Works (CSEL) 14 part 18/28

It is the word of one confirming, when a prophet or priest or some holy man pronounces a blessing and the people answer: 'So be it, so be it.' Here, then, it seems to me to be rather a confirmation of the blessing than a prayer or supplication, especially because the saying itself was repeated. And the Hebrew word indeed seems to have been changed, yet the same meaning is expressed. For just as, when the priest blesses, the people answer 'amen,' confirming for themselves the blessing which the priest implores from the Lord for the people, so in the psalm the response is 'so be it, so be it,' as it were 'amen, amen.' That 'amen' is a word of confirmation is clearly shown in the Gospel, where the Lord, confirming his word, says: 'Amen I say to you.'

But there is greater force where the word is repeated, which we find more frequently in the book of the Gospel according to John, because he above all spoke of heavenly and deep mysteries, as it is written: 'Amen, amen I say to you, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God'; and elsewhere: 'Amen, amen I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.' Two examples suffice; the rest, if anyone seeks, he will find. The phrase 'so be it, so be it' is also a sign of a book brought to an end. For the Psalter appears to be divided into five books. The first book ends with this psalm, that is, the fortieth.

And beautifully the fortieth psalm is brought to a close at the Saviour's Passion, so as to give an end to the book, since the Lord's Passion is the end of the fortieth, in order that the second book might begin from the mysteries of renewal—which book, belonging as it does to the fortieth, embraces more perfect sacraments. For it foretells the sacraments of baptism also, when it says:

'As the hart longs for the fountains of waters,' and the rest of the saints who shall have come to the heavenly tabernacle, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, when the spiritual grace was poured out in a certain voice of heavenly cataracts, because the Spirit was borne along with great power, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles; and the entrance of the renewed man to the altar, and the ascension of the Saviour, and the sanctification of the virginal purpose. This book ends in the seventy-first psalm, in which the peaceful kingdom of Christ spread throughout the whole world is announced in prophetic speech, and the remission of sins; where, when it had set down beforehand the blessing of the Lord, it added: 'and the whole earth shall be filled with his majesty. So be it, so be it.'

The third book also ends with the eighty-eighth psalm, and there it has: 'Blessed be the Lord forever. So be it, so be it.' The fourth book ends with the one hundred and fifth psalm, and there it has: 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from age to age; and let all the people say: So be it, so be it.' The fifth book runs to the very end, where in place of this word the prophet says: 'Let every spirit praise the Lord.' But again perhaps it may trouble someone how I bring forward five books, when the Psalter is one. Yet the Gospel too is one, and we cannot deny that there are four books. That the Gospel is one we have, unless I am mistaken, indicated elsewhere also; and if it is again demanded, we can easily explain it, since the Saviour said:

'Amen I say to you, wherever the Gospel shall have been preached'; and the Apostle: 'I marvel that you are so quickly transferred to another Gospel, which is not another, except that there are some who pervert you'; and elsewhere: 'For I make known to you, brethren, the Gospel.' Nor anywhere do you have it otherwise concerning this body of four books than as the one Gospel signified. Finally, because the body of the Psalms also is one, Scripture said: 'Upon a ten-stringed psaltery with a song upon the harp.' But again, because there are five books, it said elsewhere: 'Among the vessels of the psalms.'

Beautifully, then, there are five books and one Psalter, since by five senses the outer man is given life, and again by five spiritual senses that hidden inner man of our heart is brought to perfection—he who alone is found rich before God, by the testimony of the apostle Peter. 'He that has,' he says, 'ears to hear, let him hear.' You have one sense. And just as there are those who have eyes and do not see, so there are those who, though their eyes do not see, are believed to see more. Whence the prophets too were called 'seers,' even those who did not see with their eyes. Good also is that fragrance of which the Apostle said: 'We are the good fragrance of Christ unto God'; whence Job too said: 'and the divine spirit which is in my nostrils.'

Therefore the same fragrance of Christ and of the Holy Spirit is unto God, because there is one fragrance of the Trinity. There is also an inner food, of which the Lord said: 'My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven.' There is also an inner touch, by which that woman in the Gospel touched Christ, she who for twelve years had a flow of blood and had received no healing from physicians, but received it from Christ. It is the touch of faith by which Christ is touched. In short, men did not see him, but Jesus saw, and testified that he had seen, saying: 'Someone has touched me; for I too perceived that power had gone out from me.' The knowledge of Christ is the bestowal of healing.

Therefore, since it is plain that ten senses are in man, David for that reason—who sang both outwardly and inwardly, outwardly with the body, inwardly with the heart—says in the psalm: 'Upon a ten-stringed psaltery will I sing praise to you.' The Psaltery, then, is the man made perfect in Christ, in whom, as the strings of the chords by the art of those singing in concert, so the harmonious works of the virtues sound in agreement, that he may be able to say: 'I will sing praise to you, O God, upon the harp, O Holy One of Israel. My lips shall rejoice when I sing to you, and my soul which you have redeemed.' Paul says of himself: 'Without were fightings, within were fears.' This man rejoices both within and without; but that one is still in the contest, this one in remission, because he had come to know that he had merited the redemption of his soul.

He who sings praise is in gladness; he who wrestles is in anxiety. Yet Paul too knew how to sing praise, but he was still reserving himself for further progress, until he should be more fully approved, so as to sing praise. And therefore he said: 'I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind; I will sing praise with the spirit, I will sing praise also with the mind.' And because he set forth a twofold office of singing praise, Scripture also taught that there is a twofold voice, the prophet saying: 'With my voice I cried out to the Lord, and my voice to God, and he gave heed to me.' What is 'my voice'? For he could have said: 'I cried out to the Lord.' But what is our voice except that better one, which knows not to err? For from much speaking we incur sin and cannot avoid it.

That is the voice of the prophet which reaches to God, which cried out to the Lord while Moses was silent, by which Hannah too clamoured in her prayers, when she did not move the lips of her mouth, and obtained the son whom long before she had not obtained when she had cried out with the voice of the body. Concerning this voice the Lord said: 'But you, when you pray, enter into your chamber, and having shut the door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.' What is 'will repay'? It is that which you have besought, that which you have prayed for. For just as sinners receive back from the hand of the Lord their sins twofold, so on the contrary the righteous receive with effect their own petitions. Hear how they receive: your prayer ascends to God and descends to you.

Whence in the psalm too we read: 'and my prayer shall return into my own bosom,' that is, that it may bring back fruit to him who asks. 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,' who has opened to us such great mysteries, 'from age to age,' that is, from infinity to infinity. 'So be it, so be it.' EXPLANATION OF PSALM 43. The title of the psalm is: 'Unto the end; for the sons of Korah, of understanding.' Where the mysteries of the Lord's Passion and of baptism and of the entrance to the most holy altar have been run through, the holy prophet David teaches in what manner Christ trains his own athlete, whose name is held in the contest of the saints.

For just as without any labour of ours, not from works but from faith, through his grace he forgave us our sins and admitted us, most indulgent and kind, to the seeking of the crown, and did not let our former misdeeds stand in our way—misdeeds by which we should have been judged unworthy of so great a contest (for even in those who undergo this purifying contest a discipline of living is required)—so again, lest, slackened by so great a forgiveness of sins, we should return to former misdeeds or to sloth, this psalm admonishes us that many heavy contests are set before us, so that no one is crowned except him who has contended lawfully. We must wrestle, then, against the enticements of this flesh and the fervour of the blood; we must wrestle against the spiritual wickednesses.

No one is more grievous than a domestic adversary, no one more harmful than that enemy who is supported by the power of a heavenly substance. When I say 'no one,' remember the divine saying by which the Lord said that among those born of woman there is no one greater than John the Baptist; for he who is born of the Virgin is himself above all. And therefore let us fear no one, we who have Christ, since, if Christ is for us, who is against us? Let us contend, then, even to the end, so that, when all things have been emptied out that were warring against Jesus and the Lord's will in our former body, we may, intent upon the exercises of true virtue, serve God alone, our Lord. For this is the end, as it is written:

'Christ the firstfruits, then the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the Father, when he shall have made void all rule and authority and power, that the last enemy death may be destroyed,' and we may begin to be subject to God, keeping the heavenly kingdom within us, where before was the filth of sins. Rightly, then, is it inscribed 'unto the end; for the sons of Korah, of understanding,' so that in knowing it not the common hearing but the spiritual understanding may be at work. Hence Aquila set down 'a psalm of discipline.' And therefore Scripture says to you: 'Give your heart unto discipline, and prepare your ears for words of understanding'; and elsewhere: 'love wisdom and discipline.'

Wisdom is that which gushes forth from the inner sense; discipline is a form of the virtues grown together into a certain habit of nature, and a settled conviction of the mind confirmed by the disciplines of knowledge. To understand also a dark saying, and the prudence of expressions, and the riddles of Proverbs, Scripture has taught us; on whose authority we gather that these are the chief virtues of prudence, in that wisdom, like a fruitful mother, ever brings forth; discipline, like a rather severe mistress, restrains; understanding, like a diligent inquirer, finds out, and searches into true justice and judgment. Let us teach these things by the testimonies of the sacred reading. Wisdom says: 'I, like a fountain, said from paradise: I will water my garden, and still I will pour out doctrine as prophecy.'

For like a loving mother she pours her offspring and good thoughts into the mind of man. Receive also the testimonies of discipline: 'Son, do not neglect the discipline of God, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for whom God loves he reproves.' Discipline is indeed severe in reproving, but sweet in correcting, lest we float and wander in error, but be received by Christ; for discipline that has not been tested wanders, as it is written. But here he has put 'discipline' for 'conduct.' Yet as with wisdom, so also with discipline: both the perfect and the imperfect are called by the same name; but where either discipline or wisdom is named without addition, they receive the definition of perfection.

Discipline that has not been tested, therefore, floats about, but discipline that has been tested does not float. Concerning understanding, too, the same Scripture defines, that 'good understanding is to all who do it.' But since understanding has in itself both the grace of wisdom and the order of discipline, we are surely taught that both wisdom and discipline are good for those who carry out their precepts by their own ministries. We have spoken of the title; let us approach the psalm. 'O God, with our ears we have heard.' So Symmachus. Theodotion said 'in our ears,' as did also the Seventy. What is it that he says 'with our ears'? For if 'we have heard' were not enough, surely, if this had been pleasing, 'with our ears we have heard' would have been complete.

When, therefore, 'our' is added, what does it intend, except that you may understand that those things are ours which belong to the mind, and that these are better than those of this body? And therefore, as if of another, this same prophet here says: 'I will not fear what flesh may do to me'; and elsewhere: 'With my voice I cried out to the Lord, and my voice to God, and he regarded me.' That is my voice, which is heard by Christ, not that which resounds in public. He does not, therefore, wish that to be his own which is corruptible and earthly, who remembers that he was created in the image and likeness of God. In short, Scripture teaches us that man was first formed in the image of God, afterward made of clay. As it were—?

The superior, therefore—for he is superior who is more ancient—and the governor and ruler of this body, the vigour of the soul, says: 'With our ears we have heard.' Who is this but he to whom it is said: 'He that has ears to hear, let him hear'? For there are those who have ears and cannot hear the mysteries, concerning whom Jesus says in the Revelation of John: 'Out with the dogs and the sorcerers and the unchaste,' whose ear the lust for crimes and the rust of money blocks from hearing. Let us consider, therefore, what they say they have heard, or from whom they recall having heard it. 'Our fathers,' he says, 'have declared to us.' Who are these fathers?

The title has it that the psalm was written for the sons of Korah, to be sung by them, who received the office of singing and had been appointed to such a duty. But Korah and Dathan and Abiram, with others who in stubborn zeal had risen up against Moses and Aaron, were swallowed up by the gaping of the earth in the desert and slain. When these had died, what other fathers of theirs could declare to their sons the wonderful works of the Lord? 'For into a malevolent soul wisdom does not enter.' If, therefore, they did not declare to their own sons, much less to strangers—they who would turn away from the offspring of the treacherous. Who, then, are these fathers? See whether they are those of whom it is said: 'Ask your father, and he will tell you.' You ask when you read Paul;

or if you do not read, and something stirs you, inquire of him himself. For he is the good father, who can teach and form in us the Lord Jesus. As he himself testified, saying: 'My little children, of whom I again travail in birth until Christ be formed in you.' The evangelist John shows you these fathers, who says: 'I write to you, fathers, who have known him who is from the beginning.' These are the fathers whose old age is an unspotted life. Therefore in the assembly of elders put your finger on your mouth, that you may hear what may profit you and may come to know the sacraments of eternal life, lest, an insolent recruit, you make a din at the teachers, and you who ought still to learn presume to speak. What, then, these fathers declared to the sons of Korah, let us hear.

'The work,' he says, 'which you wrought in the days of old.' Who are these days in which God wrought great and wonderful things, let us inquire. Scripture teaches us that there are certain illustrious days, in which divine deeds shone forth, since it has been read that 'the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes; and it shall be that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.' For on that very day Christ rose again for men, and therefore it was specially said of it: 'This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it.' Since, then, God made all days, yet to this day before the rest the prerogative of the divine work has been granted, on which all sin was taken away;

but the other days are the days of sinners. This, then, is the day which that Sun of righteousness has illumined; for it too was wont to have its risings and its settings, whence it is also written: 'In his days shall righteousness arise.' There are, then, days of Christ in which righteousness has arisen; there are days of Christ in which abundance of peace has arisen; there are days of Christ in which wisdom has arisen. Hear how wisdom dawns: 'If anyone among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.' And therefore Wisdom, which has chosen the foolish things of this world, says: 'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works.'

For just as in the days of King Uzziah, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, treachery arose and captivity held sway, so in the days of the Lord Jesus faith arose, which spread the splendour of its brightness and light throughout the whole world. For what days are better than those in which the vision of God shone forth for us, as Jacob said? For thus it is written: 'I saw God face to face, and my soul was saved. And immediately the sun rose for him.' Who is this sun but he who made the days of righteousness shine, in which Christ was born on earth of a Virgin? In a figure Jacob saw, and said he had seen God; in truth the Jews saw and did not believe. Therefore for them the days were shortened, for us illumined, since for them the day was failing, for us it was drawing near.

Whence holy David, fleeing the Jewish blindness, says: 'Take me not away in the midst of my days.' For thus the day of the Lord is great and glorious, not by length of time, surely, but by the brightness of righteousness or of grace. There are, then, halved days in which men are shortened by the gloom of impiety and the squalor of treachery, in which the sun sets upon the prophets, as it is written. For as upon the just the Sun of righteousness rises, so upon the unbelieving it sets. But there occurs that saying, where the Lord says: 'For the elect's sake the days shall be shortened,' and it seems contrary, unless you carefully attend and recall what went before. For the Lord says: 'Then if anyone shall say to you, Behold here is Christ, or:'

Behold he is there, do not believe; for there shall arise false christs and false prophets, and shall give great signs and wonders, so as to lead into error, if it were possible, even the elect.' And therefore, lest the elect be deceived, the Lord admonishes what is to be followed, that we may not be caught by the speech of false prophets, nor any of their portentous deeds deceive us, but that then we should believe Christ to be coming, when the days full of righteousness shall have begun to shine forth. For Christ shall be revealed in the full light of his majesty; and, as the lightning goes forth from the east and spreads its light throughout the whole world unto the west, so also the Son of Man, coming with his angels, shall illumine this world, that every man may believe and all flesh may be saved.

Let us not, then, believe Antichrist, of whom the false prophets shall say: 'This is Christ'; for the days of treachery shall be the days of Antichrist. Let us not believe those who shall say: 'Christ is in the desert, Christ is in the inner chambers'; for now all things are full of Christ, where he has begun to draw near. But when we shall have seen the deeds which Christ in his Gospel foretold beforehand, then let us believe his coming, lest, while we seek the true light, we fall into the darkness of unbelief. The signs of treachery, therefore, must be guarded against, by which the days are shortened and diminished. For the sun shall be darkened, the stars shall fall—that is, the just of God; for there are those who shine like stars in heaven. When you see these things, believe that Christ still tarries;

for where Christ is, there faith is brighter; where Antichrist is, there are halved days. Concerning these David the prophet would surely not have complained, if it had to be referred to shortness of time, since he himself elsewhere said: 'Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged!' How could he grieve either at that heavenly sojourn being deferred or at this earthly one being protracted, he who before had begged that he might not be taken away in the midst of his days, when shortness of days would seem to bring the gain of hastening this course? Whence is gathered also that saying which he utters: 'Honour your father and mother, that you may be long-lived upon the earth,' how we ought to understand it.

For many who honour are often quickly snatched away, so that they die at an immature age; many also who defer less to their parents enjoy the wages of a long old age. And unless we take that long life to be eternal life, Scripture is found to be deprived of the support of truth. Whence the Greek more expressly said: 'that you may be of many days,' that is, polyhemeros. For whoever diligently keeps pious worship with attentive duty, being a stranger to the darkness of night, dwells in the light of days. And therefore he who reads Deuteronomy 'shall read it,' he says, 'all the days of his life,' not surely by night, but by day, because the day shines for him who reads the mysteries of truth and the oracles of divine godliness. Let us consider what follows.

'Your hand destroyed the nations, and you planted them; you afflicted the peoples and cast them out.' We know indeed that the Lord rooted out and overthrew many nations, so that the people of the Jews might find a possession for themselves, the lands of which nations the Lord declared he would give to the seed of Abraham. But since this psalm announces the Gospel of the Lord and the times of his coming, it does not seem to me to be recounting the things done in former times by the Jews, but rather to be marking the things to come—in what manner the people of the nations was to believe.

It confirms, therefore, the faith of the Church before it announces it, and enumerates the victories of its piety, which drove out the nations not by its arm nor by its sword, and put to flight the hostile bands not in warlike contest, but possessed the lands of its enemies without any bloodshed, by gentleness and faith; for faith alone fought. And therefore it merited triumphs which treachery could not revoke but rather increase, because the Church of the Lord is not conquered by its persecutions, but is proved. What, then, are these nations which the Church has conquered, let us learn. I speak old names, but new mysteries: they are the Canaanites, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Perizzites, or the rest whose names we shall set forth below.

But these are names of peoples, yet they signify the infirmities of the passions and the incitements of human vices and the reproaches of sins. What is first, therefore: man in Christ subdued himself and conquered himself, that he might live for himself; for he lives for himself who lives for God, that he may live the eternal life of Christ. The people of the Church, then, did not fight with military arms and iron weapons, as the people of the Jews fought. They fought in figure, we fight in spirit; they fought against foreigners, we ourselves have war within ourselves, and therefore the passions of our own body must first be conquered by us. Hear the apostle Paul fighting against the nation of the Canaanites:

'I see,' he says, 'the law of my flesh warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity in the law of sin.' Now our flesh rears itself up, now it casts itself down; it rears itself up against the mind, it casts itself down before power, and where it sees itself pressed, it deserts constancy and, made ready for subjection, is led into the law of sin, so as to desert faith, succumb to treachery, and—left destitute, in the dominion of the Hittite infirmity—to yield to falsehood instead of truth, serve crime, acquiesce in error, and, like the Amorite, to speak bitter things instead of sweet; for faith is sweet, treachery is bitter. Whence Peter excellently expressed what faith is, saying: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we believe. How then do you bid us depart from you?'

For, captivated by the sweetness of the heavenly words, he was unwilling to depart from Christ; but he who denies Christ separates himself, or is separated, from Christ.

But neither the cunning disputation of the Amorites, which through philosophy leads not a few away from the truth, nor the base abasement of the Jebusites, which subjects and prostrates itself to those who run the worldly course — a course which cannot be everlasting, but fails at the gates of death (from which David the prophet rejoices that he has been lifted up) — nor the Kenite, who like a miser of insatiable appetite is possessed by his own money, nor the Kenizzite, who supposes that there is a perpetual possession in riches and sets his vain hope upon perishable things and boasts himself with empty conceit, nor the Rephaim, who professes to bring healing to others while he cannot cure his own wounds.

And therefore, if anyone takes refuge with a physician of this sort, he must first squander his whole patrimony before he receives any advance toward health, like that woman in the Gospel who for twelve years could not stanch the flowing blood of bodily pleasures until she fled to Christ. For she understood that there is no perfect physician except one who had come down from heaven, of whom she had learned it was said: He sent His word and healed them; and she took note that of Him it was said: Behold, I have set My words in your mouth, and this day I have appointed you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down and to destroy, and to build and to plant.

For although God has often spoken in the prophets, yet in none has He spoken more clearly than in His Son, who, expressing all the power of the Father, says: My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. It was not, then, Jeremiah, who in the time of the captivity took up exile, but the Lord Jesus who by His own words rooted out from the inmost breasts the vices of the Gentiles, who destroyed the faithlessness of the nations and the perverse contrivances of cunning thoughts, and abolished all the traces of iniquity. Then afterward He poured in faith and the discipline of self-restraint, lest the sacraments of the virtues should turn sour, as in a corrupted vessel, through the confusion of the vices. Whence the Apostle beautifully says to you: But death reigned from Adam unto Moses.

What is Moses but the Law, since he himself is the interpreter of the Law? But the end of the Law is Christ Jesus. Sin therefore reigned in this world, and in sin death reigned — a savage and intolerable punishment of sin. Moses indeed taught us to lift up our hands to the Lord, establishing the discipline of pious worship. He taught how the cunning-tongued Amalek might be overcome, that we should lift our conduct and works up to Christ, and that thus faithlessness can be destroyed; but that if we cast down our soul, bend our affections, and turn our mind away from the pursuit of self-restraint — so that vain persuasion overcomes us — there would be no remedy to come, unless Jesus should raise up the now-drooping arms of Moses (as it were the weakness of the Law) and sustain them by His own mercy.