For one ought to please men from God rather than to the reproach of God, so that one may be pleasing through divine ordinances and the uprightness of a faithful and innocent life. But to wish to please men only is to displease God. Yet God does not call away the minds of the just and the reasonable holiness of the faithful from the favour of men. And let us hear Him speaking through Paul: 'Be without offence to the Jews and the Greeks and to the Church of God, even as I also please all men in all things, not seeking what is profitable to myself, but what is profitable to many, that they may be saved.' This is to please not men but God, since through that whereby God is pleased, men also are to be pleased. For from the cause of pleasing God the cause of pleasing men also becomes commendable.
But the zeal which is expended so that men only may be pleased is not referred to that which ought to please God, because it is applied only for the sake of those to whom one is pleasing. And there is no greater bond of pleasing men than that no one should for his own sake wish to please those whom he pleases; because what is done for the advancement of one's own advantage cannot but sometimes stir up some offence from incidental causes, since what is useful to one often becomes an inconvenience to another. But he who wishes nothing for his own sake and exercises all things for the advancement of another's advantage necessarily acquires for himself a ground of inoffensive agreeableness; because he both pleases from the advantages of others and does not offend from his own.
And the Apostle taught that this is a commendable cause of pleasing to all men: because, neglectful of his own advantage, he had given himself to another's advantage. 'God therefore has scattered the bones of them that please men.' And these bones are to be understood as scattered not as bodily bones, but because the hope of eternity is wont to be signified in bones, from which it was said: 'This now is bone of my bones'—which the blessed Apostle, because it is a great mystery, refers to Christ and to the Church, which borrows the substance of eternity from the eternity of its own Adam. This bone, though in the wounded and pierced body of the Lord, is not broken: 'A bone of him,' he says, 'shall not be broken';
because although the wicked had the right of suffering over the flesh, yet against the eternal and impassible nature of the Godhead nothing was permitted to suffering. And that the whole and incorrupt hope of eternity is signified in bones we recall also there, where it is said: 'God keeps all the bones of the just, not one of them shall be broken'—since according to the resurrection shown to Ezekiel, the mystery thereof was revealed under the signification of bones. Therefore, as God keeps the bones of the just, so also He has scattered the bones of them that please men; and He has scattered them not so that they should lack that which they were, but so that through contempt of God they should grow cheap as things lost and cast away. For this follows: 'They are confounded, because God has despised them.'
Everyone is confounded both by the shame of his own disgrace and by comparison with another's honour. And hence that which the Apostle signifies, saying: 'We shall indeed all rise again, but we shall not all be changed.' But the prophet also distinguishes both the confusion of the resurrection and the honour, saying thus: 'And some shall rise indeed unto life, but others unto eternal confusion.' They therefore shall be confounded whose bones are scattered, whom God has despised, whom as unworthy—lest they should be conformed to His glory and to the resurrection—He has cast away: destined indeed to rise, but so as to be confounded; they shall not be changed, however, and from this shall they be confounded.
For this is the appointed condition of the resurrection, and therefore the discourse is expressed as if of a past thing, in accordance with the definiteness of the decree, because it is fixed that it should so remain. But having recalled the human impieties both of insolence and of iniquity, so that the meaning which is set forth in the title may be understood in the end, the prophet confirms the hope of the blessed by the exhortation of that very end, saying: 'Who shall give out of Sion the salvation of Israel? When the Lord shall turn away the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad.' For this one hope was left to human weakness and to faith, by which, amid so great calamities of the present life, it might find rest in the expectation of eternal goods.
And therefore the prophet, sure of this blessedness, proclaims as if from the vast depth of human miseries, saying: 'Who shall give out of Sion the salvation of Israel?' For according to another prophet: 'Out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem.' This word of the Lord was made flesh. This flesh is both Sion and Jerusalem, the city of peace for us and our watchtower. Hence is the Saviour, hence Jesus; for Jesus, as we have often said, is by His very name the Saviour. But the law out of Sion was not saving, quickening indeed by the work, but not justifying by faith. This awaited Saviour was indeed given also to Israel, but not to that carnal Israel. For it is not they who are children of the flesh that are children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned for the seed.
John also testifies that they are not sons of Abraham according to the flesh, since they are both sons of vipers, and God is able of stones to raise up sons to Abraham. But the Lord Himself taught that the property of succession exists from the works of faith, and that the origin of sons is not to be reckoned according to carnal generation, when He says: 'If you were sons of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham.' But Daniel too, condemning the elders, says thus: 'Not the seed of Abraham, but the seed of Canaan and not of Judah.' Ezekiel also, rebuking the iniquities of the people, says: 'Your father was a Canaanite, your mother a Hittite, your root and your generation of the land of Canaan.'
That Israel therefore is not from bodily succession, to whom, on account of unbelief, the origin of a most profane race is reckoned. Nor is salvation given to him who did not receive it when offered; but to him who, his captivity being turned away, was made the people of God. But the minds of the unlearned nations, captive and subjected to most impious vices and religions, He released into the liberty of faith and the name of the heavenly household. For those who were the servitude of demons were made the people of God. And who this is who turns away the captivity, He Himself testified concerning Himself.
For this captivity neither the law, nor a patriarch, nor a prophet, nor an angel, nor any other virtue of the heavenly beings—whether of dominions or of powers or of thrones or of virtues—turned away, but He who, having taken the book in the synagogue, when He had read these words: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, wherefore He has anointed me to preach to the captives remission and sight to the blind, to release the broken into remission, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord'—signifying the faith and the author of the fulfilled prophecy, said: 'Because this day this prophecy is fulfilled in your ears.'
This therefore is the turning away of the captivity of the people of God: when the eyes of understanding are opened, when hearts broken by sins are relaxed into rest, when the acceptable year of the Lord is announced, in which the confession of our repentance is accepted by God, when nothing of the past is reckoned to a charge, when all things are new, there is a new liberty, new sons, and eternal gladness. 'Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad'; for the same patriarch obtained both names by merit. For, because with his hand he had held the heel of his brother at birth, he was called Jacob, being about thereafter to supplant, both by buying the birthright and by seizing the blessings.
And Genesis set forth the force of the interpretation, that he was called Jacob because he was the supplanter of his brother. But through the recognition of the confessed God—then, when he asked to be blessed by that man over whom he prevailed in wrestling, because with the eyes of faith he had beheld in a body God, against whom the people of his own race, according to the mystery of the future passion, prevailed in the wrestling of the flesh—he deserved to be named Israel, because Israel means 'seeing God.' And according to the prophecy of Genesis itself, it was determined that in Jacob was signified the younger people, which was to believe from among the Gentiles. This one therefore shall rejoice as Jacob and be glad as Israel: according to the order of the Church, this one people of a twofold profession and honour;
for the heavenly discourse does not signify the very same thing by doubled sentences. But because the first faith, by which one prays that the name of God be invoked over him, supplants the prior people in faith, since the Gentile does not wish to be more unbelieving than the Jew—this therefore is Jacob, rejoicing in the hope of the blessing forestalled. But now, when reborn by baptism and made perfect by faith he shall have beheld God with the eyes and mind of understanding, then already shall Israel be glad, because now, the elder being supplanted, he sees God by faith, about to see Him with a truer vision—according to that promise of blessedness: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' our Lord and God Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 53. Unto the end, in hymns.
The understanding of David, when the Ziphites came and said to Saul: 'Behold, is not David hidden with us?' 'O God, save me by your name, and judge me by your power. O God, hear my prayer, give ear to the words of my mouth,' and the rest. The holy and blessed David is not ignorant, being a prophet, of the evangelical teaching, and although in the time of the law he was leading this bodily life, yet, as far as in him lies, he fulfils the precepts of the apostolic command, offering by God's testimony concerning himself the proof of his faith, when it is said: 'I have found a man according to my own heart, David, who is of Jesse.'
For he does not pursue his enemies with war, nor resist with arms in combat those lying in wait for him, but after the example of the Lord, whose name and gentleness he prefigured, being betrayed he prays, in peril he sings psalms, patiently enduring hatreds he gives thanks; and therefore he was found according to the Lord's heart. For although the Lord could have had twelve thousand legions of angels present at the time of His passion, yet, to fulfil every office of humility, He gave Himself up to the passion and to weakness, praying only and saying: 'Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.'
By which example this same man, being through the likeness of sufferings a prophet of His future passion, does not contradict, does not resist his enemies, not rendering evil for evil according to the evangelical precept, but as an emulator of the Lord's meekness, when he is troubled, when he is betrayed, when he is put to flight, he beseeches the Lord, whose arms alone he uses against the impious. But to this psalm a title is prefixed from history; yet before the history it is shown to what extent and when and against whom those things which are said under the history are to be understood by us. For first there is: 'Unto the end, the understanding to that David.' Then follows: 'When the Ziphites came and said to Saul: Behold, is not David hidden with us?'
Therefore this, that David is betrayed by the Ziphites, is to be understood 'unto the end.' By which it is shown that those things which at present were then done concerning David contain in themselves a prefiguration of the future time: when the innocent is harassed by persecution, when the prophet is mocked with insults, when he who pleases God is sought unto death, when the king is betrayed by his enemy—as the Lord by Herod and Pilate—by those with whom he ought to have been safe. The psalm therefore is of understanding 'unto the end' and of the understanding in that David, in whom is the end of the law. And He who has the keys of David, then opening the entrance of understanding, when He fulfils those things which were prophesied concerning Himself by David.
But the very interpretation of the name according to Hebrew propriety brings us no small profit toward understanding. For by the Ziphites are signified those sprinklings of the mouth which are with us: these by the Hebrews are called Ziphites. But sprinkling according to the law was the cleansing of sins, purifying the people by the sprinkling of blood through faith; of which sprinkling this same blessed David thus makes mention: 'You shall sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed'—the sacrament of the future sprinkling from the Lord's blood being meanwhile repaid by faith through the blood of the whole burnt offerings of the law.
But this people, like the people of the Ziphites, sprinkled with the mouth rather than with faith, and receiving the cleansing of the sprinkling with the lips rather than with the heart, proved unfaithful to their David and a betrayer—as He had said before through the prophet: 'This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me'; prone to betraying David for this reason, because, faith of the heart having ceased, they had performed all the sacraments of the law through the deceit of the mouth. 'O God, save me by your name, and judge me by your power. O God, hear my prayer, give ear to the words of my mouth.' According to the reasoning of the title demonstrated, the passion of David the prophet is an example of the passion of God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
And therefore his prayer also is tempered to the understanding of the prayer of Him who is the Word made flesh: so that He who suffered all things according to man might also speak all things according to man; and might, in the obligation of His service, beseech God on behalf of those whose weaknesses He bore and whose sins He took up. But the properties and forces of the words demand the sense of this understanding, even against our will and though we hesitate, so that we may not doubt that all things are said in the psalm from His person. For he says: 'O God, save me by your name.' In the humility of the body the only-begotten Son of God, under the words of His prophet, prays these things, He who was also demanding back the glory which He had had before the ages.
He asks to be saved in the name of God, in which He was both named and born, so that in the body in which He was born He might make safe the very thing which was proper to His prior nature and kind—the name of God. And because all this prayer is from the person of the servile form, for which servile form, assumed even unto the death of the cross, He beseeches the salvation of that name which is God's, and being about to be saved by the name of God, He at once added: 'And judge me by your power.' For on account of the merit of humility, because He had emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, He now again sought back the form partaking of God in that humility which He had assumed, the name of God being saved in the very man in whom God had consented to be born.
And that He might teach the honour of this name, in which He prayed to be saved, to be not merely of a bare naming, He prays to be judged in the power of God. For first, from the judgement, is what He merits: 'He became,' he says, 'obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God has exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name': so that to Him should be given the name which is above every name; then next, this same judgement should be in the power of judgement, because through the power of God He who as man had died from God, the same rose again into God from a dead man—according to that saying of the Apostle: 'He was crucified from weakness, He rose again from power'; and again: 'For I am not ashamed of the Gospel; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.'
For through the power of the judgement, the bodily weakness is saved into the name and nature of God; and thus, on account of the merit of obedience, it is advanced into the salvation of the name of God from the power of the judgement, so that in Him there should be both the name and the power of God. But if this discourse had begun from human custom, the prophet would have asked to be judged rather in mercy or in equity than in power. But there had been need of power for the judgement there, where to the Son of God, born the Son of man from the birth of a virgin, again to the very Son of man, through the power of the judgement, both the name and the power of the Son of God had to be restored. There follows next: 'O God, hear my prayer, give ear to the words of my mouth.' It had been easy for the prophet to have said: 'O God, hear me.'
But because he speaks from the person of Him who alone knew how to pray, therefore a constant petition for the prayer to be heard is shown. Blessed Paul teaches that no man knows how one ought to pray, saying: 'For we know not what we should pray for as we ought.' It is not therefore of human weakness to demand that one's prayer be heard, since the teacher of the nations, even after the form of praying had already been established by the Lord, is ignorant of what and how far he should pray. But this is the confidence of Him who alone sees the Father, who alone knows the Father, who alone can pray passing the night in prayer—for according to the Gospel the Lord passed the night in prayer—who through the mirror of words showed, under common words, the very form of the most hidden sacrament while we pray.
And He who asked that His prayer be heard, that He might teach this to be peculiar to His confidence, added: 'Give ear to the words of my mouth.' And will anyone think this to be of human confidence, that one should wish the words of his mouth to be heard? Or those words by which we utter the motions and impulses of our soul, whether when we blaze up with anger, or when we detract out of hatred, or when we complain out of grief, or when we fawn out of flattery, or when we lie either for the hope of gain or from shame of the truth, or curse from the offence of insult? And who anywhere was so amended and patient in his life toward all things that he was not liable to these vices of human change? He alone could wish this with confidence, who did no sin.
In whose mouth there was no guile, who offered His back to the scourges, did not turn His cheeks away from the blows, did not reproach the insult of the spittings, and in nothing offended the will of Him to whose will unto these things He willingly obeyed in all things. Then he added the cause why he prays that his words be heard: 'Because strangers have risen up against me, and the mighty have sought my soul, and they have not set God before their sight.' The only-begotten Son of God, the Word of God and God the Word—since indeed all things that the Father could do, all these He also could do, even as He says:
For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does the same, and in the undivided name of Godhead and of nature the power too would be undivided — so that He might be for us the most perfect example of human lowliness, He both prayed and suffered all the things that belong to men. And out of our common infirmity He besought salvation for Himself from the Father, that He might be understood to have entered upon our birth together with the very duties of our weakness. Hence it is that He hungered, thirsted, slept, grew weary, fled the gatherings of the ungodly, was sorrowful, and wept, and suffered, and died. And that He might be understood to be subject to all these things not by nature but by assumption, having gone through them all, He rose again.
Therefore all His lament in the psalms proceeds from the affection of our nature. And it is no wonder if we thus understand the sayings of the psalms as spoken of Him, since the Lord Himself, according to the faith of the Gospel, testified that the mysteries of His Passion were written in the psalms. "Strangers therefore rose up against Him." For they are no longer sons of Abraham, nor sons of God, but a brood of vipers, but slaves of sin, but the seed of Canaan whose father was the Amorite and whose mother was the Hittite, and sons of a diabolical will begotten of the devil their father. "And the mighty sought after His soul": when Herod questioned the chief priests where Christ was to be born, and when the whole synagogue conspired as a false witness against Him.
But esteeming this soul to be of human nature and infirmity, "they did not set God before their sight"; because God, from that state in which He remained God, had humbled Himself even to the origin of being born as a man, that is, that He who was before the Son of God should be the Son of Man. For the Son of God is none other than He who is the Son of Man; and He is Son of Man not in part, but as one truly born — for He emptied Himself out of the form of God, out of that which He was, into that which He was not, that is, so that He might be born into His own soul and body; and therefore He is both Son of God and Son of Man, therefore both God and man, that is, the Son of God was born in the condition of a human origin, even unto the nature of a man being born, He who is wholly of soul and flesh.
He is capable of being formed, the substance of God humbling itself. On which account, when strangers rise up against Him, when the mighty seek after His soul — which in the Gospels is frequently sorrowful and sad — "they did not set God before their sight," because God the Son of God, remaining before the ages, was, in the condition of human nature, that is, of our body and soul, born a man from a virgin's childbearing; not understanding, on account of the magnificence of His works, that the Son of Man, whose soul they sought, had come into being — into that state in which He had begun to be man — out of the Son of God, which He had ever remained. By the interposition of the "diapsalma," the person is changed — not of him who speaks, but of him to whom it was being spoken. For now the discourse of the prophecy is general.
For after that prayer which had been directed to God, so that the confidence of the one praying might be understood, in that very time of supplication, of one who obtains what he had asked, He straightway added: "For behold, God helpeth me, and the Lord is the upholder of my soul. He shall turn back evils upon mine enemies." He rendered particular effects to particular requests, teaching that God is not negligent of our prayer, nor is the bestowal of His mercy to be reckoned unreasonable, since He heard us according to what we prayed for. For to that which He said, "since strangers have risen up against me," this is proper: "God helpeth me"; but to that, "and the mighty have sought after my soul," the special effect of the prayer being heard lies in this. In that He says:
"And the Lord is the upholder of my soul"; but to that which He says, "and they did not set God before their sight," He fittingly added this: "He hath turned back evils upon mine enemies." God therefore both helps against those who rise up, and receives the soul of His holy one sought after by the mighty, and, though not set before their eyes nor considered by the ungodly, He turns those very evils back upon His enemies: so that, while the unrighteous do not consider God in seeking His soul and in rising up against Him, He being helped and received, they might feel Him, whom amid their works of iniquity they did not consider, to be the avenger of their malice through the retribution of that very malice.
Let innocent religion therefore have this confidence, that amid human persecutions and perils of the soul it may not doubt that God is its helper; and if ever the violence of an unjust death be inflicted, let it know that the soul departing from the dwelling of the body rests in God's keeping: let it have also a most certain assurance of vengeance, since all evils return upon those who inflict them. God cannot be accused of iniquity, nor is the impulse and motion of a malignant will mingled with His perfect goodness; for it is not the malevolent who stirs up evils, but the avenger who turns them back; nor does He bring them of His own malice, but converts them according to our deserts.
For these evils are appointed against all men for the ministries of vengeance, together with the law of living, the strict equity of a righteous judgment governing them. But these are turned away from the righteous by the law of justice, and are turned upon the unjust by the equity of judgment. Both are just: that they be at hand for the righteous unto fear yet not mingled with them, because they are righteous; and that they be turned upon the unjust unto punishment, because they deserve it: neither mingled with the righteous, though at hand, nor lacking to the unjust, because they are at hand. Then again there is a turning back to the person of God, to whom the supplication had first begun: "In thy truth destroy them." Truth confounds falsehood, and falsity is destroyed by truth.
But we have taught that all the foregoing prayer belongs to that man in whom the Son of God was born, and this too now, of one beseeching from God the Father, that He would destroy His enemies in truth. And what the truth is, is not in doubt; namely, that very One who said: "I am the life, the way, the truth." Therefore the enemies are destroyed in truth, when, having procured Christ's condemnation by false witnesses, they hear that He has risen from the dead, and learn that in the truth of God He has resumed His glory; for afterwards, on account of the punishment of God, they were driven to the cross, consumed and destroyed by famine and war: condemning the Author of life by death, and not considering the truth of God in Him through the magnificence of His works.
These, therefore, the truth of God destroys, when, rising again to resume the majesty of His Father's glory, He proved the truth of the perfect divinity in Himself. But that we frequently — nay, always — proclaim that the only-begotten Son of God was both driven to the cross and condemned to death, He who by that birth which is natural to Him from the eternal Father is eternal: He is to be understood as having been made subject to suffering not so much by the necessity of nature as by the mystery of human salvation; and to have willed rather to submit Himself to suffering than to have been compelled.
And although that Passion was not of the condition and kind natural to Him — since no force of injurious disturbance could offend the immutable nature of God — nevertheless it was undertaken voluntarily, indeed to satisfy the office of a penal function, yet not to injure the sufferer with any sense of pain: not because that Passion did not, of itself, by the very quality of the suffering, possess a nature capable of injuring, but because the nature of divinity does not feel pain. God therefore suffered, because He voluntarily subjected Himself to suffering; but while undertaking the natural forces of the sufferings that assailed Him — by which pain must needs be inflicted upon those who suffer — He Himself nevertheless did not fall away from the power of His own nature, so as to feel pain. For it follows: "I will voluntarily sacrifice unto thee."
The sacrifices of the law, which consist of holocausts and offerings of he-goats and bulls, do not contain in themselves a profession of the will, because a sentence of curse was decreed by the law against those who violated it. For whoever abstained from sacrifice made himself liable to the curse. It was therefore necessary that what was done should be done, because the addition of the curse did not permit any neglect of sacrifice. From which curse our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us, as the Apostle says: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." He therefore offered Himself to the death of the accursed, that He might dissolve the curse of the law, by voluntarily offering Himself as a victim to God the Father: