Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 21/24

How then did He receive that which He is ever seen to possess? [ How, or in what manner, didst Thou foreknow? For indeed even before the foundation of the world he speaks of the mystery of Christ;

which, as the all-wise Paul writes, was kept silent through eternal ages, but was made manifest in the last times of the age.

If, then, Christ was foreknown, we too, no doubt, were somehow foreknown together with Him.] He who alone doeth wondrous things.

Consider how none of the things spoken in the psalm will fit Solomon, the son of Uriah's wife—neither the phrase 'Before the sun His name,' nor the phrase 'that He is, before the moon, from generations of generations.' From all of this, then, it is plain that it is spoken concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.

'And blessed be the name of His glory.'

For every knee bows to Him, and, when the Son is glorified, He who begat Him is glorified together with Him;

for He says that the Son is the glory of the Father.

For thus somewhere, making His discourses toward Him as a Son, He says:

'Father, glorify Thy Son, that the Son also may glorify Thee.' This name, then, he says—that is, 'Son,' or 'Christ Jesus'—shall be blessed unto the ages.

'O Lord, in Thy city Thou shalt bring their image to nought.'

) By 'city' he names the city of God, the one above and spiritual, which is our mother.

For if they had kept Thine image, they would fittingly have been counted worthy also of the heavenly city.

'By Thy counsel Thou hast guided me.'

] Since the worker of righteousness, boasting in the grace of God, was saying:

'Thou hast held fast,' and so forth—that is, 'Thou hast set me as a keeper of Thy will'—for this cause the God of all, declaring it a great and singular thing, cries aloud, as it were, and says:

'For what is there for me?' and so forth.

'For lo, they that remove themselves far from Thee shall perish.'

) Some remove themselves far from the Lord, not by distances of place, but as by intercourse [

in order, or in disposition] and by knowledge and by manners.

For the wicked and unjust, and those liable to the other transgressions, are said to be far from God.

For what fellowship has light with darkness? But the good and righteous, and those skilled in the noble deeds that lead to godliness, are near to God.

'Thou hast utterly destroyed everyone that goeth a-whoring from Thee.'

Unbelief is the mother of fornication.

For who, believing that God is everywhere present, that He stands beside every deed and beholds the counsels of the heart, would either admit an evil thought or bring wickedness to completion? Wherefore, since they suppose that God takes no heed of the things done by them, they shall justly be utterly destroyed.

Let us put an end to the ways of spiritual fornication, that we may not undergo the ruin fitting and owed to those who love sin.

And spiritual fornication would be every kind of baseness and impurity.

And since our sins set us apart from God who draws near, let us take away this grievous partition, this thing that hinders us from coming near — that it may be nothing at all.

For He says: 'I am a God who is near, and not a God from afar.'

'But for me, it is good to cleave to God.'

Now we cleave to God by drawing near to Him in disposition, and by following after His divine ordinances.

For thus indeed the Saviour Himself somewhere says:

'He who loves me follows me; and where I am, there also is my servant.' PSALM 73.

'Thou gavest him as food to the peoples, to the Ethiopians.'

For by 'Ethiopians' we must understand those who have, as it were, a mind darkened and without light, not yet illumined and not possessing the divine light.

But those who fall down before the Son, concerning whom it is said:

'The Ethiopians shall fall down before Him' — these are made radiant by Him and cry aloud:

'Let the splendour of the Lord our God be upon us.' But those who have an impurity hard to wash away, and who have remained in their blackness, shall feast upon the heads of the apostate dragon, and shall be laid low beneath the sword.

'Thou didst dry up the rivers of Etham.'

He speaks of the things that came to pass in the wilderness, when He gave the people to drink from the rock.

And 'Etham' is interpreted as 'the south';

and the Jordan lies toward the south of the land of the Jews.

'Summer and spring — Thou didst make them.'

And perhaps the Prophet, wishing to signify the four regions under heaven, cries aloud to God:

'Summer and spring Thou didst make' — that is, the summery and southern parts of the inhabited world, and the northern and cold parts.

As in the verse: 'The north and the sea Thou didst create.' He passed over autumn and winter, because summer is set opposite to autumn, and winter to spring.

'I said to the transgressors, Do not transgress; and to the sinners:'

According to the historical sense, He commands the Assyrians and Babylonians not to blaspheme against God, nor to be haughty on account of their own strength.

For the 'horn' is taken as an image of strength, or rather of kingship, according to what is said concerning Christ:

'His horn shall be exalted in glory' — that is, His kingdom, and the might and authority to rule over all things.

But it also signifies arrogance, as here in the phrase: 'Do not lift up the horn.'

And with respect to the spiritual sense, the Saviour might be saying: 'Having established the pillars of the Church, that is, the apostles, I exhorted the others not to transgress;'

and these things may also be said with respect to that other order, those of the circumcision, who rose up in rebellion against the Saviour and exalted themselves against Him;

on whose account their land melted away, and all who dwell in it.

For the Pharisees, slackening the reins wholly upon their God-fighting tongue, as it were, made their blasphemy against Christ run most swiftly, and transgressed against Him against whom least of all they ought, impiously condemning Him.

And they lifted up the horn, stoutly affirming that they knew the will of God, in saying:

'We know that God spoke to Moses.' 'Do not lift up your horn on high, do not speak unrighteousness against God.'

And those from among the nations who worship idols also sin and speak unrighteousness against God;

and they lift up the horn as it were on high, and stretch out the neck in pride, striking against God — namely, those who battle against the doctrines of the truth, who are accustomed to speak falsehood, and who know neither what they say nor concerning what things they make their assertions.

For indeed horned animals exceedingly exult in their horns.

But the word charges them not to increase their lawlessness, nor to move the tongue against God.

'For neither from the risings, nor from the settings, nor from the desert mountains.'

And by 'desert mountains' are meant the northern and southern ones;

for these, by reason of the immoderation of frost and of burning heat, are uninhabitable.

'Therefore do not transgress,' He says, 'because nothing of those who transgress in all the inhabited world escapes God.'

'Thou dost enlighten wondrously from the eternal mountains.'

Both prophets and apostles may be called 'mountains,' because of the loftiness of the virtue within them, and because there is in them nothing low or cast down to the ground;

and 'eternal,' because the word of God proclaimed by them is preserved and abides perpetually.

We are therefore enlightened through them, that is, we are guided and taught.

'All those round about Him shall bring gifts.'

And by 'those round about Him' He calls the saints, who offer the virtues.

'With my voice I cried out to the Lord.'

For those who possess earthly wealth often, by means of it, ward off the assaults of those who plot against them.

But for the righteous man, God is his armour, and his hope is to be saved through the help from above. 'I meditated, and my spirit fainted.'

Then he shows next what happened, or what indeed the whole matter was that persuaded him to meditate — that is, to be anxious — saying:

'All my enemies seized the watches beforehand.' And now what again is this?

When enemies besiege a city, if the inhabitants of it see the watches, that is, the battlements manned, they are in hope of being saved;

but if they fall asleep, and then the enemies come upon them and take the watches and cross over the walls, then indeed they have conquered.

So when the Psalmist, as by a likeness of such a matter, says:

'All my enemies seized the watches beforehand,' he wishes to teach that 'All my enemies have conquered me, and the foes have prevailed.'

As they conquer and prevail over a city, so the enemies have prevailed.

'I too have been changed; henceforth I have thought aright.'

(Of Cyril and of the Theologian.) And you may understand it also in this way:

'Now I have begun to understand aright and with true knowledge whatsoever God works by His dispensation;'

namely, that Christ became like unto us and changed us for the better.

'For I too have been changed from one disposition into another;'

and I am so disposed because God both loves and saves those who are worthy.

And let everyone — whether turning back from vice, or abiding and advancing in virtue — say:

'Now I have begun.' This is the change which the right hand of the Most High bestows: ever to advance to what is greater through the exercises of godliness.

For he who advances in virtue is never at any time not being changed.

And the Only-begotten too is said to have been changed, inasmuch as the divine nature was changed, by its condescensions, unto our form and appearance — not by casting off, but by taking on.

'O God, Thy way is in holiness.'

For he says that God's way is the dispensations of truth, His governings in each affair — that is, in every righteous and holy work.

Thou art the God who workest wonders; Thou hast made known Thy power among the peoples.

For He it is who worketh wonders, since He alone is God by nature and in truth.

Thou hast redeemed with Thine arm.

For while the Egyptians were being punished and enduring those intolerable plagues, Israel was being instructed, and through those very events was taught what manner of power belongs to Him who saves. 'The waters saw Thee, O God, and were afraid, and the depths were troubled.'

The saving baptism redeems, and swiftly delivers from the greed of the devil.

For he holds us in his power through the sin that dwells in our members.

The clouds gave forth a sound, for Thine arrows also pass through, and so forth.

But according to the figurative interpretation, the multitudes of the peoples gathered together in the Churches of God, being likened to waters, when they beheld the God who had come to sojourn among men, took up a saving fear, which is the beginning of wisdom.

But the depths, which are the order of the unbelieving, were troubled, rising up against the Church.

And the clouds which were commanded not to rain upon the former vineyard, namely Israel, are the disciples of the Saviour, who, ministering the evangelical word and dispensing the heavenly rain over all the inhabited world, gave forth a sound.

For their voice went out into all the earth.

And the saving and chosen arrows, which wound the souls of those being saved, are again the apostles themselves, or the fiery oracles of God and the working of the Spirit, which passed through everywhere.

But the thunder also is the evangelical word which resounded throughout the region under heaven, from which certain ones were even named 'sons of thunder.'

It was spread abroad in the wheel, that is, in this world which is spherical in form and moves in a circular manner.

According to that which is in Ezekiel, 'A wheel within a wheel.' And the lightnings, which flash upon us the intelligible light, are the ministers of the Gospel, to whom it was said:

'Ye are the light of the world'; they shone unto the ends of the earth.

And it must be known that every saint too has no angle nor anything crooked, but is a wheel touching the earth by a small part;

and the voice of wisdom comes to be in such a one, who has nothing curved.

But the sinner is in other respects crooked;

even if he prays, he prays in the corners, along inclined lines and not along the straight way that leads his soul aright.

But let even the perceptible lightnings turn us toward the God who thunders and flashes;

for they have something marvellous, in that they cause their beams, appearing all at once, to shine upon the inhabited world, so that the darkness of night is dissolved;

for not only the sun dissolves the darkness, but the lightning also.

But if here too one must dwell further upon the word, as by way of an example: being wheels, the loud-voiced apostles of the word according to the Gospel receive the voice;

so too they flash, and their light shines before men, and one may behold the lightnings of their thoughts and of their deeds.

And our Lord Jesus Christ has saved us also in like manner;

for He carried us across and brought us safely through the surge of the present life, its uprisings, its temptations, its waves, as through a kind of sea.

Through Him we have also prevailed over those that withstood us.

And He has also brought us into the land of promise, of which He made mention, saying:

'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'

The bread of heaven He gave them.

The bread of heaven is the Only-begotten of God;

that is to say, this is the true manna;

the bread from heaven bestowed upon every rational creation.

How long, O Lord, wilt Thou be angry unto the end?

But that Christ receives, and that very readily, the intercessions of the saints, which they often make on behalf of those who have offended—for they contend as for brethren, and share the tears of those in affliction, and make the calamities of others their own, and, as though themselves suffering out of love, fall down before the good-loving God, saying:

'How long, O Lord, wilt Thou be angry unto the end; shall Thy jealousy burn like fire?' Wilt Thou not, he says, unto all time and unceasingly let loose Thine anger upon those who have sinned?

It is not Thy nature to be such;

for the God of all smites those who have neglected to be willing to live aright;

but since He is great and beyond comparison [unfailing] in loving-kindness, He has not dealt with us according to our iniquities, nor rewarded us according to our sins.

[beyond comparison]—unto love of mankind; He has not dealt with us according to our iniquities, nor rewarded us according to our sins.

For He ever restrains His wrath, and does not bring upon us punishments equal in weight to our transgressions;

and indeed, on account of the greatness of the gentleness and freedom from resentment that is in Him, certain ones almost even accuse Him of being angry at all.

And so the most patient Job, doing this very thing, came forward saying:

These things then the noble athlete said.

Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations that have not known Thee, and so forth.

The prayers of the saints profit us;

for they fall down before God on our behalf, and in a sense divert to others the wrath that is coming upon us, saying:

'Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations that know Thee not, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon Thy name.' Does He then wish the effects of the divine wrath to be poured out simply upon others who have committed no sin? Then how would God have tolerated one who urged Him to do wrong? Or how would he have been holy at all who made so harsh a prayer? What then is it that he says? For when some of those who have come to be under God, and have honoured the service that is under Him, transgress, then in every case He instructs them, measuring out the movement and tempering with mercy the things that come of wrath;

but when there are certain of those who know Him not, who continually provoke Him, then He lets loose upon them His unbridled wrath.

And it is necessary to see what manner of poverty is here understood as ours, and what wealth we have altogether cast away.

The nature of man became stripped of every good, bereft of the gifts from above, outside of intimacy with God.

For God made not death, but created all things unto incorruption, and the generations of the world are for salvation;

but through the envy of the devil death entered into the world.

We became exceedingly poor, therefore, but in Christ we have been made rich, having recovered the things that were in the beginning.

For being rich He became poor together with us, that we by His poverty might become rich.

[Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.

By the three most illustrious tribes He signifies the whole race of Israel.] Come to save us.

For such things were spoken prophetically;

but it has come to fulfilment, as I said, unto us, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

For in the last times of the age the Only-begotten Word of God became man.

Show the light of Thy countenance, and we shall be saved.

They name the Son the countenance of God the Father;

for He is the image and impress of His subsistence, and in Him alone shines forth the beauty of God the Father.

When the countenance of the Father, that is the Son, shone upon us, we turned back to the living and true God from our vain, ancestrally handed-down manner of life, and we have been saved through Him.

How long wilt Thou be angry at the prayer of Thy servant?

He no longer accuses Him of delaying, but rather entreats Him to hasten His grace;

yet God, who knows all things, knows also the fitting season for each of matters.

Thou wilt give us to drink with tears in measure.

Lamenting and groaning we obtain a share of that which is needful.

This you have done, meting out the punishment in exact measure against our sins.

You have made us a cause of contention to our neighbours.

The sons of Israel were set as a matter of contention to their neighbours, and as an object of derision to their enemies—but in what manner? Plainly, being brought low, trodden underfoot, and fallen beneath the feet of their foes.

For it was not possible for those who were being sorely afflicted to prosper.

[being beforehand grieved...]—They do not accuse Him as one who has done wrong; rather, they lament that Israel has been left bereft of the help that comes from Him.

For going before them, He drove out nations from before their face.

Now the root of the Judaic vine is Moses, or Joshua.

These filled the land with their own piety.

For everywhere their virtues spread abroad.

Having named the people figuratively a vine, he continued in the figure.

And by 'mountains' he calls the might of the neighbouring nations;

and by the shadow that covers these, he means the dominion of Israel that had been laid upon them.

And by 'the cedars of God' he means the exalted rulers, those who had received from God the authority to rule;

and by the climbing vines that overshadow the cedars, the kingdom of Israel that had become more illustrious than these.

And to Solomon even the queen of the Ethiopians looked;

so greatly renowned did he become among all people.

And by 'branches' he speaks of the multitude of the people;

and by 'shoots,' the proselytes who came over from among the nations and received the divine knowledge.

(Of Cyril and Hesychius.) You will understand these things also as applying to the devil.

Turn again, then, and look down;

take thought for the land that has been laid waste, sending down upon it the spiritual rain.

For through Him, as through a hand, He works all things.

For then that which was burned with fire shall spring up again and revive, and shall yield good fruits;

for those who set it on fire shall perish.

For He is the image and impress of His substance, and in Him we have beheld the Father.

'Visit this vine, and restore it,' and so forth.

'And prepare it somehow upon a Son of man'—that is, grant them a good heart, so that they may both recognize and receive through faith the One who became man.

'When, therefore,' he says, 'He shall restore this vine, and prepare its heart to receive through faith the One who became the Son of man, then indeed shall that which was burned with fire and dug up into utter uselessness spring up again and revive, and yield good fruits;

for those who set it on fire and dug it up shall perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.'

And again he names the Son as the 'countenance' of God the Father;

for He is the image and impress of His substance, and in Him we have beheld the Father.

'Upon the man of Your right hand, and upon the son of man.'

(We confess that in these words he names Christ the Saviour of all—that is, the Only-begotten Word of God;

since He became man, he speaks of what pertains to Him in human terms.

This is the Christ, this is the Word of God who became man, who for our sake endured the self-emptying, yet remained what He was.

'When he came out of the land of Egypt, he heard a tongue which he knew not.'

(This is something great and exceptional, and it suffices for every prosperity to the man who is once for all most devoted to the contemplation of God.

For he was brought out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and an uplifted arm, as it is written, and escaped the greedy oppressions there.

Having passed over all these things, the one who offers up the song makes mention of the giving of the Law at Sinai.

For there Israel heard a tongue which he knew not.

There, first of all, came to him the prophecy concerning Christ the Saviour of us all.

For at the foot of Mount Sinai, when God had come down upon it in the form of fire—

then, as it is written in Exodus, the Lord spoke these words:

'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.' And a little later the sacred Scripture goes on to say:

'And all the people saw the voice, and the flames of fire, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking.'

'And all the people were afraid, and stood afar off.'

'And they said to Moses, saying:'

'Speak you to us, and let not God speak to us, lest we die.' You hear how they cannot endure the unaccustomed voice;

they cannot bear God speaking. And a little later, marvelling at this, the Psalmist says concerning it:

'When he came out of the land of Egypt,' and what follows.

For he heard God giving the Law;

but since the matter was at once unbearable to them, they sought a mediator, saying to blessed Moses:

'Speak you to us, and let not God speak to us, lest we die.' Then what follows from this? God the Father at once understood that we have need of one who mediates.

But it was not possible for Moses, being mortal like us, to become forever a mediator between God and men;

for this reason, immediately he made the prophecy concerning Christ, saying:

'A prophet I will raise up for them from among their brethren, like you;

and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak according to all that I command him.'

'And it shall be that whoever will not hearken to whatsoever the prophet shall speak in My name, I will require it of him.' Thus the Son has become the mediator between us and God.

But how a mediator? He humbled Himself unto self-emptying, took the form of a servant, and dwelt among those upon the earth as a man.

And after many things the Father said, 'I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.'

'Of Myself I speak not, but the Father who sent Me, He has given Me commandment what I should say and what I should speak.' And again:

'The words which I have spoken to you are not Mine, but His who sent Me.' Yet He speaks the things of the Father not as a minister of words, but as being Himself the Word of the Father.

and His name is called the Angel of great counsel. Now the great counsel of God the Father is that which the Son declared to us, being, as I have said, the Word of the Father.

'His hands served in the basket.'

(For those who labour at the toil of brickmaking put the clay into a basket and carry it upon their backs.

And even to this day the vessel in which loads are carried is called a basket.

'Their back,' he says, therefore, 'He removed from burdens'—that is, He set them free from loads.

And He freed their hands also from serving in the basket.

This, then, in brief, is the sense of these verses, having in it nothing difficult at all.

But of those who were being set free after the flesh, Moses was the minister;

But for us who are according to the Spirit, Christ has become mediator;

for He Himself overthrew the spiritual Pharaoh, that is, Satan;

He drove him away from his greed to lord it over all things.

He delivered us not so much from a bodily bondage as from a spiritual one.

The enemies of the Lord have lied to Him.

For though they were expected to render in every way and by all means the fruit of godliness toward God, they became, on the contrary, wicked.

With honey out of the rock He satisfied them.

As a newborn infant, He says, small and needing much care, God reared him, setting bread before them to the full, and providing that they should be filled with nourishment of honey; for this is the food most suited to little ones.

God stood in the congregation of gods.

And here, without dispute, he calls the Saviour God—true God, not spurious, not falsely named, nor one who received the title from another by way of grace, but One who is this by nature and truly is what He was, and what He is also called.

But again he speaks of gods who are not this in truth, but are so named according to grace;

of whom the all-wise Paul also makes mention, saying:

For even if there are so-called gods and lords, many both in heaven and on earth, yet for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him;

and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him. There are, then, certain ones named gods according to grace.

And indeed it has also been said to us through the voice of the Psalmist:

You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. Being, then, true God, the only-begotten Word of God stood in the congregation of gods.

And of what sort of gods? Of those honoured, through the priesthood, with the dignity of the divine calling.

For thus Paul also names them, saying:

You shall not revile the gods, nor speak evil of the ruler of your people. [I said:

You are gods, and sons of the Most High.

For since we have become His sons, inasmuch as we have received into our mind the natural and true Son through the Holy Spirit, therefore we too have been honoured with the title and have been named gods—though we are not this by nature, but for the sake of honour and glory.

Yet even if we are called gods, there is nevertheless One who is so by nature and in truth, and above all;

but we are so by participation, as I have said.] PSALM 82.

[Behold, Your enemies have made a tumult.

Behold, the Prophet has set forth another kind of enmity toward God.

For those who are hostile to the people of God and to the saints thereby choose war against Him;

of whom those are servants and household friends.] [And who will be able to plot anything against God, or to arrange it, or even at all to imagine it—against Him who is unapproachable not only to sight but even to reasonings? Rather, He reckons to Himself what is done against those who trust in Him;

and for this reason the plots against those are said to be against God Himself, as against the father and champion and guardian of those who are plotted against.

And who are they that work the plots?] Those who hate You have lifted up the head.

Again, as of serpents and asps, he says, They lifted up the head. For just as serpents when they bite gently raise the head and lift it from the ground, so also those who fight against the glory of Christ gently raise the head;

for they are struck by Him, since He it is who crushes the heads of the dragons.

The tents of the Edomites, and the Ishmaelites, and so forth.

And these nations, barbarous and hostile to the Israel according to the flesh, were called by an especial name, foreigners (allophyloi).

But God saved even those at that time, rendering the assaults of the nations ineffectual.

And Assur also came together with them.

He sins against knowledge itself, who supposes that the mind, which by nature is made to see, errs in its knowing.

But those who have taken up the war against You are Gebal, and further Assur, and what follows.

How beloved are Your dwellings!

He calls these dwellings eternal and heavenly;

they received the light of the truth, they came to know the truth, they learned the ways of godliness, they entered into the divine courts, and henceforth they sing praises to Christ, the Saviour of all.] The turtledove [has found] a nest for herself.

They marvel, as I said, at the beauty of the Church;

and they also praise the gentleness of the teachers in them, because, like certain turtledoves, they cherish their own nestlings beside the divine altars.