Now they sail well who in the ships of Christ display the cross as a mast and thence explore the blasts of the winds, that they may direct their bodies toward the grace of the Holy Spirit, safe and secure in the wood of the Lord, and do not permit their ships to wander with the roving swell over the seas, but with the direction of their course strive toward the harbor of salvation and the consummation of grace, that they may gain a sure mooring, where, once dissolved, they may be able to restore their courses in the resurrection, where they cannot fear shipwreck. Let us, therefore, also look round about for this grace, let us be its watchmen, let us explore it, that our bodies may become ships of Tarshish.
For then is the flesh reduced to servitude, when we are intent upon the grace of God, so that we follow that which is bitter for a time—as is fasting—not that which is sweet and voluptuous. Tarshish, therefore, is the watchtower of grace, the intelligible city, like the Zion above. To it Jonah hastened. Of it Scripture said that 'he was joined to Jehoshaphat,' to King Uzziah, and so it pleased them to make ships to go to it, to Tarshish. But because he joined himself to the impious one, therefore a prophet was sent to him, to say to him: 'The Lord has destroyed your work, and your ships have been broken, and they could not go to Tarshish.' By which is signified that the bodies of those who transgress the commandment of God cannot come to the consummation of grace.
But to Solomon, inasmuch as he was a wise and peaceful man, ships from Tarshish came with gold and silver and ivory tusks without any offense, and he himself sent thither. For he had with King Hiram a spiritual commerce of sacred trafficking and an affection of mutual grace contending. These ships, therefore, those who possess in themselves royal authority for restraining bodily ferocity, seeing them from corruptible made incorrupt, from spotted shining with the highest light of grace, from dissolved and worn out made renewed, living from the dead, rising from the buried, commemorate with famous speech. 'As we have heard, so also have we seen, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God; God has founded it forever.'
We have heard outside the city, we have seen within the city, to which God is the eternal light; the day shines without a worldly sun, the moon is not sought; its foundation is not temporal, but eternal. 'We have received, O God, your mercy in the midst of your temple.' If it is said to the Son of God, we understand the temple according to what he himself said of his own body: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' Truly the temple of God is the body of Christ, in which is the purification of our sins. Truly the temple of God is that flesh, in which there could be no contagion of sin, but which itself was the sacrifice for the offense of the whole world.
Truly the temple of God is that flesh, in which the image of God shone, in which 'the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily,' since Christ himself is the fullness. Therefore to him it is said: 'We have received, O God, your mercy in the midst of your temple.' And what is this, but what he says: 'There stands in the midst of you one whom you know not'—that is, he is in the midst of you and is not seen? But if it is referred to the Father, what is 'in the midst of your temple,' but that 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself'? In that temple, therefore, 'we have received,' he says, 'your mercy,' that is, the Word which was made flesh and dwelt among us. For just as Christ is redemption, so also is he mercy.
And what greater mercy than that he offered himself to be immolated for our shameful deeds, that with his blood he might wash the world, whose sin could in no other way have been abolished? For indeed, if of holy men the apostle said: 'You are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you,' how much more should I call the flesh of the Lord Jesus the temple of God, who is always read to be full of the Holy Spirit and himself testifies, saying: 'I perceive that power has gone forth from me'—which power healed the bitter wounds of all!
That also can be understood, that he said he had received, together with the people, the mercy of God in the midst of his temple, since he himself founded and propagated his Church forever, since truly he himself, together with his only-begotten Son, conferred this grace upon his people, whom he also showed to be the builder, saying: 'This one shall build for me a city,' which, spread over the whole circle of the earth, made it so that all the earth was full of his praise and his name. For just as it is written: 'The earth is full of his praise,' so it is written: 'A name was given to him above every name, that at the name of Jesus 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.' Whence the prophet properly said:
'According to your name, O God, so also is your praise unto the ends of the earth; your right hand is full of righteousness.' It is no wonder if he is full of the righteousness of God who is the right hand of God. But the power of God and the righteousness of God are the same, so that, according to that which he is full of the righteousness of God, you may know that fullness of righteousness to be in him which the Father has; and according to that which he is read to be the power and righteousness and wisdom of God the Father, you may understand nothing of the divine majesty to be divided in him, but that the Son received all things from the Father, and you may recognize the Son to be the splendor of all the paternal glory and the character of his substance, who so expressed the Father that in him is the whole Father, just as in the Father is the whole Son.
And because the prophet saw in the Spirit that the praises of Christ were to be proclaimed in all lands, as if by way of epilogue making a digression from the discourse he had undertaken toward joy, he exhorts us also to the worship of his name, saying: 'Let Mount Zion rejoice,' that is, those who trust in the Lord, as he himself afterward interpreted, saying: 'Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,' and the rest. Let the Lord Jesus himself, who is the mountain and the height of his Church, which gazes upon her Christ with all affection, rejoice in her faith and devotion which pleased God, since the unfaithful one has been rejected. It can therefore also be piously understood that he himself is the mountain higher than all, into which he who preaches the faith is commanded to ascend, Scripture saying:
Go up onto a high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Sion. 'Let the souls that confess to you rejoice,' it says. These are the daughters of that Judaea in which God is known. For that Judaea which exists in the flesh or in the letter did not recognize the Lord; for had it recognized him, it would also have received him. But it did not recognize the one whom it did not receive, and it fled from his judgments, by which he declared that they proceeded not from father Abraham but from the seed of the devil, since every sin is the seed of the enemy.
But the daughters of confession do not commit sin, but cast a covering over it; and therefore, 'Blessed are they whose sins are covered.' Deservedly will the daughters of confession exult because of the judgments of the Lord, when they have come to know his judgments and his ways, which in this present age are unsearchable and untraceable to men; but when they have begun to behold the truth face to face, then they will comprehend the things that now appear unsearchable, and will rejoice in knowing them. 'Surround Sion,' it says, 'and embrace her; tell it in her towers.' Those who understand Sion surround her and embrace her with their senses, that they may hold and not let her go, lest the watchful discipline of virtue be taken from them. And therefore she says in the Song of Songs:
'I held him and would not let him go'—she who sought the wisdom of God and embraced the righteousness of God with the arms of love and with certain sinews of faith and devotion; for this is the embrace of a devout mind. Let us therefore, as far as we are able, lay hold of the inner mysteries of truth, and write them and fix them in our minds, and grasp the power of the heavenly oracle. To attain this, that Moses, skilled in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, went up the mountain and entered into the cloud, that he might come to know the things hidden and concealed, with Jesus his companion clinging to him; for no one without the true Jesus can comprehend the uncertain things of wisdom and the hidden things.
And therefore in the figure of Jesus son of Nave, that is of the true Saviour, was signified to him the presence that would breathe upon him, through whom all would be made teachable of God, who would open the Law and reveal the Gospel. Therefore those who have surrounded Sion with their prudence and embraced her with their understanding, ascending upon her towers, declare from above to him who could not ascend her towers what must be done or what must be guarded against. For the city of God is walled, and therefore the Lord says elsewhere: 'Behold, O Jerusalem, I have painted your walls.' She is set apart by towers, from which the lier-in-wait may be detected if he begins to draw near. That enemy has his armies, with which he is accustomed to besiege the souls of God, to bring up his engines, that he may storm the fortified towers.
'But you,' it says, 'proclaim from the towers'; for there is abundance in the towers of Jerusalem. Proclaim righteousness, give warning of the watch; for wisdom is sung at the gate and is proclaimed upon the highest of the walls. And again elsewhere it says: 'Upon your walls I have set watchmen day and night; unto the end they shall not be silent.' Declare therefore without interruption, without end. The adversary is watchful; he goes about and with bestial fury seeks whom he may find to devour. Therefore the Lord must ever be sung, who shatters the teeth of lions and breaks their jaws, that they may not be able to harm us.
'Set your hearts,' it says, 'upon his power'—that is, that you may understand his power—'and distribute his degrees, that you may declare them to another generation; for this is our God for ever and unto ages of ages. He himself shall rule us for ever.' The Greek says bareis, that is, lofty and turreted houses. Hence the prophet, when speaking of the city of God and those who dwell in her, says, 'distribute her degrees'—that is, her high and lofty mansions in the heavens—by which he teaches that an order of merits must be observed; for each one in his own order.
Hence the Lord too says that he goes to prepare mansions for his disciples, that according to the measure of their merits each may obtain a fitting dwelling, in which he may enjoy that eternal rest. There are also lofty and exalted precepts, in which lie the hidden mysteries of piety and the theorems of heavenly discourses. 'Distribute these,' it says, and divide them according to each one's capacity, as much as each is able to comprehend by his own understanding. For Paul did not discourse the same things to all. To some he preached nothing but Christ Jesus, and him crucified, 'not in the persuasion of the word of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power';
but among the perfect he spoke wisdom, because the whole people was not capable of perceiving the wisdom that is hidden in a mystery. Therefore Christ hid it, that the foolish might not understand it, and the prudent might seek it more diligently and declare it to another generation, which would be more perfect in the power of the Spirit; for the former generation, by the weakness of its faith, could not know the sacraments of perfect wisdom, and therefore sought a sign and rejected the truth, whereas surely the truth is not of the sign, but the sign of the truth. Hence the Lord answered it: 'An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign shall be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.'
And so, to convict the faithlessness of the Jews, the example of Jonah is brought forward, because the Ninevites believed at the sign and thought that the preaching of Jonah, who had been in the belly of the whale, should be followed; but the Jews did not believe even after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, who rose from the heart of the earth after three days and lives and reigns through all ages. Amen. EXPOSITION OF PSALM 48. Its title is: 'Unto the end; a psalm of David for the sons of Korah. Hear these things, all you nations; give ear, all you who inhabit the world.' In the very beginning we recognize the voice of the saving Lord calling the nations to the Church, that they may renounce error, follow the truth, and acknowledge the gift of devout worship.
But because the hearts of the human succession were infected with the serpent's venom, and the conscience was liable to sins, while it despaired of pardon and could not call itself back, he promises a remedy, of his own piety he freely promises forgiveness by his bounty, that the guilty might not fear and the man of good conscience might rejoice, in that he renders the service of his bondage to a good Lord, who knows how to forgive sins and to honour virtues. Finally, in the same series of calling, in the Gospel too the Lord exhorts us, saying: 'Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.'
Then he reminds us that his yoke is sweet and his burden light, since whoever despairs of the medicine cannot become well. And therefore his gentleness, which heals the wounds of the inner souls, is pleasing to all. Coming therefore to the sick, coming as a physician who would heal our grievous ulcers, he sets forth his remedies, that men may hear and run together with faithful diligence to the cure of salvation. So in the Gospel that woman obtained healing who had suffered for twelve years from a flow of blood. She heard that the physician had come; she hastened to touch him, saying, 'If I but touch the hem of his garment, I shall be made whole.'
This she said within herself, and Christ heard it, and she touched the hem, and power went forth from the Saviour which healed the sick woman, strengthened the weak, stayed the flow, and proved her piety. So likewise here too he calls all nations to the fountain of wisdom and prudence, and promises redemption to all, that no one may tremble, no one despair, where none is excluded, but every soul is invited to grace, that without price it may be redeemed from crime and attain the fruit of eternal life. This is the sense of the psalm, which we shall set forth in its order, when we have explained the force and quality of the foregoing words. For the nations are commanded to hear, and those who inhabit the world to give ear—that world indeed of which he said above:
'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all who dwell in it. He has founded it upon the seas and prepared it upon the rivers.' This the Greeks call oikoumene, because it is inhabited by Christ, as he himself said: 'For I will dwell in them.' For he dwells that he may fill the things that seemed empty. What then is the oikoumene but the holy Church, the temple of God and the dwelling-place of Christ? Nor without fitness did the Latins, with a differing word indeed but an equal sense, name it 'the circle of the earth' (orbis terrae), because the life of the saints, who are inhabited by the Spirit, rolls in a circle like a wheel without any stumbling in its course.
In tribulations therefore the Church is founded, in tempests and storms, in anxieties and grief, in adversities; and upon the rivers she is prepared. In which rivers? Hear him who says: 'The rivers have lifted up their voice.' Hear also in the Gospel: 'He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' And this he said of the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive. Upon these rivers, then, the Church is prepared, in which the grace of God flows forth. These are the streams which receive the word of God with the ear and speak it, that they may pour the word into the breasts of each one. And therefore Scripture made a distinction by saying: 'Hear these things, all you nations; give ear, all you who inhabit the world.'
All can hear, yet not all can give ear, except the elect of God. And therefore the Saviour says: 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.' He speaks of those spiritual ears of the inner man, whose nostrils too we read of, when Job says: 'The divine Spirit which is in my nostrils.' Not all men have these ears and these nostrils; for one is the form of the body, another that of spiritual grace. He who is spiritual hears all things, judges all things; but the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God, for this one is earth-born, that one heavenly. And therefore he added: 'both you who are earth-born and you sons of men, together in one, rich and poor,' that he might call all men. Who is the earth-born but the son of man? Who is the spiritual but the son of God?
The one is compacted from blood and begotten from the pleasure of the flesh and of man; the other is born of God. The one is rich in every word and knowledge; the other poor, yet rich in grace, because even the poor man cried out and the Lord heard him. On the contrary, there is also the man rich in pride and the man poor in humility. All are called to the Church, that all may be redeemed by Christ. He who is sick finds a physician, he who is whole acquires wisdom, the captive a redeemer, the free man a rewarder. Divine Scripture edifies all; in it each one finds wherewith either to heal his wounds or to confirm his merits.
Now the calling, made together in one of the rich and the poor, summons us to a certain humility and equality, that neither may the rich disdain the needy nor the poor envy the rich, but one grace may bind both together; because the Lord too became poor, though he was rich, that the same might be both the Saviour of the poor and of the rich. And he subjoined: 'My mouth shall speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart prudence.' Deservedly are all called, because the fountain of wisdom abounds for all; nor is it to be compared with a treasure of money, since it is declared more precious than all treasures. And therefore neither is the rich man turned away nor the poor excluded, because wisdom does not discriminate by means, but by wills; that man is the fitter who is first in affection and nearest in discipline.
But if the meditation of the heart speaks prudence, how much more does perfect teaching! Then we are admonished not to bring forth a disorderly word, but to weigh the things to be said by a certain exercise of meditation and by the balance of the inner mind, because it is written elsewhere: 'A deceitful balance is not good.' 'I will incline my ear to the parable; I will open my proposition upon the psaltery.' The wise hearer attends and inclines his ear, that he may understand the figures of parables. The Saviour himself calls 'his ear' the man who has the ear to hear.
The Lord also opens his closed proposition when he finds an instrument fitted to himself and a vessel of election, which he calls a psaltery, like to whom Paul made the sweet song of grace resound, with all his strings sounding together in harmony, the Holy Spirit's plectrum striking both the inner chord and the outer, that he might pray both with the tongue and with the mind. And therefore he says: 'I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind; I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind.' Such a man, then, Christ long beforehand promises, through whom he would make manifest the hidden things and would open the things wrapped up in the obscurity of prophetic speech. It is a good psaltery, when the life of faith agrees with it, and the flesh with the soul, and the will breathes aspiration toward virtue.
This is the sweet psaltery, where the discipline of living is melodious, that what is written may be fulfilled: 'The tongue of the dumb shall be clear.' There follows: 'Why shall I fear in the evil day? The iniquity of my heel shall surround me'—that is: when my mouth speaks wisdom and the meditation of my heart prudence, what can I fear in the day of judgment, unless perhaps the iniquity of my heel must be washed from me? One thing is our iniquity, another that of our heel, in which Adam was wounded by the serpent's tooth, and bequeathed the liable inheritance of the human succession to his own wound, so that we all limp from that wound.
Hence the Lord washed the disciples' feet, that he might wash away the serpent's venom; and Peter is rebuked because he refused, lest the Lord should wash his feet. And therefore it was said to him: 'Unless I wash your feet, you shall have no part with me.' Hearing this, he offered not only his feet but also his hands to be washed. To whom the Lord replied: 'He who is washed has no need to wash again except to wash his feet, but is wholly clean.' Therefore David says: 'My iniquities have gone over my head,' he who knew that he had been conceived in iniquity and brought forth in sins from his mother. But the Lord, who had no sins of his own and knew no iniquities of his own, says: 'The iniquity of my heel shall surround me'—that is, the iniquity of Adam, not my own.
But that cannot be a terror to me; for in the day of judgment our own offences in us are punished, not the wickedness of another's iniquity. Hence I judge the iniquity of the heel to be rather the slipperiness of transgressing than any guilt of our own offence. And deservedly the Lord, who took upon himself all things for our sake, says: 'Let us wash even the feet, that we may be able to remove the slipperiness of the heel,' so that there may be a sure standing of virtues, and that no one may slip by his father's error. He who is ready to stand by his own resolve need not fear the slipperiness of the inheritance, who desires to keep to the footstep of virtue. The iniquity therefore of our heel is the transgression of Adam, through which he fell into the contempt and disregard of the heavenly commandments.
There is also the iniquity of the heel of Judas—his detestable betrayal—'of the heel' for this reason, because it is written: 'He who eats my bread has lifted up his heel against me.' Well did he say there 'his own' and here 'mine': 'his own,' because Christ is without iniquity, but this is the iniquity of the betrayer alone; but he calls Judas 'my heel,' as it were the lowest part of his own body, Christ, whose body and members we are. The apostles are the more excellent and active members of Christ; Judas is the heel, as it were the extreme part of the body, exposed to the serpent and open to the wound. The first heel, then, was Adam; the second heel, Judas.
the former the fall of the whole inheritance, the latter of the betrayer alone, who could not entangle the inheritance, because we are now no longer carnal but the inheritance of the Redeemer, as Scripture says: 'There is an inheritance for those who believe in the Lord.' There is also that iniquity of his heel which surrounded Christ: 'Surrounding me,' he says, 'they surrounded me, and in the name of the Lord I was avenged of them.' His heel is the synagogue; the comeliness and glory of his countenance is the Church, as it is written: 'The Lord has reigned, he has put on comeliness.' They therefore are the heel of whom he says: 'who trust in their own strength and glory in the abundance of their riches'; for the rich have been in want and have hungered. This was said of the Jews;
but all also who live luxuriously and do not hold the Head are the heel of Christ. But these are general matters, which extend widely; for the rest, he spoke specifically of Judas the betrayer, who seemed to himself strong and rich in the glory of the apostolate. Finally, the discourse is woven concerning the passion of the Lord: 'A brother does not redeem; shall a man redeem? Nor will he give to God his propitiation and the price of the redemption of his own soul.' That is: 'Why shall I fear in the evil day? For what can harm me, who not only do not need a redeemer, but am myself the Redeemer of all? Shall I make others free, and tremble for my own self? Behold, I shall make all things new, I who am above the very affection and piety of brotherhood.'
Whom a brother, poured forth into light from the same mother's womb, cannot redeem, because he is held back by the weakness of a like nature, 'a man shall redeem'—but that man of whom it is written: 'For the Lord will send them a man who shall save them,' who said of himself: 'You seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you.' But although he is a man, who shall know him? Why shall no one know him? Because, as there is one God, so there is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. He alone it is who shall redeem man, surpassing brothers in piety, because he poured out his blood for strangers, which no one can offer for a brother.
And so he did not spare his own body, that he might redeem us from sin, and gave himself as a redemption for all, as his true witness the apostle Paul affirmed, who says: 'I speak the truth, I do not lie.' But why does he alone redeem? Because no one can equal him in piety, so as to lay down his life for his own bondservants, no one in integrity; for all are under sin, all are subject to that fall of Adam, and the Redeemer alone is chosen who could not be liable to the old sin. Let us therefore understand by 'the man' the Lord Jesus, who took upon himself the condition of man, that in his own flesh he might crucify the sin of all, and blot out the handwriting of all by his own blood. But perhaps you will say:
'How is a brother denied as redeemer, when he himself said: "I will declare your name to my brethren"?' But Christ Jesus, in whom God was, forgave us our sins not as a brother to us, but as a man. For so it is written: 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself'—in that Christ Jesus, of whom alone it was said: 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.' Not therefore as a brother, but as the Lord he dwelt among us, while he dwelt in the flesh. Since therefore he reconciled the world to God, surely he himself had no need of reconciliation; for what sin of his own should he propitiate God, who knew no sins? Finally, when the Jews demanded the didrachma, which was given for sin according to the Law, he said to Peter:
'Simon, the kings of the earth, from whom do they receive tribute or tax? From their own sons or from strangers?' Peter answered: 'From strangers.' To whom the Lord said: 'Then the sons are free. But that we may give them no offence, cast a hook, and take the fish that first comes up, and opening its mouth you will find a stater; take it and give it for me and for you.' He showed that he owed no propitiation for his own sins, because he was not a slave of sin, but the Son of God, free from all error. For the Son sets free; the slave is in guilt. Therefore this free one, free from all things, does not even give the price of the redemption of his own soul, the price of whose blood could abound to redeem the sins of the whole world entire.