Exposition of Psalm 73

1. [v. 1.] The title of this psalm is: The understanding of Asaph (Ps 74:1 (73:1)). In Latin "Asaph" is rendered "assembly"; in Greek it is called "synagogue." Let us see what this synagogue understood. But let us first understand what a synagogue is; then we shall understand what this synagogue understood. Every assembly is called by the general name "synagogue": there can be an assembly both of cattle and of human beings; but here it is not an assembly of cattle, since we have heard of understanding. For listen to what is said of the human being who, set in a place of honor, has neglected understanding within himself: Man, though set in honor, did not understand; he is compared to the senseless beasts, and is made like them (Ps 49:12 (48:13)). Since, then, it is not an assembly of cattle, we need not discuss the matter long or commend it more carefully; but since it is an assembly of human beings, we must understand of which human beings it is. It is certainly not of those who, set in honor and not understanding, were compared to the senseless beasts and made like them; rather, it is of those who do understand. For the title of the psalm lays this down, saying: The understanding of Asaph. It is therefore a certain understanding assembly whose voice we are about to hear. But since "synagogue" has properly been the name for the assembly of the people of Israel—so that wherever we hear "synagogue" we are now accustomed to understand nothing but the Jewish people—let us see whether perhaps this is its voice in this psalm. But of what kind of Jews, and of what kind of people of Israel? Not the chaff, but perhaps the wheat; not the broken branches, but perhaps the firm ones. For not all who are of Israel are Israelites; but in Isaac, he says, shall your descendants be named: that is, it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants (Rom 9:6-8). There are, then, certain Israelites, one of whom was the man of whom it was said: Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile (Jn 1:47). I do not say this in the sense that we too are Israelites because we too are Abraham's seed; for the Apostle was speaking to the Gentiles when he said: Then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise (Gal 3:29). In that sense, then, we are all Israelites, we who follow the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham. But here let us understand the voice of the Israelites in the way the Apostle meant when he said: For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin (Rom 11:1). Here, then, let us understand what the prophets said: The remnant shall be saved (Isa 10:22; Rom 9:27). Let us hear here the voice of the saved remnant; so that the synagogue may speak—the synagogue that had received the Old Testament and was intent on the carnal promises; and from this it came about that its feet wavered. For in another psalm too, which likewise has Asaph in its title, what is said? How good is God to Israel, to the upright in heart! But my feet had almost slipped (Ps 73:1-2 (72:1-2)). And as though we were to ask, Why did your feet slip? My steps, he says, had well-nigh given way, because I was envious of sinners, beholding the peace of sinners (Ps 73:2-3 (72:2-3)). For when, in keeping with God's promises belonging to the Old Testament, he was expecting earthly happiness, he noticed that it abounded among the wicked; that in those things he was expecting from God, those flourished who did not worship God; and as though he had served God in vain, his feet wavered. For there he says: Behold, these are the sinners, and abounding in this world they have obtained riches. Was it then in vain that I justified my heart? (Ps 73:12-13 (72:12-13)) See how his steps had well-nigh given way, so that the soul now says to itself: What good is it that I serve God? Behold, that man does not serve, and he is happy; I serve, and I labor. After all, suppose that I am happy; since that man too is happy who does not serve, why should I think myself happy on the ground that I serve? Now the psalm whose testimony I have brought forward precedes this one which we now have in hand.

2. Now opportunely—not by our arrangement, but by God's—it has come about that we have just now heard from the Gospel: For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17). For if we distinguish the two Testaments, the Old and the New, they have not the same sacraments, nor the same promises; yet they have most of the same precepts. For You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, Honor your father and mother, You shall not bear false witness, You shall not covet your neighbor's property, You shall not covet your neighbor's wife (Exod 20:12-17) are precepts given to us as well; and whoever does not observe them goes astray, and is by no means worthy to be counted fit to receive God's holy mountain, of which it is said: Who shall dwell in your tabernacle, or who shall rest on your holy mountain? (Ps 15:1 (14:1)) He who is innocent in his hands and clean of heart (Ps 24:4 (23:4)). When the precepts are examined, then, either they are all found to be the same, or there is scarcely anything in the Gospel that was not spoken by the prophets. The precepts are the same; the sacraments are not the same, the promises are not the same. Let us see why the precepts are the same: it is because by these we ought to serve God. The sacraments are not the same, because the sacraments that give salvation are one thing, and the sacraments that promise the Savior are another. The sacraments of the New Testament give salvation; the sacraments of the Old Testament promised the Savior. Since, then, you now hold the things promised, why do you seek the things that promised them, when you already have the Savior? I say "you hold the things promised" not in the sense that we have already received eternal life, but in the sense that Christ, who was foretold through the prophets, has already come. The sacraments have changed; they have been made easier, fewer, more wholesome, more blessed. Why are the promises not the same? Because the land of Canaan was promised, a plentiful land, fruitful, flowing with milk and honey; a temporal kingdom was promised, worldly happiness was promised, a fruitfulness of children was promised, the subjection of enemies was promised: all these belong to earthly happiness. But why did these have to be promised first? Because it is not the spiritual that is first, but the animal; afterward, he says, the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, earthly; the second man is of heaven, heavenly: as was the earthly, such also are the earthly; and as is the heavenly, such also are the heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of him who is from heaven (1 Cor 15:46-49). To the image of the earthly belongs the Old Testament; to the image of the heavenly, the New Testament. But lest anyone suppose that the earthly man was made by one being and the heavenly by another, God, showing that he is the creator of both, also willed to be the author of both Testaments; so that he might promise earthly things in the Old Testament and heavenly things in the New. But how long are you the earlier, earthly man? How long do you savor earthly things? When certain childish things are given to a child—playthings to distract the childish mind—are they not, when he grows up, knocked out of his hands, so that he may now handle something more useful, something befitting a grown person? And yet it was you yourself who gave your son both nuts when he was small and a book when he was grown. Therefore, because God through the New Testament knocked those things, as it were the playthings of children, out of his children's hands in order to give them something more useful as they grew, it is not to be supposed that he himself did not give those earlier things: he gave both. But the law itself was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17): grace, because what was commanded by the letter is fulfilled through love; truth, because what was promised is rendered. This, then, is what that Asaph understood. In short, all the things that had been promised to the Jews have been taken away. Where is their kingdom? Where the temple? Where the anointing? Where the priest? Where now among them are the prophets? Since he came who was foretold through the prophets, none of these things any longer exists in that nation; it has now lost earthly things, and does not yet seek heavenly ones.

3. You ought not, then, to cling to earthly things, even though God bestows them. Yet it is not the case that, because we ought not to cling to them, we should believe that anyone but God gives them; he himself gives them; but do not look for any great thing from him in a good that he gives even to one who is not good. For if he gave these things as something great, he would not give them to the wicked. He willed to give them to the wicked too precisely so that the good might learn to seek something else from him, something he does not give even to the wicked. But those wretched men, clinging to earthly things and not relying on him who made heaven and earth, who gave them those very earthly things, who even in temporal terms freed them from the captivity of Egypt, who led them through the divided sea, who overwhelmed their pursuing enemies with the waves (Exod 14:21-28)—not relying on him who would surely give heavenly things to the grown as he gave earthly things to the little ones, fearing to lose what they had received, they killed the one who had given it. We say these things, brothers, so that you, men of the New Testament, may learn not to cling to earthly things. For if those men clung inexcusably to earthly things, to whom the New Testament itself had not yet been revealed, how much more inexcusably do those pursue earthly things to whom the heavenly things have already been promised and revealed in the New Testament! For recall, my brothers, what was said by those persecuting Christ: If we let him go, the Romans will come and take away from us both our place and our nation (Jn 11:48). See how, by fearing to lose earthly things, they killed the King of heaven. And what happened to them? They lost even those earthly things; and where they killed Christ, there they were killed: and since, unwilling to lose their land, they killed the giver of life, being slain they lost that same land; and at the very time at which they killed him, so that from the time itself they might be reminded why they suffered these things. For when the city of the Jews was overthrown, they were celebrating the Passover, and the whole nation, in many thousands of men, had gathered for the celebration of that feast. There God—through wicked men, indeed, yet himself good; through unjust men, yet just and justly—so took vengeance on them that many thousands of men were destroyed and the city itself overthrown. This the understanding of Asaph bewails in this psalm; and in that very lament, the understanding, as it were, distinguishes earthly from heavenly things, distinguishes the Old Testament from the New Testament, so that you may see what you are passing through, what you should expect, what you should leave behind, and to what you should cling. Thus, then, he began.

4. Why have you cast us off, O God, to the end? You have cast us off to the end (Ps 74:1 (73:1)): this is from the person of the Jewish people, and from the person of the assembly that is properly called the synagogue. Why have you cast us off, O God, to the end? He does not reproach, but asks: Why, for what cause, on account of what have you done this? What have you done? You have cast us off to the end. What does to the end mean? Perhaps until the end of the world. Or have you cast us off into Christ, who is the end for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4)? Why, then, have you cast us off, O God, to the end? Your spirit is angry against the sheep of your flock. Why are you angry against the sheep of your flock, except because we were clinging to earthly things and did not recognize the shepherd?

5. [v. 2.] Remember your assembly, which you possessed from the beginning. Can this be the voice of the Gentiles? Did he possess the Gentiles from the beginning? No, but he possessed the seed of Abraham, the people of Israel born according to the flesh from the patriarchs, our fathers; whose children we have become, not by coming from the flesh, but by imitating their faith. But those who were possessed by God from the beginning—what befell them? Remember your assembly, which you possessed from the beginning. You redeemed the rod of your inheritance. That very assembly of yours, the rod of your inheritance you redeemed. This same assembly he called the rod of the inheritance. Let us look back to what was first done, when he willed to possess that assembly by freeing it from Egypt—what sign he gave to Moses, when Moses said to him: What sign shall I give, that they may believe me, that you have sent me? And God said to him: What are you carrying in your hand? A rod. Throw it on the ground. And he cast the rod on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses was afraid, and Moses fled from it. And the Lord said to him: Take hold of its tail. And he took hold of it; and it returned to its state, becoming a rod, just as it had been a rod before (Exod 4:1-4). What does this signify? For it was not done in vain. Let us question the Letters of God. What did the serpent persuade man to? Death (Gen 3:1-6). Death, then, is from the serpent. If death is from the serpent, the rod within the serpent is Christ within death. And so too, when in the desert they were bitten and killed by serpents, the Lord commanded Moses to lift up a bronze serpent in the wilderness, and to admonish the people that whoever had been bitten by a serpent should look upon it and be healed (Num 21:6-9). And so it was done; and so men, bitten by serpents and poisoned, were healed by looking upon the serpent. To be healed by a serpent—a great mystery! What is it to be healed from a serpent by looking upon a serpent? It is to be saved from death by believing in one who is dead. And yet Moses was afraid and fled. What is it that Moses fled from that serpent? What, brothers, but what we know happened in the Gospel? Christ died, and the disciples were afraid, and withdrew from the hope in which they had been (Lk 24:21). But what was said? Take hold of its tail. What is the tail? Take hold of the latter parts. This is also what that other passage signified: You shall see my back parts (Exod 33:23). First he was made a serpent, but when the tail was held it became a rod; first he was slain, afterward he rose again. In the tail of the serpent there is also the end of the world; for thus does the mortality of the Church now walk: some go, others come, through death as through a serpent, because death was sown by the serpent; but at the end of the world, as it were the tail, we return to the hand of God, and are made the established kingdom of God, so that there may be fulfilled in us: You redeemed the rod of your inheritance. But since this is the voice of the synagogue—and the redeemed rod of God's inheritance appears more in the Gentiles, while the hope of the Jews is hidden, whether of those who are yet to come to belief, or of those who believed at the time when, the Holy Spirit having been sent, the disciples spoke in the tongues of all nations (Acts 2:4-11). For then several thousands of the Jews themselves, the crucifiers of Christ, came to believe; and because they were found nearby, they believed in such a way that they sold all they had and laid the proceeds of their goods at the feet of the apostles (Acts 4:34-35). Since, then, this was hidden, and the redemption of God's rod was to be more manifest among the Gentiles, he explains the source of what he said: You redeemed the rod of your inheritance. This he said not of the Gentiles, among whom it is manifest. But from where? Mount Zion. Even Mount Zion can be understood in another way. This Mount Zion in which you have dwelt: where the people were of old, where the temple was instituted, where the sacrifices were celebrated, where there was everything necessary at that time, promising Christ. A promise, when the thing is rendered, now becomes superfluous. For before what is promised is rendered, the promise itself is necessary, lest the one to whom it is promised forget what was promised to him and die from not waiting. He must therefore wait, so that he may receive when it comes: and so he ought not to abandon the promise. For this reason the figures were not abandoned, so that when the day came, the shadows might be taken away: This Mount Zion in which you have dwelt.

6. [v. 3.] Lift up your hand against their pride to the end. As you were casting us off to the end, so lift up your hand against their pride to the end. Whose pride? The pride of those by whom Jerusalem was overthrown. And by whom, if not by the kings of the Gentiles? Well has his hand been lifted up against their pride to the end; for they too have now come to know Christ. For Christ is the end of the law, unto righteousness for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4). How well does he wish for them? He speaks as though angry, and seems to curse: and would that what he curses might come to pass! Indeed, let us now rejoice that it is coming to pass in the name of Christ. Now those holding the scepter are subjected to the wood of the cross; now is fulfilled what was foretold: All the kings of the earth shall worship him; all nations shall serve him (Ps 72:11 (71:11)). Now on the foreheads of kings the sign of the cross is more precious than the jewel of the diadem. Lift up your hand against their pride to the end. How great are the things the enemy has wickedly wrought among your holy things! Among those things that were your holy things—that is, in the temple, in the priesthood, in all those sacraments that existed at that time—how great are the things the enemy has wickedly wrought! Truly the enemy worked then. For the Gentiles, who did this then, worshiped false gods, adored idols, served demons; yet they wrought many evils among the holy things of God. When could they do so, unless they were permitted? And when would they be permitted, unless those holy things—which at first foreshadowed the promise—were no longer necessary, since he who had promised was now held? Therefore, how great are the things the enemy has wickedly wrought among your holy things!

7. [v. 4.] And those who hate you have boasted. Mark the servants of demons, the servants of idols; such were the Gentiles then, when they overthrew the temple and the city of God, and they boasted. In the midst of your solemn feast. Remember what I said—that Jerusalem was then overthrown when that very solemn feast was being kept; the feast at which they crucified the Lord: gathered together, they raged; gathered together, they perished.

8. [v. 5.] They set up their standards, standards; and they did not know. They had standards to set up there—their banners, their eagles, their dragons, the Roman standards; or even their statues, which they first set up in the temple; or perhaps their standards, which they had heard of from the soothsayers of their demons. And they did not know. What did they not know? That you would have no power over me, unless it had been given you from above (Jn 19:11). They did not know that the honor was not conferred on them, that they should afflict, take, or overthrow the city; but their impiety was made, as it were, the axe of God: they were made the instrument of one who was angry, not of one appeased into a kingdom. For God does here what a man too often does. Sometimes an angry man takes up a rod lying in his path, perhaps some bit of brushwood, and beats his son with it; and then he throws the brushwood into the fire, and keeps the inheritance for his son: so sometimes God instructs the good through the wicked, and through the temporal power of the damnable trains the discipline of those to be freed. For what? Do you suppose, brothers, that this discipline was truly given to that nation in such a way that it should perish utterly? How many of them afterward came to believe! How many are yet to believe! The chaff is one thing, the wheat another; yet the threshing-sledge passes over both: but under the one sledge the one is crushed, the other purified. How great a good God brought us out of the evil of Judas the betrayer! From the very savagery of the Jews, how great a good was bestowed on the faithful Gentiles! Christ was slain, so that he might be on the cross for the one to gaze upon who had been struck by the serpent (Num 21:8-9; Jn 3:14). So, then, these men too had perhaps heard from their soothsayers that they were to go to Jerusalem and take it; and when they had taken and overthrown it, they said to themselves that it had been done by their demons: They set up their standards, standards; and they did not know. What did they not know? As at the going forth from above. Because, unless the command had gone forth from above, such things would never have been permitted to the raging Gentiles against the people of the Jews. But it went forth from above, as Daniel says: From the beginning of your prayer the word went forth (Dan 9:23). This too the Lord said to Pilate himself, who was puffing himself up and setting up his standards, standards, and not knowing, and saying to Christ: Do you not answer me? Do you not know that I have power to kill you, and power to release you? (Jn 19:10) And the Lord, pricking the puffed-up man as one pricks a bladder to let out the air: You would have, he says, no power over me, unless it had been given you from above (Jn 19:11). So too here: They set up their standards, standards; and they did not know. How did they not know? As at the going forth from above. As the going forth from above had been made, that this might be fulfilled, could they thus have known?

9. [v. 6.] Let us now run through these verses, Jerusalem being overthrown, both because they are manifest and because it is not pleasant to linger over the punishment of enemies. As in a forest of trees, with axes they cut down its gates together; with hatchet and crowbar they cast it down: that is, in concert, steadfastly, with hatchet and crowbar they cast it down.

10. They burned your sanctuary with fire; they defiled on the ground the tabernacle of your name.

11. [vv. 8, 9.] They said in their heart, their kindred together. What did they say? Come, let us suppress all the feasts of the Lord from the land. Of the Lord—this is inserted from the person of this speaker, from the person of Asaph: for those raging men would not call him "Lord," whose temple they were overthrowing. Come, let us suppress all the feasts of the Lord from the land. What says Asaph? What does the understanding of Asaph say in this? What? Does even the discipline given do no good? Is the perversity of the mind not corrected? All the things that existed of old have been overthrown: nowhere a priest, nowhere an altar of the Jews, nowhere a victim, nowhere a temple. Is nothing else, then, to be acknowledged that has succeeded this thing now passing away? Or indeed would this foreshadowing sign be taken away, unless what was promised had come? Let us see here, then, the understanding of Asaph; let us see whether he profits from his tribulation. Mark what he says: We do not see our standards, there is no longer a prophet, and he will not yet know us. Behold these Jews, who say of themselves that they are not yet acknowledged—that is, that they are still in captivity, that they are not yet freed—still waiting for Christ. Christ will come; but he will come as judge: first the one who calls, afterward the one who separates. He will come, because he came, and it is plain that he will come; but now he will come from above. He was before you, O Israel! You were shaken, because you stumbled against him as he lay; but lest you be crushed, watch for the one coming from above. For thus it was foretold through the prophet: Whoever stumbles against that stone shall be shaken; and on whomever it falls, it shall crush him (Mt 21:44; Lk 20:18). The little one shakes; the great one will crush. Now you do not see your standards, now there is no longer a prophet; and you say: And he will not yet acknowledge us: because you do not yet acknowledge him. There is no longer a prophet, and he will not yet acknowledge us.

12. [v. 10.] How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach? Cry out as one forsaken, as one deserted; cry out like a sick man who preferred to strike the physician rather than be cured: he does not acknowledge you yet. See what he has done, who does not acknowledge you yet. For those to whom nothing was announced concerning him shall see; and those who have not heard shall understand (Isa 52:15; Rom 15:21): and you still cry out: There is no longer a prophet, and he will not yet know us. Where is your understanding? The adversary provokes your name to the end. To this end the adversary provokes your name to the end, that, being angry, you may take it to heart; and taking it to heart, you may acknowledge to the end; or certainly to the end, meaning up to the end. Up to what end? Until you acknowledge, until you cry out, until, the tail being grasped, there is a return to the kingdom.

13. [v. 11.] Why do you turn your hand and your right hand away from the midst of your bosom to the end? Again another sign that was given to Moses. For as above there was the sign of the rod, so here there is the sign of the right hand. For when that matter of the rod had been done, God gave another sign: Put, he said, your hand into your bosom; and he put it in: Bring it out, and he brought it out; and it was found white (Exod 4:6-7)—that is, unclean. For whiteness in the skin is leprosy, not fairness (Lev 13:3). For God's own inheritance—that is, his people—being sent forth from him, was made unclean. But what did he say to him? Bring it back into your bosom: he brought it back, and it returned to its color (Exod 4:7). When do you do this, says this Asaph? How long do you estrange your right hand from your bosom, so that it remains unclean outside? Bring it back; let it return to its color, let it acknowledge the Savior. Why do you turn your hand and your right hand away from the midst of your bosom to the end? These things the blind man cries out, not understanding; and God does what he does. For why did Christ come? A blindness in part has come upon Israel, that the fullness of the Gentiles might enter in, and so all Israel might be saved (Rom 11:25-26). Now, then, Asaph, acknowledge what has gone before, that at least you may follow, if you could not go before. For Christ did not come in vain, nor was Christ slain in vain; nor did the grain fall to the ground in vain, except that it might rise up many-fold (Jn 12:24). The serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, that it might heal the one struck by the venom (Num 21:8-9). Mark what has been done: do not think that his coming was empty; lest evil find you when he comes again.

14. [v. 12.] Asaph understood, for in the title of the psalm there is The understanding of Asaph. And what does he say? But God our king before the ages has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. With one voice we cry out: There is no longer a prophet; and he will not yet know us: but with this other voice we say that God is our king, who is before the ages, because he himself is the Word in the beginning, through whom the ages were made; he has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. God, then, our king before the ages, what did he do? He wrought salvation in the midst of the earth; and I still cry out as though deserted. He works salvation in the midst of the earth; and I have remained earth. Asaph understood well, for it is The understanding of Asaph. For why these things, or what kind of salvation did Christ work, except that men might learn to desire eternal things, and not always to cling to temporal ones? But God our king before the ages has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. While we cry out: How long, O Lord, shall the enemy reproach to the end? How long does the adversary provoke? How long do you turn your hand away from your bosom? When we say these things: But God our king before the ages has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth; and we are asleep. The Gentiles are now awake; and we are snoring, and, as though God had deserted us, we rave in our sleep. He has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth.

15. [v. 13.] Now then, Asaph, correct yourself unto understanding; tell us what kind of salvation God has wrought in the midst of the earth. When that earthly salvation of yours was overthrown, what did he do? What did he promise? You established the sea by your power. As though the Jewish nation were a dry land, as it were, separated from the waves, the Gentiles were a sea in their bitterness, washing about that land on every side: behold, you established the sea by your power, and there remained a land thirsting for your rain. You established the sea by your power: you crushed the heads of the dragons in the water. The heads of the dragons—the prides of the demons by whom the Gentiles were possessed—you crushed upon the water; because those whom they possessed, you freed through baptism.

16. [v. 14.] What yet, after the heads of the dragons? For those dragons have their prince, and he himself is the first great dragon. And concerning him, what did he do who wrought salvation in the midst of the earth? Listen: You broke the head of the dragon. Of what dragon? We understand the dragons to be all the demons soldiering under the devil: what single dragon, then, whose head was broken, ought we to understand but the devil himself? What did he do concerning him? You broke the head of the dragon. That head is the beginning of sin. That head is what received the curse, that the seed of Eve should watch the head of the serpent (Gen 3:15). For the Church has been admonished to shun the beginning of sin. What is the beginning of sin, as it were the head of the serpent? The beginning of all sin is pride (Sir 10:13). The head of the dragon, then, has been broken; the pride of the devil has been broken. And what did he do concerning him, who wrought salvation in the midst of the earth? You gave him as food to the Ethiopian peoples. What is this? How do I understand the Ethiopian peoples? How, except as all the Gentiles by them? And well by the black ones; for the Ethiopians are black. They are called to faith who were black; they precisely, so that it may be said to them: For you were once darkness; but now you are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). They precisely are called black; but not that they should remain black: for of these is made the Church, to which it is said: Who is this that comes up made white? (Song 8:5 (Vetus Latina)) For what has been made of her who was black, except what is said: I am black, and beautiful (Song 1:5 (1:4))? And how did these receive that dragon as food? I think rather that they received Christ as food: but Christ, by whom they should be perfected; the devil, whom they should consume. For from this also came that calf which the unfaithful, apostate people worshiped, seeking the gods of the Egyptians, forsaking him who freed them from the slavery of the Egyptians; from this that great mystery was set in motion. For when Moses was so angry with those worshiping and adoring the idol, and, inflamed with zeal for God, took temporal vengeance, that he might frighten them away from the eternal death to be shunned; yet he cast the very head of the calf into the fire and destroyed it, ground it small, scattered it in water, and gave it to the people to drink (Exod 32:20): thus was a great mystery enacted. O prophetic anger, and a mind not disturbed but enlightened! What did he do? Cast it into the fire, so that the very form might first be confounded; grind it small, so that it might gradually be consumed; cast it into water, give it to the people to drink. What is this, except that the worshipers of the devil had become his body? Just as those who acknowledge Christ become the body of Christ, so that it may be said to them: Now you are the body of Christ and his members (1 Cor 12:27). The body of the devil was to be consumed, and this was to be consumed by the Israelites. For from that people were the apostles; from that people was the first Church. And it was said to Peter concerning the Gentiles: Kill and eat (Acts 10:13). What is Kill and eat? Kill what they are, and make them what you are. With this: Kill and eat; with this: Grind small and drink: yet both in the same mystery; because it was necessary, and beyond doubt necessary, that the body which belonged to the devil should, by believing, pass over into the body of Christ. Thus the devil is consumed by the loss of his members. This was figured also in the serpent of Moses. For the magicians did likewise, and casting down their rods they produced dragons; but the dragon of Moses swallowed up the rods of all those magicians (Exod 7:11-12). Let the body of the devil, then, be understood even now: this happens; it is devoured by the Gentiles who have believed, it has been made food for the Ethiopian peoples. This too can be understood, you gave him as food to the Ethiopian peoples: because now everyone bites him. What is "they bite"? By reproaching, blaming, accusing. As it was said—by way of prohibition, indeed, yet plainly expressed: But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed by one another (Gal 5:15). What is you bite and devour one another? You quarrel with one another, you disparage one another, you cast reproaches at one another. Mark, then, that now the devil is consumed by these bites. Who, angry with his servant—even a pagan—does not say to him, "Satan"? See the devil given as food. This the Christian says, this the Jew says, this the pagan says; the very man adores him, and reviles him.

17. [v. 15.] Let us see, then, what remains. Brothers, I beg you, attend: these things are heard with great delight, because what is heard is also recognized throughout the world. When these things were being spoken, they did not yet exist; for then they were being promised, not rendered: but now with what delight are we affected, when we see fulfilled in the world the things we read foretold in the book! Let us see what he did, whom Asaph now understands to have wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. You broke open the fountains and the torrents: that they might pour forth the liquid of wisdom, that they might pour forth the riches of faith, that they might irrigate the saltiness of the Gentiles, that they might convert all unbelievers, by their irrigation, into the sweetness of faith. You broke open the fountains and the torrents. Perhaps there is a distinction; perhaps they are one, because the fountains were so abundant that they made rivers. You broke open the fountains and the torrents. But if it is by way of distinction: in some, the word of God becomes a fountain of water springing up to eternal life (Jn 4:14); others, however, hearing the word and not holding it in such a way as to live well, yet not keeping silent with their tongue, become torrents. For those are properly called torrents which are not perennial: for sometimes "torrent" is used figuratively for a river, as it is said: They shall be inebriated with the abundance of your house, and you shall give them to drink of the torrent of your delights (Ps 36:8-9 (35:9)): for that torrent will never dry up. But torrents are properly those rivers that fail in summer, but in winter are flooded with waters and run. You see, then, a man who is well-faithful, who will persevere to the end, who will not abandon God in any temptation; who endures all troubles for the truth, not for falsehood and error: from what does he flourish thus, except that the word has become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life? Another, however, receives the word; he preaches, he is not silent, he runs: but the summer tests whether he is a fountain or a torrent. Yet by both the earth is watered, by him who wrought salvation in the midst of the earth; let the fountains overflow, let the torrents run: You broke open the fountains and the torrents.

18. You dried up the rivers of Etham. With this hand he breaks open the fountains and the torrents, with this hand he dries up the rivers, so that from here the waters run, and from there the waters are dried up. The rivers, he says, of Etham. What is Etham? For it is a Hebrew word. What does "Etham" mean? Strong, robust. Who is this strong and robust one, whose rivers God dries up? Who, but that very dragon? For no one enters the house of the strong man to plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man (Mt 12:29). He is the strong one, presuming upon his own power and forsaking God; he is the strong one who says: I will set my throne in the north, and I will be like the Most High (Isa 14:13-14). From that cup of perverse strength he gave man to drink. They wished to be strong who believed they would become gods from the forbidden food. Adam was made strong, to be mocked: Behold, Adam has become like one of us (Gen 3:22). The Jews too were strong, presuming upon their own righteousness: For being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, as though strong, they did not submit to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3). See the man who has spent his strength and remained weak, needy, standing afar off, not daring to lift his eyes to heaven; but striking his breast and saying: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner (Lk 18:13). Now he is weak, now he confesses his weakness; he is not strong: he is dry land; let him be watered with fountains and torrents. Those are still strong who presume upon their own power. Let their rivers be dried up: let the teachings of the Gentiles—of the soothsayers, of the astrologers, the arts of magic—make no progress; since the rivers of the Strong One have been dried up: You dried up the rivers of Etham. Let that teaching wither; let minds be flooded with the Gospel of truth.

19. [v. 16.] Yours is the day, and yours is the night. Who does not know this, since he made all these things; because all things were made through the Word (Jn 1:3)? To him, the very one who wrought salvation in the midst of the earth, it is said: Yours is the day, and yours is the night. We ought to understand something here that pertains to that very salvation which he wrought in the midst of the earth. Yours is the day. Who are these? The spiritual. And yours is the night. Who are these? The carnal: Yours is the day; and yours is the night. Let the spiritual speak spiritual things to the spiritual; for it is said: Comparing spiritual things with spiritual, we speak wisdom among the perfect (1 Cor 2:13, 6). The carnal do not yet grasp that wisdom: I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal (1 Cor 3:1). Therefore, when the spiritual speak to the spiritual: Day to day pours forth speech: but when the carnal too do not keep silent about the faith of the crucified Christ, which the little ones can grasp: Night to night declares knowledge (Ps 19:2 (18:3)). Yours is the day, and yours is the night. To you belong the spiritual, to you belong the carnal: the one you illuminate with unchangeable wisdom and truth; the other you console with the manifestation of the flesh, as the moon consoling the night. Yours is the day, and yours is the night. Do you wish to hear the day? See whether you grasp it; raise up your mind as much as you can. Let us see whether you belong to the day; let us see now whether your sight does not flicker. Can you see what you just now heard from the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God? (Jn 1:1) For you do not know how to conceive of words except those that sound and pass away. Can you now grasp the Word, not a sound, but God? Did you not hear there: And the Word was God? But you are thinking of these words: All things were made through him (Jn 1:3): and through him were made those too who make words. What kind of Word, then, is that? Do you grasp it, O carnal one? Answer; do you grasp it? You do not grasp it; you still belong to the night; the moon is necessary for you, lest you die in darkness. For indeed certain sinners have bent the bow, that they may shoot in the dark moon at the upright in heart (Ps 11:2 (10:3)). For the flesh of Christ was darkened when it was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb: and those who killed him mocked; and he had not yet risen, and the disciples, upright in heart, were shot at, but in the dark moon. Therefore, that not only day to day might pour forth speech, but also night to night might declare knowledge; since yours is the day, and yours is the night; deign to descend, to remain with him from whom you descend, but to come to those to whom you descend. Deign to descend, you who were in this world, and the world was made through you, and the world did not know you (Jn 1:10). Let the night too have its consolation; let it have, he says, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (Jn 1:14): Yours is the day, and yours is the night. You made the sun and the moon: the sun, the spiritual; the moon, the carnal. He is still carnal; let him not be abandoned, but let him too be perfected. You made the sun and the moon: the sun, as it were the wise; the moon, as it were the foolish; yet you have not abandoned them. For thus it is written: The wise man abides like the sun; but the fool changes like the moon (Sir 27:11). What then? Because the sun abides—that is, because the wise man abides like the sun, the fool changes like the moon—is the carnal one, the foolish one, still to be abandoned? And where is what was said by the Apostle: I am a debtor both to the wise and to the foolish (Rom 1:14)? You made the sun and the moon.

20. [v. 17.] You made all the borders of the earth. Did he not do so before, when he founded the earth? But how did he make the borders of the earth, he who wrought salvation in the midst of the earth? How, except as the Apostle says: But by grace you have been saved, and this not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not from works, lest perhaps anyone be exalted? (Eph 2:8-9) Were there, then, no good works? There were; but how? By the grace of God. Follow on; let us see. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works (Eph 2:10). Behold how he made the borders of the earth, he who wrought salvation in the midst of the earth: You made all the borders of the earth. Summer and spring, you made them. Those fervent in spirit are summer. You, I say, made those fervent in spirit: you made also the new in faith; that is spring. Summer and spring, you made them. Let them not boast as though they had not received: you made them.

21. [v. 18.] Be mindful of this your creation. Of what your creation? The enemy has reproached the Lord. O Asaph, grieve in your understanding for your former blindness! The enemy has reproached the Lord. It was said to Christ among his own nation: This man is a sinner; we do not know where he is from: we know Moses, to him God has spoken; this man is a Samaritan (Jn 9:24, 29; 8:48). The enemy has reproached the Lord; and a foolish people has provoked your name. A foolish people then, Asaph; but it was not then the understanding of Asaph. What is said in the earlier psalm? I have become as a beast before you; and I am always with you (Ps 73:22-23 (72:22-23)): because he did not go to the gods and idols of the Gentiles. Though he did not understand, like a beast, yet he recognized as a man, for he said: Always with you, like a beast: and what comes afterward there in that very psalm where Asaph appears? You have held my right hand; in your will you have led me, and with glory you have taken me up (Ps 73:23-24 (72:23-24)). In your will, not in my righteousness; by your gift, not by my work. So too here: The enemy has reproached the Lord; and a foolish people has provoked your name. Have they all perished, then? God forbid. Even though some of the branches were broken off, yet some remain into which the wild olive might be grafted (Rom 11:17); and the root remains, and from those very branches broken off through unbelief some were recalled through faith: for the apostle Paul himself had been broken off through unbelief, and was restored to the root through faith. Thus plainly a foolish people has provoked your name, when it was said: If he is the Son of God, let him come down from the cross (Mt 27:40).

22. [v. 19.] But what of you, Asaph, now in understanding? Do not deliver to the beasts the soul that confesses to you. I acknowledge, says Asaph; for, as it is said in another psalm: I have acknowledged my sin, and I have not concealed my offense (Ps 32:5 (31:5)). Why? Because Peter spoke to the Israelites, who were marveling at the tongues, that they themselves had killed Christ, when Christ had been sent for their sake. Hearing this, they were pricked in their heart, and said to the apostles: What then shall we do? Tell us. And the apostles said: Do penance, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; and your sins shall be forgiven you (Acts 2:37-38). Since, then, through penance confession was made: Do not deliver to the beasts the soul that confesses to you. Why that confesses to you? Because I was turned in my distress, while the thorn was being fixed (Ps 32:4 (31:4)). They were pricked in their heart; and those who had been glorious in raging were made wretched by repenting. Do not deliver to the beasts the soul that confesses to you. To what beasts, except those whose heads were crushed upon the water? For the devil himself is called a beast, a lion, and a dragon (1 Pet 5:8; Rev 12:9). Do not, he says, give to the devil and his angels the soul that confesses to you. Let the serpent devour me, if I still savor earthly things, if I still desire earthly things, if I still remain in the promises of the Old Testament, the New having been revealed. But when I have now laid aside pride, and acknowledge not my own righteousness but your grace; let not the proud beasts have power over me. Do not deliver to the beasts the soul that confesses to you. Forget not to the end the souls of your poor. We were rich, we were strong; but you dried up the rivers of Etham: now we no longer set up our own righteousness, but acknowledge your grace; we are poor, hear your beggars. We no longer dare to lift our eyes to heaven, but striking our breast we say: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner (Lk 18:13); Forget not to the end the souls of your poor.

23. [v. 20.] Look upon your testament. Render what you promised: we hold the tablets, we await the inheritance. Look upon your testament; not that old one: I do not ask on account of the land of Canaan; not on account of the temporal subjection of enemies, not on account of the carnal fruitfulness of children, not on account of earthly riches, not on account of temporal salvation; Look upon your testament, by which you promised the kingdom of heaven. Now I acknowledge your testament; now Asaph has understanding, Asaph is no beast, now he sees what was said: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord; and I will make for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new testament, not according to the testament I made with their fathers (Jer 31:31-32; Heb 8:8-9). Look upon your testament; for they that are darkened are filled with the earth of unjust houses: because they had unjust hearts. Our houses are our hearts: there the blessed of clean heart gladly dwell (Mt 5:8). Look, then, upon your testament; and let the remnant be saved (Isa 10:22; Rom 9:27): for many who attend to the earth are darkened, and are filled with earth. Dust has entered their eyes and blinded them, and they have become the dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth (Ps 1:4). They that are darkened are filled with the earth of unjust houses. For by attending to the earth they were darkened, of whom it is said in another psalm: Let their eyes be darkened that they may not see, and bow down their back forever (Ps 69:23 (68:24); Rom 11:10). With earth, then, they that are darkened are filled, of unjust houses, because they had unjust hearts. For our houses, as we said above, are our hearts: there we gladly dwell, if we cleanse them from iniquity. There is the evil conscience, which drives a man back from going where he is bidden to go carrying his pallet—the man whose sins have been forgiven—when the Lord says: Take up your pallet, and go into your house (Mt 9:6; Mk 2:11): carry your flesh, and enter into your healed conscience. For they that are darkened are filled with the earth of unjust houses: they were darkened, they were filled with earth. Those darkened ones, who are they? Those who have unjust hearts: the Lord renders to them according to their own heart.

24. [v. 21.] Let not the humble be turned away in confusion. For pride confounded those others. The needy and the poor shall praise your name. You see, brothers, how sweet poverty ought to be: you see that the poor and needy belong to God; but the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:3). Who are the poor in spirit? The humble, who tremble at the words of God, who confess their sins; who do not presume upon their own merits, nor upon their own righteousness. Who are the poor in spirit? Those who, when they do anything good, praise God; when they do anything evil, accuse themselves. Upon whom shall my Spirit rest, says the prophet, but upon the humble, and the quiet, and him who trembles at my words? (Isa 66:2) Now then, Asaph has understood; now he does not cling to the earth, now he does not seek out the earthly promises of the Old Testament: he has become your beggar, he has become your poor man; he thirsts for your rivers, because his own have been dried up. Since, then, he has become such, let him not be cheated of hope: he has sought with his hands by night before you; let him not be deceived (Ps 77:2 (76:3)). Let not the humble be turned away in confusion: the needy and the poor shall praise your name. Confessing their sins, they shall praise your name; desiring your eternal promises, they shall praise your name: not those swollen with temporal things, not those lifted up and puffed up into pride over their own righteousness, not they; but who? The needy and the poor shall praise your name.

25. [v. 22.] Arise, O Lord; judge my cause. For I seem to be deserted, because I have not yet received what you promised: and my tears have become my bread day and night, while it is said to me daily: Where is your God? And because I cannot show my God, I am mocked as though I were pursuing something empty. And not only the pagan, or the Jew, or the heretic; but sometimes a brother, a catholic himself, twists his mouth when the promises of God are preached, when the future resurrection is foretold. And even he, though already washed in the water of eternal salvation, bearing the sacrament of Christ, perhaps says: And who has risen here? and: I have not heard my father speaking from the tomb, since I buried him. God gave a law for a time to his servants, by which to call them off: for who returns from the dead? And what shall I do with such people? Show what they do not see? I cannot: for God ought not to be made visible on their account. Let them now do this, if it please them; let them so act, so attempt it: because they are unwilling to be changed for the better, let them change God for the worse. Let him who can, see; let him who cannot, believe, that there is a God. And even though he who is able sees, does he see with his eyes? He sees with his understanding, he sees with his heart. For it was not the sun and moon that he wished to show, who said: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5:8). But an unclean heart is not even fit for faith, so as to believe what it cannot see. I do not see, he says: what am I to believe? Your soul is seen, I suppose! Fool! your body is seen; who sees your soul? Since, then, only your body is seen, why are you not buried? He marvels that I said: If only the body is seen, why are you not buried? And he answers (for he is shrewd enough for this): Because I am alive. How do I know that you are alive, whose soul I do not see? How do I know? You will answer: Because I speak, because I walk, because I work. Fool! from the works of the body I recognize the living man; from the works of the creation you cannot recognize the Creator! And perhaps he who says, When I am dead, afterward I shall be nothing: he has learned letters too, and he learned this from Epicurus, some delirious philosopher—or rather a lover of vanity, not of wisdom—whom the philosophers themselves named a hog: he who said that the pleasure of the body is the highest good, him the philosophers named a hog, wallowing in carnal mire. From him, perhaps, this lettered man learned to say: I shall not exist after I am dead. Let the rivers of Etham be dried up; let those teachings of the Gentiles perish; let the green pastures of Jerusalem sprout: let them see what they can; let them believe in their heart what they cannot see. Surely all these things that are now seen throughout the world, when God was working salvation in the midst of the earth—when these things were being spoken, they did not yet exist: and behold, they were then foretold; now they are shown fulfilled, and still the fool says in his heart: There is no God (Ps 14:1 (13:1)). Woe to perverse hearts! since the things that remain are to come just as those things came that then did not exist and were foretold as to come. Or has God indeed displayed to us all that he promised, and deceived us only about the day of judgment? Christ was not on earth; he promised, he displayed it: the Virgin had not given birth: he promised, he displayed it: the precious blood had not been shed, by which the bond of our death was to be blotted out; he promised, he displayed it: the flesh had not yet risen to eternal life; he promised, he displayed it: the Gentiles had not yet believed; he promised, he displayed it: heretics armed with the name of Christ did not yet war against Christ; he foretold it, he displayed it: the idols of the Gentiles had not yet been blotted out from the earth; he foretold it, he displayed it: having foretold and displayed all these things, has he lied about the day of judgment alone? It will surely come, just as these things came; for these things too, before they came, were to come, and as to come were foretold beforehand, and afterward they came; it will come, my brothers. Let no one say: It will not come; or: It will come, but it is far off that it will come: but for you it is near that you depart hence. Let the first deception suffice: if we could not at first remain in the precept, let us at least be corrected by the example. There was not yet an example of human downfall when it was said to Adam: You shall die the death, if you touch it; and the serpent came sideways, and said: You shall not die the death. The serpent was believed, God was despised; the serpent was believed, the forbidden thing was touched, the man died (Gen 2:17; 3:4-6). Was not rather that fulfilled which God threatened, than what the enemy promised? So it is, surely: we acknowledge this; from that source all are in death: now at least, taught by experience, let us be cautious. For even now the serpent does not cease to whisper, and to say: Surely God will not condemn such great crowds, and free a few? What is this but: Act against the precept; you shall not die? But as it was then, so it is now. If you do what the devil suggests, and despise what God has commanded, the day of judgment will come, and you will find true what God threatened, and false what the devil promised. Arise, O Lord, judge my cause. You died, and you are despised; it is said to me: Where is your God? Arise, judge my cause. For none will come to judgment except him who rose from the dead. He was foretold as to come; he came, and was despised by the Jews while walking on earth; he is despised by false Christians while seated in heaven. Arise, O Lord; judge my cause. Since I have believed in you, let me not perish; because I have believed what I have not seen, let me not be cheated of my hope, let me receive what you promised; Judge my cause. Remember your reproaches; those that are from the foolish one all the day. For Christ is still mocked; nor will the vessels of wrath be lacking all the day—that is, until the end of the world. Still it is said: The Christians preach vain things; still it is said: The resurrection of the dead is empty. Judge my cause: remember your reproaches. But whose, if not those that are from the foolish one all the day? Does the prudent man say this? For "prudent" is so called: looking ahead; if the prudent man looks ahead, it is by faith that he looks ahead; for with the eyes scarcely can one see before one's feet all the day.

26. [v. 23.] Forget not the voice of those who beseech you. Of those who groan, and who now await what you promised concerning the New Testament, and who are walking toward that very faith, forget not the voice of those who beseech you. But those others still say: Where is your God? Let the pride of those who hate you ascend ever up to you: Do not forget their pride either. Nor does he forget it: he either punishes it altogether, or corrects it.

Exposition of Psalm 74

1. [v. 1.] This psalm brings the medicine of humility to the swelling of pride, and consoles the humble in hope: doing this, that no one may presume proudly upon himself, nor any humble person despair of the Lord. For God's promise is ratified, certain, fixed and unshaken, faithful and free of all doubt, which consoles the afflicted. For the whole life of man on earth, as it is written, is a trial (Job 7:1). Nor is prosperity to be chosen, as it were, and adversity alone to be shunned: but both are to be guarded against; the one lest it corrupt, the other lest it break; so that for every man, in whatever state of affairs he conducts himself in this life, there be no refuge but God, and no joy but in his promises. For this life, overflowing with whatever happiness, deceives many; God deceives no one. Since, then, for every man turned to God the delight is changed, the pleasures are changed (for they are not taken away, but changed): yet all our pleasures in this life are not yet present in reality; but the hope itself is so certain that it is to be preferred to all the pleasures of this world, as it is written: Delight in the Lord. And lest you should think you already have what he promises, he added at once: And he will give you the petitions of your heart (Ps 37:4 (36:4)). If, then, you do not yet have the petitions of your heart, from what do you delight in the Lord, except that you hold a sure promiser, who by promising made himself a debtor? So that the hope of this entreaty may remain with us, and we may be brought into what God promised, the title of this psalm speaks: Unto the end, do not corrupt. What is do not corrupt? What you promised, display. But when? Unto the end. There, then, let the mind's eye be directed; unto the end: let all things that occur on the way be passed by, that one may arrive at the end. Let the proud exult in present happiness; let them swell with honors, glitter with gold, overflow with households, be crowded about by the attendance of clients: these things pass away; they pass like a shadow. When that end comes, where all who now hope in the Lord rejoice, then to those others sadness without end will come. When the humble receive what the proud mock, then the swelling of the proud will be turned to grief. Then will be that voice which we know in the book of Wisdom: for then, seeing the glory of the saints, those who, while these were here humbled, bore with it; those who, while these were here exalted, did not consent—then they will say: These are they whom we once held in derision. Where they also say: What did pride profit us? And what did the boasting of riches confer on us? All those things have passed away like a shadow (Wis 5:3, 8-9). Because they presumed upon corruptible things, their hope will be corrupted; but our hope will then be reality. So that the promise of God may remain whole and firm and certain toward us, we have said from the heart of faith: Unto the end, do not corrupt. Do not fear, then, that any of the powerful may corrupt the promises of God. He does not corrupt them, because he is truthful; he has no one more powerful by whom his promise might be corrupted: let us, then, be certain of the promises of God; and let us now sing, where the psalm begins.

2. [v. 2.] We will confess to you, O God, we will confess to you, and we will call upon your name. Do not call upon him before you confess; confess, and call upon him. For the one you call upon, you call into yourself. For what is it to call upon, except to call into oneself? If he is called upon by you—that is, if he is called into you—to whom does he come? He does not come to the proud. He is certainly on high; the exalted one does not reach him. To reach all lofty things, we raise ourselves up; and if we cannot reach them, we look for some contrivances or ladders, that, lifted up, we may reach the lofty: with God it is the opposite; he is both on high, and is reached by the humble. It is written: The Lord is near to those who have bruised their heart (Ps 34:18 (33:19)): the bruising of the heart is piety, humility. He who bruises himself is angry with himself: let him have himself for an angry judge, that he may have God favorable; let him have himself for a judge, that he may have God for a defender. So God, being called upon, comes. To whom does he come? He does not come to the proud. Hear another testimony: The Lord is high, and looks upon the lowly things; but the lofty he knows from afar (Ps 138:6 (137:6)). The Lord is high, and looks upon the lowly things, not from afar; but the lofty he knows from afar. And lest, when it was said that he looks upon the lowly, the proud should rejoice at impunity, as though he who dwells on high does not know them when they are proud; they are terrified, and it is said to them: He sees you, and knows you, but from afar. These he makes blessed, to whom he draws near: but you, he says, O proud, O lofty, will not be unpunished, because he knows you; you will not be blessed, because he knows you from afar. See, then, what you do; for if he knows, he does not pardon. Better, then, that he pardon than that he take note. For what is it to pardon (ignoscere), except not to take note (non noscere)? What is it not to take note? Not to advert to; for "advertence" (animadversio) is also commonly said of one who takes vengeance. Hear the man praying that he may pardon: Turn away your face from my sins (Ps 51:9 (50:11)). What, then, will you do, if he turns his face away from you? It is grievous, and to be feared, lest he desert you. Again, if he does not turn his face away, he takes note. God knows how to do this, God is able to do this—both to turn his face away from the sinner, and not to turn it away from one who confesses. And so in one place it is said to him: Turn away your face from my sins; and in another place it is said to him: Do not turn your face away from me (Ps 27:9 (26:9)). There: Turn away from my sins; here: Do not turn away from me. Confess, then, and call upon him: for by confessing you cleanse the temple to which he may come when called. Confess, and call upon him. Let him turn his face away from your sins; let him not turn it from you: let him turn his face away from what you made; let him not turn it from what he made. For he made you a man; you made your sins. Confess, then, and call upon him; say: We will confess to you, O God: we will confess to you.

3. The very repetition is a confirmation, that you may not regret having confessed. For you have not confessed to anyone cruel; not to an avenger, not to a mocker: confess in security. Hear another voice of the psalm exhorting: Confess to the Lord, for he is good (Ps 118:1 (117:1)). What is for he is good? Why are you afraid to confess? He is good; he pardons the one who confesses. Fear to confess to a human judge, lest perhaps he punish the one who has confessed; do not fear to confess to God: by confessing make favorable the one whom by denying you do not make ignorant. We will confess to you, O God; we will confess, and now in security we will call upon your name. We have emptied our hearts by confession; you have terrified, you have cleansed. Confession makes us humble, and you draw near to the humble, you who withdraw from the lofty. That there is firmness of a statement in repetition, we are taught in many places of the Scriptures. Hence it is that the Lord says: Amen, amen (Jn 1:51). Hence in some psalms: So be it, so be it (Ps 41:13 (40:14)): for signifying the thing, one so be it would suffice; for signifying firmness, the second so be it was added. Pharaoh, the king of Egypt—you know that, when Joseph was already there shut up in prison for the love of chastity, that same Pharaoh saw a dream known to us all: that seven lean cows had devoured seven fat ones; and again, that seven thin ears had devoured seven plentiful ones. And how did Joseph interpret it? If you remember, these are not two dreams, but one vision. There is one interpretation of them, he says; but that you saw it again, he says, avails for confirmation (Gen 41:25-32). I have said this so that you may not think repetition in the words of the holy tongue to be, as it were, an appetite for verbosity. Often there the repetition has the force of confirmation. My heart is ready, O God, he says; my heart is ready (Ps 57:7 (56:8)). In another place he says: Wait for the Lord, act manfully; and let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord (Ps 27:14 (26:14)). Innumerable such things are throughout all the Scriptures. For these it is enough to have commended to you this manner of speaking, which you should observe in all similar cases: now attend to the matter. We will confess to you, he says, and we will call upon you. I have said why confession precedes calling upon him: because the one you call upon, you invite. But the one called upon does not wish to come, if you have been lifted up: if you have been lifted up, you cannot confess; and you do not deny to God the things he does not know. And so your confession does not teach him, but cleanses you.

4. And now he has confessed, he has called upon him: rather, they have confessed, they have called upon him; and it is said from the person of one: I will recount all your wondrous works. By confessing he emptied himself of evils, by calling upon him he filled himself with goods, by recounting he poured out that with which he had filled himself. And see, brothers; when they were confessing, they were many: We will confess to you, O God; we will confess to you, and we will call upon your name. For the hearts of those confessing are many, but those of believers are one. Why are the hearts of those confessing many, but those of believers one? Because men confess diverse sins; they believe one faith. Now, then, when Christ has begun to dwell in the inner man through faith (Eph 3:16-17), and, being called upon, has begun to possess the one who confessed; the whole Christ comes to be—head, and body, and out of many, one. Hear now the words of Christ. For they seemed, as it were, not to be his words: We will confess to you, O God; we will confess to you, and we will call upon your name. Now the speech begins from the person of the head. But whether the head speaks, or the members speak, Christ speaks: he speaks from the person of the head, he speaks from the person of the body. But what was said? They shall be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament; but I, he says, speak in Christ and in the Church (Eph 5:31-32). And he himself in the Gospel: Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh (Mt 19:6). For that you may know these to be in a certain way two persons, and again one by the joining of marriage, in Isaiah, as it were one person speaks, and says: As on a bridegroom he has set a miter on me, and as a bride he has clothed me with an ornament (Isa 61:10). He called himself bridegroom from the head, bride from the body. One, then, speaks; let us hear him, and in him let us too speak: let us be his members, that this voice may be ours too. I will recount, he says, all your wondrous works. Christ proclaims himself, he proclaims himself also in his members already existing, that he may draw others too, and that those who were not may come and be joined to his members, through which members his Gospel has been preached; and that one body may be made under one head, in one spirit, in one life.

5. [v. 3.] And what does he say? When I receive, he says, the time, I will judge righteousnesses. When will he judge righteousnesses? When he has received the time. The time itself is not yet. Thanks to his mercy: first he preaches righteousnesses, and so judges righteousnesses. For if he wished to judge before preaching, who would be found to be freed? Who would present himself to be acquitted? Now, then, is the time of preaching: I will recount, he says, all your wondrous works. Hear him recounting, hear him preaching; for if you despise him: When I receive the time, he says, I will judge righteousnesses. I forgive now, he says, the sins of one who confesses; I will not spare afterward one who despises. Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord (Ps 101:1 (100:1)), is said in a psalm. Mercy and judgment: now mercy, afterward judgment; in which mercy sins are forgiven, in which judgment sins are punished. Do you wish not to fear the punisher of sins? Love the forgiver; do not refuse, do not exalt yourself, do not say: I have nothing for him to forgive me; for hear what follows: When I receive the time, I will judge righteousnesses. Did Christ receive the time? Did the Son of God receive the time? The Son of God did not receive the time; but the Son of man received the time. Yet he is the same, both the Son of God through whom we were made, and the Son of man through whom we were remade. Man having been assumed, he himself was not assumed; man having been changed for the better, he himself in no way changed for the worse, did not cease to be what he was, but received what he was not. What was he? Though he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal to God: these are the Apostle's words. And what did he receive? But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:6-7). As he received the form of a servant, so too he received the time. Was he then changed? Was he diminished? Made meaner? Fallen into defect? God forbid. What, then, is this: he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant? He is said to have emptied himself by receiving an inferior nature, not by degenerating from his equal nature. Therefore, brothers, what is this: When I receive the time, I will judge righteousnesses? He received the time as the Son of man; he governs the times as the Son of God. Hear that as the Son of man he received the time of judging. He says in the Gospel: He gave him power to do judgment, because he is the Son of man (Jn 5:27). According to that he is the Son of God, he never received the power of judging; because he never lacked the power of judging: according to that he is the Son of man, he received the time, as of being born and suffering, as of dying and rising and ascending, so of coming and judging. His body too says these things in him; for he will not judge without them: indeed he says in the Gospel: You shall sit upon twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28). Therefore the whole Christ says—that is, head and body in the saints: When I receive the time, I will judge righteousnesses.

6. [v. 4.] But now what? The earth has flowed away. If the earth has flowed away, from what did it flow away but from sins? For this reason they are also called offenses (delicta). To offend (delinquere) is, as it were, to flow down (defluere) from some liquid, away from the stability of the firmament of virtue and righteousness. For everyone sins by desire of lower things: just as he is strengthened by love of higher things, so he fails, and as it were melts away, by desire of lower things. Attending to this flowing of things in the sins of men, the merciful giver—the forgiver of sins, not yet the exactor of punishments—attends, and says: The earth has flowed away, and all that dwell in it. The earth itself, surely, flowed away in those who dwell in it. It is an explanation that follows, not an addition. As though you were to say: How has the earth flowed away? Were its foundations withdrawn, and was something in it sunk by some chasm? What I call earth means all who dwell in it. I found, he says, the earth a sinner; and what did I do? I established its pillars. What pillars did he establish? By "pillars" he means the apostles: so the apostle Paul speaks of his fellow-apostles: Those who seemed, he says, to be pillars (Gal 2:9). And what would those pillars be, unless they were strengthened by him? For by a certain earthquake even the pillars themselves wavered; in the Lord's passion all the apostles despaired. Therefore those pillars which wavered at the Lord's passion were strengthened at his resurrection. The beginning of the building cried out through his pillars, and in all those pillars the architect himself cried out. For the apostle Paul was one pillar of them, when he said: Do you wish to receive proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? (2 Cor 13:3) Therefore: I, he says, established its pillars: I rose again; I showed that death is not to be feared, I showed to those who feared that not even the body itself perishes in those who die. The wounds terrified them; the scars strengthened them. The Lord Jesus Christ could have risen without any scar: for what was so great for that power, to restore the frame of the body to such wholeness that no trace at all of a past wound would appear? He had the power by which he could heal it even without a scar; but he willed to have something by which to strengthen the wavering pillars.

7. [v. 5.] We have now heard, brothers, what is not kept silent daily; let us hear what he cried out through these pillars. It is the time of hearing, on account of that terror: I will judge righteousnesses, when I receive the time. He is to receive the time of judging righteousnesses; you have, even now, the time of doing righteousnesses. If he kept silent, you would have nothing to do; but with the pillars strengthened, he cries out. What does he cry out? I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly. He cries out, my brothers; surely you cry out, it delights you—hear him crying out. By him I beseech you, let that voice terrify you: those voices of yours ought not so much to delight us, as those voices to terrify you. I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly. But they have already done so, and they are guilty; already the earth has flowed away, and all that dwell in it. Those who crucified Christ were pricked in their heart; they acknowledged their sin, they learned something from the apostles, that they might not despair of the indulgence of the preacher (Acts 2:37-38). For the physician had come, and therefore had not come to the healthy: The healthy, he says, have no need of a physician, but those who are ill; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Mt 9:12-13). Therefore: I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly. They did not listen. For long ago it was said to us; we did not listen, we fell, we were made mortal, we were born mortal: the earth has flowed away. Let them at least now hear, that they may rise, the physician who came to the sick: him whom the healthy refused to hear, that they might not fall; let those lying down hear, that they may rise. I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly. What can we do: We have already done it. And to those who offend: Do not exalt your horn. What is this? If you have committed iniquity through desire, do not defend it through arrogance: confess, if you have done it. For he who does not confess, and is wicked, exalts his horn. I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly; and to those who offend: Do not exalt your horn. The horn of Christ will be exalted in you, if your horn is not exalted. Your horn is from iniquity; the horn of Christ is from majesty.

8. [vv. 6-8.] Do not, then, be lifted up: do not speak iniquity against God. Hear now the voices of many; let each one hear, and be pricked. What are men accustomed to say? Does God truly judge concerning human affairs? And is there that judgment of God? Or does he indeed care what is done on earth? So many wicked men overflow with happiness; the innocent are pressed down with troubles! But to that man some evil befell, God chastising and admonishing, and he knows his own conscience; he knows that he can suffer something according to the merit of his sins: from what does he argue against God? Because he cannot say, I am righteous; what do we suppose he says? There are worse wicked men, and yet they do not suffer these things. This is the iniquity that men speak against God. But see how iniquitous it is: while he wishes himself to seem righteous, he makes God unrighteous. For he who says: I unjustly suffer what I suffer; makes him unjust by whose judgment he suffers, and himself just, who unjustly suffers. I ask you, my brothers, is this fair, that God be believed unjust, and you just? But when you say these things, you speak iniquity against God.

9. What does he say in another psalm? These things you have done: certain sins having been enumerated. These things, he says, you have done, and I kept silent. What is I kept silent? He is never silent in his precept, but for the time he is silent in punishment; he rests from vengeance, he does not pronounce sentence upon the condemned. But that man says this: I did this and that, and God did not take vengeance; behold, I am sound, no evil has befallen me. These things you have done, and I kept silent: you suspected the iniquity, that I would be like you. What is that I would be like you? Because you are wicked, you supposed me wicked too; as though I were an approver of your crimes, not an opponent, not an avenger. And what does he say to you afterward? I will reprove you, and set you before your own face (Ps 50:21 (49:21)). What is this? Because now, by sinning, you place yourself behind your own back, you do not see yourself, you do not look at yourself; I will set you before yourself, and inflict punishment upon you from yourself. So too here. Do not speak iniquity against God. Attend. Now many speak this iniquity; but they do not dare to do so openly, lest they be shunned as blasphemers by pious men: in their heart they gnaw at these things, within they feed on such wicked food; it delights them to speak against God, and even if they do not break forth with the tongue, they are not silent in the heart. Hence in another psalm it is said: The fool said in his heart: There is no God (Ps 14:1 (13:1)). The fool said; but he feared men: he did not wish to say it where men would hear; and he said it there where he himself would hear, the one of whom he said it. Therefore here too in this psalm, dearly beloved, attend, since, having said this: Do not speak iniquity against God, he saw many doing this in their heart, and he added: For neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert mountains; for God is judge. God is the judge of your iniquities. If he is God, he is present everywhere. Where will you take yourself away from the eyes of God, so as to speak in some quarter what he does not hear? If God judges from the east, withdraw into the west, and say whatever you wish against God; if from the west, go into the east, and speak there; if he judges from the desert mountains, go into the midst of the peoples, where you may mutter to yourself. He judges from no place, who is everywhere hidden, everywhere public; whom no one is permitted to know as he is, and whom no one is allowed not to know. See what you do. You speak iniquity against God. The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world (another Scripture says this); and that which contains all things has knowledge of the voice: therefore he who speaks unjust things cannot lie hidden (Wis 1:7-8). Do not, then, conceive of God in places; he is with you, such as you will have been. What is "such as you will have been"? Good, if you have been good; and he will seem evil to you, if you have been evil: but a helper if you have been good, an avenger if you have been evil. There you have a judge in your secret place. Wishing to do some evil, you withdraw from the public into your house, where none of your enemies may see; from the open parts of your house, set before the face, you remove yourself into your chamber; you fear a witness in your chamber too from elsewhere, you withdraw into your heart, there you ponder: he is more inward than your heart. Wherever you flee, then, there he is. Whither will you flee from yourself? Will you not, wherever you flee, follow yourself? But since he is more inward even than you yourself, there is nowhere to flee from God when angry, except to God when appeased: there is, in short, nowhere to flee. Do you wish to flee from him? Flee to him. Therefore do not speak iniquity against God, not even there where you speak. Iniquity, he says, he has pondered on his bed (Ps 36:4 (35:5)). What has he pondered on his bed? His heart is his bed, saying: Sacrifice the sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord. But above he said: Speak in your hearts, and be pricked with compunction in your chambers (Ps 4:5-6 (4:5-6)). As many prickings of crimes as you have there, have so many compunctions of confessions there. Where, then, you speak iniquity against God, there he judges you: he does not defer the judgment, but the penalty. He already judges, he already knows, he already sees: the penalty remains; when it has been presented, you will also have the penalty, when the face has appeared of that man who here was mocked, who was judged, who was crucified, who stood before a judge; when he has appeared judging in his presence, then you will have the penalty, if you have not corrected yourself. What, then, shall we do now? Let us anticipate his face. Anticipate him in confession: he will come gentle whom you had made angry. Nor from the desert mountains; for God is judge: not from the east, not from the west, not from the desert mountains. Why? For God is judge. If he were in some place, he would not be God: but because God is judge, not a man, do not await him from places. His place you will be, if you are good, if, having confessed, you call upon him.

10. This one he humbles, and this one he exalts. Whom does that judge humble, whom does he exalt? Attend to those two in the temple, and you see whom he humbles, and whom he exalts. They went up into the temple to pray, he says; one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee said: I thank you, that I am not as the rest of men, unjust, robbers, adulterers, as is also this publican: I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. He had gone up to the physician, and was showing his sound members; he was covering his wounds. What, then, of that other, who knew better whence he might be healed? But the publican stood afar off, and beat his breast. You see him standing afar off: yet he drew near to the one he was calling upon. And he beat his breast, saying: God, be merciful to me a sinner. Amen I say to you; that publican went down justified rather than that Pharisee: for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted (Lk 18:10-14). The verse of this psalm has been expounded. What does God the judge do? This one he humbles, and this one he exalts; he humbles the proud, he exalts the humble.

11. [v. 9.] For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup of pure wine full of mixture. Rightly. And he has poured out from this into that; yet its dregs are not emptied out: all the sinners of the earth shall drink. Be renewed a little; there is something obscure here: but, as we heard in the most recent reading of the Gospel: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you (Mt 7:7). But you say: Where shall I knock, that it may be opened to me? Neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert mountains; for God is judge. If he is present here and there, and absent nowhere, where you stand, there knock; there only stand, because by standing one knocks. What, then, is this? This first question arises: full of pure wine, with mixture: how pure, if with mixture? Besides: when he says a cup in the hand of the Lord, I am speaking to those instructed in the Church of Christ; surely you ought not to paint God in your heart as circumscribed in human form, lest, the temples being closed, you fashion idols in your hearts. This cup, then, signifies something. We shall find it. But in the hand of the Lord means in the power of the Lord: for the hand of God is used to signify the power of God. For of men too it is often said: He has this in hand; that is, he has it in his power, he does it when he wills. It is full of pure wine, with mixture. He himself consequently expounded it: He has poured out, he says, from this into that; yet its dregs are not emptied out. Behold whence it was full of mixed wine. Let it not, then, frighten you, that it is both pure and mixed: pure on account of its sincerity, mixed on account of the dregs. What, then, is the wine there, and what the dregs? And what is: He has poured out from this into that, in such a way that its dregs were not emptied out?

12. Recall whence he came to this: This one he humbles, and this one he exalts. What was figured for us in the Gospel by two men, the Pharisee and the publican, taking this more broadly, let us understand two peoples, that of the Jews and that of the Gentiles: the people of the Jews, that Pharisee; the people of the Gentiles, that publican. The people of the Jews boasted of their own merits; that of the Gentiles confessed its own sins. Whoever knows in the holy Letters both the apostolic Epistles and the Acts of the Apostles, sees there what I say: not to make it long, how the apostles exhorted the Gentiles not to despair because they had lain in great sins; and how they restrained the Jews from exalting themselves as though by the justifications of the Law, and from supposing themselves therefore righteous, but the Gentiles to be sinners, because the Jews had both the Law, and the temple, and the priesthood (Rom 9:4; 10:1-3). But those others were all worshipers of idols, venerators of demons, set, indeed, afar off; as that publican stood afar off. As those others withdrew by being proud, so these drew near by confessing. A cup, then, full of pure wine in the hand of the Lord, as far as the Lord grants me to understand (for another may understand better, for such is the obscurity of the Scriptures: it is difficult that they bring forth a single meaning. Yet whatever meaning emerges, it must agree with the rule of faith: we neither envy our betters, nor as little ones do we despair. What seems to us I tell to Your Charity, not so as to stop your ears against others who may perhaps say something better). A cup full of pure wine, with mixture seems to me to be the Law that was given to the Jews, and all that Scripture of what is called the Old Testament; there are the weights of all its meanings. For there the New Testament lies hidden, as it were in the dregs of bodily sacraments. The circumcision of the flesh is the matter of a great sacrament, and from it is understood the circumcision of the heart. That temple of Jerusalem is the matter of a great sacrament, and from it is understood the body of the Lord. The land of promise is understood as the kingdom of heaven. The sacrifice of victims and cattle has a great sacrament; but in all those kinds of sacrifices is understood that one sacrifice and the one victim on the cross, the Lord: in place of all which sacrifices we have one, because those prefigured these—that is, by those, these were prefigured. That people received the Law; it received commands just and good. What is so just as: You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, You shall not covet your neighbor's property, You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, You shall adore one God, and him alone shall you serve (Exod 20:12-17; Deut 6:13)? All these belong to the wine. But those carnal things settled, as it were, so that they remained with them, and from them all the spiritual understanding was poured out. But a cup in the hand of the Lord, that is, in the power of the Lord; of pure wine, that is, of the sincere Law; it is full of mixture, that is, with the dregs of bodily sacraments. And because this one he humbles, the proud Jew, and this one he exalts, the confessing Gentile, he has poured out from this into that, that is, from the Jewish people into the Gentile people. What did he pour out? The Law: the spiritual understanding was strained out from it; yet its dregs are not emptied out, because all the carnal sacraments remained with the Jews. All the sinners of the earth shall drink. Who shall drink? All the sinners of the earth. Who are the sinners of the earth? The Jews were indeed sinners, but proud; the Gentiles, however, were sinners, but humble: All sinners shall drink; but see who the dregs, who the wine. For those, by drinking the dregs, vanished away; these, by drinking the wine, were justified: I would dare to say even made drunk, and I will not fear; and would that you all might be so made drunk! Recall: How glorious is your inebriating cup! (Ps 23:5 (22:5)) For what? Do you suppose, my brothers, that all those who by confessing Christ were even willing to die were sober? They were drunk to such a degree that they did not recognize their own. All their kinsmen, who strove to turn them away from the hope of heavenly rewards by earthly enticements, were not recognized, were not heard by the drunken. Were they not drunk, whose heart had been changed? Were they not drunk, whose mind had been estranged from this world? All the sinners of the earth, he says, shall drink. But who shall drink the wine? Sinners shall drink, but not that they remain sinners; that they may be justified, not that they may be punished.

13. [v. 10.] But I: for all drink; but apart, I, that is, Christ with his body; will rejoice forever; I will sing to the God of Jacob: in that promise to come at the end, of which it is said: Do not corrupt (Ps 75:1 (74:1)). But I will rejoice forever.

14. [v. 11.] And I will break all the horns of sinners; and the horns of the righteous shall be exalted. This is: This one he humbles, and this one he exalts (Ps 75:8 (74:8)). Sinners do not wish their horns to be broken for them, which without doubt will be broken at the end. Do you not wish him to break it then? Break it yourself today. For you heard above; do not despise it: I said to the wicked: Do not act wickedly; and to those who offend: Do not exalt your horn (Ps 75:5 (74:5)). When you heard: Do not exalt your horn, you despised it, and you exalted your horn; you will come to the end, where it will come to pass: I will break all the horns of sinners, and the horns of the righteous shall be exalted. The horns of sinners, the dignities of the proud; the horns of the righteous, the gifts of Christ: for by horns are understood high places. Hate earthly loftiness on earth, that you may be able to have the heavenly. You love the earthly; it does not admit you to the heavenly: and it will pertain to your confusion that your horn is broken; just as it will pertain to your glory, if your horn is exalted. Now, then, is the time of choosing; then it will not be. You will not be able to say: Let me be dismissed and I will choose: for the words have gone before: I said to the wicked. If I did not say it, prepare your excuse, prepare your defense: but if I did say it, anticipate it with confession, lest you come to condemnation; because then confession will be too late, and there will be no defense.

Exposition of Psalm 75

1. [v. 2.] The Jews, known to all as enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ, are accustomed to boast in this psalm which we have sung, saying: God is known in Judea; in Israel his name is great (Ps 76:1 (75:2)), and to insult the Gentiles to whom God is not known, and to say that God is known to them alone; since the Prophet says: God is known in Judea: elsewhere, then, he is unknown. But God is truly known in Judea, if they understand what Judea is. For truly God is not known except in Judea. Behold, we too say this, that unless someone is in Judea, God cannot be known to him. But what does the Apostle say? He is a Jew who is one inwardly; with the circumcision of the heart, not in the letter, but in the spirit (Rom 2:29): there are, then, Jews in the circumcision of the flesh, and there are Jews in the circumcision of the heart. Our fathers, many of them holy, had both the circumcision of the flesh, on account of the seal of faith, and the circumcision of the heart, on account of faith itself. Degenerating from these fathers, those who now boast in the name and have lost the deeds; degenerating, then, from these fathers, they have remained Jews in the flesh, pagans in the heart. For the Jews themselves, who are from Abraham, of whom Isaac was born, and from him Jacob, and from Jacob the twelve patriarchs, and from the twelve patriarchs the whole people of the Jews. But they were chiefly called Jews because Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob, a patriarch among the twelve, and from his stock the kingdom came to the Jews. For all that people, according to the number of the twelve sons of Jacob, had twelve tribes. Tribes are so called as it were curiae and distinct gatherings of peoples. That people, then, had twelve tribes; of which twelve tribes one tribe was that of Judah, from which were the kings, and there was another tribe of Levi, from which were the priests. But since to the priests serving the temple the land was not divided (Num 18:20-24), and yet it was necessary that the whole region of promise be distributed to twelve tribes: excepting, then, the one tribe of greater dignity, the tribe of Levi, which was among the priests, there would remain eleven, unless by the adoption of the two sons of Joseph the twelve were completed. Mark what this is. One of the twelve sons of Jacob was Joseph. This is the Joseph whom his brothers sold into Egypt, and there by the merit of his chastity was brought to a high dignity, and God was with him in all his work; and he received his brothers, by whom he had been sold, and his father, laboring under famine and going down to Egypt for bread. This Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Jacob, dying, as it were by testament took those grandsons of his into the number of his sons, and said to his son Joseph: The others who are born shall be yours; but these are mine, and they shall divide the land with their brothers (Gen 48:5-6). The land of promise had not yet been given, nor divided; but he was speaking, prophesying in the Spirit. The two sons of Joseph, then, being added, the twelve tribes were nonetheless made, because now they are thirteen: for in place of the one tribe of Joseph, two were added, and they were made thirteen. Excepting, then, the tribe of Levi, that tribe of priests which served the temple and lived from the tithes of all the others to whom the land was divided, there remain twelve. Among these twelve was the tribe of Judah, whence were the kings. For first from another tribe a king was given, Saul (1 Sam 10:1, 21), and he was rejected as a bad king; afterward there was given from the tribe of Judah King David, and from him, from the tribe of Judah, were the kings (1 Sam 16:13). Now that Jacob had said this, when he blessed his sons: A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it has been promised (Gen 49:10). And from the tribe of Judah came our Lord Jesus Christ. For he is, as Scripture says and you have just heard, of the seed of David (Rom 1:3), born of Mary. But as for the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in which he is equal to the Father; he is not only before the Jews, but even before Abraham himself (Jn 8:58); and not only before Abraham, but also before Adam; and not only before Adam, but also before heaven and earth, and before the ages: for all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made (Jn 1:3). Since, then, it was said in the prophecy: A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he comes for whom it has been promised: the earlier times are considered, and it is found that the Jews from the tribe of Judah always had kings, whence they were called Jews; and they did not have a foreign king before, except that Herod who lived when the Lord was born (Mt 2:1). From him the foreign kings began, from Herod. Before Herod, all were from the tribe of Judah, but until he should come for whom it has been promised. And so, when the Lord himself was already coming, the kingdom of the Jews was overthrown, and taken away from the Jews. Now they have no kingdom, because they refuse to acknowledge the true king. See now whether they are to be called Jews. Now you see that they are not to be called Jews. By their own voice they renounced themselves from that name, so that they are not worthy to be called Jews, except only in the flesh. Where, then, did they separate themselves from that name? They were speaking, they were raging against Christ—that is, the line of Judah—they were raging against the seed of David. And Pilate said to them: Shall I crucify your king? And they: We have no king but Caesar (Jn 19:15). O you who are called Jews, and are not; if you have no king but Caesar, the prince has now failed from Judah: he has come, then, for whom it has been promised. Those, then, are more truly Jews, who from Jews have been made Christians: the rest of the Jews, who did not believe in Christ, deserved to lose even that name. The true Judea, then, is the Church of Christ, believing in that king who came from the tribe of Judah through the Virgin Mary; believing in him of whom the Apostle just now spoke, writing to Timothy: Be mindful that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my Gospel (2 Tim 2:8). For from Judah was David, and from David the Lord Jesus Christ. We who believe in Christ belong to Judah; and we have known Christ whom we have not seen with our eyes, we hold him by faith. Let not the Jews insult, then, who are no longer Jews: they themselves said: We have no king but Caesar. For it were better for them that their king should be Christ, of the seed of David, of the tribe of Judah. Yet, since Christ himself is of the seed of David according to the flesh, but God over all blessed forever, he himself is our king and our God: our king, according to that he was born of the tribe of Judah according to the flesh, Christ the Lord and Savior; but our God, who is before Judah, and before heaven and earth, through whom all things were made, both spiritual and bodily. For if all things were made through him, then Mary herself, of whom he was born, was made through him. How, then, would he be born like the rest of men, who made for himself the mother of whom he was born? Therefore he himself is the Lord: as the Apostle says, when he was speaking of the Jews: Whose are the fathers; and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all God blessed forever (Rom 9:5). Since, then, the Jews saw Christ, and crucified him, they did not see God: but the Gentiles, because they did not see and yet believed, understood God. Therefore, if God became known to them in Christ, reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19), and they crucified him for this reason, because they did not understand God hidden in the flesh, let that which is called Judea, and is not, withdraw; let the true Judea draw near, to which it is said: Draw near to him, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be put to shame (Ps 34:5 (33:6)). The faces of the true Judea shall not be confounded. For indeed they heard, and believed; and the Church was made the true Judea, where Christ is known, who is a man of the seed of David, God above David.

2. God is known in Judea; in Israel his name is great. And of Israel we ought to understand as of Judea: as those are not true Jews, so neither are they true Israel. For who is called Israel? One who sees God. And how did those see God, among whom he walked in the flesh, and whom, while they supposed him a man, they killed? Rising again, he appeared as God to all to whom he willed to show himself. Those, then, are worthy to be called Israel, who deserved to understand Christ as God set in flesh, so that they did not despise what they saw, but adored what they did not see. For the Gentiles, with humble mind, perceived him whom they did not see with their eyes, and held him by faith. Accordingly, those who held him with their hands killed him; those who held him by faith adored him. In Israel his name is great. Do you wish to be Israel? Attend to him of whom the Lord says: Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile (Jn 1:47). If the true Israelite is one in whom there is no guile, the guileful and lying are not true Israelites. Let not those, then, say that God is among them, and that his name is great in Israel: let them prove themselves Israelites, and I grant that in Israel his name is great.

3. [v. 3.] And his place is made in peace, and his dwelling in Zion. Again, Zion is, as it were, the homeland of the Jews: the true Zion is the Church of Christians. Now the interpretation of the Hebrew names is handed down to us thus: Judea is interpreted "confession"; Israel, "seeing God." After Judea, Israel: so it is set here: God is known in Judea; in Israel his name is great. Do you wish to see God? First confess, and so in yourself the place of God is made; because his place is made in peace. As long, then, as you do not confess your sins, you quarrel in a certain way with God: for how do you not contend with him, when you praise what displeases him? He punishes the thief; you praise theft: he punishes the drunkard; you praise drunkenness. You contend with God; you have not made a place for him in your heart: because his place is in peace. And how do you begin to have peace with God? You begin with him in confession. It is the voice of the psalm saying: Begin to the Lord in confession (Ps 147:7 (146:7)). What is: Begin to the Lord in confession? Begin to be joined to God. How? So that this displeases you which displeases him too. Your bad life displeases him: if it please you, you are disjoined from him; if it displease you, by confession you are joined to him. See in how great a part you are unlike, since it is precisely on account of that unlikeness that you are displeasing. For you were made, O man, to the image of God; but by a perverse and evil life you have disturbed in yourself, and laid waste in yourself, the image of your Maker. Made unlike, you attend to yourself, and are displeasing to yourself: now from that very thing you have begun to become like, because this displeases you which displeases God too.

4. But how am I like, you say, when I am still displeasing to myself? For this reason it was said: Begin. Begin to the Lord in confession; you will be perfected in peace. For you still have a war against yourself. War is declared upon you, not only against the suggestions of the devil, against the prince of the power of this air, who works in the children of unbelief, against the devil and his angels, the spiritual forces of wickedness (Eph 2:2; 6:12); not only, then, against these is war declared upon you, but against yourself. How against yourself? Against your bad habit, against the oldness of your bad life, which drags you toward the accustomed, and reins you back from the new. For a certain new life is declared to you, and you are old: you are held in suspense by the joy of newness, you are weighed down by the burden of oldness; a war begins for you against yourself. But from that part in which you are displeasing to yourself, you are joined to God; and from that part in which you are now joined to God, you will be fit to conquer yourself, because he is with you who overcomes all things. Attend to what the Apostle says: With the mind I serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin (Rom 7:25). Why with the mind? Because your bad life displeases you. Why with the flesh? Because there is no lack of suggestions and evil delights; but from that by which you are joined to God in mind, you conquer what in you refuses to follow. For you have gone ahead in part, and in part you are delayed: drag yourself to him who lifts you up. By a certain weight of oldness you are pressed down; cry out and say: Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? who will free me from that by which I am weighed down? for the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul (Wis 9:15). Who, then, will free me? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25). But why does he permit you to contend against yourself for a long time, until all the evil desires are swallowed up? That you may understand your punishment in yourself: in you, from yourself, is your scourge; let your quarrel be with yourself. So vengeance is taken on one who rebels against God, that he is a war to himself, who refused to have peace with God. But hold your members against your evil concupiscences. Anger has arisen; do you hold your hand, joined to God. It could arise, but it found no weapons. With your anger is the impulse; with you are the weapons: let the impulse be unarmed, and that which has arisen in vain now learns not to arise.

5. But this I say, dearly beloved, lest perhaps, because we said: But with the flesh the law of sin, you should think that you must consent to your carnal desires. Even though there cannot now but be carnal desires, you must not consent to them. Therefore the Apostle did not say, Let there be no sin in your mortal body; for he knows that as long as it is mortal, there is sin there: but what does he say? Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body. What is let it not reign? He himself expounded it: So as to obey, he says, its desires (Rom 6:12). There are desires, they exist; you do not heed your desires, you do not follow those desires, you do not consent to them: you have sin, but it has lost its reign, when sin no longer reigns in you; afterward, death, the last enemy, will be destroyed (1 Cor 15:26). For what is promised to us, since it was said: With the mind I serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin (Rom 7:25)? Hear the promise: that there will not always be unlawful desires in the flesh. For it shall rise, and be changed; and when this mortal flesh has been changed into a spiritual body, then by no worldly concupiscences, by no earthly delights will it titillate the soul, nor turn it away from the contemplation of God. There comes to be in it, then, what the Apostle says: The body indeed is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if he who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you; he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will give life also to your mortal bodies, on account of his Spirit who dwells in you (Rom 8:10-11). When our bodies, then, have been given life, there will be true peace where the place of God is: but let confession go before. God is known in Judea: confess, then, first. In Israel his name is great: you do not yet see in vision; see by faith, and there will come to be in you what follows: And his place is made in peace, and his dwelling in Zion. Zion is interpreted "contemplation." We said already yesterday, and certain brothers heard—whom today too we have seen present—what contemplation is. For we shall contemplate God face to face (1 Cor 13:12). Here it is promised to us, in whom now, not seeing, we believe. How shall we rejoice when we see him? Brothers, if now the promise alone makes such joy in us, how great will the rendering make it? For there will be rendered to us what he promised. And what did he promise? Himself, that in his face, and in the contemplation of him, we may rejoice; and nothing else will delight us, because there is nothing better than he who made all the things that delight. His place is made in peace, and his dwelling in Zion: that is, in a certain contemplation and beholding his dwelling is made in Zion.

6. [v. 4.] There he broke the powers of the bows, and the shield, and the sword, and war. Where did he break them? In that eternal peace, in that perfect peace. And now too, my brothers, those who have believed well see that they ought not to presume upon themselves; and all the power of their threats, and whatever in them is sharp for harming, he breaks it: and whatever they hold as something great by which they might protect themselves in temporal matters, and the war which they waged against God by defending their sins—all these things he broke there.

7. [v. 5.] You, enlightening wonderfully from the eternal mountains. Who are the eternal mountains? Those whom he himself made eternal; who are the great mountains, the preachers of truth. You enlighten; but from the eternal mountains: first the great mountains receive your light, and by your light which the mountains take up, the earth too is clothed. But the apostles received those great mountains; the apostles received, as it were, the first beginnings of the rising light. Did they keep with themselves what they received? No; lest it be said to them: Wicked and slothful servant, you should have given my money to the bankers (Mt 25:26-27). If, then, they did not keep with themselves what they received, but preached it to the whole world: You, enlightening wonderfully from the eternal mountains. Those whom you made eternal, through them you promised eternal life to the rest as well: You, enlightening wonderfully from the eternal mountains. Magnificently and with weight it is said: You; lest anyone suppose that the mountains enlighten. For many, supposing that they were enlightened by the mountains themselves, made for themselves parties from the mountains; and they cut down the mountains themselves, and were themselves broken. Some made for themselves a Donatus, some made for themselves a Maximian, some made for themselves this one and that one. Why do they reckon their salvation to be in men, not in God? O man, the light came to you through the mountains; but God enlightens you, not the mountains. You, enlightening, he says: you, not the mountains. You, enlightening: from the eternal mountains, indeed; but, you, enlightening. Hence too in another place, what does the psalm say? I lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from where help shall come to me (Ps 121:1 (120:1)). What then? Is your hope in the mountains, and from there will help come to you? Have you remained in the mountains? See what you do. There is something above the mountains: above the mountains is he whom the mountains tremble at. I lifted up, he says, my eyes to the mountains, from where help shall come to me. But what follows? My help, he says, is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth (Ps 121:2 (120:2)). To the mountains, indeed, I lifted my eyes, because through the mountains the Scriptures were shown to me; but I have my heart in him who enlightens all the mountains.

8. Therefore, brothers, this was said so that none of you should wish to place his hope in a man. A man is something only so long as he clings to him by whom man was made. For withdrawing from him, man is nothing, even when he clings to those others. Take counsel through a man in such a way that you consider him who enlightens the man. For you too can approach him who speaks to you through a man; for he did not make that man approach himself and then repel you. And whoever has truly approached God in such a way that God dwells in him, all who do not place their hope in him are displeasing to him. For this reason a certain example was given, when they divided the apostles themselves among themselves, and went into schisms, those who said: I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, that is, of Peter. These the Apostle bewails, and says to them: Is Christ divided? and he chose himself, the one whom among them he might disparage: Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1 Cor 1:12-13) See the good mountain seeking glory, not for itself, but for him by whom the mountains are enlightened: he did not wish presumption to be placed in himself, but in him in whom he himself too had placed his trust. Whoever, then, wishes so to commend himself to peoples that, if perhaps some tumult should befall him, he breaks the peoples off after himself, and divides the catholic Church on his own account, is not of those mountains whom the Most High enlightens. But what is he? Darkened by himself, not enlightened by the Lord. And how are these mountains tested? If perhaps some tumult should arise against the mountains in the Church—either through popular seditions of carnal men, or through some false suspicions of men—the good mountain repels from itself all who on its account wish to withdraw from unity. For he himself will thus remain in unity, if on his account that unity is not divided. But those others were divided: when the people withdrew from the world and followed their name, they rejoiced; they were lifted up, and were cast down. Let them be humbled, and they would be exalted, as the Apostle was humbled, saying: Was Paul crucified for you? and in another place: I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. Therefore neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters; but God who gives the increase (1 Cor 3:6-7). Such mountains are humble in themselves, lofty in God; but those who are lofty in themselves are humbled by God: For he who exalts himself shall be humbled; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted (Lk 14:11). Therefore such men, who attend to their own prides, embitter the peaceable in the Church. The latter wish to set peace; the former mingle dissension among themselves. And what does another psalm say of them? Let those who embitter not be exalted in themselves (Ps 66:7 (65:7)). You, enlightening—attend here—you, wonderfully, from the eternal mountains.

9. [v. 6.] All the foolish of heart were troubled. The truth was preached, eternal life was declared; another life was declared to exist, one that is not of this earth: men despised the present life, and loved the life to come, enlightened through the enlightened mountains. But the foolish of heart were troubled. How were they troubled? When the Gospel is preached. And what is eternal life? and who is it who rose from the dead? The Athenians were amazed when the apostle Paul spoke of the resurrection of the dead, and supposed that he was telling some kind of fables (Acts 17:18, 32). But because he was declaring that there is another life, which neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man (1 Cor 2:9), therefore the foolish of heart were troubled. But what befell them? They slept their sleep, and all the men of riches found nothing in their hands. They loved present things, and they slept among those very present things; and so those very present things became delightful to them: just as one who sees in his sleep that he has found treasures is rich only so long as he does not wake. The dream made him rich; the waking makes him poor. Sleep held him, perhaps, sleeping on the ground and lying on the hard floor, poor and perhaps a beggar; in his dreams he saw himself lying on an ivory or golden bed, and on feathers heaped high: as long as he sleeps, he sleeps well; waking, he finds himself on the hard floor, where his sleep had held him. Such are these too: they came into this life, and through temporal desires they fell asleep here, as it were; and riches and empty fleeting pomps took them up, and passed away: they did not understand how much good could have been made from them. For if they had known another life, they would have stored up there for themselves what here was to perish: as Zacchaeus, the chief of the publicans, saw that good, when he received the Lord Jesus into his lodging, and said: Half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore fourfold (Lk 19:8). This man was not in the vanity of those dreaming, but in the faith of those awake. Therefore the Lord, since the physician had entered to the sick man, pronounced his salvation, and said: Today salvation has come to this house, since he too is a son of Abraham (Lk 19:9): that you may know that we, by imitating faith, are sons of Abraham; but the Jews, who are proud of the flesh, have degenerated from faith. Therefore the men of riches slept their sleep, and found nothing in their hands. They slept in their desires; it delights them, this sleep passes, this life passes, and they find nothing in their hands, because they placed nothing in the hand of Christ. Do you wish to find something in your hands afterward? Do not despise the hand of the poor now; and look to the empty hands, if you wish to have full hands. For the Lord said: I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in, and the rest. And they: When did we see you hungry, thirsty, or a stranger? And he says to them: When you did it to one of the least of mine, you did it to me (Mt 25:35-40). He willed to hunger in the poor, who is rich in heaven; and do you, man, hesitate to give to a man, when you know that you give to Christ what you give, from whom you received whatever you give! But those men slept their sleep, and all the men of riches found nothing in their hands.

10. [v. 7.] At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, all who mounted horses slumbered. Who are they who mounted horses? Those who refused to be humble. It is not a sin to sit on horses; but to raise the neck of one's power against God, and to suppose oneself to be in some honor. Because you are rich, you have mounted up; God rebukes, and you sleep. Great is the anger of the one rebuking, great is the anger! Let Your Charity attend to a fearful thing. A rebuke has a din; a din is wont to make men wake. So great is the weight of God's rebuke that he says: At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, all who mounted horses slumbered. Behold with what sleep that Pharaoh slumbered who mounted horses (Exod 14:9, 23): for he did not wake in heart, because at the rebuke he had a hard heart. For hardness of heart is a falling asleep. I ask you, my brothers, see how they sleep who, with the Gospel sounding, and the Amen and the Alleluia throughout the whole world, still refuse to condemn the old life and to wake into the new. The Scripture of God was in Judea; now it is sung throughout the whole world: in that one nation it was said that the one God who made all things must be adored and worshiped; now where is it kept silent that Christ has risen? Mocked on the cross, he has now fixed that very cross of his, on which he was mocked, upon the foreheads of kings; and still men sleep! Great is the anger of God, brothers! Better did we hear him who says: Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead; and Christ will enlighten you (Eph 5:14). But who hear him? Those who do not mount horses. Who are they who do not mount horses? Those who do not vaunt and exalt themselves, as it were in their honors and powers. At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, those who mounted horses slumbered.

11. [v. 8.] You are terrible; and who shall resist you then because of your anger? Now they sleep, and do not feel him angry; but he was angry that they might sleep. What, sleeping, they do not now feel, they will feel at the end: for the judge of the living and the dead will appear; and who shall resist you then because of your anger? For now they say what they wish, and dispute against God, and say: Who are the Christians? Or who is Christ? Or what fools, who believe what they do not see, and abandon the delights they do see, and follow the faith of things that are not displayed to their eyes? You sleep, and you bleat; you speak against God as much as you can. How long, O Lord, how long shall sinners glory? shall they answer, and speak iniquity? (Ps 94:3-4 (93:3-4)) But when will no one answer, and no one speak, except when he turns upon himself? When will they turn upon themselves the teeth with which they now gnaw at us, with which they tear us by mocking Christians and reproaching the life of the saints? Then they will turn upon themselves, when that befalls them which is said in the book of Wisdom: They shall say among themselves, repenting, and groaning through anguish of spirit: when they have seen the glory of the saints, then they will say: These are they whom we once held in derision (Wis 5:3). O you who have slept much! Surely you now wake, and find nothing in your hands. You see how full of the glory of God are the hands of those whom, as it were poor men, you mocked. Say, then, to yourselves then, when you do not resist the anger of God; not with hand, nor with tongue, nor with word, nor with thought: for he will appear manifest to you, whom you thought to be mocked, when it was announced that he would come to you. And what will they say? 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 for us (Wis 5:6). How would the sun of righteousness rise for those asleep? But from his anger and rebuke they sleep. Perhaps he will say this: Then let me not mount the horse: and then they will accuse their own horses. Hear them accusing their own horses on which they slept: Therefore we have erred, says Scripture, from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness has not shone for us, and the sun has not risen for us. What did pride profit us? And what did the boasting of riches confer on us? All things have passed away like a shadow (Wis 5:6-9). So you woke at last. But better that you had not mounted the horse, that you might not then slumber when you ought to have been awake; and that you might hear the voice of Christ, and Christ might enlighten you. You are terrible; and who shall resist you there then because of your anger? For what will there be then?

12. [v. 9.] From heaven you hurled judgment: the earth trembled, and was still. She who now troubles herself, who now speaks, will have to fear at the end and be still. Better that she be still now, that at the end she might rejoice.

13. [v. 10.] The earth trembled, and was still. When? When God arose unto judgment, to save all the meek of heart. Who are the meek of heart? Those who did not mount raging horses, but in their humility confessed their sins. To save all the meek of heart.

14. [v. 11.] For the thought of man shall confess to you, and the remnants of thought shall keep festival to you. First, the thought; afterward, the remnants of thought. What is the first thought? That from which we begin: that good thought from which you will begin to confess. Confession joins us to Christ. But now the confession itself—that is, the first thought—produces in us the remnants of thought; and those very remnants of thought shall keep festival to you. The thought of man shall confess to you, and the remnants of thought shall keep festival to you. What is the thought that shall confess? That which condemns the former life, to which what it was is displeasing, that it may be what it was not, that itself is the first thought. But because you ought so to withdraw from sins, having confessed to God by the first thought, that it does not withdraw from your memory that you were a sinner, through this—that you were a sinner—you keep festival to God. There is still something to be understood. The first thought has confession, and a withdrawal from the old life: but if you have forgotten from what sins you were freed, you do not give thanks to your liberator, and you do not keep festival to your God. Behold the first thought, confessing, of the apostle Saul, now Paul, who was first Saul: when he heard the voice from heaven, while he was persecuting Christ, and raging against Christians, and wished to bring those found anywhere to be killed, he heard the voice from heaven: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? and surrounded by light, blindness having been made in his eyes that he might see within, he sent forth the first thought of obedience; when he heard: I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute, Lord, he said, what do you bid me do? (Acts 9:4-6) This is the thought that confesses; he now calls Lord the one he was persecuting. How the remnants of thought keep festival, you have heard in the case of Paul, when the Apostle himself was being read: Be mindful that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my Gospel (2 Tim 2:8). What is be mindful? Let not the thought be blotted out from your memory by which you first confessed; let there be the remnants of thought in your memory. And see how the same apostle Paul repeats in another place what was granted to him: I who was formerly, he says, a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and insolent (1 Tim 1:13). He who says: I was formerly a blasphemer, is he still a blasphemer? That he might not be a blasphemer, there was the first thought confessing; but that he might call to mind what was granted to him, there were the remnants of thought, and through those very remnants of thought he kept festival.

15. For indeed, my brothers, behold, Christ has renewed us; he has forgiven all our sins, and we have been converted: if we forget what has been forgiven us, and by whom it has been forgiven, we forget the gift of the Savior; but when we do not forget the gift of the Savior, is not Christ daily sacrificed for us? And Christ was sacrificed for us once, when we believed; then there was the thought: but now there are the remnants of thought, when we remember who came to us, and what he granted us; from those very remnants of thought—that is, from that very memory—he is daily so sacrificed for us, as though he daily renews us, who by his first grace renewed us. For the Lord has already renewed us in baptism, and we have been made new men; rejoicing in hope, indeed, that we may be patient in tribulation (Rom 12:12): yet it ought not to withdraw from our memory what has been bestowed on us. And even if your thought is not now what it was (for the first thought was to withdraw from sin; but now you do not withdraw, but you withdrew then): let there be the remnants of thought, lest he who healed you fall from memory. If you have forgotten that you had a wound, there will not be for you the remnants of thought. For what do you suppose David said? Behold, he speaks from the person of all. The holy David sinned grievously; Nathan the prophet was sent to him, and reproved him: and he confessed, and said: I have sinned (2 Sam 12:13). This was the first thought of the one confessing: The thought of man shall confess to you. What were the remnants of thought? When he says: And my sin is ever before me (Ps 51:3 (50:5)). What, then, was the first thought? That he should withdraw from sin. And if he has now withdrawn from sin, how is his sin ever before him, except because that thought passed, but the remnants of thought keep festival? Let us remember, then, dearly beloved brothers; we ask you: whoever has been freed from sin, let him remember what he was; let there be in him the remnants of thought. For then he bears another to be healed, if he remembers that he himself was healed. Therefore let each one recall what he was, and whether he now is so no longer; and then he will come to the aid of one who still is what he himself now is not. But if he vaunts himself as it were on his own merits, and repels sinners as unworthy, and rages without mercy, he mounts the horse; let him beware that he does not sleep: for those who mounted horses slumbered (Ps 76:6 (75:7)). Now he has dismissed the horse; he has humbled himself: let him not again mount the horse, that is, let him not again raise himself into pride. From what does this come to him? If the remnants of thought keep festival to God.

16. [v. 12.] Make vows, and render them to the Lord our God. Let each one vow what he can, and render it. Do not vow, and not render; but let each one vow what he can, and render it. Do not be slothful in vowing; for you will not fulfill it by your own strength. You will fail, if you presume upon yourself; but if upon him to whom you vow, vow, and you will render it in security. Make vows, and render them to the Lord our God. What should we all in common vow? To believe in him, to hope from him for eternal life, to live well according to the common measure. For there is a certain measure common to all. Not to commit theft is not enjoined on a consecrated woman, and is not enjoined on a married woman: not to commit adultery is enjoined on all: not to love wine-bibbing, by which the soul is engulfed, and corrupts in itself the temple of God, is equally enjoined on all: not to be proud is equally enjoined on all: not to kill a man, not to hate one's brother, not to hold ruin against anyone, is enjoined on all in common. All this we all ought to vow. There are also vows proper to individuals: one vows to God conjugal chastity, that he should know no other woman besides his wife; so too the woman, that she should know no other man besides her husband. Others also vow, even having experienced such a marriage, to suffer nothing more of the kind, to desire or endure nothing more of the kind: and these have vowed something greater than the former. Others vow virginity itself from their earliest age, so that they may not even experience the kind of thing that those others, having experienced, abandoned: and these have vowed the most. Others vow that their house should be hospitable to all the saints who come: they vow a great vow. Another vows to leave all his goods to be distributed to the poor, and to go into the common life, into the fellowship of the saints: he vows a great vow. Make vows, and render them to the Lord our God. Let each one vow what he wishes to vow: let him attend to this, that he render what he has vowed. Whatever each one vows to God, if he looks back, it is evil. Some consecrated woman wished to marry: what did she wish? What any virgin too might wish. What did she wish? What her own mother too did. Did she wish something evil? Evil, plainly. Why? Because she had already vowed to the Lord her God. For what did the apostle Paul say of such? Though he says that young widows may marry if they wish (1 Tim 5:14), yet he says in a certain place: But she will be more blessed if she so remains, according to my counsel (1 Cor 7:40). He shows that she is more blessed if she so remains; yet not to be condemned, if she wishes to marry. But what does he say of certain women who vowed, and did not render? Having, he says, condemnation, because they have made void their first faith (1 Tim 5:12). What is they have made void their first faith? They vowed, and did not render. Let no brother, then, placed in a monastery, say: I will withdraw from the monastery, for it is not only those who are in a monastery who will come to the kingdom of heaven, and those who are not there do not belong to God. It is answered him: But those did not vow; you vowed, you looked back. When the Lord threatened concerning the day of judgment, what did he say? Remember Lot's wife (Lk 17:32). He said it to all. For what did Lot's wife do? She was freed from Sodom, and, set on the way, she looked back: where she looked back, there she remained. And she was made a pillar of salt (Gen 19:26), that by gazing upon her men might be seasoned; that they might have a heart, not be foolish, not look back, lest, giving a bad example, they themselves remain and season others. For even now we say that to certain brothers of ours, whom perhaps we have seen as it were grow weak in their good resolve: Do you too wish to be such as that man? We set before them certain ones who looked back. They are foolish in themselves, but they season others, when they are recalled, that those, fearing their example, may not look back. Make vows, and render them to the Lord our God, because that wife of Lot pertains to all. A married woman wished to commit adultery; she looked back from her own place to which she had come. A widow who had already vowed so to remain wished to marry; she wished what was lawful for the woman who married; but for her it was not lawful, because she looked back from her own place. A consecrated virgin, now dedicated to God, let her have also the other things which truly adorn that virginity, and without which that virginity is base. For what if she be whole in body, and corrupt in mind? What is it that I have said? What if no one has touched her body, but if perhaps she is a drunkard, is proud, is quarrelsome, is foul-tongued? All these things God condemns. If, before she had vowed, she had married, she would not be condemned: she chose something better, she surpassed what was lawful for her; she is proud, and commits so many unlawful things. This I say: It is lawful to marry before she vows; it is never lawful to be proud. O you, virgin of God, you refused to marry, which is lawful; you exalt yourself, which is not lawful. Better a humble virgin than a humble married woman; but better a humble married woman than a proud virgin. But she who looked back to marriage is not condemned because she wished to marry; but because she had already gone ahead, and becomes Lot's wife by looking back. Do not be slothful, you who are able, to whom God inspires it, to lay hold of better degrees, because we do not say these things in order that you may not vow, but that you may vow, and render: Make vows, and render them to the Lord our God. Now that we have treated these things, perhaps you were wishing to vow, and now you do not wish to vow. But attend to what the Psalm has said to you. It did not say: Do not vow; but: Vow, and render. Because you heard, render, do you not wish to vow? Were you, then, wishing to vow, and not to render? Rather, do both. Let the one be from your profession; the other will be perfected by the help of God. Look to him who leads you, and you will not look back, from where he leads you out. He who leads you walks before you; that from where he leads you out is behind you. Love the one leading, and he does not condemn you for looking back. Make vows, and render them to the Lord our God.

17. All who are round about him shall offer gifts. Who are those round about him? For where is he, that one should say: All who are round about him? If you think of God the Father, where is he not, who is everywhere present? If you think of the Son according to the form of his divinity, he too is everywhere with the Father; because he himself is the Wisdom of God, of which it is said: She reaches everywhere by reason of her purity (Wis 7:24). But if you understand the Son according to the fact that he assumed flesh, and was seen among men, and was crucified, and rose again, we know that he ascended into heaven. Who are those round about him? The angels. Do we, then, not offer gifts, because he said: All who are round about him shall offer gifts? If our Lord were buried here on earth, and his body lay, as that of some martyr or apostle, we would attend to those who were round about him—whatever nations were about that place on every side, or who gathered to that burial place with gifts: but now he has ascended; he is on high. What is this: All who are round about him shall offer gifts? For now I will tell you what God admonishes—what he himself has deigned to inspire in me from these words: if afterward something better appears, that too is yours, because the truth is common to all. It is neither mine nor yours; it is not this man's or that man's: it is common to all. And perhaps for this reason it is in the middle, so that all who love the truth may be round about it. For whatever is common to all is in the middle. Why is it said to be in the middle? So that it may be just so far from all, and just so near to all. What is not in the middle becomes, as it were, private. What is public is set in the middle, so that all who come may perceive it, may be enlightened. Let no one say: It is mine; lest in his own part he wish to do what is in the middle for all. What, then, is: All who are round about him shall offer gifts? All who understand that the truth is common to all, and do not make it as it were their own by being proud of it, they shall offer gifts; because they have humility: but those who make as it were their own what is common to all, as it were set in the middle, and try to seduce it to a faction, these shall not offer gifts; because All who are round about him shall offer gifts to the terrible one. Gifts shall be offered to the terrible one: let all, then, who are round about him fear. For they will fear, and praise him with trembling, because they are round about him for this very purpose, that all may attain to him, and that he may flow forth publicly to all, and publicly enlighten: this is to tremble. When you make him as it were your own, and no longer common, you are lifted up into pride; whereas it is written: Serve the Lord in fear, and exult before him with trembling (Ps 2:11). Therefore those who are round about him shall offer gifts: for they are humble, who know the truth to be common to all.

18. [v. 13.] To whom shall they offer gifts? To the terrible one, and to him who takes away the spirit of princes. For the spirit of princes is the proud spirit. They, then, are not his spirits; because even if they have known something, they want it to be their own, not public: but he who commends himself as equal to all, who sets himself in the middle, that all may take up as much as they can, whatever they can; not of any man, but of God, and therefore his own, because they themselves have been made his. Therefore it is necessary that all those be humble: they have lost their own spirit, and they have the Spirit of God. By whom have they lost their own spirit? By him who takes away the spirit of princes; since it is said to him in another place: You will take away their spirit, and they shall fail, and shall return to their dust. You will send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth (Ps 104:29-30 (103:29-30)). Someone has understood something; he wants it to be his own, he still has his own spirit: it is good for him to lose his own spirit, and to have the Spirit of God: he is still proud among the princes; it is good that he return to his dust, and say: Remember, O Lord, that we are dust (Ps 103:14 (102:14)). For if you have confessed yourself to be dust, God makes of dust a man. All who are round about him offer gifts: all the humble confess to him, and adore him. They offer gifts to the terrible one. Why terrible? Exult with trembling (Ps 2:11), and to him who takes away the spirit of princes: that is, he takes away the boldness of the proud. Terrible among the kings of the earth. The kings of the earth are terrible; but he is above all, who terrifies the kings of the earth. Be a king of the earth, and God will be terrible to you. How, you say, shall I be a king of the earth? Rule the earth, and you will be a king of the earth. Do not, then, in greed for ruling, set before your eyes the most far-flung provinces, over which to spread your kingdoms; rule the earth which you carry. Hear the Apostle ruling the earth: I so box, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body, and bring it into servitude, lest perhaps, preaching to others, I myself be made a castaway (1 Cor 9:26-27). Therefore, my brothers, be round about him, so that, through whoever the truth sounds to you, you do not impute it to him through whom it sounds; but let it be from the middle for all, because it is equally present to all. And be humble, lest you usurp it to yourselves too, if perhaps you have understood some good of his: because both what we have understood better is yours, and what you have understood better is ours, so that we may be round about him, and be humble. And so, losing our own spirit, we shall offer gifts to the terrible one above all the kings of the earth—that is, above all who rule their own flesh, but are subject to their Creator.

Exposition of Psalm 76

1. [v. 1.] The threshold of this psalm is inscribed thus: Unto the end, for Jeduthun, a Psalm of Asaph himself. What unto the end is, you know: For Christ is the end of the law, unto righteousness for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4). Jeduthun is interpreted "one who leaps over them"; Asaph is interpreted "assembly." Here, then, an assembly speaks that leaps over, so as to arrive at the end which is Christ Jesus. What things, then, must be leapt over, that we may be able to arrive at that end, where we shall no longer have anything to leap over, the text of the Psalm itself shows. For we must leap over whatever impedes us, whatever ensnares us, whatever binds us with a kind of birdlime, and weighs down our flight with a burden, until we arrive at that which suffices, beyond which there is nothing, beneath which are all things, and from which are all things. For Philip wished to behold the Father himself, and said to the Lord Jesus Christ: Show us the Father, and it suffices us (Jn 14:8); as though he had to leap over whatever else there was, until he arrived at the Father, where he might now stand secure, and have nothing further to seek: for this is It suffices. But he who had most truly said: I and the Father are one (Jn 10:30), admonished Philip, and taught every man who would understand Christ that in him too he has the end, because he and the Father are one: So long a time, he says, I am with you, and you have not seen me? Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father also (Jn 14:9). Whoever, then, wishes to feel, to imitate, to hold the spirit of this psalm, let him leap over all carnal desires, let him trample the pomp and the enticement of this world, and set before himself nothing else in which to rest, except that from which are all things: in all which things he himself too labors until he arrives at the end. What, then, does this leaper indicate to us?

2. [v. 2.] With my voice, he says, I cried to the Lord. But many cry to the Lord for acquiring riches and avoiding losses, for the welfare of their families, for the stability of their house, for temporal happiness, for worldly dignity; finally, even for the very health of the body, which is the patrimony of the poor man. For these and such things many cry to the Lord; scarcely anyone for the sake of the Lord himself. For it is easy for a man to desire anything whatever from the Lord, and not to desire the Lord himself; as though what he gives could be sweeter than he himself who gives. Whoever, then, cries to the Lord for any other thing, is not yet a leaper. But what does this leaper say? With my voice I cried to the Lord. And lest you think that the voice with which he cried to the Lord was uttered for the sake of anything other than the Lord himself, he goes on to say: And my voice to God. For a voice is uttered by which we cry to God, and that voice is for the sake of something else, not for God. For a voice exists for the sake of that for which the voice is uttered. But this man, who loved God freely, who sacrificed to God willingly (Ps 54:6 (53:8)), who had leapt over whatever is below, and had seen nothing else above himself into which to pour out his soul, except him from whom, and through whom, and in whom he was created, to whom he had cried with his voice, had made his very voice to be unto him: My voice, he says, to God. And was it without cause? See what follows: And he attended to me. Truly he attends to you then, when you seek him, not when you seek something else through him. It is said of certain men: They cried, and there was none to save, to the Lord, and he did not hear them (Ps 18:41 (17:42)). Why? Because their voice was not to the Lord. Scripture expresses this in another place, where it says of such men: They did not call upon the Lord. They did not cease to cry to him; and yet they did not call upon the Lord. What is they did not call upon the Lord? They did not call the Lord into themselves: they did not invite the Lord to their heart; they refused to be inhabited by the Lord. And therefore what befell them? There they trembled with fear, where there was no fear (Ps 14:5 (13:5)). Therefore they trembled at the loss of present things, because they were not full of him whom they did not call upon. They did not love freely, so as to be able, when temporal things were lost, to say: As it pleased the Lord, so has it been done; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). Therefore this man says: My voice to the Lord, and he attended to me. Let him teach us how this comes about.

3. [v. 3.] In the day of my tribulation I sought out God. Who are you, who do this? In the day of your tribulation, see what you seek out. If a prison makes the tribulation, you seek out release from prison: if a fever makes the tribulation, you seek out health: if hunger makes the tribulation, you seek out fullness: if losses make the tribulation, you seek out gain: if pilgrimage makes the tribulation, you seek out the city of your flesh. And why should I recount all things, or when could I recount all things? Do you wish to be a leaper? In the day of your tribulation seek out God: not something else through God, but God out of the tribulation; so that God removes the tribulation to this end, that you may cling to God in security. In the day of my tribulation I sought out God: not anything else, but I sought out God. And how did you seek him out? With my hands by night before him. Say this again: let us see, let us understand, let us imitate, if we can. In the day of your tribulation what did you seek out? God. How did you seek out? With my hands. When did you seek out? By night. Where did you seek out? Before him. And with what fruit did you seek out? And I was not deceived. Let us see all things, then, brothers, let us consider all things, let us question all things; both what the tribulation is in which this man sought out God, and what it is to seek out God with the hands, and what it is by night, and what it is before him: and there follows what all understand: And I was not deceived. For what is And I was not deceived? I found what I was seeking.

4. The tribulation is not to be thought of as this one or that one. For everyone who is not yet a leaper does not yet think there is any tribulation, except what has befallen this life from some sorrowful occasion: but that leaper reckons this whole life as his tribulation. For he so loves the heavenly homeland that the earthly pilgrimage itself is the greatest tribulation. For how is this life not a tribulation, I ask you? How is that not a tribulation which is said to be wholly a temptation? You have it written in the book of Job: Is not the life of man on earth a temptation? (Job 7:1) Did he say: The life of man is tempted on earth? Life itself is a temptation: if, then, a temptation, surely a tribulation. In this tribulation, then—that is, in this life—this leaper sought out God. How? With my hands, he says. What is with my hands? With my works. For he was not seeking something corporeal, so as to find by handling what he had lost; so as to seek with his hands a coin, gold, silver, clothing, or whatever such thing can be held with the hands. Although our Lord Jesus Christ himself willed to be sought out with the hands, when he showed his scars to the doubting disciple. But when that one, touching the scars of his wounds, exclaimed: My Lord and my God! did he not hear: Because you have seen, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed (Jn 20:28-29)? If, then, that one, seeking Christ with his hands, deserved to hear this, so that it was a reproach to him to have sought thus; we who have been called blessed who have not seen and yet believe, what then—does it not pertain to us to seek with the hands? It does pertain, as I said, to seek with works. When does this happen? By night. What is by night? In this world. For it is night before the day shines forth in the glorified coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. For do you wish to see that it is night? Unless we had a lamp here, we would remain in darkness. For Peter says: And we have the more sure prophetic word, to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the day-star arises in your hearts (2 Pet 1:19). The day, then, is to come after this night; meanwhile in this night let not the lamp be lacking. And this perhaps is what we are now doing: by expounding these Letters, we bring in the lamp, that in this night we may rejoice. And it ought indeed to be kindled always in your houses. For to such it is said: Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thess 5:19). And as if expounding what he said, he goes on: Do not despise prophecy (1 Thess 5:20): that is, let the lamp shine always in you. And this light indeed, in comparison with a certain ineffable day, is called night. For the very life of the faithful, in comparison with the life of the unbelieving, is day. But how it is night, we have already said, and shown by the testimony of the apostle Peter: who indeed also named a lamp, and admonished us concerning that lamp to attend to it, that is, to the prophetic word, until the day dawns, and the day-star arises in our hearts. But how the life of the faithful is already day in comparison with the life of the wicked, Paul shows: Let us cast off, he says, the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light; let us walk honorably as in the day (Rom 13:12-13). Therefore, living honorably, in comparison with the life of the wicked, we are in the day. But this day of the life of the faithful does not suffice for this Jeduthun; he wishes to leap over this day too, until he comes to that day where he will dread no temptation of night at all. For here, although the life of the faithful is day, the life of man on earth is a temptation (Job 7:1). Night, and day: day in comparison with the unbelieving; night in comparison with the angels. For the angels have a day which we do not yet have: we already have one which the unbelieving do not have; but the faithful do not yet have what the angels have: but then they will have it, when they will be equal to the angels of God; which was promised them in the resurrection (Lk 20:36). In this day, then, and still night; night in comparison with the future day which we desire, day in comparison with the past night which we have renounced: in this night, then, I say, let us seek God with our hands. Let works not cease; let us seek God, let the desire not be empty. If we are on the way, let us pay out our expenses, that we may be able to arrive: let us seek God with our hands. And even if by night we seek him whom we seek with our hands, we are not deceived, because we seek before him. What is before him? Do not do your righteousness before men, to be seen by them; otherwise you will have no reward with your Father. When, then, you give alms, he says—those are the hands seeking God—do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do: but let your almsgiving be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you (Mt 6:1-4). Therefore: With my hands by night before him, and I was not deceived.

5. Yet how much this Jeduthun endured on this earth, and in this night, and how he had, in a certain way, the necessity of leaping over, with tribulations striking and pricking him downward, so that it was necessary to leap over, let us hear most attentively. My soul refused to be comforted. So great a weariness occupied me here, that my soul closed itself against all comfort. To such a one, whence the weariness? Perhaps because the vineyard was struck by hail, or because the olive did not come forth, or because the vintage was cut off by the rain. Whence the weariness to this man? Hear it from another psalm. For there too it is his voice: Weariness held me, because of sinners forsaking your law (Ps 119:53 (118:53)). So great a weariness, then, this man says he was affected with from an evil of this kind, that his soul refused to be comforted. Weariness had nearly swallowed him up, and sadness had altogether and irreparably sunk him; he refuses to be comforted. What, then, remained?

6. [v. 4.] First see whence he is comforted. Had he not waited for someone to be sorrowful together with him, and not found one (Ps 69:20 (68:21))? For where would he turn for comfort, whom weariness had occupied over sinners forsaking the law of God? Where would he turn? To any man of God? In many, perhaps, this man had already experienced great tribulation, the more he had presumed upon some delight in them. For righteous men are sometimes seen, and one rejoices over them; and it is necessary that one rejoice, since love cannot be such without joy: but in those over whom a man has rejoiced, if perhaps something perverse happens, as often happens, as great as was the gladness there, so great a grief comes on; so that afterward a man now fears to loosen the reins of his joys, fears to commit himself to gladness, lest, the more he had been gladdened, the more, if anything happens, he should waste away. Struck, then, by abounding scandals, as by many wounds, he closed himself against human comfort, and his soul refused to be comforted. And whence life? whence breath? I was mindful of God, and I was delighted. Not in vain had the hands worked; they had found a great comforter. Not by resting, I was mindful of God, and I was delighted. God is therefore to be proclaimed, of whom this man, being made mindful, was delighted, and comforted in a certain sadness, and refreshed when, in a way, salvation had been despaired of: God is to be proclaimed. Finally, that this man was comforted, he goes on to say: I chattered. In that very comfort, being made mindful of God, delighted, I chattered. What is I chattered? I was glad, I exulted in speaking. For those are properly called "chatterers" who by the common people are called wordy, when, gladness coming on, they are neither able nor willing to be silent. This man became such. And again what does he say? And my spirit failed.

7. [v. 5.] He had wasted away from weariness, he had been delighted by recalling God, again he had failed by chattering; what follows? All my enemies anticipated the watches. They watched over me, all my enemies: they watched more than I did; by watching they forestalled me. Where do they not set snares? Did not all my enemies anticipate the watches? For who are these enemies, except those of whom the Apostle says: Yours is not a wrestling against flesh and blood; but against the principalities, and powers, and rulers of the world of these shadows, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (Eph 6:12)? Therefore we exercise enmities against the devil and his angels. He called them rulers of the world, because they rule the lovers of the world: for they do not rule the world as though they were rulers of heaven and earth; but by "world" he means sinners. And the world did not know him (Jn 1:10): such a world they rule, which does not know Christ. Against these we have perpetual enmities. For whatever enmities you have against a man, you think to end them; either by his giving satisfaction, if he wronged you; or by yours, if you wronged him; or by mutual satisfaction, if you wronged each other; you labor to give satisfaction and be reconciled: but with the devil and his angels there is no reconciliation. They themselves envy us the kingdom of heaven. They cannot grow gentle toward us at all, because all my enemies anticipated the watches. They watched more to deceive than I to guard myself: All my enemies anticipated the watches. For how did they not anticipate the watches, who set scandals everywhere, snares everywhere? Weariness is in the heart; it is to be feared lest sadness swallow you up: in gladness it is to be feared lest by chattering your spirit fail: All my enemies anticipated the watches. Finally, in that very chattering, while you speak, and speak in security, how many things are often found which enemies wish to seize and reprove, from which they wish even to accuse and slander: Did he say this, did he mean that, did he speak this? What is a man to do, except what follows? I was troubled, and I did not speak. Troubled, then, lest in his chattering the enemies, anticipating the watches, should seek and find slanders, he did not speak. Yet this leaper would never rest in himself: and if perhaps he ceased from the chattering, by which it had crept upon him from that very speaking to please men; yet he did not desist, he did not cease to try to transcend even this. And what does he say?

8. [v. 6.] I thought upon the ancient days. Now this man, as one who had been beaten outside, took himself within, he acts in the inner chamber of his mind. And what he acts there, let him tell us: I thought upon the ancient days. It is well with him. See what he thinks, I ask you. He is within, with himself he thinks upon the ancient days. No one says to him: You spoke ill; no one says to him: You spoke too much; no one says to him: You thought perversely. So may it be well with him in himself, may God help him: let him think upon the ancient days, and tell us in that inner chamber of his what he did, whither he arrived, what he leapt over, where he remained: I thought upon the ancient days, and I was mindful of the eternal years. What are the eternal years? A great thought! See whether this thought wishes anything but great silence. From all outward din, from all tumult of human affairs, let him rest within, who wishes to think upon those eternal years. Are the years in which we are eternal, or those in which our forebears were, or those in which our descendants will be? Far be it that they be deemed eternal. For what of these years remains? Behold, in speaking we say: This year; and what do we hold of this year, except the one day in which we are? For the earlier days of this year have already passed, and are not held; but the future ones have not yet come. We are in one day, and we say: This year: rather say: Today, if you wish to say something present. For of the whole year what present thing do you hold? Whatever of it is past, is now not; whatever of it is future, is not yet: how, then, This year? Correct your speech: say, Today. You speak truly: Today, I will now say. Again, attend also to this, that of today the morning hours have already passed, the future hours have not yet come. Correct this too: say, This hour. And of this hour what do you hold? Certain moments of it have already passed; those that are future have not yet come. Say, This moment. What moment? While I speak syllables, if I say two syllables, the second does not sound until the first has passed: finally that very one syllable, if it have two letters, the latter letter does not sound until the former has departed. What, then, do we hold of these years! These years are changeable: the eternal years are to be thought of, the years that stand, which are not carried out by days coming and departing; the years of which Scripture says to God in another place: But you are the same, and your years shall not fail (Ps 102:27 (101:28)). These years this leaper thought upon, not in chattering outside, but in silence: And I was mindful of the eternal years.

9. [v. 7.] And I meditated by night with my heart. No slanderer lays for him the little traps of words; in his heart he meditated. I chattered. Behold that chattering. Observe again, lest your spirit fail. No, he says: I did not chatter as it were outside; in another way now. How now? I chattered, and I searched my spirit. If this man were searching the earth, to find veins of gold, no one would say he was foolish; rather, many would call him wise, who wished to come at gold: how many things has a man within, and does not dig? This man searched his spirit, and spoke with his own spirit, and in that very speaking chattered. He questioned himself, examined himself, was a judge within himself. And it follows: I searched my spirit. It is to be feared lest he remain in his own spirit: for he chattered outside; and because all his enemies anticipated the watches, he found sadness there, and his spirit failed. He who chattered outside, behold, began to chatter within in security, where alone in silence he thinks upon the eternal years: And I thoroughly searched, he says, my spirit. And here too it is to be feared lest he remain in his own spirit, and not be a leaper. Yet he now acts better than he acted outside. He has transcended something: and from here let us see whither. For this leaper does not cease, until he comes to the end from which the Psalm has its title: I chattered, he says, and I searched my spirit.

10. [v. 8.] And what did you find? God will not cast off forever. He had found weariness in this life; nowhere a faithful, nowhere a secure comfort. To whatever men he turned, he found scandal in them, or feared it. Nowhere, then, secure. To be silent was an evil for him, lest he be silent about good things: to speak and chatter outside was troublesome, lest all his enemies, anticipating the watches, seek slanders in his words. Greatly straitened in this life, he thought much of another life, where this is not a temptation. And when does one arrive there? For it is not uncertain that what we here suffer is the anger of God. This is said in Isaiah: I will not be an avenger upon you forever, nor will I be angry with you for all time. And he says why: For the spirit shall go forth from me, and every breath I have made. On account of sin I grieved him a little, and struck him, and turned my face away from him; and he went away sorrowful, and walked his own ways (Isa 57:16-17). What then, will this anger of God be always? This man did not find this in silence. For what does he say? God will not cast off forever; and he will not add further that it should please him still: that is, that it should please him still to cast off, and to cast off forever he will not add. It is necessary that he recall his servants to himself, it is necessary that he receive the fugitives returning to the Lord, it is necessary that he hear the voice of the fettered: God will not cast off forever; and he will not add further that it should please him still.

11. [vv. 9-10.] Or will he cut off his mercy unto the end, from generation to generation? or will God forget to be merciful? In you, from you, toward another there is no mercy, unless God grants it to you: and will God himself forget mercy? The stream runs: will the fountain itself be dried up? Or will God forget to be merciful? or will he restrain his compassions in his anger? that is, will he be so angry that he does not have mercy? More easily will he restrain anger than mercy. This he had also said through Isaiah: I will not be an avenger upon you forever, nor will I be angry with you for all time. This too, after he had said: He went away sorrowful, and walked his own ways. His ways, he says, I saw, and I healed him (Isa 57:16-18). When this man knew this, he transcended even himself, delighted in God, that where he was, and in his works he might rather chatter; not in his own spirit, not in what he was, but in him by whom he had been made. And from here, then, the leaper transcended. See the leaper, see whether he remains anywhere until he arrives at God.

12. [v. 11.] And I said. Now leaping over himself, what did he say? Now I have begun: when I had gone beyond even myself. Now I have begun. Here there is now no danger: for to remain even in myself was a danger. And I said: Now I have begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High. Now the Most High has begun to change me; now I have begun something in which I may be secure, now I have entered some hall of joys, where no enemy is feared, now I have begun to be in that region, where all my enemies do not anticipate the watches: Now I have begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High.

13. [v. 12.] I was mindful of the works of the Lord. Now see him roaming among the works of the Lord. For he chattered outside, and, being saddened thereby, his spirit failed: he chattered within with his heart, and with his spirit, and having thoroughly searched that same spirit of his, he was mindful of the eternal years, mindful of the mercy of the Lord, because the Lord will not cast off forever; and he now began to rejoice securely in his works, to exult securely. Let us now hear those works themselves, and let us too exult: but let us too leap over with our affections, and not rejoice over temporal things. For we too have our chamber. Why do we not enter there? why do we not act in silence? why do we not thoroughly search our spirit? why do we not think upon the eternal years? why do we not rejoice in the works of God? So let us now hear, and be delighted while he speaks, that even when we have departed from here, we may do what we were doing while he spoke; if at least we do that beginning of his which he said: Now I have begun. To rejoice in the works of God is to forget even yourself, if you can be delighted in him alone. For what is better than he? Do you not see that, when you return to yourself, you return to a worse state? I was mindful of the works of the Lord: for I will be mindful from the beginning of your wondrous works.

14. [v. 13.] And I will meditate on all your works, and on your affections I will chatter. Behold a third chattering. He chattered outside, when he failed; he chattered within in his spirit, when he made progress; he chattered in the works of God, when he arrived whither he had advanced. And on your affections I will chatter: not on my affections. Who lives without affections? And do you suppose, brothers, that those who fear God, worship God, love God, have no affections? Truly, will you suppose this, and dare to suppose it, that the game-board, the theater, hunting, fowling, fishing have their affections, and the works of God do not? and that meditation on God does not have certain inner affections of its own, when the world is beheld, and the spectacle of the nature of things is set before the eyes, and in these the Maker is sought, and is found nowhere displeasing, and above all things pleasing?

15. [v. 14.] O God, your way is in the Holy One. He now beholds the works of God's mercy concerning us, from these he chatters, and in these affections he exults. He began first from here: Your way is in the Holy One. What is your way in the Holy One? I am, he says, the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14:6). Return, then, O men, from your affections. Where do you go? where do you run? whither do you flee, not only from God, but even from yourselves? Return, transgressors, to the heart (Isa 46:8), search your spirit, recall the eternal years, find the mercy of God concerning you, attend to the works of his mercy: His way is in the Holy One. Sons of men, how long heavy of heart? what do you seek in your affections? Why do you love vanity, and seek a lie? And know that the Lord has magnified his Holy One (Ps 4:2-3 (4:3-4)): Your way is in the Holy One. Let us, then, attend to him, let us attend to Christ; there is his way: O God, your way is in the Holy One. What God is great, like our God? The nations have affections concerning their gods, they adore idols; they have eyes, and see not; they have ears, and hear not; they have feet, and walk not (Ps 115:5-7 (113:13-15)). Why do you walk to a god who does not walk? I do not, he says, worship those things. And what do you worship? The divine power that is there? Surely you worship what is said elsewhere: For the gods of the nations are demons (Ps 96:5 (95:5)). Either you worship idols, or demons. Neither idols, nor demons, he says. And what do you worship? The stars, the sun, the moon, those heavenly things. How much better is he who made both earthly and heavenly things! What God is great like our God?

16. [v. 15.] You are the God who alone does wonders. You are truly the great God, doing wonders in body, in soul, alone doing them. The deaf have heard, the blind have seen, the sick have grown strong, the dead have risen, the paralyzed have been knit together (Mt 11:5). But those miracles were then in bodies: let us see in the soul. They are sober, who a little before were drunkards; they are faithful, who a little before were adorers of idols; they give their own goods to the poor, who before seized the goods of others: What God is great, like our God? You are the God who alone does wonders. Moses too did them, but not alone: Elijah too did them, Elisha too did them, the apostles too did them; but none of them alone. That they might do them, you were with them; you, when you did them, they were not with you. For they were not with you when you did, when you made even them. You are the God who alone does wonders. How alone? Is it perhaps the Father, and not the Son? or the Son, and not the Father? Rather, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You are the God who alone does wonders. For not three gods, but one God alone does wonders, even in this leaper. For that he might even leap over, and arrive at these things, was a wonder of God: when within he chattered with his spirit, that he might leap over even his own spirit, and be delighted in the works of God, he himself did wonders there. But what did God do? You made your power known among the peoples. Hence this assembly, Asaph the leaper, because he made his power known among the peoples. What power of his did he make known among the peoples? But we preach Christ crucified: to the Jews indeed a scandal, but to the Gentiles foolishness; but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:23-24). If, then, Christ is the Power of God, he made Christ known among the peoples. Or do we not yet recognize even this? and are we so foolish, do we lie so far below, do we leap over nothing so, that we do not see this? You made your power known among the peoples.

17. [v. 16.] You have redeemed with your arm your people. With your arm: that is, with your power. And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed (Isa 53:1)? You have redeemed with your arm your people, the sons of Israel, and Joseph. How, as it were two peoples, the sons of Israel, and Joseph? Are not the sons of Joseph among the sons of Israel? Yes, plainly. This we know, this we read, this Scripture cries out, this the truth shows, that Israel, the same as Jacob, had twelve sons, among whom one was Joseph; and of the twelve sons of Israel, as many as were born, belong to the people of Israel. How, then, does he say: The sons of Israel and Joseph? He admonished us, I know not how, that something here is to be distinguished. Let us search our spirit: perhaps God placed something there, whom we ought to seek even by night with our hands, that we be not deceived; perhaps we too shall find in this distinction the sons of Israel, and Joseph. By Joseph he wished another people to be understood; he wished the people of the Gentiles to be understood. Why the people of the Gentiles by Joseph? Because Joseph was sold into Egypt by his brothers (Gen 37:28). That Joseph whom his brothers envied, and sold into Egypt, sold into Egypt, labored, was humbled; recognized and exalted, he flourished, he ruled. And by all these things what did he signify? What, except Christ sold by his brothers, cast out of his own land, as it were into the Egypt of the Gentiles? There first humbled, when the martyrs suffered persecutions: now exalted, as we see; since it has been fulfilled in him: All the kings of the earth shall adore him; all nations shall serve him (Ps 72:11 (71:11)). Therefore Joseph is the people from the Gentiles; but Israel is the people from the nation of the Hebrews. God redeemed his people, the sons of Israel and Joseph. Through what? Through the cornerstone, in which two walls are joined.

18. [v. 17.] And he follows out how: The waters saw you, O God. What are the waters? Peoples. What these waters are, is said in the Apocalypse; the answer is given, Peoples: there we find most plainly the waters set as a figure of peoples (Rev 17:15). But above he had said: You made your power known among the peoples. Rightly, then: The waters saw you, O God; the waters saw you, and they feared. Therefore they were changed, because they feared. The waters saw you, O God, and they feared, and the depths were troubled. What are the depths? The deeps of the waters. Who is not troubled among the peoples, when his conscience is struck? You seek the depth of the sea: what is deeper than the human conscience? This depth was troubled, when God redeemed his people with his arm. How were the depths troubled? When they poured out all their consciences by confessing: And the depths were troubled.

19. [v. 18.] A multitude of the sound of waters. In the praises of God, in the confessions of sins, in hymns and canticles, in prayers, a multitude of the sound of waters. The clouds gave voice. Hence this sound of waters, hence the troubling of the depths, because the clouds gave voice. What clouds? The preachers of the word of truth. What clouds? Those of which God threatens a certain vineyard, which made thorns instead of grapes, and says: I will command my clouds not to rain rain upon it (Isa 5:6). Finally, the apostles, leaving the Jews, went to the Gentiles: in all the nations the clouds gave voice; by preaching Christ, the clouds gave voice.

20. [v. 19.] For your arrows passed through. Those same voices of the clouds he again called arrows. For the words of the Evangelists were arrows. For they are likenesses. For properly neither is rain an arrow, nor an arrow rain; but the word of God is both an arrow, because it strikes, and rain, because it waters. Let no one now wonder, then, at the troubling of the depths, when your arrows passed through. What is they passed through? They did not remain in the ears, but pierced the hearts. The voice of your thunder in the wheel. What is this? how are we to understand it? May the Lord help. The voice of your thunder in the wheel. As boys we used to suppose, when we heard thunders from the sky, that as it were vehicles had come out of a stable: for thunders have a certain shaking like vehicles. Are we to return to these childish notions, in order to understand the voice of your thunder in the wheel; as though God had some vehicles in the clouds, and the passing of vehicles stirred up that din? Far be it. This is childish, vain, trifling. What, then, is the voice of your thunder in the wheel? Your voice rolls. Neither do I understand this. What shall we do? We question Jeduthun himself, in case he himself expounds what he said: The voice, he says, of your thunder in the wheel. I do not understand: let me hear what you say: Your lightnings appeared to the world. Say it, then: I had not understood. The world (orbis) is a wheel: for the circuit of the world is rightly called orbis too; whence a little round thing, a rotella, is called orbiculus. The voice of your thunder in the wheel: your lightnings appeared to the world. Those clouds went around the world in the wheel; they went around thundering and flashing, they moved the deep, they thundered with precepts, they flashed with miracles: for into all the earth their sound went out, and to the ends of the world their words (Ps 19:4 (18:5)). The earth was moved, and made to tremble: that is, all who dwell in the earth. But by a likeness the earth itself is the sea. Why? Because all the nations are named with the name of the sea, because human life is bitter, and subject to storms and tempests. And if you attend to this, that men devour one another like fishes, when the greater swallows the lesser: this, then, is the sea; thither the Evangelists went.

21. [v. 20.] Your way is in the sea. A while ago your way is in the Holy One, now your way is in the sea, because the Holy One himself is in the sea, and rightly even walked upon the waters of the sea (Mt 14:25). Your way is in the sea: that is, among the Gentiles your Christ is preached. For in another psalm it is said thus: May God have mercy on us, and bless us; may he make his face to shine upon us, that we may know your way on earth. Where on earth? Your salvation among all nations (Ps 67:1-2 (66:2-3)): this is: Your way is in the sea. And your paths in many waters: that is, in many peoples. And your footsteps shall not be known. He touched I know not whom, and it would be a wonder if not the Jews themselves. Behold, the mercy of Christ has now been so spread abroad to the Gentiles, that your way is in the sea, and your paths in many waters; and your footsteps shall not be known. By whom shall they not be known, except by those who still say: Christ has not yet come? Why do they say: Christ has not yet come? Because they do not yet recognize him walking upon the sea.

22. [v. 21.] You led your people like sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Why he added this is somewhat difficult to track down. Help us, then, with your attention, because after these two verses there will be an end both of the Psalm and of the sermon; lest perhaps, when you think something remains, from fear of labor you attend less to the present matter. When he had said: Your way is in the sea, which we understand as, among the Gentiles; and your paths in many waters, which we understand as, in many peoples, he added: And your footsteps shall not be known. And we were asking by whom they would not be known; and he straightway subjoined: You led your people like sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron: that is, by this your people which was led by the hand of Moses and Aaron, your footsteps shall not be known. Why, then, was it set down, except for the sake of rebuking and reproaching: Your way is in the sea? Whence is your way in the sea, except because it was shut out from your land? They expelled Christ, the sick refused to have him as their Savior: but he began to be among the Gentiles, and in all nations, in many peoples. The remnant of that people too was saved. The ungrateful multitude remained outside, and the broad part of Jacob's thigh, limping (Gen 32:25, 31). For the broadness of the thigh is understood as the multitude of the lineage, and there was made, in the greater part of the Israelites, a certain vain and foolish crowd, which would not recognize the footsteps of Christ in the waters. You led your people like sheep, and they did not know you. So great goods you did with them! you divided the sea, you led them across between the waters by the dry ground, you covered their pursuing enemies with the waves, you rained manna on them needy in the desert, leading them by the hand of Moses and Aaron; and they expelled you from themselves, so that your way was in the sea, and they would not know your footsteps.

Exposition of Psalm 77

1. [v. 1.] This psalm contains the things that are narrated as having been done among the ancient people: but the more recent and later people is admonished to take care not to be ungrateful for the benefits of God, and not to provoke against itself the wrath of him whose grace it ought obediently and faithfully to receive: Let them not become, he says, like their fathers, a perverse and embittering generation; a generation that did not direct its heart, and whose spirit was not entrusted to God (Ps 78:8 (77:8)). This, then, is the intention of this psalm, this its usefulness, this its most abundant fruit. But although all things seem to be said and narrated clearly and openly, its title first moves us and makes us attentive. For it is not without cause inscribed: The understanding of Asaph; unless because perhaps these things seek a reader who understands not what the surface sounds, but something more inward. Then, about to narrate and recall all these things, which seem to need a hearer rather than an expounder: I will open, he says, my mouth in parables, I will utter propositions from the beginning (Ps 78:2 (77:2)). Who would not be roused from sleep at this? Who would dare, in reading, to run through as it were manifest parables and propositions, which by their very names indicate that they ought to be more deeply searched out? For a parable carries before it a likeness of some thing; and though this be a Greek word, yet it is now used as Latin. And it is known that in parables, which are called likenesses of things, things are compared to the matters under discussion. But propositions, which in Greek are called problems, are questions, having something that must be resolved by disputation. Who, then, would read parables and propositions in passing? who, on hearing these, would not bend the watchfulness of his mind, that he may by understanding arrive at their fruit?

2. Attend, my people, to my law, he says. Whom should we believe to be speaking here but God? For he himself gave the law to his people, whom, freed from Egypt, he gathered—which gathering is properly called a synagogue, which is interpreted Asaph. Was it, then, said The understanding of Asaph, in the sense that Asaph himself understood; or is it to be understood figuratively, that the synagogue itself—that is, that same people—understood, to whom it is said: Attend, my people, to my law? What, then, is it that he rebukes the same people through the prophet, saying: But Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood (Isa 1:3)? But surely there were even in that people those who understood, having the faith which was afterward revealed, pertaining not to the letter of the Law, but to the grace of the Spirit. For they were not without that faith, who were able to foresee and foretell its future revelation in Christ; since even those ancient sacraments were significations of things to come. Or did the prophets alone have this faith, and not the people too? Rather, even those who faithfully heard the prophets were aided by the same grace, so that they understood what they heard. But surely the sacrament of the kingdom of heaven was veiled in the Old Testament, which in the fullness of time would be revealed in the New. For I do not wish you to be ignorant, brothers, says the Apostle, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink: for they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:1-4). The food and drink of those men, then, in mystery, was the same as ours; but the same in signification, not in appearance; because the same Christ was figured for them in the rock, and manifested to us in the flesh. But, he says, God was not well pleased with most of them (1 Cor 10:5). All indeed ate the same spiritual food, and drank the same spiritual drink, that is, signifying something spiritual; but God was not well pleased with all of them. When he says: Not with all, there were therefore there some with whom God was well pleased; and although all the sacraments were common, the grace, which is the power of the sacraments, was not common to all. So too now, the faith which then was veiled having been revealed, the washing of regeneration is common to all who are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19); but the grace itself, of which these are the sacraments, by which the members of the body of Christ with their head have been regenerated, is not common to all. For heretics too have the same baptism, and false brethren in the communion of the catholic name. Therefore here too it is rightly said: But God was not well pleased with all of them.

3. Yet neither then nor now is the voice fruitless that says: Attend, my people, to my law. Which manner of speaking is well known in all the Letters, that he does not say: Attend (singular); but: Attend (plural). For a people consists of many; to which many what follows is said in the plural: Incline your ear to the words of my mouth. What is Attend; this is Incline your ear: and what he there says, my law; this he here says, the words of my mouth. For he attends piously to the law of God and the words of his mouth, whose ear humility inclines; not whose neck pride raises. For what is poured in is received by the hollow of humility, and is repelled by the prominence of the swelling. Hence in another place: Incline, he says, your ear, and receive the words of understanding (Prov 22:17). We are sufficiently admonished, then, to receive even this psalm of this understanding of Asaph (for it is set in the title in the genitive case, of this understanding; not, this understanding) with inclined ear, that is, with humble piety. Nor is it said, of Asaph himself; but, to Asaph himself: which is apparent by the Greek article, and is found in certain Latin codices. These words, then, are of the understanding, that is, of the understanding which was given to Asaph himself; which we take better not of one man, but of the gathering of the people of God, from which we ought by no means to estrange ourselves. For although properly the synagogue is said of the Jews, but the Church of Christians—because a "gathering" (congregatio) is usually understood rather of cattle, but a "calling together" (convocatio) rather of men—yet we find that too called the Church, and perhaps it rather befits us to say: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may confess to your holy name (Ps 106:47 (105:47)). Nor ought we to disdain, rather to give ineffable thanks, that we are the sheep of his hands, whom he foresaw when he said: I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them too, that there may be one flock and one shepherd (Jn 10:16), joining, namely, the faithful people of the Gentiles to the faithful people of the Israelites, of whom he had first said: I am not sent except to the sheep that are lost, of the house of Israel (Mt 15:24). For all nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (Mt 25:32). So, then, let us hear what was said: Attend, my people, to my law, incline your ear to the words of my mouth, not as though these things were said to the Jews, but rather to us, or certainly to us as well. For when the Apostle had said: But God was not well pleased with all of them, thus showing that there were there also those with whom God was well pleased; he straightway subjoined: For they were laid low in the desert: then he added: But these things were made our figures, that we should not be desirers of evil things, as they too desired: nor servants of idols, as some of them; as it is written: The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Nor let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day twenty-three thousand. Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Nor murmur, as some of them murmured, and perished by the destroyer. But all these things happened to them in figure: but they were written for our correction, upon whom the end of the ages has come (1 Cor 10:5-11). Therefore these things were sung rather for us. Hence in this psalm, among other things, it was said: That another generation may know it, the children who shall be born and shall arise (Ps 78:6 (77:6)). Further, if that destruction by serpents, and that ruin by the destroyer, and the slaughter by the sword were figures, as the Apostle evidently says, since it is manifest that all those things happened; for he does not say: They were said in figure, or: They were written in figure; but: In figure, he says, they happened to them: with how much greater diligence of piety are the punishments to be guarded against of which those were the figures! For without doubt, just as in good things there is much more of good in what is signified through the figure than in the figure itself; so too in evil things, those are by far worse which are signified by the figures, when even the signifying figures are so great evils. For just as the land of promise, to which that people was led, is nothing in comparison with the kingdom of heaven, to which the Christian people is led: so too those punishments which were figures, though they are so dreadful, are nothing in comparison with the punishments which they signify. And what the Apostle called figures, this psalm calls, as far as we can judge, parables and propositions: having their end not in the fact that they happened, but in those things to which by a reasonable comparison they are referred. Let us attend, then, to the law of God, his people, and let us incline our ear to the words of his mouth.

4. [v. 2.] I will open, he says, my mouth in parables; I will utter propositions from the beginning. From what beginning he speaks, sufficiently appears in what follows. For not from when heaven and earth were made, nor from when the human race was created in the first man; but from when the gathering of the people that was led out of Egypt: so that the sense pertains to Asaph, which is interpreted "gathering." But would that he who said: I will open my mouth in parables, might deign to open our understanding too into them! For if, as he opened his mouth in parables, so he would open also the parables themselves; and as he utters propositions, so he would utter also their expositions; we would not here be in a sweat: but as it is, all things are so covered and closed, that even if, with his help, we can arrive at something by which we may be wholesomely fed, yet in the sweat of our face we eat our bread (Gen 3:19); and we pay the penalty of the ancient sentence, by the labor not only of the body, but also of the heart. Let him speak, then, and let us hear the parables and propositions.

5. [v. 3.] How great things we have heard, and have known them, and our fathers have recounted to us. The Lord was speaking above. For whose other words are to be believed: Attend, my people, to my law? What is it, then, that now a man suddenly speaks? For now they are the words of a man: How great things we have heard, and have known them, and our fathers have recounted to us. Surely God, about to speak now through the ministry of a man, as the Apostle says: Do you wish to receive proof of him who speaks in me, Christ? (2 Cor 13:3) willed that the words should first be made from his own person, lest the man speaking his words be despised as a man. For so it is with the utterances of God, which are conveyed to us through the sense of our body. The Creator moves the subject creature by an invisible work; his substance is not changed into anything corporeal and temporal, so that by corporeal and temporal signs, whether pertaining to the eyes or to the ears, as far as men can grasp, he makes his will known. For if an angel can use ether, air, cloud, fire, and any other nature or corporeal appearance; and a man his face, tongue, hand, pen, letters, or other signifying things, to indicate the secrets of his mind; finally, since he is a man, he sends men as messengers, and says to one: Go, and he goes; and to another: Come, and he comes; and to his servant: Do this, and he does it (Mt 8:9): with how much greater and more efficacious power does God, the Lord to whom all things are subject, use both angel and man, to announce what pleases him! Although, then, a man now says: How great things we have heard, and have known them, and our fathers have recounted to us; yet let us hear them as the words of God, not as human fables. For on this account it was set before: Attend, my people, to my law, incline your ear to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter propositions from the beginning. How great things, then, he says, we have heard, and have known them, and our fathers have recounted to us. So it is, we have heard, and have known; as: Hear, O daughter, and see (Ps 45:10 (44:11)). For the things were heard in the Old Testament that are known in the New; heard when they were prophesied, known when they were fulfilled. Where the promise is rendered, the hearing is not cheated. And our fathers, Moses and the Prophets, have recounted to us.

6. [v. 4.] They have not been hidden from their children, in another generation. This is our generation, in which regeneration has been granted to us. Announcing the praises of the Lord, and his powers, and his wonders that he has done. The order of the words is: And our fathers recounted to us, announcing the praises of the Lord. The Lord is praised that he may be loved: for what is more wholesomely loved?

7. [v. 5.] And he raised up a Testimony in Jacob, and set a Law in Israel. This is the beginning of which it was said above: I will utter propositions from the beginning. The beginning, then, is the Old Testament, the end the New. For fear prevails in the Law: and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Ps 111:10 (110:10); Sir 1:16). But the end of the Law is Christ, unto righteousness for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4): by whose gift love is poured out in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5); and perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18), since now without the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested. But because it has testimony from the Law and the Prophets (Rom 3:21), therefore he raised up a Testimony in Jacob, and set a Law in Israel. For that the tabernacle, established with so notable a work and full of so many significations, is called the tabernacle of the Testimony (Exod 38:21), in which there was a veil before the ark of the Law, as there was a veil before the face of the minister of the Law; because in that dispensation there were parables and propositions. For the things that were preached and done were stored up with veiled significations, and were discerned not in revealed manifestations. But when you have passed over to Christ, says the Apostle, the veil will be taken away (2 Cor 3:16). For as many as are the promises of God, in him they are Yes, Amen (2 Cor 1:20). Whoever, then, clings to Christ, has all the good which even in the letter of the Law he does not understand; but whoever is a stranger to Christ neither understands nor has it. He raised up, then, a Testimony in Jacob, and set a Law in Israel. He repeats in his usual manner. For what is He raised up a Testimony; this is He set a Law: and what is in Jacob; this is in Israel. For as these two are the names of one man, so Law and Testimony are two names of one thing. There is some difference, someone says, between he raised up and he set. Yes, surely; just as there is a difference even between Jacob and Israel: not because they were two men, but the same two names were imposed on one man for different reasons; Jacob on account of the supplanting, because at his birth he held the foot of his brother; Israel on account of the vision of God (Gen 25:26; 32:28). So he raised up is one thing, he set another. For he raised up a Testimony, as I judge, was said because something was raised up by it. For without the Law, says the Apostle, sin was dead. But I was alive once without the Law: but when the commandment came, sin revived (Rom 7:8-9). Behold what was raised up by the Testimony which is the Law, so that what was hidden might appear, as he says a little after: But sin, that it might appear sin, through what is good wrought death in me (Rom 7:13). But he set a Law, it was said, as a yoke for sinners: whence it is said: That the law is not set for the righteous (1 Tim 1:9). It is a Testimony, then, insofar as it proves something; but a Law, insofar as it commands; though it is one and the same thing. Wherefore, just as Christ is a stone; but to those who believe, unto the head of the corner (Ps 118:22 (117:22)), but to those who do not believe, a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal (1 Pet 2:7-8); so the Testimony of the Law is, to those who use the Law not lawfully, a Testimony by which sinners are convicted to be punished; but to those who use it lawfully, a Testimony by which is shown to whom sinners ought to flee to be freed. For in his grace is the righteousness of God, having testimony from the Law and the Prophets (Rom 3:21), by which the wicked man is justified: which certain men, being ignorant of, and wishing to establish their own, were not subject to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3).

8. [vv. 5-8.] How great things he commanded our fathers to make known to their children: that another generation may know it, the children who shall be born and shall arise, and shall recount them to their children; that they may put their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, and seek out his commandments. Let them not become, like their fathers, a perverse and embittering generation; a generation that did not direct its heart, and whose spirit was not entrusted to God. These words indicate, in a manner, two peoples; the one pertaining to the Old, the other to the New Testament: for when he says: How great things he commanded our fathers to make known to their children, he said that they had received the commands to make them known to their children, yet not that they had recognized or done them; but they received them to this end, that another generation may know it, what that one did not know. The children who shall be born and shall arise. For those who were born did not arise, because they had their heart not above, but rather on earth. For with Christ one arises: whence it is said: If you have risen with Christ, savor the things that are above (Col 3:1-2). And let them recount, he says, to their children, that they may put their hope in God. For thus the righteous do not wish to establish their own righteousness, but reveal their way to God, and hope in him, that he himself may act (Ps 37:5 (36:5)). And not forget the works of God: namely, by magnifying and boasting of their own works, as though they themselves do them; whereas it is God who works in those who work good things, both to will and to work, for the good will (Phil 2:13). And seek out his commandments. When they have already learned them, how do they seek them out? For how great things, he says, he commanded our fathers to make known to their children, that another generation may know it. What may it know? Surely the commandments which he commanded. How, then, do they still seek them out, except because, by putting their hope in God, they then seek out his commandments, that by them, with his help, they may be fulfilled? Let them not become, like their fathers, a perverse and embittering generation; a generation that did not direct its heart. And he says why, straightway subjoining: And whose spirit was not entrusted to God: that is, because it did not have the faith which obtains what the Law commands. For when the spirit of man cooperates with the working Spirit of God, then what God commanded is fulfilled; and this does not happen except by believing in him who justifies the wicked (Rom 4:5). Which faith the perverse and embittering generation did not have; and therefore it was said of it: Its spirit was not entrusted to God. For this was said much more expressly, to signify the grace of God, which not only works the remission of sins, but also makes the spirit of man cooperate with it in the work of good deeds; as though he said: His spirit did not believe God. For this is to have one's spirit entrusted to God: not to believe that one's spirit can do righteousness without God, but with God. This is also to believe in God; which is surely more than to believe God. For any man whatever is often to be believed, although one is not to believe in him. This, then, is to believe in God: by believing to cling to God, so as to cooperate well with God who works good things: For without me, he says, you can do nothing (Jn 15:5). And what more could the Apostle say of this than what he said: But he who clings to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17). Otherwise that law is a testimony by which the guilty one is condemned, not by which he is absolved. For it is a threatening letter, which convicts transgressors; not an aiding spirit, which frees and justifies sinners. That generation, then, whose example is to be guarded against, was for this reason perverse and embittering, because its spirit was not entrusted to God: because even if it believed God in some things, yet it did not believe in God; it did not by faith cling to God, so that, healed by God, it might cooperate well with God working in it.

9. [v. 9.] In short: The sons of Ephraim, who bend and shoot bows, turned back in the day of battle. Pursuing the law of righteousness, they did not arrive at the law of righteousness (Rom 9:31). Why? Because not by faith. For it was a generation whose spirit was not entrusted to God: but as it were from works; because, just as it bent and shot bows (which appears outwardly, as in the works of the Law), it did not so also direct the heart, where the righteous man lives by faith (Rom 1:17), which works through love (Gal 5:6), by which one clings to God, who works in man both to will and to work, for the good will (Phil 2:13). For what else is it to bend a bow, and shoot, and turn back in the day of battle, except to attend and promise in the day of hearing, and to desert in the day of temptation; to make a kind of prelude with arms, and at the hour of combat refuse to fight? Now he says, bending and shooting bows; whereas he seems to have had to say, bending bows, and shooting arrows; for the bow is not shot, but something is shot from the bow: either it is that manner of speaking which we discussed above, where it was said: He raised up a Testimony, because he raised up something by the Testimony; so too here, shooting bows, because they shot something with bows: or the order of the words is obscure, with the omission of a word, which is to be supplied though unspoken, so that this is the order: The sons of Ephraim, bending bows, and shooting, and there is to be supplied: Arrows; and more fully it is: Bending bows, and shooting arrows: because even if he said: Bending, and shooting arrows, we ought surely not to understand: Bending arrows; but, on hearing what he said: Bending, we should rather supply: A bow, though it was not said. Indeed certain Greek codices are said to have, bending and shooting with bows, so that without hesitation we supply Arrows. But that by the sons of Ephraim he wished that whole embittering generation to be understood, is a manner of speaking signifying the whole from a part. And perhaps this part was chosen, by which that whole people was signified, because from these especially some good was to be expected; because they were born from him whom Jacob, though set by his father as the younger at the left hand, yet with his right hand blessed, and by a hidden blessing preferred to his elder brother (Gen 48:13-19); so that, because that tribe is thus blamed in this place, and it is shown that there did not appear in it what that blessing promised, we may sufficiently understand that even then, by the words of the patriarch Jacob, something far other was figured than the prudence of the flesh expects. For it was figured that those would be last who were first, and those would be first who were last (Mt 19:30), through the coming of the Savior, of whom it was said: He who comes after me has been made before me (Jn 1:15). So the righteous Abel was preferred to his elder brother (Gen 4:4), so Isaac to Ishmael (Gen 17:18-19), so Jacob himself to Esau, his twin, but yet born first (Gen 25:23-26); so Perez to his own twin, who had first put out his hand from the womb, and had begun to be born, yet Perez preceded even in birth (Gen 38:27-29); so David was preferred to his elder brothers (1 Sam 16:11-13): and because all these and other similar parables, not only of words, but also of deeds, went before, so the Christian people was preferred to the Jewish people, for the redeeming of which, just as Abel by Cain (Gen 4:8), so Christ was killed by the Jews. For this was prefigured even when Jacob, with his hands stretched crosswise, with his right hand touched Ephraim set at the left; and preferred him to Manasseh set at the right, whom he himself touched with his left hand. For according to the flesh the sons of Ephraim, bending and shooting bows, turned back in the day of battle.

10. [v. 10.] But what it is that he says: They turned back in the day of battle, the following words teach, by which he most plainly expounded it: They did not observe, he says, the testament of God, and in his law they refused to walk. Behold what is: They turned back in the day of battle: they did not observe the testament of God. When, bending and shooting bows, they even uttered words of most ready promise, saying: Whatever the Lord our God has spoken, we will do and we will hear (Exod 24:7). They turned back in the day of battle: because the promise of obedience is tested not by hearing, but by temptation. But he whose spirit is entrusted to God holds God faithful, who will not permit him to be tempted beyond what he can; but will make with the temptation also a way of escape, that he may be able to bear it (1 Cor 10:13), lest he turn back in the day of battle. But he who glories in himself, not in God (1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17), however much he boasts the pledge of his own virtue, as one bending and shooting bows, turns back in the day of battle. For because his spirit is not entrusted to God, neither is the Spirit of God with him; and, as it is written: Because he did not believe, therefore he will not be protected (Isa 7:9 (Vetus Latina)). But when he had said: They did not observe the testament of God, he added and said: And in his law they refused to walk; it is a repetition of the earlier statement, with a certain exposition of it: for he called his law what he had above called the testament of God; so that what was said, they did not keep, is understood as repeated in, they refused to walk. But since it could be said more briefly: And in his law they did not walk, it seems to me that in this expression he wished us to seek something not negligible, in that he preferred to say, they refused to walk, rather than, they did not walk. For the law of works could be thought to suffice, as it were, for justification, when the things that are commanded are done outwardly by those men who would prefer not to be commanded the things they do not do from the heart, and yet do them; and through this they seem, as it were, to walk in the law of God, but they refuse to walk: for they do not do them from the heart. But from the heart that can in no way be done which is done from fear of punishment, not from love of righteousness. For as far as concerns the deeds that are done outwardly: both those who fear punishment, and those who love righteousness, do not steal; and therefore they are equal in hand, unequal in heart; equal in work, unequal in will. Therefore those men were thus marked: A generation, he says, that did not direct its heart. It was not said, its works: but, its heart. For with the heart directed, the works are right: but when the heart is not directed, the works are not right, even if they seem right. And whence the perverse generation did not direct its heart, he sufficiently disclosed, when he said: And its spirit was not entrusted to God. For God is right: and therefore, clinging to the Right One, as to an unchangeable rule, the heart of man, which in itself was perverse, can be made right. But that the heart may be with him, and through this be able to be right, one approaches him, not with the foot, but with faith. Therefore it is said also in the Epistle to the Hebrews concerning that very perverse and embittering generation: The word that was heard did not profit them, not being mingled with the faith of those who obeyed (Heb 4:2). The will, then, that is in a right heart is prepared by the Lord, faith going before, by which one approaches the right God, that the heart may be made right. Which faith, the mercy of God preventing and calling, is roused up through obedience; and begins to apply the heart to God, that it may be directed; and the more and more it is directed, the more it sees what it did not see, and is strong in what it was not strong. This Simon had not done, to whom the apostle Peter said: You have no part nor lot in this faith; for your heart is not right with God (Acts 8:21). For there he showed that it cannot be right without God, so that men may begin, not as servants under the law walking in fear, but in the law as sons willing, in which those refused to walk, and under it remained guilty. For this will love has, not fear, which is poured out in the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5). To whom it is said: By grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not from works, lest perhaps anyone be exalted. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them (Eph 2:8-10). Not as those men, who in his law refused to walk, by not believing in him, nor revealing their way to him and hoping in him, that he himself might act.

11. [vv. 11-12.] And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he showed them, the wonders he did before their fathers. What this is, is a question not to be neglected. Of these same fathers he was saying a little before that they had been a perverse and embittering generation. Let them not become, he says, like their fathers, a perverse and embittering generation; a generation that did not direct its heart, and the rest that is still said of that generation, the imitation of which he commands the other generation to guard against in this way, that they may put their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, and seek out his commandments: of which we have already discussed what seemed sufficient. What, then, does he mean, when he speaks of that perverse generation, how they forgot the benefits of God, and his wonders that he showed them, in what he added and says: The wonders he did before their fathers? What fathers, when these very men are the fathers, whose descendants he does not wish to be like? If we take those from whom these were born, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; they had long ago fallen asleep when God showed wonders in Egypt. For it follows: In the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis: where he says God showed these men wonders before their fathers. Or were they perhaps present in spirit, because of them the Lord says in the Gospel: For all those live (Lk 20:38)? Or do we more fittingly take as fathers Moses, and Aaron, and the other elders who are recorded in the same Scripture to have received also the spirit from which Moses too had received, that they might help him to rule and bear the same people (Num 11:16-17)? For why should they not be called fathers? Not as God the Father is one, who regenerates by his Spirit those whom he makes sons unto the eternal inheritance; but for the sake of honor, on account of their age and care of piety: as Paul the elder says: I write these things not to confound you; but I admonish you as my dearest children (1 Cor 4:14); though he surely knew it was said by the Lord: Call no one your father on earth; for one is your Father, God (Mt 23:9). Which was not said in order that this word of human honor should be taken away from the custom of speech; but lest the grace of God, by which we are regenerated unto eternal life, should be attributed to the nature, or power, or even holiness of any man. Therefore, when he said: I have begotten you: he premised: In Christ, and through the Gospel (1 Cor 4:15); lest what is God's be thought to be his own.

12. Therefore that perverse and embittering generation forgot the benefits of God, and his wonders that he showed them, the wonders he did before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis. And he begins to weave again the recollection of those same wonders. Which, if they are parables and propositions, are surely to be referred by comparison to something. Nor ought we to take away the eye of our attention from what the psalm itself intends to show, that this is the fruit of all the things that are said, and why we were admonished to hear these things most attentively, with God saying: Attend, my people, to my law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth (Ps 78:1 (77:1)); that we may put our hope in God, and not forget the works of God, and seek out his commandments; that we may not become, like those fathers, a perverse and embittering generation; a generation that did not direct its heart, and whose spirit was not entrusted to God. To this end, then, are all things to be referred, and through this, whatever these things signify by a figured action, can so come to pass spiritually in man; either by the grace of God, if they are good; or by the judgment of God, if they are evil: as those good things were done in the Israelites, or evil things, both in them and in their enemies. And if we do not forget these, but put our hope in God, and are not ungrateful for his grace; and fear him, not with servile fear, by which only bodily evils are dreaded, but with the chaste fear that endures forever (Ps 19:9 (18:10)), which fear judges it a great punishment to be deprived of the light of righteousness; we shall not be made, like those fathers, a perverse and embittering generation. The land of Egypt, then, is to be understood in figure of this world. The field of Tanis is the plain of the humble commandment. For Tanis is interpreted "humble commandment." In this world, then, let us receive the commandment of humility, that in the other world we may deserve to receive the exaltation which he promised who for our sake here became humble.

13. [vv. 13-16.] For he who broke open the sea, and led them across, set the waters as it were in skins, so that the wave stood still as though it had been shut in, is able by his grace to restrain the fluid and slipping things of carnal concupiscences, when this world is renounced, so that, all sins being destroyed like enemies, the faithful people may be led across through the sacrament of baptism. He who led them in a cloud by day, and all night in the light of fire, is able also spiritually to direct their journeys, if faith cries to him: Direct my journeys according to your word (Ps 119:133 (118:133)). Of whom it is said elsewhere: For he himself will make your courses straight, and will bring forth your journeys in peace (Prov 4:27 (Septuagint)): through Jesus Christ our Lord, whose sacrament in this world, as in the day, has been manifested in the flesh, as in a cloud; but in the judgment, as in the terror of night, because then there will be a great tribulation of the world like fire, and it will shine for the righteous, and burn for the unrighteous. He who broke open the rock in the desert, and gave them to drink as from a great deep; and brought forth water from the rock, and led down waters like rivers, is surely able to pour into thirsting faith the gift of the Holy Spirit, which that deed signified spiritually, from the spiritual rock that followed (1 Cor 10:4), which is Christ: who stood and cried out: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me; and: He who drinks of the water that I will give, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly. For this he said, as is read in the Gospel, of the Spirit whom those believing in him were to receive (Jn 7:37-39). To whom, as a rod, the wood of the passion drew near, that grace might flow forth to believers.

14. [v. 17.] And yet they, as a perverse and embittering generation, added still to sin against him: that is, not to believe. For this is the sin of which the Spirit convicts the world, as the Lord says: Of sin, indeed, because they did not believe in me (Jn 16:9). And they embittered the Most High in the drought: which other codices have as in the waterless place, which is more exact from the Greek, and signifies nothing other than drought. Whether in that drought of the desert, or rather in their own? For although they had drunk from the rock, they had not bellies, but minds, that were dry, flourishing with no fruitfulness of righteousness. In which drought they ought rather to have been faithfully suppliant to God, that he who had given fullness to their throats might give equity also to their conduct. For to him the faithful soul cries out: Let my eyes behold equity (Ps 17:2 (16:2)).

15. [vv. 18-20.] And they tempted God in their hearts, by asking for food for their souls. It is one thing to ask by believing, another by tempting. For there follows: And they spoke against God, and said: Can God prepare a table in the desert? Because he struck the rock, and waters flowed, and torrents overflowed, can he also give bread, or prepare a table for his people? (Ps 78:19-20 (77:19-20)) Not believing, then, they asked for food for their souls. Not so does the apostle James direct that the food of the mind be asked for; but he admonishes that it be sought by those who believe, not by those who tempt and speak against God: But if any of you, he says, lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all abundantly, and does not reproach; and it shall be given him: but let him ask in faith, hesitating in nothing (Jas 1:5-6). This faith the generation did not have, which had not directed its heart, and whose spirit was not entrusted to God.

16. [v. 21.] Therefore the Lord heard, and deferred, and a fire was kindled in Jacob, and anger arose in Israel. He expounded what he called fire. For he called the anger fire: although a fire properly also kindled many of them. What, then, is it that he says: The Lord heard, and deferred? Did he defer to bring them into the land of promise, whither they were being led; which could have been done within a few days, but on account of their sins they had to be worn down in the wilderness, where they were indeed worn down for forty years? But if it is so, he deferred, then, the people, not those very men who, tempting, spoke against God; for all of these perished in the wilderness, and their children entered the land of promise. Or did he defer the punishment, that he might first satisfy even their unbelieving concupiscence, lest he should be thought angry for the reason that they asked of him—even though tempting and speaking against—what he could not do? He heard, then, and deferred to take vengeance; and after he had done what they thought he could not do, then anger arose in Israel.

17. [vv. 22, 31.] Finally, having briefly set down both, he thereafter plainly follows out the order of the narrative. Because they did not believe in God, nor hope in his salvation. For when he had said why a fire was kindled in Jacob, and anger arose in Israel—that is, because they did not believe in God, nor hope in his salvation—straightway subjoining with what evident benefits they had been ungrateful: And he commanded the clouds from above, and opened the gates of heaven. And he rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them the bread of heaven. Man ate the bread of angels: he sent them provisions in abundance. He removed the south wind from heaven, and by his power brought in the southwest wind. And he rained flesh upon them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea. And they fell in the midst of their camp, around their tents. And they ate, and were filled to excess; and he brought them their desire: they were not deprived of their desire (Ps 78:23-29 (77:23-30)). Behold why he had deferred. But what he had deferred, let us hear: The food was still in their mouth, and the anger of God arose upon them (Ps 78:30-31 (77:30-31)). Behold what he had deferred. For first, he deferred; and afterward, a fire was kindled in Jacob, and anger arose in Israel. He had deferred, then, that he might first do what they had believed he could not do, then bring on what they had to suffer. For if they had put their hope in God, not only those desires of the flesh, but even those of the spirit would be fulfilled for them. For he who commanded the clouds from above, and opened the gates of heaven, and rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them the bread of heaven, that man might eat the bread of angels, who sent them provisions in abundance, to satisfy the unbelieving, is not powerless to give to those who believe that very true bread from heaven which the manna signified; which is truly the food of the angels, whom the Word of God incorruptibly feeds incorruptible; which, that man might eat it, was made flesh, and dwelt among us (Jn 1:14). For that very bread is rained through the evangelical clouds upon the whole world; and, with the hearts of the preachers opened as heavenly gates, it is preached not to a murmuring and tempting synagogue, but to a believing Church that puts its hope in him. He who removed the south wind from heaven, and by his power brought in the southwest wind, and rained flesh upon them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea; and they fell in the midst of their camp, around their tents: and they ate, and were filled to excess, and he brought them their desire, nor were they deprived of their desire, is able also to feed the little faith of those who do not tempt but believe, by signs of words brought forth in the flesh and passing through the air, as it were by winged birds: yet not coming from the north, where cold and gloom prevail—that is, the eloquence which pleases this world—but by removing the south wind from heaven. Whither, except to the earth? that those who are little ones in faith may, by hearing earthly things, be nourished toward grasping heavenly ones. For if I have told you earthly things, he says, and you do not believe; how, if I tell you heavenly things, will you believe? (Jn 3:12) For that one had been, in a manner, removed from heaven, where in mind he had gone beyond God; that he might be temperate toward those to whom he said: I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal (1 Cor 3:1). For there he had heard ineffable words (2 Cor 12:4), which on earth it was not lawful for him to speak through sounding words, as it were through winged birds; and by bringing in by his power the southwest wind, that is, through the southern winds, the fervent and shining spirits of the preachers; and this by his power, lest the southwest wind attribute to itself what it has from God. But these winds come of their own accord to men, and bring them words sent from God; that in their own seats and around their own tents they may gather such birds, and that each one may adore the Lord from his own place, all the islands of the nations (Zeph 2:11).

18. But for the unbelieving, as for a perverse and embittering generation, while the food was still in their mouth, the anger of God arose upon them, and killed many of them: that is, the greater part of them, or, as some codices have, the fat ones among them. Which indeed in the Greek codices we had, we did not find. But if this is more true, what else are the fat ones among them to be understood as, except those prevailing in pride, of whom it is said: Their iniquity shall come forth as out of fatness (Ps 73:7 (72:7))? And he hindered the chosen of Israel. For there were even there chosen ones, to whose faith the perverse and embittering generation was not tempered. But they were hindered from profiting at all those whom with paternal affection they desired to counsel. For to those with whom God is angry, what does human mercy confer? Or did he rather wish the chosen too to be understood as fettered together with them; so that those who were distinguished in mind and life might, as an example not only of righteousness but also of patience, endure troubles with them? For we have learned that the saints were led captive together with sinners perhaps for no other reason; since in the Greek codices we read not the word that means he hindered; but the word that means rather he fettered.

19. [vv. 32-33.] But the perverse and embittering generation, in all these things sinned still, and did not believe in his wonders. And their days failed away in vanity: when they could, if they believed, have their days in truth without failing, with him to whom it is said: Your years shall not fail (Ps 102:27 (101:28)). Their days, then, failed away in vanity, and their years with haste. For the whole life of mortals is hastened on, and what seems more prolonged is a vapor somewhat more lasting.

20. [vv. 34-35.] Yet when he killed them, they sought him: not for the sake of eternal life, but fearing to end the vapor too soon. They sought him, then—not, surely, those whom he had killed, but those who feared to be killed by their example. But Scripture spoke of them as though those who were being killed sought God, because they were one people, and it is spoken of as of one body. And they turned back, and came early to God. And they remembered that God is their helper, and the Most High God is their redeemer (Ps 78:34-35 (77:34-35)). But all this for the sake of acquiring temporal goods, and avoiding temporal evils. For those who sought God for the sake of earthly benefits were surely not seeking God, but those things. And now too God is worshiped with servile fear, not with free love. So, then, God is not worshiped: for that is worshiped which is loved. Hence, since God is found greater and better than all things, he is to be loved more than all things, that he may be worshiped.

21. [vv. 36-37.] Finally, let us see here what follows: And they loved him, he says, with their mouth, and with their tongue they lied to him. But their heart was not right with him, nor were they held faithful in his testament. He found one thing on their tongue, another in their heart, he to whom the secrets of men are bare, and who saw without any obstacle what they rather loved. The heart, then, is right with God, when for the sake of God it seeks God. For it desired one thing from the Lord, this it will seek, that it may dwell in the house of the Lord forever, and contemplate his delight (Ps 27:4 (26:4)). To whom the heart of the faithful says: I shall be satisfied, not with the fleshpots of the Egyptians, nor with the melons and gourds, and garlic and onions, which the perverse and embittering generation preferred even to the heavenly bread (Num 11:5; Exod 16:3), nor with the visible manna and the winged birds themselves; but I shall be satisfied, when your glory shall be made manifest (Ps 17:15 (16:15)). For this is the inheritance of the New Testament, in which those men were not held faithful, whose faith, however, even then when it was veiled, was in the chosen, and now, when it has been revealed, is not in many who are called: For many are called, but few are chosen (Mt 22:14). Such, then, was the perverse and embittering generation, even when it seemed to seek God; loving with the mouth and lying with the tongue; but in the heart not right with God, where it rather loved those things for the sake of which it sought God's help.

22. [vv. 38-39.] But he is merciful, and will be propitious to their sins, and will not destroy them. And he will abound, that he may turn away his anger, and will not kindle all his anger. And he remembered that they are flesh; a spirit that goes, and does not return. In these words many promise themselves impunity for iniquity from the divine mercy, even if they persist in being such as this perverse and embittering generation is described, which did not direct its heart, and whose spirit was not entrusted to God: with whom it is not expedient to agree. For if, to speak according to them, God perhaps will not destroy even the wicked, without doubt he will not destroy the good. Why, then, do we not rather choose that in which there is no doubt? For those who lie with their tongue, while their heart has something else, surely suppose and wish, when he threatens eternal punishment to such men, that God too is a liar. But although they themselves by lying do not deceive him, he by speaking the truth does not deceive. These words, then, of the divine utterances, with which the perverse generation flatters itself, let it not pervert, as it does its own heart; because even with that perverted, these stand right. For first they can be understood according to what is written in the Gospel: That you may be like 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 (Mt 5:45, 48). For who does not see with how great a patience of mercy he spares the wicked! but before the judgment. So, then, he spared that nation, so as not to kindle all his anger to root it out and finish it utterly; which appears evidently in his words, and in the intercession of his servant Moses for their sins, where God says: Let me destroy them, and I will make of you a great nation (Exod 32:10): that one intercedes, more ready to be destroyed for their sake than that they should be; knowing that with the Merciful One he was doing this, who, since he would in no way destroy Moses himself, would spare even those very men for Moses' sake. For let us see how much he spared, and still spares. For he brought them into the land of promise, and preserved that nation until, by killing Christ, they bound themselves to the greatest crime of all: and that he scattered them, rooted out of that kingdom, through all the kingdoms of the nations, he surely did not destroy; but the same people remains, preserved by the succession of offspring, as Cain, having received a sign, lest anyone kill him—that is, utterly destroy him (Gen 4:15). Behold how that is fulfilled which was said: But he is merciful, and will be propitious to their sins, and will not destroy them; and he will abound, that he may turn away his anger, and will not kindle all his anger. For if all his anger—that is, as much as they deserve—were kindled against them, none of that nation would be left. So God, to whom mercy and judgment are sung (Ps 101:1 (100:1)), both in this world by mercy makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil, and at the end of the world by judgment, having separated them from his eternal light, punishes the wicked with eternal darkness.

23. Then, lest we seem to do violence to the divine words, and where it was said: He will not destroy them, we should say: But afterward he will destroy them: let us, from this very present psalm, note a most usual manner of speaking of Scripture, by which this question may be much more diligently and truly resolved. For surely, speaking of these very men a little after, when he had recalled what the Egyptians had suffered for their sake, recalling the last plague: And he struck, he says, every firstborn in the land of Egypt, the first fruits of their labor in the tents of Ham. And he took away his people like sheep, and led them through like a flock in the desert. And he led them in hope, and they did not fear: and the sea covered their enemies. And he brought them into the mountain of his sanctification; the mountain which his right hand acquired. And he cast out the nations from before them, and by lot distributed to them the land with a measuring line of distribution (Ps 78:51-55 (77:51-55)). If anyone, raising a question against us on these words, should say: How does he recall that all these things were bestowed on them, since they themselves were not brought into the land of promise, who were freed from Egypt, for they died? what shall we answer, except that they are so called, because it was the same people through the succession of children? So, then, when we hear—especially because they are words of future time: And he will be propitious to their sins, and will not destroy them; and he will abound, that he may turn away his anger, and will not kindle all his anger—let us understand this fulfilled in those of whom the Apostle says: So then, even at this time a remnant has been saved according to the election of grace (Rom 11:5). Whence he also says: Has God cast off his people? God forbid. For I too am an Israelite, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews (Rom 11:1; Phil 3:5). These, then, Scripture foresaw, who from that people were to believe in Christ, and to receive the remission of sins, even up to that greatest sin by which, raving, they slew the physician himself. Hence it was altogether said: But he is merciful, and will be propitious to their sins, and will not destroy them; and he will abound, that he may turn away his anger; because he forgave even that, that his only Son was killed by them: and will not kindle all his anger; because a remnant has been saved (Rom 11:5).

24. And he remembered that they are flesh; a spirit that goes, and does not return. Therefore by calling and pitying them through his grace he himself recalled them, because through themselves they could not return. For how does flesh return—a spirit walking and not returning, when the weight of evil deserts forces it into the depths and far reaches of evils—except through the election of grace? Which is not rendered to merits as a wage; but is given freely as a gift, that the wicked man may be justified, and the lost sheep return; yet not by its own strength, but carried back on the shoulders of the shepherd (Lk 15:5), which could lose itself while it wandered of its own will, but could not find itself, nor would it be found at all, unless it were sought by the mercy of the shepherd. For neither does that son fail to belong to this sheep, who, having returned into himself, said: I will arise, and go to my father (Lk 15:18). By a hidden calling and inspiration, then, he too was sought and raised up, by none but him who gives life to all things; and found, by whom, except by him who went forth to save and seek what had perished (Lk 19:10)? For he was dead, and lived again; he had perished, and was found (Lk 15:24). For that other question too, no light one, is thus resolved, which is written in Proverbs, when Scripture was speaking of the way of iniquity: All who walk in it shall not return (Prov 2:19). For it was so said, as though all the wicked were to be despaired of: but Scripture rather commended grace; because by himself man can walk in it, but he cannot by himself return, unless recalled by grace.

25. [vv. 40-51.] These perverse and embittering ones, then: How often they embittered him in the desert, and provoked him to anger in the waterless place! And they turned, and tempted God, and embittered the Holy One of Israel. He repeats the same unbelief of theirs which he had already recalled above; but the cause of repeating is that there may be recalled also the plagues which he inflicted on the Egyptians for their sake: all which they surely ought to have remembered, and not to have become ungrateful. Finally, what follows? They did not remember his hand, in the day in which he redeemed them from the hand of the one troubling them. And he begins to tell what he did to the Egyptians: He set his signs in Egypt, and his portents in the field of Tanis. And he turned their rivers into blood, and their showers, that they might not drink; or rather, the springings of waters, as some better understand what is written in Greek, which in Latin we call welling springs, waters bubbling up from below. For the Egyptians dug, and found blood instead of water. He sent among them the dog-fly, and it devoured them; and the frog, and it destroyed them. And he gave their fruit to the blight, and their labors to the locust. And he killed their vines with hail, and their mulberry trees with frost. And he gave over their cattle to the hail, and their possession to fire. He sent upon them the anger of his indignation; indignation, and anger, and tribulation, a sending in by evil angels. He made a way for the path of his anger, and did not spare from death their souls, and shut up their cattle in death. And he struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, the first fruits of their labors in the tents of Ham (Ps 78:43-51 (77:43-51)).

26. All these punishments of the Egyptians can be expounded by an allegorical interpretation, as each one may wish to understand them, and to compare them with the things to which they are to be referred. Which we too will try to do; doing it the more fitly, the more we have been divinely helped. For to this the words of this psalm constrain us, where it was said: I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter propositions from the beginning (Ps 78:2 (77:2)). For on this account some things are said here which we do not read happened to the Egyptians at all, since all their plagues are most diligently woven together in order in Exodus; so that, since we are certain that what is not said there is not said in vain in the Psalm, and we cannot interpret it except figuratively, we may at the same time understand also the rest, which it is established did happen, to have been done or written for the sake of some figured signification. For Scripture does this in many places of the prophetic utterances. It says something which is not found in that deed which it seems to recall, rather is found to be otherwise; so that hence it may be understood not to say this which can be supposed, but rather that which ought more to be heeded: as is that: He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth (Ps 72:8 (71:8)). Which it is established was not fulfilled in the kingdom of that Solomon, of whom this psalm might be supposed to speak, whereas it was speaking of Christ the Lord. In the plagues of the Egyptians, then, which are in the book called Exodus, where Scripture especially took care that all the things by which they were afflicted should be told in order, there is not found what this psalm has: And he gave their fruit to the blight. That too which, when he had said: And he gave over their cattle to the hail, he added: And their possession to fire (Ps 78:48 (77:48)): of cattle killed by hail we read in Exodus; but that their possession was burned by fire, we do not read at all. Although voices and fires came with the hail, as thunders are wont to come with lightnings; yet it is not written that anything was given over to fire to be burned. Finally, the soft things which the hail could not harm are said not to have been struck, that is, harmed by hard blows; which afterward the locust devoured (Exod 10:5). Likewise what is here said: And their mulberry trees with frost, is not in Exodus: for frost differs much from hail; for on clear winter nights the earth grows white with frost.

27. What these things signify, then, let the expounder say as he can; let the reader and hearer judge as is just. Water turned into blood seems to me to signify thinking carnally about the causes of things. The dog-fly is canine manners, which do not even see their parents when they are born. The frog is most talkative vanity. The blight harms secretly; which some have interpreted as rust, others as a scorching wind: which evil to what vice is it more aptly compared, than to that which appears most difficultly, such as trusting much in oneself? For it is a harmful breath which works this latently in the fruits; as in conduct the hidden pride, when anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing (Gal 6:3). The locust is malice harming with the mouth, namely, by unfaithful testimony. The hail is iniquity taking away the goods of others; whence are born thefts, robberies, and plunderings: but the ravager himself is more laid waste by his own vice. The frost signifies the vice by which love of one's neighbor freezes over in the darkness of folly, as in nocturnal cold. But the fire, if not that one is here recalled which was in the hail from the lightning clouds—since here he said: He gave over their possession to fire, where he surely signifies it burned, which that fire is not read to have done—seems to me to signify the savagery of wrath, by which even murder can be committed. By the death of cattle is figured, as I judge, the loss of chastity. For the concupiscence by which offspring arises we have in common with cattle. To have this tamed and ordered, then, is the virtue of chastity. The death of the firstborn is the loss of that very righteousness by which each one is sociable to the human race. But whether the figured significations of these things are so, or are better understood otherwise; whom does it not move that the Egyptians are struck with ten plagues, and the tablets by which the people of God is ruled are written with ten precepts? Concerning the comparing of these with each other—that is, plagues and precepts—since we have spoken elsewhere, there is no need to burden the exposition of this psalm with them: only we admonish that here too, even if not in the same order, yet ten plagues of the Egyptians are recalled; while in place of three that are in Exodus (Exod 8:16-19; 9:8-11; 10:21-23), and are not here—that is, the gnats, the boils, the darkness—three others are recalled which are not there, that is, the blight, the frost, and the fire, not of the lightnings, but that to which it is said his possession was given over, which is not read there.

28. But it is sufficiently expressed here that by the judgment of God these things were done among them through evil angels, in this malignant world, as in Egypt and in the field of Tanis, where we ought to be humble, until there comes the world where we may deserve to be exalted out of this humility. For Egypt too in the Hebrew tongue signifies Darkness or Tribulations, in which tongue Tanis, as I have recalled, is understood to be "humble commandment." Concerning evil angels, then, in this psalm, when he was speaking of these very plagues, there is interposed something not to be passed over cursorily: He sent upon them, he says, the anger of his indignation; indignation and anger, and tribulation, a sending in, through evil angels. But that the devil and his angels are so evil, that surely eternal fire is prepared for them, no faithful person is ignorant: but that a sending-in is sent through them upon any whom the Lord God judges worthy of this punishment, seems hard to those who are less fit to consider how the supreme justice of God uses even the evil well. As far as concerns their substance, who else but he himself made them? But them as evil he did not make: yet he uses them, since he is good, well—that is, fittingly and justly; as, on the contrary, the wicked use his good creatures ill. God uses evil angels, then, not only to punish the wicked, as in all these things of which the Psalm speaks, as in King Ahab, whom a spirit of deceit, by the will of God, seduced that he might fall in battle (1 Kgs 22:20-23); but also to test and manifest the good, as he did in Job. But as for that corporeal material of visible elements, I think that both good and evil angels can use them, as far as each has power; just as good and evil men too use such things, as far as they can according to the measure of human weakness. For we too use earth, and water, and air, and fire, not only in the necessary matters of our sustenance, but also in many superfluous and playful things, and in marvelously skilled works. For innumerable things called "mechanical" are devised by treating these elements with art. But over these the angels have far greater power, both good and evil, though surely greater the good; but as far as by God's nod and order it is commanded or permitted, as also with us. For in these too we cannot do all that we will. But in a most faithful book we read that the devil was able even to send fire from heaven, to consume so great a number of a holy man's cattle by a marvelous and dreadful onrush (Job 1:16); which no faithful person would perhaps dare to attribute to the devil, unless it were read on the authority of holy Scripture. But that man, righteous by God's gift, and strong, and piously skilled, did not say, The Lord gave, the devil took away; but, The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away (Job 1:21); knowing most excellently that the devil, even what he could do with those elements, would yet not do to the servant of God except with his Lord willing and permitting; he confounded the malice of the devil, since he knew who would use those things to prove himself. But in the children of unbelief, as in his own bondservants, he works (Eph 2:2), as men do in their own cattle; and there too as far as is permitted by the just judgment of God. But it is one thing when his power even to handle his own, as it pleases him, is prohibited by a greater power; another when power is given him even over those who are estranged from him. As a man does what he wills with his own cattle, according to human capacity; and surely does not do it, if he is prohibited by a greater power: but to do anything with another's cattle, he awaits power to be given him by the one whose it is. There, then, the power that had been, is prohibited; here, that which had not been, is granted.

29. Since these things are so, if God inflicted those plagues on the Egyptians through evil angels, shall we dare to say that the water too was turned into blood through those same angels, and the frogs made through those same angels, the like of which even Pharaoh's magicians could do by their sorceries; so that evil angels stood on both sides, here afflicting them, there deceiving them, according to the judgment and dispensation of the most just and most omnipotent God, justly using even the malice of the wicked? I do not dare to say it. For whence were Pharaoh's magicians least able to make gnats (Exod 8:18)? was it because the evil angels themselves were not permitted this? Or—what is more truly to be said—is the cause hidden, and exceeds the strength of our inquiry? For if we suppose that God did those things through evil angels because punishments were inflicted, not benefits bestowed, as though God inflicts punishments on no one through good angels, but through those as the executioners of the heavenly host; it will follow that we believe Sodom too was overthrown by evil angels, and that evil angels are seen to have received Abraham and Lot into their hospitality: which far be it that we should think against the most open Scriptures (Gen 18-19). It is clear, then, that these things can be done to men through good and evil angels: what or when it ought to be done, is hidden from me; but from him who does it, it is not hidden, and from him to whom he wishes to reveal it. Yet, as far as the divine Scripture moderates our purpose, we read that punishments are inflicted on the wicked both through good angels, as on the Sodomites, and through evil angels, as on the Egyptians: but that the righteous are tempted and tested with bodily punishments through good angels, does not occur to me.

30. But as for the present passage of this psalm: if we do not dare to attribute to evil angels those things that were marvelously done concerning the creatures, we have what we can without doubt attribute to them; the deaths of cattle, the deaths of the firstborn, and especially that on which all things were bound up, the hardening of their heart, that they should refuse to let the people of God go. For this most iniquitous and most malignant obstinacy, when God is said to work (Exod 7:3), he works not by instigating and inspiring, but by deserting, so that those evil angels may work in the children of unbelief (Eph 2:2) what God duly and justly permits. For that too which the prophet Isaiah says: O Lord, behold you are angry, and we have sinned; therefore we have erred, and have become like all that are unclean (Isa 64:5-6), is understood by this reason: something went before, on account of which God, most justly angry, withdrew his light from them, so that the blindness of the human mind might stumble into sins which by no shuffling can be defended not to be sins, by deviating and erring from the path of righteousness. And what is written in another psalm of these very Egyptians, that God turned their heart to hate his people, and to deal craftily with his servants (Ps 105:25 (104:25)), is well believed that God did through those evil angels; so that the now vicious minds of the children of unbelief were stirred up, through those angels to whom the same vices are dear, into hatred of the people of God, and those marvels followed to terrify and correct the good. Those evils of conduct too, which we said are signified by these bodily plagues—on account of which it was foretold: I will open my mouth in parables (Ps 78:2 (77:2))—are most fittingly believed to be exercised through evil angels upon those who are subjected to them by divine equity. For neither, when there happens what the Apostle says: God gave them over to the desires of their heart, that they might do what is not fitting (Rom 1:24, 28), do the evil angels not there busy themselves and rejoice, as in the material of their work; to whom most justly is subjected human viciousness, except those whom grace frees. And who is fit for these things (2 Cor 2:16)? Hence, when he had said: He sent upon them the anger of his indignation; indignation, and anger, and tribulation, a sending in through evil angels, what is that which he added: He made a way for the path of his anger? whose mental edge, indeed, suffices to penetrate, so as to understand and grasp the meaning lying hidden in so great a depth? For there was a path of God's anger, by which he punished the impiety of the Egyptians by a hidden equity; but he made a way for that same path, so that, leading them as it were out of hiding through evil angels into manifest crimes, he might most evidently take vengeance on the most evident impious ones. From this power of evil angels nothing frees a man but the grace of God, of which the Apostle says: Who rescued us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love (Col 1:13): of which thing this people bore a figure, when it was rescued from the power of the Egyptians, and translated into the kingdom of the land of promise flowing with milk and honey, which signifies the sweetness of grace.

31. [vv. 52-53.] There follows, then, after the recalling of the plagues of the Egyptians, the Psalm, and it says: And he took away his people like sheep, and led them through like a flock in the desert. And he led them in hope, and they did not fear, and the sea covered their enemies. This is done the better, the more inwardly, when, rescued from the power of darkness, we are translated in mind into the kingdom of God, and according to the spiritual pastures are made the sheep of God, walking in this world as in a desert, since to no one is our faith conspicuous; whence the Apostle says: Your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3). But we are led in hope, since in hope we have been saved: nor ought we to fear; for if God is for us, who is against us (Rom 8:24, 31)? And the sea covered our enemies; it abolished them in baptism by the remission of sins.

32. [v. 54.] Then it follows: And he brought them into the mountain of his sanctification. How much better, into the holy Church? The mountain which his right hand acquired. How much more sublime is the Church which Christ acquired, of whom it was said: And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed (Isa 53:1)? And he cast out the nations from before them: from before his faithful too; for in a manner the nations are the malignant spirits of gentile errors. And by lot he divided to them the land with a measuring line of distribution. In us too one and the same Spirit works all things, dividing to each his own as he wills (1 Cor 12:11).

33. [vv. 55-58.] And he made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. In the tents, he says, of the nations he made the tribes of Israel to dwell. Which I think is better discussed spiritually thus, that to the heavenly glory, from which the sinning angels were cast out and thrown down, we are carried up through the grace of Christ. For that perverse and embittering generation, since it did not put off the tunic of oldness for these bodily benefits, tempted still and embittered the Most High God, and did not keep his testimonies: and they turned away, and did not keep the covenant, as their fathers did: for by a certain pact and pleasure they had said: All that the Lord our God has spoken, we will do and we will hear (Exod 24:7). It is surely to be noted that he says, as their fathers: for though throughout the whole text of the Psalm he seemed to speak as of the same men, yet it appears that now it is said of those who were already in the land of promise, and that those are called their fathers who embittered him in the wilderness.

34. They were turned, he says, into a perverse bow: or, as other codices have, into a crooked bow. But what this is appears more in what follows, where he says: And they provoked him to anger on their hills. He signifies that they leaped forth into idolatry. The bow, then, is crooked, not for the name of the Lord, but against the name of the Lord, who said to that same people: You shall not have other gods besides me (Exod 20:3). But by the bow he signifies the intention of the mind. Finally, expressing this very thing more plainly: And by their graven images, he says, they provoked him to jealousy.

35. [vv. 59-60.] God heard, and despised: that is, he took note, and took vengeance. And he reduced Israel exceedingly to nothing. For with God despising them, what did those remain who, with God helping, were what they were? But surely he recalls that deed which was done, when they were conquered by the foreigners in the time of Eli the priest, and the Ark of the Lord was captured, and they were laid waste with great slaughter (1 Sam 4:10-11). This is what he says: And he cast off the tabernacle of Shiloh, his tabernacle where he dwelt among men. He elegantly expounded why he cast off his tabernacle, when he said, where he dwelt among men. Since, then, they were not worthy among whom he should dwell, why should he not cast off the tabernacle, which surely he had instituted not for his own sake, but for their sake, whom he now judged unworthy for him to dwell among?

36. [v. 61.] And he gave over their strength into captivity, and their beauty into the hands of the enemy. The Ark itself, from which they seemed to themselves unconquerable, and over which they applauded themselves, he calls their strength and their beauty. Finally, afterward too, when they were living ill and glorying in the temple of the Lord, he terrifies them through the prophet, saying: See what I did to Shiloh, where my tabernacle was (Jer 7:12).

37. [vv. 62-63.] And he shut up his people with the sword, and despised his inheritance. Fire devoured their young men: that is, anger. And their virgins were not lamented: because there was no leisure for this either, in the fear of the enemy.

38. [v. 64.] Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows were not wept for. For the sons of Eli fell by the sword, the wife of one of whom, being widowed, and soon dying in childbirth, could not, on account of that same disturbance, be mourned with the honor of a funeral (1 Sam 4:11, 19-20).

39. [v. 65.] And the Lord was awakened as one sleeping. For he seems to sleep, when he gives his people into the hands of those who hate them, where it is said to them: Where is your God (Ps 42:3 (41:4))? He was awakened, then, as one sleeping, as a mighty man overcome by wine. No one would dare to say this of God, except his Spirit. For he said, as it seems to the impious who insult, that he sleeps long as if drunk, when he does not come to aid as quickly as men suppose.

40. [v. 66.] And he struck his enemies in the hinder parts: those, surely, who rejoiced that they were able to take his Ark captive; for they were struck in their seats (1 Sam 5:6, 9). Which seems to me a sign of that punishment by which everyone will be tormented, if he has looked back to the hinder parts; which, like the Apostle, he ought to esteem as dung (Phil 3:13-14, 8). For those who so receive the testament of God that they do not strip off their old vanity, are like the hostile peoples who set the Ark of the testament, when captured, beside their own idols. And those old things indeed fall even with them unwilling, because all flesh is grass, and the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen: but the Ark of the Lord remains forever (Isa 40:6-8); namely, the secret of the testament, the kingdom of heaven, where is the eternal Word of God. But those who loved the hinder parts will most justly be tormented by them: for he gave them everlasting reproach.

41. [vv. 67-68.] And he cast off, he says, the tabernacle of Joseph, and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim. And he chose the tribe of Judah. He did not say: He cast off the tabernacle of Reuben, who was Jacob's firstborn; nor those who follow, and precede Judah in birth, so that, those being cast off and not chosen, the tribe of Judah might be chosen. For it could rightly be said that those were cast off, because even in the blessing of Jacob, by which he blessed his sons, their sins are recalled and gravely detested (Gen 49:3-7); although among them the tribe of Levi deserved to be the priestly tribe, whence Moses too came (Exod 2:1). Nor did he say: He cast off the tabernacle of Benjamin; or: He did not choose the tribe of Benjamin, from which a king had already begun to be; for from there Saul had been chosen (1 Sam 9:1-2): whence, from the very nearness of time, when that one was cast off and reprobated, and David chosen (1 Sam 16:13), this could fittingly be said; yet it was not said: but he named especially those who by more illustrious merits seemed to excel. For Joseph fed his father and his brothers in Egypt, and, impiously sold, was most justly exalted by the merit of piety, chastity, and wisdom (Gen 41:40; 45:9-11); and Ephraim was preferred to his elder brother by the blessing of his grandfather Jacob (Gen 48:14-20): and yet God cast off the tabernacle of Joseph, and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim. Where, by these names of illustrious merit, what else do we understand than that whole people, seeking from the Lord earthly rewards with an ancient cupidity, was cast off and reprobated; but that the tribe of Judah was chosen, not for the merits of Judah himself? For far greater are the merits of Joseph; but through the tribe of Judah, since from it Christ arose according to the flesh, Scripture testifies that the new people of Christ was preferred to that old people, the Lord opening his mouth in parables. From there too what follows: Mount Zion which he loved, we better understand as the Church of Christ, worshiping God not for the carnal benefits of the present time, but beholding with the eyes of faith the future and eternal rewards afar off: for Zion too is interpreted "watchtower."

42. [v. 69.] Finally it follows: And he built his sanctification like that of unicorns: or, as some interpreters made a new word, his sanctuary. By unicorns are rightly understood those whose firm hope is raised up unto that one thing, of which another psalm says: One thing I have asked of the Lord; this I will seek (Ps 27:4 (26:4)). But the sanctuary of God is, according to the apostle Peter, understood to be a holy people, and a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9). But as for what follows: In the land which he founded forever: which the Greek codices have, whether it be said by us forever, or for the age, is in the power of the Latin interpreters, since it signifies both; and therefore this is found in the Latin codices, that in others. Some even have it in the plural, that is, for the ages; which in the Greek codices we had, we did not find. But which of the faithful would doubt that the Church, even though by some departing and others coming, it passes mortally from this life, is yet founded forever?

43. [vv. 70-71.] And he chose David his servant. The tribe of Judah, then, for David's sake; but David for Christ's sake: the tribe of Judah, therefore, for Christ's sake, at whose passing the blind men cried out: Have mercy on us, Son of David; and straightway by his mercy they received their sight (Mt 20:30-34), because what they cried out was true. This therefore the Apostle says not in passing, but commends attentively, writing to Timothy: Be mindful that Christ Jesus rose from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my Gospel, in which I labor even unto chains, as an evildoer; but the word of God is not bound (2 Tim 2:8-9). The Savior himself, then, made according to the flesh of the seed of David, is figured in this place by the name of David, the Lord opening his mouth in parables. Nor let it move us that when he had said: And he chose David, by which name he signified Christ, he added, his servant; not, his son: rather, from this let us recognize, not the substance of the Only-begotten coeternal with the Father, but the form of a servant assumed from the seed of David.

44. And he took him from the flocks of sheep; from following the ewes that bore young he took him, to feed Jacob his servant, and Israel his inheritance. That David indeed, from whose seed is the flesh of Christ, was translated from the pastoral office over cattle to the kingdom over men: but our David, Jesus himself, from men to men, from the Jews to the Gentiles; yet, according to the parable, he was taken and translated from sheep to sheep. For there are not now in that land the Churches of Judea which were in Christ, which existed of the circumcised in the recent passion and resurrection of our Lord; of whom the Apostle says: But I was unknown by face to the Churches of Judea which are in Christ: only they heard that he who once persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once laid waste; and in me they glorified the Lord (Gal 1:22-24). Now those Churches of the circumcised peoples have passed away from there; and through this, in the Judea which is now on earth, Christ is not now: he has been taken away from there; now he feeds the flocks of the Gentiles. Yet from following the ewes that bore young he was taken from there. For those former ones were such as those of whom it is said in the Song of Songs to the one Church which consists of many—that is, to the one flock whose members are many flocks; of such, then, it is said: Your teeth, that is, those through whom you speak, or through whom you bring others into your body, as it were by eating; signifying this, then, your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes coming up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and there is none barren among them (Song 4:2). For they then laid down, as it were fleeces, the burdens of the world, when they laid the prices of their sold goods at the feet of the apostles (Acts 4:34-35), coming up from that washing, of which the apostle Peter admonishes them, anxious that they had shed Christ's blood, and says: Do penance, and let each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins will be forgiven you (Acts 2:38). And they bore twins, namely, the works of the two precepts of the twofold love, the love of God, and the love of neighbor: whence there was none barren among them. From following these ewes that bore young our David was taken, and now feeds other flocks among the Gentiles, and those too Jacob and Israel: for so it was said: To feed Jacob his servant, and Israel his inheritance. For not because these sheep are from the Gentiles are they therefore estranged from that seed which is Jacob and Israel. For it is the seed of Abraham, the seed of the promise, of which the Lord said to him: In Isaac shall your seed be called (Gen 21:12). Which the Apostle, expounding: Not, he says, the children of the flesh, but the children of the promise are reckoned as seed (Rom 9:8). For from the Gentiles were the faithful to whom he said: But if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise (Gal 3:29). But as for what he says: Jacob his servant, and Israel his inheritance, Scripture in its usual manner repeated the same statement. Unless perhaps someone should wish so to distinguish, that at this time Jacob may serve; but then there may be the eternal inheritance of God, when he will see God face to face, whence Israel received its name (Gen 32:28-30).

45. [v. 72.] And he fed them, he says, in the innocence of his heart. What is more innocent than he, who had no sin at all, not only by which he might be conquered, but even which he might conquer? And in the understanding of his hands he led them: or, as some codices have, in the understandings of his hands. Another might suppose it could have been more fittingly said: In the innocence of the hands and the understanding of the heart: but he who knew better than others what he was saying, preferred to join innocence to the heart, and understanding to the hands. The former, as I judge, because many seem to themselves innocent who do not do evils, when they fear lest they suffer if they do them; but would wish to do them, if they could with impunity. Such men can seem to have innocence of the hands, yet not of the heart. And what at last, or of what kind, is that innocence, if it is not of the heart, where man was made to the image of God? But as for what he says: In the understanding, or understandings, of his hands he led them, he seems to me to have called it the understanding which he himself works in believers; therefore of his hands: for to work pertains to the hands: but as the hands of God can be understood, since Christ is so man, that he is also God. This surely that David, of whose seed he is, could not do in the people over whom as a man he reigned; but he does this, to whom the faithful soul can rightly say: Make me to understand, and I will search out your law (Ps 119:34 (118:34)). Accordingly, lest we err from him, while we trust in our own understanding as though it were from ourselves, let us by believing submit ourselves to his hands. Let him work it in us, that in the understanding of his hands he may lead us, rescued from error, and bring us where we can no longer err. This is the fruit of the people of God, attending to the law of God, and inclining their ear to the words of his mouth, that they may direct their heart in him, and have their spirit entrusted to him, lest they be changed into a perverse and embittering generation; but, all these things having been announced to them, not only for the present life, but also for the eternal, and not only for receiving the rewards of good works, but also in the very doing of good works, let them put their hope in God.

Exposition of Psalm 78

1. [v. 1.] On the title of this psalm, so brief and simple, I do not think we must linger. But the prophecy which we read prefaced here, we evidently know to have been fulfilled. For when these things were being sung in the times of King David, nothing of the kind had yet befallen the city of Jerusalem from the hostility of the nations, nor the temple of God, which had not yet even been built. For after the death of David, who does not know that his son Solomon made a temple for God? It is said, then, as though past, what in the spirit was seen to be future: O God, the nations have come into your inheritance. By which custom of speaking that too was prophesied of the Lord's passion: They gave gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink (Ps 69:21 (68:22)); and other things which in that same psalm are narrated as to come, as though done. Nor is it to be wondered at that these things are said to God. For they are not indicated to one who is ignorant, by whose revealing they are foreknown; but the soul speaks with God in the affection of piety which God knows. For the angels too, what they announce to men, they announce to those who do not know; but what they announce to God, they announce to one who knows, when they offer him our prayers, and in an ineffable manner consult the eternal truth concerning their own acts, as an unchangeable law. And so this man of God too says to God what he learns from God, as a disciple to a master who is not ignorant, but judging; and so either approving what he taught, or reproving what he did not teach: especially because under the appearance of one praying the Prophet transfigures into himself those who would then exist when these things were to come. But it is customary in prayer to say to God what he has done in taking vengeance, and to add the petition that he may now have mercy and spare. In this manner here too they are said by the one who foretells them, as though they were said by those to whom they happened; and that very lamentation and entreaty is a prophesying.

2. O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple, they have set Jerusalem as a place to keep fruit. They have set the dead bodies of your servants as food for the birds of heaven, the flesh of your saints for the beasts of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water around Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them. If any of us should think that in this prophecy is to be understood that devastation of Jerusalem which was done by Titus the Roman emperor, when now the Lord Jesus Christ, after his resurrection and ascension, was being preached among the nations; it does not occur to me how that people could already be called the inheritance of God, not holding Christ, by whose rejection and killing it was made reprobate, which would not believe in him even after his resurrection, and moreover killed his martyrs. For of that people of Israel, whoever believed in Christ, to whom the presentation of Christ was made, and in a manner the rendering of the promise, wholesome and fruitful, of whom the Lord himself says: I am not sent except to the sheep that are lost, of the house of Israel (Mt 15:24), they from among those are the children of the promise, they are reckoned as seed (Rom 9:8), they belong to the inheritance of God. Of these are Joseph, a righteous man, and the Virgin Mary who bore Christ (Mt 1:16, 19): of these is John the Baptist, the friend of the bridegroom, and his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth (Lk 1:5, 13): of these is the old man Simeon and the widow Anna, who heard Christ not speaking by the sense of the body (Lk 2:25-38); but still an infant not speaking, they recognized in the spirit: of these are the blessed apostles: of these is Nathanael in whom there was no guile (Jn 1:47): of these is that other Joseph who also himself awaited the kingdom of God (Mk 15:43): of these is that great multitude which preceded and followed his beast, saying: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Mt 21:9); in which there was also the gathering of children of whom he said it was fulfilled: Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise (Mt 21:16; Ps 8:2 (8:3)). Of these too are those after his resurrection, of whom on one day three, and on another five thousand were baptized (Acts 2:41; 4:4), fused into one soul and one heart by the fire of love; of whom no one said anything was his own, but all things were common to them (Acts 4:32): of these are the holy deacons, of whom Stephen was crowned with martyrdom before the apostles (Acts 7:59-60): of these are so many Churches of Judea which were in Christ (Gal 1:22), to whom Paul was unknown by face, but known by his most famous savagery, but more known by the most merciful grace of Christ: of these is he himself, according to the prophecy prefaced concerning him: A ravening wolf, in the morning seizing prey, and in the evening dividing the spoils (Gen 49:27), that is, first seizing as a persecutor unto death, afterward feeding as a preacher unto life. These were, from that people, the inheritance of God. Whence the least of the apostles himself (1 Cor 15:9), the teacher of the Gentiles, says: I say then: Has God cast off his people? God forbid. For I too am an Israelite, of the seed of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast off his people whom he foreknew (Rom 11:1-2). This people which from that nation came to the body of Christ, is the inheritance of God. For what the Apostle says: God has not cast off his people whom he foreknew, surely answers to that psalm where it is written: For the Lord will not cast off his people: but there it follows: And he will not forsake his inheritance (Ps 94:14 (93:14)); where it evidently appears that such a people is the inheritance of God. For that the Apostle might say this, he had recalled above the prophetic testimony concerning the foretold future unbelief of the people of Israel: All day long I stretched out my hands to a people that does not believe and contradicts (Rom 10:21). Here, then, lest anyone, misunderstanding, should think that that whole people was condemned by the charge of unbelief and contradiction, he straightway subjoined: I say then: Has God cast off his people? God forbid. For I too am an Israelite, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. Here he shows what people he meant, namely of the former people, which, if God had reprobated and condemned it wholly, he himself surely would not be Christ's apostle, an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. But he adduces a very necessary testimony, saying: Or do you not know what the Scripture says in Elijah, how he intercedes with God against Israel? Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what does the divine response say to him? I have left myself seven thousand men who have not bowed their knees before Baal. So then, even at this time a remnant has been saved according to the election of grace (Rom 11:2-5). These are the remnant from that nation of God's inheritance; not those of whom a little after he says: But the rest were blinded. For he says: What then? What Israel sought, this it did not obtain: but the election obtained it; but the rest were blinded (Rom 11:7). This election, then, this remnant, this people of God which God did not cast off, is called his inheritance. But in that Israel which did not obtain this, in those rest who were blinded, there was no longer the inheritance of God of which it could be said, after Christ's glorification in heaven, in the time of the emperor Titus: O God, the nations have come into your inheritance, and the rest which seem to be foretold in this psalm concerning the devastation of that people and temple and city.

3. Accordingly, we must either understand those things that were done by other enemies, before Christ had come in the flesh (for there was then another inheritance of God, where there were also holy Prophets, when the migration into Babylon was made, and that nation was gravely devastated, and under Antiochus the Maccabees too, having endured horrible things, were most gloriously crowned (2 Macc 7). For those things are said in this psalm which are wont to happen even in the slaughter of wars); or certainly, if the inheritance of God here recalled is to be taken after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord; those things are to be understood which his Church suffered from the worshipers of idols and enemies of the name of Christ, in so great a number of martyrs. For although Asaph is interpreted "synagogue," which is "gathering," and that name has more usually settled upon the nation of the Jews; yet that this Church too can be called a gathering, and that that ancient people was called a Church, we have already shown sufficiently and openly in another psalm. This Church, then, this inheritance of God, was gathered out of the circumcision and the uncircumcision—that is, out of the people of Israel and out of the rest of the Gentiles, through the stone which the builders rejected, and which became the head of the corner (Ps 118:22 (117:22); Mt 21:42); in which corner, as it were, two walls coming from different sides were joined. For he is our peace, who made both one, that he might create the two in himself into one new man, making peace, and reconcile both in one body to God (Eph 2:14-16); in which body we are the children of God, crying, Abba, Father (Rom 8:15): Abba on account of their tongue, Father on account of ours; for this is Abba, which is Father. Whence the Lord, who said: I am not sent except to the sheep that are lost, of the house of Israel (Mt 15:24), showing that to that nation the promise of his presence was rendered; yet says in another place: I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them too, that there may be one flock and one shepherd (Jn 10:16): signifying the Gentiles, whom he was to bring, not indeed by his bodily presence, that that might be true: I am not sent except to the sheep that are lost, of the house of Israel; but yet through his Gospel, which the beautiful feet of those announcing peace, announcing good things were to disseminate (Isa 52:7; Rom 10:15): For into all the earth their sound went out, and to the ends of the world their words (Ps 19:4 (18:5); Rom 10:18). Hence the Apostle too says: I say, then, that Christ Jesus was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises of the fathers: behold what is, I am not sent except to the sheep that are lost, of the house of Israel. Then the Apostle subjoins: But that the Gentiles should glorify God for his mercy: behold what is: I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them too, that there may be one flock and one shepherd. Which both are briefly said in that which the same apostle recalls from the prophet: Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people (Rom 15:8-10; Deut 32:43). This one flock, then, under one shepherd, is the inheritance of God, not only of the Father, but also of the Son. For it is the Son's voice: The lines have fallen for me in goodly places, for my inheritance is goodly to me (Ps 16:6 (15:6)): and the voice of the inheritance itself is in the prophet: O Lord our God, possess us (Isa 26:13). This inheritance the dying Father did not leave to the Son; but the Son himself marvelously acquired it by his own death, and possessed it by his resurrection.

4. If, then, of this is to be understood what is sung in the prophecy of this psalm: O God, the nations have come into your inheritance, so that we take it that the nations came into the Church, not by believing, but by persecuting—that is, that they invaded it with the will of destroying and utterly ruining it, as so many examples of persecutions have shown; it is necessary that what follows: They have defiled your holy temple, be understood not in wood and stones, but in those very men, of whom, as of living stones, the apostle Peter says the house of God is constructed (1 Pet 2:5). Whence the apostle Paul too most openly says: The temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor 3:17). This temple, then, the persecutors defiled in those whom, by terrifying or torturing, they forced to deny Christ, and by vehement pressure made to supplicate idols: of whom penitence restored many, and cleansed them from that defilement. For it is the voice of a penitent: And from my offense cleanse me; and, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me (Ps 51:2, 10 (50:4, 12)). But as for what follows: They have set Jerusalem as a place to keep fruit: the Church itself too is rightly understood by this name: Jerusalem the free, our mother, of which it is written: Rejoice, O barren one who do not bear, break forth and cry out, you who do not travail; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband (Gal 4:26-27; Isa 54:1). As a place to keep fruit, which was said, I think is to be understood as the desolation which the destruction of persecution wrought: that is, as it were a place to keep fruit; for the places to keep fruit are deserted when the fruit has passed. And surely, when, with the Gentiles persecuting, the Church seemed deserted, the spirits of the martyrs passed to the heavenly table, as it were from the Lord's garden many and most sweet fruits.

5. [v. 2.] They have set, he says, the dead bodies of your servants as food for the birds of heaven, the flesh of your saints for the beasts of the earth. What was said, dead bodies, this was repeated, flesh; and what was said, of your servants, this was repeated, of your saints: only this was varied, for the birds of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. Better surely have they interpreted who put dead bodies, than, as some, mortal things. For dead bodies are said only of the dead; but "mortal" is the name even of living bodies. When, then, as I said, the spirits of the martyrs had passed, as it were fruits, to their husbandman, they set their dead bodies and their flesh for the birds of heaven, and the beasts of the earth: as though anything of them would perish for the resurrection, when he is to restore all from the hidden recesses of nature, to whom even the hairs of our head are numbered (Mt 10:30).

6. [v. 3.] They have poured out their blood like water, that is, abundantly and cheaply: around Jerusalem. If we here take Jerusalem as the earthly city, we understand their blood poured out around it, of those whom the enemies could find outside the walls. But if we understand that Jerusalem of which it was said: Many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband, its circuit is throughout the whole earth: for in that prophetic reading where it is written: Many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband, a little after it is said to her: And he who rescued you, the God of Israel, shall be called the God of the whole earth (Isa 54:1, 5). The circuit, then, of this Jerusalem in this psalm is to be understood as far as that same Church had then been spread, fructifying and growing in the whole world, when in every part of it persecution raged, and made a slaughter of martyrs, whose blood was poured out like water, with great gains of heavenly treasures. But as for what was added: And there was none to bury them: either it ought not to seem incredible that in some places there was so great a terror, that there were no buriers at all of the holy bodies; or certainly because in many places the unburied corpses could lie long, until they were, in a manner, stolen by the religious and buried.

7. [v. 4.] We have become, he says, a reproach to our neighbors. Therefore precious—not in the sight of men, from whom this was a reproach, but in the sight of the Lord—is the death of his saints (Ps 116:15 (115:6)). A mockery and a derision: or, as some have interpreted, an illusion, to those who are around us. It is a repetition of the earlier statement: for what was said above, a reproach, this is repeated, a mockery and a derision; and what was said above, to our neighbors, this is repeated, to those who are around us. Accordingly, according to the earthly Jerusalem, the neighbors, and those around that nation, are surely understood as other nations: but according to Jerusalem the free, our mother, neighbors and those around it are those among whom the Church dwells with her enemies in the circuit of the world.

8. [v. 5.] Then now, pouring out a plain prayer, whence it may be understood that the recalling of the earlier affliction is not as it were an indication, but a lamentation: How long, he says, O Lord, will you be angry unto the end, will your zeal blaze like fire? He surely asks that God not be angry unto the end—that is, that so great a pressure, and tribulation, and devastation not persevere unto the end; but that he temper his rebuke, according to what is said in another psalm: You will feed us with the bread of tears, and give us tears to drink in measure (Ps 80:5 (79:6)). For, how long, O Lord, will you be angry unto the end? was so said, as if it were said: Do not, O Lord, be angry unto the end. And in what follows: Will your zeal blaze like fire, both are to be supplied, both how long, and unto the end; as if it were said: How long will your zeal blaze like fire unto the end? For here these two are to be supplied, as above the one word that was said, they have set: for though the former statement has: They have set the dead bodies of your servants as food for the birds of heaven, the latter does not have this word, where it was said: The flesh of your saints for the beasts of the earth; but there is surely supplied what the former has, they have set. Now the anger and zeal of God are not perturbations of God, as some, arguing the Scriptures they do not understand, suppose: but by the name of anger is understood the vengeance of iniquity; by the name of zeal the exaction of chastity, lest the soul despise the law of its Lord, and by fornicating from its God utterly perish. These things, then, in their very effect, are turbulent in the affliction of men; but in the disposition of God they are tranquil, to whom it was said: But you, O Lord of hosts, judge with tranquility (Wis 12:18). But it is sufficiently shown by these words that on account of sins, even of the faithful, these tribulations come about; although hence the glory of the martyrs flowers by the merit of patience, and of the discipline's measure piously borne under the Lord's scourge. This the Maccabees amid savage torments (2 Macc 7), this the three men amid harmless flames (Dan 3), this the holy Prophets in captivity, attest. For although they bear the paternal rebuke most bravely and most piously; yet they do not keep silent that these things happen by the merits of sins: for it is their voice too in the Psalms: Chastening the Lord has chastened me, and has not given me over to death (Ps 118:18 (117:18)). For he scourges every son whom he receives: and what son is there to whom his father does not give discipline (Heb 12:6-7)?

9. [v. 6.] But as for what he adds: Pour out your anger upon the nations that have not known you, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon your name, this too is a prophesying, not a wish. These things are not said with a wish of ill will, but are foretold, foreseen in the spirit; as concerning Judas the betrayer, the evils that were to befall him by his own merits were so prophesied, as though they were wished for. For just as the Prophet does not command Christ, although in the imperative mood he pronounces what he says: Gird your sword upon your thigh, O most mighty; in your comeliness, and your beauty, both bend the bow, and go forward prosperously, and reign (Ps 45:3-4 (44:4-5)): so he does not wish, but prophesies, who says: Pour out your anger upon the nations that have not known you. Which he repeats in his usual manner, saying: And upon the kingdoms that have not called upon your name: for the nations are repeated by the kingdoms; and that they did not know him, by this is repeated, that they did not call upon his name. How, then, is to be understood what the Lord says in the Gospel: The servant who does not know the will of his lord, and does things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few; but the servant who knows the will of his lord, and does things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with many (Lk 12:47-48), if a greater anger of God is upon the nations that did not know the Lord? For in that he says: Pour out your anger, he sufficiently indicated by this word how great an anger he wished to be understood: whence afterward he says: Render to our neighbors sevenfold (Ps 79:12 (78:12)). Or is it because there is much difference between servants who, though they do not know the will of their Lord, yet call upon his name, and those estranged from the household of so great a head of the household, who so are ignorant of God, that they do not even call upon God? For they call upon, in his place, either idols, or demons, or any creature; not the Creator, who is blessed forever. For he does not signify these, of whom he prophesies this, as so ignorant of their Lord's will, that yet they fear the Lord himself; but as so ignorant of the Lord himself, that they do not even call upon him, and exist as enemies of his name. Much, then, is the difference between servants ignorant of their lord's will, and yet living in his household and in his house, and enemies not only refusing to know the lord himself, but also not calling upon his name, and moreover attacking him in his servants.

10. [v. 7.] Finally it follows: For they have devoured Jacob, and made his place desolate. For Jacob bore a figure of the Church, as Esau of the old synagogue; whence it was said: And the elder shall serve the younger (Gen 25:23). By this name can be understood the inheritance of God of which we were speaking, into which, to be invaded and devastated, the Gentiles came by persecuting, after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord. But how we are to view the place of Jacob must be understood. For the place of Jacob can rather be supposed to be that city in which there was also the temple to which the Lord had commanded that whole nation to assemble, for the sake of sacrificing and adoring and celebrating the Passover. For if the Prophet wished the assemblies of Christians, prohibited and suppressed by the persecutors, to be understood, he would seem to have had to say "places" made desolate, not "place." But we can take the singular number set in place of the plural, as "garment" for "garments," "soldier" for "soldiers," "beast" for "beasts": for it is the custom that many things of this kind be said, not only by those speaking in the common way, but even by the most eloquent authors of eloquence. Nor is this kind of speech foreign to the divine Scripture itself: for it too set "frog" for "frogs," "locust" for "locusts," and innumerable such things (Exod 8:6; 10:13). But as for what was said: They have devoured Jacob, this is well understood, that they forced many, by terrifying them, to pass over into their malignant body—that is, into their fellowship.

11. [v. 8.] He surely remembers that, although by the anger of God things worthy of the merit of their worst will were to be rendered to them, yet they could not avail anything against his inheritance, unless he himself had willed to amend it by scourging it for its sins. Whence he subjoins: Do not remember our ancient iniquities. He does not say "past," which could be even more recent; but ancient, that is, coming from our parents: for to such iniquities damnation, not rebuke, is due. Let your mercies speedily anticipate us. Let them anticipate, surely, your judgment: For mercy is exalted above judgment; but judgment without mercy is to him who has not done mercy (Jas 2:13). But as for what he adds: For we have become exceedingly poor, he wishes us to understand the mercies of God to anticipate us to this end, that our poverty—that is, our weakness—may, with him having mercy, be helped to do his precepts, lest we come to his judgment to be condemned.

12. [v. 9.] Therefore it follows: Help us, O God our savior. By this word which he says, our savior, he sufficiently expounds what poverty he wished to be understood in what he had said: For we have become exceedingly poor: that is surely the weakness for which a Savior is necessary. But when he wishes us to be helped, he is neither ungrateful to grace, nor does he take away free choice: for he who is helped also does something through himself. He also added: For the glory of your name, O Lord, free us, that he who glories may glory not in himself, but in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31). And be propitious, he says, to our sins for your name's sake: not for our sake; for what else do our sins merit, but due and worthy punishments? but be propitious to our sins for your name's sake. So, then, you free us—that is, rescue us from evils—when you both help us to do righteousness, and are propitious to our sins, without which we are not in this life: For in your sight no living person shall be justified (Ps 143:2 (142:2)). But sin is iniquity (1 Jn 3:4); and if you mark iniquities, who shall stand (Ps 130:3 (129:3))?

13. [v. 10.] But as for what he adds: Lest at any time they say among the nations: Where is their God? it is rather to be taken for the sake of the nations themselves. For they perish ill who despair of the true God, supposing him either not to exist, or not to help his own, nor to be propitious to them. But that which follows: And let the vengeance for the blood of your servants which was poured out become known among the nations before our eyes, is understood either thus, when those who persecuted his inheritance believe in the true God; because that too is a vengeance, by which their savage iniquity is slain by the sword of the word of God, of which it was said: Gird your sword (Ps 45:3 (44:4)); or when the enemies persevering are punished at the end. For the bodily evils which they suffer in this world they can have in common with the good. There is also another kind of vengeance, by which the sinner, and the unbeliever, and the enemy sees and is angry at the spreading and fruitfulness of the Church in this world, after so great persecutions by which they thought it would utterly perish, and gnashes his teeth and wastes away (Ps 112:10 (111:10)): for who would dare to deny that this too is a most grievous punishment? But I do not know whether what he says, before our eyes, is elegantly enough taken, if we understand that kind of punishment which goes on in the inmost parts of the heart, and torments even those who fawningly smile upon us, nor can it be seen by us what they suffer in the inner man. But that which, whether by their believing their iniquity is slain, or to those persevering in malignity the last punishment is rendered, is understood without a scruple of question to be said: Let vengeance become known before our eyes among the nations.

14. And these things indeed, as we said, are a prophesying, not a wish: but on account of that which is written in the Apocalypse, that the martyrs under the altar of God cry to God and say: How long, O Lord, do you not avenge our blood (Rev 6:10)? it is not to be passed over how it ought to be taken; lest the saints be believed to desire vengeance for the sake of glutting hatred, which is far from their perfection. And yet it is written: The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance of the wicked; he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner (Ps 58:10 (57:11)): and the Apostle says: Not avenging yourselves, dearly beloved, but give place to anger; for it is written: Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, says the Lord (Rom 12:19). So he himself does not command that they should not wish to be avenged, but that, not avenging themselves, they should give place to the anger of God who said: Vengeance is mine, and I will repay. And the Lord in the Gospel sets forth a widow in a likeness, who, desiring to be avenged, kept entreating an unjust judge, who at last heard her, led not by justice, but overcome by weariness (Lk 18:2-5): but the Lord set this forth, to show that much more the just God will quickly make judgment for his elect, who cry to him day and night (Lk 18:7-8). Thence too is that cry of the martyrs under the altar of God, that they may be avenged by God's judgment. Where, then, is that: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you (Mt 5:44)? where too is that: Not rendering evil for evil, nor curse for curse; and: To no one rendering evil for evil (1 Pet 3:9; Rom 12:17)? For if evil is not to be rendered to anyone for evil; not only an evil deed for an evil deed, but not even an evil wish is to be rendered for an evil deed or wish. But he renders an evil wish who, even if he himself does not avenge, yet awaits and wishes that God may punish his enemy. Wherefore, since both the righteous man and the evil man wish to be avenged by the Lord on their enemies, whence shall they be distinguished, except that the righteous man both desires more that his enemy be corrected than punished; and when he sees him avenged by the Lord, is not delighted at his punishment, because he does not hate him, but at the divine justice, because he loves God? Finally, if in this world vengeance is taken on him, he rejoices even for that man's sake, if he is corrected; or certainly for the sake of others, that they may fear to imitate him. He himself too is made better, not by feeding his hatreds on that man's punishment, but by amending his own errings. And through this it is of benevolence, not of malice, that the righteous man rejoices when he sees vengeance, and washes his hands—that is, makes his works purer—in the blood, that is, in the destruction of the sinner; taking from it not joy at another's evil, but an example of the divine admonition. But if in the future world, at the last judgment of God, vengeance is taken, this pleases him which pleases God; lest it be well with the wicked, lest the impious too enjoy the rewards of the pious: which is surely unjust, and foreign to the rule of truth, which the righteous man loves. For when the Lord was exhorting us to love our enemies, he set forth the example of our Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil, and rains upon the just and the unjust (Mt 5:45); yet does he therefore not amend them by temporal rebukes, or not condemn the stubbornly hard at the end? So, then, let the enemy be loved, in such a way that the justice of the Lord by which he is punished does not displease; and let the justice by which he is punished so please, that there be rejoicing not at the man's evil, but at the good Judge. But a malevolent mind is saddened if its enemy, corrected, escapes the punishment: and when it sees him punished, it so rejoices to be avenged, that it is delighted not by the justice of God whom it does not love, but by the misery of him whom it hates: and when it leaves the judgment to God, it wishes that God may harm more than it itself could harm: and when it gives food to a hungry enemy, and drink to a thirsty one, it maliciously savors what is written: For doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head (Rom 12:20; Prov 25:21-22). For it acts so as to burden him more, and to stir up against him the indignation of God, which it thinks is signified by coals of fire; not understanding that that fire is the burning grief of penitence, until the head, raised up by pride, is laid down by the benefits of the enemy to a wholesome humility, and in his good this man's evil is overcome. Whence the Apostle watchfully added: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom 12:21). But how can he overcome evil with good who is good on the surface, and evil in the depths; who spares in deed, and rages in heart; gentle in hand, cruel in will? So, then, under the appearance of one asking, future vengeance on the impious is prophesied in this psalm, that we may understand that the holy men of God loved their enemies, and wished no one anything but good, which is piety in this world, eternity in the world to come: but in the punishments of the wicked they were delighted not by their evils, but by God's good judgments; and wherever in the holy Scriptures their hatreds against men are read, that they were hatreds of vices, which each one of men too ought to hate in himself, if he loves himself.

15. [v. 11.] But now as for what follows: Let it enter before your sight, or as other codices have, in your sight, the groaning of the fettered: no one easily finds saints cast into fetters by persecutors; and if it happened, in so great and manifold a variety of punishments, it happened so rarely, that it is not to be believed that the Prophet chose to recall this especially in this verse. But surely the fetters are the weakness, and the corruptibility of the body, which weighs down the soul. For through its frailty, as the material of certain griefs and troubles, the persecutor could drive one to impiety. From these fetters the Apostle desired to be released, and to be with Christ; but to remain in the flesh was necessary on account of those to whom he ministered the Gospel (Phil 1:23-24). Until, then, this corruptible puts on incorruption, and this mortal puts on immortality (1 Cor 15:53), the weak flesh, as with fetters, impedes the ready spirit. These fetters, then, none feel, except those who within themselves groan, being burdened, desiring to be clothed over with the habitation which is from heaven (2 Cor 5:2-4), because both death is a horror, and mortal life a grief. For these who groan the Prophet groans, that their groaning may enter into the sight of God. They too can be understood as fettered, who are bound by the precepts of wisdom, which, patiently borne, are turned into ornaments; whence it is written: Put your foot into her fetters (Sir 6:24). According to the greatness, he says, of your arm, receive into adoption the children of those put to death, or as in other codices it is read, possess the children of those put to death. Where Scripture seems to me to have shown sufficiently what was the groaning of the fettered, who for the name of Christ bore most grievous persecutions, which in this psalm are most openly prophesied. For, set in diverse passions, they prayed for the Church, that their blood might not be fruitless for posterity; that the Lord's harvest, from which the enemies thought it would perish, might thence more fruitfully sprout. For he calls the children of those put to death those who not only were not terrified by the passions of those who went before, but, kindled by their glory exhorting them to imitation, believed in him for whose name they had known them to suffer, in most copious throngs. Therefore he said: According to the greatness of your arm. For a thing so great followed in the Christian peoples, that those who thought they were profiting something by persecuting, would in no way have believed it would follow.

16. [v. 12.] Render, he says, to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom. He does not wish for evils; but foretells just things, and prophesies things to come. By the sevenfold number—that is, the sevenfold retribution—he wishes the perfection of punishment to be understood, because by this number fullness is wont to be signified. Whence that too is among the good things: He shall receive in this world sevenfold (Mt 19:29 (Vetus Latina); Mk 10:30): which is set for all things; As having nothing, and possessing all things (2 Cor 6:10). He says "neighbors," because among them the Church dwells until the day of separation: for the bodily departure does not happen now. Into their bosom he says, surely now in hidden things; so that the vengeance which is done in this life in secret may afterward become known among the nations before our eyes. For when a man is given over to a reprobate sense, he receives in the inner bosom the merit of future punishments. Their reproach, with which they reproached you, O Lord. Render this to them sevenfold into their bosom—that is, for that reproach reprobate them most fully in their hidden parts. For there they reproached your name, supposing that they were blotting you out from the earth in your servants.

17. [v. 13.] But we are your people: to be taken generally of every kind of pious and true Christians. We, then, whom they thought they could destroy, your people, and the sheep of your flock, that he who glories may glory in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31), will confess to you forever. But other codices have, we will confess to you unto eternity. From the ambiguous Greek this diversity was made: for what the Greek has can be interpreted both unto eternity, and for the age; but according to the place it must be understood which is better to interpret. The sense, then, of this place seems to me rather to show that it ought to be said, for the age, that is, until the end of the age. But the following verse, in the manner of the Scriptures, and especially of the Psalms, is a repetition of the earlier with the order changed, having first what is there last, and last what is there first. For what was said there, we will confess to you, in its place is here said, we will announce your praise. So what was said there, for the age, in its place is here said, from generation to generation. For this repetition of "generation" signifies perpetuity: or, as some understand, because there are two generations, the old and the new. But both come to be in this world: since whoever is not reborn of water and the Spirit shall not enter the kingdom of heaven (Jn 3:5); and then, because in this world the praise of God is announced, for in the world to come, when we shall see him as he is, there will be no one to whom it may thereafter be announced (1 Jn 3:2). We, then, your people, and the sheep of your flock, which by persecuting they believed they could consume, will confess to you for the age, with the Church surely remaining until the end, which they tried to destroy: from generation to generation we will announce your praise; which praise, that it might be silenced, they tried to put an end to us. But in many places of the holy Scriptures we have intimated that confession is set also for praise: as is that: These things you shall say in confession: All the works of the Lord are exceedingly good (Sir 39:16); and especially that which the Savior himself says, who had no sin at all which by repenting he should confess: I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to little ones (Mt 11:25). This I have said, that it may be more openly understood that this is repeated in that which was said, we will announce your praise, which above had been said, we will confess to you.

Exposition of Psalm 79

1. [v. 1.] There are not so many things in this psalm in which our discourse suffers difficulty, or the hearers' attention an impediment to understanding. Accordingly, with the Lord's help, with affection for hearing and seeing now the things that have been prophesied and foretold, as those instructed in the school of Christ, we ought to run through what is plain; so that, if perhaps the obscure things demand the duty of interpreting, those that are plain may demand of me the duty of reading. Here it is sung of the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and of his vineyard. But that Asaph sings, as it appears, enlightened and corrected, by whose name you know the synagogue is signified. The title of the Psalm, then, is: Unto the end, for those who shall be changed: surely for the better, since Christ, the end of the Law, came for this, to change into the better. And he adds, a testimony to Asaph himself: a good testimony of the truth. Finally, this testimony confesses both Christ and the vineyard; that is, the head and the body, the king and the people, the shepherd and the flock, and the whole mystery of all the Scriptures, Christ and the Church. And the title of the Psalm concludes, for the Assyrians. The Assyrians are interpreted: "those who direct." Now, then, let there not be a generation that did not direct its heart, but a generation now directing. Therefore let us hear what he says in this testimony.

2. [v. 2.] You who feed Israel, attend. What is: You who feed Israel, attend, you who lead Joseph like sheep? He is invoked to come, awaited to come, desired to come. Therefore let him find those who direct: You who lead, he says, Joseph like sheep: Joseph himself as sheep. Joseph himself is sheep, and Joseph himself is a sheep. On hearing "Joseph," although the interpretation of his name too helps much; for it signifies "increase," and therefore surely he came, that the grain put to death might rise up many-fold (Jn 12:24), that is, the people of God might be increased: yet from what you already know happened to Joseph, let it come to mind that he was sold by his brothers, that he was dishonored by his own, exalted among foreigners (Gen 37:28; 41:40), and you will understand in whose flock we ought to be, together with those who now direct their heart, that the stone rejected by the builders may become the head of the corner, holding two walls coming from different sides, but agreeing in the corner (Ps 118:22 (117:22); Eph 2:14). You who sit upon the Cherubim. The Cherubim is the seat of the glory of God, and is interpreted "fullness of knowledge." There God sits in the fullness of knowledge. Although we understand the Cherubim to be the sublime powers and virtues of the heavens; yet if you will, you shall be Cherubim. For if the Cherubim is the seat of God, hear what Scripture says: The soul of the righteous is the seat of wisdom (Wis 7:27-28; Prov 12:23). How, you say, shall I be the fullness of knowledge? who fulfills this? You have wherewith you may fulfill it: The fullness of the Law is love (Rom 13:10). Do not go through many things and be stretched out. The spreading of the branches frightens you; hold the root, and do not think of the greatness of the tree. Let there be in you love, and it is necessary that the fullness of knowledge follow. For what does he not know who knows love, since it has been said: God is love (1 Jn 4:8)?

3. [v. 3.] You who sit upon the Cherubim, appear. For we erred for this reason, because you did not appear. Before Ephraim, and Benjamin, and Manasseh. Appear, I say, before the nation of the Jews, before the people of Israel: for there is Ephraim, there Manasseh, there Benjamin. But let us see the interpretation: Ephraim, "fructification"; Benjamin, "son of the right hand"; Manasseh, "forgotten." Appear, then, before the fructified, before the son of the right hand, appear before the forgotten, that he may no longer be forgotten, but you may come to the mind of him whom you freed. For if the Gentiles will be reminded, and all the ends of the earth will be converted to the Lord (Ps 22:27 (21:28)); will the people itself coming from Abraham not have its wall to rejoice in the corner, since it is written: A remnant shall be saved (Isa 10:22; Rom 9:27)? Stir up your power. For you were weak, when it was said: If he is the Son of God, let him come down from the cross (Mt 27:40). You seemed to avail nothing: the persecutor prevailed over you; and you showed this beforehand, that Jacob himself too prevailed in the wrestling, a man over an Angel. When, except that the Angel willed it? and the man prevailed, and the Angel was conquered; and the conquering man holds the Angel, and says: I will not let you go, unless you bless me. A great mystery! And the conquered one stands, and blesses the conqueror: conquered, because he willed it; in the flesh weak, in majesty strong. And he blessed: You shall be called, he says, Israel. Yet he touched the broadness of his thigh too, and it withered, and made the same one man both blessed and lame (Gen 32:24-31). You see the Jewish people limped: see there too the blessed line of the Apostles. Stir up, then, your power: how long will you seem weak? Crucified from weakness, rise again in power (2 Cor 13:4): Stir up your power, and come, to save us.

4. [v. 4.] O God, convert us. For we are turned away from you, and unless you convert us, we shall not be converted. And enlighten your face, and we shall be saved. Does he then have a darkened face? He does not have a darkened face, but he set before it the cloud of flesh, and as it were the veil of weakness, and he was not thought to be the one to be recognized when he hung on the wood, who would sit in heaven. For so it was done. Asaph did not recognize Christ present on earth and doing miracles; yet dead, after he rose again and ascended into heaven, he recognized him, was pricked with compunction: and he may have said of him all this testimony which we now recognize in this psalm: Enlighten your face, and we shall be saved. You covered your face, and we were sick: enlighten it, and we shall be saved.

5. [v. 5.] O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry at the prayer of your servant? Now your servant. You were angry at the prayer of your enemy; you are still angry at the prayer of your servant! You have converted us, we have recognized you, and you are still angry at the prayer of your servant! So plainly you are angry, as a father correcting, not as a judge condemning. So plainly you are angry, because it is written: Son, when you draw near to the service of God, stand in righteousness and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation (Sir 2:1). Do not suppose that the anger of God has already passed because you are converted; it has passed, but lest it condemn forever. But he scourges, he does not spare, because he scourges every son whom he receives (Heb 12:6). If you refuse to be scourged, why do you desire to be received? He scourges every son whom he receives: he scourges everyone, who did not spare even his Only-begotten. But yet how long will you be angry at the prayer of your servant? not now your enemy; but you are angry at the prayer of your servant. How long?

6. [v. 6.] There follows: You will feed us with the bread of tears, and give us tears to drink in measure. What is in measure? Hear the Apostle: God is faithful, who does not permit you to be tempted beyond what you can bear (1 Cor 10:13). That is the measure, according to your strength: that is the measure, that you may be instructed, not that you may be overwhelmed.

7. [v. 7.] You have set us as a contradiction to our neighbors. Plainly it has been done; for from Asaph were chosen those who would go to the Gentiles, and preach Christ, and it would be said to them: Who is this announcer of new demons (Acts 17:18)? You have set us as a contradiction to our neighbors. For they preached him who was contradicted. Whom did they preach? Christ, dead, risen again. Who would hear this? who would know this? A new thing! but signs followed, and miracles made faith in the incredible thing. He was contradicted, but the contradictor was conquered, and from a contradictor was made a believer. Yet there was a great flame there: there the martyrs were fed with the bread of tears, and given tears to drink; but in measure, not more than they could bear, that after the measure of tears might follow the crown of joys. And our enemies mocked us. And where are those who mocked? It was long said: Who are these worshiping a dead man, adoring a crucified man? it was long said. Where is the nose of the mockers? Do not those who reprove now flee into caverns, lest they be seen? And our enemies mocked us.

8. [vv. 8-9.] But you see what follows: O Lord God of hosts, convert us, and show your face, and we shall be saved. You transferred a vineyard out of Egypt; you cast out the nations, and planted it. We know it, it was done. How many nations were cast out! The Amorites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Girgashites, and the Hivites: who being expelled and conquered, the people freed from Egypt was led into the land of promise. Whence the vineyard was cast out, and where it was planted, we have heard. Let us see what was done next; how it believed, how much it grew, what it occupied. You transferred a vineyard out of Egypt; you cast out the nations, and planted it.

9. [vv. 10-12.] You made a way in its sight, and planted its roots, and it filled the earth. Would it fill the earth, unless a way were made in its sight? What way was made in its sight? I am, he says, the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14:6). Rightly it filled the earth. This was now said of this vineyard, which was perfected unto the end: but yet what first? Its shadow covered the mountains, and its branches the cedars of God. You stretched out its shoots even to the sea, and its offshoots even to the river. This demands the duty of the expounder, the duty of the reader and praiser does not suffice: help me by attending; for the mention of this vineyard in this psalm is wont to make a gloom for those less attentive. For the greatness of this vineyard has already been explained by us; and whence it was made, and whence it was made great, has been foretold. You made a way in its sight, and planted its roots, and it filled the earth: this was said of its perfection. But yet the first nation, Judea, was this vineyard. And the Jewish nation reigned as far as the sea, and as far as the river. As far as the sea: it appears in Scripture that the sea is near there. And as far as the river Jordan. For across the Jordan something of the Jews was placed; but within the Jordan, the whole nation. Therefore as far as the sea, and as far as the river was the kingdom of the Jews, the kingdom of Israel: but not from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, which is now the perfection of the vineyard of which he foretold here: You made a way in its sight, and planted its roots, and it filled the earth. When, then, he had foretold its perfection, he returned to the beginning, from which beginning the perfection was made. Do you wish to hear the beginning? As far as the sea and as far as the river. Do you wish to hear the end? He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth (Ps 72:8 (71:8)): this is, it filled the earth. Let us see, then, the testimony of Asaph; what happened to the first vineyard, what is to be expected of the second vineyard, rather of the same vineyard: for it is the same; for it is not another. From there is Christ, salvation from the Jews (Jn 4:22), from there the Apostles, from there the first believers, laying the prices of their goods at the feet of the Apostles (Acts 4:34-35); from there all these things. And if some of the branches were broken off, they were broken off because of unbelief: but you, people of the Gentiles, stand by faith; do not be high-minded, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. But if you are high-minded, you do not bear the root, but the root you (Rom 11:17-21, 18). What, then, was the vineyard before whose sight a way was made, that it might fill the earth—where was it first? Its shadow covered the mountains. Who are the mountains? The Prophets. Why did its shadow cover them? Because obscurely they spoke the things that were announced as to come. You hear from the Prophets: Observe the sabbath: On the eighth day circumcise the infant: Offer the sacrifice of a ram, a calf, a he-goat: do not be moved; it is its shadow covering the mountains of God, after the shadow will come the manifestation. And its branches the cedars of God: that is, it covered the cedars of God, the highest, but of God. For there are cedars signifying the proud to be overthrown. The cedars of Lebanon, the heights of the world, this vineyard covered by growing, and the mountains of God, all the holy Prophets, the Patriarchs.

10. [v. 13.] But how far did you stretch out its shoots? Even to the sea, and even to the river its offshoots. From there, what? Why have you destroyed its wall? Now you see that nation of the Jews overthrown; now you have heard from another psalm: With hatchet and crowbar they cast it down (Ps 74:6 (73:6)). When would it happen, unless its wall were destroyed? What is its wall? Its fortification. For it rose up proud against its planter. The servants sent to it and asking for the fruit, the tenants scourged, beat, killed. The only Son too came; they said: This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours: they killed him and cast him out of the vineyard (Mt 21:33-39). Cast out, he rather possessed that from which he was cast out. For thus he threatens it through Isaiah: I will destroy its wall. Why? For I waited that it might make a grape; but it made thorns: I waited thence for fruit, and I found sin. What, then, do you ask, O Asaph: Why have you destroyed its wall? Do you not know why? I waited that it might do judgment, and it did iniquity (Isa 5:2-5, 7): was its wall not to be destroyed? And the Gentiles came, the wall destroyed, the vineyard was invaded, and the kingdom of the Jews destroyed. This he first bewails, but not without hope. For he now speaks of the direction of the heart, that is, the Psalm is for the Assyrians, for those directing. Why have you destroyed its wall; and all who pass along the way pluck it? What is passing along the way? Temporally ruling.

11. [v. 14.] The boar from the wood has laid it waste. What do we understand by the boar from the wood? To the Jews the pig is hateful, and in the pig they set, as it were, the uncleanness of the Gentiles. But by the Gentiles the Jewish nation was overthrown: but that king who overthrew it was not only an unclean pig, but also a boar. For what is a boar, except a savage pig, a proud pig? The boar from the wood laid it waste. From the wood: from the Gentiles. For that was a vineyard; but the Gentiles were woods. But when the Gentiles believed, what was said? Then shall all the trees of the woods exult (Ps 96:12 (95:12)). The boar from the wood laid it waste, and the solitary wild beast fed upon it. What is the solitary wild beast? The boar itself which laid it waste, the solitary wild beast. Solitary, because proud. For this says every proud man: I am; I am, and no one else.

12. [vv. 15-16.] But to what fruit are these things? O God of hosts, turn now. Although these things have been done, turn now. Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vineyard. And perfect it which your right hand has planted. Do not institute another, but perfect this one. For it is the seed of Abraham, it is the seed in which all nations are blessed (Gen 22:18): there is the root, where the grafted wild olive is borne. Perfect this vineyard which your right hand has planted. But where does he perfect it? And upon the son of man whom you have confirmed for yourself. What is more evident? what do you still await that we should expound to you by disputing, and not rather cry out with you in wonder: Perfect this vineyard which your right hand has planted, and upon the son of man perfect it? What son of man? Whom you have confirmed for yourself. A great firmament! build as much as you can. For other foundation no one can lay, besides that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus (1 Cor 3:11).