Tractates on the Psalms 136.1–136.14

That the Jews, captured according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, were led away into Babylonia is no obscure knowledge. Nor is there doubt that the captivity of the people could be prophesied through this same book of Psalms. For in another psalm too it is plain that the overthrow of this nation and city was prophesied outright, when it is said: "O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have made Jerusalem like a hut for guarding fruit." And in this present psalm too the same seems to be signified, especially since it has pleased some to inscribe it with the title of Jeremiah, because the captivity was announced by him before it happened. Certainly, among the Hebrew elders, according to the knowledge we have obtained from them, this psalm is without this title.

There is no doubt that everything that was done to or through our fathers displayed in the deeds a form of the future. And that this is so, this book of Psalms too is witness. For when in the seventy-seventh psalm everything that was done in Egypt, in the desert, and in the other places afterward was recounted, those very things were shown to be parables thus: "Attend, my people, to my law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter propositions from the beginning." For through the fact that they are parables and propositions, they are compared to the effects of future things. The apostle too teaches that the very things done were done as a prefiguring, saying: "For the law has a shadow of the good things to come," and: "All these things happened to them as a prefiguring; and they were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come." The deeds themselves, then, were done as an example and written for teaching.

So this bodily captivity of the people too must be referred to as an example of spiritual captivity. For our minds are captured by the rule of bodies and of the world; they are captured by demons by the right of vices, which exercise their command over us through various kinds of service: when drunkenness possesses us, when luxury subdues, when avarice conquers, when ambition seizes, when malice holds, when anger usurps, when all these incitements of vices reign in us. For the Lord came, according to the prophet, to turn back captivity, when it is said: "to preach release to captives." He came to loose the bound, when he says: "This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound for eighteen years, ought she not to be loosed on the sabbath day?" He came to lead back those in servitude into freedom, saying: "Amen I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin. The servant does not remain in the house for ever, but the son remains for ever. If, then, the Son sets you free, you will be truly free." We are captured, then, and bound, and serve, not so much in body as in mind. And to me the whole force and reasoning of the words in the present psalm seems to treat not so much bodily captivity as spiritual. For there are such points in the laments, places, things, and names that this lamentable complaint of the prophet signifies rather a spiritual captivity.

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows in its midst we hung up our instruments." This is the feeling of human sense: amid the injuries of present calamities to groan at the remembrance of past goods. Let us picture in our mind Jerusalem captured, kings serving their conquering masters, priests subjected to the high priests of Gentile impieties, the right of marriage snatched from all, the modesty of captive virginity laid beneath the lust of the Babylonians; and from the groaning of those who were to suffer these things we shall judge that the prophet rightly cried out: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion."

But since that Zion is the seat of eternal blessedness, and the heavenly Jerusalem is our mother, the holy city of thronging angels and of the firstborn enrolled in heaven; and since that Babylon is the city of confusion, turbulent with irrational motion, which, as Genesis teaches, was called Babylon from the men whose languages were confused (for there they began to speak in the languages of all nations, when all had one speech, and the very word Babylon means confusion): whoever, then, remembers that through the crime of the first parent Adam he has been made an exile from that Zion, in which life is without desire, without pain, without fear, without crime, and that he has been handed over to the world of this confusion as to Babylon, handed over to a body confused by the disturbance of vices, appetites, and desires, will himself too rightly cry out as a spiritual captive: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows in its midst we hung up our instruments."

I should like to ask those who think everything is to be understood according to the letter what rivers flow past Babylonia, so that the captive people sat down there and did not rather weep for their captivity in the streets, the gates, the towers, or the houses. Then, with what drums, harps, or instruments were they captured? What history has said that Israel served its conquerors with a whole musical apparatus? Finally, what willows ever grew leafy in the middle of a city, so that instruments might hang there as in a public storehouse of musicians? If all these things are empty as an account of bodily affairs, we must follow the reasoning which, from prophetic authorities, urges us to spiritual knowledge. All weep who feel themselves captive in Babylonia. And they sit by the rivers. For all the works of the world and of bodies flow past like rivers, without any halt in their course; for they run, slip away, and pass. For what bodily pleasure is not already nothing once it is no longer present? What earthly joy does not pass with the very fleeting sense of its present enjoyment? Sitting and weeping, then, by these rivers of worldly captivities, they groan at the remembrance of Zion with longing for what is lost and with the calamity of the present.

And they not only sit and weep, but also hang up their instruments on the willows in its midst. The nature of willow wood is such that, even when dried out, if only it is washed by water it grows green again, and when cut and set in moist ground it sinks itself down by its roots. And that the holy and faithful are signified under the nature of this tree is prophetic authority, as Isaiah says: "They shall spring up," he says, "like grass in the midst of water and like the willow by running water." For he springs up from the dead who, formerly dry with sins and cut off from the root of his former life, now comes to life again by the word of God and the sacrament of baptism in the life-giving waters. Moreover, when the feast of Tabernacles was given bodily to the Jews, since a leafy tabernacle was prepared from the branches of chosen trees as a pattern of future joy and of the tabernacle, it was commanded to be made also from the branches of the river willow, because the joy of the heavenly tabernacle would be perfected from the assembly of holy men. Scripture signifies that the instruments are human bodies, with whose honorable motions and harmonious workings, pleasing to God, we sing psalms. In the midst, then, of the captivity of these worldly confusions, those who remember the lost Zion, who remember that in Adam they were made exiles from the heavenly Jerusalem, and who feel themselves captive in Babylonia, these, sitting and weeping, hang up their bodies on the form and habit of holy men, lifting themselves up from earthly desires.

But although through the pursuit of continence our bodies are hung on those willows, yet the things that make us captive do not rest. For there follows: "For there those who led us captive asked us for words of songs, and those who carried us off: Sing us a hymn from the songs of Zion." If anyone recalls the habit of human nature, he will have the whole sense plain. For those who labor to cease from vices and wish to forget what they have impiously done are nonetheless driven by the incitement of a habit slow to cease; and the vices hidden in us try to mingle and insert themselves into the mysteries of faith, so that amid the divine hymns and sacred readings the thought of these hostile desires that make us captive creeps in. Nor indeed is a plain example of this lacking in very many. For many whom we see reading and discoursing, it happens again that they are caught having always lived in acts of sexual immorality and impieties. But every holy man who has hung his instrument on the willow denies to those who led him captive a share in the song of Zion, and does not share the words of holy songs with the powers hostile to him.

What it is that leads us captive the apostle teaches us, saying: "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and leading me captive in the law of sin which is in my members." When, then, there is a fight between the desire of the flesh and of the spirit, then the things that try to subject us captive to themselves attempt to seize the body and rule it, and to insert themselves into spiritual teachings, so as to take away their authority through habit. But we must resist and answer with the prophet's voice: "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Our land must be held and protected in freedom. For bodies of polluted earth can hear nothing of the songs of Zion, and they will be strange to God, though they are ours, if they begin to be captive to the law of sin.

But the memory of that heavenly Jerusalem and holy Zion must always be kept, whether while we wish it restored or while we weep for it lost. For there follows: "If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my throat if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem at the beginning of my joy." With the penalty of forgetting, the memory of remembrance is pledged. But the saying "let my right hand forget" is obscure through the condition of the Latin. For according to the proper sense of the Greek, in which it is said thus, ἐπιλησθείη ἡ δεξιά μου, it is shown not that it should itself forget, but that it should be forgotten. And it is a matter of great danger if our right hand is forgotten. For all who are full of good hope are assigned to the right, sinners to be placed on the left. He himself, then, set the condition of his right hand being forgotten, which he anticipates for himself by faith and expectation, under the penalty of not remembering Jerusalem: so that he would fall from the memory of his right hand, that is, the hand by which he would be placed on the right, if he had not kept the memory of Jerusalem.

He adds another penalty of forgetting, saying: "Let my tongue cleave to my throat if I do not remember you." He knows that a mouth mute in God's praises is unhappy. He knows that those blessed and eternal powers standing at the throne of God continue in God's praises with unceasing voice, saying: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts; heaven and earth are full of your glory." He knows too that of those who lived silent like the dead in God's praises it was said: "Their throat is an open tomb," because in their throat, as in an open tomb, the voice lay dead and silent in God's praises. To this penalty of silence, then, he subjected himself under the condition of forgetting, if he had not remembered Jerusalem, and also by what follows: "if I do not set Jerusalem at the beginning of my gladness." For each of us the cause of joy lies according to the judgment of his will, and he takes the beginning of gladness from the disposition of his mind: the drinker from drunkenness, the glutton from food, the miser from money, the ambitious from honors, the seditious from riots, the lustful from acts of sexual immorality. These things, then, bring each the cause of joy as he delights in them. But the prophet sets Jerusalem before himself as the beginning of joy, taking the start of gladness from this: that, received into Jerusalem, he will be immortal from mortal, that he will be mingled with the company of thronging angels, that he will be received into the kingdom of the Lord, that he will be made conformable to his glory. He knows no other joys, then, nor has anything else to rejoice in, setting Jerusalem alone before himself as the beginning of joy.

And since he remembers that he must come there through many weaknesses of the body, many straits of the spirit, many incitements of creeping vices, he fears lest something from the vices should cling to him through the nature of the body. For after this he prays to God, saying: "Remember, O Lord, the sons of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who say: Empty it, empty it, even to its foundation." Edom means "earthly": so the vices of our earthly body, which, because they come out of the nature of the body, are called sons of Edom, command these Babylonians, that is, the confusions and disturbances of our sense, to empty us of the fullness with which we have been filled. For it is written: "For of his fullness we have all received." For whoever is capable of the Lord is himself also filled with his fullness. And this is the nature of the sense, made turbid and confused through the vices of the body, that once it has dragged us into every will and habit of sin, it empties us of all the pursuits of good virtues. These vices, then, command these turbid confusions of our sense to empty us even to the foundation. For every holy man is himself in part Jerusalem; because from the assembly of blessed men worthy of heavenly fellowship Jerusalem will be the city of living and precious stones, which these earthly vices strive to empty even to the foundation. And what the foundation in us is, the apostle teaches, saying: "For no one can lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is Christ." They try, then, to empty out every beginning of religion, every foundation of our hope, so that no memory or remembrance of God may remain in us, no hope of any good be left. For once the foundation of faith, which is Christ, is torn out and overthrown, not even the comfort of pardon to be built up for us through repentance will be left.

Having recalled the captivity of Jerusalem and the urging of the sons of Edom to empty us even to the foundation, it follows that the prophet should show how far we must provide against these things. And he plainly shows it, not leaving us helpless or unskilled, when he says: "Wretched daughter of Babylon, blessed is he who will repay you the repayment you repaid us. Blessed is he who will take and dash your little ones against the rock." I should like to ask those who think the spiritual understandings of the psalms idle whom they understand the prophet here to call the daughter of Babylon, and, since above the sitting and weeping were by the rivers of Babylon, why the daughter of Babylon is now wretched. But since the sense of the reader finds no bodily understanding, the spiritual reasoning must be treated. The whole speech returns to that unhappy flesh of our confusion and disturbance, which, according to the faithfulness of history, was begotten from the fathers of confusion, because all flesh is the daughter of earlier flesh. For from those who first, when the languages were confused, founded the city of confusion, which is Babylonia, the beginnings of all nations were scattered. This, then, is the wretched daughter of Babylonia, that is, the flesh of all. Blessed is he who will repay her her repayments, namely, he who subjects his flesh to the rule of the soul, and whoever subdues it to the spirit. For she had subdued to all her pleasures and desires all who were unskilled and ignorant about God, and commanded, ruling the captive mind. But when through the knowledge of God her vices are destroyed, I do not say by abolition but by death, when religion, chastity, generosity, sobriety, and love consume impiety, lust, avarice, drunkenness, rivalry, and hatreds, and the flesh, conquered, serves all the works of the spirit, then blessed is he who will repay her repayment, that is, who reverses the rule which she used to exercise over the spirit into the spirit's rule over her.

And not only is the repayer of the repayment blessed, but he too is blessed "who will take and dash your little ones against the rock." The vices of the body must not be allowed to grow strong, but must be killed at once in their beginnings. For desires already grown strong are dangerous, and whatever is full-grown is killed with difficulty. It is easier to pluck them out as they break forth, to cut them while tender, to twist them back while pliant. Blessed, then, is whoever at the beginning first holds within the control of his patience and virtue all the shameful appetites of every desire that arise from the will of the flesh, and then, dashing them against faith and the fear of God, kills them. For everyone who passes from sins to religion will dash and crush all his sins against the religion to which he goes over. In that he takes and dashes the little ones of the wretched daughter of Babylon, both the virtue by which he restrains them as they are born and the faith by which he dashes them, so that they may not grow up, is shown. And he dashes them against the rock: and the rock, according to the apostle, is Christ. Against him blessed is he who will dash and crush the little ones of the daughter of Babylon, that is, the still tender vices of the body. To him, the only-begotten God and our Lord, be glory and praise for ever and ever. Amen.