Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 14/24

Therefore, he says, since the all-mighty and unconquerable One is the helper of those of Israel, and it is not for us to suspect that His power has grown feeble, it remains henceforth to think nothing else save that we have given offence;

for this cause we have been overlooked and have fallen, and we have but one hope—the increase of gifts that comes from Thy serenity and love toward man.

'For Thou art He who commandest the salvations of Jacob'—that is to say, who promisest;

for God promised to those about the divinely-inspired Abraham and to those of him, that He would preserve all the race that should come of them.

'To keep thee in all thy ways.' Or the 'command'—do but incline, and Thy people shall enjoy salvation.

'In Thee will we push down our enemies.'

(The horned beasts have received the horn from nature as a weapon;

but we have Thy name as a horn of salvation and a victorious weapon.

For neither in bow, nor in other weapons, do I trust;

for I have received proof of Thy power, having already through Thee prevailed over my adversaries.

(But the horn of the saints is the Lord.

'My defender and the horn of my salvation.' How then does he say elsewhere, 'And He shall exalt the horn of His people,' as though He that exalts were other than the horn? Clearly, then, the Word of God, being the horn of the people, is exalted by the Father, since He emptied Himself.

In this their horn, then, and in the King, they say they take courage unto salvation, and not in their own power.

'In God will we be praised all the day long'; which according to Aquila is 'we will boast';

or according to Symmachus, 'we sing praises.'

And they say also that they give thanks unto Him, Scripture customarily using 'confession' in place of 'thanksgiving.'

'And in Thy name will we bring to nought those who rise up against us.'

(His name, in which they bring to nought those who rise up, signifies His glory;

for that God might be glorified, He gave them the power.

God, at any rate, redeemed Israel out of the hand of the Egyptians, crowning Himself with glories befitting God.

'But the sons of Judah will I have mercy upon, and I will save them in the Lord their God;

and I will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by war, nor by chariots, nor by horses, nor by horsemen.' But now Thou hast cast us off and put us to shame.

(As of their own body the prophets who say these things take up unto themselves the affairs of the ungodly people.

'For our fathers,' he says, 'have declared these things unto us.'

Then in the middle a Selah, to set forth the change.

'But now the contrary is here to behold;'

for Thou hast left us without help in the war;

for neither didst Thou go forth with our armies.

And there was no multitude in our shoutings.

Now the shout of triumph is the cry of those who have gained the victory.

But when it happens that few are those accustomed to raise it, then we say that there is no multitude in their shouting.

We have therefore been overcome, and we have been plundered by our enemies, and these but few in number;

for there was no multitude in their shouting.

To such a depth of evils and of incomparable misery have we come, that we were taken by force, and that not by any great throng of warriors.

Thou hast made us a byword to our neighbours.

But what is a 'byword' here? A tale, an example, and a reproach.

For even those who are far off recount our affairs.

For those of Israel, having become captives and entangled in the rapacity of their captors, have been reckoned accursed, since men say of us, as is likely, in this manner:

May I never become like the Israelites.

And thou hast turned aside our paths from thy way.

According to the holy Cyril, the words 'Thou hast turned aside our paths from thy way' you shall understand thus:

Israel, having disobeyed the preaching that came through Christ, has thereby also cast away the ability to be approved through the legal worship;

for the shadow of the Law has ceased, and the types have been transformed into the truth.

This they teach, saying that 'Thou hast turned aside our paths from thy way.' And He said also somewhere through one of the prophets concerning Jerusalem:

Behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will wall up her paths, and she shall not find her track. For the synagogue of the Jews knows not at all the ways of approval before God.

But not even if it should chance to learn them would it hold the matter as accessible;

showing forth the way by which one might drive on toward life.

These things then they say, namely that having committed impiety against Christ they were also thrust out from performing the worship according to the Law.

And we have already said that it is the prophets who offer up the supplication in the person of the people, appropriating to themselves the evils that befell on account of the people's sins.

For otherwise, how does he say here that they neither forgot nor dealt unjustly in His covenant, and that as it were they sent their hearts backward, and then suffered the turning away, and endured the harms that come of wrath?

For either they will be lying when they say that they did not deal unjustly in His covenant, or they will make no small outcry against the divine judgements, as though they had been chastised and had suffered not justly.

The prophets therefore, being righteous and having proved keepers of the Law, inasmuch as they are of the blood of Israel, take upon themselves the sufferings of the common multitude, which indeed also committed outrage against Christ;

and just as in the wilderness, when the people once committed impiety and were delivered up to the destroyer, Aaron took the censer and offered incense on their behalf, and God was appeased toward the multitude through the priest's offering, so also those who walk uprightly among the people send up their rational sacrifice, praying on the people's behalf and bringing forward their own good deeds.

For to the multitude it was not fitting to say these things, seeing that it had committed impiety and had been delivered up to the enemies;

but just as the prophets took upon themselves the sufferings of the multitude, so they made common to it their own good deeds.

For it follows that when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, and when it is glorified, they rejoice with it.

Shall not God search out these things? For He Himself knows the secret things of the heart.

He makes Him the witness of their words and of their thoughts, that nothing turned them away from piety.

For, they say, having boldness in thy name, we glory.

And thou knowest also our very reasonings, in which every day for the sake of piety we were being put to death.

For he who, by his resolve, has reckoned to take up in every trial the death that is for the truth's sake, has died in potency;

which Paul also said, as he underwent divers trials, saying:

I die daily, I protest by your rejoicing. In our secret parts, then, we were being put to death every day, and having once delivered ourselves up as a sacrifice on behalf of the people, in resolve we suffered this.

Since therefore we have suffered these things, we turn thee toward us, and rouse thee up as it were from sleeping to evils.

Arise, O Lord, help us, and redeem us for thy name's sake.

By the verses set before us they signify the conversion and calling of Israel that shall be in the latter times;

and adding to their own words, that is, to their supplications toward God, the phrase 'for thy name's sake,' they expressly confess that they who whetted the horn of their own ignorance against Christ are not worthy that mercy should be shown them.

It befits Him, however, to show mercy, and not to extend the effects of wrath to the full measure of human faults, but rather to have compassion for His own sake.

And indeed He said through one of the holy prophets:

Unto the end, concerning them that shall be changed, for the sons of Korah, for understanding, concerning the beloved.

The psalm is sung unto the end;

for it contains a narrative, or rather a foretelling, of the mystery according to Christ, which came to pass at the consummation of the present age.

For thus the Son appeared to us.

And the force of the song is said to have been composed 'concerning them that shall be changed, and concerning the beloved.'

We say that both Jews and Greeks have been changed, so that they who were called out of both should become one and a beloved people.

For as Paul says, Christ created the two peoples into one new man. My heart hath uttered forth a good word.

Here understand for me the going forth, that is, the generation, of God the Word from the substance of God the Father—not as body from body, but as incomposite, immaterial, and intelligible, as a word from a mind, not by division or partition.

It proceeds indeed from it, and is in it, and is not alien to it.

For it is not possible that a mind, that is, a heart, should ever be without a word;

nor yet a word which is not from a mind and unto a mind, that is, from a heart and in a heart.

Therefore, receiving in the manner of a certain example, in the case of God, a heart and a word, let us stretch the eye of our own understanding beyond the things of sense, and let us believe that the generation of God the Word came to pass in a manner befitting God;

whom the Father, as a word, uttered forth from His heart.

And he calls Him good, and that most fittingly, especially in view of the aim here set before us.

For since for the sake of the salvation and life of the world He chose to suffer the voluntary self-emptying, out of an innate gentleness and the tranquillity that befits God, it was necessary that He should now above all be named good, although He is also light and life and wisdom and power.

And since the ineffable generation of the Only-begotten has already been declared through the preceding verse, the discourse concerning the incarnation is now introduced;

for the Son is, as I said, in the pre-eminence and glory of Godhead;

but since once for all He emptied Himself, He submits to the measures of humanity.

And it is fitting to a man to have by way of teaching the things which he does not know.

For inasmuch as God instilled into the mind the knowledge of every good thing, or rather,

exhortations render men wise.

Consider then in these words the Father speaking, as it were, when the Son had become man:

I speak my works to the King. For He all but promises to teach Him what manner of words He shall use, leading us on to be willing to do His works.

And we say that the works of God are the godly conduct of life, and the power of holy and noble deeds, which through the evangelical preaching has been made manifest to us.

I do nothing of myself, but the Father who sent me, He hath given me commandment what I should say and what I should speak. And again:

The words which I speak are not mine, but His that sent me. And the wise John also writes concerning Him, that He who believes in the Son has set his seal that God is true;

for He whom God sent speaks the words of God. For since, having thrust aside the shadow in the Law, He declared Himself to be the truth, and taught the worship and service that is in spirit and in truth, in order that the words concerning such things might not appear to the Jews to be contrary to what seemed good to God, He economically, as I said, ascribed His own utterances to the person of God the Father.

And we remember that on Mount Horeb also, when Israel was gathered together, God gave the promise concerning Christ, saying to the hierophant Moses, that I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee;

and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them according to all that I command him. And Christ Himself also said somewhere:

The Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that He Himself doeth;

'And He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.' As for the Father showing His works to the Son, one might indeed say that this is not free from a certain human lowliness; yet it seems to accord with the purpose of the self-emptying.

And with good reason indeed does the Father call the Son a king, lest by reason of the measure of the incarnation He should somehow seem to strip Him of the dignity that belongs to Him by nature and of His supremacy over all things.

For even though He became man upon the earth, He nonetheless, as begotten from the Father who is King, has remained King even amid the heights that belong to Him by nature—heights, that is, befitting God and surpassing all creation.

'My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.'

In yet another manner God, even the Father, designates for us the Word who is from His own substance.

For He names Him His own tongue, not as though He were speaking something else, but only what is in Him;

for this the tongue also does in us, conveying to those outside the things that are in the mind and heart.

And He says that He is also the pen of a ready writer;

for the pen of the ready writer swiftly marks upon the tablets the utterances of certain persons.

But the only-begotten Word of God fulfils this very thing, inscribing spiritually upon the hearts of believers the great and wise and true will of the Father.

And what the will of the Father is, He Himself makes clear in the Gospels, saying:

'That of all which He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.' And in another manner:

for He inscribes within us the good and well-pleasing will of the Father.

Very swift, therefore, is the pen of the Father.

For the law given through Moses, by a long roundabout way and with much intricacy—I mean that which is according to the letter—dimly and with difficulty hinted at what was profitable;

but the Saviour and Lord of all, without any circuitousness, concisely, as I said, revealed to us the will of the Father.

For He is the Angel of great counsel.

And He said somewhere too, through one of the holy prophets, concerning those called in faith, that 'In those days, says the Lord, I will surely give My laws into their understanding, and upon their hearts I will inscribe them.' The all-wise Paul also writes to them:

'You are our epistle, known and read by all men;

being manifested that you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.' But this pen, besides being quick and swift, has also comeliness in beauty beyond the sons of men.

For the divinely inspired Moses proclaimed to those of former times the law that was ministered through angels;

and the prophets also spoke to those of former times the things from the revelation of God;

but comely in beauty beyond the sons of men is the pen of the Father.

For which of the saints will vie with Christ? Absolutely none.

'For your voice is sweet, and your appearance comely.' Things similar in meaning to what has already been said, Eusebius of Caesarea states in a second Exposition, saying:

even if not with so great a testimony from the Scriptures.

The Spirit inscribes thoughts within us in proportion to the breadth of the heart, whether more or fewer, and whether manifest to all or more dimly, according to the preparation of purity.

Comely in beauty beyond the sons of men.

When God the Father, through the preceding verses, has spoken the first words, the choir of the holy prophets seizes upon the revelation, and as it were applauds the words of the Father, and honours the mystery with its consent, and, as though out of exceedingly great love for God, cries aloud:

'Since to you belongs comeliness in beauty beyond the sons of men, we confess that grace has been poured forth upon your lips, and for this reason God has blessed you for ever.'

And the word 'He has blessed' stands for 'He has made blessed.'

And He shall also be glorified for ever, being true God and Son of the God who is over all, and being Himself the Lord of glory.

But if anyone should say that it was given to the Son by the Father to be blessed by us, let him also consider this:

'above every name, that in His name every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord'; so also He is said to be blessed—as though it were granted to Him by God—that is, to be blessed by all.

And this is the self-emptying;

for the things which He has by nature as God, these He is said to receive after a human manner.

And in yet another manner it was necessary that the Son, having become man and been called the second Adam, and having been established as a second root for those upon the earth, should be blessed by the Father as man, so that the power of the curse might at last cease—the curse laid upon him who was of earth and dust, that is, upon the first root of humanity, namely Adam.

For just as in him we became accursed, so in Christ we were blessed;

since He sends forth to the whole race the grace given to Him as man.

And rejoicing over this very thing, the Psalmist cried aloud:

'Blessed are you of the Lord who made heaven and earth.' 'Gird your sword upon your thigh, O mighty one, with your comeliness and your beauty.'

For we say that nothing external or introduced from without belongs to Christ, but rather the things befitting God would rightly be understood as His own.

For He is mighty, that is, the Lord of hosts;

not having received the power to be able from another, but as His own and inherent essentially, together with His other most God-befitting dignities.

He is indeed comely to those who love Him, and to those who have come to know His manifestation, and to those who are able to behold with the eyes of the mind His extraordinary and supramundane beauty.

And having the sword fitted upon His thigh, that He may throw the ranks of His adversaries into confusion, or may strike terror into the madness of the disobedient, threatening them with judgement and punishment.

For this too the Psalmist says somewhere else:

'If you do not turn, He will whet His sword;

He has bent His bow and made it ready, and in it He has prepared instruments of death; His arrows He has fashioned for those who burn. And bend, and prosper, and reign, for the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness.'

The word 'prosper' stands for: 'Command that those who have chosen to be minded as you are should run straight in every good thing, and thus reign over those who prosper.'

There is indeed to be seen in this saying a very great coherence inherent within it.

For it was altogether impossible for any to be strong enough to run, as it were, by a straight course toward what seemed good to Him, while Satan lay in wait;

for this very reason, and very fittingly, He first bends the bow;

so that, when that one has been removed from their midst, and with him the others who rage against the good repute of the saints, they might thereafter be able to prosper, and to go as it were along a bare path, with none contending or opposing them, and thus to submit to the yoke of the kingdom under Him, as they ought.

Rightly, therefore, they say first 'Bend,' then 'Prosper,' and third immediately 'Reign.'

And they add: 'for the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness.' Meekness, as I think, and indeed truth and righteousness as well, they say to be nothing other than the evangelical proclamation through which we have come to be under Christ;

for through it He has reigned over that which is under heaven.

There is truth, in that, being beyond the types and shadow that pertain to Moses, it teaches the mystery of Christ nakedly and unclothed.

For it does not have the severity that is in the law.

'Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.' But the evangelical proclamation is of meekness in another way also;

for it renders those who believe in Christ meek, not vindictive and prone to anger, nor desiring to demand eye for eye, and foot for foot, and hand for hand, but, to him who strikes the right cheek, turning also the other;

and following Him who says:

'you shall find rest for your souls.' And if anyone should say that to Christ Himself also belongs both what is true in all things (for nothing false is in Him of the things that befit God), and indeed the utmost meekness and righteousness, he would not be outside the bounds of probability.

For truth—and it is the same—is indeed present in the evangelical decrees, as is righteousness also.

For it renders men holy and blameless.

'And your right hand shall guide you wondrously.'

The divinely inspired Paul, lifting up the eye of his mind to the vision of God, says: 'O the depth of the riches, and of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God!'

'how unsearchable are His judgements, and His ways past finding out!'

For He alone knows all things, and the light is with Him, and in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden away.

What then, therefore, do the saints say to Christ? 'Your right hand shall guide you wondrously.' For, He says, to Him who looks upon the things that make for the salvation of those on the earth, there will be a counsellor of our own affairs—or rather, no other whatsoever among those who are beyond—

For your right hand will suffice for this.

And they do not indicate by this that his right hand—that is, his power—is something other than himself, existing alongside him; rather, it is as though they were saying, 'Your right hand,' that is, 'your majesty,' meaning that one ought not to conceive of it as anything distinct from himself.

So too, even if they say 'the right hand,' that is, 'the power,' they signify him alone, as it were by way of a periphrasis.

For your right hand knows—it knows, they say—against whom it would be fitting to bring the sword, and against whom to draw the bow from which none can escape; and again, who ought to be prospered and to be brought under your yoke, so that they may confess you alone as God and King, Saviour and Redeemer.

Your arrows are sharpened, O mighty one;

the peoples shall fall beneath you, in the heart of the king's enemies.

Now no one who fights against God or is arrogant falls beneath God; rather, those fall who have accepted subjection through faith.

The arrows, then, of the mighty one—that is, of Christ—are the apostles;

and the enemies of the King—that is, of God the Father—are Satan and, in short, all who set themselves against the divine doctrines.

So when Satan has been shot down, and the heart of the spiritual enemies has been wounded by the arrows of the mighty one, the peoples have fallen beneath the feet of Christ, and have come under the yoke of his kingdom and been made subject.

For those who initiate men into the mysteries strike those who have gone astray and do not know the God who is God by nature—yet not unto death, but bearing them off into the love that is in Christ, so that they may fall beneath him and say:

'I am wounded with love.' Do you see the achievement of the warfare, the bringing near of those who before this were in rebellion? For this falling-down is the foundation and root of exaltation.

Your throne, O God, is unto ages of ages;

a rod of uprightness is the rod of your kingdom.

Observe, then, that he calls God the one who became man, and assigns to him the highest throne.

For he was God in a form like ours, and did not on this account come to be outside of what he was, but rather remained in his own excellencies, holding the rod of uprightness.

And a rod is a symbol of kingship;

for Christ reigns in righteousness.

For one of the holy prophets said, concerning both him and the holy mystagogues:

'Behold, a righteous King shall reign, and rulers shall rule with judgement.' Therefore the figure of the discourse has been formed, as it were, from the example of earthly kings who are accustomed to bear the sceptre.

It should be known that Christ himself is in many places of the God-inspired Scripture named a rod.

You loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God has anointed you, and so forth.

'You have hated all who work lawlessness.' And again:

'I am the Lord who loves righteousness and hates plunder that comes from injustice.' Is it, then, that if our Lord is called great also on this account—that he loves righteousness and hates injustice—the being 'great' will be a reward to God the Father, and a recompense for virtue, because he loves these things and hates those? But no one could ever be so mad as to think this.

As, then, in the case of the Father such sayings are understood in a godly manner, so also should they be taken in the case of the Son;

for the image points to the archetype, and the archetype to the image.

Then, since (he says) being God you know not how to transgress—for you love righteousness and turn away from lawlessness, having your own nature, so to speak, impassable to all wickedness—therefore God, your God, has anointed you. For the Son, having become man, was anointed unto being the High Priest and Apostle of our confession, that he might bring us near to God the Father, giving off the fragrance of faith in him.

And he is anointed with the oil of gladness, that we may perceive the grace that comes through the Holy Spirit, which raises us to perpetual cheerfulness and gladness.

For even if this is said to have been done in Christ, yet the matter was full of the divine dispensation.

For the Son is the giver of the Holy Spirit;

for all that belongs to the Father is in him by nature.

For where there is participation in the divine nature, and the grace of adoption, and the promise of life unto the long age and of the kingdom of heaven, there assuredly is also gladness.

Yet Christ has been anointed beyond his fellows;

for we indeed have received the pledge of the Spirit within ourselves;

but as Paul says, all the fulness of the Godhead is understood to dwell bodily in Christ.

But when was Christ anointed? When the Spirit came upon him as in the form of a dove.

Then also he received the new name, according to the voice of the prophet.

For he said that 'they shall call his new name, which the Lord shall name for him.'

For before the Incarnation, while the Word was still bare and fleshless, he was named in a manner befitting God as light and life and such things.

But after the Incarnation—whose dispensation the power of being anointed introduces—as one already anointed by the Father he receives the new name, that is, 'Christ.'

For being himself the giver of sanctification to others as God, he is sanctified with us according to the human nature;

and about this there is both the grace and the sanctification of the flesh—flesh that is holy not by nature, but as in participation in that which is with God.

And the disciples he named brethren, and made them partakers of himself.

For he sanctifies as God, anointing with his own Spirit those who have come to be in participation of him through faith.

Myrrh and stacte and cassia breathe from your garments, from the ivory palaces, out of which the daughters of kings have gladdened you in your honour.

By the garments of Christ we must understand those who have come near to him, and are as it were close upon him and about him, through faith and sanctification and spiritual intimacy.

By the ivory palaces, however, they mean the Churches in these words.

For 'baris' is the name given to any tower;

and we say that the Churches have been made into towers by the power and grace of Christ;

for they have been founded upon the rock;

and 'ivory,' in place of 'splendid and precious and most beautiful';

for this too belongs to them, just as it does to vessels fashioned out of ivory.

And these ivory palaces are also the daughters of kings.

How, or in what manner? For being sons of the kingdom, the divinely inspired disciples might fittingly also be called kings.

And they have become fathers of the Churches;

for the blessed Paul says this also:

'For in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I begot you.' Therefore from your garments, and from the ivory palaces—that is, from the most beautiful Churches—are given forth myrrh and stacte and cassia, that is, every mode of spiritual fragrance.

For with these spices—that is, with the spiritual fragrances—the daughters of kings have gladdened you in your honour, that is, at the time when it was fitting that you should be honoured by them.

For when they were called, then also did they render honour.

It should be known that, according to the Law of Moses, the composition of the holy oil—with which both the tabernacle and the sacred vessels and those called to priestly ministry were anointed—received its preparation through the spices that have been named.

The queen stood at your right hand.