Homilies on Psalms 36–38 (LXX numbering; Psalms 37–39 in English Bibles) 8.1–8.10

As one person advances according to God and, by applying zeal to himself, becomes better than he was, so it happened also to the whole people. For this reason, as the people advanced, the law too was increased for them. Thus, as is written in the law, certain precepts were given to the priests and Levites concerning sacrifices and the other solemn rites; but when the people advanced, at the time when they still had the strength to advance, things did not remain in that first order, but certain more eminent ordinances were added for them a second and a third time. And if anyone wishes to know what these additions concerning the priests and Levites are, let him read the first book of Chronicles and look patiently at that whole catalogue of names, and he will find there a wonderful order and distribution of the tribes, each allotted some special part in the solemn order according to its name and place. He will also find the Levites and priests distributed among different offices and orders, so that some are appointed to open the doors of the temple, others are entrusted with the keys, and to others the care of the sacrifices and altars is committed. And there are many things we could say about the priestly institutions from the history of that book. If, then, anyone can see how the Jews serve a copy and shadow of heavenly things, let him ascend from the lowest step of the word to its highest summits, and contemplate from these the state of the future priesthood and that heavenly election; and there he will contemplate who these priestly orders are and what the offices of the Levites are that are performed in the heavenly ministries, and he will infer in his mind that all the things he saw laid down on earth exist in heaven. For there too there will be a people, and from the people of God chosen Levites, and from these again chosen and outstanding priests, and among the priests, likewise, very many differences, as the first book of Chronicles indicates that there are twenty-four orders of priests, some under Eleazar and others under the leader Ithamar, of whom also the “daily courses” are spoken of.

But perhaps one of the hearers will say: “What do these things have to do with the psalm?” A great deal. For the title of this psalm is: “To the end, for Jeduthun, a psalm of David.” This Jeduthun, we find, was one of those to whom the zeal and care for the hymns of God was entrusted. Finding this name in the title of the psalm, then, we had to show who this Jeduthun was, and how after the first law a second ordinance was made concerning the priestly observances. Among the Greeks, those who composed songs or musical tunes provided them to whomever they thought fit to sing them in a contest; and so it happened that one man was crowned in the contest while another wrote the song for the victor. In the Psalms of divine Scripture, then, those that are entitled “To the end” according to the Seventy translators are entitled in other versions “victory songs,” or “for victory,” or “for the victor,” because the praise, as it were, of victory is offered in them. David, then, filled with the divine Spirit, composed this psalm and gave it to Jeduthun, to whom the office of singing hymns to God had been assigned, as to one strong in that skill. And so it is entitled: “To the end, for Jeduthun, a psalm of David.”

But now let us see what the voice of the righteous man utters, and as we see it, let us look at ourselves as in a mirror, to see whether we can be such, whether much is lacking to us, or whether we are already near, though we have not yet fully attained. Since, then, human speech is the beginning of many sins, and our mouth serves many evils, and it is very hard to find a person who keeps his mouth and tongue from sin even for a single hour, he says: “I said, I will guard my ways, so that I may not sin with my tongue.” I said to myself, I spoke within myself, and I added this: “This is how I wish to keep my ways so as not to sin; and I can keep them in this way, if I guard my tongue.” “For by your words,” it says, “you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” And again: “Truly I say to you, for every idle word you will give account on the day of judgment.” Not only, he says, for what you have spoken wickedly, but for what you have spoken idly; for a wicked word is not idle, since it does an evil work. An idle word is one that does neither good nor evil. If, then, on the day of judgment we shall give account not only for wicked words but also for idle ones, who will boast that he has a pure heart? Or who will confidently say, “I am clean from sin”? Yet the righteous man says: “I said, I will guard my ways, so that I may not sin with my tongue. I set a guard on my mouth.” Elsewhere it is written, “Keep your heart with all vigilance,” but here: “I set a guard on my mouth.” And again elsewhere it is written: “See, put a hedge of thorns around your property.” And again: “Bind up your money and your gold, and make a door and a bolt for your mouth, and a yoke and a balance for your words.” I think that the observance of these commandments makes the one who keeps them both gentle and blessed, not only in its results but in the very observance. For while he always watches his mouth and guards his tongue, so as not to utter a word before he has examined and weighed within himself whether it ought to be said, whether the word is such as should be uttered, whether the person is such as ought to or can hear it, and whether the time is right for uttering the word: while he weighs each of these, all anger and fear are shut out, the onset of thoughtless fury is calmed, and such a person cuts off all rashness entirely. And so at last the word, proceeding as from a kind of tranquility and from a mind subdued by gentleness, brings grace to those who speak it and healing to those who hear it.

But since we sin most at the time when a sinner stands against us, goading and provoking us to let something fall from our mouth for which we would be held guilty at the future judgment, the holy prophet describes this and says: “While the sinner stood against me, I was dumb and humbled, and kept silent from good things.” Whenever a sinner stood against me and spoke ill of me, disparaged me, and irritated me so that I might pay him back in kind and bring forth similar things from my mouth, I at that time practiced silence, so as to answer nothing at all. Therefore he says: “While the sinner stood against me, I was dumb and humbled, and kept silent from good things.” We, however, sometimes, if we do not want to be humbled, think otherwise and say within ourselves: “What is this? This man has treated me with contempt and dared to throw such things in my face and stir up such talk against me; shall I not bring similar or even graver things against him, so that he too may hear worse than he said?” But the righteous man does not act so; rather he humbles himself, even if the one who disparages him and hurls insults is a slave, or lowly, a sinner, and unworthy. He says: “While the sinner stood against me, I was dumb and humbled, and kept silent from good things.” He did not say only, “and I kept silent,” but, “I kept silent from good things.” By this he shows that, though there are good things in me, though I have been taught and trained in good doctrines and disciplines and could teach others too what is good, yet at the time when the sinner stands against me and harasses me with insults and quarrels, I restrain and check even my good words, lest I either kindle in him the fire of his own perdition, since he cannot at one and the same time bring forth evil and behold good, or cause loss to my words. What, then? Will what he says, “While the sinner stood against me, I was dumb and humbled, and kept silent from good things,” seem to be perfection? Or is it progress, but not yet perfection? For I think that three degrees can be assigned from the Scriptures in this place, where he says that the sinner stands against him and speaks in his ears things by which he could be irritated and embittered into retaliating. If I am small, I return the like: I demand eye for eye and tooth for tooth, and pay back curses for curses. If I have already advanced somewhat, but am not yet perfect, I keep silent and bear the insults patiently, and answer nothing at all. But if I am perfect, I do not keep silent, but when I am cursed I bless, as Paul too said: “We are cursed and we bless, we suffer persecution and endure, we are blasphemed and we entreat.” And since those who do this, that is, who return blessings for curses and entreat for blasphemies, seem to people like cattle and refuse, as if they had no sense of injury, he therefore added: “We have become like the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all.” But we do not want to become with the apostles the refuse of this world; we want not to be despised by people, indeed rather to be feared, and we take pains to repay those who harm us and to forestall the vengeance which the Lord reserved to himself when he said: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” But if we cannot advance so far and climb to that summit of truth, so as to say with Paul, “We are cursed and we bless, we suffer persecution and endure, we are blasphemed and we entreat,” let us at least say what we are still taught through the prophet: “While the sinner stood against me, I was dumb and humbled, and kept silent from good things.”

And what did he add to these words? “And my sorrow,” he says, “was renewed.” Those who in athletic contests strike blows at one another always try to train themselves to bear bravely the blows their opponents inflict and not to feel the pain; and their highest excellence is to take the strokes of arms or heels without pain. Among them, the more perfect is the one who at the stroke of a wound feels no sting of pain; second is the one who feels pain but by no means yields to it. Understand something of this kind in us too. When we are cursed, and an opponent stands against us, if we are well trained and our mind has been strengthened by long meditation, we are not saddened at all by the curses or insults inflicted on us, but through great constancy of mind and patience we are, as it were, without the sense of pain; and through much gentleness, if I may dare to call it so, we become in a way imitators of God. For God is cursed by the heretics, blasphemed by those who deny his providence, blamed by those who do not know the treasures of his wisdom. Tell me, can you think that for all these injuries God feels pain, but endures it as …? Or rather that the divine nature, being impassible, neither receives any sense of pain at all nor is stirred by any injuries or insults? Such, then, will every perfect and righteous person be, or rather he will imitate such a one, as he was who said: “We are cursed and we bless, we suffer persecution and endure, we are blasphemed and we entreat.” But the one who is not yet perfect, yet is advancing, when he is cursed becomes dumb, is humbled, and keeps silent from good things. Such a one, however, feels pain and says: “And my sorrow was renewed.” Picture a wound that is being treated, its treatment advancing and already near to scarring; then, in the very wound which had begun to form a scar, see another wound inflicted, and through this fresh wound the former one renewed. Something like this happens to the one who is advancing but not yet perfect, and not yet brought to complete health. If, then, while the skin is still tender, the wounds of curses and insults come upon it, the pain is renewed and distress is in store, and then he rightly says: “While the sinner stood against me, I was dumb and humbled, and kept silent from good things, and my sorrow was renewed.” See, then, how the one placed in the contest, who wishes to restrain himself from anger and fury, says, “My sorrow was renewed,” when, while he is meditating on these things, the provocation of the sinner comes upon him, which troubles and wearies him but does not conquer him; for though he is provoked and inflamed to answer, he bites back his pain, checks it, and represses it. That is: because I was already advancing, and believed I had already come to health before I was embittered and harassed with insults; but now my wound is torn open and renewed by the sharp points of curses, while the pain of injury breaks my patience.

In what follows he describes still more fully the passion of the one who is advancing, when he says: “My heart grew hot within me.” For when someone hears the voice of one who speaks ill of him and disparages him, he cannot hear it without pain, as the perfect man can, who by long constancy has already merited blessedness. This one feels pain, and as he feels it his heart grows hot; he boils within himself and is troubled, yet not so far as to utter a word with a troubled heart. He grows hot in his inner parts, moved by the indignity of the thing, but he cools the flames of his heat by silence.

Let us look also at another saying of the righteous man, which we ought to emulate with the greatest zeal. “And in my meditation a fire will blaze up.” I too meditate on the words of the Lord and often exercise myself in them; but I do not know whether I am such that in my meditation fire comes forth from each word of God, kindles my heart, and inflames my soul to observe what I meditate on. I too am now speaking the words of God, but I would wish them to blaze first in my own heart, and second in the minds of my hearers, as did the words which Jesus spoke, of which those who had heard them said: “Was not our heart burning within us while he opened the Scriptures to us on the way?” Would that now too, as we open the divine Scriptures, our heart might grow hot within us, and a fire be kindled in our meditation, and we be roused to do what we hear and read! Such, too, were the words of Jeremiah, according to what is written when the Lord says to him: “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth as fire.” Why fire? Because the words he spoke set the hearers alight, and nothing lukewarm or cold remained in them. As fire consumes and destroys all matter and receives nothing unclean or polluted into itself, so those whose hearts the fire of the divine word has kindled will no longer allow themselves to be polluted by material and worldly filth. They will receive into themselves nothing lukewarm that deserves to be vomited out, nor will they allow love to grow cold in them through the multiplying of iniquity; but their lamps will always be lit and burning, and they themselves ready, like servants waiting for their master to return from the wedding. Or was this not the fire of which our Savior said: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and what do I wish but that it be kindled?” This is without doubt the fire that drives away the cold of sin and calls back the warmth of the spirit. This is surely also what is related in the Acts of the Apostles, when it says that divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested upon the apostles: because, being about to preach the word of the Gospel, they had to be strengthened by the grace of fiery vigor, so that the souls of their hearers might catch the flame passed on by the word. But how may this be granted to me, that a tongue of fire should come into my heart, and that I too may bring forth a word from a fiery tongue, so that through my words a swift fire may be kindled from me in the hearts of my hearers, convicting the one who has sinned, so that my word becomes a punishment to him, and he, burned and inflamed by my words, comes to repentance, which works a lasting salvation out of the sorrow that is according to God, the sorrow he has received from the rebuke of the word of God? And would that I could so kindle every soul among my hearers that whoever is conscious of anything, unable to bear the burning of our word and inflamed in all his inmost parts, might more quickly consume the hidden filth of vices within; so that, after it had destroyed all that is proper to the flesh and to coarser matter, all that is old, this fire might then become in him a light and a burning lamp, which ought to be set not under a bushel but on a lampstand, to give light to all who are in the house. If, then, the word you have heard kindles you, you have understood what the Apostle said: “And who is it that makes me glad, but the one who is grieved by me?” Since his words were fire, and the Apostle rejoiced whenever he saw someone grieved by hearing his word, pricked by what he had heard, and set alight by a kind of fire of conscience at the remembrance of his offense, he said: “And who is it that makes me glad, but the one who is grieved by me?” So let us too take pains that a fire may be kindled in our meditations, which may first burn us with the remembrance and consciousness of our sins, and afterward, when we have been purged of our vices, enlighten and illumine us.

“I spoke,” it says, “with my tongue.” Let us consider what he spoke with his tongue, for he seems to me to indicate something mystical by these words. He says, then: “Make known to me, Lord, my end, and what is the number of my days, that I may know what I lack.” If, he says, you make my end known to me, and make known to me how great the number of my days is, I shall be able through these to know also what I lack. Or perhaps this too will seem to be indicated by these words: as every art has some end (for example, the end of building is to make a house; of shipbuilding, to construct a ship that can overcome the waves of the sea and bear the onslaught of the winds; and each art has some such end, for the sake of which the art itself seems to have been invented), so perhaps there is a certain end of our life, or of the whole world, for the sake of which all the things done in our life are done, or for the sake of which the world itself was established or subsists. This end the Apostle too mentions, saying: “Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father.” To this end we must surely hasten, so that the very fact that we were created by God may prove worthwhile. And again, as the frame of our body, small and slight from the beginning of birth, nevertheless at once presses on and strives toward a certain end of its stature through the growth of age; and as our soul, while it lives in this body, hastens first to acquire stammering speech, then clearer speech, and at last to come to perfect and complete discourse: so too our whole life is now begun, stammering as it were, among men on earth, but it is completed and reaches its summit in the heavens with God. The prophet, then, desires to know his end for this reason, the end for the sake of which he was made, so that, beholding the end, perceiving his days, and considering perfection, he may see how much he lacks toward the end to which he is heading. For example, suppose someone has been apprenticed to a craft, and says to his master: “I want to know what the perfection of this art is, and who is a perfect smith or builder”; and when he has learned this, he asks how far he falls short of that perfection, or how far he has advanced in the discipline of the art, so that, knowing both, he may know what he has and recognize what is lacking to perfection. So now too the prophet prays to learn from God, so that his end may be made known to him, and what the number of his days is. Here we must not think that he speaks of bodily time and the years of this life; he wants to know the whole number of his days: what it was in the first life, what in the second sojourn, and what in the third. “For my soul,” he says, “has long been a sojourner.” As if those who came out of Egypt said, “Make known to me, Lord, my end,” which is the good land and the holy land, “and the number of my days” in which I walk, “that I may know what I lack,” how much remains until I come to the holy land of promise, so here too he wants to know the number of the days in which he journeys. For we have some days in this world, and others outside this world. This course of the sun, bounded by the spaces of our heaven, makes one kind of day; another day belongs to the one who merits to ascend to the second heaven; and a much brighter day is spent by the one who has been caught up or has been able to come even to the third heaven, where he will find not only ineffable light but will also hear words which it is not lawful for a man to speak. I know other days too, whose number the prophet perhaps rightly seeks. For as in this heaven the rising sun makes day by illuminating the whole world, so too in the heart of the righteous man, which for its constancy and firmness in God is rightly called a firmament, if the sun of righteousness, Jesus Christ our Lord, rises and illuminates it with the light of knowledge and truth, he makes day in his heart; and the more often he rises and gives light, the greater the number of such days the righteous man will count. Rightly, then, the prophet, conscious of such illumination, says: “Make known to me, Lord, my end, and what is the number of my days, that I may know what I lack.”

And he adds: “Behold, you have made my days old.” In the Greek it is written palaistas, which means a measure of four fingers. Wishing, then, to teach us, who already spend short and very few days in this life, he spoke the verse we have quoted. From this it is understood that another could say, “You have made my days one finger,” in keeping with the shortness of time, and another two fingers or three. But I ask whether any human being can say, “My days are ten fingers,” or twenty, or even more. And since we have run into difficult passages, I would like to inquire whether we find anything of this kind anywhere in the Scriptures by which what seems obscure can be opened up more plainly. I remember that it is written in Isaiah: “Who has measured the water with his hand,” it says, “and heaven with his span, and all the earth with his fist?” From these words let whoever among the hearers is more prudent consider in each place the differences of measures: how the heavenly part of the life of those who deserve to be called heaven is said to be measured by God’s span, whatever God’s span is; while the life of those whose life is still earthly is measured by God’s fist. But to inquire now into the difference made by the divine fist would perhaps exceed both our speech and your hearing. Yet as there he measured the water with his hand, heaven with his span, and all the earth with his fist, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a scale, so here too, by the same reasoning, this measure must be understood; for nothing is without measure for God, nothing without weight, but all things with him consist in number and measure. So too the prophet’s life is numbered and measured by God, since it is governed by the reasons of his providence.

He adds further in what follows and says: “My substance is as nothing before you.” If he had not added “before you,” I would be very saddened that he had said human substance is nothing. But since he said “before you,” it is as if he said: in comparison with the angels or the other creatures, my substance is not abject nor the least. Indeed, if we do well and keep the Lord’s commandments, we are invited to the fellowship of the angels: “They will be,” it says, “like the angels of God in heaven.” But in comparison with God, even if I were Peter, against whom the gates of hell will not prevail, my substance is nothing before him. And he used a very proper word for our nature. For everything that comes from nothing, however great it may be, is nothing; for he alone is who is, and who always is. But our substance is as nothing before him, since it was created by him from nothing. In what follows, as if explaining what he had said, “My substance is as nothing before you,” he adds: “Yet all things are vanity, every man living.” How do you take “living”? If we think that true life is vanity, why do we labor? But see whether “every man living” is not perhaps to be taken of this present life, as it is written and as we shall prove by testimonies. For all things among men in this life are vain, even if Moses is in this life; for he too knows in part and prophesies in part, sees through a mirror and in a riddle, knows a shadow, is taught in figures, and does not yet see the truth; and so he is indeed living, but his life is vanity. Do you want to see that it is vanity? When what is perfect comes, the things that are in part will be destroyed; and everything that is destroyed is vanity. And if whatever is in part is destroyed, and if the prophets know in part, their life too is rightly called vanity; and the lower things are destroyed when the better and perfect things come, and are shown to be vain by this, that they are destroyed as partial and imperfect. “Yet all things are vanity, every man living.” And that this sentence is to be taken of this life, hear Ecclesiastes testifying and saying: “I praised all the dead above all the living, whoever are living until now; and better than these two is he who is not yet born.” He praises the dead, then, more than the living, because they at least have this gain, that they have been freed from the bonds of this body: they are no longer clothed with flesh and skin, nor knit together with bones and sinews, nor subject any longer to the necessity of the body. If, then, you have understood what it is to live in the flesh, even for one who is Moses, or whoever he may be, this life is a burden to him. For the soul that is surrounded by a mortal and earthly body is not released from corruption. Seeing, then, that “all things are vanity, every man living,” let us despise this vain life and hasten to the holy, blessed, and true life, and strive toward it in mind and soul, shaking off all vanity. And let us not call this light which we now enjoy sweet. Those say this who do not know the sweetness of the true light, who have not perceived even any foretaste of the true light, and do not know that the soul may hope for the angelic life once it has escaped from the vanity of this life. Hence let us too, who believe these things, already be carried over to heaven in mind and faith, and, while walking on earth, have our citizenship in heaven, so that our treasure may be where our heart is too, and that we may merit to obtain the heavenly kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory and power and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.