Surely that, through these examples of their martyrdom, they might instruct the nations unto the hope of the eternal kingdom. For those who then preached Christ preached not for themselves, to whom he was then known, but for us who were still to be, or for those to whom he was then unknown. And that preaching of theirs kindled the faith of all posterity to the desire of martyrdom. For they preached for no other cause than that by the example of their faith and martyrdom they might instruct more martyrs — which Paul taught, saying: 'I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus for you Gentiles.' And on account of this, in the fruit of this preaching, they confess that they render their vows to God, saying: 'I will render to thee my vows, which my lips have distinguished. And my mouth hath spoken in my tribulation:'
'I will offer thee holocausts full of marrow, with incense and rams; I will offer thee oxen with goats.' Is the prophet ignorant that he spoke in the Spirit from the person of God: 'I will not take calves out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy flocks,' and: 'Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?' And again: 'For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would surely have given it; but with holocausts thou wilt not be delighted'? The error of our supposition, therefore, ceases, that we should think the martyrs vowed these things. But in their martyrdoms they will render to God the vows they have spoken, the martyrs of later times — they themselves indeed first vowing themselves to God and offering themselves as holocausts, because in these they will enter the house of God, in the tribulations of their sufferings crying out with the voice of Paul:
'Who shall separate us from the love of God? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril?' And: 'I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.' These, then, are first the vows of the blessed martyrs in tribulation, which they speak and promise in their tribulations; then, afterward, that from us they may consummate holocausts full of marrow. 'Full of marrow' on this account, because faith is the function of the soul and the heart — and this is a matter of the inward will — 'with incense also rams are offered.' But what incense is, we are thus taught in this same book of the psalms:
'Let my prayer be set forth as incense in thy sight,' signifying that by incense prayers are to be understood. But who are shown forth under the name of rams, the earlier psalm shows, when it says: 'the rams of the sheep are clothed'; for in these, as in the leaders of the flocks, it signifies the priests, whom the erudition of apostolic doctrine, with the fragrance of prayers — for according to Paul we are a good odor in Christ — accompanies to the zeal of martyrdom. And not only will rams be offered with incense, but oxen also will be offered; that is, cattle of a stubborn nature are tamed into the worship of God, subdued unto this martyrdom by the apostolic doctrines of the name of Christ. But in that which is said:
'I will offer thee oxen with goats,' the Latin speech did not retain the force of the word changed from Hebrew into Greek. For what is among us, 'I will offer thee oxen with goats,' among them is thus held: 'anoisō soi boas meta cheimarrōn.' 'Cheimarroi' among the Greeks is not a proper but an appellative name for goats, and especially of those which are born in the very time of winter. And Scripture in this place alone called them 'cheimarrous,' but in the other places 'tragous,' which we call 'goats,' it set down. And another translation, consonant and concordant with itself, confirms the sense of the spiritual understanding, which for 'cheimarrois' translated 'kairimous'; and 'kairimoi' signifies those which are born from that very season;
Now the 'winter-torrents' are those which the winter begets, whence also Greek usage names them 'torrents' (torrentes) by the same word — those which the winter has swelled from nothing into rivers. Therefore when it says 'oxen together with winter-torrents,' the prophetic discourse shows that it is not speaking of cattle, but that under the figure of the oxen of the Church it means to present men, while under the figure of the winter-torrents it means those whom the very tempest of persecution has begotten into the glory of martyrdom. For we know that many who were ignorant of the divine mysteries ran to martyrdom by the example of the martyrs, and though they had lived before without the knowledge of faith, once instructed by the deed of a present faith, they attained that very glory of a faith made perfect in martyrdom. Such was he who confessed the Lord in the very hour of his own condemnation, saying:
'Remember me, Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom'; who straightway received from the Lord such a gift of this martyrdom: 'Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise.' Men like him, then, the learning of apostolic teaching offers to God together with the fruit of a lasting and fruitful cultivation, men brought forth under the very tempest of a raging winter. But since God says: 'What to Me is the multitude of your victims? I am full; I will not have the holocausts of rams, nor the fat of lambs, nor the blood of bulls and of goats. For who required these things at your hands?' — it is superfluous to suppose that in oxen and goats, as though they were perfect offerings of solemnities, He took pleasure.
As in other places, the interposition of the 'diapsalma' (selah) changes the person and the sense, though the order of the teaching does not thereby fall apart. For after he had shown, in the person of the apostles, the evangelists, the martyrs, the prophets, by what means his soul had been set into life — that is, through the pains of sufferings and of death, through which it had passed over into the place of blessedness, rendering its vows to God in holocausts — after this discourse, then, which he had directed wholly to God, he now addresses those whom he had trained for the solemnities of the holocausts, saying: 'Come and hear, and I will declare unto you, all ye that fear God.' He summons neither uncertain men nor to uncertain things. For he teaches who they are that he summons: 'all ye that fear God.'
For in the irreligious there is no will either to approach or to hear. Next, he signifies what he is about to declare: 'how great things He hath done for my soul.' For He set it into life, He brought it into refreshment, and it shall enter the house of God amid holocausts. But that these things might come to pass for his soul, he earned by his causes that they should come to pass. And by what causes he earned them, he tells: 'To Him I cried with my mouth.' He earned, then, the good things of his soul, because he cried to Him with his mouth. But the cry of the mouth is often deceitful, and the sound of words does not always announce the affection of the mind. The sense, therefore, ought to follow the cry of the mouth: and it did follow. For the prophet joined on: 'and I exalted under my tongue.'
Not 'in the tongue,' but 'under the tongue' — that is, in the hidden things of the tongue and in a certain utterance of a will silent within itself. This very thing the Lord approved in the Gospels when He said: 'Enter into thy chamber, and shut thy door, and pray: and thy Father, who seeth in secret, shall repay thee.' Now, then, He who was called upon with the mouth is exalted under the tongue as God. But He who is exalted under the tongue must be venerated with all purity of heart; nor does it suffice not to have done anything impious, if impiety is thought in the mind. From him who exalts God under his tongue, the prophet taught that this thought of impiety must be absent, saying: 'If I have beheld iniquity in my heart, let not God hear me. Therefore God hath heard me; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer.'
Not only did he not carry out iniquity in deed, but he did not even behold it in his heart. Or at least he did not behold iniquity in his heart — that is, beholding no vice of his own unjust will in his heart: and for this reason worthy to be heard. For his soul was set into life, and his feet were not moved, and he was brought into refreshment, and he shall enter the house of God, and the vows which he had distinguished with his lips he rendered to God, upheld by the confession of honor and glory, saying: 'Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer nor His mercy from me' — confessing at the end the praise of God begun in the opening of the psalm. To whom be glory unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 66. Unto the end, a hymn, a psalm of a canticle. 'May God have mercy on us and bless us:'
'May He make His countenance shine upon us and have mercy on us,' and the rest. The psalm is brief and completed with evangelical preaching. For it is both 'unto the end' and it is 'a psalm of a canticle,' by which the confession through the knowledge of things to be done and the achievements through teaching are sung. And its beginning is taken from where it ought to be. Now the whole discourse in it is either of the prophets or of the apostles, of whom some taught that the only-begotten God would come in the body, others that He had come — men enlightened by the Holy Spirit and filled with the honor of heavenly glory. Their prayer, then, is to be recognized in the opening of the psalm. 'May God have mercy on us and bless us: may He make His countenance shine upon us and have mercy on us.'
According to the order of the teaching, the mercy of God is first sought. For out of the abundance of His goodness He lavishes mercy in the remission of sins; and the remission of sins is not the merit of uprightness, but a spontaneous will of indulgence, overflowing from the riches of His goodness unto the gift of showing mercy. Therefore He who is merciful is entreated to bless. And indeed we already recognized the fruit of blessing at the opening, in the forming of man, when to Adam, while yet ignorant of sin, such a word is spoken: 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it.' Although very many think these things were said only bodily, yet to those trained in spiritual teaching they have offered more virtue concerning themselves.
For this blessing bestowed not only the bodily generations of Adam's successions. For although his offspring were to be fruitful, yet they could not fill the earth; which, though it be inhabited according to the abundance of men, is nevertheless not filled up. But He willed that the earth of our body be filled with spiritual teachings, and be multiplied, and grow in the knowledge of God. For through Adam and in Adam himself, who had been the first work of God, it was fitting that the knowledge of God be begun: but since he was defiled with sins, the prophets and the apostles pray for themselves the fruit of that blessing. Which the blessed Apostle, having obtained, thus glories concerning himself: 'Blessed be God, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.'
These, then, increase, are multiplied, are filled, who are heavenly in Christ; and they are blessed who are blessed with a spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And let us see whether the present prayer of the psalm entreats the fruit of that blessing. For after mercy and blessing there follows this: 'May He make His countenance shine upon us and have mercy on us.' There is need of the blessing of God, that His countenance may enlighten us, that it may irradiate our darkened hearts with the light of His knowledge, that the Spirit of His majesty may impart light to the darkened senses of our understanding, and that it may thereafter be permitted to glory, saying: 'The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us.'
Now this enlightening of His countenance upon us His own mercy, which has begun in us in the remission of sin, bestows. But unto what advantage they pray that the enlightening of God's countenance be upon them, the ensuing discourse teaches. 'That we may know Thy way upon earth, and Thy salvation among all nations.' The interposition of the diapsalma, even though it has brought a change of person, has nevertheless not altered the sense. For now the discourse is directed to Him who until now had been in the vows. But whereas in the Latin books it is thus written: 'that we may know Thy way upon earth,' in the Greek it is thus: 'that Thy way may be known upon the earth.'
Between 'to be known' and 'that we may know' there is this difference: that 'to be known' is without the definition of person, whereas 'that we may know' points to those very ones who speak these things. Therefore, according to that true rendering of the Greek, they pray to be enlightened by the countenance of God for this reason: that God's way, which is the teaching of the religious life, may become known upon earth. For by it one journeys to God. But the teaching of the religious way is Christ, who shows in the Gospels that He is this, saying: 'I am the truth, the way, the life,' and again: 'No one goeth to the Father except through Me.' And that He is the way, that very connected discourse of the psalm itself bears witness. Which upon earth — that is, either to those born from the earth or to those who inhabit the earth — is to be made knowable and known.
'That we may know Thy way upon earth, Thy salvation among all nations.' That Jesus is called 'the salvation' this very discourse of propriety declares. For what with us is 'salutare' (salvation), that among the Hebrews is 'Jesus.' And the angel confirms this, speaking to Joseph concerning Mary: 'She shall bear a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins.' The angel therefore showed that He was to be named Jesus for this reason, because He was to be the salvation of the people. To so great a preaching, then, they show that they are unequal unless they be enlightened, unless they shine with a certain splendor of the Lord's countenance. For they too, according to the Gospel, are the light of the world — but the Lord Himself is the true Light — enlightened by the Light, that the apostles and prophets might be light.
For the rest, it is superfluous to wish to be enlightened in order that they may know those things which they were preaching as though already known. But it is necessary that the confession of the peoples and the joy of sins remitted should follow this whole prophetic and apostolic teaching: and not only of sins remitted, but that they should know that He who has remitted sins will be a just judge, and that through Him all the nations inhabiting the earth are directed into the way of life, having abandoned the error of idols, instructed unto the knowledge of God. Therefore these things follow: 'Let the peoples confess to Thee, O God, let all the peoples confess to Thee. Let the nations be glad and rejoice, for Thou judgest the peoples in equity and directest the nations upon the earth.'
When 'the peoples confess,' those of the twelve tribes seem to be designated, whether believing or about to believe. When 'all the peoples confess,' no exception of the nations is made. When 'the nations are glad and rejoice, because He will judge the peoples in equity and will direct the nations upon the earth,' the cause of gladness is proclaimed from the hope of eternal judgment and of the nations directed into the way of life. The interposition of the diapsalma seems here to have introduced nothing new, especially since under the same words the sense is repeated: 'Let the peoples confess to Thee, O God, let all the peoples confess to Thee.' But when it is added: 'the earth hath given its fruit,' it is understood that the repetition of the same words was not made out of nothing, if indeed we ought to understand that same thing signified under the same words.
For we find that confession is to be treated according to a twofold reasoning: there is one of sins confessed, where in the desert of the Jordan they confessed their sins; there is another of the praising of God, where the Lord speaks to the Father: 'I confess to Thee, Lord Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and hast revealed them to little ones.' That first and higher confession, then, is to be believed to be of sins, especially that which is connected to the prophetic and apostolic preaching; this following confession is to be understood as the praising of God — of the peoples, then of all, that is, of the whole nations, and for this reason, because the earth has given its fruit. But it must be asked what fruit the earth has given, on account of which all the peoples praise God.
The cause of praise owed to God is indeed eternal, that the earth supplies these bodily fruits necessary to us: but they are not the earth's. For either they are ours, to whom they are furnished, or they are God's, through whom they are ministered. Let us inquire, then, what fruits the earth had and lost. Now by that which it lost, we shall show that it had them. We recall that the earth of Adam, after his sin, was despoiled of the honor of the blessings given to it. For it was said to him: 'For thou art earth, and unto earth thou shalt go.' Therefore because it is earth, it is condemned after sin by this curse: 'Cursed is the earth in thy works; in sorrows shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.' The element of earth was outside of guilt:
Therefore it lacks the curse, because it also lacked the guilt. But here the earth of Adam, which through the enticement of food was guilty, is cursed. This earth, then, is consumed by him with all the griefs of the present life, and is brought forth with all the pains of sicknesses, pricked with the thorns and thistles of vices and with the stings of desires. Every earthly man, therefore, like Adam, renders these cursed fruits of his earth. But he who is now conformed to the heavenly Adam has the innocent fruit of his earth — first rich in the knowledge of God, then glorious in the works of chastity, justice, and mercy, having put off the old man with his vices and concupiscences. For this reason, then, confession is to be rendered to God, because the earth has given its fruit — 'its own':
because Adam, when he had possessed it, had lost it. It gave, then, what is its own — that is, the fruit which is in it in the knowledge of God — exhibiting it first in that very One, our Lord, who took up an earthly body while sinning in nothing. In order that these things might be demonstrated and taught, the gift of God's blessing is again prayed for, when it is said: 'May God bless us.' And lest the blessing should be thought to be hoped for from an uncertain and unknown God, there is added: 'our God' — namely, of the patriarchs and the prophets, and now proper to the apostles themselves as by the inheritance of succession;
in whom the earth has given its own fruit — of continence and faith and justice and mercy, and even, amid the very torments and deaths of the most savage persecutions, devoted by that very martyrdom to the divine name. Then the prayer of blessing is repeated, when it is said: 'May God bless us.' These vows are not iterated out of nothing, but that through the blessing of God, as the teaching increases, all the ends of the earth may fear God. For it says: 'and let all the ends of the earth fear Him.' Let all the ends of the earth, then, fear God — but our God, but the God who blesses. The fear of God is no small office of faith. For it is numbered among the chief gifts of spiritual graces, when it is said through Isaiah: 'and the spirit of the fear of God filled him.' And through Solomon:
'The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.' Blessed is he to whom it has come to fear not from the trepidation of human nature, but from the knowledge of reason. For he who fears out of weakness in fearful matters, this man in prosperous matters again grows insolent from the vice of his nature. But he who fears from knowledge always fears, and dreads prosperity no less than adversity. Wisdom therefore takes its origin from fear, by pursuing useful and approved matters, which are proper and peculiar to wisdom. This fear of God, then, the prophet wishes for all the ends of the earth, that no nation dwelling upon the earth may be outside the fear of Him — the Apostle setting forth the sum of this very vow, when he says:
'and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen.' PSALM 67. Unto the end, a psalm of a canticle of David. 'Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered,' and the rest. The psalm is inscribed not 'by David' but 'to that David, unto the end.' Then it is not a canticle of a psalm, but a psalm of a canticle, so that in it the enunciation of prophetic recognition and knowledge might be taught. Now it is itself wholly woven of the mysteries of the Law and the Gospels, and packed with great interpretation of allegorical sayings both from things past and from things to come:
which both contains in itself the teaching of the Law that was given, and brings the recognition of the flesh assumed by the Lord, and reproaches the impiety of the former people, and announces the faith of our future recognition, and embraces the Lord's ascent above the heavens, and comprehends the glory of His future kingdom. Now the prophecy took its beginning from that in which the effect of our salvation consists. For it began thus: 'Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered, and let those that hate Him flee from before His face.' The discourse is of vows, not of one asking out of uncertainty, but of one hoping out of recognition and knowledge;
for now the time of resurrection in God is longed for, when, condemning sin from sin in the flesh, He made a show of the powers of this world, triumphing over them in Himself with confidence. For He came to conquer the world and to transfix the prince of the world together with the law of sin, and to blot out the decree of death by the remission of sin. This flight, then, of these enemies of His the prophet awaits. For neither could this crowd of hating demons endure the encounter of Him rising from the dead, since at the first power of apostolic faith — after the spiritual wickednesses had been subjected to it — Satan was proclaimed to have fallen from heaven like lightning, and the prince of the world was judged in the Passion.
But fleeing from before the face of God, while they flee, they indeed show their trepidation, yet to escape the face of God, however they flee, they cannot. For he declares the trepidation of these same spiritual wickednesses in the preceding psalm, saying: 'He sent forth His arrows and scattered them; and He multiplied His lightnings and troubled them.' They are troubled, therefore, and flee scattered. But they do not escape the power of God's countenance, according to that: 'Smoke ascended in His wrath, and fire blazed forth from His face; coals were kindled by Him.' Therefore the flight of these enemies is followed by their destruction and the penalty of judgment. And indeed the same order of prophecy is here distinguished as in the preceding psalm. For there follows: 'As smoke fails, let them fail;'
'as wax melteth before the fire, so let sinners perish before the face of God.' When smoke has emerged, though in a dense and thick mass, yet little by little it so fails and is abolished that it does not remain, just as in the sight of fire wax so melts that it is no more; the smoke indeed slipping away into emptiness through its own lightness and thinness, but the wax consumed by the force and heat of the fire, because it, being of a weak nature, is dissolved of itself by the burning of a mightier nature; in which manner all the power of the wicked melts away before the face of God — that is, before the judgment of God. And it is necessary that the joy of the just should follow this destruction of sinners from the face of God. For immediately it is subjoined: 'and let the just be glad in gladness.'
For the equal and just moderation of the heavenly judgment is such that, as it destroys sinners with death, so it also rewards the just with gladness. And this very thing follows for the demonstration of the scrutiny of judgment: 'let them exult in the sight of God, let them feast in gladness.' For with a clean heart, according to the merits of the evangelical beatitude, they are worthy of the sight of God. But to be glad 'in gladness' is of a deeper signification, showing namely the cause of perfect gladness. For very many are glad in those things which will harm them, as the wanton man rejoices among harlots, as the thief is glad in his thefts, as those things which each one practices delight him according to his own vices.
But those who are glad 'in gladness' have received the cause of gladness from the honorable and useful truth of gladness itself, and therefore are glad in gladness, because they shall exult in the sight of God; teaching that gladness to be the true one of exultation, which is made perfect by the delightfulness of the sight of God. And of the joys of this exultation and of those feasting, from which is the gladness of the just, holy Moses thus makes mention in that divine canticle of Deuteronomy, saying: 'Rejoice, O heavens, together with Him, and let all the angels of God adore Him. Rejoice, O nations, with His people, and let all the sons of God strengthen them.' In this gladness, then, the just also shall be glad, of one accord in heavenly joy, rejoicing in the fellowship of the divine exultation.
And to the gladness of this time, under the confession of the evangelical faith, the prophet now summons us, saying: 'Sing to God, sing a psalm to His name, make a way for Him who ascendeth above the west. The Lord is His name: and exult in His sight.' Every exhortation, although it much profits toward a certain impulse of our will and mind, when we are led to desire and do something by its winning or enticing, yet, if above all the very cause of the exhortation be set forth, then the mind and the way lean upon reason as upon a most certain guide.
So now the prophet, having exhorted us to sing to God and to sing a psalm to His name, lest perchance he should leave any ambiguity — both to what God and to whose name the psalm was to be sung — showed it, so that now not an exhortation applied, but a recognition perceived, might place us in the exultation and canticle of God. A psalm, therefore, is to be sung to Him, and His way is to be prepared, who 'ascendeth above the west.' By 'the west' all things which come into life are understood to be abolished. Now the abolition of all setting things is reckoned, according to human and common opinion, to be in death. To Him, then, is a psalm to be sung, and His way to be prepared for us, who ascended the setting of death — that is, who, not detained by the setting itself, passed beyond every setting.
Now His name is 'Lord,' who, emptying Himself from the form of God and taking the form of a servant, made Himself obedient even unto the death of the cross. On account of which God exalted Him and gave Him a name above every name, that in His name every knee of things heavenly and earthly and infernal should bow, and every tongue confess the Lord Jesus in the glory of God the Father. He ascended, therefore, above the west, He whose name is Lord — and this, in that transgressing the law of death by which all things set, He came forth eternal from the dead. To Him, therefore, a way is to be prepared, according to that: 'Prepare the ways of the Lord, make straight His paths.'
'Every valley shall be filled and every hill shall be brought low,' so that, the way being prepared in us — that is, either the swellings of our vices and unbelief being repressed, or the lowness of earthly corruption being raised up — He may descend into our hearts, about to enter along the corrected and leveled paths of life. In His sight, therefore, we shall exult, for whom a way is to be prepared, the swellings of pride and the abysses of lusts being made even, and in whom we shall behold ourselves rising from the dead. For ascending above the west of our death, He sought life for us from the dead in Himself rising again. This is that joy of the apostles, when, after the resurrection, contemplating and handling Him, they saw Him.