Latin original · 38 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 1:1207–1:1244 (2058 verses in all)
The compassions of God are therefore exceedingly many; for they exceed the measure of human opinion. But as the prophet trusts in these and hopes to be quickened in the judgments of God, the hatreds and persecutions of many from without weary him. Yet, not unmindful of His mercies, of which, according to the same prophet, there is no number, he did not turn aside from His testimonies. For it follows: 'Many are they that persecute me and afflict me: I have not turned aside from thy testimonies.' He is not driven off, he is not moved: and though many persecute, he does not even turn aside. But he who so remains in the commandments of God that he cannot be driven off or turned aside by his pursuers, has that which perturbs him with grievous sorrow, and even dissolves him, as it were, to the wasting away of a melting soul:
when, while he does not turn aside from the testimonies of God, others fall away from the fear of God and corrupt the faith and covenant of the law they had received. These heats the prophet has, these wearinesses only he feels, when he says: 'I saw those who kept not the covenant, and I pined away: because they kept not thy words.' Israel was named heir of the covenant that had been sealed, and having heard the voice of the Lord from the mountain, it answered: 'All things whatsoever God has said, we will both hear and do.' But indeed, when it worshiped strange gods, when it defiled itself with the vices of all crimes, it lost the covenant both of the pronounced naming and of the professed observance. For they kept not the words of God, which they had answered that they would do and hear.
Nor is this pining of this prophet over the prevarication of the people a new thing; for indeed we know that the Lord Himself wept over the impiety of Jerusalem, and that from the same teaching the Apostle weeps over the impenitent, and moreover he himself, 'if anyone is scandalized, is inflamed.' But he who grieves and pines over those who keep not the covenant, does not shun the examination of God's commandments in himself. For he says: 'See, because I have loved thy commandments, O Lord: quicken me in thy mercy.' It is too little for the prophet to fulfill the commandments through fear, but he rather loves them, because beyond the necessity of fear there may be the working of love. And although the love of the law is more excellent than fear, yet he is not so confident of himself as not rather to pray that he be quickened through the mercy of God.
He does not now think that he lives, but he awaits life when this mortal body has been removed and absorbed into the glory of immortality. He knows that this was promised to him already at the beginning of his creation, when it is said by God: 'Let us make man to our image and likeness.' This is the divine word above man, when the beginning of our origin was founded unto the image of intermingled eternity. Certain, therefore, that he shall live that life and in the image of God, he says: 'The beginning of thy words is truth: all the judgments of thy justice are unto eternity.' The words of God do not pass away, though heaven and earth pass. Whatsoever has been poured forth from His lips is not void. Eternal are the justifications, eternal is the justice.
The beginning, then, of the words of God is truth; nor does he know any other prior word of God concerning himself—that is, concerning the creation of man—than that he should be made according to the image and likeness of God. This, therefore, is the constitution of unchangeable truth: thus in the beginning of the words of God there is truth, so that the new man, regenerated in Christ, may henceforth live according to the image of the eternal God—that is, of the heavenly Adam—being now himself eternal. 'Princes have persecuted me without cause,' and the rest. Grievous indeed were the hatreds and persecutions that the prophet David sustained, both of King Saul and of the princes of the people, because professed impiety could not bear the constancy of a pious conscience.
But this man, conformed to the Gospel and to God and apostolic, is not ignorant of the Gospel saying wherein it is declared: 'For they shall deliver you up and shall scourge you in their synagogues, and you shall stand before kings and powers for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.' Nay more, instilling steadfastness in preaching and teaching the glory of confession, He had earlier exhorted them, saying: 'Everyone who shall confess me before men, I also will confess him before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever shall deny me before men, I also will deny him before my Father who is in heaven.'
Whether therefore consecrated under the Law, or else prepared for the glory of the Gospel—he who would not have left to Saul and his people any occasion for persecuting himself, and who knew, through the many hatreds of princes and of nations, that the kingdom of heaven must be proclaimed to the world—confidently speaks these words to God: 'Princes have persecuted me without cause, and my heart hath been afraid of thy words.' For he feared to be denied, if he should deny. But since he is not ignorant of the rewards of this blessed persecution, the Lord saying: 'Blessed are you when they shall persecute you and speak all evil against you for righteousness' sake; rejoice and exult, for your reward is abundant in heaven'—after the hatreds of princes he thus tempered his dread of God's words with what follows:
'I will rejoice over thy words, as one that findeth much spoil.' There was therefore a dread, lest he should either be unworthily subjected to the persecutions of princes, or should give way; for both to have furnished an occasion for hatreds is not the mark of a holy man, and to have lost the grace of God through fear of the world would be without pardon. But to have found spoil belongs to the victor; certainly to have furnished it from oneself belongs to one already conquered. Amid these persecutions, then, the prophet is not broken, and by faith he overcomes the hatreds of princes, and he carries back certain spoils of impiety from the vanquished. For he knows, according to the Gospels, that the strong man has been bound in his own house and, despoiled of the arms of his own power, has already furnished spoils of himself to be plundered by the faithful.
He rejoices now therefore in the words of God, as one who finds much spoil, since, the power of the impious being broken, and he abiding a victor by faith, he has despoiled them of all their arms, whether of impiety or of cruelty. But the disposition of this joy is not present unless there be both love of the divine Law and abhorrence of iniquity, for no one will choose to flee anything save what he hates, nor will he strive to obtain anything save what he loves. Rejoicing therefore as over much spoil, he added: 'Iniquity I have hated and abhorred; but thy law I have loved.' Iniquity therefore he hates, and he loves the law of God. But loving the law of God, he is not intent only upon those things which are fulfilled by obedience to the Law:
but it is necessary that he extend himself, through the work of the Law, to something else besides. And let us hear in what further duty he is engaged: 'Seven times a day have I given praise to thee, for the judgments of thy righteousness.' The holy prophet first loves what he does—namely the work of the Law—because thereby both the practice and the will of all vices are cut away. But afterwards he praises the judgments of God's righteousness. For these, as we have often admonished, signify more than they enact, since the very deeds instill into us a notion of the eternal dispensation: as the sabbath's rest, as the Hebrew servant, as the land to lie fallow, as the fiftieth year are understood under the significations of the mysteries of the figure. This therefore is praised seven times in the day. And it is not doubtful why this number of praise should be so.
For these same things—whether in the day, or in the servant, or in the land, or in the year and years—are contained under the sanctification of this number, since until that eternal rest of the fiftieth, which is the sabbath of sabbaths, the sevenfold number is fulfilled. And many things concerning the sanctification of this number are known: as the very constitution of the days, as the choice of the angels standing before the throne of God, as the fullness of the spiritual powers and of the graces resting in the Lord. Certainly it is fitting that the judgments of God's righteousness be praised by the prophet in this number, through which and in which the virtue and constitution of those same justifications is contained. Now there is no other order of prophetic preaching than that of faith.
For both the endurance of persecutions, and the dread of the words, and the joy in the utterance, and the hatred of iniquity, and the love of the Law, and the praise of righteousness—and absolutely everything, if anything else be commanded in the Law—is comprehended in the keeping of this one precept alone: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' This is greater than all holocausts, greater than all sacrifices: to remember that one is one and the same body with another, whoever is Christ's; and to love as one's own body, that is, as oneself, whoever is a neighbor. For there follows: 'Much peace to them that love thy name, and there is no scandal to them.' The Apostle, thinking not of the things that are his own but of the things of others, professed that he would abstain from flesh forever, lest he cause his brother to stumble.
To such a degree did he hold to the disposition of perfect charity and peace, that he would abstain even from the ordinary use of common life, provided only that he might cut off the occasion of offense. Peace therefore is to be retained, and what is fitting not for each individual but for the whole is to be sought, since according to the Gospel it would be more profitable not to have come into life than to have brought a scandal upon the least ones. Abiding therefore in these precepts of peace and charity, the prophet is held by the desire of Gospel hope. For he knows in what, or who, is the end of the Law, when he says: 'I waited for thy salvation, O Lord, and I have done thy commandments.' Salvation is Jesus.
This is the meaning drawn from the Hebrew name; this the angel spoke to Joseph; this Simeon, being thereupon sent away in peace, acknowledged; this the salvation restored to us through Him teaches. And he professes that he has done God's commandments in this: that he awaits the salvation of the Lord, declaring that all the commandments of the Law are contained in the coming of the only-begotten God. He also kept the testimonies of God and loved them vehemently, saying: 'My soul hath kept thy testimonies, and I have loved them vehemently. I have kept thy commandments and thy testimonies, for all my ways are in thy sight.' The prophet, acting under God as judge and searcher of hearts, abides in the keeping of the commandments and testimonies of God; he does not walk in the ways of the world, nor in the ways of vices and impiety.
For whatever journey of his life he traverses, he acts in a manner so approvable and so innocent that it is worthy of the sight of God—God knowing the very thoughts and motions of hearts, and no man being worthy of His sight who is of an unclean heart. For a faithful witness in heaven spoke these things, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever and ever. Amen. 'Let my prayer draw near in thy sight, O Lord,' and the rest. The psalm takes its end according to the letter. For all those things which were proper to the holy man having now been comprised according to the order of the Hebrew letters, the prophet prays that his prayer may be nearest to God: 'Let my prayer draw near in thy sight, O Lord; according to thy word give me understanding.'
There are many things which throughout the whole psalm he prayed to the Lord. But because the words of God contain within themselves very much obscurity through the mysteries of heavenly things, now especially he prays that he may be worthy of God through the understanding of this utterance. And first he held to the order of his modest hope, when he asks that his prayer be made near to God's sight. The next petition, through a step of higher advancement, is repeated, when he says: 'Let my petition enter into thy sight, O Lord; according to thy word deliver me.' This was the order of the prayer drawing near into the sight of God: that, when it had begun to be near, it might enter in; and then, the word of God being understood, he prays to be delivered according to that very word of God.
For it is not that where understanding is, there straightway is salvation; but, understanding being attained, salvation is to be obtained. And because these same things—whether through the spirit of prophecy under the shadow of things to come, or under a certain image of the truth as brought forth from a mirror, or under the hidden and profound reason of divine words—were uttered rather by the spirit of prophecy than by the sense of human understanding, he added: 'My lips have poured forth a hymn, when thou shalt have taught me thy justifications; my tongue shall pronounce thy words, for all thy commandments are equity.' We have recalled that every utterance of prophecy is shown under the signification of 'pouring forth,' as when it is said: 'My heart hath poured forth a good word'; or that: 'I will pour forth things hidden from the foundation of the world'; or that:
'Day unto day poureth forth speech.' Now every speech of men proceeds from the sense and motion of thought, where our mind, being moved to utter something, declares through words that which has fallen upon its affection. But truly, where beyond the impulse of the human mind the tongue serves not the mind's own judgment, but through the entering spirit the discourse of the divine sense is diffused by the office of our mouth, there that seems to be 'poured forth' which is spoken: since the mind speaks that to which it is prompted, not with the thought and motion first perceived, but, the sense being unaware, the spirit distinguishes its voice into words. For now, although the lips have poured forth a hymn, yet after the teaching of God's justifications the tongue shall pronounce what it speaks:
so that, the knowledge of the things spoken being received, then the declaration of that very knowledge may follow. But the commandments of God are not so diverse from equity that it should not be worthy of God first to grant to the one prophesying an understanding of them, then afterward to make them shine forth into the notion of the public conscience by the confession of preaching: because it would be outside the goodness of God either to hide what He wished to be pronounced, or to command anything otherwise than with equity. And this is the sum of the equity of God's commandments, that they be salutary to all, so that this very thing—that we come into this life—we may enter upon with an advancement toward eternity. For to be born unto death is not a cause of life, but of death. And the prophet presently subjoined the confidence of this his hope, saying:
'Let thy hand save me, for I have chosen thy commandments.' While others choose the glory of the world, others take up the veneration of the elements and of demons, others crave earthly riches, this holy man chose the commandments of God. And he chose, not by natural necessity, but by the will of piety, since to each one a way of living is set before him according to what he wills, and freedom is granted for desiring and for acting. And on this account the choice of each shall be requited either with punishment or with rewards. But what the end of the Lord's commandments might be, he showed, saying: 'I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord, and thy law is my meditation.' This man stretches his whole self toward the coming of Jesus the salvation;
and that which was proper to the blessedness of the apostles to see, he craves with impatient desires; yet signifying that this very thing which he does in the Law is a meditation of future hope. For every meditation is understood to be usually undertaken not for the effect of things present, but for the advancement of things to come. And what the reward of that meditation might be, he showed: 'My soul shall live and shall praise thee, and thy judgments shall help me.' He does not reckon that he lives in this life, inasmuch as he had said: 'Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bear me.' He knows that he was born under the origin of sin and under the law of sin; but the meditation of God's law he chose for this reason, that he might live.
In an earlier psalm he exhorts his soul to the joys of that life, when he says: 'Return, my soul, into thy rest, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with me; for he hath delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will please the Lord in the land of the living.' He hastens to render these praises to God, the weakness of earthly corruption being absorbed by the judgments of God, being helped toward the advancement of eternity: for this reason surely, that he has chosen the commandments and has longed for the salvation of the Lord, because his meditation is ever in the law of God. And he has concluded all things with the worthy end of the Gospel mystery, saying: 'I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost; quicken thy servant, for I have not forgotten thy commandments.'
For he hastens to be carried back, a straying and lost sheep, upon the shoulders of his shepherd, that through the salutary and eternal Shepherd he, being received, may afford to the angels in heaven eternal joys. For the Son of Man came to save that which had perished, being sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel—the Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever and ever. Amen. A CANTICLE OF DEGREES. 'To thee, O Lord, when I was in tribulation I cried, and thou hast heard me,' and the rest. The titles of the Psalms, as we have shown in very many places, have their own proper significations, most briefly containing the reason and arguments of the writings which lie beneath, and directing us by a certain indication of teaching into the path of understanding; concerning which it is not now necessary to treat anything.
For it is fitting that this be done then, when each psalm shall be treated. For since psalm and title mutually lend authority to each other, the discourse will be weak if one of them be discussed apart from the other. But now we come to the Canticle of Degrees, whose inscription is both continuous and uniform; and therefore, the signification of the titles agreeing, under the business of a single exposition the reason of them all will be found to be demonstrated. In very many psalms we read that many things have been set forth in their superscriptions according to the order of history:
as: 'when David fled from the face of his son Absalom'; 'when he changed his countenance before Abimelech'; 'when after Bathsheba he was admonished by Nathan'; and in the rest, wherever the truth of the deeds is contained in the very titles of the psalms. But we must remember that these same psalms are not all therefore to be understood corporeally, because the signification of corporeal matters is set before them; rather, we ought to pursue the spiritual understanding under this certain commemoration of things done—of which it is not now the time to speak. But, taking counsel for the simplicity of readers, it was fitting to admonish the reader. Therefore we must consider whether these psalms of degrees also contain anything of history, after the manner of the aforesaid titles drawn from many places.
For in the book of Isaiah, when Hezekiah prayed, a sign of prolonged health was set for him in the degrees. Now there were in his house ten degrees, which the sun, its light advancing beyond the course of its time, ascended, and again on the day of his death, its light departing from the limit of its time, descended. But there is no likeness of this history to the psalms, since not even the number itself of the degrees agrees. Yet this—that a sign was given to Hezekiah—manifestly shows that the light of God draws near to those to whom, on account of the merits of secular affairs, the blessedness of the future life shall be imparted, but departs from those to whom it is denied.
But that there were fifteen degrees in the temple, history has told us, and the ranks of those standing were arranged, whereby a certain dignity, as it were, was obtained among those in front: as that the Levites should stand first, after them the Israelites, then the proselytes, and thereafter the others. But why do we presume anything, from later history, concerning psalms written before, when, if anything is to be received from it, it ought to be so received that the psalms follow the history?—unless indeed something has been prophesied concerning future history. But, contemplating that very building of the temple and of the altar, would we understand it to be a shadow of the incorrupt temple and a figure of the sanctified altar—for those things which were corporeally prefigured in it—unless the authority were presumed from the psalms?
For the psalms do not announce the matters of their own time only, nor do they suit only those ages in which they were written, but the word of God took counsel for all who should come into life, being itself most fitly adapted to every age for advancement. For there was that law of the priesthood, which, according to the observance of the Law, Luke in the Gospel diligently set forth under the nativity of John the Baptist—that none should ascend into the Holy of Holies except him who was the chief of the priests, and he on one day only in the whole year. All which things, having been done beforehand in likeness, were fulfilled in our one Lord; and both our faith and the Lord Himself is our warrant in the Gospel, saying: 'I have not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.'
The Apostle also testifies that all the consummation of the Law is in our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: 'For the end of the Law is Christ.' But this same David the prophet also teaches that He is an eternal priest, saying: 'Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.' This chief of the priests, therefore, having entered the heavens, sitting at the right hand of God, praying to the Father that where He is, there we also might be—He who both raised us up and placed us in the heavenly places—had already through the prophet admonished by what means and by what works of life one might ascend to Him, through Isaiah thus: 'Wash yourselves, be clean, take away your wickednesses from your souls out of the sight of my eyes;
cease from your malices, learn to do good, seek judgment, relieve him that suffereth wrong, judge for the fatherless and justify the widow: and come, let us reason together, saith the Lord Almighty.' These, therefore, are the degrees of that perfect and eternal temple, which the chief of the priests, propitiation having been made through his own blood for our sins, transcends—now, of the earthly priest, whether ascending by degrees into the Holy of Holies, or offering the victim of sacrifice for the people.
And indeed concerning the fifteen degrees and the superscription of the canticle, we have already treated something at the beginning of the psalms, then when discourse fell upon numbers and superscriptions—namely from the two numbers, the hebdomad and the ogdoad, of which the one is on account of the sabbath of the Law, the other on account of the eighth added to the sabbath, which is also the first, of the Gospels—that this number agrees. Through these degrees, as it were of the Law and of the Gospels, their canticle bids us ascend to heavenly and eternal things, knowing that we are to be placed with the high priest in the heavenly places, if indeed, according to Paul, our conversation be in heaven. Let us seek this canticle of degrees, through which we may be able to ascend to the places which are the Holy of Holies.
For arduous, even to those places, and of a narrow way, is the ascent. We know there were fifteen degrees in the temple; we read likewise fifteen psalms of degrees. Numerous is this ascent to that longed-for seat. For perhaps, as in the temple one ascended gradually and by single degrees to the holy places, so through the advancements of the single psalms we shall be taught that, these degrees which are sung being ascended, we may be placed among the exalted and holy and eternal things. But there are many who suppose that in these psalms only the captivity of the people—by which it was held in Babylon for seventy years—is prophesied, and also the return of that same people with the restoration of the lost city. With these we do not quarrel.
For it is not doubted that the prophet could know those things which threatened the impiety of this people. But what captivity of the people, and of what city's building, the prophet commemorates, the psalms themselves will be our authors, which have thus begun: 'To thee, O Lord, when I was in tribulation I cried, and thou hast heard me.' Prophetic speech, although it uses the common usage of human speech, yet does not contain the same signification which lies adjacent to the common sense. For although, so far as we could understand, it tempered the announcement of heavenly things, yet it preserved the force of its signification, though by a moderated choice of words. For it has begun thus: 'To thee, O Lord, when I was in tribulation I cried, and thou hast heard me.'
By custom, perhaps, and according to the affection of human sense, this cry of the prophet to God will be reckoned to be, so that this may be an indiscriminate grief, on account of which he entreats God even with outcry—since many are compelled to lift up a voice to God either by fear of danger and terror of death, or by anxiety over loss and grief over money, or by the dart of bereavement and the wounds of griefs—as though not all of those things which befall were most fitted to good hopes. The Apostle testifies that to be dissolved and to be with Christ is better for him; he condemns the care of money as the root of all malice; and the Gospels have said that the living are rather to be wept for:
And what, against these things, our faith's purpose being established, will be left for the world that is against us, when death acquires the fellowship of Christ, poverty of money furnishes poverty of sin, and the departure of our own is but the hastened speeding of the common hope? But if these are not the tribulations, what then will be the tribulations on account of which one cries to the Lord? There are indeed, and the greatest, dragging us into the depth of sin. For the prophet, forming from his own person a man ascending by degrees to eternal things, teaches against what evils he especially ought to be on guard;
namely those things which, by the authority of counsels and the impulses of exhortations and the enticements of flatteries, plunge us into hell—when one exhorts us to honors, another detains us for the present life by leisure, sleep, gluttony, luxury; another leads us into the superstition of false religions; another exhorts us to schisms; another solicits us to heresy. Of which it is written: 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.' For against all these the nature of our mind is feeble. For they run about on every side and prick us with the various stings of their allurements.
And that first hope of life is this: that, when those things break into our sense by force, fraud, domination, we may cry to the Lord as if from the midst of tribulation, so that our conversion to Him, while calamities are contending, may be heard with all the powers of a faithful cry. And indeed that cry of ours to Him will itself be a rest, and that confession is itself the greatest part of the salvation of one entreating. And therefore he says: 'To thee, O Lord, when I was in tribulation I cried, and thou hast heard me.' For He Himself is wont to say to those who pray: 'Behold, I am here.' And because He is present, He is to be asked concerning those things which follow: 'O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips and from a deceitful tongue.' For this alone is the tribulation perilous to the just: the society of evil exhortation and the habit of pestilent counsel.
From which the mind must be turned away, and the ears must be stopped. But he distinguished the wicked lips and the deceitful tongue. And indeed iniquity is shameless: it openly dares, openly contrives, openly accomplishes. These are they who, denying God, assert that no advancement in the religion of God is left to human affairs, but that this alone is good for them—that they live for luxury and the body—taking away from God care, providence, judgment, power. Of these, therefore, the lips are wicked. But the work of a deceitful tongue is fallacious and, through pretense, noxious: which under the name of religion overthrows religion, and through the hope of life leads down into death.