since both through the security of eternity death itself is a confidence in the God who dies, and the authors of human death—since even in Himself, through the heart of Judas seized by Satan, they are the authors of death—He triumphs over from the dead, so that neither should they be absent from the penalty of death, when the Eternal One had subjected Himself even to the weakness of death, and they should receive, as authors, all the penalty of human death, since the authors of death had existed against the Lord of eternity through that which is 'the Word was made flesh.' These things indeed the apostle says thus. But the prophet, though in brief words, embraced these same things by words signifying the same understanding. For where he had shown the Lord in the going forth from death, he added:
Nevertheless He shattered the heads of His enemies, the crown of the hair of those who walk on in their transgressions. For the principalities and powers, in which the heads of the enemies are signified, He made a show. These, therefore, He shatters in the going forth from death; whose spiritual wickedness and nature He teaches in that they walk over the crown of the hair, since both they press upon the heads of men as though lording it, and, as spiritual wickednesses, without the awareness of those upon whom they press, they trample upon that very crown of the hair; because indeed the bodies themselves, without their being aware of the approach, they slip through and penetrate even unto the seat of the soul and mind. For they are the powers of this air;
and therefore they walk over the crown of the hair, either by the lightness of their pressing or by the power of dominating, and, ranging through the whole world at every single moment. But these things they accomplish in their own transgressions, since to each one, in that wherein he sins, they are the authors, according to that saying of the apostle: God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and of sin condemned sin in the flesh; since He condemns in their flesh the cause and beginning of sin from that very thing, that they sin in their own flesh by the instinct of treachery—that is, out of the sin of the flesh He condemns sin in the flesh. The prophetic word, therefore, holds the order of the divine dispensation and declares, by those very works of the Law, that the works of the Gospels were foreshadowed through the Law.
For many things are often so expressed and set forth through the properties of names, that they were expended not so much for things to be done in the present as for things to be signified in the future: as now, after such great and such manifest preachings of gospel hope, the subjoined order of the words brings to us something loftier and beyond the sense of the ears: The Lord said: I will turn from Basan, I will turn into the depth of the sea. For this seems to have been a word of the Lord, when He was turned to divide the sea for a way and to display His wrath against Pharaoh. But did the Law teach that He was turned from Basan? Not at all. Basan indeed is a city of a formerly hostile kingdom, which was the dwelling of King Og; but the interpretation of the name signifies shame and confusion.
It can indeed seem that from the shame of the people serving in Egypt—when, oppressed by Pharaoh, it had lost that very liberty of preserving and rearing its race—God was turned into the depth of the sea, that is, unto the magnificence of liberating His people. But he who, in the psalm next to this one, said: Save me, O God, for the waters have entered even unto my soul; I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no standing;
I have come into the depth of the sea, and the tempest has overwhelmed me—He is not to be doubted, after the shame of the human body (since those very origins of our bodies and elements are shameful), to have been turned into this sea, that is, into this tempest of the age, so that, subjected even unto the shamefacedness of the utmost confusion, being subjected to the death of the cross, He might through it shatter in Himself the heads of the enemies—rendering, namely, all the spiritual wickednesses and powers and principalities of this air a spectacle, He might triumph, when, after He Himself had both suffered and died, He destined them to eternal punishment.
For this reason, therefore, He is to be understood as turned into the depth of the sea, that is, to have descended even unto the last passions of the age, so that, trampling the heads of the enemies, He might exercise the vengeance of the divine power. This same thing the following word seems to embrace, when it is said: that thy foot may be dipped in blood; the tongue of thy dogs from the enemies, from Him. But the wrath of divine vengeance is signified under the example of human retribution. For He was turned from Basan into the depth of the sea for this reason: that the foot might be dipped in blood, and that from that very blood which is from the enemies the tongue of the dogs also might be dipped. And these things are wont to befall all who are consumed in war and destroyed in captivity and punished according to the will and vengeance of the victors.
Therefore, according to the custom of human usage, as I have said, when the sword, when the bow, when the arrow, when the spear, when the remaining weapons of punishments and deaths are mentioned, the offices of divine severity are signified. And these things indeed all befell the Jews after the cross and death of the Lord, when, captured by the Romans, they endured every kind of torment and misery, so that the feet were dipped in the blood of the slain and the tongue of the dogs was sated. But this is no less to be referred to the punishment and damnation of those who, made a spectacle, are triumphed over with confidence. And because under these things which were fulfilled among the people of Judea in the times of the Law, the salvation of nearly all the nations was begun as an image of the mercy to come, so that through that
which was then done, that also which was to be done afterward might be taught—since the very ones among whom those things were then done, both the overshadowing of the cloud, and the way through the sea, and the manna as spiritual food, and the spiritual drink from the rock, enclosed in gospel hope and faith—now too, as always, in these very things a connection of the New and Old Testament has been made through the prophet, when he says: Thy ways, O God, have been seen, the ways of my God, the King who is in the holy place. The princes went before, joined to those singing psalms in the midst of the young maidens playing timbrels. In the churches bless ye the Lord from the fountains of Israel. There is Benjamin the younger in awe, the princes of Judah their leaders, the princes of Zabulon, the princes of Nephthalim.
The ways of God indeed were seen, when, the waters being forced into ice, He going before in a pillar of fire and cloud, the way was dried up for the people, when in the midst of the maidens playing timbrels the young men singing psalms gloriously sang of the Lord glorified. But we also know other ways of the King in the holy place, when, the heavenly powers and the souls of the saints going before on His way, in that psalm which is the psalm of the first day of the week it is sung: Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates, and the King of glory shall enter in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of powers, He is the King of glory. And these too, then, are the ways of our God and King seen in the holy place, when such great joys of the heavenly assemblies go before His entrance.
But because the things that had been prefigured beforehand in Pharaoh and in Israel were brought to fulfillment in the overthrow of the devil and his own, and in the salvation of all peoples, the prophet exhorts us not to the confession of the synagogue but to the blessing of the Church, that he might strengthen those to whom the ways of God and the King in the holy place had appeared, saying: 'In the churches bless the Lord from the fountains of Israel.' By this he recalls that the teaching of the Church has flowed down from the beginnings of the Law and from the foreshadowing of its deeds. And lest any ambiguity should arise for the churches that bless, he shows who was to be the greatest herald of the evangelical hope, saying: 'There is Benjamin the younger in a trance' — meaning that in the fountains of the Church Benjamin the younger would remain in a trance;
For after the overwhelming of that trance, Paul, of the tribe of Benjamin, was chosen unto the Gospel of Christ, dividing at evening unto salvation the flesh devoured in the morning. He also shows the other princes of Judah, that they might not be unknown — that is, those who were to be chosen by Him who, from the shoot of Judah, was to be the expectation of the nations — revealing them: 'the princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali.' For from these tribes, as the Gospels declare, the choosing of the apostles began, showing that these were the princes of those who were to be gathered in the churches. For although according to the Law princes were appointed for each of the several peoples out of all the tribes,
yet now, when the princes of the evangelical dispensation were being declared, only the names of those tribes were mentioned out of which they were to be called. For when a great light had arisen in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali after the shadow of death, fishers of men were established from among them. Therefore that alone was recorded under the significance of prophecy, out of that whole company of princes, which was to be fulfilled for the confirmation of the Gospel by the very effects of things and by the choosing of the apostles. And because they are held by the hope of so great an expectation — for it is not doubtful that all the saints and prophets longed with heavenly desire for the time of evangelical blessedness, since the Lord says:
'Amen I say to you, that many prophets and holy men desired to see the things which you see, and to hear the things which you hear' — he prays that what he so greatly longs for may be accomplished, saying: 'Command, O God, thy power; strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought in us. From thy temple in Jerusalem kings shall offer thee gifts.' He distinguishes the meaning of the understanding, lest anything confused or ambiguous should creep in, in that he says: 'Command, O God, thy power.' For this he spoke contrary to human sense and the practice of natural custom. For no one seems to command anything to his own power, since through it there dwells the effect of an inward capacity; and since all things are done by power, it is not supposed that anything is usually commanded to power itself to be done.
But indeed the Power of God and the Wisdom of God is the Lord Jesus Christ, who also received from the Father the commandment of laying down His soul and taking it up again. Therefore it does not seem to be said contrary to the sense of common understanding, but rather it was set down by the property of prophetic knowledge, that God should command His own Power — that is, the only-begotten God, who is also the Power of God. Furthermore, since no new and sudden contrivance falls upon God, whose knowledge the things to be done do not escape — for His nature has already embraced, by the power of His might, the whole of what shall be — the prophet now asks that that be confirmed which the same God has already wrought in us, according to that saying of the Apostle:
'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ: in whom also He chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in Him.' God therefore, who according to the prophet made the things that are to come, confirmed in the Lord those things which He had already wrought in us before the foundation of the world, by the ordaining of the things to be done. And what that is, the order of the words presently continues: 'From thy temple in Jerusalem kings shall offer thee gifts.' The temple is in Jerusalem, in which the lawful offerings of victims were made; but now from the temple in Jerusalem gifts are to be offered by kings.
This indeed is contrary to the significance of the places and the reason of the deeds, that gifts should be offered from thence whither it were rather fitting that they be brought in — that is, from the temple. But because that heavenly Jerusalem is our mother, and the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled and who resort together, and every one reborn in Christ is a temple of God — chiefly the one in which death shall not the more reign, but life, and who is himself king of that of which he had before been the servant, namely of sin — offering himself a living victim, reasonable and pleasing to God:
then therefore from this temple, that is, from this holy dwelling of his own body, in that assembly of the resorting angels — that is, in that heavenly Jerusalem — if there be any kings, that is, those who no longer serve sin, they shall offer themselves to God as a gift. And because carnal Israel, while claiming for itself alone God's special mercy, seems to assert that it belongs to it alone to defend it, the prophet presently subjoins: 'Rebuke the wild beasts of the forest, the assembly of bulls among the cows of the peoples; that those who have been proved by silver may not be excluded: scatter the nations that desire war.' That cows were worshipped in Samaria is known from the books.
But that the princes of that people are now no longer princes of a people, but leaders of herds, is a prophetic word, when it is said in the person of the Lord: 'Fat bulls have beset me.' As for the wild beasts of the forest, they are to be understood as signifying spiritual wickednesses, of those who walk in their sins above the crown of the hair, according to that: 'The boar out of the wood hath laid it waste, and a solitary wild beast hath devoured it.' In which place both the savagery and the might of the very prince of this world, that is, of Satan, is signified. This therefore the prophet now demands: that God should rebuke either these wild beasts of the forests, or this assembly of bulls among the cows of the peoples, lest those who have been proved by silver be excluded.
Now those proved by silver are they who, purified according to silver and refined by the fire of all passions, now shine spotless and without admixture of any earthly filth. For since the prophetic word most often rebukes the faith of the nations and the wicked will of this exasperating people, and since salvation from God has now become known unto all and through all, and this is known from the knowledge of God's dispensation, then, when the impiety of the people has been reproached, all the saints are called into the hope of the heavenly kingdom. For He is not the God of the Jews only, is He not also of the nations? Yea, of the nations also: for there is one God, who justifieth circumcision by faith and uncircumcision through faith.
Therefore, after these princes, being rebuked, deserved to be princes of Sodom and princes of Gomorrah, then the knowledge and understanding of God flowed down to the nations, and now they are no longer held within error nor the contradiction of ignorance. But by the rebuking of the wild beasts of the forests, the assemblies of the bulls, and the cows of the peoples, He condemns those who still strive to contend with perpetual hatreds of unbelief against the hope and salvation of the nations, saying: 'Scatter the nations that desire war.' For the Lord made peace over all things in heaven and on earth, and according to the Apostle, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
Therefore He announces the scattering of those nations which refuse the covenant of heavenly peace and rather desire the wars of dissensions, yet under the gathering together of the diverse nations. For, in order to preserve and join together the whole meaning, when the assemblies of the bulls and the wild beasts of the forests and the war-desiring nations have been rebuked and scattered, lest Israel, arrogating anything further to itself, and being impious, should presume, He subjoined: 'Legates shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hand first unto God. Ye kingdoms of the earth, sing to God, sing psalms to the Lord.' And these things have been fulfilled, whether by those coming from the East, or then, when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles in the manner of divided fire.
For there it is written that even from Egypt they came together unto the knowledge of the evangelical preaching, and as by legates announcing the greatness of the divine gift, well-nigh all Egypt is now faithful. Ethiopia indeed, in the eunuch of Candace, anticipated by the confession of faith; and 'with her hand,' inasmuch as he himself demanded for himself the grace of baptism, saying: 'Behold, water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?' — anticipating the very sacrament of baptism with such eagerness of impatient desire, that, in his craving for his own salvation, he required of the deacon the ministry of the apostolic office.
And because from thenceforth the preaching of the divine knowledge shone forth through well-nigh all the nations — since all kingdoms also, though late, are to understand the Lord Christ to be God, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father — he desires earnestly the consummation of this age, saying: 'Ye kingdoms of the earth, sing to God, sing psalms to the Lord.' He exhorts all, that is, to sing and make melody to God, whether because with prophetic solicitude he rejoices at the salvation of all, or because eternity succeeds unto the heavenly kingdom for all kingdoms that come to know God. And, as he is wont in the rest, so now also he shows to whom, as God and Lord, one must sing and make melody, saying: 'Sing psalms to God, who ascendeth above the heaven of heaven unto the East;'
'behold, He shall give His voice, a voice of power.' Fittingly now is the honor of God demanded, as He ascends above the heaven of heaven unto the East: so that, because His humility had been signified above, when He ascends above the setting or goes forth by the exit of death, now, where He is made known to have passed beyond not heaven, but the heaven of heaven, the eternity of His divinity and magnificence might not be unknown. And unto the East for this reason, because He Himself, according to the prophet, is the Dayspring from on high, so that, returning to that place from which He had descended as the Dayspring, He might be known, and He Himself might again be for men the author of rising unto this ascent of the heavenly seat. For the following word signifies this very thing, when it is said: 'Behold, He shall give His voice, a voice of power.'
In all things indeed whatsoever He did while abiding in the body, He gave the voice of power: when He says to the paralytic, 'Arise and walk'; when He calls Lazarus from the tomb; when He says to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Whatsoever ye shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven.' This is plainly the voice of power, to grant such great ability to human infirmity. But we know that there yet remains another voice of power, of which He Himself testified, saying: 'Amen, amen, I say unto you, that the hour cometh, and now is, in which the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.'
Can there be any other voice of power greater than this, to compel the dust of dissolved bodies into shape and into the solidity of members, and to recall lives again into men and souls, and to change the corruption of a feeble nature into the incorruption of a heavenly nature? This is the true and perfect constancy of human hope, this is the perfect goodness of divine magnificence. On account of which He exhorts all men to the honor of this so great power, saying:
'Give honor to God,' that we may render the praise of the immortality we have received unto the honor of Him who is the parent of so great a gift to us. Thereafter, lest either carnal Israel or the whole company of the impious nations should presume for itself from these merits of piety and knowledge of God — namely, by whom this honor was to be rendered to God — He shows, saying: 'Over Israel is His magnificence, and His power is in the clouds' — demonstrating that His magnificence shall be over that Israel which now, by comparison with the clouds, has become spiritual, or which, according to the Apostle, is counted worthy to be caught up to meet Christ in the clouds.
And therefore His power is in the clouds, because for those who, living beyond their earthly origin and mortal state, have raised themselves up into a heavenly sense and, so to speak, an aerial life, and being lifted up have stood to meet Him in the clouds, it is proper to rejoice in the power and magnificence of God. And frequently He makes mention that it was commanded to these very clouds, as being perfected in reason and knowledge, that they should not rain upon the impious vineyard of Israel: because those had shown themselves unworthy of the holy word, whom already thorns and briers, that is, earthly vices, had beset. For although the voice of power must be used for all unto the new origin of resurrection, yet not for all is the same glorious honor of resurrection prepared, the Lord saying:
'Marvel not at this, for the hour cometh in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice: and they shall come forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.' And therefore over that Israel is the magnificence and power of God, which was to be in the clouds, because, according to the distinction between innocent and impious life, the diversity of resurrection is divided either unto life or unto judgment. Then the following word designates this very thing, saying: 'God is wonderful in His saints' — wonderful, that is, in those whom He shall raise up eternal unto the resurrection of life.
And He is wonderful, when He confers upon them the whole will of His beneficence, when He shall place them within the perfection of heavenly glory, even as He prayed to the Father for them, saying: 'Father, I will that where I am, these also may be with me'; or that other: 'that all may be one, I in them and thou in me.' Wonderful therefore is God in His saints, whom, when He shall have made conformed to the glory of His body, He shall take up through Himself, who is the Mediator, even into the unity of the Father's majesty — since both the Father is in Him by nature, and He again by the fellowship of the flesh is in us; whom He shall place to obtain the kingdom prepared for them before the foundation of the world, to whom, death being swallowed up, He shall have rendered immortal and eternal life.
For no longer shall change and toil be endured through the growth of bodies and the nourishment of food and the infirmity and mischances of human life, but eternity shall be granted to all — an eternity which, containing itself by the power of its own nature, that is, which nourishes and preserves itself; and all shall be certain that they will be everlasting, no longer held to life from elsewhere, that is, not from without, but from God, through whom they have risen, and shall remain immortal and eternal. And therefore with such a faith of confession the prophet concluded these sacraments of human hope: 'God is wonderful in His saints; the God of Israel Himself shall give power and strength to His people; blessed be God.'
God therefore gives power and strength to His people, which, being made immortal, may contain within itself life and power, and, the body being despoiled, may be clothed over with heavenly honor, so that, all corruption and infirmity being driven away, it may bless God with the praise of its own eternity, through His only-begotten and first-begotten God and our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 68. Unto the end, for them that shall be changed, a psalm of David himself. Save me, O God, for the waters are come in even unto my soul, and the rest. This is the third psalm for those who shall be changed;
which, although it comprehends nothing under the commemoration of history, as we discussed to be the case in the fifty-ninth, nor has set forth anything proper in the superscription, as in the forty-fourth, where a canticle for the Beloved is prefixed, yet in this — that it is prescribed as a psalm not of that David, but to that David, unto the end — the prophecy is rather to be understood as fitting that David who is both the Dayspring and the Just One and the end of the Law. For by this it is taught that the psalm was sung not by him, but in him.
And by those 'who shall be changed' we have taught that the faithful of the evangelical hope are signified, who, being changed from the observance of the Law or from Gentile impiety unto the knowledge of God, as though reborn, flourish in the brightness of incorrupt eternity; which very thing shall be treated at the end of the psalm. But it is not doubted that this psalm itself contains the sacrament of the Lord's passion. For besides John the apostle, who testified that the consummation of the Scriptures stood in the drinking of vinegar, and also this saying that was cited by the same under the recollection of the apostles — 'The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up' — takes away ambiguity and confirms that all things are to be referred as spoken and done concerning Him.
Having therefore passed through the lot of all human sufferings according to the infirmities He assumed of ours, He speaks; and He Himself indeed grieves, being set beyond the necessity both of fear and of grief, yet accommodating Himself to those things which He assumed; so that He who was born a man of our flesh might speak both with the complaints of our sorrows and with the prayer of infirmity. He began thus, then: 'Save me, O God, for the waters are come in even unto my soul. I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no substance.' Death, appointed upon all, prescribes to all the end of living. And what now does this prayer mean, which prays that it may be saved, since the law of death is appointed upon all?
Thereafter, the reason for now praying for salvation is this: because the waters are come in even unto the soul; and the means for the waters to come in unto the soul is from this, that He is stuck fast in the mire of the deep; and for one fixed in the mire of the deep there is no substance. Therefore, because no one prays except for what he hopes — and no one hopes that he will not die — such is deservedly the prayer of Him who, though about to die, was not to be held by death. The assumed infirmity therefore had the office of praying for salvation, but the consciousness of divinity held the hope of a salvation to be hoped for in death. He prays therefore to be saved, who also said: 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'
For as the waters came in even unto the soul, He was made subject to the death of the cross, when the onslaught of all the passions broke through even unto the death of the soul. And that by waters are wont to be signified the assaults of the people and the tumults of the nations is not doubtful, when it is said: 'My soul hath passed through a torrent,' or that: 'and my soul hath passed through immeasurable water.' There are also waters that undermine the house built on sand and drive it to its fall and ruin. These waters therefore, now entering even unto the soul, compelled Him to the prayer of praying for salvation. But of these incoming passions, the force and the power is from no other source than from the assumption of the flesh.
For this terror of our infirmities was not able to fall upon God, nor could the passions exert themselves except in the flesh of our body, as in an underlying material. Moreover, the heavenly nature had to be drained, so that, emptying itself out of the form of God, it might descend into the form of a servant and of a man. And therefore the waters penetrate even unto the soul, because there is no substance for Him who is stuck fast in the mire of the deep. Not indeed that that substance did not exist which was held as assumed, but that which, emptying itself, had drained itself away. Yet in no way did He lack Himself, who emptied Himself by voiding; nor yet did that very thing seem to exist, which He had already, by emptying Himself, yielded into another form. There is therefore no substance by this, that He is stuck fast in the mire of the deep.