Exposition of Psalm 1

1. [v 1.] Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly (Ps 1:1): this is to be understood of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, of the Lord as man. Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly: unlike the earthly man who consented to his wife when she had been deceived by the serpent, so that he transgressed God's commands. And has not stood in the way of sinners: because he did indeed come in the way of sinners, being born as sinners are; but he did not stand, because the enticement of the world did not hold him. And has not sat in the seat of pestilence: he refused an earthly kingdom with its pride; and this is rightly understood as the seat of pestilence, because there is scarcely anyone who is free from the love of domineering and does not crave human glory; for pestilence is a disease that has spread far and wide, involving all or nearly all. Yet the seat of pestilence may more fittingly be taken as a destructive teaching, whose word spreads like a cancer (2 Tim 2:17). Then we must consider the order of the words: walked, stood, sat. For he walked away when he withdrew from God; he stood when he took delight in sin; he sat when, confirmed in his pride, he could not return, except by being set free through him who neither walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence.

2. [v 2.] But his will was in the law of the Lord, and on his law he will meditate day and night. The law is not laid down for the righteous man (1 Tim 1:9), as the Apostle says; but it is one thing to be in the law, another to be under the law: he who is in the law acts according to the law; he who is under the law is driven according to the law. The former, then, is free, the latter a slave. Again, the law that is written and imposed on one who serves is one thing; the law that is beheld by the mind, by one who does not need letters, is another. He will meditate day and night: this is to be understood either as without interruption; or by day in gladness, by night in tribulations; for it is said: Abraham saw my day, and was glad (John 8:56); and of tribulation it is said: Moreover even till night my reins have chastened me (Ps 16:7 (15:7)).

3. [v 3.] And he will be like the tree that is planted beside the running streams of water: that is, either according to Wisdom itself, which deigned to take up a man for our salvation, so that the man himself is the tree planted beside the running streams of water; for this can also be understood in the sense in which it is said in another psalm: The river of God is full of water (Ps 65:9 (64:10)). Or according to the Holy Spirit, of whom it is said: He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:11); and that other text: Let him who thirsts come and drink (John 7:37); and that other: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that asks water of you, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water, so that whoever drinks of it will not thirst forever; but it will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:10, 13-14). Or beside the running streams of water may mean according to the sins of the peoples, since in the Apocalypse waters are interpreted as peoples; and the running of them is not absurdly understood as a falling, which pertains to sin. So that tree, namely our Lord, drawing them from the running waters, that is, from the sinful peoples, into the way, into the roots of his discipline, will give fruit, that is, he will establish Churches; in its season, that is, after he was glorified by his resurrection and ascension into heaven. For then, when the Holy Spirit was sent upon the Apostles and they were confirmed in confidence in him and directed to the peoples, he made the Churches fruitful. And its leaf will not fall: that is, his word will not be void; for all flesh is grass, and the glory of man like the flower of grass: the grass has withered, and the flower has fallen, but the word of the Lord remains forever (Isa 40:6-8; 1 Pet 1:24-25). And whatever he does will prosper: that is, whatever that tree brings forth; and all of this is to be understood as fruits and leaves, that is, deeds and words.

4. [v 4.] Not so the ungodly, not so: but they are like the dust that the wind casts from the face of the earth. Here the earth is to be understood as stability itself in God, according to which it is said: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance, for my inheritance is glorious to me (Ps 16:5-6 (15:5-6)); according to this it is said: Wait for the Lord, and keep his ways, and he will exalt you to possess the earth (Ps 37:34 (36:34)); according to this it is said: Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the earth as their inheritance (Matt 5:4). Now the likeness is drawn from this: that just as this visible earth nourishes and sustains the outer man, so that invisible earth sustains the inner man. From the face of this earth the wind casts the ungodly man, that is, pride, because it puffs up. Guarding against it, the one who was made drunk with the abundance of God's house and given to drink from the torrent of his delight says: Let not the foot of pride come to me (Ps 36:11 (35:12)). From this earth pride cast out the one who said: I will set my seat in the north, and I will be like the Most High (Isa 14:13-14). From the face of this earth it also cast out the one who, when he had consented and tasted of the forbidden tree, that he might be like God, hid himself from the face of God. That this earth pertains to the inner man, and that pride casts a man from it, can best be understood in what is written: Why is earth and ashes proud? for in his life he has cast away his inmost parts (Sir 10:9); for the one who has cast away from where he was cast out is not absurdly said to have cast himself away.

5. [v 5.] Therefore the ungodly do not rise again in judgment: therefore, namely, because they are cast like dust from the face of the earth. And it was well said that what the proud aspire to is taken from them, namely, that they should judge; so that this very thing is understood as more plainly stated in the following sentence: Nor sinners in the counsel of the righteous. For in this way what is said above is usually repeated more plainly, so that sinners are understood as the ungodly; and what was said above, in judgment, is here said, in the counsel of the righteous. Or else, if the ungodly are one thing and sinners another, such that, although every ungodly person is a sinner, yet not every sinner is ungodly: the ungodly do not rise again in judgment, that is, they will indeed rise, but not so as to be judged, because they are already destined for the most certain punishments; whereas sinners do not rise again in the counsel of the righteous, that is, so as to judge, but perhaps so as to be judged, so that of them it is said: Each one's work, of what sort it is, fire will test: if anyone's work remains, he will receive a reward; but if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; yet he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Cor 3:13-15).

6. [v 6.] For the Lord knows the way of the righteous. Just as it is said: Medicine knows health, but does not know diseases; and yet diseases too are recognized by the art of medicine; so it can be said that the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but does not know the way of the ungodly: not because there is anything the Lord does not know, and yet he says to sinners: I do not know you (Matt 7:23). But the way of the ungodly will perish is put for what would be said: But the way of the ungodly the Lord does not know. Yet it was stated more plainly, so that to be unknown to the Lord is to perish, and to be known to the Lord is to remain: so that being pertains to God's knowledge, but not-being to his ignorance; for the Lord says: I am who I am; and: He who is has sent me (Exod 3:14).

Exposition of Psalm 2

1. [vv 1.2.] Why have the nations raged, and the peoples meditated vain things? The kings of the earth have stood up, and the princes have come together as one, against the Lord and against his Christ. (Ps 2:1-2) Why is said as though it were said, in vain: for they did not accomplish what they wished, that Christ should be destroyed; for this is said of the Lord's persecutors, who are also mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles.

2. [v 3.] Let us break their bonds, and cast their yoke from us. Although it can also be understood otherwise, yet it is more fittingly taken from the persons of those whom he said meditated vain things; so that this is the sense: Let us break their bonds, and cast their yoke from us, let us take care that the Christian religion does not bind us nor be imposed upon us.

3. [v 4.] He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them, and the Lord will mock them. The sentence is repeated: for in place of He who dwells in the heavens, there is afterward placed the Lord; and in place of will laugh, there is afterward placed will mock. Yet none of this should be understood in a carnal way, as though God laughs with his cheeks or mocks with his nose: rather, that power is to be understood which he gives to his saints, so that, perceiving what is to come, that is, the name of Christ and his dominion that would spread to later generations and gain hold over all the nations, they understand that those men meditated vain things; for this power by which these things were foreknown is God's laughter and mockery. He who dwells in the heavens will laugh at them: if we take the heavens to be holy souls, then through them, foreknowing what is to come, God will deride and mock them.

4. [v 5.] Then he will speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in his fury: for, showing more plainly how he will speak to them, he said, he will trouble them; so that in his anger is the same as in his fury. But the anger and fury of the Lord God should not be understood as a disturbance of mind, but as the power by which he most justly takes vengeance, with the whole creation subject to his service. For above all we must perceive and hold fast what is written in Solomon: But you, O Lord of power, judge with tranquillity, and govern us with great reverence (Wis 12:18). The anger of God, then, is the movement that arises in the soul that knows the law of God, when it sees that same law transgressed by a sinner; for through this movement of righteous souls many things are avenged. Although the anger of God can also rightly be understood as that very darkening of mind which befalls those who transgress the law of God.

5. [v 6.] But I have been established as king by him over Zion, his holy mountain, proclaiming the precept of the Lord: these things are manifest from the person of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. Now if Zion signifies contemplation, as some interpret it, we should understand nothing other than the Church, where day by day the attention is raised to contemplate the brightness of God, as the Apostle says: But we, beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled face (2 Cor 3:18). So this is the sense: But I have been established as king by him over his holy Church, which he calls a mountain because of its eminence and firmness. But I have been established as king by him: I, namely, whose bonds they meditated breaking and whose yoke they meditated casting off. Proclaiming his precept: who does not perceive this, when it is done day by day?

6. [v 7.] The Lord said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you. (Ps 2:7) Although that day might also seem to be spoken in prophecy as the day on which Jesus Christ was born as man; yet today, because it signifies presence, and in eternity nothing is past, as though it had ceased to be, nor future, as though it were not yet, but only present, because whatever is eternal always is; it is understood in a divine sense according to that saying, Today I have begotten you, by which the sincerest and catholic faith proclaims the eternal generation of the power and wisdom of God, who is the only-begotten Son.

7. [v 8.] Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. This is now in a temporal sense, according to the man taken up, who offered himself as a sacrifice for all sacrifices, who also intercedes for us; so that what is said, Ask of me, refers to the whole temporal dispensation that was carried out for the human race; namely, that the nations should be joined to the Christian name, and thus be redeemed from death and possessed by God. I will give you the nations as your inheritance, which you may possess for their salvation, and which may bear spiritual fruit for you. And the ends of the earth as your possession. The same is repeated: the ends of the earth is put for what was said, the nations; but more plainly, so that we understand all the nations: and your possession for what was said, your inheritance.

8. [vv 9.10.] You will rule them with a rod of iron: with inflexible justice. And like a potter's vessel you will shatter them; that is, you will shatter in them earthly desires, and the muddy affairs of the old man, and whatever has been contracted and ingrained from the mire of the sinner. And now, you kings, understand: and now, that is, now renewed, now that the muddy coverings have been shattered, that is, the carnal vessels of error that pertain to the past life: now understand, you who are now kings, that is, now able to rule whatever is servile and bestial in you; and now able to fight, not as though beating the air, but chastising your bodies and bringing them into subjection. Be instructed, all you who judge the earth. This same thing is repeated: be instructed for what was said, understand; and you who judge the earth for what was said, kings. For he signifies spiritual men, who judge the earth: for whatever we judge is beneath us; and whatever is beneath the spiritual man is rightly called earth, because it has been wounded by an earthly stain.

9. [v 11.] Serve the Lord in fear: lest what was said, kings who judge the earth, turn into pride. And rejoice in him with trembling: rejoice was most fittingly added, lest what was said, serve the Lord in fear, should seem to tend toward misery. But again, lest this very thing should proceed into an outpouring of recklessness, there was added, with trembling; so that it might tend toward caution and a circumspect guarding of one's sanctification. It can also be taken thus: And now, you kings, understand, that is: And now that I have been established as king, do not be sorrowful, kings of the earth, as though your good had been taken from you; but rather understand and be instructed. For it is to your advantage to be under him from whom understanding and instruction are given to you. And this is to your advantage, that you not rule recklessly, but serve the Lord of all with fear, and rejoice in the most certain and sincere blessedness, cautious and circumspect lest you fall from it through pride.

10. [v 12.] Lay hold of discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the righteous way: this is what he says, understand and be instructed; for to understand and be instructed is to lay hold of discipline. Yet in saying lay hold, it is sufficiently signified that there is a kind of protection and fortification against all things that could harm, unless it were laid hold of with such great care. Now lest at any time the Lord be angry is put with hesitation; not according to the vision of the Prophet, to whom it is certain, but according to those very people who are admonished; because those to whom it is not openly revealed are accustomed to think with hesitation about the anger of God. They ought, then, to say this to themselves: Let us lay hold of discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and we perish from the righteous way. Now, as to let the Lord be angry, how it is to be understood has been said above. And you perish from the righteous way: this is a great punishment, which is dreaded by those who have perceived some sweetness of righteousness; for whoever perishes from the way of righteousness will wander with great misery through the ways of iniquity.

11. [v 13.] When his anger blazes up shortly, blessed are all who trust in him: that is, when the vengeance comes that is prepared for the ungodly and for sinners, not only will it not touch those who trust in the Lord, but it will even profit toward the building up and exalting of their kingdom. For he did not say: When his anger blazes up shortly, secure are all who trust in him, as though they had from it only this, that they are not punished; but he said blessed, which is the sum and fullness of all good things. As for what is put, shortly, I think this signifies that it will be something sudden, while sinners suppose it to be remote and far off in the future.

Exposition of Psalm 3

1. [v 1.] What is said persuades us that this psalm is to be understood from the person of Christ: I slept and took my rest, and rose up, because the Lord will sustain me (Ps 3:5). For this sounds more fittingly in reference to the Lord's passion and resurrection than to that history in which David is recorded to have fled from the face of his son who was making war against him. And since it is written of the disciples of Christ, As long as the bridegroom is with them, the sons of the bridegroom do not fast (Matt 9:15), it is no wonder if his impious son signifies the impious disciple who betrayed him. From whose face his having fled, though it can be taken historically, when at his departure he withdrew with the others onto the mountain, yet spiritually, when the Son of God, that is, the power and wisdom of God, deserted the mind of Judas, since the devil utterly invaded him, in what is written, And the devil entered into his heart (John 13:27), it is well taken that Christ fled from his face; not because Christ yielded to the devil, but because, Christ departing, the devil took possession. This departure I think is called a flight in this psalm because of its swiftness; which is also signified by the Lord's word when he says: What you do, do quickly (John 13:27). We also speak this way in common usage, so that we say: It flees me, of what does not come to mind; and of a most learned man we say: Nothing flees him. Therefore the truth fled the mind of Judas when it ceased to enlighten him. Now Absalom, as some interpret it, is said in the Latin tongue to mean "the father's peace": which may seem strange, whether in the history of Kings, since Absalom waged war against his father; or in the history of the New Testament, since Judas was the betrayer of the Lord, how he can be understood as "the father's peace." But there too those who read diligently see that in that war David was at peace toward his son, who also lamented him with great grief when he was slain, saying: Absalom my son, who will grant me to die for you? (2 Sam 18:33); and in the history of the New Testament, the very patience of our Lord, so great and so wonderful, in that he bore with him so long as though he were good, since he was not ignorant of his thoughts, since he admitted him to the banquet at which he commended and handed over to the disciples the figure of his body and blood, and finally that in the very betrayal he received the kiss, it is well understood that Christ showed peace to his betrayer; although that man was laid waste by the inner war of so wicked a thought. And therefore Absalom is called "the father's peace," because the father had the peace that he did not have.

2. [vv 2. 3.] Lord, why are they multiplied who trouble me? So multiplied indeed, that even from the number of the disciples there was not lacking one who joined the number of persecutors. Many rise up against me: many say to my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God. It is manifest that, unless they had despaired of his rising again, they would not have killed him. To this purpose are those words: Let him come down from the cross, if he is the Son of God; and: He saved others, himself he cannot save (Matt 27:40, 42). Therefore Judas too would not have betrayed him, unless he had been of the number of those who despised Christ, saying: There is no salvation for him in his God.

3. [v 4.] But you, Lord, are my upholder: this is said to God according to the man; for the taking up of the man is the Word made flesh. My glory: even he whom the Word of God so took up, that together with him he became God, calls God his glory. Let the proud learn, who do not gladly hear when it is said to them: What do you have that you have not received? But if you have received it, why do you boast as though you had not received it? (1 Cor 4:7) And the one who lifts up my head: here I think the human mind itself is to be understood, which is not absurdly called the head of the soul, which so clung and in a manner coalesced with the surpassing supereminence of the Word taking up the man, that it was not cast down by such great humility of the passion.

4. [v 5.] With my voice I have cried out to the Lord: that is, not with the voice of the body, which is uttered with the noise of beaten air; but with the voice of the heart, which is silent to men, but to God sounds like a cry. By this voice Susanna was heard; and of this voice the Lord himself gives instruction, that we pray in our closed chambers, that is, in the secret places of the heart, without noise. Nor can anyone easily say that one prays less with this voice if no sound of words is uttered from the body; since, even when we are silent and pray in our hearts, if thoughts foreign to the affection of the one praying run in between, it cannot yet be said: With my voice I have cried out to the Lord. Nor is this rightly said, except when the soul alone, drawing into the prayer nothing of the flesh and nothing of carnal intentions, speaks to the Lord, where he alone hears; and this too is called a cry, because of the force of the intention itself. And he heard me from his holy mountain: we have it said through the Prophet that the Lord himself is the mountain, as it is written that a stone cut without hands grew to the size of a mountain. But this cannot be taken from his own person, unless perhaps he wished to say thus: He heard me from myself, as from his holy mountain, since he dwelt in me, that is, in the mountain itself. But it is plainer and more straightforward, if we take it that God heard from his righteousness: for it was just that he should raise from the dead the innocent one who was slain, and to whom evils were repaid for good, and that he should repay the persecutors with their deserts; for we read: Your righteousness is like the mountains of God (Ps 36:6 (35:7)).

5. [v 6.] I slept and took my rest. It can not unfittingly be noted that what is put, I, is set down to signify that he endured death by his own will, according to that saying: Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my soul, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again (John 10:17-18): it is not, then, he says, that you took and killed me as though against my will, but I slept and took my rest; and I rose up, because the Lord will sustain me. Now the Scriptures contain innumerably that sleep is put for death, as the Apostle says: I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep (1 Thess 4:13). Nor should it be asked why it was added, took my rest, when he had already said, I slept; for the Scriptures have repetitions of this kind in customary use, as we showed many in the second psalm. Some copies, however, have I slept, and was lulled into sleep, and others otherwise; in the various ways they were able to interpret what was put in Greek, egō de ekoimēthēn kai hypnōsa. Unless perhaps the falling asleep may be taken of the one dying, but the sleep of the one dead; so that the falling asleep is that by which one passes into sleep, just as awakening is that by which one passes into being awake. Let us not suppose that these repetitions are in the divine books for the sake of empty ornaments of speech. So it is well taken: I slept and took my rest; I gave myself over to the passion, and death followed. And I rose up, because the Lord will sustain me. This is the more to be noticed, how in one sentence he put both a verb of past time and one of future: for he said I rose up, which is of the past; and will sustain, which is of the future; whereas he could not rise again except by that sustaining. But in prophecy future things are well mixed with past, so that both may be signified: because the things prophesied as to come are future according to time; but according to the knowledge of those prophesying, are already to be held as done. Verbs of the present time are also mixed in, which in their place, when they occur, will be treated.

6. [v 7.] I will not fear the thousands of the people surrounding me: it is written in the Gospel how great a multitude stood around him as he suffered and was crucified. Rise up, Lord, save me, my God: it is not to one sleeping or lying down that it is said to God, rise up; but it is the custom of the divine Scriptures to attribute to the person of God what he does in us; not indeed everywhere, but where it can fittingly be said, as when he himself is said to speak, when by his gift the Prophets or Apostles or any messengers of truth speak. Hence is that text: Do you wish to receive proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? (2 Cor 13:3) For he did not say, of him by whose enlightening or command I speak; but he attributed the very speaking to him by whose gift he was speaking.

7. [v 8.] For you have struck all who oppose me without cause: this is not to be punctuated as though it were one sentence: Rise up, Lord; save me, my God, for you have struck all who oppose me without cause: for he does not save him because he struck his enemies; but rather, once he himself was saved, he struck them. Therefore it pertains to what follows; so that this is the sense: For you have struck all who oppose me without cause, you have broken the teeth of sinners; that is, from this you broke the teeth of sinners, because you struck all who oppose me. For the punishment of those who oppose is that by which their teeth were broken, that is, the words of the sinners tearing the Son of God with their curses, reduced to nothing, as it were to dust; so that we take "teeth" to be slanderous words, of which teeth the Apostle says: But if you bite one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another (Gal 5:15). The teeth of sinners can also be taken as the chief men among sinners, by whose authority anyone is cut off from the society of those who live rightly, and as it were incorporated into those who live badly. Contrary to these teeth are the teeth of the Church, by whose authority believers are cut off from the error of the gentiles and of various doctrines, and transferred into that which is the body of Christ: with these teeth it was said to Peter that he should eat the slaughtered animals; that is, by killing in the gentiles what they were, and changing them into that which he himself was. And of these teeth of the Church it is said: Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes coming up from the washing, which all bear twins, and there is none barren among them (Song 4:2). These are they who teach rightly, and live just as they teach; who do what is said: Let your works shine before men, that they may bless your Father who is in heaven (Matt 5:16): for moved by their authority, men believe in God who speaks and works through them, and, separated from the world to which they were conformed, pass into the members of the Church. And therefore those through whom these things are done are rightly called teeth, like sheep that have been shorn, because they have laid down the burdens of earthly cares, and coming up from the washing, from the cleansing of the filth of the world through the sacrament of baptism, all bear twins. For they fulfill the two precepts, of which it is said: On these two precepts the whole Law and the Prophets hang (Matt 22:40), loving God with their whole heart, and with their whole soul, and with their whole mind; and their neighbor as themselves. Among whom there is none barren, since they render such fruits to God. According to this understanding, then, you have broken the teeth of sinners is to be taken thus; that is, you have brought to nothing the chief men among sinners, by striking all who oppose me without cause: for the chief men persecuted him, according to the Gospel history, while the lesser multitude honored him.

8. [v 9.] Salvation is the Lord's, and your blessing is upon your people. In one sentence he both instructed men in what they should believe, and prayed for believers: for when it is said, Salvation is the Lord's, the speech is directed to men; nor does it so follow, And his blessing is upon his people, as though the whole were said to men; but the prayer is turned to God himself, for that very people to whom it was said: Salvation is the Lord's. What, then, does he say, but this? Let no one presume upon himself, since it is the Lord's to save from the death of sins; for Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25); but you, Lord, bless your people who hope for salvation from you.

9. This psalm can also be taken of the person of Christ in another way, that is, so that the whole speaks. I say the whole, that is, with his body of which he is the head, according to the Apostle who says: But you are the body of Christ and its members (1 Cor 12:27); therefore he is the head of this body. For which reason in another place he says: But doing the truth in love, let us grow up in him in all things, who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body is joined and knit together (Eph 4:15-16). Therefore in the Prophet the Church speaks together with its head, set amid the storms of persecutions throughout the whole world, which we know has already come to pass: Lord, why are they multiplied who trouble me? Many rise up against me, desiring to wipe out the Christian name. Many say to my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God: for they would not otherwise hope that they could destroy the Church spreading far and wide, unless they did not believe that it pertained to God's care. But you, Lord, are my upholder: in Christ surely; for in that man the Church too was taken up by the Word, which was made flesh and dwelt among us; because he also made us sit in the heavenly places together with him: for the head going before, the rest of the members will follow; for who will separate us from the love of Christ? Rightly, then, the Church too says: You are my upholder, my glory; for it does not attribute to itself that in which it excels, since it understands by whose grace and mercy it is such. And the one who lifts up my head, namely him who, the firstborn from the dead, ascended into heaven. With my voice I have cried out to the Lord, and he heard me from his holy mountain. This is the prayer of all the saints, the odor of sweetness that ascends in the sight of the Lord: for now the Church is heard from that mountain, which is also its head; or from that righteousness of God, by which his elect are set free, and their persecutors are punished. Let the people of God say also this: I slept and took my rest; and I rose up, because the Lord will sustain me, so that it may be joined and cleave to its head; for to this people it was said: Rise, you who sleep, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will reach you (Eph 5:14); since it was taken from sinners, of whom it was said in general: But those who sleep, sleep by night (1 Thess 5:7). Let it say also: I will not fear the thousands of the people surrounding me; namely of the surrounding nations, to wipe out the Christian name, if they could, wherever it might be. But how could they be feared, when the ardor of love in Christ was kindled by the blood of the martyrs as though by oil? Rise up, Lord, save me, my God: the body can say this to its own head; for at his rising it was saved, who ascended on high, led captivity captive, gave gifts to men: for this is said in predestination by the Prophet, by which our Lord brought down to the earth that ripe harvest of which it is spoken in the Gospel, whose salvation is in his resurrection, who deigned to die for us. For you have struck all who oppose me without cause, you have broken the teeth of sinners: now that the Church reigns, the enemies of the Christian name have been struck with confusion, and whether their slanderous words or their authority have been brought to nothing. Believe, then, men, that Salvation is the Lord's: and, may your blessing, Lord, be upon your people.

10. Each one of us can also say, when the multitude of vices and desires leads the resisting mind into the law of sin: Lord, why are they multiplied who trouble me, many rise up against me? And since for the most part, by the heaping up of vices, despair of health creeps in, as though the vices themselves were insulting the soul, or even the devil and his angels were working through harmful suggestions that we should despair, most truly it is said: Many say to my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God. But you, Lord, are my upholder; for this is the hope, that he deigned to take up human nature in Christ. My glory: from that rule, that no one attribute anything to himself. And the one who lifts up my head: whether him who is the head of us all, or the spirit of each one of us, which is the head of the soul and the flesh; for the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ (1 Cor 11:3). Now the mind is lifted up when it can already say: With the mind I serve the law of God (Rom 7:25); so that the rest of man, being made peaceful, may be subjected, when, at the resurrection of the flesh, death is swallowed up in victory. With my voice I have cried out to the Lord: with that inmost and most intent voice. And he heard me from his holy mountain: from him through whom he came to our aid, and through whom as mediator he hears us. I slept and took my rest; and I rose up, because the Lord will sustain me: which of the faithful cannot say this, recalling the death of his sins, and the gift of regeneration? I will not fear the thousands of the people surrounding me. Besides those things which the Church has endured and endures universally, each one also has temptations by which he is hemmed in, so that he may say this: Rise up, Lord, save me, my God; that is: Make me rise up. For you have struck all who oppose me without cause: rightly it is said in predestination of the devil and his angels, who rage not only against the whole body of Christ, but also against each one privately. You have broken the teeth of sinners: each one has those who slander him; he also has the authors of vices trying to cut him off from the body of Christ. But Salvation is the Lord's; pride is to be guarded against, and it is to be said: My soul has clung close after you (Ps 63:8 (62:9)). And your blessing is upon your people, that is, upon each one of us.

Exposition of Psalm 4

1. [v 1.] Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4): for here "end" signifies perfection, not destruction. Now whether every canticle is a psalm, or rather every psalm a canticle; or whether there are certain canticles that cannot be called psalms, and certain psalms that cannot be called canticles, may be asked. But the Scriptures must be observed, lest perhaps a canticle indicate gladness: while those are called psalms which are sung to the psaltery; and that the prophet David used this in a great mystery, the history makes plain. But this is not the place to discuss the matter; for it requires a lengthy inquiry and a long disputation. For now, meanwhile, we must expect either the words of the Lord as man after the resurrection, or those of a man believing and hoping in him within the Church.

2. [v 2.] When I called, the God of my righteousness heard me: when I called, he says, God heard me, from whom is my righteousness. In tribulation you have enlarged me: from the straits of sorrow you have led me into the breadth of joys; for tribulation and anguish are upon every soul of man who works evil. But he who says: We rejoice in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, down to where he says: Because the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:3-5), does not have straits of heart, although they are brought upon him from without by persecutors. Now the change of person, that from the third, where he says he heard, he passed at once to the second, where he says you have enlarged me, if it was not done for the sake of variety and pleasantness, it is strange why he first wished, as it were, to indicate to men that he had been heard, and afterward to address his hearer. Unless perhaps, when he had indicated how he was heard in the very enlarging of his heart, he preferred to speak with God; so that in this way too he might show what it is to be enlarged in heart, that is, now to have God poured into the heart, with whom he converses inwardly. This is rightly taken of the person of one who, believing in Christ, has been enlightened: but of the Lord as man himself, whom the Wisdom of God took up, I do not see how this can fit; for he was never deserted by her. But just as that prayer of his is rather an indication of our weakness, so also of this sudden enlarging of heart the same Lord can speak on behalf of his faithful, whose person he took upon himself even when he says: I was hungry, and you did not feed me; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink (Matt 25:42), and the rest. Therefore here too he can say, you have enlarged me, on behalf of one of his least ones conversing with God, whose love he has poured out in his heart through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer: why does he ask again, when he has already indicated that he was heard and enlarged? Is it on account of us, of whom it is said: But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom 8:25); or that in him who has believed there may be perfected what has been begun?

3. [v 3.] Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? At least until the coming, he says, of the Son of God will your error last; why, then, are you any longer heavy of heart? When will you have an end of deceptions, if you do not have it when the truth is present? Why do you love vanity, and seek a lie? Why do you wish to be blessed by the lowest things? Truth alone makes blessed, from which all things are true. For it is the vanity of those who deal in vanity, and all is vanity. What abundance does a man have in all his labor by which he labors under the sun? Why, then, are you held by the love of temporal things? Why do you pursue as the highest the things that are the lowest, which is vanity and a lie? For you long that those things should remain with you, all of which pass away like a shadow.

4. [v 4.] And know that the Lord has made his holy one wonderful: whom, but him whom he raised from the dead, and placed in heaven at his right hand? The human race, then, is rebuked, that it may at last turn to him from the love of this world. But if anyone is troubled by the conjunction added, in that he says, And know, it is easy for him to observe in the Scriptures that this kind of expression is familiar to that language in which the Prophets spoke. For you often find a beginning thus: And the Lord said to him: And the word of the Lord came to him. This linking of the conjunction, when no sentence has preceded to which the following may be attached, perhaps wonderfully suggests that the bringing forth of truth in the voice is joined with that vision which takes place in the heart. Although here it might be said that the preceding sentence, Why do you love vanity, and seek a lie?, is so put as if it were said: Do not love vanity, and seek a lie; and this being so put, by a most correct expression there follows: And know that the Lord has made his holy one wonderful. But the interposed diapsalma forbids this from being joined with the preceding: for whether it is a Hebrew word, as some hold, by which "let it be done" is signified; or a Greek one, by which an interval of psalm-singing is signified, so that the psalma is what is sung, but the diapsalma is a silence interposed in the singing; just as sympsalma is called the joining of voices in singing, so diapsalma is the disjoining of them, where a kind of rest of broken continuity is shown: whether, then, it is that, or this, or something else, this at least is probable, that the sense is not rightly continued and joined where a diapsalma is interposed.

5. The Lord will hear me when I cry out to him: here I believe we are admonished that with great intention of heart, that is, with an inner and incorporeal cry, we should implore the help of God; since, just as we should give thanks for the enlightenment in this life, so we should pray for rest after this life. Therefore, whether from the person of a faithful one preaching the gospel, or from that of the Lord himself, it is to be taken as if it were said: The Lord will hear you, when you cry out to him.

6. [v 5.] Be angry, and do not sin (Ps 4:4; Eph 4:26): for it occurred to him: Who is worthy to be heard, or how does a sinner not cry out in vain to the Lord? Therefore Be angry, he says, and do not sin; which can be understood in two ways: either: Even if you are angry, do not sin; that is: Even if a movement of the soul arises, which now, because of the punishment of sin, is not in our power, at least let reason and mind not consent to it, the mind that has been inwardly regenerated according to God, so that with the mind we may serve the law of God, even if with the flesh we still serve the law of sin: or: Do penance; that is, be angry with yourselves over past sins, and cease to sin any further. The things you say in your hearts: "say" is understood; so that the full sentence is: The things you say, say in your hearts; that is, do not be the people of whom it was said: They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me (Isa 29:13; Matt 15:8). On your beds be pierced with remorse: this is what was already said, in your hearts; for these are the beds of which the Lord too admonishes, that we should pray within with closed doors. Be pierced with remorse, however, is referred either to the grief of penance, so that the soul, punishing itself, may be pierced, lest, condemned in God's judgment, it be tormented; or to an arousing, so that we may awaken to behold the light of Christ, as though goads had been applied. Some, however, say that it is better read not be pierced with remorse, but be opened; since in the Greek Psalter there is katantēsēte, which is referred to that enlarging of the heart, so that the outpouring of love through the Holy Spirit may be received.

7. [vv 6.7.] Sacrifice the sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord. He says the same in another psalm: A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit (Ps 51:17 (50:19)). Therefore it is not absurdly taken here that the sacrifice of righteousness is the very thing that is done through penance: for what is more righteous than that each one should be angry at his own sins rather than at another's, and, punishing himself, offer himself to God? Or is the sacrifice of righteousness the righteous works done after penance? For the interposed diapsalma too perhaps not absurdly suggests also the passage from the old life to the new life: so that, the old man being extinguished or weakened through penance, the sacrifice of righteousness may be offered to God according to the regeneration of the new man, when the soul itself, now washed, offers itself, and lays itself upon the altar of faith, to be taken hold of by the divine fire, that is, by the Holy Spirit; so that this is the sense: Sacrifice the sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord, that is: Live rightly, and hope for the gift of the Holy Spirit, that the truth, in which you have believed, may enlighten you.

8. Yet Hope in the Lord is still said obscurely. And what things are hoped for, but good things? But because each one wishes to obtain from God the good that he loves, and those are not easily found who love the inner goods, that is, those pertaining to the inner man, which alone are to be loved, while the rest are to be used for necessity, not enjoyed for joy; when he had said, Hope in the Lord, he wonderfully added: Many say: Who shows us good things? This saying, and this question, is the daily one of all the foolish and the wicked; whether of those who desire the peace and tranquillity of the worldly life, and, because of the perversity of the human race, do not find it, who even, being blind, dare to accuse the order of things, when, entangled in their own deserts, they think the times are worse than the past were; or of those doubting or despairing of the very future life that is promised to us, who often say: Who knows whether these things are true, or who has come from the dead to announce them? Magnificently, then, and briefly, but to those who see within, he shows what good things are to be sought, answering the question of those who say: Who shows us good things? The light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord, he says. This light is the whole and true good of man, which is beheld not with the eyes, but with the mind. He said sealed upon us, as a coin is sealed with the king's image: for man was made to the image and likeness of God, which by sinning he corrupted: his good, therefore, is true and eternal, if by being reborn he is sealed. And to this I believe pertains what some prudently understand, that saying which the Lord, on seeing Caesar's coin, said: Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's (Matt 22:21); as if he said: Just as Caesar exacts from you the impress of his image, so also does God; that just as the coin is rendered to him, so to God is rendered the soul illumined and sealed with the light of his countenance. You have put gladness in my heart. Gladness, then, is not to be sought without, by those who, still heavy of heart, love vanity and seek a lie, but within, where the light of God's countenance is sealed: for in the inner man Christ dwells, as the Apostle says; for to him it pertains to see the truth, since he said: I am the truth (John 14:6). And when he spoke in the Apostle who said: Do you wish to receive proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? (2 Cor 13:3), it was certainly not without that he spoke to him; but in the very heart, that is, in that bed where prayer is to be made.

9. [vv 8.9.] But men pursuing temporal things, who are certainly many, have known to say nothing else but Who shows us good things? since they cannot see the true and certain goods within themselves. And so, consequently, of these it is most correctly said, in what he adds: From the time of their grain, wine, and oil they have been multiplied. For it is not idle that their is added: for there is also a grain of God, since there is the living bread that came down from heaven; there is also a wine of God, for They will be made drunk, he says, with the abundance of your house (Ps 36:8 (35:9)); there is also an oil of God, of which it is said: You have anointed my head with oil (Ps 23:5 (22:5)). But those many who say: Who shows us good things? and do not see that the kingdom of heaven is within them, from the time of their grain, wine, and oil have been multiplied. For multiplication does not always signify abundance, and does it not for the most part signify smallness: since the soul, given over to temporal pleasures, always burns with desire and cannot be satisfied, and, distended with manifold and toilsome thought, is not permitted to see the simple good; such as is that soul of which it is said: For the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks on many things (Wis 9:15). Such a soul, by the passing and succession of temporal goods, that is, from the time of its grain, wine, and oil, filled with innumerable phantasms, is so multiplied that it cannot do what is commanded: Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart (Wis 1:1); for this multiplicity is vehemently opposed to that simplicity. And therefore, leaving these who are many, multiplied, namely, by desire of temporal things, and who say, Who shows us good things?, which are to be sought not with the outer eyes, but within with simplicity of heart, the faithful man exults and says: In peace, in the selfsame, I will fall asleep and take my rest. For rightly is there hoped for from such men a complete estrangement of mind from mortal things and a forgetting of the miseries of this world, which is fittingly and prophetically signified by the name of falling asleep and of sleep, where the highest peace can be interrupted by no tumult. But this is not yet held in this life, but is to be hoped for after this life. This too the very words show, which are of future time: for it was not said, either: I fell asleep and took my rest; or: I fall asleep and take my rest; but: I will fall asleep and take my rest. Then this corruptible will put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality; then death will be swallowed up in victory. This is why it is said: But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom 8:25).

10. [v 10.] For which reason he fittingly links the last verse, and says: Because you, Lord, have made me dwell singularly in hope. Here he did not say: You will make; but: You have made. In whom, then, this hope already is, there will assuredly also be what is hoped for. And he well says, singularly: for it can be referred against those many who, multiplied from the time of their grain, wine, and oil, say: Who shows us good things? for this multiplicity perishes, and singularity is held in the saints, of whom it is said in the Acts of the Apostles: But of the multitude of believers the soul was one and the heart one (Acts 4:32). Singular, then, and simple, that is, set apart from the multitude and throng of things being born and dying, lovers of eternity and unity we ought to be; if we long to cleave to the one God and our Lord.

Exposition of Psalm 5

1. [v 1.] The title of the psalm is: For her who receives the inheritance. The Church, then, is understood, which receives as its inheritance eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, that it may possess God himself, by cleaving to whom it is blessed, according to that saying: Blessed are the meek, for they will possess the earth as their inheritance (Matt 5:4); what earth? but that of which it is said: You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living (Ps 142:5 (141:6)); and that plainer text: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup (Ps 16:5 (15:5)). And the Church is in turn called the inheritance of God, according to that saying: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance (Ps 2:8). Therefore God is called our inheritance, because he himself feeds and sustains us: and we are called God's inheritance, because he himself administers and governs us. For which reason this is the voice of the Church in this psalm, called to the inheritance, that it too may become the inheritance of the Lord.

2. [v 2.] Hear my words, Lord: called, she calls upon the Lord, that by his help she may pass through the wickedness of this world, and come to him. Understand my cry: she shows well what this cry is, how inward it is, that it reaches God from the bed of the heart without the noise of the body; since the bodily voice is heard, but the spiritual is understood. Although this too is for God to hear, not with a carnal ear, but by the presence of his majesty.

3. [v 3.] Attend to the voice of my supplication: that is, to that voice which she asks God to understand; what sort it is she has already suggested, when she said: Understand my cry. Attend to the voice of my supplication, my King and my God. Although the Son is God, and the Father is God, and together the Father and the Son are one God; and if we are asked about the Holy Spirit, nothing else is to be answered but that he is God; and when the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are spoken of together, nothing else is to be understood but one God; yet the Scriptures are accustomed to call the Son king. According, then, to that saying: Through me one goes to the Father (John 14:6), rightly first, my King, and then, my God. Yet she did not say: Attend (plural); but: Attend (singular): for the catholic faith does not proclaim two or three gods, but the Trinity itself one God: not that the same Trinity can at one time be called Father, at another the Son, at another the Holy Spirit, as Sabellius believed; but that the Father is none but the Father, and the Son none but the Son, and the Holy Spirit none but the Holy Spirit, and this Trinity none but one God. For when the Apostle had said: Of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things (Rom 11:36), he is believed to have suggested the Trinity itself; and yet he did not add, To them be glory; but: To him be glory.

4. [v 4.] For to you I will pray, Lord, in the morning you will hear my voice: what does it mean that above she said, hear, as though she desired to be heard in the present, but now says, in the morning you will hear, not, hear; and, to you I will pray, not, to you I pray; and then, in the morning I will stand before you and will see, not, I stand and see? Unless perhaps her earlier prayer shows the invocation itself: but, growing dim amid the storms of this world, she perceives that she does not see what she desires, and yet does not cease to hope: for the hope that is seen is not hope. Yet she understands why she does not see, because the night is not yet ended, that is, the darkness which her sins have deserved. She says, then: For to you I will pray, Lord, that is, since you are so great, to whom I will pray, in the morning you will hear my voice. You are not, she says, one who can be seen by those from whose eyes the night of sins has not yet withdrawn: when, therefore, the night of my error is ended, and the darkness departs which I have made for myself by my sins, you will hear my voice. Why, then, did she not say above, you will hear; but, hear? Is it that, after she cried, hear, and was not heard, she perceived what must pass away that she might be able to be heard? Or was she heard even above, but does not yet understand herself to be heard, because she does not yet see by whom she was heard; and what she now says, in the morning you will hear, she wished this to be understood, in the morning I shall understand that I have been heard? Such is that expression: Rise up, Lord, that is, make me rise up; but this is taken of the resurrection of Christ. That other surely cannot rightly be taken otherwise: The Lord your God tests you, that he may know whether you love him (Deut 13:3), except that you may know through him, and it may be made manifest to yourselves how much you have advanced in his love.

5. [vv 5-7.] In the morning I will stand before you, and will see: what is I will stand, but I will not lie down? And what else is it to lie down, but to rest on the earth, which is to seek blessedness in earthly pleasures? I will stand, she says, and will see: we must not, then, cling to earthly things, if we wish to see God, who is beheld with a clean heart. For you are not a God who wills iniquity. The malicious one will not dwell beside you, nor will the unrighteous remain before your eyes. You hate all who work iniquity, you will destroy all who speak a lie. The man of blood and the deceitful one the Lord will abominate: iniquity, malice, lying, murder, deceit, and whatever is of this kind, is the very night, at whose passing it becomes morning, so that God may be seen. She has set forth, then, the reason why she will stand in the morning, and will see: because you are not a God who wills iniquity, she says. For if he were a God who willed iniquity, he could be seen even by the unrighteous; so that he would not be seen in the morning, that is, when the night of iniquity has passed away.

6. The malicious one will not dwell beside you: that is, he will not so see as to cleave. Therefore there follows, nor will the unrighteous remain before your eyes; because their eyes, that is, their mind, is beaten back by the light of truth on account of the darkness of their sins, whose habit makes them unable to bear the splendor of right understanding. Therefore even those who at times see, that is, who understand the truth, yet are still unrighteous, do not remain there, by loving the things that turn them away from the truth; for they carry their night with them, that is, not only the habit, but also the love of sinning. If this night passes away, that is, if they cease to sin, and that very love and habit is put to flight, it becomes morning; so that they not only understand, but also cleave to the truth.

7. You hate all who work iniquity: the hatred of God is to be understood from that expression by which every sinner hates the truth. For it seems that he hates also those whom he does not allow to remain in himself: but they do not remain, who are not able to bear it. You will destroy all who speak a lie: for this is contrary to truth. But lest anyone suppose that some substance or nature is contrary to truth, let him understand that a lie pertains to that which is not, not to that which is. For if what is is spoken, the truth is spoken; but if what is not is spoken, it is a lie. Therefore, he says: You will destroy all who speak a lie; because, withdrawing from that which is, they are turned aside to that which is not. Many things, indeed, seem to be lies told for the salvation or advantage of someone, not out of malice, but out of kindness, such as those of the midwives in Exodus who reported a falsehood to Pharaoh, that the infant sons of Israel might not be killed. But even these are praised not for the deed, but for the disposition; since those who lie only in this way will deserve at some time to be set free from all lying. For in those who are perfect, not even these lies are found; to whom it was said: Let it be in your mouth: Yes, yes; no, no: whatever is more than this is from evil (Matt 5:37). Nor without reason is it written in another place: The mouth that lies kills the soul (Wis 1:11); lest anyone suppose that the perfect and spiritual man ought to lie for the sake of this temporal life, in whose death the soul, whether one's own or another's, is not killed. But since to lie is one thing, to conceal the truth another; since indeed to speak a falsehood is one thing, to be silent about the truth another; if anyone perhaps does not wish to betray a man even to this visible death, he ought to be ready to conceal the truth, not to speak a falsehood, so that he neither betrays nor lies, lest he kill his own soul for another's body. But if he cannot yet do this, let him at least have only the lies of this necessity, so that even from these, if these alone remain, he may deserve to be set free, and to receive the strength of the Holy Spirit, by which he may despise whatever is to be endured for the truth. There are altogether two kinds of lies in which there is no great fault, but yet they are not without fault, when we either jest, or lie in order to be of benefit. That first kind, in jesting, is for this reason not most pernicious, because it does not deceive; for he to whom it is said knows that it is said for the sake of a jest. The second is for this reason milder, because it retains some good will. But that which has no double heart is not even to be called a lie: as, for example, if a sword is entrusted to someone, and he promises to return it when the one who entrusted it asks for it; if perhaps the man, raving, demands his sword back, it is manifest that it is then not to be returned, lest he kill either himself or others, until his sanity is restored to him. Here, then, there is no double heart, because the man to whom the sword was entrusted, when he promised to return it to the one asking, was not thinking that the man could ask for it raving. Now the Lord too concealed the truth, when he said to disciples not yet fit: I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (John 16:12); and the apostle Paul, when he says: I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal (1 Cor 3:1). From which it is manifest that it is not to be blamed sometimes to be silent about the truth. But to speak a falsehood is not found to have been permitted to the perfect.

8. The man of blood and the deceitful one the Lord will abominate. Here it can rightly be seen as a repetition of what he says above: You hate all who work iniquity, you will destroy all who speak a lie; so that you refer the man of blood to the one who works iniquity, and the deceitful one to the lie: for deceit is when one thing is done and another is feigned. And he used a fitting word in saying will abominate; for those who are disinherited are commonly said to be abominated: but this psalm is for her who receives the inheritance, and she adds the exultation of her hope, saying: But I, in the multitude of your mercy, will enter into your house. In the multitude of your mercy: perhaps she means in the multitude of perfect and blessed men, of whom that city will consist, which the Church now travails with and little by little brings forth. And who can deny that many regenerated and perfected men are rightly called the multitude of God's mercy, when it was most truly said: What is man, that you are mindful of him; or the son of man, that you visit him? (Ps 8:4 (8:5)) I will enter into your house: like a stone, I believe, into the building, it is said. For what else is the house of God than the temple of God, of which it was said: For the temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor 3:17)? whose cornerstone is he whom the Power and wisdom of God, coeternal with the Father, took up.

9. I will worship toward your holy temple, in your fear: we understand toward your temple as near the temple; for she does not say: I will worship in your holy temple, but: I will worship toward your holy temple. It is also to be understood as said not of perfection, but of progress toward perfection; so that this signifies perfection: I will enter into your house. But that this may come about, first, she says, I will worship toward your holy temple; and perhaps for this reason she added, in your fear, which is a great safeguard for those advancing toward salvation. But when anyone has arrived, there will come about in him what was said: Perfected love casts out fear (1 John 4:18); for they do not fear a friend, to whom it was said: Now I will not call you servants, but friends (John 15:15), when they have been brought to that which was promised.

10. [vv 9.10.] Lord, lead me in your righteousness because of my enemies: here she sufficiently declared that she is in progress, that is, in advance toward perfection, not yet in perfection itself, when she longs to be led. In your righteousness, however, not in that which seems righteous to men. For to repay evil for evil seems righteousness, but it is not the righteousness of him of whom it was said: Who makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil (Matt 5:45); for even when God punishes sinners, he does not inflict his own evil upon them, but abandons them to their own evils: Behold, he says, he has travailed with injustice, he has conceived toil, and brought forth iniquity: he has opened a pit and dug it out, and has fallen into the ditch that he made: his pain will be turned upon his own head, and his iniquity will come down upon his own crown (Ps 7:14-16 (7:15-17)). Therefore, when God punishes, he punishes as a judge those who transgress the law, not inflicting evil upon them from himself, but driving them into what they chose, to fill up the sum of their miseries. But man, when he repays evil for evil, does it with an evil will; and on this account he is himself the worse, while he wishes to punish evil.

11. Direct my way in your sight. Nothing is plainer than that she commends to him the time in which she advances; for this is the way that is traversed not by places of the earth, but by the affections of the soul. Direct my way, she says, in your sight: that is, where no man sees, men who are not to be believed when they praise or blame; for they cannot in any way judge of another's conscience, in which the way is directed to God. Therefore she added: Because there is no truth in their mouth, who certainly are not to be believed in their judgments, and therefore one must flee inward to conscience and to the sight of God. Their heart is vain: how, then, can there be truth in the mouth of those whose heart is deceived about sin and the punishment of sin? Whence men are recalled by that voice: Why do you love vanity, and seek a lie?

12. [v 11.] Their throat is an open tomb: this can be referred to the signification of voracity, on account of which men often lie out of flattery. And he wonderfully said, an open tomb; since that voracity always gapes, unlike tombs which, having received the corpses, are closed up. That too can be understood, that by a lie and smooth flattery they draw into themselves those whom they entice to sins, and as it were devour them when they turn them to their own life. And since those to whom this happens die by sin, rightly are those by whom they are led called open tombs; because they themselves too are in a manner lifeless, not having the life of truth, and they receive into themselves the dead, whom, slain by lying words and a vain heart, they turn into themselves. With their tongues they were acting deceitfully, that is, with evil tongues: for this is what he seems to signify when he says their own, for the evil have evil tongues; that is, they speak evil, when they speak deceit. To whom the Lord says: How can you speak good things, when you are evil? (Matt 12:34)

13. Judge them, God: let them fall from their own counsels. This is a prophecy, not a curse: for she does not wish that it come to pass, but discerns what is to come to pass: for it befalls them, not because she seems to have wished it, but because they are such that it deservedly befalls them. For thus also what she afterward says: Let all who hope in you rejoice, she says by prophecy; since she discerns that they will rejoice. Thus by prophecy it was said: Stir up your power, and come (Ps 80:2 (79:3)); since he saw that he would come. Although what was said, let them fall from their own counsels, can also be taken in this way, so that it may rather be believed to be wished by her as a good, that they fall away from their own evil counsels, that is, that they no longer think evil things. But what follows forbids this from being so understood, drive them out; for in no way can it be taken in a good sense, when anyone is driven out by God. For which reason it is understood as said by prophecy, not by ill will; since this was said as what will necessarily befall such men, who shall have wished to persevere in the sins that have been mentioned. Let them fall, then, from their own counsels, it was said; let them fall, with their own thoughts accusing them, their conscience bearing witness, as the Apostle says: And of the thoughts accusing or defending, in the revelation of the just judgment of God (Rom 2:15-16).

14. According to the multitude of their impieties drive them out: that is, drive them far out; for this is according to the multitude of their impieties, that they be driven far. The impious, then, are driven out from that inheritance which is possessed by understanding and seeing God; just as diseased eyes are driven out by the brightness of light, when that is a punishment to them which to others is gladness. They themselves, then, will not stand in the morning and see. And as great a punishment is this expulsion, as great a reward is that which is said: But for me it is good to cleave to God (Ps 73:28 (72:28)). To this punishment is contrary: Enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt 25:21). For to this expulsion is similar: Cast him into the outer darkness (Matt 25:30).

15. Because they have embittered you, Lord. I am, he says, the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:41): and: Work for the food that does not perish (John 6:27): and: Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet (Ps 34:8 (33:9)). But to sinners the bread of truth is bitter; whence they hate the mouth of one who speaks the truth. They themselves, then, have embittered God, who by sinning have come into such sickness that they cannot bear the food of truth, in which healthy souls rejoice, but find it as gall.

16. [v 12.] And let all who hope in you rejoice: surely those to whom, tasting, the Lord is sweet. They will exult forever, and you will dwell in them: this, then, will be the eternal exultation, when the righteous become the temple of God; and their joy will be he himself, their indweller. And all who love your name will glory in you: as when there is present to them, for their enjoyment, what they love. And well in you, as those possessing the inheritance of which the title of the psalm speaks, since they themselves too are his inheritance, which is what you will dwell in them signifies. From which good those are forbidden whom God drives out according to the multitude of their impieties.

17. [v 13.] Because you will bless the righteous: this is the blessing, to glory in God, and to be indwelt by God. This sanctification is granted to the righteous; but that they may be justified, the calling goes before, which is not of merits, but of the grace of God: for all have sinned, and lack the glory of God. For whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Because, then, the calling is not of our merits, but of the good will and mercy of God, she added, saying: Lord, you have crowned us as with the shield of your good will; for the good will of God goes before our good will, that he may call sinners to penance. And these are the arms by which the enemy is vanquished, against whom it is said: Who will accuse against the elect of God? and: If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his only Son, but handed him over for us all (Rom 8:33, 31-32). For if, while we were still enemies, Christ died for us; much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved from wrath through him (Rom 5:10, 9). This is the most invincible shield, by which the enemy is repelled, who suggests despair of one's salvation by a multitude of tribulations and temptations.

18. The whole text of the psalm, then, is a prayer to be heard; from what is written, Hear my words, Lord, down to, my King and my God. Then comes the understanding of the things that hinder the seeing of God, that is, that she may know that she has been heard; from what is written, For to you I will pray, Lord, in the morning you will hear my voice, down to: The man of blood and the deceitful one the Lord will abominate. Third, she hopes that she will be the house of God, and now to draw near to it in fear, before the consummation that drives out fear; from what is written, But I, in the multitude of your mercy, down to: I will worship toward your holy temple in your fear. Fourth, advancing and progressing amid the very things by which she perceives herself hindered, she prays to be helped inwardly, where no man sees, lest she be turned aside by evil tongues; from what is written, Lord, lead me in your righteousness because of my enemies, down to: With their tongues they were acting deceitfully. Fifth, there is a prophecy of what punishment awaits the impious, when the righteous one will scarcely be saved, and of what reward the righteous will obtain, who, called, came, and manfully endured all things until they were brought through; from what is written, Judge them, God, to the end of the psalm.

Exposition of Psalm 6

1. [v 1.] Concerning the eighth: this seems obscure here; for the rest in this title are plainer. Now it has seemed to some to signify the day of judgment, that is, the time of the coming of our Lord, when he is to come to judge the living and the dead. This coming, with the years reckoned from Adam, is believed to be in the future after seven thousand years; so that seven thousand years pass as though seven days, and then that time comes as though an eighth day. But since it was said by the Lord: It is not for you to know the times which the Father has placed in his own power (Acts 1:7), and: But of that day and that hour no one knows, neither the angel, nor the power, nor the Son, but the Father alone (Mark 13:32), and what is written, that the day of the Lord comes as a thief, shows plainly enough that no one ought to claim for himself the knowledge of that time by any reckoning of years. For if that day is to come after seven thousand years, every man can learn of his coming by reckoning the years: where then will it be, that not even the Son knows this? This was certainly said because men do not learn this through the Son, not that he himself does not know it within himself, according to that expression: The Lord your God tests you, that he may know (Deut 13:3), that is, that he may make you know; and: Rise up, Lord, that is, make us rise up. Since, then, the Son is said not to know this day, not because he does not know it, but because he makes those not know it for whom it is not expedient to know it, that is, does not show it to them; what does that presumption, I know not what, mean for itself, which, with the years reckoned, hopes for the day of the Lord most certainly after seven thousand years?

2. Let us, then, gladly be ignorant of what the Lord wished us to be ignorant, and let us ask what this title means, which is written Concerning the eighth. The day of judgment can indeed be understood as the eighth, even without any rash reckoning of years, because after the end of this world, eternal life having been received, then the souls of the righteous will not be subject to times: and since all times roll on by the repetition of these seven days, perhaps that one is called the eighth which will not have this variation. There is another thing that can not absurdly be taken here, why the judgment is called the eighth: that it is to be after two generations, one pertaining to the body, the other to the soul. For from Adam to Moses the human race lived from the body, that is, according to the flesh: which is also called the outer and old man, and to which the Old Testament was given, that, by works that were religious indeed yet still carnal, it might prefigure the spiritual things to come. During this whole time in which life was lived according to the body, death reigned, as the Apostle says, even over those who did not sin. But it reigned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, as the same says; since until Moses is to be understood as the time during which the works of the Law, that is, those sacraments observed carnally, held even those bound, for the sake of a certain mystery, who were subject to the one God. But from the coming of the Lord, from the time when there was a passage from circumcision of the flesh to circumcision of the heart, a calling was made, that life should be lived according to the soul, that is, according to the inner man, who is also called the new man on account of regeneration and the renewal of spiritual ways. Now it is manifest that the number four pertains to the body, on account of the well-known four elements of which it consists, and the four qualities, dry, moist, hot, cold. Whence it is also administered in four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, winter. These are well known. For the number four of the body is treated also elsewhere more subtly, but more obscurely; which is to be avoided in this discourse, which we wish to be suited even to the less learned. But the number three can be understood to pertain to the soul, from the fact that we are commanded to love God in a threefold way, with the whole heart, with the whole soul, with the whole mind: of each of which there is to be a disputation not in the Psalter, but in the Gospel. For now, as a testimony of the number three pertaining to the soul, I think what has been said is enough. The numbers of the body pertaining to the old man and to the Old Testament being completed, the numbers of the soul referred to the new man and to the New Testament being also completed, then, just as when the sevenfold number has passed (because each thing is done in time), with the number four allotted to the body and the number three to the soul, there will come the eighth day of judgment, which, rendering to merits what is owed, will now transfer the saints not to temporal works, but to eternal life, and will condemn the impious forever.

3. [v 2.] Dreading this condemnation, the Church prays in this psalm, saying: Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger. The Apostle too speaks of the anger of judgment: You are storing up for yourself, he says, wrath on the day of wrath of the just judgment of God (Rom 2:5); in which whoever desires to be healed in this life does not wish to be rebuked. Nor chastise me in your fury: chastise seems milder; for it tends toward amendment. For he who is rebuked, that is, accused, is to be feared lest he have condemnation as his end. But since fury seems to be more than anger, it can raise the question why what is milder, that is, chastisement, is placed with what is harsher, that is, with fury. But I think one thing is signified by two words: for in Greek thymos, which is in the first verse, signifies what orgē does, which is in the second verse; but since the Latins wished themselves too to put two words, it was asked what was close to anger, and fury was put. Hence the copies vary: for in some, anger is found first, then fury; in others, fury first, then anger; in others, in place of fury, indignation is put, or bile. But whatever it is, it is a movement of the soul provoking to the inflicting of punishment: which movement, however, is not to be attributed to God as to a soul, of whom it was said: But you, Lord of powers, judge with tranquillity (Wis 12:18); and what is tranquil is not disturbed. Therefore disturbance does not befall God the judge; but what happens in his ministers, because it happens through his laws, is called his anger. In which anger the soul that now prays wishes not only not to be rebuked, but not even to be chastised, that is, amended or instructed: for in Greek paideusēs is put, that is, instruct. Now all are rebuked on the day of judgment who do not have the foundation that is Christ: but they are amended, that is, purified, who build upon this foundation wood, hay, stubble; for they will suffer loss, but will be saved as through fire. What, then, does this one pray, who wishes neither to be rebuked nor amended in the anger of the Lord? What, but to be healed? For where there is health, neither is death to be feared, nor the hand of the physician who burns or cuts.

4. [vv 3.4.] And so it follows, and she says: Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak: heal me, Lord, for my bones are troubled, that is, the firmness of my soul, or its strength; for this is what bones signify. The soul, then, says that its strength is troubled, when it names bones: for it is not to be believed that it has bones such as we see in the body. For which reason what is added pertains to the explanation: And my soul is troubled exceedingly; lest what she called bones should be understood of the body. And you, Lord, how long? who would not understand that there is signified a soul wrestling with its diseases, but long put off by the physician, that it might be persuaded into what evils it has cast itself headlong by sinning? For what is easily healed is not much guarded against; but from the difficulty of healing there will be more diligent guarding of health regained. God, then, is not to be reckoned as cruel, to whom it is said: And you, Lord, how long?, but as a good persuader of the soul as to what evil it has brought upon itself; for this soul does not yet pray so perfectly that it can be said to it: While you are still speaking I will say: Behold, here I am (Isa 58:9). At the same time, that it may also recognize how great a punishment is prepared for the impious, who will not turn to God, if those who turn suffer such great difficulty; as it is written in another place: If the righteous one will scarcely be saved, where will the sinner and the impious appear? (1 Pet 4:18)

5. [v 5.] Turn, Lord, and rescue my soul. Turning herself, she prays that God too may turn to her, as it was said: Turn to me, and I will turn to you, says the Lord (Zech 1:3). Or is it to be understood from that expression: Turn, Lord, that is, make me turn, since in her very conversion she felt difficulty and toil? For our perfect conversion finds God ready, as the Prophet says: We shall find him ready as the dawn (Hos 6:3). Since it was not the absence of him who is everywhere present, but our turning away, that made us lose him: He was in this world, he says, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him (John 1:10). If, then, he was in this world, and the world did not know him, our uncleanness does not bear the sight of him. But while we turn ourselves, that is, by the change of the old life recarve our spirit, we feel it hard and toilsome to be wrenched back from the fog of earthly desires to the serenity and tranquillity of the divine light. And in such difficulty we say: Turn, Lord, that is, help us, that the conversion may be perfected in us, which finds you ready and offering yourself to be enjoyed by your lovers. And therefore, after she said: Turn, Lord, she added, and rescue my soul, as it were clinging to the perplexities of this world, and suffering in the very conversion certain thorns of desires that tear at it. Save me, she says, because of your mercy. She understands that it is not of her own merits that she is healed, since to one sinning and transgressing the given precept just condemnation was owed; heal me, then, she says, not because of my merit, but because of your mercy.

6. [v 6.] For in death there is no one who is mindful of you. She understands also that now is the time of conversion, because when this life has passed, there remains nothing but the repaying of merits. And in hell who will confess to you? That rich man confessed in hell, of whom the Lord speaks, who saw Lazarus in rest, but grieved that he himself was in torments: so far did he confess that he even wished his own to be warned to hold themselves back from sins, on account of the punishments which are not believed to be in hell. Although, then, in vain, yet he confessed that those torments had befallen him deservedly; since he also desired his own to be taught, lest they fall into them. What, then, is: And in hell who will confess to you? does he wish hell to be understood as that into which the impious will be cast headlong after the judgment, where, on account of the deeper darkness, they will see no light of God, to whom they might confess anything? For that rich man, with his eyes still lifted up, though an immense gulf was interposed, could yet see Lazarus set in rest, from the comparison of whom he was forced to a confession of his merits. That too can be understood, that he calls sin death, which is committed in contempt of the divine law: so that we call sin the sting of death, because it produces death; for the sting of death is sin. In which death, this is to be unmindful of God, to despise his law and precepts: so that he called hell the blindness of soul, which receives and enwraps the one sinning, that is, the one dying; As they did not approve of having God in their knowledge, he says, God gave them up to a reprobate sense (Rom 1:28). From this death and from this hell the soul prays to be kept safe, while it strives at conversion to God, and feels the difficulties.

7. [v 7.] For which reason she goes on, saying: I have labored in my groaning. And as though that profited little, she adds and says: I will wash my bed every night. The bed is here named as the place where the sick and weak soul rests, that is, in the pleasure of the body and in every worldly delight; which delight he washes with tears who tries to draw himself out of it. For he now sees himself condemning carnal desires; and yet his weakness is held by delight, and lies willingly in it, from which the soul cannot rise unless healed. But what he says, every night, this perhaps he wished to be understood, that he who, ready in spirit, perceives some light of truth, and yet at times rests in the delight of this world through the weakness of the flesh, is as though forced to suffer days and nights by alternating affection: so that when he says: With the mind I serve the law of God, he feels as it were a day; again when he says: But with the flesh the law of sin (Rom 7:25), he is inclined toward night, until every night passes, and there comes the one day of which it is said: In the morning I will stand before you, and will see (Ps 5:3). For then he will stand; but now he lies, while he is on the bed which he will wash every night, that with such great tears he may obtain from God's mercy the most effective medicine. I will water my couch with my tears is a repetition: for when he says with tears, he shows how he said above, I will wash; and we take this couch as what above was bed: although I will water is something more than I will wash; since something can be washed on the surface; but watering penetrates to the interior, which signifies weeping down to the depths of the heart. As for the variety of tenses, that he put the past when he said: I have labored in my groaning; and the future, when he said: I will wash my bed every night; again the future: I will water my couch with my tears, this shows what one ought to say to himself when he has labored in vain in groaning; as if he said: It did not profit when I did this, therefore I will do that.

8. [vv 8.9.] My eye is troubled by anger: whether her own, or God's, in which she asks not to be rebuked or chastised? But if that signifies the day of judgment, how can it be understood now? Or is it the beginning of it, that here men suffer pains and torments, and especially the loss of the understanding of truth, as I have already mentioned was said: God gave them up to a reprobate sense (Rom 1:28)? For that is the blindness of mind; into which whoever has been given up is shut off from the inner light of God, but not yet utterly while he is in this life. For there is an outer darkness, which is understood to pertain rather to the day of judgment, so that whoever, while there is time, has refused to be corrected, may be utterly outside God; for what is it to be utterly outside God, but to be in the highest blindness? since God dwells in inaccessible light, into which they enter to whom it is said: Enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt 25:21). The beginning, then, of this anger is what every sinner suffers in this life: therefore, fearing the day of judgment, she labors and laments, lest she be brought to that whose beginning, so destructive, she now experiences; and therefore she did not say: It is extinguished, but: My eye is troubled by anger. But if she says her eye is troubled by her own anger, neither is this strange: for perhaps from this it was said: Let not the sun go down upon your anger (Eph 4:26), because the mind thinks it suffers in itself as a setting of the inner sun, that is, the wisdom of God, the mind which by its own disturbance is not allowed to see him.

9. I have grown old among all my enemies. She had spoken only of anger, if indeed she had spoken of her own anger: but considering the remaining vices, she finds herself hemmed in by all. And since these vices are of the old life and of the old man, whom we are to put off that we may put on the new, it was rightly said: I have grown old. Now among all my enemies, she means either among the vices themselves, or among men who will not turn to God: for these too, even if they do not know it, even if they spare, even if they share the same banquets and houses and cities without any quarrel, and use frequent conversations as though in concord, nonetheless, by a contrary intention, are enemies to those who turn themselves to God. For when some love and crave this world, and others long to be set free from this world, who does not see that the former are enemies to the latter? for if they could, they would drag them with themselves to punishment. And it is a great gift, to be daily engaged among their words, and not to depart from the way of God's precepts: for often the mind, striving to advance toward God, is shaken and trembles on the very way: and for the most part for this reason does not fulfill its good resolve, lest it offend those with whom it lives, who love and pursue other goods that will perish and pass away. From these every healthy soul is separated, not by places, but in mind; for bodies are contained by places, but for the mind its place is its own affection.

10. For which reason, after the labor and the groaning and the most frequent showers of tears, since that cannot be empty which is so vehemently asked of him who is the fountain of all mercies, and it was most truly said: The Lord is near to those who are contrite of heart (Ps 34:18 (33:19)), the pious soul, signifying that after such great difficulties she has been heard (whom it is permitted also to understand as the Church), see what she adds: Depart from me, all you who work iniquity; because the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. Either it was said by prophecy, since they are to depart, that is, the impious will be separated from the righteous, when the day of judgment comes; or now, because, even if they are contained together and in the same assemblies, yet on the bare threshing floor the grains are already separated from the chaff, though they lie hidden among the chaff: and so they can be engaged together, but they cannot together be carried off by the wind.

11. [v 10.] Because the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping; the Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord has taken up my prayer. The frequent repetition of the same sentence shows not, as it were, the necessity of one narrating, but the affection of one exulting; for those who rejoice are accustomed to speak in this way, so that it does not suffice them to declare once what they rejoice over. This is the fruit of that groaning in which one labors, and of those tears with which the bed is washed and the couch watered; since he who sows in tears will reap in joy, and blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

12. [v 11.] Let all my enemies be ashamed and troubled. Depart from me, all of you, she said above; which can come about even in this life, as has been explained: but what she says, Let them be ashamed and troubled, I do not see how it can come to pass, except on that day when the rewards of the righteous and the punishments of sinners will be manifest. For now the impious are so far from being ashamed that they do not cease to insult us: and for the most part they prevail so much by their mockeries that they make weak men ashamed of the name of Christ, whence it was said: Whoever is ashamed of me before men, I will be ashamed of him before my Father (Matt 10:33; Mark 8:38). And now whoever wishes to fulfill those sublime precepts, to scatter abroad, to give to the poor, so that his righteousness may remain forever, and, all his earthly goods being sold and given out to the needy, wishes to follow Christ, saying: We brought nothing into this world, and truly we can take nothing out; having food and covering, with these let us be content (1 Tim 6:7-8); he falls into their sacrilegious scoffing, and is called insane by those who refuse to be healed; and often, lest he be so called by desperate men, he trembles to do, and puts off, what the most faithful and most powerful physician of all has commanded. Now, then, these cannot be ashamed, for whose sake it is to be wished that we be not ashamed, and that we be not called back, or hindered, or delayed from the way we have resolved upon. But the time will come when they will be ashamed, saying as it is written: These are they whom we once held in derision and as a parable of reproach: we fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honor: how are they reckoned among the sons of God, and their lot is among the saints? Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness has not shone for us, and the sun has not risen upon us: we were filled with the way of iniquity and of perdition, and we walked difficult solitudes, but the way of the Lord we did not know. What did pride profit us, or what did the boasting of riches bring us? All those things have passed away like a shadow (Wis 5:3-9).

13. But as for what she says: Let them be turned back, and confounded, who would not judge it to be a most just punishment, that they should have for confusion the conversion which they refused to have for salvation? Then she added, very swiftly; for when the day of judgment has begun to be despaired of, when they shall have said: Peace, then sudden destruction will come upon them. But whenever it comes, that comes most swiftly which is despaired of as ever coming: and the length of this life is not made to be felt except by the hope of living; for nothing seems swifter than whatever in it has already passed. When, then, the day of judgment comes, then sinners will feel how not long is every life that passes; nor can it seem to them at all to have come late, which will have come to those not desiring, but rather not believing, it. Although this too can be taken here, that because God heard her, as it were groaning and so often and so long weeping, she is understood to be set free from sins, and to have tamed all the perverse movements of carnal affection, as she says: Depart from me, all you who work iniquity, because the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping; and when this comes to her, it is no wonder if she is now so perfect that she prays for her enemies. To this, then, can pertain what she said: Let all my enemies be ashamed and troubled, that they may do penance for their sins, which cannot come about without confusion and trouble. Nothing, therefore, hinders our taking what follows also in this way: Let them be turned back and ashamed, that is, let them turn back to God, and be ashamed that they once gloried in the former darkness of sins; as the Apostle says: For what glory did you once have in those things of which you are now ashamed? (Rom 6:21) But what she added, very swiftly, is to be referred either to the affection of one wishing, or to the power of Christ, who, with such swiftness of times, turned the nations that were persecuting the Church on behalf of their idols to the faith of the Gospel.

Exposition of Psalm 7

1. [v 1.] The history from which this prophecy took its occasion is easy to learn in the second book of Kings. For there Cushi, a friend of King David, crossed over to the side of Absalom his son, who was waging war against his father, to spy out his counsels and report what that man was contriving against his father at the instigation of Ahithophel, who had fallen away from friendship with David, and was instructing his son against his father with such counsels as he could. But since it is not the history itself that is to be considered in this psalm, of which the Prophet took up the veil of mysteries, if we have made the passage over to Christ, let the veil be taken away. And first let us inquire what the signification of the names themselves means. For there have not been lacking interpreters who, investigating these very names not carnally according to the letter, but spiritually, have declared to us that Cushi is interpreted as "Silence"; and Jemini as "Right-hand"; Ahithophel as "Brother's ruin." By which interpretations again that betrayer Judas meets us, so that Absalom bears his image, according as he is interpreted "the father's peace"; because his father was at peace toward him, although he himself had war in his heart by his deceits, as was treated in the third psalm. And just as in the Gospel the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ are found to have been called sons, so in the same Gospel they are found also to have been called brothers; for the Lord, rising, says: Go, and tell my brothers (Matt 28:10), and the Apostle calls him the firstborn among many brothers: the ruin, then, of his disciple who betrayed him is rightly understood as "Brother's ruin," which we said Ahithophel is interpreted. But Cushi, which is interpreted "Silence," is rightly taken to mean that our Lord contended against those deceits by silence, that is, by that deepest secret by which blindness came in part upon Israel, when they persecuted the Lord, that the fullness of the Gentiles might enter in, and so all Israel might be saved. When the Apostle had come to this deep secret and high silence, he cried out as though struck by a kind of awe at its very depth: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? (Rom 11:33-34) so that great silence he opens not so much by explanation as commends by admiration. By this silence the Lord, hiding the sacrament of his venerable passion, turned the voluntary ruin of his brother, that is, the wicked crime of his betrayer, into the order of his mercy and providence; so that what that man, with a perverse mind, was doing for the destruction of one man, he himself, by provident governance, might turn to the salvation of all men. Therefore the perfect soul sings a psalm to the Lord, which is now worthy to know the secret of God; it sings for the words of Cushi, because it has deserved to know the words of that silence. For among the unbelievers and persecutors that is silence and secret: but among his own, to whom it was said: Now I do not call you servants, for the servant does not know what his lord does; but I have called you friends, because all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you (John 15:15): among his friends, then, there is not silence, but the words of the silence, that is, the reason of that silence set forth and made manifest. Which silence, that is, Cushi, is called the son of Jemini, that is, of the right hand: for what was done for them was not to be hidden from the saints. And yet, Let not the left hand know what the right hand does (Matt 6:3). The perfect soul, then, to which that secret has become known, sings in prophecy for the words of Cushi, that is, for the knowledge of that same secret; which secret the right-hand God, that is, favoring and propitious to it, wrought: wherefore is this silence called the son of the right-hand one, which is Cushi, the son of Jemini?

2. [vv 2.3.] Lord my God, in you I have hoped; save me from all who persecute me, and rescue me. As one to whom, now perfected, there remains only the envious devil, every war and adversity of the vices having been overcome, he says: Save me from all who persecute me, and rescue me: lest at any time he seize my soul like a lion. The Apostle says: Your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8). And so, when he had said in the plural number: Save me from all who persecute me, he afterward brought in the singular, saying, lest at any time he seize my soul like a lion: for he did not say, lest they seize, knowing who it is that has withstood his enemies, and is vehemently opposed to the perfect soul. While there is no one to redeem, nor anyone to save: that is, lest he seize, while you do not redeem nor save; for if God does not redeem nor save, that one seizes.

3. [vv 4.5.] And that it may be manifest that it is now the perfect soul that says this, which has to beware of the most fraudulent snares of the devil alone, see what follows: Lord my God, if I have done this. What is it that he calls this? is it that, because he does not name the sin, sin in general is to be understood? If this understanding displeases, let us take what follows to be meant: as if we had asked, What is this that you say, this? he answers: If there is iniquity in my hands. Now, then, it is manifest that it is said of every sin: If I have repaid those who repaid me with evils; which no one can truly say but the perfect. For the Lord says: Be perfect, as your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust (Matt 5:48, 45); he, then, who does not repay those who repay with evils, is perfect. Since, therefore, the perfect soul prays for the words of Cushi, the son of Jemini, that is, for the knowledge of that secret and silence, which the propitious and merciful Lord wrought for our salvation, that he might tolerate and most patiently bear with the deceits of his betrayer: as though this perfect soul says, setting forth the reason of that secret: I, for you, impious and a sinner, that your iniquities might be washed by the shedding of my blood, bore with my betrayer with great silence and great patience; will you not imitate me, that you too may not repay evil for evil? Therefore, considering and understanding what the Lord did for him, and advancing toward perfection by his example, he says: If I have repaid those who repaid me with evils, that is, if I have not done what you taught by doing, then let me fall away empty from my enemies. And it is well that he did not say: If I have repaid those who gave me evils, but, those who repaid: for he who repays had already received something; but it is of greater patience not to render evils even to him who, having received benefits, repays evil for good, than if, no benefit having been received before, one had wished to harm. If I have repaid, then, he says, those who repaid me with evils, that is, if I have not imitated you in that silence, that is, in your patience which you wrought for me, let me fall away from my enemies empty. For he boasts emptily who, being himself also a man, desires to avenge himself on a man: and when he openly seeks to overcome a man, he is secretly overcome by the devil, made empty by a vain and proud gladness, that he could not, as it were, be conquered. This one, then, understands where the greater victory is achieved, and where the Father, who sees in secret, repays. And so, lest he repay those who repay with evils, he overcomes anger rather than a man, instructed too by those letters in which it is written: Better is he who overcomes anger, than he who takes a city (Prov 16:32). If I have repaid those who repaid me with evils, then let me fall away from my enemies empty. He seems to swear by an imprecation, which is the gravest kind of oath, when a man says: If I did that, may I suffer that. But the swearing in the mouth of one swearing is one thing, in the signification of one prophesying another: for here he says what truly befalls men who repay those who repay with evils; not that he imprecates upon himself, or upon anyone, as by an oath.

4. [v 6.] Let the enemy, then, persecute my soul, and seize it. Again naming the enemy in the singular number, he makes more and more manifest him whom above he called as it were a lion. For he himself persecutes the soul; and if he deceives it, he will seize it. For men rage even to the slaying of the body, but the soul, after this visible death, they cannot have in their power; whereas the devil will possess whatever souls he persecutes and seizes. And let him trample my life into the earth: that is, by trampling, let him make my life earth, namely his own food; for he was called not only a lion, but also a serpent, to whom it was said: You will eat earth (Gen 3:14); and to sinful man it was said: You are earth, and into earth you will go (Gen 3:19). And let him bring down my glory into the dust. This is that dust which the wind casts from the face of the earth, namely the vain and foolish boasting of the proud, puffed up and not made solid, like a globe of dust raised by the wind. Rightly, then, he here put glory, which he does not wish brought down into the dust. For he wishes to have it solid in his conscience before God, where there is no boasting; He who glories, he says, let him glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31). This solidity is brought down into dust, if through pride anyone, despising the secrets of conscience, where God alone proves a man, wishes to glory among men; hence it is that elsewhere he says: God will break the bones of those who please men (Ps 53:5 (52:6)). But he who has well learned, or by experience knows, the degrees of vices to be overcome, understands that this vice of vainglory is to be guarded against by the perfect either alone or above all: for by which vice the soul first fell, this it overcomes last. Now the beginning of all sin is pride; and: The beginning of man's pride is to apostatize from God (Sir 10:13, 12).

5. [v 7.] Rise up, Lord, in your anger. Why does this one, whom we call perfect, still provoke God to anger? Should it not rather be seen that he is the more perfect who, when he was being stoned, said: Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge (Acts 7:60)? Or does this one too pray these things not against men, but against the devil and his angels, whose possession sinners and impious men are? Not raging, then, but merciful toward him, does whoever prays pray, when he prays that this possession be taken from him by that Lord who justifies the impious: for when the impious one is justified, from impious he becomes righteous, and migrates from the possession of the devil into the temple of God; and since it is a punishment for anyone to have taken from him a possession in which he longs to rule, this punishment he calls the anger of God against the devil, that he may cease to possess those whom he possesses. Rise up, Lord, in your anger: Rise up, here he said appear, namely in human and hidden words, as though God sleeps, when he lies unknown in his secret places. Be exalted in the borders of my enemies. He called the very possession their borders, where he wishes God rather to be exalted, that is, honored and glorified, than the devil, while the impious are justified and praise God. And rise up, Lord my God, in the precept that you have commanded: that is, because you commanded humility, appear humble; and you first fulfill what you commanded, that by your example, overcoming pride, they may not be possessed by the devil, who persuaded pride against your precepts, saying: Eat, and your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods (Gen 3:5).

6. [v 8.] And the congregation of peoples will surround you. There is a double understanding. For the congregation of peoples can be taken either of believers or of persecutors, each of which came about through that same humility of our Lord: which the multitude of persecutors, despising, surrounded him, of which it was said: Why have the nations raged, and the peoples meditated vain things? (Ps 2:1) but the multitude of believers, through his humility, so surrounded him that it was most truly said: Blindness came in part upon Israel, that the fullness of the Gentiles might enter in (Rom 11:25); and that other: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession (Ps 2:8). And for the sake of this return on high: that is, for the sake of this congregation return on high; which he is understood to have done by rising again and ascending into heaven. For so glorified he gave the Holy Spirit, who before his glorification could not be given, as it is set down in the Gospel: But the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:39). Having returned, then, on high for the sake of the congregation of peoples, he sent the Holy Spirit; filled with whom the preachers of the Gospel filled the world with Churches.

7. This sense too can be understood thus: Rise up, Lord, in your anger, be exalted in the borders of my enemies: that is, rise up in your anger, and let my enemies not understand you; so that this is be exalted, that is, made high so that you are not understood, which is referred to that silence. For thus of this exaltation it is said in another psalm: And he ascended above the Cherubim, and flew. And he made darkness his hiding place (Ps 18:10-11 (17:11-12)): by which exaltation, that is, concealment, when those who crucify you have not understood you, by the merit of their own sins, the congregation of believers will surround you. For he was exalted by that very humility, that is, he was not understood; so that to this is referred: And rise up, Lord my God, in the precept that you have commanded; that is, when you appear humble, be high, that my enemies may not understand you: for to the righteous, sinners are enemies, and to the pious, the impious. And the congregation of peoples will surround you: that is, by this very fact that those who crucify you do not understand you, the Gentiles will believe in you, and so the congregation of peoples will surround you. But what follows, if it truly signifies this, has more of sorrow, because it now begins to be felt, than of gladness, because it is understood. For it follows: And for the sake of this return on high: that is, and for the sake of this congregation of the human race, by which the Churches are filled, return on high, that is, again cease to be understood. What, then, is: And for the sake of this, but that this too will offend you; so that you most truly foretell, saying: Do you think that when the Son of man comes, he will find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8) Again he speaks of the false prophets, who are understood as heretics: Because of their iniquity the love of many will grow cold (Matt 24:12). When, therefore, even in the Churches, that is, in that congregation of peoples and nations where the Christian name has spread most widely, there will be so great an abundance of sins, which is now in great part felt, is not that here foretold which was also announced through another prophet, the famine of the word? And is it not also for the sake of this congregation, estranging from itself the light of truth by its sins, that God returns on high, that is, so that the sincere faith, purified from the stain of all depraved opinions, is either not held, or held by very few, of whom it was said: Blessed is he who perseveres to the end, he will be saved (Matt 24:13)? Not without reason, then, is it said: And for the sake of this congregation return on high; that is, withdraw again into the height of your secret places, even for the sake of this congregation of peoples which has your name and does not do your works.

8. But whether the earlier or this be the more fitting exposition of this place, without prejudice to any other better or equal one, most fittingly there follows: The Lord judges the peoples. For whether he returned on high, when after the resurrection he ascended into heaven, well does it follow: The Lord judges the peoples; because thence he is to come to judge the living and the dead: or whether he returns on high when the understanding of truth deserts Christian sinners; because of that very coming it was said: Do you think the Son of man, when he comes, will find faith on the earth? The Lord, then, judges the peoples. What Lord, but Jesus Christ? For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son (John 5:22). For which reason, see how this soul, which prays perfectly, does not fear the day of judgment, and with a truly secure desire says in prayer: May your kingdom come (Matt 6:10): Judge me, he says, Lord, according to my righteousness. In the earlier psalm the weak one prayed, imploring the mercy of God rather than recalling any merit of his own; since the Son of God came to call sinners to penance. And so there he had said: Save me, Lord, because of your mercy, that is, not because of my merit; but now, since, being called, he has held and kept the precepts which he received, he dares to say: Judge me, Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to my innocence upon me. This is true innocence, which harms not even an enemy; and so well does he ask to be judged according to his innocence, who could truly say: If I have repaid those who repaid me with evils. But what he added, upon me, can be understood not only of innocence, but also of righteousness; so that this is the sense: Judge me, Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to my innocence, which righteousness and innocence is upon me. By which addition he shows that the very fact that the soul is righteous and innocent it has not of itself, but through God who illumines and enlightens it; for of this he says in another psalm: You will light my lamp, Lord (Ps 18:28 (17:29)); and of John it is said, that he was not the light, but bore witness to the light (John 1:8). He was a lamp burning and shining (John 5:35). That light, then, from which souls as lamps are kindled, shines forth not by a borrowed but by its own splendor, which is the truth itself. So, then, it is said, according to my righteousness, and according to my innocence upon me, as if a lamp, burning and shining, should say: Judge me according to the flame that is upon me, that is, not as I am, but as I shine, kindled from you.

9. [v 10.] But let the wickedness of sinners be consummated. Let it be consummated, he says, let it be perfected, according to that which is in the Apocalypse: Let the righteous become more righteous, and the filthy be filthy still (Rev 22:11). For the wickedness of those who crucified the Son of God seems consummated; but greater is that of those who refuse to live rightly, and hate the precepts of truth for which the Son of God was crucified. Let the wickedness of sinners, then, be consummated, he says; that is, let it come to the height of wickedness, that the just judgment may now be able to come. But since it was not only said: Let the filthy be filthy still, but also said: Let the righteous become more righteous, he links and says: And you will direct the righteous, searching hearts and reins, O God. How, then, can the righteous be directed, except in secret; when even through those things which at the beginning of Christian times, while the saints were still pressed by the persecution of worldly men, seemed wonderful to men, now, after the Christian name has begun to be at so great a height, hypocrisy has grown, that is, the dissimulation of those, namely, who under the Christian name prefer to please men rather than God? How, then, is the righteous directed in such great confusion of dissimulation, except while God searches hearts and reins, seeing the thoughts of all, which are signified by the name of the heart, and the delights, which are understood by the name of the reins? For rightly is the delight in temporal and earthly things attributed to the reins; because it is the lower part of man, and that is the region where the pleasure of carnal generation dwells, through which, by the succession of offspring, human nature is poured into this toilsome life of deceitful gladness. God, then, searching our heart, and seeing it to be there where our treasure is, that is, in heaven; searching also the reins, and seeing that we do not yield to flesh and blood, but delight in the Lord, directs the righteous in his very conscience before himself, where no man sees, but he alone who sees through what each one thinks, and in what each one delights. For the end of care is delight; because each one strives with cares and thoughts to arrive at his own delight. He sees, then, our cares, who searches the heart: but he sees the ends of our cares, that is, the delights, who thoroughly searches the reins; so that when he has found our cares inclined not to the desire of the flesh, nor to the desire of the eyes, nor to the ambition of the world, all of which pass away like a shadow, but raised up to the joys of eternal things, which are violated by no change, he may direct the righteous, searching hearts and reins, O God. For our works, which we do in deeds and words, can be known to men; but with what mind they are done, and to what we desire to come through them, he alone knows who searches hearts and reins, O God.

10. [v 11.] My righteous help is from the Lord, who saves the upright of heart. There are two offices of medicine; one by which infirmity is healed, the other by which health is preserved. According to that first, it was said in the earlier psalm: Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak: according to this other, in this psalm it is said: If there is iniquity in my hands, if I have repaid those who repaid me with evils, then let me fall away from my enemies empty; for there the weak one prays that he may be set free, here, already healthy, that he may not be corrupted. According to that, there it is said: Save me because of your mercy: according to this, here it is said: Judge me, Lord, according to my righteousness; for there he asks a remedy that he may escape from disease, but here a protection that he may not fall back into disease. According to that it is said: Save me, Lord, according to your mercy; according to this it is said: My righteous help is from the Lord, who saves the upright of heart. For both that and this save; but that transfers from sickness to health, this preserves in health itself. And so there the help is merciful, because the sinner has no merit, who still desires to be justified, believing in him who justifies the impious; but here the help is righteous, because it is now granted to the righteous. Let the sinner, then, who said: I am weak, say there: Save me, Lord, because of your mercy; and let the righteous, who said: If I have repaid those who repaid me with evils, say here: My righteous help is from the Lord, who saves the upright of heart. For if he provides the medicine by which we, the weak, are healed, how much more that by which we, healthy, are kept safe? Since, if while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, how much more, being now justified, shall we be saved from wrath through him?

11. My righteous help is from the Lord, who saves the upright of heart. He directs the righteous, searching hearts and reins, O God: but with righteous help he saves the upright of heart. Not as he searches hearts and reins, does he so save the upright of heart and reins: because thoughts are both evil in a crooked heart, and good in an upright heart; but delights that are not good pertain to the reins, because they are lower and earthly, but good ones not to the reins, but to the heart itself. Therefore men cannot so be called upright of reins as they are called upright of heart, since now where the thought is, there is also the delight: which cannot come about except when divine and eternal things are thought of. You have put, he says, gladness in my heart, when he had said: The light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord (Ps 4:7, 8 (4:7)). For the phantasms of temporal things, which the soul fashions for itself, when it is tossed about with vain and mortal hope, although by empty imaginations they often bring a raving and insane gladness, yet this delight is to be attributed not to the heart, but to the reins; because all those imaginations are drawn from lower, that is, earthly and carnal things. So it comes about, that God, searching hearts and reins, and seeing in the heart upright thoughts, in the reins no delights, provides righteous help to the upright of heart, where to clean thoughts the higher delights are joined. And therefore in another psalm, when he had said: Moreover even till night my reins have rebuked me, he added concerning help, saying: I beheld the Lord in my sight always, because he is at my right hand that I be not moved (Ps 16:7-8 (15:7-8)). Where he shows that he suffered only suggestions from the reins, not also delights, which if he had suffered, he would surely have been moved. But he said: The Lord is at my right hand, that I be not moved; then he adds: For this my heart has been delighted: so that the reins could rebuke him, not delight him. Therefore the delight came about not in the reins, but there, where, against the rebuke of the reins, God was provided to be at the right hand, that is, in the heart.

12. [v 12.] God a righteous judge, strong and longsuffering. What God a judge, but the Lord, who judges the peoples? He himself righteous, who will repay each one according to his works. He himself strong, who, although most powerful, tolerated even impious persecutors for our salvation. He himself longsuffering, who did not, immediately after the resurrection, snatch even those who persecuted him to punishment, but bore with them, that they might at some time turn themselves from that impiety to salvation: and he still bears with them, reserving the last punishment for the last judgment, and even now inviting sinners to penance. Not bringing on anger every single day. Perhaps it is said more significantly, bringing on anger, than being angry, and thus we find it in the Greek copies: so that there is not in him the anger by which he punishes, but in the souls of those ministers who obey the precepts of truth; through whom command is given also to the lower ministries which are called angels of wrath, for the punishing of sins, whom now human punishment delights not on account of righteousness, in which they do not rejoice, but on account of malice. Not, then, does God bring on anger every single day, that is, he does not every single day gather his ministers for vengeance: for now the patience of God invites to penance; but in the last time, when men, by their hardness and impenitent heart, shall have stored up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God, he will brandish his sword.

13. [v 13.] Unless you turn back, he says, he will brandish his sword. The Lord as man can himself be understood as the sword of God, twice sharpened, that is, a broadsword, which he did not brandish at his first coming, but hid as it were in the sheath of humility: but he will brandish it when, coming at the second coming to judge the living and the dead, in the manifest splendor of his brightness, he will flash light to his righteous ones, and terrors to the impious. For in other copies, in place of he will brandish his sword, there is put he will make his broadsword to shine: by which word I think the last coming of the Lord's brightness is most fittingly signified; since from his own person is understood what another psalm has: Deliver, Lord, my soul from the impious, your broadsword from the enemies of your hand (Ps 17:13 (16:13)). He has bent his bow, and made it ready. The tenses of the words are not to be passed over carelessly, that he said of the sword in the future, he will brandish; of the bow in the past, he has bent: then words of the past tense follow.

14. [v 14.] And in it he has prepared the vessels of death: his arrows he has wrought for those who burn. This bow, then, I would gladly take to be the holy Scriptures, where by the strength of the New Testament, as by a kind of string, the hardness of the Old has been bent and tamed. From it as arrows the Apostles are sent forth, or divine proclamations are hurled. Which arrows he has wrought for those who burn, that is, by which those struck might blaze with divine love. For by what other arrow was she struck who says: Bring me into the house of wine, set me among the perfumes, hem me in among the honey; because I am wounded with love (Song 2:4-5) By what other arrows is he kindled who, desiring to return to God and to come back from this pilgrimage, asks help against deceitful tongues, and to whom it is said: What may be given you, or what may be added to you against a deceitful tongue? The sharp arrows of the mighty, with desolating coals (Ps 120:3-4 (119:3-4)): that is, by which, struck and inflamed, you may burn with so great a love of the kingdom of heaven, that you despise the tongues of all who resist and wish to call you back from your resolve, and deride their persecutions, saying: Who will separate me from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am sure, he says, that neither death, nor life, nor angel, nor principality, nor things present, nor things to come, nor power, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:35, 38-39). Thus he wrought his arrows for those who burn: for in the Greek copies it is found thus: His arrows he has wrought for those who burn; but the Latin copies for the most part have burning. But whether the arrows themselves burn, or make others burn, which they certainly cannot do unless they themselves also burn, the sense is whole.

15. But since he said the Lord prepared in the bow not only arrows, but also vessels of death, it can be asked what the vessels of death are. Are they perhaps heretics? For they too, from the same bow, that is, from the same Scriptures, leap upon souls, not to be inflamed with love, but to be destroyed with poisons, which does not happen except according to deserts. Therefore this arrangement too is to be attributed to divine Providence, not because it makes sinners, but because it orders them when they have sinned: for, reading with an evil will through sin, they are evilly forced to understand, so that this is the very punishment of sin; by whose death, nevertheless, the sons of the catholic Church, as by certain thorns, are roused from sleep, and advance to the understanding of the divine Scriptures. For there must be heresies too, that the approved, he says, may be made manifest among you (1 Cor 11:19), that is, among men, since they are manifest to God. Or perhaps he disposed these same arrows and vessels of death for the destruction of unbelievers, and wrought them burning, or for those who burn, for the exercise of the faithful? For it is not false what the Apostle says: To some we are the odor of life unto life, to others the odor of death unto death, and who is sufficient for these things? (2 Cor 2:16) It is no wonder, then, if the same Apostles are both vessels of death in those by whom they suffered persecution, and fiery arrows for the inflaming of the hearts of believers.

16. [v 15.] But after this dispensation the just judgment will come: of which he so speaks that we understand that to each man punishment is made from his own sin, and his iniquity is turned into a punishment; lest we suppose that that tranquillity and ineffable light of God brings forth from itself that by which sins are punished, but that it so orders the sins themselves that what were delights to the man sinning are instruments to the Lord punishing. Behold, he says, he has travailed with injustice. For what had he conceived, that he should travail with injustice? He has conceived, he says, toil. Hence, then, is that: In toil you will eat your bread (Gen 3:19); hence too that: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light (Matt 11:28, 30). For toil cannot be ended unless each one loves that which cannot be taken from him against his will. For when those things are loved which we can lose against our will, it is necessary that we toil most wretchedly for them; and that we may obtain them, in the straits of earthly troubles, when each one desires to snatch them and forestall another, or to wrest them from another, we contrive injustices. Rightly, then, and altogether in order, he has travailed with injustice who conceived toil. But what does he bring forth, but what he travailed with, although he did not travail with what he conceived? for that is not born which is conceived; but the seed is conceived, and what is formed from the seed is born. Toil, then, is the seed of iniquity; but sin is the conception of toil, that is, that first sin, to apostatize from God: he travailed with injustice, then, who conceived toil. And he brought forth iniquity: iniquity is the same as injustice; this, then, he brought forth which he travailed with. What follows next?

17. [v 16.] He has opened a pit and dug it out. To open a pit is, in earthly things, that is, as it were in the earth, to prepare a fraud, into which another may fall whom the unjust man wishes to deceive: now this pit is opened when consent is given to the evil suggestion of earthly desires; but it is dug out when, after the consent, the working of the fraud is pressed on. But how can it come about that iniquity should first harm the righteous man against whom it proceeds, rather than the unjust heart from which it proceeds? And so a defrauder of money, for example, while he desires to wound another with loss, is himself wounded by the wound of avarice: but who, even mad, would not see how great a distance there is between these two, when the one suffers loss of money, the other loss of innocence? He will fall, then, into the ditch that he made; which is said in another psalm: The Lord is known executing judgments, the sinner is caught in the works of his own hands (Ps 9:16 (9:17)).

18. [v 17.] His toil will be turned upon his own head, and his iniquity will come down upon his own crown. For he himself did not wish to escape sin; but he was made under sin as a slave, the Lord saying: Everyone who sins is a slave (John 8:34). His iniquity, then, will be over him, when he himself is subjected to his own iniquity: because he could not say to the Lord what the innocent and upright say: My glory, and the one who lifts up my head (Ps 3:3). So, then, he himself will be lower, so that his iniquity may be higher, and may come down upon him; because it weighs him down, and burdens him, and does not allow him to fly back to the rest of the saints. This comes about when, in a perverse man, reason serves, and lust dominates.

19. [v 18.] I will confess to the Lord according to his righteousness. This is not a confession of sins: for he says this who above most truly said: If there is iniquity in my hands; but it is a confession of God's righteousness, by which we so speak: Truly, Lord, you are righteous, when you both so protect the righteous that you illumine them through yourself, and so order sinners that they are punished not by your malice, but by their own. This confession so praises the Lord that the blasphemies of the impious can avail nothing, who, wishing to excuse their crimes, refuse to attribute to their own fault that they sin, that is, refuse to attribute to their own fault their own fault. And so they find either fortune or fate to accuse; or the devil, whom not to consent to he willed to be in our power who made us; or they bring in some other nature, which is not from God, wretchedly fluctuating and erring, rather than confessing to God, that he may pardon them. For it is not fitting to pardon anyone except one who says: I have sinned. He, then, who sees the deserts of souls so ordered by God that, while to each is rendered his own, the beauty of the universe is in no part violated, praises God in all things: and this is the confession not of sinners, but of the righteous. For it is not the confession of sinners, when the Lord says: I confess to you, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise, and revealed them to little ones (Matt 11:25). Likewise in Ecclesiasticus it is said: Confess to the Lord in all his works. And these you will say in confession, all the works of the Lord are very good (Sir 39:14, 16). Which can be understood in this psalm, if anyone, with a pious mind, the Lord helping, distinguishes between the rewards of the righteous and the punishments of sinners, how by these two the whole creation, which God, having founded it from himself, governs, is adorned with a wonderful beauty known to few. So, then, he says: I will confess to the Lord according to his righteousness, as one who has seen that darkness was not made by God, but was nevertheless ordered. For God said: Let there be light, and there was light (Gen 1:3). He did not say: Let there be darkness, and there was darkness; and yet he ordered it. And therefore it is said: God divided between the light and the darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night (Gen 1:4-5). This is the distinction: one thing he made, and ordered; another he did not make, but yet ordered even this. Now that darkness signifies sins is found both in the prophet, who said: And your darkness will be as the noonday (Isa 58:10), and in the apostle saying: He who hates his brother is in darkness (1 John 2:11), and especially that: Let us cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light (Rom 13:12). Not that there is any nature of darkness: for every nature, insofar as it is a nature, is compelled to be; but to be pertains to light, not to be to darkness. He, then, who deserts him by whom he was made, and is inclined toward that from which he was made, that is, toward nothing, is darkened in this sin; and yet he does not utterly perish, but is ordered among the lowest things. And so, after he said: I will confess to the Lord, lest we should understand a confession of sins, he adds at the end: And I will sing to the name of the Lord most high. Now to sing pertains to gladness, but penance for sins to sorrow.

20. This psalm can also be understood in the person of the Lord as man; provided that the things said there humbly be referred to our weakness, which he bore.

Exposition of Psalm 8

1. [v 1.] To the end, for the winepresses, a psalm of David himself. He seems to say nothing about winepresses in the text of that psalm whose title this is. In which it appears that one and the same thing is often suggested in the Scriptures by many and various likenesses. Winepresses, then, we can take as the Churches, by the same reasoning by which we also understand the threshing floor as the Church. For whether on the threshing floor, or in the winepress, nothing else is done but that the fruits are cleansed from their coverings, which were necessary both that they might be born and that they might grow, and come to the maturity either of the harvest or of the vintage. By these coverings or supports, then, that is, by the chaff on the threshing floor the grains, and by the husks in the winepresses the wines, are stripped: just as in the Churches, by the multitude of worldly men, which is gathered together along with the good, and by which it was necessary, that they might be born and made fit for the divine word, that this is done, that by spiritual love, through the working of God's ministers, they be separated. For now it is done that the good are separated from the evil not by place, but for the time being by affection: although they live together in the Churches, as far as bodily presence is concerned. But there will be another time, when either the grains will be set apart into the barns, or the wines into the cellars. The grains, he says, he will store in the barns, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Matt 3:12). The same thing can be understood under another likeness thus: The wines he will store in the storerooms, but the husks he will cast to the cattle: so that we may be permitted to understand, by the likeness, the bellies of the cattle as the punishments of the lower regions.

2. There is another understanding of the winepresses, provided we do not depart from the signification of the Churches. For the divine Word too can be understood as a grape: for the Lord too was called a cluster of grapes, whom those who had been sent ahead by the people of Israel brought, hung on a piece of wood, from the land of promise, as though crucified. The divine Word, then, when by the necessity of utterance it employs the sound of the voice, by which it may be conveyed to the ears of hearers, by the same sound of the voice, as by husks, the understanding, as the wine, is enclosed: and so this grape comes into the ears, as into the treading-vats of the winepresses. For there it is discerned, so that the sound reaches as far as the ears; but the understanding is received by the memory of those who hear, as by a kind of vat, and thence passes into the discipline of conduct and the habit of mind, as from the vat into the cellars, in which, if negligence has not soured it, by age it will be made firm. For it soured in the Jews, and with this vinegar they gave the Lord to drink. For that wine which the Lord, of the generation of the vine of the New Testament, is to drink with his saints in the kingdom of his Father, must needs be most sweet and most firm.

3. The winepresses are also commonly taken as the martyrdoms, as though, by the affliction of persecutions, those who confessed the name of Christ being trodden, their mortal parts remained on the earth as husks, but their souls flowed out into the rest of the heavenly dwelling. But neither by this understanding is there a departure from the fruitfulness of the Churches. The psalm, then, is sung for the winepresses, for the establishment of the Church, when our Lord, after he rose again, ascended into the heavens. For then he sent the Holy Spirit, filled with whom the disciples preached the word of God with confidence, that the Churches might be gathered.

4. [v 2.] And so it is said: Lord our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth! I ask, from what is his name wonderful in all the earth? The answer is given: Because your magnificence is lifted up above the heavens; so that this is the sense: Lord, who are our Lord, how all who dwell on the earth admire you! since your magnificence has been lifted up from earthly humility above the heavens. For from this it appeared whence you descended, when by some it was seen and by the rest believed whither you ascended.

5. [v 3.] Out of the mouth of infants and nurslings you have perfected praise, because of your enemies. I cannot take other infants and nurslings than those to whom the Apostle says: As to little ones in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not food (1 Cor 3:1-2). These were signified by those who went before the Lord, praising him; and the Lord himself used this testimony of them, when, the Jews saying that he should rebuke them, he answered: Have you not read: Out of the mouth of infants and nurslings you have perfected praise? (Matt 21:16) And well he did not say: You have made; but, you have perfected praise. For there are in the Churches also those who are no longer given milk to drink, but feed on food; whom the same Apostle signifies, saying: We speak wisdom among the perfect (1 Cor 2:6): but the Churches are not perfected from these alone, because if they were alone, no provision would be made for the human race. But provision is made, when those too who are not yet capable of the knowledge of spiritual and eternal things are nourished by faith in temporal history, which, for our salvation, after the Patriarchs and Prophets, was administered by the most excellent Power and Wisdom of God even by the sacrament of the man he took up, in which there is salvation for everyone who believes: so that, moved by authority, one may serve the precepts, by which each one, purified and rooted and grounded in love, may be able to run with the saints, no longer a little one on milk, but a young man on food, to comprehend the breadth, length, height, and depth, and to know also the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ.

6. Out of the mouth of infants and nurslings you have perfected praise, because of your enemies. As enemies to this dispensation which was made through Jesus Christ, and him crucified, we ought generally to take all who forbid believing things unknown, and promise certain knowledge; as all heretics do, and those who in the superstition of the gentiles are called philosophers. Not that the promise of knowledge is to be blamed; but that they think the most wholesome and necessary step of faith is to be neglected, by which one must ascend to something certain, which can be nothing but eternal. Hence it appears that they do not even have that knowledge which, despising faith, they promise; because they are ignorant of its so useful and necessary step. Out of the mouth, then, of infants and nurslings our Lord perfected praise, commanding first through the Prophet: Unless you believe, you will not understand (Isa 7:9), and himself, present, saying: Blessed are those who have not seen and will believe (John 20:29). Because of your enemies: against whom also that is said: I confess to you, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise, and revealed them to little ones (Matt 11:25). For he said, from the wise, not those who are wise, but those who think themselves to be. That you may destroy the enemy and the defender. Who, but the heretic? For he himself too is both enemy and defender, who, while he assails the Christian faith, seems to defend it. Although the philosophers of this world too are well understood as enemies and defenders: since the Son of God is the Power and Wisdom of God, by which everyone is enlightened who is made wise by truth. Of this they profess themselves lovers, whence they are also called philosophers: and therefore they seem to defend it, while they are its enemies; since they do not cease to persuade harmful superstitions, that the elements of this world be worshiped and venerated.

7. [v 4.] For I will see your heavens, the works of your fingers. We read that the Law was written by the finger of God, and given through Moses his holy servant: which finger of God many understand as the Holy Spirit. For which reason, if by the fingers of God we rightly take those same ministers filled with the Holy Spirit, on account of the Spirit himself who works in them, since through them all divine Scripture was composed for us; we fittingly understand in this place the books of both Testaments to be called heavens. Now it was said even of Moses himself by the magi of King Pharaoh, when they had been overcome by him: This is the finger of God (Exod 8:19); and what is written: The heaven will be folded like a book (Isa 34:4), even if it was said of this ethereal heaven, yet by this same likeness the books are fittingly named heavens in the allegory. For I will see, he says, the heavens, the works of your fingers: that is, I will discern and understand the Scriptures, which, by the working of the Holy Spirit, you composed through your ministers.

8. And so the heavens named above too can be taken as the same books, where he says: Because your magnificence is lifted up above the heavens; so that this is the whole sense: Because your magnificence is lifted up above the heavens: For your magnificence exceeds the eloquence of all the Scriptures; out of the mouth of infants and nurslings you have perfected praise, that those who desire to come to the knowledge of your magnificence, which is lifted up above the Scriptures (because it passes and surpasses the proclamations of all words and tongues), might begin from faith in the Scriptures. God, then, inclined the Scriptures down to the capacity of infants and nurslings, as in another psalm it is sung: And he inclined the heaven, and came down (Ps 18:9 (17:10)). And this he did because of his enemies, who, being through the pride of their loquacity enemies of the cross of Christ, even when they say some true things, yet cannot profit the little ones and nurslings. Thus is destroyed the enemy and defender, who, whether he seems to defend wisdom or even the name of Christ, yet, from this step of faith, assails that truth which he most readily promises. Therefore he is convicted of not having it either; because, by assailing its step, which is faith, he is ignorant how one ascends to it. Hence, then, is destroyed the rash and blind promiser of truth, who is enemy and defender, when the heavens are seen as the works of God's fingers, that is, when the Scriptures are understood, brought down even to the slowness of infants, and, by the humility of historical faith, which was enacted in time, raise to the sublimity of the understanding of eternal things those whom they have well nourished and strengthened in the things they confirm. For these heavens, that is, these books, are the works of God's fingers; for they were composed by the Holy Spirit working in the saints—for those who attended to their own glory rather than to the salvation of men spoke without the Holy Spirit, in whom are the bowels of God's mercy.

9. For I will see the heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have founded. The moon and the stars are founded in the heavens: because both the universal Church, in the signification of which the moon is often put, and the Churches in particular places one by one, which I think are suggested by the name of stars, are placed in these same Scriptures, which we believe are put under the term of heavens. But why the moon rightly signifies the Church will be more opportunely considered in another psalm, where it was said: Sinners have bent the bow, that they may shoot in the dark moon at the upright of heart (Ps 11:2 (10:3)).

10. [v 5.] What is man, that you are mindful of him; or the son of man, that you visit him? What difference there is between man and the son of man can be asked; for if there were no difference, it would not be put thus, man, or the son of man, by disjunction. For if it had been written thus: What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him: it would seem a repetition of what was said, man; but now, when it sounds, man, or the son of man, a clearer difference is suggested. This indeed is to be held, that every son of man is a man, although not every man can be understood as a son of man: for Adam was a man, but not a son of man. For which reason it is now permitted to attend and discern what in this place differs between man and son of man: that those who bear the image of the earthly man, who is not a son of man, are signified by the name of men; but those who bear the image of the heavenly man are rather called sons of men. For the one is called the old man, the other the new: but the new is born from the old, since spiritual regeneration is begun by a change of the earthly and worldly life; and therefore this one is named son of man. Man, then, in this place is the earthly one, but son of man the heavenly: and the former far sundered from God, but the latter present to God: and therefore he is mindful of the former, as one set far off; but he visits the latter, whom, present, he illumines with his countenance: for Salvation is far from sinners (Ps 119:155 (118:155)), and: The light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord (Ps 4:7 (4:7)). So in another psalm he says that men associated with beasts are saved, not by present inner illumination, but by the multiplication of God's mercy, by which his goodness extends even to the lowest, together with the very beasts; since the salvation of carnal men is carnal, like that of cattle. But the sons of men, sundering them from those whom he joined as men to beasts, he proclaims are made blessed in a far more sublime way, by the illumination of the truth itself, and by a kind of flooding of the living fountain. For thus he says: Men and beasts you will save, Lord; as your mercy is multiplied, O God. But the sons of men will hope under the protection of your wings. They will be made drunk with the abundance of your house, and you will give them to drink of the torrent of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we shall see light. Extend your mercy to those who know you (Ps 36:6-10 (35:7-11)). He is mindful, then, of man by the multiplication of mercy, as of beasts; because multiplied mercy reaches even those set far off: but he visits the son of man, to whom, set under the protection of his wings, he extends mercy, and in his light gives light, and gives him to drink of his delights, and makes him drunk with the abundance of his house, to forget the troubles and errors of his past conduct. This son of man, that is, the new man, the penance of the old travails with in pain and groaning. He, though new, is yet still called carnal, while he is nourished with milk: I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal, says the Apostle; and to show that they were already regenerated: As to little ones, he says, in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not food. This one, when he slips back, which often happens, to the old life, hears with reproach that he is a man: Are you not men, he says, and walk according to man? (1 Cor 3:4, 3)

11. [vv 6.7.] The son of man, then, was first visited in that man, the Lord, born of the Virgin Mary. Of whom, on account of that very weakness of flesh which the Wisdom of God deigned to bear, and the humility of the passion, it is rightly said: You have made him a little less than the angels. But there is added that glorification by which, rising again, he ascended into heaven: With glory, he says, and honor you have crowned him; and you have set him over the works of your hands. Since even the angels are works of God's hands, we take the only-begotten Son to be set even over the angels, whom we hear and believe to have been made a little less than the angels by the humility of carnal generation and of the passion.

12. [vv 8.9.] All things, he says, you have subjected under his feet. He excepts nothing, when he says all things. And lest it be permitted to understand it otherwise, the Apostle bids us so believe, when he says, except him who subjected all things to him (1 Cor 15:27); and he uses this very testimony of this psalm to the Hebrews, when he so wishes all things to be understood as subjected to our Lord Jesus Christ, that nothing is excepted. And yet he seems to add nothing great, as it were, when he says: All the sheep and oxen, moreover also the cattle of the field; the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, that traverse the paths of the sea. For he seems, leaving aside the heavenly Virtues and Powers and all the armies of the angels, leaving aside even men themselves, to have subjected to him only cattle; unless we understand the sheep and oxen to be holy souls, either giving the fruit of innocence, or even working that the earth may be fruitful, that is, that earthly men may be regenerated to spiritual fruitfulness. These holy souls, then, we ought to take as not only of men, but also of all angels, if we wish from this to understand that all things are subjected to our Lord Jesus Christ; for no creature will be unsubjected, to which the chief, so to speak, spirits are subjected. But whence shall we prove that the sheep can be taken also as those sublimely blessed, not men, but spirits of the angelic creation? Perhaps from the fact that the Lord says he left ninety-nine sheep in the mountains, that is, in the higher places, and came down on account of one. For if we take the one fallen sheep to be the human soul in Adam (because Eve too was made from his side, all of which are not now the time to treat and consider spiritually), it remains that the ninety-nine left in the mountains be understood not as human, but as angelic spirits. For of the oxen the explanation of this sentence is easy; since men themselves are called oxen for no other reason than that by evangelizing the word of God they imitate the angels, where it was said: You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain (1 Cor 9:9; Deut 25:4). How much more easily, then, do we take the angels themselves, messengers of truth, as oxen; when the Evangelists, by sharing their name, were called oxen? You have subjected, then, he says, all the sheep and oxen, that is, every holy spiritual creature: in which we also take the holy men who are in the Church, namely in those winepresses which were suggested under another likeness of the moon and stars.

13. Moreover, he says, also the cattle of the field. In no way is it idle that moreover is added. First, because the cattle of the field can be understood as both sheep and oxen; so that if the cattle of crags and steep places are goats, the sheep are well understood as the cattle of the field. And so, even if it had been put thus: All the sheep and oxen and the cattle of the field, it would rightly be asked what the cattle of the field meant, since the sheep and oxen too can be understood as this; but the fact that moreover too is added compels us altogether to recognize some difference. But under this word that is put, moreover, not only the cattle of the field, but also the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, that traverse the paths of the sea, are to be taken. What, then, is this difference? Let there come to mind the winepresses, having husks and wine; and the threshing floor, containing chaff and grain; and the nets, in which are enclosed good fish and bad; and Noah's ark, in which were both unclean and clean animals: and you will see the Churches, in the meantime in this time until the last time of judgment, to contain not only sheep and oxen, that is, holy laymen and holy ministers, but moreover also the cattle of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, that traverse the paths of the sea. For the cattle of the field are most fittingly taken as men rejoicing in the pleasure of the flesh, where they ascend nothing steep, nothing toilsome. For the field is also the broad way that leads to destruction; and in a field Abel is slain. Wherefore it is to be feared, lest anyone descending from the mountains of God's righteousness (For your righteousness, he says, is like the mountains of God (Ps 36:6 (35:7))), choosing the broad and easy ways of carnal pleasure, be slaughtered by the devil. See now also the birds of the air, the proud, of whom it is said: They have set their mouth against heaven (Ps 73:9 (72:9)). See how high they are carried by the wind, who say: We will magnify our tongue, our lips are our own, who is our Lord? (Ps 12:4 (11:5)) Behold also the fish of the sea, that is, the curious who traverse the paths of the sea, that is, inquire in the depth of this world into temporal things, which, like paths in the sea, vanish and perish as quickly as the water is again merged, after it has given place to the passing of ships, or of any walking or swimming. For he did not say only: They walk the paths of the sea; but, they traverse, showing the most stubborn zeal of those who seek out vain and fleeting things. Now these three kinds of vices, that is, pleasure of the flesh, and pride, and curiosity, include all sins. Which seem to me to be enumerated by John the Apostle, when he says: Do not love the world, for all that is in the world is the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the ambition of the world (1 John 2:15-16). For through the eyes especially curiosity prevails; but to what the rest pertain is manifest. And that threefold temptation of the Lord as man: through food, that is, through the desire of the flesh, where it is suggested: Tell these stones to become bread (Matt 4:3): through empty boasting, where, set on a mountain, all the kingdoms of this earth are shown, and promised if he will worship: through curiosity, where from the pinnacle of the temple he is urged to cast himself down, to test whether he will be received by the angels. And so, after the enemy could prevail with him by none of these temptations, this is said of him: After the devil had completed every temptation (Luke 4:13). On account of the signification of the winepresses, then, there were subjected under his feet not only the wines, but also the husks: not only the sheep and oxen, that is, the holy souls of the faithful, whether in the people or in the ministers; but moreover also the cattle of pleasure, and the birds of pride, and the fish of curiosity: all which kinds of sins we now see mixed with the good and holy in the Churches. Let him, then, work in his Churches, and separate the wine from the husks: let us strive to be wine and sheep or oxen; not husks, or cattle of the field, or birds of the air, or fish of the sea that traverse the paths of the sea. Not that these names can be understood and explained in this way only, but according to the places; for elsewhere they signify another thing. And this rule is to be held in every allegory, that what is said by likeness be considered according to the sense of the present place; for this is the Lord's and the apostolic teaching. Let us, then, repeat the last verse, which is also put at the beginning of the psalm, and praise God, saying: Lord our Lord, how wonderful is your name in all the earth! Fittingly indeed, after the text of the discourse, there is a return to the head, to which the whole same discourse is to be referred.

Exposition of Psalm 9

1. [v 1.] The inscription of this psalm is: To the end, for the hidden things of the Son, a psalm of David himself. Concerning the hidden things of the Son it can be asked: but since he did not add whose, the only-begotten Son of God himself is to be understood. For where a psalm is inscribed concerning the son of David, it says: When he fled from the face of Absalom his son (Ps 3, title); when his name had been stated, and on this account it could not be hidden of whom it spoke, yet it was not said only, from the face of Absalom the son, but there was added, his. But here, both because his is not added, and because he says many things about the Gentiles, Absalom cannot rightly be taken: for the war which that lost man waged with his father in no way pertains to the Gentiles, since there only the people of Israel was divided against itself. And so this psalm is sung for the hidden things of the only-begotten Son of God. For the Lord himself too, when he puts Son without addition, wishes himself, the only-begotten, to be understood, where he says: If the Son sets you free, then you will be truly free (John 8:36). For he did not say, the Son of God; but only by saying Son, he gives to understand whose son he is. Which expression admits nothing but the excellence of him of whom we so speak, that even if we do not name him, he can be understood: for so we say: It rains, it clears, it thunders, and such things, and we do not add who does it; because to the minds of all the excellence of the one doing it offers itself spontaneously, and desires no words. What, then, are the hidden things of the Son? In which word it is first to be understood that there are some manifest things of the Son, from which these are distinguished which are called hidden. For which reason, since we believe in two comings of the Lord, one past, which the Jews did not understand, the other future, which both hope for; and since this one which the Jews did not understand profited the Gentiles, it is not unfittingly taken that it is said of this coming, for the hidden things of the Son, where blindness came in part upon Israel, that the fullness of the Gentiles might enter in. Two judgments too are suggested through the Scriptures, if one observes; one hidden, the other manifest. The hidden is now carried out, of which the apostle Peter says: It is time that judgment begin from the house of the Lord (1 Pet 4:17). The hidden judgment, then, is the punishment by which now each one of men is either exercised toward purification, or admonished toward conversion, or, if he despises the calling and discipline of God, is blinded toward damnation. But the manifest judgment is that by which the Lord, when he comes, will judge the living and the dead, all confessing him to be the one by whom rewards will be given to the good, and punishments to the evil. But then that confession will avail not for the remedy of evils, but for the heaping up of damnation. Of these two judgments, one hidden, the other manifest, the Lord seems to me to have spoken, where he says: He who believes in me has passed from death to life, and will not come into judgment (John 5:24), into the manifest judgment, namely: for that he passes from death to life through some affliction, by which he scourges every son whom he receives, is the hidden judgment; But he who does not believe, he says, is already judged (John 3:18); that is, by this hidden judgment he is already prepared for that manifest one. These two judgments we read also in Wisdom, where it is written: For this, as to senseless children, you gave judgment for derision; but they, not corrected by this judgment, experienced the worthy judgment of God (Wis 12:25-26). Those, then, who are not corrected by this hidden judgment of God will most deservedly be punished by that manifest one. Wherefore in this psalm the hidden things of the Son are to be observed, that is, both his humble coming by which he profited the Gentiles with the blindness of the Jews, and the punishment which is now carried out in hidden manner, not yet by the damnation of sinners, but either by the exercise of the converted, or by the admonition that they may be converted, or by the blinding that those who have refused to be converted may be prepared for damnation.

2. [v 2.] I will confess to you, Lord, with my whole heart. He does not confess to God with his whole heart who doubts in anything about his providence: but he who now discerns the hidden things of God's wisdom, how great is the invisible reward of him who says: We rejoice in tribulations (Rom 5:3); and how all the torments which are inflicted bodily either exercise those converted to God, or admonish that they be converted, or finally prepare the hardened for just damnation, and so all things are referred to the governance of divine providence, which fools think happen as it were by chance and at random and by no divine administration. I will tell of all your wonders. He tells of all God's wonders who sees them done not only openly in bodies, but in souls invisibly indeed, yet far more sublimely and excellently. For earthly men, given over to hidden things, marvel more that the dead Lazarus rose again in the body than that the persecutor Paul rose again in the soul. But since the visible miracle calls the soul to illumination, and the invisible illumines the soul that, called, has come; he tells of all God's wonders who, believing visible things, makes a passage to the understanding of invisible things.

3. [v 3.] I will be glad and exult in you. No longer in this world; not in the pleasure of the touching of bodies, nor in the flavors of palate and tongue, nor in the sweetness of odors, nor in the pleasantness of passing sounds, nor in the variously colored forms of bodies, nor in the vanities of human praise, nor in marriage and offspring that will die, nor in the superfluities of temporal riches, nor in the acquisition of this world, whether that which is stretched out over spaces of places, or that which rolls on by the succession of time: but I will be glad and exult in you, namely in the hidden things of the Son, where the light of your countenance is sealed upon us, Lord; for You will hide them, he says, in the secret of your countenance (Ps 31:20 (30:21)). He, then, will be glad and exult in you who tells of all your wonders. And he will tell of all your wonders—since now it is said by prophecy—who comes not to do his own will, but the will of him who sent him.

4. [v 4.] For now the person of the Lord begins to appear speaking in this psalm. For there follows: I will sing to your name, Most High, when my enemy is turned back. When, then, was this one's enemy turned back? Was it when it was said to him: Get back, Satan (Matt 4:10)? for then he who by tempting desired to set himself before was made to be behind, by not deceiving the one tempted and prevailing nothing against him. For earthly men are behind; but the heavenly man was made before, although he came after: for the first man, from the earth, earthly; the second man, from heaven, heavenly. But he came from the very stock from which it was said: He who comes after me was made before me (John 1:15). And the Apostle forgets the things that are behind, and stretches forward to the things that are before. The enemy, then, was turned back, after he could not deceive the heavenly man tempted, and turned himself to earthly men where he can dominate. For which reason no man goes before him and makes him to be behind, except one who, laying aside the image of the earthly man, has borne the image of the heavenly. But now if we should prefer to take what was said, my enemy, generally as either the sinner or the gentile man, it will not be absurd. Nor will what was said be a punishment: When my enemy is turned back; but a benefit, and such a benefit that nothing can be compared to it. For what is more blessed than to lay aside pride, and not to wish to go before Christ, as though one were healthy who has no need of a physician; but to prefer to go behind, after Christ, who, calling a disciple that he may be perfected, says: Follow me (Matt 19:21)? But yet it is more fittingly understood as said of the devil: When my enemy is turned back. For the devil is turned back even in the persecution of the righteous, and is a far more useful persecutor than if he went before as leader and prince. We must sing, then, to the name of the Most High when the enemy is turned back; since we ought to prefer to flee him persecuting than to follow him leading: for we have whither to flee and where to hide, in the hidden things of the Son, because the Lord has become a refuge for us.

5. [v 5.] They will be weakened, and will perish before your face. Who will be weakened and perish, but the unjust and the impious? They will be weakened, while they prevail nothing; and they will perish, because they will not be impious; before the face of God, that is, from the knowledge of God, as he perished who said: But now I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20). But why will the impious be weakened and perish before your face? Because you have made my judgment, he says, and my cause: that is, that judgment in which I seemed to be judged, you have made mine; and that cause in which men condemned me, just and innocent, you have made mine. For these things served him for our liberation: just as sailors too call the wind their own, which they use for good sailing.

6. You have sat upon the throne, you who judge equity. Whether the Son says it to the Father, who also said that: You would have no power over me, unless it had been given you from above (John 19:11), referring this very thing to the equity of the Father and to his own hidden things, that he, the judge of men, was judged for the benefit of men: or whether man says to God: You have sat upon the throne, you who judge equity, calling his own soul his throne, so that the body is perhaps the earth, which was called the footstool of his feet (for God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself): or whether the soul of the Church, now perfect and without spot or wrinkle, worthy namely of the hidden things of the Son, because the king has brought her into his chamber, says to her bridegroom: You have sat upon the throne, you who judge equity, because you rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sit at the right hand of the Father: whichever of these sentences pleases, to which this verse may be referred, it does not exceed the rule of faith.

7. [v 6.] You have rebuked the nations, and the impious one has perished. We take it that this is more fittingly said of the Lord Jesus Christ than said by him. For who else rebuked the nations, and the impious one perished, but he who, after he ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit, filled with whom the Apostles preached the word of God with confidence, and freely reproved the sins of men? by which rebuke the impious one perished; because the impious one was justified, and made pious. You have blotted out their name forever, and unto the age of the age. The name of the impious has been blotted out: for those who believe in the true God are not called impious. But their name is blotted out forever, that is, as long as the temporal age rolls on. And unto the age of the age. What is the age of the age, but that whose effigy and as it were shadow this age has? For the alternation of times succeeding one another, while the moon wanes and again is filled, while the sun every year returns to its place, while spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter so passes that it returns, is a kind of imitation of eternity. But the age of this age is that which stands in unchangeable eternity. As a verse in the mind, and a verse in the voice: the one is understood, the other heard; and the one regulates the other: and therefore the one works in the art and remains, the other sounds in the air and passes. So the manner of this changeable age is defined by that unchangeable age which is called the age of the age: and therefore that remains in the art of God, that is, in his Wisdom and Power; but this is carried out in the administration of the creature. If, that is, it is not a repetition, so that after it was said forever, lest this be taken as what passes, there was added unto the age of the age. For in the Greek copies it is thus: eis ton aiōna, kai eis ton aiōna tou aiōnos. Which most Latins have interpreted, not forever, and unto the age of the age, but, into eternity, and unto the age of the age: so that in what was said unto the age of the age, that might be expounded which was said into eternity. The name, then, of the impious you have blotted out into eternity, because henceforth they will never be impious. And if their name does not extend into this age, much less into the age of the age.

8. [v 7.] The broadswords of the enemy have failed unto the end. Not in the plural, enemies, but in the singular, of this enemy. And whose enemy's broadswords have failed, but the devil's? Now these are understood as the various opinions of error, by which he, as with swords, slays souls. To overcome these swords and bring them to failure, that sword presses on, of which it is said in the seventh psalm: Unless you turn back, he will brandish his sword (Ps 7:12 (7:13)). And perhaps this is the end unto which the broadswords of the enemy fail, because up to it they avail something; it now works in hidden manner, but at the last judgment it will be openly brandished. By this the cities are destroyed; for so it follows: The broadswords of the enemy have failed unto the end; and you have destroyed the cities: but the cities in which the devil reigns, where deceitful and fraudulent counsels hold the place as it were of a senate-house, to which principality there are present, as it were satellites and ministers, the offices of the several members, the eyes for curiosity, the ears for wantonness, or whatever else is gladly heard for an evil purpose, the hands for robbery or any other crime or outrage, and the rest of the members in this manner serving the tyrannical principality, that is, the perverse counsels. The common people, as it were, of this city are all the delicate affections and turbulent movements of the soul, stirring up daily seditions in man. Where, then, a king, where a senate-house, where ministers, where common people are found, there is a city: for such things would not be in evil cities, unless they were first in individual men, who are as it were the elements and seeds of cities. These cities he destroys, when, the prince being shut out from there, of whom it was said: The prince of this world has been cast out (John 12:31), these kingdoms are laid waste by the word of truth, the malign counsels are lulled to sleep, the base affections are tamed, the ministries of the members and senses are taken captive, and transferred to the warfare of righteousness and good works: so that now, as the Apostle says, sin does not reign in our mortal body (Rom 6:12), and the rest of that place. Then the soul is pacified, and man is set in order to seize rest and blessedness. Their memory has perished with a noise: namely the impious. But with a noise, either because a noise is made, it was said, when impiety is overthrown; for none passes to the highest peace, where there is the highest silence, except one who has first warred with great noise against his own vices: or with a noise was said, so that the memory of the impious may perish, that very noise also perishing in which impiety is in tumult.

9. [vv 8.9.] And the Lord remains forever. Why, then, have the nations raged, and the peoples meditated vain things, against the Lord and against his Christ? for the Lord remains forever. He has prepared his seat in judgment, and he himself will judge the world in equity. He prepared his seat when he was judged: for by that patience man acquired heaven, and God in man profited believers; and this is the hidden judgment of the Son. But because he is also to come openly and manifestly to judge the living and the dead, he prepared his seat in the hidden judgment; and he himself likewise openly will judge the world in equity, that is, he will distribute what is worthy to merits, setting the lambs at the right hand, the goats at the left. He will judge the peoples with justice. This is what was said above: He will judge the world in equity: not as men judge, who do not see hearts, by whom for the most part worse men are absolved than are condemned; but in equity and with justice the Lord will judge, the conscience bearing witness, and the thoughts accusing or defending.

10. [v 10.] And the Lord has become a refuge for the poor. However much that enemy persecutes, who was turned back, what will he harm those whose refuge the Lord has become? But this will come about, if in this world, of which he is the magistrate, they have chosen to be poor, loving nothing which either deserts the one living or loving here, or is deserted by the one dying; for to such a poor man the Lord has become a refuge: A helper in opportune times, in tribulation. So he makes them poor, since he scourges every son whom he receives. For what a helper in opportune times is, he explained when he added, in tribulation: for the soul is not converted to God, except while it is turned away from this world; nor is it more opportunely turned away from this world, except when to its trifling and harmful and destructive pleasures labors and pains are mixed.

11. [v 11.] And let those who know your name hope in you: when they have ceased to hope in riches and in the other enticements of this world. For the soul seeking where to fix its hope, when it is torn from this world, is opportunely received by the knowledge of God's name: for the name itself of God is now everywhere widely known; but the knowledge of the name is when he is known whose the name is: for the name is not a name for its own sake, but for the sake of what it signifies. Now it was said: The Lord is his name (Amos 5:8). For which reason he who gladly subjects himself as a servant to God has known this name. And let those who know your name hope in you. Likewise the Lord says to Moses: I am who I am; and you will say to the sons of Israel: He who is has sent me (Exod 3:14). Let those, then, who know your name hope in you: let them not hope in those things which pass away with the rolling of time, having nothing but, it will be, and it was; since what in them is future, when it comes, becomes at once past; it is awaited with desire, lost with sorrow. But in the nature of God there will be nothing as though not yet being; or was, as though now not being: but only is that which is, and this is eternity itself. Let them, then, cease to hope for and love temporal things, and betake themselves to eternal hope, who know the name of him who said: I am who I am, and of whom it was said: He who is has sent me. For you have not forsaken those who seek you, Lord. Those who seek him no longer seek the things that pass away and die: for no one can serve two masters.

12. [v 12.] Sing to the Lord, who dwells in Zion: this is said to those whom the Lord does not forsake when they seek him. He himself dwells in Zion, which is interpreted "Contemplation," and bears the image of the Church which now is: as Jerusalem bears the image of the Church which is to be, that is, of the city of the saints already enjoying the angelic life; for Jerusalem is interpreted "Vision of peace." Now contemplation goes before vision, just as this Church goes before that which is promised, the immortal and eternal city. But it goes before in time, not in dignity: because more honorable is that which we strive to reach than that which we do, that we may deserve to reach it; and we engage in contemplation, that we may reach vision. But even this Church which now is, unless the Lord dwelt in it, would go into error, however most zealous its contemplation: and to this Church it was said: For the temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor 3:17); and: That Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts in the inner man (Eph 3:17, 16). We are commanded, then, to sing to the Lord, who dwells in Zion, that we may with one accord praise the Lord, the indweller of the Church. Proclaim his wonders among the nations: and it has been done, and will not cease to be done.

13. [v 13.] Because, seeking their blood, he has remembered. As though it were answered by those who are sent to evangelize, to that precept which was said: Proclaim his wonders among the nations; and it were said: Lord, who has believed our report? (Isa 53:1) and: For your sake we are killed all the day long (Ps 44:22 (43:23); Rom 8:36), fittingly there follows, saying that the Christians who die in persecution will not die without great fruit of eternity: Because, seeking their blood, he has remembered. But why did he prefer to say their blood? Is it as though some other, more inexperienced and of less faith, were to ask, saying: How will they proclaim, when the unbelief of the nations is to rage against them; to whom it is answered: Because, seeking their blood, he has remembered; that is, the last judgment will come, where both the glory of the slain and the punishment of the slayers will be manifest? But he has remembered—let no one think it is so put as though forgetfulness befalls God; but because after a long time the judgment is to come, it is put according to the affection of weak men, who think God as it were forgetful, because he does not act as quickly as they themselves wish. To these is said also what follows: He has not forgotten the cry of the poor; that is, he is not, as you think, forgetful: as though they said, after they heard, He has remembered. Then he was forgetful; He has not forgotten, he says, the cry of the poor.

14. [vv 14.15.] But I ask what is the cry of the poor which God does not forget. Is it this cry, whose words are these: Have mercy on me, Lord, see my humiliation from my enemies? Why, then, did he not say, Have mercy on us, Lord, see our humiliation from our enemies, as though many poor were crying out; but as though one, Have mercy on me, Lord? Is it because one intercedes for the saints, who first was made poor for us, when he was rich, and he himself says: You who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may proclaim all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion? For man is lifted up in him not only whom he bears, who is the head of the Church, but also whoever of us is in the rest of the members; and he is lifted up from all the depraved desires, which are the gates of death, because through them one goes into death. Now death is the very gladness in enjoyment, when anyone obtains what he has wickedly desired: for the root of all evils is desire; and therefore it is the gate of death, because the widow who lives in delights is dead: to which delights one comes through desires as through the gates of death. But the gates of the daughter of Zion are all the best pursuits, through which one comes to the vision of peace in the holy Church. In these gates, then, all the praises of God are well proclaimed, so that the holy thing is not given to dogs, nor the pearls cast before swine; who prefer stubbornly to bark, rather than zealously to seek, or who neither bark nor seek, but wallow in the mire of their own pleasures. But when in good pursuits the praises of God are proclaimed, it is given to those who ask, and made manifest to those who seek, and opened to those who knock. Or perhaps the gates of death are the bodily senses and the eyes, which were opened to man when he had tasted of the forbidden tree, from which they are lifted up, to whom it is said that they should seek not the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen; because the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal: and the gates of the daughter of Zion are the sacraments and beginnings of faith, which are opened to those who knock, that one may come to the hidden things of the Son? For eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it ascended into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him. Thus far is the cry of the poor, which the Lord has not forgotten.

15. [v 16.] Then there follows, I will exult in your salvation: that is, with blessedness I will be held by your salvation, which is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Power and Wisdom of God. The Church, then, which is here afflicted, and is saved by hope, speaks: as long as the judgment of the Son is hidden, it says by that very hope, I will exult in your salvation; because now it is worn down by the surrounding clamor, whether of the violence or of the error of the gentiles. The nations are fixed fast in the corruption which they made: notice how punishment is reserved for the sinner out of his own works; and how those who wished to persecute the Church are fixed fast in that corruption which they thought to bring upon it: for they desired to slay bodies, while they themselves were dying in the soul. In this trap, which they hid, their own foot has been caught. The hidden trap is the deceitful thought. The foot of the soul is rightly understood as love: which, when it is depraved, is called desire or lust; but when it is upright, affection or love. For by love it is moved as it were to the place to which it tends. But the place of the soul is not in any space which the form of the body occupies, but in delight, where it rejoices to have come through love: but destructive delight follows desire, fruitful delight follows love. Whence desire too is called a root. Now a root is understood as it were the foot of a tree. Love too is called a root, where the Lord speaks of the seeds which in stony places wither under the burning sun, because they do not have a deep root. Whence he signifies those who rejoice in receiving the word of truth, but yield to persecutions, which are resisted by love alone. And the Apostle says: That, rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend (Eph 3:17-18). The foot of sinners, then, that is, love, is caught in the trap which they hide; because when delight has followed the fraudulent action, when God has handed them over to the desire of their heart, that delight now binds them, so that they dare not tear away their love from there and turn it to useful things; because when they have tried, they will grieve in soul, as though wishing to draw a foot out of a fetter; and succumbing to this grief, they refuse to withdraw from the destructive delights. In the trap, then, which they hid, that is, in the fraudulent counsel, their foot has been caught, namely the love which through fraud comes to a vain gladness, by which sorrow is procured.

16. [v 17.] The Lord is known executing judgments. These are the judgments of God: not from that tranquillity of his blessedness, nor from the secret places of wisdom, in which the blessed souls are received, is brought forth sword, or fire, or beast, or anything of the kind by which sinners are tormented. But how are they tormented, and how does the Lord execute judgment? In the works, he says, of his own hands the sinner is caught.

17. [vv 18-21.] Here is interposed, A canticle of the diapsalma: as though a hidden gladness, as far as we can estimate, of the separation which now takes place, not by places, but by the affections of souls, between sinners and the righteous, like that of the grains from the chaff while still on the threshing floor. And there follows, Let sinners be turned back into hell; that is, let them be given into their own hands, when they are spared, and be ensnared by deadly delight. All the nations that forget God: because, when they did not approve of having God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate sense.

18. Because the poor man will not be forgotten unto the end: who now seems to be in forgetfulness, when sinners are thought to flourish in the felicity of this world, and the righteous to labor; but the patience, he says, of the poor will not perish forever. For which reason now there is need of patience to bear with the evil, who are already separated in their wills, until they be separated also at the last judgment.

19. Rise up, Lord, let not man prevail. The future judgment is implored: but before it comes, Let the nations, he says, be judged in your sight: that is, in hidden manner, which is said to be before God, with few saints and righteous understanding. Set, Lord, a lawgiver over them. He seems to me to signify Antichrist, of whom the Apostle says: When the man of sin will be revealed (2 Thess 2:3). Let the nations know that they are men. So that those who refuse to be set free by the Son of God, and to belong to the son of man, and to be sons of men, that is, new men, may serve a man, that is, the old sinful man, because they are men.

20. [vv 1-3.] And because that one is believed to be about to come to so great a height of empty glory, and it will be permitted him to do such great things, both upon all men and upon the saints of God, that then truly some weak ones will think God neglects human affairs; the diapsalma being interposed, he adds as it were the voice of those groaning, and asking why the judgment is deferred: Why, Lord, he says, have you withdrawn far off? Then he who so asked, as though he had suddenly understood, or as though knowing he had questioned in order to teach, adds, saying: You despise in opportune times, in tribulations; that is, opportunely you despise, and make tribulations, to inflame souls with desire for your coming: for to these that fountain of life is more delightful who have thirsted much; and so he suggests the counsel of the delay, saying: while the impious is proud, the poor is set on fire. It is wonderful and true, with how great zeal the little ones of good hope are kindled to live rightly, by comparison with sinners. By which mystery it comes about that even heresies are permitted to be: not because the heretics themselves wish this; but because divine Providence works this from their sins, which both makes and orders light, but only orders darkness, that by comparison with it the light may be more pleasing, just as by comparison with heretics the finding of truth is more delightful: for by that comparison the approved are made manifest among men who are known to God.

21. They are caught in the thoughts which they think: that is, their evil thoughts become bonds to them. But why do they become bonds? Because the sinner is praised, he says, in the desires of his soul. The tongues of flatterers bind souls in sins: for it delights to do those things in which not only is no reprover feared, but even a praiser is heard. And he who does iniquities is blessed: hence they are caught in the thoughts which they think.

22. [v 4.] The sinner has provoked the Lord. Let no one congratulate the man who prospers in his way, whose sins lack an avenger, and have a praiser: this is the greater anger of the Lord. For the sinner has provoked the Lord, that he should suffer these things, that is, that he should not suffer the scourges of correction. The sinner has provoked the Lord: according to the multitude of his anger he will not seek out. Much is he angry, while he does not seek out, while he as it were forgets and does not attend to sins, and through frauds and crimes riches and honors are reached: which will above all come about in that Antichrist, who will seem so blessed to men that he will even be thought God. But how great this anger of God is, the following teaches.

23. [v 5.] God is not in his sight, his ways are defiled at all times. He who knows either what he rejoices in, or what he is glad of in the soul, knows how great an evil it is to be deserted by the light of truth; whereas men think the blindness of the bodily eyes, by which this light is withdrawn, a great evil. How great a punishment, then, does he suffer who, by the prosperity of his sins, is brought to this, that God is not in his sight, and his ways are defiled at all times, that is, his thoughts and counsels are unclean! Your judgments are taken away from before his face. For the soul, evilly conscious to itself, while it seems to itself to suffer no punishment, believes that God does not judge, and so the judgments of God are taken away from before its face, when this very thing is the great damnation. And he will dominate all his enemies. For so it is handed down, that he is to overcome all kings, and alone to obtain the kingdom; when, according to the Apostle too, who proclaims of him, He will sit in the temple of God, exalting himself above all that is worshiped and that is called God (2 Thess 2:4).

24. [v 6.] And since, handed over to the desire of his heart and destined to the last damnation, he is to come through wicked arts to that vain and empty height and dominion, therefore there follows, For he has said in his heart: I will not be moved from generation to generation without evil; that is, my fame and my name will not pass from this generation to the generation of those who come after, unless by evil arts I obtain so exalted a principality, about which those who come after cannot be silent. For a lost soul, devoid of good arts and estranged from the light of righteousness, contrives for itself by evil arts an entry to so long-lasting a fame, that it may even be celebrated among posterity. And those who cannot become well known desire that men should speak even ill of them, provided the name spread far and wide. Which I think is here said: I will not be moved from generation to generation without evil. There is also another understanding. If the vain soul, full of error, thinks it cannot come from the mortal generation to the generation of eternity, except by evil arts; which indeed was rumored even of Simon, when he thought he would obtain heaven by wicked arts, and pass from human generation into divine generation by magical means: what wonder, then, if that man of sin too, who is to fulfill all the wickedness and impiety which all the false prophets began, and to do such great signs as to deceive, if it could be, even the elect, is to say in his heart: I will not be moved from generation to generation without evil?

25. [v 7.] Whose mouth is full of cursing, and bitterness, and deceit. For it is a great curse, to seek heaven by such wicked arts, and to procure such merits for the seizing of an eternal seat. But of this his curse his mouth is full: for that desire will not have effect, but only within his mouth will it avail to destroy him who dared to promise these things to himself with bitterness and deceit, that is, with anger and the snares by which he is to turn the multitude to his side. Under his tongue toil and pain. Nothing is more toilsome than iniquity and impiety: which toil pain follows; because it labors not only without fruit, but even unto destruction. Which toil and pain is referred to that which he said in his heart, I will not be moved from generation to generation without evil: and therefore, under his tongue; not, on his tongue; since he is to think these things silently, but to speak other things to men, that he may seem good and just and a son of God.

26. [v 8.] He sits in ambush with the rich. With what rich, but those whom he will heap with the gifts of this world? And therefore he is said to sit in ambush with these, since he will display their false felicity for the deceiving of men. Who, with a depraved will, while they desire to be such, and do not seek the eternal goods, will fall into his snares. In hidden places, that he may slay the innocent. In hidden places I think it was said, where it is not easily understood what is to be sought, or what avoided: but to slay the innocent is from an innocent to make a guilty one.

27. [v 9.] His eyes look upon the poor. For he will especially persecute the righteous, of whom it was said: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3). He lies in ambush in secret, like a lion in his den. He calls him a lion in the den, in whom he will work both force and deceit. For the first persecution of the Church was violent, when by proscriptions, torments, slaughters, the Christians were forced to sacrifice: the second persecution is fraudulent, which is now carried out through heretics of every kind and false brothers: the third remains, to come through Antichrist, than which nothing is more dangerous, since it will be both violent and fraudulent. It will have force in its empire, deceit in its miracles: to force is referred what was said, lion; to deceit, what was said, in his den. And again these very things are repeated in reversed order. He lies in ambush, he says, to snatch the poor; this pertains to deceit: but what follows, To snatch the poor while he draws him in, is assigned to violence; for draws him in signifies that by afflicting with whatever torments he can, he brings him to himself.

28. [v 10.] Likewise the two that follow are the same. In his trap he will humble him, is deceit. He will be bowed down, and fall, while he dominates the poor, is force: for the trap well signifies the snares; but domination most openly suggests terror. And well he says, He will humble him in his trap: for when he begins to do those signs, the more wonderful they seem to men, the more those saints, who will then be, will be despised, and held as it were for nothing; whom he, to whom they resist by righteousness and innocence, will seem to overcome by wondrous deeds. But he will be bowed down, and fall, while he dominates the poor, that is, while he inflicts whatever punishments upon the servants of God resisting him.

29. [vv 11.12.] But whence will he be bowed down, and fall? For he has said in his heart: God has forgotten, he has turned away his face, that he may not see unto the end. This is the most wretched bowing down and fall, while the human soul as it were prospers in its iniquities, and thinks itself spared; when it is blinded, and reserved for the last and opportune vengeance, of which he now speaks, Rise up, Lord God, let your hand be exalted; that is, let your power be made manifest. But above he had said, Rise up, Lord, let not man prevail, let the nations be judged in your sight; that is, in hidden manner, where God alone sees. This was done, when the impious came to the great felicity which seems so to men; over whom is set a lawgiver, such as they deserved to have, of whom it is said: Set, Lord, a lawgiver over them, let the nations know that they are men. But now, after that hidden punishment and vengeance, it is said, Rise up, Lord God, let your hand be exalted: not, that is, in hidden manner, but now in most manifest glory. Do not forget the poor unto the end; that is, as the impious think, who say: God has forgotten, he has turned away his face that he may not see unto the end. Now they deny that God sees unto the end who say that he does not care for human and earthly affairs; since the earth is as it were the end of things, because it is the last element in which men labor in a most ordered way, but cannot see the order of their labors, which especially pertains to the hidden things of the Son. The Church, then, laboring in those times, as a ship in great waves and storms, as it were rouses the sleeping Lord, that he may command the winds, and tranquillity return: it says, then, Rise up, Lord God, let your hand be exalted, do not forget the poor unto the end.

30. [vv 13.14.] And so now, understanding the manifest judgment, and exulting, they say, Why has the impious provoked God? that is, what did it profit to do such great evils? For he has said in his heart: He will not seek out. Then there follows: You see, because you consider toil and anger, that you may hand them over into your hands. This sense requires the right delivery, in which, if error is made, it is obscured. For thus the impious said in his heart: God will not seek out, as though God considered toil and anger, that he might hand them over into his own hands; that is, as though he feared to labor and be angry, and therefore spared them, lest their punishment be burdensome to him, or lest he be disturbed by the storm of wrath, as for the most part men do, who dissemble vengeance, lest they labor or be angry.

31. To you the poor man has been left. For he is poor for this reason, that is, he has despised all the temporal goods of this world, that you alone may be his hope. You will be a helper to the orphan; that is, to him for whom this world dies as a father, by whom he was carnally begotten, and who can already say: The world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal 6:14). For to such orphans God becomes a father. For the Lord teaches his disciples to become orphans, to whom he says: Do not call yourselves father on earth (Matt 23:9). Of which thing he himself first gave an example by saying: Who is my mother, or who are my brothers? (Matt 12:48) Whence certain most pernicious heretics wish to assert that he had no mother: nor do they see what follows, if they attend to these words, that neither did his disciples have fathers; because as he himself said, Who is my mother, so he taught them, when he said: Do not call yourselves father on earth.

32. [vv 15.16.] Break the arm of the sinner and the malicious one; namely of that one of whom it was said above: He will dominate all his enemies. His arm, then, he called his power: to which is contrary the power of Christ, of which it is said: Rise up, Lord God, let your hand be exalted. His sin will be sought out, and will not be found on account of it, that is, he will be judged for his sin, and he himself will perish for his sin. Then what wonder if there follows, The Lord will reign forever and unto the age of the age, you will perish, O nations, from his earth? By nations he put sinners and the impious.

33. [v 17.] The desire of the poor the Lord has heard: that desire with which they burned, when, in the straits and tribulations of this world, they longed for the day of the Lord. The preparation of their heart your ear has heard: this is the preparation of the heart, of which it is sung in another psalm, My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready (Ps 57:7 (56:8)); of which the Apostle says: But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom 8:25). Now the ear of God, not a bodily member, but the power by which he hears, we ought to take as a rule; and so, whatever members of his are named, which in us are visible and bodily, we ought to understand the powers of his workings, lest these be often repeated: for it is not right to think corporeal that the Lord God hears not the sounding voice, but the preparation of the heart.

34. [v 18.] To judge for the orphan and the humble: that is, not for him who is conformed to this world, nor for the proud. For it is one thing to judge the orphan, another to judge for the orphan: he judges the orphan who even condemns; but he judges for the orphan who pronounces sentence on his behalf. That man may not henceforth add to magnify himself upon the earth. For they are men, of whom it was said: Set, Lord, a lawgiver over them, let the nations know that they are men. But even that one who is understood in the same place to be set over them will be a man, of whom it is now said, That man may not henceforth add to magnify himself upon the earth: when, namely, the Son of man comes to judge for the orphan, who has put off the old man, and in this way as it were exalted the Father.

35. After the hidden things of the Son, then, of which many things were said in this psalm, there will be the manifest things of the Son, of which a few have now been said at the end of the same psalm: but the title was made from those things which here hold the greater part. The very day of the Lord's coming too can rightly be numbered among the hidden things of the Son, although the Lord's very presence will be manifest; for of that day it was said that no one knew it, neither the angels, nor the Virtues, nor the Son of man: what, then, is so hidden as that which was said to be hidden even to the judge himself, not for the knowing, but for the disclosing? But concerning the hidden things of the Son, even if anyone should wish to understand not the Son of God, but David himself, to whose name the whole Psalter is attributed (for they are certainly called the psalms of David), let him hear those voices by which it is said to the Lord, Have mercy on us, Son of David (Matt 9:27); and so even in this way let him understand the same Lord Christ, of whose hidden things the very psalm is inscribed. For so it is also said by the angel: God will give him the seat of David his father (Luke 1:32). Nor is that sentence contrary to this understanding, by which the same Lord asks of the Jews, If Christ is the son of David, how does he in the spirit call him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet? (Matt 22:43-44) For it was said to the inexperienced, who, although they hoped Christ would come, yet awaited him according to the man, not according to what is the Power and Wisdom of God. He teaches there, then, the truest and sincerest faith, that he is both the Lord of King David, according to what is the Word in the beginning, God with God, through whom all things were made; and his son, according to what was made to him from the seed of David according to the flesh. For he does not say, Christ is not the son of David; but, If you now hold that he is his son, learn how he is his Lord; and do not hold in Christ that he is the son of man, for so he is the son of David; do not relinquish that he is the Son of God, for so he is his Lord.

Exposition of Psalm 10

1. [vv 1.2.] This title does not need a new treatment; for it has already been sufficiently treated what to the end is. Let us, then, see the very text of the psalm, which seems to me to be sung against the heretics, who, by recalling and exaggerating the sins of many in the Church, as though among themselves the righteous were either all or the more part, strive to turn us away and snatch us from the breasts of the one true mother Church, affirming that Christ is among them, and as though piously and zealously admonishing us, that by crossing over to them we may migrate to Christ, whom they lyingly claim to have. Now it is known that Christ, in prophecy, when he was suggested allegorically by many names, was also called a mountain. And so it is to be answered to these, and to be said: In the Lord I trust, how do you say to my soul: Migrate to the mountains like a sparrow? I hold one mountain in which I trust, how do you say that I should cross over to you, as though there were many Christs? Or if you say that you are mountains through pride, one must indeed be a sparrow feathered with the virtues and precepts of God; but these very things forbid flying to those mountains, and placing hope in proud men. I have a house where I may rest, because in the Lord I trust: for the sparrow too finds a house for itself, and the Lord has become a refuge for the poor. Let us say, then, with all confidence, lest, while we seek Christ among the heretics, we lose him: In the Lord I trust; how do you say to my soul: Migrate to the mountains like a sparrow?

2. [v 3.] For behold, sinners have bent the bow, they have prepared their arrows in the quiver, that they may shoot in the dark moon at the upright of heart. These are the terrors of those who threaten us with the sinners, that we may cross over to them as to the righteous. Behold, they say, sinners have bent the bow: the Scriptures, I believe, which they, by interpreting carnally, send out from there poisoned sentences. They have prepared their arrows in the quiver: namely those same words, which by the authority of the Scriptures they are about to hurl, they have prepared in the secret of the heart. That they may shoot in the dark moon at the upright of heart: so that, when they have perceived that, the light of the Church being darkened on account of the multitude of the unlearned and carnal, they cannot be refuted, they may corrupt good ways by evil conversations. But against all these terrors it is to be said: In the Lord I trust.

3. But how fittingly the moon signifies the Church, I remember I promised to consider in this psalm. There are two probable opinions about the moon: but which of these is true, I think a man can either not at all, or only with the greatest difficulty, know. For when it is asked whence it has its light, some say it has its own, but that half of its globe shines and half is dark; and while it moves in its circle, the same part by which it shines is gradually turned toward the earth, so that it can be seen by us, and therefore it appears at first as it were horned. For if you make a ball white on half and dark on half; if you hold the part that is dark before your eyes, you see no whiteness, and when you begin to turn that white part toward your eyes, if you do it gradually, you will first see horns of whiteness, then it gradually grows, until the whole bright part is set before the eyes, and nothing of the other dark part is seen: but if you continue to turn it still gradually, the darkness begins to appear, and the brightness to lessen, until it returns again to horns, and at last is wholly turned away from the eyes, and again that dark part alone can be seen: which they say happens when the light of the moon seems to grow up to the fifteenth moon, and again to lessen up to the thirtieth, and return to horns, until in it utterly no light appears. According to this opinion the moon in allegory signifies the Church, because in part the Church shines spiritually, but in part it is dark carnally: and at times the spiritual part appears to men in good works; but at times it lies hidden in the conscience, and is known to God only, when it appears to men only in body; as happens when we pray in the heart, and seem as it were to do nothing, when we are bidden to have our hearts not toward the earth, but upward to the Lord. But others say that the moon does not have its own light, but is illumined by the sun; but when it is with the sun, it has toward us that part by which it is not illumined, and therefore no light is seen in it; but when it begins to withdraw from it, it is illumined even on that part which it has toward the earth, and necessarily begins from the horns, until on the fifteenth it comes opposite the sun; for then at the setting of the sun it rises, so that whoever has observed the setting sun, when he has begun not to see it, turning to the East, sees the moon rising; and thence, on the other side, when it begins to approach the sun, it turns toward us that part by which it is not illumined, until it returns to horns, and thence does not appear at all; because then that part which is illumined is upward toward heaven, but that which the sun cannot make shine, toward the earth. So according to this opinion too, the moon is understood as the Church, because it does not have its own light, but is illumined by the only-begotten Son of God, who in many places in the holy Scriptures is allegorically called the sun. Whom certain heretics, not knowing and not being able to discern him, try to turn away the senses of the simple to this corporeal and visible sun, which is the common light of the flesh of men and of flies; and they turn away some, who, as long as they cannot behold with the mind the inner light of truth, refuse to be content with the simple catholic faith, which is the one salvation of the little ones, and the one milk by which one comes with sure strength to the firmness of more solid food. Whichever, then, of these two opinions is true, the moon is fittingly taken allegorically as the Church. Or if, in these obscure matters, more laborious than fruitful, it is either not pleasing, or there is no leisure, to exercise the mind, or the mind itself is not able, it is enough to behold the moon with the eyes of the common people, and not to seek out the obscure causes, but with all to perceive both its increases and its fullness and its losses. Which, if it wanes for this reason, that it may be renewed, even to the unlearned multitude demonstrates the figure of the Church, in which is believed the resurrection of the dead.

4. Then it is to be asked what is taken in this psalm as the dark moon, in which sinners prepared to shoot at the upright of heart. For the moon can be called dark in more than one way: for both when it is ended in its monthly course, and when its brightness is interrupted by a cloud, and when, full, it is eclipsed, it can be called a dark moon. It can, then, be understood of the persecutors of the martyrs, that they wished to shoot at the upright of heart in the dark moon: either while the Church was still new, because it had not yet shone forth greater over the earth, and overcome the darkness of the gentile superstitions: or because, by the tongues of blasphemers and of those defaming the Christian name, as though by mists the earth were covered, the bright moon, that is, the Church, could not be seen clearly: or because by the very slaughters of the martyrs and so great a shedding of blood, as by that eclipse and darkening by which the moon seems to show a bloody face, the weak were deterred from the Christian name; in which terror the sinners hurled deceitful and sacrilegious words, that they might pervert even the upright of heart. It can also be understood of those sinners whom the Church contains, that then, an occasion of this dark moon being found, they committed many things which are now cast at us as reproaches by the heretics, when the authors of those things are said to have done them. But however it stands with what was done in the dark moon, now that the catholic name is spread and celebrated throughout the whole world, what is it to me to be disturbed by things unknown? For In the Lord I trust; nor do I listen to those saying to my soul: Migrate to the mountains like a sparrow. For behold, sinners have bent the bow, that they may shoot in the dark moon at the upright of heart. Or if even to them now the moon seems dark, because they wish to make it uncertain which is the catholic Church, and try to charge it with the sins of carnal men, of whom it contains many; what is that to him who truly says: In the Lord I trust? By which voice each one both shows himself to be grain, and tolerably bears with the chaff until the time of winnowing.

5. In the Lord, then, I trust. Let those fear who trust in man, and cannot deny that they are of the party of a man, by whose gray hairs they swear: and when in conversation it is asked of them, of what communion they are, unless they say they are of that one's party, they cannot be recognized. Tell me what these do, when there are recalled to them so innumerable and daily sins and crimes of theirs, of which that society is full? Can they say, In the Lord I trust; how do you say to my soul: Migrate to the mountains like a sparrow? For those do not trust in the Lord who say that the holy sacraments exist only if they are given through holy men. And so, when it is asked of them, who are the holy, they are ashamed to say, We are; nay even if they are not ashamed to say this, those who hear are ashamed for them. And so these compel those who receive the sacraments to place their hope in a man, whose heart they cannot see. And cursed is everyone who places his hope in man. For what is it to say, I am one who is holy, but, Place your hope in me? What if you are not holy? Or show your heart. But if you cannot, where shall I see that you are holy? Or perhaps you will say what is written, By their works you will know them (Matt 7:16). I plainly see wondrous works, the daily violences of the Circumcellions flying about everywhere under bishops and presbyters as leaders, and calling their terrible cudgels "Israels," which men now living daily see and feel. But the times of Macarius, about which they raise odium, very many have not seen, and no one now sees: and whatever catholic saw them could say, if he wished to be a servant of God, In the Lord I trust; which he says even now, when he sees many things in the Church that he does not wish, who perceives himself still swimming within those nets full of good and bad fish, until one comes to the end of the sea, where the bad are separated from the good. But what do these answer, if to one of them the one whom they baptize should say: How do you bid me presume? For if it is the merit both of the giver and of the receiver, let it be the merit of God the giver, and of my conscience as receiver: for these two things are not uncertain to me, his goodness, and my faith. Why do you interpose yourself, of whom I can know nothing certain? Let me say, In the Lord I trust. For if I trust in you, whence do I trust if you have done nothing evil this night? Finally, if you wish me to believe you, can I do more than believe concerning you? Whence, then, do I trust in those with whom you communicated yesterday, and communicate today, and will communicate tomorrow, whether even in these three days they have committed nothing evil? But if neither you nor me does that which we do not know defile, what cause is there that you should rebaptize those who did not know the times of the surrender and the odium of Macarius? What cause is there that you should dare to rebaptize Christians coming from Mesopotamia, who have heard neither the name of Caecilian nor of Donatus, and deny that they are Christians? But if the sins of others which they do not know defile them, then whatever is committed day by day in your party without your knowing it holds you guilty, you who vainly cast the constitutions of the emperors at the Catholics, when in your camps private cudgels and fires so rage. Behold to what they have fallen, who, when they saw sinners in the Catholic Church, could not say, In the Lord I trust, and placed their hope in man. Which they would altogether say, if they were not, either themselves, or these too, such as they thought those to be from whom, by sacrilegious pride, they pretended to wish to be separated.

6. [v 4.] Let the catholic soul, then, say: In the Lord I trust; how do you say to my soul: Migrate to the mountains like a sparrow? For behold, sinners have bent the bow, they have prepared their arrows in the quiver, that they may shoot in the dark moon at the upright of heart: and let it turn its speech from them to the Lord, and say, Because they have destroyed what you have perfected. And let it say this, not against these alone, but against all heretics. For all, as far as in them lies, have destroyed the praise which God perfected out of the mouth of infants and nurslings, while by vain and scrupulous questions they harass the little ones, and do not allow them to be nourished with the milk of faith. As though it were said to this soul, Why do these say to you, Migrate to the mountains like a sparrow? why do they terrify you with the sinners who have bent the bow to shoot in the dark moon at the upright of heart? It answers: For this reason indeed they terrify me, because they have destroyed what you have perfected. Where, but in their conventicles, where the little ones, ignorant of the inner light, they do not nourish with milk, but slay with poisons? But the righteous, what has he done? If Macarius offended you, if Caecilian offended you; what has Christ done to you, who said, My peace I give you, my peace I leave you (John 14:27): which you have violated by wicked dissension? What has Christ done to you, who bore with his betrayer with such patience, that he handed to him the first Eucharist, prepared by his hands and commended by his mouth, just as to the rest of the Apostles? What has Christ done to you, who sent that same betrayer of his, whom he named a devil, who before the betrayal of the Lord could not even show fidelity with the Lord's money-bags, together with the rest of the disciples to preach the kingdom of heaven; that he might show that the gifts of God reach those who receive with faith, even if he through whom they receive be such as Judas was?

7. [v 5.] The Lord is in his holy temple. So indeed, as the Apostle says, For the temple of God is holy, which you are. But whoever violates the temple of God, him will God destroy (1 Cor 3:17). He violates the temple of God who violates unity: for he does not hold the head, from which the whole body, joined and knit together through every touch of supplying, according to the working in the measure of each part, makes the increase of the body, unto the building up of itself in love. In this his holy temple the Lord is; which consists of his many members, each bearing its own office, built up by love into one building; which he violates, whoever, for the sake of his own principality, is sundered from the catholic society. The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's seat is in heaven. If you take heaven to be the righteous man, as you take earth to be the sinner, to whom it was said, You are earth, and into earth you will go (Gen 3:19); you will understand what was said, The Lord is in his holy temple, to be repeated when it was said, The Lord's seat is in heaven.

8. His eyes look upon the poor. Surely his to whom the poor man has been left, and who has become a refuge for the poor. And therefore all the seditions and tumults within these nets, until they are brought to the shore, about which the heretics insult us to their own destruction and to our correction, come about through those men who refuse to be the poor of Christ. But do they turn away the eyes of God from those who wish to be this? For His eyes look upon the poor. Is it to be feared lest in the crowd of the rich he cannot see the few poor, whom, guarded in the bosom of the catholic Church, he may nourish? His eyelids question the sons of men. Here sons of men I would gladly take by that rule, as those regenerated from the old men through faith. For these are exercised, in certain obscure places of the Scriptures, as it were by the closed eyes of God, that they may seek: and again in certain manifest places, as it were by the open eyes of God, they are enlightened that they may rejoice. And this frequent closing and opening in the holy books are as it were the eyelids of God, which question, that is, which prove the sons of men, who are neither wearied by the obscurity of things, but exercised, nor puffed up by knowledge, but confirmed.

9. [v 6.] The Lord questions the just and the impious. Why, then, do we fear lest the impious harm us in anything, if perhaps they communicate the sacraments with us with no sincere heart, when he questions the just and the impious? But he who loves iniquity, hates his own soul: that is, the lover of iniquity harms not him who believes God and does not place his hope in man, but only his own soul.

10. [vv 7.8.] He will rain snares upon sinners. If clouds are understood generally as Prophets, whether good or evil (who are also called false prophets); so the false prophets are ordered by the Lord God, that from them he may rain snares upon sinners: for no one falls into following them except a sinner; either for the preparation of the last punishment, if he prefers to persevere in sinning; or for the dissuading of pride, if at some time he should seek God with a sincerer care. But if clouds are understood only as good and true Prophets; even of these it is manifest that God rains snares upon sinners, although from these he also waters the pious to bear fruit: To some, says the Apostle, we are the odor of life unto life, to some the odor of death unto death (2 Cor 2:16). For not only Prophets, but all who water souls with the word of God, can be called clouds: who, when they are ill understood, God rains snares upon sinners; but when they are well understood, he makes fruitful the breasts of the pious and faithful. As, for example, that which is written, And the two will be in one flesh (Gen 2:24), if anyone interpret it of lust, he rains a snare upon the sinner; but if you understand it, as he who says, But I say in Christ and in the Church (Eph 5:31-32), he rains a shower upon the fertile earth: but from the same cloud, that is, the divine Scripture, both were done. Likewise the Lord says: Not what enters into your mouth defiles you, but what comes out (Matt 15:11). The sinner hears this, and prepares his gullet for voracity: the righteous hears this, and is fortified against the superstition of distinguishing foods. And here too, then, from the same cloud of the Scriptures, according to each one's deserts, both a rain of snares is poured upon the sinner, and a rain of abundance upon the righteous.

11. Fire and brimstone and the spirit of the storm are the portion of their cup. This is their punishment and end, those through whom the name of God is blasphemed, that first they be laid waste by the fire of their own desires, then be cast out by the stench of their evil works from the assembly of the blessed, finally, snatched away and submerged, pay ineffable penalties. For this is the portion of their cup; as the cup of the righteous, your cup that makes drunk, how excellent it is! For they will be made drunk with the abundance of your house. But I think it is called a cup so that we may not suppose that anything beyond measure and limit, even in the very punishments of sinners, is done by divine providence. And therefore, as though rendering the reason why this is done, he added: Because the Lord is righteous, and has loved acts of righteousness. Not in vain in the plural, except that he speaks of men, so that for the righteous, acts of righteousness are understood to be put; for in many righteous there seem to be as it were many righteousnesses, although there is one righteousness of God, of which all partake: as if one face should look into many mirrors, what is single in it is rendered in the plural from those many. Therefore he again refers it to singularity, by saying, His face has seen equity: perhaps it is put for, His face has seen equity, as if it were said, Equity was seen in his face, that is, in the knowledge of him; for the face of God is the power by which he becomes known to the worthy: or surely, His face has seen equity, because he does not offer himself to be known to the evil, but to the good; and this itself is equity.

12. But if anyone wishes to understand the moon as the synagogue, let him refer the psalm to the passion of the Lord, and say of the Jews, Because they have destroyed what you have perfected; and of the Lord himself, But the righteous, what has he done? whom they charged as a destroyer of the Law: whose precepts they themselves had destroyed by living perversely, and by despising them, and establishing their own; so that the Lord himself speaks according to the man, as he is wont, saying, In the Lord I trust; how do you say to my soul: Migrate to the mountains like a sparrow? on account, namely, of the terrors of those who desired to seize and crucify him: when sinners wishing to shoot at the upright of heart, that is, those who had believed in Christ, in the dark moon, that is, the synagogue filled with sinners, is not absurdly understood. To which agrees also what is said, The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's seat is in heaven? that is, the Word in the man, or the Son of man himself who is in the heavens. His eyes look upon the poor: either whom he took up according to God, or for whose sake he suffered according to the man. His eyelids question the sons of men. The closing and opening of the eyes, which is probably put under the name of eyelids, we can take as his death and resurrection, where he proved the sons of men, his disciples, both terrified by his passion, and gladdened by his resurrection. The Lord questions the just and the impious: now governing the Church from heaven. But he who loves iniquity, hates his own soul: why this is so, the following teaches; for He will rain snares upon sinners, to be taken according to the earlier exposition, and all the rest down to the end of the psalm.

Exposition of Psalm 11

1. [v 1.] That the eighth day can be understood as the day of judgment, was said in the sixth psalm: for the eighth can also be understood as for the eternal age; because after this time which rolls on in seven days, it will be given to the saints.

2. [v 2.] Save me, Lord, for the holy one has failed: that is, is not found; as we speak when we say, The grain has failed, or, The money has failed. Because truths have been diminished from among the sons of men. Truth is one, by which holy souls are illumined: but since souls are many, in them many truths can be spoken of; as from one face many images appear in mirrors.

3. [v 3.] Each one has spoken vain things to his neighbor. Neighbor must be understood as every man: because there is no one with whom evil is to be done; and the love of neighbor works no evil. Deceitful lips, with a heart and a heart they have spoken evils. What he says twice, with a heart and a heart, signifies a double heart.

4. [v 4.] May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips. All, he said, lest anyone think himself excepted, as the Apostle says: Upon every soul of man who works evil, the Jew first and the Greek (Rom 2:9). The boastful tongue: the proud tongue.

5. [v 5.] Who have said: We will magnify our tongue, our lips are our own, who is our Lord? The proud hypocrites are signified, placing their hope in their own speech for the deceiving of men, and not subject to God.

6. [v 6.] Because of the misery of the needy and the groaning of the poor, now I will rise up, says the Lord: for so the Lord himself in the Gospel had compassion on his people, because it had no ruler, when it could well obey. Whence it was also said in the Gospel: The harvest is great, but the laborers are few (Matt 9:37). But this is to be taken from the person of God the Father, who, on account of the needy and the poor, that is, those lacking in poverty and want of spiritual goods, deigned to send his Son; and thence his discourse begins, in Matthew, on the mountain, when he says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3). I will set in salvation. He did not say what he sets; but in salvation is to be taken as in Christ, according to that: For my eyes have seen your salvation (Luke 2:30): and therefore he is understood to have set in him that which pertains to the taking away of the misery of the needy and the consoling of the groaning of the poor. I will act with confidence in him; according to that in the Gospel: For he was teaching them as one having authority, not as their scribes (Matt 7:29).

7. [v 7.] The words of the Lord, chaste words. This is the person of the Prophet himself. The words of the Lord, chaste words: he says chaste, without the corruption of dissimulation. For many preach the truth not chastely, because they sell it for the price of the advantages of this world: of such the Apostle says, that they proclaimed Christ not chastely. Silver tried by fire for the earth. The very words of the Lord proved by tribulations for sinners. Purified sevenfold: through the fear of God, through piety, through knowledge, through fortitude, through counsel, through understanding, through wisdom. For there are also seven degrees of blessedness, which the Lord follows out in that same discourse which he gave on the mountain according to Matthew: Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers (Matt 5:3-9): from which seven sentences it can be observed that that whole long discourse was spoken; for the eighth, where it was said, Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, signifies the very fire by which the silver is sevenfold proved. When this discourse was ended, it was said, For he was teaching them as one having authority, not as their scribes (Matt 7:29): which pertains to what was said in this psalm, I will act with confidence in him.

8. [v 8.] You, Lord, will keep us, and guard us from this generation and forever: here as the needy and the poor, there as the wealthy and rich.

9. [v 9.] The impious walk in a circle: that is, in the desire of temporal things, which rolls on like a wheel by the repeated circuit of seven days; and therefore they do not arrive at the eighth, that is, at the eternal, for which this psalm is entitled. So too it is said through Solomon: For a wise king is a winnower of the impious, and brings upon them the wheel of evils (Prov 20:26). According to your height you have multiplied the sons of men. Because there is also a multiplication in temporal things, which turns away from the unity of God; whence the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that thinks on many things: but the righteous are multiplied according to the height of God, when they go from virtue to virtue.

Exposition of Psalm 12

1. [v 1.] For Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4). How long, Lord, will you forget me unto the end? that is, do you put me off from understanding Christ spiritually, who is the Wisdom of God, and the right end of every intention of the soul. How long do you turn away your face from me? Just as God does not forget, so neither does he turn away his face; but the Scripture speaks after our manner: now God is said to turn away his face, while he does not give to the soul the knowledge of himself, the soul which does not yet have a pure eye of mind.

2. [v 2.] How long shall I set counsel in my soul? There is no need of counsel, except in adverse things. Therefore, How long shall I set counsel in my soul, was said thus, How long shall I be in adverse things? Or surely it is an answer, so that this is the sense, So long, Lord, will you forget me unto the end, and so long will you turn away your face from me, as I set counsel in my soul: so that, unless anyone sets counsel in his soul that he may perfectly work mercy, God does not direct him unto the end, nor offer him the full knowledge of himself, which is face to face. Sorrow in my heart through the day? is understood, how long shall I set? But through the day signifies continuation, so that day is understood as time; from which everyone desiring to be stripped sets sorrow in his heart, praying to ascend to eternal things, and not to suffer the human day.

3. [v 3.] How long will my enemy be exalted over me? either the devil, or carnal habit.

4. [v 4.] Look upon me and hear me, Lord my God. Look, is referred to what was said, How long do you turn away your face from me? Hear, is referred to what was said, How long will you forget me unto the end? Enlighten my eyes, lest I ever sleep in death. The eyes of the heart must be understood, lest they be closed by a delightful failing into sin.

5. [v 5.] Lest at any time my enemy say: I have prevailed against him. The insulting of the devil is to be feared. Those who trouble me will exult, if I am moved. The devil and his angels: who did not exult over the righteous man Job, when they troubled him; because he was not moved, that is, did not withdraw from the stability of faith.

6. [v 6.] But I have hoped in your mercy. Because the very fact that a man is not moved and remains fixed in the Lord, he ought not to attribute to himself, lest, while he boasts that he was not moved, he be moved by that very pride. My heart will exult in your salvation: in Christ, in the Wisdom of God. I will sing to the Lord who has granted good things to me: spiritual good things, not pertaining to the human day. And I will sing to the name of the Lord most high: that is, with joy I give thanks, and in a most ordered way I use the body, which is the singing of the spiritual soul. But if any difference is here to be considered: I will sing with the heart, I will make melody with works, to the Lord, which he alone sees: but to the name of the Lord, which becomes known among men: which is useful not to him, but to us.

Exposition of Psalm 13

1. [v 1.] What to the end is, is not to be more often repeated. For Christ is the end of the Law, unto righteousness for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4), as the Apostle says. We believe in him, when we begin to enter upon the good way; we shall see him, when we have arrived: and therefore he is the end.

2. The imprudent one has said in his heart: There is no God. For not even those sacrilegious and detestable philosophers, who hold perverse and false views about God, have dared to say, There is no God: and therefore, He has said in his heart; because no one dares to say this, even if he has dared to think it. They are corrupted and have become abominable in their affections: that is, while they love this world, and do not love God: these are the very affections that corrupt the soul, and so blind it, that the imprudent one can even say in his heart: There is no God; for, as they did not approve of having God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate sense. There is none who does goodness, there is none even to one. Even to one: either it can be understood with that one included, so that no man is understood: or except one, so that the Lord Christ is taken; as we say, This field is even to the sea; we certainly do not reckon in the sea along with it. And this is the better understanding, that no one is understood to have done goodness up to Christ; because no man can do goodness, unless he himself has shown it: and that is true; because until anyone knows the one God, he cannot do goodness.

3. [v 2.] The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there is one understanding or seeking God. It can be understood of the Jews, so that he called them more honorably sons of men, on account of the worship of the one God, in comparison with the gentiles, of whom I think it was said above: The imprudent one has said in his heart, There is no God, and the rest. But the Lord looks down, that he may see through his holy souls: which is signified by what was said, from heaven; for through himself nothing is hidden from him.

4. [v 3.] All have turned aside, together they have become useless: that is, the Jews have become such as the gentiles too, of whom it was said above. There is none who does good, there is none even to one: to be understood similarly as above. Their throat is an open tomb. Either the voracity of the gaping gullet is signified; or, in allegory, those who slay and as it were devour the slain, those whom they persuade to the perversity of their own ways. To which is similar, on the contrary, what was said to Peter, Kill and eat (Acts 10:13); that he might convert the gentiles to his own faith and good ways. With their tongues they were acting deceitfully: flattery is the companion of the voracious and of all the evil. The venom of asps is under their lips: by venom he means deceit; by of asps, because they refuse to hear the precepts of the law, as asps refuse to hear the words of the charmer, which is said more evidently in another psalm. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: this is the venom of asps. Their feet are swift to shed blood: by the habit of doing evil. Contrition and unhappiness are in their ways: for all the ways of evil men are full of labors and misery; therefore the Lord cries: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt 11:28-30). And the way of peace they have not known: this surely which the Lord, as I said, recalls, in the easy yoke and light burden. There is no fear of God before their eyes: these do not say, There is no God; but yet they do not fear God.

5. [v 4.] Will they not know, all who work iniquity? he threatens judgment. Who devour my people as the food of bread: that is, daily; for the food of bread is daily. But they devour the people who take their own advantages from them, not referring their ministry to the glory of God, and to the salvation of those over whom they preside.

6. [v 5.] They have not called upon the Lord: for he does not truly call upon him who desires those things which displease him. There they trembled with fear, where there was no fear: that is, in the loss of temporal things. For they said: If we leave him thus, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come, and take away from us both our place and our nation (John 11:48). They feared to lose an earthly kingdom, where there was no fear; and they lost the kingdom of heaven, which they ought to have feared: and this is to be understood of all temporal advantages, the loss of which, when men fear it, they do not come to eternal things.

7. [v 6.] Because God is in the righteous generation: that is, he is not in those who love the world. For it is unrighteous to forsake the founder of the ages, and to love the world, and to serve the creature rather than the Creator. You have confounded the counsel of the needy one, because the Lord is his hope: that is, you have despised the humble coming of the Son of God, because in it you did not see the pomp of the world: so that those whom he called might place their hope in God alone, not in things that pass away.