Commentary on the Psalms (Fragments) 1 part 12/40

'Having passed on,' he says, in mind, to the coming life, I no longer found the ungodly man, so as to seek his place and not find it.

And it is said that the wicked are not found thereafter, not in that their substance is done away, but in that the quality according to which they are such is done away; and concerning the not-finding of their place-in-rank it has been demonstrated beforehand.

But if these things are said concerning Satan, since he is called 'the ruler of this world' (and this world passes away), one who seeks in the age to come the place of this ruler shall not find it.

And if sin too is a place of the devil, according to 'Do not give place to the devil,' then when wickedness is done away the place of the ungodly one was not found.

But if you should wish to understand it according to the letter—if you should wish to understand it according to the letter, one might state a difference between innocence and uprightness such as this:

if innocence be the not-doing of evils, uprightness would be the disposition according to which we do all things without passion;

but if he should call innocence the setting-right of one's character, uprightness would be the unbending contemplation of the doctrines of the truth.

In either way he commands to keep innocence and to behold uprightness, because there is left, for the coming life, for the peaceable man, the hope that does not put to shame, while the ungodly are utterly destroyed together and at once at the time of judgment.

And the salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord who shields them in the time of affliction.

In harmony with this is, 'Our salvation is in the time of affliction.'

'From the hand of sinners,' that is, from their action or from wicked powers;

wherefore also this psalm has been ranked in a number proper to the things spoken in it.

For it is the thirty-sixth.

And this number is at once both triangular and square.

For as triangular, it has the eight as its side; and the eighth is the resurrection day of the Savior.

And as square, it has for its side the number six, which is perfect;

for if you count in order from one up to eight, you will find no other number than this.

A confessing person is introduced in this psalm.

For 'if anything of such a kind has been done by me,' he says, 'for which I am worthy to be reproved by wrath and chastened by anger, yet having repented I entreat to be reproved by reason and not by wrath, and to be chastened by instruction and not by anger.'

The word 'arrows' sometimes signifies punishments as well, as has been said in the foregoing passages.

Since punishment follows upon the sins I have committed: 'Thy arrows are already fastened in me.'

When my sins become manifest;

for the fact that their face is seen is a proof that they are still present.

He says that his iniquities have risen above his own head, so as to press down and weigh heavily upon his governing faculty, which is figuratively named 'head'; and that these same iniquities have also, in the manner of a burden, become heavy upon him.

For since evil is by nature downward-tending and most heavy, so as to be compared to a talent of lead, only the one who repents receives the perception of its weight, whereas the one who works it with pleasure supposes it to be exceedingly light.

Hence Jesus calls to Himself, through repentance, those who labour and are heavy laden, who have come to perceive the burden of sin and have grown weary from it.

He says that the wounds which he received from the fiery arrows of the evil one have turned to putrefaction and stench because of the folly he had; from the face, that is, of the folly which he possessed;

for no ordinary wickedness is put together apart from folly, just as, conversely, the deeds of virtue are wrought with prudence.

The following words are perhaps to be read in this way:

'Since unto the end,' that is, throughout my life, 'I was bowed down,' minding the things below and looking upon the earth, there followed my becoming pitiable and wretched, which is set forth by the words, 'I was made miserable.'

Either of my own reasonings, or of the evil spirits;

and since various readings are transmitted—one being 'my loins,' the other 'my flanks are filled with mockings'—it must be said that, since around the loins and the flanks the seeds are formed which are directed toward the begetting of children, these are filled with mockings whenever they are brought to their end not for the begetting of children but in a fornicating manner.

For this reason he says that there is no healing in his flesh, because his soul has become sensible of the mockings that are present;

for the flesh, when it flows loose and is not chaste, is exceedingly weak; whence also, 'He that commits fornication sins against his own body.'

Bringing forth from the depth of repentance the groanings that belong to repentance, not superficially and feignedly as do the hypocrites of repentance;

'Lord, surely the desire of my heart is before Thee';

for every craving of base things is far from Thee and hidden from Thee, but the craving of my heart, longing to pass over from wickedness into genuine virtue and repentance, has a good desire, which does not remain out of sight.

It can also be spoken concerning base desire:

'Since the evil craving that lies within me has not escaped Thee, confessing concerning it I groan,' so that the groaning about it, being spoken with boldness, is not hidden from Thee;

for to groan over base things is praiseworthy.

For being disposed according to the irrational passions, I shall be able neither to conceive luminously nor to reason strongly.

The strength of the one who speaks these things, and the light of his eyes, can also be right reason, according to which he is rational.

This, then, has forsaken him, and it no longer seems to be with him, since his heart—which is named 'strength' according to the guidance of practical matters—has been troubled, while it is called 'the light of the eyes' according to its illuminating, by its clarity, those who see.

'And those whom I had,' he says, 'as friends and neighbours while I lived in pleasure-loving fashion—these I got as adversaries setting themselves against me in hostile array and as enemies,' once I had inclined toward turning away from evil and doing good.

For whenever someone falls into hardships, he is forsaken by all who formerly drew near and were friends and neighbours, so that at times they even accuse the one once so longed for.

Images of these things you may find in Job.

And those who chose to seek out my soul in a harmful and contentious manner, and wished to overwhelm me by force, supposing that they could subject me by compelling arguments as though these were demonstrative;

but the things spoken before these, aimed at seeking out the evils to which they were hastening to subject me, appeared to me as vanity.

For I heard them not as demonstration, but as vain and deceitful sophistry.

He who has resolved to keep the command 'Thou shalt not receive a vain report' has become deaf toward crafty and deceitful words, not even willing to have any perception of them through hearing;

much more, after the manner of one who is mute, he would neither answer such words nor be willing to refute them;

for it has been said elsewhere that it is the mark of a fool to refute exceedingly silly arguments.

'I became, then,' he says, 'toward such men as one who does not hear, and who has no reproofs in his mouth';

wherefore it is blessed to have become deaf toward such things, and to be reckoned as one for whom it is not possible to refute them.

Since, despising all other things, I have hoped in Thee alone, O Lord, who art my God: 'Thou wilt hearken,' to whom, having prayed, I said, beginning from 'O Lord, rebuke me not in Thy wrath.'

For often those demons of destruction who were with me when I sinned reproach me, bringing forward into the open my former deeds, thereby attempting to hinder my repentance and to work in me a despair of salvation.

I, at any rate, have become toward the kind of thoughts they suggest deaf and not hearing, nor willing to refute them, so that, not being occupied with this, I may not slacken the intense eagerness I have for repentance.

Since, therefore, hoping, O Lord, I am confident that I shall be heard;

for though able to avenge myself, I hold back my vengeance, knowing the words: 'Not avenging yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath'; and: 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'

I am ready and prepared for the scourges that come through perception.

Indeed, my pain—according to which I suffer over my former deeds—is before me, wounding and scourging me.

Since my pain is present, as I suffer over the evils I have done, even if I must, through scourges, come to be outside my sins, I am ready for these, that is, I am willing to be smitten for the sake of my conversion.

The compassion, evidently, that He has toward us, on account of which, by reason of His own suffering, He continually holds the remembrance;

for 'in that He Himself hath suffered, being tempted,' Paul says, 'He is able to succour them that are tempted.'

One who hastens, on behalf of his own sin, to accomplish aright the works of repentance.

While I am anxious over my sin, those who are hostile to me because I have repented are alive according to the base life, being strong and mighty above me, because I have grown weak with respect to that life.

Even if they too have cast me off as a loathsome corpse, yet do Thou shelter me under Thy mighty hand;

for when Thou art present, my enemies are strengthless and weak.

Since, with enemies surrounding me—both wicked men and unseen powers—I have need of help, I ask for help from no other source than from Thee, O Lord;

for Thou art also the God of my salvation, and the God of salvation is the one who is the cause of it.

When King David had brought the ark of God to Jerusalem, he appointed certain holy men as singers of hymns over it, for its very ministry and order, so that they might sing the hymns of God.

One of these, then, was also Idithun, as in the catalogue and enumeration of the aforementioned odes in Chronicles some such thing is recorded.

The present psalm, then, either he himself composed and sang on behalf of David, or, having received it as one produced by David, he proclaimed it.

And there is also in the present psalm a persona, being led from repentance into virtue, who makes the proclamation.

Since almost the beginning of every sin comes about through speech, he who has proposed to guard his ways in his deeds makes a covenant with himself, that he may not sin with his tongue.

For if sinlessness in speech be kept by him, there will follow his being cleansed from the sins committed in act;

for 'By thy words,' He says, 'shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned';

'for every idle word ye shall give account in the day of judgment.'

With the article, 'the sinner' here too means the devil, or also the evil angel present with the man.

Whenever, then, someone says to himself that he will guard his ways so as not to sin with his tongue, and sets a watch upon his mouth, at that very moment the sinner, taking his stand in battle array over against the penitent, reminds him of his former deeds, bringing them into the open by way of reproach, or wishing to titillate him through the reminder, so that he may drag the one who has departed from it back into his former sin.

'Thus indeed,' he says, 'when the sinner had taken his stand even before me, being made deaf toward his words, I kept silence from the good things I had begun to speak';

for I had begun to speak concerning sinlessness;

or, having discerned out of good doctrines that one ought not to answer provoking words, I kept silence, uttering nothing toward them, so that, while he spoke the aforesaid things, the pain which I had from perception when I was being freed from my sins might not become renewed and made fresh again, when I once more felt pain over the things for which he reproached me by rehearsing my deeds.

Out of the words of the sinner who took his stand before my face, my heart was heated and set aflame.

But since I uttered nothing out of such thoughts within me, the heat was preserved, and 'In my meditation a fire shall be kindled.'

He who meditates upon divine things not slackly but earnestly and ardently will speak the present verse, as a fire is kindled from such meditation, devouring the base habit that previously existed.

To the sinner, then, he says:

'I was made deaf, and was humbled, and kept silence';

he who brings forth words out of genuine longing and understanding speaks in his own tongue, whereas the one who utters deceitfully speaks in a tongue that is alien.

And further, since we possess a tongue also in the inner man, this is properly our tongue, according to which it belongs to us to speak from our disposition.

'...of mine,' that having learned the number of the years of my life in the flesh, I may also come to know what things must be accomplished by me.

what indeed I have done, and what is still lacking to me for the completion of perfection. Or it may also be taken thus:

Since every prudent man acts and works toward some end, which is also called the goal, and one must have knowledge of this, he prays to know what is the end according to which he has set himself to live, and what is the number of the days that pertain to the contemplation of the truth;

for in this way he will know what is still wanting to him for the fulfilment of the goal.

as if someone who had proposed to take up a science should say to his teacher:

'Make plain how many the theorems of the science are, that I may know which ones I have grasped, and in which I am as yet still deficient.'

From the moment I entered into life, I was enrolled to contend, so that at the beginning my wrestling is against blood and flesh, but when I have passed beyond childhood and become a man, my struggle is against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness.

It signifies, therefore, that being wrestlers is the same as 'Thou hast set my days in the contest.'

Now 'hypostasis' can here be spoken of in place of 'substance,' so that what is said would be of this sort:

my existence, when compared to thine, does not even seem to be anything at all.

'Behold, thou hast made my days old,' having a kinship with the old man which I had put on;

wherefore 'And my substance,' according to which I subsisted in the affairs before faith, 'is as nothing before thee; nevertheless all things are vanity.'

He calls vanity all the living creatures upon the earth, the plants, and things akin to them.

Man alone is living, in distinction from these, sharing in immortal life.

He who journeys along in making progress does this by sharing in the divine image, being conformed to the image of the Son of God.

And further: Indeed every living man journeys on in an image, either in that of God, keeping to that which is 'after the image,' or in that of some other creature, becoming in his character a lust-crazed horse or some other irrational beast.

And further: the sensible and visible world is an image of the intelligible and invisible.

Man, then, journeys of his own free will in this world, which is an image.

Having said what has been stated concerning man in general, he says concerning individuals that they are troubled in vain in their zealous pursuits about mortal things.

Accordingly, concerning each one he adds the words: 'He heapeth up treasure, and knoweth not for whom he gathereth it.'

For he who lays up treasure on earth does not know who will inherit the wealth for which he himself has toiled;

but he who lays up treasure in heaven, having laid it up for himself and not for another, knows for whom, since he understands that his wealth is inalienable.

And even if 'substance' be said in place of 'hypostasis,' this too is from God as from a Creator;

and if it be taken according to the manner in which we subsist, this very subsistence of ours also is from him, since he grants us to subsist through the things that befall us, even though they be laborious.

Since I have as yet not obtained deliverance from all my iniquities, though I have been counted worthy of it, the fool reproaches me as though holding thy handiwork under his power;

'For from the strength of thy hand I have fainted.'

For whenever the chastising hand scourges mightily, he who is chastised faints in respect of what he is.

And from the present passage we learn that the so-called scourges of God are none other than reproofs.

For after saying 'Remove thy scourges from me,' there is added 'They are in rebukes for iniquity';

for by the rebukes brought forward on account of iniquity a man is instructed, his soul being melted away by the casting off of all fleshly grossness.

For then he is able to weave like the spider, drawing forth this material not from without as lying ready, but from within himself and out of his own being.

The passage can also indicate the insubstantiality of the soul's worthless reasonings, just as in Isaiah it is said concerning sinners, 'They weave a spider's web.'

When the works resembling the spider's web are done away with by the reproofs for iniquity, the soul of the one reproved is melted away like the spider.

that he may find refreshment, taking his delight in perfect good things.

For if it were not so, but he should depart still lacking, he would no longer subsist—not by being destroyed into non-being (for the soul is immortal and imperishable), but by no longer subsisting in participation of Him who is.

For this is truly to be: to participate in Him who said,

'I am He who is,' those who do not have this participation being said not to be, according to that which is said in prayer to God:

'Deliver not thy sceptre to them that are not.'

Longing to partake of this existence, he prays that a season may be given him to find refreshment by participation in Him who is, that he may truly subsist.

He calls idolatry a 'pit of misery,' since those who draw from it are made wretched;

for they draw up nothing of the things needful for life, which is exactly what Jeremiah said in reproach of the Jews: 'They have hewn out for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water.'

By 'the mire of the slough' he means the pleasures, since these are the dregs and the corruption and rottenness of bodies; and since it is from both of these that Christ saved the nations through faith in him and through the preaching.

Those who suppose that nothing is signified in the Scripture beyond the literal wording say:

that, as one who had obtained so great a good, he who has set the feet of his body upon the perceptible rock thus gives thanks to Him who granted this.

But we say that he who has been delivered from the aforesaid pit and mire, and has been established upon the unbreakable and immovable perfection according to virtue, proclaims the things set before us;

for to him who thus stands upon the rock there follows also that his steps are directed by the Lord as he passes over from vice to virtue and from mortal things to immortal, and indeed according to every advance.

Suited to the newness of the Spirit is perhaps this: the 'new song' is the ethical discourse, while the 'hymn' is theology.

We must hold that by 'vanities' he means the worldly pursuits, and by 'false frenzies' the false teachings and false prophecies.

And it is to be noted that, as though there were true frenzies, he added the word 'false' to the frenzies;

for perhaps those who are prophetically possessed have a true frenzy, but the false diviners a false frenzy.

And by 'the thoughts of God' he means, so to speak, the reckonings of the things that come to pass according to the providence of God.

'In these thy thoughts, then,' he says, 'let none of created beings be found likened to thee,' inasmuch as there is none who knows the mind of the Lord.

'Thy wondrous works and thy thoughts';

for whenever someone wishes to expound concerning some depth, then he will find it more obscure than before;

for 'I said, I will be made wise, and it went far from me, farther than it was, and a deep depth—who shall find it out?' Now the Epistle to the Hebrews says that these foregoing verses were spoken in the person of the Saviour, declaring concerning the Saviour: 'Wherefore, entering into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not,' and the rest.

It has therefore furnished occasion for the whole Psalm to be understood as spoken by him, maintaining the same person of the speaker right to the end.

When, therefore, the season of the shadow had passed, in which sacrifice and offering were being brought, God, no longer willing the service that came through these, prepared a body out of the Virgin for the Son, so as no longer to take pleasure in whole burnt offerings and offerings for sin.

The Saviour having said to the Father, 'Lo, I come to do thy will,' according to which will he took away the sin of the world, being himself sacrificed and offered up for the sin of all, that, forgiveness having been granted, there might no longer be need of the sacrifice for sins.

For in this (Psalm) it is written concerning the coming hither of the Saviour.

And he said 'in the roll (chapter-head)' because of the summing up of all things into one.

And this is the meaning: that the Saviour should become man, in order that he might will to do the will of the Lord.

And it is to be noted that a purpose which runs together, proceeding from one to another's will, is demonstrative of the fact that the deliberative hypostasis is of the same essence as the substance of Him who wills.

'Having inscribed it upon my governing faculty.'

And everyone who has been qualified according to the spiritual law would have the law in his heart, that is, in his own settled disposition.

A great church is one that is filled up out of great and perfect members.

In this church, then, he proclaims the good news of the righteousness which is constituted through faith in Jesus.

And proclaiming this without ceasing and continually, he will say:

'My lips I will not restrain.'

By 'a great congregation' he means the one gathered together out of all the nations, in which, proclaiming with boldness the mercy of God and his truth, he says that he has not hidden them.

And perhaps by 'mercy' he announces the remission of sins that comes about through mercy, and by 'truth' that which stands in contrast to the shadow.

While I do what has been said above, do Thou, O Lord, not withdraw Thy compassions far from me, having compassion on those who are benefited through me.

For the greater part of salvation comes not so much from works as from the mercy of God; yet truth also, laying hold of us, keeps us from being caught by deceit or by any other error.

For iniquities pursue, after the manner of enemies, the one who has resolved to flee from them.

If therefore they overtake him, the soul's power of vision is hindered, so that the one who has been caught cannot see.

And perhaps the iniquities that pursue are the evil powers that put them into effect.

'And they were multiplied above the hairs of my head';

that is, the evils surrounding us, of which we are unaware, are multiplied.

When these had become many, we were deprived of right understanding and forsaken from the heart.

Since the psalm, being of a single speaker, is spoken from the person of Christ, it must also be said, against those who claim that the Lord bore only a body and who make use of the phrase 'A body Thou hast prepared for me,' that He confesses also to have a soul—which soul those who erroneously suppose this seek to abolish as though it were perishable; and he prays that they may be put to shame and confounded.

And just as those who hasten toward virtue have the commandment not to turn back to the things behind (for that is destructive), so let those who are rushing toward evils hasten to turn back to the things behind, renouncing their base purpose;

for then they will also feel the shame that comes from perception.

'Let them straightway receive their shame who say to me, Aha, aha.'

He who welcomes sinlessness wishes no one to be in sin.

But if anyone should even go astray, he prays that he may straightway be put to shame for the things in which, acting wickedly, he arrogantly says, 'Aha, aha.'

Those who seek out the Lord have as the goal of their seeking to find Him;

and over Him, when found, they exult and rejoice with exultation and gladness.

For when someone has sought and found God, he wishes Him also to be magnified in himself, loving the salvation of God—that is, either the salvation that comes from Him, or the saving Word.

And he loves it continually and not merely for a little while.

Being weak with respect to the acquisition of good things, and having confessed himself to God as poor and needy, he commits the care of himself to Him, casting his anxiety upon the Lord as upon a guardian.

'The evil day' can be the day of judgment, in which God, having mercy on the one who showed mercy, delivers him from all punishment;

and perhaps the whole present life is also an evil day, in which the Lord delivers one from the things that beset him.

And the evil day might also be understood as the day of punishment.

And by 'shall make him live' he speaks of the true life in the land of the meek.

And he is not delivered into the hands of his enemies, the one who is prevented from being such as are the souls of the enemies.

And He will add to the one who understands concerning the poor and needy, and the things that follow after these;

'to him upon the bed of his pain, and He will turn all his couch in his sickness,' freeing him from human sickness and granting him health of soul, so that even if there should befall him some ailment according to the soul (such as many happen to occur, even as the Apostle teaches, saying:

'For this cause many among you are weak and sickly'), this sickness too He transforms.

And the Lord will provide all the rest as well to the one who understands concerning the poor and needy.

From these things we learn that sin is a disease and wounding of the soul.

For this man, having already come to be outside the Savior and the condition of the apostles—

namely Judas, from the time he purposed to betray his Teacher, coming in feignedly as though he were still an apostle, spoke in vain, calling Jesus 'Rabbi' and 'Teacher,' while his heart gathered up iniquity to itself.

For when the devil cast love of money into his heart, he gathered up as well the betrayal of Jesus, and moreover the hanging of himself.

And this man, even going out—that is, coming to be outside the discipleship of Jesus—spoke together with the Pharisees against the Savior.

And since they were secretly making an agreement concerning the giving of the thirty pieces of silver, all his enemies whispered against him;

for whispering is an utterance without boldness.

These very ones, then, who purposed to whisper against Jesus, laid down a lawless word against Him;

for to buy and to sell innocent blood is the deed of a lawless compact.

And to these who wrought vanity the Savior said, 'Why do ye zealously pursue vain things? Or do ye suppose that the One whom ye surround with death does not rise again? Know that He who sleeps shall proceed to rise up.'

For resurrection is an addition that abolishes death.

'It is no marvel,' the Savior will say, 'if my enemies have laid down such things against me;

for even the man of peace, who was at peace with me and zealous for the peace that is on my behalf—on whom I had hoped and taken courage—it came about that he joined those who are against me.

For being one who shared my table and partook of the same salt with me—nay rather, eating my very bread—he lifted up his heel against me in hostile fashion, saying deceitfully, 'Hail, Rabbi,' and whatever else he said in his craftiness.

Clearly, then, here he speaks concerning Judas, having in the things before this narrated concerning him in veiled fashion.

By 'to raise up in my stead another people in place of the one cast off, and Matthias in place of Judas';

but also 'Raise me up, that I may requite them,' the requital turning out to be for their good.

He is 'blessed' when there are those who bless Him, but 'worthy of blessing' means worthy to be blessed eternally.

And since the God of Israel is worthy of blessing, he adds the prayer, 'So be it, so be it'—not that the prayer makes God worthy of blessing, just as the prayer of those who say, 'Hallowed be Thy name,' does not sanctify the name of God.

And concerning these things it has been said in the earlier passages.

Now the sons of Korah were three, appointed together with others to sing the divine psalms, whom the Scripture also calls singers, and whose names are borne in Chronicles.

These three, then, being fitted together in the same mind and the same judgment, united by having harmony in all things, utter all that is in the psalm before us as with one voice.

The deer, being an animal hostile to serpents and eating them, whenever after eating it is inflamed by the thirst arising from the venom of the reptiles it has eaten, seeks with earnest haste springs of water to allay its thirst.

But there are some who say that, desiring also to see itself as in a mirror in the waters, it tracks out the springs, so that it may behold the defilement that has come upon it from the blood of the serpents, that it may wash it off;

for in the tearing apart of the serpents, they, shaking themselves off, sprinkle their own blood upon it.