There is a mountain as it were the wisdom of God, there is also a mountain as it were the righteousness of God, there is also a mountain as it were the knowledge of God, there is a mountain as it were sanctification, there is a mountain as it were redemption, there is a mountain as it were resurrection. These mountains Scripture has shown us, which said: But you are in Christ Jesus, who was made wisdom for us from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption; or because to the angels the Son of God was made an angel, to the prophets a prophet, whose judgments are like a great deep. Hear good things: Deep calleth unto deep at the voice of thy waterspouts, that is:
the Scripture of the Old Testament calls upon the series of the New Testament for the consummation of sanctification and the fullness of grace, with a certain sound and overflowing of spiritual abundance. Men, it says, and beasts thou wilt save, O Lord; how hast thou multiplied thy mercy, O God; but the children of men shall hope under the protection of thy wings; they shall be inebriated with the plenty of thy house, and thou shalt give them to drink of the torrent of thy pleasure. What is 'men and beasts'? The rational, surely, and the irrational. To the rational, judgments; to the irrational, mercy; some are governed, others are nourished. And therefore he added: but the children of men shall hope under the protection of thy wings, that is:
not the generation of vipers, but the children of men, who live according to the image and likeness of God, are placed not in pastures but at banquets; for some are in the place of pastures, others in the privilege of the sacraments; for the imperfect the juice of milk, for the perfect the table of refreshment, of which he said: Thou hast prepared a table before me, on which is the living bread, that is the word of God, on which is the oil of sanctification, by which the head of the just is anointed and the inner sense is strengthened, that the oil of the sinner may be abolished; on which also is that inebriating cup, 'how glorious' or 'how mighty'—for the Greek said XQ&UOTOV, that is 'potent' or 'strong' or 'mighty'; mighty indeed, by which disgraceful deeds are washed away or blotted out. Good, then, is the inebriation of the saving cup.
But there is one kind of drunkenness that comes from the abundance of the Scriptures, and another kind of drunkenness through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; for indeed those who in the Acts of the Apostles spoke in diverse tongues seemed to their hearers to be full of new wine. The house, then, is the Church; the plenty of the house is the abundance of graces; the torrent of delight is the Holy Spirit. And let neither the name nor the nature of a torrent trouble you, that at times it is drier or more meager, so that its streams are wont to fail. This torrent of ours has failed too; the torrent of the spiritual flood once failed among the people of the Jews. Why do I say 'the torrent failed,' when even the sea has failed, as today's reading taught us, the Lord saying:
Behold, with my rebuke I will lay the sea waste (and I will make the rivers a desert), and their fish shall dry up — that is, the fish of the Jews, by the dryness of their unbelief, so that they cannot swim out. The torrent therefore failed because of the sacrileges of the synagogue, for that people was a folk dry in faith, barren in works, captive to sins. For what could flow for those who do not drink, but who defile the sacred channels, since they denied the very fountain itself? Good was the torrent, which failed for them that it might overflow for us and turn away the thirst of human captivity, like a torrent in the south. Hence also the Scripture says: Arise, north wind, and come, south wind — the wind that is wont to blow through the little trees of paradise. We have spoken of the sense; let us now consider the wording as well.
Why did he say 'you shall give them to drink of the torrent of delight,' and not 'with the torrent' as though 'from the torrent,' unless because he wished to express the eagerness of those who drink, as though they would drink up the very torrent itself, if they could? This is perhaps that torrent of delight which in Genesis we read was the fountain that watered paradise and is divided into four rivers, which encompass the whole earth. From this fountain also flow forth the spiritual virtues: prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice. Good is the fountain of grace and of that same splendor and nature as that river of which it is said in later passages: The rushing of the river makes glad the city of God. Most fittingly therefore he added: For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light shall we see light.
Extend your mercy to those who know you, and your justice to those who are upright in heart. For after the commemoration of the heavenly benefits, they are by right referred with thanksgiving to their author, our Lord Jesus Christ, who as the watering fountain of life eternal descended into the lands to water the dry places of our breast. He is the very splendor of the glory of God the Father and the image of his substance, and therefore in his true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world, we shall see, he says, the Father, for God is light. Rightly too it is said: In your light shall we see light, according to that word: He who sees me sees also my Father. With you therefore, fountain of life, we shall see the Father present.
For just as you were with the Father in the beginning, God the Word, so the Father, who is in you, is always with you; for he is with him in whom he also is. Now there is prophesied the coming of the Lord and Savior, who, about to come to earth, would say: I and the Father are one — that is, we are one light as we are one name; through the unity of light and of name we both are one, nay rather the Trinity is one in the unity of substance, but with a distinction of each person. The Trinity signifies the distinction of persons, the unity their power. It can also be said to the Father: For with you is the fountain of life — that is, from whom life proceeded, which was the Word and always was, precisely because it was with you.
All things were made through him and in him, and he himself is the life of all, and he himself manifested you to us, that he might enlighten the hearts of men to the knowledge of your majesty. Extend therefore your mercy to those who know you. The prerogative is extended, that those may merit mercy who are supported by the merit of knowing you. Indeed, in later passages we recognize that zeal for knowledge gave support even to baser persons, the Lord saying: I will be mindful of Rahab and Babylon among those who know me — that is: I will be mindful, among those who know me or among them, of that harlot Rahab and of that confusion, because that harlot acknowledged me whom the chosen people did not know.
Among those, then, who knew me, Rahab will be commemorated, that she may obtain the reward worthy of her faith. Hence also in the Gospel we note it said: The harlots and the publicans go before you into the kingdom of heaven. But because we are weak for carrying out, though devout in believing, do you extend your mercy to those who believe in you, so that our deeds too may agree with our devotion and faith, and the weakness of this body may not abandon the zeal of our mind; but in these very temptations and infirmities let us glory, in which the Apostle gloried, saying: Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Most beautifully, therefore, he added:
Let not the foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of sinners move me. There they fell, the workers of iniquity; they were cast out and could not stand. Some above take 'the torrent of your delight' to mean fortitude in temptations, such as that of the martyrs, in whom it pleased God to display to himself the delight of a sweet and pleasing contest. For if storms are taken to mean temptations — wherefore the Lord admonishes us to pray that our flight be not in winter or on the sabbath, that is, neither in temptation nor in idleness; and in winter the torrent grows and is filled and swells — then the torrent can certainly be taken for the heavier temptation, which is in persecutions.
And therefore it is well called the torrent of delight, because where the sin of persecution abounded, there also the grace of confession superabounded. See the power of the prophetic distinction. First he set forth the unjust man, who either in his heart or in speech says, so as to sin against himself or in himself; for the Greek codex has 'en autō,' that is 'in himself,' but not all the copies. And perhaps for this reason, because the fool said in his heart that there is no God, lest perhaps the unjust man too should speak within himself and sin within himself, although openly to deny God is the mark of a madman. But very many profess injustice as a thing to boast of; for to rob, to harm even those who have not injured them, to circumvent, many reckon glorious for themselves.
Therefore he first set forth the life of the unjust, and afterwards added the sacraments of divine knowledge, that we, fearing God, might shun iniquity and injustice. He added a prayer, that God might deign to deliver his just ones from the fellowship of the unjust, so that in those also who are pure of heart the divine justice might extend itself like a pious watcher, lest the assault of sins, as of enemies, creep upon us and seize us sleeping. Therefore we must always keep watch, the Lord's camp must be fortified, because the enemy and adversary comes by night, when the senses are held by sleep and the body is distended by food; and we must pray that the justice of God may extend itself in us, which makes us stronger when placed in infirmity, so that each one of us can say: When I am weak, then am I strong.
Then he also prays especially for himself, to teach us how we ought to pray to the Lord: Let not, he says, the foot of pride come to me — that is, let me not fall into pride. Indeed elsewhere too he makes mention of himself, saying: If I have not walked in great matters. Here he prayed, there he fulfilled it; he would not have fulfilled it had he not prayed. Pride must be guarded against, which supplants a man even in prosperity; indeed Adam fell more grievously in paradise than if he had fallen on the ground. To fall from the highest places is a headlong plunge; on level ground a fall is merely called a stumble. Therefore the foot of the proud strays, because it does not keep its head; for the eyes of the wise man are in his head. No wonder, then, if the footstep strays where the eye is not present. Let the eye go before, that the foot may follow. How then will you, a traveler, advance in darkness?
Quickly does the foot stumble at night, if the moon, as a kind of eye of the world, does not show the way. And you are in the night of the world; let the Church show you the way, let the sun of justice enlighten you from on high, that you may not be able to fear a fall. And because he had spoken of the foot of pride, he added: and let not the hand of sinners move me. For just as the saints are members of Christ, so the impious are members of the devil. Let not the hand of sinners move me — that is: let not the deeds of those who sin move me from my station of justice. For very often, while we see sinners abounding in prosperous successes, we waver in our feelings and are torn, as it were by a certain hand of sinners, from the root of virtue. We must beware, therefore, lest those whom the divine hand has planted in the house of God the adverse hand should supplant.
Beautifully, however, does he say this who is being beaten by persecutors. But those who are moved from their own root, which had already clung to Christ, fall. Hence he added: There they fell, who work iniquity. What is 'there'? Whether where pride is, where the hand of sinners is, or where they were standing, where they were previously planted, there they fell; or in the mire, or on the spot, as it were at that very time, in that very place? And it seems ambiguous. But elsewhere we are taught what 'there' is, where it is said: There are pangs as of a woman in travail. Good is the pang for one who has the birth of faith, by which Christ is formed and born in the Church. And elsewhere he says: I will be mindful of Rahab and Babylon among those who know me; for the foreigners and Tyre and the people of the Ethiopians, these were there — that is:
where those who know me are, where the foundations are upon the holy mountains, there also are the foreigners, because they too believed that they ought to believe in me. There therefore they fell, where they ought rather to have stood, because Adam too fell in paradise, and Christ came for a fall and for a rising, so that there should be ruin for the faithless, but for the just and the faithful a resurrection. Finally they were cast out, because unjust men could not stand in the holy place. Hence also the Apostle said: And you who stand, see that you do not fall — and he certainly said it to one who was giving not by body but by faith. We can also understand 'there' as referring to the future, as in: There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and: Naked shall I go there. How brief, however, in the conclusion, and how great a summary! 'Let me not be,' he says, 'proud, lest I sin;
let me not sin, lest I be moved; let me not be moved, lest I fall; let me not fall, lest I be cast out, as Adam was cast out of paradise, because in him first the foot of pride could not stand.' Pride does not know how to stand, and if it has fallen, it does not know how to rise again. And therefore beautifully this man also spoke above concerning the proud: These trust in chariots and these in horses, but we shall be magnified in the name of our God — for this is firm, that is unsteady — and he added: They are bound and have fallen, but we have risen and are set upright. And in the book of the prophet Micah it is written: Rejoice not over me, O proud one, my enemy, because I have fallen; but I shall rise again.
For we have fallen in this world, but in Christ we have risen again, to whom be honor, glory, power, perpetuity, both from the ages and now and always and unto all ages of ages. Amen. EXPOSITION OF PSALM 36. All divine Scripture is either natural, or mystical, or moral: natural in Genesis, in which it is set forth how heaven, the seas, and the lands were made, and how this world was constituted; mystical in Leviticus, in which the priestly mystery is contained; moral in Deuteronomy, in which human life is shaped according to the precept of the law. Hence also the three books of Solomon seem to have been chosen out of many: Ecclesiastes concerning natural things, the Song of Songs concerning mystical things, Proverbs concerning moral things.
But because the body of all the psalms is one, therefore nothing in them is divided and distinguished, but, as the occasion offered itself, no discipline of teaching of this kind has been omitted. For it most evidently comprehends the natural in speaking of the angels and the powers, the sun and moon, the stars and the light of the heaven of heavens, and the water that is above the heavens: For he himself spoke and they were made, he commanded and they were created. He established them for ever and ever; he set a precept, and it shall not pass away. And it has spoken of mystical things, since it has written of hidden matters and of the ointment of the sacred anointing and of the consummation of the tabernacle. Manifold is their grace, since God spoke in manifold ways and in many manners in the prophets.
For it foretold that the Son of God, the prince of priests, would come, and would suffer for us, and would cleanse our sins by his own blood — these things the titles 'for the winepresses' declared; and that he would rise again, the psalm 'of the resurrection' expressed, and another title afterwards indicated, in which 'his land is restored,' and likewise the change to come of all things by the sacraments of faith.
And concerning moral matters it wove together many things, and demonstrated diverse kinds of virtues, and gave precepts for living, by which it healed the ulcers of our errors and renewed human morals and changed the inmost affections, as the thirty-third psalm teaches, which also the holy Peter in his epistle affixed to our breasts like a medicine, and this one too, which has been set before us in today's reading. For these are found to be ethical above the rest, but this one more diffuse, which is inscribed the thirty-sixth.
For although that one is most sweet and luminous, this one nevertheless is sweeter, because that one taught me to restrain my tongue from evil, this one to cease from anger, to leave off indignation; that one commanded me to speak without guile, this one instructed me to be meek, and showed the rewards of meekness. What greater soothings are there for the human heart than meekness and simplicity, by which both every pain of an injury received is lightened and every stain of crime is excluded? To these wounds, therefore, let us apply our hand with medicines, that we may cure our wounds, lest, if we wish to say that we can cure others, it be said to us: Physician, cure yourself.
Therefore, just as it is wont to be common even not to physicians but to the common people, that few profess medicine, yet very many say they know some of its remedies — or what physicians' apprentices do — let us too offer a remedy to those in need by means of another's medicine. Let the rich man employ a master, the poor man an assistant. Let him who grasps the height of perfection take from that height; let him who desires more level ground feed in the valley, like a little one, who, fearing the river, drinks from the brook, and he who feeds in the deep, swims to the shores. Beautifully, however, the holy David in the previous psalm describes the life of the unjust, here that of the just; there the unjust is set forth, here the just is instructed; that one sins against himself, this one takes away even the sins of others.
And therefore let us consider what is the first medicine of justice. Be not envious, he says, among the malicious, nor be emulous of those who work iniquity. First let us learn what it is to emulate, although the force of this word is less in Latin than in Greek; for we read of emulation both in a good and in a bad sense. Indeed the Apostle says: It is good to be zealous in a good thing always, and above he himself said: They are zealous over you, but not well; rather they wish to exclude you, that you may be zealous for them; and again he himself says: Be zealous for the better gifts. To the Romans you have: I say therefore, did they so stumble that they should fall? God forbid; but their fall is salvation to the Gentiles, to make them zealous; and below: For I say to you Gentiles:
我作外邦人的使徒有多久，就要榮耀我的職分有多久，或者可以激動我的骨肉發憤，好救他們一些人——這就是說：我要使我的骨肉動心；確實希臘文作「parazēlōsō」。因為這裡也作「mē parazēlou en ponēreuomenois」和「mēde zēlou tous poiountas tēn anomian」，意即：不要激動惡人發出爭競，因為他們所爭的不是出於善，乃是出於惡。激動人發出爭競是甚麼意思呢？讓我們若能夠，便用一個例子說明。有些不知節制的婦人勾引別人配偶的心。
As long as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I will magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to emulation my own flesh and save some of them — that is: I will affect my flesh; indeed the Greek has 'parazēlōsō.' For here too it has 'mē parazēlou en ponēreuomenois' and 'mēde zēlou tous poiountas tēn anomian,' that is: Do not stir up the malicious to emulation, since they contend not from good but from evil. What is it to stir up to emulation? Let us, if we can, make it clear by an example. There are certain intemperate women who solicit the hearts of others' spouses.
When they have subjected these to their own habit and shameful practice, not content to keep their error a secret, they are eager to flaunt their disgrace before the spouses of those men, in order to stir them to jealousy of themselves and inflame them, seizing a kind of triumph from the grief of insulted minds and from the agitation of upright hearts. These women, not bearing in their feminine jealousy the affront to their own marriage-bed, dissolve the bonds of an approved wedlock, or settle the matter by daily quarreling, and out of jealousy comes discord, out of dissension comes division, by which the whole house is thrown into turmoil. By the example, therefore, of the shameless woman, you who read, recognize that it is the part of utterly worthless and detestable cunning to disturb another's soul by wicked emulation, and that one thing is zeal, another is parazeal.
For this is the perverse emulation that creeps into the affection of good men, by which even the Jew went astray, who, straying from the true and good of the evangelical discipline, deviated through emulation of the law, as the Apostle says of himself, that according to emulation of the law he persecuted the Church of Christ. Therefore, although our God was often offended by the ungrateful affections and complaints of the Jews, nevertheless he by no means abandoned the people once taken up and chosen for himself; but the synagogue, like a wanton harlot, began to provoke him to the bitterness of emulation by mingling itself in the sacrileges of transgression. Indeed it said to the priest Aaron: Make us gods, that we may worship them, and they began to worship the head of a calf.
14:179
undepercanticummagnumMoysidominusinoreipsiusresultauitdicens: ipsiexcitaueruntmeinaemulationeminnondeo, irritaueruntmeinsimulacrisuis; egoautemexcitaboeosinaemulationeminnongente, in. nationeinsipientiirritaboeos.
Hence through the great song of Moses the Lord rebounded in his very mouth, saying: They have stirred me to emulation by that which is no god, they have provoked me with their idols; but I will stir them to emulation by that which is no people, by a foolish nation will I provoke them.
Behold how the Lord condemned the synagogue for its harlot ways, so that he might turn back their own cunning upon them and they might be affected by their own contrivance — they who refuted with grievous sacrileges the Lord their God, by whom they had been taken up, choosing for themselves gods to worship; while on the contrary he took up for himself a Church out of the profane, over whom, set above them without law, without grace, the people of the Jews might groan, and so much the more might their affection be stirred to emulation of those others, in that the choice had been made of baser folk; for before, the people had nothing by which it might be affected — now it is moved; if it hears of the advance of the Church, it is wretchedly tormented with envy. It is fulfilled therefore in Judea: And I will stir them to emulation by that which is no people.
There is added to the affliction of a heavier torment the fact that sinners out of the Gentiles seem to have been preferred above themselves — sinners who do not even bear the name of any nation or people. For every assembly is wont to claim for itself the name of some region, as the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Syrians, Jews, Arabs bear the appellation of their province and of their lands. We, gathered out of diverse peoples, cannot usurp for ourselves the name of any one nation, and therefore, because we had no name on earth, we received one from heaven, that we might be called the people of Christ. But this the Gentile reckons folly, the Jew a reproach.
It is true, therefore, what is written, that God avenged his own affront by seeking for himself a Church out of that which is no nation, and by preferring it, out of a foolish nation, to that ancient and royal people. What this foolish nation is that has been preferred, hear him saying: Because God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might confound the wise; and again: If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. The Lord therefore repaid, he did not inflict, the agitation of emulation, that it might be not in the form of imitation but in the punishment of iniquity. Indeed the Latin translator, wishing to make a distinction between the emulation of virtue and the emulation of offense, says: Do we emulate the Lord? That is:
Do we bring upon the Lord the offense of emulation, by eating of those things which are sacrificed to idols, just as the Jews exasperated him by sacrificing to idols? But if, among men, the intention of stirring up emulation gives offense, and frequently the person provoked is found to be superior — which is wont to be a snare to the instigator of emulation — what folly it is to provoke the divine majesty and to assail it with the stumbling-block of emulation, where there is no difficulty of vengeance! We ought not, therefore, to furnish the malicious with goads of emulation against ourselves, who even when unprovoked are stirred by the stings of envy to do harm, as Cain slew his brother because the other's sacrifice was more accepted than what he himself had thought fit to offer;
in which matter it was not the emulous Abel, but the envious Cain who pursued the grace of preferment with a wicked fratricide. For Abel did not wish to overshadow his brother's sacrifice, but to preserve the discipline of sacrifice, so that no slothfulness might delay the firstfruits, nor any usurpation, diverted to his own uses, might violate it. Saul too tried by ambushes to destroy David, the prophet, the triumpher over the Philistines, the preserver of his own safety, set above himself in the speech of the maidens; and he had almost shed the blood of an innocent kinsman, had not that man eluded the blow by the bending of his swaying body. What malice was there, if the maidens said: Saul among thousands, David among ten thousands?
But how dreadful the envy of King Saul, who diverted an error of speech into the destruction of an innocent man! Be not emulous, he says, of those who work iniquity. He did not merely repeat what he had said, but changed it. For it is one thing to sub-emulate, another to emulate; sub-emulation has craftiness, emulation has simplicity. Yet nevertheless even this very simplicity ought to be cautious and provident, so as to know what is to be guarded against; for it was not said idly: Be wise as serpents and simple as doves. Spiritual, therefore, ought to be the craftiness which preserves salvation, which knows no guile; spiritual ought to be the simplicity. And it seems that in another place too the Scripture made a distinction of sub-emulation, when it says:
And the jealousy of Ephraim shall be taken away, and the enemies of Judah shall perish; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. But elsewhere it has: So you too, since you are zealous for spiritual things, seek the edification of the Church, that you may abound. It put 'zealous ones' for the good and for imitators of a good thing, and 'the jealous one' for the oblique and the envious. The first thing, then, is that you should not provoke the malicious to the malice of emulation; the second, that you should not be emulous of those who work iniquity. For very often the pious, seeing certain men by fraud and cunning seek riches and attain to honors, in unsightly emulation desire to follow their ways, that they may by similar art reach riches and honors, or in contracting marriage may defraud young maidens.
For what does it profit, when those very riches and all worldly glory quickly wither like hay and fall away like the green of herbs in the very beauty of their flower? All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. Do not, therefore, greatly desire what cannot be perpetual; do not be emulous and oblique; do not be contentious and a wrangler in jealousy. Hence too Aquila said: Do not strive among the malicious; Symmachus: Do not contend.
Be not, moreover, an imitator of iniquity and fraud, but be an imitator of the apostolic teaching, of the prophetic grace, and of the virtue of the saints, that you may bear fruit and store up a harvest of goodness — like Joseph, who by his multitude of grain shut out the famine of long-lasting barrenness; like Habakkuk, who, while carrying a meal to the reapers, was lifted up by an angel and traversed the path of an airy track, and, restored to the earth, ministered a sweet banquet to the holy prophet amid the savage roarings of lions. Rightly therefore the prophet says: Hope in the Lord and do goodness, and dwell in the land, and you shall be fed in its riches.