On the Trinity & Psalm Commentary 1 part 46/55

tribulation worketh patience, and patience trial, and trial hope, and hope maketh not ashamed. And these things indeed we know to have been present in the life and works of all the saints, so that, tossed by many sufferings and tribulations, they were made approved unto God. For if anyone remembers Abraham, an exile, remaining ever faithful amid the fear of parricide and of childlessness and amid the injuries of his other sufferings; if anyone recalls the flight of Jacob, and, besides the toil of the summer days, the wintry night-watches kept in guarding the sheep; if anyone reviews the forty years' servitude of Moses, and in it the bitter reproaches of the people and the rival powers of the magicians against him:

he will understand that they, being approved through the patience and steadfastness of hope, not undeservedly obtained this as their reward: that in the seed of Abraham the nations should be blessed, that from Jacob there should be Israel, that Moses should become a god to Pharaoh. It would be long to recount the sufferings of the other patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, and those blessed and unconquered proofs of Paul's faith: on the sea, in rivers, on land, in deserts, in cities, among his own, among strangers, in stripes, in bonds, in prisons, in theatres. Certainly patience rendered all these approved, through which they proved the confidence of their hope that need not be ashamed. But these things ought more fittingly and fully to be treated in their own places:

now we must return to him from whose person we said the psalm consists. But the person of the divinity and of the body must not be confused. For all the discourse now, at the beginning, is from the person of that man whom he assumed: Thou hast proved me, O God, and known me. He was proved, that he might be known, because knowledge comes after proof. And let us see, according to the evangelical teaching, how this Son of God was both proved and known. For his humility, through which he merited to be adored by all things heavenly, earthly, and infernal, and to be in the glory of God the Father, was his proving. For thus the Apostle says: he was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross:

for this cause God exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name, that in his name every knee should bow, of things heavenly and earthly and infernal, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. On account, therefore, of this obedience unto death and the death of the cross, the infirmity of the assumed flesh is placed in the name and honour of immortality and in the glory of God the Father. For the name of God is bestowed, and the name is not bestowed without honour. But the honour that is bestowed can be none other than that of the name; and the name of the honour granted is nothing other than what is the paternal glory:

so that he who, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant, on account of the obedience of the servile form assumed together with the death of the cross, might be in the glory of God the Father, in whose form he formerly remained. But these things the Apostle has spoken concerning things now made perfect: while it must be shown in the Gospels where he was both proved and known. His humility, therefore, is his proving. For the only-begotten God, the remitter of sins, the Lord of the eternal kingdom, demands to be baptized as though he were a sinner. This office the Baptist refuses, recognizing him who could rather grant remission of sins to himself. But he fulfilled even by the sacrament of baptism the righteousness of the man he had taken up into himself:

he does not refuse, himself knowing no sin, to become a partaker of our sin, and, taking upon himself all the lowliness of frail flesh, he enters the Jordan mingled with the crowds of sinners. He is proved in all these things while they are being done; but let us see whether, being proved, he is acknowledged. For the evangelist says: and when Jesus was baptized, he immediately went up out of the water. And behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending from heaven like a dove, coming upon him; and behold, a voice from heaven saying to him: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Upon the proving there straightway followed the acknowledgment: and him whom humility had made approved, this the paternal voice, after it had proved him, revealed to be the Son well pleasing to itself.

There is also a proving upon which acknowledgment straightway followed. He acts in the desert, he is subjected to the temptation of the devil, and suffers himself to be carried now to the pinnacle of the temple, now to a high mountain. He gave himself over, then, to insult and to injury so grave, while he is in the desert, while he is mocked by the condition of temptation, while he can be lifted up to the temple and the mountain. But he did not leave without a testimony acknowledging the proving of his temptations. For the Scripture says: then the devil left him, and behold, angels ministered to him. The man is tempted, the man is carried about, but after this the angels minister. Through the proving he is acknowledged, through the acknowledgment he is worthy of the ministry of angels. And in other matters, as often as he was proved, so often was he also acknowledged.

Peter loathed his passion, unable to endure the scandal of the cross in him, out of love and out of the knowledge of the divinity already confessed by himself; but because on account of his unbelief concerning the cross he had called him Satan, not long after, when he had stood on the mount in the appearance of his glory, he is acknowledged by the Father with such a voice: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him. The proving which the apostle's temptation had wrought, the recognition of the paternal voice followed. Thereafter it follows: thou hast known my sitting down and my rising up. That teaching is signified by sitting is the authority of the Gospel. Now these sittings among us are what by the Greeks are called cathedrae (chairs). Moses had a chair according to the word of the Lord:

the scribes and Pharisees have sat on Moses' seat. All things therefore whatsoever they tell you, do and observe: but do not according to their works; for they say and do not. Since, then, the teaching of the Pharisees is taught to be approved for this reason, that they themselves sat on Moses' seat, teaching is necessarily signified by the seat. He knew, then, the sitting, when he proclaims his dignity in all things, when he carries out the will of him who sent him, when, asking glory for the humility of his body, he hears from heaven: I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. But teaching is recognized no less in his sitting than the work in his rising. For as the sitting is the precept of teaching, so also the rising is the effect of action.

Jesus, sitting, taught on the mountain; but after the teaching he descended to works. For thus it is written: and as he came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. And behold, a certain leper came and worshipped him, saying: Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, stretching forth his hand, touched him, saying: I will; be thou made clean. To heal the centurion's daughter also the Lord rose up; for it is written: and Jesus, rising, followed him with his disciples. And when he had fulfilled that perfect office of his humility in washing the apostles' feet, we read thus: he rose from supper and laid aside his garments, and taking a towel, he girded himself.

Teaching, therefore, and work are recognized in his sitting and his rising, because both by word and by work he proclaimed in himself the glory of God the Father. Thou hast understood all my thoughts from afar. He who searches hearts and reins is God; and how were his thoughts understood from afar? 'From afar' refers not to place but to time. For he does not say 'thou understandest from afar' so that a signification of place should be believed, as though, being placed far from human works, the knowledge of his own power should understand those things that are thought: but 'from afar thou hast understood,' signifying rather the age of time past. And where shall we find this, that he had known his thoughts long before? Surely where it is said:

Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my Spirit upon him, and he shall proclaim judgment to the nations. He shall not cry out, nor contend, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. And of this prophecy the evangelist made mention when he commanded those whom he was healing to keep silent about him. These thoughts of his, therefore, namely of humility and patience, he understood long before, because he had testified concerning them through the mouth of the prophets. Thou hast searched out my path and my direction. But concerning 'path' and 'direction,' before that very matter is treated, something not slight must be said beforehand. For that which among us is 'path' is with the Greeks of another force and meaning:

for they call it tribos, that is, worn down by frequent going and traversing, along which one has walked not once nor at some time, but always. But what our translators rendered as 'direction,' they interpreted from the Hebrew as schoinion. Now schoinion, by the custom of certain nations, signifies a fixed and appointed measure of a journey, so that what we call miles, they call schoinion. Our Lord, therefore, in the body which he assumed, ran through the path already traversed and worn by himself in the prophets, and completed the certain and appointed end of his journey. And that he walked along the worn path of preaching, let us hear him himself saying:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee. How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens, and thou wouldest not! By saying 'how often,' he shows the frequency of a numerous signification. Nothing new, therefore, did he either do or suffer, when through Jerusalem, unwilling to have her children gathered, he was so often both heard and dishonoured in the prophets. And that he would accomplish a defined and prescribed journey is shown in this, when he says: I have glorified thee upon the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me. He who finishes the work given to him has fulfilled the measure of the prescribed operation.

And he knows that it is appointed to him what he ought to do, when he says to Peter, who was resisting with the sword those who had come to seize him: shall I not drink the cup which my Father hath given me? teaching that he would drink the cup of the passion prescribed to him by the Father. He knows also that he has completed his path and his direction, when, having drunk the vinegar and about to yield up his spirit, he says: It is finished! and straightway he gave up the spirit. This path, then, and his direction the Father searched out. And he searched it out when he prophesied through the prophet concerning the casting of lots for his garment, as it is written: and upon my vesture they cast lots. And again, when concerning his being delivered up among robbers and hanged, the prophecy was recognized which says: and he was reckoned among the wicked;

or when concerning the bone left untouched and the inflicted wound it was foretold: a bone of him shall ye not break, and: they shall look on him whom they pierced. These things, therefore, which were all prescribed to him in the passion, were searched out by God, so that they were also prophesied. And lest anything of the things he did and suffered should be thought to have been unknown to the Father, he embraced all things generally, saying: and thou hast foreseen all my ways. But he who foresaw, saw before the thing came to be. And he foresaw this also: that there is no guile in my tongue; for he is, according to his own profession, the truth, the way, the life. Truth admits no guile; for he neither lied nor deceived: his whole tongue performed the office of truth, who says:

heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. He proclaims God the Father, but confesses that he himself is both the Son of man and the Son of God. This preaching had no guile, which confessed concerning himself and concerning the honour of him who had sent him. Thereafter the discourse, begun from the man, advances little by little and is raised to the signification of the heavenly nature in him, when he says: Behold, thou, O Lord, hast known all things, the last and the first: thou hast formed me and laid thy hand upon me. Thy knowledge is made wonderful from me: it is strengthened, I shall not be able to attain to it. This does not befit the person of the prophet, so that he should seem to have said of himself:

thy knowledge is made wonderful from me, so that the wonderful knowledge of God should be made from him, though Moses had beforehand spoken to us the knowledge of God in the books of the Law. But not even to Moses himself could this have been proper, who, before he beheld the burning bush, did not know God, being indeed by the opinion of his people, chosen in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, religious, yet not having attained a familiar knowledge of God before this time. But all this discourse befits him who says: Father, I have manifested thy name to men; and who says: and this is life eternal, that they may know thee the only and true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. But these things we shall pursue more fully in their own place. Now we must descend to that which is next in the order of the sayings:

Behold, thou, O Lord, hast known all things, the last and the first. The last are: when thou hast proved, when thou hast known, and the rest that are proper to that man whom he assumed. The first are those which have no measure, which signify the antiquity of undefined time. In the beginning was the Word, and all things were made through him. Then, as God knew the last and the first, so in that which follows, thou hast formed me and laid thy hand upon me, he signifies both: so that what he formed is the ancient, and that he laid his hand upon is the last. For that he was formed according to the nature of the divinity, the Apostle teaches, saying: who, being in the form of God;

for that which is in the form is formed into a form, and indeed into the form of the paternal nature and divinity. And I know not whether that he was formed in the form of a servant can be referred to the Father, so that he was formed by him: for Wisdom herself built herself a house. But from this it is neither the place of time nor of the question to speak further. But that which ought properly to be referred to the bodily nativity, and thou hast laid thy hand upon me, thus we are taught from the person of the Father: I have found David my servant, with my holy oil have I anointed him. For my hand shall help him, and my arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not prevail against him, and the son of iniquity shall not add to hurt him. And it is not doubtful that this whole psalm is to be referred to the person of the Lord:

because all those things are in him which are both proper to his own divinity and at variance with the infirmity of our nature. And because in both times, that is the last and the first, either by proclaiming himself or by speaking in the apostles and prophets, he made from himself the wonderful knowledge of God, he says: thy knowledge is made wonderful from me. But wonderful how? Surely when all things are taught to be within God, while God is proclaimed to be in all things, while the immense and incomprehensible nature, remaining within and without, exceeds all the places by which it might be contained. It is wonderful that God is everywhere and absent nowhere; that he is in all things and is wholly present, and beyond places and times, according to his infinity and eternity, always is. This is marvellous.

This is strengthened, that is, firmly established, apart from any opinion of infirm understanding. But what is this that is said: I shall not be able to attain to it? The only-begotten says: all things that are the Father's are mine; and: as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son also to have life in himself; and: as the Father raiseth the dead, so also the Son quickeneth whom he will in like manner; and: I and the Father are one. There is no distinction of power in the words, for there is no difference of might in the deeds. 'We are one' most of the irreligious have referred merely to a concord of will. But when it is said: or believe my works, that the Father is in me and I in the Father, not only unity of will, but also of divine power is shown.

Therefore, since all things that the Father does, the Son also does all — for he does the same things in like manner — it must be asked what this is that is said: I shall not be able to attain to it. But when I hear: the Father is greater than I; and again: the Son cannot do anything of himself, but what he sees the Father doing, these suggest to me the understanding of this saying: I shall not be able to attain to it. For the Father is greater than the Son, but as Father than Son, by generation, not by kind: for he is the Son and came forth from him. And although the property of the paternal appellation differs, yet the nature does not differ: for God born of God is not dissimilar in substance from the one begetting. He cannot therefore attain to him from whom he is:

for although the one remains in the other through the uniform and similar glory of the same nature, yet he does not seem able to be made equal, in that which he begot, to him from whom he was begotten. And let us see whether this, that he shall not be able to attain to it, is referred to the dignity of the paternal confession. For it follows: whither shall I go from thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy face? if I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art present; if I take my wings before the dawn and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: for even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. The Son does not exceed the paternal infinity; nor does he who is in the bosom transgress the nature which is beyond all places.

Though he be in heaven, though he be in hell and fly beyond the uttermost parts of the sea, yet he who is everywhere is present wherever he is: nor can he be escaped, within whom all things are and who is in all things. And lest we irreligiously suppose anything to the reproach of the unchangeable and impassible substance from that which is said: or whither shall I flee from thy face? so that he might seem to have thought of flight out of fear of the passion: the reason of the sayings must be known, so that with dignity unimpaired these things may be understood to have been necessarily recalled. But none of those who abide in the pursuits of heavenly teaching will be able to doubt that our Lord Jesus Christ is confessed to be both God and man:

and man indeed in time, but God always, both before man and after man, and both indeed, namely God and man, only then, when he was in man. For he was in the form of God and took the form of man; and again he is in the glory of God the Father, the servile form, namely, advancing into the glory of him in whose form he formerly remained, the nature of corruption being, that is, absorbed through the advance of incorruption. Since, therefore, we remember that this psalm was begun from the person of the man whom he assumed, it must be carefully considered so that we may understand what is to be fitted to his divinity, what to the man: and this in such a way that we rather apply our understanding to the sayings than subject the sayings to our meaning through an opinion of fallacious understanding. For he says:

whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy face? Different is the signification of 'Spirit' and of 'face.' And from the Spirit indeed I shall go away, but from the face I shall flee. Thereafter it follows: if I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art present. Not the same is the ascent into heaven as the descent into hell. Then there is a third: if I take my wings before the dawn and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: for even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. This is now not the voice of a man: that he should take wings, that he should take his own wings, that he should dwell beyond the ocean, that he should be led there by the hand of God, that he should be held by the right hand of God: this belongs to a mightier nature. And who this is that confidently says these things, the very reason of the sayings will show.

The only-begotten God, therefore, showing that confession of paternal admiration, which is made wonderful through him and to which he cannot attain, signifies in himself both times and both natures, namely that in which, remaining both in the Spirit and in the body, he taught. For when he says: whither shall I go from thy Spirit, he shows that time in which he himself as Spirit remained in the Spirit of the paternal glory before the assumption of the man. For he who is Spirit cannot be absent from the Spirit anywhere: because neither can this one be deceived, nor that one fail. But when he says: or whither shall I flee from thy face, he taught the age of the infirmity assumed by himself: for human infirmity does not endure the encounter of the face of God, since it was said to Moses:

what man is there who shall see my face and live? That which we cannot endure, we flee from; because it belongs to human infirmity to flee the encounter of the nature that cannot be beheld. And he flees indeed as far as concerns the incapacity of vision. But because, according to the prophet, the face of the Lord is against them that do evil, it belongs also to human nature to be unable to flee the judgment of God, which is signified in the face. For he did not speak as a sinner, who knew no sin, that he should flee: but having before taught, in the Spirit, the paternal infinity remaining beyond all things, now also from the person of the man, who could nowhere flee from God, he showed it. There follows also a parallel reason of the sayings, so that he spoke each thing from the fact that he was both man and God.

if I ascend into heaven, thou art there: this is proper to divinity. For no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven. For the nature of the earthly body does not obtain this ascent unless changed into heavenly glory. if I descend into hell, thou art present: this is the law of human necessity, that as the bodies are buried together, the souls descend to the lower regions. This descent the Lord did not refuse, for the consummation of the true man. But that: whither shall I go, or whither shall I flee, and 'thou art there' and 'thou art present,' pertain to the signification of his teaching, which was made wonderful from him, through which God was known to be all things and to be in all things:

so that, although man flees the face of God, because he cannot endure it, although by the law of death he descends from the heights to the lower regions, yet God is everywhere always and in all things. And because through these foregoing things he proclaimed distinctly from each kind of nature in which he was, namely of God and of man, in the third place he shows the unity of the nature now advancing in himself, saying: if I take my wings before the dawn and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: for even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. When he took wings, he is now no longer weighed down by the body. When he took his own wings, he teaches that this power of flying was always his. When he took them before the dawn, he shows the time of the resurrection.

When he is in the uttermost parts of the sea, as God he exceeds the places of human dwelling. When he is led by the hand, he does not fear. When he is held by the right hand of God, he is not changed nor falls away: God gave him a name which is above every name, that in his name every knee should bow, of things heavenly and earthly and infernal, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. For in that a name above every name is given to him, the man taken up is by the hand and power of the Father God assumed into his glory. But that wings are to be referred to the transformation of earthly bodies into a spiritual and eternal nature is the authority of the prophet, when it is said to the man poor in faith and poor in good works:

do not stretch thyself out, being poor, to the rich man, but abstain in thy own mind: for he has prepared wings for himself, as an eagle, and shall return to the house of him who is over him. He rebukes the poor man stretching himself out to the hopes of the rich, because he equates the poverty of his own unbelief to the opulence of the faithful. For the rich man prepares for himself wings, not by human wealth, but by heavenly treasures, whereby he may return to the house of him who is over him. For he shall return whence he fell, whence he was expelled in the sin of the first man. And who is this whose house this is and who is over it? Surely he who said: Amen, I say to thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. He mentions it also elsewhere, saying, when he was treating of the untiring eternity of spiritual beings:

they shall grow wings like eagles, being about to take up the nature of flying into heaven in the transformation of the resurrection. But here he takes up wings, about to fly, not another's, not new ones, but ones taken up by the claiming of what is his own: because after the sacrament of the voluntary passion he had wings both of nature and of power for bearing himself up to heaven. There follows also the same order of the sayings, and the discourse runs on from the understanding of each nature, namely of man and of God. For he says: and I said: perhaps the darkness shall trample me. This is thought to be the voice of a man; because it seems to certain persons, either irreligious or unskilled, to tremble under that timidity of the passion:

as though indeed this discourse now had the profession of any fear, and did not rather signify the willingness of the death to be undertaken, with no dread or terror of it put forward. For he does not say: the darkness shall trample me; but he says: perhaps the darkness shall trample me. That which he added as a chance, he mocked the uncertainty of human opinion about himself, whereby he was believed to fear the lower regions, as an error. For no one who is certain that he is trampled is at the same time uncertain again whether he is trampled. And that this which he says: perhaps the darkness shall trample me, might not be understood as pointing to a trembling of his own nature, but might signify the uncertainty of impious understanding about himself, he immediately subjoined: and the night is illumination in my delights.

For how is he trampled by the darkness, to whom death shall be an illumination in delights? To the Lord, then, that passion is a delight, while he breaks the gates of brass, while he shatters the bars of iron, while he despoils every power, while he triumphs over them in himself, while he redeems him whom he had made to his own image, while he restores him to the delights of paradise. In these enjoyments and delights of the passion, therefore, the night is to him an illumination, and an illumination for this reason, because the darkness shall not be darkened by thee. Through the unity of nature and the unchangeable likeness of divinity, the Father is in the Son; and, the very works testifying that the Father is in him, he confidently says: they shall not be darkened by thee, because we remember it was said in the psalms from the person of the Father: