Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 15/34

And one ought not to be zealous about vain things.

So these proud men also abundantly work pride;

for not all against whom they exalt themselves will become subject to their hands, unless God should deliver them up.

'... [take courage in your] heart, all you who hope in the Lord.'

Having recounted all the contests, he anoints them for endurance, for courage.

And he does not speak of those who fear, but of those who hope.

And we said that these are those who work the good out of longing for the promises.

These, then, are ready to be made manly and to be strengthened and to draw near to God.

And each one who cleaves to him becomes one spirit with him.

And if each of those who cleave to the Lord becomes one with him, then when there are many who cleave to him, by way of participation they all become one spirit.

'Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven.'

The forgiveness of sins is a new birth, a birth upon a birth.

For this reason it is called regeneration.

As the palinodia (recantation-song) signifies a song upon a song, so also regeneration (palingenesia) is another birth supervening upon a birth that has already taken place.

It was fitting, then, that the psalm concerning regeneration should be placed at a number that contains certain virtues.

And it is composed from the fourth square, namely five times five, and it takes an addition of the first of the perfect numbers, namely six;

for the first of the perfect numbers, added to the fourth of the squares, makes up thirty-one.

Five times five is a square.

A square is that which is equal times equal.

These numbers, then, added together, have made something suited to regeneration;

for it must derive its constitution from a perfect number and from a square, on account of stability.

The former birth proved easily shaken.

The deceit of the serpent removed the first-formed ones from perfect virtue and from the keeping of the divine commandment which they had received from God.

It was fitting, then, that the second birth should be more stable.

It has stability from the square; it has perfection also from the six, in that the number composed and completed from its own parts is deficient in nothing.

And though twenty-five is a square, yet it has its hollowness from the objects of sense;

for the objects of sense happen to be five: the visible, the audible, the tasteable, the smellable, the touchable.

Nevertheless, even among the objects of sense there is perfection and stability;

for what is praiseworthy is given even sensibly, but it is perfected through the hexad, through perfection.

The psalm before this one — I mean the thirtieth — embraces human generation;

for one who has been born can, at thirty years old, be a grandfather, and she who reaches maturity at thirty years can be a grandmother.

These things the disciples of the physicians also say:

one who has reached fourteen years can produce fertile seed.

If, then, this is deposited into the workshop of nature, a living creature is brought to completion and is born in the fifteenth year.

Then this same one, again having reached fourteen years, can be fertile, and by the thirtieth year is shown to be a grandfather.

Yet triplicity, above all among things subject to generation, possesses this perfection in a prior degree.

This generation, then, being more properly human, exists prior to the second generation, which is set according to the number mentioned, possessing stability through the twenty-five and completeness through the six.

It remains for us to see what mystery the very beginning of this psalm contains.

The psalm is inscribed 'of understanding,' of David's understanding, so that the meaning contained within the letters may be grasped—just as when you say concerning medical theorems that:

These writings belong to the understanding of such-and-such a physician—according to Peter, those of Galen; according to others, those of Menemachus.

But David's understanding is not merely human; it is divine, and it has practice conjoined with it:

'A good understanding have all they that do it.'

There is an understanding equal in power to wisdom, as when it is said:

'a spirit of wisdom and of understanding.'

This understanding is contemplative; it concerns the mysteries of godliness and the doctrines of the truth.

But the other is the practical one, that which does:

for 'a good understanding have all they that do it.'

Practical virtue also has understanding and knowledge:

for how do we know whether things are practical or ethical, unless we understand them? And Paul, indeed, when writing practical injunctions, says:

'May God give you understanding in all things.'

He was speaking about offerings, about the necessity that the teacher be supported by those whom he instructs.

And since it seemed to concern him, or he himself was the teacher, having spoken in a veiled manner about the necessity that the teacher be assisted by his disciples, he says:

'May God give you understanding in all things.'

Understanding, then, is manifold; the word is equivocal, having many significations.

But since here he is speaking about hidden things, it is that understanding which is according to knowledge that is meant, the one akin to wisdom:

for the psalm contains mysteries.

It is impossible to understand grammatical discourses unless one has an understanding of letters; and it is not possible to understand philosophical discourses unless one has knowledge of the theorem being expounded in them.

So too it is impossible to understand the things of God apart from divine understanding.

But why is this understanding granted to David alone, or said to be from David's? — Consider that properties are recognized sometimes from the giver and sometimes from the receiver.

So, for instance, the Holy Spirit is spoken of in Scripture sometimes as Elijah's, sometimes as John's.

In the same way the gospel too is spoken of sometimes as God's, inasmuch as God gives and ordains it:

for 'set apart unto the gospel of God'; and sometimes from the one who ministers it:

for 'according to my gospel'; and it is sometimes spoken of even from those who proclaim it, who have received the gospel; and sometimes without qualification:

'Repent and believe in the gospel.'

Such names, when with and without an addition they signify the same thing, exist both with a divine addition and without it—as I was saying, simply 'gospel' and 'gospel of God.'

It is therefore the same thing to say simply 'gospel' and 'gospel of God.'

So then, understanding, on the one hand, is from God who gives it, but on the other hand it is said to be the understanding of the prophet and sacred psalmist who has received it.

'Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.'

Iniquity is the sinful act of one who does not have the law:

for the transgressor of the law is called 'lawless.'

'Lawless deeds ensnare a man.'

'The lawless one, in order to sin, speaks within himself.'

Even though in another way sin and iniquity are the same thing:

for this is what John the divine writes in his epistle:

'Everyone who commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.'

If therefore one has sinned, it is in some sense iniquity:

for by binding them with a copulative conjunction he showed that they are two.

'and sin is lawlessness.'

Sin is, as it were, a genus of lawlessness:

for I was saying that it is a species of lawlessness, when the one who acts wickedly does not have the law.

And this too is called sin, as is the transgression or disobedience of the law which I called lawlessness.

Everyone who has a horse also has an animal; the animal is the genus.

Not everyone who has an animal has a horse, but the one who has a horse has an animal.

The one who has the species has the genus and the species.

So then here too he speaks in this way, inasmuch as he calls the same thing both lawlessness and sin.

But conceptually it has a difference, since the one is universal, the other particular; the one is a genus, the other a species:

for I was saying that the name of sin is applied both to transgression of the law and to lawlessness.

Both classes, then, sin:

behold, these who are without law, they sin;

and as many as have sinned under the law:

these are they who have wisdom, they who have transgression of the law.

Forgiveness of iniquities comes about when the divine law, the spiritual one that turns souls back, prevails over those who commit lawlessness.

And I say thus: the forgiveness of sins does not come about immediately.

Jesus forgives, as when he says:

'The Son of Man has authority to forgive sins.'

'Child, your sins are forgiven.'

He has given a power that makes new.

And the energy, coming upon it, destroyed the evil.

Blessed, then, are those whose sins have been forgiven.

Henceforth they hold fast to the blameless law of God which turns souls back.

Forgiveness of sins, then, comes about when the divine law that is according to the gospel draws near:

for this is the spiritual law by which souls are turned back, as I said.

And the sins that arise and increase through transgression of the law have a covering.

The sins, on the one hand, are covered over.

But it is impossible for those once baptized to obtain the washing again.

And they are covered over through works of repentance.

But you say that sins, once concealed beneath the covering, are preserved.

Does not love, he says, cover a multitude of sins? For it does not utterly abolish the sins, but does so in another manner.

For the one who loves labours at the works of love.

For surely no one who shows love toward his neighbour speaks against him, reviles him, or wrongs him.

But when a man does this, he does not have love toward him.

All these things are covered over, being no longer operative — not because they have been rooted out and hidden by it, but because love, coming upon them, has hidden those things; that is, it has removed them and put them outside.

And if one must speak with precision: love, coming upon the sin, brings the sin in actuality to a halt, while the potentiality thereafter remains preserved.

If anything is covered over, it is the activity.

For example, the robber who repented had sin in actuality.

The Saviour granted him forgiveness.

The activities by which he practised robbery were cast off.

But the potentialities remain, and they are covered over.

For no heed is to be given to those who say that evil is a privation.

There are certain people — indeed a whole sect, that of the Donatists, which says this — who declare that:

It is impossible for one who has cast off virtue to take it up again.

Just as it is impossible for one who has lost his sense-perception to regain it — and for this reason blindness and deafness are a privation — so also they reason concerning virtue.

But to us, however simple we are — or rather to us who are called ignorant babblers — they say that such a thing is no longer possible.

For they say that after these things there is no repentance, that it is not possible to take up virtue again, but that evil abides unto the ages of ages and brings a corresponding punishment.

Sins, therefore, are covered over in the manner I have described.

For it is a blessed thing to have the potentiality for evil.

Contraries cannot coexist together.

He who has virtue in actuality has the potentiality for evil, and this indeed is a blessed thing.

One ought not, therefore, to have virtue in potentiality, but in actuality.

For this reason God also, from the beginning, having made man according to His own image and likeness and upright — wherefore the good was, as it were, ready at hand — immediately also gave a law forbidding sin, that sin might ever remain in potentiality.

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin, neither is there deceit in his mouth.

Paul took this as referring both to those of the circumcision and to those of the Gentiles.

This blessing, he says, is upon the circumcision and upon the uncircumcision.

By 'law' he took, within that restraint of the literal precept, the good — the good law.

Lawless are those who come from among the Gentiles;

for though they have no law, they are a law unto themselves.

But when they were called to the true God — not the one conceived according to common notion — they are no longer lawless.

The blessing can belong to both kinds of the lawless: to the Gentiles, or to those who have their sins covered over, the Jews.

But the former had the law, so that a distinction arises between the circumcision and the uncircumcision.

This state existed before the Gospel, when the human race was divided into two men, into the circumcised and the uncircumcised.

But when our Lord was pleased to come, He joined both orders together, creating the two into one new man.

The new man is not a Gentile, the new man is not of the circumcision, but one new man, just as in the beginning too there came to be one man;

for there was then no difference of circumcision and uncircumcision.

They are created into a man through repentance, through coming to know the former manner of life — and the former manner of life, that before the Law, is evangelical.

Whenever, then, the Greeks scoff, saying:

'Christianity was brought into the world only recently';

we, however, are more ancient, and we show that before Moses, and before the graven images were brought into public view and the making of idols arose, the way of life of men was such as Christians now have, living according to practical and contemplative virtue.

Into that one man, therefore, He created and made him new — new not as being different, but new as distinguished over against the old.

Whenever a succession of commandments comes, that former one becomes old, as we have often said, that the law which comes upon makes the former one old.

So too, then, the religion of the Jews, which is according to the shadow, is old, since it has been succeeded by the Gospel.

But since the covenant of the Gospel is unsucceeded — for even if heaven and earth pass away, the words of Jesus remain — for this reason it is called the new covenant, because it is unsucceeded.

There was therefore a succession also of the life of the lawless and of the sinners;

for the iniquities of the former were forgiven, and the sins of the latter were covered over, and thereafter a man came to be.

He speaks no longer of the lawless one or the sinner, and he says:

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin.

Sin is a species of lawlessness.

It can also be referred to the pattern of those who are saved — I mean the man of the Lord.

For sin is not reckoned to him;

for he neither knew it nor committed it.

Neither is there deceit in his mouth.

He it is who speaks truth in his heart, according to the psalm that says this:

He who walks blameless and works righteousness, who speaks truth in his heart — the one who speaks truth in his heart has no deceit in his mouth, has no fraudulent word.

Neither is there deceit in his mouth.

Some have no deceit in their mouth, but have it in their heart;

for 'your heart', it is said to a certain man, 'is full of deceit.'

And to Elymas the sorcerer the Apostle said:

It is a great thing, therefore, to have no deceit in the mouth, when the heart has no deceit;

for it is possible for a certain crafty person to speak all such things as to seem to have no deceit.

He has no deceit in his mouth, as do the sophists;

I do not mean the teachers of the rhetoricians, but the sophistical ones who lie by means of their sophisms.

For even if it should sometimes arise from true premises, yet the conclusion is false.

Because I kept silence, my bones grew old, from my crying all the day long.

Because I kept silence, from my crying all the day long, my bones grew old.

But 'my bones grew old' has been wrongly placed thus:

Because I kept silence about these things, the 'my bones grew old' comes from my crying all the day long.

It is not from my crying out all day long that my bones have grown old, but rather because I kept silent from crying out all the day long.

For before this I possessed the day which the Sun of Righteousness makes.

And I cried aloud, partly in prayer, partly in glorifying God who graciously grants me the day.

Since, then, I kept silent from crying out all the day long, my bones have grown old.

It has been said by us before this also, that by 'bones' he means the vigorous powers of the soul and the doctrines of piety.

And just as these bones hold together the whole body—for from them both the veins and all things are suspended—

'All my bones shall say: Lord, who is like unto thee?' It is not that these physical bones have sensation or understanding.

At any rate, when they are sawn through, they feel nothing.

Therefore my bones have grown old.

When they were united to God, then they cried out all the day long.

But since silence succeeded the crying out, my bones have grown old.

I have already said that the things without succession... 'he beheld all the sons of men.'

These, then, are the sons of men whom he beheld.

From his prepared dwelling-place.

His dwelling-place, as it were his temple, is the settled condition......

This throne is prepared and is a dwelling-place......

'Thy throne is prepared from that time; thou art from everlasting.'

And we receive a notion of his throne also......

he comes, and thus, hearing of his temple, we receive him as prepared together with it......

It signifies, as it were, the settled state of God, the majesty of God.

His dwelling-place is prepared.

From this very participation it becomes prepared to make room for the presence of God......

Holiness comes to be, little by little, in the one who possesses it.

For that one begins to make progress......

The dwelling-place of God is prepared, not......

By progress he becomes great from small, being made proportionate to his existence......

And sometimes the good itself is called 'prepared,' as when it says:

'My heart is prepared, O God.'

For he who has his heart made ready is a temple of God; his dwelling-place is prepared.

'If it has been declared to thee, O man, what is good, or what is pleasant, save to do justice and to love mercy and to be ready to walk with the Lord thy God?' And again:

'Thine ear hath attended to the preparation of their heart.'

'He looked down upon all who inhabit the earth.'

Those who inhabit the earth are others besides the sons of men.

For there dwell men who have not kept that which is according to the image, nor attained......

But the sons of these men do not dwell, but sojourn......

For he makes his sun to rise, as upon the good, so also upon the wicked......

He watches over all the sons of men, and those who inhabit......

For he gives food to all flesh.

all those upon the earth......

For we do not speak of the sons of men and those who inhabit the earth as parallel.

'He who fashioned their hearts individually.'

In Scripture 'to make' is distinguished from 'to fashion':

For God made man according to his own image and likeness, but he fashioned the man out of the dust from the earth.

And Job too, indeed, says both these things:

'Thy hands fashioned me and made me.'

If he uses this expression in its proper sense, the inner man would be 'made,' while the outer is 'fashioned.'

'Remember that thou didst fashion me as clay.'

The word 'fashioning' signifies... (a shaping).

But he who makes is able, both in power and in will, as parents, to bring into existence......

In the passages read before, we were saying that 'to come to be' differs from 'to be created'......

so too 'to fashion' is not altogether the same thing.

He does not say that all hearts have been fashioned by God together, but individually.

The hearts of... were fashioned individually.

for heart to run together with heart.

They differ altogether, and......

though many possess them, they possess them with a certain difference.

This, at any rate, he also says in Proverbs:

'Just as faces are not alike to faces, so neither are the hearts of men alike.'

It is difficult, then, to find two faces alike.

Even if the tale of Pollux and Castor be told, yet it goes only so far as a myth.

They say that the two hemispheres are signified by these two names.

Wherefore they say that these live day by day in alternation:

for the hemispheres are thus:

when the one semicircle comes to be beneath the earth, the other comes to be above the earth......

because the semicircles are indistinguishable in their likeness.

Let us grant, however, that such men have indeed come to be......

It is difficult, then, for face to run together with face in likeness......

As, then, faces are not alike to faces, so neither are the hearts of men alike.

In any case, no one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him.

If no one knows the things of a man except the spirit within him, the things of men have each been fashioned individually.

By 'moulding' here he means, as it were, the blending and ...

For I said that they are not subject to the more sensible kind of moulding, as is potter's clay ...

the hearts; he knows all their works.

For since one properly knows works if from the ...

We have said on another occasion too that he who applies his mind to mechanical works ...

you are able to judge whether the parts of the clock are well made or not.

Therefore one heart does not keep pace with another heart.

Wherefore he alone is called the one who knows the hearts of all, according to the prayer sent up by the apostles, when the disciples were making a choice ...

No one else is able to search out the heart of man.

Wherefore he is not able to distinguish one heart from another.

he who understands the mind of men

even if another were standing by ...

He moulds the hearts one by one, apart.

The word 'moulding' does not signify the fashioning of the heart ...

For indeed the elders who approve of its excellence, which it ...

Good is the moulding of your heart.

They do not say that the substance of the heart is good, but the moulding, according to which it acted with skilful generalship.

It came to be, he says, unto good ...

But it is possible, according to a second interpretation, to say that the moulding of the heart is then good, when it abhors vice or ignorance, when it is kept just as it came to be in the beginning.

The man who came to be according to the image and likeness of God is not said to have been moulded, but to have been made.

But the man who came to be out of clay and matter is said to be a moulded work of God:

Remember that you moulded me out of clay.

And of both the operative powers of God it is said:

Your hands moulded me and made me.

to give form to the heart ...

... is a moulding of the heart, not the bringing of it into existence.

The first making of our hearts had no difference:

wherefore it was not then said that each heart was moulded singly, apart.

There was no difference among them from one another.

Here this is said after the descent.

the 'one heart and one soul' of the disciples? According to this, of those who believe according to being of one mind:

For do we not take it as wholes out of wholes?

so that the state of moulding will at some point cease? — namely the moulding that is singular and apart, since this too took its beginning from us.

And it took its beginning from us and will attain its end, when it comes to pass that, just as the Father and the Son are one, so too all rational beings.

I will that they be in him, that just as I and you are one, Father, so we all may be one.

Does 'a thing made' differ from 'a creature'? — It differs.

'To make' signifies a coming-into-substance out of what did not exist, not a giving of form:

but the word 'creation' indicates also a certain ordering of what has come to be.

The word 'creation' extends even to inanimate things:

making peace and creating evils.

And on the ready surface of it we say this:

being the provider of all things, he both gives them peace and creates the evils.

And by another line of thought the saying was made clear to us thus:

he creates evils, as the unclean creation, that it may no longer be unclean; he creates it that it may become clean, and he creates the two into one new man in himself.

he creates the evils, that they may no longer be evils:

for instance, he creates the evil men, that they may no longer be evil.

the quality? — the, as it were, quality:

In the case of the thing made he did not say it was 'unto good works,' but 'unto being.'

But they are created unto good works, that they may do good works.

so that the moulding may be from the quality? — thus, as it is a form:

for the substance of the heart was moulded.

But the word 'creation' also extends to sensible things:

and having created the world out of formless matter.

upon rational beings by way of parallel? — yes, upon rational beings universally.

it is found extending also to the irrational souls.

he who understands all their works

He understands their works, since he knows the heart; but the beginnings of the works that come to pass are taken from perception.

Among us many welcome men out of what they possess; and some, becoming imitators of God, do so for no other reason than that it is a good thing to give rather than to receive:

for giving makes one like God, but receiving does not:

for each of those who receive is receptive of something.

but he is one who bestows; and this is what it means to say that it is good to give rather than to receive.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

There is a certain lesser degree of progress:

Another shows mercy out of fellow-feeling, taking care lest, being human himself, he fall into such straits.

In this way, at any rate, Christians also nourish those in prisons out of fellow-feeling.

Others again, having sometimes seen a man laid low by disease, pity him because of his being afflicted.

And yet others do this even in the hunt for glory, that they may be glorified.

But each of these, not being perfect, admits of the more and the less:

for the perfect alone is that which does not admit of the more and the less, the right hand and the left.

and each of these has an infinite range of difference.

But the 'more' and the 'less' are taken not only with respect to intensity, but also with respect to time.

This infinitude, therefore, is comprehended by God alone.

He alone knows this.

For this reason He knows the heart of each one.

And it is difficult, perhaps, to find one heart precisely identical to another heart.

We, then, do these things which we have mentioned out of vainglory, or out of favouritism.

But to receive the saints hospitably is another thing.

It is not, therefore, called almsgiving in the case of the saints;

for when we share in the needs of the saints,

the one who gives to a saint ought rather to reckon that he receives substance, than that he gives.

A king is not saved by great power.

And in the literal sense this is true.

Many who had great power and a large host of soldiers were captured, and by no means does the multitude of soldiers save the king.

Pharaoh went forth with a great force to pursue the Hebrews, and he was not saved by his great power;

for the chariots of Pharaoh and his host He cast into the sea.

And we find also in the other narratives of the Scriptures that few have often prevailed over many.

And in a general way it was said to the Hebrews by way of prophecy:

'One of you shall pursue a thousand, and two shall put ten thousand to flight, and because of the voice of five shall many flee.'

The historical sense, therefore, holds good.

And the anagogical interpretation too has much coherence;

for many who seem to have an equipment of arguments and a well-drilled power stumble, and are refuted by the truth itself, and in this respect we say that:

even if someone boasts of a kingdom on account of some other preparation, or some other cleverness, or through those who champion him, he is by no means saved in this great power.

It is also possible to understand it thus:

since there are certain kings in the allegorical sense, as were the Corinthians, concerning whom he says that they reigned—and Abraham too was a king from God—the one who has given himself, out of his own power, so to reign, and has not awaited the God who shows mercy, is not saved in his own power;

just as neither does a guarded city remain unharmed without the cooperation of God, nor does the house that is being built come to completion unless the Architect of all things takes part.

And a giant shall not be saved by the abundance of his strength.

resting on something other, or on his full armour and his own strength and greatness.

For the one who armed himself with the name of the Lord took him and cast him down.

And indeed we find many great ones brought down in the Scriptures, because they thought great things of themselves.

Amalek was equipped for war and seemed to be stronger than Israel;

for Israel was not at all well-prepared for warfare, and yet when Moses raised his hands, Amalek was worn down and brought low, and the lifting up of the hands prevailed over him, and he was not saved by his own strength.

If any warrior against God, having lofty things exalted against the knowledge of God, rests upon the strength he possesses and swaggers, he is by no means saved.

At times the one wise in God confutes him and casts him down from the arrogance he has.

A horse is a false hope for safety.