Latin original · 37 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 1:1319–1:1355 (2058 verses in all)
each is himself the same, as though mere naming had made the Father and the Son, and not the nature of begetting; but for this reason one God, because there are neither two unbegotten, nor two only-begotten, but one from one and both one—not, that is, with a dissimilar or differing substance of divinity in each. Then follows: 'And as the eyes of the handmaid upon the hands of her mistress.' Now the prophet kept the same order, so that as an example of the comparison he might record the eyes of the handmaid also to be intent upon the hands of her mistress, that he might teach these desires of the servants to be intent rather upon the efficacy of works. But since many servants of many masters have been set as an example, it must be asked why one handmaid of one mistress is mentioned.
For many servants, as we said above, are of many gods. But now one handmaid and one mistress: because the nature of the human soul is one, just as the nature of earthly flesh is also one. And because the discourse is now about sinners, who are servants of sin, this handmaid, the soul, is given over to the flesh her mistress, and through the blandishments of bodily vices is made subject, and holds dominion over her inferior through the fomentations of enticements, gazing upon the fruits of its works. Therefore, just as their unchangeable vices detain these servants and this handmaid, so that in them they persist with a certain religious intention of folly,
so faith must be such as is not temporary and mutable, nor grows weary when temptations are sent forth, but abides immovable and unchanged until the consummation of God's mercy. And therefore the prophet demonstrates the obstinacy of his hope until the end of receiving mercy, saying: 'So are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy upon us.' He does not fall away, he does not desist. Though the Lord delay His mercy unto the testing of faith, because faith ought to render a constant expectation of its confidence, and all despair is a confession of distrust. But the prophet is not uncertain of God's mercy; for his eyes are upon Him, until He have mercy.
They are intent, and so intent that a doubled prayer is subjoined to their intention. For after this he says: 'Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us.' And he is intent, and being intent he prays: with that perseverance, namely, with which the servants of vices tarry in the vices that lord it over them, he perseveres with the most certain hope of eternal goods and the confidence of mercy perfected upon him. But it follows, as we have often learned, that this hope of the faithful is attended by grievous detraction of the wicked and the troublesome persecution of the malignant. For the unjust man hates justice to be preached by us; if we praise chastity, the unchaste is offended; the drunkard execrates fasting in us. And indeed when we exhort to liberality, the covetous man accuses our folly.
When we preach Christ as God who was crucified, the Jew and every persecutor from among the Gentiles reproaches our religion. When we await the judgment of God, the kings of the world are offended and refuse God as the arbiter of the life led by each one. When we announce the resurrection, the bodies of the unbelieving, dead with their vices, contradict us. Our faith also, received from the Law and the prophets and the Gospels and the apostles, all the falsehoods of the heretics assail. We are struck, cursed, put to flight, slain by sword, by flames, by the deep; men rage against our modesty, they rage against our bodies; we have grief from our injuries. And because our injuries are death to those who inflict them, we have grief from compassion for those who perish.
And therefore after the doubled prayer, in which he had said, 'Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us,' he added: 'For we are exceedingly filled with contempt; for our soul is exceedingly filled': since God alone is able to help against these things, so as to deliver from scorn and contempt him who is ever intent upon the mercy shown him unto the end. And therefore, until God have mercy on him, he is intent; therefore with a doubled prayer he prays for God's mercy on himself, because he and his soul are much filled with contempt, God being able, as we said, to have mercy amid much scorn: and not only able unto this, but able also to turn all things back to the contrary and to render a certain requital of suffering.
A witness to us is both the poor man resting in Abraham's bosom and the rich man burned up in torment. For the former had sat at the dung-heap before the rich man's door, wasted with hunger, dripping with the discharge of his ulcers, while the dogs licked his festering wounds. But this was the warfare of the body, this the struggle against the world, while within nevertheless his soul, through faith, was invulnerable and impervious to every dart, impassable to the vices of pleasure: and therefore after the dissolution of the flesh he is borne blessed by the angels into the bosom of Abraham.
But the other, whose every garment was of purple, to whom the nobility of the whole city, subjected under a heavy dominion, did service, for whom the riches of air, of earth, of sea were gathered for the use of his feast, all the elements serving with their offices his one belly—he who had shut his door against this poor man, had denied him the crumbs falling from the table and had reproached his coming as an affront to himself, departing from the body which he had ill used, is separated by an impenetrable chasm from the saints, is received by every ministry of punishments; he grieves, is tormented, is scorched, and begs to be bedewed and cooled by the least finger of the poor man resting in Abraham's bosom. To whom Abraham replies:
'Son, remember that you received good things in your lifetime, and Lazarus likewise evil things: but now here he is comforted, and you are tormented.' An alternating reversal takes place: and gladness is changed into mourning, and mourning into joy. And let us see whether that same thing which the Gospel set forth the prophet now also signifies. For he says: 'A reproach to those who abound, and contempt to the proud.' After the earlier persecutions which we have recalled—of kings, of Gentiles, of Jews, of heretics, and often even of our own—here too there is an evangelical reversal, so that there is reproach to those who abound and contempt to the proud. Pride is turned into contempt, and plenty is changed into want:
and again both contempt is changed into pride and want into plenty, the prophet showing both these things by the same words. When he says: 'A reproach to those who abound and contempt to the proud,' it is either that now those bear reproach who afterward shall abound in the kingdom of the Lord, and that those are now held in contempt who afterward through the confidence of faith shall exult; or that at the time of judgment reproach and contempt shall return upon those who now abound and are proud in the world. Paul glories in his infirmities and in his straits. He also directs that a judge of the powerful be chosen from the contemptible of the Church. He and Peter establish a mutual law for themselves, that they should be mindful of the needy and carefully take care of them.
The angels of the least ones daily behold God; the humble shall be exalted; and the best sacrifice to God is a contrite heart. Let us therefore not cast off the humble, nor despise the poor, nor pass by the needy, lest we be separated from them by a deep chasm, lest they disdain to cool us with their least finger, because there is a reproach to those who abound and contempt to the proud. This reversal is subject to change, and it is a fitting requital upon the good and the bad, which He shows in the Gospels, saying: 'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,' and again: 'Woe to you that laugh, for you shall weep'—our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. A Canticle of Degrees of David. 'Except that the Lord was among us, let Israel now say;
except that the Lord was among us, when men rose up against us, perhaps they would have swallowed us up alive,' and the rest. The preceding psalm brought us great advantage; for from it one ascends into this one. For the eyes of our mind were intent upon God unto the end of mercy, while many scorns and reproaches surrounded us on every side. After which, having obtained mercy and being set from reproach into abundance and from contempt into exaltation, what we ought to do and say the prophet shows, saying: 'Except that the Lord was among us, let Israel now say; except that the Lord was among us, when men rose up against us, perhaps they would have swallowed us up alive.'
And indeed the speech itself is such that it is understood to be that of the prophet instructing what ought to be said by the rest. For first the matter itself is stated; then it is shown in what manner it is to be said. And this was the order, that first what should be done, then in what measure it should be done, might be shown. 'Except that the Lord was among us, let Israel now say.' It has therefore been stated what ought to be said by Israel. Concerning Israel we have frequently admonished that he is to be reckoned as one who has contemplated God with the eyes of his mind. Now therefore, according to the prophecy, having learned what he ought to say, Israel shall speak: 'Except that the Lord was among us, when men rose up against us, perhaps they would have swallowed us up alive.' Israel therefore, taking this example from the prophet, shall say, because he has heard:
'Unless the Lord had been among us, let Israel now say.' Yet that command is no light one, which had to be shown beforehand by a certain proclamation of the prophet going before. For in those matters which are difficult, an example is sought. For the whole nature of men is insolent in prosperity, and, unmindful of its own weakness, rejoices heedlessly in good fortune — a thing which ought to be far from a man instructed in the doctrine of God. For what room for boasting is left to us who remember that all things are from God? If we ourselves have implanted life in ourselves, then let us owe to ourselves the very form of our bodies; if we ourselves govern the rains and the heats, let us boast that the yield of the fruits is from us.
If it is not in all things that the mercy of God is at work, then let us claim all things for ourselves as though they were from our own selves. Will the strong man perchance boast himself strong, whom a bodily sickness will render weak? Will the rich man boast in his riches, all of which by chance a thief, a robber, or a tyrant will snatch away? Will nobility boast, which is sometimes reduced to feeble and wretched servitude? Will the wise man boast, uncertain what may befall him from one moment to the next? But if we enjoy any of these things without the interruption of some annoyance, we rejoice, we are elated. And if from some sadness we return into joy, being scarcely capable of that very joy we have obtained, we are lifted up beyond the sense of human weakness, forgetful of this saying:
'Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, neither the strong man in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches; but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord.' Therefore the prophet has fashioned us, who through the fault of our own habit are insolent, by a certain prescription of confession, and by the example of his admonition has taught us both to render honour to God and to boast in Him, saying: 'Unless the Lord had been among us, let Israel now say.' Having therefore heard from the prophet what we ought to say, let us too say: 'Unless the Lord had been among us, when men rose up against us, perhaps they would have swallowed us alive.' For we have endured the persecutions of men,
the impious decrees of kings, the alluring exhortations of counsellors — while we abide in faith, while we remain in the fear of God, while we continue in the hope of eternal good things, aided by the mercy of God, knowing Him to be faithful who said: 'Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age.' To Him who dwells in us let us refer our joys; to Him let us owe whatever is in us. Instructed by blessed Paul, who says that nothing is to be reckoned our own — 'What hast thou that thou hast not received? and if thou hast received it, why dost thou boast as though thou hadst not received it?' — and learning from the holy patriarch Jacob the modesty of ascribing grace when he says: 'The God who nourished me from my youth, and the angel who delivered me out of all evils.'
But it is not the custom of men to devour others alive, nor do their hatreds proceed to the point of gulping down flesh. But neither is the joy here about a body rescued from death, but about a soul preserved from sin and freed from the fellowship of sinners. For this reason he says thus: that perhaps we should have been swallowed alive — namely, while still placed in the body, overrun by death and devoured by sin. For this is the death of the living: to live for luxury, sleep, sacrileges, adulteries, murders. Thanks therefore are to be rendered to God who abides in us, because, living through faith in Him and through His doctrine, we are not swallowed up by these things. So there is here an order in the thanksgiving which is also present in iniquities.
For because we shall not first be swallowed up by those who rise against us, neither afterward, when their minds rage, shall we be swallowed up by the water, the Lord protecting us. For he says: 'When their mind was angered against us, perhaps the water would have swallowed us up.' But what is this? The minds of men are angry, and the water swallows us? Do the avenging waters stand ready at the motion of provoked minds, or are they animate, that they should swallow? Those who are submerged can be drowned in water; but that which is inanimate cannot swallow. We must therefore inquire what ought here to be understood, and it is necessary to recall those passages in which mention has been made of waters. And indeed in the opening of the book of Genesis it is thus written:
'And darkness was upon the deep, and the Spirit of God moved over the waters'; and again: 'God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide between the water which is under the firmament and the water which is above the firmament'; and again: 'And let the water which is above the heavens praise the Lord'; and again: 'The waters saw Thee, O God, the waters saw Thee and were afraid.' Therefore, since the law is spiritual and the faith of the history is not endangered if, in things accomplished, we reckon that there inheres, connected to them from without, a certain significance, we see that there are waters over which the Spirit of God is, and waters which are above the heavens, and those which are in the earth, and waters which praise, and waters which fear.
By which we rightly understand that the waters signify peoples, among whom there are spiritual ones; there are also darksome ones; there are heavenly, and there are earthly ones; there are those who will praise the glorious coming of the Lord, and there are those who fear. These, then, are the trembling, earthly, darksome ones, wishing to swallow us up, their minds stirred to wrath and moved with the whole assault of diabolic fury, like torrents at the very tempest of winter rushing headlong. And thus, in the order of our confession to the Lord, the prophet adds: 'Our soul has passed through the torrent; perhaps our soul would have passed through the immense water.'
Behold the rushing assaults of the devil and of his followers, and the raging onsets stirred up out of turbulent motions, and the torrents of a temporary tempest; but this intolerable water does not pass over the soul in which God dwells. It is intolerable to those who are void of God; but to those in whom God is, it is a sudden torrent, yet after a little dry and exhausted, giving means of crossing over. And that there might be here no sense of literal waters, there follows: 'Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth.' And what are the teeth of these torrents? They are plainly violent for tearing and seizing: anger, lust, wantonness, hatred, gluttony, avarice. These are the evil and tenacious teeth.
For through these they lord it over us when captured and torn, while they make us either the ministers or the partners of their vices; by which not our flesh, but our soul — unless God were in us — would be devoured. For he says: 'Our soul, like a sparrow, has been snatched from the snare of the hunters.' The snares which hunt are set out secretly and deceptively, either hidden in valleys, or covered with herbs, or masked with baits, or matching the colour of the clouds. And these things indeed are for beasts and other birds; but for us they are prepared against the soul. For we have a snare in idleness, in money, in ambition, in wantonness. These are held out, these flatter, these deceive; but from all these our will is to be recalled.
For these snares are stretched out for all, as it is written: 'For not unjustly are the nets stretched out for the birds.' For it is perfect glory to fly away from these snares which have been stretched out. And so the psalm says thus: 'Our soul, like a sparrow, has been snatched from the snare of the hunters' — not indeed of those who hunt, but of those for whom the snares are stretched in the hunt. For a man does not become a sinner only when he falls into the snare, but, though snares be stretched for all, he nevertheless who is already a sinner is in the snare; as it is written: 'The eye of the harlot is a snare to the sinner.' Therefore we must abstain from all sins, lest we fall into the snare. For we are spiritual, and we fly away like sparrows.
The sparrow is a domestic bird and a dweller of buildings, not momentary nor temporary, but abiding without any change or observance of season. Let us therefore, dwelling in the Church without vicissitude of times, abstain from sins, that we may fly away from the snares. For the snare is broken by God dwelling in us, since it thus follows: 'The snare is broken, and we are delivered. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.' By this help the snare is broken, by this help we are delivered — in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth:
which name is, namely, above every name, at which every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. A Song of Ascents. 'They who trust in the Lord are as Mount Sion: he who dwells in Jerusalem shall not be moved for ever.' Most people make obscurity for us, wishing to judge the prophetic Scriptures by the ear's judgment alone, and to understand nothing else in them than what is heard under the several words of each thing. And when they wish this, they neither leave us anything to understand, nor will they establish that the prophets spoke reasonably — I do not say of heavenly things, but not even of earthly ones.
For what will either be fittingly treated by us, or be reckoned rightly said by them, when we hear of waters praising, seeing, fearing, and clapping their hands, unless from the authority of those same Scriptures we show that under the name of waters something else is signified, which is of another kind? Namely, that which is living and sentient and which moves itself by its own motion and sense to the judgment of each thing: which is understood to be man — praising, seeing, fearing, clapping, judging. For the prophetic discourse has declared these kinds of human affection to be in the waters; and because their nature does not agree with waters, neither did the prophet speak of waters, nor do we understand it to have been said of waters.
This is fitting to be examined on account of those things which are in the present psalm, which are such as these: 'They who trust in the Lord are as Mount Sion; he who dwells in Jerusalem shall not be moved for ever. The mountains are round about it.' If the name of Mount Sion and the dwelling of Jerusalem and the mountains around it have no ground of an inner meaning, then the psalm is empty and the prophet a liar, in whom the Holy Spirit is believed to have spoken. For Mount Sion is a mountain overhanging the city of Jerusalem; that city is one around which, on the outside, are several mountains. He therefore who trusts in the Lord — what advantage will he have, that he should be as Mount Sion?
That from a rational man he should become a rock, a tree, a clod, and be reduced from an animate nature into an inanimate one? And moreover, how is this a faithful saying, that he shall not be moved for ever who dwells in Jerusalem? Did Jerusalem itself bring sanctification to its inhabitants, that its dwelling should be an eternal firmness — when from there came the sacrilegious slaughter of the prophets, the sentence of death upon the Lord, the flight of the apostles, the scandal of the cross? And how often were its inhabitants taken captive, how often destroyed? At the last, that same city was utterly demolished, and those who were left over from its devastation were captured and dispersed, the prophet having foretold this destruction of its impiety beforehand thus:
'Your land is desolate, your cities are burned with fire, foreigners devour your country in your sight, and the daughter of Sion shall be left desolate and overthrown by strange peoples, like a booth in a vineyard and like a watchman's hut in a cucumber field.' Now then, is the discourse empty, empty the prophecy, which also added: 'The mountains are round about it, and the Lord is round about His people from this time forth and even for ever'? Jerusalem is overthrown, its peoples are extinguished, its remnants are scattered; today it is not inhabited; there is no priest, no prophet, no ruler; but she herself is trampled, deserted, without fruit. And how shall her dwelling not be moved for ever?
And the Lord round about His people from this time forth and even for ever? Therefore it cannot be seen to have been prophesied of that city, from which the truth of the prophecy will disagree. It follows, then, that we must seek in whom the meaning of these sayings fits. And indeed it must first be noted that no mention was made of any mountain other than Sion. For we read that there is a mountain of the Lord, Horeb too, up to which first Moses, after he had encountered many things, drew near: there is also the mountain of God, Sinai, on which the law was written for the people. There is also Sion, a mountain overhanging Jerusalem. But because in this mountain there is no fruit of prophecy, it must be seen what ought to be understood in the mountain. And we have the best guide of understanding, Isaiah.
For when above he had signified the high mountain of the Lord, to which the nations would come, he says: 'For this cause thus says the Lord: Behold, I send into the foundations of Sion a stone, splendid, chosen, a corner-stone, precious, into its foundations; and he who believes in Him shall not be confounded.' And it is not ambiguous that the apostle signified that the foundation is Christ; through which that blessed Church of the Lord's body, whose foundation is Christ, is seen to be signified in the mountain. And that same Church the apostle also calls Jerusalem, saying: 'She who is now Jerusalem serves with her children; but that which is above, Jerusalem, is free, which is our mother.' We have therefore the mountain of the Lord, Sion; we have also the city of God, Jerusalem:
and the interpretation of the name Sion is 'watchtower' or 'contemplation.' Thus therefore we understand the Lord as a mountain in Daniel, from a mountain into a stone and again from a stone into a mountain; for He emptied Himself, being constituted in the form of God, and took the form of a servant, and through His own passion, the world with its superstitions and errors being laid prostrate, He is in the glory of God the Father and is God above all things; on account of the weakness of the flesh emptied from a mountain into a stone, on account of the glory of the passion again made from a stone into a mountain: a mountain surpassing and lofty, in which we contemplate our very selves through the assumption of our flesh and body. For in Him we are, contemplating our resurrection in the resurrection of our body in Him: for Sion is 'contemplation.'
Let the Hebrew tongue speak this interpretation, in which it was said: 'Mount Sion is the mountain of contemplation.' Let Paul also speak and say: 'But our citizenship is in the heavens, whence also we await our Saviour, who will transform the body of our lowliness, made conformable to the body of His glory'; and let him say again: 'And when we were dead in sins, He made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up together, and made us to sit together in the heavenly places.' Let the Gospel also say: 'As many as received Him, to them He gave power to become sons of God.' Let the prophet therefore now also say: 'They who trust in the Lord are as Mount Sion; he who dwells in Jerusalem shall not be moved for ever.' Let us follow the apostle, let us follow the Gospel, let us follow the prophet.
Let us trust in the Lord, that we may be conformed to the body of the glory of God. Let us now dwell in the Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, that we may not be moved for ever. For dwelling in this one, we shall dwell also in that one; for this is a form of that; for in part we know, and in part we prophesy. And now we see through a glass in a riddle, but then face to face. But both this is heavenly and that is heavenly; and this is Jerusalem and that is Jerusalem; and that indeed is the Church of the multitude of angels who throng it: but there is the Church of the firstborn, and there is also the Church of spirits founded in the Lord. We must therefore be founded in the spirit, and having dwelt in this one we must stand, not run about, as it was said to Moses: 'But do thou stand here with Me.'
Let us not be wandering in our courses, nor uncertain in our ways, nor flying about with the wind of empty doctrine. For we must abide for ever, if we stand without commotion. But neither are there wanting, to those who wish to stand, the guardianships of the saints, nor the fortifications of the angels. For it is said: 'The mountains are round about it, and the Lord is round about His people from this time and even for ever.' For these mountains we shall reckon, according to the previous examples, to be those who exceed the lowliness of the earth, firm and lofty and immovable. For since we read that the Church, that is, the Lord in the body, is signified by a mountain, and since we find that the mountains of God exult and rejoice — for it is written:
'The mountains leaped like rams' — how can we understand that those mountains are not signified who, being above the earthly nature, now exult in the things of God as glorious ones? And lest we should believe the guard in the apostles, or in the patriarchs and prophets, or rather in the angels who hedge the Church about with a certain custody, to be a slight protection, it is added: 'And the Lord is round about His people from this time forth and even for ever.' But perhaps the guard of the apostles or of the angels might be reckoned sufficient. That indeed is true; but let us also hear Moses. For when the Lord had said to him: 'Behold, My angel shall go before thee,' he replied: 'Unless Thou Thyself walk with me, cast me not forth from here.' Good indeed is the protection of an angel, but better is that of the Lord.