes this way of God's goodness and severity, when he says: "See then the goodness and severity of God: severity toward those who fell, but goodness toward you"; and again: "Otherwise you too will be cut off; and they, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in." The prophet awaits God's goodness: "Have mercy on me." For he knows that no one who lives is without sin, and that all who are placed in the flesh need God's mercy. But he is not unmindful of his duty and devotion when he says, "according to your word": that is, that word by which he both announces punishment to sinners and promises the blessedness of eternal life to those who believe in him.

Then follows: "Because I thought on my ways and turned my feet to your testimonies." From what the prophet recalls that he does or has done, he teaches what we too must do. For he thinks on his ways, and having thought on them he turns his foot to God's testimonies. He did nothing that he had not first turned over in thought. He did not move his tongue to its duty, did not put his foot forward to any work he was going to do, did not stretch out his hand to do anything, unless he had first thought about all these things, and only then brought action and effect to what he had thought. So before all things he looked at his ways, and when he found one pleasing and approved, then he set his foot on it: that is, having surveyed all the ways of human action, after he had thought what was useful to him, he turned the foot of faith toward the divine testimonies. For thought can fear nothing sudden, nothing new, nothing unexpected, since by the decision of counsel all things that usually happen are hoped for, determined beforehand, and faced. And this is taught in the following verse.

For after the prophet had thought on his ways and turned his foot to God's testimonies, he speaks freely: "I am prepared and not troubled, to keep your commandments." Whoever is being prepared for something is prepared by long practice for that in which his meditation lies, so that no force of sudden trouble may shake him, careless and unwary, from the resolve of his purpose. So the prophet knows that there are very many stumbling blocks of the world. He knows that there are powers lying in wait for human nature and opposing it. He knows that the ambition for glory is dangerously sweet. He knows that meetings with wanton women are a snare to the eyes of the continent. He knows that shameful desires of the body creep in with the feeling of alluring pleasure. He knows that the other kinds of vices assail by enticing approaches. He knows too that he is subject to the hatred of many irreligious men and must be harassed by the various insults of persecutors for the teaching of God and of piety. So, lest he be troubled when so many and such great snares assail him, he prepared himself against every destruction of faith, saying: "I am prepared and not troubled, to keep your commandments."

The blessed apostle has a counterpart of this preparation of his, saying: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or suffering, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep for slaughter. But in all these we overcome and conquer because of him who loved us." And because he had prepared himself to endure these things, so that he could not be separated from love by them, he added: "For I am confident that neither death nor life, nor angels nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor power nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." No kinds of the things that can happen disturb the apostle, prepared and strengthened by such hope.

Let this, then, be our voice too, so that when desires creep in, when sufferings assail, when dangers weary, when tortures torment, we may dare to say: "I am prepared and not troubled, to keep your commandments." Our Lord, the only-begotten Son of God, among his other precepts commands his disciples, saying: "Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid." Against trouble, whatever may come from what befalls us, there is need of the firmness of long preparation, so that one may keep God's commandments with strong and firm faith.

Into what condition the prophet had come, and for what cause he was not troubled while he kept God's commandments, he immediately added, saying: "The cords of sinners have wound around me, and I have not forgotten your law." That there are cords of sinners we are taught by Isaiah, who says: "Woe to those who bind their sins like a long rope," in the manner of a rope growing from many tiny strands into a great one, as sins always stretch out like a long rope. There are also the chains of offenses with which human minds are bound, of which it is written in Proverbs: "Each one is bound by the cords of his own sins." For the devil binds us and ties us and entangles us in these cords as snares in every part of life. That he binds we know from the gospels: "But this daughter, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years." He binds, then, with every kind of vice: with the habit of drunkenness, with desires for pleasures, with the guilt of unbelief. But amid these snares of cords, forgetfulness of the law must not be admitted. For we must be prepared so that we may be freed from these snares, if ever they wind around us, by remembering God's law at all times.

And the prophet plainly remembers it, saying: "At midnight I rose to confess to you over the judgments of your justification." He is not idle all night, nor is he kept idle in bed: to confess to God he rises not only at night but at midnight. He remembers that this is the time when the firstborn of the Egyptians were struck by the well-deserved destruction of their impious obstinacy; so at these hours he does not slacken into sleep, lest he be counted with the firstborn of Egypt. At this time of night, when the bridegroom enters, the wise virgins will go in with their lamps; so he keeps watch, lest he deserve to be shut out with the foolish. At this time, while the apostles Paul and Silas were singing psalms, their chains were loosed; so he does not sleep, lest he be bound. Nor does the whole sleep of the night-time hold him, lest forgetfulness of his duty creep upon him in the rest of midnight; for he rises to confess to God. But confession is not always to be referred to sins; it must also be understood in the praises of God. So now he confesses to God over his judgments, praising God, that is, because he has decreed nothing except in the justification of his judgments.

Then follows: "I am a partaker with all who fear you and keep your commandments." We remember that the apostle said: "We have become partakers of Christ." And in the forty-fourth psalm too we remember that certain partakers of God are signified, when it is said: "God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows." So, according to the apostle and according to the prophet, there are many partakers of our Lord Jesus Christ. And whoever remains in righteousness is his partaker, because he himself is righteousness; whoever persists in truth will be his partaker, for he himself is the truth; and whoever walks in newness will be his partaker, because he himself is the resurrection. So, although the prophet knows that there are many partakers of God, now by a humble and modest statement about himself, although he remembers that he is a partaker of Christ, since he himself was both made and called an anointed one, he nevertheless confessed himself rather a partaker of all who fear God. And he is a partaker of those who fear God when he suffers with those who suffer, weeps with those who weep, grieves as a member of the same body in the pain of another member. By this fellowship of sufferings, then, he becomes a partaker of those who fear God. But whoever in his insolence disdains one who believes in Christ and is redeemed by Christ is not a partaker of those who fear God, since he is not their companion in sharing their sufferings.

But the prophet did not put this bare and alone when he says, "I am a partaker with all who fear you." Many fear God and yet are disobedient; many fear God and yet are unbelieving, whom the condition of nature subjects to the fear of God, but the perversity of their own will removes from obedience to God. And therefore it would not have been enough for the prophet to say, "I am a partaker with all who fear you," unless he had added, "and who keep your commandments." For the fear that belongs to faith lies only in obedience, and the awe of religion lies in compliance. So he is a partaker of those who prove their fear by keeping God's commandments.

Then follows: "The earth is full of your mercy, Lord; teach me your justifications." The earth is full of God's mercy, though it is defiled, corrupt, irreligious, faithless, and lost. And if anyone dares with impious mouth to accuse the prophet, as though he thought God's mercy were not spread over all the earth, let him recall that the Lord said in the gospels: "Be good, as your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust." For God, patient and merciful, while he prefers the repentance of sinners to their death, lavishes his gifts on the just and unjust, granting to each through his patience a long time for repentance.

And because the prophet remembers that this goodness and perfection of God, which is foreshadowed bodily under those justifications of the law, must always be hoped for by him, he says: "Teach me your justifications, Lord." He had read all of them in the law; but because he hoped for the heavenly ones which are foreshadowed in the earthly, he does not need an earthly teacher. For he prays to be taught by him who says: "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." The prophet disdains to have it opened and given to him by a teacher of the law, awaiting as master of heavenly knowledge our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

We already noted at the beginning of the psalm that it contains nothing other than teaching for human beings, by which we might be trained to the knowledge of God through the very elements of letters, like little children. For the prophet strengthens us from his own person, showing how we ought to be occupied in every kind of divine duty, so that through the discipline of the instruction we have received we may keep the order of faith, as is taught in that first verse of the ninth letter. For it says thus: "You have dealt kindly with your servant, Lord, according to your word." And perhaps some will think that the prophet spoke of prosperity and gave thanks to God for the things that had gone well for him. But he knows that thanks must be given to God in adversity too; he knows that in every suffering and tribulation he by whose judgment they come must be honored with thanksgiving. He knows that a physician who spares the festering pockets of wounds is careless. He remembers that the severity of fathers toward their sons is loving. He wishes to be reproved by God through temptations and proved through patience; and he gives thanks in the things that are thought adverse.

And the verse that is added teaches this understanding of ours, so that we believe the prophet prayed this, saying: "Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge, because I have obeyed your commandments." Whatever God does to his servant, then, is good; for he does it according to his word. And whatever is according to his word cannot be evil, because the will of him who alone is good is inclined to goodness.

So the second verse, as we said, sets out the prophet's disposition, when he prays, saying: "And teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge." He confessed above that goodness had been done toward him; how then does he pray to be taught it as if he did not know it? Only because then there was thanksgiving from the confession of faith, when he believed that whatever was done to him was good; but now, through human nature, there is cause of ignorance, when he prays to be taught. But he wants to learn that goodness to which discipline is joined. For discipline must be the work of severity, reproving sins and correcting vices. And the correction of vices brings great progress in goodness. Good, then, is the discipline of severity, but the prophet does not yet know it. For he wants to be taught not only goodness and discipline but also knowledge: showing in this his faith, since he confesses that goodness and discipline, which he does not yet know, are nevertheless good for him from God. Of knowledge we have reminded you in many places that both the apostle and the prophet counted it among the gifts of spiritual graces. So he prays to be taught knowledge as he does goodness and discipline; and to be taught because he believes God's commandments: showing that only the faithful and believing can attain teaching.

The sense of the same understanding remains also in the third verse. For he says: "Before I was humbled, I sinned; therefore I have kept your word." The tribulation of sufferings does not come upon us before offenses come first; nor are we humbled by sufferings before we are worthy of sufferings through the iniquity of sins. So the prophet teaches that his humiliation is the amendment of his offense; and therefore he knows that whatever comes from God is good for him, because he deserved to suffer what he suffers. And he knows that discipline is the amendment of vices. First, then, he sinned; second, he was humbled; and through the discipline of humility he must be taught and remain in God's words, because, having sinned, he has now been humbled and will remain in God's commandments so that he can sin no more.

"You are good, Lord; and in your goodness teach me your justifications." The prophet knows that God's justifications are good, because he who established them is good. He knows that nothing happens to him except by God's justification, since he professed that first he sinned and then afterwards was humbled. And because above he had prayed to be taught goodness, discipline, and knowledge, now he prays to be taught God's justifications in goodness: because justification is the work of a just thing, which is to his good, since the justifications established in the law contained in themselves the shadow of the heavenly justifications.

Then he added: "The iniquity of the proud has been multiplied against me; but I will search your commandments with my whole heart." The prophet, bearing all things patiently and calmly, was brought into the reproach of the proud and wicked. For if anyone recalls the reproofs of the three kings to Job, he will understand how much he is embittered by the reproach of mockers. For when irreligious people see God's servants being corrected through some sufferings, they usually reproach them thus: "Where is your faith? Where is your hope in God? Where is the power of the helper? Where is the mercy of the good God?" Against this there is need of a firm and faithful mind, intent and occupied in God's commandments, so as not to give way when so many iniquities of the proud are multiplied against it, but always to say: "You have dealt kindly with your servant, Lord"; as that glorious and blessed conqueror of human sufferings said: "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

Then follows: "Their heart has curdled like milk; but I have meditated on your law." He says the heart of the proud is like milk. Milk is most pleasant in appearance and taste; when corrupted by some fault it usually curdles, and departing from the sweetness of its nature it is spoiled into a useless and bitter taste. So the wicked, earlier, when they saw the prophet in prosperity, friends of good fortune, flattering with an appearance of simplicity, were like milk. But when pride and disdain for the holy man's humiliation took hold of them, they curdled like milk and were turned from flattering and sweet adulation into the bitterness of a spoiled and souring taste. Yet while they were curdled like milk, the prophet meditated on God's law: meditated, that is, so as to say what is contained in the following verse.

"It is good for me that you have humbled me." Though the iniquity of the proud is multiplied and their heart curdles like milk, the prophet knows that his humiliation is good for him; he knows that strength is made perfect in weakness. Good is every suffering, good are all tribulations, through which God's justifications are known: so that he may amend sinners by humiliation, restrain offenders by severity, teach the ignorant by teaching. For this reason he says it is good for him that he was humbled, because through humiliation he learned God's justifications. For he sinned before he was humbled, and humility is good for him, because through it God's justification is learned.

He concluded: "The law of your mouth is good to me above thousands of gold and silver." The wording of this conclusion is not simple. For it would have been enough for the prophet's thanksgiving to say, "Your law is good to me." But when he says "the law of your mouth," he wanted more to be understood. God spoke the law through Moses, he spoke through the prophets; but this is the law of God, not also the law of God's mouth. But the mouth of God is he who is also the power of God, who is also the wisdom of God, who is also the arm of God, who is also the image of God, namely God and our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom"; saying: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted"; saying: "Bless those who persecute you, and pray for those who slander you." The prophet declares that this law of God's mouth is good to him; and good not with a number of comparison, limit, and measure, but "above thousands of gold and silver." This expression is without limit, when "thousands" is said, because the law of God's mouth is good without limit; and by comparison with the most precious things on earth he signifies the usefulness of the goods that are established by God.

It is the common judgment that among all God's earthly works nothing is more useful, nothing more beautiful than man: because, even if some things are beautiful and adorned, they testify indeed to the greatness of him who brought forth such fair things, but they themselves do not perceive the fruit of their beauty, adornment, and formation. We are speaking of the things subject to human sight, namely those created on land, in sea, and in air, and mingled in their several kinds and natures. These are beautiful; but what good, after all, will the things created in the ocean, earth, sky, or air gain from the fact that they were created such? But in man, whatever there is profits himself. And he alone on earth was established as a rational, understanding, and judging animal; and of all these kinds that are in him, none serves any other purpose than that he himself should use both all the others and those in which he was born: and use them for knowing and worshipping him who is the author and parent of such great goods in him.

From this that great and wonderful saying of Solomon will be understood, which runs thus: "A great and precious thing is a merciful man; but a faithful man is hard to find." For what is so rare, or what is of such hard labor, as to find one who remembers that he was made according to the image and likeness of God, who, intent on the study of the divine words, has known the reason of his soul and body and perceived the origin and nature of each kind, and toward what end, finally, this formation and birth of his tends? And for this reason man is something great. For he loses this name when, neglecting the knowledge of the things mentioned above, he has fallen into vices, judged unworthy now to be called man, and as one not made according to the image and likeness of God; but according to the reproaches of the prophets and the gospels, his name is serpent, or brood of vipers, or horse, or mule, or fox; and the proper character of his name is taken from him as he falls from his innocence.

But one who has searched God's teaching and precepts with zealous faith and wishes, by his zeal, to be worthy of being one made according to the image and likeness of God, will be able himself to use the prophet's voice, saying: "Your hands have made me and prepared me." And in some manuscripts we have found it written thus: "Your hands have made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, and I will learn your commandments." And without doubt it must not be thought idle that it was not enough for the prophet to say, "Your hands have made me," unless he had added "fashioned" or "prepared"; but the prophet, understanding the honor of his condition, wanted to signify by this the special dignity of his origin, first saying: "Your hands have made me."

In the creation of the world we have received that all things were made by a word, when it is said, "Let there be light," when it is said, "Let there be a firmament," when it is said, "And let the dry land appear," when it is said, "Let the earth bring forth the herb of pasture, yielding seed according to its kind," when it is said, "Let there be lights in the firmament," when it is said, "Let the waters bring forth creeping things with living souls." So everything from which or in which the body of the whole world exists takes its origin from a saying, and subsists in what it is from the word of God. But concerning man God spoke thus: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." So the nature and origin of man differ from those of the whole creation: and he is properly deliberated on beforehand and confirmed, that he should be made, whereas the other things were commanded to exist without any decision of counsel. The origin of man therefore has this first dignity, that it was proper to it to be deliberated on beforehand.

And in this present prophetic saying too a great privilege of human origin is contained. For the Lord's hands did not make cattle and fish and birds: nowhere is that handed down. This, then, is excellent and splendid in man, that he is set apart from the rest by the dignity of the work. Of the establishing of the heaven we read in a certain place thus: "With my hand I established the heaven." Is that element, then, preferred to the making of man, since it is recorded that it was established by God's hand? But though heaven was made by a hand, man was made by hands. So the work of two hands surpasses the service of one: and what is enough for establishing is not enough in the making of man. But we must understand why the prophet says he was made by hands, and not only made, but also fashioned or prepared.

The creation of all the other elements was both established and completed at the very moment in which they were commanded to exist, and no time separates their beginning from their completion; for the beginning received completion in what each is. But man, since he contains within himself an inner and an outer nature, discordant one with another, and was made a sharer of reason out of two kinds into one, was established with a twofold beginning. For first it was said: "Let us make man in our image and likeness"; then, second: "And God took dust from the earth and formed man."

The first work does not contain in itself an origin of another nature taken from elsewhere. Whatever is then begun by the decision of counsel is incorporeal: for it is made after the image of God. Not the image of God, because the image of God is the firstborn of all creation; but after the image, that is, according to the form of image and likeness. What was then made according to the image and likeness of God was to be founded as divine and incorporeal in him: namely, a certain copy of the image and likeness of God is in us. So it is in the rational and incorporeal substance of our soul that what was made after the image of God first exists. But how much does the working of the second work differ from the first formation? God took from the earth. For dust is taken, and earthly matter is formed or prepared into man and is polished from one thing into another by the work and care of the craftsman. So the first he did not take, but made; the second he did not make like the first, but took and then formed or prepared.

Both can rightly be understood, because we find both written: that he formed him into what he is, namely the form of a body, or into what is said: "And he breathed into him a spirit, and man became a living soul." So he was prepared or formed for this inbreathing, through which the nature of soul and body would be held together in completeness by a kind of covenant of the breathed spirit. The blessed apostle Paul knows that there is a double nature in him, when according to the inner man he delights in the law, and when he sees another law in his members which leads him captive in the law of sin. So what is made according to the image of God belongs to the dignity of the mind; but what is formed from the earth is the beginning of the form of the body. And because either God is understood to have spoken to another when he says, "Let us make man," or the perfection of man made and formed is recognized as threefold, since he is both made after the image of God and formed from the earth and moved into a living soul by the inbreathing of the spirit, therefore the prophet testifies that he was made and formed by hands, not by a hand only, because in his constitution the work is taught to have been not of one alone, and also threefold.

And because the prophet knows that this is very hidden and secret, namely how far he was formed by God's hands, yet, in order to attain a full and complete account of it, he says: "Give me understanding, and I will learn your commandments." He speaks as one who does not know these things and prays for understanding to be given him as one who has not yet attained it; and yet some, I do not say men of the church, but of the nations, dare to wish to treat of the formation of human nature; we even dare to boast that we have attained a right and perfect life. But we must be taught by this prophet's example either to confess our ignorance of divine things or to pray for understanding of what we do not know. It is best to ask God by prayer for the knowledge of heavenly commandments and to recognize the weakness and poverty of our mind. For according to the apostle the first gift of graces is the gift of wisdom, the next that of knowledge; and therefore the prophet kept this order here too, saying: "Give me understanding, and I will learn your commandments." First he prayed for understanding, afterwards also for knowledge.

Then follows: "Those who fear you will see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your words." It is the custom of the impious to be gloomy at the sight of religious men. For the drunkard must hate the sober man, the unchaste the continent, the unjust the just, and he cannot bear the presence of any holy man, as if it were a burden. But on the contrary, at the sight of a faithful and religious man all who have the fear of God rejoice even at the mere bodily sight of him, as certain birds and herbs, merely by being seen, are said to heal some diseases. So the presence of a holy man is useful to those who fear God, because they must gain some progress from beholding him. But the prophet does not think that only what is open to public and common eyes should be seen in him. He wants his uprightness to be seen, his righteousness, religion, and self-control to be perceived. For those who fear God will rejoice not only because they see him, but because they see him hoping in God's words: and hoping not moderately nor with the confused error of human opinion, but saying with freedom what follows:

"I have known, Lord, that your judgments are equity, and that in truth you have humbled me." In other places we remember that the prophet was accustomed to say thus: "Give me understanding and teach me your commandments"; but now he professes it as of things attained, saying: "I have known, Lord, that your judgments are equity." But here the discourse is not about those eternal judgments, but about present ones. Those eternal judgments, according to the same prophet, are like the great deep, and according to the apostle, "the judgments of God are untraceable and unsearchable." But he knows that in these judgments that are now, whatever is done to him is done by God's judgment: all tribulations, all pressures, all hatreds of harassment, all assaults of persecutions come upon him from God's judgment, so that through these he may be proved, through these amended, and as through fire tested and purged.

But there is somehow more in knowing than in the faith of work; and therefore here he did not "believe" but "knew," because faith has merit, but not the merit of known truth. The apostle distinguished how greatly knowledge and faith differ, counting faith in a later place among the gifts of graces: first wisdom, next knowledge, third faith; because one who believes can be ignorant while he believes, but one who already knows cannot, having attained knowledge, not believe what he knows.

So here the prophet admits no doubt that he knows God's judgments to be just, that is, the judgments of humiliation, tribulation, contempt, injury, and pain. For he says thus: "I have known, Lord, that your judgments are equity, and in truth you have humbled me": that is, that not without cause was he subjected to tribulations, not without cause given over to sufferings, not without cause humbled by injuries, but that he was subjected by the just and true judgments of God to expiate the sins of human vices.

But because he is occupied in these sufferings by the divine judgment, he prays for encouragement in his present humiliations from God's mercy, because human weakness is unequal to the endurance of sufferings: "Let your mercy be, that it may encourage me, according to your word to your servant." But he remembers that it is good for him to be humbled, good for him to be subjected to sufferings, and that all the things by which he is harassed are a purging of earthly vices for him. For he does not pray that humiliation and tribulation be taken away from him, but that encouragement in tribulation be granted him by God's mercy. So he wishes to serve long as a soldier in these weaknesses of his body, he wishes to stand in the contest against the wickedness of this world. But he hopes for encouragement from God's mercy, so that even though afflicted he may be strengthened by the help of encouragement. Paul too, who had gone through every kind of temptation, knows how to use the encouragement of mercy, saying: "Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Father of mercies and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in every tribulation." And the prophet knows that this encouragement is promised him by the Father and Lord of mercies, who tests through temptations the one who believes in him; and therefore he says, "according to your word to your servant," that is, according to that promise by which he pledged that he would not abandon those afflicted in sufferings. For he said in the gospels: "When they hand you over, do not think how or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you on that day. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." And this indeed as far as it concerns the present time.

But the prophet is not unmindful of the future hope, saying: "Let your mercies come to me, and I shall live; for your law is my meditation." The weakness of bodily nature needs God's mercies. For it will not be able to attain that blessed life by its own merit unless it is carried forward by the mercies of him who is the Father of mercies. The prophet knows that he does not yet live that life which is true life; for none of us will dare to think that what he now lives is life. For now we are in the body of death, as Paul says: "Who will free me from the body of this death?" and as this same prophet testifies thus: "And he has brought me down into the dust of death." For our true life is hidden with Christ in God. Nor is this, in which we now live, the land of the living; but it is that of which this same prophet says: "And in the land of the living." And therefore he said "I shall live," because he does not live in the use of this life, but in God's mercy. But he hopes for this because God's law is his meditation. Let us, then, give ourselves to divine reading, give ourselves to God's precepts, and carry out the works of our law in their duties: because through meditation on the law the prophet hopes that he will live when the Lord's mercy comes to him.

But it is not enough for this man to be anxious only for himself and mindful only of himself. He must take up care for the human race, undertake the feeling of public concern, and pray for those who live in sins and irreligion. So he teaches the anxiety of this feeling of his in the following verse, saying: "Let the proud be put to shame, who have done iniquity against me." This is not a prayer of cursing, nor does he ask for repayment of his injury. Far be it that the prophet should have gone beyond the gospel's rule of love; for since the Lord says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who slander you," reason does not allow that he should now pray for vengeance on the proud and injurious. But because one who stops sinning blushes at his sins, and one who abandons vices must abandon them because he hates them, the prophet prays that those who were proud and unjust toward him may, through recognizing their vices, blush at what they have done. For as long as one sins, he is not put to shame in what he sins, through the habit and will of sinning. But when he stops sinning, he has the end of sinning from shame at sin. He himself meanwhile is exercised justly in God's commandments, preaching devoutly, not repaying injuries and bearing them patiently. For this reason he endured the contradictions and iniquities of many proud men against him.

In the following verse what we are treating about the shame of the proud is understood to have been signified plainly. For there follows: "Let those who fear you turn to me, and those who know your testimonies." So the prophet wants those who have begun to fear God to turn to him, so that through his teaching they may blush at their vices and crimes, having come to know the testimonies of God, of which we have already said much; and, put to shame in their old offenses, may turn to the prophet's instruction and teaching: whose conversion is from their former sins to piety and modesty.

He concluded in his usual manner, saying: "Let my heart be spotless in your justifications, that I may not be put to shame." He is exercised in the commandments, he meditates on the law, he has known the justice of God's judgments, those who fear the Lord rejoice at the sight of him, he was made and formed by God's hands, and yet he does not dare to say that his heart is spotless. And do we sometimes dare to put forward our innocence, to boast of abstaining from vices, and to glory that we are pure from sins and iniquities? But as we should learn faith from the prophet, so too humility and modesty, as he prays that his heart be made spotless. For he knows that from it all evils proceed, according to what is said: "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, sexual immorality, thefts, falsehoods, blasphemies," and the like. So he prays that this be made spotless, from which so many and such great vices come as from a kind of tinder; knowing that it is made spotless in this way, if he remains in God's justification. And he understands this to be the fruit of the justifications, that remaining in them he is not put to shame. For shame comes from the awareness of sins and from the reproach of offenses. So where there will be no shame, there will be no sin. And where there will be no sin, one will remain in God's justifications. And God's justifications will make the heart spotless.

It belongs to human nature that, when it cannot obtain what it desires, it is held by faintness of mind through the continual longing of desire. And it is easy to know this from the very movements of our feelings, into how great faintness of mind we are brought by waiting for those we long for. So the prophet, whose every expectation is toward God, whose every desire is in his commandments, speaks and says: "My soul has fainted for your salvation, and I hope in your word." He has no other things to occupy his desire, and the longing of a holy man has no room for the things of the world. So he fainted in the desire for salvation, and fainted because he believes in God's words: for the end of the law is Christ Jesus, and he it is of whom Moses and the prophets wrote. And he is salvation by the very name by which he is called Jesus. For Jesus in the Hebrew language is "salvation"; and the angel teaches this very thing speaking to Joseph, when he says: "And you shall call his name Jesus; for he will save his people." So the cause of his faintness is the desire for salvation. And the origin of the desire is this, that he hopes in God's words. For our salvation is Jesus, who was both desired and born. But we must understand what follows the faintness of the desiring soul.

"My eyes have fainted for your word: when will you encourage me?" So the faintness of the eyes follows the faintness of the soul. But as we have treated of the nature of the soul's faintness, let us see what the faintness of the eyes usually is. Picture, then, waiting, either the wife of a man who is travelling abroad, or the father of a son long absent, whom he thinks will return at any time: will he not always look intently along that road by which he thinks he will come? Will not the gaze and sight of his eyes fail in waiting for that very sight? The Lord testifies to these desires in the prophets, when he says: "Truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and to hear what you hear." So the prophet faints both in mind and in eyes.

But these eyes of the prophet, although they desired to see the Lord, are not the eyes of the body; for they speak and wait, and this gazing and speech belong to the mind rather than to the body. For they say: "When will you encourage me?" He knows that the saints resting in the underworld desire this encouragement. He knows, as the apostle Peter testifies, that when the Lord descended into the underworld, encouragement was preached even to those who were in prison and had once been unbelieving in the days of Noah. So for these words of God he fainted with speaking eyes, awaiting the Lord announced by God's words not so much by bodily sight as by the contemplation of soul and mind.

Then follows: "Because I have become like a wineskin in the frost, I have not forgotten your justifications." This is a cause of a new kind, that he has not forgotten God's justifications because he has become like a wineskin in the frost. And if we measure the matter by the ears alone, the prophet's saying will be thought empty and ridiculous. But he remembers that bodies are called wineskins, as the Lord says in the gospels: "No one," he says, "puts new wine into old wineskins." And there is no doubt that by wineskins he meant bodies grown old in their sins. But through the pursuit of self-control the bodies of the faithful grow cold, and with the heat of the inner nature extinguished they will be cold wineskins, which, although they grow hot within by the nature of seething vices, yet without stiffen through patience as through frost. So in this coldness of bodies we cannot be forgetful of God's justifications. But whoever is hot with a full wineskin through the burning of vices and does not grow cold through fear of God and religion must forget God. The saint will not be able to forget these things, since, like a wineskin stiffening outwardly in the frost, he is cold against the instigation of all inward desires.

Then follows: "How many are the days of your servant? When will you execute judgment for me on those who persecute me?" The prophet is not unaware that the judgment is after the end of the age, since he says: "Therefore the impious do not rise in the judgment, nor sinners in the council of the righteous." Why then does he now pray for judgment to be made on his persecutors? Certainly not that judgment which he remembers is to come in the age of the resurrection, since he knows that he now has few days in bodily life. For he says thus: "How many are the days of your servant?" When he says "how many," he knows they are not many. And above he had said that he was like a wineskin in the frost. So because he is of few days, he desires judgment to be made on those who persecute him, that is, on the devil and his ministers. For they are spiritual beings in the heavenly places. But the devil too is to be judged in the age of the resurrection. So since he himself is of few days, he desires this judgment to be made, namely that, being completely holy and perfectly pleasing to the Lord, he may crush the devil within himself, crush the powers that oppose him and are hostile to his faith, and subdue the spiritual wickednesses. So he does not yet trust in the firmness of his nature, though he is already cold like a wineskin, but prays that by God's mercy there may be judgment on his enemies. The Lord gave this power of judgment to his apostles, saying: "Behold, I have given you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy." The prophet had not yet heard this voice of the Lord abiding in the body; but he prays that this power be given him, that such a judgment be established for him against his persecutors. For he is tempted on every side: since the material of vices is inborn in him through the nature of the body and the devil tries to kindle it with the heat of desire, and since he suffers the impious voices of the irreligious, and the profane disputations and mad speeches of the nations against God.

Therefore in what follows he says: "The wicked told me of exercises, but not as your law." For how many there are who claim to teach certain rules of human life, while they kindle toward the virtues of the world the efforts of our soul that would more rightly serve God! How many too there are who, lying that they have knowledge of the divine Scriptures, preach perverse doctrines! But the prophet, knowing that the perfect learning of human teaching lies in God's law, says: "The wicked told me of exercises, but not as your law." For those who preach these things are wicked. And God's voice forbade the sinner to tell the holy words, because the iniquity of a teaching does not admit the truth. For God said to the sinner: "Why do you declare my righteous acts and take my covenant in your mouth? But you have hated discipline and cast my words behind you." So the prophet does not bear these exercises, knowing that nothing is to be compared to the telling of the law.

Then he added: "All your judgments are truth; the wicked have persecuted me; help me." Whoever persecutes the just must persecute wickedly, because wickedness is the effect of unjust action. The apostle too knows this wickedness of persecutions, when he says: "All who wish to live devoutly in Christ will suffer persecution." For many are the tribulations of the righteous. Now Satan harasses, now his ministers attack, now the pretense of false brothers creeps in to do harm by the art of harassment. But the prophet, who remembers that God's commandments are truth, bears the persecution of unjust wickedness with a faithful mind. And because he knows that persecution is the proof of faith, he does not pray for it to be removed from him; but he asks to be helped in it, and he prays for the aid and help of God, not ignorant of this gospel saying: "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me."

Truth, then, is in God's precepts. Truth has nothing false, nothing uncertain, nothing imperfect. But persecution directed at the just is wicked. For wickedness must hate truth; but help for truth comes from God. He remembers that these troubles from persecutors are heavy, but because they are useful to the just, he does not think they should be removed. For peace is dangerous for faith, and those on careless watch are easy prey. But a man exercised in wars is not soon caught by tricks; and there is need of a glorious contest for a crown to be awarded. For this reason he does not pray for the cause of the contest to be taken from him, but for help to conquer to be granted.

He remembers that he is in no light battle of temptations. For there follows: "They almost finished me on the earth; but I did not forsake your commandments." Unjust persecutions brought the prophet almost to the end of his faith, namely those we mentioned above, the spiritual powers in the heavenly places, which urge us to bodily vices by the enticements of desires they thrust upon us. So the prophet was almost finished on the earth, that is, cast down into the vices and sins of bodies. For as there is a finishing of good things, so also of evil. But though these most destructive enemies and persecutors assailed him, he did not forsake God's commandments; and though weakened by the frailty of his nature, he remains in God's precepts, remaining in God's commandments all the more gloriously as the weakness of his nature is greater.

Then he concludes in his manner of modesty and hope, saying: "According to your mercy give me life, and I will keep the testimonies of your mouth." He prays to be given life as one not yet living, and he promises to keep the testimonies of God's mouth as though he does not keep them now. But though he lives in the body, he looks for the life not of this age; and though he keeps God's testimonies in the law, yet he promises to keep the testimonies of God's mouth, which, renewed by the gospel precepts, make complete by the sanctification of faith alone those who abstain not only from adultery but also from the desire for adultery: through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the mouth and right hand and power and wisdom of God, blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

It does not befit the prophet's discourse to linger on lowly and common things, but always to treat lofty things worthy of God, and in such a way that, while it trains us in the observance of innocence, it also raises the lowliness of our mind to the understanding of divine and invisible mysteries. Nor indeed would human weakness carry itself into heavenly knowledge unless, God granting the gift of knowledge through the teaching of the Spirit, it were trained to the knowledge even of an inscrutable nature. So the prophet, wishing to make us excellent and complete and worthy of God, and knowing that it is laid up for human hope that it should come into heavenly glory if it kept discipline, began thus: "For ever, Lord, your word abides in heaven."

He says "in heaven" because he knows that on earth, because of falsehood, it does not abide. And how it abides in heaven is seen by the very faith of contemplation, as it were. There is no transgression there, no change, no weakness, no idleness. Let us look at the yearly course of the sun and the monthly return of the moon, and the stations or turnings or changes of the stars: are they not held within their bounds and fixed limits and decreed alternations? Nothing there is changed, nothing put off, nothing neglected; but it remains in the law of its establishment and perseveres in unwearying service.

But the prophet kept this distinction of things that will end and of offices, saying: "For ever, Lord, your word abides in heaven." Certain Latin translators rendered this with an ambiguous and less proper meaning. For what with them is εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα was translated among us "eternal, Lord." It can be taken so as to mean that what is eternal ends with no end. But saeculum, which is αἰών in Greek, is contained within the space of a defined time. For he does not say "into eternity" nor "for ever and ever," but "for the age your word abides." He knows that after this age heaven and earth pass away, as the Lord says: "Truly I say to you, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." He remembers too that this age will pass away, so that there may be a new heaven and a new earth. Therefore he says: "For the age, Lord, your word abides in heaven": because after this age, when heaven passes away, it will not be necessary for this word established in the creatures, which await the revelation of the sons of God, to abide.

But it is not for that reason that the word of God is never on earth, although the prophet declares only that it abides in heaven. For there is none of us who does not sometimes feel the gift of spiritual grace, who does not at some time have God's word in him, when he is sober, when calm, when continent, when kindly, when merciful: for when we are in these things, God's word abides in us, while we serve his precepts of good things. But when the movements of troubled feelings creep in, when care for money comes on, when the heat of shameful desire is kindled, when anger is stirred, when drunkenness is longed for, God's word no longer abides in us. But it is in those who, according to the apostle, having put off the old man with his sins, put on the new, who, having died with Christ and been buried with him, have already risen into newness and been seated in the heavenly places, who, having left the image of the earthly, bear the image of the heavenly: in these, as in heaven, God's word abides, in whom this word is not offended by anger, drunkenness, hatred, unbelief, lusts. For even if it sometimes abides, it does not bear these insults to its dwelling so as to remain always within. If the vices mentioned are always in us, it will not even deign to visit the polluted dwellings of our bodies.

But it is near to each one, as it is said: for the word of God stands at the door and knocks at the door of our soul and says: "Behold, standing before the door I knock; if anyone opens the door to me, I will come in to him." So it always wants to come in; but it is shut out by us so that it does not come in. For through these vices of the body we close the entrance of our soul. If the soul begins to open, all things being cleansed, at once it will come in, like the sun, which is kept from coming in when the shutters of the window are closed, but is let in wholly when they are open. It is always ready to give light, but the house itself shuts out the light by barring its entrances. For the word of God is the sun of righteousness standing by each one to come in, and it does not delay to pour in its light when it finds an entrance. So this word of God abides in the heavens through the unwearying obedience of heavenly things. By this example we must believe that God's word abides also in the saints, who are heavenly according to the image.

"Your truth is to generation and generation." This verse that follows confirms the twofold understanding of our sense, by which we think that God's word abides both in heaven and in holy men. For he does not say "to generation of generation" or "from generations of generations," but "to generation and generation is your truth." He mentions each generation in a simple meaning. So there are two generations in two peoples, of which one is of the law and the prophets, the other of the gospels and the apostles. God's truth, then, abides in these two generations alone. But when the former generation had God's truth within it, no other had it then. For there were many generations of nations and peoples. And now, since this same generation proved unworthy to have God's truth in it, no other generation has this same truth of God besides the one that believed the gospels.

Then follows: "You founded the earth, and it will abide." It would have suited the order for the earth to be named next after heaven; but I think this middle part, namely "your truth is to generation and generation," came between for this reason, that the twofold understanding of heaven, in which God's word abides, might be confirmed. Now, then, the order is kept as though unbroken, since after heaven, in which the word of God abides, the earth that was founded will abide. And indeed this may perhaps be understood as said also of this earth, which, founded, abides, which according to Solomon God founded by wisdom: since, though it is laid over the nature of the waters and floats on an unstable element spread beneath it, yet it was so founded by the wisdom, power, and Spirit of God that it abides. But to me the prophetic word seems also to have spoken of the earth of the human body, which was so founded that the word of God may abide in it as in heaven. For heaven will pass away; and how will this earth, once founded, abide? Unless perhaps, founded in this age, it is to abide only in it, that is, abide according to the constitution of this age. But if it is to abide, by which word it is meant to abide for ever, it must be believed that the earth founded and abiding is that of those generations for whom, because of God's truth abiding in them, the heavenly glory of these now earthly bodies is being prepared. And this can be understood more fully from the following verse.

For he says: "By your ordinance the day continues, for all things serve you." This day which now is does not continue, being taken away by the coming of night. Or if he had spoken of the times of this day, it would have been fitting to mention the night too, which persists by God's ordinance just as the day does. But because day is light, and every holy man is the light of this world, the day of this light is believed without doubt to continue by God's ordinance and to be going to continue, because all things serve God. For now not all things serve God. Do sinners too serve God? Do those also serve who are still to be put under the footstool of the Lord's feet? For David said: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet." And according to the apostle: "He must reign until he puts his enemies under his feet." So the day, that is, the light of the saints, will then abide, when all things serve God.

And these things we have recalled according to the prophetic and apostolic teaching, so that, although in the present sayings the time of future goods is understood to be signified, in which there will be both a new heaven and a new earth and the glory of bodies to be changed, and, when the nights of earthly vices are abolished, the day of our light will answer to our hope and expectation; yet all the creations of this world too may testify to the magnificence of God by the unchangeable order of their offices, since all things are so established, founded, and set that they persevere in the perpetual courses, in which they will remain, of the times appointed from the beginning.

But the prophet asks to continue like the day, and remembers that he is now the servant of his Lord, saying: "Unless your law had been my meditation, I would perhaps have perished in my humiliation." We have often noted that humiliation means this: when the soul is subjected to temptations and, left to its weakness, is made lowly. So the law is his meditation; and had it not been his meditation, he might perhaps have perished in humiliation. So meditation on God's law is not to be abandoned when we are afflicted; but when we are harassed by various weaknesses of body and amid the wars of persecutions, the meditation on the law must be constant in us. Though fires burn for the destruction of faith, though scourges tear, to the peril of our safety, bodies redeemed by God, even to extract a confession of impiety, we must still remember the prophetic saying, so as to be his companions. Let us too, enduring and conquering, say: "Unless your law had been my meditation, I would perhaps have perished in my humiliation." And the prophet recalled the blessedness of this meditation already at the beginning of the Psalms, saying: "Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the impious, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence; but his will was in the law of the Lord, and on his law he will meditate day and night." And truly blessed will be whoever meditates on God's law, by which meditation he will be preserved even in the humiliation of tribulations.

Then follows: "For ever I will not forget your justifications, because in them you have given me life." The prophet knows, according to the apostle, that Christ is the end of the law, in which the observance of the justifications was established; he knows too that the law is for those who will believe, he knows that the righteous man lives by faith, he knows that the law is spiritual, he knows that whoever does the things that are in the law will live by them; and therefore he says: "For ever I will not forget your justifications, because in them you have given me life": so that, although the gospel faith is to be preached when the works of the law are finished, yet he may not be unmindful of the justifications of the law, which were a beginning for him, because the justification of the law is the beginning of justification and of faith.

Steadfastly, since no forgetfulness of God's justifications can creep upon him, he professed what follows, saying: "I am yours; save me, because I have sought out your justifications." The voice of this profession does not suit everyone, and rare is the one who dares to call himself God's. He will certainly dare who said, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," and, "I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me." And those who are like this faith will not shamelessly confess that they are God's. This voice belongs to a soul always intent on God; this is the work of one unmoved, of fasting, of almsgiving. For how will one profess that he is God's who burns with lust, is quick to anger, anxious for gain, thirsty for drunkenness, empty in pursuit of worldly glory? He will rather belong to these, not to God. For in whom these vices of passion abound, how will he not belong to those whom he serves? Many are the gods of the nations; but for Paul there is one God, from whom are all things, and one Lord, our Jesus, through whom are all things. So the prophet steadfastly confesses that he belongs to him whom alone he serves; and because he is his, he prays to be saved. And he is his because he seeks out his justifications. While others seek the glory of the world, others fields, houses, money, he seeks out God's righteous acts and glories that he is God's.

But there is great hatred of the irreligious toward such pious and religious men. And the prophet knows that whoever professes himself God's is hateful either to men of the world or to the devil and his ministers. He teaches this too in the following verse, in which he says: "Sinners waited for me to destroy me; I have understood your testimonies." The devil's or his ministers' fight is to take away all the glory of the faithful man and not to let him remain in God's portion, but to take him into the fellowship of their own damnation. So a long and lasting battle is fought against the prophet's faith. But he, mindful of God's commandments and understanding his testimonies, resisted and persevered. And he frustrated the hope of those who waited for his destruction in no other way than by understanding that his teaching lay in God's testimonies. But it is hard and difficult to understand God's testimonies, and the understanding of them goes beyond the knowledge of present learning. We already treated of testimonies at the beginning of the psalm. For through these present testimonies of the law the knowledge of the eternal testimonies is granted. And the following verse shows this very thing.

"Of all consummation I have seen the end." We have often noted that satisfaction cannot be given from the Latin translation. For the force of this saying as expressed in Greek is different; for it is thus: πάσης συντελείας εἶδον πέρας. What is named among the Greeks is beyond the end of appointed things and is not held by anything so as to cease, but goes beyond every limit with an unbounded meaning. But what is written among us as "end" is thought to be contained within the end that is meant. But the prophet, who does not understand the testimonies of the law as bodily or earthly, looks beyond every consummation, according to the Greek meaning. He knows that there is a consummation of the times of the law, when after the fullness of times God was to be seen in a body; but he sees beyond this consummation; for he sees the time of hope. And the consummation of this too is not unknown to him; for he stretches his eyes beyond it. For he also sees the consummation of the resurrection; and he knows that there is an order of change appointed, as the apostle says: "But each in his own order," and again: "All indeed will rise, but not all will be changed." He knows too the days of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we shall be carried into the kingdom of God the Father and transferred into those unsearchable judgments of God. He knows too that there is a time of judgment. And it was granted him to know this from the breadth of God's commandments, because the divine word has spread itself into the teaching of knowledge.

For he says: "Your commandment is exceedingly broad." It is plainly broad, whether because it stretches the knowledge of human ignorance into the infinite, or because there are many ways in which God's precepts are obeyed and he is pleased, according to the divisions and gifts of graces. For not all things are expected from all, nor can all fulfil all things to the full measure of pleasing. One pleases by fasting, another wins favor by simplicity of faith, another redeems his vices by almsgiving, another completes himself by love; just as to one the power of healing is granted, to another the knowledge of prophecy is given, to another firmness of faith, to another wisdom and knowledge. So God's commandment is broad and spreads into all kinds of our hope, so that it is not hard, if the will is there, to obey God's precept, since it is broad and spread out for pleasing by the variety of religion. And not only broad, but exceedingly broad: the infinity of its breadth being shown by this very addition. Amen.

This work of the prophet is useful and necessary for us, in that we are taught to perfect knowledge of and obedience to God. He has instructed us in two things most fitting for us: that we should know God, who was unknown, and obey his commandments according to the rule of his decree. For throughout the whole body of this psalm the prophet shapes the man perfect in the law, the prophets, and the gospels, either from his own person or from that of another whom he instructs, who may have the confidence to declare these things of himself. And it is worth observing with what care in words and with what completeness of understanding the prophet strengthens us in each kind of saying.

For he says in the verse of the thirteenth letter: "How I have loved your law, Lord! All the day it is my meditation." It would certainly have been easy to say, "How I have done your law!" But because it is a greater merit to do something out of love than out of fear, therefore he said "How I have loved." For the obedience of love differs greatly from the duty of fear; and the working of necessity does not have the grace of the will. For those things are not enough in themselves for the completion of perfect obedience which, although they fulfil their task, yet, because they are compelled, lack the merit of full grace. So the prophet wants his work to be one of love rather than of terror, and his obedience to be undertaken out of charity, not out of fear. Many fast because they fear to be rebuked by us. Many give something for the use of the needy because they dread having their irreligious and useless greed reproached. Many come to church because they are ashamed to have their absence and negligence censured. But not all love what they do. In love, then, necessity cannot enter, because no one does not want what he loves. But in a deed love can be absent, when that is done which terror or shame forbids one not to have done. But the prophet is weak in nothing. What he loves he does, and what he does he practises unfailingly. For because he loves the law, he meditates on it every day and without ceasing. No other pursuits of business creep in, no different surges of cares intervene, nor does forgetfulness fall upon him through the intrusion of some new knowledge: he is always the same and in the same thing. He is as great in meditating on the law he loves as the whole day is in time.

And because, as we mentioned above, the prophet shows in himself the man of the law, the prophets, and the gospels, he says in the following verse: "You have made me wiser than my enemies by your commandment, for it is mine for ever." The prophet understands God's commandments more wisely than his enemies. But what do we have in common in God's precepts with our enemies, who not only have not even moderately learned them, but do not even pursue the beginning of knowing them? And what great thing is it if the prophet is wiser than his enemies in God's commandments? For when could those who worship lifeless stones and metals or wood have gained anything of the knowledge of the living and eternal God, so that the prophet should be wiser by comparison with them? But all this error of the impious rejects, shrinks from, and abhors that very name together with the law, the prophets, and the apostles.

But this holy prophet has other, real enemies, than whom he was taught more wisely in God's commandments. They have God's commandment in the prophets and in the law, but through the ignorance of their will they use none of it. They claim the commandment of the law as their own and inherited, but what profit now will things established only as a sign be to those who do not have the author of the spiritual meaning? What help will the observance of the Sabbath bring to those who do not know the God of the Sabbath? What aid will the lamb of the Passover and the blood on the doorposts and the feast of unleavened bread give to those who do not know the Lamb of God and the unleavened bread of sincerity and the blood of salvation? They practise the commandments, but they do not know the effect and the time of the commandments. They read the law, but while the Jew reads it without knowing, the Christian understands it. He is plainly the prophet's enemy who laid parricidal hands on the only-begotten Son of God and, as far as was in him, condemned to death the Savior of the human race and the giver of eternal life. Beyond all these, then, he is wiser in God's commandment.

And so that he might be understood to have meant these enemies, he added what follows: "I have understood more than all who teach me, because your testimonies are my meditation." You learned the law from Moses, David, and Aaron is the teacher of all to you; Joshua is master of the repeated circumcision, Samuel showed you in yourself the mystery of anointing both prophet and king: what is this that you dared to say, that you have understood more than all who teach you? But the preceding verse shows above which teachers he understands, that is, above his enemies. And again this, which is now the following verse, declares who the enemies are, that is, all who teach. For they profess to have the keys of the heavens and glory that they are teachers of the law. And since all the testimonies of the law testify to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the prophet understands more than his teachers, since, meditating on his testimonies, he always waits for the only-begotten Son of God who is to come in the flesh. O happy understanding of the disciple! O wretched ignorance of the teachers! Those who teach do not know, and those who are taught understand. But the prophet is free of fault: for he showed from where he had gained his understanding. For above he says that he had been made wiser than his enemies by God in his commandments. For all understanding is from him who made him wiser. So he understands more than those who teach him.

And because it sometimes happens from difference of gifts that a disciple is wiser than his master, he shows that this very thing is a matter of diligence and zeal. For he says: "I have understood more than the elders, because I sought out your commandments." He understands, and understands more than the elders, showing their office of teaching together with the very antiquity of time, that is, signifying the people that was before him. In this both come together, that he is both older and thinks himself a teacher. But he understands more than him who is both taught and younger; and he understands because he has sought out God's commandments, which the teacher, while he thinks he is teaching, does not know.

It follows that one who understands more than the elders and teachers should yield fruit, namely, that he should practise what he holds as known and perfect. And let us see whether this very thing is in what follows. For he says: "I have kept my feet from every evil way, that I may keep your word." This is the perfect voice of a gospel man: to keep himself from every way and, though so many paths of error meet him everywhere, to walk in none of them by which wickedness is approached.

But the prophet means something deeper when he says, "I have kept my feet." The nature of our body carries us into every course of crimes, and the impulse of human desires drives us into this way. But one who understands more than the elders and teachers has, by teaching, restrained himself, and called himself back as he was going out and running ahead. So we must resist and strive, first to keep ourselves from every evil way, then, if any impulse carries us there, to draw ourselves back; and first we must restrain ourselves by our own power, so that afterwards we may keep the word of God. But our own restraint is needed first, so that there may be a keeping of God's word. For no one will keep the word first and then be able to restrain himself. For restraint is precisely this, that what was being done is prevented from being done; but keeping is firm only when one, restraining himself from evil, observes the good without ceasing.

What the keeping of God's word should be, the following verse teaches. For there follows: "I have not turned aside from your judgments, because you have set a law for me." This, then, is true keeping: not to swerve in any direction from God's judgments, nor to turn aside even by a slight departure, but to remain always intent and always unmoved in that in which one has taken one's stand.

He does not turn aside, because God has set a law for him. Moses indeed had set a law; but this same prophet in another psalm had prayed, saying: "Lord, appoint a lawgiver; let the nations know that they are men." For that law which Moses had written was for us in Christ; and therefore he understands more than his teachers and elders, because he understands the gospel law which is contained in the law of Moses. This, then, was given through our Lord; this has trained every man in the knowledge of God. And therefore, to "Appoint a lawgiver over them," he added, "let the nations know that they are men": that is, born of the earth and brought from the clay into the knowledge of God. For what they did not know before through ignorance of the law of Moses, they now know through the law of our Lord Jesus Christ; and as they recognize their origin, that is, the nature of the body, in the giver of the law, so too they await the glory of this new lawgiver, they who in their beginning were already established in the image and likeness of God.

And the prophet testifies to the sweetness of this gospel law in what follows. For he says: "How sweet are your words to my throat, above honey to my mouth!" Honey is sweet in the mouth, not also in the throat. For outside the region of the mouth there is no sense of bodily tastes. But God's words are sweet in the throat, flowing down into the soul and penetrating within: not pleasing only in the mouth like food, but sweet there where there is knowledge, prudence, and sense. And therefore the words are sweet in the throat, as honey is in the mouth. But as honey soothes the bitter things that come to the mouth through sickness and the heat of fevers, so God's words, poured in, soothe the bitterness of our soul and the sad fevers of unwholesome desires, provided they are not held in the mouth but swallowed by the throat.

Then follows: "From your commandments I have understood; therefore I have hated every way of iniquity." The precepts make us understanding, but precepts fulfilled in deed and work: that is, that we should do what is contained in them, as far as we can. So the precepts must be carried out, so that we may be understanding. And although perfect understanding is from God, yet we must begin, so that we may be able to deserve perfect understanding. For to those who do not begin this of themselves, all things are closed by God. And the prophetic word teaches this very thing through Isaiah, who says: "Do not say of my commandments that you knew them; you neither knew nor believed them, nor did I open your ears from the beginning. For I knew that you would utterly despise, and that you would be called wicked even from the womb." So knowledge is not granted to those who do not seek it. And because God is the searcher of hearts, for those who were going to despise it the ears are dulled and the sense blunted. But the prophet understands from God's precepts, having gained understanding by doing the precepts; and understanding, he hates every way of iniquity.

For all the movements of different feelings, such as hatred and love, lie close to human nature. But love must be spent on loving good things, and hatred must be taken up from offense at evil things. It is ours, then, to tune our bodies like a useful instrument to fitting and harmonious measures, so that we do not love vices, so that we do not hate good virtues, so that we fit ourselves to each kind fittingly and usefully. The prophet loves God's commandments; and whoever loves God's commandments hates the ways of iniquity. For as it belongs to the obedience of perfect faith to love, and to fulfil what one does with the feeling of charity, and to fulfil the necessity of acting with the will of one who loves, so too it belongs to great faith not only not to do iniquities but to hate them, since sometimes fear and terror turn us away from them. But hatred of them instils in us a judgment and settled opinion about them. Let us, then, love righteousness, modesty, frugality, mercy; and let us hate quarrels and drunkenness, murders, pride, and sexual immorality, and with them we must also hate the devil. And loving peace, truth, and righteousness, we shall love him who is peace, righteousness, and truth, our Lord Jesus, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The life and mind of men remain in error, or rather in the night of ignorance, while, infected by fleshly contagion, they are held in the depth of ignorance by the weight of the nature with which they are mixed. For when will man know by himself the cause and reason of his origin? When will he know what is the fruit of his life, what the condition of his hope, what the way of earning the future? For no one is so mad or so lacking in sense as to think that he was born, when he did not exist, only to not exist again after he was born; since he will surely remember that his being born came from the goodness of God, and that it does not befit his goodness that he should destroy in us this gift of his by which we are born. But the prophet, worthy of the knowledge of heavenly things and placed in the light of knowledge by God's gift and word, follows as guide to living well and innocently him who is the true light and who enlightens every man.

So he directs the ignorance of his nature by a kind of light carried before him, saying: "Your word is a lamp to my feet." He knows that unless he is enlightened by God's word, he cannot bear this darkness of bodies and this night of the world. He knows that everywhere there are stumbling stones, snares of cords, hollows of pits. For as one who goes out at night carries a lamp before him and looks where to set his foot and takes care with the light at every step, so each of us should carry the word of God abiding in him like a lamp before all the progress of his works; for all heavenly teaching is our guide on the journey, which is like a lamp in this night, whenever we do, think, or say anything, so that we may use it in every advance of any action.

The Lord in the gospels commands that this lamp of his precepts not be hidden idle and useless, saying: "For no one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel." For what use is it if it is covered by a bushel? It spends its use only within what covers it. So he commands it to be placed on a lampstand, that is, in the seat of its office. So let us not hide this teaching and this word of God received within us idle and useless, as under a bushel, but let us offer this light first to ourselves and then from ourselves to all nations. The Lord warned of this too in a following commandment, saying: "Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning." So he commands us to do nothing in the dark, because everyone who acts in sins hates the light and loves darkness. He wants these lamps of ours to be always lit, lest we be left in the night of this world. In the tabernacle of testimony a lamp is lit, and it burns at every time of festival. They do not know what they are doing. But let us, in these testimonies of our tabernacles, that is, of our bodies, always have burning lamps and carry out the festival of our hope by their light.

The apostles too, whom the Lord calls the salt of the earth and the light of the world, he shows by this meaning to be also the lamps of the church, saying: "The lamp of your body is your eye": of the body, that is, of the church, which is one body in Christ, and we are members of one another. For first, to each of us God's word is a lamp; then the apostolic man is a lamp to his whole body, that is, to the church. For not the whole body is foot or eye or hand. So if the eyes, the brightest part of the whole body, and therefore to the other members, are darkness, that is, if they do not burn with the light of the apostles, light itself being set in darkness, how great a night will remain for the whole body? John was the lamp of repentance to both Jews and nations, as the Lord says: "He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for an hour in his light." We have, then, the light of teaching: let us rejoice in it, not for an hour but always; not for a time but for ever. Those blessed virgins, useful buyers of oil, alone entered the bridal chamber with the bridegroom in the light of their lamps, while the others, negligent and sleeping, were shut out from entering the chamber.

For every step of our soul, then, let us use the word of God as a lamp, but a lamp always burning, always prepared for its office by our prudence. And the word which is for the feet is itself also the light for the paths. For those walking gently and at home a lamp is needed; but for those entering the paths and the public road a light is rather necessary, lest a robber lie in wait, lest the error of an uncertain way meet them. For one advances by increments from lesser to greater, so that for one to whom the word of God is first a lamp to the feet, that same word becomes a light on the paths. But the lamp for the feet and the light on the paths ought to bring useful progress. And let us see whether the prophet has added something worthy.

For he says: "I have sworn and determined to keep your judgments." He no longer wanders in the night, nor fears to stumble his foot. For every oath is a matter of confirmed knowledge, and the sanctity of swearing is undertaken from knowledge of the truth. So the prophet swears; and he not only swears but also determines, because the bond of an oath is the firmness of what is determined. So, swearing, he determined to keep God's judgments. And it is hard for what is determined to be overturned, and it is best to determine what has been sworn.

But he remembers that there is nothing unjust in God's judgments. For if human judgments are truly reckoned judgments which are decreed by the decision of a judge, much less is there any doubt that there is nothing unjust in God's judgments. We lose our children; we think this judgment unjust. Did God unjustly give the devil power over Job's children? We grieve over our losses as though they happened unjustly. Did God without reason let that perfect man alone be in need? We are tormented by pains, and with the complaints of our impatience we rail against God. Was it by an uncertain counsel that he was eaten by worms, running with pus, pierced with sores? Certainly all these things served for the proof of faith and for a glorious reward. Our weakness makes us think that what we suffer is evil. But it is always God's will that we be proved by patience in sufferings; while we, wishing to stay hidden without the proof of faith, condemn the justice of the divine judgment.

But he who above had both sworn and determined to keep the judgments of God's justice must show something worthy of his oath and resolve in observing the judgments. For what he determined on oath to keep is not a light thing. And what it is, the following verse says. For he says: "I have been humbled exceedingly, Lord; give me life according to your word." We must learn what the only-begotten Son of God, taking to himself a body of our nature from the virgin, when he had shown in himself the true and perfect form of man, wanted to be learned from him as an example of teaching. For he says: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your souls." He, perfect and alone and the only one without sin, in whose mouth there was no deceit, wanted this chief example of teaching to be taken from himself, namely of gentleness and humility, through which rest might be found for souls.

He knows that the weakness of our nature is insolent and unable to bear prosperity. Some grow insolent through wealth, not knowing that it was said of the giving of wealth: "For almsgiving hides sin"; and again: "He has scattered, he has given to the poor; his righteousness abides for ever"; and that the Lord himself said to those who had fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, taken the stranger into their home, covered the naked with clothing, visited the sick, and comforted the one shut in prison: "Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Others swell with the glory of the world, not knowing that this was the first saying of the heavenly blessings: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Noble birth lifts others into disdain, not considering that to those reborn in Christ it was said: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy race." The laws of the world are one thing, the gifts of God another. The devil, when he dared to tempt the Lord, boasted that the world was his. But the Lord commands us to die to the world so that we may live to him. With the Lord, contempt of wealth is riches; with the Lord, disdain of earthly honor is the kingdom of heaven; with the Lord, humility of heart is the ornament of a noble and royal birth. This, then, he wanted to be learned from him, which is the greatest of all virtues.

The apostle too, teaching us humility, exhorts us thus: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." We have the example of humility from the only-begotten God; but let us see the reward too. "For this reason God exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father." This was the reward of humility, that the body he had taken should remain in the glory of God the Father, that at his name things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth should bend the knee. For remaining in the form of God, he did not think what he was to be a matter of force or robbery for himself, namely that he was equal to God. For he was in the form of God, and nothing was lacking to him of the glory of him in whose form he remained; but he took the form of a servant through humility and was found in fashion as a man, humbling himself through obedience unto death; and not only unto death, but unto the death of the cross. He himself adorned the heaven at God's command, the world at the Father's bidding, in this appearance of such great beauty; he created the earth and the things in them. But did he for those things deserve to set the man he had taken in the glory of the eternal Father? This is the reward of humility, this the wage of humility: that because, though he was before remaining in the form of God, he was afterwards made in the form of a servant, and remaining in the form of God and made in the form of a servant, he should be known by the confession of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth to be in the glory of God the Father.

The same apostle too, lest the very grace of the divine gifts should make some insolent, says: "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for profit." For in saying "for profit" he taught that it must be used humbly, lest confidence in spiritual gifts should make anyone insolent, and the grace of God become idle through the vice of insolence. And from his own person he shows that he obtained even this grace from God, that he should not be lifted into any swelling through confidence in the many graces in him, saying: "And because of the greatness of the revelations a thorn in the flesh was given me, an angel to buffet me, lest I be exalted." Even that chosen vessel and teacher of the nations feared this, lest he grow proud beyond the nature of human weakness through confidence in the spiritual gifts in him. Scripture praises King Hezekiah because he did what was right and good in the sight of God, but the praise could not remain to the end. For it is written in the second book of Chronicles: "And Hezekiah fell from the height of his heart." When he had raised his heart on high, when he had lifted himself into pride through confidence in praise, he lost the grace of his past deeds through the crime of pride.

So the prophet, determining by oath to keep God's just judgments, took up this as his first work, to become humble, and not only humble but exceedingly humble, teaching by this addition the modesty of complete humility in himself. And there were many causes in him for pride. His noble descent from Judah gave causes, and in him first the power of royal blessing began. For the family of royal power remained for some time from David's line, from which according to the flesh the eternal King came forth. He was also most wise, as he says: "And you have made known to me the hidden things of wisdom." He deserved also to be a prophet, as it is said: "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world." He also abounded in the riches of human wealth. For he himself says: "Behold, from my poverty I have gathered so many thousand talents of gold, and others of silver, and of bronze and iron without number." Here noble birth, here a king's power, confidence in wisdom, here the merit of a prophet, here abundance of resources: yet they did not raise him into pride nor lift him into any swelling of disdain. So he asks safely, saying: "Give me life according to your word," that is, that as one not yet living he may deserve the life of eternity according to God's word, because the modesty of humility kept him within discipline and teaching.

Then follows: "Make the freewill offerings of my mouth well-pleasing, Lord, and teach me your judgments." The prophet worthily keeps the oath of his resolve. For first he was made exceedingly humble; next he now prays that the freewill offerings of his mouth may be well-pleasing. He is no longer content to be held by the prescriptions of the law nor only to be subject to necessity. The law had commanded evil to be repaid for evil. This David, when he had often caught and shut in Saul, who was persecuting him with all the forces of his rule, not only did not kill him but even let him go with honor, saying: "I will not lay my hand upon him, for he is the Lord's anointed." When he learned that he had been killed in battle, he wept and avenged him. His son Absalom too seizes the kingdom, gathers an army, pursues his father in parricidal war. But David says to the soldiers: "Spare the young man." The necessity of resistance was laid on him as king; but piety and goodness were present to spare, as a prophet. And when he was dead he wept for him with a father's grief. For these things are not of the law; and to obey them is a duty of freedom rather than of necessity.

The apostle has this distinction of freewill things and things of the law: "Concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give counsel." Or when he praises the glory and continence of widowhood, he does not forbid the right to marry, but proclaims the merit of celibacy. He instructs beyond the law and exhorts beyond the precept, putting freewill things before things of the law. And again he says: "Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take women around with us, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do I and Barnabas alone not have the right not to work? But we do not use this right." A right lies in what is permitted, when the law, sparing our weakness, does not burden us with heavy things. But the profession of the will is an increase of faith for him, when in the things in which the law is moderate toward us we restrain ourselves by the zeal of devotion.

These freewill things, then, the prophet prays may be pleasing to God, because those which are done by the prescription of the law are carried out by the very necessity of his service. And he always keeps the reason for his prayer. For after he prayed that the freewill offerings of his mouth might be well-pleasing, he added: "And teach me your judgments." He carries out the judgments of the law and, as far as he can, practises them in deeds and works; but he does not yet understand them. For he knows that the law is spiritual. And he hastens to know what is contained under the form of present works; for one must ask to be taught the things one does not know.

The prophet, according to the resolve of his oath, gave himself wholly to God. He was humbled, the freewill offerings of his mouth are pleasing; now his soul is always in God's hands and he does not forget God's law, saying: "My soul is always in your hands, and I have not forgotten your law." All that he lives, he lives to God. All his sense and spirit is in God; no time is admitted in which there could be forgetfulness of the law. In all his works and thoughts God is thought of. The law is in his memory; the soul of the living man is always in God's hands.

He knows how useful this is to him, he knows how necessary it is to place himself in God's hands by his deeds and works and through memory of the law. For he says: "They laid a snare for me, and I have not strayed from your commandments." He knows that in this forest of the world many snares are stretched and many traps prepared. Our speech, thought, and work always have snares lying near, when at times a cause for anger arises, a feeling of grief, a need to complain, an occasion of evil desire. These snares the devil and his angels, transgressors from the beginning and sinners from the start, always stretch out. But one whose soul is in God's hands and who is never forgetful of God's law, though snares are cast around him on every side, does not stray from the precepts. For always thinking of God, he flies away from them, so that he is like a sparrow set free from the snare of the fowlers. And the Lord himself says through the prophet: "He will set me free from the snare of the hunters and from a troubling word."

For nets are not unjustly spread for birds. You have been trained in heavenly knowledge, O man; what have you to do with earthly works and deeds? You have been made a bird; why do you not stay in your element? For they are called birds of the sky; so it is not unjust that they are snared when they are in the possession of an earthly dwelling. You have died to the world; what have you to do with the things of the world? Why do you complain that you are caught in the world? Why do you complain of the injury of the snare in a region not your own? Say rather, and use yourself the voice of one who says: "Who will give me wings like a dove? And I will fly and be at rest." It is the nature of birds that they do not rest when they fly; but you, now made a dove, rest by flying, that is, by carrying yourself up by the flight of a faithful soul from earthly snares into the heavenly seat and knowledge.

Then follows: "I have inherited your testimonies for ever, because they are the joy of my heart." An heir, according to human custom, obtains everything of the one whose heir he is. But the prophet disdains human inheritances: he has inherited God's testimonies. It is pleasing to him if he himself becomes God's witness, because it is the joy of his heart if he testifies of God amid the wars of persecution. So we remember that the apostles rejoiced in these testimonies when, going out from the council of the persecutors, they had been judged worthy of insults for the name of God. So his testimonies were the joy of their heart. But the prophet, like the apostles, though amid many persecutions he holds God's testimonies, that is, the testimony about him, with joy of heart as an inheritance, yet also has as an acquired inheritance those testimonies of God which were spoken before witnesses. Moses gave the law before the witnesses heaven and earth; Isaiah rebuked before the witnesses heaven and earth; the apostle, as a gospel preacher, used still loftier testimonies, saying: "I charge you before God and Christ Jesus and his angels." So the testimonies written before these, and witnessed before these, and witnessed in these, he takes possession of as heir of a new patrimony: not in part, but whole. For the right of inheritance is in its entirety. Even if according to human succession an inheritance is divided among several, yet the inheritance itself, in the name of the heir, is entire.

And lest what is often said by many should have any authority of reason, when they assert that it is God's own gift that anyone is occupied in the things and works of God, excusing their unbelief on the ground that they remain unbelieving because God's will toward them is lacking: there is indeed a gift from God for remaining in faith, but the origin of beginning is from us. And our will must have this as its own from itself, that it wills; God will give increase to the one who begins, because our weakness does not attain completion by itself; yet the attaining of completion comes from the beginning of the will. "I have inclined my heart to do your justifications for ever, for the reward." He himself inclines his heart, and from the sins of human nature toward the works of God. The nature and origin of the flesh held him back, but will and religion incline his heart from the fault of origin, in which it remained, to works. And he inclines it at every time of life: not within some limit of space, but in every age of his life. He inclines it for the reward, sure, that is, that these things are reserved for the merits of faith and that his reward is in those things which eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has entered the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love him in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory now and always for ever and ever. Amen.

The teaching of the gospel precept is that we should love our enemies, and owe love not only to those who love us but also to those who hate us. So this profession of the prophet seems to oppose the Lord's commandments, since, while love of enemies is commanded us, he puts forward as a good work that he has hated the wicked.

But the reason of this very saying must be learned from the gospels themselves. For the Lord, who commanded enemies to be loved and decreed that those who curse father or mother are guilty of death, in another place commanded again, saying: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and his mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple." So these seem contrary to one another: that he by whose precept not only hatred toward parents but even cursing alone is worthy of death should himself say again that no one can be his disciple unless he hates father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and his own soul. This is a hard saying and a heavy precept, to impose the necessity of impiety for the completion of religion.

But nothing hard, nothing impious, nothing contrary to earlier precepts is commanded by God. These names most dear to us, father and mother and wife and children, cannot be angry that we are commanded to hate them, since we are commanded to hate even our own soul. For the Lord knows that there are many of such ill-advised love that, when they see their children persevering in the glory of martyrdom, they ask them to yield to the times; they beg them to change their decision and use the feeling of piety toward them, when the old mother and aged father show their pitiable white hair to their son in the very contest of martyrdom, resenting his will; when on the other side the wife stands by, attended by the appealing company of their children, and begs him rather to live for her and for them; when on the other side brothers and sisters plead with the coaxing familiarity of their names; and the soul itself too, long since captured by the allurements of living, creeps by certain silent counsels toward connivance. At this time, then, the Lord commanded us to hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and our very soul. For he closed this same saying thus, after the hatred of all, saying: "And whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." So they are to be held in hatred then, when they do not want us to carry the cross of martyrdom, when they dissuade us by their example from following the Lord. This hatred is honorable and useful, to hate those who try to draw us away from the love of Christ.

So now the prophet seems to have said nothing contrary to the precepts by which we are commanded to love our enemies, when he says: "I have hated the wicked." For he does not hate his enemies, but the wicked, that is, transgressors of the law. The Greek names this with a more proper word, saying παρανόμους, that is, those acting outside the law. But one who hates the transgressors of the law cannot but love that which he hates to see neglected; and therefore he says: "And I have loved your law." It is fitting that one who loves the law should hate those who are enemies of the law.

Then follows: "You are my helper and my upholder, and I hope in your word." We need great help from God in such a great and constant battle of this world. For, according to the apostle, our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and the mighty ones of the world of this darkness, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places. These, then, are the enemies we have; against these God must be prayed to as helper, that he may take us into his keeping. But this prayer ought to be not so much one of fear as of merit. For fear comes from the trembling of our condition, but the prophet hopes in God's word. Hope does not hold present things but future ones. So he hopes for what is contained in God's word, that is, in the prophetic sayings. He hopes either for the rewards of faith in the spiritual life, or for that very coming of our Lord, who is the Word of God. For this hope deserves the aid and help of God. Neither we nor any before us have deserved it otherwise than by having hoped that the Word of God, God, would dwell in the flesh of our nature, or by believing that he has dwelt in it.

But the prophet remembers that there are many things in himself which try to stand against his hope; and therefore he added: "Turn away from me, you malicious, and I will search the commandments of my God." The reason of heavenly teaching advises that this saying be thought to refer to the person of those in whom malice is present. For the prophet, who teaches the nations, who preaches God's word, bids all the malicious turn away from him, because a holy assembly is unfit for workers of malice. And I do not know whom he could except. For malice lies close to all through the will of a changeable nature, and the Lord taught that, though the apostles were already cleansed and holy by the word of faith, malice was not absent from them because of the condition of our common origin, saying: "If then you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children." But it is God's way both to love the evil and to teach the good to goodness, after the pattern of him who rather invites all to himself, saying: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you." But the prophet knows that there are many malicious things in the hidden part of the human heart. For according to the Lord's saying, from within come evil thoughts, murders, sexual immorality, thefts, falsehoods, blasphemies. For these are the things that defile a man. Such things, then, opposing his faith, he asks to turn away from him. For they stand against his efforts, they stand against his spiritual progress; and while these thrust themselves on him by the constant familiarity of their counsels, his mind has no room to search God's commandments, because the presence of a malicious man greatly hinders one who wishes to search God's commandments.

And because there is need of God's mercy, so that, received into his household, we may be freed from the dominion of these things, the prophet prays, saying: "Uphold me according to your word, and I shall live; and do not put me to shame in my expectation." The prophet waits and hopes: he pursues nothing present, nothing temporary. But there are many who reproach and mock this expectation of our faith, saying such things as: "What profit will fasts, continence, chastity, the loss of inheritances bring? Where is your hope, Christians? Death rules equally over all: it has a common right over the natures of all bodies. Indeed we enjoy all the goods of the world and use our freedom; and in what, after all, do you surpass us by the expectation of hope?" So the prophet prays not to be put to shame in this expectation of his, but to remain confident and receive the fruits of what he awaits. For he knows that he does not yet live, though he lives. For our life, according to the apostle, is hidden in Christ. And therefore he says: "Uphold me according to your word, and I shall live," because he is held by the expectation and hope of that life. For he hopes, he hopes for the kingdom of heaven, he hopes for the kingdom of God, he hopes for spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. In this hope, in which he will not be put to shame, he asks to be upheld and to live.

Then follows: "Help me, and I shall be saved, and I will meditate on your justifications always." Above he had said, "my helper and upholder"; but now he prays for the reality of the names he mentioned, that he who is upholder may uphold, and he who is helper may help. He prays that the help of the helper may not be absent from him. He does not pray not to have malicious men, because faith is proved through patience in sufferings; but he prays to be helped against them, because help must always be prayed for from the Lord. But as in the preceding verse, upheld, he will live, so in this one, helped, he will be saved. For he still has to meet death, still to endure the underworld. He will be saved then, when, transformed from a bodily and earthly nature into spiritual glory, he fears no danger of a hostile enemy, lives among the elect angels, dwells in paradise, and, corruption being swallowed up, becomes immortal from mortal.

But when he says that he will meditate on God's justifications, and meditate always, does he not meditate now, who has hoped in meditation? It can indeed be taken of present work, that as long as he is in the body he always meditates on the justifications; but nonetheless the saying also extends into the future. He knows that in heaven all the angels are in meditation of God. For nothing there is idle, nothing inactive; all the heavenly powers remain in the work of their ministry. And since we shall then live the life of angels, meditation on the justifications can be eternal for us too, after the pattern of those who are always at work.

Then follows: "You have despised all who depart from your justifications, for their thought is wicked." The prophet prays for help and upholding for this reason, lest he too be despised with those who depart from God's justifications. But here this distinction was kept, that it was not said, "You have despised all sinners," but, "You have despised all who depart." For if God despised sinners, he would despise all, because no one is without sin. But he despises those who depart from him, whom they call apostates. Nor does it matter whether one was at some time in God's justifications. For whoever departs is to be despised by God, because it is the completion of remaining that preserves the merit of the one who remains. Departure differs from sin, because for sin pardon is reserved through repentance, but departure condemns itself by the very departure; and it arises when the will of those who are going to depart is wicked.

Then follows: "I have reckoned all sinners transgressors; therefore I have loved your righteous acts." The prophet's word always stretches far and beyond common sense. For we think transgressors are those who abandon the faith they received and the knowledge of God they gained, having promised one thing and now doing another. But here all sinners are reckoned so; no one is excepted; the name is applied generally to all. For there is a law, as it were natural: to do injury to no one, to snatch nothing belonging to another, to abstain from fraud and perjury, not to plot against another's marriage. The apostle too knows this law, saying: "For when the nations, which do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires, such men, not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts." So those are reckoned transgressors who abandon what they receive from the nature of law. One will convict a thief caught in the act, or an adulterer, or a murderer by the law of nature. But if he himself is engaged in these things, he is a transgressor of the law.

He knows too, when he says "sinners of the earth," that there are others who are sinners of heaven. For let us hear the prodigal son, lost and dead, confessing his sin to his father: "I have sinned," he says, "father, against heaven and before you." Whoever, having been made a partaker of heavenly teaching and spiritual grace, lingers in sin is not a sinner of the earth but of heaven. For our Lord Jesus Christ raised up with himself all who believe in him and seated them in the heavenly places, and whoever departs from them is convicted as a sinner of heaven. So since the prophet reckons sinners of the earth as transgressors because they have transgressed the law of nature by sinning, for this reason he himself loves God's testimonies: because, while there is pardon for departing from the law of nature, departure from the heavenly law is now without pardon.

"Pierce my flesh with your fear; for I have feared your judgments." These are new prayers of the prophet, that his flesh be pierced by the fear of God. But he remembers that those who wish to reign with Christ must suffer with him and die with him. And the Latin translation has expressed this with less force of meaning. For what with us is "pierce," there means to fasten oneself with nails. So we must die, and all the vices of the flesh must be nailed to the Lord's cross. For according to the apostle we die with Christ and are buried with him in baptism. And though the prophet has this in his will, yet he asks to obtain it through God's mercy. For he prays that his flesh be nailed by the fear of God, because he fears God's judgments. He fears the sentence of the eternal judgment, he fears not to be nailed and to die and be buried with Christ, understanding that he will not be a new man unless the old man with his vices and desires is put off.

Both at the beginning of the psalm and often afterwards we have recalled that through the elements, as it were, of the individual letters we are instructed in the teaching of piety, faith, and fear, and, like untrained infancy, trained by the very beginnings of the human voice in the knowledge of speaking, which the teaching of acting follows: this can be understood from the present eight verses of the sixteenth letter. For the prophet teaches all from his own person what it is useful for each to wish, to do, and to profess according to the awareness of his weakness and nature, and also what must be feared, guarded against, and cleansed. Blessed is he who, through God's mercy, is teacher, provider, cleanser, and judge for himself and for all! Certainly it most befits his dignity that he who speaks by the Spirit of God should speak the things that belong to human salvation and life.

For he says thus: "I have done judgment and righteousness; do not hand me over to those who harm me." He does works pleasing to God and, because he does them, prays not to be handed over to those who harm him. The work of deserving is put first, and then the reward of merit is asked for. For first what pleases is done; and then the favor of him who is pleased by the work is prayed for. But we neither work nor please, indeed we offend by impious and irreligious things; and because, being such, we are not heard, we grow angry. But it is worth observing what the things are by doing which the prophet prays not to be handed over to those who harm him.

And all things whatever that one who fears God does are useful and beautiful for him. One who cultivates chastity has brought a glorious and shining light into the soiled flesh of his body. One who takes up contempt of money has kept himself free from earthly dominions. One who loves frugality and thrift has not left the nobility of the heavenly soul captive to drunkenness. But although these are great and splendid, yet, because they are the prophet's own and useful only to him, they are not counted toward this merit.

But what did he do, that he prays not to be handed over to those who harm him? Judgment, namely, and righteousness: doing nothing ill-advised, nothing unjust, but first judgment; for he treats all things with reason, measure, and truth, so that what he does to another he carries out after it has first been weighed and examined, by the decision of counsel. But he does not leave the sentence of judgment to his own counsel alone, but does righteousness together with judgment. This is the greatest work of one who judges with counsel, that what he judges be just. For righteousness is the friend of concord, the bond and foundation of peace, and the working of human reason. These things the prophet did; and while the work is his, yet there is benefit also for those toward whom he did judgment and righteousness.

He asks not to be handed over to those who harm him. For everyone in whom there is a will to sin is empty of God; and where God is not, there the devil is, who, lying in wait and besieging, when he has opportunity of approach, occupies it like an empty house which has been handed over to him because God has deserted it. And the prophet, speaking in the person of all, prays not to be handed over by God. But the apostle already has this power in himself, to hand sinners over to the devil himself, when he writes to the Corinthians about the one who, going beyond every sexual immorality, had taken his father's wife: "But I, absent in body but present in spirit, as though present, have judged him who did this, when you are gathered together with my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus, to hand such a one over for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." But though the apostle hands over, he knows that he will hand over in the power of Christ and in his own spirit. And in another letter he says of Phygelus and Hermogenes: "whom I have handed over, that they may learn." For those who are cast out of the body of the church, which is the body of Christ, are handed over to the dominion of the devil as strangers and aliens from God's body.

But the prophet prays not to be handed over to those who harm him. For hostile and dangerous powers are at hand, which disturb the purpose of faith, which wipe out the fear of God, which solicit toward earthly desires and longings, which stir the weak nature of the body into vices by certain goads of enticement. The apostle too knows this multitude of ruling powers, saying: "In which you also once walked, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." So the prophet did judgment and righteousness, and asks not to be handed over to those who harm him, and harm in this way: when they drive into sin, when they puff up with glory, when they kindle anger, when they embitter into hatred, when they entice to lust, when they provoke to greed. But though they hasten to harm by these things, they will not be able to take hold of the innocent unless these have been handed over to them by God's withdrawal.

"Receive your servant for good; let not the proud slander me." The prophet advances in his hope and now climbs a higher step of his prayer. For he who had prayed not to be handed over to those who harm him now asks to be received in the proper condition of a servant, praying for that blessed lordship of God over him with his good reception. And not for a light reason does he pray to be received for good, namely lest the proud slander him. And who are the proud? Surely those whose prince Isaiah heard speaking, for he said: "By the wisdom of my understanding I will remove the bounds of the nations and their strength, and I will shake inhabited cities, and I will take the whole world in my hand like nestlings and carry it off like broken eggs." This is the voice of one who is proud, namely the devil, who also dared to say to our God and Lord Jesus Christ, when he had shown him the glory of earthly kingdoms: "All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me." And that he is not alone, but that many ministers of spiritual wickedness attend him, we are taught by him who says: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which my Father prepared for the devil and his angels." So he asks to be free from the slander of these proud ones. For they slander, because, while they themselves supply the incitements of sin, they bring against us before God the charge of the sin we have committed through them; for they turn the cause of sin into a crime and sharpen the odium of the crime through slander, as Scripture in the Apocalypse testifies that he is the slanderer.

But even now the prophet stretches himself to higher progress, saying: "My eyes have failed for your salvation and for the word of your righteousness." The eyes fail when the sight, intent on some expectation, labors. So the prophet fixed the eyes of his soul on God's salvation. And what must be understood by "salvation" we have often treated: namely that it is Jesus, who will save his people from their sins. So while others occupy their eyes with worldly desires and strain them toward the pleasures of present things, the prophet is fixed on God's salvation. And lest we think that his bodily eyes failed under this intent contemplation, they fail not only for God's salvation but also for the word of righteousness.

So he confesses that God's words are just. He knows that there are some which, among the ignorant and impious, have the reputation of an unjust word: when Pharaoh's heart is hardened to stubbornness and the obstinacy of an irreligious will is fixed in him; when of two nations still in the womb the elder is to serve the younger, and, though neither deserves anything good, slavery is laid on one and lordship given to the other; when Adam is driven from paradise lest he touch the tree of life. These things men incapable of divine power, goodness, and justice declare unjust, since they cannot understand them. But the eyes of this prophet fail for such a word of righteousness, because he knows that there is nothing unjust in these sayings of God, but that all these words of righteousness are to be fulfilled and understood at the coming of God's salvation. And through this intent expectation, even to the failing of his eyes, he goes on so as to dare to pray for something further.

So, having confessed the word of righteousness, he added this: "Deal with your servant according to your mercy, and teach me your justifications." Perhaps it would be thought an insolent voice that said, "Deal with your servant." For in saying "deal," a presumption of asking is assumed as if from some confidence. But he would not say it shamelessly who had done judgment and righteousness, who had prayed to be received as a servant, whose eyes had failed for God's salvation and the word of righteousness. But not even in these is the prophet insolent. For to that very "deal" he added "with your servant." And because our servitude needs the Lord's mercy for this very purpose, that it may remain in the faith of servitude, he added further, "according to your mercy": because there is need of his compassion that we may remain in this profession of our servitude. For human weakness is feeble by itself for obtaining anything, and this alone belongs to its nature, that it should both wish and begin to join itself to God's household. But it belongs to divine mercy to help those who wish, strengthen those who begin, receive those who approach: from us is the beginning, so that it may complete it.

But what, after all, does he ask God to do with his servant according to his mercy? Surely, to teach him his justifications. He knows that in the justifications Moses was commanded to establish something great and incomprehensible to human understanding is contained. He wants to know, as we have often said, who that Hebrew boy is, bought to serve only six years. He reads these things, but what is read is not at once also understood. He wants to know what that servitude is, what the freedom of the seventh year, what the piercing of the ear with an awl means if he does not want to be free, who that woman of the Hebrew is, what it means that he goes out himself without the woman, then what the second justification, what the third, what the following ones hold of the prefiguring of future mysteries. It is not in human ability to grasp these things: a heavenly teacher is needed, and many merits of our faith are necessary that we may deserve to be taught them.

We should know that in all the prophet's words there is nothing lowly, nothing common with others, but that what is declared is proper either to himself or to those like him; and under familiar words lies hidden the greatest profession of conscience and faith, as we now understand in what follows. For he says: "I am your servant; give me understanding, and I shall know your testimonies." There is none of us who does not, either in the petition of his prayer or in the habit of common speech, confess that he is God's servant. And what great thing did the prophet do in professing himself a servant, which no one has dared to deny? But the profession of the others is false, which, though it has the necessity of conscience, does not have the truth of confession. This is proper to the prophet, that he professes himself God's servant by fulfilling the service of his condition in every kind of life, whether walking or sitting, waking or sleeping, in food too and in fasts, being hungry or full for God, and at no time withdrawing from the duties of his servitude. Such a one will freely say, "I am your servant." But one who sleeps in debauchery, keeps awake for robberies, travels for gain, rests in luxury, if he says, "I am your servant," professes indeed what he is, but does not do what he is.

But the prophet, although he confesses the condition of his office by his very service, is nevertheless mindful of his weakness; for he asks that understanding be given him. For understanding is laid up in a kind of treasury of spiritual graces, though at times the devil insinuates it into the minds of the imprudent under the error of false opinion. But the prophet asks God for understanding, lest an empty understanding creep upon him, such as that of the nations, of the Jews, of the heretics: and he asks for it in order to know God's testimonies, which were handed down before witnesses, which are reproached as having been neglected and violated before witnesses, which, neglected and scorned, will be avenged at the coming of him for whose sake they were spoken with witnesses.

And the prophet is not ignorant of the time of these testimonies, saying: "It is time for the Lord to act; they have scattered your law." The law was given to the people before witnesses; and when it was scattered and cast away by the Jews, then it was time for the Lord to do the things that were contained in the law. For he promised in the law that he would give salvation to the nations, that he would take to himself the body of a man, who was made according to the image and likeness of God, that when the law was scattered he would give the grace of faith. He recalls this time through the prophet Isaiah, saying: "In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you." The apostle, interpreter of this saying, writes this: "Behold, now is the well-accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation": that is, when the law was scattered, the time of the gospel preaching came.

But while they scattered the law, the prophet's work is different. And what it is, we are taught from what follows. For he says: "Therefore I have loved your commandments above gold and topaz." When he says "therefore," he refers it to what he had said, "It is time for the Lord to act," because he knew that it was the time for the Lord to act when they had scattered the law. And he loved the commandments for this reason, because in them was contained the time for the Lord to act. For the whole law testified to the Lord's coming, as he himself says: "If you believed Moses, you would surely believe me also; for he wrote of me." So the prophet loved God's commandments because in them he understood the coming of the Lord's incarnation. And in saying that he loves, he signifies something more. For to do something is less than to love, because what we do is often of necessity, but love is the affection of one's own will.

But that love is perfect which is greatest and which is equalled by no other in comparison with similar things. And he loves God's commandments above gold and topaz. Human error thinks nothing more precious than gold and gems, and these are what have subjected the desires of men to the dominion of their price and honor. By gold, right, honesty, and chastity are for sale; by gems, a supposedly more excellent appearance of the human body is sought, to the insult of nature. And therefore both sexes hold nothing more precious, since men want to be able to do all things by gold, and women think they become more beautiful by gems. And as gold surpasses the other metals, so topaz surpasses other stones. For it is the rarest and most beautiful of all and the largest. It is usually found in a place in the Thebaid called Alabastrane. The writings of secular history also report that it was found on the island of Topazos by its inhabitants, the Arab Troglodytes, and brought as a gift to the mother of Ptolemy, king of Egypt, under whom the Scriptures of the law were translated from Hebrew into Greek. It alone contains in itself the appearance of the other best and most precious gems, and in that one stone a mingling of the most diverse colors is contained. Above this topaz, then, and above gold the prophet loved God's commandments, showing that he was held not by earthly but by heavenly desires.

Having despised the desire for worldly wealth, he cut off from himself every occasion of a perverse and depraved will. For loving God's commandments above gold and topaz, he says: "Therefore I was directed to all your commandments; I hated every wicked way." He is not turned aside, not twisted by earthly desires, but directed to all God's commandments: the things he meets do not seize him. He saw gold; he knew it to be the mud of the earth. He saw gems; he remembered they are pebbles of mountains or sea. He saw a face enticing to lust; he knows that, like the birds of the sky, he must escape from these snares. So he resists the vices grown into his nature and hates every way of iniquity. Therefore he is directed in all the commandments, because he loves them above earthly desires; and he is directed so as not to become a partaker of those to whom it is said: "a crooked and perverse generation." And he hates every way of iniquity, so as to be in him who is the way, namely our Lord, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The nature of human sense is such that it holds as wonderful the things it has learned beforehand. For the judgment of wonder arises from things learned; no one can wonder at what is unknown. These things were mentioned first so that the reason of the prophetic saying might be sought more carefully. For he is thought to have said this against the opinion of general sense: "Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul has searched them." For whereas, according to human custom, one should first search and find, and then wonder at what was found, to him the Lord's testimonies are wonderful beforehand and for that reason worthy of searching. The reason of this perfect and most beautiful saying is this: God's testimonies, that is, the things written before witnesses, even though through the observance of the law they train human weakness to the knowledge and service of God, since chastity, piety, modesty, love, truth, innocence, frugality, and religion are commanded there, and the duty of divine honor is enjoined through certain customs of worship and varieties of sacrifices, in which there is great wonder at the victim offered for sins, the gift given for the redemption of the soul, and the lamb slain in the mystery of the Passover: yet in these more wonder is contained from the hope and teaching of the future. These things, then, are wonderful to this prophet. But because, through present wonder, they are wonderful as patterns of future and eternal goods, he searches them. He does not only inquire, which is a careful seeking of hidden things; but he also searches thoroughly, showing by the added prefix his labor in the more careful seeking. And he does not only search, but searches with his soul, the intent of the soul joined to the duty of the will.

Then follows: "The declaration of your words enlightens and gives understanding to little ones." And this saying too perhaps seems to differ from the habit of our nature. For whereas one must first understand and then use the light of understanding, since the light of understanding gained dispels the night of ignorance, the prophet nevertheless says that the declaration of God's words first enlightens and after enlightenment gives understanding. But we must first learn what God's words are; and then the reason of enlightenment and afterwards of understanding is to be given. God's words are whatever the prophets spoke. For although Moses announced the observance of the law to the Hebrew people in his own words, yet in the book of that same law it is written thus: "And God said to Moses: Speak to the sons of Israel." So the lawgiver used those words which he was commanded to use. Therefore they are God's words, though heard through the service of a human mouth. And that great prophet too, who spoke well by the very judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he had said, "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth," said: "for the Lord has spoken," and after some things that were rebuked with the greatest complaints, he said: "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things." All these, then, are God's words.

But the declaration of the words is most necessary. For they were proclaimed under the veil of another meaning; they are, according to the apostle, allegorical; they are ambiguous through comparative significations. The Lord is witness that these same things were said thus through Isaiah, reproaching the unbelieving Jews and saying: "Hearing you will hear and not understand." For all things are sealed and are to be unsealed only by spiritual teaching. For these things were said to Daniel, the man of desires: "Go, Daniel, for the words are closed and sealed." Isaiah too says: "This book will be given into the hands of a man who knows letters, and it will be said to him: Read this, and he answers: I cannot read, for it is sealed."

But the declaration of the mystical words is given through the gospels, where the hidden things of the law and the concealed prophetic commandments are opened while the Lord abides in the body. From these, first, faith is learned. For there the things spoken by the prophets are fulfilled by him in deeds and works: when a virgin gives birth, when God is the Word and the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us, when the mute speak, when the deaf hear, when the lame walk, when lepers are cleansed, when the blind see, when the possessed are healed, when the dead rise; this declaration of God's words brightens the darkness of our nature with the light of faith. For then we understand the glory of the resurrection, the power of the judgment, the honor of eternity. And we understand these things as little ones, either reborn into innocence or untaught through ignorance. Of what time and age this declaration of God's words and understanding given to little ones would be, the Lord himself shows in the gospels, saying: "I confess to you, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones." Behold the time of declaration, enlightenment, and understanding. For things hidden until these days are declared, and being declared they enlighten, and enlightening they supply understanding to little ones: and through this understanding they become capable of the Holy Spirit.

Then the following saying added this very thing, saying: "I opened my mouth and drew in the spirit, for I longed for your commandments." He certainly did not speak of this mouth of the human body which is closed and opened by the lips. For we draw breath by the service of the nostrils rather than of the mouth. It passes into the body with more labor through the entrance of the mouth, but more easily by the natural course through the service and office of the nostrils. But Scripture is accustomed to speak of a mouth not only of the lips but also of the heart. For when the heart lies open through faith and gapes with desire to drink, the understanding of heavenly teaching is received. This is not the office of the soul but of the heart. For the apostle says: "But the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit; for they are foolishness to him." And the same teacher of the nations says: "For the law is written not on tablets of stone, but on fleshly tablets of the heart." Opening this mouth, then, the prophet drew in the Spirit; for he does not come in of his own accord. He must be sought, must be drawn in, and must be drunk like innocent milk, in the manner of infants. And the prophet opened his mouth because he remembered that it was said to him in a psalm: "Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it," and because he knows that it is written in the law: "Write these things on the breadth of your heart"; for God's preaching is received by the heart, not by the mouth. And according to the gospel preaching, the evil one snatches from the heart the word of God, which delights in the mouth more than honey and the honeycomb. For as we take food through the mouth for the nourishment of the body, so through the heart we receive the food of heavenly teaching to give life to the soul, which will not enter unless it is in some way drawn in by an enlarged and open heart.

Then follows: "Look upon me and have mercy on me, according to the judgment of those who love your name." To what he had said, "Look upon me," he immediately added, "and have mercy on me." For he knows that the Lord also looks for the vengeance and punishment of the impious. For he looked, as it is written, upon the camp of the Egyptians and bound the axles of their chariots. And again: "The Lord looked upon Sodom and Gomorrah." He looks not only for punishment but also for terror, when it is said: "He looks upon the earth and makes it tremble." So the prophet does not pray only this, that God look upon him, but that he look with mercy: and not only with mercy, but according to the judgment of those who love his name.

Mercy indeed comes from God's goodness; but it must be earned by us through zeal for innocence, so that he may look upon us as he looked upon Abraham, upon Isaac, upon Jacob, upon Joseph, upon Job, upon Moses. For he knows that God is accustomed to look to these works of his mercy, when it is said: "The Lord looked from heaven upon the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoners and to set free the sons of the slain"; and again: "And he looked upon the sons of the poor and did not despise their prayer." So, according to this judgment of those who fear the Lord, he prays that God look upon him and have mercy: that if he sees him fasting, if he beholds him showing mercy, if he sees him pious and religious in every work, then, according to the judgment of those who love his name, he too may be worthy of God's mercy.

Then follows: "Direct my steps according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me." The prophet indeed walks by his own will in the steps of righteousness, but he knows that dominions of unrighteousness threaten him on every side. Above he had prayed that God would look upon him and have mercy according to those who love his name. He perceives that the fruit of the mercy he asks is this, that his steps be directed, not according to the ways of the world, not according to human glory, not according to the pleasures of the body, but according to God's words. If no hindrance met him anywhere, if adversaries were not present on every side, he would be strengthened by his own powers in what he wished to do. But where there are snares, where there is war, the help of one more powerful is needed, lest all iniquity have dominion over him.

He prays not that it be absent from him, but that it not rule over him. He knows that one comes to glory through temptations. He remembers that Abraham was tempted by the injury of exile, by the fear of losing his wife, and by the grief of sacrificing his son. He knows that Job went through every campaign of temptations. He recalls that Joseph, when he was sold by his brothers, when he was pressed to adultery by his master's wife, when he was kept in prison for punishment, earned the glory of the greatest faith through these temptations of unrighteousness. The prophet fears the dominion of unrighteousness, but does not refuse its temptation. And he remembers that his steps must be directed by the Lord according to his words, lest iniquity, which is going to tempt him, be able to have the power of dominion.

After which follows: "Redeem me from the slanders of men, and I will keep your precepts." Human temptation is not heavy, as the apostle says: "No temptation has yet taken hold of you except what is human"; but slander is heavy. Slander is either when the name of an evil deed is attached to a good work, or when the poison of inner malice is hidden under a flattering appearance. For it is not the work of open ill will, but deceitful and sly, raging with the working of malice under the appearance of good will. And it is hard to guard against such people, who are enemies under the name of brothers, foes under the name of friends, parricides under the appearance of sons, an inescapable evil under the oneness of spouses. Wicked Cain killed just Abel through the familiarity of a brother. Ham his son mocked Noah, approved by God. Esau made Jacob an exile from his father's house. His wife alone tried to bend Job, the strongest fighter against the devil. What slanders of men deceived this holy prophet himself? How often was he betrayed to Saul? How often was it reported in what places he was staying? Everywhere the snares of slanderers were at hand for him.

The Lord knows that these stumbling blocks of slander at home usually bring the heaviest ruin to faith, saying: "But if your right eye causes you to stumble, and if your right foot or hand causes you to stumble, pluck it out and cut it off from you." He did not say this of the members of our bodies, since neither foot nor hand could cause stumbling; but he commands this of the members most closely joined to us and most necessary, since we are all one body in Christ, lest, while the slanders and stumbling blocks of our household remain with us, some stain of vices should cling to us on the day of judgment. So the prophet promises that if he were redeemed from these, he would keep God's precepts, because these slanders of all those of the household often brought hindrance to faith.

Then follows: "Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your justifications." The face of the Lord is indeed against those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth; but just as God looks for punishment, he looks also for mercy; so too he turns his face to both. But the prophet prays for this face of the Lord for his enlightenment. For from the majesty and face of God, when he deigns to look on us, we receive light, and the face of his mercy turned toward us shines with the grace of spiritual power. Or certainly when he is present on the day of judgment, when he stands visible to us in the glory of the Father's majesty, then he will enlighten us with the light of his face. For as certain metals and gems pour back the brilliance of their nature onto things that are nearest them and lend a rivalling appearance from the nearness of their own, and as Moses from the contemplation of God received the light of glory so that the people could not look upon the honor of his glory: so too the prophet, confessing himself God's servant, prays to be enlightened and, according to the apostle, to be made conformed to God's glory, and to be taught God's justifications, so that they may be seen by him not in part nor through the shadow of the law, but face to face and by spiritual contemplation.

Then he says: "My eyes have passed the outflows of waters, because they did not keep your law." That he was conscious of old sins is taught by the history itself; though he had directed himself to God with his whole heart, yet, because he had himself already written the grief for his sin in an earlier psalm, when he recognized his crime and wept at the rebuke of the prophet Nathan, now too he does not cease to wash away the crime of the old deed with tears of true repentance, saying: "My eyes have passed the outflows of waters": that is, that the fountains of his tears have surpassed the fountains of rivers. For this is the voice of repentance, to pray with tears, to groan with tears, and through this confidence to say: "Every night I will wash my bed; I will water my couch with tears." This is the pardon of sin, to flow with a fountain of weeping and be drenched with a heavy rain of tears. But with regard to time and with the firmness of a faith now unmoved, he kept the measure of a most temperate saying. For he spoke of the past: "because they did not keep your law." The confession of crime is always in the present, because repentance for sin must not cease; but the end of sin belongs to an earlier time; because true confession of sin is to repent without any break in time, but repentance of sin is to have ceased from what you have understood must be repented of. And for this reason the prophet neither ceases to confess his sin, and confesses the sin as past.

With unwearying and persevering faith it is necessary that our confession be unmovable and unshaken, so that we do not slacken our zeal of devotion, moved by any injury of the times or the pain of persecutions; but if ever diseases afflict us, sufferings and tortures of the body rage, losses weary us, mourning and bereavements afflict us, let us always use this voice which the prophet now uses, saying: "You are just, Lord, and your judgment is just. You have commanded righteousness, your testimonies and your truth exceedingly." For let us remember first that he who is Lord of all is just, and that his judgments are right. For why would he be unjust to his own? Why unjust to those whom he himself begot? The immensity of his goodness does not allow this to be thought of him. He begot us not for injury, he begot us not for the pain of the nature of our origin; if there is anything we suffer, it happens by the judgment of his goodness. He delights that the devil is conquered by the strength of our patience, and he desires that we be proved by mourning, pains, and losses, so that the power of the world may understand that it has no right or dominion over his servants. Whatever he commanded is just, attested, and true, with the increase of an addition: for they are exceedingly true.

And because it is rare to be an observer of these things, and hard to steer an unshaken faith amid these storms of the world and these shipwrecks of human vices, since, if anything adverse happens, complaint against God comes readily: for the greedy man accuses God amid his losses; the bereaved is angry with God with the resentment of his tears; one who is proved by persecutions for the glory of confession reproaches God with injustice. This is the most foolish complaint of all, when through the impatience of impious grief they accuse God of injustice. And therefore the prophet added, saying: "Your zeal has made me waste away, because my enemies have forgotten your words." The prophet is spent with zeal for God over all our vices and crimes. Human nature too has this custom, that if ever we see some opposing the will of those we love, we feel zeal on behalf of the one who is not obeyed. And how great is our grief when we see one of God's people made a servant of the world, a worker of the devil, a vessel of death, and fuel for Gehenna! So whoever sees a Christian reveling in banquets on a fast day is angry with zeal for God. Whoever sees one insolent toward his brothers and ministers is angry with zeal for God. Whoever finds a body already sanctified in Christ dwelling in debauchery is angry with zeal for God.

We have learned that the apostles remembered this zeal, when the Lord entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought with a whip of cords, and that zeal of which it is written: "Zeal for your house has consumed me." For we sometimes make the temple of God either a house of trade or a den of robbers. For the temple of God, according to the apostle, is our bodies, which have been sanctified in Christ. And when we think and do debauchery, murders, thefts, falsehoods, robberies, we make these same bodies a den of robbers; or when we labor in the business of the world and the dealings of trade, then we make the house of God a house of trade, so that what should have been a seat of prayer becomes either a hiding place of robbers or a house of trade. By this zeal, then, the Lord is moved to cast such men out of the temple. Men approved and accepted by God also used this zeal. For Phinehas too, because of this zeal, deserved the covenant of eternal peace. For when the sons of Israel had committed sexual immorality and he had been roused by zeal for God to punish them, then the Lord said: "Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, has turned away my wrath, because he was zealous with my zeal." That holy prophet Elijah, who was caught up in the body to the heavenly dwelling, said: "I have been very zealous, because the sons of Israel have forsaken you and killed your prophets, and I am left alone."

So this zeal holds the prophet too. For he sees the irreligious complaints over loss, the impious weeping of mourning, the profane forgetting of God's law: and therefore those who do these things are his enemies. For religious men can have no bond of friendship with such people, since the irreligious are to be avoided and detested with hatred. For this very thing is taught in another psalm, when it is said: "Those who hate you, Lord, I have hated, and I wasted away over your enemies; I hated them with a perfect hatred." The Lord also said to Abraham: "Whoever curses you will be cursed, and I will be an enemy to your enemies and oppose those who oppose you." If Abraham's enemies are God's enemies, what ought those whom we see to be God's enemies to be to us?

Then he gives the reason why he hates those who have forgotten God's words: for they are not empty, not earthly, not light. For he says: "Your word is exceedingly refined by fire, and your servant has loved it." The Latin translation does not express the proper sense of this word. For what with us is ignitum is written in Greek πεπυρωμένον. And πεπυρωμένον means what has been purified as if smelted by fire. And whatever metals are smelted by fire do not contain in themselves foreign and useless dross; all that remains in them is true and perfect and purged from every contagion of faults, so that God's word testifies in itself to the faith of eternal goods. Hence is what the Lord says in the gospels: "One iota or one stroke will not pass from the law until all these things are done." For all God's words are true and established neither idly nor uselessly; but refined by fire beyond all doubt of superfluous emptiness, and refined exceedingly, lest anything be thought to be there that is not perfect and proper. These, then, his servant loves. He not only does them but also loves them, because the work of love surpasses the work of obedience. For obedience alone is often a matter of terror; but love proceeds only from the will of a devoted mind.

Then he says: "I am young and despised; I have not forgotten your justifications." The prophet speaks these things in his own person, but they fit the people of our time too. And how far David is believed to have said this of himself is plainly shown. For the prophet Samuel was commanded by God to come to the house of Jesse to anoint one of his sons as king. When he had come there, he bids all Jesse's sons be present. Then he sees the eldest, handsome in appearance, outstanding in bearing and height; but he is warned by this answer: "Do not look at his beauty and his stature, for man does not see as God sees. For man sees the face, but God sees the heart." The second comes, the third comes, all whom Jesse then had present come: but none of those present was found who pleased. But because the prophet Samuel knew that he who had bidden him come was not a liar, and understood that of those present none was loved by God, he said to Jesse: "Have you still another son?" He answered: "I have a little one, whom I left at the pasture." This one, then, was chosen by the Holy Spirit and anointed king; and from being younger and despised he received the glory of both prophet and king.

But these things apply thus to the people which is both younger and was formerly despised. For it was in the vices of the world, it was in the night of ignorance, it was in the wild, rustic, and crumbling house of an earthly body. But this people does not forget God's justifications; this younger people is chosen into the inheritance of the family, the elder people being rejected. For Jacob bought Esau's birthright, which the latter thought useless to himself as one about to die. The younger people knows that these firstfruits of its birth are eternal and cannot be cut off by death. These, then, it does not forget, which the elder both despaired of and sold.

Then he teaches this very thing in the following verse: "Your righteousness is for ever, and your law is truth." The people that came out of Egypt did not think of these righteous acts: for whom the sea dried up, whom the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night served, for whom heaven supplied the morning manna, to whom twenty-seven kingdoms yielded, for whom the Jordan stood dry, for whom the walls of Jericho fell at the shout of the army and the circling of the ark of the covenant. The younger people knows that these righteous acts of God are eternal. Because it knew they were eternal, it bought them by faith; the elder, because it believed itself mortal, sold them by unbelief. For to the younger people the law is truth. For now truly circumcision of the heart is repeated by it, through the law, for life; truly it crosses through the sea of this world into the land promised to it; truly, eternal, it takes the heavenly manna; truly it rejoices, reborn in the Jordan; truly, to be set free by the lamb's blood, it sacrifices the Passover; truly, in the unleavened bread of sincerity, it is purged of the leaven of old malice: for it the law is no longer a shadow but truth.

And this younger people knows that because of this confession of truth it is pressed by many persecutions. For from this come, throughout the whole world, the blessed confessions of the faithful and the holy martyrdoms. From this many were stripped of their inheritances, scattered in exile, chained, beaten, burned, killed; but by a happy and constant meditation on the commandments they conquered all that befell them by the strength of a confirmed faith. And therefore he says: "Tribulation and distress have found me; but your commandments are my meditation." Though battles press, exiles threaten, proscriptions are applied, deaths, I do not say inflicted, but renewed with ingenious punishments, yet this must always be the voice of the faithful man: "Tribulation and distress have found me; but your commandments are my meditation." It will be fitting that meditation on God's commandments never be absent from us, neither when business occupies us nor when forgetfulness creeps in with time. [10] Then he says: "Your testimonies are equity for ever; give me understanding of them, and give me life." He is not content to think and expect that God's testimonies are equitable only for the present: he hopes for their equity for ever, and through the tribulations and distresses above he strives to obtain the things that are eternal. That rich man of the gospel, thinking nothing eternal, exchanged his present happiness for a death of punishment. But poor Lazarus, awaiting God's eternal testimonies, is held in Abraham's bosom and exchanges the misery of a toilsome life for the honor of blessed rest. The prophet prays for understanding of these, the chief gift, that is, among the many gifts of spiritual graces, and through it he prays to be given life. For as he now meditates on God's testimonies and commandments in the present, so he awaits the eternal ones; and as he lives the life of the body, so through the understanding he has received from God he asks to live in eternal glory.

Among the many precepts of gospel teaching, the Lord requires of us silence in praying, that we pray silently and from the secret of the heart, and that in this the office be of the mind rather than of the voice: that the secrets of our prayer may be heard by God, because he is the inspector of secrets. So this seems contrary to the gospel ordinances, which the prophet says: "I cried with my whole heart; hear me, Lord; I will seek your justifications." But the prophet knows that the cry ought rather to be of the heart, not of the voice, and therefore he cries from the heart. This is not the sound of a raised voice nor bodily hearing, but the cry of faith, the cry of the mind, to be carried up to God's throne not by the effort of the voice but by the spirit of faith. For he cries to God with his heart who asks for great things, who prays for heavenly things, who hopes for eternal things, who lives in the duties of innocent fear.

So too at the beginning of this world just Abel, even when slain, speaks great things and cries out. For it is written: "The voice of your brother's blood cries to me." The complaint of the saints is not lowly, nor is the prayer of the faithful subdued. What it asks is lofty, what it awaits is high, what it prays for resounds with a cry. Pharaoh pressed God's people with hostile troops, the Red Sea blocked their flight, Israel, shut in on every side, already seemed bound for death, with the enemy near and the sea in front. Amid this Scripture testifies that Moses had no voice toward God: he stood sad, stood silent, but resounding in the secret of his heart and crying out by the faith of his prayer. For the divine voice testifies to this, saying: "And the Lord said to Moses: Why do you cry out to me?" That man was silent; but the prayer of his faith is a cry to God. The apostle too knows that this cry of the Spirit is in faithful men, when he says: "For the Spirit of his Son cries in our hearts: Abba, Father." This cry of silence penetrates to God's ears, ears that hear not the shout but the faith: faith that does not ask for earthly wealth, does not desire empty and perishable glory, does not pray for the joys of a body that will die. The apostle writes his letters in small letters, and this common form of characters and strokes is his; but he knows that these letters of his are huge, saying: "See with what letters I have written to you with my own hand," embracing the greatness of thoughts and the usefulness of precepts in such letters. So the prophet cries from his whole heart. And because he cries from the heart, he prays to be heard; and when heard he asks this, that he may seek out God's justifications. He knows that these are hidden and concealed and covered by the shadow of the law. He wishes to seek them, for which many and great things are needed: a cry of the heart, the merit of being heard, the duty of seeking.

But he who cried to be heard and to seek God's justifications now cries to be saved and to keep God's testimonies. What an order of modesty he kept! He did not at once dare to hope that his cry would obtain salvation. First came that he should be worthy of a hearing; first came that he should seek the justifications. A hearing had to be earned, seeking had to be applied, and salvation hoped for after these. But we ask for salvation as a debt, and, as though God were obliged to grant it, we pray for it from him in our first prayers. And would that we spoke with the cry of the heart! Our lips only murmur what they do not know, while our sense is wandering, and the mind, occupied with other things, does not follow the body's office. But the prophet, when after so many preceding prayers he had prayed to be saved, teaches the wage of salvation itself, saying: "And I will keep your testimonies." This is the warfare of our faith: to keep the commandments and to keep this treasure of the precept deposited and entrusted to us as in a most faithful secret place.

But he who cried, and professed that he would keep God's testimonies, that is, those written before the witnesses heaven and earth and the angels, added further the merit of obtaining salvation, saying: "I came before in unripeness and cried; I hoped in your words." He did not wait for an old age weakened by vices, nor choose the time of a cold age when heats had cooled through long use and luxury; but he anticipated all ripeness by faith and religion, conquering youth by continence, restraining the wanton years, and anticipating the ripeness of old age by the calm of a modest and chaste youth. And the prophet's cry is that of one hoping in God's words, not at some time, but always. For there is no end of our hope, but it stretches always to heavenly things and goes forward into God's eternal promises. It has no empty time, none idle.

Then follows: "And my eyes came before the dawn, that I might meditate on your words." He who had anticipated in unripeness with his cry now anticipates the days themselves with meditations. He keeps watch at dawn; he does not wait for the light to pour in and disturb eyes heavy with sleep. He keeps watch and awaits the very return of the light's rising with prayers: now occupied with the sayings of the prophets, now intent on the hymns of the psalms, now busy with the deeds of the patriarchs and saints, meditating on every word of God at all times and with persistence.

Then follows: "Hear my voice according to your mercy, Lord; according to your judgment give me life." Let us learn modesty from the prophet's words: after the cry of the heart above, the seeking of justifications, the keeping of God's testimonies, the continence of youth, and the vigils of meditation before daylight, and placing through all these all his hope in God's mercy, he finally asks that his voice be heard according to mercy, and asks for mercy according to God's judgment. We, if we fast once, think we have done enough; if we give something to the needy out of the abundance of our household resources, we believe we have fulfilled righteousness: fasting either to please men or to refresh bodies wearied by food, and in the midst of the fasts thinking of debauchery, murders, injuries, hatreds; and giving some small thing, either because we cannot bear the poor man knocking at our doors, or while we pursue a reputation for goodness in the empty and idle opinion of men; and we think we are owed a hearing. But the prophet hopes for everything from God, expects everything from his mercy. He himself is perfect in all works of goodness, but he does not think this enough for salvation unless he obtains mercy according to God's compassion and judgments.

But he is never idle, and those who attack and pursue him are never not near: his whole life, according to the testimony of Scripture, was among snares. And whoever now wishes to please God must displease the impious. And therefore he says: "The wicked who persecute me have drawn near; but they are far from your law." He is believed to have said this of himself, whose life was attacked on every side. But he who in this psalm keeps the order of teaching for men has tempered everything for our instruction, so that we might know that those who come near to injure the faithful are far from God's law. For as great as the approach to injuring the saints is, so great is the departure from God's law. And we must take care that anger never move us against our brothers, that envy never goad us, that rivalry never provoke us to do anything irreligious or disdainful to them; for when we stand by to injure them, then we stand away from God's law.

Then follows: "You are near, Lord, and all your commandments are truth." In another place we read: "I am a God who draws near, and not a God far off, says the Lord." God is not contained by bodily places, nor is the immensity of divine power confined by boundaries or spaces. He is present everywhere, and wholly wherever he is: he is nowhere in part, but all in all things. The blessed apostle, answering in the assembly the Athenians, ridiculous in the emptiness of their philosophy, says: "We seek a God who abides not far from us: for in him we live and move and are." And the Spirit of God, according to the prophet, has filled the world. And again: "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord." Nothing is empty of God, nothing lacks him. He is everywhere in the manner of the soul in the body, which, spread through all the members, is absent from none of its several parts. Even if it has a private and royal seat in the whole body, yet it is poured into the marrow, the fingers, the limbs. And if it becomes necessary to cut off some corrupted members of the body, since those same members, dead from disease, will have no use, what is rotten and perishing of the flesh will be cut off without loss to the soul. For the soul of our body is mingled with healthy and whole members; and when these become rotten and must be cut off, it does not go with them.

These things indeed are brought for comparison with the divine nature superfluously, because it is beyond comparison. Whatever is eternal does not admit a figured likeness of truth, being the exception of a divinity without beginning. But such an example is fitted to our understanding, so that through it, according to the authority of the heavenly sayings, we might understand the incorporeal and immeasurable God to be mingled with this bounded and bodily world, but not present in those who are corrupt and dead through their works. Indeed, we still pursue the understanding of divine and invisible things from the contemplation of bodily things and their natures. We see the sun lingering in some part of the sky, as its course runs; and yet it certainly extends everywhere, is present everywhere, and, as great as it is through all things, so great is it poured out wherever it is. But if it falls on closed windows of houses, its light is indeed at hand, but the things that are barred will deny themselves its light.

In all the works of our life, then, we must be watchful and open toward God: first, that he may deign to pour his light into our hearts, free and open through innocence; then, that we may believe we act within the bosom of his divinity, and that he is not absent when we are angry, when we strike, when we despise, when we curse, when we get drunk, when we lust, when we neglect things divine and human, sinning with greater insult to him within whom we do these things.

But to this is added also that his commandments are truth. Nothing there is two-sided, nothing doubtful; all is perfected in the completeness of truth: and they are neglected with all the greater danger the more they have been established by the precept of truth.

How far the prophet knew this he added, saying: "From the beginning I have known of your testimonies, that you have founded them for ever." Although the prophet says this of himself, knowing God's law from the beginning, yet it fits every age that has been taught by God's teachings since the founding of the world. For whoever remembers the law set for Adam's will, who has learned the creation of Eve itself, who has heard the curse of the serpent, who has read that the tree of life was closed off by the Cherubim with the flaming turning sword, who knows the crying blood of slain Abel, who reckons the number of punishments in Cain and in Lamech, who has searched out Enoch translated, Noah preserved, the blessing of Shem and Japheth and the curse of Ham, who understands Melchizedek the priest, Abraham chosen, Isaac promised, Jacob preferred, Joseph sold, Judah sanctified, Moses nourished, taught, and, after the great mysteries of the law he gave, dead at the word of God, and Joshua the divider of the promised land and the author of the second circumcision, will surely be able to use the prophet's voice: "In the beginning I have known of your testimonies, that you have founded them for ever." For in the life and deeds of all the men mentioned above the hope of eternal goods is contained, and through them we are trained for the teaching of the gospel preaching. But what has been founded is prepared for the building of a future house. For we are built, according to blessed Paul, on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, in whom God's testimonies have been founded for ever, where that heavenly and royal holy city Jerusalem will be built, which is the house of the angels who throng it and of the elect firstborn, whose foundations are living stones and precious gems, living, rising, and reigning in Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The holy prophet has set before us throughout the psalm many great examples of his faith and confession, by which he has made himself a pattern for others in believing, acting, understanding, not knowing, hoping, and praying, completing the gospel man by a perfect observance of the law. And although he does, testifies to, or hopes for all the things that are either pleasing to the divine will or set before human hope, he still remembers in what kind of observance the head and sum of all the commandments consists, and he knows what was required by his Lord even of the apostles themselves, to whom the keys of heaven were to be entrusted. For when they disagreed among themselves in opinions and ambitions and each claimed the chief place for himself in human rivalry, while each either wished or demanded to be more eminent than the rest, the Lord, showing from where the reward of this merit and name was to be sought, said: "Whoever among you wishes to be greater, let him become the least of all: for everyone who humbles himself will be exalted, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled." In humility, that is, he taught that all the names and rewards of faith are contained. So it is most useful for those who obey the divine precepts to keep within themselves all the emptiness of human insolence and wantonness broken and crushed, and, considering God's magnificence and mercy, to keep themselves within the modesty of humility.

For this reason this holy man, king and prophet, and counted as the origin of the seed of his God and Lord according to the flesh, amid these assaults of the world and battles of spiritual wickedness, cries out to the Lord with this alone as the aim of his prayer: "See my humility and deliver me, for I have not forgotten your law." Not the wealth of his kingdom, not the spirit of prophecy, not any other titles of human boasting does he pray to be seen in him, but his humility. For he does not resist those who pursue him with arms of war, nor, impatient with human indignation, does he seize the time of power and kingdom for his own vengeance. But knowing that this is the sentence of the divine will, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord," he does not forget God's law in keeping humility, but prays to be delivered for this reason, that he is humble, declaring that the remembrance of God's law lies in the preservation of humility.

So reserving all things to the divine judgment and asking to be delivered because of the merit of humility, he who was moved in nothing against God's ordinances, against human hatreds, against the endurance of present troubles, and decided that nothing about these was to be judged by him in this present age, consequently added this: "Judge my judgment and redeem me; for your word's sake give me life." It is the voice of a great and secure conscience to ask for judgment on one's own judgment, so as to desire even the examination of the divine sentence on what one has decided and approved for oneself. He, judging neither others nor himself, is not turned aside by the opinion of a corrupt mind, nor does he depart from true judgment through anger or favor or hatred or love, not ignorant of this gospel command: "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged."

But not even he fears the judgment of his own judgment who says: "But I judged that I knew nothing except Christ Jesus and him crucified." In this security of his own judgment, then, the prophet, awaiting the time of redemption, prays to be redeemed and to be given life for the sake of God's words. For, sold under sin, we are set free through redemption and justification in the blood of the Lord. To this the giving of the law, to this all the spirit of prophecy, to this the hope of the patriarchs, to this the voices of angels, to this the word of the divine speech throughout the whole time of the world have testified: and for this reason he prays to be redeemed and given life.

But these same words of God, as they announce life and redemption to pious hopes, so they do not leave the impious unaddressed. For after the prophet's expectation there soon follows this concerning sinners: "Salvation is far from sinners, because they have not sought your justifications." Ignorance of the will has no pardon, because when one has the means of knowledge, not knowing is the guilt of knowledge rejected rather than not found. For salvation is far from sinners for this reason, that they did not seek God's justifications, although they remain sealed in writing for no other purpose than that they might flow down to the knowledge and notice of all. But the prophet, knowing that while salvation is far from sinners who do not seek God's judgments, the Lord is near to those who are upright of heart, as the apostle also says, "You who were far off have been made near," seeks the knowledge of God's justifications, lest salvation be far from him too.

He is not ignorant how much the mystery of our salvation is expressed in these through certain notions of eternal prefigurations in present things: in the Hebrew slave serving only six years, and after the same period of six years the whole land to be left in rest and its fruits given even to the beasts, and in the law of the jubilee year, that is, the fiftieth, by which, with the agreements of debtors released and all fields returning to the rights of their owners, if any had come, a new and heavenly remission and reformation of all things is foretold. And because salvation is far from those who have not sought these things, the prophet, wholly occupied in seeking them and contemplating in a mirror the justifications of divine and eternal mercy, added: "Your mercies are very many, Lord; according to your judgments give me life." God's mercies, then, are very many; for they exceed the measure of human opinion.

But the hatreds and pursuits of many from outside weary the prophet, who trusts in these and hopes to be given life in God's judgments. But not forgetful of his mercies, of which, according to the same prophet, there is no number, he did not turn aside from his testimonies. For there follows: "Many are those who persecute me and afflict me; I have not turned aside from your testimonies." He is not driven off, not moved: and though many persecute him, he does not even turn aside.

But he who so remains in God's commandments that he cannot be pushed or turned aside by his pursuers has something to disturb him with heavy grief, and to dissolve him even to the wasting of a soul that in some way melts: when, while he does not turn from God's testimonies, others fall away from the fear of God and corrupt the faith and covenant of the law they had received. These are the heats he has, these the only wearinesses the prophet feels, when he says: "I saw those who did not keep the covenant, and I wasted away, because they did not keep your words." Israel was named heir of the sealed covenant and, hearing the voice of the Lord from the mountain, answered: "All things whatever God has said we will both hear and do." But when it worshipped foreign gods, when it defiled itself with the vices of every crime, it lost the covenant both of the name it had heard and of the observance it had professed. For they did not keep God's words, which they answered that they would do and hear. Nor is this prophet's wasting away over the transgression of the people new; since we know that the Lord himself wept over the impiety of Jerusalem, and from the same teaching the apostle weeps over the unrepentant and, further, burns himself if anyone is made to stumble.

But he who grieves over those who do not keep the covenant and wastes away does not shrink from the examination of God's commandments in himself. For he says: "See that I have loved your commandments, Lord; in your mercy give me life." It is too little for the prophet to fulfil the commandments through fear, but he rather loves them, because the working of love is beyond the necessity of fear. And although love of the law is better than fear, yet he is not so confident in himself that he does not rather pray to be given life through God's mercy. He does not think that he lives now, but awaits life when this mortal body has been taken away and swallowed up into the glory of immortality.

He knows that this was promised him already at the beginning of his creation, when it is said by God: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." This is the beginning of God's speech about man, when the beginning of our origin was founded after the image of unbounded eternity. So, sure that he will live that life and in the image of God, he says: "The beginning of your words is truth; all the judgments of your righteousness are for ever." God's words do not pass away when heaven and earth pass away. Whatever has poured from his lips is not in vain. His justifications are eternal, his righteousness is eternal. So the beginning of God's words is truth; and he knows of no earlier word of God about himself, that is, about the creation of man, than that he should be made according to the image and likeness of God. This, then, is the decree of unchangeable truth; thus truth is in the beginning of God's words, that the new man, reborn in Christ, may live henceforth according to the image of the eternal God, that is, of the heavenly Adam, now eternal.

The prophet David indeed endured heavy hatreds and pursuits from King Saul and the princes of the people, because impiety, once declared, could not bear the steadfastness of a pious conscience. But shaping the gospel and apostolic man for God, he is not ignorant of the gospel saying in which he says: "For they will hand you over and scourge you in the synagogues, and you will stand before kings and authorities as a testimony to them and to the nations." Indeed, instilling the steadfastness of preaching and teaching the glory of confession, he had exhorted them before, saying: "Everyone who confesses me before men, I too will confess him before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father who is in heaven." So, whether dedicated from the law or prepared for the glory of the gospel, he who had given neither Saul nor his people any cause to pursue him, and knew that the kingdom of heaven was to be announced to the world through many hatreds of princes and nations, speaks these things to God confidently: "Princes have persecuted me without cause, and my heart has feared your words." For he feared to be denied, if he denied.

But since he is not ignorant of the rewards of this blessed persecution, the Lord saying, "Blessed are you when they persecute you and say every evil against you for righteousness' sake; rejoice and be glad, for your reward is abundant in heaven," after the hatred of princes he tempered his fear of God's words with what follows: "I will rejoice over your words, as one who finds much spoil." So his fear was lest he be unworthily subjected to the persecutions of princes or yield to them, because it is not the part of a holy man to have given cause for hatred, and to have lost God's grace through fear of the world would be without pardon. But to have found spoils belongs to the victor; certainly to have yielded them from oneself belongs to one already conquered. So since the prophet is not broken by these persecutions and conquers the hatred of princes by faith, he brings back certain spoils of impiety from the conquered. For he knows, according to the gospels, that the strong man was bound in his own house and, stripped of the arms of his power, has yielded spoils from himself to be plundered by the faithful. So he now rejoices in God's words, as one who finds much spoil, since, the power of the impious broken and he himself remaining a victor by faith, he has stripped them of all their arms, whether of impiety or of cruelty.

But the feeling of this joy is not present except in love of the divine law and in loathing of iniquity, because no one will wish to flee except what he hates, nor strive to obtain except what he loves. So, having rejoiced as over much spoil, he added: "I have hated and abhorred iniquity; but I have loved your law." So he hates iniquity and loves God's law.

But one who loves God's law is not intent only on the things that are fulfilled by obedience to the law; he must stretch himself through the work of the law to something else. And let us hear in what duty he is besides: "Seven times a day I have spoken praise to you for the judgments of your righteousness." The holy prophet first loves what he does, namely the work of the law, because both the practice and the will of all vices are cut off. But afterwards he praises the judgments of God's righteousness. For these, as we have often noted, signify more than they do, while the deeds themselves instil in us the notion of the eternal plan: as the rest of the Sabbath, as the Hebrew boy, as the land that is to lie fallow, as the fiftieth year are understood under the moments of an image of mysteries. This, then, is praised seven times a day.

And it is not doubtful why this is the number of praise. For these same things, whether in the day or in the boy or in the land or in the year and years, are contained under the sanctification of this number, since the number seven is completed up to that eternal rest of the fiftieth, which is the Sabbath of Sabbaths. And much is known about the sanctification of this number, such as the very arrangement of the days, such as the choice of the angels standing before the throne of God, such as the fullness of the spiritual powers and of the graces resting on the Lord. Certainly it is fitting that the judgments of God's righteousness be praised by the prophet in this number, through which and in which the force and arrangement of those same justifications is contained.

The order of the prophetic preaching is now no other than that of faith. For the endurance of persecutions, the fear of the words, joy in the word, hatred of iniquity, love of the law, the praise of righteousness, and absolutely everything else commanded in the law is summed up in the observance of this one precept: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This is greater than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices: to remember that one is one and the same body with another, which is Christ's, and to love one's neighbor as one's own body, that is, as oneself. For there follows: "Great peace to those who love your name, and there is no stumbling block for them." The apostle, thinking not of his own things but of others', professed that he would abstain from meat for ever lest he make his brother stumble. He held so fully the feeling of perfect love and peace that he restrained himself even from the use of common life, so long as he might cut off a cause of offense. Peace, then, must be kept, and what suits not each one but the whole must be sought, because according to the gospel it would be better not to have come into life than to have caused one of the little ones to stumble.

Remaining, then, in these precepts of peace and love, the prophet is held by desire for the gospel hope. For he knows in whom, or who, the end of the law is, when he says: "I have waited for your salvation, Lord, and I have done your commandments." Jesus is salvation. This is the meaning of the name from the Hebrew, this the angel spoke to Joseph, this Simeon recognized when he was then to be dismissed in peace, this the salvation restored to us through him teaches. And he professes that he has done God's commandments in this, that he waits for the Lord's salvation, declaring that all the commandments of the law are contained in the coming of the only-begotten God.

He also kept God's testimonies and loved them exceedingly, saying: "My soul has kept your testimonies and I have loved them exceedingly. I have kept your commandments and your testimonies, because all my ways are in your sight." The prophet, acting under God as judge and searcher of hearts, remains in the keeping of God's commandments and testimonies; he does not walk in the ways of the world nor the ways of vices and impiety. For whatever path of his life he has taken, he takes it so approved and so innocent that it is worthy of God's sight: since God knows even the thoughts and movements of hearts, and his sight is not fit for one who is of unclean heart. For the faithful witness in heaven has said these things, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The psalm reaches its end according to the letters. For having embraced all the things proper to a holy man according to the order of the Hebrew letters, the prophet now prays that his prayer may be near to God: "Let my prayer draw near in your sight, Lord; according to your word give me understanding." Many are the things he prayed to the Lord throughout the psalm. But because God's words have embraced much obscurity in themselves through the mysteries of heavenly things, now above all he prays that he may be worthy of God's understanding of this word. And first he kept the order of his modest hope, when he asks that his prayer be brought near to the sight of God. Next, by a step of higher progress, his request is repeated, when he says: "Let my petition enter in your sight, Lord; according to your word deliver me." This was the order of the prayer approaching the sight of God, that, when it had begun to be near, it should enter; now, having understood God's word, he prays to be delivered according to that same word of God. For salvation is not first where understanding is, but once understanding is gained, salvation is to be obtained.

And because these same things were uttered by the spirit of prophecy, either under the shadow of things to come, or under a certain image of truth set forth as in a mirror, or under the hidden and deep meaning of divine words, by the spirit of prophecy rather than by the sense of human understanding, he added: "My lips have uttered a hymn, when you have taught me your justifications; my tongue will declare your words, for all your commandments are equity." We remember that every prophetic word is shown under the meaning of "uttering forth," as when it is said: "My heart has uttered a good word," or that: "I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world," or that: "Day utters a word to day." All human speech begins from the sense and movement of thought, when our mind, moved to declare something, declares in words what has struck its feeling. But where, beyond the impulse of the human mind, the tongue does not serve the judgment of the soul, but the speech of divine sense is poured out through the service of our mouth by the Spirit entering, there what is said seems to be uttered forth: when the mind does not speak what it has first perceived by thought and movement and by which it was struck, but the Spirit articulates the voice into words while the understanding does not know.

For now, although his lips have uttered a hymn, yet after the teaching of God's justifications his tongue will declare what it speaks: so that when knowledge of the things said has been gained, then the declaration of that knowledge may follow. And God's commandments are not so different from equity that it should not be worthy of God first to grant the understanding of them to the one who prophesies, and then for them to shine forth to the public awareness by the confession of preaching: because it would be beyond God's goodness either to hide what he wished to be declared or to command anything except with equity. And the sum of the equity of God's commandments is this, that they are saving for all, so that this coming of ours into this life we may enter with advance toward eternity. For to be born for death is not a cause of life, but of death.

And the prophet soon added the confidence of this hope of his, saying: "Let your hand be there to save me, for I have chosen your commandments." While others choose the glory of the world, others take up the veneration of elements and demons, others seek earthly wealth, this holy man chose God's commandments; and he chose them not by natural necessity but by the will of piety, because to each a way of living toward what he wills is set before him, and the freedom to seek and to act is permitted. And for this reason each one's choice will be visited either with punishment or with rewards.

But he showed what the end of the Lord's commandments was, saying: "I have longed for your salvation, Lord, and your law is my meditation." He stretches himself wholly toward the coming of Jesus the Savior; and what was proper to the blessedness of the apostles to see, he longs for with impatient desires, while signifying that what he does in the law is a meditation on future hope: because all meditation is understood to be undertaken not for the effect of present things but for the progress of future ones.

And he showed what the reward of this meditation was: "My soul will live and praise you, and your judgments will help me." He does not reckon that he lives in this life, since he has said: "Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother bore me." He knows that he was born under the origin of sin and under the law of sin; but he chose meditation on God's law for this reason, that he may live. In an earlier psalm he urges his soul toward the joys of this life, when he says: "Return, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has done good to me: for he has delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will please the Lord in the land of the living." He hastens to render these praises to God, when, by God's judgments, the weakness of earthly corruption has been swallowed up and he has been helped to the advance of eternity: and that surely because he chose the commandments and longed for the Lord's salvation, because his meditation is always in God's law.

He concluded all with an end worthy of the gospel mystery, saying: "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost; give life to your servant, for I have not forgotten your commandments." For he hastens to be carried back, a wandering and lost sheep, on the shoulders of his shepherd, so that, recovered through the saving and eternal shepherd, he may give eternal joys to the angels in heaven. For the Son of Man came to save what was lost, sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The titles of the Psalms, as we have shown in very many cases, have their own proper meanings, containing very briefly the reason and argument of the writings beneath them and directing us by a kind of signpost of teaching into the path of understanding; about which there is no need to treat anything now. For that should be done when each psalm is treated. For since the psalm and the title lend authority to each other, the discourse will be weak if one of them is discussed without the other. But now we come to the Songs of Ascents, whose inscription is continuous and the same; and therefore, since the meaning of the titles agrees, the reason of all will be found to have been shown in the course of a single exposition.

In most psalms we read that many things were set out in their superscriptions according to the order of history: as when David fled from the face of his son Absalom, when he changed his face before Abimelech, when after Bathsheba he is warned by Nathan, and in the rest, wherever the truth of events is contained in the titles of the psalms themselves. But we must remember that these same psalms are not all to be understood bodily for the reason that the signification of bodily affairs stands before them; rather we must pursue a spiritual understanding under this kind of record of things done, about which this is not the time to speak; but out of concern for the simplicity of readers it was fitting to remind the reader. So we must see whether these psalms of ascents too, like the many titles mentioned before, contain anything of history.

For in the book of Isaiah, when Hezekiah prayed, a sign of prolonged health was set for him on steps. There were in his house ten steps, which the sun climbed beyond the course of its time as its light advanced, and again, on the day of his death, it went down from the limit of its time as its light withdrew. But there is no likeness of this history to the psalms, since not even the number of the steps agrees. Yet the sign given to Hezekiah clearly shows that God's light comes to those to whom, because of the merits of their worldly affairs, the blessedness of future life will be granted, but withdraws from those to whom it is denied.

History has told us that there were fifteen steps in the temple and orders of those standing on them arranged, by which a certain dignity was held by those in front, so that the Levites stood first, after them the Israelites, then the proselytes, and then others. But why do we presume about psalms written earlier from later history, since, if anything is to be taken from it, it ought to be taken so that the psalms follow the history? Unless indeed something was prophesied for future history. But looking at that very building of the temple and altar, would we understand it to be a shadow of the incorruptible temple and a likeness of the sanctified altar in the things bodily prefigured in it, unless authority were taken beforehand from the psalms? For the psalms do not declare only the things of their own time, nor do they fit only those ages in which they were written; but God's word has provided for all who would come into life, being itself most suited for the progress of every age.

For there was that law of the priesthood which Luke carefully set out in the gospel, according to the observance of the law, at the birth of John the Baptist: that no one went up into the holy of holies except the one who was chief of the priests, and he only on one day in the whole year. That all these things, done beforehand as a likeness, were fulfilled in our Lord alone, both our faith and the Lord himself in the gospel assure us, saying: "I came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it." The apostle too testifies that all the completion of the law is in our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: "For Christ is the end of the law." And this same prophet David teaches that he is the eternal priest, saying: "You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek." This chief of the priests, then, having entered the heavens, sitting at God's right hand, praying to the Father that where he is we too may be, who also raised us up and seated us in the heavenly places, had already warned through the prophet by what means and by what works of life one could ascend to him, through Isaiah thus: "Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the wickedness from your souls before my eyes; cease from your evil deeds, learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the one who suffers wrong, judge for the orphan and vindicate the widow: and come, let us reason together, says the Lord almighty." These, then, are the steps of that perfect and eternal temple, which the chief of the priests went up, having made propitiation for our sins through his blood, in the manner of the earthly priest under the law, either climbing by steps into the holy of holies or offering the victim of atonement for the people.

Of the fifteen steps and the superscription "song" we already treated something at the beginning of the Psalms, when the discussion turned to numbers and superscriptions: namely that this number agrees with two numbers, seven and eight, one of which is for the Sabbath of the law, the other for the eighth that comes after the Sabbath, which is also the first, belonging to the gospels. Through the song of these, as by steps of the law and the gospels, we climb to heavenly and eternal things, knowing that we are to be seated with the high priest in the heavenly places, if indeed, according to Paul, our citizenship is in heaven. Let us seek in the song these steps by which we may climb to the places that are the holy of holies. For the ascent to them is steep and of a narrow road. We know there were fifteen steps in the temple; we read also fifteen psalms of steps. This ascent to that desired seat is in numbered stages. For perhaps, as in the temple one climbed gradually and by single steps to the holy place, so through the progress of the single psalms we shall be taught that, having climbed these steps which are sung, we can be placed in the high, holy, and eternal places.

There are many who think that in these psalms only the captivity of the people, by which it was held in Babylon for seventy years, was prophesied, and also the return of the same people with the restoration of the lost city. We do not quarrel with them. For there is no doubt that the prophet could know the things that threatened the impiety of this people. But what captivity of the people and the building of what city the prophet mentions, the psalms themselves will tell us, which begin thus:

"To you, Lord, when I was in distress I cried, and you heard me." The prophetic word, although it uses the common practice of human speech, does not contain the same meaning that lies close to common sense. For although it tempered its declaration of heavenly things so that we might understand it, it kept the force of its meaning, though with a moderate choice of words. For it began thus: "To you, Lord, when I was in distress I cried, and you heard me." Perhaps this cry of the prophet to God will be thought to come from habit and from the feeling of human sense, as though it were an ordinary grief for which he prays to God even with shouting, because fear of danger and terror of death, or anxiety over loss and grief over money, or the dart of bereavement and the wounds of sorrow drive many to raise their voice to God; as though not all the things that happen to them were most suited to good hopes. The apostle testifies that it is better for him to be dissolved and to be with Christ; he condemns care for money as the root of all evil; and the gospels said the living should rather be wept for: and what room will be left to the world against us, against these things, when the purpose of our faith is firm, since death gains the fellowship of Christ, lack of money provides lack of sin, and the departure of our own is the hastened approach of our common hope?

But if these are not, what then will be the distresses for which one cries to the Lord? There are certainly very great ones, dragging us into the depth of sin. For the prophet, shaping from his own person the man who climbs by steps to eternal things, teaches which evils he must most guard against: namely those which, by the authority of counsels, the urging of exhortations, and the allurements of flatteries, plunge into hell, when one urges us to honors, another holds us to the present life by leisure, sleep, gluttony, and luxury, another leads us to the superstition of false religions, another urges to schisms, another solicits to heresy. Of these it is written: "Evil conversations corrupt good morals." For against all these the nature of our mind is weak. For they run around us on every side and prick us with the various goads of their flatteries. And the first hope of life is this, that when they break into our sense by force, fraud, and domination, we cry to the Lord as from the midst of distress, so that our turning to him, while calamities clash about us, may be heard with all the strength of a faithful cry. And then our very cry to him will be our rest, and the very confession of praying is the greatest part of salvation. And therefore he says: "To you, Lord, when I was in distress I cried, and you heard me." For he himself is accustomed to say to those who pray: "Behold, I am here."

And because he is present, he must be asked about what follows: "Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips and from a deceitful tongue." For this alone is a dangerous distress for the righteous: the company of evil exhortation and the habit of pestilent counsel, from which the mind must be drawn back and the ears stopped. He distinguished wicked lips and a deceitful tongue. Wickedness is shameless: it dares openly, attempts openly, accomplishes openly. These are those who, denying God, assert that there is no profit left for human affairs in the religion of God, but that this alone is good for them, to live for luxury and the body, taking away from God care, providence, judgment, power. Theirs, then, are wicked lips. But the work of a deceitful tongue is fraudulent and harmful through pretense, overturning religion under the name of religion and leading to death through hope of life. These are also the lies of the heretics: hiding by lies the sayings of the prophets, the powers of the gospels, and the writings of the apostles, to hand on and teach everything otherwise than it is written. From these, then, we are freed by God's mercy when we pray, and crying to God amid the distresses they cause we shall be heard.

But there follows: "What shall be given to you, and what shall be added to you, against a deceitful tongue?" Fittingly, to what was said, "To you, Lord, when I was in distress I cried, and you heard me: Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips and from a deceitful tongue," there is added: "What shall be given to you, and what shall be added to you, against a deceitful tongue?" so that what was said by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, "Behold, I am here for you," as though at the very moment of the prayer this voice of the Lord is returned: "What shall be given to you, and what shall be added to you, against a deceitful tongue?" We often read the word of the Lord questioning, in both the New and the Old Testament: as to Adam, "Where are you, Adam?"; as to Cain, "Where is your brother?"; as to the crowds, when the woman had touched the fringe, "Who touched me?"; as to the disciples, "Whom do men say that I am? But you, whom do you say?" He who is God, searching hearts and reins, the inspector of our thoughts, does not wish to be taught, but asks in order to give, through the confession of those questioned, either pardon for sins or honor for faith. So Adam, having confessed, was reserved for pardon and glorified in Christ; Cain, denying, was made equal to the curse of the devil, for the devil is marked from the beginning as a murderer. The woman, having confessed, was healed by faith; Peter, answering by faith, received the keys of heaven. And so the whole reward of our hope consists in confession, so that we testify that we shall attain what we have believed we can attain.

And therefore a certain turning of the question has been made by the prophet; but an answer worthy of faith followed. For to what was asked, "What shall be given to you, and what shall be added to you, against a deceitful tongue?" that is, what protection will be brought to you against its falsehood, the answer is: "Sharp arrows of the mighty, with desolating coals." For only the Lord's arrows are mighty and sharp, which can pierce the deceitful tongue, having in themselves the power to burn up and lay waste fraudulence; of which he says in the seventh psalm: "He has made his arrows for burning"; and both agree with each other. For the word of God pierces all wickedness, wounds every sense of wantonness, and pricks that most violent sting of death itself. For when the sinner hears of the eternal God, God the founder of the world, God the judge, and understands that he, a man, owes it to God that he was born, how greatly will his conscience and error be struck by the dart of God's teaching, when he recognizes that he is to be burned in unquenchable fire, separated like chaff from wheat and desolated from the fellowship of good fruits? Of this teaching, to be revealed through the apostles, he speaks in another psalm: "The arrows of little ones have become their wounds." Every faithful man prays that these mighty arrows, these coals of desolation, be given to him, and expects them to be set against the deceitful tongue to correct those who cause distress, either by the dart of teaching or by fear of punishment.

But blessed Job too, not knowing the enemy by whom he had been pierced, said that the tortures and pains of his body were the Lord's arrows, saying: "For the arrows of the Lord are in my body, whose anger has drunk up my blood." And perhaps the prophet calls down these arrows of avenging punishments too against the wicked lips and deceitful tongue, so that, pierced by them, the deceitful tongue and all the lips may be burned up.

Yet there are many who would take the arrows to be the precepts of heavenly teaching received spiritually by the faithful, and the desolating coals to be the cleansing of sins, and who think that the coals of desolation should be understood so because the Lord said: "I came to send fire on the earth; and what do I wish, if it is already kindled?" And there is no doubt that he brought the washing and forgiveness of sins, a fire he said was already kindled, because through him comes the purging of all vices and filth. They apply to this also what was said to Isaiah when, with a coal taken by tongs, his lips were touched: "Behold, I have taken away your iniquities and purged your sins."

And we remember that the Lord himself is called an arrow in the same Isaiah thus: "He has made me like a chosen arrow and hidden me in his quiver," and he said: "It is a great thing for you to be called my servant." So we understand that he too is a useful and mighty arrow, piercing the stings of our vices and penetrating us with a healthful and useful wound; of which arrow the bride in the Song says: "I am wounded with love."

Let these arrows, then, be expected in both ways, either piercing the wicked and deceitful for the punishment of conscience, or wounding sins and vices in the bodies of those dear to him; and let the coal be either destroying or purifying, so long as it consumes by punishment those who deny God, but purifies to perfect innocence those who confess.

But what is the prophet's answer following the sayings above? "Woe is me, that my sojourning has been prolonged!" Good things cannot seem to be truly judged good by us unless they are sought after. For how shall we show the sincerity of our judgment except by pursuing the things we have judged well? We think chastity good: what fruit, then, is there of our opinion except in seeking chastity itself? Innocence is good: but unless we hasten toward it and practise it, we shall not be understood truly to think so. For the judgments of minds are not to be signified by words but fulfilled in deeds. It is fitting, then, that the prophet, who after the Lord's arrows and those coals of desolation expects the glory of that blessed kingdom and eternal time, should desire what he expects. And he plainly desires it. And not only does he desire it, but he hates delays and grieves at the very postponement of not yet possessing so great a desire, saying: "Woe is me, that my sojourning has been prolonged!"

We have often heard a complaint of this kind from many saints, lamenting the slowness of their hope through the lingering dissolution of their bodies. The Lord taught in the gospels that the hastening of the heavenly kingdom must be prayed for. For it is fitting that love be impatient for what it loves; and therefore we ought to say what we are commanded by the Lord to say: "Your kingdom come, your will be done." Blessed Paul groans in the dwelling of his body, complaining that through his sojourning in the flesh he is away from God. Hence he knows that, on the contrary, he must be away from the flesh in order to have his dwelling with God; but yet it is better for him to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Ecclesiastes says: "And I praised all who are dead above all who are living until now": that is, the soul set free through the dissolution of the body has been stripped of the burden and fellowship of this weak and dangerous flesh. In this sojourning in the body, then, too long for him, the prophet groans, hastening to be away from earthly things and to dwell in heavenly ones, so that, leaving corruptible and present things, he may attain the invisible and eternal.

Holy Job, worthy of God's testimony, not only groans at his sojourning in this body but curses the very day of his birth, saying: "Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night in which they said: Behold, a male"; and Jeremiah likewise: "Cursed be the day on which I was born; cursed be he who brought news to my father, saying: A male child is born to you." And yet the same man had heard from the Lord: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; and before you came out of the womb I sanctified you." What then? Does he curse having begun to exist, who before he existed was both known to God and sanctified by God? Far be it. For he does not hate in himself that he was sanctified, but curses what followed upon the sanctification, namely that he was carried forward by the growth of the body into these troubles of bodily sojourning. For formed within his mother's womb and shaped by the power of his creator in the substance of the soul after the image of God, he does not hate the beginning of his conception and shaping, but groans at the progress of the body brought forth, which came by growth, in which he must live amid the evils of the world and the weaknesses and vices of the flesh. Yet since he was already formed in the womb and sanctified in the womb, with the eternal likeness of a heavenly origin in him, there is no doubt that by God's sanctification he would remain eternal after the law of this death.

But this prophet's feeling is not much different from that of Job and Jeremiah. For he complains not of his sojourning, but of his prolonged sojourning. For after the complaint of this long sojourning of his, there follows on what he says, "Woe is me, that my sojourning has been prolonged," this: "I have dwelt with those who dwell in Kedar." Kedar is a nation of the Ishmaelites dwelling in the desert, whose borders extend as far as the Medes and Persians. For Kedar was a son of Ishmael, as Genesis testifies: "The firstborn," it says, "of Ishmael, Nebaioth, and Kedar." These are now called Saracens. Those, then, who think these psalms are to be understood with an earthly mind want the prophet to have complained in the person of the captive people that his sojourning in the dwellings of Kedar was long. But not understanding the force of the word nor perceiving the spirit of the prophet, they take the authority of the name to confirm a foolish opinion, though the psalm contains nothing at all that fits the captivity of the people.

For Kedar in the Hebrew language is what we pronounce "darkening." For in this dark and gloomy dwelling of bodies the invisible form of our souls is contained, and the captive nobility of a heavenly nature has this prison of its contagious sojourning. The bride in the Song of Songs remembers this tent, saying: "I am black and I am beautiful, daughter of Jerusalem, like the tent of Kedar": confessing herself black from the tents of this darkness, but not denying that she is beautiful, because she is the bride of Christ. For everyone who betroths himself to Christ already stands in an eternal beauty. The Lord commanded us to be enlightened in these tents, saying: "The lamp of your body is your eye, and if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?" and again: "You are sons of light, not sons of darkness."

And the prophet kept this distinction too, that he dwelt with the dwellers of Kedar, not in their dwellings. For though the saints live in the flesh, yet if they have weapons of warfare that are not fleshly but mighty for God, they will live alongside the tents of Kedar, not dwell in them. For being away from the body as God's sojourners, they will hear from the apostle: "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you." So he dwelt in such a way as to live alongside those who dwelt there, showing that in the sojourning he grieves over he is a stranger. And because he hated the fellowship of the wicked and living alongside those who dwell in darkness, although he had already complained about the future, he still says about the past: "My soul has long been a sojourner," namely in the many distresses of wicked lips and a deceitful tongue, for which he cried out to the Lord.

But he showed what kind of sojourning he had, saying: "With those who hated peace I was peaceable." This is proper and worthy of a prophet: to restrain the quarrels and movements of another's nature by the peace of his own will, and to hold in check all faithless and turbulent feelings of minds with every modesty of gentleness. And the Lord taught these things, making peace in himself for what is in heaven and on earth, to pray for persecutors, to hate no one, to love enemies. And the apostle warns: "If possible, so far as it depends on you, have peace with all men." And the Lord seals this as the sum, as it were, of his precepts: "My peace I give you, my peace I leave you." This, then, will guard our hearts in Christ; this will make us equal to the patriarchs; this will keep in peace, by peace, even those who hate peace, as they come to obey.

But another duty remains for the prophet: namely to press God's teaching steadily on all and to preach the word of eternal life continually. He was not unmindful of this ministry either; for he says: "When I spoke to them, they attacked me without cause." He was indeed peaceable with the enemies of peace, but the enemies of peace hated the preaching of peace itself and were stirred up against the teaching of God, they whom the prophet's silence, through his modesty, had held in peace; and so the prophet is peaceable with the enemies of peace, and the prophet does not cease to preach peace, but the enemies of peace attack the preacher of peace.

Some think this second Song of Ascents should be referred to the person of our Lord and Savior, applying to him above all this saying: "By day the sun will not burn you, nor the moon by night." For they think this prophecy was fulfilled at the time when, in the Lord's passion, the sun was darkened and night came on. But we take nothing away from their judgment. For we do not reprove the sense of this understanding, leaving it to each one's choice which he prefers to follow of the things he has read or understood. We, however, could fit our discourse only to what we understood.

"I lifted up my eyes to the mountains." The nature of the human mind is such that, if we contemplate something in thought, each form presents itself to us such as we shape it by thinking. For wherever we direct the eyes of our mind, they bring back to the sense the very thing on which they are fixed. And so that what has been said can be understood more plainly, we shall give an example. If someone on a winter's day thinks of spring and gazes at its beauty with the light of the mind, forgetting the winter in which he is and is cold, the whole of spring with its dress and adornment will stand in his sense. So far do the eyes of the mind surpass the eyes of the body that, as forgetfulness of present things comes over us, a kind of enjoyment of absent things, taken in advance by the mind, holds us entirely. We shall soon see where this tends.

The prophet lifts his eyes to the mountains. Which eyes? Surely those of which it is written: "Unveil my eyes, and I shall know the wonders of your law"; and again: "The commandment of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes." Are not these eyes of ours kindled with bodily light for seeing? Have they not received the nature of seeing? What enlightening or what unveiling will be necessary? Then, what wonders will they see in the law? Unless perhaps the feast of leaves in huts, the blood of cattle in the temple, the victim of the lamb at the Passover, in short, the rest of the Sabbath in religion? And, as I think, these things were seen to be done by those who were present as spectators. So the eyes are not to be unveiled for what was seen, but for what was longed to be understood in the law.

So the prophet lifted the eyes of his mind to the mountains. To which mountains? Certainly not to these profaned by groves and altars and impious with assemblies, nor to those rough with forests, bare with rocks, impassable with cliffs, frozen with snows; for what is there in these to wonder at or hope for? But we take the mountains to be the prophetic books, raised from the earth on high, through which there is a climbing to higher things and a step into eternal things. We may also think of the mountains as the angelic ministries, the powers and authorities of heaven, by whose ministry ascent to the heights is granted us. For if, according to Daniel, the Lord himself is a great mountain, there is no doubt that those are called mountains who are ministers of his precept and will and of the blessedness to be shared with us.

So the prophet, lifting the eyes of his heart to these mountains and contemplating within himself the warnings, ministries, offices, and gifts of all of them, and directing on them the light of his understanding, gave back to his sense the whole and perfect nature of the form he had contemplated and held in mind all that he had seen in thought, knowing from where help would come to him, saying: "From where will my help come?" And at once he answered himself with a blessed confession: "My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." The eyes are lifted to the mountains, because through them is the ministry of teaching, progress, and ascent. But when one must confess from where help comes, help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. This is happy faith, this is true confession, this is eternal hope, worthy of the gifts of heavenly blessing.

Then, since all prophecy is in the Spirit, at once this blessed confession of his is followed, through the person of the prophet, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit: "May he not give your foot to be moved, nor may he who keeps you slumber." The sense itself shows that a change of person has been made. For the word is turned to him who spoke above: "May he not give to be moved." Who? Surely he who made heaven and earth. "Your foot." Whose? We shall ask. Namely his who lifted his eyes to the mountains and confessed that his help was from the Lord. But "may he not give" is also the feeling of one who wishes and blesses. And who will wish this? He, namely, who is for us another Advocate besides the Lord, of whom he says: "And I will send you another Advocate," who also speaks in the prophets. What, then, does this Advocate say? He blesses the confessor of this faith and hope: "May he not give your foot to be moved, nor may he who keeps you slumber." But both these things are unworthy of God: that he should hand over to being moved, and slumber, and after the watch of keeping rest from some continuance of labor. But before we come to that, we must treat what is meant by the foot.

The foot is the part of the body that carries the whole body about to the things to be done and accomplished. And because Scripture teaches spiritual things through bodily ones and shows invisible things through visible ones, under the name of foot it signifies the movements and goings of our mind: as in this same prophet, "But my feet were almost moved." Surely these fleshly feet are always moved in the body: and how is it a dangerous thing that they were almost moved, when it is their proper office always to be moved? And in the gospels too the Lord, signifying other feet, commanded the right foot that causes stumbling to be cut off, saying: "And if your right foot causes you to stumble, cut it off." If there is a stumbling block in the right foot, will the left cause less stumbling? Or what temptation can that part of the body bring, since without any feeling of desire it has in itself only the ministry of necessary service? So, like the eyes of the mind, so also feet must be understood, having in themselves both the sight of understanding and the movement of the will.

But it must not be understood that this blessing, "May he not give your foot to be moved," is given as though God hands some over to the vices into which we are carried by the feet of a corrupted mind. He will not hand us over; but when we have departed from him through sins, and since he does not dwell in sinners, his withdrawal from us follows our departure from him, because we depart from him through sins. And when he withdraws from us, we fall into all the pits of offenses and run along the broad road of death, subjected to the domination of demons, to whom God's withdrawal from us leaves us. And his abandonment is therefore a handing over, because the devil cannot take hold of sinners unless God withdraws from them.

But while we remain with him, or while he remains in us, there is a watchful guard and an unwearying defense. But if through lukewarmness of faith we sleep, he too sleeps with us. For there is no sleep or rest in the eternal power, whose angels are watchers both in name and in nature; for these things are necessary for earthly bodies: but because God's help will either watch or sleep with us according to our faith, watching or sleeping, therefore the Lord is often represented both as watching and as sleeping. On this pattern it is said in this same prophet: "With the holy you will be holy, and with the perverse you will be overturned." Is God not always holy, so that he should sometimes be perverse? Certainly not. For there is nothing in him but what is good and eternal: but because God is near each one according to each one's conduct and zeal, therefore he is both turned away from the perverse and holy among the holy.

And to show that the sleep of the guard comes rather from our drowsiness toward faith, and that the rest of sleep does not fit the nature of the heavenly guard, because it is unwearying and eternal, he at once joined: "Behold, he who keeps Israel will not slumber nor sleep." Having prayed above that he not slumber, now he says he will neither slumber nor sleep; signifying slumber above as coming from our departure from him, but now showing that he neither slumbers nor sleeps, because he is unwearying eternity. But who is this who neither slumbers nor sleeps? He, namely, who keeps Israel. Genesis explains that Israel is one who has seen God. For the patriarch Jacob received this name after the struggle he had had with God. Seeing God beyond human nature with the eyes of his faith, he is worthy of this name. And he so saw God that he prayed to be blessed by him. Paul too remembers that Israel is now among the people of the nations, that is, in the people of the church, saying: "Peace upon him and upon the Israel of God," lest perhaps this name be thought to have belonged only to that ancient people. So if he who keeps Israel does not sleep, and Israel is properly the name of one who sees God, he must be kept who, with eyes lifted to the mountains, saw and said: "My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." So heavenly keeping is spent on this faith, and this confession receives the defense of eternal watchfulness, a confession to be pursued, held, and kept, since the keeping of him whom we so confess never sleeps toward us.

And lest we think that the sleepless guard of someone else is shown, there is added: "The Lord will keep you," he, that is, who made heaven and earth. Then the manner of this keeping is set out: "The Lord is your protection upon the hand of your right hand." We have already said above that incorporeal things are signified by bodily ones. For the weakness of our understanding cannot reach invisible things except by comparison with visible ones: as now what is said does not reach our sense except through the name of hand and right hand, although here hand and right hand are placed contrary to the understanding of nature. For it is said thus: "The Lord is your protection upon the hand of your right hand." The matter would be simple if it had been said thus: "upon your right hand." But when it is said, "upon the hand of your right hand," a right side seems to be meant that has hands both right and left. Neither human nature nor sense admits this. But Scripture always shows the right side as the best and most useful. And indeed the gospels will show the meaning of both understandings through those who are on the right and on the left. And we take the hand to be the effect of every work. Hence that too was said by this same prophet thus: "Deliver me from the mouth of the lion, my only one from the hand of the dog." For this part of the body would not fit that barking and rabid animal; but he prays to be delivered from the works of malice. So because the powers of demons opposing us strive to weaken and wound the best and strongest works of our faith, therefore God's guard is promised to watch upon the hand of the right, so that the works of good will may persevere unharmed in us; and while these remain, we shall enjoy the kingdom of that eternal and most blessed time, with every weakness of bodily stain wiped away.

For the spirit of the prophet promises us this in what follows, saying: "By day the sun will not burn you, nor the moon by night." The nature of these elements has this effect in itself, that each of them in its own time weakens the strength of human bodies through the change of the weak substance in us, so that the sun burns with heat, the moon with cold, and their alternation through the yearly course is such that in winter the sun does not burn, while the moon burns, but relaxes; and again in the summer months the sun burns and the moon relaxes.

So I ask those who think these things are to be understood bodily what they assert the prophet promises to one who has lifted his eyes to the mountains in saying, "By day the sun will not burn you, nor the moon by night"? For while the nature of our body remains, the nature of the elements will not become changeable so that they do not continue in the custom of their nature toward our nature. Or will anyone dare to hope for himself in this age such firmness of body that he cannot be burned by night and day, when the blessed patriarch Jacob complains that he was scorched by the cold of night and the heat of day, saying: "And I was scorched by the heat of the day and the frost of the night"?

But the prophet now, or the Spirit through the prophet, knows that blessedness of the times in which every change of bodily weakness will depart from us, in which there will be no cold, no heat, no night and change, but eternal day and a blessed mildness, with the sun of righteousness ruling over us. Prefiguring the rest of that time, the Lord already in the desert tempered for his people the heat of day by the pillar of cloud and the cold and darkness of night by the pillar of fire. In this eternal and blessed mildness of the times, then, whoever has deserved the Lord's keeping will remain, so that the nature of the body is not burned by the frost of the moon and the heat of the sun, but, freed from the evils and injuries of this age, resting in eternal, blessed, and mild things, it may take on the solid and unchangeable nature of its glorified body.

Then follows: "The Lord will keep you from every evil." And from what evils will the Lord keep? Not, I think, from those that are thought evils: for these are owed to our weakness and body, to die, to be sick, to be in need; and if these were evils, Abel would be living, Job would not have been tortured, nor would Peter have lacked the money he was asked for as alms. So the Lord keeps the faithful soul from every evil, that is, so that the devil's moth may not corrupt it, the thief creep up, the dog bark, the wolf tear, the bear rage, the leopard spring, the tiger fly at, the lion lay waste. For these are now the devil's ministries, all these are his offices in the time of this age: to consume with vices, to creep up with flatteries, to tear with slanders, to spring with ambition, to fly at with lusts, and to lay waste with all the power of his strength. From all this evil, then, God's keeping must be expected. And because he rages above all against the soul, for it is our duty to fight against him in the body, since there is no victory except from a contest, there follows: "The Lord will keep your soul," so that none of the many and great evils mentioned above may have power over it.

The prophetic word kept its order, saying: "The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forth and for ever." For this keeping, not being burned by sun and moon and being preserved from every evil, does not belong to this time and age; but it is the expectation of a future good, when all the faithful, going out of the body, will be kept by the Lord's keeping for that entrance into the heavenly kingdom, meanwhile placed in Abraham's bosom, where the chasm set between prevents the impious from approaching, until the time of entering again into the kingdom of heaven comes. So the Lord will keep the going out, while those going out of the body rest, separated from the impious by the chasm set between; and he will keep the coming in, when he leads us into that eternal and blessed kingdom. For he is the one who says, "I am the door," and, "No one goes to the Father except through me," that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

One who is held by the hope of heavenly desire will find nothing obscure in this psalm; for from his own sense he will attain the understanding of the prophecy's lofty speech. For when he remembers that he is written down as a coheir of God and a sharer of eternal goods, to be renewed like the angels by the resurrection and, corruption laid aside, to be conformed to the glory of the body of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, and to be a dweller in the heavenly city built of living stones, of which it is written in the gospel, when the Lord forbade swearing by heaven, saying, "nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King" (not meaning that city which kills and stones the prophets, but that which blessed Paul the apostle mentions thus: "You are fellow citizens of the saints and members of God's household, built upon the foundation of the apostles"); and when he has read that the things that now are are in part and that we see meanwhile through a mirror and in a riddle, but when the perfect comes, what is now in part is to be done away, and we shall contemplate face to face, as with bodily sight, the things that will then be visible to us, where there is no sickness, no death, no sorrow, no terror: when anyone has recognized that these things, announced by angels, prefigured in the law, set forth by the prophets, represented by the Lord in examples, preached by the apostles, are possible for him through faith, he must cry out after the prophet's example: "I rejoiced in the things that were said to me."

But what are those things that were said, from which joy was received? Surely what follows: "We will go into the house of the Lord." From this comes gladness, from this exultation, because these things were said, that we are to go into the house of the Lord. What the house of the Lord is he taught in another psalm, saying: "For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has chosen it for his dwelling. This is my rest for ever and ever; here I will dwell, for I have chosen it": not, as we said, this earthly and perishable one, paying the penalties of its impiety, but that free and heavenly Jerusalem, which is also Zion, through whose dwelling, because it is God's house, we too are fellow citizens of the saints and members of God's household. So the joy is from this, that it has been said that we shall go into the house of the Lord.

But who said these things? Lest perhaps they not know, or be strangers to that same house into which they announce that we shall go; but they say: "Our feet were standing in the courts of Jerusalem." They do not announce uncertain things, nor promise unknown things. We have recognized this house as desired and loved by many. For Scripture says: "One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may see the will of the Lord and visit his temple"; and again: "Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house and the place of the tabernacle of your glory." This is the desirable house, this the joyful hearing: that on a foundation of twelve living gems living stones are built, hewn first for the work of building by Moses in the law, by the prophets in their sufferings, by the Lord in the body, by the apostles in their martyrdoms, by the Holy Spirit in powers. These are the builders, these the buildings, this the city. Hence the feet standing in its courts, namely the keepers, to whom the keys of this house were given (for it was said, "To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven"), announcing the form of the house to those who do not know it, blessed feet and rightly praised by the prophet: "How most beautiful are the feet of those who announce peace!"

And lest any of these things be thought to fit that Jerusalem which was earthly, there followed: "Jerusalem, which is built as a city." Not a city, but as a city; because the building of that earthly city and the construction of the temple and the setting up of the tabernacle prefigured the form of that eternal and heavenly city. And because the building of this heavenly city is to be completed through all time and until the consummation of the age and through the age of all generations, he signifies that it is being built without limit of time, saying, "is built as a city," until, as the apostle says, the fullness of the nations comes in, and then the remnant of Israel will be saved.

But because the body of the church is one, not mixed by some confusion of bodies nor with individuals united into an indiscriminate heap and shapeless mass, but through unity of faith, through the fellowship of love, through concord of works and will, through the one gift of the sacrament in all, we are all one, to which Paul exhorts us, saying: "I beseech you, brothers, that you all think the same thing, exercising the same love"; and when it shall be, as it is written, "The heart and soul of all who believed was one," then we shall be the city of God, then the holy Jerusalem, because Jerusalem is built as a city whose sharing is in the selfsame. But those who dissent from the assembly of the saints and separate themselves from the body of the church by sins, pride, and quarrels do not have a share in this holy house, because the sharing of this city is in the selfsame. For from the fellowship of a perfect city those of one mind cannot have a share in difference, but in the selfsame. All, then, who will be one will be in it. And the psalm is witness; for it says: "There the tribes went up, the tribes": not one, but many.

But perhaps the city will seem to be built by all without exception, since no exception is made in the tribes named, and there will be a common entry into this house for peoples who do not know the Lord? But Scripture does not allow this to be understood, adding to what it had said, "There the tribes went up," "the tribes of the Lord." For there are some who are not the Lord's, to whom it was said, "You are of the devil," and again, "Depart, you cursed, into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels." So the tribes that are the Lord's will go up,

But perhaps Israel will claim that this is owed to it, that is, the Israel which is according to the letter and not according to the spirit, which is fleshly and not heavenly, which crucifies the Lord, not which worships him? But it has been driven back from this hope. For there the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, "a testimony of Israel": not the tribes of Israel as a testimony to the nations, but the tribes of the Lord as a testimony to Israel. For the tribes of the Lord said: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will announce to us his way, and we will walk in it. For out of Zion will go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." For the word of the Lord, going out from Jerusalem, came to the nations. These enter the holy city, as a testimony to Israel.

To what testimony, after all? "To confess," it says, "the name of the Lord." The tribes of the Lord confess the name of the Lord. And this is the testimony of Israel. That Israel, delivered by the Lord from Pharaoh, washed in the sea, fed in the desert with the food of angels, trained in the law, rebuked in the prophets, received by the Lord at his birth through sharing a body, saved on the cross if it had believed, glorified in the resurrection if it had confessed, believed none of these things to be its own, wished none of them to remain its own. Having manna, it longed for the cucumbers of Egypt; expecting the law of life from God, it worshipped a calf; hearing the prophets, it killed them; it defamed the virgin birth prophesied to it, did not believe God in the flesh, accused the forgiver of sin as guilty of a false sin, bought him for death, raised him on the cross; it corrupted the witnesses of the resurrection into silence; it cut off the apostles by death. As a testimony of this crime of theirs the tribes of the Lord go up. To them it was promised, these obtain it. To them the covenant, but the inheritance is these tribes'. The tribes confess this one, whom they crucified, as their God. So in this testimony Israel recognizes him whom it pierced, and is kept from approaching him whom it did not believe had risen. Him the archangels worship, him all the heavenly powers serve, he makes his tribes conformed to the glory of his body. So they confess the name of the Lord, because he is God, because he is the only-begotten Son of the unbegotten. In this testimony against Israel, then, the tribes of the Lord go up into the house of the Lord, confessing the name of the Lord.

But this confession is a judgment. For Israel is judged by those to whom it was said: "You will sit on twelve judgment seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Not only these will judge, but the queen of the south will also condemn, and the Ninevites will condemn; because these repented at Jonah's preaching, and she, coming from the farthest parts of the earth, heard the wisdom of Solomon: in whom there is a prefiguring of the church, which, a stranger and unknown, both believed in repentance and desired to hear wisdom.

Here, then, will be the seat of judgment, where the tribes of the Lord will go up as a testimony to Israel to confess the name of the Lord: in the church, that is, the city of holy stones, which is the house of the Lord. For he says: "For there the seats sat for judgment, seats over the house of David." David here too, as in other places, is the Lord's name from his body. For wherever Scripture mentions the taking of a body, it is accustomed to call him David, taking his name from the parent of his flesh. Nor should confusion of understanding arise from the fact that the prophets spoke certain things in the past tense; for we have already given the reason for this in many places and often. For to God, who embraces all things in himself, future things are as done; and his foreknowledge is so faithful that things not yet done are already held by him as past and done. And then the prophet at once shows that he is speaking of things of future time.

For when he had recalled as of the past that the tribes of the Lord had gone up there and sat on the seats of the house of David, now with the feeling, as it were, of public teaching and admonition he warned about the future, saying: "Ask for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem": so as to show the certainty of foreknowledge in what he had said was done, but to keep the order of times in what was to be done. So its building is in peace, its sharing is in the selfsame, and that house is of one mind, faith, and love. So the teaching of peace must be learned. For "ask" here is a word not of praying but of inquiring, according to the proper sense of the Greek. But learning peace lies in the will of the hearers. For when they have inquired about its peace, then they will rejoice that it is said to them: "We will go into the house of the Lord."

Nor is the fruit of peace inquired after small, because there follows: "And abundance to those who love you." The love of peace expects perfect fruits and hopes for an abundant store of happy harvests. This very thing the blessing on Jacob, prefigured for the hope of the faithful, signifies; for he was blessed thus, having taken over his brother's blessings: "Behold, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field, which God has blessed." A full and fertile field, yielding a hundredfold fruit, will abound with eternal riches. And now indeed we meanwhile abound with blessed fruits, which the mystery of the church and the unity of peace supply to us as a likeness of eternal fruits. This mystery of the common hope has been shown under the names of bodily and common things, which those who know will understand. For the same prophet recalls this abundance and plenty in another psalm, saying: "You have put gladness in my heart; from the time of their grain and wine and oil they are multiplied in the selfsame." This, then, is the abundance in the selfsame. For through this abundance of peace and of the sacraments that blessed and unfailing peace and eternal abundance of heavenly goods is prepared.

Then follows: "Let there be peace in your strength, and abundance in your heavy towers." The peace and strength of this house are joined to each other. For it will not be able to do anything except in peace, since its sharing is in the selfsame, and only peace achieves being in the selfsame. And perfect strength belongs only to those who are gathered into the selfsame; and therefore he says: "Let there be peace in your strengths."

A city must consist of different kinds of buildings. For not everything is wall, gate, tower, nor everything streets, porticoes, shops, nor houses, forum, temples, palace: and as the splendors of the houses differ from one another, so too the ranks of those who live together differ. But in every kind of city nothing is firmer, more useful, or higher than towers. Scripture is accustomed to call heavy what is firm and immovable; so where it says: "Among a heavy people I will praise you." Now too, after speaking of the peace of strength, he assigned the abundance of perfect blessedness to the leaders of this eternal city as the firmest and heaviest, saying: "and abundance in your heavy towers." Above he had said, "and abundance to those who love you"; so abundance does not belong to all, but to those who love God. Then he added, "Let there be peace in your strength"; for the peace and unity of the church give us strength and firmness, according to that saying of the apostle: "And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts in Christ Jesus." Now too he recalls that this abundance, which he had promised to those who love, belongs properly to the heavy towers, signifying that whoever love are the heavy towers. By this we must understand that this abundance is not indiscriminate nor of the whole city entirely, but only of those faithful and holy men who have excelled the rest of the building of this city as with the firmness of towers.

Then follows the prophet's great feeling and the concern of loving admonition toward every believing person. For he says: "For the sake of my brothers and my neighbors I spoke peace about you; for the sake of the house of the Lord my God I sought good things for you." By his brothers and neighbors he signifies the multitude of this city, for whose sake he spoke peace about it, so that those hearing might fit themselves into the building of this city that is to be completed. But he who speaks peace about it for the sake of his brothers and kin seeks good things for that same city for the sake of God's house, saying: "For the sake of the house of the Lord my God I sought good things for you." So good things were sought for the city for the sake of the Lord's house. For distinguishing the glory of God's house from the whole of the city, since the adornment of the royal house must be put before the building of the whole city, he sought good things for that same city. For first his brothers and kin were made the Lord's city by the preaching of peace. Second, the city itself, now made up of his kin and brothers, hearing of the dignity of God's house, hastened to be itself wholly God's house. And so good things were sought for this city, while it advances from the city of the Lord into the house of God, according to that saying of the apostle: "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of the Lord dwells in you." For faithful is he who says: "Father, I ask you for these, that we may all be one, I in them, and you in me": our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

What is written in the title is brought about in fact: for by the steps of the song one climbs as from low things to high. For in the first Song of Ascents there was a cry to the Lord out of distress. Afterwards the eyes were lifted to the mountains, and it was asked from where help would come. Then, because the instruction of prophetic teaching is present to one who lifts his eyes and asks from where help comes, he rejoiced in the things said to him. But now, because he has come up to what the teaching had prepared, the prophet sings from a certain step, as it were, of his progress: "To you I have lifted my eyes, you who dwell in heaven," having the use of contemplating God by fitting increments, like one prepared, after long blindness, for the habit of the full light by small and measured intervals of light let in to him. For God, who was first called upon in distress, was sought from the prophets and gladdened them by the hearing of prophecy. But now he is to be contemplated with the eyes of the mind through the confidence of faith, dwelling in heaven.

But this heaven, which lies before our sight through its matter, which like solidified smoke received the nature and name of firmament, will pass away and will not be; but the Lord's seat remains for ever. And it is necessary that a dwelling be worthy of its dweller: and we enclose what is infinite and incorruptible in a corruptible place if we believe that God dwells in this heaven. Let us ask, then, what the dwelling of God is: surely he who said, "For the Father is in me, and I in the Father," and again, "I and the Father are one," and of whom it was said, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself": the Son being worthy and sufficient, in whom the Father dwells through the power of the same nature, while the Father does not separate from himself the Son whom he begot from himself by any difference of divinity. But we are not now speaking of the inseparable power of the Father and the Son. For God begotten from God is not absent by nature from him from whom he must be confessed to be begotten: and the unbegettable God, begetting the only-begotten God, remains in him whom he begot, by the property of begetting. And all our hope lies in knowing the only-begotten God. For as to the unbegettable God, no one is so mad as not to perceive, when he looks at the heaven, that there is a God. In this heaven, then, God dwells, a dwelling worthy of his majesty and divinity.

But there is also another dwelling pleasing to God and chosen, namely that of those of whom it was said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them, and they will be my people, and I will be their God"; of whom the apostle also says, "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you." The same apostle also says: "As was the man of clay, such are those of clay; and as is the heavenly, such are the heavenly." So the second Adam is heavenly, and heavenly for this reason, that the Word became flesh, that is, a man born from the Spirit and from God. In this Word, then, not an empty sound of the voice, but in God the Word, not in a substance differing and diverse from himself, but in the Word of God, God dwells as in heaven, namely in that which is from him and his own, abiding there; and through him dwelling also in those who are heavenly, as he himself says to the Father: "That all may be one, I in them, and you in me." So if we, who were clay in Adam, are now heavenly in Christ, and Christ is our dweller, then through Christ dwelling in us he too is our dweller, whose dwelling is Christ who dwells in us.

And because, according to bodily understanding, this sense lies within us, that God is thought to dwell in the heaven which is beyond the nature of this firmament, we do not exclude that public opinion about God's seat, that the heaven of heaven is his throne, while believing also that the dwelling worthy of God is signified in his heavenly Adam. So God must be known to dwell in this heaven too, dwelling through him also in those whom he has made heavenly in him.

But those who have lifted the eyes of the mind to God must not twist them back and turn them aside, because, as was said in the gospels, no one who looks back and holds the plough is fit for the kingdom of heaven. For leaving temples, altars, desires, lusts, and the whole depth of vices, it is fitting to persist with an unwearying and unconquered gaze. For if the nations, blind in their error, are held in false religions with unchangeable obstinacy, so that they cannot be turned back from their superstitions by the reason of truth, serving different gods, as they call them, with persevering folly, and if the soul of sinners, captured by the allurements of vices, serves most devotedly the body as though it ruled over it, how much more fitting is it for us, who know God the founder of heaven and earth, who, as he was able to give life to man from lifeless earth, so is able to raise man, given life and having died, into the fellowship of eternity, to worship him without any swerving or straying religion, and not to turn aside anywhere the steadfastness of the faith we have entered?

And the prophet teaches that these eyes of his mind are always on God with an unchangeable gaze, saying: "Behold, as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of a maidservant on the hands of her mistress, so our eyes are on the Lord our God until he has mercy on us." The prophet set forth examples and a comparison, so that, as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, so the eyes of his faith might be intent on God: because a faithful servant is anxious for every obedience to his master's will and always directs unswerving eyes. But if the discourse were about bodily servants and masters, it would have said that the eyes of servants are on the eyes or tongue or face of their masters; for orders are given to them either by a nod or by the mouth. But Scripture often signifies works by hands. And there are those who are servants neither of men nor of God, but are servants of sin, as the Lord says: "Everyone who commits sin is a servant of sin." These servants of the spiritual powers of wickedness, then, are always intent with the eyes of their mind on their works as on the hands of their masters, fixed on them with desire and admiration of vices. And these are the works of the devil, that is, of the gentiles, which are signified by hands: belly, idleness, luxury, lust, pride, greed, ambition. On these works of the pleasures under whose dominion they lie, then, they direct the eyes of their sense, they who have many gods and countless masters, according as each one's pursuit and nature has chosen for himself the author of his religion.

But for us there is one God; yet not denying to our Lord Jesus Christ, through the oneness of God, that he is God, but following the law, the prophets, the gospels, and the apostles, we profess with faith and truth the unity of divinity in the unbegettable God and in the only-begotten God, according to property and nature. For nowhere has the prophetic word named gods or lords in the plural, but each in his own order. For Genesis says: "And the Lord rained sulphur and fire from the Lord"; and the prophet: "God, your God, has anointed you"; and again: "The Lord said to my Lord"; and the gospels: "And the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; and the apostle: "One God, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things"; and again: "of whom is Christ, who is God over all." This, then, was said on account of "Lord," so that we might understand that because there is one unbegettable God, it cannot be taken from the only-begotten God that he is God. For each is one God: not because one is divided into two, or each is the same one, so that the naming alone made Father and Son, not the nature of begetting; but therefore one God, because there are neither two unbegettables nor two only-begottens, but one from one and both one, the substance of divinity in each being neither unlike nor different from itself.

Then follows: "And as the eyes of a maidservant on the hands of her mistress." The prophet kept the same order, mentioning as an example of comparison that the eyes of a maidservant too are intent on the hands of her mistress, so as to teach that these desires of servants are intent rather on the effects of works. But since many servants of many masters were set as an example, we must ask why one maidservant of one mistress was mentioned. For many servants, as we said above, belong to many gods. But now there is one maidservant and one mistress: because the nature of the human soul is one, just as the nature of the earthly flesh is one. And because the discourse is now about sinners, who are servants of sin, this maidservant, the soul, is given over to the flesh, her mistress, and subjected through the allurements of bodily vices, and has the dominion of her inferior through the kindling of enticements, looking to the fruits of its works. So, as unchangeable vices hold these servants and this maidservant, so that they persist in them with a kind of devout intent of their folly, so faith must be not temporary and changeable, nor wearied when temptations are sent, but remain unmoved and unchanged until the completion of God's mercy.

And therefore the prophet shows the steadfastness of his hope until the end, when mercy is received, saying: "So our eyes are on the Lord our God until he has mercy on us." He does not fall away, he does not give up. Though the Lord delay his mercy to test faith, faith must show a constant expectation of its confidence, and all despair is a confession of distrust. But the prophet is not uncertain of God's mercy; for his eyes are intent on him until he has mercy, and intent so much that a doubled prayer is added to their intent. For he says after this: "Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us." He is both intent and prays intently: with that perseverance with which the servants of vices linger in the vices that rule them, he perseveres in the most certain hope of eternal goods and confidence in God's perfect mercy toward him.

But there follows, as we have often learned, the heavy disparagement of the wicked and the troublesome persecution of the malicious against this hope of the faithful. For the unjust man hates that righteousness is preached by us; if we praise chastity, the unchaste is offended; drunkenness curses fasts in us. And when we exhort to generosity, the greedy man accuses our folly. When we preach Christ crucified as God, the Jew and every persecutor from the nations reproach our religion. When we await God's judgment, the kings of the world are offended and refuse God as judge of the life each has led. When we announce the resurrection, the bodies of unbelievers, dead with their vices, contradict. All the falsehoods of the heretics also attack our faith, received from the law, the prophets, the gospels, and the apostles. We are beaten, cursed, put to flight, killed by sword, flames, the deep; there is raging against our modesty, raging against our bodies; there is grief for us from our injuries. And because our injuries are death to those who inflict them, our grief is from pity for those who perish. And therefore after the doubled prayer in which he had said, "Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us," he added: "For we are greatly filled with contempt, for our soul is greatly filled": God alone being able to help against these things, so as to rescue from contempt and scorn one always intent on him until the end of mercy. And therefore he is intent until God has mercy on him, therefore he prays for God's mercy with a doubled prayer, because he and his soul are greatly filled with contempt, God alone, as we said, being able to have mercy in much contempt: and not only able to do that, but able also to turn all things to the contrary and to grant a kind of reversal of suffering.

The poor man resting in Abraham's bosom and the rich man burned in punishment are our witnesses. For the former had sat on a heap of dung before the rich man's door, wasting with hunger, flowing with the pus of sores, while dogs licked his open wounds. But this was the warfare of the body, this the fight against the world; yet within, his soul through faith was invulnerable to every dart and impassable to the vices of pleasure: and therefore after the dissolution of the flesh it is carried, blessed, by angels into Abraham's bosom. But the other, whose whole clothing was in purple, whom the nobility of the whole city served, subjected to his heavy rule, for whom the riches of air, earth, and sea were gathered for the use of his banquet, the services of all the elements serving his one belly, who had shut his door to this poor man, had denied him the crumbs falling from the table, and had reproached his presence as an insult to himself, leaving the body he had misused, is separated from the saints by an impassable chasm, is received by every ministry of punishment, grieves, is tormented, is burned, and begs to be moistened and cooled by the little finger of the poor man resting in Abraham's bosom. To him Abraham answers: "Son, remember that you received good things in your life, and Lazarus likewise evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are tormented." A reversal takes place: joy is changed into sorrow, and sorrow into joy. And let us see whether the prophet now signifies the very thing the gospel set forth.

For he says: "Reproach to the abundant and contempt to the proud." After the persecutions we mentioned above, by kings, nations, Jews, heretics, and often even our own, here too the gospel reversal has taken place, so that there is reproach to the abundant and contempt to the proud. Pride is changed into contempt and plenty into want; and again contempt is changed into pride and want into plenty, the prophet showing both by the same words. When he says, "Reproach to the abundant and contempt to the proud," either it means that those now bear reproach who will afterwards abound in the Lord's kingdom, and that those are now in contempt who will afterwards be proud through the confidence of faith; or that at the time of judgment reproach and contempt will turn back upon those who now abound and are proud in the world.

Paul glories in his weaknesses and distresses. He also commands that a judge of the powerful be chosen from the despised of the church. He and Peter set a mutual law for themselves, to remember the poor and take care of them diligently. The angels of the least see God daily; the humble will be exalted; and the best sacrifice to God is a contrite heart. So let us not cast off the humble, let us not despise the poor, let us not pass by the needy, lest we be separated from them by a deep chasm, lest they disdain to cool us with their little finger, because there is reproach to the abundant and contempt to the proud. This reversal is a change and a fitting exchange for good and bad, which he shows in the gospels, saying, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted," and again, "Woe to you who laugh, for you will weep," our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The previous psalm has given us a great shortcut; for from it one climbs into this one. For the eyes of our mind were intent on God until the end of mercy, with many contempts and reproaches surrounding us on every side. After which, the prophet shows what we, having obtained mercy and been placed from reproach into abundance and from contempt into pride, ought to do and say, saying: "Had not the Lord been among us, let Israel now say; had not the Lord been among us when men rose up against us, perhaps they would have swallowed us alive." And indeed the wording itself is such that it is understood to be the prophet's, instructing what others should say. For first the thing itself is said; then it is shown how it is to be said. And this was the order, that what was to be done should be shown, and then how far it was to be done. "Had not the Lord been among us, let Israel now say." So it was said what Israel ought to say. Of Israel we have often noted that he is to be thought one who has contemplated God with the eyes of the mind. So now, having learned according to the prophecy what he should say, Israel will speak: "Had not the Lord been among us when men rose up against us, perhaps they would have swallowed us alive." This, then, Israel will say, taking the example from the prophet, because he heard: "Had not the Lord been among us, let Israel now say."

That command is not a light one, which had to be shown by a kind of herald's announcement of the prophet going before. For in difficult matters an example is desired. For all human nature is insolent toward prosperity and, forgetful of its weakness, rejoices thoughtlessly in good fortune; which ought to be absent from a man trained in God's teaching. For what room for boasting is left to us who remember that all things are from God? If we have implanted life in ourselves, let us also owe to ourselves the form of our bodies; if we ourselves govern the rains and heats, let us boast that the yield of crops is from us; if God's mercy is not needed in all things, let us also claim all things for ourselves as if they were from us. Will the strong man boast of his strength, whom sickness of body will make weak? Will the rich man boast in his wealth, from whom perhaps a thief, a robber, a tyrant will snatch all this? Will nobility boast, made sometimes a weak and pitiable slavery? Will the wise man boast, uncertain what may befall him in a moment? But if we enjoy any of these without the interruption of some trouble, we rejoice, we are carried away. And if we return from some sadness to joy, unable to bear this very joy barely gained, we are lifted beyond the sense of human weakness, forgetful of this saying: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong man in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows that I am the Lord." So the prophet formed us, insolent from the vice of our habit, by a kind of prescribed confession, and taught us by the example of his admonition to give honor to God and to boast in him, saying: "Had not the Lord been among us, let Israel now say."

Having heard from the prophet, then, what we ought to say, let us too say: "Had not the Lord been among us when men rose up against us, perhaps they would have swallowed us alive." For having endured the persecutions of men, the impious decrees of kings, the enticing exhortations of counselors, since we remain in faith, since we abide in the fear of God, since we stay in the hope of eternal goods, helped by God's mercy, knowing that he is faithful who said, "Behold, I am with you all days until the consummation of the age," let us refer our joys to him who dwells in us, let us owe to him whatever is in us; taught by blessed Paul to think nothing our own, when he says: "What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?"; learning the modesty of giving thanks from the holy patriarch Jacob, when he says: "God, who has fed me from my youth, and the angel who rescued me from all evils."

But it is not the custom of men to devour others alive, nor does hatred go so far as to swallow flesh. Nor is the joy now about a body rescued from death, but about a soul preserved from sin and freed from the fellowship of sinners. Therefore he says that we would perhaps have been swallowed alive, that is, while still placed in the body, overrun by death and eaten by sin. For this is the death of the living: to live for luxury, sleep, sacrileges, adulteries, murders. So thanks must be given to God abiding in us, that, living by his faith and teaching, we are not swallowed by these. So the order here in thanksgiving is the same as in the iniquities. For because we shall not be swallowed by those who first rise against us, neither afterwards, when their minds are angry, shall we be engulfed by the water, the Lord protecting us.

For he says: "When their anger was kindled against us, perhaps the water would have engulfed us." But what is this? The minds of men are angry, and the water engulfs us? Do avenging waters stand ready at the movement of excited minds, or are they living things, to engulf? Those who are submerged can be drowned in water; but what is lifeless cannot engulf. So we must ask what is to be understood here. And it is necessary to remember those places in which mention of water is made. And indeed at the beginning of the book of Genesis it is written thus: "And darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God was borne over the waters"; and again: "God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between the water that is under the firmament and the water that is above the firmament"; and again: "And let the water that is above the heavens praise the Lord"; and again: "The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and were afraid." So since the law is spiritual and the faith of history is not endangered if we think that a meaning connected from outside is present in things done, we see that there are waters over which is the Spirit of God, and waters above the heavens, and waters on the earth, and waters that praise, and waters that fear. By which we rightly understand that peoples are signified by the waters, among whom some are spiritual, some dark; some heavenly, some earthly; some who will praise the glorious coming of the Lord, some who fear. These, then, are the trembling, earthly, dark waters, wishing to engulf us with minds roused to anger and moved by the whole onrush of diabolical fury, like torrents in the storm of deepest winter rushing headlong.

And so in the order of our confession to the Lord the prophet added: "Our soul has passed through the torrent; perhaps our soul would have passed through an immense water." Behold the rushing assaults of the devil and his own, their onslaughts roused and raging from turbulent movements, and the torrents of a temporary storm; but this unbearable water does not pass over the soul in which God dwells. It is unbearable to those empty of God; but to those in whom God is, it is a sudden torrent, and after a little dry and exhausted, so that it can be crossed.

And so that no sense about waters should be here, there follows: "Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth." And what are the teeth of these torrents? They are surely violent for tearing and seizing: anger, desire, lust, hatred, gluttony, greed. These are evil and tenacious teeth. For through these they rule over us, captured and torn, while they make us either ministers or partners of their vices: by which not our flesh but our soul would be devoured, if God were not in us.

For he says: "Our soul has been rescued like a sparrow from the snare of the fowlers." Those who hunt set out snares secretly and deceitfully, either hidden in valleys or covered with grass or concealed with food or colored like the clouds. And these indeed are against beasts and other birds; but against us they are prepared against the soul. For there is a snare for us in leisure, money, ambition, lust. These are set out, these flatter, these deceive; but our will must be drawn back from all these. For these snares are set out for all, as it is written: "For not unjustly are nets set out for birds." For it is perfect glory to fly away from these snares that have been set out.

Then the psalm says thus: "Our soul has been rescued like a sparrow from the snare of the fowlers": certainly not of those who hunt, but of those for whose hunting the snares have been set. For it is not when one falls into the snare that he becomes a sinner, but, while they are set for all, the one who is already a sinner is in the snare; as it is written: "The eye of a harlot is the snare of the sinner." So we must abstain from all sins, lest we fall into the snare. For we are spiritual and fly away like sparrows. The sparrow is a domestic bird and a dweller in buildings, not passing nor seasonal, but staying without any change or regard to season. So let us, dwelling in the church without change of seasons, abstain from sins, so that we may fly away from the snares. For the snare is broken through God who dwells in us; because it follows thus: "The snare is broken, and we are set free. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth." By this help the snare is broken, by this help we are set free in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth: which is namely the name above every name, at which every knee will bend, of things in heaven, 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.

Many make obscurity for us, wishing to judge the prophetic Scriptures by the judgment of the ears alone and to understand nothing in them other than what is heard under the individual words for each thing. When they wish this, they will leave us nothing to understand, nor will they establish that the prophets spoke reasonably, I do not say heavenly things, but not even earthly ones. For what will be treated fittingly by us, or be thought rightly said by them, when we hear of waters praising, seeing, fearing, and clapping their hands, unless we show from the authorities of the same Scriptures that under the name of waters something else of another kind is signified? Namely what is living and sensing and moves itself by its own motion and sense to judge each thing: which will be understood to be man, praising, seeing, fearing, clapping, judging. For the prophetic word has set out that these kinds of human feeling are in waters; and since their nature does not fit waters, neither did the prophet speak of waters nor do we understand it to be said of waters. This should be gone over again because of what is in the present psalm, which is as follows.

"Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion; he who dwells in Jerusalem will not be moved for ever. Mountains are round about it." If the name of Mount Zion, the dwelling of Jerusalem, and the mountains around it have no ground of inner understanding, the psalm is empty and the prophet, in whom the Holy Spirit is believed to have spoken, a liar. For Mount Zion overhangs the city of Jerusalem; it is the city around which there are many mountains outside. What progress, then, will one who trusts in the Lord have, to be like Mount Zion? To become, from a rational man, a rock, a tree, a sod, and be brought from a living nature into a lifeless one? And how is this saying faithful, that he who dwells in Jerusalem will not be moved for ever? Did Jerusalem itself bring sanctification to its inhabitants, so that dwelling there was eternal firmness, since from there came the sacrilegious slaughter of the prophets, the sentence of death against the Lord, the flight of the apostles, the scandal of the cross? And how often were its inhabitants captured, how often killed? Finally the same city was utterly destroyed, and those left from its devastation were taken and scattered, the prophet announcing this destruction beforehand for its impiety thus: "Your land is deserted, your cities burned with fire, strangers devour your country before your eyes, and the daughter of Zion will be left desolate and overthrown by foreign peoples, like a booth in a vineyard and like a watchman's hut in a cucumber field." So the saying is empty, the prophecy empty, which also added: "Mountains are round about it, and the Lord is round about his people from this time forth and for ever." Jerusalem is overthrown, its people are extinct, its remnants are scattered; today it is not inhabited; no priest, no prophet, no prince; but it is crushed, deserted, without fruit. And how will its dwelling not be moved for ever? And how is the Lord round about its people from this time forth and for ever? So it cannot seem to be prophesied of the city from which the truth of the prophecy will disagree. It follows, then, that we must ask to whom the meaning of the words applies.

And first we must notice that mention is made of no other mountain than Zion. For we read that there is the mountain of the Lord, Horeb, to which Moses first came after he had gone through many things; and the mountain of God, Sinai, on which the law of the people was written. There is also Zion, the mountain overhanging Jerusalem. But because there is no fruit of prophecy in this mountain, we must see what is to be understood by the mountain. And we have Isaiah as the best guide of understanding. For after he had above signified the lofty mountain of the Lord, to which the nations would come, he says: "Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I lay in the foundations of Zion a stone, splendid, chosen, a cornerstone, precious, in its foundations; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." And there is no doubt that the apostle signified Christ as the foundation, by which that blessed church of the Lord's body, whose foundation is Christ, seems to be signified by the mountain. The same apostle also calls it Jerusalem, saying: "The Jerusalem that now is, is in slavery with her children; but the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother." So we have the Lord's Mount Zion, and we have the city of God, Jerusalem; and the interpretation of the name Zion is "watchtower." So we understand the Lord as the mountain in Daniel, from mountain to stone and again from stone to mountain; for being in the form of God he emptied himself and took the form of a servant, and through his passion, having laid the world low with its superstitions and errors, he is in the glory of God the Father and is God over all; emptied from mountain into stone because of the weakness of the flesh, made again from stone into mountain because of the glory of the passion: a mountain eminent and lofty, in which, through his taking of our flesh and body, we behold ourselves.

For in him we are, contemplating our resurrection in the resurrection of our body in him: for Zion is a watchtower. Let the Hebrew language, in which it was said, speak this interpretation: Mount Zion is the mount of watching. Let Paul too speak and say: "But our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await our Savior, who will transform the body of our humiliation, conformed to the body of his glory"; and let him say again: "And when we were dead in sins, he made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him and seated us in the heavenly places." Let the gospel too say: "As many as received him, to them he gave power to become sons of God." Let the prophet too now say: "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion; he who dwells in Jerusalem will not be moved for ever." Let us follow the apostle, let us follow the gospel, let us follow the prophet. Let us trust in the Lord, so that we may be conformed to the glory of God's body. Let us dwell now in the church, the heavenly Jerusalem, so that we may not be moved for ever. For dwelling in this we shall dwell also in that; because this is the form of that; for we know in part and prophesy in part, and now we see through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face. But both this is heavenly and that is heavenly; both this is Jerusalem and that is Jerusalem; and that indeed is the church of a multitude of thronging angels: but there is the church of the firstborn, and there is the church of spirits founded in the Lord. So we must be founded in the Spirit, and those who dwell in this must stand, not run about, as it was said to Moses: "But you, stand here with me." Let us not wander in rushing about, nor be uncertain in our ways, nor fly off with the wind of empty teaching. For we must remain for ever, if we stand without being moved.

But those who wish to stand do not lack the guards of the saints nor the defenses of angels. For it is said: "Mountains are round about it, and the Lord is round about his people from this time forth and for ever." For according to the previous examples we shall think these mountains to be those who rise above the lowliness of the earth, firm, lofty, and immovable. For since we read that the mountain signifies the church, that is, the Lord in the body, and we find that the mountains of God exult and rejoice, for it is written, "The mountains skipped like rams," how can we not understand that those are signified as mountains who, glorious above earthly nature, already exult in the things of God?

And lest we believe there is light protection in the apostles, or the patriarchs and prophets, or rather in the angels, who surround the church with a kind of guard, there was added: "And the Lord is round about his people from this time forth and for ever." But perhaps the guard of apostles or angels may be thought sufficient. That is indeed so; but let us hear Moses too. For when the Lord had said to him, "Behold, my angel will go before you," he answered: "Unless you walk with me, do not send me away from here." The protection of angels is good, but that of the Lord is better. Our soul is sought by many snares, many arms are fought with against us. Neither earth nor seas nor air is free from danger to our faith. The rare gems of the unknown sea seize our eyes, the gold of the earth occupies the mind; the spiritual wickednesses and powers of this air fly around us with the familiar allurements of our death, lying in wait through the troubles of present life, through the manners and wantonness of another's will, that we may be angry, may hate, may love: we are watched and sought on every side. So the Lord, knowing that our fight is not against flesh and blood but against the mighty ones of this world and spiritual wickednesses, says, completing the gospels: "Behold, I am with you all days until the consummation of the age." For he is present; and when he is faithfully called upon, he is present by his nature. For he is Spirit, penetrating and containing all things. For he is not bodily, as we are, so that when he is present somewhere he is absent from elsewhere; but by a present power, extending itself wherever anything is, since he is in all things by his Spirit filling all things, he nevertheless stands by the one who believes in him. For he will be present even with three or two gathered in his name, and he is round about all his people from this time forth and for ever.

But what does it mean that he is round about his people from this time forth and for ever? "Because he will not leave the rod of sinners upon the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to iniquity." By the rod power should be understood; for it is the emblem of power. Moses received a rod by which he could do all things; there was also the rod of Aaron. But there was also the rod of Pharaoh, and the rod of Nebuchadnezzar. So the Lord guards us round about, lest the rod of sinners be left upon our lot. Tribulations come, but they do not remain; persecutions come, but they do not persist. Many want to bring the freedom of our faith into captivity, but no one rules over our confession, which we have in Christ. For the rod of the sinner will not be left upon our lot. For the Lord is round about his people for ever, lest, conquered and wearied by the rule of the rod, we stretch out our hands to iniquity. But when the rod has fallen, it will be taken away; and when the sinner has pressed upon us, he will not be left. Whatever we suffer from God's adversaries is short: and it has victory and reward, though it does not have the labor of a long battle. The Lord is present. Even if some force compels, let us keep our hands from iniquities, let us not stretch out our works to sins, because, with the Lord set round about us, the rod of the sinner will not be left to remain.

After this the prophet turns to pray for a reward from the Lord for the one who has kept his hands from iniquity: "Do good, Lord, to the good and to the upright of heart," signifying uprightness both of deed and of will in both. For many do a good work either for the favor of men, or because of danger and fear of the deed. But unless we are good from the will, even if we seem good to men, we are not good to God, because perfect goodness consists in the feeling of an upright heart.

But as reward is present for the good, so it is not absent for the evil. For there follows: "But those who turn aside to bonds the Lord will lead away with those who work iniquity." Here too the saying has a double meaning: of those who turn aside to bonds and of those who work iniquities. Those who turn aside turn from one thing to another, that is, from the good works of an upright heart into bonds. And what shall we think the bonds are? Surely those the prophet warned to be loosed, saying: "I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord; but loose every bond of iniquity, undo the bonds of violent exchanges." So if anyone, turning aside from God's precepts, binds himself with these bonds, he will be led away with those who work iniquity, the transgressor and the unjust man being destined to the same punishment of sentence. For one who works iniquity is a stranger to the law; but one who turns aside from the law transgresses the law in which he remained before.

So we must not turn aside to bonds; nor must our freedom be put into the knots of the world and the chains of worldly business. Blessed Paul knows that those who are loosed must not be bound, when he says: "Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a binding." And he did not mean this of a criminal chain of necessary binding. But there are other chains which hinder our faith, bind it, and tie it to themselves: above all the labor of increasing money and the insincere profit of trading. For these so bind with sins, oaths, and dealings that they hold us captured and possessed for themselves. From these, then, every mind, will, and pursuit must be loosed, because those who turn aside to bonds will be led away together with those who work iniquity.

And Israel will be peaceful, the rod of the sinner not being left upon him; but remaining in perfect faith and eternal hope he will hear it said to him for his portion: "Peace upon Israel." For he is our peace, who has made both one, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Were there not in the psalms certain prophecies of such a kind that they do not fit the affairs and men of the times in which they were written, many would surely dare to think that nothing in the psalms was spoken spiritually, and would think that we search out certain invented assertions and false interpretations, by which we might seem to have understood something higher and deeper than the sense of others, as though we fit what is written to our sense, and do not rather attain from what is written the sense of a careful and anxious understanding. For the Scripture of the law remains, completed by the prophets in times before the Lord was present, published by the Jews, handled by kings, received by the nations, but understood and proved by Christians.

This will perhaps be thought insolent. It is plainly insolent if we claim this glory for ourselves, if we wish so much to be allowed to our weakness, that we, fools to the world, the refuse of the world, and madness to its wise men, should boast of understanding things hidden for so many times, obscure for so many ages of the human race, in understanding which kings labored in vain and the very teachers and masters of the law erred. But nevertheless we understand, because he is no liar who said, "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you"; and it is written that he who said, "For all things had to be fulfilled that are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms concerning me," then opened their mind so that they might understand the Scriptures, and said to them: "For thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations." So what we understand is not from ourselves, but from him who made what was unknowable understood. So understanding is to be hoped for from him who will open to those who knock, show to those who seek, and not refuse to those who ask.

For how can this psalm be understood, which disagrees with the history of events? For nowhere is the captivity of this people written of up to the times of David, but long after, when Solomon his son held the kingdom, Israel was captured and served the Assyrians, then Judah the Babylonians. How then does David pray in this psalm as one captured? Or how does he rejoice that captivity has been turned away from him, saying: "When the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, we became as those comforted. Then our mouth was filled with joy and our tongue with exultation. Then they will say among the nations: The Lord has done great things for them"? But although it is pious to think that the change of the future captivity was foretold according to the knowledge of prophecy, and that things which would certainly be done were recalled as done through faith in their doing, yet the force of the sayings and words does not now allow us to understand the rejoicing over that return which was granted after the Babylonian captivity: especially since a heavier captivity afterwards followed that same return, and it is unworthy of the prophet to rejoice, as if in ignorance, as though all reproach of captivity had been removed, when captivity was repeated with an unchangeable reproach. But the whole psalm now is, as we shall show by explaining each thing, the rejoicing of the soul returning from the captivity of vices into the freedom of the knowledge of God.

And indeed bodily captivity is heavy, which, the right of freedom lost, is subjected to the dominion of the conquerors. And then bodies indeed serve, but the freedom of the faithful soul is in no way captured. Witnesses for me are the three youths singing amid the flames, witness Daniel in the hunger of the lions, filled with the prophet's meal, witness Eleazar, free by his fathers' laws amid the decrees of masters, witnesses the seven martyrs with their aged mother giving thanks to God amid new torments of death. But how much more unhappy is the captivity of the soul! If greed has captured it, it robs and plunders through the body; if lust has conquered, it shares its slavery with the body; if luxury, anger, hatred, rashness, drunkenness, envy have subdued it, under these masters ruling it both soul and body serve in common: and so captivity of the body follows the captivity of the soul. But the nobility of a religious soul despises the condition of the body. The service is hard, yet not wholly pitiable for a man, since there is service even by slaves: but how unhappy is the captivity of the soul!

The greedy man, about to lose himself, fears to lose his money; busy, gloomy, anxious, without any rest, he is always held by fear of loss; he is forgetful of honor, heedless of friendships, a fugitive from humanity, ignorant of religion, wholly hating goodness. But he whose mistress is lust, in what mud of disgrace does he wallow! He hangs on the occasions for adulteries; anxious about the secret thefts of his lust, he is wholly given to harlots with eyes, mind, and body. Seeing and hearing daily the human laws against adulterers, he plans adultery in the very forum; what he does, he fears; what he fears, he does not flee. And what is more unhappy than the dominion of drunkenness? To pour into the belly beyond its capacity, to begrudge the body its office, to take reason from the sense, not to speak, not to remember, not to stand, and to impose a kind of death on a sound nature? How disgraceful is the motion of the raging, the onrush of rashness, the goad of hatreds, the anxiety of envy? How great, then, is the confusion, how great the calamity of those who serve the evils mentioned above!

But if, having learned the teaching of wisdom and the preaching of God, the forgiveness of all sins, the resurrection of bodies, the fellowship of eternity, and the heavenly kingdom, we pass from the masters above, from greed to generosity, migrate from lusts to continence, return from drunkenness to fasts, fly from rage, rashness, hatred, and envy to gentleness, reason, mercy, and kindness, learning all these from the law, the prophets, the gospels, and the apostles, and singing from the law, "The Lord who crushes wars, the Lord is his name," learning from the prophet, "I am he who made heaven and earth from nothing," believing from the gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," proclaiming from the apostle, "who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were established in heaven and on earth," and when the nations marvel at our conversion from vices to virtues, from ignorance of God to confession of him, then we shall testify that the prophecy of the psalm can be understood by us, saying: "When the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, we became as those comforted. Then our mouth was filled with joy and our tongue with exultation. Then they will say among the nations: The Lord has done great things for them." For God turned back our captivity through the forgiveness of sins. For he freed the soul from the dominion of vices, not reckoning former offenses, renewing us into new life and transforming us into the new man, establishing us in the body of his flesh. For he himself is the church, containing it all in himself through the mystery of his body. Zion did not exist before it was freed; but Zion is what has been freed. The name agrees with freedom. For it is the name not of a remaining but of a turned-back captivity.

As for his saying, "We became as those comforted," Paul too remembers that he is meanwhile as one comforted, saying: "Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death?"; he who now knows in part and prophesies in part, and who knows that Jerusalem is laid up for us in heaven, and when he says: "To be dissolved is better for me, and to remain with Christ." We are indeed now comforted, because the Lord says: "He will send you another Comforter." When he says "another," he teaches that he himself remains. For it remains; for the whole creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God. That revelation is consummated comfort. But now it is "as" comfort; not lacking it meanwhile, though the perfection of its consummation remains for us.

Our mouth too is filled with joy and our tongue with exultation; for the services of our tongue and mouth are not sufficient to render praises to God. We have changed crimes into innocence, vices into virtues, ignorance into knowledge, death into immortality: and this by God's doing, giving the grace of repenting and the beginnings of new goods. For which time is more desirable to us? That in which we committed adultery, or that in which we would rather have been virgins? That in which we were drunk, or that in which we rejoice in fasts? That in which we served money, or that in which money serves our kindness? That in which we worshipped demons, or that in which we command demons? That in which we longed to please the world, or that in which we conquer the world? That in which we did not know God, or that in which we are prepared as heirs to God?

The nations, beholding this faith of our hope, say: "The Lord has done great things for them." Seeing this change of vices into virtues, they marvel at God's magnificence toward us. We too, from the sense of this blessedness we have gained, confess the very same thing in the joy of the mouth and the exultation of the tongue: "The Lord has done great things with us; we have become glad." For we rejoice that we have been washed from deep and pitiable mud and have been made new from all the vices of our former life.

And because the prophet was speaking of the joys of future hope, although according to the custom of Scripture he rejoiced as over things past, yet by the following prayer he declares that these things are not of his own time, saying: "Turn back, Lord, our captivity." If he was as one comforted when the captivity was turned away, how does he now pray that it be turned away from him? But above, the word was that of prophetic knowledge, announcing future joys as past; but now it is a common prayer about things to be turned away, in which the prophet joins himself as though he too were captive, as though he recognized that he is still in the same things. For it is written: "The righteous man at the beginning of his speech is his own accuser," and again: "Confess your sins first, that you may be justified," and: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." The prophet indeed knows himself free; but he is subject to God as one captive, either through the discipline of his own confession, because where there is confession of sin, there is also justification from God, as the Lord testified in the tax collector and the Pharisee, when the Pharisee boasted that he was righteous, but the tax collector prayed for his sins; for he says: "Truly I say to you, the tax collector was justified rather than the Pharisee"; either, then, the prophet prays that the common captivity be turned back for this reason, or because he knew that the whole people was captured by sins; and as, with the apostle, the whole body suffers with one member, so the prophet is captive together with the people captured by sins.

But he shows that it is good for him to pray for his captivity, saying: "Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. Going, they went and wept, casting their seeds; but coming, they will come in exultation, carrying their sheaves." What word is this to the Jews, that their captivity should seem prophesied in this psalm? And what reason does it have for the common custom of the human race? For who ever wept while sowing? Or do the Jews have the practice of such lamentable sowing from the law? So this was never written or done anywhere, but it is a prophecy joined to the sayings above. The holy apostle Paul taught that there are two sowings, of the flesh and of the spirit, showing and listing the seeds of each sowing: since the flesh sows adulteries, sorceries, revelries, drunkenness, greed, idolatry, and the like, while the spirit sows peace, joy, continence, love, sobriety, gentleness, and what follows from these, and each one will reap what he has sown. Since, then, the best sacrifice to God is a contrite heart, and blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted, and each one will reap what he has sown, about to bring the fruits of his works to the judgment like a sheaf, we must sow with confession of sins, with mourning over bodily weakness, with lament and grief of our conscience, that we can in no way worthily fulfil God's precepts according to the purpose of the will. Then what we have sown in tears we shall reap in joy; and having gone weeping we shall come with exultation, filled with our fruits and sheaves, laden with the harvest we have worked for, comforted through Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The present psalm demands that we apply careful attention to the circumstances both of the times and of the prophecy, lest perhaps a mere outward appearance of the words, and that very sequence of bodily events, lure us into an empty understanding: especially since many, not knowing the inner reasons of prophetic teaching, suppose with a Jewish sense that these songs of ascents contain a prophecy of times now past, so that what was foretold is the captivity of Jerusalem that happened in the days of Jeremiah, and what is prophesied is the rejoicing at that same captivity's being removed again, and that what these psalms express belongs to those times, whether the grief of servitude or the joy of return. We do not reject this sense, nor do we refute their understanding. For it is fitting that the Spirit of the prophet should, according to the knowledge of providence, speak beforehand of the pitiable fall of the people, the punishment due to its impiety, the satisfaction, after long servitude, sufficient for grave sins, and God's merciful will toward them in granting their return.

But since a heavier and unremitting captivity followed upon the return from that captivity, and the rebuilding of the recovered city is succeeded by a pitiable and unchangeable devastation; and since they know that the glory of a spiritual return is reserved for the remnant of Israel, and that the building of the heavenly and holy Jerusalem is being prepared until the times of the blessed kingdom of the Lord; and above all since the hope of those days and the substance of them are attested by the force and character of all these psalms: I do not understand why they would have the grief of the prophecy concern only perishable and changeable evils and not also eternal ones, and why they understand the joy shown to be joy over temporal things, and over things that were afterward to be changed into the gravest calamities, rather than over unchangeable and eternal things, since it is more worthy of prophetic magnificence to have proclaimed what is blessed, eternal, and heavenly. Although, then, the preceding psalms have been shown to contain a captivity that is not only bodily and earthly, just as a freedom that is not perishable, not present, not of this world, yet this psalm too is understood to contain nothing earthly, nothing lowly, nothing suited to past times. Rather, according to prophetic, evangelical, and apostolic authority, it foretells all those hopes toward which the longing of the patriarchs, the expectation of the saints, the faith of the apostles, the confession of the martyrs, and the course of all believers stretch out: that is, toward the holy times, toward residence and fellowship in the eternal city, toward the blessedness of the Lord's kingdom, toward the new glory of spiritual freedom, toward partnership in divine eternity and kingdom. And so that this may be understood more completely, let us treat the force and the proper meanings of the words themselves.

"Unless the Lord build the house for himself, they have labored in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guard the city, they have kept watch in vain who guard it. It is vain for you to rise at dawn." Many hold that Solomon, while intent on building the city and the temple, at the very time of his construction prophesied the overthrow of the city and temple he was founding, since the title too shows him to be the author of this psalm. For with great resources and all the wealth of his kingdom he was attempting to accomplish something magnificent and worthy of God; for, as it is written, as many as one hundred and fifty thousand men were occupied in the various uses and services of the building. And although, when everything was completed, the greatest care for guarding the city and the temple had to be applied by the practice he had himself established, yet, since he was not unaware that the work of so great a labor would prove vain, and that this same city would be torn down by the Babylonians because of the sins of the people, they say he spoke these words: "Unless the Lord build the house for himself, they have labored to no purpose who build it." They think, moreover, that this prophecy was fulfilled in the times when, after the captivity, King Darius granted the people their return, and the city was rebuilt by Zorobabel and Josedec.

The completion of the building itself could refute their poor sense. For through the prophet Haggai the Lord spoke thus to these same restorers of Jerusalem: "Yet once more I shake heaven and earth and sea and dry land, and I will overturn the thrones of kings." The force of the psalm, then, is to be understood as fitting not only the times of Solomon but also those of Haggai. For the labor of both buildings is vain: the city built by Zerubbabel today offers nothing of itself but the ash of its burning and the ugliness of shapeless ruins. And these thrones of kings, which the builders thought they were restoring for the glory of an eternal kingdom, a repeated devastation has overturned, while the throne of the other kingdoms is still to be overturned.

Rightly, then, did the prophet prophesy that the works of the human race are empty. He knows that the watches of human guards are useless; he knows that the morning cares of those who rise early are to no purpose. The city, both founded by him and restored by others, is now nothing: neither the first building nor the later one availed. And rightly is he himself the prophet of the city's overthrow who had been the author of its construction. The house, then, that is to remain must be built by God, because unless it is built by the Lord it will not remain. The city must be guarded by God so that it may not perish, because unless the city is guarded by God it will be torn down. And first let us understand what the house of God is, so that through this it may be known in what way, being built by him, it is to remain.

A house is the dwelling of one who dwells in it. For the divine word adapts itself to the habit and nature of our understanding, fitting the common names of things to the expression of its teaching and instruction; for it speaks to us, not to itself, and therefore uses our words in speaking. Our custom, indeed, has been to call the assemblies of the churches, or in those days of the temple, which the enclosures of buildings shut in for the secret worship of the mysteries, either the house of God or the temple; and Scripture too, prophetic or apostolic, has used these names to designate places. But we are taught by his own words that this, which is so called by us and among us, is not the house of God. For he says: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth the footstool of my feet: what house will you build for me, or what will be the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?" The infinite God, then, is not shut in by the houses of buildings, nor is the boundless power that made all things contained in any places, as the apostle testifies to this very thing: "God, who made the world and all that is in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands."

Has God, then, no rest, no dwelling? And perhaps one who is nowhere is not believed to exist at all. Let us hear him, then, testifying of his own rest and dwelling; for he says: "This is my rest for ever and ever; here I will dwell, for I have chosen it." He chose Zion. But surely not that Zion about which the present prophecy makes its complaint: "Unless the Lord build the house, they have labored in vain who build it"? Zion, in which the temple had been, has been overthrown: and where is the Lord's eternal throne? Where his everlasting rest? What temple is habitable for him? Surely that of which it is said: "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you." This is the house and this is the temple of God, full of God's teachings and virtues and, by holiness of heart, able to receive the divine indwelling, to which this same prophet has testified thus: "Your holy temple, wonderful in equity." Holiness, holiness, human self-control is a temple for God.

The house, then, must be built by God. For one constructed by human works does not endure, nor does one founded on the teachings of the world stand firm, nor will it be guarded by the empty care of our labor and anxiety. It is to be constructed otherwise, and guarded otherwise: it is not to be begun on flowing, slipping sand, but its foundation is to be laid on the prophets and apostles. It is to be enlarged with living stones, held together by the cornerstone, and built up by the growth of mutual joining into the perfect man and the measure of the body of Christ, and adorned also with the beauty and grace of spiritual gifts. Built thus by God, that is, by his teachings, it will not fall. The building of this house captive Israel will now attain after the fullness of the Gentiles. This house grows into many houses, through the various buildings of the faithful in each one of us, for the adornment and spaciousness of that blessed city.

Of this city the Lord has long been the watchful guardian: when he protects Abraham the stranger, when he spares Isaac who was to be sacrificed, when he enriches Jacob in his service, when he sets Joseph, who had been sold, over Egypt, when he strengthens Moses against Pharaoh, when he chooses Joshua as leader in wars, when he frees David from all dangers, when he rewards Solomon with the gift of wisdom, when he stands by the prophets, when he catches up Elijah, when he chooses Elisha, when he feeds Daniel, when he bedews the youths in the furnace, when he stands as a fourth beside the three; when, in being born of the virgin, he instructs Joseph through an angel, strengthens Mary, sends John ahead, chooses the apostles, and prays to the Father, saying: "Holy Father, keep them; while I was with them, I kept them in your name"; when at last, after his passion, he promises the watches of his eternal guarding over us, saying: "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age." This is the eternal guard of that blessed and holy city, which, from many coming together into one and in each one of us, is a city for God. For this is the possession pleasing to him: a holy body and a faithful soul.

That it is to be built by the Lord, he himself testifies in the Gospels, saying: "Amen I say to you, you will not complete the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes." And the blessed apostle recalls this time and this building, saying: "But when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then what remains of Israel will be saved." These cities, then, that is, the dwelling and fellowship of each holy body and soul pleasing to God, have this one craftsman of their perfected dwelling. This city, then, must be built by the Lord, so that it may grow toward the increase of its completion; for a building begun is not yet perfection, but through building the completion of perfection is attained.

In building these houses of bodies and cities of souls, however, human arts are idle. For all the watches of the philosophers are empty, their anxieties idle, and their zeal in investigating the secrets of nature and searching out the labors of the world is frustrated. Such work builds a house that will soon fall. Empty too will be their morning resurrection. Although it has been appointed for all bodies that have come into the light, those that have not been built by the Lord will in no way attain the glory of the morning resurrection that has already begun in the Lord rising from the dead.

And so that the psalm might admit no notion of an earthly and bodily understanding, it teaches by the very order of its words the time of this perfection and the meaning of the things to be built. For after rejecting human buildings, earthly guards, and their rising in the morning, it says: "Rise after you have sat, you who eat the bread of sorrow. When he has given sleep to his beloved, behold, the inheritance of the Lord are sons, the reward of the fruit of the womb." No room for doubt is left in these words: only the faith of understanding is needed, for the words speak the thing itself. Events afterward fulfil the truth of the prophecy, and the teaching of the Gospels and apostles supplies the knowledge of the events. The city, then, that is to remain must be built by God, since human building is weak and perishable. And lest we think this city is stones, mortar, and timber, it teaches what this city is and when the city will be perfect, saying: "Rise after you have sat." Sitting is the rest of those who are at rest; from it those are commanded to rise who are to be fitted for this perfect city.

And who, pray, are these who are commanded to rise after they have sat? Surely "you who eat the bread of sorrow." He eats the bread of sorrow who remembers that he is a man born in vices and living in them. For while our will, through fear of God and hope of eternal things, strives toward the perfect works of innocence, and on the other hand a kind of natural habit of vices holds us back in those very things from which we struggle to emerge, we receive the sorrow of life through the weakness of a will left helpless, according to the saying of the prophet: "He who adds knowledge adds sorrow." For since the knowledge of truth urges our will to advance toward gaining what is profitable, and the habit of nature holds back the will that knows it ought to advance, progress in knowledge is progress in sorrow: it grieves at being held back by nature in the same measure as it understands, through knowledge, that nature must be left behind. Hence, then, is the sorrow of life; hence is the bread of sorrow. This same prophet recalls this life and sorrow, saying: "You will feed us with the bread of tears, and give us tears to drink in measure." Yet we must always strive and never cease, nor must we fail to press toward perfection because we grieve that what we strive for cannot be reached; rather, in the very persistence of striving, we must grieve that we cannot reach what we strive for. The Lord recalls this sorrow, saying: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," granting the blessedness of comfort on account of the mourning and sorrow over a completion not yet attained.

The very order of the words, arranged in time, has kept the prophetic force, when it says: "Rise after you have sat." One of these is in the present, that is, "rise," so that faith might not hesitate as about uncertain and doubtful things, since the truth of the prophetic admonition brought, as it were, a present effect and instilled in us while still alive the confidence of an unhesitating hope. But the time of this command, which is present, he deferred to the future in saying: "when you have sat." In the commands, which are not to be doubted, lies the truth of the present; in the attaining of them, the dispensation of a time to be awaited is reserved.

And so that they may know when they are to rise, once they have sat, the fullness of the time itself has been shown: "When he has given," it says, "sleep to his beloved." God very often calls the death of the saints sleep, as to David himself: "When you have fallen asleep and rested with your fathers, then I will raise up from your seed one who will be to me a son and to whom I will be a father"; and the Lord says of Lazarus: "Lazarus is sleeping"; and the apostle says of those who will rise: "For we who are alive will not go before those who have fallen asleep." So when the fullness of the Gentiles has been received into the sleep of death and the remnant of Israel has been saved, then after this sitting and sleep comes the time of resurrection. And since, while the fullness of the times is being concluded, the fullness of the Gentiles who are to believe will also, according to the apostle, be completed, he therefore says: "When he has given sleep to his beloved," showing that the time for those sitting to rise is also the time for giving sleep to the beloved, that is, when all the fullness has already been received.

What the sleeping beloved and the sitting who will rise are, he shows at once, with a certain indication of a present thing, saying: "Behold, the inheritance of the Lord." The saints, namely those sleeping and those sitting who will rise, are the inheritance of the Lord: not that carnal Jacob, nor the earthly Israel that became a portion and the measured lot of inheritance by the division of the nations, according to Moses, who says: "When the Most High divided the nations according to the number of the angels of God, and Jacob became the Lord's portion, Israel the measured lot of his inheritance." And since this Israel, because of its impiety, no longer deserves to be the inheritance, he shows what the inheritance is, saying: "Behold, the inheritance of the Lord are sons, the reward of the fruit of the womb." The Lord's inheritance, then, is in the sons, which he has received from the reward of the fruit of the womb. For this fruit is not empty, by which God, remaining what he was before, is born from a virgin's womb. For his reward is the inheritance, and the inheritance is the sons. "As many," it says, "as received him, to them he gave power to become sons of God"; and again: "Little children, yet a little while I am with you." These sons, then, are the inheritance, and this inheritance is the reward of the fruit of the womb. The Lord, then, is the fruit of the womb, whom the virgin brought forth, bearing him from herself as the fruit of our life. And this is his reward who willed, by being born of a virgin, to be the fruit of the womb: that the nations, which he would beget as sons through faith, should be his inheritance.

That he received this reward of the inheritance because he became the fruit of the womb, another psalm testifies, saying: "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession"; and the apostle testifies, saying: "Who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man; he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father." This, then, is the reward of the fruit of the womb, which is given in a name, conferred in honor, bestowed in glory. And the birth in human weakness, taken up by his immortal nature, has this recompense: that, because he himself became the fruit of the womb, his reward too should become the inheritance of the nations, and the inheritance itself should be the sons.

Then follows: "As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so are the sons of the shaken off." The use of arrows is this: that once loosed they are carried in swift flight and directed in an unswerving line to whatever target is set. That there are arrows the Lord uses, we read thus, when it says: "He sent his arrows and scattered them." In Isaiah too it is written thus, which perhaps may also be understood as said of the Lord himself: "And he made me like a chosen arrow and hid me in his quiver, and said to me: It is a great thing for you to be called my servant." Such, then, are God's arrows, swift in flight, faithful in striking: by which, as spiritual reasoning shows, we must understand to be meant the prophetic and apostolic teachings in which the word of God is, sent everywhere, piercing, convicting, flying.

Although we recall that in very many places there are also deadly and lethal arrows, of which it is written: "He has made his arrows for those who will burn," yet here nothing can be understood as said of avenging arrows, since it now says: "As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so are the sons of the shaken off." Pharaoh was shaken off into destruction in the Red Sea for the crime of impiety. We know too that the dust shaken off the apostles' feet is a sentence of curse. And since either the prophets themselves, who were sons of the shaken off, that is, of sinners and the cursed, were sent like flying and faithful arrows of heavenly teaching, or the apostles and teachers of the churches believed from among the nations shaken off into the curse through their impiety, he therefore says: "As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so are the sons of the shaken off": traversing the world in their flight, wounding unbelieving hearts with the dart of teaching, and piercing the incitements of all sins with a saving shaft.

And so that this might be understood as said of those whom God would now send forth from the sons of the shaken off, after the manner of arrows, for the teaching of salvation, there follows in the words: "Blessed the man who will fill his desire from them; they will not be put to shame when they speak to their enemies in the gate." Blessed, then, is he who has been able to fill his desire from them, that is, either from the arrows or from the sons of the shaken off: to fill himself, namely, with the desirable words of teaching and to be satisfied with the proclaimed and awaited fruits of good things to come. And to show that these, by God's teaching, are the builders of that city he mentioned above, he therefore concluded thus: "From them they will not be put to shame when they speak to their enemies in the gate." This "from them" either belongs to the blessed man who will fill his desire from them, or will be proper to the sons of the shaken off themselves, who from them are not put to shame when they speak to their enemies in the gate.

Nor is there any doubt what those will speak in the gate of the city built by the Lord through their preaching. We remember that it is said in another psalm: "You who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may proclaim all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion." And here indeed there are many gates, in which the prophet, lifted up from the gates of death, proclaims all the praises of God; but we know there is one royal, lordly, heavenly gate, of which it is said: "This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter by it." And since these sons of the shaken off will not be put to shame speaking to their enemies in the gate, they must, in speaking to their enemies, who will not be counted worthy to enter with the righteous, not be put to shame: reproaching them for their impiety toward God, their disobedience toward those who preach, their unbelief toward the eternal promises, their hatred of the innocent and their savagery against the very members of the church; themselves confident and trembling at no doubt about their faith and religion, but keeping these enemies of theirs from the approach and entrance of him who says: "No one goes to the Father except through me," our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

Whenever the fear of the Lord is spoken of in the Scriptures, we must note that it is never left on its own, as if it sufficed us for the completion of faith, but that many things are added after it or set before it, from which the meaning and the perfection of the fear of the Lord may be understood. So we learn from what is said through Solomon in Proverbs: "For if you call upon wisdom and give your voice to understanding, and seek her like silver and search for her like treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord." We see by how many steps one arrives at the fear of the Lord. First wisdom must be called upon, the whole task of reading must be devoted to understanding, and wisdom must be sought and searched out; and then the fear of the Lord is to be understood. Yet, so far as the common sense of human opinion goes, fear is not thought of in this way. For fear is the trembling of human weakness, dreading to suffer what it would not wish to befall it. It arises and is stirred in us from consciousness of guilt, from the right of one more powerful, from the assault of one stronger, from the cause of sickness, from meeting a wild beast, and from the suffering of every evil. This fear, then, is not taught but arises from the nature of weakness. Nor do we learn what is to be feared; rather, the very things that are feared cast their terror upon us.

But of the fear of the Lord it is written thus: "Come, sons, hear me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord." The fear of God, then, must be learned, because it is taught. For it lies not in terror but in the reasoning of teaching; nor does it come from the trembling of nature, but is to be entered upon by keeping the commandments, by the works of an innocent life, and by knowledge of the truth. For if God is to be feared because many things have been burned by thunderbolts, laid low by thunder, now fallen in an earthquake, now swallowed in a chasm, the fear that is stirred by fear of what befalls is no fear of faith. For us, however, all the fear of God lies in love, and perfect love completes the fear of him. And this is the proper duty of our love toward him: to obey his admonitions, to comply with his statutes, to trust his promises. Let us hear, then, the Scripture saying: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord your God and walk in all his ways and love him and keep his commandments with all your heart and with all your soul, that it may be well with you?" In keeping and agreement with these words the prophet spoke at the beginning of the psalm, saying: "Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways": showing that those who fear are blessed not from our trembling, since that is what causes fear in other matters, nor from the terror of him who is terrible, but from the fact that they walk in the ways of the Lord. For fear, as we have said, lies not in dread but in obedience, and compliance is the proof of fear. But if anyone fears and does not obey, he will indeed be fearful from the trembling of nature, but he will not be blessed from the duties of fear.

The ways of the Lord are many, though he himself is the Way. When he speaks of himself, he calls himself the Way and shows the reason why he called himself the Way, saying: "For no one can come to the Father except through me." But when the prophets and their writings, by which one proceeds to Christ, are spoken of, then there are many ways, converging from every side into one way. Both of these are signified in the same passage through the prophet Jeremiah, who says: "Stand in the ways of the Lord, and ask for the eternal paths of God, and see which is the good way, and walk in it." Many ways, then, must be asked about, and we must press on in many, so that we may find the one that is good, namely, that through the teaching of many we may discover the one way of eternal life. For there are ways in the Law, ways in the Prophets, ways in the Gospels, ways in the apostles; there are ways too in the various works of the commandments, walking in which through the fear of God they are blessed to whom it is said:

"You shall eat the labors of your fruits." Speech begun to many is turned to one, teaching us that all of us who have believed in Christ are one, as the apostle confirms: "For you are all one in Christ Jesus." Whether, then, he speaks to one or to many, there will be the same meaning in the one as in the many.

We must observe, however, that this prophetic saying departs from the usage of common opinion. For in this arrangement of life, those who eat eat the fruits of their labors, taking them from the yields of work performed. But the prophet says that the labors of fruits are to be eaten. Human sense does not reach the understanding of this saying, for fruit comes from labors, not labor from fruits. Then, labor is a service of the body, while fruit is the reward of labor. But the service of the body is incorporeal, and we can eat nothing but what is bodily.

But the prophet treats nothing earthly and present: his speech is about the blessedness of those who fear the Lord and walk in his way. For those who walk in the ways of the Lord will eat the labors of their fruits. This is not eating with the body, since what is to be eaten is not bodily either. Rather, we have here a spiritual food, nourishing our soul for life: the good works, namely, of kindness, chastity, mercy, patience, and calm, in which we must labor against the vices of our bodies. The fruit of these labors is in eternity; but the labor of eternal fruits must be eaten beforehand, and our soul must be nourished by it in this bodily life, as through the food of these labors we obtain the living bread, the heavenly bread, from him who said: "I am the living bread from heaven," which whoever receives unworthily, according to the apostle's command, brings judgment on himself. These, then, are the labors of fruits to be eaten, of those fruits, namely, which will be reaped in heaven. Now, while we are on earth, the works must be taken as food; for these now satisfy the soul, and these will follow into heaven with their fruits. Finally, in the following verse the prophet shows the blessedness of both these times, saying: "Blessed are you, and it will be well with you." Of these, the one is obtained in the present, that you are blessed; but that it will be well with you is laid up for the future, since in the meantime the labor of future fruits is eaten.

"Your wife like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house; your sons like young olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall every man be blessed who fears the Lord." To many, perhaps, this saying will seem suited to the joy of a present blessing: that by God's mercy there may be in the home the peaceable and useful wellbeing of a wife, and a most sweet company of sons around the feast. But if these things had been perfectly good, which, though they are goods, are not heavenly goods, and if the blessedness of the fear of God had consisted in them, then surely Abraham, the chief of faith and of the fear of God, would have obtained it, whose long-barren wife was twice carried off, and whose one son by promise, commanded to be offered as a victim and brought to the sacrifice, brought on him the grief of bereavement. Then Isaac's own two sons were at odds and enemies even to the hatred of death. And did Jacob, the unwitting husband of a wife he did not know, forced by deceit into another marriage, and mourning the funeral of a living son through the murderous lie of his brothers, lack the blessings of those who fear God? And among those with whom and from whom faith comes, will the sanctification of faith not be found? Yet how many sinners we see flourishing in house, wife, and children! And will that happy and blessed virginity be deprived of God's blessings, leaving itself no ground of blessedness? And where will that saying of Paul be: "But I would that all men were even as I myself"? I do not know how the prophet could have established as perfect a blessedness that was denied to the saints, is common among sinners, and is not to be hoped for by virgins.

Since, then, according to human understanding, the wording of this saying does not set out a proper and perfect blessedness, minds and ears must be raised to spiritual teaching. For according to the apostle the whole Law is spiritual, and he himself did not pursue a lowly or earthly hope of blessedness, saying: "Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." Since, then, he shows that he is blessed in spiritual and heavenly things, that perfect blessedness of the saints is not to be hoped for in these earthly and bodily things; rather, it must be understood that through the naming of bodily and earthly things the understanding of heavenly goods is to be attained. When, according to the Gospels, the Lord is the bridegroom, and according to John has the bride, are we to think that earthly and bodily brides are meant? Certainly not: but by this manner of speaking we are taught that he is the one who was promised to the nations, and to whom the church was betrothed by the Father as an inheritance through the adoption of the body he would take from the virgin.

So that we may now learn what is to be understood under the name of wife, we must consider what is treated elsewhere under this same name of wife. Solomon says: "I sought to bring wisdom home as a bride for myself." And since one who seeks a bride seeks a rich one, he recalls the riches of this bride of his, saying: "She glorifies her nobility by having the companionship of God, and the Lord of all loved her"; and: "If anyone desires much knowledge, she knows what is from the beginning and sees what is to come"; and again: "Who will find a manly wife? She is more precious than precious stones of this kind." And these things are said in Proverbs, because proverbs do not set out what they sound like in words, but announce the force of the sayings through the use of common words. The Lord teaches in the Gospels how proverbs are to be understood, saying: "The hour will come when I will no longer speak to you in proverbs, but will tell you plainly of the Father." According to the manner of proverbs, then, we ought to recognize the manly wife: namely, the one whom Solomon desired to take as his bride, of whom he also says again: "I resolved, therefore, to bring her to live with me, and I became a lover of her beauty." This wisdom, then, taken as a wife, is manly, accomplishing all things and subduing them to herself, strong in the labor of useful works, pleasing to God, worthy through his teaching, and perfect in knowledge of the past and understanding of the future.

This wife of one who fears God, spread over all the sides of his house, extends herself, like a fruitful vine, over all the sides of our works. There is no doubt that the house is this dwelling of our soul, which each one cleanses for himself as a habitation for wisdom by the fear of God and by entering upon his ways. The sons who will come from her, then, will be like young olive shoots around our table. He does not say they will be around the feast, but around the table. For it is the table of the Lord, from which we take food, namely the living bread, whose power is this: that, being itself alive, it gives life also to those who receive it. There is also the table of the Lord's readings, at which we are nourished with the food of spiritual teaching; but of it it is written in another psalm: "Let their table become before them a snare, and a trap, and a retribution, and a stumbling block." Those who pursue the teaching of God will not profit from the food of that table unless they are engaged in the service of good works; for to them every reading of the prophecy itself, once understood, turns into a trap and a stumbling block. For as children are begotten of a wife, so the works of good will are begotten of wisdom. These, then, like young olive shoots, will surround our table, that is, they will shade the knowledge of our teaching with the fruits, as it were, of the finest branches. The prophet also kept this reasoning in calling it a neophyte olive, that is, newly planted: because through wisdom, taken as a wife, whose sons are faithful works, these same works are planted in this earth of our body. This, then, is the wife, spread like an abundant vine on the sides of our house; these are the sons, that is, the works begotten of such a wife, who will stand like planted olives around our table. And since this is the blessedness of those who fear God, the prophet added: "Behold, thus shall every man be blessed who fears the Lord."

To the merit of the one who fears is joined also the prayer of the prophet, who says: "May the Lord bless you from Zion, and may you see the good things of Jerusalem." Of Jerusalem and Zion we have often spoken already in the earlier psalms: from which, or in which, the completion of all good things is to be hoped for. For now, although we enjoy heavenly goods, yet greater ones are reserved for us in the times of Zion and Jerusalem. This age cannot hold the promised goods. For "woe now to the world because of stumbling blocks"; in it the devil has also sown tares over the wheat; in it is the region of corruption, the place of iniquity, and the valley of weeping; in it are the world-rulers of this darkness. But meanwhile we have the light of the goods promised us, in which we behold the image of blessed things as through a mirror and in a riddle; then we shall see face to face, with no cloud of obscurity in between and no imitating brightness of a mirror, but we shall rejoice in the true and visible contemplation of our blessedness, beholding the fruits of our works and seeing the reward of an innocent life. For as works are begotten of wisdom, so recompense is born of works. Wisdom, then, is the mother of innocence, and innocence in turn bears the fruits of recompense. These we shall obtain when the devil has been crushed, the sting of death blunted, and every ruler and power of this age removed, when peace is in us at last, the enemy defeated and destroyed. This the prophet testifies at the conclusion of the psalm itself, saying: "May the Lord bless you from Zion, and may you see the good things of Jerusalem all the days of your life, and may you see your children's children: peace upon Israel." Let us hope, then, for these good things of the heavenly Jerusalem, of Mount Zion, and of the peace of Israel, because the place of the Lord is in peace, in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

We are trained by the prophetic sayings to bear present sufferings, and the weakness of our nature, always impatient against the injuries of the world, receives the teaching of patience from him who says in the present psalm: "Often have they fought against me from my youth." The life of a religious man is not idle, nor does it lead a quiet life. He is fought against from the very years of his youth, and fought against often. The hatreds of those who fight against him are neither new nor rare, but often hostile even from the very beginnings of life. And therefore these are the things that prove faith, that attest patience, that earn the crown of unconquered virtue. The blessed apostle Paul knew this crown of a long battle, saying: "No one is crowned unless he has competed lawfully." The contest alone is not enough for the crown: one must compete lawfully, that is, carry through all the wars of suffering; it is not enough to have fought once, or in the war of a single contest. Let us hear this man himself competing lawfully, when he says of himself: "In labors more abundantly, in stripes beyond measure, in prisons more often, in deaths often; from the Jews five times I received forty lashes less one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I spent in the deep." Rightly did he, having gone through so many and such great battles, dare to say: "For the rest, there remains for me the crown of righteousness," since no one is crowned except one who has competed lawfully.

To this the prophetic voice also agrees: "Often have they fought against me from my youth." It is a rejoicing of the greatest confidence to remember so many and such numerous wars; but here, the name of the attackers being left unspoken, only the attack is mentioned. And we must learn the reason why the authors of the attack are passed over in silence. All the human injuries inflicted on religious men do not have the same authors as they have agents. The carrying out is indeed men's, but the prompting is the devil's. The apostle is our authority for this understanding, saying: "For our contest is not against flesh and blood, but against powers, the world-rulers of this darkness, spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places"; and again: "according to the prince of this air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience." These spiritual wickednesses, then, work in those who are disobedient to the law of God, whom they choose as workmen of their will, to use in their affairs the service of another's agency.

We understand this not only from the apostle's words, but we are also taught it from the book of Job. For when the devil had asked for power to tempt Job, intending first to rage against him by plundering his substance, he stirred up men to slaughter the shepherds and plunder the flocks, and kindled them to this will for robbery. He did, then, what he wanted through the service of human agency. Judas too, in the Lord's passion, was the devil's agent, and through him the devil carried out the effect of his own will, as the evangelist testifies thus: "Satan," it says, "entered into Judas, who is surnamed Iscariot."

In every injury we suffer, then, the deed is one person's and the prompting another's; and whoever does something through the impulse of a troubled will is not acting for himself. We must not, therefore, be angry with those from whom we suffer anything; rather, whenever we are provoked to anger by insults, whenever we are stirred to quarrels by abuse, whenever we are driven to grief and an impious complaint of loss by robbery and theft, or are solicited to the pleasures of the body by the prompting of flattering exhortation, we must recognize that enemy through whom these incitements of deeds and words are offered. Nor must we be angry with men, the workmen of another's instigation; rather, the foul agency of their detestable service in them is to be pitied, because they are the vessels of the devil, the servants of Satan, the weapons of robbers, and the attendants of another's warfare and wickedness. Because of this knowledge, then, the prophet mentions only the attackers, without distinguishing them by name, speaking of these and those indiscriminately, since what belongs to the spiritual wickednesses was being done against him through men.

The prophet began, then, as if in his own person; but by an example of confession he first speaks beforehand what we ought to say. For the order of the words is this: "Often have they fought against me from my youth, let Israel now say." First, then, Israel is taught what it ought to say; then, as one taught and instructed by the example of the prophet's confession, Israel itself now speaks: "Often have they fought against me from my youth, yet they could not prevail against me." Such ought to be the confession of the religious. And this is the true proof of faith: that those who fight often and from youth never prevail over those whom they have fought often and long. Against the stronger, the battle is both long and frequent; therefore the hostile spiritual powers try men firm in faith and in the fear of God both long and often, because what is waged long and never won must be repeated. Let us remain firm, then, so as to be fought against often, and, often fought against, let us have this glory: that we never yield. And let the persistence of the attack upon us come from this, that the strength of the attackers is not overpowering.

It is the habit of those who cannot prevail in long and continuous battles to come at a victorious army advancing in firm columns from the rear, and to plot ambushes against its back wherever it is passing by, to devise tricks there, and to employ all the arts of ambush there. So too sinners, having tempted the faithful in vain, come at them from behind as they now go on the way of truth: they lie in wait at their back, they contrive tricks at their back. And therefore it says: "Upon my back the sinners were building." The apostle runs, forgetting what lies behind and stretching out to what lies ahead. The Law spoke thus to the faithful: "Your enemies will pursue you and will not overtake you." And he teaches that they did not overtake them when he says "they were building," for it signifies an indefinite time. They were always building, never attaining the effect of their building, while he, upon whose back wars were daily being built, ran on in the untiring course of faith.

And the following verse completes this stubborn iniquity of the attackers: "They prolonged their iniquity." It is the prophecy of Isaiah, who says: "Woe to those who drag their sins like a long rope." For they do not cease to join sins to sins and, like a rope, always to stretch them out, twisted together, at length. For while the saint runs and the sinners build upon his back, since he has no limit to running toward the goal and they none to building, a long series and manifold length of sins comes about.

But we must learn what awaits this length of iniquities at last. For there follows: "The righteous Lord will cut the necks of sinners." The righteous Lord, patient in vengeance, overlooking sins for a time of repentance, not quick to punish at the beginnings of human iniquity, but awaiting the will of sinners to cease from their crimes, however late, will cut their necks when they build without any limit of ceasing, when sins are stretched out at length, when all the time of patient mercy has been shut out. We remember that the stubborn are always reproached by the Law for being stiff-necked: when Moses accuses the people before God of being stiff-necked, when the prophet reproaches the daughters of Zion for walking with outstretched neck, a neck, namely, that disdains the yoke, is insolent toward the works of faith, and abuses the patience of God to prolong the length of sins. The neck must be bowed to the sweet yoke to which the Lord invites, saying: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." The neck that submits to this yoke is not to be cut. For this is the yoke of humility and meekness: not always attacking, not building on the back, not prolonging sins, but cherishing the neck bowed in humility and patience, while that proud and insolent neck is to be cut by the decree of righteous judgment.

Then follows: "Let all who hate Zion be confounded and turned back." We have often pointed out that Zion is a mountain next to Jerusalem. But when the prophets speak of the king of Zion, the daughter of Zion, the gates of Zion, we must first understand from the very name that something else is shown under the meaning of Zion; for Zion means watchtower, and what with us is called a watchtower is in Hebrew called Zion. Then it is fitting for us to remember the apostle's saying, that by believing in our Lord Jesus Christ we have come to Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem; in his glorious body, which has been transformed into heavenly glory, we behold from the watchtower the honor of our hope, since the body of our lowliness is to be conformed to the glory of his body. And the apostle is witness that the church is the body of Christ, whose members we are of one another; and she herself is Zion, the mountain of the Lord, the king's daughter, the holy city built with living stones on the foundation of the prophets and apostles. Whoever, then, hates this Zion hates him whose body she is; for the hatred of unbelievers against the faithful is a special one. Those who hate Zion, then, will be confounded and turned back, not running toward heavenly things nor stretching toward the future, but turning back to their earthly and original things, feeling in the time of judgment the shame of their iniquity and unbelief, and returning to the penal sensation of their bodies, having lost the transformation of the resurrection.

The sequence of the psalm teaches this very thing: "Let them become like the grass of the housetops, which withers before it is plucked up: with which the reaper will not fill his hand, nor he who gathers sheaves his bosom. And those who passed by did not say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you." There is, I think, no grass of buildings in the bodily sense: grass belongs to a field, and a most fruitful one. So nothing here is to be treated and supposed according to the sense of the ears. According to the authority of Scripture there are firm buildings and there are weak ones. Firm are those which, laid on faithful foundations upon the rock, are not moved by rivers, winds, and floods. Weak too are those which, built on a sandy foundation, make a great ruin when storms arise. There are also two sowings, according to the apostle, of the spirit and of the flesh: and he who sows spiritual things will reap spiritual things, and he who sows carnal things will reap carnal things. Those, then, who fight often and long, who were building on the back, who prolonged iniquities, whose necks will be cut, who hate Zion, will be useless like the grass of the housetops, bringing back an empty and vain fruit of this bodily and present life. For buildings and roofs, according to the Gospel comparison, are human bodies, either firm by faith or about to fall through unbelief. From this roof of the building the Lord forbade each one to come down when persecution presses, saying: "And let him who is on the housetop not come down to take anything from the house." Certainly one must flee in persecution; and how did he forbid coming down from the roof, except that, the care of the body being abandoned, he who stands on the roof, that is, remains above his earthly nature, is forbidden to seek again lowly things and go down to what is beneath? But the impious are the grass of buildings, for they have sown empty things; and grass that withers even before it is plucked up, with which the reaper will not fill his hand, nor will the one about to gather sheaves load his bosom; and the passer-by has not blessed it with rejoicing over its fruits. They are empty, they are void, they are useless; for they have sown empty and useless things. O unhappy labors and fruitless works of the flesh, compared to the fruitless grass of buildings, dry before they are plucked up, that is, dead before the very time of their own useless harvest!

But since we have treated this grass of buildings as the fruit of carnal works, we must consider what difference there is between him who fills his hand and him who gathers sheaves into his bosom. For it is not the same, nor is Scripture accustomed to repeat the same things in two expressions; for to gather into the bosom is more than to fill the hand. Those who fill the hand seem to receive the fruit of things rightly done, since in the hands the divine word signifies works; but in the bosom is shown the disposition of conscience, of faith, and of a perfect will. For conscience reaps more than deeds; deeds fill the hand, but conscience gathers sheaves into the bosom. The Lord holds the two coins of the poor widow more acceptable than the abundant money of the rich. So much does the will surpass works. And works therefore fill the hand, but the bosom can hold the sheaves. This grass of the building, then, will fill neither the reaper's hand nor the bosom of the one who gathers sheaves.

"But neither will those who pass by say: The blessing of the Lord be upon you." And who are those who pass by, if not those who, as pilgrims, pass through the age of bodily life, not remaining in things that are nothing but stretching toward eternal things, not lingering among what lies before the eyes but proceeding to the invisible? And so that we may understand fully who those passing over are, let us hear Moses speaking when he saw in the bush a fire burning without harm to the bush in which it blazed. For he says: "I will pass over and see this sight." What is this "I will pass over"? No distance of place separated him; he speaks and sees in the same place. What, then, does he pass over? Plainly he passes over fleshly and bodily cares: and while pasturing the sheep of his father-in-law, he leaves earthly works behind and goes out into heavenly knowledge. He too passes over who says in an earlier psalm: "I saw the wicked highly exalted and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not." The one he admired in the affairs of the world, the one whom, while remaining in bodily works, he saw lofty and exalted, this one, in passing over, that is, having become a pilgrim to the world and going out from earthly and perishable things into heavenly and spiritual knowledge, he held as nothing, said no longer existed, and counted as dead. Those who pass by, then, deny God's blessing to the grass of buildings, knowing that the grace of the divine gift must be refused to dry and perishable fruits.

But the prophet's prayers will be thought harsh and severe; for all his speech was as of one who wishes, when he says: "Let them become like the grass of the housetops." But far be it that the prophet should be believed to have prayed this. He spoke from prophetic knowledge, and this saying was one of knowledge, not of wishing: at the same time, that terror might fall upon sinners who would come to know the emptiness of the fruits of their buildings.

Moreover, he shows the disposition of his own wishes, saying: "We bless you in the name of the Lord." Blessing is ready for those who were sowing the grass of the housetops, if they begin to sow what will fill the reaper's hand and the bosom of the one who gathers sheaves. By denying blessings, then, the prophet showed their fruits dead in the grass of buildings because of their dry works; but by wishing again for the blessings he had denied, he showed his own wishes for the salvation of the penitent upon their return to good work. Let us sow profitably, then, and prepare our labors to fill hands and bosoms, so that we may share in the blessings of God in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

Among the many splendid things the apostle writes to the Romans, when he had spoken of the faith of the Gentiles and the unbelief of the Jews and had treated much about the judgments and decrees of God, he says: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid him? For from him and through him and in him are all things: to him be glory for ever and ever." It is the religious confession of human weakness to know of God only this, that he is God. But the earthly mind does not penetrate those secret and deep decrees of an impenetrable judgment. To investigate and search them out is indeed pious; but it must be confessed that they are unsearchable and untraceable: the one belongs to a religious will, the other to an impenetrable nature. For who will know the causes and natures of the heaven, both of this one and of the higher one and of the rest? Who will have grasped the offices and principles of angels and powers and dominions and thrones and principalities? Who will understand the perpetual and eternal voices of the Cherubim and Seraphim? Who will know the waters above the heaven that praise God? Who will boast that the lights of the sun, moon, and stars are known to him? Who will measure this fullness of the air, which we falsely think empty? And who will attain, with the knowledge of full understanding, the arrangement of the world, the powers of the elements, the changes of the seasons, the courses of rivers, the bounds of the sea, the tides of the ocean, the blowing of the winds, the natures of animals, the rages of beasts, the kinds of trees, the virtues of roots, the origins of souls, the growth of bodies, the deaths of infants and the lives of old men, the labors of the world, the glorious calamities of the saints and the unhappy prosperity of the irreligious, and the books of the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, and the apostles, consecrated in heavenly secrecy?

Clinging and held fast, then, in all these things, the prophet too cries out from the inner secret of his heart, in keeping with the apostle's voice, saying: "Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord." Place him, according to the apostle, lingering in the depth of God's unsearchable and untraceable riches; set him praying from the depth of the surge of human calamities, according to that voice of the Lord in an earlier psalm: "I came into the depth of the sea, and the storm overwhelmed me"; consider him praying not with the lips but, as is commanded, in the secret of the heart: this voice of the speaker fits ignorance, or suffering, or prayer: "Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord," while he either does not know, or suffers, or prays. And since he cries out of the depths, he says with confidence: "Lord, hear my voice; let your ears be attentive to the voice of my prayer."

But we must ask whether "hear my voice" and "let your ears be attentive to the voice of my prayer" are the same thing. For he prays out of the depths, and whatever he prays is deep. And first we must understand that God is incorporeal and does not consist of certain parts and functions of members, from which a single body is made. For we read in the Gospel: "For God is spirit," that is, an invisible, boundless nature, abiding within itself and eternal. It is also written: "For a spirit does not have flesh and bones." Of these the members of a body consist, which the substance of God does not need. But God, who is everywhere and in all things, hears as a whole, sees as a whole, acts as a whole, moves as a whole. And this we are taught from the Scriptures when it is said: "I am a God who draws near, and not from afar"; and again: "For in him we live and move and are." The power of God, then, which is equal and undivided, has the names of functions and members: so that the power by which he sees is his eyes, the power by which he hears is his ears, the power by which he acts is his hands, the power by which he is present is his feet, the might of this power carrying out the diversity of functions. God, then, is everywhere, and wherever he is present he hears, sees, acts; but he must be prayed to by us, so that according to our prayer he may be present, hear, see, act. It belongs to his nature that he hears; but it belongs to our faith that we pray to be heard. He hears those who revile, he hears those who curse, he hears even those who speak within the secret of the heart; but faith carries out its own duty in asking for God's hearing, so that he who hears by his nature may deign to hear through the prayer of the one who prays.

But if anyone perhaps thinks that God is bodily, capable of shape, and differentiated in members (since the eye is not the same as the hand) on account of the saying: "Let us make man in our image and likeness," he must first remember that the constitution of man is contained in two natures, namely soul and body, of which one is spiritual and the other earthly, and that this lower matter was fitted to the efficacy and working of that superior nature. Whoever, then, wishes to believe that God is bodily because man was made in his image will be holding that God is composite, namely of a superior and an inferior nature, because man consists of such. But whatever is composite cannot have been eternal, because composition has a beginning by which it is brought about so that it may remain. But these are the ravings of unbelief, confined within these narrow limits of opinion through the fault of a degenerate mind, by ignorance of the heavenly nature.

God, however, who abiding always and in all things is everywhere the same and nowhere not wholly himself, when, the world now completed, he began his most beautiful work, namely making man in his own image, composed him of a lowly and a heavenly nature, that is, of soul and body. And first he established the soul by that divine work of his power, incomprehensible to us. For when he made man in the image of God, he did not then also make the body. Genesis teaches that long after man had been made in the image of God, dust was taken and the body formed, and then again it was made into a living soul by the breathing of God; that is, this earthly and heavenly nature was joined by a kind of covenant of inbreathing.

The blessed apostle Paul knows that he is at odds with himself through the inner and the outer man. Through the inner man he delights in the law, but through the outer he does what he does not want: while the inner man desires the works of the spirit, the outer craves the pleasures of the body. The inner man, then, was made in the image of God: rational, mobile, moving, swift, incorporeal, subtle, eternal. So far as lies in it, it imitates the form of the principal nature, as it runs across, as it flies around, and quicker than a word is now beyond the ocean, now flies up to the heavens, now is in the abysses, now traverses east and west, as it is never destroyed so as not to exist (the nature of God, indeed, is in all these places), nor departs from one place in order to be present elsewhere. But the human soul in this mobility of its perception was made in the image of God its maker, since the perpetual mobility of the soul imitates the nature of God, having in itself nothing bodily, nothing earthly, nothing heavy, nothing perishable. And let us hear Paul further teaching thus: "Stripping off the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of the creator." Do we put on anything bodily when we are renewed in knowledge? Nothing, I think. But we put on the knowledge of God, faith in eternity, the sincerity of innocence, the habits of goodness. For these are garments of the soul rather than of the body, and all of them are proper to God. These we put on for the knowledge of the new man, so that in every service of our soul we may be, according to the image of the creator, perfect in the knowledge of goodness, holiness, and love. These matters have been treated briefly on account of the ears of God, lest he be thought bodily.

And although these things are as has been said, yet we remember that there are many spiritual powers that bear the name of angels, or that preside over the churches. For according to John there are angels of the churches of Asia. There are also, as Moses testifies, the boundaries of the nations set for the sons of Adam according to the number of the angels. There are also, as the Lord teaches, the angels of the little ones who daily see God. There are, according to Raphael speaking to Tobias, angels who stand before the glory of God and carry the prayers of those who pray to the Lord. We have mentioned this so that, if perhaps we should wish to understand these as the eyes or ears or hands or feet of God, we may have the authority of a not improbable understanding, especially since it is written: "For they are working spirits, sent for service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation." Their intercession, then, is needed not by the nature of God but by our weakness. For they are sent for the sake of those who will inherit salvation: God is ignorant of nothing we do, but our weakness needs the service of spiritual intercession for asking and obtaining.

Then follows: "If you will observe iniquities, O Lord, who will endure?" The reasoning of this saying must not be treated carelessly. For he does not say "if you will observe sins," but "if you will observe iniquities." For iniquity differs from sin. Will God not observe sins, and will there be no remembrance of crimes? Certainly there will: indeed, each one will render account even for an idle word, and everyone sent into prison will pay the last farthing. We are taught that iniquity and sin differ when it is said: "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered"; and again: "I have acknowledged my iniquity and I have not hidden my sin." For iniquity is every transgression of God's law, and it is graver than sin. The apostle distinguished this very thing most completely, saying: "For those who have sinned without law will perish without law; but those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law." The sin of iniquity, then, perishes at once, but the sin under the law will be judged. And the sin of iniquity is whatever offense is committed outside the law, as are the crimes of the Gentiles, which are condemned together with their very ignorance of the law. But sins within the law do not perish but are to be judged; because, although they are sins, they are sins within the law. If, then, God were to remember iniquities, who would endure thefts, false witness, murders, acts of sexual immorality, perjuries? For these are the crimes that are committed lawlessly, that is, outside the law of God, and that are washed away by the mystery of the new birth.

But these God plainly no longer remembers; and why he does not remember, the prophet shows in the following verse, saying: "For with you is propitiation." For it is the only-begotten Son of God, God the Word, our redemption, our peace, in whose blood we have been reconciled to God. He it is who came to take away the sins of the world, who, nailing the bond of the law to his cross, blotted out the decree of the old condemnation. Whether, then, the prophet's prayer is thought to be addressed to the Father or to the Son (for both are one, and he who has seen the Son has seen the Father also, because the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father; from the likeness of glory each is glorious in the other: the Son glorious because he is worthy of fellowship with the Father, the Father glorious because the Son is worthy of fellowship with him), the prophet will rightly be believed to have said to whichever you will: "For with you is propitiation": because the Son is in the Father according to the likeness of glory, and the Son himself is propitiation, redemption, and intercession for our sins, not remembering our iniquities because he himself is their propitiation.

The prophet knows that it is a matter of enormous danger to sin lawlessly, that is, without law, since sin without law brings perdition, while sin under the law brings judgment. And therefore he says: "Because of your law I have waited for you, O Lord." The law is holy and spiritual, and in it are the words of life, and Christ is the end of the law; and this is shown in the following verse, for he says: "My soul has waited on your word." The prophet carries out the bodily duties of the law, namely of sacrifices, burnt offerings, new moons, and sabbaths, all of which are a shadow of things to come; but his soul has waited on the Word of God. Because of the law he waits, that is, as I said, he performs the duties of the law bodily; but his soul waits on the Word of God: that is, he awaits with spiritual faith the coming of the Son of God, who is both the Word of God and God the Word. How he awaits it he shows, saying: "My soul has hoped in the Lord from the morning watch until night." Let us recall the tenor of the Gospel comparison and remember that certain workers in the vineyard spent the whole day in labor. The prophet hopes from the morning watch until night: he has no idle time; he is an untiring worker of the whole day.

But what, then, will there be for hope? Not everyone's life spends its whole day in hope of the Lord; for there are workers of the third hour, of the sixth, of the ninth, and of the eleventh. And the prophet, who hoped from the morning watch until night, seems to cut off from us the hope of the Gospel reward. He plainly does not cut it off. For he says: "Let Israel hope in the Lord." The exhortation to hope is without a fixed limit of time. He indeed, as a perfect worker, hoped from the morning watch until night; but all time is open for hope, and the workers of the eleventh hour will obtain a reward not of their work but of mercy. For thus he says: "Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is mercy, and with him abundant redemption; and he will redeem Israel from all their iniquities." He is good in whom we hope; and we must hope in him, because there is mercy, because with him is abundant redemption, because he will redeem all from their iniquities. It is the eleventh hour; the times of the day are closing; let us all run, let us hurry, lest night come, lest the hour pass. We are old; the night of death presses on: shall we not at least come forward at the eleventh hour of our life? Blessed indeed is he who, laboring from morning until night, claims the agreed denarius as due; but, because the Lord is good, because he is merciful, let us hope in him, so that, though workers of the eleventh hour, we may obtain the denarius of the day's labor through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The psalm is short and is to be explained by distinguishing its parts rather than by a treatise; it teaches us humility and meekness. And since we have treated something of humility in very many other places, it would be idle to repeat the same things. Certainly we ought to remember that humility is the greatest work of our faith, since the prophet mentions it as his consciousness of the best work, saying: "Lord, my heart has not been lifted up." For the best sacrifice to God is a contrite heart. The heart, then, must not be carried away by prosperity, but held in by humility, through the fear of God, within the bounds of meekness.

"Nor have my eyes been lifted up." The Greek has expressed this with a different shade of meaning, saying οὐδὲ ἐμετεωρίσθησαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου, that is, they have not been lifted up from one thing to another. Yet the eyes are to be lifted up, according to the sayings of the prophet: "Lift up your eyes and see who has shown all these things." And the Lord says in the Gospel: "Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are white for harvest." The eyes, then, are to be lifted up; but not lifted again toward something else, so that they may persevere in that to which they have once been lifted.

Then follows: "Nor have I walked in great things, nor in wonderful things above me." It is a matter of great danger if we walk in small things and do not dwell in wonderful things. The words of God are great; he himself is wonderful on high: how, then, does the prophet put forward as a good work of his own that he does not walk in great and wonderful things? But when he added "above me," he does not walk in those things that are believed great and wonderful among men. For David, both prophet and king, was formerly lowly and cast aside, not worthy even of his father's feast; but he pleased God, was anointed king, was inspired as prophet. He does not grow insolent in his kingship; he is not moved by hatreds: he loves those who persecute him, honors the deaths of his enemies, spares his incestuous and parricidal sons. As emperor he is despised, as father he is wronged, as prophet he is harassed: he does not pray for vengeance as a prophet, does not take revenge as a father, does not punish an insult as an emperor. In these things, then, which are great and wonderful above him, he does not walk.

But let us see what follows: "If I did not think humbly, but exalted my soul." What is this contrast in the prophet? He does not exalt his heart; he exalts his soul. He does not walk in great and wonderful things above him; but he does not think humbly. He is lofty in soul and lowly in heart. He is humble in his own affairs, but not humble in thought. For his thought is toward heaven, his soul is on high. But the heart, out of which, according to the Gospel, come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, is humble and subject to that sweet yoke of meekness. The measure of humility and loftiness must be kept, then: that we be humble in heart, but lofty in thought and soul.

Then follows: "As one weaned upon his mother, so will you repay my soul." We have learned that when Isaac was weaned Abraham made a feast, because, being weaned and now near boyhood, he went beyond the food of infancy. The apostle gives milk to drink to all who are untrained in the faith and still infantile in knowledge of the things of God. It is the greatest progress, then, no longer to need milk. For Abraham testified even by the joy of a feast that his son had passed to stronger food, and the apostle denies bread to those who are carnal and little ones in Christ. The prophet therefore prays, because he has not exalted his heart, because he has not walked in his own great and wonderful things, because he has not thought lowly things but has exalted his soul, that his soul may be repaid as one weaned upon his mother: namely, that he may be worthy of the reward of the perfect, heavenly, and living bread, because through the works he mentioned above he has now gone beyond the food of milk.

But he does not pray for this living bread from heaven only for himself; he exhorts all to the hope of it, saying: "Let Israel hope in the Lord from this time forth and for ever and ever." He closes our hope with no end of time; he stretches the faith of our expectation into the boundless. We must hope for ever and ever, attaining through the hope of the present age the hope of the age to come, in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

All the earlier psalms of ascents raise us toward progress in a loftier hope and carry us upward by their steps through the teaching of faith, hope, confession, humility, and prayer. But this psalm above all instructs us in the knowledge of the Son of God and trains us in the mystery of the flesh he assumed. For it begins thus: "Remember, O Lord, David and all his meekness." The Jews, denying the coming of our Lord, in which by a body he restored salvation to the human race, dare to refer this psalm to David, as impious in the Lord's passion as they are unskilled in the knowledge of prophecy: reading and not understanding, possessing and not knowing, venerating and not obeying. For with what pretense of religion they venerate the books of the prophets is known to many. When reading them they do not dare to touch them with the hand; they lay a linen cloth beneath them; they call them as witnesses to the faith of an oath; and the result of this is that, with the greater crime of irreligion, they either despise or ignore or do not know the sayings of those to whom so great an honor is due. This is said because, although they have written in the prophets, long after David had departed from the body, in Jeremiah thus: "In that day, says the Lord, I will break the yoke from their neck and burst their bonds, and they shall no longer serve others; they shall serve the Lord their God, and I will raise up David their king for them"; and again: "I will raise up for them David the king, a rising, a righteous one, and the king shall reign and understand and do justice and judgment on the earth; in his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell confidently"; likewise in Isaiah: "And I will raise up over them one shepherd on high; my servant David shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd, and I will be their God, and David prince in their midst; I the Lord have spoken, and I will make with David a covenant of peace": they will not believe what they are taught, nor do they put faith in those to whom they confess veneration is due. And how will they be religious who deny authority to religion?

David was resting with his fathers; he himself had known the covenant of the law given through Moses; so long afterward God spoke through the prophets of a David to be raised up, shepherd, king, rising, righteous, in whose days would be the salvation of Israel, with whom God would make a covenant of peace. This David, then, is not the son of Jesse, the writer of part of the psalms, but David: shepherd because of the guarding of his flock, for the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep; king because of the glory of an eternal kingdom, he to whom it was said, "Rabbi, you are the king of Israel"; righteous because of judgment, for the Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son; rising because of the light of the world, for he is the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world; heir of the covenant of peace because of the dignity of the Son, for "all things have been given to me in heaven and on earth," and "My peace I leave you." The Jews, then, must confess that these things were proclaimed long after the times of David. And this is the David who received the name of his ancestor according to the origin of the flesh, taking the name of him from whose line he was also taking a body. But everything contained in the psalm differs from the deeds of the prophet David, from the nature of human weakness, and from the times of his life. And since neither the events, nor the condition, nor the time fit him, while they agree with that David whom God afterward promised through the prophets, there is no doubt that this outstanding and great prophet too spoke, by the Spirit of God and in the office of a prophet, of that David who came afterward.

For he says: "Remember, O Lord, David and all his meekness." He does not say "remember me," but "remember, O Lord, David," to show that another was speaking. We must judge that this whole prayer belongs to the only-begotten Son of God speaking through the prophet, asking God the Father's remembrance toward the man whom he was to assume. For Jesus is now, according to the apostle, in the glory of God the Father, and every knee of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth bends to him. So the firstborn Son of God, God the Word, now calls himself David through the prophet's prayer, taking for himself the name of that man of his who, according to the privilege of his divinity, was to be placed together with him in the Father's glory. "Remember, O Lord, David and all his meekness": for he himself says, "For I am meek and humble of heart." And the Father's testimony of him is: "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will announce judgment to the nations. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets." He prays, then, that the Father may remember all this meekness, through whose modest meekness he vowed to God the Father the service of his humility.

"As he swore to the Lord," it says, "he vowed a vow to the God of Jacob." Mention of an oath is used to declare the will. And I do not know whether the Only-begotten swore. Certainly he so acted and spoke in everything that he seemed to satisfy the religious obligation of an oath. For when he had spoken to his disciples about his passion, and Peter had rejected this as unworthy of the Son of God, he answered with such a rebuke Peter, to whom he had earlier given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, on whom he was to build the church against which the gates of hell would not prevail, whose loosing or binding on earth would remain loosed or bound in heaven: him, then, rejecting this mystery of the passion, he answered: "Get behind me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to me." So great was his religious obligation to suffer for the salvation of the human race that he called Peter, the first confessor of the Son of God, the foundation of the church, the doorkeeper of the heavenly kingdom, and in earthly judgment the judge of heaven, by the reproach of "Satan." Moreover, in that tumult in which he had offered himself to be handed over to the passion, when the same Peter had cut off the ear of the priest's servant with a sword, he said: "Put your sword back into its sheath: the cup the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" teaching that it would be impious and profane if he did not fulfil all that he had vowed to the Father for human salvation. He showed absolutely the vowed obligation of his passion when he was about to give up his spirit after the cup of vinegar; for, all things being completed, he said: "It is finished," and bowing his head he gave up his spirit. For he had run through all the duties of his oath; and where there is rejoicing in completion, there is gladness in the perfecting of the work undertaken. Since, then, according to this devotion in his deeds, everything was so done that it seems to have been accomplished zealously for the religious obligation under which it was sworn, it follows that we should see what it is that this David both swore and vowed.

"If I enter the tent of my house, and if I go up to the bed of my couch, if I give sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids and rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tent for the God of Jacob." These cannot be the vows of human nature, and the condition of the oath exceeds the weakness of earthly necessity. The tent of his house is not to be entered, the couch of his bed is to be refrained from; sleep to the eyes, slumber to the eyelids, and rest to the temples are not to be given until a place is found for the Lord and a tent for the God of Jacob. He will have to stand, then, night and day under the sky, and his body will never lie down to rest; his eyes will toil, always wakeful, and not even the closing of the eyelids in slumber will be allowed. And the temples, which more than anything in the whole head and body are exposed to the harms of watching and standing, will have no rest. A man is not permitted to swear this about himself; even if he utterly does not want to, he will still break the condition of this vow through the very necessity of his nature. Let the mind keep watch and hold the body at its post, yet, since the nature of weakness prevails, it must fall, sleep, and rest against its will. Then, what place will a man find for God, and in what kind of tent will he contain an incomprehensible and infinite nature? For God himself spoke through the prophet about himself, saying: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth the footstool of my feet: what house will you build for me, or what is the place of my rest? For my hand made all these things, and all these things are mine." The prophet is not unaware of this divine utterance and knows that a house of human and earthly workmanship cannot belong to God, testifying to this very thing in the previous psalm when he says: "Unless the Lord build the house, they have labored in vain who build it." If, then, neither does man's nature admit the condition of this vow, nor does human workmanship find a place and tent for God, we must learn through the authority of the heavenly Scriptures what this vow is, by whose fulfilment a place has been found for the Lord and a tent for the God of Jacob.

For our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who fulfilled all the mysteries of human salvation as one under oath, and whom we have shown to be signified by the prophets as David, this was the greatest work: to make man, instructed in divine knowledge, worthy to be a dwelling of God. And that man is the seat and dwelling of God we are taught thus, God himself speaking through the prophet: "For I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people"; and again: "... they will exult, and I will dwell in them." And the Lord himself says in the Gospel: "If anyone loves me, he will also keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come and make our abode with him." The apostle too says: "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you." God dwells in the minds of the religious not by a bodily presence nor by the entry of a heavier nature, so as to be absent elsewhere and to remain only where he has entered, but by spiritual power he lets himself into hearts emptied of earthly stains, and pours himself, like light, into minds whose doors stand open to innocence, to enlighten them. Having assumed a body, therefore, the only-begotten God swears that he will not enter the tent of his house with his man, that is, return to his heavenly dwelling, before he finds for the Lord these places of the religious heart.

Nor did he vow that he would go up to the couch of his bed. A couch is the rest of human labors and the refreshment of tired bodies. But in heaven there is always rest, and because that untiring nature knows no labor, it is always on its couch, that is, always at rest. Our Lord, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, so as to suffer something, I know not what, more than death. And he was obedient so far as the death of the cross only in order to make us worthy of God's dwelling. He who is life, then, willed to die, and untiring power did not refuse to be made a weak bodily dwelling, so that, remaining in the form of God, he might take the form of a servant. He went out, then, from that couch of his eternal blessedness. And the fortieth psalm is our witness, which in the person of the Lord speaks the whole mystery of the passion, saying: "You have turned his whole couch in his weakness." When, through obedience to the Father's will, he is said to be man from God, weak from mighty, dead from life-giving, a criminal of the cross from eternal judge of the ages, then his couch is turned in weakness. He vowed, then, not to return to that couch of eternal and blessed rest unless the tent of God had been found, nor even to give sleep to his eyes before then.

What is this sleep? Surely that of which he says: "I slept and took sleep and rose up, for the Lord will sustain me." This sleep is that of death, which he will not give to his eyes until he finds a place of dwelling. The blessed patriarch Jacob also recalls this sleep in the blessing of Judah, who became the prince of that nation, saying: "A lion's whelp is Judah; from a shoot, my son, lying down you slept like a lion and like a lion's whelp. Who will rouse him?" Both the preceding and the following blessing fit neither the life nor the deeds of Judah, but him who is from the shoot of Judah as he is from the root of Jesse, who is both a lion's whelp and will be Jacob's son. For from this tribe of Judah is Mary, who was the mother of our Lord according to the flesh. He, then, lying down, slept like a lion. The lion is a terror to all wild animals and as it were the master of the other beasts; and he alone, from confidence and security, sleeps without fear. Awake, he is the terror of all; but he himself is secure in sleep. And therefore he added, "Who will rouse him?", because no timidity of outside terror can disturb the security of a fearless and all-powerful nature. Lest, then, we should think that the impassible substance of the only-begotten God suffered anything lowly and passible in the death he underwent, the example of this beast sleeping without fear was brought in to make us understand a secure death: so that it might be taught that he was beyond the disquiet of human fear in that sleep, since by the power of his kind and nature he could not fear, even though he slept. And the reasoning has been most carefully kept, so that in the only-begotten God the glory of the eternal God who begot him might be recognized, when it says: "like a lion and like a lion's whelp." In that he subsists from God, he is a lion's whelp; in that he is a lion, the undiminished nobility of the Father's majesty in him is proclaimed. That both may be one, he is a lion; lest he be one and the same person, he is a lion's whelp.

The sequence of the psalm shows this very thing. Lest that untiring power and impassible nature of the only-begotten God should be thought to fall asleep in the sleep of death, he referred the whole matter to the function of the body, for which the departure of the immortal soul is death, saying: "If I give sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids and rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tent for the God of Jacob." "Temples," according to the faithfulness of the translation, denies rest not to spans of time but to parts of the head. And these are bodily conditions, which long labor and the anxiety of life disturb. But he rested for whom death is sleep; and what for us is a penal change was for the only-begotten God, even remaining in the body, a rest.

But before this rest the apostles are chosen, receive the right of loosing and binding both in heaven and on earth, take power against every opposing force, are the temple of God, and, coming themselves from the law, are found a worthy tent for the God of Jacob. And lest some should think that through the manifold ingenuity of human cleverness we do violence to the truth, transferring what was said in the person of David to our Lord and Savior by many subtleties of figurative interpretation, we must look at what follows, so that from it we may press the truth upon them, however unwilling and resisting. For it says: "Behold, we heard of it in Ephrata, we found it in the fields of the wood; we will enter into his tents, we will worship where his feet have stood." Above, where the swearing and vowing are, we showed that the oath of the vow does not fit human nature, since the toil of an earthly body would refuse watches of so long a time. And now, where the places themselves and their names are mentioned, the truth itself and the evidence of the region existing today contradict any reference to David. For David, having in his kingdom a scattered people with no seat of worship, bought a threshing floor in Jerusalem for the site of the temple, so that they might gather there to fulfil the solemnities of the law. But this temple his son Solomon built, adorned, and dedicated with its rites.

The Jews, then, would have it that David, the buyer of this threshing floor, vowed absence from home, the harm of watching, and bodily toil until he could find this place and this tent for the God of Jacob. But neither the history of the Kingdoms nor that of the Chronicles, in which David's deeds are contained, says this, nor does the psalm admit it. And why it does not admit it is plain. David bought a threshing floor; the place of the temple was the place of a threshing floor, where the crops were heaped, where they were threshed, where the chaff was to be separated from the wheat. But the rest of the Lord is in Ephrata; and it was first heard of in Ephrata and afterward found in the fields of the wood. And what has Jerusalem in common with Ephrata? And what has a threshing floor to do with the fields of a wood? Nothing here fits; everything is discordant. The threshing floor on which the God of Jacob is thought to have rested, the Lord in the last times cleanses with the winnowing fan: he stores his wheat in barns but burns the chaff with unquenchable fire. He holds the approved men of the law worthy of the storehouses; the useless and fruitless he assigns to the fire of judgment. That temple today no longer exists; it has been burned, torn down, shapeless in ruins: where, then, is the rest of God? Did the prophet lie, and is the vow of his oath void? Has God lost the rest that he had sworn and vowed he would find for him? Since, therefore, these fictions of irreligious opinions fit neither the dignity of God, nor the nature of man, nor the truth of the places, nor the change of times, we must now show from these authorities of the heavenly Scriptures that the psalm is to be referred to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and to the sanctification of the church.

We said above that this prophet too prophesied in this psalm about that David, righteous, shepherd, king, rising, and spoke in his person when he said: "If I enter the tent of my house, if I go up to the bed of my couch, if I give sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids and rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tent for the God of Jacob." But now, so that the prophet might show himself not ignorant or unskilled concerning his vow, he speaks in his own person, saying: "Behold, we heard of it in Ephrata, we found it in the fields of the wood." Above, where the religious obligation of the oath is mentioned, one swore and vowed. For one, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant; and there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and one God the Father, from whom are all things. But now, where the knowledge of prophetic understanding is shown, it is said in the person of many: "We heard of it in Ephrata, we found it in the fields of the wood," because the rest of the Lord was prophesied by many.

It is heard of, then, in Ephrata. Ephrata is the same as Bethlehem, in which the Lord was born of Mary. The prophet is our witness, saying: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrata, are not least that you should be among the thousands of Judah; for from you shall come forth one who will be king in Israel"; and again: "And you, Bethlehem of Judah, are not least among the princes of Judah; for from you shall come forth one who will rule my people Israel." There first the rest of God is heard of, where first the only-begotten God dwelt in a body of human flesh; and what is heard of in Ephrata is found in the fields of the wood. So the beginning of the church is heard of in Bethlehem, for it began to exist from Christ; but it is found among the Gentiles, who are fields out of woods: bright out of bristling, fruitful out of barren, a region of life-giving food out of fodder for fire, God's rest, house, temple, and possession out of the lairs of wild beasts. That the Gentiles were like a wood, the lair of the devil, the seventy-ninth psalm will be our witness, saying: "The boar out of the wood has laid it waste, and the solitary wild beast has fed on it." There the speech is about the vine, that is, about what was then thought to be God's people, which the devil, dwelling in the Gentiles, had laid waste as unbelieving and impious. In these fields of the wood, then, is found the rest of God that was heard of in Ephrata.

The order of times has been kept, so that "we heard" and "we found" signify the past age, while what follows teaches the hope of the future, when it says: "We will enter into his tents, we will worship where his feet have stood." Despairing of this in the bodily function of the present life, the prophet anticipates by faith and in the Spirit that he will enter into the tents of God's rest, since he has both seen and heard them. But above the oath was about one tent only; now they will enter many tents. For from the one church of the apostles, about which the vow was made above, there are many churches and many tents; but the same rest of God is in many. These tents of God's rest, then, they will enter; and not only will they enter, but they will also worship where his feet have stood. When one stands in one place from which one must not depart, one takes a firm stand; and where one stands on one's feet, there one rests one's whole bodily weight. The law has passed away, prophecy is closed; their end is Christ; there is no room for any further change: in him we must stand for ever, where the Lord stands now that the law and the prophets have run their course. Preaching runs about, indeed, through the apostles, whom we remember are often signified as feet; but one takes one's stand in the Gospels. There, then, worship will be offered where the feet of the Lord, that is, the last of the preaching, have taken their stand without passing over into any change.

And since we read in the Gospels the saying, "Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and to hear what you hear," the holy prophet is impatient with this longing. For after he heard of and found God's rest, after he believed he would enter and worship, he prays to become a sharer of so great a hope at once, saying: "Arise, O Lord, into your rest," which your David vowed he would find, which we heard of in Ephrata, which we found in the fields of the wood, into whose tents we will enter to worship there where your feet have stood. Arise, then, into that rest which was sought by the oath of the vow, which was heard of in its place by the knowledge of prophecy, which was found by the fruitful cultivation of the Gentiles, which is thronged by those who enter, which is unchangeable in place, which is venerable by the devotion of those who worship.

But not only you, O Lord, arise into your rest, but "you and the ark of your sanctification." Not the ark of the covenant, not the ark of the law, but the ark of your sanctification. We remember indeed that there was an ark of the covenant, golden within and without, where the tablets of stone were, where the holy writing, where the book of the covenant, where the omer of manna. But all these are a figure of the body the Lord assumed, containing in itself the whole mystery of the law. Now, united both by the Spirit of deity and by the origin of the flesh, it is golden within and without, for the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father; it contains the eternal manna within itself, for he himself is the living bread; it keeps within itself the tablets of the covenant and the book of the law, for in him are the words of life. The prophet prays, then, that together with the Lord this ark of sanctification too (for this one God the Father has sealed, according to the Gospels) may arise into rest. But that earthly ark was often captured by foreigners and defiled by kings; and today, with the temple and the city overthrown, it no longer exists. And let us see what follows.

For it says: "Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your saints rejoice." When God and the ark of his sanctification rise again into rest, the priests are clothed with righteousness, the strongest breastplate, as the apostle says, putting on the breastplate of righteousness, with which to receive the enemy's darts and fortify the inner man; and the saints are to rejoice. And let us see the reason why the priests both put on righteousness and the saints rejoice. For it says: "For the sake of David your servant, do not turn away the face of your Christ." He referred "Christ" to the Spirit of deity, "David" to the flesh of the body. For he who remained in the form of God took the form of a servant. He asks, then, that he not turn away the face of Christ from the priests and saints, so that he may enlighten with the glory of his divinity those who rejoice for the sake of David, that is, for the sake of the mystery of the body he assumed.

And why he should not turn away the face of his Christ for the sake of David his servant, he shows, saying: "The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not disappoint him." The Lord swears, and swears truth; he confirms the faith of his word even with an oath, so that we may not doubt. He will not, then, defraud his David of the truth sworn. And what he swore to him is worth considering: "Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon my throne. If your sons keep my covenant and these testimonies of mine which I will teach them, their sons also shall sit upon your throne for ever. For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has chosen it as a dwelling for himself. This is my rest for ever and ever: here I will dwell, for I have chosen it." What is contained here that is proper to David? That city which was the royal city of his line, captured and overthrown by the Babylonians, did not keep the dignity of a kingdom under the rule of its masters; afterward, captured and burned by the Romans too, it no longer exists. And where is God's rest for ever? Where are kings from the fruit of his womb on God's throne? For today they serve as exiles, without a homeland, scattered over the whole world. And where is that truth which was sworn? Where is the promise that he will not be disappointed of the truth? And where is the everlasting throne of an eternal kingdom for the sons of David? What is called the chosen Zion bristles with ruins and is empty of inhabitants: and how is it God's rest for ever and ever? Times run on, and this age of our life remains: is God, then, without rest?

But let those who believe these things in the opinion of an unhappy error hear to whom the oath was sworn to David: surely to him of whom it is said: "I have laid help upon one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from my people. I have found David my servant, and with holy oil I have anointed him. For my hand will help him, and my arm will strengthen him. The enemy will gain nothing against him, and the son of iniquity will not again harm him. And I will cut down his enemies before his face, and those who hate him I will put to flight. And my truth and my mercy are with him, and in my name his horn shall be exalted. And I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers. He will call upon me: You are my Father, my God, and the upholder of my salvation. And I will make him the firstborn, high above the kings of the earth. For ever I will keep my mercy for him, and my covenant faithful to him. And I will establish his seed for ever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they profane my statutes and do not keep my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with the rod and their sins with stripes. But my mercy I will not scatter from him, nor deceive in my truth, nor profane my covenant, and what proceeds from my lips I will not make void. Once I have sworn by my holy one, that I will not lie to David: his seed shall remain for ever, and his throne like the sun in my sight, and like the full moon for ever." These promises belong to that David who was chosen as helper against the mighty, whose hand is on the sea, whose right hand is on the rivers, who dares to call God Father, because he is; who himself is the firstborn, who is high above the kings of the earth, whose seed is for ever and ever, for whom what has been said is not void, to whom an oath is sworn once by the holy one without falsehood, whose throne is like the sun in the sight of God and endures like the full moon for ever. From the fruit of this one's womb, then, they will be placed upon God's throne.

How we are of the fruit of his womb, let us hear the prophet Jeremiah teaching: "If," he says, "you have heard such a thing: whether a male has given birth." That sex does not admit childbirth; but the begetting that is from God has taken the likeness of childbirth. Let us hear Paul too in labor to bring forth sons, when he says: "My children, with whom I am again in labor." And that we are all his children the Lord himself testifies in the Gospel, saying: "Son, your sins are forgiven"; and again: "Little children, yet a while I am with you." His children, then, are to be placed on the Lord's throne.

And a condition of the hope is set first: "If," it says, "your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies, which I will teach them." Moses wrote the law, in which the testimonies of God are contained; this same prophet spends himself wholly in the law: how, then, are the sons of that David still to be taught the testimonies? The saying is not of the present time but is proper to those of whom it is said: "I confess to you, O Lord God, Father of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones." But taught and remaining in what they will be taught, what will they obtain? "For ever," it says, "they shall sit upon your throne." And who are these who will sit? Surely those of whom it is said: "And you will sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

We must not neglect what is said above and below. For above it was said: "I will set upon my throne"; but now it is said: "They shall sit upon your throne." And what will this be? Surely what is said: "All that the Father has is mine." The Father's throne is the Son's throne too, because "I and the Father are one." Or how will "I will set upon my throne" and "they shall sit upon your throne" be understood, except that, through the concordant and not unlike nature of the Unbegotten and the Only-begotten, the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, the substance of deity in both differing neither in kind nor in will, since the glory of the Father's majesty is inborn in the Only-begotten? And therefore the Father calls the Son's throne his own throne, because the Only-begotten was born both from him and in the glory of his unchangeable divinity, true God; nor does he feel it an affront to share thrones with him, since in him, begotten from himself in likeness of nature, there is no diversity.

Then the dignity of those who will sit upon the throne for ever is shown thus: "For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has chosen it as a dwelling for himself. This is my rest for ever and ever: here I will dwell, for I have chosen it." He did not, of course, choose Mount Zion, deserted and useless, nor a city torn down and overthrown. For God is not contained by places, nor does the almighty and eternal substance rest either in the deserted solitudes of mountains or in the names of cities now disfigured by ruins. But he chose the rest of those of whom the Lord says in the Gospel: "No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." He chose that holy Zion and heavenly Jerusalem, namely the harmonious assembly of the faithful and the souls sanctified by the sacraments of the church, in which, as in a house rational, intelligent, cleansed, and eternal through the glory of the resurrection, the rational, intelligent, undefiled, and eternal nature of the ineffable divinity may rest: not that it leaves the immensity of its infinity in which it is, so as to be confined within the narrow bounds of human minds, but that he who is everywhere, the same, whole, and always, rests in the saints and the approved through the seat of a dwelling worthy of him; where there is no offense, no change, but for ever and ever, that is, for eternal times, a worthy and pleasing dwelling has been chosen.

Then follows: "Her widow I will surely bless." One of the translators has been found to have rendered it thus: "Her catch I will surely bless," as though, the apostles having been made hunters and fishers of men, their catch were blessed; especially since Bethsaida, from which the apostles came, is called by interpretation of the Hebrew language "house of hunters." But we must follow that first authority of translation, sealed for the teaching of the church in the times of the Jews before the Lord's coming: "Her widow I will surely bless." How great is the dignity of widows, the honorable consciousness of a single marriage bed, and the unchanged constancy of a happy continence! For she is blessed, and blessed by blessing: that is, she becomes worthy of the blessing by the judgment of the one who blesses. But the apostle, the teacher of the Gentiles, urges us to think something else too about the widow who is to be blessed. For he teaches that the widow is she who from the synagogue has become the church, the law being dead not in the power of its spiritual working but by the end of its observance, saying: "Or do you not know, brothers (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? For the woman who is under a husband is bound to the law while the husband lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of the husband. So while the husband lives she will be called an adulteress if she is joined to another man. But if her husband dies, she is freed from the law, so that she is not held an adulteress though joined to another man. So, my brothers, you too have been put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who rose from the dead." By the comparison of a widow, who, her husband dead, is free for whatever marriage she will, he shows that the church, the law now ceasing, is the widow of the law, to be lawfully joined to Christ. This widow of the law, then, he will surely bless.

Then it says: "Her poor I will satisfy with bread." It is good that the poor not go hungry in the church: because when the needy is fed, or the thirsty given drink, or the naked clothed, or the sick visited, or one shut in prison sought out, these services of duty are rendered to him who in each of us hungers and thirsts and is cold and sick and shut in, and who says: "Amen I say to you, what you did to one of the least of these, you did to me." Through this faithful profession of his words, then, he satisfies the poor with bread. And he satisfies with bread those too who through humility of heart and contempt of the world place themselves in poverty, whom he will fill with the food of everlasting life, as is said in another place: "The rich have become needy and hungry, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing."

Then follows: "Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints shall exult with exultation." Above, the priests were clothed with righteousness; but they receive an advance in their honor: they are clothed with salvation, made conformable to the saving glory, because, according to the apostle, we await from heaven our Savior, who is able, according to the working of his power, to conform the body of our lowliness to the body of his glory. With this salvation, then, the priests are clothed; and the saints too shall exult with exultation. Above, they were only to exult, while still placed in the body of lowliness and glad only in the hope of eternity; but now they exult with perfect exultation, not in hope but in truth, not in image but in body. For there is often an exultation that is wont to be changed by chance or weakness or time; but this exultation of the saints is such that they exult with the exultation of an exultation complete in itself.

The cause of the exultation is shown: "There I will bring forth the horn of David." The horn is the emblem of kingship: for through it the royal ointment was poured on those who were to reign. When "there" is said, the rest is signified, of which it is said: "This is my rest for ever and ever." In this rest, then, God brings forth the horn of David, that is, the kingdom of that David who is prophesied: not that human, corruptible, and perishable kingdom, but the one that, according to God's rest, is for ever and ever. And whose will the kingdom of heaven be? Surely of those of whom it is said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," that is, the kingdom in which the eternal king, whose kingdom according to Daniel has no end, will reign.

This king, then, is not hidden: the law proclaims him, the prophets promise him, John, the preacher of repentance, points him out. For he, according to the Lord's saying in the Gospel, is the burning lamp, showing Christ to the darkness of this world. Every prophecy about him, then, is his lamp, showing the light of knowledge to the night of our ignorance, confounding the unbelieving and impious with the light of truth, and teaching the glory of the Father's majesty in the Only-begotten. And this is what follows: "I have prepared a lamp for my Christ. His enemies I will clothe with confusion; but upon him my sanctification shall flourish." The lamp has been prepared, so that the night of ignorance may not stand in the way of knowing him. His enemies will be clothed with confusion; for they will see the Son of Man in the majesty of his Father, and they will be clothed not with salvation but with confusion, being earthly and rising in a body of disgrace. "But upon him my sanctification shall flourish." "God exalted him," it says, "and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bend, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father," who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

Through the whole order of teaching we climb by steps; for by steps we are carried up to higher things. In that the prophet began thus, "Behold, how good and how pleasant," we are taught what is good and pleasant, so that by knowing them we may remain in what is good and pleasant. The prophet knowingly kept the reasoning of joining good and pleasant, because not everything that is good is pleasant, nor is everything that is pleasant good. Luxury is pleasant, but it is not good; for in that very charm of bodily wantonness there is damage both to health and to reputation. Bearing injury is good, when we are pressed toward irreligion by the punishments of hunger, thirst, cold, sleeplessness, insults, and pains; but it is not pleasant, for there the duty of perfect virtue is hurtful. And so, through these things, the good sometimes lacks pleasantness, and pleasantness often lacks what is good.

Let us see what it is that the prophet shows to be good and pleasant: namely, "for brothers to dwell in unity." The prophet did not praise human cohabitation nor the sharing of earthly houses. For we see brothers at odds over the very sharing of roofs, and living in the same dwelling often holds enemies; and sometimes the very resentment of living together adds fuel to hatreds. But the apostle knew there is a common and religious house, saying: "That you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth." So it is good and pleasant for brothers to dwell in unity. When they dwell in unity, they are gathered in the assembly of the church; when they are called brothers, they are in harmony through the love of a single will.

For at the first preaching of the apostles we read that this was the special praise of believers, as it is said: "For the heart and soul of all who believed were one": one in assent, not discordant in will, partners in faith, perfect in unanimity of love and judgment. And the teacher of the Gentiles testifies to this, saying: "That you may all be perfect in the same mind and the same judgment"; and again: "Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, of one accord, thinking one thing, doing nothing through rivalry or empty glory, but in humility each counting the others as surpassing himself, each of you looking not to his own things but to those of others." This is the apostle's joy: that we be of the same mind, held together by the same love, remain of one accord through the judgment of one mind, not be separated by rivalry nor divided by the pursuit of empty glory, and that each ought to think not of his own things but of others', so that we consider the means by which the wills of others may be kept in harmony. This he urges in another place, saying: "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, being at peace with all." He wants it to depend on us that, if possible, there be peace with all. Let our will be devoted to friendship with all, if the nature of others too has a disposition to peace, provided that the cause of peace being broken or not kept does not arise from us. This, then, befits the people of God: to be brothers under one Father, to be one under one Spirit, to walk of one mind under one roof, to be members of one body under one head. For the eye does not hate the ear, nor the nostrils loathe the mouth, nor does the hand spurn the foot. For as these are bound to one another by mutual services, so also by love. This is pleasant and good, for brothers to dwell in unity: to be in the same, to be the same, and to become different neither in assembly nor in love.

The prophet set up a comparison for this good and pleasant thing, saying: "Like the ointment from the head, which ran down upon the beard of Aaron, which ran down upon the hem of his garment." Aaron was anointed priest with an ointment whose composition and blending consists of spices. This consecration of his first priest was pleasing to God. We know too that our Lord was anointed invisibly and incorporeally, when it is said: "God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness." This anointing is not earthly; it is incorporeal, invisible: he is anointed not with oil as a priest and prophet, not with a horn as a king, but with the oil of gladness. This is the work of spiritual joy, and the fruit of gladness is applied to the mystery of the heavenly anointing; it is not the material of a creature. Since bodily things needed bodily things, Aaron is anointed with a blended perfume; but what is bodily, imbued through the efficacy of spiritual power, imitates the form of the heavenly oil. Finally, after this anointing Aaron is called, according to the law, christ, after the blending of the anointing, through the fact that it was shown to be blended by God, is consecrated as a figure of the invisible anointing. As, then, this perfume extinguishes all foul smells and unclean breaths of hearts wherever it is poured, and this sweet fragrance pours itself into everything into which it is brought, so through this mystery of poured ointment, and through it, all the stench of our earthly and filthy vices being wiped away, we now breathe toward God what is sweet. The blessed apostle Paul knew this spirit of sweet fragrance, saying thus: "We are the good fragrance of Christ to God in every place, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the latter a fragrance from death to death, to the former a fragrance from life to life": showing that as we are a fragrance of life to the living, so we are a fragrance of death to those who would die in their sins. But this fragrance of Christ from us is good to God. As, then, this ointment proved pleasing to God in the first priest, Aaron, with which he was anointed as a pattern of the oil of gladness, offering from himself to God a pleasing fragrance of faith and innocence, so it is good and pleasant for brothers to dwell in unity, by which unanimity of the same will is compared to the first and greatest mysteries of heavenly goods.

The ointment runs down from the head onto the beard. The beard is the adornment of manly age. For we ought not to be little ones in Christ except only in the sense of the saying, "Little ones in malice, not in understanding." The same apostle rebukes all the unfaithful as little ones because, remaining weak for solid food, they still need milk, saying: "I gave you milk to drink, not food; for you were not able, and even now you are not able." But of himself thus: "When I became a man, I put away the things of a little child." He hastens to attain to the perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of the body of Christ. This ointment, then, ran down from the head onto Aaron's beard, that is, onto the man of perfected faith. The head of the man, according to the apostle, is Christ. Moses composed and blended this ointment; but God taught how it was to be composed and blended, and God was the mediator in the law. From the head, then, that is, from Christ, it ran down onto the beard; and it ran down from him to whom it is said: "Your name is ointment poured out." It ran down onto one who, through the firmness of age, would remain in the firmness of unchangeable faith. It ran down also onto the hem of the garment. The hems of the garment are what flow down to the feet, by which this fragrance of ointment runs down to the whole body from the head to the beard and then to the hem of the garment. In those women who, anointing the Lord, bore in the Gospel a figure of the church, we are taught thus: that one anointed his head, another his feet; by which each of them is signified to have anointed, in one part of the body, the whole body. So the middle parts of the body are passed over; for when the hem of the garment and the beard are mentioned, the whole body is shown in them.

The likeness of another comparison is also added, when it is said: "Like the dew of Hermon, which comes down upon Mount Zion." Dew will not come down from Hermon onto Zion; for these mountains are separated from each other by a great distance. Nor indeed does nature allow dew to be seen to come down from place to place. But Zion, according to heavenly teaching, is the church, either the one that now is or the one of the saints that will be, which through the resurrection is thronged by the company of the glorified and of rejoicing angels. Hermon, however, is a mountain in Phoenicia, whose meaning is "anathema"; for what we call anathema is in Hebrew called Hermon. It is reported, about which a book of someone or other also exists, that the angels, desiring the daughters of men, when they came down from heaven, gathered on this exceedingly high mountain. But let us pass over these things. For what is not contained in the book of the Law we ought not even to know; they have been mentioned only because the prophet's statement about this mountain of God moved us. Certainly today the Gentiles venerate this mountain with a profane religion, and by that very seat of impious superstition testify to the meaning of its name, which is "anathema."

Dew comes from heaven, and we remember that it is desired among the gifts of blessing, when Isaac says to Jacob: "And may God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth abundance." Since, then, the gifts and blessings of God, with which he first blessed all things when they were created and made, afterward through Adam's sin came to stand under the anathema, it is pleasing to God that they should return again and come down to the seat of sanctification. For man was blessed; but after the blessing, as soon as he sinned, he was at once impious. But he who prefers the repentance of the sinner to his death wills that the dew of his blessing should come down from Hermon onto Zion, that is, pass over from the seat of impiety to the place of sanctification. For by dew all things grow green, are nourished, increase: so by that primal blessing of God man is begotten, breathes, grows. It is good and pleasant, then, that man, coming down from Gentile error, that is, from the profane veneration of Hermon, should pass over to Zion, that is, to the house of eternal blessedness, and delight him who rejoices in the salvation of all, "because there the Lord has commanded blessing and life for ever": in Zion, that is, or also in the unanimity of brothers dwelling together. For the church alone bestows blessings; unanimity earns eternal life. For he who, opening the way of eternal life, said, "Love one another as I have loved you," is no liar. For he himself is the truth, the way, the life, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The songs of ascents come to their end, but an end worthy of their ascents. For since by them one climbs to knowledge of the heavenly mystery, it follows that blessing is afterward owed to him to whom the climb has been made. The prophet therefore calls everyone to bless the Lord, and, as if all things were completed, gathers all to bear witness to the honor due, saying: "Behold now, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord." In saying "behold now" he signifies that the work of the laborious ascent is complete, so that they may now bless, because by making progress they have ascended. He is to be blessed because he has carried us on high, because he has raised us by the steps of faith to the height of his house. But the mouth of a sinner is unworthy of blessing God; and therefore he says: "all his servants." Not everyone's blessing is acceptable to God, nor should just anyone think he can please him. This belongs only to the servant of God, not to the servant of sin nor the servant of the world. "For everyone," it says, "who commits sin is the servant of sin." It belongs to the servant of God, then, to bless his Lord with a religious mouth.

And this will not belong even to a servant who professes himself a servant by name only, who even now, hesitant and wavering, is carried about by the uncertain wind of faith, whose thought and will wander off into the remembrance of sins and the cares of pleasures. And therefore, when he had said, "Behold now, bless the Lord, all his servants," he added: "you who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of the Lord." He who stands is not moved from his place. He has already run, has already ascended, already remains immovable, already drinks eagerly that blessed voice of the prophet: "He set my feet upon a rock"; and again: "On a rock you have exalted me"; and he will hear, as if said to himself as to Moses: "But you, stand here with me." But of sinners we read thus: "They loved to move their feet." One must stand, then, in the house of the Lord, because the blessing of those who stand is pleasing, of those standing in that holy and heavenly house, Jerusalem, thronged with angels, to which one climbs through this house of the church and our assembly.

And since there are many dwellings with the Father, those bless the Lord who stand not only in the house but also in its courts. Not every house is a court. Whatever is outside the court is also the house; but the court is the more inward and intimate seat. Those, then, who are in the court will stand further within, because, although it is a dignity to stand in the house, yet he who has stood in the court goes beyond. That those in the house and those in the court are different, the prophet shows elsewhere, saying: "Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God." To have flowered is the greater fruit. And although planting has its dignity, yet the honor of those who blossom surpasses it, because, as the beginning is in the planting, so the joy of good work is in the flower.

I have found some in doubt about this, saying that "in the courts of the house of the Lord" was added by the first translators because it is contained under the same verses in the following psalm, they themselves supposing that it had been omitted in the Hebrew books by a scribal fault. But let the new interpreters treat these matters as they will: we must defer to the authority and antiquity of the translations.

The prophet urges us to this hope of standing in the house and in the courts of the Lord, saying: "In the nights lift up your hands to the holy places, and bless the Lord." For, according to the apostle, we live under the rulers of this darkness, and the night of the world holds us, which through the preaching of the Gospel is already advancing toward light. "For the night is far spent; walk decently as in the day." In this night, then, of ignorance, snares, weaknesses, desires, and vices, the hands are to be lifted up to the holy places, not only for praying and entreating but also for working. For bare prayers do not avail; our works are to be lifted up to the holy things of God, that is, in clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, comforting the afflicted, helping the oppressed, loving all. For these sanctify us in this weakness of our body; these are pleasing and holy to God. And the prophet is not unaware of this, saying: "The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice." For now, at the consummation of the age, which is the evening, the offering to God is not in bulls and goats but in good works. Moses taught us by example: when he stood with hands raised, he was winning, but when they were lowered to the ground he gave the people over to be defeated by the enemy, showing by this figure that if our works are earthly, our enemy wins, but if they are lofty, he is to be defeated. Our hands, then, are to be lifted up in the nights, that we may be planted in the house and flourish in the courts. And the Lord is to be blessed, that is, we must always work with God's blessing: lest, when you give bread to the needy, you be sad for fear of hunger; lest, when you offer means to one in want, you think it a loss; lest, when you clothe the naked, you think you are being stripped. "For God loves a cheerful giver."

And what the joyful and blessing works of lifted hands deserve, he shows, saying: "May the Lord bless you out of Zion": the Lord, that is, of the church and of the holy Jerusalem and of the city built of the living stones of gems. And so that we might know that all our hope is placed in the true and eternal God, he added: "who made heaven and earth," showing that the God of the churches is he who made heaven and earth: through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

To the simplicity of hearers the psalm seems plain. For it contains, for the most part, what is written in the book of Exodus: the plagues of Egypt, Pharaoh's punishment, the deaths of kings, and the inheritance gained of a hostile land. But if, according to the apostle, what is in the law is a shadow of things to come, and what was done in it are things spoken allegorically, they must not be heard carelessly, since under the faithfulness of bodily events they have been set as an example of spiritual works. It is a matter of great care to weigh the force of the words placed and to know what is proper to each thing under the meaning of what has been said. For not everyone knows the kinds and virtues of herbs. If someone unskilled and ignorant comes into a field rich in these healthful herbs, he will pass them all by, thinking them useless and grown at random; but if one skilled and learned enters this most precious field of plants, he will gather everything others passed by and will admire what the ignorant neglected, knowing when is the useful time for gathering them, for what kinds of healing they are to be used, and how much of them, or how far, is to be measured out. So too we must understand it to be in the divine Scriptures: if unskilled ears and a rustic mind hear them, they neglect them as idle and unnecessary; but if a hearer and reader stands by who is eager for the knowledge of God, and to whom frequent reading and the gift of spiritual grace have given the skill to judge and understand each thing, he will admire everything and use it according to its natural virtues and efficacies, not ignorant of when something is to be taken and for what cure it is to be chosen, when healing is to be given from it to the body and when medicine to the soul, so that nothing be premature, nothing ill-timed or late, but, comparing virtues, times, and things, he may use skillfully what he has learned. This is understood to be so especially in this psalm. For in an incredible way the words have been fitted to the events, so that, while faithfully stating what was done, they nevertheless, so placed, offer a greater advance in inner and spiritual understanding. Nor was this reasoning kept only so that the things done bodily might be recalled to show God's magnificence, but also so that, through the circumstances of the deeds and the force of the names, they might offer in what was done an example of what we are to do. It is necessary, then, to distinguish each of these by persons, times, and virtues, so that what incurious ears may perhaps have lost as unnecessary may be applied to the healing and cure of human unbelief. And this we shall be taught by the very contents of the psalm, which begins thus:

"Praise the name of the Lord; praise the Lord, you servants, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the Lord our God. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is kind; sing psalms to his name, for it is sweet." And we must observe at the beginning of the psalm that it calls us to the praise of God, whereas in the previous psalm it urged us only to blessing. There is no doubt that blessing goes before praise: for the first honor is placed in blessing, but it is completed in praise. And praise is not to be begun confusedly, but confessed in order and measure. For this is first: "Praise the name of the Lord." We are admonished first, then, to praise the name of the Lord: that he is God of heaven, God of the earth, God of the world, and, what is proper to our faith and hope, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In these, first, is praise to God.

The next command is: "Praise the Lord, you servants." Through knowledge of God's name we advance to knowledge of him. For now we praise not the name of the Lord but the Lord, knowing why he is God of heaven, why God of the earth, why God of the world, why God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For having passed beyond these first rudiments of childish teaching, we praise God no longer through the obedience of subjects but through the magnificence of his boundless power; and we praise him as his servants: and not only as his servants called by the bare name of our profession, but as standing in his house, no longer wandering or straying but established with the firmness of those who stand; and not only standing, but in the court of the Lord our God, received into the more inward and central seat of the house. In this order, then, praise is begun by servants and by those who stand in the house and in the court.

God is to be praised because he is kind. For that he is almighty is the power of his nature; but that he is kind is necessary for us, whom the weakness of the body and the condition of our origin hold in sins. And what hope is there for human offenses if kindness is absent from God? But the reasoning of the words must be considered: for he who is to be praised because he is kind, to his name we must sing psalms because it is sweet. "Sing psalms to his name, for it is sweet." Where "sing psalms" is said, it refers to the works of the body, so that through the manifold works of our instrument, that is, the body, a harmonious and fitting praise may be made to God. We are commanded, then, to sing psalms to his name, because it is sweet. For it is sweet to God that our bodies should serve him with pleasing and approved service: or rather that very name of the Lord is sweet.

And what sweetness either his name or singing psalms to him has in itself, he at once added, saying: "For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for his possession." The beginning of the origin of the Jews, according to the sanctification of the race, is Abraham, for to him first came the word of God; why, then, did the Lord choose Jacob rather than Abraham? Then, since Israel is the same as Jacob according to the address of naming, why is it added again: "Israel for his possession"? Order required that Abraham, the head of the election, be mentioned, not Jacob, who is already third in the election. Reason also urged that the meaning of Israel be understood in Jacob. Moreover, there is this too: that he who is Jacob is chosen, he who is Israel is possessed.

But at the beginning of our discussion we pointed out that things from bodily events are recalled in the psalm in which the form of the future shines as in a mirror, and that the words are fitted to the events in such a way that, while stating what was done, they nevertheless bring us a fuller understanding of what was spiritually prefigured in the events. The name of God is sweet, not to one nation only, and that an irreligious one, but now to all nations and tongues. For he chose for himself Jacob, who supplanted the elder, bought the birthright for food and from the despair of the one who sold it, carried off the blessing, did not regret his servitude, then after the wrestling saw God and was named Israel. For first he is Jacob, and then Israel. Let us look around at the body of the church, which, through the difference of faith, holds itself to be both Jacob and Israel. This company too supplants the people of the law by faith, receives its birthright, and carries off its blessing, according to the saying of the Lord: "From the days of John the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent carry it off." It is Jacob, then, that is chosen, as the Lord says: "I chose you, not you me." It is Israel that is possessed: known in the birthrights and blessings that passed it by, faithful in a servitude of long time, strong in the mystery of the wrestling, persistent in winning blessings again, and Israel in the knowledge and sight of God.

The Spirit of prophecy knows this all-powerful sweetness of God's name in gathering the nations and possessing the faithful, saying: "For I have known how great the Lord is." The prophet speaks with the service of his own mouth, but not with his own knowledge. This voice is his who says: "No one knows the Father except the Son and him to whom the Son wills to reveal him"; and the Son indeed will reveal the Father to whom he wills, but no one knows his greatness, as the prophet says: "Of whose greatness there is no end." Knowledge of this infinity, then, will belong to him alone who, according to the perfect fullness of his origin, is himself the image of the Infinite.

"For I have known how great the Lord is, and our God is above all gods." He is not above all those gods of whom he says below: "The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of men's hands: they have a mouth and will not speak"; for there is nothing great if he is preferred when compared with metals, stones, and wood. And since these are not gods, we must ask whom he called gods. For the church does not acknowledge a multitude of gods. This is the error of the Gentiles, to invent or believe in the intercourse, conceptions, procreations, and successions of gods. But for us, according to the apostle, there is one God, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord, our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him. One from one, God from God. The Unbegotten does not admit another, so that there should be two; nor does the fact that the Only-begotten is one exclude his being God. There are not two unbegotten, there are not two only-begotten: in what each is, each is one; since neither does the Only-begotten have an equal of his kind, nor does the Unbegotten admit one, nor does the only-begotten God subsist from any other than the unbegotten God.

We must see, however, above which gods our God is. I find gods spoken of through the prophet thus: "God stood in the assembly of gods, and in the midst he judges between gods." And this seems ambiguous and does not state clearly enough which gods it means. But the Lord in the Gospels freed us from error about this naming, saying: "I said, you are gods, and all sons of the Most High"; and he added: "If, then, he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be broken." God's word cannot be broken: men are called gods. I find Moses too called a god, when it is said to him: "I have made you a god to Pharaoh." But the apostle too taught that others are called gods, when he says: "For even if there are those called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord our Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." For us, indeed, there is one God and one Lord; but there are many gods who are called so in heaven and on earth. And indeed, if this name of gods belongs to men according to the sentence of God, much more is it worthy of angels, archangels, thrones and dominions, powers, principalities, whom the apostle shows are called gods in heaven.

These, then, are those who are so called; but our God is above all: not by comparison, since he excels beyond comparison, but he is above the rest in power; and how he is above the rest he shows at once, saying: "All that he willed he has done in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the depths." It belongs to God alone to do all that he wills. For only perfect power is in nothing hindered from doing what it wills; and to him from whom all things are, no difficulty arises. It belongs to a nature inferior to him not to accomplish all that it wills. For whoever owes what he is to another lacks the power of omnipotence, because for the very thing that he subsists he has another author. And he who does not owe himself to himself cannot do all things, since he subsists from a greater. But let us see what it is that the omnipotence of God did according to his will in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the depths.

It is indeed a great thing if we behold the unchanging firmness of heaven; the sun, regulated in its yearly and untiring courses and tempering the changes of the year within fixed limits; the perpetual changes of the moon too, and the undisturbed risings, settings, and turnings of the constellations; and then the riches of the earth and its fertile fruits for the life of men, cattle, birds, and beasts; then the seas full of their inhabitants and the life of fish breathing within the waves; and further, since the Greek has spoken of seas in the plural, the incalculable tides of the ocean and the impenetrable nature of the capacious abyss, by which the surge poured out upon the land is sucked back. But although these things, according to human opinion, are full of wonders, and it might rightly be said of them, "All that he willed he has done in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the depths," let us see what all those things are that he willed and did.

"Bringing up clouds from the end of the earth, he made lightnings for the rain; he brings forth the winds out of his treasuries." Passing over the wonder of the thrones, dominions, principalities and powers, Cherubim and Seraphim, angels and archangels, heaven, earth, sea, and abyss, did God do in these all that he willed in heaven and on earth, in the sea and the abyss: "bringing up clouds from the end of the earth, he made lightnings for the rain; he brings forth the winds out of his treasuries"? Or is this alone the omnipotence of a perfect will in God: that the lands breathe out clouds, that lightnings flash when rains threaten, that winds blow with alternating breaths? But the force of the words and the natures of things refute this opinion of ours. "Bringing up," it says, "clouds from the end of the earth": what does it mean that clouds are brought up, and brought up from the end of the earth? Damp valleys indeed breathe out mists; but valleys are not the end of the earth, nor has anyone thought a mist to be the same as a cloud. Then: "he made lightnings for the rain." What understanding of human sense is here? We sometimes see lightnings without rain, and there is often rain without lightning. Rains do not bring lightnings, nor do lightnings bring down rains. There follows too: "he brings forth the winds out of his treasuries." What understanding of human sense is here? Shall we think that the winds are stored in some hollow and fortified place of treasuries, from which winds are usually brought forth like the most precious portion of a treasure? And since the changes of the winds are usually stirred up frequent, uncertain, and often contrary, does God, so often busy with these things, bring these winds out of the secret place of his riches so that they may change and conflict?

But let these things have been mentioned by me, in my wish to show the force and reasoning of the words, in such a way that it may nonetheless be understood to belong to invisible and almighty power that clouds are brought up from the sea, which is at the end of the earth, that lightnings flash amid rains, and that winds blow from the hidden seats of their breathing. But since the omnipotence of God is not only in these things, nor did he do only in these all that he willed in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the depths, and since we remember that in things recorded as done bodily spiritual things are signified, we must now show what we ought to understand under these sayings through the power of prophecy.

In that "all that he willed he has done in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the depths," so far as is permitted to our knowledge, nothing is dearer to God than man. And there is a reason why he is God's special creature. The world was established by a word, but man is made with deliberation, not by a word but by a thought-out work. He is made too in the image of God; by the inbreathing of God he is completed as a living soul. He receives a law, is left to his own will, is set free as lord of all the world, is an inhabitant of paradise, is worthy of the devil's envy, is reserved for mercy after sin, is trained for the knowledge of God through every age of this world, is prepared as a judge of angels. Creation, itself subjected to vanity in hope, awaits his revelation; at his repentance from sin there is the greatest joy among the angels in heaven. This very man, through the mystery of the birth according to the flesh, has been taken up into Christ. Now everywhere the mouth that was formerly irreligious teaches religion; now the body once polluted with acts of sexual immorality is pure by continence; now the mind once blind to the knowledge of God has become Israel. Now envy has advanced into imitation of the good; now drunkenness has burned into fasts; now hatred has been changed into love; now vices have been destroyed in the life of virtues.

The Lord, then, has done all that he willed in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the depths. For in all these he held nothing before his man, for whose sake even his only-begotten, God, became man; and he did these things "bringing up clouds from the end of the earth." The Lord commanded the clouds not to rain on the thorny and unfruitful vineyard: "I will command the clouds," he says, "not to rain upon it." I know also a cloud in which God spoke: "In a pillar of cloud," it says, "he spoke to them." And Paul testifies to me that in this cloud not only what is read is to be understood, saying: "Do you not know that our fathers were under the cloud and were baptized into Moses?" This cloud, then, signifies the apostolic teaching, which, overshadowing and defending from the heat, shuts out all the burning of the future judgment. And that they are from the last of the earth, let us hear the apostle saying: "For I think God has displayed us apostles as last, like those born out of due time." The Lord himself, when there was talk about place and rank among the disciples, said: "Whoever wishes to be first among you, let him be last of all." These clouds, then, God, doing all that he wills, brings up from the last of the earth, and the lowly places of the earth breathe out this overshadowing teaching.

"He made lightnings for the rains." Lightning is the recognition of heavenly power, and the Lord himself testifies to this, saying: "For as the lightning comes out of the east and appears even to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." And this indeed is so in the Lord, who will be seen not in places, like bodily things, but coming everywhere. But today, in individuals, whoever will proclaim the power of God, whoever will offer the knowledge of him through teaching, have been made lightnings for rains: first flashing themselves with the lightning of knowledge, then pouring out a shower of words. And Moses, shining not now spiritually through teaching but bodily through glory, recalls this rain to be poured out from himself thus: "Attend, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words from my mouth. Let my saying be awaited like rain, and let my words come down like dew, and like rain upon the grass and like snow upon the hay." Those lightnings have been made into these rains: words that give life, water those who drink, and revive what has been dried up by the winter of sins.

The order has been kept, so that after the clouds gathered from the last of the earth, after the lightnings set for rains, he brings forth the winds out of his treasuries. And which winds he brings out of his treasuries is not doubtful: surely those of whom he says: "Making his angels spirits." For there are angels of the little ones who daily see God. These spirits, then, have been sent forth for the salvation of the human race; for our weakness could not withstand so many and such great heavenly spiritual wickednesses unless angels were given for our guard. For this the help of a stronger nature was needed; and that this is so we are taught by the words with which the Lord strengthens Moses, trembling and afraid, saying: "Behold, my angel will go before you." These winds, then, he brings out of his treasuries, so that these divine protections may guard us against the world-rulers of this darkness in inheriting salvation.

Then follows this order of words: "Who struck the firstborn of Egypt, from man to beast, and sent signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, upon Pharaoh and upon all his servants; who struck many nations and slew mighty kings: Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan he slew; and he gave their land as an inheritance, an inheritance to Israel his people." The divine word often teaches that he is to be understood as God of heaven and earth and creator of the universe who struck Egypt, divided the sea, drowned the Egyptians, led out his people with great and wonderful powers, fed them with manna in the desert, and, the nations being cast out, brought them into the land of promise. And indeed all these magnificent and splendid works testify that he is God; for it is not of ordinary and moderate power to have done such great things: he is to be understood as admirable in them. But the apostle teaches us, with veneration for the deeds, to recognize in them a prefiguring of spiritual teaching and work, since the law is spiritual, since its deeds are spoken allegorically, since the fathers were under the cloud, since they were baptized into Moses, since they drank from the spiritual rock, since the rock is Christ, since, finally, the Lord was to be lifted up after the pattern of the serpent lifted up in the desert. Although, then, those things were done bodily in Egypt, yet they are now done spiritually in us.

Egypt, in which is the figure of the world, is struck by the powers and plagues of God and terrified by signs and portents. It is struck by the plagues of God when it hears its judgment, when it learns its condemnation, when it is judged daily in the very guilt of its conscience, when the Lord nailed its principal and original powers to his cross. He also spoke as to a living and animate Egypt, so that he might be thought to address not a dull earth and lifeless region but its inhabitants, whom he had made rational and living: "He sent signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, upon Pharaoh and upon all his servants." What is "into your midst"? We learn it from the saying: "But the Lord God, our king, king before the ages, has worked salvation in the midst of the earth." In the middle place of the earth, then, in which the Lord suffered, working salvation for us, he sent signs and wonders, when in the hours of his cross the sun fled, the earth trembled, the rocks split, the tombs opened, the dead rose. These signs were done in your midst, O Egypt. Your Pharaoh, that is, the devil, is killed by the waters when the people is baptized, himself overwhelmed with his army; then many nations were struck, that is, the innumerable settlements of vices in us were extinguished. Mighty kings too were destroyed, mighty indeed.

"Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan he slew." And what is this? So many kingdoms were overthrown, so many kings killed: and is mention made only of these? Mention is indeed made, according to the faithfulness of the deeds, of a few out of many; but only these are mentioned in whom, although the deed done was known, yet through the conditions and force of their names a spiritual condition was woven in. For Sihon means "fruitless tree" (what we call a fruitless tree is called Sihon in Hebrew), and Amorite means "one who embitters." Under the meaning of these names, then, he destroyed the fruitless powers in us who embittered him: the fruitless rulers, namely, who held us, who were embittering the Lord, and who were therefore cut down after the example of the fruitless tree, according to the Gospel saying. King Og means "wall" or "rampart," and Bashan "confusion" or "shame." He extinguished, then, this king of our confusion and shame, loosing, according to the apostle, the wall or rampart, that is, tearing down the obstacle by which we were kept from the knowledge of God. Then he slew all the kingdoms of Canaan. Genesis teaches that Canaan was cursed and was to be the servant of his brothers because of his insulting injury to his father. The name Canaan means "motion." What, then, moved us to vices and cursed impiety and reigned over us by their force and power, the Lord has extinguished. And that sins do not reign in us through the various powers that work in the sons of disobedience, let us hear the apostle saying: "Let sin no longer reign in your mortal body." These kingdoms, then, have been slain; for they no longer rule in us.

But when these were slain, what follows? "He gave their land as an inheritance, an inheritance to Israel his people." The land of the kings and nations mentioned above was indeed given, but it was lost again. Today it is inhabited by Gentiles; Israel is everywhere an exile: and how is the land that was given an inheritance? The same order remains, then: under what was done bodily, what was to be done spiritually was prefigured. The land of our bodies, then, has been given as an inheritance, which before was cursed in Canaan, prone to vices, in Bashan full of confusion and shame, in the Amorite embittering and provoking, which in Og the wall of unbelief possessed, which in Sihon the fruitless tree had occupied. This land, then, the rampart of unbelief being loosed and the fruitless tree cut out of it, has been given as an inheritance, and given to Israel his people. What this land of inheritance is and who this Israel is, let us hear the apostle Paul saying: "As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear the image of the heavenly." This is the Israel to whom the inheritance of this blessed land will fall, to whom the possession of his earthly body, glorified together in the Lord, will be eternal. This is proper to Christians who keep this name unharmed in themselves to the end through the image of the heavenly.

And so it says: "O Lord, your name is for ever." Is this to be wished by us for God, or does eternal power need our wish in order to remain for ever? Rather, we should wish that it remain in us; just as when we say, "Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done in heaven and on earth," we certainly do not wish that these things should come to God, that he who is holy should be hallowed, that his will should be done whose deed is in his will. These are rather wishes for our own sake: that through the excellent works of our faith his name may be hallowed in us (for he says: "Be holy, for I am holy"); that his kingdom may come to us, and we may be worthy of the eternal kingdom through the substance of eternity granted us (because to confess his kingdom is the hope of life, and to the thief who said to him, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom," he answered, "Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise"); that, as his will is obeyed in heaven by the untiring heavenly powers, so it may be obeyed by us on earth, lest bodily weakness turn us aside from carrying out his will (for in heaven it is said daily with untiring voices: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory"); so that for us too there may be nothing else in our work but that by which his name is hallowed, nothing else in our hope but that by which we hope his kingdom will come to us, nothing else in our will but that by which eternal praises are to be offered him by us. The fruit of this prayer is a matter of our need: that his name may remain with us for ever.

Then follows: "And your memorial to generation and generation." Not, as often, from age to age, nor from generations to generations, but to generation and generation. And this is said not of the name but of the memorial. The memorial is the remembrance of the works of God contained in the book of the law. And since the law and memorial of God remained in the first generation, that of the Jews, until the fullness of times, just as punishment was postponed for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah until the fullness of sin, so when the first generation had filled up the measure of all impieties, the memorial of God and the remembrance of all his works passed to the other generation, namely to the Christians, with whom today is the veneration of the law and of prophecy and the name of the Lord.

He kept this same order in what follows, saying: "For the Lord will judge his people and be comforted in his servants." To be judged and to be comforted differ, and a people and a servant differ. In the servants is comfort, but in the people judgment. Who does not know that Israel according to the flesh is called the people of God? And it is said by the apostle: "Those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law." God will judge his people, then; but he will be comforted in his servants, namely those of whom the Lord says: "He who believes in me will not be judged but will pass from death into life; but he who does not believe has already been judged." The Lord, Israel having been judged, will be comforted in his servants. For in all the faithful of the earth he will have comfort for his loss.

For he would have wished his people, whom he had chosen in their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not to be judged: for whose sake he had afflicted Egypt with various plagues, for whose sake he had stood by in the pillar of fire and cloud, for whose sake he had divided the sea, brought water from the rock, sent manna from heaven, given the law, granted pardon for such great sacrileges, cast down so many kingdoms of the irreligious, sent prophets, willed that his only-begotten be born a man. But the people, ungrateful for so many and such great benefits, and the first-chosen tenant of the vineyard, laid murderous hands on the very Lord of the vineyard, putting to death, so far as lay in them, God crucified in man. But servants were chosen, to whom the vineyard would be handed over as they rendered its fruit, in whom the Lord, his people having been judged, might be comforted for the loss of his kindness. So the nations comfort him in their martyrs, confessors, and faithful, paying back from themselves the fruits of the grace entrusted to them. This voice is not new, nor is it this prophet's alone. Moses, in that splendid song of Deuteronomy, when he was proclaiming the sins and last impieties of this people and the faith of another generation, says: "For the Lord will judge his people and be comforted in his servants." Holy Eleazar too, when he was being forced by the rulers of his people to taste a feigned sacrifice, consummates the glory of martyrdom under this same voice, knowing that the Lord, his people having been judged, would be comforted in his servants who do his will.

Then with prophetic speech he turns to driving out the error of the Gentiles, refuting their foolish and irreligious superstitions from the very causes of the superstitions, saying: "The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of men's hands. They have a mouth and will not speak; they have eyes and will not see; they have ears and will not hear; they have nostrils and will not smell; they have hands and will not feel; they have feet and will not walk; they will not cry out with their throat, nor is there breath in their mouth. Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them." The same thing is often said in other psalms too about the idols of the nations; and all prophecy labors to turn human error away from these most foolish pursuits of irreligion. For many add authority to these impieties of theirs, seeking honor for the gods they have made for themselves by the value of the metals, forming them of gold and silver; but they bestow only what they can, namely the image of a mouth, eyes, ears, nostrils, hands, and feet, worshipping their gods in the form of a dead body, whose mouth, the spirit having flown, is mute, the eyes dull, the ears deaf, the nostrils lifeless, the hands slack, the feet stiff, the whole body motionless. But what they do not dare to hope is assigned to their error: that they should be like those they adore, the worshippers in fellowship with the worshipped, themselves to be left, like the idols, dead bodies without the breath of life.

Having shown the Gentile error, the prophetic speech returned to the order of teaching, saying: "House of Israel, bless the Lord; house of Aaron, bless the Lord; house of Levi, bless the Lord; you who fear the Lord, bless him." In these distinctions of names and offices he has embraced the whole people of the church, but through the meaning of the names and their proper senses he has divided the merits of the offices themselves. For in saying "house of Israel" and "house of Aaron" and "house of Levi" and "you who fear the Lord," one is distinguished from another, just as the apostle, writing to the Corinthians, makes a certain distinction in names when he says: "to the called, to the saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," signifying that the called are one thing, the saints another, those who call on the name of the Lord another. Now we see Israel named first, Aaron second, Levi third, those who fear the Lord fourth. And there is no doubt that the priests are signified in Aaron: for Aaron was the first priest in the law, and from then on the honor of priests remained in his succession. In Levi the ministers are plainly shown: for this tribe was chosen for the ministry. The rest of the people, whose duty is not priesthood or ministry but fear, is named in "those who fear the Lord." But the apostle teaches us that Israel is above all these, when he says: "And as many as follow this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." The rule of their office holds the priests and ministers in what they do; but it is far better to do something by will than by law. And the best thing is, through the order of ministry, not only to satisfy the ministry but, through the knowledge of teaching and the warmth of faith, to strive toward the knowledge and contemplation of God. He placed, then, in the first rank of those who bless, him who would understand and see God, which is proper to Israel, and who would excel the office in which he was and the honor of the priest by this very power of God known by faith and contemplated: because, although there are many Aarons, that is, priests, few Israels, that is, those who will contemplate God with the knowledge of the mind, will be found. These, then, are called first to bless, the others after them to bless in the office in which they themselves are. But the house of Israel, the house of Aaron, the house of Levi, and all who fear the Lord bless God: him, namely, who is the blessed God out of Zion, who dwells in Jerusalem, the holy mount Zion and heavenly city, the church of the firstborn, abiding and enrolled in heaven, in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

Prophetic speech is not idle, nor does spiritual utterance arise from empty and superfluous causes. For if in prudent men it is especially expected that what they say should be worthy of their gravity and learning, and that all their speech should not be random and wandering but should proceed from rational causes, be useful to the expectation of the hearers and fitting to the authority of the speakers, how much more must we think this of the heavenly oracles, so that whatever is in them is held to be lofty, divine, rational, and perfect. But often, indeed always, it happens through our fault that we neglect what we hear read in the church, our ears and minds wandering far from it, so that through carelessness in listening the dignity of the heavenly sayings grows cheap among us. When during the time of the reading we reckon accounts, conceive anger, think of injuries, recall luxuries, plot acts of sexual immorality, then, occupied with these things, our ears are deaf and our mind dull; and if perhaps something of what is read falls into our ears, yet the mind, buried by the cares of the world, does not feel the force of the sayings; and it will think light the authority of things whose understanding it does not attain.

All that is in the prophetic books holds for humanity the greatest advance in salvation and teaching, and all of it was written for our sake: now to bring us instruction in an innocent life, now to convey knowledge of God, now to give understanding of our origin and nature, now to offer understanding of things to come not by hope only but by reason, now to set forth the causes and origin of this universe, and to stretch human sense, incapable of understanding such great things, by various kinds of teaching so as to grasp knowledge of them. For there was need of certain parts and divisions, through which, gradually, by constant use and exercise, at least an opinion of this understanding, incomprehensible to us, might creep in. There are many prophets, and their sayings are vast and abundant; there are also many psalms, and many and varied things are gathered in each. And although all embrace one and the same form of teaching, yet by different instructions they direct us into the same way of knowledge, not heaping everything into one (for we are incapable of all), but explaining parts by parts, so that through knowing single things progress may be made to many. In this psalm, since the arguments for each point of the same matter are different, this is contained: that we should understand the cause of this universe, that is, why heaven, why earth, why men, why the rest exist, to have proceeded from the goodness and mercy of God, through what is said: "Confess to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy is for ever."

And first, in its beginning, "Confess to the Lord," a double sense is brought: either that we should praise God in confession, because he is good, because his mercy is for ever; or that we should confess our sins to him, to be forgiven by him, because he is good and his mercy unfailing. Both suit our nature: that we should praise him for the knowledge of whom we are born, and that we should confess our sins, acknowledging them as sin, to him who is good and merciful for ever. For it is not confession to confess what you have done to God, who is ignorant of nothing, since God does not need this declaration, to whose knowledge nothing is hidden, to whose approach nothing is impassable, to whose power nothing is left over, outside whom there is no place; but confession is the declared knowledge of a thing that was unknown, advancing from the opinion of one judgment to the sentence of another understanding. Someone had formerly thought it useful and pleasant to rob, to kill, to steal, to be proud, to drink, to go with prostitutes; but when he learned that all these are liable to eternal damnation, having learned them he confesses his error. And confession of error is a declaration of ceasing. One must cease, then, from the sin for whose sake the confession of sin has begun. But he is beyond pardon who has learned his sin and does not confess it once learned.

We must always confess, not because we must always sin, so as always to have to confess, but because untiring confession of old and former sin is useful. The Holy Spirit teaches that we must always confess when he says through the prophet: "The righteous man is his own accuser in the first of his speech." The righteous man accuses himself not of present things but of past ones; for from one who is liable to accusation for present things the name of righteous is taken away. And let us hear the apostle Paul reproving himself for past things, when he says: "For I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am." This is that true confession of the righteous man, which commends present righteousness by the consciousness and confession of the past. To this we are also admonished elsewhere through the prophet: "Confess your sins first," he says, "that you may be justified." To this confession, then, we are called in the psalm, "for God is good, for his mercy is for ever," our confession having from this the most earnest faith, because he to whom we confess is both good and does not know how to cease being merciful.

"Confess to the God of gods, for his mercy is for ever." As we are taught in the Gospels by the Lord's answer to the Sadducees, he is not the God of the dead but of the living; through him it was also said: "I said, you are gods, and all sons of the Most High." God does not deign to be the God of the corruptible and the dead, but of those who, to be transformed into heavenly glory, have stripped off the old earthly man and put on the new one who is in heaven, who will be conformed to the body of God's glory. And although the merit of their faith requires that these be made gods, yet the greatest cause is "for his mercy is for ever." He did not need to be called God of gods, but it belongs to his goodness and mercy to make gods, imparting the honor of his name from the disposition of mercy and goodness.

"Confess to the Lord of lords, for his mercy is for ever." The apostle taught that many are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, so that this might seem to belong not only to human nature but also to spiritual nature, when he says: "But even if there are those called gods, in heaven and on earth," showing by the meaning of heaven and earth that this name belongs to both natures. The same apostle also signifies God as Lord of lords, when he says: "King of kings and Lord of lords." Lordship over the base and degenerate is unworthy of God. He is King of kings and Lord of lords, as he is God of gods. And whom he means by gods is not doubtful: of them he said, "God stood in the synagogue of gods." And the same apostle plainly shows the kings, saying: "Already without us you reign; and would that you did reign!" Kings are those over whom sin does not reign, who rule their own body, who already have command over this flesh made subject and subdued to them. These, then, are kings, and God is the king of these. These too are lords, who will not be servants of sin: for he who commits sin is the servant of sin. Sin, then, must be ruled, not served. And they are lords who subject these bodies of sin to their rule by subduing their vices and sins. The apostle knew he was lord of his body when he says: "For I subdue my body and bring it into servitude." He who brings into servitude must by a lord's right bring into servitude the one who is to serve. Of such lords, then, God is the Lord, calling them through the hope of eternity to be lords, so that God may be Lord of these lords: and this for no other reason than "for his mercy is for ever," granting us through the kindness of his eternal mercy that, being made lords, we may be worthy to have him as our Lord.

"Who alone has done great wonders." In very many deeds of human works many great and wonderful things have appeared, but whatever was done in them is referred to him whose power did them. Moses did many wonders in Egypt; but the magicians and enchanters bear witness that the finger of God is in those works, as it is written: "So the enchanters said to Pharaoh: This is the finger of God." From this it is shown that the power of God worked through Moses, by whose ministry those things were then done. That too was a great wonder when, at the word of Joshua son of Nun, the sun stood still over Gibeon and the moon over the valley of Aijalon. I do not know what more wonderful could be done than that, at the word of a man, the sun and moon were held back from the law of their course for the delay of one day. But Scripture at once added the author of this power, saying: "There was no day like it before or after, that God should so hear a man: for the Lord fought for Israel." For in that Joshua was heard and God fought for Israel, his power is shown in the deeds, he who both fought and heard.

"Who made the heavens in understanding, for his mercy is for ever." His mercy alone is the cause of making the heavens; for he did not need them to be made. But he who is good made all things so that many might enjoy the riches of his goodness. He made the heavens in understanding, not irrational, nor shapeless, nor confused and disordered. But when he who is infinite set up the region of knowledge of himself, the higher and first heaven being placed with the same reason, he enclosed a certain boundary for the powers that were first begotten to know him. For the creatures to be begotten could not have borne the power of the invisible God unless, by the interposition of a more tempered nature, they inhabited this seat of a dwelling moderated to their weakness. For by the waters raised up he tempered that very nature of the first heaven, which, kindled by the power of the God above, could in no way have been endured by lower natures.

The lower heaven he stretched out not uniform but manifold; calling it all the firmament, he made it solid with a strong firmness for sustaining the upper waters and tempering our air. And therefore prophetic teaching has handed down many heavens, because it was necessary for our nature that this region of the dwelling granted us for the present be tempered by certain stages and advances of rational moderation.

But about the number of the heavens let the rashness of human teaching presume nothing. The apostle understands that he was caught up only as far as the third heaven. He counts many thrones, dominions, powers, principalities, to whom proper seats of fitting habitation must be assigned. But he also signifies that there are other things, knowledge of which he promises for future times, when he says: "and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come." But about the number the apostle taught nothing; and I do not know whether he kept silent or did not know. For he both professed that he knows in part, and yet testifies that when he was caught up to the heavens he heard things that are not to be spoken. It is enough for us to know that there are many heavens, since both the heavens of heavens and the waters that are above the heavens praise the Lord.

Beneath the lower heaven of the higher circle, which he called the firmament, he set the earth below; suspending it in the middle and making it firm, he so ordered its seat of remaining that it might stand balanced and supported by equal measures and weights on every side, so that God, who is infinite, rising above that first circle of the higher heaven, might reach the things that were created with equal distances from all his pouring-through, the Spirit of his power being tempered for the use and nature of living things. For the apostle says: "For in him we live and move and are"; by which it is shown that the earth stands in his Spirit, as in the circuit of a Spirit poured through, since in God we all live and move and are. And that he is poured through and penetrates all things with a tempering Spirit, the prophet teaches, saying: "The Spirit of God has filled the world"; so he is shown within and without, by circuit and by entry, both poured around and poured through.

That the earth is not sunk into one region, the Holy Spirit shows next, saying: "Who made firm the earth upon the water, for his mercy is for ever." The plan of the present treatise and place does not allow us to inquire more deeply. Let it be enough to have learned from prophetic authority that the earth stands with a hanging firmness upon the waters, overshadowed by the covering of a more tempered heaven, by this firmament, which, stretched out like a skin and made solid like smoke, separates the upper and lower waters. Certainly, that it is held hanging over the waters, in this as in everything the cause is "for his mercy is for ever."

In what follows, "Who alone made the great lights, for his mercy is for ever," it is not to be understood that he is believed to have made them apart from his Wisdom and Word and Power, that is, the only-begotten God, our Lord Jesus Christ, since he said in the person of Wisdom: "I was with him, arranging." But he who was arranging was begotten and born from him with whom he arranged. And since the works of the Son are the works of the Father, the Father too works in the Son, through his saying, "The Father who is in me, he does his works," and again, "I do the works of the Father": he alone works in him and through him, working by the one whom he begot.

In the rest, the teaching of showing God's mercy is plain, so that we may know that all things have been accomplished for no other reason than that God is always merciful. The treatise on the previous psalm has covered, so far as we were able to carry it out, what ought to be understood spiritually concerning the affairs of Egypt; and to confirm them this too, said in this psalm, is added: "Who divided the Red Sea into divisions, for his mercy is for ever." The book of Exodus teaches one division of the Red Sea, saying: "And he made the sea dry, and the water was divided"; and how is the Red Sea now divided into divisions? Only, I think, because under the account of deeds an order of spiritual teaching is contained. For escaping from Egypt, which is the figure of the world, and going toward the land of promise, which according to the Gospel the blessed will inherit, we shall pass through the Red Sea, that is, through the turbulent surges and tossing motions of this same world, in which there are many divisions for the journey. For some the way is through fasting, for others through chastity, for others through almsgiving, through faith, through hope, through love. And all these must have different divisions for crossing this sea, all, however, about to cross the journey of the world through these divisions of ways.

The conclusion of the psalm confirms with greater faith that all these things are to be understood of the future, when it says: "In our lowliness the Lord remembered us, for his mercy is for ever; and he redeemed us from the hand of our enemies, for his mercy is for ever; who gives food to all flesh, for his mercy is for ever. Confess to the God of heaven, for his mercy is for ever." For God did not only remember human lowliness when he chose Moses as leader to free the people from Egypt, but he remembered our lowliness more perfectly when, born in a body, he took our very lowliness upon himself, when the glory of the heavenly nature absorbed this lowly and earthly body into itself. Nor did he redeem them from the hand of their enemies then, when he freed them from the rule of the Egyptians (for afterward they were subjected to enemies, and today they are held under the right of another's rule); but he redeemed us when he gave himself for our sins; he redeemed us by his blood, by his passion, by his death, by his resurrection. These are the great prices of our life. "For you were bought," says the apostle, "at a great price": and bought from enemies, from the devil, from his angels, from the son of perdition, from the princes of the air, from the world-rulers, from the enemy death. And he redeemed by giving food to all flesh: "who gives food to all flesh." To all flesh, that is, that has been redeemed, he gives incorruptible, eternal food, of the living bread, the heavenly bread. And in each of these, that he remembers our lowliness, that we have been redeemed, that all the flesh of the redeemed receives food, the cause is "for his mercy is for ever"; for which reason we must confess to him: "Confess to the God of heaven, for his mercy is for ever." That heaven, that earth, that the rest exist, and that very fact that we exist who did not exist, that we will be what we are not, has no other cause than the mercy of God: because he who is good willed us to be born for fellowship in his good things. "For one is good," says our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

That the Jews, captured according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, were led away into Babylonia is no obscure knowledge. Nor is there doubt that the captivity of the people could be prophesied through this same book of Psalms. For in another psalm too it is plain that the overthrow of this nation and city was prophesied outright, when it is said: "O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have made Jerusalem like a hut for guarding fruit." And in this present psalm too the same seems to be signified, especially since it has pleased some to inscribe it with the title of Jeremiah, because the captivity was announced by him before it happened. Certainly, among the Hebrew elders, according to the knowledge we have obtained from them, this psalm is without this title.

There is no doubt that everything that was done to or through our fathers displayed in the deeds a form of the future. And that this is so, this book of Psalms too is witness. For when in the seventy-seventh psalm everything that was done in Egypt, in the desert, and in the other places afterward was recounted, those very things were shown to be parables thus: "Attend, my people, to my law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter propositions from the beginning." For through the fact that they are parables and propositions, they are compared to the effects of future things. The apostle too teaches that the very things done were done as a prefiguring, saying: "For the law has a shadow of the good things to come," and: "All these things happened to them as a prefiguring; and they were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come." The deeds themselves, then, were done as an example and written for teaching.