Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 3/34

—when he begins to be in doubt and to repent.

And 'fire shall devour them,' so that they should be such no longer.

'Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the sons of men.'

Whenever it is distinguished with respect to fruit, it signifies the seed of a plant; but whenever with respect to children, the seed of man.

For we often have in Scripture 'seed' named together with 'children.'

It is now proposed to speak concerning the difference of the terms.

Being upon the earth and having drawn near to the earth, they clung fast to it.

Instead of the immaterial soul, they bore as fruit the works of the flesh.

This fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth.

There is the good and fair earth, which, receiving the seed of Jesus that he casts, bears fruit.

Yet the same earth is, as to its underlying subject, one and the same with that which bears the thorns.

And it is receptive of seeds, being a rational substance.

But it is from that which lies within our own power that this earth receives its difference.

'And their seed from among the sons of men.'

They sowed into the sons of men, not into the sons of God;

for the latter are incapable of receiving such things.

From among the sons of men, then, shalt thou destroy their seed, so that the very fitness toward the base fruit may also be destroyed.

If anyone possesses virtue in active exercise, the seed of vice is hindered; but the fitness and the potency remain, so that it seems to be destroyed.

'Against thee, who hadst made them upright.'

Their free choice inclined toward evil.

Thou knowest that in the case of works of sensible art and of statues, a bad work brings reproach upon its maker, but a rightly-made one brings praise.

It is said accordingly in Sirach:

'By the hand of the craftsman the work shall be praised.'

—if anyone turn aside from that which is according to the image.

As far, then, as it lay with them, they purposed evil against thee.

'They devised counsels which they shall in no wise be able to establish.'

And that, once more led by the hand from the history to what is as it were a history—though I know not whether it be history—:

those who wished to build a tower having its top reaching to the summit took counsel, yet were unable to make it stand.

God then brings a counsel to perfection whenever it is taken rightly and according to his will.

He who has pursued this counsel does all things of that counsel.

To this counsel God brings a fulfilment.

Those who are around God are often said to be his body;

'Ye are the body of Christ,' and in this body are found eyes, ears, hands.

'Behind this thy body thou shalt set these.'

It is possible also to understand it thus:

the things that are chief and foremost in God are called his face, but these created sensible things are called what is behind;

at any rate, to Moses, who as yet was not able to behold the face of God, God passes by in his glory and shows him the things behind.

At any rate, he straightway wrote down Genesis.

'Upon them, then, shall he set his back;'

for upon the saints is his face set, according to the prayer which they send up:

'Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.'

'Among thy remnant shalt thou prepare thy face.'

The remnant, those others besides those who hate, are holy, they who have been left over in the good estate.

And well too is it that it says 'thou shalt prepare' and not 'thou shalt give.'

He has it ready, so that everyone who wills to see it may be able to behold it.

'Be thou exalted, O Lord, in thy power;'

'we will sing and make melody of thy mighty acts.'

For all these things You do with power.

And together with the beginning of the psalm-singing, the power of God is hymned: 'O Lord, in Your power the king shall be glad.'

'O Lord, in Your power the king shall be glad.'

The power that gladdens the king and accomplishes all that has been said is exalted—not raised up from a lowly place into height, but rather in that men no longer think lowly things about it, but high things, as it truly is.

'I will exalt You, O Lord'—we do not say this in the sense that we raise You up from a lowly place into the heights.

To exalt is to confess His height.

'There belong to a king acts of dominion'—that is, the things he can do in kingly fashion.

'Unto the end, concerning the help of the morning.'

There is a spiritual day brought about by the Sun of righteousness, concerning which much is set down in the Scriptures, and especially in the New Testament.

'As in the day,' he says, 'let us walk becomingly.'

You know that, even according to the literal sense, those who do unseemly things do them in darkness, and especially then, when many good men were present.

He, then, who is in ignorance of good things is in darkness, and does many things that bring disgrace.

But whenever anyone is illumined by the true light, walking in the day—that is, making progress (for the walk signifies progress)—he does all things becomingly and thinks nothing of the things that bring disgrace.

Setting forth this same condition, the prophet Isaiah also says:

'From the night my spirit rises early unto You, O God.'

This morning hour, then, is in need of help.

For even if we possess illumination and the beginning of day, we still need the light to remain present, so that the day may not fail, so that it may not set.

'Unto the end, therefore, concerning the help of the morning.'

For when the day has begun according to the help of God, if the one who receives help remains in the same disposition toward the one being helped, then throughout the whole day he remains within that help.

For if at the beginning, which has but scant light, He gives help, how much more when it has become noonday.

You will find, then, many such things laid down also in the Scriptures.

God appeared to Abraham at no other time than at noon;

for then the light had become at its height.

And moreover the sun had come to be directly overhead, so that the air about us was without shadow.

But he says these things in a more allegorical manner, since the literal sense too leads by the hand to this understanding.

This indeed is also what the bride says to her own bridegroom:

'Tell me, O You whom my soul has loved, where do You pasture and where do You rest at noon?' At the beginning of the day, in which You pasture, I have come to be.

But I seek the noonday hour, when the light is at its height.

'Where do You pasture, where do You rest?'—that being there as a consort together with You, I may work the work;

for I too wish to tend those sheep which You pasture.

And the holy women who tend flocks bear a symbol of such a condition, such as Rebecca was.

'Concerning the help of the morning,' therefore.

And who possesses the morning and the beginning of the day, if not the one who is able to say:

'The night is far spent, the day is at hand'? For this reason too the women who sought Jesus, when He had been crucified, did not see Him at the noonday hour, but early at dawn.

You know, then, that the historical account concerning the Savior holds truly—and universally concerning every earnest person, whose works shine before men like light.

We say that it comes to pass at the morning hour, when one takes the beginning of illumination, so as to say:

'In the morning I will stand before You and will look up.'

'For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.'

'Unto the end,' therefore, since that which was awaited has received its end—which the economy of the Savior and perfect virtue accomplished.

This psalm is single-personed.

The speaking person from beginning to end is one and the same.

But often, both in the Psalms and in the prophecies, there occur changes of persons—both of those who speak, and of those to whom it is spoken, and of those about whom it is spoken;

for everyone who speaks bears the person of the one making the proclamation.

And since he does not speak at random, but speaks to certain persons, there is also a second person, the one who hears the speaker, and a matter concerning which he makes the proclamation.

The speaking person here, then, is one.

And from this psalm many sayings were taken up in the New Testament, as having been spoken from the person of the Savior.

The Savior, being upon the cross, uttered the cry.

There was spoken also the words 'They divided my garments among themselves,' spoken by the Savior in the Gospels.

'I will proclaim Your name to my brethren.'

Since, therefore, three testimonies are set down from the psalm, showing that the speaking person is that of the Savior, one must take the whole psalm as proclaimed from His person.

And I say this of necessity—I have also set it forth in my writings concerning the Incarnation;

since they continually bring to us sayings that speak of the Savior as having had a body, such as:

'But a body You prepared for me,' and:

'since Christ suffered for us in the flesh,' we said that:

'But a body only You prepared for me.'

It is possible at times to wear more than one garment.

If someone says of a certain thing—suppose—that 'I have a cloak, I have a mantle, a garment,' but does not add 'only,' he is not thereby prevented from having the others as well.

Again, let someone—suppose—have a shield and a sword and a helmet and a breastplate.

If need requires him to say 'I have a shield,' but he does not add 'only,' the presence of the other items with him is not thereby done away.

We have here, therefore, said by that same person, the words:

'Deliver my soul from the sword.'

'But a body You prepared for me,' and there is no mention of a soul; yet here mention of a soul has been made—and it does not follow, because it says:

'Deliver my soul from the sword,' that he has spoken concerning his own soul alone.

'O God, my God, attend to me;

why have You forsaken me?' The word 'forsaking,' taken in its proper sense, does not signify coming to be in gloomy circumstances.

The martyrs, at any rate, were not forsaken when they were cast into cauldrons and delivered over to fire.

But those who sacrificed to idols, even if they suffered nothing, were forsaken.

When, therefore, someone asks not to be forsaken, he asks for this: not to fall away from his own resolve.

Though it may seem that the one who suffers nothing does not fall into forsakenness, yet sometimes it comes upon him precisely on account of wickedness, as I said—those who sacrificed to idols.

Forsaking, therefore, is God's withdrawing from the one who is forsaken.

'You have not answered me,' he says, 'not even in dreams';

and he went away to the woman with a familiar spirit.

If then you should ever see a rich Christian who has everything going pleasantly for him, yet who takes refuge in astrologers, or who devotes his zeal to necromancy and to such things, these are the ones who have been forsaken.

And if you should see a poor man who has fallen from wealth, yet who holds fast to God, such as Job was, this man has not been forsaken.

Since, therefore, the Saviour has come to the cross, and it seems to men that to fall victim to such a death is an abandonment, he speaks this with reference to their supposition:

'O God, my God, attend to me.'

And perhaps he also speaks of the abandonment of what is, as it were, his body;

for the Hebrews were his body before this.

That people, then, was forsaken.

And he speaks of the abandonment as his own, since he was their head.

'O God, my God, attend to me.'

'Why have you forsaken me?' He asks for the cause and the purpose of the abandonment, that is, what it is;

'For what reason have you forsaken me?' This is the utterance of one asking the purpose, not that it might be made known to him, but that it might be known to his body, to his own people.

'Far from my salvation are the words of my transgressions.'

Here, lest we should seem to be telling myths, we are compelled to lay hold of a deeper contemplation.

A thing and the account (logos) of the thing are not the same.

The many know sensible things, but they do not possess the account of them.

It belongs to great men to possess the account of things.

For it is thus, by the account, that we distinguish one thing from another.

'And I made mention of the colour and of the surface.'

Colour is one thing and surface another, yet they are inseparable from one another.

Colour admits of the more and the less.

But surface does not admit of the more and the less; so that colour is different from surface, even though it is never separated from it, even though it never exists apart from it.

These things are said by those who possess demonstration by way of abstraction.

We separate one thing from another by the account, not by perception, nor in actual existence.

So when we say that a line is length without breadth, the sensible line is not without breadth.

Those who have transgressions in perception and in actual existence do not know the accounts of them;

for if they had known that they are harmful, that they end in destruction, they would not have committed them.

But it is possible to possess the account of a transgression;

for example, let a transgression against the law of God be the killing of a man in whatever manner.

But when some judicial authority, serving the right law, puts to death one who is worthy of death — as Agag was slain by Samuel — Elias possessed the account of a transgression, not a transgression, and so did Samuel.

The Saviour, at any rate, says, speaking according to his humanity:

for it is he, the one who seemed to be in despair, who says these things:

'Far from my salvation are the words of my transgressions.'

They are not far from my salvation;

for I knew no sin, I did not commit it.

Yet I possess it by way of account: I know what sin is.

And so let the words of my transgressions too be far from my salvation.

Let my salvation take no admixture whereby it should be dimmed.

For sometimes a man is saved even on account of some good present in him;

if it is something evil, his salvation is diminished.

Many, at any rate, have often inquired thus:

if someone does many evil things, but does a few good things, does he lose the latter? To say that he loses them signifies a taking away of the hope of such persons.

I have said many times concerning this that the punishment is lessened.

Suppose, for instance, that a good number act unjustly;

but suppose that some of these do not act unjustly, but rather show mercy.

His penalty is lessened, and these things have not been done by him to no purpose.

When someone sins in a leading, preceding way, he has his works going before him into judgment.

They run ahead of him, they lead him by the hand to the judgment.

But for others their sins follow after them.

When someone practises good things and commits few sins, these follow after.

'Likewise,' he says, 'also the good works.'

As I have said concerning sins, so I will say also concerning good works.

Nevertheless, no one who has done a good thing remains without benefit from it.

By it his punishment is diminished.

But he who has not known sin nor committed it, and holds the words of his transgressions far from his own salvation, has a pure salvation; no sin or transgression is mingled with it — nay, not even this itself, the account of a transgression.

'O my God, I will cry out to you by day, and you will not hear, and by night, and it is not accounted folly in me.'

The condition of human life is varied.

It has certain profitable things, and it also has gloomy ones.

And within these very human affairs there are pleasant things, and these are called 'day', and gloomy things, which are named 'night'.

And in the pleasant and bright things I cry to you, and you hear; and in the night I do this also, and it is not accounted folly in me;

for when you have granted your assent and the gloomy things are no longer obscure, it has become manifest to me.

He hears us when we cry out by day;

and by night also, that is, being in the gloomy condition, we have him helping us, and by the very fact we gained the knowledge that he helps;

'and by night, and it is not accounted folly in me.'

Even if it was thought by others that this man, if he were a man from God, was being forsaken, yet to him this was not accounted folly;

for he came to this willingly;

'I will go by myself to the mountain of myrrh';

for the myrrh is his body.

He has gone to the mountain, because on behalf of all who were embalmed with myrrh he took death upon himself.

And that this is so, let us learn also from another psalm, namely that the gloomy things are ignorance and night:

'By day,' he says, 'the Lord will command his mercy, and by night he will make it manifest.'

When we see men openly and readily receiving mercy, then God has by day commanded his mercy;

for if you know that God also delivers over to chastisement in order to make manifest his own mercy — for he does not deliver men over to chastisements cruelly — then in this night, that is, in the gloomy condition, the mercy of God will be made manifest.

It can be so called 'night' because of the gloominess of the condition of those being chastised.

Yet even if those persons despair, he himself will nonetheless make manifest his mercy even in the night.

I am not ignorant when I cry out by night; I am not ignorant that you hear.

But you dwell in the holy places, the praise of Israel.

You who dwell in the holy places and are the praise of all who have a pure heart and behold you — for such persons are Israel — you have not forsaken me;

for if you dwell in the holy ones, and the holy ones suffer something, yet they were not forsaken;

for how would you be in them — and not simply so, but as the praise of Israel? It is also possible to understand the words 'But you dwell in the holy places' in this way:

'Even if certain men enveloped me in a pitiable death, and on this account you seem to have been sundered from me, yet you dwell in the holy things — in the things I teach, in the things I hold in mind.'

And if you are present in these, I have not been forsaken.

The 'holy things' can be taken quite generally: of the blessed rational beings, of the holy men, and of the very mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

And God, being present everywhere, is found in such things, and all such things are his temple — a temple of manifold kinds.

You are therefore the praise in Israel;

for he who is truly clear-sighted and has the mind of Christ, in whom he beholds God, is not distressed.

But you are the praise of Israel;

in you we shall be praised all the day long.

In you our fathers hoped.

Our fathers, having hoped in you, were heard and were not put to shame;

for always, receiving their prayers, you brought them into your favour, even though they died in afflictions;

for your hearing them as they cried does not mean setting them outside of afflictions, but setting them outside of the harm brought upon them by the afflictions;

for in this way that petition too was interpreted:

'Bring us not into temptation.'

So even if the holy ones seem not to be heard when they pray, then all the more are they heard, because by remaining steadfast in afflictions they are proved to be athletes.

For what achievement would there be, if by praying one were removed from the afflictions? For it says:

Is the phrase 'our fathers' spoken in the person of the Saviour? — You know that in many places he numbers himself among men, according to his humanity.

They hoped, and you delivered them;

to you they cried out and were saved.

Not by bringing nothing gloomy upon them, but by their conquering through the afflictions.

We take the 'cry' to mean the intensified prayer;

for we do not cry out with a loud voice;

for the understanding is the word of the soul, and it is the voice of the inner man.

In you they hoped and were not put to shame.

But I am a worm and not a man.

The fathers who cried out to you were not put to shame;

for they obtained the things they expected, the things they hoped for.

I am a worm and not a man.

He does not deny that he is a man, but that he is such a man — since neither does he call himself a worm in the literal, perceptible sense.

'I am not, then, that man of whom it is said:

For where there is strife and jealousy among you, are you not men? But I hold the same disposition toward them; on their behalf I endure all things to the very end.'

It is also possible to take it thus:

Since his body did not come into being from the sowing of a man's seed, but from the material alone taken from her who conceived him, on this account he calls himself a worm;

for the worm does not come into being from coupling, but from simple matter.

And here too his body arose together with him from the simple matter that underlay the woman.

In her, at any rate, he was begotten, and out of her he was begotten.

But the other bodies are said to receive their formation through women.

Since, then, she did not have the conception from a man's seed, he came to be not through her but out of her.

A reproach of men and a thing despised of the people.

'I am a reproach' not simply of men, but of those men.

All who beheld me mocked me.

Some wish often to falsify the universal statement;

for the universal is at times divided, and it becomes universal in another sense.

'All men are mortal' — this I say universally.

'I mean certain men' — and here the 'all' arises from the grammar, not from the term 'man.'

'All the diligent are righteous';

I do not say this, that all men are.

Not all who beheld him mocked him — the apostles, at any rate, who beheld him did not mock — but all who beheld me in this way, as a thing despised of the people, as a reproach;

for the others did not behold him in that way.

They spoke with their lips, they shook the head.

If they had spoken from the heart, they would not have shaken the head.

They spoke with many lips.

And it is no wonder if they said these things concerning one who was suffering and was seen hanging.

And God himself charges them, saying:

This people honours me with their lips.

All those, then, who delight in others' misfortune, when they exult over the holy and the righteous, speak with lips alone.

And indeed those who spoke boastfully against the Saviour did this very thing:

Aha, you who destroy the temple and build it in three days!

The 'shaking of the head'? — Perhaps it may also be taken at the level of the historical narrative:

They did this by way of mockery.

In many places the head signifies the mind.

Whenever, then, someone speaks thus with his lips against the Saviour, not having contemplated Him as one ought, he has a mind that is shaken, he has a mind that is agitated.

That the head signifies the mind:

'I have set their ways upon their heads' — and surely this head did not itself do anything.

'And you shall go forth from there, and your hands upon your head.'

'For behold, I enter into judgment with you.'

And when you depart from this life you shall have your deeds upon your head.

'His trouble shall return upon his own head.'

'The wise man's eyes are in his head.'

And he who from being unwise has become wise does not have his eyes transferred to some other place.

This, then, is what he means: that the discerning faculty of the wise man is in his head, that is, in Christ.

his head is Christ.

'He hoped in the Lord; let Him deliver him;

let Him save him, since He delights in him.'

I have said that concerning righteous men who are afflicted people are also accustomed to speak such things:

'If he is dear to Him, let Him save him.'

And He will deliver him — not because those men say so.

He has come to fulfil the will of the Father:

'For I have come down from heaven, not that I may do My own will.'

If, then, He does the will of His Father, He delights in Him.

'For You are He who drew me forth from the womb.'

And with regard to the literal history something plausible might be said.

Mary conceived when the Holy Spirit came upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowed her.

And just as God Himself is the one who forms bodies in the womb — as He formed Jeremiah — so also He formed this body in Mary's womb.

Since, therefore, the same purity and cleanness pertained to that body, He Himself drew Him forth from the womb.

He did not do something great in this, but just as, having formed Adam, He revealed him as a man, so, having formed Him, He brought Him forth.

'You are my hope from my mother's breasts.'

'While still nursing I showed You to be my hope, when I summoned the Magi' — for while still an infant He plundered magic.

'In receiving milk I was not like an infant like other babes, ignorant of God, but I held You as my hope.'

'Upon You was I cast from the womb.'

He who committed no sin, nor had guile in His heart; He who, before He knew to call father and mother, received the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria; He who, before choosing evil, chose the good.

For this shows that He neither committed nor knew sin.

All men, after the choosing of evil things, choose the good.

This one, before choosing evil, chose the good.

And this is His being without sin: His not having known sin, in that not even in His childhood age did He commit those things which, though not altogether grievous, nevertheless precede virtue.

'There was a man, sent from God, whose name was John.'

'And he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.'

Each of these can utter these words:

'Upon You was I cast from the womb'; that is:

'From my mother's belly You are my God.'

But if it be said concerning Samuel:

Even Samuel, before he knew God, seems to conflict with the things that have been said.

Let us, then, consider it more prudently, as God the Word wills.

'And if I have eaten my morsel alone and did not share it with the orphan; if I did not, as a father, guide them from my mother's womb.'

For how could he, from his mother's womb, provide for orphans and care for orphans? So, then, I understand it thus:

He is recounting a praiseworthy deed:

and the deed then takes its beginning, when the reasoning is brought to completion.

'I did good things not after evil things, but my reason, having been brought to completion, began from praiseworthy deeds.'

so that we may for the time being leave aside those matters — that he brought such a disposition, well-pleasing to God, from some other source.

Since, therefore, there is another birth besides the obvious one, and that birth is in a certain manner a mother, someone is drawn forth from a womb — from this womb;

for no man can bring a person forth from this womb into the light, but God alone.

And from the breasts suited to the milk which those who are just beginning to be godly receive — from those breasts they have hope toward God.

Often milk signifies something else as well:

'Those weaned from milk?' — 'You awaited hope for affliction.'

Can he who has just ceased from milk and been drawn away from his mother's breasts await hope for affliction?

Often, with the intervening ages passed over in silence, the infant is spoken of in relation to the perfect man:

'When I was an infant... when I became a man.'

He became a man not by a first and single change, but by the change of many.

He, then, who bears the condition of an infant and has a weaker disposition is given milk.

But when he is able to become someone great, then he is drawn away from the milk, and then he is prepared for athletic strength, to pursue affliction upon affliction and hope upon hope, and to achieve it.

'For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you again have need that someone teach you, and you have become such as have need of milk, not of solid food.'

You see that he passed over the middle stages in silence, but took the extremes.

Often, then, such things are said with the middle stages passed over in silence.

'From my mother's belly You are my God.'

As from the mother's belly — according to the former interpretation, from the mother's belly Job guided the orphans;

that is, from the mother's belly, that is, from the time I began to have knowledge, I served no other god, neither my belly nor mammon.

But if the other sense — that thus I came down having God as my God.

We do not say this concerning all, but concerning those celebrated in Scripture as having almost never been in sin, such as John and Jeremiah.

'For You are He who drew me forth from the womb.'

I said that 'to draw out' should also be understood according to the earlier plausible sense, namely that:

since Mary's womb had no passage through which she gives birth, she gave birth by the cooperation of God.

'My hope from the breasts of my mother.'

It was not after reaching maturity that I began to hope, but from my mother's breasts I held you as my hope.

If this is taken with reference to the holy one, we say that:

the mother of the saints is the Jerusalem above.

From her breasts those who hope receive their hope — from those who have made them disciples;

for often 'the breast' signifies not the member itself but the milk itself.

'Upon you was I cast from the womb; from my mother's belly you are my God.'

I was not cast upon another, and then, after that one, upon you.

This is rendered thus: that from the time I began to know the worship of God, it was you I revered, you I served.

But according to the deeper meaning, it signifies that I came into being already possessing you as God in this way, as did John.

'Depart not from me, for trouble is near.'

And I have need of your presence at my side.

When these things are spoken in the person of the one who became man, they are not said properly to the Father, nor to the Son, but to God — and there is one Godhead of Father and Son — as we have said.

'The head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ' — he did not say 'the Father,' but 'God';

for he now takes Christ as high priest and as king.

The head, therefore, is the Godhead;

for if he had said 'the Father,' he would have set aside the Son; if he had said 'the Son,' he would have passed over the Father in silence;

but having said 'God,' since there is one Godhead of Father and Son, and one God;

there is indeed one God, yet Father and Son are not one.

Abraham and Isaac are one man;

yet the one is father, the other son.

Hence they are not one in respect of relation, but one in respect of essence.

'No other can help.'