Commentary on the Psalms (Fragments) 1 part 30/40

Even if David was great and a king, in the things given by God he was poor.

Hence, knowing himself to be lacking in many or in all the things supplied by God, he is filled with despondency, so as to be exceedingly disheartened.

Then, after being so disposed, he pours out his supplication before the Lord, asking from him who gives good things to those who ask of him.

For he who asks not for these things but for the things of the transitory has no boldness to pour out his supplication before the Lord, because of a passion-ridden purpose.

The 'prayer' signifies the entreaty toward God and the calling upon him, while the 'supplication' signifies the asking concerning the things which the suppliant wishes to be granted to him.

These are the goods properly so called, which it befits God to give and which it profits those who ask to receive.

It has already been said concerning the 'cry' of the saints who hymn God and pray to him with loud voice, that it is not that which is in utterance but the intensity of the mind.

God turns away his face from certain who pray, in several ways: either when those who ask do not entreat to receive the things it is fitting for God to bestow and which profit them to receive; or when, though the things they ask are fitting for God to grant, they do not yet have the season for profitably receiving these; and there are also those who deem it right to obtain certain things for the sake of sinning.

There are also those who deem it worthy to obtain certain things in order to sin.

The holy man, then, entreats, saying:

'May it not be that I should ask such things as those over which you refuse and turn your face away from me;

and I pray not that I should not be afflicted (for that is impossible), but that, being afflicted, I should not be overcome, and that in hope I should rejoice, enduring the afflictions and glorying in them.'

'For tribulation works patience, and patience proof, and proof hope, and hope does not put to shame.'

A 'roasting-pan' is where they are wont to place things to be roasted upon what is already thoroughly roasted, because of its being ever heated from beneath.

The smoke fails when the fire is quenched, having subsisted only so long as the fire is active, which fire someone indeed follows after.

In order, then, that my days too may not fail (for it will be no good thing for me that the light which produces my days be quenched from me), take away the afflicting things;

for if they persist, they will become a cause of the failing of my days, and moreover they would still further roast up my bones if they remain.

It has often been said that the 'bones' of the inner man are the well-strung dogmas and the most firmly established powers of the soul, which are roasted up by the burning of the passions of the soul.

He says that his heart is 'dried up,' having nothing cheerful nor anything over which it might possess gladness.

For amid the present distressing circumstances it has come to such a pass that it is no longer possible for him to be nourished by the bread that is suitable and fitting to his more honourable substance.

For it is possible to partake of this bread while not being dragged about nor troubled by external things.

And he says that he has to such a degree not been nourished by this bread that he even has forgetfulness of ever having tasted of it.

And groaning greatly because of the present toils, I send forth so intense and continuous a groaning that, from my voice which is accompanied by wailing, my bone is glued and in a manner united to my flesh through the great dryness that has come upon me, all the moisture that was diffused throughout my body having been drunk up by the affliction that has befallen me.

For this moisture, when it was present with me, fattening the bone, kept it separate from the flesh, holding the middle region between flesh and bones.

For you will pity the things that have suffered, since you are God, the merciful and long-suffering and full of pity and true.

There will be a certain season for these things, in which the things promised concerning Zion will be fulfilled;

and what is this much-longed-for and thrice-desired season, the season of the resurrection, O Lord? I think that in these things he prophesies concerning the Word of God, that is, our very Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ—his theophany among men, which shall be the cause of the rebuilding of Zion.

But why does he make mention of Zion alone? Because he came in the first place to none but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Yet having come once into the world for his own (for they were called his people because of the fathers), he will overlook none of those in the world, but together with his own he will make alive the whole world.

For those being initiated it is to fear the name of the Lord, but for those made perfect it is to fear the Master himself ('For there is no want to those who fear him'); indeed those beginning in godliness believe in his name.

For after the faith in his appellation, they believe in God himself and in his Christ—faith reckoned unto righteousness, according to which everyone shall be born of God who first believes that Jesus is the Christ, has been born of God.

And to be born of God is perfect;

wherefore also sinlessness follows upon the birth from him.

Now when the nations feared the name of the Lord, those who had risen above the nations—being kings in a spiritual sense by reason of having laid aside folly, that they might reign unto the age—fear the glory of the Lord, which is something greater than His name; so that, between those who fear the name of the Lord and those who fear the Lord Himself, there stand as kings those who fear His glory and who reign accordingly. It is to such that Paul writes to the Corinthians: 'Without us ye have reigned as kings.'

'And I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.'

And perhaps at His first coming the Lord built up Zion, while at the second He shall be seen together with His glory.

For the Word, having become flesh and having tabernacled among us, built up the Church, which is spiritually named Zion.

And He shall be seen in His glory, when—He having tabernacled among us—we shall behold His glory, 'the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.'

For the nations were created when they believed on the Lord, inasmuch as they drew near to the true worship of God.

For 'if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.'

And in this very Christ the two are created—he who is of the circumcision and he who is of the nations—into one new man.

For the term 'creation' signifies not a coming-into-being of substance, but a change or a re-fashioning.

It is according to this signification that the saying 'Create in me a clean heart, O God' has been uttered.

And if this is what is signified in many places, then also the saying 'The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works' does not signify a coming-into-being of the substance of the Person who speaks.

For He was not created once for all, but 'unto the beginning of the ways of God which are for His works.'

And to be created as the beginning of certain things indicates a relation, but not a coming-into-being of substance.

The people thus created shall praise the Lord, coming to the knowledge of the one God.

And well too did he say 'being created';

for if he had wished to signify a coming-into-being of substance, he would have said 'the people that was created.'

For it is possible to abide, not always in the state of having been given substance, but in being re-fashioned and changed.

And the reason for the people's being created and praising the Lord is set forth in the words 'For He looked down from His holy height.'

For condescending to us in taking the form of a servant and reaching even unto death, He looked down from His holy height, ceasing to be neither holy nor exalted.

Being an incorporeal and intellectual essence—or rather, being above these—the Lord is not in a place, since the incorporeal is not circumscribed by place, being uncircumscribable and beyond all limits.

But since by His power He has pervaded all things that come to be and are governed by Him (for 'He was in the world, and the world was made by Him'), while He abides in the better and superior parts of the world—

if it be said, according to the words 'He that dwelleth in the heavens' and 'Our Father which art in the heavens,' we do not therefore suppose Him to be contained by places, but we hold that by His unspeakable power He is present to His own works;

wherefore He is said to be in the more excellent portions of the world, namely the heavens.

For indeed the understanding of all men holds this notion in some such way.

'The Lord looked down from heaven upon the earth.'

And the word straightway added the occasion for which He does this, saying: 'To hear the groanings of them that are in fetters.'

For those who bear the bonds and fetters of wickedness groan out of repentance.

For when they were doing evil with pleasure, they reckoned it a light thing and bore its fetters gladly;

but when they withdrew from the deeds of wickedness, they are weighed down, being fettered by that most evil habit itself.

Wherefore they also groan unto Him who is able to loose those who are fettered.

And the Lord, looking upon the earth, also looses 'the sons of them that have been slain,' that is, those begotten of those who committed the sin unto death and were on that account put to death.

And these would be those who come from among the nations, being the offspring of sinful and impious fathers, whom death also swallowed up when it prevailed;

whose sons, having set them free from their sins, He loosed from their bitter bonds through the mystery of regeneration.

And it is possible to apply these two verses to those who are fettered in persecutions for the word of Christ, and to the sons of those who have been put to death for the testimony of the truth.

For the contemplative soul, being Zion, will have teachers who declare to it the name of the Lord, and who also declare His praise in that understanding which, because it beholds peace, is designated Jerusalem.

And if Zion and Jerusalem be predicated of the Church, because it contemplates the higher things and beholds peace in the coherence and concord of its doctrines, then fittingly may the name of the Lord be announced in the Zion so called, and His praise in the Jerusalem so named.

The expression 'Who answered Him in the way of His strength?' does not make the sense wholly clear.

Perhaps, then, it speaks of the people created for the purpose of praising the Lord;

or—which is rather the case—we must hold that the one who answers is the poor man mentioned in the superscription, who is faint and pours out his supplication before the Lord, answering not with voice and utterance, but by journeying strongly and vigorously along the way of His strength, the way of the deeds that accord with virtue.

For thus alone is it possible to answer God in deed and not in voice.

Since I have great eagerness to accomplish what Thou hast commanded me and to contemplate the doctrines of Thy most pure truth, but I have need of much time in order to be perfected in these things, I entreat Thy goodness to declare to me the fewness of the days that are extended alongside my life in the flesh, that, giving myself with all my power to intent prayer, I may accomplish as much as I can;

wherefore I also make this request: 'Take me not away in the midst of my days.'

And in the midst of his days is taken away he who has not here brought forth fruit perfectly nor as he ought, according to virtue.

But this is not measured by an interval of time, since I am then taken up 'full of days,' after the manner of Abraham, when I have been perfected together with the knowledge of the truth and the virtues.

For take me up then, when, the true light having shone upon me, I become full of all days, having done those things according to virtue and having thought whatever it is possible to become throughout all the time of my life.

And a little before we noted that the foregoing words are spoken with reference to Christ by Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

What the psalmist says, then, is of this sort:

'And Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst found the earth,' that is, Thou madest it at the very moment of its being given substance, in agreement with the words 'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.'

The phrase 'in the beginning' is able to overthrow the opinion of those who say that the earth is an element, as though all things had come to be from it, nothing being prior to it.

For it appears not to be a first principle, but rather to have as its foundations certain principles conceived of as prior to it.

It was said also to Job by the Lord Himself, as the One who founded the earth: 'Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?' And since it is the Lord, through whom all things came to be, who founds the earth, it is said also concerning the Father: 'God in His wisdom founded the earth.'

And what is said concerning God, 'Who hangeth the earth upon nothing,' shows that it holds its place in the very midst of the universe.

'But besides Thy founding the earth, the heavens also are the works of Thy hands,' Thy active powers being named 'hands.'

For since, in the case of craftsmen among us who work their works with their hands, the phrase establishes that they genuinely made these things, so the fact that the creatures are properly the works of God is established by their being called the works of His hands.

But while the creatures are changed, because the fashion of this world passeth away, Thou abidest the same, not being of such a nature as to be changed or transformed.

For this is peculiar to creatures, that their very being given substance took its beginning from a turning.

Accordingly it says next: 'And they all shall wax old as a garment,' since all things that are subject to necessity wax old.

For those things which took a temporal beginning in coming to be, when much time runs by, wax old.

But take heed lest thou be deceived concerning God when thou hearest in Daniel the phrase 'Ancient of days.'

For here it does not signify a having-grown-old from a multitude of days, but rather being ancient and older than the days;

so that the saying in the Psalms which declares 'He that is before the ages' has the same force; thus also 'before the days' means that before all time He is ancient and of old.

But the oldness of the heavens indicates not their being before time, but their being in time.

And these, being made old as a garment, shall be rolled up, and as a mantle they shall be rolled up by Him who made them, unto their being changed and transformed in their elements.

And their being made old and rolled up signifies that the use, according to which they contributed to the present ordering, has passed away.

For just as the mantle is rolled up after it has fulfilled its use, so, since there shall be again a re-constitution of the elements of the heavens together with the earth after these pass away—according to the Saviour who says, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away'—fittingly are they said to be rolled up as a mantle.

To their rolling up, then, is added the phrase 'And they shall be changed.'

And in Isaiah too it is said: 'The heaven shall be rolled up as a scroll.'

But 'these,' it says, not abiding in sameness, the years shall at some time fail.

But since Thou, O Master, art ever according to the same things and in the same manner, Thy years neither had a beginning nor shall fail;

'for Thy years are throughout generation and generation.'

But see that you do not choose to understand the 'years' in a temporal sense;

for the One concerning whom these things are said is beyond time.

When he said that his 'years do not fail,' he meant to signify that his existence abides unto infinity, since he is incorruptible and alone possesses immortality.

'The sons of the servants of God' one must by no means take entirely according to the flesh, but rather according to instruction and the imitation of a way of life.

For in this way too certain men were called 'sons of the prophets,' because they had presumably been begotten by them in respect of a prophetic disposition.

And Paul, at any rate, being a servant of Christ, had sons: Silvanus and Timothy and those like them.

And the 'seed' of these very men happened to be those who were benefited by them.

Therefore his aforesaid children shall dwell together with Paul in the heavenly tabernacles, and along with them their seed too shall be directed aright unto the age.

Others say that the composite man often speaks of himself as though of others, saying 'My soul,' 'My body.'

And Paul, indeed, knows this usage: in one place saying 'But I call God as witness upon my soul,' and in another, buffeting 'my body.'

They say, taking it in this way: just as we speak of 'the people' and 'the rulers' and 'the overseers' of a city — not as being altogether distinct from it (for the city is made up of them), but because each order is something other than the whole city (for neither the rulers alone are the city, nor privately its councillors, nor again the populace by itself), the city being all of them together — so too, even if the composite man is not other than the soul and the body (for he is compounded of these very things), yet the soul is nonetheless spoken of as of the whole, as though it were something other than he.

It is he who urges on his own soul to bless the Lord.

And those who say that the soul belongs to the spirit do not mean it as being the spirit's dust, but as being under it and under its guardianship.

By 'within him' he calls the whole rational power of man.

For thus one must understand also the Savior's saying to certain men, 'The kingdom of heaven is within you.'

And thus contemplate the 'inward things' according to yet another sense:

when we hold at rest the powers by which we are able to act well, they are said to be 'within us.'

One must therefore rouse these and turn them toward the activities through which we bless the name of the Lord.

For no one blesses the holy name by merely possessing powers, but by good activities.

Indeed the Savior too said to those who had partaken of a power of virtue and of divine knowledge, 'The kingdom of God is within you,' as if all but saying:

'The starting-points of the faith and virtue which I seek from you, you possess within yourselves, since you are rational and have been made according to the image of God;

'therefore do not seek the good outside yourselves.'

'He redeems your life from corruption,' that you may no longer live a life subject to corruption and the passions, but rather live in incorruption, loving the Lord Jesus.

And by furnishing you with an incorruptible human body in the resurrection, he redeems your life from corruption.

'He crowns you also with mercy and compassions,' the very substance of this crown being mercy and compassion.

For just as others receive the crown of righteousness and the unfading crown of glory, woven together out of righteousness and upright glory, so too you are crowned out of the mercy and compassion which you have wrought, according to the word, 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.'

You are crowned not so much for the deeds of valor which you performed in the contest, as because you are pitied and shown compassion by the Lord, the Lord binding your intelligible head about with the crown of graces.

For as we are saved by the grace of God and not from our own works, and 'the sufferings we bear in the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us,' so too he crowns us, not looking to our own struggle but to his own mercy and compassion.

'He also fills your desire with good things.'

For he is one who gives good things to those who ask him.

Since, then, the very desiring of good things is to ask for them, by giving you all that you long for he fills your desire with good things;

for every desire of the righteous man is good.

And since you came into being according to the image and likeness of God, and at the very moment of coming into existence were made with a ready inclination toward the good, but through inattention, having moulted your wings, you cast away virtue — both the practical and the intellectual, by which, being borne aloft, you used to ascend to the heights — know that you have the power to grow wings again, if you should will it and be granted the cooperation of God.

And this will come to pass for you, as your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

For as this bird, when it has grown old, plucks itself, that it may again grow new feathers, so too you, having grown old in wickedness, be renewed, coming to a shedding of your oldness and your youth, that with the strengths which you once used, being vigorous, and using them now again, you may be lifted up on high into heaven toward all those who together with you have endured for God;

For 'those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall put forth feathers like eagles; they shall run and shall labor.'

Being a Father of compassions and alone good, the Lord performs acts of mercy, having mercy on all and doing good;

wherefore also, executing judgment for those wronged by the devil and by wickedness, he sent his own Son to heal and to set free those oppressed by Satan, redeeming their souls from usury and from injustice, having blotted out the handwriting that was against us and nailed it to the cross.

The one who held it fast, the devil, had us as his debtors, we ourselves by the things we did having drawn up for him the handwriting against us.

...God having executed judgment for those wronged, so that through the blood of his Son Jesus Christ we might be cleansed from all injustice — not only from that by which we were wronged, but also from that which we ourselves committed.

From this we learn, according to Paul's exhortation, rather to be wronged than to wrong.

For to those who are wronged God executes judgment, benefiting them, but on those who do wrong he brings punishment, so that they do not inherit the divine promise;

By way of a parallel the virtues are called (the 'ways').

For he who says, 'Your ways, O Lord, make known to me,' deems it fitting that the virtues be made manifest to him;

and the saying, 'You will not cease to pervert the straight ways of the Lord,' spoken by Paul to Elymas, presents the very same thing as its meaning.

And that the virtues are also 'wills of God' will be confirmed from the passage, 'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my wills.'

And the passage before us may also be understood in another way:

for since God gave through Moses the law that possesses a shadow of the good things to come, and each part of this law bears an image and type of an intelligible and spiritual reality, so that it is possible, by way of analogy, to pass over from the things of sense or from wickedness to the spiritual and archetypal realities — and no other than the Lord will teach such transitions — it is fittingly said concerning these transitions, 'He made known his ways to Moses.'

For who else than Moses knew how to ascend from the sensible circumcision and bodily sacrifice and the other shadowy things up to the truth, having learned from God so to journey? For he made known to him his ways.

But also, if there be any son of Israel concerning whom it is said, 'Israel my chosen,' he too will thus attend to the wills of God, which are made known by him to the clear-sighted, so that, hastening to be Jews in secret, they may be circumcised not in the flesh but in the heart;

but they also offer to God a sacrifice of righteousness and of praise, which is a spiritual sacrifice.

The Lord is all the things that have been mentioned, inasmuch as he is the true God; and being true God, he does not exist in a mere possession of the aforesaid virtues, but is himself the fountain and the very substance of them.

Wherefore we are also confident that, even if he should ever be angry with us who have sinned, he does not do this in order to make a full end and to destroy.

For this was the meaning of 'He will be angry unto the end,' that is, to persist in being angry until the end and destruction of those against whom the anger is directed.

Not being angry, then, unto the end, neither will he retain wrath forever.

For he does not hold persistent anger who declares, 'For when the anger of my wrath comes, I will heal again.'

And the mercy of God takes its beginning upon the earth, according to the saying, 'The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord';

then, beginning from here, the mercy comes to be upon the reverent, and lifts them up and raises them on high, leading them to the height of heaven;

'For your mercy was magnified as far as the heavens.'

For even the very ascent into the kingdom of heaven comes about more by the mercy of God than by anything else.

The saving virtues, being luminous, resemble the sunrise (the East), whereas the sins are like the sunset (the West), being wholly deprived of light.

Since, then, one cannot be at the same time in virtue and in wickedness, he who has drawn near to the aforesaid 'sunrise,' so as to abide within that paradise which God planted in Eden toward the east, has set the [sunsets] far off from himself, by as great a distance as the 'wests' just mentioned are separated from the 'easts' that have been expounded;

for the vices are far from the virtues.

But just as he who is in the 'east' has the aforesaid 'wests' set far from him by God, so he who, through sinning, wishes to be in them by his own choice and not from God is removed far from the 'east,' being cast out of paradise.

Nevertheless, even when these things have come to pass through disobedience to the divine commandments, Jesus, coming to the 'wests' according to the word, 'Make a way for him who rides upon the wests, the Lord is his name,' will not permit anyone to tarry long there, but will say to each, 'You shall be with me in paradise.'

...from the wests, in order to lead them up into paradise toward the east.

But rather, in surpassing and exceeding measure, God has compassion on those who fear him, setting them in the rank of sons, in that he has known each one of us as his own moulded work.

For neither did he fashion anything while hating it, but, understanding the hearts of men which he alone moulded, he knows what is beneficial for each of us.

And the very power and resource which we have, these too he gives, so that, possessing them in active exercise, we may become his sons.

It is possible to understand the words, 'For he knew our frame,' in this way also:

He took experience of what we are formed of.

Having become flesh, He acquired a natural disposition toward us, so as to reckon us His own sons.

For He knows, as the Creator of our nature, its weakness.

For even though not the whole of our make-up is from dust (for we have also within ourselves an intellectual nature that exists according to the image and likeness of God), yet in our supplications to God, deeming Him worthy to be our helper and benefactor, and putting forward that which is lowlier and weaker in us, we say, 'Remember, Lord, that we are dust.'

Therefore, come to the aid of our weakness and our meanness.

In accord with the words 'Remember, Lord, that we are dust,' the text before us speaks not concerning the inner man but concerning the outer.

For according to the material life lived with the flesh we have certain days that complete for us the extended span of the fleshly life, which are compared to withering grass.

In harmony with these words Isaiah too says: 'All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass;'

'the sun rose and dried up the grass, and its flower fell away.'

These words set forth the seeming prosperities present in this life to those who live with the flesh—riches, glories, dignities, and other good fortunes—which, like flower and grass, flow away and wither so as to seem never even to have existed.

You will also understand in another way the 'sons' of the righteous men to be those who are zealous imitators of their works.

Thus His mercy upon those who fear Him is boundless, extending from age to age.

For He does not at one time show mercy and at another not;

for being good by nature, He always shows mercy.

But righteousness too is the consort of this mercy;

and it too, not being circumscribed by time, extends unto all the generations, abiding upon sons of sons and unto every succession, so that those who keep the covenant of God always possess this righteousness together with the mercy that is from age to age—those who through doing good have been enrolled as heirs of the promises to come.

For those who thus keep it will also remember the commandments of God so as to do them.

For these were given not that there should be a bare memory of them but a memory unto the doing of them.

And that they were given for the doing, the Savior also shows, saying: 'He who has My commandments and does them, that is the one who loves Me.'

For the promises are the reward and inheritance of the doing of them, not of the mere memory alone.

And elsewhere it has been said that God is not in a place, but that by a certain sequence and dispensation He is said to dwell in heaven.

In accord, then, with those passages, here too He is said to have prepared—that is, to have established—the throne of His kingdom in heaven, since His rule and kingdom holds sway over and lords it not only over those in heaven but absolutely over all things.