Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 18/34

For this reason they are free.

The word, then, is addressed to those others who are such:

'They will by no means speak the truth.'

Concerning those who do not speak the truth the word is that:

'he has not stood in the truth.'

He who has not stood in the truth was at some time within it.

For we never say of anyone that he does not stand fast in a craft, unless he had experience in that craft, or in many crafts, and passes from some to others.

If he had never come to be in the truth, his not standing in it would bring him no blame.

How does he will that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth? If no one withstands his will, how is it that, since he wills all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, some—not to say the greater part—fall short? When, he willing it, we too are willing, and a concurrence of the two purposes comes about, then salvation comes to pass;

for no one is good against his will, no one is saved without willing it, no one who does not press on toward drawing near to God and keeping his law is able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

For this reason the Saviour also says in the Gospel:

'If anyone wills to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'

So far as pertains to the Saviour, he wills the man to do this, but he does not compel; he moves the free choice, he arouses the will.

'If anyone, then, wills to come after me'—if anyone wills to follow me (for that is what 'to come after me' signifies)—'let him take up his own cross;'

let him be crucified to the world, let him put to death his members that are upon the earth, let him become inoperative toward the world.

The one who has been crucified has his feet hindered from walking wherever he wishes, and his hands from doing what he wills.

Whenever, then, someone is crucified to the world and no longer walks according to it nor does its works, then to this man the world too is crucified—crucified to him who has been crucified—so that the world too may be inoperative against him, neither walking against him nor working the things that harm him.

'If anyone, then, wills to come after me.'

Virtue, when it is spoken of as continuous, is virtue and is perfection, not as in the case of the other kinds of action.

Thus, indeed, the Apostle also writes:

'Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks.'

He who always rejoices always possesses virtue;

for he rejoices at nothing else than at being approved in pleasing God.

'Desiring to see good days.'

'To see' here signifies 'to experience'; and to experience good days is to enjoy them.

Keep your tongue from evil.

Attend to your speech, put it to the test, and resolve to have speech that is beyond reproach;

as the Apostle writes to Titus, that one should have sound speech that is beyond reproach.

He who has speech beyond reproach fulfills also many other of the commandments of Jesus.

It is impossible for one who does not have speech beyond reproach to keep this word:

Let your 'yes' be 'yes' and your 'no' be 'no.'

For one who is not believed is at times required to swear an oath.

But if he never has speech that has been condemned, so that no one ever doubts him—since he already tells the truth, whether it be 'no,' or in accord with what he says and does—then when he is required to swear an oath, and his 'yes' is 'yes' and his 'no' is 'no,' such a man's speech is indeed beyond reproach.

And again, he who expounds the doctrines of the truth and demonstrates them with sure knowledge also has speech concerning them that is beyond reproach;

no one is able to convict him of having lied, of thinking wrongly, or of being outside the truth.

Turn away from evil and do good.

If you happen to be in evil, if you have been fashioned by it and act in accordance with it, then—since I call you to the doing of good—turn away from evil.

It is impossible to be outside both.

Let infants now be excepted.

He who is not in the good is in evil; he who is outside of evil partakes of the good.

Turn away, therefore, from evil.

And this turning away is a matter of free choice;

for he gives a command and offers counsel.

But no one commands or counsels one who has no power of choice.

I call you to do the good.

But you cannot do it, nor act in accordance with it, in any other way, unless you depart from evil.

So indeed it is said also in Isaiah:

Cease from your wickednesses, learn to do good;

for as long as one is engaged in acting out his own wickednesses—that is, his vices—he can learn nothing of doing good.

And again the divinely-inspired Apostle writes:

Test all things; hold fast what is good; abstain from every form of evil.

Turn away, therefore, from evil, and do good.

It does not suffice to turn away from evil, unless one also does the good;

for it is possible to turn away from evil while being held back by fear of the punishment that leads to it, yet such a one does not do the good by free choice;

for if you take away the voluntary from the good, it is no longer good at all.

Seek peace and pursue it.

Evil is a thing that brings confusion and works turmoil in the soul;

for the genus of vice possesses much variety.

Some of the vices arise by way of deficiency, others by way of excess—as cowardice and rashness, as superstition and impiety.

Pursue after peace itself;

for to 'pursue' in this manner does not mean to drive it away.

You have it also in the Proverbs:

'Those who pursue righteousness he loves'—God, that is—that is to say, those who pursue after it.

And the righteousness that is pursued is the whole of virtue.

The wicked will seek me and will not find me.

The wicked seek wisdom—so far as it lies in them—wishing to hide it and to make it disappear.

But those who are eager to become wise do not seek wisdom in this way; rather, they pursue after it.

And I say this, since you love matters of exposition:

Herod sought Jesus in order to kill him.

Often the Jews sought him, in order to kill him.

But the disciples sought him in order to be benefited, in order to partake of him.

The crowds seek you, wishing to see you;

for they wished to believe, and to see wondrous works, and to hear his words, and to obtain healings.

The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous.

Again, much exhortation, much instruction.

The eyes of God are ready to see and to save, and he keeps his ears ready to hearken.

Turn away, therefore, from evil and do good, and seek peace and pursue it;

for straightway you will have God as your overseer.

Only will to be righteous, to pursue righteousness, and you have the eyes of God resting upon you and his ears ready to receive the prayers that you make to him.

And his ears are unto their supplication.

It has often been said that the things spoken of God in human terms must not be taken according to the literal wording, as the Anthropomorphites suppose;

for they want there to be even a human face belonging to God, and they say that the man made according to the image and likeness of God came to be so with respect to the structure of the body.

But such a notion has been overturned by wise men:

If man is according to the image of God in this respect, that he bodily imitates God and his body bears a likeness to God, then how is God said to have wings?

'In the shelter of your wings you will shelter me'? Man, then, is a wingless creature, so that he is not according to the image and likeness of God with respect to the body.

But if you understand what the wings of God are, you will see that man too has such intelligible wings, which lift him aloft.

Since they take everything according to the literal sense, man, having two eyes, would not be according to the image and likeness of him who has seven; so that those things spoken of God, when raised up, lead away from the things of sense, while the things concerning man, when led away from the things of sense, preserve the likeness to God.

But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

This means that those who do evil are not righteous;

and not being righteous, they are neither watched over by God nor heard by him.

Yet they do not remain wholly without any perception of him;

for when they fall into certain distresses and come to the awareness that they have come into these because of the evils they do and think, they receive an impression of him.

Indeed, Moses too, when Pharaoh and all his army were in pursuit, spoke, having heard from God that:

I will be glorified in Pharaoh and in all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.

For how did they come to know? Surely it was when, sunk beneath the waters and no longer able to escape, they received an impression of God.

And it is written also in the Psalms that:

'Let them be ashamed and confounded, and let them perish; and let them know that Your name is Lord.'

After being destroyed, after being put to shame, they came to know God; and this is what it means for Him to be made manifest and to have His face set against those who do evil.

'But You turned away Your face, and I became troubled.' — Elsewhere it is otherwise stated:

The turning away of the face is spoken not with respect to those who do evil, but with respect to those who have it appearing to them.

Being troubled but a little, they seemed to come to be outside the face;

they took perception that something unpleasant had befallen them.

But the turning away of the face happened here for the purpose of rousing those who formerly beheld it and did not have it turned away, so that they might attain to Him.

But in the case of those who do evil, this is not the reason; rather it is so that they may perceive that they have been condemned by the providence of God, and that by the providence of God they are amid grievous things.

And indeed this too comes about unto a good end:

'to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.'

Not their remembrance utterly, but from the earth, so that they may no longer be reckoned earth, no longer be mindful of earthly things.

As when we say that someone has driven this man out of the region where there are many fornications;

for surely it is no curse that took him thence and set him among things contrary to those.

'The righteous cried, and the Lord heard them.'

And rightly so, since He has His ears toward them; crying out, they obtained His hearkening.

Take heed: two things are spoken, one praiseworthy and one blameworthy;

praiseworthy is it that the eyes and ears of the Lord are toward the righteous, but punitive is the face of the Lord that cuts off the remembrance from the earth;

for even if the end is better, yet it comes about through hardship, as health comes through cauteries and surgeries and most bitter potions.

So with respect to the other, that which takes precedence, He speaks.

Since the ears of God are toward the supplication of the righteous and His eyes watch over them, when they cried they did not fail;

'The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,' as He says in what follows:

'But the death of sinners is evil.'

Not every death is evil, but that of sinners.

But the discourse now is not about the common death;

for that death is of the living creature, not of a moral quality, not of a sinner, not of a righteous person.

Yet even if you take the common death, when a man dies as a sinner he has an evil death — for punishment succeeds him — and if you take the other, which truly corresponds to the sinner: sin, he says, when it is fully wrought, brings forth death.

And sin is wrought not outside those who do it, but within the men who do it.

Therefore the death that follows upon them is evil.

And according to the former meaning we say the death is evil, being productive of evil, harmful;

but here we call it evil according to the second interpretation, because it is outside of goodness.

The grammarians, then, read 'evil' (ponēron) as that which is harmful.

'And all the evil diseases of Egypt I will not bring upon you' — the painful plagues which the Egyptians endured according to the history.

'Abstain from every form of evil' — we do not mean this 'evil,' the painful kind;

for indeed it is not in our power to abstain from these.

They are sent by God; without our willing it, these come upon us on account of preceding wickedness.

'But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil,' then it is added:

'the death of sinners is evil';

for they have both the punishment and the wickedness that drags them down from the blessed life, which is equal to vice.

'Put away the wickednesses from your souls, from before My eyes.'

Since He named the wickednesses of souls, and these are seen by none other than God, He says that:

Do not feign a putting away of the wickednesses from your souls before My eyes, as though I saw only, and not from the opposite side as well.

It is equivalent to what is said by the Saviour, that one must do one's almsgiving in secret, so that the Father who sees in secret may reward.

'And out of all their afflictions He delivered them.'

And in other verses of the psalm it was said that to be delivered from all afflictions does not signify a bringing outside of being afflicted, since the saints were never so heard as to make Paul say:

'The Lord is near to those who are broken in heart, and He will save the humble in spirit.'

Just as the dialecticians and demonstrators say, that from things manifest one must establish and demonstrate the things not manifest;

for it is impossible for unknown things to be made known from things equally unknown, and much more from things more unknown.

From things manifest, therefore, the things not manifest are made known, and from things known the things unknown.

Let us now consider another, clearer passage of Scripture, so that we may take also a right understanding and knowledge of the one before us.

It is said, then, in Proverbs:

'Before ruin the heart of a man is exalted, but before glory it is humbled.'

The proud man, not being broken, is not humbled;

but being broken by the labours undertaken for freedom from vainglory, he is exalted.

'Before ruin the heart of a man is exalted.'

The proud man hears words against pride, and sometimes takes experience of afflictions, because he is puffed up.

If you fall under this breaking, which is brought upon you for the better through the labours undertaken for humility, the heart is not exalted.

Let me put it thus: even before the scourgings it has an exalted heart.

So whenever a man falls under grievous things, he recognizes that on account of his own pride he has fallen under things not of his own wishing.

'Capernaum, you who are exalted unto heaven shall be brought down unto Hades.'

And ruin is this being brought down unto Hades.

Before this ruin she was proud.

One must first be humbled willingly, in order to attain glory;

for glory comes second, after freedom from vainglory.

For this reason too the Saviour said that:

'He who humbles himself shall be exalted.'

And observe: 'everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled,' shall be broken here.

Before this breaking he has an exalted heart, boastful, proud.

Again it brings glory to him who humbles himself, that he may be freed from vainglory.

Before this glory one must be humbled, one must labour, in order to receive a reward.

He receives glory, therefore, from God for his freedom from vanity.

So it is, then, that Peter also exhorts, saying:

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that you may be exalted in due time.

God is the one who raises the humble to exaltation.

But by those who are here 'broken in heart' he does not mean those who have been injured in the heart.

Sometimes the term 'brokenness' signifies something like this: not having sound reasonings, not having one's thoughts unperverted.

This brokenness of heart requires a physician—a physician who heals what is hidden.

The Lord builds up Jerusalem and gathers together the dispersed of Israel; He heals those broken in heart.

These were broken like wounded men.

So it is, then, with the one who went down from Jerusalem, that is, to Jericho—that is, to the region concerning the earth and to that manner of life called 'Jericho' on account of the interpretation of the name; for 'Jericho' is interpreted 'moon.'

The foolish man is said to change like the moon—like the moon whose light does not increase but wanes.

But the bride, hymned in the Song of Songs, as she looks forth becomes fair as the morning, choice as the moon.

This change is toward the better, toward being made perfect.

For the moon changes in both directions.

Changing from the crescent shape, it comes to the full brightness.

And there are four transitions in the advances of its waxing: crescent, half, gibbous, full.

And again, from the full it comes to the gibbous, and from the gibbous to the half, from the half to the crescent.

So it is, then, that the bride of the Word looks forth as the morning—the perfect soul, the Church that has been adorned as a bride for Him.

And she is changed so as to become fair, choice as the full moon.

And from the lunar light she passes to the solar, that prophecy being fulfilled which says:

The moon shall be as the sun.

One will therefore be broken in heart whenever he is filled with broken reasonings, with thoughts alien to the sound truth.

Of these brokennesses the Savior becomes the physician.

For He is the one who heals those broken in heart and binds up their fractures, binding up their wounds.

And I take an illustration:

Often someone is bruised while contending in a contest by his adversary, and yet obtains the crown.

Surely these bruises bring him no reproach.

But whenever he is broken by wild beasts or robbers, we hold him to blame—I do not speak according to the literal narrative,

for it is possible to suffer this through ignorance—but rather this:

Why were you where the wild beasts are, or why did you draw near to the robbers, the spiritual hosts of wickedness? And He will save the humble in spirit.

By 'spirit' he here means the disposition of mind.

This is equivalent to what is said in the Beatitudes of the Gospel:

Blessed are the poor in spirit—the poor in disposition.

These are they who through right reason attain to freedom from vanity, who have heard the Savior saying:

Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.

And disposition and heart are the same thing.

Just as, therefore, the Savior is lowly in heart, so also those who learn this from Him become humble in disposition.

And these are the poor in spirit, who do not wish to be rich in arrogance.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, and out of all their afflictions He will deliver them.

It has already been said to us many times that out of all of them He delivers them.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous.

I said that they last throughout life and until the final breath.

The Lord keeps all their bones.

If they are delivered out of all their afflictions so as not to succumb and be broken, then all their vigorous powers, called 'bones,' are kept by God.

It was also said before this that the powers of the soul are called its bones.

For they hold together the whole soul, just as the perceptible bones hold together the whole body.

It would be impossible for the flesh or the other parts to stand.

The bones are that which hold together the members of the body.

And the vigorous powers of the soul—such as the faculty of memory, or of contemplation, or of perception of good things—whenever they are unbending and are kept perfect, they possess this from God, not by their own power.

By free choice, then, they come to the willing of this, but they are perfected in it by the cooperation of God.

Not one of them shall be broken.

If they are righteous and cried out to God and were delivered out of all their afflictions, not one of their bones shall be broken—that is, not one power.

And that I may begin from the more perceptible powers:

There is a certain power of sight.

When one does not look so as to lust after the beauty of women, nor is overcome by the beauty of desire, this bone is not broken by the Lord, but is kept by Him unharmed.

When, looking up to heaven, one sees the sun and the moon and does not worship or serve them, but from the visible creation apprehends the One who has made all things, and by proportional reflection from the greatness and beauty of His creatures, then this bone that pertains to sight is made strong.

So that I take it in a more perceptual sense: when one does not admit an empty report, but judges by what arguments he should be persuaded and by which not, to which he should assent and from which he should turn away—'Incline your ear to the words of the wise, and do not receive an empty report'—this man too keeps his bone, the hearing, the sense of the ears, unbroken and sound.

The death of sinners is evil, and those who hate the righteous shall trespass.

The bones of the righteous are kept by the Lord, and not one of them is broken; but the death of sinners is evil.

It has already been said to us that 'evil' is spoken of in two senses.

But if the death that drags one down from the blessed life follows upon sin, according to the saying:

Sin, when it is fully accomplished, brings forth death—this death is evil.

Again, since, being released from life, they are delivered over to punishment, they have died again in order to be punished.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His holy ones.

For how is it possible for this death to be evil, or the death that is planted together with the death of Christ to be evil? 'For if,' he says, 'we have become planted together in the likeness of His death, then also in that of His resurrection.'

If we died together with Him, we shall also live together with Him.

And those who hate the righteous shall trespass.

The sinner, if he takes on an intensification of sin, hates the righteous man.

And in hating the righteous man, he hates virtue.

The sinners, then, hate the righteous man not insofar as he is a man—for they do not hate sinners—but insofar as he is righteous.

But he who hates a physician insofar as he is a physician, hates the art of healing itself.

For this reason they shall transgress, and they shall be chastised.

The Lord shall redeem the souls of his servants.

Even if wicked death lays hold of sinners, and among those who hate the righteous man transgression shall arise, yet he redeems the good souls of his servants.

He redeems their souls from the grievous troubles that had earlier taken hold and prevailed over them.

Again you may take it in either sense.

He redeems both from chastisement and from sin.

And none of those who hope in him shall transgress.

All those who hope in God shall not transgress in the way that those who hate the righteous man transgress.

For if in the case of those who hate the righteous man 'transgression' signifies punishment and chastisement, then 'not to transgress,' in the case of those who hope in the Lord, means not to be chastised, not to be punished, not to fall under the things that bring pain.

Judge, O Lord, those who wrong me; fight against those who fight against me.

No one asks God to become his judge while harboring the reasonings of one who is himself doing wrong.

This is the voice not of one who does wrong, but of one who is wronged—of one who has chosen rather to be wronged than to do wrong.

And it is not that one chooses being wronged outright; but when doing wrong and being wronged are both set before him—if he cannot have both (for indeed he cannot)—he chooses rather to be wronged than to do wrong.

For the one who does wrong incurs punishment, and the unrighteous cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

But it is not possible for the one who is wronged to undergo these things.

Yet let us grant that, even though he cannot come to his own defense, he nevertheless does not torment himself because he is unable to take vengeance; nor, when considering what has befallen him, does he brood, for the one who is wronged is rather worthy of sympathy and has many who pity him.

But the unrighteous man, even if no one chastises him, is deserving of chastisement.

And this very thing—the covering up of his wrongdoing and the wish to defend himself as though he did no wrong—is itself his punishment.

His own conscience condemns him.

But great is the boldness of him who speaks the psalm:

Judge, O Lord, those who wrong me; fight against those who fight against me.

And with those who hate peace I am peaceable.

I am persuaded by the Holy Spirit, who says:

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

Say to those who hate you, 'You are our brethren,' that the name of the Lord may be glorified; but they shall be put to shame.

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

Say to those who hate you, 'You are our brethren'—that we may say it in deed, and not merely in word.

For those who say 'Lord Jesus' with the voice alone hear:

'Lord, Lord, why do you not do the things I say?' But he who says 'Lord Jesus' in the Holy Spirit, by participation in the Holy Spirit, through the things he does and understands, cries 'Lord Jesus' according to the Spirit.

Say then, brethren, to those who hate you.

Let those men hate; but you, call them brethren in deed, not by profession alone, but perform toward them the things that ought to be done for brethren.

For in this way the name of the Lord is glorified.

For it is recognized that one does these things for God's sake.

For as far as being hated is concerned, he did not call those who hate them 'brethren.'

And they themselves shall be put to shame.

For being put to shame, they are not utterly worn down.

The holy man, therefore, fights against no one.

But when he is fought against, he is eager not to retaliate, but rather to suffer no harm; and, so to speak, being compelled and by the very evidence of it—that he uses a weapon only, and a shielding sword rather than an avenging one—he does not use one able to wound and retaliate in turn.

Fight against those who fight against me.

They were still engaged in wronging him and in fighting against him.

In order, then, that they may no longer wrong him nor fight against him, he asks God as an ally—not that he may wrong them, not that he may fight against them, but that he himself may remain unharmed while being wronged and fought against.

And the nature of the rational being, if it does not suffer perversion, has this as its own peculiar property.

Fight, then; hinder them from wrapping me about with destruction.

Take hold of weapon and shield, and rise up to my help.

The shield of God quenches the fiery darts of the enemy, of the evil one.

Take hold, then, of this shield; put it about me.

Do you yourself fence yourself about with the shield.

...it, so as to make me secure.

The weapon and the shield may be understood as parallel to one another.

But perhaps they also signify different kinds of weapons.

He may be praying that the Incarnation may come to pass.

For when he takes hold of the man who is able to make us secure and to fight on our behalf, he has taken hold of weapon and shield and has risen up to our help.

He rose up from the bosom of the Father, that bowing the heavens he might come down, that he might be seen as our champion.

For he came not to fight for himself, but to fight on our behalf; and he came not simply to suffer, but to suffer on our behalf.

By the grace of God he came to taste death on behalf of all.

We were all under death; our whole race was mortal.

And what is mortal is subject to death.

Of him, then, who suffered on behalf of so many, one may say that he tasted death.

And that he did not swallow down the whole vortex of death—for this seems fitting—thus there was made clear to me also the saying in Isaiah:

By his stripe we were all healed.

And by his 'stripe' he means the cross.

As far as the nature of the cross and the magnitude of the suffering are concerned, it is no mere stripe.

But to him it is a stripe—in relation to him it is a stripe—not harming the one who bears it, but benefiting those for whose sake he bore the stripe.

So also by the grace of God he tastes death.

Indeed, at any rate, having come to be in death, he loosed death.

And the Savior's suffering is again the loosing of the sufferings; for having come to be amid the sufferings, he loosed them, and was not mastered by them.

For having come to be amid the sufferings, he loosed them, and was not overpowered by them.

And just as, becoming a curse, he looses the curse so as to bestow a blessing in its place—and we say that he came to be under a curse, not that he might suffer anything, but that he might loose the curse and hold out a blessing in its place—

Did he not make him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him? Sin comes to be, making those who possess righteousness to be righteousness itself.

It is not called simply 'sin,' but 'sin' in order to make those who were formerly held fast under sin into righteousness — not righteousness in a general sense, but the righteousness of God.

That those who have partaken are named after the very quality they possess indicates an intensification of the participation in that quality.

They possess the quality of the righteousness of God.

It so prevailed and mastered them that they were called not merely 'righteous,' but 'righteousness' itself.

And in many places of Scripture you will find such expressions.

See the greatness of love!

By these two names the same substance is signified: God and love.