But the people who was made far from the saints is to be recognized as Israel, made unworthy of the sanctification of the nations and departing far from it. And as to what is 'unto the end,' let it be understood as proper to him who is 'the end of the Law' (Rom. 10:4): which is likewise recognized in the end of the psalm, since especially the discourse by which the end of the psalm is concluded declares the completion of this very understanding of ours. Through these things, then, which are attached to the superscription apart from the record of deeds, we shall treat the psalm also from the person of the Lord: yet not dissenting from the complaints of the prophet himself. Nor is it to be thought that he did not also groan in those things which he endured;
since for this reason the deeds done have been attached to these very things which intimate the spiritual sense, that through the action of the prophet the sense and the discourse of the prophecy might become known, since the prophet prophesied not so much by the spirit as by his sufferings. There will therefore be a discourse tempered between David himself and the man Jesus Christ: so that, because he bore the infirmities of all and frequently made use both of the voice and of the tears of our sins, the affection and the discourse which is of the man may be apart from any reproach to God. 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, for man hath trodden me down: fighting all the day he hath afflicted me; my enemies have trodden me down all the day' (Ps. 55:2-3). We have learned that 'day' is frequently signified in place of 'age,' so that where there is 'the whole day,' there the whole time of life is shown.
For neither David nor the Lord was vexed by the persecution of one day only. But he who asks the mercy of God and complains that he has been trodden down has the arms of his security and virtue, by which he sustains not only earthly hatreds but also the wars of spiritual wickednesses, against which rather than against flesh and blood the Apostle teaches us that our fight is (Eph. 6:12). For they use the ministries of the impious for the vexations and tribulations of the saints, when, penetrating their hearts, they incite them to every onset of a turbulent mind. This height, therefore, exalting and lifting itself up in this world, the prophet, not dreading it, says: 'From the height of days I will not fear; because many who war against me shall fear' (cf. Ps. 55:3-4).
He knows the day of eternal judgment, he knows also the eternal fire prepared for eternal punishments: and therefore rather those who try to war him down shall fear, because, since the saint does not fear, the terror of judgment will the more press upon them. But for the confidence of his security he added: 'But I will hope in thee. In the Lord I will praise my words all the day' (Ps. 55:4, 11). He places all his hopes in God and praises his words throughout the whole time of his life. Nor is it obscure what he praises in himself as he speaks. For this voice which follows is worthy of a saint: 'In God I will hope, I will not fear what flesh may do to me' (Ps. 55:5). The terror of the world does not break this man, nor do the hatreds of those conspiring against him disturb him. For hope which is in God does not dread the terrors of human hatreds.
But 'flesh' we frequently take for the signification of men, through which they are contained in the body; whether when it is said of the impious: 'My spirit shall not abide in these men, because they are flesh' (Gen. 6:3), or that: 'All flesh shall see the salvation of God' (Isa. 40:5), or that of the Apostle: 'Are you not carnal, and walk according to man?' (1 Cor. 3:3-4). And so he remains undismayed under the mercy of God, and therefore, hoping in him, he does not dread all the onsets and persecutions of the flesh. But this voice is also plainly worthy of the only-begotten God, from whom, as he emptied himself out of the form of God, the servile form did not take away the power of God and his nature. For God, having become flesh, remained God even in the assumption of the flesh, using the power of his own virtue under the fellowship of our body.
For he was not weighed down by the flesh so as not to walk upon the waves, nor so that the virtue of the divine power did not go forth even to the hem of the garment, nor so as not to forgive sins and, with his spittle, kindle the nature of seeing in eyes blind from the womb, and, the ear being produced, close up the wound of the cut-off ear from the wound, nor so as not to pass through the solid substance of walls by slipping between them. Therefore the prophet, hoping in God, did not fear from the flesh, nor did God, under the assumption of the flesh, in consummating the divine works. In these things also which follow, the signification of the deed done in him is contained. For he says: 'All the day they cursed my words: all their designs against me were unto evil. They will dwell and hide: they will observe my heel' (Ps. 55:6-7).
For nowhere except by hidden counsels were both false testimonies and captious questionings prepared against him: dwelling in common and concealing the counsels of malice. But they did not bear the rebuke of his words, by which he did not cease to reproach their impieties, watching also all his goings-out at the heel, then entering into fraudulent conspiracies for his supplanting: on account of which this fitting sentence of judgment seized them. For there follows: 'As they have waited for my soul, for nothing shalt thou save them; in thy wrath thou shalt bring down the peoples' (Ps. 55:8).
This is a new saying of the prophet: that those who wait for his soul, God saves 'unto nothing'; and since 'nothing' is one thing and 'to be saved' another, now the salvation which shall come upon them is 'unto nothing.' Is there, then, something that is saved 'unto nothing'? There is, plainly: whatever, though the resurrection is granted, is not worthy of change. For since all flesh has been redeemed in Christ, so that it may rise again, and it is necessary that all should stand before his tribunal, yet the glory and honor of rising again is not common to all. To those, therefore, to whom only resurrection, not also change, has been granted — these are saved 'unto nothing.' For in wrath shall these peoples be brought down, to whom the salvation of resurrection has been appointed unto the perception of punishment; from which wrath the Apostle promises that we shall be snatched, saying:
'For if, when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more, being now justified in his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him' (Rom. 5:8-9). For sinners, therefore, he died unto the salvation of resurrection, but those sanctified in his blood he will save from wrath. Finally, the peoples being 'saved unto nothing' and brought down in wrath, this saint announces the hope of his own life, saying: 'O God, I have declared my life to thee: thou hast set my tears in thy sight, as also in thy promise' (Ps. 55:9). He is worthy of the promise of God on account of the constancy of preaching and on account of the merit of not keeping silent: for his tears, which the prophet poured out either for himself or the Lord for us, are in the sight of God, being about to use the embassy of these tears for obtaining what God has promised.
But as he is about to enter upon the grace of the eternal promise, his enemies shall be turned backward, so that he might show whither they were being brought down in wrath. For there follows: 'My enemies shall be turned backward, in whatsoever day I shall call upon thee' (Ps. 55:10). As he calls upon God, they shall be turned back to that whence they came forth: the wrath of God bringing them down and their body being resumed to be punished for punishments. But with those returned into hell for the eternity of punishment after the resurrection, this man here performs the office of his thanksgiving, when he says: 'Behold, I have known that thou art my God, and in God I will praise the word' (Ps. 55:10-11). This word of his, therefore, he praises in God: that he has known that he is his God. Nor does he praise this alone, but also that which he hoped in him, not fearing what man may do to him.
This is plainly a voice worthy of all the saints: constantly to keep faith amid human persecutions, and not to be moved by the fear of earthly turbulence, and by a most certain hope not to fear that man shall accomplish anything against the eternity of the soul, since after the intercession of this death both our corruption and infirmity shall be changed into immortal glory. And on this account he commends his words, by which he protests that, hoping in the Lord, he does not fear human force, saying: 'In the Lord I will praise the word, in the Lord I will hope: I will not fear what man may do to me' (Ps. 55:11-12). For this reason, then, he praises his word in the Lord, because, hoping in him, he will not fear man.
But that he might teach that for this reason he dreads nothing from man — because, if a man exerted anything of his power upon the body, the glory of the resurrection would again restore it without the ruin of the bodies — he added: 'In me, O God, are the vows which I will render of praise to thee: because thou hast delivered my soul from death, and my feet from falling; that I may please before God in the light of the living' (Ps. 55:12-14). These things which he hopes are not outside himself, nor are the vows of praise which he will render to be laid hold of from without. For he himself is the Lord of resurrection to himself; he himself granted to this dead body, left within the sepulchre, the fellowship of his divine nature.
For neither is the body of all who are to rise again acquired from external matter, nor is a nature of foreign origin and of external causes restored: but this very same body shall emerge into the increase of eternal brightness, and what is new shall be effected in it by change rather than by creation. There are, therefore, in himself the vows which he will render: at the time when the infirmity of the bodies shall be withdrawn, that is, falling and tears; when incorruption shall devour corruption; when immortal power shall swallow up death; when God shall be all in all; when, being the light of the living, he himself shall please in that same God, the light of the living.
For if the Father, according to the profession of Wisdom, rejoiced over the sons of men in the creation of the world, far more is he to be understood as about to please the Father in the reconciliation of the world. For he is the true light of the world, 'enlightening every man that cometh into this world' (John 1:9), our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. Psalm 56. 'Unto the end, destroy not, David for the inscription of the title, when he fled from the face of Saul into the cave. Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me: for my soul trusteth in thee' (Ps. 56:1-2).
From the superscription of the previous psalm, only this much is changed in the one that follows: that whereas there it was foretitled 'for the people made far from the saints,' now 'corrupt not' or 'destroy not' is prescribed, which the Greek tongue comprised both in the one phrase mē diaphtheirēs. For it was consequent that, because corruption was to remain for those who would depart far from the saints, he should pray that the saint might not be subjected to this. For in another psalm too he shows his thanksgiving for this corruption being turned away from him, saying: 'Nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption' (Ps. 15:10). Nor is it doubtful that this psalm, according to the profession of the apostles, is to be understood from the person of the Lord.
And so David, awaiting the time of the Lord's resurrection unto the glory of human flesh, now both prays that he be not corrupted and, by the prophet's foreknowledge, gives thanks for corruption being turned away from him in him in whom are the firstfruits of the resurrection. But 'unto the end' is the inscription of the title for this reason: because both a life taken up gloriously unto the honor of eternity and a death salutary to very many is inscribed upon the sepulchres of brave men, and all these things ought to be referred to him who is either the end of the Law or whom the end of the psalm itself shows. But as to the fact that, shut up in the cave, he speaks these things — it is the time of the prophecy, at which he is understood to have written the psalm, prophesying, by that very dwelling in the cave, the humility of the Lord who was to remain in the body.
For the rest, it cannot seem that he who out of fear was hidden within the cave was resounding with the psaltery and the harp, that is, with the whole apparatus of the art of music, as he testifies in the psalm. But he began thus: 'Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me: for my soul trusteth in thee' (Ps. 56:2). He asks mercy because he trusts in the Lord, teaching that the mercy of God is to be hoped for by those who would believe. And he shows what is the moment or the effect of the mercy of God, saying: 'And in the shadow of thy wings I will hope, until iniquity pass away' (Ps. 56:2). It is of the nature of birds to overshadow with their wings the weakness of their chicks and to defend them from the force and rapacity of those flying past.
Which we recognize especially in hens, when they either shade or protect their young gathered within their feathers. Whose custom the Lord recalls as an example of his own solicitude, saying to Jerusalem, the slayer of the prophets: 'How often would I have gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings, and thou wouldest not?' (Matt. 23:37). The saint, therefore, hopes in the shadow of God's wings until iniquity pass away — that is, while he escapes either the scandals of the world, or the iniquities of the impious, or the infirmity of earthly humility, while he escapes this very cave, as it were, of his dwelling and his body, David, in which he is now shut up. But hoping under the shadow of God's wings, he is ever intent upon the office of his hope, saying:
'I will cry to the most high God, to the God who hath done good to me' (Ps. 56:3). He cries by faith rather than by voice — he who cries while fleeing and hiding. Moreover, there is not in the discourse of one hoping a thanksgiving of things obtained; but it is of prophetic knowledge and faith to rejoice over things to be done no otherwise than over things done, and therefore he cries to him who, under the unchangeable disposition of goodness, has already done good to him; and to what extent the Lord has done good, he teaches in what follows, saying: 'He sent from heaven and delivered me, he gave into reproach those who trod me down. God sent his mercy and his truth; he snatched my soul from the midst of the whelps of lions; I slept troubled' (Ps. 56:4-5).
It was fitting, even though there were no change of person and of sense, that a diapsalma should intervene, because the sense of believers had to be raised up to the understanding of the things said. God did good to his saint by sending from heaven, so that, he being delivered, those who trod him down might be given into reproach. And he sent his mercy and his truth to snatch his soul from the midst of the whelps, then when, being troubled, he had slept. Whether death is signified in sleep, either when David is to sleep with his fathers, or when the sleeping Lazarus is to be awakened, or when that centurion's girl 'is not dead but sleepeth' (Matt. 9:24), or when 'we shall not go before, in the resurrection, those who have fallen asleep' (1 Thess. 4:15); if the troubling of the sleeper is a signification of the passion, when it is said:
'Now is my soul troubled exceedingly' (John 12:27), which soul he had nevertheless earlier prayed to be snatched from the hand of the dog thus: 'Deliver me from the mouth of the lion, and my only one from the hand of the dog' (Ps. 21:21-22) — no others can be understood as the whelps of dogs or lions than those who are also the 'brood of vipers' (Matt. 3:7), from whose midst the soul is snatched; and it is snatched through the mercy and truth sent from heaven, according to that: 'Mercy and truth have met each other' (Ps. 84:11). And if mercy and truth is the Lord Jesus Christ, there is no doubt that those are led into reproach who, treading down the Lord in this passion, do not believe; to whom it is verily a reproach to have lost the coming of the only-begotten God and the pardon of sins.
And because both the hatreds of the persecutors and the contradictions of the deniers would always be opposed to this hope of the saints, having recalled the sacraments of human salvation, he added: 'The sons of men, their teeth are a shield and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword' (Ps. 56:5). The divine discourse signifies the vices and movements of souls under the offices of the body, as in the canticle of Deuteronomy: 'The beloved grew fat and kicked' (Deut. 32:15), the luxury of impiety being rebuked under the signification of a bodily habit; or that: 'Who devour my people as the food of bread' (Ps. 13:4); or also: 'Thou hast broken the teeth of sinners' (Ps. 3:8); and likewise of the Apostle:
'But if you bite one another, take heed lest you be consumed one of another' (Gal. 5:15) — so that what is enjoined upon each and every member as its office and action may be referred to the efficiency of minds and souls: so that now, about to recall the effects either of the persecutors or of the detractors, he says: 'The sons of men, their teeth are a shield and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword' (Ps. 56:5), since they both consumed by the savagery of power and wounded with the darts of detractions. But amid these things, which he knows and awaits, the prophet did not keep silent. For, having prayed that he might not be corrupted, he longs for the time of this corruption being swallowed up, saying: 'Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and thy glory above all the earth' (Ps. 56:6).
Those things which are raised on high from lowly places seem to be exalted, because through a certain advance they escape into that which is more sublime. But what is to be exalted above the heavens must necessarily first have descended to the lower regions from the heavens, through which it is again to be exalted above the heavens. This same thing the Apostle says most completely thus: 'Who, when he had ascended on high, led captivity captive, gave gifts to men. Now that he ascended, what is it but because he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things' (Eph. 4:8-10) — signifying hence that the cause of his being exalted above the heavens existed in this, that the humility of descending even into the lower parts of the earth had been assumed.
Out of his vow, therefore, the prophet foretells that God will be exalted above the heavens. And because, exalted above the heavens, he was about to fill all things on earth with the glory of his Holy Spirit, he added: 'And thy glory above all the earth' (Ps. 56:6), since the gift of the Spirit poured out upon all flesh testified to the glory of the Lord exalted above the heavens. But all this advance is wished for, not for the divine nature, but for the infirmity of man: because the prophet is not ignorant that, through the assumption of the flesh, he is to be placed in the heavenly places, seeing that we have been made 'concorporate and partakers in Christ Jesus' (Eph. 3:6). And therefore he joined these things to the infirmity of his flesh, which was both to be denied in the Lord's passions and to be exalted above the heavens:
'They prepared snares for my feet, and bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face, and are fallen into it' (Ps. 56:7). Through the faith of compassion, the prophet himself also suffering in the Lord, as though he too had suffered, complains of these things. But against those who persecuted the Lord of majesty, since they have fallen into the pit they prepared, both the perception and the punishment of that death itself is referred. And because the faith of suffering-with and dying-with glorifies us in Christ, the prophet stands as if in the array of this hope and faith, saying: 'My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready: I will sing and utter a psalm to thee. Arise, my glory; arise, psaltery and harp' (Ps. 56:8-9).
'I will rise at dawn; I will confess to thee among the peoples, O Lord; I will utter a psalm to thee among the nations' (Ps. 56:10). With a diapsalma interposed, the prophet referred this discourse to God, meanwhile singing in faith these very things unto which his heart is ready; and, exhorting the joys of both his soul and his body under the signification of the psaltery and the harp, he shows himself in that he sings and utters a psalm. For he says: 'Arise, my glory; arise, psaltery and harp: I will rise at dawn' — declaring, namely, that he himself is shown forth in the psaltery and the harp, since, the harp and psaltery being roused to rise, he rather who is signified in them arises.
But rising at dawn with his glory, he sings the glory of the evangelical hope, the time of dawn agreeing both with prayer and with salvation. For there follows: 'I will confess to thee among the peoples, O Lord; I will utter a psalm to thee among the nations' (Ps. 56:10). About to praise God among the peoples and among the nations, he must needs praise in that the salvation of the nations: because now the cord of the inheritance is not narrowed in Israel alone, nor is the portion of Jacob, but now the fullness of the earth is God's; nor are we now the image of the earthly, but the image of the heavenly (cf. 1 Cor. 15:49). But what was to be confessed among the peoples and psalmed among the nations, he shows: 'For thy mercy is magnified even unto the heavens, and thy truth even unto the clouds' (Ps. 56:11).
This, then, is the confession among the peoples and the nations: that mercy has been magnified even unto the heavens and truth even unto the clouds. For since the saints shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the clouds (1 Thess. 4:17), with that very cloud raised up in the body of the resurrection, every creature according to the Apostle being to be freed from corruption (Rom. 8:21), and all things pacified through him whether in heaven or on earth (Col. 1:20), deservedly the truth of our resurrection in him is borne even unto the clouds and magnified, and his mercy even unto the heavens, the corruption of the groaning creature being driven away. But of these things is signified an elevation even unto the clouds and even unto the heavens; yet it is proper to him alone to pass beyond the heavens and to escape all sense of estimated sublimity.
And so, the prayer of his hope being repeated, the prophet thus closed: 'Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and thy glory above all the earth' (Ps. 56:12). There is no measure in exalting God: for above the heavens is his elevation. For the Lord of creatures is to be understood beyond the creatures. And since to us there is nothing else in knowledge than the heaven, he who is exalted above the heavens is beyond all sense, exceeding the sense of our conception. His mercy indeed has redounded even unto us, but it is magnified even unto the heavens in the heavenly things soon to be. And though his truth is borne even unto the clouds, we being about to be caught up to meet him in the cloud, yet, being about to sit at the right hand of God, he himself transcends all the heavens; his glory too remaining on earth, that is, with us, when he says:
'Behold, I am with you all the days, even unto the consummation of the age' — our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 57. Unto the end, destroy not, of David, for the inscription of a title. 'If indeed you truly speak of justice, judge rightly, O sons of men,' and the rest. From the superscription of the preceding psalm there is lacking only some indication of deeds. For it too has 'unto the end' and 'destroy not' and the inscription of a title. Yet this psalm contains nothing of prophecy through the accomplishment of events, so that, as in the others, holy David might prophesy both by his words and by his deeds; rather, it contains a rebuke against the impious, and a declaration of God's judgment upon sinners, and a recompense of gladness for the saints, and the fruit of righteousness for man.
This, then, is the 'end' in the psalm; this is the confidence in corruption being driven away; this, to him who redeemed us through death, is the inscription of a title. And indeed the whole psalm presents itself as such: 'If indeed you truly speak of justice, judge uprightly, O sons of men. For in your heart you work iniquities, upon the earth your hands weave together iniquity.' The word of justice is common to all; but to pursue the zeal for judgment is the practice of only a few. Yet plainly a man is to be reckoned as truly speaking justice only when he keeps to the judgment of truth, since God judges, for this purpose, not human utterances but the works of the heart, that is, the contrivings of thoughts. Now iniquity is wont not to be carried out because of shame before public conscience;
and therefore, although hands may not be joined together to work iniquity, nevertheless the heart works iniquity before God upon the earth. Hence adultery conceived in the heart alone is already a crime; hence, according to Paul's gospel, God judges the secret things of men, since God beholds the wills of men already at the very outset of human birth. For since the power of nature's might enters not so much the fibres of the flesh as the appetite of the mind, it must take its beginning of discernment not through the motions of the senses, but through the knowledge of nature apprehend even the future motions of the senses by foreknowing them. And for this reason, concerning those who accomplish in the heart the iniquities their hands have wrought together, he at once adds: 'Sinners are estranged from the womb, they have gone astray from the belly, they have spoken false things.'
Thus was Esau estranged from the womb, when it was announced, even before he came into being, that the elder should serve the younger, since God was not ignorant of the will to come, seeing that both the falsehood of his speech and the error of his life were from the belly — God rather knowing this than that anyone was born under a necessity of nature and of sin. And lest the vice could be referred to origin, he reproaches the crime of a will hardened beforehand in these men against obedience, saying: 'Their fury is according to the likeness of a serpent, like the deaf asp that stops her ears, which will not hear the voice of the charmers, nor of the medicine skilfully prepared by the wise.' A certain natural necessity is not excused in the crime. For the serpent could have been innocent whose ears are stopped so that they are as it were deaf of themselves;
and it does not hear the voice of the charmer, nor does it perceive the prepared remedies from the wise one. Nor here does he recall the chants of the Marsi and the lulled hissing of vipers, since these same things grow torpid, with even greater sluggishness, through faith in the name of God and his power; but rather he teaches of that stubborn and insolent disobedience of the ancient serpent, which grows deaf against the chants of the saints and the remedies prepared by the wise; to whom, even though daily — that he may not deceive, nor creep in unawares, nor bite — it be enjoined even under the invocation of the divine name, yet with hearing stopped up he rages on; whence those who do not obey the gospel are a brood of vipers. But because his power and that of his followers is crushed, and all the weapons of savagery in them are broken, these things are subjoined:
'God shall break their teeth in their mouth; the Lord shall shatter the jaw-teeth of the lions. They shall come to nothing, like water running away; he shall bend his bow until they be made weak. Like melted wax they shall be taken away; fire fell upon them, and they saw not the sun.' Of the teeth of sinners and the jaw-teeth of lions we have often spoken, since in them is signified the impulse of raging malice. When these, then, are broken and crushed, they shall come to nothing like running water. For the whole course of overflowing waters is idle, since each one of them draws off only what he thinks useful to himself, while the rest run past in a channel destined to perish, being carried down as far as the seas only unto their own annihilation.
And indeed he makes mention of this nature and contempt in another psalm, when he says: 'I am poured out like water, and all my bones are scattered. My heart is become like melting wax in the midst of my belly.' And indeed many things which are dissolved from solids into liquids change their condition without the annihilation of their nature, so that from rigid things they flow: wax, however, if it be caught by fire alone, so melts that it perishes. In the same way now he has set forth the example of each kind of creation in the perishing of sinners: 'They shall come to nothing like water running away; he shall bend his bow until they be made weak. Like melted wax they shall be taken away.' First, then, they shall come to nothing without hope of remaining or abiding, flowing away uselessly;