Tractates on the Psalms 124.1–125.11

Many make obscurity for us, wishing to judge the prophetic Scriptures by the judgment of the ears alone and to understand nothing in them other than what is heard under the individual words for each thing. When they wish this, they will leave us nothing to understand, nor will they establish that the prophets spoke reasonably, I do not say heavenly things, but not even earthly ones. For what will be treated fittingly by us, or be thought rightly said by them, when we hear of waters praising, seeing, fearing, and clapping their hands, unless we show from the authorities of the same Scriptures that under the name of waters something else of another kind is signified? Namely what is living and sensing and moves itself by its own motion and sense to judge each thing: which will be understood to be man, praising, seeing, fearing, clapping, judging. For the prophetic word has set out that these kinds of human feeling are in waters; and since their nature does not fit waters, neither did the prophet speak of waters nor do we understand it to be said of waters. This should be gone over again because of what is in the present psalm, which is as follows.

"Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion; he who dwells in Jerusalem will not be moved for ever. Mountains are round about it." If the name of Mount Zion, the dwelling of Jerusalem, and the mountains around it have no ground of inner understanding, the psalm is empty and the prophet, in whom the Holy Spirit is believed to have spoken, a liar. For Mount Zion overhangs the city of Jerusalem; it is the city around which there are many mountains outside. What progress, then, will one who trusts in the Lord have, to be like Mount Zion? To become, from a rational man, a rock, a tree, a sod, and be brought from a living nature into a lifeless one? And how is this saying faithful, that he who dwells in Jerusalem will not be moved for ever? Did Jerusalem itself bring sanctification to its inhabitants, so that dwelling there was eternal firmness, since from there came the sacrilegious slaughter of the prophets, the sentence of death against the Lord, the flight of the apostles, the scandal of the cross? And how often were its inhabitants captured, how often killed? Finally the same city was utterly destroyed, and those left from its devastation were taken and scattered, the prophet announcing this destruction beforehand for its impiety thus: "Your land is deserted, your cities burned with fire, strangers devour your country before your eyes, and the daughter of Zion will be left desolate and overthrown by foreign peoples, like a booth in a vineyard and like a watchman's hut in a cucumber field." So the saying is empty, the prophecy empty, which also added: "Mountains are round about it, and the Lord is round about his people from this time forth and for ever." Jerusalem is overthrown, its people are extinct, its remnants are scattered; today it is not inhabited; no priest, no prophet, no prince; but it is crushed, deserted, without fruit. And how will its dwelling not be moved for ever? And how is the Lord round about its people from this time forth and for ever? So it cannot seem to be prophesied of the city from which the truth of the prophecy will disagree. It follows, then, that we must ask to whom the meaning of the words applies.

And first we must notice that mention is made of no other mountain than Zion. For we read that there is the mountain of the Lord, Horeb, to which Moses first came after he had gone through many things; and the mountain of God, Sinai, on which the law of the people was written. There is also Zion, the mountain overhanging Jerusalem. But because there is no fruit of prophecy in this mountain, we must see what is to be understood by the mountain. And we have Isaiah as the best guide of understanding. For after he had above signified the lofty mountain of the Lord, to which the nations would come, he says: "Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I lay in the foundations of Zion a stone, splendid, chosen, a cornerstone, precious, in its foundations; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." And there is no doubt that the apostle signified Christ as the foundation, by which that blessed church of the Lord's body, whose foundation is Christ, seems to be signified by the mountain. The same apostle also calls it Jerusalem, saying: "The Jerusalem that now is, is in slavery with her children; but the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother." So we have the Lord's Mount Zion, and we have the city of God, Jerusalem; and the interpretation of the name Zion is "watchtower." So we understand the Lord as the mountain in Daniel, from mountain to stone and again from stone to mountain; for being in the form of God he emptied himself and took the form of a servant, and through his passion, having laid the world low with its superstitions and errors, he is in the glory of God the Father and is God over all; emptied from mountain into stone because of the weakness of the flesh, made again from stone into mountain because of the glory of the passion: a mountain eminent and lofty, in which, through his taking of our flesh and body, we behold ourselves.

For in him we are, contemplating our resurrection in the resurrection of our body in him: for Zion is a watchtower. Let the Hebrew language, in which it was said, speak this interpretation: Mount Zion is the mount of watching. Let Paul too speak and say: "But our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await our Savior, who will transform the body of our humiliation, conformed to the body of his glory"; and let him say again: "And when we were dead in sins, he made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him and seated us in the heavenly places." Let the gospel too say: "As many as received him, to them he gave power to become sons of God." Let the prophet too now say: "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion; he who dwells in Jerusalem will not be moved for ever." Let us follow the apostle, let us follow the gospel, let us follow the prophet. Let us trust in the Lord, so that we may be conformed to the glory of God's body. Let us dwell now in the church, the heavenly Jerusalem, so that we may not be moved for ever. For dwelling in this we shall dwell also in that; because this is the form of that; for we know in part and prophesy in part, and now we see through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face. But both this is heavenly and that is heavenly; both this is Jerusalem and that is Jerusalem; and that indeed is the church of a multitude of thronging angels: but there is the church of the firstborn, and there is the church of spirits founded in the Lord. So we must be founded in the Spirit, and those who dwell in this must stand, not run about, as it was said to Moses: "But you, stand here with me." Let us not wander in rushing about, nor be uncertain in our ways, nor fly off with the wind of empty teaching. For we must remain for ever, if we stand without being moved.

But those who wish to stand do not lack the guards of the saints nor the defenses of angels. For it is said: "Mountains are round about it, and the Lord is round about his people from this time forth and for ever." For according to the previous examples we shall think these mountains to be those who rise above the lowliness of the earth, firm, lofty, and immovable. For since we read that the mountain signifies the church, that is, the Lord in the body, and we find that the mountains of God exult and rejoice, for it is written, "The mountains skipped like rams," how can we not understand that those are signified as mountains who, glorious above earthly nature, already exult in the things of God?

And lest we believe there is light protection in the apostles, or the patriarchs and prophets, or rather in the angels, who surround the church with a kind of guard, there was added: "And the Lord is round about his people from this time forth and for ever." But perhaps the guard of apostles or angels may be thought sufficient. That is indeed so; but let us hear Moses too. For when the Lord had said to him, "Behold, my angel will go before you," he answered: "Unless you walk with me, do not send me away from here." The protection of angels is good, but that of the Lord is better. Our soul is sought by many snares, many arms are fought with against us. Neither earth nor seas nor air is free from danger to our faith. The rare gems of the unknown sea seize our eyes, the gold of the earth occupies the mind; the spiritual wickednesses and powers of this air fly around us with the familiar allurements of our death, lying in wait through the troubles of present life, through the manners and wantonness of another's will, that we may be angry, may hate, may love: we are watched and sought on every side. So the Lord, knowing that our fight is not against flesh and blood but against the mighty ones of this world and spiritual wickednesses, says, completing the gospels: "Behold, I am with you all days until the consummation of the age." For he is present; and when he is faithfully called upon, he is present by his nature. For he is Spirit, penetrating and containing all things. For he is not bodily, as we are, so that when he is present somewhere he is absent from elsewhere; but by a present power, extending itself wherever anything is, since he is in all things by his Spirit filling all things, he nevertheless stands by the one who believes in him. For he will be present even with three or two gathered in his name, and he is round about all his people from this time forth and for ever.

But what does it mean that he is round about his people from this time forth and for ever? "Because he will not leave the rod of sinners upon the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to iniquity." By the rod power should be understood; for it is the emblem of power. Moses received a rod by which he could do all things; there was also the rod of Aaron. But there was also the rod of Pharaoh, and the rod of Nebuchadnezzar. So the Lord guards us round about, lest the rod of sinners be left upon our lot. Tribulations come, but they do not remain; persecutions come, but they do not persist. Many want to bring the freedom of our faith into captivity, but no one rules over our confession, which we have in Christ. For the rod of the sinner will not be left upon our lot. For the Lord is round about his people for ever, lest, conquered and wearied by the rule of the rod, we stretch out our hands to iniquity. But when the rod has fallen, it will be taken away; and when the sinner has pressed upon us, he will not be left. Whatever we suffer from God's adversaries is short: and it has victory and reward, though it does not have the labor of a long battle. The Lord is present. Even if some force compels, let us keep our hands from iniquities, let us not stretch out our works to sins, because, with the Lord set round about us, the rod of the sinner will not be left to remain.

After this the prophet turns to pray for a reward from the Lord for the one who has kept his hands from iniquity: "Do good, Lord, to the good and to the upright of heart," signifying uprightness both of deed and of will in both. For many do a good work either for the favor of men, or because of danger and fear of the deed. But unless we are good from the will, even if we seem good to men, we are not good to God, because perfect goodness consists in the feeling of an upright heart.

But as reward is present for the good, so it is not absent for the evil. For there follows: "But those who turn aside to bonds the Lord will lead away with those who work iniquity." Here too the saying has a double meaning: of those who turn aside to bonds and of those who work iniquities. Those who turn aside turn from one thing to another, that is, from the good works of an upright heart into bonds. And what shall we think the bonds are? Surely those the prophet warned to be loosed, saying: "I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord; but loose every bond of iniquity, undo the bonds of violent exchanges." So if anyone, turning aside from God's precepts, binds himself with these bonds, he will be led away with those who work iniquity, the transgressor and the unjust man being destined to the same punishment of sentence. For one who works iniquity is a stranger to the law; but one who turns aside from the law transgresses the law in which he remained before.

So we must not turn aside to bonds; nor must our freedom be put into the knots of the world and the chains of worldly business. Blessed Paul knows that those who are loosed must not be bound, when he says: "Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a binding." And he did not mean this of a criminal chain of necessary binding. But there are other chains which hinder our faith, bind it, and tie it to themselves: above all the labor of increasing money and the insincere profit of trading. For these so bind with sins, oaths, and dealings that they hold us captured and possessed for themselves. From these, then, every mind, will, and pursuit must be loosed, because those who turn aside to bonds will be led away together with those who work iniquity.

And Israel will be peaceful, the rod of the sinner not being left upon him; but remaining in perfect faith and eternal hope he will hear it said to him for his portion: "Peace upon Israel." For he is our peace, who has made both one, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Were there not in the psalms certain prophecies of such a kind that they do not fit the affairs and men of the times in which they were written, many would surely dare to think that nothing in the psalms was spoken spiritually, and would think that we search out certain invented assertions and false interpretations, by which we might seem to have understood something higher and deeper than the sense of others, as though we fit what is written to our sense, and do not rather attain from what is written the sense of a careful and anxious understanding. For the Scripture of the law remains, completed by the prophets in times before the Lord was present, published by the Jews, handled by kings, received by the nations, but understood and proved by Christians.

This will perhaps be thought insolent. It is plainly insolent if we claim this glory for ourselves, if we wish so much to be allowed to our weakness, that we, fools to the world, the refuse of the world, and madness to its wise men, should boast of understanding things hidden for so many times, obscure for so many ages of the human race, in understanding which kings labored in vain and the very teachers and masters of the law erred. But nevertheless we understand, because he is no liar who said, "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you"; and it is written that he who said, "For all things had to be fulfilled that are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms concerning me," then opened their mind so that they might understand the Scriptures, and said to them: "For thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations." So what we understand is not from ourselves, but from him who made what was unknowable understood. So understanding is to be hoped for from him who will open to those who knock, show to those who seek, and not refuse to those who ask.

For how can this psalm be understood, which disagrees with the history of events? For nowhere is the captivity of this people written of up to the times of David, but long after, when Solomon his son held the kingdom, Israel was captured and served the Assyrians, then Judah the Babylonians. How then does David pray in this psalm as one captured? Or how does he rejoice that captivity has been turned away from him, saying: "When the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, we became as those comforted. Then our mouth was filled with joy and our tongue with exultation. Then they will say among the nations: The Lord has done great things for them"? But although it is pious to think that the change of the future captivity was foretold according to the knowledge of prophecy, and that things which would certainly be done were recalled as done through faith in their doing, yet the force of the sayings and words does not now allow us to understand the rejoicing over that return which was granted after the Babylonian captivity: especially since a heavier captivity afterwards followed that same return, and it is unworthy of the prophet to rejoice, as if in ignorance, as though all reproach of captivity had been removed, when captivity was repeated with an unchangeable reproach. But the whole psalm now is, as we shall show by explaining each thing, the rejoicing of the soul returning from the captivity of vices into the freedom of the knowledge of God.

And indeed bodily captivity is heavy, which, the right of freedom lost, is subjected to the dominion of the conquerors. And then bodies indeed serve, but the freedom of the faithful soul is in no way captured. Witnesses for me are the three youths singing amid the flames, witness Daniel in the hunger of the lions, filled with the prophet's meal, witness Eleazar, free by his fathers' laws amid the decrees of masters, witnesses the seven martyrs with their aged mother giving thanks to God amid new torments of death. But how much more unhappy is the captivity of the soul! If greed has captured it, it robs and plunders through the body; if lust has conquered, it shares its slavery with the body; if luxury, anger, hatred, rashness, drunkenness, envy have subdued it, under these masters ruling it both soul and body serve in common: and so captivity of the body follows the captivity of the soul. But the nobility of a religious soul despises the condition of the body. The service is hard, yet not wholly pitiable for a man, since there is service even by slaves: but how unhappy is the captivity of the soul!

The greedy man, about to lose himself, fears to lose his money; busy, gloomy, anxious, without any rest, he is always held by fear of loss; he is forgetful of honor, heedless of friendships, a fugitive from humanity, ignorant of religion, wholly hating goodness. But he whose mistress is lust, in what mud of disgrace does he wallow! He hangs on the occasions for adulteries; anxious about the secret thefts of his lust, he is wholly given to harlots with eyes, mind, and body. Seeing and hearing daily the human laws against adulterers, he plans adultery in the very forum; what he does, he fears; what he fears, he does not flee. And what is more unhappy than the dominion of drunkenness? To pour into the belly beyond its capacity, to begrudge the body its office, to take reason from the sense, not to speak, not to remember, not to stand, and to impose a kind of death on a sound nature? How disgraceful is the motion of the raging, the onrush of rashness, the goad of hatreds, the anxiety of envy? How great, then, is the confusion, how great the calamity of those who serve the evils mentioned above!

But if, having learned the teaching of wisdom and the preaching of God, the forgiveness of all sins, the resurrection of bodies, the fellowship of eternity, and the heavenly kingdom, we pass from the masters above, from greed to generosity, migrate from lusts to continence, return from drunkenness to fasts, fly from rage, rashness, hatred, and envy to gentleness, reason, mercy, and kindness, learning all these from the law, the prophets, the gospels, and the apostles, and singing from the law, "The Lord who crushes wars, the Lord is his name," learning from the prophet, "I am he who made heaven and earth from nothing," believing from the gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," proclaiming from the apostle, "who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were established in heaven and on earth," and when the nations marvel at our conversion from vices to virtues, from ignorance of God to confession of him, then we shall testify that the prophecy of the psalm can be understood by us, saying: "When the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, we became as those comforted. Then our mouth was filled with joy and our tongue with exultation. Then they will say among the nations: The Lord has done great things for them." For God turned back our captivity through the forgiveness of sins. For he freed the soul from the dominion of vices, not reckoning former offenses, renewing us into new life and transforming us into the new man, establishing us in the body of his flesh. For he himself is the church, containing it all in himself through the mystery of his body. Zion did not exist before it was freed; but Zion is what has been freed. The name agrees with freedom. For it is the name not of a remaining but of a turned-back captivity.

As for his saying, "We became as those comforted," Paul too remembers that he is meanwhile as one comforted, saying: "Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death?"; he who now knows in part and prophesies in part, and who knows that Jerusalem is laid up for us in heaven, and when he says: "To be dissolved is better for me, and to remain with Christ." We are indeed now comforted, because the Lord says: "He will send you another Comforter." When he says "another," he teaches that he himself remains. For it remains; for the whole creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God. That revelation is consummated comfort. But now it is "as" comfort; not lacking it meanwhile, though the perfection of its consummation remains for us.

Our mouth too is filled with joy and our tongue with exultation; for the services of our tongue and mouth are not sufficient to render praises to God. We have changed crimes into innocence, vices into virtues, ignorance into knowledge, death into immortality: and this by God's doing, giving the grace of repenting and the beginnings of new goods. For which time is more desirable to us? That in which we committed adultery, or that in which we would rather have been virgins? That in which we were drunk, or that in which we rejoice in fasts? That in which we served money, or that in which money serves our kindness? That in which we worshipped demons, or that in which we command demons? That in which we longed to please the world, or that in which we conquer the world? That in which we did not know God, or that in which we are prepared as heirs to God?

The nations, beholding this faith of our hope, say: "The Lord has done great things for them." Seeing this change of vices into virtues, they marvel at God's magnificence toward us. We too, from the sense of this blessedness we have gained, confess the very same thing in the joy of the mouth and the exultation of the tongue: "The Lord has done great things with us; we have become glad." For we rejoice that we have been washed from deep and pitiable mud and have been made new from all the vices of our former life.

And because the prophet was speaking of the joys of future hope, although according to the custom of Scripture he rejoiced as over things past, yet by the following prayer he declares that these things are not of his own time, saying: "Turn back, Lord, our captivity." If he was as one comforted when the captivity was turned away, how does he now pray that it be turned away from him? But above, the word was that of prophetic knowledge, announcing future joys as past; but now it is a common prayer about things to be turned away, in which the prophet joins himself as though he too were captive, as though he recognized that he is still in the same things. For it is written: "The righteous man at the beginning of his speech is his own accuser," and again: "Confess your sins first, that you may be justified," and: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." The prophet indeed knows himself free; but he is subject to God as one captive, either through the discipline of his own confession, because where there is confession of sin, there is also justification from God, as the Lord testified in the tax collector and the Pharisee, when the Pharisee boasted that he was righteous, but the tax collector prayed for his sins; for he says: "Truly I say to you, the tax collector was justified rather than the Pharisee"; either, then, the prophet prays that the common captivity be turned back for this reason, or because he knew that the whole people was captured by sins; and as, with the apostle, the whole body suffers with one member, so the prophet is captive together with the people captured by sins.

But he shows that it is good for him to pray for his captivity, saying: "Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. Going, they went and wept, casting their seeds; but coming, they will come in exultation, carrying their sheaves." What word is this to the Jews, that their captivity should seem prophesied in this psalm? And what reason does it have for the common custom of the human race? For who ever wept while sowing? Or do the Jews have the practice of such lamentable sowing from the law? So this was never written or done anywhere, but it is a prophecy joined to the sayings above. The holy apostle Paul taught that there are two sowings, of the flesh and of the spirit, showing and listing the seeds of each sowing: since the flesh sows adulteries, sorceries, revelries, drunkenness, greed, idolatry, and the like, while the spirit sows peace, joy, continence, love, sobriety, gentleness, and what follows from these, and each one will reap what he has sown. Since, then, the best sacrifice to God is a contrite heart, and blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted, and each one will reap what he has sown, about to bring the fruits of his works to the judgment like a sheaf, we must sow with confession of sins, with mourning over bodily weakness, with lament and grief of our conscience, that we can in no way worthily fulfil God's precepts according to the purpose of the will. Then what we have sown in tears we shall reap in joy; and having gone weeping we shall come with exultation, filled with our fruits and sheaves, laden with the harvest we have worked for, comforted through Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.