Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 18 part 3/4

but by that same person of his he was foretelling, through a shadow of the future, Christ the Lord himself — he was not exhibiting him. Hence certain things are written about him as though these were foretold of Christ himself, while holy Scripture, prophesying by the very deeds done, in a certain way delineates in him a figure of things to come. For besides the books of divine history, where he is narrated to have reigned, the seventy-first psalm is also inscribed with the title of his name; in which so many things are said that cannot at all be fitting to him, but to Christ the Lord are fitting with the most manifest clarity, so that it evidently appears that in him some figure or other was shadowed forth, but in Christ the very truth itself was presented.

For it is known within what bounds Solomon's kingdom was enclosed; and yet in that psalm we read — to be silent about other things — 'He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth,' which we see fulfilled in Christ. For from the river he took the beginning of his dominion, where, being baptized by John, and John pointing him out, he began to be recognized by the disciples, who called him not only Master but also Lord. Nor was it for any other reason that Solomon began to reign while his father David was still living — which befell the sons of those kings — save that from this too it should shine forth clearly enough that he is not the one whom this prophecy signifies, which speaks to his father, saying:

'And it shall come to pass, when your days are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, who shall come from your womb, and I will prepare his kingdom.' How then, on account of what follows, 'He shall build me a house,' is this Solomon to be thought the one prophesied, and not rather, on account of what precedes, 'When your days are fulfilled and you shall sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you,' is another peaceable one understood to have been promised, who was foretold as to be raised up not before, like this one, but after David's death?

For however long an interval of time intervened before Jesus Christ should come, without doubt it behoved him, who was thus promised to David, to come after King David's death — him who should build a house for God, not of wood and stones, but of men, such a house as we rejoice that he builds. For to this house the apostle speaks, that is, to Christ's faithful: 'For the temple of God is holy, which you are.' On account of which also, in the eighty-eighth psalm, whose title is 'An instruction of Ethan the Israelite himself,' the promises of God made to King David are commemorated; and to those which are set down in the book of Kingdoms certain things similar are there said, such as this: 'I have sworn to David my servant: Forever will I prepare your seed'; and again:

'Then you spoke in a vision to your sons and said: I have laid help upon one that is mighty, I have exalted one chosen out of my people. I have found David my servant, with my holy oil I have anointed him. For my hand shall help him, and my arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not prevail against him, and the son of iniquity shall not proceed to harm him. And I will cut down his enemies from before his face, and those who hate him I will put to flight. And my truth and my mercy are with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. And I will set his hand upon the sea, and his right hand upon the rivers. He shall call upon me: You are my Father, my God, and the upholder of my salvation. And I will make him the firstborn, high above the kings of the earth.'

'Forever will I keep my mercy for him, and my covenant faithful to him. And I will set his seed for ever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.' All these things are understood of the Lord Jesus, when they are rightly understood, under the name of David on account of the form of a servant which the same Mediator took from the seed of David out of a virgin. Immediately also something of this kind is said about the sins of his sons, such as is set down in the book of Kingdoms, and is more readily taken as of Solomon. For there, that is in the book of Kingdoms: 'And if his iniquity come,' he says, 'I will reprove him with the rod of men and with the strokes of the sons of men; but my mercy I will not remove from him' — by 'strokes' signifying the blows of correction.

Hence that saying: 'Touch not my anointed ones.' What else is this than 'Do not harm them'? But in the psalm, when it treated as though of David, so as to say something of that same kind there too: 'If his sons,' he says, 'forsake my law, and walk not in my judgements; if they profane my ordinances of righteousness, and keep not my commandments: I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges; but my mercy I will not scatter away from him.' He did not say 'from them,' though he was speaking of his sons, not of him; but he said 'from him,' which, being well understood, means just as much.

For in Christ himself, who is the head of the Church, no sins could be found which would need to be restrained by human corrections, mercy being divinely preserved; but in his body and members, which are his people. Therefore in the book of Kingdoms it is called 'his iniquity'; but in the psalm, 'of his sons'; so that we may understand that what is said of his body is in a certain way said of himself. On account of which he himself also from heaven, when his body — which are his faithful — was persecuted by Saul, said: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' Then in what follows in the psalm: 'Neither will I harm in my truth,' he says, 'nor will I profane my covenant, and what proceeds from my lips I will not make void.'

'Once have I sworn by my holiness, if I lie to David'; that is, in no wise will I lie to David. For Scripture is wont to speak thus. But what he will not lie about, he adds and says: 'His seed shall remain forever; and his throne as the sun in my sight, and as the moon perfect forever, and a faithful witness in heaven.' After these most valid supports of so great a promise, lest they should be thought fulfilled in Solomon — as though this were hoped for and not found — 'But you,' he says, 'have cast off and brought to nothing, O Lord.' For this indeed befell the kingdom of Solomon in his posterity, even to the overthrow of that earthly Jerusalem itself, which was the seat of that same kingdom, and above all to the ruin of that very temple which had been constructed by Solomon.

But lest on this account God should be thought to have acted against his own promises, he immediately subjoined: 'You have deferred your anointed.' Therefore it is not that Solomon, nor even David himself, if the Lord's anointed was deferred. For although all the kings consecrated by that mystical anointing were called his anointed ones — not only from King David and thenceforward, but even from that Saul who was first anointed king over that same people (for David himself calls him the Lord's anointed) — yet there was one true Christ, whose figure they bore by the prophetic anointing; who, according to the opinion of men who thought he must be understood in David or in Solomon, was deferred to a long time; but according to the disposition of God he was being prepared to come in his own time.

Meanwhile, while he is deferred, what befell the kingdom of earthly Jerusalem, where he was assuredly hoped to reign, the same psalm continuing subjoined, and says: 'You have overthrown the covenant of your servant, you have profaned his sanctuary on the earth; you have destroyed all his walls, you have set his fortifications in dread; all who pass along the way have plundered him, he has become a reproach to his neighbours; you have exalted the right hand of his enemies, you have made all his enemies rejoice; you have turned away the help of his sword, and you have not aided him in war; you have loosed him from cleansing, you have dashed his seat to the ground; you have shortened the days of his throne, you have poured him over with confusion.'

All these things came upon the bondwoman Jerusalem, in which some also of the children of the freewoman reigned, holding that kingdom in a temporal dispensation, but holding the kingdom of the heavenly Jerusalem, whose children they were, in true faith and hoping in the true Christ. But how these things came upon that kingdom, history, the index of deeds done, is witness, if it be read. After these prophecies the prophet turns to praying to God; but that prayer itself is also a prophesying. 'How long, O Lord, do you turn away unto the end?' — 'your face' is understood, as elsewhere it is said: 'How long do you turn your face away from me?' For this reason some manuscripts here do not have 'you turn away,' but 'you will be turned away'; although it can be understood:

'You turn away your mercy, which you promised to David.' But as for what he said, 'unto the end,' what is it but 'even to the end'? Which end is to be understood as the last time, when even that nation is to believe in Christ Jesus; before which end those things had to happen which above he lamented as sorrowful. On account of which here too it follows: 'Your anger blazes like fire: remember what is my substance.' Nothing here is better understood than Jesus himself as the substance of his people, from whom is the nature of his flesh. 'For not in vain,' he says, 'have you established all the sons of men.'

For unless there were one son of man who is the substance of Israel, through whom son of man many sons of men might be delivered, all the sons of men would indeed have been established in vain. But now indeed all human nature, through the sin of the first man, has collapsed from truth into vanity, on account of which another psalm says: 'Man has become like unto vanity, his days pass away like a shadow'; yet God did not establish all the sons of men in vain, because he both delivers many from vanity through the mediator Jesus, and those whom he foreknew were not to be delivered, he established not in vain — for the profit of those to be delivered and for the comparison of the two cities set against each other — in the most beautiful and most just ordering of the whole rational creation.

Then follows: 'Who is the man that shall live and not see death, shall deliver his soul from the hand of hell?' Who is this, but that substance of Israel from the seed of David, Christ Jesus? Of whom the apostle says that, rising from the dead, he now dies no more, and death shall no more have dominion over him. For thus shall he live and not see death, so that nevertheless he had died, but shall have delivered his soul from the hand of hell, whither he had descended to loose the infernal chains of certain ones; and he shall have delivered it by that power of which he says in the Gospel: 'I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it again.' But the rest of this psalm, which runs thus:

'Where are your ancient mercies, O Lord, which you swore to David in your truth? Remember, O Lord, the reproach of your servants, which I have held in my bosom, of many nations; wherewith your enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the change of your Christ' — whether these things were spoken from the person of those Israelites who longed for the promise which was made to David to be rendered to them, or rather of the Christians, who are Israelites not according to the flesh but according to the spirit, may deservedly be asked. For these things were spoken, or written, at the time when Ethan was, from whose name this psalm received its title; and that was the same time of David's reign; and on this account it would not have been said: 'Where are your mercies,'

'ancient, O Lord, which you swore to David in your truth?' — unless the prophecy transfigured into itself the person of those who were to be far afterward, to whom this time would be ancient, when these things were promised to King David. Now it can be understood that many nations, when they were persecuting the Christians, reproached them with the passion of Christ, which Scripture calls a 'change,' since by dying he was made immortal. And the change of Christ can also be taken according to this as reproached to the Israelites, because, when he was hoped to become theirs, he became the Gentiles', and this many nations now reproach to them — those nations which believed in him through the new testament, while they remain in the old — so that on this account it is said:

'Remember, O Lord, the reproach of your servants,' because, the Lord not forgetting them but rather having mercy, they themselves too, after this reproach, are yet to believe. But that sense which I set down first seems to me more fitting. For to the enemies of Christ, to whom it is reproached that Christ, passing over to the Gentiles, has left them, this voice is unfittingly adapted: 'Remember, O Lord, the reproach of your servants'; for such Jews are not to be called the servants of God; but these words befit those who, when they suffered grievous humiliations of persecutions for the name of Christ, could recall that an exalted kingdom had been promised to the seed of David, and out of longing for it could say — not in despairing, but in asking, seeking, knocking:

'Where are your ancient mercies, O Lord, which you swore to David in your truth? Remember, O Lord, the reproach of your servants, which I have held in my bosom, of many nations' (that is, in my inward parts I have patiently endured); 'wherewith your enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the change of your Christ' — not thinking it to be a change, but a consumption. And what is 'Remember, O Lord,' but that you may have mercy and, for my humiliation patiently borne, render again the exaltation which you swore to David in your truth?

But if we assign these words to the Jews, those servants of God could speak such things who, when earthly Jerusalem was stormed, before Jesus Christ was born in his humanity, were led into captivity, understanding the change of Christ — namely that through him not earthly and carnal felicity, such as appeared for a few years in King Solomon's reign, but heavenly and spiritual felicity was faithfully to be awaited; which the unbelief of the Gentiles, then ignorant, when it exulted and insulted over the people of God being captive, was reproaching — what else than the change of Christ, unknowing to those who yet knew? And therefore what follows, where this psalm is concluded: 'Blessed be the Lord forever:'

'so be it, so be it' — this fittingly agrees with the whole people of God pertaining to the heavenly Jerusalem, whether in those who lay hidden in the old testament before the new was revealed, or in those who, the new testament now revealed, are manifestly discerned to pertain to Christ. For the blessing of the Lord in the seed of David is to be hoped for not for some fixed time, such as appeared in the days of Solomon, but forever, in which, with most certain hope, it is said: 'So be it, so be it.' For the repetition of this word is the confirmation of that hope. Understanding this, therefore, David says in the second book of Kingdoms, from which we have digressed to this psalm: 'And you have spoken concerning the house of your servant for a long time to come.' And therefore a little after he says:

'Now begin and bless the house of your servant even forever,' and so forth; because he was then about to beget a son, from whom his offspring would be led down to Christ, through whom his house would be eternal, and that same the house of God. For it is the house of David on account of the race of David; but that same house is the house of God on account of the temple of God made of men, not of stones, where God's people may dwell forever with God and in their God, and God with his people and in his people; so that God shall be filling his people, and the people full of their God, when God shall be all in all — he himself the reward in peace, who is our strength in war. Therefore, since in the words of Nathan it was said, 'And the Lord will declare to you that you shall build a house for him,' afterward it was said in the words of David:

'For you, O Lord almighty God of Israel, have revealed to the ear of your servant, saying: I will build you a house.' For this house both we build by living well, and God by helping us that we may live well; for unless the Lord shall have built the house, in vain have they laboured who build it. And when the final dedication of this house shall come, then shall be brought to pass that which here God spoke through Nathan, saying: 'And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them, and they shall dwell apart, and shall be troubled no more, and the son of iniquity shall not proceed to humble them, as from the beginning, from the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel.' Whoever hopes for this so great good in this age and on this earth is unwisely wise.

Or will anyone suppose that this was fulfilled in the peace of Solomon's reign? Scripture indeed commends that peace with excellent proclamation as a shadow of the future. But this supposition has been vigilantly met, since, after it was said, 'And the son of iniquity shall not proceed to humble them,' there was immediately subjoined: 'As from the beginning, from the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel.' For judges had been appointed over that people before kings began to be there, from the time when it received the land of promise. And assuredly the son of iniquity — that is, the foreign foe — humbled it through intervals of times, in which we read that periods of peace alternated with wars;

And there are found there periods of peace more extended than Solomon possessed, who reigned forty years; for under that judge who was called Ehud there were eighty years of peace. Far be it, then, that the times of Solomon should be believed to have been foretold in this promise; and much less, therefore, those of any other king whatsoever. For not one of them reigned in so great a peace as he did; nor did that nation ever hold its kingdom in such a way that it was not anxious lest it be subjected to enemies; because, amid so great a mutability of human affairs, so great a security has never been granted to any people that it should not dread hostile incursions upon this life.

This place, therefore, which is promised as an abode so peaceful and secure, is eternal, and is owed eternally in our free mother Jerusalem, where there will truly be the people of Israel; for this name is interpreted "seeing God." With the desire of this reward the godly life must be led through faith in this toilsome pilgrimage. [XIV] As the City of God, then, ran its course through the ages, first in the shadow of what was to come, that is, in the earthly Jerusalem, David reigned. Now David was a man skilled in songs, who loved musical harmony not with a vulgar delight but with a faithful will, and served with it his own God, who is the true God, by a mystical figuring of a great matter.

For the rational and measured concord of diverse sounds, by its harmonious variety, intimates the compacted unity of a well-ordered city. In short, almost all his prophecy is in the psalms, of which the book that we call the Book of Psalms contains one hundred and fifty. Concerning these, some hold that those alone were composed by David which are inscribed with his name. There are likewise those who think that none were composed by him except those which are headed: "Of David himself"; but that those which have in their titles "To David himself" were composed by others and adapted to his person. This opinion is refuted by the Saviour's own word in the Gospel, where he says that David himself in the Spirit called Christ his Lord; for the hundred and ninth psalm begins thus:

"The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet." And certainly this same psalm does not have in its title "Of David himself," but "To David himself," as very many do. To me, however, those seem to judge more credibly who ascribe all those hundred and fifty psalms to his work, and hold that he prefixed to some of them even the names of others as figuring something pertinent to the matter, but that he willed the rest to have in their titles the name of no man, just as the Lord inspired in him the arrangement of this variety, obscure indeed, yet not empty.

Nor ought one to be moved to disbelieve this by the fact that in that book the names of certain prophets who lived long after the times of King David are read inscribed upon some psalms, and the things said there seem to be said as though by them. For the prophetic Spirit could not but have been able to reveal to the prophesying King David even the names of these future prophets, so that something befitting their persons might be sung prophetically; just as King Josiah, who was to arise and reign more than three hundred years later, was revealed by his own name to a certain prophet, who also foretold his future deeds.

[XV] Now I see that it is expected of me that at this point of this book I should disclose what David in the psalms prophesied concerning the Lord Jesus Christ or his Church. But that I should not do so in the very manner which that expectation itself seems to demand (although I have already done it in one instance), I am hindered rather by abundance than by lack. For I am forbidden, for the sake of avoiding prolixity, to set down everything; and I fear, moreover, that when I have chosen some passages, I may seem to many who know them rather to have passed over the more necessary ones;

then (because the testimony which is brought forward ought to have the support of the whole context of the psalm, so that there be certainly nothing which contradicts it, if not everything supports it), lest, after the manner of centos, we should seem to pluck out little verses for the matter we wish, as it were from a great poem which is found to have been written not about that matter but about another and far different one. But in order that this may be shown in any psalm whatever, the whole must be expounded; and how great a labor this is, both the volumes of others and our own, in which we have done this, sufficiently indicate. Let him, then, read those things who is willing and able; he will find how many and how great things King David, who was also a prophet, prophesied concerning Christ and his Church, that is, concerning the King and the city which he founded.

[XVI] For however proper and manifestly prophetic the utterances may be about any subject, it is necessary that figurative ones also be mingled with them; and these, chiefly on account of the slower-witted, impose upon teachers the laborious task of discussing and expounding. Some passages, however, show forth Christ and the Church at their very first face, as soon as they are spoken; even though those parts in them which are less understood must be expounded at leisure. Of such a kind is that passage in the same book of Psalms: "My heart has uttered forth a good word; I speak my works to the King. My tongue is the pen of a swiftly writing scribe. Fair in form beyond the sons of men; grace is poured out upon your lips, therefore God has blessed you forever."

"Gird your sword upon your thigh, O most mighty, in your beauty and your comeliness; and press on, prosper, and reign, on behalf of truth and meekness and righteousness; and your right hand shall lead you wonderfully. Your arrows are sharp, O most mighty (the peoples shall fall under you) into the hearts of the King's enemies. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the rod of direction is the rod of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. Myrrh and drops and cassia breathe from your garments, from the houses of ivory; from which the daughters of kings have delighted you in your honor."

Who here, however slow he may be, would not recognize Christ, whom we proclaim and in whom we believe, when he hears of God whose throne is forever and ever, and of one anointed by God—assuredly as God anoints, not with a visible, but with a spiritual and intelligible chrism? For who is so rude in this religion, or so deaf against its fame diffused far and wide, that he does not know Christ to have been named from chrism, that is, from anointing?

Now that the King, Christ, has been recognized, let him who is subject to him—to him who reigns on behalf of truth and meekness and righteousness—inquire at leisure into the rest of the things here said figuratively: in what manner he is fair in form beyond the sons of men, with a beauty so much the more to be loved and marveled at as it is less corporeal; what is his sword, what his arrows, and the other things set down in this way not properly but figuratively. Then let him behold his Church, joined to so great a Husband of hers by spiritual wedlock and divine love, concerning which it is said in what follows: "The queen stood at your right hand in gilded raiment, clothed about with variety. Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear; and forget your people and your father's house."

"For the King has desired your beauty, since he himself is your God. And the daughters of Tyre shall worship him with gifts; the rich among the people shall entreat your countenance. All the glory of the King's daughter is within, in golden fringes, clothed about with variety. Virgins shall be brought to the King after her; her companions shall be brought to you. They shall be brought in gladness and exultation; they shall be led into the temple of the King. Instead of your fathers, sons are born to you; you shall set them as princes over all the earth. They shall be mindful of your name in every generation and generation. Therefore the peoples shall give you thanks forever, and unto ages of ages." I do not think that anyone is so foolish as to believe that here some little woman is proclaimed and described;

namely, the spouse of him to whom it was said: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the rod of direction is the rod of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows"—Christ, that is, above Christians. For these are his fellows, out of whose unity and concord among all nations this queen comes to be, just as in another psalm it is said of her: "the city of the great King." She herself is Zion in a spiritual sense; which name, interpreted into Latin, is "watching"; for she watches for the great good of the age to come, since to that end her intention is directed. She herself is also Jerusalem in the same spiritual manner, whereof we have already said much.

Her enemy is the city of the devil, Babylon, which is interpreted "confusion"; yet out of that Babylon this queen is delivered by regeneration among all nations, and passes from the worst king to the best King, that is, from the devil to Christ. On account of which it is said to her: "Forget your people and your father's house." Of this impious city the Israelites also, according to the flesh only and not according to faith, are a portion; and these too are enemies of this great King and of his queen. For Christ, coming to them and being slain by them, became all the more the possession of others, whom he did not see in the flesh. Whence, through the prophecy of a certain psalm, our King himself says: "You will deliver me from the contradictions of the people; you will set me at the head of the nations. A people whom I did not know has served me;