On the Trinity & Psalm Commentary 1 part 41/55

and that which for us is a penal transformation was rest for the only-begotten God abiding in a body. But before this rest, the apostles are chosen, and they obtain the right of loosing and binding both in heaven and on earth, and they receive power against every adversary force, and they are the temple of God, and they too, coming from the Law, are found to be a tabernacle worthy of the God of Jacob. And lest perchance some should think that we, through the manifold ingenuity of human understanding, are doing violence to the truth — namely, that what was said in the person of David we transfer to our Lord and Savior by the many subtleties of interpretation — the things that follow must be considered, that from these we may press the truth even upon the unwilling and resisting. For he says:

'Behold, we heard of it in Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood; we will enter into his tabernacles, we will adore in the place where his feet stood.' Above, where an oath is sworn and a vow is made, we have shown that the mystery of the vow does not suit human nature, because the labor of an earthly body would refuse watchings of so long a time. And now, where the very places and their names are mentioned, lest anything can be referred to David, the truth itself and the testimony of the region existing to this day contradict it. For David, having a scattered people in his kingdom, for whom there was no seat of religion, bought a threshing-floor in Jerusalem for the site of the temple, so that people might assemble there to fulfill the solemnities of the Law. But this temple his son Solomon built, adorned, and consecrated with the rites of religion.

The Jews therefore wish that David, the buyer of this threshing-floor, had vowed pilgrimage away from home, and the injury of vigils, and the labor of the body, until he could find this place and this tabernacle for the God of Jacob. But this neither the history of Kings nor of Chronicles, in which the deeds of David are contained, relates, nor does the psalm admit it. And why it does not admit it is quite clear. David bought a threshing-floor; the site of the temple was the site of the threshing-floor, where the crops are gathered, where they are threshed, where the chaff is to be separated from the wheat. But the rest of the Lord is in Ephratah; and it was first heard of in Ephratah and afterward found in the fields of the wood. And what has Jerusalem in common with Ephratah? And what has a threshing-floor to do with the fields of the wood? Nothing here is fitting, nothing not discordant.

The threshing-floor, on which the God of Jacob is thought to have rested, the Lord in the last times cleanses with a winnowing-fan: he stores its wheat in his barns, but burns the chaff with unquenchable fire. He deems the men proved by the Law worthy of the storehouses, but assigns the useless and unfruitful to the fire of judgment. That temple today is now nothing, it is burned, it is demolished, it is shapeless in its ruins: and where then is the rest of God? Has the prophet lied, and is the vow of the very mystery made void? Has God indeed lost the rest which, having sworn, he had vowed that he would find for himself?

And so, since these fabrications of irreligious opinions suit neither the dignity of God, nor the nature of man, nor the truth of the places, nor the change of the times, it must now be demonstrated from these authorities of the heavenly Scriptures that the psalm is to be referred to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and to the sanctification of the Church. We said above that this prophet also prophesied concerning that righteous David — the shepherd, the king, the rising sun — in this psalm, and spoke in his person, when he said: 'If I shall enter into the tabernacle of my house, if I shall go up into the bed of my couch, if I shall give sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids and rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.'

But now, that the prophet might show himself not ignorant nor unskilled concerning that vow, he speaks in his own person, saying: 'Behold, we heard of it in Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood.' Above, where the religious obligation of the oath is mentioned, one swore and vowed. For one, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant; and there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, one God the Father, from whom are all things. But now, where the knowledge of prophetic understanding is shown, it is said in the person of many: 'We heard of it in Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood,' because the rest of the Lord was prophesied by many. It is therefore heard of in Ephratah. Ephratah is the same as Bethlehem, in which the Lord was born of Mary. The prophet is our witness, saying:

'And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephratah, are not the least among the thousands of Judah; for out of you shall come forth one who shall be king in Israel'; and again: 'And you, Bethlehem of Judah, are not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of you shall come forth one who shall rule my people Israel.' For there the rest of God is first heard of, where the only-begotten God first inhabited a body of human flesh; and what is heard of in Ephratah is found in the fields of the wood. So the beginning of the Church is heard of in Bethlehem; for it began to be from Christ; but it is found among the nations. These are, out of woods, fields; out of bristling wildernesses, radiant lands; out of barren places, fruitful ones; out of fuel for the fire, a region of life-giving food; out of the lairs of wild beasts, the rest, the house, the temple, and the possession of God.

But that the nations were, like woods, the lair of the devil, the seventy-ninth psalm will be our witness, saying: 'The boar out of the wood laid it waste, and the solitary wild beast devoured it.' For there the discourse is about the vineyard, that is, about the people of God, as it was then thought, whom the devil, inhabiting the nations, had laid waste as unfaithful and impious. In these fields of the wood, therefore, the rest of God, which was heard of in Ephratah, is found. And the reckoning of the times is preserved, so that what we heard of and found signifies the past age, but that which follows next teaches the hope of a future time, when he says: 'We will enter into his tabernacles, we will adore in the place where his feet stood.'

Despairing of this by the bodily office of the present life, the prophet, by faith and spirit, anticipates that he will enter into the tabernacles of God's rest, since he both saw and heard of them. But above, an oath was sworn concerning one tabernacle only; now, however, many tabernacles will be entered. For out of the one Church of the apostles, concerning which the vow was made above, there are many churches and many tabernacles: but the same rest of God is in the many. These tabernacles of God's rest, therefore, they will enter; and not only will they enter, but they will also adore in the place where his feet stood. When one stands in a single place from which he ought not to depart, he takes a fixed stand; but where one stands on his feet, there he presses in with the whole office of the body. The Law has passed away, prophecy is closed.

Their end is Christ, and there is no place for another change: in this one must stand forever, where now, at the completion of the Law and the Prophets, the Lord takes his stand. Preaching indeed runs about through the apostles, whom we have often remembered as signified by the feet, but in the Gospels there is a fixed standing. There, therefore, adoration will take place, where the feet of the Lord — that is, the last of preaching — have taken their stand without the transgression of any further change. And because in the Gospels we read it said, 'Many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which you see, and to hear the things which you hear,' the holy prophet is impatient of this desire.

For after he heard of and found the rest of God, after he believed that he would enter and adore, he prays now to be made a partaker of so great a hope, saying: 'Arise, O Lord, into your rest' — which your David vowed that he would find, which we heard of in Ephratah, which we found in the fields of the wood, into whose tabernacles we will enter to adore there, where your feet stood. Arise, therefore, into that rest which was sought by the mystery of the vow, which was heard of in its place by the knowledge of prophecy, which was found by the fruitful worship of the nations, which is frequented by those who enter, which is unchangeable in its place, which is venerable by the religious devotion of those who adore.

But not only you, O Lord, arise into your rest, but both you and the ark of your sanctification. Not the ark of the covenant, not the ark of the law, but the ark of your sanctification. And indeed we recall that there was an ark of the covenant, gold within and without, where were the tablets of stone, where the sacred writings, where the book of the covenant, where the gomor of manna. But all these are a figure of that body which the Lord assumed, containing in itself the whole mystery of the Law. Now, united both by the Spirit of Godhead and by the origin of the flesh, it is golden within and without — for the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father — containing in itself the eternal manna — for he himself is the living bread — preserving within itself the tablets of the covenant and the book of the Law — for in him are the words of life.

That therefore, together with the Lord, this ark of sanctification also — for the Father according to the Gospels sealed him — may arise into rest, the prophet prays. But that earthly ark was both frequently captured by foreigners and defiled by kings: and today, with the temple and city overthrown, it is now nothing. And let us see what follows. For he says: 'Let your priests be clothed with justice, and let your saints rejoice.' As God and the ark of his sanctification rise again into rest, the priests are clothed with justice — with that most mighty breastplate, as the Apostle says, putting on the breastplate of justice, by which they catch the darts of the enemy, by which they fortify the inner man; but let the saints rejoice. And let us see the reason why both the priests are clothed with justice and the saints rejoice.

For he says: 'For the sake of David your servant, turn not away the face of your Christ.' He referred 'Christ' to the Spirit of Godhead, 'David' to the flesh of the body. For he who remained in the form of God took the form of a servant. He asks, therefore, that he turn not away from the priests and the saints the face of Christ: that he may illuminate with the glory of his divinity those who rejoice for the sake of David, that is, for the sake of the mystery of the body assumed by him. And he shows why he should not turn away the face of his Christ for the sake of David his servant, saying: 'The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not disappoint him.' The Lord swears, and swears truth; he confirms the fidelity of his word even by an oath, that we may not doubt. He will not therefore defraud his David of the truth he swore.

And what he swore to him is worth considering: 'Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon my seat. If your sons keep my covenant and these my testimonies which I shall teach them, their sons also shall sit upon your seat forever. For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has chosen it beforehand for a habitation for himself. This is my rest forever and ever: here I will dwell, for I have chosen it.' What here is contained that is proper to David? That city which was royal to his line, captured by the Babylonians and overthrown, did not retain the dignity of a kingdom under the right of its masters: afterward, captured and burned by the Romans, it is now nothing. And where is the rest of God forever? Where, of the fruit of his womb, are the kings upon the seat of God?

For today they serve as exiles, deprived of a homeland, scattered throughout the whole world. And where is that truth which was sworn? Where is that of which he is not to be disappointed in truth? And where, for the sons of David, is the everlasting seat of an eternal kingdom? Zion, which is said to be chosen, bristles with ruins, empty of inhabitants: and how is it the rest of God forever and ever? The times run on, and this age of our life remains: is God then without rest? But let those who believe these things thus, in the opinion of an unhappy error, hear to whom the oath was made to David. Surely to him of whom it was said: 'I have laid help upon one that is mighty, I have exalted one chosen out of my people. I have found David my servant, with my holy oil I have anointed him. For my hand shall help him, and my arm shall strengthen him.'

'The enemy shall prevail nothing against him, and the son of iniquity shall not further hurt him. And I will cut down his enemies before his face, and I will turn to flight those that hate him. And my truth and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. And I will set his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. He shall call upon me: You are my Father, my God, and the sustainer of my salvation. And I will make him the firstborn, exalted above the kings of the earth. Forever will I keep my mercy for him, and my covenant faithful to him. And I will set his seed for ever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.'

'If his sons forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they profane my ordinances and keep not my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with stripes. But my mercy I will not scatter from him, nor will I deceive in my truth, nor will I profane my covenant, and the things that proceed from my lips I will not make void. Once have I sworn by my holiness: if I lie to David — his seed shall abide forever; and his throne as the sun in my sight, and as the perfect moon forever.'

These promises are those of the David who was chosen as helper against the mighty one, whose hand is in the sea, whose right hand is in the rivers, who dares to call God his Father, because he is; who is himself the firstborn, who is exalted above the kings of the earth, whose seed is for ever and ever, to whom what has been said is not made void, to whom it is sworn once without falsehood by holiness, whose throne is as the sun in the sight of God and remains as the perfect moon forever. Of the fruit of this one's womb, then, shall they be seated upon the seat of God. But how we are of the fruit of his womb, let us hear the prophet Jeremiah teaching: 'If,' he says, 'you have heard such a thing, whether a male has given birth.' This sex does not admit of childbearing;

but the generation which is from God has obtained the likeness of a birth. Let us hear Paul also travailing in the begetting of sons, when he says: 'My little children, of whom I again travail in birth.' And that we are all sons to him, the Lord himself testifies in the Gospel, saying: 'Son, your sins are forgiven you,' and again: 'Little children, yet a little while I am with you.' His sons, therefore, are to be seated upon the seat of the Lord. And a condition of the hope is set forth: 'If,' he says, 'your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies which I shall teach them.' Moses wrote the Law, in which the testimonies of God are contained; this same prophet dwells wholly in the Law: and how are the sons of that David still to be taught in the testimonies?

The saying does not belong to the present age, but is proper to those of whom it is said: 'I confess to you, O Lord God, Father of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to little ones.' But those who are taught and abide in the things which shall be taught, what shall they obtain? 'Forever,' it says, 'shall they sit upon your seat.' And who are these who shall sit? Surely those of whom it was said: 'And you shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' And that must not be neglected which is said above and below. For above it was said: 'I will set upon my seat'; but now it is said: 'They shall sit upon your seat.' And what will this be? Surely that which is said: 'All things that are the Father's are mine.'

The seat of the Father is also the seat of the Son, because 'I and the Father are one.' Or how shall it be understood, 'I will set upon my seat' and 'They shall sit upon your seat,' except that, through the concordant nature — not unlike itself — of the unbegotten and the only-begotten, both the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, the substance of the Godhead in both differing neither in kind nor in will, since the glory of the paternal majesty is co-innate with the Only-begotten? And for this reason the Father calls the seat of the Son his own seat, because the Only-begotten and true God was born both from himself and in the glory of his own unchangeable divinity, and he suffers no affront in seats shared with him, since for one begotten from himself there is no diversity in likeness of nature.

The dignity, next, of those who shall sit upon the seat forever is shown thus: 'For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has chosen it beforehand for a habitation for himself. This is my rest for ever and ever: here I will dwell, for I have chosen it beforehand.' He did not, that is, choose Mount Zion, deserted and useless, nor a city demolished and overthrown. For God is not contained by places, nor does the omnipotent and eternal substance repose either in the deserted solitudes of mountains or in the names of cities now deformed by ruins. But he chose the rest of those of whom the Lord says in the Gospel: 'No one comes to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him.'

He chose that holy Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem, namely the concordant assembly of the faithful and the souls sanctified by the sacraments of the Church, in which — as in a rational and intelligent and cleansed and, through the glory of resurrection, eternal house — the rational and intelligent and unpolluted and eternal nature of the ineffable Godhead may rest. Not that from that immensity of his own infinity, in which he is, he departs, so as to be confined by the narrowness of human minds; but because, through the seat of a habitation worthy of himself, he who is everywhere and the same and whole and always, rests among the holy and worthy. Where there is no offense, no change, but for ever and ever — that is, unto eternal times — a worthy and pleasing habitation is chosen.

Thereupon follows: 'Blessing I will bless her widow.' A certain one of the translators was found to have interpreted it thus: 'Blessing I will bless her catch' — as though, the apostles having been made hunters and fishers of men, this catch of theirs were blessed, especially because Bethsaida, from which the apostles come, is by the interpretation of the Hebrew tongue called 'the house of hunters.' But we must follow that first authority of the translation, sealed under the times of the Jews before the Lord's coming for the doctrine of the Church: 'Blessing I will bless her widow.' How great is the dignity of widows, and the honorable conscience of a single marriage-bed, and the unchanged constancy of a happy continence! For she is blessed, and in blessing is blessed:

Namely, by the judgment of the one who blesses, she is made worthy of blessing. But the Apostle, the teacher of the Gentiles, exhorts us to think something else also concerning the widow who is to be blessed. For he teaches that she is a widow—not through the power of spiritual efficacy, but through the ending of her observance of the Law, having died to it—she who, from being the synagogue, has been made the Church, saying: 'Do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the Law), that the Law has dominion over a man for as long a time as he lives? For the woman who is under a husband is bound by the law to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is loosed from the law of her husband. Therefore, while her husband lives, she shall be called an adulteress if she be joined to another man. But if her husband dies, she is freed from the law, that she be not held an adulteress though joined to another man.'

And so, my brethren, you also are made dead to the Law through the body of Christ, that you may be another's, His who rose from the dead. By the comparison of the widow, who upon the death of her husband is free to enter what marriages she wills, he shows that, now that the Law has ceased, the Church is the widow of the Law, to be lawfully wedded to Christ. This widow of the Law, therefore, in blessing He will bless. Then He says: 'I will satisfy her poor with bread.' It is good that in the Church the poor should not hunger; for when the needy is fed, or the thirsty given drink, or the naked clothed, or the sick visited, or one shut up in prison sought out, these dutiful services are also rendered to Him who in each one of us hungers and thirsts and is cold and is sick and is imprisoned, and who says:

'Amen, I say to you, that what you have done to one of these least, you have done to Me.' Through this faithful profession of His words, therefore, He satisfies the poor with bread. And He also satisfies with bread those who, through humility of heart and contempt of the world, set themselves in poverty; whom He will fill with the food of everlasting life, as is said in another place: 'The rich have suffered want and hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good.' Then follows: 'I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall rejoice with exceeding joy.' Above, the priests are clothed with righteousness; but here they receive an advancement of their honor:

that is, they are clothed with salvation, having been made conformable to the glory of the Savior; because—according to the Apostle—we await from heaven our Savior, who is able, by the working of His power, to conform the body of our lowliness to the body of His glory. With this salvation, therefore, the priests are clothed; but the saints also shall rejoice with exceeding joy. Above, they only 'shall rejoice,' being still set in the body of lowliness and glad only in the hope of eternity; but now they rejoice with a perfect joy, not in hope but in truth, not in image but in substance. For there is oftentimes a joy that is wont to be changed either by chance or by weakness or by time;

but this exultation of the saints is such that they exult with the exultation of an exultation now made perfect. And the cause of their exultation is shown: 'There I will bring forth a horn for David.' The horn is an ensign of kingship; for by it the royal ointment was poured upon those who were to reign. When 'there' is said, rest is signified, of which it was said: 'This is my rest for ever and ever.' In this rest, therefore, God brings forth the horn of David—that is, the kingdom of Him of whom prophecy is made, God's David—not that human kingdom, nor corruptible, nor perishable, but that which, according to the rest of God, endures for ever and ever. And whose shall the kingdom of heaven be? Surely of those of whom it was said: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit;'

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'—that is, in which the eternal King, whose kingdom, according to Daniel, has no end, shall reign. This King, then, is not hidden: Him the Law proclaims, Him the prophets promise, Him John the preacher of repentance points out. For he is, according to the Lord's word in the Gospel, the burning lamp, showing forth Christ in the darkness of this world. Every prophecy concerning Him, therefore, is His lamp, displaying the light of knowledge to the night of our ignorance, confounding the unbelieving and impious by the light of truth, and teaching in the Only-begotten the glory of the Father's majesty. And this is that which follows: 'I have prepared a lamp for my Christ. His enemies I will clothe with confusion;'

but upon Him shall my sanctification flourish. The lamp is prepared, that the night of ignorance might not stand in the way of knowing Him. His enemies shall be clothed with confusion; for they shall see the Son of Man in the majesty of His Father, and shall be clothed not with salvation but with confusion—those, namely, who are earthly and rise again in the body of dishonor. 'But upon Him shall my sanctification flourish.' God, he says, has exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

Through the whole order of doctrine one ascends by steps; for by degrees we are advanced to higher things. In that with which the prophet thus began—'Behold, how good and how pleasant'—we are taught what is good and pleasant, that through the knowledge of these we may abide in things good and pleasant. And it is the prophet's deliberately observed method that he joined 'good' and 'pleasant'; for not everything that is good is pleasant, nor is everything that is pleasant good. Luxury is pleasant, but it is not good, for in that very charm of bodily wantonness there is loss both of salvation and of good repute. Good is the endurance of injury, when we are driven toward irreligion by the pains of hunger, thirst, cold, and sleepless nights,

and of insults and pains; but it is not pleasant, for therein the duty of perfect virtue is grievous. And thus, through these, sometimes even the good lacks pleasantness, and pleasantness is wont to lack that which is good. Let us see what that is which the prophet declares to be good and pleasant—namely, for brethren to dwell together in unity. The prophet did not praise human cohabitations, nor the sharing of earthly houses. For we see brethren at variance over these very fellowships of a common roof, and often the dwelling of one and the same house holds enemies together; and sometimes that very vexation of living together supplies an increase to their hatreds. But the Apostle knew of a common and religious house, saying:

'that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth.' And so it is good and pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity. When they dwell in unity, they are gathered in the assembly of the Church; when they are called brethren, they are of one accord in the love of a single will. For we read that at the first preaching of the apostles this was the chief renown of the believers, in that it is said: 'For the heart and soul of all the believers was one'—the same in assent, not discordant in will, joined in a common faith, made perfect in unanimity of love and judgment. And this the teacher of the Gentiles attests, saying: 'that you all be perfect, in the same mind and in the same judgment.' And again:

'Fulfil my joy, that you may be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one sentiment, doing nothing through rivalry or through vainglory, but in humility esteeming one another to excel each other, each of you looking not to his own things but to those of others.' This is the apostle's joy: that we be of the same mind, be held by the same love, remain unanimous through the judgment of a single mind, not be separated through rivalry, nor fall out through the pursuit of vainglory; that each ought to think not of his own things but of others', so that we may consider those things by which the wills of others are to be kept in concord. This he counsels in another place, saying: 'If it be possible, having peace with all men, so far as in you lies.'