Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 13/34

Concerning wisdom it is said that she is proclaimed upon the tops of the walls;

and surely we do not mean that certain men, becoming heralds upon the tops of perceptible walls, announce the things concerning virtue.

The walls that guard the mind and the inner man are the virtues and the divine thoughts.

So long as one is still among the foundations of the walls, or has scarcely begun their ascent, he is not yet able to proclaim wisdom;

he can scarcely so much as perceive it.

But when he reaches the very summit of the walls, so to speak—when he has passed beyond the world and become supramundane—then he is able to proclaim wisdom.

'Upon my hands have I painted thy walls.'

There are Forms corresponding to sensible things.

And these Forms are the acts of God's understanding; they are the acts of God's will.

Grasp what is here contemplated by means of an example:

one who wishes to build a city first forms in his own mind the whole city and its parts, and according to those conceptions he constructs the sensible things.

Indeed, if he does not rightly grasp the idea—say, of the marketplace, or of the sacred precinct, or of the rest—he does not fashion the sensible things well.

The Forms, then, can be the walls—acts of will written in the hands of God.

These walls, therefore, have their being in the will of God.

'In Christ,' he says, 'were all things created, things in the heavens and things upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether principalities or powers;'

'and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.'

In him were created the things visible and the things invisible;

even as in the mind of the architect the parts of the city are built, that is, with reference to those conceptions, being held together by them;

for they are sustaining rational principles.

In Christ, therefore, all things hold together.

If in thought you should wish to remove the rational principle from existing things, they do not subsist.

They pass away together with the removal of the rational principle.

All security is written in the hands of God.

And if you should also call the virtues 'walls,' then quietly the virtues too have their Forms, the primordial habits.

For instance, I possess righteousness—yet not the whole of it, but I have been given quality in accordance with it.

But that which is contemplated is not, apart from the participant, a Form as it were—not a Form in the sense in which the term is customarily used.

If, then, you remove knowledge, the habits of those who possess knowledge are removed; they pass away together with it; but while it abides, they participate in it, and there are the particular habits.

But there is another besides these, inasmuch as it is more originative and more firmly established.

Indeed, this one does not admit of 'more' and 'less,' whereas that which is in the participants does admit of this.

The walls, then, signify security.

'Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth.'

He who comes to be outside all disturbance is redeemed by God.

The God of truth, then, redeems from deceit;

inasmuch as he is the God of truth, he redeems from deceit and false opinion.

When one holds mistaken and false convictions, he has need of God, that by his truth he may place him outside all deceit.

Again, the God of righteousness delivers from unjust deeds:

'Hear me, O God of my righteousness,' that thou mayest set me outside all injustice, that thou mayest subject to defeat those who work injustice against me.

Joseph besought the God of chastity, that he might not fall into the snares of her who was enticing him to licentiousness;

and Susanna likewise, that she might not fall into adultery at the hands of the elders.

The God of chastity hearkens—not because he is one God and then another.

'Thou hast hated them that keep vanities in vain.'

Since thou art the God of truth, thou hast also hated them that keep vanities in vain.

But vain things are not true.

And he called them 'in vain' because in a certain manner they do not subsist.

Everything false is without subsistence.

Concerning her who bore in her womb the temple of Jesus: when I say that she has given birth, I speak truly;

if I say she has given birth from a man, I lie;

not that she has given birth, but concerning the manner does the falsehood arise.

All wickedness comes to be in vain; it has no fulfillment.

Thou, O God, hast hated them that keep vanities in vain.

If one of those who keep such things should come to a perception of who it is that hates such things, he will cease, or else reproach himself.

'But I have hoped in the Lord.'

Thou, then, O Master, hast hated them that keep vanities in vain; but I have hoped in thee as my Lord;

he says these things from the disposition of a servant and from the work of a servant.

'I will exult and be glad in thy mercy.'

For even though I confess thee as Lord and have hoped in thee, yet not by my own power does the consummation come to pass, but by thy mercy.

'For thou hast regarded my humiliation.'

Thou hast regarded my humiliation that was about to overtake me;

and in regarding it, thou didst not suffer me to fall into it.

'Thou hast saved my soul from distresses.'

In Scripture, more plainly, 'distresses' are called afflictions;

for 'six times shall he deliver thee out of distresses,' and:

'They cried unto the Lord, and he heard them, and out of their distresses he saved them.'

He has set me outside every affliction, evidently having consented to my supplication;

for I sent up a prayer that I might be delivered from my enemies, from the foes pressing upon me.

And you might in some way, more after the manner of reason, call the vices 'distresses.'

Of necessity the wicked man does not receive righteousness.

I do not say that man is incapable of receiving righteousness, but that the unjust man is.

It is not to come to be outside troubles, but not to be overcome by them;

for so also we have understood the words:

'Deliver us from the evil one,' and:

But if this—not to be tempted—were what the apostles of Christ and the other righteous besought, they would never have been heard, if indeed they speak truly when they say:

'in everything afflicted, yet not distressed.'

And Thou hast not shut me up into the hands of the enemy.

I am shut up into the hands of those who plot against me whenever I am overcome by hardships and afflictions.

But whenever I am delivered from them, I am not shut up into their hands; I do not do what they wish to bring upon me.

Thou hast set my feet in a broad place.

The manner of life pertaining to earthly things and to vice is said to be broad and spacious.

And it is a great thing, once one has come to be in this broad and spacious place, not to be swept away but to stand firm.

And this standing firm comes from God.

Thou hast set my feet in a broad place.

My feet do not feel the affliction that surrounds them.

'Who shall separate us from the love of God? Tribulation, or distress?' they will say.

Thou hast set our feet in a broad place.

Even if the place in which we find ourselves, and the road upon which we happen to be, is narrow, yet we behold it as spacious, since Thou dost widen the affliction.

By coming to our aid, Thou providest a road broader than the affliction.

Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am afflicted.

But thou sayest: yet surely he also said,

Thou hast set my feet in a broad place.

so that the holy one prays without ceasing:

For is there but one grievous thing? Is there but one hardship in life? Is there but one trial?

If, then, having entreated God, someone is delivered from some trouble or from several, he again sees others lying in wait, and again he prays concerning those.

For the things he anticipates afflict him.

Did he foresee this as a prophet? Such things not even a prophet is able to foresee.

I am in a place where many evil men are present.

And they hate the righteous man who is there.

And so, even if at some time they set upon him and bring against him some wrestling-bout or trial, and he comes out of it unscathed, yet knowing the evil that will follow from them, he vigilantly expects again some such thing.

'For they will not sleep,' it says, 'unless they have done some mischief.'

'Their sleep is taken away, and they slumber not.'

And having been delivered, he often prays also concerning what will come next.

Mine eye is troubled because of wrath.

My mind was troubled, not by my own wrath, but by the wrath of my enemies, or by Thy wrath;

for Thou art angry against those who sin, and having sinned I fall under Thy wrath, and my mind is troubled.

My soul and my belly.

It is not only my eye, he says, that is to say my mind, that has been troubled by wrath.

Mine eye was troubled in wrath.

When I am angry, my mind is thrown into confusion;

for the passions are disturbers of the mind.

And my soul also was troubled, to which belongs the eye that was troubled by wrath.

By 'belly' here he does not mean that of the body, but the one that conceives from the Bridegroom and gives birth;

'From fear of Thee we conceived in the womb and travailed,' so that we no longer bring the conceived to term, but cast them off as miscarriages.

But this can also mean that:

since I was not nourished by the bread of heaven that makes the belly calm, but took in some other harmful, poisonous nourishment, my belly too has been troubled.

He does not, therefore, despair of salvation.

That the soul is troubled? Some are minded to say that the soul is threefold in power;

and in a rather coarse manner they even call it divisible.

Its mind they call the rational faculty;

for this is receptive of knowledge; this is able to possess understanding.

The appetitive faculty does not receive knowledge, but it is at times persuaded by the rational faculty; it is compliant, though it does not itself possess understanding.

And just as, when the winds of the air blow favourably, the ship becomes compliant to the helmsman, not having motion of its own of that sort, but not opposing his skill since the winds are not contrary, so too the appetitive faculty in turn is persuaded by the rational faculty, though it does not itself possess reason.

One would therefore not err in calling the rational faculty 'mind'.

But all of them together, coming into one, are the soul.

The flower has such-and-such a colour, but the colour itself is not the flower.

It has also such-and-such a fragrance, but the fragrance is not the flower.

All these things, therefore, taken together, are the flower.

The flower is fragrant; we signify only one thing of it—that it sends forth a most pleasant scent.

And again, if we call it bitter, we signify its flavour—but not that alone, and it alone.

The flavour is not the flower, but all together is the flower.

Having then spoken concerning his own rational faculty, or mind, that it has been troubled by wrath, he says 'and my soul' also.

Thou knowest that when the charioteer is badly thrown, the whole chariot too is damaged; and when the helmsman is overturned, the vessel too is overturned.

This so-called 'eye', then, being a certain intellectual power, governs the whole soul.

If, therefore, this is troubled, the soul too is troubled along with it.

And the generative belly? What I have often said, I will now say again:

In the case of things perceptible to the senses, each thing is one kind and cannot be some other thing.

A plant cannot be gold; gold cannot be a man.

But in the case of things intelligible, it is possible, according to different relations and conceptions.

At any rate, yesterday I was saying that the soul, when it seeks—and indeed seeks to know itself—itself has the character both of the seeker and of the sought.

And if it cultivates itself as a plant, the plant is not one thing and the cultivator another; the distinction is found by conception alone.

If, then, he speaks of an eye and a belly, it is admissible to say both of the same power:

on account of seeing, the mind is called an eye; on account of begetting and bringing forth thoughts into the open, it can be a belly.

For my life is spent in pain, and my years in groanings.

Since my life is spent in pain—for I have always held it to be full of pain—it is not that I groan at one time and not at another;

I always groan, longing for virtue; I always labour, I always sweat for the acquiring of the good.

Since, then, I suffer this throughout my life, in a certain manner my life has failed in pain and my years in groanings.

Therefore I beseech You, that I may no longer endure so great a toil.

For even if I labour again in guarding it, yet the toil is not the same, to acquire something and to guard what already exists.

How are the species universal? — If someone demands from you the definition of 'man,' do not give the definition of Socrates, do not say, for instance, 'Dion.'

'A mortal rational living being' — this is the definition belonging to the species.

And so, if I say that the righteous man is outside of injustice, I do not mean this particular righteous man, but the righteous man in general.

Since, then, the very beginning of the psalm has come about thus:

'In You, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be put to shame.' Concerning everyone who hopes and seeks an unashamed end to his expectation, understand all the phrases accordingly.

For does not one who speaks praises of an orator speak of this or that particular one?

'And my strength was weakened in poverty, and my bones were troubled.'

Again here he does not call poverty the deprivation of money.

'Strength' here is spoken in contrast to weakness.

The strength of the soul, then, is constituted from riches; but the sensible and bodily strength is not so at all.

There are strong men who possess nothing, and weak men who are masters of much wealth.

As if one were to speak also concerning virtue or knowledge:

'Since I became poor as regards virtue and knowledge, my strength, which I ought to have had from the presence of these qualities, has become weak.'

The bones are the parts of the body that hold together its other parts.

The bones being present, there can also be sinews and small veins and the rest.

When, therefore, the strong powers of the soul, called 'bones,' become weak, the whole soul falls into weakness.

And that he does not mean the bones of the body:

'All my bones shall say:'

'Lord, who is like unto You?' But the bones of the body have no notion of God at all, that they should even be able to say whether there is anyone like Him or not.

For one must first know God, and then speak thus.

'My bones were scattered beside Hades' — those who confess and repent say this.

But beside this Hades, which is customarily so called, the bones of the body cannot be scattered.

And even if they were, as some say, beneath the moon, the bones of the dead do not come to be there.

But when the powers of the soul, called 'bones' on account of their vigour, come under sin, they were scattered beside Hades, and no longer preserve their own harmony.

'Beyond all my enemies I became a reproach, and to my neighbours exceedingly.'

They said that this psalm, like those before it, is also spoken in the person of the Saviour according to His humanity.

'Before all my enemies I became a reproach.'

For he says in another psalm, which Paul understood to be spoken in the person of the Saviour:

'The reproaches of those who reproached You fell upon me.'

'Certain ones reproach You, O Father or O God, and these reproaches fell upon me.'

Often too the man of knowledge, when he sees people mocking knowledge, draws the reproaches upon himself.

His enemies are those who sin.

'For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled.'

The sinner is an enemy of God; God is not an enemy of that one.

For God is the enemy of no one.

'And to my neighbours exceedingly.'

His neighbours are those who profess to know His Scripture and who call themselves partakers of Him.

As, for instance, let the Gentiles be enemies:

For they sin and are impious.

'I became a reproach before all those, as one who endured a cross, as one who descended into death.'

'And to my neighbours exceedingly.'

But when those who ought to draw near to me, and who profess to have their own edifices close to me, do the same things as the enemies, the reproach came to be exceedingly great in comparison with these.

'And a fear to my acquaintances.'

Those who know me, seeing me suffer these things, either had a fear equal to reverence, or had a fear of suffering the same things.

'Those who saw me fled outside, away from me.'

Those who beheld me, having seen what befell me before this, came to be outside of me — not sent away by me, but they fled outside.

Everyone who flees Jesus comes to be outside of Him, outside of salvation.

'I was forgotten, as one dead, out of the heart.'

Those enemies who reproached me, and the neighbours who did this exceedingly, cast me out from their own heart.

And of the dead there quickly comes forgetfulness.

At any rate those who endure misfortunes say this:

'From the time the dead man is laid to rest, grief is wiped away,' he says, 'from the soul.'

At any rate men are eager to do this quickly.

'I was therefore forgotten out of the heart.'

'They cast me out from their own heart.'

For they did not hold me unmixed, as the Apostle says:

When someone who has the Word within himself no longer acts according to it, as far as it lies in him, he has put it to death and comes to be in forgetfulness of it.

But understand forgetfulness in this way, not so as not to know that one once had it.

For many such things are said both in common usage and in Scripture.

At any rate we often say to friends:

'You have already forgotten me' — not saying this, that you have no memory of me at all.

The affliction of an hour produces forgetfulness of delight.

One who is afflicted for an hour immediately forgets the delight.

'And they shall forget,' he says, 'their former affliction, and it shall not come up upon their heart.'

Do you thus suppose that one who has come to be outside of affliction forgets it?

'Beyond all my enemies I became a reproach' — he did not say 'beyond all men,' but 'my enemies.'

And the enemies are the base men who do not act justly — enemies according to disposition.

For he himself is no one's enemy, yet he has many enemies.

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word:

Say to those who hate you, 'You are our brethren.'

Those men hate and are enemies by their disposition; but do you, toward your brethren, display a disposition of brotherly love.

by disposition, whereas you display toward your brethren a disposition of brotherly love.

And this is enmity: to hold a disposition that is opposed.

But if indeed the Savior says this—for we have said that it can also be spoken in the person of the Savior as man—then he is speaking of the Jews, who had become his enemies.

Yet not all became his enemies;

for the apostles too were Jews; they were Israelites.

He did not say, therefore, 'in the sight of all the Hebrews, in the sight of all the Israelites,' but 'to my enemies I became a reproach.'

According to the first interpretation, they reproach the righteous man.

But the wicked also reproach the Savior.

Not every reproach, then, brings blame upon the one reproached.

There are times when it is those who reproach who are blamed, and again those who are reproached because of sin.

At any rate, in the book of Proverbs it is said to the wise man:

'Do not acquire the reproaches of wicked men.'

By adding 'of wicked men,' he showed that there are also reproaches belonging to earnest men.

Indeed the disciples are commanded to rejoice whenever they are reproached.

These reproaches, for which the apostles are reviled, are not the reproaches of wicked men.

Then, since it lies within our power to do the things worthy of reproach, he commands:

'Do not acquire the reproaches of wicked men, nor emulate their ways.'

For the one who emulates their deeds and their thoughts has become a wicked man, having acquired wicked reproaches.

Concerning this reproach it is said that some rise to everlasting reproach and shame.

But not all rise to everlasting reproach and shame; rather those who seem here to be good.

When men reputed to be earnest and holy rise up, and the shameful things of their soul are made manifest, these rise to reproach;

for those who are openly wicked do not rise to reproach, but to punishment.

And if the Savior says this, he calls the cross a reproach;

for this the apostle taught:

'The reproaches of those who reproach you fell upon me.'

who, for the joy set before him, endured a cross, despising the shame.

And reproach and shame are the same thing.

And observe: so far as it depended on him, joy was set before him, since he had no sin.

He therefore despised the shame; he trampled it under foot.

Reproach comes not from friends and from those possessing the same virtue, but from enemies.

Consider, at any rate, the reproaches which they bring against the Lord's manhood:

'Did we not say well that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?' Surely earnest men did not utter this saying against him; surely not the apostles nor the others.

'By Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, he casts out the demons.' Surely they are not friends; surely they are not virtuous men.

'And to my neighbors exceedingly.'

His neighbors were the Jews, if it is the Savior who is speaking;

and of the earnest man, the neighbors are those who feign virtue.

'They are my neighbors, and near to my house they have their own buildings;'

for the house of the righteous is the upright manner of life;

for the one who hears the words of Jesus and turns them into deeds builds a house upon the rock, while the wicked man builds upon the sand.

But since both have become hearers of the words of Jesus, they seem to be neighbors, they seem to be bordering on one another.

The houses of transgressors shall owe cleansing, but the houses of the righteous are acceptable.

The transgressors are not lawless; rather they have the same law, but they transgress it.

Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven; those men have no experience of the law.

Transgressions ensnare a man;

for in a certain manner the lawless do not even rise to judgment at all, so as to be reproached.

To be reproached is a lesser punishment.

Indeed, those who received the law and transgressed it, these rise to everlasting reproach and shame.

And that this is so, we shall establish from the prophecy of Daniel;

for in it this is set down:

'And of those sleeping in the dust of the earth'—he did not say that all—'these rise to life and these to reproach and to shame.'

The ungodly rise, but not to be judged.

There rise the transgressors—those who received the law and transgressed it, the sinners—to judgment;

the righteous are raised not to be judged, but to receive the promises.

'And many of those who sleep;'

for he does not thus number the ungodly, who are not raised to judgment, but those who rise to everlasting reproach and shame.

And these are the sinners.

The righteous rise to everlasting life.

Concerning these two ranks the Savior also speaks in the Gospel:

'Those who have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life, but those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.'

Here too he makes no mention of the ungodly.

Since, therefore, the rank of the ungodly is set apart, he did not say that all rise, but 'many of those who sleep.'

But if anyone regards this rendering as forced, seeing it is not so, and says that among the sinners the ungodly too are ranked, then we understand 'many' thus, in the sense of 'all';

for 'all' are 'many,' though it does not convert.

Nevertheless, let 'the many' here be spoken in place of 'all.'

And this too the apostle writes:

'For just as through the obedience of the one man the many shall be constituted righteous, so also through the disobedience of the one man the many are constituted sinners.'

And here too the totality is signified by means of 'the many'; for 'all' can be indicated through 'many.'

All those who disobeyed, all those who obeyed—

if there be any 'all,' the many are yet not altogether 'all,' as in: 'Many will say to my soul.'

'Many say to my soul.'

'And a terror to those who know me.'

'To those who know me I have become a terror,' bearing this condition which many reproach.

Indeed, the apostles too, seized with fear, were made to stumble for an hour.

By 'fear' here he means the passible kind, upon which cowardice follows—if indeed it is not cowardice itself.

But it is possible also to take it as a divine fear.

Those who behold me, those who understand the mystery of my sojourning and for what cause I was crucified, held a fear equal to reverence, concerning which it is said:

'The fear of the Lord surpasses all things.'

The earnest are known by God.

'For the Lord knew those who are his,' and they know him.

The apostle accordingly says also to the Galatians:

'But then, when you did not know God; yet now, having come to know God—or rather, having been known by God.'

When we know God, he knows us.

For if anyone is ignorant, he is ignored; and plainly, if anyone knows, he is known.

'A terror, then, to those who know me.'

Those worthy of being known and who know me held a fear equal to reverence, concerning which it is said:

'Then shall you understand the fear of the Lord,' after many righteous deeds.

'Those who beheld me fled outside, away from me.'

Our Saviour and Lord is at once God and man.

He is seen and beheld according to his being man;

for he is invisible, being the image of the invisible God.

And the image of the invisible must itself be invisible.

'He who has seen me'—take the 'has seen' equivocally, in the sense of: he who beholds me with understanding, who sees me divinely, who applies himself to me as to one invisible, who also understands the mystery of the sojourning and of the passion.

Those, then, who behold me from outside have become outsiders—those who know Christ only according to the flesh, and such as those to whom Paul writes:

'For I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.'

They are of the outsiders and run outside, such as are those who hear in parables:

For it is not that the parable, being spoken obscurely, made them outsiders; rather, being already outsiders, their own external cast of mind brought them to this.

'I was forgotten, as one dead, from the heart.'

He who understands that Jesus is life—for he says:

'I am the life'—and that the living Son is of a living Father,

on account of the Father—such do not ever forget him;

for being present to their mind, he ever enlightens them, so that each one says:

Such a one is in Christ and has Christ within himself, living and working.

Should he not understand, he forgets him as one dead;

for Christ does not live in all, but in those who work according to him.

And as many as think themselves Christians yet do not work according to Christ do not have him living within them.

The wicked man lives according to vice, being a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God, and does all things in the manner of pleasure.

He reckons the righteous man as dead, since he is deprived of his own wicked life and does not receive it into his own reasoning faculty.

'I became like a lost vessel.'

I did not become a lost vessel, but as the lost vessel.

And take up for me the example:

Those other men who are crucified alongside the Saviour seem to have become useless vessels, vessels of destruction.

But this one who says these things has become as the lost vessel, yet is not lost.

Just as he became sin—not being sin in the same way as the others, but that they might become the righteousness of God in him—he was made like unto sin, made like unto the lost vessel.

That men are called vessels is not unknown—some indeed unto honour, but others unto dishonour.

This vessel that pertains to Jesus is not of destruction;

but it has become as the lost vessel.

He became a curse, that he might bring in a blessing.

Now no curse brings a blessing, but rather corrupts the blessing;

for no one accursed is blessed.

But this one, having become a curse, became the cause of blessing—and not for one man only, but for all who believe.

'For I heard the reproach of many who dwelt round about.'

I heard many blaming me who were not altogether cut off.

The Israelites dwelt round about Jesus.

'By Beelzebul, the prince of the demons, he casts out the demons.'

'He is a sinner, because he does not keep the sabbath.'

If those who said these things had been Gentiles, they would not have been his circle.

'And they surrounded me as bees a honeycomb.'

'When they were gathered together against me.'

He made mention of enemies, of neighbours vehemently reproaching him; he made mention of those who forgot him from the heart—those dwelling round about, he says, and blaming him.

These were gathered together to take his soul, most of all at that time when the nations raged and the peoples imagined vain things;

for here even the raging nations were not yet altogether cut away from him and separated.

Why did they rage? They set themselves the more arrogantly against the Hebrews.

And the Hebrews too, in vain and emptily, brooded over the prophecies concerning me.

All the aforementioned ranks were gathered together at once; they took counsel to take my soul.

The magnitude of the one being assailed is shown, in that all were gathered together at once to take his soul.

Not one, not a second, not ten, not a thousand, but all at once.

What is signified is the indestructibility and near-inviolability of the soul of Jesus, or that it cannot be overthrown.

They were scarcely able even to lay hold of my soul, or rather they wished to, but did not lay hold of it.

No one takes my soul from me;

I lay it down of myself, that I may take it again.

They took counsel to take my soul.