Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 12/24

For this he called 'substance' (hypostasis), or, according to Symmachus, 'manner of life and conduct.'

And what is said is clearly of this sort:

Make known to me, O Lord, the number of my days—that is, the remaining time of my present life—so that I too, having searched out my own conscience, may know how far I fall short of perfection according to virtue, just as you have long since known, since you have appointed my days as measured out, and you know all my manner of life and conduct. [And my substance is as nothing before you.]

My substance is as nothing before you, for a thousand years in your eyes are as yesterday which has passed away, or as a watch in the night—that is, three or four hours.

Therefore, since you exist forever, while my substance is altogether small and contracted, and as nothing at all in your eyes, do not permit him who through weakness has stumbled to be punished for long, nor let me have a blow coextensive with the whole length of my life.

Instead of 'substance,' Aquila said 'a sinking down' (submersion).

For human life is nothing as compared with the divine eternity.

But indeed all human endeavor is vanity of vanities. [Behold, you have made my days as handbreadths.]

You have made my days as a span. Or 'handbreadths' also signifies that they are full of the struggle arising from trials.

Surely man walks about in an image, yet he is troubled in vain, and so forth.

Fittingly the Psalmist called the image 'vanity,'

since we do not now live the true life, but that which is as in an image, nor do we make our endeavor concerning the things that are truly good.

(Cyril and Theodoret) The living differ in nothing from men painted in an image, fading away like colors.

For the nature of both these and those alike flows away with time and is destroyed.

Yet nonetheless they are no less agitated, wrangling, fighting, warring, trading.

And the whole of life is full of tempest, having death as its end.

And gathering wealth with much toil and sweat, they do not know who shall be their heir.

For having rendered his kingdom exceedingly great and illustrious by the spoils of war and by the tribute borne from the foreign nations, he was ignorant of the impious and lawless disposition of his son.

Then, seeing him become master of the kingdom and appropriate to himself the stored-up wealth, he uttered that admirable saying:

He stores up, and does not know for whom he shall gather it. And now, what is my patient waiting? Is it not the Lord? And my substance is with you.

Fittingly he says that he has his hope upon Christ, inasmuch as he has despised the distractions of this life.

For who, he says, has given me the power to endure and to bear myself courageously in the time of the blow, and in no way to give in to the need to do or even to say anything born of human faint-heartedness? Is it not the Lord? And what is my substance? That is, who is it that has strengthened me to hold firm and to bear the things brought upon me out of anger from above, as God, who loves his children, disciplines them in the rank of a father, for the sake of choosing the better things? So then, even if God disciplines through a measured motion, yet he himself is found to be the supplier of endurance and patience to those who suffer.

For this is what 'substance' (hypostasis) indicates.

But if anyone should say that by 'substance' is signified also the existence and constitution of one's nature, or even expectation, this too is not amiss.

For it is from God that we have received our subsistence into being, and it is he whom we have as our expectation and hope.

Deliver me from all my transgressions.

You have granted me the power to bear, to say or do nothing out of human weakness.

And you, having trained me to withstand these things, also made me able to bear them.

The construction of the passage before us is as follows:

Deliver me from all my transgressions, because you have made me—that is, you fashioned me, and as the Maker you understand the weakness inherent in human nature.

It is written elsewhere also that 'a perishable body weighs down the soul, and the earthly tent burdens the mind full of cares.' And we shall find also the most sorely tried Job employing such expressions:

For remember, he says, that you fashioned me of dust. And again:

Man—his days are as grass;

as a flower of the field, so he flourishes;

for a wind passes over it and it is no more. For with such utterances the saints have made use, longing to obtain forgetfulness of sins from the God of all, showing forth human weakness.

And indeed all men put forward the natural proneness to sin as a plea for pardon.

He therefore asks for pardon, as one who has now been sufficiently disciplined.

I was made mute, and did not open my mouth.

I bear it, he says, being reproached now, and I answer back nothing, knowing that this comes from you, who will that I be exercised amid reproaches.

Give me respite, that I may find refreshment before I depart.

And perhaps he also entreats that the sorrowful things and the causes of tears may at last cease.

Strangers and sojourners, having it from our fathers to be under sin, and held fast by the afflictions that come through sin and by the death from Adam;

before it falls upon us, we ask that there might come some rest from our toils.

and that it might be for him a thanksgiving over the trials that beset him.

But we shall find, he says, in the meantime, the person of the Savior also introduced, proclaiming the economy of the Incarnation, and that he will publicly announce to those throughout all the earth the grace that comes through faith.

Then, after this, another person is introduced, that of a man, yearning to be pitied by God, and confessing that he is all but buried beneath his own sufferings.

Then, after his words, again the person of the people is brought in, confessing no less the evils in which they were and the multitude of their charges, so that Christ may be yet more greatly glorified—he who snatched them up from the depths and set them outside the mire of perdition, clearly through faith.

For those of Israel who have believed ask to be delivered from the sin due to their disobedience, and at the same time they recount the evils that befell them because of their unbelief.

But others also refer the song to those in Babylon, who were benefited by the affliction there and were brought back.

Waiting patiently, I waited for the Lord, and he attended to me, and so forth.

How could these have patiently waited for the Lord, or how were they heard at all—they who perhaps did not even cry out to him, but were estranged even from the very knowledge of who by nature is the Author and Master of all things? We say, then, that the Savior has caught as in a net, through faith, those throughout all the earth, having abolished the might of the devil and dissolved the malignity of the wicked powers, and has honored with spiritual freedom those who through faith in him have been called to the knowledge of him.

Yet it was not the multitude of the nations alone that entered in through faith, but before them also those who were of the blood of Israel.

For Christ built anew the two peoples, making peace by forming them into one new man, and reconciling both in one body to the Father, according to what is written.

Both, then, have become one people, according to the word of the Saviour himself.

For he says: 'I have other sheep also, which are not of this fold;'

'and they shall become one flock, one shepherd.' Whatever, then, is spoken as from a single person would surely be fitting to both these and those, because of the bond of unity that is in Christ through the Spirit.

That the mystery of Christ was proclaimed beforehand to those of Israel through both the law and the prophets would not be unclear to those learned in the sacred Scriptures.

For Christ said somewhere, conversing with the Jews:

'If you had believed Moses, you would have believed me;'

for the Jews knew that he would come in due season as Saviour and Redeemer, not of themselves alone, but of all the nations as well.

a light for the revelation of the nations, and the glory of your people Israel. But the little woman of Samaria also, when she conversed with Christ, plainly confessed:

'We know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ;'

'when he comes, he will declare to us all things.' It has also been said, through one of the holy prophets, to the peoples of the Jews, as Christ promises his own coming to us:

'Waiting I waited for the Lord,' that is, 'Expecting I expected;'

'and he attended to me,' that is, 'He visited me.'

For being God, the Lord appeared to us, and led us up out of the pit of misery, out of the gates of death and the corruption there, from which we have also been delivered through Christ, who transforms into incorruption in himself, as the first, the nature of man, and refashions it to what it was in the beginning, out of the mire of clay of the world's distractions and of foul-smelling sin.

For out of these he drew us up by the ineffable hand and the unspeakable power of Christ, the Saviour of us all.

'And he set my feet upon a rock,' and so forth.

) For steadfast is the mind of those who are in Christ, according to what Paul says:

'But we have the mind of Christ.' And in another sense too the Rock is understood as Christ, the support of all, the elect stone, laid by God the Father in the foundations of Zion, upon whom we are all built up, a spiritual house and a holy temple for a dwelling-place of God in the Spirit.

'And he made straight our steps;'

for we who of old made crooked and perverse paths were taught to make straight tracks.

'And he put a new song in my mouth.'

) This too must be reckoned among the number of the gifts that come from Christ.

For not to all indiscriminately would it follow that the privilege of giving glory belongs;

nor indeed would anyone who wished to do this be acceptable to God, unless he were one accustomed to live well;

for 'Praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner.' 'And he put a new song in my mouth,' in place of the old one that came through Moses;

for upon new accomplishments the song too would surely be altogether new, and not resembling the ancient hymns.

And in place of the song offered to the wicked demons and to idols, we were taught to sing aloud the hymns that come through the Holy Spirit.

'Many shall see and shall fear, and shall hope in the Lord.'

) 'I shall be,' he says, 'an example to others of ceasing from evils in emulation of me, and of holding the like hope toward what is better.'

For always, somehow, those who have not yet believed are shown to be emulators of those who have already believed, and, striving to walk in the footsteps of their conduct and reasonableness, they come to their senses toward the truth, and go toward the light of the truth.

Then what follows from this? They receive into their mind the divine fear, concerning which it is said:

'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;' and, 'By the fear of the Lord everyone turns aside from evil.' Those, therefore, he says, who have become emulators of the believers, and have already travailed with the divine fear, these also, having fixed their hopes upon God, seek from him alone the supply of good things, though of old they used to attach the reins of our affairs to some chance, or to birth and fate.

And in another way too, 'they shall see' is said in the sense of 'they shall look up again.'

For God said somewhere through the voice of Isaiah, concerning the nations, in Isaiah:

'I will lead the blind by a way which they knew not, and I will make them tread paths which they did not know.' And Christ also says to the Jews:

'I am the light.' Moreover, he was sent from the Father also to open the eyes of the blind.

'They shall see,' then, that is, 'they shall look up again,' and what follows.

'Blessed is the man whose hope is the name of the Lord,' and so forth.

) We are assuredly those who have obtained such a blessing;

for we have been named Christians;

and this is the good name that has been called upon us.

But if anyone should wish, in addition to what has been said, to call the Greek worship, and the things they deem precious — I mean all divination, or indeed all the heterodox teachings — vanities and false madnesses, he would not miss what is fitting.

At any rate it is written concerning certain persons, that 'They fixed madness in the house of the Lord;' and by 'madness' he means divination.

For, he says, some of those of Israel have dared to speak the things from their own heart, and not from the mouth of the Lord;

and very many false prophets have arisen among them.

But perhaps it would have been bearable, had such a thing been dared in the precincts of idols;

but since it took place in the very house of the Lord, how could it not be utterly grievous? 'Many things hast thou done, O Lord my God, thy wondrous works,' and so forth.

Of Cyril and Theodoret) According to another interpretation you will understand it also thus:

'The things thou hast wrought,' he says, 'in the time of the economy of salvation, are many and wonderful;'

'these things I also declared to others, and the declaration ran through the whole world under heaven.'

By these words they extol Christ the Saviour of all, and those who have been saved through faith in Christ all but declare it to be true also, that they received a new song, and a hymn befitting him.

For behold, behold, he says that many wonders have been wrought by him, and that marvels beyond number have come to pass, and the things dispensed by his providence — those in Egypt, those in the wilderness, those under Joshua, those under Samuel, and those older than these, the things concerning Abraham and the patriarchs who came from him — that I may not go through each one;

but what has now come to pass is more wonderful than all these.

For it was not the salvation of one man, nor of one nation, but of all the nations, that thou hast accomplished;

and having brought to an end the legal worship that suited the weakness of the Jews, thou didst give the new grace, which enacts the rational worship, through which the blind in heart received the divine and spiritual light, those who long limped learned to walk uprightly, the tongue of stammerers became clear, the ears of the deaf heard, death was abolished, and the sin of all was taken away, and the grace of incorruption shone forth;

and all these things have been set right through Christ.

Therefore they say that he has done very many wondrous works.

(.) 'But to his thoughts there is none that shall be likened.'

What, then, were the thoughts of God, and the ingenuity displayed on our behalf? Being God by nature, he became man, and remained what he was.

And what was the occasion of his becoming as we are, he who ministers his mysteries will make clear, saying:

'Since the children have partaken of blood and flesh, he also himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.' These things, he says, I declared and spoke, bearing witness that they are beyond all speech.

We find the holy apostles and evangelists to have done these very things.

And indeed the all-wise John is found adding, to the marvels of which he had spoken:

'There are also many other things which Jesus did, which are not written in this book;'

and indeed, 'if they were written every one, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that should be written.' Since we know in part, and we prophesy in part;

and we can contain neither the doctrines concerning Christ, nor the miracles, so as to recount them;

but even though the things spoken be many, still greater is found to be the surplus that remains unspoken.

For the things of Christ are beyond number, either as being by nature not numerable, or as surpassing, by their multitude, the nature of number.

'Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, but a body hast thou prepared for me.'

He raises up good men, such as would not be ill-suited to the person of the Only-begotten Son of God, who had put on the likeness that is ours, was made flesh and became man, and took the form of a servant.

For since, He says, O Father, You did not desire the sacrifices according to the Law, which held only a remembrance of sins and a rebuke, but not indeed a remission as well, I have come, having taken a body which You Yourself prepared for Me.

For the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High overshadowed the holy Virgin.

And I have come that I may do Your will;

which is, to offer Myself as a spotless victim, that I may make to cease those things in the Law which cannot take away sins.

To this we say is similar what was plainly spoken by Christ Himself, that 'I have come down from heaven, not that I may do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.' He therefore provided occasion for the whole psalm to be spoken by Himself, maintaining the same person of the speaker to the very end.

Therefore, when the time of the shadow had passed, in which sacrifice and offering were brought forward, God, no longer willing the worship rendered through these, prepared from the Virgin a body for the Son, so that He no longer took pleasure in whole burnt offerings;

and when the Saviour said to the Father concerning sin:

Behold, I have come according to Your will;

by which will He took away the sin of the world, Himself being slain and offered on behalf of the sin of all;

so that, remission having come to pass, there might no longer be need of the sacrifice for sins.

In the roll of the book it is written concerning Me.

By 'roll' He meant, as it were, the sum and compass of the thoughts contained in it;

and these are the things concerning Christ the Saviour of us all.

And it should be known that the prophet Ezekiel himself is found to have named as 'the roll of a book' what is, as it were, the entire compass of his own prophecy.

And the phrase, 'In the roll of the book it is written concerning Me,' is to be understood thus:

The whole book, fivefold, is the most wise composition of Moses; and the head, as it were the beginning, of the entire book is that called Genesis, in which the things concerning Isaac are written, being rightly referred to Christ.

And that again 'the head' signifies 'the beginning' in the divine Scriptures, you will be well assured by understanding that which Paul says, namely that 'The head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.' For the beginning of the man is Christ, as having brought him from non-being into being.

And again, the beginning of the woman is the man, because she was taken from the man;

and the beginning of Christ is God, inasmuch as the Son is from Him by nature, and has as His beginning-without-beginning the One who begot Him, together also with co-existing eternally with Him.

These verses Paul also, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, says were spoken in the person of the Saviour.

For having said that the blood of animals could not take away sins, he adds:

And I have arrived, He says, that is, I said, I have come, that I may do Your will. Then he adds:

He takes away the first, that He may establish the second; that is, He casts out the sacrifices, that He may ratify the sacrifice offered by Himself;

for it ascends as a sweet-smelling savour to God the Father through His own body.

And Your law is in the midst of my heart.

Having Your will hidden within Myself (for this, I think, is what is meant by 'In the midst of my belly'), I will make it manifest to the true-born.

For it is necessary for us to know that Christ spoke the deeper matters of doctrine to the chosen ones, and did not converse with all men simply and without distinction.

And indeed to the Jews He spoke in parables;

but to the holy apostles, inasmuch as they had a pure understanding capable of receiving the most perfect teachings, He said, 'To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, but to those it is not given.'

And it is good for us to cleanse the belly as much as possible and to make it more refined, so that we may receive the law of the Lord in its midst.

And the belly of the soul is the receptacle of spiritual nourishment, that is, the faculty of understanding.

righteousness in a great congregation.

The great congregation is that which is filled up from great and perfect ones, in which He preached the good news of the righteousness that is through faith in Jesus;

and He Himself knew this righteousness, as one who accepted it and made it His own inseparably.

And that the power of the evangelical proclamations thundered forth over all that is under heaven, and filled the great Church—that is, the multitude constituted and gathered together through Him, of those who had come to know His appearing—would surely be evident;

for He did not restrain His own lips;

for He speaks even to this day through the holy evangelists and the teachers of each successive age.

And to call these also the lips of Christ is nothing unfitting.

The most divine Paul, at any rate, writes:

If you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me. And he says that the Father knew His righteousness—the hidden one, that which is above the Law and the shadow, that is to say, plainly, the evangelical righteousness, which the Son Himself also declares to be superior to that spoken through Moses to the men of old, charging and saying to the holy apostles:

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no way enter into the kingdom of the heavens. [ They were multiplied above the hairs.

The prophetic word foretells the varied and manifold swarm of griefs;

of which the Church of Christ has received the experience through the very events themselves.

And what He says, 'And my heart forsook me,' instead of 'It grew weak and despondent,' He said, in order to show the design of the godless.] PSALM 40.

But the divine Gospel does not permit us to accept either of the two.

For when the Lord said:

That the Scripture might be fulfilled, 'He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me'; and when He showed that the psalm pertained to Him and to no other, I consider it rash and presumptuous to fabricate for it another subject.

The psalm now before us, therefore, pronounces blessed those who have believed in Christ;

and indeed it gives them, as recompense for their faith, the help that comes from Him.

And the very person of the Lord is also introduced, both recounting the deeds of the rulers of the Jewish people, and especially of the betrayer himself;

wherefore it is also entitled 'To the end,' directing us to the consummation of the age, in which the things written were being fulfilled.

Blessed is he who understands concerning the poor and needy.

He pronounces blessed the one who is able to understand the poverty which Christ took upon Himself for our sake.

For He calls Him 'poor' because, being rich, He became poor for our sake, that we by His poverty might become rich.

The Lord shall preserve him, and keep him alive, and make him blessed upon the earth.

These are the recompenses of faith in Christ: the protection from the Lord, the participation in eternal life, the blessedness in the land of the meek, and the deliverance from the spiritual enemies.

These are also the recompenses of love for the poor;

for the Lord not only gives to the lover of the poor the things to come and that true life, but also here makes him blessed.

Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.

And the Saviour would say these things, making our sins His own, as the firstfruits of our nature;

and Him who knew no sin, God made to be sin on our behalf;

to whom it is fitting also to be in need of mercy.

For all our sin is detected to be of such a kind.

My enemies have spoken evil of me: When will he die, and his name perish?

From here the person of Christ is introduced, recounting the things done to Him by the Jews, whom He also calls enemies, envying Him and contriving His death;

who also, seeing His name filled with much power, so that through it unclean spirits were driven out and every disease healed, supposed that it, as in the case of other men, would be quenched after death.

But the Church, holding views contrary to the enemies of Christ, cried out in His person, saying in hymns:

I will make Your name to be remembered in every generation and generation; and, Your name is as ointment poured forth. Being persuaded that there was bestowed upon Him the name that is above every name.

And if he came in to see, he spoke in vain.

The prophecy directs its discourse upon Judas, as one who entered indeed as a disciple, yet who spoke and devised wicked things against the Lord, and who ranged himself with the Jews who were plotting their wicked counsels against the Lord, and who, contrary to the law, was truly hastening to put to death the innocent one.

'The other enemies,' he says, 'as good as saying, He is grievous to us even to look upon, were contriving death for Him;

but Judas kept coming in, as one of the household, to spy Him out;

for he was watching for the moment of betrayal, stirring up and gathering together the lawless counsels concerning it.

For he had resolved to hand over the Lord to the murderers, and he supposed that he was escaping His notice by speaking in vain—that is, by calling Him Rabbi and Teacher.

'He went forth outside, and spoke together (to the same end).'

'Going forth outside,' he says, 'he ranged himself with the Scribes and chief priests and Pharisees, no longer speaking in his heart, but conversing openly.'

And what did he say? 'What are you willing to give me, and I will hand Him over to you?' 'All my enemies whispered together against me.'

'He signifies the machinations of the Jews against Him, and their hidden schemes;

for, standing in awe of the multitude, they did not dare to set these things forth openly, but held their counsel in secret.

For a whisper is an utterance without frankness and a secret slander, just as reviling is an abuse that is in the open and made to one's face.

'They laid a lawless charge against me.'

'That is, the Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him. And that this word was lawless is clear from what was said:

The innocent and righteous you shall not put to death. Moreover, they even framed against Him an indictment of tyranny, saying that He made Himself a king and forbade the paying of tribute to Caesar.

But they also sought false witnesses against Christ, and fabricated lies.

'Shall not he who sleeps rise again to add?' (

How do you think to encompass Life with death? For dying is but a sleep in me, and death comes not for the destruction of life, but for resurrection.

For if I rise on the third day, how is my death not a sleep? For indeed, 'the man of my peace, in whom I hoped,' and so forth.

'He calls Judas a man of peace, on account of his seeming to be ranged among those well-disposed to Him and among His friends, at least in so far as concerned his being a disciple.

And what He says is of this sort:

'But you, O Lord, have mercy on me, and raise me up, and I will repay them.'

'These things befit Christ by reason of the measure of His humanity.

For consider for me once more Him who is in the form and equality of God the Father, God the Word, who shone forth from His very essence, sharing His throne and co-ruling over all things, yet being in abasement and among the lesser things on account of His likeness to us, and speaking rather in human fashion because of the self-emptying—or in a manner befitting God—as He addresses His words to His own Father;

for 'Have mercy on me,' He says, 'and raise me up.' And yet, how is it not evident to all that He Himself is by nature the mercy of God the Father? And He likewise is the resurrection and the life, according to His own word.

But it was necessary that He should fulfil all righteousness;

and since He became man, it was fitting that He should not decline the lowliness of humanity, nor deem unworthy the words befitting it, because of the artful wisdom of the economy.

And we say that the mercy, and joined with it the resurrection, He asks not so much for Himself as for us who stand in need of mercy and resurrection.

For just as, when sin entered into the world, there leapt in with it, as with its own mother, the death that sprang up because of it and through it;