Tractates on the Psalms 55.1–56.10

The heading of the psalm includes many things that, besides recording events, convey the sense of another understanding: that the psalm is "for the people that is far from the saints," that the inscription of a title is set before it, and finally that the beginning itself is headed "for the end." For if the present discourse sang only the complaint that David, while fleeing, was held by the foreigners in Gath, the whole movement of the iniquity rebuked here would have been directed to that alone. But since these things are set before the indication of the event to imbue and direct the reader's sense, we understand without doubt that, through the effects of the events that happened to David, there is impressed on us, according to the spirit of prophecy, the knowledge of the things signified under these headings: so that what David suffered was a prefiguring of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ; so that the inscription of a title may be seen to signify the eternity of him who conquered by dying, because the inscription of a title, which the Greek language calls stēlographia, is conferred for the glory of eternity above all on those who, living an honourable life, did not fear to die in war even for the safety of their country. And the people that has become far from the saints is to be recognized as Israel, made unworthy of the sanctification of the Gentiles and departing far from it. And "for the end" is to be understood as proper to him who is the end of the law; this will be recognized from the end of the psalm, since the words with which the psalm's end concludes declare most of all the resolution of this our understanding.

Through these things, then, which are joined to the heading besides the events, we shall treat the psalm also as in the person of the Lord, yet without departing from the prophet's own complaints. Nor is it to be thought that he did not also groan in what he endured; for the events are joined to these very things that convey a spiritual sense precisely so that through the prophet's action the sense and words of the prophecy might become known, since the prophet prophesied not so much by the spirit as by his sufferings. The discourse, then, will be balanced between David himself and the man Jesus Christ, so that, since he bore the weaknesses of all and often used the voice and tears of our sins, the feeling and speech that are man's may be free of dishonour to God.

"Have mercy on me, Lord, for man has trampled me; fighting all day long he has afflicted me; my enemies have trampled me all day long." We know that "day" is often used for a lifetime, so that where "all day" is said, the whole time of life is shown. For neither David nor the Lord was harassed by persecution on one day only. But he who asks for God's mercy and complains that he has been trampled has the weapons of his security and strength, with which he sustains not only earthly hatreds but also the wars of spiritual wickedness, against which, rather than against flesh and blood, the apostle teaches that our fight is. For they use the ministries of the ungodly to harass and afflict the saints, penetrating their hearts and inciting them to every onset of a turbulent mind.

Not fearing this height that towers over and exalts itself in this world, the prophet says: "From the height of the days I will not fear; for many who war against me will fear." He knows the day of eternal judgment, he knows also the eternal fire prepared for eternal punishments; and therefore those who try to war against him will fear the more, because, while the saint does not fear, the terror of judgment will press the more upon them. And for the confidence of his security he added: "But I will hope in you. In the Lord I will praise my words all day long." He places all his hopes in God and praises his words for the whole time of his life. Nor is it obscure what he praises in his own speaking.

For the words that follow are worthy of a saint: "In God I will hope; I will not fear what flesh may do to me." The terror of the world does not break him, nor do the hatreds of those conspiring against him disturb him. For hope that is in God does not fear the terrors of human hatred. We often take "flesh" to signify men, because of that by which they are contained in the body; as when it is said of the ungodly, "My Spirit shall not dwell in these men, because they are flesh," or that saying, "All flesh shall see the salvation of God," or the apostle's, "Are you not carnal and walking according to man?" He remains undaunted, then, under the mercy of God, and therefore, hoping in him, does not fear all the onsets and persecutions of flesh. But these words are indeed worthy also of the only-begotten God, from whom, when he emptied himself from the form of God, the form of a servant did not take away the power and nature of God. For God, made flesh, remained God even in assuming flesh, using the power of his strength in fellowship with our body. For he was not weighed down by flesh so as not to walk on the waves, nor so that the power of divine might should not go out even to the fringes of his garment, nor so as not to forgive sins, and with his spittle kindle the nature of sight in eyes blind from the womb, and, drawing out an ear, close the wound of the cut-off ear, nor so as not to pass through solid walls with his body slipping through. So neither the prophet, hoping in God, nor God, accomplishing divine works under the assumption of flesh, feared anything from the flesh.

In what follows, too, the meaning of what happened to him is contained. For he says: "All day long they cursed my words; all their counsels against me were for evil. They will dwell and hide; they will watch my heel." For nowhere except in secret counsels were false testimonies and captious questions prepared against him, as they dwelt together and hid their counsels of malice. They also did not bear the rebuke of his words, with which he did not cease to reproach their ungodliness, watching all his goings out at his heel, and then entering into fraudulent conspiracies to trip him up; for which this worthy sentence of judgment overtakes them.

For there follows: "As they waited for my soul, you will save them for nothing; in anger you will lead down the peoples." This is a new saying of the prophet, that God saves for nothing those who wait for his soul; and though nothing is one thing and being saved another, now the salvation that will come to them is for nothing. Is there, then, anything that is saved for nothing? There is indeed: whatever, when resurrection is granted, is not worthy of change. For although all flesh has been redeemed in Christ so as to rise, and all must stand before his judgment seat, yet the glory and honour of rising is not common to all. Those, then, to whom only resurrection, not also change, is given are saved for nothing. For these peoples will be led down in anger, for whom the salvation of resurrection is appointed for the feeling of punishment; from which anger the apostle promises that we are to be rescued, saying: "For if, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, much more, justified by his blood, we shall be saved through him from anger." For sinners, then, he died for the salvation of resurrection; but those sanctified in his blood he will save from anger.

Then, the peoples having been saved for nothing and led down in anger, this holy one announces the hope of his life, saying: "God, I have declared my life to you; you have set my tears in your sight, as in your promise." He is worthy of God's promise because of the constancy of his preaching and the merit of not keeping silent; for his tears, which either the prophet shed for himself or the Lord for us, are in God's sight, and he will use their embassy to obtain what God has promised.

But when he is about to enter the grace of the eternal promise, his enemies will be turned back, to show where they would be led down in anger. For this follows: "My enemies will be turned back on whatever day I call upon you." When he calls upon God, they will be turned back to where they came from, the anger of God leading them down and their body taken up again to be punished with penalties.

But when they have returned after the resurrection to the underworld for the eternity of punishment, he performs the duty of his thanksgiving, saying: "Behold, I have known that you are my God, and in God I will praise the word." He praises in God, then, this word of his, that he has known him to be his God.

Nor does he praise this only, but also that he hoped in him, not fearing what man may do to him. These words are indeed worthy of all the saints: to hold faith steadfastly amid human persecutions, not to be moved by fear of earthly turmoil, and with most certain hope not to fear that man will accomplish anything against the eternity of the soul, since after the interval of this death both our corruption and our weakness will be changed into immortal glory. And for this reason he praises his words, by which he protests that, hoping in the Lord, he does not fear human force, saying: "In the Lord I will praise the word, in the Lord I will hope; I will not fear what man may do to me." For this reason, then, he praises his word in the Lord, that, hoping in him, he will not fear man.

But to teach that he fears nothing from man for this reason, that if man exercised any of his power on the body, the glory of the resurrection would restore it again without bodily blemish, he added: "In me, God, are the vows of praise which I will render to you; for you have rescued my soul from death and my feet from slipping, that I may please before God in the light of the living." These things he hopes for are not outside him, nor are the vows of praise he will render to be sought from outside. For he himself is the lord of his own resurrection; he himself gives to this body, dead and left in the tomb, the fellowship of his divine nature. For a body is not acquired from outside material by all who will rise, nor is a nature of foreign origin and external causes restored; but the same body will emerge for the advance of eternal brightness, and what is new in it will come about by change rather than by creation. In him, then, are the vows which he will render when the weakness of bodies is taken away, that is, slips and tears; when incorruption devours corruption; when immortal power swallows up death; when God is all in all; when he, the light of the living, will please God in the same light of the living. For if, according to the declaration of Wisdom, the Father rejoiced over the sons of men at the creation of the world, much more is he to be understood as pleasing the Father in the reconciliation of the world. For he is the true light of the world, enlightening every man coming into this world, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

In the heading of the following psalm only this is changed from that of the preceding one: where "for the people that has become far from the saints" was noted, now "do not corrupt" or "do not destroy" is set, both of which the Greek language includes in one word, mē diaphtheirēs. For it followed that, since corruption would await those who departed far from the saints, the holy one should pray not to be subjected to it. For in another psalm too he shows thanksgiving for this corruption being turned away from him, saying: "Nor will you give your holy one to see corruption." Nor is there doubt that this psalm is to be understood, according to the apostles' declaration, in the person of the Lord.

So David, awaiting the time of the Lord's resurrection for the glory of human flesh, now both asks not to be corrupted and, with a prophet's foreknowledge, gives thanks that corruption has been turned away from him in him in whom are the firstfruits of the resurrection. The inscription of the title is "for the end" because both a glorious life undertaken for the honour of eternity and a death saving to many are inscribed on the tombs of brave men, and all these things must be referred to him who is the end of the law or whom the end of the psalm shows. And his saying these things while shut up in a cave is the time of the prophecy at which he is understood to have written the psalm, prophesying by that very dwelling in the cave the lowliness of the Lord, who was to dwell in a body. For it cannot be thought that one who had hidden in a cave out of fear would make a din with psaltery and harp, as he testifies in the psalm, that is, with the apparatus of the whole musical art.

It began thus: "Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me, for my soul trusts in you." He asks for mercy because he trusts in the Lord, teaching that the mercy of God is to be hoped for by those who believe. And he shows what weight and effect the mercy of God has, saying: "And in the shadow of your wings I will hope, until iniquity passes." It is the nature of birds to shade the weakness of their chicks with their wings and defend them from the force and wickedness of those flying past. We know this best in hens, when they either shade or protect their young gathered under their feathers. The Lord mentions their habit as an example of his own care, saying to Jerusalem, the killer of the prophets: "How often I wished to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not?" The holy one, then, hopes in the shadow of God's wings until iniquity passes, that is, while he escapes either the scandals of the world, or the iniquities of the ungodly, or the weakness of earthly lowliness, while David escapes this very cave, as it were, of his dwelling and body, in which he is now shut up.

But hoping under the shadow of God's wings, he is always intent on the duty of his hope, saying: "I will cry to God most high, to God who has done good to me." He cries by faith rather than by voice, he who cries while fleeing and hiding. Further, there is no thanksgiving for things obtained in the words of one who hopes; but it belongs to prophetic knowledge and faith to rejoice in things to be done no differently than in things done, and therefore he cries to him who, by the unchangeable constitution of his goodness, has already done good to him; and how far the Lord has done good he teaches in what follows, saying: "He sent from heaven and freed me; he gave over to reproach those who trampled me. God sent his mercy and his truth; he rescued my soul from the midst of the lions' whelps; I slept troubled." It was fitting, even if there were no change of person or sense, that a diapsalma should intervene, because the sense of believers was to be raised to the understanding of what is said. God did good to his holy one by sending from heaven, so that, when he was freed, those who trampled him were given over to reproach. And he sent his mercy and truth to rescue his soul from the midst of the whelps when he had slept troubled. If death is signified by sleep, as when David is to sleep with his fathers, or when the sleeping Lazarus is to be awakened, or when the girl of that centurion is not dead but sleeps, or when we shall not precede those who have slept in the resurrection; if the trouble of the sleeper signifies the passion, when it is said, "Now my soul is very troubled," which soul he had earlier prayed to be rescued from the hand of the dog thus: "Free me from the mouth of the lion, and my only one from the hand of the dog"; and if the whelps of dogs or lions can be understood as none other than those who are also a brood of vipers, from whose midst the soul is rescued, and rescued through the mercy and truth sent from heaven, according to the saying, "Mercy and truth have met each other"; and if mercy and truth is the Lord Jesus Christ: there is no doubt that those are led into reproach who, having trampled the Lord in that passion, do not believe; for whom indeed it is a reproach to have lost the coming of the only-begotten God and the forgiveness of sins.

And since the hatreds of persecutors or deniers would always oppose this hope of the saints, having recalled the mysteries of human salvation he added: "Sons of men, their teeth are a shield and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." The divine word signifies the vices and movements of minds under bodily functions, as in the song of Deuteronomy: "The beloved grew fat and kicked," where the luxury of ungodliness is rebuked under the image of a bodily habit; or that saying, "Who devour my people like a meal of bread"; or again, "You have broken the teeth of sinners"; and also the apostle's, "But if you bite one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another"; so that what is assigned as function and action to each member is referred to the working of minds and souls. So now, about to recount the effects of persecutors or detractors, he says, "Sons of men, their teeth are a shield and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword," since they both consumed by the cruelty of power and wounded with the darts of detraction.

But amid these things, which he knows and awaits, the prophet did not keep silent. For having prayed not to be corrupted, he longs for the time when this corruption will be swallowed up, saying: "Be exalted above the heavens, God, and your glory above all the earth." Things raised up on high from low places are seen to be exalted, because by a kind of advance they come out into what is higher; but what is to be exalted above the heavens must first have come down from the heavens to lower places, by which it is to be exalted again above the heavens. The apostle says this very thing most completely thus: "When he ascended on high he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men. What does 'he ascended' mean, except that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same who ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things"; signifying that the cause of his being exalted above the heavens arose from this, that the lowliness of descending even to the lower parts of the earth had been assumed. The prophet, then, foretells as a vow that God is exalted above the heavens. And since, exalted above the heavens, he would fill all things on earth with the glory of his Holy Spirit, he added: "and your glory above all the earth," since the gift of the Spirit poured out upon all flesh would bear witness to the glory of the Lord exalted above the heavens.

All this advance, however, is desired not for the divine nature but for the weakness of man; because the prophet is not unaware that through the assumption of flesh he is to be placed in the heavenly places, since we have been made fellow members of the body and sharers in Christ Jesus. And therefore he joined these things to the weakness of his flesh, which was both to be denied in the Lord's sufferings and to be exalted above the heavens: "They prepared snares for my feet and bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face and fell into it." Through the faith of suffering with him, the prophet himself suffering in the Lord, as if he too had suffered, makes this complaint. But upon those who persecuted the Lord of majesty, when they fell into the pit they had prepared, both the sense and the punishment of death itself are turned back.

And since the faith of suffering with and dying with glorifies us in Christ, the prophet stands as if girded in this hope and faith, saying: "My heart is ready, God, my heart is ready; I will sing and say a psalm to you. Awake, my glory, awake, psaltery and harp. I will awake at dawn; I will confess to you among the peoples, Lord; I will say a psalm to you among the nations." With a diapsalma interposed the prophet referred this speech of the psalm to God, singing meanwhile by faith the very things for which his heart is ready; and under the image of the psaltery and harp he showed that he exhorted himself to the joys of his soul and body in singing and saying a psalm. For he says: "Awake, my glory, awake, psaltery and harp; I will awake at dawn," declaring that he himself is shown in the psaltery and harp, since, when the harp and psaltery are urged to awake, it is rather he who is signified in them that awakes. And awaking at dawn with his glory he sings the glory of the gospel hope, the time of dawn agreeing with that of prayer and of salvation. For there follows: "I will confess to you among the peoples, Lord; I will say a psalm to you among the nations." One who is to praise God among the peoples and nations must praise in him the salvation of the nations, because the measuring line of the inheritance is no longer confined to the one Israel, nor is Jacob the portion, but the fullness of the earth is now God's; and we are no longer the image of the earthly, but the image of the heavenly.

He showed what was to be confessed among the peoples and sung among the nations: "For your mercy has been magnified even to the heavens, and your truth even to the clouds." This, then, is the confession among peoples and nations, that mercy has been magnified even to the heavens and truth even to the clouds. For when the saints will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord, he himself having been raised in a cloud in the body of the resurrection, and according to the apostle the whole creation is to be freed from corruption, and all things have been made peaceful through him both in heaven and on earth, rightly the truth of our resurrection in him is carried even to the clouds, and his mercy is magnified even to the heavens, when the corruption of the groaning creation has been driven away. But the elevation of these is signified as reaching to the clouds and to the heavens; whereas it is proper to him to go beyond the heavens and to pass beyond every sense of conceived loftiness.

So, repeating the prayer of his hope, the prophet closed thus: "Be exalted above the heavens, God, and your glory above all the earth." There is no limit to the exaltation of God, for his elevation is above the heavens. For the Lord of creatures is to be understood as beyond creatures. And since nothing is in our knowledge but heaven, he who, exalted above the heavens, exceeds the sense of knowledge is beyond every sense. His mercy has indeed overflowed even to us, but has been magnified even to the heavens in the heavenly things soon to come. And though his truth has been raised even to the clouds for us who are to be caught up to meet him in a cloud, yet he himself, about to sit at the right hand of God, transcends all the heavens; and his glory too will remain on earth, that is, with us, as he says: "Behold, I am with you all days, until the consummation of the age," our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.