Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 19/24

For it behooves us to show ourselves valiant in these things, knowing that the proving of our faith works patience.

But let patience, he says, have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. And a little further on:

Therefore those who have nobly endured the contests on behalf of godliness, and who are wont to win good repute through temptations, and who have then conquered and attained to the goal of their hope, say:

By 'fiery trial,' as I have said, he names the affliction in the contests;

and by 'waters' again he likens the outrages of the persecutors, that is, their uncontrollable onslaughts and unbearable assaults;

for unbearable is the onrush of river waters.

You have laid afflictions upon our backs.

For where is the skill of one who knows how to wrestle discerned, save clearly when contests are set before him and crowns are promised? And where is the soldier proved, save when the occasion calls him to battle? Therefore toils test the noble lover of piety, and temptations make him shine bright.

For God led us into the snare, not by contriving the temptation, but rather by permitting the being tempted, that they might be shown genuine, that they might receive the unfading crown.

I will offer up to you whole burnt offerings full of marrow, and so forth.

(Cyril, Athanasius, Basil.) As to the deeper sense, all are spiritual—both the whole burnt offerings and the oxen and the goats which he promises to render.

And the offering is made with rams also.

And the rams are the movements and impulses that have their impulse from the spirited part of the soul;

or they are the governing reasonings that gore the passions.

And he offers an ox as a sacrifice who presents himself as a living sacrifice through action;

for the ox, being a living creature that tills the ground, corresponds to the body that was fashioned out of the earth.

And the goats are the works of repentance;

for they were offered for sin.

And incense is the fragrance that breathes forth from pure souls.

Israel was redeemed from Egypt at various times;

but he teaches not according to what the letter of the Law says, but as one proclaiming the new things of the new covenant, and he marvels at the achievements of our Savior—all that he graciously bestowed upon the souls of us all.

To him I cried with my mouth, and I exalted him under my tongue.

What then is the meaning of 'I cried and I exalted him under my tongue'? It is needful, examining it precisely, to see.

For some, when they pray, imitate the vices of the Jews and emulate the vainglory of the unholy Pharisees, using a loud and great voice;

for they suppose, as is likely, out of great ignorance, that unless they cry loudly, God would not hear.

and let the mind cry out to God, because the petition is intensely strained.

Thus the Savior himself taught us to pray, saying:

But you, when you pray, and what follows.

What then does 'To him I cried' signify? Here he speaks of the inward, intense cry which the enkindled heart brought forth.

If I beheld iniquity in my heart, let not the Lord hear me.

Beautiful is the boldness of the saints;

for they have a conscience pure from all iniquity.

And he offers yet another ground of boasting to God: that he has come to be outside all iniquity;

wherefore also he is confident to be heard.

If I foresaw iniquity in my heart, let not the Lord hearken. If, he says, while beseeching to be delivered from bondage and to obtain the return, I imagined doing certain unjust things after the return, may I not obtain the divine favor;

and that I do not lie, the facts themselves bear witness.

He did not say 'if I beheld' (once), but 'if I was beholding' (continually).

The first signifies the short-lived wicked thought;

the second, that which is more long-lasting.

Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer.

For beholding me pure from such thoughts, in his munificence he counted me worthy of his own gifts;

Having thus recounted these things, the choir of the godly brings its words to their close in a hymn.

From him who has a pure heart let pure prayer never depart.

And prayer, of course, means also mercy;

for it is through prayer that I seek mercy from God.

For He is the image and the very stamp of His subsistence; and indeed He said plainly:

'He that has seen Me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one.' That Your way may be known upon the earth.

For when Your face has shone forth, the way that leads to You is made known.

'I am the way, and no one comes to the Father except through Me'; and through this way we too have been saved by faith.

We have come to know the way that leads back to the Father — the way which is again the Son Himself.

The way of God is also His commandments, according to the words, 'Instruct me in the way of Your ordinances'; which He asks to be proclaimed not in Judea alone, where the Law was given, but to be made known among all the nations.

Let the peoples give You thanks, O God.

(Cyril and Theodoret.) The prophetic Spirit foretells the confession of all the nations unto Christ, and rejoicing in the salvation of the whole world, it often utters the same things, delighting in the continual telling of its gladness.

It is fitting that all peoples and the nations throughout the world should rejoice and dance for joy, and recount Your benefits.

For they came to know that nothing that exists is left uncared for, but that You are the Judge of all, bringing forth just verdicts, guiding the wandering toward the truth, yet chastising those who are unwilling to be persuaded.

For when the way had been made known to those on earth, and God's salvation among all the nations, the nations, set free from all wickedness and from the deceit of polytheism, rejoice, achieving moral virtue, and exult at having received the knowledge of God.

'Peoples' and 'nations' set side by side are one and the same.

[Let the nations be glad and rejoice.]

Again, when one of these, the people of the Hebrews, makes confession to the God who says:

'I am He who blots out your sins';

therefore, declare your sins first, that you may be justified; and bearing the person of this people, the holy one says: 'To God I made known my sins, and my iniquity I did not cover.'

But the Saviour, having come, calls all the nations to repentance, showing them how through confession they may obtain forgiveness;

which confession also signifies thanksgiving, now that the face of God has shone upon them. Let the peoples give You thanks, O God; let all the peoples give You thanks.

) For how were the men upon the earth not to praise and bear fruit, when in every place incense and a pure sacrifice are offered? — as He says according to the prophecy set forth here.

And the repetitions render the hearers eager.

One should know, however, that men, when they bless God, offer Him words alone, but by deed they cannot do Him any benefit.

But God, when He blesses, confirms His words by deed, and grants to the blessed an abundance of all manner of good things.

Then he teaches how one obtains the divine blessing.

The earth has yielded her fruit.

) For it is then that the fruit of each man's works is found.

And it hints also at the cross.

In like manner he sought the blessing.

The Gentiles, in asking to be blessed, seem in some way to be declining the judgment that comes through the Law, and rather to thirst for the salvation and grace that come through Christ.

And let all the ends of the earth fear Him.

(Cyril and Theodoret.) For the fear of God urges one on toward the attainment of virtue;

and when this has come to pass, it will altogether and in every way befall those who possess it to abide in all that is good.

For he who is reverently disposed toward the divine laws, and dreads the judgment to come, worships God through the keeping of them.

And divine worship procures the blessing.

Observe too that he laid down that this very end — the having of the divine fear — belongs not to the Jews only, but to all men.

For all tribes, all tongues have feared the Trinity and glorify It.

It should be noted that, having thrice named 'God' and then appended in the singular 'Let them fear Him,' he laid bare both the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the oneness of the Godhead.

Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.

) For as long as He forbears and does not bring upon transgressors the punishment they deserve, He is understood in some sense to be sleeping and at rest;

but when He sets in motion the measure of His indignation, then in some sense He rises up and wages war against His own enemies;

and it is on this very account that the words of the saints call upon Him.

Therefore when He became man, then indeed were His enemies scattered, and those who hated Him fled.

For He bids that the way which leads to the heavens be made ready for those who do not know the heavenly Father, and for the widowed souls bereft of the Bridegroom.

For it was to be the avenger and judge of these that He came.

Mark the precision of the saying;

necessarily 'before Him' — that is, plainly, before Christ the Saviour of us all.

And it is necessary to see what the careful observance of the saying is;

for even those who are minded on the things of the world sometimes exult, only not before Him;

for He does not deem them worthy to be seen keeping festival.

And for what cause, the prophet will teach us, saying concerning them:

For with harp and timbrels and flutes they drink their wine;

but the works of the Lord they do not behold, and the works of His hands they do not consider. Let them be troubled at the presence of Him, the father of orphans and judge of widows.

) He set forth God's tender care by calling Him father, and His judicial power by calling Him judge, and that He is the protector of the defenceless and the judge of those who are wronged.

But who are those that are troubled? Is it not the accursed demons? For since the nations have been called to the knowledge of the truth, those demons are of necessity troubled, so that they even cry out:

'What have we to do with You?' But those who of old wandered astray and served the creation rather than the Creator — being like orphans in this world, utterly without succour, ready for every kind of covetousness, and like widows who have not the bridegroom, the Word, plundered by Satan and become portions for foxes — since they have believed in Christ, have grown rich in God as their father and protector, and in Christ as their bridegroom, who implants in them the divine seed, having been joined to Him through faith.

God is in His holy place.

) The holy place of God is those who love Him, or also the soul of every holy person.

God settles the single-hearted in a house.

) He grants them, he says, a sure and steadfast abiding in all good things.

For this is what it means to be settled in a house by God.

But who the single-hearted man is, it is necessary to say.

For many indeed received the faith in the Lord, yet not having wholly withdrawn their mind from the ancient deceit, they are diseased in part.

For they believe that Christ is God, yet they hold Hellenic dispositions within themselves;

for they even refuse certain foods as abominable, and observe days;

and moreover they speak of a certain fate and fortune, and, inventing systems of nativities, they suppose that human affairs are governed through these.

But he who is thus minded, and this after faith, is not single-hearted, but rather double-minded and many-turning, unstable and tossed about.

Bringing forth in courage those who are bound.

It is like the saying, 'He who says to those in bonds:

Come forth,' and to those in darkness.

This, then, is what he means: that, having gone even into Hades in the strength of His Godhead, He preached also to the spirits there who had once been disobedient, and He set free those who had been fettered by the chains of their sins and formerly bound fast by the bonds of the devil, granting remission of sins.

But those also who from ages past were held captive in death He raised up together with Himself, loosing them from the bonds of death.

And it was not only those from among the Gentiles who believed that He willed to set free, but also those from the circumcision.

For these He calls 'those who provoke to bitterness.'

Or by 'those who provoke to bitterness' he means the unbelieving, whom He also wished to lead forth.

But persisting in unbelief, they dwell in their own bodies as in foul-smelling tombs.

'O God, when Thou didst go forth before Thy people.'

When Israel had served idols and had been nurtured in the customs of the Egyptians, and God purposed to set them free and to lead them over to the knowledge of the truth, He is seen well-nigh to have shaken all things: the waters being changed into blood, heaven sending down hail, the sea being cleft and its waves standing frozen, and heaven distilling down manna.

filling the ears of all, so that the exodus of the sons of Israel became renowned and escaped the notice of none upon the earth.

For the things done by Thee became widely heard, and the whole earth knew.

For just as if someone were to say, for instance, 'The whole city was shaken,' meaning that it heard and marvelled, so you are to understand here the words spoken by the voice of the Psalmist.

'The earth was shaken.' For it marvelled at the wondrous things accomplished by Thee, who didst give oracles to the sons of Israel on Mount Sinai.

When God went forth from His people, saying, 'I have forsaken My inheritance and passed over into the wilderness,' that is, into the Church gathered from the Gentiles, then an earthquake and a very great change of affairs took place.

For the heavens also dropped down the divine and spiritual words and laws, that is, the apostles who set their minds on heavenly things.

This was signified also by the two goats, of which the one was sacrificed and the other released into the wilderness, so that we might understand both that Christ suffered in the flesh at the hands of the Jews, and that He remained impassible according to His Godhead, and that, as into a wilderness, He passed over from the God-slayers to the Gentiles.

And the grace of the Spirit also visited them, imitating as it were certain sprinklings of dew.

'A voluntary rain wilt Thou set apart, O God, for Thine inheritance.'

According to the letter, he calls the manna 'rain,' which was rained down peculiarly and set apart for the Jews.

But according to the spirit, by 'rain' he means the evangelical word, which came to us from above and from heaven from Christ; or the Saviour Himself who sojourned among mankind, even as also in another psalm, 'He shall come down as rain,' and what follows.

And 'voluntary,' by contrast with the service of the Law.

For the things of the Old Covenant were in a certain manner not voluntary for it, nor were they given primarily to man, but were measured out to the nature of those who received them.

'To those who bring good tidings with great power.'

For He gives great power of signs and wonders.

'By the beauty of the house to divide the spoils.'

And some preached to these, others to those.

For, snatching by their admonitions those who of old had served the devil, they brought them to Christ, unto the beauty of His house.

For the beauty and adornment of the Churches is the holy multitude of those who believe in Christ.

'The wings of a dove overlaid with silver.'

The word paints for us a most comely dove, as it were silvered in colour.

just as when someone sets gold upon bright and glittering silver, or engraves the figure of a dove, and the gold on its back appears mingled with a greenish tint, as though blended with a pale colour, then he renders the dove most beautiful.

'If, then,' he says, 'they rest in My lots, there shall be given to them the wings of a dove overlaid with silver, having also their backs in the greenness of gold'.

that is, that it will become a most beautiful dove.

For they no longer set their minds on the things upon the earth.

but they shall soar up as it were into the heavens.

or so as to set their minds on the things that are in the heavens.

By 'the wings of a dove' he means the grace of the Spirit.

for in the form of a dove it descended upon the streams of the Jordan.

and of this grace the simpler and whiter parts are offered to the simpler, but its deepest parts to the more perfect.

'For My mysteries,' He says, 'are for Me and for Mine.'

And some, as being imperfect, He gives milk to drink, but to others He offers solid food.

'If, then,' he says, 'you come to each teaching, you shall behold the manifold grace of the Holy Spirit.'

Yet He commanded not merely to come, but also to abide continually in attendance.

For he who sleeps is unmoved.] 'They shall be made white as snow in Selmon.'

The apostles, that is to say, shall be made resplendent.

these, then, were made white as snow in Selmon.

Now 'in Selmon' is a Hebrew word, and it is interpreted 'recompense.'

And so those who were set apart shall be made white as snow, as in recompense, that is, they shall become resplendent, having received splendour as a reward, as it were, for their genuine devotion to Christ.

He foretells, then, the day of Pentecost, on which the apostles received the Spirit in Selmon, that is, in Jerusalem, and were made resplendent, to whom He distributed the kingship of the inhabited world, commanding one to preside over these nations and another over those.

'The mountain of God, a rich mountain.'

He says that it is a rich mountain, and indeed also curdled like cheese.

'rich,' as being well-watered and moreover flourishing, and on this account able to sustain many flocks of sheep.

For very many are the flocks in the Churches of the Saviour that revel in the words of God-inspired Scripture and drink down the divine and heavenly word.

For in these is Christ, who says.

'If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink.' A rich mountain, then, as being well-watered and flourishing in a spiritual sense.

And it is also curdled, that is, compacted and drawn together into one.

For there is nothing loose or watery in the Church, but all things are held fast together unto godliness.] 'The chariot of God is ten-thousandfold.'

By 'the chariot of God' he means the heavenly and spiritual powers, upon which God rides.

The apostles too may be a chariot, upon which God the Word, riding, traverses the world beneath the sun.

and after them the pure, those who abound in virtues and bear to God the fruit of godliness, and who are ten-thousandfold more than those among the Jews who of old were worthy of the divine ascent.

'Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive.'

To what height has the Lord ascended? To that of the Cross, as He Himself teaches you, saying.

'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,' that is, when I endure the Cross for the life of all, 'will draw all men to Myself.' For He reigned over all that is under heaven through the precious Cross, having brought to nought the prince of this age, and having drawn all men to Himself.

'For even the disobedient,' and so forth.

(Of Cyril and Athanasius.) And what these things are, the Son Himself will make clear, speaking as in the person of God the Father.

'Ask of Me,' and what follows.

For those who of old were disobedient and going astray, the Father gave to the Son, that, dwelling in them through the Spirit, He might declare them sons of God.

'Blessed be the Lord God.'

For those who are added each and every day, and who are called through faith in Christ unto life, are zealous to glorify Him with unceasing praises.] 'May God, the God of our salvations, prosper the way for us.'

He who has bestowed salvation upon us, He says, this same One will also make the way level for us, so that we may not fall short of so many good things;

and He will open a door of the word, that the way of our preaching may be prospered for us.

Our God is the God of salvation, and to the Lord belong the ways out of death.

The apostles take courage, plainly; and even when they came to the point of death for the sake of the preaching, God nobly brings them out.

They say that the ways out of death belong to His power—that is, deliverance—since He grants to those who love Him the ability to pass through, that is, to escape the snares of death.

For He alone, being God who saves and the fountain of salvation, found ways out of death, having risen from the dead.

Since every man has come to the entrance of death, but is no longer able to pass out of it;

but the Lord, who is signified by the present words, having made ways out of death and having opened up for us its inescapable prison, has become the God who saves.

«Have you come upon the fountain of the sea, and walked in the tracks of the deep? Do the gates of death open to you in fear, and do the gatekeepers of Hades cower when they see you? I will turn back in the depths of the sea.»

Those who have been dragged down, He says, into the deep of pleasures, and baptized into worldly love of delights—I will turn them back to Myself.

«That your foot may be dipped in blood.»

He teaches how they will turn back—namely, when the wicked powers have been destroyed.

For He brought down their blood to the earth, and it was besprinkled at their overthrow, according to the word of Isaiah, so that His foot too was dipped in blood.

The word describes such things rather in the manner of a historical narrative, and fashions them as though concerning a war and a general.

For those who are accustomed to conquer in war and battle dip their foot in the blood of the fallen as they tread upon the slain.

Here, then, since he has shown the God of all things as a kind of champion warring down the enemies and freeing those unjustly enslaved, he describes in his account also streams of blood, and corpses trodden underfoot, and these cast out unburied and set forth as food for dogs.

You save, therefore, He says, those in danger, and You wage war against the enemies, that your foot may be dipped in blood, and that the tongue of your dogs also may be dipped in the blood of the enemies.

For dogs are always present with the flocks of livestock, terrifying the wild beasts with their barking and biting.

And with the rational flocks of the Saviour there are also present holy and all-wise dogs, driving away the alien beasts with their own eloquence as with a kind of barking.

By the dogs of the Lord, then, he means the guardians of the spiritual flock—the holy apostles and the bishops—whose tongue all but tastes of the blood of the spiritual enemies.

He says, therefore, that the voice of the apostles, being aided by Him—that is, by God—will all but become the cause of death for the wicked demons.

For when the enemies have been slain, the dogs also of those who slew them lap up their blood and tear apart their bodies.

In another sense, the foot of Christ is the man from Mary, who through the Passion was dipped in blood.

And the tongue of the dogs—that is, of the once unclean Gentiles—tasted of the undefiled blood, when they turned back from the devil.

«In the churches bless God the Lord, from the fountains of Israel.»

The fountains of Israel would be the blessed prophets, and before these, the Law.

He says, then, that it was not fitting for us to sing the praises of God drawing from any other source than from these very ones.

And he says this on account of the heterodox writings of the heretics.

For from the writings of the Law and the Prophets the Lord is blessed by those who are able to draw from them—since they are fountains of salvation—water with gladness.

«There is Benjamin the younger, in ecstasy.»

There—where? In the churches, or in the midst of those who sing psalms.

And who is Benjamin, but the blessed Paul, who was of the tribe of Benjamin? And the word «younger» is used because the Lord appeared to him last of the apostles.

«In ecstasy,» on account of his being caught up to the third heaven, and because of the abundance of the revelations, according to what was said by him:

«Whether we are beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we are of sound mind, it is for you»; and because he attained a more divine transformation.

Of him also the saying is verified: «In the morning he shall eat,» and «In the evening he shall distribute food.» For he who persecuted the Church in a short while preached the faith as good news.

«The princes of Judah are their leaders.»

He calls to mind also the rest of the teachers and apostles of the Church, who from almost every tribe of Israel became chosen ones and luminaries of the whole world; and he says that of the very ones who sing psalms these were ordained as princes and leaders;

both from the tribe of Judah, such as the brethren of the Lord, and Levi, that is, Matthew;

and from Zebulun and Naphtali, such as Peter and Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee, and Philip, who were from the village of Bethsaida, and James the son of Alphaeus from Capernaum; and Simon was named the Zealot, the Cananaean.

All these places are of Galilee;

and Zebulun and Naphtali had that inheritance;

and of this there are two witnesses, the one a prophet, the other an evangelist;

the one foretelling, the other bringing forth the testimony;

and they are leaders of the churches.

«Command, O God, your power.»

For of Myself, He says, I speak nothing, but whatever I hear from the Father;

and «that He may strengthen for them what He has fashioned for them»—all but pointing with the finger that the body which has grown weak and fallen into death through the transgression in Adam, this Christ will strengthen in due seasons;

they ask, therefore, that having freed the body from corruption, He may clothe it with incorruption, leading it back again to what it was in the beginning—that is, to the blessed and undefiled life that was in the beginning;

which the Lord will also do in due seasons, when He descends from heaven, and the dead are raised incorruptible.

«Rebuke the wild beasts of the reed.»

Since there are many who are hostile to the godly manner of life of the saints, and especially the unclean demons, on this account he prays that they be rebuked, being beasts of the reed.

It should be known that there is a place in Palestine, on the way to Jerusalem, whose name is Kalamos (Reed), because of the very many reeds in it;

in it there lurk terrible flesh-devouring lions, and other savage beasts denning about the thicket, which used to lie in wait for those going up to Jerusalem.

So then, from a manifest thing the word of the Psalmist carries us over to hidden and spiritual meanings.

What do the beasts in the Reed do? They dreadfully lie in wait for those going up to Jerusalem.

This very same thing we shall find the unclean demons also doing;

for the spiritual lions lie in wait for those journeying to the spiritual Jerusalem—those lions that lurk in the barrenness and levity of the unstable, and take their rest upon those who are dry as regards virtue and moist as regards love of pleasure;

according to what was said in Job concerning the devil, that «He sleeps under every tree, by the reed and the sedge and the papyrus.»

And there are also other beasts of the Reed—the inventors of unholy heresies, who secretly and beastlike write down their perverse things, and using the reed as it were for a tooth, devour the souls of the simpler folk.

«Ambassadors shall come out of Egypt;»

«Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand to God before the time.»

(Of Cyril and of Nyssa.) As the spiritual enemies have been scattered, the apostles will thereafter run to the preaching.

And the Egyptians and the Ethiopians shall believe—that is, the ends of the earth;

for the Ethiopians are the last of all in the east and the west.

By the Egyptians he signifies those who are exceedingly idolatrous and opposed to the worship of Israel;

for Egypt bound upon itself the crown of impiety;

and by the Ethiopians, the ends of the earth.

And how Ethiopia ran to the preaching, and the prophecy concerning her attained its fulfilment, one may see from the Ethiopian eunuch, whom Philip guided to the truth—he who was the hand of the queen of the Ethiopians, being a ruler of Ethiopia, and inasmuch as he was set over all her treasure, that is, her storehouse.

And that Ethiopia signifies all the nations, being black in sin, the bride in the Song makes clear as she speaks through repentance:

«I am black and beautiful»—the one on account of idolatry and wickedness, the other on account of the withdrawal from them.