詩篇註釋 第 1 章 第 5/24 段

'The Lord is at the right hand of the righteous, but the devil at the right hand of the sinner.'

For being by nature God, and life, and life-giving, he gave life to his own temple, not accomplishing this thing for himself, but transmitting to the whole nature of man the good that comes from this.

He was therefore not ignorant of the way of life, even though the forefather Adam had been ignorant of it. Because he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.

'I foresaw the Lord at my right hand continually,' indicating the Father. Therefore the Son is the right hand of the Father, and the Father the right hand of the Son, according to the saying, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in me.' But the former seems to be spoken according to the human aspect;

for insofar as he is God, he is not shaken.

But his flesh was not without a soul;

for it does not belong to the flesh to say that it has God at its right hand and foresees him continually, that it may not sin.

For 'to be shaken' signifies a sinful movement.

In your presence are delights; at your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

For just as through him all things were brought forth into being, so through him it receives its reordering unto that which is better.

who, having exalted the formless and unbeautiful nature, seated it as God, by deification, at the right hand of the Father.

Hear, O Lord, my righteousness.

Perhaps, since God does not hear bare words, but virtue as it were crying out through deeds, the prophet teaches us how we too, when we entreat, shall be heard—namely, that it is with righteousness.

But if it is the choir of the apostles who here entreats, they name Christ the Lord of righteousness—not the righteousness that is in the law (for that was not blameless, but was laid down until a time of reformation), but the righteousness that is in truth, that is, the evangelical righteousness.

The apostles, therefore, loving the worship and service in spirit, say:

'Hear us, O Lord and God—not the righteousness that is in figures, but my own, that is, the true and spiritual righteousness, according to which we also desire to live, and which we also proclaim to others.'

But to Christ himself, most of all, it is fitting to say according to the human aspect, to God and Father:

'Hear my righteousness'; for he himself did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.

From your presence let my judgment come forth.

'Do you yourself become the judge of the things concerning me, and let my eyes behold your uprightness, that is, your righteous judgment.' You have visited me by night, you have tried me in the fire, and no unrighteousness was found in me.

Let him who even by night and in his sleep is unreceptive to shameful and irrational fantasies say this, if indeed such a thing is possible.

It should be noted that the word 'You have visited' is not used in the sense of punishment.

And again it should be known that the devil sets on fire in a manner contrary to God;

for God sets on fire either to find the pre-existing unrighteousness, or, since none pre-exists, he does not find it.

From those who oppose your right hand.

He calls the demons those who oppose the right hand of God;

and the right hand of God is every godly and righteous person, concerning whom he says in another place:

'Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand.' It is against the salvation of this one that the demons set themselves, from whom God delivers those who hope in him.

Jews and Greeks, and the inventors of profane heresies;

from whom the apostles entreat to be delivered;

and the safety which nature has bestowed upon the pupil of the eye, this they seek from God, that in no way may the eye of their understanding be harmed by them and suffer to be darkened.

This same thing the Saviour also would pray to the Father, that he himself—that is, his body, the Church of the faithful—might be guarded from those who war against it, like some pupil of an eye undimmed and seeing aright.

May we too be guarded from the demons who oppose our right and good conduct;

which conduct is said to belong to God, as being accomplished through his grace and working, lest, when the eye within us has been darkened, we fall into the mist of sin.

Under the shelter of your wings you will shelter me.

And the apostles too make this a necessary petition, that they may come to be under the shelter that is in Christ, since enemies endeavour to render them wretched, savagely hurling upon them every kind of plot.

For all who wish to live godly in Christ shall be persecuted. The Saviour too wished to gather the children of Jerusalem, in the way that a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but they would not.

The demons, inventors of impiety and sin, wear us down too, and make us miserable and wretched;

but God will guard our hearts and our thoughts, as it were by certain wings connatural and consubstantial with him, namely, his only-begotten Son and the life-giving and Holy Spirit.

Having cast me out now, they have surrounded me.

And out of what do they cast us, when they wish to encircle and seize us? Out of the law, assuredly, and the commandments;

which, for those who are vigilant, stands in place of a wall and a strong city;

concerning which you will find the prophet declaring:

'Who will lead me into the fortified city?' Let us therefore never, being deceived, fall away from this, lest we come to be under the hands of the enemy.

And those who war against the saints saw, or rather intended, nothing else than this one thing alone: to cast the saints out from their good endeavours, and to turn them aside and divert them from the way that is according to God.

But where do the enemies wish to separate the saints from their love of God? Upon the earth — that is, so long as they live and dwell in this earthly region, the saints are assailed.

For after our departure from this life, those who wage war against us can no longer do us injury.

The saints, however, though enduring every kind of plot against them, declare:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? The Jews too cast the Lord outside the city and encircled Him, and indeed they schemed how they might destroy Him and lay Him low upon the ground.

And as they took counsel, they found agreeable to themselves that most dishonourable death by the cross.

They laid hold of me as a lion ready for its prey.

) He sets before us as fearful the plotting of the demons.

For what is more rapacious or more murderous than a lion? In just this way do our unseen enemies deal with us when they hunt us down.

But when we resist them, obeying Peter:

Be sober, he says, be watchful, for your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour; and if you resist him in faith, at once he is humbled and becomes as a young lion dwelling in secret places.

For this reason they hide themselves.

[One should indeed know that this most cruel lion — that is, Satan — also leaps upon us openly through his own henchmen;

and the same one likewise hides himself as a young lion;

for he prepares his plots in secret.

One might also apply such things to his children;

for they are of the same mind.] Thy sword — deliver my soul from the enemies of Thy hand.

) God's sword — He calls the righteous man, who like a blade cuts through the ranks of the demons.

The life of the righteous is the death of the pleasures.

That is, of the devil and the demons; being exceedingly plotted against by them all, he prays.

Arise, O Lord, forestall them, and trip them up.

) The word forestall means: Do not permit their design to be carried through to its accomplishment;

but by anticipating my peril, render their villainy useless in the end.

And trip them up means the same as: Do not prosper them as they run against me;

rather let them fall, as though someone met them and checked their most grievous course.

[O Lord, from the few, from the earth.

Few, I suppose he says, are the chosen among these — clearly meaning the saints, who have obtained from Christ that inheritance beyond all beholding.

And the Saviour Himself also says as much;

for this befits their manner of life.

For to those who shake off the yoke set upon them by God, and who stiffen their neck harshly against His ordinances, how could there be given a portion or a share among those whose mind is docile, and who are most zealous toward whatever God may will?] PSALM 17.

He spoke to the Lord the words of this song, and so forth.

In this psalm there is brought forward at one time the person of those who have believed, and at another that of Christ, employing human utterances.

For this very reason also the title is 'To the end.'

For the psalm contains the descent of the Only-begotten, the ascension, the victory over the demons, the casting out of Israel, and the calling of the Gentiles — all of which came to pass at the end of the ages, when the Only-begotten became man.

May we also be children of the Lord — that is, servants;

and, as in the day, walking becomingly in virtue and in the works of light, may we be delivered from all our enemies, and especially from the hand of Saul — that is, from the deeds and the working of Satan.

For the hand is a symbol of action;

and having come to the goal of victory, may we be counted worthy to give thanks to Christ who grants the victory.

My protector, and the horn of my salvation, and my helper.

) All these things are rightly named of Him, concerning whom this very prophet has taught us to sing praises;

In Thee will we push down our enemies with the horn.

Thus He is our protector through the flesh, having received, as upon a shield, the sufferings on our behalf, like arrows.

He is our helper through the Godhead;

for He alone was able to succour us through His impassibility.

He became the horn of our salvation through the cross;

for to the demons there is nothing more fearful than the cross.

Smoke went up in His wrath, and fire from before His face.

And smoke is fittingly spoken of as punishment as well, since it produces tears;

for smoke, when it strikes the eyes, always in some way draws the tear from them.

And fire also followed — the utter and complete destruction of the enemy, come to pass from before the face of God, that is, from Christ, who is the face of God and the express image of His substance.

For when the Only-begotten became man, there was kindled from Him a fire of wrath against the demons, so that they cried out:

Hast Thou come here before the time to torment us? And upon the Jews too there was sent forth beforehand, as it were like smoke, the threat that came from Christ against them.

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then shall you say to the mountains:

Fall upon us. Then fire also followed — the wrath — and it so blazed up against them that it even reduced them to coals, that is, consumed and utterly destroyed them.

I know also of a good fire, which Christ came to cast upon the earth.

This fire produces praiseworthy coals;

for through the warmth of the Holy Spirit, some are shown to be fervent in spirit.

Thus the apostles were kindled by God into coals, set aflame by their union with Him, and shining as luminaries in the world;

and concerning them it has been said to Jerusalem:

Thou hast coals of fire to set upon them; these shall be a help to thee. He bowed the heavens and came down, and so forth.

) He came down that He might join earth to heaven, and might grant to things below fellowship with things above.

But this would not have come to pass, unless, having descended in this manner, He had sojourned upon the earth in the way that it could receive Him — that is, in the flesh, which He called the thick darkness under His feet.

For this hid the presence of God that came to us at the consummation.

And He made darkness His hiding-place.

Darkness here means the mist that comes from incomprehensibility, which, falling upon the eyes of our mind, does not allow us to measure by the measures of time Him who exists eternally with the Father.

Understand darkness as the obscurity of the mystery, which came upon the unbelievers because of the flesh;

wherefore He fittingly called it a hiding-place also;

in this way Christ hid Himself from the devil and the demons, who, seeing Him disbelieved even by the Jews, ran to the cross, not knowing the power of the One crucified.

Dark water in the clouds of the air.

) For in this way is the mystery of Christ hidden.

He sent from on high and took me; He drew me out of many waters.

The Church of the faithful also confesses that the Lord, our Saviour, was sent from heaven by the Father, as a ray from the sun, and that He set her free from the many waters, that is, from the adverse powers and from the briny and turbulent affairs and circumstances of this life.

For the modes of temptations are diverse, and manifold are the plots of the wicked spirits.

But out of all these Christ has saved us.

According to the cleanness of my hands He will recompense me.

Fittingly paired with this, by cleanness of hands you would mean the splendid works of faith wrought without defilement, apart from which faith is dead.

My God—blameless is His way.

The Word of God alone is true God;

wherefore He is also called Only-begotten, because He alone is, as it were, God by nature;

for all the others are constituted gods by the presence of the Word of God.

For He called those gods to whom the word of God came.

God, who girds me with power, and has made my way blameless.

These words also befit the ministers of the Gospel, to whom the Saviour said:

Sit in Jerusalem until you be clothed with power from on high; and having girded themselves with it and been armed with the Holy Spirit (for this is the promised power), they became unconquerable both by demons and by persecutors and by passions, and passed through the way of life without stumbling.

Making my feet like a hart's, and setting me upon the high places.

They say that harts are exceedingly swift-footed, and moreover slayers of serpents, and that when pursued by hunters they bear themselves aloft.

...granting this, and making [him] trample upon the enemies as though they were venomous beasts.

And since it is proper to the nature of fawns to be consumers of wild beasts, and to put to flight by their breath and by the peculiar quality of their skin the race of serpents, the Lord is fittingly called a fawn, as one who tramples and destroys the hostile power, and who fashions the disciples into the nature of harts; concerning whom He says:

but these, having received authority from the Saviour to tread upon serpents and scorpions—the spiritual ones, that is—and over all the power of the enemy, are not captured;

but casting off the earth-bound frame of mind, they mount up as onto a mountain—to virtue, which is worthy of possession.

Yet it does not suffice merely to ascend; there must also be present the remaining fixed in the things above, and the delighting to dwell upon the heights of the virtues.

You have enlarged my steps.

At the beginning, then, the way is narrow and toilsome for the one journeying along the afflicted road and wishing to pass over the stumbling-blocks of the enemies;

but with progress it becomes broadened.

A people whom I knew not served me.

It is not indicative of ignorance;

rather, it means that those who in former times had not obtained kinship with me...

According to the former signification, God also knows the worthless, to whom the Saviour said:

You are as those who justify themselves before men, but God knows your hearts. And in the prophet:

for the Lord knew those who were His own.

For the Saviour said to the worthless:

Depart from me, workers of iniquity, I never knew you. And so also the people drawn from the nations, who of old were idolaters and sinners, and for this reason were not known by the Saviour, are said, when they pass over through repentance, to serve Him.

Whom I do not know (for he who still works the deeds of wickedness is not known), but the very one I did not know of old, now it is plain that I do know.

But at that time, not even knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods;

yet now, having come to know God—or rather, having been known by Him. For being ignorant, they were themselves unknown.

Israel, who was called first-born son, was called an alien son because of his unbelief.

They have grown old and gone lame from His paths.

Instead of 'They have grown old and gone lame,' Symmachus has rendered, 'They shall be dishonoured and put to shame.'

The phrase 'The Lord lives' Scripture uses in the sense of 'By the living Lord';

As the Lord lives, who has thus judged me, and He who has embittered my soul;

so long as my breath is still in me, and the divine spirit remaining to me is in my nostrils.

The heavens declare the glory of God.

they supposed that heaven, that is, the firmament, was a god, and they worshipped it.

And yet they were able to discern the Craftsman from the fact that His workmanship is so wondrous.

For if the thing made is great and excellent, it would proclaim abroad not its own glory but rather that of the Craftsman.

Day to day utters speech, and night to night proclaims knowledge.

In agreement with Moses, having first made mention of heaven, then of the firmament, he next discourses also concerning the light that makes the day, and shows that it is possible even from days and nights to marvel at the ordering of Him who has laid upon them arrangement and measures and the alternating cycle of exchange.

For He it is who turns the shadow into the morning, that is, who transposes the night into dawn and light, and who makes the dawn and the mist, that is, day and night.

He it is who ordains that days should yield to days the intervals of the hours, and nights to nights;

so that at times they are longer, and at other times shorter;

for the day in summer, as it were, all but says to the day in winter:

Yield to me the greater portion in the interval of the hours.

For this is what seems good to the patriarch.

And night to night proclaims knowledge—that concerning the Maker, evidently;

or that the nights in winter must by all means be longer, and those in summer shorter.

And this, I think, is what is meant by day uttering speech to day, and all but sending forth a voice, demanding the surplus in the interval of the hours;

while night proclaims to night the same knowledge.

There are no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard.

Now the holy Cyril and the exceedingly great Athanasius read the verse 'There are no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard' as a question; that is, 'Are there not, then, even of voiceless things or affairs or works, voices apart from speech and tongue?' 'Yes,' one might say;

for just as the richly-embroidered garment cries aloud the weaver's art, and the faultlessly-built ship proclaims the shipwright, and his work the smith;

so also the creation, which we have just now been recalling, is indeed voiceless, that is, without speech;

but its wonder is, as it were, its speeches, and its beauty and good order are like a voice.

For the heavenly narration, and the utterance cried out by the day, is not an articulate voice, nor speech through a mouth, but it becomes a teaching of divine power to those who know how to give ear to a silent voice.

for they say that this whole universe is one living creature;

and likewise living creatures also are the parts out of which it is made complete.

And He, as a bridegroom coming forth out of His chamber.

then, as if taking the signal for the race from the starting-line, He makes His flight swift and vigorous, and runs the course without weariness.

For this, I think, is what is signified by 'He shall rejoice as a giant to run his course.'

The law of the Lord is blameless, converting souls.

Not unprofitable to the more intelligent is the contemplation of nature, presenting to those who are willing to see it the glory of God, drawn from the beauty and good order of created things;

for His invisible things, since the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, are clearly seen.

But while these things are so, Christ himself has appeared to us, and has brought us near to the Father—not through the worship of the Law, but rather through the admonition of the Gospel.

Therefore, in addition to natural contemplation—that is, the contemplation drawn from the making and orderly arrangement of created things—we have also been enriched by the preaching that comes through him.

Creation alone would have sufficed to reveal the Maker to men; yet nevertheless he also gave a Law as a help, one able to turn back those who had gone astray.

This present discourse concerning the Law and its ordinances is for those who have gone before.

But there is far greater kinship and natural affinity.

These, all together, are the three divine laws:

another is the written law, the one given through Moses;

and the third is the spiritual and evangelical law.

First, then, he calls the evangelical preaching the 'law of the Lord';

for the law given through Moses was not without fault, as the all-venerable Paul writes.

And God too said somewhere concerning the Jews: 'I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances by which they should not live.' For by comparison with the ordinances of the Gospel, the Law is not good;

but the teachings of Christ are confessedly without blemish, which also turn souls from wickedness to virtue, from Greek error to godliness, from ignorance and darkness into light and understanding.

And the Gospel is named a 'law' because it apportions to each what is most fitting to his deeds—praises for the good, but penalties for the despisers.

'The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring unto ages of ages.'

(Of Cyril and Hypatius.) No one is clean from defilement, not even if his life upon the earth be but a single day.

But just as they say the herb has a cleansing power for the filth of garments, so the pure fear of God—that is, the fear that makes pure—if it come to be in the human mind, scours away every stain from it.

And it will preserve such a one even unto a long-lasting life;

for he who has passed through his life in purity will be such also in the age to come.

'The judgments of the Lord are true, justified altogether.'

Again he calls 'judgments' the divine verdicts and decisions upon each matter;

and these are true and just 'altogether'—that is, not discordant nor contending with one another, but rather akin and in accord with one another.

For not a single contradiction is found in the laws of the Saviour.

And they are given lovingly, as when to the one called into the vineyard about the eleventh hour he apportions equal wages with those who had toiled from the beginning;

and they are given justly, as in the separation of the sheep and the goats, saying to the one group:

Or: When the wicked thoughts which the devil casts into the mind do not gain the mastery over me so that I consent to them, then I would be blameless, and I shall be cleansed from sin according to act—which is great in comparison with sin according to thought.

And prophetically all nature cries out to God:

But cleanse thou me also from my hidden faults through baptism, and spare me from alien demons;

for if these do not gain the mastery over me, then shall I truly be blameless and shall be cleansed from unbelief, or also from transgression, which is a great sin.

He calls the 'great sin' the sin brought to completion in act, which the cleansing from hidden faults prevents.

'May the Lord hear thee in the day of affliction.'

Always the aim of the saints is stretched out toward God, and looking to him alone they seek help from him, even if some wave should be tossed about, and a fierce tempest be stirred up from the plotting of the demons.

This too Jeremiah knew when he said:

'O Lord, my strength, and my help, and my refuge in the day of my troubles.' For the succour that comes from men is unsound, but the help from above is secure.

'Let not Hezekiah deceive you, saying that God will deliver Jerusalem out of my hand.' And allegorically it signifies the day of the Passion, when the Saviour said:

'My soul is exceedingly sorrowful.' So those with Hezekiah pray that God may hear him, being afflicted at the blasphemies which Sennacherib uttered;

and the disciples of the Saviour pray that God and Father may hear him.

And we too learn, in a time of affliction, not to fall down in despair, but to pray, and not to entrust our salvation to men, but to God who is mighty over all things.

'May he remember all thy sacrifice.'

These words might be spoken also for the consolation of one who is downcast, either by the reason that dwells within the soul, or by the Holy Spirit.

And the afflicted one has need of prayer, and of not casting down his hopes;

for thus does God become one who hears.

Of Saint Cyril, from the interpretation of the nineteenth Psalm.

But the good way was not hard to find;

for Christ addressed us, saying:

'I am the way.' PSALM 20.

'Thou hast set upon his head a crown of precious stone.'

And this was an idol of the Ammonites, and finding in the crown a most precious stone, he set it into his own crown.

For I did not entreat for a precious stone, but thou hast given even this, anticipating my request.

And in another sense, before the anointing thou didst bless—that is, thou didst praise, saying:

'I indeed sought salvation from mine enemies from thee, but thou, in blessings—that is, in abundance and overflowing of goodness—hast given me both victory, and kingship, and prophecy, and, greatest of all, the dignity of being God's forefather.'

But Hezekiah too asked only for deliverance, yet found so great a victory and the utter destruction of his enemies;

and though he asked not for the kingdom, he received it.

And the precious stones are also the disciples of Christ, and simply the faithful, being his adornment and glory, and as it were a crown lying upon the head.

Now in the Gospel the father is said to make the marriage-feast for his son, but here the prophet says to God:

'Thou hast set upon his head a crown.' And the Church becomes a crown to Christ, encircling the head round about by means of living stones.

You might also call Christ himself a most precious stone, as indeed a chosen and admirable pearl, whom God and Father has given to us as a crown of glory, blessing us with the blessing of sanctification and kindness.

It is from a man's works and pursuits that he is crowned.

'May thy hand be found by all thine enemies.'

In one way it is found by those who persist in sin, and in another way by those who repent;

for to the former it is found as a judge, but to the latter as a redeemer.

Only, since the prophet says that we must first find God, and then be found by him, he clearly shows by this that salvation lies within us.

But some, taking the present psalm as referring to Christ, understood the punishments as directed against the Jews, from the words: 'May thy hand be found by all thine enemies.'

For these things, they say, will be brought upon them in the time of the coming of thy presence, for what they contrived against thee, thinking to encompass the Lord of glory with death—an impossibility.

First being named sons of God and his people, but afterward yielding the adoption to others—to the Gentiles who were called at the last, who also have become first, according to the word: 'The first shall be last, and the last first.' And for the rest he says, since when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then also all Israel shall be saved.

But some say that the 'morning help' means the time of the Saviour's resurrection;

for he was raised at deep dawn, having trodden down death.

The resurrection, then, is the 'help', as driving away the corruption of bodies, and purifying by faith those upon the earth.

For if thou shalt confess, he says, with thy mouth, 'The Lord Jesus', and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

But let us see what manner of things the Lord utters to the Father as man, mediating on behalf of humanity, and assuring us that he is our advocate.

'A reproach of men, and a thing despised of the people.'

In saying this, they hurled their reproach against God, as though He were powerless to save His own Son whom He wills, that is, whom He loves.

One might well marvel at the boundless dullness of the Jews: how, reading these words spoken as from the person of Christ against themselves, they did not understand, though they saw Him crucified and saw the prophecy in accord with their own reckless deeds.