Homilies on Psalms 36–38 (LXX numbering; Psalms 37–39 in English Bibles) 1.1–1.6

“In many and various ways God spoke to the fathers in the prophets.” Sometimes he teaches us ineffable mysteries in what he says; sometimes he instructs us about the Savior and his coming; sometimes he corrects and amends our morals. For this reason we shall try, passage by passage, to mark such differences in divine Scripture, and to distinguish where there are prophecies and things to come are spoken of, where something mystical is indicated, and where a passage is moral. Beginning, then, the explanation of the thirty-sixth psalm, we find that this whole psalm is moral, given as a kind of care and medicine for the human soul, since it reproves our sins and teaches us to live according to the law. But let us now see what beginning the first verse gives us. “Do not,” it says, “emulate among the evildoers, nor envy those who do iniquity; for like grass they will soon wither, and like the green herbs they will soon fall.” There are two things it teaches us in these words that we must not do: first, not to emulate among evildoers; second, not to emulate those who do iniquity. For it follows that one who emulates among evildoers will wither like grass, and will suffer this not slowly but soon; while for one who emulates those who do iniquity it follows that he will soon fall like the green herbs. According to the simple understanding of the letter, “not to emulate among evildoers” seems to mean that among bad and very wicked men no one should be a rival in wickedness, that is, its leader and author, offering others, as it were, a pattern of shameful conduct; while “to emulate those who do iniquity” means that someone imitates them and learns to act unjustly. And this is what is said in both: that you should neither offer others an example of wickedness nor yourself follow the examples of other wicked people. But to understand more fully what this saying contains inwardly, I think it fitting to bring in any place in the divine Scriptures where we find this word written, and to compare spiritual things with spiritual, so that what it signifies may become plain. It is written in Deuteronomy: “They provoked me to jealousy with what is no god, they provoked me to anger with their idols; and I will provoke them to jealousy with what is no nation.” Here, where the Latin says “they provoked me to jealousy, and I will provoke them to jealousy,” the Greek has the same word that is used at the beginning of the psalm, that is, “they emulated me, and I will emulate them.” Although the Greek word, parezēlōsan, would seem to be rendered more expressively in Latin if we said “they irritated me,” it is still the same word. And in the Apostle it is written: “Or do we emulate the Lord? Are we stronger than he?” And where it has “do we emulate the Lord,” some copies have “do we provoke the Lord.” From all these testimonies it is shown that to emulate someone is to irritate and provoke him. Let us use an example: there are some shameless and wicked women who, if they happen to catch men in the snares of secret love, in course of time are not content with hidden disgrace, but want the chaste wives too to know that their husbands love them, so as thereby to rouse them to jealousy, irritate them, and throw other people’s households into turmoil. If you have understood the force of the example, how a mistress rouses a wife to jealousy, you should notice from it also what it is “to emulate among” some, that is, when they are given incitements to someone’s malice. That the word of Deuteronomy, “They provoked me to jealousy with what is no god,” that is, parezēlōsan, means this is made still clearer by what is written elsewhere, that our God is called a jealous God. A husband is usually called jealous of his wife when he guards her chastity anxiously and carefully and does not allow his wife’s purity to be defiled. Hence it follows that one who sins rouses to jealousy and irritates God, who is called jealous. But all these things must be heard of God in a loose sense, like what is said of God’s fury, or sleep, or sorrow, by which is meant what each of us deserves from God by his deeds. So he said in Deuteronomy that “they provoked me to jealousy with what is no god, and embittered me with their idols,” that is, by worshiping idols they roused me to jealousy. But what follows? “And I will provoke them to jealousy with what is no nation; with a foolish nation I will irritate them.” Hence even now the Jews are not stirred up against the Gentiles, against those who worship idols and blaspheme God; they do not hate them nor feel indignation against them; but against the Christians, who have surely left idols and turned to God, they are carried away by insatiable hatred. When, then, you see the Jews hating a Christian and plotting against him, understand that the prophecy is fulfilled which says: “And I will provoke them with what is no nation.” For we are “no nation”: a few of us believe from this city, others from another, and nowhere does a whole nation appear to have been taken up from the beginning of the faith. For the Christian people is not one whole nation, as the nation of the Jews or the nation of the Egyptians was; they are gathered, scattered, from each nation. He says, then: “I will provoke them to jealousy with what is no nation; with a foolish nation I will irritate them.” And so they are irritated against us and hate us as a foolish nation, saying that they are wise, since the oracles of God were entrusted to them first; and though they meditate on the law of God from boyhood to old age, they have not attained to the law of God. But God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, and so what is written is fulfilled: “With a foolish nation I will irritate them.” And as for what the Apostle says, “Or do we emulate the Lord? Are we stronger than he?”, let us see what it means. He said this in the place where he discusses sacrifices and the things sacrificed to idols. “Do we emulate the Lord?” he says; that is, do we rouse him to jealousy by eating what has been sacrificed to idols, as the Jews stirred his jealousy with their idols? Do we too wish to act in the same way? So he says: “Do we emulate the Lord? Are we stronger than he?” This is what he means: if we rouse the jealousy of someone inferior to us in strength, we can easily disregard it; but if we rouse a strong one to jealousy, are we not working our own ruin? If, then, we eat what has been sacrificed to idols and rouse the Lord’s jealousy against us, we provoke a stronger wrath against ourselves, that is, to our own destruction. Whenever you see a wicked man, then, be watchful and take care not to rouse his jealousy against you, and not to do anything incautiously by which his wickedness may be stirred up. For instance, to make what I say plainer by an example, blessed David roused the wicked Saul to jealousy when he went out before the army and killed Goliath, and the choruses of girls and women came out saying: “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” If David had done this by his own design, he would have emulated Saul in malice. But as it was, it was not by his design that the choruses of girls came out and sang such a hymn, that David had struck down ten thousands and Saul thousands. This, then, is what the psalm teaches us: since the human race is prone to jealousy and very easily inclines to this vice, take care not to do anything that irritates wicked men to your ruin, incites them to plot against you, or stirs them to hatred of you. And the whole of what is signified in all this is that you neither provoke the rivalry of a wicked man against you nor emulate another’s wickedness. How, then, does a man emulate another’s wickedness? Doubtless when he does the same things. What I mean is this: if someone has become rich from poor through iniquity, and his neighbor is needy and sees the man who has risen from the ground and climbed to the summit of wealth, and begins to emulate him so that he too may grow rich by iniquity, this is to emulate those who do iniquity. And if anyone wishes to emulate one who, by secret acts of sexual immorality or unlawful schemes beyond his station and measure, invades others’ marriages, houses, and wealth, he has emulated those who do iniquity. And as for those who through various crimes or unworthy and unlawful ambitions have reached undeserved heights of fortune, and by unjust factions or bloody hands have seized honors not due to them, if anyone … these, he has emulated those who do iniquity.

Therefore we are enlightened by the Lord’s commandment, so that when the flame of unlawful rivalry strikes our heart and mind, we, taught by these words, may say: If I want to emulate among evildoers, or have emulated those who do iniquity, see what follows: “Like grass,” it says, “they will soon wither, and like the green herbs they will soon fall.” Do you want to be fortified in such warnings by the authority of another prophet too? Hear what Isaiah declares about all fleshly glory: “All flesh,” he says, “is grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass.” Do you want to see, case by case, how the glory of the flesh is the flower of grass? See who was emperor thirty years ago, how he earned his empire; yet at once he withered like the flower of grass; then another after him, then another and another; then generals and princes: and all their glory and honor not only withered like a flower but, like dry dust scattered by the wind, did not even leave a trace of itself behind. Others too, lifted up by riches and swollen with honors, were eager to be thought praiseworthy through feigned goodness, or were execrated for untamed cruelty. If anyone thinks their vain pursuits worth emulating, let him go now to the remains of their corpses, if even these can be found (for to some not even this was granted), and then he will find how “all flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass; the grass has withered and its flower has fallen.” But hear what he hopes for who does not love the little flowers of the flesh, nor live in a fleshly way, but loves the word of God and advances in it: “The word of the Lord,” it says, “remains for ever.” And this very saying, that “like grass they will soon wither” (the evildoers, that is), I do not think is idle: why did it compare them to grass, when there could surely be other things to which those who acted with malice might be compared? Grass is the food of dumb and irrational animals. Perhaps, then, he compared them to grass because all the foolish and unlearned, and those who live contrary to the reason and wisdom of God, follow those who are leaders in malice, and are said to feed on their life and deeds and to obey them. For no prudent person takes an example from them. For as the prudent man who hears the words of the Lord and does them is the one who eats that bread which came down from heaven, and Jesus is food to him because he is fed by his words and lives by his commandments, so too those who are eminent in malice become like grass to those who obey them or rival them in wickedness. Similar things must be understood of the green herbs, to which those who do iniquity are compared because they pass away swiftly. Yet we sometimes find in the divine Scriptures herbs which, by the Apostle’s precept, the weak are told to eat. But those are other herbs, contrary to these, of which it is said that the river of Egypt is water going down and watering like a garden of herbs; so that the Egyptian is not called a tree, nor named anything else of value, but herbs that soon fail. And do you want to see how soon the Egyptian falls? See what is said of the Egyptians in Exodus: “The Egyptians hastened,” it says, “they unbound their axles, and quickly fled under the water.” So like the green herbs he soon fell. Again, the wicked Ahab was preparing to plant such herbs in the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which is why Naboth chose rather to die than to allow the Israelite vineyard to be cut down and herbs to be planted. He acted, then, as a righteous man, not allowing the vineyard of righteousness to be cut down, whose fruit gladdens the heart of man when it is mixed in the bowl of wisdom, and the herbs of iniquity to be planted, which grow green quickly but wither more quickly still. I think, then, that in our hearts too, who believe in the Savior, a vineyard has been planted, as it says: “A vineyard was made for the beloved on a horn, in a fertile place.” And to those to whom the word of God came first it was said: “I planted you as a wholly fruitful vineyard.” We have, then, a vineyard from which, through the gift of wisdom, we press out the fruit of knowledge, which gladdens the heart of man, in the winepresses of the Scriptures, when we contemplate the divine mysteries of the law more perfectly and more broadly. But as we advance in our studies and strain with the Israelite eye toward the spiritual eye, there comes the wicked and ungodly Ahab, Ahab the enemy of our vineyard, and stirs up envy against these excellent studies of wisdom, raises an uproar, contrives deceits and factions through Jezebel, that is, through fleshly wisdom, and wants this vineyard of spiritual understanding to be cut down and herbs to be planted, that is, that we should understand what we read in a fleshly way. For all the grace of the flesh is like herbs; and so what the Apostle blames would be fulfilled in us, when he says to the Galatians: “Are you so foolish that, having begun with the Spirit, you are now being perfected by the flesh?” And that there are vineyards in a holy soul, and fields blessed by the Lord, hear Isaac too saying to his son Jacob: “See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed.” It is better, then, for us to cultivate a vineyard in our soul, to dig a winepress of the Scriptures, to gather the clusters, and to press out wine from the choice vine of Sorek, so that we too may say to the Lord: “Your cup that inebriates, how excellent it is!”

After saying that those who do iniquity soon fall like green herbs, and forbidding us to emulate among evildoers and to imitate those who do iniquity, it then says what we ought to do. “Hope,” it says, “in the Lord, and do goodness.” Having despised, that is, all that was blamed above, all the goods of the world, “hope in the Lord,” it says. But while you hope in the Lord, do not be idle; hope in him while doing goodness. Let us see what this goodness is. It is one of those springs which the Apostle lists as fruits of the Holy Spirit: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and righteousness.” “Do goodness,” then: as if one said, speaking to a field, “Produce this fruit or that,” so now the divine word speaks to you, the hearer of the divine Scriptures, as to a field. “Do goodness, and dwell in the land, and you will be fed on its riches.” Do not be like grass that withers, do not become like green herbs that soon fail, but hope in the Lord, do goodness, and dwell in the land. What land does he bid us dwell in if we have done goodness? Surely, if he were speaking of this land we inhabit, both those who do goodness and those who do not dwell in this land. The command, then, seems superfluous if this land is meant. But let us see whether he is perhaps speaking of that land of which it is written that other seed fell on good ground and bore fruit, in which ground the heart of the hearer seems to be signified. This, then, we are bidden to dwell in: not to wander far, not to run hither and thither, but to dwell and abide within the bounds of our soul, to consider it more diligently, and to be its farmer, as Noah was, and plant a vineyard in it, and cultivate the land that is within us, to break up the fallow ground of our soul and not sow among thorns: that is, when we purge our soul from vices and cultivate our uncultivated and rough manners into the gentleness of the imitation of Christ, and so at last are fed on the riches of the virtues. For we must not think that we are commanded to seek earthly riches, which we are bidden to despise and spurn. He says, then: “Dwell in the land.” This means: always attend to your soul, always remain there, and cultivate your land, so that when you begin to abound in the fruits of righteousness, you may then be fed on its riches. What is it to be fed on its riches? That “whatever a man sows, that he will also reap,” and “he who sows in the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows in the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.” If you dwell in your land and sow it in the spirit and not in the flesh, you will be fed on its riches, like those sheep which are said to feed in a green place, of which the divine word says: “In a green place, there he has set me.” Hence it is clear that each of us prepares within himself a green place in which he is fed by the Lord, when he cultivates the fields of his soul and, sowing in the Spirit, always brings them to the gladness of spiritual cultivation. “Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the petitions of your heart.” It is the custom of divine Scripture to name the two men, the one from the other, that is, to apply to the inner man what belongs to the outer. What I mean is this. The bodily outer man feeds on corruptible foods suited to him. But there is also a food of the inner man, of which it is said that man lives by every word of God. There is a drink of the outer man and another of the inner; for we drink from the spiritual rock that follows, and we drink the water of which Jesus said that whoever drinks it will never thirst. There is a garment of the outer man, and there is also a garment of the inner man. If he is a sinner, he puts on cursing like a garment; but if he is righteous, he hears: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and: “Put on heartfelt mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience.” And why need I recount one by one how the inner man is called by the same names as the outer man? The outer man and the inner have arms: he who fights according to the inner man is clothed with the armor of God, so that he can stand against the wiles of the devil. But after many examples, let us come to our subject. Let us see what is signified by the words: “Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the petitions of your heart.” First it must be known that what I have said in Latin, “delight in the Lord,” is in Greek “luxuriate in the Lord”; for this is what the Greek word katatryphēson indicates. As, then, according to the outer man it is possible not only to take food but also to enjoy delicacies, and the rich especially use delicacies, so the inner man too can not only take food but also enjoy delicacies. I think this happens as follows. If someone hears only those words which invite him to the fear of God, he takes only food from such a word. But he who has applied himself to understanding the law, to searching the prophets, to the solutions of the Gospel parables, to the explanation of the apostolic words, and in all things has applied himself to understanding and knowledge, enjoys delicacies. For he uses the food of the commandments not only for what suffices for his life, but delights in all knowledge. This, I think, is indicated also by its being said that God in the beginning planted a paradise of delights, doubtless that man might enjoy spiritual delights in it. And elsewhere it says: “You will give them the torrent of delights to drink,” to the saints, that is. Here I know that the Latin copies usually read “the torrent of your pleasure,” but the Greek has tryphēs, that is, “of delights.” To all the saints contempt of bodily delights is enjoined, and the hope of spiritual delights is promised. Do you want to receive the authority of divine Scripture on this too? There was a certain rich man, and … Lazarus was wasting away from hunger. Both departed from the world, and Lazarus was carried by angels into the bosom of Abraham to rest there in delights; but he who had lived in bodily delights went away into the Gehenna of fire, as is in the Gospel, and hears from Abraham: “You received your good things in your life” (that is, you misused delights), “and Lazarus bad things; but now he rests here, and you are tormented.” No one can have delights both in the flesh and in the Spirit. If anyone luxuriates in the flesh, like that rich man, he will lack Abraham’s bosom and its delights; but he who in the present age eats the bread of affliction, like that poor man, will be in delights when he departs from here. “Delight, then, in the Lord, and he will give you the petition of your heart.” If you wish to see still more fully how one delights in the Lord, observe that the Lord is truth, and wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification. If, then, you abound in the riches of truth, if you abound in the understanding of wisdom, if you are rich in acts of righteousness, then you delight fully and wholly in the Lord. And when you have fulfilled these, you will also obtain what follows; for the Lord will give you the petitions of your heart. He had to add “the petitions of your heart,” though he could certainly have said “your petitions.” It can be understood more easily in this way. If we imagine that each member has a person of its own, if, for example, the eye had a voice, would it not say: “I ask for light, so that I may see the things it delights me to see; for I shrink from seeing anything horrible, and every sight that troubles and saddens”? Similarly, if the hearing received a voice, would it not say: “I ask for a sound composed with tuneful art, a delightful sound; I shrink from hearing anything harsh and terrible”? So too, if a voice were given to taste and to touch, all our senses would doubtless ask for what suits their own sense. Let us pass from these to the heart, in which is the mind and the ruling understanding, and see what the heart desires and asks for, as we showed above about the eye, the ears, and the other senses. According to its nature the heart doubtless asks for understanding. As the eye seeks sight, so the heart seeks understanding. As the ear desires sweet sound, so the heart delights in wise thoughts. As taste rejoices in a sweet flavor, so the heart rejoices in prudent reflections. As smell is gladdened by sweet fragrance, so the heart is gladdened by rational studies. As touch delights in what is smooth and soft, so the heart delights in useful and excellent counsels. If, then, you delight in the Lord and enjoy the abundance and the delights of wisdom, truth, and righteousness, the Lord will give you the petitions of your heart, suited to the delights described above.

After this it says: “Reveal your way to the Lord, and hope in him, and he will act.” … his works. But he who does the truth comes to the light. Since, then, he who does evil hates the light, and, as far as lies in him, hides the evil he does and, fearing to be exposed, veils and covers his way and covers his deeds as with a kind of veil … For example, if any of you (though I would not wish anyone of the kind to be in this assembly), if anyone among you, whether a catechumen or even one of the many faithful, is conscious that he has committed sexual immorality and conceals the offense, does he not seem to you to hide and cover the way on which he walks? But he who lives chastely and is confident of the purity of his life does not want to cover his way, but wants it to be manifest; manifest, I mean, not to men, lest he receive his reward from men, but he makes it manifest to God. Therefore it is said: “Reveal your way to the Lord.” And if you are conscious of some evils, do not hide them, but reveal them to the Lord through exomologesis, that is, confession, “and hope in him, and he will act.” That is, when you have confessed and revealed your offenses to him, hope in him that you can obtain pardon from him, “and he will act.” What will he do? Doubtless he will make you whole. He will say to you: “See, you have been made whole; sin no more, lest something worse happen to you.” He will do this if you reveal your offenses to him. But if your way is pure and your conscience clean, and you have revealed this to him, hope in him.

What he will do, learn from what follows: “He will bring forth your righteousness like light, and your judgment like noonday.” Your righteousness, which you did in secret and revealed to God alone, God will bring forth like light; he will show you righteous, illuminated by the sun of righteousness, to heaven and earth; he will show the light of your righteousness to all who are in heaven, and, if one may say so, he will boast of you as of a son, as one who has received the spirit of adoption. He will bring forth your righteousness like light, then, because he who is righteous according to the Lord’s command does his righteousness just as the Lord himself commanded, saying: “But when you do your righteousness, let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing.” This righteousness, then, which is done not so as to be seen by men nor to catch human glory, but in secret, so that the Father who sees in secret may repay openly in his own time, is brought forth by God like light. “And your judgment like noonday.” For all the judgments of the righteous man, whatever he has judged, will be not only like light but like the light of noon, which is surely the clearest and most brilliant; for noontime signifies the fullness of light. If, then, you are righteous and good, God will bring forth your righteousness like light, and your judgment like noonday. Or certainly, in the judgment, when your case is examined, God will make the righteousness of your case manifest like light, and the judgment by which he judges he will make manifest like noonday. Knowing that this is how things will be, let us pray for God’s mercy, that he may grant us to become such as are counted worthy, whose light of righteousness God himself may bring forth into the open, and our judgment clear and bright as noonday, having in itself the true light, our Lord himself, to whom be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.