Latin original · 38 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 5:2193–5:2230 (4615 verses in all)
Or perhaps, because the breasts of women are said to be advanced to fullness from the very conception, he wished it to be understood 'from the breasts' as though he said: From the time when I took flesh, to which flesh immortality was to be hoped for, so that hope was not for him before, when he was in the form of God, in which nothing was to be changed for the better, but from the breasts of the mother, that is, from the very assumption of the flesh, which was conceived in hope — the reality of which hope was to be future, when he should pass over from death to immortality? But as to what has been said:
'Upon thee was I cast from the womb,' in what manner it can be fitted to the Head, I know not; as though, when he was in the womb, he was not in God, in whom we live and move and have our being, or as though the rational soul of that infant, from the time when the flesh proceeded from the womb, began to hope in God. Unless perchance it must be believed that, once born, the rational soul acceded to him, which within the mother's inward parts had as yet been lacking to him; and, since that same soul, which was added to the flesh already born, cleaved to God, therefore it must be thought to be said according to that same flesh: 'Upon thee was I cast from the womb,' as though he said: I obtained from the womb that soul which should cleave to thee.
But who would dare rashly to cast himself into this opinion, when the reason concerning the advent or origin of the soul lies so hidden in so great a depth of nature, that it is better always to seek it, as long as we are in this life, than at any time to presume to have found it? But from that transfiguration of ours into himself, in what manner these things might be taken, has been said. But if anything more suitable could be, or shall be able to be, said, we prejudge no one's genius, we envy no one's teaching. Now that which follows: 'Depart not from me, for tribulation is nigh,' see how it illuminates in what manner it was said, 'Why hast thou forsaken me?' For in what manner did he forsake him to whom it is said:
'Depart not,' save because he forsook the temporal felicity of the old life? But he is entreated not to depart and desert the hope of eternal life. But what is 'for tribulation is nigh'? As though the passion were still imminent upon him, when he is understood to say these things in the very midst of the passion — which things were prophesied concerning him in this psalm. For here he is about to say also those things which are most openly written in the Gospel: 'They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture they cast lots,' which was done when he already hung upon the wood. What then is 'tribulation is nigh,' in the midst of which he was speaking?
But doubtless he wishes this to be understood: that when the flesh is in pains and torments, then assuredly the soul has a great struggle of patience, in which, lest it fail, it must labour and pray. Now nothing is nearer to the soul than its own flesh. Therefore any great and perfect despiser of this world, when he suffers in other respects, suffers nothing. For he can apply vigilant reason when he loses the goods which are outside and are without doubt far from the soul of the wise man, who does not cleave to them out of desire, and can not care for what he suffers, because he does not even suffer. But when he loses the chief goods of the body, that is, the life and health of the body, then tribulation is nigh to the goods of the soul, over which the soul itself within is as it were the lord of the body.
What does he do, by any reasoning whatsoever, that he may not grieve, when the body is wounded or burned, to which he is bound by so great a fellowship that, though he can suffer, he cannot but grieve? Therefore the devil too, holding this order of doing harm, first received into his power the external goods of that great man whom he had asked to tempt. When these were taken away and lost, and he saw him unshaken — for he had said: 'The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away; as it hath pleased the Lord, so it is done; blessed be the name of the Lord' — he asked also that the flesh be tortured with a wound, contending with him in such a combat that he might invade the nearest goods, that is, the goods of the body.
If, when these were lost, he should perchance succumb and incline his heart to impiety, even the goods of the soul would perish, in the destroying of which the neighbouring tempter, now raging in the body, was pressing hard. In fine, that man in so great a temptation, where tribulation was nigh to the goods of the soul, although he spoke many things prophetically, yet spoke far otherwise than when those external goods had perished — among which he had not lost his sons but sent them before. The soul of the martyr, therefore, transfigured into Christ, cries out when it has now begun to be afflicted in the flesh, and says to God, by whom it has been forsaken in earthly felicity, yet who is with it in the hope of eternal life: 'Depart not from me, for tribulation is nigh';
It is not in my field, not in my gold, not in my cattle, not in my roofs and walls, not in the loss of my kin, but it is in my flesh, to which I am joined, to which I am bound, whose feeling I cannot but have; whence it presses upon me from close at hand, so that I fall away from the virtue of patience. Do not depart from me, since there is none to help — neither friend nor kinsman, nor human praise, nor the recollection of pleasure past, nor any of those things by which the ruin of earthly happiness is shored up, nor even that human virtue which is in my soul. For if you forsake me, what is the virtue of man? For what is man, save that you are mindful of him? 'Many bullocks have surrounded me' — that is, the lesser ones among the people.
'Fat bulls have beset me' — that is, the proud and rich, the chiefs of the people. 'They opened their mouth against me' — crying out, 'Crucify, crucify' — 'like a lion ravening and roaring'; for they seized and led him bound to the governor, and roared in demanding his death. 'I am poured out like water' — as if my persecutors, stumbling against me, might fall. 'All my bones are scattered'; and what are the bones but the framework of the body? Now the body of Christ is the Church: who then are the framework of the Church but the apostles, who elsewhere are also called pillars? These indeed were scattered when he was led to his passion, or when he had suffered and died. 'My heart is become like wax melting in the midst of my belly.'
How this may be fitted to our Head, the Saviour of the body itself, is truly difficult to discover. For it happens only through great fear that a human heart should melt like wax. And how could this come to pass in him who had the power to lay down and to take up again his own soul?
But assuredly either he took upon himself the cause of his own weak ones — whether of those who tremble at the fear of death, as Peter himself, from a signal presumer became so frequent a denier, or of those who waste away in wholesome sorrow, as that same Peter, when he wept bitterly (for sorrow too, as it were, dissolves the heart, whence in Greek it is even said to be called λύπη) — or else he willed us to understand a deep mystery, that by the name of his heart he might signify his Scriptures, wherein his counsel indeed lay hidden, which was then laid open when, by his suffering, he fulfilled those things that had been prophesied of him. His Scriptures, therefore, were dissolved in those things which were accomplished by his coming, his nativity, passion, resurrection, and glorification.
For who does not now understand these things in the prophets, since they have penetrated even to the understanding of the carnal multitude? This multitude he perhaps signified by 'the midst of his belly,' so that in his body, which is the Church, the carnal and weaker multitude should hold as it were the place of the belly; or, if the name of belly better befits the more inward parts, it was shown that the more perfect understanding of the Scriptures pertains rather to these, since his heart — that is, his Scriptures, which contain his counsel — is in the midst of them, that is, in their thought, dissolved like wax, that is, opened by the fervour of the Spirit, discussed, expounded. 'My strength is dried up like a potsherd.' A potsherd is made firm by fire;
so too the strength of the body of Christ is not consumed like hay by fire, but is made firm by the passion as a potsherd by fire; for 'the furnace proves the vessels of the potter,' as Scripture says in another place, and the trial of tribulation proves just men. 'And my tongue has cleaved to my jaws.' This may indeed seem to signify his silence, which another prophet also commends when he says, 'As a lamb before the shearer he was without voice'; but if we understand his tongue to be those in his body, which is the Church, through whom he speaks his Gospel, then they cleave to his jaws when they do not depart from his precepts. But what follows: 'And you have brought me down into the dust of death.'
In what way will it be fitted to the Head, seeing that his body, which rose again on the third day, was in no wise dissolved into dust? Nor did the apostles expound otherwise that which is set down in another psalm: 'Neither will you give your holy one to see corruption,' save that his flesh was not corrupted, which rose again so swiftly. Whence likewise in another psalm he says: 'What profit is there in my blood, while I go down into corruption? Shall the dust confess to you, or declare your truth?'
Saying this, namely, that if in the same manner as the rest he were left dead in the dust and his flesh reserved for the final resurrection, there would be no profit in his blood, because his death would avail nothing, nor would the truth of God be declared, which had foretold that he would rise again forthwith. What then does he mean, when in this place he says, 'And you have brought me down into the dust of death,' unless we take his body to be the Church, in which those who have suffered or suffer for his name do not, like himself, rise again quickly, but are brought down into the dust of death, then to rise again when that time comes of which he says in the Gospel: 'The hour shall come, when all who are in the tombs shall hear his voice and shall come forth'?
Or else figuratively he willed the dust of death to be understood as the Jews themselves, into whose hands he was delivered; for it is written: 'Not so the wicked, not so; but they are like the dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth.' Then there follows: 'For many dogs have surrounded me, the council of the malignant has beset me' — as if he had called them the dust of death into which he was brought down. He called them many dogs and the council of the malignant, naming as dogs, of course, those who for the most part bark against the innocent, with whom they have no acquaintance. But now in what he adds, it is as though the Gospel were recited. For his crucifixion is expressed in that he says: 'They have dug my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones';
'but they indeed looked and gazed upon me.' For his hands and feet were pierced with nails, and when he was stretched out upon the wood, his bones were in a manner numbered. And he was looked upon and gazed at, as to what should befall him and whether Elijah would come and deliver him. Now that which follows needs no exposition: 'They divided my garments among them, and upon my vesture they cast lots.' The words then which are woven in next are those of one praying, both from the person of the Head, that is, of the man who is Mediator, and from the person of the body, which is the Church, which he also calls his only one. 'But you, O Lord,' he says, 'put not far off your help.'
This pertains to his flesh, whose resurrection was not put far off as that of others. 'Look to my defence,' lest the enemies do any harm, who think they have accomplished something by destroying the mortal flesh. Yet they do no harm, if, by the grace of God defending it, the soul, not overcome, does not consent to them for evil; for as it was also prophesied elsewhere, 'the earth is delivered into the hands of the wicked,' that is, the earthly flesh. 'Deliver my soul from the sword.' A 'framea' is a sword; but Christ was slain not by such iron but by the cross, nor was his side struck by a sword but by a lance. By a transferred word, then, he called the tongue of his persecutors a sword, as in another psalm it is said: 'And their tongue is a sharp sword.'
Whence, because in his flesh the tongue of the malignant prevailed, he prays that it may do no harm to the soul, when he says: 'Deliver my soul from the sword,' so that this prayer in the prophecy, if you refer it to the Head of the body, may not seem the petition of one in need, but rather a figurative prediction of a thing to come. Or else, because his body, that is, the Church, was to endure grievous persecutions, he called it a sword, by which above all the martyrs were slain; whence he wills their souls to be delivered, lest they fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, and lest they consent to unlawful things. Or again, in their very passions, he calls the tongue of the enemies a sword. Whence he wills his soul, that is, the soul of his body, the soul of his saints, to be delivered. But that which follows:
'And my only one from the hand of the dog' — nothing seems to me more fitly understood than the one Church. He called the world a dog, not by reason but by custom, barking against the truth to which it is unaccustomed. For this is the nature of dogs, that against those with whom they are acquainted, whether these be good or bad, they do not bark, but at the sight of unfamiliar persons, even innocent ones, they are provoked. And by 'the hand of the dog' he signified the power of the world, whose kingdom, hostile to his body, that is, to his Church, he figured by the name of a lion in that which he added: 'Save me from the mouth of the lion.' Whence it is written:
'There is no difference between the threatening of a king and the wrath of a lion,' although the apostle Peter too compares the devil to a lion roaring and going about seeking whom he may devour. And showing that the proud of this world would set themselves against the humble Christians, he consequently says: 'And my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns.' For by unicorns the proud are understood, because pride hates fellowship, and, so far as in him lies, every proud man desires to be pre-eminent alone. Now then attend, where the fruit lies — whether in that he was forsaken, that he might not be heard for the sake of earthly happiness, not unto folly, but that we might know what we ought to desire by the grace of the New Testament; or in that he was not forsaken, but heard, in that he says:
'Depart not from me,' who had said: 'Why have you forsaken me?' — which is surely contradictory, unless the one be referred to one thing, and the other to another. Attend and hear, so far as you understand; drink in, so far as you can hold, and so far as I myself am able to speak of so great a matter, or rather so far as he grants who hears us — both in Christ, in so far as he is man, the Mediator between us and God, and with Christ, in so far as he is God, equal to God, and able to do, as the apostle says, above what we ask or understand. See in this psalm the grace of the New Testament; see, in the fruit of that forsaking, tribulation, and supplication, what is done, what is instilled, what is commended, what is illuminated.
Behold what we read prophesied so long before, what we now discern fulfilled. 'I will declare,' he says, 'your name to my brethren; in the midst of the Church I will sing to you.' Those brethren are they of whom he says in the Gospel: 'Go and tell my brethren.' That Church is she whom just now he called his only one; this is the one catholic Church, which is spread abundantly throughout the whole world, which by growing reaches out even to the farthest nations, whence he says in the Gospel: 'And this Gospel shall be preached in all the world for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come.' But that he says, 'I will sing,' this is that new song of which it is said in another psalm: 'Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth.'
Here you have both — with what song he said he would sing, and in the midst of what Church; the former pertains to the new song, the latter to all the earth. For he himself sings in us, by whose grace we sing, as the apostle says: 'Do you wish to receive a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ?' But 'the midst of the Church' you may refer either to eminence and to manifestation itself — since all things are the more said to be in the midst, the more clearly they are known — or else to the more inward members of the Church, because the inward parts are the middle. For not everyone who sounds with his lips sings the new song, but he who sings in that manner which the apostle enjoins, saying: 'Singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord.'
For this joy is within, where the voice of praise is both sung and heard; by which voice he is praised who is to be loved freely with all the heart, all the soul, all the mind, and who kindles his lover toward himself by the grace of his Holy Spirit; for what else is the new song but the praise of God? Finally there follows, and more evidently demonstrates this. For when he had said, 'I will declare your name to my brethren' — since 'no one has ever seen God, but the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he himself has declared him' — and had added, 'In the midst of the Church I will sing to you,' in what manner he sang, that is, because he sang in us as we advance in the name which he declared to his brethren, and because he sang the praise of God in us, forthwith he made it plain, saying:
'You who fear the Lord, praise him.' But who truly praises, except him who sincerely loves? It is therefore just the same as if he had said: 'You who fear the Lord, love him.' For he said to man, as it is written, 'Behold, piety is wisdom.' Moreover piety is the worship of God, nor is he worshipped save by loving. The highest and true wisdom, then, is in that first precept: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul'; and by this, wisdom is the love of God, nor is it poured forth in our hearts save by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. But 'the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord,' and fear is not in charity, but 'perfect charity casts out fear.'
Accordingly the fear that is sent ahead into our heart drives thence the habit of evil works and keeps a place for charity, which, as its mistress coming to take her seat there, the fear withdraws. Therefore, you who fear the Lord, praise him — that you may worship God not slavishly but freely; learn to love him whom you fear, and you shall be able to praise what you love. For the men of the Old Testament, fearing God on account of the letter that terrifies and kills, not yet having the Spirit that makes alive, ran with sacrifices to the temple, and, although in a figure of the future blood by which we have been redeemed, yet not knowing what was prefigured by them, offered up bloody victims. But now, in the grace of the New Testament, you who fear the Lord, praise him.
For he himself, foretelling in another psalm the changing of those things which were then offered in the shadow of what was to come, says: 'I will not take bullocks from your house, nor he-goats from your flocks.' And a little after, to show the sacrifice of the New Testament, when those former things were to cease, he says: 'Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High.' And at the end of that same psalm he says: 'The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me, and there is the way by which I will show him the salvation of God.' The salvation of God is Christ, whom the aged Symeon, when he had recognized him in the Spirit as an infant and taken him in his hands, said: 'Now you dismiss your servant, O Lord, according to your word, in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.'
'You then who fear the Lord, praise him; all you seed of Jacob, magnify him.' It is not without meaning that it does not suffice him to say 'the seed of Jacob,' unless he added 'all,' lest it be understood only of those from among the Israelites who were to believe. For the seed of Jacob is itself the seed of Abraham; and to all who believe in Christ — not only to those from Israel who were faithful — the apostle says: 'Therefore you are the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.' For there he recalled the prefiguration of the New Testament in that which is written: 'In Isaac shall your seed be called' — not indeed in Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman.
In these two sons of Abraham, the slave and the free, and in the two women, the bondmaid and the free, writing to the Galatians he says that the two Testaments are prefigured in allegory. Whence he says: 'Not those who are the children of the flesh, these are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.' For the word of the promise is this: 'At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.' It is a great matter and exceedingly long to unfold carefully why the children of the promise, pertaining to Isaac, are counted to the grace of the New Testament. Yet I will touch upon it briefly, from which you will think all the more fruitfully, the more piously you think. Not all things that God foretells does he promise; for he foretells even those things which he himself does not do, since he is foreknowing of all things to come.
He foretells, therefore, even the sins of men, which he could foreknow but not do. But he promises those things which he himself will do, and not evils but goods. For who would promise evils? And so, although he inflicts evils upon the evil — not sins but punishments — yet he rather threatens than promises them. All things he bestows and foreknows, but sins he foretells, punishments he threatens, benefits he promises. The children of the promise, therefore, are the children of benefit. This is grace, which is given freely, not for the merits of the worker but by the mercy of the giver. Hence we give thanks to the Lord our God, which is the great sacrament in the sacrifice of the New Testament — what it is, and where and when and in what manner it is offered, you will find when you have been baptized. Then there follows, and he says:
'Let all the seed of Israel fear him.' For Jacob himself and Israel were one man having two names, and that in no small mystery — but in one book we cannot say all things, in which we have already advanced far, and have not yet said anything about the other three questions, that is, about the outer darkness, and about the breadth, length, height, and depth, and about the five and five virgins — that which then he said above, 'all the seed of Jacob,' this he consequently calls 'all the seed of Israel.' But why above, 'magnify him,' and afterward, 'let him fear him'? Magnifying befits praise, of which he had said, 'You who fear the Lord, praise him,' whereof I have already discoursed much.
For there indeed is the love or charity of God, which, being perfect, casts out fear. Why then again, 'Let all the seed of Israel fear him'? For 'you have not received,' says the apostle, 'the spirit of bondage again in fear.' But this same apostle enjoins fear upon the wild olive grafted into the olive, that is, upon the Gentiles added to the root of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that they too might become Israel — that is, might pertain to the seed of Abraham. This grafting of the wild olive, when the natural branches had been cut off on account of the pride of unbelief, the Lord himself also foretold in the Gospel, on the occasion of that centurion who believed in him from among the Gentiles. For then he said: 'Amen I say to you, I have not found such great faith in Israel,' and he added:
'Therefore I say to you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall go into the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth' — thus signifying that the wild olive is grafted in on account of humility (for that centurion had said: 'I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed'), but the breaking off of the natural branches on account of their pride, namely of those who, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish their own, were not subject to the righteousness of God.
For of these, swelling with vain elation, it was said that they shall go into the outer darkness, because, boasting of themselves as being of the seed of Abraham, they refused to become the seed of Abraham, so as to be children of the promise; because they did not receive the faith of the New Testament, wherein the righteousness of God is commended, but, wishing to establish their own, that is, presuming as it were upon their own merits and works, they scorned to be children of the promise — that is, children of grace, children of mercy — so that 'he who glories may glory in the Lord,' believing in him who justifies the ungodly, that is, who out of the ungodly makes the godly, so that his faith may be reckoned unto righteousness and fulfilled in him.
Not that which his merit demanded, but the benefit which was promised by the Lord. Dealing therefore with these who were being grafted into the olive by grace, the apostle says: 'You say, "The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in." Well; because of unbelief they were broken off. But you stand by faith; be not high-minded, but fear.' For it is God's benefit, not your merit; which he says also elsewhere: 'By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God, not of works, lest perhaps anyone be exalted. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God has prepared, that we should walk in them.' In this understanding of grace, then, there is fear, of which it is said: 'Be not high-minded, but fear.'
But this fear is another kind; it is not that servile fear which charity casts out. For by the one it is feared lest one fall into the torment of punishment, but by this other, lest the grace of the benefit be lost. Wherefore, although the apostle says to the faithful pertaining to the New Testament that which I mentioned a little before — 'For you have not received the spirit of bondage again into fear, but you have received the spirit of the adoption of sons, in whom we cry, "Abba, Father"' — that is, that there may be in us the faith which works through love, not so much by fearing punishment as by loving righteousness; yet, because the soul does not become righteous save by participation in a better, in him who justifies the ungodly — for what has it that it has not received? —
— it ought not, by attributing to itself what is God's, to glory as though it had not received. On this account it was said to it: 'Be not high-minded, but fear.' And this fear is enjoined even upon those who, living by faith, are heirs of the New Testament and called into liberty. For 'to be high-minded' is said to mean 'to be proud,' which he sufficiently shows elsewhere by the contrary, where he says: 'Not being high-minded, but consenting to the humble.' From that which he says, 'consenting to the humble,' he clearly opened that by 'being high-minded' he had said nothing else than 'being proud.' Fear, therefore, is not in charity, because perfect charity casts out fear — but that servile fear, that by which, when anyone abstains himself from an evil work, he is terrified by punishment, not delighted by righteousness;