On the Trinity & Psalm Commentary 1 part 34/55

These also are the lies of heretics: the sayings of the prophets, the powers of the Gospels, and the writings of the apostles being hidden by a lie, they deliver and teach all things otherwise than as they are written. From these, therefore, we are delivered by the mercy of God when we pray, and crying to God amid their tribulations we shall be heard. But there follows: 'What may be given thee, or what may be added to thee, against a deceitful tongue?' Well, to that which was said—'To thee, O Lord, when I was in tribulation I cried, and thou hast heard me; O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips and from a deceitful tongue'—is subjoined: 'What may be given thee, and what may be added to thee, against a deceitful tongue?'—that through the prophet might be fulfilled what was said by the Lord:

'Behold, I am here for thee.' As though at the very point of this imprecation, this voice of the Lord is reported: 'What may be given thee, and what may be added to thee, against a deceitful tongue?' Now we frequently read the discourse of the Lord questioning, both in the New and in the Old Testament: as to Adam, 'Where art thou, Adam?'; as to Cain, 'Where is thy brother?'; as to the crowds, when the woman had touched the fringe, 'Who touched me?'; as to the disciples, 'Whom do men say that I am? But whom do you say?' He who is God searching hearts and reins, and is the inspector of our thoughts, does not wish to be taught; but by the confession of those questioned He questions, about to render either pardon for sins or honor for faith. Thus Adam, having confessed, was reserved for pardon and glorified in Christ:

Cain, denying, was made equal to the curse of the devil; for from the beginning he was designated a murderer. The woman, having confessed, was healed by faith; Peter, answering with faith, obtained the keys of heaven. And thus the whole reward of our hope consists in confession, so that those things which we believed we could obtain, we may testify that we shall obtain. And therefore a certain turning of the questioning was made by the prophet; but a fitting answer of faith followed. For to that which was asked—'What may be given thee, and what may be added to thee, against a deceitful tongue?', that is, 'What safeguard is brought to thee against its falsehood?'—the answer is: 'Sharp arrows of the mighty, with desolating coals.'

For only the arrows of the Lord are mighty and sharp, which are able to transfix the deceitful tongue, having in themselves the power of burning up and laying waste all fraudulence; concerning which in the seventh psalm he says: 'He hath wrought his arrows for those who shall burn'; both of which are suitable to it. For the word of God transfixes all wickedness and wounds every sense of wantonness and pierces that most vehement sting of death itself.

For when the sinner hears of the eternal God, the God who is the founder of the world, the God who is judge, and understands that he, a man, owes to God the fact that he is born, with how great a dart of God's teaching will his conscience and error be struck, when he recognizes that he is to be burned in inextinguishable fire, separated like chaff from the wheat and laid waste, deprived of the fellowship of good fruits? Of which teaching, to be revealed through the apostles, he makes mention in another psalm, saying: 'The arrows of the little ones are made their wounds.' These mighty arrows, these coals of desolation, every faithful one prays to be given to himself, and awaits to be applied against a deceitful tongue, for the amending of those who trouble him, whether by the dart of teaching or by the fear of punishment. But blessed Job also, his enemy—

by whom he had been transfixed, not knowing it, called the torments and pains of his body the arrows of the Lord, saying: 'For the arrows of the Lord are in my body, whose indignation drinketh up my blood.' And perhaps the prophet also imprecates these arrows of avenging punishments against the wicked lips and the deceitful tongue, by which, being transfixed, all the lips of the deceitful tongue may be burned up. Although there are many who would have the precepts of heavenly teaching, received by the faithful, be reckoned spiritually as arrows, and the coals of desolations as the cleansing of sins; and thus they think 'coals of desolation' is to be understood, because the Lord said: 'I came to send fire upon the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?'

Now it is not doubtful that He brought the washing and the remission of sins—He who said that fire was already kindled—because through Him is wrought the purgation of all vices and of filth. And they accommodate to this that which was said to Isaiah, when, a coal having been grasped with the tongs, his lips were touched: 'Behold, I have taken away thine iniquities and have purged thy sins.' But we have recalled that the Lord Himself was named an arrow in the same Isaiah, in this manner: 'He hath set me as a chosen arrow, and in his quiver hath he hidden me, and hath said: it is a great thing for thee to be called my servant.' And so we understand that this arrow also is useful and mighty, penetrating us with a salutary and useful wound upon the stings of our vices being transfixed;

It is of this arrow that the Bride in the Song of Songs said: 'I am wounded with love.' Let these arrows therefore be awaited in either manner: whether piercing the wicked and deceitful for the punishment of their conscience, or wounding sins and vices in the bodies of those beloved to them; and let the coal be either that which lays waste or that which purifies, provided it consume through punishment those who deny God, but purify unto perfect innocence those who confess. But what is the prophet's answer that follows upon what was said above? 'Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged!' Good things cannot be judged by us to be truly good unless they are sought after. For how shall we furnish proof of our judgment except by the effectiveness of those things concerning which we have judged well? We esteem chastity a good:

what fruit then of our opinion, unless it consist in the very pursuit of chastity? Innocence is good: but unless we hasten toward it and practise it, we shall not be understood truly so to feel. For the judgments of our minds are not to be signified by words, but fulfilled by deeds. It is fitting therefore that the prophet, awaiting after the Lord's arrows and those coals the desolation of that blessed kingdom and the glory of eternal duration, should desire that which he awaits. And plainly he desires it. Nor only does he desire it, but he hates delays, and grieves at the very postponement of a longing so great not yet attained, saying: 'Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged.'

We have frequently heard a complaint of this kind from very many of the saints, who lament the slowness of their hope through the lingering dissolution of their bodies. The Lord in the Gospels taught that we must pray for the hastening of the heavenly kingdom. For it is fitting that love be impatient of the things it loves; and therefore we ought to say what we are commanded by the Lord to say: 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.' Blessed Paul groans within the habitation of his body, complaining that through the sojourning of the flesh he is a pilgrim away from God. Whence, on the contrary, he knows that he must be a pilgrim in the flesh, that with God he may have his dwelling: yet nevertheless it is better for him to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Ecclesiastes says: 'And I praised all who are dead, above all who live even now':

namely, that the soul, freed through the dissolution of the body, is stripped of the burden and fellowship of this weak and perilous flesh. In this too-prolonged sojourning in the body, therefore, the prophet groans, hastening to be a pilgrim from earthly things and to dwell in the heavenly, that, forsaking things corruptible and present, he may attain things invisible and eternal. Holy Job, worthy of the testimony of God, not only groans over the sojourning in this body, but curses the very day of his birth, saying: 'Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night in which they said: Behold, a male child'; and Jeremiah likewise: 'Cursed be the day in which I was begotten; cursed be the man who brought word to my father, saying: A male child is born to thee.'

And yet indeed he had heard from the Lord: 'Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth from the belly, I sanctified thee.' What then? Does he curse that he began to be, who before he existed was both known by God and sanctified by God? Far be it! For he does not hate in himself the fact that he was sanctified, but he curses those things which followed upon his sanctification, namely his advance through the growth of the body into these troubles of bodily sojourning. For he was formed within the mother's womb and, by the power of his Creator, in the substance of the soul figured according to the image of God—not conceived, nor the origin of his figuration.

But he groans over that which came by increase, the growth of the body once brought forth, in which he must live amid the evils of the world and the weaknesses and vices of the flesh. Yet, already fashioned in the womb and sanctified in the belly, he was eternal in the aspect of a heavenly origin within himself. There is no doubt that, from the sanctification of God, he was destined to remain eternal after the law of this death. But the disposition of this prophet is not far different from that of Job and Jeremiah. For he complains not of his sojourning, but of his prolonged sojourning. For after the complaint of this too-long sojourning of his he goes on to what he says: 'Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged; I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Kedar.'

Kedar is a nation of the Ishmaelites dwelling in the desert, whose borders extend as far as the Medes and Persians. For Kedar was a son of Ishmael, as Genesis testifies: 'The firstborn,' it says, 'of Ishmael was Nabaioth, and Kedar.' These are now called Saracens. Those, therefore, who think these psalms are to be understood with an earthly mind, wish it to be that the prophet complained in the person of the captive people, because his sojourning in the dwellings of Kedar was long for him. But, not understanding the power of the word nor perceiving the spirit of the prophet, they take up the authority of the name to confirm their foolish opinion, though the psalm contains nothing at all that agrees with the captivity of the people. For Kedar in the Hebrew tongue is that which among us is rendered 'darkening.'

For in this dark and shadowy dwelling of bodies is contained that invisible fashioning of our souls, and the captive nobility of a heavenly nature has this prison of its contagious sojourning. The Bride in the Song of Songs makes mention of this tabernacle, saying: 'I am black and I am beautiful, O daughter of Jerusalem, like the tabernacle of Kedar': out of the tabernacles of this obscurity confessing herself black, yet not denying that, because she is the Bride of Christ, she is beautiful. For everyone who betroths herself to Christ already stands in an eternal aspect. In these tabernacles the Lord has commanded us to be enlightened, saying: 'The lamp of thy body is thine eye, and if the light which is in thee is darkness, how great is that darkness itself?' And again:

'You are children of light, not children of darkness.' But the prophet observed also this precision, that he dwelt 'with' the dwellings of Kedar, not 'in' the dwellings. For although the saints live in the flesh, yet, if they have the weapons of their warfare not carnal but mighty toward God, they will cohabit with the tabernacles of Kedar, not inhabit them. For, being pilgrims from the body, as sojourners of God they will hear from the Apostle: 'But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit; if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.' So then he dwelt in such a way as to cohabit with the dwellers, showing thereby that in that sojourning over which he grieves he is a pilgrim.

And because he had hated the fellowship and cohabitation of the wicked who dwell in darkness—although he had already complained about the future—he still says also of the past: 'My soul has long been a sojourner,' namely amid the many tribulations of wicked lips and a deceitful tongue, on account of which he cried out to the Lord. But of what kind his sojourning was, he shows by saying: 'With those who hated peace, I was peaceable.' This is the prophet's proper and worthy part: to restrain the enmities and impulses of another's nature by the peace of his own will, and to hold in check every faithless and turbulent disposition of minds by all moderation of placability.

And these things the Lord taught, himself making peace within himself of the things that are in heaven and on earth, to pray for those who persecute, to hate no one, to love enemies. And the Apostle admonishes: 'If it be possible, as far as in you lies, having peace with all men.' And the Lord seals this as, so to speak, the sum of his precepts: 'My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you.' This, therefore, will preserve our hearts in Christ; this will make us equal to the patriarchs; this will also, through peace, keep in peace, submissive, even those who hate peace. But there remains for the prophet yet another office: namely, constantly to press the doctrine of God upon all, and continually to preach the word of eternal life. Nor was he unmindful of this ministry either; for he says:

'When I spoke to them, they assailed me without cause.' He was indeed peaceable with the enemies of peace, but the enemies of peace hated the very preaching of peace and were stirred up against the doctrine of God—those whom the prophet's silence, through his moderation, restrained in peace; and thus the prophet is peaceable with the enemies of peace, and the prophet does not cease to preach peace, but the enemies of peace assail the preacher of peace. A Song of Ascents. 'I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, whence help shall come to me,' and the rest. Some think that this Song of Ascents, according to its ascending order, should be referred to the person of the Lord and our Saviour, chiefly applying to him this saying: 'By day the sun shall not burn thee, nor the moon by night.'

For they think this prophecy was fulfilled at that time when, in the Lord's passion, the sun being darkened, night intervened. But by the judgment of these men we detract nothing. For neither do we refute the sense of this understanding, leaving it to each one's own choice which of the things they may have read or understood they would rather follow. We, however, could not fit our discourse except to those things which we understood. 'I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains.' The nature of the human mind is such that, if we contemplate anything in thought, each object presents itself to us in such a way as we also form it by thinking. For to whatever the eyes of our mind are directed, they refer to the perception that very thing on which they are fixed.

And that what has been said may be understood more plainly, let us bring forward an example. If someone on a winter's day should think of spring and behold its adornment with the light of the mind, then, winter being blotted out—the winter in which he is and shivers—the whole of spring with its habit and adornment will stand established in his perception. To such a degree do the eyes of the mind excel the eyes of the body, that, as forgetfulness of present things comes upon us, a certain, as it were, mentally-anticipated enjoyment of absent things takes possession of the whole of us. To what this looks, then, we shall soon see. The prophet lifts his eyes to the mountains. What eyes? Surely those of which it is written: 'Uncover my eyes, and I shall know the wonders of thy law'; and again: 'The commandment of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes.'

Are not these eyes of ours kindled with bodily light to behold? Have they not received by lot the nature of seeing? What enlightening or what uncovering will be necessary? Then by what eyes are they to see wonders in the law? Unless perhaps in booths the festival of branches, in the temple the blood of cattle, at the passover the victim of the lamb, and in sum the rest of the sabbath as the height of religion? And, as I suppose, these things seemed to be done by those who stood by as spectators. Not, then, unto that which was seen are the eyes to be uncovered, but unto that which it was desired to be understood in the law. The prophet therefore lifted the eyes of his mind to the mountains. To what mountains?

Certainly not to those defiled by groves and altars and impious with their assemblies, nor to those bristling with forests, bare with rocks, impassable with cliffs, frozen hard with snows; for what admiration or hope is set in these? But we take as mountains the prophetic books, lifted up on high from the earth, through which there is an ascent to the higher things and a step into things eternal. We shall be able also to reckon as mountains the angelic ministries, the virtues and powers of the heavens, by whose ministry an ascent to sublime things is furnished to us. For if, according to Daniel, the Lord himself is a great mountain, there is no doubt that those are called mountains who are the ministers of his precept and will and of the blessedness to be communicated to us.

Lifting up therefore the eyes of his heart to these mountains, and contemplating within himself all the admonitions, ministries, offices, and gifts of these, and directing upon them the light of his understanding, he rendered to his perception the whole and perfect nature of the aspect contemplated, and held in his mind the whole of that which he had seen in thought, knowing whence help would come to him, saying: 'Whence shall help come to me?' And straightway he answered himself with a blessed confession: 'My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.' The eyes are indeed lifted to the mountains, because through them is the ministry of doctrine, the advance, the ascent. But when it must be confessed whence the help comes: the help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. This is a happy faith, this a true confession.

This is an eternal hope, worthy of the gifts of the heavenly blessing. Then, because all prophecy is in the Spirit, straightway upon this blessed confession of his there followed, through the person of the prophet of the Holy Spirit, a blessing: 'Let him not give thy foot unto commotion, neither let him slumber who keeps thee.' The sense itself signifies that a change of person has been made. For the discourse is turned to him who spoke above: 'Let him not give unto commotion.' Who? Surely he who made heaven and earth. 'Thy foot.' Whose? We shall ask. Namely his who lifted his eyes to the mountains and who confessed that help was from the Lord. But that 'let him not give' is also the disposition of one wishing and blessing. And who will wish it?

Namely he who is to us another Advocate besides the Lord, of whom he says: 'And I will send you another Advocate, who also speaks in the prophets.' What then does this Advocate speak? He blesses the confessor of this faith and hope: 'Let him not give thy foot unto commotion, neither let him slumber who keeps thee.' But both of these things are unworthy of God—both that he should hand over unto commotion and that he should slumber, and after the vigil of guarding should rest through some continuation of labour. But before we touch upon this, we must treat of what significance there is in the foot. The foot is that part of the body which carries the whole body about for doing and effecting things.

And because Scripture teaches spiritual things through corporeal ones and demonstrates invisible things through visible ones, under the name of the foot it signifies the motion and gait of our mind. As in this same prophet: 'But as for me, my feet were almost moved.' Surely these carnal feet are always in motion in the body: and how is it a matter of peril that they were almost moved, whose proper office it is that they be always in motion? But also in the Gospels the Lord, signifying other feet, commanded the right one that gives offence to be cut off, saying: 'And if thy right foot offend thee, cut it off.' Is it that, if there is offence in the right foot, the left will give less offence?

Or what can that part of the body bring by way of temptation, since it, apart from any disposition of appetite, has in itself only the ministry of necessary service? Therefore, just as the eyes of the mind, so also the feet are to be understood as having in themselves both the sight of understanding and the motion of the will. But it is not to be understood that this blessing—'let him not give thy foot unto commotion'—is so meant as though God hands some over into the vices into which we are carried by the feet of a corrupt mind. He will not hand us over; but when we depart from him through sins, and since he himself does not dwell in sinners, our departure from him is followed by his withdrawal from us, because we depart from him through sins.

And when he withdraws from us, we fall into all the pits of transgressions and run along the very broad road of death, subjected to the dominion of demons, to whom God's withdrawal from us abandons us. And that desolation of his is therefore a handing-over, because the devil cannot gain possession of sinners unless God withdraws from them. But for the rest, while we remain in his keeping or while he remains in us, there is a most vigilant guard and an unwearied fortification. But if through the lukewarmness of faith we slumber, he too slumbers with us. For in eternal virtue there is no sleep or rest, whose angels are watchful both in name and in nature; for these things are necessary to earthly bodies:

but because, according to our faith, whether watchful or slumbering, God's help with us will either watch or slumber, therefore the Lord is frequently signified both as watching and as sleeping. By which example that saying in this same prophet was uttered: 'With the holy thou shalt be holy, and with the perverse thou shalt be perverted.' Is not God always holy, that he should ever at any time be perverse? Surely not. For there is nothing in him except good and eternal: but because, according to each one's character and pursuit, God is at hand to each, therefore he is both turned away from the perverse and holy among the holy.

And in order to show that the sleep of the guardian comes rather from our slumbering toward faith, and that rest does not befit the sleeplessness of the heavenly guardianship, because it is unwearied and eternal, straightway he joined on: 'Behold, he shall neither slumber nor sleep, who keeps Israel.' Having imprecated above that he should not slumber, now he says that he neither slumbers nor sleeps; above signifying slumber by our departure from him, but now demonstrating that he neither slumbers nor sleeps, because his eternity is unwearied. But who is this who neither slumbers nor sleeps? Namely he who keeps Israel. Genesis explains Israel to be one who has seen God. For the patriarch Jacob received this name after the wrestling which he had with God.

Beholding God beyond human nature with the eyes of his faith, he is worthy of this name. And he saw God to such a degree that he besought to be blessed by him. Paul too recalls that it is now among the people of the nations, that is, in the people of the Church, that Israel is, saying: 'Peace be upon him, and upon the Israel of God,' lest perhaps this name should be thought to have belonged only to that ancient people. Therefore, if he who keeps Israel does not sleep, and the name of Israel properly belongs to one who sees God, then he must needs be kept who, with eyes lifted to the mountains, saw and said: 'My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.'

Therefore a heavenly guardianship is bestowed upon this faith, and this confession—which is to be pursued, obtained, and retained—obtains the fortification of an eternal vigil, his guardianship over us never slumbering, whom we shall thus confess. And lest we should think that the sleepless guardianship of some other is being shown, it is added: 'The Lord shall keep thee,' he surely who made heaven and earth. Thereafter the manner of that guardianship is distinguished: 'The Lord is thy protection over the hand of thy right hand.' We have already said above that through those things which are corporeal, incorporeal things are signified. For the weakness of our understanding cannot attain to invisible things except through the comparison of visible ones:

so that now that which is said does not enter our perception except through the name of the hand and of the right hand, although here hand and right hand are placed contrary to the understanding of nature. For it is said thus: 'The Lord is thy protection over the hand of thy right hand.' The matter would be complete if it had been said thus: 'over thy right hand.' But truly, since it is said thus: 'over the hand of thy right hand,' the right hand seems to be signified as having hands, both a right and a left. This neither the nature of man nor the perception admits. But Scripture always demonstrates the right side as the best and most useful. And indeed the Gospels, through those who are at the right hand and at the left, will show the signification of a twofold understanding. The hand, moreover, we take as the effecting of every work.

Whence also that saying was thus spoken by this same prophet: 'Deliver me from the mouth of the lion, and my only one from the hand of the dog.' For neither in this barking and rabid animal would a part of this body be fitting: but he prays to be delivered from the works of malice. Therefore, because the demonic powers that oppose us strive to weaken and to wound the best and strongest works of our faith, on that account a guardianship of God that will keep watch over the right hand is promised, that the works of good will in us may persevere unimpaired, and, these remaining, we may enjoy the kingdom of that eternal and most blessed time, every weakness of the bodily fall being wiped away. For this the Spirit of prophecy promises us in what follows, saying:

'By day the sun shall not burn thee, nor the moon by night.' The nature of these elements has in itself this efficacy, that each of them, in its own season, through a change weakens in us the strength of human bodies of a feeble substance, so that the sun burns with heat, the moon with cold; and there is throughout the yearly course such an alternation of them, that in winter time the sun does not burn while the moon burns, but relaxes, and again in the summer months the sun burns and the moon dissolves. Those, therefore, who think these things are to be understood corporeally, I ask, what do they assert the prophet promises to him who lifted his eyes to the mountains, in that which is said: 'By day the sun shall not burn thee, nor the moon by night'?

For while the nature of our body remains, the nature of the elements too will not become mutable, so that they should not persist by habit of their own nature into our nature. Or will anyone dare to hope for himself in this world such firmness of body, that he cannot be burned by night and day, when the blessed patriarch Jacob complains that he was burned by the rigour of night and the heat of day, saying: 'And I was burned by the heat of the day and the frost of the night'? But the prophet now, or the Spirit through the prophet, knows that blessedness of times in which all change of bodily weakness shall depart from us, in which there is no cold, no heat, no night and change, but an eternal day and blessed temperance of righteousness, the Sun ruling over us.