Tractates on the Psalms 120.1–120.16

Some think this second Song of Ascents should be referred to the person of our Lord and Savior, applying to him above all this saying: "By day the sun will not burn you, nor the moon by night." For they think this prophecy was fulfilled at the time when, in the Lord's passion, the sun was darkened and night came on. But we take nothing away from their judgment. For we do not reprove the sense of this understanding, leaving it to each one's choice which he prefers to follow of the things he has read or understood. We, however, could fit our discourse only to what we understood.

"I lifted up my eyes to the mountains." The nature of the human mind is such that, if we contemplate something in thought, each form presents itself to us such as we shape it by thinking. For wherever we direct the eyes of our mind, they bring back to the sense the very thing on which they are fixed. And so that what has been said can be understood more plainly, we shall give an example. If someone on a winter's day thinks of spring and gazes at its beauty with the light of the mind, forgetting the winter in which he is and is cold, the whole of spring with its dress and adornment will stand in his sense. So far do the eyes of the mind surpass the eyes of the body that, as forgetfulness of present things comes over us, a kind of enjoyment of absent things, taken in advance by the mind, holds us entirely. We shall soon see where this tends.

The prophet lifts his eyes to the mountains. Which eyes? Surely those of which it is written: "Unveil my eyes, and I shall know the wonders of your law"; and again: "The commandment of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes." Are not these eyes of ours kindled with bodily light for seeing? Have they not received the nature of seeing? What enlightening or what unveiling will be necessary? Then, what wonders will they see in the law? Unless perhaps the feast of leaves in huts, the blood of cattle in the temple, the victim of the lamb at the Passover, in short, the rest of the Sabbath in religion? And, as I think, these things were seen to be done by those who were present as spectators. So the eyes are not to be unveiled for what was seen, but for what was longed to be understood in the law.

So the prophet lifted the eyes of his mind to the mountains. To which mountains? Certainly not to these profaned by groves and altars and impious with assemblies, nor to those rough with forests, bare with rocks, impassable with cliffs, frozen with snows; for what is there in these to wonder at or hope for? But we take the mountains to be the prophetic books, raised from the earth on high, through which there is a climbing to higher things and a step into eternal things. We may also think of the mountains as the angelic ministries, the powers and authorities of heaven, by whose ministry ascent to the heights is granted us. For if, according to Daniel, the Lord himself is a great mountain, there is no doubt that those are called mountains who are ministers of his precept and will and of the blessedness to be shared with us.

So the prophet, lifting the eyes of his heart to these mountains and contemplating within himself the warnings, ministries, offices, and gifts of all of them, and directing on them the light of his understanding, gave back to his sense the whole and perfect nature of the form he had contemplated and held in mind all that he had seen in thought, knowing from where help would come to him, saying: "From where will my help come?" And at once he answered himself with a blessed confession: "My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." The eyes are lifted to the mountains, because through them is the ministry of teaching, progress, and ascent. But when one must confess from where help comes, help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. This is happy faith, this is true confession, this is eternal hope, worthy of the gifts of heavenly blessing.

Then, since all prophecy is in the Spirit, at once this blessed confession of his is followed, through the person of the prophet, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit: "May he not give your foot to be moved, nor may he who keeps you slumber." The sense itself shows that a change of person has been made. For the word is turned to him who spoke above: "May he not give to be moved." Who? Surely he who made heaven and earth. "Your foot." Whose? We shall ask. Namely his who lifted his eyes to the mountains and confessed that his help was from the Lord. But "may he not give" is also the feeling of one who wishes and blesses. And who will wish this? He, namely, who is for us another Advocate besides the Lord, of whom he says: "And I will send you another Advocate," who also speaks in the prophets. What, then, does this Advocate say? He blesses the confessor of this faith and hope: "May he not give your foot to be moved, nor may he who keeps you slumber." But both these things are unworthy of God: that he should hand over to being moved, and slumber, and after the watch of keeping rest from some continuance of labor. But before we come to that, we must treat what is meant by the foot.

The foot is the part of the body that carries the whole body about to the things to be done and accomplished. And because Scripture teaches spiritual things through bodily ones and shows invisible things through visible ones, under the name of foot it signifies the movements and goings of our mind: as in this same prophet, "But my feet were almost moved." Surely these fleshly feet are always moved in the body: and how is it a dangerous thing that they were almost moved, when it is their proper office always to be moved? And in the gospels too the Lord, signifying other feet, commanded the right foot that causes stumbling to be cut off, saying: "And if your right foot causes you to stumble, cut it off." If there is a stumbling block in the right foot, will the left cause less stumbling? Or what temptation can that part of the body bring, since without any feeling of desire it has in itself only the ministry of necessary service? So, like the eyes of the mind, so also feet must be understood, having in themselves both the sight of understanding and the movement of the will.

But it must not be understood that this blessing, "May he not give your foot to be moved," is given as though God hands some over to the vices into which we are carried by the feet of a corrupted mind. He will not hand us over; but when we have departed from him through sins, and since he does not dwell in sinners, his withdrawal from us follows our departure from him, because we depart from him through sins. And when he withdraws from us, we fall into all the pits of offenses and run along the broad road of death, subjected to the domination of demons, to whom God's withdrawal from us leaves us. And his abandonment is therefore a handing over, because the devil cannot take hold of sinners unless God withdraws from them.

But while we remain with him, or while he remains in us, there is a watchful guard and an unwearying defense. But if through lukewarmness of faith we sleep, he too sleeps with us. For there is no sleep or rest in the eternal power, whose angels are watchers both in name and in nature; for these things are necessary for earthly bodies: but because God's help will either watch or sleep with us according to our faith, watching or sleeping, therefore the Lord is often represented both as watching and as sleeping. On this pattern it is said in this same prophet: "With the holy you will be holy, and with the perverse you will be overturned." Is God not always holy, so that he should sometimes be perverse? Certainly not. For there is nothing in him but what is good and eternal: but because God is near each one according to each one's conduct and zeal, therefore he is both turned away from the perverse and holy among the holy.

And to show that the sleep of the guard comes rather from our drowsiness toward faith, and that the rest of sleep does not fit the nature of the heavenly guard, because it is unwearying and eternal, he at once joined: "Behold, he who keeps Israel will not slumber nor sleep." Having prayed above that he not slumber, now he says he will neither slumber nor sleep; signifying slumber above as coming from our departure from him, but now showing that he neither slumbers nor sleeps, because he is unwearying eternity. But who is this who neither slumbers nor sleeps? He, namely, who keeps Israel. Genesis explains that Israel is one who has seen God. For the patriarch Jacob received this name after the struggle he had had with God. Seeing God beyond human nature with the eyes of his faith, he is worthy of this name. And he so saw God that he prayed to be blessed by him. Paul too remembers that Israel is now among the people of the nations, that is, in the people of the church, saying: "Peace upon him and upon the Israel of God," lest perhaps this name be thought to have belonged only to that ancient people. So if he who keeps Israel does not sleep, and Israel is properly the name of one who sees God, he must be kept who, with eyes lifted to the mountains, saw and said: "My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." So heavenly keeping is spent on this faith, and this confession receives the defense of eternal watchfulness, a confession to be pursued, held, and kept, since the keeping of him whom we so confess never sleeps toward us.

And lest we think that the sleepless guard of someone else is shown, there is added: "The Lord will keep you," he, that is, who made heaven and earth. Then the manner of this keeping is set out: "The Lord is your protection upon the hand of your right hand." We have already said above that incorporeal things are signified by bodily ones. For the weakness of our understanding cannot reach invisible things except by comparison with visible ones: as now what is said does not reach our sense except through the name of hand and right hand, although here hand and right hand are placed contrary to the understanding of nature. For it is said thus: "The Lord is your protection upon the hand of your right hand." The matter would be simple if it had been said thus: "upon your right hand." But when it is said, "upon the hand of your right hand," a right side seems to be meant that has hands both right and left. Neither human nature nor sense admits this. But Scripture always shows the right side as the best and most useful. And indeed the gospels will show the meaning of both understandings through those who are on the right and on the left. And we take the hand to be the effect of every work. Hence that too was said by this same prophet thus: "Deliver me from the mouth of the lion, my only one from the hand of the dog." For this part of the body would not fit that barking and rabid animal; but he prays to be delivered from the works of malice. So because the powers of demons opposing us strive to weaken and wound the best and strongest works of our faith, therefore God's guard is promised to watch upon the hand of the right, so that the works of good will may persevere unharmed in us; and while these remain, we shall enjoy the kingdom of that eternal and most blessed time, with every weakness of bodily stain wiped away.

For the spirit of the prophet promises us this in what follows, saying: "By day the sun will not burn you, nor the moon by night." The nature of these elements has this effect in itself, that each of them in its own time weakens the strength of human bodies through the change of the weak substance in us, so that the sun burns with heat, the moon with cold, and their alternation through the yearly course is such that in winter the sun does not burn, while the moon burns, but relaxes; and again in the summer months the sun burns and the moon relaxes.

So I ask those who think these things are to be understood bodily what they assert the prophet promises to one who has lifted his eyes to the mountains in saying, "By day the sun will not burn you, nor the moon by night"? For while the nature of our body remains, the nature of the elements will not become changeable so that they do not continue in the custom of their nature toward our nature. Or will anyone dare to hope for himself in this age such firmness of body that he cannot be burned by night and day, when the blessed patriarch Jacob complains that he was scorched by the cold of night and the heat of day, saying: "And I was scorched by the heat of the day and the frost of the night"?

But the prophet now, or the Spirit through the prophet, knows that blessedness of the times in which every change of bodily weakness will depart from us, in which there will be no cold, no heat, no night and change, but eternal day and a blessed mildness, with the sun of righteousness ruling over us. Prefiguring the rest of that time, the Lord already in the desert tempered for his people the heat of day by the pillar of cloud and the cold and darkness of night by the pillar of fire. In this eternal and blessed mildness of the times, then, whoever has deserved the Lord's keeping will remain, so that the nature of the body is not burned by the frost of the moon and the heat of the sun, but, freed from the evils and injuries of this age, resting in eternal, blessed, and mild things, it may take on the solid and unchangeable nature of its glorified body.

Then follows: "The Lord will keep you from every evil." And from what evils will the Lord keep? Not, I think, from those that are thought evils: for these are owed to our weakness and body, to die, to be sick, to be in need; and if these were evils, Abel would be living, Job would not have been tortured, nor would Peter have lacked the money he was asked for as alms. So the Lord keeps the faithful soul from every evil, that is, so that the devil's moth may not corrupt it, the thief creep up, the dog bark, the wolf tear, the bear rage, the leopard spring, the tiger fly at, the lion lay waste. For these are now the devil's ministries, all these are his offices in the time of this age: to consume with vices, to creep up with flatteries, to tear with slanders, to spring with ambition, to fly at with lusts, and to lay waste with all the power of his strength. From all this evil, then, God's keeping must be expected. And because he rages above all against the soul, for it is our duty to fight against him in the body, since there is no victory except from a contest, there follows: "The Lord will keep your soul," so that none of the many and great evils mentioned above may have power over it.

The prophetic word kept its order, saying: "The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forth and for ever." For this keeping, not being burned by sun and moon and being preserved from every evil, does not belong to this time and age; but it is the expectation of a future good, when all the faithful, going out of the body, will be kept by the Lord's keeping for that entrance into the heavenly kingdom, meanwhile placed in Abraham's bosom, where the chasm set between prevents the impious from approaching, until the time of entering again into the kingdom of heaven comes. So the Lord will keep the going out, while those going out of the body rest, separated from the impious by the chasm set between; and he will keep the coming in, when he leads us into that eternal and blessed kingdom. For he is the one who says, "I am the door," and, "No one goes to the Father except through me," that is, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.