'Come, blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you set Me free.' And when they answer that He had never lacked these offices of human necessity, He says: 'Amen I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of these least of My brethren, you did it to Me.' This is the evening sacrifice, that is, the sacrifice of the last times. In this the hands are to be lifted up, because by prayers of this kind, blessed by God from the beginning of the world, the possession of the heavenly kingdom is prepared.
But the prophet remembers that, besides the cry of faith, besides the prayer which is to be directed as incense, and besides the lifting up of the hands, in which is the evening sacrifice, there is yet another work to be desired for the accomplishing of justification in himself. Mindful, namely, of that gospel saying, 'By your words you shall be justified, or by your words you shall be condemned,' and recalling also that he must render an account for every idle word on the day of judgment, he necessarily prayed, saying: 'Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door of enclosure round about my lips.' He prays that no light watch be set before his mouth—a door, namely, of enclosure—so that that watch may not be some mere observation, but a barrier.
For the slip of the tongue is very dangerous and most ready: and from it cursing, lying, perjury, and detraction are brought forth with easy motion and open access. Let us therefore pray for ourselves a door of enclosure. For in that book which among us is inscribed as of Solomon, but among the Greeks and Hebrews is held to be the Wisdom of Sirach, we are thus admonished: 'Behold, hedge your possession about with thorns, secure your silver and gold, and make a door and a bar for your mouth, and make a yoke and a measure for your words.' And he commanded both a door and a bar to be set upon the mouth, that there be no easy egress for words. And he likewise established a yoke and a measure for words, so that, subjected to the yoke of reason and balanced by the measure of moderation, they might be weighed.
The prophet still reaches toward the perfection of righteousness. For after the cry of faith, after prayer, after works, after the door of the mouth, he prays that he be perfected also by the duty of the heart, saying: 'Incline not my heart to evil words, to make excuses for excuses in sins, with men who work iniquity.' When from zeal for innocence and righteousness we fall into a vicious will, then our heart inclines to evil words: not that we may excuse the sin—for every sin is inexcusable—but that we may excuse our excuses. For the crime of murder and adultery and other such things is, by the very nature and unworthiness of the deed, inexcusable. But he who has been caught in it will not say, 'Adultery or murder has no guilt,' but he will say:
'An importunate, incontinent, flattering woman enticed me and forced me into pleasure.' Or that other will say: 'Insults stirred up my anger, injuries armed my grief, the chance of a quarrel brought about the killing.' Into these words the heart inclines itself, after it has sinned, that it may excuse the excuses of the sin it has committed. But the heart that is upright and pure does not incline into words of excuse, but remains inviolate and constant, without the anxiety of seeking words to excuse excuses, since the innocence of its life has no need of excuse for sin. And these things indeed are so in bodily matters.
But in those things which are esteemed spiritual, that is, in the doctrine of heresy, it is incredible with what labour of heart, with what refinement of words, heretics excuse their excuses. Lest his heart incline to all these, the just man earnestly asks, lest through this necessity of a heart inclined to excuse excuses he be paired with their chosen ones. 'And I will not,' he says, 'be paired with their chosen.' The prophet does not wish to be paired with the chosen of the wicked. For he remembers that this number was assigned to unclean things, when the precept was given to Noah about storing the animals in the ark: 'But of clean beasts you shall bring in to you seven and seven, and of unclean beasts two and two.'
There is a still greater and more absolute example of the uselessness of this number. For our Lord Jesus Christ, taking away all our uncleannesses and sins, made, according to the Apostle, both one; and, according to the same, that He might create the two in Himself into one new man, making peace, that He might reconcile both to God in one body—namely, He made the inner man and the outer one. We are therefore not paired, but united: because unity is of faith, but pairing is the fellowship of faction. And the prophet not only wishes not to be paired with the chosen of the wicked, but also, because it is man's lot to err, if perchance he should have done something amiss and after the manner of men, he prefers to be corrected by the just man in mercy and to be reproved.
For he sets up in himself a pattern of our nature and weakness. For many of us, when they have fallen, when they have erred, disdain to be amended by the reproof of just mercy, and prefer to be paired with sinners rather than to be turned back to penitence through the correction of the just. But the prophetic word admirably held to the principle of truth, saying: 'The just man shall correct me in mercy, and shall reprove me.' For there is a measure of mercy, and justice must be applied in showing mercy. There can indeed be grief toward those whose crimes are grave, but there is no place for mercy. For mercy bends itself to praying God for pardon of those things which have been done:
Moreover, to grant pardon for unlawful deeds is not to show mercy, but to fail to keep the justice of mercy. The apostle John most carefully preserved this principle, saying: 'If anyone knows his brother to sin a sin, but not unto death, let him ask, and God will give him life. For there is a sin unto death: I do not say that he should pray for it.' But that a just man in mercy ought to rebuke and reprove one who has fallen, blessed Paul teaches, saying: 'Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness.' Yet not even he himself was unmindful of the principle of just mercy: for he bids that one overtaken in a fault, not sinning by his own will, be restored through reproof.
And therefore the prophet, when he says: 'The just man shall correct me in mercy and shall reprove me,' mindful both of his faith and of human weakness, says that he ought to be corrected in those things which are worthy of the reproof of just mercy. But he prays still yet another thing, namely, that he may not be steeped in the teachings of sinners, nor sink even to mercy toward those who sin: 'but let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head.' He wishes that the one who teaches and reproves us be of a pure conscience. And the Lord in the Gospels, when he spoke about the purity of fasts, said: 'But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face.' In the washing of the face he required the brightness of a pure conscience, that nothing filthy, nothing smeared should cling to us;
but in the anointing of the head he commanded us to be perfect in the teachings and works of spiritual instruction. For oil is the nourishment of light; and spiritual teaching and work is for us the cause of heavenly glory. For as light has its cause from the oil of the lamp, so, that we may retain the light of spiritual glory, teaching and work supply it, when our head, that is, the seat of life and of prudence and of all the senses, grows rich with the oil of action and of teaching. But the oil is not to be taken from a sinner; and God is to be prayed to, that a sinner may not pour it in. For as it is the mark of a prudent man to be willing to be reproved by a holy and faithful man, since to sick souls and to those languishing with the disease of sins the medicine of severe rebuke under an honourable author is useful,
so it is a wretched thing, through pity for sin, to have sunk down even to mercy toward sinners themselves. Both of these therefore the prophet abhors for himself. There follows then: 'For my prayer also is still in their good pleasures: their judges, joined to the rock, have been swallowed up.' He states the reason why those joined to the rock are swallowed up, namely, because his prayer is still in their good pleasures. The prophet prays the same things as those above, that the oil of the sinner may not anoint his head. This the prophet prays. But sinners are not terrified even by this prayer of the prophet, so as to desist from the things which please them. For no one perseveres in sins except because he delights in them: and the enticement of pleasure supplies in each matter the cause of remaining.
Therefore because, while he yet prays, they are in their own good pleasures, that is, because what they were is not changed through them by the pleasure of sinning, and they persist in being sinners. Nor does his prayer receive an end: for his prayer is in their good pleasures for as long as it is pleasing to them not to sin. 'Therefore their judges, joined to the rock, have been swallowed up.' We know no rock save Christ, and because it was said of him: 'and the rock was Christ.' At his coming, when these chosen ones and judges of sinners shall join themselves, they will be swallowed up. For then death and corruption and sin will be swallowed up, as it is written: 'Death is swallowed up in strife. O death, where is thy sting? Where is thy strife?' For the sting of death is sin.
But those joined to the rock, the judges of these, will be swallowed up together with that prince of theirs, of whom it was said: 'and then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the presence of his coming.' Through this presence of the Lord's coming, therefore, they shall be made void, being swallowed up, and swallowed up by the judgment of the saints. For there follows: 'they shall hear my words, for they were able.' They were able either to swallow up or to be heard. For in the presence of the Lord they are swallowed up by the reproof of prophetic truth and by the reproach of their own impious falsehood. And they shall not only hear the words which they are able to, but also this which follows shall befall them: 'as the fatness of the earth is burst forth upon the earth.'
But that fatness is either the companion or the cause of impiety and of vices, the prophet testifies, saying: 'The heart of this people has been made fat.' And Moses too, denouncing the irreligiousness of an insolent people, says: 'Jacob ate and drank and was filled and became fat, and the beloved kicked.' We shall understand the force of this saying more clearly from the very nature of the earth. For we know that the fatter and richer earths do not return in solid form into those pits from which they have been dug out, because, their fatness bursting forth, they are again incapable of containing themselves. And so, according to that which he says:
'as the fatness of the earth is burst forth upon the earth,' he taught by an example, that the fatness of all our earth, that is, of the body, being dug out by vices according to the law of its own nature, bursts forth and is not capable of containing itself, seething to its own destruction, so that it cannot be re-formed in itself. But while this fatness bursts forth, the prophet has grief over it, saying: 'Our bones are scattered beside hell.' He judges himself to be scattered, to be dispersed, to be driven beside hell in the calamity of sinners. For 'if one member suffers, all the members suffer together.' For we are all members of one body one toward another, as he says also in another psalm:
'All my bones are scattered', not indeed those bones by which our body is held together in this firmness of its strength, but because we are all one body and are members one of another, the rest are the bones of our body. He would rather that the fatness of their earth not burst forth, nor the bones be scattered beside hell, but that all should rather use this voice which follows: 'for to thee, O Lord, are my eyes: in thee have I hoped, take not away my soul. Keep me from the snare which they have set for me, and from the stumbling-blocks of them that work iniquity.'
The eyes of the prophet, intent upon God, are not turned aside to any admirations of superfluous things; they do not gaze, to the injury of chastity, upon the fair appearances of human bodies; they are not captivated either by the workmanship of precious garments, or by the alluring gleam of silver, or by the enticing splendour of gold, or by the empty honour of gems, or by the factious contest of a theatrical spectacle, or by the ambitious pomp of secular powers, but they are intent upon all the magnificent works of God, unto the admiration of him who wrought them. And not only with his eyes, but also with his mind is he ever intent, saying: 'in thee have I hoped, take not away my soul.' The taking away of the soul is not its abolition:
but it is when it is taken away from the glory of the honour appointed for it, when it falls from the expectation and effect of its hope. But he is not ignorant that there are many perils to his hope, when he says: 'Keep me from the snare which they have set for me, and from the stumbling-blocks of them that work iniquity.' Everywhere are snares, everywhere are stumbling-blocks, the whole world is full of ambushes, whether through the prince of this air, or through the spiritual powers in the heavenly places, or through the sons of disobedience, in whom the spirit of error works.
For we have snares in men of evil exhortation, of dangerous example, and of enticed necessity, when they exhort us to pleasures, when in their prosperous affairs they are impious toward God, when through insults and injuries they stir us up to the motion of a turbulent will. But a snare differs from a stumbling-block. For a snare is the exhortation to pleasures and the incitement of dishonourable desire, which in the manner of a snare deceitfully captures. But a stumbling-block is an irreligious wife, a wicked son, and the other household names in turn, and every brother from the church who is either insolent or greedy or drunken or base.
For in these there is a stumbling-block to us, as often as we are provoked from that meekness of our quiet faith to the necessity of being angry, of reproving, of restraining, of avenging. But he knows the one who, through all who work iniquity, rather himself always works in these snares, saying: 'the sinners shall fall in his net', namely his, who works in the many. For whatever iniquities men commit, it is suggested by the devil; whom he now shows under the singular number, though above he had signified his ministries under the plural, in the many. He signifies both many in him and him in many: and therefore the iniquitous stretch out their snares, and the sinners shall fall in his net, because the iniquitous stretch out the snares of his net.
But the sinners shall fall, not then made sinners when they shall have fallen, but falling for this reason, because they are sinners; being made fit for the seizing of the net through that by which they are sinners. But the prophet, safe through his hope and faith, confidently says of himself: 'I am alone, until I pass over.' He knows that combination is impious, as we have shown above. But given over to God, he is occupied with no other affairs of the age and is alone, until he pass over. And what is it that he passes over? The stumbling-blocks, of course, and the nets and the snares. And whither he passes over must be asked. Surely thither, whither it was said; for faithful and holy and true is he who says:
'He who believes in me shall not be judged, but shall pass from death to life', our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 141. Of the understanding of David, when he was in the cave, a prayer. 'With my voice I cried to the Lord, with my voice I made supplication to the Lord,' and the rest. The purport of the psalm is contained in the title, but by a spiritual rather than a bodily understanding; and therefore in the title it is 'an understanding, a prayer.' For if the sense were simply according to the deeds of David, only 'a prayer' would have been inscribed in the title of the psalm. But because for the knowledge of the prayer there was need of a spiritual understanding, therefore it is prescribed 'an understanding, a prayer,' because it is to be understood with understanding.
For we know that there is also that David whose tabernacle, which had fallen, was raised up, the just one, the rising one, the reigning one; that is, our Lord, the Son of God, who often fled, often hid himself, often prayed, and in the very time of the passion both wept and cried out to God in tribulation, not on account of a natural fear, as it were, of the passion, but showing the affection of the man whom he bore: so that through this prayer both the Son of God, to whom he prayed, and himself, not as a feigned man but as a true man, might be understood. Therefore this prayer is understood to be his. David indeed speaks in the cave, but he prophesies in Christ. David flees, but he prophesies the flight of his Lord not so much through words as through the flight itself.
David failed in spirit, but the Lord too was 'sorrowful, his soul even unto death.' David's paths God knows, but 'no one knows the Son except the Father.' In David's ways of his faith snares were hidden; for the Lord too, in the course of his preaching, ambushes are prepared everywhere. This one prays in the cave, that one prays in the body. The servant prophesies the Lord Christ; this David prophesies that David by the example of all his passions. And therefore this prayer will be understood as spoken not so much by David concerning himself, as concerning the Lord through David. 'With my voice I cried to the Lord, with my voice I made supplication to the Lord. I pour out my prayer in his sight and declare my tribulation before him, when my spirit fails from me.'
The order of the words is excellently arranged. First there is crying with the voice; for even the silent and spiritual expectation of every faithful man is a cry to God. Then there is prayer with the voice, that is, the petition of desire and of faith is expressed in the words of the voice, according to that of the apostle: 'I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the voice.' Thirdly, the prayer is poured out in the sight of God, not with words falling from the tongue, but from the deep and inward fountain of faith the prayer of the one praying is poured out; and it is poured out in the sight of God, not negligently nor out of carelessness, but as with the Lord present; for he who is prayed to that he may hear must be believed to be present; and he who is reckoned present is to be reverenced not with the dissimulation befitting one absent, but with the honour due to one present.
Fourthly too he declares his tribulation. He is not hindered, when he is troubled, from ever referring to God the distresses of all his anguishes and passions. Nor indeed are they light tribulations which, with prayer poured out, he declares before God, but in this, when his spirit fails from him. But we are hindered from the assiduity of prayer even by light temptations, and a sudden motion of some slight difficulty turns away whatever little constancy of our mind in prosperous circumstances from the office of devotion. But this one, not even when his spirit fails, ceases both to declare his tribulation and to pour out his prayer and to pray with his voice and to cry with the very voice of spiritual faith. 'Thou hast known my paths.'
'In this way in which I walked they have hidden snares for me.' This prayer can be reckoned to be both of that David and of this one: because, as we have said, he prefigured all the sayings and deeds of the Lord both by the faith of the servant and by the example of the prophet. But the prophecy of the psalms, whenever it is uttered from the person of the Lord, never fails to add something peculiar and proper to him, which cannot be common to another with him: so that, since many things had been recorded from the person of that man whom he assumed, and were common to the persons and natures of men, the prophecy of the psalm concerning him might rather show those things which are properly said from his person; as now this: 'I considered on the right hand and beheld, and there was none that knew me. Flight has perished from me:'
'and there is none that seeks my soul.' For David, although he fled, was nevertheless not unknown; nor did he look only to the right hand, but the view lay open to him also on the left. But how will this be fitted to his person: 'flight has perished from me,' then this: 'and there is none that seeks my soul,' and finally that also with which the psalm is concluded: 'the just wait for me, until thou recompense me'? These things are contrary to one another when understood from the person of a man. For if there are just men waiting, how does no one know? How does no one seek his soul? For by this no one seeks the soul and no one knows, because, while he looked from the right hand, no one was seen to be just.
But all these things were fulfilled in the Lord at the time of the passion, when, as he went to the cross, none of those accompanied him whom he was preparing, separated from the left to the right according to the evangelical arrangement, for the possession of the heavenly kingdom, for whose sake he had even been born a man: when in the so many and so great signs of the cross itself no one knew God, when frequently before, hiding himself from those who sought him, he both betrayed and thrust himself upon them. And through the offering of his spontaneous will, flight perished from him, since no one inquired after the power of his life, which is signified in the soul. For beholding the body which they had fixed to the cross, no one sought the power of the soul, which had proved him God by signs and deeds.
Now those things which follow, although they may seem to be common with the rest, nevertheless were also all spoken and done through him at the time of the passion. 'I cried to thee, O Lord, and said: thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living.' Crying, he said: 'thou art my hope,' when he said: 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.' His portion is in the land of the living, when to the thief on that same day he promises the dwelling of paradise; that is, the lot and kingdom of his inheritance, so that, although he went to the lower regions, nevertheless through spiritual power he might teach that he was not absent from paradise. Then he returns to the modesty of his prayer, saying: 'Attend to my prayer: for I am humbled exceedingly.'
For he was humbled, taking the form of a servant and becoming obedient even unto death, even the death of the cross. 'Deliver me from them that persecute me: for they are strengthened against me. Bring my soul out of prison, to confess thy name, O Lord.' For although he had the power of laying down his soul and of taking it up again, nevertheless he always, through the reverence of the Son, reserved the honour to the majesty of the Father, when he prays: 'Father, glorify me;' when he cries out: 'My God, why hast thou forsaken me?' For in these there is not a confession of his own weakness, but a proclamation of the paternal power. Therefore now likewise he prays to be delivered from those who persecute, because they are strengthened. For they are strengthened,
is when they give him to the cross, when through the flesh they know not God, when the appearance of humility and the servile form in him exhorts them. Then he asks that his soul be led out from prison. If, to those placed in prison even before the times of Noah, the Lord according to blessed Peter preached the resurrection, prison is the lower world, from which he asks to be led out, as in another psalm he had prayed: 'let not the pit shut its mouth over me.' All this prayer is, as we have said, to the confession of the paternal power. But he added also the reason why he prays to be led out of prison: 'to confess,' he says, 'thy name.' For his resurrection is a proclamation of the paternal power in him, because all power is his from the Father. But through whom God's name is to be confessed, he added, saying:
'the just wait for me, until thou recompense me.' The faith of all the apostles until the time of the resurrection was trembling: which, beholding it in the Lord, they were strengthened by the security of their expectation. And hence is that which was said by the Lord: 'my soul is sorrowful even unto death.' For he does not say: 'on account of death,' because, although he gave himself to the passion, nevertheless the eternal power would not take up the pain of the passion; but because the fear of the apostles, arisen through the humility of the passion, so much so that even that firm rock, upon which the church was to be built, trembled, would, after the death and resurrection of the Lord, cease to be in the same trembling, therefore he is sorrowful even unto death, after which they were to be strengthened by the security of their trembling faith.
The just therefore wait, until it be recompensed to them by God. And what is recompensed to him by God, the apostle taught, saying: 'for this cause God exalted him and gave him a name which is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things heavenly and earthly and infernal, and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.' This is the recompense to him from God, that to that body which he assumed the eternity of the paternal glory be given. But what the expectation of the just is, the same apostle teaches, saying: 'but our conversation is in heaven, whence also we await the Saviour Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humility, conformed to the body of his glory.'
The just therefore wait, until it be recompensed to him: namely, that they may be made conformable to the glory of his body, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 142. Of David himself, when Absalom persecuted him. 'O God, hear my prayer, give ear to my supplication: in thy truth hear me, in thy justice,' and the rest. The superscription of the psalm seems, according to the Hebrews, to be nonexistent; for so it is handed down by those who are learned in both languages. And the other translators wrote nothing at all concerning the deeds, that is, concerning Absalom in the persecution of David his father.
But these seventy elders, whose knowledge of the law and of the prophets was beyond the prescription and ambiguity of the letter, judged that this should be added to the psalm. But the reason for that judgment we taught in the exordium of the psalms, through which we know that nothing in the psalms ought to be treated except what is prophetic. For since neither does the discourse agree with the deeds, nor the order with the times, it remains that we be taught that all the deeds recorded in David have been recorded, and understood by them, as an example and knowledge of things to be done. Therefore now a superscription has been placed on the psalm which does not exist in the book, so that, where it does exist, that is, as in the third psalm, in which he fled from the face of him who is now written to persecute, we might be called to the knowledge of prophetic understanding.