On the Trinity & Psalm Commentary 1 part 50/55

David therefore now prophesies the Lord's passions by his own passions: not complaining of Absalom, but of those who kindled Absalom to the crime of impiety. For, according to the apostle, the darts of the devil are fiery, which cast themselves into the heart of Judas, that the Lord might be betrayed, and now work in the sons of disobedience. For which cause the Lord, having assumed the likeness of the flesh of sin, condemned sin in the flesh from sin. We shall therefore treat the psalm from the person of the prophet understanding himself to be placed in the body of sin and to be wearied through the man amid many and grievous temptations of the devil. For as the Lord was not ignorant that the prince of the world had wrought these things in him through the Jews and Judas, when he says to the apostles:

'behold, one of you is a satan', for he is shown to be wholly this, because he was animated by him, so David too understands in Absalom those through whom Absalom is such. And because already in the third psalm the discourse on this was fuller, now let us treat the sayings of the psalm itself in such a way that we may remember that all things whatsoever are said under the name of the prophet are also to be referred to the person of the Lord, who, emptying himself of the form of God and assuming the form of a servant, professed the man of our nature at his weakest, even unto the ignorance of his own day and hour. 'O God, hear my prayer, give ear to my supplication: in thy truth hear me, in thy justice.'

First he entreats that his prayer be heard, because it is a mark of human humility to long for God's hearing to the things which he prays. Then, following, according to prophetic knowledge, he demands that he be heard in the truth of God. To this faithful man God is not from the elements of the age, not from the names of kings, not from the error of the age in stones and metals and woods: but the true God is his, eternal, almighty, and the maker of the universe. There is also a third petition, that he be heard in the justice of God.

God is not of tyrannical will, not the arbiter of harsh and iniquitous stubbornness, but one who has regard for human weakness and does not measure these most ready lapses of our mutable nature according to the unbending constancy of his own immutable substance, but, being just and moderate, expects from man only as much as he remembers is permitted to human nature. And therefore he added to that in which he prayed to be heard in the justice of God: 'and enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no living man be justified.' For what hope is there, if God should wish to judge us according to himself, if he should demand the innocence of our life in comparison with his own?

But who of the living can be justified in the sight of God, to whom anger, grief, desire, ignorance, forgetfulness, chance, necessity, whether through the nature of the body or through the motion of the ever-fluctuating soul, is mingled; to whom also daily the gravest enemy threatens, namely the devil, lying in wait for the soul of the faithful man and persecuting it unto destruction? For he teaches this to be the reason why no living man can be justified in the sight of God: 'because the enemy has persecuted my soul, he has humbled my life on the earth, he has placed me in dark places like the dead of the age.'

Obscurity is poured forth through the vices of the body, and when through the snares of the devil we fall into the desires of the flesh, driven from the light of knowledge we are placed in dark places, sunk in the darkness of the Gentiles and detained in the night of secular works. But however much the enemy, persecuting the soul and humbling it in the body, may place it in the dark as though dead of the age, nevertheless the anxiety of the spiritual man is not held by these darknesses of the body, and the heart is troubled over this very weakness of its nature, and, fighting against the vices, turns its man to the memory of his first constitution and to the meditation of the works of God. For the enemy placed him not as dead of the age in the dark, but as though dead of the age:

through which the liberty of the spirit, always anxious within itself, is preserved. For this follows: 'and my spirit was anxious within me: within me my heart was troubled. I remembered the days of old, I meditated on all thy works, I meditated on the deeds of thy hands.' He knows that Adam was captured by the devil, and therefore he is mindful of the days of old. He knows that he, through the transgression of the established law, fell both from the promises of God and from the dwelling of paradise, and therefore he is mindful of the works of God. He knows that innocence from the past does not suffice, but that he is blessed who remains innocent even unto the end, and therefore he meditates on the deeds of the hands of God. The deeds of the hands of God is man himself; who, after he sinned, was made a servant of sin.

He meditates therefore to be such as was that one who was made by God before sin. Through this, because he is placed in the dark not as dead of the age but as though dead of the age, he will always meditate; and he will always meditate, because, mindful of the days of old, he knows that through the transgression of the law the death of sin entered. But in that he was both mindful of the days of old and meditated, and will meditate, on the works of God, although he began through his own faith, nevertheless he shows that it is not his own, lest he be reckoned insolent, but that it was granted to him through the help of God, to whom he prayed, saying: 'I stretched out my hands to thee: my soul is as earth without water.'

Earth without water is dry and barren, and always awaits itself to be watered by the shower of heavenly rain: so too the soul of the saint, conscious of its own nature, desires to be moistened by the gift of the divine word, of which Moses says: 'let my speech be awaited as the rain, and let my words descend as the dew, as rain upon the grass and as snows upon the hay.' The parched and thirsting soul therefore is bathed with such a shower of prophetic teaching, that, dead and fasting in the barrenness of nature, it may grow green again into the abundant fruits of the knowledge of the precepts of God. Now in these things which follow there is a confession of human faith and conscience, the impatience of prophetic desire shown through the interposition of the 'diapsalma.' 'Swiftly hear me, O Lord, my spirit has failed.'

The prophet does not endure the delays of his own body, and, according to that of the apostle: 'to be dissolved is better for me and to be with Christ,' and that: 'wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' and that: 'for in this old tabernacle we groan together, desiring to be clothed upon,' he too suffers the wearinesses in this body of death, but he desires that the swiftness of the help, which on account of the failing of the spirit he entreats, be fulfilled with the grace of the divine gift in him. For what will it profit him to have been heard swiftly, unless, as a faithful man and pleasing to God and about to rest in the blessed places, he depart from the body? And therefore he says: 'turn not away thy face from me: and I shall be like them that go down into the pit.'

Scripture commemorates the pit as the penal place of the lower regions, as it says in these psalms: 'thou, O Lord, hast drawn my soul away from hell, thou hast saved me from them that go down into the pit.' Therefore unless the face of God, which is surely Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, be present to each saint, they will be like those who, deputed to the punishment of hell, have departed from this life without hope of rest. But the prophet does not doubt of his hope, nor is he outside the confidence of evangelical security, being indeed himself earlier in time, but in spirit a partaker of the apostolic joy, who, beholding the resurrection of the Lord, believed in the eternity of perishable bodies. For he says as a consequence: 'make thy mercy heard to me in the morning: for in thee have I hoped, O Lord.'

The joy of this morning mercy is shown in very many places, as when it says: 'In the evening weeping shall abide, and in the morning gladness.' For this is the time of resurrection, in which by the mercy of God the power of death has been broken; and because the prophet has hoped in that mercy, he longs to hear it. Then follows: 'Make known to me the way in which I should walk, for I have lifted up my soul to thee.' The apostle sees through a glass and in a riddle, and knows in part and prophesies in part. The prophet too, as though ignorant through the nature of human frailty, prays that the ways in which he should walk be made known to him. For the ways of this world are not profitable: those spiritual and heavenly ways he desires to know. For he says this:

'for I have lifted up my soul to thee.' His soul is not among lowly things but among lofty ones, and therefore he asks for the knowledge of lofty ways. For he knows that he has enemies who would call him aside into other ways, who would lead him into another will. Concerning these spiritual enemies the apostle has said much and often. From these, therefore, he prays to be snatched away, and asks to know the way of tribulation which leads to heaven, and to be taught concerning the will of the Lord, and by His Spirit to be led into a right land: that is, that he may be established as a man not perverted by vices. For how could he be thought to have wished to be directed into a right land as regards the nature of this element, except in that, according to the nature of the first man, to whom after his sin it was said:

'Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return'—how could he be thought to desire to be directed into a right land, unless he desires to be established as a man upright and unbending? For this is contained under these words: 'Make known to me the way in which I should walk, for I have lifted up my soul to thee. Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord; to thee have I fled. Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God. Thy good Spirit shall lead me into a right land, for thy name's sake, O Lord.' The confession of the apostle is in harmony with this saying, 'Teach me to do thy will,' namely that which was said through him: 'And he who thinks that he knows, does not yet know as he ought to know.'

But if we do not yet even know how to pray, and know not how to utter our own desires, since the Spirit rather makes intercession for us with unutterable groanings, and repays our inexperience by the affection of a hidden knowledge—according to this saying of the apostle: 'For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered'—the prophet is believed to pray not without order, that he may be taught to fulfil the will of God.

And that is a fitting profession of human modesty: that, in being led into a right land through the Spirit of God, he should not claim this to be of his own merit, nor ask it for himself through the satisfaction of his own obedience, but should await this whole thing for the glorifying of God's name in himself, that for the honour of God's name he may be established as one in a right land. And because he knows that this right land cannot be granted to him in the body of this death—since the stain of human flesh, through the habit of vices mingled within it, cannot be utterly abolished except with a transformation of nature—he demands to be quickened, as though he did not yet live, saying: 'Thou shalt quicken me in thy righteousness. Thou shalt bring my soul out of tribulation, and in thy mercy thou shalt destroy my enemies.'

'And thou shalt destroy all who afflict my soul, for I am thy servant.' It had indeed, as we have said, this justice of modesty, that whatever blessedness he hopes for himself, he should ask it rather for the magnificence of God—since it is worthy to attribute to God things blessed and eternal and good—than for his own merit. Yet nevertheless, while preferring the honour and mercy of God, he did not exclude the office of also meriting it through himself. For when he is to be quickened, he is nonetheless to be quickened in righteousness, because it is just that life be repaid to the wages of holiness.

And when, through the mercy of God, once he has been led out of tribulation his enemies are to be destroyed, it is no longer a mercy of an indiscriminate and confused judgment, since He who leads out from tribulation is the same who destroys the enemies: for from the diversity of merits the judgment of mercy is tempered either to punishment or to salvation. Moreover the prophet shows that his enemies are not gentle toward him, but such as persecute even the soul: not that it can be slain together with the body, but that it is so wearied by diabolical assaults and driven by the incitements of the vices subject to it, that it deserves to be slain by the Lord.

But that his enemies also should perish—although the name and mercy of God are chiefly directed to this—yet there is also this cause, that he is the servant of God whose soul they persecute. And so both liberality is mingled with merit, and to the mercy of the Lord there is joined also the servant's faith and name: so that the mercy of God, though ready for all, may nevertheless be understood to stand by those who are His servants, through Him and in Him who says, 'I am with you all the days, even to the consummation of the age,' our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed both now and always and unto all ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 143. A Psalm of David [against Goliath].

'Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight,' and the rest. To this psalm also they thought should be added this superscription of the Seventy: 'A Psalm of David against Goliath,' though it is found neither in the Hebrew books, nor did the other translators prefix anything but a simple title, that is: 'Of David.' That this was done not without a spiritual reason is taught by the text of the psalm itself; and this psalm has nothing proper to it which could be referred to rejoicing over the slain Goliath, since rather many things there are contrary both to the deeds and to the time. For when it is said, 'subduing my people under me,' was David then a king?

Or what people was then subject to him, if that of the foreigners was not his own? But not even Israel itself could be subject to him while Saul was still reigning. Then also this: 'Lord, bow down thy heaven and come down; touch the mountains and they shall smoke; flash forth thy lightnings and thou shalt scatter them'—how is this to be understood as a prayer for the time of a human war? Or when, according to the title, Goliath had been slain, what do these prayers mean: 'Rescue me and deliver me from many waters and from the hand of the sons of strangers'? Or when there was only one king in Israel, what is this that is said: 'who givest salvation to kings'? The number of the plural excludes the understanding of that time, in which only one was held to be king.

But since these things are not so in the Hebrew books, nor did the other translators add any of these things, we understand that these Seventy elders left us the sense of a spiritual knowledge, that we might know that in David and Goliath there was prefigured the war of Satan and of the Lord, seeing that no superscription existed in the books nor did the word of prophecy agree with the deeds done. Now for the most part the character of the Latin language brings us difficulty of understanding, since it is not accustomed to place pronouns before names, as happens in the name of David. For when the pronoun is lacking, it is uncertain whether the psalm was composed concerning him or through him.

For when it is written 'A psalm of David,' the mere inscription of the name makes it ambiguous whether it was spoken by him or on account of him. But the Greek, when it signifies that a psalm was written through David, writes the title thus: 'psalmos tō David'; whereas when it means a psalm to be understood as written concerning David, it superscribes it thus: 'psalmos tou David,' distinguishing by the proper signification of each pronoun whether David is the author or the occasion of the written psalm: as the superscription of this psalm contains 'tou David'—for so it stands—which means that it was written on account of him or rather for him, rather than by him.

From this also, by the superscription of the psalm, it is shown that this psalm was sung by the mouth of the prophet through the power of the Spirit, concerning that man whom the Lord assumed when He was born in him, and whom we have taught is very often named David. 'Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight.' If for this reason this psalm is reckoned as rejoicing over the slain Goliath, because it is said 'who teacheth my hands to war,' let them take an example that this rather befits the person of the Lord. For in the seventeenth psalm, which consists wholly in the person of the Lord, we remember that this very thing was said thus: 'who teachest my hands to battle, and thou hast made my arms as a bow of bronze.'

But that nothing in the whole psalm can be referred to David is taught especially by these words: 'He heard my voice out of his holy temple, and my cry in his sight entered into his ears. And the earth was shaken and trembled, and the foundations of the mountains were troubled.' And this: 'They cried out, and there was none to save them, unto the Lord, and he did not hear them. And I will grind them small as dust before the face of the wind; as the mire of the streets I will destroy them. Thou shalt rescue me from the contradictions of the people, thou shalt set me at the head of the nations. A people whom I have not known hath served me; at the hearing of the ear it hath obeyed me.' By the very facts the foolish understanding of those is refuted who contend that David said these things concerning himself:

since all things fit, according to the spiritual reason and by the deeds, that man whom the Lord being born in him assumed. His hands, therefore, are taught to war, when He conquers the world: for 'I,' He says, 'have overcome the world'; when, stretched upon the cross, He is equipped with the most invincible arms of His very passion: 'and thou hast made my arms as a bow of bronze,' He says; when over all virtues and powers He triumphs in the very trophy of the glorious cross: 'and he led away the principalities and powers, triumphing over them with confidence in himself'; when He makes peace between the heavenly and the earthly things at variance among themselves: 'and in him,' he says, 'to reconcile all things unto him, making peace through the blood of his cross, whether the things on earth or the things in the heavens.'

To this war, therefore, His hands were taught, in which they conquer in the contest of the bronze bow, the mighty are triumphed over by dishonour, and hostile things are reconciled by peace. But after the war of the hands there also succeeds the battle of the fingers. For the whole posture and struggle of the passion is displayed in Him. For the hands are stretched out and the fingers are fastened in the palms: cancelling, indeed, according to the apostle, the old handwriting and nailing it to the cross, he also mentions those parts of the hands in the battle, with which all the sins of the ancient crimes were fastened. Then follows: 'My mercy and my refuge, my helper and my deliverer art thou, my protector, and in him have I hoped.' These are free from difficulty.

For all these things were done and said by Him in the Gospels, that He might proclaim the honour of the paternal majesty through the confession of our humility, whose posture He had assumed. But that which He says, 'subduing my people under me,' is not to be thought said from the person of a single Jewish people, since He has named the universality of the Church as one people in another psalm, saying: 'A people whom I have not known hath served me.' And that even here he who did not know Him is His own, the Gospels teach, when they say: 'He came unto his own, and his own received him not. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.' But lest perhaps this people, whom He did not know and which served Him,

was not His own because it was not known, that divine song of Moses excludes all this ambiguity of error, saying: 'When the Most High divided the nations, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of his angels, and the Lord's portion became the people Jacob, and Israel the cord of his inheritance.' This Israel had been chosen for an eternal inheritance; and therefore, because that one was the Lord's portion, the rest were held as it were unknown, because those had been chosen by the privilege of the portion. But all are His own, because to Him, as their author, they owe what they are. And they are subjected to Him, as when it is said: 'as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that whatsoever thou hast given him, he may give to it eternal life'; and this:

'All things are given to me in heaven and in earth.' Now they were not given to Him then for the first time, since He was already in the world through whom the world had been made, He who claims back the glory which He had had with the Father before the foundation of the world; but they were given after the assumption of the man, because it was said thus: 'who, when he was in the form of God, took the form of a servant: wherefore God exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name.' What then, or to whom, is given? It is certainly not given to Him who was in the form of God, that He should be the form of God; for He was, and because He was, He no longer needed this gift. But there was a cause for giving, because He who was in the form of God took the form of a servant, and emptying himself of the form of God, taking the form of a servant, was obedient even unto death.

To that obedience, therefore, through which the servile posture is assumed, and to the servile posture itself, this is given: that what He was, He should be—namely, that He should be in the form of God. For the emptying of the form of God knew no loss or detriment of itself, rather reacquiring the form of God for the servile assumption. So neither did the power, though restraining itself in humility, fail of itself, since what it was, it is; and the humility, restrained in itself by the power assumed, when it began to be what it was not, received the advance of that power which had not failed of itself. And this indeed is the truth of the evangelical mystery and of human hope: that human nature and corruptible flesh have been transformed, through the change of this glory, into an eternal substance.

But the prophetic word attests, in this present psalm too, the admiration of this as of a most difficult deed and the gift of a greatest and most beautiful hope, saying with reference to what he had said, 'subduing my people under me': 'Lord, what is man, that thou hast made thyself known to him? or the son of man, that thou reckonest him? Man is made like unto vanity: his days pass away like a shadow.' Not differently does the Holy Spirit proclaim in the eighth psalm also: 'What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou visitest him?' This is a most beautiful confession, that man himself should attest that he is unworthy of so great a gift. And when he confesses himself unworthy, he extols the grace of Him who bestows these things upon him.

For what merit of man is it, that God should render Himself knowable to him, that an unknowable nature should submit itself to our knowledge? Or what dignity is there of the son of man, that he should be reckoned? Now whatever is destined for something else out of that in which it is, is 'reckoned.' The force of the words expresses the nature of the thing. Man, made like unto vanity, and whose days pass away as a shadow, is 'reckoned' through the knowledge of God granted him. Vanity is the world, whose posture and form shall be taken away. For to God, whatever exists is empty if it does not so subsist as to remain; and whatever shadow, even if it is, yet is not; for when it comes to be, upon the departure of that by which it was effected, it is removed. So man is not a shadow, but like a shadow;

and he is not vanity, but made like unto vanity through the intervention of death; but through the knowledge of God granted to him he is reckoned. And unto what he is reckoned, the knowledge granted attests. For if God could not be made known to man except by the man being assumed—since our nature could not know the unknowable except through our nature—and through this knowledge man is reckoned, it is necessary that he be reckoned unto that in which he himself knew God, namely that he may be made conformable to God, because this is the reckoning of the knowledge granted.

And because this whole prayer is from the person of that man whom the Lord assumed, he knows with how great dignity God absolves him from the laws of death and snatches him from the hands of the wicked through the glory of resurrection, saying: 'Lord, bow down thy heaven and come down; touch the mountains and they shall smoke; flash forth thy lightnings and thou shalt scatter them; send forth thine arrows and thou shalt trouble them. Send forth thy hand from on high.' Similar to these words is contained in the psalm which we mentioned above: 'And he bowed the heaven and came down, and coals were kindled by him, and fire shall blaze forth from his face, and smoke went up in his wrath. He sent forth his arrows and scattered them, and he multiplied his lightnings and troubled them.'

'He sent from on high and took me, and drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strongest enemies.' Now in that he said 'strongest,' we can understand whom he meant; namely those of whom the apostle says: 'For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the mighty ones of the world, against the spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places'—with Satan himself entering into the heart of Judas to make him betray the Lord. But in this psalm too this is to be considered: 'flash forth thy lightnings and thou shalt scatter them; send forth thine arrows and thou shalt trouble them.' He has shown none above concerning whom he thus records: which must necessarily be referred to these mountains, which at the mere touch of God shall smoke.

And lest we should think it said of these earthly mountains, we are admonished by another psalm, when it is said: 'Why do you regard, you curdled mountains?' And so far as it is granted to understand, we judge that mountains sometimes signify even the diabolical powers, as now in this passage: those who, having transgressed the ordinances of the divine law, have curdled as it were from the pure sincerity of milk by the corruption of a faulty rennet. And that these are his most powerful enemies the earlier psalm has said. The Lord therefore came down, His heaven being bowed—not by bodily motion, so that the heaven should be inclined by His descending: but through a bodily signification a spiritual sense is instructed, as when to God sleep,

waking, memory, forgetfulness, departure and approach are ascribed to God, because according to the difference of our merits He is to each one of us either sleeping or waking, either unmindful or remembering, either absent or present. And thus the heaven was inclined by His descending, because as He descended to assume the man, the heavenly attendance stood by Him: when Mary is evangelized, when the shepherds see and hear the airy company and sound, when after the temptation of the devil the angels minister, when He Himself wholly—though in the form of a servant—yet bore Himself in the power of the paternal majesty. Thus the heaven is inclined, when the power and honour of the heavenly ones is brought down to the earth.