On the Trinity & Psalm Commentary 1 part 44/55

but when he has recognized that all these things are liable to eternal damnation, then, having recognized them, he confesses his error. And the confession of error is a profession of ceasing. One must therefore cease from the sin on account of which the confession of sin was begun. But for the rest, he is outside of pardon who recognizes his sin and does not confess what he has recognized. Yet one must always confess—not because one must always sin, so that there be always something to confess, but because the tireless confession of old and ancient sin is profitable. And the Holy Spirit teaches that one must always confess, when he says through the prophet: The righteous is his own accuser at the beginning of his discourse. The righteous accuses himself not from present things but from past; for from him to whom belongs the accusation of present things, the name of righteous is taken away.

And let us hear the apostle Paul arguing from past things, when he says: For I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am. This is that true confession of a righteous man, which commends present righteousness from the conscience and confession of past things. To which also elsewhere we are admonished through the prophet: Confess, he says, your sins first, that you may be justified. To this confession therefore we are called in the psalm: For God is good, for his mercy is unto the ages—the fidelity of our confession being here all the more earnest, because he to whom we confess is both good and knows not how to cease being merciful. Give thanks to the God of gods; for his mercy endures forever.

As we are taught in the gospels by the Lord's answer to the Sadducees: He is not the God of the dead, but of the living—through whom also it was said: I have said, You are gods and all of you sons of the Most High. God does not deign to be the God of the corruptible and the dead, but of those who are to be transformed into heavenly glory, who, having stripped off the old earthly man, have put on the new one which is in heaven, who will be conformed to the body of God's glory. And that these are made gods—although the merit of their faith also requires it—yet this is the greatest cause: because his mercy is unto the ages. He did not need to be called the God of gods, but it is of his goodness and mercy that he makes gods, imparting the honor of his name out of the affection of mercy and goodness. Give thanks to the Lord of lords:

for his mercy endures forever. That many are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, the apostle taught, so that this might be seen to belong not only to human nature but to the spiritual, when he says: But even if there are those who are called gods, in heaven and on earth—by the signification of heaven and earth showing this name to befit each nature. The same apostle also signifies God to be the Lord of lords, when he says: King of kings and Lord of those who rule; dominion over the base and the degenerate is unworthy of God. He is King of kings and Lord of lords, as he is God of gods. And which gods he signifies is not ambiguous; of whom he said: God stood in the synagogue of gods. But who the kings are the same apostle plainly shows, saying:

Already you reign without us, and would that you did reign. Kings are those in whom sin does not reign, who rule their own body, who now have the command of this flesh, subdued and subjected to them. These therefore are kings, and God is the king of these. These also are lords, who will not be slaves of sin: for whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. One must therefore rule over sin, not serve it. And they are lords who subject these bodies of sin to their dominion through the subjection of their vices and sins. The apostle knew himself to be lord of his own body, when he says: For I subdue my body and bring it into servitude. He who brings into servitude, of necessity, by the right of a lord, brings into servitude the one who is to serve.

Of such lords therefore God is the Lord, calling them through the hope of eternity, that they may be lords, that God may be Lord to these lords: and this for no other cause than because his mercy is unto the ages; granting to us through the kindness of his eternal mercy that, having been made lords, we may be worthy of him whose lord he himself is. Who alone does great wonders. In very many of the deeds of human works many great and wonderful things have appeared, but whatever has been done in them is referred to him whose power accomplished it. Moses did many wonders in Egypt; but the magicians and enchanters bear witness that in those works there is the finger of God, as it is written: Therefore the enchanters said to Pharaoh:

This is the finger of God. From which it is shown that the power of God was worked through Moses, by whose ministry those things were then accomplished. That too was a great miracle, when at the speaking of Joshua the son of Nun the sun stood still against Gibeon and the moon against the valley of Aijalon. I do not know what could be effected more wonderful than this, when at the word of a man the sun and moon were held back, contrary to the law of their course, for the delay of a single day. But scripture soon added the author of this power, saying: There was no such day either before or after, that God should so hearken to a man: because the Lord fought for Israel. For in that Joshua was heard and God fought in Israel, the power of him who both fought and heard is shown in the deeds.

Who made the heavens in understanding: for his mercy endures forever. The sole cause of making the heavens is his mercy; for he did not need that they should come to be. But he who is good made all things for this, that many might enjoy the abundance of his goodness. And he made the heavens in understanding, not irrational, nor formless, nor confused and disordered. But when he who is infinite would place the region of his own knowledge, the higher and first heaven being likewise established with reason, he enclosed a certain limit for the powers which should first be begotten to know him.

For the creations that were to be begotten could not have borne the power of the invisible God, unless, by the interposition of a more tempered nature, they inhabited this seat, moderated to the weakness of their dwelling. For by the waters raised up he tempered that very nature of the first heaven, which, kindled by the power of the God on high, could in no way be endured by the lower natures. But the lower heaven he stretched out not uniform but manifold; which, calling the whole 'firmament,' he made solid with a firmness strong for the sustaining of the upper waters and the tempering of our air.

And therefore prophetic teaching has handed down that there are many heavens, because it was necessary for our nature that, through certain intervals and advances of reasonable moderations, this region of the dwelling granted to us for the present should be tempered. But concerning the number of the heavens, let no rashness of human teaching presume anything for itself. The apostle understands himself to have been caught up only as far as the third heaven. He indeed counts up many thrones, dominions, powers, principalities, to which necessarily their proper seats of a fitting habitation must be assigned. But he signifies that there are also others, the knowledge of which he promises for future times, when he says: and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. Yet concerning the number the apostle taught nothing;

and I do not know whether he was silent about it or was ignorant of it. For now he both professed that he knows in part, and yet, when he was caught up to the heavens, he testifies that he heard things which are not to be spoken. It suffices for us to know that there are many heavens, seeing that both the heavens of heavens and the waters which are above the heavens praise the Lord. But under the heaven of the lower circle of the higher one, which he called the firmament, he placed the earth beneath;

which, suspending it in the midst and confirming it, he so moderated in its seat of abiding that, balanced and supported by measures and weights equal on every side, it should stand firm; so that he who is the infinite God, overtowering that first circle of the higher heaven, might, by spaces equal from his own transfusion in every direction, reach all things which were being created—the spirit of his power being tempered for the use and nature of living things. For the apostle says: For in him we live and move and are; through which it is shown that the earth stood firm in his Spirit, as in the compass of the transfused Spirit, since in God we all both live and move and are. And that he is transfused and penetrating into all things by the Spirit of his tempering, the prophet teaches, saying:

The Spirit of God has filled the world; and so, within and without, in compass and in approach, he is shown to be both surrounding and transfused. But that the earth is not sunk into one region, the Holy Spirit consequently shows, saying: Who established the earth above the water: for his mercy endures forever. The reasoning of the present treatise and passage does not permit us to inquire more deeply. Let it suffice to have learned from prophetic authority that the earth stands with a suspended firmness above the waters, overshadowed by the covering of a more tempered heaven—this firmament, which, stretched out like a skin and made solid like smoke, separates the upper waters from the lower. Certainly that it is held suspended by the waters, and in this, as in all things, the cause is...

...because his mercy is unto the ages. But in that which follows: Who alone made the great lights, for his mercy endures forever—this is not to be understood as though he made them apart from the Wisdom and the Word and the Power, that is, apart from the only-begotten God, our Lord Jesus Christ; seeing that he, in the person of Wisdom, said: I was with him, arranging all things. But he who was arranging was both begotten and born from him with whom he was arranging. And since the works of the Son are the works of the Father, and the Father works in the Son—for through that which he says, 'The Father who is in me, he himself does his works,' and again, 'I do the works of the Father'—he alone works in him and through him, working by the one whom he begot.

But in the rest the teaching that shows God's mercy is unqualified, so that we may know that all things are made perfect for no other cause than because God is always merciful. But concerning those things which ought to be understood spiritually of the affairs of Egypt, the treatise of the preceding psalm, insofar as we were able to pursue it, has embraced; to the confirmation of which this too, which is said in this psalm, is added: Who divided the Red Sea into divisions, for his mercy endures forever. The book of Exodus teaches one division of the Red Sea, saying: And he made the sea dry, and the water was divided; and how is the Red Sea now divided into divisions? Unless it be that, as I think, under the account of the deeds the order of spiritual teaching is contained.

For, escaping from Egypt, which is the figure of the world, and going to the land of promise, which according to the gospel the blessed shall inherit, going through the Red Sea—that is, through the turbid heats and fluctuating movements of this same world—we shall pass over; in which there are many divisions for the journey. For to some the journey is through fastings, to others through chastity, to others through almsgiving, through faith, through hope, through charity. And all these must necessarily have diverse divisions of this sea to be crossed, yet all are about to pass over the journey of the world through these divisions of the ways. But the conclusion of the psalm confirms with greater faith that all these things are to be understood of things to come, when it says: In our humiliation the Lord remembered us:

for his mercy endures forever. And he redeemed us from the hand of our enemies: for his mercy endures forever. Who gives food to all flesh: for his mercy endures forever. Give thanks to the God of heaven: for his mercy endures forever. For God did not only remember human lowliness when he chose Moses as leader to free the people from Egypt, but he remembered our lowliness more perfectly when, born in the body, he took up our very lowliness, when he absorbed this lowly and earthly body with the glory of the heavenly nature in himself.

Nor did he then redeem from the hand of enemies, when he took them out from the dominion of the Egyptians—for afterwards they were subjected to enemies and today are constrained by the law of a foreign empire—but he redeemed us when he gave himself for our sins; he redeemed us through his blood, through his passion, through his death, through his resurrection. These are the great prices of our life. For at a great price, says the apostle, you have been redeemed—and redeemed from enemies, from the devil, from his angels, from the son of perdition, from the princes of the air, from the powers of the world, from hostile death. And he redeemed by giving food to all flesh: Who gives food to all flesh. To all flesh—that is, which has been redeemed—he gives incorrupt, eternal food, of the living bread, of the heavenly bread.

And in each of these—that he is mindful of our lowliness, that we have been redeemed, that all the flesh of the redeemed receives food—this is the cause: because his mercy is unto the age; for which he is to be confessed: Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his mercy is unto the age. That heaven, that earth, that the rest exist, and that very thing which we are, who were not, that we shall be what we are not—has no other cause than the mercy of God: because he who is good willed us to be born unto the fellowship of his good things. For there is one who is good, says our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 136.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion, and the rest. That the Jews, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, were led captive into Babylon, is no obscure knowledge. Nor is it doubtful that through this same book of psalms the captivity of the people could be prophesied. For in another psalm too it is manifest that the overthrow of this nation and of the city was plainly prophesied, when it is said: O God, the nations have come into your inheritance, they have polluted your holy temple, they have set Jerusalem as a hut for keeping fruit.

And in this present psalm too the same thing seems to be signified, especially since it has pleased some to inscribe it as with the title of Jeremiah, because by him the captivity was announced before it happened. Certainly among the Hebrew elders, according to the knowledge which we have obtained from them, this psalm is without that title of inscription. But there is no doubt that all the things which were done among our fathers or through our fathers bore beforehand, in those things which were done, the figure of what was to come. And that this is so, this book of psalms too is a witness. For when in the seventy-seventh psalm all the things which had been done in Egypt and in the desert and thereafter in the other places were recounted, these very things were thus shown to be parabolic:

Attend, O my people, to my law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter propositions from the beginning. For through that they are both parables and propositions, they are compared to the effects of things to come. The apostle too teaches that those very things which were done were done as a prefiguration, saying: For the law has a shadow of the good things to come, and: All things happened to them as a foreshadowing; but they were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Those very deeds therefore are for an example, and are written for teaching. And so this bodily captivity of the people too must be referred as an example of spiritual captivity.

For our minds have been taken captive by the dominion of the body and of the world; they have been taken captive by demons by the law of the vices, which exercise their command over us through the various kinds of their ministries, while drunkenness possesses us, while extravagance subdues us, while avarice conquers us, while ambition occupies us, while malice holds us, while anger usurps us, while all these incitements of the vices reign in us. For the Lord came, according to the prophet, to turn away captivity, when it is said: to preach release to the captives. He came to loose the bound, when he says: This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound eighteen years—was it not fitting that she be loosed on the sabbath day? He came to lead back into liberty those who serve, saying:

Amen I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. But the slave does not abide in the house forever; the son, however, abides forever. If therefore the Son shall free you, you shall be truly free. We are therefore captured and bound and enslaved, not so much in body as also in mind. And to me, in the present psalm, all the force and reasoning of the words seems to treat not so much of a bodily captivity as of a spiritual one. For there are, in the laments and in the places and in the things and in the names, such elements that this lamentable complaint of the prophet signifies rather a spiritual captivity: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, while we remembered Zion. On the willows in the midst of it we hung up our instruments.

This is the disposition of human sense: that amid the injuries of present calamities it should groan at the remembrance of past good things. For let us contemplate in mind Jerusalem captured, the kings serving their conquering lords, the priests subjected to the prelates of gentile impieties, the right of marriage snatched from all, the chastity of a captured virginity laid low to the lust of the Babylonians; and from the groaning of those who were to suffer these things, we shall reckon that the prophet worthily cried out: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, while we remembered Zion.

But since that Zion is the seat of eternal blessedness, and our mother is the heavenly Jerusalem, the holy city of the thronging angels and of the firstborn enrolled in the heavens, and that Babylon is the city of confusion, turbulent with irrational motion, which, as Genesis teaches, was named Babylon from the men of the confused tongues—for there they began to speak in the tongues of all the nations...

when the speech of all was one, and that very word 'Babylon' bears the interpretation of confusion—whoever therefore, in the crime of the first parent Adam, shall remember himself made an exile from that Zion, in which there is life without desire, without grief, without fear, without crime, and shall remember himself handed over to the world of this confusion as to Babylon, handed over to the body, which is confounded by the disturbance of vices and appetites and desires, he too, rightly and as a spiritual captive, will cry out: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows in the midst of it we hung up our instruments.

Those who think that all things are to be understood according to the letter, I would like to ask: what rivers flow through Babylon, so that the captive people should there sit down and not rather bewail their captivity either in the streets or in the gates or in the towers or in the houses? Then, with what timbrels or harps or instruments were they taken captive—what history has spoken this, that Israel served its conquerors with all its musical apparatus? Finally, what willows ever grew leafy in the midst of the city, so that there, as in a public storehouse of musicians, the hung-up instruments should dangle? If all these things are empty as deeds of bodily affairs, then that reasoning is to be followed which, from prophetic authorities, exhorts us to spiritual knowledge.

All who feel themselves captive in Babylonia weep. And they sit above the rivers. For all the works of the world and of bodies flow past after the manner of rivers, without any halting of their course; for they run and slip away and pass by. For what bodily pleasure is not, once present, already nothing? What earthly joy does not pass away together with the very fugitive sensation of its present fruit? Above these rivers therefore of secular captivities, sitting and weeping, they groan at the remembrance of Zion, with longing for things lost and by the calamity of things present. Nor do they only sit and weep, but also in the midst of it they hang up their instruments on the willows.

The nature of the wood of willows is such that, though dried, if only they be washed by waters, they grow green; then, cut off and fixed in the moist, they sink themselves down by their roots. And that under the nature of this tree the holy and faithful are signified is a prophetic authority, Isaiah saying: They shall spring up, he says, as grass in the midst of water and as a willow above flowing water. For from the dead there arises whoever, before dry with sins and cut off from the root of a former life, now by the word of God and the sacrament of baptism revives in the life-giving waters. But also, when the festival of Tabernacles was handed down to the Jews bodily, that a leafy tabernacle, for the joy that was to come...

and the model of the tabernacle should be prepared from the branches of chosen trees, it was also commanded to be made from the branches of the river willow, because from the assembly of holy men the joy of the heavenly tabernacle was to be made perfect. But scripture signifies that 'instruments' are human bodies,

by whose honorable movements and harmonious operations, which are pleasing to God, we make music—this it signifies. Therefore, in the midst of the captivity of these secular confusions, those who remember lost Zion, who remember that in Adam they were made exiles from the heavenly Jerusalem, who feel that they too are captives in Babylonia—these, sitting and weeping, hang up their bodies into the form and habit of holy men, raising themselves from earthly desires. But although through the study of continence our bodies are hung upon those willows, yet the things that make us captives do not rest. For it follows: because there they who led us captive asked of us the words of songs, and those who led us away:

Sing to us a hymn from the songs of Zion. If anyone recalls the custom of human nature, he will have the whole sense complete; for those who labor to cease from vices and wish to forget the things they have impiously done are nevertheless agitated by the incitement of a custom that ceases with difficulty; and those vices which are hidden in us try to mingle themselves with the sacraments of faith and to insert themselves, so that amid the divine hymns and sacred readings the thought of these hostile desires that hold us captive may creep in. Nor indeed is this evident example lacking in very many. For many whom we see reading and discoursing, it happens that these again are caught to have been always dwelling in debaucheries and impieties.

But holy indeed is everyone who has hung up his instrument on the willow, who denies to those who had led him captive the fellowship of the song of Zion, and does not communicate the words of the holy songs to the powers hostile to himself. But what those things are which lead us captive, the apostle teaches us, saying: I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members. Since therefore there is a battle between the concupiscence of the flesh and of the spirit, then those things which try to subject us as captives to themselves attempt to occupy the body and to dominate it, and to insert themselves into spiritual teachings, so that through habit they may take away authority from them.

But we must resist, and answer with the prophet's voice: 'How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?' Our own land must be held fast and guarded in freedom. For bodies of the earth that are defiled can hear nothing of the songs concerning Sion, and though they are ours, they will become estranged from God if they begin to be held captive by the law of sin. But the memory of that heavenly Jerusalem and of holy Sion must ever be maintained, whether while its restoration is longed for, or while its loss is bewailed. For thus it follows: 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget me; let my tongue cleave to my throat, if I do not remember thee, if I set not Jerusalem above the beginning of my joy.' By the penalty of forgetting, the memory of remembrance is pledged.

But that which he says, 'let my right hand forget,' is obscure through the nature of the Latin. For according to the property of the Greek, in which it is said thus: ἐπιλησθείη ἡ δεξία μου, it is shown not that the right hand itself should forget, but that no forgetting of it should occur. And it is a matter of great peril, if a forgetting of our right hand should happen. For all who are full of good hope are counted to the right hand, while sinners are to be placed on the left. Therefore he set before himself, under the penalty of not remembering Jerusalem, the condition of his right hand being forgotten—that right hand which he presumes for himself by faith and expectation—so that he might fall away from the memory of his own right hand, that is, from that by which he would be placed at the right hand, if he had not kept the memory of Jerusalem. He adds also another penalty of forgetting, saying:

'Let my tongue cleave to my throat, if I do not remember thee.' The unhappy man knows that the mouth is dumb toward the praises of God. He knows that those blessed and eternal Powers, standing before the throne of God, remain with unbroken voice in the praises of God, saying: 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; heaven and earth are full of thy glory.' He knows too that it was said of those who, silent after the manner of the dead, would live on in the praises of God: 'Their throat is an open sepulchre'—because in their throat, as in an open sepulchre, the voice, dead to the praises of God, would keep silence. To this penalty of silence, therefore, he subjected himself under the condition of forgetting—should he not be mindful of Jerusalem—and also through what follows: 'if I set not Jerusalem above the beginning of my joy.'

To each one of us a cause of gladness is set according to the judgment of his own will, and each takes the beginning of his joy from the affection of his own soul: as the drinker from drunkenness, the glutton from food, the miser from money, the ambitious man from honours, the seditious man from riots, the lustful man from debaucheries. These things, then, bring a cause of gladness to each, according as he delights in them. But the prophet sets Jerusalem before himself as the beginning of his gladness, taking hence the origin of his joy: that, received into Jerusalem, he will be immortal instead of mortal, that he will be mingled with the thronging assembly of angels, that he will be received into the kingdom of the Lord, that he will be made conformed to His glory.