Commentary on the Psalms 24 part 2/2

There are commandments given to nature from the beginning, when He fashioned man, concerning which Paul says:

For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things of the law, these, not having a law, are a law unto themselves.

For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.

There are also the written commandments.

And all these have remained.

But if some were done away with, it was not that they were altered for the worse, but rather refashioned for the better.

For the saying, 'You shall not kill,' was not done away with, but intensified;

and the saying, 'You shall not commit adultery,' was not abolished, but made greater.

And He said, 'I have not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfil.'

For he who does not grow angry will far more abstain from murder;

and he who does not look with unchaste eyes has pitched his tent far from adultery.

The law, then, has this above all as its distinctive mark—being immortal, being perpetual—whether it be the law of creation, or the law of nature, or the law of true wisdom, or the law of the New Testament.

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall by no means pass away.

For all things that God wills to abide, abide perpetually, and there is nothing that can move them.

Made in truth and uprightness.

What does 'in truth and uprightness' mean? There is nothing crooked in them, he says, nothing tortuous, nothing obscure, nothing framed to gratify or to spite anyone, but all things are ordered toward what is beneficial and profitable;

not like human laws, which contain much that is perishable, much that is obscure, and much that is merely human.

For indeed many laws have often been enacted out of human passions.

For, whether avenging himself on an enemy, or wishing to do a favour to a friend, a man has composed his statutes in such a way.

But the divine laws are not so; rather, they remain brighter than the sun, seeking the benefit of those for whom they are legislated, leading them back to virtue and to the truth of things—not to these false things, I mean wealth and dominion; for these are false;

whereas the things of God are truth, teaching men not how they may become more affluent, nor how they may attain the things of the present, but how they may enjoy the things to come.

Concerning things true and upright, and having nothing perverse in them, those laws spoke all their words.

All His commandments are faithful.

What does 'faithful' mean? Firm, abiding.

For even if they are transgressed, the punishments follow, and these are not shaken;

and if men transgress them, yet God vindicates them.

Do not, then, say that the things spoken were uttered by way of threat, or hyperbolically.

No lawgiver speaks only for the sake of threatening, but also for the sake of correction.

But if you do not fully believe concerning things to come, take your proof from things past.

The flood in the days of Noah, the burning of Sodom, the destruction of Pharaoh, the utter ruin of the Jews, the captivities, and the wars—were these matters of mere threat, or of actual experience of events? And if such things came to pass in the type, how much more in the reality, in proportion as the wickedness is greater of those who dared such deeds after so great a care and correction.

The Lord sent redemption to his people.

According to the historical sense, he means the deliverance of the Jews;

but according to the higher spiritual sense, the deliverance of the whole world, which the sequel also makes plain:

He has commanded his covenant for ever.

Here he speaks of the New Covenant.

For since he had made mention of commandment and of law, and this had been transgressed and had wrought wrath, therefore he says that He sent redemption to his people, even as He himself also said:

I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

For since the law, when transgressed, brought punishment;

for the law, he says, works wrath;

for where there is no law, there is no transgression either;

and, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace;

The Lord sent redemption to his people.

Yet nevertheless it was not redemption simply by itself, but after the redemption a law also, that we might show forth a manner of life worthy of the grace.

Holy and terrible is his name.

For since he had pondered all the things that proclaim his providential care and his forethought—that in the Old, that in the New, that in his works, that through his commandments, that through his wonders, that through his marvels—being filled with divine inspiration and astonished at his majesty, he brings his discourse to a close in doxology, offering up a hymn to Him who does these things.

Holy and terrible is his name;

that is to say, full of amazement, full of great wonder.

And if his name is such, how much more his essence? And how is his name holy and terrible? Demons tremble at it, diseases dread it, and by the use of this name the apostles set right the whole world.

With this David, using it instead of a weapon, cast down that barbarian;

by this were countless deeds accomplished;

by this we are initiated into the sacred mystery.

Considering therefore how many wonders his name works, how many benefits, how it disperses the adversaries, how it makes safe his own people, and reckoning up deeds that surpass the course of nature and overcome the reasoning of men, he says:

Holy and terrible is his name.

And if it is holy, it requires holy mouths for its praise, holy and pure ones.

A good understanding have all they that do it.

What is 'beginning'? A fountain, a root, a foundation.

For since he had said such great and lofty things concerning the Master of the whole world, and had been filled with such astonishment, he adds this as a consequence, showing henceforth that whoever fears Him is filled with all wisdom and becomes prudent.

Then, lest anyone should suppose that the matters of wisdom go no further than knowledge, he added:

A good understanding have all they that do it.

For faith does not suffice, unless there be also present a manner of life corresponding to the faith.

And how is the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom? It delivers from all wickedness, it accomplishes every virtue.

And by wisdom he means not that which lies in words, but that which lies in deeds.

Since even those outside the faith defined wisdom thus: a discernment of things divine and human.

And this art the fear of God teaches, taking away wickedness, planting virtue, disposing us to despise the things present, and transferring us toward heaven.

And what is wiser than such a soul? Here he seeks not the hearer only, but also the doer.

A good understanding have all they that do it;

that is, to those who practice wisdom and display it through their works belongs a good understanding.

'Good understanding,' he said, for there is also a wicked understanding, as when he says:

'They are wise to do evil;'

'but to do good they have not known.'

But he here seeks the understanding that consists in virtue.

'His praise endures forever and ever.'

The thanksgiving, the doxology which is rendered through works, is immortal; and before these, that very praise which is bound up together with His essence.

For God is immortal, and in Himself exceedingly worthy of praise;

and He is worthy of praise also when you consider His majesty and all the rest;

He is worthy of praise also through His works, when you behold His wisdom in the things that are seen.

He says these things to exhort men to thanksgiving, and to show that those who murmur against the things that come to pass are worthy of no pardon at all, not even the slightest.

For when His praise, and the thanksgiving, and the doxology are thus manifest, and evident, and clear, and unmoved, and fixed fast, and abiding, so as to be even immortal, boundless and without end, while those men, being ignorant of it, utter the very opposite,

they are doing nothing else than contradicting things far clearer than the sun, and are willfully blind.

For it is not something transient, that they should be ignorant of it, nor dim and obscure, but it is manifest, and continual, and immortal, ever abiding, and never having an end.