so that by a voluntary victim the curse — which had been added on account of the guilt of the necessary yet omitted sacrifice — might be loosed. Of which sacrifice He makes mention in another place in the psalms: "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but thou hast perfected a body for me"; to God the Father who rejected the sacrifices of the law, by offering the pleasing victim of the body He had assumed. Of which offering the blessed Apostle thus makes mention: "For this he did once, offering himself a victim to God," being about to redeem the whole salvation of the human race by the oblation of this holy and perfect victim. For all these things thus accomplished He renders praise to God the Father: "I will confess to thy name, O Lord, for it is good, for thou hast delivered me out of all tribulation." He rendered to each proposition its proper resolution.
For in the exordium He had said: "O God, save me in thy name"; but after the fitting satisfaction of the prayers, there ought to have been a profession of thanksgiving, so that He might confess to the name of Him in whose name He had besought to be saved, and, because He had asked for help against the strangers rising up against Him, that He might, in the exultation of joy, record that He had obtained that very thing through this: "for thou hast delivered me out of all tribulation." But to that where the mighty, when they sought His soul, did not set God before their sight, He gloriously taught the eternity of His immutable divinity in this which was said: "and my eye hath looked upon my enemies." For the only-begotten Son of God was not cut off by death.
In order to fulfil the nature of man, He subjected Himself even to death, that is, to the separation as it were of soul and body, and penetrated to the infernal regions, that which seems to be owed to man: but He remains, rising again, and looks down upon His enemies with an immortal eye, glorified into God and from Son of Man into Son of God, from which He had also begun to be Son of Man, reborn through the glory of the resurrection. He looks down upon His enemies, to whom He had said: "Destroy this temple, and after three days I will raise it up."
Therefore, this temple of His body having been built up, He sees from on high those who had sought His soul, and, exalted above the law of human death, He Himself looks down upon the authors of His own death, enduring death yet not knowing how to die — God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 54. Unto the end, in songs, of the understanding of David. "Give ear, O God, to my prayer, and despise not my supplication," and the rest. The superscription of the psalm is without a historical setting; it is only: "Unto the end, in hymns, of understanding." Some of our translators have called the "hymns" songs; but most have set down "hymns," from the very usage of the Greek.
As to the name there is no difference, provided it be understood that the thing signified, whether in "hymns" or in "songs," is one and the same. This, then, is to be thought concerning the psalm: that the things which are contained in its hymn or song are to be understood "unto the end": namely, by referring all our understanding to our Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Apostle taught to be the end of the law.
We have frequently admonished that in the understanding of the psalms the reasoning of our mind must be so tempered that we may remember that He, of whom and through whom is all prophecy, was born the Son of Man out of the Son of God — the nature of God, remaining before all ages, being begotten into the nature of man out of a virgin's childbearing, in such a way that the addition of the latter nature brought no diminution to the former nature, nor did He who had also begun to be man cease to be that which He was before man, namely God. He therefore, assuming the frailty of our flesh and remaining both His own and ours, thus acts, prays, professes, and awaits all those things which are ours, so that among them He may also mingle those things which are His own.
And He speaks at times from the person of man, because as man He was born, and suffered, and died; but at other times all His discourse is according to God, because He came into being as man from God and as Son of Man from the Son of God: not forgetting, in His words, the confidence of His own nature, of which, in the assumption of man though it was, He was not deprived. And thus, speaking out of us and out of our infirmity by the custom and usage of human speech, so that He also spoke out of Himself and out of His own power, the things that are proper and worthy of God — as can be recognized in the present psalm, which has thus begun: "Give ear, O God, to my prayer, and despise not my supplication; attend to me and hear me."
"I am grieved in my exercise, and am troubled at the voice of the enemy and at the tribulation of the sinner: for they have turned iniquity down upon me, and in wrath they were troublesome to me. My heart is troubled within me, and the fear of death has fallen upon me. Fear and trembling came upon me, and darkness covered me. And I said: Who will give me wings like a dove? And I will fly away and be at rest. Behold, I have fled far off and remained in solitude." In the exordium of the psalm, although He used the voice of humility when He says "Give ear, O God, to my prayer," nevertheless He is understood to have spoken these things not without a certain confidence of His own higher consciousness. For it does not belong to just any innocence to ask this, that God should give ear to one's prayer.
For God's ears are ever ready for the prayer of men: because He who imparts the nature of hearing to the human race cannot Himself be outside the nature of hearing, and He who everywhere works in us this sense of hearing cannot but be everywhere in that which He bestows. God therefore everywhere and always hears; but it is not of the merit of all that what He hears He should also give ear to: His hearing indeed pierced by the voice of the one praying, but the worthiness by which they are heard being merited solely by the innocence of the prayer that they be given ear to. Now in the exordium a threefold ground of prayer is set forth. For the first is this, that the prayer be given ear to. The next is, that the supplication be not despised. The third is, that He attend to him and hear him.
And it is necessary that the nature of each kind be distinct, so that to give ear and not to despise be not the same, and again that to attend and to hear differ from both. And since we have shown what could be understood concerning the giving ear to prayer, what this may be, "despise not my supplication," must be treated. Prayers are despised that are frivolous, distracted, useless, anxious with the cares of the world, entangled in the desires of bodily things, unfruitful in the fruits of good works. These, therefore, are despicable prayers, unworthy of God's regard, concerning which He says through the prophet Isaiah: "And when you stretch forth your hands to me, I will turn away my eyes from you." And He straightway added the cause of the despising of the prayer, saying:
"Your hands are full of blood." Where, therefore, the working of iniquity stands out, there the prayer of the one supplicating is despised. But then indeed He attends to him who hopes, when the faith of a silent hope is restrained by the reverence of a pious conscience. And we have a most perfect example of the property of each. The Lord gave ear to the words of the Canaanite woman crying out again and again; He despised the prayer of that young man who demanded from the Bestower of eternity the division of his patrimony; but He attended to that woman who, by the silence of her faith, sought salvation for herself even from the fringe of His garment. Having distinguished, then, these kinds of His whole prayer, He now sets forth the very cause of His beseeching:
namely, that in His exercise He was troubled at the voice of the enemy and at the tribulation of the sinner. And indeed an exercise is never undertaken except for useful and salutary ends; and because the ungodly cannot endure these even in a holy one, they strive to afflict Him with every injury and to wear Him down even to the fear of death. But this exercise in the Lord Jesus Christ is the working of our salvation, which the exercise of His various healings, and thereafter of His Passion itself, advanced.
Exercising Himself also in this world in fellowship with our infirmity — which exercise Isaac prefigured by his going out into the field, when he met Rebecca borne upon a camel, as Christ, exercising Himself in this world, meets as it were His spouse from the Gentiles — He is even troubled at the voice of the enemy, when He is called a Samaritan, when He is said to have a demon, when, because He does not deliver Himself from the cross, He is denied to be the salvation of the rest. Those turning down iniquity upon Him, of false testimonies and of the sentence of death, are troublesome to Him also in wrath, while they rage against Him with scourges, with blows of the fist, with slaps. But amid these things, having the power to summon twelve thousand legions of the heavenly host, He is not moved to wrath nor provoked to vengeance. For it follows:
"My heart is troubled within me." He determined to endure all things in Himself, provided only He might accomplish the mysteries of human salvation. But it is most difficult for the infirmity of man to restrain within himself the perturbations and commotions of the mind, so that some sign of anxiety or indignation may not, even by a silent movement, break forth even to the very changing of the countenance. Yet in the only-begotten God, although our infirmity was assumed, nevertheless the nature of His divinity was not abolished, so that He passed through all these things which are weak with the dignity of His majesty preserved, while He so endured all the things that belong to our death and fear, that they fell upon Him rather than were inherent in Him.
while our infirmity is present in a greater degree than that which is natural in God. Finally, the following discourse joined together this very thing, when it said: "and the fear of death has fallen upon me. Fear and trembling came upon me, and darkness covered me." And these things indeed, all that belong to our necessity, rushed upon Him; but they were taken up by Him by the power of His own nature, while He, being able not to die, did not refuse our death, even with the fear of death assailing Him within. And since these same things had fallen, as upon a man, to hold dominion over His weakness, nevertheless, that He might teach that He was not subject to those things which assailed Him, He added: "And I said: Who will give me wings like a dove? And I will fly away and be at rest."
He is not weak, for whom, in order to fly away from the darkness covering Him and from the fear of death, wings are not to be taken from elsewhere. For when He says, "Who will give me?", it is not the language of one asking from another, but of one hoping not from elsewhere. And He hastens to fly away like a dove, that is, to return into a spiritual nature. For indeed in the likeness of a dove the Spirit rested upon Him by flying, a dwelling being once found in that man who was then ascending from the waters of the Jordan. And this indeed is the cause of the prayer, that being weighed down by the infirmity of the body He had assumed this which is mortal to us, so that, having been made flesh, He might fly away into the Spirit. And of these wings of His He thus makes mention in another psalm: "If I take my wings before the dawn, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea."
"For even there thy hand shall lead me." He will therefore take His own wings, so that it may be understood that He resumes them, having been emptied of them. But having taken up the wings, in order that by flying He may be at rest, He shows where He is to be at rest, saying: "Behold, I have fled far off and remained in the desert." Darkness indeed fell upon the light, but the darkness did not comprehend it. For He fled far off, He who could not be comprehended even by those who covered Him. He therefore also fled from those who were persecuting Him, and, made far from them, He dwells in the desert. And what this desert or what solitude is — for the Greek expressed both by the same word — another prophet thus declares: "Rejoice, thou thirsty desert; let the desert exult and flourish like the lily: and let the deserts of the Jordan flourish and exult."
"Strengthen the weak hands and the feeble knees: take comfort, ye of little heart, be strong in mind and fear not. Behold, God will render judgment; He Himself will come and will save us. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear, the tongue of the dumb shall be instructed. Then shall the lame man leap like a hart." He had indeed come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; but, put to flight by them, He gladdens these deserts. For among these He remains, and remains after He rested by flying. For there is a rest of God, which is denied to the ungodly, when it is said: "If they shall enter into my rest"; the only-begotten God, having resumed His spiritual glory, resting in these bodies as in a temple worthy of Himself,
resting in those things which were formerly deserts, because the children of the desolate are now more numerous than of her who has a husband. But I am not unaware that very many, regarding only the sound and letter of the words, judge that scarcely anything in almost all the psalms is fitting to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and suppose that the whole is filled up with the laments of the prophet railing against his enemies. But we raise no dispute. For we do not destroy but build up, adding rather understanding to obscure things than detracting from simple ones: because whatever David either suffered or lamented was also fulfilled in the sufferings of Him who was made the flesh of our whole humanity. And, as I judge, the things which follow will prove the course of our understanding.
But an intervening diapsalma has changed also the sense. For once again the whole discourse is directed against those of whom the complaint is made, yet with the honour of Him to whom He is wont to refer all things set first. For it follows: "I was awaiting Him who saveth me from faintheartedness and from the tempest." This awaiting of His is nothing new; for in that psalm too, which is beyond doubt spoken from His person, He thus prayed: "Save me, O God, for the waters have come in even unto my soul. I am fixed fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no substance. I am come into the depth of the sea, and the tempest has overwhelmed me." From this tempest, then, and from this faintheartedness — for He was humbled even unto the death of the cross — He awaits to be saved by Him to whom He prayed, saying:
"Father, glorify me with thyself, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." But awaiting to be saved, He now awaits more than the mere hope of salvation. For it follows: "Cast down, O Lord, and divide their tongues." The Latin, as in many places, has not expressed the property of the word, whether Hebrew or Greek. For that which is said "cast down" was pronounced by them as "καταπόντισον": by which word it is prayed, not that they be cast down, but that they be sunk into the deep. He therefore asks that they be sunk and that their tongues be divided.
Of which things we know that one was effected under Noah, the other after the building of the tower: when the deep consumed those submerged by the flood, but the division of tongues separated these unto the cause of an everlasting contention among themselves, so that they might not hold to the conspiracy begun against God, while they both do not know and fear one another. Not unlike, then, is the punishment now demanded upon these: namely, that being consumed by the law of the nations — which we have remembered to be signified in the waters — and divided into all the tongues among which they now dwell and in which they speak, they should lose the dignity of their life and of their kingdom. But that we might know that these things would follow on account of the vices of the city and the contradiction of its precepts, He added: "For I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city;
day and night shall it surround it upon its walls, and iniquity and toil are in the midst of it: and usury and deceit have not departed from its streets." On account, therefore, of these vices and crimes, the punishment of the future captivity and dispersion is demanded; but the chief crimes are iniquity and contradiction. For rejecting Him whom the law and the prophets had announced, they spurned Him by an impious contradiction. Which contradiction, surrounding the walls of the city itself night and day, overstepped them, because even in the very night of His Passion, when He professed that He would be seen sitting and at the right hand of Power, they contradicted Him with the rending of the garment and even with the odium of blasphemy. And in the walls we have remembered that the safeguard of salvation is signified;
just as, when the building and fortification of the new Jerusalem, that is, the construction and custody of the heavenly Church, is prayed for, thus it is written: "Deal kindly, O Lord, in thy good pleasure with Sion, and let the walls of Jerusalem be built." There was, therefore, then in that people a spiritual custody, and the administration of the law disposed through angels was made secure. But when, the very Mediator of the law being rejected, the iniquity surrounding these walls and this custody overstepped them, then the sin itself began to be greater than the fortification, so that iniquity overcame the will of the custody, with usury and deceit and the rest of the things forbidden in the law overflowing. And showing the indignation of so great an iniquity, He added: "For if my enemy had reproached me,
I would surely have borne it; and if he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would surely have hidden myself from him. But thou, O man of one mind, my leader and my familiar friend, who together with me didst take sweet food. In the house of God we walked with concord." The complaint is not about the Passion, but about the betraying apostle. For since He bestowed salvation upon the human race by the death of the cross He had undertaken, this mystery of great piety cannot seem to censure. For assuredly, if it were an enemy, there would be no cause for complaint, since that would be consummated in Him which He Himself had willed to endure for our salvation;
just as, if one hating Him had spoken great things against Him, He would have hidden Himself from him, because God would not have been known to him in the man, and on that account there would have been less of crime for one ignorant — for the Gentiles did not learn by a law foretelling to them that the Word was made flesh, which indeed even by their very deeds was fitted, as a figure of the truth to come, for those who are under the law, when Abraham both adored a man and Jacob saw God in a man —; He would surely have borne these reproaches of the Gentiles, that, being a man, He made Himself God, that, having a demon, He seduced the people, because they would have been ignorant that all these things were contained in the law which was given to Israel. Nevertheless, since one of one mind and a leader and a familiar friend does these things — of one mind, since he was chosen to the apostolate;
a leader, since, when the Lord tarried, he himself was sent ahead to the villages for the preaching of His coming, and was appointed by Him leader and prince of the coming kingdom; and a familiar friend, since he had learned and known all His comings in and goings out, both in the Son of Man and the Son of God, and had also been a partaker in the changing of water into wine and in the making sweet of barley into food for the people, and had used the same banquet, and had ever entered with Him into the house of God —: he exhibited, in this fellowship of the divine ministry assumed, a greater ground of complaint concerning himself. But although these things were spoken specially against his impiety, nevertheless the decree of punishment is referred to the many.
"Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into hell, for wickedness is in their dwellings, in the midst of them": so that death shall come upon them in such a way that they go down alive into hell unto the sense of punishment, when in their dwellings and in the midst of them, that is, when the works of wickedness surround their whole selves within and without. But to those acting and devising these things, He showed to whom His hope and His prayer belonged, saying: "I have cried to the Lord, and the Lord hath heard me. Evening and morning and at noon I will declare and recount: and He shall hear my voice. He hath delivered my soul in peace from those who draw near to me, for they were with me among many. And God shall hear me; and He that is before the ages shall humble them."
The Lord soon heard the faithful cry, and he will tell of this very thanksgiving for his cry being heard 'in the evening and in the morning and at noon' (Ps. 54:18), showing the whole day in these its parts by which a day is comprised. But such an ordering of the times is not arranged except from prophetic knowledge, that he should proclaim 'in the evening and in the morning and at noon,' because according to the Law and the observance of the Law the day, once begun from evening, is reckoned as one and the same right up to noon, since it is not the light restored at morning but the night fallen at evening that completes the beginning of the day. He tells, therefore, and reports those things which are contained in the psalm: that he will hear his voice and deliver his soul in peace — for he has 'made peace for all things in heaven and on earth' (Col. 1:20) — and deliver it from those drawing near to him.
For the preceding complaint concerned those near to him, since even one of one mind, a leader and an acquaintance, did these things together with the other apostles, being himself also chosen into the apostolate. 'God therefore, who is before the ages' (cf. Ps. 54:20), that is, through whom are all things — because he is before all things — 'shall hear him and shall humble them,' since they were made unworthy of the glory of the eternal resurrection. For with the diapsalma interposed, he cut off from these all hope on account of their impenitent profession of impiety, saying: 'For there is no change with them, and they have not feared' (Ps. 54:20). All, according to the Apostle, shall rise again, but not all shall be changed, because they have not feared God.
For it would have been right, though ignorant, at least to have believed God in the man who rose again, God from the dead, since even after the guilt of the passion repentance and pardon lay open to them. For not only did they not fear God, but when he had stretched out his hand to requite them — that is, had offered them aid — 'they defiled his covenant' (cf. Ps. 54:21), when they thrust away him who by the covenant of the Law had been foretold unto salvation. For there follows: 'He stretched out his hand in requiting. They defiled his covenant: they were divided by the wrath of his countenance' (Ps. 54:21-22). And therefore no change was left them, because he who died once for sin and rose again granted the gift of change to those alone who both died together with him through faith and shall rise again.
But these, in the wrath of his countenance, when the city was overthrown, he divided, and setting a portion of them with the unbelievers, he either scattered them into all places or divided them from the saints. Thereafter, from the general complaint the discourse turned to the signifying of him who had been both a leader and of one mind and an acquaintance: 'And his heart drew near. His words were softened above oil, and they themselves are darts' (Ps. 54:22). Mingled among the apostles and taking care of the poor — caring, that is, for the greatest work of the ministry — 'his heart drew near' — for he gave thanks that his soul was delivered from those drawing near — drawing near, to be sure, not to the ministry of faith, but to the wrath of God and the defiling of his covenant.
For the rest, he himself, a smooth-tongued man, with speech softened above oil, deceitfully pretended to care for the poor even then, when he complained at the alabaster jar of precious ointment poured out, as though it ought rather to have been sold for the use of the needy. But he was seeking an occasion of theft from the contribution of the money. And the prophet in another psalm shuns the oil of such smooth-tongued theft, when he says: 'Let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head' (Ps. 140:5), because under the appearance of a good work he stirs up the weapons of malice. But there are also darts in words, just as 'their teeth are a shield and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword' (cf. Ps. 56:5). These, then, are the darts of words that he detests, which are the more harmful under flattery and adulation.
But amid these darts of the enemy he remains undismayed, and shows us a haven of security, safe and trusty. For there follows: 'Cast thy thought upon God, and he himself will nourish thee: he will not give the just man to fluctuation forever' (Ps. 54:23). The Lord too, in the Gospels, took away from us the necessity of anxiety, saying: 'Be not solicitous for the morrow; sufficient for the day is its own evil' (Matt. 6:34). 'Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all things shall be supplied unto you' (Matt. 6:33): namely, that all our care is to be placed on meriting the kingdom of God and his justice. Care, therefore, is to be cast upon him: for he himself will nourish, according to that: 'He hath nourished me upon the water of refreshment' (Ps. 22:2).
And nourishing us, he will not leave us in the waves of this world, just as Jacob, having been nourished, escaped every tempest both of hatreds and of harsh servitude, saying: 'God, who hath nourished me from my youth' (Gen. 48:15). For he himself is the author of life, he himself the bestower of food, not only earthly but also spiritual. But when that one has been reared upon the water of refreshment and delivered from the waves of the storm, a fitting punishment follows the impious, when he says: 'But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction. Men of blood and of deceit shall not live out half their days: but I will hope in thee, O Lord' (Ps. 54:24). There is indeed a well of living water; but there is also a pit of destruction, according to that:
'Let not the tempest of water drown me, nor the deep swallow me up, nor the pit shut her mouth upon me' (Ps. 68:16). The just man, therefore, being not left in fluctuation, they shall be brought down into that pit of destruction whose mouth could not be shut upon the only-begotten God rising again from the lower regions. For the rest, immediately after the Lord's passion the victory of war destroyed them together with the ruin of the city: every age indiscriminately being slain to satisfy the victors, the young laid low with the days of life not halved but ended. But full days are reserved for the saints and the faithful, according to that: 'And full days shall be found in them whose hope is ever in the Lord: who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen.' Psalm 55.
'Unto the end, for the people who were made far from the saints, David for the inscription of the title, when the aliens held him in Geth. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for man hath trodden me down: fighting all the day he hath afflicted me; my enemies have trodden me down all the day' (Ps. 55:1-3), and the rest. The superscription of the psalm comprises many things which, apart from the record of the deeds done, intimate the sense of another understanding: since the psalm is 'for the people who is far from the saints,' since the inscription of a title is set before it, since finally the very opening is inscribed 'unto the end.' For if the present discourse were to sing only that one complaint — that David, while fleeing, was held by the aliens in Geth — the whole movement of the iniquity here rebuked would be exerted about that alone.
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atuerocumhaecantereigestaesignificationemadinbuendumlegentissensumdirigendumqueprs'latasint, sinedubiointellegimusperrerumgestarum, quaeinDauidgerebantur, effectusinpriminobissecundumspiritumprophetiaeearumrerum, quaesubhispraescriptionibussignificataesunt, notionem: ut, quodDauidpassusest, praefiguratiofueritpassionumdomininostriIesuChristi: ut. quodtituliinscriptioest, eius, quimoriendouicerit, significatauideaturaeternitas, quiatituliinscriptio, quamστηλογοαϕίαsermograecitatisenuntiat, hismaxime, quiprobabilemuitamdegentesetiamprosalutepatriaemoribellonontimuerint, adaeternitatisgloriamdeferatur.
But since these things were set forth before the signification of the deed done, for imbuing and directing the sense of the reader, without doubt we understand that through the effects of the deeds done which were enacted in David there is impressed upon us, according to the spirit of prophecy, the notion of those things which are signified under these prescriptions: so that what David suffered was a prefiguration of the passions of our Lord Jesus Christ; so that what is 'the inscription of the title' may seem to signify the eternity of him who by dying conquered — because the inscription of a title, which the Greek tongue calls stelographia, is conferred, unto the glory of eternity, especially upon those who, living an approved life, have not feared even to die in war for the salvation of their homeland.