詩篇註釋殘篇 第 1 章 第 33/40 段

For if God is in the Son as one who is other than He, how does He add next, 'And there is no God besides You?' and immediately, 'For You are God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Saviour.'

Wherefore, even if the phrase 'Who is like the Lord our God' were about the Father, the Son is not fenced off from it;

but even if it were about the Saviour, the Father is not separated, by reason of the Godhead of Father and Son being one.

Who then, he says, is like the Lord our God, who dwells in the heights and looks upon the lowly things? For in relation to God all things are lowly, being creatures and things made—not only those upon the earth but also those in the heavens.

And He beholds these lowly things with providence.

Indeed, then, beholding the poor cast down upon the earth and the needy upon the dunghill, He raised him up, and He set them up from the evils of poverty and destitution that surrounded them; and not merely to the point of raising and setting them up, but rather, extending His goodness, to seat them with rulers, making them equal in honour with these.

And He will seat them not with rulers merely, but with the rulers of His people.

And He will cause the woman who was formerly childless through barrenness, now made a mother over many children, to dwell rejoicing in a house.

This can also be said concerning the people from the nations, on whose behalf there is the prophecy, 'Therefore the poor people shall bless You.'

This poor and needy people, therefore, having raised up from grovelling affairs and from the dunghill of Hellenic abominations, He will seat with the rulers of Israel, since they are His people.

And the rulers of the Hebrew people are the apostles, whom we said were seated upon twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

And the Church from the nations, being barren, childless at the first, He calls unto gladness, saying, 'Rejoice, O barren one that dost not bear; break forth and cry aloud, thou that dost not travail; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that has the husband.'

For truly the Church from the nations has become rich in children and fair in children, beyond the synagogue of the Jews that has the husband, the Law.

And every soul that is childless through barrenness is settled by God in a house—in the Church of the living God—having become a mother of works, of lessons, of thoughts and of words, so as to rejoice together with the offspring which she has obtained from the Word of God who dwells with her.

These things also came to pass in accordance with the historical narrative of Scripture.

And concerning Sarah and Rebecca, and Elizabeth, and, before her, the mother of Samson, one might reasonably say of each of them that 'he made her to dwell as a joyful mother of children.'

The mind that sees God, being the supplanter of those set against the truth, withdrawing from the house of Egypt so as no longer to live after the manner of Egypt nor to be held fast by the superstitions of the Egyptians, obtained a gracious God who sanctifies the soul that genuinely confesses him; at which time he shall also exercise authority and, like a king, shall rule over the discerning faculty.

For 'Judah' is interpreted 'confession,' and 'Israel' 'a mind that sees God.'

authority for being able, while being ruled by him, to attain the blessedness of seeing God with a pure heart.

When you, O Master, do us good, the nations will have no place to say, 'Where is their God?'

For since they themselves have local gods, set up in some place, they surmise this also of you, saying, 'Where is their God?'

Or perhaps they say this in mockery, imagining that we have no God.

But even if they in their error say this, we at least know with exact understanding that our God is above in heaven — thinking so not in a local sense, but by reason of the pre-eminence of his majesty.

For if 'above' were a place, he would be hindered from being elsewhere.

He is also the cause of all things in the heavens and upon the earth, since 'whatsoever he willed, he did,' being other than all things.

Wherefore he is not contained by all things, but exists both outside all things and within them, according to the principle of creation and providence.

For in this way he fills heaven and earth.

But if all the heavens and the things in them, and the earth and all that is in it, came into being by the will of God, then certain persons, thinking most impiously, make the existence of the Son depend upon the will of the Father, reckoning him as one of the things in the heavens that were given substance by the Father's will.

But let the impious hear that it was only the creation which he made to depend upon the will of God.

For it is fitting that the Maker should create the things which he wills (whence also James, writing in agreement, said, 'Of his own will he brought us forth' — by the word of God, by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures and works) — the will of God being that which brings things into being.

But the Son is neither a creature nor a thing made; he is the offspring of the essence, not of the will.

For if he were the Son of the will, he would be the image and impress of God's will.

But the divine Scriptures call him 'the impress of his hypostasis' and 'the image of the invisible God.'

If then the Son is the impress of the hypostasis and the image of the invisible God, then fittingly the Only-begotten would be the offspring of the essence of the invisible God and of his hypostasis.

And observe indeed that those who are begotten by the will attain this by the word of truth, whereas he himself is the Word and the Truth, the Only-begotten of God.

Since he is not conceived by the word of truth, he himself is the will of the Father.

For in the same manner in which he is the wisdom and truth of God, so also is he his will.

Indeed it is one and the same thing to make all things in wisdom and in will.

The whole discerning race, because it possesses a mind that sees God (it bears the title 'house of Israel' by being the church of the living God), hoped in the Lord, having its expectation fixed on nothing else of the things in which other men hope.

And the house of those who serve the divine, being priests, hoped in the Lord with a greater and more contemplative hope than Israel.

For of those who have ascended higher in contemplation and in practice, the hope is greater, since they ask in greater measure to have him as their helper and defender.

But also all who fear the Lord (these are the proselytes and those from the nations who have been added to the law), having themselves also hoped in the Lord, call upon him to have him as helper and defender.

For God remembers all who are mindful of him.

For he who forgets the divine law straightway forgets also him who gave it; but when God remembers anyone, he immediately declares him blessed, bestowing spiritual and heavenly blessings in proportion to the magnitude of faith which one has.

just as he gives the other gifts of grace, so also he gives the blessings.

Consider whether 'the small together with the great' should be taken only of those who fear the Lord, or also of all the ranks that have been mentioned, since among these too there is a difference according to which some are great and some small.

And we are 'blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth.'

For he is the one whose laws we keep.

In the giving of the laws he handed down the account of the world's making, through which he teaches that there is one God, and that all the parts of the world — indeed the world itself — are created.

But he who wishes to contemplate these things more deeply will say that there is a certain heaven spoken of in a special sense in Scripture, appropriated to God, in which God alone is.

And when I say 'God,' I am thinking of the Trinity.

Created things are far from this heaven — not in place, but by the property of their essence — even if these things be in the heavens.

Indeed, before his transgression the devil, being in heaven yet as being somewhere below this heaven, said, 'I will ascend into heaven, and above the stars of heaven will I set my throne.'

For these things were said by him before he fell from heaven.

This indeed is also recorded as the cause of his downfall.

Into this heaven no one has ascended except he who came down from heaven, since, having been sent from there also, he came, saying, 'I have come down from heaven.'

But the Holy Spirit too was sent from this heaven, as Peter says: 'which things have now been announced to us through those who preached the gospel to us by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.'

For there are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

But attend carefully, lest you drag down the understanding of these things to sensible objects, supposing a local heaven and a movement from thence occurring by spatial transference.

For the name of the heaven that has been described signifies, so to speak, the foremost pre-eminence and estate of God.

None of those who have been deadened by sinning praises God ('For praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner'), nor any of those who go down into that figurative Hades, into which come those who die the death that follows upon sin ('For in death there is none that remembers God'), since no one in Hades makes confession to him.

Since, then, these do not praise him, we praise him — we who live and partake of eternal life, concerning which the Savior says, 'And this is life eternal, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.'

Those who, according to Jesus' commandment, are infants by being turned and becoming as little children, the Lord himself guards, not permitting enemies to assail them, because they do not yet have the season for combat.

Nevertheless, while he guards those who are thus infants, he put me forward into combat as one who had passed beyond the age of little children; he humbled me and made me to be tested in the place of many strong ones.

And just as he humbled me, so also he saved me, clothing me with irresistible strength and unconquerable full armor.

The meaning of this saying the apostle expressed to the Corinthians: 'Having the same spirit of faith,' he said, 'according to that which is written, "I believed, therefore I spoke," we also believe, therefore we also speak.'

By 'spirit of faith' he means either the disposition that arises from it, or the Spirit supplied by God to the one who has faith.

The '[I believed, therefore I spoke]' is in harmony with 'For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.'

'If therefore,' he says, 'you confess the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.'

For to this there was immediately added, 'For with the heart man believes unto righteousness,' and what follows.

In this same sense you will also take, 'Unless you believe, neither shall you understand.'

For first one believes, then one understands, and after this one speaks, as the psalm says, 'I believed, therefore I spoke.'

But when, having believed, I spoke things surpassing nature and great, then, seeing myself to be nothing, I was exceedingly humbled.

Such is that which was said by John concerning Jesus: 'He must increase, but I must decrease.'

And so he who, after speaking from a believing disposition, said, 'I was exceedingly humbled,' did not suffer this by any diminution of height, but from having beheld things greater and beyond himself.

But if the death of God's holy ones is also signified — that by which they die together with Christ and carry about his dying in the flesh — then too he rightly resolved to give thanks, since he was about to receive the cup of such saving death, which he who receives it will drink blamelessly, if he calls upon the name of the Lord in nobly drinking it.

But if we said that 'calling upon the name of the Lord' belongs to the lesser, while calling upon the Lord himself belongs to the perfect, let it not trouble you that it is now applied to one so perfect.

For the saints, being through humility disparaging of themselves, assign to themselves the lesser of what they possess.

Indeed, neither Moses nor Samuel said of themselves, 'They called upon the Lord,' but another said it of them.

The discourse concerning salvation would not have been complete, unless it had also taken up the remembrance of those who are saved.

For having said in that psalm, as the shadow having received its end, 'To you will I sacrifice a sacrifice of praise,' he immediately calls all the nations to praise, so that these too may, through the praises, offer the sacrifice of praise — one nation and people having been cast off, inasmuch as a sinful nation and a people full of sins has been pronounced wretched.

But this nation and people having been cast off, the mercy of God reached unto all, so that his mercy became firm and mighty upon us.

And since this has come to pass, 'The truth of the Lord abides forever.'

For the truth succeeded the shadow, marking out for it an end and a portion; but the truth itself, being eternal, nothing shall succeed, since nothing is above it, but it is above all things by an incomparable pre-eminence.

Observe, then, how it is with good cause that he has assigned that truth abides unto the age.

For the mercy that has prevailed over us endures together with the truth throughout the age; and in many places these names, 'his mercy and his truth,' are spoken concerning the Saviour, just as also in the verse, 'God sent forth his mercy and his truth and rescued my soul from the midst of lion cubs.'

This, then, is the truth and the expectation of the nations.

Wherefore also, having shone forth upon the human race unto praise, it calls all the nations and all the peoples, teaching them to give thanks to the Father who has made his mercy to prevail and has caused his truth to abide unto the age.

Since God, being good, wills the repentance of the sinner and not his death, as many of you as are liable for sins, when you make confession to him out of repentance, will find him forgiving the things for which you make confession.

For his mercy, being inseparable from him, endures unto the age, seeing that it always was; for he shows mercy not now for the first time but of old, from the beginning, while all who have had experience of his goodness make confession to him.

The righteous man who has fallen into affliction does not so much beseech that he may come out of it, but rather that he may bear it nobly and cheerfully.

For indeed the man hard pressed against his adversaries in the arena does not pray that the contest may pass him by, lest he be shut out from the struggle, but he beseeches his trainer to work together with him, so that by enduring the blows brought upon him by the adversary, in hope of victory and the crown, the means by which the crown is awarded may seem agreeable to him.

And the saying 'I will not fear what man shall do to me' can be spoken concerning various mortals, while the saying 'And I shall look upon my enemies' concerns invisible foes;

these enemies also stir up men against us, inciting them to war against us and disposing them murderously toward us.

And the saying 'I will not fear what man shall do to me' is referred to the devil, by reason of the words 'An enemy man has done this'—and it is plain that this refers to sowing the tares—and 'But you are a man and not God': consider these together.

'It is good to trust in the Lord rather than to trust in man,' and what follows;

for it is not that trusting and hoping in the Lord is, once and for all, good merely as compared to trusting in man and hoping in princes.

For this is good simply and in the proper sense.

But to trust and hope in man and prince is not good; rather, such instruction is brought to bear upon those who are eager to trust in man and to hope in a prince, that they may learn to trust in the God who ever abides and is strong and all-powerful, and not in mortal man who is most easily corrupted.

There are times too when such a one is fickle in his mind;

for instead of helping, there are times when he will even greatly harm the one who has trusted in him.

Wherefore blessed is he who has trusted in the Lord, remaining unashamed, according to the saying 'In you, O Lord, have I hoped; let me never be put to shame unto the age.'

Unless it be spoken hyperbolically, what is promised is impossible;

for how did all the nations encircle one man dwelling in Judea, and, while they encircled him, make war upon him, and he repelled them by the name of the Lord? For that very name becomes a weapon and shield and fortress to the one who bears it.

Consider whether the matters set forth may not be understood in a way similar to the saying 'In the mornings I slew all the sinners of the earth'—namely, that the diligent man is encircled by evil spirits which suggest the titillations of the flesh and the other passions, together with all the works of the flesh, and moreover godless words that with sophistical cleverness undermine the doctrines of truth.

But the vigorous man, strong and armed with the name of God, will overturn all the nations, putting them to flight, and at times even destroying them.

For he who has used the name of God in place of weapon and sword will cut off the passionate impulses together with the disordered reasonings, and will moreover loose and overturn the deceitful doctrines sophistically contrived.

'They encircled me like bees a honeycomb,' and what follows;

the race of drones bears a resemblance to bees;

for these, even if they happen to be larger than bees in bulk, nevertheless deceive the uninformed into thinking they are bees;

yet they neither make honey nor mould wax, nor again have they a sting to ward off those that attempt to harm the wax.

On the contrary, eating the honey, they make war against the bees, so that the bees, using their own sting against them, destroy the drones in heaps as having ruined their fruit.

Thus, by way of allegory, the bee that makes honey and moulds wax is the Church that has honoured the wisdom of God; and since she is a beloved and glorious worker, kings and commoners alike apply her labours for their health;

and although she is weak in strength, in that her preaching is not in persuasive words of human wisdom, yet she nonetheless has her sting in the demonstration of the Spirit and of the power of God, holding the word of faith, so that like the bees she destroys the heresies, cutting them asunder by the reproof of truth.

And one is the bee that has honoured wisdom, but many are those that have fallen away from honouring the wisdom of God, which are not bees but only appear as bees; and you would not err in calling them drones, encircling as it were a honeycomb in order to consume the honey about it, and being burnt up 'like fire among thorns.'

For those from the heresies kindle also the fire of shameful things and of lusts, of which Paul says, 'For the things done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak.'

And the Gospel interpreted the thorns as the pleasures.

Nevertheless, even if the bees encircled the wise man as it were a honeycomb, and were burnt up as fire among thorns, yet he himself repelled them by the name of the Lord.

Against the knowledge of God—since his weapons are not fleshly but mighty before God, being no other than the very name of God—he repelled them.

The Lord, having become unto salvation, does not receive a beginning of substantial existence;

for he is eternal and everlasting.

But he becomes unto salvation in that he takes on a relation toward those who are being saved.

Hence Christ, being said to have become all these things, presents this to the understanding;

for he did not become God the Word, nor truth, nor wisdom, nor Son, but he became wisdom unto us—not becoming wisdom simply, but this very thing, unto us righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

For, being these things simply and eternally, he is said to have become them unto us in reference to us;

so too God has made him both Christ and Lord—Christ, that is, king and priest to those who are ruled and to those on whose behalf he offers the sacrifices;

but also Lord to those who are willing to serve him; and in general, if you understand in this way the things said of him relatively, you will not act impiously.

By 'the tabernacles of the righteous' you will understand the dwellings with the Father, according to the rendering of the promises, concerning which the Saviour says, 'When it fails' (clearly mammon), 'they will receive you into the eternal tabernacles.'

In these tabernacles are all the righteous, rejoicing greatly;

for they have obtained the good things they awaited.

Hence it is well said, 'A voice of exultation and of confession in the tabernacles of the righteous,' now that sorrow and groaning have fled away.

And if you should also call the bodies of the righteous their tabernacles, once these have been restored to them incorruptible and spiritual, you will not dispute that in these tabernacles of theirs also there will be a voice of exultation and of confession.

'A voice of exultation and of salvation' is brought forward, inasmuch as in the aforesaid tabernacles the righteous exult over having received the eternal salvation, which is none other than eternal life.

This, then, wrought power for those who have partaken of him, so that each one says, 'I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.'

This exalts and lifts up the one who partakes, so that, being more brightly and more greatly empowered by the right hand of the Lord, he says a second time, 'The right hand of the Lord has wrought power.'

Wherefore he says, 'I shall no longer die'—the death that follows upon wickedness—'but I shall live,' having partaken of the life that is contrary to the death of the evil one, so as to recount the wondrous works of God that have come to pass toward me.

And his right hand works power in everyone who thinks and acts rightly, but it also exalts him, so that there comes to be in him a second power upon the former power, in which, having obtained immortality, he will say, 'I shall not die but live,' and what follows.

The gates of old were the law and the prophets, through which Israel entered in to God; but the gate now is the faith, through which we are now more intimately brought near, faith being attested by the law and the prophets.

In this sense you will also take the saying in Jeremiah, 'Stand upon the ways and ask for the eternal paths of the Lord, and inquire which is the good way, and walk in it, and you shall find purification for your souls.'

For here too, one standing among the many ways—I mean the particular virtues—will inquire concerning those trodden from of old by the saints, in order to know which afterwards, according to contemplation, is the good way, so that he who walks in it finds purification for his soul, having purified it unto the obedience of the truth.

He who is chastened by divine and truly most profitable instruction from the Lord does not fall into the death that holds sway over sinners.

For since death meets the uninstructed, he who is chastened by instruction from the Lord, being excellent in mind and deed, is not delivered over to the death that takes those handed over to passions of dishonour and to a reprobate mind.

Since the name of righteousness is predicated over the whole of moral virtue, the particular virtues must be called its gates, into which enter those who knock at them through discipline and diligent care concerning them.

being the gates of righteousness

he says that men enter not through them but into them;

for one must not overleap the workings of the virtues, but must abide and dwell within them.

But to those who have entered into the gates of righteousness and have made confession in them, another surpassing and more honourable gate is shown—that which is according to the contemplation of truth—into which enter those who have set righteousness aright, so as to be called righteous by a name derived from it.

I hymn you, therefore, who have opened for me the gates of righteousness, and I give thanks that you have heard me and accepted my supplication and granted salvation.

Since every day perceived by the senses comes to be by the sun when it rises above the earth, the day that is shown forth by the sun of righteousness, which is the Lord, was made ready; and those illumined by the true light, showing this day to one another, say, 'This is the day that has been made by the Lord;'

wherefore let us be glad and rejoice in it, walking becomingly as in the day;

for we are no longer of night and darkness but sons of light and of truth, having the faith of Abraham who rejoiced to see the day of the Lord, and was glad at having beheld it.

He who holds the conviction concerning God that all things are provided for by him, asks of him both to be saved and to prosper;

for God is the one who saves, and by him the steps of a man are directed.

Hence also in the first psalm the one who is called blessed prospers in all that he does, using God as the leader of the way that leads to blessedness.

'Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.'

And the Evangelists have understood this utterance to be a prophecy concerning Christ;

for he it is who truly and by his own authority comes, and who comes in the name of the Lord.

Whereas all the men who came before him, together with the angels, came as servants of the Lord — indeed 'Thus saith the Lord' is what each of them declared, and each of the angels says to the one to whom he is sent, 'The Lord hath sent me' —

but this one, he that comes in the name of the Lord, is himself the Blessed One.

Hence each of those who foretell his coming says, 'We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.'

For out of the house of the Lord, that is, out of the bosom of the Father, is he that comes.

And so at once it is added:

'God is the Lord, and he hath shined upon us.'

For his coming does not mean that he changed place, but rather that he first appeared, though before unseen.

For being invisible, inasmuch as he is the image of the invisible God, he took the form of a servant and, having become Word made flesh, was seen, so that thus appearing he might lead us by the hand, through this act of understanding, to behold also his glory — 'the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.'

And so those who have completed this initiation say, 'Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.'

It is also well that it says 'He that cometh,' and not 'He that came';

for he ever comes and sojourns among the race of men, even if not through the flesh;

he himself is not moved, does not pass from place to place;

for he is unchangeable and unalterable, filling both heaven and earth with his divine presence.

But since we, by our disposition and attitude, either draw near to him or remove ourselves far from him, to some he comes and is found by them ('Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you'), while from others he withdraws — not by departing in place, but, as I said before, in disposition;

for 'God is far from the ungodly.'

Those who are 'covered with leaves' are they who now bring forth shoots and fruits.

Being found, therefore, among these, plant new saplings and appoint a feast reaching even to the horns of the spiritual altar, from which one of the seraphim, taking the coal with the tongs, is sent to the prophet to purge him and to take away his iniquities and his sins.

But to whom is it commanded to appoint a feast? To the teachers and priests; and perhaps you will say to the angels also.

And a feast appointed under God's direction is to do the things that are needful and to hold the truth in one's mind.

And since the Passover is celebrated in the month of the new fruits, it is possible to suppose that one who passes over from vice and from the things of sense to virtue and to the things of the mind, being renewed, puts forth leaves, so as to keep the feast and to offer up spiritual sacrifices, even unto the horns of the altar which show it to be royal.

And if these things were said also concerning our feast of Weeks, it would not be out of harmony with the truth.

He who throughout the whole psalm gives thanks to God, who has wrought benefits so great and so many, cries aloud, 'Thou art my God, and I will confess to thee';

'Thou art my God, and I will exalt thee.'

Glorifying thee and confessing thee as God, I say, 'Thou hast done wonders in me';

for thou hast exalted me and made me strong, that I should not die but should live and declare thy works.

And in the second place I make confession: 'Because thou hast heard me in my supplications, and hast become my salvation.'