Commentary on the Psalms (Fragments) 1 part 6/40

And the very name «judgements» signifies the rightness of the administration;

for it is included and understood together in the fact that it has come about according to righteousness, whereas judgements accomplished contrary to what is right are for that very reason unjust and perverse.

«I hold fast», he says, «to the ordinances of God»;

for they depart from those men who do not hold to them.

And by «ordinances» one must mean the things that have been enacted according to equity and righteousness, as, «If thou buy a Hebrew servant», and what follows.

For before all these things is set down, «And these are the ordinances which thou shalt set before them», and what follows.

And the «judgements» named together with the «ordinances» are able to signify the tested and examined words of God;

for these, because they cannot be refuted or overturned, being tried, are called «judgements»;

for in this way also the reasonings of the righteous are «judgements», that is, made exact and tested, and for this very reason resembling measuring-rules.

Perhaps those who have blamelessness and sinlessness not for God's sake but for the sake of reputation or something else are able to be «blameless», but not «with God»;

but those who have embraced it for the sake of God who is good, and not for the sake of anything else, are «blameless with God»;

for this union with God keeps them blameless and good.

But those who are yoked apart and separated from God at once become blameworthy, becoming «blameworthy children» because of sinning.

How does he who has set right all the aforesaid things speak of «his own iniquity»? You will take note, then, lest perhaps what he means is this:

«The mind of man is diligently set upon evil things from youth», so that it is inclined toward sinning, being enticed by pleasure.

He, then, who has given himself over to the law of God guards himself from the iniquity that has hardened within men.

And perhaps also what is called in us «the mind of the flesh», which is enmity toward God and does not submit to His law, is «the iniquity of man», from which one guards himself by putting to death the deeds of the body through the Spirit and abstaining from the works of the flesh.

By «righteousness» here he calls that which is constituted from faith in Jesus Christ;

for to the one who rightly believes, «faith is reckoned unto righteousness».

And in a paired manner you will call «cleanness of hands» the works of faith wrought brightly and undefiledly, without which faith is dead.

A sudden change of person having taken place, one will say that the foregoing verses are spoken to God because of what follows;

for he will say the words «For Thou wilt save a lowly people and wilt bring low the eyes of the proud» to none other than God.

But another will say that these things are spoken not to God but to a man, in that the one who spends his time with the holy imitates their virtue, whereas the one who is with the wicked undergoes perversion, as the divine Scripture of Proverbs says:

«With the holy one, O Master, Thou wilt be holy», bestowing upon him the holiness supplied from Thee, that, being perfected according to it, Thou mayest bring him into the fitting promise; and the rest correspondingly to what precedes it.

And he well says also the word «Thou wilt show Thyself froward»;

for though he could have said «With the crooked Thou art perverse», he did not say this, but «Thou wilt show Thyself froward».

For God, hindering the course toward evil things, turns aside the one who thereafter rushes down toward them, hedging up his way with thorns and building up his paths anew.

For the beginning of benefaction is to be hindered from evils.

But he who wishes it to be understood of a man will say that the one who keeps company with a holy man is himself made holy by the holy deeds that are done, as Elisha was with Elijah, and Timothy with Paul.

And he who is eager to be with the guiltless, having drawn to himself that man's virtue, will be guiltless.

And likewise he who spends his time with a chosen man; but he who consorts with a crooked man, insofar as he wishes to be made like him, will pervert his own life.

Having made this clear, he will turn his face toward God, beginning from the words, 'For you will save a lowly people.'

That part or faculty of the soul which is receptive of light—that is, the mind, which some also call the reasoning faculty—is said to be its lamp; it is not itself light in its essence, but receptive of light.

But the darkness of the soul is its irascible and its appetitive part.

Whenever, then, the mind is illumined by the Lord, who imparts to it his own beams, then also the irrational movements of the soul are illumined, being carried out knowledgeably—not that the irrational parts partake of light from themselves (for they are incapable of receiving knowledge), but that they are led in the manner they ought by a mind that has been illumined by knowledge and virtue.

Whenever, then, the mind—which has been called a lamp—is illumined by the Lord, there will necessarily follow also the illumination of what we have called our darkness.

But if that which in us is by nature receptive of illumination—that is, the mind—should be darkness through ignorance and lack of knowledge, then all the more will the irrational faculties of the soul, having no illumined ruler, be intensified darkness.

And this is what the Savior says:

'If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!' For if the eye of the body—that is, the mind—which ought to be a lamp, is deprived of light, all the more is the rest, so to speak, the body of the soul darkness; and by 'body' I mean not this human frame that clothes us, but that which belongs to the soul's irrational constitution.

Perhaps also those who have been illumined with the knowledge of the truth have their lamp kindled, the Lord having granted them this.

And leading their deeds aright out of the illumination of the mind, they have their darkness too illumined.

And this too might be said, not least:

Those who have attained a knowledgeable contemplation concerning intelligible and invisible realities have a lamp illumined by the Lord; but also, being very well disposed in judgment concerning sensible things, they have their sense-perception grasping realities luminously—that perception which is darkness, since it is not by nature able of itself to be illumined, that is, to receive knowledge.

For otherwise the irrational animals too, since they have sense-perception, would receive knowledge, would they not? It is not possible to be delivered otherwise from the bitter circumstances that beset one, than by coming to be in God.

And one comes to be in God by partaking of him.

For just as one is delivered from ignorance by coming to be in knowledge, so he who is eager to be in God will be delivered from temptation, not entering into temptation—not by coming to be outside temptation, but by not being caught in its snares.

For this reason also, he who confesses Jesus before men is in him:

'For everyone who confesses me before men, I also will confess him before my Father who is in heaven.'

For one confesses Jesus by partaking of him, and, being found in him, is confessed by God.

But the multitude of things done by us contrary to reason walls us off from God and separates us, as the prophet says:

'Is the hand of the Lord not strong enough to deliver? Or has he made his ear heavy, so as not to hear? But your sins separate between you and God.'

And so, whenever one comes to be in God, cleaving to him and becoming one with him, he overpasses the wall of sins, casting them behind his back and behind him, so that, no longer separated by anything from God, he may approach him face to face.

And perhaps also the bulk of corporeal and sensible things, coming between our understanding and God, sunders us from him.

Whenever, then, so far as is possible, we lay hold of him in the conception concerning God, above all bodies and sense-perception, yearning to be united with him, we withdraw from sensible things and bodies so as to leap over the world and all visible things, that thus we may be able to stand before God.

Our God has a blameless way that leads to him.

And this is virtue, by traveling which through practice and discipline we shall be shown to be blameless as we come to him.

'I am the way and the truth and the life.'

For it is by this way that one may come to the Father.

'The oracle of the Lord is refined by fire,' either in that it is guileless and pure, or in that it is a fire that warms those who partake of it and consumes the chaff of matter.

'He is a protector of all who hope in him.'

Those who recognize the weakness that attends them, whenever they detect that their assailants are stronger, cast their hope upon God and count him worthy to be their champion, saying, 'Do battle with those who battle against me.'

And thus God fights on their behalf with his own shield, according to that which is written, 'His truth shall encircle you like a weapon.'

For no one is truly and properly God except God the Word, who is also called the only-begotten God, because he alone, like the Father, is God.

For all others are made gods by the presence of God the Word.

For he called those gods to whom the word of God came.

But the Savior, not by participation in divinity, is God, being himself the maker of gods.

Having said that none is properly God except the Lord, he says that neither is there any god like our God.

For none of the gods that are so by participation can be as the Lord Jesus Christ is, or as our God, who is the Father of the only-begotten:

'For to us there is one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ.'

But if the two verses can also be understood as parallel to each other, you yourself will attend to it.

And in Paul, those who have put on the whole armor of God are girded with truth; from which it is gathered that the truth is Christ, the power of God.

'And he made my way blameless'—that is, he showed it forth.

For 'to make' here signifies 'to show forth,' just as also 'whom he appointed heir of all things.'

And it is fitting, from this verse onward, that the whole psalm be spoken in the person of Christ.

And he who speaks these things, having destroyed the serpent-like vices and the wicked powers that wrought them, has by God the feet of the inner man (that is, the powers of motion) made perfect, that he may be able to say, 'Without lawlessness I ran and directed my course aright.'

And having completed his journey in the high places, he will hear from God, 'But you yourself, stand with me.'

And to stand in the high places one has not from oneself, but from God.

Just as other good things, so also warfare against the opposing powers we are taught by God.

For he forms the hands of the soul (I mean its active powers), so that it may knowledgeably hold the intelligible shield and the sword of the Spirit and whatever other spiritual weapons of defense there are, teaching also how one must use such things.

For indeed the Savior too, having become man, warring on our behalf, taught us to wrestle down and war down the opposing power.

And he says it also of prayer, stretching out his hands:

The arms, symbolically so named, he made a bow of bronze—by the bronze representing invulnerability or firm strength, and by the bow representing the shooting forth of arrows from our arms, arrows able to wound our adversaries.

'In addition to all these, you have given me also the shield of salvation'—having sent down your Son to do battle with his own shield on my behalf.

'But your discipline also,' he says, 'has set me upright to the end'—that is, the instructive teaching and the toilsome training.

For 'discipline' signifies the instructive, as in 'Take hold of my discipline, do not let go,' but also the toilsome, through the words 'Do not make light of the Lord's discipline.'

And this discipline of yours, in both respects, has become for me a teacher of good things.

Having been aided by God through countless means, he took up courage to pursue the enemies; and the end of the pursuit is their utter failing.

The end of the pursuit is their failing utterly.

For neither toil nor fear hindered me.

He presses hard upon those who are hostile, so that they may not become firm and immovable in their enmity.

For it is not because he has chosen to destroy them that he surrounds them with affliction, but that, perceiving in what evils they are, they may cease from their quarrelsome purpose.

For the enemies to fall under the feet of the holy one signifies nothing other than the subjection of the various adversaries.

For just as it is base to stand fast in the worst disposition, so the beginning of salvation is to fall away from it.

For one who has fallen away from it no longer strives against, but yields and submits.

'All those who rose up against me you have fettered underfoot,' not permitting them to press forward in evil.

For, hindered from their impulse toward evil, they will come to be beneath me, no longer reckoning me an adversary, but a ruler and head over them, so that instead of haters they may become lovers.

For insofar as they are such, you have utterly rooted them out.

For He utterly destroys not their substance but what has befallen them.

For it is wholly fitting to the goodness of God to abolish the evil, yet not the substance to which this has befallen.

'And though you multiply your supplication, I will not hearken to you,' because your hands—that is, your deeds—are murderous and full of blood.

These men, of whom the discourse speaks, who have been made gross by minding earthly things and have become material, bearing the image of the man of dust—these I will make thin through exhortations, admonitions, threats, and a laborious discipline, so that, having become as dust before the face of the divine Spirit (figuratively named 'wind'), all that is earthly in them, scattered by them under the breath of the Spirit, may leave their underlying nature clean of all dust, to which dusty condition it had once been subject.

And should they even be willingly called to this, the Lord says to them as to a whole city:

'And these very ones He will smooth out like the mire of the streets'—either the Lord, or His righteous imitator.

And this mire, when smoothed, will be able to become an earthen vessel, of use in the great house in which there are vessels of gold and silver and wood and earthenware;

but since the vessels of gold and silver are for honor, while those of wood and earthenware are for dishonor, he who purges himself from these becomes a vessel unto honor, sanctified and useful to the Master, prepared for every good work—delivering those who were until now the mire of the streets, that is, the filth of pleasures and lusts, from all the roughness that comes from the passions.

He who says these things, producing evenness in them by the smoothing, will at first make them earthen vessels, so that by their own self-chosen impulse they may purge themselves and become vessels unto honor, of gold or of silver.

For just as some, from being gold and silver, have become earthen vessels ('For how were the precious sons of Zion, valued at fine silver, reckoned as earthen vessels, the work of a potter's hands?'), so too, by their own choice, they shall from earthenware become gold or silver.

Since the word 'knowledge' has a twofold meaning, it signifies at one time knowing intellectually, and at another the knower being united and commingled with what is known.

According to the former meaning, God knows all, and not only the diligent.

For to the worthless the Savior said:

'You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts';

'Because I have known all your sins.'

But according to the second meaning, He is said to know only the righteous:

'For the Lord knew those who are His,' but the worthless He did not know.

As the Savior says to them:

'Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity; I never knew you.'

And so too the people from among the nations, not known by the Savior when they served idols and demons and practiced all the rest of wickedness, having turned through repentance to serve Christ, drew near.

And well too is it said, 'Whom I did not know':

'A people whom I do not know served Me.'

For he who still works the deeds of wickedness is not known;

but he who has ceased from his sins was not known before, yet now is known.

With these the apostolic saying agrees, which declares:

'But then, not knowing God, you served those which by nature are not gods; but now, having known God—or rather, having been known by God.'

For when they did not know God, they were not known by Him; but having known Him, they were known by Him.

Now perhaps it might seem to some that the saying 'At the hearing of the ear he obeyed Me' is superfluous, since everyone who obeys obeys with the ear.

Yet 'the ear' is added neither idly nor superfluously to 'everyone who obeys,' because he obeys God not with a human and mortal hearing, but with a divine ear which comes to him who possesses it by way of an added gift:

'Alien sons have grown old,' and what follows.

Being the beginning and fountain of good things, God becomes Father of those who do good works, and insofar as they attain to doing what they ought, these are proper sons of God, partaking of His only-begotten Son.

But if, becoming heedless, they should partake of the opposites (and these are the evils), they would be estranged from God, and there would follow upon this also their growing old.

For while sharing in virtue—in bright, unfading, and ageless wisdom—they were ever young; but having fallen away into wickedness, they would grow old, worn out (so to speak) by their own corruption.

And further, since the verse concerns the Jews—these who sit beside the oldness of the letter and cannot bear to follow even in some small measure the newness of the Spirit—they have become 'alien sons,' grown old.

And these, having become double-minded and of two souls, are said to limp from their own paths.

'How long will you limp on both your hams? If the Lord is God, go after Him.'

And perhaps everyone who has received the divine Scripture, yet does not understand it as he ought, is said to limp in it—unlike the one who has not received it at all, who neither walks nor limps in it.

God is said to live, not as partaking of life but as providing it.

And He Himself indeed often says concerning Himself, 'As I live, says the Lord.'

But the Savior too, saying, 'As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father,' shows that He lives not by any participation in life;

for He Himself is the Life, from which it is gathered that the Son is of one substance with the Father;

for if the Son is Life not by participation in life but Himself quickening those who partake of Him, and the Father too lives, supplying life in the very same manner as the Son—the same energy being rendered by Father and Son—then the substance of Father and Son would be one and the same.

And this very phrase makes this plain:

'The Father lives,' He says, 'and I live because of the Father'—as though He said, 'because of having such a Father who lives according to His substance, I too exist as living.'

This very living God is also blessed, having blessed the saints with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

He may be called blessed because every blessing is about Him.

For everything that is said and thought concerning Him is both well spoken and well conceived.

'The God of my salvation is exalted,' when I have gained perception of His greatness;

for those whose works are great are themselves also great.

Since, then, the salvation of the rational creature is a lofty work, He who is the cause of it must of necessity be lofty.

But God is exalted not by changing from a lowly place to a lofty one, but because we have resolved to think great things concerning Him.

For either He gives thanks and makes confession over the progress and salvation of these, or, taking their sins upon Himself, He becomes the intercessor for their repentance;

but the Son also sings praise in the name of the Father, doing all things according to the will of the Father.

The Father magnifies the salvations of the King Christ—not those by which the King Himself is saved, but those which He provides to those saved by Him.

And the King belongs to God, not as reigning over God Himself, but over those who are dedicated to God.

He shows mercy to Christ, showing mercy to those under Christ, on whose behalf He acts as priest and over whom He reigns;

for the name 'Christ' signifies both priest and king.

If the phrase were about David—that is, everyone capable with his hand—it shows God having mercy on active men, capable in their deeds, and any who happen to be their seed through the teaching and imitation of their manner of life;

and the mercy He shows these is not temporary and short-lived, but everlasting.

But if the discourse is about God, the true David ('For I will raise up for you one shepherd, My servant David'), He shows Him everlasting mercy, and to His seed too, so that His anointing and priesthood may be indissoluble;

for while the old priesthood is being changed, the priesthood of Christ is inviolable.

'The heavens, then, declare the glory of God';

and the glory of God is either the Only-begotten, according to 'the effulgence of the glory,' or the ordering and pre-eminence of His kingdom, according to 'And the glory of the Lord shall appear.'

This, then, the powers proper to the heavens declare, hymning and theologizing, named homonymously with the heavens they inhabit, according to the manner of metonymy.

And the firmament proclaims the workmanship of the active powers of God, which are named His hands—not so much in words as in the very works.

Those who embrace the contemplative life lay up treasure in heaven, having their heart there too;

they are the heavens declaring the aforesaid glory of God through the contemplation of intelligible realities.

But those who have taken up the active life are, through the works they accomplish, a firmament—that is, steadfast and immovable;

they proclaim the workmanship of the hands of God, working the works of God, and through them crying out and themselves being works of God.

But the day too—that is, the luminous act of understanding—being in accord with another luminous act of understanding, pours forth speech; just as the Old Scripture, because it is luminous, is 'day.'

For God called the light Day.

This day, filled full with the nourishment of the Spirit, overflowing out of its own fullness, brings forth a word unto the new covenant; and thus it too is called, allegorically, 'day.'

and thus it too is named 'day' in an allegorical sense.

But the night — that is, the deepest apprehension of things — proclaims knowledge to another night of the like kind.

For whenever someone who possesses the Spirit which searches all things, even the depths of God, searches out some one of the deeper mysteries of God, and having come to know it thereby passes on to things that are likewise obscure, he will gain understanding of those also.

Now 'utterances' are those things that prepare beforehand and pave the way for the words, while 'words' are to be understood as those that set forth the spiritual expositions and, by way of proof, perfectly establish the faith of them.

Therefore there are neither utterances nor words leading to obedience to God, in those whose voices are not heard.

For this reason they have been spoken by the Lord, that they might be heard by those to whom they have been spoken.

Whence no plea of excuse is left to those who neither do nor take to heart the things which the voices of the aforesaid utterances and words set forth.

'Their sound went out into all the earth,' and what follows.

As many as happen to be earth suitably disposed for sowing, these receive the sound of the utterances and words — that is, the letter that pertains to the sensible aspect of Scripture.

But those who have gone beyond this condition, so as to be reckoned the ends of the inhabited world, shall receive the sayings of the utterances and the words, being plainly instructed concerning all things.

Indeed the foremost of the apostles too, hearing not the mere sound of Jesus but His words, said, 'Thou hast words of eternal life.'

'The words which I have spoken to you are spirit.'

For the apostles to whom He said these things were no longer 'earth' but even 'the ends of the inhabited world.'

But according to the law of anagogy, the Church can be the tabernacle of God, set in the sun — that is, as far and as wide as the sun shines.

the sound having gone forth, and His words having reached unto the ends of the inhabited world.

And each one, too, of those who have room for the glory of God, being named His tabernacle, can be set in the Sun of righteousness, that is, in Christ.

For the base and foundation of such tabernacles is the true Light.

And perhaps too, since the Saviour is called the Light of the world, the true Light, and the Sun of righteousness, it is not possible for one who is ignorant of the sensible light to have received an understanding of this Light, if he has approached that which surpasses the sensible things.

And the sun, from the understanding of this Light, is one that receives an image of the intelligible light; so that, as it were, one will find the true Light dwelling in the sensible sun.

For one must give no heed to certain heterodox persons who say that after the resurrection from the dead the Saviour laid up in the solar sphere the body which He had worn, to be kept until His second and glorious coming.

'In the sun He set His tabernacle,' and what follows.

In addition to the letter, you will understand according to anagogy that the Sun of righteousness, proceeding forth from the bridal chamber of the Father's bosom — according to the saying 'I came forth from God and am here' — proceeds as a bridegroom having as His consort the rational nature, that is, the glorious Church.

For He emptied Himself and took the form of a servant.

Rejoicing and exulting, He accomplishes the course of the dispensation which He willingly undertook, taking up the impetus of a most mighty giant.

And this One, having the beginning of His going-forth from the utmost edge of heaven, arrived at the utmost edge of heaven, ascending there whence at the beginning He set out.

'If ye see the Son of Man ascending where He was before,' and 'No one has ascended into heaven except He who came down out of heaven, the Son of Man.'

But neither is anyone able to be hidden from His heat.

For of the fire which He came to cast upon the earth all partake, so that some become fervent in the Spirit.

The testimony of the Lord — which He bears to good works and to the knowledge of the truth — is faithful.

It has been called faithful not from the fact of believing, but from being worthy to be believed; just as 'faithful is the word' is said from its being trustworthy, and concerning God Himself it is said, 'God is faithful and there is no unrighteousness in Him,' and 'Faithful is God, through whom ye were called.'

For on account of its being trustworthy and worthy to be believed it was so named; but also on account of its being firm and unchangeable.

This testimony of the Lord, then, being thus faithful, makes wise those who have turned and become as little children according to the will of Jesus.

It also makes wise the newborn babes, those begotten through the gospel.

And perhaps it makes wise those infants also — not those reared in the disciplines and exercises of human words, but the unlettered and unlearned.

But the ordinances of the Lord, being free from all crookedness, are upright, making upright those who receive them, so that, having cast off all grief, the soul comes to be in divine gladness.

But the fear of God is called pure, being not a passionate one such as that which is cast out by perfect love, but remaining the same in reverence and divine awe.

And this fear makes pure those who receive it, and moreover extends even unto the age to come, not being temporary or short-lived.

'The judgments of the Lord are true.'

He who accomplishes all things according to His own truth and who judges, judges truly.

'For we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practise such things.'

Therefore the things which God judges according to truth are true judgments — and they are called 'true' by way of contrast with false and unjust judgments.

These true judgments, then, are justified together, whenever they come to pass at once and unto the same end.

For perhaps, if one should wish to view each by itself, he will not clearly see its truth and righteousness;