Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 11/34

'To make melody' was said to be the practical resounding of the song of victory.

'Both, therefore,' he says, 'belong to me: I will both make melody and sing.'

He who treats of the doctrines of true religion and possesses a scientific and wise contemplation of them, sings.

But he who treats also of the body as an instrument — as harp and psaltery — and strikes all its impulses and senses, which are its strings, being able to bring forth a psalm in tune, that man makes melody.

This holy one, then, promises to do the two things: to sing and to make melody.

He who buffets his body and brings it into subjection and practices the moral virtues — such as one who does deeds of mercy, one who accomplishes gentleness, one who advances in courage — that man makes melody.

But he who contemplates each mystery of the truth and is able to expound with knowledge every doctrine of true religion, that man sings.

In the fiftieth [psalm] do we take it as a kind of confession over sin? — Plainly it is set there:

when Nathan came and rebuked him concerning the matter of Uriah.

It was the time for confession, and there he sends up the psalm as an act of confession.

That psalm came into being after he had become king and had gone in to the wife of Uriah.

But here [the psalm] is sung before he was anointed, so that this one differs from that both in time and in the deed.

How then does he make melody? — Because virtue is unfailing and does not lapse.

Judas did not sing and make melody to the Lord.

Those who were handed over to Satan, that they might be disciplined not to blaspheme, had not possessed any tabernacle or progress of faith and virtue.

Nevertheless, observe that the various psalms are by no means spoken concerning one and the same person;

for this we have said, that they belong to a certain type qualified according to virtue or vice.

It is not the same thing to say that 'the man is sinless' and to say that 'the righteous man is sinless.'

He who possesses righteousness cannot be led captive to sin;

for how could he, if opposites cannot coexist? He who has evil cannot have good, unless he first turns aside from the evil.

Look to the type, not to this or that particular man;

for when I say that 'the believer can do all things,' I do not mean this or that man, but everyone who possesses faith.

And so, if at some point one who is a believer possesses the ability to do all things and to succeed, but the things of his faith should lapse in him, I do not say that 'the believer does not succeed,' but that this particular man does not succeed.

Is not the psalm that follows this one earlier in time? — The psalms do not demand such an ordering as you seek.

That psalm which convicts the Syrian, Doeg —

quite so, inasmuch as David, having been slandered, fled.

But long afterward came the matters concerning the wife of Uriah, and long afterward came his becoming king over all, after the last anointing — and this was the third.

And long afterward came the matters concerning the wife of Uriah.

He had not yet become king when Doeg slandered him for having taken the loaves and the sword of Goliath.

The ordering of the psalms, then, is not sought according to the sequence of the times, but according to the achievements, according to the events.

The number fifty has something special about it;

and because of his virtues the psalm of confession was assigned to him.

In accordance with the number fifty repentance is brought to completion.

Thus, for instance, the Savior, when the Pharisees murmured concerning the woman who had been cleansed by him and had come to wash his feet with her own tears and to wipe them with her own hair, puts forward [this parable]:

'There were two debtors to a certain creditor;

the one owed fifty denarii, the other five hundred.'

And observe that he arranged the number of both penitents in fives;

for the number five hundred has a kinship with the number fifty;

for fifty multiplied tenfold becomes five hundred.

In accordance, therefore, with some such mystery concerning the number, the psalm of confession too was appointed in this [place];

for the number is indicative of mercy.

Indeed, at any rate, those who have won a war exact a fiftieth as tribute.

And on behalf of those who did not fight but guarded the baggage, those who fought and prevailed set aside a fiftieth.

And the priest, beginning his priestly service from twenty-five years of age, continues until fifty years of age.

After fifty years he no longer performs the liturgy, but guards the tabernacle.

And the passage shows that one must first accomplish and perform all things in priestly fashion and become a perfect priest, so as to arrive at the number fifty, and then guard the things in the tabernacle.

And the passage teaches that in one's progress there is need of works and of increase, but when a person has been made perfect, he ought to guard what he has accomplished.

Just as one who is recovering health is in the process of being made well, being in the process of having remedies applied to him.

But when one has recovered health in a settled, habitual state and has attained a firm tabernacle, thereafter he applies to himself things that preserve health—not things that bring health back, but things that guard it.

For this reason God also placed Adam in paradise to cultivate it and to keep it.

To cultivate, that it might bear fruit, that it might bring forth perfect fruits; but thereafter to keep the plants that have borne fruit.

Just as cultivating and keeping signify these two things—cultivating being the active practice of the things of virtue and of the knowledge of the truth, and keeping being the things that have been brought to perfection—so too the priest, for as long as he falls short of the number fifty, is engaged in the exercise of the priesthood.

But when he has fulfilled this number and has been proven perfect, then thereafter he keeps the things within the tabernacle.

He himself no longer labors, but while others labor he himself receives the firstfruits and takes the tithes.

Now this number is the beginning of the second square number.

A square number is one measured by equal factors—twice two, thrice three.

This one, then, is seven times seven;

and thereafter the addition of the unit lays down the beginning of another—seventy times seven.

For this reason also, concerning repentance, when the Savior was asked by Peter,

'How many times does one sin? Up to seven?' he says,

'I do not say to you up to seven only, but even seventy times seven.'

Seven times seven is a square.

And this has holy sides;

for the number seven has often been shown by us to be blessed on every side;

for God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, and:

'The eyes of the Lord that look upon all the earth are seven.'

Not that I say seven in the sense of three and four, but that his oversight and regard are most complete.

So too, then, in the feast of weeks the fiftieth day is celebrated, both according to the Old Covenant and the New;

for you have it in the Acts of the Apostles that:

of the Spirit it was given, and the various gifts of the Spirit were meted out;

for it was necessary to pass beyond the number seven times seven and to take the beginning of another such number, and thus to be brought to perfection.

The number fifty, then, is employed in many great matters.

The seventh month again is perfect.

For the making of tabernacles takes place in the seventh month among the Hebrews.

Again, for six years the land was sown, but in the seventh year it lay unsown.

That year remained reserved for the poor.

And there too again, if some festival is held every seven years, that year likewise is a sabbatical year.

Seven times seven is also celebrated in what is called by the Hebrews the Jubilee.

The Jubilee is the fiftieth year.

Every fifty years certain festivals were kept.

And this year had more than the other years.

We were saying that there are also seventh years and seventh months.

In the fiftieth year, called the Jubilee, there was also a cancellation of debts.

The creditors, being led to this by the law, showed grace; they canceled debts according to their ability, and they exacted no interest.

The houses that had been sold and the fields became redeemable in the fiftieth year.

If the seller had the means to pay the price, his own possession which he had formerly held was restored to him.

Now the word hinted at this: that even if someone should sell off his own manner of life—and often one's manner of life is called a house, as in the saying:

'If the one who hears the words of Jesus does them, he builds his own house.'

Since the midwives feared God, they made for themselves houses.

Is it, then, concerning only women who act as midwives that these things were primarily written?

For they did not have a house before either.

Through the fear of God they built these houses, namely the upright ways of life, those set aright with the fear of God.

And that field too, which someone formerly had and neglected in the care of it, he takes up again so as to sow once more his good seed in it—to sow unto righteousness, to reap unto the fruit of life, to gather from it the produce of righteousness.

Never, then, look merely to the titles of the psalms.

This one, then, belongs to the time before he was anointed.

If you inquire into the title, this one ought rather not to be the twenty-sixth.

Furthermore, Absalom rose up against his father after the affair concerning Uriah;

so far as concerns the order of numbers, it comes after the fiftieth;

yet that psalm is inscribed as the third.

We look to the powers of the numbers and thus grasp the order of the meanings, not simply to the numbers themselves.

Someone asked me about the phrase 'all wisdom is from the Lord,' and I said that if it says 'all wisdom' it means every kind according to species, but if it says 'all the wisdom' it means one entire whole.

Just as, if we say 'all the city,' we mean one whole; but when we say:

'every city is governed according to law,' we do not mean one, but all the cities.

The numbers too, then, are set within things, placed there by none other than God.

And having made all things in wisdom, he made the numbers also in wisdom.

For tell me: when do you think the passage in Isaiah is fulfilled? 'And it shall come to pass,' it says, 'after seventy years Tyre shall be restored to its former state.' From when are the seventy years to be counted? Not here either, that we should take it according to the literal history, but seventy circuits of the Sun of righteousness, seventy years;

for the Sun makes his circuit, illuminating souls and manifesting the teachings of the truth and sending forth his rays.

When, therefore, someone is brought to perfection and rests, having arrived at the end of his progress, then the seventy years are complete for him.

In relation to the text before us this digression is not fitting, but in relation to the question it was necessary.

'Hear, O Lord, my voice, with which I have cried out.'

I cried out my voice to you, asking for those things which it were good for me to have granted.

Praying, I cried aloud to you as I again departed, that you might hear this voice, with which I cried out to you.

For not everyone who cries out according to the inner man cries out to God, but only the one who speaks the things of God, who brings his petition before him.

The men of Sodom also cry out, but not to God;

'The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has been multiplied, and their sins are exceedingly great.'

And concerning the Ninevites it is said that:

'The cry of their wickedness has gone up'—the multitude of their wickedness.

'I waited for it to do righteousness, but it produced a cry.'

The outcry of the Sodomites, therefore, is an intensification of wickedness.

But he who prays cries out to God when he raises an intensified voice, when he prays concerning great things and not concerning trifling and contemptible matters — he who asks that good things be given to him.

But the other evangelist interpreted 'the good things' as the Holy Spirit.

For, writing of the very same passage, Matthew says:

'He will give good things to those who ask him'; but Luke says:

But the Spirit, being one, is a multitude of good things according to its various gifts of grace.

For he who has the Holy Spirit has the gifts of the Spirit, which are many good things.

And in its essence it is one, but in its conceptual aspects it is many good things.

Just as God too is one according to essence,

yet he is also spoken of as many according to different conceptions:

good, unchangeable, unalterable, fountain, light;

and again the Savior likewise, being one in respect of his substance, is called Life, Truth.

'Ask,' he says, 'for the great things, and the small things shall be added unto you.'

So that he who asks for small things does indeed speak to God, but not with an intensified voice.

'Ask,' he says, 'for the heavenly things, and the earthly things shall be added unto you.'

He, therefore, who sends up a prayer principally concerning things perceptible to the senses does not cry out to God;

but he who asks for those things that are truly great and heavenly and that make one godlike cries out to God.

And the outcry is the act of understanding.

'Have mercy on me and hear me': to you my heart has spoken.

My heart awaits the mercy from you and says to you, 'Hear me.'

These things are reciprocal to one another:

he who is shown mercy by God is heard, and he who is heard is shown mercy.

It is not possible, therefore, to say that the one comes before the other.

Yet the hearing precedes the showing of mercy —

though not at all prior in time.

And just as it is not possible to say that surface comes before color, nor color before surface —

if there is color, there is surface;

if there is surface, it has been colored;

the surface is conceived as prior;

there must be a surface, so that in this way there may be color.

But this 'must' I take not according to time, but according to conception.

In every utterance three persons are signified: the one speaking, the one to whom he speaks, and the one about whom he speaks.

The person, then, is that of the one praying, who now makes his declaration.

And he declares his supplication to none other than God.

'I have sought out your face.'

'Have mercy and hear me.'

'Your face' — it is not only now that I have entreated the word:

'Cause your face to shine, and we shall be saved.'

And 'if I have sought out' signifies an intensified seeking.

'Your face, O Lord, will I seek.'

'My heart, O Lord, will seek your face.'

Even if I have sought it out and possessed it shining upon me, yet I do not cease at this point.

'Turn not away your face from me.'

The eye that is healthy and preserves its power of vision, when light is present, is light and has a longing for it, and is never sated with it;

for light is insatiable to the eyes;

it is sweet to the eyes, as Ecclesiastes says.

But no one takes satiety of what is sweet.

There are sweet things that beget satiety, such as the sweetness that comes from honey;

but that which comes from light knows no satiety — especially when the sight retains its own proper power.

Now, from things perceptible to the senses on to things intelligible:

the eye of the inner man, or its eyes, are never sated nor take satiety of the face of God;

for as it ever shines forth it illumines and increases even the longing.

'[Set upon] us the light of your face, O Lord.'

But the light of the sun, or of perceptible light quite simply, does not remain.

If, then, someone should withdraw from seeing the light or should close his eyes, he does not have it imprinted upon him.

But the intelligible light is seen to remain with the one who has been enlightened; it cannot be cast off.

'Turn not aside in anger from your servant.'

There is a time when God seems to turn aside, but not in anger.

Some might have thought that he turned aside from Job, when his possessions and his children and his body were delivered over to the one who had demanded them;

but this did not happen in anger.

May it not befall me, from my own slothfulness, that in anger you should turn your face aside from me.

May such things not be done by me that you, being provoked to anger, should turn aside from me.

May I not be so provoked to anger as to be deprived of your presence.

'Be my helper, cast me not utterly away.'

To cast utterly away, to reject, to send away — these are one and the same.

For in Isaiah it is recorded thus:

And observe indeed the precision of the wording;

'to become' does not always signify a coming-into-being, but it indicates that which the addition intends.

And here is added 'be my helper.'

For surely he who becomes a helper to someone does come into being?

I have said elsewhere as well that expressions which suggest coming-into-being, if they are stated in an absolute sense, signify a work of creation.

'All things came to be through him' is equivalent to saying:

'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth.'

What did he make? Just this very thing: heaven and earth.

'Be my helper, do not forsake me' — this is what it says:

it signifies a relation of the helper toward the one being helped.

'Become my teacher' surely does not signify the bestowing of substance, but rather 'become a teacher to me.'

Of such a kind, too, are the things said concerning the Saviour.

'Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, faithful to him who made him.'

He made him an apostle; he did not simply make him, but made him an apostle.

The substance of the Son is eternal.

But his becoming an apostle takes place at that time when certain ones have withdrawn away from him;

for he is sent to those who are far off.

And observe that his becoming an apostle coexists with certain ones being far from him, having been estranged from him.

Again, he becomes a high priest when there were those on whose behalf he exercises his priesthood.

And it was not then that the subsistence of the Saviour came to be, as those men suppose, but rather the rule, the high priesthood.

So too, again, in the Acts of the Apostles it says:

'Let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ.'

He becomes Lord of those who take refuge in serving him.

So if even today someone begins to serve him, today he has become Lord to that person.

And if someone submits himself to his kingdom and to his priesthood, Christ has today become his — Christ to him;

for 'Christ' indicates nothing other than a king and a high priest.

Indeed, at any rate, Aaron was called the anointed of the Lord, and the kings were called the anointed ones of the Lord, and concerning Saul himself it is said:

'The Lord is witness, and his anointed is witness.'

'Touch not my anointed ones.'

'Be my helper, then, do not cast me away with contempt;'

'God will thrust them away, because they did not hearken to him, and they shall be wanderers among the nations.'

When they withdraw, they are cast away with contempt, being carried here and there, no longer possessing any firm resolve.

But he attaches the cause to us:

it is not a thing willed by him to thrust certain ones away from himself.

Yet it is willed by him to send away those who have not hearkened, lest he should seem to hate virtue.

'And since they did not hearken, according to the multitude of their iniquities thrust them out, for they have embittered you, O Lord.'

This is what being cast away with contempt means.

They say too that the word is derived from something, so that they say the filings of iron are called 'kora.'

May I not, then, become such a one as to be cast away with contempt.

I wish to be a vessel of gold, or a vessel of bronze, and by no means the scrap-filing that is discarded.

This is what is sent out and cast away.

'And do not forsake me, O Lord, God, my Saviour.'

Since you are indeed my Lord — for I serve you — and my God — since I am a child of Abraham, and you are the God of Abraham and of Isaac and, evidently, of those descended from them — I stand as a servant toward a master, as one who worships genuinely toward God, being tended, as one being saved toward a Saviour.

Since, therefore, you have become all these things to me, you will not forsake me.

'For my father and my mother have forsaken me.'

I wish to bring in an evangelical saying, so that from it this may be understood.

Both the old Scripture and the Gospel and the very exhortations of the Saviour teach us to love father and mother.

If someone hates a father, he does not hate him as a father, but as an impious man; and he hates him not in so far as he is a father, but in so far as he is impious.

And the one who loves a father loves him for this reason, that he is truly a father — when he thus nurtures him in fear and admonition, when he nurtures him as a righteous man.

And a righteous father nurtures well.

I have said, then, that nearly all the Scriptures speak concerning the honour of parents and punish those who desert them:

'He who speaks evil of father or mother shall die the death.'

'He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.'

And yet, honour your parents and love father and mother — but when it is above God, it is condemned;

for when it is set before one to confess the truth with persecution hanging over him, and when he says:

'Because of the old age of my father and mother I do not wish to die,' and betrays it, he has loved his parents above God, he has preferred his disposition toward his parents over piety toward God.

And this is what is condemned.

In the Gospel, at any rate, the Saviour says:

'Turning,' it says, 'Jesus said to the crowds:

If anyone wishes to come after me, unless he hate his father and his mother and his wife and his brothers and his children, he cannot be my disciple.'

'You laid down honour concerning parents as a law, and promised me great rewards, saying:

Honour your father and your mother, that it may be well with you and that you may be long-lived upon the earth — how is it that now you say:

Unless one hate father and mother, he cannot follow me?' Here 'hatred' is used in a different sense — namely, not to prefer anything above God.

When it is set before one to love God above all — especially in a time of struggle, in a time of persecution — the love of God is to be preferred above all things.

If a parent, or a parent's old age, pulls you back, prefer God, since otherwise you cannot follow me.

To hate father and mother, then, does not signify that hatred by which we reject and abhor, but according to the sense of not preferring them above God.

So too the wife and the children, so too the brothers.

And further, he will even hate his own soul, it says.

He hates his own soul who undergoes death for the sake of martyrdom — but for the sake of the Saviour:

'He who hates father for my sake' — not absolutely.

The Saviour is to be preferred above all.

So then, just as someone hates even a mother for the sake of the Saviour —

this hatred brings no blame.

The one who has thus hated his parents on account of the Saviour is forsaken by them.

'For my father and my mother have forsaken me.'

Concerning the forsaking: 'Unto the end;

a psalm of a song at the dedication of the house.'

In both respects, both according to the soul and according to the body, a resurrection takes place.

'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.'

Here he that sins is dead;

'for the soul that sins, this one shall die;'

sin, when it is fully accomplished, brings forth death to him that sins.

This man, therefore, He rouses to the life that was his before the fall;

'Shall not he that has fallen rise again?' And there is also a resurrection of the body;

for it was not his fashioning that was a fall, but the corruption that came after his fashioning.

For this reason, therefore, it too rises again.

And in general we say this:

good things take precedence over evil things.

Indeed, at any rate, bad craftsmanship comes after craft, and error after correctness, and disobedience after law;

for disobedience is nothing other than a transgression of a commandment.

And again, that which is called 'para-' (beside, awry) is always blamed;

he thinks awry, he looks amiss, he steps aside (transgresses).

For consider where the argument tends:

the rational being came into existence in order that it might possess virtue;

for it did not come into being that it might possess vice, since in that case vice itself would be the virtue, and virtue would be a falling away from it.

In so far, then, as it concerns life in matter, almost all begin from sin.

And if this be granted, that the soul never lived before its life in matter, then things began from vice, and sin is not sin but rather virtue;

for no one who acts according to nature and does what is proper to himself is said to sin.

Those, therefore, who pursue crafts and act in accordance with them, when they do what is proper to the craft, are not said to think awry, are not said to transgress.

There has come to pass, therefore, a building of the house that had fallen, and a return of the captivity.

According to the former consideration we say that the dweller and the house are the same thing.

But it can also be understood thus, so that you may take it more universally:

the assembly of the faithful, the Church, is the house;

that you may know how one ought to conduct oneself in the house of God;

'I have loved the beauty of thy house.'

And those who dwell there are these faithful ones, who live their lives according to virtue.

But if the soul were the house, then the earnest reasonings, those congenial to it, are the dwellers.

And at the same time both the building and the dedication take place.

Now there is a renewal when those who had formerly become outside of it receive again their dwelling within it.

We said, when we began the twentieth psalm, that there are psalms, there are songs, there are psalms that are songs, and songs that are psalms.

And I was saying that the psalm signifies action (praxis).

For the one who plays the psalm strikes the instrument called the psaltery.

But it is possible also to sing even without a psaltery;

for he who employs contemplation alone—to conceive God, to know the truth and to partake of it, that you may take it in itself—since he assuredly has action being sung: when someone, for instance, contemplates and applies himself with knowledge, considering what knowledge is, what the mystery of the kingdom is, this man sings.

Again, all who act and stand only at this very point of acting, these play the psalm;

as we were saying also concerning the rams, that they have a vigorous life, but neither the life they have nor the particular works of their life are elevated (raised to higher contemplation).

But he who both plays and acts and sings and contemplates: if he begins from acting, it is 'a psalm of a song'; but if from contemplating, 'a song of a psalm'.

And we see these things happening;

for often certain persons, wishing to contemplate, fix their attention upon the virtues and their works, and from this very attending they receive the power to accomplish, and so come to acting.

'Having desired wisdom, keep the commandments;'

he kept the commandments, he played the psalm;

and again, having played, he has it (wisdom) supplied to him.

It happens, then, sometimes to begin from the song and for the psalm to succeed it, and again the psalm, having made a way for the soul, brings the song once more.

If, then, the beginning and the initial conception of the beginning arise from a work of craft, it is 'a psalm of a song';

but when someone, having begun from contemplation, receives a love for living according to virtue, it is 'a song of a psalm'.

It was fitting, therefore, that for the dedication of the house the one being brought in to dedicate the house should thus dance (in choral joy).

This is called reciprocal consequence (mutual sequence).

Now there is (simple) sequence when the one follows upon the other and does not convert (is not reversible).

But if the sequence is reversible, so that the former, which led, becomes the following, and the following becomes the leading, it is reciprocal consequence.

And even when the hymn-writer speaks, he is manifestly speaking out of the Holy Spirit.

It is not the same thing to say that a man speaks and that a knowledgeable man speaks;

for when we say that the one making the announcement is a man, human are the things announced; but when we say he is knowledgeable, the things are knowledgeable (of true science).

Knowledge sounds within him, and he becomes, as it were, a servant of knowledge.

The one who is competent (sufficient), then, sings with his hand this psalm or this song, the psalm of the song or the reverse.

And everyone who is practical (active in deeds) is competent with the hand.

But the Saviour especially possesses this;

for the others also receive their competence from Him.

John, at any rate, looking to His greatness, said:

'I am not worthy to loose the strap of His sandals.'

Again, if competence is given by Him, 'our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant.'

If those who have been urged toward this and have received a love for the thing become imitators of Christ, seeing Him working competently, they too work competently, according to what is attainable by them.

And I said, when beginning the psalms, that the things spoken concerning the man whom the Saviour assumed might be said concerning every imitator of Him, but not indeed those things which are said concerning Him as the only-begotten Son and God the Word;

for they might be said—I do not say concerning men, but not even concerning principalities, concerning nothing at all that is created.

The things now being said, therefore, fit the manhood of the Saviour;

Therefore others too are able to do these things.

'I will exalt Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast upheld me.'

What I have often said, I will say now again:

the things spoken concerning God are to be understood as of God, but the things spoken concerning men are to be understood as of men.

Yet sometimes the things said concerning men, if they be said not insofar as men are mortal and insofar as they are men, but insofar as they are rational, may also be said concerning angels and, in a word, concerning every intellectual being;

for according to that which is intellectual, man is of one substance [with them], according to his capacity for becoming perfect as the Father who is in heaven is perfect;