Tractates on the Psalms 140.1–141.8

The faithful prayer of all the saints is a cry to God; for one cries to him by faith, not by the shouting of the voice. Moses stood sorrowful on the shore as the king of the Egyptians pressed on; but though he was silent, the Lord heard the faithful prayer of his lofty mind, saying: "Why do you cry out to me?" The blood of the martyrs too lacks the voice of the body; but the outrage of their death is a cry to God, as the Lord himself says of Abel to Cain: "The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me." So too beneath God's altar the souls of the martyrs are written to cry out with a loud voice, saying: "How long, O holy and true Lord, do you not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" If, then, we pray by the spirit of faith for nothing lowly, earthly, or bodily, our prayer, though silent, is a cry to God. And therefore the prophet, wholly intent on God in the spirit of prayer, began thus: "O Lord, I have cried to you; hear me." And to teach that this cry is not of the voice but of faith, he added: "Attend to the voice of my prayer when I cry to you." A cry penetrates our hearing even against our will and sends itself into our ears of its own accord by the force of a strained voice. But since the prophet does not cry with such a cry, he prays that, as he cries, God may attend to the voice of his prayer: for through attending there is an examination of faith, not a hearing of a cry. For what is inward is attended to; but a bodily cry need not be attended to, since of itself it occupies the whole sense of the ears.

Then follows: "Let my prayer be directed like incense in your sight, O Lord." Those whose prayer is pure, upright, and sincere will be able to say, "Let my prayer be directed"; but if it is distorted by the intrusion of outside thoughts, it will not be directed. But in his saying, "Let it be directed like incense," we must understand what the comparison of incense set forth means. First, the nature of incense is such that it rises up from below on high, breathing most sweetly and sending itself into our sense with a sweet fragrance. It is compounded from four most fragrant kinds, ground very fine: stacte, onycha, galbanum, frankincense; and that all these were constituted as a figure of the prayers of the faithful the Apocalypse of blessed John shows, when it says: "And those twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." And the apostle signifies that there are four kinds of prayers, writing to Timothy: "I urge, then, first of all that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be made." To entreat belongs to our humility, to be prayed to belongs to God's majesty, to petition belongs to faith, to give thanks belongs to confession and praise. And perhaps those four kinds of fragrances, compounded from the finest parts into one incense, may be fitted to the several kinds of a complete prayer. And yet the nature and form of these four fragrances seem also to signify the form of the four elements: so that frankincense, which is most translucent, may be compared to air, stacte to water, galbanum and onycha to earth and fire; so that through these this prayer of praise, pleasing to God, may be carried up like incense from all that are in heaven and beneath heaven and on earth and in the waters. But let us leave these things to those who delight in knowledge of a deeper learning: for us the prophetic and apostolic authority suffices, which both signifies that incense is prayers and prays that prayers be directed like incense.

But he who prayed that his prayer be directed like incense also says after this: "The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice." We have treated in very many places that in the lifting up of the hands the duty of lofty work is shown, as when Moses was commanded to stand with hands raised, the people being either victorious or defeated as his hands were raised or lowered. The apostle too commands those who pray to lift up pure hands. And when he says "without anger and disputing," he does not fix a posture for praying, but adds a prescription of divine work. Finally, the Lord, rejecting the prayers of the impious through the prophet Isaiah, spoke thus: "If you stretch out your hands, I will turn my eyes away from you": certainly not if you lift them up, but if you stretch them out; because the posture of praying lies in stretching out the hands, but the effecting of perfect work lies in lifting them up.

The lifting up of the hands, then, is an evening sacrifice. For we, upon whom the end of the ages has come, do not sacrifice to God with blood and burnt offerings. But what evening sacrifice is pleasing, let us hear the Lord saying in the Gospels: "Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you freed me." And when they answered that he had never needed these services of human necessity, he says: "Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these least brothers, you did it to me." This is the evening sacrifice, that is, of the last times. In this the hands are to be lifted up, because by prayers of this kind the possession of the heavenly kingdom has been prepared from the beginning of the world for those blessed by God.

But the prophet remembers that besides the cry of faith, besides the prayer to be directed like incense, and besides the lifting up of the hands, in which is the evening sacrifice, there is yet another work to be desired for the completion of justification in him. Mindful, namely, of this Gospel saying, "By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned," and recalling that he will render account on the day of judgment for every idle word, he necessarily prayed, saying: "Set, O Lord, a guard on my mouth and a door of enclosure about my lips." He prays that no light guard be set on his mouth, namely a door of enclosure, so that that guard may be not some watching but a bar. For the slip of the tongue is very dangerous and very ready: and from it cursing, lying, perjury, and slander are carried out by easy motion and an open exit. Let us pray, then, for a door of enclosure. For in that book which among us is inscribed as Solomon's, but among the Greeks and Hebrews is held to be the Wisdom of Sirach, we are admonished thus: "Behold, hedge your possession with thorns, bind up your silver and gold, and make a door and a bolt for your mouth, and make a yoke and a measure for your words." He commanded both a door and a bolt to be set on the mouth, so that words might not have an easy exit. And the same set a yoke and measure for words, so that, subject to the yoke of reason, they might hang weighed by the moderation of measure.

The prophet still stretches toward the perfection of righteousness. For after the cry of faith, after prayer, after works, after the door of the mouth, he prays to be completed also by the duty of the heart, saying: "Do not turn my heart aside to evil words, to make excuses in sins with men who work iniquity." When we fall from the pursuits of innocence and righteousness into a vicious will, then our heart turns aside to evil words: not so as to excuse the sin (for every sin is inexcusable), but so as to make excuses. For the crime of murder and adultery and others like them is inexcusable by the nature and outrage of the deed. But he who is caught in it will not say, "Adultery or murder is no crime"; but he will say, "An importunate, incontinent, flattering woman enticed me and forced me into pleasure." Or another will say, "He roused my anger with insults, armed my resentment with injuries; the chance of a quarrel brought about the killing." To these words the heart turns aside after it has sinned, so as to make excuses for the sin it has committed. But an upright and pure heart does not turn aside to words of excuses, but remains inviolate and constant, without anxiety about words to be sought for making excuses, since innocence of life has no need of excuse for sin. And these things are so in bodily matters. But in what are thought to be spiritual matters, that is, in the teaching of heresy, it is incredible with what labor of heart, with what searching for words, heretics make their excuses. The righteous man asks that his heart may not turn aside to all these things, lest through this necessity of a heart turned aside to making excuses he be paired with their chosen ones.

"And I will not be paired," he says, "with their chosen ones." The prophet does not want to be paired with the chosen of the wicked. For he remembers that this number was assigned to unclean things, when the command was given to Noah about storing the animals in the ark: "But of clean cattle you shall bring in to yourself seven and seven, and of unclean cattle two and two." There is an even greater and more complete example of this useless number. For our Lord Jesus Christ, taking away all our uncleanness and sins, according to the apostle "made both one," and according to the same, "that he might create in himself the two into one new man, making peace, that he might reconcile both to God in one body": he made the inner man and the outer one. We are not, then, paired, but united: because faith is unity, but pairing is the fellowship of a faction.

And not only does the prophet wish not to be paired with the chosen of the wicked, but, since it is man's lot to err, if perhaps he has done anything amiss and humanly, he prefers to be corrected and reproved by the righteous man in mercy. For he sets up in himself a form of our nature and weakness. For many of us, when we have fallen, when we have erred, disdain to be amended by the reproof of righteous mercy and prefer to be paired with sinners rather than be turned back to repentance through the correction of the righteous. The prophetic speech has excellently kept the reasoning of truth, saying: "The righteous man will correct me in mercy and rebuke me." For mercy has a measure, and justice must be applied in showing mercy. There can indeed be grief toward those whose crimes are grave, but there is no place for mercy. For mercy turns itself to asking God's pardon for what has been done; but to grant pardon for the unlawful is not to show mercy but not to keep the justice of mercy. This reasoning the apostle John most carefully kept, saying: "If anyone knows that his brother is sinning, but not unto death, let him ask, and God will give him life. For there is a sin unto death; I do not say for that." And that the righteous man ought to correct and reprove in mercy one who has fallen, blessed Paul teaches, saying: "Brothers, even if a man is overtaken in some fault, you who are spiritual restore him in a spirit of gentleness." But not even he was unmindful of the reasoning of just mercy: for he commands that one overtaken in a fault, not one who offends willfully, be restored through reproof. And therefore the prophet, when he says, "The righteous man will correct me in mercy and rebuke me," mindful both of his faith and of human weakness, says he must be corrected in those things that deserve the reproof of just mercy.

He prays further for another thing, namely that he not be imbued with the teachings of sinners nor fall so far as mercy toward sinners: "But let the oil of the sinner not anoint my head." He wants the one who teaches and reproves us to be of a pure conscience. The Lord in the Gospels, speaking of the purity of fasts, says: "But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face." In washing the face he required the brightness of a pure conscience, so that nothing dirty, nothing smeared might cling to us; in anointing the head he commanded us to be perfect in the teachings and works of spiritual instruction. For oil is the food of light; and spiritual teaching and work are the cause of heavenly glory for us. For as light has its cause from the oil of the lamp, so teaching and work enable us to keep the light of spiritual glory, when our head, the seat of life, prudence, and all the senses, is enriched with the oil of working and teaching. But the oil is not to be taken from a sinner; and God must be prayed to, lest a sinner pour it on. For as it is prudent to wish to be reproved by a holy and faithful man, because the medicine of severe rebuke from an honorable author is useful to sick souls languishing with the disease of sins, so it is wretched to have fallen, through pity for sin, as far as mercy toward sinners themselves. The prophet, then, detests both of these.

Then follows: "For still my prayer is in their good pleasures; their judges, joined to the rock, have been swallowed up." He gives the reason why they are swallowed up, joined to the rock: because his prayer is still in their good pleasures. The prophet prays the same things as above, that the oil of the sinner may not anoint his head. This the prophet prays. But the sinners are not frightened even by this prayer of the prophet to desist from what pleases them. For no one perseveres in sins except because he delights in them; and the delight of pleasure supplies the reason for remaining in each thing. Since, then, while he is still praying, they are in their good pleasures, that is, since what they were is not changed by them through the pleasure of sinning, and they persist in being sinners, his prayer too receives no end: because his prayer is in their good pleasures as long as it pleases them not to sin.

Therefore their judges, joined to the rock, have been swallowed up. We know no rock but Christ, since it is said of him: "And the rock was Christ." At his coming, when these chosen ones and judges of sinners are joined to him, they will be swallowed up. For then death and corruption and sin will be swallowed up, as it is written: "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your sting? Where is your victory? For the sting of death is sin." Their judges, joined to the rock, are swallowed up together with their prince, of whom it is said: "And then that wicked one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the presence of his coming." Through this presence of the Lord's coming, then, they will be destroyed, swallowed up, and swallowed up by the judgment of the saints. For there follows: "They will hear my words, for they have prevailed." They have prevailed either to swallow up or to be heard. For in the presence of the Lord they are swallowed up by the reproof of prophetic truth and the disgrace of their impious falsehood.

And not only will they hear the words that prevail, but this too, which follows, will happen to them: "As the thickness of the earth it has broken out upon the earth." That thickness is either the companion or the cause of impiety and vices the prophet testifies, saying: "The heart of this people has been made thick." And Moses too, proclaiming the irreligion of an insolent people, says: "Jacob ate and drank and was filled and grew thick, and the beloved kicked." We shall understand the force of this saying more completely from the very nature of earth. For we know that thicker and richer soils do not go back solidly into the pits from which they were dug, because, their thickness breaking out, they can no longer be contained in them. So, according to the saying, "As the thickness of the earth it has broken out upon the earth," he taught by example that all the thickness of our earth, that is, of the body, dug out by vices from the law of its nature, breaks out and cannot contain itself, boiling over to its own ruin so that it cannot be restored within itself.

As this thickness breaks out, the prophet grieves over himself, saying: "Our bones have been scattered beside hell." He thinks that he himself is scattered, dispersed, driven beside hell in the calamity of sinners. For if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. For we are all members of one body, one of another, as he says in another psalm too: "All my bones have been scattered": certainly not those bones by which our body is held in this firmness of its strength; but since we are all one body and members of one another, the others are the bones of our body.

He would rather that the thickness of their earth not break out nor the bones be scattered beside hell, but that all should rather use this voice which follows: "For to you, O Lord, are my eyes; in you I have hoped; do not take away my soul. Guard me from the snare which they have set for me, and from the stumbling blocks of those who work iniquity." The prophet's eyes, intent on God, are not turned aside to any admiration of superfluous things; they do not look at the comely forms of human bodies to the affront of chastity; they are not captured by the workmanship of precious garments, or the smooth gleam of silver, or the enticing glitter of gold, or the empty honor of gems, or the factious contest of the theatrical show, or the ambitious pomp of worldly powers; but they are intent on all the magnificent works of God, to the admiration of him who made them. And he is always intent not only with the eyes but also with the mind, saying: "In you I have hoped; do not take away my soul." The taking away of the soul is not its abolition, but when it is taken away from the glory of the honor appointed for it, when it falls from the expectation and fulfilment of its hope.

He is not unaware that there are many dangers to his hope, when he says: "Guard me from the snare which they have set for me, and from the stumbling blocks of those who work iniquity." Everywhere are snares, everywhere stumbling blocks; the whole world is full of ambushes, whether through the prince of this air, or through the spiritual powers in the heavenly places, or through the sons of disobedience, in whom the spirit of error works. For we have snares in men of evil exhortation, dangerous example, and drawn-out necessity, when they urge us to pleasures, when in their prosperity they are impious toward God, when by insults and injuries they stir us to the motion of a turbulent will. But a snare differs from a stumbling block. For a snare is the exhortation to pleasures and the incitement of dishonorable appetite, which deceives and captures like a snare. But a stumbling block is an irreligious wife, a wicked son, and the other names in the household, and every brother from the church who is insolent or greedy or drunken or base. For in these there is a stumbling block for us whenever we are provoked out of the meekness of our quiet faith to the necessity of being angry, reproving, restraining, punishing.

But he knows one who himself rather is always at work in these snares through all who work iniquity, saying: "Sinners will fall into his net": his, namely, who works in very many. For whatever iniquities men commit are suggested by the devil; whom he now shows in the singular number, having signified above in the plural his ministers in very many. He signifies many in him and him in many: and therefore the wicked set out snares and sinners will fall into his net, because the wicked set out the snares of his net. And sinners will fall, not made sinners at the moment they fall, but falling because they are sinners; made ready for the capture of the net through being sinners.

But the prophet, safe through his hope and faith, says confidently of himself: "I am alone until I pass over." He knows, as we showed above, that pairing is impious. Devoted to God, he is occupied with no other business of the world and is alone until he passes over. And what is it that he passes over? The stumbling blocks, namely, and nets and snares. And where he passes to, we must ask. Surely to where it is said; for faithful and holy and true is he who says: "But he who believes in me will not be judged, but will pass from death into life," our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

The meaning of the psalm is contained in its title, but in a spiritual rather than a bodily understanding; and therefore the title has "a prayer of understanding." For if the sense were simple, according to David's deeds, only "a prayer" would have been inscribed in the title of the psalm. But since spiritual understanding was needed to know the prayer, it is headed "a prayer of understanding," because it is to be understood. For we know there is also that David whose tabernacle, which had fallen, was raised up, the righteous, the rising, the reigning one, that is, our Lord, the Son of God, who often fled, often hid, often prayed, and in the very time of the passion both wept and cried to God in tribulation, not from a kind of natural fear of suffering, but showing the feeling of the man he bore: so that through this prayer he might be understood both as Son of God, to whom he prayed, and himself not a feigned man but a true one. This prayer, then, is understood to be his. David indeed speaks in a cave, but he prophesies in Christ. David flees, but he prophesies the flight of his Lord not so much by words as by flight. David's spirit fails, but the Lord's soul too is sorrowful unto death. God knows David's paths, but no one knows the Son either except the Father. Snares are hidden in the ways of David's faith; for the Lord too, in the course of his preaching, ambushes are prepared everywhere. This one prays in a cave, that one prays in the body. The servant prophesies Christ the Lord; this David prophesies that David by the example of all his sufferings. And therefore this prayer will be understood as spoken not so much by David about himself as about the Lord through David.

"With my voice I cried to the Lord; with my voice I made entreaty to the Lord. I pour out my prayer in his sight and declare my tribulation before him, while my spirit fails from me." The order of the words has been excellently arranged. First one cries with the voice; for every expectation of a faithful man, even silent and spiritual, is a cry to God. Then one prays with the voice, that is, the petition of desire and faith is brought out in the words of the voice, according to that saying of the apostle: "I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the voice also." Third, the prayer is poured out in the sight of God, not with words falling from the tongue but the prayer of the one who prays is poured out from the deep and inner spring of faith; and it is poured out in God's sight, not carelessly or from security, but as before the Lord present; for he who is asked to hear must be believed present; and he who is thought present is to be revered not with the indifference shown to one absent but with the honor due to one present. Fourth, he also declares his tribulation. He is not hindered, when he is in tribulation, from always referring to God the troubles of all his straits and sufferings. Nor indeed are they light tribulations that he declares before God, having poured out his prayer, but in this, that his spirit fails him. But even light temptations hinder us from constancy in prayer, and the sudden motion of a slight difficulty turns away from the duty of devotion whatever little constancy of mind we have in prosperity. But he, not even when his spirit fails, ceases to declare his tribulation, to pour out his prayer, to pray with the voice, and to cry with the very voice of spiritual faith.

"You have known my paths. In this way in which I walked they have hidden snares for me." This can be thought the prayer as much of that David as of this one: because, as we said, he prefigured all the Lord's words and deeds by the faith of a servant and the example of a prophet. But the prophecy of the psalms, whenever it is uttered in the person of the Lord, never fails to add something peculiar and proper to him, which no other could have in common with him: so that, since many things recalled in the person of the man he assumed were common to the persons and natures of men, the prophecy of the psalm might rather show what was said properly in his person; as now this: "I looked to the right and saw, for there is no one who knows me. Flight has perished from me, and there is no one who seeks my soul." For David, though he fled, was not unknown; nor did he look only to the right, but the view to the left was open to him too. And how will this fit his person: "Flight has perished from me," then this, "and there is no one who seeks my soul," and finally this too, with which the psalm concludes: "The righteous wait for me until you repay me"? These are contrary to one another if understood in the person of a man. For if there are righteous who wait, how does no one know him? How does no one seek his soul? For no one seeks his soul and no one knows him because, as he looked to the right, no righteous man was seen.

But all these things were fulfilled in the Lord at the time of the passion, when, as he went to the cross, none of those accompanied him whom, according to the Gospel arrangement, he was preparing, separated from the left, at the right for possession of the heavenly kingdom, and for whose sake he had been born a man; when, amid so many and such great signs of his cross, no one recognized God; when, though he had often hidden before, he betrayed and offered himself to those who sought him. And by the offering of his spontaneous will flight perished from him, when no one sought out the power of his life, which is signified in the soul. For looking at the body they had fixed to the cross, no one sought the power of the soul, which had proved itself God by signs and deeds.

And what follows, though it may seem common with others, was nonetheless all said and done by him at the time of the passion. "I cried to you, O Lord, and said: You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living." Crying, he said, "You are my hope," when he says: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." His portion is in the land of the living when he promises the thief residence in paradise that same day, that is, the lot and kingdom of his inheritance, so that, although he went to the underworld, yet he taught through spiritual power that he was not absent from paradise.

Then he returns to the modesty of his prayer, saying: "Attend to my prayer, for I have been humbled exceedingly." For he was humbled, taking the form of a servant and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. "Deliver me from those who persecute me, for they have been strengthened over me. Bring my soul out of prison, to confess your name, O Lord." For although he had power to lay down his soul and take it up again, yet through the reverence of a Son he always reserved the honor for the Father's majesty, when he prays, "Father, glorify me," when he cries, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" For in these there is no confession of his weakness, but a proclamation of the Father's power. He prays, then, now likewise to be delivered from his persecutors, because they have been strengthened. For they were strengthened when they hand him over to the cross, when through the flesh they do not know God, when the garb of humility and the form of a servant in him encourage them.

Then he asks that his soul be brought out of prison. If, according to blessed Peter, the Lord preached the resurrection even to those placed in prison from before the times of Noah, the prison is the underworld, from which he asks to be brought out, as he had prayed in another psalm: "Let not the pit shut its mouth over me." This whole prayer, as we said, is for the confession of the Father's power. But he also added the reason why he prays to be brought out of prison: "To confess," he says, "your name." For his resurrection is a proclamation of the Father's power in him, since all power is his from the Father.

But through whom God's name is to be confessed he added, saying: "The righteous wait for me until you repay me." The faith of all the apostles was trembling until the time of the resurrection: beholding it in the Lord, they were strengthened with the security of their expectation. And hence the Lord's saying: "My soul is sorrowful unto death." For he does not say "because of death," since, though he gave himself to suffering, his eternal power did not receive the pain of the passion; but because the fear of the apostles, arising from the humility of the passion (so much so that even that firm rock, on which the church was to be built, trembled), would cease in that same trembling after the Lord's death and resurrection, therefore he is sorrowful unto death, after which they were to be strengthened with the security of a trembling faith. The righteous wait, then, until it is repaid him by God. And what is repaid him by God the apostle taught, saying: "Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father." This is the repayment to him from God, that to the body he assumed the eternity of the Father's glory is given. And what the expectation of the righteous is, the same apostle teaches, saying: "But our citizenship is in heaven, whence also we await the Savior, Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of his glory." The righteous wait, then, until he is repaid: namely, so that they may be made conformable to the glory of his body, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.