Tractates on the Psalms 118.19.1–118.21.8

Among the many precepts of gospel teaching, the Lord requires of us silence in praying, that we pray silently and from the secret of the heart, and that in this the office be of the mind rather than of the voice: that the secrets of our prayer may be heard by God, because he is the inspector of secrets. So this seems contrary to the gospel ordinances, which the prophet says: "I cried with my whole heart; hear me, Lord; I will seek your justifications." But the prophet knows that the cry ought rather to be of the heart, not of the voice, and therefore he cries from the heart. This is not the sound of a raised voice nor bodily hearing, but the cry of faith, the cry of the mind, to be carried up to God's throne not by the effort of the voice but by the spirit of faith. For he cries to God with his heart who asks for great things, who prays for heavenly things, who hopes for eternal things, who lives in the duties of innocent fear.

So too at the beginning of this world just Abel, even when slain, speaks great things and cries out. For it is written: "The voice of your brother's blood cries to me." The complaint of the saints is not lowly, nor is the prayer of the faithful subdued. What it asks is lofty, what it awaits is high, what it prays for resounds with a cry. Pharaoh pressed God's people with hostile troops, the Red Sea blocked their flight, Israel, shut in on every side, already seemed bound for death, with the enemy near and the sea in front. Amid this Scripture testifies that Moses had no voice toward God: he stood sad, stood silent, but resounding in the secret of his heart and crying out by the faith of his prayer. For the divine voice testifies to this, saying: "And the Lord said to Moses: Why do you cry out to me?" That man was silent; but the prayer of his faith is a cry to God. The apostle too knows that this cry of the Spirit is in faithful men, when he says: "For the Spirit of his Son cries in our hearts: Abba, Father." This cry of silence penetrates to God's ears, ears that hear not the shout but the faith: faith that does not ask for earthly wealth, does not desire empty and perishable glory, does not pray for the joys of a body that will die. The apostle writes his letters in small letters, and this common form of characters and strokes is his; but he knows that these letters of his are huge, saying: "See with what letters I have written to you with my own hand," embracing the greatness of thoughts and the usefulness of precepts in such letters. So the prophet cries from his whole heart. And because he cries from the heart, he prays to be heard; and when heard he asks this, that he may seek out God's justifications. He knows that these are hidden and concealed and covered by the shadow of the law. He wishes to seek them, for which many and great things are needed: a cry of the heart, the merit of being heard, the duty of seeking.

But he who cried to be heard and to seek God's justifications now cries to be saved and to keep God's testimonies. What an order of modesty he kept! He did not at once dare to hope that his cry would obtain salvation. First came that he should be worthy of a hearing; first came that he should seek the justifications. A hearing had to be earned, seeking had to be applied, and salvation hoped for after these. But we ask for salvation as a debt, and, as though God were obliged to grant it, we pray for it from him in our first prayers. And would that we spoke with the cry of the heart! Our lips only murmur what they do not know, while our sense is wandering, and the mind, occupied with other things, does not follow the body's office. But the prophet, when after so many preceding prayers he had prayed to be saved, teaches the wage of salvation itself, saying: "And I will keep your testimonies." This is the warfare of our faith: to keep the commandments and to keep this treasure of the precept deposited and entrusted to us as in a most faithful secret place.

But he who cried, and professed that he would keep God's testimonies, that is, those written before the witnesses heaven and earth and the angels, added further the merit of obtaining salvation, saying: "I came before in unripeness and cried; I hoped in your words." He did not wait for an old age weakened by vices, nor choose the time of a cold age when heats had cooled through long use and luxury; but he anticipated all ripeness by faith and religion, conquering youth by continence, restraining the wanton years, and anticipating the ripeness of old age by the calm of a modest and chaste youth. And the prophet's cry is that of one hoping in God's words, not at some time, but always. For there is no end of our hope, but it stretches always to heavenly things and goes forward into God's eternal promises. It has no empty time, none idle.

Then follows: "And my eyes came before the dawn, that I might meditate on your words." He who had anticipated in unripeness with his cry now anticipates the days themselves with meditations. He keeps watch at dawn; he does not wait for the light to pour in and disturb eyes heavy with sleep. He keeps watch and awaits the very return of the light's rising with prayers: now occupied with the sayings of the prophets, now intent on the hymns of the psalms, now busy with the deeds of the patriarchs and saints, meditating on every word of God at all times and with persistence.

Then follows: "Hear my voice according to your mercy, Lord; according to your judgment give me life." Let us learn modesty from the prophet's words: after the cry of the heart above, the seeking of justifications, the keeping of God's testimonies, the continence of youth, and the vigils of meditation before daylight, and placing through all these all his hope in God's mercy, he finally asks that his voice be heard according to mercy, and asks for mercy according to God's judgment. We, if we fast once, think we have done enough; if we give something to the needy out of the abundance of our household resources, we believe we have fulfilled righteousness: fasting either to please men or to refresh bodies wearied by food, and in the midst of the fasts thinking of debauchery, murders, injuries, hatreds; and giving some small thing, either because we cannot bear the poor man knocking at our doors, or while we pursue a reputation for goodness in the empty and idle opinion of men; and we think we are owed a hearing. But the prophet hopes for everything from God, expects everything from his mercy. He himself is perfect in all works of goodness, but he does not think this enough for salvation unless he obtains mercy according to God's compassion and judgments.

But he is never idle, and those who attack and pursue him are never not near: his whole life, according to the testimony of Scripture, was among snares. And whoever now wishes to please God must displease the impious. And therefore he says: "The wicked who persecute me have drawn near; but they are far from your law." He is believed to have said this of himself, whose life was attacked on every side. But he who in this psalm keeps the order of teaching for men has tempered everything for our instruction, so that we might know that those who come near to injure the faithful are far from God's law. For as great as the approach to injuring the saints is, so great is the departure from God's law. And we must take care that anger never move us against our brothers, that envy never goad us, that rivalry never provoke us to do anything irreligious or disdainful to them; for when we stand by to injure them, then we stand away from God's law.

Then follows: "You are near, Lord, and all your commandments are truth." In another place we read: "I am a God who draws near, and not a God far off, says the Lord." God is not contained by bodily places, nor is the immensity of divine power confined by boundaries or spaces. He is present everywhere, and wholly wherever he is: he is nowhere in part, but all in all things. The blessed apostle, answering in the assembly the Athenians, ridiculous in the emptiness of their philosophy, says: "We seek a God who abides not far from us: for in him we live and move and are." And the Spirit of God, according to the prophet, has filled the world. And again: "Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord." Nothing is empty of God, nothing lacks him. He is everywhere in the manner of the soul in the body, which, spread through all the members, is absent from none of its several parts. Even if it has a private and royal seat in the whole body, yet it is poured into the marrow, the fingers, the limbs. And if it becomes necessary to cut off some corrupted members of the body, since those same members, dead from disease, will have no use, what is rotten and perishing of the flesh will be cut off without loss to the soul. For the soul of our body is mingled with healthy and whole members; and when these become rotten and must be cut off, it does not go with them.

These things indeed are brought for comparison with the divine nature superfluously, because it is beyond comparison. Whatever is eternal does not admit a figured likeness of truth, being the exception of a divinity without beginning. But such an example is fitted to our understanding, so that through it, according to the authority of the heavenly sayings, we might understand the incorporeal and immeasurable God to be mingled with this bounded and bodily world, but not present in those who are corrupt and dead through their works. Indeed, we still pursue the understanding of divine and invisible things from the contemplation of bodily things and their natures. We see the sun lingering in some part of the sky, as its course runs; and yet it certainly extends everywhere, is present everywhere, and, as great as it is through all things, so great is it poured out wherever it is. But if it falls on closed windows of houses, its light is indeed at hand, but the things that are barred will deny themselves its light.

In all the works of our life, then, we must be watchful and open toward God: first, that he may deign to pour his light into our hearts, free and open through innocence; then, that we may believe we act within the bosom of his divinity, and that he is not absent when we are angry, when we strike, when we despise, when we curse, when we get drunk, when we lust, when we neglect things divine and human, sinning with greater insult to him within whom we do these things.

But to this is added also that his commandments are truth. Nothing there is two-sided, nothing doubtful; all is perfected in the completeness of truth: and they are neglected with all the greater danger the more they have been established by the precept of truth.

How far the prophet knew this he added, saying: "From the beginning I have known of your testimonies, that you have founded them for ever." Although the prophet says this of himself, knowing God's law from the beginning, yet it fits every age that has been taught by God's teachings since the founding of the world. For whoever remembers the law set for Adam's will, who has learned the creation of Eve itself, who has heard the curse of the serpent, who has read that the tree of life was closed off by the Cherubim with the flaming turning sword, who knows the crying blood of slain Abel, who reckons the number of punishments in Cain and in Lamech, who has searched out Enoch translated, Noah preserved, the blessing of Shem and Japheth and the curse of Ham, who understands Melchizedek the priest, Abraham chosen, Isaac promised, Jacob preferred, Joseph sold, Judah sanctified, Moses nourished, taught, and, after the great mysteries of the law he gave, dead at the word of God, and Joshua the divider of the promised land and the author of the second circumcision, will surely be able to use the prophet's voice: "In the beginning I have known of your testimonies, that you have founded them for ever." For in the life and deeds of all the men mentioned above the hope of eternal goods is contained, and through them we are trained for the teaching of the gospel preaching. But what has been founded is prepared for the building of a future house. For we are built, according to blessed Paul, on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, in whom God's testimonies have been founded for ever, where that heavenly and royal holy city Jerusalem will be built, which is the house of the angels who throng it and of the elect firstborn, whose foundations are living stones and precious gems, living, rising, and reigning in Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The holy prophet has set before us throughout the psalm many great examples of his faith and confession, by which he has made himself a pattern for others in believing, acting, understanding, not knowing, hoping, and praying, completing the gospel man by a perfect observance of the law. And although he does, testifies to, or hopes for all the things that are either pleasing to the divine will or set before human hope, he still remembers in what kind of observance the head and sum of all the commandments consists, and he knows what was required by his Lord even of the apostles themselves, to whom the keys of heaven were to be entrusted. For when they disagreed among themselves in opinions and ambitions and each claimed the chief place for himself in human rivalry, while each either wished or demanded to be more eminent than the rest, the Lord, showing from where the reward of this merit and name was to be sought, said: "Whoever among you wishes to be greater, let him become the least of all: for everyone who humbles himself will be exalted, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled." In humility, that is, he taught that all the names and rewards of faith are contained. So it is most useful for those who obey the divine precepts to keep within themselves all the emptiness of human insolence and wantonness broken and crushed, and, considering God's magnificence and mercy, to keep themselves within the modesty of humility.

For this reason this holy man, king and prophet, and counted as the origin of the seed of his God and Lord according to the flesh, amid these assaults of the world and battles of spiritual wickedness, cries out to the Lord with this alone as the aim of his prayer: "See my humility and deliver me, for I have not forgotten your law." Not the wealth of his kingdom, not the spirit of prophecy, not any other titles of human boasting does he pray to be seen in him, but his humility. For he does not resist those who pursue him with arms of war, nor, impatient with human indignation, does he seize the time of power and kingdom for his own vengeance. But knowing that this is the sentence of the divine will, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord," he does not forget God's law in keeping humility, but prays to be delivered for this reason, that he is humble, declaring that the remembrance of God's law lies in the preservation of humility.

So reserving all things to the divine judgment and asking to be delivered because of the merit of humility, he who was moved in nothing against God's ordinances, against human hatreds, against the endurance of present troubles, and decided that nothing about these was to be judged by him in this present age, consequently added this: "Judge my judgment and redeem me; for your word's sake give me life." It is the voice of a great and secure conscience to ask for judgment on one's own judgment, so as to desire even the examination of the divine sentence on what one has decided and approved for oneself. He, judging neither others nor himself, is not turned aside by the opinion of a corrupt mind, nor does he depart from true judgment through anger or favor or hatred or love, not ignorant of this gospel command: "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged."

But not even he fears the judgment of his own judgment who says: "But I judged that I knew nothing except Christ Jesus and him crucified." In this security of his own judgment, then, the prophet, awaiting the time of redemption, prays to be redeemed and to be given life for the sake of God's words. For, sold under sin, we are set free through redemption and justification in the blood of the Lord. To this the giving of the law, to this all the spirit of prophecy, to this the hope of the patriarchs, to this the voices of angels, to this the word of the divine speech throughout the whole time of the world have testified: and for this reason he prays to be redeemed and given life.

But these same words of God, as they announce life and redemption to pious hopes, so they do not leave the impious unaddressed. For after the prophet's expectation there soon follows this concerning sinners: "Salvation is far from sinners, because they have not sought your justifications." Ignorance of the will has no pardon, because when one has the means of knowledge, not knowing is the guilt of knowledge rejected rather than not found. For salvation is far from sinners for this reason, that they did not seek God's justifications, although they remain sealed in writing for no other purpose than that they might flow down to the knowledge and notice of all. But the prophet, knowing that while salvation is far from sinners who do not seek God's judgments, the Lord is near to those who are upright of heart, as the apostle also says, "You who were far off have been made near," seeks the knowledge of God's justifications, lest salvation be far from him too.

He is not ignorant how much the mystery of our salvation is expressed in these through certain notions of eternal prefigurations in present things: in the Hebrew slave serving only six years, and after the same period of six years the whole land to be left in rest and its fruits given even to the beasts, and in the law of the jubilee year, that is, the fiftieth, by which, with the agreements of debtors released and all fields returning to the rights of their owners, if any had come, a new and heavenly remission and reformation of all things is foretold. And because salvation is far from those who have not sought these things, the prophet, wholly occupied in seeking them and contemplating in a mirror the justifications of divine and eternal mercy, added: "Your mercies are very many, Lord; according to your judgments give me life." God's mercies, then, are very many; for they exceed the measure of human opinion.

But the hatreds and pursuits of many from outside weary the prophet, who trusts in these and hopes to be given life in God's judgments. But not forgetful of his mercies, of which, according to the same prophet, there is no number, he did not turn aside from his testimonies. For there follows: "Many are those who persecute me and afflict me; I have not turned aside from your testimonies." He is not driven off, not moved: and though many persecute him, he does not even turn aside.

But he who so remains in God's commandments that he cannot be pushed or turned aside by his pursuers has something to disturb him with heavy grief, and to dissolve him even to the wasting of a soul that in some way melts: when, while he does not turn from God's testimonies, others fall away from the fear of God and corrupt the faith and covenant of the law they had received. These are the heats he has, these the only wearinesses the prophet feels, when he says: "I saw those who did not keep the covenant, and I wasted away, because they did not keep your words." Israel was named heir of the sealed covenant and, hearing the voice of the Lord from the mountain, answered: "All things whatever God has said we will both hear and do." But when it worshipped foreign gods, when it defiled itself with the vices of every crime, it lost the covenant both of the name it had heard and of the observance it had professed. For they did not keep God's words, which they answered that they would do and hear. Nor is this prophet's wasting away over the transgression of the people new; since we know that the Lord himself wept over the impiety of Jerusalem, and from the same teaching the apostle weeps over the unrepentant and, further, burns himself if anyone is made to stumble.

But he who grieves over those who do not keep the covenant and wastes away does not shrink from the examination of God's commandments in himself. For he says: "See that I have loved your commandments, Lord; in your mercy give me life." It is too little for the prophet to fulfil the commandments through fear, but he rather loves them, because the working of love is beyond the necessity of fear. And although love of the law is better than fear, yet he is not so confident in himself that he does not rather pray to be given life through God's mercy. He does not think that he lives now, but awaits life when this mortal body has been taken away and swallowed up into the glory of immortality.

He knows that this was promised him already at the beginning of his creation, when it is said by God: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." This is the beginning of God's speech about man, when the beginning of our origin was founded after the image of unbounded eternity. So, sure that he will live that life and in the image of God, he says: "The beginning of your words is truth; all the judgments of your righteousness are for ever." God's words do not pass away when heaven and earth pass away. Whatever has poured from his lips is not in vain. His justifications are eternal, his righteousness is eternal. So the beginning of God's words is truth; and he knows of no earlier word of God about himself, that is, about the creation of man, than that he should be made according to the image and likeness of God. This, then, is the decree of unchangeable truth; thus truth is in the beginning of God's words, that the new man, reborn in Christ, may live henceforth according to the image of the eternal God, that is, of the heavenly Adam, now eternal.

The prophet David indeed endured heavy hatreds and pursuits from King Saul and the princes of the people, because impiety, once declared, could not bear the steadfastness of a pious conscience. But shaping the gospel and apostolic man for God, he is not ignorant of the gospel saying in which he says: "For they will hand you over and scourge you in the synagogues, and you will stand before kings and authorities as a testimony to them and to the nations." Indeed, instilling the steadfastness of preaching and teaching the glory of confession, he had exhorted them before, saying: "Everyone who confesses me before men, I too will confess him before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father who is in heaven." So, whether dedicated from the law or prepared for the glory of the gospel, he who had given neither Saul nor his people any cause to pursue him, and knew that the kingdom of heaven was to be announced to the world through many hatreds of princes and nations, speaks these things to God confidently: "Princes have persecuted me without cause, and my heart has feared your words." For he feared to be denied, if he denied.

But since he is not ignorant of the rewards of this blessed persecution, the Lord saying, "Blessed are you when they persecute you and say every evil against you for righteousness' sake; rejoice and be glad, for your reward is abundant in heaven," after the hatred of princes he tempered his fear of God's words with what follows: "I will rejoice over your words, as one who finds much spoil." So his fear was lest he be unworthily subjected to the persecutions of princes or yield to them, because it is not the part of a holy man to have given cause for hatred, and to have lost God's grace through fear of the world would be without pardon. But to have found spoils belongs to the victor; certainly to have yielded them from oneself belongs to one already conquered. So since the prophet is not broken by these persecutions and conquers the hatred of princes by faith, he brings back certain spoils of impiety from the conquered. For he knows, according to the gospels, that the strong man was bound in his own house and, stripped of the arms of his power, has yielded spoils from himself to be plundered by the faithful. So he now rejoices in God's words, as one who finds much spoil, since, the power of the impious broken and he himself remaining a victor by faith, he has stripped them of all their arms, whether of impiety or of cruelty.

But the feeling of this joy is not present except in love of the divine law and in loathing of iniquity, because no one will wish to flee except what he hates, nor strive to obtain except what he loves. So, having rejoiced as over much spoil, he added: "I have hated and abhorred iniquity; but I have loved your law." So he hates iniquity and loves God's law.

But one who loves God's law is not intent only on the things that are fulfilled by obedience to the law; he must stretch himself through the work of the law to something else. And let us hear in what duty he is besides: "Seven times a day I have spoken praise to you for the judgments of your righteousness." The holy prophet first loves what he does, namely the work of the law, because both the practice and the will of all vices are cut off. But afterwards he praises the judgments of God's righteousness. For these, as we have often noted, signify more than they do, while the deeds themselves instil in us the notion of the eternal plan: as the rest of the Sabbath, as the Hebrew boy, as the land that is to lie fallow, as the fiftieth year are understood under the moments of an image of mysteries. This, then, is praised seven times a day.

And it is not doubtful why this is the number of praise. For these same things, whether in the day or in the boy or in the land or in the year and years, are contained under the sanctification of this number, since the number seven is completed up to that eternal rest of the fiftieth, which is the Sabbath of Sabbaths. And much is known about the sanctification of this number, such as the very arrangement of the days, such as the choice of the angels standing before the throne of God, such as the fullness of the spiritual powers and of the graces resting on the Lord. Certainly it is fitting that the judgments of God's righteousness be praised by the prophet in this number, through which and in which the force and arrangement of those same justifications is contained.

The order of the prophetic preaching is now no other than that of faith. For the endurance of persecutions, the fear of the words, joy in the word, hatred of iniquity, love of the law, the praise of righteousness, and absolutely everything else commanded in the law is summed up in the observance of this one precept: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This is greater than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices: to remember that one is one and the same body with another, which is Christ's, and to love one's neighbor as one's own body, that is, as oneself. For there follows: "Great peace to those who love your name, and there is no stumbling block for them." The apostle, thinking not of his own things but of others', professed that he would abstain from meat for ever lest he make his brother stumble. He held so fully the feeling of perfect love and peace that he restrained himself even from the use of common life, so long as he might cut off a cause of offense. Peace, then, must be kept, and what suits not each one but the whole must be sought, because according to the gospel it would be better not to have come into life than to have caused one of the little ones to stumble.

Remaining, then, in these precepts of peace and love, the prophet is held by desire for the gospel hope. For he knows in whom, or who, the end of the law is, when he says: "I have waited for your salvation, Lord, and I have done your commandments." Jesus is salvation. This is the meaning of the name from the Hebrew, this the angel spoke to Joseph, this Simeon recognized when he was then to be dismissed in peace, this the salvation restored to us through him teaches. And he professes that he has done God's commandments in this, that he waits for the Lord's salvation, declaring that all the commandments of the law are contained in the coming of the only-begotten God.

He also kept God's testimonies and loved them exceedingly, saying: "My soul has kept your testimonies and I have loved them exceedingly. I have kept your commandments and your testimonies, because all my ways are in your sight." The prophet, acting under God as judge and searcher of hearts, remains in the keeping of God's commandments and testimonies; he does not walk in the ways of the world nor the ways of vices and impiety. For whatever path of his life he has taken, he takes it so approved and so innocent that it is worthy of God's sight: since God knows even the thoughts and movements of hearts, and his sight is not fit for one who is of unclean heart. For the faithful witness in heaven has said these things, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.