Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 10/24

For by these words he whets them toward the desire of spiritual manliness, through which one might attain to rightly accomplishing every kind of virtue.

But the meek shall inherit the earth—that is, the earth above.

And they shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

It is worth seeing what should be understood as the abundance of the peace promised to the meek;

We say, then, that while still living with their bodies in this world, the saints endure a very great onslaught of wars—on the one hand from the law of sin utterly innate in the ailing flesh, and ever rising up against the spirit;

for these are opposed to one another;

and on the other hand from the unholy heretics who set themselves against them.

Therefore, so long as the saints are in this present life, very many are those who fight against them;

but when they have come into the land prepared for the meek, there shall be an abundance of peace.

And you should understand the abundance of peace to be the passionlessness of the soul together with the knowledge of things as they truly are.

The sinner shall watch the righteous, and shall gnash his teeth against him, and so forth.

The Psalmist teaches this in these words, saying that the sinner shall watch the righteous—that is, the wicked man, being hostilely disposed, will often watch for the opportune moment, hoping somehow perhaps to lie in ambush for the righteous and be able to seize him;

for he continually grinds his teeth at him.

But the Lord shows him to be worthy of laughter;

for He foresees that his last day shall assuredly come, on which he shall be put out of the way, having fallen into death.

Or perhaps it seems to them burdensome and hard to bear, that they appear to be condemned by the forbearance of those men, because they themselves have not become lovers of the best things.

But the phrase 'He shall gnash his teeth' is by no means to be understood of the body, but rather as silence in speech while the heart cries out, devising evil against the righteous.

Yet while the sinner rages against the righteous,

the Lord laughs at the plots of the sinners against them, knowing that He has appointed a day on which He shall render to the one eternal life, and to the other eternal punishment.

And this is also fitly to be taken of the devil.

For he is the sinner, the one gnashing his teeth against the saints, who has been made an object of laughter;

for he is made sport of by the righteous, being defeated;

and the day shall indeed come on which he shall be sent into the fire prepared for him.

To cast down the poor and needy.

The sinner's aim is not that he may avenge himself on any of those who have wronged him, or who have in any way at all given offense to him and furnished reasonable pretexts for the conflict, but that he may cast down the poor and needy, and slay those who are upright in heart.

And by 'poor and needy' he means the forbearing and modest-minded, the one better than boastfulness, and lowly in heart.

Such a one the Saviour Himself called poor in spirit, and declared to be worthy of the kingdom of heaven;

for it is chiefly against the needy that the slanderers wage war.

And moreover, against the righteous who keep their tongue upright, the transgressors, envying their righteousness, are wont to arm slanders like swords.

May their sword enter into their own hearts.

These things, he says, the wicked demons have suffered, which they had plotted to do to the saints.

And against the saints the lovers of sin indeed rage, and they stretch the bow of envy against them, and they bare the sword of their own malice, leaving no manner of plotting untried;

but as it were passing through every impiety, they besiege the holy souls.

But in what manner we must requite them, and how we should oppose them, we shall learn from what follows.

'And walking in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.'

But neither shall we imitate the unholiness of the sinners;

for we shall not, as they do, bend the bows likewise, nor bare the sword;

but we shall be better than those who fight, and shall carry off the superior verdict, taking refuge in God, and lifting up holy hands, running under the hand that ever saves, and calling the all-powerful and unchangeable One to our aid, saying concerning them: May their sword enter into their own hearts. A little is better to the righteous than the great riches of sinners.

Most skillfully does he now also weave his exposition.

For he sets in contrast, and as it were places side by side, both the failures of the sinners and the advantages of the righteous, everywhere showing virtue to be fruitful, but the vain distraction of life and the accursed manner of living to be profitless.

For the sinner, he says, is rich at times, and expands himself in the luxuries that come from thence, and is high-minded, having a glory that quickly withers, and fattening his flesh, having nothing more than delight in earthly things.

and he loves a temperate poverty.

But this is better for him than the great riches of the sinner.

For the arms of sinners shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.

Because to the lovers of sin wealth is unrewarding and destructive [

But that wealth is profitless to the lovers of sin—or, to speak better and more truly, is the procurer of the uttermost judgment—while the little of the righteous, content with few things, is fruitful and pleasing to God, is shown from what follows.

For the fruit, he says, of the wealth of the lawless is destruction and the laying aside of all strength;

for the breaking of the arms signifies this, I think, while the being upheld by God signifies the self-sufficiency [of the righteous];

for He sustains the righteous, and apportions to them an unshaken good cheer, and they possess an unshakable prosperity, since nothing can loosen it or bring it to the contrary.

For who shall turn back the exalted hand? as it is written.

The Lord knows the ways of the blameless.

According to the Scriptures, the Lord knows only good things, but is ignorant of evil things, as being unworthy of His knowledge;

and the word 'knows' is here used instead of 'He accepts and honours,' or rather 'loves, and deigns to watch over.'

For how is it not plain to all that He also saw the ways of the lovers of sin, and that nothing at all escapes Him? Therefore knowledge in these passages signifies intimacy and closeness.

And we too are wont often to say to those who have offended us, 'I do not know you,' not as being altogether ignorant of them, but as wishing to estrange them from love and relationship toward us.

He knows, therefore, the ways and deeds of the saints—that is, He watches over them gladly;

for they are good and full of all praise.

They shall not be put to shame in an evil time.

By 'evil time' in these words he names the time of persecutions and of adversities, or of temptations.

For thus too somewhere the all-wise Paul writes to certain persons, at one time:

'Because the time is evil'; and at another time again:

'Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.' Therefore, he says, whenever they stumble in an evil season, they shall not be put to shame when they fall into some fault and slip away from the good order that befits them;

for the God of all things will graciously bestow upon them steadfastness and patient endurance, which are the mother and nurse of all that is most excellent.

Or perhaps, 'The righteous shall inherit the promises.'

And in the time of judgment they shall not be put to shame, when some rise to life, but others to reproach and everlasting shame.

'And in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.'

We understand this also after some such manner as this.

For the word seems in some way to intimate through a riddle that in the time of tribulation they shall possess the breadth of prosperity that comes from above;

for the phrase 'to be satisfied in the days of famine' signifies something of this kind.

But if one should wish to take the sense of the verse in yet another way, you will understand this:

for we shall find the God of all things in very many places bringing upon the lovers of lawlessness, by way of turning them away, even a famine of the sacred teachings.

It has accordingly been spoken by him, when those of the blood of Israel had committed intolerable outrages:

'Behold, I bring a famine upon the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord.' But while the famine of the sacred teachings has been brought upon those who gave offence, it is by no means brought also upon those who diligently keep the divine commandments;

but rather, in the time of persecutions, when the teachers are lacking, the Lord himself will nourish by his own Spirit those who have believed in him.

'For the sinners shall perish; and the enemies of the Lord, at the very moment of their being glorified and exalted, failing away like smoke, they have failed.'

He again sets over against the honours of the righteous the things that shall befall the lovers of sin, in their seasons, from divine wrath;

and these, I think, would be the very things that bring them down to utmost calamity.

though crowned, and boasting in the powers of worldly dignities, yet they shall nonetheless perish;

for the end of their life is overturned into ruin and destruction.

And we say that the enemies of the Lord are also those who, though they had come to be under him through faith, yet have set themselves in opposition as it were through great disobedience, and have fought unceasingly against his divine ordinances.

Enemies also would be the worshippers of demons, and those who bow down to the works of their own hands, that is, those who serve the creation rather than the Creator, and further the inventors of heresies, inasmuch as they are wont to set up falsehood in opposition to the rectitude of the true doctrines.

These, having flourished but a little while, and withered like grass in equal measure, shall fall to death, and shall pay the penalties for their sins, being punished as enemies of the Lord, and vanishing away after the manner of smoke.

Now smoke is the remnant of a fire that has already faded and been extinguished, and has as it were ended in becoming ash and cinders.

They are therefore compared to smoke, since just as, when the fire is quenched, the smoke disappears, so also, when the sinners are dead, all the glory concerning them perishes.

'The sinner,' he says, 'does not render thanksgiving in return for the benefits he has received from God;'

but neither, even if he should be well treated by any, will he become better;

nor indeed does he learn the path of compassion from the things done to him;

nor does he endure to repay in kind those who have benefited him;

but like some thief he makes what has been given a windfall,

he makes what has been given a windfall, and looking only to his own gain, he makes it his boast to wear down with grief the one who has lent to him.

For even if he should receive nothing given, yet even so the righteous man remains generous, and does not cease to be one who shares.

For he imitates his own Father, God, who makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

Each of us receives from God very many and great benefits, both perceptible and intelligible.

But if anyone be a lover of sin and unrestrainedly inclined toward pleasure-loving, and has buried his own mind in the tumult of the affairs of this world, he will pay nothing back to God for his many gifts, that is, he will not offer obedience, he will not put his neck under his yoke, he will not follow his will, he will not bear the fruit of virtue; nor indeed will he lay up before God, as it were a kind of interest, an equity in his ways; he will not give heed to soundness in doctrine, but remains hard and unfruitful.

Nevertheless, even if the righteous and good man—that is, plainly, God—be so disposed, he says, God will not cease to have compassion on him and to give of what is his own;

so that it may thereafter be said to him:

'Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering?' and what follows.

'For those who bless him shall inherit the earth.'

(Of Cyril and Origen.) It is like what was said to Abraham:

'Those who bless you I will bless, and those who curse you I will curse.' Accordingly, if it be God who has compassion and gives, those who glorify him on this account, that is, who bless him, shall be heirs of the land promised to the saints, and shall receive the good and ample land, which has no notion of a mere point or mark.

But there is danger, in our setting a curse upon the righteous man, of utmost ruin.

For the Lord says to the righteous man:

'I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppose those who oppose you.' And just as he says:

'You nourished this one, you nourished me,' so it is consistent to say:

'You reviled this one, you reviled me.'

Those curse God who do not know him as destroying utterly in the end—those who at times cast blasphemous words against his glory;

in addition to their not enduring even to offer thanksgiving to him for the good things they have experienced.

The nations, then, bless Christ, wherefore they inherit the kingdom;

but the Jews, blaspheming him, are in the end brought to nought and utterly destroyed.

(It is perhaps better to understand that the Lord will delight in the way of the man, that is, will make it acceptable to his will and will approve it.)

For just as he holds the ways of the transgressors to be against his will, so he makes acceptable the ways of those who have chosen to do good.

And that which is pleasing to God is surely in every way both excellent and full of all praise;

for God would not have willed that which is not so.

'When he falls he shall not be dashed down, for the Lord upholds his hand.'

(Even if it should come to pass, he says, that the righteous man stumble a little, he shall not suffer harm;

but like a most noble athlete who has been forced and has yielded for a little while, he will straightway recover himself.

For God always grants this to the righteous, dispensing his mercy to human faintheartedness.

'For seven times,' it says, 'the righteous man shall fall and rise again;' for those who have at times endured a diabolical excess and have slipped a little must, as it were, swim up again out of the waves.

For not every sin is unto death, according to what is written.

Therefore, if the righteous man should suffer anything of this kind, God upholds him, stretching out his sustaining hand toward his well-being;

which, if it does not come to his aid, every mind will grow weak;

but when it upholds and firmly grasps with kindly goodness, the weak shall assuredly be strengthened, and that which has been submerged shall swim up again.

'I was young, and indeed I have grown old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken.'

(The witness is trustworthy in what he says, inasmuch as he is Spirit-bearing, and crowned with the grace of prophecy, and, having over a long span of time passed through much experience of affairs, has been most resolutely minded to ratify by his own verdicts that which he has accurately learned.)

'From my youth,' he says, 'until now—for I have grown old—I have not seen the righteous forsaken.'

'All the day long the righteous man shows mercy and lends.'

(And in another sense too the righteous man lends the things contained in the ethical commandments, so that those who have received may render back through works the fruit of the loan.)

Indeed, the fruits of good loans will follow from God for those who have lent to him: namely, that they themselves shall never at any time be forsaken, because they are those who share and are ready to give; nor shall their seed—that is, the sons that come from them, whether understood according to the flesh, or according to discipleship and identity of works—lack the necessities of life, but rather they shall have partaken of the divine blessing.

'Turn away from evil, and do good, and dwell forever and ever.'

(He sets forth for us a manner of pure conduct, and one not out of tune with the evangelical laws.)

For the old law indeed drove men away from evil, yet did not bring in to those being instructed that which is perfectly good, that is, the knowledge of the blameless life.

This will become clear to us if we carefully attend our mind to the words of the Saviour.

For He spoke thus, setting those who believe in Him beyond the polity of the Law:

'Thou shalt not kill.' This is what it means to 'turn away from evil';

for not to murder is not to perform something good, but rather to abstain from sin.

Likewise also, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not swear falsely, thou shalt not bear false witness.' But where is the 'Do good'? It lies in His saying that 'Everyone who is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgment,' and in the words, 'Everyone who looks upon a woman,' and what follows.

So then, He says, when you turn away from evil and do good, then you shall dwell for ever and ever, and you shall enter into a firm and unshaken hope, according to what the prophet Isaiah says:

'Thine eyes shall behold Jerusalem, which is a rich city, tabernacles that shall not be shaken.' For 'the Lord loveth judgment, and He will not forsake His holy ones.'

'Judgment and righteousness in Jacob hast Thou wrought.' God therefore loves righteousness, and He crowns those who work it with unending grace;

having grown rich in intimacy with Him, but He will avenge them.

This shows that in the present life the choir of the saints is by no means altogether in fair weather, but as it were amid contests and toils and persecutions, since Satan sharpens his own shield-bearers against them;

so that they resist even unto blood as they do battle against sin.

Nevertheless they shall not remain unavenged;

for this is what is meant by 'He will not forsake His holy ones,' but God will bring His hand upon those who war against them.

Indeed He says that they shall be preserved for ever;

for the grace upon them is not temporary, nor will the bounty of hope be apportioned to the good by God for limited seasons, but for a long and continual time, stretching out together with the endless ages and, as it were, running along with them.

'But the blameless shall be avenged, and the seed of the ungodly shall be utterly destroyed.'

The Psalmist's aim, through the foregoing verses also, is to give full assurance that the rewards of the saints are most abundant, while punishment and every manner of destructive thing shall be brought down upon the head of those who love sin.

For the righteous shall be avenged, he says, but the ungodly shall fall into ruin, and shall perish root and branch, being driven forth from the kingdom into Gehenna, from the regions of light into the outer darkness.

Usefully the Psalmist both recounts the honours of the righteous and displays the penalties of those who love sin;

by the fear of being punished drawing the wicked away from the deeds at hand, and by the desire of the rewards elegantly leading up those who have chosen to live well to a keener longing for the good.

As for the seed of the ungodly, which he says shall indeed be utterly destroyed, one must understand either their works;

for 'whatever a man sows,' he says, 'that also shall he reap';

or the sons who shall come from them, whether according to the flesh perhaps, or in another way, if they choose to take after their fathers and become imitators of their forefathers' perversity;

according to what is elsewhere hymned to God concerning the Law that dispenses justice:

'Judgment and righteousness in Jacob hast Thou wrought.' For he sets 'judgment' and 'righteousness' in parallel, declaring judgment to be nothing other than righteousness.

Judgment therefore, that is, righteousness, God loves, and He crowns those who work it with unending grace, and He would never overlook His holy ones.

But these, being evil, shall perish evilly, while the righteous shall inherit the land of the meek, of which we have often made mention, and they shall dwell upon it for ever;

that is, they shall receive an unshakable kingdom, and those justified through virtue shall continually revel in the good things from above, having received in the heavens the eternal and imperishable inheritances.

'His tongue (that is, the righteous man's) shall speak judgment.'

We say that judgment is either the right and irreproachable guidance concerning each of one's affairs, which carries those being instructed straight to what is fitting; that is to say, the Law of God;

for it possesses this quality in very many places.

It is written, at any rate, concerning both God and Israel, that 'There He established for him ordinances and judgment.' 'The Law of his God is in his heart, and his steps shall not be tripped up.'

He declares the benefit from the matter to be not far off, but as it were on the very heels he shows the fruit of speaking wisdom and of making righteousness one's practice.

For he who has settled the Law of God within, and holds it as it were stored up in mind and heart, shall gain that he will in no way be tripped up, but shall rather come straight to every good thing;

and with nothing to trip him up or shake him, he shall traverse the royal and straight path.

the tracks, and he passes through the waves that arise from circumstances, and swims across the surge of the present life;

for it has been given for help.

'Unless Thy Law had been my meditation, I should then have perished in mine affliction.' Praiseworthy therefore is he who delights in the sacred words and ever holds the Law of God in mind, as a lamp shining in the night.

And what is the benefit thence? That his steps are not tripped up.

'The sinner watches the righteous, and seeks to put him to death,' and so forth.

That, then, those who devote themselves to noble deeds of piety have in this life a bitter and not unenvied existence, but one very unpleasing to those who are not good, he shows very well indeed, saying that the sinner watches them and seeks to put them to death.

But who again is to be understood as 'the sinner'? The dragon, the apostate, the inventor and father of all vileness; for such a name would properly befit him.

He gnashes his teeth at the saints, and is set aflame against them by the fire of envy, and he is thrown into confusion, seeking to put to death those who wish to be well-pleasing to God.

And he leaps upon them like a serpent, pouring out the venom of sin, sowing shameful pleasures, ever provoking to inordinate lusts, and as it were smearing the ways of vileness with honey, that he may ensnare many.

'But the Lord will not forsake him into his hands,' and so forth.

But the Lord, he says, will not forsake him into his hands;

having pointed out the assault, He does not allow the mind of the saints to fall, but at once presents the Helper who makes to vanish the assault of that one's perversity;

for when God stands before them, who is he that shall do them harm? And indeed a right and impartial verdict shall by all means be brought forth from God, condemning the profane and wicked, but delivering from both peril and fear all who are devoted to Him, and who hold His sacred Law in mind and heart, and make righteousness their practice;

for 'when the righteous is judged,' he says, 'He will not condemn him.'

'Wait upon the Lord, and keep His way.'

Patience is a most excellent thing, for it gives birth to proof, and proof to hope, and hope does not put to shame.

The divinely-inspired Singer accordingly sings and says:

'Waiting I waited for the Lord, and He gave heed to me.' And another of the saints:

'For ye have need of patience,' he says, 'that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise.' And we shall find throughout all divinely-inspired Scripture that patience is hymned as the harbinger of every good thing.

And the words 'Keep the way of the Lord' would mean, I suppose, to be steered by the divine laws toward what is blameless, and to be borne up to a certain choice and admirable life, darting toward this with unrestrained eagerness.

And the end of endurance in good things and of labours befitting the saints would be to be exalted by God, so as to be raised on high above earthly distractions.

'Because the mighty ones are of God, they are greatly exalted of the earth.' And the Psalmist, intensifying the exhortation, says:

Thou indeed, he says, shalt be exalted, so as to inherit the land of the meek, which is set on high somewhere above and lies in exaltation.

But the transgressors who gnash their teeth against thee, thou shalt behold being cut off;

for they shall be utterly destroyed, and this thou thyself shalt see.

'I saw the ungodly exceedingly exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon,' and so forth.

(Of Cyril and Basil.) Having beheld, he says, wicked men prospering, I pondered how they had attained to this.

Then, pondering such things and marvelling within myself, wishing to behold them a second time, I lifted up my eyes, but they were nowhere.

Then, wishing to find some memorial of them, I could not even find the place where they seemed to have stood.

does he not say that it lies also in the sight of all, and that no one is wholly ignorant of it? For he makes what is his own, as it were, common to the others;

for he does not say that he alone has beheld it, but here by the word 'I saw' he signifies that which is set forth for all to behold.

I have beheld, then, he says, the ungodly striving to soar up in rivalry with the loftiness of the cedars, and lifted up on a level with the exceedingly tall plants, evidently out of contempt and empty conceit and worldly bits of glory and the other fading vanity.

[But this one, after a brief] time, was removed from the midst, and was brought down to such wretchedness that his place was not to be found;

and by 'the place' he indicated the memory.

'Keep innocence, and behold uprightness, for there is a remnant for the man of peace.'

And the punishment of the ungodly, he says, and the remnant—that is, the inheritance—of the good, let it prepare you to practice simplicity;

for by 'simplicity' here we must understand guilelessness, according to which we live a life that is without deceit, unmixed, free from hypocrisy, and as it were rid of duplicity;

such as was the divinely inspired Nathanael, concerning whom Christ says:

'Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.' And the sacred Scripture also says somewhere that 'Jacob was a guileless man, dwelling in a tent.'

Therefore that which is simple in its ways and free from malice—this we say to be guilelessness.

And by 'uprightness' we shall understand nothing else than that which, in the knowledge of the divine doctrines, is as it were straight and undistorted—for the word of truth must be rightly divided—or that which, in practical virtue, is in no way perverse.

For it has been said somewhere concerning sinners: 'Whose paths are crooked, and their tracks are bent.'

'Keep, then,' he says, 'guilelessness and uprightness;'

and what follows from this? That 'there is a remnant for the peaceable man.'

For since he says that the ungodly is destroyed root and branch from the earth, so that his place is not even to be found, he has reserved the remnant for those who have chosen to love God and who keep guilelessness.

And such a man he names 'peaceable;'

for the upright and guileless man is at peace both with God and with holy men.

'But the transgressors shall be utterly destroyed together.'

'The transgressors,' he says, 'shall be utterly destroyed;'

and this, I think, is the meaning of 'their place not being found.'

And 'together' stands for 'straightway,'

so that the time of their exaltation and the time of their being brought down to destruction seem to be one and the same;

for no long time will gallop past in between, but rather it will be momentary and brief.

For no sooner was he exalted than he fell;

and this is the meaning of 'together.'

'But the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord.'

God rescues those who are devoted to Him, and He renders the arrow of the wicked ones' malice ineffectual.

For He does not permit the saints to be struck, but those who shoot against them miss their mark;

and every attempt of theirs turns back upon their own head.

Then, for this cause, [the righteous consents] to be disciplined by God, who melts his heart with cares and griefs, and scours it clean by the pains that come thereof.

For it is written that 'The Lord shall wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning.'

Absalom rose up in rebellion, resolving to drive out his own father not only from the kingdom, but even from life itself.