Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 14/34

They got as far as taking counsel to kill him.

Had he not himself given himself up, they would not have been able to do this.

Note, at any rate, that when they came to arrest him, he says:

'I am he,' and when he had said this, they drew back and fell to the ground.

'Whom do you seek?' And he said the same thing to them again, and again they fell to the ground.

'I am he; take me, then, and let these go their way;'

for no one was able to be arrested together with him.

This has often been said, namely that in order not to give any occasion of misapprehension to the unstable — as though it were not he himself who prevailed, but the one who suffered together with him — he did not permit this man.

And so, when Peter said:

'I am ready to go with you both to prison and to lay down my life for you,' he says:

'Cease; before the cock crows you will deny me three times.'

But if he had been one who suffered together with him, it would have become a matter of dispute for what reason this happened.

And he gave himself up for our sins.

The Father too is said to have delivered him up;

for this too came to pass by the Father's good pleasure.

But if Judas too is said to have delivered him up, that man delivered him up in another manner;

But I have hoped in you, O Lord;

My lots are in your hands.

Even if those men acted thus and gathered together against me, having taken counsel to take my soul and having done the rest, nevertheless I for my part did not depart from hoping in you.

My lots are in your hands.

The patristic expositions say this, that the lots which are in the hands of God are, for example, the diaconate, the presbyterate, the episcopate.

And it is blessed to have in the hands of God the lots which one has been allotted.

Such a person is free from any plot against him;

for no one snatches out of the Father's hand.

'In your hands are my lots,' says the Savior.

And that we may come round to the interpretation given, we say that:

'Those whom I have allotted to minister to me, whom I have set in the Church as apostles and prophets and teachers, are in your hands.'

It is also possible — since Israel too, when it was called 'my people,' was said to be his portion and inheritance —:

All the nations have been given as an inheritance to the Son.

The nations are many lots.

These lots are in your hands, made secure by your active and protecting powers, so that no one is able to snatch them out of your hand;

for no one is able to snatch out of the Father's hand.

Unless one puts himself outside the hand, he cannot be snatched away by anyone.

And indeed, zealous men later were dragged down into impiety.

And that I may not speak from mere probabilities: Judas, for example, himself put himself outside the hand;

for it was night, when he was pondering the matters concerning the betrayal, and it says:

Every one of those who believe in me is a lot of mine.

In your hands he is, equivalent to an inheritance;

for the lot too follows upon the inheritance, whenever it is reckoned as belonging to many.

We say this too more comprehensively:

The hands of God are the two covenants.

If anything is his lot, it is in his hands.

Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me.

Not all enemies persecute;

but all who persecute are enemies.

So that the 'not to persecute' here is meant not in the sense of laying hold, but of lying in wait;

The enemy said, 'I will pursue and overtake.'

This kind of pursuit is not one that takes place for the sake of imitation.

But those who pursue righteousness one ought to love.

Those who pursue righteousness pursue it for the sake of partaking of it and of being made conformable to it.

As when someone pursues knowledge in order that he may contemplate according to knowledge.

'Seek peace and pursue it' — this must be understood in that sense.

It can also be taken in a more moral sense, thus:

Since the hand of the enemies and of those who persecute me is wickedness, a forbidden deed, deliver me from their deed, that I may not fall under their evils, under their practice.

Make your face to shine upon your servant; save me in your mercy.

If you raise me up and set me outside the reach of those who persecute me, you have made your face to shine.

But I am your face, the express image of your substance, your image, the image of the invisible God.

But since I have taken the form of a servant, make your face to shine upon your servant.

Show that this servant bears your form, that your face has tabernacled in this servant, so that the 'deliver me' may be said with reference to the servant, and the 'face' with reference to the truth, to the express image of the divine substance.

In your mercy, then, save me.

And perhaps he also calls the salvation which is for the sake of those for whom he has come his own salvation, so that he may become to them the cause of eternal salvation.

And then I am not put to shame, if the things pertaining to comfort be granted.

Is it not a word of the Savior? — There occur abrupt changes of persons.

So too he does in the prophetic passages.

And another thing, concerning the mere man:

For instance, each of us, in often speaking about a man, sometimes designates him from the soul, and sometimes from the body.

If I say that a man is handsome — ruddy, to use the language of Scripture, with beautiful eyes, exceedingly tall — and then I say that the man is knowledgeable, that he is a servant of God, subject to the Lord:

for surely the change of the words does not take him wholly outside himself.

When something is said of a composite being, the changes of the persons are carried from one part to that very part.

Since, then, He who says these things is neither man alone nor God alone, but God made man, some things are spoken as from the man, and others as from God the Word, or concerning God the Word.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father.

Make Your face to shine upon Your servant, upon the other one who is myself.

Let the ungodly be ashamed, and let them be brought down into Hades.

The phrase 'let them be brought down into Hades' has, once again, a certain force.

He did not say, 'let them go down into Hades.'

For to go down somewhere belongs to those who descend of their own will.

But these are brought down into Hades not of their own will.

Indeed, then, concerning Capernaum, or to Capernaum, it is likewise said:

And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, shall be brought down to Hades.

But they are ashamed then, when they come to know that they are ungodly, having no eager impulse to go down into Hades.

For this reason they are led down, so that, as it were, taking thought of where they are about to descend, they may be ashamed.

They will reproach themselves still more, because they have become ungodly.

Let the deceitful lips become dumb, which speak iniquity against the righteous.

Let their lips become dumb.

The deceitful lips, when they are deprived of their diabolical words, have become dumb.

Not their lips wholly and without qualification, but the deceitful ones.

Having cast off that deceitful word, they thereafter speak with boldness and truth.

The Lord shall utterly destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaks great things.

When the boastful tongue — that is, the word — is destroyed, then the one from whom it is destroyed henceforth speaks the word of God.

In pride and contempt.

Since 'of the righteous' stands without qualification, it can refer both to the righteous man and to the righteous thing, concerning which it is said:

But he who speaks against the righteous, and against him who possesses it and has been shaped in accordance with it, speaks in pride and contempt.

For then their lips become dumb, when they come to know of what lowliness they are, when they come to know that the one whom they will despise is not worthy of contempt.

How great is the multitude of Your goodness, O Lord, which You have hidden for those who fear You.

Since some things seemed to be spoken by way of curse, yet, looking to the disposition of the speaker, we say that they are not curses but rather prayers of blessing.

He wills that good things should come to be for them.

Since it happened that those who did not recognize the goodness and the end of those being saved were being worn down, He hid it for those who fear Him.

But here He calls 'those who fear' those who have the fear that punishes, not the righteous, not those who have that fear in which there is no lack, not the fear that surpasses all things.

Since Your goodness is one with, being the very same as, Your kindness, and You do all things for the salvation of the whole, both the gloomy things and the causing of someone to fall into gloomy circumstances — yet, because those who were being worn down were about to be harmed through superficiality, You hid it for those who fear You, not for those who love You.

For here we understand the fear which is distinguished over against love — perfect love casts out fear.

Let us not love it for the sake of anything else.

Perfect love, then, casts out fear, because fear has punishment — not that fear concerning which it is said:

There is no lack to those who fear Him.

You have wrought it for those who hope in You, in the sight of the sons of men.

You have wrought this hiding.

There are certain sons of men who are not blameworthy.

But often men and sons are blamed, as when it says:

Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? But when it says:

The Lord looked down from heaven, He saw all the sons of men — these sons of men are praiseworthy.

When they are referred to God, they are righteous men and sons of men; but when they are referred to the righteous, the sinners are sons of men, those others being base, concerning whom Paul writes:

For where there is strife and jealousy among you, are you not men? And concerning those of whom he says:

But you shall die like men, having fallen from being gods and sons of the Most High.

In relation to holy men, who are called or named gods, the base are called sons of men; but in relation to Him who is the cause to God, they are called diligent sons, upon whom He looks.

You will save both men and beasts, O Lord.

How have You multiplied Your mercy, O God!

But the sons of men shall hope in the shelter of Your wings.

A great thing is man, and a merciful man is precious.

Here man, who is according to the image and likeness of God, is praised for his greatness.

But when someone, having fallen from being a son of the Most High, becomes a son of man, this man is base.

You have wrought for those who hope in You, in the sight of the diligent sons of men — and those know the working — the hiding of the riches of Your goodness.

You will hide them away in the secret place of Your face.

The sons of men, for whom You have wrought Your mercy.

And one is hidden away in the secret place of God in this manner:

God has a face that is made manifest through His own works of creation:

From the greatness and beauty of created things, their Author is proportionally contemplated.

He is contemplated by analogy from the creation:

For just as, if someone sees a ship, he receives an impression of a shipbuilder even though the builder is not present; and one who observes a ship steered from afar at once comes to the thought that there is someone piloting it; and one who sees a chariot borne along in an orderly manner from afar, even though he does not see the charioteer, forms a conception of him — so, since the world is borne along in so orderly a fashion and possesses a most beautiful nature, an impression of the beauty and greatness of God is made known.

For if the things that have come to be are great, much greater is He who fashioned them.

When, then, someone receives an impression of God from the world, from its order, from its design, and from the judgments of Providence, he has not been hidden in the secret place of His face.

Of such a kind also are those among the Greeks who have practiced philosophy:

For from the greatness of the works of creation and from their beauty they received an impression of God.

But he who, apart from the creation, receives an impression of God — having seen the Son, and through the Son the Father (for he who has seen Me has seen the Father) — this one is hidden in the secret place of the face of God.

And what is according to the creative Word is a secret place.

Again, that we may speak also in a more popular manner:

Jesus had two persons, that of man and that of God.

As many as know him according to the flesh receive him in the manifestation of his countenance.

But as many as, having withdrawn from knowing him according to the flesh, came to know him insofar as he is God the Word — these have been hidden in the secret place of the face of God.

And further, since they said that the outward appearance of the world is the 'face,' the Word — according to whom the things that have come to be came to be, and are provided for and governed — is the hidden part of the face of God; and the hidden part is that which is according to the creative Word.

God often hides his own kindness from the little ones who fear him.

who abstain from evil out of fear of punishment — if indeed one ought to call this an abstinence from evil.

'Perfect love,' he says, 'casts out fear, because fear has punishment.'

He who has acquired the knowledge of good and evil, and has yearned for the good and inclined toward it, abstains from evil out of love for the good; he departs from evil not through fear of punishment; he turns away from the evil.

So then, if some argument should persuade him that there is no punishment, he does the evil that he chooses.

God therefore often does not bring on the retribution at once, out of kindness and goodness.

And he hides the multitude of the riches of his kindness for the sake of those who fear, for the sake of the little ones, for the sake of those who abstain from evil through fear of punishment.

'How great, then, is the multitude of your kindness, O Lord.'

For the knowledge of it would cause them to be worn away into evils.

as when someone utters words of indignation to a son, to the point of terrifying him, and hides the kindness according to which he does this, as though he were about to punish him;

for if the son had known that the threat was only for outward show, he would have despised his father's kindness, and would have been ruined, and would have become liable to wrath.

Indeed his kindness is great; it is a great multitude.

So the Apostle too says to certain people:

'Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?' But the one who does not understand this supposes that God is not displeased with evils, and for this reason does not proceed against them.

And Peter too, the foremost of the apostles, in writing his epistle, spoke also such a saying:

'The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness, but is long-suffering, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.'

It was not fitting that it should be known to the many;

for they would have despised it all the more.

'You have therefore hidden from those who fear you the multitude of your kindness,

you have wrought it for those who hope in you, before the sons of men.'

Those who hope are those who eagerly await the divine recompenses and the promises which God pledged to grant to those who live well.

You have therefore wrought this for those who hope in you.

You have wrought this — the hiding of the multitude of your kindness — so that not even those who hope in you should perceive this, that on account of certain people you do not bring on the wrath.

So he says, 'before men.'

The multitude of your kindness is not hidden forever, but only for as long as those are 'men' concerning whom it is said:

'But you indeed die like men.'

'For where there is strife and jealousy among you, are you not men?' So, before these sons of men, you have wrought this hiding, according to the multitude of your kindness;

for to them too he opens this up.

The God of all is often called 'man,' not because he has become a man or is a man, but because, condescending to men, he thus governs the things that concern them, and becomes their judge in such a manner as a compassionate man.

'He bore with your ways, as a man would bear with his own son.'

He bore with your ways, nourishing you and governing you.

'If you should mark iniquities, O Lord, Lord, who shall stand?' And:

'His eyelids examine the sons of men.'

With his eyelids alone he sees the things that are done.

Just as, then, the one who sent the Son, who was well pleased with his coming, in governing men as a man confers benefits, so too this one is a son of man.

He is the son of the man who is thus conducted.

In a certain way, the particulars are offspring of the universal.

And the universal man was made according to the image and likeness of God;

for this was by no means said of Adam alone, but the universal nature of man, the form, was made according to the image and likeness of God.

The one, therefore, who guards the archetype, that which is as it were universal — that one is a son of man;

he is said to be the son of that one who was made according to the image and likeness of God.

Even though Jesus had no father according to his manhood, yet he had a mother.

And for the abolishing of the Docetic notion, he is called 'son of man.'

Even though he does not have his being from a father, yet he is from a mother.

So then, being born in this way, he is said to be 'from a woman.'

All others come to be from men.

For this too Paul writes:

'Man comes to be from a man, but through a woman.'

For from the man comes the sowing of the seed, but through the woman come the forming and the bringing to birth.

Since, therefore, this one does not have the 'from a man' and the 'through a woman,' but 'from a woman' — for he took the whole of his material substance from the woman, not like other men —

'And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born the Christ.'

He did not say 'through whom' — and so, according to this too, he is designated 'son of man.'

For if he were simply called 'man,' the Docetists would suppose that he appeared as a man without having his origin or beginning from a human being.

So, in order to show that he is from Mary, he called himself 'son of man.'

And God the Word himself is also sometimes called 'son of man':

'No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man' — he says this of God the Word.

And he is called 'son of man' in the way in which we often say that the soul is from the parents.

When we say that Jacob, the holy one of God, is from Isaac, we do not say this in the sense that he is from Isaac insofar as he is of a certain quality and holy, but rather that this one, to whom it belonged to be holy, is from Isaac.

And so, according to this, let God the Word be called 'son of man.'

'If then you should see the Son of Man ascending where he was before' — we do not take it as referring to the body, lest we incline toward those who say that he brought a body down from heaven.

And nearly all the heretics say this — such as Marcion, Basilides, Valentinus.

And so we also often say of someone: 'a wise man, holy, a friend of God, and he is the son of such-and-such a woman';

for it is not insofar as he is such a person that he is son of that woman.

In composite things we often predicate of the whole the things that belong to the parts:

as when we say 'an intelligent man, sensible, of good memory, healthy in body, well-formed, of good stature' — some of these we predicate from the body, others from the soul;

for some of the attributes belonging to the composite cannot belong to any single one of the elements in the composition.

To be awake, however, or to sleep, is said neither of the soul alone nor of the body alone.

For neither does the soul do this apart from the body, nor the body without the soul.

It is said, therefore, concerning the composite being.

'You will hide them in the secret place of Your countenance.'

The creation of God is said sometimes to be His countenance.

From the greatness of the beauty of created things, by analogy, the Author of their being is contemplated.

They are not in His hidden countenance, but in that which is manifest.

If you see a physician at work, skilfully performing his craft, you behold his countenance;

for the works of the medical art reveal the physician.

But when we are able to perceive the rationale of the craftsman's works and the disposition of the maker, we no longer behold his manifest countenance, but the hidden one.

So also we say concerning God: when we contemplate the works of creation, and from the created things and from the greatness of their beauty perceive God who is an ocean of beauty and greatness, we have our mind upon His manifest countenance.

But when we consider, say, why He made the heaven of such a kind and so constituted, and why at that particular time, we have entered into the secret place of His countenance, into the reason according to which He made it.

'And we beheld His glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father.'

To understand is something hidden.

In agreement with this, then, the Apostle also says:

'Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.'

'From the tumult of men You will shelter them in a tabernacle, from the contradiction of tongues.'

Being rescued and delivered, they are sheltered as they advance in progress;

for he who has turned aside from evil in order to do good does not, simultaneously with his turning aside from evil, possess the good perfectly within himself.

He becomes a disciple of the single-natured tongue, the tongue of God.

The tongues signify words, and this has often been demonstrated;

'They bent their tongue like a bow'—that is, their word.

'Death and life are in the hand of the tongue.'

The sensible tongue has no hand at all.

The word is called a tongue.

'Blessed be the Lord, for He has wondrously shown His mercy in a fortified city.'

Having attended to what has been said and come to knowledge of these things, he thereupon, by way of blessing, sends up thankful praises and says:

'He has wondrously shown His mercy in a fortified city.'

They were saying that He hid the multitude of His kindness for mercy's sake, that He might show mercy.

Having learned the reason why the multitude of His kindness was hidden, he blesses the One who has done this and says that 'in the fortified city we have done this.'

We can call the fortified city this present life, our sojourn in this world;

for in a certain manner we are enclosed as if in a guard-house.

But since in the Books of Kingdoms Zion too is called a fortified city—for 'Who will lead me into the fortified city?'—this fortification is praiseworthy, it is an invincible garrison, an impregnable enclosure.

He has therefore wondrously shown His mercy in the fortified city.

If anyone is outside this city, he does not know why God hides the multitude of His kindness.

We say that the little ones are those who refrain from doing evil out of fear of punishment.

'Is His mercy not laid up for me?'—You take away the greatness of God's mercy if you add the word 'for me.'

If we act in such a way as to be diligent or knowledgeable, we have not done this for that one man alone, but for every diligent person, for every knowledgeable person.

Some self-loving person added it.

'But I said in my ecstasy: I have been cast away from before Your eyes.'

He speaks concerning his former circumstance, in which he was seeking and was troubled.

Being in ecstasy at the greatness of the wonder,

and being astounded at the dispensation of the hiding of God's kindness, I supposed I had been cast away from before the eyes of God—those eyes from before whose face the one who does things unworthy of His countenance is cast off.

Yet this man is not so evil as the one who, by his own choice, comes to be outside the countenance of God.

For Cain went out from before the face of the Lord God.

He deserted to evil, embraced godlessness, and became a promoter of the denial of providence.

Concerning Adam, however, it is said that the Lord cast him out.

But he who desires to be within is the one who is cast out.

He was not so evil as Cain.

And so this one too, who says these things, said:

Since such thoughts pressed upon me, and the dispensation—befitting one made according to the image—of the hiding of the multitude of Your kindness from those who fear You, I supposed I had been cast away from before Your eyes.

Just as all who have come to the faith are the body of Christ and members in part, so also the fullness of the divine powers, of the rational beings, is the body of God.

And just as, in the case of the members of Christ, we say that the perceptive ones are called eyes, the active ones hands, those unshrinking in diligence feet—'the eye cannot say to the hand:

I have no need of you'; nor can the hand say:

'I am not of the body, since I am not an eye.'

The eye is greater than the hand, and yet this perceptive eye, because it contemplates the dispensations, cannot say:

for you know that the hand has an action which the eye cannot properly perform.

This too, then, belongs to arrogance and conceit, that the greater cannot say to the lesser:

The perceptive men are the eyes of God.

Since I attended to matters and did not understand them, I am not an eye.

Perhaps I have come to be outside the eyes of God, that is, outside the perceptive men who behold with the understanding.

'Therefore You heard the voice of my supplication.'

Therefore You heard, because I recognized:

in so far as it depended on my own ignorance, I was cast away from the eyes of God.

'Love the Lord, all you His holy ones.'

The holy ones are those who set right what is due toward God, who keep that which the Saviour said:

'Render to God the things that are God's.'

Consider with reference to what this is said:

Those from whom the mercy of God was hidden were in fear.

And we took up the saying of John and clarified it thus, namely:

'Perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment, and he who fears has not been made perfect.'

Perfect love, then, is when one, out of love for the good, flees from evil; not remaining apart from evil for fear of punishment, but because he has a genuine longing for the good.

He does not remain outside of evil through fear of punishment, but because he has a genuine longing for the good.

For opposites cannot coexist together.

For the Lord seeks out truth.

The truth of God is only-begotten;

for 'I am the truth,' says the Saviour.

But in those who partake of it there comes to be a certain truth.

And it is as with sciences and virtues — we do not say that each of the learned possesses the whole of knowledge, but a particular knowledge, that is, an individual instance of it.

However many, then, the learned may be, so many are the individual sciences; and however many are those who partake of the truth, so many — or so many kinds of — truths there are, as many as those who partake.

But these things I say concerning the state before the end;

for there it will not be possible to speak of many who are true, nor of many truths, nor of many learned, nor of many kinds of knowledge.

For if even here among believers there comes to be one heart and one soul, knit together in the same mind and the same judgement — even if not wholly, yet in some measure the more — then at the last, in the ultimate and most desirable end, it will not be possible to say that one who has knowledge differs from another who has knowledge.

It is as if, by way of hypothesis, all physicians possessed medicine in all its parts surpassingly well: there would not then be many physicians;

there would be many men, but not many physicians.

Since, therefore, the truth is one — for grace and truth came through Jesus Christ —

the truth, then, is one in and through itself, not the truth which exists in particular instances through it.

They come to be through the one, just as the particular virtues come to be through the universal virtue, and the individual sciences through the universal science.

These, then, the Lord seeks out;

wherefore be diligent, as far as you are able, to receive some truth;

and if you take it in the case of the practical virtues, the truth of the practical virtues is judged by the disposition — whether one pursues it for the sake of the just itself.

Since 'you shall justly pursue what is just,' pursue the just itself justly; pursue the practice of the just with the disposition of righteousness.

'Love the Lord, all you his holy ones.'

Since the Lord seeks out truth, love the Lord, the giver of truths.

In the same way we hear also of 'righteousnesses' spoken of in the plural;

'The Lord is righteous, and he has loved righteousnesses.'

When, however, he speaks of universal righteousness, the substantial one, he says:

'Righteousness looked down from heaven' — here he calls the Saviour righteousness.

And he became for us, just as wisdom, so also righteousness.

'And he repays those who abundantly work pride.'

Since he had shown the smallness of those who fear — for he spoke also of men troubling them, certain sophists and deceivers — these he called the proud.

And they work pride abundantly.

Every vice is superfluous, that is, in vain.

This indeed is also said in Proverbs:

'Do not vainly show enmity toward a man;'

for by showing enmity you can do nothing against him, unless God should deliver him up.