On the Trinity & Psalm Commentary 1 part 30/55

Now the prophet gave his whole self to God according to the constitution of his mystery. He was humbled; the voluntary offerings of his mouth are pleasing; now his soul is always in God's hands and he does not forget the law of God, saying: 'My soul is always in thy hands, and I have not forgotten thy law.' The whole of that which lives, lives unto God. His every sense and spirit is in God; no time is admitted in which forgetfulness of the law is possible. In all his works and thoughts God is thought upon. The law is in his memory; in God's hands the soul of the living man is ever. He knows how profitable this is for him, he knows how necessary it is to insert himself into the hands of God by his deeds and works and by the remembrance of the law. For he says: 'They laid a snare for me:'

'and I have not gone astray from thy commandments.' He knows that in this forest of the world many snares are stretched out, many traps are prepared. Our speech, our thought, our work always have snares lying near, since at times there arises an occasion of anger, an affliction of grief, a necessity of complaint, an opportunity for evil desire. These the devil and his angels, transgressors from the beginning and sinners from the start, are ever stretching out as snares. But he in whose hands is the soul of God, and who is never unmindful of the law of God, though snares be cast about him on every side, yet is not turned aside from the precepts. For, ever thinking upon God, he flies away from them, as it is written: 'like a sparrow delivered from the snare of the fowlers.' And the Lord himself through the prophet says: 'Deliver from the fowlers, and from the word of confusion.'

For not unjustly are nets stretched out for the birds. You have been instructed in heavenly knowledge; what have you to do with earthly works and deeds? You have been made a bird; why do you not abide in your element? For they are called the birds of heaven; not unjustly then, when they are in possession of an earthly dwelling, are the snares set for them. To the world you belong not; what have you to do with the things of the world? Why do you complain that you are caught in the world? Why do you complain of the injury of the snare in a region not your own? Say rather, and use for yourself the voice of him who says these things: 'Who will give me wings like a dove? and I will fly and be at rest.' It is the nature of birds that they do not rest when they will:

but you, now made a dove, find rest in flying, that is, by bearing yourself up in the flight of the faithful soul from the earthly snares into the heavenly seat and knowledge. Then follows: 'I have received thy testimonies for an inheritance, because they are the exultation of my heart.' The heir, according to human custom, obtains all that belongs to him whose heir he is. But the prophet disdains human inheritances: he has received the testimonies of God for an inheritance. It is pleasing to him if he himself may become a witness of God, since it would be the exultation of his heart if he should testify concerning God amid the wars of persecutions. So also we remember that the apostles rejoiced in these testimonies, when they went out from the assembly of the persecutors judged worthy to suffer injuries for the name of God. Therefore his testimonies were the exultation of their heart.

But the prophet, like the apostles, although amid many persecutions he retains as an inheritance the testimonies of God, that is, the bearing witness of him with exultation of heart, yet he also possesses those testimonies of God acquired by inheritance, which were spoken before witnesses. Moses gave the law before witnesses, heaven and earth; Isaiah convicted before witnesses, heaven and earth; the apostle, as an evangelical preacher, used even loftier testimonies, saying: 'I testify to you before God and Christ Jesus and his angels.' Therefore he takes possession of the testimonies written under these, and attested under these, and witnessed in these, as heir of a new patrimony: not in part, but the whole. For the right of inheritance is entire.

Even though, according to human succession, an inheritance is divided among many, yet the inheritance itself, under the name of heir, is entire. And lest what is often wont to be said by many should have any authority of reason—when they assert that it is the proper gift of God that a man should be engaged in the things and works of God, excusing their own unbelief because they remain unbelievers since God's will toward them has ceased—it is indeed a gift of God to remain in the faith, but the origin of beginning is from ourselves. Our will owes this as its own from itself, that it should will: God will give the increase to him who begins, because our weakness does not obtain the consummation of itself, yet the consummation to be attained is from the beginning of the will.

'I have inclined my heart to do thy justifications for ever, for the sake of the reward.' He himself inclines his heart, and turns it from the sins of the flesh unto the things of God. The nature indeed and origin of the flesh was holding him back, but his will and religion incline his heart, from the vice of origin in which it abode, unto works. And he inclines it at every time of life: not in some definite space, but in the whole world of his life. He inclines it for the sake of the reward, being assured, namely, that these things are reserved for the merits of faith, and that his reward is in those things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, which God hath prepared for those who love him in Christ Jesus, to whom is glory both now and always unto the ages of ages. Amen.

SAMECH. 'I have hated the unjust, and I have loved thy law,' and the rest. The doctrine of the gospel precept is this, that we should love our enemies, and owe love not only to those who love us, but also to those who hate us. Therefore this profession of the prophet seems to be contrary to the Lord's commandments, so that, while love of enemies is enjoined upon us, he sets forth as a good work the fact that he hates the unjust. But the reasoning of this very saying must be learned from the gospels themselves. For the Lord, who commanded that enemies be loved and appointed that those who curse father or mother be guilty of death, again in another place gave a precept, saying:

'If any man come to me and hate not his father and his mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own soul also, he cannot be my disciple.' Therefore these things seem to be contrary to themselves, that he, by whose precept not only hatred toward parents but even a mere curse is worthy of death, should himself again say that no one can be his disciple unless he hate father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters and his own soul. This is a hard saying, and a grave precept, to impose the necessity of impiety for the perfecting of religion. But nothing hard, nothing impious, nothing contrary to the earlier precepts is commanded by God.

But these names most dear to us, namely father and mother and wife and children, cannot be angered because we are commanded to hate them, since we are commanded to hate our very own soul. For the Lord knows that there are many of so ill-advised a love that, when they see their sons persisting in the glory of martyrdom, they beg them to yield to the time;

they entreat them to change their resolve, and use toward them the affection of piety, when the aged mother and the old father display their pitiable grey hairs to the son in the very contest of martyrdom, with envy of his will; when hither too the wife is present with the ambitious company of children, and prays that he may rather live for herself and for them; when hither the brothers and sisters, with the fond intimacies of their names, make supplication; and the very soul, already long captured by the enticements of living, creeps in by certain silent counsels toward connivance. Therefore at this time the Lord commanded that we hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and our very own soul as well. For he closed this same discourse thus, saying after the hatred of all:

'And if any man bear not his cross and come after me, he cannot be my disciple.' Therefore they are then to be hated, when they are unwilling that we bear the cross of martyrdom, when by their example they dissuade us from following the Lord. This hatred is honourable and useful, to hate those who try to lead us away from the love of Christ. And so now the prophet seems to have spoken nothing contrary to the precepts by which we are commanded to love our enemies, when he says: 'I have hated the unjust.' For he does not hate his enemies, but the unjust, that is, the transgressors of the law. The Greek names this with a more proper word, saying, that is, those acting outside the law. But he who hates the unjust cannot but love that whose neglect he hates; and therefore he says: 'and I have loved thy law.'

And it is fitting that he who loves the law should hate those who are enemies of the law. Then follows: 'Be thou my helper and my protector, and in thy word have I hoped.' We have need of God's great help in so great and constant a battle of this world. For according to the apostle our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and the world-rulers of this darkness, against spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places. These, then, are the enemies we have; against these God the helper must be entreated, that he may receive us into his own keeping. But this prayer ought to be one of merit rather than of fear. For fear is from the trembling of our condition, but the prophet hopes in the word of God. Hope obtains not the present things, but the future.

He hopes, therefore, for those things which are contained in the word of God, that is, in the prophetic sayings. And he hopes either for the rewards of faith unto spiritual life, or for that very coming of our Lord who is the Word of God. For this hope merits the help and aid of God. Not otherwise do we merit, nor did any before merit, than by having hoped that the Word of God, who is God, would take upon himself the flesh of our nature to dwell therein, or by having believed that he did dwell therein. But the prophet remembers that there is much within himself which tries to oppose his hope; and therefore he added: 'Depart from me, ye malicious; and I will search out the commandments of my God.' The reasoning of the heavenly doctrine admonishes that this saying should be reckoned as referring to the persons in whom malice resides.

For the prophet, who teaches the nations, who preaches the word of God, commands that all the malicious depart from him, because the holy congregation would be unworthy for the workers of malice. And I know not whom he could except. For malice lies close to all through the will of a mutable nature, and the Lord taught that malice is not absent even from the apostles themselves, though already cleansed by the word of faith and made holy, by reason of the condition of our common origin, saying: 'If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children.' But it is his to love even the wicked and to teach the good unto goodness, according to him who invites all rather to himself, saying: 'Come unto me, all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.'

But the prophet knows that there are many malices in the hidden places of the human heart. For according to the Lord's saying, from within come murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, falsehoods, blasphemies. For these are the things which defile the common man. He therefore asks that such men, as adversaries of his faith, depart from him. For they oppose holy pursuits, they oppose the spiritual; and while they thrust themselves in by the constant intimacy of their counsels, there is no leisure for the mind to search out the commandments of God, because the presence of the malicious man greatly hinders him who would search out the commandments of God. And because it is God's work of mercy that, received into his household, we should be delivered from the dominion of these, the prophet prays, saying:

'Receive me according to thy word, and I shall live, and let me not be confounded in my expectation.' The prophet expects and hopes: he pursues nothing present, nothing temporal. But there are many who censure and deride this expectation of our faith, saying such things: 'What profit will fastings bring, what continence, what chastity, what the loss of patrimonies? Where is your hope, Christians? Death rules equally over all: it has a common right over the natures of all bodies. Nay, we too enjoy all the goods of the world and use its liberty; and in what at last do you excel us by the expectation of hope?'

The prophet therefore prays not to be confounded in this expectation of his, but to remain confident and to receive the fruit of that which he expects. For he knows that he does not yet live, although he lives. For our life, according to the apostle, is hidden in Christ. And therefore he says: 'Receive me according to thy word, and I shall live,' because he is held fast by the expectation and hope of that life. For he hopes for eternal life, he hopes for the kingdom of heaven, he hopes for the kingdom of God, he hopes for the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. In this hope, in which he will not be confounded, he asks to be received and to live. Then follows: 'Help me, and I shall be saved, and I will meditate on thy justifications always.' Above he had said:

'my helper and protector'; but now he prays for the reality of the names mentioned, that he who is protector may protect, and he who is helper may help. He prays that the aid of the helper be not absent from him. He does not pray that he may not have the malicious, since faith is proved through the patience of sufferings; but he prays that he may be helped against them, because help is always to be sought from the Lord. But just as in the former place, being received, he shall live, so also in this, being helped, he shall be saved. For death is still to be met by him, the powers below are still to be endured.

He shall then be saved, when, transformed from the corporeal and earthly nature into spiritual glory, he shall fear no danger of the opposing enemy, shall live among the elect angels, shall be a dweller in paradise, and, corruption being swallowed up, shall from mortal become immortal. But as to his saying that he will meditate on the justifications of God, and will meditate always—does he not meditate who has even hoped in meditation? It can indeed be taken also of the present work, that, so long as he is in the body, he should always meditate on the justifications; but nonetheless the saying reaches also into the future. He knows that in heaven all the angels are in the meditation of God. For nothing there is idle, nothing sluggish; all the heavenly powers remain in the work of their ministry.

And since we too must then live the life of the angels, according to those who work always, there may be for us also an eternal meditation of the justifications. There follows: 'Thou hast despised all who depart from thy justifications, because their thought is unjust.' For these things the prophet prays for help and protection, lest he too be despised with those who depart from the justifications of God. But here that reasoning is preserved, that it is not said: 'Thou hast despised all sinners,' but: 'Thou hast despised all who depart.' For if God despised sinners, he would surely despise all, since no one is without sin. But he despises those who depart from him, whom they call apostates. Nor does it matter whether one has ever stood in the justifications of God.

For whoever shall have departed is to be despised by God, since it is the completion of persevering that preserves the merit of him who abides. But departure differs from sin, because for sin pardon is reserved through repentance, whereas departure condemns itself by the very act of departing; and this arises when the will of those who are about to depart is unjust. Then follows: 'I have accounted all sinners transgressors, therefore I have loved thy justices.' Always the prophet's speech extends far and beyond the common sense. For we reckon those to be prevaricators who forsake the faith they had received and the knowledge of God they had attained, having promised one thing and now doing another. But here all sinners are reckoned as such; none is excepted, the name is generally applied to all.

For the law is, as it were, natural—to do injury to no one, to seize nothing belonging to another, to abstain from fraud and perjury, not to plot against another's marriage. The apostle too knows this law, saying: 'For when the nations, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts.' Therefore they are reckoned prevaricators who forsake that which they receive from the law of nature. One will convict by the law of nature a thief caught in the act, or an adulterer, or a murderer. But if one is himself engaged in these, he is a prevaricator of the law. He knows also, when he says 'sinners of the earth,' that there are others who are sinners of heaven as well.

For let us hear the prodigal son, lost and dead, confessing his sin to his father: 'I have sinned,' he says, 'father, against heaven and before thee.' Whoever, having become a partaker of the heavenly doctrine and of spiritual grace, shall abide in sin, is not a sinner of the earth, but of heaven. For our Lord Jesus Christ has raised up together all who believe in him and has set them together in the heavenly places, and whoever falls away from these is convicted as a sinner of heaven. Since therefore the prophet reckons that there are sinners of the earth, because by sinning they have transgressed the law of nature, for this reason he himself loves the testimonies of God, because, whereas to depart from the law of nature admits of pardon, yet departure from the heavenly law is now without pardon. 'Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear;'

'for I have feared thy judgements.' These are the vows and prayers of the prophet, that his flesh be pierced with the fear of God. But he remembers that they must suffer and die together with Christ who wish to reign together with him. And the Latin translation has expressed this saying with a lesser force. For what with us is 'pierce,' there signifies that one should be pierced with nails, that is, be fixed. We must die therefore, and all the vices of the flesh must be nailed to the Lord's cross. For we die with Christ and are buried together with him in baptism. And though the prophet has this in his own will, yet he asks that he may obtain it through the mercy of God. For he prays that his flesh be pierced with the fear of God, that he may fear the judgements of God.

For he fears the sentence of the eternal judgement, he fears not to be pierced and to die and to be buried together with Christ, understanding that he will not become a new man unless the old man, with its vices and lusts, is put off. AIN. 'I have done judgement and justice: deliver me not to those who persecute me,' and the rest. Both in the beginning of the psalm and afterward we have often noted that through the individual letters, as through the elements of learning, we are instructed in the doctrine of piety, of faith, and of fear, and that, as raw infancy is trained to the knowledge of speaking—which the doctrine of acting also follows—by the very rudiments of the human voice: which may be understood from the eight verses of the present sixth and tenth letters.

For the prophet, in his own person, teaches all men what it is profitable for each one, according to the conscience of his weakness and nature, to will, to do, to profess; also what ought to be feared, what guarded against, what cleansed. Blessed indeed is he who, through the mercy of God, is himself for himself and for all men a teacher and a provider and a cleanser and a judge! Surely it is most befitting to his dignity that he who speaks by the Spirit of God should utter those things which pertain to human salvation and welfare. For he says thus: 'I have done judgement and justice: deliver me not to those who hurt me.' He does works pleasing to God, and because he does them, he prays that he be not delivered to those who hurt him. The work of meriting is set first, and thereafter the reward of merit is sought. For first is done that which pleases;

and then the favour of him who is pleased by the work is prayed for. But we neither work nor please; nay, we even offend by impious and irreligious deeds; and because we are not such as we ought to be, we grow angry. But it is worthy to consider what manner of things they are which the prophet does when he prays that he be not delivered to those who hurt him. And all things whatsoever a man does who fears God are profitable and beautiful to him. He who cultivates chastity has brought a glorious and shining light into the squalid flesh of his own body. But he who takes up contempt of money has kept himself free from earthly dominations. And he who loves frugality and thrift has not abandoned the nobility of the heavenly soul as a captive to drunkenness.

But these things, though great and illustrious, yet, because they are proper to the prophet himself and profitable to him alone, are not referred to merit. But what did he do, that he begs not to be delivered to those who hurt him? Judgement, namely, and justice; doing nothing rash, nothing unjust, but first judgement; treating all things by reason, measure, and truth, so that what he does toward another he may carry out only after it has first been weighed and examined by the sentence of deliberation. But he does not commit the sentence of judgement to his own counsel alone, but does justice together with judgement. And this is the greatest work of one who judges with counsel, that what he judges be just.

For justice is the friend of concord, the bond and foundation of peace, and the operation of human reason. These things therefore the prophet did; in which, although the work is his own, yet there is also profit to those toward whom he did judgement and justice. But he asks that he be not delivered to those who hurt him. For everyone in whom there is the will to sin is empty of God; and where God will not be, there is the place of the devil, who, lying in wait and besieging, when he has opportunity of approach, occupies as it were an empty house that has been delivered over to him, God deserting it. And the prophet indeed, because he speaks in the person of all, prays that he be not delivered by God.

But the apostle already has this power in himself, that he may himself deliver sinners to the devil, when he writes to the Corinthians concerning him who, surpassing all fornications, had taken his father's wife: 'For I indeed, being absent in body, but present in spirit, have already judged, as though present, him who has so done this; when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.' But although the apostle delivers, yet he knows that he will deliver by the power of Christ and in his own spirit. And also in another epistle he says of Phygellus and Hermogenes: 'whom I have delivered,' he says, 'that they may learn.'

For those who are rejected from the body of the Church, which is the body of Christ, are delivered, as strangers and aliens from the body of God, to the dominion of the devil. But the prophet prays that he be not delivered to those who hurt him. For there are present enemy and hostile powers, which disturb the purpose of faith, which blot out the fear of God, which solicit toward earthly cupidities and desires, which stir the weak nature of the body into vices by certain goads of allurements. The apostle too knows this multitude of dominating powers, saying: 'in which ye also walked in time past according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience.' The prophet therefore did judgement and justice;

and he asks that he be not delivered to those who hurt him, and hurt him in this manner: when they impel into sin, when they puff up into vainglory, when they kindle into wrath, when they exasperate into hatred, when they entice to wantonness, when they provoke to avarice. But though they hasten to hurt through these things, yet they will not be able to prevail over those who are innocent, unless these have been delivered to them through the desertion of God. 'Receive me thy servant unto good: let not the proud calumniate me.' The prophet advances in his hope and now climbs to a loftier step of his supplication. For he who had prayed that he be not delivered to those who hurt him, now asks that he be received under the character of a servant, beseeching that blessed dominion of God over himself together with his own good acceptance. And not for a light cause.

He prays that he be received unto good, namely that the proud calumniate him not. And who are the proud? Surely those whose prince Isaiah shows speaking: for he said: 'And by the wisdom of understanding I will take away the borders of the nations, and their powers; and I will shake the inhabited cities, and I will grasp the whole world with my hand as a nest, and I will take it away as eggs that are broken.' This is the voice of one full of pride, namely the devil, who also dared to say to God and our Lord Jesus Christ, the glory of earthly empires being displayed: 'All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt worship me.' But that this one is not solitary, but that many ministers of spiritual wickednesses attend him, we are taught by him who says:

'Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels.' He asks therefore that he be free from the calumny of these proud ones. For they calumniate, because, while they themselves supply the incentives to sin, they lay against us before God the calumny of the sin which we have committed through them; for they cast up the cause of sin as a charge, and exasperate the odium of the charge by calumny, Scripture in the Apocalypse testifying that he is the calumniator. But now too the prophet extends himself into a loftier progress, saying: 'My eyes have failed for thy salvation, and for the word of thy justice.' The eyes fail when the sight, intent on some expectation, labours.

And so the prophet has fixed the eyes of his soul upon the salvation of God. And concerning the salvation, what ought to be understood, we have often treated; namely that he is the salvation who will save his people from their sins. While others therefore occupy their eyes upon secular desires and strain toward the pleasures of present things, the prophet is fixed upon the salvation of God. And lest we should suppose that his bodily eyes fail under this intent contemplation, they fail not only for the salvation of God, but also for the word of justice. And so he confesses that the words of God are just. He knows that there are certain things which, with the ignorant and impious, have the reputation of unjust speech:

when Pharaoh's heart is hardened to obstinacy and the stubbornness of an irreligious will is fixed upon him; when, out of two nations still in the womb, the greater shall serve the less, and, neither meriting any good, servitude is imposed on one and dominion granted to the other; when Adam is expelled from paradise, lest he touch the tree of life; which things men incapable of divine virtue and goodness and justice, while they cannot understand them, set down as unjust. But the eyes of this prophet fail for the word of justice of such a kind, because he knows that there is nothing unjust in these sayings of God, but that all these words are both to be consummated and to be understood as of justice at the coming of God the Saviour.

And he advances through this intent expectation, even to the failing of his eyes, that he may dare to pray for something further. Having therefore confessed the word of justice, he added these: 'Deal with thy servant according to thy mercy, and teach me thy justifications.' Perhaps that voice would be reckoned insolent which should say: 'Deal with thy servant.' For what is said, 'Deal,' is a presumption of asking usurped as it were from some confidence. But he would not say it shamelessly who had done judgement and justice, who had prayed to be received for a servant, whose eyes had failed for the salvation of God and for the word of justice. But not even in these things is the prophet insolent. For in the very saying, 'Deal,' he added: 'with thy servant.'