There will indeed still be in paradise a battle with the serpent among the angels, until he be cast down; but he who is with Christ will not be able to fear. Adam was not with Christ when he was deceived; for if he had been with Christ and had remained in His commandment, he certainly could not have perished. He did not remain in Christ, because he did not abide in His word. Then hear who abides in Christ: 'If you abide,' He says, 'in me, and my words abide in you, whatever you will, you shall ask, and it shall be done unto you,' and further on: 'If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love.' Wouldst thou know that Adam was not with Christ? The Lord said to him: 'Adam, where art thou?' He who indeed seeks him as if absent would not say 'Where art thou?' if He knew him to abide in Himself.
But let us hear who made him absent: 'They both,' it says, 'hid themselves from the face of the Lord.' Christ sees all, but he who hides himself is hidden, since he who is ignorant shall be ignored; for the Lord knows those who are His. He wills that all whom He has founded and created should be His own. Would that thou, O man, didst not flee and hide thyself from Christ! He seeks even those who flee, and does not will that the hidden should perish, but cries out, saying: 'Adam, where art thou?' that is: 'O man, where art thou? I placed thee in the light, thou hast sought the darkness.' Then in paradise, where it is always the morning day, evening came, since all sins are dark things. Therefore thou hast it written, that 'they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise toward evening.'
Recognize at the same time the mystery. In the morning thou hast erred, toward evening thou art set free. For how is it evening where Christ is? For although His seat is above the heaven of heavens, yet Christ is in His saints. How then is it evening where God is, since God is light? Then a light shone upon Saul on the road, when Christ met him, whence too the persecutor was blinded by the shining of the light of God. Why then was he blinded, unless because he had not acknowledged Christ? For if he had recognized the Author of light, he would not have lost the light of his eyes. Then also, where he acknowledged Him, he received it. It is a proof that he did not know Christ, because, when he heard the voice 'Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?' he answered: 'Who art Thou, Lord?' He would not have asked who it was, had he known.
Hence the Lord also, as to one ignorant, says: 'I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad.' And he said: 'Lord, what wouldst Thou have me to do?' See the teaching offices of both, in harmony. The physician threatens, that he may correct; he holds fast, that he may heal. The sick man first seeks out the person of the physician, whether he be competent, by whom he may presume that he can be healed; once he has heard the Author of the medicine, he begs the remedy and finds health. Then He not only drove blindness from the one who came, but he also received the light which he had not had, that he might see Christ whom he had not seen before. But let us look at what follows, having repeated nonetheless the verse about which the discourse seems to have been:
'Behold, I come, that I might do Thy will, my God, I have willed, and Thy law in the midst of my heart. I have well announced Thy righteousness in the great church; behold, I will not restrain my lips. O Lord, Thou hast known Thy righteousness; I have not hidden it in my heart.' And so from the verse above we understand: 'Behold, I come: I will not only do Thy will, but also Thy law in the midst of my heart.' Others have: 'in the midst of my belly.' For there is a belly also of the mind, which conceives the seeds of perceptions, of which Isaiah said: 'In the womb we conceived and brought forth the spirit of salvation.' With this womb Paul also brought forth, who says: 'My little children, of whom I travail in birth, until Christ be formed in you.' Christ, therefore, is not [formed]
formed in a bodily belly, but in a certain belly of the soul. With this belly the Apostle begot, as it is written: 'I begot you through the gospel.' Therefore others have 'in the midst of the heart,' others 'in the midst of the belly,' so that you may understand the belly of the inner man, which is taken to be in the midst of the heart, in which we keep the precepts of the natural law, which is not only observed but also is brought to pass in our hearts. Hence too it is written that not only the hearers of the law are righteous before God, but the doers of the law also shall be justified. For there are those who naturally do the things that are of the law, as the Gentiles who do not hear the law and are a law to themselves, who keep the precepts of a law unknown to them.
Therefore, as it were the gatherer of a Gentile people, Christ in this place took on our person, so as to say that He fulfills the law in the midst of His heart. Inasmuch as the people of the nations fulfilled the law which it did not hear, so that it might acknowledge Christ, whom the people of the Jews who had received the law did not receive nor think worthy of being known, because it is written: 'The ox knew his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel did not know me.' This, therefore, is the belly of believers, in which the Holy Spirit works and is wont to fill it with spiritual seed, as the Lord Jesus testifies in the gospel, who says: 'He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'
From that river are these rivers, of which we read: 'The rushing of the river makes glad the city of God.' Of those, therefore, from whom such spiritual rivers flow, it is well said: 'The rivers have lifted up, O Lord, the rivers have lifted up their voice from the voice of the spiritual waters,' which above the heavens praise God. He who has lifted up his voice can say: 'I have well announced Thy righteousness in the great church.' What is it that he added 'great,' unless because before it was not great? Which is great, except that gathered from the regions of the whole circle of the earth, when from the east and the west, the north and the south, the peoples of the nations have been called? Where, moreover, we read elsewhere of the great church: 'I will confess to Thee,'
O Lord, in the great church, among a weighty people I will praise Thee.' There, therefore, is the great church where the people are weighty, that is, not restless and shifting, who 'sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.' A weighty people is one that keeps faith to its God and is not changed by any levity, nor wavers and is tossed about, but is grounded in love in Christ, so that it can say: 'For I am confident that neither death nor sword nor tribulation can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.' But he who preaches in the great church does not hide the righteousness of God in his heart, but lifts up his voice with might, announces Christ. He does not fear to preach Him before the people, is not ashamed of His cross, but glories in that passion of the Lord.
He does not follow the letter of the law, but digs out the deep mysteries, by which he may reveal the glory of the Lord Jesus, whom the law signified would come to the church which is great and is to be gathered. Righteousness, therefore, is faith. Then Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him unto righteousness. 'Behold, I will not restrain my lips. O Lord, Thou hast known.' So too elsewhere: 'Thou hast known my sitting down and my rising up.' To the Father He says: 'I have not hidden my righteousness in my heart, I have spoken Thy truth and Thy salvation.' This whole psalm is from the person of Christ. Therefore He says 'my righteousness,' although a man too, not arrogantly, can say his own righteousness, who believes God and confesses that his faith is reckoned to him unto righteousness.
He loves truth and mercy, who preaches true faith and forgives sins. For Christ came for this, that He might establish faith and grant remission of sins. And because we have said that this whole psalm is from the person of the Saviour, lest perhaps the Apollinarians say: 'Behold, He said Thou hast prepared a body for me, but not also a soul,' let them hear Him saying in the lower parts of this psalm: 'Let them be confounded and put to shame together who seek my soul, to take it away.' These are the things which in this psalm we have judged to be difficult.
The rest we judged to be plain and easy, and not in need of interpretation, since, if they should occur in the exposition of another psalm in which they seem to be repeated, we shall more rightly pursue them, by the favour of the Lord Jesus, to whom is praise, honour, glory, perpetuity, from the ages, both now and always and unto all ages of ages. Amen. EXPOSITION OF PSALM 40. In good order, He who in the preceding psalm said 'Behold, I come,' in this one now comes and suffers. And therefore it is entitled the fortieth psalm, because the Lord Jesus fasted for forty days, that by that number He might bring to completion the perfection of the man who had perished.
For as through the craving for the forbidden fruit he had lost grace, so through fasting it was fitting that his power be repaired, so that he who had perished in Adam might be repaired in Christ. Therefore 'unto the end,' because He Himself is the end of our hope; to Him we direct our zeal, to Him we offer our vows, because He is the fullness, He is the consummation of all things, He is the sum of all virtues.
Therefore it is ascribed to David himself, as to Him who alone of all men took on our sins in His own flesh, who alone, the Lamb of God, took away the sin of the whole world, who alone blotted out the handwriting of the decree by the shedding of His own blood and took it away from the midst and nailed it to the cross: as Wisdom, knowing how to dissolve the world's ancient sin; as Redemption, how to renew man from his guilt; as Sanctification, how to sanctify him unto grace. This, therefore, is the title, this the beginning: 'Blessed is he who understands concerning the needy and the poor.' Open thy ears, thou who beginnest to know the mysteries of the Lord's passion. Therefore it is said to thee: 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.'
Therefore the Lord in the gospel touched the ears and lips of that deaf and dumb man, that he might know what he should hear in the mystery, what also he should speak and when he should speak. For it is not written idly: 'The Lord has given me a tongue of learning, that I might know when it behooves to speak a word.' Thou oughtest, then, to know what thou shouldst hear, to know what thou oughtest to speak, to know also when thou oughtest to speak. Hear, then, Him saying: 'Blessed is he who understands concerning the needy and the poor.' Blessed indeed is he who has compassion on the poor, who draws in his needs, who knows what evil want brings to the destitute; but what does this preamble mean for itself in the Lord's passion?
It is true indeed that He suffered for the poor, yet He Himself rebuked Judas, who said of that ointment which Mary had poured upon the feet of Christ: 'This could have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor.' The other apostles also had the same thought, but with a different feeling: he out of avarice, they out of mercy; for Judas was looking out for theft, the disciples were taking thought for the sustenance of the poor. To them He answered in common: 'Let her alone, that she may keep it for the day of my burial; for the poor you have always with you, but me you have not always.' He felt poverty, who for our sake became poor, although He was rich; rich in His kingdom, poor in the flesh, because He took on this flesh of the poor.
For we have been made exceedingly poor, who lost the precious spoils of our virtues through the serpent's fraud, shut out of paradise, cast out of our homeland, banished into exile, stripped even of the covering of our body, which before the enclosures of virtues fortified, but afterward sins laid bare. If, then, He is needy and poor in the flesh, surely He is needy and poor in the passion of that flesh. Therefore He suffered not in His own riches, but in our poverty. And so it was not the fullness of the Godhead which dwells in Him bodily, as the Scripture testifies, but the flesh that suffered. Understand this, follow after this, hold to this, lest it be said to thee: 'He would not understand concerning the beggar and the poor.'
For if here thou doubtest, surely in that psalm which is spoken from the person of the Saviour against the betrayal of Judas, thou wilt not be able to doubt concerning that verse in which He says: 'And he persecuted the poor and needy man.' Understand, then, concerning the poverty of Christ, that thou mayest be rich; understand concerning His weakness, that thou mayest receive health; understand concerning His cross, that thou mayest not be ashamed; understand concerning His wound, that thou mayest heal thy wounds; understand concerning His death, that thou mayest acquire eternal life; understand concerning His burial, that thou mayest find resurrection. But perhaps thou wilt say: 'How is Christ rich in poverty?' Although my own talent fails, yet the supports of the divine readings do not fail, since the Apostle has said:
'Since the Lord Jesus became poor, though He was rich, that you by His poverty might be made rich.' What, then, is this poverty which makes men rich? Let us consider it, let us fix our gaze upon that venerable sacrament itself. What can be purer than it, and simpler? No one is drenched in bull's blood, as the rites of the Gentiles are said to have it; the sinner is not washed in the gore of goats and rams — for neither is he purified; the flesh indeed is washed, but the guilt is not washed away — but: 'Come forth,' He says, 'with delight, O water, from the springs of the Saviour,' and a heavenly table is prepared in thy sight, and the inebriating cup, how splendid it is! These are the riches of simplicity, in which is the precious poverty of Christ.
There is also a good poverty in morals, whence the Lord too said: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' and in the psalms we find that 'the Lord will save the humble in spirit.' There is also an abundant poverty in scanty means, if faith abounds. Hence the Apostle says: 'And their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their simplicity.' But that we may understand from His other words too that He Himself called Himself poor, we have it written elsewhere: 'Poor and sorrowing am I,' that is, because He grieves for us, as we read; for He had nothing in Himself to grieve over.
As, then, He grieves for us, as Isaiah interpreted it, who saw Him in the spirit, surely He was sorrowful for us, according to which He called His soul sorrowful even unto death, yet not on account of death; and He called the flesh weak which lay under the weakness of death, that He might break the sting of death, by which He might set us free in the day of judgment, which He called evil not casually. For so He wove in: 'In the evil day the Lord shall deliver him,' since that day seems bitter which condemns the many to punishment. For the way of virtue is narrow, that of transgression broad; therefore fewer walk in virtue, more are engaged in disgrace.
Whence it comes about that their number is smaller who will receive the rewards of recompense than those who, for the price of grievous sins, will carry off the adverse lot of the judgment. As if grieving, therefore, He called the day of judgment evil. For if the angels rejoice over the absolution of one sinner, how much more will men be wasted with grief over the condemnation of so many men! And He well grieves for that sheep which He carried back on His shoulders and recalled, straying, to His own fold. The Son of God speaks with our feeling, because the day of judgment is bitter to us, which we fear. To all it seems evil, because it is full of terror, in which God judges not only the outward things of a man, but also the hidden things, in which each one is compelled to lay open what he has done or what he has thought.
And so many are condemned, few are crowned. But even those very ones who are crowned will grieve; for the righteous shall be crowned, but the righteous man counts his brother's affliction as it were his own. And who am I, that I should judge concerning that day in which man shall be inserted into the councils of the angels? Let us hear the sentence of the Lord Himself: 'The hour shall come,' He says, 'in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and they shall come forth, those who have done good unto the resurrection of life, those who have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment.' Therefore those who have done evil shall be judged, and so the day is called evil and harsh by the Judge Himself, that thou mayest know that He Himself has compassion on us in the gospel, who had compassion in the prophets. But we can also take 'in the evil day' thus, as 'in the evil time';
for the world lies in evil, and therefore the days of this world are evil, and the day abounds with its own malice. It is no small thing that here we be set free from the snares of the sinner. He who has here been free from crime, there shall be free from punishment and shall not be able to undergo the severity of the judgment. And therefore there is need of vows and daily prayers and the advocacy of the Prince of priests, of whom John the evangelist says: 'We have an advocate with the Father, the Lord Jesus, and He is the propitiation for our sins.' This our advocate, then, and propitiation for the sins of the whole world, prays for him who understands and believes in Christ, and says: 'The Lord preserve him and give him life and make him blessed.'
May He preserve him from perils, may He give life to him as it were set in the darkness of death, may He deign to make him blessed by the addition of good works. 'And let Him cleanse,' He says, 'his life on the earth.' He well added 'on the earth,' because, unless he has been cleansed here, there he will not be able to be clean. Or certainly in this way: 'let Him cleanse on the earth'; for how is anyone clean in the mud, when the earth smears him over? Therefore the hand of the Lord is necessary, which made the body from earth, that it may deign to cleanse it. 'And let Him not deliver him into the hands of his enemy.' Who is the enemy but that lion who goes about roaring, seeking whom he may devour? Other Greek copies have: 'and let Him not deliver him into the souls of his enemies.'
It put 'souls' for 'hands,' inasmuch as the souls of enemies lie in wait for the good and by their own thoughts try to overthrow the righteous man. 'Souls' are also said for 'men': 'all the souls were seventy that went down into Egypt.' Therefore David too preferred to commit himself to the power of God rather than to the snares of enemies, who by their own will would not know how to spare. There follows: 'The Lord bring him help upon the bed of his pain; Thou hast turned all his couch in his weakness.' What is the bed of pain but the flesh of weakness? And well 'the bed of pain,' because it is the body of death, from which the Apostle prays to be set free, that he may rise as it were from a certain tomb, in which the soul lies sick and as it were reclines on a certain little bed.
Symmachus said 'the bed of misery,' Aquila 'the pallet of misery'; the men of the Septuagint more expressly thought it should be called 'the bed of pain.' These verses, therefore, are to be used with those who are detained longer by infirmity of the body, that they may have the medicine of God, by which they may be made worthy to be well. The bed, then, of the soul is the weak flesh, with whose sickness our soul has compassion, which, if it have the Lord as its helper, He says to it: 'Arise, take up thy bed and go into thy house.' Strengthened by which word of God, he who was sick arises and takes up his bed on which he lay and returns to his former state of health. This is to return to one's own house, that one may dwell in the dwelling of most robust health.
He who dwells, rules; he who rules, has the grace of strength supporting him. But the Lord also turns the whole couch in the weakness of the languishing one, to whom He deigns to be present. That which is turned changes its state, either from health to sickness or from sickness to health. Here, then, he who is sick turns himself toward the remedy of health. So, then, the Lord Jesus, although He was wounded on account of our sins, yet did not remain in that weakness, but turned Himself unto something better, unto the salvation of all. And so by His passion weakness was dissolved, death by the resurrection.
As, then, He turned Himself unto the redemption of the peoples and did not feel the sting of death or the weakness of the wound, so He turns him who believes in Him, even though gravely sick, unto life, that He may free him from death. The whole couch, then, that is, the weakness of all men, He turned in His own weakness. For He took on the infirmities of all in His own flesh, raised Himself upon the cross, and turned the infirmities of all in the infirmity of His own body. Hence Isaiah says: 'By His bruise we are healed.' Wrestlers have this practice, that they submit themselves to those with whom they engage and wrestle, so that they may seem able to be overcome, and suddenly, when they are reckoned to be beaten and dashed down, by a certain art they turn themselves, so as to throw down the one above them;
the one who was being carried falls, and he who was carrying is found uppermost, so as to lay low the one pressing upon him. And so in the spiritual wrestling-ground the Lord Jesus, taking on our burdens, in that contest of His passion submitted Himself also under the appearance of weakness, so that the adversary might judge Him a man equal to the rest, whom he could easily overpower; He laid aside the arms of Godhead, took on the covering of humanity. Secure of victory, the tempter drew nearer, willed to wound Him in the side with a soldier's dart, reckoning that this one too, like Adam, could be laid low through a rib.
But the Lord, wounded in the side, drew forth life from the wound: he emptied out all sin, cast down the adversary, from whom he snatched away the death of the thief, and in that very death, in that very burial of his body, when he was thought to be crushed and shattered, he turned the tide by his own power; the adversary fell, and the Lord rose again. There follows: 'I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.' This can also be said in the person of King David, who, beholding in the spirit so great a victory and grace of Christ, asks that in that remission of all sins he too may be shown mercy; for he too, even though as a king he was not bound by human laws, nonetheless knows himself to be answerable to God for his own sins.
He therefore confesses his sin, that he may receive remission and find the gift of a general pardon. This can also be expressed in the person of the Saviour, who entreats God's mercy for us and said that he had sinned, because he was made sin for us. At the same time he teaches us that, when we are set in any struggle against the enemies of God, we should implore God's help, confess our own sins, and then most of all, when we are hard pressed and worn down, prostrate ourselves with grief and bitterness, lest we seem to have kept silent, so that the remedy may be brought the more swiftly to our wounds, and being healed we may withstand the adversary. For how can a wounded man enter the fray? From this we learn that we are wounded by the stings of our own sins.
The wound seeks a physician, and the physician demands confession. Hence too the Saviour begins more and more to disclose the mystery of his passion, which without doubt accords with the Gospel. For the Jews were reviling him, seeking his death, lying in wait, pressing upon him, unable to endure the glory of his work that grew daily. This then is what the prophecy announces, which was fulfilled in the Gospel: 'My enemies spoke evil things against me: when will he die, and his name perish?' Madmen, who believed that the Author of life could die! But the Church was undoing their wishes, believing that even when dead, according to the condition of the body, he would increase his name. And therefore she sang to him, saying, 'I will be mindful of thy name in generation and generation,' and repeated:
'Thy name is as ointment poured out.' Those who presume that thou canst die are warned: 'I, who have known thee as the arbiter of life and the author of salvation, shall not die.' For we know that at the time of the passion and resurrection the gathered disciples were praying, when Magdalene announced to them that the Lord had risen, and when, the door being shut, the Lord showed himself to them in the body of the resurrection, when Thomas saw his wounds and believed. The Jews therefore mocked him as dead, but the Lord revealed himself living to the apostles. When then the Jews said, 'Behold, the whole world has gone after him,' when they said that by his wondrous works he was seducing the people, what else were they saying but: 'when will he die, and his name perish?'
And therefore at his passion they cried out: 'Away, away with such a man from the earth, let him be crucified, let him be crucified.' What they asked for was done: he was lifted up from the earth, he rose again, he ascended to heaven, and from the seats of paradise he restored his kingdom over us. Concerning Judas the traitor also a clear prophecy is woven in the verses that follow: 'And he went in to see me, speaking vain things; his heart gathered iniquity to itself, and he went forth and spoke.' Thus we find it punctuated in the Greek manuscripts. Judas therefore went in, seeking to betray the Saviour, to see what he was doing or saying, that he might catch him in his speech and report it to the Jews; but he who understood nothing found nothing.
Well does the Scripture say that he who had withdrawn from his teaching and forsaken his ordinances was not within with Jesus. He wished to enter, but he could not penetrate, because his own faithlessness shut him out; for everyone who is unchaste or greedy or unclean (which is the slavery of idols) has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Not only, then, did he strive to enter and could not enter, but he also wished to see and did not see. In short, Jesus spoke in parables, but Judas did not hear. In short, he did not see the divine mysteries; for not all who seem to themselves to hear, hear the word of God. For if all heard, Jesus would not say: 'He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.'
And therefore, because he neither heard nor could see, he spoke vain things instead of true, and thought that he could deceive Jesus, saying: 'This could have been sold and given to the poor'—he who, with his thefts, was making provision not for the poor but for himself; calling 'Rabbi' and 'Master' him from whose teaching he was straying, and into whose heart, into which he had thrust himself, the devil was gathering for himself and increasing his iniquities. For he was wicked to himself, unjust to himself, sinning against himself, who within himself was plotting a deceit that could not lie hidden. For Jesus was not circumvented, who was betrayed willingly and bore witness: 'One of you shall betray me.' Then Judas confessed, saying: 'Is it I, Rabbi?' And the Lord said: 'Thou hast said it.' Yet not even so did Judas understand that he was known;
for if he had understood, he would not have betrayed him. But nonetheless he both went forth and spoke. A fitting verse against those who betray another's secret. Beautifully it says, 'he went forth': for outside are the wolves, outside the robbers. Within was Moses in the cloud with Jesus, outside the Jews; within was Zachariah the priest in the temple, outside the multitude; within the Holy Spirit cries to the Father in our hearts, outside our adversary, like a lion, keeps watch for his prey; outside the unbelievers, within the faithful. And therefore those who are outside God will judge, but those who are within Christ will absolve. Judas therefore went forth and spoke.