Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 22/34

If he sins in the moral sphere—being licentious, wrathful, acting unjustly—his words have lawlessness;

but if he holds false opinions, his words have deceit;

for he acts deceitfully, so that the impiety of his words may not become apparent and be trampled underfoot, and someone turn away from them.

Did he not say 'transgression' (paranomia)?—Transgression is indeed lawlessness (anomia), but lawlessness is not in every case transgression.

If a thing is done contrary to the law, the one who performs it comes to be outside the law: it is lawlessness.

But if, having received the law, he transgresses, he acts against the law: it is transgression.

Transgression, then, is also lawlessness, but lawlessness is not in every case transgression.

The one who acts against the law and does things opposed to the law is judged from his settled disposition, so far as concerns the deeds.

If, however, we consider the disposition of the one acting: he who has received the law and yet does not act according to it, transgresses.

But if, again, he has no experience of a law—I mean a written law—he only acts lawlessly.

As many, he says, as have sinned within the law;

those who sin within the law are transgressors.

Those who have not had a law sin lawlessly.

Nevertheless, the thing done is one and the same.

From the deliberate choice and disposition of the one acting I take the difference, so that it is called sometimes lawlessness, sometimes transgression.

He was not willing to understand so as to do good.

So that no one may suppose that it is nature which distinguishes the servant of God from the transgressor, and the diligent man from the base, he has assigned both to deliberate choice, and says that a man is either evil or diligent by his own will;

but another wishes to understand so as to do good.

The diligent man wishes precisely this, to do good things.

Again, the one who is not among these has come to be outside them by his own will.

The passage therefore establishes free will and the self-governing and free character of deliberate choice, in that no one is a transgressor by constitution, and no one is good in his very essence;

for we human beings are all of one and the same essence.

It is according to our own choosing or shunning that we are either base or diligent.

He devised lawlessness upon his bed.

This means that not only when he goes forth and acts does he work lawless deeds, but even while stretched out upon his bed he devises lawlessness—whereas he ought to imitate that man who is called blessed, who meditates day and night upon the law of the Lord;

but rather, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.

He who meditates day and night upon the law of the Lord does not devise lawlessness upon his bed, but the law.

It was said by the hierophant Moses in the person of God:

And all these words which I command you today shall be in your heart and in your soul;

as you walk on the way, as you lie down, as you rise up.

If a man speaks the words of God even as he lies down, he does not devise lawlessness upon his bed.

Even if the soul is in the body, yet it meditates on already coming to be outside it, buffeting the body and bringing it into servitude.

Thus indeed it is said concerning those who are of such a disposition:

Although they had flesh, yet they were not in the mind of the flesh.

And further: the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God;

and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

If he is speaking about this present flesh, then all the saints, being in it, pleased God.

But it consists in this mindset — to be minded according to the flesh, to be wholly dependent upon the flesh, and so at last to become carnal.

And who is it that becomes carnal, if not the one who sells himself to sin? For it is said: 'I am carnal, sold under sin.'

'He devised iniquity upon his bed.'

As though upon a bed, he reckoned iniquity in his body.

But he ought, while lying upon this bed, to have lamented and pitied himself, because in his very reasoning there is transgression, so as to cry out:

'With my tears will I water my couch.'

But he who repents does not reckon iniquity.

And concerning others it has been said in Micah the prophet:

'He became one who devised evils upon his bed, and together with the day he brought them to accomplishment.'

Often in the night they deliberate about transgressions, and together with the day they bring them to accomplishment.

But rather, even if at some time upon the bed a transgression has occurred, one ought to be pierced with compunction;

for this is what the word commands:

'Be angry, and sin not;'

'the things you say in your hearts, upon your beds be pierced with compunction.'

For if you are pierced with compunction, the devil finds no place.

'He stood in every way that is not good, and abhorred not evil.'

He turned aside from every good way.

At all events, the apostle says to Elymas the magician:

'Wilt thou not cease to pervert the straight ways of the Lord?' They are straight and good.

And the virtues are called straight because they are means between extremes;

for in what is straight there is no deviation.

God knows the ways that are on the right hand, but crooked are those on the left.

And it is well put to say 'not good';

for what is not good is not altogether evil.

It is impossible for anyone to stand in every evil way, since there are contrarieties even within vice.

The coward cannot also be rash, nor the impious man superstitious.

So then these things are not good.

In their negation they are the same, but in their affirmation they are not the same.

'O Lord, in the heaven is thy mercy, and thy truth reaches unto the clouds.'

We speak of those who dwell upon the earth according to their mindset, those who mind earthly things, whom God the Word accuses through the prophet Jeremiah, saying:

You have made deep your dwelling in the earth — were it possible, you would even wish to be below the earth — thinking of nothing exalted, having no citizenship in the heavens, not having your heart there toward those who say:

'Let us lift up our heart toward that which is on high in heaven.'

So then this too is again said concerning certain people:

'But they sought my soul in vain; they shall go into the lowest parts of the earth.'

And Moses too, in the triumphal song concerning Pharaoh and those with him, said:

'Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, and the earth swallowed them.'

And yet, according to the literal account, it was not earth that had swallowed them, but water.

'They sank straightway like lead in the mighty water.'

At any rate, whenever God stretches out his right hand against the wicked, they are swallowed up out of the earth, they become wholly earthly, they are given over to passions of dishonour, they are given over in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, to serve the creature rather than the Creator.

So then, in the heaven is his mercy;

'For thou showest mercy unto thousands of them that love thee.'

As though by a certain ladder, it ascends into heaven by mercy;

for the nature of God's mercy is not of the things below, but is above.

So then, even if at some time the goodness of God comes to be upon the earth — that is, among men — (for it is said:

'The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord') — those who receive mercy are raised up by that very mercy into heaven.

'And unto the clouds,' it says, 'is thy truth.'

One must not give heed to those who take away providence from the earth and say that it is confined only as far as the bounds of the moon, on the ground of the saying:

'Thy truth reaches unto the clouds.'

The clouds are the prophets, ministering to us the spiritual rain, from which spiritual rain God's paradise is watered — the seed that fell upon the good earth, which Jesus sowed so as to bring forth a hundredfold, and a hundred and sixty and thirty.

So then, as far as these clouds which minister the spiritual rain — concerning whom it has been said:

'Let the clouds rain down righteousness' — is the truth of God.

If there is any cloud able to pour forth spiritual rain and righteousness, that one has the truth of God.

'Thy righteousness is as the mountains of God.'

In many ways are the mountains of God interpreted according to the Scripture.

'Thou dost enlighten wondrously from the everlasting mountains.' By 'everlasting mountains' it means the saints, who look no longer at the things that are seen, which are temporal, but at the things not seen, which happen to be eternal.

These sensible mountains are not eternal.

But if the earth and the heaven pass away, then the mountains — which are outflows and portions of the earth — depart along with it, they pass away with it, so that those are not eternal.

But those who look toward the eternal things, the things not seen, the higher things, the uppermost things — they are the mountains, having the elevation of a heavenly citizenship, having the loftiness of a godly mindset.

Draw near, then, to the everlasting mountains; draw near in your disposition; take up the same lofty mindset as those.

Thy righteousness, then, is as the mountains of God.

The righteousness that is among men, whenever it grows in those who possess it, makes them like the mountains of God.

But according to another sense, one may call 'the mountains of God' all the higher things, unto which the ninety and nine sheep remained, when Jesus came to save that which had strayed from the mountains, which had fallen down thence and had come to be in wandering and persecution and death.

Draw near, then, to the everlasting mountains; draw near in your disposition; take up the same lofty mindset as those.

Thy righteousness, then, is as the mountains of God.

The righteousness that is among men, whenever it grows in those who possess it, makes them like the mountains of God.

It is possible, according to yet another sense, to call the righteousness of the Saviour who came to sojourn among us those whom he saved.

'For him who knew no sin he made to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.'

Those who have become the righteousness of God in him who became sin for us are as the mountains of God, as the angels, as the archangels;

for they have been united with the creation above.

'O Lord, in the heaven is thy mercy, and thy truth reaches unto the clouds.'

God shows mercy in one way, and human beings in another.

The mercy, then, that is done by human beings, and the benefaction shown to one's neighbour, is a human thing;

for they know how to help and to feed and to do the other things in a human manner, and this mercy is one that draws near to the earth, that is, to the things of men.

But God, in showing mercy, lifts up those who are being lifted, so as to carry them up into heaven.

'In heaven, therefore, is thy mercy.'

This also is possible, namely:

In showing mercy, thou dost not show mercy after a human manner;

for even if thou givest food to all flesh, and even if thou grantest health to the sick, yet this is a righteousness that does not touch heaven.

And that I may put it more clearly:

those things that pertain to the gift of God, given not only to the righteous but also to the base, both to rational and to irrational creatures, are not heavenly.

But those alone are of heaven and lead one on into heaven which are truly good, with a heavenward zeal.

And in another psalm thou hast:

'The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord.'

He shows mercy upon the earth by sending down that mercy which is fitted for those upon the earth;

but the mercy which he shows to thousands, to those who love mercy, is heavenly and raises one up into heaven.

It is possible here to understand 'heaven' as the rational substance, the intellectual existence;

for thus some have also taken this passage,

understanding the more corporeal existence and substance [by 'earth'], but the rational [existence] by 'heaven.'

It is said, at any rate, elsewhere also:

'The heaven of heaven belongs to the Lord.'

And 'heaven' can be, not this visible one, not only the one before our eyes, but the whole.

But the heaven that is divided into seven, the heaven of heaven, is the divine condition;

for God is said to be in heaven, not because he is in a place.

It is said, at any rate, in the Gospel:

'No one has ascended into heaven except he who came down out of heaven, the Son of Man.'

But Jesus alone came down from the true heaven, that is, from the condition befitting God, from what is, as it were, the watch-tower of God.

In fact, then, the devil too was once in heaven;

for from there he fell, together with those who blasphemed and were lifted up in pride.

'I will ascend into heaven.'

Being in heaven, how does he ascend into heaven? He was in the heaven in which there are also other divine and blessed substances.

But he received a fancy and a desire to be God,

and, imagining that he would become like the Most High, he named that likeness to the Most High 'heaven.'

God alone, then, is in that which is called heaven, not because it is a place or some body or a created thing, but a condition — as it were, the condition of God, the watch-tower of God.

He, therefore, who conceived the desire to be God, imagined a vain thing: that he was able to ascend above the clouds and to set his throne above the stars and to become like the Most High.

['I said,] I will be like the Most High' — he ought to have taken to heart that likeness to the Most High is not a thing of the future.

For he [the Most High] bears that same existence without limit; from limitless past and unto limitless future he is the same, without beginning and without end.

But he who says 'I will be' has shown that as yet he is not.

And he who is not God in this manner will never come to be so.

The matter, therefore, stopped short at mere desire for him, and he fell even from what he had;

for he was in heaven in another sense, and having said:

'I will ascend into heaven,' he fell from the heaven which he possessed.

For how did Lucifer, who rises in the morning, fall from heaven? By saying:

How did he fall? He showed that he was in heaven; but by saying:

'I will ascend into heaven and I will be,' he showed that he longed to come to be in another heaven.

Correspondingly with 'heaven,' it is fitting to understand 'the clouds' as well.

We were saying yesterday that the name of the clouds often signifies divine natures;

for when God speaks concerning Israel as being a vineyard, and that instead of grapes it brought forth thorns — instead of the fitting fruit it produced shameful lusts

(and these thorns the Saviour spoke of) — he says:

'I will command the clouds not to rain rain upon it.'

But this rain is not perceptible to the senses; whence neither are the clouds that pour out upon it.

'Let the clouds rain down righteousness.'

But righteousness flows and comes down, not from sensible clouds.

There is a certain truth which does not dwell primarily with God.

'There is a truth of Jesus in me,' as though there were another truth which is not properly called the truth of Jesus;

for all things indeed are his, and he is the Maker of all;

but his works, being objects of knowledge, have knowledge inherent in them and a truth which one is able to draw from the things known.

There is, then, a truth, say, in grammar and in geometry and in the other sciences.

He does not for the present call that the truth of Jesus — not because it too is not his;

for the objects of knowledge, in which the science and the truth reside, are his works.

Let some mechanic construct a clock.

There is assuredly, in the thing constructed, the knowledge according to which it came to be;

for having possessed mechanical knowledge, he constructed it.

And there is truth in the construction, whenever it has such proportions as make it a faultless clock.

If, therefore, someone should acquire that knowledge from that visible clock, he has come to possess the very knowledge of the one who constructed it,

the one who made it, and having come to know him through that which came into being from him.

Those who are knowledgeable [possess] the things they know, not in so far as they are already such, but in so far as they strive to be such, and they know these same things when they ascend to the very goal and end of the science.

That progress, then, which is over all things, might be called the knowledge and truth of the knowledgeable man — not because it is not of God and introductory;

for it is taken up for its own sake.

The archetype and the entire idea of truth is the Saviour.

And it is possible to partake of this truth.

He who has partaken has received a settled state called truth, concerning which the holy one said:

'There is truth in me,' and:

'I have not hidden thy truth within my heart.'

This truth has come to be through the truth, inasmuch as through the original seal there comes to be the impression made in wax or in some other material.

Take note, then, that concerning another sort of quality also—one that is, so to speak, more properly human—a certain difference is still to be found.

Quality in and of itself does not admit of the more and the less.

But that which admits and that which does not admit are not the same.

It is in a manner other and yet not other.

But if it comes to be in a habit and a disposition, then it does admit of the more and the less.

Yet it can be contemplated in and by itself.

For neither does he who wishes accurately to behold quality take it from the qualified thing itself, but rather from quality he comes to know the qualified thing as thus qualified.

'Thy judgments are a great deep.'

Among human beings much difference is to be found, both of the things that befall from without and of those that arise from their own disposition.

One may find a difference arising from external things.

Some are rich, others poor; some are rulers, others subjects; some are healthy, others sickly.

The same holds, moreover, with regard to their pursuits.

For, as it were, in soul some are by nature quick and others slow, and some are well-inclined toward virtue while others are inclined toward vice.

And of these things there is much difference.

For no human being is in perfect virtue, even if one presses on toward it and even if one makes progress in it.

But where there is the more and the less, there is much indefiniteness.

And it is well to say that virtue, admitting of the more and the less, will at some point arrive at its consummation, when the earnest man is no more earnest than another earnest man, nor the wise man wiser than another wise man.

But vice is ever in indefiniteness.

For how is it possible that there should be one consummation of vice itself, which is discordant and various? In excess and in deficiency there is indefiniteness, but in the mean some determinate consummation is grasped.

Since, then, we human beings are unable to say—even though we may not seem to have knowledge—why this man is poor and another is rich;

we often say that God, seeing that this man, upon obtaining wealth or rank, exalts himself and tramples upon all, does not give it to them; and we find such men, though they trample and rise up, possessing wealth in every respect.

Likewise also concerning health and the movements of the soul we say that their difference comes about by the judgment of God.

And that it comes about by the judgment of God, let us take the saying from the Gospel and make it plain, if it is possible for us to be led by the hand to this account:

In the Gospel the Saviour says:

'For if the mighty works that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.'

If the marvellous mighty works had been done among the Sidonians and the Tyrians, they would have been called forth to repentance.

But the cities that were mentioned, Bethsaida and Chorazin, having experienced these works—why did the marvellous mighty works come to be there, where they did not repent? It is a word resembling an abyss.

The Apostle called the judgments of God unsearchable.

No one searches them out, no one is able to grasp their depth.

But scarcely, when we attend to the things that are done and, as it were, judged, do we receive an impression that it is God who judges and who orders each thing.

But the particular reason we cannot state—why this man, for instance, is strong, and another weak.

We are unable to state the particulars.

And as I once said, that there is a cyclical course of treatment, and if someone takes each remedy by itself, he thinks he understands it, being sometimes deceived, and blames the physician.

But then he would rightly understand it, if he knew why these things happened before it and those things will follow after it, and until what point it is that health may be established.

But one ignorant of medicine cannot grasp this.

We therefore receive an impression concerning these matters in whatever measure, and we know that these judgments come about by the judgment of God.

Thy judgments, then, are not simply a deep, but a great deep.

And even the simple deep has very much depth and has an unbounded bottom, but much more so the great deep.

By the word 'great' he signifies the intensification, just as also the unsearchableness of the judgments.

In other psalms concerning this it was said:

The hymn-singer, speaking of God, said:

'The deep as a garment is his covering.'

'He made darkness his hiding-place.'

He means the obscurity and the incomprehensibility.

This darkness of obscurity, of incomprehensibility, being hidden, is also a garment resembling an abyss.

'Thou wilt save men and beasts, O Lord.'

He saves men and beasts.

And even if we take 'beasts' according to the plain sense, we also take the men who are in sense-perception.

But he governs all things, both the rational and the irrational living creatures—the rational for their own sakes, but the irrational as having come into being for the sake of the rational;

for the irrational fulfil the needs of the rational.

Some bear burdens for them, others draw the plough, and others in other ways provide service.

Then, since these too are able to fall under harm and death, he saves these also.

'Men, therefore, and beasts thou wilt save, O Lord.'

Again the same unsearchableness of the judgments is found in these matters too, that he saves all men indeed, but in differing ways—some after much affliction, others after a certain repose and pleasure.

But if he means that men are saved with the true salvation, and prays concerning that of which it has been said, that the Saviour became to all who obey the cause of eternal salvation—with a view to which signification the holy one said:

'Our God is a God of saving'—then here 'the beasts' must be understood allegorically;

for of those who have come to godliness and to the very teaching of the Gospel, some are called disciples, others sheep;

'My sheep hear my voice.'

Now the voice is the ready, surface rendering of the Scriptures, that which reaches and knocks upon the soul and its hearing, but not indeed upon the mind.

So then his sheep hear the voice of Jesus as of the best and true shepherd.

'The Lord and the Teacher, and ye say well;

for I am, I am truly a teacher.

For ye serve me by keeping my laws'—these are not sheep, but disciples, disciples of wisdom, disciples of the truth.

But the sheep are a shepherd's sheep.

But there is another, condescending conception of the Saviour, namely his being a shepherd.

And since he wills to save and to better all, and salvation and betterment are then accomplished when it is according to the capacity of the one able to be benefited with respect to what he is able to receive, he calls some, up to his voice, mere hearers, but others hearers of his word, of his teaching.

He saves, then, both the men so called and the beasts.

And He saves the sheep as well, so that they may no longer be sheep, but that out of sheep they may become men.

This, at any rate, is what the twenty-second Psalm hints at:

'The Lord,' it says, 'shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing.'

'In a place of green pasture, there He has made me to dwell; by the water of rest He has nourished me.'

He reports with thanksgiving the benefits that have come to him from the Shepherd.

And a little later he adds:

'You have prepared a table before me.'

But after the advancement afforded by the table, he also partakes of a cup, from which Wisdom, who has mingled her own wine, pledges a draught.

It is your cup, if you pledge it to me; but it is my cup, if you have measured out to me what I am able to drink.

'How you have multiplied your mercy, O God.'

By the mercy of God even human beings are saved.

But then the mercy of God is multiplied and His bountifulness is made manifest, when He saves the beasts as well.

It is as though, speaking of a perfect teacher, you were to say that his goodness is recognized when he instructs wise and perfect hearers;

but his goodness is multiplied when he also condescends to the foolish and endeavors to lead them up into a greater condition.

So then, at once, the teacher of Christianity is a debtor to the wise and to the foolish, to Greeks and to barbarians.

He is a debtor not only to the wise, but also to the foolish.

And to the wise he speaks wisdom among the perfect; but to the foolish he does not speak wisdom, rather he sets before them those lessons which draw them away from foolishness, so that, being no longer foolish, they may thereafter receive wisdom.

Again, to Greeks—that is, to those who possess a precise and Hellenic mind, able to follow along—he speaks as to Greeks.

But to those who are barbarous in soul, he says those things which draw them away from the barbarian nation, from such a mindset that is more savage.

'But the sons of men shall hope in the shelter of your wings.'

The sons of these men.

If, then, in accordance with the former interpretation, 'men' be understood as the mortal rational living beings and 'beasts' as those that serve them, the sons of these men have their hope in the shelter of the wings of God.

These wings are intelligible ones, lifting the mind on high.

'Who will give me wings like a dove's?'—we do not so understand it as though he were praying that the wings of a sensible creature be given to him;

for of things impossible there is neither desire nor prayer.

'As an eagle yearns over its nestlings.'

Then they were given wings; they were able to be taken up upon the shoulders of God.

But what is it that lies within our power, thus to be given wings? Hear what the prophet Isaiah says:

'They that wait upon God shall renew their strength; they shall put forth feathers like eagles; they shall run and not grow weary.'

And another prays, saying:

'Your youth shall be renewed like the eagle's.'

Whenever, then, the holy one says that he has been given wings, his feathers are to be understood as virtue and understanding and wisdom;

for these lift the man on high, exalting him.

'They shall be sheltered from the fatness of your house'—they are sheltered under the wings of God.

The shelter of the wings of God becomes their shelter.

And they are then sheltered, so that they may put forth feathers, so that they may be nested, so that they may become as eggs under the wings of God.

The shelter of the wings of God becomes their shelter.

And they are then sheltered, so that they may put forth feathers; but the eggs are the unformed souls which have not yet received the formation of Christ.

So when they have come to be under His wings, then they are formed and become living creatures, according to allegory, according to the inner man.

Sons not of the mortal living beings, but of those who truly guard the man that is according to the image and likeness of God.

It can also be said by way of paraphrase, 'sons of men' in the sense of simply 'the men.'

'They shall be made drunk with the fatness of your house.'

'Be not drunk,' he says, 'with wine, wherein is dissipation.'

And in the plain sense, indeed, the excessive drinking of wine can be called the wine of dissipation;

for it harms the mind and sometimes causes one to stumble.

And concerning those who hold contrary opinions and introduce godless doctrines, setting them forth as though they were food and wine, it is said:

'But these feed on the food of ungodliness.'

And those who eat and seek after the food of ungodliness are the very ones concerning whom it has been said:

'You gave him as food to the peoples, to the Ethiopians.'

feeding on godless doctrines and drinking the corresponding wine, the wine of dissipation.

'Be not drunk, then, with wine, wherein is dissipation.'

But it belongs to the ungodly to drink this wine;

for 'they shall be made drunk with lawless wine.'

But there is also a praiseworthy drunkenness—and, that I may put it as some have said, a sober drunkenness, which makes those who have drunk sober.

In the Song of Songs, at any rate, Jesus said to His companions:

'Eat, drink, and be drunk, O brethren.'

To His own brethren the God-Word says these things;

for having become man He gained as brethren those who conduct themselves after His manner, who receive His teachings and are made sons.

'Eat, then, drink, be drunk.'

'Eat' of the spiritual food which Wisdom has prepared for you;

for she has made ready her own table.

And 'drink' that wine which leads to a sober intoxication.

And so here too he did not say it once and for all, but 'they shall be made drunk from the fatness of your house.'

According to one rendering, the Church is called the house of God;

for it was said by Paul to Timothy:

'If I tarry, I have written to you how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God.'

The fatness of this house is the perfect teaching, the wisdom that is spoken among the perfect, the solid food, which those partake of who have the faculties of the inner man exercised to discern good and evil.

And these drink the wine that is gathered from the true vine.

These, then, are made drunk from the fatness of the house of God.

The perfect teaching, the unfailing knowledge of the truth, is the fatness of this house of God.

But if you also call the manhood of the Saviour a house, since He says: