Now in that the mountains, being touched, smoke rather than are burned—though this indeed indicates that they smoke; then in that they are scattered by flashing lightnings rather than illuminated; and again in that, when the arrows are sent forth, they are troubled rather than pierced—it is said thus not without the greatest reason of spiritual understanding. And indeed another psalm too signifies things equal to these, when it says: 'preparing the mountains in thy power, girded with might.' For at the coming of the Lord the power of the devil was shattered and ground down, when it was subjected to the faith of holy men: not that it does not still have the greatest forces of its power, but through this, that it is somehow subjected.
By the condition of the present subjection it is prepared for vengeance and lawful punishment, so that now, through this same subjection, being touched by the power of God it smokes, though not yet wholly burned: but through this, that it was able for the time to smoke, it is to be known that it can also be burned. Not only that one is burned, but also all his own. For this fire was prepared not for one alone, the Lord saying: 'Depart into eternal fire, which my Father prepared for the devil and his angels.' These mountains therefore, touched by the Lord, shall smoke. They shall also be scattered by the flashing of the lightning, namely their light, of whom it was said: 'You are the light of the world.' For the coming of the Lord shall be understood as lightning appearing from the east even to the west.
But for the time the lightnings are many, that is, the apostolic preachings and the splendour of the doctrine of God, which disperses that dense and conspiring power of the demons with the light of its flashing. The arrows too, being sent forth, shall trouble them. The same prophecy remembers these arrows also in another place: 'The arrows,' it says, 'of the little ones have become their wounds'—of the little ones, as the apostle says, 'in malice, not in understanding.'
Therefore the words of these—that is, of the faithful reborn unto innocence—shall, like arrows sent forth, trouble those smoking mountains, when the blessedness and eternity of the heavenly kingdom is preached, when the honour of the world is despised and the glory of Christ is hoped for, when luxury and drunkenness are forsaken and the body is purged by fastings, when avarice is conquered and generosity is practised, when virgins hate their own body, when widows would have preferred to have been virgins, when confessors detest their own life, when to die is desirable to martyrs. And all this those arrows—that is, the words of doctrine and exhortation—shall accomplish, which, being sent forth, trouble those who opposed them, when, their reign ceasing, the expectation of Christ's kingdom is proclaimed.
But from on high also the hand of the Lord is sent forth. And that our Lord Jesus Christ is signified by the hand of God in the Spirit is no obscure doctrine. For through Him all things were made. And we read it written: 'My hand,' it says, 'shall help him': because through the Son of God the assumed man is rescued from the snares of death and from the judgment of unjust condemnation, through the glory of the resurrection. For there follows: 'Rescue me from many waters.' That waters are called peoples is a common understanding—as we are also taught by Isaiah when he says: 'Therefore behold the Lord shall bring up over you the strong and abundant water of the river, and the king of the Assyrians'—whose power and life slip away into an abolishing end after the likeness of flowing water, as this same prophet says:
'They perished like water passing by': because their nature, when the swelling of the sea into which they are borne ceases, is taken away. 'And from the unjust hand of the sons of strangers.' For they ceased to be God's, of whom it was said: 'The strange children have grown old,' and to whom it was said: 'You are of the devil your father.' But they are strange children not only by not receiving their Lord, but also by that which follows: 'whose mouth hath spoken vanity.' Vanity of mouth and of confession was that whereby it was said: 'We have no king but Caesar.' For the people, chosen for an eternal kingdom, chose the king of the world, that is, of vanity. 'And their right hand is a right hand of iniquity.'
The right hand is unjust, when it strikes with the palms, when it tears with rods, when it batters with the reed, when it fits together the crown of thorns, when it fastens hands and feet with the nail, when it mingles gall with vinegar, when it consummates all the works of iniquities. After these things, done and perfected mightily by the Lord, we shall have to sing together in a new song of glorious victory. For he says: 'O God, I will sing a new song to thee, on the ten-stringed psaltery I will make music to thee.' And it is to be considered that this is a new song. Now many psalms are found singing a new song. For the ninety-fifth psalm begins thus: 'Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth'; and again: 'Declare his glory among the nations, his wonders among all peoples'; and again:
'Let all the earth be moved before his face; say among the nations, the Lord shall reign.' This is the new song, which all the earth sings, in that no longer within the books and boundaries of Judea is the knowledge of Him who created all things celebrated; in that now among the nations the glory of the invisible God is announced; in that all the fatherlands of the nations confess the praise of due honour; in that God is shown as about to reign among the nations. This song is new amid so many errors of the world, and to nations previously erring this hymn is unexpected, through which the invisible, incorporeal, eternal God, and the judge of just judgment, and the king of blessed eternity, is sung. There is also the ninety-seventh psalm, singing a new song:
'Sing to the Lord a new song, for the Lord hath done marvellous things.' But I know not whether a new song is to be sung for this reason, because God did marvellous things which He did. Long ago the heaven, most beautiful and marvellous, abides; long ago in it the stars persevere in the unwearied courses of their offices; long ago the seasons are ordered by an alternating and unchangeable recurrence; long ago the earth is rich with yearly fruits; long ago man, the most marvellous work of God, is born: and if God added nothing marvellous afterward, when He created these things, I ask, what new song is to be sung on account of the marvellous deeds done? And the psalm does not long allow us to err. For on account of what marvellous things it should sing a new song, it shows, saying: 'His right hand hath delivered him, and his holy arm.'
'The Lord hath made known his salvation before the sight of the nations.' This is the new song. This is the marvellous thing of God: that His right hand delivered him. That His own power bestowed salvation upon Himself. For 'I have power,' He says, 'to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again.' The only-begotten Son of God needed no external help to save the man in whom He willed to be born; and abiding in the glory of the paternal majesty, He used His own power in Himself, through which He made known His salvation to the nations by the glory of the resurrection, when in Him they recognize that the flesh of His nature has been transformed into the eternal substance of salvation. The hundred and forty-ninth psalm also sings a new song.
And why this is a new song, the prophet presently subjoins, saying: 'He shall exalt the meek unto salvation. The saints shall exult in glory, and rejoice in their beds. And the exultations of God in their throat, and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance among the nations, rebukes among the peoples; to bind their kings in fetters and their nobles in iron chains; that they may execute upon them the judgment that is written: this glory is to all his saints.' This is the new song: that God's saints take the power of eternal judgment. For the saints, according to the apostle, shall judge the world.
This, therefore, is sung by us as new: vengeance upon the nations, reproof upon the peoples, the fetters and chains of kings and the iron bonds of nobles, and the sentence of judgment written against them. And something similar is sung also in the new song of this psalm: 'O God, I will sing a new song to thee, on the ten-stringed psaltery I will make music to thee, who givest salvation to kings.' On the ten-stringed psaltery, therefore—either because that psaltery is of ten strings, or because this new song is sung with the instrument and deeds of the ten commandments, or because man himself, stretched out by certain ten strings, his hands and feet, being made perfect by the gesture and motion of his spiritual works, so makes music that he sings this new song. 'Who givest salvation to kings':
kings, to whom it was said: 'Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.' Those who shall bind the nobles, who shall constrain kings with fetters and chains, who shall judge, convict, avenge. And how salvation is given to kings, he shows: 'who,' he says, 'deliverest David thy servant': that David, indeed, concerning whom this same book prophesies in another psalm from the person of God the Father: 'I have set help upon a mighty one, I have exalted the chosen out of my people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him. For my hand shall help him. He hath called upon me: Thou art my Father, my God, and the receiver of my salvation. And I will make him the firstborn, high above the kings of the earth.'
'And his throne shall be as the sun in my sight, and as the perfect moon for ever, and a faithful witness in heaven.' And again in the same psalm, spoken in his person to the Father: 'As thou hast sworn to David in thy truth, remember, O Lord, the reproach of thy servant, which I have held in my bosom, the reproach of many nations, wherewith thine enemies have reproached thee, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the exchange of thy Christ.' The reproaches of many nations this one David took upon his own bosom. For he himself bore our sins and carried our infirmities: by his bruising we were healed. And so, while this David is delivered and is exempted from the law of death, salvation is also given to kings. For he himself is the firstborn from the dead.
And as in Adam we all die, so also in Christ shall we all rise again. His deliverance therefore is the salvation of kings. For they shall reign, being conformed to his glory, destined again all to abide in the communion of his nature through the union of our nature which he assumed. This David then is rescued from the sword of the malignant. For Jesus laid down his spirit when he willed; nor did he wait for an inflicted wound to send forth his soul. No irreverent hand had power over his soul, for he says: 'Deliver me from the malignant sword.' For although the soldier pierced the side of the body already lifeless, he did indeed employ the service of cruelty; yet the power of sending forth his spirit left no cause for any violation of the soul within him.
Then he completes the new song of the new confession with a hymn, condemning earthly judgements and the false joys of worldly goods, when he says: 'Whose mouth hath spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity; whose sons are as new plants established in their youth. Their daughters are decked out, adorned round about after the likeness of a temple. Their storehouses are full, overflowing from this into that. Their sheep are fruitful, abounding in their goings forth: their oxen are fat. There is no breach of the wall, no passage, nor cry in their streets. They called the people blessed that hath these things: blessed is the people whose Lord is their God.'
And these things, so far as I judge, are the goods of this world in the common blessed estimation of all men: to speak and act the affairs of the age, to snatch or buy honours, to grow rich by force and false price, to glory in children of ripening age, whose blossoming years lend confidence in the firmness of a fresh exultation, to desire beautiful daughters and to adorn them like a temple with a useless waste of vast money, to burst their granaries with multiplied fruits, which pour their heaped-up wealth into other storehouses too narrow for what is stored in them, to wish also to multiply their sheep by breeding, sheep which, when they go forth, no encounter with a wild beast diminishes, to delight in the fattening of their oxen, to furnish also solid enclosures for their houses, that no one may have power to pass through them;
not to weep, not to mourn, not to groan, but in the prosperous course of their felicity to be hindered by no trouble of adverse calamity. They called this people blessed, that had these things: but the prophet knows that the estimation of this blessedness is false. For what shall these things, these so many and so great goods of the world, gain toward the life which was to be cut off by death? And therefore he shows which people is blessed, saying: 'Blessed is the people whose Lord is their God.' That Lord is God who, though he bestows these higher and earthly things, yet imparts eternity to those who use them rightly; who chose us in himself as co-heirs of his Son before the foundation of the world; who will be God all in all: to him be glory, praise, honour, power, dominion.
To the Father in the Son, to the Son in the Father and in the Holy Spirit, both now and always and unto all ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 144. 'I will exalt thee, my God and my king, and I will bless thy name for ever and for ever and ever.' The psalm is complete, occupied only with the praises of God. And even the title itself teaches that only the proclamation of God is contained in the psalm. But by the addition, according to accustomed usage, now also, as in all the others, of the pronoun, it shows that he is praised while David praises. And who this is whom this psalm praises, all the prophecies of all times cry out, as this very prophet has often thus testified concerning him: 'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever:'
'the sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre of equity. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee.' And again: 'And all kings shall adore him, and all nations shall serve him. His name shall be blessed for ever, his name endureth before the sun. And in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed, all nations shall magnify him.' The praise of this one, therefore, is sung in this psalm, in whose person we remember it was said: 'But I am set up as king by him over Zion, his holy mountain. The Lord said unto me: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron.'
The perpetuity of this kingdom Daniel thus testified, saying: 'And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven raise up another kingdom, which shall never be destroyed unto the ages, and his kingdom shall not be left to another people: it shall break in pieces and scatter all kingdoms, and this kingdom shall stand for ever.' And again: 'And behold, one coming with the clouds of heaven as the Son of man, and he came even unto the Ancient of days, and was presented before him; and there was given him principality and honour and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him, and his power is a perpetual power which shall never pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed.' This king, therefore, is praised through those things which are contained in the psalm: 'I will exalt thee, my God and my king,' and through this:
'Thy saints shall confess unto thee. They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and shall tell of thy power, to make known to the sons of men thy power and the glory of the magnificence of thy kingdom. Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages, and thy dominion is in every generation and lineage.' And although here, on account of the glory of the eternal kingdom in which he shall reign with his saints reigning together, praise is sung to God by the prophet's confession, yet the plan and order of the praise itself is so arranged that those things which are said of him are proclaimed according to the sense of common understanding:
so that, in so far as the custom of human speech permits, it may school us concerning that immense and incomprehensible nature of God—not indeed to a perfect truth of knowledge, yet to an admiration of that vast power which is his. For we are able above all, as far as is in us, to admire him: but to be known by us, how great he himself is, cannot be. Yet since in every psalm there is a simple and absolute praise of God, we ought to remember that the Father is praised in the Son and the Son in the Father, and that, since by the likeness of substance and the property of nature the one is in the other, and both are one, and
he who sees the Father sees also the Son, it makes no difference which of the two is thought to be praised, since the likeness of power and works, and the Godhead—undifferentiated in nature, begotten from God the Father and born as God the Son—testify that both of them are one. The psalm therefore begins thus: 'I will exalt thee, my God and my king, and I will bless thy name for ever and for ever and ever. Every single day I will bless thee, and I will praise thy name for ever and for ever and ever.' The prophetic reasoning and power of this lofty utterance must be discerned by attentive diligence in hearing. For he says: 'I will exalt thee, my God and my king.' Many magnify God through those things
which, having been established by him in the works of the world, are subjected to our knowledge; but few there are who are willing to believe that he will be their king, while they either deny that the care of human works belongs to God, or, for the consoling of the conscience for those things which they have done impiously, refuse to believe that a divine judgement is appointed upon good and evil men, presuming the abolition of soul and body. But the prophet takes the beginning of his proclamation of God from this, that he is a king to himself. And even now indeed he blesses the name of him who is king and God to him, on account of the expectation of the kingdom, when he says: 'I will bless thy name for ever.' But because he knows that he owes gratitude to God and his king even then, when he abides in his kingdom,
because, the infirmity of his perishable body being transformed and the dominion of hostile death being driven off, he stands beside his king, conformed and co-eternal with him, he adds: 'and for ever and ever,' that is, in that age, in which, the fashion of this present age being now removed, it shall be renewed as an age of ages by the succession of eternity. And in this present age indeed anyone blessing God may not always remain in the office of blessing, while he is either hindered by grief or occupied by fear or held anxious by sickness, and, with mind grown sluggish or ungrateful, is mute in the blessings of God; but the perfection of prophetic faith is free from the transformations of infirmities of this kind, saying: 'Every single day I will bless thee.'
He has no empty time, and no day is idle for him, but is always engaged in the confession of blessings. But it frequently happens that of those of whom we can speak well, we cannot praise them. To abstain from evil is worthy of blessing; but merely not to admit evil has no praise, unless the abstinence from evil be followed also by the glory of good work. And the one who does us good we can indeed bless, because nature demands it—that we do not disparage those by whose benevolence we are cherished; but if they are also stained with other vices, they are indeed blessed for our own advantage, but by the judgement of truth they are not proclaimed. But the perfection of God suffers nothing in itself to exist in part.
For as he is blessed, so also is he praiseworthy, having both the confession of our blessing from those things wherein we enjoy his beneficence toward us, and the proclamation from the admiration of the perfect virtues within him. On which account the prophet, about to bless him every single day, added also this: 'and I will praise thy name for ever and for ever and ever.' When he blesses, when he praises for ever and ever, in nothing is the prophet's office feeble, neither in blessing nor in praise nor in time. Then follows: 'Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and of his greatness there is no end.' This is the first and chief praise of God, that he has nothing in himself mediocre, nothing circumscribed, nothing measured out, both of his greatness and of his praise.
His power is not shut in by opinion, is not contained by places, is not uttered by names, is not subjected to times: our sense is too narrow for it, our wit is dull, our speech is mute. His magnificence knows no end, and his immense greatness suffers no notion of measuring itself. Extended everywhere, extended always is it, having this praise of its own infinity: for the rest, exceeding all understanding of this infinite quality within itself. And because this knowledge of his immeasurable greatness, or the praise of the works of God, is not of all nations—to which, from the foundation of the world, life and sense had been and were to be—he consequently added: 'Generation and generation shall praise thy works.'
Not indeed generations and generations, which are many and diverse both in times and in nations, but the generation which began from Abraham, which by the sign of circumcision is reckoned into the law, and the generation which is renewed in Christ, which from the prophetic teachings is instructed unto the faith of evangelical justification. Of these generations, therefore, it is the peculiar property to praise the works of God. But no other reason admonishes that the works of God be praised than that all things were powerfully wrought by him, because it has as its proclamation not that he did something, but that he did it powerfully. And therefore he added: 'and they shall proclaim thy power.'
But the power of the works must then be proclaimed, when it is made equal to the magnificence of the one working, so that the powerful working may be understood by the magnificence of the powerful one. On which account there follows: 'and the magnificence of thy majesty.' But magnificence, if it has only what is in itself for itself, has admiration but has no praise; and the working of a powerful one is idle to others, unless through the holiness of the worker it imparts some use of itself to those who will praise and admire. From which this fittingly follows: 'and they shall speak of thy holiness.' And holiness indeed is already good, and does not profit only itself, nor does it consume that which is of itself within the use of its own advantage.
For it even commends itself by the offices of holiness in order to provoke the beneficence of others toward it. But it will furnish nothing worthy of admiration of itself, if it be for itself alone. But truly this is the peculiar and admirable thing of holiness, when that which is in itself it grants to the use of others to whom it is holy, itself needing nothing except perhaps through benevolence, only that another may make use of it. To that, therefore, which was said, 'and they shall speak of thy holiness,' he rightly added: 'and they shall tell of thy wondrous works.' And it is indeed wondrous that holiness, profiting itself nothing, should overflow into the use of another's blessedness; but it is more wondrous that holiness should be full of terror;
lest, if it offer itself undiscerningly to those who use or abound in it—while it is common to good and evil, presenting itself as though from a necessity of nature—it should not have the admiration of holiness. And therefore he presently added: 'and they shall speak of the power of thy terrible things,' so that those who speak of holiness and tell of wondrous works may also speak of the power of terrible things, with admiration midway between holiness and terror, while both the sweet terror and the terrible sweetness make admirable both the sweet terror and the terrible sweetness. On which account the prophet, understanding this vast greatness of a wondrous tempering, added: 'and they shall tell of thy greatness.'
For it is of an infinite greatness in God, that what is terrible should be sweet, and what is sweet should be terrible. But greatness has no measure, lest, if it be moderated, it should now not be greatness through the fact that it is not without measure. So that the admiration of holiness and terror proper to it may consist in the infinity of his greatness, it is destined both to endure always and to abound, being defined neither by time nor by abundance. And therefore he joined on: 'They shall pour forth the memory of the abundance of thy sweetness': because neither is memory cut off by oblivion, nor is abundance diminished through want. But the prophet kept the order of reasoning, so that he might temper the memory and abundance of sweetness by the condition of a greatness both moderated and preserved, saying:
'and they shall exult in thy righteousness.' Infinite indeed is the memory and abundance of sweetness, because God neither forgets to be sweet nor ceases to be so; but the infinity of memory and abundance is tempered by righteousness set in between. And it tempers not merely by the manner of bestowing, but of using: while that which, through the abundance and memory of God, always lies open to all who are equal, is not received by the unrighteous through the unworthiness of their use. The holiness of God furnished a road to his people through the divided sea; but that same holiness was also a terrible power, when, the impious having entered upon that same road where there had been the salvation of the religious, there stood the punishment of the impious. Solidified waves surround some with the firmness of a wall; those very waves, poured back, which had stood firm, swallow up others.
To these the sea knows not its own nature; to those it punishes according to its own nature. To these the land comes forth from the sea; to those, what was there is the sea. Of these the salvation is holiness; of those the death is terror. Or, when with the three children singing in the furnace those standing round are scorched by the flames which the children do not feel, for the children the fire is tempered into the moisture of dew, while the raging fire burns up the others. The very flames within and without are the same, of which, according to the diversity of merits, nature both fails from itself and does not fail. For what it is remains toward those—to be fire, whom it burns; and what it is not, must needs be in those to whom it is dew.
And thus righteousness alone tempers the greatness of the memory and holiness of God, since through the righteousness of God, toward the unrighteous and the righteous, holiness tempers terror and terror tempers holiness. And human righteousness indeed is upright and useful; but yet that same righteousness is at times too harsh, so that it is not permitted to use goodness, while, decreeing what is just according to the diversity of judgement, it becomes severe. But the righteousness of God is not to be made equal to human righteousness. For it is not subjected to the law of nature, through which the law of nature was established: so that it has no necessity of not being good, since it is just. The righteousness of God has the will to have mercy; nor yet through the will to have mercy will it be so changed from itself as not to be righteousness.