The rest of which time the Lord, prefiguring it beforehand in the desert for his people, tempered the daytime heat with a pillar of cloud, and the nighttime cold and darkness with a pillar of fire. In this eternal and blessed temperance of times, therefore, whoever shall have merited the Lord's guardianship will remain, so that the nature of his body may not be burned by the frost of the moon and the heat of the sun, but, freed from the evils and injuries of this world, resting in things eternal and blessed and temperate, may take up the solid and immutable nature of his glorified body. There then follows: 'The Lord shall keep thee from all evil.' And from what evils shall the Lord keep? Not, I think, from those that are commonly reckoned: for these are due to our weakness and body—to die, to be sick, to be in want;
which, if they were evils, both Abel would be alive, and Job would not have been tormented, nor would Peter have been in want of the money which he was asked to give as alms. Therefore the Lord keeps the faithful soul from all evil, that is, lest the moth of the devil corrupt it, lest the thief creep in, lest the dog bark, lest the wolf tear, lest the bear rage, lest the leopard leap upon it, lest the tiger fly at it, lest the lion lay it waste. For these are now the ministries of the devil, these are all his offices in the time of this world—to consume with vices, to steal in with flatteries, to tear with disparagements, to leap upon with ambition, to fly upon with wantonness, and with the whole power of his strength to lay waste. From all this evil, therefore, the guardianship of God is to be awaited.
And because it rages especially against the soul—for it is our duty to fight against it in the body, since there is no victory except from contest—therefore it follows: 'The Lord shall keep thy soul,' lest there be any power over it from those so many and so great evils mentioned above. And the prophetic discourse kept its order, saying: 'The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth and even for evermore.' For this guardianship is not of this time and world—not to be burned by sun and moon and to be preserved from all evil;
but it is the expectation of the good to come, when, going out of the body, all the faithful shall be reserved through the Lord's guardianship for that entrance into the heavenly kingdom, being placed meanwhile in the bosom of Abraham, whither the intervening chasm forbids the impious to approach, until the time comes for entering again into the kingdom of heaven. The Lord shall therefore keep the going out, while, going out of the body, they may rest secluded from the impious by the intervening chasm. He shall keep also the coming in, while he brings us into that eternal and blessed kingdom. For he it is who says: 'I am the door'; and: 'No one goes to the Father except through me'—that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. A Song of Ascents. 'I rejoiced in those things which were said to me:
we shall go into the house of the Lord.' He who is held by the hope of heavenly desire will find nothing obscure in the psalm; for from his own perception he will attain the understanding of the prophecy's grand eloquence, since he remembers that it is written that he is a co-heir of God and a partaker of eternal goods, and to be renewed like the angels through the resurrection, and, corruption laid aside, to be conformed to the glory of the body of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to be a future dweller of the heavenly city built of living stones—of which it is written in the Gospel, when the Lord had forbidden swearing by heaven, saying:
'nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King'—by no means signifying that city which kills and stones the prophets, but that one of which the blessed Apostle Paul thus makes mention: 'You are fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles'—and when he has read that the things which now are exist only in part, and that we see meanwhile through a mirror and in an enigma, but that, when the perfect comes, those things which now are in part are to be destroyed, and that we shall contemplate face to face, as by a bodily sight, those things which shall then be visible to us, where there is no sickness, no death, no sadness, no terror:
—when anyone shall have recognized these things, announced by the angels, prefigured in the law, expounded by the prophets, represented by the Lord in examples, preached by the apostles, and shall have known these same things possible for himself through faith, he must needs cry out after the example of the prophet: 'I rejoiced in those things which were said to me.' But what are those things which were said, from which joy was received? Surely that which follows: 'We shall go into the house of the Lord.' Hence there is joy, hence there is exultation, because these things were said, that one must go into the house of the Lord. What the house of the Lord is, another psalm has taught, saying: 'For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has chosen her before for a habitation for himself. This is my rest unto the ages of ages; here will I dwell, for I have chosen her':
by no means, as we have said, this earthly and perishable one, paying the penalties of its impiety, but that free and heavenly Jerusalem—since the same is also Zion—through whose indwelling, because it is the house of God, we too are fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God. Hence, therefore, there is joy, that it was said we shall go into the house of the Lord. But who are they who said these things? Lest perhaps they be ignorant, or be pilgrims away from that same house into which they announce that we shall go; but they say: 'Our feet were standing in the courts of Jerusalem.' They announce nothing uncertain, they promise nothing unknown. This house, desirable and beloved, we have recognized from many. For Scripture says:
'One thing have I asked of the Lord, this will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may see the will of the Lord and visit his temple'; and again: 'O Lord, I have loved the beauty of thy house, and the place of the tabernacle of thy glory.' This is the desirable house; this is the joyful report—that living stones, cut out first for the work of building by Moses in the law, by the prophets in their sufferings, by the Lord in his body, by the apostles in their martyrdoms, by the Holy Spirit in the virtues, are built up upon a foundation of twelve living gems. These are the builders, these the buildings, this the city. Hence the feet standing in its courts—the keepers, namely, to whom the keys of this house have been given—for it was said:
'To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven'—the blessed feet, announcing the aspect of the house to those who know it not, and rightly praised by the prophet: 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good tidings of peace.' And lest anything of these things should be thought to agree with that Jerusalem which was earthly, this followed: 'Jerusalem, which is built as a city.' Not 'a city,' but 'as a city'; because that building of the earthly city and the construction of the temple and the establishment of the tabernacle prefigured the aspect of that eternal and heavenly city. And because throughout all time and even to the consummation of the world and through the age of all generations the building of this heavenly city is to be completed, therefore it signifies that it is built without any limit of time, saying:
It is built up as a city, until, as the Apostle says, the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, and then that which remains of Israel shall be saved. But because the body of the Church is one, not commingled by any confusion of bodies nor united as individuals into an undivided heap and shapeless pile, but joined through the unity of faith, through the fellowship of charity, through concord of works and of will, through the one gift of the sacrament in all men, we are all one; and to this Paul exhorts us, saying: 'I beseech you, brethren, that you all be of the same mind, showing forth the same charity'; and when it shall come to pass, as it is written:
'Now the multitude of those who believed had but one heart and one soul,' then we shall be the city of God, then the holy Jerusalem, because Jerusalem is built up as a city whose participation is in unity itself. But those who dissent from the assembly of the saints and separate themselves from the body of the Church by their sins, their pride, their quarrels, have no participation in this holy house, because the participation of this city is in unity itself. For by the fellowship of the perfect city those who are of one mind cannot have their participation in what is diverse, but in unity itself. All therefore who shall be one shall be in it. And the Psalm is a witness, for it says: 'Thither the tribes went up, the tribes': not one, but many.
But perhaps the city will seem to be built up by all men without exception, since among the tribes there named no exception is made, and there will be a common entrance into this house even for peoples that know not the Lord? But Scripture does not permit this to be so understood, for it adds to what it had said, 'Thither the tribes went up,' the words 'the tribes of the Lord.' For there are some who are not of the Lord, to whom it was said, 'You are of the devil'; and again, 'Depart, you cursed, into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' Therefore the tribes which shall be of the Lord shall go up. But perhaps Israel will claim this as owed to him, that is, the Israel that is after the letter and not after the spirit, that is carnal and not heavenly, that crucifies the Lord and does not adore Him?
But from this hope he is repelled. For 'thither the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, as a testimony to Israel': not the tribes of Israel as a testimony to the Gentiles, but the tribes of the Lord as a testimony to Israel. For the tribes of the Lord said: 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us His way, and we will walk in it. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem.' For going forth out of Jerusalem, the word of the Lord came to the Gentiles. These enter into the holy city, as a testimony to Israel. And to what testimony at last? 'To confess,' it says, 'to the name of the Lord.' The tribes of the Lord confess the name of the Lord. And this is the testimony to Israel.
That Israel who was vindicated by the Lord against Pharaoh, washed in the sea, fed in the desert with the food of angels, instructed in the Law, rebuked by the prophets, taken up by the Lord in His nativity through the fellowship of the body, saved on the cross if he had believed, glorified in the resurrection if he had confessed—yet he believed none of these things to be his own, he willed none of these things to remain his own. Having manna, he longed for the cucumbers of Egypt; awaiting from God the law of life, he adored a calf; hearing the prophets, he slew them; the virgin birth foretold to him he defamed; God in the flesh he refused to believe; the remitter of sin he accused as guilty of a false sin; he bought Him unto death, he lifted Him up upon the cross; the witnesses of the resurrection he corrupted into silence; the apostles he cut off by death.
As a testimony of his own crime the tribes of the Lord go up. To him was the promise made, but these obtain it. To him was the covenant, but the inheritance is theirs. This crucified One the tribes confess to be their God. In this testimony therefore Israel recognizes Him whom he pierced, and is barred from His approach, whom he did not believe to have risen. Him the archangels adore, to Him all the heavenly powers minister, He renders His tribes conformed to the glory of His own body. They confess therefore to the name of the Lord, because He is God, because He is the only-begotten Son of the unbegotten. In this testimony to Israel therefore the tribes of the Lord ascend into the house of the Lord, confessing to the name of the Lord. But this confession is a judgment. For judgment is passed by those to whom it was said:
'You shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' Not only these shall judge, but also the queen of the south shall condemn, and the Ninevites shall condemn; for these repented at the preaching of Jonah, and she, coming from the uttermost parts of the earth, heard the wisdom of Solomon: in whom there is a prefiguration of the Church, which, being a stranger and unknown, both believed unto repentance and desired to hear wisdom. Here therefore shall be the seat of judgment, where, as a testimony to Israel, the tribes of the Lord shall ascend to confess to the name of the Lord, that is, in the Church, the city of holy stones, which is the house of the Lord. For it says: 'For there the thrones were set for judgment, the thrones over the house of David.'
Now David here, as in other places, is a name for the Lord derived from His body. For Scripture, wherever it makes mention of the assuming of a body, is wont to call Him David, taking the name for Him from the parent of the flesh. But no disturbance of understanding is to be admitted from the fact that the prophet has spoken certain things as of the past; for concerning this very matter we have already given the reason often and in many places. For to God, who comprehends in Himself all future things, they are as things already done; and His foreknowledge is so faithful that things not yet accomplished are nevertheless already held by Him as both past and done.
Finally, the prophet immediately shows himself to be speaking of a matter of future time. For when he had recalled, as it were of the past, that the tribes of the Lord had gone up thither and had sat upon the seats of the house of David, now, as it were with the intent of public teaching and admonition, he gives warning for the future, saying: 'Pray for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem'; so that he might show the faith of his foreknowledge in those things which he had said were done, but might preserve the order of the times in things to be done. Its building up therefore is in peace, and its participation is in unity itself, and that house is of one mind and faith and charity. Therefore the doctrine of peace must be learned. For here 'pray' is, according to the property of the Greek, a word not of praying but of inquiring.
But to learn peace lies in the will of the hearers. For when they shall have inquired concerning its peace, then they shall rejoice to have it said to them: 'We will go into the house of the Lord.' Nor indeed is the fruit of inquired-after peace small, because this follows: 'And abundance to them that love you.' The love of peace awaits perfect fruits and hopes for an abounding plenty of happy harvests. This very thing the blessing upon Jacob, prefigured for the hope of the faithful, signifies; for he was blessed thus, when his brother's blessings were taken away: 'Behold, the smell of my son, as the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed.' A field full and fertile, yielding a hundredfold fruit, this shall abound with eternal riches. And even now indeed for the present we abound in blessed fruits.
These the sacrament of the Church and the unity of peace supply to us as a foretaste of eternal fruits. And this sacrament of the common hope has been shown by the names of bodily and common things, which those who know will understand. For of this abundance and plenty the same prophet makes mention in another psalm, saying: 'You have given gladness in my heart; from the time of their corn and wine and oil they are multiplied into unity itself.' This abundance therefore is in unity itself. For through this abundance of peace and of the sacraments that blessed and unfailing and eternal abundance of heavenly goods is prepared. Thereupon it follows: 'Let peace be in your strength, and abundance in your strong towers.' The peace and strength of this house are joined to one another.
For it will not be able to have any power except in peace, since its participation is in unity itself, and to be in unity itself follows peace alone. But their perfect strength belongs only to those who are gathered into unity itself; and therefore he says: 'Let peace be in your strengths.' Now a city must needs consist of diverse kinds of buildings. For not everything is wall, gate, tower, nor everything streets, porticoes, shops, nor houses, forum, temples, palace: but with the differing magnificences of the houses the dignities of the inhabitants also differ. But in every kind of city nothing is firmer nor more useful nor loftier than the towers. Now Scripture is wont to call heavy things firm and immovable; as where it says:
'Among a weighty people I will praise you.' Now also, when he had made mention of the peace of strength, he assigned the abundance of perfect blessedness and of this eternal city to its princes as to the firmest and weightiest, saying: 'And abundance in your weighty towers.' Above he had said: 'And abundance to them that love you'; therefore the abundance is not for all, but for those who love God. Then he added: 'Let peace be in your strength'; for the peace and unity of the Church supplies us strength and firmness, according to that saying of the Apostle: 'And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding of prudence, shall keep your hearts in Christ Jesus.' Now also he records that this abundance, which he had promised to those who love, belongs properly to the weighty towers;
signifying those to be weighty towers, whosoever should love. By which it is to be understood that this abundance is not promiscuous nor for the whole of the city at all, but only for those faithful and holy men who, like the firmness of towers, have excelled in the building up of the rest of this city. Then follows the prophet's great affection and his concern of pious admonition for every believing man. For he says: 'For the sake of my brethren and my neighbors I spoke peace concerning you; for the sake of the house of the Lord my God I sought good things for you.' By his brethren and neighbors he signifies the multitude of this city; for whose sake he spoke peace concerning it, that hearing it they might fit themselves into the building for the completion of this city.
But he who speaks peace concerning it for the sake of his brethren and kinsmen seeks good things for that same city for the sake of the house of God, saying: 'For the sake of the house of the Lord my God I sought good things for you.' For the city therefore good things were sought for the sake of the house of the Lord. For distinguishing the glory of the house of God from the whole of the city—since the adornment of the royal house must needs be preferred to the building of the whole city—he sought good things for that same city. For first his brethren and kinsmen were made, through the preaching of peace, the city of the Lord. But secondly the city itself, now constituted from his kinsmen and brethren, hearing the dignity of the house of God, hastened to be itself wholly the house of God. And thus good things were sought for this city.
As it advances from the city of the Lord into the house of God, according to that saying of the Apostle: 'You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of the Lord dwells in you.' For faithful is He who says: 'Father, I pray to You for these, that we all may be one, I in them, and You in Me'—our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. A Canticle of Degrees. 'To You have I lifted up my eyes, who dwell in heaven,' and the rest. That is effected in fact which is prescribed in the title: for by the degrees of the canticle one ascends, as it were, from lowly things to lofty. For in the first Canticle of Degrees a cry was raised to the Lord out of tribulation. Afterward the eyes were lifted up unto the mountains, and it was asked whence help should come.
Thereupon, because to him who lifts up his eyes and asks whence help may come there is present the instruction of prophetic teaching, he rejoiced in those things which were spoken to him. But now, because access has been gained even to that which the teaching had appointed, the prophet sings as from a certain step of his own advance: 'To You have I lifted up my eyes, who dwell in heaven,' having by fitting increases attained to the practice of contemplating God, as though, after much blindness, prepared through small and measured intervals of admitted light for the habit of the whole light. For God, who was first invoked in tribulation, was sought by the prophets and gladdened them by the hearing of prophecy. But now He is to be contemplated with the eyes of the mind through the confidence of faith, dwelling in heaven.
But this heaven, which lies beneath our sight through its own matter, which as it were condensed smoke has received both the nature and the name of a firmament, shall pass away and shall not be; but the seat of the Lord abides forever. And it is necessary that the dwelling be worthy of its inhabitant: and we confine within a corruptible place that which is infinite and incorruptible, if we believe God to dwell in this heaven. Let us therefore inquire what the dwelling of God is—namely of Him who said: 'The Father is in Me, and I in the Father'; and again: 'I and the Father are one'; and of whom it was said: 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself'—a worthy and sufficient Son, in whom the Father may dwell through the same power of nature;
the Father, however, not separating from Himself by any difference of divinity the Son whom He begot of Himself. But it is not now the discourse concerning the inseparable power of the Father and the Son. For God begotten of God is not by nature absent from Him of whom He must be confessed to be begotten: and the unbegotten God, begetting the only-begotten God, abides in Him whom He begot by the property of begetting. But all our hope lies in this, that we should know the only-begotten God. For concerning the unbegotten God no one is so senseless that, beholding the heaven, he does not perceive God to exist. In this heaven therefore God dwells, in a dwelling worthy of His majesty and divinity. But there is also another dwelling well-pleasing to God and chosen, namely of those concerning whom it was said:
'I will dwell in them and walk among them, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God'; concerning whom the Apostle also says: 'You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.' The same Apostle also says: 'Such as is the man of dust, such also are they that are of dust; and such as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly.' Heavenly therefore is the second Adam, and heavenly for this reason, because the Word was made flesh, a man born, namely, of the Spirit and of God. In this Word therefore—not in an empty sound of the voice, but in God the Word; nor in a substance dissenting from itself and diverse, but in the Word of God—God dwells as in heaven, that is, in that which is of Himself and His own; abiding, and through Him dwelling also in those who are heavenly, as He Himself says to the Father:
'That all may be one, I in them, and You in Me.' Therefore if we who were dust in Adam are now heavenly in Christ, and Christ is the indweller of us, then through Christ dwelling in us He also is the indweller of us, to whom the Christ dwelling in us is a dwelling. And because, according to bodily understanding, that sense underlies us, that God is thought to dwell in the heaven which is beyond the nature of this firmament, we do not exclude that common opinion concerning the seat of God, that the heaven of heaven be His throne, but believing that worthy dwelling of God to be signified also in His heavenly Adam.
This heaven also therefore God is to be known to inhabit, dwelling also through Him in those whom He has appointed to be heavenly in Him. But it behooves those who have lifted up the eyes of their mind to God not to turn them back nor to divert them, because, as it was said in the Gospels, 'no one who looks back and holds the plough is fit for the kingdom of heaven.' For leaving temples, altars, lusts, wantonness, and every depth of vices, it is fitting to persist with unwearied gaze and unconquered.
For if the Gentiles, blind in their error, are held with unchangeable obstinacy in false religions, so that they cannot be turned back from their superstitions by the reason of truth, serving with abiding folly diverse gods, as they call them; and if the soul of sinners, captured by the enticements of vices, most devotedly serves as though a body commanding it—how much more does it befit us who acknowledge God the Creator of heaven and earth, who, as He was able out of lifeless earth to animate man, so also is able to raise up unto the fellowship of eternity the man who, though animate, has died—to venerate Him without any turning aside or wandering religion, nor to divert in any point the constancy of the faith we have entered upon?
And the prophet teaches that these eyes of his mind are ever with unchangeable gaze fixed upon God, saying: 'Behold, as the eyes of servants are upon the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of the handmaid upon the hands of her mistress: so are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy upon us.' The prophet set forth examples and a comparison, so that, just as the eyes of servants are upon the hands of their masters, so too the eyes of his faith may be intent upon God: because the faithful servant is attentive to every obedience of his master's will and ever keeps his eyes unturned. But if the discourse were about bodily servants and masters, it would have been said thus, that the eyes of servants are upon the eyes or upon the tongue or in the sight of their masters; for command is given either by a nod or by the mouth.
But Scripture frequently signifies works by the hands. Now there are those who are servants neither of men nor of God, but are servants of sin, the Lord saying: 'Everyone who commits sin is a servant of sin.' These therefore, servants of these spiritual wickednesses, are ever with the eyes of their mind intent upon their works as upon the hands of their masters, fixed in desire and admiration of vices to that end. And these are diabolical, that is, the works of the Gentiles, which are signified in the 'hands': the belly, idleness, luxury, lust, pride, avarice, ambition.
Upon these works therefore of pleasures, to whose dominion they are subject, they gaze, and intend upon them the eyes of their sense, to whom there are many gods and countless masters, according as each one's zeal and nature has chosen for itself the author of its religion. But to us there is one God; yet not by a unity denying to our Lord Jesus Christ that which is God, but following the Law and the prophets and the Gospels and the apostles, we profess with faith and truth the unity of divinity in the unbegotten God and in the only-begotten God, according to property and nature. For nowhere has the prophetic word named either gods or lords in the plural number, but each one in his own order. For Genesis says: 'And the Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord'; and the prophet:
'God, your God, has anointed you'; and again: 'The Lord said to my Lord'; and the Gospels: 'And the Word was with God, and the Word was God'; and the Apostle: 'One God, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things'; and again: 'Of whom is Christ, who is God over all.' This therefore was said in respect of 'Lord,' that we might understand that, through the fact that there is one unbegotten God, there cannot be taken away from the only-begotten God that which is God. For each of the two is one God: not that one is divided into two, or