Tractates on the Psalms 118.3.1–118.4.12

Those who do not have the steadfast awareness of a cleansed heart cannot pray these words with the prophet's voice: "Repay your servant." For if a repayment worthy of our works were given, we would remain in the punishments of our sins and offenses. It is enough if anyone has at least this confidence to give thanks to the Lord: "He has not dealt with us according to our sins … because as high as heaven is above the earth, so far has he removed our iniquities from us, because he knows our frame." It is a great thing to recognize God's mercy toward oneself, and to know that the habit of crimes is far from oneself, and that one is worthy of God's mercy. But this prophet, in whose body a dwelling of God is fitting, who, full of the Holy Spirit, thinks and speaks nothing common or earthly, has the freedom to pray: "Repay your servant."

But perhaps it is insolent to have desired the merit of repayment without any modesty of confession, and not to remember that one is placed in a body, that is, in a mean and lowly lot. But the prophet excluded every vain opinion of himself. For when he had said "Repay" out of innocence, he added "your servant" out of the duty of servitude and the confession of his condition. So he asks these things steadfastly who remembers that he is God's servant, not sin's; because everyone who sins is a slave of sin.

"I shall live," he says, "and I will keep your words." "I shall live and keep" is not a matter of present time, but the meaning of his words stretches into future time. For the prophet knows when that blessed and true life of the living will be. For now we both remain in the dust of death and are in the body of death, from which the apostle prays to be freed, saying: "Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death?" Even now we have a matter mixed with us which is subject to the law of death and sin; and in the dwelling of this perishable and weak flesh we take on the stain of corruption from fellowship with it; and unless the body is glorified into the nature of spirit, true nature cannot be in us. Let us hear him who remembered that he dwelt in the body of death, saying: "For our life is hidden with Christ in God. When our life appears, then you too will appear in glory." This, then, is the repayment the prophet prays for himself, that he may live, teaching the time of this future life in another place, where he says: "And I will please God in the land of the living." He knows that this seat of the world is not the land of the living; he knows that we must still be cleansed according to the law. For now we are mixed in with the dead; and in the law whoever touches a dead body is unclean.

But far be it that any of these things in the law should be understood bodily, as though anyone becomes unclean by touching a dead body. Moses himself, the giver of the law, carried away Joseph's bones when leaving Egypt; Elisha lay upon a dead boy to bring him to life; the Lord himself drew the dead back to life by his hand. If touching a dead body had made one unclean, the law would never have been violated by such great men or by the Lord, who himself says: "I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it." But because the law is a shadow of good things to come, it taught us by this sign that in this dwelling of an earthly and dead body we cannot be clean unless we attain cleansing through heavenly washing, after the change of resurrection has given our earthly body a more glorious nature.

And if perhaps anyone thinks that in the sacrament of baptism that perfect purity of innocence, worthy of heavenly life, has been restored to him, let him recall that John the Baptist said: "I indeed baptize you in water; but he who comes is mightier than I; he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire"; and let him remember that the Lord himself, baptized by John, said while he was still in the body: "I have yet another baptism to be baptized with." So there is, as far as one may judge, a cleansing of perfect purity laid up even after the waters of baptism, which will sanctify us by the coming of the Holy Spirit, which will refine us in the fire of judgment, which through the injury of death will purge us from the stain and fellowship of what is dead, and will wash us in the suffering of martyrdom with devoted and faithful blood.

And therefore the holy prophet says that he will live when he lives, that is, when he has been carried through this shadow to that true land of the living. On this pattern, as he said "I shall live," so too "I will keep your words." Meanwhile they are kept, as the apostle Paul says, in part and through a mirror. For there are many stumbling blocks of the world, which prevent the keeping of the commandments from being perfect in us. I say nothing of the natures of our bodies, which meanwhile compel us to be imperfect through … or through the incitements of vices. But when death is conquered and its sting blunted, and we hear and see face to face, then we shall truly both live and keep God's commandments.

The order contained in the first verse is the same in those that follow. For he says: "Unveil my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law." He knows that a cloud of darkness stands in the way of mortal and bodily eyes. He knows that what is commanded bodily in the law is a shadow and mirror of things to come. He reads the law, indeed, but he longs to behold the law's wonders. He remembers that the Sabbaths are holy, but he desires to be in the rest of the eternal Sabbaths. He uses unleavened bread, but he hastens to cast out the leaven of the old nature. He sacrifices the Passover lamb, but he longs to stand beside the Lamb who is revealed through John. He satisfies the law of the seventh year, but he asks to be free himself when the seven thousand years of the world are completed. He fulfils the law of the fiftieth year of jubilee, but he hastens to obtain the remission and renewal of Pentecost. He knows that by God's command both the altar was set up by Moses after the pattern and Aaron was clothed in priestly dress and ornament, but he hastens to take part in the ministries of the high priest after whose pattern these things were done. Already a stranger to this whole world, he prays to be brought into the holy land, the land flowing with milk and honey. All these things they carry out bodily, but Paul understands this otherwise, saying: "For we know that the law is spiritual." So the prophet prays to see the wonders of the law that are foreshadowed to veiled eyes: that is, that set free from the perishable body he may behold the great and wonderful things in heaven which are prefigured through the bodily observance of the law.

The order of the one praying is not changed. For after this he says: "I am a sojourner on the earth; do not hide your commandments from me." A sojourner does not dwell on land that is his own by right, but as a newcomer and stranger he knows the fruit of temporary labor from it. The apostle states the order of this sojourning, saying that we must be away from the body and remain with Christ. So the prophet, seeing certain images of heavenly things by faith, though he dwells in a body, dwells in something not his own, with the eyes of his mind lifted to heaven. He knows that treasures are to be laid up in heaven, and that where the treasure is, there the heart will be. That man in the gospel comparison was not in his own mind a sojourner on earth, who built barns large enough for great crops and urged his soul to luxury through his abundance, a fool to be deprived of that very soul that same night!

So the prophet, confessing himself a sojourner, prays that God's commandments not be hidden from him. For no one who is not a stranger to his own body is worthy of the knowledge of God's commandments. Since God's commandment is bright and enlightens the eyes, it will now seem absurd that he said that God's commandments should not be hidden from him, when they have this nature in themselves, that they are bright and give light. But careless hearing makes the meaning difficult. There the commandment is bright and enlightening; here the commandments are hidden. The commandment is bright through which we are enlightened to behold the light of the commandments. Through the commandment which is first in the law, to love God with all one's soul and all one's strength, we are also made worthy of the enlightenment of knowledge. And just as we shall pass from glory to glory, so too in light we shall see light, so too through a mirror we shall one day see the face itself. For through this commandment of bodily life we are now enlightened by the sacrament of baptism and the precept of God, and we use the light and remain in glory. Through this, again, from the commandment we shall also see the commandments; through this, from light we shall see light; through this we shall be carried from glory to glory.

The prophet knows that in heaven there are many commandments of God; he knows that through the diversity of ministries there are diverse observances of precepts, of angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, and principalities. These must surely be diverse in their offices as they are in their names, yet they keep a perpetual keeping of the commandments in accordance with the firmness of their nature. And for this reason he prays that the mysteries of the heavenly commandments be revealed to him, because he knows that he is a stranger in the body of this earth.

This is the fourth verse of the third letter: "My soul has longed to desire your judgments at all times." This prophet's speech is not common with others' or with the world's; he raised the meaning of understanding higher under the signification of familiar words, saying: "My soul has longed to desire your judgments at all times." To many it will seem that it would have been more correctly said, "My soul desires your judgments at all times." And perhaps some think that this very thing is contained in these words.

But the prophet remembers that to desire God's judgments is hard and most dangerous for human nature. For since no one living is clean in his sight, how can his judgment be desirable? Or, since we must give account for every idle word, shall we long for the day of judgment, in which we must pass through that unwearying fire, in which those heavy punishments of the soul for sins must be undergone? A sword will pierce the soul of the blessed one, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. If that virgin who was able to hold God is to come into the severity of judgment, who will dare to desire to be judged by God? Job, who had gone through the whole campaign of human calamities and won the victory, who said when he was tempted, "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be his name," confessed that he was dust and ashes, and when he heard God's voice from the cloud, said that he must speak no more. And will anyone dare to desire God's judgments, when so great a prophet could not bear his voice from heaven, nor could the apostles standing on the mountain with the Lord endure it?

So the prophet kept to the measure both of human nature and of its condition, saying: "My soul has longed to desire your judgments at all times." For he does not desire the judgment, but longs to desire it: the longing for desire held him, not for judgment. For he longs to desire, that is, to remain in such innocence that he may desire safely and without the terror of a judgment to be feared; not yet desiring the thing itself, because of his awareness of the human condition, but longing for the desire of it, so that it may come from the awareness of innocence. And he knows that the longing for this desire must be continual and unwearying; and therefore he added "at all times," teaching that we must have no idle time in which we are not held by the longing for this desire.

Then follows: "You have rebuked the proud; cursed are those who turn aside from your commandments." O unhappy pride, which disdains to live under heavenly precepts, which scorns the divine commandments with the swelling of an unbelieving mind! Many are the crimes of human vices, and diverse and countless the workings of sins; but there is no greater cause of God's anger against us than pride. For you have rebuked not the greedy, not the lustful, to whom rebuke is certainly due, but the proud; because many, through the pride by which they despise human things, also scorn to obey God.

Though the other works of faith may be splendid and devotion may persist in every keeping of divine things, yet if pride creeps in, the memory of what we do rightly will be wiped out. With what labor that man in the gospel set himself on the way of life, so as not to grab what belonged to others, not to wrong anyone, not to be undone by adulteries! He labored fasting twice on the Sabbath, and wore down his body by abstinence from food with great strength. With what labor, then, to conquer greed, he gave a tenth of his substance for the use of the needy! What is more splendid than these? What harder to do? But he fell into the snare, saying, "that I am not like this sinner and tax collector"; and through this vice the unhappy man fell from great works into crime, and made insolent by this glory of his virtues, he went away less justified than the tax collector.

But what do we say of others? The apostle, called not from men nor through a man but through Jesus Christ, against whom the devil wrestled with every art of his power, received an angel to buffet him, so that through the unwearying troubles of every suffering no occasion for pride might creep in through a time of ease. He too, laying down a kind of law for choosing and appointing a priest, after setting out the qualities in which a bishop is worthy, forbade a newly baptized man to be chosen, lest he become proud, saying: "Not a new convert, lest being puffed up he fall into the judgment of the devil": that is, lest he grow insolent through the grace of regeneration lately received; he wants him to be tried beforehand by a long war of sufferings and by many campaigns of faith. For God does not despise a humbled heart, and a contrite heart is the best sacrifice; because whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

And so "cursed are those who turn aside from your commandments," because the proud are rebuked: because through the pride of an insolent mind we both despise human things and neglect divine ones. But the force of the word placed here must not be heard carelessly. For it would have been easy to say, "Cursed are those who do not obey your commandments." We said what was fitting in an earlier verse about one commandment and many. But those are cursed who, having been instructed in this teaching, turn aside from God's commandments, that is, who fall away from the hope of the eternal commandments through desires for present vices. For one who turns aside avoids the place where he is, is led from one side to another, and leaves the road by a kind of swerving. So the sentence of the curse takes hold even of one who turns aside slightly from God's commandments, so that we might understand how dangerous a thing it would be for us to be wholly ignorant of those things from which it is cursed to turn aside.

"Take away from me reproach and contempt, because I have sought your testimonies." Sins are worthy of reproach; and therefore sinners will rise to everlasting reproach. That all sins are worthy of reproach we may learn in the gospels, when the Lord reproached those cities in which many of his mighty works had been done and they had not repented, Chorazin and Bethsaida. What he did to them must be done to all who are equal in the same crime; and then he will reproach the human race, which does not repent nor go on in the way of the gospel, with what is contained in the psalm: "What profit is there in my blood, while I go down to corruption?" For he reproaches the proud and cursed for thinking there was no profit in the mystery of his blood and death, although he was born and suffered and rose for our sake.

The prophet also kept in view the reason of human weakness. He knows that there are certain things in us which must be taken away by God's mercy. He knows that God must be prayed to with such confession of our sins that, even if we have what deserves it, we may not be rebuked; for a crime must be confessed so that there may also be pardon. He knows then that after rebuke the nations go into contempt, that is, into nothing; for it is written: "All the nations are nothing, and all that they are is counted as nothing." But after the prophet's example we must pray that reproach and contempt be taken away from us with this hope and this confidence, adding to the words "Take away from me reproach and contempt" what follows: "because I have sought your testimonies." He seeks God's testimonies so that he need not be rebuked, and he prays that reproach and contempt be taken from him so that he may not abandon modesty: confessing indeed that in his nature there is a cause for rebuke and reproach, which he prays to have taken away from him, but hoping that it will be taken away through devotion to the testimonies he has sought.

The prophet seeks God's testimonies not in leisure nor in the insolence of prosperity, but while many sit against him and many talk against him, saying: "For princes sat and spoke against me." He knows that all the faith of prophecy is hateful to the princes of this world; he knows too that the apostles will be hated by all for the Christian name. Princes sit against the prophet and speak against him when they hear Isaiah saying: "Hear the word of the Lord, princes of Sodom, and attend to the law of God, you people." By the counsel of such men Isaiah was sawn in two, Jeremiah too was shut in prison, Daniel was thrown to lions stirred up by hunger, Zechariah was killed between the temple and the altar, the apostles are beaten, cut down, crucified, so that the word of God may be taken away, that teaching may be stopped, that the way of eternal life may be blocked. But steadfast faith scorned these assemblies of princes and these words of slander. For there follows: "But your servant was exercised in your justifications." While they roared and blocked him with all their arms, the spirit persevered in the exercises of God's justifications.

But, as we discussed above, the exercise of justifications and the meditation on testimonies is this: although the works of the law are exercised through bodily acts, yet by exercise and by meditation on the testimonies a kind of preparation for eternal goods is gained through meditation on present things. But he shows where the meditation on the testimonies arises from. For he added: "And your justifications are my counsel," confessing that every care, all the various and diverse movements of his counsels, are intent on the justifications of God in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

A manifold understanding cannot hold difficulty in its words, since, with all obscurity of understanding removed, the choice is all the more abundant, as we see in the first verse of the fourth letter. For he says: "My soul has cleaved to the pavement; give me life according to your word." This can be understood of persistence in prayer, as though the prophet, through confession of sins, were lying prostrate on the ground, on the pavement. But in order to understand something deeper under these words, we think it necessary to examine the force of the words more carefully. For he does not say, "I have cleaved," but "My soul has cleaved to the pavement"; and we are prompted to understand that here he is complaining of the fellowship of soul and body. And there are many things that prompt us to think this the more probable. For the apostle said, "the body of humiliation"; and the prophet said, "My soul is humbled in the dust"; and again: "And you have brought me down into the dust of death." So, either because it is on the ground of this earth, or because it was formed and shaped from the earth, the soul, which is of another origin, is believed to have cleaved to the body, undertaking the greatest struggle itself: that while remaining in it, it may tear itself away from fellowship with it, so as to use its dwelling as a stranger.

The prophet, though earlier in time, is not ignorant of the apostle's saying, that those who cleave to the Lord are one spirit with him. He knows also from himself: "My soul has cleaved after you." Indeed he reads in the law: "You shall walk after the Lord your God and cleave to him." So he longs to cleave to him rather than to the body. But because he remembers that he has contracted some stain of sin from its fellowship, he prays that through the word of God, although his soul is mingled with an earthly and mortal nature, he himself may be quickened into heavenly life. For he knows that he now cleaves to the ground and does not live; but according to the word of God, for whom the dead live, he prays to be quickened into life.

Then follows: "I declared my ways, and you heard me; teach me your justifications." Those who live according to the pleasures of the body walk in their own ways. But those who have left behind every habit of fleshly vices and live in the way of God no longer travel in their own way but in God's way. Let us hear this too in Deuteronomy: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord your God and walk in all his ways and love him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep the precepts of the Lord your God and his justifications, which I command you today, that it may be well with you?" So one who cleaves to God is in God's way.

And on what reasoning shall we think the prophet spoke here, saying: "I declared my ways, and you heard me; teach me your justifications"? For if he proclaims his own ways, he must be proclaiming ways of sin, because whoever is not in God's way is in the way of sin. But in agreement with this present saying seems to be what was said: "I will declare my iniquities against myself, Lord," and again: "The righteous man at the beginning of his speech is his own accuser." So the declaring spoken of here is not praise but confession of his ways, that is, a penitent profession of his sins; and the prophet, as one worthy of the spirit of prophecy, first confessed his ways, that is, the ways of sin, so that after this declaring of them he might be capable of the teaching of God's justifications. Both are taught. For when he says "I declared," he shows that this confession belongs to past time; when he says "teach me," it is a prayer for the future, because one must first confess one's sins, and after the confession is made, learn.

The prophet, remaining in the law, does not ask to be taught from the things then carried out by bodily ministry, but from those which, under the form of present things, embraced the mysteries of the future. "Make me understand the way of your justifications, and I will be exercised in your wonders." The present saying is seen to have distinguished the justifications from their way. And as far as is understood from the thing itself, everything toward which one heads by a way is not the same as the way itself by which one goes. So we must seek the reason why the prophet asks to be granted to understand the way of the justifications rather than to know the justifications themselves. For he remembers that all the justifications of the law contain in themselves a shadow of holy justifications: when a Hebrew boy is free after six years of slavery, when the fruits of the seventh year are left to the needy and the beasts of the land, when after the fiftieth year all things return to the ownership from which they had departed. And because these things laid down in the law are the way of those things whose pattern is prefigured in them, he prays that, understanding the way of these justifications, he may be exercised in God's wonders, that is, be occupied in the works of the law: because the law was set up as a mirror of good things to come.

On the following verse I have found that many have thought various things, because it was not rendered from the Hebrew by the other translators with the same exactness as it was written by the seventy translators. For some, in place of what they said, ἐνύσταξεν ἡ ψυχή μου ("my soul slumbered"), put ἔσταξεν ἡ ψυχή μου ("my soul dripped"); and one of them translated not ἐνύσταξεν but κατέσταξεν ("dripped down"). And it is understood that ἐνύσταξεν means one thing, ἔσταξεν another, κατέσταξεν another. But it is not safe for us to go beyond the translation of the seventy translators, and certainly the reason and sense of the words prompt us to understand that the verse was rightly and plausibly translated. For it stands with them thus: "My soul has slumbered from weariness." And all the preceding and following discourse contains the confession of humility and weakness: when his soul cleaves to the ground, when he confesses his sins, when he prays for understanding of the way of the justifications. It follows, then, that he now complains that his soul slumbers from weariness of its mortal dwelling, a soul which does not yet understand the way of the justifications and which even now cleaves to the ground. And therefore he prays to be strengthened in God's ways, because he slumbers from weariness.

But here this distinction is kept, that he says he slumbers, not that he sleeps; because one who sleeps is in the very act of sleep, while one who slumbers slumbers before he sleeps. This distinction is kept in another place too, when he says: "Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither sleep nor slumber." And there too, where he says: "If I give sleep to my eyes and slumber to my eyelids," he called slumber that of the eyelids, but sleep that of the eyes, because it is the office of the eyelids to bring on sleep out of slumber. So the prophet, though he slumbers, does not sleep; and therefore, lest slumbering he fall asleep, he added: "Strengthen me in your words": that is, that strengthened through understanding of all the justifications he mentioned above, he may not only not sleep but may now keep watch without any slumbering.

He says: "Remove from me the way of iniquity, and in your law have mercy on me." It would have been easy to say, "Remove iniquity from me"; but though conscious of his weakness, since he remembers that the way of sinning is in his body, yet through the fear of God he is a stranger to all sin. So he prays that the way of sin, by which it is easy to go on to sin, be removed from him, that is, that all desires for bodily pleasures be taken away, and that no temptation of … or of ignorance, by which one goes to sin as by a way, may assail him. And he prays God not only for this, but also that he have mercy on him through his law. He obtains mercy through the law in this way, because, as I showed above, it is written thus in the law: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but that you fear the Lord your God and walk in all his ways and love him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep the precepts of the Lord your God and his justifications, which I command you today, that it may be well with you!" So since the law teaches that one must walk in God's ways so that it may be well hereafter with the one who walks in them, and now the prophet prays that the ways of unrighteousness be removed from him and that God have mercy on him according to the law, he prays for what is concluded in the law: that walking in God's ways he may be placed in blessedness.

Then follows: "I have loved the way of truth, and I have not forgotten your judgments." Many love a way, but not all love the way of truth. Whoever enters the way of pleasures or of riches or of honors, and those too who are carried about by wandering, uncertain, and impious teachings, are indeed on a way, but they are not on the way of truth. But the prophet speaks from the Spirit of him who was afterwards to say in the body: "I am the way, the truth, the life." And because this is judgment, as it is contained in the gospels, "For this is the judgment, that whoever believes in me has eternal life," the prophet rightly says: "I have loved the way of truth, and I have not forgotten your judgments." For these things were spoken to us later for our knowledge; but the prophet both lives and speaks in them.

The discourse of teaching and of confession holds together; for he says: "I have cleaved to your testimonies; Lord, do not put me to shame," because by cleaving to the Lord's testimonies he has deserved pardon for old and earlier sins. For he knows that it was said in God's words: "Behold, I have blotted out your iniquities like a cloud, and your sins like a mist." The Lord is able to remove all those things in us that belong to shame and confusion, if we too can say with freedom: "I have cleaved to your testimonies." For cleaving to these we are set free from the confusion of shameful and earlier crimes.

But all things are concluded in their order and in their matters. For above he said, "Remove the way from me"; then he added, "I have loved the way of truth"; third follows, "I have cleaved to your testimonies." Now he ends thus: "I ran in the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart." Step by step he has come to this: from the removal of the way of iniquity, the love of the way of truth, and the inseparable fellowship of the testimonies, to running in the way of God's commandments. But the way that leads to life is both narrow and afflicted: narrow, because one must enter it carefully and cautiously; afflicted, because it is approached through many afflictions and sufferings. And will the prophet be thought insolent, who boasts that he runs this way?

But he remembers that between zeal and the confession of humility the force of his words must be tempered. Therefore, after he had said, "I ran in the way of your commandments," he added this: "when you enlarged my heart." The heart is enlarged which is opened through faith to receive God's teaching. And this was said of believers: "And I will dwell and walk among them." So the heart is enlarged in which the mystery of the Father and the Son resides, in which the Holy Spirit delights in a roomy dwelling. Solomon too remembers this, saying: "Wisdom is sung in the exits; in the streets she acts with freedom." Our Latin for each of these two words either brings us obscurity or gives the impression of another meaning. For what we call "in the exits" was translated from the Greek, and an exodos is properly where one comes together out of many narrow ways into one open way. What we call plateas, Greek called by the same name; but the Greek word plateai means broad places, and we think these are the streets of cities. So Wisdom, who is Christ, is sung in that way into which there is an exit for us out of many; and in the broad places she acts with freedom, in which she promised not only to dwell but also to walk about. So the prophet runs the Lord's way freely, after he began to have an enlarged heart. For he could not run the way of God until he himself was made a worthy and spacious dwelling of God. Amen.