Selected Comments on the Psalms 1145–1159

[Ps 4, continued] Elijah concerning Ahab; and the Lord said: Have you seen how Ahab has been pierced with compunction before me? I will not bring the evil in his days.” And in the fifty-ninth psalm: “You have shaken the earth,” it says, “and troubled it; heal its breaches, for it has been moved. You have shown your people hard things; you have made us drink the wine of compunction. You have given to those who fear you a sign, to flee from before the bow.” For the Prophet confesses that he has been made to drink the wine of compunction. And since he has digested, so to speak, the words of rebuke, and has suffered the piercing from them, he therefore confesses that he has received, with those who fear God, a sign to flee the arrows sent from the bow of God upon the ungodly who persist in their sins and do not repent. And in Genesis: “And Esau said to his father: Have you only one blessing, father? And when Isaac was pierced with compunction, Esau cried out with a loud voice and wept.” In place of “be pierced with compunction,” Aquila and Theodotion rendered “be silent,” which Symmachus translated “be quiet,” setting out more clearly what the words signify; which has this meaning: “On your beds converse within yourselves in secret,” that is, having examined what you have done in the day and your own affairs, so be quiet.

“Offer a sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord,” and so on. The one who offers from unjust gains does not offer a sacrifice of righteousness, nor the one who does not share with the needy in proportion to what he possesses, nor the one who gives grudgingly or under compulsion. The divine word teaches most clearly that it did not give commands about the sacrifices that the readers of the books have understood; for it says in the forty-ninth psalm: “O God, I am your God. Not for your sacrifices will I rebuke you; your whole burnt offerings are before me continually. I will not accept calves from your house, nor goats from your flocks. For mine are all the beasts of the field, cattle on the mountains, and oxen. I know all the birds of the air, and the beauty of the field is with me. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is mine and its fullness. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High. And call upon me in the day of affliction, and I will rescue you, and you will glorify me.” And in the fiftieth: “For if you had desired sacrifice, I would have given it; in whole burnt offerings you will not delight. A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; a broken and humbled heart God will not despise.” And elsewhere: “Your whole burnt offerings and sacrifices are not pleasing to me.” And further in Jeremiah: “I did not command these things,” he says, “to your fathers in the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifice; but this word I commanded them, saying:

[Ps 4, continued] Let none of you remember evil in his heart against his neighbor, and do not love a false oath; for all these things I hate, says the Lord Almighty.” Through all these, then, it clearly teaches us to examine what the subject of sacrifices is; and the oracles supply starting points when they say, “A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit,” as here too: “Offer a sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord.” And our Savior and Lord himself turns back those who do not understand the prophetic writings, and for that reason are excited about bodily sacrifices, saying: “If you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.” The saying stands in one of the Twelve thus: “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, knowledge of God rather than whole burnt offerings.” That these laws are legislation about sacrifices, Paul taught when he said: “Who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” The reader of the laws about sacrifices must strive, then, to explain them in both ways, examining them according to the symbolic sense and according to the more secret and mystical sense. These things have been noted by us in summary, as we wished to explain “Offer a sacrifice of righteousness,” and what follows, “Hope in the Lord.” For one cannot reasonably hope before doing what is right; but one who does what is right can hope with confidence and expect the good things of the Lord; for hope is the expectation of good things.

Since it has been asked by many whether the noble and good man will hope for anything — since the perfect man has the good things in full, and lacks nothing, and therefore hopes for nothing, for hope is of things absent; yet it is something else to have good hopes, since good things succeed one another most continually for the noble and good — let us too discuss the problem briefly according to the intent of the Scriptures. The sacred oracles most clearly exhort us to hope in the Lord: “Let Israel hope in the Lord,” it says; and: “The house of Israel hoped in the Lord; he is their helper and protector.” And to the perfect man in the ninetieth psalm, among the other promises, it is said: “With his shoulders he will overshadow you, and under his wings you will hope; his truth will surround you with a shield.” And Paul, wishing to present what that is on which the law and the prophets hang (I mean love), says: “Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things; love never fails.” If, then, never failing is the work of the perfect, belonging to love; and enduring all things through love belongs to one who has risen above all toil; and believing all things — clearly the things that are and are true, for false things are not to be counted among “all things,” since they do not even exist; for the one who has achieved love is perfect and firm in the saving faith about each of the things that must be believed — it is clear that hoping all things too, and despairing of none of the things that can be laid up for a saint, belongs to no one else but the one who has perfect

[Ps 4, continued] love, and in some way is adorned by it, could soundly be called his work. Breaking “hoping all things” into its parts, if we wish to explain it, we shall say that it is to hope to inherit the kingdom of heaven, and to be comforted, and to be called sons of God, and to see God, to be filled with the righteousness for which one hungers and thirsts, and to share in the perfect mercy, and, in short, to be in all the things that the God who does not lie, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, have promised. “For eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and it has not entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.”

“Many say: Who will show us good things?” and so on. The simpler will suppose that it is said here that, when the things laid up in promise are proclaimed, the many say, “Who will show us these things, and let us come to be in them?” — clearly struck by them as true and longing for them, but, because of human weakness in the many sins they commit, not at all confident of obtaining them and living in them. Others will explain the saying thus: the things recorded in the promise as to be given to the elect cannot be understood clearly and distinctly at all except by those who have become wise: for example, what the land is which the meek will inherit, and what inheriting it must be understood to mean; or what it means, through purity of heart, to see God, who is invisible, whom no one has ever seen; and through what event, and in what circumstances, those who mourn now will later be comforted; and what and of what kind the kingdom of heaven is. Many, then, hearing the good things recorded, and wishing to behold them in their mind and understand them, say: “Who will be the one to show us good things?” For truly rare is the one who can show the good things, in the way we have explained, such as Paul was, able to present them, as he says somewhere: “But we have the mind of Christ, so that we may know the things freely given us by God; which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” We have often observed that “who” is used in Scripture of what is rare, as in: “Who is the faithful and wise steward?” and: “Who is wise, and will understand these things?” and: “Lord, who will dwell on your holy mountain?” So here too it is said: “Who will show us good things?”

From the tome on the fourth psalm, on “Many say: Who will show us good things?” Since there is much inquiry among human beings about what the good things are and what the evil things, and some say that good and evil things are among things not chosen — declaring pleasure, for instance, to be a good, and the painful an evil — while others shut up the good and evil things in things chosen alone, and say that the virtues and the actions according to them are alone

[Ps 4, continued] good, and the vices and the activities according to vice evil; and a third group mixing them, saying that good and evil things are both in things chosen and in things not chosen — it is natural that the many among believers who love learning, being drawn about by these plausible views, should say on the subject of goods: “Who will show us good things?” That the nature of good things lies in things chosen, anyone at all who accepts the doctrine of judgment would admit without being taught. For he says that the good is that for which one will hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will set you over many; enter into the joy of your master.” And good is what is brought forth from the heart of the good man, as the Savior says: “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things.” And in short every fruit of a good tree, being chosen, is good, such as love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control; and the opposites of these are evil. Whether, even after Christ’s teaching, there is anything good and evil also among things not chosen must be inquired. And even if there is some evil or good among things not chosen, as perhaps we shall show after examining it later, at least the things called good and evil by those who mix the unchosen with the chosen would not be so. For they think that of good things some concern the soul, some the body, and some are external; and likewise of evil things: concerning the soul, virtue and the actions according to virtue, or vice and the actions according to vice; concerning the body, health, good condition, and beauty, or disease, bad condition, and ugliness; concerning externals, wealth and poverty, glory and obscurity, good birth and low birth. Some will think that according to the Scriptures too there are likewise three kinds of good things and three of evil. For, accepting that the virtues and vices are good and evil things, after what is agreed by us also concerning virtue and vice and the actions according to them, they will use sayings that seemingly declare bodily and external things too to be good or evil. And about virtues and vices what need is there to speak, since the moral writings teach that we must choose justice, prudence, self-control, and courage, and the actions according to them, and turn away from their opposites? So there is no need of examples for the goods among things chosen. But bodily and external goods they will show from many places, taking the letter; for the present it is enough to cite some passages from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, given as a promise to those who keep the commandments and as a threat and curses against those who transgress them; for example, that health is a good and disease an evil, beyond doubt,

[Ps 4, continued] he will show that this is foretold from Exodus: “If you keep my commandments and my ordinances, every disease that I brought upon the Egyptians I will not bring upon you; for I am the Lord who heals you.” And what is said in Deuteronomy to sinners might be supposed to present bodily blows and diseases as evil, and, clearly, health and bodily strength as good. The text runs thus: “If you will not listen to do all the words of this law written in this book, to fear this honored and wonderful name, the Lord your God, then the Lord will make extraordinary your plagues and the plagues of your seed, great and wonderful plagues, and evil and very many diseases; and he will bring back upon you every evil plague of Egypt, which you feared before them; and it will cling to you; and every sickness and every plague not written in the book of this law the Lord will bring upon you, until he destroys you.” And again to those who transgress the commandments it is said: “I will send upon you fever and jaundice, and your eyes wasting and your soul melting away.” In addition, in Deuteronomy the word threatens those who depart from godliness with incurable rigidity of the back. Those who wish to say that external goods are promised by the divine word will use these words from Leviticus: “If you walk in my ordinances and keep my commandments and do them, I will give you rain in its season, and the earth will give its produce, and the trees of the plains will give their fruit. And the threshing will overtake the vintage for you, and the vintage will overtake the sowing; and you will eat your bread to the full, and dwell in safety on your land,” and so on. And from Deuteronomy they will use these: “And when you cross the Jordan into the land that the Lord God gives you, and you take care to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you above all, and all these blessings will come upon you and find you, if you listen to the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed are you in the city, and blessed are you in the field; blessed are the offspring of your womb, and the produce of your land, and the herds of your cattle, and the flocks of your sheep; blessed are your storehouses and your stores,” and so on. As again, on the contrary, it is said to the ungodly: “Cursed are you in the city, and cursed are you in the field; cursed are your storehouses and your stores; cursed are the children of your womb, and the produce of your land; cursed are the

[Ps 4, continued] herds of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep.” And those who wish good and evil things to be in bodily and external things will bring countless other examples. They will also lay hold of the Gospels, saying that the Savior came and took away from human beings, as evils, bodily blindness, deafness, and paralysis of the limbs, and healed every disease and every sickness, giving goods in place of the evils that had come before: bodily sight and hearing, and the rest of health and strength. And they will put you to shame by asking whether we too will not admit that being possessed by demons and being moonstruck is an evil, and conversely that being freed from these is a good. Indeed, the apostles too, performing gifts of healings and workings of miracles, by this very working did good to people and freed them from evils. Those who say this will also go on to the age to come, saying that pain, that is, sinners being handed over to eternal fire, is an evil. And if pain is an evil, pleasure must be a good. From what has been said, then, it is clear what can greatly put to shame those who cannot solve the arguments brought forward for there being, according to the Scriptures, three kinds of good things and three of evil. By this deception not only the admittedly simple among believers have been deceived, but also some of those who profess the wisdom that is according to Christ, thinking that such are the promises of the Creator, and that nothing is signified in his threats beyond what is shown by the letter.

To all who take such things from the Scriptures we must put the difficulty whether the prophets kept the law, of whom no sins are alleged: for example, Elijah, so utterly without possessions that he did not even have bread with him to eat, and for that reason was sent to a woman in Zarephath of Sidon; and Elisha, who received from the Shunammite a very small lodging, a little bed, and a cheap lampstand, and who also fell sick and died; and Isaiah, who walked naked and barefoot for three years; and Jeremiah, who was thrown into a pit of mire and was always mocked, so that he even prayed to dwell in the wilderness; and John, who lived in the deserts and took nothing but locusts and wild honey, his loins girded with a skin and clothed with camel’s hair. They will admit that these kept the law. And we shall demand whether the things they think good belonged to these who kept the law. Unable to show it, they will be shut up to saying either that the promises said to be given to the godly are false, or that, being true, they need a higher interpretation. And if, compelled, they come to allegory, their assumption that the law threatens

[Ps 4, continued] bodily disease and what are thought to be external evils for the ungodly, or promises that the bodies of those who have followed God will be healthy and that they will have abundance, will be set aside. And how is it not foolish to pride oneself and boast over evils, as those in them do? For if afflictions are evils, and the Apostle tells us to boast in them — that would be foolish, and the Apostle is not foolish — then such training exercises of the saint are not evils. He, afflicted in every way, is not crushed; perplexed, he is not forsaken; tried, he is not put to death; thought to be poor, he makes many rich; supposed to possess nothing, he holds all things. For to the believer belongs the whole world of riches, but to the unbeliever not even an obol. Further, it follows for those who suppose that according to Scripture there are three kinds of goods — and clearly of evils too — that the righteous are always in many evils, since the prophecy is true that says: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” And we must remind those who think such things are evils of what befell Job, as the oracle says, after he had borne most nobly the contests around him: “Do you think I have dealt with you otherwise than that you might appear righteous?” For if Job appears righteous in no other way than through such and such things, and we were to say that such and such evils were his, the causes of his righteousness being shown — then it would follow that not even the devil is an evil to the saint; to Job, at any rate, the devil was not an evil: “Since for those who love God, God works all things together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Further, we say that it is contrary to plain fact that the righteous man will be in the literal blessings, among the things thought good that lie in the Scriptures. For much history concerning the saint, when examined, opposes such interpretations; and it is senseless to suppose that the saint will be a lender to many nations, opening tables in every city, distracted with giving and receiving, and doing forbidden things: “For he did not give his money at interest, nor take gifts against the innocent; he who does these things will not be shaken forever.” And according to Ezekiel: “The holy man did not give his money at interest and increase.” To think that even fever comes because of sins is a doctrine of the utterly uneducated, since the causes of such disease are often obvious: either the surrounding air, or such waters, or such foods. And if health and wealth are prizes for the righteous, none of the ungodly ought to be healthy or rich. We must seek health as a certain condition of the soul, and wealth as that which, according to Solomon, is the ransom of the soul, when he says: “The ransom of a man’s soul is his own wealth.” And we must flee poverty, the kind of which it is written: “The poor man does not withstand a threat.” Further, wounds and bruises,

[Ps 4, continued] and diseases must be taken as what happens through vice to inattentive souls; about these the prophet too blames those who are in such a state, saying: “From the feet to the head there is neither wound, nor bruise, nor festering sore; it is not possible to apply a poultice, nor oil, nor bandages.” These things, then, are enough for those who are not wholly careless, so that, gathering for themselves from these the sayings of the Scriptures that distract them, they may attain to an understanding worthy of the working of the Holy Spirit. Further, to silence those who think that these are the goods to be given to the saints and these the evils to sinners, this too must be added: everything that is for the sake of something is less than that for whose sake it is. For example, incisions, cauteries, and plasters, used for the sake of health, are less than health; and even if they are called goods as medical aids, we must understand that they are not final goods of medicine but productive ones; the final good of medicine is the health of the body. So too, if these commandments are to be kept in order to obtain these goods, and the prizes are bodily and external, then good actions will not be good as final, but only as productive of goods; and wealth, which they think Scripture promises, and bodily health will be superior to righteousness, and to holiness itself, and to piety and godliness — to such great noble deeds. To accept this belongs to people who do not know the dignity of virtue but prefer its material rewards; for it is the most absurd thing of all to say that being rich and being healthy in body are superior to noble deeds. Because of these wicked doctrines some have consistently accepted that even after the resurrection, in the first promises, we shall eat such foods and drink; and some, that we shall even beget children. These things, reaching those from the nations, will make Christianity get a reputation for great simple-mindedness, since some outside the faith hold much better doctrines.

We shall now present what appears to us from examining the sacred oracles. We said that we are content to say that good and evil things lie both in things chosen and in things not chosen; yet we do not count among the unchosen goods health, beauty, good birth, good reputation, and wealth; and we have tried as far as possible to resolve in summary what distracts us. What, then, the unchosen goods are must now be said. Since it is true that “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have labored in vain,” and “Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman has kept watch in vain” — and everyone who progresses builds a house, and every perfect man guards a city; and the work of the builder is vain, and the guard of the keeper vain, unless the Lord builds and the Lord guards — then outside our choice there would be a good: the power of the Lord that takes hold of the builder’s building and